Notes:

This is now up to date with the AO3 version.

Currently my free time is being eaten by Dwarf Fortress and not this fic. Urk. :D

OC list at the end of the chapter.

Vocab: Mathoms are (usually) functionally useless gifts that hobbits hoard/give to eachother/regift

Belladonna's Child

Bungo Baggins puts away the book that he hasn't been reading since he sat down with it twenty minutes ago and sighs, his fingers tapping an agitated rhythm along his pockets. He wanders from the study to the front hall of his roomy Hobbiton home and plucks a duster from the pottle, spinning it in his hands and watching it twirl. The restoration work on the house is almost finished, and with a few more touches it will be ready for sale. That will happen after he and Belladonna move into Bag End. There is no work to be done.

He dusts the dustless mathoms on the shelf behind the couch – Belladonna is ridiculously fond of the boot, that goes hand-in-hand with her troublesome propensity for adventure! Bungo sends a fretful glance towards the front door. She's due home any moment now and it is cold outside. He knows she packed properly, and that she considers it her duty to make sure that things are all right with her Brandybuck friends, but they are just married and Bungo can be forgiven a little paranoia. Nothing good comes of adventures.

He glares at the boot, and feels angry with himself. It was perfectly dustless before he began cleaning it and he is looking such a fool! A week without her has turned him into worried old widower tottering about his home!

The door knocks, and excitement jumps in Bungo's heart. He races up the front path to the door and it flings open before him. Belladonna is a spring-green shoot in the snowy winter and her dark eyes glisten with mischievous energy. She cries in delight and opens her arms. He squeezes her soft body before he is aware he has moved and presses kisses to her cold cheeks. Belladonna's laugh tinkles around him.

"Miss me?" she chortles.

Bungo huffs.

Belladonna pulls away from him all too soon and turns behind her. "Come on," she beckons to someone, holding out a hand. A child reaches out and clings to it. A scarf as blue and fine as if the distant a summer sky has been wrapped around the top of the head and around the neck glows against his skin. Blue eyes peer out of a red face, and straight black hair escapes the scarf. The child looks quite unhobbitish. The child's feet even more so: small, and booted.

Belladonna pulls the child inside, closes the door, and walks past him towards the kitchen. Bungo's mouth pops open and he splutters. A week! A week and no more than a hug and a few pecks and she's past him without a by-your-leave! He closes his mouth again, just as the pair round the corner to the kitchen and he scuttles after them.

"Bella!" he calls. "Bella, are we babysitting, dear?"

Belladonna is crouched beside the child. She has pulled out a chair and is patting it invitingly, asking the child to please sit down. Her hands are still mitted in green flecked with snow. She spares Bungo half a moment's glance, makes a dismissive noise of inquiry, and returns to the child with a reasuring smile.

Well then! If he shall not get a straight answer then he can make himself useful warming up some blankets over the fire and making some hot tea and soup. They would both surely benefit from both. He heads for the linen when a small, upset voice tugs at his heart.

"Ami?"

Belladonna and the child are wearing similar expressions of misery and Bungo takes half a step towards them, because no child should sound like that! "My dear, are we babysitting?" he asks again. "Where did you find this child? Shouldn't he… or she… go back to.. it's… mother?"

"His mother," Belladonna answers.

This child's great blue eyes sweep the kitchen. "Ami? Where –" this little face crumples. "AAAMIIIIIIIIIII!"

The screech that pours from the child raises the hair on Bungo's neck and he wouldn't be surprised if it could be heard all across Hobbiton. The child looks desperately 'round the room and he flings himself away from Belladonna, running to the door. Bungo gets a glimpse of eyes glossy with tears as the child spots him and swerves away. He collides with the wall with a thump and Bungo winces, reaching forward.

The child pulls away and rolls into a ball. Bungo has never quite understood children, though he had younger siblings he really prefers them grown-up and understandable. Perhaps Belladonna knows this because she places a hand on his arm for a moment before squatting down next to the child again. She sits by him, and he hits his head against the floor.

Bungo gasps, and the child sobs and does it again and again. The soles of his feet tingle with each thud. He is rooted to the spot.

"Oh dear," Belladonna coos, and Bungo grits his teeth in acknowledgement. She sheds her coat and puts it underneath the child's head, and the frightful banging stops. The child screams instead and flings the coat back at Belladonna. Bella catches his flailing hands before they strike her. She lurches, and lets go. He is frightfully strong for a child of a handful of years.

"Shouldn't we take him to his-"

"He doesn't have anyone!" Belladonna bursts out, and for the first time since she walked in the door their eyes truly meet. There is anguish in his wife's eyes and for the first time since they were fauntlings he sees tears threatening his wife's eyes. The child stills, and then flops, a high keen rising from him as he shakes his head wildly. Belladonna wraps him in her chest and arms, and they both seem to sink into the floor. His fist finds the floorboards and he batters them, dull thuds ringing through the smial.

Tears pass his wife's eyes. They don't seem brave. They seem hopeless and lost and they make Bungo feel afraid. He's not good at adventuring. There's only one thing he's good at, and that's being a Baggins.

