![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Apparently after A Light In Shadows, I developed something of a yearning for Bilbo comforting Elrond. Because somebody ought to. So, um. Here you are? Idfic, I think. Most definitely.
Title: Sunshine and Rain
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings (bookverse, I think)
Characters/Pairings: Elrond, Bilbo, mention of Arwen and Frodo in particular. Elrond * Bilbo, Elrond & Arwen, Bilbo & Frodo
Summary: The War of the Ring has been won, and Elrond will soon ride south with his daughter to Minas Tirith, for one last joy and one last sorrow. Before that, however, he has a talk with Bilbo, which goes rather more messily but perhaps also more brightly than either of them might have expected
Wordcount: 3459
Warnings/Notes: Old age, grief for partings still to come, angst and humour, hurt/comfort, catharsis, bittersweet ending
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Sunshine and Rain
Rating: PG
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings (bookverse, I think)
Characters/Pairings: Elrond, Bilbo, mention of Arwen and Frodo in particular. Elrond * Bilbo, Elrond & Arwen, Bilbo & Frodo
Summary: The War of the Ring has been won, and Elrond will soon ride south with his daughter to Minas Tirith, for one last joy and one last sorrow. Before that, however, he has a talk with Bilbo, which goes rather more messily but perhaps also more brightly than either of them might have expected
Wordcount: 3459
Warnings/Notes: Old age, grief for partings still to come, angst and humour, hurt/comfort, catharsis, bittersweet ending
Disclaimer: Not mine
Sunshine and Rain
He found Bilbo on a long couch, seated in the sunshine on one of the balconies. There were several books surrounding him and the remains of a small meal set off to one side, where there was no risk of it soiling the pages. The hobbit had propped his feet up on a chair, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, the better to feel the sunshine on his face and the wind in his rapidly thinning hair.
He looked content, Elrond thought. Since word of victory and survival both had reached them, Bilbo had looked content, and desperately, vanishingly frail. Age, long deferred, had seized hold with a vengeful prejudice upon his friend, angrily stealing back what had been denied to it. Bilbo grew older and more fragile every day.
And cared, it seemed, not one whit because of it.
"Going to stand there lurking all day?" Bilbo asked, without bothering to crack an eyelid, a small smile curling his lips. "It's rude to stare at your guests, you know. A host should have better manners than that."
Elrond disguised his smile, quickly and completely, and from no small amount of mischief. There were moments when speaking with Bilbo was like nothing so much as speaking with Gandalf. Which should not, the Lord of Imladris thought, pull so young and so mischievous a response from him. It had been a long time, of necessity, since there had been anything but seriousness between himself and the wizard, though perhaps that could change now. But for some reason, with this smaller and more fragile echo of his friend, such concerns seemed distant, and a long-forgotten brightness sprang forth in their place.
"I apologise," he said softly, with an expression that was very carefully as grave and straight as one should expect from so old and so wise an elf as he. "You looked so peaceful, I found myself reluctant to disturb you. A lack of manners was not my intent."
Bilbo's smile flashed to a grin, as he finally opened his eyes and turned to look at Elrond properly. It was welcome Elrond saw in his face, for all his talk of rudeness. In Bilbo's ageing, fading features, he saw nothing but warmth and humour and friendship, offered to him readily, and for some reason it struck him in that moment as it never had before.
He felt his expression change, felt graveness fall away and reveal not mischief, now, but some shadow of a future loss. He felt a sudden grief pour through him, one that sprang, not from the war that had only just ended, but from the knowledge of a nearer and more personal darkening. Before him sat a ray of sunshine that would soon fade away, and not alone. Elrond, strangely helpless, felt that grief come upon him and darken his brow, and Bilbo's welcoming smile changed instantly to concern in the face of it.
"Elrond?" the hobbit asked, dropping his feet and levering himself laboriously upright in his seat. Elrond moved quickly to his side before he could try to stand, wanting to prevent any further struggles. Bilbo frowned up at him for it, reaching out with one bony hand to catch Elrond's sleeve. "My friend, are you all right? You've gone pale."
"I am well," Elrond assured him hastily. A little too hastily. Bilbo's expression very eloquently told him that the hobbit did not believe a word of it, eyebrows raised in a thoroughly sceptical frown, and Elrond blinked. Humour bubbled back up through him, and he sat himself down at the hobbit's side in answer to it. "Truly," he said, more certainly now as he put all sorrow aside. "A thought occurred to me, that's all. It lasted only a moment. I'm fine, Bilbo."
