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Beside the Fire
Author: Aratlithiel Summary: Bilbo awaits Frodo’s return Rating: G
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November 08, 2003
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A/N – Thank you to Ariel who would not allow me to delete this when it was only a two page seed of an idea and thank you to Willow-wode who helped me find the missing link.
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BESIDE THE FIRE
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I sit beside the fire and think…
Firelight lends dusky rose to the pale, wrinkled face. The brow, creased deep with sudden age, furrows deeper still in bitter thought. Aged hands reach to the flames, stretch in the warmth then clutch to each other with a strength belied by their gnarled appearance. Aching joints cry protest but their owner is unmoved.
Close to two decades it is now that these rooms have been his haven. Seventeen years that seem but a fleeting moment to him now that time itself seems to have slouched to a halt in the days…? weeks…? since that cold farewell.
How many nights has he pondered alone in these rooms with only the fire and the complaints of ancient bones as company? He decides it doesn’t matter. There is nothing else left to him, after all. He has seen the child of his heart on his way and nothing remains to him now but the waiting.
So he sits beside the fire and thinks. Not as easy a task these days as one might suppose, old hobbit that he is. Things tend to muddle together in his mind more often than not and keeping a coherent stream of thought is rather a frustrating business. Annoying, it is, when you get right down to it, he thinks.
But when he takes pen to paper – ah! the words still flow for him then and that, at least, is something to take comfort in. And a comfort it has always been to him until…
He sighs and stretches himself in the over-stuffed chair, plops his feet on the footstool in front of him and broods into the fire. He folds his gnarled hands over his ample belly and frowns.
When exactly did the joy of scratching ink to parchment dim for him? How does someone who has found such delight in watching his thoughts dance across a virgin sheet of vellum and transform themselves into wondrous pictures in the mind’s eye - how does one lose that?
Ridiculous question, he chastises himself with a sharp scowl, and you’re a ridiculous, old fool to ask it. He knows very well how. And when.
Shall I live to see your chapters, my lad? Will I still be here when you return?
If you return, his mind wants to further, but he won’t allow it. His heart throttles the thought and mercilessly forces it back to whatever corner it is in his cobweb-strewn mind it crawled out of. You’ll come back. Of course you’ll come back. He gives a sharp nod and harrumphs to himself. You will.
He looks across the room to his desk; parchments, scrolls and texts scattered across the top as so many weathered leaves. Leaves would hold almost as much interest for him now and he allows himself a wry chuckle. Good luck, had he said? Yes, he’s quite certain that he had. He gives himself a derisive snort. I don’t suppose you will be able to keep a proper diary…? Yes, he had said that as well. He pulls his gaze away from the mountain of parchment and pens and clenches his teeth.
Keep a proper diary, indeed. He should not wonder that he finds his throat suddenly tight, his eyes full and burning whenever the thought of writing crosses his muddled mind. It should be no surprise that his hand now shakes when he takes pen to paper. He has found the same reaction at almost every turn; he crawls into the warm comfort of his bed and he thinks of his lad stretching out on the cold ground in the wilderness, thinks of the lad hungry and weary when a tray arrives at his door, he sits beside his cozy fire in the big, comfortable chair and thinks of his boy cold and frightened. And when his thoughts turn to writing…
I sit beside the fire and think…
…of depthless eyes filled with sorrow beyond their years.
“I still miss them horribly, Bilbo,” a soft voice whispers in the failing dusk. Guttering candlelight shadows the face and casts a honeyed glow to the forlorn figure that slumps at the small desk beside the cold hearth, pen loosely poised atop a small book of bound parchment. Ink seeps into the vellum, spiders along the paths of the rich weave and Bilbo plucks the pen from boneless fingers, staining his own with the ink that drips from the tip. “Won’t it ever go away?”
Bilbo drags a chair beside him and sits, slides his arm around the slender frame, rests his chin atop the unruly hair. He is silent for a long while, thinking how best to answer before deciding that nothing but the truth will do for this lad who has never thought to offer anything less.
