Ten minutes later Fili rushed back to their chamber and burst through the door.

"Sigrid, love, I'm so…" He stopped. The chamber was empty, as was the bathing room. He'd not been gone long, though. He had scowled aimlessly along the corridors of the Mountain for only a few minutes until, as quickly as it had flared, his temper had vanished, and he had headed straight back, full of remorse. Sigrid couldn't have gone far in that time.

He didn't want to stay in their chamber and wait for her to return, he was too keyed up. He had to go and find her. He thought about where she might have gone, and ran first up the long flights of stairs to the parapet of the great front gate, skidding to a halt on the flagstones as he burst out of the doorway into the warm air of the summer afternoon, breathing heavily. His shoulders slumped when he realised she wasn't there.

He raced back down the stairs, hurriedly apologising as he skirted around people moving too slowly through the corridors, to the West Hall, hoping she'd be at one of the tables. There was no sign of her there either. He blew out a breath, tapping a foot restlessly and looking around the hall as he tried to think. The Mountain was so big that he could spend hours going around in circles and never cross her path, if she didn't want to be found. But that wasn't like her. It wasn't in Sigrid's nature to be petulant, or sullen; if she was upset, she would be in search of solace, not hiding from him in a game of tit-for-tat. And if he was the one who had upset her, who would she go to for that solace?

He turned and made for the stables. She'd go to her father.

Fili pulled up his pony in front of Bard's house. The sun was low in the sky behind him, but the light of the summer afternoon still lingered, and there were no lanterns shining in the house to indicate whether anyone was at home. He dismounted, flung Mindy's reins loosely around a post, and strode forward to knock on the door.

No-one answered. He peered through a window. The house was deserted. He knew that Tilda was staying up at the Mountain for supper with Tauriel and Kili, but surely Bard and Bain should be at home at this time of the evening. He stepped back to glance up at the windows of the upstairs level. Nothing. He headed around to check the barn, on the off-chance they were out there. He'd felt sure this was where Sigrid would have come, but having found her Da not at home, where would she have gone next? Britte? Jerrik? There was no way of knowing.

As he turned the corner of the house, his eye fell on an oddly-shaped bundle of fur and leather in the middle of the vegetable garden. He started running.

"Sigrid!"

She lifted her head from her drawn-up knees, and saw it was him. She threw his coat off from around her shoulders, climbed up from the ground and ran towards him.

He crushed her in his arms, and buried his face in her neck.

"I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry."

He pulled back to kiss her face firmly, once, twice, half a dozen times, then sunk his face into her neck again. They held each other tight, breathing in the comfort of their embrace, until Sigrid pulled back and gestured behind her.

"This is where I've been, Fili." Her eyes brimmed with tears. "Here, gardening. I would never, never…"

He took her face in his hands, his eyes sorrowful and pleading. "You don't have to explain, love. I know you wouldn't, and it was wrong of me to have ever suggested it." He pulled her back to him and cradled the back of her head with his hand. "Let's go home. We need to talk about this. All of it."

She nodded against his shoulder and wiped her eyes, and he gave her a rueful smile as she turned away to retrieve his coat from the garden bed.

She walked back towards him, her eyes on the coat folded over her arm, her hand brushing bits of grass and soil off the fur.

"I know it's too warm for this," she murmured. "But even when I was mad at you, I still wanted you." She looked up. "When I put it on, it's like you have your arms around me."

His heart smote him at her words, and he held out his arms again.

"I'm so sorry, love. I'll say it a thousand times."

"I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have snapped at you." She stepped once again into his embrace. "But I don't want to talk about it here. Let's go home."

They arrived back at the Mountain as the sun was setting. One of the guards at the gate took the ponies' reins and led them off to the stables, while Fili sent word down to the kitchens to have his and Sigrid's supper sent up to their chamber. They made their way back there, and once inside, Fili took Sigrid in his arms again.

"I came back ten minutes after I left, to apologise," he began. "But you had already gone."

"How did you know where to find me?" she asked.

"An educated guess. I know you well enough." He drew back to look at her face, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Not well enough to read your mind though, love. You need to tell me what's going on."

