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After all this time, it was a hug that nearly did him in. Thorin's acceptance was a balm on his aching soul, but his touch - Bilbo felt something give out, and realized it was his knees.
Thorin held him up for a moment, bewildered and alarmed. "Are you hurt?" he asked, gruff but concerned.
Gandalf drew closer.
"Head...swimming," Bilbo muttered, and was fiercely glad that Thorin did not let him go.
"Master Gandalf?" Bofur prompted.
"Bilbo?" Fili and Kili chorused.
"I think our hobbit should lie down for a moment," Gandalf advised. "Thorin, I don't think he can stand."
Indeed, Bilbo could not, but Thorin eased him down and Fili and Kili had a bedroll waiting to cushion his head on the eagles' rock.
When Thorin started to rise again, Bilbo clung tight to his forearm.
"Mister Baggins?" But Bilbo seemed to be asleep, or unconscious, and yet his grip did not slacken. Thorin was not sure he could pry loose without breaking some of the hobbit's fingers, so he sighed and sat back down.
That was when he saw the strange little mark on the hobbit's wrist. His thumb brushed over the letters, which to him seemed a bold, loose script of Angerthas. Bilbo smiled in his sleep.
At first, Thorin's mind refused to believe what he saw. Then he wondered how the hobbit had hidden it. When could he have gotten a tattoo? And why such a one as this? Surely one of the company must have been involved, because he couldn't imagine the hobbit inking himself thus.
"I first met Bilbo Baggins when he was less than two years old," Gandalf said, suddenly at Thorin's side. "And he had your name on his wrist even then."
"H-how?"
"Apparently it is how hobbits find their soul mate. I saw his mother's mark and thought her husband branded her like cattle, so she showed me the boy's. That was in 2891, when your name was already well known."
"So you have known all this time. Did he have any choice at all to stay in his safe little hole?" Thorin's voice was grim. He wasn't sure what this meant, in the wider context of Bilbo's actions, but he had a few choice words for Gandalf that he was biting back at the moment.
"After Belladonna Baggins revealed the meaning of the marks, I did a little more research. Even had he never met you, Bilbo would have died when you did. But his life would have been lonely, and empty, and without joy. I do not know if his death would end you. I have never heard of another hobbit who was marked with any but a hobbit's name, aside from rumors of a Took running off with an elf, or a Man; the stories are unclear."
"But once we had met?"
"Once you had met, he likely found it painful to be parted from you. I hedged my bet, you might say. Though you did your very best to drive him off, which also hurt him more than you know, you stubborn fool."
Thorin glowered at him but said nothing.
"I imagine he sleeps now because he has been heartsick and finally he may be healing. Fate did him no favors, and I fear I didn't either, but he would have died regardless when you failed to reclaim Erebor, and fail you will, without his aid. My gift of prophecy is small, but I know that much. You may yet fail with him, but you certainly fail without him."
"And how long will he be clinging to me like a limpet?" Thorin huffed.
"You touched him with affection in your heart. He needs that affection sorely, Thorin Oakenshield. While you have had your people surrounding you with love and loyalty your whole long life, though you often ignored them, Bilbo has had only his parents, and even those not for fifteen years. His father died and his mother followed within hours, as is usually the case with hobbits. He has no siblings and even most of his cousins live quite distant from him, by Shire-reckoning. Most hobbits find him queer, and certainly they don't know how to react to a fifty year old who has such a strange name on his wrist and no companion in his home."
Thorin covered the small, pale hand with his own, and the grip relaxed a little.
"What am I supposed to tell the others?"
"That has hardly been a concern for you before," Gandalf grumbled. "Tell them nothing, tell them all! You should speak to Bilbo before you let it be any known to them, though. He had his reasons for concealing this mark, and he deserves that much consideration from you." The Wizard went off to smoke, and Thorin looked down at his strange little hobbit.
His. Yes, definitely his; he could not think of Bilbo any other way now, knowing his name was permanently branded on the hobbit's skin. A pretty little thing, his Bilbo Baggins, but ill-used by his fellow halflings and hurt further by Thorin's callousness. He could only end one of those hurts personally, but with Erebor reclaimed, his halfling need not return to that big, empty hole. And if he was not in the Shire, then there would be no other hobbits to shun him.
Thorin's people would know better. Love was not easy for their kind; it came but once and it did not wane. To have a halfling rule by his side would be unexpected, but his succession was already assured by his sister-sons. No one would make comment, or Thorin would have their tongues.
Bilbo shifted in his sleep and Thorin risked moving him, pulling his hobbit into his lap and stroking his hair. The grip on his arm relaxed further. Thorin began to braid his hobbit's hair, many little braids that followed those flaxen, riotous curls. Now that he was noticing such things, he admired the soft curls and their many shades - from burnished gold to wheat-brown.
His hobbit. His, his, his. It had been such a very long time since Thorin had any real tangible objects of status. A crownless king, with heirs but no throne and little fortune to leave behind (most of it was being spent on this expedition). Bilbo carried Thorin's name on his skin for fifty years, unknowing. Here was treasure that fate had claimed for him, his future pinned on a dainty little wrist, the hand he would take in marriage and the rest he would take in bed.