“No, Frodo,” he murmurs into his cousin’s hair and places a kiss to the top of his head. He tightens his arm around the quivering shoulders. “It never goes away.”
A soft, low cry escapes the boy and silent tears wet Bilbo’s shirt. He curses the Hall in general to think that, in his absence, these tears fall unheeded onto an indifferent pillowcase. Offers silent reprimand to those who daily surround the boy and yet cannot seem to see him.
He looks to the entry the boy’s pen has been smearing into oblivion. ‘How can they have forgotten?’ he rages to himself. ‘How can they not see?’
But he knows that they only really notice the lad when trouble is on his heels and wonders if that trouble is purposely sought – brief respite in voices directed toward him and only him, stern tones accepted when nothing more is offered. Sorrow that is given no comfort and so seeks it in distraction. He worries that this solitary boy might someday succumb to the grief that simmers just below his skin, that the bright spirit that so enthralls Bilbo might shrivel beneath its persistent weight.
Bilbo examines the stains tipping his fingers, rubs them together, absently notes how the ink seeps into the swirls, embeds itself in the pads of his fingertips. And he begins to think that the front bedroom with the large window and private study might be put to better use than its current incarnation as a home for errant dust balls.
He shifts his weight in the chair, props his chin in his fist. How long has it been? he wonders. It was frosty – frigid, actually the night he had said goodbye to his lad for the second time. Watched him begin his dark journey, starlight glancing from hair turned black as a raven’s wing in the darkness, glimmers of moonbeam caught in eyes that looked straight ahead, meeting destiny with squared shoulders and a determined step. He had watched the frosty air billow forth as farewells were spoken and wondered if, perhaps, the words would be frozen in the mist, fall to the ground where he might retrieve them, tuck them into his breast pocket, hold them to his heart.
What have I gotten you into?
But the seasons have moved on since then and darkness stirs. That the darkness still prowls tells him that his lad has not yet finished, his feet have not yet turned for home. That it has not yet won tells him that there is still hope, that he yet lives, moves forward, carries on.
How are you faring? he wonders. Has your back been bent beneath your burden? Do you wish for your chair and your pipe when you gaze into the small fire that must be only small comfort along your way? Do your friends gather round you? Protect you?
He pauses, closes his eyes.
Will they bring you back to me?
He pounds his fist to the arm of the chair and growls in frustration. Too much padding in this great beast of a chair. No sharp crack of flesh connecting with wood, no dull pain in his fist to remind him that beating on furniture is all that’s left to him. His time is over, his part of the story already played out and all that’s left is the telling of it. He has left the important matters to others.
He looks again to the paper-strewn desk.
I sit beside the fire and think…
…of a youth with eyes that burn with life, peer out from a face caked in mud and thrown open in honest delight. Laughter crackles just beneath the surface, tangible almost; one almost wishes to reach out, take hold of it and bury it within their heart so that they may never again know a day without it.
The youth shifts and another face, streaked with grime appears from behind, eyes wide and unsure. Small fingers grasp at the tail of his cousin’s shirt, leave imprints on the one spot of ivory linen that had, up until this point, still remained ivory. Larger hands reach down, cover the smaller ones and pat: comfort given, protection assured.
Bilbo suppresses a chuckle, fixes his young cousin with a stern glare beneath which Frodo drops his eyes, feigns repentance and tucks the nervous little urchin behind him closer to himself. Impossibly wide, green eyes peer out from behind Frodo’s hip and Bilbo wants to laugh out loud. ‘Give him a little more time around his elder cousin,’ he thinks, ‘ and the Took in him will have me hiding behind Frodo!’
“Almost time for tea, lad,” he says thickly, the laughter threatening to bubble up through the austere tone. “I trust you will locate that rascal of a cousin of yours and you will both be presentable and at table within the half-hour?”
