Down the Long Years by Isilme_among_the_stars  

Year 1374 Shire Reckoning, Brandy Hall, Buckland

Bilbo supposed that he had been watching young Frodo for altogether too long when Rorymac nudged him good-naturedly. “There’s still time for it, old as you are; plenty of lasses as likes a silver fox. I could name a few this side of the Brandywine.”

The master of Brandy Hall had so often tried to coax Bilbo into husband and fatherhood that Bilbo had long ago lost count of his attempts. Rorymac seemed to think the inescapable, genial chaos of his household should be especially appealing to everyone. Bilbo did enjoy the rowdy company, but only in moderate doses. “Oh, come off it. I’m not interested; and I’ve told you as much enough times for you to remember it.”

“So you have, but one can hope.”

“My dear Rorymac, whatever can you mean?”

Rorymac laughed. “You saw the little ones’ eyes near pop out of their sockets when you told of hungry wolves crossing the frozen Brandywine! You’re a dab hand with youngsters.”

“What I’m a ‘dab hand’ with, is stories. I should pity the infant entrusted to my care! No, it’s merely that the young have yet to become so stuffy and proper as to forget they enjoy an adventuresome tale. ‘Respectable’, adult folk, on the other hand, delight only in scandal.”

“So says Hobbiton’s most incorrigible gossip!”

There was little Bilbo could say to that, so he changed tact. “You saw the miller rolling his eyes.”

“More fool him,” Rorymac declared, “if he cannot appreciate your flair for the dramatic then we must allow him his petty entertainments.”

“Fool he is, indeed,” agreed Bilbo. He didn’t much like the miller. Dreadfully dull fellow, he was, dealing spitefully in the mundane, and apt to drag any who gossiped with him down to his level. For all Bilbo enjoyed a delectable tidbit, his tastes were decidedly more high-minded. “It’s Frodo that has my eye.”

“Primula’s son?” Rorymac asked, and Bilbo nodded. As Bilbo had regaled the hall with his tale, the lad had sat quiet and attentive at the back of the gaggle of children, while the other youngsters giggled and jostled for space.

As they watched, Frodo brandished a wooden sword in the air and cried out to the ‘wolves’ his playmates aped to “get gone,” while his father laughingly admonished: “watch where you wave that stick, lad. It’ll put someone’s eye out.” Frodo, little abashed by the chastisement, caught them watching and grinned.

“He’s something, my nephew, isn’t he?” Rorymac crowed proudly.

“The lad has spirit. Shy as a tortoise while I spoke, but magnificent when roused from his shell. You should watch him, Rory. I’ll wager that young Frodo has an adventure or two in him.”

“The old Tookishness shines through.”

“Dear Mirabella would be delighted, if she lived still. A shame she does not,” Bilbo lamented, recalling Rorymac’s old mum (a bit Tookish herself) with fondness. Across the room, Frodo had begun chasing after several other young hobbits who promptly forgot that wolves run on four legs and dodged deftly away. “What do you mean, ‘silver fox’?”

“You should have sprouted a few grey hairs by now,” Rorymac complained. “It isn’t natural.”

—

Year 1386 Shire Reckoning, Buckland

“‘I only wanted a few mushrooms’ I told him, and then, if you can believe, he called me a ‘young rascal’ (in between thrashes) and said that if I should ‘traipse about his fields thieving’ then he would ‘set his dogs on me’,” Frodo recalled with some fervour. He been recounting to Bilbo a recent misadventure on Maggot’s farm as they walked, following the line of the Brandywine, south of Bucklebury. “And he did, too. The great, hairy beasts came nipping at my heels all the way to the ferry.”

Bilbo, when he had caught his breath after a hearty laugh, remarked, “ah, what a tale, my lad! It would make for an excellent drollery; worthy of setting in ink, I should think.”

“That is impossible. I’m afraid I do not know my letters well enough.”

“Don’t tell me old Rory has neglected your education!”

“No, no, of course he hasn’t,” Frodo raised his hands placatingly.

With so many relations under foot it was a wonder Rorymac found the time to think at all. Bilbo waved one hand dismissively. “Oh, save it. I meant no insult. Rory’s a fine hobbit, even if he is addlepated with chasing after everyone in that madhouse you call home.” Still, it was an oversight, and the lad would make a fine student if Bilbo was any judge.

The bright morning sun turned the sluggishly flowing river to amber. On dappled rocks, washed at the sides by the water’s flow, grey wagtails danced and chirped their staccato calls. Frodo said nothing for a long while. He walked with much vigour, as Bilbo himself was accustomed to do, and seemed to enjoy tramping about the countryside just as much. The lad’s eager feet would lead them all the way down to Strandelf, if Bilbo did not turn them around before.

“Do you think…” Frodo began, gazing across the water with an awkward expression.

“Go on, lad.”

“Could we walk together again? I enjoy your company, more than I expected to.”

“Ha. You presumed the queer old hobbit with restless feet to be dull, did you?” Bilbo teased good-naturedly.

