Author's Note: Hi there.
Here is chapter three, which is from Master Oakenshield's POV. It was a slightly interesting chapter to write because as I wrote it I was torn between being absolutely furious towards Thorin for acting like such an insensitive jerk and feeling kind of bad for him.
Damn, Richard Armitage! From the age of six I was fairly consisted with my dislike of Thorin - the dwarf frustrated me ever since I was a little girl - and then I watch the movie and I become a damn fangirl for him! Curses! I was doing so well with disliking him which was supposed to show in this chapter but it ended with me feeling sorry for the bugger!
I swear its got everything to do with Richard Armitage portrayal of him along with how beautifully Peter, Fran and Philippa have written his character, including elements of his personality that was rather glazed over in the book.
Anyway, enough from me. Please enjoy this chapter. But once again, I would like to thank all the amazing support that I have received for this fic. Believe me when I say I was not expecting this kind of response. It's insane! So thank you, thank you so much!

Chapter Three

Heavy Heart of Stone

Thorin Oakenshield, Son of Thrain, King under the Mountain sitting on his throne, surrounded by his people, all of whom were safe and sound back in their rightful homes, had a heavy heart.

He had no right to have one, it was Durin's Day, a day of celebration, farewelling an old year and welcoming a new one with open arms. And yet here he was with a heart as heavy as if it were made from stone.

If only it was, he thought grimly, for stones do not feel.

He feels too much, far too much and he has found no way of controlling these feelings or better yet, ridding himself of these frustrating and useless emotions that are slowly consuming him, killing him with their strength.

He leaves the celebrating as soon as he can without someone asking questions, but in his mind it isn't soon enough.

He returns back to his chambers and strips himself of his crown, which has been weighing heavily upon his brow with each passing hour, and his fine fur robes so that he is now simply dressed in clothes that are very similar to the ones he wore on the quest a year prior.

These were the clothes he was comfortable in, not fine, long fur robes and a heavy crown on his head, no, he wore those things only when necessary, when the occasion called for him to look like the Kings of Old, but only at these times. The rest of his time, he looked as he had always looked before he reclaimed his throne.

He was warrior, always ready for battle, waiting for the first howls of incoming wargs or the harsh blows of Goblin war horns. He had spent too many years battling for his and his people's lives to settle down into the role of King.

He was a fine diplomat when he needed to be but usually he needed Balin by his side to make sure he didn't lose his temper at whoever he was meeting with. Give him a bloody war and life-threatening situations over mountains of paper work any day. His father and grandfather had been good at these types of things, as was his sister and thankfully Fili was showing a knack for it is well, but himself? No, he was old and grumpy and had never been good with people.

Oh yes, he can order them around, keep them alive and be a good leader to them during times of war and suffering but as soon as it comes a time of peace and prosperity, he is worse than useless to his people something he had always feared he would become.

How can he be a good ruler when his own nephew can barely stand to be in the same room with him and his old friends are even less unhappy being safe and sound back in their home than they had been when they had been hungry and out in the wild, with Goblins and wargs bitting their heels.

It's because of her, a nasty voice sneers at the back of his head, it's always because of her.

Thorin shoves the voice back to the far depths of his mind. The last time he had listened to that voice he had made a grave and horrible mistake. And possibly from that mistake had caused the death of someone whom had known little of what she had actually done but had only their best interest at heart.

He shakes his head again. He didn't want to think of her either, though she is almost always on his thoughts, always there near the back of his mind, constantly tormenting him with her presence.

He stalks from his chambers and down some side stairs leading to a rarely used side gate.

He nods sharply to the guard on duty, who nods tightly back before returning to his unshifting stance.

Thorin and these guards have an agreement, when he leaves by this door, unattended, at night; they speak not a word to anyone about it. Their King's business was his own and if they remained silent about his midnight walks, they found themselves rewarded in small but meaningful ways.

Thorin walked carefully down the unused steps for they were starting to crack and crumble, but as this gate is rarely used by anyone other than himself – and he suspects a few members of his company – no one has found the need or the time to repair them. Which actually suits Thorin just fine. He has no wish for any dwarves besides himself – and his company – to be visiting the place where these old, worn stairs lead to. But still, he treads carefully as he moves further down the battered, crumbling stairs.