"Okay," he says, and rests a hand on her shoulder. He pulls in a shuddering breath and releases it slightly less shakily. "I'm going to find something for us all to eat. See if there's something here that might be a comfort to him if you can."

Then he gets down on one knee and turns to the child. "Child, I'm going to see if I can find food for you. Are you hungry?"

The child does not look up, but Bungo tries not to be particularly concerned. He gives his wife's shoulder a squeeze and wipes the tears away from her eyes and kisses her head. As he heads for the kitchen he hears Belladonna murmuring to the child, and her voice is once again strong and soothing, though slightly choked. He is glad.

The pantry is full of foods of all kinds, and Bungo wonders what foods would tempt the child, if indeed any could reach him now. Young children like sweets. Bungo has two plates of fudge that have been gifted to him, and while he will be sorry to lose them perhaps the child has greater need of them than he.

He takes one plate from the pantry and a few small roles of bread that are in desperate need of eating for himself and Bella, and returns back to the front hall. Belladonna and the child have disappears, and he dithers for a moment in confusion. Searching the house, he finds them both in the dining room.

He freezes. His mother's boot is in the child's hands! The child is curled up in a ball on the floor, little fingers clutched around the laces, tugging at the tongue… he likes that boot and he doesn't like sticky fingers on it! If the boot gets munched on… the plate of fudge wobbles in his hands.

Well, then it will get munched on, because the child has stopped crying and whimpering, and Belladonna looks up at him with gleaming eyes and plucks a piece of fudge from the plate. She looks tired but happy as she leans against the wall next to him and rubs her eyes.

"Whatever is his name?" Bungo asks. "And what is he?"

Belladonna smiles. "I don't know his name, and he won't tell me, so I suppose we should find him one. And the fellow with the yellow hat who gave him to me told me that 'he is what he is, and what he is he is.' So I suppose he's himself!" She gives a light chuckle under her breath, mindful of the child's apparent momentary content, bumps into him, plucking another piece of fudge from the plate.

Bungo tries not to feel like he's missing some important information – Belladonna will answer all his questions in time but right now he wants to sit her down and pour sweets into her because she has been gone so long, and only now is he able to throw his arm around her and hold her close.

Belladonna hugs him back and leans her head against his shoulder. She looks up at him through her lashes. "I thought we could him Amigraide," she whispered, "After the fairy husband from-"

"People aren't named after fairy tales," Bungo says, which isn't really what he's objecting to. The problem is, he's not entirely sure he's objecting to anything at all. "A nice sensible name would be much better – a sensible name for a sensible fellow. Like Bilbo."

Belladonna beams at him and curls a finger in his hair. "Bilbo?" she teases.

Bungo huffs. "I have something I need to do."

"I bet you do." Bungo hesitates, it's true that he is feeling very overwhelmed and he needs some time to recalibrate, to do so would be to abandon Bella and he doesn't want to do that. Belladonna pats his tummy.

"Well, are you going to do it?" she asks.

Bungo plants another kiss on her curly head and leaves the room. He enters his office and sighs. A great weight seems to lift off him. The events of the morning run through his mind and he finds himself chuckling. Bilbo. Bilbo. What is he thinking?

It's all he can do to stagger to his chair before he collapses and hold his face in his hands. He runs his hands thorough his hair, five times when once isn't enough, and then reaches for some parchment and a pen. He looses himself in his new task, and jolts as he realises Belladonna has been watching him.

She's standing over his shoulder, and he sprays ink all over his page. "What – Bella!" He hisses.

"He's all snuggled up in our bed with the boot!" she answers. "What's this?" She points at the page he's splattered with ink. Thankfully none lands on his stack of completed papers.

"If we're going to do then, then we're going to do it right," Bungo answers, and hands her one from the top of the pile. "They're invitations to our baby shower."

"Oh!" Belladonna looks on in delight. "Run the guest list by me immediately. And what's this-" her tone turns suspicious. "To introduce the newest member of our household, Bilbo Baggins?"

"Well I couldn't very well let you write them, you'd call him Amigraide!"

"Bilbo is a fine name, and a finer boy, I should think."

Bungo stills, shock overcoming him again. He croaks as it hits him. Parents, them?

"Ah. Yes. I should think."

That night, Bilbo sleeps in their bed and and Belladonna and Bungo sit in the front hall and talk well into the night. They prepare for the fauntling shower with fervenet energy, but their excitement cannot distract them from the truth for long: the fact that there is a child (of unknown origin and race!) sleeping in sleeping under their roof, and they must care for him.

Bungo is frustrated. Belladonna is content to let things come as they do and does not seem willing to give this all the concern it is due! How will they feed him? He was reluctant to eat the previous night. They don't have any clothes for him! Can he wear the same as a hobbit? Is he proportioned like one? Does he need shoes or are those optional?

Bungo doesn't know the answers to any of these and Belladonna smiles at him indulgently and Bungo feels the need to go and re-sort the mathom-room.