“Oh no, I remember your stories only too well. I never presumed you dull for a moment,” quipped Frodo in return with a shy grin. “Only, I had not thought you would find such delight in mine.”

The true delight of the morning, Bilbo thought, had been the enthusiasm Frodo shared for stories and countryside ramblings, rather than the tale itself. There was, besides, little about the lad that Bilbo found inane, as could be found aplenty in most hobbits.

“I think we might, lad,” he said. “I think we might.”

—

Year 1393 Shire reckoning, Hobbiton

Food abounded, music thrummed through the summer air, beer flowed, and, these conditions being met, the party had become as raucous as one might expect from a crowd of well-watered hobbits yet to eat their fill. Among the nimble tweenagers a lively round of the Springlering had been struck up, while their elders looked on with fond remembrance. Bright ribbons in the hobbit-lasses hair bounced and flashed in the lamplight as they leapt and spun. Hobbit-lads, moon-eyed and eager, tousled good-naturedly to proffer their hands to the gaily laughing lasses. Frodo, however, hung back from the throng, watching with a curious solemnity in his expression as he sipped slowly at a tankard of ale.

Much as Bilbo throve in such environments, carried away by merry converse with a myriad relations both distant and near, he could, and always would, spare a moment for Frodo, particularly maudlin as he seemed now. “Is all well, Frodo my lad?”

“Do you regret it? Taking no wife,” Frodo asked.

“If you fear no lass will have you, you may safely set that worry aside.” Frodo was comely, kind-hearted and clever; and Bilbo had spied not a few hopeful looks in his nephew’s direction.

“It is not that. It is just… I do not know if I want what they so clearly do,” he explained, gesturing to the lively bunch cavorting before them. In the four years since Bilbo had invited Frodo into his home, he had not once brought a lass to Bag End for an awkward conversation over tea, nor snuck out as some scurrilous lads were wont to do. It was not that he was shy: Frodo had staggered up the hill, more beer in his belly than was good for him, to the accompaniment of one or another Gamgee lad’s cheerful banter more times that Bilbo could count. He had not considered before that there was anything more behind the oddity than reluctance to part with the irresponsibility of tweenhood.

“Ah, I see. No, I have never regretted it: not for a second. There is much more to life than most of these young lads and lasses realise, Frodo.”

Frodo smiled. “Stories, elves and their lays, adventures, song...”

“Precisely,” Bilbo agreed. “And a good bowl of pipe-weed to blow smoke rings with thrown into the bargain,” he added, only half in jest.

“I only wonder,” Frodo said, “whether I shall lack for companionship, once the others… you understand?”

“You life will be full, my lad, regardless of how you choose to fill it. Whatever road you should take, the affections of this old hobbit shall travel with you down that path.”

Frodo seemed to brighten then. If his quandary was not entirely resolved, then at least it weighed less heavily upon him. Mischief was in his eyes as he met Bilbo’s over the rim of his mug. “Any path?” he asked.

“Any,” Bilbo replied. “Just don’t ask me to go traipsing through Woody End or the like until our heads have stopped aching, when you know very well the roads in question are metaphorical.”

Frodo’s golden spill of laughter carried high over the fiddlers strains and it did Bilbo’s heart much good.

—

Year 1400 Shire reckoning, Hobbiton

“Your mind is made up then?” Frodo asked.

“Yes,” sighed Bilbo. “It is made up.” There was a rush of relief in the decision to leave the Shire, but a pang of regret too. He had grown fond of Frodo over the years; of all things, it was his nephew Bilbo would most ache to be parted with.

Frodo leaned back against the desk at which Bilbo sat, perusing old maps. “I suppose I must make my own decision, that being the case.”

“You cannot intend to follow me.” Frodo had flourished, these past few years, with his roots sunk deep into the soil of Hobbiton’s ecosystems, both natural and social. He basked in the warmth of the kindly West, like a sunflower with its face upturned. Bilbo could not imagine him transplanted to distant, wild lands.

“I have considered it,” Frodo said seriously. “To step out onto the road side by side, to let it sweep our feet  to the splendour of Erebor! or to immerse ourselves in the wonders of Rivendell’s libraries…I have dreamt of such things since I was a youth. Truthfully, I am not sure what I should do. I would miss you terribly if I stayed, and I should miss the Shire awfully if I left.”

“My dear boy! You’ll have company enough without me. What of young Meriadoc, and Fredegar? You have become fond of them. As for journeying: there is much yet to explore within the four farthings for your restless feet.”

“There is a little difference between Frogmorton and the Lonely Mountain,” Frodo insisted. Fondness for his young friends, he did not dispute. Bilbo had come to realise that Frodo’s hunger for adventure lay chiefly in the re-telling. It was an inquiring mind he had, eager to learn and imagine, but less keen were his feet to step into danger. Bilbo had been equally reluctant, long ago, and it had taken a mighty push to set him on that first wandering path. Frodo had not realised it yet, but he would not come, not this year at least. Bilbo could not have been more certain.

