Author's Note: Guess what I saw today in the cinemas... again. Lol, Yes, I went and saw DOS again today. I've seen this movie three times in the last five days. :D I think it will be the last time that I'll being seeing the movie... this year. And I doubt that I'll be seeing it again with my Mum... because she fell asleep during it. Yes... my mother fell asleep during DOS, but at least it was during her second time watching unlike when we watched An Unexpected Journey in which she fell asleep during her first "watching" of it.
Unbelievable!

Anyway, please enjoy this chapter. It is short, but you can look forward to a longer (and, and Thorin/Frodo fluff in it too) chapter on New Years, either Eve or Day, not sure which yet. Or maybe... just maybe, I'll post a chapter on both New Years Eve AND New Years Day. How do you guys like that?

Chapter Forty

Shattered Fire

Bilbo woke slowly, her mind a fog of confusion. For some bizarre reason she had dreamt that Nori and some dwarven soldiers had found her and Bovin's company in the dead of night and were planning to return them to Erebor. What a foolish dream indeed.

She rubbed her eyes, rubbing away both sleep and unshed tears before peering cautiously out from under her eyelashes at the dull dawn lit world beyond.

A pair of familiar intelligent brown eyes looked back at her.

"NORI!" she shot up into a sitting position – not an easy task when one of her hands was still wrapped around the dwarf's beside her – and blinked rabidly at him. "You're – you're here? Why… How?"

"Easy Burglar." Nori chuckled placing a calming hand upon her shuddering shoulder. "We have plenty of time to go into details about the 'whys' and 'hows' of things, but first, how are you feeling?"

"Um," Bilbo placed a hand to her throbbing head, "like I've fallen off that cliff in Goblin Town all over again."

"Shock," Nori replied simply as he handed her a water bottle, "thought you were a tad too calm last night. Guess it finally caught up to you. Happens to the best of us." He added quickly when he noticed Bilbo glaring at him from over the water bottle.

Bilbo sighed.

"Oh for the days when I was able to keep my wits through whatever new horror were thrown at me." she grumbled in exasperation as she took a measured sip from the water bottle.

"The shock still caught up to you, when the adrenaline wore off. I fondly remember on to two particular occasions when you simply started screaming at us and calling us a bunch of ungrateful oafs." Nori teased and Bilbo felt her cheeks warm.

"I only said that after our barrel escape," she muttered in embarrassment, "when you were all whinging about bruises and asking why I hadn't come up with a better plan of escape."

"There was also waterworks too, I do believe to remember." Nori went on with a teasing smirk.

"I was tired!" Bilbo protested loudly in annoyance, smacking his arm though her lips were twisted into a small smile, "And not only that, I was just as, if not more battered than the rest of you. I had every right to cry and scream at the lot of you ungrateful sods!"

"And the time on Carrock?"

"That was all Oins and Gloins fault that time was! Wandering off," she grumbled trying to mimic Gloin's gruff rumbling voice, "I fell of a damn cliff! And that wasn't even my fault but that blasted goblin! And…" she trialled off with a huff as Nori started chuckling his eyes twinkling merrily.

"Now," he chuckled, "now there's the Burglar I know." She ducked her head blushing even more deeply. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath when she felt a gentle hand come to rest upon the top of her ratty curls.

"Missed you lass." Nori said with such honesty and sincerity that Bilbo's eyes started to water.

"And I you. And the others too… all of them." she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand before glancing over her shoulder to where her kidnappers were sitting together, surrendered by more than a dozen dwarven guards by the dying fire.

"What will happen to them?" she asked looking away from them when several glared furiously back at her. She couldn't see Bovin among them but she felt no desire to search him out.

"I would believe that their fates are in your hands burglar," Bilbo looked back at Nori sharply, wondering if the thief was lying to her or pulling her leg as some bizarre joke. However when she met his dark eyes, so very like his younger brother's in colour and shape, she saw nothing but seriousness and truth within them.

"My hands?"

"It is you who they have inflicted the gravest offences against and by dwarven law, this means that you have the power to decide their fate."

Bilbo swallowed and shook her head.

"Not now of course," Nori continued calmly either not noticing her distress or simply chose to ignore it, "when we reach Erebor."

Erebor… She placed a hand over her thudding heart wondering vaguely if it were possible for ones heart to explode from ones chest.

"Frodo's there." She whispered, eyes clenched.

"Frodo?"

"My son. He's – and my father and cousins are all in Erebor."

