Timeline, what timeline?: Fili is 50(22) Kili 55(23) Bilbo 59 (35) Frodo 20 (11)

Keynote: King Thrain is still alive, Dís and Thorin are just doing all the hard work. Because Dís is ruling court most seasons and Thrain is missing, Thorin is honorary king, but outsiders are still likely to refer to him as a prince.

This has become the hardest fanfiction to edit. I cut eight thousand words out to shove into the next chapter because it didn't match the sequence of events. Me editing has been me adding to future chapters. I apologise for everything I missed.

Chapter 7 - Foresight

Bilbo could not return to Imladris, despite the letters he exchanged with the elves.

He didn't blame Glorfindel as Fíli did, but he couldn't stand the heartache from the reminders of what was lost either.

Returning to the Shire, alone, was a miserable business.

The Gammgies treated his home with love even if the warm smial was filled with ghosts.

A year passed and no word came. Anxiety nipped at his heels and Bilbo found himself searching for work.

Work presented itself in cultivating his own garden, not with beautiful flowers or food, but with herbs and rooted plants used in medicines.

Some of those herbs did have flowers he grew were also for medicine, but most of them were poisonous.

One example being the Belladonna flower, which could be quite deadly indeed.

Just another reason why he was called Mad Baggins and the fauntlings of the Shire were told to give a him large birth.

Not that that stopped his smallest Took cousins, truly, saying such a thing was practically an invitation.

His mother would have been proud of his garden.

He kept the Gammgies on to tend to the grounds along the path and the grounds above the smial, but they certainly had more time to tend their own home than most employed gardeners. It worked because Bilbo paid them the same.

The sitting room was converted into a place for him to dry out and distil his plants for medicines.

Bilbo did not sleep well, often burning through candles to the wee hours before dawn working on his books. He documented everything. The condition of his herbs and the different methods of breaking them down. Sometimes he crushed a whole plant together, sometimes he took just the leaves, just the stems, and just the roots all in separate containers.

His most pleasurable activities were his watercolours which he diligently painted and inked into his books.

He kept up a correspondence with Lord Elrond, who sent relevant texts and asked for Bilbo's research. It was an honour when Elrond began requesting some of his herbs.

But the inexorable silence continued to grow like a parasite in Bag End. Bilbo travelled to Brandy Hall to visit his cousin, Drogo Baggins and his family.

But perhaps the inhabitants from the far west of the Shire to Bree were right about Bilbo being cursed.

His cousins were strong swimmers, they were riverfolk, but no one expected the mountain water from the flash floods that had raged far north of their lands.

Bilbo had the misfortune to see their fishing boat tip as the waters rose, yet he would never regret being there.

He was grateful that the elves had insisted he learn to swim with confidence.

Bilbo dove under the freezing cold waters and reached for Frodo who his mother Primula was trying to shove toward the surface.

Bilbo and Frodo coughed and were pushed further downstream before they could reach the shore.

Bilbo had to run back up to where he had been before diving in again.

Drogo and Primula were tied up in a net and by the time Bilbo dragged their bodies to shore, they were gone.

Frodo wept openly, but when his parents never returned to comfort him, he grew frightfully quiet.

Bilbo returned to Bag End with twenty-year-old Frodo.

Their smial remained quiet but it was a home once more.

Not a day went by that Bilbo didn't wish to hear from Fíli, however, the Rangers who stopped by every now and then assured him that Fíli was well and of fine health. That, at least, made Bilbo happy even if Fíli had taken a large part of his heart with him.

oOo

Kíli had naively believed when his brother miraculously returned that everything would be made right with the world. And while everyone was certainly happier, things remained oddly, unbalanced.

Fíli was quiet and hated talking about himself which made getting to know him difficult.

But he was quick to smile and quicker to lend a hand wherever he could. He seemed to soak up everything anyone tried to teach him. Amad was teaching him their language again that he could pronounce perfectly though the runes seemed to give him difficulty. Almost as if he had learned runes before, but the wrong sort.

Ultimately, home could now be described as happily awkward.

Fíli was just so polite, way more polite than any dwarf ought to be, which set the tone for the rest of them. He could tell that Amad and his uncles were having particular trouble because they had been raised in the highest society dwarvish culture had to offer.

Erebor was to dwarves what the Golden Wood was to the elves.

They didn't know how to be playful or fully themselves when faced with quiet politeness. Apparently, Amad's amad was the one who always broke the tension when either Thror or Thrain were being too serious.

