A.N. Originally posted on AO3.

Chapter One

"I am listening."

Bilbo winced. And he was fairly sure he wasn't the only one, all of them forced to stand there and watch as the negotiation between Bard and Thorin deteriorated rapidly, each side bitterly accusing the other of wrongs beyond their control. Bard's voice drifting through the tiny window in the battlements sounded weary and desperate, laced with outrage at being denied such simple things as food and medicine and shelter against the cold. For that was all the bowman wanted, it was so plain to see, and the demand for fair settlement was only a means to achieving those things for his people. For his children. Those poor children who even now must be shivering in the streets of Dale and waiting for their father to return with a miracle.

Thorin should understand. Thorin did understand. He knew very well what it was to have his home razed by dragon fire and be thrust into leadership of a wandering and penniless kingdom. Laboring to provide for his kin, reduced to begging for what scraps the world might spare, enduring mockery and worse for the crimes of his forebears. Only days ago, Thorin had looked upon Laketown and sworn to see it restored to its former glory, the great wealth of the mountain shared equally, and Bilbo refused to believe his words had been empty.

I want him back, Bilbo thought and couldn't be sure if he was praying to the Valar or cursing the dead dragon in the lake. Everything in Bilbo ached to seize this imposter and shake him by the ears until the dratted gold sickness released him from its clutches. His Thorin would never be so callous and dismissive, so willfully blind to the needs of others.

"Thorin…"

But when he made to step forward, Balin gripped his arm and gave it a squeeze, shaking his head. Bilbo frowned, but whatever reckless courage had flared to life in his heart flitted away again like a wisp of fog, and he subsided with reluctance. Thorin hadn't seemed to hear his weak plea, in any case. He refused to hear much these days, always keeping to his own council and dark thoughts and forcibly quelling any dissent or appeals to reason with blistering eyes and a voice like thunder. The King Under The Mountain would do as he pleased, and woe unto any who stood in his way.

"Begone! 'Ere our arrows fly!"

With Thorin now standing to the side, they could all witness Bard's fury as he struck the stone and spat a slew of curses at their Company. Well-deserved curses, in all honesty. But instead of heeding Thorin's command, Bard paused and glanced over his shoulder. His brow furrowed in confusion… or perhaps it was annoyance.

"King Thranduil comes. He would speak with—"

Thorin twisted his lips into a snarl. "I'll not hear any words from that silver-tongued oathbreaker! Send him away! If he shows his face here, I'll return him to his kin in a pine box!"

"Would that I could be rid of him so easily," Bard muttered, and Bilbo realized with a trickle of dread that the bowman wasn't looking at the dwarves any longer. No, now he was looking at Bilbo and scowling most bitterly.

"Actually, Lord of Silver Fountains, Thranduil said nothing of speaking with you. The one he comes for is the halfling."

Heads turned, every single one of them, and Bilbo froze like a startled rabbit. Oh dear… he really ought to have seen this coming, he should have known. When the army of elves had first been spotted in Dale, Bilbo had consoled himself with the weak hope that Thranduil might not be among them. Perhaps he had sent another in his place as their commander, either the prince Legolas or one of his many loyal guards and retainers. Bilbo had even entertained the ludicrous notion that this was an entirely different elven army that had not recently come from Mirkwood, and until now that had been his best and only chance.

For if there was one thing Bilbo feared in this world—aside from riddles in the dark and a certain stone burning a hole in his pocket—it was Thranduil's wrath upon learning that the specter haunting his halls for nigh on a month had been nothing more than a very stressed, very agitated, very peeved hobbit. A hobbit who had let his invisibility go to his head in those last days and decided to make his Took cousins proud in the most petty and immature fashion possible.

"Best prepare yourself, Mister Baggins," Bard said. "I'd say he's displeased, but that'd be an understatement. I honestly think he's out for blood after what you did, and he cares not who stands in his way."

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," Bilbo mumbled. And he only realized he was mumbling once Bard moved out of sight and the Company erupted around him.

"I don't understand," Ori fretted. "What's he want with our burglar…?"

"—brings an army to our door and expects us to bow to his whims—!" Gloin raged.

"Blow to his shins?" Oin said loudly. "Aye, that might do it!"

