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There is no grand silence that falls after the battle.
There is no sudden break in the overcast sky nor is there a stray ray of sunlight that spills upon the lonely peak of Erebor.
There is nothing but the screams of thousands, tens of thousands of soldiers, of dwarves and elves and men and orcs, of the injured, of the dying.
There is nothing but the fading clash of metal against metal, of hoarse shouts, of snarls of hatred where small pockets of fighting still remain, spread across the battlefield, the pitiful remnants of what were previously grand armies.
Bilbo stands in the middle; a tiny, pale figure amongst the dead and dying, standing with Sting clasped tight in one hand, the muted blue glow never quite fading, illuminating the bloodless colour of his fingers where they close around the hilt.
Bilbo stands in the middle of a devastated battlefield, amongst the countless dead, streaked with dirt and sweat and blood that is both his and not and yet, at the same time, he stands apart from it all, spine ramrod straight, eyes far, far away.
Gandalf places a hand on his shoulder and he speaks three words.
They bring the world crashing down.
"He is dying."
*
Thorin is much too pale.
He lies buried within piles of bloodied, matted fur, his once fine cape still remains around his shoulders, now torn and stained.
Bilbo cannot take his eyes from the great gaping wound across his chest, over his side. He cannot look away from the way the blood, a deep, dark red, drips slowly over sun darkened skin, pooling into the thick fur below, adding fresh color to the darker stains of old blood.
"Thorin," Bilbo says. He does not think about the way his voice cracks and he pays no attention to how the air is suddenly too thin to breathe or about that low flaring burn of pain deep within his chest and that subtle bitter taste in the back of his throat.
Bilbo thinks about nothing but Thorin, who lies weakly against bloodied material, in a bed made of nothing but dirt and rock.
He thinks that Thorin should be sitting straight and bold, head held high on the grand throne of Erebor. He thinks that Thorin should be filling the sprawling halls of his kingdom with the sound of his deep voice raised in laughter and song. He thinks that Thorin should be holding court to the countless men and elves and other races of Middle Earth, receiving their tributes. He thinks that Thorin should be listening to the oaths of fealty sworn to him and his kingdom by all the dwarvish people.
He knows that this, right here, right now, is not a fitting end for such a majestic king, for his majestic king.
But he knows, also, that this is the only such end his king will ever receive.
And Bilbo mourns for all that cannot be.
*
The grip around his hand weakens, one moment to the next, each second trickling away, slow but insistent and never to be regained, like the gentle but implacable flow of a stream.
Bilbo bows his head and touches his cheek to Thorin's, a gentle graze of skin against skin. He turns and allows himself to brush the barest of kisses to the corner of Thorin's lips and he tastes salt and copper, he tastes tears and blood.
He does not know which belongs to who anymore.
"Thorin," he whispers as the hand he holds slackens even more.
Thorin looks back at him and he draws his final breath.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Thorin murmurs one last word and then he is gone.
*
Bilbo cannot remember what Thorin says.
He cannot remember Thorin's last word.
*
He never quite forgives himself.
*
The tears do not stop. The pain does not go away.
"You have to give it time, laddie," Balin tells him, the night before he leaves for the Shire again, for Bag End, for a place that isn't home any longer. Balin's hand is warm and solid on Bilbo's arm and Bilbo has not felt warmth since Thorin closed his eyes and slipped away from him.
Bilbo looks at him for one long moment before he nods.
But he knows, deep inside, that the tears will never stop and the pain will never go away.
Never.
He knows that he will grieve and pine and wither away until there is nothing left that can be recognised as Bilbo Baggins, a gentle-hobbit of the Shire.
It is an unenviable, inevitable fact; just like how the sun sets in the west and brings with it the dark, soulless night.
*
I love you.
He never says those three words. And he regrets.
Bilbo has never loved anyone like he loves Thorin and he knows he never will again.
He rides from Erebor, the last great dwarven kingdom, and his pony is laden down with enough gold and jewels to ransom a king and he feels so lost, so empty.
Home had always been Bag End until it somehow became wherever Thorin was.
And now that Thorin is gone; lost, dead, forever gone, where could he ever call home again?
*
Thank you.
These are also words that he never said.
He has never thanked Thorin for letting him join an adventure that he will remember for a lifetime and beyond. And now, it is too late, and he will never have a chance to.
Bilbo returns to Bag End richer than he ever could have dreamed and poorer than he could have ever imagined. He, as he feared, is very much a different person than the one who had left the safety of his hobbit hole all those months long ago.
He returns with a thousand and one stories to tell, but there is one that he treasures above all and that is the one he wants to tell the entire world.
But when he sits down, in front of the fire, with his nephew and younger relatives staring up at him in awe, he can never find the right words to begin.
He wants to tell them the story of a hobbit who travelled too far away from home and met a king amongst kings.
He wants to tell them about a love that broke and shattered a simple hobbit heart into so many pieces that it could never be whole ever again.
He wants to tell them so much, but when he breathes in and opens his mouth to speak, the words burn at the back of his throat, wound their way around his heart and he cannot say a word out loud.
Bilbo has a story, just the one, that he carries with him to the grave.
*
I hate you.
These are words he wants to say, now, forever.
For it was Thorin who stole it; who with his regal bearing and low voice and those vivid blue eyes the color of the deepest lake, reached out and plucked the beating heart from Bilbo's chest.
For it was Thorin who had held him close, whispered words of love and adoration and swore to cherish and protect, to watch over the heart and soul that Bilbo gave to him for safekeeping.
For it was Thorin who had promised him the moon in the night and all the stars in the sky. Who promised him forever and ever and eternity beyond.
It was Thorin who told him that he would never be alone.
And it was Thorin who now will never deliver on any of his pretty words or whispered promises.
Bilbo, because he believed and trusted, hates Thorin for that, so much, and his hate is deep and angry and full of despair.
He hates even as he loves and mourns and never, ever forgets.
*
He is older now but not wiser, never wiser.
And one day Bilbo sits before his tiny hearth fire and knows that his time has come, finally.
He stares into the flickering flames as he remembers, and thinks back to when he was younger, brasher, wilder.
To when he called Bag End home, to when he went on an adventure, to when he fell in love.
He remembers slow smiles and warm touches and stolen kisses.
He remembers the feel of Sting in his hands, the scent of a battlefield and the slow curl of blood over Thorin's bruised chest.
He remembers that last inhale, that last exhale.
He remembers Thorin smiling up at him and whispering his name one last time.
Bilbo feels the tears slipping down his cheeks and he closes his eyes, smiling, for the first time in far too long.
"Thorin."
*
And then he never speaks again.
end