A/N: So this is my first attempt at writing Hobbit fiction. As most readers, I wasn't happy with the ending. This is my feeble attempt at remedying that. I hope everyone enjoys.

Holly Johns really didn't want to do this, but she was doing it anyway. Her aunt Mary had called and... well... family.

She was tired and grumpy. She'd driven since early that morning. It was just after five. Eleven hours on the road was much too long.

She sighed as she washed her hands at the little sink at the truck stop. She could barely see her face in the filthy mirror, which was probably for the best. She'd always carried a few more pounds than she probably should. No, she knew for a fact that she needed desperately to lose weight. She just couldn't manage to do it.

She sighed again and used the paper towel to open the restroom door and chucked it in the open trashcan just outside. She'd taken a long enough break to have have lunch and stretch her legs. Now it was back on the road or she'd never get there.

She pulled out onto the highway once again. A few more hours, she thought as she fiddled with the radio dial to something better than static.

So far the journey to the family farm had been smooth sailing. But as soon as she thought nothing bad was going to happen, something did. Her car sputtered and made a horrible noise. It slowed to an alarming crawl.

"No! No! No!" she said more to herself than out loud. She gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles were white and she closed her eyes. Took a deep calming breath and suddenly the car sprang back to life. It continued on as if nothing had happened. She sighed in relief and unclenched her fingers from around the wheel.

Things like that seemed to happen often in her life. But she shrugged it off.

A few hours later she pulled herself out of her haze. She was almost to the farm. Just another hour. But there was no use in stopping at a motel now. And no telling what kind of room she'd get out in the middle of nowheresville. Something filled with cockroaches or serial killers. Or serial killing cockroaches.

And smells. Horrible, nasty, no good smells. Been there, done that. Bought the souvenirs. For Pete's sake.

So on she drove. It was after ten when she finally pulled into the long drive up to the old farmhouse.

She'd spent her first eight years there. In an upstairs bedroom. One that looked out over the pasture.

It was a small farm as far as farms were. By no means was it a commercial producing farm. But it was good for the farmer's market on Friday's. Or was, until her grandparents had stopped growing crops.

She wondered what any renters would want to use it for. But then that wasn't her concern.

What was her concern was making it to the farm and helping her aunt clean it up. Make it presentable. Paint the house inside and out. Paint the barn. Clear out the cobwebs. Put things in storage.

The place had been empty since grandma had been put in the assisted living facility. They knew months ago it was only a matter of time before she'd be too ill to live there alone. That she would have to be moved to a nursing home or hospice to die. So it wasn't a terrible shock now that that time had finally arrived.

Grandpa had passed on a few months ago. And Holly had a lot of regrets about not visiting him more often in recent years. Something she would remedy for her grandma. It was a major part of her decision to help her aunt. She'd be closer to her grandma for a while.

Her grandparents had helped raise her for the first eight years of her life. Until her mother moved and took Holly with her. A better life. In a big city. Better jobs. Better education. Better everything.

But they visited almost every holiday, every vacation. So they didn't cut them out of their lives completely. Holly was sure her grandparents appreciated that. But in recent years she'd gotten busy. After her mother had died, things just... happened. Things often do.

She sighed heavily. She could see the lights of the farmhouse set back a good distance from the road. It was a lonely place. The house placed just about in the middle of the land. The road bordered it on one side with lots of farmland on both sides and a stream out back, with a treeline. Beyond the trees was someone else's farm. And a fence.

The gravel drive was just as she remembered it from years gone by. Lumpy. She'd be really pissed if her car was new. It was not. Bought used five years before. All paid for, to her credit and relief.

One less thing she had to worry about. One less bill. The cost of living was way too high for her salary. She knew she needed to focus and get it right. But she couldn't seem to do it. Couldn't seem to figure it all out. Couldn't seem to figure ANYTHING out.

Some days she just wanted to sell everything she owned and... disappear. Drop off the face of the earth. Live in a cabin in the woods or on a mountain. But the lack of plumbing scared her. So she stayed put.

"Oh! You finally made it," aunt Mary said as she flung the door open wide. A big smile on her face as she embraced her niece warmly.

