Whatever constraint had fallen over Sam had vanished, and the lad no longer even pretended that he was not reading or talking to Frodo. Upon two separate occasions now had Bilbo had walked through the parlour and smiled fondly at the sight: the younger lad, bright and gold as sun and firelight, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside the pallet where his sick companion lay, pallid and dark as the grey clouds hovering over a full two of the Four Farthings.

Today Bilbo sat at the table, only half listening to Sam's earnest tale-spinning, most of his attention on what he'd been working on over the past weeks. The little book that had once been Primula's would never again be good as new, but he fancied that it was coming along a treat. If only he could convince Frodo of the same… if only he could heal the rent in the boy as well as the book.

But he took his time, with both book and boy.

"Sam?" Frodo said quietly as Sam began to wind up his small vocal list of Hobbiton doings. Bilbo took note of the sombre tone—in fact, he had noted all along that Frodo wasn't truly listening to the homey chatter, not today. "Sam, have I ever told you of the story of Maedhros?"

A frown quirked the sun-browned forehead. "I…. en't sure."

"He came back to Middle Earth from Valinor with his father. After his father's death he was captured by Morgoth's trickery, and Morgoth hung him on a cliff-face, left him there to suffer humiliation and exposure unto death… has Bilbo ever told you this one?"

"Nay, master Frodo, but I'm listening if you'd care to tell it."

"I've read it, time and time again," Frodo mused softly. "I don't think I've ever told it to anyone… no, I told Merry. And I told Mac, long ago."

Sam raised his eyebrows politely, waiting. He was very obviously not about to make any comment on either of Frodo's cousins, yet his very purpose of diffidence spoke louder than any words. Bilbo hid a grin behind his fingers, which faded slowly as Frodo spoke.

"Maedhros was the eldest of seven sons by Feanor. He was captured by Morgoth, hung upon the cliff-face." His voice dropped even more, spun out oddly soft. "Nine nights upon nine did he hang, upon the cliff…"

An uncanny thrill traced itself up Bilbo's spine at the hoarse, hesitant words. He remembered them suddenly, remembered thinking them familiar when Frodo had first spoke them, lost in delirium…

His hands, chilled by the intent work he had been doing, crept to his pockets; he fisted them there, watching Frodo very carefully.

"And what happened then?" Sam prompted into the silence, and Frodo seemed to re-gather his straying attention.

"He was rescued by his kinsman. His brother, Maglor. Maedhros lost his hand but gained his freedom. Only…" Frodo hesitated, trying to figure out the best way to unravel the tale, "he never again felt free. Middle Earth was no longer his home, and he knew it. He was a dutiful son; he wandered, he rose a kingdom into war, he and his brother recovered the treasures that his father had died for… but in the end, even a kinsman's touch couldn't help, or heal. Finally, in despair he cast himself and his treasure into the bowels of the earth."

Bilbo found his own treasure humming in his grasp; found that he was watching the two lads with his breath held tight in his chest. Frodo was staring at his fingers, tangling them amidst the sheets, but still didn't seem to see them. Sam was gravely silent, then once it was clear Frodo was finished, shifted a bit uncomfortably.

"I have to admit I don't particularly like that story, master Frodo. I fancy happier endings—that's just too sad, that tale."

"It's sad, yes," Frodo murmured. "It's horrible. But it… speaks to me, somehow. There's beauty in it."

"Well, mebbe you'll try to explain that to me some day, master Frodo," Sam stated, willing to be persuaded. "But for now," he lurched back up to his feet with a small grunt, "I'd best hie meself out and about to work. I promised I'd help the Rumble lads with their wood stocks—they're willin' to pay me for the favour, to boot."

Frodo didn't answer, still staring at his fingers, and Bilbo filled in the sudden, strange gap, forcibly making himself take his hands from his pockets. "That's fine, Sam," he said, standing and walking over to the pallet. "You run along, then. Be sure to stay warm."

"Chopping tinder's a good way to do that, sir," Sam admitted with a grin. "I'll say good day, then." He looked at Frodo once more with a concerned frown, then shrugged and headed for the door.

It wasn't until the door closed that Frodo seemed to come back to the smial proper; he blinked and took a quick breath, said, "Sam didn't like my tale. I shouldn't have told it to him."

"Well, it is an unsettling one," Bilbo said quite truthfully. "But I also find it to be one of the more compelling of the Silmaril stories. I read it often, and puzzle it."

"Do you see a puzzle in it?" Frodo queried of his fingers. "I don't. Merry and I used to act it out when we were younger. He never wanted to be Maedhros, though." A weak smile. "Merry always likes to play the brawny hero." The smile faded, became pensive. "Mac liked the story, but he always thought Maedhros foolish for casting aside the love that was before him, 'chasing after some silly, sun-dream bauble', he'd say…" His words trailed into silence.

"I know you miss them," Bilbo said, to fill that silence.

"I must," Frodo whispered, then looked up at Bilbo, his expression puzzled and troubled, all at once. "I feel odd, Uncle. Perhaps," he said, suddenly wistful, "I'm hungry?"

"Perhaps you are," Bilbo concurred lightly, and leaned down to trace a finger across the thin line of stitches on Frodo's cheek.

