"Come on, lad. Time to get up. There's something I have to show you."

Bilbo breezed into the room that morning with the indefatigable mien of someone who'd taken an overdose of one of the Widow's spring tonics.

Frodo had been half asleep, contemplating the golden haze starting to touch the skylight and wondering what it might be; he found himself shrinking down into the covers of his bed from the sheer force of Bilbo's determination. Get up? Just like that? Frodo could still remember the helplessness of moving just from the parlour to this room a mere matter of days ago—he didn't particularly want to face that again.

He actively panicked when Bilbo strode across the little smial and flung open the thick curtain. "Uncle… don't—"

The outside shutters were already open. Brilliance slatted between Bilbo's fingers and flared inward, yellow-white piercing the soft haze of the smial.

"Look," Bilbo said eagerly. "The sun is out!"

Curling up tighter in his blankets, Frodo's eyes were tearing in the fierce abruptness of illumination. It was almost an assault.

Bilbo seemed oblivious; he was smiling broadly as he came back over to Frodo's bedside, holding up a woolly robe and reaching to pull the covers away. "Never you fear, I'll help you, but you can't miss the sun. We've seen it all too seldom these past weeks."

But… it…

It took some time to wrap Frodo into the robe. Bilbo had hung the thick nap of it beside the wood-stove and it was toasty warm; that wasn't the problem. The problem was Frodo's limbs didn't seem to want to work. His arms were tingly and shaky with even the simple chore of sliding into wide woollen sleeves, and when Bilbo pulled him upright Frodo had to hold tight to the bedstead so Bilbo could tie the robe about his waist.

"I don't think I can," Frodo said, a bit desperately. "Bilbo, can't I just see the sun from here?"

"Surely you can, but you'd get the better of it if you could feel it on your skin."

"The skylight. I could get under the skylight."

"Morning sun's best, so my own mother always told me and I'm sure Widow Rumble would agree. There we are," Bilbo said, tying Frodo's robe closed with some satisfaction. "Now, lad, put your arm about me… just so. Excellent."

It was plain that Bilbo had no intention of letting him out of this circumstance no matter what, and when Frodo tried to command one leg to reach forward with its old confidence, he stumbled. If Bilbo hadn't had an arm about him, he would have fallen.

Humiliation coloured his cheeks, briefly eclipsing any trepidation of having his haven laid open to that garden. He was so used to being in control of his own body—it was frightening, how weak and useless it had become… he had become…

"D-don't let go," Frodo stammered, and was further ashamed that even his voice was suddenly weak, rusty.

"I won't, lad," Bilbo murmured, suddenly serious. "I have you, I promise that—and I'll not be dropping you, either. You don't weigh enough to shift a penny piece and we need to change that. But we also need to do this; remember just yesterday the Widow said it was time for you to start getting up and about. She's been right so far, so we'll do as she says. All right?"

Frodo nodded, biting his lip. His feet dragged at the end of legs that seemed made of wood. His eyes burned and his chest was heavy, dragging his shoulders down.

"Come on, then," Bilbo repeated, and slowly edged him forward.

The direction they took made Frodo realise where they were indeed heading. He hung back, shook his head.

"It's all right," was Bilbo's response. "You don't need to be travelling as far as the front door just yet, so where else but your own window?"

Where else? Only that now sight and sound and smell did bring back the memories, and he wasn't sure yet that he wanted to see outside that window, see that black patch of dirt where all of it… had begun. Had ended.

"Now, now," Bilbo chided quietly. "I've a surprise for you. There's something out the window that I intend you should see."

Before, Frodo might have been defiant, or evasive, or just tuned it all out. Now he was numb, wearily disconnected… he couldn't fight. Not any more.

Beside him, sturdy and supportive, Bilbo made the sound that Frodo had come to realise as Bilbo uncertain and worried—a little huff of expressed air and a tiny, tiny groan—and it made him feel all the more useless, that he should keep worrying Bilbo like this…

"Come on, lad," Bilbo said in cheery denial of that worried sound. "Shift yourself. One foot before the other, now."

