A/N: Couple quick things. I realized recently that some people have added my story to some communities – I don't know who you are, but thank you for that! And THANK YOU all my beautiful amazing lovely reviewers for all your reviews – I LOVED all of them! They were so wonderful and just…ahhh I don't even know what to say. Virtual hugs for you all, and cupcakes! A special shout-out to Tripping55 for her fantastic review and all her help and support as I was struggling with this chapter – thank you! And to all my anons, who I can't respond to, but who I want to thank for leaving reviews. And just all of you. This chapter is for you guys who reviewed, I hope you like it! I would give everyone a shout-out, but then we'd be here too long, so THANKYOUILOVEYOU. And thank you everyone else who read and subscribed and favorited! Oh and happy late Valentine's Day! :D

The title comes from the song Get up, by Barcelona. I suggest you listen to it! I really really hope you like this chapter – not sure if it's exactly enjoyable, I struggled while writing it, but I hope it's alright! Thank you again!

Get Up

Get up, I need you…

Bofur stared in horror, unable to believe what his eyes were showing him, because there was no way such a small body could have contained so much blood…With a jolt, he remembered the orc, but it lay dead, unmoving, and Bofur's feet seemed fixed to the ground. He couldn't move.

Fili was standing, his expression twisted with shock and pain, and Bofur's mind rewound the last few moments, replaying them, as he tried to figure out what had happened. The orc had been advancing on the boys, and Bofur had killed the second orc and turned in time to see Fili raise his chin defiantly, a gesture reminiscent of his uncle, and Bofur had suddenly seen that the boy had held his dagger – he must've dropped it, but how had Fili even had a chance to pick it up?

That wasn't important. As Fili had made his decision, he had leaped up towards the orc, driving the dagger into its body with every ounce of strength in his body. While he did so, Fili hadn't accounted for the blade that the beast swung towards him as he attacked – but someone else had.

Before Bofur had even been able to cry out a warning, Kili threw himself between the sharp knife and his elder brother, falling limply to the ground as Fili screamed in denial, and the orc had staggered back, the dagger buried to the hilt in its ugly sternum, and collapsed. Bofur couldn't be sure now, but he had a feeling he had been screaming too.

Fili was frozen, gaping down at his brother's body, and Bofur's mind was working furiously, trying to figure out what to do as a bright scarlet liquid seeped from the deep gash in Kili's chest. He needed to get the child to the healers, and quickly – unless he was already dead, but Bofur refused to believe that. But what if the fighting was still continuing outside? How could he carry an injured dwarfling through a battle?

A low moan cut through the silence. Fili dropped to his knees beside his bleeding brother, shaking him desperately, only making the blood flow faster but not knowing what else to do. "Kili!" The raw scream tore itself from Fili's throat, and it snapped Bofur into action.

"Fili, stay here!" he ordered, swooping Kili up into his arms and breaking into a run, hoping the blond prince wasn't following him. In a few strides he was leaving Dis's room and then her house, trying to ignore the way the baby dwarf's blood was soaking through his clothes, making his arms and chest warm, wet, and sticky.

Bofur leaped over an orc's corpse, noticing as he did so that the streets were littered with the bodies. Thankfully very few dwarves lay prone and cold on the ground – most were huddled together, comparing injuries or laughing. The cold outside air whipped against Bofur's face as he ran, and he cradled Kili close to him, sliding his palm against the baby's neck. Incredibly, a pulse still beat there – faint, irregular, but still a pulse. A jolt of hope sparked inside him, and he ran faster, searching the throngs of dwarves for the one he wanted.

Suddenly he caught sight of an iron staff and standout shock of graying hair, paired with a very distinctive beard, and Bofur raised his voice. "Oin!"

The partially deaf dwarf turned, his eyes widening to such a size that it would have been comical had not Thorin's sister-son been bleeding to death in his arms. "Follow me," Oin commanded, ducking into a nearby house. "In there! Put him on the bed, I'll be right back."

Bofur kicked open the door of the indicated room and entered, placing the unnaturally pale dwarfling on the neatly made bed, his heart pounding. Was the child still alive? Bofur wanted to place his hand back on the tiny, oh-so-fragile neck and find out, but his own skin felt clammy and he could feel himself shivering as a cold sweat broke out on his brow. He didn't want to find out. What if Kili had died? How on earth would he face Thorin? How would he explain to Fili that the boy had lost his other half?

But the suspense was more than he could stand, and finally, his heart in his mouth, Bofur leaned down and pressed two fingers to the side of Kili's neck. There was nothing.