The thoughts are still whirling around his head when he drops off to sleep next to Belladonna in one of the spare bedrooms. Tomorrow night, he thinks, staring up at the curved ceiling, their new visitor might be sleeping here. Bilbo. Would it be too late to have a word with the architects making the house up on The Hill? He wanted Bilbo to have a grand room when they moved in.

Bungo awakes to someone shaking him roughly. Belladonna stares at him with pupils blown wide, her body shivering like they have a whole party of unexpected guests to feed. Bungo is up like a shot. "Who are they? How many? I'll entertain them myself while-" he is up undressed by the time he trails off and he realises that unexpected morning visitors cannot not account for the sheer panic in her eyes. The cause must be their new housemate. Son?

Son.

"What's wrong?"

"He's gone!" Belladonna shrieked.

Bilbo! Ice consumes Bungo's heart. He dresses as fast as he can button and follows Belladonna from the bedroom with clothes more rumpled than he's worn in years. He looks up and down the hallway, but has to look again when he moves too fast to comprehend what he's seeing the first time.

It doesn't matter, Bilbo's not there. Belladonna's curling hair is bouncing after her as she flees towards the mathom-room, where trinkets are piled high enough to hide or bury a small child. He takes three steps after her and stops.

No Bungo, if Bilbo is there Belladonna will find him. He teeters in the hallway, which room is the best to look in? Which bedroom? Surely Belladonna will have searched their bedroom thorouhly. The pantry? It doesn't matter. Having wasted too much time already, he gets moving and dashes towards the kitchen.

In his mind, Bilbo is speaking that same word over an over, crying for his Ami. Bungo knows no hobbit child who calls their parent that, but the tone reminds him of his ill-fated attempts to babysit as a tween only a hundred times worse. He is certain down to his stomach that the child is calling for his family.

But Belladonna has taken it upon herself to make him their family, and that means that it is Bungo's responsibility to find him and feed him and unlike his little niece there will be no-one to foist Bilbo off onto when Bungo feels unqualified. Has Bilbo left because Bungo couldn't find him anything to eat?

He checks the pantry thoroughly, just in case. No cheeseblock shows sign of nibbling, none of the bread has been touched, and even the remaining plate of fudge show no sign of being touched by a child's hands. Bungo sags against the pantry entrance and allows himself a moment of despair.

"Have you seen him?" Belladonna asks.

"No, I haven't, and I am doing all that I can!" Bungo bursts out, then rubs his nose vigorously. It is useless to place blame. He sighs and pulls himself together, tucking down his collar and smoothing the worst of the creases from his shirt. The tension eases. He looks warily at Belladonna.

"We'll have to ask around town," Belladonna says.

With one dressed and the other in sleep clothes, the two enter the entrance room and Bungo cannot find it within himself to fault Belladonna for her lack of dress. They stop short at the sight before them. At the top of the path that slopes up to the front door, the round door seems not quite round. It has grown a protuberance at the left.

Wrapped in a green sheet against the green door, Bilbo is like a fixture of the room. Only his thin nose, bright blue eyes and the top of the boot poke out from the fabric.

Bungo wipes his forehead, beaming. "There you are!" he breathes.

Belladonna chuckles. "Bless. Oh Bilbo, you worrisome child!"

She crouches by him, and Bungo lets her go because she has done much better with him so far. Children of her own would have suited her, though Bungo is sure she would turn them into terrors. It is not the sort of parenthood that he expected, and really he wonders if babies are easier.

They just eat and poop, don't they? And surely their squeals can't be any less comprehensible than Bilbo's. His violent head-banging from the day before stops Bungo from moving to him. If even Belladonna could provoke that reaction, Bungo has little hope of calming him down.

Now, though, not even Belladonna is having much luck. Bilbo stares at the boot blankly as she chatters and cajoles while Bungo stands well back and flitters between the front hall, the study and the kitchen. Bilbo is like a dog waiting for his master, though, and moves only to occasionally turn his head to them and glare, his lips muttering "Ami" angrily, and at last to pull his strange straight hair in front of his eyes.

Bungo throws up his hands and goes back to the study to continue preparations for the Shower. Sitting at his desk, he quicly looses his first, second, and third pens, and then the guestlist. He crawls under the table and finally finds the second pen under the sheets, and this time his movements are rough and irritated and Bilbo is playing on his mind like a drum. He cannot concentrate.

Tea and cake make everything better. He meets Belladonna in the kitchen to find that she has the kettle on and greets her warmly. She gives him another smile, but it is tired and pinched. Bungo kisses it anyway. "We'll get there," he tells her, and goes to get cake from the pantry.

They take their tea in the front hall so as to watch Bilbo. Belladonna watches him carefully, with intent that Bungo feels might be uncomfortable for the child, and he places a restraining hand on her forearm. "I think you unnerve him," he whispers.

"It'll be alright, Bungo," she answers, and twists her arm around to lace their fingers together. Annoyance burns in Bungo's gut and he pulls his arm away and drains his tea cup, massaging his lips his his tongue and putting his cup down on its saucer with a dramatic clinck.

