The night before, as the hours unwound, his mother had insisted they arrive right at midnight – at long last, all their waiting had ended, and Bag End would be theirs. But over tea, she considered the propriety of that: and conceded, though Lotho had not protested. But they waited, and went to Bag End at the crack of dawn, instead.

His mother was right: it was theirs, at long last. Lotho stood there at the open front door, the light of new day at his feet. He knew that things were changing, and clearly they were changing for the best.

She took stock of it all, but Frodo'd not shorted her, as far as she could tell. He had of course come to his end, and gone off at long last – gone back to his wretched Brandybucks in their wretched Buckland, and Bag End was now hers. Perhaps she took some pleasure in knowing she'd managed it, where her Otho had hoped but failed. It was not that she did not love him, or that he had not loved her, for they both had, in their own way: but perhaps he'd not have minded if their times had been reversed.

If he was any other hobbit, he might have felt that he was in over his head: but Lotho considered himself a businesshobbit before all else, and that was what this was, that was all that this was: a business arrangement, and he was in command. And that was the truth: the Men did as he said, and the hobbits of Hobbiton and Bywater feared him because of that, and just as they should. It was maddening, though, the power. It was the middle of the year, and Lotho at last had come into what had always been his due.

He wondered sometimes what the start of it had been: was it that dark fellow who had come, the night his Sam had gone? Or was it the wizard who'd followed after? No, it must have been Mr. Lotho's coming to the Hill, and his Men given the full run of the Shire. And Bagshot Row, dug up and ruined. But the Gaffer looked back further than that, to Mr. Frodo, who'd done the first wrong in a long year of wrongs: he'd sold Bag End.

Maybe all that meant was that Mr. Frodo'd have a hand in its end.

All of a sudden, things went out of hand. The Men took his mother away and threw her into the Lockholes at Michel Delving, and Lotho was still reeling from that shock when Sharkey and Worm came to Bag End. It was almost the end of September, almost a year to the day since Bag End had become his: and in that moment, Lotho lost everything he had gained: and he realised what a fool he had been.

Lotho had thought himself feared, and respected, but that was taken from him as well: and he was nothing, in the end.

Lotho went missing, and Ted thought him dead: and if he was, he wouldn't have been surprised. And he was dead, or gone off to the Lockholes at the least of it, and his benefactor, Mr. White, come now to the Shire. Well, if Mr. White was in need of another it, a hobbit to act as go-between, Ted was a hobbit who was still mostly in good standing...

Still, he hadn't thought to die like this, throat cut wide, life pouring out: and he hadn't ever thought that, in dying, he might keep Lotho from sharing his same fate.

It might have been days, it might have been weeks: Lotho was stuck inside and lost track of time, trapped in a room that was the deepest in all of Bag End. When darkness fell and he sat huddled, thinking that he would be murdered in the night. But when morning came, he woke, again and again, though then he lost tract of that as well. He had never been so frightened in his life, but he wasn't alone in Bag End: and if they wanted him dead, they wouldn't have to lurk about and do it in the night.

The Battle of Bywater was behind them, and Saruman was dead. Frodo worried after Lotho, even after all that he had wrought – but, Pippin thought, that was just as Frodo would think, though he himself found himself lacking in pity, at least here, and now, in knowing the end that Lotho might have met.

But Lotho was alive, though not well: if Pippin hadn't seen Frodo kneel and embrace him, faded, wasted, then Pippin wouldn't have thought that it could be.

'I'm sorry,' Lotho said, but Frodo wouldn't hear it. He helped Lotho stand, and did so on his own.

Frodo seemed like a shadow; but he was more solid than Lotho felt. Outside, the sunlight was bright, burning Lotho's eyes, and he might have given up, if not for Frodo and his support.

'They meant to murder me,' Lotho said, and then Frodo looked at him with pity in his eyes, and Lotho found himself thinking that perhaps it would have been best if they had; surely nothing could be more unbearable than the pity in Frodo's eyes.

He found out, later, that they had killed Ted, instead. Still, he only thought that Ted had taken Lotho's proper place.

He didn't think it so simple as just that, that his master had forgiven this rot of a hobbit: but, with Mr. Frodo being himself, and a far better hobbit than Sam Gamgee, it might just have been that.

The day was bright, the Shire half-ruined, and Mr. Lotho stood on weak legs, worn and thin: and he clung to Mr. Frodo, him and his pity, with what strength he could manage. It couldn't be much.

And that was it – Mr. Frodo was a better hobbit, simple as just that – and surely Mr. Merry and Master Pippin thought so, too.

They went to Bywater. Lotho sat outside a farmhouse there, under Pippin's careful watch: and Pippin at least did not look at him with and pity, great or small. Lotho was glad of that small favour.

Many things happened after that: Frodo and Merry and Sam came out from the farmhouse, and spoke to Pippin. Merry and Pippin would ride to Tuckborough and alert the Thain. And so they did, and as they went, a horn-cry split the air.

But Lotho was still being watched. Perhaps they thought he would up and run, though he hadn't any place to go.

He didn't want to trust Lotho to keep to himself. He didn't think it possible to forgive Lotho, though Frodo apparently had little trouble in doing that. 'He's better than all aught,' Sam had said, as if it were so simple. Merry couldn't help and think, maybe it was. Pippin, though, seemed unsettled: to come back to this, ruin and sorrow – he spoke of his father, and of riding home. But they hadn't yet gone to the Lockholes, and there was still work to be done.

Later, Lobelia leaned on Frodo, much as Lotho had, an almost more surprising thing.

