Forgotten Days

Summary: Bilbo asked Frodo to take his notes, his books, and his diary back with him to Hobbiton, on the last leg of the return journey from Rivendell. Among Bilbo's writings Frodo found answers. And back home in Bag End he found someone waiting to hear them. Sequel to Small Beginnings.

A/N: Last piece in this trilogy of mine I set out to write some months ago. The first in the series was Kindred Horizons, second Small Beginnings. Forgotten Days is inspired by the latter chapters of Return of the King. For the record, this arc has been about friendship between Thorin and Bilbo and that continues with this final installment of the series. So everything here is meant to be platonic in nature. I just really wanted to explore the nature of friendship in one of the deepest ways possible and, I may be putting my foot in it here but, perhaps also what Tolkien may have meant when he spoke of great friendships as well.

Warnings: Pretty tame? Which might be a first. Supernatural creepiness maybe.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I make no profit from this. All are sole property of the Tolkien estate, the original creator J.R.R. Tolkien, and Christopher Tolkien.

He looked at me, then. And that was the first time I saw something so extraordinarily simple in him. And I don't mean simple in a mundane sort of way, but more so I suppose along the lines of truth in folk, the things that make people who they are. And beneath all the gruff, brooding, royal aloofness in the King we all assumed he wanted to be, I saw something much much different. There's something to be said of seeing someone so naked before you, so vulnerable. It comes back to me now that I realize it was no accident.

Sharp high-pitched whistling sent Frodo from Bilbo's study to the kitchen in a hurry. He took the kettle from the fireplace and poured the hot water into the waiting pot with practiced ease. Strong wafts of Earl Grey greeted his nose before he replaced the lid to let the tea properly steep. He thought about calling Sam in from the garden, but decided to first take a moment for himself. He needed a little fresh air to clear his head.

Frodo walked through the kitchen to the adjoining sitting room and opened the garden window. Leaning out onto the sill, he felt the bright afternoon sun come down on his dark curls of hair, warming his head and banishing the chill of the indoor shade. He reveled in the light and closed his eyes for just a moment, taking in the familiar smells of Bag End's large and bountiful gardens.

He had gone a full year without this.

He had dreamed about this when he and Sam were in dark places, often with little hope of finding a way out.

And he had almost lost this a second time, not to dreams, but to the real thing.

Evidence of the scourge were still visible to the older hobbits, but odds were the children wouldn't be able to notice the difference without their parents reminding them. Hobbits are a resilient race, as Gandalf continues to remind him. And children, Frodo had come to realize, were little miracles in disguise.

A group of them ran by Bag End, screeching and laughing and chasing each other with an older woman waving a broom in tow. It brought a smile to his face, even as the woman straightened the cap on her head and huffed, before turning around and finding someone watching. With a blush she inclined her head, to which Frodo returned a friendly wave (and hiding a smile of his own), and she was off back in the direction she'd come from, stomping only in her first few steps back home.

Change was inevitable, yes, but Frodo was happy that some things were just too stubborn to.

Frodo looked left, then right, and spied Sam at the other end washing his hands free of dirt. Eventually he looked up and spied Frodo at the window. Frodo waved him inside and Sam nodded in understanding. It wasn't long before Sam came in the door, smelling of the garden, but clean enough to Bilbo's old standards of having afternoon tea. There were far too many times to count that they both came in trailing with weeds or dripping in mud, but the two youngsters eventually learned after continued efforts of cleanliness on Bilbo's part.

"Can't have you two looking or smelling like dwarves of all things," Bilbo used to say. "Dear me, no. I've had enough of that for a lifetime and then another!"

As Frodo and Sam sat in the kitchen, tea and biscuits and muffins and fresh fruit between them, memories of the years Bilbo spent looking at old maps, sitting up late into the night, and humming to strange songs during the day took on a whole new meaning. When Frodo was much younger he thought remembering the quest to Erebor was painful for Bilbo. It was out of respect and that he never mentioned things like dragons, or dwarves, and especially not treasure. But as he grew older he doubted that it all stemmed from sadness and longing. Longing, yes, but the sadness came from something much deeper.

It only scratched the surface of the things Bilbo never spoke about. And the proof Frodo finally had was sitting in the study, left idly open and leaving him with a strange sense of intrusion. So deep in his own thoughts, Frodo hadn't noticed that Sam had been trying to get his attention for the past few minutes. "Find anything interesting," he asked.

Frodo sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't really know where to begin, Sam. There's so much neither of us knew about."