They lead him to a small and sheltered area that he can't remember what it was used for before Smaug had taken the mountain as his own. Now it was used as a graveyard. A graveyard with only one grave. One grave that held no body.

He hesitates at the bottom of the stairs as he always does before he goes over to the empty grave. It's not that he feels unwelcome here which really considering all things he really should, he had all but signed her death warrant.

No, the problem was, he does feel welcomed here.

Hobbits, he learned fairly early on during their travels, forgave quickly. No matter what the offense might have been towards her, after maybe a couple of hours of being quiet and sulky or maybe after a night's sleep, all would be forgiven and forgotten and she was back to being the smiling, chattering creature whom he was constantly torn between wanting to strangle and wanting to keep by his side always for fear that she will come to some harm.

And she had. Of course she had, she always fell into the company of trouble whenever she left their side. Only, with this last time, she did not come back to them like she had all those other times, she didn't come back because she was dead.

Dead and all because she had already forgiven him for his horrible and cruel actions towards her and was so stupidly loyal to him that she had thrown herself into a battle that she had little to no hope of surviving even with her magic ring.

She had saved his life, more than once and he hadn't been able to repay her. Oh, he had saved her from falling off a cliff and from some trolls – then she proceeded to save him and the rest of their company with her quick wit and intelligence – and from a few other small things like that, but still, she had done more for him than he had ever done for her.

He had tried to give her his love and his trust but in the moment that she had needed him to trust in her, he had thrown her out, too furious and mad with golden greed that he didn't see that she was once again been trying to save him, this time from himself.

And then to make matters worse, she had saved him again after he had thrown her out, renounced her.

She had come and saved him when he had been close to death from the wounds that Azog – who was now dead, thank you very much – had paid him.

He had been on his own, half trapped beneath the body of the pale orc who had slain his grandfather and threaten the lives of his nephews, the battle raging on around him when he felt something trying to lift the great weight off his bruised and battered body.

He could hear stifled sobs and laboured breaths near his side, feel the great weight being slowly lifted off him but he could see no one.

"Bill-Billanna?" He had choked out, moving his free and unbroken hand, reaching out for her. He touched her leg which was slick with sweat and blood, both of which stain his fingers.

"Are-are you just going to lie there," she whimpered breathlessly, "or are you going to help me?"

With more effort than it should have taken, together they managed to roll the monster off him.

"His warg?" Thorin had wheezed, trying to ignore the pain in his ribs, back and lower body. In fact his whole body was in pain, no where hurt more or less than anywhere else. Death, in his mind, couldn't come quickly enough.

"Dead." She says it so bluntly, so coldly that he can't help but look sharply at her. Or at least the place where he thinks she is standing.

"You would know…"

"I just do." She snaps and he drops it, for now.

"You should go, save yourself, return to the Shire, to your nice Hobbit-hole and books, armchair and garden."

"Oh, I plan to," she replies and he feels her move behind his head. The nerves in his shoulders and arms jump and scream when he feels her tiny hands tuck themselves beneath his arms and she starts to pull him away from the Azog's corpse, "once I've saved you… again, then I'm off."

"Leave! Now!" He snapped and tried to struggle against her insistent pulling. She was surprisingly strong, to be able to pull his broken, fully-armoured body across the battlefield.

"No."

"Stupid Hobbit."

"Stubborn Dwarf." She snapped back with just as much venom. "Just shut up and let me help you."

He fell silent then and simply allowed her to pull him into a small rocky shelter, away and hidden from the rest of the battle.

"Everyone else?" he asked gruffly as she fussed over him, trying to get him as comfortable as she possibly can.

"All still fighting," She replied and he can hear the sadness and tears in her broken voice.

"None have fallen?"

"Bombur went down for a moment or two but Bofur and Bifur fought off the Goblins who had jumped him. Ori got into a nasty tussle with a huge orc but he managed to fight it off all by himself, but he received a horrible wound to his arm. I don't know if he'll ever able to write again." The sobs are thick in her voice as she tells him of the current predicaments of his – their company.

