Author's note: Not much plot progress here, mostly some angst and a bit of fluff. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading, reviewing, following, ... :-)

Disclaimer: I don't own The Hobbit or any of its characters. If I did, I would be rich and living in a custom made hobbit hole in some beautiful, remote place, writing whatever I want all day long.


Chapter 03

When Kíli awoke in the pale, grey light of dawn, he was blessed with a few moments during which both the ache in his soul and the pain in his body were numbed by the residues of sleep. He was keenly aware of the body curled around his, Tauriel's touch light as a feather despite the closeness of their bodies. He was not surprised by her presence – his mind seemed to have registered her embrace even during sleep. This did however not stop his heart from lurching into his throat, the urge to turn in her arms and hold her close overwhelming and at the same time completely terrifying.

Oh, how he had dreamt of this ever since they had parted on the shores of the lake, the knowledge that there was at least the inkling of a chance that she might feel about him as he felt about her setting his entire being on fire. Dreams of a future in which she might be his and he might be hers had been what had helped him through those dark days and nights during which the company had been holed up inside the mountain, their king adrift amongst the treasures it held, his sanity becoming more questionable with each passing day.

He had stubbornly held onto that hope for brighter days no matter how dire their situation became, had simply ignored Fíli when he had fixed him with a dark, reproachful glare on more than one morning, after, he knew, Tauriel's name had been a whisper on his lips while he had slept. He had told himself that he knew something his brother did not, that his feelings for the fire-haired elf had somehow given him an understanding of things that eluded those who had not yet been so lucky as to encounter someone who captured their heart and soul in their entirety.

In the cruelest manner, though, fate had given him to understand that maybe his brother had been the wise one and he himself the one who did not understand. That Fíli, always the more insightful one, had somehow known that Kíli's hopes for the future where foolish simply because of the fact that there was no such thing as a future for them. Had known that it all was to end not only in fire, but also in death.

Or at least it should all have ended in death. In Kíli's case though, it had not. And now Kíli could not comprehend why he was still there, still alive. He was convinced that the line of Durin was supposed to end on that on Ravenhill and the fact that he was alive still did not alter that conviction, if anything it made his mere existence feel more wrong.

And this was precisely the reason why he remained completely still in Tauriel's arms, feigning sleep until she eventually rose from the uncomfortable cot and busied herself with something across the room. For how could he, after everything, cling to his almost childish hope that all would be well, that he would somehow find a way to make both her and himself happy? He had failed everyone – his brother, his uncle, and even his mother in the sense that out of her family of three only one lived. He had even failed at dying properly so that he could be buried at his beloved brother's side.

His fists clenched in perfect synchronicity with his stomach at the thought of his Fíli's body, pale and lifeless, laid up in the tombs deep inside the mountain. This had never been supposed to happen, if anyone it should have been him to go first – him, the reckless one, the foolish one…

The newly rising agony in his heart had to have shown in his posture, for Tauriel suddenly addressed him, her soft voice halting him in his downward spiral towards despair.

"I will need to have a look at your wound before too long."

He glanced at her over his shoulder, wondering if she was merely trying to distract him from his thoughts. He considered turning her away and telling her that he did not really want to get better, that he did not care if his wound festered, but the look in her eyes and the nervous wringing of her hands made him change his mind. Carefully he rolled onto his back and began to unlace the shirt he was wearing, which, he realized only now, was not his own.

When he was done, he let the shirt fall open and turned his head to the side to listlessly stare at the small patch of sky visible through the tiny window, waiting for Tauriel to proceed. Cautiously she approached his bed and began to remove the bandages on his chest with nimble fingers. Gingerly she touched his wound with her fingertips and he flinched, provoking an apologetic look from her.

"It is healing well," she said, the relief in her voice causing a lump to form in Kíli's throat.

To distract himself from the feelings her obvious worry about his wellbeing stirred in him, he risked a glance at his injury. He was surprised to find that it looked nothing like a wound sustained a mere day ago – although he supposed he should be familiar with the potency of elvish healing by now. He, too, lifted a hand to carefully probe the flesh surrounding the spot where the blade had entered his body. It was an angry red, wilted and swollen, but nothing like the bloody mess he had expected.

He looked back up at Tauriel and caught her gaze straying from his wound to skim across his mostly bare upper body. Upon feeling his eyes on her, she immediately checked herself, but the flush creeping across her cheeks caused Kíli's own face to feel quite warm all of a sudden.

Tauriel cleared her throat and this unfamiliar kind of tension between them lessened, but did not entirely dissolve. "I am going to put some ointment under your bandages." She wrinkled her nose. "I'm sorry if it does not smell very pleasant. It is, however, going to help lessen the scarring."

Kíli was not sure whether he really wanted anything to be done about his scar – if he was so lucky as to escape with his life while other, better men had died, should he not at least carry a reminder of that for the rest of his life? An ugly scar seemed to him to be just the appropriate kind of thing. But again he complied, if only to see the small, pleased smile on Tauriel's lips.

"You do not have to stay," he said after she had finished caring for his wound and had reapplied the bandages. It was not that he really wanted her to leave, for he was unsure if he would be able to keep himself from falling apart once he was left alone. He did, however, begin to feel like a burden to her, seeing how weak, how pathetic he had to appear to her.

She smiled a little tiredly. "I have nowhere else to be."

He bit his lip, wondering if she meant that she would rather be with him than anywhere else or if she was merely at his side for a lack of better things to do. If anything, this uncertainty made his need to present her with the option of some time to herself more pressing. "Are you not a captain in your king's guard?" he asked. "I do not want to keep you away from your duties."

At this she actually sat down on the edge of his bed, her fingers playing with the edge of her tunic. "I am no longer a captain," she said, her voice low and hesitant.