* * * * * *

Those stitches were taken out soon after; Frodo kept still at the Widow's bidding, his eyes closed, but he could feel the thin gut being cut and taken away. It was not at all painful; a tickly, odd pulling sensation, that was all, and the cold of the scissors against his skin as she cut the threads. And then seeing them in the small metal pan, all curled up like tiny spiders smoked off the vines at the Hall vineyards, realising that those little black things had held his own flesh together—it was peculiar.

There was a salve that Widow Rumble had, all along, kept putting on the wounds; she gave it to him, told him to keep at it—it would help the scarring. But after looking in the mirror—and the pale, cropped-haired apparition there had given him the strangest sinking sensation, as if he'd after all not lived through any of it, and Elrohir truly had left a changeling in his place this time—after looking in the mirror, he wondered if the scars might not make his face a bit more interesting. They did make Mac quite interesting, after all…

Then Daisy had come to check on him one day when the Widow was unable, and she'd run one light finger over his cheek and said how wonderful it was that his injuries were healing so well, it'd be a shame to mar his pretty face.

He wasn't quite sure why, but from that day he used the salve as he was supposed to.

* * * * * *

Two letters arrived from Buckland that the week. Esmeralda's was sparse and to the point; Bilbo read it with two tiny white lines developing beside his nostrils and summarised it to Frodo as a "work of art in that she threatens yet says nothing violent. Forgive me, lad, she certainly means well but she seems to know just how to get up my pipe… do you want to read it? She is very concerned for you."

Frodo, who was curled up by the fire, propped upright upon his pallet by a massive assortment of cushions and covers, shook his head and gladly opened the other letter addressed to him, from Merry. It was full of rambling, oft-misspelled epistles—several mini-adventures encountered upon their journey back to Buckland, peppered here and there with assorted grievances over Pippin's behaviour—in short, it was full of Merry. Frodo read it thrice over, trying to siphon as much as he could from it. Merry's ebullience was contagious, warming Frodo's chilled spirit from the inside outward.

Bilbo saw the difference, and mildly suggested that perhaps Frodo should attempt his pen again, write his cousin back, since the roads were obliging them by staying clear.

Frodo blinked at him. "Write? Merry?"

"Well," Bilbo pointed out, "he's writing you."

"But… my eyes. Things are blurry if I focus too long, and my head starts hurting…"

"Then stop when your eyes get tired, lad. Be sensible about it and rest when you have to. You've all the time in the world, right now."

It was almost frightening to contemplate.

It was also quite a production, but Bilbo would not be dissuaded. The divan by the window was moved closer to the fire, and Frodo was moved to the divan, propped by assorted cushions and practically shrouded in quilts. He'd spent more and more time sitting up within the confines of his pallet, but this was a journey to be likened to the one he took to his chamber-pot, only a length from bed but tiring nonetheless.

As Bilbo disappeared into the back of Bag End, fatigue was overshadowed by a small tickling of eagerness in the pit of his belly; it flowered into full-blown anticipation as Bilbo came padding back into the parlour with a small writing desk in his hands. Upon that desk were several sheets of parchment, a couple of quills and an inkwell which, by the virtue of its being recessed into the wooden surface of the little desk, was rendered unspillable as was possible.

It was the first time Frodo had taken up a pen since he'd been so stricken; his hand shook, spattering the ink sparsely across the paper. He threw a huge, apologetic glance at Bilbo, who merely shrugged and added drying powder and a small sander to the necessities.

"Sometimes," he said as he helped Frodo arrange the things, "things are much easier to write down than they ever are to say out loud, eh?"

And with that cryptic remark, the old hobbit left him to it.

Frodo squinted at the parchment. He quite expected it to rear back and hiss at him, like a disturbed dragon. At the very least, nip his fingers.

It did neither of those things; instead the sheet lay meekly innocuous. Waiting.

He gritted his teeth, clutched the quill awkwardly in his fingers and set it to paper.

His hand spasmed. Ink spattered and he cursed under his breath. He put the quill into the inkwell, shook a fine layer of powder onto the ink then, once it had dried, laboriously began to sand the worst of it away.

It seemed to take forever, and he was sweating when he was done. Nevertheless he gripped the pen once more, bit his lip, and single-mindedly bent over the desk.

One line down, and though it might look like an ink war had taken place, it was at least legible. Merry wouldn't mind the smudges.

But he felt as if he'd run the periphery of Bag End, not just laid four words to paper.

As if it had a mind of its own the pen skittered upward then down, making a wavery, blotch of a line at least four inches long before Frodo could halt it.

A rash of totally unwarranted and unnecessary tears rose into Frodo's eyes and hung there, aching.

"You know, you're holding it too tightly," Bilbo said from the doorway.

"If I don't hold it tightly then I can't…" Frodo trailed off and looked away, cheeks heating.

"Can't what?" Bilbo didn't leave his place by the door.

"I can't control it," Frodo finished into his collar. "It just wants to swerve everywhere." His voice tightened and scaled upward with frustration. "This has never been so hard before."

"I'm not sure you've ever been this sick before," Bilbo reminded, giving him a piercing look. "Has your head started to hurt you, lad?"

Slowly Frodo nodded as he became aware that his head was, in fact, splitting.

"Then surely that's enough for now. A bit later you can—"

"Enough? I've done nothing!"

"You've written the beginnings of a letter to your cousin, and if it takes you an entire fortnight to finish it, that's just fine. It's not been so long ago you couldn't even sit up, you know."

