Archive of Our Own ^beta

13 months after the Battle of the Five Armies

“I was thinking,” Bilbo began, his voice low, perhaps a little hesitant. It caught Thorin’s attention immediately – or at least would have done, had his attention not always been focused on Bilbo at the best of times. As it happened, he found himself struggling not to pay singular and perhaps far too detailed attention to just about anything that Bilbo did or said.

Occasionally it made things a little awkward, particularly when Balin was trying to explain something important to him.

Right now it seemed particularly hard not to focus on anything other than Bilbo, lit as he was by a dying sunset, hands clenched into fists on the stone parapet, an expression of particular focus on his face.

He had come across Bilbo quite by accident, after Dis had finally shooed him from the small court and the rather detailed planning for the Yule feast in which they had all been enlisted, now only a couple of weeks away, sending him back to his rooms. He had been a little at a loss for what to do in the free hour that she insisted that he took before dinner. On those days in which he was forced to have this dreadful thing known as free time, he normally attempted to track down company somewhere along the winding and circuitous route that he took back towards his rooms.

Normally, he was successful.

From time to time Dwalin would track him down and drag him away to ‘keep his royal arse fit enough for all the sitting on that throne’ – Dwalin’s words, of course. On occasion it would be another member of the Company, perhaps Ori come to show Thorin his most recent sketches of their quest, or maybe Bofur, recently having acquired a new pipeweed from the market (some of the Lords might turn up their noses at his former Company having such free access to the royal quarters, but it was a new world now, as he often was forced to remind them). Sometimes it would be the boys, released from their own duties by their mother, both of them looking so much older now, Kili still limping on the colder days from the injury taken to his leg in the battle, Fili’s frown etched deeper in his brow with every passing week. Despite all that he had done, the two of them had still held on to that last spark of youthful brightness – just a few moments after their crowns were flung on the table in their rooms, they were their old selves again, full enough of good humour even to share with their Uncle.

But more often than not he found himself with Bilbo, perhaps after having come across him accidentally, in the library, or padding through the corridors, on his way from one thing or another, always it seemed in the right place for Thorin to find him. And there was nothing in that that he would find himself complaining of, either – in fact, if he were to be honest with himself, there was little else that he would want to do more.

Today, however, he had not discovered Bilbo, or indeed anyone: he had almost reached the door of his rooms without finding friend or kin to distract him – it had only been when he had caught sight of the doorway to the royal terrace, the latch open, that he had had an inkling of where the lone Hobbit under the Mountain may have disappeared to.

Bilbo had spent a lot of time on this terrace in the year since the Mountain had been reclaimed, pottering around the place, trying to find things that would grow in the sheltered alcove on the cold slopes, little fired terracotta pots littering the cracked stone flags of what had once been a pleasant viewing spot for the royal family. He’d cleaned it up in the spring, once that first winter had passed by, pulling the weeds out of the cracks and scrubbing the stone until his knuckles were cracking and his palms were blistered, and Thorin had to admit that he had made something quite impressive out of what had once simply been rubble and ruin.

When Thorin stepped through the old, creaking doors (he’d been meaning to have them replaced as a gift for Bilbo’s birthday a few months previously, before learning that Hobbits apparently insisted on giving presents, rather than receiving them, even if they were in a kingdom full of Dwarves half a world away from the Shire) he’d seen Bilbo quickly in all the dim light that was left from the fading red-gold of the sunset that he must have missed by only a few minutes. Bilbo clearly hadn’t, though, propped up against the shallow wall, his eyes far away, on the horizon.

Thorin hadn’t said anything to announce his presence, had just gone to stand beside Bilbo, who had offered him a small, half-smile from across his shoulder, his face caught for a moment in strange planes of shadow, caught with the gold of the last rays of sun.

Moments like these were ones of peace, a strange peace that he had learnt to feel deeply grateful for.

He hadn't known it since he was a child, after all, since before they had lost Erebor.

“I was thinking,” Bilbo repeated, his voice comforting and familiar. “That after the celebrations, in a month or so, once the roads begin to clear of snow again, that I should begin to make my move.”

“Your move?” Thorin asked, blinking a little in confusion. “What move?”

“Back home, of course,” Bilbo replied, forehead drawing together in something of a frown. “It is high time I made my way back, you know. No doubt I won’t have a single family member convinced I am still living at the rate I am going!”

Thorin didn't have much to say to that: Bilbo shot him peculiar looks out of the corner of his eye for a time until they had heard Dis’ call for supper, and wandered back inside the Mountain, away from the chill of the winter night. Indeed, if Bilbo hadn’t been used to long silences from Thorin he might have thought that there had been something wrong.

Which, indeed, there was.

For you see, it was not as simple as it might have appeared to anyone else – or at least, to anyone who was not paying all that much attention to the King Under the Mountain and Erebor’s resident Hobbit-Burglar. Mr Baggins had joined the quest to reclaim Erebor, leaving his home and his life to help them, and of course Thorin would never dream of forcing him to remain, just as he would never have dreamed of keeping any of the Company when they had family and loved ones back home. Bilbo had been an integral key in the reclaiming of the kingdom, and everyone knew it: in fact, Thorin was not convinced that they would all be alive and well and safe within their home without their burglar. He deserved any prize that Thorin could have offered, if only he would have taken it – certainly going back to his own comfortable life was a small trophy.

And he supposed that he should have thought that Bilbo, at some point, would want to leave, would want to go back to the Shire. But, well, after the battle he had made no indication that he wanted to, and Thorin... he supposed he had let himself forget that there was even a possibility of Bilbo leaving.

But the thing was, well.

Thorin wasn’t quite sure that things would be the same once Bilbo had left.

And not just because he had become more than just a comrade, but a friend, as well. Not because he owed so much more than his life to Bilbo that he had planned on spending the rest of his years attempting to make amends, to make up for everything, to give Bilbo all that he could in every way. And not even just because he had become so much a part of his life during and after the quest that Thorin couldn’t imagine going a day without seeing him.

Because, well, somewhere along the line he had fallen rather hopelessly and irrevocably in love with Bilbo.

The problem was, Bilbo did not know.

So, shock had taken the best of Thorin’s abilities to speak away from him that evening: the two of them joined the rest of their Company and Thorin’s kin at the weekly meal that they all ate together, familiar faces settling down around the large table in the royal quarters. It was simple enough fare, still – a year was not enough time to rebuild a Kingdom enough to allow for lavish three course banquets at every meal – but hearty, and normally these evenings were full of good cheer, and plenty of ale shipped across from Dale.  As they all began to eat Thorin remained silent, glaring down the length of the table to the wall at the far end of the room, mind not so much racing but remaining completely blank. He did not know what to say - did not even know what to think.

He’d never told Bilbo that he loved him – and he had wanted to, he truly had. But in all truth, Thorin lacked the courage to do so.

Fighting a dragon, reclaiming a homeland, leading his people – it was easier enough to decide to do something when you were doing it for others, easy enough when you had nothing to lose. But Bilbo – well, with Bilbo he did have everything to lose. His company, his conversation, his friendship. And until he had a reason to believe that Bilbo might feel the same way, he was not certain that he would ever bring himself to say anything.

Dis kicked his knee, under the table, bringing him back to the conversation. It seemed that Bilbo had broken his news to the rest of the group, too. It wasn’t really necessary for Thorin to have heard the conversation to understand that: it was evident enough in the sudden tension in the room, the silence, the thunderous look on Dwalin’s expression, the fact that Kili looked like he was about to throw the table across the room.

In a way, it was almost satisfying to know that at least he hadn’t been the only one that hadn’t known about Bilbo’s plans.

“Well, it will be good to get back, I think,” Bilbo was saying, apparently oblivious to the fact that most of the eyes around the table were now fixed on him: the ones that were not seemed to be glaring at Thorin. “I have missed the Shire, in its own way. And it will be nice to return to the customs and the ways that I know.”

Nori was tapping the point of his knife in a particularly irritable manner against the table. Balin would be furious – no doubt the wood would be scarred something awful.

Gloin cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Like what?” Ori piped up, from around his mouthful of chicken. Dori slapped him gently around the back of his head for talking with his mouth full, but Bilbo just smiled, cutting up his own dinner neatly with his knife and fork.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, talking airily over the tense silence. “Making afternoon calls, having tea in my front garden. And the little things, you know. The ingredients I’ve missed when I’m cooking. The proper number of meals. Making flower wreaths at the summer festivals, that sort of thing.”

“We could do all those things,” Kili muttered, sulkily, quietly enough that only Thorin caught him. Bilbo glanced around him, finally seeming to notice the fact that the dwarves were practically vibrating with unspoken unhappiness.

His expression sank, slightly.

“Flower wreaths,” Dis said, a little desperately, into the awkward silence. “That sounds… nice.”

“Mmm,” Bilbo answered, still glancing from one dwarf to another, his eyes never quite reaching Thorin’s. “It’s quite a careful construction – every flower has a meaning, you see. So if you’re making a wreath to wear, you choose flowers that create a message about yourself: if you’re making it to give, you want to create a message, a letter of sorts, through the flowers.”

“Do Hobbits do that with every flower that they give?” Fili asked, thoughtfully, and Bilbo nodded.

“As a rule, yes. We learn them from our parents when we are just faunts… I suppose it is a similar thing, in its own way, to your own stone meanings. It is our own mother-tongue, really. It's as much a part of being a Hobbit as seven meals a day, or dancing the May-dance in the summer.”

He took a mouthful of his dinner, then looked around him, and sighed.

“I do hope none of you will be too angry with me, for leaving. I shall miss you all terribly, you know.”

The silence around the table was damning.

Thorin stared down at his plate full of food, and felt slightly ill.

“Well, that was a disaster,” Fili muttered to his Uncle, just a few hours later, when they had all given up the pretence of eating and had retired back to their private rooms in a gloomy silence that had not shifted. “And if you don’t mind me pointing it out, you have barely said a word all evening.”

Thorin made a low noise, staring into the fire. He didn’t have to look to know that his oldest nephew would be regarding him with that particular brand of amused and unimpressed exasperation that was singularly Fili.

From across the room, he could hear the sound of Bilbo discussing his plans for leaving with Dis and Balin, the two of them both offering their advice on crossing the Misty Mountains, a topic that Thorin had absolutely no interest in hearing any more on, as to do so would only further reinforce the fact that Bilbo was planning on going. He rubbed his hand against his chest to shift the ache there, feeling the small disk of the necklace that hung down beneath his shirt. Normally it was a comfort: today, it only served as an additional reminder.

“You’d better smile,” Fili muttered to him. “Or else Mother is going to accuse you of brooding again.”

“I do not brood,” he replied.

Definitely not broodingly.

And he wasn’t brooding, of course he wasn’t. It was just that, well.

Why couldn’t Bilbo stay? Thorin had thought that he was happy here, that he had everything that he needed. Was it that Thorin had asked too much of him already, having him join them whenever a diplomatic embassy was expected at the Mountain? Was he not comfortable, did he not have enough to eat? Had the preparations for the Yule festival become too much for him to handle, on top of everything else? Or had he become used to his old life, and no amount of comfort would ever be able to match it? Or was Thorin simply being so self-absorbed that he had overlooked the fact that Bilbo had never even contemplated staying here permanently, that it was not a decision to leave because it had never been a decision to stay in the first place?

See? Definitely not brooding.

Just... thinking.

“Why don’t you ask him to stay, to stay here with us?”

He let out a low sigh, trying to ignore the sound of Kili listing all the things that Bilbo would need to take to stay safe, a list that was turning rapidly instead to one of all the reasons that it was clearly too dangerous to let Bilbo leave the Mountain.

“I can ask no more of him,” he told Fili, and that was the heart of it, really. It seemed to be enough to quiet Fili though, who nodded and settled back into his chair, glancing over his shoulder at Bilbo before turning back to Thorin. His face was lit by firelight, his hair a wave of molten gold loosened from its braids, falling around his shoulders, and for a moment Thorin found himself smiling, just a little, at the sight, at those long-ago memories of brushing out that hair, when Fili had been but a pebble. 

“That flower language thing was interesting, wasn’t it?”

He frowned, just a little, the soft and gentle memories fading as Fili's voice interrupted his thoughts.

“What?”

“Nothing," Fili said, shrugging just a little. "But it seems strange though, don’t you think, that Bilbo should make the decision to leave so suddenly? With so little time to plan, I mean - and rather than going in the summer, when his passage would have been so much easier? It makes me wonder if we have missed something – if perhaps there is more to this that you realise.”

“More than I realise?”

“Us, I mean, us.”

Thorin grunted.

“All I’m saying,” Fili muttered, quietly enough that Thorin almost couldn’t hear him, “Is that maybe Bilbo has been trying to tell you… things, for quite a while. It’s just that he goes about it differently to us.”

“I-”

“I believe Ori received a new shipment of books last week,” Fili answered, not even trying to hide the slightly pleased look in his eye. “And he did make mention of some new books on Hobbit lore. Ones that he had ordered in case- well, in case anyone grew more interesting in Hobbit traditions.”

“Traditions?”

“Oh, you know. Birthdays. Holidays. Courting. That kind of thing.”

Courting? Who would be interested in courting their Hobbit? Except perhaps himself, of course, but Fili would not have known that. And neither would Ori, for that matter – he had kept his feelings for Bilbo deeply secret, a kernel of pain that he had denied knowledge of even to his closest of kin. It must have been a coincidence.

Fili said no more on the matter, but the thought clung to Thorin none the less.

