"You can trust us to stick to you, through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends."

-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Chapter 8: Reunions

My face was crushed so deeply into my brother's shoulder, I didn't realize I was crying until he pulled away.

"How did you get here?" I sniffled.

"We tried to follow you," he said, thumbs rubbing my chin. His own eyes, I saw, were damp. "When we got here and were trying to figure it all out, Lord Elrond theorized we'd simply ended up in a different place. He's been trying to contact Lady Galadriel to see if there was a way of tracking you, but there are a lot of other things going on, as you know. We had no idea you were with Frodo! What happened? Where did you come out? Rae…" He bit his lip. "Aunt Pris was here."

"I know," I mumbled. "I came out near the Barrow Downs, where Tom…Wait. 'We'?"

The next moment, I was attacked. I knew enough of my friends' builds to recognize John and Jimmy, even before they let me come up for air.

"All of you?" I squealed.

"And more." Behind them, Geoff's friend Jon appeared, and behind him…

"Mrs. Nicolini?"

"That's right. What were you thinking, running off on your own without so much as a note to your friends? You might have been snatched, for all we knew!"

She was a tiny woman, though I'm sure the hobbits still thought of her as enormous. Short, curly hair flew around her head, and her nose extended far enough away from her face, a bird could have landed on it. She'd been a friend of my family since calling my parents in for a parent-teacher conference to talk about my anger management issues, which my parents told her I didn't have. "That's the problem," she told them. "She manages it too well. But it's still there, boiling beneath the surface. Sooner or later, it'll boil over." The last thing I'd needed in my life was an overbearing Italian haunting my every step, but my mom had taken to her. Maybe she'd had some anger management issues of her own. Anyway, she'd been more than a teacher after that, and even with my mom gone, I hadn't been able to shake her.

"I didn't 'rush off'," I snapped. "And I wasn't snatched. One moment I was cleaning out the attic waiting for these lowlifes" – I jerked my thumb at Jimmy and John, and they both snorted – "to wake up so I could make them breakfast. The next I was in a field and Tom Bombadil was singing at me. And how is this any of your business anyway?"

She somehow managed to glare down her long nose and up at me, and, road-weary as I was, I took a step back.

"Perhaps we had better focus on the whys of the situation, rather than the hows," said a deep voice, and I turned to stare up at Gandalf. "You are not the first visitors from your time to come to us here in Middle Earth."

"Aunt Pris," Geoff and I said in unison.

"Lady Scilla," said a voice by my hip. I looked down. Bilbo Baggins, Ring-Finder, and, by all accounts, close friend of my long-lost aunt.

"Yes," I said softly, the words puffing out over my lips like smoke. My stomach twisted, a hunger I knew, but didn't understand, and Geoff shifted closer to me.

"Perhaps we should let you rest first, refresh yourselves," Gandalf said. "Frodo is in excellent hands for the time being. When you are clean and fed, Bilbo and I will answer your questions."

The Elves fell in around us, and my hobbit companions and I were led away. I looked down at them as we went.

"Will he really be okay, Lady Rose?" Sam asked.

"Yes, Sam," I said. "I would not have let him go if he would not have been."

"She was a good friend," Bilbo began. Our friends had retreated to the other end of the room, leaving us with the hobbit and the wizard. I was clean and dressed in a gown the Elves had told me my aunt had worn. There was a plate of food on my lap, but I'd hardly touched it. I couldn't stop looking at the hobbit in front me.

Beside me, my brother's attention was equally rapt. I was surprised to see a hunger there, and realized that while I missed an idea, my brother missed a person, in a way he had never bothered to communicate to me. Perhaps his natural stoicism demanded it. Perhaps he didn't want to further inflame my irrational anger.

Regardless of my feelings about my aunt, as Bilbo talked, I couldn't help but be fascinated by her.

"An understanding friend, though she had her own burdens. She was clever, brave in her own way, and absolutely determined not to fail in her quest."

"What quest was that?" Geoff asked.

"To ensure the fate of Middle Earth played out the way it was meant to," Gandalf explained. "There were…differences. She was never quite clear, but without her guidance, there were one or two moments in the adventures of Thorin Oakenshield when all might have been lost."

"Not the least of which was when Smaug attacked Laketown," Bilbo added.

"I thought Bard the Bowman killed Smaug?" Geoff asked.

"He did," Bilbo answered. "But Bard was in prison when the dragon attacked, and would have died there if Scilla had not arrived to rally the Lakemen and free Bard. Of course, his son Bain had a part or two to play in that story."

"Scilla rescued Bard, bringing with her the Black Arrow," Gandalf went on. "Together they battled Smaug and a number of Orcs on the rooftops, before Bard killed Smaug, and they both dove into the lake to escape the fire."

"Afterwards, she helped him organize the survivors," said Bilbo. "And fought in the Battle of Five Armies. Even after that, while we waited for the Lady Galadriel to arrive to send your aunt home, she was always helping Bard, so you can see where this is going."

Geoff nodded. "He relied on her."

"It was more than that," Gandalf snuffed. "I watched your aunt very carefully after her return to her home. She was never very happy after. Finally I went to fetch her. If you want to blame someone for her disappearance, you can blame me."

"She and Bard ruled long and well together," Bilbo said. "And she and I kept in close correspondence, as much as is possible over so many long leagues of the world. And she had her own book, the one Gandalf had her write, which is here, is it not, old friend?"

"It is," Gandalf admitted. "You may see it if you like. The History of Middle Earth, which she aptly called-"

"The Silmarillion," Geoff breathed. "I've read it."

Gandalf's eyebrows knitted together. "If I understand clearly all that your aunt has told me, I believe what you have read is a version of it, translated down many generations. And there may be some pieces missing, because we do not yet know them."

Geoff nodded. "That makes sense."

"I have a question," I said. "Barely more than twenty years have passed for us. Why is it more than sixty for you?"

"Do you think time should pass at the same pace in both worlds?" Gandalf demanded. "There is no reason to suppose our lives would flow together. I believed Lady Scilla came when she did because she was needed. I believe the same of you."

"Needed?" Geoff gaped. "What could you need us for?"

"The same reason we needed Lady Scilla of course. To ensure the fate of the Ring does not go astray."

"Missing bits…" I mused.

"What was that?" Geoff asked.

I twisted to look up at him. "There were things missing. Frodo never met Bombadil, for one. I did that. And at the ford…it wasn't that Elf, what's his name? Glory-something."

"Glorfindel?" Gandalf supplied.

"Yes, I think so. It was Arwen who came. I don't…I think things still aren't quite right."

Gandalf rubbed at his beard. "You may be correct. I will ponder this and bring it to Lord Elrond's attention, once he has finished with Frodo."

Frodo…

"Also, I said, gulping, "I promised Aragorn I would stay with Frodo, till…till the end, I told him."

Geoff's face hardened, but he couldn't say anything, not here, not with Gandalf and Bilbo looking on. Not until Frodo volunteered to take the Ring, at any rate. But I could tell we were going to fight about it later.

"Then come, my dear," said Bilbo, rising. "Let us not leave him alone any longer."

I glanced back at my brother, my friends, as I walked away. Geoff would tell me later that I was being stupid, that I needed to go home, right now, or as soon as it could be arranged. But I couldn't help feeling that Gandalf was right, that we belonged here now, that we had things to do.

If this was how my aunt had felt, I was beginning to understand why she hadn't stayed away.