The plain sense of that was reassuring; as Bilbo came over and took the little desk from him Frodo suddenly felt exhausted beyond belief.

"I'll put all of it right over here on the window-seat; whenever you feel up to it let me know and I'll bring it over."

Frodo nodded, grateful once again that Bilbo refused to make a fuss.

"Are you thirsty? The Widow would have at me did I refuse to make you some tea if your head was hurting."

Sinking down against the cushions, Frodo nodded again.

"All right then. Just stay there," Bilbo said over his shoulder as he walked from the parlour, "on the couch if you like, take a nap. Unless," he paused at the door, "it's not comfortable enough?"

Frodo eyed his pallet with some disfavour. It was… pleasant, to not be there. "I'm fine," he told Bilbo.

"Good." A twinkle in his eye, Bilbo disappeared about the corner.

Raising his hand, Frodo noted there was ink staining his fingertips. He rubbed those fingertips together, and one side of his mouth turned up in a smile.

* * * * * *

He was being re-initiated back into a world he'd imagined all but lost.

But it was not lost, and he was not lost. It took him nigh to the predicted fortnight to finish the first letter, and when Merry ecstatically replied, it took him only a se'n-night to pen the second, and a few days to pen the third. As his eyes sharpened, his skill re-honed itself also, his fingers becoming less like bloated sausages and more the nimble digits they had been before… before the garden.

Frodo halted mid-sentence, realised with a horrific quiver that his thoughts had somehow leaked out onto the paper. His hand jerked; ink blotched across the damning paragraph, as if he were trying to cover his heedlessness—but also, something within him cried with dismay at the wanton destruction of… what?

With one quick, frightened motion he crumpled up the parchment and cast it upon the fire as if demons lay within it. It lay as if inviolate for long seconds, then began to writhe and curl, tongues of yellow and blue licking across it. Frodo watched until it had smouldered itself to a small lump of black char and realised he was sweated, quivering all over.

Almost angrily he took up another piece of parchment and resolutely penned another letter, thoroughly filled with intentionally light-hearted observations about Bag End and just as thoroughly devoid of anything that was not suitable for a lad of thirteen to read, or know.

* * * * * *

This time Frodo couldn't remember what the nightmare was, only that he was falling into emptiness, just falling, ever on and on, and he woke with a small shriek, flailing outward all stiff, clutching like a dropped newborn.

He expected nothingness, but instead Bilbo's voice came from the shadow, and grey light slatted itself with golden candle and hearth flames, and warm hands covering his own, putting them under the covers.

"Faith, lad, but your hands are ice… here. Curl up and I'll get you a warm drink."

A small grunt as Bilbo rose, then the sound of feet padding away into the kitchen. Frodo wanted, for a small, panicked second, to call him back—the nightmare had been so… so empty—but he clenched his teeth against the pounding of his head and burrowed deeper into the covers.

Bilbo returned quickly, with a steaming cup in one hand. With the other he propped the pillows behind Frodo so that he could sit up, and Frodo reached out, cradled the warmth of the cup in trembling, cold hands, drank the tea in thirsty half-gulps. But he managed to hold it, and more, Bilbo let him.

Finally, relinquishing the cup to Bilbo, Frodo sank back into the covers, realising that the shakes were leaving him, bit by bit. Bilbo still knelt beside him, watching him.

"Do you want more?"

Frodo shook his head and closed his eyes; he felt Bilbo's hand briefly land on his cheek, then withdraw.

Slowly he became more aware of his surroundings, coming from the half-awareness of dreamings and back into the reality that had come to mean Bag End: the crackling fire, the leap of its light against russet wood and cream-coloured walls and the bright gold flicker of candlelight, the warm smell of the bedding, the sound of Bilbo walking back into the parlour and the creak of wood as he settled himself into the chair by the table. Bilbo was limned by the cool, dim light from the windows—Frodo had hoped it would be night; he was tired of waking to grey, nothing but grey. They hadn't seen the sun in forever, it seemed.

But there was a new, bookish smell that assuaged his nostrils this time, a sharp, tinny odour that opened up his airway with remarkable ease. Frodo took a deeper, if wary, breath. He did not cough. Curious, he opened his eyes and saw Bilbo bent over the table with a finger-broad brush in hand. A few moments, then it occurred to Frodo that he did know that odour. Bilbo was tending to a book, and the potent spirit was a glue dissolvent—Frodo had watched the hobbit at the Newbury paper-sellers treating or repairing books many a time, just like this.

For some time Frodo just lay there, eyeing the familiar process as if entranced. Bilbo seemed unaware of his scrutiny, focused on his task—and he seemed quite skilful at it. The thick, nimble fingers were careful and considerate, rarely faltering; Bilbo frowned thoughtfully through his thin-rimmed glasses, changing brushes, folding and opening, making minute adjustments as needed. Then he picked the book up, opened and shut it gently, running his palm over the cover, and Frodo gave a small gasp as he recognised his mother's book.

Bilbo started at the sound, eyes raising up over the rims of his spectacles to take in Frodo. "You're still awake, lad."

Frodo kept staring at the book. What he normally felt when he beheld it was gone; instead he sensed a strange… disquiet.

Bilbo noted his attention, but nothing of what Frodo felt must have betrayed itself, for his uncle smiled. "Would you like to hold it, Frodo? I've almost gotten it repaired."

