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1. Bilbo couldn’t say he’d known the moment he first set eyes on Thorin because that wouldn’t be true. The night had been too chaotic and Bilbo too angry at Gandalf and the party of Dwarves that had invaded his home and eaten his food for him to realize. No, it wasn’t until he woke up the following morning to a house that showed almost no sign that the night before had happened and a hollow ache in his chest longing for something he’d never had that it dawned on him.
You see, Hobbits were sensitive creatures, as in tune with themselves as they were with the earth. Sure, having a soulmark was a way to prove the bond, but rarely was it truly necessary. There was a pull between soulmates, and it was that very pull that sent Bilbo flying out of his house and across the countryside to catch up with the party of dwarves. And if Gandalf had a knowing smirk on his face? Well, Bilbo was just going to pretend he hadn’t seen it.
2. Being so thoroughly rejected by one’s soulmate, no matter that said soulmate was as dense as a Troll and hadn’t so much as acknowledged the bond, stung worse than nettles ever could. Bilbo had heard Thorin loud and clear though: he wasn’t wanted or welcome or even so much as useful and would do best to turn his hairy feet right back around to the Shire where he belonged. He would have done just that had the ground not opened up beneath them all and sent them tumbling into a den of Goblins - really, first Trolls and then Goblins and then playing a game of riddles for his very life. The things Bilbo was willing to suffer for the sake of Thorin Oakenshield.
All of it loudly unappreciated too. He couldn’t deny the temptation to leave the ring on and simply sneak his way back to the Shire when Thorin proclaimed him gone for good; what was the point of hanging around where he was neither wanted nor believed to be loyal enough to see them in good health before he left. But there was a heaviness to the words Thorin spat and a downward slope to his shoulders that told Bilbo far more than words ever could. And so he slipped the ring off and made a pretty speech about helping them reclaim their home. It wasn’t the whole truth, sure, but it wasn’t a lie either. He really did feel for their plight, and considered many of them friends. Even Thorin, dense as he was.
3. If you asked him when he went from being a Hobbit from the Shire who missed the comforts of home, to being comfortable holding a sword in hand and sleeping under the stars with a company of snoring dwarves, Bilbo would say that it was when the orcs hunted them down only moments after they’d escaped the clutches of the goblins. He wasn’t entirely sure what had come over him, but seeing Thorin lie there, seeing him give up on everything he’d stood for and lead them to, snapped something in Bilbo and he went flying at the orc that dared to try and take his soulmate from him.
Never let it be said that Hobbits, docile as they might seem on first glance, didn’t protect their own, even if they were going to be yelled at for it by an ungrateful and prideful wretch of a dwarf with less brain cells than the trolls that listened to their intended meal on how to best cook said meal. But, well, maybe Thorin wasn’t such an ungrateful wretch as all that. His embrace left something warm in Bilbo’s chest that burned for hours more.
4. To say Bilbo was worried would be an understatement. He was terrified of everything he’d watched Thorin become ever since he’d freed them from the Mirkwood Elves. He was furious at his soulmate for disregarding everything he’d stood for. But mostly, he was hurt that he wasn’t enough. He wasn’t enough to pull him out of the dragon sickness, to remind him of who he was and why he was there. Really, it was foolish to think that he would be. Their bond wasn’t even truly acknowledged. It’d never been given time to grow, never been nurtured and now it likely never would. One of the many fires Smaug had set alight in the mountain had caught and burned away half of the mark that sat across Bilbo’s ribcage.
He watched sadly as Balin bound his ribs in salve and wide swaths of cloth, and listened in even deeper sorrow as the old Dwarf explained that no, the Arkenstone wouldn’t make it better and would in fact likely make it all worse. The whole situation would be hopeless if someone couldn’t shake some sense into Thorin and bring back the Dwarf that Bilbo had known was his soulmate when he woke up alone that first morning wishing for the company of someone he hardly knew. He had to do something.
So he did.
And it still wasn’t enough.
