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It was a cold, foggy morning when Bilbo was out of Bag End and Thorin wasn’t.
If one asked Thorin why Bilbo hadn’t taken Thorin shopping that day, he’d have said it was because Bilbo woke before dawn broke and Thorin still had some sleep to finish. If one asked Bilbo why he hadn’t taken Thorin shopping that day, he’d have said it was because Thorin ate all the honey buns the night before and demanded he sleep in the next morning. Regardless of the true reason, Bilbo was out of Bag End, and Thorin was waiting for him.
It did not ordinarily take Bilbo so long to return home after going for morning groceries. Thorin had initially been content to sit and smoke in front of the fireplace, especially on a dour morning like this, but while the fog continued to roll and the wind continued to blow, Thorin began wondering what Bilbo was up to.
Perhaps he had left his coin-pouch at home. Perhaps there had been an unexpected price change, and Bilbo couldn’t pay for the honey buns he wanted to pick up. Perhaps any manner of silly, simple, Shire-appropriate accidents had occurred, and Bilbo’s non-punctuality was nothing to worry over.
Thorin worried anyway.
So, when the front door slammed open, Thorin was on his feet in an instant. When Thorin heard a distinct cry of “ Thorin !”, he was down the hall in a blink.
Bilbo all but fell inside, and the first thing Thorin noticed was that he was absolutely soaking wet. The miserable chill outside did him no good at all, as he was shivering and babbling as well, on and on about a boat and a river and lightning, lightning and thunder! Thorin pulled him to his feet, but Bilbo immediately slouched, as though he could hardly keep his balance - Thorin was so utterly frightened by the sight that he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
What happened? Halls of Mandos, Bilbo, what happened out there?
Bilbo couldn’t provide an answer just yet, but he suddenly thrust a tiny bundle of wet fabric into Thorin’s arms and shuddered, “Bring him to the fire. Warm him up, warm him up, he’s cold as death.”
Thorin peered at the bundle and was met with the wide, pale face of an extraordinarily tiny baby.
“Bilbo,” he finally spoke as his words returned to him, “what is this?”
“For goodness’ sake, please take him to the fireplace,” Bilbo chattered instead of answering, stumbling away to find a towel and fresh clothes, “I’ll explain once I’m out of these wretched clothes-!”
Stunned beyond measure, Thorin did as Bilbo asked, inspecting the tiny creature all the while.
Hobbits, by nature, were smaller than dwarves in most fashions, but even Thorin found himself marveling at the minisculity of the baby in his hands, at how very tiny his hands and nose and stature was. Had Bilbo been this small once?
Thorin pulled his armchair closer to the fireplace and unswaddled the baby from his soaked vestiges - he was wearing a tiny linen romper, the article just as soaked as the blanket had been, so Thorin removed that as well, trying to hold the baby within range of the fireplace’s warmth. He strung the romper and the blanket on the mantle above the fire, and hoped they would dry out fast enough that the baby could be comfortably clothed once again.
The baby’s hair was dark, though not black as Thorin’s was - rather, a rich, dark brown, like the color of coffee, and there was a fair bit of it on his head, too. It looked silky and fresh like a newborn’s hair ought to, but when Thorin touched it, it was as wet as the rest of him. His skin was pale and dewy. His pale blue eyes were massive, bulging things, glossed with tears yet he did not cry - Thorin wondered why he was not crying, when crying seemed a baby’s favorite thing to do, in Thorin’s own experience. Surely a creature so obviously miserable would like to cry right about now.
“My goodness,” came Bilbo’s frayed voice from the hall behind him. “My goodness.”
Thorin turned, automatically cradling the baby next to his chest, where he slotted neatly into the crook of Thorin’s arm - so small. “Are you alright?” He asked before anything else.
Bilbo flopped into his armchair, and scooted it close to the fire as Thorin had. “I will be,” he exhaled, which was a Baggins’ answer for no , “but I’m far more worried about this little one.” At the notion, something in Bilbo seemed to falter, and he shook his head and covered his eyes with a hand. “Oh, Thorin..”
Thorin placed a hand on Bilbo’s knee.
Bilbo cleared his throat. “Right, yes - I suppose I should tell you why I brought home a fauntling, shouldn’t I?”
