An alternate universe where Thorin and his nephew live, but things aren't perfect. It's a one-shot.
"I won't be king."
He had been thinking it for a while, ever since he'd woken up in the leaches' tent. He'd said things, he'd broken his word; he'd hurt, cast out and threatened friends, his family even; his honor was in shambles, his neighbors looked to him with distrust, and he sensed that there would never be an untainted peace between them.
He dragged himself into Erebor, and the gold still lay there in piles, and it made him hungry and sick at the same time. He carefully kept away from it from this day onward, even after parts of it had been divided up, reordered, given away.
He recovered, his nephews recovered, the dwarves, men and elves that had not outright died or died later recovered; he watched and listened and carefully ignored Balin's hints at planning a coronation.
"I want to see Erebor inhabitable again," he only said. He was already king anyway.
They made it through the winter, barely, Dale and Erebor both, with the aid of the elves and Dáin, and when the first green of spring broke through the ground outside, Thorin gathered the company to him and said:
"I won't be king."
"Why did you leave?"
Bilbo carefully concentrated on the pipe smoke he breathed out rather than on the dwarf sitting next to him in front of his Smial. If Thorin glared at him for asking that question, he did not see it.
He almost didn't expect an answer, but, after a short while, Thorin replied:
"It was better."
"Better?" Bilbo asked dubiously.
But the dark head next to him nodded. "For my people," Thorin said gravely, his voice almost hoarse. "Too much I had done wrong; I followed my grandfather's example and became mad-"
"But that wasn't your fault!" The hobbit cried.
"It doesn't matter. My reign would have done more harm than good to Erebor. I should probably not have survived the battle. But I did, and the only way to allow Erebor a new beginning was to leave the throne to my heir."
He paused and puffed at his pipe.
"T'is good," he said.
Bilbo huffed.
"Best leaf of the Shire."
He was more annoyed by the dwarf's reluctance to say what Bilbo wanted to know than the dwarf's regrettable ignorance of good tobacco. After journeying with the Company, he knew very well the rank weed the dwarves tended to smoke.
"I suppose I must wander anew, though now I have only myself to think of."
"Why didn't you stay nevertheless?"
"It was better," he repeated. After another long pause, he added: "Do you know, I searched for home for a long time. But this winter I had Erebor and found that I could not stop searching."
"So what are you looking for now if not Erebor?"
"Perhaps a simpler place to live."
"And thus you thought of the Shire?" A year ago, Bilbo would have laughed. Now, sitting next to the once great dwarf king, he knew Thorin well enough to know that laughing would be the wrong reaction.
"I misjudged hobbits for a long time, Master Baggins."
There was an admission Bilbo had never expected to hear.
"Oh I don't think you misjudged us much. We like food, the comforts of our home and respectability; we dislike discomfort, far travels, a lack of handkerchiefs; adventures." Bilbo emphasized the last one with a teasing tone.
"And that proves Hobbits to be the more sensible folk in Middle-earth."
"Well, if you have come to see if you were right, you're very welcome to stay as long as you like."
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