5. Bilbo wondered if Bofur had a second sense for when he was about to sneak away. It was the third time the Dwarf had caught him in the act of slipping away unnoticed, or not so unnoticed as it were, and let him go. Of course, the first two times, he’d come back. But such would not be the case this time, and he embraced his friend warmly for the last time before he slipped away. He’d stayed just long enough to see that Thorin would survive the wounds that Azog had inflicted and to heal from his own before he made the journey back to the Shire, where he really belonged. He’d seen how Thorin’s mark matched his own, even in it’s marring, now half gone thanks to the pale orc. Perhaps it was a sign that their bond was no longer meant to be. Or maybe it never was meant to be a permanent bond, and Bilbo was only supposed to be around just long enough to see the Lonely Mountain reclaimed.
He may have been well used to the pains of travelling and sleeping on the road, but sleep no longer came to him more often than not, and when it did he was plagued by the horrors he’d witnessed in the long year he’d been away. Of the many things that Gandalf had been wrong about, that Bilbo wasn’t the same Hobbit who’d left the Shire wasn’t one of them. Even long after he’d returned to his home and reclaimed most of the things his neighbors had made off with, even when his pantry was full and he was free to eat all the meals a hobbit was supposed to enjoy, something remained unsettled in Bilbo. The nightmares continued and the gnawing emptiness in his chest left him without an appetite more days than not. But perhaps this was just the life that he’d have to resign himself too. Perhaps it was proof that Hobbits were not meant for adventures afterall.
+ 1. It’d been months and really Bilbo wasn’t any less tired than he’d been after the last battle against the orcs. Sure, they’d won, but at what cost? And had they really? Or would Thorin wake from the battle just as sick as he’d entered it? It’d been months and it was still all that Bilbo could think about. It didn’t help that his dreams were a nightly reminder of the horrors of war - of losing his soulmate even though the Dwarf still lived. Or at least Bilbo presumed he did, given that what was left of his mark hadn’t faded. His hand trailed absently over the scar that covered half of where his mark was supposed to be. Balin’s salves had done wonders to help it heal well, but the scar still burned and itched and pulled from time to time.
He was expecting the knock on his door when it came and was already wrapped in his robe with two steaming mugs of tea on the table. Hamfast Gamgee had been far more than just his gardener in the last months - he’d become an invaluable friend who checked on him every night that the nightmares devolved into mindless screams. The gentlehobbit couldn’t truly understand all that Bilbo had been through, but he was there all the same. And if the knock was slightly more frantic than usual, well, perhaps he’d sounded particularly bad this time. He was never aware enough to really know how bad it was.
Except that it wasn’t Hamfast on the other side of the door. It was a shadow of the past come to haunt Bilbo and taunt him with all the things that could never be. Things like piercing blue eyes clear of the madness he’d seen in them and instead filled with concern. Things like the gentle whisper of his name in a low voice that he could perfectly recall even in his sleep. Things like a warm embrace that resulted in a face full of furs dusty from travel that would later make him sneeze. None of it was possible, and yet there it was. Perhaps he’d finally cracked and gone as mad as most of the Shire thought him to be.
He closed his eyes and sank into that embrace anyway, breathing in the smells of fire and dust and Thorin. Real or not, sneezes be damned, this was everything the gnawing emptiness in his chest had sought, and that was enough to soothe his ragged, tired edges for the moment. Bilbo hadn’t realized he was crying until a warm, calloused hand was cupped around his face, holding him even as the form that couldn’t be Thorin pulled away just enough to wipe the tears from the Hobbit’s face.
Bilbo pulled back the rest of the way, just out of reach of his delusion, and wiped at his face with the sleeve of his robe. He hadn’t bothered to tie it - Hamfast had seen him in worse states afterall and he had on pants anyway - so the movement of reaching up to his face had swept the garment open enough to show his mark. Reality came crashing in in the form of his name stuttered out in a choked gasp and a warm hand on the burn scar that had destroyed his mark. That was undeniably real.
“I suppose you better come in then”
and
“There’s tea on the table.”
If they sat together in heavy silence until the tea was cold well, that was no one’s business but their own. And neither was the halting conversation that eventually followed, full of apologies and explanations for that matter. But maybe, just maybe, at the end of it all, the emptiness Bilbo had been left with for months would be filled after all. Maybe, their marks, scarred by fire and steel, weren’t a sign that they weren’t to be, but rather a sign of all that they could make together.