Days later, once the Lockholes had been cleared, Pippin wondered aloud if they should lock Lotho in and then throw away the key. 'At least he wouldn't get up to any other mischief,' he said.

But Frodo shook his head. 'No matter how he's hated, I couldn't see a hobbit holding with that. No, we'll settle this some other way.'

Lotho had thought himself feared, and respected, but he hadn't ever consider that, that he was hated, as well: he was a prisoner now, just as he'd been before, though now it seemed more grievous, and him at Frodo's mercy.

She didn't want to forgive Lotho, didn't think that he could – and she found herself wondering, could she hold with Frodo, knowing that he had? She heard her Dad talking, with Frodo and his cousins – young Pippin, who didn't look young anymore, but tall and grim, Captain Peregrin – said they ought to lock Lotho up, and see how he liked it. From how Frodo looked at him, that couldn't have been the first he'd said such a thing.

Perhaps that was best. He was a snake, and a rot of a hobbit – Frodo, though, said, 'It won't come to that.'

He thought he still had Bag End. He knew his mother had been cast into the Lockholes, and he knew she had been amongst those who had been freed. But she didn't come for him, and he heard no word from her – perhaps she had died. He still had a heart, and it was breaking.

But Lotho learned it was worse than that.

His mother had returned to her relations in Hardbottle, as though she had not concerned herself with Lotho's own fate: and worst of all, was her signing Bag End back over to Frodo.

He was utterly alone.

She didn't like it, and she knew that Tom knew she didn't like it, either: not for all they'd seen, knowing all who'd suffered, and them having lost their own son, at least for some long months. Young Tom, though, had come back, and the stories he would tell one day would never sound grim, but cheerful instead: but Lily didn't like it, that hobbit, sleeping beneath her roof, a span of rooms away from them, from any of their sons, and from their Rose.

'Trust Mr. Frodo, Lily,' he said, kissing her. 'It seems pity is a binding thing.'

He would stay with Frodo, and as Frodo was staying with the Cottons at their farm in Bywater while Bag End was restored, Lotho would stay there as well. Lotho found himself thinking that perhaps it would have been best if he had died at Worm's hand, or if he had been banished from the Shire: either fate seemed almost preferable to how he now suffered.

He was living in the Shire still, hadn't been banished beyond the Bounds, and by nothing more than Frodo's charity. They were family, after all, though Lotho never had been fond of admitting it.

Tom seemed to understand: he held her, kissed her, and asked her how she'd fared. She didn't say, I think, once, he meant to force me – she didn't say, Daisy went to him, instead, made my place her own. She had kept that inside, long enough, and Marigold thought that she could bear it at least a short while longer: but her time with the Cottons had come to an end, for she could not bear it, beneath that same roof. She wondered how Tom could, or Rosie, or Mr. Frodo – or, even, her Sam.

Wondered how, but didn't ask.

Sam was often away, during the spring: so it happened that Lotho was there at Bag End, alone with Frodo, when Frodo fell ill on the 13th of March. Lotho tended him as best he could, and Lotho saw how Frodo had suffered: suffered still.

Perhaps it was not so unbearable, then, the kindness that, of late, Lotho had seen in Frodo's eyes. Likely, it had been there all along, though Lotho had never looked for it. He felt himself blessed, somehow. He was holding Frodo's hand.

'Don't tell Sam,' said Frodo, gasping.

'Don't worry, cousin,' said Lotho. 'I won't.'

He asked Marigold to marry him and she answered him, though only after giving it some thought, saying that she would. He was happy, happier than he had been in some long time, so he kissed her and spun her up off the ground, and then he kissed her once more, and then again.

They had that to look forward to, but also a long hard winter. Then, there came word of stores at the back of the Lockholes – and that made a happy Yule, all around, for otherwise, it would have been a very bare turning of a year.

Lotho wandered through Bag End like he was caught in a dream: it had been months since Frodo's return, and while they weren't trapped at the Cottons' farm any more, Lotho still felt as if he were under house arrest. Bag End wasn't his anymore, and perhaps that was for the best. Lotho knew he might have left, but there still wasn't anywhere to go: then Sam wed the Cotton lass, Rosie, and they came to live with Frodo at Bag End.

So Lotho retired himself to the depths of Bag End, haunted, and yet content to be a ghost.

His wife didn't wish to hold with it, their daughter living in Bag End, not with that hobbit, Lotho, of all people – and Tom didn't wish to hold with it, either, about the same as him not wishing to admit, out loud or to himself, that Lotho was a hobbit changed, or perhaps a villain diminished.

But their Rose was a lass full-grown, and she had followed her heart where it had led her – she loved Sam, after all, and had all along. Love would do that to a hobbit, and send you down roads you hadn't thought to tread.

The first sight of the child seemed to shock him from some long, cold dream: it had been a year, no, more than that, and Bag End was warm, alive, at least for where he haunted it, for he was a ghost still.

'She's beautiful,' he said, and they hadn't thought to hear him: he hadn't thought it possible, either, but that was what he said. Frodo looked at Sam, who looked at Rose – Rose, as if letting go of some long bitterness, nodded, and Sam handed the child to Frodo.

'Come meet Elanor, Lotho,' Frodo said, and Lotho did.

They would sit sometimes, talking, of nothing and of everything: for there were long years that stretched behind, with no good intent given, not from either side. But Lotho asked him, also, of his task, and of his pain, and of those secrets that he kept from Sam. 'He deserves better, you must understand – he was my strength, when I had nothing left. I would not have him walk again in my darkness. I would rather let him live his days in light.'

And Lotho said, 'I don't fully understand.'

'There's more I might tell you, then,' and Frodo did.