Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Halimath 22, Shire-Reckoning.

 

Bilbo was thirty-three. A momentous occasion, to a Hobbit, marking the transition from the irresponsible tweens to the true beginning of adulthood. He was an adult, and a gentlehobbit, and possessed, if truth be told, of more money and property than he knew what to do with.

He was also sulking.

It wasn’t hard to blame him, honestly - at least he didn’t think so, but he might be biased. All of his relations, the pitiful handful that there were, had turned up early in the evening for the formality of the occasion - and to receive presents, of course - and now Bilbo was alone in his home. It truly was his now, though the transfer of legal ownership had been a mere formality. He’d had the management of Bag End since he was only twenty-nine, and had surprised the adults by his careful handling of the estate’s affairs. The money had only grown under his careful (some might say tight-fisted) management.

For a half a Took, they whispered carefully, he seemed to be doing well.

They didn’t dare say such things to his face.

It was raining hard that night, the sound of raindrops hitting the windows providing a fitting backdrop to Bilbo’s melancholy. By rights, Bag End should have been a riot of noise and warmth, a party like no other to celebrate the young master’s transition to adulthood. Instead he sat, surrounded by the sad remains of party food, and watched the fire slowly die.

The lightning flashed outside his dining room window, and the echoing crash of thunder shook him out of his near-slumber, enough to make him see that the fire had almost burned itself out, embers glowing dark beneath the charred remains of sticks and bits of bark that hadn’t been consumed. He shuddered at the thought of going out in the rain, but he had used up all the tinder he had inside. Hamfast kept a neat pile of firewood in a dry nook built into the side of the hill, but he would have to venture out for it. He’d have done it before the party if he’d had the heart.

Bilbo dragged himself from his chair, relinquishing the comfort of his hearth, and wrapped himself in an oversized cloak that was hanging on a peg by the door. He would be able to cover the wood as he brought it in, even if his feet would wind up covered in mud and his face drenched by the downpour. He had to push hard to get the door open; the wind seemed determined to keep it firmly shut. His feet nearly slipped as they hit the path.

The whole of Hobbiton seemed to be sleeping, though it was hardly past nine in the evening. There were no cosy lights shining in round windows, no fires in the center of the town that would warm a weary traveler or provide easy companionship. Even the Green Dragon had shuttered its windows against the driving rain. It was unseasonably cold, and Bilbo wrapped the cloak around himself a bit more closely.

The lights from Bag End’s windows were enough to see by, and he knew the path well enough. He scurried along as best he could in the dark, taking care not to fall, and ducked into the shelter of the wood nook. It smelt of clean pine and sawdust, and Bilbo let himself relax for just a moment, already shaking the cloak off to gather wood under its folds.

The lightning struck again - and something moved on the other side of the wood pile. Bilbo dropped the stick he’d already picked up, jumping back in alarm - which grew into near-panic when the thunder came, and the thing on the other side of the mountain of wood screamed. It was a high, clear cry of pure terror, joined by Bilbo’s rather harsher yelp of alarm. Someone was sheltering in his wood pile.

The scream stopped when the thunder died away, only to be replaced by a whimpering sob that went on and on, even as Bilbo tiptoed around, peering cautiously over the wood to see what was making the noise. He could see a tangle of long hair falling over tiny, narrow shoulders, and a small frame curled into a tight ball, pressed back against the wall of the hill. Not a particularly frightening person, then - and he let out a sigh of relief.

“Hello?” he tried cautiously, bobbing his head above the woodpile a few times in quick succession. “Look, can I help you?”

The sob heightened in intensity, but the little ball of person didn’t speak a word. Bilbo hummed a desperate, bewildered note in his throat, and then crept around the pile of wood to get a better look at his unexpected intruder. It was too dark to make out details, but from this angle, Bilbo could definitely see that it was a child - a young Hobbit lass, to judge from the length of the hair and the bare feet he could see poking out from the bottom of the child’s clothing. He sighed. Shire customs carried the weight of law, for all practical purposes, and there was no getting around the rules about care for a lost child. He would have to take the wee creature into his home for the night, and then find the parents as soon as morning came.

Precisely what he had hoped to do with his Birthday.

He stepped closer, trying not to seem too intimidating. “I’m here to help,” he offered, hoping he sounded kind. He hadn’t had much practice at that in a while. “You can stop crying now.”

The child just wept harder, burrowing tightly into a ball, and Bilbo sighed. He put out a hand to the child’s back, feeling the little shoulder flinch away at his touch.

“You can’t stay out here,” Bilbo tried to reason with the child. “It’s raining and whatnot. It’s no place for a child. Come in with me and I’ll make you some tea, and we’ll find your family in the morning.”

The sobbing quieted a little at that, and the child’s head lifted until one dark eye could be seen peering under the curtain of hair.

“Fee?” it asked, in a high, querulous voice. Bilbo shrugged.

“I won’t charge you anything. Come on, then, I’m getting cold.”

“Fee?” the child said again, now close to a whine. “Fee!”

So it hadn’t been a question about payment after all. Bilbo groaned and shook his head, and decided to take matters into his own hands. He knelt down by the child, reaching out slowly so as not to frighten the little thing. “We’ll find your Fee tomorrow,” he promised, and scooped the little body up in both arms. It was a startling moment. The child was shockingly light, all fragile bones and frighteningly cold skin, and Bilbo flinched at the feeling. He needed to take this little one out of the storm right away. The child froze, but didn’t fight his hold, and he stood up, wrapping the ends of his cloak around the child, and flipping the loose edge over the dark head to protect it from the rain.

He hurried in, not minding the rain on his own head now, but mindful of the burden in his arms as he fought to keep his footing. Another crack of thunder sent tiny, ice-cold fingers up to clutch at the neck of his shirt. Bilbo half kicked the door open, ducking inside and sending it flying back to close again with a careful foot. The little body in his arms was trembling now - with cold or fear, Bilbo didn’t know - and he hurried to the comfortable chair in front of the fire that he had abandoned such a short time ago, depositing the child in the chair, still wrapped in his cloak. He stepped back and waited for the little one to untangle the folds of the cloak - but the huddled lump just sat there, unmoving, curled in on itself.

Bilbo poked the fire, stirring it back to life as best he could, and then reached forward carefully to help extricate the wee nuisance from his second-best cloak. He pulled the cloak away, leaving a very small, very dirty child curled up on the chair, watching him with the darkest, widest eyes Bilbo had ever seen. From the colors and style of the clothing, Bilbo made a few quick deductions - namely, that it was a little boy, despite the length of the dark hair, and that it was not a Hobbit child at all. His feet were tiny and oddly narrow, lacking any warm hair at all, and they were bloodied on the bottom - a rare sight to a Hobbit’s eyes. Tears had carved clean streaks in the dirt that covered the boy’s face.

The boy was watching him, unblinking. Bilbo tried to guess at his age, but found it nearly impossible. If he had been a Hobbit, Bilbo would have said he was about five or six, though somewhat oddly shaped. He reached out with gentle fingers to brush the hair back from the boy’s head, revealing the odd, rounded ears that made it clear he was neither Hobbit nor Elf. Man or Dwarf then, and Bilbo wasn’t sure how to tell them apart in this young stage. The boy didn’t move, hardly breathing, and Bilbo backed away as he realised he was frightening the lad.

“What’s your name, lad?” Bilbo asked quietly, sinking down to sit on the floor, which put the boy’s head slightly higher than his own. There was no answer, but a miserable hiccup of a sob broke forth. “My name is Bilbo,” he offered. “Bilbo Baggins.”

The boy turned his head a little, staring with undisguised curiosity at Bilbo’s feet, and Bilbo nodded, stretching them out. “I’m a Hobbit - see, you can tell by the feet! What are you?” No answer, but Bilbo pushed on. “You’re no elf, that’s clear.” The open disgust in his fine little features was enough to make Bilbo chuckle, genuinely amused. “Right, sorry! Are you - I don’t know the word for young Manlings - are you a child of Men? Or a Dwarf?”

The wide, dark eyes blinked at him for a long moment, and then he whispered, lips barely parting. “Khazad.”

“Right, that’s - that’s Dwarf, then,” Bilbo said, casting his mind back to what he knew of Dwarves from his books. Almost nothing. There might be a slight flaw in his choice to read only the writings of the Elves. Did Dwarves - little ones - even speak Westron? He knew the older ones usually did, though with strong accents - but they also spoke their own secret language. He had to hope he was at least being understood. “Why are you alone? Where’s your family?”

The dark eyes squinched shut, face screwing up in an expression of pure misery, and the wail of grief and terror started again. Bilbo had asked the wrong question - though the fact that the boy had understood him was something, at least.

It took nearly an hour to calm the boy down. Bilbo offered every type of food and drink he could think of, so desperate to stop that awful weeping that he didn’t mind what the lad might take. He wouldn’t take so much as a seed cake, though, and the only word he would say was the same plea, over and over - fee, fee, fee. Finally, in despair, Bilbo swept the little boy up into his arms and cradled him, rocking his body back and forth in a soothing motion while he murmured comforting nonsense over and over, until the sobs turned into snuffles, and the little boy fell asleep with his fingers wrapped around the collar of Bilbo’s shirt.