"No!" he blurted out. Bilbo's look turned to puzzlement. Several emotions—a virtual labyrinth of snarled resentment and confusion—rose up within Frodo so abruptly that he had to turn away, shield his face into the coverlets.

"Frodo?" A gentle voice, footsteps, and an even gentler hand, smelling of dissolvent and light oil. He should have known it wouldn't have stopped there—and for the first time was glad that it didn't.

He was startlingly tired of retreating, with none bothering to even attempt following after.

"What is it, lad? Is the dream still bothering you?"

No, he wanted to say, that's not it, and yes, it's everything, and no, it's all of it, I can't make sense of any of it, don't you see? Can't you understand?

Bilbo's hand tried to pull him upwards; he burrowed down further, shaking his head. "Frodo, look. The book is all right—Lotho didn't hurt it so that I couldn’t repair it. It's taken me some time, true, but you can hold it now, if you like, you won't hurt it—"

"I don't want it!" Frodo protested into the pillow then, before he could halt it or even realise what he was saying, "It's a lie. It was all a lie."

Silence. Then, slowly, as if Bilbo were considering each word. "A lie?"

Frodo writhed deeper into the coverlets, clamping his teeth over more telling words. Old habits of evasion and concealment were strong, and comfortable. But old habits were crumbling beneath all that had happened, and how and why, and this feeling, the first strong, clear emotion he'd had since… the garden… it would not be denied. He flung it in Bilbo's face like a gauntlet.

"She lied. She lied to herself, she lied to me, she lied to my father."

"Frodo…" Bilbo's hand twitched upon him; Frodo jerked away from it, climbed the pile of pillows at his head in a clumsy attempt to sit up further.

"She said she was giving me the world with that book. But she gave me that world and all the while she was taking away everything else!" So many, there were so many half-truths and twists to consider, to know, but the one that kept coming to the surface was the one thing… the one thing that he had thought constant, yet had proven the least of such. "She left me, and left me nothing but that book. I held onto that wretched bit of leather and parchment as if it held all the answers…" he suddenly laughed, and it fetched pain from his damaged lungs all the way to his heart and, from the look of Bilbo, was as bitter outward as it felt inward. "It did, didn't it? It did have the answers. It proved that all of it was a lie, all of it!"

"The letter," Bilbo said softly, dandling the book in his hands like a child. "You did see it."

The sudden shift of topic thinned Frodo's focus, distracted him; his arms shook as he said, "Wh-what?"

Bilbo's eyebrows drew together and he said, with a patience that grated raw along Frodo's nerves, "I thought, when you came back so hurt and Sam telling us Lotho hadn't done it, that maybe you'd read your mother's letter. It was clutched so tight in your hand we had to take it from you when you were still unconscious."

"I read one sentence from that letter," Frodo bit off his words almost angrily, "and I don't want to read any more of it. It can't say anything that I don't already know, that I haven't already felt and…" He looked down, gritting his teeth, furious again—this time at his weakening body that refused to support him upright.

Suddenly hands were on his arms, pulling him forward; he reached out, tangled his fingers in linen and wool, gripped hard and glared into Bilbo's stunned eyes.

"It was all I had of her… it was all I knew. And it wasn't enough. I wanted my mother, not some book! I wanted my father, and she took him away."

"Frodo, she was sick. She didn't know what was—"

"I don't care!!" Frodo cried. "I needed to know he was my father. I wanted to be a Baggins, not Primula's bastard, not an orphan charity case for the Brandybucks! I wanted my father to be my father, to know that I belonged to him as well as her, but she didn't even leave me that. She took my father from me even before she died, and when she died she took him down with her!"

"You can't really believe that," Bilbo said softly.

"Were you there?" Frodo spat back.

"No, lad, of course not. No one was—"

"I was!"

"Frodo." Bilbo's grip tightened, shook him slightly. "You have to calm down; this can't be good for you to be this beside yourself. I know you were there; I meant that you were sleeping and—"

"No, you don't know! I tell you, I was there! I was in my bed, drugged asleep. But I knew. She didn't just go; she took him with her! He went after her, tried to help her, tried to stop her, and she dragged him down with him and she nearly dragged me…!" It seemed that he was nearly there again, gasping for breath he didn't have, head pounding, darkness compelling.

"Frodo, don't—"

"I saw everything, did Elrohir tell you that? Did he?"

Bilbo shook his head, his grip slowly going slack.

"Why didn't he tell you?" Frodo raged at him, chest heaving. "Why don't you know this? Why am I the only one who has to know this?" He choked, doubled over, his chest made a huge heave and he choked again.

Bilbo gave a curse, yanked Frodo over and pounded on his back; the final, hard blow made Frodo retch thick fluid all over the top coverlet and Bilbo's breeches. Frodo curled up and tried to shove away; his weak attempts were negated by Bilbo's hard fingers against his skull.

"Be still, lad."

Frodo couldn't look at him; he was trying to shove away yet unable to gain the strength to do so, writhing with shame: for puking all over like a bairn, for spewing words even moreso, for expecting that Bilbo would understand, or want to…

He didn't want to know; why should Bilbo?

"Curse it…" Bilbo grated out. "Frodo, be still! Stop this, right now!"