A pained cry escaped his lips and Bofur's fingers delved into the toddler's neck with greater urgency, greater pressure, and he gasped with relief when he felt something there, soft but still pounding. The child was nothing if not tenacious.

"Mister Bofur?" A small voice came from behind him, and Bofur jumped. There, standing innocently in the doorway, his eyes large and fearful and his cheeks stained with still-falling tears, was Fili.

"Fili, how did you –"

"I followed the…" Fili trailed off, his lips quivering as another large tear traversed the short length of his cheek before sliding down his neck, and Bofur winced. He knew what the boy was refusing to say. He had followed the trail of blood. "Where's Kili?"

"He's here," Bofur said, reaching down to lift Fili up so he could see, when heavy footsteps sounded behind the boy, and suddenly several dwarves crowded in, Oin among them.

Bofur straightened as they entered, recognizing all the dwarves as healers. "Can you heal him?" he asked softly, not wanting Fili to hear.

But none of the others bothered to keep their voices down.

"This looks bad," one of them commented, his brows coming together in a worried frown. "How did this happen?"

"He took an orc blade for his brother," Bofur explained quietly, still shocked by what the child – still a babe, really – had done. How could a two-year-old even consider giving his life for his brother? Bofur didn't even know if he was capable of such self-sacrificing love, and he was fully grown, with a lifetime to get to know and love his brother. Kili had acted on pure instinct; there was no way he had had time to even think about what to do. From that moment on, Bofur knew that although Kili spent most of his time being a typical baby dwarfling, the dark-haired nephew of Thorin Oakenshield had earned his undying respect.

"That's not good," another healer muttered, bending down to examine the wound, pulling aside Kili's torn tunic to get a better look. "Those are seldom clean – this is bound to be infected."

Panic and bile were rising together in Bofur's throat as the smell of blood and something worse – infection – assailed his nose, when he remembered something with a start. He glanced down to see Fili standing between the healers' legs, trying desperately to see his little brother but failing. He was too small – so small still that none of the other dwarves had noticed him. But Oin was standing between Bofur and Fili; there was no way he could get him out without missing out on the discussion, and at this moment his priority was ascertaining whether the youngest member of Thorin's remaining family would survive.

"Can you save him?" Bofur demanded, raising his eyebrows. How much longer would they dawdle? The child was dying. They could babble on later!

The healer opposite him, the one who had asked how the wound had been received, looked straight at him, and Bofur was shocked to see tears glistening in the other dwarf's eyes. "We will try," the dwarf said softly, sorrow roughening his voice. "But we cannot be certain if he will survive. Even grown dwarves find it difficult to heal from such injuries, and for such a young one…"

"We had better start," Oin interrupted, and Bofur was left wondering whether the partially deaf dwarf had even been listening. "How are we –"

"No poppy juice, he's too small for it – it may put him in a permanent coma," another healer said decisively, creating an instant uproar.

"If he wakes during the process, the pain could kill him!" one dwarf roared, and instantly Fili began sobbing – this seemed to be the only part of the discussion he had heard and understood, and the din increased in volume as the healers realized that a child had been listening – and not just any child, but the brother of the child whose life was in such peril. And Thorin's nephew.

Bofur tried to lift Fili to carry him out of the room, but the dwarfling dodged him and tried to climb up the side of the bed, shrieking his brother's name as if his life depended on it. Another healer scooped the golden-haired child up, and Bofur's heart wrenched painfully in his chest as he heard Fili howling for Kili as he was carried out of the room.

"There appear to be bits of the blade and dirt inside the wound," Oin muttered, probing the bloodied gash gently. "This might take a while. Bofur, would you hand me that vial behind you?"

Bofur complied and then stepped back as the healers gathered around the bed, praying to Aulë that the child would not wake until they had finished. And what were the chances of Kili waking up anyway? He had lost too much blood to regain consciousness just yet.

"We need to staunch the blood flow first," one of the healers was saying, "This should help with that. Now has anyone got…"

-:-

The healer who had carried Fili out of the room simply deposited him outside the door and then reentered it, locking it from the inside before Fili could dart back in. The dwarfling was pounding against the door, but no matter how much he shouted for his baby brother, there was no response, and finally Fili gave up, slumping against the wood behind him, hugging his knees to his chest, his body shaking.

How was he going to tell his mother what had happened? Kili was his responsibility – she had never explicitly told him so, apart from when she had let him carry the baby around before he could even crawl – but Fili had always known it. And now Kili was dying; he had heard them say it, and it was his fault!