Sam frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think I've ever heard, or read, Bilbo speak so highly of someone before. Except for Gandalf, of course. I thought there were only a few sparse side notes, but as it turns out there's practically a whole other book!"

"Aside from the Red Book you mean?"

"Yes, but I don't think Bilbo ever intended for anyone to read this."

"But he told you to take everything before we left Rivendell, didn't he?"

Frodo pushed his plate away, the half-eaten blueberry muffin staring at him as if there were something wrong with him. "He did, but he's gotten forgetful of a great many things over the last year. You remember how he was."

"I do, but I don't right blame him for falling asleep so often. Eleventy-one going on eleventy-two's right old for a hobbit! And a very respectable age of course too."

"Very," Frodo said with a fond smile. "And neither do I blame him. I feel as if I ought to bring it back to him if he should miss it, or just lock it away and never lay eyes on it again."

Sam put down his empty cup of tea and declined the offer for another. "Is it terribly private?"

"In a way. They're things Bilbo didn't put in the Red Book and I can't help but think he omitted them for good reasons. I haven't read them all, but I wonder if I ought to continue from where I left off. They're just…personal. In a way people just don't write about."

"I think," Sam said after a long moment's silence. "He meant for you to have it, along with the other notes and books. He gave you his diary too and I'd think there'd be more personal things in there than this yellow book you've come across. And Mr. Bilbo was a little forgetful, but I don't think he was when he told you to take his things. If anything, he sounded like he used to when we were children. Sharp as the edge of that sword he's got, my Gaffer used to say."

"You don't think it was an oversight, Sam?"

Sam shook his head. "Begging your pardon, but I don't."

"It's all right, Sam. This is just between us after all. And I don't know where I would be without your honesty so I have to beg your pardon by telling you to stop apologizing for it all the time."

"Force of habit," he said with a shrug. "What do you reckon you'll do with it?"

"I'm not really sure," Frodo admitted, pouring himself another cup. As he raised it to his lips he got a strange prickling feeling on the tips of his ears. He frowned and tilted his head. It was quiet, almost barely noticeable, but it was slowly and steadily growing in volume. Faint chills started building between his shoulders and he had to fight hard to keep from spilling tea all over himself. Tremors traveled from limb to limb, paralyzed his tongue, his voice, his lungs.

Singing.

Low singing.

Like a voice coming out of the depths of a deep dark cavern coming to meet him and drag him down-

Sam settled a hand over Frodo's to keep the teacup steady, but Frodo gasped and jumped in surprise, spilling the hot tea over them both, but mostly over Sam's unfortunate hands. Sam hissed and flinched away. Frodo dropped the cup in surprise. It cracked and some of it may have broken, but he paid it no mind.

"Sam," Frodo exclaimed. "I'm so sorry-"

"It's fine-"

"No, come here."

Frodo reached around the table, grabbed Sam by the shoulders, and pulled him in front of the sink. The water from the faucet was cold, but not frigid. Under the steady stream of water Sam's hands turned red, but not an angry red that would have meant a serious burn.

"Do they hurt?"

Sam shook his head. "No, it's fine."

"Stay right there." Frodo headed to the bathroom closet despite Sam's protests and set about searching for the pain soothing cream Bilbo used to keep for burns such as this. The first time Frodo had tried to make tea for his sick uncle he'd been stupid enough to forget a potholder. Needless to say his uncle wasn't happy when he found out, which wasn't long after the incident happened, but since then Bilbo had been rather religious at keeping his medicine closet stocked.

Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin for that matter as well, had taken to Bilbo's advice on adventures rather more literally than he must have thought they would have. And sometimes they put that medicine closet to good use and in creative ways that definitely put some gray hairs on Bilbo's head. But confound it all, the closet was stocked and here Frodo was mucking about like he'd never seen it in his life. There were places for everything and for some reason every item seemed out of place to him.

"You all right," Sam asked from the doorway.

"It's in here somewhere, I know it is," Frodo said to himself.

"Mr. Frodo, look. It's fine, see?"

Frodo tore his eyes away from the closet and looked as Sam bid. Wrapped around the worst of the redness was a cool cloth, soaked from the sink. The skin was already turning pink and wasn't blistering when Sam gave him a better look. Frodo had half a mind to keep looking for the cream, but something in him deflated and the panic from earlier fled. "You need to put something on that," Frodo said, still reluctant to give up the search.

"I'm fine. Doesn't even hurt anymore, just tingles."

