The Hidden Kingdom

by whilewewereyetsinners

Thorin, Fili, Kili, Sigrid, & Bilbo are sent by Dr Grey to find the Elvenking's Halls, which other archaeologists have spent fruitless years trying to find. Their surprise when they find them is nothing to their shock at what they find in the dungeons. Modern AU w/ fairy tale elements, reincarnated Company, Kiliel, newlywed Figrid, angst, humor, HEA, & Bagginshield if you squint.

4. That look in your eyes is so familiar

4. That look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

.

Eryn Lasgalen Expedition

Day 3

.

Thorin slid into his sleeping bag well after two in the morning, asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. He didn't often dream, or at least not that he remembered when he woke. But that night, he remembered.

He dreamed of gold.

There was so much of it. Heaps and valleys making an ever-changing relief map of the floor. So much. The room was huge, larger than a football field, filled with mountains of gold.

And it was his. It called to him, it sang his name, it drifted over his hands like music, melted and dripped from his fingers like blood.

drip

...drip

...drip

Don't do this, Thorin whispered. Don't do this again.

It's mine, thorin said.

And it was. It was his, it was him, he was the gold and the gold was thorin, and people wanted it. Greedy and jealous and wanted to steal from him wanted to take the only thing that made him important.

Stop, stop, please stop, Thorin begged.

Yes, I must stop them, thorin agreed.

There was one thing that would stop them. The King's Jewel. But it was lost.

One of them had stolen it.

Wicked, tricksy, false. How dare they steal from him?

You don't need the stone, Thorin pleaded. You don't need the stone or the gold to be king.

You're mad, thorin replied.

the gold was him the gold was king without the gold he was nothing he was small he was powerless he was only thorin

You're more than that! You have people who follow you, who are loyal; people who love you. Please stop!

i refuse to listen to the madness in my blood. i must have the stone to be king.

he saw the way they watched him and frowned and whispered behind their hands

none of them could be trusted

not his blood not his kin not the lads

not even the burglar. why had he trusted the burglar most of all?

You would steal from me? thorin asked. You you YOU? would steal from me? You?

You have changed, thorin! the burglar said.

as though that explained everything

as though that explained anything

of course he had changed! the burglar had stolen

stolen the stone stolen the gold stolen the king stolen when thorin had thought had thought had hoped

he felt the burglar's fragile bones beneath his fingers, knew how easy it would be to snap them no to break them to break him no no to destroy him stop it! to crush him into nothing he who had tried to take stopitstopit everything noplease! everything from him stopthisstopthisstopthisnow!

.

it would be so easy

thorin was glad

.

Thorin was screaming

.

.

.

The world was shaking.

"Wake up! Thorin, it's just a dream, wake up!"

He opened his eyes, gasping through a raw, dry throat. The burglar was hovering above him, hands on Thorin's shoulder, his face screwed up with worry.

"There now, that's better," the burglar said, artificial calm thinly spread over breathless terror. "Alright now? It was just a dream."

And Thorin panicked. He shoved away from the burglar and tried to run, but his legs tangled in his sleeping bag and he fell against the wall of his tent, which ripped with a loud shriek.

He lay there, curled into a ball, and tried not to whimper out loud.

The burglar… Bilbo… sat where he had fallen and watched him warily.

"You…you…you…" he stammered, feeling still caught up in his dream, his— no.

It was a dream. It had to only be a dream. Please let it be a dream.

"Burglar?" he asked, despising the weakness of his voice. Say no, look confused, ask what I'm talking about, please please please say no.

Bilbo closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he straightened himself in a way that was wholly familiar and steadily met his eyes and why was this familiar none of this should be familiar but Thorin saw sun glinting on his hair and a frown on his face and thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat as he rocked back on big, hairy feet and—

"Yes," he said, and Thorin did whimper then, in a way he hadn't since he was small and had nightmares about dragons. "I think so? I've been dreaming a lot lately, too."

"Then I…" He swallowed hard and tried not to vomit. "Did I kill you?"

Bilbo's face twitched. "I don't think so," he said, but it curled up like a question and Thorin lost control of his stomach, having just enough presence of mind to lean over the shredded wall of his tent before he was sick.

