Work Text:
The ice creaked under Thorin’s feet, a spidery crack starting its spread even as he watched. Azog lay dead only feet away, Orcrist sticking out of his chest in a way that brought Thorin a macabre sense of pleasure. Not even a monster like the White Orc would survive a blow such as that. Thorin had finally avenged his grandfather, his father and his brother, as well as the countless other dwarrow who had died at Azanulbizar.
He remained standing where he was, watching the crack grow from its epicentre underneath the orc, feeling the pain in his ribs from where he had taken Azog’s hook to the chest. From experience, he had more than one broken rib, and he would probably be recuperating from this battle for quite some time.
It would be interesting to see if he could keep the toes – if he had any toes to keep, even. Azog may have been a monster, but he was an intelligent monster.
Suddenly, noises started registering again, sounds flooding in from the battle in the plains beneath Ravenhill, and he realised someone was calling his name from the shore. Turning on his heel – carefully keeping his weight off of the foot Azog had run through – he was pleased to see both Dwalin and his boys on their feet. All three of them looked slightly worse for wear, Kíli clutching his arm to his chest in a worrying way, but they were alive and, at the end of a battle such as that, that was really all anyone could ask for.
What Thorin hadn’t expected, however, was to see something shimmer into view just feet away from him, a Durin blue coat not doing much to hide the glimmer of Mithríl mail.
“Billa?” Thorin gasped, the shock and shame of seeing her here almost too much to bear. She wasn’t supposed to be in the midst of the fighting, wasn’t even supposed to be in Erebor anymore – for all that he had been far beyond the brink of insanity when he did it, he had banished her. Once he had regained his senses, it had been his desperate hope that the banishment would have driven her away, that even then he had managed to keep her safe. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, Thorin, I’m so sorry,” she sobbed in reply, arms wrapped around herself in a desperate bid to keep warm. Without thinking, Thorin took a step towards her, hand outstretched. As she flinched away, a dull cracking noise was heard, and he whimsically thought it was the sound of his heart breaking made audible before realisation struck.
Beneath their feet, the ice gave way, and the river swallowed Thorin Oakenshield and Billa Baggins into its inky depths.
Once below the surface, Thorin was incredibly glad he hadn’t worn the heavy armour he had chosen in the depth of his gold sickness. His mail was heavy, as well, but it was much easier to struggle out of than the cuirass would have been. It took him mere seconds to orient himself, but that was seconds too long – the water was icy cold, and even he, with the heat of a dwarven furnace inside of himself, felt it.
Billa was a Hobbit, and she had no such protection.
The water was dark, the visibility almost none, but he knew about where she had been in relation to him when the ice broke – and dwarves sank like stones, something helped along by the armour. Billa wouldn’t sink as fast – he hoped.
With a few, powerful kicks, Thorin left his mail to sink and tried desperately to find her. It took too long before he managed, outstretched fingers brushing the sleeve of her coat. With another, desperate kick he came close enough that he could wrap his arm around her, and was terrified to see how limp she was up close.
Lungs burning with the need for air, he managed to propel the two of them upwards, hoping he would be able to find the edge of the ice, afraid that the current had dragged them too far away from the drop for them to be able to surface again.
With his hand outstretched, it was with immense relief he felt it break the surface – and another hand, holding tight to his, pulled him and Billa out of the water.
Once he found his bearings, lying on his back on the cold ground, he found the clear blue skies blotted out by Dwalin leaning over him.
“Billa!” Thorin said – or tried to, at least, but before he could get a single sound out he started coughing. The pain from the coughing and convulsions was enough, combined with the cold, to grey everything out, and he almost welcomed the embrace of sheer nothingness as he fell unconscious.
When he next awoke, it was with a start - had the pain in his ribs not stopped him he would’ve been out of bed in an instant. As it was, every inch of his chest screamed in protest when he tried to rise, so that was an idea he had to put to rest before he could do more than consider it.
“I wouldn’t even try that if I were you,” Dwalin said from next to his bed, voice gruffer than usual. It took some effort to turn his head, and he groaned louder than was seemly, but once he had he was pleased to see Dwalin looking well. He looked very well, in fact.
“How long…?” Thorin said, coughing from the effort even that took.
“You? You’ve been out three days now.” Dwalin leant back in the chair, arms crossed over his chest.
“Me…? Billa!” Again Thorin tried to sit up, this time getting further before he fell back against the pillows, a groan punched out of him as his back hit the bed. “Is Billa okay?”
“No,” Dwalin replied simply, the only thing betraying how he was feeling was the rawness of his voice and his white-knuckled, tightly clenched fists. “No, she’s really not – Óin says it’s a sickness of the lungs, made worse by how cold she got during the battle – and in the water. She swallowed too much water, as well, and she hasn’t – she hasn’t woken up yet.”
What little breath Thorin had managed to regain was punched out of him at the news.
“Will she…” he hesitated, not knowing how to continue, not with Dwalin looking as broken as he did.
“We don’t know,” Dwalin scrubbed his hand down his face, before looking up at Thorin again. “I’m glad to see you awake, Thorin, but – I must go to Balin. Billa is his nâtha, and he isn’t – he’s not handling this well.”
