A/N: This work was inspired by the "Seeing her for the first time again" video on Youtube and the idea to Bagginshield it came from reading "Seeing him" by Variastrix. I highly recommend, great read (though not at all necessary to get this fic)!
Changed the rating to T (for drug use, even if it is in a medicinal sense), because M was too high.
Beorn's home was a welcome reprieve after the events of the past few days. Everything there was too large, of course – the furniture, the ceiling, the rooms – but at least it was safe.
As for right now, it was also dimly lit, as their host had left and the dwarves and Gandalf were bedding down for the night. Bella could not rest quite yet, however, as her eyes kept straying to the sleeping Thorin, slightly removed from the others so he would not be disturbed by their raucousness earlier in the evening.
Óin had given him some healing tonic as soon as they'd arrived and eaten, which would dull the pain, prevent infection and cause him to sleep through most of his recovering time. He had now been asleep for quite a while, however, and Bella was starting to worry.
"Should he sleep this long?" the hobbit asked into Óin's hearing horn.
"Not to worry, lass," the old healer waved her off, "I gave him enough tonic that it is not surprising. Sit with him, if you wish, he should wake up within a few hours and someone should be there to make sure he gets something to eat. Don't be alarmed if he doesn't seem himself when he wakes, either, he might be rather groggy at first."
And the healer ushered her towards Thorin, ignoring Bella's spluttering, half-hearted protests.
The hobbit settled down next to Thorin with a resigned sigh, doing her best to ignore the curious looks the rest of the Company were sending her. Fíli and Kíli, especially, looked like they were itching to come over and ask some questions, but thankfully, for whatever the reason, they refrained from doing so. Balin and Gandalf, infuriatingly, were sending her knowing and amused looks, and Bella cursed silently at her heating cheeks.
As ignoring the looks did not seem to work particularly well, she decided to do some mending to distract herself from both the looks and, mortifyingly, from staring at Thorin's sleeping, injured face like a tween with a crush. Her coat had suffered horribly from her escape from that Gollum creature down under the Misty Mountains, and Bofur had been a dear and gifted her some new buttons that he'd carved from some oak wood, so replacing her lost buttons would be her first task.
Plucking them out of her satchel, she smiled at the sight of them. The toymaker had taken the time to carve tiny little flowers into them, as well, and at her effusive thanks upon receiving such beautiful new buttons he'd simply grinned and told her it was good to have something to do. Bella smiled fondly to herself. Bofur was a very good friend.
Intent on repairing her coat, she settled down to do just that.
An hour or so later, after having both replaced her buttons and touched up some of the lining of the coat were the old stitches were fraying, Bella put her newly repaired coat aside and gazed around the room.
Glancing over the sleeping members of the Company, the hobbit soon realized that she seemed to be the only one left awake. The room was dark now, which explained her straining eyes as she worked, with only the glowing embers in both the fireplaces of the room giving off any light. Fortunately, she was very close to one of them, which both warmed her and gave her, just barely, enough light to see what she was doing. Biting her lip, she glanced at Thorin hopefully, but he still slept, hair strewn around his head in a dark halo and lips parted, his breathing deep and calm.
Sighing, Bella decided she might as well fetch something for Thorin to eat once he woke up (which would hopefully be soon, because the hobbit was truly starting to worry about how long he'd slept now, despite Óin's assurances). She got to her feet, stretching to relieve some of the knots in her back, there from having been hunched over her mending for too long.
Carefully picking her way thought the dimly lit room, she managed to find some honey bread after a bit of scavenging. Considering the medicine in Thorin's system, she thought it might be best to keep to something that would be light on the stomach.
Sneaking her way back to Thorin's side, she put the bread down, added some more wood to the closest fire and carefully folded herself into a sitting position beside him. Seeing as no one else was awake, she indulged herself in a wee bit of staring, watching the shadows from the fire play over his face, the cut on his nose, the shadows beneath his eyes. She listened to his soft breathing and, without thinking, reached out to take his hand in hers where it rested upon his chest.
