'Mommy is dead! Mommy is dead!' Frodo is wailing through his tears. 'Someone killed Mommy!'

'Hey there, little guy,' Kili is cooing. 'Hey there. Your mommy isn't dead. She's just... very tired, and she needs to rest.'

Frodo's sobbing is so loud that Kili's efforts are futile, but instead of getting upset, Kili just smiles, crosses the room with a long, intent stride, sits, wraps his arms around the child and plops him down in his lap.

Fili is watching his brother with something torn between laughter and adoration in his eyes. 'I never knew you were so maternal,' he teases. Kili spares him a glare.

'You were an awful older brother.'

'An awesome one,' Fili corrects. 'It wasn't my fault you were a little softie. Still are,' he adds, in afterthought.

Frodo is sniffling and his sobs are dying down. He has tired himself out with his crying.

'There, there,' Kili murmurs, and pets Frodo's mass of curls. 'What's your name?'

'Frodo. What happened to mommy?'

'Your mommy is just resting, and she loves you very much.'

'What if she doesn't wake up?' And he begins to cry again.

Kili sighs. It's going to be a long night.

Gandalf slips into the room the exact moment Bofur begins to play his clarinet. He looks at Bofur oddly for a moment. 'You have brought a clarinet on a social call?'

Bofur takes his mouth off the clarinet long enough to defend himself: 'It comes in handy.'

It is coming in handy; Frodo, though clearly still upset, has almost managed to stop his crying altogether.

Gandalf shakes his head, bewildered, and turns to address the delirious child in Kili's lap. 'Frodo, your mother is doing just fine. She is just exhausted, that's all.' He reaches for Frodo's pudgy little hand. 'Come now, and we can feed Thorin, since your mother is not here to.'

Thorin is seated at the head of the table, where Bilbo was sitting not too long ago, just staring out into space.

Frodo bounds straight up to Thorin, bottle of Bilbo's best wine clutched in two hands. 'Hello, miss,' Frodo says, voice still weak with tears but expression brave and cheerful. 'Would you like wine?'

Thorin gives him a soft and startled glance, as if pitying a young servant, but her voice is gruff when she speaks. 'Yes.' She turns to Gandalf, who is standing to her left. 'She looked more like a bimbo than the charming Bilbo you were describing to me.'

Meanwhile, Frodo is struggling to his tiptoes to pour wine into Thorin's glass, but he is still too short. Any other child would have made a noise of frustration, but Frodo is patient.

'Thorin Oakenshield! I will have you know that she is quite charming at her best, and that she will be just what you need to charm Smaug into a confession.'

Finally, Frodo does the unthinkable, and mounts a chair so he is tall enough to pour wine into Thorin's glass, and still glaring at Gandalf she sips tentatively, as if though the wine were beneath her.

Bewilderment overtakes her face, then approval, before she blanks her expression carefully.

If Bilbo had seen, she would have smiled.

Bilbo wakes to a pair of blue eyes peering at her and arms wrapped around her neck.

'Frodo,' she manages through the neck-embrace. He doesn't hear her. 'Frodo!'

'Mommy!' Frodo tightens his grip until she gasps a little, and then he lets go, sheepishly.

'Bilbo,' she reminds him, gently, and gives him a hug much gentler than the one she just received. 'I'm not your mommy.'

'Bilbo,' Frodo repeats obediently, but Bilbo sighs. She knows Frodo will go back to calling her mommy when he is distressed again.

'What happened, Frodo? What made you so upset?'

'A scary woman was at the door and you fell asleep when you saw her,' he replies, earnestly.

'A scary woman,' Bilbo muses.

Thorin. Shit.

Maybe Mother was crazy. She was a Took, after all.

And so am I. I believed her, didn't I?

She was a pleasant looking woman, Bilbo recalls.

But she has been waiting all her life for Thorin Oakenshield. Thorin Oakenshield, who was smooth and blonde and suave. Or Thorin Oakenshield, gruff and dark skinned and all fire. Or Thorin Oakenshield, green eyed and quiet and nerdy.

