Chapter Text
Pain came first.
Not sharp pain but a slow, grinding ache that seemed to flow in and out of Bilbo’s bones like the tide. It pulsed through him with the weary familiarity of old age—yet heavier, deeper, more terrible. Every part of him hurt. Every part of him felt wrong.
His thoughts guttered like a torch exposed to storm winds.
Light. Dark. Light. Dark.
He couldn’t remember how he had come to lie wherever he was. He couldn’t remember if he was lying down at all. The heaviness pressing on him felt like earth, like stone, like the weight of years piled upon years. His memories curled away from him, slippery as wet pebbles. Even his name seemed distant, as if someone else had worn it once.
But beneath the fog of age and confusion, something else lived—
a trembling, insistent wrongness.
It prickled beneath his skin.
It whispered in his heartbeat.
It clung to his spirit like oil.
A cold dread wound slowly through him. A dread he knew. A dread he recognized.
The Ring.
The echo of its presence.
The memory of its poison.
The shadow of its malice, which had seeped into him decades ago and never truly left.
Bilbo’s awareness strained upward like a drowning man breaking the surface.
Why did it feel so close?
Why did it feel so—alive?
With tremendous effort, he peeled thought from thought, struggling to make sense of anything. Something had happened. Something terrible. Something that had shuddered through the world and through his soul.
Then a name rose through the swirling fog.
Frodo.
His heart contracted.
His breath stilled.
His little lad. His boy. His dear, dear nephew, out there alone bearing a burden no hobbit was ever made to carry. Had something happened? Had he fallen into danger? Had the Quest gone wrong?
The darkness curling around Bilbo pulsed, almost triumphant.
Fear stabbed through him.
Frodo…? What’s become of you?
His heart reached for the thought of him, reached desperately—but the darkness drowned it out. His consciousness faltered, thin as a slipping thread.
He felt himself collapsing inward, dissolving into the void.
And then—
nothing.
No sound.
No breath.
No world.
Just a vast, formless dark stretching in every direction, swallowing any sense of time. It held no malice, no comfort. Only stillness. Only silence. Only the muted hum of something terribly, terribly wrong.
Bilbo floated—or perhaps fell—through the endless quiet. His mind dimmed. His sense of self wavered. Even fear dissolved eventually, leaving only a dull echo of thought drifting in the void.
He was not sure he existed.
He was not sure anything existed.
He only knew one truth that never fully left him:
Something had gone terribly wrong.
Then—warmth.
Gentle. Unexpected. Like the first warm day after winter.
Bilbo inhaled sharply. Air—real air—filled his lungs. His eyes fluttered open, blinded by brightness.
The shift from endless nothing to overwhelming something struck him so hard he gasped, clutching at the grass beneath him. Grass. Soft, dewy, sun-warmed grass. It tickled between his fingers, startling in its vividness.
Sound returned next.
Birdsong.
Water trickling nearby.
A distant, soft breeze whispering through leaves.
Scent followed.
Fresh earth.
Spring blossoms.
The sweetness of morning dew.
His body—his poor old body—felt… new. Whole. Warm. Comfortable. Young. He flexed his fingers. No ache. He shifted his legs. No stiffness. His joints felt springy, alive, responsive.
He had not felt this way in nearly forty years.
He lay still for several long moments, overwhelmed by the simple miracle of feeling well. He did not dare to move lest the pain, the age, the fog come rushing back.
He whispered a prayer—small, quiet, habit-threaded—
hoping the Green Lady would allow this gift to linger long enough for tea and breakfast with Elrond.
But as the prayer formed in his mind, a soft giggle brushed the air.
A woman’s giggle.
Warm. Musical.
Close enough to stir the hairs on his cheek.
Bilbo froze.
Slowly, hesitantly, he opened his eyes fully.
A face hovered above him.
A woman—beautiful beyond words yet somehow familiar, like a figure remembered from an old woodland dream. Her soil-brown hair framed her face in loose curls. Sunlight turned each strand to gold. Her eyes were green—leaf green—bright, amused, watching him with a fondness that made his heart lurch.
Bilbo’s breath hitched.
He knew that face.
Or rather—he knew what legends claimed it looked like.
“Mm—mhm—” he squeaked, scrambling upward so quickly he nearly clocked her with his skull.
He froze halfway, horrified. One did not strike a goddess.
For surely—surely—that was who she was.
He bowed so quickly and deeply he might have toppled if not for the grass beneath him.
