Chapter 2 – Many visitors

It wasn't until after the dwarves had left and Bilbo was washing the dishes after them that he realised just how much he had missed his friends.

Thinking about Bofur and Bombur inevitably brought on thoughts of the others as well. He wondered: how was old Balin? Was Ori happy in Erebor's majestic library? Were Fíli and Kíli still as carefree as they used to be, or had the burden of ruling a kingdom forced them to finally mature a bit? Had the dwarves of Erebor managed to get rid of the dragon smell Óin had complained so much about?

Did Glóin's wife come to Erebor yet, or was he still waiting for her and his son? Did Dwalin command as much respect among the dwarves from the Iron Hills as he had within the company? Was Dori able to eat all of his favourite foods, or was Erebor still operating on a rationing system? Had Bifur finally built the fishing cottage he had always dreamt about? Was Nori still as sneaky and mysterious as he'd ever been?

He would have to ask Bofur when he next came over for a visit. The merry dwarf had promised to come at Midwinter, much to the delight of the local hobbitlings and the chagrin of their mothers, who were afraid that the dwarf would corrupt their children into adventuring.

In the few days that Bofur and Bombur had spent at Bilbo's home they had talked plenty, but there was still so much that Bilbo wanted to know about everyone. The three years of separation had been a long time and plenty of things had happened. One visit hardly gave him enough time to hear about all the things that he had missed.

But most of all (even though it cost him no small amount of pride to admit it), Bilbo wondered about Thorin.

Had the king really meant his offer, or had it been (as Bilbo was starting to believe) a by-product of his fever? Was he still angry at Bilbo for rejecting him? Bilbo reckoned that he probably was, if only to satisfy his injured pride. Dwarves could hold grudges for an awfully long time and Thorin had already demonstrated with the dragon that in the discipline of grudge-holding he was Erebor's ruling champion.

°O°O°O°

Winter passed slowly.

Bilbo translated two books of elvish poetry into the Common Tongue, embroidered four cushions and a winter cloak and taught himself to play the flute with some help from Bofur, who came for a visit a few days before midwinter.

The dwarf stayed for full two weeks this time, regaling Bilbo and the young Tooks with the tales of Fíli and Kíli's adventures in mischief. He was happy to answer Bilbo's plentiful questions about Erebor, but looked a bit taken aback when Bilbo refused his invitation to go to Erebor with him.

Bilbo was now convinced that the dwarves had no idea about what had happened between him and Thorin back then, which made it all the more difficult to come up with a plausible explanation for why he didn't want to go to Erebor.

He would be grateful to Thorin for keeping their unseemly scene a secret if it wasn't for the fact that the dwarves also lived under the assumption that Thorin had called Bilbo into his tent to apologize for his actions. Bilbo had no idea what Thorin had told them, but the dwarves obviously thought that the two of them had settled their differences and parted on friendly terms.

Thorin's action put Bilbo in an awkward position – either make increasingly implausible excuses to his friends for why he wasn't able to visit them, or admit that he had been banished from Erebor and therefore accuse their king of being a liar. Bilbo felt his old anger rise at the thought. Not only had Thorin cut him off from his friends, but he was complicating his life even now, forcing Bilbo to lie to people who trusted him. Bilbo thought that it was a good thing that Thorin was hundreds of miles away, because at that moment Bilbo felt a strong urge to punch him, king or not.

He managed to make his excuses to Bofur sound convincing enough, but inwardly cursed Thorin for each of the disappointed looks Bofur gave him for the rest of his stay. When the dwarf finally left, Bag-End felt even emptier than before.

°O°O°O°

Bilbo was out of the door at the first sign of spring, going for a cross-country walk around the South-Farthing. He came back just in time to say his goodbyes to Bofur and Bombur, who were helping guard the caravan headed for Erebor. They tried to convince him once more to join them and it took all of his willpower not to give in and go with them. He watched them ride away with a great deal of regret.