His friend squinted up at him, still worried, still not quite believing him. Elrond allowed it, meeting Bilbo's eyes with placid honesty. It could be quite an experience, to be studied so by this hobbit. The most discerning of elven hunters might have nothing on the incisive queries of a concerned Baggins. Elrond had nothing to hide, however. Now that the Shadow had been destroyed, there truly was no sorrow that could endure overlong in such worthy company. His heart was lightened again merely by Bilbo's presence, and he did not shy from showing it.
Bilbo let him go again after a minute, seemingly satisfied. He started wriggling himself back down into his seat again, grunting in discomfort along the way. Elrond smiled, faintly and wryly, and caught his friend's feet with one hand to help the hobbit prop them back up again. Bilbo grimaced at him in some vague affront for the gesture, a hobbit's sense of offended propriety. A host, that expression said, particularly so fine a host as you, my friend, should not be propping a freeloading old hobbit's feet up with his own hand.
Elrond only smiled in return, as aloof and lordly an expression as he could contrive. I do as I wish, he hoped it said. You are in my house, and if I should want to help you put your feet up, you'd do well to hush up and let me.
Bilbo harrumphed loudly in answer, a particularly disgruntled sort of sound, but there was a bright and happy twinkle in his eyes all the same. There was a secret little smile, tucked away in the corner of the hobbit's mouth, and Bilbo made sure to settle himself in comfort again as ostentatiously as possible. Elrond laughed. For a message apparently well-sent, he couldn't help himself. And Bilbo, for his part, looked absurdly pleased at the sound of it.
"If you can laugh, you're on the way to better, anyway," he noted, nodding in satisfaction to himself. "No better cure for grim thoughts than a little absurdity, I've found."
Elrond shook his head, amused. "Are you calling yourself absurd?" he asked, settling himself at Bilbo's side and leaning back against the rear of the couch himself. He expected a cheerful answer. An elbow in the side, perhaps, from an amused and disgruntled hobbit. But Bilbo was not so forgetful as he often seemed these days.
"Proudly so," the hobbit said softly, looking up at him. "I should gladly be absurd a thousand times a day, if it would help. You wear too many shadows lately, my friend, when you shouldn't have to anymore. It makes me more than happy to be able to see you smile."
Oh. Oh, and yet again, Elrond felt that surge inside him. That leap, of love and of grief, to see friendship and comfort and humour offered to him so readily. Even in happier days, a single ray of sunshine could be so small, and so terribly bright.
"... I can lend an ear, if you want," Bilbo went on, after a careful moment. He sat beside him, aged and earnest on the couch, with his books and his propped feet. He held Elrond's gaze, and the Lord of Imladris knew himself pierced full mightily. "If you'd prefer to forget it, I can pretend I never saw a shadow, and make a fool of myself to both our hearts' content. It wouldn't be hard, I assure you. But ... sometimes it helps to talk about it, I think. To get it out, you know? If you wanted to laugh, or to talk, I could do either, my friend, and gladly."
It was a gentle offer, and so earnestly meant. Elrond knew that. 'Bilbo Baggins, at your service,' the hobbit had said to him, once upon a time, and Elrond knew better than many how seriously he took such things. There were only certain dwarves, he thought, who knew it more than he. Even at the very last of his strength, at the very end of his days, Bilbo would prefer nothing better than to be of help to those who mattered to him.
And knowing that, because of that, Elrond found himself giving voice to his sorrows.
"I found myself thinking of partings," he explained quietly. He did not look at Bilbo, letting his eyes drift out across the balcony into the sunshine instead. "It is foolish to borrow grief before it arrives, I know that well. I cannot help it, I think. There will be partings soon that even our victory against the Shadow cannot prevent, and I mourn for them."
He did not say Bilbo's name. He did not say his daughter's, either, though it treacherously loomed larger in his mind. He knew without having to look that Bilbo had heard them both regardless. A small hand crept into his, knotted and gnarled with age, and Elrond caught it convulsively with his own. He did not weep. It was a day for sunshine. He promised himself that he would not weep.
"We will journey to Minas Tirith within the week," he went on, after a moment to swallow his grief. "It will be a joyous occasion. It should be a joyous occasion. Yet I cannot help ..."
