Work Text:
Thorin had been worried about Bilbo for a while now. It was little more than a year since they had reclaimed Erebor, and in all that time there had been no talk on the matter of Bilbo and on whether his stay with Thorin and his dwarves was definite or indefinite.
The wizard - ever the wanderer - had left some time ago, but Thorin couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t return one day and offer himself as a travelling companion to Bilbo on his way back to his beloved Shire.
Yes, Thorin was indeed worried.
And that worry had only been elevated over the last few days after he had noticed some of Bilbo’s peculiar behaviour.
Thorin had come to a standstill in the entrance to one of the common rooms, the one where most of the company spent their evenings, at the sight of Bilbo walking slowly along the farthest wall. As Thorin watched, Bilbo’s hand ran along the stony walls, his gaze jumping from one corner of the room to another. Then he frowned, tapping his foot as he stared at the floor.
As Thorin watched this odd behaviour, he felt as if Bilbo was in the midst of comparing the cold reality of Thorin’s home against his own warm memories of Bag End.
‘Bilbo?’ Thorin took one halting step into the room.
It was only because he was looking that he noticed a small jerk in Bilbo’s upper back at the sudden sound. ‘Thorin.’ Bilbo took a breath before turning with a smile. ‘You startled me.’
‘Were your thoughts off wandering far away?’ Thorin asked as he walked closer, trying to ignore the drag of his boots on the bare stone floor. The mountain may have been restored to a functioning kingdom by now, but it still lacked some of its earlier splendour. The reassembled guilds had been working hard, but even dwarven weavers needed more than a year to soften the rough edges of Thorin’s kingdom.
‘Something like that.’ Bilbo threw one last glance at a window to the outside. ‘I have a lot on my mind.’
Something cold settled into Thorin’s middle. ‘Oh?’ He cleared his throat. ‘I am sorry to hear that.’
‘Don’t be!’ Bilbo waved a hand in front of him. ‘It is nothing so very terrible. Just a conundrum that I’m trying to solve.’
Thorin attempted a small smile. ‘I thought you would delight in any kind of riddle?’
‘Ah, but the lovely thing about riddles is that they always have satisfactory answers.’ Bilbo shifted his weight from his heels to his toes. ‘I’m not so sure this one has.’
Not satisfactory for whom?, Thorin thought as he watched Bilbo leave the room, For you? Or me?
And then there was the conversation Thorin had had with Dori.
‘In the general supply room?’
‘Yes.’ Dori nodded. ‘All alone well after the bell had rung for the evening meal. And you wouldn’t think Bilbo would be late for any kind of meal, would you?’
Thorin frowned. ‘What was he doing?’
‘When I first came in, he was holding up one of the rolled up strings, testing the strength of it with his fingers, it seemed. Then he went to a pile of papers, rifling through them.’
Packages for a long journey, Thorin thought before nodding impatiently. ‘And then?’
‘And then he spotted me standing there,’ Dori said, ‘and almost leapt away from the shelf with a definite guilty expression,’ he finished with a firm nod.
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Not really. He just gave me that polite smile – you know the one? – and asked if I had come to escort him to dinner.’
Thorin pressed his lips together, whitening the skin around them. ‘Thank you, Dori.’
‘I just thought you should know that Bilbo seems to be missing something. And surely he knows that all he needs to do is ask, since you are willing to give him anything in the wor--’
‘Yes, thank you, Dori,’ Thorin said, already certain that he knew what Bilbo was missing. And it wasn’t to be found in an Erebor supply room.
And then Bofur came to him with more unsettling news of Bilbo.
‘Every day?’ Thorin asked, ignoring the cold sensation running down his back.
Bofur paused in cleaning out the head of his pipe. ‘Uh huh. For the last week or so. Don’t rightly know what he’s looking for, but there he goes; following the path from the main entrance towards Ravenhill, his nose in the ground all the way. I could almost hear his bones creaking from the all the thinking he was doing.’
He’s plotting out a path heading West, Thorin thought as he sat down heavily after Bofur had left his side in the great hall for more entertaining company. First it’s Ravenhill, then Mirkwood, then over the Misty Mountains, through Rivendell and then… And then there would half a world between them.
