Bilbo Baggins had started to get used to the cold; sleeping on cold, soaking wet grass, with wind blowing biting and bitter, cutting into his flesh as though dozens of knives or swords were so small you couldn't see them - when he had first left the Shire after Gandalf and Thorin had both tricked him and then roped him into it despite his misgivings about an adventure of all things, although much of it was down to the Hobbit's desire to have a quiet life, Bilbo had wondered how he was going to cope - but now the whole adventure was done, the tired Hobbit was trying to work out how he could adjust to his bed again!

He had only gone because the dwarves had ridiculed him, and then there was that little voice in the back of his mind, urging him to do something every other Hobbit found to be anathema.

Going on an adventure.

And it wasn't only the bed he had problems with; there was the fact he had a fire again, a supply of food that was plentiful which meant he didn't need to forage or hunt anymore. He had returned to the Shire only a week ago, and despite his earlier beliefs that everything would go back to the way things had been as if Thorin and Gandalf and the other dwarves hadn't roped him into what he'd believed was nothing more than a foolish quest before he had found himself in the heart of Erebor and was looking over the enormous piles of gold, silver, jewels…treasures the dwarves had taken over the decades before they had uncovered the Arkenstone before Smaug had arrived - Bilbo, not for the first time, wondered if dragons had some higher sense that allowed them to find treasures like gold and jewels, the sheer brutality of Smaug's attack on Erebor had been enough to drive the dwarves away would have been worth it for the dragon, who showed he was as greedy as Thror, Thorin's father.

But now….

Now, after everything he had seen, the adventures he'd had - the trolls and tricking them, meeting the creature Gollum in the caves of the misty mountains (when he had met Gollum, Bilbo had wondered more about the strange creature, so twisted, malformed, with rotting teeth, wrinkly skin, with a terrible cough; there was no doubt in Bilbo's head the creature had suffered underneath without the sun for years, but there was something about the gnarled thing in the caves that was familiar), the whole mess with the spiders in Mirkwood before they were caught by the wood-elves, inlaid with the large adventure where he found himself confronted by Smaug, and twisting the dragons' mind with riddles while the Wood-elves and the Lake-Men demanded compensation for the troubles, especially after Smaug, enraged by the intrusion, wrongly believed the people of the lake had helped the dwarves get in.

Bilbo closed his eyes as he thought about the whole mess, shaking his head in sorrow as he thought about how many people had died just because a small group of them had helped him and the dwarves, but it had all been a mistake. Smaug had been paranoid, and he'd jumped to the wrong conclusions before he'd flown off to destroy Lake-town; fortunately for the town, Bilbo's news of what Smaug's weak point was and was able to kill the dragon before he could cause any more senseless destruction.

When Thorin had refused to help pay the people and the wood elves, Bilbo had wondered what was wrong with the noble dwarf he had quickly come to admire and like, it was just a relief his original personality had reasserted itself and Bilbo hoped, in the dwarf's final moments, he was finally at peace.

News of the dragons' passing and the Battle of the Five-Armies had reached the Shire shortly after Bilbo had returned; passing merchants and travellers coming to the Shire either for business or to stock on their supplies as they passed through, talked about the whole thing from second-hand accounts about the destruction of Lake-Town, Smaug's death, eager to spread their gossip.

Bilbo hadn't bothered boasting about the adventures as he'd been more focused on getting his breath back. And even though everyone knew he had committed the ultimate sin for 'Hobbit-Kind' was he had gone out on an adventure, nobody was curious, although they would listen with polite and vapid disinterest to the accounts of the battle and the dragons' death.

That was the trouble with Hobbits; they were just so uninterested in the goings on beyond the Shires' borders that they gave any passers-by only uninterested looks and listened to them only out of politeness while counting down the seconds before they actually left.

The only Hobbits to show any kind of interest were the younglings; Bilbo had not boasted to the adults, knowing they would just dismiss him, but the children were another matter entirely.

They were blessed with dreams.

He constantly related to them about the existence of beings outside the Shire - the Trolls, the Wood-elves, the majesty of the dwarf civilisation that was at Erebor despite the decades the city had been abandoned, and the wonder of the Lake-Town, and the terrifying encounter with Smaug, Bilbo often wondered about the dwarves and Gandalf.

Would he ever see or hear from them again?

Would they desire his services as a 'burglar' once more?

If he had reflected on this before he'd gone with them indignantly, then Bilbo would have gladly washed his hands of them. But now, he genuinely hoped he could see them again. Sure, he knew he could go off on his own, but truthfully Bilbo wasn't sure he could muster the courage right now. Maybe in another few years?

But as he thought about the friends he'd made, Bilbo again had questions on his mind. Why did Gandalf specifically turn to him when there were other Hobbits?

He may never know.