Red (The Hobbit Fan Fiction)

Bonus Chapter - Always Watching

Always Watching

            It seemed as though nothing had changed since I had left the Shire years ago. The Hobbits didn’t seem changed, with the exception of a few that I held close to my heart. Those Hobbits were slowly trying to work past hearing the news of my death. Those Hobbits I watched over to make sure they were handling my death the right way.

            My attention went back and forth constantly. For a while, my focus remained on my husband, Jack. He shuffled around as though he was the living dead; he became a recluse, not daring to venture outside of the hobbit-hole that now solely belonged to him. He still kept Remy, who became his unlikely therapist. It broke my heart to see those two have the same look of loss in their eyes, a look that would possibly never fade over the years.

            When I dared myself to check in on Mum and Papa, I could see how much had changed. My bedroom was never touched; Mum looked as bad as Jack did whenever I decided to watch over him. Papa, he was the worst out of the two of them. To him, whether quirky or not, I was still his little girl. Papa’s little girl. Mum was faring better than Papa was, and I guess that was a plus. When they learned that I was gone, they didn’t forget me. They did what any normal parents would do: mourn over their lost daughter and constantly wonder about the only remaining child they had left.

            Speaking of my sister, I didn’t have to check in on her as much, not since Bilbo was doing that all on his own like I had asked of him before I had died on that Eagle that morning. The way they interacted, you would have never known that they had been together, and that one day Bilbo had just become distant from her, eventually leading to a rocky relationship afterwards. Whatever wedge they used to have between them ceased to exist, broken down by them coming together to help each other cope. I felt proud, to have those two talking again.

            The day Bilbo had broken the news to Jack and Cecelia, I’d watched every moment not from above, in the sky, but on the ground. Though none of them could see me, I could see them as clearly as if I were still alive. I was there when Jack and Cecelia had their meltdowns shortly following learning of my death. I was there when Bilbo delivered them the items I wanted them to have, to treasure.

            It’d been a few years since Bilbo had returned home, as had I. I roamed Middle-earth as a ghost, though I appeared to no one. I wasn’t sure if I was capable of revealing myself to anyone. If I could, I knew who I’d want to see me. It would give them closure; it would let them know I was all right and that everything would be just the same.

Or, thinking about it, if any of them saw me, there was a chance that I would scare the life out of them. That was the only thing keeping me from trying to discover if I was able to show myself to those I wanted to see me.

My attention today was on Bilbo and Cecelia, who seemed to have patched up their relationship nicely over the years, though they went through their hardships. I would know that since I was there to witness all of them. Cecelia always visited Bag End, becoming a part of a new routine of hers.

While being dead, I learned a thing or two observing the Hobbits. Mum and Papa, though they had disapproved of my personality, still cared about me. Despite their disdain towards my being different, I was still their daughter, and somehow, I had had an inkling of a feeling that they could never shun their daughter entirely and not wonder about me from time to time, still caring. My parents had never been heartless Hobbits, and they still weren’t.

I’d never known that Cecelia was a skilled artist. My own sister, who I’d grown up with all those years, had a knack for drawing. Who would have thought it? I learned it today as I watched Cecelia and Bilbo in Bag End. Cece told Bilbo about her pastime, and she thought drawing still-life would be a good, refreshing challenge for her. She’d been drawing ever since learning of my passing. Yes, I know, I’d had years to learn that my sister was an artist. I guess all the times I checked in on her she was never in the mood to draw.