Thorin nodded. “Start slowly,” he said, “and do not trouble yourself more than you must.”
The baby grasped at one of Thorin’s braids, and Thorin swiped his thumb beneath the baby’s eye to catch a dribbling tear. Bilbo watched with a strange, hollow expression on his face, and then sighed. “Alright, well, here we go,” he said. “This is Frodo Baggins. He’s, um- well, the family tree is a bit complicated, so it’d be easier to say that he’s a distant nephew.”
Thorin’s eyes sparkled, and suddenly they roved over the baby - Frodo - with renewed fascination. “A nephew,” he repeated.
Bilbo nodded. “Young, so young, not older than two or three years,” he shuddered. “I- Drogo and Primula, his parents, they… they were on a boat - such terrible weather for boating, I’ve no idea why they were out there - and I… I saw them, and waved, and they waved back, but someone on the boat gave a horrid shout and- oh, goodness, it lurched to the side something dreadful , Thorin… I think it must have hit something, another boat or a rock or something - it was so foggy, Thorin, they couldn’t have seen it coming at all…” Bilbo shook his head, and curled up in his chair, pulling his robe tighter around his shoulders.
“The boat… it just sank. Faster than anything you’ve seen, it sank while they were all- s-screaming , and calling for help - by then, I must have been right at the water’s edge, and there were so many other hobbits there, but the boating parts of the river are so deep and- and we hobbits don’t know how to swim , Thorin, we just keep away from the water if we can…” Bilbo rubbed his fingertip between his eyebrows. “Right about then, when I was at the edge of the river, I… I heard him, I heard him cry out like a lamb.”
“Frodo was on the boat..?” Thorin asked gravely.
Bilbo nodded. “Hanging onto the railing like a tick,” he said. “I was - I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was in the water and I had him under my arm in a blink… I couldn’t, um, I couldn’t bring the groceries home, I was so distracted trying to get the poor thing up here… he was so cold and quiet as a mouse- I knew something was wrong, terribly wrong. I suppose I’ll have to go back for them later, won’t I?”
“Nevermind that.” Thorin offered Frodo to Bilbo, who accepted him instantly and gave him a good once-over. “The boy’s parents. What became of them?”
Bilbo’s stomach twisted something awful, and he laid Frodo in his lap to rub the tears from his eyes. “By the time I had Frodo out of the water,” he said, “the struggling was over.”
Reality seemed to seep in. No wonder Bilbo had been so shaken when he burst into the smial, after watching fellow hobbits, those of his own flesh and blood, drown . “Does he have any other family?” Thorin asked, watching Frodo squirm helplessly like the infant he was. The orphaned infant.
“That would be me,” Bilbo answered. “That would be us.”
Thorin sat back in his armchair, one hand over his mouth as he turned this situation over in his mind. Bilbo tested Frodo’s romper for remaining moisture - finding it sufficiently dry, he slid it onto Frodo once more and buttoned it all the way up to the neck. Frodo gurgled incoherently, though Bilbo liked to think he was grateful for warm, dry clothing. He stroked Frodo’s hair, and allowed his hand to settle in his silken curls fully - for the disaster which had befallen Frodo not half an hour ago, he was remarkably calm.
The poor lad doesn’t even know, Bilbo thought miserably
Thorin turned, and reached out to put his hand on top of Bilbo’s, so both of them were touching little Frodo’s hair. Thorin assessed Frodo the way one might assess a particularly challenging math problem, or perhaps a complicated and beautiful fractal pattern. What were they to do with this child? He had nowhere else to go - at least, nowhere appropriate. A child this age without a mother would be smothered in Brandy Hall, and for Frodo to end up a Sackville-Baggins…
“So,” Thorin said softly, “you want to take him in as ours?”
Bilbo’s nose twitched. He was still for quite a while, until he exclaimed under his breath and flopped backwards into his chair. Frodo continued to lay uselessly in Bilbo’s lap. “I have no idea ,” he rattled. “I’ve no idea what will become of Frodo, or whether anyone else survived that boating accident, or whether we’d even be able to raise a fauntling right after all the… all the everything we’ve seen.”
