Fic: The Choices Of Mistress Daisy - Hobbit Smut "When Pigs Fly!" Challenge
Name: danachan
Title: The Choices Of Mistress Daisy
Challenge: Hobbit Smut "When Pigs Fly!" Challenge
Word Count: 3,443
Rating: R
Pairings: Lotho Sackville-Baggins/Daisy Gamgee
Warnings: Het, sexual content with ambiguous consent, dark
Summary: She'd made the choice on her own.
Notes: When I first signed up for this challenge, I thought that I was going to end up writing a very specific story. I've gone through five incomplete drafts on that one, and I never got to anything that I really liked. So, I regretfully let elanorgardner that I would have to drop out from the challenge. Then, this story happened. And when I say happened, boy, did it ever tear it's way out of my brain. I would like to thank dreamflower02 and sophinisba for the beta. Also, sophinisba gets another thank you for the title. Sophie, you should know, is made of win. *grin*
This story references quite a few characters that are my own original creations. Instead of mentioning which is which, I will just say that, if you don't remember that one from the family tree, well, then, it's probably mine.
I.
She'd made the choice on her own. She was the eldest daughter, and perhaps it wasn't proper - her old Dad often got stuck on what was proper, what was not - and it wasn't that Daisy didn't care. She did love her family, and she wanted to do right by them. But she remembered a time, still, when she had been much younger, and her mother had been there, too: and Bell had been fair younger, too, a Goodchild out of Tookbank, who had, at one time, been apprenticed to one of the Took healers out of Great Smials. Now, even Daisy-as-a-child knew that this was a lifetime away - not the sort of thing that Hamfast Gamgee would appreciate from his wife - and while Bell never did lose her healer's touch, she seemed fair content as a wife and mother. It was a sacrifice that Daisy couldn't, and didn't think she ever would, understand. But she loved her mother all the while, and as she grew, she made her plans.
Mistress Poppy, the only real healer in the Hobbiton-Bywater area, was an addled old hobbit, they said, but Daisy still found her sharp enough: and she was looking for an apprentice, after her last had up and left for Tighfield, seven springs before. Perhaps it wasn't right for his wife, but when the Gaffer found out... well, Daisy couldn't say that he had jumped about in joy (that really wasn't the sort of thing her old Dad would do). But he had looked at her, his eyes old even then, and he had looked at her. And then he had nodded, and that had been that.
Her Mistress was a good teacher, and Daisy learned all that she could. When Poppy passed on, in the summer of 1411, Daisy was an accomplished enough healer - though, under Poppy's tutelage, she had done more in the way of midwifery. And that was useful, too, not only on the farm. But in the autumn of 1411, her first nephew was born - and Daisy was the healer who attended, and welcomed Hamfred, Hamson and Daffodil's first, into the world. She was thirty-nine, that year, and more than proper marriageable age. Both Hamson and Halfred were married, to Daffodil Hill and Hawthorn Sandbottom respectively; and of her younger siblings, May had been the first to marry: in fact, she and Andy Brown both seemed quite happy with their new life, though it had taken them away from Hobbiton, all the way to Greenfields in the Northfarthing.
Daisy had always liked, and respected, Mr. Bilbo - and she liked and respected Mr. Frodo well enough, too, but in the summer of 1418, he must have stopped cracking, and just fully cracked. The sell of Bag End went through, and to the Sackville-Baggins, which made no right or proper sense. She had heard too much on the wealth of the Baggins, had believed too long, of all the treasure brought back from Mr. Bilbo's year away. Daisy found it more than just difficult to believe, that Mr. Frodo had come to it's end.
She hadn't ever thought much of the Sackville-Baggins, from the first time she'd had the displeasure of meeting old Mr. Otho, and young Master Mr. Lotho. She'd only been twenty at the time, and young Master Mr. Lotho older than that: but even in his tweens, he'd been a rotten rat.
When the sell of Bag End went through, she had sense enough about her (she was a sensible Gamgee, after all) to think that Mr. Lotho Sackville-Baggins had been up to no good: Mr. Otho wouldn't be seeing the inside of Bag End, but Mistress Lobelia and Mr. Lotho would. She was, for the most part, sensible enough when it came to keeping her mouth shut, especially when it came to talking about her betters. Even her Dad had nothing good to say about the Sackville-Baggins: but then, her Dad wasn't one to open his mouth about his betters, whether he was speaking well of them, or not.
