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Balin was not as old as he looked, though sometimes he felt that old, or older. Sometimes he wished he were older, for then, after the manner of Dwarves, he would be tougher, harder, stronger, to endure the blows of an uncaring world. Alas he was not, and some blows were no respecter of age or hardihood in any case. Blows such as this. Any of them might fall — it was near a miracle that none had yet — but that Thorin should fall before ever seeing the Mountain again, no. Unthinkable. (Oh, Balin understood why Thorin would charge Azog with nothing but the force of his fury and the Elvish blade he wielded as if it had been Made for him. Understood, and followed the moment he could win free of the pine-branches, as had all the rest, but knowing too well the most likely outcome. Watched in horror as his fears were apparently realized. Bilbo running to Thorin's defense he had not at all expected.) Yet the chief of the Eagles had caught Thorin up out of the fire and fray, laid him gently on this great spire of rock. There was yet a spark of hope. Gandalf was busy over him, muttering and making gestures of power and significance. Balin laid a restraining hand on Fíli's arm to stop his impetuous rush toward his uncle, and let him go with a relieved breath of his own as Thorin stirred under the Wizard's ministrations.
Then of course the great lump of granite had to go about apologizing to Bilbo in nearly as heart-stopping a fashion as he had faced Azog, and Balin could feel the whole Company holding their breath once more. But it was that heart, that ferocious care for those who followed him, however expressed, that formed the core of why they did follow him. When Thorin was wrong, he worked to make it right.
And it was right. There, sharp and gleaming in the brightening dawn was the Mountain, their Mountain, their home, still arduously distant, and Balin did not doubt ravaged and occupied by the dragon. Thorin had led them this far. They might manage to do this thing after all.