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“Was any of it real?”
Thorin bit back a groan and focused Bell. Or more precisely, the gunshot wound in her shoulder. There was just one hole, which was concerning as that meant the bullet was almost definitely lodged in bone somewhere and that was only if she was lucky. Thorin had seen too many injuries that turned out to be far worse than first assumed to be to have much faith. But then, if Thorin knew anyone with enough luck on their side to come out better than anyone expected them to, it would be Bell every time.
“Well?” Thorin’s little brother demanded, still hovering over Thorin’s shoulder.
“Not the time, Frerin,” Thorin growled.
Frerin, like all of them, had the Durin temper. But unlike Thorin and their sister and their father and every other Durin that had ever been, he was the best at controlling it, at letting it go. Something he definitely got from their mother.
“Go wait downstairs for the police and paramedics,” he ordered and thankfully Frerin spun on his heel to stride from the room.
“Open your eye,” Thorin growled again, this time in panic and at Bell, whose eyes had slipped shut whilst he was distracted with his younger brother choosing now of all times to be a pain.
“’m awake, ya’ big old grumpy pants,” Bell murmured. “Just restin’ my eyes.”
“You’ve been shot, Bilbo. I need you to stay awake.”
“Yes, I had rather noticed that,” she snapped back, more life in her voice. The knot in Thorin’s stomach loosened ever so slightly.
“Where’s the damn ambulance,” he demanded.
“They’re on their way, lad.”
Not quick enough, Thorin thought to himself. Self-aware enough to know that the worry for his family over the last few months had made him even more short tempered than usual, and in turn he had forced himself to be more careful with his temper lest he take it out on the ones that deserved it the least.
But aside from the injured woman sitting in front of him that threat was over now. Specifically, thanks to the injured woman in front of him. Who was only injured because it was Thorin who had needed the help.
Her brow creased and she swore. “Th’rin. Listen t’ me. Somethin’s wrong. Elron’ poison.” she slurred and Thorin’s heart stopped in his chest. She didn’t have to elaborate for Thorin to understand exactly what she was trying to tell him.
“Dwalin,” he roared as he stopped putting pressure on the still bleeding wound. Keeping her from bleeding out wouldn’t do anything if the bullet that cause the hole had inflicted more damage by being coated in poison. He didn’t have to examine her closely to see the waxy pallor to her face or the glassiness to her eyes. Her pulse raced under his finger. “Get me the AED.”
Yet another reason to curse the evil called Smaug. Even those from Mordor didn’t use poisoned bullets but Smaug was a different breed of evil and a part of Thorin wasn’t surprised.
Scooping Bell up in his arms, Thorin wasted no time bolting from the room, Dwalin and Thrór on his heels as he burst into the elevator. Impatient as he was, the rational part of his brain knew that staying still in the elevator would be quicker than going down forty odd flights of stairs on foot just so he wouldn’t have to stand still.
Just outside the front doors where Frerin had already cleared the way for when the paramedics eventually arrived, Thorin laid her down on the concrete and continued to monitor the now unconscious Bell. Even if it were possible to apply a torniquet, it wouldn’t do much more than stop the wound bleeding, but the wound was too inside her chest for one to work. The most Thorin could do to stop the spread of the poison was to tilt her onto her side, keeping her heart below the wound. One hand bracing her head and keeping a check on her pulse all at once.
But then her heart stopped and her breathing with it and Thorin cursed, laying her flat on her back and starting compressions as he counted. Across her body from him, Dwalin was on his knees and already readying the AED and barking at Thrór to cut open her shirt for him to affix them to her chest.
After the first four rounds of breathes, Thorin leant fully back and waited for the AED to shock her back before continuing compressions again, letting Dwalin take over after the next round of breathes and continuing to alternate with him until her heart stuttered back to life just a minute before the ambulance finally arrived.
“Gunshot to the shoulder fifteen minutes ago,” he reported to one of the pair, glancing at his watch to make sure the information was accurate. “Heart and breathing stopped six minutes ago, restarted again one minute thirty-four seconds ago after four and a half minutes of full CPR and two shocks. Suspected that poison is the reason for cardiac arrest.”
“You riding with?” was the only thing the paramedic asked as she started to help her partner get Bell onto the stretcher.
Thorin nodded. Smaug was dead and even if that wasn’t the end of the threat to his family, he knew Dwalin would protect them just as well as Thorin would.
“We need to go to Imladris,” Thorin nodded, as he hauled himself up into the back of the ambulance after Bell.
“Imladris doesn’t take Emergency care,” the woman protests. “Besides, Dale is closer. Hell, The Greenwood is closer than Imladris.”
“Neither of them can help her,” Thorin said, digging around in his pocket with a bloody hand. “Take her to Imladris, Elrond will be waiting.” He flashed her his credentials as he dialled Elrond on his phone.