"Your cousin, Dain, is very impressive with his hammer," she continued to inform him, "took off five Orc heads with one swing." She sounds torn between being impressed and disgusted. He had a hard time fighting back a grin at her tone before thinking that that shouldn't have been something she should have seen. None of this was something she should have seen. A Hobbit had no place in a battle.

"Why, why did you come back? Why are you here, instead of somewhere safe?"

"By the time we knew what was going on, the Goblins and Wargs were upon us, we - I had no time to get anywhere safe. Even if there had been…" she trails off and he wishes, not for the first time during this strange and slightly uncomfortable and painful encounter, that he could see her.

"You have your ring and you have proven time upon time before that you are quick and silent on your feet. You could easily leave without being spotted."

"Not when I have Wargs bearing down on me, I can't." She snapped.

"What? How?"

"They can smell me."

"Even threw all this?" he had asked sceptically, waving his hand weakly in the direction the huge battle still raging on nearby.

"Yes, even threw all this. The White Warg gave me quite the chase before I managed to throw it off."

"The white… Azog's warg?"

"Yes, it was quite insisted on getting its teeth into me." She replied dryly but he can feel her body trembling.

"I'm…" what, he had thought. Sorry? Sorry seemed fairly weak compared to everything she had gone through because of him.

"It's alright. They're both gone now."

"Are you hurt?"

She takes a long moment to answer him before saying that she will be fine. He doesn't like that, he doesn't like that answer at all.

He had reached out blindly and managed, by mere chance, to catch hold of one of her wrists in his hand, fumbling with her trembling fingers, searching for the plain gold band that had the ability to turn her invisible.

She tried to squirm away from him, but her desire to not cause him any pain worked in his favour and he was able to pull the ring free from her finger.

The moment it left her finger, she was visible, glaring at him under several layers of blood and dirt and wildly tangled hair, more brown than the golden colour it was when cleaned. Her clothes were ripped and torn worse than they had been the last time he had seen her.

Overall, she looked positively miserable and further confirmed his thoughts that war was no place for Hobbits.

"You should not have gotten involved." He said, groaning as he leans back against a rock, dropping her magic ring into the palm of her hand.

"You would be dead if I didn't." she replied, her brown eyes serious and defiant. She moved to get up and leave him, peering cautiously out of their shelter.

"Go, save yourself." He tells her but she shakes her head.

"I think I can see Dwalin and Fili. I'll go and get them and bring them here and then," she looks back him, her small shoulders hunched and he can see the sadness, pain and regret clouding her earthy orbs, "then I'll go." And never come back, you'll never have to see me again. She had left all that unsaid between them.

She pulls her ring out of her ruined waist coat pocket and slips it.

"Stay safe." She tells him firmly, "Stay safe, do you hear me? And don't die! You're not allowed to die, do you hear? I'm didn't go through all this for you to go and die on me!"

He opened his mouth to growl back at her, to snap at her that that was no way to address a King but speaking has grown hard for him and his eyes have grown heavy.

The next time he wakes, the battle is over, the eagles have come and their burglar was nowhere to be seen.

He told no one of his meeting with her which now felt more like a dream – though how did he manage to get himself all the way from Azog's corpse into the rocky shelter he was found in without helped? – and he kept mostly silent when Gandalf came to them a day or so later demanding to know where the hobbit was.

He regretted his words he spoke – he regretted a lot of words he spoke – to the wizard and he still cringed with guilt when he thought back on the last words that the wizard had spoken to him in return.

They hadn't seen him again since those early days after battle. He left in a great hurry on a white steed with Beorn, in his great bear form, beside him. Thorin did not know the reason behind the Wizard's leaving but he didn't question it as it wasn't the first time the Wizard had up and left when he was most needed.

Instead he focused on trying to heal and trying not to think too hard on what might have happened to the burglar, especially when her blue coat was brought to him, bloodied and ripped to pieces. In his dream of her, he remembers her wearing it, but he can't remember if it was already torn and bloody then.

It was just a dream, he thinks over and over again, but if it was just a dream then why had she been on the battlefield? A rabbit caught between a net and a trap, maybe?