He took the proffered water bottle in a shaking hand and rinsed and spat, then rinsed again. The water burned his throat.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't you, Thorin." Bilbo's snappishness was simultaneously comforting (because Bilbo always hovered on the edge of testy, that was just how Bilbo should be) and terrifying (because Thorin should not know that about him, Bilbo should be new not a well-worn book.)

"Except that it was," he contradicted darkly.

"Not in this life. And in that one… you were mad. I understood that."

"Did you understand when I wanted to break your bones, when I held you over the edge and shook you? When I wanted to kill you? Did you understand it then?!"

"Yes," Bilbo said evenly, deflating him. "I did."

Thorin stared at him for a long moment. "You… I don't… and Kili…" Fili and Kili had been there, he remembered, in his dream— no, Mahal and all the Valar help him, in his memory— looking young and scared and angry, their eyes full of grief as they watched him. "What is this wretched place doing to us?"

Bilbo's hands twisted in his lap. "I don't think it's doing anything, exactly. For some reason being here is helping us remember."

"Helping," Thorin repeated, and scoffed.

"Making?"

"Forcing."

"Yes." Bilbo sighed wearily. "Forcing is a good word for it."

"I real—" His voice broke, so he cleared his throat and began again. "I really am sorry."

A hand hovered over his shoulder for a moment before descending to give him a brisk pat: once, twice. "I forgive you."

Thorin hunched over and wrapped his arms around his knees in an attempt to hide that he was crying.

Bilbo gazed in the other direction and sang to himself in an attempt to hide that he knew.

The sun was just rising as Thorin asked hoarsely, "Why are you still here?"

Bilbo stilled. "Would you rather I left?"

"No! No, I just mean… you know what I did." Self-loathing tinged his voice. "Who I am. Why would you even want to stay here?"

The other man was quiet for a long time before saying abruptly, "I've known Gandalf most of my life."

"What does that have to do with—"

"Just listen and you'll find out, stubborn thing! And drink some water; you sound dreadful."

Thorin drank.

"Right, now, where was I? Yes, Gandalf. He delights in being mysterious— you may have noticed this yourself." Thorin snorted and Bilbo smiled faintly. "I liked it when I was small, but less and less as I got older— and right now I don't even know if I like him! For all his mysteries and meddling, I never thought he was doing any harm, but if he sent us in here knowing about the elf…!"

He sniffed. "Well, that's not the point. The point is, he approached me about joining your team, oh, months and months ago. Well before the winter. He said that he wanted to give me ample opportunity to decide this time and when I asked him what he meant he just chuckled… oh, I wish I had demanded he explain! Anyway, I'd heard of you, of course— I'd read your papers on your discoveries in Rivendell and the ones on Meduseld and Gondolin— but the first thing I did was google you. I saw your picture and immediately thought, 'I'm going to kick him in the shin with my big, hairy foot!'" He chuckled uncomfortably. "Which… well, to be completely honest I don't really like most people, but I've never reacted to anyone quite that way, much less a mere photo. Not to mention that I don't even have big, hairy feet!" He stuck a socked foot out in front of him as if to prove his point. "They have a little hair on them, I mean, I am a man, but I don't think anyone would consider them hairy. So, that was strange."

"You used to have big, hairy feet," Thorin murmured. "I remembered them, earlier. You were small, smaller than you are now, but your feet were huge, with curls of hair all over the top."

"Really?" His brow furrowed in perplexion. "Huh. I wonder what I was? Not like a modern human, certainly. And neither were you, I don't think. You were built differently… squarer, I guess. Broader and a barrel chest. And shorter, unless you were all huge blocky things."

"Dwarf." Thorin felt the rightness of it down into his bones. "I was a dwarf."

"Hmm, well, what was I then, being shorter than a dwarf? And with those feet?"

"I'm not sure…" he mused. "There are legends about the Ring Wars, about some child-sized people—perhaps you were one of them? We should ask Kili; he loves all those old tales, with elves and..."

Thorin trailed off and they stared at each other, eyes wide.

