Nothing like the Sun

Summary: One-shot – It's not the love either of them wanted but it is still love all the same.

Author's Notes: The title comes from 'Sonnet 130,' by William Shakespeare.

Pairings: Bilbo/Tauriel, Thorin/Bilbo (Past), Tauriel/Kíli (Past).

Disclaimer: I do not own any familiar characters/settings/plot featured in this story. They all belong to (most likely rolling in his grave) J.R.R. Tolkien. Sorry professor.

Nothing like the Sun

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun…"

She has no word for it.

To call it love seems like a lie. He does not make her heart race or turn her stomach into knots. He does not fill every corner of her mind like the obsessive way Kíli had. He does not complete her or make her feel like a better person. He does not even set her on fire with a single touch of his hand against her bare skin. No, she does not love Bilbo Baggins but she does feel… something.

Legolas says that it is heartbreak that brought them together, and he's right to a certain point. They both share a common grief that came with watching your lover die before you. It was that grief that brought them together in the beginning; seeking out each other to cry and scream and laugh because no one else around could understand what it was like to lose someone that you had built your world upon.

But grief is a wound, and all wounds heal and scar over eventually. Slowly they spent less time crying and more time in silence. Then when the silence was enough, it became talking and laughing and long walks through Erebor and Dale. It became arguments over Elven literature and explanations of Hobbit customs and sarcastic remarks over Dwarves and Men. It grew from simple allies and then to a shaky friendship and finally…

It is not love but it is not nothing either. It is something even if she has no words for it. Bilbo makes her smile and laugh and feel comfortable just by being with him. She never feels like she's being judged by him, or that she has to put on an act as she does with others. He makes her feel pretty and kind and so many other good things that she knows are not true but appreciates all the same. When he holds her hand or winds her hair around his fingers, she feels a warmth erupt inside of her chest that fills every inch of her body.

She doesn't pretend to understand him because she doesn't. But that's fine because Bilbo doesn't pretend to understand her either. She understands that he's sees the world differently from her—as a Hobbit, as a male, as a scholar, as a commoner—just as he could never understand what it means to be a warrior to a king you both adored and feared. No, those were things only Kíli ever understood because he had been the same.

Some think that she has mistaken a great friendship for a great love but she knows better. She knows how to define her feelings for friends and family, and Bilbo fits in neither of those categories. But he is also not her greatest love because she had one and lost him so she knows what to look for. Bilbo is not her friend or one true love or even a shoulder to cry on. He is simply… Bilbo. The one who cooks her breakfast when she comes back from her patrols, and reads Elven poems to her in an attempt to improve his skills. He is the one who buys her lace ribbons from the Men of Dale to braid into her hair, and the one who wraps up her wounds when she's hurt. He is the one who watches the sunset with her and brushes her hair and kisses the tips of her fingers when they're in bed at night.

She knows she will never mean as much to him as Thorin did. She will never make his eyes light up the way they had when he saw the king, and she will never drive him to do better and better because of an unwavering belief in his abilities. She will never make his cheeks flush from heated arguments, or make him bite his nails until they bleed from worry. And she will never inspire the love and loyalty and sheer strength that Thorin Oakenshield awakened in Bilbo Baggins just for existing.

No. This is not a great love. It is not even the love that either of them wanted in life, but it was still something real and true and that was enough. She would probably never find a word for it but that was fine. She didn't need to name it in order to feel it.

"And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare…"

The End