A/N: Look, I finally updated! I'm sorry the chapter is short bit I've got to revise for my mock exams so I won't be able to write much. Also once I start school again tomorrow I've really got to work because I need to get good grades to go to uni, so unfortunately my fics will have to take second priority. :'( hopefully I'll still be able to give you one chapter a week at least, though. :)

Anyway, enjoy the chapter and I hope it won't be too long for the next one. :)

Breakfast the next day for Bilbo was better; he put on a brave face and found that his friends were so eager to make him happy that it was impossible for him to feel sad for too long. That didn't mean the ache in his heart lessened, however.

Balin was not at breakfast so Bilbo turned to Bofur, who was just as dedicated a friend as before, to ask what he had been brought to Erebor for. Bofur looked a little uncertain and he didn't immediately answer, but he patted Bilbo's arm gently and said that Balin would explain everything when the time was right.

Bilbo ate ravenously that morning, making more than one member of the Company laugh at his appetite. Bilbo just grinned and continued eating while the others joked around. Finally Bilbo could eat no more and he sat back in his chair, patting his stomach in a satisfied manner.

'What's the plan for today?' he asked in the moment of quiet that fell after one particularly raucous round of laughter. He had missed this, he'd missed noisy dinners and lively gatherings of friends. It was his friends he'd missed during those lonely evenings in his too-large smial which felt forever empty, filled with echoes of their merry shouts and cheers that fateful dinner nearly two years ago.

The others seemed to tense slightly and looked as if they were concentrating on something. Bilbo frowned slightly - they were all acting rather strangely and it made Bilbo feel uneasy.

'We're showing you around a bit,' Dori said. 'Now that Erebor is nearly back to its full glory, we thought you might like to see the city.'

Bilbo nodded eagerly. 'I would indeed love to. It's certainly different from... From before.' He finished with a frown and looked down at his now-empty plate, feeling all the food he'd eaten turn to stone in his stomach as he remembered the last time he'd been in Erebor.

'What's - what's it been like, without Thorin?' he suddenly asked, looking up at the others and fiddling with the gold buttons on his waistcoat. 'I only ask because... Well... I had thought I might visit...him.'

The others looked at him gently, Bofur with particular sadness. Dwalin cleared his throat and spoke for them all, his eyes hovering somewhere just by Bilbo's shoulder.

'It's not been easy. We've all of us had to...adapt, and get used to everything. To be honest it's even now hard to truly believe that he's gone.' The others all murmured in agreement. 'Except he's not - he's not really gone because he's still here, in the mountain. He is the mountain, since his tomb is of the rock... Bilbo, I know for a fact that Thorin would appreciate it - you going to see him again.'

Bilbo huffed to hide the way he wanted to cry at those words. 'Yes, well, I'm not really going to see him, am I? Maybe if he hadn't died on m- us...' he trailed off before sniffing, his eyes more watery than he'd like. 'Could... Could we go now?' he asked in a small voice. Bofur smiled and rested a hand on his arm for a moment while most of the others got up, said goodbye and went off to their respective jobs, leaving Bilbo with Bofur and Dori.

Bilbo tried hard not to let his emotion show on his face, focusing instead on the item in his pocket that he'd bought at the Rethe festival after he'd got back home and had kept on him at all times. He twiddled tiny silk petals beneath his fingertips, remembering eyes of the same hue as those forget-me-nots in his pocket boring into his own. He kept his gaze straight ahead, however, and as such didn't notice the sidelong glances sent by his companions to what appeared to be an empty space of air.

They travelled deeper down into the Mountain, further down even than the mines until it was deathly quiet around them. They walked through a corridor fulll of effigies and Bofur pointed to one which made Bilbo's breath catch in his throat. The sharp nose, set jaw and brooding eyebrows... It was Thorin, carved out of marble and the stone eyes glinting palely in the light from Dori's torch. That was the only light Thorin's eyes would ever shine with again, Bilbo thought sadly, but even so he couldn't take his eyes off the carven figure.

'His tomb's this way,' Bofur murmured and gently he led Bilbo through a door to their right, his hand gently resting on Bilbo's elbow before he dropped it quickly.

They were in a small room, one single torch in the corner throwing the stone tomb which stood in the centre of the room into relief. There were tiny slivers of mithril spelling out the name on the tomb.

Thorin Oakenshield

King of Erebor, the Second of his Name

Loyalty, Honour, A Willing Heart

Bilbo stopped and stared at it, heart thumping wildly now he was here. Oh Yavanna, he was going to break down, he couldn't stop the tears-

'We keep a torch burning in every tomb,' Dori said softly and Bilbo gulped, gasping for air. 'One flame of Durin's fire to guide them.'