She pulled back from him and took a deep breath. "I will, but first, would you make me a fire? Just a small one. I want to sit and look at it while we talk."

He frowned, concerned and wary at her seeming distance, but he nodded. "Of course, if you want." As he made up the fire, one of the kitchen staff arrived discreetly at the door with their supper. Sigrid slid the tray onto the rug in front of the fireplace, and they propped themselves up against the end of the bed and watched the flames as they ate.

"I owe you an apology, Fili," Sigrid said quietly as she sipped a goblet of wine, staring at the fire. She shook her head as he tried to demur. "Not about the argument. It's everything. The whole baby business. It's become all I think about."

"I know how important it is to you, Sigrid." A chill had run down Fili's spine at her words, but he took a deep breath and steeled himself. If she wanted to find someone else, someone who could give her a child, he wasn't going to stand in her way. It was ironic: he would willingly give her anything in the world she wanted, but the one thing her heart was set on, he was unable to provide. And it cut him to the quick.

"No. It's not right. I've lost perspective." She looked at him from across the tray. "What you said made me realise how much."

He shook his head, discomfited at the recollection of his outburst. "Please, Sigrid, forget what I said. I didn't mean it."

"But you were right." She reached behind her and pulled out her sheaf of charts, and there was a tremor in her voice. "It just hurts, Fili. Feeling so useless, seeing everyone else have babies and thinking, 'Why not us? When is it going to be our turn?' and knowing that it might never happen. I had to try. I can accept it if I know I tried."

She slid the tray out of the way and closed the distance between them. "But it's been taking everything out of me, and I had nothing left to give you." She placed a hand on his cheek, caressing him with her thumb. "You've been hurting too, haven't you, love? I thought I was protecting you, by not talking about it, but all I did was send you the message that I cared more about it than about you."

His relief was palpable, a great weight lifting from his heart. She didn't want to find someone else. He was not going to lose her. But there remained a measure of guilt: she was in more pain than he had realised, and he'd been focused on his own concerns. He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand, but when he reached for her, she held his hands back.

"Please, love, let me finish. I've got to bring everything back into perspective. It's making you miserable. It's making us miserable." Her face crumpled and she slowly shook her head, her pain and sadness finally bringing tears to her eyes. "I just wanted us to be a family, you and me. But I don't want to end up having a baby and not having you."

She leaned toward the fireplace, and threw her charts into the fire.

She turned back to him, and this time didn't resist when he reached for her and pulled her close. He murmured brokenly into her hair.

"Oh Sigrid, love, I didn't realise how bad it's been for you. All I could think about was whether you wanted to find someone else. Whether maybe you should find someone else. Someone who can give you what I can't."

She drew back and looked at him in anguish. "Fili, no. Never." She took his face in her hands and looked into his eyes desperately. "It's you I want, only you. Now and always." She kissed him, hard, and without releasing his lips climbed across his legs to straddle his lap. He slid his arms up inside hers to her neck and held her gently as he let her plunder his mouth, then suddenly the wall inside him that had been containing all the emotion of the last few months, his fears, his anxieties, his awareness of her pain and distance, and the tension between them, broke down, and he crushed her body to his, and took control. She was his, she always was, and she always would be.

Sigrid felt the sudden change in Fili's kiss. She knew they needed to talk more, but it could wait. Their loss of intimacy was also part of the problem, and from the way Fili was responding, it looked like that, at least, might be an easy fix. His arms slid around her and pulled her to him, and she revelled in the strength with which he held her. He was normally so gentle, so conscious of his power compared to hers, but now there was an edge to his touch that she had never felt before, and though she knew it was born of desperation, she relished it. She sunk her fingers into his hair and held on as he devoured her neck, one hand moving from her back to close over her breast, and she felt his growl of displeasure as his hand found her stays underneath her shirt. He lifted her up and turned to seat her on the edge of the bed, and kneeled between her legs, pulling off her shirt and throwing it on the floor, his hands roving her body and his lips against her neck.

"Sigrid."

He was talking to her. She tried to concentrate. "What is it, love?"

