Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit, obviously.

Chapter 30: Gold Whispers

We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure.

–Hernan Cortes

It was decided that Gemma, Legolas, and Tauriel would help Bard relocate the survivors of Lake-town to the ruins of Dale before the four of them would go separate ways. This foursome was some of the few who suspected that greater plans were at work, and the only ones who could do anything about it, which meant they had to divide and conquer. The elves would head back to Mirkwood to discuss Gemma's theory with their king before heading in the direction that the orcs who had attacked them earlier in town had fled. Legolas had recognized the leader as Bolg, spawn of Azog. (Gemma hadn't realized that orcs had children, but she wasn't too keen on discovering the details.) The elves suspected Bolg had gone somewhere called Gundabad. They hoped to scope out the area and glean some more information about the orcs' operation and who might possibly be pulling the strings.

Gemma would head to the mountain, hopefully catching up to the four dwarves who had gone ahead. She was about an a few hours behind at this point, but the dwarves would be moving slowly due to Kili's weakened leg. If she moved fast she might be able to meet them at the gates of the mountain, where the five of them could greet the others together. If the others were still alive…

Once Bard quelled the mass hysteria and rallied the people, the relocation went surprisingly smoothly. Everyone just wanted to get away from the beach and into some sort of shelter, as a frost was creeping in and a light dusting of snow covered the ground. Not that the remnants of the buildings in Dale afforded much shelter, but it was better than none. When they arrived, they had located a couple of buildings that still had roofs and set up camp within them. Now, everyone was passing out blankets and scrounging up food.

Gemma and the elves were preparing to depart, but Gemma found it difficult to leave. Mostly because she felt terrible for leaving all these people here, starving and homeless as winter settled in. But also because… "You are afraid to go to the mountain," Tauriel spoke up from behind her. Gemma had not heard her approach, and startled at the sound of her voice.

"Yeah," she replied when her heartbeat slowed. No point in denying it, she supposed. "I'm afraid that they're all going to be… well, you know, dead." Her voice dropped at the last word, the word that haunted her thoughts but was so difficult to speak. The word which her imagination spun to create gruesome images, the most prevalent of which was the image of one particular man, lying lifeless on the ground.

"They won't be," Tauriel replied.

Gemma answered with a wry smile, "Bard and Legolas don't seem so certain. Bard wanted his people to take refuge in the mountain, not this disaster zone. It would be much safer for them, I'm sure. But if the dwarves are alive, I doubt that Thorin would ever allow it." Gemma sighed. She was worried either way. If the rest of the Company still lived, there would be entirely different problems.

"Do you love him? The weary king?" Gemma smirked, humourlessly, at her description. The weary king, yes, that was him.

"I could ask you the same. Minus the king part, though. Do you love… the ingenuous prince?" Ingenuous, nice word, she thought proudly. Was she trying to one up the elf? Well, maybe a little.

Tauriel blushed, and stammered in a most un-elf-like way, "No. No, I… I do not know. I feel… something, but it cannot be… love, can it? I do not even know him."

"Yes, well, if I were back home I would definitely agree with you. You've only just met, loving him is absolutely impossible. But," Gemma smiled a little wider and inclined her head as if to share a secret, "this is not my home. The rules are different here, I think. This place is magical. This place is somewhere you don't need to be who you're supposed to be, and think what you've been told to think. Anything could happen here."

"What is it that you mean? What place are we that you are referring to?" Tauriel asked. Gemma wasn't quite sure herself. She'd thought she meant this world, Middle Earth. But maybe she wasn't talking about a place at all. Maybe that place was really a feeling.

Rather than answering, she winked at the elf and said, "I'll see you around." She turned to leave, but turned back and said, more seriously, "And be careful. If my theory is right… Well, let's just hope I'm wrong this time. Though that's a rare occurrence."

She slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and donned her now-dry jacket. She had to be on her way, now. But the sound of an approaching horse made her pause. An elf on a white horse appeared in the street, stopping next to Legolas and Tauriel. They conversed in their own tongue, but Gemma didn't need to speak elvish to know something was amiss. "You may tell my father," Legolas said to the elf in the Common Tongue, "if there is no place for Tauriel, there is no place for me." Gemma raised her eyebrows at this. She probably shouldn't have been eavesdropping, but this was quite the interesting turn of events. The messenger elf left, and the two elves caught Gemma watching.