So, when Mr. Lotho and Lobelia came to own Bag End, Daisy knew that there was something foul afoot. When news came back from Buckland, that Mr. Frodo and his cousins - and her own dear brother, her Sam - had all gone missing, then it was more than just suspicion. She hadn't ever thought much of Mr. Lotho, but she certainly hadn't ever thought him capable of murder. But Mr. Frodo was gone, Mr. Merry and Master Pippin, too, and Sam, her dear brother Sam. It was too clear what had happened - so the gossip went about, in hushed murmurs. It wasn't long after they were all gone, bodies vanishing into thin air like some sort of old conjurer's trick, that Mr. Lotho started acting like he was too big for his britches.
It was just her, her and Marigold, looking after their Dad. Daisy had her own work, still, and Mr. Lotho had his hand in too much. She didn't think much of him, still, and what she did think wasn't any good at all. It was bad enough that he was acting like he had come to so much power: still, it wasn't til after Yule that he really started acting like he had too much power about, and what he did have was going to his head. Whatever rules Mr. Lotho was putting into act, it was a more difficult task to limit where and how she went about her day to day. She spoke with him, once, face to face: yes, there was only so much he could get away with, only so much he could limit with his Rules. She was a healer, a midwife, and she would go where she pleased; and maybe even Mr. Lotho knew that he couldn't keep her from going where she needed to go.
Yes, she had liked Mr. Bilbo, perhaps loved him in her own way: a dear old hobbit, with his own queer habits, but he had only ever treated her and her own family as dear as he might treat his own. And Mr. Frodo was very much like Mr. Bilbo, though he could be more quiet, more sincere. As Master of Bag End, one after the other, they had been masters of more than just land and coin. There had been kindness in their hearts.
All she thought that lived in Mr. Lotho Sackville-Baggins: well, it was only dirt and rot.
She heard of old Flourdumpling, and how Mr. Lotho had him thrown into the makeshift prisons - the Lockholes, that was the name of it. After that, she didn't hear so much as see: there were Men about, and the inns were shut down - the Ivy Bush, first, and then the Green Dragon. More and more, Mr. Lotho enforced his Rules: that is, he had his Men about, to do as he wanted. It wasn't right, not at all. And it was dangerous, more and more so. She had thought that she and Mr. Lotho had come to an accord, of sorts: that she was needed, about Hobbiton and Bywater, and Overhill at times, and he would let her about as she needed.
But his fellows didn't know that. One spring morning (a week or so after the twenty-fifth of Rethe, on the second of Astron, actually: she hadn't felt well at all, on the twenty-fifth, all through out the day, as if it was all too heavy, like she couldn't even breathe. But then, like new air in her lungs, there was light and hope again. And it did seem a strange thing, to feel such joy, when she couldn't see the end of the bleakness of their times), she was caught on the road: they took her basket from her and, with one standing at her back, kneeling, clutching both her arms in a bruising grip, questioned her thoroughly as to the location of her brothers: each of them, wherever they might be. There had been rebelling about - hobbits taking back what had been wrongly taken in the first - and while the Men didn't mention that this is what they were interested in knowing about, Daisy had wits enough to know that that was what they really were on about. She hadn't ever wanted to speak of Sam as dead, and for her Dad's sake, and for poor Marigold's, she hadn't ever done so: but she did say that one was in the Southfarthing, and the other in the Northfarthing: and she bit her tongue when she could have said that Mr. Lotho himself had seen to the other being dead, but instead she told them how her Sam had gone across the River, to Buckland: and he was likely there, still.
They laughed, and one of them called her 'little rabbit', and one of them had stroked her hair: and she held her tongue, and trembled, but didn't let the fear show in her eye. Then the other had laughed, told his friend to let her go. He even gave her back her basket, and almost as if it hadn't happened, he and his fellows were on their way.
'But I'll be seeing you again, little rabbit' - that was what he'd said, before he went away. Clutching her basket, she had hurried back to Number Three: when Marigold saw her, she knew that Daisy was upset. They sat in their room, Marigold clutching Daisy as if she was the elder, the proper one to give comfort. And Daisy, for the first time since her mother had passed, had wept, wept long and hard against her sister's shoulder. For her brother, for Mr. Frodo: for all that Mr. Lotho had wronged.
