Author's Note: So it's my birthday today and I thought now is as good a time as any to post this little project that I've been working on.
I know re-writing the Hobbit book/movies has been done... a lot, but this is my take on it and it's been helping me with coaxing my muse for 'The Most Precious of Treasure's' to cooperate with me. We're speaking again, so clearly writing this story is helping. And I've always wanted to write this fic anyway, so... here is the start. I hope you all enjoy.

I'll try and update on a regular bases, maybe once a week. I'll figure out which day will be update day with the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Hobbit. All characters, places and events mention in this fic belong Mister Tolkien, Peter Jackson, New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and WingNut Films.

Chapter 1

In a hole in the ground…

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit lass. A hobbit lass who had never been on any adventures or done anything unexpected. Her name was Billanna Baggins and on the morrow, she would be wedded.

The biggest adventure of any lasses life, she had been told by many a female relative as they fussed contently over the details of the wedding that she herself had little to no control over.

She had smiled and nodded politely in return as her poor papa had taught her to do whenever she struggled to hold back her wicked tongue and instead turned her head back to the book in her lap or to simply gaze forlornly out of the window.

The truth of the matter was, Billanna Baggins – known better to close family and friends as Bilbo and how she will be referred to in this story – had no wish to marry. Especially not to the fellow who had been chosen to be her husband.

Lotho Sackville-Baggins…

Bilbo pulled a face and looked up from the book she had in her lap and was barely reading to stare out at the view she had of Hobbiton from the bench outside of her Hobbit-hole. It was usually her favourite place to read, for her to sit and allow her mind to wander but now… she would give anything to be somewhere else, to be in one of the places her mother had described to her as a child, Rivendell or even Bree, if it meant she would be away from the Shire and not married the next day.

You made your bed, Billanna Baggins, she could hear her cranky paternal grandmother chide; now you must lie in it, for better or worse.

Worse, she thought grimly, marrying Lotho is certainly for the worst.

But there was nothing to be done now, the preparations for the wedding had been completed, invitation sent – more than half the Shire was coming! – and the Sackville-Baggins' had all but tried to move into her nice Hobbit-hole. She had fought them on that; it was the only thing she had fought for in this whole debacle.

Until the day she became Lotho's wife, she had argued, Bag End would be hers and hers alone. Hers and her ailing father's.

And this was her final day of enjoying her home all to herself. She had asked all of her relatives to let her have this day, this last day to herself, to be alone with her home and her father, who was sleeping soundly in his favourite armchair by the fire place, with his mind being at peace and not leaving him for periods of time.

She would enjoy this last day of peace, this final day that every action she made was an action that was of her own decision and her every move was not being dictated by Lotho or his loathsome mother.

She shuddered at the thought and turned back to her book, running her finger lovingly over the familiar script. It was a book her mother had read to her as a child and if nothing else came out of this loveless marriage, she hoped the children she bore Lotho would share her love of books and the written word, so that she might share with them the same joy she had had with her mother.

But the book that had once given her so much comfort, gave her none now and with a sigh she set it heavily down on the bench beside her.

She ran her hand lightly upon its cover for a moment or two before she turned her attention once more to the view that had been her whole world for almost forty years.

"Good morning." The words left her lips without prompting, a habit drummed into her from early childhood, a habit that came forth in response to the surprise she felt in that moment.

For there in front of her, standing just outside her front gate, was a tall old man holding a long staff of twisted wood. He was dressed all in grey, from his tall hat on top of his head to the bottom of his mud stained robes. A long silver scarf hung loosely around his neck and his thick grey beard fell mid-way down his chest.

"What do you mean?" The old man asked, looking down his long crocked nose at her, "Do you wish me a good morning, or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or, perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning. Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?"

"I…" Bilbo stared up at the old man in confusion and bewilderment, "I was… just being polite."

The old man raised an eyebrow down at her causing her to shift uncomfortably upon her bench.

"Can I help you?" She asked after a long and uncomfortable pause of the big person simply staring at her. They didn't get many big folk around the Shire and certainly not in Hobbiton, but there was something about the old man that was familiar to her that kept her from beating a hasty retreat into her home, locking her front door tightly behind her.