"Of course you can't," Bilbo interrupted, but gently enough. He squeezed Elrond's hand in comfort. "I'm sorry, I didn't think of it. Knowing Frodo is alive, seeing Arwen so happy ... I'm sorry. I should have remembered."
Elrond laughed lightly. This one wasn't a happy sound, but neither was it an accusing one. He squeezed back. "You were not meant to," he confessed. "I had no wish to darken your joy with my sorrow. Nor to remember sorrow in your presence at all. You have given enough for a hundred lifetimes, my friend. You should not have to give again."
Bilbo snorted explosively. Elrond half-jumped at the sound, wholly startled from his malaise, and blinked down at the hobbit in shock. Bilbo glared right back up at him.
"Have you ever heard a hobbit phrase regarding pots and kettles?" Bilbo asked him, rather waspishly. "Exactly how long have you been shepherding idiot hobbits and idiot wizards and idiot dwarves around? And men and elves too, I shouldn't doubt. If anyone in Middle Earth deserves a rest from sorrow, you, my friend, have to be at the very top of the list!"
Elrond blinked to himself. He opened his mouth, but oddly nothing came out. It seemed that, faced with such a fierce, determined stare, such angry earnestness, he could not think of an answer. For the first time in a long time, he honestly had no idea what to say.
"You don't have to worry about me," Bilbo went on, gripping Elrond's hand fiercely. "For goodness' sake, I've got everything I need and more. I've one more thing left to do, just the one, and nothing shall ever trouble me again. I'm the last person in this blasted house you should have to worry about sparing! Idiot bloody elves ..."
"I--" Elrond began, still startled by the vehemence, and something more by the reminder. Soon nothing should trouble Bilbo again. Yes, he knew that. He remembered it. "Perhaps it was not only you I wished to spare," he said softly. "Perhaps I wished simply to enjoy your presence. I will not have it soon enough. Perhaps I did not wish to mar what remained with my sorrow."
Bilbo calmed at that. He flushed a little, somewhat ashamed. Which Elrond had not entirely wanted either, but there was no help for it now. Besides. His friend seemed to recover from it in rapid order.
"I'm sorry," the hobbit said again. He took a deep breath, and took Elrond's hands in both of his, holding them gently in the air between them. Elrond allowed it, bemused and oddly hollow. Not from shadows, he thought. For all that the grief had surfaced as they spoke of it, it was not what ruled his thoughts. There was too much sunshine in Bilbo's presence. There was too much absurdity and light while still beside him for sorrow to take much hold. It was something else that held his thoughts still, that made them lie quietly between them.
"... All right," Bilbo said, after a small moment. He nodded his head, and their hands as well, a soft and determined expression crossing his features. "All right. I've made more of a mess of this than I'd hoped, and more quickly than I'd wanted to as well. We'll sort that out now, though, if you'll allow it? I'd like to fix that, if I may."
Elrond shook his head, a strange, helpless smile creeping onto his lips. "There is nothing to fix," he said. "Bilbo. I am neither wounded nor angry. The fault was mine. I did not intend to bring such shadows between us."
"Ah! None of that," Bilbo cut in, pulling one hand briefly free to wag a disapproving finger. "It's a dirty sort of a trick, for a host to apologise for his guest's own mistakes. I expected better of you."
That pulled a startled laugh, and Bilbo beamed brightly at him. There were shadows in his eyes still, shame and sorrow, much as there were in Elrond's. He had set absurdity in the face of it once again, however, and once again it had worked. Sorrow was banished, at least in part, and there was room for laughter once again.
"... I'll wait for you," the hobbit promised him softly, after a minute. Still smiling, now more in reassurance than humour. Elrond allowed himself to fall still and calm in answer to it. "You're leaving in a week, right? I'll be here when you get back. I have to wait for Frodo, anyway. I don't know how much help I'll be, not when you ... when you'll have had that parting in between, but I'll be here. To talk or to laugh, or anything else you might need. I shall hoard absurdity better than a dragon does gold, in case you want it then."
Elrond ducked his head onto his chest, in hopes to hide his sudden tears. He had promised, he thought. He had promised himself he would not weep. Yet it did not feel shameful. It felt clean, and Bilbo only pulled his hands close to cradle them throughout it.
"We'll be going somewhere after that, won't we?" the hobbit asked gently. "You and I, and maybe some others as well. I'll keep you company as long as I may, once I've seen Frodo and set him to rights. And when I can't anymore ..."