Belladonna takes the opportunity to take the crockery to the kitchen and give him some space, which Bungo is glad for. He leans his head back against his chair and watches Bilbo again. Adults make so much more sense than children. How does one communicate with them? Shoots, they didn't even know how much Common the child spoke. He could only speak elf-language for all they knew!

(Though Belladonna had revealed last night that the child's ears were rounded, so he was probably a human or dwarf.)

Belladonna returns too soon, but saves Bungo a confrontation by going to speak with Bilbo. Bungo grunts in frustration, and leans forward in his chair to see what is happening.

"Outside?" Bella repeats to the child's upturned blank face, and points towards the door. She opens it a crack for emphasis and Bungo's breath whistles in his teeth. He'll run out there and get lost! It is cold – the snow has dissappeared but that doesn't mean he won't freeze! Yet before his eyes, Bilbo approaches the door warily and Belladonna leads him out.

The door closes behind them with a little click.

A shiver rises in Bungo at the sound. It suddenly becomes imperative that he be out there, supervising them both, but before that he fetches three coats. The morning air is frigid in his face, and before his lips his breath turns white.

Belladonna sits on the bench by the front door, looking out over the neighbourhood and its patchwork of gardens. She smiles down at Bilbo, who is crouched amongst the bushes and smearing dirt all over the green sheet. The bushes of the garden cover him almost entirely as he crouches, just the green of the sheet covering his head as he shuffles about is visible above their tops like a strange fabric plant.

It looks so strange. Bilbo looks up and down the lane, but it is empty. He feels jittery, on the edge of tears as he hands Belladonna two of the coats and plops himself down bonelessly on the bench. "I can't do this," he says, the proof of it in the tremble of his words.

"Yes you can," Belladonna reassures, pulling on her coat and taking the other to Bilbo. "Look, you even brough our coats! I didn't think to bring them." She looks at him with the same patient, slightly demeaning fondness that is so common for her, and Bungo feels himself melting in it. She pats his pack firmly.

"You're the right hobbit for the job," she says.

"Yes, well, someone's got to keep you in line," Bungo answers, his ears picking up the sounds of wheels on the road. He looks over the fence and freezes. Allie Welldeep is coming up the path with a wheelbarrow-ful of vegetables, a her young daughter skipping at her feels. His eyebrows rise.

"Bruko giving you trouble?" he asks, because Allie's older brother insists on keeping himself to a tiny house on the western edge of hobbiton that doesn't have nearly the pantry-space it should, and insists on borrowing other people's pantries.

Allie grimaces. "Not today. Laury wanted to visit, and I need to cook, and never let it be said I cannot do two things at once!" She laughs a little, but it sounds fake, and Bungo makes a note to listen hard to any gossip surrounding the Welldeeps. Then Allie peers over the fence, and spots Bilbo. Bungo tenses up.

"Is that him, then?" she asks. "The one Belladonna found?"

"This is Bilbo!" Belladonna answers proudly. "He's our new son."

"A son!" Allie is shocked, and looks between them, her mouth hovering open in confusion. Bungo's stomach turns as he wonders what's going through her mind. "But he's missed his baby shower!"

"We shall have a fauntling shower instead," Bungo answers firmly.

Allie claps, and Laury climbs half up the fence to peer over, green eyes wide and curious. She spots Bilbo, and for a moment they stare at eachother in shock. Bilbo ducks down into the bushes. "I hope I'm on the guest list! Do you need help-"

"We can cook just fine," Belladonna answers testily, eyeing the wheelbarrow with distaste, and Bungo puts a hand on her arm. Allie Welldeep is not a mean-spirited hobbit, but she has consistently beats Belladonna by one place in the Tooks' orange cake competition and as a former Took her offence is not unpardonable.

"I will enjoy it," Allie backs off. Laury scuffles on the fence and grins at them with gapped teeth.

"We're going to beat you next month!" she crows.

Allie plucks her from the fence, scadalised, and Laury speeds off down the path before her mother can catch her. Allie shoots them both a very apologetic look. "Children. I'm sure you'll understand soon enough," she says, before grabbing the wheelbarrow again and hurrying after her daughter.

When the lane is empty, Bungo sighs to himself and looks at Bilbo nervously. He doesn't look like a hellion, all wrapped up in a green sheet and hiding in his garden… but the potential is there. He pokes his head out of the bush, the sheet falling off his head and his perculiar black hair falling straight around his shoulders.

"Are lots of people coming?" he whispers.

Shock freezes Bungo's body. "To the shower? Well, yes. That's what a baby – well, a fauntling shower is. It's a party."

Bilbo ducks his head and brings his fist to his lips. In the gaps between his fingers there are large dark pebbles. His hands clench around them. "I don't want lots of people."

"Well you see it's a party," Bungo answers. "There is supposed to be lots of people at a party."

"What's going o—is he speaking?!" came Belladonna's excited squeak. She stood in the entrance of the house, a steaming cup smelling of tea in her hand. The cup drops to the ground with a smash and she leaps for Bilbo. Bungo flinches from the spray of hot water.

"What have you got there?" she asks, holding out her hands. Bilbo draws his rocks away.

"Bilbo-" Bungo said.

"You won't take them."

