Chapter Text
“Well, I hope you are satisfied with yourself.” Billa’s cousins tone of voice is arch bordering on sarcastic, and his burlier counterpart whose name Thorin is yet to discover will not let up glaring.
Before Thorin can snap back at the infuriating pair, Balin rises. “Remember to whom you speak, master hobbit. You stand before the Lord of Durin’s folk. I know you mean no harm, but I’ll not have you show disrespect to my king in his own halls.” A sharp twist goes through Thorin at his councillors words, part shame and part pride and affection for Balin- wise, loyal, steadfast Balin who never falters or missteps, it seems.
The hobbit- a Took by the rather odd name of Paladin- gives a sniff in response. “Not my king, I’m afraid. And I’ll not have him disrespect my cousin.” There is something hidden in the halfing’s voice, but Thorin cannot make it out.
Instead, he sighs and shakes his head. “What disrespect I have shown Billa I can do nothing to alter, but I pray you answer me this- what else can I do but try and amend it? For our daughter’s sake, if she will not…”
“If she will not what?” The other halfling asks sharply. “If she does not want you? Is that what you mean? Of course she wants you. She must have loved you at least- she wouldn’t have showed her face in the Shire if she was ashamed for what she did.”
Thorin bristles- he cannot help it. “And who are you to speak on behalf of my burglar? Where comes this intimate knowledge?”
“I’m her gardener, is what I am, proud of it and a good bit more besides. Missus Belladonna taught me to read, she did, and when she died Miss Billa promised I’d always have a job at Bag-end, even after I left my Uncle’s teaching. The Bagginses have always been right good to us Gamgees and Greenhands, and I…spose I feel bad for how we treated Billa when she…”
“When she what?” Thorin asks, resisting the urge to grab the lad up by his braces in order to make him speak plainly rather than this Shire gibberish about gardening. he has to know- to fill in the gaps of her absence so that he can understand, Mahal take it all.
“When she came back, he means.” Paladin Took speaks, suddenly sounding tired and old beyond his years. “Hobbits…well, we’re not the most open minded of folk you could say, and for a spinster of Billa’s standing to up and go off adventuring was bad enough…but to come back with a dwarrow-babe at the breast…she found little kindness in Hobbiton.”
Thorin’s nails dig into his palms as he clenches his fists. It is his fault- if he had not sent Billa away from him, she would not have had to face the scorn of the Shire alone. She would not have sought refuge with the maker-be-damned elves.
If he had not been so mad with pride and gold, he might have kept her at his side of her own will rather than having her suffer in his presence now. Freya might have known the love of her father’s kin instead of having her mother’s turn their oh so proper noses up at her.
He raises his eyes to meet Billa’s gardener's- and it is a relief, he has to admit, to know what the boy’s connection to Thorin’s beloved is- he had thought for a time that she had replaced him not with his nephew but with another hobbit, and he hardly knew which was worse.
It must stop, he realises now. His jealousy and doubts, they must stop. If he can, he must try and see things as they are. He cannot let himself be swept up in the fever of having his burglar return to him- he thinks of how he coveted her in those last days before the battle, before she ran- keeping her in his chambers, in his bed with soft words and touches, showering her in jewels that looked well but clumsy on her soft shire skin. Dark promises of queenship that she could never accept.
No, not her.
Not her with her earth-bright eyes, her skin meant for the sun, not the dark of the mountain. But if he has even the slightest chance of making things up to her, he must try now to reach a place they can see clearly from.
He cannot show that side of his realisation to the two hobbits though, with their stubborn faces and their inflammatory roles of parchment. So instead, he puts on the face of a disgruntled king (not hard, since that is what he is most of the time) and asks the question that has been bothering him for a week or more.
“If Billa is so reviled in your shire, would you have her return there with you, Master Took of Great Smials? Would you have me pay your weregild and kiss my daughter and send my heart- my one soul, my atamanel-” here he breaks off for a moment because he cannot endure it, simply cannot voice his bitter anguish in a way that these shirelings would understand…
Drawing in a breath, Thorin continues. “Would you have me send her back to her lonely burrow to face the taunts and gossip of her neighbours? Is that what you want?” And he asks honestly now, not in vindictiveness, but because he cannot credit it.
The Took puffs up, cheeks red obviously fixing for a pithy reply, and then all of a sudden deflates in front of him similar to how Billa had done minutes previously. “What I want, Mr King Under the Mountain, is for my cousin to never have met you. I want Billa to be happy- I want to go home and get married to the girl I’ve loved since I was ten years old and I want my cousin to be there when my children are born. And until now I thought that was what she wanted-”
“But it isn’t.” The gardener boy pipes up. “…When she’s here, with your nephews and your company and you…she might not be thrilled with you, but she’s happier here. I know her, and I know that.”
“She does not seem happy.” Balin points out. “But perhaps she is afraid.”
A sticking feeling in his throat, Thorin searches for what to say. “I do not know what she wants. I would give it to her, if only she said the word…I would give her anything.” He stresses, yet somehow feels as though he is saying the wrong thing. He was never in love before Billa. He never will be again, and he knows not how to express just how singularly he adores her.
