With the door safely shut once more, Bilbo followed the others back into his dining room and sat down at his end of the table with his ale and his guest list to try to iron out all the details. The atmosphere, though it had not been tense before, was much lighter now since none of them could look at Thorin with a straight face.
"Squatter's dungeons, indeed," Bilbo muttered to himself as he vindictively placed Lobelia next to Thorin at the main table for the party so that he could watch and see if Thorin managed to trick her again.
"What are you smirking about, Bilbo," Bofur asked suddenly. "Surely planning a seating chart can't be that amusing."
"Oh, nothing much," Bilbo replied with an evil glint in his eyes that was caused by mischief rather than madness. "I just figured that Lobelia would just love to sit next to Thorin at the party. You agree with me, don't you?"
"Most definitely," Bofur replied while Dwalin said "That is sheer evil, Bilbo," with an appreciative grin.
"Shouldn't you take pity on her, lad?" Balin asked with a fond shake of his head. "She did just have the fright of her life. Wasn't that enough?" Bilbo opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Thorin.
"That was most certainly not enough," Thorin growled darkly. "I only wish that I could have actually done what I threatened. I had been enjoying my lack of responsibilities, but now . . . I almost miss the power I once had. If I could have done it—"
"You would have imprisoned that hobbit forever?" Balin asked in shock. Those words worried him. Thorin had always been a bit cantankerous, even when they were growing up together, but this . . . the only time Balin had seen him say or do anything like that had been when he had threatened to kill Bilbo. It worried the old dwarf.
"Not forever," Thorin amended with a casual shrug. "Just for a time. It would have served her right. To think that she tried to take Bilbo's home. The very thought of it makes my blood boil. His home, Balin. It was almost taken from him as ours was while he tried to help us reclaim our own."
"But it wasn't," Bilbo said standing to go to Thorin. He hadn't thought about how hearing that Lobelia had almost taken his home would affect the dwarf who had lost not only his home but his mother to the dragon when he was little more than a dwarfling. To him, Lobelia was no more than an irritation, but to Thorin . . . to him she was a lesser side of evil.
"She didn't succeed," Bilbo soothed his lover, stroking the side of his face and looking into his sad blue eyes. "I managed to stop her. My home was never taken from me."
"It doesn't change the fact that she tried," Thorin muttered, leaning into Bilbo's hand.
"No, but it doesn't matter either," Bilbo replied resting his forehead gently against Thorin's. "And I can assure you that after the fright that you just gave her we will never have to worry about her trying again. You have ensured that my home remains safe, Thorin, just as you reclaimed yours."
Any reply that Thorin might have made was cut off as Frodo walked through the door.
"Can any of you tell me why Lobelia was running down the hill looking like she was being chased by a warg?" Frodo asked. "She about bowled me over in her haste. You lot wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you?" His only reply was a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Despite the tension that had erupted in the room a bit ago, the mental image of a pale terrified Lobelia grasping for the doorknob was one that they wouldn't soon forget. And even if Bilbo had mostly forgiven her, they were dwarves and she had committed a wrong against someone they were fond of, they were not near as quick to forgive her as Bilbo had been. She had deserved it. Though their humor was tempered a bit by the fact that they now knew that it had only half been a jest. It wasn't near as funny as an actual threat, but it was still funny enough.
"That, my dear Frodo, is quite a story," Bilbo replied once he was able. "However it is not mine to tell. If you want to know what happened to her, you will have to ask Thorin Oakenshield, Great Fibber Under the Mountain."
"And how, pray tell, would Frodo ask Thorin Oakenshield anything, Bilbo Baggins," Gandalf asked poking his head in the door of the hobbit hole. "I know that you, of all people, have not forgotten his fate. And while it does please me that you can speak his name once more, I doubt he would be overly pleased with your new title for him. Thorin was a very proud dwarf, after all." Though Gandalf didn't say it aloud, he did feel that if any were justified in calling Thorin by such a title it would be Bilbo after the gross betrayal of his trust that Thorin had committed. It was just that he had never thought to hear the hobbit say such things of the deceased dwarf.
"And furthermore," Gandalf said. "I fail to see what he could possibly have to do with Lobelia, the dreadful woman. I almost regret that she never made the pleasure of his acquaintance. With how she treats you, I am more than willing to bet that he would have had many words for her and none of them kind. Despite that unfortunate affair, he really was quite fond of you." He had wanted to tell Bilbo that for many years but the pain had always been too close to the hobbit for him to feel able to. Now that Bilbo was speaking of his dead lover once more, Gandalf deemed that it was time. Perhaps hearing it from another would help Bilbo to move on.
