Lovelies! I told you I was making another story and I did. I hope that you will enjoy this newest installment and I plan to make it a fairly long, complicated, sad and joyful journey.

XxOxX

Tauriel didn't notice the slight rise and fall of Kili's chest as he lay still quite still in her arms. She didn't notice the blood that began to flow once again within the young dwarf's body as it began to leak out slowly onto his clothes intermingling with the old. It wasn't until the dwarven party of soldiers that came to collect his body with a stretcher made of hid and wood lifted him from Tauriel's arms that they heard a groan that was so quiet one might have mistaken it for wind, but Tauriel heard it as loud as a bronze warning bell ringing right next to her ear.

The dwarves paused even as they listened again, keeping Kili suspended in the air, deciding that it must have been a strange noise they lowered him onto the gurney and heard the noise again as well as noticed a twitch in his fingers as a purposeful movement away from the motion that his body had taken onto the furs. Tauriel threw herself over, practically shoving the dwarves out of the way as she placed her hands on his pale, cool face and leaned over him. The curtain of her hair obscured the other dwarves view as their hands moved to their weapons as she placed her ear within an inch of his mouth and felt the warmth of his breath as it caressed the appendage gently, like a feather and ever so light.

"He's alive." She whispered, unbelieving. "Impossible."

"What did ya say, elf?"

At first she didn't answer as her heart had stopped and her form was frozen in shock. Alive? How could he be alive? She had seen him die and had watched his soul vanish from his eyes. His body had been cold in her arms and he had not breathed in at least an hour from the time she had come back to his body. Her next thought spurred her into action. If he was alive now, then he wouldn't be for very much longer unless he received attention to his wounds. "Take him to your healers."

"The prince is dead. The healers can do nothing now."

Tauriel knew that they had little time to waste on arguing the point so she drew her blade swiftly and placed it over his mouth. She paid no attention to the unsheathing of several weapons while she did so. A light touch of fog shimmered over the blade near his lips and a startled gasp came from the closest dwarf. "Move."

Tauriel stumbled back from the gurney as the dwarves carried the fallen prince away from her. She gathered herself and ran after them. The trip through the tunnels and passageways would lose them time but hopefully he would make it until he could be attended to. Tauriel briefly thought about trying to heal him again but knew that her power was severely depleted by the lives that she had taken and the previous healing that she had done not a few days hence. There would be no way to do it again without at least resting and to do so would be folly. She would think over the miracle that had unfolded later. He was alive and her heart had reason to beat once more and it did with a sound like thunder in her ears.

She watched at the dwarves placed a wad of clean cloth over the wound to stem the flow of blood that was seeping from his wound at a stead, if slow rate. Tauriel wondered if she should help them but knew that her height would hinder all of their movements and that haste was necessary. They cleared the ruins and began the decent down to the base of the mountain. Several dwarves were gathered at the entrance to the mountain city of Erebor as well as a great many humans and countless bodies of elf, dwarf, human and orc. The dwarves began shouting in their language down the mountain and others began the climb up to aid them in taking the fallen prince into the mountain. Tauriel followed until her way was blocked by three dwarves. Unwilling to lose sight of her fallen love she drew her blade and said, "If you do not move then I will make you."

"Elves do not belong…" One of the dwarves had started speaking but was cut off when one of the litter bearers shouted at him in dwarvish. The male had looked surprised but grudgingly moved. Tauriel sped past him as the gurney continued into the mountain. She would have to thank the dwarf who spoke for her later, memorizing his face, or at least attempting to. Most of these looked the same, or at least very similar to her. They all had beards, weathered faces, armor, and nothing like Kili. She heard the sound of several pairs of boots behind her but didn't spare a glance. There was no danger emanating from them at the moment so there was no need for her to look. They didn't go far into the mountain but Tauriel had seen the large room in which the dragon had stored all of its treasures and the sight would have awed her at any other time. Instead they traveled into a different large room, but not even an eight of the size of the treasure room. Several wounded were being treated on pallets on the floors, the sounds of the wounded and dying filled her ears as well as the sight of blood, organs and bone. Several bodies covered in sheets lined the walls, those unable to be saved. Dwarves moved past her and she finally found out who had been following them. Of the company that had entered and left Mirkwood a few of them now arranged around Kili, giving the healers who had rushed to the stretcher room to work. Oin took control of the situation having come in with the rest of them. He ordered clean water, bandages, a needle and thread.