Frodo gave him a look and reluctantly closed the closet door. "Sam," Frodo began.

"It was an accident," Sam interrupted. "No blame to be spread in accidents, right?"

Frodo agreed with Sam to pacify him, but something continued to plague the back of his mind. There was a familiarity that had woken up in the recent weeks, something at the root of every strange incident just like this one. All in some manner unsettled him and stayed with him long afterwards. He sought the light more often and kept to it even after night fell and he had fallen asleep. All hours of the day and night he kept a fire blazing bright, and fighting down irrational fear whenever it burned down too low.

Light helped.

Light kept the darkness at bay.

And yet, deep down, Frodo knew what it was.

Perhaps a part of him had realized long ago that he couldn't run from it as he had so often tried when he was a child. But he was more willing to attribute his sudden acceptance of it to everything he and Sam had gone through with the fellowship and nearly all of Middle-Earth over the past year. Being under shadow for so long and coming back into a greater light couldn't provide him the necessary armor with which to confront it again. And nor could it erase every scar. Perhaps he had foolishly hoped it could have, that seeking the company of the elves would keep the calling at bay.

And it had for a time.

Long enough for him to understand his fear.

Just long enough for him to learn that he had a heavy responsibility.

To someone he had met before.

A long time ago.

As the sun was setting, Frodo walked Sam to the gate at the front of Bag End. He had grabbed his coat on the way out, unable to rid himself of the chill from inside. The heat from the late summer day still hung about closely, high humidity promising rain either during the night or perhaps in the coming days. He was just telling Sam to apologize to Rosie for him for making a mess of Sam's hands when he felt it again.

The feeling.

He trailed off and looked to the window at the feeling of eyes on him. Somewhat disappointingly, there was nothing there. But he found it difficult to pull his eyes away, because the feeling only strengthened the longer he looked. He wanted to turn away. He didn't want to see what he might see if he didn't stop looking. He shivered and pulled the sides of his coat closer about him, and for the third time that day Sam was bringing him back from where his mind had gotten lost.

This time, Sam didn't bother hiding his concern. "Mr. Frodo? What's wrong?"

Frodo shook his head, and tried to shake the feeling off as well. "Nothing."

"You're shivering."

"Just a chill, Sam."

"It's the middle of summer and the evening's still hot. Are you…Why do you keep looking up at the window?"

"It's nothing, really," he said, the excuses sounding weak to his own ears. "Go on home to Rosie and Eleanor. They'll be waiting for you by now."

Sam hesitated and looked away. He bit his lip and paused, then turned back with determination in his eyes. "You told me not to apologize for being honest."

Frodo, half expecting this confrontation but willing to listen anyway, nodded. "I did."

"Something's been weighing on you. You keep looking over your shoulder like you expect someone to be there. You get chills just like you did now like you're sick or something. And you've got bags under your eyes like you're not sleeping. It's not anywhere near October for that old wound to be aching and I'd know that's not it even if you told me so."

Frodo knew he couldn't keep this from Sam anymore. He kept it secret when they were children, but lying back then was easier, not now when your closest friend went to hell and back with you. And in addition to that, there was a part of him that didn't want to keep quiet about it any longer. He'd learned through terrible example from his uncle that some secrets ought not to be kept for so long.

"You're right," Frodo sighed. "But this is an old enemy. Even older than the Ring."

Sam looked at him with sharp eyes. "Are you sick, Mr. Frodo?"

Frodo smiled, warmed a little at the fierce protectiveness in his friend. "No, Sam. It's nothing harmful, I promise. Not anymore. I didn't understand it at first, but now I think I do. Do you remember what Bilbo used to tell us when we were young? How secrets in the night couldn't walk around with masks on because they couldn't see? One's come to meet me, I think. You should go home to your family."

Sam grabbed Frodo's hand on top of the fence when Frodo was just about to turn and leave. "Why don't you come with me? Rosie's been asking after you all week, saying you should come over for dinner more often. And Ellie's been wanting more elvish stories."

"I'm almost finished translating the last few Bilbo never got to. Perhaps if I can get through them tonight I might be able to tell her some more tomorrow."

"It's not elvish stories we were talking about, was it?"

Frodo shook his head. "Trust me, Sam. I'll be fine. Go home and come back in the morning. I'll tell you everything if it all goes well."

Sam gave Frodo a funny look. "If what goes well?"

"Eight o'clock?"

It took a good deal of thinking for Sam to finally give in and though he didn't look happy about it Frodo breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "Eight o'clock, sharp like usual."