"Aye, that he did!" Bofur said with a laugh, thinking of the words Thorin had said to Lobelia. Gandalf smiled at the dwarf's words thinking they referred to his words about Thorin's affections for Bilbo, Bilbo needed his friends after all. "Had some mighty fierce words for that orc of a she-hobbit." Gandalf felt his smile falter. What were they talking about? Thorin had never met Lobelia, had he? Gandalf didn't believe so and certainly not after he would have had words with her over her treatment of Bilbo.
"What did he say?" Frodo asked brightly. While he didn't like it when the dwarves pestered him continually, Lobelia deserved whatever she received and he hoped that it had been particularly vile . . . perhaps Thorin and Bilbo had opened the door in a state not conducive to receiving visitors. As much as the thought disturbed him, it made him smile to think that Lobelia had been traumatized.
"Threatened to put her in the dungeons of Erebor or Ered Luin," Dwalin crowed. "Something about squatting in royal apartments having a life sentence."
"He didn't!" Frodo laughed sitting at the table and reaching for a cookie.
"Aye, lad, he did," Bofur replied with a laugh. "Even went into how abysmal the food would be and how lacking in comforts the dungeon is."
"That's perfect!" Frodo laughed. "Serves her right too. Always up here pestering us. Half the time I think she only comes to see if Bilbo is dead at last."
"Or to steal my silverware," Bilbo said, turning to face Frodo with a smile. "I know that I've lost more than one set to her over the years."
"When did all of this happen?" Gandalf asked trying in vain to understand what they were talking about. His memory was beginning to fade a bit as the years continued to pass him by, but he knew that he had not lost that much. It was mostly archaic spells and such, not events. And he would surely remember hearing about Thorin yelling at Lobelia.
"The last time you lot were in the Shire Thorin wouldn't have had time to talk with Lobelia and he surely wouldn't have threatened her with imprisonment for squatting in royal apartments," Gandalf said, thinking of the very rocky start that Bilbo and Thorin had gotten off to. "She has never left the Shire." Bilbo, Thorin, Balin and Frodo flinched. They had forgotten that Gandalf did not know that Thorin lived. They felt trepidation take the place of amusement as they wondered how the wizard would take the news. This could be about to go very badly.
"Course he didn't!" Dwalin replied. "That conversation took place . . ." the warrior trailed off as he realized what the others had. Gandalf didn't know.
"When?" the wizard said, making his way further into the house, making sure to duck the fixtures. He could feel that something was going on here, and while it didn't feel evil he wasn't entirely sure what he was feeling. It almost felt like . . . but that was impossible. There would be no reason for him to feel the presence of them here. They hadn't come to Arda for many an Age.
"Moments ago," Bofur replied as though Gandalf were being dense on purpose. "Lobelia came, beat Dwalin with her umbrella, argued a bit with Bilbo and then Thorin threatened to imprison her for squatting and she ran." If it hadn't been for the sensation of the magic of the Valar in the air, Gandalf would have believed this to be an elaborate joke. The dwarves—and Bilbo—were shameless pranksters and just the idea of Lobelia beating Dwalin with an umbrella was ludicrous enough to make him disbelieve it, if he hadn't seen the look on her face himself.
Even so, he was unprepared for the sight that met him as he rounded the final corner. Dwalin, Balin, Bofur and Frodo sat at table looking at him expectantly while Thorin stood at his entrance, an almost nervous half-smile on his face as he wrapped an arm around Bilbo almost as if he were hiding behind the hobbit.
"Gandalf," the dwarf said with a small bow. "It's been a while." Gandalf looked at him carefully for a moment, studying his features and holding the dwarf's gaze. While it was clear that it made Thorin uncomfortable, he continued to stare into the wizard's eyes as Gandalf attempted to read his soul. After what seemed like an eternity, the wizard blinked and smiled.
"It has indeed," Gandalf replied as though he hadn't just stared down an ex-dwarf King. "I never thought that I would say this, but I am glad to see you again, Thorin Oakenshield."
"I suppose that I deserve that," Thorin said with a small laugh. "We didn't part on the best of terms, after all."
"No," Gandalf replied crisply. "We did not. Your stubborn pride had just caused a war that killed many good people and you had just broken the heart of a being that I am very fond of. Bilbo Baggins did not deserve any of what you did to him, Thorin. I do not know why he chose to allow you back into his home, but—"
"Now Gandalf—" Bilbo said, attempting to diffuse the situation before Thorin and Gandalf came to blows in his dining room. A great warrior Thorin may be, but Gandalf was a wizard. He wouldn't stand a chance.