He would have to find help in the morning. Someone would have to know how the Dwarves had lost a little boy, or how to talk to him, or at least how to deal with children, generally speaking. Someone would help him - but for tonight he was trapped by tiny fingers and a tear-streaked, filthy face. Bilbo sat down gingerly in his chair before his dying fire, draping a warm woolen blanket over both of them, and let his head fall back, eyes closing in sheer exhaustion. Most definitely not the way he had meant to spend his Birthday.
~~~~
He woke to discomfort the next morning. The sun was streaming in the window, as if to erase the memory of the storm the night before, and Bilbo glared uselessly at the too-bright rays which hurt his head. His back ached, his arms were half asleep, and he felt as though his neck had been permanently dragged to one side. Blinking sleep from his eyes, he looked down at the little fellow who was the cause of his discomfort.

The child was wide awake, staring up at him with huge dark eyes that made Bilbo feel uncomfortably like he was being judged. In the light of day, he was an even more pathetic figure, all tangled dirty hair and bruises on his fair skin. Bilbo sighed heavily. Usually, at this time of morning, he would have been waking up in his own soft bed, and then wandering to the kitchen to make himself a quiet cup of tea and a bit of breakfast. That obviously was not going to happen.

He offered the child a smile, after a fashion, and rubbed at his tired eyes. “Morning,” he tried. The lad blinked at him. Bilbo shook his head, and put out a hand to pick up one of the bloodied little feet, clucking his tongue ruefully. “We’d best get you cleaned up. We can’t take you to find your family looking like this.”

To his relief, the mention of family didn’t set the little one off weeping again, and Bilbo stood slowly, hoisting the child into a comfortable position to be carried. He made his way to the bathroom and set the boy down, leaning over to fill the tub with warm, clean water. His own muscles ached in jealous protest.

It took a near-heroic effort to convince the lad to get into the tub. Bilbo wondered whether Dwarves didn’t bathe the same way, or whether it was his own trustworthiness that the little boy questioned, but it took every ounce of patience he had to get the little one cleaned up. He washed the tangled hair as best he could, finding leaves and twigs matted into the mess that looked like they had been there for days.

“How did you get like this, little Dwarf?” Bilbo murmured, scrubbing industriously at the dirt beneath the short nails. “Who lost you?”

“Fee,” the boy answered, blinking up at Bilbo. He stopped for a moment. That had almost seemed like a proper answer. He made himself start scrubbing again, though his lower back was protesting the awkward position.

“Is Fee a person?” Bilbo guessed. The boy nodded solemnly, never taking those huge eyes off his face. “Right, then. Fee is the person who lost you. Who are you? What’s your name?”

The lad stared at him, little mouth drawn up in a worried pout. Bilbo gave up after a moment, and turned his attention to the strange little feet. The warm water had soaked most of the mud and dried blood off, but Bilbo needed to get them cleaned properly before he could dress the wounds. He reached for a fluffy towel, ready to lift the lad out and look after his feet before the scabs worked their way off, causing more pain.

“Kee,” the lad said suddenly, and then ducked backward, letting his long, dark hair fall in wet strings over his face. Bilbo gave a little laugh, trying not to move too suddenly and spook the child.

“That’s you, then? Kee?”

He glared up at Bilbo, shaking his head. “Kíli,” he repeated - and this time Bilbo heard both syllables.

“Kíli. Very nice to make your acquaintance,” Bilbo said formally. Kíli stared up at him, clearly not certain what to make of this, and Bilbo held out the towel. “Shall we see about looking after your feet? I think I could find you a bit of bread and jam to eat while I work.”

Kíli’s face lit up at the offer of food, and he scrambled to his feet - then gave a sharp cry of pain as the injuries made themselves apparent. Bilbo swept him off his feet, wrapping the towel warmly around him, and carried him out to the kitchen. It was shaping up to be a lovely, warm autumn day, and the sun streaming in through the windows had already made the kitchen lovely and warm. Bilbo was grateful not to have to worry about wood just yet. He sat the boy down on the edge of the sturdy wooden table, slathered a thick piece of bread with fresh apple jam, and handed it to Kíli, who stared at it suspiciously for a long while, and then began to eat like he was starving.

Bilbo cleaned and dressed his feet while Kíli was distracted, grateful that the lad wasn’t crying about the process, though he knew it couldn’t be comfortable. He wrapped clean strips of linen around Kíli’s feet, and then nodded in satisfaction. The lad’s clothes were an absolute disaster, though, and Bilbo couldn’t see putting them back on the boy now that he was clean and dry. He handed Kíli another chunk of jammy bread, along with an apple and a hunk of cheese, and went off in search of something the boy could wear.

Away in a back bedroom that had once been his own, before his parents passed away, Bilbo found a set of well-worn clothes tucked neatly in a dresser, surrounded by cedar chips. The blue of the tunic was faded now, and the knees of the brown trousers were nearly worn through, but they looked like a close enough fit for Kíli. He ran a finger over the fine weave of the material, remembering days spent in the woods and wading in the little rivers of the Shire, and then he stood up and went back to the kitchen.

“Here,” he told Kíli, laying the pile of items down gently. “These were mine, when I was your size. I was very keen on adventuring then, and my mother insisted I have spare things just for that purpose, so I didn’t ruin my good clothes.”

Kíli frowned down at the pile, then up at Bilbo. “Kíli’s now?” he asked suspiciously, and Bilbo chuckled.

“Yes, if you like.” It was the cheapest gift he had given in many years, but as Bilbo helped the little boy struggle into the tunic, he suddenly had the thought that it was the first that had meant anything.

Once he was dressed, Kíli gave an exploratory wiggle, then shook his head vigorously, sending drops of water flying around the room. “Make hair,” he said imperiously, and Bilbo gaped at him. Kíli raised an eyebrow, and Bilbo found himself scampering away to find comb and brush. To his surprise, the little one sat still as Bilbo combed through the tangles of his hair, carefully working out the twigs and knots. Kíli seemed to relax as he worked, and was soon swinging his little legs over the edge of the table, singing a song whose tune and words were utterly incomprehensible. Bilbo told himself firmly that it was neither charming nor adorable.

He knew Dwarves wore elaborate braids in their hair and beards, but Hobbits did not, and Bilbo hadn’t the faintest idea where to begin. When all of Kíli’s hair was clean and detangled, he pulled back some of the long strands from the front and secured them behind his head, hoping it would be enough to satisfy his exacting little guest. “There,” he announced. One little hand came up to pat at the arrangement, and Kíli looked satisfied. A jam-covered thumb went into his mouth, and he watched Bilbo expectantly.

It took a little while for Bilbo to get himself ready, and to eat a few bites of breakfast, but he eventually stood by the door and beckoned to Kíli. “We’re going to go see if we can find your family,” he explained. Kíli brightened, hopping down from the table in an easy jump - and then he stood frozen, face crumpling into tearful lines of pain. Bilbo had forgotten his feet. He dropped his walking stick and rushed over, dismayed to see fat tears forming in the little boy’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Bilbo murmured, bending down to lift him up. “I had forgotten.”

He wound up perching the little dwarf on his shoulders, injured feet hanging safely above the ground as they dangled on Bilbo’s chest. Kíli clung to his head, little fingers weaving themselves painfully into his curls, and Bilbo humphed and groaned his way down the Hill. He passed Hamfast Gamgee, hard at work in the garden, and thought about ducking away into a bush to avoid questions about why the newly-made Master of Bag End was playing pony to a little Dwarf. He thought better of it after a moment: the Gamgee family was generally well connected to the rumour mills of Hobbiton.

“Morning, Mr. Bilbo,” Hamfast said, sweeping his hat off respectfully. “I see you’ve got a little visitor!”

“So I have,” Bilbo said ruefully. “He appeared in my woodpile last night. Do you have any idea where he might have come from?”

Hamfast scratched his head thoughtfully, honest face wrinkled with the effort of thought.

“Weeeellll,” he said slowly, “my old mum was talking a few evenings past about her tea with old Mrs. Proudfoot, and as how Mrs. Proudfoot said she’d heard about Dwarves passing through these parts. Headed for the towns of the Big People, they were, down from the Blue Mountains.”

“What would they be doing with children on the road?” Bilbo asked, slightly horrified. Hobbits did not travel much at all, and they certainly didn’t hold with taking their children on long journeys.

“The homeless ones haven’t got much choice, have they?” Hamfast asked, squinting sympathetically up at the little figure on Bilbo’s shoulders – who was beginning to get quite heavy, despite his small size. “They pass through sometimes – whole troops of them, even the little ones. They try not to disturb the grander folk much, though.”

Bilbo nodded. He rather took it for granted that, as one of the grander folk, he was spared many uncomfortable things. The passage of uncomfortably loud and often warlike Dwarves was certainly an aspect of life he did not mind avoiding. Which left him with a small, snuffling problem.

“Well, they’ll notice they’ve left one behind, won’t they?”

Hamfast glanced up at Kíli nervously, and lowered his voice. “There’s word going round this morning that there were fighting on the borders yesterday. Like as not, the Dwarves found themselves in trouble with some of the Big People, and your little fellow was lost in the scuffle.”

Bilbo groaned, readjusting Kíli’s weight a bit. “I’d best go find the Shirriff, then. Good morning!” He wandered off, Hamfast’s cheerful farewell ringing in his ears, and reminded himself that he should pay the man a bit more for his work. As it was the fourth such reminder he’d issued in the last twelvemonth, though, a guilty part of Bilbo’s mind told him it was unlikely to be followed through on.

Kíli’s fingers tightened in his hair as they approached the more populous part of Hobbiton, and people started to look at them strangely. It wasn’t that often that Bilbo made his way down into the village unless he was on a particular errand, and they had certainly never seen him this way before. He raised his chin and ignored the startled glances and hurried, whispered conversations springing up on all sides.

“This is Hobbiton, Kíli,” he said instead. “Did you come here before? You and Fee, maybe?”

“No,” Kíli said flatly.

“Well, how about other places. Have you been to Hobbit towns before?”

“No.” It was the same flat negative. Bilbo was growing a little tired of hearing it.

“But you’ve seen Hobbits before, yes?”

“No.”

Bilbo groaned, and gave up on conversation for the time being. He made his way into the center of town, hoping against hope that the Shirriff would be there this morning. He had a way of making his way over to Michel Delving a bit too often for Bilbo’s liking, even if he understood that the lad had a young lady there. But luck was with him that morning, as he saw the proud feather waving in the breeze just across the street.

“You there!” Bilbo called, trying to jog over, but finding it nearly impossible without unseating Kíli. “Shirriff!”

“Yes, Mr. Baggins?” Tolman Cotton doffed his cap respectfully, though there was a distance in his expression that Bilbo was well used to. He had not made himself well loved in Hobbiton, preferring the peace and solace of Bag End to the company of strangers.

“I’ve found this lad wandering on my property,” Bilbo said quickly, shrugging his shoulders to make Kíli bounce a bit. “I’m looking for his parents.”

“We haven’t had any Dwarves through here since Trewsday,” Tolman said, smiling sympathetically up at the little boy. “A whole gang of them passed through Michel Delving, headed to Bree. Had little ones with ‘em and all, though, so they’re likely the ones as lost him.”

“He can’t have been wandering lost since then!” Bilbo objected, horrified at the idea. “That’s five days ago! Surely they’d have come back for him.”

“It’s more likely they lost him yesterday, in the skirmishing,” Tolman said sadly, shaking his head. “Awful thing, it was. They were set on by Big People, not an hour’s walk from here.”

It seemed almost impossible that a child as small and helpless as Kíli had found his way all that distance alone, but Bilbo pushed that aside. “But they’ll come back for him, right? Once they realise they’ve lost a child? Dwarves do have a sense of kinship.”

Tolman shook his head, looking very sorrowful. “I wasn’t there, Mr. Baggins, and I can only go on what I was told, but I heard things went very bad indeed for the Dwarves. Don’t know as we can count on any of them being left to come for him.” He kept his voice at a hush, speaking quietly and respectfully, but Bilbo felt Kíli’s little body go stiff. He was understanding at least some of what they were saying. He reached up above his shoulders quickly, transferring Kíli into his arms.

“No,” Bilbo said firmly. “They’ll come for him. They can’t all have been – well, you know.”

“I do hope you’re right, Mr. Baggins,” Tolman agreed. He looked at the little Dwarf sadly. “My Rosie’s about his age. It’s not to be thought of, a little one growing up alone in the world.”

“Well, what do I do with him?” Bilbo asked, making an abortive movement to hand Kíli over. “Will he be looked after by the Shirriffs until his family comes?”

Tolman looked confused. “We’re not child minders, Mr. Baggins! We keep the peace, and protect against trespassers.”

“One of your wives, then?” Bilbo tried, growing a little desperate. “I’m sure your own lovely wife wouldn’t mind watching one more for a day or so, just until the Dwarves come back for him?”

Tolman shook his head, looking more than a little angry, and Bilbo saw they were beginning to draw a crowd. “You can’t just put a child off on someone else like that, sir!”

“But I don’t know what to do with him!” Bilbo protested. In his arms, Kíli was shaking a little, fingers clutching at his arm with a surprising strength. “I don’t know anything about Dwarves – or children, for that matter! I can’t possibly look after him!”

“Well, I’m sure we wouldn’t want to put you out,” Tolman said. His voice was cold now, and he approached, opening his arms to take the child. “We’ll find somewhere for him.”

Kíli howled in protest, burying his face against Bilbo’s chest and sobbing, and Tolman froze in surprise.

“It’s all right, Kíli,” Bilbo protested, trying to peel him away. “Mr. Cotton will look after you now, until your family comes.”

“No!” Kíli howled, clutching even tighter. “Bilbo!” There was a warm sensation creeping down the front of his shirt, which Bilbo belatedly realised was just the warmth of tears. Kíli was weeping now, clutching Bilbo tightly. His arms tightened around the tiny form without his consent, and Bilbo felt a pang in his chest.

Tolman put a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder, prepared to pull him away, and Bilbo shook his head. This was not the way to do it.

“Look, I’ll do it,” he said quickly, backing up a step. “Maybe it’s for the best if he stays with me a day or two, just until they come back.”

The crowd that had gathered to look on seemed torn – half giving approving nods or coos, the other half murmuring doubtfully – and Bilbo found he wanted to spite them both at the same time. He readjusted Kíli in his arms, freeing a hand to gently lift the little boy’s face. Tears were streaming down two previously-clean cheeks, and Bilbo was instantly sorry for what he had said. “Kíli, it’s fine now. You can come with me, you understand? Until your Fee comes back.”

It was a more sober duo that climbed back up the hill to Bag End, with Bilbo’s shoulders burning and heart burdened with dread. He didn’t know how to look after a child. Kíli seemed to have lost his energy, slumping pathetically over Bilbo’s head and still sniffling miserably every now and then.

“We’ll be fine,” Bilbo puffed to himself as they passed Hamfast Gamgee, still hard at work. “It’ll be a day or two, and then I’ll have my life back. It will be just fine.”

But the Shirriff never came with word of Dwarves who had come seeking their lost child.

