1. Till the end of time

Secrets.

A/N Updated 13/07/2015

The house was draped in silence. Nothing could be heard but the faint sound of snoring coming from her husband. He was fast asleep on their older son's bed, leaning on the padded headboards and tightly wrapped in a tangle of covers and limbs which belonged to their children, deep in sleep like their father. Gretchen huffed a chuckle at the sight. She lingered for a moment in the doorway, gazing at the children's bedroom.

There were colourful posters covering the walls – Georg had a deep love for cartography despite being only five years old – and heaps of toys littered the fluffy carpet which was flanked by the boys' twin beds. Klaus and their sons were all asleep in the same bed, peaceful expressions on their slumbering faces. She had no doubt Georg and Markus had ended up draped over their father while they had been listening to their bedtime story. They did so nearly every night – snuggling close to him while Klaus told them the next episode of the tale. She smiled. They loved Klaus' stories. Even Markus, who was only two years old would listen with his big brown eyes impossibly wide, while his father spun his fantastic tales.

Gretchen herself had to admit that she often stopped in the hallway, listening in rapture as Klaus' ever calm voice conjured tales of heroes and kings, mythical beasts and strange creatures. Loyalty and honour. There was something in his stories that was familiar to her. Like an echo of the forgotten times only she remembered. The times she had once lived in. And her husband's voice would almost make her long for that first childhood she so seldom thought about – and the youth which had followed it briefly before its abrupt end. It would make Gretchen think about those days under the Mountain, temporarily closing the distance that facing a life that demanded all her attention had wedged between the dwarrowdam she had once been and the woman she was now.

Between a family and a thriving academic career, Gretchen had no time to ponder her past life and had long accepted it. It was a life long gone and she had chosen to look forward at what this life would have in store for her, rather than living in her memories. She had not forgotten the world she had lived in but she had always been in constant motion – both in this and in the past life - and lingering on the waning memories of her past life – memories she could not share with anyone – was not her way of being.

Life went forward. She lived by the motto of loving the past but living the present. And while it was true that her husband's tales would make her smile wistfully, she would always end up shaking her head and going on with whatever task she had been doing.

She switched the light off in the boys' bedroom, with a curve of her lips that no doubt held a tinge of the wistfulness she felt.

Gretchen had made herself a new life. A better life. She wished she could share the memories of the past one with someone - with her husband - but she couldn't. Klaus would no doubt think she was making fun of him if she were to tell him that many of his works on the belief of reincarnation were terribly accurate and factual. She grabbed the doorknob, smiling wryly at the irony of it all.

It didn't matter in the end.

She glanced at her sleeping family, faintly illuminated by the light filtering inside the room from the street, and decided not to wake Klaus. She had no doubt he was going to wake up in the middle of the night and hobble to their bed with a stiff back, but she was loath to disrupt his slumber, despite the clearly uncomfortable position he was sleeping in. He hadn't been resting much lately - too often tossing and turning in their bed and more than once she had awoken in the wee hours of the morning to find the bed beside her empty and Klaus standing by the window with his shoulders slumped, gazing at the distant darkness – and the sight of Klaus sleeping peacefully for a change was a welcome one. It eased her worries somewhat.

She closed the bedroom door and walked back through the silent house towards the kitchen where she had been cleaning up before she had gone to check on Markus and Georg. Everything was perfectly pristine in the kitchen and she opened the back-door, walking out into the pleasantly chill spring evening.

The faint sounds of voices and laughter carried from one of the neighbouring houses, and she shook her head at the noise in their usually quiet neighbourhood, but it was way too early to begrudge their neighbours some partying, especially on a Saturday night. Besides - she mused while she strolled down the carefully mowed lawn - she remembered her old family had indulged in much rowdier entertainment.

She felt a chuckle shake her from within at the memory of her brothers and cousins loudly laughing and singing until their throats were raw and their bellies full of both food and ale. Gretchen – or Dóta as she had been called back then - had been admittedly too young a dwarrowdam to fully partake in the feasts, but she still vividly recalled the festive atmosphere, the unrestrained enjoyment of watching her cousins walk over the table, her brothers jig between the tankards and all of them throw food at one another.

She shook her head stopping by the linden tree that grew in the far corner of their back garden. She sat down on the stone bench which was placed underneath the branches and felt a wave of sadness ripple within her. Sometimes she missed those days, brief as they had seemed.

It was curious, how relative time truly was. Thirty years could pass in the blink of an eye and yet a decade could last a lifetime. She closed her eyes, breathing the brisk air. Perhaps it was because this time around she had made every minute count, knowing how easily the thread of life could be severed. Or maybe it was because the human mind perceived time in a different manner that her dwarven one had, it was possible. Gretchen had no solution to that dilemma.