Not Thorin Oakenshield, brunette and formal and... female.

Truthfully, all she wants to do is lie in bed and mourn her lost love, but Frodo is looking at her expectantly. They must still have guests.

'They're still here, aren't they, Frodo?'

He nods, face carefully neutral.

She sighs. 'Let's go, then.' Even though she does not yet know what to feel about the problem that is Thorin Oakenshield.

He walks behind her, as if to shield himself from the strangers, but he comes out of hiding when Kili croons, 'Frodo!'

Bilbo looks at Kili, bewildered, but he just grins. 'Your son is the most adorable little thing.'

She sits down in the chair next to Kili, now convinced that he might make a good ally, and pulls Frodo into her lap. Which she should probably stop doing. He's a growing boy, after all, and he can't sit in her lap forever.

'He's my nephew,' Bilbo corrects, 'but that doesn't mean he isn't my heart.'

Frodo beams at the reassurance. The brunette newcomer - Thorin Oakenshield, apparently, though Bilbo refuses to believe it - looks at Bilbo as if she has just noted her existence. She does not return the look.

Thorin speaks up, surprising everyone. 'Your nephew has very good manners. You have raised him well, Miss Baggins.'

Bilbo inclines her head graciously, still intently not looking at Thorin; Frodo is beaming so hard that all his happiness is pooling red in his cheeks. 'Thank you.' And Bilbo flashes the other woman her most charming smile, which she looks at just a single moment too long for propriety.

Gandalf smiles smugly to himself.

'When Thorin was raising us,' Kili pipes up, 'teachers told her all the time what a menace we were, and she would get so mad she would - ' He falls silent at Thorin's glare.

'Ah. Fili and Kili are your children, then?' she asks Thorin politely, her heart sinking in her chest like a stone.

'She's our aunt,' Fili supplies in lieu of the silent Thorin. 'She raised us, though, after...'

A strange hush falls over the table, and Gandalf clears his throat.

'Ah, yes. Bilbo, as lovely as it is to see you again, dear girl, we came here to speak to you about the Oakenshield fire.'

Bilbo thinks back to the celebrity fire on the news, the one that distressed Frodo so greatly. 'The one that happened today, twenty years ago? The kitchen fire?'

'It was no kitchen fire.' Thorin's voice is so sharp she could cut with it. 'It was arson.'

'And, dear Bilbo, that is where you come in. You have no affiliation to the Oakenshields that Thorin's enemies would know of, and you are charming and innocent enough that you could coax a confession from their leader. The Dragon, they call him.'

'You want me to seduce a criminal?'

Silence.

'Well, yes.'

Bilbo feels faint. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

And instead of exploding like everyone expects, she orders calmly, 'Tell me about what you want me to do.'

'Catch Smaug's eye.'

'And how do I do that?'

'Ingratiate yourself with New York City's elite. He is one of them.'

'And what might happen to me, if I were to be caught in an act of dishonesty?'

'Incineration,' the pleasant chap, Bofur, pipes up.

'Incineration?'

He nods fervently, oblivious to the atmosphere. 'Smaug will tie you up and light you on fire.'

Bilbo stares at Bofur for a long moment.

'Anything else?' Her voice is feeble.

'Or he might call his cronies in and chop you to pieces.'

Gandalf tries to divert Bilbo's attention. 'But you will get a fourteenth of Smaug's fortune.'

Bilbo scowls, still obviously worried. 'I'm not a prostitute, and I am not in need of money.'

'You can call yourself an escort, if you'd like.'

'Gloin!' Gandalf rebukes, but it's too late. Bilbo stands up and storms out of the room.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Hobbit.

Author's Note: So now you know what they want Bilbo to do~

Thorin is frosty towards Bilbo in the beginning, so I thought I'd keep that.

At this rate, I'm not sure this will ever evolve into the angsty fic I pictured. I think it's Frodo's corrupting influence.