A/N: Yey! The holiday season is upon us and that must mean... NaNoWriMo has wrapped up. For those waiting (patiently and impatiently) for the sequel to Broken Ties, this is not it. *Ducks flying rotten fruit.* That story could not be done in one month, and I really needed something a bit zany for November. This story is complete, so I intend to post it in full before Christmas. I hope you all enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it. The main character has a lot on her plate, but before long, she gets into the spirit of things. :)

Another quick note: while the title of this story was inspired by ExperimentalNotion's excellent fanfic, "There and Back and Back Again", the stories are utterly different. If anyone has not read that story, I'd highly recommend it. It had me laughing all the way through.

That said, onward!

23 November TA 2941

Buttercup Baggins stumbled from the makeshift infirmary with its stench of blood and decay, thrusting tent flaps aside in a desperate bid for freedom. She could take no more. Tears stung her eyes and fell in silent rivulets down her cheeks. Moans pursued her, those of the poor souls injured and dying this day.

Hobbits were not meant for this. Not meant to see such horrors as she'd beheld. They belonged in their rolling fields of green, safe from the outside world and its evils. Where deprivation was almost unknown, where the most frightening thing a person had to endure was the harsh tongue of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

Bilbo was right to flee. The very day Gandalf had approached her older brother about an adventure, her sibling had grabbed his overnight bag and packed in a rush. Not to join the wizard's venture. Oh no, not her staid brother.

No, Bilbo had waited only until the wizard had finished "defacing" the door to their home and departed, his pointed gray hat disappearing down Bagshot Row. The second Gandalf was out of sight, Bilbo had snuck out their green front door…and bolted in the opposite direction, babbling over one shoulder about a sudden and desperate need to visit their relatives in Crickhollow.

Leaving a stunned Buttercup standing in the round doorway.

Buttercup, with her head full of fanciful dreams and a hunger to experience more than Hobbiton could offer.

Buttercup, who had inherited a full measure of their mother, Belladonna's, thirst to experience life to its fullest.

Buttercup, who was terribly more Tookish than Bilbo thought respectable.

The dangled lure of adventure had proved too much. While Bilbo raced off to safety, she had done the opposite, hopping through their smial with unrestrained exuberance and shaking her hips to music only she could hear.

She was going on an adventure!

A quick raid of her brother's wardrobe provided her with knickers, tunic, vest and long coat. How she'd wriggled in delight as she'd disguised her curves—though she could have done without the discomfort of binding her chest flat, mind. A small price to pay, all things considered, but Buttercup enjoyed her creature comforts, and such restraints definitely fell under the heading of Not Comfortable.

The hardest sacrifice was the clipping—no, the butchering—of her most becoming feature: her long mop of golden curls. The sight of the fallen locks lying discarded on the floor was enough to squeeze copious tears from her eyes, but it hadn't shaken her resolve. Adventure called. She couldn't wait!

When Gandalf had reappeared a few days later, she'd been ready. Her disguise had fooled the dwarves—too easily, she'd grumbled to herself—but Gandalf had adopted a knowing look, his eyes twinkling within his wrinkled face. He said not one word to the Company of Thorin Oakenshield that "Bilbo" was not Bilbo, nor that "he" was in fact female.

A low moan escaped her. She'd been blind. Utterly innocent and naive. Stars had filled her eyes, and all of them had glowed the brighter upon her first sight of one Thorin Oakenshield, King in Exile. How brave he'd seemed. How noble, handsome, and exhilaratingly different from the hobbit males who had hesitantly approached her with courtship on their minds. (Each of whom had been driven off by her broom-wielding brother, thereby cementing her disdain of them. They were afraid? Of Bilbo?)

I was a fool.

Buttercup's steps weaved like a drunkard's, her bare feet stumbling over rocky, uneven, and bloodstained ground. By the dwarves' Mahal, she was cold, and it had little to do with the slight nip to the air. With a high-pitched wail, one dirt- and blood-encrusted hand pressed to her lips, she fell to her knees. Her head turned, shorn blond curls whipping into her face. With blind eyes, her gaze was irresistibly pulled towards a nondescript tent that should have blended in with all the others that had sprung up on the battlefield after victory had been won.

She knew that tent. Her mind had memorized each tear, each stain and crease. It would never fade from significance in her eyes, for it was within that tent that she had held Thorin's hand as the would-be King under the Mountain had breathed his last. There, she'd heard his final, pained words.

"There is more in you…of good than you know," Thorin had panted, his blue eyes intent even as his life's blood drained from his body. "Some courage…and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of…us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it…would be…a merrier world. But, sad or merry, I leave…it now. Fa-Farewell…my friend."

Those penetrating blue eyes had turned glassy. It was as if the sun itself had been extinguished, leaving her in a world turned dark and colorless. Thorin, Fíli and Kíli were dead. After all they had sacrificed, all they had endured, their bodies would be entombed with their ancestors while Dain ascended to Erebor's throne.

Buttercup found herself resenting the other dwarf. No, Thorin's second cousin, Dain, had done nothing to bring these terrible events to pass. He was alright, she supposed, though she found him brash and lacking in Thorin's refinement.

But it was wrong. Thorin should sit on Erebor's throne with his two sister-sons at his side. Where, she wondered, tears coming faster, was the justice in this?