Frodo wasn't sure whether he should feel guilty or not for not being honest with Sam, but tomorrow would be a new day. Maybe he would tell him. But what if he couldn't? Doubt and hesitation came so easily to him nowadays that he felt them starting to change who he was. He remembered being more open before, more believing of folk and friends, more trusting. It was a scar he liked to ignore, to pretend he never knew the origin of, but the last person Frodo could ever lie to was himself.

The ring had done much damage. Most wounds had healed. Some still ached. But all had scarred over. Some were uglier than others. Some a mere memory, so faint you could hardly tell it was there at all.

"I'll be waiting," Frodo answered.

He watched Sam disappear down the road and turned back with a little trepidation towards the front door that stood ajar. The sun had already gone down past the horizon. Night was coming, and with it Frodo was expecting something else.

The covers of the bed were still made, not turned down to welcome its master for a night of rest. The hearth in the bedroom was cold, and the grate empty of fresh wood. The only fire that burned in Bag End was in the front sitting room. Beside it, in Bilbo's favorite chair, was Frodo. In his hands was the yellow book. He had thought of opening it to pass the time, but instead he laid it aside on the side table and sat back.

All right, he thought to himself. I'm listening…

He waited.

And waited.

For that was what you did for things like this. You asked, and then you waited. He waited a very long time, deep into the night with the fire still burning. He fell asleep waiting, into the land of dreamless unrest.

And he woke much later, when the fire had burned down low, when the room was almost enshrouded in darkness. He thought his eyes were still adjusting to the dark and that the calm of sleep still weighed heavy on him. But as his mind cleared he realized he was wrong. The pressure in his chest, squeezing at his heart like a slow vice, was familiar. And the darkness his eyes had to adjust to was a deep shadow, standing in front of the mantle, feet away from him.

"Where…"

The whisper hit him like cold water. His heart began to pound and instinctively he pressed himself back against the chair. He closed his eyes, unwilling to look, the old fear from his childhood taking hold. But some part of him was still brave enough to listen.

"Where…is Bilbo Baggins?"

Frodo took a deep breath, determination still within arm's reach. Now was the time. He had already made this decision. He only hoped he would be strong enough to follow through with it. "He…he is not here, my lord," he replied, sounding calmer than he felt. "He is in Rivendell, under the care of the elves."

"Elves," it growled. "What ails him so that he seeks out the company of elves?"

"Old age, far too old for a hobbit some would say."

"Not I," the spirit whispered fondly.

Frodo felt some of the tension leave him. He didn't expect to hear such warmth. It gave him a little more courage to open his eyes. The shadow was still there, but Frodo didn't dare look up from the floor. Instead he fixed his eyes to the dying embers in the fireplace and concentrated on keeping the fear at bay. He opened his mouth to speak again, but was interrupted.

"It lingers here still," the spirit continued. "In a hobbit I do not know."

"Do you not recognize me, my king?"

"I was not your king, boy," came the terse reply.

Frodo gripped the arm of the chair and forced himself to keep his eyes open. "No," he admitted. "Only in stories. Told to me by Bilbo Baggins. When I was a child."

Silence filled the air between them, until the soft response from the spirit came with the sound of returning memory. "His child."

Bilbo often called him such, but never explicitly. Frodo never lacked for any comfort with his uncle. It was a very hobbit thing for him to do, but Frodo knew Bilbo had another motive, something more along the lines of a would-be parent. And yet, it went unsaid for so many years that Frodo was afraid of saying it out loud, even to this very day.

"…nephew," Frodo corrected in a whisper.

The dying fire flared up for a moment before dying back down, as if a draft of wind blew down from the chimney. "Blood is blood," the spirit said. "My nephews were sons to me. They have long since departed this earth…and left me to my hell."

A wave of intense sadness washed over Frodo where he sat and he had a hard time blinking back the tears. He could feel the spirit of the king begin to fade, fall back into the darkness of despair that clouded hearing and sense. Normally Frodo wouldn't have been so bold, but a desperation took hold of his tongue. "A long time ago," he said. "A hobbit dared to call you friend. He seemed to think it was more proper than titles of royalty. It went unsaid but I believe he did so at your bidding."

The spirit grunted. "That he did. You say…you say Bilbo Baggins suffers from age, but I would have you tell me if he is finally free of the black object."

Frodo felt eyes on him, sharp and glistening in the dark like a knife. Part of him was afraid, and another part hardened as dark memories of fire and pain came flooding back. "If you mean the One Ring," he answered. "Then yes. All of Middle-Earth is."