A stomach grumbles behind Frodo and he stifles a snort. “Yes, sir,” he chokes.
Bilbo glares for a moment longer, thinks about making them squirm for a few more minutes then takes pity. His mouth quirks into a half-smile and he is rewarded with its broad, brilliant counterpart. Ah, that smile – how many times has it cracked his heart wide, filled it with the flame of those eyes? The spirit of this lad could incinerate a person if they’re not careful.
He turns and heads for the smial, shrieks of laughter filling the space between him and his young cousins – time for one last mud battle, he supposes and chuckles. How had he not known that his life had been missing this for all those years?
He strides with a light step into his study and seats himself at his desk. Fingers tipped in sepia gather up the abandoned pen and bend to the work interrupted moments ago by peals of clear laughter outside his window. His eyes are drawn to the top of the page: ‘In RE: the adoption of Frodo Baggins, Brandy Hall, Buckland,’ it begins. Bilbo smiles warmly and dips his pen.
He stands slowly, his old bones protesting grievously as they leave the comfort of the chair and the warmth of the fire. He toddles across the room and out onto the balcony. The roar of the falls fills him and he remembers standing in this very spot…when? Months ago, he is sure, though it’s so very hard to tell anymore. Remembers Elrond’s approach; silent, as any elf ought to be. But Bilbo had felt the sorrow seeping from the great lord, felt the hesitation even before he’d crossed the room.
And he had known.
He had clenched the stone railing, drawn a breath: “What has happened to my boy?”
Then days of dozing in the chair at Frodo’s bedside, nights of too many dreams and too little sleep. He had thought to angrily accuse the Dúnadan, to demand answers to the questions his heart shrieked when he saw his lad carried in pale as death, filthy and shuddering with a soul-deep chill, face frozen in a twist of pain Bilbo feared to even attempt to fathom.
But he had kept his silence. He knew the valiance with which the companions had tried to protect their cousin – their friend. Could guess at the pain they had all endured in bearing witness to the past fortnight’s horrors. And he knew that if the list of grievances against those who had done wrong to his cousin were unfurled, Bilbo himself would not fare well when the sums were tallied.
A fortnight he had repeated to himself and turned it over and over in his mind, trying to grasp its implication. More than a fortnight: seventeen days. Seventeen. One day for every year he has spent away from the boy. Does it mean something? Punishment for his own selfish ways visited upon one who least deserves it?
He remembers wondering at the strength of spirit that could hold such darkness at bay. Remembers grieving with the knowledge that even the cold, black depths where his lad now wandered were not deep enough to smooth the knots of pain writ plain on the sweated face.
He hears the rush of robes all about him, elven chatter in strained tones, large hands pushing him down the hall and away from Frodo’s room. A young cousin at each arm, each straining to keep tears hidden beneath brave, dirty faces. Even in the bowels of the mountain with Smaug’s breath singeing his hair and the stench of death on his skin, even then he had not known such fear.
‘He’ll be all right, Bilbo,’ a shaky voice had choked out. Meriadoc? Peregrin? He can’t remember. ‘He’ll be all right,’ and it seemed a mantra, a talisman almost in its hoarse repetition.
He pounds his fist against the stone. Ah! There it is. The bite of pain travels the length of his arm and he’s the better for it; cobwebs recede, scalding tears well.
I sit beside the fire and think Of all that I have seen, Of meadow-flowers and butterflies In summers that have been…
“Must you go, Bilbo?”
He startles from his work; accounts to be set to rights, lessons to be taught, preparations to be made. His pen drips ink onto the desktop and Frodo leans over to blot it, face flushed and eyes downcast.
“I’m sorry, Bilbo. It’s only…” He finishes cleaning up the droplets, fiddles with the blotter; ink seeps from the felt and stains the tips of his fingers. He keeps his eyes on his hands.