It was only spring, and the days were turning. Summer came, with the Men taking as they wanted: and all in Mr. Lotho's name. The one who called her 'little rabbit' - his name was Jack, and at times, he would sit outside Number Three, whittling with his long knife, making shapes out of wood. Jack, and the more she knew him, he didn't seem so terrible: but then, she remembered when the Smallhills had been run from their smial, when old Tolm Smallhill and his two eldest had been taken off to the west. Jack had been there, too, and he had been terrible, terrible. Daisy hated him, and she hated Mr. Lotho. Hated him, for Mr. Frodo's sake: for Mr. Merry and Master Pippin, mostly fine gentlehobbits that they were, and Master Pippin still so young: for her dear Sam, who was likely gone, and gone forever: for her brothers, and her sisters, and her Dad: for the hobbits he had wronged, and the ones he would continue to wrong.
Wedmath came, and Jack was gone. But there were other Men about, and they were getting restless. Marigold had, at least since late in Forelithe, been going up to Bag End and tending to the Sackville-Baggins - the cleaning and the cooking. Mr. Lotho even made a show of paying her. Then Wedmath came, and Marigold came back to Number Three, shaking, and with tears in her eyes. Marigold only said, 'Mr. Lotho', and when she did, she wouldn't meet Daisy's gaze.
Daisy, who had been taking an awful lot, who'd been frightened out of her wits far too often, in the last few months, could suddenly not take anymore. She took her sister in her arms, pressed a kiss against her cheek and, in a voice that did not shake, did not betray the emotions running hot through her blood, told Marigold that she wouldn't be working for the Sackville-Baggins anymore.
'Did he hurt you?' she said, afterwards. Marigold was shaking, like a leaf out in a storm.
'He - he didn't hurt me. But he did frighten me, an awful start.'
She thought she knew Marigold better than Marigold knew herself, and she couldn't divine the truth in her youngest sister's words. She looked at Marigold, and felt as if her heart was breaking - more than it had broken, when they'd all lost Sam - and then she kissed her sister on the cheek, once more, and told her that it was all well, then, all of it would be all right.
Then, Daisy herself went to Bag End.
II.
Mistress Lobelia was out - being one of the hobbits who could go about as she pleased, and go about unmolested, she often took walks about Hobbiton, and always with her umbrella. So, she was out, when Daisy came to Bag End: she knocked on the merry green door, and thought, if Mr. Frodo had been about, he wouldn't have allowed the paint to peel and crack.
The door opened, and there was Mr. Lotho. Daisy stood tall, lifted her chin, and looked him in the eye. 'I have come to tell you,' she said, 'that my sister, Marigold, will no longer be working for you. Sir.' That last, she only added as an afterthought.
Mr. Lotho only smiled at her, something dark and dangerous glinting in his eye. She felt something cold in her belly, something cold and hard, and she didn't let herself look away: not like she wanted to, at least.
'Now, now, now, Mistress Daisy. Your dear little sister has been such a... a help here, and not just for my mother. It would be a terrible thing if you kept her away. Now, if you are concerned with the coin that I've been giving to her...'
'It ain't that, and you know as well,' she said, and she gritted her teeth. She hated him, in that moment, more than she ever had before. If she hadn't been in control of her senses, she would have punched him herself: but she was almost certain what he would do to Marigold, then. 'I don't want you about her, or asking after her. She is, for one thing, far too young for one such as yourself.'
'Now, she's of age, Mistress Daisy; and that really is all that matters. Don't you think?'
She didn't know what to say, her tongue thick and heavy in her mouth. She faltered, and looked away from Mr. Lotho's dark gaze: she heard the creak of the door, and Mr. Lotho's laugh, as he stepped back, and pushed the door closed. But she looked up, then, struck out with her arm, hitting her palm against the wood, and keeping the door open. She looked Mr. Lotho in the eye, where he stood beyond the door, in the crack that was left open.
'Won't you invite me in, then, Mr. Lotho? I could make you up a pot of tea, and we could talk this out, right and proper.'
