TW: Robb has a panic attack and a (long deserved) mental breakdown!

Its beginning and end are underlined, so you can skip it and won't really miss anything.

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The night brought little rest for Robb once more—he supposed being beheaded was an interesting new experience, even if it had only happened in his dream—and the day after went by just like the one before it.

That was, until another pack of wolves attacked them.

Well, wargs, as Aragorn had called them. Robb was surprised at the term—had Old Nan not told him and his siblings stories of wargs and greenseers, as well? But it was obvious that these wargs were something else entirely than the people who were said to be able to inhabit animals.

They had heard the wargs howling from miles away, but as Moria was still too far away and there was no shelter to be found, their group simply climbed a small hill littered with trees and boulders that would be easier to defend. As it was obvious there would be no escaping the pack of wargs, no matter what they did, they lit a fire to at least stave off the oncoming darkness.

By nightfall, the beasts had reached them.

They were far bigger and uglier than any kind of wolf Robb had seen before. In fact, he was fairly sure they would be of a height with Grey Wind.

Gandalf tried to threaten them into leaving—a useless endeavour, as it only seemed to make the wargs angrier. The biggest of them, the one who had to be their leader, leapt at Gandalf—only to die by an arrow to the eye.

And then they were gone.

At once, the hill had been deserted by the pack of wargs. The night was silent.

Gandalf and Aragorn searched for them, but found nothing.
The party fell into an uneasy sleep and when the howling of the wargs woke them back up, it was almost morning.

“Get some more wood onto the fire!” Gandalf ordered and was immediately obeyed by the Hobbits. “Draw your blades and stand with your backs toward the fire!”

As the flames blazed higher into the air, Robb could see dozens of wargs running at them from the darkness.
Boromir beheaded one of them, Aragorn felled the next by ramming his sword into its throat. Legolas kept firing arrows.

Seeing that the Hobbits were as good as unprotected, Robb stepped in front of them. He did not necessarily trust their skill with a blade, as terrified as they looked. In addition to that, they were about half the wargs’ height at best.

No, better to protect them.

When the first warg reached Robb, he was immediately glad he had not had to face Grey Wind on his own campaign. He was sure he wouldn’t have fared much better than all the Lannister soldiers Grey Wind had torn apart. As it was, he only barely managed to kill the first warg, before immediately being ripped to the ground by the next one.

All of the air left Robb’s lungs at the impact. The giant paws on his chest only made it worse. Had it not been for his armour, Robb was certain his chest would have been slashed open by the beast’s claws, his ribcage caved in by its weight. This way, his gorget took the brunt of the damage.

Robb stabbed at it blindly with his sword. He must have hit something, going by the yowl of pain and the resistance his blade met, but the warg kept snapping at him, trying to reach his jugular. Robb lifted his sword in front of his face to keep the beast’s jaws at bay. It was useless.

The warg bit at the blade and shook its head violently.
Robb, weakened by the lack of air and hardly able to breathe thanks to the giant beast standing on his chest, lost his grip. The sword landed on the ground several feet away—out of his reach.

He kept clawing at the warg with his hands, but Robb knew it was useless.
Staring up at the beast’s eyes, Robb stopped fighting it. Time slowed down. The warg almost seemed to grin. The malice this beast exuded would have surprised him, had it not been for the dawning knowledge that this was it.
His second death, not even a week after the first one. Maybe this time, it would be permanent.

Robb closed his eyes. He could feel the warg’s hot breath on his face, the warm stickiness of its drool dripping onto his skin. It smelled awful.
In the distance, he thought he could hear Gandalf shout something unintelligible.

Then the weight on his chest suddenly lifted as the warg was ripped to the ground.

Robb took a deep, gasping breath. He rolled onto his side, heaving, and opened his eyes.
And there was— was Grey Wind, his teeth buried in the warg’s throat, tearing it open.

A breathless, disbelieving laugh escaped his lungs—and fuck, Robb’s chest hurt like all the Seven Hells combined, but damn him if he wasn’t happy.
Count on Grey Wind to save his ass when he least expected it.

Robb slowly stumbled to his feet and dragged himself over to where his sword lay.
After picking it up, he looked around. For some reason, all of the trees on the small hill were burning. One of Legolas’ arrows caught fire in mid-air before lodging itself into the heart of one of the wargs.