~~~~~

It took nearly a week for Kíli to start talking in more than one or two words at a time, and after that, Bilbo couldn’t get him to shut up. He grew used to the layout of Bag End quickly, and as his feet healed, the sound of footsteps in corners of the house that had been shut up for years became a common occurrence.

Dwarves were a strange lot, Bilbo decided quickly, rejecting the idea that it was unfair to judge an entire race based solely on the behaviour of a single, very young, member. Kíli woke with the sun and never seemed to stop running. He ate with the intense ferocity of a young Hobbit, but Bilbo had never known a Hobbit lad so fond of playing at warfare. Kíli turned every fallen stick into a sword, hacking at imaginary foes, roaring battle cries that Bilbo could not make out.

As Halimath faded into Winterfilth, the leaves dropping sadly from the trees, the reality of the situation began to sink in for Bilbo. It had been nearly a fortnight since the little Dwarf had turned up on his doorstep, and no word had come of anyone who might be looking for him. Bilbo hated to ask, but he needed to know what he could. He sat Kíli down after supper one night, when his energy was happily fading, and bribed him with a huge pastry.

“Kíli,” Bilbo started. “Tell me about your family?”

“Fee,” Kíli said first – and of course he did, because it was the most used word in his limited vocabulary. Whoever, or whatever, this Fee had been, it was what Kíli looked for morning and night. He cried for Fee every night when Bilbo tucked him into the soft featherbed that had been his own growing up, and wandered the halls of Bag End, calling sadly for Fee, first thing every morning.

“Who is Fee, Kíli?” Two little hands came up to sketch something in the air, and Bilbo patted his fingertips gently, batting them back down. Kíli seemed to have some sort of sign language he used when his limited words were insufficient, but Bilbo didn’t have the first idea how to read it. “Use your words! You can do it!”

Kíli’s brow wrinkled, making his dark eyebrows all but meet in the middle. He was clearly thinking hard, and Bilbo gave him a moment before offering help. “Is that what you call your father?” Kíli shook his head, face clearing with amusement at the clear absurdity of that idea. “Fine, no. Who is your father, Kíli?”

He thought again, wrinkling up his snub nose in concentration. “Papa sleeping,” he said finally, nodding in relief as he found the words.

“Sleeping?”

Kíli gestured vaguely downward, nodding. “Mahal.” That told Bilbo precisely nothing, and he pressed on.

“What about your mother?”

The little face lit up at that, looking around like she might have appeared. “Mama?”

“She’s not here yet,” Bilbo said quickly. “She’ll come, though, I’m sure. What was her name, Kíli?”

“Mama,” he said certainly. He knew this one! Bilbo dropped his head, rubbing his hands across his face.

“Who takes care of you?”

“Fee!” Kíli said joyfully, clapping his little hands, and then looked pensive. “An’ Unca Sorin.”

“Sorin?” Bilbo seized on that. It was the closest thing to a name he’d gotten from the lad. “And where did you come from? Was it the Blue Mountains?”

“Eralin,” Kíli said, nodding solemnly. He broke off a piece of his pastry and handed it to Bilbo, patting his hand with sticky fingers.

“Ered Luin?” Bilbo asked, wanting to be sure. Kíli nodded again, and stuffed the rest of the pastry in his mouth, making his cheeks bulge comically. Well, that was something. He could send a letter to Ered Luin, at the least, and ask who had lost a little Dwarfling. Maybe this Sorin himself would realise where his lost nephew had gone and come looking for him.

Only, as Bilbo sat in front of the fire eating pastries and trying not to giggle at Kíli’s comical faces, he suddenly didn’t like the idea. What if the letter went astray, and someone with bad intentions came looking for the child? He had no idea about Dwarf lifestyles and politics, but there were always rumours of those who had foul intentions toward children, who would prey on the weak and parentless. If Sorin lived, surely he would come back on his own to find his kin?

He wrote the letter the next day, and tucked it carefully into a drawer of his writing desk, intending to post it straight away. He never did.

A fortnight turned into two, then stretched further, and Winterfilth passed away quietly, making way for the growing chill of Blotmath. Snow fell in light flurries, barely speckling the ground, and Kíli danced and shouted for glee. Bilbo wasn’t sure if he’d never seen snow before, or if he had fond memories of it.

He had to send for the leather craftsman in Hobbiton, who usually earned his living in making belts and pouches of all sorts, for a most unusual purchase for a Hobbit. Poor Mr. Chubb gaped at him in near horror when he asked.

“Shoes, Mr. Bilbo? You’re wanting a pair of shoes?”

“Not for myself!” Bilbo said hastily. “For my – well, for Kíli.” Kíli galloped into the room at the sound of his name, crashing heavily into Bilbo’s leg and nearly knocking him over, and Bilbo picked him up to show Mr. Chubb the little feet. “You see? He hasn’t got the natural toughness to the soles, and he’s always hurting his feet. Now that it’s getting cold, I don’t think we can do without.”

Mr. Chubb stared at them both in a kind of startled, half-fond wonderment. “We didn’t know he was still here, Mr. Bilbo! You’ve kept him all this while, then?”

“Well, of course!” Bilbo said, affronted. “Did you think I would throw him out in the wild?”

“Oh, no, sir!” he protested. “We just reckoned the Dwarves must’ve come, or you’d have brought him back to Hobbiton. To be honest, no-one fancied you much of a family man.”

“I see,” Bilbo said coldly. “Well, I’m not making any claims to it. I’m just asking whether you can make me a pair of shoes for a baby Dwarf.”

Chubb bent down to look carefully at the tiny feet, and scratched his head. “I’m sure I can figure the thing out, if you give me some time. If the Big People can manage it, a Hobbit should have no trouble!”

He took careful measurements, as Kíli squealed with delight and kicked his feet wildly, and then took his leave with a careful little bow. Bilbo stared at Kíli absently, running his fingers through the wild, dark hair that was so prone to tangle.

“Kíli, my lad,” he said with a quiet grin. “I think it’s time we started getting out more!”

It took a week for the shoes to arrive – but Hamfast brought them by one morning, tiny and perfect, and Kíli roared with delight as he was able to run about in the garden despite the chill in the air.

“Shoes, shoes, shoes,” he sang, hitting a rock with a very large stick. “Kíli shoes, baruk Khazâd!” Bilbo blinked at him. It was clearly a mangling of some song he had once known, not at all like the gentle Hobbit songs Bilbo had known as a child. This was a song of war, and Kíli sang it with a fierce joy. It was a sudden sharp reminder that despite his clothing, Kíli was not a Hobbit lad.

“Well, Bilbo,” he told himself quietly. “If you’re to be raising a Dwarf, you’d best do it right.” He went back into Bag End, leaving Kíli to play under Hamfast’s watchful eye, and started making a list.

Hair was the first thing on the list, and the first thing that Bilbo tackled. He wandered down into Hobbiton the next day, with Kíli hanging happily on one hand, babbling away in a mixture of common Westron words and the phrases that Bilbo didn’t know – wasn’t even sure whether they were Dwarvish words, or just Kíli-speak. He led Kíli through the market, smiling gently as he stared wide-eyed at sheep that towered above him, and Bilbo kept his eyes peeled.

Finally, he spotted a little Hobbit girl, not much larger than Kíli. Her hair had grown long, and was secured on her head in two complicated braids, tucked neatly about her head and strewn with flowers. She was hanging near her mother’s skirts, and Bilbo made his way over, Kíli still clinging to his hand.

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully. “I’m wondering if you might help me?”

“Bilbo Baggins!” she said, looking startled. “Why, we haven’t seen you down this way in an age! What do you need help with?”

He dropped a hand on Kíli’s head, ruffling his disheveled hair slightly. “My fine little fellow here. He’s been blessed with a thick head of hair, and I haven’t the first clue what to do with it, besides keep it clean. I’m hoping you might be able to teach me how to braid it.” He gestured toward the little girl, whose hands flew to her mouth to cover a giggle.

“A boy with braids?” she asked, in between peals of laughter. Kíli scowled at her.

“Hush, Rosie,” her mother scolded. “He’s not a Hobbit lad. They do things differently in other parts.” She looked at Bilbo oddly. “Are you sure, dear? We could always just have it trimmed like a Hobbit lad’s, and then it won’t trouble you.”

“No,” Bilbo insisted. “I don’t know a great deal about Dwarf culture, but I know that hair is important. Cutting it would be wrong – sort of like cutting him off from his heritage. I’m likely to be all thumbs at this, but I want to do this right.” He smiled helplessly at Daisy Cotton.

She reached out gently and coaxed Kíli close, slipping a sweet into his fingers as she started running her hands through his hair. It was quite long for a boy, reaching past his shoulders, and the straight length of it never failed to surprise Bilbo a bit. It seemed unnatural at first – but it had become part of Kíli, in his eyes, and now he was surprised to see that original curiosity reflected in others.

“I’m just a simple Hobbit,” she warned Bilbo. “I don’t know Dwarvish customs, or what all of their braids mean.”

“It’s fine,” Bilbo said quickly. “Just teach me the basics, and Kíli and I can work on learning together.”

It went so much worse than Bilbo had expected. His fingers would not cooperate at all, mixing the separate strands no matter how many times Daisy corrected his finger placements. Kíli sat still for longer than Bilbo could quite believe, but eventually he began to wiggle impatiently, quiet hummed songs turning into grumbles about his empty belly. In the end, Daisy had to take over, carefully finishing the few little braids they’d put in to keep his hair from falling in his face. He looked so different – almost alien, for a few moments, and Bilbo had to remind himself that this was how he was meant to look.