With a trembling hand, Bilbo reached down and offered Frodo his finger. Frodo grasped it.
“I don’t know whether he’s to stay forever,” Bilbo murmured, “but nobody’s come to claim him yet, and I…” Frodo pulled Bilbo’s finger into his toothless mouth and gnawed on it thoughtfully. “I think we must try to take care of him, Thorin, for a few days until somebody comes to take him home.”
Thorin watched Frodo, and Bilbo watched Thorin. He was thoughtful, terribly so, but there was a soft quality to his eyes that Bilbo hadn’t expected. Frankly, he’d expected Thorin to extricate either himself or the baby from Bag End at his earliest convenience, having never been one for sudden and drastic change. This, of anything and everything Bilbo could have possibly thought of happening on a foggy winter morning, was a very sudden and very drastic change.
Strange things happen for no reason , Bilbo supposed. How very bitter that the strange, senseless thing that had happened was the orphaning of Bilbo’s distant nephew, his youngest relation.
“I cared for Fíli and Kíli when they were not much older than this,” Thorin spoke unexpectedly, “though they weren’t nearly so tiny .”
At that, Thorin scooped up Frodo and held him out to get a good look at. Bilbo only realized then just how tiny he looked in Thorin’s hands - hardly bigger than a piglet! He smiled, the sensation unfamiliar on his stress-tightened face, and reached out to touch Frodo’s tiny toes. “So we’re going to take care of him?”
“I will write letters tomorrow,” Thorin said with a nod, “to all the relations we can think of. We will find out who is looking for him, if anyone, but until they come to claim him, he will stay here and we will care for him as best we can.”
“... if anyone,” Bilbo echoed. “I didn’t even think of that.”
Thorin just sighed, and cradled Frodo in one arm as he found Bilbo’s own with the other. “You made the right choice, saving Frodo,” he said, “but there is a possibility no one will come for him, Bilbo, and Frodo would have only us to turn to in that future.”
“You’re remarkably calm for talking about raising an unexpected child. Children are something of a permanent, you know.”
Thorin smiled, wide and wan and thoughtful and perhaps a bit cryptic. “I know.” He put his hand around Frodo’s tiny, pudgy arm, swallowing it up in his palm. “For now, let us focus on the next few days.”
Bilbo found himself put at ease by Thorin’s words. He sighed, and laid a hand over his thrumming heart. “Let’s.”
“Let’s give you a bath, shall we?”
As Bilbo knew with a fair amount of certainty that river water was not particularly clean, he decided Frodo should have a bath in the evening so as to warm him up and soothe him before feeding him and putting him to sleep for the night. Thorin agreed readily, and was occupied with preparing supper.
Bilbo was familiar enough with babies, since babies were a remarkably common happenstance in the Shire, but it was his first time taking care of one now, so he operated primarily on handcrafted logic.
Bilbo liked to be warm, clean and fed before going to sleep. Frodo was still a bit too cold for his liking, and both he and Thorin were vaguely off-put by Frodo’s prolonged quiet (save for the occasional coo or warble), so perhaps there was some discomfort or invisible injury Bilbo would be enlightened to by undressing and inspecting the little creature which had come to be Bilbo and Thorin’s charge.
Bilbo hoisted Frodo up (though it didn’t take much strength at all to lift the tiny faunt) and carried him away to the washroom. Frodo, ordinarily content to wait patiently when carried, made an interesting gurgle that got Bilbo’s attention. “Hmm?” Bilbo asked, tilting his ear down towards Frodo. “Once more.”
Frodo grasped at Bilbo’s lapel and stuck his thumb into the button-hole. Bilbo just smiled and continued down the hall, paying little heed to the other noises Frodo made as he studiously investigated the button-hole. The curiosity of children had always warmed Bilbo’s heart, so he wouldn’t discourage Frodo’s fidgeting, even if it did twist Bilbo’s skin a bit uncomfortably.
Bilbo set Frodo down on the bath-mat (while it was a very soft woven thing, they’d need something better suited for a baby to place him on in the future, Bilbo noted) and struck a match to light the heating element under the bath. He kept the amount of water low since Frodo was quite small, and relieved Frodo of his romper and swath.