Frodo obeyed. It seemed to take forever to traverse the short distance from bed to window, and once he got there he propped himself against the wide sill, panting as if he'd run miles. The sun's light was so intense he couldn't keep his eyes open; it bled bright-white against his closed lids. He stood there for moments, swaying like some old gammer in a swoon; the sun's rays were that warm against his cheeks, even through the windowpanes. He wondered if he would simply melt away beneath the sudden and delicious ache of it.

"I must say that's splendid, isn't it?" Bilbo murmured appreciatively at his side. "Worth the walk, perhaps? Breathe, lad; you're holding your breath. A nice deep one, mind, to clear your head—I'm not opening the window yet, the outside air's still too cold for you. And there's a fair picture through that window, if you'd but open those eyes."

Frodo took the breath—though he could smell only the moisture of the closed window, the warm, slightly-sick tang of the smial. Biting his lip, he forced his eyes open, peered outward.

For moments it was as if he looked into a mirror; there was so much light behind the windowpanes that he couldn't see past them. There was only the image of a thin, too-pale boy with huge eyes beneath close-cropped hair, leaning on an old hobbit with worry lines deepening about his mouth and nose, chin lifted, gaze narrowed and determined. Frodo blinked, eyes watering fiercely, focused his gaze past the glass. The first thing he saw was not the expanse of black earth he was so dreading. His gaze was drawn past that, into shards of illumination that abutted the northeast facing of the garden. More glass, framed with wood, surface moisture runnelling and refracting the sun's rays: a tiny, green-filled house made, seemingly, of light. Frodo blinked and rubbed his eyes with one hand, the other holding firmly to Bilbo.

"Oh," he said, rather dully.

"The lads have been quite busy while you've been ill."

Frodo swallowed, hard. "It's… it's where the roses came from, isn't it?"

"This is Sam's greenhouse, yes," Bilbo smiled. "He's all a-dither; he wants to show it to you so badly I'm afraid he'll burst something. But there's more. Look what's started coming up, just this week, from the ground."

Frodo dropped his gaze a bit reluctantly. The snow had mostly melted, but instead of the expected sight of torn-up earth peering nakedly between the sparse patches of white, there was a soft, hand-high carpet of green.

"I knocked into Samwise two seasons ago," Bilbo said softly. "I had in my grasp a pouch of seed that a good friend had hand-carried from Rivendell."

"Rivendell," Frodo whispered, raising a hand to touch the glass. It was cold, frost weeping in the sunlight, cold to contrast the warmth upon his cheeks, the warmth spreading in his chest.

The garden looked nothing like to what it had. The face of horror had… changed.

"Well," Bilbo continued ruefully, "all that precious seed went flying. It was my fault; I'd not been watching where I was going. We only managed to save a bare handful, and of course Sam was determined to pot that and set it right. I watched birds descend on the scattered seed and decided it was lost. I'd forgotten all about it."

"Until now."

"Yes, lad. Until now." Bilbo's grip upon him tightened, and his voice softened. "I never dreamed that it would sprout so early. Rivendell never seems to feel winter's hand, and it's been so cold here these past weeks."

Frodo pulled his hand away from the pane; the mark of his hand remained there, a ghost against the glass which also seemed to envelop his hand, chill and damp. The sun was warm against his cheeks, heated contrast. He remembered, remembered the still surface—like glass, like the river—beneath his feet, and a chill hand reaching for him, and the little death awaiting him should he submerge. But here, there was somehow a trace of comfort behind the cold glass; life beneath the surface, green basking in the shelter, in the warmth of the sun. Abruptly his knees were trembling, his eyes filling hot.

"Frodo?" Bilbo said worriedly.

"It's not what I thought it would be," he said, too quietly. "It's… lovely."

"I'm glad," Bilbo answered. "I'd hoped it would be. Now, let's get you back into bed. I can feel you shaking to your toes. You need to start getting about, but enough is enough."

