Chapter Text
Belladonna Baggins awoke one morning from uneasy dreams.
It was quite similar to many a dream she'd had during her long life, in that she could only truly recall the sensation of falling (often preluded by a cold mad gaze) before jolting once more into the world of the awake. Truly the only difference with this particular dream was that it felt far more real.
Sharper in detail and clearer in vision than that of her sight whilst awake. That falling feeling, usually no more than the wind howling around her while she descended into darkness, had changed. Instead, she was bombarded on all senses. Voices, warped and celestial words filtered through the wind. She could taste slate and dust and honeyed-bread. Smell rain and soap and sweat. It felt like a long long moment, then another, without breath until finally something snapped into place and she could breathe once more, coincidentally waking herself in the process.
"By the Lady," She sat up in her bed quickly and buried her face in her knees without thought. "What a horrible dream."
For that's what she assumed it was, being unable to recall the details the longer she sat there breathing deeply to calm her racing heart.
She opened her eyes after a while, intending to begin on breakfast for herself and Frodo (or at least a cup of tea depending on how early it was) when she noticed the warm red, gold and green of her blanket, quite unlike the soft white cotton sheets she had wrapped herself up in the night before.
"What..?" These were her sheets from Bag End, her mother and grandfather had made them for her when she was just a babe. Running her hand over the stitched fabric she noticed that was not all that had changed in the night. "AH!"
Bella's hands, once wrinkled and worn by sword and shovel and years alike was young once more, taut and smooth as it hadn't been since she left Bag End for the first time all those years ago!
Ripping the sheets from over her she stared. Her legs, her feet! Bella caught a curl of copper in her peripheral and pulled it up in front of her to see, her hair!
She leaped from her bed scrambling towards her dressing table and mirror, knocking hairpins and ribbons to the floor as she grabbed onto the glass. She was so young! Maybe even too young, by the Green Lady was she even of age? Bella stared, unable to tear her gaze away from the mirror until something occurred to her. This was her mirror, her dressing table, she spun around and stared once again, her room! Her old room, in Bag End, the one she gave to Frodo when she finally moved into the master bedroom after she took him in. But...it was filled with her belongings once more, all her clothes, embroidery, and writings were strewn around as if she had never left. Valar, what was happening?
Once she had settled, the scent of cooking bacon reached her, probably Frodo getting breakfast prepared for her. He was such a sweet boy, for all the trials and terrors he had faced he still cared deeply for her and helped her in her old age. Only... she wasn't so old now was she? Had the Undying Lands somehow gave her this? This illusion of her healthiest age, of her happiest home.
Or was this a more ancient magic. Was she truly returned to the shire, to this time? Had Frodo even been born?
Who, exactly, was in her kitchen?
She failed to find Sting and so, armed with her fabric scissors, she crept down the winding halls (it seemed an entire replica of Bag End, at least) towards the sounds of life...
And promptly almost stabbed her father.
Bungo Baggins had been a very well-known and well-loved figure in Hobbiton, the head of the Baggins clan and a more-than-adequate landlord to his tenants. He had lived a cheerful life with his wife and their beloved daughter, content until the end of his days had reached him. When occasional fainting spells, often laughed away, soon developed into fevers which lasted for hours, days and then weeks. By the time Belladonna Took had thought to send for an Elven healer it was already too late. Bella's mother joined her husband in Yavanna's Garden not five years later.
But here he was, yelping as he twisted away from Bella's admittedly blunt weapon of choice. His respectable girth lending no small amount of difficulty to the manoeuvre. And there was Bella's mother charging to the rescue with her own, much sharper, knife at the ready. A slice of carrot still clung to the side of the blade.
"What's wrong? Bungo! Bella, are you-!" Her mother's arm dropped when she realised no one else was in their home. "Okay, what happened?" Bella watched as her mother cocked her hip out and blew a dark curl of her hair out of her face, her stern gaze flicking between Bungo and their daughter.
Bella was gobsmacked, her parents were here and they both looked healthier than ever. She didn't hear the scissors fall to the floor but her mother caught the movement.
"Bella? Darling, are you alright? Why were-?" But Bella couldn't answer, she had dived into the arms of her unexpected parents, greedily breathing them in. No matter how long she lived, no matter how many adventures or battles or cursed rings she faced, she would always find true comfort here with her family. At the thought of the ring, once such an entrancing and mesmerising little trinket, Bella felt...nothing. Or, at least, nothing more than anger and bitterness that her life had nearly been consumed by a piece of jewellery, a piece of gold. Now surrounded by the smell of her father's pipeweed and her mother's soap. Able to hear their breathing, to see the ink stains on Bungo's fingers, to feel the long tresses of Belladonna's dark hair, Bella felt at peace.