"It is destroyed?"

"I took it into Mordor myself. I would not have made it alone, not without Sam, but rest assured the task is done. He is finally free of it, though not unmarred by its weight upon him for so long."

"You took upon yourself a great burden, halfling," the spirit said, with a softer voice.

Frodo shook his head. "It needed to be done."

"That it did. I would have taken the cursed thing to the mountain myself…though I fear it would have undone me worse than the gold-lust of Erebor did."

The embers of the fire flared again under the simmering anger of the dwarf king, stronger and higher than before. Frodo frowned, not entirely understanding what the king meant. He spoke as if he had been aware of the Ring for a long time. As far as Bilbo had told him, the Ring had been his little secret, that no one of the company even knew of its existence until Gandalf came looking. And by then most of the company had already passed on.

"It would have undone any man, dwarf, or elf," Frodo said, sitting up a little straighter. "Or even a wizard. It felled Gandalf the Grey. And it nearly did so to me near the end."

"Gandalf has always had faith in the resilience of little folk."

Frodo offered an empty smile, nothing beyond what he'd been accustomed to nowadays. "Even when we don't sometimes have much in ourselves."

The shadow left the mantle by the fireplace. It took Frodo by surprise, but he relaxed when he saw the shadow stop by the table covered in old maps. "Bilbo's words were not so different from yours once. If there is one quality in hobbits I would eradicate, it would be your ease for self-doubt."

With the focus taken away from him, Frodo raised his eyes to the shadow. The shape was unchanged from when he first saw the king, when he was still a scared little boy and told himself it was nothing more than a dream he woke to in the night. The only memory he took away from that night were the ice-blue eyes. He thought he had seen the king's face once, but now the memory was so faded he could recall nothing but empty space, a missing void. The spirit turned back to face Frodo and the hobbit dropped his gaze, fearing his eyes were felt looking for too much.

"How is it," the king asked. "That your eyes track the dead and your ears hear my words? Speaking with the dead has long been considered a thing of black magic."

"I speak and see if someone comes to me," Frodo began. "I conjure nothing and nor would I know how if I had ever wanted to. But I never did. It is something I never wanted or understood. Hobbits have an old wives tale about the dead. It's of the kind they never tell children, nor even to each other without good ale and the comforts of a warm fire. Some in the old days used to say children could see the dead walking by day, mistaking them for the living until older hobbits told them it was their imaginations running free with them. No one ever told me such things because I never spoke about them."

The shadow came closer, and the skin on Frodo's arm tingled as gooseflesh crept up his arm and down his back. The air seemed to get a little colder and the light fell down low again. It stopped in front of him, but Frodo didn't look up. It was all he could do to keep from jumping out of his seat and running down the hallway to lock himself in his bedroom.

"You need not fear me, young one," the king said, sounding sad, and even a little bitter. "There is little the dead can do to the living. You say the hobbit I search for is no longer here."

Frodo shook his head. "No, my lord. He is not. But I believe that, with all his heart, he would want you with him."

Silence filled the room between them.

The clock on the wall across the room ticked softly.

And the spirit of the dwarf king remained.

Frodo had said what he had set out to say, what he thought needed to be said and heard. And he had been heard. So why did the spirit linger? What was keeping him here? Frodo glanced over to the yellow book on the side table and frowned in thought. Perhaps there was another reason, a deeper reason why. But how was he to know what that was? How could he ever hope to know? He wished his uncle were here. Bilbo would have known what to say. He wouldn't have been fumbling around in the dark like Frodo felt he was.

A small longing bloomed in his chest like a patch of clover. It grew from within him until it reached his lips and started forming simple words of empathy. "He has missed you, Thorin Oakenshield."

A chill danced across Frodo's skin in response, and the air in the room seemed to thicken as the spirit left him to return to the mantle.

"That name," the spirit whispered. "That name bears nothing but agony and misery."

Frodo frowned. "It was your name once, and I don't believe that was all it bore. My uncle told me it bore honor. Bravery. Loyalty. And heart."

The sharpness in the king's eyes returned, and with new warning. "You know only what you've been told, not the truth."

It felt a bit odd to feel anger rise up in him, but Frodo embraced it, for how could such a revered friend of Bilbo's have so easily doubted his words? "Then if I am ignorant, tell me yourself if you don't believe him."

The room grew colder still, cold enough to turn breath visible, but Frodo didn't give in to the urge to shiver.