"That remains to be seen." The old man replied, still eyeing her up and down as if he was looking for something in particular and seemed to be growing more aggravated by the second when he wasn't finding it. "I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure."

Bilbo's heart immediately leapt at the word 'adventure'. It was as if some greater power had heard her heart's plea for escape and freedom.

No, no you can't, Her Baggins side hissed furiously as her Took side stirred slowly from a deep slumber from which it had remain dormant at the back of her mind for years, you have responsibilities! To Papa and the rest of family! You are Baggins!

You are also a Took, a whisper that sounded very much like her mother breathed from the depths of her mind but she forced herself to brush it away. Her Baggins side was right, she couldn't… she just couldn't.

"An adventure?" She swallowed down the burning longing that had built in her chest at the word, "Now, I don't imagine anyone west of Bree would have much interest in adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things."

Baggins words, her Took side jeered, fully awake now and stirring impatiently about in her chest. Oh no, wait, Sackville-Baggins words.

"Make you late for dinner." Those at least were her father's words but they had always been spoken to her mother in jest, before she fell ill and the mind sickness stole his mind.

She shook herself and forced herself to her feet, picking up her book as she did so and made to go back into the safety of her Hobbit-hole.

"Good morning," She said politely back to the strange old man, before turning to head back inside.

"To think," the old man barked out in outrage, "that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took's daughter, as if I were selling buttons at the door."

"I – beg your pardon?" She spun back on her heels to stare at the strange man, her mouth dry and eyes wide. Her mother? How did this strange old man know her mama's name?

"You've changed, and not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins." And he knew her name as well!

"I'm sorry… do I know you?" She tried to remember the stories her mother told her, of the people she had met on her adventures, but she had been caught so off guard by the wizard old man that no names came to the forefront of her mind.

"Well, you know my name, although you don't remember I belong to it. I am Gandalf! And Gandalf means… me."

Bilbo gapped at the man, the wizard, her mother's oldest and dearest friend, whom she had spoken of, even to her dying day, with a wide smile and bright eyes.

One of these days, my darling girl, her mother had said to her on her deathbed, Gandalf will come for you too and he will show you the world that lives outside of your books. You just have to be brave enough to follow.

"Gandalf," She mumbled the name that had been a part of every single one of her childhood games of make-believe. The name she had sobbed, asking for help when her mother was dying and her father was sinking into himself, withdrawing from the world, from his own daughter. The name she had screamed out in anger after her mother's funeral, when she had run off, to escape the well-meaning but pitying looks sent her way as she stood alone by her mother's grave because her father was lost within his own head and unable to leave his bed. Gandalf whom she had waited all her life to come, was finally here and on the day right before her wedding.

The rage that had burned within her after her mother's funeral was newly lit and it was taking all of her self-control not to throw herself at him, screaming, demanding to know why, why had he come now and not when her mother was dying and asking for him? Why had he not come before she became trapped by her world of needing to look after a mentally ill father and take care of her family lands while all around her she had people saying she could not, not on her own, not without a husband! That she should be married and taking care of babies, not looking over lands and managing finances. Where was he before all this happened to her?

"Why are you here?" She asked quietly, staring at the wizard who was watching her even more closely now as if he knew the fury that burned within her and that she was fighting for control.

"As I told you, I am looking for someone to share an adventure with."

"Well, you'll need to find someone else because that person cannot be me!" Bilbo retorted acidly, crossing her arms firmly against her chest.

"And why, Bilbo Baggins is that?"

"Because I'm getting married tomorrow!" the words tore from her body as a scream, filled with bitterness and revulsion.

That seemed to the catch the wizard off guard. He leant heavily upon his stick as he survey her heavy breathing and trembling hands.

"And this has made you angry."

She simply scowled at him, hating him almost as much as she did when she had been just twenty-nine and her mother was freshly buried under cold winter soil.

"Well that's decided." The wizard's declaration dragged her from her thoughts and she simply blinked at him dumbly as he drew himself to his full height once more, "It will be very good for you, and most amusing for me. I shall inform the others."