She scrubbed at her face, uncaring as she disturbed fledgling scabs—the product of flying rocks, spills, and other minor mishaps during the Battle of Five Armies. She had escaped, having spent too much of the battle knocked senseless by a hurled rock meant for someone else. She'd lain there, all but untouched, while three she loved had—

"Bilbo, what are you doing out here alone?" Gandalf's voice penetrated her despair just as a strong, wizened hand descended to her shoulder and squeezed.

Buttercup's arms dropped into her lap. "Isn't that pointless now?" she asked with all the bitterness in her heart. Her friend's face blurred and wavered through tears as she looked up at him. "Thorin is gone. He no longer lives to object to a female joining his Company."

She mopped up tears with the back of one hand. "D-do you suppose if Bilbo had joined the Company, things might have turned out differently? Maybe if he'd been here instead of me, he'd have thought of some way…"

She could not continue for the painful, silent sobs shuddering through her chest. Guilt hung heavy on her head, for she'd failed to save them. Her dwarves. Her dear, stubborn, opinionated friends.

Worse, she'd allowed Thorin to die with her lies still between them. The King in Exile had called her friend, but there she'd sat, holding his hand and watching him die…and the truth had lodged in her throat. She couldn't speak, and so Thorin died believing things that were not so.

Gandalf kneeled beside her, staff in one hand. "This is none of your doing, Buttercup Baggins. Bilbo could not have done more to protect the Company. You far exceeded my hopes and expectations."

She sniffled, dashing away another tear as it leaked down her face. "I hate how this ended, Gandalf. It hurts so."

With a sigh as ripe with loss as her own heart's, Gandalf knelt beside her. "I had hoped for better myself," he said heavily. "Some things are beyond the control of even kings and wizards. My dear, dear friend, this burden is one I wish I had not placed upon you."

She snorted and sobbed, batting back a fresh wave of tears. "Who else was there? Lobelia? I still cannot fathom how the Company believed my act. Do I look like a male? Truly?" she asked with watery exasperation, pointing to her face. Why, it was far too delicate for masculinity. Surely.

I am not a male, she sniffled to herself.

Gandalf's smile was a pale shadow of its typical strength. "Did none of them ever question you?"

Buttercup found a wan smile. "Only Bombu—"

"About what?" a new voice intruded. "Bilbo? Are you alright, lad?" A floppy-hatted dwarf hurried the last few steps between them to squat before her, his brown eyes searching her face.

Dear Bofur. Buttercup shared a wobbly smile with Gandalf. Her ruse held, it seemed. She cleared her throat and managed, "I expect I will recover. You… Your cousin? How is Bifur?"

Gandalf patted her back and took his leave.

Her eyes tugged to one side. No, no, don't look. I can't bear to look anymore.

Buttercup trained her attention on Bofur's face, carefully schooling her eyes away from the tent where Thorin, Fili, and Kili were laid. The knowledge that their bodies lingered there, silent and devoid of life where there had been such confounded stubbornness and vigor but hours before haunted the edges of her mind. It wasn't right.

Despite herself, she again had to drag her attention away from the guarded tent. Facing forward, she found Bofur's eyes as teary as her own. The younger toymaker said softly, "Bifur will recover. On that, Oin is certain."

Exquisite relief melted her shoulders. By the dwarves' Maker, she couldn't handle watching another one of her dwarves die. She just couldn't. She'd sooner see her cousin Lobelia in possession of Bag End, and that was saying something. "Good," she exhaled gustily. "Good."

"Look at us carrying on like females," Bofur attempted to jest, his brilliant smile all wilted.

Tired of the charade, she told her friend and comrade as she stood and brushed herself off, "Well, at least one of us. I'm allowed to carry on like a female. I am one."

Not waiting for his reply, she hugged herself and walked away. What Buttercup Baggins, daughter of Belladonna Took, needed more than anything this night was some peace and privacy. She, a hobbit lass considered odd even by her own people's standards, had not only rushed out her front door to trail after a wizard and a bunch of dwarves, but somewhere along the way, she'd fallen scandalously, madly in love.

With Thorin of all people. Not gentle Ori or funny Bofur. Not charming Kíli or brave Fíli. No, she had in Tookish fashion set her cap on the most inappropriate, inaccessible dwarf of them all.

It would never work. She'd known that from the first moment she'd realized the path her affections were growing, but oh, how she'd cherished her growing admiration for the noble king-in-exile. She'd hugged it to her chest, content to bask in her one-sided joy. Even after he'd ordered her thrown from the ramparts, consumed with an illness of the mind, she'd loved the dwarf. And his final words to her…

Confound it, she'd almost blurted it all out, baring her heart. But she'd delayed, fear holding her tongue. Now, he was dead. The light was gone. It was far, far too late.

Yes, privacy was what she needed now, for if Buttercup Baggins was Tookish enough to go on an adventure and fall in love—with a king!—she was also Baggins enough to obstinately cling to her composure until there were no eyes upon her.

As soon as she found a shadow deep enough to hide within, Buttercup put on her magical ring, rendering herself invisible to all eyes…and cried herself hoarse. Perhaps it would have been better had she never left Bag End.