What grace gave him

This is a prompt fill for Elizabeth Blossom, and it's rather late in the delivery (Sorry!)

I don't own the Hobbit :(

A lot of things could be said about old Mr. Bilbo Baggins who lived at Bag End, and indeed, over the years a lot of things had been said. Some of those things may have held a founding to them, and some were most definitely codswollop if you asked him his opinion. He never felt the need to set anyone straight though, not anymore. Let them talk and have their daily gossip over the garden fence, because the truth was nothing like they could ever imagine...

There had been a time when he had cared about what others thought: when he was younger, for whispers had always followed him. They had done from the moment it could be told that he was different.

Belladonna Took had been an odd hobbit, a more adventurous soul you would not find west of Bree. She was always off visiting strange places and she could not be tied down. The people of Hobbiton had long decided that she would never settle and just be a hobbit, which is why it came as such a shock - Belladonna Took was to be married to Bungo Baggins. Belladonna Baggins and her husband were moving in to Bag-End. Belladonna had not gone on an adventure for near half a year, and she didn't appear to have any plans about running off any time in the future either.

Then she gave birth to a child and things began to make more sense. She could not go running around the world if she were carrying Bungo's child, could she? It would explain the sudden marriage too. As scandalous as it was, maybe a child had been just the thing needed to tame the wildness that was Belladonna. Belladonna and Bungo were good for each other anyhow - they had always been close, had been friends as children.

Bilbo Baggins was a sweet little thing, worth making a fuss over despite his tendency to try to escape the hold of whoever had him, always wanting to explore. Curly golden hair, a sweet face, blue eyes which seemed to just sparkle with intelligence. He was quite the attention stealer. But as he grew the people of Hobbiton began to notice strange things about Bilbo Baggins.

His feet were the main wonder - while they were tough (though maybe not as tough as they should be) they didn't grow like a hobbit's feet should. They were smaller, smaller than they should be and free of hair. Odd. Strange. Questionable...

Bilbo was always that bit taller than those his age, and when he stopped growing in the end he was the tallest hobbit in Hobbiton (only by an inch or two, but it showed). And his face - his face was that bit more fair than it had right to be. Moreover it didn't seem to change at all as the years went on: from the time he stopped growing he didn't appear to age a day. He acted like a Took for the most part, and the love for things that grow was as strong in him as it was in any, what a talent that boy had for getting things to bloom! But the feet, the face...

Oh, the people of Hobbiton had their suspicions, which slowly turned into a taken public fact over time. Belladonna Baggins had brought no child of Bungo's into the world.

Young Bilbo Baggins heard all of this over the years of course, and it bothered him. He didn't like it. Bungo Baggins was his father before he was able to understand how there was any possibility that he wasn't, and Bungo always would be his father in heart. So he ignored what he heard, pretended not to notice the differences between him and everyone else, and went about being a Baggins of Bag End as if there were no such peculiarities to be observed.

Time passed and so did his parents. Bilbo remained looking as young as ever, fair and tall and much too skinny no matter how much he ate. Each day passed much like the next. He had his books of great tales and distant lands, but the Tookish gleam in his eye, though it never completely died, dimmed over the years. Hobbiton was not the best place for curiosity and inquisitive nature to thrive. If he did learn some words of elvish from old books nothing was to be speculated about it, nor was it to be thought to deeply into that he wore the elvish necklace his mother had always treasured under his shirt. If he did ever yearn to leave the Shire he didn't speak of it, and most certainly never gave into it.

He walked the woods for hours on end and listened to the trees whisper, though he could not seem to understand them as clearly as he once had as a child. And if he ever wondered who it was out there who had made him so different from everyone else...well, it was in any rate too late to ask now.

It was one pleasant morning shortly after first breakfast, a time at which most hobbits began to think about second, that Bilbo Bagginses life took a turn for better or worse (of which way it went would depend on who you decided to ask).

He was sitting on the bench in front of his house smoking his pipe and thinking of going for a walk, very much minding his own business when the visitor came and, to his disgruntlement, did not do the same - mind his own business, he meant.

"Bilbo Baggins!" The great booming voice startled him out of his head. "Why, I do believe it has been years!"

Bilbo blinked and looked up, and then blinked again. "Excuse me?"

"Many years indeed." The visitor chuckled.

Bilbo frowned. "I'm sorry, I do not believe we've met."

Bilbo prided himself in the fact that he seldom forgot a face, and to forget one such as this he did not think would be an easy thing to do. A tall old man, or at least, Bilbo assumed he was of the race of men from his height...though his senses led him to doubt. He had long grey hair and a beard, and a large grey hat- A flicker of a memory-

"Gandalf?" Bilbo's frown deepened and his forehead creased.

"I'm glad that you remember my name, last I was in these parts you were too young to pronounce it properly! And how you have grown since then!" The old man looked him up and down.

"Ah...well yes." A wizard, of course. He thought he'd felt something odd about him... "How could one ever fully forget our wandering wizard, especially one with such excellent fireworks!"

"How indeed." Gandalf laughed as he leant forward on his staff, and continue to inspect him in a way that Bilbo felt he was under some kind of test. "I wonder..."

The wizard seemed to come to a decision and straightened up. "I wonder if you may be able to help me, Bilbo Baggins."

Bilbo took his pipe out of his mouth and politely set it down. "Oh, of course, if I can. Do go on."

"I am looking for someone to share in an adventure."

Bilbo's mouth opened in surprise. "An-"

He closed it and furrowed his brow. "An adventure?

"Yes, we need a final member for a company...and a hobbit, I think, would do very well."

Bilbo thought about this for a moment. A hobbit? On an adventure? Didn't seem like the best of ideas, if that was what the wizard was asking him.

"Hmm, yes. Well hobbits really aren't the sort for those types of things, you know, and I can't think of anyone off the top of my head. You may find a Took down at the market who would spread the word amongst his relations and get lucky." He got to his feet to retrieve his mail.

The wizard drew himself up slightly and huffed. "Bilbo Baggins! I was talking about you!"

Bilbo nearly dropped his letters.

Him? "Me!?" He almost squeaked. "Now why ever would you want me? I have no use for adventures! Nasty, horrid things, make you late for dinner!"

"No no no." He shook his head. "If I were you I'd look for someone else, either over the hill or across the water."

"But Bilbo, my dear lad-!" Gandalf exclaimed, somewhat surprised it seemed at the hobbit's words. "Wasn't an adventure what you always talked of when you were young!? I remember a young hobbit who would have liked nothing better than to get out and see the world!"

Bilbo averted his eyes and busied himself with sorting his letters.

"You've changed, Bilbo Baggins," The wizard carried on in a softer voice. "And not entirely for the better."

Bilbo cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Well yes," He spoke curtly. "Don't we all over the years? Though I would argue against you, my friend, that there has neither been a turn for better or worse, merely a change. We grow up, learn things are not how we thought they were and see things differently: that is our nature."

He turned away from the wizard to head back inside with a look at the sky. Suddenly he didn't feel like going for a walk anymore. Not today...

"...It is true, in many cases...but it is sad."

He opened his front door and spared a glance over his shoulder. "It is."

The wizard had not moved, he remained stood there with his staff in his hand. "It need not be so."

Bilbo snorted under his breath. "Good day, Gandalf."

The door closed with a click behind him.

:)