Frodo did; he had no real choice, shaking with weakness, tears streaming, lungs aching, hanging half in and out of Bilbo's grip.

Silence, punctuated only by hoarse gasps.

"Why are you the only one who has to know?" Bilbo replied, very softly. "Perhaps it's because you've refused to speak of it."

Frodo twitched in his older cousin's grip, averted his face and was assaulted by the sour smell of vomit.

"Elrohir said you had seen too much because of what he'd done. He said little else. I had," Bilbo continued, his voice suddenly quivering with emotion, "no idea."

Frodo was shivering violently; he couldn't stop. He should be able to stop it; he'd always been able to stop it, always been able to control…

"Frodo." It was a breath through the shorn remnants of his hair. Frodo shivered even more, this time with a sudden, altogether foreign seeming need:

The elves had given him the how, but not the why, and why was suddenly all that was left in his world.

And he couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't make it stop…

"Frodo." Another breath across his temple, but this sounding of his name was firmer, gathering strength.

"I can't… stop shaking…" he whimpered, immediately shamed at the betraying tone.

"And neither could you, you're soaked through and so am I." Bilbo's voice, in direct contrast, was strong, buoying. Frodo blinked and raised his eyes; Bilbo's blue-gold ones pierced him, shored him up further. "Are you all right for a moment? I mean, can I leave you for just the moment, go and get another nightshirt for you, get some clean breeches for me?"

No, he irrationally wanted to say, don't leave me, and the sudden, abortive movement of protest he made must have been clear as a shout to Bilbo.

"Frodo, I'll only be a moment, but we have to get you into a clean nightshirt… oh, never mind." Bilbo reached out, unbuttoning the placket of Frodo's shirt and slipping it carefully over his shoulders and head. Matter-of-factly Bilbo wiped Frodo's sour-tasting mouth with the shirt, then tossed it aside and pushed Frodo back down, pulling the covers up.

Frodo slid beneath the covers, realising the absence of the sweat-wet nightshirt was truly a blessing; the warmth of those covers radiated against his bare skin in one of the few pleasant sensations he'd had in far too long. But it didn't abate his shivering; he curled up as Bilbo yanked away the soiled top coverlet, deposited it with the nightshirt at the pallet's end. Then, in yet another quick motion, Bilbo stood and slipped out of his soiled breeches. "Don't want to get your bedclothes all dirty again," and, after a moment's hesitation standing in just his linen shirt and clout, reached out and twitched a warming shawl from the back of his chair. With a wry smile, he tied it about his hips and sat down next to Frodo.

"More for warmth than modesty, boy; it's only you and I here 'till the morning, at any rate." With a jerk of his chin, Bilbo reached out and put his hand on Frodo's quivering shoulder. "I'm here, and I'll get another coverlet if you like, but you seem to not want me to leave you just now…"

"I can't… make it stop," Frodo muttered through chattering teeth. "Jus… Just as…"

"I hope it isn't just as before?" Bilbo said with soft concern then, at Frodo's puzzled look—how did Bilbo know what he was saying, how could he?—continued, "I remember when you came home, lad. How you said you couldn't stop it. You begged me to help you, and I didn't know what to do. Elrohir told me that it was the stars singing to you, that you heard the echo of the Valar's Song." His eyes narrowed. "It's not… happening again, is it? I thought Elrohir—"

"No, I mean the shaking. I should be able to stop it," Frodo said, quite reasonably. "I should have been able to stop the… the Song, too. I had stopped it, you know. I always could set it aside, make it silent. It had been creeping through me, I know that now—creeping and trying to emerge, but I could always silence it. Until…" He was shuddering so violently his muscles were twitching in protest; Bilbo scooted closer, wrapped him tighter in the blankets. "Then I saw Lotho lying there—and I had silenced him, too—and I felt Sam try to wipe the mud from my face and I couldn't breathe, I was being smothered in…" his voice broke. "I ran. I remembered it all as I ran. I think I would have done anything to stop it all. The…" he twitched and Bilbo's hands tightened on him, "the stars were… in my blood, teasing everything to the surface. I couldn't silence it anymore, couldn't put it away."

"You didn't silence Lotho, not nearly long enough," Bilbo said, and his dry tone was oddly comforting, calming. "Elrohir unravelled the stars from behind your eyes; the only starlight I see now is your own." He smiled, a bit thinly, and stroked a thumb at Frodo's cheek. "And, oh lad, you must believe me on this. Your mother loved you."

"If she loved me so, why did she—?" he started with heat, then mid-thought swerved away, "—why did she convince herself and everyone about her that I was something else, something other?"

"Is being something other so horrible?" Bilbo asked softly. "I suppose it must seem so, else you'd never have… Come here, lad, you're still shaking like a leaf in a high wind." And, before Frodo could think to protest or no, he was once again half in Bilbo's lap, fetched up against the linen-clad chest, and tears were suddenly leaking from his squinched-shut eyes.

"What of Elrohir, then?" Bilbo's voice was reasonable, a soft thrum from his chest, and heat stole from him to curl about Frodo, penetrating his shivers. "What of what he did?"

It should have been difficult, the answer. It was not. "He only did what she asked him to."

"She asked him to save your life." The words were quite pointed.

