She stood in a barren wasteland in the midst of a starless night. Around her a violent wind blew, bringing with it a deep cold.

In the far off distance she could make out the barest flicker of a light. At first she thought it was a star but then realized it was shades of red and orange instead of brilliant white.

A fire.

A strange muttering reached her ears. She cast about for its source and soon realized it came from near her feet.

She looked and saw a bright spark winking near her right foot.

It was WHISPERING.

Fear gripped her, though she didn't know why. She looked up and knew, without a doubt, the spark was calling to the fire.

And she knew just as surely it was vitally important the fire never heard.

Too late.

The fire was coming, growing larger and larger.

She fell to the ground, throwing her body over the spark.

A roar and cracking thrummed through the air. Intense heat washed over her, blistering her skin. White hot agony ripped through her and she screamed. She looked up and felt as though her eyes would melt out of her skull.

A massive wheel of fire stood almost directly on top of her. In the center an area of deepest black seemed to bore into her very soul.

I SEE YOU .

She shrieked again turning to throw herself back over the spark.

Only now the spark was gone.

Instead she found herself lying across a prone body. Her hands met a chest and then fell IN. Wetness spread across her arms and chest, slippery, soft objects bumping across her hands.

She gagged, struggling back, and automatically looked up toward the head.

Dead eyes gazed at her in horror, a mouth open in a scream that could no longer be heard.

Thorin.

She screamed, sobbing and scrambled backward, only to trip across another form.

She raised her eyes, trembling, and the ground around her was no long empty.

In a spiraling arc, with her as the center point, lay the sprawled corpses of her friends.

She spotted Kili, his eyes fixed over his head and Fili flung over him as though he'd died trying to protect him.

The Ri brothers, or what was left of them, Balin collapsed near his own brother.

The rest.

Even Gandalf, seated with his back against something she couldn't make out in the dark, his eyes open and sightless.

She screamed again, the sound closer to that of a wounded animal than a person.

Overhead the fire laughed and drew closer, the heat so intense she felt she would disintegrate before it.

Without warning a brilliant, blistering white light flooded the scene.

The fire and the whispering both paused.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes, gazing behind her to a point in the distance the light seemed to emanate from.

Two forms strode forth.

As they drew nearer she made out the shine of armor, the glint off the swords both carried. They walked with the easy cocksure gait of the young, those who had not yet realized they could die. One of them walked slightly in front of the other, protective, and, for a second, she thought she was looking at Fili and Kili.

Then her eyes went back to the bodies around her, to where Fili and Kili lay still and unmoving.

The two from the light were nearer now. The one in front stepped up confidently, raising his sword to meet the fire head on. She studied his back, slimmer than Fili or Kili, up to his hair, several shades lighter than Kili's dark locks.

The second figure knelt beside her. His features were shrouded in shadow, hidden from her no matter how hard she strained to see.

He held a hand out and, somehow, though she couldn't see him, she knew he was smiling in reassurance.

Warmth flooded her, the fear receding. Around her the scene faded, the bodies drifting apart and vanishing like smoke. The spark stopped its whispering and the wheel of fire faded with a roar of rage.

The wind fell silent.

She held her hand out, no longer covered in gore, and the figure grabbed it and pulled her easily to her feet.

The first figure turned from where he had faced the fire. She couldn't see his face either and felt sorrow at being unable to identify her saviors.

He reached out, a hand coming to gently caress her face.

"It doesn't have to be this way."

"I don't understand," she whispered, even as she lifted her hand to cover his. "How do I change it?"

Movement and the figure who'd helped her up leaned in close to her ear. She could feel his lips moving but couldn't make out what he said.

He moved away.

"Wait," She said, stepping forward. "I didn't hear you!"

Both of them were leaving now, striding back into the light.

A voice sounded.

It's time to wake up.

"No!" She shouted. "I didn't hear you! Wait!"

Wake up.

"Please! Come back! I didn't hear!"

Bilba.

"Come back!"

"Wake up."

Bilba's eyes snapped open and she gasped, her back arching to suck in oxygen.

Already the dream was fading and she frantically tried to get it back. It felt like grasping at fog, the shreds slipping through her grip as quickly as she tried to grab them.

A shadow leaned over her.

"Easy, Lass, you're safe now."

Bilba's eyes locked onto the shadow and she found herself looking at the tired and battered but ALIVE face of Dwalin.

Her lower lip began to tremble.

She lifted a hand but hesitated before touching him, afraid he would simply vanish.

He reached out and grabbed her hand, his grip warm and very real.

The dam broke.

Bilba lunged, finding the strength from somewhere, and physically tackled him. Off balance as he was kneeling beside her the unexpected attack sent him flying backward.

One arm closed around her, shielding her, and then he was lying flat on his back with her on top of him, hugging him as hard as possible while tears tracked unchecked down her face.

Laughter caught her attention and she lifted her head and, for a moment, truly believed she'd died and gone to the afterlife.

Because there was Balin, worn and leaning on a makeshift crutch.

There were Dori, Nori and Ori, sporting cuts and scratches, missing their armor and weapons.