"No," Thorin said softly, placing a hand on Bilbo's cheek to quite him. "Gandalf is correct. You didn't deserve that." He paused to glance at the others in the room before turning back to Bilbo. "None of you did. He is not being unkind, only honest. It's less than I deserve for the pain that I have caused."
"You have changed, Thorin Oakenshield," Gandalf said suddenly an appreciative look in his eyes. "A change that I believe to be for the better. Death may have been good for you." Bilbo squeaked indignantly but Gandalf ignored him and turned to Frodo.
"Now, Frodo my lad," Gandalf said with a fond smile, "I never believed that I would have to say this in a hobbit hole, but I am famished. Is there naught to eat?" With a surprised noise and many apologies for making Gandalf go hungry, Frodo began to get him a plate of things to eat to tide him over while the dwarves—minus Thorin who was still looking sadly between Gandalf and the hobbit in his arms—began to prepare lunch.
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Despite the little storm cloud of gloom that had settled over Thorin at Gandalf's words, lunch was a merry affair. Gandalf and the rest of the dwarves spent it catching up and telling Frodo of things that he had never seen, much to his enjoyment. Bilbo watched it all in silence as he sat next to his morose lover. Frodo should have been born a Took, what with his penchant to tales of adventure.
"He would go with them, you know?" Bilbo said suddenly, watching his nephew laugh with the others as Bofur told of a "conversation" he had gotten into in a tavern in Dale with a man over whether dwarves or men made the best toys.
"Where?" Thorin asked. He hadn't been paying attention to the conversation and wondered if the others had offered to take Frodo somewhere dangerous. He wouldn't allow that. Bilbo would not lose his nephew the way that Thorin had lost his. Frodo would remain in the Shire where he was safe.
"Nowhere, anywhere," Bilbo said with a sad smile. "He would go. He has too much of me in him, even if we're not blood related. He thirsts for adventure. I should never have told him so many stories from the trip to Erebor. Or I should have told them as they actually happened rather than omitting all the terror to keep from giving him nightmares. He seems to think that adventures are marvelous things."
"They can be," Thorin offered trying to reassure Bilbo that adventures weren't all bad, though Frodo would never go off with a contingent of dwarves if it was within Thorin's power to prevent—which it was. "Parts of ours were."
"And parts of it were deadly and terrifying. Most of it was deadly and terrifying," Bilbo retorted not realizing that Thorin was as set against Frodo leaving as he was and thinking that the dwarf was trying to convince him to let the lad do as he would.
"That's just because you weren't doing it right," Bofur jumped in. "Adventures only have to be terrifying if you allow them to be. We weren't terrified, were we lads?"
"Speak for yourself," Balin replied with a snort. "Those stone giants! They were terrifying and I have no problem admitting it. As a dwarf I never thought to be afraid of stone but" Balin paused with a shudder. "If you weren't scared-witless at least once on that quest it's just a sign that you were already witless to begin with."
"For me it was the spiders," Dwalin said quietly his eyes haunted as he remembered being captured and wrapped by the spiders. "The way their pincers clicked." The great dwarf gave a shudder. "I can't even stand the little ones anymore."
"Mine," Bofur began slowly, his voice little more than a whisper, "mine was when Bombur fell into the river. I'll never forget the feeling of knowing that I would never see my brother again. The thought of telling his wife that he was dead. . . "
"I had too many to pick between. I spent most of the quest terrified," Bilbo said quietly his voice sad as he thought about it. "But if I had to choose—"
"Bilbo, you don't have to share that with us," Balin cut in, knowing without a doubt what it would be and not wanting him to have to say it. They all knew that Thorin trying to kill him had been the most terrifying thing for him, and rightly so. Your lover should never become your murderer.
"Nonsense," Bilbo scoffed. "You all shared yours, I'll share mine. It's not what you're thinking about, Balin, I promise." And it wasn't. That moment had been one of the most heartbreaking, not the most terrifying and he had no desire to ask them which had been theirs in that category since he was willing to bet that they all shared that one.
"My most terrifying moment was when I had to walk alone into the lair of Smaug," Bilbo said with a sad laugh. "It even topped jumping into the river to ride down to Lake Town. I shook the entire way down that tunnel. Even though I knew why you couldn't, I wished that you all could have come with me. As selfish as it was, I knew that I was going to die and halfway wished that we could all die together." The others smiled fondly at him. They still couldn't believe that he had been able to do that. It took some courage to walk into the den of a dragon and until that point, though he had proved himself time and again, none of them had believed that he would actually do it.