The trip back to the bed seemed much shorter than the one to the window; Frodo collapsed gratefully into his pillows. Bilbo pulled the coverlets up, then went to check on the little corner stove.

Later in the morning, tendrils of sunlight began to reach from the skylight overhead, the sun creeping upward to illuminate the Hill's top. Frodo could still feel the intense chill of the glass upon his hand, then lifted it towards the roof's window, wishing the sun was more direct against the skylight pane so he could feel the warmth again.

* * * * * *

The complications of a bath still meant help—but Frodo had grown used to needing Bilbo's help, and Bilbo offered it so matter-of-factly that there was no discomfort in submitting to the need. As a result, what humiliation could be engendered in helplessness didn't arrow its way into resentment; instead it sank into a determination to get stronger.

Bilbo didn't want him to stay helpless. Everything Bilbo did was tendered towards giving him strength, helping him grasp it as he could.

The bath room was warm, proving Bilbo had decided earlier in the day that Frodo might do well with a real lie-in bath; the stove all but glowing and the coppers gently frothing. This time of year it took some doing to manage a hot soak, particularly when they were still so careful about him taking a chill, and the forethought of that doing was gratifying.

He often wondered why Bilbo bothered to go to such lengths. But for now, he was simply relieved that Bilbo did bother.

Bilbo had even washed his hair for him. It was growing back, beginning to curl about his ears.

"Do you think it's wrong? To… need something too much?" Frodo queried of his guardian from the vat of deliciously-steaming water, sunken down so that only his head and the tops of his knees showed.

"My, you are philosophical these past days," Bilbo said, sucking on the finger he'd burned on one of the coppers. Frodo coloured and looked down at the water; Bilbo quickly inserted, "No, lad, don't get all sullen on me—what else are you to do? There's little in your situation that you can do but think." He rested one hip against a shelf carved out of the wall—a seat, almost, Frodo had thought when he'd first seen it, and his guess was proven correct as Bilbo settled into it and crossed his arms. "Whyever would you think it would be wrong to need something?"

"If you don't need it, then it won't matter if it's taken away."

Bilbo raised an eyebrow. "You're sure of that."

"I'm sure of nothing, any more," Frodo murmured to the water rather grimly.

There was no answer for a long moment; Frodo peered upward to see Bilbo looking at him with a concern that changed, the moment he beheld it, into a crinkling of eye corners and a light laugh. "Well, nothing is sure, lad; nothing but death and the taxes the mayor insists are due on my properties. However, I think we could take a hint from the Elven ways… My boy, some day I must take you there. Rivendell… ah. A fascinating place."

Frodo wasn't too sure he wanted to venture past the Bag End flagstones, let alone to Rivendell, but listening to Bilbo speak of it was just fine.

"They sit of an evening, and banter philosophy with the ease you and I would toss stones. Someone will put forth a subject—for the ease of debate let's use the one you just spoke of: Need—and all present would hold forth upon what it means, what it can mean, and what it hardly ever is."

Frodo blinked, sat up, drew his knees closer to his chin.

"Examples," Bilbo said. "For example, you needed to take a bath, yes? Otherwise I should have to insist you sleep with the cows."

Frodo grinned into his knees.

"Warmth and shelter are paramount. Life would be deadly some winters if we had no fire to stave off the cold. We need to sleep. We need to eat. Surely if food and sleep were taken away you'd miss them…"

"Eventually," Frodo amended.

"I note that you never refuse either when your nose is pushed into them, lad," Bilbo reproved. "Needs of the body are different, though. Yes?"

Frodo dimpled further, realising that phrase probably brought a different thing to his mind than Bilbo's.

As was often in trying to totally decipher Bilbo, he was wrong. Bilbo grinned back rather hedonistically. "As I said. Needs of the body are somewhat more… demanding, eh?" Frodo desperately tried to pull a straight face, gave up as Bilbo continued, "But notwithstanding the… pull… of the anatomy, I think the type of need you are thinking of has little to do with the physical—although I'd warrant such a need can feel physical in its intensity.

