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“Bilbo?”
The word comes from far away, as if he is hearing it from the other end of a long, empty tunnel. It echoes about his ears for a moment but he cannot quite place his own name until it rings again, louder and closer now.
“Bilbo!”
He cannot turn, cannot speak. The ring dangles before him, sparkling on the string of silver that had tethered it about his neck for weeks now. It shines with flame now, oranges and reds that threaten to burn if they leap close enough. Fear stirs in his breast. In the sheen of metal, he thinks he can make out the light of his own wide eyes. They seem bronzed in the reflection, twin wheels of golden.
“Bilbo, throw it into the fire!”
He cannot. His fingers are clenched around the chain and will not budge, no matter how his mind screams, for his heart flutters yet uncertainly. Not yet, not yet, just a moment…
“What are you doing?”
Below him, the Cracks of Doom flare, crackling and screeching. It should be so, so easy. The ring is evil, he knows that, has spent months being told again and again. It is evil, it must be destroyed, lest darkness fall.
Let it fall, he had thought in more uncharitable moments, when he was grimy and sleepless on the road, when he had woken again from dreams of horror to empty arms, Let it fall and let me be done with it. Had it been only a handful of years since he had known naught but the Shire, when the green-lit leaves and rolling fields of his town had been everything and enough? Is it not the Shire I seek to save now? And is it not the Shire I will fail if I keep this ring?
But what might its destruction cost him?
What had he not already lost?
“Bilbo.”
The voice again. It will not leave him alone. It is closer now, weighted by some unseen sadness. He does not turn.
“You must let it go, Bilbo. Do not be swayed at the final turn.”
Swayed? What could it mean? He has survived this far without hesitation, has he not? What has he endured? The distrust and fear of his companions; the endless bleak plains of Mordor; hunger and thirst, the burn of a parched throat; the burden, oh, the ache about his neck that everyday grew heavier until he thought he might be strangled; and being alone, utterly alone, even when people sat not three feet away, because how could they know, how could they see…?
And he had endured. But now he stands at the end of his quest, long and arduous as it had been, and he stands with nowhere to turn when it is completed. He has not enough waybread or water to sustain him on the journey home—and even if he did, where is home? What is left him? He thinks of the Shire, the place of his boyhood, and the image is tarnished like worn steel. It all is. He remembers his childhood laughter and scoffs at his own ignorance. The confinement of his adulthood he sees now as pathetic, the blindness of a lonely fool. That adventure with the wizard and the thirteen dwarves—once glorious, once breath-taking, the great deed of his life—now is recalled through bitter eyes, for he sees now only his companions’ disdain, the wizard’s evasive lies, and this, the true great deed of his life, the world’s burden stumbled across by a fumbling hobbit on a quest that he did not belong on.
And the one thing, the one precious thing, the one thing that mattered to him, the one thing he cried and lied and would have died for, of that he remembers only the sting of tears and the bitter tang of blood in the air, blood on skin and clothes, a last wavering smile, eyes like blue stars, and if it were a merrier world, he would remember more, but now all he knows is the darkness of the past and coming days, the burn on his shoulders and around his neck, the pain.
No, he has nothing left, nothing—
—save the ring still tight in his grasp.
And why should he forsake that, the one thing left to his name in the world? He had found it, after all. It is his. His wrist twitches, as if to drag it closer to him, away from the heat of the fire. The ring swings on its chain and his eyes follow it. For a moment, in the shine of the gold, he fancies he spies a shadow behind his head, something hulking and black. Go away, he wants to shout, leave us alone.
“You must let go, Bilbo. You must.”
Why? he thinks. Why should he? If he does, it will all be gone. The magic will be gone and the elves will leave. The Shire will breeze on, unchanging throughout the years. And he is changed and he has nothing so why should he let go?
A vision glimmers before his eyes and, for a moment, he forgets that he is huddled in the heart of Mount Doom. For a moment, he is above the yellow thatched roofs of the Shire, watching his people work and flourish and grow, watching the cornfields stretch like sunlight across the land, all the way to the shores of the Sea. For a moment, he dives through the long grass of the South Downs, his ring nestled on his finger, listening to the laughter of his thirteen dwarf brothers bounce from tree to tree as they look for him, shouting Bilbo, Bilbo! with glee as they delve deeper into their game. For a moment, he is in the halls of Erebor, gleaming jade and golden and whole again, and a crown is a warm weight atop his head.
And you can have all that, something murmurs in his ear, smooth as silk, calm as still water, and more. You can have power. You can have control. Another vision: a blood-red sky, a black tower, himself clad in fine robes, his elven blade in one hand and the ring glowing upon his finger, armies and enemies bending the knee in droves before him. You can have everything.
Despite himself, despite the glaring flames and his cracked lips, he smiles. I don’t want everything, he thinks to himself. In the gleam of the ring’s metal, he sees that shadow again. I don’t want all that, he thinks, I want him.
Another vision, a flash of light before his eyes: for a moment, he is in Bag End, before his cosy fireplace. His ring lies over his chest, looped on a worn white string, and arms are wrapped around him, a chin rests on his shoulder, and a smiling bristled mouth kisses his cheek. A merrier world.