Midsummer brought Gandalf, who invited himself into Bilbo's home without so much as "by your leave" and then sat gazing at Bilbo with those all-knowing eyes while Bilbo waited for the tea to boil.

"I have stopped by Erebor this spring," Gandalf began. "I bring letters from your friends. They were quite adamant that I should deliver them at once and kept asking me why you haven't come to visit them."

"I can't go to Erebor, Gandalf. You know very well why," Bilbo shook his head, pouring the hot water over the tea leaves.

"My dear Bilbo, I am sure Thorin has forgiven you already."

"Forgiven-"

Bilbo took a moment to fully appreciate the irony that even Gandalf, who had been the one to help him leave Erebor back then, apparently thought that he needed Thorin's forgiveness. He bit back a stream of slightly hysterical laughter that wanted to bubble out of his throat.

To this day, Thorin hadn't apologised to him for threatening to kill him. Bilbo thought that the few insults he himself had thrown at the dwarf after the ridiculous proposal paled next to the gravity of Thorin's actions, but everyone else seemed to be convinced otherwise.

Either Gandalf had very selective memory of events, or Thorin himself was a wizard, capable of manipulating people's thoughts according to his wishes. Since both of those options seemed equally ridiculous, it was more likely that Gandalf was planning something, once again trying to manoeuvre Bilbo into something he probably wouldn't like. For the sake of appeasing the wizard, Bilbo suppressed his irritation and decided to play along.

"Let go of a grudge? Thorin? Gandalf, I humiliated him. I may not have done it publicly, but I insulted him nonetheless. He will never forgive me."

Gandalf didn't say anything to that. Instead he reached for his pipe and started to create all sorts of fantastic beasts out of smoke. Bilbo let him be. The less they had to talk about Thorin, the better.

Bilbo offered the wizard lodgings for the night, since he needed to read and reply to all the letters from his friends and hoped that Gandalf would deliver his letters for him. He felt a little ridiculous for using the mighty wizard like a common postal pigeon, but since there was no other way to get his letters across the Misty Mountains, he was very relieved when Gandalf agreed, albeit grudgingly.

In July Bilbo finally succumbed to the never-ending pleas of his younger Took relatives and they set out on a grand journey to the Sea. Bofur had assured him back in December that the road west from Shire was completely safe, so Bilbo was willing to take a few of the tween-aged hobbits that hadn't been allowed to travel with him previously.

Travelling with a group of hobbits wasn't quite the same as travelling with dwarves had been (for one, there were much more frequent stops for food), but it was nonetheless pleasant to have some company for the journey. The young hobbits were good-natured and curious, asking plenty of questions about elves and dwarves and the Sea that Bilbo tried to answer to the best of his ability.

Gazing at the waves, Bilbo thought that he finally understood a bit why all the elves in those stories were always so eager to go sailing to Valinor. Despite his usual dislike of rivers and lakes of all kinds, he had to admit that the Sea had its own kind of beauty.

He grew to dislike the Sea soon enough, after he was forced to pull a few of the unruly hobbits from the waves, and was more than happy to turn his back on it and leave it far behind.

°O°O°O°

Autumn came, painting the trees in the Shire with a beautiful hue of colours. Harvest was particularly good and plentiful that year and Bilbo was pleased to restock his cellar with some quality wine. He took a few more trips while weather still allowed and wasn't too pleased when the October rains finally forced him to stop his travelling and stay inside.

On one such evening, when the rain was whipping against the window and the trees outside growled under the force of wind, there was a knock on his door. Bilbo dismissed it the first time as a product of his imagination, but then the knock sounded again, making Bilbo jump from his chair and hurry to the door. Who could be outside in such dreadful weather?

"Nori," he breathed in surprise when he opened the door.

"At your service," the dwarf said, his carefully maintained hair plastered to his head.

Bilbo quickly stepped aside to let him pass. Nori was so soaked that when he stepped into Bilbo's hallway, there were rivulets of water dripping from his clothes and hair, forming a small puddle beneath his feet.

