Chapter 41
His hands were raw, the pungent scent of cleaner stinging his nostrils, but Bilbo kept scrubbing at the floor. His blood had turned into a dark brown stain in the wood, a grisly halo around the inch-long hole where the knife had entered.
He didn't know why he was back down here. He'd avoided the wine cellar like it had been filled with walkers since the last time he'd stumbled through the door. Even moving through the food storage and the kitchen was a challenge. He'd been able to wipe the blood easily from the appliances in the kitchen and the concrete wall just outside, but getting it out of this damn floor was impossible.
The creak of footsteps against the floor made him jump, but it was only Dís. She hovered in the doorway, looking uncertain, and the sight made his stomach drop a little. Dís never looked uncertain.
"Is that blood?" she asked lowly, nodded to the stain he was trying to scrub out. It was streaked with tiny white suds, but dark enough to be recognizable.
Bilbo sat back on his heels and nodded, swallowing back a sudden lump in his throat. He realized now that he probably looked a little unhinged, desperately trying to clean the floor of some hidden room in the middle of the night. But everything seemed a little…insane after the events of the previous day.
"I'll be back." Dís turned and left the room.
He dropped the sponge with a sigh and wiped his hands on his pants. His arms were sore, and the wound on his palm was stinging. He hoped none of the cleaner had gotten under his bandage. In hindsight, he'd probably have been better off wearing gloves.
In hindsight…
Dís returned after a couple minutes, carrying a box of baking soda, a bottle of vinegar, and a roll of paper towels. She knelt down, wiped away the rest of the cleaner (revealing how little progress he'd made), then sprinkled some of the baking soda over the stain.
"We have to let this sit for a little." She sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees. At his questioning look, she said, "I have a lot of experience getting blood out of things. Not that I'm a serial killer or anything."
Bilbo tried for a smile, mostly for her sake. Humor and laughter felt as flimsy as paper at the moment. He took one of the towels and began cleaning his hands more thoroughly. "How…How can you be so calm right now?"
The calm in her expression cracked a little, like porcelain, and Bilbo immediately regretted asking.
She was silent for a long moment. "I think I'm still in shock. Or denial, or something. I…I still wake up everyday and have to remember. I-I keep expecting him to be next to me." Her voice cracked. "And then after yesterday…"
Bilbo nodded and clenched his jaw. It had been a mad, panicked rush back to the front door. There had been the terrifying sense that they were running out of time, that they'd had to move quickly, but Óin's inspection had proved what they all feared.
Gimli's face had been swollen with tears and pain while Óin placed a bandage over the bite on his shoulder. No one had had the heart to say that it wasn't going to do much in the end. And no one had protested when Glóin and Brana had taken him into one of the apartments.
That had been more than twenty four hours ago. And the rest of them had been milling around like walkers since then, cold and lifeless in their horror.
Dís buried her face in her hands, her voice thick with tears. "This whole thing has just been a fucking disaster."
Bilbo couldn't exactly argue with that. But he didn't miss the undercurrent of anger in her tone.
"Do you blame Thorin?" he asked quietly.
She stiffened. In the chaos of the past day, Bilbo wasn't even sure if she'd had the chance to see him.
"Because I promise whatever you're feeling, Thorin's already turned it on himself ten times over."
"He could have gotten Fíli killed." Dís dropped her hands from her face. "I can't control what the rest of you do. But Thorin planted that idea in Fíli's head, convinced him he…he needed to go back out there." The lines on her face hardened. "And Víli paid for that."
Bilbo flinched. It took him a long moment to gather the words he wanted to say. "I…I don't know that I could have talked him out of it. But he…I think he understands now."
Dís let out a bitter laugh. "Well, thank god for that."
He swallowed as his throat tightened. He had every intention of defending Thorin as much as he deserved, but he could very clearly see Dís's pain, and he couldn't really fault her for it.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I don't know if there's a way we come back from this. But I wish you would talk to him."
Her shoulders sagged, as if the exhaustion of everything that had happened had hit her at once. "I just wish Víli was here," she said, her voice thick with tears. "I miss him so much."