But maybe that is how Bilbo would prefer it. Because how could Thorin ever expect anyone to stay with him after what he had done.
His friends had tried to counsel him, saying that it was the sickness and not Thorin which had isolated him from his kin. That it was the sickness which had lead them to a senseless war.
That it was the sickness which had…grabbed hold of Bilbo’s neck and… Even though he was sitting down, Thorin felt light-headed, breathing deeply to bring some blood back into his chilly cheeks. He remembered waking up in that sunlit tent after the battle and seeing Bilbo sleeping with his head resting against the edge of Thorin’s sickbed. Everything had felt bright in the moment: the laughter of the company from outside, the sun picking out highlights in Bilbo’s hair, even Thorin’s mind had finally cleared.
It was only when Bilbo shifted in his sleep, his head tilting sideways, that Thorin saw it: Four bruises on one side of his neck, one on the other, deep purple in the middle and fading into a sickening green at the edges. These were not the work of orcs’ or goblins’ hands. There were no puncture wounds from sharpened nails, no smudges of cave filth. They were the work of plain, blunt dwarf hands, and Thorin was sure that Bilbo had bruises on his back to match them.
Thorin still squeezed his eyes shut when he thought back to the evidence of violence and betrayal he had left on Bilbo’s body. And that was why he could only wait and watch until Bilbo decided what he wanted to do. Anything else, any pleading, any cajoling, would be an act of deplorable force on Thorin’s side.
But that still didn’t stop him from seeking out any morsel of information on Bilbo’s movements that he could get his hands on.
He needed to be ready for the day of Bilbo’s departure.
A couple of days later, a quiet morning transformed into an uneasy afternoon as a strong wind picked up from the south, bringing with it the first snow of the season. The snowflakes hurled themselves past the windows as the dwarves of Erebor hurriedly shut and barricaded them against the coming storm. The snow drifted quickly against the base of the mountain, the heavy piles reaching upwards towards the doors. If the winds continued like this, Erebor would soon be shut off from the outside world.
Thorin took one final look out of his window before shutting it securely against the ever-rising storm. He barely had time to ponder the consequences of this sudden change in the weather before the door to his rooms opened.
‘Thorin.’ Dwalin strode in, his ever-present armour clanking as he came to a stop. ‘Have you seen Bilbo any time after lunch?’
Thorin blinked, not expecting such an abrupt question. ‘Today? No.’
Dwalin blew out a breath through his nose, almost sounding like an angry bull. ‘The guards on duty at the entrance have reported that they saw Bilbo heading in a southerly direction this morning.’ He held eye contact with Thorin. ‘Towards Ravenhill.’
Thorin swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. ‘And?’
‘And I questioned the afternoon guards when they headed inside, shutting the door on the storm as they did, if they had seen Bilbo returning…’ Dwalin squared his shoulders against Thorin’s reaction. ‘They had not.’
‘B-but you know how quick and nimble Bilbo can be, Dwalin,’ Thorin said, ignoring the increasing shakiness of his voice. ‘Perhaps he slipped past your guards?’
‘I’ve had them search the mountain. His room, the library, the kitchens – his usual haunts. He is nowhere to be found.’ Dwalin raised his head. ‘Finally, I came to your room. And if you too haven’t seen him…’
Thorin’s hand shot out, grabbing hold of Dwalin’s sturdy shoulder to keep him from falling. ‘You mean – he’s out there?!’ He gestured back the window, the groaning shutters barely keeping the storm at bay. ‘He’s alone out there?!’ Something strangled his voice and squeezed his chest painfully.
Dwalin kept still as Thorin’s fingers dug into his shoulder. ‘Yes.’
Thorin’s mind flooded, everything was muddled and unclear until one single thought emerged above the stream.
Bilbo left.
‘I have to find him,’ he said, pushing away from Dwalin and heading towards the door. ‘I have to– not stop him but keep him safe until--’
‘Thorin--’
‘He’s out in that storm, Dwalin! I have to go after him.’