"Are you attached to these stays at all?"

She shook her head, distracted and puzzled. "Not really. Why?"

He took firm hold of the fabric either side of the laces and she saw his muscles flex as he ripped the garment apart. He threw it aside and fell on her breasts, his lips and tongue swirling and tasting first one, then the other.

"Mmm. That's why."

She laughed, and she couldn't remember the last time she'd done that in their bed. His lips trailed down her stomach as he lowered her backwards, and she laughed again, happy that she felt happy, relieved and glad in the knowledge that the distance between them was closing. She lifted her hips as he tugged her breeches down and threw them aside, and then he paused and drew back to look at her, his blue eyes intent and predatory, reclaiming her as his own, and the laughter in her eyes faded, burned away by his gaze and leaving desire in its wake. He reached up his open palm and swept it proprietorially from her neck down to her knees, and then he lifted her leg over his shoulder and leaned in to place his lips over her sex.

One hand felt lightly for his hair, her fingers entwining with his braids, and the other went to her forehead, and she closed her eyes. She was transported, utterly. He was not lingering on her gently, as she was used to, but devouring her hungrily, sweeping his tongue along her folds firmly and thoroughly, pulsing insistently on her bud with his lips, pushing his tongue inside her again and again, and returning for more, intent on drawing the maximum sensation and pleasure from her body without delay. He caressed the thigh that was resting on his shoulder and then changed the angle of his mouth, bringing his fingers up to delve inside her, and she felt her climax rising, her moans and gasping breath urging him on. She fisted both hands in his hair as it rose higher and higher and finally broke, flooding her body, and she cried out his name, her heart pounding and her muscles clenching around his fingers. Her cry drew from him a low, guttural sound, a self-satisfied moaning laugh that she felt deep inside her even as she shuddered, and he looked up at her, his blue eyes this time gloating and possessive.

"Sigrid mine."

He crawled up her body and rolled onto the bed beside her, shrugging out of his shirt. Still catching her breath, she pulled impatiently at his breeches, and he lifted his hips and kicked out of them, and she took him in her hands. He threaded a hand into her hair and used it to hold her as he rested his forehead on hers.

"Amrâlimê, I want to be inside you," he whispered hoarsely. She pushed him back onto the bed and straddled his waist, reaching underneath her to position him where he needed to be, and took him inside her, her hands finding his for leverage as she began moving. She sighed and closed her eyes at the feel of him filling her so completely, and for no other reason than the joy and connection of it, and increased her pace. His hands moved to her hips, and she leaned on his chest as he used his hands to direct her rhythm, pulling her onto him as he thrust into her with grinding force. Again she felt an edge to his movements, less gentle but not less considerate, and she wanted more. She leaned down to whisper as much in his ear, and he groaned, grasping her tightly and flipping her onto her back, one hand sliding around her thigh to lift it up beside him, and he began driving into her in earnest. It was primal, ferocious, and she gloried in it. She held on to him, and soon felt him tense up, and with a great shudder he climaxed, moaning her name and spilling himself inside her.

He collapsed on the bed beside her, breathless, spent, and drew her into his arms. She laid her head on his chest and listened to his pounding heart, her head rising and falling with his panting breath, her hand flat on his stomach, and she felt him running his fingers through her hair. She lay like that until his heart rate slowed, and then she whispered to him.

"Fili, my love, I've missed you so. I've missed this. You and me. Like it should be."

He drew her face up to look at him, leaned in to capture her lips in a tender kiss, and nestled her into his shoulder. "We can fix it, beloved," he whispered. He paused, and she knew he was grinning. "You have to admit, we've made an excellent start." She laughed, and he reached up to stroke her hair again. "You don't know how good it is to hear you laugh, my love. We've let everything get to us for far too long." He paused again, thinking, his fingers toying with her hair absently. "We need to get away. There's too much baggage here, too many opinions. We need to forget about everything for a while and concentrate on us. What do you think?"

She raised herself up onto her elbow and looked down at him, her fingers taking strands of his hair and smoothing them back, one by one, before caressing his cheek with her thumb. "I think that's a very good idea."