Bilbo moved so he could put an arm around her shoulders while she cried. He felt hollow, like an aching wasteland inside, like tears were nothing more than a distant dream of rain.
Eventually, her sobs guttered and faded, and she fumbled for the bottle of vinegar, forgotten on the floor. She poured it over the white-powdered stain, and they watched as the mixture began to bubble and seethe.
Bilbo took a breath and forced himself to speak. "You know, Víli told me he wished he could be more like you. That he could be strong the way you are." He held her tighter. "We're all here for you. And you've always held yourself up. You're going to be alright. We all will."
The words felt empty, fragile, but he wanted to believe them anyway.
Hesitantly, Fíli pushed open the bedroom door. "Kíli?"
His brother was sitting against the headboard, tapping furiously on his handheld game. He didn't look up when Fíli walked in, but the concentrated scowl on his face deepened.
"Um…" Fíli leaned against the doorway, trying to ignore the tightness in his chest. Dís and Kíli had moved into the apartment he'd been staying in before they'd arrived, but his brother had barely looked at him since the farm. He'd been planning on waiting until they reached Erebor to try and bridge that gap, but after everything, he'd barely had time to even think about it.
Kíli continued playing his game, as though he'd forgotten about him altogether.
"Did you want to…check out the game room?" He shoved his hands into his pockets. "They have a lot of cool stuff down there."
A few seconds of silence ticked by. Eventually, Kíli said, "Just leave me alone."
Fíli sighed through his nose and stepped farther into the room. "Look, can you just stop ignoring me for five seconds? Can…Can we just talk about what happened?"
"No." Kíli drew his knees towards his chest, scrunching himself into a tighter ball. "Just go away."
Fíli looked at his brother, at the hard, stubborn lines on his face, and felt something in his chest coil tight. He crossed the room, snatched the game from Kíli's hands, and tossed it away.
"What the hell?" Kíli leapt forward and shoved him hard enough to make him stumble.
Fíli caught himself and stood his ground. "Stop looking at your stupid game and talk to me!"
Kíli was perched on the bed, breathing hard, like some wild animal. "I don't need to listen to you! You left!"
Fíli almost flinched at his tone, even as he felt a strange relief that Kíli was finally talking to him. Anger was better than silence. "I came back."
"Yeah, but Dad didn't." His voice gained a ragged edge. "You took him on this stupid mission, and he died."
The words were like a physical blow to the chest, so close to what he'd been telling himself. Fíli clenched his fists. "I…I didn't…"
"Why did you have to leave?" Kíli's eyes filled with tears.
"I just wanted a safe place for us. For everyone," he said, ashamed at the unsteadiness of his voice. He took a deep breath as pain streaked across his chest. "What happened to Gimli…I-I mean, what if that was you? I would die if anything happened to you." He took in another shaky breath. "Especially if something happened, and you were angry with me, and—" He swallowed down a sob.
Kíli's expression crumpled. He got off the bed and threw himself across the room. Fíli braced himself, but Kíli only wrapped his arms around his chest.
"I-I don't want you to get hurt." Kíli sniffled. "Don't leave again."
"Okay." Fíli wrapped his arms around Kíli's shoulders. He tried his best to control the trembling in his own chest. "And I'm…I'm sorry about Dad."
Kíli only held him tighter.
"We have to do something about this. It's been two days."
Bilbo crossed his arms and tried not to shiver. Everyone was gathered in the hallway in a semicircle around Glóin and Brana's room, debating in hushed tones.
It had been two days since Gimli had been bit. Everyone turned within two days. It had been one of the only things those studying the virus had been able to figure out before the world ended—the virus would kill you and bring you back within two days.
Balin had only taken a few minutes after he'd passed. The memory made him shudder violently. It had been horrible enough, seeing Dwalin's broken posture next to his brother's body, knowing that he'd had to make such a terrible sacrifice because he had no other choice.
To think that Glóin and Brana were going through that same horror, that they would have to face it with their son…
Thorin's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "Is everyone armed?"