There were dozens of dead wargs scattered all around, but miraculously, none of the fellowship had been injured, as far as Robb could tell. Grey Wind was mauling one last warg that had dared to approach the Hobbits. The rest were retreating.

As Robb dragged himself to sit on one of the smaller boulders, wondering why he had bothered to get up in the first place, the flames slowly dwindled down, leaving only smoking tree stumps and smouldering grass.

It was still dark, but he could see the sky turning violet on the horizon. Dawn was near.

Robb let his sword clatter to the ground and fumbled with the clasps of his cloak and gorget. He dropped those, too, and loosened the laces of his jerkin. Those of his tunic followed.
Breathing was already getting easier, although Robb was sure he had bruised some of his ribs.

The first glimpse he caught of his chest already told him a lot—mainly that he had indeed been extremely lucky to be sent to this world in his boiled leathers and gorget. His skin was already turning blue in several places, but that was the worst of it, to Robb’s great relief.

That first glimpse also reminded him of the fact that he had not taken off his clothes since his arrival in Arda. There had been no opportunities to wash himself, with no lake or river anywhere in sight.
If he had, though, Robb would have noticed the scars littering his torso sooner.

As it was, he caught sight of the few small, circular ones first—they were on his side, on his shoulder, under his collarbone. Then he saw the other one. Bigger than the others and with aggravated-looking, raised scar tissue, it sat right between his ribs.

Right where Roose Bolton had stabbed him to end his life.

Robb’s mouth was dry. He tried to swallow several times, but there was nothing to do it with. His eyes stayed fixed on the scar.

He was sure he must have been breathing, but not a whit of air seemed to reach his lungs. Robb’s entire face started to feel cold, and for some reason, there were black dots in his field of vision.

He blinked, trying to get rid of them; blinked again, tried to breathe, but there was nothing—

“Are you hurt?”

Robb’s head snapped up, letting the fabric of his tunic fall down to cover his skin again. Aragorn was standing next to him.

He forced a smile, brittle as it must have been, and blinked. “Just a few bruises.”

Aragorn furrowed his eyebrows.
“You are pale and sweating even worse than the Hobbits. That warg did not break any of your ribs, did it?”

Robb shook his head. It made him want to throw up. “No, no, I’m— it’s just bruises, as I said."

He could have sworn there were two of Aragorn standing in front of him. Well, that couldn’t be right. Robb blinked again.
The black patches in his vision weren’t getting any better; on the contrary, almost all he could see was darkness. There were some occasional white flashes, as well. Robb had no idea where that came from. He'd never had problems with his eyesight before.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” he heard Aragorn’s garbled voice, more insistently this time.

“Don’ think so…”

Oh, talking was not a good idea. His lungs were still frantically trying to get some air and all this agitation was not helpful. It made him even more nauseous than he had been before.

“What did you say?”

A hand clasped Robb’s bicep, and his own flew up to grip it tightly in turn. He heard muffled cursing.

“I don’t think so,” Robb repeated weakly, out of breath and simultaneously trying to keep from vomiting.

“Robb, you are shaking!” And then, a bit more quietly, as if said in another direction, “Legolas, get me a waterskin.”

Another hand settled on his shoulder, steadying him. Robb hadn’t even noticed he’d been swaying.

“Can you lay down?”

“Urgh.”

He had wanted to say ‘I don’t know’, but his ability to speak seemed to have left him.
The hands moved from their places to allow one of Aragorn’s arms to slip under Robb’s shoulder and the other to settle at his chest, steadying him.

"Breathe, Ro—"

The black took over and when Robb opened his eyes again, he was lying on the ground, his head resting on… Aragorn’s legs?
A waterskin entered his field of vision and when the cool liquid touched Robb’s parched throat, he immediately felt better.

When he was done, he looked around. The entire fellowship was standing around him. Great.

And then there was Grey Wind, surging forward to lick his cheek. Robb huffed a laugh and did not even attempt to dissuade the direwolf from doing that, instead burying his fingers in the thick fur behind Grey Wind’s ears.

He absently noted the shifting of his tunic, but paid it no mind—not until he heard several people inhale sharply.

“How in Mahal’s name did you survive that, laddie?”

Robb closed his eyes at Gimli’s question. Of course the Gods could not leave him any time to come to terms with the reminder of his death before having to tell other people.
He opened his eyes again and looked straight at the fellowship. He supposed there was no way around it now.