Kíli frowned and forgot for a moment that he had only ever mentioned her position to give her a reason to escape from this room for a little while. "I do not understand… back in your homeland you were in charge of the guards inside the dungeons…"

She interrupted him. "Mirkwood is not my home anymore. I won't… I cannot return." Still, she avoided his gaze, her own expression curiously tense.

Kíli was silent for a moment. When mustered the courage to inquire about the meaning behind her words his tone was tentative, for he was not sure he really wanted to hear the answer to his question. "When you say that you cannot return…"

But Tauriel answered before he was finished. "I am forbidden to do so. I was banished." Finally she looked at Kíli, and it pained him to see a hardness in her features he was not used to.

"Why?" he asked, even though he already knew the answer. The weight in his stomach that was made entirely out of guilt had just gotten a little heavier still.

Tauriel pursed her lips, but did not even attempt a lie Kíli would have seen through either way. "I disobeyed my king's orders when I followed your company to Laketown," she said, her voice carefully neutral. "He does not take kindly to such transgressions."

Kíli's gaze darkened, the personality of the Elvenking, whom he had only ever seen in front of the gate of Erebor, taunting Thorin, eluding his understanding. He seemed to be a cruel, contemptuous character who did not even spare his own people.

And yet, if what Tauriel said was true – and he had no reason to doubt her honesty – it had also been Thranduil who had saved him – him, a dwarf and one of Thorin's kinsmen. Such an act of mercy appeared to be at odds with anything else Kíli knew of the elf-lord. Unless, of course, Thranduil had had ulterior motives in saving his life.

"What about Legolas?" he asked Tauriel, anger rising in his chest. "Did he get banished as well?"

Tauriel shook her head and smiled sadly. "Legolas followed me because he is my friend and because I convinced him that hunting the orc pack was the reason I had to go."

Kíli swallowed. "But it wasn't?" he asked, his voice not as steady as he would have liked it to be. "It wasn't the reason you followed us?"

Tauriel sad gaze softened at that and he thought for a moment that she might take his hand in hers, but she began to worry a loose thread at the edge of his blanket between her fingers instead.

"I…," she began, but then faltered. She seemed to search for the right words. When she spoke again, her voice was very tentative. "A pack of orcs was not what tugged at my heart so fiercely that I saw no other choice but to defy my king, knowing there would be consequences."

Kíli felt his heartbeat pick up at her admission. Looking back on their time at Laketown, he had later often cursed himself for not asking her if it had really been him she had come for. Not that it made that much of a difference, but still he had spent hours wondering if her finding him there had been a matter of mere coincidence or if she, too, had been profoundly affected by the few stolen moments they had shared in Thranduil's dungeons. More than once had he fantasized about hearing her admit that, yes, it was true, he was the reason she had come to Bard's house that night when he had already half passed into the shadows.

What had been absent in his fantasies, however, was the nagging feeling of guilt that troubled him now and that prevented him from taking her in his arms as his dream-self would have bravely and confidently done. Instead, he let his head fall back on his lumpy pillow and stared up at the ceiling, cursing himself for bringing such misery to everyone he cared about.

He wanted to apologize for putting Tauriel in this awful situation, but she anticipated his intention and spoke before he could. "What happened is not your fault," she said. He felt her fingers brush his shyly, but fought down the urge to grasp her hand in his. "Everything I have done, I chose to do myself. I have no regrets."

Still Kíli could not look at her, but he did turn his hand over beneath hers, lightly squeezing her fingers. If she would not accept his apology, he at least wanted to thank her, but when he opened his mouth to speak no words made it past his lips. For how did you thank someone who had saved your life again and again, losing everything in consequence? No, there were no words that would come even close to making up for what he owed her.

So instead they just held onto each other silently for a few moments, each of them wondering how they would continue with their lives when everything they had known was gone, wiped off the face of this earth, and their whole existence just a few pieces of debris left behind by the storms that had swept over them.

Eventually Tauriel got up from the edge of Kíli's bed, tiredly brushing down her tunic to rid it of some creases. "You should eat something," she said, "Your body will need all of its strength to heal."

"I don't…" Kíli began but fell silent when she looked at him sternly.

"I will see if I can find something. I won't be long." She glanced at the exit, covered with a piece of tapestry of some sort. "I am quite certain that a guard is close by. Call for help if you require it."

This last statement made Kíli frown. A guard? "Am I a prisoner?" he asked Tauriel.

"No." She shook her head, but another slightly nervous glance in the direction of the door told Kíli that she was not quite as sure of that fact as she pretended to be.

He pursed his lips. "Well, I will not be needing any help," he said a little stubbornly.

This caused the corners of Tauriel's mouth to twitch. "All the better."

Gathering a few empty bowls from the surface of a table that had seen better days, she let her gaze sweep across the small space they had shared for what had to be almost a whole day now. The nervousness of the gesture caused Kíli to wonder if maybe she was a little reluctant to venture outside, not quite knowing what awaited her there.

As she approached the exit, he surprised himself by speaking up, causing her to stop in her tracks. "Did you really mean it?" he asked. "When you said that you do not regret what you did."

Once the words were out he immediately wished he could take them back. Did he really have to cause her more pain than he had already by forcing her to confront the issue again?

Tauriel remained quite still for a few seconds. Then she looked at him over her shoulder, so beautiful in her sadness that it almost hurt to look at her. "Had I not done as I did, you might not be here right now," she said quietly. "So no, I have no regrets."

Kíli suddenly found it quite hard to breathe, but at least managed to hold her gaze for a few seconds before she disappeared through the doorway, not waiting for him to say anything in return. Which was just as well. It was not as if he could have found words that expressed the feelings that were running wild in his chest, nor the thoughts whirling through his head.