"My words may come from bygone days," the king said. "But they ring true now in my spirit as they once beat in my heart. I believed I had known the depth of true friendship and all its caverns. Not once did I stop to consider there may have been more to know. And in my little understanding, I made harsh judgments and wronged many, not the least of which was someone who deserved all the gold that glittered and blinded my eyes."

The shadow began to pace, its features dancing back and forth between clarity and obscurity.

"For in his possession," the king continued. "It would not have mislaid his judgment. It did not. Even when the most treasured jewel was his to call his own, Bilbo Baggins did as wise as any wizard would have. Scorning him was my undoing, and it will weigh heavy on my soul for the rest of eternity. Greed is the poison of my people. And I proved no different. I knew my wrongs before the end, but I did not see them. I did not fully understand until I saw."

"What did you see, my lord?"

The spirit of the king turned to face him and when Frodo looked he realized how foolish he had been. His own fear had blinded him to how open the spirit had been, how open and naked as he was now. Under the scrutiny of the living, the king didn't flinch, he didn't rail as some spirits did. He was as composed as he was in ruins, and the sight pulled at Frodo in a way that felt so tragic and fragile.

"I have been a prisoner here for many years, Frodo Baggins," the spirit lamented. "And I have seen all."

All?

Frodo gasped.

All.

"You saw what the Ring did to him," Frodo whispered.

"Aye," came the broken reply. "My well-chosen punishment."

Well-chosen? Pity rose up in Frodo like a bursting well. "No," Frodo found himself saying. "I do not think your presence here is a punishment, my lord. I don't. I cannot believe our makers are so cruel."

A low rumbling echoed in Frodo's ears, telling him immediately that despite the truth in his words he had spoken poorly.

"Then why," the king hissed, hunching in on himself and crouching by the angry flames in the fireplace. "Why? Why do I linger in this place?"

"Why do I linger? Why do I linger? Why do I linger here," was the monotonous mantra Frodo was forced to listen to. It went on for a long time, the shadow shifting and rocking back and forth in front of the low flames. Comforting himself and deaf to all else.

Praying, Frodo realized.

And yet the inflection of the king's tone changed the longer he went on.

It went beyond beseeching.

It was almost like begging.

"Lost! Lost," Gollum moaned. "Lost-We're looosst!" (1)

Something snapped in him, and suddenly Frodo found himself on the floor with the shadow. The air was frigid and hard to breathe, and a dull headache started to throb between his eyes. The spirit was not unaware of Frodo, but something on the back of the hobbit's neck pricked sharply, like he was being warned.

"Now you listen to me," Frodo started. "This is no hell of yours-it only is if you make it so and you have made it so for far too long. You have no chains, nothing binds you to this place. It is under your own power you remain here…you can leave."

"Leave…"

The rumbling in Frodo's ears grew louder.

"Leave," the shadow growled before turning on him. "I have not been answered."

Frodo scurried back across the floor, pursued by the shadow, until he fell into the side-table, knocking it over with a loud crash. Dark arms trapped either way of escape and Frodo found himself shaking in terror, even with his eyes clenched shut.

"Why," the shadow railed. "Why is every waking moment in this afterlife a torture to me? Why am I forced to watch and not act when the dearest one I once had by my side suffers the same devouring pain of self, when eyes turn dark to reason, when hands grow their own mind, when souls turn to the dust their corporeal treasures do under the cruelty of time? This is no mercy! If my presence here is not a punishment then tell me WHY I LINGER!"

Frodo flinched at the relentless waves of rage that were bearing down on him. Somewhere a small part of him knew it was unintentional, but he could barely think when the air around him seemed too cold to breathe. The fear was almost immobilizing, and on instinct his mind went to another place, the same place he had gone to in the darkest of hours to keep from losing himself.

"We make quite the pair, don't we," Bilbo had asked him, when Frodo was young and small enough to fit perfectly in Bilbo's lap and safe arms.

"Love," he gasped out with tears falling free. "It's love!"

A sudden silence. And then, "What did you say?"

Frodo tried to stop shivering, but forced the words out regardless. "I b-believe it-t is l-love…that k-keeps y-you here."

The reply came quietly, like a suddenly soft breeze on a warm spring day. "Love?"

"Y-yes. It's the s-simplest of all things, Bilbo used to t-tell me…it's at the heart of everything and everyone, in this life and the next. It's how we keep going. How we can take so much and still be."

