Morgue Files

At some point, Balin is going to stop favoring Thorin with an indulgent smile every time Bilbo's requests for an escort home are denied.

The first months had felt almost as bleak as the journey and battle with Smaug and the five armies, in the fast-rushing winter and husk of Erebor, decaying from neglect and the worm's mistreatment. All the gold that had seemed so important he'd threatened to throw their burglar from the wall were cold comfort — literally — in the fearsome blizzards, and within weeks huge piles of gold coins had been melted down to make more practical things until wood and other materials could be easily had. The stupidity of a gold bed will never quite leave Thorin.

And he'd spent too long on it, healing slowly and waiting for his guts to finish knitting, resenting the smell of coal smoke on Bilbo's hair and clothes as she tended to him and the rest of their company, the dwarves that had made the journey from the Blue Mountains before the storms. She'd brought him news of Fili and Kili's progress, of the joy his dwarves seemed to be taking even in exhausting labor.

She'd never have left them, with the apologies between them still so tender and pink, like new skin. And besides, what would the mountain have done without one steady, female head to order all the male ones around? An accusing raven had alighted at the mountain just weeks after the retaking of Erebor with a note from Dis, saying she was choosing wisdom over her heart and staying in Ered Luin until spring, whereupon she would rally the population and arrive in full force with people and supplies.

But even when the snow had stopped, it was obvious Bilbo could not leave, since the dwarves that had come with Thorin on his mad quest knew next to nothing of farming. Erebor and Ered Luin relied on trade for their meals, and Bilbo had taken one look at the dwarves' plans for the planting season and made a noise of pure despair.

"How have you not starved?" she'd asked.

Dwalin, sullen, had argued, "We can hunt, lass."

"Oh, yes, on your giant rock face," Bilbo had retorted, with absolutely no respect for the dignity and magnificence of the Lonely Mountain. Had Thorin the ability to sit upright for longer than 15 minutes at a time, he would have shouted at her mightily. As it was, he groaned:

"Burglar, stop berating us and render aid."

And so she stayed then, through the slow drip-drip-drip of winter melting away into spring, till the mountain's rivers flowed merrily downhill, toward the long-neglected farm terraces that had once stocked the larders and kitchens of the royal house for marvelous feasts. The soil had rested all these hundreds of long years, fallow and still enjoying the irrigation systems from generations past, and Bilbo said that in spite of the holy mess of overgrowth and brambles, the earth was good — dark and abundant — and she sent Nori on a quest for seed cuttings and seedling and other plant-related things.

Dis arrived, eventually, with nearly 300 dwarves, rations and mead for many hundred more, and a bellyful of rage for Thorin.

Bilbo — who had sat through Oin stitching Thorin's stomach closed with ugly black thread, through the fevers and vomiting and had played nursemaid despite Thorin's pleas for her to leave him with some measure of dignity — had taken one look at the thunder of Dis's face, and excused herself to the garden.

Never let it be said that femaleness was sufficient guard against all the stupidity of the Durin line, because despite Dis's terrified love for him, it did not stop her from engaging Thorin in a bellowing match so violent he ended up popping two stitches.

In punishment, Oin had bade Dis to stay for the repair work and skimped on the whiskey for Thorin. All in all, a terrible day to welcome in the first green shoots of springtime, creeping up from the dark loam into Bilbo's overjoyed hands.

"There will be carrots and potatoes and turnips," she'd informed him, pleased with herself and flushed from sun. She'd conscripted three dozen dwarves to help with the planting, but was all too happy to spend all day out of doors, tending to green shoots and explaining why she was growing kale of all infernal things. "We'll have to trade for flour and sugar, and there'll be no fruit for ages, but between this and the dry goods your sister brought, your next winter should be a comfortable one."

She'd seemed happy enough, conspiring with Dis over female things ("Terrifying," Dwalin had reported, loyally bringing Thorin another flagon of mead and news on the refitting of the mines), hanging bows of sage and rosemary in his chambers, and weaving rush mats for the floors to guard against the cold of the stone.

