"You must rest," Legolas says as Bilba shakes herself awake once more.
It has been four days since the elf prince and his patrol came upon the small company beset by the spiders and in that time the hobbit girl has hardly left the infirmary, even though she has been given her own rooms. She spends her time moving between Fíli, Ori and Adra's beds, talking softly until her voice begins to go hoarse and then sitting in silence with a hand clutched in hers until she is encouraged to move. More than once she has fallen asleep beside one or other of them and has woken in one of the few unused cots to the sound of frustrated elves ranting at Legolas in their musical language.
"I can't," she replies, for all that she never wanted to leave Rivendell with these dwarves, she has become very fond of them. "What if they never wake up?"
"They will," Legolas assures her, although she thinks she knows him well enough by now to see that he isn't as confident of it as he would like her to believe. "We reached them in time and their chances of recovery are good."
The elf doesn't need to say that he would be happier if one with skill such as Lord Elrond's were treating the dwarves. Frankly, Bilba would prefer it as well. She's sure that the healing elves of Mirkwood are perfectly competent, but there is a pervasive undercurrent of distaste for the dwarves every time the elves are in the room that she dislikes. The elves in Rivendell were at least welcoming and understanding of the dwarves. To his credit Legolas seems to feel the same way as she does, having become more familiar with these particular dwarves and their ways over the weeks they have travelled together.
"Rest, Bilba," Legolas orders, his expression clearly stating that he will remove her if she disobeys, "we will fetch you should they wake."
With no sign of her friends stirring and exhaustion gnawing at her, Bilba relents and retreats to the room she had been given for the first time in three days. The bed in this room, though far too large and high, is more comfortable than the cots in the infirmary and she clambers up, still fully clothed, wrapping herself in the blankets with a discontented sigh. Bilba has other reasons for not wanting to rest, reasons that are less altruistic and far more selfish than she would like to admit.
She has come to realise that she is a more selfish being than she had thought. Bilba has always believed herself to be too kind, too giving and too open for her own good. She questions that now, given the pain her actions must have caused her family, and perhaps it is less selfishness and more that she has been too much accustomed to getting her own way. She has, after all, spent very little of her life being told 'no'. Her parents indulged her and denied her very little, perhaps out of love but maybe because she was the only child Belladonna Baggins ever bore who survived coming into the world. Her grandfather rarely refused her anything after her parents' deaths and perhaps it would have been better if he had.
Now she doesn't want to sleep, not just because she doesn't want to risk not being there if one of her friends wakes or the worst should happen, although that is uppermost in her thoughts. She doesn't want to sleep because when she sleeps, she dreams. She dreams of spiders and orcs, she dreams of the terrible thing that tried to kill her in the caves in the Misty Mountains and of the man she killed outside Bree. She will wake sweat soaked and crying, reaching for Adra who has slept next to her as a source of heat, comfort and protection for so many weeks, only to find the edge of an uncomfortable cot or the expanse of this too large elvish bed. The ridiculous thing is that as terrifying as those dreams are, they are not the worst of them.
The worst ones are of a future that has not happened, and might never happen, of being in the Great Hall of Durin in Khazad-dûm. Of presenting herself before an empty throne only for a dwarf, faceless but with hair and beard that is dark and thick, to step out from behind it and claim her in a cruel voice. Declaring his right to her and then murdering Fíli when the lad protests because Durin's heir is not who she wants or loves. She screams herself awake every time at the sight of Fíli's lifeless eyes, something she has seen a facsimile of already thanks to the spider venom, staring at her as an axe or sword or mace is used to tear the life from him. She will wake breathless and screaming, in a too big bed that is somehow richer than even the beds in Tookborough and for a moment she has no idea where she is or what has happened. In that moment the dream is all too real and she will force herself to extract her limbs from her sheets and make her way to the infirmary to confirm that Fíli is still alive.
She has been doing this every night for three days since the first night Legolas convinced her to go to her own bed.
