The second Bilba's feet touched the ground, she was treated to four matching looks of horror. Thorin went ashen, all the color draining from his face while Dwalin lifted a hand as if wanting to do...something, only to drop it again.

Bilba frowned, and then belatedly remembered her shirt was torn, and she was rather liberally drenched in blood.

"I'm fine," she said, heading off any comments.

"Fine?" Fili asked in shock. "How can you be-"

He cut off as the ground shook beneath their feet, hard enough to knock her off balance. If Thorin hadn't still been holding onto her, she'd have probably fallen right back into the chasm again.

Seriously, what was with the mountain's obsessive need to kill her?

"Less talking, more running!" she insisted, cutting Fili off mid-sentence. Thorin was still holding her, one arm around her waist, and the other on her arm. Bilba looked into his eyes and felt her own narrow in confusion. There was something...different but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. "I'm really okay," she repeated. "Please, we have to go."

He nodded, eyes still wide. "You're right."

He released her, but only so he could grab her hand in his. The ground shook again, sending them all to their knees. Overhead, loud cracks sounded and Bilba sucked in a breath at the sight of enormous boulders crashing down toward them.

The ground under her feet began to move, and it suddenly occurred to her the cracking she'd heard hadn't been entirely from above.

Thorin swore, and then nearly yanked her arm out of her socket as he dragged her forward mere seconds before the ground under her feet simply wasn't there anymore.

Bilba managed to get her wits together and then they were all running, the boys and Dwalin just behind while she and Thorin took up the lead. Rocks thundered to the ground around them, forcing them to dodge and try to avoid them. They weren't entirely successful and she grimaced as she took several blows that were certainly going to form into impressive bruises later.

Bilba felt her heart leap into her throat as, ahead of them, the ground buckled and shoved upwards. They leapt, just barely managing to clear it before coming down on the other side, hard. Bilba bit her lip as pain rocketed up her knees and hands, but there was no time to focus on it as the mountain continued to do its best to come down around their ears.

Ahead, she could barely make out the faint light of the doorway. Dust and shattered bits of rock clogged the air, making her eyes water and burn. Her lungs felt tight, lessening the amount of air she could pull in and the urge to cough was strong.

In the end, she had no idea how they made it out. One second, the world was crumbling about them, and the next they were bursting out into the open air.

Thorin continued trying to run, pulling her along, but Bilba stumbled and fell to her knees, struggling to breathe, her lungs burning from the effort. She was smaller than he was, and simply didn't have the energy reserves or stamina he did.

"Thorin," she managed to gasp, only to cut off as he grabbed her and swung her up into his arms.

"I've got you."

She nodded tiredly, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face in his neck.

She listened to the world falling apart after that. Maybe in a different life, or at a different time, she might have watched, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She'd trekked halfway across Middle Earth, faced evil in the form of Nazgul, orcs and sentient rings, actually died and now, now she was simply done.

If the world was coming down about them, then someone else could damn well deal with it.

Thorin, as it turned out, was a surprisingly steady runner, despite the world attempting to shake itself to pieces around him. He dodged a few times, and even jumped but, for the most part, kept to a solid rhythm. It created a rocking motion that, somewhat surprisingly, began to lull her into a light sleep as they continued.

She was sure this probably said something about her mental health, but she decided not to dwell on it.

Instead, she simply tightened her grip on Thorin, settled in, and enjoyed not having to be the one running, screaming, or fighting for the first time in quite a long time.

Bilba drifted back to consciousness slowly.

Huh, she thought hazily, she'd fallen asleep?

In Mordor?

While running away from what sounded suspiciously like the entire mountain coming down?

Definitely did not bode well for her mental health.

She was curled on her side, with her head resting on what she assumed was Thorin's thigh. One of his hands was idly stroking her head, which was very pleasant and held a very real risk of lulling her right back to sleep again.

She resisted it, however, in favor of enjoying a clear mind without the ring sinking its fangs in.

She'd honestly forgotten what it felt like.

Her emotions felt steady, there was no insidious voice inside her head telling her awful things, no pain.

Taking a deep breath, Bilba steeled herself, and opened her eyes.

She saw Fili and Kili sprawled out a few feet away, sound asleep against the base of a rocky shelf rising behind them. There was no sign of Dwalin, but the distinct lack of panic from Thorin or the boys suggested he was probably fine, wherever he was.

Aside from that...she saw nothing.

Nothing at all.

Relief, mixed with the tiniest bit of sorrow, crashed over her and she let out a sigh. Thorin's hand had fallen away from her head, and she glanced up to see him sitting with his back against yet another shelf of rock. They were in a small gully, she realized, protected from sight on both sides.

She started to push to a sitting position, only to suck in a breath as she moved her feet and was promptly hit by radiating waves of sharp pain.

"What?" She looked toward her feet and was startled to see both had been bandaged. Not only that, but was it just her or did her feet look smaller than she remembered them being?

"Your feet don't seem quite as hardy as they once were," Thorin said softly. He grabbed her arms and helped her into a seated position next to him. "You're taller too."

Bilba blinked at him in confusion. "I'm what?"