Belladonna nods seriously. "I won't. Can I have a look?"

Miraculously, Bilbo's fists unclench, giving both hobbits a good view of the rocks in his palms. They are handsome. Bilbo points his stubby finger at the triangular pebble. "This is Ami."

Then the oblong pebble. "Didi." He considers them bother for a moment before snapping his fingers shut and dropping both pebbles into the boot to hide them away.

"Mummy and Daddy," breathed Bungo in horror as he watches the boot swallow both pebbles. An alien urge rises up in him. He want to hug the child, like Belladonna had done the night before.

But Bilbo shakes his head. "Ami and Didi. Not – not Daddy."

Belladonna nods. "We call them Mummy and Daddy."

Bilbo looks dubious, but doesn't argue, and Bungo is glad. He drops his eyes and scoots himself inside. Bilbo will learn in time, they simply must be patient with him. Who knew what words they use wherever he comes from.

"Perhaps it would be good to move the fauntling shower back a bit," Belladonna sighs. "I haven't thought about how much he's lost."

Bungo nodded, a lump growing in his throat. "He is lost," he answers, and rubs at his eyes which are suddenly growing wet. At least Bilbo is with them. At least they are safe enough that he crept into their home rather than go and run out in the world.

"We'll find him," Belladonna answers.

Bungo gives her a watery grin and sees her eyes are watery too. When she says things like that, what can he do put pull his lovely wife close and do his best to hug the life from her?

"That we will," he whispers in her ear.

His new name is Bilbo, that's the name they've given him.

He has a new house, too, and its a funny one underground. Bilbo's family used to live underground a long time ago before Bilbo was born, but their homes were destroyed and he has only ever lived in houses that poke up from the ground with Ami and Didi and Fee and Kee.

There are lots of differences. This house is warmer, and they eat more. Bilbo doesn't want to eat more than three times a day, even though Belladonna and Bungo get very happy when he eats anything at all. The food is strange, too. It is sweeter, and sometimes it stings his tongue.

No-one speaks in the old language when they get angry. Bilbo isn't sure that Belladonna and Bungo get angry at all, though sometimes they get upset. That usually happens when they try to feed him and he's already full.

No-one is taking him back home, and Bilbo is worried. The beds are soft and the food is sweet (today, even breakfast is sweet) and the house is warm, but it's not his house. Even though his house wasn't quite the right size (everything was too big), it had Ami and Didi and Fee and Kee in it, and that made it perfect. Maybe his house is gone too, like Ami and Didi's old home. No-one's ever said it, but Bilbo knows that lots of people died when Ami and Didi lost their home, and it scares him.

He wants Ami and Didi and Fee and Kee back, even if he never has another sweet breakfast again.

Belladonna and Bungo are sitting next to him at the kitchen table, and they keep giving each other looks. There isn't any food on either of their faces, though, and they're not using inglishmek like Ami and Didi do when they talk about something that they don't want him to understand.

(Fee knew what they were saying, but he'd always sing-song at Kee and him when they asked what Ami and Didi were saying.)

Belladonna keeps smiling and her legs are bouncing. She keeps checking the window as if waiting for a visitor. Belladonna and Bungo are enough for Bilbo, more visitors and he'd much rather be in his new room. He nervously watches the window too, and smears syrup over his cheek in his distraction.

"Oh Bilbo," Bungo huffs and gets a cloth from the kitchen. It is white and fluffy, but Bilbo does not want Bungo pushing it onto his face. He jerks away as the hobbit reaches for him, and the hobbit tucks it into his hand. Bilbo stares at it.

He pokes at his face – sticky-sweet. It's a pity to waste it, but his tongue is beginning to hurt with all the sweetness and thus he slowly begins to wipe at his cheek. Kee wouldn't: he'd say saving it for later, but he is beginning to think that there is no need: there will be more.

Eventually, Belladonna reveals the reason for her excitement. She leans forward on the table and laces her fingers together. "Bilbo, do you know what today is?"

Bilbo doesn't.

Belladonna folds her hands on the tabletop and looks serious as a cheerful person can. "It's your fauntling shower! Today we will move up The Hill, and we will have a wonderful party all the way from the front lawn down to the bottom of the hill."

Bilbo decides he doesn't want any more food at all. In fact, he is beginning to feel a little sick. He swallows.

"Bilbo?" Bungo asks. "Do you understand?"

Bilbo nodds with a jerk (always with the 'do you understand!') but even that makes his head dizzy. He holds his hands to his forehead. Bungo titters over him but Belladonna declares that it will all be fine. Disappointment hugs Bilbo when Bungo doesn't object.

Bilbo wishes that the after-breakfast clean-up could go on forever, but soon he is being bundled into a coat and frog-marched up the hill. He shivers. He can do this. He got through the forest, even though he was cold and Ami wasn't with him. He can manage a trip over the hill (even though Ami isn't there).

They pass lots of other strange hole-houses, and even a few sticking-out houses. Moss clings to the fences and everywhere creatures bleat, cluck and miaow. Hobbits pause in their work and leisure to stare at him, and he hunches deeper into his coat.

