Just That And Nothing More

Chapter One

When the knock sounded on Bilba's door she opened it without really paying attention to the two dwarves revealed to be standing on her doorstep.

A fact which was most definitely not her fault.

She could not be blamed for being a bit flustered when she already had a tattooed dwarf and his kindly looking brother attempting to crack one another's skulls in her kitchen.

Granted, they were in her kitchen because she'd allowed them in, but that was entirely beside the point.

She'd been in the process of trying to figure out what, if anything, would get blood out of hardwood floors if they were successful in their head cracking efforts, and if she had any of it on hand, when the new knock had sounded.

Hoping desperately it was reality come to return her to her quiet, respectable life, she'd run to the door and flung it open.

She'd caught a brief glimpse of two figures, one blond and the other a brunette, before they both bowed in a synchronized move that spoke of long years living in close proximity to one another.

"Fili!

"And Kili!"

"At your service!'

Then they'd straightened and she'd been caught by the most blinding, simply excited to be alive smile she'd ever seen.

Her vocabulary, which she had always been rather proud of, utterly failed her and she proceeded to do a rather impressive imitation of a statue.

They ended up walking in right past her and if someone had asked her to describe Fili at that exact second she wouldn't have been able to.

She'd worked hard to keep her eyes off Kili the rest of the night, looking anywhere but him even when he tried to speak to her or passed right by her.

Her efforts were thrown off a bit when Fili decided to start throwing her dishes around in a long chain leading to the kitchen. Kili was the second link in the chain and, despite that fact that he admittedly had fine form, double meaning fully intended; she couldn't be expected to sit back and watch her mother's dishes soar through the air.

In the end she probably did not make the best of first impressions but, really, what was a respectable hobbit to do when dwarves invaded her house, ate her food and threw her dishes around? Particularly when one of them was unfairly attractive and possessed a smile that stopped her in her tracks faster than the unnaturally large rat she'd once stumbled across in her woodpile?

That had been a big rat. She was pretty sure some of the children could have saddled it and ridden it around if it hadn't been for the fact that it was, you know, a rat and all.

Anyway, after all that she'd barely started to think about getting her footing when their grumpy, rude leader showed up and she found out why they were there and, ultimately, she should be commended that the worst that happened was she fainted just a bit.

She ended up going to bed rather early, perfectly understandable given all the shocks she'd received in such a short time, and when she woke up the next morning to an empty house she almost, almost thanked her lucky stars and went on with her life.

But then Gandalf's words ran through her head, as she had no doubt was his intent, and Kili's face floated through her mind, causing her heart to jump and do unexpected things in her chest and, before she knew it, she was flying out the door so fast she barely remembered to lock it behind her.

Thus inadvertently proving once and for all that she had far more of her mother in her than she'd ever previously wanted to admit.

Also, that she might possibly be insane but she'd go with the first idea.