Bilbo began slowly, as though feeling his way, "You don't think… I mean, he was there back then. Fili and Kili both, I remember them— squarer and hairier, especially Fili, but it was them. And she's an elf… and do you know I never even believed in elves? As a separate race, I mean. I always just thought they were humans with different anthromorphic features and… Same thing with dwarves. And, and orcs." His voice pitched higher. "Dear Eru, Thorin, do you think there really were orcs? They… I thought they were just a losing tribe that was less, less cultured or something, not actual monsters! And I thought the legends about elves 'sailing' was just their stories about death, like… like Nordic ship burials! I never once thought they really were immortal! But now…" He stopped and took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm himself. "Do you think it's possible that Kili knew her back then?"

"I…" Thorin huffed impatiently and admitted, "I want to say it's impossible and this place is slowly destroying our minds and we should just grab Kili and run, but… I don't know. If— and this is a big if!— if elves are immortal then… I suppose it is within the realm of possibility." He made a disgusted noise and shook his head. "Ugh, I can't believe I just said that."

"I don't think you liked elves," Bilbo said contemplatively. "You had such a negative reaction yesterday when you realized Kili was speaking Sindarin. Judging by your reaction to the throne room I bet you knew the Elvenking and didn't get along with him. And she's here, so perhaps she belonged—belongs?—to his kingdom. Kili said he wouldn't leave her 'again'…"

"Can we just go back to how you wanted to kick me in the shin?" Thorin asked, clearly uncomfortable with where his speculation was going.

"Alright," Bilbo conceded, sounding faintly amused. "Yes. So, I wanted to kick you in the shin. But then I was reading about you and your family and I kept having these weird reactions like I knew you all. Someone wrote that you were irascible and I snorted and said, 'Of course he is.'"

"Hey!" Thorin protested.

Bilbo ignored him with an air of perfect indifference. "Someone else wrote about how close you and your nephews are and I just knew it was true. Then I read the abstract of Fili's doctoral thesis and laughed because ancient bladesmithing? What else could he possibly want to write about? I kept having all these 'of course' moments and they disturbed me to the point that I almost told Gandalf to forget it."

"Why didn't you?"

"Too curious, much too curious. You keep drinking that water."

Thorin looked amused, but obeyed.

"Around that same time I got a very generous offer for a position at the university you teach at, so it wasn't like I could avoid you forever… and you know what, I bet Gandalf was behind that offer! Give me 'time to decide' indeed, the old meddler! He manipulated me right into it!" He crossed his arms and sat there fuming. "I should kick him with my big hairy foot, and not in the shin, either! And you can stop laughing at me, thank you very much."

With great effort Thorin repressed the laughter in his voice and offered meekly, "To be fair, you did say you were curious."

"Humph, and whose fault was that? Mark my words, Gandalf knows exactly what is going on and chose not to tell us. Even after he introduced us—"

"And you laughed at me..." Thorin interjected, remembering how offended he'd been.

"Well, you looked down your long nose at me again; what else was I to do?" Bilbo demanded huffily.

"Did I look down my nose at you when we met before?"

"Yes, you did—and it was even longer then! You stood there in my house and looked down your Pinocchio-nose and had the temerity to say that I looked more like a grocer than a burglar. A grocer! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"You have my deepest apologies, Master Baggins," Thorin intoned gravely.

Bilbo looked at his dancing eyes and huffed with outrage. "You're insufferable. You're no better than Kili."

Thorin just grinned.

"And to think I was going to say something nice about you. I don't think you deserve it."

"You were?" he asked smoothly. "What was it? You so seldom say something nice; I would hate to miss it."

"You just stop it. Using your voice on me like that— next thing I know you'll be singing and Gandalf probably was there and made you do that too, the big schemer. No, you don't need to know what I mean; if you want to hear the nice thing just hush up." Thorin closed his mouth so rapidly that Bilbo snorted. "Anyway. I have the impression that I remember more than you do, about both the good and the bad from before. And there was plenty of bad, mind you— you could be rude and grumpy and downright unkind.

"But you loved your family and your people so much, and you would have died for any one of us. You… I don't remember all the details, but one night we were sitting by the campfire and you were telling me your plans for Erebor and how you were going to bring all your people home and there would be plenty of work and plenty of food…" He frowned. "And now I think of it, everyone else was pretending they weren't listening to us, but I know they were, the bunch of nosy parkers. Humph. Anyhow, I respected you. You could be highly annoying, but you were honorable. And… and admirable. Sometimes.

