Chapter Text
The six months after the aged Bilbo Baggins, Esq. is knocked off the ship (or rather, Ship) he’s just hopped by that stray, quite unreasonably high incoming wave are an exercise in revolving disbelief, grief, rage, and finally, resigned practicality.
Reinvigoration, returned youth and revisited opportunity all aside… He’s earned his eternal rest, and if he’s only to gain the privilege of Getting On With It by redeeming all of his mortal mistakes…
The hobbit recalls the extremely late Thorin Oakenshield’s rueful last lament: if more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world, and forces himself to scoff. He’s not one, and never will be, one to turn down a good meal, but…
The Ship, after all, was only ever a means to an end. He has a garden, or rather Garden, to get back to. Never mind a Library, and a Banquet that for once (hopefully more than once), he won’t have to cook himself. He supposes it’ll be nice to see all of the friends and relations he’s made and lost in his life too, but really, even if he’s about to get that first hand opportunity on the temporally unexpected front, age does come with that certain bit of perspective… When it comes down to it, Bilbo Baggins just doesn’t have the patience he used to have with, and for, the starry-eyed, blithely idiotic, never mind stupidly impulsive, younger generations.
Of any race.
He just wants to go Home.
Time enough for merriment, he decides, therefore, after the job at hand is properly done.
And he dusts off his reinvigorated feet, settles his chubby, round little shoulders, and starts Making Arrangements.
The Inevitable Day
Bilbo sits and waits on the morning-of, arm over the back of the green bench before his door and sturdy legs outstretched. In the distance, from atop his hill, he can see Gandalf wend his way down the garden path, and he sends a particularly complex series of smoke rings dancing on the perfect breeze to acknowledge him. In Hobbitish, that particular arrangement is as good as a qualified invitation - well met, stranger, but don’t overstay your welcome - say what you have to say and get gone; my second breakfast is waiting, never mind my tomatoes, and I wasn’t expecting company with it. The hobbit can almost see Gandalf’s bushy eyebrows raise at this unanticipated first challenge to his expectations. He just sits back and crosses his feet comfortably, waiting. And when the wizard does finally arrive…
He skips the good mornings. It is a good morning, any and every way you care to parse it - the grass is very green, etcetera, etcetera, but really, the entire original exchange was nothing but an indulgence in frivolity.
Bilbo is not in the mood for frivolity. His tomatoes are fine, but there was no lie in the message. His Tomatoes are still waiting.
“Hello,” he greets him instead, and as his visitor waits for him to expound... “Can I help you?"
“Perhaps I am able to help you,” Gandalf returns. “Did you ever think on that, Bilbo Baggins?”
Bilbo doesn’t bother asking him how he knows his name. Everyone in Hobbiton does, after all.
“Mm. Well, let’s see it then,” he says briskly.
“I beg your pardon?"
“Whatever it is that you’re selling. That’s the typical opening line for a wandering peddler, is it not? Can’t tell you whether you can help me to it unless you tell me what you’re peddling.”
“I am not,” Gandalf says with mildly annoyed accents. “A peddler. I am a wizard.” Bilbo lowers his pipe and surveys him deliberately. Frivolity is one thing, he tells himself. Whimsy another.
“Ah,” Bilbo says. “It’ll be fireworks, then.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Fireworks,” he repeats. “Bit of a specialty of yours, as I recall. You’ve never charged for them before, though, have you? I suppose even wizards need gold now and again. Can’t magic up everything, eh?”
“I am not selling fireworks, ” Gandalf says testily. “I am not selling anything. I am offering you, Bilbo Baggins, the opportunity to share in an adventure."
“No charge?” Bilbo inquires ironically. Gandalf sighs. Bilbo reaches down beside the bench and retrieves two chilled bottles of ale. “Have a seat,” he invites him, cracking the bottles. “Hobbits aren’t really much for adventures, but I’m done my baking, the pantries are filled, the garden weeded, the quarterly lots collected… I even had my will done and filed over last week, so I’ve got a bit of time to listen to your proposal.”
“Your will?”
“I am fifty now,” he says reasonably. “And with no wife or fauntlings pending, it seemed appropriate.”
“Mm. Well then.” Gandalf takes the ale. Bilbo blows another series of smoke rings, drinks deeply, and listens to him talk, or rather, peddle.
“I’ll think about it,” he says finally. “And I’ll want to meet the Company first.”
“The…"
“Company. You did say ‘share in an adventure'. That implies that I wouldn’t be going it alone. Arrange a meeting - I’m free tonight after seven or so - we’ll see how it goes, and then I’ll give you my decision.”
The wizard looks decidedly unbalanced. “I must say,” he says. “That that’s a very… practical … approach to the wild and unfettered spirit of the thing."
“Thank you,” Bilbo returns. “I do try.” He blows a final smoke ring and collects the beer bottles. “Message board is beside the door there.” He points. “I paid out extra for the water-proof, phosphorescent chalk. Just leave a note that says ‘Meeting here at seven; refreshments provided, wipe your feet, but not on his mother’s glory box’, and oh yes, ‘if you break it you buy it’. I’ll take care of the rest. How many?"
“How many… What?"
“In the company,” the incipient host says patiently. “I’ll provide refreshments, but I’ll need to know how many settings to put out.”
“Ah. Erhm. Thirteen. Fourteen. Including me."
“Fifteen, then,” Bilbo says firmly. “I do intend to eat too. Have a good morning, then.”
And he goes inside and shuts the door, locks it, and goes to put the kettle on. In the dining room opposite, the fifteen place settings glimmer, and the pre-loaded sideboards (pre-loaded with all the dishes that don’t require chilling or hotting up, anyway; those are in the pantries and readied for the vast ovens) groan. Bilbo Baggins deposits the ale bottles in the wash bin, sits down comfortably at the counter, pulls over his plate of warm seed cake, and takes a huge, satisfying bite.