Kíli, who had not been in a palace, didn't know what to do either, when he and his brother were younger, their sole mission in life was to cause as much trouble as possible to make their parents laugh instead of being disappointed in them.

But Kíli's childhood had died thirty years ago and he didn't know how to be that type of brother anymore and Fíli…

Fíli was so careful not to test boundaries.

Kíli really wished he would push boundaries, wished he would make all the cultural offences, and say what was on his mind, no matter how hurtful.

The niceties were killing him.

The thing that smoothed tensions was Fíli's cooking. Both because no dwarf was at their best when hungry and because it reminded everyone of Adad. Fíli had a gift for making a little food go a long way. Particularly useful in the winter for a family of seven who perpetually gave away what they had to provide for the settlement.

Still, it felt like there was an invisible wall between them and Fíli that none of them knew how to cross.

oOo

Fíli couldn't remember anyone but Kíli and his mother's arms.

And of course what he believed to be their death.

But he definitely didn't remember how to interact with other young dwarves. Sure, Estel was his best friend but Estel had been raised by elves too. So… Well, Fíli felt like they were expecting him to be the dwarfling they had lost, while he knew his early years at the Shire when he had been nothing but an abnormally strong fauntling was far far behind him.

Luckily, Ori wasn't a bouncing youth Fíli had to entertain –unlike their Cousin Gimili. Unfortunately, Ori was less outgoing than either prince and thus the three of them sat in awkward silence as the 'adults' went to talk in the kitchen.

Kíli cleared his throat. "So, Amad says you're training to be a scribe."

Ori straightened, "Um yeah, not that there's a ton of use for it but I can translate for those who aren't that fond common. I also do portraits and other types of painting and drawing arts but that's not really a demand so I, uh, help my brother out too."

"That's cool," Fíli offered. "My adoptive father liked to write and paint. He loved languages."

"Do you?" Ori asked.

"Not really," Fíli answered. "I never had much patience for it. At least when working with metal, even if it's just horseshoes, I can hear the ore sing. My dah made me learn sheet music when I told him that. His explanation for why I had to read while playing was to 'ease me out of my allergy to paper.'"

Kíli eyebrows shot up, "You can read sheet music?"

"Yes?"

Kíli shook his head, "Dwarves only write down lyrics, if music is written at all."

Fíli grinned, "I'm better at hearing music than reading it still. It's wasted energy trying to read and play at the same time. To his credit, it did help me learn."

"What do you play?" Ori asked.

"The fiddle."

Kíli grinned, "Me too. I was wondering if you kept up with it or not. You kept trying to steal mine when it was practically bigger than you were when we were very little."

Fíli grinned, "I remember you trying to teach me and being upset when I pulled the bow across the strings and it sounded like crying."

Kíli's expression lit up, "I hadn't realised you remembered that much."

"Not that much," Fíli agreed. "Just you."

There was another awkward silence.

"I play the flute," Ori offered.

Kíli nodded and the silence continued.

"Does your human father play an instrument?" Ori blurted.

Fíli looked away, but he did answer. "He sings though he's more of a poet songwriter than musically inclined."

"You must miss him," Ori remarked.

"No, I don't," Fíli lied.

Which killed the conversation.

Fíli hadn't been this horrendous with people before. But he had never had to keep a secret so long either.

Okay, maybe when he had been a dwarfling among fauntlings. But it hadn't really mattered to the hobbits then what he was, only who he was. Before the humans in Bree brought up their differences, Fíli had been fully accepted as Bilbo's fauntling.

He hadn't realised until years after having over hearing a conversation between his dah and Bilbo's favourite cousin, Drogo Baggins, that being a dwarf wasn't as big a problem as being Bilbo's adopted heir.

Bilbo, you should stay. Please stay, no matter what Lobelia would have to say you are highly respected, Drogo had said.

I will not put Fíli through it again. And the elves are teaching him his craft. He may belong, as some would say with his people, and I'll agree, he shouldn't have been caught up in such a tragedy, but dwarves are themselves through their craft. The elves help him with his passions better than anyone in the Shire could.

Guilt had stilled Fíli's breath in his throat at the admission that his father really did leave home because of him.

Then let the elves come here and train them. Surely, in their infinite lives could spare some months out of the year to teach him, Drogo's young wife, Primula had said.

I don't want to be in the Shire. I have family among the elves. And besides, having now stayed with kings and queens, I must say, none are more cutthroat and political than hobbits. Which I find most improper for hobbits.