Daisy stood when the job was done, calling Rosie over from where she had slipped off to play with some other Hobbit children. “It’s high time for luncheon,” she said firmly. “Bilbo, won’t you and Kíli join us?”

“Oh, we couldn’t,” Bilbo started, and Daisy laughed.

“You wouldn’t make this poor lad walk all the way back to Bag End before he’s had a bite to eat? Come now, Bilbo! I’ve got three young boys myself, and I know how they eat.”

Before he could protest further, Bilbo found himself being marched off to the Cotton’s home, Kíli skipping at his side as Rosie showed him some of the silly steps that she and her friends delighted in inventing. Daisy had them sitting around her wooden table, happily eating a hearty meal, before Bilbo quite knew what had happened to him.

Tolman was out on his patrols, but Rosie’s older brothers had all shown up for the meal – Jolly and Nick and Nibs, they were introduced, but Bilbo couldn’t tell them apart. Kíli sat very close to Bilbo as they ate, but quickly warmed up to the company, and little Rosie sat just next to him, chattering away.

“I’ve just turned eight,” she said, sounding very proud of herself. “I bet you’re younger than me. Are you?”

Bilbo frowned a little. He’d never bothered to ask how old Kíli was, though he’d thought him about the equivalent of a four year old. Kíli’s speech was so limited, though, that he might be very off in his estimation. He should have asked.

Kíli wrinkled up his forehead in concentration, then put up all his fingers. Rosie giggled.

“You can’t be ten, silly. Jolly’s ten, and he’s half as tall as Mr. Bilbo!”

Kíli scowled at her and said a word that Bilbo didn’t recognize, then flashed the same number of fingers again. Bilbo whistled.

“I had heard that Dwarves live longer lives,” he murmured to Daisy. “I suppose perhaps they take longer to grow up, as well?”

She was looking at Kíli sadly, as though just now seeing him. “He’s no more than a baby, is he? Poor lamb. And where’s his mother in all this?”

Bilbo just shook his head. He was beginning to wonder whether he ought to send that letter to Ered Luin just to let them know that their party had been lost here. There didn’t seem to be anyone coming back, after all.

Bilbo took Kíli home after luncheon, and spent the evening practicing the braid that Daisy had shown him over and over on one small section of Kíli’s hair, while he told the little boy stories. He told him about Bullroarer Took and his battle at Greenfields, fighting the vicious goblin leader Golfimbul, and Kíli roared with delight at the climax of the story.

“Sorin fight goblin,” he said after a bit. His words were still coming together piecemeal, and it was a long statement for Kíli. Surprising, too – he didn’t often talk about anyone but the ever-present Fee.

“Oh, did he?” Bilbo murmured, struggling as the strands of hair attempted to slip from his fingers again. Kíli nodded, tugging all the hair away at once, and Bilbo sighed and started over. Kíli was tucked up snugly on his lap, head lying against Bilbo’s chest as he worked with the long strands of dark hair.

“Azanulbizar,” he said certainly, and Bilbo choked a bit.

