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Bilbo sleeps and in every breath he takes, Thorin is assured that he is yet with them, for another day, another hour, another minute - warm and alive. 

The King Under the Mountain absently pushes back a stray chestnut curl away from the hobbit’s brow.  He remembers how soft those curls are, that they always smelled faintly of apples and that Bilbo always ended up giggling when Thorin would pull him close and bury his nose in them.  And how Thorin cherished the sound of his hobbit’s laughter.  He’d known he was well and truly caught when he found himself devising ways to coax more of these from his hobbit.  He’d been as daft and as silly as a dwarfling coming into his first beard and Thorin had not cared, not one bit, not as long as he could bring his beloved joy.

If Thorin had remembered to value all of that Bilbo had held dear - food and cheer and song and the love of kith and kin - above hoarded gold and that thrice-cursed rock - perhaps his world right now would have been merrier indeed.

The mithril armor had protected Bilbo from the worst of it.  Had Bilbo not worn it, his flesh would have been shredded beyond even what magic an Elf or a Wizard could repair.  For Bilbo’s life alone, that armor was worth more than the price of the Shire and Erebor combined.

As for the matter of their child, mithril is not magic after all.  And Thorin knows full well that the fault lies with him.  His foolishness had cost them this, a price that was already far too dear to pay.

He is certain that Bilbo had no knowledge of the child that was beginning to grow within him.  Bilbo had been convinced that it was merely the remnants of the illness he contracted when they had escaped Thranduil’s halls by riding down the river in barrels - that it was the cold and the wet and the sheer exhaustion of the days Bilbo had spent sneaking about the Elven-King’s halls.

And even if Bilbo had known or somehow suspected, Thorin had already forced upon him impossible, bitter choices - decisions he should never have been pushed to make.  Thorin had failed him, in that moment and he’d never hated himself more.

Fili is alive, though he too had been close to death and Kili escaped with minor injuries, watching over his older brother now with the same fierce devotion and protectiveness that Fili had displayed towards his younger sibling all their lives.  And while Fili slept in the blessed rest of one expected to heal and recover fully from his wounds, it was Kili who took in Thorin’s pale, haggard and weary countenance with the same sharp, assessing look he’d seen so often on their mother.  His sister-son had gently butted their heads together, affection and forgiveness all in that one gesture and whispered, “Go to him, Uncle.  I’ll look after Fili.” 

And so Thorin spends his every free moment at Bilbo’s side, though Dwalin had to bodily remove him at one point to ensure that Oin could look over his own wounds and treat them.  And when Thorin could not be there, then one of the Company is, because without any further discussion, all of them had already agreed that they would not leave their hobbit alone.  Not again. 

Bilbo sleeps and it is an enchanted sleep, because even after they had stopped the bleeding from the miscarriage and tended the worst of the wounds he had sustained, trying to save Thorin and his sister-sons from Azog and his foul orcs, he had nearly slipped away.  Heartsick and broken, Bilbo had gone into battle still determined to protect Thorin in whatever way he could. 

Bilbo had gone into battle already believing that he had nothing left to lose. 

“I have called his spirit back as best I can, Thorin Oakenshield,” Gandalf had told him.  “But hobbits are stubborn and he is a Took and Baggins both and if there was ever two clans in all of the Shire so well matched in their pertinacious ways, it would be the Tooks and the Bagginses.  If you wish your burglar restored to you, you must guide him the rest of the way!”

“Should I simply kiss him awake then?” Thorin had snapped and when the words had left him, he’d wished he could take them back.  It seemed that there was no end to his own foolishness.  He ought to shave off his beard already and have done with it - he was already shamed enough as it is and Thorin knew full well he deserved it. 

And then, the old Wizard’s eyes turned unexpectedly kind.  “So, Bilbo has told you that story, did he?” 

And Thorin knows what story Gandalf is talking about.  Bilbo is fond of telling stories and he is uncommonly good at spinning tales.  It was the one about his Took ancestor and his fairy spouse and how they outwitted a sorcerer in Morgoth’s service.  This sorcerer was one who took the form of the King of Cats and how said King of Cats had cursed the fairy into an enchanted sleep.  True love’s kiss had broken the curse of course and a happily ever after ending and Thorin had kissed his hobbit then in turn.

If only a simple kiss could be the answer to everything.

“My dear Dwarf, if you think that it was the kiss that broke the spell, you have missed the point entirely,” Gandalf chided gently, either somehow reading Thorin’s thoughts or Thorin had now taken to speaking them aloud.  “Of course the story sounds ever so much better that way but that’s how stories are and the reality is quite different.  I ought to know - I was a witness to that whole ridiculous business.  Cats everywhere are still indebted to the Took clan for freeing them from that insufferable sorcerer Tevildo… ”

Thorin’s wits have not left him entirely, thank Mahal, and finally, what the Wizard has been trying to tell him sinks in. 

Thorin spends the time he has with Bilbo speaking softly to his sleeping hobbit.  He tells him how sorry he is, of his own deep grief and his regret.  He tells him of his hopes and his wishes, though he is aware that they are most likely beyond his reach.  Bilbo at his side, as his Consort,  his One - his counsel and his help valued and respected. 

Thorin finds that he cannot speak of children. 

And at other times, despite his voice breaking and his eyes burning with tears he refused to let fall, Thorin would tell Bilbo that he was always ever free to go back to his Shire, home to Bag End, with all the honor and friendship of Erebor. 

Thorin knows he is possessive and he is greedy still, though it is now Bilbo’s affection and forgiveness, unworthy though he is of both, that he craves.  But he knows that for Bilbo’s sake, he can let his hobbit go, in peace, if that is what Bilbo wanted. 

And in the end, because Thorin is a Dwarf after all, and Dwarves prize the crafts that they have mastered, Thorin turns to his own skills.  Music is one of them, though it has been a long time since he has sung anything but the dirges and laments for lost Erebor.  He sings softly, tenderly, laying bare both heart and soul in his song, a song meant for Bilbo and Bilbo alone. 

And when Thorin is done, he presses soft kisses into the palm of his hobbit’s hand and if his cheeks are suspiciously wet now, well, Thorin no longer cares.  At least until that neat fingered little hand, so skilled now at a burglar’s trade, is joined by its twin, brushing away Thorin’s tears.

Bilbo is awake at last and he calls Thorin by his name and amazingly, pairs it with an endearment.

It is not yet the end - things cannot simply be resolved by kisses and a love song, no matter how fair and sweet and true. 

It is a beginning. 

- end for now -