A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first attempt at posting in the Hobbit fandom, although I have at least one more oneshot coming pretty quickly. Basically as soon as I find time to post it. :) I hope you all enjoy this, and I have a continuation written out in my head. I might end up writing it, but there's a chance it'll take a while, so I'm treating this as complete in the meantime. Enjoy!

To the Company of Thorin Oakenshield

My dearest friends.

If I could say nothing else, I would say that I am sorry. After all my humble efforts in your favor, I have finally managed something that even I cannot forgive myself for.

Thorin and the lads are gravely wounded. Fíli and Kíli are possibly expected to survive, although even with the wonders of elven medicine, the healers looked grim. Thorin…they do not expect him to last the night. But I must have faith in the stubbornness of dwarves, which I have seen in action so many times on this journey.

I must believe that they will live. I must.

I was called into the healers' tent by Gandalf earlier today, for I was told that Thorin, dying as he may be, wished to say his goodbyes. He told me that he wished to part in friendship, and that he took back his words and deeds at the gate. I did not think he understood that it was never truly his fault; the dragon-sickness lay heavy upon him, and I think that we all knew it. Though there was nothing to forgive, I told him that I forgave him; as I would have if, indeed, he had wronged me.

I do believe that I have struck upon one of the reasons I feel so bound to go.

If—when Thorin survives, he will not wish to look upon the face of someone who once was his friend and then became both traitor and a true thief in nature. I would never force that upon him. And I could certainly never bear to stay in the mountain if I was faced with Fíli and Kíli's rightful resentment for my deeds. Nor yours, my friends, for I must admit that I have grown so very fond of each and every one of you that I believe it would break what is left of my heart to hear your scorn.

If Thorin and Fíli and Kíli pull through, I could never ask them to forgive me, as I will not ask you. But what little is left of whatever pride, dignity, and honor I once had would not let me leave without so much as a note, as I intended. So I beg you to try to understand what I have been thinking, all this way from the humble Shire to your great mountain homeland of Erebor.

You are dwarves.

You are not hobbits; you are certainly not hobbits who are soft, used to comfort, and fond of home, as I was before I met you. You are not hobbits, you never were, and you never shall be.

But I was.

I had never had a real adventure in my life, my greatest enemy was Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, and the most danger I was ever in was of eating too much—if that is, indeed, possible.

And then I swung open my door, found myself surrounded by dwarves—uncouth folk, I thought then; hardly any manners at all—and I failed to realize that my life would never be the same. I hardly knew what I was thinking when I ran out my door. Perhaps that my chance for adventure had finally arrived, and that I would be a fool not to take it.

I didn't really expect anything like what I found your company to be. Once I became used to a dwarven sense of humor, and drinking songs in the middle of the day, and jokes cruder and more lewd than I could have ever imagined, it was the best time of my life. Rainy deluges, troll snot, terror, goblins, orcs, wargs, spiders, Mirkwood, Smaug, the horror of battle and all, I should do every moment again in a heartbeat. I would suffer anything the cruelty of Fate could devise together with you thirteen, if only I had the chance.

Ah, I fear you cannot understand just how changed I shall always be.

For I am changed. Gandalf told me before we set out that if I returned, I would not be the same. He was right, I am not the same; but in my heart, I do not believe that I wish to be. I am no longer respectable in any way. My reputation will be practically irreparable. My neighbors will gossip, my gardener will be disappointed in me, and I shan't stop hearing about the venture from Lobelia for the rest of my days. But I find I don't mind in the slightest, because though I am changed, I believe I am better for it.

The Bilbo Baggins who set out from his hobbit-hole on an adventure is not the same that is now setting out from the Lonely Mountain to journey home.

But suddenly I am not so sure that it is home anymore. I have always found that there is some degree of truth in the saying that home is where the heart is. My heart has always lain in Bag End, in my comfortable home in the Shire. I was in love with my books. My armchair. I thought once that nothing would ever change that.

And of this last year, I have found that my heart seems strangely to dwell with a company of thirteen absolutely infuriating, rambunctious, stubborn dwarves with no manners whatsoever whose loyalty, courage, honor, and friendship I am privileged to have discovered.

If my heart and home shall henceforth be wherever you are, you, the dearest, closest, and best people I have ever treasured in my hearts, I will not complain; though I never return home again to where you thrive in halls under stone. I never thought to see my mother's best china dance through the air, but now I would give ten times the worth of the whole treasure hoard of Erebor to go back and live in those merry moments forever.

For the briefest time, I was a part of you, but I know better than anyone that with one small act I have thrown anything I could have ever had away.

What I did, I did to save you. Not for any price could I have been bought to betray a single one of you, Thorin least of all, and I could see no other way. We were outnumbered a thousand to one, and there was no hope in winning a fight. I saw no point in winning a fight even if we could when there was a chance that there could be no reason to commence battle at all.

I chose to betray your trust, and give away the heirloom of your people to save thirteen lives.

And I understand that you could never forgive me.

I shall echo the words I spoke to Thorin Oakenshield, leader of your Company, on only the morning I write this.

To have shared in your perils is far more than any Baggins deserves.

And I am beyond honored.

So, my friends, I shall slip away quietly tomorrow morning, deliver this letter to the closest fire, and let it shrivel to ashes; for I do not particularly wish you to ever know how I have come to weeping and smudging my tears off the page at the thought of leaving you. But leave I shall, and I hope to Mahal and Yavanna both that I do not see you again, for I do not think I could not bear to depart a second time.

And I am sorry.

I go with all the luck I can muster.

Bilbo Baggins, Burglar.