“You can say Azanulbizar, but not thread?” Bilbo chuckled, tugging teasingly on a chunk of hair. They had had a go-round that morning when Kíli declared he needed ‘swed’ and Bilbo had spent a good half an hour working out what he meant. “So your Sorin fought at Azanulbizar, did he?” That settled it. Bilbo needed some sort of reference for Dwarven history and customs. He wasn’t going to be able to raise a Dwarf without some kind of assistance!

~~~
The hair took a while to learn. Bilbo’s fingers grew slowly more confident, and Kíli learned to sit patiently as he struggled. In the end, Bilbo could produce neat, tidy braids that he used to contain enough of Kíli’s hair to keep it from knotting and tangling dreadfully. Kíli would rather leave it all free, and hated sitting still the whole time.

It became something special with time, though. Bilbo told stories and sang Hobbit songs, and Kíli did his best to describe things he could see, or what Bilbo guessed were stories about his own life and his family. He sang, too – wild songs that set his eyes aflame. The days grew shorter as Foreyule came around, bringing snow in great quantities.

It was a surprise when, one day, a knock came at the door. Usually Hamfast was the only one who came round, keeping Bilbo supplied with food and necessities – but this wasn’t his usual confident knock. It was hesitant, low to the ground, and Bilbo paused before opening the door. Rosie Cotton was standing on the doorstep, wrapped up in layers until her rosy cheeks could barely be seen. She grinned up at Bilbo cheerfully.

“I’m here to play with Kíli,” she said, hopping inside as soon as the door was open. “Mama said he’d be lonely up here all alone.”

Kíli came tearing into the room, drawn by the intrusion, and his face lit up at the company.

And that was the end of their peaceful days of solitude. From that day forward, if Kíli wasn’t visited by Rosie and her brothers, or little Sam Gamgee who she often dragged along to play, he was begging Bilbo to take him down to Hobbiton proper to find his friends. They played all manner of Hobbit-children’s games, and were usually very patient with Kíli as he tried to work out their patterns. In return, Kíli taught them to fight snowball wars with a ferocity and level of tactical planning that Bilbo had never before seen in such a small child. He learned more words every day, it seemed, and his fingers stopped moving in the strange patterns that Bilbo had never learned to read.

They couldn’t walk into Hobbiton without being greeted by a friend, or having someone offer Kíli a biscuit or a meat pie from their shop, seemingly taken by his wide eyes and charming smile. Bilbo preened a bit, and knew he was ridiculous for it – but the strangest thing was that Kíli was not the only one who had found favour in the village. Hobbits who had never exchanged a kind word with him before now greeted him cheerfully, asking questions about his life as though they were old friends.

To be honest, Bilbo had to acknowledge that he had changed as well. With the new addition to his home, the purse-strings he had kept so tightly closed were opened in a rush, and the Hobbits of his hometown were feeling the effects. He bought clothes and toys and special treats for the little Dwarf, delighting in finding something new to make him smile whenever possible. The shopkeepers quickly found that all they had to do to get some of Bilbo Baggins’ famed treasure was to make his tiny shadow giggle – and they worked hard at it! But the outcome was more pleasant than Bilbo could have believed possible. He was welcome in every store, and in almost every home.

Not every home, of course. There were those Hobbits – often older and set in their ways – who scowled at him as he walked through the town, and shook their grizzled heads at little Kíli. It wasn’t right, they murmured, for a Dwarf to be living among Hobbits. You couldn’t trust a Dwarf, and when Baggins woke up murdered in his own bed, they wouldn’t be surprised.

Daisy Cotton patted his hand whenever she heard of it, and advised him to pay them no heed. “They’re jealous of what they don’t understand,” she said quietly. “You just mind yourself and that boy of yours, and leave them to their grumbling, you hear?”

His heart may have skipped a beat, to hear Kíli referred to that way, but Bilbo just nodded gratefully and smiled at her. It came so much easier these days.

There was so much more he needed to do, but Bilbo thought much of it could wait until Spring came. He needed to find references on Dwarves, though he supposed Elvish books would be little good. He needed to find someone – an elderly Dwarf of some sort, he supposed – who would be willing to teach Kíli the Khuzdul he would need to be acceptable in his own culture. And if he was having a tiny bow and arrows made for Kíli for a Yule gift, he would be prepared to argue to his grave that they were modeled after Dwarven-made sets rather than Elvish.

Three months from when the child had appeared at his door, Bilbo Baggins was a changed hobbit. The letter for Ered Luin sat gathering dust in his writing desk, and Bilbo was seen in broad daylight, in the streets of Hobbiton, laughing aloud with his strange half-Dwarf, half-Hobbit child as they threw snowballs at one another. It was enough to set the tongues of all the gossips in the Westfarthing wagging, though they did so with a sympathetic delight that was not always found in their talking.

But Hobbits are not the only creatures who can gossip, and word spreads faster than fire. Bilbo thinks, much later, that he should have known that such strange news would make its way to unwelcome ears – but that is much later, when he has had time to reflect, and time to mourn.

Chapter Text

Winter grew, and waned, and melted into a warm spring. By early Astron, the flowers in the garden at Bag End were beginning to poke their first green shoots above the soil. Hamfast gave the children a plot of earth to play in, and little Sam taught Kíli to plant seeds. Bilbo watched from a garden bench, blowing contented smoke rings high into the air, and smiling at his little fellow’s open-mouthed astonishment as Sam described how they would grow into the green and beautiful things that filled the rest of the garden.
They were in the garden the day the Dwarf came.

There was no warning – just a sudden looming presence outside the gate, and little Rosie gave a startled shriek, pointing wildly. Bilbo looked up, and then up again, at the giant of a Dwarf who towered above him. He looked like a warrior, rather than a smith or a wanderer, and that startled Bilbo rather badly. He stood quickly, putting himself between the children and the visitor who stood glaring down at him, huge forearms crossed over his chest. His head was bald and tattooed, and his eyes were fierce and unforgiving.

“Good morning,” Bilbo said carefully, tucking his pipe into a pocket. “Can I help you?”

“Are you Baggins?” he growled.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I’m Bilbo Baggins.”

“You have a Dwarf child staying with you?” His voice was not kind, and Bilbo didn’t look behind him, hoping that Hamfast would have spirited the children away into Bag End.

“I do.” He stared at the Dwarf, looking for anything that might suggest he was kin to Kíli. There was no family resemblance that he could see. “Are you his kin?”

“I would see him,” the Dwarf rumbled, his voice deep in his chest.

“I’m not hiding him!” Bilbo said sharply. “Look, I don’t even know your name! Who are you, and why are you interested in the lad?”

“Dwalin,” he growled reluctantly, and dipped his head in a minute bow. “Son of Fundin. At your service.” He stared around the garden, looking for Kíli. “I have come from the Iron Hills, on my way back to Ered Luin, and heard the rumours in the area that you have a Dwarf lad. I must see him.”

Bilbo reached out slowly and opened the gate, stepping back to let him in. “I’ll bring him – but you mustn’t frighten him. He’s a bit wary of strangers.”

“If he is who I think he may be, he is no stranger to me.” Dwalin didn’t blink, and Bilbo held up a hand, asking him wordlessly to stay put, and he went in search of the little ones.

“Kíli?” he called quietly, keeping his voice light. “Come and see who’s come visiting, lad!”

Kíli rounded the corner at a run, not hesitating as he made for Bilbo, and Bilbo snatched him up, swinging the little one through the air. The laughter that bubbled up between them was a green, growing thing, and Bilbo didn’t let himself think about the Dwarf at his door as a threat to it. He perched Kíli on his hip, tiny shoes knocking easily against his leg, and he tried to straighten the boy’s mussed braids a bit.

“Miss Cotton come?” Kíli asked hopefully. He was nursing a bit of a crush on Daisy Cotton, Bilbo thought, and he laughed, shaking his head.

“No, lad. It’s someone to see you!” Kíli’s eyes lit up with curiosity, and he bounced a bit with excitement. Bilbo nodded to Hamfast, who was keeping Sam and Rosie busy in their patch of earth, and walked slowly back to the gate, trying not to clutch Kíli too close.

The little boy tensed as they drew close, fingers clutching tightly in Bilbo’s shirt, and he dropped his head to Bilbo’s shoulder shyly. He hadn’t seen anyone that large, or fierce, since he’d come to live with Bilbo more than half a year ago. Dwalin drew in a breath that Bilbo could hear from twenty paces away, and a startling sad joy crept across his fierce face.

“Kíli, lad,” he said quietly. Kíli stayed still, his small warmth pressed tight to Bilbo, but his eyes were fixed on Dwalin. “Do you remember me?”

“Not Fee,” Kíli said after a minute, clearly thinking hard. “Not Sorin.”

“No, boy,” Dwalin said quietly. He sank down to the bench, putting his head at a lower level than Kíli’s. “I know not where Fíli or Thorin are, but I swear I will find them.”

“Find Fee?” Kíli asked intently, picking his head up to stare at Dwalin with wide eyes. “Mister Dwalin find Fee?”

There was the confirmation. Bilbo had harboured suspicious that Dwalin might have been seeking the child without a genuine claim – but Kíli knew his name without being told. His arms tightened on Kíli, who squirmed a bit, clearly thinking about getting down to see his visitor.

“Aye, lad,” Dwalin said. He looked up at Bilbo. “What happened to his kin?”

“I don’t know,” Bilbo said helplessly. “He appeared one night in a storm. The Shirriffs said they were attacked by Big People on the road.”

“Thorin was to have joined me in the Iron Hills months ago,” Dwalin told him quietly.

“Who is this Thorin?” Bilbo asked curiously. He finally gave in to Kíli’s wiggling and let him slide to the ground, where he hung by Bilbo’s leg, staring up at Dwalin with big, dark eyes. “Kíli’s talked about him a bit.”

“Kíli wasn’t talking at all when last I saw him,” Dwalin said a bit sadly, shaking his head. “Thorin is our leader. He will be king, when we have retaken our home.”

Bilbo’s eyes widened. “And this is Kíli’s uncle?” Dwalin nodded solemnly, and Bilbo felt a little wobbly in the knees.

“Kíli is the second son of Thorin’s sister, and heir to the throne of Erebor after Thorin and his older brother,” he told Bilbo.

“Fee,” Kíli said sternly, peeking out from behind Bilbo’s leg. “Find Fee?”

“I swear to you I will,” Dwalin said, pressing a fist to his heart. There was a solemnity to the motion that brought it all home for Bilbo. This was not a man comforting a child. It was a man who was making a promise to his young prince, and Kíli nodded, a smile breaking across his face.

It was mere moments before Kíli was seated somewhat majestically on Dwalin’s knee, playing happily with the big Dwarf’s hands and babbling away. Dwalin chuckled every now and then, and watched Kíli with such relief and joy that Bilbo felt his heart beating faster. They looked like they belonged together, old dwarf and young, and Bilbo thought he could see his happiness drifting away in the wind.

He excused himself to the quiet corner of the garden, and sent Hamfast away with Sam and Rosie, and with his promise that he would see the little Hobbit lass home again. Bilbo slumped back against the wall of his home for a few minutes, gathering himself. It would not do to go all to pieces. He made himself stand up properly, squaring his shoulders, and headed back to the front garden.

“Kíli,” he called as he rounded the bend, making his voice light and cheerful. “Shouldn’t we offer Mr. Dwalin something to eat?”

“Second brefast!” Kíli cheered, clapping his hands and bouncing a little. He slid off Dwalin’s knee and tugged at the huge Dwarf’s hand, forcing him to stand. Dwalin raised an eyebrow, and glanced at Bilbo.

“Strange times, when there is enough for breakfast twice in a day,” he rumbled. Bilbo felt somewhat accused, and clasped his hands across his somewhat generous middle.

“It’s a traditional meal among Hobbits,” he said defensively. “Kíli’s taken a shine to it, I must say.”

“That’s not surprising.” Dwalin let Kíli dart away in front of them, running to the round green door and back again over and over as the adults made their more sedate way up the steps. “He has not always known such plenty.”

“Yes,” Bilbo murmured. The little Dwarf had more flesh on him now than he had when Bilbo found him, certainly, and there was a sweet roundness to his cheeks that made him look far healthier, and less like a waif. He had suspected, from the way Kíli threw himself on his food in the early days, that he had not always been as well-fed as Hobbit children generally were. Still, it hurt to hear it confirmed. “Tell me, what is your relation to young Kíli? You’re not kin – or are you?”

Dwalin shook his head slowly. The tread of his heavy boots on Bilbo’s stone steps was like the tramp of doom. “I am sworn to protect him, and all the members of his line. His uncle has been at my side in many battles, and he is my king.” His eyes as he looked at Kíli were not so fierce, though – not like a warrior looking at a future heir to a throne. They were fond, almost doting. “Kíli and his brother are some of the very few Dwarflings born since our exile. They are our hope.”

Bilbo swallowed, nodding. There was hardly anything he could say to that, after all, that wouldn’t sound petty. He couldn’t exactly lay claim to the child just because Kíli had made his life brighter. He ushered Dwalin into his front hallway, which suddenly seemed much smaller than usual, and eased his way gently past Kíli, who was bouncing up and down on the spot like a particularly demented bunny.

“Can I offer you tea?” he said feebly, gesturing toward his table. “Some biscuits, maybe? Kíli and I usually eat fairly lightly at this time of day.”

He hadn’t reckoned on Dwalin’s hunger, though. It took Bilbo the best part of an hour, running back and forth to his pantry, before Dwalin pushed back from the table, sighing in satiated relief. Kíli growled at him in imitation of Dwalin’s massive belch, and they both roared with laughter.

Dwalin took Kíli on his knee again, and Kíli started playing with his long beard. Bilbo blinked in surprise as he saw the little boy’s hands begin to shape the rough movements that would form a braid. Had Kíli learnt that from him, or from his life before he came to Bilbo? Dwalin didn’t seem to mind the tugging and pulling, and he looked down at Kíli fondly.

“Haven’t seen you in two years, lad,” he grumbled gently. “And yet still, you would have my beard out by the roots. Some things never change.” He ruffled Kíli’s hair gently, and paused to examine the neat little braids that Bilbo had put in just that morning. Dwalin raised a curious eyebrow at Bilbo, who flushed.

“I’ve done my best to start learning,” he said quickly. “It’s not something that’s typically done for lads here in the Shire.”

Dwalin nodded solemnly, and began to undo one braid with fingers that were startlingly dexterous, for all their great size. “I shall show you how it is traditionally done,” he murmured. “You will not find it difficult, I think.”

“But-“ Bilbo began, feeling a bit wrong footed. “Don’t get me wrong – always eager to learn, of course – but if you’re taking Kíli with you, what good will it do?”

Kíli looked up at that, startled. He glanced back and forth between Bilbo and Dwalin, and Bilbo kicked himself. Kíli always managed to understand more than Bilbo would like, even though his words weren’t good enough yet to express the same ideas.

Dwalin’s fingers kept moving, but his brow furrowed. “I do not think he should come with me now.”

“Find Fee!” Kíli insisted, thumping Dwalin’s chest with one tiny fist. “Promised!”

He chuckled. “We will, lad. But I think I must set out on my own to find Fíli – and Thorin, of course.”

“The Shirriffs don’t have the first idea what might have happened to them,” Bilbo warned quietly. “We’ve heard nothing from them since they were attacked.”

“It is my hope that they have returned to the Blue Mountains. Thorin never made it to the Iron Hills, and there has been no sign of him along the road between there and here. If he did not perish at the hands of a few poxy farmers and blacksmiths, he may have returned to a place of safety to regroup.”

“But if they survived,” Bilbo murmured, trying to keep his words from Kíli’s sharp ears, “why haven’t they come looking for him?”

Dwalin shrugged – a movement which seemed to make his entire body shift. “Who can say? That is why I must go, and why Kíli must remain here, until his family is found.”

A rush of relief swept through Bilbo, followed instantly by a new surge of terror and the approach of loss. He wanted to snatch Kíli out of Dwalin’s arms and hide him away in the depths of Bag End. He sat carefully on his hands.

“And if they are not?” he asked, voice nearly trembling. Dwalin looked at him, and Bilbo could have sworn his old schoolmaster had worn that exact same scolding expression.

“A Dwarf must be with his own people.” There was no room for argument in his tone. “Kíli more than most. He is a prince, of the line of Durin himself. If harm has befallen Thorin and Fíli, it will fall to Kíli to lead our people when he is of age.”

Kíli didn’t look like a prince, or a leader, to Bilbo. He looked like a little boy, face smeared with jam and eyes beginning to droop. Bilbo watched pensively as Dwalin redid his dark hair in a more complex style than Bilbo had yet attempted. It was a strange thing, seeing such a mighty warrior tend to a child so patiently. It wasn’t what he had expected of a Dwarf, to be quite honest, and he was more than a bit ashamed of himself at the realisation. He tried not to be jealous of the easy way they seemed to fit together.

Dwalin did not stay with them long. He took his leave that afternoon, after allowing Bilbo to stuff his satchel full of food and drink for the road. He kept his farewell brief and fairly neutral, stooping down to crouch on one knee before Kíli.

“I will return,” he promised solemnly. “You will be safe and well cared for here.”

“Go home?” Kíli asked woefully. His bottom lip trembled.

“Yes, lad,” Dwalin said gently. “I’ll take you home.”

He strode away into the distance with his back straight and proud, and Kíli clung to Bilbo. Fat tears trickled down his cheeks, and he watched Dwalin with such undisguised longing that Bilbo felt his heart might tear in two. Though Kíli was holding to him tightly, seeking comfort in Bilbo’s arms, he knew the day was coming when it would be Kíli walking away and Bilbo left behind alone. The enormity of that was nearly enough to take his breath away, and Bilbo sat down on the bench, clutching the little Dwarf tightly to him while he still could.

~~~

Kíli was by nature a cheerful child, and it didn’t take him long to recover from the blow of Dwalin’s departure. He was back to running and playing with his friends the very next day, and telling them what he could about his special visitor. Bilbo had brought him down to Hobbiton for the day, and Daisy Cotton dried her hands on her apron when she saw him.

“That’s the longest face I’ve seen you wear in a week of Sundays,” she said kindly. “Come along, Bilbo. You need tea.” He couldn’t argue with that assessment. They set the children to playing in the garden, and Daisy brought Bilbo inside and pressed tea and biscuits on him. It was moments like these that made Bilbo realise, with a sudden fierce sorrow, just how much he missed his own mother.

He spilled the whole story over tea, and Daisy nodded sympathetically, patting his hand from time to time. It was harder than he’d expected.

“And I can’t lose him, Daisy!” Bilbo finished, a bit wildly. “I mean, there’s nothing I can do to stop it, and I want what ‘s best for Kíli – but thinking of Bag End, empty but for me?” He shuddered at the thought, draining the last of his tea for strength. “I don’t know how I’ll face it.”

Daisy looked at him strangely for a long moment, then sighed. “You weren’t around much ten years ago, so I expect you don’t remember.” She stood and went to a shelf, where she tenderly lifted a wooden frame holding an ink sketch. Daisy stared at it sadly for a moment, then carried it over and placed it in Bilbo’s hands.

The inked lines seemed to capture the spirit of the child in the drawing perfectly. He was a young Hobbit lad, not more than seven or eight by Bilbo’s estimate, with Daisy’s kind smile and a twinkle of mischief in his eye.