"That was mine as well," Thorin replied. It surprised them, they had figured for sure that his was something else as well, but Thorin, like Bilbo, put the memory they had to be thinking of in a different category entirely.
"I almost couldn't bear to let you go," Thorin said with a sad smile. "It was Fíli who reminded me that it was why we had brought you in the first place and Kíli that sat with me until you returned. I miss them." There were mumbled agreements before the clock on the mantle chimed noon and Thorin stood with a sigh.
"Are you coming with me today, Bilbo?" he asked offering Bilbo a hand which the hobbit gratefully accepted.
"I'm afraid I must," Bilbo said a mischievous light in his eyes at the fact that he would once again get to watch Thorin at work. "I'm not sure how well you will be able to get back. Your sense of direction—or lack thereof—is infamous." This statement was met with a general laugh of amusement. Thorin had the worst sense of direction most of them had ever seen. It had been a joke in Ered Luin—out of earshot of Thorin, of course—that the only reason he could find his way through his shirt in the morning was the light from the hole.
"I managed to lead us to Erebor," Thorin replied gruffly. He knew that he was bad with directions, but to be called on it . . . it rankled a bit.
"Yes, and the journey there took twice as long as my return trip," Bilbo replied with a grin. "And if memory serves, you got lost twice in your attempt to find my home even with the mark that Gandalf left on my door!"
"Yes, well, it was dark and there was no one about to ask," Thorin replied with a grimace at the memory and not feeling up to pointing out to Bilbo that most of the delays had not been his fault. They had spent a couple of months in Thranduil's dungeons, after all. "I'm sure that more than one of the friendly market hobbits will direct me to the forge."
"IF they'll speak to you now," Bilbo replied with an indecent smirk. "We did cause quite a disturbance yesterday."
"We did indeed," Thorin agreed with a growl. "And, my dear hobbit, if you do not stop looking at me that way I may forget my promise to give you a couple of days to recover and we may give them a repeat performance." Bilbo said nothing, but simply looked at the dwarf cheekily over his shoulder as he walked to the door, Thorin right on his heels.
"Do you ever think they will stop doing that?" Frodo asked desperately once they were gone.
"No," Balin said with a sigh.
"Not a chance, lad," Bofur agreed.
"Trust me," Dwalin said shaking his head. "This is a tame version. They have been much worse in the past. When they first started . . ." Dwalin couldn't quite find the word that he wanted to use to describe what exactly it was that Thorin and Bilbo did and before he could, Bofur decided that it didn't matter.
"We almost tied them to a tree and left them," Bofur finished. "Dori was particularly adamant that we needed to. Something about ruining his brother's innocence. Fíli and Kíli were beside themselves."
"Only because someone," Balin said with a pointed glare at his brother, "allowed them to walk in on their uncle and the hobbit at a stream."
"They got even with me, the little brats," Dwalin growled. "There is no way that what they say compared to what I did."
"You never did tell us what they were doing," Bofur said with a curious tilt to his head. With a quick glance at Frodo's pale face, Dwalin shook his head.
"If you truly want to have nightmares for the rest of your life, ask me later," the warrior told the toymaker. "I won't say it in front of the lad." That settled it for both Balin and Bofur. They would ask that night. Dwalin was the forerunner in the "Fainting Frodo" contest and for him to pass up an opportunity . . . this had to be debauched indeed!
"On a different, yet related note," Gandalf cut in, "where did they go? I believe that Thorin said something about the forge?"
"Aye," Dwalin said. "Thorin has no sword and no money so he is working for the hobbit smith to earn the materials he needs."
"But Bilbo has money," Gandalf argued. "More than he will ever spend. His parents—well his mother—were wealthy and he still has gold from your adventure."
"Yes," Frodo agreed. "But Thorin wanted to do it this way." With that, a true smile crossed Gandalf's face. Death truly had been good for Thorin after all. It had tempered his arrogance and rage and brought back the dwarf he would have been had Smaug not taken his home when he was a boy. Now all that was left was for Gandalf to figure out why he was back at all.
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There we are all, a new chapter of this one up and ready for your reading pleasure. I hope that you enjoyed it!
As always, thank you to everyone who took the time to read this chapter or to add it to your alerts or favorites.
And a special thank you to those of you who reviewed, you all really make my day :)
Guest: I'm glad that you liked it, and there will be another opportunity for a little Lobelia abuse. :) Let's just hope that she can't behave herself at the party :) And I'm glad that you are still loving Frodo's reactions . . . poor thing's going to get traumatized shortly . . . .
Well, that's all for now folks! I hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear what you thought (even if you hated it) so please leave me a review if you have time and/or feel so inclined.
Stickdonkeys.