I: Meeting of the Ways

Thirty-eight years had passed since Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End returned from his unexpected journey. Since then he had more or less settled contentedly back into his peaceful, solitary existence, but adventure had changed him. He kept up his new, outlandish acquaintances and dabbled in other queer, unhobbitlike practices such as writing poetry.

In addition, a certain restlessness came upon him from time to time, especially in the fall. Despite the perils and discomforts and hardships along the way, and his near-constant complaints and fond memories of home, there was a part of him had enjoyed every minute of his adventure. Truth be told, he missed it.

Which is why, when the Quick Post delivered a most unusual note to Bag End one morning in late October, he seized his walking-stick, and after a moment's hesitation, took Sting down from above the mantelpiece and buckled it on.

Brandy Hall.
Come at once if convenient.
If inconvenient, come anyway.
Could be dangerous.

S

As he came over the Brandywine Bridge, Bilbo saw a Big Person stooped over further up the riverbank. He was by no means a hobbit; his height put that out of the question immediately, as did the rest of his appearance. He wore a long, dark, smoky cloak that seemed to shimmer with red and gold underneath when the light caught it just so. He straightened as Bilbo approached, cast a keen-eyed glance of piercing blue at him for a long moment, and then returned his attention to the riverbed. He adjusted his dark blue scarf and wrapped his cloak tighter around himself.

Bilbo frowned, started to speak, and frowned again.

"They washed up on the shoreline this morning. Not a terribly deep or fast-moving river, but of course you people are all so short." He snorted, and smoke hissed out from his nostrils. "Don't any of your hobbits learn to swim?"

Puzzlement and incredulity flickered across Bilbo's face, and his eyes widened. He knew that voice. It had been close to forty years since he had last heard it, but he couldn't be mistaken. And yet…

"Sherlock?"

"Obviously."

Bilbo stared at him for a long moment, frowning. "But you're…"

"Supposed to be dead? I was. Back now." The man who had been the dragon Smaug glanced down at himself, and brushed some grass off his cloak. "It could have been worse. Miss the wings, like the coat." He drew a long-stemmed pipe from an inside pocket, and lit it with a jet of flame. "I do rather enjoy this, though. Pipe-weed? Genius." He inhaled deeply, and blew a smoke ring out over the water. "John, I need you to—"

"Forty years, Sherlock." His voice shook with an anger that surprised even himself. Smaug turned, an eyebrow raised. "Forty years, and you couldn't even bother to tell me you're alive. Now you want to just pick right back up as if nothing happened, as if you didn't get shot and fall to your death in fire and water."

The look of puzzlement on Smaug's face would have been priceless at any other moment. "John, I—"

He was silenced abruptly by the sudden crack of his old friend's walking stick against his shins, and tumbled to the ground under the unexpected blows. "Forty. Years. Sherlock." He added indignantly, almost as an afterthought, "And you nearly roasted me!"

Smaug seized the end of the walking stick suddenly in an iron grip and rolled his eyes. "Really, John, you're going to hold that against me? It was nothing personal."

"You singed the hair off my feet!" He struggled to wrest the stick back, but the ex-dragon was too strong for him. "And that doesn't explain where you've been all this time."

"Please, you were never in any real danger." Smaug waved a hand dismissively as he rose to his feet. "It was all part of the game."

"This isn't a game, Sherlock," Bilbo said severely. He still tugged halfheartedly at the walking stick, but Smaug pulled it out of his grip with careless grace. "Why did you come back?"

"Not a game? Of course it was." He twirled the stick like a baton between his long thin fingers. "Do you really think I'd have allowed myself such an obvious weakness like that unless I wanted you to see it?" Bilbo opened his mouth and closed it again with a frown, and Smaug chuckled. "As vain as we dragons are, you really think I wouldn't have noticed? Child's play."

Finally Bilbo answered, "What do you need me for?"

"The most renowned burglar in all of Middle-earth?" Smaug waved a hand at the warren of hobbit-holes that filled the large hill further up the road. "I need you to talk to some of your kinsmen. They don't seem to care for me, even in this much-moderated guise."

Bilbo had half a mind to refuse, but finally he sighed. "Oh very well. What do you want me to ask them?"

"Two hobbits drowned in the river last night. Ask the usual questions. It's important to establish whether this was an accident, suicide..." The dragon smiled, fingering his pipe. "Or murder."

"M-murder?" Bilbo stammered, shocked. "Not here. Nobody has intentionally killed anybody else here… ever, to my knowledge."

"Nobody has ever been caught," Smaug corrected him. "But you've never had me before, either." He tossed the walking stick back to the hobbit, who caught it without thinking, still frowning. "Off you pop, then."

The hobbit sighed. "I don't like this." He looked up at Smaug, at the hill before them, sighed again, and started down the path.

The dragon watched as his old friend and onetime adversary plodded off toward Brandy Hall, and allowed himself a small smile. The case itself was trivial, but it was exactly what he wanted. It provided at once both a distraction from and an explanation for his reappearance that was free of such quagmires as emotion. He could never tell the hobbit the true reason for his supposed death, or for his return. He turned back out to face the river again, drew a long pull from his pipe and exhaled, closing his eyes. For the moment, this Shire of John's was a little piece of heaven.