“That’s my Tom,” she said fondly, sitting down next to Bilbo. “My eldest child.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen him,” Bilbo said, thinking hard.

“No, you wouldn’t have. He’s been buried these ten years now,” Daisy said matter-of-factly. “It was such a hard winter.”

“That was the winter my mother died,” Bilbo told her, voice hushed. “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

“This is what you need to know, Bilbo,” Daisy said kindly – but there was an iron strength in her tone that made him sit up straighter. “If you lose Kíli – and I say if, there’s no sense burning your bridges before you get to ‘em, lad – you will go on. Your house will be cold and empty, and you won’t much want to do anything – but you will find the strength.”

He looked up at her, throat thick. “I am afraid I will go back to the person I was before he came. I went on with my life, but it wasn’t much like living.”

She patted his arm. “We won’t let that happen. You’re one of us now, young Bilbo, and Hobbiton looks after our own.” Daisy nodded out the window, where the children were racing around the garden at top speed, already sporting skinned knees and hands from the game. “Treasure the time you have with him, and save it up for the dark days, if they come. That’s all you can do.”

Bilbo did his best to follow her advice.

Thrimidge and Forelithe came and went without a sign of Dwarvish visitors, and Bilbo learnt to braid Kíli’s hair the way Dwalin had shown him. Kíli spent most of his days playing barefoot in the grass like the other children, though Bilbo often had to bandage his feet when their wanderings led him astray. He played with his little bow most days, learning to shoot with a speed and accuracy that was a bit alarming, and Bilbo insisted he work on learning his days of the week and numbers and the songs the Hobbit children sang to memorise important things.

By the time the Lithedays came around, Kíli had mostly forgotten his strange visitor – though he still asked for Fee at every turn, and Bilbo would often catch him staring down the road pensively. He tried to put it out of his mind, distracting the lad as best he could, and Kíli was usually amenable. His speech improved all the time, and Bilbo was amused to note that even Hobbit children twice his size would follow Kíli in his mad games.

Lithe in the Shire was a wonderful time, and this year was no exception. The days were bright and sunny, and not a cloud appeared in the sky. The White Downs were covered in tents and booths and tables, all laden with goods and food, fresh produce and good ale and bread hot out of the ovens. Banners fluttered in the breeze, and music filled the air.

Bilbo perched Kíli on his shoulders as they wandered, taking in all the sights and sounds with wide eyes. He hadn’t bothered attending any of the festivities for the past few years, preferring to stay holed up in Bag End avoiding the noise and mess – and now he regretted those lost years heartily. Friendly voices called to him from all around, and hands reached up to press sweets and little toys into Kíli’s hand, all of them winding up lodged in Bilbo’s hair. He didn’t mind.

They followed the sound of sprightly music to a large cleared area in the center of the Downs, where musicians lined the sides, and the space between was filled with dancing Hobbits. Kíli fidgeted on Bilbo’s shoulders, and he looked up at the lad.

“All right there, Kíli?”

“Wanna dance!” Kíli declared, stretching his hands out imploringly. Bilbo laughed and swung him down, and shook his head as Kíli quickly shed his shoes, leaving them behind as he darted out into the crowd. Sam Gamgee was hanging on the edge near Bilbo, and it was hardly a surprise when Kíli swept back around a moment later and dragged him out, whirling them both into the swirl of colour and movement without waiting for a protest. It was Kíli’s way, dragging you along without your consent or knowledge, until you were dancing joyfully without knowing how you’d found your way there, and only a pair of dark, laughing eyes to thank.

Bilbo started with surprise as his own hands were seized, and he found himself trotting out into the midst of the crowd with one of his distant Took cousins, who had bright ribbons woven through her hair.

“It’s been a long time since you danced, cousin Bilbo!” she laughed, and he smiled a bit regretfully.

“It has, yes. Perhaps it’s time to make up for it!”

He found himself whirling around madly, feet moving in time to the music and heart lighter than he had thought it could be. From time to time he caught sight of Kíli, always moving in the opposite direction. His dance was nothing like theirs, but there was a strange harmony in the way Kíli moved with the other children, their grace and his wildness merging into a living thing. His laughter rose above the music, and Bilbo grinned to hear it. Here, in the middle of the celebration, he had no fears for his little one, who was wrapped in the very heart of the Shire – and Bilbo was as well.

He carried Kíli home that night, little shoes tucked into Bilbo’s pockets for safekeeping, and listened to the string of words that tumbled from his tired mouth, hiding his grin.

“An’ I eated cake,” Kíli said proudly, though the words slurred together. “An’ Rosie kissded me, an’ Sammy cried, an’ Rosie kissded Sammy too.”

“You’ll want to watch out for her,” Bilbo said wryly. “I think Rosie will be a real heartbreaker when she grows up.”

Kíli was quiet for a minute, resting his elbows heavily atop Bilbo’s head. “Fee likes cake,” he said finally, clearly deep in thought. Bilbo’s heart beat a little faster.

“I’m sure he does,” he said soothingly.

“Mr. Dwalin bring Fee,” Kíli decided sleepily, though his words were muffled by a yawn. “An’ Fee can dance wif me.”