Once the hobbit realized what she'd just done, she froze in apprehension, but Thorin didn't wake, didn't even move. She blew out a relieved breath and stroked his knuckles tentatively, overcome by a surge of courage. The dwarf's armour removed, she could feel the warmth of his chest through the thin material of his shirt, and she bit her lip, berating herself. This was not the moment to moon over him like that.
Unable to bring herself to release his hand, she settled next to him, waiting.
It was almost another hour before the dwarf king moved, and Bella had nearly dozed off herself by that point. She jerked to awareness, though, when she felt Thorin shifting beneath her hand, a muffled groan escaping his lips.
Her eyes flying to his face, she squeezed his hand, whispering hopefully, "Thorin?"
He let out another soft groan, his fingers twitching around hers, and blinked bleary eyes slowly open. It looked like it took a monumental effort to do even that.
Bella heaved a sigh of relief and forced herself to release his hand, reaching instead for the small piece of bread she'd brought over earlier. Thorin, meanwhile, stared groggily down at the hand she'd just released, flexing his fingers and frowning at how cold it felt.
Bella tried to force down a smile at the sight. It seemed as though Óin was right about how Thorin would be groggy when he woke. As she doubted he had quite the presence of mind to accept the honey bread from her right then, she instead pressed it into his hand, urging him to eat. She kept her voice soft, so as not to wake anyone.
Thorin frowned at the piece of bread in his hands, as though not quite understanding what it was or what it was doing there, an utterly lost, pained and confused expression on his face. At her second urging, though, he complied, lifting the bread to his mouth and taking some haphazard bites.
"…Hurts," he managed after a while, a forlorn statement, vulnerable as she'd never heard him, and her heart went out to him.
"I know, love," she managed, hoping that he wouldn't remember this once his mind cleared, because reason number one, she could just see him going back to resenting her for having seen him so weak and vulnerable, and reason number two, him remembering her calling him 'love' was mortifying on a multitude of levels, not the least of which being that it was rather revealing of her own ridiculous attachment to him. While he was in such pain, however, she couldn't bear not giving him all the love and kindness she had in her.
Bella grimaced, realizing that this experience would be extremely mortifying to the both of them once Thorin's head had cleared, and added, "You'll feel better soon. Eat your bread."
The dwarf mumbled an agreement and continued painstakingly trying to get the bread down. Bella fussed slightly with his blanket, meanwhile, marvelling silently at how compliant he was in this state. She wasn't sure she liked it.
Thorin shifted painfully, huffing out a sigh and turning his head laboriously to look at her through half-lidded eyes. The hand holding the bread wavered dangerously in the air, and Bella fought back an impulse to reach out to hold his arm steady.
"By Durin, you are beautiful," he muttered, and Bella swallowed a startled hiccupping gasp. What, now?
"Er, thank you," she managed to get out, blinking rapidly in surprise.
"Better than gold," he rasped, eyes fixed blearily on her, waving the bread, "or mithril."
Bella sat in stunned silence, opening and closing her mouth like a fish. She had no idea how to handle complimentary Thorin.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Ah-" alarm surged up in her again. Was he supposed to be so out of it that he didn't even know who she was? She fought to seem calm. Best not alarm him. "Bella. Bella Baggins. I have been travelling with you these past few months."
"You have?" His eyes grew very wide. "Have we kissed yet?"
Bella couldn't keep from spluttering at that. "No, we have not!"
"Oh." He actually looked disappointed! "Not together, then."
"No-" she hesitated. "No, we're not. Not in that sense."
"Pity," he slurred, blinking slowly at her, "…so beau'iful…"
The poor flustered hobbit was at this point seriously wondering whether her cheeks might actually catch fire.
"The bread, Thorin. Eat," she reminded gently, trying to get back to something that made sense. Because Thorin desiring her, as she could clearly see he did now, in his drugged state, did not. Make sense, that is. Oh stars!