He smiled, slightly. She dropped her hand. He pulled the door open and, swinging his arm out in a wide and welcoming gesture, made as if to welcome her into his home.
Only, she wouldn't ever think that it was his home: and she had more control of the matter than what he might think. She held her head high, and walked into Bag End. The door shut behind her, a quiet, final click - and she felt Mr. Lotho's arm slide about her waist, felt Mr. Lotho's mouth warm against her cheek.
'Now then. What was it that you wanted, Mistress Daisy? Oh yes, oh yes.' He pressed his face against her curls, gripped her dress and tugged. 'You wanted to talk.'
She felt a cold sickness in her skin, but she stood tall. She took his hand, and the other, and she moved them both - and then she stepped away. Daisy turned, and faced Mr. Lotho, without the fear she knew that she should feel. 'You'll not be taking this, Mr. Lotho - it's mine to give. And when I have, you'll be leaving my Marigold alone. Do you hear me, Mr. Lotho, sir?'
His lips quirked in a quiet grin. And he nodded, which was more than what she thought he would. He said nothing more, and took her by the hand.
III.
Mr. Lotho's touch didn't burn her, not like Daisy thought it would: but his kiss did leave her cold. He had trouble with the laces of her bodice, knotting them up and making a full mess of them. Daisy swallowed her hate, her loathing, took his hands and pushed them away. She had steadier hands, still: she'd helped give life, and she could be steady when she needed to. Like know, as she made quick work of the knotted laces. Then, as he pushed it back, she somehow didn't shudder at the feel of his hands on her breasts. Touch, pressing, squeezing. His mouth on her skin, his hands pressing her back.
She hadn't ever seen Bag End's master bedroom before. But the bed was wide, and the ceiling seemed too wide. It wasn't Mr. Frodo's room, anymore. It wasn't Mr. Bilbo's, and hadn't been for a very long while. Gone, all of them gone, off into the Blue. Daisy held her breath, and shut her eyes. Mr. Lotho's breath ghosted over her skin, and while his touch didn't burn her, she was certain that he was squeezing too hard, pushing for too much. There would be bruises, she was well aware of that.
But her eyes were shut, and she didn't let herself think: not when Mr. Lotho put himself between her legs, when she felt his skin on hers. When he pushed into her, one and one. Her eyes snapped open, and she lost hold of her breath. His hair was a tousled mess, and he had his own eyes shut. He grunted, sweat glistening on his skin, and he moved, and she felt searing pain, and she felt her own shame, burning up in that fire. It was nothing, she found herself thinking, nothing more than the most basic of acts. She let Mr. Lotho have her body, but she let her mind drift miles and miles away.
When she came back, he was gone, and she was cold: he was on the bed still, spent and sleeping. If she had it in her, she could have ended for them all. She could have made certain that he never hurt another hobbit: that he wouldn't threaten another, like he had threatened her sister. That he wouldn't have any other hobbits thrown into the Lockholes, like so many others.
Instead, she got up, looking down at her naked skin and the mussed bedcovers, the smell of sex in the air, and on her bare flesh. And then she stood, and gathered up her clothes, and left the room.
She washed off, didn't scrub herself all over like she wanted to, just washed off like she needed to, before dressing. Then she left Bag End, and she didn't let herself cry: instead, as she walked down the Hill, she looked to the clouds, threw her arms out wide, and laughed at the sky.
IV.
She didn't tell Marigold, and that was well enough. She almost thought that Marigold must know, somehow. But then, Marigold knew her as well as she knew herself. If anyone would know, then it should be her Marigold, right? Even if there were things that she couldn't herself rightly tell.
V.
One day, like at the ending of a fairy story, or one of old Mr. Bilbo's elf stories, Mr. Frodo came back with the Blue, with his cousins, and her brother Sam, too. By then, Mr. Lotho was gone and, from the word about Hobbiton, he was good as dead. It didn't make Daisy feel better, but it didn't make her feel any worse. Daisy hadn't ever been very fond of stories, as they were too fanciful, and she liked to think that she was sensible, even for a Gamgee. No, she wasn't very fond of stories, whether they were fairy stories, or elf stories, or even the ones that her Dad was fond of telling, back when they'd all been much younger. But this one had brought her brother back to her, so she decided that, even if it was just a story, at least it had a very good end.