He trailed off for a moment, and Elrond dragged in a breath, tried to get composure under him to answer. Bilbo forestalled him, however. Bilbo got there first.
"I don't know if hobbits go to the same places as half-elves or men," Bilbo said, very quietly. "After, I mean. I don't know if I'll be able to do anything. But if you like, if I do end up travelling the same paths as her ... I could keep an eye on her for you? If I go where you cannot. I could try to look out for her, if you wanted me to."
The air vanished. It must have done. Nothing moved in all the world, no breath stirred his chest. Elrond felt himself tip forward, as though some great hand had pushed him gently from behind, and then he felt Bilbo catch him. He felt two small, frail arms reach up around him, and realised at last that he was weeping in earnest. A river had burst its banks within him, a Bruinen in full flood, and there seemed nothing to do but endure it. He found an ancient hobbit in his arms, holding him through it, and could do nothing but hold on in return.
So foolish, to grieve before the parting had even come. So foolish, when they were both still within his reach. Yet so many other partings shadowed him, and this once he could not help it. The war was won. His weakness could no longer hope to matter.
"I'm sorry," he heard Bilbo whispering, when he managed to calm himself at last. He was all but lying on the poor hobbit. He must have been crushing him half to death. "Oh, Elrond. I'm so very sorry, my friend."
"... Do not be," he rasped, feeling the hobbit fall still in his arms. He pulled back a little, tried to lean at least against the back of the couch rather than on top of his friend, and found Bilbo looking up at him worriedly. He found tears in the hobbit's eyes in turn, and a depth of compassion in his gaze that pierced him. "Do not be sorry, Bilbo. It is not your doing."
Bilbo looked away, struggling with emotion of his own, and Elrond ducked his head once more in an attempt to regain himself. He startled, a moment later, when a handkerchief appeared before his nose, proffered by a bony, shaking hand. He looked back up, and Bilbo attempted to smile for him, as shaken as Elrond himself. When Elrond could not find it within himself to move, the hobbit reached up of his own accord and gently mopped the tears from Elrond's face. It almost shattered Elrond all over again. It came within an inch of destroying him once more.
"A fine help I'm proving to be," Bilbo muttered, perhaps mostly to himself, as he did his best to wipe away Elrond's tears. The absurdity of it struck Elrond suddenly, the two of them curled side by side on the seat, faces inches from each other, weeping foolishly in the sunshine. An old hobbit and an even more ancient half-elf, crying together like children. A fine help, Bilbo said. Yes. A very fine help indeed.
He caught Bilbo's hand gently, stilling it in its movements. Bilbo froze, the damp handkerchief still warm against Elrond's cheek. He didn't look alarmed. Worried, more so, and so very desperate to help. Small, and ancient, and silly. A ray of sunshine fit to brighten even the very darkest of days. Elrond smiled at him, and it was joyous. It was full of tears, even still, and at the same time it was happy.
"You have been of every help," he said to him, with all the gravity he could muster. "Bilbo. You have been of every help to me. For all you have given and all you have offered, I thank you, from the very bottom of my heart."
Bilbo flushed beet red, dropping his hand and the handkerchief in flustered embarrassment. It was not the reaction Elrond had been expecting, and yet it was the perfect one. It was small, and absurd, and perfectly endearing. He laughed for it, and tugged Bilbo's burning face gently into his chest, letting the hobbit hide from him in turn. He wrapped his arms around his friend, and held him gratefully in his turn.
"I'm too old for this, you realise," Bilbo muttered thickly, grabbing Elrond's shirt in his hands. "I'm much too old for this sort of carrying on."
Elrond chuckled, shaking his head wryly. "If you are," he said, "think only how much more so I must be. I don't think I've done that in years. In centuries. What a fine and dignified Elf-Lord I've turned out to be."
Bilbo turned his head sideways, squinting up at him, and Elrond met his gaze calmly. He felt lighter, suddenly. He felt hollowed, and calm in its wake. He felt brighter for Bilbo's presence, and did not shy from letting it show.
"... Dignity isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know," the hobbit chanced at last. He leaned into Elrond, warm and happy and frail. An ancient, fading thing, and brighter than gold. "A good laugh or a good cry, I reckon they might be better for you in the long run. Don't you think?"