"Now. As to needing something—and I think you mean trust and reliance here—I trust a good road beneath my feet, and the stars above, and good friends about a blazing fire." Bilbo leaned forward. "Your turn."

Frodo's started, and his rear end slipped on the tub bottom, nearly dunking him. Blinking water from his eyelashes, he gripped the tub sides. "Me?"

"Well, there's not an entire gathering in here, and I seriously doubt you'd welcome one. I gave mine; it's your turn."

"I'm not sure… I… I don't understand the question."

"Hm. Let's bring a few more examples in, then. Take the Gaffer. He needs tradition, decorum, the same path and routine, and that's all tied up in the ability to care for his family. You take those things away from him and he gets all flustered and upset. The Widow? Aye, she's a conundrum, that's for sure; she would have been a fine warrior queen, that old dame. She cares for what needs caring for but she won't let that overrule her; she likes her traditions but she's not above bending them—look at how she welcomed you in, and her word goes a long way."

Frodo gave a little smile.

"I think young Samwise gets a charge out of doing for those who can't do for themselves," Bilbo said. "Sam needs to be needed, almost so much I worry for the dear lad, as he's not learned the Widow's self-restraint in serving others. Mind that with him, Frodo, and take care what you ask of him, because he'll give it without much thought to himself. At least, he will to those he cares about." He fell silent, looked expectantly to Frodo.

Frodo was thinking. "But…" he finally murmured to the water, "needing isn't necessarily the same as wanting…"

"No, it's not. But surely there's something you need, lad. Something that you need as surely as fire and air and water."

Fire and air and water. Frodo huffed out a huge breath, and the water cradling him rippled in response. "I… need to see the stars, too. Ever since… well…" he looked over at Bilbo, found merely a patient attentiveness, "since I was a bairn, I fancied I could hear them singing. I didn't realise that I was. Hearing them. And when… when Elrohir quieted them, they became friends again. They still… sing," he looked up, expecting scepticism—when Bilbo merely displayed polite interest, Frodo continued shyly, "but they're no longer… well, so close that I can't bear it."

Bilbo nodded, his eyes alert and interested. "Anything else?"

"Well. Reading. Writing."

"Of course. And?"

At this, Frodo ran out of ideas. He knew there must be other things he needed—there were certainly things he wanted, but as to admitting so far as that he desperately needed them… he wasn't sure he was willing to go that far.

Bilbo waited for a few moments, then got up, walked over and reached two fingers into Frodo's bath, testing the water. "Well, it's going cool and we don't need you getting a chill. How about we take you out and wrap you in front of the fire until your hair dries, and bend our thoughts to more concrete matters, such as supper. We've had enough philosophy for one day, I should think."

* * * * * *

Merry's letter, when it finally arrived, was rather aggrieved:

The threat beneath the words gave Frodo an uneasy restlessness, which then made him culpable for such; he wanted to make Merry happy, but if the price was returning to Buckland… no. Not even for Merry would he do that, not now.

And his aunt's odd protectiveness bade another uneasy quiver run through him; running so deep and hurtful…

Frodo looked at what he'd written with dismay in his breast. He could not send this.

He could never send this.

His hand was shaking so that ink was splattering, now that he'd taken the nib off the paper; he quickly sunk it into the inkwell, noted that it wasn't just his hand that was shaking.

He felt… drained.

Next to the fire, the words were drying fairly quickly; nevertheless Frodo shook powder over the writing, blew it off, could scarcely wait until it did dry to put it away in his green folio.

It was getting quite full.

He lay back, folio on his chest and arms wrapped protectively about it, and watched the fire leap and crackle in the grating.

* * * * * *

Sam was no less a presence at Bag End, but he was a much quieter one these days.

He was afraid that, somehow, he'd offended Frodo.