—

Year 1421 Shire Reckoning, Bag End, Hobbiton

“Oh, Sam, she is as bright as can be,” said Frodo, looking upon the face of his dear friend’s little daughter, Elanor. Many a time had the two sat admiring the lass, and yet Frodo felt his wonder at the round-cheeked, golden-haired babe as fresh as it were brand new, tonight.

“That she is, mister Frodo. Bright as a button, as my Rosie says.”

“She knows a thing or two, your Rosie.” Frodo lifted the glass of red wine to his lips (not as good as Old Winyards, this bottle, though the vintages of the next few years promised to be) and grimaced at the twinge the movement awoke in his shoulder.

Sam looked upon him with naked concern. There was a time when he’d have leapt to his feet, rushing to help his master in any way that he could. They both understood, now, there was little to be done, and Sam only said, “does it pain you again, sir?”

“Don’t trouble over it, Sam.”

The other looked down, brushing his fingers gently over Elanor’s soft curls, and Frodo knew him well enough to guess that his thoughts lingered on all that had changed, for good or for bad, and all that was now lost. “I wish old Bilbo were here, sometimes,” he said, “to see what this place has become. How fair it is now things begin to grow! Oh, but I miss the old hobbit. He’d know better than me how to comfort you.”

“Bilbo would be happy for you, Sam. He would spare but a glance for Elanor, then look you full in the face with his sharp eyes and smile.” The old hobbit never had been overfond of small children, having taken up with his young friends only once they were halfway to maturity or more. He was, by Shire standards, odd and flighty, and had never expressed his affections in the steady, dependable way expected of a hobbit of his standing. Yet, those who gained his affections, he loved fiercely, without reserve, and with a good deal of lighthearted ribbing. “Nothing but grumbling would he have for this ‘poor fare’,” Frodo declared, lifting his wine again demonstrably as he took another sip, “and would loudly wonder if your old gaffer weren’t brewing something better in his fine premises in New Row.”

“We’d sit comfortably by the fire while you told him how you’re setting this place to rights. Then he’d doze off halfway through telling his own story about Lindir, wouldn’t he?”

“That he would,” Frodo chuckled. “Ah, I miss him.” He did not tell Sam that soon they would see the old hobbit again. He did not think he had the heart to bear the delight in his face, knowing already that their re-acquaintance would be short-lived, and that both Bilbo and he would shortly leave Sam for good. That, Frodo thought, might well break his resolve entirely; for it was Sam he would miss most, like a piece of his very heart cast aside in these green lands.

—

Year 1421 Shire Reckoning, Shipbound over Belegaer

A week into their journey, in a bright, cogent moment (which were becoming fewer and farther between as old age dragged him deeper into its somnolent grasp), Bilbo asked Frodo, “do you regret any of it? What strife taking up with an old bachelor with his odd, wandering ways has caused you!”

Frodo rubbed at the scars on his hand where the ring had once sat as he perched on the edge of Bilbo’s cot. “I certainly wish I had never lost this,” he said.

“Perhaps, had you never come to Bag End, you’d be as merry as a hobbit can be, comfortably installed in a modest above ground house between Buckleberry and Strandelf. You’d have a fair lass on your arm, a babe on your knee, ten fingers and no old wounds to pain you.”

“I should have missed a great deal more than I would have gained. No, Bilbo, I do not regret it.”

“Yet, you grieve, my lad.” Bilbo regretted little, himself, but most bitterly was he sorry for this: that Frodo’s trials had come through his hand. The fact pained him most dreadfully.

“Many, perhaps, would not understand it,” Frodo mused, taking in his fingers the chain from which the lady Undómiel’s white gem hung and worrying it between them. “They would look upon this bachelor, and think he left little behind. My Sam is a most loyal servant, and far more than that, a stalwart friend. He is no spouse, nor child, that the parting should thus affect me, yet, without him, I feel as if I were missing a limb.”

“Oh, my boy, surely you are not so blinded as that?” What did it matter that what lay between them was nothing other than friendship? Such companionship could be just as close, just as tender as ought else. Such intimacies could be achingly dear. And Frodo, Bilbo thought, had loved Sam, in his way, even more than Bilbo loved Frodo.

“No, I suppose not. How it aches, uncle!”

Bilbo felt his mind slipping, as ever it did these days, back toward a hazy, torpid place, and he fought it, as best he could, in order to give succour to his nephew, so dear. “Sam cares for you as much as you do him; it is plain as the nose on his face. My heart tells me he will follow over the sea, one of these days.”

“Perhaps he will come,” Frodo said, “and perhaps not. Sam has Rosie now, and Elanor, and a raft of golden children to come.”

“I shall be most surprised if he does not.” Bilbo yawned.

“Ah, but you are growing weary. Rest now, uncle dear. What will be, will be. And we have each other, still.”

“And glad I am, of it,” Bilbo mumbled, as his heavy lids drooped closed and sleep, soft and warm, claimed him.

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