Drogo had let out a long sigh of exasperation.

Oh, Bilbo, Primla said.

What? Bilbo demanded.

Don't you see? Drogo had questioned. It is political. Like it or not Bilbo Baggins, but you are one of the wealthiest and most influential hobbits in the Kindly West. Here, in Buckland, and as far as Bree admires you.

You're overselling it.

No, Bilbo. You are in line to be Thain.

Bilbo laughed, I'm tenth in line and counting. My mother–

Was the Thain's favourite daughter, Primula cut in. And the Thain picks his successor.

I want no part of it. I'm just Mad Baggins and they want me gone so they can take my smial, don't doubt it.

Drogo sighed, Everyone wants your smial, but that's beside the point. The point is the scandal is that you had a child of wedlock and did not marry her afterwards. It is not a problem that he is half-human because there's no such thing. Maybe their feet won't always be as hairy as they ought to be and maybe they get a bit taller than others, but all hobbit children are fauntlings with pointy ears and tough soles. The problem is that even if you never marry, Fíli is still yours and will inherit. Why, even if you merely adopted him he would inherit.

Is there a point? Bilbo had repeated.

The point is it's all rubbish what they all say. That gaggle of ill-sayers are just trying to keep you out so a Baggins of Hobbiton won't gain even more land to hand over to the Took side, Drogo went on.

And I want nothing to do with their efforts, Fíli's father had cut in.

Bilbo, listen, most hobbits do not care, they only want to be liked by their friends and family. But when it comes to the Thrain, the Thrain is the one to keep out outsiders.

So? Bilbo asked.

So, your adopted child is connected to the outside world. They were jealous of you before, but now that your heir was raised outside the Shire, some worry. But that's not enough. In time you will be accepted just as you always were. Bilbo, you can move back home, there might be a few, like Lobelia who fear change. But we know your son and the rest of the Shire would get to know him as well. Neither of you would ever bring harm to the Shire.

Bilbo's voice had lowered then, You listen to me, dearest cousins. I do not care what silly or small minded reasons the Shirefolk have to fear myself or my son. But I will not raise him where he is not welcome.

Primula snorted, And the elves accept you both, do they?

Yes, they do, Bilbo stated.

The stories told by men and elves always paint the elves as benevolent creatures, lords and ladies. But mind the reason that hobbit stories tell true their deceptive nature and trickster ways, Drogo warned.

Bilbo had snorted, My fairy father would never cause harm to me or my son.

Yes, your fairy father will never harm you, Primula said. Not physically. But our stories remembered Glorfindel not as a lord but as a fairy from a fairytale. As in all fairytales, being happily married doesn't mean living happily ever after. All magic has limits.

Why are you both so paranoid? Bilbo had asked.

Fíli couldn't remember the rest of their conversation but they had been right, hadn't they?

Glorfindel was a fairy who captured the faith of mortals whose fates he thought he could control on a whim.

Fíli startled when Kíli placed a hand on his shoulder, "Are you alright?"

He nodded too rapidly but his voice was even as he said, "Yes, I'm fine."

Fíli wasn't.

Here he sat, surrounded by his blood family and yet, he still felt out of place. Like a puzzle piece that hadn't finished being cut to size and would not fit into the rest of the picture.

But what could he do?

These people whom he knew he loved yet couldn't forget the nightmares each night since returning of their deaths.

The elves who had betrayed him.

The hobbits whose stagnant ways were unfilling to him.

The men who he would outlive and would never fully accept him.

No, Fíli had nowhere to go, and if he could never fit in, then he would have to settle to discover a way to help take care of his family and do his best to make them happy.

It's the only direction he had, though, given the hushed voices in the kitchen and his brother's worried gaze, Fíli appeared to be just another worry for them all.

oOo

Nori huffed as he watched the dwarflings.

Well, they weren't that young, but they were still a decade short of their majority.

The trio sat in awkward silence and Nori looked to Dori with exacerbation.

His older brother glared at him.

Nori glared right back, straightening to go interrupt the youngsters.

"Don't," Dori snapped. "Ori needs friends."

"Well, he isn't going to make it with those two having had the misfortune to take after their kingly uncle."

Thorin who had been listening to Balin looked over, brow raised.

Nori met his gaze head on, they might be distant cousins, he even might respect the crownless king, but he wasn't afraid of the older dwarf. "You're nephews have no conversation in them it would seem, like you."