Every day he came, did his chores; on the days he was due to he worked the garden, sometimes with his dad, sometimes not. And the entire while it was as if Frodo didn't even see him.

Mister Bilbo did; nothing had changed there. But master Frodo seemed fair possessed; he would barely look up when Sam spoke his name, remained hunched over the little writing desk of mister Bilbo's, scribbling so furiously Sam was sure there'd be furrows in the parchment. And when Sam thought to speak further, Frodo would just stare blankly at him, those outsized eyes even more odd and inward-turned, as if he'd forgotten that anything beyond desk and paper and pen existed.

Sam knew his place.

He stopped trying to talk with Frodo; he knew better than to butt in where he wasn't wanted, or needed. But it chafed, and more than a little, and he didn't understand it. Until one morning that he made his way through Bag End to find Frodo sleeping on the divan, clutching the folio full of papers to his breast. In a flare of resentment he realised what it was that gnawed at him so.

That folio, and what it contained. For moments he had the wild wish to wrest it from Frodo, throw it on the fire and watch it burn. The small, venomous thought horrified him even as he contemplated it and he crept back from the couch, hardly believing what wickedness he was entertaining. But…

It was only that he'd begun to actually like the tween's company—something he'd not have even believed when first they met—and he also went as far to fancy that, perhaps, Frodo enjoyed his. But lately there had been no magical tales garnered from behind those eyes, no patient listening to Sam's reading or the gossip he garnered from about Hobbiton. There had been nothing but those parchments and pens, and a queer absorption in both that Sam could scarcely begin to comprehend.

It was as if some fey, black-hearted sprite was luring Frodo from him.

And knowing that what he was feeling wasn't right didn't salve what prompted the feeling. Or the shame at feeling it.

For 'twas a fact that Sam would be no better than Lotho, did he even try to hurt something that was obviously so precious to master Frodo.

"It's all right, Sam."

Sam nearly jumped high enough to hit the roof. Vainly trying to unswallow his tongue, he turned to see mister Bilbo standing there. Immediately he dropped his gaze—surely his feelings were as plain as plain upon his face, and those weren't something he wanted mister Bilbo to see, not at all.

Bilbo was silent. When the agony of said silence grew too heavy for Sam, he peered up, expecting righteous ire upon his Squire's face.

Instead, there was comprehension, which Sam wasn't sure he liked any better.

"It's hurtful to be shut out, isn't it?" was Bilbo's soft remark.

The unerring aim of that nearly felled Sam on the spot.

"There's something in all of us that doesn't want to be shut out, to be told that we're not needed. But sometimes you can't give someone what they need, and you have to be able to let them take it for themselves, yes?"

Sam comprehended a few of his own truths just then, and the main one was that mister Bilbo understood. He didn't know how mister Bilbo had caught him out, but somehow he had.

Bilbo nodded. "It's all right, lad. Sometimes you just have to back away. You can't be everything to everyone, particularly when they've another world that was theirs long before you ever came about."

Somehow it seemed that mister Bilbo also felt what Sam was feeling. Which was foolish. But Sam liked to think it, nonetheless.

* * * * * *

The mild weather stayed well past three days. Frodo asked Bilbo to post the small backlog of letters to Buckland; he tied them together with a string and hid the one to Merimac in the middle of them—why, he wasn't sure, only that he didn't want Bilbo to see it. Posting it was admitting… something. He wasn't sure of that, either.

He wasn't even sure that he wanted to look out his window some days. It was admitting something as well. But he kept at it—and he was further baffled as to why.

At first Bilbo helped him, sometimes several times a day. But soon enough Frodo began to regain some control over his shaky legs and even shakier balance. Bilbo saw the desire in him, interpreted it correctly, and on the sixth morning brought Frodo a carved walking stick "so he could get about on his own when he wished".

The walking stick was Bilbo's own, and beautiful, made of yew with a setting of moon and stars carved into the top third of it. Some of those stars were worn to a smooth patina, signs of loving use.