“Frodo-lad,” Bilbo admonishes lightly. “You’re not getting sentimental on me, are you?” and instantly regrets his callous words as the dark head ducks further between the slender shoulders and the mouth works soundlessly. He reaches out to grasp the trembling shoulder but Frodo bolts with a scrape of the chair and the swing of the front door, blotter dropped to the floor and forgotten.
He sighs, drops his dripping pen, pushes himself back from the desk and follows. He squints into the sunlight as he emerges, stretches himself like a cat in the heat of the day.
Frodo stands halfway down the Hill, looking toward the Water, dark head tilted to the side, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. Bilbo walks to him, stands beside him. Silent. Waiting.
He watches his cousin closely, follows his eyes as they, in turn, trace the paths of tiny, yellow butterflies that dodge and cavort above the tips of the grass. Frodo’s mouth turns up into a small smile but his eyes are dull and clouded as they turn to Bilbo’s, catch hold.
“It’s only been eleven years,” he explains, his voice low and strained. “Doesn’t seem enough, somehow.”
Bilbo says nothing, but retreats from his cousin’s gaze.
Heavy silence until Frodo speaks into the stillness: “Breathe in, Bilbo.” Bilbo frowns, cocks an eyebrow but complies. “No, I mean really breathe in. Fill your lungs with the air.” Bilbo puffs out his chest and breathes in deep.
“Do you feel that?” Frodo asks. “Can you taste it?”
Bilbo looks to him, not quite sure there is a point and if there is, what that point can be.
“Look around you, Bilbo,” Frodo
persists. “Look around and see your home – our home.” Bilbo allows his gaze to travel the expanse of vivid color. Hobbiton lies quiescent below him, lush lands quietly bursting with life in the heat of peaceable summer.
“I see it, lad,” he says evenly.
“Look with your heart. Listen with your heart.” There is both command and entreaty in the voice and Bilbo heeds to both.
“My heart holds it all, Frodo,” Bilbo tells his cousin, his voice hushed, throat tight. “Always has.”
“And you won’t miss it?” Frodo asks without looking at him. “You won’t…” He pauses, swallows, tries again: “You won’t miss…anything?”
Ah, so there it is, then. He wonders that he hasn’t guessed it before now. He reaches over, places his palm against Frodo’s cheek, turns his head.
“I shall miss many things,” he says gently and he means it, has known the truth of it since before the decision had even been made. But he sees the resignation in Frodo’s eyes, the sadness and soft betrayal. ‘But not enough to stay,’ it accuses. ‘Not enough to stop you from being yet the latest to leave me behind.’
And Bilbo bends his head because he cannot bear the truth that pierces him in those eyes. Cannot allow his own truth to answer: ‘No, it is not enough, though I know not why.’
He sighs, collects himself. He turns back to his young cousin, braves the depths of his eyes. ‘Ask me to come with you,’ those eyes demand, but Bilbo sees the reluctance behind the wish, knows that Frodo has not sated himself with the treasures of his home just yet.
And he is astounded anew at the generosity in his young cousin when he sighs, places a gentle hand on Bilbo’s shoulder and smiles. All is forgiven in that smile, though Bilbo fears the sadness he has writ there with his own hand will forever mar the brilliance of it.
“Come, Bilbo,” Frodo says, turning them both toward home. “Back to our accounts. You have much yet to teach me before September arrives.”
They return to the study and Frodo moves to take his seat beside the desk. Bilbo catches him and, instead, steers him into his own chair. Frodo gazes long at Bilbo, bewildered, before reluctant understanding penetrates his regard. He smiles sadly, straightens his shoulders and nods.
Hands, still nimble and spry, retrieve the abandoned pen and hold it out expectantly. Fingers tipped in sepia gather up the pen and bend to the work interrupted moments ago by the scrape of a chair across the floor. Frodo clears his throat and regards Bilbo with eyes both old and young.
“Shall we resume the tally of the estate?”
Bilbo meets his cousin’s eyes steadily, straightens in his chair, nods. Frodo smiles warmly and dips the pen.