He misses his old coat, the one he made with Didi.

They reach the bottom of the hill, and Bilbo gasps and diggs his heels in.

A forest of hobbits stand before him, each decorated as bright as a banner. There are more than he can count, and they are coming for him. Their eyes are fixed on them and Bilbo doesn't even know their names. Bilbo quickly ducks behind Bungo.

Ami would pull him out and push him in front. Bungo holds up his hand and talks to the hobbits, leaving Bilbo to pant in relief. Belladonna frowns at him, but another hobbit distracts her and she began talking about the house up on the hill.

It is a roar to Bilbo's ears, and Bungo with the hobbits coming closer soon they will be behind Bungo and Bilbo has to move. He feels strange under the eyes of the hobbits. One, with a ponytail and lots of green ribbons, opens their mouth to talk to him.

"Hello, -"

The rest of it is a roar to him. Bilbo makes his escape. He flitters through the crowd, through grasping hands, behind a barrel and around the hill just out of sight, falling into a patch of long grass and huddling close to a lemon tree. He lies down.

Back home, he was always found more quickly when he was wearing bright colours, but Belladonna and Bungo are always dressed like daffodils in the sunlight and might not have any dull clothes at all. Certainly, they have none for Bilbo. The dwarfling hunches closer to the ground and pulls the long strands of grass together above him. Twigs and leaves poke into his skin and his breath tastes of dirt.

A wood louse crawls beneath his nose, and he blows at it. It rolls into a ball and tumbles under a leaf and stays there. Bilbo watches it, but it doesn't move, and the sounds of the party remain distant.

Something large crashes into Bilbo's back, stabbing into his spine like a handful of pins. He flinches and is so shocked he can't scream. No-one is coming for him. Belladonna and Bungo have stopped worrying when he goes off on his own.

Assess danger, if you've been spotted, yell, Ami's voice speaks to him. He rolls away from the flapping and squarking. Brown feathers fill his vision and string his eyes and a chicken tumbles off him and runs down the hill, bocking furiously and waving its wings indignantly as it goes.

Just a chicken. Bilbo's skin stings where its claws have penetrated the thin hobbit fabric. The fright fades quickly and he cuts off a growl as he gnashes his teeth in its direction. It was only a chicken. He'd been found by a chicken. But not just a chicken: someone has begun giggling behind him.

A little girl has her hands cupped over her mouth, her cheeks fat with laughter. Bilbo glares at her, and she laughs even more. Just like Fee would! He always pointed and laughed whenever Bilbo glared! (Bilbo has resolved that when he grows up he is going to glare like Ami and no-one will ever laugh at him again.)

The girl curtsies, though it looks more like the giggles have finally become to much for her and are forcing her to bow under their weight, and when she comes out of it she sticks out a hand. "Morning, Master, my name is Lobelia. Whom do I have the pleasure of acquainting myself with?" She cocks her head.

Bilbo looks at her dumbly. Those sound a bit like the sorts of words that his mother would use when greeting people, but Bilbo had to greet people official-like before. He wishes he was still hidden, but he isn't.

"Bilbo." The word comes off his tongue strangely.

Lobelia flops down into the grass, and runs a finger over the long stems that rise about them. "The grass was all bending over funny. Someone's there if its all bent in." She leans towards him and stares at him closely. "Your hair is weird."

Not it isn't! Bilbo scrambles to defend himself.

"You have weird hobbit hair!"

"I am a hobbit!"

Bilbo lets out a breath and turns away from her, slipping his hands into his pockets where he keeps Ami and Didi's rocks. "Stupid," he mutters under his breath, taking them out. They aren't as good as the real thing. Not at all. But they are better than the silly hobbit with its silly hobbit hair. He should find Fee and Kee rocks. Maybe he'd get a Berin, too, since he's Bilbo now.

Lobelia peers 'round Bilbo's shoulder and coos. "Ooh, so pretty-"

Bilbo pulls Ami and Didi out of Lobelia's greedy reach and protects them against his chest. "They're mine."

Lobelia huffs. "Fine. I have pet rocks too, you know. I know how to look after them. You need to give them strings."

"No I don't."

"Then how will you walk them?" Lobelia doesn't wait for an answer and tells him how to care for pet rocks. You can't leave them inside all day (or in your pockets) because they need some time to sparkle. So, you need to wrap string around them and attach a long piece of string to take them for walks.

Bilbo is sceptical. Ami and Didi might be rocks, but they aren't pet rocks, they were his Ami and Didi. "I don't think my rocks need need sunlight," he says. "I think they need firelight."

Lobelia looks like she might argue, but then her mouth drops open. "You're the dwarf!" she cries. "I knew your hair looked funny!"

Bilbo has the strangest urge to deny that he is a dwarf, because when Lobelia said it it sounded like something strange.

"My Mum says dwarves live underground and roast worms on fires."

"We don't eat worms!"

"What do you eat?"

"Um, rabbits! And porridge."

"Rabbit porridge?"

"NO! And we don't live underground, either."