Even as she said it, his words registered, and she suddenly realized that was what she'd noted was strange after he'd pulled her up from having fallen over the ledge in Mount Doom. She was so used to staring at his collarbone every time they stood next to one another but, that time, she'd been staring at his chin.

Speaking of Mount Doom...

Carefully, she moved onto her knees and pushed up, wanting to look up over the ledge. Once she did, she was surprised to see they'd crossed nearly the entire plain that she and the boys had trudged across to get to Mount Doom.

Even more surprising, however, than how far they'd come, was the sight of the mountain itself, or what was left of it. As far as she could tell the entire upper half had crumbled, collapsing in on itself until it looked more like a heap of shattered stone than a mountain.

"Huh." She slumped back, forgetting about her feet, and hissed in pain as they reminded her. Thorin caught her before she could lose her balance entirely and helped her until she was seated next to him, facing one another with their knees touching.

Bilba allowed that for all of five seconds before giving him an exasperated look and promptly throwing herself at him. She wound up straddling his legs in a slightly awkward manner that would have scandalized half the Shire and had the other half nodding to themselves in a self-righteous manner that suggested nothing good, or appropriate, ever came from bearing the blood of a Took.

Leaning forward with his hands on her waist to study her, she grabbed his face in both hands and proceeded to show him just how much she'd missed him, as well as how very happy she was that he was there, even if there was the middle of Mordor.

It was several long minutes before they broke apart, both breathing hard. Bilba settled back on his legs and struggled to think of what question to ask first. Finally, she simply decided to tell him everything that had happened since she'd last seen him.

He went pale when she told him about Fili being captured by the orcs, and paler still when she told him about the origin of the blood still staining her clothing. That led into telling him about her meeting with Yavanna, which led into him telling her about his interactions with Yavanna, which led into a rather jumbled mess of interrupting and talking over one another but, ultimately, eventually, ended in both of them being relatively caught up on the important facts.

One, the Black Tower with the flaming eye at the top had collapsed at the same time as Mount Doom which, hopefully, meant Sauron had gone down with his damned ring. Thorin, Dwalin, and the boys had seen a few orcs as they'd run but all had been more interested in running themselves than in attacking, so that was another good sign. There was no sign of the army that had marched off toward the gates, but Bilba was hopeful that the collapse of the tower and mountain might have, at the very least, sown confusion and chaos amongst the ranks.

Two, Erebor was reportedly safe if Yavanna were to be believed. Since Bilba did believe her, it was a great relief. Thorin had reported all of the Company had been alive and well the last time he'd seen them so that was an even further relief.

"So Yavanna healed me?" she said, once they had all been caught up. "Or Mahal? And made me taller in the process?"

"I don't think you were just made taller," Thorin said slowly. His hands were still on her waist, brow furrowed as he considered. "Your feet are different, and you're heavier as well." She glared at him, and he rolled his eyes in turn. "I don't think you're quite a hobbit any longer, my love."

"Not quite a hobbit?" Bilba repeated in confusion. "Why?"

"I don't know," Thorin answered, "but it makes me wonder. You almost appear to be part dwarf now. If that's so-"

Bilba's eyes widened in realization. "If I'm part dwarf now, then what's it done to my lifespan?"

She didn't particularly feel any younger but, still...

"You think?" she whispered. The tiniest thread of hope sparked up somewhere inside her as she suddenly found herself picturing the future, seeing her sons growing up, not having to leave Thorin a widower before he was even middle-aged.

A grin suddenly spread across her face and, with a small shriek, she threw herself forward to wrap both arms around Thorin and hug him. He snorted, and hugged her back, before a sound from behind them drew their attention.

Bilba twisted around, and then was scrambling off Thorin's legs to go throw her arms around Fili and Kili, who had both woken up.

What followed was a lot of hugging and swapping of stories until all of them were caught up on what had happened. Fili and Kili demanded Bilba stand up and turn around, showing off her new figure which, indeed, was taller, stockier and sported smaller feet that were not nearly as comfortable on the rocky ground as her hobbit feet had been.

The fact that they were all so quickly accepting of her body having literally been reshaped by one or more Valar made her give up all hope that any of them still possessed a shred of sanity, but she figured if that was the worst they had to sacrifice in this entire thing she'd take it.

Eventually, Dwalin appeared from where he'd apparently been keeping watch overhead to alert them to riders approaching. The sound of thundering hooves soon had Fili and Kili rushing forward to peer over the edge of the chasm, only to excitedly return and announce that the riders appeared to be carrying armored men from Gondor.

As Thorin leapt over the edge, and reached back to help her up, Bilba felt herself tearing up. She was filthy, hungry, her feet hurt, and she was still stuck in the middle of Mordor...and it was so much more than she'd ever thought she would end up with.

She was alive, and she would get to see her sons again and, what's more, she was going to get to watch them grow up. She'd be more than a memory to them.

Standing next to Thorin, she shaded her eyes with one hand to try and get a closer look at the approaching group. The riders had spotted them and angled toward them, and now Bilba could see Aragorn led them, with Gandalf riding next to him on a white horse.

She raised a hand to wave and laughed with pure joy as they responded in turn.

Her journey, finally, was done.