Once ventured, the small bit of exercise became a habit. No, not really a habit, but a focus. A reason to get up and out of bed, to tread on wobbly, uncertain legs about the room which had become his haven. A reason to painstakingly pull on his robe, and splash his face, and peer outside that safe place, to acknowledge that the world was turning about him and that his own world was still sheltered behind the glass.

He didn't bend to his writing as much for the rest of that week; it was as if he'd wound down with the lack of stimulus, as if by some means he needed the sun and the world that lay beneath it. He wasn't yet ready to realise that both were nurturing him from without and within, revitalizing something which was nigh to burning itself out. Those days were mostly clear and bright; the remaining patches of snow melting away as he watched, the ground soaking up sun and moisture both.

Frodo would stand before or half-seat himself upon the sill, fingers running with tentative fascination along the cool panes. Sometimes he'd think of opening the window; however that last barrier was just too daunting and though his fingers might linger on the catch, they would falter and pull aside, still unwilling to totally forego the security of the cocoon he'd so tightly spun.

Occasionally he would see Sam or the Gaffer through his peek-hole to the outside world; more often Sam's faint silhouette within the greenhouse than out in the garden proper. Save for the green, hardy sprouts of Bilbo's scattered seed, the ground was still in winter sleep.

Sam was also busy indoors, though he'd not offered to read to Frodo, or tell tales and gossip of Hobbiton for some days. At first Frodo was apprehensive about this—had he offended the boy with that story about Maedhros?—then realised that he'd spent every moment bent over his desk writing even when Sam had been there. With that realisation was a strange and new surge of gratefulness—how was it that a gardener's lad could understand so, and just leave him be without asking why?

Letters arrived from Merry, but none from Merimac. Each day Frodo's heart, which beat impossibly swift at the arrival of the post, skipped in glee to see Merry's scrawl on an envelope, but slowed a little when there was nothing forthcoming from his older cousin. He told himself he was being childish. Perhaps Mac hadn't even received the letter. Perhaps he was so far down-River that it hadn't reached him. Perhaps it had gotten lost.

Perhaps his cousin had gotten it and decided he was too busy to answer.

As days turned into se'nnights, Frodo found himself looking past the garden, to the road leading east, wondering.

It was inevitable that Bilbo would notice the waning colour in his ward's cheeks; Bilbo noticed too much lately, and Frodo had gotten unused to subterfuge in his own weakness. So Frodo shouldn't have been surprised when, one Trewsday, Bilbo strode in and started to throw open the windows in Frodo's little smial.

But he was, and he cried out, "No, wait!" before he could stop himself.

Bilbo's hands froze on the catches; slowly he turned and peered at Frodo, who had curled down into his bedclothes as if dragons lay in wait on the other side of that window.

Perhaps they did. Perhaps only the surface had changed, and beneath the facade it still waited. Perhaps the mist upon the ground was smoke, dragon's breath, and did he step foot onto the sleeping soil of his uncle's garden it was very possible that it would wake and a gaping, flaming maw would rise up from the earth to take him down, down…

"Please," he said to Bilbo's piercing look. "Don't… open it."

Bilbo was silent for long seconds, then he said, quietly, "The weather has broken. Don't you want to see?"

I have seen, Frodo protested, but the words wouldn't come. "I don't… You don't… understand."

"Then make me understand."

Make me understand. Frodo writhed at the words. How many times had Merry pleaded with him for just that? How many times had Merimac demanded it of him? It almost seemed a betrayal that he had been so unable to share this with them, yet here he was, considering Bilbo's request, trying to comply. But he couldn't; the words stuck themselves in his throat—and he wasn't even sure what those words were.

Bilbo's gaze flickered out the window then narrowed; he straightened with a smile that Frodo well recognised—and, at present, dreaded.

"All right, then. How about if I settle you right beside the front door, eh, lad?"

The front door.

Frodo let out the breath he'd been holding.

It wasn't the garden.

It wasn't that patch of earth just outside his window.