He didn't have much choice, Elrond thought mildly. His grief shadowed him still, lay in waiting inside him for those partings still to come. It would burst again, perhaps more greatly, when at last they reached him. But for now, in this place and this time, it had lessened. He had laughed and he had cried, and he had been made lighter for it. As foolish as it had been, he could not deny that he felt better for it.
So he didn't. He leaned back against the couch, tilted his face to the light that danced around them, held his friend close against his side, and did not deny it at all.
"Yes," he said, one old fool to another, as they sat together in the sunshine. "Indeed, Mr Baggins, I think you might be right."
The light had not yet faded, you see. There was time, he thought, to enjoy it a little longer.
A/N: I know Bilbo faded very rapidly in memory as well as physically once the ring was destroyed, but I chose to defer that a little here. He's still sharp, or just sharp enough. My apologies.
He found Bilbo on a long couch, seated in the sunshine on one of the balconies. There were several books surrounding him and the remains of a small meal set off to one side, where there was no risk of it soiling the pages. The hobbit had propped his feet up on a chair, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes, the better to feel the sunshine on his face and the wind in his rapidly thinning hair.
He looked content, Elrond thought. Since word of victory and survival both had reached them, Bilbo had looked content, and desperately, vanishingly frail. Age, long deferred, had seized hold with a vengeful prejudice upon his friend, angrily stealing back what had been denied to it. Bilbo grew older and more fragile every day.
And cared, it seemed, not one whit because of it.
"Going to stand there lurking all day?" Bilbo asked, without bothering to crack an eyelid, a small smile curling his lips. "It's rude to stare at your guests, you know. A host should have better manners than that."
Elrond disguised his smile, quickly and completely, and from no small amount of mischief. There were moments when speaking with Bilbo was like nothing so much as speaking with Gandalf. Which should not, the Lord of Imladris thought, pull so young and so mischievous a response from him. It had been a long time, of necessity, since there had been anything but seriousness between himself and the wizard, though perhaps that could change now. But for some reason, with this smaller and more fragile echo of his friend, such concerns seemed distant, and a long-forgotten brightness sprang forth in their place.
"I apologise," he said softly, with an expression that was very carefully as grave and straight as one should expect from so old and so wise an elf as he. "You looked so peaceful, I found myself reluctant to disturb you. A lack of manners was not my intent."
Bilbo's smile flashed to a grin, as he finally opened his eyes and turned to look at Elrond properly. It was welcome Elrond saw in his face, for all his talk of rudeness. In Bilbo's ageing, fading features, he saw nothing but warmth and humour and friendship, offered to him readily, and for some reason it struck him in that moment as it never had before.
He felt his expression change, felt graveness fall away and reveal not mischief, now, but some shadow of a future loss. He felt a sudden grief pour through him, one that sprang, not from the war that had only just ended, but from the knowledge of a nearer and more personal darkening. Before him sat a ray of sunshine that would soon fade away, and not alone. Elrond, strangely helpless, felt that grief come upon him and darken his brow, and Bilbo's welcoming smile changed instantly to concern in the face of it.
"Elrond?" the hobbit asked, dropping his feet and levering himself laboriously upright in his seat. Elrond moved quickly to his side before he could try to stand, wanting to prevent any further struggles. Bilbo frowned up at him for it, reaching out with one bony hand to catch Elrond's sleeve. "My friend, are you all right? You've gone pale."
"I am well," Elrond assured him hastily. A little too hastily. Bilbo's expression very eloquently told him that the hobbit did not believe a word of it, eyebrows raised in a thoroughly sceptical frown, and Elrond blinked. Humour bubbled back up through him, and he sat himself down at the hobbit's side in answer to it. "Truly," he said, more certainly now as he put all sorrow aside. "A thought occurred to me, that's all. It lasted only a moment. I'm fine, Bilbo."
His friend squinted up at him, still worried, still not quite believing him. Elrond allowed it, meeting Bilbo's eyes with placid honesty. It could be quite an experience, to be studied so by this hobbit. The most discerning of elven hunters might have nothing on the incisive queries of a concerned Baggins. Elrond had nothing to hide, however. Now that the Shadow had been destroyed, there truly was no sorrow that could endure overlong in such worthy company. His heart was lightened again merely by Bilbo's presence, and he did not shy from showing it.