‘And I’m not stopping you! But you’re not going alone; you’d get lost in brambleberry bush, let alone in a snowstorm.’ He strode ahead of Thorin to open the door. ‘I already have supplies ready for the two of us.’
Thorin nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
The air by the door leading outside was icy cold, preparing Thorin and Dwalin for what was waiting for them as they wound thick woollen scarves around their heads and necks.
They pressed through the door, straining against the wind pushing back at them, before finally reaching the outside of the mountain. The deafening sound of the wind drowned out the sound of the heavy door being pulled shut behind them. All around them was white – a harsh, glaring white that covered everything in sight.
‘Thorin!’
Thorin felt a hand grab hold of his belt, coiling a thick rope around it and securing it with a tight knot. He followed the rope to Dwalin’s belt where it was also expertly tied.
Dwalin shouted through the howling wind. ‘So I won’t lose you!’
‘Or I you!’ Thorin shouted back. ‘South to Ravenhill?’
‘I’ll lead!’ Dwalin pulled up his scarf around his mouth and bent his head down to his chest, moving slowly forward against the wind.
Thorin tugged his head down as well and followed, keeping his eyes on Dwalin’s heavy boots in front of him. It was a slow trek, the snow already reaching their knees and making every step forward a sluggish slog. Thorin squinted against the freezing wind as he searched the ground for any sign of Bilbo having passed through here. But any hobbit-sized footprints had long since been drifted over. There was nothing to be seen in the vast blanket of snow.
‘Do you see anything?’ he shouted to Dwalin, raising his head just enough to catch sight of the icy ends of Dwalin’s bristly hair sticking out from under his scarf.
‘No!’ Dwalin’s voice carried back to him, scratchier than before.
They trudged on. In that deafening and blinding whiteness, Thorin lost all track of time and space. The winds howled past his ears. The snow pained his eyes. The whole world fell away from him, leaving Thorin to focus on nothing but moving forward towards Ravenhill. If Bilbo had sought shelter anywhere, it would be there. Unless…Thorin chanced a short look over the indefinable, monochrome landscape around them – unless he had been caught in the middle of the storm out here, losing his sense of direction before the snow and the cold finally overtook him, falling to his knees all alone in this overwhelming whiteness.
Thorin hadn’t realised how close he had come to standing still until he felt a pull around his waist as Dwalin continued onwards, ignorant of Thorin’s dark thoughts. His breath grew quicker against his scarf as he pushed himself to go faster, trawling his hands through any nearby snowdrifts, anxiously looking out for hints of a frozen cloak or a lifeless hobbit foot.
They kept going forward.
Dwalin finally turned back to Thorin. ‘The winds are calming.’
Thorin chanced another look upwards, feeling the muscles in his neck and face relax as he could now stand to look straight ahead without being blinded by a flurry of snow. He looked around, trying to make sense of his surroundings.
Dwalin did as well. ‘Are we even on the right track?’
Thorin looked up to where the grey skies had started to part. He narrowed his eyes until he could make something out. ‘There! The top of Ravenhill! We’re close now, Dwalin,’ he said, hurrying past the other, ploughing through the snow as fast as he could.
At the bottom of the tower, on the eastern side, was a grove of pine trees, clustered close around a small glade. Thorin pushed through the outer border of trees, feeling like he could finally breathe properly for the first time since leaving the mountain. The evergreen foliage offered some protection from the wind and snow, which was no longer knocking the breath from Thorin’s lungs.
Dwalin came up behind him. ‘Do you think he might be here?’
Thorin turned in a half-circle where he stood, taking in his surroundings. Green and white and brown, but no blues or reds, no sign of Bilbo’s proper clothes, the ones Thorin had had the tailor’s guild make for him.
‘He couldn’t have gone further, surely? Not in this storm.’
Dwalin frowned. ‘What reason would Bilbo have for going further? No, it’s more likely that he will have attempted to turn back towards Erebor when the storm first hit.’
Though Thorin’s cheeks were still burning from the recent onslaught of snow, he felt his face turn cold as he thought back to the disorienting and desolate plain they had just crossed. He couldn’t bear the thought of Bilbo lost out there.