"She took something from me that I needed, and I hate her. I hate her!" Somehow it broke something within him; Frodo was abruptly sobbing so hard it choked at his throat once more, drove needles behind his eyes, but he scarcely felt it, the relief of his cries toppling any other pain. "Elrohir at least gave me my father back—she took him from me from the moment I was born, and I hate her and I don't care, I don't care!!"

"Frodo," Bilbo said, still soft and direct, "if you didn't care, I hardly think you would be so angry." Frodo tried to pull away. " No, listen to me," Bilbo said fiercely. "And if I didn't care, rest assured that I wouldn't be here. You can be angry, you can be hurt, you can hate whoever you must, but you are not alone… unless you choose to be. And oh, my boy, you're too young to make such a choice."

"We're all alone, in the end!" Frodo told him passionately.

Bilbo peered at him, and there was a strange light in the old hobbit's eyes, as if Bilbo was uncomfortable with Frodo having such perception. "Yes. Yes, we are indeed. But we don't have to be, not until the end."

"You're alone!"

"Am I? Really?"

"You have your own place… you have your own home… and you can choose," Frodo's breath hitched warningly through thick sobs. "You can choose."

"Shh," Bilbo said, also hearing the alarming catch of breath. "You'll make yourself more ill, and we can't have that, can we?" He pulled Frodo closer, onto his side yet still firmly cradled in his lap; Frodo gave in, suddenly too exhausted to make any further protest. He was still shaking, still hiccupping with sobs, but Bilbo was warm, and strong, and the shakes were starting to dissipate.

They simply sat there, with nothing but the crackle of the fire in the silence.

"Sometimes a home isn't a place, Frodo." Bilbo finally spoke, soft into the even-softer darkness. "Sometimes it's not where you rest your feet, but where you keep your heart. There were times on my Adventure that I felt more at home than even here, at Bag End. Oh, don't take me wrongly," he added as Frodo started to protest, "Yes, I was dreadfully missing my own fire, my comforts. But nevertheless… often home was Gandalf's smoke rings, or Balin's grin in the darkness, or the music of Elrond's folk as we came to Rivendell."

Frodo wanted to believe him, he wanted it desperately. He thought of Merry's eyes, of Merimac's breath in his hair, of the sound of water against the shore. So many things that made him feel safe, or accepted, or cared for…

As, once, his mother's book had. "Those things never stay. They go away," Frodo protested.

"No, they never go away," Bilbo countered. "They might change, but they never go away. Not as long as you can remember them."

This hit Frodo far deeper than he'd believed possible; he gave a soft whimper and curled tighter into the coverlets.

They sat there for a long time, each bound up in the somewhat-awkward silence.

* * * * * *

"I'm thirsty. My mouth tastes foul."

"I imagine so, lad. But the water's not going to bring itself from the kitchen, you know."

It was late. Bilbo's legs were cold and had gone to sleep, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was the lad's trembling had ceased, that the hand knotted in Bilbo's had relaxed, bit by bit. That Frodo was still here, after such an outburst.

That he hadn't retreated.

Comfort was a skill Bilbo hadn't had to employ, save verbally, in some time. He could feel his own awkwardness even to the tips of his fingers, which shook irritatingly as he kept stroking a clumsy line across Frodo's shoulders. He'd grown quite accustomed to doing what the Widow had taught him to belay the sickness—this was totally different, somehow. It was frustrating, finding such a lack in himself at a time when it was most needed.

But he managed. And Frodo didn't seem to notice; in fact, Frodo seemed just as discomfited—but, Bilbo realised, for totally opposite reasons. It was obvious his young cousin was as awkward at receiving comfort as Bilbo was at giving it.

"We're quite the pair, lad," he murmured, and Frodo twitched.

"What?"

"Never mind," he said gently. "If you'll let me up, I'll go and get some water for you."

Slowly Frodo backed away, releasing him. Bilbo just as slowly unknotted his body. It was several moments before he could actually rise, and then his legs were cramping like mad.

Frodo mutely watched him. A spark popped in the hearth, the resultant flare of firelight revealing even more uncertainty within huge eyes.

"I'll be directly back, Frodo," Bilbo said, not sure why but just as sure he needed to say it.

He limped into the kitchen, was walking better as he came back with not only a cup, but a pitcher. Frodo gratefully and thirstily gulped down several cups of water. Bilbo put both pitcher and cup within reach, sat down at the foot of the pallet and tried to ignore his still-tingling legs.

"It was Lotho who mangled the book, wasn't it?"

Frodo looked down, then nodded.

"So he found your mother's letter, and thought to use it against you."

Another nod.

"And you managed to get it from him."

Frodo's head lowered. Bilbo remained silent, waiting. When Frodo finally did speak, it was not anything akin to what Bilbo had guessed he'd say.

"Did you read it?"

"Yes, lad."

The downcast eyes turned to up meet his; a plea, almost. But for what? Bilbo groped at several possibilities, discarded most, decided on one and hoped it was the correct one—he'd fouled up too many opportunities already to lose ground now with the boy. "Frodo, do you want to read it?"

"I told you," Frodo replied waveringly, "I know what it says…"

"Perhaps you do," Bilbo said, "and perhaps you don't."

There was a pause, then Frodo said, looking away once more, "Lotho said it told the truth about me. That he would tell you what I was if I didn't let him—"

"I knew the truth," Bilbo interrupted, still gently. "The real truth."