He went to Ori the next morning – or at least, he went to the library, which had officially become Ori's domain. He bossed around the senior historians that had flocked to Erebor with such vigour and single minded effort to preserve the scriptures that Thorin had had little choice in offering him the role of Head Librarian. He had been a little afraid not to, in all honesty, after seeing one scholar reduced to tears under Ori’s wagging finger (apparently crumbs in the bindings had been involved, a crime described by Ori with such condemnation that the poor dwarf might well have been Smaug).

Ori drifted over to him as soon as he spotted him, wringing his hands under his long sleeves, a habit that Thorin had learnt now did not convey nervousness, or anxiety, but rather a pent up energy, one which could be used to quite effective ends, when channelled through a slingshot or throwing knife. Thorin frowned a little as he caught sight of the scar that the young dwarf had received in the battle, as he always did when he remembered all that his comrades had put on the line for him, but he had learnt to stop apologising, for none of them were willing to hear a word of remorse, telling him time and time again that it had not been his fault (and perhaps, just a little, he was trying to believe that).

“Can I help you find something?” Ori asked, smiling a little. “Balin mentioned that you are going over grain taxes this week – is there something on the subject that you need further clarification on?”

Thorin repressed a shudder.

“No,” he managed. “I think I have learnt enough on that subject for one lifetime. I was looking, actually – well, for something relating to Hobbits. Hobbit culture, that is. Along those lines, anyway.”

Ori nodded, slowly, but there was something flickering in his eyes that was almost sinister.

“We have a new book on Hobbit courting traditions, if that is what you mean.”

Thorin was forced to bite back a rather strangled sound.

“Ah, no,” he managed, after a moment, wondering quite why Ori had seen fit to order a book on Hobbit courting for Erebor’s library – hopefully, it had simply been in a fit of curiosity, and nothing else. “Flowers, really. That is, apparently they have meanings, like the stone-song of our people, and I was wondering-”

“Dori!” bellowed Ori, his voice always far too loud for such a small body. “Dori, where are you?”

“Over here!” came the voice of the oldest Ri brother, and Ori dashed off between the shelves, leaving Thorin to trail after him, unsure of what was going on, following the sound of Ori’s feet and Dori’s grumblings, wondering why it was the Head Librarian’s prerogative to make such a racket in the library when no one else was allowed.

He found them eventually in, oddly enough, a series of shelves that seemed to contain recipes. Dori was already pulling down a rather weighty tome from a shelf, and he thrust it into Thorin’s hands as soon as he came close enough.

“I ordered it when I was searching for different ways to make teas,” Dori informed him. “I was assured that it would contain a full list of flowers and herbs that Hobbits use to create such things, but the whole thing is rather unnavigable, I’m afraid. It’s more of a social study than a cook book, and at times can be as impossible to decipher as one of Gandalf’s riddles. It does explain flowers though, and Ori said that is what you were after?”

Thorin nodded, feeling rather like a rabbit caught in the sight of a hunter’s arrow when the two of them beamed at him. They trailed after him too as he found an empty table, settling down and leafing through the pages.

Detailed indeed: it might as well have been written in Dragon-tongue. Before him was what seemed to be endless lists of flowers he did not know, with little pictures, and he let out a huff of irritation. This would not help – he had no idea where even to begin. Reading the entire book would tell him nothing of Bilbo’s feelings.

“Courting flowers are in chapter six,” Dori told him, with the self-satisfaction of someone who believed that they were answering an unspoken question. Ori nudged him, sharply, and he coughed.

“Not that you’re necessarily looking for courting flowers, of course.”

“I am not,” Thorin emphasised, but after a moment of silence he let out a long sigh. “This was probably a stupid idea – I don’t know what I am hoping to achieve, and I don’t know where even to start.”

His voice was only a little irritated, but Ori and Dori exchanged rather troubled glances none the less.

“Well,” Dori said, just a little cautiously. “Rather than trying to learn all of them, perhaps you could focus first on one particular flower – maybe one that Bilbo has mentioned to you in the past. That is, of course, if it is in relation to Bilbo that you are looking, not that it might not be about something else, I-”

“No, it is,” Thorin replied, through gritted teeth. “Not for any particular reason, obviously-”

“Obviously,” Ori echoed, something amused in his voice that Thorin could not quite put his finger on. “I remember him talking to you at Beorn’s, about those tree-flower-things? The ones he was surprised about, for blooming out of season- not that I was listening to your conversation, that is, I just happened to overhear-”

Thorin waved him off, just as voice was beginning to reach that anxious little cadence that was so very Ori, with a somewhat laboured smile.

“It is a good thought,” he answered. “I thank you both.”

“Well,” Dori said, hooking an arm through Ori’s. “We will leave you to it, of course, just shout should you need any further advice, or want to talk about anything else.”

The two disappeared out of sight, though not before Thorin caught the sound of some rather frantic whispering, the words of which he could not quite make out. Curious enough to enquire, he almost followed them, but the more pressing matter of Bilbo kept him in his chair, turning back to the huge volume in front of him. It was leather bound, and quite attractive, if one found particular enjoyment in that sort of thing – which he had to admit, he did. He would be hard pressed, he believed, to find a dwarf who would not at least be impressed by the fine workmanship that had gone into its creation, even if the topic itself was not of particular interest.

Thorin could not quite recall the name of the bloom in question, but he turned gamely to the list of entries at the front of the book, scanning through the list of flowers that grew on trees, until he caught sight of it, the name immediately coming back to him when it passed beneath his enquiring gaze, and he flicked to the entry with some anticipation, not entirely certain what he was hoping or expecting to see there.

Cherry Blossom : normally a shade of pink or white, they grow in large quantities on cherry trees, blooming in the spring. They normally have five or six rounded petals, flower in shades from white to light pink, with a yellow centre. They represent education, and a desire to express knowledge or an understanding.

Well, indeed it had not been spring when they were at Beorn’s, which certainly explained Bilbo’s surprise, but many things had seemed out of sorts in those strange few days they had spent there, not in the least Thorin himself. That moment on the cliff, before the eagles had arrived to sweep him away, still remained something of a blur of ash and pain and fear for him, but waking up on the Carrock certainly was not – neither was the hopelessness that had filled him when he had pulled Bilbo into his arms, feeling arms wrap around his back, the sudden certainty that his as-then newly emerging feelings were not ones which could be ignored or forgotten an almost painful shock to him – for how could he ever have hoped to achieve all that he had wanted, in those moments, with the distant sight of Erebor on the horizon, the warmth of Bilbo’s body still feeling as if it were burning across his chest?

Beorn’s had been a well needed reprieve, if a short one. He and Bilbo had gone for walks, in the afternoon sunshine, through those rambling gardens, and though nothing more than pleasantries had been spoken then, he had felt closer to him for it, as if even by hearing Bilbo’s stories of inquisitive neighbours and bothersome relatives he would become a little closer to their burglar, a little more a part of his life.

And then, on one of those walks, Bilbo had laughed, reaching up for a low branch of a tree – and it had turned out to be too high still, hadn’t it? Thorin had reached for it for him, only just managing himself, pulling it low enough for Bilbo to pluck one of those blossoms from the gentle shelter of leaves that it had nestled in, and Bilbo had smiled at the sight, and Thorin had felt a sensation of contentment so strong and with such clarity that it had hurt him, physically hurt him, but he had smiled too, despite himself.

“These are an odd thing to see, and no mistake!” Bilbo had exclaimed, touching the flower to the curve of his upper lip as he had inhaled its scent, too faint for Thorin to make out. “My mother used to give these to my father, you know, whenever he had done something silly and hadn’t realised. A gentle push in the right direction, she used to call it.”

He had turned the flower between his fingers for a moment, before he had tucked it into his buttonhole.

“We could all do with a push like that, from time to time,” he had said meaningfully, but Thorin had been too busy trying to remember to breathe normally to really understand what he had been trying to say. “If just so we pay attention to what is in front of us.”

He had nodded, and they had continued on their way, and if every now and again Bilbo had shot him a look out of the corner of his eye – well, he had been far too busy with the cacophony of his own thoughts to really pay much attention.

Back in the library, the candle having burnt low as his thoughts had taken over him, Thorin huffed the quietest of sighs.

Education, indeed.

He was trying now, at least. Even if it might be just a little too late to understand.

It wasn’t until the next day that he recalled another moment – although he would admit that he had some help in remembering it. Sent by his sister to Oin, for a dose of one of his foul tasting concoctions that he had been prescribed for a troublesome little cold that he had not quite been able to shift, (Too many late nights! Too many hours working! Not enough rest! – all protests from Oin, none of which he had really been able to change) he had been sat there in his little workshop, trying not to breathe in the fumes from a bubbling cauldron suspended over the fire, when it had come to him.

“Bah!” Oin had been grumbling, glaring down at his book. “I’ll need more milkweed soon enough, and no mistake.”

Thorin had made a mumbled sound of agreement, not sure what a milkweed was or what it was used for, and to his dismay, it was taken as one of curiosity: Oin glanced at him, his eyes bright with the passion of a dwarf well immersed in his craft, and smiled a somewhat crafty smile.

“We use ‘em to make types of bandages,” he said, but rather than lurching straight into a detailed history of the flower’s medical usages, as Thorin had expected, he took a different turn. “You’ve seen them before, lad. Remember? Bilbo found me some, when we were in that damned forest. Wandering around we were, quite hopeless, but it brought me some pleasure when he brought them over to me – though he must have almost tripped over them to catch sight of them in that light. Horrible place, but it did me some good to see the boy was versed in the proper use of plants. It’s a good knowledge to have, and no mistake.”

Thorin could remember – could remember well. Bilbo had brought them to him first, to ask if Oin might be interested, but he had been far too lost in his own rage at the forest to pay too much attention to them, not that he would have really understood the purpose of them had he been. But he had nodded, and Bilbo had offered a small, half-hearted smile, the best that any of them could manage at that point, their supplies running low and Bombur still asleep, his weight an added burden to the Company that they could ill afford, as tired and hungry as they had been.

Bilbo had said something, hadn’t he? Thorin could have sworn that he had, though he couldn’t quite bring it to mind now. But just the sight of him had brought some ease to the anxiety that had been burning low in his chest since first those cursed boughs had closed over their heads.

He went out and sought the book from his rooms as soon as he was able, flicking through the entries until he found the one that he was looking for.

Milkweed : a complex flower, comparable to orchids in the detail of their parts. Grown well, they will encourage bees to a garden, as well as butterflies. Extracted properly, their filaments can be used for a number of tasks, but their meaning is much less a happy one, being as it is hope in misery.

That had been it! It came back to Thorin as a wave, and he slid the book back to its hiding place under his pillow with an odd little smile.

“It does us good to remember to hope,” Bilbo had said, and it had seemed quite out of the blue at the time – perhaps had Thorin not had so much else going on at the time, had they not stumbled into the cells of the damned Elf King just a few days later, he might have pressed Bilbo more on his odd little statement. “Sometimes it seems like there isn’t a point, when you know that what you are reaching for will never be yours. But, well. Hope can never be a bad thing.”

For a moment, Thorin felt something leap in his chest, but he bit it back almost immediately. After all, Bilbo had only been talking about their situation, lost in the labyrinth of a forest.

What else could he have been referring to?

He saw little of Bilbo in the following few days, and despite the fact that he was rather grateful for it, trying still as he was to think of something to say to the resident #hobbit that wasn’t ‘stay, please stay, oh Mahal please don’t leave me’, it wasn’t actually by any choice of his own: the preparations for the cohort from Dale were under way, and he had found himself singularly busy with finishing off the last dull clauses on their new set of trade agreements, making sure that all was in place before Bard arrived. 

Since the death of the dragon and the defeat of the invading armies, his life had been a startlingly busy one, full of all the mundane tasks that he had never pictures when thinking of reclaiming the Mountain – much less the celebrations that his mental wanderings had never gone past, and much more mining law, building material, resettlement issues, reinstatement of tax, and the locating and allocation of supplies. Helped as he was by a team led by Balin, frighteningly bureaucratic the lot of them, all this had passed by without any major incident – however, much of what they had achieved would not have been possible without the surprisingly gracious aid of the newly instated King of Dale.

Once every two or three months, he would make the short journey up to Erebor, full of new ideas and plans for the two Kingdoms to learn to coexist once more, and had oddly enough become a friend, of sorts. Much had been left unspoken of between the two of them, and perhaps that was for the best: they had moved past all that was behind them, and Thorin would admit a respect for the man, one that was much less grudging than it would have been even six months ago.

He stood tall and regal, though still appeared a little uncomfortable in the coronet that he wore about his brow, a gift at the time of his coronation from Erebor. He pulled it off as soon as the formal announcements were done and the two Kings retired to the royal quarters, a brief interlude before both Balin’s team and Bard’s advisers would arrive to distract their Kings with sub clauses and annotations.

“I have heard,” Bard said, throwing his long and lanky frame down in a chair that was quite too close to the ground for him (though he had never complained). His legs stretched out across the stone floor to the fire, and Thorin wondered for an idle minute if Bard would forever look as if he were just a couple of missed meals away from emaciation. He knew the feeling of hunger well, remembered clearly those winters where the food did not stretch far enough, and knew too that there was nothing so great as suffering for reminding the head that wore the crown to never let their people feel the same again, at least without sharing that burden in equal measure.

(He was a good King, Bard. Better perhaps than Thorin deserved to have as a neighbour).

“Well, I presume that it is not rumour,” Bard continued, “Since I received a letter from Bilbo himself. But I must admit to being a little surprised to hear that he planned to leave Erebor. I had been under the impression that he planned to remain.”

Thorin felt his throat close uncomfortably: he let out a low cough, in an attempt to clear it, but it did little to make him feel better.

“Indeed,” he answered, taking his own seat, his elbows resting on his knees, angled towards the fire. “I believe it took all of us by surprise.”