So it was a hugely irritating surprise when summer began encroaching on the mountain, the heat swelling the rivers and pooling into quarry lakes heaving with half-naked dwarflings, that Bilbo began agitating to leave.

"Do you not want to sample the spoils of your toil?" Thorin had asked, leaning heavily upon a wooden staff, inlaid with mother of pearl and silver in the twisting, evil vines of Mirkwood. There was a coral dragon, curled in submission, where Thorin's hand gripped the thing, its eyes black onyx, forever crushed in his grip. It was Bifur's make, nowhere near as fine as some objects in the vaults — thankfully unmolested by the worm — but beyond price, a relic and a reminder of how he'd arrived here.

Bilbo had only flushed, nervous, and stammered, "I — I have things to tend to at Bag End, in Hobbiton, I'll have you know!" Recovering somewhat, she added, saucy and insubordinate as all members of his Company seemed intent to be forevermore: "And anyway, I have already seen a dwarf king recumbent upon a golden bed — what more could a simple Hobbit need to see?"

"Thorin would be unbearable without you," Dis had told her, the same time Thorin had said, "I'm having that blasted thing melted down tomorrow."

By pretending to have forgotten her requests and dispatching his sister-sons to make undignified, pleading demands of her, Thorin managed to delay Bilbo's requests another month, until the heat of summer felt imminent, the sky crisp blue overhead and clouds florid, with more dwarves arriving by the day to Erebor's gates.

By rights, Dis ought to have been the chatelaine of Erebor, and she did her duty to the mountain: helping manage the repairs and keeping a firm grip on domestic affairs. But it was Bilbo who had taken on the labor of feeding their residents, of spending hours with the Weavers Guild and the Tinkerers Guild and the Jewelers Guild, for while she knew little of dwarvish politics and royal protocol, she was a practical creature and knew everything there was to know about running a household — granted, a very large one — as every hobbitess is taught from a young age.

In June, when it is hot enough that Bilbo only dares walk barefoot inside the mountain, along cool stone and polished tile, she will have no more of Thorin's avoidance.

"Even with an escort and opened roads, even with the assistance of the eagles for part of the journey, it will take me nearly five weeks to reach The Shire," she scolds him, completely without regard for Thorin's kingly dignity.

Truthfully, since returning to the mountain, there's been no such thing as kingly dignity in his own chambers, a reality Thorin is well resigned to.

"Are you so desperate to leave us, then?" he asks, gruffer than he means to, and he can't look at her in the silence afterward, training his eyes to the mithril buckle he's been working on for days, since he'd found her wincing, applying an ointment to her toes.

Bilbo is soft as she replies, "I cannot stay forever, Thorin."

Ridiculous. As ridiculous as all the other protestations Thorin has ignored through the years: you cannot hope to keep your people together; you cannot possibly work for men; you cannot take back the Lonely Mountain. Thorin cannot bring back his brother or his father and he could not save his his grandfather from gold madness, but he can lock away the Arkenstone and he can keep a bloody burglar.

"This is your home, now," he says. "You've more than earned a place here."

He hazards a look up this time, to see Bilbo's face rosy and shy, eyes bright with something he hasn't seen before. In the long months of their journey and her long months here, her short curls have grown out into luxurious waves, trailing burnished gold along the pink curve of her neck, down the line of her back, a tendril nestled between her breasts. Some wretched dwarf — Thorin assumes this is Kili's doing — has plaited a jadeite bead into her hair, for purity, banked in by narrower beads of silver and lapis lazuli, the colors of the House of Durin. Thorin wonders if Bilbo knows at all that his fool nephews have her walking around tarted up as his intended; Thorin wonders why he noticed this days ago and has said nothing about it.

She bites the lush curve of her lower lip, and Thorin makes a note to forbid her from doing that in front of anyone else ever again.

"I — if I stay, there are...you'll need to take responsibility, Thorin," she says finally, choosing her words carefully, but she doesn't sound angry with him or resigned or even angry. She sounds hopeful. It's a delicate thing, blooming across her face like one of her blasted peonies: a fragile pink.

