Chapter Four

Hesitance

She had avoided traveling with the old wizard. She thanked whatever higher power had been listening to her silent pleas. Maggie wasn't sure how she would have attempted it, it had already been more than a month since she had been unceremoniously dropped into this new world and it just would not do to go traveling with an older gentlemen (no matter how congenial he was) when it was almost that time.

Sure enough, it hadn't been a handful of days more after Gandalf had left that she woke up one early morning to find herself gripped with the sudden sensation of drip. With a panicked flail, Maggie rocketed from the guest bed and clamped a heavy hand to her crotch with a wince. Hurriedly, she hobbled her way toward the door and scampered down the hall toward the bathroom. She nearly came to grief with fear when she spotted Bungo coming down the hallway and promptly shut the door right behind her as he turned.

'I'm fucked,' Maggie growled as she rested against the door and found that her hand was coated with blood. 'Royally fucked. Christ, you think that the-powers-that-be could have left this part out? I'm not going to be reproducing looking like this!' She quickly rushed to the basin just in front of a small mirror and rinsed off her hands. 'Now, what am I going to do about this? I've been able to deal with the cramps… as a human, but what if being this thing is different?' Maggie swallowed and became alarmed by the idea. Everything she felt more intensely, now, much more keenly and the emotions struck her to her core.

"Do I ask Bella?" She murmured to the mirror in front of her. "I mean… she's pregnant, she's gone through this, right? We're both females… yeah. I'll… I'll ask her." Another thick swallow and Maggie braced her hands on the counter that the basin and pitcher rested on with a shake of her head. She could feel the stirrings of a cramp start to grip the small of her back and she growled with a glare at her reflection. The creature in the mirror matched her gaze and winced.

"And this thing, God…" Maggie reached up and ran her blunt fingers over her beard. The brown beard edged along her face and slowly started to trace her jawline. Dwarves, Gandalf had explained, grew a lot of thick hair, everywhere. When she had first asked for a razor or something to take it all off, Bungo had hesitated, for more than one reason.

Much to his amusement, Gandalf then informed her that male hobbits, even the females, didn't need any shaving blades because the only hair they had was on their heads and feet. There was nothing else, not their legs, not the arms, back, neck, or even the small patches that even human women had on their upper lips. Nothing. They only needed a small set of scissors to trim the hair on their heads and maybe the hair on their feet.

Dwarves, apparently, valued their thick hair and long beards, even on the females. It made Maggie shiver with discomfort. She couldn't even stand stubble on a man's face back home, lest of all on her face. Gandalf had warned her, though, that to shave off what little of a beard she did have would be a shameful practice and would only alienate her more.

"Not like I'll ever come across another dwarf, though." She murmured quietly as she washed off her hands again and glanced about the bathroom. She would have to find a way to deal with her monthly visitor in some form. Clothing was already a hard thing to come by. Belladonna had fashioned a few of her maternity dresses for her, but other things like undergarments and anything resembling a shoe were out of the question. She had two or three undergarments (one currently ruined) and a few dresses.

A wash cloth would have to do.

…

After her makeshift solution was wrapped into place, she hurried into the kitchen to find Belladonna set about to make breakfast. The hobbit female smiled in the way of greeting but once she saw the mortification on Maggie's face, she wiped her hands on her slipping apron and leaned over to place a hand on Maggie's arm.

"What is wrong?" Belladonna enunciated carefully for Maggie.

"Belladonna, I is…" Of all the words she knew, it figured that this wasn't one that she had yet learned. Her face twisted and she glanced down at her feet. 'How in the seven pits of hell do I explain to her a monthly cycle in my limited vocabulary? How do you even begin to mime that without having it be mistaken for something else? Oh God, why.' Irritated that her language barrier once more confounded her, Maggie sighed and dropped her hands in defeat.

In the end, she dragged the very confused mother-to-be toward the bathroom and pointed to the ruined undergarment. Belladonna sparked into action and cooed softly to Maggie, as if she had been twelve years old again with her first time experience. In reality, Maggie was twenty-two years old, but it was the first time suffering such a thing in a body not hers.

It wasn't long before the mess was cleaned and Maggie was given a new set of undergarments, along with a few strips of cloth as a set to help with the capture of said nuisance. 'What wouldn't I give for a tampon, or hell, even just a pad? I have to wash this… this is just a nightmare.' But given that Belladonna hadn't laughed at her and had only gone about her business with a grim face made Maggie very grateful.

Belladonna returned to the kitchen with Maggie in tow and Bungo was very confused as to why he was suddenly shooed from his place at the table, his cup of tea and a plate of his biscuits in his hand. He grumbled, but at a snap glare from his wife, he disappeared with alacrity. Maggie was placed at the table and Belladonna gave her a steaming cup of some odd smelling tea and slice of toast.