“And wouldn’t that be lovely, lad?” Bilbo asked kindly. Kíli answered with a snuffling snore, and Bilbo walked a little slower so as not to jostle him.

~~~

By the end of the summer, Kíli was brown as a nut from running around outside, and his feet rarely bled or hurt any longer. They had grown tough soles, though nothing would ever make them properly wide and hairy. Wedmath had been hot and humid, and the days so long that sometimes it seemed they hardly had time to sleep before the new day was upon them. As the year tumbled into Halimath, Bilbo looked at his calendar in disbelief. How could it possibly have been almost a year since Kíli had come to him? And how had it only been that long? He could hardly remember his life before.

His purse was far more empty these days, that was certain. In his more fanciful moments, Bilbo watched the sun glint off Kíli’s shiny, dark hair or sparkle in his eyes, and he thought to himself that Kíli had come to replace his gold. It was a bargain he would make again, a hundred times. Once, while watching nervously down the road for any sign of oncoming Dwarves, Bilbo had wondered to himself whether they might take gold in exchange for Kíli. He hated himself for the thought, but he could never entirely shake it again.

There was a day at the beginning of Halimath, when the first smell of oncoming autumn was on the morning breeze, that Kíli did not call for Fee on waking. Bilbo had gone to wake him for breakfast, and he grinned, bright and sleepy and innocent, and threw himself at Bilbo.

“Bilbo!” he cheered, and patted Bilbo’s cheek happily. “We eat now?”

Bilbo had nodded and picked Kíli up, swinging him high and low until he shook with laughter. He was glad the little one was no longer constantly beset by pain and loss – but something in his stomach turned at the idea that Kíli might forget this person who had been so important to him.

He began to plan his Birthday Party that week, intent on making it a grand celebration. He wound up inviting half of Hobbiton, knowing they would bring the other half along with them, and something bubbled up joyfully in his chest at the idea of his home and garden all full of people, all of them there to wish him well. But it wasn’t just his Birthday, of course. A full year since he had found Kíli and taken him in, he wanted to celebrate the occasion.

If Kíli had been a Hobbit, then by Shire tradition (which bore the weight of law) a year of living in Bilbo’s care would have made him, for all intents and purposes, his adopted son. That bore no weight anywhere else, and Bilbo knew he could never make a case to the Dwarves about it – but it mattered in his heart, and when he looked at Kíli, he knew what it meant. He commissioned a special set of clothes for Kíli for the party, intent that he should look his very best, and Daisy Cotton grinned at him with a twinkle in her eyes when she measured Kíli for the fit.

“Sometimes the dark days you expect never turn up,” she told him cheerfully, and they smiled together at the sight of Rosie and Kíli together in the garden, poking curiously at worms with their tongues sticking out in concentration.

So it came as a distinctly unpleasant surprise, two days before his Birthday, when a worried little Sam Gamgee came tearing up to his door, panting wildly and nearly falling over before Bilbo steadied him.

“Easy, lad!” Bilbo said cheerfully, helping him to a glass of water while Kíli helpfully pounded his back. “What’s got you in such a rush?”

“My Gaffer said to come,” Sam panted, eyes wide. “Says there’s Dwarves coming for you! They was just after me on the path!”

Bilbo stood, heart dropping like a stone, and turned to the door with his hands suddenly cold as ice. There were sounds out in the garden, and Kíli was staring at the door, eyes wide and expectant, and Bilbo had to clasp his hands together behind his back to keep from snatching his little lad up and holding him back.

A shout from the garden gate, and feet pounding up the steps – and a little golden head appeared in the door, braids in disarray, and bright blue eyes searching frantically for something precious. Kíli blinked in shock.

“Fee?” he asked quietly. The little golden menace spun to see him, half hidden behind Bilbo’s leg, and flung himself at Kíli.

They were a tangle of limbs, heavy little boots against bare feet and bright Hobbit-garb against Dwarvish furs and leather, and Bilbo sat down heavily, feeling his throat constrict like he would never breathe again. Kíli’s family had come for him.

Chapter Text

Bilbo was half in a haze as his home was invaded. Fíli and Kíli clung together, both already chattering away at top speed, and Dwalin wandered in uninvited, favouring Bilbo with a familiar nod. There was another heavy footfall at the door, and Bilbo looked up, afraid he would find an unfriendly army, come to take his greatest treasure.

Two dark-haired Dwarves, scarcely shorter than Dwalin to Bilbo’s overawed eyes, were staring in. They both had piercing stares and wore their hair half-braided, but one had a short, neat beard and the other had a hairless chin. Siblings, Bilbo thought absently, categorising their features, and looking for Kíli in them. There was no doubt of it.

The shorter of them started forward, her boots heavy on his floor, and Fíli and Kíli stopped spinning in circles and glanced at her, and Kíli disentangled himself from his brother enough to throw himself into her arms – though he dragged Fíli along with him.

She swept both of the little ones up into her arms, rocking back and forth in a frantic, disbelieving movement as she murmured to them in what had to be Khuzdul. Bilbo couldn’t understand the words, but her meaning was clear. She had found her lost child.

“Mama!” Kíli said happily, burying his face into her neck and throwing one little arm as far around her as he could reach. His other arm was twined around Fíli, like he would never let go again. “Mama, mama!”

The other Dwarf let out a sigh of relief and leaned heavily against Bilbo’s doorframe, like something had been restored that he believed lost. Three grown Dwarves, and two little ones, in a Hobbit-sized hall, were more than a little overwhelming, and Bilbo thought he could be excused a touch of faintness. He turned away from the sight of Kíli’s little family, reunited, and looked to Dwalin. The huge Dwarf was watching the goings-on with a small, proud smile, and what looked like tears glittering in his eyes.

“Ah,” Bilbo said, and then had to stop and clear his throat a time or three. “Tea?”

He nearly ran to the kitchen, eager to put some distance between himself and what was happening in his hall. They would not stay long, he knew. Dwarves never did. He hoped they would let him say a proper farewell, and then – well, he didn’t know what came next. He had tried so hard not to let himself think of that. It took time to brew a proper pot of tea, and Bilbo was certain the Dwarves had too much on their mind to think much of the redness around his eyes when he brought tea and biscuits through to his wooden table.

They had eased themselves apart a wee bit while he was gone, and the Dwarf who was quite clearly Kíli’s Uncle Sorin had let himself in properly, closing the door behind him. Not that it mattered; all of Hobbiton would know by now. Bilbo had a sudden wild urge to run to the town and shout for help, and see if his neighbors would fight with him, keep this thing from happening. Instead, he poured little cups of tea, and smiled wanly at the Dwarves.

“Right,” Dwalin rumbled, pushing himself to his feet. “Introductions. This is Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror – King under the Mountain.” Thorin – not Sorin, of course it wasn’t Sorin – nodded regally, and Bilbo bobbed a strange sort of bow, and then felt foolish for doing so. “His sister Dís, mother to Fíli and Kíli; and this, of course, is Fíli.”

Dís was watching him suspiciously, and Kíli was still clutched tightly in her arms. Bilbo nodded, swallowing hard, and Kíli struggled to get down. As soon as his bare feet hit the floor, he darted over to Bilbo and flung his arms around his waist, grinning up at him with such joy that Bilbo felt his throat go tight.

“Mama comed, Bilbo!” he crowed, dancing in place. “Fee and Mama and Sorin comed!”

“Came, Kíli,” he corrected automatically, but the smile he sent back to the little Dwarf was genuine. It didn’t matter that his heart was tearing in two. The half that would have to be strong was the part that was genuinely overflowing with happiness for Kíli, whose wishes had just come true. His little boy had never really been his, after all; for a year, he’d been a lost thing, an exile from his own people, and now that was about to be over. Of course he was dancing. “I’m so very pleased to meet them!”

It might have been true, once.

Dís started forward, as if to reclaim her child, but Thorin put a hand on her shoulder, restraining her.

“And this is Bilbo Baggins,” Dwalin said, gesturing toward the Hobbit in an almost dismissive manner. “As I told you, he’s done well by young Kíli.”

“We thank you for your care of my son,” Dís said stiffly, giving a formal nod. “It cannot have been an easy matter, caring for such an energetic child in such a place.” Bilbo wasn’t certain whether that was meant to be a compliment or some sort of insult to his home, but either way, he wasn’t entirely pleased. He had the sense that this Dwarf would happily knock him into his own fire if he seemed to pose any threat to her child.

Strangely, that thought made him like her a great deal, and he chuckled a little, suddenly feeling much more at ease. There was a look in her eyes that his heart recognised at once. She loved Kíli, and was terrified that she was losing him to a stranger, and Bilbo’s heart went out to her. He gestured for them to sit around his table, and carefully steered Kíli to sit between his mother and his uncle, eager to make it clear that he was placing no claim on the lad. How could he? Kíli had never been his.

“Kíli can certainly be a handful,” he told them ruefully, running a hand through his hair at a thousand sudden memories of muddy boots on his good furniture and midnight adventures to the garden. “But he’s a good lad. It’s been my honour to have him as a guest.”

He thought he might choke on the words. A guest, like Kíli had been nothing more? Like he hadn’t walked in and taken Bilbo’s heart, and woken it up, and set it free? As though he had not been a beloved son? Bilbo turned away to find more biscuits, and tried not to weep.

Dís seemed to relax a bit at his words, and Thorin nodded his thanks as Bilbo pushed a plate across the table to them. Fíli dove on the food without a word, and Bilbo gave a watery smile as Kíli scowled at him.

“Don’t rush, Fee! Don’t choke!” It was an admonition Bilbo had delivered to Kíli a hundred times, and he recognised the intonation as mirroring his own. Dís ran her hand over Kíli’s head, marveling at her child, and raised a surprised eyebrow.

“Who has done your braids, my love?”

“Bilbo!” Kíli chirped, smiling at his mother, and tipping his head back to lean comfortably against her. “I sit still, Mama!”

Dís gave a choked snort of laughter at that, and turned to Bilbo with a new respect in her sharp eyes. “Then Bilbo has done what many a good Dwarf could not, in teaching you patience.”

And then the ice was broken, and they could talk together, Hobbit and Dwarves. Bilbo fed them as much as he could without seeming to take note of how hungrily they fell on the food, and he watched Kíli with a sense of some pride. Of all the Dwarves, he was the only one who did not share that hungry look. With a pang, Bilbo realised that he would be going back to the uncertain fortunes that his family shared.

It took more than tea to get Thorin to relax even a little, but Bilbo plied the adults with his sweet brown ales and rich wines, more than a little pleased to have someone to share it with. Eventually, the Dwarf Prince stopped looking quite so hauntedly over each shoulder, and even chuckled as they shooed the children off to play.

“C’mon Fee!” Kíli cried, dragging his brother away by one hand. “See my room, anna worms, anna bow an’ arrows!”

“Not outside the garden!” Bilbo called automatically, and Kíli nodded solemnly – an agreement forged after too many panicked searches for an overly curious little Dwarf. The four adults were left to stare after the tiny forms as Kíli led his brother away, chattering the whole time.

“I have never known him to talk so much,” Thorin marveled, shaking his head. Bilbo ran a nervous hand through his hair.

“It’s partially my fault, I suppose. I’d not had someone to talk to in a long while, and I think I haven’t stopped filling his head with words since he showed up.”

Thorin stared at him across the table, a challenge in his face. “Is that why you never sent word, or came looking for his family?” Bilbo gaped wordlessly at him, and he pressed on. “Why did you keep him? Hoping for a reward if he should be worth something to someone? Or were you simply lonely enough to keep a child from his family to ease your own misery?”

Bilbo felt like he’d been stabbed in the heart – because the last was closer to the truth than he cared to admit. He had been lonely, though he’d thought he liked his solitude, and it had been the fear of losing Kíli that kept him from sending the letter that was now thick with dust. But he shook his head wildly.

“No! I had no way of knowing! They told me you’d all been killed in an attack by the Big People! I didn’t even know where he came from – just appearing out of the storm like that, that first night, and I couldn’t leave him out in the cold!”

“You might have sent word to the Blue Mountains,” Dís snapped, shoulders tense. “We thought him dead! For a year now, I have mourned my child!”

“You never came looking!” Bilbo shot back. “I told the Shirriffs to send you to me when you came asking for Kíli, and you never came!”

“They set on us at night, in a storm,” Thorin said darkly. His eyes were heavy with remembered loss. “We lost many of our people that night through the fear and distrust of Men. Fíli hid himself and his brother, and took them far from the battle.”

“So why did I wind up with one little Dwarf on my doorstep, and not two?” Bilbo demanded. His heart was pounding to think of his little Kíli in that danger, even though he knew it was already long past.

“Fíli fell,” Dís said, and he could tell by her tone that it had not been a small fall. “He could not go on, so he sent Kíli ahead, and we found him hours later. But when we tried to follow Kíli, his trail seemed to lead directly into a river that had been swollen by the storm.” He voice broke and she turned away, letting Thorin comfort her with a strong hand on her shoulder.

“We searched for as long as we could, but we had wounded, and the Men were returning again. We thought him lost.” There was a bleakness in his tone that spoke to a vast knowledge of loss, and Bilbo tried to shut it out. He knew what it was to lose everything. He was about to do it again.

“Mahal was watching over him,” Dwalin intoned solemnly, and Dís and Thorin muttered a few words in Khuzdul that Bilbo could not begin to understand. “He guided the child here.”

“Or perhaps I was simply the only Hobbit hole with lights blazing from the windows!” Bilbo said impatiently. He’d never much liked the idea that his life was controlled by anyone, because if that were true, they would have a great deal to answer for. “Regardless, things have gone as they have gone, and it seems pointless to argue about them. You have him now, and I wish you every happiness!” Tears stung at the back of his eyes, making him sharp and brittle, and he wished them gone at once.

But it seemed he had opened the floodgates in their sometimes taciturn souls, and he could not be rid of them. They ate and drank, and talked at great length – history and war and politics, but also stories of Kíli and Fíli as younger Dwarflings, and tales of their travels. These details Bilbo listened to intently, treasuring them up – one last gift, a last set of memories of Kíli, though they were not his.

They were nomads, these Dwarves, crossing the expanses of peaceful lands again and again as they sought work to keep their children fed. They were familiar with hunger and cold, and violence at the hands of those who were threatened by them – but there was such love in their stories, and such pride and devotion, that Bilbo was somewhat humbled. And after all, he had always known Kíli was too wild and free a creature to be confined in the Shire forever. He was always going to lose him.

Fíli and Kíli came crashing in through the door as night began to fall, covered in dirt and crunched-up bits of fallen leaves, and Bilbo smiled at the sight of them. They made a pretty picture, the little family, and Kíli laughed wider and brighter than Bilbo had thought possible.

He wanted to hate the Dwarves, honestly he did. It would have been easier just to bundle them up into a ball of angry spite and tuck it away in a cold corner of his heart, and let himself forget the warm, bright days of sunshine. But Kíli was a little fountain of light, and his love for them shone out of every word he said, every gesture as he flung himself from one to the other. And if his love included Bilbo as effusively as any of the rest, then that was what Bilbo would choose to cling to. He found he half-loved them all – bright Fíli and strong Dís, and Thorin and Dwalin, whose strength was no greater than his own in the eyes of a little boy.

He fed them dinner that night, and showed them all to rooms in Bag End, and sat in front of the fire and did not sleep, remembering a sleepless night nearly a year since, and the way the shape of his life had changed.

~~~

They left the next morning. It was crisp and cold, and the sun shone brightly out of a cloudless sky, but seemed to give no warmth to the earth. Bilbo went around his home and found everything he had given Kíli, and then had to pick through carefully, sending only the most loved items; there was no room for such luxuries on the road. But the little bow and arrows had a place of pride, and Kíli wore his newest pair of leather boots with such enthusiasm than Bilbo feared they wouldn’t last long.

He pulled Thorin aside as Dís and the little ones ate breakfast, drawing him into the room that had been his father’s study.

“Now, look,” Bilbo said awkwardly, fiddling with the edge of a sleeve. “I don’t presume to know your business or how you live your life, but I know that when Kíli came to me last year, it had been a long while since he’d had a proper meal.”

Thorin went all stiff and dignified, like Bilbo had known he would, and drew himself up tall. “I assure you, Mr. Baggins, I am quite capable of looking after the needs of my family.”

“Oh, just shut up,” Bilbo muttered angrily, and shoved a bag of coins into his hand. “Take it. Keep him fed. I don’t care what you tell them.”

“We have no need of your charity,” Thorin snarled, shoving it back at him.

“And I have no need of that!” Bilbo shouted. He let the bag fall to the floor, refusing to take it back. “What good has gold ever done me? Gold won’t fill my home, or give me a reason to get out of bed in the mornings! It will never make me happy, or complete, and I don’t want anything of it!” His breath caught in a rasping sob, and Bilbo turned away, not willing to see Thorin’s expression melt into something pitying. “But he made my days bright, and I cannot think of him being hungry or cold. Take the damn gold.”

Thorin paused a long while, and then Bilbo heard the soft clink of coins as the Dwarf scooped up the bag and hid it away. “If more of us valued your ways above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world,” he said quietly. Bilbo half turned to look at him, and Thorin inclined his head in a deep bow. “I will see to it.”

