-Past-

Waking felt like wading through the deepest tar and sludge. Thorin wasn't sure what had happened, only that time felt like a distant concept of which he had lost all control.

Someone was talking to him, others were shouting and Thorin wished they would stop. A hand squeezed his and he felt his lips twitch with a half-formed grimace.

"Thorin can you hear me? Can you open your eyes again?" It was Bilbo Baggins. Thorin wanted to open his eyes for him, though, confused because he didn't think that he had opened them yet. Then Oin's voice overrode the voices shouting, giving orders for specific medications. He wanted to laugh it felt so good to hear those voices again.

"He's not opening his eyes," Bilbo says.

"This is no good," Oin says, close to Thorin's right side. He frown, and tries to speak, but can't make his throat force out the sounds. Someone grips his hand harder.

"Thorin, please open your eyes again," Bilbo says, his voice sounding watery and hoarse. Thorin rallies against the pain, he needs to see Bilbo because something is obviously wrong. In the back of his mind, he remembers war and anger and fighting but it slips just out of reach and he has no strength to go after it.

The lights are soft but still too bright when he cracks his eyelids open. He struggles to adjust to the brightness and blinks several times to get a clearer image. His eyelids scratch and itch at his eyes as he blinks.

"-ilbo?" he asks, tongue sticking to his gums.

"Yes, Thorin, stay awake if you can okay? He's awake, can you…" His voice drifts away and Thorin realizes too late that he still doesn't know why Bilbo was crying.

The next time he wakes, his body is on fire. Everything burns and he screams out, the pain tearing away his control as he thrashes about. There are voices again, people shouting, and commanding around him. He tries to focus on what they were saying but it is no use, the pain pressed in on his senses, dulling them so it feels like his head is wrapped in cloth.

He remembers vaguely that Bilbo should be there, or was there, but he can't recall when. Fire flickers up and down his body and he calls for it to stop. Whatever has gotten him strengthens its hold as it weighs down his limbs.

A voice calls for him to settle, for him to calm. He recognizes the voice, but he can't listen now. Everything piece of him feels like an inferno, like Smaug himself had trapped him down and encased him in dragon fire. The pain peaked into a white-hot searing that only served to spread when he was held still. Begging, he tried to toss off the weights around his limbs, but they held fast.

More voices, more shouting. The pain clawed its way up his spine and Thorin finally let go of the world's hold on him.

When the fire fell, Thorin felt it. He wasn't sure if he awoke or was still asleep when his eyes cracked open to see a hunched over figure by his side. Everything still felt hazy. He made a sound, trying to call for someone, when he felt a warm hand touch to his forehead.

"Get Oin, his fever has broke," the voice is familiar and Thorin tries to remember to recall anything about why he was so warm. He makes protests, really well devised complaints but it got lost in a garbled bit of nonsense that has him cursing his mouth.

"Shh. Hush, Thorin. You're okay," the voice says.

He would like to disagree; he doesn't feel okay. His body aches and stings and even the thought of raising a hand, to do anything, makes him want to weep.

"Oh, Thorin, shhh." The hand soothes his forehead, and he realizes that he is indeed crying. A cool cloth runs over his brow and he wants to explain that they are tears of joy not of pain. Joy for waking from whatever has happened, joy from having this person by his side. The voice keeps muttering to him, telling him that everything is going to be okay, and that he'll heal soon.

He can't remember why this voice means so much to him, or why its promises ease a tension he hadn't realized was there. Instead, Thorin gives into the way it mollifies his fears. For a bit he floats in a half-awake and half-asleep state.

Just before the world gets too far away, Thorin feels lips press against his temple and the voice whisper to him.

"Rest now."

Whatever dazed existence he had been living in, disappears the instant Thorin awakes next. He isn't sure what wakes him, could have been anything, but he finds himself almost strangely disappointed to see Balin sitting on his right.

"Welcome back, laddie. Gave us quite the scare," Balin says, with a large relieved grin. He leans forward and offers up a cup of something. Thorin immediately leans up to get it, because his mouth feels like he has been chewing on straw for too long.

"Easy," Balin warns, and then cool water passes his lips and Thorin closes his eyes in relief.

"-ili?" he asks as soon as his throat works again. Balin thankfully doesn't make him specify.

"Both still live. Fili has woken just this morn, finally. Kili is mostly healed up, by now. Elvish medicine has worked wonders in this camp," Balin seems to nod his head about for a second before muttering, "for the most part."

Thorin doesn't even want to know.

"Company?" he asks. He can't remember much of the battle, can't even recall how he was injured.

"In tact, all fifteen members accounted for. Even the wizard made it through," Balin says, not adding any names, he offers up the cup again and he leans forward. Thorin is grateful that Balin included Bilbo in that number. He wasn't sure but it felt like ages since he had last seen the -.

Memory washed over him in pieces -The infection of his mind, the takeover of his soul for-for gold. Shame courses through him, right behind the guilt of falling prey to that accursed disease. He jerks away as he remembers the gates; the look of horror on Bilbo's face comes in clear.

"Where's-" he cries out when he tries to sit up. Pain flares through his chest, it protests with a sharp ache that sends him falling back to the cot. He groans, as Balin tries to comfort him, but Thorin pushes him away, the cup thudding to the ground when his arm goes wide.

Fighting against the spike of pain in his chest and the heaviness in his limbs when he tries to continue using them, Thorin tries to get out the words to demand to know that Bilbo is safe that he didn't actually succeed in throwing him from the gates. Mahal strike him dead if he-

"Thorin!" a voice cuts through his struggles and his breath catches immediately in his throat.

"What happ-"

"Bilbo," the relief is so strong Thorin can almost feel it on his skin. He launches immediately into an apology. "I have no right to beg your forgiveness but I-" He gets no more out, before Bilbo is by his side, taking up his shaking hand.

"No more, hush. Balin please," Bilbo says, nodding to something in the corner.

It is not enough, not nearly for what he has done, for the pain that he has caused. There would never be enough apologies, enough penance for him to begin to make amends.

"Here," Bilbo says, taking up another cup that Balin hands over. He wants to refuse, to never accept this kindness from Bilbo when he has taken so much…but the Hobbit has already coaxed him into leaning up and drinking some sort of herbal concoction. It tastes strong and Thorin nearly chokes on it.

"I did not mean, nor will I ever-" he tries to start again, but Bilbo is tipping the cup up towards his mouth and he can only accept another mouthful of the liquid.

"Rest now, you still need to mend. There is time for words later."

With these words, Thorin realizes exactly the purpose of the liquid medicine. The pain eases from his chest nearly fading as fast as it came. Released from the distress, he becomes aware how heavy his eyelids feel.

Bilbo offers a tiny smile, hand still clasping his own, and Thorin allows the promise to sink in. Later he will apologize, later he will find the words to mend the anguish he has caused. Unable to stop himself, Thorin embraces the unconscious pulling at him. The time for his pleas and any possible absolution will have to wait.