‘Don’t…’ His voice faltered as he turned away from Dwalin, making another effort to search the glade.
The rope grew taught between them as Dwalin stood his ground. ‘Don’t? Don’t what? Don’t make you think about it? Don’t make you realise that you might have lost him? Don’t make you face that loss? Don’t make you admit that you lo--’
‘Don’t!’ Thorin turned sharply, fixing Dwalin with a glare.
They stood like that for a moment, the snow falling ever more slowly around them, Thorin’s harsh breath the only sound in the secluded glade.
Until there was another sound. The sound of snuffling and scrabbling came from the bottom of a fallen tree. Snow was being dislodged from within the canopy of the treetop which had spread out against the forest floor. A hand shot out, lifting the thick branches before the rest of the small body squeezed out, rolling once over the ground before scrambling up on his feet in front of the dumbfounded dwarves.
‘Ah,’ Bilbo said, brushing snow from the front of his cloak, ‘I thought I heard voices.’
‘Bilbo!’ Thorin heard himself saying, his body almost sagging with relief. ‘We thought--’ He shook his head in amazement. ‘What happened to you?’
‘Well, what was supposed to be a simple day trip turned out to be quite the adventure.’ Bilbo laughed shortly, still carefully brushing his clothes. Even from where Thorin was standing, he could see how his hands shook and not just with the cold.
Dwalin walked closer, the rope bringing Thorin with him, and crouched down to inspect the hollow where Bilbo had been hiding. He reached in with one hand and felt the layer of pine tree branches that Bilbo had put down to keep his body away from the cold ground. ‘Well, it seems that Beorn was right,’ he said, looking up at Bilbo. ‘You’re quite the little bunny, indeed. Who taught you to burrow away like that?’
‘My parents. After all, this isn’t the only part of Middle-earth to experience unforeseen snowstorms.’
Thorin stood next to them, simply watching Bilbo as he put himself in order. As Bilbo bent slightly over to brush the melting snow from his hair, Thorin couldn’t stop himself from murmuring, ‘I thought you had gone.’
Bilbo’s hand stopped on the top of his head and slowly fell to his side. He finally looked up at Thorin with a slightly bewildered smile. ‘Where would I go?’
The question was so simple, so heartbreakingly easy that Thorin couldn’t find the courage to burden Bilbo with his many fears. ‘I-I don’t know. We went to look for you when you hadn’t returned when the weather changed and--’
‘Wait.’ Bilbo held up one hand. ‘You mean to tell me that you walked through the storm? All the way from Erebor? To find me?’
Dwalin had come back up from the fallen tree. ‘Yes, yes and yes,’ he said.
Bilbo shook his head. ‘Have you lost absolutely all sense and reason?’ He kept his gaze fastened on Thorin. ‘You could have been killed by that storm! You-you could have lost your way and died of cold, of hunger, of thirst.’ His eyes widened. ‘Only an utter fool would venture out in a storm like this!’
‘Well, we had to go because of some other fool who had gone out into this storm!’ Thorin moved closer to Bilbo, feeling the rope in his belt tightening.
‘It was a perfectly lovely day when I left!’
‘That doesn’t mean the storm couldn’t have killed you!’
‘But it didn’t! And as you can see,’ Bilbo gestured roughly to the fallen tree behind him, ‘I can take care of myself!’
‘I know you can!’
‘Then why risk your life?!’
‘I already said! Because I thought you’d left me!’
‘I--’ Bilbo stopped short, his mouth open as he stared at Thorin. ‘I wouldn’t leave you.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’ Thorin looked down at his feet, studying the deep indentations where his boots had sunk into the snow.
Bilbo pressed his lips together in clear annoyance. ‘It’s too cold to be standing still like this,’ he said, glancing away from Thorin.
Thorin sighed and turned around to follow the length of the rope. ‘Dwalin?’
Dwalin glanced shortly between them, taking note of their tense and tired bodies before he began to lead them back out of the grove. He pressed a small bag into Bilbo’s arms as he passed him. ‘You forgot this in your burrow, bunny.’