She was sure Klaus would have an answer were she to pose that question to him. After all her husband had the mindset of a philosopher - it was what made his work so unique and so appreciated even outside the strictly scientific milieu. Gretchen had no doubt that with a bit of good publicity he could become a best-selling author easily enough - she had even suggested it to him once or twice, but Klaus had always dismissed the ideas with a wave of his hand, telling her there were more important things than selling books. Gretchen still thought it was an idea that had possibilities, but she hadn't been able to argue with her husband's logic and she had dropped the subject, not wanting to trouble him further.

She leaned back on the stone back of the bench, bending her head backwards and opening her eyes to gaze at the sparse stars above that twinkled like tired diamonds, dim between the leaves of the linden tree. Thinking about her husband brought her thoughts back on his strange and worrisome antics, which had been on her mind for days now.

Something was bothering Klaus, but she couldn't figure out what. She had inquired – rather frequently – about it, but he had reassured her everything was in perfect order and something in his dark bespectacled eyes had made her desist from further inquiries.

She sighed, leaning into the stone of the bench and feeling grounded by its stalwart presence, much like she had been in the past, even though the stone no longer hummed within her soul.

Klaus wasn't properly sleeping and he looked tired, the faint outline of circles growing darker under his eyes. She knew it wasn't just his work. There were longing looks in the distance when he thought she wasn't around and a great measure of worry, along with something that looked almost like...guilt?

She couldn't understand what ailed him and the first explanation which had – unfortunately – popped up in her mind had been one she had refused to even ponder. It would have been downright demeaning and unfair – especially when she witnessed almost on a daily basis the devotion he had for their family – to even think of it.

But a small part of her could not help the treacherous sneaking doubt from appearing. Gretchen refused to entertain the thought, presently more than ever, and yet she disgustingly wondered if he was having an affair. It would logically explain everything, his strange behaviour, his withdrawn attitude, the guilt. And it wouldn't be impossible, given how much time he spent away from home to be at the University in Bochum...

Gretchen shook her head, loathing herself. Klaus had been the most devoted husband any woman could wish for so far. He had never given her any reason to doubt his fealty. To think that he might have found another woman was an offence to him and it made her furious with herself. He may not have been a dwarf like she had been in her past life, bound to love only once, but to think him capable of adultery...

She angrily got up to her feet, starting to pace around the darkness of the garden. There had to be an explanation for Klaus' behaviour that did not involve infidelity. She would just have to patiently try and discover it. It was simple, really – she reasoned. She would have to pay closer attention to him – and if a small part of her told her she was doing it to make really sure her theory was wrong, she denied its existence. Gretchen would have to take a page out of her professional method and patiently dig until she found out what troubled him. After all – she thought wryly - one would not uncover ancient mosaics with an excavator.

She nodded. It was going to be hard, though. Klaus was a very secretive man, despite his amiable nature. But after fifteen years by his side Gretchen was confident she would be able to riddle it all out.

Casting aside every remnant of her incredibly stupid notions, she decided it was getting late enough to go to sleep and made her way back into the house, locking the door behind her. She tiptoed barefoot towards their bedroom, careful not to wake anyone and opened the door.

In the relative darkness, broken only by the white light of the street-lamp, she noticed Klaus' sleeping form snuggled under the covers. He must had woken up, after all. She changed in her nightgown and, silently, she sneaked into bed, trying not to disrupt Klaus' usually light sleep, but an arm curled around her midsection the second her head hit the pillow.

She smiled, leaning in.

"I didn't wake you?" Gretchen asked him in a whisper and she felt him shake his head, gently pulling her closer.

"I got into bed a short while ago." he replied softly, his voice sounding tired.

Gretchen pressed her lips onto his. They lingered a moment before she put her head in the crook of his neck and closed her eyes, lulled to sleep by the sound of his breathing.

The sink rang hollowly when Balin put down the empty glass. He lifted his eyes and looked at the garden beyond the window where his wife was currently planting flowers. Watching Gretchen shovel dirt to make the necessary holes made an amused smile curve his lips. She was applying the same meticulous yet energetic care she was used to during excavations and Balin almost expected her to triumphantly exclaim she had found some ancient relic under their lawn.

He shook his head at his silly thoughts and began washing up. The house was eerily quiet with the boys being at their grandparents' house for the weekend and Balin found it almost unnerving. Especially with the thoughts that plagued his mind lately.

He closed the tap and leaned against the sink.

They were nothing new. In fact they were at the origin of all his academic work of research, but in the past he had been able to forget sometimes that his whole existence was one, well-constructed deception.