"How was I to know that?" Frodo retorted with some heat. "How was I to know that you wouldn't send me on, just like…" he trailed off.

Like everyone else has, Bilbo supplied silently.

Frodo hesitated, then said, fiercely, "I couldn't do it. I couldn't just… let him… even if it meant you'd send me back. I wasn't going to pretend I was willing."

"Frodo, you did the right thing, either way. And I wouldn't have sent you away, even if you'd been sired by a goblin."

The lad looked at him with that peculiar sideways glance of half cynicism and half curiosity, but a slight smile was quirking at one corner of his mouth.

It was a small victory, added to the earlier confession. Nevertheless Bilbo had to add, "Frodo. Your mother did love you."

And sure enough the smile faded, and Frodo's gaze went to the hearth, pupils narrowing against the leaping light. But when Bilbo thought to get up, Frodo's gaze returned to him, once again uncertain.

"I'll stay in here for a while, if you want," he offered, and was gratified as the boy's eyes softened in assent.

* * * * * *

The thrice-weekly letters from Buckland abruptly ceased. Bilbo watched Frodo's face fall one too many times as the post didn't arrive; in consequence he asked about and found that Buckland was once again in snow and sleet. Nothing was getting through, in or out, and it was said that the Hall had eight-foot drifts against its frontis.

Frodo asked, with a shy unsurety that puzzled Bilbo, if he might have a small folio to keep some letters in; he said that he wanted to keep writing. Sure that Merry was doing the same, Frodo didn't want to disappoint his young cousin who would no doubt be expecting a rain of Frodo-penned parchments when the mail finally did get through.

Bilbo beat the bitter wind to the booksellers and returned to Bag End with a spleet-new, green-dyed folio just as said wind screamed its way into Hobbiton. Frodo's eyes had lit up gratifyingly as Bilbo had handed the folio to him, then went flat as they slid to the banging shutters. They'd need to be closed—Bilbo could feel the wind's draft several lengths away.

"I wonder if the winter will ever end," Frodo said peevishly.

Bilbo wondered, too, realising that for the first time ever he did not look forward to such a happenstance. But it was inevitable: winter would end, Frodo was getting better, and…

And once he was well, Frodo would be taken from Bag End.

* * * * * *

Several letters had gone into the fire since that first one. And each time Frodo did it, he felt as if he were throwing himself onto the fire, to curl and burn, crumple and creak as the flames took him.

It simply seared too harshly, the deed of throwing into the hearth what penned words he deemed unsuitable for his young cousin's sensibilities. Frodo stopped burning the letters, had asked Bilbo for a folio to secure them in. He had been breathless with the beauty of what Bilbo had gifted him upon his request… not just the folio, but the stack of parchments, the refilling of the inkwell at regular intervals, the desk and more than anything, the privacy. Just to… write.

He still spoke directly to his cousin even though he had come to realise some time ago that he would never send these letters. Oh, yes, there were some, neatly sealed in their envelopes, that he would send. But these… perhaps one day Merry would receive them, but that day was not soon, if ever.

The days were slow and unassuming, peppered by the buoying presences of Bilbo and Sam, Daisy and the Widow less frequently, other visitors. Sleep claimed Frodo hard each night, finally unaided by potions and calming syrups; nightmares no longer visited him, wisped into nothingness the moment his head hit the pillow. He needn't dream asleep, not now; he was dreaming awake.

One of the letters was not addressed to Merry. It was short, awkward, one of the earlier ones he'd penned. But Frodo was just as unsure of sending it—there was very little doubt it would provoke a reaction, and he was afraid of the sharp edge this particular reaction would wield against his thinning cocoon of grey safety:

* * * * * *

"You said you've known Mac since he was a bairn."

"Well, yes, I have." Bilbo looked over at Frodo, a tiny smile framing the pipe that claimed one side of his mouth. "What do you want to know?"

Frodo rocked back into his chair for a full, mute moment, and Bilbo chuckled, sat back from where he'd been toasting sweetbreads on a long-handled fork. "Surely you know that I know that you want to know about him." The multiple repetitions, phrased so broadly comical, made Frodo smile through the pink heating his cheeks. Bilbo tested one of the breads, demonstrated with a quick "Ow!" and a yank back of his fingers that it was indeed done. He nudged them from fork to plates, drizzled honey over them and offered one to Frodo. Frodo accepted the plate, still peering hopefully at his uncle.

"Merimac, eh? Well, he was perpetually clumsy as a lad."

"Mac? Clumsy?" Frodo tried to keep the scepticism from his voice.

"Oh, yes. More than a few of our impromptu meetings and greetings were through him not watching where he was going and ploughing head-on into me. He was one of those unfortunate lads that grow too long too quickly. I see it in your young cousin Merry, that same sort of thing."

"Merry wants to grow up all too quickly," Frodo said, and there was a twist of regret behind the words that he didn't bother to halt.

"Well, that's only to be expected. I know Merimac was of the same persuasion, and not at all discouraged by his older cousin. True, there wasn't quite the same age difference between he and Paladin as with you and Merry, but the mischief was the same, I'll warrant." Bilbo smirked at him, and Frodo looked down at his plate, fighting the answering smirk that wanted to claim his lips.

"When did Mac meet Cousin Paladin, then?" Frodo asked the question softly, but Bilbo was not fooled. He gave Frodo a long look.