"Stay here," Bilbo told him, "I'll be back in a minute." Carefully sidestepping the water, he hurried to the bathroom to draw a hot bath for his visitor and put a kettle on the flames. He belatedly realised that he still had one of Bofur's cloaks that the dwarf had forgotten here on his last visit and took it out, hanging it next to the bath.

He was back in the hall in a matter of minutes and found that Nori had already taken off his shoes and was in the process of peeling wet socks off his feet.

"Come, Nori, I have drawn you a bath. If you don't get out of those sodden clothes, you will catch a cold. What were you thinking, travelling in this weather?"

"I was on my way to the Blue Mountains," Nori said. "The rain caught me off guard. Luckily, I wasn't far from Hobbiton, so I decided to pay you a visit."

"My hallway can always do with more dwarves," Bilbo assured him with a small smile. "We can clean the mud later. For now, you need to warm up."

He left Nori in the bathroom and went to prepare the tea and some supper. He had already had dinner, but as his father had used to say, there was never a bad time for a meal.

Nori came in half an hour later, wearing Bofur's cloak as a bath robe. Bilbo was a little taken aback when he saw that the dwarf had unbraided all of his hair, letting it hang down his back. He had never seen Nori look so informal before. It warmed Bilbo to realise that this was the dwarf's way of showing that he trusted Bilbo to keep him safe in his home.

Bilbo ladled him a big bowl of soup that he had just made, putting a whole loaf of bread on the table. After his experience with Bombur he knew that there was no point of slicing it. While Nori ate, Bilbo went to the bathroom and gathered the dwarf's clothes, hanging them around the fireplace to dry.

"Thank you," Nori told him when he sat back down at the table.

"It was the least I could do," Bilbo replied, reaching for a scone. Now that he didn't have anything to busy himself with, he felt strangely self-conscious in Nori's presence. In all those months they had spent on the journey, the two of them had never talked much. Bilbo had always been closer to Balin and Bofur and Ori, while Nori had kept to himself, rarely speaking to anyone beside his brothers.

"How are things in Erebor?" Bilbo asked, keen to fill the silence. "I had last heard from everyone in the letters Gandalf brought me, but that was almost six months ago."

"Erebor is doing well. Bofur's caravan arrived a few weeks before I set out. Everyone was eager to hear about you. Fíli and Kíli especially, were very interested in your wolf-hunting adventures." He gave Bilbo an amused look.

"That was an accident," Bilbo muttered, pouring himself more tea. "My cousins have blown the story out of proportion."

"I wonder about that," Nori said quietly. Bilbo used the lull in conversation as an opportunity to clean up the plates and bring a few bottles of wine from the cellar.

"Have you been travelling again this year?" Nori asked when Bilbo sat down again, handing the dwarf a goblet.

"Mostly short trips around the Shire, to stretch my legs, but in summer I took a few of the hobbits to see the Grey Havens," he smiled at the memory. "It's a beautiful sight, even for someone who hates boats of all kinds."

Nori chuckled indulgently.

"I know what you mean. It's all a bit too elvish for me, but very pretty nonetheless. The Havens aren't far from the dwarven city where we used to live. When Ori was little, me and Dori had to take him there every year for his birthday, to look at the ships. Our little brother has always been fond of elves. I have no idea why."

"How is he? Still camped in the library?"

"Pretty much," Nori nodded, smiling. "After a few weeks we managed to convince him to sleep in his quarters, but he spends the rest of the time buried in his books, happy as a squirrel."

"I can imagine." Bilbo poured himself another glass. "And Dori? What does he do?"

"Thorin named him an overseer over the trade with Dale. He gets to inspect all the produce and merchandise that they send our way and approve it. Just before I left, he was haggling with some elves over a bunch of fabrics. He was right in his element."

Bilbo chuckled at the image.

"That sounds like him. What about you? Have you been named an ambassador or something like that?"

"Something like that, yes." Nori didn't meet his eyes. Bilbo let him be. If the dwarf didn't want to tell him, it was none of his business to pry.