Title: The Choices Of Mistress Daisy
Challenge: Hobbit Smut "When Pigs Fly!" Challenge
Word Count: 3,443
Rating: R
Pairings: Lotho Sackville-Baggins/Daisy Gamgee
Warnings: Het, sexual content with ambiguous consent, dark
Summary: She'd made the choice on her own.
Notes: When I first signed up for this challenge, I thought that I was going to end up writing a very specific story. I've gone through five incomplete drafts on that one, and I never got to anything that I really liked. So, I regretfully let elanorgardner that I would have to drop out from the challenge. Then, this story happened. And when I say happened, boy, did it ever tear it's way out of my brain. I would like to thank dreamflower02 and sophinisba for the beta. Also, sophinisba gets another thank you for the title. Sophie, you should know, is made of win. *grin*
This story references quite a few characters that are my own original creations. Instead of mentioning which is which, I will just say that, if you don't remember that one from the family tree, well, then, it's probably mine.
I.
She'd made the choice on her own. She was the eldest daughter, and perhaps it wasn't proper - her old Dad often got stuck on what was proper, what was not - and it wasn't that Daisy didn't care. She did love her family, and she wanted to do right by them. But she remembered a time, still, when she had been much younger, and her mother had been there, too: and Bell had been fair younger, too, a Goodchild out of Tookbank, who had, at one time, been apprenticed to one of the Took healers out of Great Smials. Now, even Daisy-as-a-child knew that this was a lifetime away - not the sort of thing that Hamfast Gamgee would appreciate from his wife - and while Bell never did lose her healer's touch, she seemed fair content as a wife and mother. It was a sacrifice that Daisy couldn't, and didn't think she ever would, understand. But she loved her mother all the while, and as she grew, she made her plans.
Mistress Poppy, the only real healer in the Hobbiton-Bywater area, was an addled old hobbit, they said, but Daisy still found her sharp enough: and she was looking for an apprentice, after her last had up and left for Tighfield, seven springs before. Perhaps it wasn't right for his wife, but when the Gaffer found out... well, Daisy couldn't say that he had jumped about in joy (that really wasn't the sort of thing her old Dad would do). But he had looked at her, his eyes old even then, and he had looked at her. And then he had nodded, and that had been that.
Her Mistress was a good teacher, and Daisy learned all that she could. When Poppy passed on, in the summer of 1411, Daisy was an accomplished enough healer - though, under Poppy's tutelage, she had done more in the way of midwifery. And that was useful, too, not only on the farm. But in the autumn of 1411, her first nephew was born - and Daisy was the healer who attended, and welcomed Hamfred, Hamson and Daffodil's first, into the world. She was thirty-nine, that year, and more than proper marriageable age. Both Hamson and Halfred were married, to Daffodil Hill and Hawthorn Sandbottom respectively; and of her younger siblings, May had been the first to marry: in fact, she and Andy Brown both seemed quite happy with their new life, though it had taken them away from Hobbiton, all the way to Greenfields in the Northfarthing.
Daisy had always liked, and respected, Mr. Bilbo - and she liked and respected Mr. Frodo well enough, too, but in the summer of 1418, he must have stopped cracking, and just fully cracked. The sell of Bag End went through, and to the Sackville-Baggins, which made no right or proper sense. She had heard too much on the wealth of the Baggins, had believed too long, of all the treasure brought back from Mr. Bilbo's year away. Daisy found it more than just difficult to believe, that Mr. Frodo had come to it's end.
She hadn't ever thought much of the Sackville-Baggins, from the first time she'd had the displeasure of meeting old Mr. Otho, and young Master Mr. Lotho. She'd only been twenty at the time, and young Master Mr. Lotho older than that: but even in his tweens, he'd been a rotten rat.
When the sell of Bag End went through, she had sense enough about her (she was a sensible Gamgee, after all) to think that Mr. Lotho Sackville-Baggins had been up to no good: Mr. Otho wouldn't be seeing the inside of Bag End, but Mistress Lobelia and Mr. Lotho would. She was, for the most part, sensible enough when it came to keeping her mouth shut, especially when it came to talking about her betters. Even her Dad had nothing good to say about the Sackville-Baggins: but then, her Dad wasn't one to open his mouth about his betters, whether he was speaking well of them, or not.