Bilbo let him go again after a minute, seemingly satisfied. He started wriggling himself back down into his seat again, grunting in discomfort along the way. Elrond smiled, faintly and wryly, and caught his friend's feet with one hand to help the hobbit prop them back up again. Bilbo grimaced at him in some vague affront for the gesture, a hobbit's sense of offended propriety. A host, that expression said, particularly so fine a host as you, my friend, should not be propping a freeloading old hobbit's feet up with his own hand.
Elrond only smiled in return, as aloof and lordly an expression as he could contrive. I do as I wish, he hoped it said. You are in my house, and if I should want to help you put your feet up, you'd do well to hush up and let me.
Bilbo harrumphed loudly in answer, a particularly disgruntled sort of sound, but there was a bright and happy twinkle in his eyes all the same. There was a secret little smile, tucked away in the corner of the hobbit's mouth, and Bilbo made sure to settle himself in comfort again as ostentatiously as possible. Elrond laughed. For a message apparently well-sent, he couldn't help himself. And Bilbo, for his part, looked absurdly pleased at the sound of it.
"If you can laugh, you're on the way to better, anyway," he noted, nodding in satisfaction to himself. "No better cure for grim thoughts than a little absurdity, I've found."
Elrond shook his head, amused. "Are you calling yourself absurd?" he asked, settling himself at Bilbo's side and leaning back against the rear of the couch himself. He expected a cheerful answer. An elbow in the side, perhaps, from an amused and disgruntled hobbit. But Bilbo was not so forgetful as he often seemed these days.
"Proudly so," the hobbit said softly, looking up at him. "I should gladly be absurd a thousand times a day, if it would help. You wear too many shadows lately, my friend, when you shouldn't have to anymore. It makes me more than happy to be able to see you smile."
Oh. Oh, and yet again, Elrond felt that surge inside him. That leap, of love and of grief, to see friendship and comfort and humour offered to him so readily. Even in happier days, a single ray of sunshine could be so small, and so terribly bright.
"... I can lend an ear, if you want," Bilbo went on, after a careful moment. He sat beside him, aged and earnest on the couch, with his books and his propped feet. He held Elrond's gaze, and the Lord of Imladris knew himself pierced full mightily. "If you'd prefer to forget it, I can pretend I never saw a shadow, and make a fool of myself to both our hearts' content. It wouldn't be hard, I assure you. But ... sometimes it helps to talk about it, I think. To get it out, you know? If you wanted to laugh, or to talk, I could do either, my friend, and gladly."
It was a gentle offer, and so earnestly meant. Elrond knew that. 'Bilbo Baggins, at your service,' the hobbit had said to him, once upon a time, and Elrond knew better than many how seriously he took such things. There were only certain dwarves, he thought, who knew it more than he. Even at the very last of his strength, at the very end of his days, Bilbo would prefer nothing better than to be of help to those who mattered to him.
And knowing that, because of that, Elrond found himself giving voice to his sorrows.
"I found myself thinking of partings," he explained quietly. He did not look at Bilbo, letting his eyes drift out across the balcony into the sunshine instead. "It is foolish to borrow grief before it arrives, I know that well. I cannot help it, I think. There will be partings soon that even our victory against the Shadow cannot prevent, and I mourn for them."
He did not say Bilbo's name. He did not say his daughter's, either, though it treacherously loomed larger in his mind. He knew without having to look that Bilbo had heard them both regardless. A small hand crept into his, knotted and gnarled with age, and Elrond caught it convulsively with his own. He did not weep. It was a day for sunshine. He promised himself that he would not weep.
"We will journey to Minas Tirith within the week," he went on, after a moment to swallow his grief. "It will be a joyous occasion. It should be a joyous occasion. Yet I cannot help ..."
"Of course you can't," Bilbo interrupted, but gently enough. He squeezed Elrond's hand in comfort. "I'm sorry, I didn't think of it. Knowing Frodo is alive, seeing Arwen so happy ... I'm sorry. I should have remembered."
Elrond laughed lightly. This one wasn't a happy sound, but neither was it an accusing one. He squeezed back. "You were not meant to," he confessed. "I had no wish to darken your joy with my sorrow. Nor to remember sorrow in your presence at all. You have given enough for a hundred lifetimes, my friend. You should not have to give again."
Bilbo snorted explosively. Elrond half-jumped at the sound, wholly startled from his malaise, and blinked down at the hobbit in shock. Bilbo glared right back up at him.