But… it was outside the smial. Outside shelter. It would take him from warm, safe darkness into brilliant, revealing sunlight…

"The fresh air would do you good, lad." Bilbo was walking over to him, gently if inexorably pulling the covers from Frodo's clutching hands. "You've been looking a bit peaked lately; I've not seen you take up your pen in days. Even young Daisy has noticed that you've been moping."

"C—can you see the garden from the front door?" Frodo asked hoarsely, and felt his heart sink into his toes as Bilbo's eyes narrowed once again, as once again the old hobbit looked out the window. He seemed… angry.

Then he turned to Frodo and smiled. "No," he said. "You cannot."

Frodo was well-wrapped into his robe and several quilts besides. Bilbo handed him the walking stick and put an arm about his other side; Frodo found himself leaning against his guardian as much as the walking stick, and found immeasurable comfort in just the warm vitality of Bilbo's physical presence.

It didn't take as long as that first venture from parlour pallet to east smial; nevertheless when Frodo exited his room, he found himself hanging back. The front door was open—obviously Bilbo had already been experiencing the warmer weather—and it lit up the hallway, banished comforting shadows into deeper corners.

A tendril of… something… wound itself through Frodo's gut and upward, a small, silvery drake of doubt and dread.

"Just a few more steps, now," Bilbo said. "Take a whiff, lad. It's absolutely delightful."

Frodo started to speak; instead the breeze answered him, wafting in and teasing at the too-short tendrils of hair about his nape and temples. It was cool, but not cold. And Bilbo was right. It smelled wonderful.

His toes touched the sill and he stopped; Bilbo didn't press him further, just let him lean against the green-painted door. Frodo's chest expanded, almost of its own accord taking another deep, moist breath of the fresh air.

"This," Bilbo said in satisfaction from beside him, "is what Blotmath should be."

"Do you think winter is over, Bilbo?" Frodo said, and didn't understand the sudden disquiet that lined his guardian's face.

"I should hope not," was the quiet answer, and it made no sense that Bilbo should be mourning the harsh weather that had kept them immobilised for so long, but he seemed to be. Frodo let the subject alone, confused, and turned his face back into the sun, taking another deep, cleansing breath of air.

* * * * * *

Well-wrapped against possible chill and holding a warm mug of tea that Bilbo made him—milky and honey-sweetened just as he liked it—Frodo perched upon the bench not three paces from Bag End's front door and watched the world change.

His boundaries had expanded, just a bit; however he still felt naked and new, desired to go no further. So his wings remained, curled and wet and useless, within his little cocoon.

It exhausted him, and elated him. So much had changed, yet reassurance that the world was continuing on as it was, albeit without him, was strangely comforting.

Inner awareness sated and done in, he once more became cognizant of an expanding bubble of outer awareness.

The first morning Sam had come up-Hill to find Frodo seated on the front stoop, a funny commingling of concern, disapproval and pleasure had taken over the lad's features—and another expression of such had spoken from behind him, in the Gaffer's gruff voice:

"Does mister Bilbo know ye're out in the air, young master?"

Frodo nodded, made self-conscious by the definite censure—and concern—in the gardener's tone. He still wasn't sure what to make of the Gaffer. No doubt the Gaffer was just as unsure what to make of him, for he just gave a grumbling sigh and shook his head, attending to his work. But Sam's smile lingered as younger gardener turned after elder, worming a small thread of content within Frodo even through the obvious admonishment of both Gamgees.

Sam wasn't angry at him, after all. Sam had just been letting him be when he needed to.

Somehow it was possible that Sam seemed to like him, in contrast to Sam's father who didn't seem to, even though Sam was otherwise so akin to his father…

Am I like my father? Frodo wondered, watching the two go about their work, so obviously comfortable in such tandem harness. Or did I never get the chance?

