A/N: So wow...it's been a really long time guys...and for this story, it will be the last time.

I, I don't know what to say, other than thank you to those of you who still read this story... and who still love it. I have been on such a wild ride with fanfiction that had many many highs and too many lows. But the Hobbit fandom being one of my starting points in my presence of fanfiction writing, I felt like my Hobbit stories needed to come to a conclusion. I'm so grateful to every one of you who have enjoyed this story. I'm so sorry I disappeared for so long, and I'm so sorry that this has to come to an end in such a way.

But I wanted this story to have an end. Even if it's not the one any of us wanted.

Thank you for following me, thank you for enjoying this writing that I started when I was 15 years old. Maybe some day, I will come back and rewrite it. Give it the ending I truly wanted for it. But today is not that day, nor any day soon.

So for now, thank you—and enjoy.

There are many moments in one's own life, when memories resurface. Pain and joy, any emotion really, that hid itself deep within the recollection bob up through muddling waters of past life to breach the surface into crystalline clarity. So when Bilbo Baggins awoke one morning on a sun-glittered yellow morning with the air filtering through his Hobbit hole in a calm and quaint way—there was a terrible pang of nostalgia that trembled through him like regret.

At the time, his child-like mind had forgotten the name of his short-lived adoptive father. Why would he have known the gentleman's name?

Bilbo had only known him as "Dah".

Slipping his legs over the edge of his bed, the Hobbit drew his old robe over his shoulders while he bit back the yawn threatening to escape. The window in front protected him from the grey storm clouds that rolled over the cusp of the hills surrounding the Shire. He wondered if it would rain. While the fluffy behemoths were indeed dark and large, they towered far into the sky—not low in the way an oncoming storm would loom. Perhaps the threat was distanced and not one to him by any means. That meant he could return to sleep if he so wished.

But he refused to close his eyes.

He refused to dream again of strong calloused hands patting his small back.

Bilbo refused recollection of the foreign words to his favorite lullaby.

No. He would block any memory of a Dwarvish father because he had a perfectly good Hobbit father. He would push down the remembrance of a maternal Dwarrow-dam because he had a perfectly good Hobbit mother. Dwarf brothers? Bilbo did not have any memory of such.

Retreating to the bathroom, Bilbo washed up for the morning. He neatly combed back his unruly curls, and washed his face with warm water and soap. Donning his white button-down and ironed trousers, he set his suspenders and drew on his pristine navy jacket. Practically impeccable by every Hobbit norm! Staring at him was a prim and proper Hobbit at the end of his youthful years.

But when Bilbo looked up at the mirror, he saw the dirtied face of a small faunt, whose curly hair was caked with mud and decorated with beads. The little boy was covered in furs and he wore socks and boots. In that mirror was a shimmering version of a small Hobbit who was happy and alive—vibrant in the mountain he used to call home. But the apparition dissipated and all that was left was a tired old coot. He noticed the darkened gaze of someone long neglected, someone long forgotten.

"I am a Baggins, for goodness sakes!" Bilbo squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then drew the bathroom faucet on, washing away the feigned Dwarvish blood of Mimel Thurkhkhai.