Watching her disappear with Elrond and his staff, Thorin collapsed into a chair in the empty conference room he’d been led to by one of the nurses. Uncaring of the blood still smeared over him halfway up his elbows as he sat slumped over with his head in his hands.
“Oh, my love. Up we get.”
Thorin let himself be pulled to his feet by his mother who led him by the hand away from the rest of his family who had at some point without him noticing congregated in the room, filling it up around him.
Fris’ gentle hands washed the blood from him as Thorin stood motionless, letting his mother dictate his every move as she gently got him clean. Coaxing him out of his blood-soaked slacks and into a pair of clean jean and then nudging his arms up so she could strip off his button down and pull a t-shirt on him as if he were a child again.
There used to be a time when he could do this. Where he could watch a dear friend flatline and pull them back and then continue on like he hadn’t just held a friend’s life in his hands. How had he ever managed to lock so much of himself away to be able to function normally after doing such a thing.
“Do you need a minute, dear?” she asked once he was fully dressed and as clean as he was going to get without a full shower and proper soap.
Thorin longed to sink into her arms, to draw strength from his quiet and composed mother who so perfectly balanced out his brash and loud Durin of a father. He gave a weak show of resistance when she seemed to read his mind and wrapped her arms around his shoulders but quickly gave in and accepted the comfort, slumping against her trusting his mother to be able to bear his weight despite her being a head shorter than him and half his weight.
“You know they’re all going to be demanding answers, yes?” she asked when he finally stood back up.
“I know,” he replied, holding out his arm for her and kissing her cheek when she tucked her hand into his elbow. “Thank you,” he added.
Fris tsked in exasperation. “Not at all.”
Elrond was there in the waiting room when they got there, delaying the inevitable interrogation by a little longer when he immediately turned to Thorin and gave him the rundown of Bell’s condition. Ending it with a stern order to have one of the nurses get him immediately if Thorin felt himself being affected by the poison even a little. Thrór and Dwalin should be fine having only touched Bell’s potentially tainted blood with skin and they knew skin contact wasn’t enough for the poison. But Thorin had given her mouth to mouth, had no doubt unconsciously swallowed some traces of her blood in the absence of a face shield, and that made things a little more uncertain.
Thorin knew enough to agree with no hesitation and pulled his phone out to text Bifur to have Bell’s blood cleaned up from the building as soon as possible just in case.
When he tucked his phone away and looked up he wasn’t entirely surprised to see that his entire family from Fris, Frerin, Thrór and Dwalin had been joined by Thrór’s wife Thrava, Dis, Vili and the boys along with Balin, Groin, Nori and Ori.
“So, are we going to be getting an explanation any time soon?” Dis demanded sternly, flanked by her husband and teenage sons.
Thorin was still figuring out the best way to break the news without also revealing too much about an open investigation when Thrór broke the expectant silence that had fallen in the wake of Dis voicing the question everyone was thinking.
“Your father’s accident, my dear,” Thrór said, looking ancient beyond his years. “It wasn’t as much of an accident as we let you all believe. I, and to a lesser extent, Thráin have been receiving some threats that were deemed more serious than most of the nonsense we receive. Miss Baggins was working to uncover the true extent of what was going on with the end goal of rooting out the corruption within Erebor.”
“That doesn’t tell us anything. Why didn’t you say anything?” Dis spat tightly.
“You should have told us,” Frerin said lowly at the same time.
Both of Thorin’s siblings looked absolutely livid. Even Fris and Thrava, the wives of the two men who had been in the most danger didn’t look as mad about being left in the dark as Thorin’s siblings were.
“He couldn’t,” Thorin stepped in, readily taking the heat off his grandfather who seemed to have aged decades in the weeks since Thráin had fell victim to the attack meant for Thrór. “The entire investigation is considered classified from everyone not directly involved in it.”
“And you are?” Frerin asked sceptically. Thorin winced, he seemed to be taking Bell’s less than honest reasons for being employed at Erebor worse that Thorin had expected him to. Hopefully it was just shock of how it had all been revealed and gone down and after a moment to breathe he would be able to handle it with his usual grace so unlike the others of Durin blood in their family.
“Thorin’s the only reasons your father and I are still alive, lad,” Thrór growled.
Thorin sighed as all eyes focused on him even more intently. Even though they were all family and friends it still made him uncomfortable to be the centre of their attention. There was, after all, a reason he had chosen such a behind the scenes role in Erebor after retiring from the service despite all the other more prominent positions Thrór and Thráin had tried to convince him into taking. “I’m head of security, Frerin, what exactly do you think I do.”
“What can you tell us, dear?” Fris prompted. “Tell us about the young woman who has apparently saved both your father and Thrór these past few weeks?”