“I see,” came Bard’s reply, but his tone was questioning, a little uncertain. “And he will leave in a month or so, when the snow begins to clear? He did ask if I would look into what trade caravans would be travelling back west at that time, in case there were no convenient ones running from Erebor.”

Thorin felt a low and uncertain grief creep through him: how long had Bilbo been planning his disappearance, his last magic act – only it wouldn’t be a magic ring, and nor would he reappear, right when Thorin had lost all hope. He was determined to go.

“I believe that I may have… misunderstood. The reasons that he has stayed this long, I mean, and the reasons that I believed he would continue to remain here.”

Thorin said nothing, not quite understanding what reasons Bard was referring to, but unwilling to ask: something must have shown on his face, for Bard looked away.

“I remember those few days you spent in Laketown,” he said, quietly, and some shadow of an old and former grief passed across his face, a shadow with wings and claws and voice that echoed across the water. “I will admit to watching you, all of you – I am not afraid to tell you that I did not trust your intentions, nor was I certain that your plan would not kill us all – not that I am glad to say that it has not, and perhaps it has all turned out for the best, in the end.”

Thorin let out a low hum, neither agreement or disagreement, something in between that was resoundingly non-committal.

“You went for walks quite often then, the two of you, did you not? I assumed that you were trying to escape the Master’s attentions.”

Thorin said nothing, did not even make a noise. They had indeed walked frequently, although it had had nothing to do with the Master. Bilbo had been full of cold and had seemed to be quite irate with Thorin, although he himself had not quite known why, nor even how to ask, though he had a sneaking suspicion that it all traced back to Thorin’s rather gruff and perhaps not overly grateful thanks once they had all escaped the confines of the very wet barrels that they had used to evade the elves. He hadn’t known how to address the issue – he never knew how to deal with anger that came without words – and in hindsight he wasn’t sure that his rather bumbling attempts to make it up to Bilbo by spending time with him had rather helped.

“I remember seeing the two of you once – I think you were arguing about something. You were by one of the old ruined walls from the former keep, and he stopped you to show you the dog roses – or maybe the hips, I’m not sure. It was a miracle they had grown there at all, I’ll admit, as cold and damp as it was. And he seemed to notice that.”

They had been arguing, hadn’t they? Thorin had said something about Bilbo’s cold lasting as long as it had – he couldn’t recall what it was, now, but it had come out all wrong, his words tripping over tongue and teeth, disfigured and twisted by his own inability to express himself by the time they had reached Bilbo, who had been rather offended, believing that Thorin had made yet another slight about his capabilities.

“I don’t know what I have to do to prove to you that I deserve to be here!” Bilbo had snapped. “Nor even what I should do to remind you that you yourself would not be here if I had come along on your stupid Quest!”

Thorin had said nothing, quite certain that whatever he said would only come out all wrong all over again. But he had picked a rose from the wall, turning it between his hands before offering it to Bilbo with an expression that he hoped would convey his regret.

For a moment Bilbo’s shoulders had sank, and his breath had escaped him in one long sigh, before taking the flower.

“I relate to these flowers well,” Bilbo had told him, his voice all a tangle of anger and hurt and some deep and strange affection that Thorin had not understood, still didn’t. There was a moment of silence between the two of them, and then he turned, crushing the blooms between his fingers, angrily. “You make me-” he had cut himself off with an angry little noise, huffed out in impatience through his nose, and had stomped away from Thorin, muttering something that sounded quite a lot like ‘insufferable dwarf’ under his breath, leaving Thorin standing there by the ruined wall, the scent of crushed petals so strong around him that for a moment he had thought he might gag on it.

He had forgotten all about it – they had left for the Mountain two days afterwards, and the dragon and the blur of gold and the singing of swords had left that particular memory buried, hidden away.

“Dog roses,” Thorin muttered, under his breath, and Bard looked at him, a little confused, but nodded, slowly.

“I must check something,” Thorin told him, rising quickly from his chair. “Forgive my rudeness: I shall only be a moment.”

Indeed he was, for his rooms were only a few doors away, and this time he did not have to search out the name, nor leaf through the pages aimlessly. He turned to the section on roses (although why one particular flower would need its own section he had no idea), flicking through pages impatiently.

Rose, dog : a climbing, wild plant that can grow to quite a large size. It has small barbs and grows red-orange fruits which can be used to make syrups. Its flowers typically have five to seven petals, and are normally a light pink, and the combination of barbs and fruits might have affected its meaning, which is 'both pleasure and pain'.

Pleasure and pain. Bilbo had related, then, to a plant that meant both pleasure and pain – and Thorin had to admit, it seemed rather likely that it was indeed him that was causing Bilbo such conflicting emotions.

Grief tight in his chest, he returned to Bard, and tried to focus as they began their afternoon’s work, ignoring the concerned looks that both the King of Dale and Balin himself were shooting him.

Another memory had come to him, quite unbidden again, by the end of the evening – it had only been a few days after they had left Laketown, on the slopes of Erebor, searching frantically for a door that could not be found, and remembering that he took the book and himself in the hour that Bard retired before dinner, and went back out to those slopes, taking a long a winding path that Fili and Kili had found when leaping from one of the stone terraces that came off the Great Hall. It hadn't quite been sunset, but close enough to it that he was glad of his keen eyesight, for otherwise he never would have spotted the flowers, tucked away in a sheltered little spot behind a boulder.

It was a little too late in the year to find any of them flowering, but he found a wrinkled old bloom still clinging on to the plant, and spent a good while leafing through the book, trying to identify it. When he did it was a certain grim sort of satisfaction, for the entry was no more comforting than the last.

Primrose, evening : not actually closely related to the true primrose, this flower comes in a variety of sizes, though most are yellow. They bloom in the evening, rather than the morning, hence the name, and perhaps because of this they have come to be associated with inconsistency.

It had been evening, hadn’t it? He had been useless with frustration, Durin’s Day pressing closer and closer with no discovery of the door, and he had been stomping around the camp, glaring up at the Mountain as if it would suddenly reveal itself if only he frightened it enough. With hindsight, he could see now that he had been struck with a singular sort of urgency that would only push him quicker down the path that he tried not to think about, the path that ended in hoarded gold and his Grandfather’s crown, but at the time he had not realised that there was anything wrong other than the risk that they would not find the door in time – he had been too wrapped up in the fear of it all to notice the worried looks that Balin had been shooting him, the whispered conversations between the Ri bothers, Bifur’s careful signing to his kin.

But Bilbo hadn’t been around the fire that evening – that had been what had drawn him from his frantic pacing, that cold stab of fear that had nothing to do with the Quest, but with an entirely different sort of dream, one that had seemed even less likely to come true at the time. Bilbo had only been a couple of minutes away, as it had turned out, perched on a rock and staring broodily down at the lake, surrounding by a little clump of flowers.

The yellow-white blooms had been open, filling the air with their hazy scent, but he had hardly noticed at the time, barking orders at Bilbo instead to return to the camp, where it was safe.

“You cannot order me,” Bilbo had told him, not bothering to stand but staring up at Thorin with a determination that at that moment seemed to be made of iron, one eyebrow slightly arched. “For whilst I may be on this quest with you, you are neither my owner, my master, nor my mother. I am but a stone’s throw from the fire, and am perfectly fine!”

The flowers had swayed a moment in the chill breeze, knocking against Thorin’s legs gently, as if in a silent rebuff. The fight had gone out of him in a great rush, leaving him standing there, feeling more than a little foolish under Bilbo’s gaze.

“I just want to make sure that you are safe,” he had said, before he had been able to stop himself. “I cannot help but worry, when we are so close, and a dragon may yet breathe underneath our very feet, and-”

“Sit,” Bilbo had told him, and Thorin had, down among the evening primroses, the sky overhead beginning to be streaked with lilac. A hand carded through his hair for a moment, and then something soft had touched his cheek. He’d reached up to see what it was, and for a moment had almost smiled at the flower now tucked behind his ear.

“You match,” Bilbo had muttered, before speaking in a calmer tone than before. “A dragon may well be under our feet Thorin, but the only thing that is going to wake him is you stomping around the place. Sit a while, and rest, for I don’t believe you have done all day – watch the flowers close as it goes dark with me, and then we shall see about getting a little food, and a lot of rest, and we shall start fresh again tomorrow.”

Indeed, they had, and in the morning they had discovered the door, and after that there had not been any quiet moments nor any soft words until he had woken in a tent wrapped in bandages, but in that gentle moment he had thought that he might have known what peace felt like, for soon after Bilbo’s hand had returned to his hair, stroking it gently, dislodging the flower but leaving Thorin with a great sense of peace. Bilbo had begun to hum after a while, a song that Thorin did not know but seemed oddly familiar at the same time – the kind of song for warm evenings, and summer winds, and long days without fear.

He had slept well that night, despite the chill and the rocks beneath his back, his mat pulled close to Bilbo, the echoes of the song running around his mind, leading him into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

He was startled from his thoughts by a noise behind him: he stood, tucking the book underneath his cloak so that it would not be seen, only to relax when he saw that it was Bifur, who looked just as surprised to see Thorin there.

He nodded at Thorin, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, and signed a couple of quick words.

Here. Question.

“I was looking for a flower,” Thorin admitted after a moment of awkward silence, trying to work out whether or not to explain what he had been doing there. Although he felt himself shift uncomfortably as Bifur’s gaze flickered to the dying bloom still in his hands.

Question.

“I remember it from before we reclaimed the Mountain,” Thorin said, quietly. “And I remembered some other things, too. I just needed to know what they meant.”

Bifur nodded, and with the surprisingly quick dexterity that still took Thorin by surprise now and again, reached over and plucked the dead bloom from Thorin’s fingers.

B. I. L. B. O. Question.

Thorin nodded, and Bifur patted his shoulder.

Important.

“Very,” he replied, and Bifur smiled, properly this time.

Sorry. Leaving, he signed, and then he pulled Thorin into a very quick, very unexpected embrace. For just a moment, Thorin thought that his composure might break at the affection, but Bifur pulled away before he did, offering him another reassuring smile.

They walked back into the mountain side-by-side, in a comfortable silence. It was almost enough to make him feel better.

Inconsistency, though. Bilbo had thought he was inconsistent.

Well, at that point in their friendship, he probably wasn’t wrong.

His side was aching as he made his way back to his rooms after dinner that evening: he clutched his necklace in his hand, the small silver disk biting into his skin, enough to distract him, just a little. The pain came from the deep wound that he had taken during the battle, over a year ago now – though it had healed well enough, the thick ridge of internal scar tissue went deep, and he found himself left with residual pain whenever he spent too long tensed, stress and exhaustion morphing into a physical pain. The dinner had gone well enough, and Bard retired seemingly content – the food had been excellent, and Bilbo had kept the conversation going with his usual blend of witty stories and sarcastic humour, telling anecdotes about the planning for the Yule feast, and the recent developments in Erebor, but Thorin had found him unable to relax in their company, his eyes constantly darting to the side, to Bilbo, wondering what these events would feel like in just a few months, without their once-Burglar there. They had retired with the Company and Thorin’s family to their private quarters, the fires roaring and ale pouring (mostly due to Fili’s rather sneaky habit of filling up people’s cups when they weren’t looking), but once Bard took himself back to his rooms Thorin too retired.

It had been a long day, all in all – in terms of the work that he had done, and all that he had remembered.

He rubbed the back of his neck, longing for bed, but a voice stopped him going much further.

“Thorin!”

He turned, slowly, at the sound of Bilbo’s voice, echoing and concerned, through the corridors. His head was tilted a little to the side as he drew level with Thorin, his forehead knitted in a frown.

“Are you alright? You were doing that weird glare that you do when you’re really in pain but don’t want to admit it.”

Thorin stilled, a little tense all over again.

“I am well, Bilbo. Just a little tired after the day.”

Bilbo was still frowning, and without warning he reached out, pressing his hand to the old injury: even through the layers of his clothes, Thorin could feel the warmth of his hand, and his small movement was as much from the well-suppressed urge to reach out and touch Bilbo in turn as it was from the small jolt of pain that came from the pressure.

“See?” Bilbo said, looking up at him, those strangely coloured eyes (all ash and amber and leaves on the point of changing, a colour that Thorin had never been able to put his finger on) full of concern. “You are hurting. I wish you would tell me when you are – even if there is nothing that I can do to help you, sometimes it makes you feel better just to admit that you are in pain.”

He had nothing to say to that: perhaps that was true, but that was not a way that he had ever known.

To admit to pain was the same as admitting weakness – and he had not lived the kind of life that allowed for weakness.

Bilbo was still looking at him, chewing on his lip.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Nothing,” Thorin told him, and then despite himself he touched his hand to Bilbo’s, still pressed against his side, enveloping it for just a moment before he pulled it away, his fingers tightening around that warm palm, so much smaller than his own, before pressing it back against Bilbo’s chest.

“It’s just that, since the battle-”

The battle. Thorin had faced many in his life, but never had he come so close to death, and never had he woken with so much grief and regret. Unsure of who had lived and who had died, and which of his kin and friends would ever be able to forgive him for his madness, who could ever move passed his mistakes, the danger that he had put them all through. Everything had been something of a blur to him up until that point, when he had woken up with a wild and sudden clarity, one that still shook him to this day – he was his Grandfather, he was every mistake he had sworn to never mistake, he was unworthy –

But those thoughts had died away when a noise from the side of his bed had woken him, and he had turned his head as much as he was able, to see Bilbo sat by his bedside, his head on the covers as he slept, but his movement must have woken him, for he was shifting, and even as Thorin lay there trying to work out what mad dream this was he sat back up, his eyes going wide at the sight of Thorin.