Bella sobbed, her form shook in her parents' hold. She was finally free from the burden of having to face so much and remain strong incessantly, strong whilst raising Frodo, strong while Lobelia Sackville-Baggins tried to steal her mother's belongings, strong while word travelled that all her friends, the dear, dear company of Thorin Oakenshield, had perished and Bella remained here, comfortably surrounded by her books and her armchair and so so lonely. She could finally be held and cherished and coddled by her parents once more.
This must be Fields of Yavanna, Bella concluded, for where else would her parents be, where else could she be so unburdened?
"-Bella? Darling girl, what's wrong? Are you alright?" Her father, his voice stern but laced with sympathy, pulled her from her musings.
Bella pulled back, only enough to look at them once more and dried her eyes, then she smiled a large beaming grin.
"So I am dead at last then?"
"WHAT?"
~◇◇◇~
Her parents didn't believe her. They listened patiently, they had even asked questions during her recounting, but they did not believe her.
"I am telling the truth, why would I have cause to lie to you? A decent storyteller I may be but even I could not conjure such a tale from nothing!"
Her parents ignored her, Bungo simply sat in his chair by the kitchen window and puffed aggressively on his pipe while Belladonna continued to pace and pull at her hair. Her mother had forbidden Bungo from smoking in her kitchen years ago but apparently this was an exception to the rule.
"Oh, I should never have let you linger round that dratted wizard so, Gandalf has gone and rattled your mind with tales of Dwarves and Dragons and Great Evil Eyes-"
"Technically Mother they prefer the term 'Dwarrow'." Bella interrupted and felt a great sense of pride at knowing something of the larger world her mother did not, only for it to be replaced by a slight sense of guilt when her father shot her a sharp look at the intrusion. It seemed Bella had grown too used to being the Head of the Baggins clan in her later years if she was so ready to speak out like that. Instead of showing her shame however she simply smiled benignly at him like she often had at the bothersome Hobbits down in the market place. But Lady, her father wasn't some busybody to be politely (and firmly) cast aside, he, atleast, was a hobbit who deserved her respect. Bella coughed lightly and carried on.
"What I have told you, while fantastical, is the truth. Truly I do not remember being here yesterday. I was in the Undying Lands with Frodo-"
"A supposed nephew of yours who has not yet been born?" Bella narrowed her eyes at Bungo in turn for this detour, he only raised an eyebrow at her. While she turned back to her pacing mother Bella did not see Bungo smirk a little around his pipe.
"But Bella, dear," Belladonna Took began once more. "It is simply mad. For a hobbit lass to leave the Shire, further than Rivendell, I might add!" She cut in when both Bella and Bungo moved to interrupt. "To face kings and Dragons and orcs and I daresay a great deal of other nasty creatures. To carry a magic ring so evil for decades, Bella, decades... No it would mean you had lead a lonesome, painful life. I cannot believe it Bella because I would not wish it so. No, no, quite mad." Her mother must blame herself, Bella realised. She had raised her daughter with tales of far lands as much as Gandalf ever had, but to know with certainty that Bella had found her own adventures (and that they must have not been nearly as safe) must trouble Belladonna's mind now fiercely.
"Well yes, that is what they called me." Bella tried to laugh through her own sad memories. "Mad Baggins." By the window, Bungo started puffing on his pipe more fervently at the thought. "Though I assure you I am quite sound of mind. It all happened and if what you say is true then I suspect it will happen once more." Bella paused. "What year is it, by the way?"
That, more than anything seemed to convince her parents of her truth as Belladonna simply sat down out of weariness while Bungo choked on his pipeweed.
~◇◇◇~
Bella was thirty six. Barely an adult in her own right but enough of a woman in the eyes of the masses it seems.
After stepping out of Bag End with her mother, and saying a cheerful 'Good Morning!' to Holman Greenhand and his apprentice, a young Hamfast Gamgee, Bella was bemused to find herself on the receiving end of many a greeting. Far more then she could recall, it appears nigh every available young Gentlehobbit wanted to speak to Bella for a moment. Perhaps it was only because Bella was slightly more aware of what these advances meant but she now found their attentions rather humorous. Especially since she knew many of these men would become happily married sooner rather than later.
Regardless she did not have time for fortune-seekers or the like so she simply kept her chin high as she walked, nodding occasionally to passersby whilst herself and her mother continued on towards Tuckborough, specifically the smial of Gerontius and Adamanta Took.
Neither woman cared to notice the befuddled whispering of the hobbits behind them. It seemed, to those in Hobbiton, that Bella Baggins had matured overnight. She had carried herself with 'the dignity of a successful and rightly proud hostess', said those who were kind. Or like 'an arrogant child looking down on us from atop that hill' claimed those who were not.
One thing was acknowledged by all who heard of their destination however, whatever it was that required the Thain's personal attention, it had something to do with this change in Bella Baggins.