"Have you ever heard a hobbit phrase regarding pots and kettles?" Bilbo asked him, rather waspishly. "Exactly how long have you been shepherding idiot hobbits and idiot wizards and idiot dwarves around? And men and elves too, I shouldn't doubt. If anyone in Middle Earth deserves a rest from sorrow, you, my friend, have to be at the very top of the list!"
Elrond blinked to himself. He opened his mouth, but oddly nothing came out. It seemed that, faced with such a fierce, determined stare, such angry earnestness, he could not think of an answer. For the first time in a long time, he honestly had no idea what to say.
"You don't have to worry about me," Bilbo went on, gripping Elrond's hand fiercely. "For goodness' sake, I've got everything I need and more. I've one more thing left to do, just the one, and nothing shall ever trouble me again. I'm the last person in this blasted house you should have to worry about sparing! Idiot bloody elves ..."
"I--" Elrond began, still startled by the vehemence, and something more by the reminder. Soon nothing should trouble Bilbo again. Yes, he knew that. He remembered it. "Perhaps it was not only you I wished to spare," he said softly. "Perhaps I wished simply to enjoy your presence. I will not have it soon enough. Perhaps I did not wish to mar what remained with my sorrow."
Bilbo calmed at that. He flushed a little, somewhat ashamed. Which Elrond had not entirely wanted either, but there was no help for it now. Besides. His friend seemed to recover from it in rapid order.
"I'm sorry," the hobbit said again. He took a deep breath, and took Elrond's hands in both of his, holding them gently in the air between them. Elrond allowed it, bemused and oddly hollow. Not from shadows, he thought. For all that the grief had surfaced as they spoke of it, it was not what ruled his thoughts. There was too much sunshine in Bilbo's presence. There was too much absurdity and light while still beside him for sorrow to take much hold. It was something else that held his thoughts still, that made them lie quietly between them.
"... All right," Bilbo said, after a small moment. He nodded his head, and their hands as well, a soft and determined expression crossing his features. "All right. I've made more of a mess of this than I'd hoped, and more quickly than I'd wanted to as well. We'll sort that out now, though, if you'll allow it? I'd like to fix that, if I may."
Elrond shook his head, a strange, helpless smile creeping onto his lips. "There is nothing to fix," he said. "Bilbo. I am neither wounded nor angry. The fault was mine. I did not intend to bring such shadows between us."
"Ah! None of that," Bilbo cut in, pulling one hand briefly free to wag a disapproving finger. "It's a dirty sort of a trick, for a host to apologise for his guest's own mistakes. I expected better of you."
That pulled a startled laugh, and Bilbo beamed brightly at him. There were shadows in his eyes still, shame and sorrow, much as there were in Elrond's. He had set absurdity in the face of it once again, however, and once again it had worked. Sorrow was banished, at least in part, and there was room for laughter once again.
"... I'll wait for you," the hobbit promised him softly, after a minute. Still smiling, now more in reassurance than humour. Elrond allowed himself to fall still and calm in answer to it. "You're leaving in a week, right? I'll be here when you get back. I have to wait for Frodo, anyway. I don't know how much help I'll be, not when you ... when you'll have had that parting in between, but I'll be here. To talk or to laugh, or anything else you might need. I shall hoard absurdity better than a dragon does gold, in case you want it then."
Elrond ducked his head onto his chest, in hopes to hide his sudden tears. He had promised, he thought. He had promised himself he would not weep. Yet it did not feel shameful. It felt clean, and Bilbo only pulled his hands close to cradle them throughout it.
"We'll be going somewhere after that, won't we?" the hobbit asked gently. "You and I, and maybe some others as well. I'll keep you company as long as I may, once I've seen Frodo and set him to rights. And when I can't anymore ..."
He trailed off for a moment, and Elrond dragged in a breath, tried to get composure under him to answer. Bilbo forestalled him, however. Bilbo got there first.
"I don't know if hobbits go to the same places as half-elves or men," Bilbo said, very quietly. "After, I mean. I don't know if I'll be able to do anything. But if you like, if I do end up travelling the same paths as her ... I could keep an eye on her for you? If I go where you cannot. I could try to look out for her, if you wanted me to."
The air vanished. It must have done. Nothing moved in all the world, no breath stirred his chest. Elrond felt himself tip forward, as though some great hand had pushed him gently from behind, and then he felt Bilbo catch him. He felt two small, frail arms reach up around him, and realised at last that he was weeping in earnest. A river had burst its banks within him, a Bruinen in full flood, and there seemed nothing to do but endure it. He found an ancient hobbit in his arms, holding him through it, and could do nothing but hold on in return.