Thorin has long taken responsibility for his family and carries the weight of the mountain on his shoulders. He is strong and made to endure as all dwarves are, and he is not frightened of her, only frightened for her, for himself if she were to leave him. He can lead his men into battle and his people home, but he would not like to call any mountain such if she were not there, too. He knows these things, but does not know how to say them; his poetry and confessions are in his craft.

So he stops fretting over the minute imperfections, and lays the sandals in her lap instead: they're of the softest leader, fawn colored, straps festooned with a pattern of emeralds and quartz crystal, mithril buckles to press against the bone of her ankle, worked until the curves are perfect, and perfectly soft.

Her eyes grow round like the moon. "Thorin," she breathes out, shaking.

How she can be surprised by this, he has no idea. He's been sitting at her feet for an hour now — since she'd burst into his private quarters all ruffled complaints and settled in the armchair by his hearth as if she had a right to it — in his shirtsleeves, an array of jeweler's tools spread out around him. In the whole of the Lonely Mountain only Fili, Kili and Dis otherwise would be allowed this. To the other dwarves, he is King Under the Mountain. To Bilbo, he hopes he is only ever Thorin.

"Stay," he implores her, as much as he knows how to. "Forever, even."

She does that thing women do: she laughs — sparkling — and she cries a little, too, rubbing at her eyes at her narrow fingers. "You're so ridiculous — you don't even know what you're agreeing to."

"So you'll tell me," he says, and closes a rough hand around her naked ankle. "And I will agree to it, still."

Bilbo's eyes are shining, her face lovely and near enough to kiss, and Thorin feels the way he had the first time he saw the Arkenstone: wordless, enraptured.

And then Dwalin starts banging on his chamber door, shouting:

"Oy — Dain's here."

***

Dain's arrival is just the first indignity Thorin is forced to endure.

His presence heralds the beginning of the second phase of lengthy, long-planned trade talks, which have ever always been the only way to semaphore peace talks between dwarves and elves. There are two days of Thorin being forced to escort Dain hither and yon to make admiring noises about the mines — concealing the recently discovered veins of mithril and gold, naturally — before Thranduil and his phalanx of weed eaters arrives, and Thorin's mood during the endless hours of this evolves from "understandably cross" to "near catatonic with murderousness."

Somehow even worse than the unending talks with Thranduil about dividing responsibility for security and maintenance of watchtowers along shared borders and major trade routes is knowing that while Thorin is trapped with elves, Bilbo is playing hostess.

There is an animal part of Thorin that finds this pleasing, that she is taking ownership of this mountain — his mountain — their mountain in such a visible, meaningful way. She's already such a part of the fabric of the reclaimed Erebor, it is only fitting and right that she ought to be the one to play escort and guide to visiting dignitaries. Thorin hopes that with further appropriately gruff admissions of emotion and excessive application of emeralds, he'll be able to scam her into wearing a crown. Everything is as it should be.

Except.

Except for how even as a dwarfling Thorin was painfully aware that it was recognized among kingdoms that Dain was the handsome, gregarious one, and Thorin had perfected his off-putting scowl at the tender age of fifteen. He may be a king under a mountain once more — desiccated dragon shit aside — but Dain has his own mountain, and also persists on greeting Bilbo with a deep bow and a lavish kiss to her pink hand each morning when she collects him.

"Good morning, Mistress Baggins," Dain always says, while Kili makes a gagging noise behind him and Dori's mouth folds down like wrinkled shoe leather.

Bilbo, gifted at ignoring dwarves by now, always goes bright pink like her stupid beloved flowers, and giggles, "Your highness!"

Thorin's not so foolish that he'd doubt Bilbo's favor — even as she's blushing, she's wearing the sandals he made for her, after all — but he spends a lot of time making what Fili calls "orc noises" in the moments following these encounters.

"Time was," Dwalin says nostalgically, "we cloistered our women."