"I'm sorry, what? Inform who?" She stood for a moment staring at the wizard stupidly before she started to blink rapidly, shaking her head, "No. no. No! Wait! We do not want any adventures here, thank you. Not today… or any day after! I suggest you try over the Hill or across the Water." She started running up her steps for her front door. She was just in her front door before she turned around to stare at the wizard once more who was watching her as intently as ever.

"Good morning!" She snapped as she slammed her front door closed, shutting out his furiously calm and thoughtful face from her sight. But doing so did not stop him from remaining at the forefront of her thoughts.

"No," She whispered, her fingers creeping up to wrap around the wedding ring hanging from a black cord around her neck, welcoming the comfort it offered her, "I can't… it's too late, far too late."

She jumped at the sound of scratching at her door. It didn't sound like one of the local cats she sometimes left warm milk out for in the evenings. There was an odd pattern to the scratches that she could not make heads or tails of.

Frowning she moved to the one of the two small round window built on either side of her front door, only to leap backwards when a huge blue eye peered back at her from the other side of the glass.

Gasping, hand pressed firmly over her racing heart, she back quickly away, hiding down the corridor leading to her front parlour.

"Billanna?"

She twisted her head around, a small sad smile gracing her lips as she stared at her dear papa, who was pulling himself weakly from slumber, blinking up at her tired, glazed eyes.

"Yes, Papa, I'm here." She moved swiftly to his side, seating her book down upon the table overflowing with her mother's old books and maps. "I'm here. All is well."

"Oh… my darling girl. I had-I had such an awful dream… you were gone and I-I was alone, all alone."

"Oh Papa," She laughed sadly, "What a silly dream. I am here, as I have always been and as I always will be. You will never be alone. I promise."

Her father reached out touched her cheek, his cloudy eyes roaming over her features.

"You are so like your mother and yet…" he whispered looking pained, "I fear there is too much of me in you as well. My side is stifling your mother's and…" his face twisted and a tear rolled down his cheek.

"Papa, no, hush now." She pressed her hand against his on her cheek, "All is well, I am the perfect balance of both Mama and you," She smiled at him, hoping that her words would reassure him and he would smile back and return to a state of contentment. Only…

"You are not happy." He whispered and she blinked, a small gasp escaping her. "You-you are so unhappy, and I have-I have made it so." His head fell forward; his chin lightly thumbing against his chest and with that, he was asleep again.

Bilbo sat back on her heals, eyes closing briefly as she fought back a small sob sitting in the middle of her chest.

Yes, she was unhappy, but he was not meant to know! He, least of all, was not to know the depth of her unhappiness. Everything she was doing was to make him happy and feel secure! That was why she was marrying Lotho, to secure her father's mind that all was well and so he could be happy. But if he knew that she was not happy, then he would worry and…

She squeezed her eyes more firmly shut at the thought.

Her father's already unstable mind only grew more troubled and lost whenever he became too worried or upset over something. Days could be spent with him being in a near comatose state and she… she could not deal with having him like that, not with her wedding tomorrow. Maybe it was wrong and it made her a terrible daughter, but today she wished to focus solely upon her own unhappiness and pain, for tomorrow would be spent hiding behind a polite, well-trained smile and flowery words.

She felt sick to her gut simply thinking about it.

You could have agreed to Gandalf's adventure; her Took side reminded her softly, instead of worrying yourself sick over the idea of marrying Lotho and fretting over Papa's state of mind.

"Going on adventure would solve nothing; it would simply be running away. And it would cause Papa grief for me to leave without a word." She whispered to the silence of her home. "I am not meant for adventures. I am not like Mama!"

Her words sounded a hallow as they felt but she refused to take them back and instead they drifted in an empty Hobbit-hole, only adding to years of pain and sadness that coated every wall for the last decade. Nothing would change, everything would remain the same.

Even when the Sackville-Baggins moved into her home in the coming days, their arrival would not remove the sadness that painted every surface, would not return the happiness that was lost.

Her home no longer gave her joy.