"Bilbo, have you got any idea what he's on about?" Kili demanded.

"Ah," Bilbo said and sucked in several deep breaths, trying desperately to calm himself and make his voice heard over the onslaught of questions and demands. "Y-Yes, yes alright, I'll explain! Just be quiet, I'm trying to… ohhh, I think I might be sick…"

Nori snatched Bofur's hat off his head and offered it up. "Here, use this."

"Oi!"

"What? Have you seen any buckets lying around?"

Balin shoved those two aside so he could grasp Bilbo's shoulder. "Easy, laddie. Easy. Just tell us. What does Bard speak of? Is it something that happened in Mirkwood? When the rest of us were locked away?"

"Well, ah… yes, actually," Bilbo stammered, though he hardly paid attention to his own words. He was too busy straining for any sounds from beyond the battlements, any sign that Thranduil was drawing near. "See, the thing is… the thing is. I'd figured out about the barrels a few days before actually breaking you lot out. I was waiting for that feast, you see, I needed a time when the guards would be elsewhere, so there was quite a lot of biding my time and twiddling my thumbs. And… and after an entire month of crumbs for meals and hardly sleeping a wink, and… and watching the way he was treating all of you, I suppose I just… I lost my temper. A bit."

Dwalin snorted and crossed his arms. "Lost your temper? You? What, did you write him a strongly-worded letter of complaint?"

"What, no!" Bilbo said and puffed up indignantly. "No, that's not what I did!"

"Did you pour out his best bottles of wine?" Dori asked.

"Maybe he nicked his mother's doilies?" Bofur mused.

"Seduced his Captain of the Guard?" Nori suggested. "Oh wait! That was Kili."

"Oi!"

"ENOUGH!"

The Company instantly shut their mouths and parted for their king, an unnatural silence falling over them. Bilbo despised that silence, rife with tension and uncertainty and utterly devoid of the warmth and cheer he had come to know from his friends.

But when Thorin stalked closer, when Bilbo looked up into his face, he had to catch his breath. For the glaze of madness had abated, just a little, just briefly. But just enough. That fearsome and regal mask had fallen away, the King Under The Mountain cast aside. All that was left was Thorin, fully present in the here and now, and looking at him with such naked concern that it tore at Bilbo's heart.

It's happened again, just like with the acorn, take this chance, take it now, try to reach him, don't let him slip away again…

Somewhere outside, Bilbo heard the twang of a bowstring followed by a whistle of air and a muffled thwump at his feet. An elvish arrow quivered on the ground between him and Thorin, shot over the rampart with no warning whatsoever. Bilbo knew it was no mistake that the arrow had missed.

"Halfling," Thranduil drawled from beyond the battlements. "I know you are there. Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, was it not? Come forth. We have unfinished business to discuss."

Bilbo flushed and then paled, so rapidly that the rush went to his head and he stumbled back a step back. Someone steadied him as he put a trembling hand to his mouth, fighting back nausea and the urge to whimper like he was about to face a second dragon in the course of a week. Actually… Bilbo might have preferred a second dragon.

Thorin spoke a soft word in Khuzdul, and Bilbo found himself bodily picked up and shuffled off to the side. Wrapped up in a four-way hug with Dori and Ori and Bofur, concealed by a solid wall of Bombur and Bifur and Gloin, then a second wall of Nori and Oin and Fili and Kili, he was undoubtedly safe from any more arrows. Though Bilbo estimated he had roughly ten minutes before he began to suffocate.

"Stay back with the Company," Thorin said, and Bilbo wished he dared roll his eyes at the redundancy of that command. But the situation was too fragile and not solely because of the angry elf on their doorstep. Thorin turned back to the dwarves, meeting their eyes one by one. For once acknowledging them as individuals, not merely extensions of his will. "He will not have our burglar," he said with almost maddened ferocity.

Bilbo's protective turtle shell formation answered with a soft chorus of ayes. Thorin gestured for Dwalin and Balin to join him at the little window in the battlements, though all three were very careful not to present themselves as a target. Bilbo craned around Bombur's girth until he could glimpse Thranduil's pale and unamused countenance peering in at them. He gulped. Thranduil certainly looked displeased, in the haughty and derisive way that elves often did. Only the thinness of his lips betrayed the depths of his wrath seething just beneath the surface.