Thorin sighed, "They do fine if someone else drives the conversation."

Nori looked back to Dori, "Well, it won't be Ori who manages that."

Without permission, Nori ducked out of the way of Dori into the other room.

Ori and Kíli looked relieved while Fíli looked neutral, and neutral meant he was suspicious. That first dinner welcoming the prince home, the boy had listened without saying much.

Thorin's nephew indeed, though to be fair to the tween, he had been raised among Men and Nori could too easily imagine the trials the prince had faced as he grew.

Not least of which because twenty years equated to an adult man while the sum total of thirty years measured only a dwarfling's being old enough to learn a craft, but not to ride to war.

They were both a decade too young for that.

Nori sat on the arm of his Ori's seat placing an arm over his little brother's shoulder, "Hello, you three, how's the royal family been treating you, littlest cousin?"

Fíli looked at him with Mori's eyes and Nori sorrowed that this youngling had seen enough of the world to have those eyes.

Mori had seen too much when the dragon came.

"It's good to be home," Fíli said.

Nori held back a sigh, soldiering forward. "How about learning all the family lines? Have you been able to understand how Oin and Gloin are related to you?"

Fíli frowned at him, "It's not that complicated aside."

"Oh, and your human relatives track their line so well?" Nori asked.

"My best friend is Isildor's heir. His family keeps track of their generations to a ridiculous degree."

Nori blinked. Of all the things he could have predicted a dwarf returning from what amounted to exile saying, it wasn't that. "Alright, so royalty doesn't phase you. And unlike your brother, you don't fear disappointing the great Ereborian kings."

Ori elbowed him, but that only encouraged him to slide into the seat with him, so that they were squished together.

He wasn't trying to cause the prince stress, just get him to show a bit of emotion.

Which Nori had succeeded at, just not in the way he expected.

For Fíli grimaced slightly and looked away.

"What?" Nori asked.

Kíli sighed, "He thinks grandfather and great-grandfather are scary."

"Creepy," Fíli corrected. "And excuse me for thinking family curses who bring down dragons from the north or awaken balrogs are unnerving."

They all, excluding Fíli, flicked a glance at Thorin who had taken on so much due to the failures of King Thror and King Thrian.

They all grew up with those stories and had enough interaction with Thorin, Frerin, and Lady Dís to view it as a tragedy. Nori had never thought of the king's madness to be something to fear. Well, a mad king was never a warm and fuzzy feeling, but outside of war, it was strange to reflect that the king's madness might have been what tragedy upon them all.

Thorin remained unmoved by the comments so Nori continued.

"So despite the impracticality of it," Nori began. "You're brother became a jeweller like his mother while helping her run the colony, have you thought of a profession, Princeling."

"Steal smith," Fíli answered. "But I'm good at being a blacksmith. Roharrim treat their horses like fau– like their children."

Nori noted the stumble but was unsure of what word that could be. "I'm glad you can take pride in it," he said. "Shoeing horses, while nothing wrong with making coin honestly, is not seen as something for the noble line."

In fact, it was something that Thorin himself had complained about more than once.

"Is that because of the horses, or because the way men speak to us as if creating horseshoes is all we're good for?" Fíli asked.

Nori remembered Fíli when he was a dwarfling, remembered the bright little child who had followed his older brother around like a golden shadow.

Neither could ever be found without the other and rarely ever without a smile or mischief on the mind.

They had been the hope of their people.

But now they were both as serious as their stoic uncle and it hurt to have their youngest prince so wary around them.

"The latter, typically," Nori answered. "But horses aren't a favourite mode of transport, dwarven feet belong on the ground."

"Horses walk on that same ground, they aren't eagles," Fíli noted.

Nori smiled, "Fair enough."

There was a knock on the door offering a reprieve from the stilted conversation.

Dori answered the door, Princess Dis, Oin, Gloin, and Gloin's dwarfling Gimili.

"Glad you're here, we can finally eat," Dori said, stepping back.

Nori watched with amusement as Fíli rose with Ori to help set the table.

Nori looked to Dís who was tracking her youngest son.

"He has wonderful manners," Nori said to her, not knowing if that was a good thing or not.

Dís met his gaze with a frown and said in low Khuzdul, "If I find out his adoptive father used him as a servant, I'll skin him."

Kíli shook his head, "Amad, I don't think that's true."

"What has he told you?" Dís demanded.