After that the talk turned back to Bilbo and he soon found himself sharing stories of his exploits, drawing a few laughs from Nori. Bilbo became more self-aware when he realised that he was sharing even the stories he had sworn never to tell, because he found them too embarrassing. He cut back on the wine after that, switching to tea. He realised that Nori probably wasn't doing it on purpose, as the dwarf was clearly making a great effort to be sociable for Bilbo's sake, but it still made him a bit uncomfortable.

When they finally reached the topic of Bilbo's refusal to return to Erebor, Bilbo's head was clear enough to allow him to tiptoe around the truth with careful deliberation. He had no idea how much Nori knew about the whole fiasco with Thorin (which was probably a lot, considering that Nori was awfully sharp and perceptive, for a dwarf), but he had no intention of confessing the whole unfortunate history to Nori, of all people.

As Bilbo watched Nori's retreating back the next morning, the dwarf's plentiful hair once again braided into that ridiculous triangle shape, he couldn't help but wonder - what had been the purpose of Nori's visit?

Had it really been just a random stop from a friend in need who just happened to pass by, or had he been sent to Shire to find out, how Bilbo was? One could never tell with Nori.

Closing the door behind him, Bilbo told himself to stop being ridiculous. Thorin wouldn't care how he was doing.

°O°O°O°

That winter seemed to pass even slower than the previous ones had. The snow fell for days, burying Hobbiton several feet deep in a snowdrift, effectively imprisoning the hobbits in their homes. Bilbo wasn't overly worried, since his pantry had enough food for months, but he grew increasingly antsy in the enclosed space with nothing interesting to keep him occupied.

In the end, for want of anything better to do, he dug his mother's old weaving loom out of the storage closet and assembled it in his living room. He had to clear out the chairs and several of his flower pots to make room for the bulky wooden frame, but felt very pleased with himself when he inspected his finished work.

It took him a few days to remember his mother's half-forgotten lessons on weaving, but when he finally figured out the technique, making two doilies for practice, he decided on making a tapestry. The dragon seemed like as good a motive as any and if it turned out looking horrible, well, no one needed to know.

The project kept him busy for the next several months. Bilbo made countless drawings and spent hours on end just choosing the right shade of red for the dragon's scales. He found the weaving strangely soothing – it kept his hands busy, but forced him to concentrate on the pattern as well, preventing him from spacing out and thinking about impossible things (like how nice it would be if he could go back to Erebor).

As more days passed in his seclusion, he eventually admitted to himself that he did indeed miss his friends terribly. Several times, when the bottom of the wine glass became especially inviting, he nearly packed and left for Erebor, snow be damned.

He always stopped himself though, the memory of contemptuous blue eyes and the echo of "You are not welcome here" keeping him in place. Those nights always ended with him staring out of the window with a bottle of wine in hand, cursing Thorin's name with all the swear words he had learnt while travelling with dwarves, but had always been too much of a gentleman to use.

Spring couldn't come fast enough.

°O°O°O°

Once the snow all melted, Bilbo went wandering again, paying no heed to the disapproving frowns of his neighbours. He was used to them by now. They had been whispering about him ever since he got back from Erebor and never stopped. He used to think that they would tire of it eventually, when the novelty of his arrival wore off, but since nothing interesting ever happened in the Shire, he remained the local curiosity – the Mad Baggins who liked wandering in the woods and kept all kinds of strange company.

To take his mind off his overly-curious neighbours, Bilbo started thinking about Rivendell, its bubbling brooks and lofty architecture, and wondered if the elves there would be willing to help him with some of the more difficult translations. He almost set out to see the elves, but something held him back.

As the fifth anniversary of Gandalf's unexpected party came nearer, Bilbo's heart grew restless and he started spending his days sitting on the porch like he had in his old days, back when life in the Shire used to be enough.

Even as he sat there, he kept telling himself to stop being ridiculous - no party of dwarves would come knocking at his door, surely - but a part of him refused to listen to reason, still keeping up hope. And so he spent his days sitting in his flower garden, waiting for an adventure to come to him.