There was Bombur, favoring an arm, Bifur with a large gash across his face and Bofur missing his hat.

There were Oin and Gloin, bruised and gathered around Thorin where he still lay unconscious on the ground.

There was Kili, uninjured, attempting to fix his broken bow. Over him stood Fili, his expression amused as he watched his brother curse and struggle to put the pieces back together.

Things kind of turned into a blur after that.

Bilba couldn't seem to stop crying no matter what she did.

She also couldn't seem to stop hugging dwarves.

It didn't matter who it was, the second they got into range she latched onto them. Some of them, like Nori or the Pretty Twins, grabbed her back and swung her through the air. Others like Dwalin or Gloin hugged her back awkwardly and carefully while others, like Dori or Bofur, hugged her back easily like a long lost friend found again.

Eventually Bilba found herself happily settled on Kili's lap listening to his heartbeat while she watched the others move about the clearing. They couldn't move until Thorin woke up so the others were burning the orc and warg corpses and wasn't THAT a smell she never wanted to experience again?

Over her head Kili was giving a desperate look for help to his brother, who was pointedly ignoring him. After all Kili had only wound up in the position, for the last hour and a half, after coming over to save his brother from a similar fate.

It was his own fault, Bilba decided, for getting in range.

Across the clearing she saw Dwalin speaking to a tall man cloaked in brown. When she'd first caught sight of him shortly after waking up she'd assumed Gandalf had come back and decided on a new favorite color in the meantime.

Now, however, as she studied him closer she could see she was wrong. The man was shorter than Gandalf and leaner, his hair and his beard had more brown than gray. He wore the same robes and hat as Gandalf, leading to her confusion, but they were a deep brown color. He also carried a staff but it too was different, thicker and carved with images of animals and plants, topped with a green crystal.

"Who is that?"

"Radagast the Brown," Kili answered. "He says Gandalf sent him, he's the reason Dwalin, Nori, Ori and Dori made it out of the goblin caves."

Bilba leaned her head back to stare up at him. "How did you make it?"

Kili grinned at her. "Because we're dwarves of course! It would take a lot more than that fall to kill us!"

He sounded like his uncle. His stupid, stupid, stupid uncle who would be getting an earful the second he woke up. She had a vague impulse to slap Kili in an effort to knock Thorin's clearly bad influence out of him but managed to restrain herself.

Someone snorted and she looked to see Fili dropping beside her. She happily transferred from Kili to Fili, allowing the former to get up and try to regain feeling in his legs.

"What he means to say," Fili said dryly, "is the giant didn't break apart on impact. We were thrown when it hit but the fall wasn't far and there were no large boulders or debris to worry about. It looked far worse than it was."

Bilba shuddered; she knew how bad it looked.

Fili's arms tightened around her. "Kili lost his bow in the fall and my jacket was torn. Azog and the rest were apparently traveling along the valley floor; they must have come upon it later and picked them up."

"They didn't catch you though," Bilba asked.

Fili's jaw tightened. "They did. We came up, hoping to find the rest of you. We ran into Dwalin, and the others on the way down. They said they'd been separated from you. We planned to wait but, about that time, we heard the wargs coming up behind us."

Bilba tensed, her eyes going to the burning pile. No one had asked her what happened or where Azog was for which she was grateful. She didn't really feel like reliving it at the moment.

Kili took over at that part in the story, explaining how they'd been chased to the edge of a cliff, the very one Bilba had noted as being the start point for the fire. Radagast had apparently done that, taking them up trees and lighting pinecones on fire to throw at the orcs and wargs.

Then Azog had shown up, demanding Thorin. Several of them had been forced to physically hold Dwalin back from charging the orc. Azog in turn had sent his wargs against the trees, uprooting several and forcing the dwarves into one tree at the very edge of the cliff.

It too had begun to fall leading to Radagast summoning his friends, the eagles, to save them from the brink.

"Eagles?" Bilba said, interrupting them. "There were eagles and I missed them?"

Kili rolled his eyes. "Of course that's what you latch onto."

Fili took over. "Anyway, they took us off the cliff but we begged them to bring us back. None of us wanted to leave without you."

"As far as any of you knew we were dead," Bilba said in confusion.

"We didn't care," Fili said. "Dwalin was ready to tear the mountain apart stone by stone to find the pair of you."

To find THORIN no doubt, Bilba thought. Had it just been her she highly doubted they would have come back.

"The eagles took us far enough that they could circle back and put us down again without the orcs noticing," Fili continued. "Once they did we started searching. Eventually we heard you screaming and you know the rest."

Bilba nodded, remembering the voice in her head. Whatever it had been it had been right, they hadn't left.

"What about you?" Kili asked. "Dwalin said you and Thorin were lost once you fell into the goblin caves."

Bilba opened her mouth to reply and immediately closed it again as the memories from the tunnels rushed in. Her face heated and she looked down quickly to hide it. She started to try and talk again, certain her stammering and stuttering would give her embarrassment away, but didn't get the chance as a roar echoed across the clearing.

Bilba felt her heart jump and jerked around to see Thorin, awake and fighting frantically against the arms trying to hold him down and calm him. Even from that distance Bilba could see his eyes were dazed and unfocused.

