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It happened in the early hours of the morning, more or less the same time as every night. It was so much part of their routine that Thorin was fully expecting it, with the same terrible dread that he did each time.
He'd seen and heard Bilbo dream about all kinds of events from their journey: seen him clinging for dear life to the sheets, convinced he was hanging on to a barrel again; heard him muttering jumbled snatches of rhymes and riddles over and over like a plea; watched him freeze and jolt as he tried to duck and hide from dark eyes and grasping pincers.
Tonight he was dreaming of the end.
Winter was drawing on again, and even Bilbo's cosy smial became chilly when the fires died out overnight. Perhaps that was what had caused it. Shivers had started to run through him, one hand flung out to the side as though trying to grasp something out of his reach, the vague, muffled sounds of sleep starting to form remembered words, desperate, heartbroken: “No, no, you’re not going anywhere... no, don’t you dare...no, no—”
There was nothing Thorin could do but sit and watch, fists clenching until his knuckles paled and his nails bit into his palms, helplessly waiting for the inevitable.
With a sudden strangled gasp, Bilbo awoke, jerking bolt upright in the bed. Thorin was already on his feet, moving swiftly to sit on the mattress in front of him, close but not crowding him. Physical contact had always been something that had reassured Frerin and Dís when they awoke from nightmares, and later it had worked with Fíli and Kíli too: a comforting arm around the shoulders, a reassuring hug, a touch to anchor them back in reality. But it wasn't something he could do for Bilbo, and so he sat there, hands hovering uselessly in front of him.
“Bilbo,” he said, voice more soothing than he'd ever imagined using towards the hobbit that first time they met. It was a voice he used only for those closest to him: trusted friends and kin, and now for Bilbo too. Loved ones. “Bilbo, you're safe. You had a nightmare—”
But Bilbo wasn't listening, or maybe couldn't hear past the echoes of his dream, one hand coming up to clutch at his throat and the other still clawing the sheets. “I can't breathe!” he choked out. Thorin took a deep breath himself, forcing himself to remain calm, just as he did every time— he had to do this for Bilbo.
“Yes, you can.” he said. His words had become an even, measured mantra by now, but it was still difficult. “You must. You're panicking, but you can breathe. Try to focus. Try to breathe in.”
Bilbo shook his head. “I can't, I can't, I—”
“Look at me.”
And he did: wide, frantic eyes clearly visible to a dwarf even in the gloom, streaming with tears that were half pain and half panic. This was the truth of things, deep underneath the layer of Shire respectability that he’d built up like a shield around him, hidden even from himself until times like this. Thorin's heart broke, just as it did each and every time, but the most important thing was that Bilbo was looking at him and he had to act fast.
“Breathe with me now.” he commanded, forcing his own breathing to slow into a deliberately regular rhythm.
He’d done this so many nights now that he barely needed to focus on what he was doing, instead turning almost every scrap of attention to Bilbo. He was a fighter— Mahal, how did I miss this hiding underneath everything else for so long? It was clear in the way he struggled to hold Thorin’s gaze, pushed his own breathing to match Thorin’s, scrabbling against his panic until, eventually, soaked with cold sweat and looking terribly drawn, he’d calmed down as much as he could.
“There now,” Thorin said as comfortingly as he could manage, one hand coming up as though to cup his cheek, brush back his tangled hair.
Bilbo made to grasp his wrist before seeming to realise what he was doing; he struggled to force his hand back down to the bed and Thorin took this as his cue to withdraw before Bilbo might try again. Bilbo shook his head, confused and insistent. “You're not here. You can't be. I saw you, I saw—”
“I know, I know you did,” Thorin interrupted, “But I am here, Bilbo.”
“But I saw you—” he insisted, only for his voice to crack on the final word. He swallowed hard, looked away. Anywhere but at Thorin.
“I am here, right here in front of you.” Thorin tried to smile then. He wondered how much it resembled Bilbo’s own false cheerfulness. He wondered if Bilbo could see through it as easily as he saw through it on Bilbo’s face. But he did it anyway, desperate as he was to offer what comfort he could to Bilbo and so powerless to do much.
It didn’t really help. It never did.
Thorin knew what he was about to say before the words even formed.
“You died.”
Two words, as blunt as a hammer blow in the forge, as crushing as ice. Thorin froze at the sound of them; couldn't help it, just like every night. He’d heard them said all manner of ways: screamed and shouted, sobbed out on a fresh wave of tears, or, as tonight, a hoarse, broken whisper.
Bilbo was watching him with desperate eyes, begging him in a way that he never would out loud. Thorin hesitated for a moment that felt like an hour, a day, a century, before saying the only thing he could, clearly but gently.
“Yes.”
Sometimes it was sudden, like the snapping of a thread, together one moment and apart in the very next. Tonight was one of the gradual nights: Bilbo’s eyes began to clear, the last remnants of sleep fading from them. He blinked once, twice, and then glanced from side to side as though he expected to see someone in the room with him.
And then, of course, when he didn't— when he found himself all alone— his shoulders slumped, his head drooped, and that same old look of weary resignation flooded his face again.
Thorin watched all of this, his own hands tightening into fists, his whole being burning with the sheer unfairness of it all. He'd seen this play out so many times before. If only he could make himself seen, make himself heard, then maybe...
He wondered sometimes what might happen if he were to say no instead: no, I didn't die, no, I never left, I never left you. Would Bilbo see him for longer? Minutes, hours? Would they be able to speak openly, freely? Would Thorin see that smile again, the one that Bilbo never used now, the one that should have been there instead of the tension of his jaw and the distant look in his eyes when no one else was watching. He would give anything to be able to clasp his hand again, to hold him close once more, to finally taste that mouth the way he’d longed to do for so long, telling himself soon and when Erebor is reclaimed and once I can offer him a home—
But how selfish it would be, how cruel. Time would still pass, however slowly. Bilbo would still awaken to the real world, and Thorin would still be dead. However caught up Bilbo was in his sorrow and solitude, there was nothing that Thorin could offer him now.
Except for this. These fleeting moments, when Bilbo needed him most, even if he never believed afterwards that it was anything more than an extension of the dream he'd left behind. Better these few snatched minutes than leaving him entirely alone.
And so Thorin watched as Bilbo slowly settled himself down again, feeling his heart break all over again, and waited for dawn to break.