A:N - Jan. 16th 2015.

Hey! I added an Epilogue and will be adding a few chapters in between existing one's, so watch out for changes ;D I realized I had some continuity errors and I wanted to expand on the back-story a bit more. I'll let you know what changes are coming when they do. Thanks for reading!

Ten Years Ago

"May I be excused?" Tauriel asked. She had eaten as quickly as she could without making a mess, knowing how particular Thranduil was about manners at dinner. At fifteen, Tauriel knew her god father well enough to work around his nearly impossibly high standards of living.

"Wash your plate. And you said your homework was finished?" Thranduil said, looking up at her squarely, Legolas looking between them, sensing Tauriel's urgency.

"Yes, sir." She said, getting up and briskly walking towards the kitchen.

"So you have time to look over your extra credit so that you can devote your afternoon tomorrow to archery?" Thranduil pressed on, scheduled as ever.

Tauriel cringed, fortunately out of his sight, having forgotten about her extra credit. "Yes, I'll work on that tonight."

"And don't stay up too late, you have a full day tomorrow." He finished.

She washed her plate and tried not to run upstairs to her room. Once there, she closed the door quietly and opened the closet where she kept her telescope. Setting it up under her window, she pulled up an old book of constellations and immediately started procrastinating.

Moments later, there was a knock at the door. Tauriel jumped and scrambled, getting to her desk and rummaging around her backpack for her extra credit assignment.

The door swung open to Legolas, a small, sly smile at his lips.

"Caught you, didn't I?" He said, eyeing the telescope. He only got an angry pout from her before he walked in and lifted the thing. "Come on, its easier if you're on the balcony. Shhh."

Tauriel lit up and followed her pseudo-big brother into his room and onto the balcony. Legolas set up the telescope and got a flash light so that Tauriel could read her book.

"So..." Legolas started, sitting on the floor of the balcony and looking up at the stars from there. "I was meaning to ask you if you wanted my room. After I move out this summer, so that you can have the balcony."

Tauriel stopped what she was doing and looked at up at him. Legolas was her closest friend, if not her only friend, and she hated the thought that he was leaving for college. Without him, there was just her studies, archery, and the stars. Her whole life could be summarized just by that; she could live contently live in Thranduil's mansion of a house and only know those three things.

"If Thranduil's ok with that, I guess. Thanks." she said.

After a few minutes of an excited Tauriel telling Legolas about stars and galaxies and cosmos, she settled down and pulled up the old book again. They both knew it had been her father's, his writing was even still in it.

"You knew my parents, right?" she asked hesitantly.

Legolas was surprised, she never wanted to talk about her parents. He nodded. "I was little when they dies, but I still remember them."

Tauriel smiled sadly. "Memory is such a precious thing. And I don't even have that, I was too young when it happened." So she looked back up at the stars, and then back to her father's book. "I know they loved the night sky. I know that they hiked and camped out just to look at it. So I guess my memory is up there, walking in the starlight."

From the open door of Legolas's room, Thranduil heard them talking. He knew there would be nothing keeping her away from that telescope tonight, but he was just glad she had something that would help her with Legolas leaving for college. He made a good call buying that for her, then.

Five Years Ago

"Kili, wake up."

Kili tried to open his eyes and found that even the thin strip of light streaming in from the closed blinds was making his head pound. He made a loud groan and rolled over, feeling absolutely sick to his stomach.

Hanging off the edge of his bed, he felt a strong hand gripping one of his shoulders, keeping him from rolling all the way out of bed. A bucket was placed below him, soft music playing in the, soft music playing in the background. He didn't know how he'd gotten a hold of his brother before he's passed out, but he thanked every god in existence the he had.

"Fee..." Kili tried to say before feeling an ambush of nausea attack every nerve he could still feel. He heaved the contents of his stomach with an unfortunately unpracticed ease. After everything was out and his coughing was done, he felt a rag at his mouth. He leant up, still feeling like shit, but awake and alive enough to roll over and sit up.

"'m not a baby, Fee." He said, it being the first thing he thought of. He was finally looking at his brother, his prim and proper big brother, clad in sweat pants and an old Beatles t-shirt, hair mussed and bags under his eyes.

"Well, my definition of a baby is someone who can't take care of themselves." Fili said, sounding as exhausted as he looked. "So you, baby brother, are fucked."

"You can say that again." Kili mumbled, his memory slowly coming back to him. "What happened?"

Fili was sitting on a chair next to the bed, and he slumped into it. "I got a call from you at three a.m. It was most likely an accident, but I heard you were at a party. I was worried, if you remember anything about the conversation we had about you cutting back on partying and girls and drugs."

Fili watched his brother carefully as he spoke. He was mad at him, of course he was, but he also knew how reasonable he to be while Kili was so out of it. He had to take care of him, make sure he got better, then he could punch his lights out for being stupid.

"So I took the hour drive to get here. I didn't find you here, so I asked around. Eventually I found you down the hall, with a few girls. And a variety of hallucinogens."

"Then what?" Kili rasped, lying down on his back and breathing deeply.

"I told them you were mental and got you the fuck out of there. Planted you in here. Watched some TV. Looked over your unopened text books."

"Don't lecture me, Fili, I know I screwed up." Kili said, fighting through the pain in his entire body in order to even speak. Tears were streaking down his face he was in so much dysfunction. "I know I'm worthless, I know I don't belong here."

It broke Fili's heart to see him like this, knowing that he could have done more to help him. No, he'd felt helpless this entire time, unknowing of what to do other then tell him what he was doing wrong. Only now did he realize his mistake.

"You're not worthless." Fili said, getting up to kneel on the edge of Kili's bed.

"Then what the hell am I?" Kili yelled, rolling over abruptly, using his arms to lift himself up. his head hung low and his back was to Fili. "What am I?"

"You're my brother." Fili said, as evenly as he could make out. "And I'm taking you home."

"Not to mother, not like this." Kili said furiously.

"Not to mother, not to Thorin. Come home with me. You can sleep on my couch until we can move you into my room."

"...What about school?" Kili asked weakly, his strength giving out already.

Fili scooted up onto the bed and wrapped his arms around Kili from behind, bringing him into a bear hug of comfort, tightening his hold on him when he seemed to go limp. "You don't need school. Right now, you need peace. You need a break, you need family."

He felt Kili shaking. "Hell yes. Get me out of here."