Or maybe it was the change of attire causing him to appear so ominous—the ostentatious crown having been abandoned in favor of a lovely green cloak with a rather large hood.

Oh dear.

"So," Thorin said, deceptively calm, "once again you stand before Erebor with an army at your back. I recall well the craven look in your eyes as you turned tail and fled like frightened children, long before you ever caught sight of your enemy. Might we expect a repeat performance?"

Balin openly cringed just as much as Bilbo. He held his breath and waited for Thranduil's answer, for the vile and cutting insults to fly like volleys of arrows, for everything to fall apart just as it had with Bard. But the alternative was even worse. Thranduil spared Thorin an utterly bored glance and then proceeded to… ignore him. Blatantly. Dismissively. As if Thorin Oakenshield was but a gnat or some other insignificant creature. As if their century-long feud was not about to come to a head with a great deal of needless carnage on both sides.

"Will the one I named not come forth?" Thranduil said. "Or must I stand here speaking to the wind?"

"You will speak with ME!" Thorin roared. He put his face right up to the little window, fending off Dwalin and Balin's attempts to drag him back. "It is my kingdom upon which you have laid siege—!"

"The wind is particularly shrill today."

Bard spoke up then, which was probably a lucky thing since Thorin looked a beat away from lunging at the barrier of stone and toppling it with his bare hands. "King Thranduil, would you mind not antagonizing him so? My people's very lives depend on this negotiation! Yours do not."

"Then by all means, try to negotiate, see how far it takes you," Thranduil said. "But I am here on a personal matter, which I would see resolved now before the halfling has a chance to slip away. Well, Thrain's son? Will you bid the burglar to come forth?"

"Never," Thorin hissed. "For if I did send him forth, I've little doubt that would be the last any would see or hear of him for a hundred years or more! You would hold him against his will for some trivial crime and leave him to rot in your dungeons, as is your way with those who do not bow and scrape at your feet!"

"If I may," Balin said, interjecting quite bravely in Bilbo's opinion, "might we learn what crime Master Baggins is accused of?"

Thranduil leveled a narrow-eyed gaze at Balin. "He has offered me insult," he said coolly.

Kili scoffed. "What, that's it? That's all he's done? And you would have us hand him over without a fight? Not a chance!"

"As I've said, this matter is between myself and the halfling and no business of yours—"

"Oh, for the love of—!" Bard snapped as he came back into view. "He's talking about this!"

Bard snatched the hood off his head, which Thranduil had clearly not expected or else he surely would have stopped it. The Woodland king whipped around with a vicious string of Sindarin on his lips, attempting to snatch the hood back from Bard, but the bowman had already tossed it away into the moat and left Thranduil with nothing to cover his head. Nothing to cover his hair tumbling gloriously down his back full view of the Company… and now they could all see that the once pale blond strands had, at some point between the barrel escape and now, been thoroughly dyed a rather fetching shade of lavender.

Bright. Lavender.

Ori wheezed. Dori clapped a hand over his brother's mouth, though his own face was turning the same purple as Thranduil's hair. Kili and Fili traded a look as if daring each other to be the first to crack. Bofur abruptly turned around and leaned against the nearest wall with his shoulders trembling. Balin's jaw dropped, Dwalin blinked more rapidly than Bilbo had ever seen, and the rest of the dwarves seemed torn between sharp gasps or startled oaths or just gawking in stunned silence at the spectacle that was King Thranduil slowly recovering his composure. The Woodland king drew in a deep breath, flicked a lock of lavender over his shoulder, and turned to face them all with an ugly snarl that had no place on one so dignified.

"As you can now see," Thranduil said, biting out every word and shooting the unrepentant bowman an enraged look, "Bilbo Baggins has offered me grave insult and humiliated me before the eyes of my subjects! Do you deny that a crime has taken place? One that could only have been committed by your burglar during the time of your imprisonment?"

No one said a word. Not even Thorin, who had yet to react in any way whatsoever.

"…we're still not giving you Bilbo," Kili croaked in a pale imitation of his earlier valor. "Not because of… that. It's not, that's not…"

Thranduil coldly stared Kili down until the poor lad snapped his mouth shut. "Is it not a dishonorable act among dwarves to mutilate the hair or beard of another?" he demanded.