You can save him, something whispers again in his ear, He is still here. You can have him again. His mind’s eye blinks and then he sees him again. No blood taints the air now, nor stains his armour. No tears blur his eyes as he reaches out, as though he might touch that face, kiss that smile, look again into those star-blue eyes.
“You must let go. Bilbo, please.”
No. It isn’t too late, he thinks. He need only be strong enough to pull the ring back, to wear it again, to bend its power to his will. He need only believe that he could, could save him, could save him…
Before him, gold glitters and then dims. He sees only for a split second a black shape eclipsing that shine before bared fingers, large and rough, touch his wrist, slide to curl around his palm. Another hand rests on his shoulder and it is a comforting warmth, not stifling like the flames below. Only now is he aware of a person behind him, the touch of a broad chest to his back, a bristled chin scant above his shoulder. He twists his head around with no small shock, ripping his gaze from the suspended ring, to see—
—to see star-blue eyes, clear and sad, and the knot in his chests tightens until he cannot breathe—
“Bilbo,” he says, and the hand on his shoulder shifts until he touches the skin of his neck, strokes it gently, “My love. You must let go.”
He is here. He is here, as the ring promised. But Bilbo can feel him, by all the gods, close and warm and solid and alive, as he could not in his dreams. It is not the ring that has done this and he silently thanks whatever being has given him this, this last embrace.
“You’re here.”
His throat scalds to speak, but he forces his weak whisper past it. The other smiles, leans theirs heads together, and Bilbo can feel cool breath across his lips.
“I always was,” his grip tightens, those ringed fingers stroking random patterns over the skin of his arm, “I always will be.”
But you won’t, Bilbo thinks, If I let go, you’ll be dead, gone forever. You’re here now. You’re all I want.
“I,” his voice breaks. He tries to swallow, breathes, and starts again. “I can save you.”
There is a beat of silence. Even the roar of doom has faded to a hush in the background.
“No,” he shakes his head. Strands of raven-black hair briefly fall over his face and Bilbo longs to scrape this back, to cup his cheek, to touch him again. “You did. You saved me when I could not save myself.”
“You died,” Bilbo cries and it is half a sob, “You died and now I have to live on without you.”
“And you can,” he whispers. His hand slides up, fingers hooking against the Ring’s chain. Once jealousy might have tugged in Bilbo’s chest, a litany of mine thrumming in time with his heartbeat. Now he thinks only that he wants to feel those fingers threaded through his own. “And you will. You must only let go.”
“No—”
“You know that you must,” he insists, “You do not need it to have me forever. You always did. You always will. Yours is a good heart, Bilbo Baggins, and I am honoured to have a place in it.”
“You have all of it!”
He smiles again; Bilbo feels its curve against his own mouth, “As you have mine. But you think also of your home; of our companions; even of that dratted wizard. You can save them.”
“At the cost of you?”
The hand on his shoulder clamps harder. Those blue eyes meet his own, soft and clear, shimmering in the heat and with tears.
“I was lost to the darkness,” he says quietly, “I was lost long before I met you. You gave me a light even in the final shadow of my life. And now you can lift that evil from Middle-Earth forever, Bilbo. You are stronger than the mirages this ring offers you. You are wiser than its lies. You need only let go, my thief.”
Every breath is an effort now. The air crowds in, too hot to breathe. It takes whatever strength still clings to his body but Bilbo looks away, looks back to the ring dangling before his eyes. Its voice which had flowed so temptingly in his ears is now muffled, now ugly and croaking. Now he sees its trickery for what it was. He sees the roofs of the Shire crumble and fall to ruin. He sees the walls of Erebor crack, blasted apart as the dragon tears the Mountain asunder. He hears his friends’ joyful calls rise to screams and dreadful, deafening silence as the eternal night closes in. He sees the glimmer of gold in his love’s eyes, the madness that festered in his blood until it leaked out along with his life.
He sees the happy ending that they deserve and he sees that, as long as the ring exists, it will always been only a dream.
Even as this epiphany lightens the load on his shoulders, Bilbo feels fright take his heart. For now there is only to drop the ring to its doom; and what will come after? His free hand grapples up and another slides into it, tangles their fingers together until Bilbo cannot differentiate where one begins and one ends. He can feel the thud of a pulse under his fingers. He feels so warm, Bilbo thinks, he feels so real.
He is real, he tells himself, so long as I carry him in mind and heart, he is real.
“I’m here,” his voice rumbles in his ear, low and earnest, “I’m here.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“Until the end, my love.”
Now Bilbo smiles again, a delirious, quavering thing. How funny, that even at the end of all things he can still hold onto hope.
“You can do it. Let go.”
The chain is gleaming yellow, a fiery snake clutched in Bilbo’s fist. Somewhere, something howls in rage and terror, but Bilbo’s heart is unmoved, certain now. Everything must end—even this darkness.
He lets go.
Only at the last can he bring himself to breathe his love’s name.
“Thorin.”