“Oh, thank the stars,” he whispered, flinching in an aborted motion to reach for Thorin’s face. “You’re awake-”

“My sister-sons,” he had gasped, reaching for Bilbo’s arm. “I saw them fall-”

“They live,” Bilbo had reassured him. “Captain Tauriel found them on the battlefield, long before we found you. We all are well, all camped outside, waiting for you to wake, and-”

“Bilbo,” he had interrupted, trying to sit, only he hadn’t been able to, his chest a blaze of pain. “Everything that I said, everything that I did-”

“We all know, I know,” Bilbo had replied, full of a graciousness that he still did not believe that he deserved. “We all forgive it all, Thorin. But now you need to rest, and heal, or I’ll never forgive myself.”

He had nodded, too tired to protest - months of that, and apologies, would follow, but right then sleep had already begun to take him. Bilbo’s hand had been warm against his arm, and he had smiled, exhausted and beautiful and so full of a grief that was all the fault of Thorin’s, but he had been laughing, just a little.

“I was so certain I would be embroidering marigolds on my torn up old coat,” he was muttering, more to himself than to anything else, but Thorin hadn’t been able to follow, not quite. His eyes had been heavy again, his mind starting to feel hazy, but as he had drifted Bilbo had taken hold of his hand, cold and scratched but there, and real – he had drifted off, full of pain and fear and doubt but wracked by a relief more potent than any of Oin’s poppy draughts.

As sleep began to take him, he thought that Bilbo had started to cry, quiet and full of that most devastating combination of joy and grief, that takes so much more out of you than either alone.

And Bilbo was looking at him now, still so full of worry, and Thorin’s heart ached at all that feeling in there, all the sadness that he had been the cause of, all the affection and worry and care that he was going to lose so soon.

“I thank you,” he said, his voice as quiet and controlled as he could make it. “But I promise you, I am just tired.”

“I wish you wouldn’t push me away,” Bilbo said, his shoulders falling as he took a step back, away from Thorin. “But if you promise it, then I will leave you be. Sleep well, my friend. I shall see you in the morning.”

He left Thorin then, and it was with a heavy heart that he retreated back to his rooms. He fell into his bed with a deep sigh, reaching beneath his pillow to touch the soft leather of the book, still hidden away where he had hidden it before dinner.

The warmth of Bilbo touch still lingered in his mind, against his skin, and he pulled it out quickly, skimming through pages until he had found the right entry.

Marigold: a flower that blooms in the warmest sun, its meaning in the Shire is one that conflicts the weather in which it appears. It stands for despair and for grief, and is embroidered on funerary clothing (unlike other races, Hobbits are known for wearing bright, cheerful clothes after the death of a loved one, to celebrate the life that has been lost).

He sighed, and tucked it back away. Not long after he fell into an uncomfortable sleep, disturbed by strange dreams, haunted by velvet petals and the soft sound of Bilbo’s tears.

He woke the next day feeling slightly sick, his limbs aching as if he had woken from some feverous illness, rather than a normal (albeit somewhat restless) night of sleep. They waved Bard off early in the day, everything between the two Kingdoms settled again for the next year, and afterwards Balin took his mind off things for most of the morning, labouring over long and rather tedious lists of the apparently very important final adjustments to the Yule feast. Thorin was not entirely sure why it was the King’s job to sign off on the use of the silver wear for the feast, but he was glad enough of the distraction that he nodded at each pile of parchment that was pushed in front of him without complaint.

The battle had followed him, since first he had woken, as if it had become his own shadow: sometimes it was just a small pool of darkness, and sometimes it seemed to stretch out beyond him as far as he could see.

It hadn’t been the battle itself, not really. It would take the fires of a Balrog itself to top the hell of Azanulbizar in the depths of his dark memory, and though the battle before the Gates of Erebor had been a grim and bloody thing, he had learnt many years ago to accept the dreams that came with them, the echoing ache of loss, the shakes that would sometimes take his hands for no good reason afterwards.

No, what had stuck with him had been the potentiality of it all.

For in one day, one terrible day, he had nearly lost all of those that he had come to hold dear, had nearly thrown away all that he had fought so long to achieve. Not just his own life, not just the Mountain – but more importantly than any of that, the lives of his kin and comrades. The scars of the battle had gone deep, and could have been so much worse, but even as they were, they were a terrible enough reminder, and his dreams in the night of those days in which he wandered along the line of life and death had only reminded him of them.

Ori, and the long scar that now cut across his face, bisecting his hairline, the fact that he and his brothers might have been separated by the irrevocable hand of death if that sword had only gone a little deeper; Gloin’s mangled ear, that now heard very little from - he might never have had the chance to see his beloved son again! Then there was the mash of new scar tissue that wrapped around Dwalin’s torso, gained when he had thrown himself across a fallen Kili’s body, his life second in his mind to Thorin’s own kin; Bombur’s new arm, fitted to replace one lost to an Orc mace, that he swore did not slow him down at all but that Thorin new still caused him pain; Kili’s leg, on which he might never walk with ease again.

All of them had suffered, from the youngest to the oldest, for standing beside a King who had already failed them, unable to remain strong in the face of his Grandfather’s legacy.

His own injuries, as substantial as they were, seemed like nothing in the face of that.

And perhaps this was why they had all done so much to try and distract him in the months following the battle, though there had been enough to do that their efforts seemed somewhat unnecessary. There were dwarves and men alike to house within the Mountain, the filth of a dragon to clean out, stairways and masonry to secure and food to acquire from. And he had thrown himself into it, as much as he had been able, perhaps in a way trying to justify his own rule, trying to prove to himself and others that he did deserve to be here.

It had taken too much out of him, in the end – he didn’t much remember collapsing in the middle of the Great Hall, but he had heard enough about it that he could picture it pretty well.

His wound had reopened, the stitches tearing, and the pain had sudden and enough to make him dizzy, make him fall to the ground. He could vaguely remember Oin yelling at him, Dwalin’s arms lifting him, Bilbo’s pale and scared face, a slideshow of flickering images of all the Company crowding around him, but when he had woken back in his own bed it had only been to Bilbo’s face, and a weight on his legs that had turned out to Fili and Kili, who had fallen asleep on him some hours previously.

“What happened?” he had asked, and Bilbo had screwed up his face, looking partly like he wanted to laugh, and partly like he wanted to throw something very hard at Thorin’s face.

“Idiot dwarf!” he had scolded, but his voice had been all relieved affection. “That’s what you get for working too hard, you know.”

“Sorry,” he’d said, a little groggy from something that they had given him for the pain, and Bilbo had taken his hand, pressing it to his cheek. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Then you need to stop nearly dying,” Bilbo told him. “You need to… I can’t keep watching you nearly kill yourself, I really can’t.”

His voice had been hoarse, and at last it had broken, his head ducking down so that Thorin had not been able to see his face any more.

“I care for you, Thorin. I… you are a dear friend, perhaps the dearest I have ever known, did you know that? And I don’t know what I would do if I were to lose you.”

Thorin had blinked, not knowing what to say to that, but when Bilbo had looked up he had seemed to be more annoyed than anything else, sad too. Thorin had said the first thing that had come to mind, in an attempt to change the subject, to take that look from Bilbo’s face.

“I thought our supplies of poppy ran out weeks ago?”

Bilbo nodded, slowly, and nodded in the direction of Thorin’s side table, on which, he now realised, sat a plant, in a cheery looking pot. It certainly had not been there before, and he stared at it for a moment, a little bewildered.

“We are. But I had Thranduil send me several of these over, and I’ve shown Oin how to make a draught from them. They’re what we use in the Shire, a lot of the time, for pain. It is a fine looking thing, isn’t it? I thought it might cheer the room up, if you are going to have to spend some time here. It is what my mother was named afterwards, and everyone laughed at that, you know.” He had stared at it for a while, and then had sighed, and had muttered something under his breath that had sounded a lot like ‘apt’, before turning back to Thorin, and smiling again, a soft and gentle thing that had helped as much with the pain as the plant had done.

The tinctures had left him groggy for some days, but certainly had taken the pain away.

Thorin paused, suddenly, the memory drawing his mind back to the book in his room.

Named for Bilbo’s mother – and what was she called, again? Belladonna, that had been it!

When Balin finally let him go for the afternoon he turned away from the corridor which would have led him to the lunch hall, heading instead for his rooms, hoping for a moment of quiet. But he was to be disappointed: Fili and Kili found him in the corridor and followed him, insisting that he should join them for lunch, and though he had time to grab the book and hide it beneath his robes he found that he did not have time to search through it until after they had eaten, at which point he made his excuses and slipped away, ducking through an archway and tucking himself out of sight in a balcony terrace, flopping down into one of the benches quite inelegantly, pulling the book out and opening it across his knees.

Belladonna : though their leaves are toxic in careless doses, tinctures made properly can be used to treat sleeping problems and as pain relief. Their flowers are small, with normally five or six points, and represent falsehood, due to the poisonous nature of the plant.

Falsehood. Had Bilbo believed him to be false?

“What are you reading?” Thorin slammed the book shut, glancing up to see Bofur smiling down at him, his mustache so much longer than it had been on the Quest, braided now and kept in place with beads, although Bofur being Bofur he had forgone some of the more elaborate and jewelled pieces, keeping instead to plain silver.

“Just…”

Bombur appeared from behind his brother, always light footed and quiet on approach, ducking beneath Bofur’s arm and reading the hand-lettered spine of the book.

“An Encyclopaedia of Shire Flower Meanings,” he said, a little incredulously, before glancing up at Bofur. The two shared a small, conspiratorial grin.

“Anything about courting traditions in there?” Bofur asked, in a way that sounded nonchalant but somehow seemed to be anything but. Thorin scowled up at him, but Bofur had already started smiling, before throwing himself down onto the seat next to him, pulling first one pipe from his pocket, then another two from somewhere within the recesses of his jacket. Thorin watched, a little incredulously, as Bofur procured then a tobacco pouch, and began to pack the three as Bombur sat on Thorin’s other side. Suddenly sandwiched between the Ur brothers Thorin found himself tensing a little, always a little uncomfortable when confronted with unexpected physical contact, but swallowed down his discomfort as best he could as Bofur lit a pipe and passed it to him.

The smoke curled around them: in the darkness the glow from their pipes lit the two brother's faces in an amber light. In this moment they seemed less like dwarves to him, and more like some old and craggy faced spirits, full of an old wisdom. Bofur smiled at him, his pipe gripped between his teeth, the lines of his face softened by the pipelight.

“Do you think that I am false?” he asked, quietly, and the two glanced at him, frowning a little.

“Looking up meanings, are ya?” Bofur asked, humming a little under his breath before glancing across at his brother.

“Symbolism,” Bombur added, wrinkling his nose a little, and tapping his pipe on his new arm to rid it of some of the ash. “It’s a funny thing, isn’t it? I might just be a simple old cook from the Blue Mountains, but it has always struck me as a difficult thing. You might read it as someone sayin’ to you that you are false, but in reality, they might be trying to tell you somethin’ else. Maybe they’re the one sayin’ that they are false, or that they are hiding something from you – you never can tell, can you?”

Thorin nodded, slowly, feeling just a little comforted.

It had taken a long time until the Mountain had been in decent condition, though they had all been living there for some time before it really was – there had been no other option, after all. And once the initial building work had been done, once everyone had settled and the first shipment of supplies had arrived, things had not settled down. Indeed, if anything, things had only grown busier for him.

Still recovering from the battle in many ways (not all of them physical), the constant deluge of new arrivals, new petitions for housing and security, new refugees from around Middle Earth, people constantly asking, he had ended up exhausted, returning from this temporary consulting chambers to his musty rooms every night with barely enough time to eat, collapsing onto his bed and sleeping until someone woke him up again, searching for an answer to a problem that he did not feel even slightly capable of working out.

It was worse than the dragon shit, in a whole different way.

And then the snows had set in, hadn’t they? The late February blizzard that seemed to hit every year, carried down from the north, and they had been snowed in for weeks. Work had grinded to a halt as they had found themselves unable to collect resources from outside the Mountain: the dwarves had gone about their business as normal, used to long weeks without sunlight, but the men of Dale had found themselves on edge, unable to leave to continue the initial work on rebuilding Dale, unable even to feel the wind on their cheeks.

Perhaps affected worst of all, though, had been Bilbo.

In fairness, it had been days after the gates had finally closed when he had seen Bilbo again, and he had been, well, shocked. Of course, he had been busy – far too busy – and so perhaps he had seen far too little of Bilbo as he should have done, and Thorin had been surprised when he had finally seen him. Pale and wan, he looked little like the round, healthy Hobbit that had left the Shire with them so long ago, thinner and more ill and altogether discontent, lacking even the bloom of determination that had shone so brilliantly on his cheeks when they had been on their way. No fear, no pain, no discomfort, but something about him still had seemed so wrong.

“Are you well?” he had asked, for lack of anything else to say, and Bilbo had turned strange and distant eyes towards him.

“I miss the sun,” he had said, “and I have missed you- you all, that is- busy as you all are with so many important things to do. I have found myself at something of a loose end.”

Thorin had sat down beside him, feeling guilty, and had nodded in the direction of the small sheaf of parchment in Bilbo’s lap. His fingers were smudged with charcoal, he had noticed, the one thing that there was plenty of in a mountain that had been occupied by a dragon for so long, and Bilbo had followed his gaze, shrugging.

“I have to find something to fill the time with,” he had told him, offhand and with a wry twist of his mouth that had not sat well on his face. “Apparently there isn’t much that I can do around here otherwise.”

Thorin had bitten his lip, unsure.