When it finally did, it nearly stumbled over him.

Because he soon got bored with sitting on a bench all day, he decided to use his time for something more useful and started gardening. He was just replanting some pansies when a shadow fell on him, making him look up.

"Honestly, Bilbo," the shadow's owner said, "it's a good thing your clothes are so bright. I almost stepped on you."

"Kíli!" Bilbo exclaimed with a wide grin, standing up. "I see your eyes are as sharp as ever."

The young dwarf laughed merrily and swept Bilbo into a hug, lifting him off the ground.

"I missed you so much," he mumbled into Bilbo's curls.

"I missed you, too." Bilbo decided to ignore the shocked looks of his neighbours, patting the dwarf's back happily. It was broader than he remembered.

"You've grown," Bilbo told him when Kíli finally decided to release him. Kíli gave him a sheepish grin.

"Yes, a bit. Fíli did, too, but I'm still taller than him."

"Where is he?" Bilbo shot a look behind Kíli's back, but the road was empty. Kíli's smile dimmed a bit.

"He had to stay behind and help Thorin with the governance stuff. I was sent to the Blue Mountains to make some trade agreements with the local dwarves. Thorin really means the whole heir business seriously. He has us learning etiquette and diplomacy and laws. I think I can understand now why he's always so humourless. We barely have time for anything fun. He must have it even worse."

By mutual agreement they headed indoors, out of sight of the nosy onlookers. Bilbo breathed a small sigh of relief when the door closed behind them.

"Honestly," he said, peering out of the hallway window, "one cannot have a private conversation around here without twenty people listening on it.

"Well," he continued in a much more cheerful tone, turning away from the window to look at Kíli, "now my neighbours think that I am having an affair with a dwarf, of all things. That should keep them entertained for months."

"Bilbo!" Kíli appeared torn between laughter and embarrassment. Laughter won. "The two of us, having an affair. Oh, that's precious." He sat down on the glory box, giggling. Bilbo watched him with a fond smile.

"I am glad you find the topic of my ruined reputation as amusing as I do."

Kíli appeared taken aback for a moment, before he unravelled Bilbo's words and started giggling again.

"Do not worry about it too much," Bilbo assured him before Kíli could say anything. "My reputation of respectability has been beyond redemption ever since I ran away with you lot. Nothing I do now could trump that."

"And I know that you've been trying," Kíli said, once he got his laughter under control. "We heard about the warg from Bofur. That must have been something."

"My young cousins seem to think it was. They spent a year telling that story to anyone willing to listen. If you spend a few days here, they are bound to come for a visit and entertain you until your ears are ringing."

"Why don't you tell me about it yourself?"

"What's there to tell?" Bilbo shrugged. "We came across a warg. I foolishly provoked it and managed not to get killed. I have been doing a very good job avoiding dangerous beasts since then. I only had to run away from a bear once, and that was more than a year ago."

"Very well," Kíli said, pretending disappointment, "it's clear that I will have to wait for your relatives to tell the story properly. I had planned to spend a few days here, if that's all right with you."

"Of course. I will be happy to have you here. Come, make yourself at home. Take whichever bedroom you wish. I will put together some lunch." Bilbo made a beeline for the kitchen, leaving the dwarf in the hallway to explore at his leisure.

He had just finished chopping the vegetables when he heard Kíli's exclamation from the living room. Laying the knife carefully on the chopping board, he decided to go investigate the source of Kíli's excitement. Of course, Kíli was gazing at his tapestry. Bilbo had almost forgotten about it, since it was nearly finished and he had preferred to spend most of his time outdoors these last few weeks.

Kíli stood in front of his weaving loom, examining the work. Bilbo privately thought that the tapestry wasn't good enough to deserve the look of wonder on Kíli's face, but it pleased him nonetheless.

"That's my winter project," Bilbo explained.

"It's beautiful," Kíli said. "You're really talented, Bilbo."