So, when Mr. Lotho and Lobelia came to own Bag End, Daisy knew that there was something foul afoot. When news came back from Buckland, that Mr. Frodo and his cousins - and her own dear brother, her Sam - had all gone missing, then it was more than just suspicion. She hadn't ever thought much of Mr. Lotho, but she certainly hadn't ever thought him capable of murder. But Mr. Frodo was gone, Mr. Merry and Master Pippin, too, and Sam, her dear brother Sam. It was too clear what had happened - so the gossip went about, in hushed murmurs. It wasn't long after they were all gone, bodies vanishing into thin air like some sort of old conjurer's trick, that Mr. Lotho started acting like he was too big for his britches.
It was just her, her and Marigold, looking after their Dad. Daisy had her own work, still, and Mr. Lotho had his hand in too much. She didn't think much of him, still, and what she did think wasn't any good at all. It was bad enough that he was acting like he had come to so much power: still, it wasn't til after Yule that he really started acting like he had too much power about, and what he did have was going to his head. Whatever rules Mr. Lotho was putting into act, it was a more difficult task to limit where and how she went about her day to day. She spoke with him, once, face to face: yes, there was only so much he could get away with, only so much he could limit with his Rules. She was a healer, a midwife, and she would go where she pleased; and maybe even Mr. Lotho knew that he couldn't keep her from going where she needed to go.
Yes, she had liked Mr. Bilbo, perhaps loved him in her own way: a dear old hobbit, with his own queer habits, but he had only ever treated her and her own family as dear as he might treat his own. And Mr. Frodo was very much like Mr. Bilbo, though he could be more quiet, more sincere. As Master of Bag End, one after the other, they had been masters of more than just land and coin. There had been kindness in their hearts.
All she thought that lived in Mr. Lotho Sackville-Baggins: well, it was only dirt and rot.
She heard of old Flourdumpling, and how Mr. Lotho had him thrown into the makeshift prisons - the Lockholes, that was the name of it. After that, she didn't hear so much as see: there were Men about, and the inns were shut down - the Ivy Bush, first, and then the Green Dragon. More and more, Mr. Lotho enforced his Rules: that is, he had his Men about, to do as he wanted. It wasn't right, not at all. And it was dangerous, more and more so. She had thought that she and Mr. Lotho had come to an accord, of sorts: that she was needed, about Hobbiton and Bywater, and Overhill at times, and he would let her about as she needed.
But his fellows didn't know that. One spring morning (a week or so after the twenty-fifth of Rethe, on the second of Astron, actually: she hadn't felt well at all, on the twenty-fifth, all through out the day, as if it was all too heavy, like she couldn't even breathe. But then, like new air in her lungs, there was light and hope again. And it did seem a strange thing, to feel such joy, when she couldn't see the end of the bleakness of their times), she was caught on the road: they took her basket from her and, with one standing at her back, kneeling, clutching both her arms in a bruising grip, questioned her thoroughly as to the location of her brothers: each of them, wherever they might be. There had been rebelling about - hobbits taking back what had been wrongly taken in the first - and while the Men didn't mention that this is what they were interested in knowing about, Daisy had wits enough to know that that was what they really were on about. She hadn't ever wanted to speak of Sam as dead, and for her Dad's sake, and for poor Marigold's, she hadn't ever done so: but she did say that one was in the Southfarthing, and the other in the Northfarthing: and she bit her tongue when she could have said that Mr. Lotho himself had seen to the other being dead, but instead she told them how her Sam had gone across the River, to Buckland: and he was likely there, still.
They laughed, and one of them called her 'little rabbit', and one of them had stroked her hair: and she held her tongue, and trembled, but didn't let the fear show in her eye. Then the other had laughed, told his friend to let her go. He even gave her back her basket, and almost as if it hadn't happened, he and his fellows were on their way.
'But I'll be seeing you again, little rabbit' - that was what he'd said, before he went away. Clutching her basket, she had hurried back to Number Three: when Marigold saw her, she knew that Daisy was upset. They sat in their room, Marigold clutching Daisy as if she was the elder, the proper one to give comfort. And Daisy, for the first time since her mother had passed, had wept, wept long and hard against her sister's shoulder. For her brother, for Mr. Frodo: for all that Mr. Lotho had wronged.