Bilbo looked around. Almost everyone had a knife on them—he couldn't really sleep without his nearby—and a few others, including Bifur and Dwalin, had guns as well.
"Why?" Dís asked slowly, frowning.
Almost imperceptibly, Thorin balked at her question. Now that he had some of his strength back, he'd started spending more time with the others, and had slipped back into his role as their leader, but Bilbo still caught small signs of hesitation in his actions.
"We don't know what we're going to find in there," Thorin said, holding Dís's gaze. "We need to be prepared, make sure no one else gets hurt."
"We need to stop standing around with our thumbs up our asses," Óin growled, pushing his way to the front of the group. He banged on the door, the rattling making some of them jump. "Glóin! Open the hell up, or we'll break this thing down ourselves!"
He stepped back and they all waited in breathless silence. Óin's shoulders were stiff, betraying a fear that Bilbo had never seen in him before.
After a long moment, the door opened. Glóin stood just inside, at the edge of the shadows swathing the darkened living room. She looked exhausted, but…calm. She looked around at the group, taking in each of their faces, though her own was unreadable.
"Well?" Óin spread his hands in typical impatience, though it didn't hide the slight tremor in his voice.
"Come in," Glóin said, and gestured with her chin for them to enter. "Just keep it down."
They all shuffled inside, with Glóin at the front. She walked backwards, facing them, each movement carefully placed. Though she looked deceptively relaxed, Bilbo knew she was calculating every move, preparing in case she had to fight. The sight made unease twist in his stomach.
She led them to one of the bedrooms, and opened the door just wide enough to stick her head in. "It's everyone."
"They can come in," Brana responded softly.
The bedroom was dim, lit only by a lamp in one corner, and smelled stale. Brana was sitting in the center of the bed, amidst rumpled sheets, and Gimli was lying with his head in her lap. At the sound of their footsteps, he lifted his head and blinked sleepily.
Bilbo's heart stuttered. Gimli looked drawn and exhausted, his hair disheveled and damp with leftover sweat, but his eyes were clear and alert.
He looked up at Brana. "Can we go outside now?"
Glóin stood at the edge of the bed, still tense. "He's not…He hasn't…"
Óin took a step forward. "May I?" When Glóin nodded, he went to sit on the bed and pressed the back of his hand to Gimli's forehead. "How are you feeling, lad?"
"Tired." Gimli rubbed at his eyes. "And thirsty."
Glóin retrieved a bottle of water from her pack—Bilbo guessed that was how they'd been feeding themselves for the past couple of days—and handed it to Gimli.
Dís finally spoke up, voicing the question that was on everyone's mind. "What happened?"
"We were just…trying to wait it out." Brana capped the bottle once Gimli was done with it. "Give him some peace while he…" Her voice wavered. "We were going to call you all in once i-it was getting close. But then his fever started going down."
"He's still a little warm," Óin said. "But not dangerously so."
They all fell silent. Bilbo couldn't stop staring at Gimli, the movement of his little fingers as he reached down to tug at his socks.
"So…" Bofur cleared his throat. "So he just got better?"
"That's what it looks like, doesn't it?" Glóin crossed her arms and glared at him.
"Hey." Thorin held a hand out. "No one's going to hurt him. We're just trying to understand what's going on."
"Wait a second," Bombur said. "Brana, do you remember that baby we saw on the bridge? I-It was a while back, when we were still on the road. That was the day Ori got…um, bit."
Brana frowned—no doubt it wasn't an exactly pleasant memory for her to relive at the moment. "I remember."
Everyone turned to Bombur as he continued. "We saw a baby in one of the cars. It must have been really young. I-I mean, it was pretty small. And it was dead, but…it hadn't turned."
Dís crossed her arms. "What are you trying to say?"
"Gimli was born after," Bombur said. "He was born after the outbreak. A-And it's been two days, and the bite hasn't killed him. So what if he's immune?"
