"Why did you try to save me?"

It was the night following the Company's timely rescue by the Eagles, and Bilbo was keeping watch over the camp while the others slept on - or so he thought. Thorin, apparently, had remained awake, approaching silently in the dark to where Bilbo was sitting.

As Thorin took a seat beside him, Bilbo observed the dwarf with his keen hobbit eyes, taking in Thorin's haggard appearance despite the hope that had been restored to him and the others at seeing their homeland in the distance. Bilbo recalled the previous evening, how he had clung desperately to the branch he had found himself perched in, only to watch helplessly as Thorin had approached the Orc leader, clearly intending to engage him in combat. He had acted without thinking; he could acknowledge that. Throwing himself at the Orc about to behead Thorin had either been the stupidest or the bravest thing he had ever done. And then to stand between Thorin and death, bravely shielding him with his sword raised in defiance, even in the face of his own death...

Thorin, too, was thinking of the previous evening, how he had made for the Orc without a hope for his own survival, only to be knocked to the ground and with a sword held to his neck. As he had prepared to meet death and had seen his life flash before his eyes, his one regret had been for his treatment of the hobbit. Bilbo had done nothing to deserve his scorn and his ridicule; yet he had never once offered the brave little Halfling either a kind word or glance. He had done nothing to welcome Bilbo to his company of dwarves, nor made him feel as though he belonged. Yet Bilbo had been the first to rush to his defense, charging the Orc about to decapitate him and shielding him with his own slight form, all without a thought for his well-being. Thorin's embrace of Bilbo on the plateau, then, had been the least he could offer him for his sacrifice.

Bilbo struggled to find the right words to answer Thorin. He could say that it was because he wanted to see Thorin make it home. He could say that it was because over the course of their journey together, he had seen what others saw when they looked at Thorin: a king, a leader, one who inspired confidence in those whose lives he touched; someone that Bilbo would be willing to lay down his life for. But, in the end, there was only one answer to Thorin's question that Bilbo could give.

"Because I couldn't stand by and watch a friend die."