He hangs his head, grips the railing with shaking hands. I had the best of intentions. Truly, I did.
And just what were those intentions, exactly? he wants to know now. To abandon one who had already been set adrift too many times? To further his folly by chaining a millstone around the lad’s neck? To wave a jolly good-bye as he sent him off into a world of evil that would hunt him down, make prey of the boy without a care for those depthless eyes, that brilliant smile?
No, he insists. No! Respite was what he had intended; a haven for a spirit that was guttering beneath the weight of the hand it had been dealt. A home. A place that spoke welcome to one for whom the word had nearly lost its meaning. And, eventually, when the time was right, a place to call his own. Bilbo had always intended that a Baggins would remain under the Hill after he, himself, had set his feet once more upon the Road. And it was just his good luck that the Baggins he found was also the best hobbit in the Shire. Someone with the ideal spark, a true Baggins, the perfect…
Heir?
His breath stops and he grows suddenly cold. Sweet Eru, had it really been as selfish as all that? Had he doomed the child of his heart to shadow simply because he could not bear to leave his beloved home to the lot of sour-faced relations who had been panting for his demise all those years? His not-so-subtle revenge against the lot of spoon-stealers and gossipmongers? Is his love for the lad so shallow that he would use him in such a way then cast him aside when his desire for the Road finally overwhelmed him?
But I do love him, he insists to himself. More than anything.
But he hadn’t counted on that, had he? Hadn’t expected the boy to burrow so completely into his heart. Hadn’t even known the depth of it, really until that awful day of blood and blackness. And by then, it had almost been too late. Were it not for the grace of the Elves, the lad would now be sentenced to wander forever in darkness and for no better reason than that Bilbo Baggins would settle for none but the very best as his heir.
I hadn’t realized, didn’t understand…
For with the passing of the title of Master, so also had passed the weight of the world - just as the stain of ink that seeps from felt to fingertips. Responsibility that should have been his is now chained about the neck of the one person in the world he would wish it to pass by. The burden he should be writhing beneath has shifted to shoulders straight but oh, so slender and he curses Gandalf for his insistence and his secrecy that fateful night such a long lifetime ago.
‘You’ll keep an eye on Frodo, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I will – two eyes, as often as I can spare them.’
Not enough, he thinks. An army of thousands would not be enough to do what they have set his lad to. And Bilbo had sent him off with only a sword and a coat of mithril – once again casting him into the world; setting him adrift to find his own way without compass or sextant, alone in a sea of shadow.
Would he have stayed, had he known? Would he have left It behind?
“I didn’t understand,” he murmurs, “and now it is out of my hands.”
He looks to the stars and wonders if Frodo might be doing the same. It comforts him somehow to think that it’s so. He sends a soft entreaty to Elbereth and asks Eärendil to carry it along to his evening tryst with his love. “He is all that I have,” he whispers, “all that matters. I can do naught now but entrust him to you.”
Will she listen? Will she watch?
It is out of my hands.
He shakes his head and growls, pulls himself angrily away from the railing and stomps inside. He steps purposefully toward the desk, bends and gathers a mass of papers between his gnarled hands. He means to rend them, crumple them, perhaps even throw them into the hearth and watch them curl and blacken, wither into puffs of fragrant smoke.
But he stops, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. ‘Breathe in, Bilbo,’ and he clamps his eyes tighter. He lays the papers back down, smoothes them lovingly and drops into his chair. With a trembling hand, he reaches for a pen. He takes out his knife, carefully sharpens the nib and uncorks the inkpot.
But all the while I sit and think…
‘But I should feel happier if I knew you were wearing it…’
And now it seems a feeble defense, unworthy perhaps of the one it protects.
‘I cannot thank you as I should…’ and Bilbo had turned away, unable to accept the gratitude offered by one whose life ought to have taught him bitterness but instead made of him a spirit that would accept the world’s burden as his own and offer himself up to Evil in the stead of those he loved. No, my lad. It is we who cannot thank you.