“What have you been drawing?” he had asked, not knowing what else to say.

Bilbo had sighed, and began leafing through the pages, showing Thorin the odd thing here and there.

“Things from home, mostly,” he had told him. “Look, here is my own front door, though I will admit that I am not much of an artist. And here – lanterns from the summer festival, the last time I can remember lying in the sun with nothing to bother me.”

“What are those?” he had asked, and Bilbo’s mouth had twisted a little.

“I was designing flower crowns,” he had replied. “We wear them in the Shire at major occasions, to show how we have been feeling since the last time we saw our relations – makes it easier to avoid unpleasant topics of conversation, I suppose. These are Datura, at least, that is the elf name – we call them moonflowers.”

Thorin had been about to say something, ask something, though he wasn’t sure what, when Dwalin had stomped over, glaring about something and muttering under his breath in the distinctly irritated way that meant that someone somewhere was being an idiot. Of course he had come for Thorin, and he had been forced to leave Bilbo once more, though not before attempting to comfort him with an awkward pat on the shoulder.

“Do you think there might be a place somewhere for Bilbo?” he had asked, as they had walked away. “A job for him to do – he seems like he wants to help, only has nothing to occupy himself with.”

“Aye,” Dwalin had replied, scratching at his head. “I reckon there is, but everyone believes he has done enough, and no one wants to give him more work, not when he has already done so much – us as well as the men of Dale, I think.”

He had glanced over at Thorin, who had still been chewing on his lip, and had let out a frustrated little noise.

“I’ll speak to Balin,” he said. “No doubt you have enough on your plate that you’ll forget it by mid afternoon. We’ll find some work for the hero of Erebor, though it’ll come with some complaints, and no mistake.”

“Thank you,” Thorin had said, a little awkwardly, and Dwalin had shaken his head.

“Don’t thank me,” he told him. “I don’t want to hear it. What would do him more good than anything else is to spend some time with you, so he knows that he has not been forgotten. But then again, Kings have a lot of work on their plate, I suppose.”

In hindsight, he rather suspected that it had been Dwalin who had told Dis to make sure that Thorin got some free time in his day, once everything had been settled, and indeed Bilbo had seemed to perk up again once he was enlisted on the housing and food committees, and by the time that Thorin had time enough to spend with him, he had seemed much more like his old self.

Still, though, when it came to looking up Datura flowers, he did not find himself too surprised to read the entry.

Datura: sometimes called moonflowers, these flowers are widespread but poisonous: the myth among the men of Bree has it that once a young couple, torn apart by their families, used these flowers to commit suicide. There are no stories of a similar grief to be heard of in the Shire, but perhaps by local transmission these flowers have come to represent separation.

It was inevitable, really. Bilbo must have been missing his home, his own people, with nothing to occupy him to distract him from all that he was so far away from. Perhaps that had been where it had all gone wrong, he thought to himself that night, as he lay in bed, unable to sleep. Perhaps if he had tried harder, at the turning of the year, he might have found things different, now.

He closed his eyes against the dark night, reaching for his necklace, as if the silver might grant him some comfort.

It didn't: he sighed.

There was nothing that he could do, now.

He should have suspected something when Fili and Kili opened the door to his room with sheepish expressions on their faces: he certainly did when they took a seat on the floor on either side of his chair, smiling up at him in the beseeching way that they had done when they were children, and wanted another story or song.

“What are you after?” he said, with something of a sigh, already knowing that he was going to cave to whatever it was that they wanted.

They had glanced at each other, and Kili had bitten his lip, chewing on it a little in a habit that Thorin was well aware that they had both picked up from him.

“Well,” Fili started, sucking in his cheeks a little.

“We heard that you were looking at plants,” Kili continued, his eyes darting backwards and forwards.

Thorin groaned.

“Who told you?”

“Bofur,” Kili said, at the exact same time that Fili said, “No-one.”

Kili had the grace to look a little sheepish, but Thorin found that a smile was pulling at the corner of his mouth anyway. Slumped in his armchair in an old tunic, in front of a fire, his two boys sat in front of him, he could have been decades younger, when these two were just pebbles and the world had been so much harder, but for some reason he found it comforting – it seemed, perhaps, that some things never changed.

“What of it?” he asked, and they grinned up at him, relieved, for they could tell from his tone that he had given in.

“Well, it’s like this,” Kili said, and Fili nodded.

“Bilbo gave us these little plants, not long after the battle.”

“He told us that even stone-heads like us couldn’t kill off these plants,” Kili added cheerily, before grinning a little. “I don’t think he’s worked out that that isn’t an insult to dwarves.”

“Anyway,” Fili continued, “he told us that they were special, and then he ruffled our hair and smiled at us in the way that he does when he thinks that we’re idiots but likes us anyway, and we were wondering, after we heard that you were looking into plant meanings, whether you can tell us what they mean.”

“Because we think that it might mean something,” Kili put in, with a slightly nervous look in his eye. “And if it is something nice, then we’d like to know, so we can thank him.”

Thorin felt that same surge of love that he had felt the first time he had seen Fili walk, the first time Kili had spoken, and countless other times, and wondered for a moment at what he might have done to deserve the two of them.

“Alright,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

He found the book quickly enough, and brought it back, his two nephews crowding on either side of the armchair as he opened it up across his knees, flicking back to the contents.

“What were they called?”

“Suck something,” Kili said, his eyes going wide as Thorin shot him an exasperated glance. “Something like that, I can’t quite remember?”

“Succulents?” Thorin asked, after scanning through the lists of plants for a moment. It didn’t take long to find the entry after the two agreed that it was right, and they both nodded when he found the page and they saw the page, and the small drawings of several little plants, in different shapes and sizes, some with flowers and some without. Thorin read the entry aloud slowly, even though the two of them would have been able to read it themselves: he supposed that some habits die hard, and reading to your nephews was one of them.

Succulent, plant  : though not all varieties of the plant flower, it has still achieved a symbolic meaning in the Shire, coming to stand for endurance, and a love that endures, perhaps due to the ability of the plant to survive in harsh conditions. They are particularly popular as gifts given by parents and kin to their children, to symbolise that their love will never fade.

Bilbo had given Thorin’s nephews gifts traditionally given to children within the family.

The boys glanced at each other, and Thorin looked between the two of them: he wasn’t entirely certain, but it looked as if Kili’s eyes were shining, just a little. He reached out to them both, his hands curling around their wrists, and even though it had been years since they were young enough to seek him out for physical affection, they did not pull away.

He wondered if it was possible for your heart to break from the happiness of a moment.

“Do you think,” Kili asked, quietly, and his voice was full of emotion. “Do you think it would be alright if we called him Uncle Bilbo from now on?

With the spring after the battle had come brighter weather, and even more people arriving in the Mountain, which had meant in turn much more work to be done. However, what it had also meant was more people to do it, and with the arrival of the caravan containing Dis and her wife, much of the load that Thorin had been carrying was lifted, as the two of them began with a gentle but quite determined hand to ease the tension that had been hovering uncomfortably over Erebor.

Everyone had been better off after that caravan, really: more dwarves versed in lore, to aid Balin; more guards for Dwalin to shift into the rotations that had been exhausting them all; more supplies, all carefully ordered and divided out under the watch of Bombur and Nori, a surprising team that worked with ruthless efficiency. And more family, too – Gloin had beamed for a week after the arrival of his son and wife, showing off how much young Gimli had grown, how well trained with his axe he had become. The last of the Iron Hills dwarves had left, but so many more had arrived from the Blue Mountains, Ered Luin and beyond that their work was taken up quickly – for if there is one thing to be said about all dwarves, it is that they are not afraid of hard work, nor of laying down their weapons in favour of tools when the time comes for it.

Slowly, Erebor had began to shine, and though Thorin knew that it would be years before it reached its former glory again, the sight of small changes here and there had been enough to fill him with a hope that he had scarce been able to entertain before now.

Finally he had been able to spend more time with Bilbo, too, and it was in these months that he realised how much he had missed him, how much he had felt the absence in his life that their distance had caused him, and when he looked back on it now he realised that though he might have loved Bilbo for many turns of the moon, it was only in this time that he had really come to know him.

They took an afternoon meal together, most days, and on the days that they did not Bilbo still brought a steaming cup of soup or tea to keep Thorin going through the piles of paperwork that always seemed to accumulate on his desk when he was not looking, and he would always sit for a while, telling Thorin about his day, or some story from the Shire, cheering him up, making it far easier to return to his work once Bilbo had departed. Evenings were spent with the company, listening to Gloin wax on about spring and the blossoming of love until someone inevitably shushed him, always glancing across at Thorin with an apologetic look, as if they thought he would be offended by the talk (on the contrary: there was something about Gloin’s endless stories of love that kindled something unspoken but optimistic within him).

He taught Bilbo Dwarven board games, and Bilbo in turn showed him the rules to card games that were popular in the Shire: Bilbo began to accompany him when he went to inspect sections of the Mountain that were in the process of being restored, and whilst he might not have known the technical side of things, his words of encouragement were enough to leave the Dwarves working there beaming at the Hobbit and King, standing together.

The men of Dale had begun to move out: though Thorin would have welcomed them for much longer, the first of the large bunk houses that Bard had ordered constructed had been finished, and once more people were on sight the rest had soon followed, moving into comfortable – if still a little sparse – living quarters. By May there had not been a man left in the Mountain, though many still returned on occasion for meals or drinks with friends that they had made during their stay.

Thorin had ordered Bilbo several new sets of clothes, when Bard had informed him that the first shipment of fabrics and threads had arrived, for though Bilbo never complained he had seen him pulling uncomfortably at the threadbare items that he wore. Bilbo had received the parcel with some confusion, and then delight, turning smiling eyes onto Thorin as he had pulled out each item in turn, to inspect them.

“You really did not have to do this, you know,” he told Thorin, who had shuffled, a little awkwardly.

“It is traditional for us to sew the symbol of our profession or family line onto our clothing,” he told Bilbo. “And since I did not know what you preferred, I have also some thread, and some needles, should you wish.”

“Well now,” Bilbo had answered. “We might do a similar thing, in this situation – but not family lines or jobs, I will admit. When clothes are given as a gift, we might embroider onto them a flower or two, to show our appreciation, and I think I shall do just that – acacia might seem most fitting, for me if not for you.”

And it was conversations like these that kept coming back to Thorin now, small inconsequential things such as these, that seemed to have so little meaning at the time. But now that he was thinking about them, now that he was pulling out his great book and searching for meanings that he never could have imagined being there, it seemed to him that so many of them had an undercurrent of meaning, some importance that he had failed to grasp at the time. And what a loss that had been, for surely if he had realised the gravity of them when they had been said, that more could have been done, more could have been said – but perhaps that is the way of hindsight, to make one constantly undermine their actions, to make one feel as if everything that they had done could have been done better, if only they had thought more of it at the time.

It did not make him feel better, this realisation: if anything, it made him feel worse.

Take that memory, for example – now that he found himself searching for the right bloom in his great tome, the small moment with Bilbo took on a much greater significance.

Acacia: these flowers are typically small, yellow and fragrant, and grow with feathery, fronded leaves. The wood of its tree has been used for centuries in the Shire to make a charcoal traditionally used for courting sketches, but the flower itself symbolises a hidden or growing love, for a person or a place.

For if Bilbo had been finding a love within himself at Erebor, then the fact that he was leaving now must not be to do with the place, but the people themselves: perhaps if Thorin had done more, spent more time with Bilbo, shown him in all the ways that he mattered to them all before it was too late, then Bilbo would not be leaving the Mountain, leaving the Company, leaving Thorin.

The Yule feast was creeping ever closer, and the business of the season had taken more out of any of them than perhaps they would have imagined. Thorin sat that night with his sister and Balin, approving the final changes to the menu – though he would admit that Bilbo and Bombur, who had made those changes according to tastes and supplies, knew far more on the matter than he ever would, and therefore his approval meant very little other than formal verification.

“Is all this really necessary?” he found himself asking, after Balin listed another course, and the change to the type of mushroom involved. “I cannot see how my disapproval would change anything, even if I did feel it – these are the mushrooms that we have in quantities enough, there is not changing that.”

Balin smiled at him, a tired but affectionate smile.

“Indeed,” he answered, “but all things must be done properly, and in proper time. That is the way that anything, from the smallest festival to the largest Kingdom should be run, and every event or diplomatic occasion or mining strike needs to be done in the same way, or else what is to stop corruption, or misjudgement, creeping in? If we are to create a Kingdom worth reclamation, then all of this is necessary.”

Thorin had known that would be the answer, but still he found himself somewhat comforted to hear it, some minor validation of his efforts making it seem worthwhile, if only until the next time.

“Is this what you thought being a King would be like, when we crowned you?” Dis asked him with a smile, and Thorin grimaced.

“I will admit that I spent too much of my coronation convinced that someone was going to break in and interrupt it on the grounds that I am an incompetent moron to think too much of what was going to happen afterwards,” he admitted, and though he attempted a tone of levity, he had a rather unpleasant feeling that it came across as all too genuine.

Dis patted his shoulder, comfortingly.

“You did not seem so nervous on the day,” she told him. “In fact I don’t believe I ever saw a sight so right in all my life, my brother and my sons standing to finally accept what they have fought for, and rightly deserve. All three of you, well – I heard many a person comment that day that no greater sons of Durin had ever walked this earth.”

“Perhaps so,” Thorin replied. “But I had been anxious, for all of the morning.”

“What calmed you?” she asked, and he shrugged, a half-hearted thing.

“I spoke to Bilbo.”

She was smiling at him when he dared to look over at her, a soft and warm thing.

“And what did he have to say?”