“Maybe, milord, just maybe- instead of saying that to us, you should ask her. The green lady knows, no one else does.” Paladin Took says quietly as he and his fellow turn to go, leaving Thorin Oakenshield to grit his teeth, swallow his pride and do what he can to make amends.
*
He is resolved, as he makes his way to Billa’s chamber, to demand nothing. To listen, and more importantly to hear her again, as he used to in the murky mornings in the wild when he would find her wrapped in blankets at the edge of the camp and her words held a unique kind of magic for him. In those frostbitten minutes when all he wished to do was hold her and hear. Hear the earthy music of her voice and the singing of her soft, bruise-bitten skin.
Mussed and fussing and beautiful with her words. For him.
However, Thorin is caught off guard by the fact that when he enters Billa’s rooms she is leaning forward with her hands splayed flat on the table whilst Dain , standing across from her and blocking her partially from Thorin’s view, speaks rough and hurriedly to her in a purposeful undertone.
Billa gives a sniff when she sees Thorin standing immobile in the doorway, looking at his cousin and his burglar seemingly in cahoots. He had not expected to find this- he had thought Kili would still be here trailing after Bombur’s girl- and from that he’d expected an argument with his nephew over the fresh torment Billa is going through.
Aule's forges, his burglar had looked so terrified, tiny in front of him and utterly defeated as he never wanted again. Her eyes sparkle with some kind of sad defensiveness and her mouth is bitten pink. Now though, she draws herself up and inward and Dain, seeming to recognise it, nods his head in Thorin’s direction before returning his attention to Billa. “You remember what I told you, lass.” he says, making as if to touch her stiff shoulder but seemingly thinking better of it.
Thorin barely sees him go, so fixed is he on Billa’s small form. His halfling is using the table as a block between them, one hand clutched into her loosened braids (and what he would not give to sit her against him and turn them to those of the line of Durin, so that all could see how high he held her) and the other smoothing out the crimson skirts of her tunic.
She looks very beautiful. And the sight of her in the garments of his people inflames his blood, makes him wish for privacy so that he could lift her skirts and worship her with hand and mouth. Precious. She is that, and more besides.
To chase those thoughts away, for surely they would not be well received, he takes a step back and closes the door with a soft thud. “What was Dain doing here?” he asks, striving not to sound as absurdly accusatory as he feels.
“He had some things to tell me.” Billa says quietly, pulling at the pins in her hair, loosening them one by one and laying them on the table, carding her hands through loose soft gold to work out the kinks as she does so. Thorin remembers how she would gasp when he curled his hand into her hair and pulled and struggles to keep his breathing even.
They are poorly made, her hairpins, and he decides that is what his first gift to her will be- hair adornments tipped in mithril and diamond, made by his own hand. He turns his attention then to the words he promised himself to hear out. “What?” Thorin asks. “What did he tell you?”
Billa looks at him, wide eyed and a little nervous. “He talked to me about laws. Your laws. Old ones, older than Erebor I would think.” she says lightly.
“Ahh.” Thorin says. (later he will ask Dain why, why he took it upon himself to do so and his cousin will go red in the face and reply that his men took her child, that shame is his and ever will be, and the least he could offer Billa Baggins of Bag-end was the truth.)
“Were you going to tell me?” she asks sharply.
“Of course.” he says gruffly. “I did not know that you would think so low of me, assume I would try and keep you here against your will. No matter what our laws state-”
“Apparently they state that you have no claim on Freya unless I name you her father. I could pick her up and walk out of here, because you are not my husband. You could not stop me.” She speaks as if testing something, him or herself Thorin cannot tell.
He ignores the pain her words bring him and instead looks around her chamber. On the bed is a bag, half packed with clothes, but his daughter it seems has fallen asleep on top of them, her dark curls a mess. He swallows. “Will you?” he asks, knowing she can tell what he speaks of.
Billa wrings her hands. “I don’t know. If you’d have asked me a day ago…a week ago I might have said yes, but now this…and you…it is rather difficult.”
“Yes.” Thorin replies. “Difficult.” There is a word they can both agree on at least.
Billa is pacing now, huffing quietly. “What you don’t understand is that it shouldn’t be like this. I can’t even begin to try and explain…oh dear.” Freya has woken up and is making a squealing beeline for Thorin. He cannot help but smile, a true smile, swinging her up into his arms and letting her hug him round the neck.
Billa looks at them both with lost eyes. “In the Shire.” she begins, softer than soft. “In the Shire, it is not like this. She…I am not your wife, and so they use that to shame me. If you were a hobbit, you could take her from me with a snap of your fingers. But here…”
“You are her mother.” Thorin demurs, not understanding how anyone could see it differently. The Shire is a queer place indeed to have such misshapen laws. “I would not dream of it. What has passed was wrong.”