"A bit of a change of plans, then?" She questioned.

"We will ride directly north to Gundabad." Legolas declared.

Gemma nodded. "Good luck then. I expect to see you both when we meet in a week's time, as planned." She wasn't quite sure the nature of her relationship with these elves, but she wanted them to be safe.

They acknowledged her statement with a nod before mounting Legolas' horse and departing. Gemma turned in the opposite direction and began her hike towards the mountain. She was stopped by Bard just before she left the town. "Be careful," he told her. It seemed that everyone needed this advice.

"You too. I will come back as planned. Earlier if the mountain is… unoccupied." Bard's children emerged behind their father, and Gemma smiled at them sadly. She hugged Tilda and Sigrid, and ruffled Bain's hair in a way that made the boy grumble. Then she left without another word.

The hike was difficult and long. Alone, Gemma was left to her thoughts, an unpleasant experience. Her imagination kept creating scenarios of what would happen when she arrived; of what she might find. As terrifying as that was, it only spurred her on faster, so that she eventually was running up the mountain. Her journey took the entire day, and she arrived just as the sun began to set. She had not met up with the others in her hike, overestimating her ability to scale a mountain, or perhaps underestimating theirs.

The gate wasn't really a gate. It was a gaping hole where the dragon had burst through. As she crossed the bridge and stepped through, she heard voices ahead. It was Fili, Kili, Bofur, and Oin; she hadn't been that far behind after all. She followed them as they moved through the ancient kingdom, but hung back, not revealing herself yet.

Despite the destruction, old and new, and despite the dust and gloom that saturated the place, Gemma could see the magnificence of the old kingdom of Erebor. The stone walls were carved to beautiful detail, geometric patterns and artistic friezes decorating them. Pillars, even those that were damaged, rose high above, and exemplified the architectural wonder of this palace. The hallways branched in every direction, and stairs led to numerous levels above and below. The size of the place was incomprehensible. When the dwarves had told her of their kingdom within the mountain, she had not understood that it took up the entirety of the inside. The grandeur seemed to stretch throughout, equally spectacular in every corner.

"Wait!" A voice yelled as the dwarves came to a set of staircases, Gemma still following behind silently. "Stop, stop, stop!" Bilbo emerged and Gemma nearly burst into tears. He was alive! Yet she remained in the shadows, because Bilbo was saying something very troubling. "You need to leave. We all need to leave."

"We only just got 'ere" Bofur said, confused.

"I've tried talking to him, but he won't listen!" Bilbo continued breathlessly.

"What are yeh…?"

"Thorin!" the hobbit shouted, and the sound of his name made Gemma's heart leap. He was alive as well, oh thank God. Bilbo continued, "He's been down there for days. He won't sleep, he barely eats, he's… not himself, not at all. It's this place. I think a sickness lie upon it."

Oh. Oh no. Oh no, this was very, very bad.

"What do yeh mean? What kind of sickness?" Bofur asked. Gemma watched as Fili's head suddenly perked up, and he moved towards the stairs.

"Fili! Fili, wait!" Bilbo cried as the others followed, emerging on a landing overlooking the treasure hoard. Gemma crept forward just enough so that she could see. A sea of gold, larger than anything she could have imagined, stretched out before her. In the dim light it almost seemed to glow, a cold, hard light that filled the high-ceilinged hall, which seemed to go on for eternity.

And there he was, down below wading through the gold coins and jewels and relics. He was wearing regal clothes now, and jewel adorned his fingers. He looked the same as he always had, and yet so different. And when he looked up, Gemma almost revealed herself as a gasp threatened to escape her lips.

Thorin's eyes held a madness that she had sometimes seen in the mirror. Worse still, they seem to glow with the same light as the gold. The gold sickness had begun to take over.