He tries not to think about her, focuses on healing and rebuilding his great kingdom and making amends with the menfolk and grudgingly with the elves. Only problem with dealing with them is each time he looks of them, he starts thinking of her.

They had liked her, apparently and actually put quite a bit of effort into the search for her and had been almost as disappointed and dishearten as Thorin's company had been when she wasn't recovered.

He wasn't sure what happened to her coat once he was healed enough to move about and started organising the cleaning process of Erebor. He made a point of staying away from the gold, not wishing for the madness that had seized him earlier to take hold of him once more.

He kept himself busy creating treaties between the men and elves, looking over the structural integrity of his mountain, with its many halls and rooms destroyed from Smaug's attack, while also trying to learn how to be a King as he went.

It was almost a full month before he saw her coat again, washed and mended now and looking more like the coat she had worn during the last stage of their journey.

His throat had grown tight when he had seen it seated on a workbench in the workroom that Bofur and Bifur had claimed as their own.

His throat had grown all the tighter when he saw what was sitting next to it.

Her backpack, the only possession that had made it all the way from its place of origin to its destination.

They had called it her magic pack due to no matter how many times she lost it, it somehow always managed to find its way back to her. Like when they had lost all their things but the clothes on their backs and the weapons in their hands during their capture by the Goblins from Goblin Town. While everyone had lost their packs, Gandalf had returned hers to her once she had returned after she had been briefly lost.

The pack had stayed with her all through Mirkwood, during their time captured by the elves and even through their horrid barrel-ride to Long Lake, the damn thing stayed with her. And now…

The pack had been found in the place where they had spent their final night as a whole company, neatly packed and tucked away in a corner, waiting for its mistress to come and claim it.

She hadn't and seeing the pack and remembering the joke that it would always find its way back to her, no matter what, seemed to solidify her death for them.

Not all of them, he knew that his youngest nephew and Ori still held out a hope that she had somehow survived and escaped the battle, but the rest of them accepted the inevitable. She was dead and despite her betrayal, she needed a proper burial.

They knew a little about a Hobbits funeral from Bilbo, as she had told them all about her culture when they asked her, telling them too much in some of their minds, but Hobbits didn't have great secrets – well besides from some family recipes which Bilbo held close to her chest and refused to tell the secret ingredient to Bombur, no matter how he had begged – and their ways were very simple and were basically all about comfort. Including their funerals.

Their funerals were meant to be a happy affair, a time to remember the departed hobbits life with laughter and love, by being together, to comfort each other with their numbers and love. And afterwards a great feast – or a picnic as Bilbo had called it – was held in the departed hobbits honour and a grand time was meant to be had by all.

It was all quite different to a dwarven funeral, which was a serious and sombre affair, but they managed a sort of mixture of the two.

They had it at night and Bombur had cooked up a feast for them to eat. They found this little area, out of the way and not easy to get to without using the battered stairs. Some of them had even brought flowers with them too.

It had been awkward at first, what with several of them still not speaking to each other – in fact Thorin can't even remember how this whole thing came about, though he suspected that Bofur, Bombur and Ori were behind it, along with getting each one of the company there – but they eventually forgot about their fights, at least for that night and had a reasonably good time speaking of the better parts of their quest, Fili and Kili enthusiastically retelling the tale of Bilbo rescuing them all from the spiders and their barrel-ride and so on. It was a good night, Thorin remembered and he only wished that that feeling of good will had stayed with them afterwards.

"They miss you, some more than others, but they all miss you." He says as he plucks some grass between his fingers as he looks anywhere other than the small tombstone with a small, beautifully crafted metal box sitting at its base that contains her coat and backpack – it was all that had of her to bury.

He instead looks at the flowers that are growing all around the small area; he must make a point to thank Dori and Ori for keeping this area so lovely. They'd both get quite flustered of course for his temper always got a bit unstable whenever anything to do with her was brought up.

"I don't mean to be," he admits, "but…" He trails off unsure of how to finish his sentence. He was never good with words of sentiment when he doesn't have a fight in front of him.

"You always were able to bring out the worst in me." He finally growls before sighing, "and the best in me. How can someone so small and fragile bring out so many different and conflicting emotions in just one person?"