The cold was fading and Frodo could feel the air getting lighter. He opened his eyes and looked into the dwarf king's own with newfound courage. It wasn't the kind warriors took with them into battle, but a much smaller kind, the kind that went quiet and almost unnoticed.

"Love was never gone from you," Frodo said. "Sometimes it hides in unlikely places. But it always comes back. It always comes home. Especially when we need it most."

"You speak truth beyond your years," the king whispered.

And like a small spark finally catching flame, he could finally see the face of Thorin Oakenshield. It was every bit as royal and noble as Frodo had imagined. There was severity from hardship, but also a tenderness that he could only compare with soft metal under high heat and flame. Safety and security enveloped him like a cloud of smoke, thinning after a long day's work in the forge.

The king sniffed and shook his head with a rueful smile. "You twice damned hobbits," the king breathed in tender awe.

Chills still raced up and down Frodo's back, but they were less violent, almost caressing like an apology. He watched as the king laid a hand on the fallen yellow book and gave it a thoughtful look. Then the king turned back to him and touched his other hand to the underside of Frodo's chin. The hobbit obeyed the silent request, despite the cold touch, and listened.

"If you want the truth," Thorin said. "Don't fear the shadow that comes trailing in its wake. Without the darkness, truth is nothing but falsehood."

And with a last great chill that raced up Frodo's spine, Thorin Oakenshield was gone.

In the blink of an eye.

Frodo looked around, slightly shocked and confused.

The house was empty.

The fire long extinguished with lingering trails of smoke from cooling ashes.

Exhaustion clung to every inch of Frodo's body. Sleep wanted him, but he pushed it off and stubbornly got to his feet. He took a shaky breath and stumbled over to the window. Hobbiton was quiet and dark. Not a soul seemed awake. And out of the quiet, Frodo heard one last comforting thing that night.

Thank you.

Epilogue…

The Last Homely House was just as quiet and peaceful in sleep, just as Thorin remembered, and exactly how he refused to openly admit when he had been here last. The flowers were in full bloom, their color and beauty muted by night. And the spray from the waterfall cast a ghostly halo above the rooftops. They glistened under the white moon, like a figure barring his way.

It was a woman.

An elf, with long golden wavy hair and a round face that took his breath away. She glowed as if she were some kind of unearthly beacon against the night. Without a word, the golden-haired lady outstretched her hand and a pale arm of milky white skin parted from the white robes she wore. The kindness in her eyes beckoned his hand to take hers. There was only an ember of protest in him, for the sheer need to see outweighed any risk of being misled. And of the little knowledge he retained of elves, their treatment of the dead, no matter the race, often surpassed that of the living.

They walked the long halls of Rivendell for some time until she brought him to a door that was ajar.

We will meet again, Thorin Oakenshield. When the sun touches the sea and the wind bears us hence from this land. Once there we are but simple folk, travelers coming home after a long arduous journey.

The lady's lips never moved, and the softness in her gaze never wavered.

There is but one way you may finally know peace.

Peace?

Forgive us?

It wasn't a command, nor a condescending request. It was a humble and quiet question. Anger welled up in him regardless. Forgive? Forgive the people who turned his own and himself out into the wilderness to starve and suffer for years? Those who imprisoned him and wished to waylay him from reclaiming what had been so brutally stolen from him in his innocent youth wanted forgiveness?

Who was she?

Who was she to make so mighty a plea?

Thorin looked up, a fight burning in his breast and on the tip of his tongue, but the lady was already gone.

And there, on the other side of the spacious room beyond the doorway, was an old Bilbo Baggins asleep in a soft elven bed. Waiting for him, he dared to think. Thorin forgot his anger and crossed to the bed, taking a seat on the edge. He watched the hobbit sleep for a long time and felt his temper cool into regret. The only notion of time he had was how quickly the moon moved through the night. He traced and memorized every wrinkle of age, every scar of darkness the black object had laid on his dear friend.

It was true.

He had watched it happen, had been powerless to stop it, deaf to Bilbo's ears and invisible from his sight. Only his memory could speak to the hobbit, through written words that were Bilbo's own, and the many times Bilbo did think on him was too great a gift for the dwarf. After how badly things had gone, Thorin was surprised Bilbo even bothered to think of him at all. But he soon understood why. The guilt the hobbit placed on himself was like a hot poker being driven into the very core of him. He had forgiven Bilbo long ago for wrongs that weren't even wrongs in the first place. Selflessness had been disguised as betrayal by his own fear and pride.

Wrongly.

So very wrongly.