"So, yes. I know what you did to me, and what you… what you might have done. And I know who you are." His voice turned fierce. "But they're not the same thing. Because the worst thing about your illness was that it turned you into the complete opposite of who you are— who you were, I mean— and into everything you most hated." He cleared his throat, looking anywhere but at the other man. "So. That's why I didn't leave. Did you finish the water yet?"

Thorin held the empty bottle where he could see it. "Thank you, Bilbo," he said softly, then stilled, his hand suspended in mid-air. "Wait. Did you say Erebor? I was king—or trying to be king—of Erebor? Gandalf's been trying to get me to go to Erebor for years!"

Bilbo's head snapped around. "Are you serious?"

"Yes! In fact… you know I didn't expect to find anything here. I thought he was sending us on a wild goose chase this summer to punish me for refusing to go."

"That… that manipulative—"

"Bilbo! Thorin! Whatever happened to your tent? And what is that smell? Has someone been ill?"

They glared at the tall man smiling benignly down at them and growled in unison, "You!"

He raised his eyebrows. "Well, well. Things have moved apace, haven't they?"

Bilbo hopped to his feet and pointed a finger at him. "Don't you start with your obfuscations and your distractions! You will answer us honestly and… and simply, if you please! Did you know, when you sent us here, about our lives before? Were you there then, too?"

"Yes," Gandalf replied.

"Then why in Eru's name did you send us here?!" Bilbo nearly shrieked.

"I sent Thorin in hopes his subconscious would remember enough that he would want to go to Erebor. I sent you because I thought it would be interesting, and, I admit, as a way to make amends to your former self."

"As a way to… what are you even talking about? And are you mad, Gandalf? Don't you remember what happened last time he went to Erebor?!"

Gandalf's brow quirked as Bilbo clutched at Thorin's arm in a way that could only be called protective, but he replied mildly, "Oh, that curse has long been broken. Indeed, he broke it himself! It was quite unprecedented."

Thorin cut across Bilbo's splutters, demanding impatiently, "Did I kill him?"

Gandalf frowned in genuine confusion. "Who? Do you mean Azog?"

the huge orc was bearing down with all his weight the blade growing ever closer but Thorin wasn't going to let him win Thorin was going to kill him Thorin was going to kill him before he died and obliterate him for what he'd done to his grandfather and his father and Fili oh Mahal his little Fili broken dead frozen and Thorin would die Thorin deserved to die but

Azog

was going to die

first

.

"Thorin?"

He blinked and FiliFiliFilineedtoseeFili cleared his throat. "No. I meant Bilbo. Did I kill Bilbo?"

"Oh. No, of course not— you can't believe I would send Bilbo here if I thought he'd be in any danger?" He had the gall to sound genuinely offended. "Or you or the boys or dear Sigrid?"

Bilbo, sounding so infuriated that Thorin actually smiled, snapped, "You sent us to an enchanted castle, Gandalf! An enchanted castle with an unconscious elf in the cellar—one Kili apparently knew before, so don't expect us to believe that is a coincidence! And you knew! You knew that we all knew each other before! You knew that we'd been here before and that we would remember all this, all this trauma and—"

"I didn't expect that you would actually remember," Gandalf interrupted. "People generally don't, you know. You have both spent your lives surrounded by people from the past without it causing any of you to remember. And I had no idea there was still an elf here. I didn't understand why the Master, ah, I mean Masters, was unable to find any trace of the Halls after searching for so long in what I knew was the correct vicinity, so I was here only long enough to see that they still existed. I left going inside and any discoveries to you."

Thorin and Bilbo both opened their mouths and Gandalf waved them to silence. "My point is, while I had no idea what you would find here, I never expected it to be anything out of the ordinary or for there to be any magic involved whatsoever, much less elves and enchantments. Nor did I expect you to remember all the disturbing things you apparently have, and for that I am truly sorry."

Bilbo broke the ensuing silence. "Well. That's fine then. I still don't see what you were hoping to accomplish by sending me, because if this is your idea of making amends I must say I find it a very strange one."