"Well, ah," Balin stammered, "those laws really only covers damages caused by shearing or shaving, whether purposeful or accidental. I don't think there's any particular clause that would take this into account. And even if there was, Bilbo is not a dwarf at all, so…"

Balin trailed off when, with no warning whatsoever, Thorin burst out laughing.

Not a chuckle, hidden slyly behind his hand or whatever drink he currently held. Not a snort, caught somewhere between irritation and amusement at whatever nonsense was happening in front of him. It was nothing like the giddy triumph from when they had found the hidden door, nor did it in any way resemble the relief and merriment after a narrow escape from death. No, this… was nothing like Bilbo had ever heard from Thorin. Deep and boisterous, loud and infectious and verging on hysteria, too much and too strong to be contained or inhibited. It seemed to knock the breath from him, and yet he could not stop even as he sagged against the wall and slid down to the ground, clutching his face and cackling all the way. His mirth echoed and echoed in the grand hall until it seemed to fill the entirety of Erebor, until Bilbo was certain they must hear him all the way in Dale.

Somewhere beyond the battlements, Bard snickered. And for some odd reason, it was that which set off the rest of the Company. His protective turtle shell formation abruptly caved in on itself, the dwarves guffawing and clinging to one another and leaving Bilbo quite visible and unprotected. And oh, if Thranduil had looked upset before, now he appeared downright murderous at the sight of the hobbit. Like he was contemplating exactly how Bilbo's head would look mounted on a pike beside his throne as a warning to all future burglars.

Bilbo shuffled his feet, heart thrashing with nerves. Although even he found it somewhat difficult to remain frightened now that he had a chance to examine his own handiwork. It gave him a perverted sort of pride to see how well the color had taken without any blotchy or uneven spots. Thranduil should consider himself fortunate. It had been done on a whim, after all, and Bilbo was no expert in the art of hair dyeing. For all he had known, the lavender and his natural blond might well have blended into the most heinous, puce-colored lovechild in living memory. And Bilbo would not have lost a wink of sleep over it.

"…it's a lovely color on you," Bilbo ventured when the tension became too much. Thorin, who had been on the verge of recovery, collapsed all over again. By now he was so far gone that he couldn't seem to make a single sound and only rolled on the ground, face hidden in the crook of his arm and fist thumping the ground repeatedly.

Thranduil trembled all over with repressed rage. "I… demand… satisfaction. I demand reparation! And before those things, I demand you undo this… this hideous… this abomination…"

"Ah well, as to that, there's really not much I can do about it," Bilbo admitted, shrugging feebly in the face of Thrandui's mounting horror. "But it should fade back to its original color. Eventually. Provided you wash often and aren't still using the tainted hair lotion…"

"T-The lotion?!"

"Yes, of course," Bilbo said, incredulous when he realized what Thranduil was driving at. "Oh. Oh what, how did you think I managed it? Do you think I stood over your sleeping form and chanted some absurd rhyme and conjured it from thin air?"

Thranduil thinned his lips. "Given your role in the escape of thirteen dwarves right under the nose of my guard, I should think my assumptions were plausible. I refuse to believe it was mere luck and not some manner of sorcery or unnatural trickery!"

"Do I look like a wizard to you?!"

"If it is not a spell, then tell me how to cure it!" Thranduil shouted, nearly apoplectic. "There must be a way! You will tell me how to undo this!"

"No, I don't think I will, actually!" Bilbo snapped, arms crossed, entirely fed up with this whole affair. He had never possessed the patience for dealing with tantrums and hissy fits, whether from the very young or the very aged. And just now Thranduil was beginning to remind him of a certain cousin who had spent hours curling and coifing her hair for her coming-of-age party, only to fall in a pond and have them drenched and ruined within the first ten minutes.

"You," Thranduil uttered. "You miserable… you descendant of rats…"

"Oh, and now we've reverted to name-calling, have we?"

"I command you to tell me—!"

Bilbo shook his head. "Absolutely not! Not unless you take your army, turn right around and head back where you came from, then perhaps I'll be feeling more charitable! Though personally, I think it couldn't hurt to leave you like that for the next month or two. I dare say it would teach you some humility!"