It was only spring, and the days were turning. Summer came, with the Men taking as they wanted: and all in Mr. Lotho's name. The one who called her 'little rabbit' - his name was Jack, and at times, he would sit outside Number Three, whittling with his long knife, making shapes out of wood. Jack, and the more she knew him, he didn't seem so terrible: but then, she remembered when the Smallhills had been run from their smial, when old Tolm Smallhill and his two eldest had been taken off to the west. Jack had been there, too, and he had been terrible, terrible. Daisy hated him, and she hated Mr. Lotho. Hated him, for Mr. Frodo's sake: for Mr. Merry and Master Pippin, mostly fine gentlehobbits that they were, and Master Pippin still so young: for her dear Sam, who was likely gone, and gone forever: for her brothers, and her sisters, and her Dad: for the hobbits he had wronged, and the ones he would continue to wrong.
Wedmath came, and Jack was gone. But there were other Men about, and they were getting restless. Marigold had, at least since late in Forelithe, been going up to Bag End and tending to the Sackville-Baggins - the cleaning and the cooking. Mr. Lotho even made a show of paying her. Then Wedmath came, and Marigold came back to Number Three, shaking, and with tears in her eyes. Marigold only said, 'Mr. Lotho', and when she did, she wouldn't meet Daisy's gaze.
Daisy, who had been taking an awful lot, who'd been frightened out of her wits far too often, in the last few months, could suddenly not take anymore. She took her sister in her arms, pressed a kiss against her cheek and, in a voice that did not shake, did not betray the emotions running hot through her blood, told Marigold that she wouldn't be working for the Sackville-Baggins anymore.
'Did he hurt you?' she said, afterwards. Marigold was shaking, like a leaf out in a storm.
'He - he didn't hurt me. But he did frighten me, an awful start.'
She thought she knew Marigold better than Marigold knew herself, and she couldn't divine the truth in her youngest sister's words. She looked at Marigold, and felt as if her heart was breaking - more than it had broken, when they'd all lost Sam - and then she kissed her sister on the cheek, once more, and told her that it was all well, then, all of it would be all right.
Then, Daisy herself went to Bag End.
II.
Mistress Lobelia was out - being one of the hobbits who could go about as she pleased, and go about unmolested, she often took walks about Hobbiton, and always with her umbrella. So, she was out, when Daisy came to Bag End: she knocked on the merry green door, and thought, if Mr. Frodo had been about, he wouldn't have allowed the paint to peel and crack.
The door opened, and there was Mr. Lotho. Daisy stood tall, lifted her chin, and looked him in the eye. 'I have come to tell you,' she said, 'that my sister, Marigold, will no longer be working for you. Sir.' That last, she only added as an afterthought.
Mr. Lotho only smiled at her, something dark and dangerous glinting in his eye. She felt something cold in her belly, something cold and hard, and she didn't let herself look away: not like she wanted to, at least.
'Now, now, now, Mistress Daisy. Your dear little sister has been such a... a help here, and not just for my mother. It would be a terrible thing if you kept her away. Now, if you are concerned with the coin that I've been giving to her...'
'It ain't that, and you know as well,' she said, and she gritted her teeth. She hated him, in that moment, more than she ever had before. If she hadn't been in control of her senses, she would have punched him herself: but she was almost certain what he would do to Marigold, then. 'I don't want you about her, or asking after her. She is, for one thing, far too young for one such as yourself.'
'Now, she's of age, Mistress Daisy; and that really is all that matters. Don't you think?'
She didn't know what to say, her tongue thick and heavy in her mouth. She faltered, and looked away from Mr. Lotho's dark gaze: she heard the creak of the door, and Mr. Lotho's laugh, as he stepped back, and pushed the door closed. But she looked up, then, struck out with her arm, hitting her palm against the wood, and keeping the door open. She looked Mr. Lotho in the eye, where he stood beyond the door, in the crack that was left open.
'Won't you invite me in, then, Mr. Lotho? I could make you up a pot of tea, and we could talk this out, right and proper.'