Bilbo nodded distractedly and grabbed hold of the bag, his eyes never leaving Thorin as they made their way out into the open plain.
The winds had calmed even more by now as they walked back to Erebor in silence, Dwalin at the front and Thorin at the back, the rope between them swinging next to where Bilbo walked. Thorin studied the back of Bilbo’s head as they walked, thinking that he could almost see the whirring thoughts and imaginary conversations being acted out inside that skull.
Bilbo suddenly slowed his step, falling back until they walked side by side.
‘Can I ask you, Thorin,’ Bilbo said with an affected lightness of tone, ‘which day did you think I first wanted to leave you? When I found you close to death on top of that,’ he threw his arm back in the direction of Ravenhill, ‘and promised you that you were going to live?’
‘I--,’ Thorin began.
‘Or maybe it was one of the days where I never left your sickbed; sleeping and eating next to it for fear that I would miss the moment your eyes opened again? Or was it any of the days during the last year where I worked with your kin to restore your kingdom? Did you think I secretly wanted to leave you then?’ Bilbo was speaking louder now. ‘Or was it the day when you gave me my new room in Erebor? Was it the day when I first met your sister? Was it--’
‘Or was it,’ Thorin interrupted, ‘was it the day where I grabbed you by the throat and threatened to kill you? Or maybe it was the day after, when the bruises first appeared?’
Bilbo let out a slow breath as he pondered Thorin’s interruption for a few paces. As they walked, he let his steps draw him closer to Thorin, their arms almost touching. ‘I can tell you what day it definitely wasn’t. The day when you sank down to your knees in front of me, your body still stiff from your wounds, and begged me to forgive you. That was the day when I knew that the Thorin I had come to know through all of the days of our quest had not disappeared into the sickness. That was the day I knew you had returned to us – to me.’ He looked up into Thorin’s eyes. ‘And that is why I could never leave you.’ His hand swung close to Thorin’s. ‘Not when I already lost you once.’
‘I—’ Thorin felt the warmth of that sincere gaze. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You don’t have say anything.’ Bilbo gathered his cloak closer around him, his small bag dangling in front of his chest as he did. ‘But do me a favour and throw away any idea of me leaving.’
Thorin glanced at the bag. ‘But if you’re not leaving, what compelled you to walk all the way to Ravenhill on your own today?’
‘It was meant to be a surprise.’ Bilbo sighed. ‘But I suppose I owe you an explanation. Here,’ he said, opening the drawstring to his bag and pulling out its contents. ‘Ravenhill was the closest place to the mountain where I could find them.’
Thorin looked down at Bilbo’s hand. ‘Pine branches…?’
Bilbo nodded. ‘And firs. And I was even able to find a small bunch of holly.’
Thorin hummed. ‘And you need these for…?’
‘For the common room.’ Bilbo saw Thorin’s uncomprehending face and carried on. ‘For the decorations.’ He raised one eyebrow. ‘You don’t use winter decorations?’
‘Not using tree branches, no.’
‘Well, I do,’ Bilbo said, as he carefully packed the branches back in his bag. ‘I’ve always liked the evergreens, liked their sturdiness. And decorating with them in the dead of the winter just makes sense to me. It’s almost like they keep the promise of life in the middle of all of this.’ He gestured to the still, snowy landscape surrounding them before looking up at Thorin. ‘You know?’
Thorin looked down at the small pine needles disappearing into Bilbo’s bag, their dark green the only colour in this sea of whiteness. And everything was suddenly clear to him. In that little bag was Bilbo’s promise. A promise to return to Erebor with Thorin, a promise to add some colour to the still stark chambers of Thorin’s home, a promise to share his traditions with Thorin and his kin.
A promise to stay.
Though there was no strong wind to force him nor icy snow to compel him, Thorin still tucked his face down to his chest, his smile growing bigger as a warmth spread through him which didn’t come from his fur cloak or from his slogging march through knee-high snow. And his heart and his mind beat with one solitary thought.
Bilbo was staying.