Two years.
You waited two years.
Your fiancée, Frodo, mysteriously left along with Sam, Merry, and Pippin. You hand no idea where they went or when they would be back, you had no idea if any of them where still alive.
The first year went by slowly. The Sackville-Baggins kept on pressuring you to sell Bag End, but you refused. Whether Frodo was dead or alive, this was his property. You took up all the work there, even taking over Sam's job as his gardener.
Gardening helped you keep your mind off of things.
The second year, you were loosing hope. There were sightings of orcs across the Shire, one day they raided Hobbiton. They burned houses and captured hobbits, you being one of them.
For weeks they pressured everybody to do work, tortured you, and burned the Shire just for their own fun.
A growing shadow clouded your mind as you slept, chained to other hobbits.
Then one day, the orcs left. They ran off leaving the hobbits to repair. You returned to Bag End, all hope gone, and began gardening again. Slowly, the Shire became green again.
Flowers bloomed, grass grew, and animals returned. The sun shone in bright rays, you could have almost guessed the Shire never underwent a dramatic change. But it did.
It still felt different to you. All hobbits went back to work as if nothing happened. The shadow was gone, but nothing was the same.
One day, you were out planting a new row of vegetables when you heard the clomping footsteps of ponies as they walked up the roads. You heard hobbits shouting in excitement they all seemed to say one message.
"They're alive!"
But who was missing?- Other than your fiancée and his friends. You were empty, but there was finally a spark. Setting down your tools you stood, brushing the dirt off your skirt. Slowly, you walked to the road to see a familiar face.
All harsh memory of orcs washed away as you met the gaze of piercing blue eyes. Gathering your skirt with a fresh smile on your face you ran down the road. Frodo slid off his pony and raced to meet you. You met his embrace and felt your feet being picked up off the ground as he swung you around. Finally his lips met yours with a passion you had longed for.
"Two years, Frodo." You sighed, resting your head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, but I have a lot to tell you." You lifted your head and was finally able to see the wear in his look.
"How about we save that for later, you look exhausted." You gave him a smile as you took the reins of his pony and walked back to Bag End.
"What happened around here?" You heard Frodo whisper. You looked over to see that his stare was flicking over the re-growing Shire. You shuddered and cast your gaze to the pebbles beneath you. "Y/n?"
"Orcs." You spat. "They first came here about a year ago. They burned and destroyed whatever crossed their path. They captured and tortured hobbits, we slept and worked shackled together." You dropped your voice. "It was terrible."
You looked back to Frodo and saw that he was now looking towards the sky.
"Then, a while ago they left by some miracle. Right away, we went to work bringing back animals and planting new seeds. Bag End was trashed so I did some repair work." You gestured toward the green door of your home, you still needed to do some paint jobs and fix the broken windows, but it looked fine otherwise. You stepped inside and went to work on making Frodo some tea and slicing up some bread for him to eat, he looked half starved.
You plopped yourself down into one of the chairs and Frodo mimicked that. You were content just to sit and relax for awhile, waiting for the tea to brew and for Frodo to adjust to his surroundings.
A few minutes later and a hot cup of tea, Frodo spoke again.
"On the night I left, Gandalf came to me regarding the ring Bilbo used to disappear. It turned out that ring was the one Sauron, an evil thought to be destroyed long ago. Gandalf told me to get out of the Shire and into Bree, due to me being in danger for having it in the first place." Frodo spoke for hours, but your attention never wavered. You hung on every detail, every word he spoke. "And then Galadriel let me look into the mirror that showed me the past, present, and future. I saw the Shire burning, I saw you in shackles. Galadriel explained that would happened if I failed my task, but I guess it happened anyways."
"It's not your fault, you stopped it in the end, right?"
"We left the next day, the Lady Galadriel gave me a light from their favorite star and Sam some elvish rope. We were given boats and we stopped by a waterfall, that was when I realized I needed to go out alone." Frodo explained more about his journey and how Sam came with him and helped him capture Gollum. Frodo's face turned sour at the mention of Gollum. He talked about how Sam was the real help and how he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did without him and how Gollum used his words as trickery.
Next, he explained the wounds caused by the ring. He showed you a scar caused by the chain around his neck and the stab wound that he got earlier in the trip by the ring wraiths. He explained them how he thought he lost the vile creature and got poisoned by Shelob, then waking up to get rescued by Sam and walking up Mount Doom.
"Standing there in the volcano, I felt the Ring over power me. I put it on and started to walk away. The quest would have been lost!" Frodo looked down and sighed heavily. "Then Gollum found me and bit the Ring off my finger."
You looked down at his hands to see that, indeed, he was missing a finger.
"I got mad and pushed Gollum over the edge and into the lava, but I fell over too but Sam saved me. We ran out as the Mount Doom exploded and found safety on a rock. Then Gandalf and the eagles found us and I woke up in Rivendell again."
"I guess we had quite some stories to tell." You chirped and Frodo nodded in agreement. Then you looked over and saw Bilbo's book hanging out of Frodo's bag.
Stepping forwards you grabbed it and flipped towards the end to see that there was still plenty of room.
"How about you write your story?"
I'm going off that in the books, the Shire was attacked while the Fellowship traveled around Middle Earth. I'm paraphrasing but it said that when Frodo returned the Shire was damaged from the attacks. I think the movies chose to represent that by Frodo looking in the mirror.
Its been awhile since I've read the series, so correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks for reading!