“Go, sit with your brother, there is nothing I need now, nothing more than Billa waking up.” Thorin waved him off, relief at seeing his brother in arms well warring with the terror he felt for Billa. “Send Óin in when you leave?”
Dwalin nodded, standing up from the chair. He clasped Thorin’s least injured shoulder before he left, ducking out of the healing tent, yelling for Óin as he left the vicinity.
When the healer entered the tent, he had the wizard on his heels. It never ceased to amuse Thorin how much the wizard had to stoop under the canvas ceiling.
“Glad you’re awake, lad,” Óin said, bustling around the tent as the wizard stayed back, leaning on his staff, chewing the stem of his pipe. “This might be the turn needed for everyone.”
“Don’t mind me, Óin, how is Billa?” At Thorin’s words, Gandalf started radiating smugness in the kind of way that would never fail to irritate him.
“Hm… is she your One?” The question was incredibly taboo to even think, but Thorin was so shocked by it he couldn’t even feel offended.
“Wha- what does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s a simple question, yes or no,” Óin insisted, Gandalf looming smugly over his shoulder.
“It might be the difference between life and death, Thorin Oakenshield, if Billa Baggins is your One or not,” Gandalf boomed, shadows in the tent lengthening as Thorin persisted in not answering.
“By Mahal, yes, she is my One – not that it would be reciprocated, especially not now,” Thorin groaned, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I banished her, I’ll be lucky if she lets me keep my beard.”
At his reply, Óin stuck his head out through the canvas door, talking as quietly as the almost-deaf dwarf ever managed. It was quiet enough that Thorin didn’t hear what was said, but when Óin began bustling around his bed again, the healer was exuding the same sort of smugness that Gandalf was.
“I don’t know why you wanted us to bring her here,” Dwalin said as he walked through the door again, this time carrying a small bundle of blankets. Behind him came Balin, worry and many a sleepless night making the old dwarf look ancient.
“Put her in with him,” Gandalf directed, and Thorin wasn’t certain what was going on – but he was fairly sure he didn’t like it.
Very carefully, Dwalin deposited the bundle of blankets next to Thorin on the bed, and it wasn’t until a small, pale hand fell out of it that he realised exactly what was happening.
“This really isn’t proper,” Thorin said, actions belying his words as he gather Billa to his chest, wrapping her in as much of his bedding as he could. She was tiny, felt smaller than she ever had seemed during the quest, and as cold as if she’d just been pulled from the icy water.
“Billa is suffering from hypothermia – and so are you, even if a very mild case, considering your dwarven furnace – and a bad case of pneumonia,” Gandalf said, watching as she was tucked in next to the dwarven king. “The only chance she has to heal is to be with her One, and that is, for some unfathomable reason, you.”
Thorin was certain there was more being said, but he was occupied with tucking Billa in, covering her with as many blankets as he could, trying to crawl as close as physically possible.
At some point, he fell asleep, not waking until the small hours of the night, the bed feeling unbearably warm. He probably would have fallen back asleep, if it hadn’t been for Billa suddenly stiffening in his arms.
The only thing lighting the tent was the brazier, lit to keep the warmth more than for light, but it was still bright enough for him to see her clenching her eyes shut, desperation in every single line of her face. ´
“Billa,” he murmured, lifting the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her to her cheek. He hesitated as she flinched, pulling his hand back as she glanced up at him. “Billa…”
“I’m sorry, Thorin, I’m so sorry,” she burst out, burying her face in his chest. “I betrayed you, I’m so sorry, I just tried to save you.”
“Oh, Billa,” he said, lifting his hand again, dragging his fingers through her hair, trying his best to comfort her. Her voice was hoarse as she kept muttering apologies, turning hoarser still. “Billa, Billa – there’s nothing you have to apologise for, if anyone should apologise it is me.”
He contorted himself best he could without aggravating his ribs too much, careful to not displace her or the mound of blankets covering them. He leant his forehead against hers, holding her gaze with his own. The tears in her eyes broke his heart, but that she could blush as she did at his closeness was, he felt, a good sign – of recovery, if nothing else.
“I have much to apologise for…” he continued, shushing her as she tried to speak up. “I banished you, I hurt you, I tried to kill you… I love you, and in my madness, I pushed you away and…”
Thorin quieted as Billa suddenly kissed him, and despite his shock, he didn’t take long to reflect before kissing her back. She pulled back when air was becoming an issue for both of them, a reverberating cough pulled from her as well.
“I will forgive you, Thorin, for banishment, for cruel words, for everything…” he winced at her words, a checklist of his wrongdoings coming from the lips of his beloved. “If you forgive me for stealing the Arkenstone.”
“There is nothing to forgive, you did it to save us all!”
“And you were sick, beloved, not in your right mind. Would you throw me from the ramparts now?” Billa murmured softly, carding one hand through his hair. He couldn’t help but lean into it as if he was a particularly lovesick cat.
“Of course not!”
“Then we both forgive each other?” she insisted, and Thorin was once again reminded of her stubbornness.
“I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” he informed her, wanting her to know just how much he meant everything he was saying.
“As long as you spend the rest of your life loving me, Thorin, that is all I want.” She dragged him into another deep kiss, moaning against his mouth as he pulled her just that little bit harder against him.
As he kept kissing her, he thought that loving her for the rest of his life didn’t seem long enough, but it would be a start.