The dwarven healers began cutting and stripped away his armor and clothes to expose his chest and the wound that had been created inside of it. She heard the fall of metal and watched bloody strips of cloth as they fell to the floor in a heap, discarded. Her eyes flickered back and forth from the huddle of dwarves to the pile as it grew. She heard a foul curse and stepped closer, not that she could see much beyond the solid wall of dwarves as they moved around Kili. Another dwarf ran past with a basin of water and clean cloth holding needle and thread. More cloth was added to the pile as the wound was cleaned. Each noise was etched forever in her memory from the splatter of the water hitting stone to the slap of wet and bloody cloths doing the same. "By Mahal…how is he still alive?" One of the healers whispered and Tauriel could keep away no longer. Quick strides brought her to the back of the dwarves and she felt her heart drop and could not stop the gasp from escaping her lips. He was so pale on the table. He hadn't been this pale when she had healed his previous wound. His black hair and stubble was even more pronounced and his lips had lost their color as well. Her eyes were drawn downward almost against her will as she surveyed his neck then the top of his chest before resting on the hole that had been created in his flesh. It was about the size of a dwarven fist, messy and bloody and marred the flesh around it jaggedly. His chest rose and fell slightly and distorted the wound which made blood fall in slow trickles out of it.

"Tauriel." Oin said her name but she couldn't hear him. "Tauriel! Look at me, girl!" Her eyes snapped away from the wound and met the older dwarf's gaze. "I need your help if you wan' him to live."

"My help?" She replied almost dumbly.

"Come over 'ere. You need to use those elf fingers 'o yours to stitch him back up."

As she walked over the other dwarves looked at her curiously as they parted. "What do I do?" She asked the dwarven healer who had his horn up to his ear.

"His lung be injured. You need ta' stitch it back up and set his bone. He's lost a lot o' blood. And his ribs be broken. You will see. His breastbone should be broken too, but it's no'. Our hands are too big for it. Yours are the right size." He grasped her hand in his bloody one. Kili's blood. "You will see the tear, lass. Just make it new again, eh?" He handed her the needle an' thread and she felt briefly ill but forced herself to push her emotion down. Emotion would get him killed. She needed to go back to her colder self before he had brought her to life. She peered into the wound and set to work with the curved needle.

She could see the wound and watched the pink lung as it struggled to inflate and deflate. She had never paid much attention to the color of the organs inside of a body but she noticed much of it lacked color. Her hands were delicate as they worked on the lung, running the needle into the lung and out again, in and out and the thread pulled taut each time. It seemed like a short time later before she tied off the end and surveyed her work. The lung seemed to be working better already but then she turned her attention to the broken rib bones that had shifted out of her way and moved them back with firm fingers hearing the grate as they rubbed against each other. The muscles in between each rib seemed to both aid and resist her in her desire to set them back right. After that was done she looked back up at Oin who surveyed her work with satisfaction. "Good work, lass. Now let us bandage him up."

"You aren't going to sew the rest of it shut?"

"Eh? No. Don't want it to fester. Going to put a poultice on it and wrap it tight."

Tauriel backed away from the group as they began to work again on him. The world came rushing back to her in a wave of sensation. The feel of Kili's cooling blood on her hands, the chill of his skin as she worked and the way that he hadn't even acknowledged pain that he had to have felt when she was inside of his chest. She felt ill and the room began to spin. Tauriel gave no acknowledgement to the firm hands that led her to a wall and helped her to slide down as tears streamed down her cheeks and sobs heaved her chest while she stared at her hands through blurred eyes. Her Kili was alive and she had saved him but for how long would he stay that way? Hope had already wormed its way inside her like a sickness and was in the process of uplifting her broken heart. Had the Valar heard her prayer and sent it to Illuvatar? Would he give this gift to one such as her? She would never really know but she was thankful for it nonetheless.

XxoXX

I'm back! Told you that I would be. Okay…so I've used a bit of my anatomy and medical knowledge in this chapter. And Tauriel is in a fair bit of shock so expect her to be a little OOC for a chapter or two. Shock does weird things to people. I hope to have the next chapter up soon but it will be a long recovery and a while before Kili and Tauriel actually have any interaction as he is comatose and whatnot but you will get a lot of other characters and Tauriel and how the other dwarves perceive her and how she handles it.

The handle pointy thing went directly into his chest cavity breaking ribs, tearing through muscle and piercing his heart and probably breaking his breastbone along the way with tearing his lung. That's what I got from the rewatch of the death scene. It looks to be like that. His heart had been repaired as had his breastbone but the torn muscle, broken ribs and lung were left to heal on their own as those injuries are incredibly serious but not as fatal as holes in hearts and inability to place wire into the breastbone to fix it.

Tell me what you think! I'm always happy and excited to get feedback from you guys!