Thorin sighed.

“Good advice, and words that I did not deserve.”

He had not been searching for Bilbo, when he found him, though the sight of him had been no less welcoming. Bilbo had been dressed in long robes for the occasion, and he looked just as uncomfortable in them as Thorin was feeling in his, something that was actually rather comforting. He had refused the elaborate jewellery and braids that the Company had tried to convince him to wear, but he did not look any less brilliant for it: in fact, sat where he was out on one of the few battlements that was still partially ruined, not yet rebuilt, creeping vines and moss trying their hardest to retake the stone: the sunlight had been in his hair and his face had been smiling up into the sky. He looked beautiful, and perhaps Thorin had come this way intentionally, though he hadn’t planned to search for Bilbo – though this was a place that the Hobbit often went, in search of peace.

His eyes opened just in time to catch Thorin hovering awkwardly, and he had waved him over, smiling a little at the sight of them.

“I would have thought that you would be very busy this morning,” he had said as Thorin had padded over. “With all the preparations and so forth.”

Thorin had spread his arms out, showing off the elaborate plate armour and detailed embroidered robes that had been laid out for him when he woke.

“Nori finally said that he was finished with my braids, so I took the opportunity to slip away.”

Bilbo had snorted – and Thorin had indeed spent over an hour underneath Nori’s careful fingers that morning, as Balin had brought through rings and chains and a whole variety of silver and platinum for him to wear (no gold, never gold, not anymore). Nori had taken so long because Thorin had been shaking, though no one in the room had acknowledged it – perhaps they felt embarrassed to do so, for he was certainly ashamed to admit it. As soon as he could he had almost ran from the room, searching for air, for space, for somewhere to remember how to breathe, but just the sight of Bilbo sat out here in the sun had been enough for that fear to sink back into something manageable.

“Are you afraid?” Bilbo asked, and Thorin started: he had not been expecting such a direct question. He went to shake his head, but Bilbo’s knowing look made him stop.

“Perhaps a little?” Bilbo said, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, and Thorin nodded, just a little, grateful that Bilbo wasn’t going to make him admit it out loud.

“What are they?” he had asked, and Bilbo had smiled down at the small pod-like items that were clinging to the ivy next to him, the ones that his eyes kept flickering back to. They were strange looking, attached to the leaves that were under Bilbo’s fingertips.

“Moth cocoons, I think,” he had answered. “And quite close to coming out. That’s a good omen, in the Shire, you know. The sign of new life, and a good new start.”

“I hope it will be.”

“Truly, I believe that it will,” Bilbo had told him. “Life is returning back to the Mountain, in time to greet its new King. And speaking of which, I have a gift for you – just a small thing, I’ll admit, but I would be glad if you kept it, and treasured it, even if it does not mean much to you, just as I will forever keep and treasure the story that we have together.”

He swung around, hopping down from the wall on which he had been sat, and he had pulled from his pocket a small silver disk, hanging from a long, fine chain, on which had been stamped a small flower: the same one that he had worn around his neck, tucked beneath his clothes, ever since.

“Pretty little things,” Bilbo said, as he looped the chain around Thorin’s neck. “Those flowers, I mean.” And he had patted the necklace where it lay against Thorin’s chest, his eyes bright with something unspoken.

Thorin had been staring too long at the disk to really think too hard on what Bilbo had been saying at the time, if he was going to be completely honest with himself. And then Bilbo had wrapped his arms around Thorin, a tight and warm embrace, holding him close, and Bilbo’s face had been pressed against the cool metal of Thorin’s chest, and his arms had found their way around Bilbo’s back, his nose buried in soft, curled hair.

“It’ll be alright,” Bilbo whispered to him. “Whatever happens next, you’ll be alright.”

Thorin had screwed up his eyes against Bilbo’s hair, his shoulders shaking, just a little.

“Do you promise?” he whispered, so quietly that he wasn’t sure at first if Bilbo had even been able to hear him, but Bilbo had nodded, and if Thorin had sounded like a child on the brink of tears then he had been good enough not to mention it.

“I do,” he said.

“It seems that you have been thinking a lot on your past interactions with our Burglar,” Dis said, bringing him back to the present. “Have any more flower meanings coming to mind?” she asked, and Thorin did not bother to inquire as to where she had heard the news of his recent research: information travelled through the Mountain like smoke through a chimney, and he made a low noise in response, something that was neither agreement nor disagreement.

More flower meanings certainly had – there was no argument with that. But the necklace remained a mystery to him, indecipherable, its meaning buried somewhere within the book.

Love was a funny thing, really – something that he had not really understood. Well, romantic love, at any rate: familial love had always come to him with the ease of water flowing down the mountainside – loving his nephews, for example, had been as easy as breathing. But the other kind of love – the all-consuming, destructive, comforting love that he felt for Bilbo now – he had never really understood.

He’d seen it between his parents, but he had been too young to understand it, hadn’t had the chance before his mother passed away and his father had changed with grief, becoming sterner, more distant a dwarf. He’d watched Frerin find it first, had seen it change him, alter the way that he looked at the world – and he’d seen Frerin’s beloved waste into a shell of who he had been after they had lost Frerin. Dis had found it too, in a shy dwarf from Ered Luin, who had blossomed under love and attention into the bright, vivacious thing that they knew today. More recently, he’d seen it take Kili, consume him in all the right ways, change his outlook on life. There were stars in Kili’s eyes now, stars that had never been there before, and the flicker of red hair.

But that love had found him, even if it had taken him so long that he had believed that it never would, creeping out of the blue, all tied around a green door and hairy feet and pipeweed curling around a face that was more often than not screwed into an irritable expression, all sarcastic quips and warm hands and a desire to help, in any way that he could. And with that love had come a change in Thorin too, a humility different to the lack of confidence and surety that he had known before, the understanding that all he had was a gift, that he must cherish.

Perhaps it was that new understanding that had made him stand up for Kili in the face of prejudice from other dwarves, made him support their love, even against the opposition that had come from many of the more traditionalist dwarfs.

He actually quite liked Tauriel, once he had got past the fact that she was one of Thranduil’s Captains – he liked her quiet dignity, the way that she was content with silence, the love that glowed in her eyes for his nephew; he liked the stories she told of her family, of her home, the life that seemed to brighten her very cheeks whenever she was happy. He had been sceptical at first, just as he had been with Vivi, but he supposed that it was the way of the Line of Durin to fall in love with the strangest of folk.

It had only been a couple of months since Tauriel had last been here, and in many ways he missed the warmth that her quiet contentment had brought to the Mountain. They had not spent as much time together as he might have liked, but those moments that he had he had been struck by her compassion, her understanding.

He had trailed after her one day, her and Vivi and Bilbo, the three of them having found an easy friendship between them, out onto the mountainside. It had been early in the day, the sky still such a light blue that it was almost colourless, the rock awash with the purple-brown-grey of the heather that swept over it like water in the autumn. The wind had been harsh, but Bilbo had pottered around the rocks as if it had been nothing more than a summer breeze, whilst the other three had trailed after them. Tauriel had been watching the fine clouds overhead, he remembered, the birds that wheeled above them, and at one point Vivi had turned to him, a smile of such sweetness on her face that Thorin had been forced to smile back, even though the morning was cold and a pile of work was waiting back in the mountain for him.

Bilbo had been crouched among the bracken and the stones, his hands running over the coarse plants beneath their feet, touched here and there with sprigs of flowers, small and inconsequential to Thorin's eyes - he probably wouldn't have noticed them at all, if Bilbo hadn't drawn his attention to him, his smile a soft little thing and his eyes strange as he took a stem of them between his fingers.

“I might take some in with me,” Bilbo had said, as he had plucked a sprig from the ground. “It’s a pretty colour, this time of year, don’t you think?”

“If you think so,” Vivi had said, frowning a little. “I would be more partial to a polished slice of quartz as decoration myself. It’s not so attractive a thing, really, is it? The stems are coarse, the flowers simple. Nothing at all compared to the intricacies of a gem.”

Bilbo had smiled up at her, but he had been frowning a little, and when he spoke again his voice had not been annoyed, more a little distant, as if he were struggling to find the right way to explain how he was feeling. When he did manage to speak it was to the ground, though his voice carried well enough that all three of them had heard.

“All flowers have a special place in the heart of a Hobbit, you know – all things that grow, in fact. They are as much a part of me as my bones, a language that I learnt on my mother’s knee, a skill that I found with my hands buried in soil beside my father. Every plant, large or small, must find its place in this world – much as we must do, in fact. Whilst this heather might seem coarse to you, might cover the stone and rock that you love, to me it is a gift and a miracle, and I see more of myself in it than I ever will in any gem stone or crystal. Do you think you can understand that?”

Tauriel had nodded, smiling just a little.

“Aye,” she had told him, her long hair caught in the breeze, a ripple of a gentler fire across the mountainside. “For you it is that which grows, and for me it is the sky – in each changing cloud and timeless constellation, I see just a fragment of who I am, and who my parents were, and their parents before them, and every elf that has ever been. It is in the stars and the sky and the colours of sunset that I feel connected to all that I am and could ever be.”

“I will apologise then,” Vivi had told them both, but she did not seem sad to have to do so – in fact, she was smiling too. “For I understand that feeling, even if I did not recognise it in you both. The good earth and sky are kin to you both, just as the rock of the mountain is to us – if you see your soul in clouds and flowers, I see my own in quartz, and it is not my place to mock.”

They had trailed in some time afterwards, away from the cold and biting wind, into the warmth of the Mountain, and for a brief few paces Bilbo had taken his arm, squeezing the crook of his elbow in a way that had flooded his chest with heat.

Heather, he thought to himself, and he turned the small disk of silver from Bilbo between his hands. There was another clue, wasn’t there? There were more than he could have possibly imagined, but when he found himself alone late that night, and searched out the entry, he felt his heart sink.

Heather : is a low-growing, flower often found in mountainous areas, with multiple small, bell-shaped flowers that grow on a single stem, in shades of purple or white. They are a hardy plant, often growing in remote climates, and have come to symbolise loneliness.

How long had Bilbo been feeling that way?

How had he noticed, at the time?

“Does everything have a meaning in the Shire, Uncle?”

Thorin nodded, frowning at the great tapestry on the wall, trying to ignore the knot in his heart that seemed only to be growing more complex with every day. The more he learnt about Bilbo, the way that he had been feeling all this time, the more the guilt seemed to gnaw at him, digging its claws in deep, refusing to let go, for it seemed to Thorin that he must have been blind not to see it.

“It seems like it?” he replied, his shoulders sinking a little. “Why?”

Kili pulled a face, from his Uncle’s side – both his nephews were standing next to him, waiting impatiently in a break between attending to public concerns, a day put aside once per month for the citizens of Erebor to come before the King in person with any issues that they might be having, something that Thorin had insisted on, despite how exhausting the process could be.

“Well, I remember, just a few weeks ago really – when we all went down to Dale?”

He did remember it, remembered it well, though it had been a couple of months, rather than weeks back. Bilbo had been in a strange mood, staring out towards the distant haze of the Misty Mountains, frowning a little, and the last rags of the autumn leaves had been clinging to the stunted trees, the sky overhead all iron and steel, the wind fresh with the bite of a winter just waiting to roar across the plains towards them – it had been a brief autumn that year, the grey of winter closing in earlier than Thorin had remembered it for doing so for a long time. Bard had been welcoming, the fireplaces roaring and their cups flowing with ginger wine that traders from the East had brought, but it had been a strange and stilted evening none the less, mostly for Bilbo’s reticence. Even when spoken to, he ended up jumping, his eyes on the windows, as if even in the darkness he was trying to see something distant, and far away.

He made a low noise in the back of his throat, and Kili edged a little closer.

“We went for a walk, early the next day, you see – I caught him up and about, and he’d seemed so odd the day before, and I thought it might help him. But he was all funny and quiet, and he kept picking up these dried old leaves as we went along – from walls and branches and things, y’know? He kept ripping them up, and scattering the pieces behind him – it was so strange.”

Thorin nodded, slowly.

“Go check the book,” he muttered, and Kili darted off quickly: Balin lead in a miner, twisting his hat in his hands, and he had voiced his desire for a larger house to accommodate his family who had recently moved to Erebor, so that they could all live together as they had done before now – it was an easy enough request to grant, given the huge number of empty housing in Erebor, but they had settled into a housing program early, allocating set accommodation based on need, to make sure there ended up being no unfair division. Kili slipped in as Balin led the grateful dwarf out, but his expression was not happy.

“Sorry,” he muttered, as he passed the book to Thorin, flicking it open to the right page.

Dead leaf : in the Shire, even the leaves that coat the forest floor are known to have a meaning. They speak of sadness, and the closing of the year, and though are traditionally not included in any wreath or floral crown, are scattered on the doorsteps of those suffering the greatest grief.

Fili glanced across at him, a strange sort of smile on his face.

“I thought it would go differently, when you started looking into these things, I will admit,” he said, his voice low. "We're starting to run out of time - it's only a couple of weeks until Bilbo is due to leave. Apparently he has already started packing."

Thorin said nothing, merely closed the book with a snap, and nodded at Balin as his head appeared around the door, asking if they were ready for the next entreaty.

He was grateful for his nephews that afternoon, he would admit, for nothing had quite fixed his belief in how Bilbo had been feeling as much as that last entry had. And Thorin had not even noticed – truly Bilbo must believe that none of them cared, since none of them had bothered to ask him why he had been feeling the way he was feeling, since none of them had even realised the way that he was feeling. Admittedly he had been strange, Thorin had seen that, and the next day, when he had come by with the gift for Thorin, he had also seemed peculiar, but-

The gift.