"Then they're safe." Nori replied simply.

"Are they?" she asked him frantically, "Are they Nori?" all of Bovin's cruel words about Erebor and in particular about the mountain's King came flooding back to her; helped along by her own horrid memories and dreams.

"Bilbo…"

"They're my family Nori! He's my son. What if… what if…"

"Bilbo," Nori caught her shoulders and gave her a tiny shake causing her to flinch and tremble. He released her immediately upon seeing her frighten eyes, shaking his head, "you been stolen by dwarves who would not think twice about harming you but in the end the ones who truly scare you are…" he shook his head again, disgusted by his company's past actions and how they still haunted this gentle, kind lass before him.

He took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, "Lass, no one, no one, is going to harm your family. No one. They're safe, trust me."

She looked back at him with tear filled eyes.

"How do you know?"

He reached out and gently cupped her chin with his hand, his thumb brushing the single tear that rolled down her far too thin and pale cheek.

"Do you really have so little faith in us? Do you really think so little of us now?"He asked her and she closed her eyes take a deep breath as she shook her head.

"No," she whispered, "never, but…" her eyes darted in the direction of Bovin's chained company.

"Never fear lassie, they will be dealt with. But first," he gently tussled her tangled, matted curls, "let's be getting you to Erebor and reunited with your family." Bilbo nodded silently and allowed for Nori to help her to her feet and walk her towards where his pony was tied, ignoring the stares, shutting out Nori's barked orders for them all to make ready to leave camp and to set their gaze back home, to Erebor.

She was silent as she swung up on to Nori's pony, wrapped in a warm cloak, chewing absently upon some more beef jerky her mind already miles away, in Erebor, with her child and her small hobbit family. She wasn't sure what she should expect from her hobbit family or the from the family of dwarves she still wasn't entirely sure didn't hate her.

She knew that it was silly, stewing over such thoughts when Nori was sitting behind her on his pony, speaking reassurance and describing how much things in Erebor had changed and grown, so much so that when they arrived she would hardly recognise Erebor as the same mountain that they had fought to reclaim so many years ago.

She tried to allow her heart to be reassured by his words that painted a world far brighter than what she really knew it was. The only brightness left in the world that remained true and untouched was the Shire and no pretty words were going to paint Erebor into that same brightness or innocence's. Far too much blood and grief coated that mountain and the thought of trying to see it any differently made her stomach turn.

Stop it; she hissed silently to herself as her body fell into the familiar rhythm of riding a pony over rough, uncharted ground. Stop this! Stop it this moment. Find your courage. Find it. What is the worst that could happen?

And it was because of all those worst case scenarios playing within her head that she could not find her courage and tears simply rolled silently down her cheeks as she watched the world around her evolve from a mountainous maze of misery to a landscape of open plains and a great forest in the distance and if you truly squinted you could make a lone stone rock standing proud to the east.

Bilbo squeezed her eyes shut and bent her head down low, tears now rolling freely down her cheeks.

TMPoT

Nori said not a word at the sound his little companion soft sobs and snuffling even though it wrung his heart and made him only want to throttle his king all the more. Along with the foul, miserable little cretins chained by them. They and Thorin were to blame for Bilbo's broken spirit and they were going to pay dearly for taking away the fire that had once burned so brightly that it lit even the darkest caves.

He and the others would make sure of that, they would light the fire within her heart once more and bring forth the courageous and brilliant Halfling who had saved all their lives more times than Nori was inclined to count.

They would make things right again. They had too; they owed her that much and much, much more.

He rested his chin upon her head and gave her a gentle little hug to remind her that she did have friends with her that she was now safe and he would rather die than allow her to fall into harm 's way again.

And if she wished to leave Erebor with her child and family in tow, than he would help her, escort them back to the Shire if she allowed it, even if his King did not. And if, if it was her wish to never see any of them ever again for however long that she lived, he would make it so. Anything to make her happy and no longer hate them, he would do it. He would do anything for their burglar.

Author's Note: Again, sorry about the shortness of this chapter. Please be reassured that Bilbo will cheer up upon her arrival to Erebor. She hasn't been harmed physically by Bovin and co. but she has suffered mentally by their hands and this is my attempt at writing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because anyone who has been through what Bilbo has would be suffering from PTSD and she wouldn't snap back to her cheery, cheeky self upon the moment she was rescued. So she will be a little down and unhappy about life in general for a few chapters, though once she is reunited with Frodo and the company she will start to return to her old witty personality.