Kíli glared at the table rather than his mother, "It's— it's what he hasn't said. It's the way he reacts when he learns how much our people have struggled. He has never known hunger, Amad, and he's quiet so he doesn't offend us."

Thorin placed a hand on Kíli's shoulder. His uncle deliberately spoke in common, "Change is difficult, he will be fine. He wants to be here with us, with you, all will be well."

Kíli let out a puff of air before rising from his seat.

Nori had to agree with Thorin's assessment as dinner progressed in a typical dwarvish fashion.

Fíli relaxed enough to smile, sat between his mother and brother as the others led the conversation. He didn't say anything really, but he clearly wasn't trying to disappear as Ori sometimes did.

Fíli wasn't the carefree dwarfling he had been. He was nothing like the over-eager Gimili who spoke anytime he could to the stories and conversations going around him. He wasn't some abused orphan they pulled off the streets.

Looking at him, in fact, Nori noticed that Fíli's cheeks were fuller than his brother's, skin tanner than his relatives for the sun he doubtless got plenty of so far south of the Misty Mountains.

Kíli was right. He looked so… healthy. And it was shameful to realise, and maybe appreciate Dori's concern for them all. A skipped meal here and there had never done them harm, or so Nori believed. But if Ori was supposed to look so strong, a layer of babyfat over muscles garnered from sword practice and smithing not the labour of a quarry worker…

Well, neither Ori nor Kíli fit that depiction of health.

Maybe the Fíli had been somewhat of an outcast among men, however, whoever his human family had been had taken good care of him. It was in the gentleness he gave to his mother and brother, the respect he showed Thorin, and the smile on his face now as helped Dori and Ori prepare their food.

Fíli was reserved, not anti-social nor as fragile as those around him seemed to think.

Still, Nori had to wonder at the reason why his human father hadn't brought Fíli home himself.

Man or no, Nori knew Dís would have welcomed whoever had saved her son with open arms.

oOo

Estel loved Bilbo and Fíli.

Their separation from each other and Glorfindel was criminal.

"What are you planning?" Arwen asked leaning against the bannister beside him.

He felt heat rise to his cheeks, "I don't know what you mean?"

"You've had that expression since we told you that Dain could make amends by protecting the hobbits."

Estel stilled his hands, swallowing the compulsion to fiddle with his sleeves.

Arwen hadn't been around much when he was a child, but he hadn't been quite this flustered around her when he had been a teen. He hadn't known what the fluttering in his chest had indicated and now he found himself embarrassed by it. They essentially shared a father.

And Elrond would hate him if Arwen ever returned Estel's affection.

Clearing his throat he said, "They are going to send a representative for the first year to run a stall in the spring fair. Some men come in that time and it would be good to have someone possed as a craftsman who could step in if anything goes awry."

"So you will bring one of Fíli's relatives to Bilbo?"

Estel bit his lip, knowing how wrong it would be to impose on the hobbit's hospitality.

"I think it a splendid idea," Elrond said, making Estel jump.

He was still recovering from the scare when he processed what his adoptive father had said. "Wait, you agree?"

"If one thing is to be said about those three golden children, it is their stubbornness. If Bilbo had more connections to the dwarves he might have been more comfortable with visiting the Blue Mountains."

Arwen snorted "You're both meddlers."

"You disapprove?" Elrond asked.

Arwen shook her head, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. "No, for I also think it is a wonderful idea. Bilbo broods too much and I cannot imagine any dwarf who would not like him as a host."

Estel smiled at their approval. He knew enough about the dwarves to know that Thorin Oakenshield himself would volunteer.

Naturally, come spring, Estel fully intended to introduce the dwarven prince without his titles to Bilbo.

It would be interesting to see when Prince Thorin would reveal his identity or speak of Fíli first.

Neither was likely to be pleased with Estel for the deception, but really, the only reason fathers and sons had not made up already was because of the pride and guilt.

Maybe, if Bilbo befriended a dwarven prince, he would go to the Ered Luin and make amends.

In hindsight, Estel shouldn't have underestimated the stubbornness of dwarves and hobbits.

Lord Elrond's smirk should have clued him in to the fruitlessness of Estel's efforts. His adoptive father was, after all, gifted with foresight.

oOo

AN: Did you think I was going to make you wait till the Quest to Erebor for some Bagginshield disaster fluttering? Reviews on this chapter (thank you to the single ff-dot-net reviewer from the last chapter) are extremely appreciated and now is the time to ask for what you would like to see between Bilbo and Thorin, Fíli and the other dwarves ;D