Holly grunted slightly in reply and patted her aunt on the back, not really committing to the hug. And why should she? Why show her any affection? Had she been there when her mother had died? No. Her very own sister, her only sister. She'd shown no emotion. No care. No sympathy. No empathy. Nothing.

Not even a sympathy card from the drug store. And Holly couldn't send her aunt one because nobody knew where she lived.

But now Holly was expected to drop everything and come do her aunt's biding. Not that there was much to drop. A crappy job answering phones. But she'd never tell aunt Mary that. She'd probably gloat. Since she had her life together. Had it together since she was twenty.

She'd run off to New York to do God knew what. She never had said.

Mary had really abandon the entire family. For years they hadn't known what happened to her.

But they'd all just said, "Oh, that's Mary for you." "She was always like that growing up." "Very secretive."

Holly wasn't so sure it was just being secretive. Mary didn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She was the reason grandpa died alone in that crappy assisted living facility. And no one could get him out, no one could rescue him. It had been too late when they'd realized, the damage had been done to him and lot of other residents. They'd gotten a settlement from the facility that allowed them to put Holly's grandmother in a nicer place now that she needed it.

They really couldn't blame Mary for Grandpa's death. But in a way, it was her fault. Since she'd put him there instead of in a nicer more expensive place. God knew he had the insurance for a better place. But Mary hadn't tried. But Holly's mother would have tried.

Things seemed to fall apart when Holly's mother, JoAnn, died a few years before. JoAnn was the glue. She was always there. And now she wasn't. Gone, just like her father.

"I kept dinner warm for you," Mary said and led her inside.

Holly set her suitcase at the base of the stairs and followed her aunt into the kitchen. She looked around, everything was just the same. But soon all of the furniture would be put into storage.

"I made spaghetti and garlic bread," Mary said. "Bowls and plates are above the sink. There's some salad left, too."

"Okay," she said and nodded. She wouldn't be served tonight, but she didn't expect it.

"I'm guessing you'll want to be in your old room," Mary said.

"Ah, yes, that's fine," she said and nodded. She would feel uncomfortable sleeping anywhere else.

"Well... I'm heading for bed, I'll see you in the morning," Mary said, uncomfortable. "We can start cleaning up then."

"Sure." She watched Mary go upstairs.

With the house quiet, she plated her dinner and ate watching the news on the little television in the kitchen. Then she cleaned up and put the leftovers away.

After dinner she stepped out onto the back porch. The moon wasn't quite full, but it was high in the sky. She could see the stars. It had been a few years since she'd looked up and just stared at them long enough to feel dizzy.

"Starry starry night," she sang softly and chuckled. "Paint your palette blue and gray. Look out on a summer's day. With eyes that know the darkness in my soul." She smiled, surprised she could remember that much of the old song. She bit her lip and twirled.

She laughed at herself as she almost toppled over. She wrapped her hoodie a little tighter around herself and headed back inside.

The next morning Holly tied up her hair and showered quickly, beating her aunt to the hot water. Somehow she knew the woman would be a water hog.

When she got downstairs the coffee was already made but her aunt was nowhere to be seen. So she poured herself a cup and sipped it while she made toast.

Soon she could hear her aunt up and about overhead. The shower turned on. Later the shower turned off. More moving about. And then eventually her aunt appeared for a cup of coffee. Bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Holly expected nothing less. Of course she'd be a morning person.

"I've been going through some things," Mary said.

"Oh, okay," she nodded. She didn't really want a progress report. But it seemed she was going to get one anyway.

"The barn has a storage room," Mary said. "I think there's a few things that belong to you."

"Me?" she asked and frowned.

Mary nodded. "When I'm done, we'll go out there and I'll show you."

She nodded in reply. "I'm going to go walk around," she got up from the kitchen table. "I'll see you outside."

The morning air was crisp and clean. She'd missed that about being in the country. The city was no place to take in a lungful of air.

She wandered around for a bit. An old tractor sat next to the barn. She supposed they'd be hauling that off. There were some other odds and ends outside too. All rusted or rotted.

Way back behind the barn, near the stream at the edge of the property was the rock. They always just called it the rock. It loomed large and tempting at the edge of the property.