When the sky was beginning to lighten with a new day, Thorin leaned down and pressed a kiss to Bilbo's forehead. "Forgive me," he dared to ask, his voice sounding far away and hoarse to his own ears.

He didn't expect a reply, but Bilbo shifted in his sleep and turned over, toward him. "You silly dwarf," he mumbled. "Of course I did."

Every night thereafter, the King under the mountain stayed by the hobbit's side, until such time came for Bilbo to depart Middle-Earth. The King walked by his side, giving strength to his withering steps, air to his faltering lungs, and peace to his troubled dreams. As Bilbo boarded the ship, Thorin hesitated, wondering for a moment if these steps were even his to take. But the golden-haired lady turned to him with an expectant look.

Come, she said to him.

Bilbo had spent the first leg of the journey on the deck, refreshed by the air of the sea and even looking a bit like his old self, youth putting a spring in his step and the sense of adventure bringing light back into his eyes. The sight did much to warm the dwarf's spirit. But soon Bilbo tired, age returning to him when Middle-Earth was only a barely recognizable speck behind them. Thorin followed closely as Frodo helped Bilbo inside the small cabin and helped him sit on a long couch of cushions and pillows. On either side was an open window and barely any obstruction to the awe-inspiring view of the sea they had all around them.

Sleep came easy on the gentle waves. And with each rest Thorin knew, he felt strength returning to him, beating firmly in the center and spreading out over time. Time was all they had as they drifted. And with time came easy thoughts and memories. In all his life, Thorin rarely had a moment of peace to himself and his thoughts. Now, he felt as if he had all the time in the world to think over absolutely every single thing that passed his mind. He thought on the short happiness he had known, on all the sadness and anger, and on his own wantings, some of which still clung to him tightly like a newborn babe.

The last thought he had before sleep took him again was one that nearly stole it from him. Delving into his heart, he discovered something that had been there for a long time, something he supposed he had ignored out of spite, but something that upon discovery gave him a strange sense of relief. Forgiveness had taught him painful and hard lessons in his lifetime, even harder ones in death. And thinking on what the lady said to him in Rivendell no longer brought anger.

Just a bit of sadness for himself, for his people, for those who suffered because of his own prejudice.

Thinking on such dark thoughts now, at the end of the world, with all he could ever want near him, seemed petty.

Forgive us, she had said to him.

Bloody elves, he thought to himself, with half-hearted scorn. Always more they seek to take...But, as it seemed to him, what was taken was already freely given. And he had no more in him to fault, to blame, or to condemn. The very thought of doing so felt foreign, heavy, and old. And he was feeling so light, like a feather stripped free from a great eagle upon the wind.

The next morning, before a magnificent dawn broke upon the horizon, Thorin opened his eyes to find Bilbo sleeping soundly against his chest. The familiar mop of hair wasn't so white anymore, but gray with streaks of remembered brown in his youth. As he looked closer he realized those age lines he had committed to memory were gone. And before he could furrow his brows further in thought, Bilbo opened his eyes. At first the hobbit frowned, confused and still a little sleepy. And then he looked up and a brilliant smile broke out on his face. He laughed through a glistening stream of tears that somehow became contagious.

"My dear friend," Bilbo said, before wrapping his arms more securely around the dwarf.

Thorin returned the embrace just as fiercely.

This was heaven, Thorin thought to himself.

This was peace.

Blissful and finally whole.

Suddenly, a rather large spray, or wave rather, of ocean water fell down on top of them as the ship fell and rose on top of another wave. As he and Bilbo sputtered at the water and the coolness of it which was quickly warming, Thorin spied Gandalf whistling to himself, those elves hiding smiles, and young Frodo staring with wide-eyes.

"Wizard," Thorin growled.

Gandalf said nothing.

But the twinkle in his eye and the self-satisfied smirk spoke volumes.

A/N: I couldn't help myself with the ending ^^. I've been considering doing a companion piece of one-shots from The Yellow Book, which will mainly be moments between Bilbo and Thorin along the quest. I don't know if it will be consecutive, but if anyone has any suggestions of moments they would want to see, feel free to let me know. Because this series is based on friendship, however, for this series in particular I'm going to have to place that limitation only on suggestions. Aside from that, thank you of course for reading and I hope the final piece lived up to expectations and was enjoyable.

(1) This is a bit of a paraphrased quote from Return of the King when Gollum finally catches up with Frodo and Sam on the slopes of Mount Doom. It's not exactly a direct quote, but close enough to warrant a reference.