He didn’t ask them to stay longer, or to remain with him through the party the next day. It was a somber moment when they gathered by the door, though Kíli didn’t seem to realize it. He was bundled in too many layers, bouncing excitedly on the tips of his toes, and he grabbed Bilbo’s hand with his, swinging it back and forth.

“C’mon, Bilbo!” he sang, eyes sparkling. “Going home now!”

Bilbo dropped to his knees, putting his head nearly on a level with Kíli’s, and smiled at him sadly. “I know you are, my lad,” he said quietly. “But this is my home. I can’t go with you.”

Kíli tilted his head to one side, dark eyes completely puzzled. “We going,” he said carefully, clearly trying to explain the matter so that Bilbo would understand him. “Bilbo comes too!”

Part of Bilbo – the Tookish part, naturally – wanted nothing more than to give in, and swing Kíli up on his shoulders, and just take off with them into the wild, not stopping to do so much as grab a pocket handkerchief. But he was the master of Bag End, and Kíli had his family. There was no room for him. He shook his head sadly.

“I have to stay here, Kíli,” he said, swallowing hard as he watched understanding slowly dawn in the little boy’s eyes. “But I shall write you letters, if you like, and if you ever come this way again, you must come and visit me.”

“No,” Kíli said stubbornly. He clung to Bilbo’s hand with both of his little ones, and shook his head. “No, no, no. Not good, Bilbo. Come with Kíli!”

It was too much. Tears sprang to Bilbo’s eyes, and he shook his head again, vision blurring. From ahead of him, Dís gave a sad sigh, and reached down to lift her son up, pulling his hands gently from Bilbo’s. Kíli screamed, high and desperate, and Bilbo could hardly see him through the haze.

“Bilbo! No, Bilbo, please! Mama, Sorin, please!” His voice was a sob, and Bilbo’s breath came in ragged gasps, though he struggled to contain himself. Dis started down the path, and Kíli’s cries turned into wordless sobs. Fíli ran along at her side, patting Kíli’s dangling foot and trying to comfort him, but Kíli just buried his face in his mother’s shoulder and wept.

Bilbo found a hand extended in front of his face, and he took it, pulling himself back to his feet. It was Thorin who had helped him, and he clasped Bilbo’s hand tightly, nodding with sad understanding. Bilbo snuffled, wiping the tears from his eyes, and tried not to listen to Kíli’s wails of sorrow.

“I think you are very young yet,” Thorin said quietly. “But you have a kind heart, and you have done us an immeasurable kindness. Name your price and I will repay it, no matter the cost.”

“Nothing,” Bilbo said immediately. It hurt his throat to speak. “There’s nothing you can give me but what I was already given. This year was a gift.”

Thorin reached around behind his head and unclasped something – a silver clip which had held some of his hair back, and pressed it into Bilbo’s hand. “We travel through these parts often. If you ever have need of my assistance, send word for me, and I will come, or anyone who bears loyalty to me. Show this to any Dwarf, and if their allegiance lies with me, they will aid you in any thing.”

Bilbo nodded, and then put out a hand to stop Thorin before he turned away. “If you are ever nearby, come to Bag End. I’ll put out tea and biscuits.” He paused awkwardly, looking to where Dís and her sons were already shrinking from sight as they walked away down the Hill. “It would do my heart good to know how he fares.”

Thorin pressed his hand to his heart in a silent promise, and turned, and was gone. Bilbo slipped back inside his home, now quiet and horribly empty, and let the door fall closed behind him. It was over.

~~~

The autumn was cold and slow and sad. Bilbo’s Party, after all the preparation, was more of a consolation. His friends and neighbors surrounded him with affection, but there was a dark-haired little bundle of energy missing, and Bilbo drank too much, and woke up with a crashing headache the next morning. It was weeks before his first thoughts were not of Kíli and how he might have passed the night, and months before he stopped watching the road where his heart had vanished away over the curve of the Hill.

But the sun kept shining, uncaring for his misery, and Bilbo found to his surprise that he was not alone. Rosie Cotton came skipping along the path a week after Kíli had gone, letting herself into the garden with an ease that came from long practice.

“I’m sorry, Rosie,” Bilbo called from his seat on his bench. His fingers were playing over the edges of a toy that Kíli had left behind. “Kíli’s gone away. I’m afraid he won’t be here to play with you again.”

“I know,” Rosie said sadly. She padded over to him, not minding the chill that had settled into the ground, and sat down next to Bilbo, resting her cheek on his arm. “That’s why I’ve come. Mama said you’d be feeling sad too.”

Bilbo blinked. He hadn’t fully realised that he wouldn’t be the only Hobbit in mourning. Hesitantly, he patted Rosie’s back, and she gave him a sad little smile.

“Mama says it’s easier to be sad if you don’t have to do it alone.”

“Your mother is a very wise Hobbit,” Bilbo told her quietly. And it was easier.

Rosie came most days after that – playing in the garden sometimes, or with the toys Kíli had left, or bringing one of her fluffy balls of kitten along to play. Within a few days, she was joined by Sam Gamgee, who stared up at Bilbo shyly, but left a small handful of flowers on his table.

The sun shone on the snow when it fell to cover the Hill, and it sparkled, coldly beautiful, as Hobbit children from all over Hobbiton came to sled down the Hill. Bilbo made them hot drinks and scolded them when they let their feet grow too cold, and walked them home to their parents as night fell. They thanked him, and smiled at him, and Bilbo felt that his heart was still beating, sluggish though it might be.

Sam Gamgee eventually worked up the courage to ask Bilbo to teach him to read, and that was good, too. He didn’t have Kíli’s brilliant, devious little mind, but he applied himself, and he read everything Bilbo could get his hands on.

“I want to know about Dwarves,” he told Bilbo shyly one day, looking down. “I miss Kíli, and I just want to know more.”

“So do I, my lad,” Bilbo told him, and he wrote away for what books could be found on Dwarves. It was sparse pickings, but it felt like a connection.

Daisy Cotton looked after him, too. She brought him home-cooked meals and dragged him around to tea when he visited Hobbiton, and she never asked questions when his eyes were red or his handkerchief close to hand. She knew what it was to lose a child. It was Daisy who gave him the kindest gift of all, two months after Kíli had gone. She slipped a wooden frame into his hand and left with a smile, letting Bilbo open the gift in peace.

Kíli looked up at him from the paper, caught in lively lines of ink. His hair was its usual half-braided mess, and his eyes sparkled with wild delight. Bilbo touched the paper with reverent fingers, and knew he still had his heart, because it was a very painful weight in his chest.

~~~

In the spring, the sun began to warm the world again, and Bilbo watched with a fond smile as the flowers that Hamfast had planted with Kíli the previous year broke through the earth again, growing green and alive and wholly precious.

The knock at the door took him by surprise, just as he was finishing breakfast one warm morning in Astron, and Bilbo chuckled to himself. It was probably Sam, early for his lesson as usual, and still too shy to burst in on Bilbo despite being told a dozen times that he should let himself in. He swept at the crumbs clinging to his dressing gown as he opened the door, and was promptly knocked to the ground.

“Bilbo!” The voice was so familiar that Bilbo could not draw a breath, could not get his eyes to focus on the tiny, solid form that had knocked him to the ground and was now bouncing a little on his chest. “Bilbo, Bilbo! I back!”

It was Kíli, and Bilbo’s arms went around him before conscious thought kicked in. Kíli giggled and squirmed in his arms, and Bilbo sat up properly, trying to figure out what had just happened. From the doorway there was another giggle, and a disapproving sigh. Fíli and Thorin stood in the door, Fíli’s hands clapped firmly over his mouth to stifle his amusement, and Thorin looked longsuffering. Bilbo gaped at them stupidly.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, and then hurried on. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, of course! I didn’t dream you’d be back this way so soon!”

“We’re headed to the Iron Hills,” Thorin said, putting a hand on Fíli’s back and pushing them both inside. “Dwalin went back a few months ago, and has sent word that there’s work there this spring and summer, building new mine workings. We’ll do well enough to make it worth the trip.”

Kíli squirmed away from Bilbo enough to reach down and tear off his shoes, throwing them happily in either direction, and then grinning at the sight of his bare feet. Thorin sighed and gestured tiredly at him. “We figure we can blame you for this one.”

“You don’t like your shoes?” Bilbo asked, confused. Kíli shook his head solemnly.

“Hobbit feet!” he insisted, pointing at his toes. “I a Kíli-Hobbit!”

“Notta Hobbit,” Fíli told him, with a firmness that told Bilbo they had had this argument before. “You’re a Dwarf!”

“Uh-huh,” Kíli agreed happily, and patted Bilbo’s cheek cheerfully. “Anna Hobbit, too!”

It took a while to convince Kíli to let go of Bilbo long enough to let him stand up properly, and a while longer to find tea and biscuits and everything appropriate to a second breakfast. Bilbo was pleased to see that while the Dwarves ate heartily, there was no desperation in it. He offered Thorin ale, but the dark-haired Dwarf shook his head.

“I cannot stay long, and should not tempt fate.”

Bilbo’s heart sank, and the arm he had curled around Kíli’s shoulders tightened a bit, pulling the lad closer. “Oh. I didn’t realise you’d have to leave so quickly.”

Thorin looked almost nervous, somehow, and began poking awkwardly at the crumbs left on his plate. “Master Baggins, you have done me a great kindness in the past, and I am loathe to ask another.”

“Ask away,” Bilbo said, curiosity stirring.

“The road between here and the Iron Hills is a dangerous one, as we well know,” Thorin said quietly. “And the Dwarves of the Iron Hills bear no love for us, or for our children. It is not a place for young Dwarves to live in peace.”

Bilbo’s heart quickened, and he shoved hard at the green shoot of hope that tried to break free. He nodded seriously, and kept his mouth shut.

“My sister has already been called away to help with a difficult political situation, beyond the Blue Mountains,” Thorin continued. “If it would not be too great an imposition, might my nephews remain with you while we are occupied in these dangerous places? We will return before the first fall of snow.”

Bilbo wanted to shout, to stand up and dance and toss Kíli high above his head and spin him around until they both fell, dizzy, to lie on the ground and watch the ceiling spin above them. Instead, he let a wild grin creep across his face, and felt the shoot of hope blossom into something that threatened to tear him apart with joy.

“Fee too,” Kíli told him intently, holding his brother’s sleeve tight in one tiny hand, while the other patted Bilbo’s arm. “Fee staying too.”

“I’m fairly certain there’s enough room here for both of you,” Bilbo said happily, already thinking about what he would tell Daisy, and how they might make room for one of Rosie’s new fuzzy balls of kitten after all, and how very much sunlight joy could be packed into a spring and summer.

~~~

And so it was, in the spring of his thirty-fifth year of life, that Bilbo Baggins became temporary guardian to two Dwarf princes, and surrogate uncle to half the children of the Shire. His purse grew lighter, and his heart with it, and the halls of Bag End were filled with mud and living things, and the gossips of the town said that he was filling the children’s heads with wild tales of adventure. He took Fíli and Kíli to the Litheday celebrations that year and danced with them both, wild and joyful under the sun.

And so it was that every autumn the Dwarves would come for their children, and force their sun-browned feet into shoes, and bear them away; and every spring, they would bring them back to Bag End, grown taller and leaner, their heads full of new words and skills. And Bilbo waited for them in their absence, and he was not alone.