"Thank you." Bilbo felt himself blush under the compliment. To alleviate his awkwardness, he decided to change the topic. "Lunch will be ready soon. Are you fine with roast and potatoes?"

Kíli laughed.

"After months on the road, I'm fine with anything that's not a rabbit."

"It's pork," Bilbo reassured him.

"Thank Mahal."

°O°O°O°

Since the living room was occupied by the loom, they had to settle for sitting in the smaller drawing room in the evening. Bilbo spent a moment just studying his friend's face.

Over the nearly five years since Bilbo had last seen him, Kíli had finally managed to grow a beard, which made the familial resemblance between him and Thorin even stronger than it had been before. Bilbo wondered if this was what Thorin had looked like when he was young. Kíli gave him a questioning look, but Bilbo just shook his head, not wanting to talk about it.

"That tapestry must have taken an awful lot of time to finish," Kíli said after a while, nodding toward the living room.

"A few months," Bilbo nodded. "We got snowed in over the winter so I had plenty of time to work on it." He hesitated a bit, but decided to finish his thought. "The winters are long in the Shire when one lives alone."

Kíli gave him a look that was far too understanding.

"Why don't you come to Erebor, then?" he asked softly. "You would have so much company that you would be sick of it."

Here it was, the moment of truth. Bilbo figured he would have to talk about that day eventually. To his astonishment, he realised that he didn't mind telling Kíli about the debacle with Thorin. His friend had always been willing to support him and Bilbo hoped that this was one of those times.

"I am not sure if I would be welcome in Erebor," he confessed.

"Why?" Kíli looked torn between hurt and disbelief. "We all like you, Bilbo. Surely you know that."

Bilbo decided to go with the full truth.

"Thorin and I did not part on the best of terms." He looked at Kíli. "Surely, you must have wondered why I had left so soon after the battle, without saying goodbyes to anyone."

Kíli frowned.

"We were a bit hurt about that, yes, but Gandalf left a note saying that you needed to go back to Shire on urgent family business."

Bilbo took a deep breath.

"I was banished from Erebor. For good."

"What?!" Kíli jumped up from his chair. "How?"

Bilbo decided that he was far too sober to have this conversation, so he went and brought two bottles of wine. He found Kíli pacing in the drawing room when he came back.

"Tell me," the dwarf said simply.

Bilbo took a sip and began.

"I was called to Thorin's tent right after battle. I was injured and barely able to walk, but Balin insisted that it was urgent, so I went. I came in expecting to see Thorin on his deathbed, or worse - one of you two. You may think me stupid for it, but I thought he was calling me to apologise for the whole debacle with the Arkenstone."

"He didn't apologise?" Kíli asked, incredulous.

"No," Bilbo confirmed. "Instead, he said a bunch of nonsense that made me angry and I told him in a very scathing manner just what I thought of him. He didn't take it well and banished me from the mountain. I then spent several weeks with the elves before I was able to return home."

Kíli blew a breath and sat back in his chair, digesting the words.

"May I ask what it was that he told you that was so horrible?" he asked finally.

Bilbo sighed.

"It wasn't horrible, just very unexpected. The thing that offended me wasn't what he said, but how he said it and how he acted afterwards."

Kíli raised his eyebrows expectantly. Bilbo drank another mouthful.

"Thorin asked me to marry him." Now that the sordid truth was out, Bilbo found himself rather entertained by Kíli's reactions to his tale. ("He did WHAT?")

Bilbo continued.

"He did it in his typical imperious manner, where he expects everyone to do everything he says. He was terribly surprised when I refused him and then got offended."

"Oh, Bilbo." Kíli had his face buried in his hands and was shaking with laughter. "That sounds just like him. Mahal, my uncle is an idiot."

"Was there some hidden gesture in this whole situation that I failed to understand?" Bilbo asked carefully.

With some effort, Kíli finally got his mirth under control.

"You can say that," he told Bilbo once he finally stopped laughing. "I think there were good intentions behind the gesture, but the execution couldn't have been worse."

Bilbo waited for him to continue.