"Drink. For pain." Belladonna explained at Maggie's furrowed brow. Maggie dropped her mouth open in realization and profusely thanked the other woman for her forethought. Eagerly, the new dwarf swallowed her tea (despite the horrific after-taste that scorched her throat) and hoped it hadn't been too late to waylay the pain of her oncoming cramps. Maggie sighed with relief and noticed from the corner of her eye that Belladonna looked at her strangely. She turned to the other woman with a raised brow and waited.

Belladonna bit her lip and a finger tapped her chin, but whatever had been on her mind was waved away with a slender hand and she murmured something incomprehensible to Maggie.

Maggie could only blink in confusion as the woman went back to breakfast.

…

It was just the middle of June, Maggie figured out. It was a few months ahead of her season when she was first 'abducted,' as she coined it, but it didn't matter, her birthday was still in the winter and well enough away that she wouldn't have to be concerned about mentioning it to anyone. What she had found out was that Belladonna was only four months away from being due. The thought terrified Maggie, because it was learning that the birthing was going to happen at the home that froze the blood in her body.

For the next couple of weeks, Maggie could only feel panic at the sight of Bella's bulging belly and nightmares plagued her sleep. There were midwives (that was a new and complicated word she had to learn), and on occasion an apothecary that would sweep through the hills and homes to check on the residents (and meeting Maggie for the first time had been a hardship and a half, because who knew there weren't that many dwarves beyond the Blue Mountains? Wherever the hell that was) but that didn't change the fact that there was still a lot of modern medicine that she was accustomed to and expected that just wasn't there.

What if she got a cold? She was surrounded by hobbits and true, perhaps they weren't that different (hell, Bella even managed to explain that dwarves were heartier) from each other, but that still didn't keep Maggie's worries at bay. Anything could take to infection, a cut (because it wasn't often someone washed their hands), a broken bone (no aesthesia) or what about an internal injury for that matter?

'Do we just roll over and die and accept our fate for things like that?' The thought made her shudder and she prayed she'd never get anything worse than allergies and a scraped knee (she would gladly and openly admit any cowardice just to avoid a fight, thank you very much). She was glad to see, though, that the lot she had ended up with – even if they weren't her kin – was a peaceful and mildly passive-aggressive bunch.

Belladonna and her temper excluded.

It was well into her third month with the Baggins' (July, if she recalled correctly) that life seemed to finally find its rhythm with her. Her language still suffered, but the immersion was a great assistance, especially when even Bungo picked up his wife's attitude of 'we're-not-talking-until-you-repeat-what-I-say-now-say-it' routine.

Once the other hobbits in the surrounding homes and market place had gotten over their strange new resident (not only because Maggie was a dwarf, but because she was also a dwarf with no shoes and only three dresses) they would also stick their noses into teaching her, or giving Bungo and Bella the best methods to teach Maggie, or even better, give her mountains of children's books to read from (and if she hadn't desperately needed them to learn, Maggie would have been horribly embarrassed).

Hell, at one point Maggie had even been left with a handful of young hobbits, much to her distress.

The summer sun was well overhead and the shade of the giant oak tree in the middle of the large field was a blessing. Maggie was at the base of it and in the middle of a herd of giggling and screaming children. A few of the young hobbits had corralled her in the center and she was a playful decoration to the other, more daring children. Maggie did her best to ignore the scalding looks from passing older hobbits and instead focused on listening to the chattering young creatures around her.

"Miss Ma-gee!" One of them cried and soon Maggie found her arms stuffed with a bundle of curls and frilly cloth. The little female was and colorful as a rainbow and her smile was just as bright. As much as she disliked the adults and their alienation, Maggie couldn't help but completely melt with the presence of one of the children. 'Innocence or ignorance of the unknown, I suppose,' Maggie wondered as the little girl in her arms bounced from her lap and bolted into a run from her friends.

She found it easier to communicate with the children, too. It had bothered her at first when she suddenly realized that she wasn't missing every-other-word that the children spoke, but rather she could follow whole sentences and conversations with little trouble. She smacked her temple over it later on when she figured out why. 'Of course I can follow. Their sentences aren't complicated. Their vocabulary is as limited as mine.' She wasn't sure if that was a relief or not, but the children always made her forget of her shortcomings. They didn't see a dwarf, or a mute, or even just a struggling mentally-handicapped-female. They just saw a new friend who was strong enough to lift them clear over her shoulders and make them fly.

But that was how her days had passed, for the most part. A sense of peace and the groove of a gentle current led her along. It was easier to immerse herself in the bright and vibrant life of The Shire than to find herself in nightmares of her life before the accident. Flashes of her mother and brothers would come to mind, late at night, and her pillow was probably going to grow mold from the amount of tears she cried into it. She stayed up late and woke up early to avoid the nightly terrors and the vicious memories of all the things she had left behind.

Belladonna and Bungo could only soothe her with tea and biscuits on those nights, having no idea what plagued her or how to comfort her. But then, as the days went on and her sudden appearance was nothing more than a faint story in the Green Dragon, Maggie found herself forgotten amongst the folds of the community. Hobbits were a distrustful people, at least with outsiders and "Big Folk" (and that translation had her laughing for hours), but once they had come to terms with the foreign body, a person was as good as adopted.