Lobelia claps her hands and giggles into them. "So Aunty Gladdis right! She says that dwarves live in houses," she lowers her voice, and checks behind her to make sure no-one is listening. " Aunty Gladd usually knows more than Mum."

"Oh. That's 'cause she's an Aunt."

Lobelia nods, and then pauses as Bilbo's stomach makes a gurgle. "When did you last eat..?" she asks suspiciously.

"Breakfast." It wasn't that long ago, but the smell of food wafting over from the party reminds him he didn't finish. He looks towards it longingly. Lobelia gasps in horror and tugs at his hand. "Come on! You need to eat! Come to the party there's lots of food!"

Bilbo escapes her grip. "I don't want to go to the party!"

Lobelia studies him a long time. "You have to. What if we sneak?" she asks. "We can get dessert before it comes to the table."

Bilbo forgets all about how he'd been sick of sweets that morning and his heart began beating hard his chest. It has been too long since he's snuck anything from the kitchen (Ami wasn't happy when he did that).

"Are... you sure it's okay?"

"It'll be okay as long as we don't get caught."

The first challenge is getting into the house. At least twenty hobbits are talking in the front garden. Lobelia and Bilbo peer at them from the roof. Their curly heads look like cauliflowers. Belladonna is laughing with the hobbit next to her, and Bungo keeps looking around in a manner of one with something on his mind.

Bilbo ducks back from the eaves, just in case Bungo is looking for him, and a small thrill runs up his spine.

They scuttle over the roof to check the back door, but that, too, is guarded by partygoers. Bilbo shrugs to Lobelia. "It's probably locked anyway," he tries not to feel too disappointed. Back home he could always find a way in and out.

"Locked?" asks Lobelia. "Why'd it be locked?"

Bilbo gives her a strange look. It's a door.

"You don't make any sense," Lobelia decides and Bilbo rolls his eyes. Lobelia doesn't make any sense.

Yummy smellsrise out of the chimney, and Bilbo's stomach gurgles again. Lobelia's gurgles in concert with his. They exchange a look. Then a slow smile grew widely on Lobelia's face. "Chimney!" she shrieks, and claps a hand over her mouth with a loud smack.

Below, the chattering hobbits fall silent.

Bilbo pulls Lobelia flat against the roof and drags her behind the chimney. "What did you do that for?" he hisses. Lobelia squeaks that she's sorry. "We'd have gotten burnt anyway!"

Lobelia shakes her head vigorously. "Not the kitchen chimney," said Lobelia. "You always check a chimney before you down it, dummy. Now come on. I think someone's coming."

Doubtful of Lobelia's plan, but unable to deny the logic of escaping adults, Bilbo fallows Lobelia over the roof on elbows and knees. They crouch at the base of the next chimney. It rises high into the blue sky above, higher than Bilbo or Belladonna, and it is cold. It is square and made of brick, and because it is new no children have yet created smashed the bricks to create easy footholds. Lobelia examines it with thought.

"I'll have to stand on you," she decides, and Bilbo crouches down and lets Lobelia climb onto his back. She is much less heavy than Kee, but he still squirms in discomfort as she hefts herself up to the top of the chimney. "It's a bedroom chimney," she calls, thankfully quietly. "This'll be easy!"

She pulls Bilbo up onto the top of the chimney with a few false starts and they perch atop the chimney. Their feet dangle down into the tunnel and the shadow of the chimney is cast upon their skin. The shadows grow darker furthur down the tunnel until a light shines from the bottom. As Bilbo wonders how to get down the smooth inside, Lobelia goes first. She presses her hands and feet against opposite sides of the tunnel and walks herself down. Bilbo watches her go.

He takes in a deep breath.

He sticks a leg down into the tunnel, and then another so that his back half is fully in the tunnel. He knows the theory. Fee likes to climb up and down the doorways like this. Lobelia waves at him from the bottom fireplace.

"Get away!" Bilbo hisses. "I might fall."

"No you won't, I'll catch you!" Lobelia reassures him.

Bilbo swallows and nods at her, giving her a fleeting grin to show he's not scared which doesn't feel quite right on his face. He presses his feet into the wall and reaches out over the gap to press against the far wall. Lowering himself slowly, he adjusts his grip on the top of the chimney.

"That's right!"

Bilbo's arms and legs tremble. He looks down, the ground is dizzyingly far beneath him.

"C'mon!" Lobelia calls.

"I can't do this," Bilbo breathes, looking up at the lip of the chimney which, though below eye-height, is impossibly tall and far away. He releases one hand from the wall to snatch at the lip and crawl out, but as he does so, his feet stick fast to the wall.

He can do this. He places the hand lower. Then the other. Then each of his feet, and his body begins to spider itself down the shaft. Beneath him, Lobelia squeaks and there it a metalic rattle. Bilbo looks down, and sees that she is gone.

Sickness rises in his belly and looks up the shaft. It's even further to go up than to go down, but he doesn't want to fall. The drop is taller than he is. Bilbo presses hard against the wall.

"I'm stuck," he calls down.

Fee would laugh at him if he could see him. Bilbo's hand slides against the wall and it hurts. He would wipe at his eyes, but right now his limbs are so weak that if he moves them he's sure he'll fall. He bite his lip.