For a moment Gandalf looked old, and so very, very weary. "You lived a long life, Bilbo, longer than any other of your race. And you never would speak of it, but you grieved, and bore the weight of that grief to the end. I hoped perhaps things could go more happily for you this time."

Bilbo opened his mouth and closed it again, firmly, afraid to ask.

"I died," Thorin said, so quietly it was nearly a whisper. "And Fili."

Bilbo flinched.

"Not just you two, but yes." Gandalf's eyes were distant. "There was a massive battle. Somehow you had thrown off your madness, Thorin— I never had the chance to ask you how you did it. Things were going well enough, but then you and some of the others were ambushed."

"Who?" Thorin asked through numb lips. "Who else died?"

"Kili," Gandalf said with unprecedented gentleness, but Thorin still staggered, catching himself against a tree.

"Both of them," he whispered. His fingers tightened against the bark and he covered his eyes with a shaking hand. "Oh Mahal, poor Dis."

"Right, that's quite enough for now," Bilbo said with the air of a proclamation, eying Thorin worriedly. "Here's what we're going to do. We will all feel better for a good meal, so we're going to get some food and take it down to the kids—and hopefully we won't be scarred for life the way I was last night when we came to wake Fili and Sigrid up for their shift! Seriously, Thorin, you get to wake them next time! Anyway, Thorin can hug the boys and we'll eat, and then you, Gandalf, are going to figure out what to do about the elf." He frowned at them, his foot tapping impatiently. "Well? What are you waiting for? Grab the food and let's go!"

Bilbo peered warily around the corner of the cell and Thorin snorted behind him. "Really, what do you think they would get up to in the same room as Kili and the elf?"

"I'm the one who is scarred, thank you; I am allowed to be cautious. I never want to see that much of Fili ever again," he retorted primly. "Not that you aren't right, in this case—they look more like a litter of puppies than anything."

They were in a pile of sleeping bags and blankets, Fili and Kili slumped against each other with their backs to the wall and Sigrid curled up with her head in Fili's lap. The ends of the elf's hair twined through Kili's fingers and pooled in his open palm.

"Well," Gandalf said quietly. "That is indeed an elf."

"Of course it's an elf," Bilbo hissed, exasperation rolling from him in waves. "Did you think we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between an elf and a human?"

"No, my dear Bilbo, I thought there weren't any elves left. There shouldn't be, you know. They are no longer part of Middle-earth."

"But… what does that even mean?!"

"You're breaking your own agenda here, Bilbo," Thorin reminded him. "Let's eat, then Gandalf can figure all this out."

Bilbo scrubbed a hand over his face. "Right, right. Hug the lads first, then food."

Thorin smiled at him before bellowing, "Boys! Breakfast! And only the elf should be sleeping!"

Kili startled like an infant and whacked Sigrid's shoulder a bare second before Fili spilled her off his lap, jumping to his feet and reaching for a nonexistent weapon. Her startled shriek echoed off the stone walls and Bilbo folded his arms and tsked disapprovingly. "Shame on you, Thorin, involving Sigrid in that."

He shrugged. "She chose to marry into the family. She knew what she was getting into. Lads, here, now!" They staggered to him and he pulled them in, pressing their heads to his temples and closing his eyes.

"Uncle, are you okay?" Kili mumbled.

When Thorin's only response was to shudder and clutch them tighter, Bilbo said briskly, "He's had a very difficult few hours, so give him a hug and then let's eat. And then Gandalf," he slanted a dark look that direction, "can tell us exactly what is going on."

---

A/N: My take on Thorin in this is that he's essentially the same guy as in the Hobbit- a type-A personality, strong-willed and easily irritated, devoted to his calling and a natural leader- but he's had a good life this time around. He hasn't been impacted by madness in his family or a wandering exile or spent a large portion of his life trying to provide a home and prosperity for a homeless nation. He's never been as angry or desperate in this lifetime, nor has there been any insanity in his family to even make him think he could fall prey to it (as Gandalf said, in this AU the madness was actually the result of a curse), so discovering what he'd done (and wanted to do) to Bilbo profoundly horrified and upset him.

Let me know what you think! Next chapter will be up sometime tomorrow. Happy Independence Day to my US readers, and happy Tuesday to the rest of you. :)