Thorin relaxed at that. For all he’d kept their friendship an unintentional secret from his family, Bell was certainly a topic that Thorin could talk about.
“We met about fifteen years ago now. My team were running an Op in the Misty Mountains and we were cornered. My second and I made the decision to be a diversion so the rest of our team could get out and Bell saved my life. Got between me and the leader of the Orc team that had hunted us across half of Anror and Rhudaur, killing him and saving me in one go. As it turned out our Op had very similar goals as her mission did so we teamed up to complete them together. It wasn’t the last time we teamed up for an Op, after a while we became the go to for joint Ops. When I retired Bell recruited me as an advisor for her people so when I caught on to the threat against Erebor they were willing to open an investigation and assign it to Bell. I set up the interview at Erebor but she got the position on her own merits.”
It was perhaps not enough to answer all the questions they had, but it was far more than Thorin usually gave so they would have to be happy with it.
“Ohh,” Dis breathed. “You love her.”
Thorin’s head shot up and he stared at his sister. Of course that’s what she would pick up on, even if she wasn’t completely right. Out the corner of his eye he saw Frerin’s face freeze and Thorin held back his wince of pity. Any other time he would have been amused at the fact that both his siblings and now his entire family thought he was having some kind of secret love affair with the woman they’d all seen Frerin crushing hard on for weeks. But with Bell’s survival still not guaranteed it just felt sad.
“Not like that,” Thorin said wearily, not looking forward to having to defend his friendship to his family. “I love her, yes. But I am not and will never be in love with her, and Bell feels the exact same for me. And you,” he directed at his brother, figuring it the best way to make things clear about where he and Bell stood with each other, “break her heart and they’ll never find your body, little brother.”
“Me, you’re threatening me,” Frerin looked so offended at the threat Thorin almost laughed. “I’m your brother, and I’m the one getting threatened,” he spluttered.
“I already gave Bell the same threat over you a week after she started at Erebor,” Thorin said blandly, standing as he saw a nurse approaching them. Their family and friends chuckling around them.
As he hoped, it was to let them know that Bell was waking up and would soon ready for a visitor, but only one for now and Thorin didn’t bother waiting to see if anyone else wanted to see her. He was claiming the right based on having known her for more than a couple months.
She was still groggy when Thorin settled into a chair at her bedside. Picking up her hand, he let his finger settle on her wrist over her pulse, silently counting along with its now strong beat for a whole minute to try and override the memory of having had to keep it beating with his own hands.
“Thrór?” she croaked, startling Thorin from his thoughts of her blood seeping through his fingers, her ribs cracking and snapping under his hands, her lifeless mouth against his as he breathed for her.
“Alive. As is everyone else but Smaug. You were the only one hurt,” Thorin reported.
“Good. Good,” she whispered.
They sat in a comfortable silence before Thorin admitted softly, “You scared the hell out of me, Bilbo.”
She scowled at the nickname but tightened her fingers around his. “Payback for that time in Ithlien?”
“Fair, I suppose,” Thorin conceded. “In that case I guess I should apologise for your ribs.”
“If you say so, not really feeling much of anything right now.”
Thorin snorted. “Elrond has you pretty drugged up right now.”
“Do you feel up for any more visitors?” Thorin asked eventually once Bell was alert enough to bully Thorin into helping her sit up.
Her eyes lit up and she quickly waved Thorin off to fetch them before calling him back before he’d even reached the door.
Pulling him down to her level she wrapped his arms around his neck smacking a kiss to his cheek. “I may not remember any of it, but I do know you saved my life. No more feeling guilty over any of it. They’re your family, that alone means I’d have given anything for them. More now that you’ve finally let me meet them.”
Thorin wrapped her tight in his arms, pressing his face to her hair as he held her close. They didn’t need words most of the time but Bell like to say them anyway, Thorin not so much. But this time he did. “Thank you. Damn it, Bell you shouldn’t have, but thank you.”
On his way to find a nurse, Thorin let the mass of Durins and company know they could go see Bell, half wishing he could stick around to see her face when she realised who her other visitors were. He knew she expected them to be Gandalf and maybe Drogo, not an entire hoard of Durins plus friends.
Finding a nurse and then convincing them to move Bell into the same room as his father took more time and convincing than Thorin expected but finally they conceded when Elrond showed up and backed Thorin.
By the time he made his way back to Bell’s room the conference room they’d all been ushered into was empty save for his Fris, Thrór and Thrava.
“We sent the lot them home,” Thrór informed without Thorin having to ask where everyone had disappeared to. “We assume you’ll be spending the night here so Bifur will be coming to relieve you at ten tomorrow morning and we all expect you to go straight home and to bed, laddie.”
“I’ll have food ready for you and you had better not leave any of it, darling,” Thrava said sternly, patting his cheek.