"Come on, or the grown-ups will notice!"

Bilbo takes in a deep breath. That's right, he can do this. Hand by hand, foot by foot, he clambers down the chimney and drops the last two feet. Pain shoots up his scratched as he lands in the soot and he winces.

Lobelia peeks at him from the doorway of the fireplace, a little black metal door in the side of the pit. She wiggles back and allows him room squeeze through. Bilbo squirms out of the fireplace and rolls onto the floor, staring up at ceiling and splaying his limbs in relief.

He grins at Lobelia, but the blooming smile on Lobelia's face freezes and her lips pop open in horror.

"What do we have here?" drawls a scolding voice.

Lobelia and Bilbo shoot to their feet, blinking their eyes innocently at the hobbit that stood in the doorway. His arms are crossed and his eyebrows are raised expectantly. The two sooty children look at eachother, Bilbo opens his mouth-

"No~thing, Daddy-" Lobelia sing-songs, curtseying cutely.

"Mm hmm. And who's your friend?" he continues.

"Ahh- what friend?"

"The creature standing beside you. Answer, or no desert."

Lobelia looks to Bilbo and grins sheepishly. Bilbo doesn't trust the smile. The hobbit that he just hid from adults with seems to be gone, and the one that dropped a chicken on him is back. His stomach flips in trepidation.

"His name's Bilbo. He's a dwarf."

"A dwarf?" Lobelia's Daddy asks sharply. He looks Bilbo up and down, a pinched look about his face. "Marki was right. Belladonna's child really is a dwarf. Lobelia! Get away from him."

Lobelia opens her mouth in indignation – "Well go on," Bilbo huffs, and it comes out a bit strangled, not at all strong how he'd like. He's sick of being reminded that he's a dwarf, and people saying it like it's something bad.

"Excuse me?" Lobelia's Daddy demands, and stomps over to Bilbo until he's looking down on him. Bilbo looks back at the fireplace, but Lobelia's Daddy kicks it shut with a bang. "Nobody is rude to my daughter. I don't care if you're a dwarf or an elf, you will not speak to my daughter like that."

"I didn't speak to her like anything!" Bilbo objects.

"You-"

"Howell, are you threatening my son?"

Belladonna burst onto the scene, and Howell stepped quickly away from Bilbo, putting a hand on his daughter's shoulder and drawing her to him possessively. Lobelia shrugs him away with a flounce and a huff.

"No I wasn't, Belladonna. Perhaps if you took a closer look at him you'd find that boy to be dwarf," the hobbit answers scathingly.

What's wrong with being a dwarf? Bilbo wonders, looking to Belladonna and fearing a response. This is his home, for now, he hasn't got another one and if they turn him out he doesn't know where he'll go.

"I shall find him to be Bilbo," Belladonna says with a feral grin. "I saw your wife speaking with Camelia Sackville by the gate. You might want to join her."

Howell's eyes flash with interest, but his words come out stiff. "Of course. Come along, Lobelia."

Lobelia meets Bilbo's eye, her gaze dragging towards him as her father steers her out of the room.

Bilbo is relieved to see him go, but with it being just him and Belladonna in the room he feels suddenly shy. All the words have dried on his tongue and the ease with which he spoke to Lobelia has completely vanished and he doesn't know where it has gone. He looks at the floor at titters quietly to himself.

It's odd, but he's said more words to Lobelia just now than he has to Belladonna since he met her.

"Bilbo," breathes Belladonna, getting down on one knee. "Now that that nasty man is gone, let's look at your hands."

Bilbo's hands are scratched up from the tunnel, and Belladonna cleans and bandages them with surprising carefulness. Bilbo watches her do this mutely. He winces when she stings him. She doesn't seem to expect him to say anything, and she gives him a warm smile when she's done.

"Thank you," Bilbo whispers daringly.

"That's what I'm here for. Now let's go and find your friend."

"But Lobelia's father-"

Belladonna's face stretches around another feral grin. "Mister Bracegirdle will have just found out that Camelia is already planning his daughter's wedding. I think they'll be busy for quite some time and that young Lobelia is already sick of them. What do you say we go and see?"

"Really?" asks Bilbo.

"Truly," answers Belladonna.

OCs this chapter:

Allie Welldeep: A neighbour of Belladonna and Bungo.
Laury Welldeep: Allie's daughter
Bruko: A reclusive hobbit on the edge of Hobbiton, and Allie's brother.
Howell Bracegirdle: Lobelia's father, lives in Hardbottle some many hours' travel from Hobbiton.

Lesser-known Canons this chapter:

Camelia Sackville-Baggins (Lobelia's canon mother-in-law)

I imagine you're familiar with the rest of them, but if not:
Belladonna Baggins nee Took: Bilbo's canon mother, wife of Bungo, Bilbo's adoptive mother, daughter of the Thain (an important and rich Hobbit)
Bungo Baggins: Bilbo's canon father, husband of Belladonna, Bilbo's adoptive father

There are others, of course, but since they weren't named directly I shan't name them here! :D

Thanks for reading!