The room fell silent. Bilbo wasn't sure he was ready to entertain that train of thought, or what it would mean for them if it was true. The others wore similar hesitant expressions. Even Nori looked uncertain.
"What's immune?" Gimli asked. Everyone turned to look at him.
"I think you need a checkup," Óin said, patting him on the leg. "You want to come to Uncle Óin's new office?"
Gimli scowled and nestled further against Brana's leg. "I don't like checkups."
Kíli wormed his way to the front of the group and knelt at the edge of the bed. "Hey, Gimli, I'll get you some candy if you're good."
Gimli considered the offer for a long moment, then nodded. Óin helped him off the bed, careful of his shoulder, and the two of them set off towards the infirmary.
The others followed just behind, and Bilbo noticed there was a new energy among them. There was a lightness in his chest, an almost foreign sensation he didn't dare call hope.
They all watched as Óin lifted Gimli onto one of the beds in the infirmary and checked his temperature and his reflexes. Brana held him while Óin peeled away the bandage on his shoulder and inspected it. He stared at the wound for a long time, long enough that Glóin demanded, "What is it?"
"Still looks like shit," Óin said lowly. "It's gonna need stitches. But it…it's showing signs of healing. Swollen, but not infected." He looked up at the rest of them. "We're going to have to watch it for the next couple of weeks. But I don't see any reason why he wouldn't recover."
Brana let out a choked sob, and Glóin held her as she began to cry.
Gimli looked up at his mothers with wide eyes. "Why is mommy crying?"
"She's just glad you're alright," Óin said.
His face scrunched into a frown. "She's crying because she's happy?"
"Yeah." Óin walked around the bed and took Gimli's face in his hands. "Are you hungry, lad?"
He nodded.
"What for?"
Gimli glanced at the rest of the group. "Can I have some candy?"
Dís let out a stuttering laugh that might have also been a sob, and a shaky wave of mirth swept over their group.
And Bilbo felt, for the first time in weeks, that he could breathe easy again.
Thorin took a deep breath to calm his nerves as he walked down the hallway. He'd been putting this off for too long, and now that the dust had settled, with his family reunited and Gimli making a steady recovery, he had no more excuses to keep delaying it.
Dwalin and Bilbo had both been right in that he needed to speak to his family, to lay bare all that had been going through his mind in the past several days, and that was what he intended to do. That was the only way they could truly move forward.
The sound of cheerful conversation and clinking utensils grew louder as he neared the door. The group had repurposed one of the conference rooms in another section of the base as a makeshift dining room. The cafeteria, spacious as it was, seemed a little too big for their group, and made Bilbo anxious besides.
Bard met him outside the door, coming from the opposite direction. Since entering the mountain, Thorin had only seen him in passing. He tended to keep to himself, though his children had grown close with Fíli and Kíli.
Thorin nodded to him as they drew closer. "Can I have a word?"
"Sure." Bard stopped, slipping his hands into his pockets. He still had a serious set to his brow, but he looked much more relaxed than he had in the abandoned town.
"I heard what you did, out there. And I wanted to thank you for dealing with that psychopath. None of us might have made it out if it wasn't for you."
"I just did what had to be done." Bard shrugged. "And I guess I should thank you for not stabbing me in the face when we first met."
Thorin smiled briefly at that. "I want you to know that you're welcome to stay here. Your children deserve a safe place to grow up."
A small measure of tension disappeared from his brow. "I'm glad to hear it."
Thorin gestured for him to go first, and they entered the room together. The others were all sitting around the table, sharing canned green beans and tomato soup. Bard's children, Fíli, and Gimli were all gathered at one corner of the table, watching intently as Kíli rolled a pair of dice.
When Bilbo saw him enter, he smiled and gestured to the empty seat next to him. It lifted Thorin's heart every time to see life in his eyes again, to see joy come more easily on his face. He walked around the table to stand next to him and squeezed his shoulder briefly, but didn't sit down.
He lifted his gaze to the rest of the group. "There's something I need to say."
Gradually, silence trickled across the table as everyone turned to look at him.