"Another nightmare?" One of the healers asks. Bilba cannot keep track of their names, but this one is always here at night. Maerith, she thinks he is called. "I can give you something to keep the dreams away for a time," he offers.
Bilbo shakes her head, settling down in a chair at Fíli's bedside and taking his hand in hers. She was given something for dreamless sleep after her parents died. It somehow makes her feel worse than the nightmares. Fíli is still unconscious so she places a soft kiss on the palm of his hand, the warmth of his rough skin reassuring her in spite of his stillness.
"I need you to wake up soon," she whispers, using a tentative hand to brush a lock of hair from his face. It needs brushing, she thinks, but she knows how dwarves feel about their hair, better than the elves do at any rate. "You can't leave me alone with all these elves, they're too tall to be sensible."
The healer huffs, though she thinks it might be a laugh rather than in offence, and she falls silent, resuming her study of Fíli's face. He is calm, although it is more the natural calmness of sleep than the terrifying stillness of near death, and his beard is longer than it was when she met him only months ago. He'll be able to braid it soon, she thinks, and finds herself imagining what he might look like when he gets older.
She falls asleep still clutching his hand and wakes to the feeling of fingers in her thick curls. For a moment she is home again, with her grandfather comforting her after she has dreamt of that awful winter and her parents' deaths. Then she remembers where she is and her head pops off the bed. Fíli's hand slips from her hair and he blinks at her sleepily before his cheeks flare scarlet. Dwarves and hair, she thinks absently before deciding not to read into it. His brother, she remembers, had dark hair from all that Fíli has told her.
"You're awake!" She cries. "It's been over a week, and I've been so worried!"
Fíli smiles tiredly at her, the blush fading from his cheeks but rising in hers as she realises just how much of her own feelings she has betrayed. Fíli only smiles a little wider, though there is little comprehension in his face. As though summoned by her exclamation one of the healers, this one with hair of silver, shoos her away so that she can examine the young dwarf.
Bilba flees.
Gandalf finds her later in one of the gardens, a welcome haven of healthy green in the black sickness of the forest. She stares unseeing at a fountain, relief that her friends are beginning to wake up warring with her own embarrassment at both her own behaviour and her suddenly realised feelings. The wizard sits next to her in silence, his staff nowhere to be seen, as he assesses her with ancient eyes that always see too much.
"So, you've finally realised it," the wizard comments.
"I don't know what you mean," she says loftily, the conversation all too similar to one she had with Adra a few weeks ago.
"You can deny it to everyone around you," Gandalf smirks, "but you cannot hide it from yourself any longer. It will do you good, I think," he hums cryptically and pulls out his pipe. "Thorin, Dwalin, Adra and Nori are also awake," he continues after blowing a few smoke rings.
"Good," Bilba mutters. "The others?"
"Bitten far earlier than the rest, as you know, and far more affected by the venom. They are stirring," he adds when her face falls, "but it will be some time until they awaken and longer still until they are ready to depart."
"Thorin won't like that," she whispers.
"Oh, he is already aware, but is unable to leave his bed at present and so has been unable to make Thranduil aware of his opinions of the state of the Greenwood," Gandalf chuckles. "That will be a confrontation to see."
"Wouldn't it be better avoided?" Bilba asks. They are Thranduil's guests, though unwelcome admittedly, after all. It would not do to anger him and she finds the elf king mildly terrifying.
"Were Thorin any other dwarf I would say 'yes'," Gandalf muses. "But he is Durin's Shield and supposedly the only other dwarf aside from Durin's heir who can touch the Arkenstone."
"So, why didn't he become king?" Bilba asks.
"Because his brother already had children," Gandalf responds, "and Thorin's claim to the throne was not strong enough. He can touch the stone, but the Jewel will not permit him to wield it. That is for Durin's heir alone, when he finally emerges." Bilba shudders. "Now, dear Bilba, perhaps you would like to come and see how your friends fare? It seems odd to abandon them now having spent so many days at their bedsides."
A.N:Gah, maths assignment to do! So I procrastinate by getting this up. Because I'm terrible for procrastinating.