“Such a tiny little grub,” Bilbo murmured, talking to no-one in particular while he marveled at Frodo’s tiny article of clothing. “We should get you more clothes, shouldn’t we?”
Frodo babbled incoherently. Bilbo folded up his romper and set it aside.
It didn’t take long for the water to warm up, shallow as it was, so Bilbo put out the heating element and lifted Frodo up, then down into the bath, slow and calm with comforting whisperings of “It’s alright,” and “Just hang onto me, as long as you like,” to keep Frodo’s ears occupied.
Frodo did cling to him at first - though Bilbo could make no assumptions about the nature of Frodo’s incredibly simplified thoughts, he attributed Frodo’s initial hesitation to the incident that had befallen him hours before - but then Frodo relaxed, and sat down in the bath with two wide, blue eyes fixed upon Bilbo. Bilbo grinned at him, and stroked his round, fuzzy cheek with a thumb.
Bilbo found himself endearing very quickly to this little lad, with his wide, glossy eyes and his teeny tiny digits and, somehow, a recognizable personality despite being so young of age.
He took one of Frodo’s hands and held it, while filling a small pitcher with bath-water. He poured it over Frodo’s shoulders, and nearly dropped the pitcher when Frodo squealed. It was perhaps the loudest sound Bilbo had heard Frodo make, with the exclusion of some others that Bilbo didn’t want to think about right now.
“Is everything alright?” Came Thorin’s voice from the dining room.
“Quite,” Bilbo called back. Then, he shushed Frodo, though the grin on his face was harder to fight off. “Hush, you! Thorin and I have been reveling in your peace and quiet.”
Frodo made a spitting-hissing sound, and Bilbo realised all of a sudden that Frodo had been trying to imitate Bilbo with his noises.
He laughed, incredulous, and shushed Frodo again. Frodo attempted to shush him back, and Bilbo leaned over the rim of the tub to press the tip of his nose into Frodo’s forehead.
“Clever! As clever as you are tiny, little one!” He chirped. “Now, let me rinse you, no more sudden noises - you’ll give my heart a stutter.”
Frodo, of course, did not understand, and made plenty more vocalizations while Bilbo poured the pitcher over him with one hand and wiped a damp washcloth over him with the other. Frodo flailed his tiny hands and kicked his tiny feet, as valiant a fighter as anything, though he didn’t try directly to hinder Bilbo’s progress, nor did he cry. He almost seemed to be having fun, but as Bilbo had only known Frodo for the better part of a day, he couldn’t make a judgement call on the matter.
Eventually, the water began to cool off and Bilbo leaned away to procure the dry bath-towel he’d picked out earlier. He heard Frodo splashing, and thought little of it, but then he heard a most delightful sound, one so distinct and joyful that Bilbo immediately turned around.
Frodo laughed!
Bilbo had heard some wax poetic about the laughter of babies, how it parted storms and put flowers in bloom, but he’d never quite been affected by the noise as mothers and fathers had. Now, though, the pitchy, warbling sound struck Bilbo at a perfect frequency and left him resonating.
Steps came quickly down the hall, and then Thorin was peeking into the open doorway, a now-familiar look of stricken wonder on his face. Bilbo could only blink at Thorin before returning his attention to Frodo and inching closer to the bath. Frodo was no longer laughing, but the edges of a bewildered smile played on his moonish face. Most likely, he was wondering why Bilbo and Thorin were staring at him like he’d spoken a clear phrase.
In a way, he had.
“He laughed,” Thorin said, awestruck.
Bilbo nodded, and spurred into action as if Thorin’s words had snapped him from a trance. He splashed at Frodo, hardly more than a droplet or two but still enough to draw another sublime giggle from the fauntling. Frodo slapped his hands on the surface of the water, and Bilbo found himself laughing breathlessly along with him.
“He’s laughing,” Bilbo said. “Frodo is laughing, Thorin.”
Thorin pressed his forehead into Bilbo’s shoulder, too charmed to say much more. “The family Baggins,” he murmured, “with laughter like goldfinch songs.”
That particular phrase plucked a different chord in Bilbo. Family .
“Splash him,” Bilbo said quickly, scooting to the side so Thorin could fit into place against the rim of the bathtub. “Play with him, Thorin, he’s the cutest little thing I ever saw.”