What little color was left in Thranduil's complexion leeched away, and he began to look the slightest bit queasy. "I cannot remain like this for a month…"

"And why not?" Bilbo said with his most daring Tookish grin. "Whether a month or a year, or even a hundred years, what does it matter to one such as you? It's but a blink in the life of an elf, wouldn't you say?"

Thranduil nocked another arrow. Bard sprang forth to stop him, and Bilbo squeaked when Dwalin seized him by the scruff and shoved him back amid the cluster of dwarves. "Alright, alright, that's enough, you mad creature…"

"That's enough!" Bard shouted. When he failed to wrench Thranduil's bow away, he put his back to the window in the battlements to block the dwarves and the elf from one another's line of sight. Much could be said for the courage of dwarves, but Bilbo was reminded once again that the courage of men was nothing to sneeze at. "Enough! King Thranduil, you know I am grateful for the aid you have given my people, and I also have my grievances with Thorin and his Company. But war is the very last thing we need right now! If you mean to drag us all into conflict over such petty reasons—"

"Petty?"Thranduil spat, the deadly creak of a bowstring lending an ominous cast to his words. "You know nothing, Bard of Laketown, son of Girion! Again and again, since the time of Thror, the line of Durin has shown the Woodland Realm and all who dwell there nothing but contempt! My overtures of friendship were scorned, my fair council spat upon, my wife's gems brazenly stolen before my eyes… and now here stands Thror's heir intent on withholding what is rightfully mine, while this burglar seeks to mock me and taunt me further!"

"It was my idea, just so we're clear!" Bilbo piped up. "The hair, I mean. I'm afraid I don't know about any gems, there are rather a lot of them in this mountain… but my actions in Mirkwood were my own. My friends had nothing to do with it!"

Dori covered his mouth, muffling his squawk of outrage. "Enough, that won't help now," he muttered.

"King Thranduil, please," Bard begged. "This might be our only chance to—"

"I will make my demands known one last time!" Thranduil called, drowning out Bard. "Give me the halfling, if you wish to avoid the death and ruin I shall reap upon you on the morrow! The White Gems of Lasgalen, I will also accept if you would have me as an ally again rather than a mortal enemy for as long as your line endures! And stand aside, Bowman, unless you would leave your people leaderless and your children fatherless."

Bilbo shoved Dori's hand away, now actively fighting the dwarves trying to shield him from sight again. "Don't you dare threaten him! Listen, if it's treasure you want, then I'll give you my share! You can have it all, I don't care—!"

"Bilbo, stop," Balin said with a fearful look at Thorin's crumpled form. "You cannot make that promise! Not now…"

"But this is getting ludicrous!"

"Make your choice, Bowman!"

"I…"

"By Mahal, just give him the damned necklace!" Thorin choked out, effectively silencing them all. Even Bard turned to gape through the battlements at Thorin, who was on his knees and trembling all over with his face in his hands, caught somewhere between laughing and sobbing. Bilbo had a feeling he wasn't the only one waiting with bated breath for him to change his mind, to snatch back his words and refuse to surrender a single gem. And the longer the silence dragged, the louder his heart pounded.

"Thorin?" Balin murmured. He leaned down and let his hand hover over the king, tentative and not yet daring to touch. "Are you… are you sure about that? Really, truly sure?"

Thorin nodded.

"The Gems of Lasgalen for peace with Thranduil and the Woodland Realm?"

Another nod and a feeble flap of his hand. Balin wasted no time straightening up and turning to Thranduil. "Well then! Are these terms acceptable?"

Thranduil lowered his bow, the blaze in his eyes now cooled to an ember. It seemed to take an age for him to decide, perhaps weighing the merits of demanding more gold and gems. Or demanding Bilbo as well. Or just unleashing his army on the mountain anyway, peace and goodwill to his neighbors be damned.

But…

"…very well. I find these terms acceptable."

Bilbo sagged, almost dizzy with the sudden flood of hope where before there had been none.

"I shall expect the gems brought to the gates of Erebor within the hour," Thranduil said in clipped tones, "and I will send an envoy to retrieve them. Once this is done, I will—as the halfling so succinctly put it—take my army and go back where I came from."

Dwalin stepped forward. "And we can hold you to that, can we?" he growled. "You won't lay siege to us once the gems are over the wall?"