He grunted, obediently stuffing the rest of the bread into his mouth. Bella fussed with her own clothing, trying studiously not to look at him. Her blush just wouldn't fade, and her mind was reeling at this point.
After a moment, she jumped slightly at feeling Thorin's rough fingers under her chin. "Let me look at you," he murmured.
The hobbit shyly let Thorin coax her face up so he could see her, taking the opportunity at the same time to attempt to see whether the tonic would wear off anytime soon. She both hoped it would and hoped it would not.
Well. His eyes were still slightly unfocused, but she could see him struggling to wake up properly. Not quite there yet, though, as his next statement proved.
"Your eyes glow like ambers."
"It's the firelight," she offered, trying not to laugh in sheer disbelief at her situation right now.
"Nonononono," he shook his head rapidly, eyes wide, "it's not. You look beautiful whether in sunlight or firelight… I r'memb'r now. I have watched…" Then he abruptly stopped, wincing, closing his eyes.
"Thorin?" she questioned worriedly. "Are you alright?"
"Oh, Mahal," the dwarf groaned, covering his face with his hands. Bella leaned forwards in concern.
"Thorin? Everything… all right?" she asked tentatively.
The dwarf slowly lowered his hands from his face and turned to look at her. His eyes were more clear than they'd been previously, and the fierce blush on his cheeks startled her.
"If by all right, you mean clearer-headed, then yes," he grumped. "Otherwise, no."
"Oh," she said, trying unsuccessfully to bite back a smile.
"Yes, oh. I don' s'ppose there is any chance of you forgetting ev'rything I just said?" he asked, not especially hopefully. He was still slurring slightly, which made the whole situation all the more precious.
"Not a chance!" Bella replied, grinning widely. She was unbelievably relieved to have Thorin back at his old self. Well, mostly his old self, at any rate. The compliments were nice of course, but Thorin compliant and mellow seemed so entirely unlike him that she found she'd rather have the grouchiness. Still… "What woman would want to forget a drugged dwarf king calling her beautiful?"
He gave her a level look, his blush fading a bit. Bella felt a sudden surge of apprehension intruding on her humour at the situation. "I seem to recall you calling me 'love' not all that long ago," he murmured, eyes intent on hers.
It was Bella's turn for a blush of epic proportions. "Um, well…" She smiled sheepishly, unsure how to answer that.
"Did you mean it?"
There it was. The Question.
Bella thought fast. Should she take a risk and tell the truth? Or play it safe and call it a concerned pet name? Considering his behaviour right after he'd woken, she wanted to believe that her dreams had a chance of coming true. Right before he'd regained his senses, he had started to say something that she wanted to think meant he had always watched, always found her beautiful, always been attracted to her, but how much faith should she put into something he had said while out of his mind?
It didn't matter, she decided suddenly. Thorin despised falsehood, he would never trust her to tell the truth again if she lied to him and he found out later. She gulped slightly, meeting his focused blue eyes head on.
"Yes."
His eyes closed for a moment, a sigh leaving him, and Bella tensed like a bowstring. But then he opened his eyes and looked at her, gaze so very soft, something beautiful that she only barely dared believe might be love on his face, and reached for her. She almost fell over him in relief, and fretted momentarily about whether she'd hurt him, but if she did, he didn't complain. Instead, one hand cupping her cheek and the other steady at her waist, keeping her balanced, he drew her into a kiss that warmed her better than the fire at her back, murmuring into it, "I love you, too."
A/N: Poor Thorin, he's going to be mortified for the rest of his life about what he said to Bella while drugged. But at least it got him a love confession! Of a sort. :D
Óin totally planned for this to happen, by the way! ;)
I'm not entirely happy with the transition from drugged Thorin to at least mostly lucid Thorin... Did it seem too abrupt? ::frets:: I didn't know how to get it right. I also fail at writing drugged Thorin, but hopefully it was good enough for this purpose. :)