It was an hour before Mary stepped outside. Obviously she was in no great hurry to see this thing done. Holly really wasn't looking forward to any of this, either. But she did have a time limit. Two weeks. And that was it. She'd already told Mary that she had to be back to work by then, but she really wasn't looking forward to going back. If she had any other excuse to stay, she would.

"The store room is just back here," Mary said, needlessly, as she led her through the dusty barn. It was a typical barn. A large area below a loft full of hay. A ladder, couple of pitchforks, shovels, an ancient wagon wheel. They could probably sell that.

Mary unlocked the door to the store room. She stepped inside and Holly followed her in.

"It's here somewhere," Mary said looking around the room. There wasn't much stored away in there. A wall of old boxes. Some tools propped up against the wall.

"Ah, here," she said and retrieved an old looking leather knapsack from behind the row of tools.

"What is it?" Holly asked and made a face. She took the sack between thumb and index finger.

"It was your father's," Mary said and Holly almost dropped the sack.

"What?!" she asked. "Are... what?"

"It belonged to your father," Mary said. Her voice didn't exactly hold any sympathy. But... there was something there. "I'm sure he would have wanted you to have it."

"Wh- why am I just getting this now?" she asked. A little frustrated. A little angry. A little... disappointed. After all those years. Why... now? It wasn't like she was still a kid, still a teenager. She was a grown adult, for Pete's sake.

"I don't know," was all her aunt could say as she shook her head. "I think maybe they didn't want you to have it." She shrugged. Now there was a thing of sympathy.

Holly just stood there and stared down at it in her hand.

"I think your mother didn't want to... acknowledge... anything," Mary said. "It was a hard time for her. And... your grandparents... didn't want to let on that he ever came into their lives."

She'd known that. She'd known all about that. Her father had just appeared on the farm one day. Just out of the blue. And he hadn't come from the road, at least they didn't figure he had. He came from the stream side, beyond the trees.

Her grandparents had always said he'd spoken oddly. It wasn't quite right. He wasn't American. But they could never prove anything. But then he'd only been there on the farm for five years. He helped grandfather, working the land. Then... he'd died.

Her chin quivered. Her eyes hurt. She could feel the tears forming and a headache starting. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.

"I'll leave you," Mary said and patted her on the shoulder before she slipped out the door.

Holly watched her go through her growing tears.

She sat in the middle of the floor and opened the leather pack. There was enough light coming in through the dust covered window and the open door to see.

She upended the bag on the dirty floor. Its contents spilled across the empty space.

A pair of old boots. A coil of old rope. A rusty old knife. A bundle of sticks. A blue cloth. And a rock.

She sniffled. "Just junk," she said more to herself and less to anyone that could hear her. Not that anyone could.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and then picked up the old boots. She looked at them, turning them over. The soles were thick leather. The eyelets for the laces didn't have those metal rings, grommets, on them. The laces were just strips of leather without those little plastic end pieces. They looked hand sewn and irregular. She put them down.

She picked up the knife and turned it over in her hand. The handle was wrapped in leather. The blade, though rusted, had some strange writing on it. But then her grandparents had always said he wasn't local. So it was from wherever he came from. She shrugged and put it down next to the boots.

She ran her hand over the blue cloth. It was rough. Like linen or an old homespun type of cloth. She could feel the lumps in the thread. Unfurling it she could see it wasn't just a cloth, but a hooded robe of some kind. Like a bathrobe, but longer. Or something. It was singed in places. There was a blue belt tucked inside.

The bundle of sticks was tied up with twine. Dismissing them, she put them back inside the pack along with the rope.

Lastly she picked up the rock. It was more a stone than a rock, now that she looked at it. It wasn't quite transparent, but not opaque either. It was oddly egg shaped but pointed at both ends. The facets ran the whole length of the stone, and were irregular as if someone had only been playing at gem cutting.

She wasn't sure what to make of any of it. Sighing, she put everything back in the pack and stood. Unsure what she should do with it, she took it with her, slinging it over her shoulder. The weight felt oddly comforting.

More A/N: Please let me know what you think. Be kind, please?