"Have you not asked him? Or," Bilbo said, slyly, "do the two of you not talk much when you're together?"

This time Frodo grinned before he could stop it, and Bilbo snorted.

"Well, if you're asking when they first met, it was when they were little boys. They've always known each other, really—rather like you've always known many of your cousins. But if you're asking when they became playmates… well, I'm not sure of that. I rather vividly remember when they were no longer perpetually together, when things changed between them," and here, to Frodo's surprise, it was Bilbo's turn to colour slightly, "but as to when it really started… hmm. It seemed that one solstice they were just boys running alongside each other, then just as swiftly they were a pair. It didn't mean much at the time; lads pair up in all sorts of ways, mostly short and sweet. You'll understand what I mean all too soon, I'm sure."

"I should think," Frodo said softly, "that it might be hard to… share like that with someone you didn't trust very well."

Bilbo shot a glance at him; it was indulgent and so thoroughly lacking in judgment that Frodo found it comforting. "Everyone has to pair as makes them comfortable. Despite what others might have to say… and believe me, the entire Baggins connection was once in an uproar over me marrying and settling down properly."

Frodo tried to align Bilbo into speaking terms with marriage and failed miserably. Instead he took a bite of his cooled bread.

"Indeed, I'm as makes me comfortable, so hang 'em! Eh, lad?" Bilbo waved, his gesture taking in not only Bag End, but the snowy landscape, indeed, perhaps to the borders of Buckland, and Frodo's mind sped away with it, over ice and snow to the copper Brandywine, wondering.

"Did you only like lads, as well?" Frodo asked before he thought, then threw a stricken glance toward Bilbo—he hadn't meant the question to be cheeky. But Bilbo didn't seem annoyed, or even taken aback. He sighed contemplatively.

"Ah. If it had only been that simple. No, I was one of those who definitely had a yearning for all the fruits of the tree. Never liked to block myself into one thing or the other, and I didn't need to because I refused to marry. I'm quite selfish, lad, and best you know that straight up." He looked at Frodo, but his eyes were soft in contrast to the firm words. "Anyway, things change, and often what fires you possess can be gainfully tempered into other pursuits."

Frodo knew that, all too well…

* * * * * *

One afternoon Frodo wrote until the developing callus on his forefinger bled, slit open by a rough edge of the goose-feather quill. He didn't notice it, fiercely caught up in his own thrall of words and expression, until Bilbo gave an exclamation and came forward, grabbed his hand to expose the small red runnel feeding the quill tip.

Bilbo fussed at him, wrapped his hand, made him quit writing for the day. Frodo agreed—albeit reluctantly—as his hand started to hurt abominably and Bilbo pointed out, somewhat calmer, that Frodo would be set back for days if he crippled up his hand with such misplaced zeal.

The letters he'd penned so dried with an odd, carmine tint that ran an oddly satisfying quiver through Frodo when he looked at them.

The Widow came one day, poked and prodded Frodo all over until he winced, closely checked his eyes and tongue and the leavings in his chamber pot, made him cough and breathe too deeply and generally inspected him so closely that he felt the urge to hide beneath the covers and never come out. She queried him—and also Bilbo—about the new, translucent circles beneath his eyes, grumbled a bit sourly when Bilbo told her Frodo had simply been attending closely to his letter-writing lately.

The upshot of this all-too-thorough examination was that Frodo was moved back to his own room.

Frodo didn't get much chance to voice an opinion or to protest; every time he thought to, it sounded small and unimportant, so he left his fears unspoken and wearily submitted to the inevitable. The little stove was stoked and kept hot for a day and a night; Daisy and Sam spending quite some time in the little smial as if preparing it for royalty and not one skinny, sick and displaced hobbitlad.

The next day The Removal commenced. It was quite an event: Daisy and the Widow both were there, each supporting Frodo right and left, Bilbo led, looking back often, Sam hovered, flitting ahead and behind them as if unsure of what he should do and not liking the feeling one whit. It seemed to take forever; Frodo wobbled to a stumbling stop several times. He'd not looked at his legs in far too long; beneath the tails of his nightshirt they were white, wasted as saplings and about as useful for locomotion.

Finally they arrived—a journey of ten minutes that only encompassed a room and a hallway—and Frodo sank gratefully into bed, shivering with weakness, too exhausted to contemplate that he hadn't really wanted to move back in here, or why.

Daisy, humming a soft tune beneath her breath, sponged the sweat from his forehead, neck and chest—it seemed nothing to her that he was frail and useless, her very mien seemed certain that it was all temporary, that it too would pass.

The Widow had brought a small kettle of hot water; she laid it on the surface of the little stove in the smial's corner and started preparing something—another medicinal concoction, no doubt. Sam was standing in the corner, shifting from foot to foot uncertainly, and Bilbo…

Bilbo had disappeared.

Then he returned, moments later, and the writing desk was in his hands, piled with Frodo's things, and Frodo heaved a sigh, so gustily relieved that Sam, in his corner, smiled.

The next letter, he sent.

And so passed more days, a string of wintry, crystalline beads knotted separately. When one broke, or the strand that held it unravelled, then the others stayed in place, refusing to also scatter. But those broken days became fewer and fewer, their unravelled strands being woven back into a pattern with the rest, slowly but surely, with a warp and woof of written words…