"Idiot," she muttered, "that's what happens when you jump face first into a mace."

Fili looked down at her in shock. "He did WHAT?"

Bilba didn't answer. Instead she scrambled off his lap and half ran, half limped over to his royal highness in exile, Thorin Oakendumb.

Pushing aside Dwalin and Gloin she ducked Thorin's flailing arms, plopped right down on his lap and grabbed his braids in her hands, forcing him to look at her.

"THORIN!"

He twitched and then stilled.

Bilba sighed, her annoyance going up.

"Snap out of it," she ordered, "I need to yell at you and I can't do it when your brain is scrambled!"

He blinked, awareness returning slowly. His eye focused on her sluggishly but then sharpened.

"Bilba?"

"That's right," Bilba said. "Want to tell me what the whole 'jumping into Azog's arms' thing was about? You two have a different relationship than the one I thought you had?"

Over her shoulder Nori and Gloin suddenly had mysterious coughing fits while Dwalin growled, "he did WHAT?"

Thorin looked at them. A look passed over his face for a split second that was so...LOST it instantly made Bilba's anger fade, replaced with the urge to hug the stubborn, suicidal ass.

Okay, the look MOSTLY made her anger fade.

"I think," Thorin said slowly, "I must have been struck harder than I thought. My eyes cheat me. That or I still dream."

Bilba smiled at him. "I've begun to believe you have so hard a head that nothing could get through to it."

Then she leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

"I'm still angry at you and I owe you a good dressing down for being an idiot and letting a stupid orc get to you but, for now, I'll tell you this. You are not dreaming. Welcome back, Your Majesty."

She got up and stepped away as Dwalin and Gloin moved in to help him get up.

Then the rest of the Company was gathering around him and Thorin simply stared at them, a look of almost childlike wonder in his eyes.

Then the hugging started.

He didn't sit on anybody's lap but Bilba had a feeling that, if he'd had the materials on him, he'd have created chains and tied the lot of them to him the rest of their lives if he could.

Arms slid around her waist from the back and Bilba stiffened, her mind flashing to the orc grabbing her and throwing her.

Then she dropped her head back and saw Nori looming over her. She relaxed, leaning into him. His arms slid tighter around her and he rested his chin on her head, something she allowed ONLY because he'd been kind enough to not be dead.

A different voice spoke. "You must be Miss Baggins. I have heard much about you."

Radagast drew up next to her, watching the others crowd around Thorin.

"I can only imagine what you've heard," Bilba said dryly.

Radagast chuckled. From the group, Dwalin suddenly gestured for him and the wizard headed over. She saw Dwalin talking, gesturing toward Radagast and then saw Thorin bow low before him, before grabbing his arm and thanking him.

"There's something I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see," Nori said. "Our king bowing before someone else."

"That's only because you didn't see him when he thought he'd lost everything," Bilba said. "He thought he'd be exiled."

"Exiled?" Nori said in surprise. He was quiet for a few moments. "I suppose it could be possible. This quest wasn't exactly sanctioned; it was given as more of a challenge."

In the group Bilba could now see Thorin casting looks in their direction. She sighed and untangled herself from Nori, nudging him over.

"Go on, can't you see he wants to see you?"

Nori gave her an amused look. "Is that what he wants?"

He walked over without further comment and Bilba watched them go.

Thorin was happy, happier than she could remember seeing him in the time she'd known him. The years added in the caverns had melted away and already he stood straighter, if gingerly in deference to his injuries, his head held high.

Pain lanced through her heart and Bilba resolutely pushed it aside, lifting her own head high.

Thorin had offered courtship out of obligation and a belief that he had nothing left. Now that he had everything back she had no doubt he'd be rescinding that offer. He was a King after all and Kings did not marry commoners, particularly those outside of their own species who had nothing special of their own to offer back.

He'd never said he loved her, never made any promises and she had no right to expect any.

Her eyes burned but she took a deep breath and drove her nails into her palms, using the pain to ground herself.

She had NO right or cause to feel sorry for herself. By some miracle the Valar had seen fit to give her back the second family she thought she'd lost. She'd been given back the world; she had no right to expect even more.

Sunlight sparked off something in the grass, catching her eye and she stepped over to see the ring lying there winking up at her merrily.

For a brief second cold clutched at her and the world seemed to grow dark.

Then it was past and she frowned, dropping to one knee to pick it up. She studied it, turning it in her hand.

It glittered under the rays of the sun, quiet in her palm.

It was just a ring.

And a useful one at that. Without it she had no doubt she and Thorin would both be dead.

She stood and pocketed it, putting it out of her mind.

She turned, and shrieked as Fili was suddenly there, grabbing her and casually throwing her over one shoulder.

"What are you doing all the way over here?" He said, turning back to the group. "Did you suddenly become anti-social while we were gone?"

"Fili!" Bilba shouted, laughing as she half-heartedly pounded on his back. "I am not a sack of potatoes!"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered and then proceeded to ignore her. "Come on, be friends and join the group."

Bilba laughed and allowed him to carry her back to the rest.