The family trees were absolutely no joke with Hobbits, Maggie had come to realize.

Weekly, she would follow Bella into the market and due to her strength Maggie was often the one laden with baskets of supplies, not that she would have allowed Bella to lift even a single one with consideration to her condition. Soon her wardrobe grew from three dresses to five, from only a few undergarments to one for every day, and then the only problem that remained was the lack of shoes. That had been difficult to get over, Maggie would admit, as she couldn't recall a time after she had turned eight years old that hadn't worn shoes ('shit, even flip-flops,' she reminisced).

Hobbits didn't wear shoes, Maggie learned. They didn't even have a shoe-maker, or a cobbler, or whatever the hell they were called in Y Ole Days of long past (in her world, at least). There was absolutely no need for a Hobbit to wear shoes. The soles of their feet were thick and sturdy, heels that were calloused hard enough to put a hammer to shame, and their toes were strong and could grip just as good as their hands could.

Maggie's feet, on the other hand, were long and heavy and much too thick to be anything less than a small barge. She had even compared her feet next to Bungo's, out of curiosity; and bless the hobbit for his patience with all the strange things Maggie would request of him. "All in the name of learning," Bungo would grumble before releasing himself to Maggie in the name of science and experimentation.

The summer days were long and sweet and little by little, though she couldn't escape the nightmares and panic that would grip her from her life before, Maggie found a small place in the warmth of Bag End between the two watchful gazes and the patient teachings of her hobbit companions.

…

August rolled around and the world outside the hobbit hole home started to change. It was gradual and graceful and Maggie had to constantly remind herself to close her mouth before the flies found it. The leaves turned into gold and the rolling hills became waves of copper and sparkling sunlight. Even as the twilight and deep nights took their turns, the land was washed in a steady sea of midnight.

Maggie, due to her nightmares, found herself outside after the sun set most days. The Baggins' had protested at first ("No proper young lady steps out after dark!" Bungo scolded her), but had relented when she admitted that her nightly walks eased her mind and lifted her spirits. She couldn't rightly explain to them what it was about the darkness that soothed her, only that it did. Her headaches were less when the sunlight was gone and the moon was a smooth companion over her shoulder.

She never went too far, only down the hill or up by the grand oak tree. She carried a few candles and a book or two with her when she left Bag End. She would find herself in the curling shade of the tree or a hill and would light her candles to study her words and numbers. It helped her, somewhat, to become removed from the life she lived now and the one she had left behind. A small journal was also her companion, and in it (much to her amusement) was a mixture of English and Westron, doodles and references that no native could understand.

It became a sort of therapy for her. There hadn't been much that she left behind. A cat, long and sleek and lovely; and a fish whose half-moon frills were smothered in red and blues. An absent mother that lived halfway across the country most of the year (and in the basement the rest of it), and a brother who was more concerned with collection of alcohol than the little sister he had left alone.

A few blotches of water had hit her journal before she realized she was crying. Maggie bit her lip to keep it from trembling and swallowed thickly to help her lungs breathe. 'How is it I seem to have a better life here with strangers than I did with a family who knew me?' Her mother must have loved her, must have. She was fed and clothed and housed for most of her life, and it was only when she had just started college a few months ago… that she noticed how quickly the distance grew between them.

'Bella's been more of a mom to me than my own flesh and blood.' There was no reason for it, either. To look back on her months with the poor hobbits who had found her, Maggie had been nothing more than an infuriating, emotional wreck of a guest. Even Bungo had been hard-pressed to be polite to her in her worst moments with him.

But Belladonna had been nothing if not a stalwart presence, a comforting hug, or a wall of unyielding determination. There was no reason for them to allow her to stay. No obligation or promises kept them together. No blood shared between them to explain why they would share their home with her, a stranger, a straggler, a dwarf. Not even kin in this new life of hers, and yet the pair of them had taken on her well-being with stiff chins and ready hands.

More tears spilled down her face and cooled in the night's breeze. Maggie reached up and wiped them away, but more only followed. 'Are they all like this? Or just these two?' Whatever grace had decided to drop Maggie's heap of a body into Belladonna and Bungo's lap must have seen something in them.

Or maybe it was just chance.

Maybe it was a fluke.

'No.' Maggie gripped her journal with fear. 'It's gotta mean something. I – people don't just disappear into thin air and arrive in a new world with no rhythm or reason… do they?' How would she know, in any case? It's not as if anyone had returned from such journeys into the beyond. Maggie blinked to clear her vision, the sharp night coming into focus, and she smiled.

"If the world they fall into looks like this," she murmured to herself and collected her things, "why would they want to come back at all?"

Notes: Once again, we've traveled nowhere, but I hope I've given you a small look into her character and where she's going now. Please review!