* * * * * *

"In some ways, I see more of your father in you than I do your mother." Bilbo ventured later, over a pot of tea, some fresh-baked sticky buns, and a small game of cards. They had begun sitting in the warm kitchen once Frodo proved able to hobble about; it was another place to venture, to safely stretch the bounds of the imposed cocoon.

Bilbo spoke to Frodo's query slowly, as if unsure of the reception of his reply. No blame there—Frodo wasn't sure what he himself felt about it. Except… wistful. Somehow.

"How so?" he asked softly, warming his free hand about his cup and squinting at his card hand—he still occasionally had trouble with his eyes, though usually only when he was tired, or had ill-slept. His gaze slid to Bilbo, who also was studying his own hand, and Frodo thought how odd a pairing they must seem, seated here: the well-padded old hobbit all natty and congenial and distinguished… the too-thin young hobbit with oddly-cropped hair and a resigned, unkempt wishfulness.

"Well, I've already told you Drogo loved to read. He also had a weakness for card-playing—he and your old Uncle Rory would sit up into the wee sma's over game after game and yes, lad, Drogo was as bad at it as you are." Bilbo smirked and flipped flat several groups of cards with an air of triumph. Frodo laid down his losing hand with a complacent resignation, smiling self-consciously.

"And," Bilbo continued, still a bit victorious and still with that dry humour, "there was this patient and quiet… well, obstinacy about him. One which I would say you also have in spades, along with that smile, which," he raised his eyebrows pointedly, "I have not seen enough of these past fortnights, my lad." At such obvious instigation, Frodo smiled wider.

"Ah," Bilbo nodded approval. "Frodo, your father was no hobbit to set the Shire alight—he was too… well, some said surly and others said shy, but he was content with the sidelines, with the uncluttered ways of his own existence. But that's not a bad thing, is it?—for he accomplished what I was never able to." He leaned forward. "He loved his family and his smial; it was all he wanted and all he needed."

Frodo's eyes clouded. "And we didn't even give him that, did we?"

"Mm, I think you underestimate yourself, your mother, and Drogo as well. You say that you remember so much of what happened; don't sell that short by only thinking upon the ill times."

Silence. Then, "I remember that he was strong," Frodo murmured.

Yes, he could remember it all clearly now, and he kept recalling that night in the sheep pastures, his father undone with grief and drink… the night a little boy had discovered that Father did not necessarily equal Unconquerable, and the strength that had filled that little boy, engendering itself from the wish to protect what was his.

Except he was still trying to fathom what was his, now.

"I remember," Bilbo said softly, "holidays in Buckland where I would watch your mother and father, and you, and while there were shadows—there always are—there was also such a light in the three of you, a happiness so brilliant it fair hurt to look upon it, and I'd come home alone, to contemplate on what I'd let slip through my grasp."

Frodo shot him an incredulous look—surely Bilbo was only saying that to make him feel better, or to lighten the mood as he was so wont to do—but Bilbo's eyes were steady, and honest.

"I don't believe in regretting too much, lad," Bilbo told him. "But it doesn't mean I don't occasionally contemplate what might have been."

* * * * * *

Might have beens…

Never look back, only forward, only here, only now. Only now this had come into his home and somehow changed it, and right now, this meant a chaos of mind and heart that a wilful and wounded orphan had somehow engendered.

The boy slept, comforted. But his guardian felt no such ease. Bilbo stood by his parlour hearth, drinking a warm toddy that had precious little milk and more than enough brandy, alternately castigating and cozening his unsettled thoughts.

It was ridiculous! No regrets, no might have beens. The past was what had made him and brought him to this place, the present simply was, and the future was chancy at best, no matter age or things left undone.

So why this raw discontent?

Too much. Might-have-beens are useless, a waste of thought and effort. All it does is tie you to something that is not yours, and never was, never will be. Better he leaves, and soon. Soft and reasonable, the familiar alter-ego of argument, and totally reasonable, his reply.

Bilbo poured more brandy into his warm milk and stared into the fire. His thoughts skittered about him, fluttering against his sensibilities like a moth beating itself against a lit glass.