A/N: I'm so pleased everyone is enjoying this! Thank you all so very much for all your reviews and the favs/follows! I really doa ppreciate it. :3
3: Half-Remembered Dreams
Balin was kneeling next to him when he woke, his head throbbing and he was certain he was going to have a fine bruise on his shoulder from where he'd hit the floor. He winced slightly as he rotated it, trying to lessen the stiffness. He couldn't even remember falling, or why; but evidently he had.
Balin was simply staring at him warily, disbelief written across his face; Thorin thought there was a trace of fear in his friend's eyes.
'Why are you looking at me like that, Balin?' he said shortly, his temper not improved by all the strange things happening to him today. 'I'm not a ghost.'
Balin made a strange, strangled noise in his throat.
Thorin heaved himself up, gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm, and stood up, looking around the familiar room. He began to wander around, Balin now standing but simply watching him, still wary and looking as if he was ready to either bolt or draw his sword on Thorin.
Thorin settled into one of the chairs in the room, close to the fire. He let out a little huff of contentment as the warmth touched his skin.
'Balin, please! What's wrong?'
'What... What's wrong?' Balin was breathing heavily, his voice raspy and quivering slightly; Thorin was surprised to see tears glittering in Balin's eyes. 'This cannot be real... What's wrong is that I've started hallucinating that my friend has come back-'
'Hallucinating? Why would you be hallucinating?'
Balin spluttered a little, but when he saw the earnest, confused look on Thorin's face and his expression softened slightly.
'If you are really Thorin-'
'Why wouldn't I be?' Thorin interrupted but Balin ignored him.
'-If you really are Thorin, what...what do you remember?'
Thorium shrugged. 'What should I remember?'
Balin's voice was hard when he replied. 'You answer me first.'
Truly unnerved by Balin's behaviour, Thorin did as he was told. 'I remember that the dragon was slain, and Erebor was once again ours. We were celebrating with some ale that Bombur found hidden away, but Bilbo was unhappy about something… Wait,' Thorin said, suddenly panicking and not noticing the way Balin was looking at him sorrowfully. 'Where is Bilbo? I need to speak with him-'
Thorin made to stand up and leave, but suddenly Balin was in front of him, looking in vague surprise at his hand where it rested on Thorin's shoulder.
'Just wait a moment. Do you... So you don't remember the battle?'
'There was a battle?' Thorin frowned.
'Yes, after you - Well, there was a... misunderstanding between yourself and Bilbo-' Thorin was about to interrupt, but at Balin's look he closed his mouth '-and, well, he left the Mountain. There were armies of Men and Elves and the situation was...dire, to say the least, but then goblins and orcs appeared and there was a battle. A big one, with lots of casualties.'
He looked at Thorin pointedly, who swallowed with difficulty, his mouth suddenly dry. '...Bilbo?'
'Was fine,' Balin said. 'But...Thorin, you - you - weren't. You died, Thorin!' Suddenly all Balin's composure, which he had maintained so well, crumbled; the white-haired dwarf's shoulders started shaking and his voice cracked.
'You were dead and we buried you! We said the rites and we held the funeral and put you deep in the Mountain! For ten months, Thorin; ten months we've been without you, trying to deal with losing you! I don't -'
He turned and looked away, his breaths coming deep and shuddering. Thorin just sat, stunned. He - but - he was real, he could touch, he was breathing; he had a real body, a body which could hurt and he could feel pain...
'I was dead? But… I'm alive.' Balin didn't reply, his back still turned to Thorin. 'So why am I here?' Thorin asked, his voice hollow. 'Why am I not dead, then?'
'I don't know. But there will be a reason. Even if we don't know, Mahal will have his reasons for returning you to us.' Balin said, turning back. He sounded old; old and tired and so very weary. Was that Thorin's fault? Had he caused his friends to become like this?
'What of the others?' Thorin asked, suddenly urgent. 'You said there were casualties. Are the others-'
'They are all fine, although Fíli and Kíli have only been allowed off bed rest in the last few months. It was only you. You sustained too many wounds, too many mortal wounds and they couldn't save you. But the others live and are as well as can be expected. Even Bilbo-'
'What of Bilbo? Why wouldn't he-'
Suddenly Thorin stopped, as he caught snatches of memories, ghosts of half-remembered images appearing on the fringes of his mind before vanishing.
'Do you not remember?' Balin asked sadly.