So foolish, to grieve before the parting had even come. So foolish, when they were both still within his reach. Yet so many other partings shadowed him, and this once he could not help it. The war was won. His weakness could no longer hope to matter.
"I'm sorry," he heard Bilbo whispering, when he managed to calm himself at last. He was all but lying on the poor hobbit. He must have been crushing him half to death. "Oh, Elrond. I'm so very sorry, my friend."
"... Do not be," he rasped, feeling the hobbit fall still in his arms. He pulled back a little, tried to lean at least against the back of the couch rather than on top of his friend, and found Bilbo looking up at him worriedly. He found tears in the hobbit's eyes in turn, and a depth of compassion in his gaze that pierced him. "Do not be sorry, Bilbo. It is not your doing."
Bilbo looked away, struggling with emotion of his own, and Elrond ducked his head once more in an attempt to regain himself. He startled, a moment later, when a handkerchief appeared before his nose, proffered by a bony, shaking hand. He looked back up, and Bilbo attempted to smile for him, as shaken as Elrond himself. When Elrond could not find it within himself to move, the hobbit reached up of his own accord and gently mopped the tears from Elrond's face. It almost shattered Elrond all over again. It came within an inch of destroying him once more.
"A fine help I'm proving to be," Bilbo muttered, perhaps mostly to himself, as he did his best to wipe away Elrond's tears. The absurdity of it struck Elrond suddenly, the two of them curled side by side on the seat, faces inches from each other, weeping foolishly in the sunshine. An old hobbit and an even more ancient half-elf, crying together like children. A fine help, Bilbo said. Yes. A very fine help indeed.
He caught Bilbo's hand gently, stilling it in its movements. Bilbo froze, the damp handkerchief still warm against Elrond's cheek. He didn't look alarmed. Worried, more so, and so very desperate to help. Small, and ancient, and silly. A ray of sunshine fit to brighten even the very darkest of days. Elrond smiled at him, and it was joyous. It was full of tears, even still, and at the same time it was happy.
"You have been of every help," he said to him, with all the gravity he could muster. "Bilbo. You have been of every help to me. For all you have given and all you have offered, I thank you, from the very bottom of my heart."
Bilbo flushed beet red, dropping his hand and the handkerchief in flustered embarrassment. It was not the reaction Elrond had been expecting, and yet it was the perfect one. It was small, and absurd, and perfectly endearing. He laughed for it, and tugged Bilbo's burning face gently into his chest, letting the hobbit hide from him in turn. He wrapped his arms around his friend, and held him gratefully in his turn.
"I'm too old for this, you realise," Bilbo muttered thickly, grabbing Elrond's shirt in his hands. "I'm much too old for this sort of carrying on."
Elrond chuckled, shaking his head wryly. "If you are," he said, "think only how much more so I must be. I don't think I've done that in years. In centuries. What a fine and dignified Elf-Lord I've turned out to be."
Bilbo turned his head sideways, squinting up at him, and Elrond met his gaze calmly. He felt lighter, suddenly. He felt hollowed, and calm in its wake. He felt brighter for Bilbo's presence, and did not shy from letting it show.
"... Dignity isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know," the hobbit chanced at last. He leaned into Elrond, warm and happy and frail. An ancient, fading thing, and brighter than gold. "A good laugh or a good cry, I reckon they might be better for you in the long run. Don't you think?"
He didn't have much choice, Elrond thought mildly. His grief shadowed him still, lay in waiting inside him for those partings still to come. It would burst again, perhaps more greatly, when at last they reached him. But for now, in this place and this time, it had lessened. He had laughed and he had cried, and he had been made lighter for it. As foolish as it had been, he could not deny that he felt better for it.
So he didn't. He leaned back against the couch, tilted his face to the light that danced around them, held his friend close against his side, and did not deny it at all.
"Yes," he said, one old fool to another, as they sat together in the sunshine. "Indeed, Mr Baggins, I think you might be right."
The light had not yet faded, you see. There was time, he thought, to enjoy it a little longer.
A/N: I know Bilbo faded very rapidly in memory as well as physically once the ring was destroyed, but I chose to defer that a little here. He's still sharp, or just sharp enough. My apologies.