Thranduil arched an eyebrow. "In this case, you shall simply have to trust my word," he said with venom.

"We will, we do!" Bilbo said before any more insults could fly. "I'll personally see to it that the gems are brought to you. It's the least I can do, considering… well. I did help myself to quite a bit of your food and drink while I was sneaking about your realm. I may be a burglar, but I like to think I'm an honest one."

"…indeed," Thranduil said and favored Bilbo with one last icy glare before he whipped around and mounted his elk. A few low words were exchanged between him and Bard, and when Thranduil set off for Dale, it was with the bowman's tattered coat across his shoulders, the hood drawn up to shroud his desecrated hair.

Bilbo stepped up to the window in the battlements just as Bard did the same. The poor man looked just as stupefied as Bilbo felt. "I realize I may be pressing my luck here, Master Baggins. But for the sake of my people, I must ask…"

"You'll be given fair settlement," Bilbo said hastily. "Of course, it will have to come from my share, and it may take some time to count out every single coin, but…"

Balin, who had been crouched beside Thorin and listening intently, suddenly broke into the conversation. "A moment, Bard!"

Bilbo spun around, fearing that he had presumed too much and would now be faced with the renewed fury of a gold mad king. But Thorin wasn't looking in their direction at all, instead allowing Dwalin and Fili to haul him upright and half carry, half drag him away from the battlements, each step uncertain and tottering like he was drunk. The rest of the dwarves trailed after him one by one, and though Bilbo yearned to follow as well, he found himself lingering and listening in amazement to what Thorin had decreed regarding the Laketown survivors.

"…to take shelter in the mountain with us," Balin said. "We have few supplies and almost no foodstuffs, but Erebor can at least keep our people and yours protected from the elements until we send for aid from the Iron Hills. The Woodland Realm, too, I'd wager Thranduil won't say no to more of our coin in exchange for food. And in the meanwhile, planning can begin for the rebuilding of both Dale and Laketown, reparations made to the families of the dead and wounded…"

"I… I must speak with my people first," Bard said, but he was blinking rapidly and seemed overcome. "But I believe none will object, not strongly anyway. Already it is more than I'd hoped when I awoke this morning."

Balin bowed deeply and formally. "We may never begin to make amends for the grief and suffering inadvertently brought about by our actions. But let this be a start. On behalf of Thorin, King Under The Mountain, and all the dwarves of Erebor, I say unto you… welcome. You and all who look to you are most welcome here, Bard the Dragon-Slayer."

"…did Thorin truly offer all of that?" Bilbo said once Bard had thanked them profusely and took off for Dale at a gallop.

"Aye, and let's hope he hasn't changed his mind in the past two minutes," Balin said, anxious as they both hurried to catch up with the others. They hadn't gone far, only down one of the side passages leading to some guard house or other, and Bilbo broke into a sprint when he heard raised voices.

But he need not have worried. For when he rounded the corner into the guard house, it was to find the Company loosely gathered around Fili and Kili as they both clung to Thorin like they were youngsters again, one on each side while he cradled their heads and touched his forehead to theirs.

"Forgive me," Thorin rasped. He was quite the sight to behold, cheeks pallid and etched with tears and exhaustion, sniffling mightily as he raised his head and looked at them all with red-rimmed eyes. Bilbo couldn't think of a single moment on the quest when he had looked less like a king, even when he was tied up in a sack or locked in a dungeon or stuffed into a barrel of fish.

His heart throbbed. My Thorin.

"Forgive me… I am so sorry," Thorin said, again and again. "My Company, my kin. After all you have done for me… I am not worthy to even stand before you, let alone…"

He looked around as if he expected to be struck, remorse and anguish so evident in his plea, and Bilbo wasn't the only one to surge forth until they were all entangled in a massive group hug. Shoulders and forearms were clasped, gruff but earnest words of forgiveness spilling out unasked, everyone trying to lay at least one hand on Thorin in reassurance and firm support. Bilbo had to elbow and shove his way through the scrum to reach Thorin himself and threw his arms around him, nearly hanging off his neck and rejoicing in the surprised grunt at his weight.

"Bilbo…"

"Shush," Bilbo said and silenced any further words with a kiss.