He had been down here for days, and he knew the others worried. But they need not. He was better now. Here in his kingdom, in possession of the great treasure hoard of his grandfather, he had been healed of his heartache. The gold whispered to him, soothing his despair, reminding him that he had, in the end, won. He had lost things, yes, but he had won the ultimate prize, his original goal. The gold.

Muffled voices reached Thorin's ears as he walked amongst the treasure. "Gold," he whispered his thoughts aloud. They echoed in the unending hall. "Gold beyond measure. Beyond sorrow and grief." He looked up from his treasure, up to where the voices, now, silent, had come from, and could scarcely believe who he saw there. His nephews, and Bofur, and Oin, stood beside Bilbo, watching him from a landing above. He had thought them dead, killed by dragon fire in Esgaroth. Yet here they stood, his heirs and his kin, alive indeed. It was as if the gold was assuring him once more that he had won. That he was the rightful ruler of Erebor.

"Behold. The great treasure hoard of Thror." Thorin spread his arms to them. Then he pulled his arm back and flung a ruby the size of his fist up, all the way to his nephews' waiting hands. They looked at the gem, awestruck by its sheer size, by the size and magnificence of everything. "Welcome, my sister's sons, to the kingdom of Erebor!" His proclamation echoed, deep and ominous, throughout the chamber.

The dwarves began to move down the stairs, Bilbo trailing uncertainly behind. "Bofur!" a voice, Bombur's, called, and the rest of the Company emerged from another pathway. The little group tore their eyes away from the treasure as they rushed to the others. Shouts of joy rang out as the Company was reunited, thanking Mahal that they had all survived. Thorin turned away from them, back toward the treasure. He had no use for joyful reunions. Not when there was still one task to complete; a task which he had devoted himself to ever since the dragon departed.

The Arkenstone was still lost. Bilbo had been unable to steal it when he had infiltrated the dragon's lair. But it was here, somewhere amongst the gold and emeralds and diamonds, that much was certain. It had to be found. He needed it to officially claim his throne, to assure his rightful kingship. And it would be found, even if they all spent days on end doing nothing but searching. Of course it would be found; the gold had assured him that he was the rightful ruler. The gold wanted him to be king.

It was only when the others quieted down that he heard it: footsteps. The rest of the Company heard it too, and silence fell, punctured by the sound of the steps drawing nearer, echoing through the chamber. They were lighter than a dwarf's but bolder than an elf's, each step measured, slow, and confident. The echoing made the source of the footsteps difficult to locate at first, but soon all eyes drew up to the landing where four dwarves had first emerged.

A figure stepped into the dim light of the chamber, bracing her arms against the railing and looking down over the scene before her with a penetrating gaze. Thorin's mind couldn't comprehend what his eyes were seeing. It couldn't be her. She had left this world.

"Thorin Oakenshield," she said, her voice amplified, booming across the room so that all could hear the judgement, the displeasure, in it. "Son of Thrain, son of Thror. King under the Mountain."

Gemma LaRoche stood before him, looking exhausted and angry and very much real. Her eyes connected with his and her grip on the railing tightened as she asked just one question.

"What the hell have you done to yourself?"

AN:

So, it was sort of a reunion! I know, I know, this chapter was a bit dry, like the last one. It's necessary. The actually fluffy reunion stuff will come at the beginning of next chapter. And it will be fluff! I realized when I said last time that there would be no more fluff for a while, I was lying, because I'd completely forgot about the reunion. And that's because the next chapter, though sweet at the beginning, it a pretty dark chapter over all, quite the opposite of fluff. It's the beginning of what will be a number of angsty, dark chapters involving lots of yelling and tears. …Yay.

As always thanks for reading and reviewing. Also, thanks for being so understanding about my busy schedule. Starting tomorrow I have a week of moratorium, in which I might be able to squeeze in one more update, and then a week and a half of exams. My math exam, of course, is only the very last day at the very latest possible time, which means I don't get out early or anything. However, once that is finally done, I'm going to devote myself to writing and churn out a bunch of chapters, hopefully allowing me to go back to fairly regular updates.

Please leave a review, they really make my day and I'm happy to reply to them, if you have anything you are wondering about.