It was beautiful and painful and Bilbo stepped closer to the tomb. He turned to the other two. 'Could I possibly... Just for a few minutes?' he asked, and they nodded and backed away and shut the door gently behind them.

In the semi-darkness Bilbo let himself cry. He let himself grieve as he reached out and touched a hand to the cool rock. He fancied he could almost feel a warm hand on his own, a comforting presence that made him weep all the more bitterly. He brought out the little bunch of tiny forget-me-not flowers made of silk, twisting the wire stems between his fingers. He licked his lips nervously, even though there was absolutely no reason for him to be.

'You know,' he said to the room, the enclosed space making his voice bounce off the walls in a rather eery way. 'Even after everything, I never wanted you to die.' He knew it was hopeless, and Thorin was dead; but perhaps the rock would carry his words to him, wherever he was in the rock of the Mountain. 'I don't take back what I did and I'd still do it again, no matter how many times you exiled me. But I could have gone home and felt happier knowing you'd lived,' he whispered. 'Your death hurts the most and it had to be you, you stupid, stubborn dwarf, who would insist on rushing in like that-'

Bilbo hid his face in his hands, shoulders trembling from the effort of not crying. He took a deep breath. 'You told me once that dwarves love but once in their lives. I know you never thought of me beyond as your burglar,' he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, 'but you should know, Thorin, that you will forever hold my heart. No one else, only ever you...'

He trailed off, tears running down his face in silent streams; especially when Bilbo thought he could almost smell the faint scent of musk and earth that was Thorin and in the silence he imagined he could hear just the faintest echo of his name, the word ghosting off unseen lips. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and quickly placed the flowers on the tomb. They weren't as good as fresh ones - he'd have loved to have put down a proper hobbit grave wreath - but it would do for now.

He stilled however when his change in position threw the torch light onto the tomb and Bilbo saw them. Cracks in the stone of the tomb. Bilbo called Dori and Bofur, bringing them both barging in looking worried. He pointed to the tomb.

'It's damaged,' he said.

Instantly the two looked wary. ' Damaged?' Bofur asked, and the two came closer and peered at the tomb. They traced the contours - the mithril strong and undamaged but with one large crack down the middle of the stone. There were a few smaller, hairline cracks branching off from the main, large one.

Dori and Bofur exchanged a glance, which Bilbo didn't miss.

'What is it?' he whispered.

'Nothing, Bilbo,' Dori said. 'It's probably just the result of tremors.'

Bilbo nodded but the way the two had looked at each other had made him nervous. Suddenly he didn't want to be in here anymore; the dark was too close and oppressive and he didn't want to see Thorin's tomb any more, with its cracks and pitiful silk flowers he'd left. He turned and quickly opened the door, Bofur and Dori quickly following and leading him up and out of the corridor of effigies until they were back in the well-lit parts of the mountain. Bilbo swallowed against the lump in his throat.

'I'm sorry,' he said softly. 'I...'

''S alrigh',' Bofur said gently and he drew Bilbo in for a hug, Bilbo seeking comfort from those warm arms around him. Bofur smelled of tobacco smoke and ale and his arms were strong, but Bilbo couldn't help remembering another set of strong arms around him and it was so hard not to pretend that the beard scratching the top of his head was Thorin's, so he hastily extricated himself from Bofur's embrace. He wiped hs eyes, and as such missed the pointed look Dori aimed at Bofur, who looked sheepish.

'Can we go for a smoke, please?' he asked, pleased to find his voice was steady. The others nodded and led him out to a terrace on the mountain side where he could look out over the plains. Bilbo fished in his pocket to get his pipe and tobacco tin, but stilled when he felt something in his pocket.

He felt it through the fabric of his waistcoat and then hesitantly slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled it out. In his hand lay a small emerald cut and shaped into the daintiest of flowers, petals thin and delicate. The centre had a diamond pressed into the middle and tiny chips of diamond adorned the petals, making the flower glint in the sun.

He made a half-choked noise, confusion clear on his face. How on earth had that ended up in his pocket? Where had it come from? He stared at it for a while, gaping in bewilderment. He closed his hand around it then. He'd seen similar things in the treasury when he'd accompanied the dwarves that fateful time a year ago, when Thorin had given him the mithril shirt. He'd pressed one of these into Bilbo's hand, looking as if he wanted to say something important before merely closing Bilbo's hand around it; but Bilbo had dropped it when the dwarf had turned away, his guilt over keeping the Arkenstone hidden so great he felt he couldn't accept anything.

Had it been this one? He couldn't tell for certain. But he felt no guilt this time as he slipped it back into his pocket, a reminder of his dwarf even if he had been a dwarf in the midst of the gold-sickness.

A/N: Thank you for reading and I really hope you enjoyed :')