"When he made that scene at the wall, he committed a terrible insult against you," Kíli explained. "He might have been out of his mind when he did it, but the insult had happened nonetheless and the correct way to make amends would be to publicly apologise to you for it. I think his fevered mind used some sort of twisted logic to come up with the idea that the best way to make up for his actions would be to elevate your social status by marrying you."

"That's completely mad," Bilbo shook his head in disbelief.

"I know," Kíli chuckled, "but I think it made some sort of weird sense to him at that moment. Mahal knows what he was thinking."

Bilbo tried to make some sense of it.

"Are you telling me that in his own strange way, he did try to apologise and I took it the wrong way and threw it in his face?"

"Pretty much," Kíli confirmed. "Basically, you are both idiots and you probably owe him an apology of your own."

"Lovely," Bilbo said in a deadpan. Something occurred to him. "I am not required to marry him, am I?" He asked in alarm.

"Mahal, no," Kíli laughed. "You were perfectly justified in refusing his offer.

"That's good to know." Bilbo breathed a small sigh of relief.

They fell silent for a while, sipping wine and smoking, both deep in thought. Bilbo wasn't too pleased to discover that his righteous anger at Thorin hadn't been so righteous after all. The anger had been a constant in his life for nearly five years, giving him the strength to get through the days when he missed his friends and Shire started to feel like a foreign place. It had been his shield against the loneliness and sadness that had occasionally threatened to overwhelm him during the long winters when he rarely spoke to anyone for months. The knowledge that he had been wrong, at least partially, made some of that anger disappear. Bilbo didn't know if he liked that.

Kíli spoke after a while, his voice quiet.

"It's no wonder you didn't want to come to Erebor. Bofur and Nori both mentioned that you were strangely reluctant to come for a visit, but neither was able to say why. You didn't tell them anything, did you?" He looked Bilbo in the eye. "Why are you telling me now?"

"Because I trust you," said Bilbo simply, "and because you know Thorin well. If there's someone who should be able to make sense of him, it's you."

"You should try Balin for that," Kíli said. "He knows Thorin better than anyone."

"Balin knows already," Bilbo admitted, "he witnessed the whole scene."

"The sly old fox!" Kíli exclaimed, warring between disbelief and admiration. "He never mentioned a word of it."

"And for a good reason," Bilbo said. "None of you would leave Thorin alone if he did."

"That's true." Kíli paused, cocking his head to the side. "Did you just defend Thorin?"

Bilbo paused.

"I don't know. I admit that I am rather confused at the moment." He looked in his goblet, swirling the wine around. "I spent the last five years alone, feeling angry. Now I find that I've been in the wrong as well. It is a lot to take in."

"I bet," Kíli stood up. "I will leave you alone to think, if you wish, but before I go, I should give you this." He drew an envelope from his jacket.

"What is it?"

"A letter," Kíli said. "I have been tasked with giving this to you. Take some time to think about the reply. I'm willing to answer any questions you may have."

He handed the letter to Bilbo and walked out of the room. Bilbo heard one of the bedroom doors close softly a moment later.

He turned the letter in his hands, noting the rich, creamy parchment and an official-looking seal. The other side had only his name on it. Bilbo's heart jolted a bit when he saw the familiar spiky writing.

Thorin had written him a letter.

To be continued...

AN: I really dislike doormat characters and stories where Bilbo has no purpose other than being a +1 for Thorin. I wanted to write a story where Bilbo isn't pining his life away in the Shire because he thinks Thorin doesn't love him. I am always a little sad when I read a story where Bilbo goes to live in Erebor just to appease Thorin, but isn't really happy there on his own. I wanted to make his decision to go live in Erebor believable.

As you may have already guessed, this fic will focus a lot on Bilbo's friendships with the other dwarves. I really like the company and I enjoy playing with the different characters. Thorin will be there a lot, but they have a mountain of issues between them that they have to work through first. I understand why most authors go with the movie version of events – it's kinda hard to believe that Bilbo would be madly in love with someone who canonically threatened to murder him :/