He got no answer in return, of course, but when he closed his eyes, he swore he heard her laughter. Her laughter, so different from a Dwarf women's laugh with it being so bright and happy, causing her face to become pink and her eyes to twinkle.

She hadn't laughed very much during the early stages of their journey, but as she had grown used to them and they grew used to her, the more she had and the more uncontrollable her laughter had become.

He smiles as he remembers her being bent double, clutching her belly, close to falling into a heap on the ground from laughing so hard at something his nephews and their companions had done.

Aule, how he had loved her laugh.

It had irritated him at first for it was so bright and happy, filled with a life that had not known true hardship and grief. But as time went on he grew to live for that sound.

He had never been very good at making her laugh, not like his nephews or Bofur, all of whom could have her giggling away with a few clever words but, but he had been very good at making her smile.

She smiled at him whenever he had praised her, even when some had been rather back handed compliments, she had still smiled a small shy smile back at him that had done nasty and puzzlingly things to his heart rate.

As time went on and he grew more accepting of her presence in their company – this being after she saved him from Azog… for the first time – he found himself working harder to get her smiling at him.

Not that that was an incredibly hard thing to do.

It wasn't hard to get Miss Baggins to smile at you; a kind word here, a compliment to her cooking there, simple things like that could get you a smile that rivalled the Sun in brightness. But that hadn't been what Thorin had wanted he quickly discovered much to his shock and slight dismay, he had wanted more than the smile that she gave each and every one of their company, he wanted a smile that was more specific, more directed. He wanted a smile that was solely his and no one else's.

He got it too, after awhile, when they had once more been captured, this time by tall, pointy-eared bastards.

During their capture and the planning of their escape the hobbit lass had spent a great deal of her time – when she wasn't wandering the eleven halls searching for a way of getting them all out – down by his cell.

It during these times that he had finally learnt the name her mother had given her, 'Billanna', and had finally accepted that he did indeed love her because she had finally graced him with a smile that he had never seen before but knew immediately was solely for him.

He had kissed her then and laughed when they drew back and he saw how brilliant a shade of red she was.

She had tried to glare at him but had failed so instead she did the next best thing. She slipped on her magic ring and disappeared right before his eyes and darted off to work on her escape plan for them.

He didn't tell her of his love or proved it until they had reached Laketown. It was there that he had all but thrown caution to the wind.

She had been very shy at first, not knowing, never having experience this kind of love before. Which was a good thing, in his opinion or else he would have had to have murdered the fellow who had introduced her.

She had laughed at that and smiled his smile as her eyes twinkled.

He swallowed thickly and shook his head.

It hurt too much to keep thinking of her like this. It was easier when he pretended that she had never existed to begin with.

It is selfish of him, he knows, Aule he knows, but being selfish with his emotion has been how he's survived. In times when he couldn't afford to allow for his emotions to rule his head, he had all but shut them off and now, he was facing the consequences.

He shook his head again, wishing that he had brought some alcohol with him. Or maybe, he had drunk just enough at the feast to lower his usual high and impenetrable walls – she hadn't needed any alcohol to break down his walls, only herself – and is allowing his emotions and memories to move freely within him.

Just for tonight, he thinks, closing his eyes and allowing himself to feel the soft of the green grass beneath his fingers and for his nose to be filled the flowers blooming around him.

Just for tonight, he would let it all come back to him and then he would return to being the King that his people needed and wanted him to be.

Just for tonight.

Author's Note: So that was eight pages full of pure Thorin angst! I'm a bit worried that I might have made him too forgiving to early, but I wanted to get around to writing grief-ridden, guilty Thorin. I've read enough angry, pissed-off Thorin fics that I don't really feel like writing him like that here. At least, not yet. I suppose he'll get mad once he finds out Bilbo has given birth to their son, who is the reincarnation of Durin and didn't tell him for how many years I decide to keep them apart. Then I see him getting plenty mad. At himself, at Bilbo, at everyone I'm thinking.

Anyway, next chapter we jump about two years adn we're back with Bilbo, Gandalf and lil'Frodo. Stay tune. Reviews are much loved 3