Title: Back Home
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: G
Length: 343
Summary: Bilbo may be home, but he hasn't forgotten.

Bilbo Baggins wandered through Bag End, occasionally picking up items he had reclaimed from the auction.  It was good to be home, back in his own hobbit hole, surrounded by his own possessions.  He could sleep in his own bed, and eat all his meals at their proper times.  He could revert once again to his old life.

Except, the hobbit who had returned to Hobbiton was not the same hobbit who had left.  The hobbit who had returned had been on an adventure, had met a dragon, had fought wargs, had made, and lost, friends.

The places he had seen, and the things he had done, would always be in his head.  Some day he would share those adventures with others, describing the strange lands he had travelled through, dramatising the events for his hearers.

Those events were in his head, but his friends would forever be in his heart.  Dwalin, Bombur, Ori, Bofur, quietly Bilbo worked his way through all their names, seeing each one as he did so.  He imagined each one saying goodbye to him, wishing him well.

But of those names, three were lodged even deeper in his heart.  Fili and Kili, just thinking about them made him smile, before the smile faded and once more he mourned their deaths.  It seemed so wrong the two most vibrant should be the two who now lay the stillest.

And Thorin, the dwarf who had hated and loved with equal passion.  Bilbo wiped away a tear, but when that was quickly followed by another he stopped and let them fall unchecked.  Once more Bilbo wondered what sort of king he would have made, and regretted the lost opportunity to find out.

Bilbo resumed his wandering, happy to be home, yet missing those he had known.  On the journey back to the Shire he had been thinking of recording some of his adventures.  Now his mind was made up.  He would write a book, telling the tales of his experiences and keeping alive the memory of those he’d shared them with.