"It's been more than a month since I told you all about my plans for this place. For Erebor." He glanced down at the table. "And it's…a great relief to me to see you all safe, in each other's company." He took a deep breath. "But I was wrong. My idea of safety, of security, was never worth risking any of your lives."
He glanced across the table at Dís. She was watching him closely, her gaze shadowed with pain.
"All I have ever wanted was for you all to be safe. And I let that blind me. I let a rift grow between myself and the rest of you. I wasted valuable time that I could have spent with my family trying to find a way to shelter you all from the rest of the world."
He fell silent again, trying to gather his courage. Bilbo was looking at him, and though he didn't reach out, the steadiness of his presence, the love in his eyes, was enough to bolster him.
"I have no right to ask this of any of you," Thorin continued lowly. "But I would still lead you into whatever comes next…on your terms. You're all my family, and…" He paused as something in his chest tightened. "I want to hear you."
Silence fell once more. Everyone was still looking at him, but Thorin found it difficult to read their expressions, or to focus on anything other than the white-hot pounding of his heart.
"You've been good to us," Ori said softly. "And you've always been part of our family."
Dwalin grunted in agreement. "Just sit with us. Unless you're asking for us to vote for you or something."
The others joined in with murmurs of assent. Dís raised her water bottle in silent approval, her eyes shining slightly. He knew they would have to talk further later, but the small gesture was enough for the moment.
Thorin sat down in the empty chair, and conversation quickly resumed again, as though it had never stopped.
Bilbo clasped his hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. "I'm proud of you."
Thorin smiled and squeezed his hand. He was grateful now, more than ever, that Bilbo had been there to help him find his way. "I love you. I…I just want to say it now that I'm not dying from a gunshot wound."
His gaze softened in a way that made Thorin wish they were alone in the room. "You know, you've already proven it to me a hundred times over. But I guess I wouldn't mind hearing it more often…"
He leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. "I'll see what I can do about that tonight."
And the blush that spread across Bilbo's cheeks was enough to make him grin for the rest of the meal.
Gradually, the room began to empty. Kíli, Tilda, and Gimli scampered off on some wild adventure. Bifur and Ori gathered up the empty dishes and took them to the kitchen. Bofur and Bilbo set off to explore the greenhouse. Nori proclaimed he could finally put his marijuana seeds to use and followed them.
There was still work to be done—there always would be. But they had time, now, and a sense of freedom that they hadn't before.
Fíli was one of the last ones to leave the room. He waved goodbye to Sigrid and Bain, looking slightly exhausted, and left the room.
Thorin stood and caught him just outside the door. "Fíli. Can we talk?"
He turned around, looking slightly uncertain. "Uh, sure. What about?"
"I…" Thorin thought back to all the times before, when he'd tried to bridge that gap between him and his nephew. How he'd always failed when Fíli was suffering the most. How eventually he'd stopped trying. "I just want to know what you're feeling. Any of it."
Fíli lowered his gaze, and the stoic mask he was wearing faltered. "I don't know. I mean, I still…I still feel like shit every time I remember that they're gone." He looked up. "But I don't blame you for it."
Thorin nodded and stepped closer. "I want to try and be a better uncle. To you and Kíli and Gimli."
Fíli smiled slightly. "Well…maybe you can play Smash with us sometime."
"Okay." He wasn't sure what to make of the sudden lightness in his chest. "We can do that."
Fíli reached out first, wrapping his arms around Thorin's shoulders. He stood in shock for a moment, then returned the embrace.
And finally, finally, it felt as if some of the burden he carried on his shoulders, the weight he bore like a mantle, had begun to lift.
Just realized this isn't a great time to be writing about a post-pandemic apocalypse, but hopefully this chapter gave you all a bit of hope. And I hope y'all are safe and healthy.
Anyway, I really enjoyed writing this chapter. After all the doom and gloom that's been the past, like, ten chapters, it was really nice to have everyone start to heal. This was mainly meant to tie everything together and clean up any loose ends. Next chapter will be an epilogue of sorts, and then I'll give some final announcements.
