A/N: Oh look, a bit of angst slipped in. Oops. Warning for a nightmare with a bit gory details, here. Thanks to wanderingsmith for sanity!check!

Thorin sat on his bed, staring at Bilbo without really seeing him, deep in thought. It had been a long day, what with discovering Bilbo missing, finding him and taking in everything Gandalf had told them, and he was more than ready for this day to end, but…

But Bilbo lying so still and cold put Thorin in mind of those dark hours after the Battle when they had been unable to find him, and he had feared the hobbit dead. Dead with Thorin's last words to him words of hatred and anger, spoken while his mind had still been clouded by that golden haze that left him unable to see clearly. Intellectually, he knew that Bilbo was fine, and that he would wake up come spring, but he still had a feeling that he would have nightmares tonight.

Hopefully Bilbo's scent would help him as his was supposed to help Bilbo, and be able to keep the nightmares at bay, combined with the newfound knowledge of his love (something that still left a warm glow in Thorin's chest, even hours after he had gotten over the shock of it and tussled Dwalin aside to carry the hobbit here, to his bed).

Huffing in impatience at his own sudden dark mood, he got up off the bed to get undressed. He didn't bother leaving the room to do so, seeing as there was no harm in undressing with Bilbo there. It was not like he was awake to see it, after all.

It made Thorin itch for spring to come, a fact which he regarded with wry amusement. Only this morning he had been dreading it, because spring was when Bilbo was due to leave. Now, though… Now spring meant that the hobbit would wake up, and if he truly loved Thorin as everyone seemed to think, surely it would not be too difficult to convince him to stay. Or to return, at least, if he had to go back to the Shire to get his things.

Giving Bilbo a longing look, he made sure to leave some space between them as he settled down. Óin had warned him to make sure that the hobbit did not get too warm, because apparently it was dangerous to induce waking before it was time, in these matters. Something about how too much warmth would make him wake up (which was the reason why his room was currently quite cold, and would only get colder the longer he went without a fire in the hearth), which could actually kill him, as it took too much energy to go back and forth between waking and sleeping.

Honestly, Thorin was a bit suspicious that Óin was exaggerating in the interest of keeping things strictly proper, but he would not risk the possibility of hurting Bilbo if he was wrong.

It would simply have been reassuring to be allowed to at least hold him. Sighing, he closed his eyes, burrowed into the bedcovers and let Bilbo's presence next to him lull him to sleep.

"He must be somewhere. Keep looking." Balin's voice echoed through the rocky hills, strewn with the bodies of the dead. Everywhere Thorin looked, he saw accusing eyes in dead, sunken faces. Everywhere he stepped, there was blood.

"THORIN!" Dwalin bellowed from a distance. "OVER HERE!"

Thorin turned, sprinting the distance between where he had been and the place Dwalin was pointing at. He crested a hill and… no. No.

Shaking his head in denial, he fell to his knees in the mud, the bloodied, lifeless face of Bilbo Baggins filling his line of sight.

"You did this to him," his grandfather's voice echoed in his ears.

"This is all your fault!" Bofur screamed, appearing from… somewhere, he didn't know. It didn't matter.

"Uncle," Kíli's anxious voice reached him.

Fíli stood next to him. "What have you done?"

"Uncle!" Kíli repeated.

"You can't even protect those you love," Balin said quietly. "Bilbo died thinking you still hated him. You can never change that, now." He shook his head, turning away. "You are not fit to be king."

"Uncle!"

Thorin woke with a gasp, wrenching his eyes open to see Kíli's anxious face hovering in front of him. The door to his quarters was slightly open, and his nephew was seated on the edge of the bed, a hand on Thorin's shoulder. Bilbo was sleeping next to him, alive, thank Mahal, alive!

"Uncle, are you alright?" Kíli asked worriedly. "I came to fetch you for breakfast... You're a bit late, but I can tell them to send the breakfast here if you're not feeling well-?"

"I am fine," Thorin waved Kíli away as he sat up, still panting slightly from the dream. "I am alright. Tell them I will be with them in a moment."

Kíli watched him worriedly for a moment, then nodded. He sat back on the side of the bed, a wary smile spreading over his face as he said conversationally, "You know, Bofur is absolutely furious that he missed the conversation with Gandalf yesterday."

"What?" The abrupt change of topic threw Thorin a bit. He still felt a bit detached from the world, having just woken up, so it took him a moment to recognize it as Kíli's diversionary tactic. Still, he was grateful not to be asked about his dream, even if there was something careful in the way Kíli was looking at him. Like he was an injured animal that might snap at him if he came too close or did any sudden movements.

The dwarf king frowned in disgust as he pulled a hand through his sweaty, tangled hair, pushing it back and out of his way. He would have to do something about that in order to look fit for company, but later. Kíli was still speaking.

"Yes, well, he wasn't there, remember? Bofur, Bombur and Bifur only arrived after you and Bilbo had already left. Apparently they'd been down looking in the mines, so it took a while for the messengers to reach them. They were so disappointed that they'd missed it."

Thorin sighed, shaking his head. Ah, well. His private life being a public spectacle was nothing new. Let them gossip.

"Off with you, Kíli." He shooed his nephew gently. "Let me get dressed. The others are going to start wondering what is keeping you."

"Right," Kíli nodded, getting up. He hesitated by the door. "Are you feeling any better, then?"

Thorin, who'd been in the process of throwing the bed covers off of himself and going to look for his day clothes, stopped to give Kíli a fond, exasperated stare."Yes. Stop fussing. Go."

Kíli nodded, slipping out the door with a spring in his step and a smile on his face, leaving his uncle to shake his head and mutter to himself about well-meaning nephews who could not stop fussing as he got dressed.

The first bad night notwithstanding, Thorin soon became used to having Bilbo there as he went to sleep every night. As Bilbo was not awake to spend time with him during the day anymore, the hobbit's presence at night became a reassuring constant in his life, his scent something he could breathe in and be reassured by every time he closed his eyes.

There were times when he woke up with his nose buried in Bilbo's curls, and he had to scramble away quickly for fear of warming him up too much and for too long. Then there were nights when he woke himself up by accidentally hitting or kicking Bilbo (by way of flailing limbs) and he wrestled with a guilty conscience and obsessively checked the halfling for bruises the entire day afterwards, wondering if putting Bilbo in his bed was actually that great of an idea.

Most of the time, though, all that truly changed because of his new bedmate was the temperature of his room (cold, but for Bilbo's sake, bearable) and the presence of Bilbo's scent (reassuring).

In the meantime, Erebor's recovery proceeded as fast as it could, considering the shortage of dwarves to accomplish all the work needed. Nevertheless, Thorin's temper grew shorter with each day, the cold of his bedroom and his eagerness for Bilbo to wake causing his patience to dwindle.

Thus, it was with a great deal of relief that he (as well as everyone who was forced to deal with his mood on a daily basis) greeted the first day of spring.

A/N: Sooo, apparently I lied. This is not the last chapter. That's (hopefully) the next one.