“I didn’t.”

Their eyes widened.

“What do you mean you didn’t survive—“

“I mean that I was shot and stabbed and then I died, Lord Boromir.” Robb sighed. “After which the Gods—and the Valar, I suppose—decided that they were not done with me yet and that, instead of joining my father and mother and siblings in the afterlife, I was to help you defeat Sauron.”

Even Legolas, who otherwise seemed to be fairly in control over his emotions, blanched at that.
A long silence followed, in which Grey Wind shuffled closer and buried his snout between Robb’s neck and shoulder—to comfort him, Robb presumed.

Then—

“Well, I suppose dying in battle is as good as one can hope for,” Boromir said quietly.
The others nodded in agreement, but Robb bared his teeth.

“Would that I had died in battle instead of being slaughtered at a wedding,” he snarled.

“…A wedding?” Frodo whispered.

“Indeed.” Robb suppressed a harsh laugh and sat up. “I’m sure some of my former allies would have loved to tell me it was only to be expected, what with me being a nuisance to my enemies and actually winning battles as well as marrying the girl I dishonoured to save her from being shamed instead of the one I sold myself to in turn for being allowed to cross a bridge. But alas, they cannot reach me here, and so I will be denied their wisdom.”

“What kind of damned allies—,” Gimli growled at the same time as Sam started to say, “What kind of horrible world did you live in—“

“The kind of dishonourable world,” Robb replied angrily, “where your allies take over your castle and burn your brothers while you are in a war trying to free your sisters from the city where they are held hostage; trying to reclaim your father’s bones because he was executed for treason when he’d done nothing! The kind of world where your allies turn on you at your uncle’s wedding and kill you in front of your mother, only to then kill her as well! I won every battle, and yet…”

Robb broke off, breathing heavily. His eyes were burning and when he blinked, there were tears rolling down his cheeks. Robb quickly wiped them away and gave a short, broken laugh.

“I only wanted my family back…”
He buried his face in his hands and unconsciously leaned into Grey Wind, who was nudging his side, whining. The touch was warm and comforting and Robb’s breathing started to calm down.

“I didn’t want to be a king,” he whispered. “I just wanted to go home.”

Aragorn’s hand settled on his shoulder. “Was that the reason for your…?”

“I suppose so,” Robb answered, wiping the fresh tears away once again and making to stand up. He felt embarrassed, suddenly, at his inappropriate display of emotions—there were more important things than his death to deal with—and buried his hand in Grey Wind’s fur for further comfort. “I… had not been aware I had those scars. It won’t happen again; you have my apologies.”

“There is no need to apologize, Robb.”

That had to be a lie. He was an inconvenience to them, at the very least.

“Of course. I’m sorry.” Robb smiled politely, gathering up his discarded clothes and putting them back on. The gorget would be a bit more difficult to handle, slightly dented as it was, but he would manage.

“Now, I have held us up for long enough. We should get going, the sun has already risen, after all. I shall be ready in just a minute, if you want to walk ahead while I say goodbye to Grey Wind, I—“

"I think it would be better if Grey Wind came with us," Gandalf interrupted him. "Both you and he have risked your life for this mission more than once already—even when you did not know what it was really about. If that could not prove your trustworthiness, I do not know what could."

Robb stopped in his tracks. "...Really?"
In truth, he could not entirely agree with Gandalf—did they not know that trustworthiness could easily be feigned? He would have fought these wargs and climbed Caradhras no matter what his reason for going with them was. Building up trust and sympathy from the people you intended to deceive surely had to be the first rule in the book of backstabbing.

But on the other hand, why should Robb try to convince Gandalf not to trust him? He was truly trying to help, in whatever limited capacity he could do so. With nothing else to do, no other purpose, it was all Robb could—would—devote his time and abilities to.

It did not matter that, apparently, he was missing a significant chunk of knowledge regarding their actual mission. Surely, an explanation was likely to come soon enough.

And indeed: while they did not tell him anything until they had all packed their things and were well on their way again, soon Aragorn revealed the full truth. The ring Frodo carried was Sauron's secret weapon, the one they were to destroy. To do that, they had to throw it into the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor—not that Robb had any clue where or even what exactly that was, which could present a problem should their fellowship ever get separated.

That bridge, Robb decided, would be crossed when they came to it.
And anyway, there had to be someone in this world who sold maps, right?