“MY LADY!” he squeaked, voice cracking. “Forgive me—I—didn’t—your hair—your face—I mean—you surprised—I mean—!”
He dared a glance upward—and that was when he saw them.
He choked.
In every direction the Valar stood encircling him—radiant, immense, shifting with power and form in ways his mind could barely hold. Their presence pressed around him like warm, living pressure, the air humming with a weight older than stars.
He had faced dragons, true.
He had faced goblins, spiders, and even Gandalf when the wizard was in one of his moods.
But this—this was a meadow full of gods.
Bilbo felt his knees wobble.
Nevertheless, he swallowed, steadied himself, and bowed once more.
“My lords. My ladies.” His voice trembled but did not break. “How may I serve the Valar?”
Yavanna stepped forward, her expression gentler than the morning sun.
“Rise, my child.”
He rose on unsteady feet.
She watched him with an emotion that struck him harder than any thunderbolt—
sorrow.
“Something is wrong,” Bilbo whispered hoarsely, his heart clenching. “Please—tell me—Frodo—? Has something happened?”
Silence swelled, heavy and devastating.
Then Manwë moved.
The air shifted around him like a mountain standing.
“Frodo failed his task.”
The world broke.
“Middle-earth has fallen to Sauron.”
Bilbo staggered as if struck.
He clutched at the air.
His heart plummeted through him.
Manwë continued, voice grave but soft:
“We do not know his fate. But we believe he has fallen as the Nine once fell.”
Bilbo’s scream never made it from his throat.
Agony ripped through him—raw, shattering, blinding.
The kind of pain no body could house, only a soul.
He fell to his knees.
He fell further—to the ground, to despair, to grief so deep it hollowed him. Fingers digging into the soft soil, trying to find purchase even as his mind scrambled.
“FRODO—!” The cry tore out of him brokenly, his voice cracking under the weight of absolute loss.
His little leaf.
His boy.
His sunlight.
His reason to keep going.
Gone.
Claimed.
Damned.
Because of him.
Because he had carried the Ring home.
Because he had not destroyed it when he should have.
Because he had been weak.
Guilt cleaved through him—relentless, merciless. He clawed at his chest as if he could rip out the pain, rip out the truth.
“It’s my fault,” he sobbed. “My fault—my fault—oh Frodo—!”
His grief swallowed the world.
He saw nothing.
He heard nothing.
He felt only the crushing despair of a heart breaking beyond repair.
Strong arms gathered him close.
Warm.
Steady.
Cradling him as if he were a child.
Yavanna held him against her, her voice like wind in ancient forests.
“Bilbo,” she whispered. “My sweet, brave child.”
He sobbed into her chest, shaking violently.
She stroked his hair.
Her tears fell with his.
“Do not despair,” she murmured. “All is not lost.”
Her voice cut through his agony like light piercing storm clouds.
He blinked up at her through tears, breath shuddering.
“H-how?” he croaked.
Yavanna exchanged looks with the other Valar. Worry—real, deep worry—filled her eyes.
“It will require much of you,” she said softly. “More than you have ever given. More than any hobbit ever has.”
Bilbo straightened—not physically, but in spirit.
“If there is a way to save Frodo,” he said, voice low but fierce, “I will do anything. Anything at all.”
The Valar stirred, surprised by the iron in his voice.
But Yavanna smiled—a proud, aching smile only a mother could give.
Varda stepped forward, starlight rippling from her.
“If you succeed, you may bring all who were lost back into the light.”
Bilbo’s breath caught.
He looked at them all—Manwë, Varda, Yavanna, Aulë, Ulmo, the whole divine host—and something inside him settled, strong and immovable.
“What must I do?”
Manwë approached, closer than before.
“We will send you back,” he said. “Back to your youth. Back with your memories. Back before any of this began. You must guide the Ring to its end. To the fire. To its destruction.”
The wind hushed.
The sun quieted.
Even Bilbo’s breath held still.
“If you succeed,” Manwë finished softly, “your second life will be yours to shape.”
Bilbo did not ask what failure meant.
He knew.
He bowed his head, not bothering to address the condescending tone of the god.
“I accept. When do I leave?”
Yavanna touched his shoulder—warm, grounding.
“Now.”
He inhaled sharply.
“You will take the place of your younger self,” she said. “Nothing of the last timeline will remain. You must speak of the future to no one until the Ring is undone.”
Bilbo nodded.
A spark lit in his eyes—
fierce, determined, bright as the sunrise over the Shire.
“Very well,” he whispered. “One more adventure.”
He straightened.
“And this time… I will do it right.”