He was Klaus Weber, son of Ute and Horst, anthropologist specialised in the field of Eastern religions, married to the most extraordinary woman he had ever met – and who was currently watering the newly planted petunias – and father to a pair of overly-inquisitive boys.

But that was only part of who he was – the part he was known for. He was also Balin son of Fundin, erstwhile advisor of the King Under the Mountain and later – albeit briefly – Lord of Khazad-Dûm.

Lord of the long lost kingdom he had woven into the tales he told his children, turning the tragic story of his death into an epic tale of the valorous deeds of a brave company of knights which, after the death of their commander, had been led by a wise healer and a daring scholar and managed to defeat the evil sorcerer who had claimed the castle as their own.

Balin - metaphors aside - liked to imagine that was what had happened after his own demise. He liked to think Óin and Ori had somehow managed to truly reclaim Moria from the goblins and Durin's Bane. But he doubted it.

Still, it gave him a measure of comfort to imagine the events that had transpired after his death. Turning them into a fairy tale - turning all the major events he had witnessed or taken part into a bedtime story fit for two boys - was after all, the only way he was ever going to be able to tell them about it at all.

It troubled Balin.

He had thought for so long that he had made peace with this second chance he had been given - even if he did not understand why, of all the dwarves it would have been him that was given the same blessing Durin had.

It was the main reason why he had endeavoured into researching reincarnation – the need to understand. With time, the urge to know had waned, leaving space to supine acceptance that he was reborn. And Balin had started to build this new life, careful to avoid the mistakes of the past, determined to make this second chance worthwhile.

So hard he had worked to achieve it all - to finish his studies despite having to rely mostly on himself, to get a doctorate, to build a family with the tireless archaeology student he had begun dating when both of them had been on their first year of university in Berlin - Balin had simply, day by day, slowly drifted into a semblance of normality. There were periods of time he would refer to himself as Klaus, almost forgetting the long life he had lived before being reborn. Almost, but not quite.

He grimaced, puling himself upright.

Balin couldn't pinpoint exactly what had made him think of his whole existence once again. Perhaps it was the fast approaching of his thirty-fifth birthday – the notion that he had very likely crossed half of this life's path. Or perhaps it was just that unresolved troubles always found a way to catch up. He didn't know, but it didn't change the fact that he had been lying to every single person in this life, and moreover he had been and still was deceiving Gretchen. And the notion gnawed at him deeply.

But how could he tell his wonderfully rational wife that he had been reborn? She would no doubt think he had taken leave of his senses. That was, after she would have been done laughing at his expense, thinking it no doubt an elaborate joke. A professor who had published eight works so far on the belief of reincarnation that had been reborn himself? It would have made Balin chuckle himself, if all the humour hadn't fled him at the thought of just how much he was withholding from his wife. How much he would withhold from their children.

Balin shook his head sadly, feeling a great weight on his shoulders.

"Klaus." Gretchen's voice startled him and he turned his head in her direction.

She was standing on the doorway, a black smudge of dirt on her flushed cheek and her yellow hair sticking dishevelled in all directions. There was a frown on her forehead and Balin braced himself for the umpteenth inquiry on whether he was alright, but it never came. Instead she said.

"I've been thinking." she pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down "I'll be gone to Italy in July, to dig. What do you say if you and the boys come along?"

"To Aquileia?" he asked, fetching her a glass of water and giving it to his visibly thirsty wife.

Gretchen was going to work on the archaeological site in the small town in Northern Italy, like she had been doing for the past four summers - bar the one just after Markus had been born - and he usually stayed in Essen, caring for their children while she suffered sunburns and dug along with the archaeology students from several Italian universities.

"There's the town of Grado nearby." she said, gulping down the water "I've been there a couple of times, it's nice if you like the sea. Maybe the boys would like it."

She didn't, but that was her own preference. Despite the human body and life she was leading, Gretchen was a dwarf deep within. She had barely seen the surface when she had been Dóta and even now she still loved it best when she was surrounded by stone, digging through ruins.

The holiday had been a spur of the moment idea that had occurred to her just as she had been pruning the hedge. Gretchen had been mulling on her husband's strange moodiness for the past weeks and after a long deliberation she had concluded nothing, save that something definitely bothered Klaus and that she could no longer watch him in such a state.

She didn't know if a holiday would do anything to help him, but a change of scenery – and the small Italian town on the lagoon was as far from Essen or Bochum as it came – could not harm him.

Klaus was looking at her with a twinkle in his brown eyes and Gretchen felt herself grin.

"So, what do you say?" she inquired.

"It's a brilliant idea." he told her, smiling widely. And for a moment Klaus was back to his usual self.

Chapter title taken from "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack.