The first time one of Thorin's possessions went missing, he simply thought it had been mistaken for laundry and had been taken to be washed. It was an undershirt that he had used for a while, thrown across the back of a chair and forgotten about until he went to use it again and found it missing.

It was an understandable mistake, he'd thought, but it was not quite destined for the laundry bin yet. Still, he did not care enough to ask about it, and simply shrugged it off.

The next thing to go missing was a knitted quilt off of his bed. It had been Ori's gift for the coronation, and its purpose was mostly ornamental, but Thorin was still thrown enough by the quilt's absence to notice. Still, why would someone take the risk of breaking into the King's quarters to steal a quilt? And so, this instance was also shrugged off.

However, when his traveling coat went missing (only discovered being so by chance, as he'd been rooting through his wardrobe to investigate whether he had any suitable clothing for the Feast to celebrate Midwinter that would be held in a month's time and he found the contents of his wardrobe to be decidedly smaller than they should be), that was when he truly started thinking that something fishy was going on.

And the undershirt that had been taken for premature laundering had still not been returned.

Those were not the only things missing, Thorin quickly discovered. Incensed, he'd investigated his wardrobe more thoroughly upon realizing that his coat was missing and discovered that also missing were two pairs of woolen socks, a thick, but plain, winter cloak and a rather fuzzy pair of brightly colored sleeping pants. The pants had been handmade by Fíli when he was still a dwarfling learning about different crafts, ugly but comfortable. Thorin had brought them along on the journey out of sentimentality, but he had long ago sworn that he would never let anyone actually see him wearing them. He didn't think his kingly dignity would ever truly recover from that. (He still suspected that the sight of him trying on the pants when he first received them was the reason why his nephews and sister had absolutely no respect for him nowadays.

Well, perhaps that was an exaggeration, but the point still stood.)

Thorin had avoided saying anything about missing clothes to the Company before, because of the simple fact that it sounded ridiculous even in his own head. After all, his clothes were going missing, but his jewelry, weapons and other valuable things were not? Pffft.

However, it was fast becoming too much for him to ignore. The tailors in the Mountain, few as they were this early on in the reinhabitation of Erebor, were strained enough as it was without Thorin's increasing (and galling) need for more clothes. Mostly, the dwarves in the Mountain were Dáin's dwarves from the Iron Hills, only staying the winter to help the recovery process and then heading back home once the caravans from the Blue Mountains started arriving. Supplies were scarce.

He could ignore his mysterious burglar no longer.

The first dwarf he told was Dwalin, being as he was the Captain of his Guard as well as his best friend. Dwalin, though he promised to look into it, could not quite hide his skepticism that the unlikely burglar had taken only clothes and quilts, and not more valuable things. Still, whoever it was and whatever reasons he'd had to take those things precisely, the thief had successfully breached security enough to break into the King's quarters, multiple times it seemed, without being caught. That, if nothing else, was a serious matter.

Next, he told Balin. Together they discussed possible reasons why the unknown burglar had not taken more valuable things, without really reaching any satisfying conclusion. The whole conversation only left Thorin feeling more puzzled than before, as well as frustrated, by the end.

Telling Fíli and Kíli did no real good, as they could only seem to crack jokes about Thorin's mysterious clothes-thief and wonder aloud about whether their uncle possibly had an admirer.

Ridiculous, Thorin scoffed to himself. There was no one about who knew him well enough to potentially admire him besides Dáin, who was happily married, and his own Company. He'd like to think that the members of his Company were brave enough to have said something by now if they had romantic aspirations on him, and not resort to stealing his clothes (what good would that do anyway?). If he himself had occasionally entertained thoughts about a certain hobbit that were of that nature, well, that was his own business, thank you very much. Bilbo would leave for his own home come spring, anyway; it would not be right to try to keep him here.

Soon, the entire Company had been brought into the know, not that it did him any good. No one seemed to know anything of the issue, nor had they seen anything suspicious. Bilbo had seemed anxious about the fact that someone was breaking into Thorin's quarters, but Dwalin quickly reassured him that it would not happen again. Admittedly, Bilbo did not look very reassured, but Thorin was distracted by the news of a collapse in the unstable emerald mines before he could ask the hobbit about it and forgot about the issue entirely in the resulting frenzy to secure the mine and determine whether anyone had gotten trapped or killed in the collapse. (Fortunately, the very few dwarves who had been surprised by the collapse had only, at most, minor injuries.)

So came the day when Bilbo went missing, and things came rather to a head.

"What do you mean he's missing?" Thorin growled at Bombur. The cook was wringing his hands, his round face plainly displaying his anxiety.

"He hasn't showed up to any meals today! It's not like our hobbit to miss one meal, let alone three, so I thought, something must be wrong! I tried checking his room, but he wasn't there, and-"

Thorin made a sharp cutting motion with his hand, and Bombur immediately stopped talking. "I will alert Dwalin. Thank you for telling me," he said shortly, heart in his throat. If anything had happened to Bilbo…!

The king started storming away, shouting over his shoulder, "Tell everyone you see to start looking, he must be somewhere!"

Faintly, he heard Bombur replying in the affirmative.

It was no use. The Mountain was in an upheaval, everyone searching for the brave Burglar who had made up one fourteenth of those who had heroically reclaimed Erebor, but to no avail. Ori insisted that Bilbo had been in the Library the day before, seeming healthy, if slightly sleepy. Bofur, who had been the last of the Company to see him, claimed that the hobbit had entered his room to go to sleep, and hadn't been seen since. The entire affair made Thorin want to tear his own hair out by the roots. Or maybe drown himself in the hot springs. But really, he just wanted to find Bilbo, alive and healthy.

Though if he did find Bilbo alive and healthy, and all of his frantic worry had been for nothing, Thorin might strangle him. And then he would have Gandalf resurrect him so he could kill him again.

It was in this state of mind that the dwarf king stormed to the Burglar's quarters, just to check himself that Bombur hadn't missed some crucial clue to Bilbo's whereabouts. Starting in the bathroom, he rifled through the hobbit's quarters for clues, but with no luck. Finally sighing in defeat, he sat down heavily on the bed and stared morosely at his boots.

What if Bilbo had gone back to the Shire without telling them? What if the hobbit had not forgiven him for the Arkenstone debacle, after all?

Staring at his boots, he suddenly realized that there was a piece of fabric sticking out from underneath the bed that looked strangely familiar. Frowning, Thorin got to his feet, only to fall to his knees to examine the fabric more closely. Tugging at it, he discovered that it was stuck on something.

"Is that… my quilt?" he murmured to himself, surprised to see it turning up here. Well, well… I seem to have found my Burglar, he thought, puzzled, but also rather unreasonably amused. He bent to check what it was stuck to, and pulled in a shocked breath.

For there, under the bed, nestled in Thorin's quilt, cloak and winter coat and clutching his missing undershirt, was Bilbo Baggins.

A/N:I envision this as having one or maybe two more chapters, not sure which yet. Hope you enjoyed!