"Time was dwarvish women rose up and carried out a coup against their misguided husbands and brothers, and painted scarlet a sacred cavern in the heart of Belegost with their greedy blood," Dis replies sweetly.

Dwalin turns an alarmed look at Thorin, as if Dis is his fault or something.

"I don't want her cloistered," Thorin growls, because it's utterly pointless to pretend they're not spending the minutes immediately after a tense series of negotiations with the elvish representatives gossiping like ninnies, "I want everyone else cloistered."

His sister pats his face affectionately. "And that is why I have not yet drawn up a rebellion and painted a sacred cave in Erebor with the greedy blood of husbands and brothers, dearest."

The expression on Dwalin's face is beyond description: a tortured mix of fear and arousal.

Perhaps the only reason Thorin doesn't goad his sister into starting a massacre, just so he can have an excuse to do some well-deserved beheading, is that each night, it is not a member of the kitchen staff that arrives with his evening meal, but Bilbo.

He'd tried explaining to her that despite rough living on their trek and in their past years, as more residents of Erebor return, among them will be the still-loyal household staff of the royal family. Fetching and carrying is beneath her, Thorin has said, and Bilbo had rolled her marvelous eyes at him as if the entire business of kingship was baffling and unnecessary, and launched into a long monologue on her day.

Bilbo is a better and more reliable gauge of the progress of Erebor's rebuilding than almost anybody else in the mountain. Balin may generate reports  and have council with the returning guild masters, and Nori may dart among the fingersmiths, but it's Bilbo who goes to the small markets that have sprung up each day, gets drawn into the petty disagreements and small celebrations of Thorin's people.

There are reunited families to shed happy tears over, and the promise of a new baby to cuddle in a few months — "You'll need to find a midwife somewhere, Thorin," she lectures him, reaching for another piece of seed cake, "Oin is very good I'm sure but every woman wants at least one other female to be looking up her skirts during these things." — and problems with insufficient wells in one of the recently reopened districts, a wood fortification that's showing signs of rot.

"I'll send a crew of engineers to take a look tomorrow, first thing," Thorin decides, and snatches the last seed cake off the plate before Bilbo can grab it. Hobbits are generous with portions but vicious with desserts. He frowns, reflexive, and asks, "And Dain?"

Bilbo's smile is too soft and fond by half, as if she knows things about this question.

"Dain is as chatty as ever, and very curious about the fortification work being undertaken," she answers him, laughing. "I do genuinely believe he wants to help."

"It's delayed guilt," Thorin complains. "For refusing to help retake the mountain."

"Well Dain is apparently very afraid of dragons, so I'm not sure how helpful he would have been anyway," Bilbo teases, and reaches over to tug on one of Thorin's braids: he'd plaited it into his beard in wonder that morning, realizing he no longer needed to mourn the way he had, that he could allow it to grow out once more. "And you need to stop being such a bear around him."

Thorin collects her hand into his own, which is making this discussion about Dain marginally more bearable. "He smiles a great deal," he mutters. "Mostly at you."

"And I smile a great deal, mostly at you," Bilbo retorts, still laughing at him, but she condescends to lean in close enough so that their foreheads are pressed together and he can feel the soft warmth of her skin, the soft cornsilk of her curls. Much more shyly, she continues, "After all — you — you did promise to take responsibility for me this late summer."

"I intend to take responsibility for you for always," Thorin rumbles, reflexive, because he does. She's the most irritating creature alive; if he doesn't afflict himself with her, then surely some other fool dwarf with a greed for treasure will.

Bilbo sighs, and it's a sound of shy happiness. "Thank you."

And because it is as true today as it was 150 years ago that Dain is the handsome, gregarious one, Thorin says, "Stop smiling at Dain," in reply.

But it must be perfect for mad hobbits, anyway, because it makes Bilbo laugh and press adoring kisses to his cheeks, ghost one shy one over his mouth, and Thorin's trying to recall if his lessons in diplomacy had ever enlightened him on the habits of hobbits on the subject of premarital sex when Kili tumbles into his chambers — shouting nonsense with his tunic on fire.