How had he had thought of it sooner?

Those hours spent reading through the book, flicking through the thick cream pages, searching out all the different kinds of flowers, and all along it had been sat there on his desk. Bilbo had come into his rooms with it tucked under one arm, just after their trip to Dale, in a similar painted pot to the one the Belladonna had been, the day he had woken up to find Bilbo pale at his bedside. And Bilbo had seemed almost ill himself, hadn’t he? He hadn’t seemed able to rest, moving around the room as they spoke of trivial things, and even though Thorin had called for the tea that Bilbo liked best he had left his cup half full, letting it go cold, forgetting about it entirely.

“It’s a cyclamen,” he had told Thorin, distracted, when he had asked about the plant. “I’ve been growing it from a bulb, and now I know why.”

He had thrust the plant into Thorin’s hands, muttering something about a traditional gift in these times, but Thorin had been too worried about his frown, the deep shadows under his eyes, the way that he had kept rubbing at his chest, over and over and over again, as if some deep but unspeakable pain had settled in.

He checked the meaning when he got back to his rooms, not sure if he could face checking something again in front of the boys: after all, he had to remain strong, didn’t he? For he was not so blind as to realise that he would be the only one to lose a loved one at Bilbo’s parting.

But when he got back, he did check the book – though the entry gave him as little hope as any of the others.

In fact, if anything, it made him feel worse.

Cyclamen : these flowers have five long, upswept petals and patterned leaves, and are often cultivated in small pots. Their popularity stems from the fact that they flower throughout the year, in white, pinks or purples. They can symbolise resignation, and farewells.

Bilbo had given him this plant months ago, when the Yule plans had only just started to go underway, when winter had yet to breathe its first icy whisper, long before he had said anything about leaving to Thorin, or to anything else.

He had known he was leaving for that long?

Thorin buried his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.

His necklace hung down from his chest, catching the light, almost as if it were mocking him.

Perhaps some fallout from this situation was due: perhaps it really could have only been so long before something happened. He had been avoiding talking to Bilbo for what had felt like months, even if it had only been days, after all, and Bilbo was far too intuitive not to notice that something was wrong.

It was much later in the evening when Bilbo knocked on Thorin’s door, and he had been smiling when Thorin opened it, expecting another lecture from Dis, or perhaps a slap around the back of the head from Balin. But instead, there had stood their Hobbit (and oh, Thorin was always careful never to think of him as anything else), the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in that way that did dangerous things to Thorin’s chest.

“Hullo,” he said, and Thorin nodded, his throat tightening. In Bilbo’s hands was a small package, but he made no move to pass it over, simply padding past Thorin and into his rooms, leaving it on the small table between the armchairs, facing towards the fire that had been crackling in the hearth since the early evening. “I thought I would come by, since we have a moment of quiet – I think the next couple of days will be frantic with work for the Yule feast. I spent three hours this morning creating centrepieces – if I hadn’t spent most of my tween years enlisted by various family members in doing the same task, I might have thrown myself from the ramparts.” He grinned at Thorin, conspiratorially. “They thought that it would keep me out of trouble – I was something of a hell raiser, in my youth. Everyone was convinced that I would end up coming to no good, running off with layabouts and being entirely unrespectable – it used to give my father conniptions, talk like that.”

He broke off, frowning a little.

“Of course, I ended up proving them right. No doubt I won’t get an invitation for afternoon tea for at least a year, when I get back. I am going to have to send so many presents to win over the worst of my relatives.”

Thorin swallowed, feeling a little ill. For just a moment, listening to Bilbo’s voice, everything seeming so normal, he had managed to forget just how precious and few these moments were now, had managed to pretend that everything was normal.

Something must have shown in his face, for Bilbo’s expression softened, just a little.

“I will miss you, you know,” Bilbo told him, and Thorin was forced to turn away, for fear that he would say something that he would regret.

“And we shall all miss you,” was all that he managed to say in reply, lame and insincere. He stared down into the fireplace, the gentle glow of the embers, shifting slightly as the wood burnt. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it, as hard as he could without drawing blood, and thought for a moment that he might have been hiding his tension well enough for fool Bilbo – but as ever, he had underestimated their Burglar.

“I understand if you are angry at me,” came Bilbo’s voice from behind him, quiet and sincere. “But I wish that you weren’t, you know.”

Thorin gritted his teeth, less from anger and more from desperation.

“I understand that you need to leave. I too have felt the call of a far off home in my bones, Bilbo.”

Bilbo let out a low sound of frustration, but Thorin still could not bring himself to turn around. The stone of the mantelpiece, familiar and warm, was well worn and smooth under his fingertips, but it offered him no comfort, not the way that it usually did on long and stressful days – these rooms had been his before Smaug had ousted them from the Mountain, and when they had reclaimed it he had not been able to bring himself to live in the ones that had once belonged to his Father or Grandfather. No, these were more modest but familiar, etched with the marks of a life, of his own life, a life that he had almost forgotten, and normally the sight of them brought to him some relief, some tether or reality, but today the stone was simply stone beneath his hands, unyielding and mundane.

Bilbo sighed, from behind him.

“Yet still you will not look at me, and you have been avoiding me for the last few days.”

He shook his head.

“I have not been avoiding you.”

He closed his eyes, even though Bilbo could not see him, just in time for his reply. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Thorin. I have sense enough to tell when you are trying your hardest to pretend that something isn’t happening – and I know you well enough by now, besides.”

The silence between them was long, and for a moment, and Thorin was not quite certain how long it would go on before he ended up breaking it, for better or for worse. A tension was rising in his chest, building tight and hot, and he was quite certain that soon it would burst free of him.

“What is wrong?” Bilbo asked, but Thorin found himself speaking too, before he had time to think, turning as he did, and he almost wished that he had not, for Bilbo’s face was already creasing up, in annoyance and hurt.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Thorin threw himself away from the fireplace, pacing across the room, only to realise that he had nowhere else to go: he found himself moving backwards and forwards, his hands behind his back, at a loss for where else to go.

“Tell me that you were planning on leaving!”

And now Bilbo looked more confused than anything else. “I did tell you!”

“Then why did it take you so long!?”

Bilbo’s mouth opened, just a little.

“I told you as soon as I had made up my mind that I was going to leave-”

“Cyclamen! Resignation and farewells! You were planning on leaving long before you told us of it – why?”

Bilbo stilled, for just a moment, his forehead drawing into a frown.

“How do you know about flower meanings?”

Thorin opened his mouth, and then promptly closed it again, but Bilbo was folding his arms, a look of singular determination on his face that Thorin was well used to.

“No, please elaborate. Why have you been looking into flower meanings?”

Thorin took a deep breath, but all he could do was let it out again, not knowing what there was to say at this point, how he could explain himself in any way that would make sense – but Bilbo was still staring at him expectantly, with just enough hurt that Thorin could feel that ache of worry start to build in his chest again –

“I was trying to work out what had happened, why you had decided to leave,” he admitted, finally, even though that did not even come close to it, not really.

“You could have just asked,” Bilbo told him, dully, but asking had never been an option, not really.

“I didn’t know how to even begin,” was his answer, and that at least was entirely true.

They stared at each other, for a long and slow minute, before Bilbo flopped down onto the armchair, tucking his feet up onto the seat and tightening his arms around his knees, hugging them to him.

“And what did you discover?” he asked, his voice a little muffled.

“I…” Thorin trailed off, wondering how to word it, but then Bilbo glanced up at him, those ash-and-agate eyes confused and hurt and questioning, and his self-control wavered, just long enough for him to speak. “I didn’t understand how unhappy you were here – how long you have been waiting for a chance to return home, how much of all of this has caused you only pain and nothing more, and-”

“I’m not unhappy, Thorin,” Bilbo said, cutting across him.

“But, the flowers! The dog rose, the Datura, the heather-”

“Was sadness all that you understood from those?”

Thorin paused, unsure of what to say to that – for what else had there been, but sadness? Bilbo shook his head at his silence, and a funny little smile wavered across his expression, for just a moment.

“I will admit,” Bilbo said, quietly, “to being a little flattered that you remembered those things, but I wonder if there are many more flowers that you might have forgotten, or have misunderstood. Things are a little more complicated than that at times, you know.”

Thorin nodded, numbly.

“But the thing is, I’m not unhappy, I’m really not, Thorin. And I am sorry if I have made you believe that I am. But sometimes when… when a situation does not go the way that we have hoped that it would, we can all feel a little frustrated. And that has happened, from time to time. But being here, and knowing you – nothing about that has ever made me unhappy. And I doubt it ever would, but I don’t feel like I will ever shake that frustration – and I see now that it was the right decision, to leave, for I think that if I do stay, with the situation the way that it is, I would only continue to make you believe that I am somehow sad. So I will go back-” and he raised a hand now, as Thorin’s mouth opened just a little, as if to ward off whatever it had been that Thorin was going to say.

“And I will return to my home, and my books, and I shall miss you, all of you, for every day for as long as I live. But remaining here- well. It is as if I have a wound that I have left untreated, and the longer that I stay, the worse it becomes. And I believe that I have already let it filter quite enough.”

He smiled then, a shaky smile, and nodded, but as he turned to leave he seemed to remember something, and turned back to Thorin, reaching into his pocket to retrieve a small plant bulb, the type that Thorin had become very familiar with, in recent days, seeing pictures of so many in the great tome. He reached to pass it to Thorin, but when he raised his own hand to accept it Bilbo seemed to waver, taking hold of Thorin’s hand instead, bringing it to his mouth, pressing it against Thorin’s knuckles, his heavy rings, the coarse and calloused skin.

The evening seemed to slow, just then: a handful of seconds seemed to stretch into impossible hours as Thorin stood, unmoving, not certain of what he was supposed to do. There was something deeply and disconcertingly intimate: the low flicker of the firelight seemed suddenly to throw out a heat that felt oppressive, rather than comforting, and the shadows against the wall seemed to taunt him for his inaction, but it was all that he could do not to cry aloud from grief at the sight before him, at the press of lips against his skin, at how little all of this made sense to him.

And then Bilbo let his hand go, and took a step back again, smiling a little ruefully as Thorin’s hand fell back to his side.

“I want to plant these tomorrow,” Bilbo told him, and Thorin frowned for a moment before he remembered the plant bulb. “They are bluebells, you see. I think the frost may catch a few of them, but it should still be alright to plant them on the terrace – it is quite sheltered there, after all. They will start to sprout by the time I leave, and will be flowering some weeks later. And if you can look at them, and think of me, and wish me well on my journey, then I will face the road all the stronger, for knowing that I have your blessing behind me.”

“I’m sure we will,” he replied, but the voice sounded so unlike his own that Thorin was not sure if it had even been him who had spoken.

“Just you,” Bilbo answered. “It’s always just for you. I’m surprised that you haven’t figured that part out yet.”

He put the bulb down on Thorin’s low table, nodded once, and slipped from the door, leaving Thorin the closest thing to a wreck that he had ever been. Bilbo was leaving, and though he had known that for days it felt suddenly and terribly so much more certain than it had been before, and all that he found welling up inside himself was anger, anger at his own stupidity, his own short-sightedness. His eyes caught sight of the great book, still tucked away behind the cushion, and he grabbed at it, for a moment certain that he was going to throw it on the fire, eyes wild and angry, for what use had it been? All of its helpful explanations and not one of them had been enough to keep Bilbo here, to stop him from going, nor even for Thorin to understand what had gone so terribly against Bilbo’s hopes.

The book slipped from his fingers, and he realised that he was shaking. Whether it was from anger or from something else entirely, he was not sure, but he reached to pick it up with a sigh, his anger draining out of him, leaving only exhaustion behind him. It fell open in his hands, and he spared a glance at the page in front of him, one of the list of entries from the first part of the book.

His eye caught on one entry, on the name.

He flicked through the pages carefully, slowly, all the haste of his previous moments of research gone now, until he found the right page.

Bluebells : a spring flower, this blooms in five to twelves small bell shaped flowers, in a violet-blue colour. Found commonly in woodland, they have also been cultivated in gardens, and are surprisingly resistant despite their delicate appearance. Perhaps because of this, in the Shire they have come to symbolise a love that will never end, and a constancy in affections.

And there, on the other side of the page, he found the right entry - in the courting chapter of the book after all, for all that he had rolled his eyes every time his kin and company had mentioned it to him - the one that he had been looking for, the flower stamped on the warm disk of metal underneath his shirt, resting against his skin, his heart. The words started up at him, and he glanced between it and the one for the bluebells, his eyes wide, frozen in place.

From the corridor, you might have heard the rather loud sound of a penny dropping, but only if you were feeling particularly intuitive.

Fili sighed, looking around the room that his Uncle and Bilbo had only just vacated – Bilbo no doubt off to ask Thorin if he needed any help with the very poorly disguised pain that he had clearly been in all night, and Thorin to inevitably rebuff him, in an attempt not to burden their burglar with any more worries.

(Apparently being socially intuitive did not run in the Line of Durin – he could only assume that he had got it from his father).

“Do you think Uncle has worked anything out yet?” Kili asked, from beside his brother, twisting the ring marked with his insignia around and around his finger.

“Somehow, I’m not sure that I can believe it.”

Kili sighed, a low huffing sound, and pouted, just a little.

“I still think it isn’t fair that we can’t just tell them that they are both hopelessly in love with each other and let them work it out from there,” he complained, perhaps just a touch too loudly, because their mother rolled her eyes at them from the sofa, and Gloin laughed.

“That is not the way that the great love stories go, lad!”

“That’s all well and good,” said Nori, rolling his eyes. “But if Bilbo buggers off back to the damn Shire that one will be dead in the water, anyway.”