‘…take as much care of yourself as you can…’
Bilbo folds his arms across the desk, drops his head to the crook of an elbow and weeps. The delicate tinkle of mithril mail sounds in his ears and he stops, listens more closely. His old ears deceive him, trick him with their wishful thinking and he places his hands over them.
I listen for returning feet…
“Alone in a sea of shadow.”
‘Look around you.’
A whisper that echoes as a shout - cuts through the cobwebs.
‘Look around you and see…’
He stops and slowly straightens, wipes the tears from his wrinkled cheeks.
‘We hobbits ought to stick together…’
His heart beats a heavy cadence in his ears. “It is out of my hands,” he says aloud to the empty room and the fire answers with a small explosion of sparks and the shift of a log in the embers. ‘Breathe in, Bilbo.’ He inhales deeply, lets it go; clenches his hand into a fist then slowly lets it relax. ‘Listen with your heart.’ And he does.
He hears Peregrin, swearing that chains and prisons and sacks would not be enough to keep him from sharing his cousin’s dark journey. He remembers Meriadoc, studying maps and keeping his elder cousin always within sight, out of the corner of his watchful eye. He sees Samwise, craning his neck to glare defiantly into the grey eyes of Elrond himself when the Elf Lord thought to deny him his right at his master’s side.
“Not alone,” he thinks he says but his whisper is drowned by those that stir in his heart.
Voices come together within, sing to him songs of love and faith. A tune sweeter than any of the uncounted songs he has drowsed to in this elven haven. The voices join, entwine, reach a crescendo in his ears that should deafen him but, instead, cradles him in a warmth so intense in its heat his small hearth would shatter beneath it. A cacophony stirs within then…
Silent. Still.
‘Look with your heart.’
Slender hands envelop small, grimy ones entwined in muddy linen. Gentle, ink-stained fingers grasp his shoulder, whisper sorrow, love and acceptance in that single, tender touch. Hands that hold the illusion of youth press a pen into ink-stained fingers.
Small and gold, ensconced in a grip cold and rigid as death. Frantic chatter ignored, soft murmurs spoken to one who hovers on the edge of Shadow: ‘You are safe, cousin. We are here with you. Let it go now.’ Hands, grown larger but once again stained with mud enclose the fist, gentle the grasp and pat then…
A gasping, ragged sigh and the clink of gold to cold marble.
Comfort given, protection assured.
He nods his head slowly, stares at his hands – hands that once held the weight of the world and the fate of his lad. He has since passed both to the hands of one more suited to hold them. And he has entrusted that one to the hands of those who will see him through.
“Not alone.” He closes his eyes tight then opens them, looks again to his hands. Twisted and misshapen with age but he is surprised to see that they have ceased their shaking. “It is in your hands now, as are they. Put yourself in theirs in your turn. Take what comfort you can from them, lad.” His words are hushed – soundless, almost in the silence of the room. He catches himself straining his ears in the quiet, listening with his heart, listening for…something. Listening for…?
But all the while I sit and think Of times there were before, I listen for returning feet And voices at the door.
“Take what comfort you can,” he repeats. Good advice is always worth the repetition. “And I shall take what comfort is left to me.”
He looks at the blank page his hands have brought before him, moving in stealth while his mind was otherwise engaged. “I will see you again, my lad,” he says to no one, his ears alert for the familiar footsteps that are the only answer he wishes for.
He nods again, reaches for the lamp and turns up the wick. He gazes at the pen for a moment then dips the nib into the ink.
“All that’s left is the telling of it,” he whispers and it seems to him that it is a comfort he can accept, a strength he will willingly receive.
Voices at the door, he thinks and takes pen to paper.
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END
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A/N – Excerpts of Bilbo’s poem/song and some quotes taken from FotR, Book II, Chapter 3, The Ring Goes South and FotR, Book I, Chapter 1, A Long Expected Party.
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