'Balin - tell me I didn't -' Thorin could only whisper in horror as the glimpses of what he'd done crashed upon him, winding him and leaving him breathless with abhorrence.
'Tell you that you didn't what? Tell you that you didn't nearly throw the hobbit off the side of the mountain and then proceed to banish him in disgrace?' Balin's voice was hard now, accusing; Thorin let out a soft moan and buried his face in his hands. This was too much; of all the things that had happened since he woke up in that room this was the hardest to bear.
'He left after you died. In fact, you died in his arms - he forgave you, even after everything.' Thorin could feel the echo of small warm hands pressed to his chest and a wetness on his cheeks of tears that weren't his own, and his heart felt just about ready to break. 'We all wept after you passed, but he the most bitterly. He returned home to his Shire, taking only as much treasure as his little horse could carry - and we had to force him to take that - and he left us. So not only did we lose our King, but our burglar and friend as well.'
So Bilbo was gone. He wasn't here. The hobbit that was the other half of Thorin's soul - his One, his Beloved - had left, and Thorin could feel the emptiness; he could feel Bilbo's absence in his heart.
'Balin...' Thorin whispered. 'I... I never told him that he was my One. He left thinking I hated him...'
'No. You spoke with him and you told him had been foolish, that you were wrong. He left knowing you respected him. But... He's your One?'
Thorin nodded. 'What sort of a dwarf am I that I would do something like that to my own heart?' he said bitterly. He wished he were still dead, so he didn't have to remember how very, very wrong he'd been... He felt so very weak now, his limbs heavy and lacking the strength to really move, so he stayed slumped in the chair.
'Thorin, everyone misses you terribly. Even now that Erebor is refurbished and Fíli will be a good King when Dís finally is willing to allow her son to take charge, nothing is the same and we have missed you so very much. I don't understand why you're here, but know that... I'm glad you're back, Thorin. So very glad.' Balin smiled, his eyes shining with unshed tears, and Thorin gripped his hand.
He gave a small smile - his heart was too heavy for much else - and allowed Balin to pull him into a hug, pressing their heads together. He felt drained now; tired and exhausted and all he wanted to do was sleep.
'Balin... Can I sleep? Is there a bed I can sleep in? I'm so tired,' he said, trying not to show the grief he felt.
Balin smiled. 'Of course. Your sister and nephews have ordered that your rooms be made up and kept exactly as they used to be. It's been...harder for some than others, to let you go,' he said softly. Thorin grimaced. The deaths of their brother and grandfather had taken their toll on Dís, and their father's subsequent vanishing had left them with only each other. He went cold when he thought about what his death would have done to her.
'Thank you, Balin. I... I will see you in the morning.'
With that Thorin left the room, hiding the way his legs were shaking. He felt like a dwarfling woken by night terrors, seeking the comfort of his parents and finding them nowhere in sight. He was as weak as a dwarfling too, his legs barely managing to keep him upright. He hurried as best as he could, leaning against the wall for support; the occasional maid he saw on duty in the royal quarters either didn't see him or didn't care, as his presence didn't seem to be noted.
Eventually he made it back to his rooms, understanding perhaps why he'd been compelled to visit Balin before going to his own room. He stumbled inside, and his heart ached when he recognised the familiar rooms and decorations, so seemingly untouched by time but there were definitely clues that told of the many years that had passed - the tarnish on the gold portrait frames, the patches on the blanket and furs worn down. He made it to the bed and curled up under the many furs, feeling shivery and jittery. He hoped no one would come in that night, as he didn't feel ready to face the rest of the Company - his friends and family - knowing what he now did.
His mind raced, however, and wouldn't let him sleep despite his exhaustion. If he'd been dead and had died of his wounds, that at least perhaps accounted for the pain he'd felt in his abdomen and shoulders when he'd first woken up. But where was that room he'd woken up in? He'd attended many stately funerals and never had he seen a room like that before.
But the two things that eluded him were why and Bilbo - the first, because all of this was too strange to be real, surely; the second because Thorin couldn't shake the guilt of what he'd done to Bilbo. Balin had said Bilbo had forgiven him, but Thorin wasn't sure how he could have done, and the guilt gnawed away at him, adding to the hollowness of his heart.
Eventually though Thorin Oakenshield, now not dead, fell into a fretful sleep filled with shouts and noise and blood, as he remembered the battle that claimed his life.
Well, his first life, at least.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed! It's a bit angsty at the moment but I promise there will be lots of fluff later on! :)