He smiled, slightly. She dropped her hand. He pulled the door open and, swinging his arm out in a wide and welcoming gesture, made as if to welcome her into his home.
Only, she wouldn't ever think that it was his home: and she had more control of the matter than what he might think. She held her head high, and walked into Bag End. The door shut behind her, a quiet, final click - and she felt Mr. Lotho's arm slide about her waist, felt Mr. Lotho's mouth warm against her cheek.
'Now then. What was it that you wanted, Mistress Daisy? Oh yes, oh yes.' He pressed his face against her curls, gripped her dress and tugged. 'You wanted to talk.'
She felt a cold sickness in her skin, but she stood tall. She took his hand, and the other, and she moved them both - and then she stepped away. Daisy turned, and faced Mr. Lotho, without the fear she knew that she should feel. 'You'll not be taking this, Mr. Lotho - it's mine to give. And when I have, you'll be leaving my Marigold alone. Do you hear me, Mr. Lotho, sir?'
His lips quirked in a quiet grin. And he nodded, which was more than what she thought he would. He said nothing more, and took her by the hand.
III.
Mr. Lotho's touch didn't burn her, not like Daisy thought it would: but his kiss did leave her cold. He had trouble with the laces of her bodice, knotting them up and making a full mess of them. Daisy swallowed her hate, her loathing, took his hands and pushed them away. She had steadier hands, still: she'd helped give life, and she could be steady when she needed to. Like know, as she made quick work of the knotted laces. Then, as he pushed it back, she somehow didn't shudder at the feel of his hands on her breasts. Touch, pressing, squeezing. His mouth on her skin, his hands pressing her back.
She hadn't ever seen Bag End's master bedroom before. But the bed was wide, and the ceiling seemed too wide. It wasn't Mr. Frodo's room, anymore. It wasn't Mr. Bilbo's, and hadn't been for a very long while. Gone, all of them gone, off into the Blue. Daisy held her breath, and shut her eyes. Mr. Lotho's breath ghosted over her skin, and while his touch didn't burn her, she was certain that he was squeezing too hard, pushing for too much. There would be bruises, she was well aware of that.
But her eyes were shut, and she didn't let herself think: not when Mr. Lotho put himself between her legs, when she felt his skin on hers. When he pushed into her, one and one. Her eyes snapped open, and she lost hold of her breath. His hair was a tousled mess, and he had his own eyes shut. He grunted, sweat glistening on his skin, and he moved, and she felt searing pain, and she felt her own shame, burning up in that fire. It was nothing, she found herself thinking, nothing more than the most basic of acts. She let Mr. Lotho have her body, but she let her mind drift miles and miles away.
When she came back, he was gone, and she was cold: he was on the bed still, spent and sleeping. If she had it in her, she could have ended for them all. She could have made certain that he never hurt another hobbit: that he wouldn't threaten another, like he had threatened her sister. That he wouldn't have any other hobbits thrown into the Lockholes, like so many others.
Instead, she got up, looking down at her naked skin and the mussed bedcovers, the smell of sex in the air, and on her bare flesh. And then she stood, and gathered up her clothes, and left the room.
She washed off, didn't scrub herself all over like she wanted to, just washed off like she needed to, before dressing. Then she left Bag End, and she didn't let herself cry: instead, as she walked down the Hill, she looked to the clouds, threw her arms out wide, and laughed at the sky.
IV.
She didn't tell Marigold, and that was well enough. She almost thought that Marigold must know, somehow. But then, Marigold knew her as well as she knew herself. If anyone would know, then it should be her Marigold, right? Even if there were things that she couldn't herself rightly tell.
V.
One day, like at the ending of a fairy story, or one of old Mr. Bilbo's elf stories, Mr. Frodo came back with the Blue, with his cousins, and her brother Sam, too. By then, Mr. Lotho was gone and, from the word about Hobbiton, he was good as dead. It didn't make Daisy feel better, but it didn't make her feel any worse. Daisy hadn't ever been very fond of stories, as they were too fanciful, and she liked to think that she was sensible, even for a Gamgee. No, she wasn't very fond of stories, whether they were fairy stories, or elf stories, or even the ones that her Dad was fond of telling, back when they'd all been much younger. But this one had brought her brother back to her, so she decided that, even if it was just a story, at least it had a very good end.