“He is.” Thorin nodded, mind elsewhere as he rolled up his sleeves and knelt next to the bath. He cupped both his hands and threw some water at Frodo, who laughed and laughed and thrashed with a uniquely childish delight. Thorin made a shuddering, sigh-like noise, the sound of someone breathlessly relieved and overjoyed and feeling emotions which lacked names.
“He reminds me terribly of Fíli, when Fíli was not much older than this,” Thorin said, just abrupt enough to draw Bilbo’s eyes. “He was a joyful little baby. Kíli would bleat like a lamb in the bath.”
Bilbo laughed. “I can believe it,” he mused, putting his hand on Thorin’s back. “Is this a glad or sad sort of sentimental?”
“Glad,” Thorin said with some quality of surprise. He hadn’t had a happy nostalgia in a fair while, prone to missing his kin when they were apart for long periods of time. “I have missed… I have missed taking care of babies for some time, I think.”
And, oh, if Bilbo’s heart didn’t just melt like springwater at that.
He leaned over and kissed Thorin’s cheek. “I’ll never say it was a good thing that Frodo came to Bag End after what happened earlier today,” Bilbo said resolutely, “but seeing you happy and seeing Frodo happy makes me very happy.”
Thorin turned his head to catch Bilbo’s lips. “Bag End is an echoing cavern of happiness, always reflecting from one to the other and back again.”
“So it is,” Bilbo giggled. He squeezed Thorin’s arm and then released him. “Go finish supper, we’ll be out shortly. I promise not to make him laugh anymore.”
“See that you don’t,” Thorin hummed playfully as he rounded the doorway and left.
Thorin set the dining room for supper, so Bilbo cleaned it up.
They’d had a relatively simple dinner, mostly because Bilbo had become too concerned with watching Frodo tangle up his hands (and mouth, just once) in Thorin’s hair to focus on the cooking. Frodo was fed warm milk, and all the energy he’d had during his bath seemed to sap from him in mere minutes - he could barely keep his head lifted enough for Bilbo to tip the rest of the milk into his thin little mouth, so Thorin took him to bed and Bilbo washed the dishes.
They didn’t have a crib or bassinet or other safe, appropriately-sized sleeping apparatus to put Frodo in overnight, but Thorin suggested a practice he was familiar with; many dwarrow mothers brought their children to bed to sleep instead of putting them away in a crib. Both parents would sleep on either side of the baby, so as to keep them in place throughout the course of the night.
Bilbo was reflecting on that idea now. He decided he loved it.
It was almost startling, how attached he’d become to the well-being and happiness of the baby he’d taken into his home not twelve hours before. The emotion was so strong and warm that it nearly superseded his lingering dread and misery, the knowledge that the ones who were supposed to be tending this tiny faunt were undone for-ever darkening the edges of his thoughts.
He tried not to think about it, knowing well enough that if Primula and Drogo hadn’t come pounding on Bilbo’s door already, then they hadn’t survived and nothing could be done about it.
Poor dears , Bilbo thought with a burdened sigh. And poor, poor Frodo.
Somewhere down the hall, an uncommon but instantly recognizable sound danced along doorways and floorboards, flowing into the kitchen like a tipped jar of honey and shea; the twinkling of a lyre harp.
Drawn to the sound, Bilbo put away the last of the dishes and drifted down the hall, where the bedroom door sat ajar and led into darkness.
Thorin laid on the bed with a pillow under his shoulders, his harp laid over his bare chest with one hand holding its soundboard and the other plucking idly at the strings, playing a simple, quaint tune again and again. Frodo laid with him, curled up against Thorin’s side with his head and both arms strewn over Thorin’s stomach, and his little legs kicked out behind him, eyes closed.
Bilbo felt like the wind was knocked out of him. “Out like a lamp, then?” He whispered.
“He isn’t sleeping,” Thorin replied, quieter than Bilbo had ever known him to speak. “Watch.”
Thorin took his hand from the strings of the harp, and Frodo’s eyes suddenly opened. With some effort, he turned his head and warbled some unpleasant sound, the sort of sound that comes before tears of babyish indignation.