At that, Billa turns her back on him, going over to the bed and carding her hands through the rumpled clothes and trinkets. He can see the heaviness of her breathing, almost feel the sharpness that twitches at her temples. Eventually, she seems to come to a decision and faces him again, sliding down to sit on the bearskin spread by the side of the bedstead, tucking her hands round her knees.
“Come sit with me, King Under the Mountain.” she commands, smiling with her clever words and a rose pink mouth.
Thorin does as he is bid, setting a wriggling Freya gently down on the rug and lowering himself to the floor next to his hobbit. He takes care not to impose upon her space, but she is such a warm, sweet thing and he can feel her without even touching an inch of her- fabric or skin.
Their daughter stands up on small booted feet, surveying the temporary peace between her parents. Mahal help anyone who tries to circumvent the will in those sapphire eyes, Thorin thinks. Seemingly satisfied, Freya pitches herself into her mother’s lap and hooks her arms around Billa’s neck.
“Yes, my love?” Billa asks, perfectly intuned to the whims of their child in a way that makes Thorin just a little more hopeless in the face of her. “What is it?”
“Mister Thorin said he’s my da.” Freya whispers, as though imparting a secret.
Billa flinches a little, careful not to let Freya see though. “Yes, sweet. He is.” There is no real reluctance in her tone, but no joy either and Thorin frowns. She sounds tired, just as her cousin did.
And then, their daughter draws back, looks sideways at Thorin and back at her mother. “Why?” she asks.
Billa gives a slightly hysterical sigh, and Thorin represses a laugh. “Because, little treasure, I love your mother very much. So the maker gave us you, to remind us of that.”
Seemingly satisfied with this explanation, Freya nuzzles sleepily between them, hands in Billa’s hair. His burglar looks at him with an eyebrow crooked upward. “Very clever, Thorin.” she says, just a touch waspishly. “Sweetheart, don’t pull.” Her tone gentles then as Freya yanks intently at her hair, pulling it away from her neck.
“Look, Adad.” Freya’s lisping directs Thorin to the bared length of Billa’s neck, pale and spotted with freckles. And marks, too- white marks in the shape of fingernails, red underneath, marks that make his stomach swoop and the acrid taste of guilt fill his mouth.
But he owes them this much, so he does not look away. Billa’s face flushes dark as he scrutinises the small scars he left on her, remnants of madness and rage and thwarted love. There is much he despises in himself, but he thinks that this might top it all.
“Boo boo.” Freya says helpfully. And then, when no one offers any solutions, she tugs on Thorin’s braid. “Kiss.” she orders him, tapping her fingers against her mother’s neck.
Thorin shakes his head. “I don’t think your Amad wants me to kiss her, Freya.” Especially not there, he purposely does not add.
Freya makes a dissatisfied noise, but allows Billa to cover her neck again. What surprises Thorin is when Billa takes his hand in hers (and yes, perhaps his breathing speeds up a little at her touch but that is none of anyone’s business) and presses it to the hollow of her neck, above her collarbone. He feels her heart beat there, and the warmth of her skin.
“That is where her head rested.” Billa whispers. “Right there, when she was a babe. I wish…” she cuts herself off, biting her lip and releasing his hand.
“I would have given anything to be there, Billa. Tell me what you would have of me and it will be done.” Only do not send me away. Do not leave me with my gold and my jewels and my mountain, for they will be cold comfort in your absence as they have been these five years past.
“Oh, Thorin.” Billa says, allowing Freya to crawl from her lap to his, where their little girl busies herself fiddling with the fur on his collar. “That is not how these things work. And don’t look at me like that, for I don’t know how they do work either.”
“I do.” Thorin says. “I could not deny you anything. You are my atamanel.” He speaks the word without thinking, forgetting she will not understand.
“Atamanel.” Billa sounds out the word, sending a thrill through him.
“You are in my very breath.” Thorin whispers, his eyes riveting on Billa’s. “In my blood and bones, and though it pains me to relinquish you, I will not hold you here. My heart has done that for me. I will bear it.” His words are true, but oh he hopes she will not put them to the test. “I only ask that you let me come to you at times, to see our child grow.”
“Oh for goddess sakes, Thorin.” Billa says in a rush. “That is not fair. You say such things and now I cannot leave because you have said them. Not without ruining us all.”
“I did not mean-” Thorin begins, but Billa waves a hand at him.
“I know. I don’t think any of us meant for any of this to happen.” She gives a very matter of fact sigh, looking at him candidly. “You have to go soon, don’t you?” she asks then.
“Yes.” he admits reluctantly. Would that he could sit here the rest of the day with his woman and child, in peace and comfort- or the closest they can come to each. “I am a King.” he reminds them both.
Billa grants him a half smile, and oh she has never more deserved the word, breath of all breaths for she steals the very air from his lungs with that simple movement and Mahal help him is he going to start writing love poetry like some shiny haired elf?
He shakes off that particularly disturbing thought as Billa draws their daughter back to her and catches one small peddling leg by the ankle, lifting up her child’s booted feet to show Thorin, who grimaces. She does not look happy. “Well, before you do go then, o mighty King, we need to talk about these.”