“Yes, grandmother, grandfather,” Thorin said obediently. “Thank you.”
They both scoffed in the exact same way his mother had before.
“Dwalin can handle anything that comes up at Erebor, be with your friend,” Thrór added as they left, not letting Thorin get in a word about helping with the fallout of everything that had happened before they were gone.
Sighing, Thorin followed them out of the room but turned towards Bell’s room instead of the exit but stopped a few feet short of the door when he heard the soft murmuring of voices.
“It was true, Frerin,” he heard Bell say. “I may have omitted details, but it was all true. Just ask your great lump of a brother, he hasn’t stopped teasing me for weeks about my massive crush on you.”
“Really,” Frerin said, and Thorin could hear the surprise in his voice which swiftly turned into deviousness as he continued. “Because he’s been teasing me about the same for just as long.”
“Bastard,” Bell said cheerfully. “He knew the reason I refused to do anything was because I couldn’t stand starting something when you didn’t know the truth.”
Frerin made a humfing sound. “But we love him anyway, don’t we.”
“Shows how good our taste is,” Bell agreed.
Thorin wondered why he ever thought two of his most beloved people in the world getting together was ever a good idea.
“I don’t know,” Frerin said in a tone Thorin didn’t know his brother was capable of. “I think my taste is pretty good.”
It was entirely possible Thorin hadn’t fully thought through the ramifications of them being together, especially not when he had to be around them getting together. Though could it really be any worse than both of them talking out their frustrations at pining over each other to Thorin.
Using every scrap of military training he’d ever had drummed into him, Thorin retrieved a chair from the conference room and set it down outside the door to Bell’s room until they could get her moved in with Thráin and sat down, settling in for a long night of watching over his unconscious loved ones when one of them wasn’t busy flirting at and being flirted with by his baby brother and the other trying to insist he was fine so they would let him back to work.
some time in the not so distant future
Thorin refrained from strangling Frerin as his brother sighed yet again. He understood that Frerin was missing his wife, but surely there was a limit to how mopey one person could be.
What made it worse was that once again Thorin was the only person Frerin could take out his lovesick pining on because Thorin was the only one who knew that Frerin was moping away over his wife. Sure everyone else knew that Frerin was stupidly in love with Bell and that Bell loved him back just as much, but they all still believed that they were still dating because the two idiots had very spontaneously decided to elope and then Bell had been sent off on an assignment before they could announce the news to anyone bar Thorin who they’d mutually decided had to be there because after all, without Thorin they probably wouldn’t have even ever met each other. Thorin had never regretted a decision more in his life. Especially when they then proceeded to blackmail him into silence.
Thorin had maybe felt bad for his brother for the first couple days, but any memory of feeling that way had quickly been overridden by his brother incessant pleas for information about his wife. Information that Frerin knew Thorin wouldn’t have given him even if he knew it.
When Bell finally walked into the Durin family house, the one his grandparents still lived in and held a mandatory family dinner in once a week, Thorin could have kissed her even if it meant having to put up with even more of Frerin’s sulking, this time over the fact that his wife and brother loved each other more than they loved him.
With her arm in a sling and a nasty but healing scratch down her face, Bell was immediately ushered into a chair and handed a plate that Thráin pulled together for her from the leftovers that had been packed away after dinner earlier that night. She spoke little as she steadily ate the food, but like Thorin they were all just glad to have her back if even just because it stopped Frerin perpetually looking like someone had just killed his favourite puppy.
“Oh,” she said suddenly, her finished plate set aside on coffee table. “I’ve got a present for you, dear heart.”
Digging around in a pocket she pulled something out and managed to lob it a Frerin despite sitting right next to him on the sofa, who easily caught it from the air before it hit him in the face. True love it truly was.
Frerin looked at the object for a barely a second before looking up and saying flatly. “We’re all aware of the joke about us Durins loving rocks, but there’s a difference between actual rocks and gemstones, my love.”
“I know,” Bell said, and Thorin knew she was thoroughly enjoying the fact that no one else was in on whatever the joke was. “You should take a closer look,” she advised.
“Okay, but…” Whatever he had been about to say never came out as his face went slack.
Bell wiggled in her seat, saying innocently, “I just thought since you got me such a nice, pretty rock, I should get you one too.”
“This is…” Frerin breathed out before yelping. “How!?”
“Classified. But yes, that is indeed a First Age ingot of mithril with Celebrimbor’s personal insignia on it.”
Thorin only laughed as every single other person in the room lost their absolute shit.
Frerin the exception as he –gently– pounced on Bell and kissed her, the mithril falling from his hand forgotten in the face of having Bell in his hands.
“Best. Wife. Ever.” He declared loudly in the silence that had fallen.
Everyone lost their shit all over again, the happy couple blissfully oblivious, and Thorin just laughed even harder.