Ori ran a hand through his hair, dislodging and messing up several small braids, though he did not seem overly concerned by the fact.

“I’m not sure that the book is doing any good, either.”

Dis snorted.

“My darling big brother has never paid all that much attention to advice received from books, I’m afraid.”

Balin tutted.

“I’m sure all they both need is something of a gentle push in the right direction.”

Dwalin elbowed him in the side.

“I think you’d need to carve the words on a war hammer and whack them both around the head with it, and even then I’m not sure they’d understand quite what you’d be tryin’ to tell them.”

“Sounds like fun,” Nori drawled, just as Bofur let himself back into the room, a rather large bottle of his home made ginger wine in his hands.

“Don’t mean to alarm you all,” he said, settling the bottle down. “But our King just went flying past me like a dwarf possessed.”

“Where was he going?” Bombur piped up from the other side of the room. “Towards-”

Bofur shook his head. “Not towards our Hobbit, if that is what you are thinking. Looked like he was heading towards the craft guilds, I’d say.”

Oin squinted at him, twisting his ear piece. “Did I hear that right, lad? The craft guilds?”

Bofur nodded, uncorking the wine, passing it to Bifur, who was staring from dwarf to dwarf, following the conversation with an expression that was turning slowly from grim to gleeful.

Dori hummed. “Traditionally, a dwarf might be heading in that direction if they were intending to create a certain something…”

“What?” Kili piped up, but Fili grabbed him by the shoulder and muttered an explanation in his ear as the rest of the room burst into excited chattering.

“There is some hope, then?” Ori said, grinning, and Fili ruffled his hair, affectionately.

“If my Uncle is anything to go by, maybe not,” he said, but he smiled when Ori’s expression fell, just a little. “But some hope his better than none, and it certainly looks like a step in the right direction.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Bombur mumbled, taking a swig straight from the bottle of wine.

Bilbo had been busy all day, a combination of trying to avoid thoughts of his arguments two days before and the last minute details of the Yule festivities that he had somehow become partially responsible for. It certainly had been a learning curve for him – the celebrations in the Shire shared some similarities with those being planned in Erebor, but those were few and far between. He was more used to cut paper lanterns and mistletoe and presents on every table – the thousands of coloured candles, wrought silverware and cut gem centrepieces had thrown him to begin with, though he had quickly thrown himself into the spirit of things.

Celebrations in general were in the blood of every Hobbit, after all, and what greater celebration was there than the one of life, in the middle of winter, the perseverance of mortality in the face of the cold death of winter.

And he had to admit, looking around the great hall of Erebor now, that it was an impressive sight.

He had watched the lighting of the candles, all the wicks connected by fine oiled thread, all joining together in several places, so that a number of dwarves simply lit the tails of this thread in unison, the darkness of the hall suddenly exploding into the flickering light simultaneously, had filled him with a sudden and unexpected appreciation of the beauty of it all. The great columns all wrapped in filigree, reflecting the light of those countless candles now they were lit, and the shadowed domed heights above them, left the room with a cosy warmth that reminded him of home: every place setting shone in the light, runners in a dark blue off-set with a deep, rich red, the great chamber waiting and ready for the hoard of dwarves who would soon appear.

It was beautiful. It was magnificent. A strange anticipation thrummed in the air, as if the room itself were taking in a breath, waiting for some great and epic moment to occur: Bilbo himself could feel it, couldn’t help but wonder what it was that was going to happen, whether it was anything at all. Weeks of stressful planning had finally been unveiled before him, executed in such a perfect display of organisation that it was satisfying to look on the room, the horrors of planning all falling away from him.

It did nothing to ease Bilbo’s own heart.

Because as beautiful as it all was, he was well aware that this might well be the first and only time he would ever be able to see it, the last chance that he had to sit in a chamber full of his dwarves. The moment that their voices all joined together in the winter song – that would be the only time that he ever heard it.

Because he was going, wasn’t he? Leaving this Mountain, that had become a strange home to him, leaving the people that he loved, his new family-of-choice. Just a few more weeks, and he would be packing his bags, preparing for a long, cold journey home. Even the thought of the Shire in the early summer, as it would be by the time he arrived there, was not a comforting enough thought to ease the ache in his chest.

An empty house, an empty home. Dust on the mantelpieces, silence in the hallways, a coldness in his bed and his heart and everywhere between.

Because Thorin would be in Erebor still, half a world away, out of sight but never out of mind: how could he be, when every part of Bilbo would ache for him still?

He had loved Thorin for- well, since when was irrelevant, really, since he couldn’t remember exactly when he had started feeling the way that he had. Somewhere in and amongst the danger and the exhaustion and the pain of their Quest, somehow among the threat of death and the impossible disrespectability of it all, he had fallen into a type of love that he had never believed that he would experience, a form of feeling that had been so far beyond his understanding before this had happened that had taken him far longer than it should have done to understand.

He tugged at his navy waistcoat, made especially some months before for special occasions in the Mountain – he had abstained from the traditional dwarf armour-and-robes combinations, but had bowed to Dis’ insistence that he have the garment made of a fabric embroidered in gold in the patterns of the line of Durin. He still felt a little strange wearing it, out of place, but she had insisted that it wasn’t inappropriate, given his position within Erebor.

He let out a deep sigh.

He had not spoken to Thorin since their argument – if you could call it that. And he knew that he should, that he would never forgive himself if these last weeks were marred by any awkwardness, but in all truth he felt embarrassed by the entire thing, worried that perhaps Thorin had read the truth in what he had said, that he now understood Bilbo’s feelings, that he would no longer know how to act around Bilbo, these unrequited feelings a mess between them that neither of them could move past. For he knew well that Thorin did not – could not – reciprocate.

How could he?

There had been no sign, no indication – perhaps there had been moments when Bilbo had hoped, of course, but it had been a fool’s hope. And he knew that now, had come to terms with it – that, after all, had been what had pushed him to finally leave the Mountain, for he knew well that there he could not possibly stay here any longer, could not run himself into despair waiting for something to happen that never would. In all this aching, in all this suffering, he found himself to be enough of a Hobbit still to find and chose the path to healing, the harder path in so many ways, the path of his own personal form of salvation.

Thorin did not love him, and he could not stay.

Bilbo let out one last deep sigh, and padded forward, intent on helping Dori with the final arrangements, trying as hard as he could to put his thoughts to the back of his mind.

Thorin watched Bilbo from across the room, his heart in his throat. It had taken some skill to leave the small package on Bilbo’s plate without anyone noticing, without anyone questioning what it was and what it was for – he wasn’t sure that he would be able to answer, not right now.

For he had come to a decision, finally, and he only hoped that what he had thought Bilbo said was true, but he realised now that his reticence, his cowardice, could only hold him back.

He had had so much practice being brave, facing situations that he was afraid of: this should have been nothing, except for the fact that it was everything.

So he stood now in front of his throne, the crowds slowly beginning to grow and fill up the room, nodding at each person who drew to the dais to bow before him, and though he greeted each one in turn his eyes found themselves drawn time and time again to Bilbo, despite himself – and when he finally extracted himself from another group of admirers, all wanting to speak to the great hero of Erebor, and he began finally to move towards his seat, he found that he could look at nothing else.

For there was the gift, wrapped haphazardly in the first scrap of fabric that Thorin had been able to find – it had still been warm when he carried it from the craft-guilds back to his room, just in time to change before his presence had been required. He had regretted for a moment not finding something better for it, something more beautiful and worthy, but he suspected that if he had, he would have only ended up spending weeks adding more to it, searching for ways to make the gift greater, grander, more elaborate.

No, it was right the way it was – delicate, fragile looking, wrapped in the scraps of something beautiful, something much like Thorin himself.

Bilbo was smiling across the table at Bofur, laughing a little at something that Thorin could not hear, but as he watched he saw the Hobbit glance down, his forehead crease a little in confusion at the gift. But then he turned, just enough to hide himself from Thorin’s sight.

“What are you looking at?”

He did not turn at the sound of his sister, could not tear his eyes away from Bilbo’s back, but she must have followed the line of his gaze, for from beside him she let out a gentle sigh, and she reached for his arm, squeezing it in comfort.

“You have worked up your courage at last then, brother,” she said, and at that he did glance across at her, in surprise, but she just wrinkled her nose at him, in that expression that said you didn’t really believe that you could keep it a secret from me, did you?

She glanced away from him, and her smile brightened, just a little.

“He’s coming over,” she whispered, and then pressed a whiskery kiss against his cheek, soft and reassuring, before stepping down, passing by Bilbo with a touch to his shoulder that Bilbo almost seemed to ignore, padding quietly over to the dais, his hands full of white silk and gold, distracted. When Balin saw him he drew away the line of people waiting to see the King, ushering them quietly to one side, though Thorin barely noticed, his eyes fixed on Bilbo’s frown, on the way those campfire eyes kept flickering back to the gift in his hands. He took the low steps slowly, and Thorin wondered for a moment if he might be turning to stone, right here, right now, from fear.

But his heartbeat slowed as Bilbo looked up at him, as he came to stand beside him in front of the throne, as if some blanket of calm had been thrown across him, not quite suppressing it entirely, but enough to ease his chest. Bilbo held out his gift in front of him with one hand, and Thorin glanced down at it, his breath catching for a moment as he saw it, even though he had spent the last couple of days doing nothing but the same as he created it.

“You know what these mean, in the Shire, don’t you?” Bilbo asked, and though it was phrased as such it was not really a question, as if he already knew.

Thorin nodded, slowly, trying to stay as still as he could, as if in movement he might break the moment, shatter this fragile scene lit by flickering candlelight, so much like a dream that it almost could not have been real.

"The same as the ones on the gift that you gave me," he said, almost a whisper. "They are, aren't they? The same flower?"

Bilbo bit his lip, and made a humming sound of agreement.

“They are a spring flower, you know,” Bilbo said, and Thorin could only nod again, for even though he had read that in the book there was some strange and beautiful quality to Bilbo’s voice right now, quiet and unsure and full of something great and warm and impossible in its cadence. “It was always one of my favourites. My mother used to tell me that they were a good omen, of new beginnings.”

“Stay with me,” Thorin whispered, his voice only a heartbeat away from cracking, and Bilbo nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, his shoulders slumping in a sigh of relief.

“Yes,” he answered, his voice hoarse, and he pressed the gift, still wrapped in silk, into Thorin’s hands, their fingers skimming against each other, impossibly warm, and the silk fell from his fingers as he fumbled open the fine hinge, reaching over to Bilbo’s waistcoat, pinning the fine buttonhole of gold filigree and gem shards in place, feeling the quick beat of Bilbo’s heartbeat under his hands as the side of his hand pressed against the white shirt beneath the waistcoat for just a moment. Neither noticed the eyes of curious dwarves still on them, the attention slowly growing, the silent nudges and craning necks: there was nothing to them in this moment other than each other, nothing but this moment, and the pin against Bilbo’s chest, and the warmth from each other’s bodies, so close that they should have been touching, though some tension, some fear, some anticipation kept them apart yet.

The gems were bright and blue still, the kind of stone that Thorin’s mother had once called sky-kissed, and though right now they seemed closer to amber in the candlelight there would be no mistaking what those flowers were, not to anyone who knew the tongue of the petals, the earth, the blooms.

Bilbo was still smiling at him, his forehead creased just a little, as if he still had not quite caught up to what was happened.

“I didn’t know,” he said, his voice cracking, a little. “I had given up hope-”

“So had I,” Thorin admitted, leaning just a little closer; a strand of his hair fell from where it had been tucked behind his ear, grazing Bilbo’s cheek. “Language barriers, perhaps.”

It was almost a joke, and Bilbo glanced down at the floor, smiling just a little wider, before looking upwards again.

“What a relief,” he breathed, as he took the slightest of steps forward. “I was quite sorry at the thought of leaving, I will admit.” He tugged then at one of Thorin’s braids gently, as if he wasn’t sure what to do with himself, and Thorin caught his hand, pulling it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the palm of it, his bead scraping against the skin enough to make Bilbo shiver.

“Bothersome dwarf,” he muttered, and Thorin nodded in agreement.

“So you’ll stay?” he asked, once more. “I would not keep you, not if your home calls for you with as strong a song as-”

“No,” Bilbo said, shaking his head. “I will stay – here, with the people that I love. With my new family, with you, if-”

He cut himself off, at the sight of Thorin’s smile, so wide and bright that it almost hurt to look at. The only thing that he could do, in that moment, was press forward, his mouth to Thorin’s, their bodies fitting together, his hands reaching up to cradle his idiot dwarf’s face, gently, just as Thorin’s arms wrapped around him, as if they might break the moment, the sweetness, the resolution of it all.

Forget-me-not: a small flower, with four petals, which are normally found in shades of blue with a pink or white centre. These are traditional flowers of intent in the Shire, used to express true love, and remembrance.

“Well, I’m glad that the two of you finally have that settled,” Bofur said, as he and Bilbo stood on the terrace, taking long pulls of their pipes. Bilbo nodded, a smile still curving over his mouth, one that he had not been able to shift for the last few hours. Thorin was somewhere inside, all warm arms and hesitant smiles and gentle touches. What would come ahead of them next was uncertain, but one thing he did know was that it couldn’t be any worse than a dragon.

“It’s just a shame really,” Bofur said, and Bilbo glanced up at him, surprised. “Well, you know, if you’d have noticed all the different types of stone that Thorin kept trying to show you, you might have resolved all this pining six month ago.”

Bilbo stared out into the dark distance, smoke curling up around his face.

“I tell you want,” he replied, slowly. “Let’s pretend that you never said that, and that that isn’t true, okay?”