Thorin began playing the gentle etude once more, and Frodo laid his head back down on Thorin’s stomach, entirely soothed by the music.
Bilbo came to sit on the edge of the bed, crossing his legs so he could face the pair and listen to the lovely music. “What is that song?” He asked.
“An old melody for children,” Thorin answered. “It has many names, but I know it only as Hagrod’s Lullaby. My mother played it for me.”
Bilbo smiled. He loved reflecting on Thorin as a young baby, and to know he’d been lulled to sleep by the song he played for Frodo now warmed his heart like the finest coal. He shed his day-clothes and wiggled under the covers, laying on his side and watching as Frodo slowly slumped further and further into Thorin’s warmth and relief.
“That’s a comfy spot, isn’t it, Frodo?” Bilbo whispered, a playful glint in his eye. “That wide, soft place, where you can feel his heart and hear his snores.”
Thorin clicked his tongue. “Save me your barbs on such an evening,” he huffed without a bite. “You snore far louder than I.”
“Only teasing, sweet-pea,” Bilbo said as he leaned over to kiss Thorin’s temple. He peeked down at Frodo, and then kissed the cheekbone just under Thorin’s temple, not-so subtly nosing into his thick hair. “I think he’s asleep, you can put your harp aside.”
Thorin obliged and put an arm around Bilbo’s shoulder. “Perhaps my least favorite thing about this sleeping arrangement,” he murmured as Bilbo kissed his cheek and his nose, “will be that I cannot hold you for some indefinite nights.”
“Well,” Bilbo hummed, “we must find a bassinet as soon as we can, then.”
Thorin made a noise of confirmation.
They laid together in relative silence for a long while, Frodo as still as the dead and Bilbo doing his best not to squirm too much. Despite Thorin’s motionlessness, however, the shallow nature of his breaths indicated that he, too, was still awake.
“Are you worried, Thorin?” Bilbo asked. Thorin said nothing. “Me too.”
“I did not think this would be the way I created a family.”
Bilbo shifted onto his side, his arm tucked under his pillow. “How did you think it would be?” He wondered, having never been enlightened to Thorin’s desire for a child before.
“Nothing was clear, least of all the spouse,” Thorin answered into the dark. “Though once upon a time, I wanted a daughter.”
“Just one?” Bilbo asked. “I’d always dreamed about having four or five little Bagginses.”
Thorin hmm- ed, thoughtful and amused at once. “What stopped you?”
Bilbo just shook his head. “By the time my peers were having children I was still… you know, alone,” he murmured. “All of a sudden, I was past my prime and nobody had come into my affections, gentlehobbit or ladyhobbit alike. There was nothing left to do but accept that dream as a dream alone.” The memory of his slow reclusion wasn’t really a memory at all, but a cascade of moments that all summed up to Bilbo simply being destined for solitude.
But Thorin and Frodo were here.
“Do you truly think someone will come for Frodo?” Thorin asked softly. Bilbo saw the silhouette of Thorin’s hand find Frodo’s little fingertips. Bilbo placed his palm on Frodo’s shoulder-blade. What tiny bones must have been under his skin.
“I hope so,” Bilbo mumbled, “and yet I hope not at the same time."
Thorin sighed. “More than I ever wanted a dwarven daughter or son or a royal family to carry my blood after I am gone,” he said, “I wanted to have a family with you, Bilbo. I confess, having him here is… something like that.”
Bilbo nodded, though he doubted Thorin would see it in the dark. “He’s a sweet little thing, and his laugh is the kindest sound I’ve ever heard,” he said in a soft, plush whisper. “My little nephew.”
“Our little nephew.”
“I love Frodo.”
“I do too.”
“We must be prepared to let him go, Thorin.”
“I know.”
They went to sleep not long after that, and Frodo did not cry once through the night.
Many years later, Frodo would be moderately appalled at the story of his introduction to Bag End - Bilbo bursting in sopping wet and their reactions to Frodo’s first laugh and both of his uncles wholly and utterly convinced they would not be allowed to raise Frodo as they’d raise a child, but, as Bilbo said, strange things happened for no reason.
It is needless to say, then, that nobody came to claim Frodo from Bag End.