If he had just remembered what Uncle Thorin had always told him while teaching him sword fighting, none of this would have happened. Fili could hear his uncle's voice as if the man himself was sitting beside him, saying, "Never let your guard down, Fili. You must make sure that you are keeping your every side protected when you advance, or you could find yourself in a much more difficult situation than you'd like. You exposed your side to my attack when you did that. Now back up, bend your knees – yes, just like that – sword up, let's try this again."

What Fili wouldn't give for this to have been just another training exercise, where the moment he had made a mistake Uncle Thorin would stop him, correct him, and then they would start over, no damage having been done. But this time it had been – and not to him. At least if he had been injured he could safely say it was his own fault, but Kili had been forced to protect him from his own stupidity!

Fili glanced down at his boots, feeling sick as he noticed the red stains on them. Blood. His brother's blood. He couldn't even bear to think of the name, let alone speak it…at this moment, Kili held too much pain for him to even hear the sound, and Fili rubbed his stinging eyes furiously, gasping for breath as his body was racked with dry sobs, and even though it felt like betraying his brother to admit it, Fili was wishing that his mother or uncle was there. He was supposed to be the older brother, the one in charge, but he didn't know what to do – he couldn't even get inside the room his brother was in! At least Uncle Thorin could make them open the door. They just ignored Fili, like they had even while he was inside.

Voices rose in the room behind him, and Fili turned, pressing his ear against the door, trying to listen through the wood. They were arguing, he could tell that much, and he wanted to scream at them not to argue while his brother's life was hanging in the balance. Desperately, Fili flung himself against the door, but he did nothing except give himself a painfully throbbing shoulder. The voices had quieted down, but the silence was even worse than the dispute. With Kili around, silence had become somewhat of a rarity in Fili's life, and it terrified him as it prowled towards him, like a predator smelling a drop of blood and sensing its victim's vulnerability, its gaping jaws opening to swallow him whole.

He curled up against the door, burying his face against his knees, wrapping his arms around himself and finally letting the tears fall as he abandoned every illusion he'd had of being able to help his brother. All he could do was pray everything was okay, and wish with every inch of his being that his mother and uncle found him soon. The thought of leaving to find one of them – if his mother had even arrived yet – didn't occur to Fili. He wouldn't have dreamed of abandoning his place by the door that was keeping him from his brother.

-:-

Thorin was cold. He knew that he was cold more than he felt it, because to be honest, he couldn't really feel anything. He was detached, isolated. In the dark. Was this death? Instinct told him that it wasn't, but in that case his mind wasn't sure what to make of his current reality. Everything was dark, and he felt strangely disembodied, as if he had lost all connection to his body. When he tried to open his eyes or move his hands, he couldn't remember how – he couldn't even feel any part of his physical form.

He could remember being stabbed, and Thorin knew he should be in pain, but there wasn't any. It was there at the fringes of his consciousness, but if he tried to approach it, it vanished. Which suited him. He'd known pain enough not to want any more.

Something was niggling at the corner of his mind, and Thorin tried desperately to focus on it, because something was wrong. Badly wrong. But the first clear thought that came to him brought him a name: Fili. And that name brought with it a memory – and it brought with it light and color to the dark space that confined him.

Thorin dismounted gracefully from his pony as he and Frerin brought their company of ten others dwarves, including Balin and Dwalin, to a halt inside the dwarven settlement. It had been too long since they'd been gone –

"Thirteen months, Thorin," Frerin said quietly, falling into step beside him. A smile worked onto his face. "It was so damn cold when we left – remember all the snow?" His smile grew as he remembered something else. "Do you think Dis is still with child?"

Their sister had told them of her pregnancy shortly before they had left to find a new home for their uprooted people, and although the brothers had been loath to leave, it was their duty as princes to build a better life for their people than they currently had. And although Frerin and Thorin agreed that the Ered Luin were a viable option, both the brothers were of the opinion that Moria was preferable. They simply had to convince their father and grandfather of it.

"Probably," Thorin nodded. It was likely, after all. He was no expert, but he was fairly sure that most dwarven pregnancies lasted about eleven months, so she shouldn't have given birth yet. Unless of course she had told him only after a few months, in which case…

"We're going to be uncles!" Frerin whooped, punching the air and grinning widely.

Thorin rolled his eyes at his younger brother, laughing when Frerin shoved him in the shoulder. "Yes, we are," he said, wondering if he would drop the baby and then be banned from ever holding it again.

"I bet he'll look just like me," Frerin said, his brown eyes glittering as he grinned. "Best-looking baby the world has ever seen. I'll pity the boy if he looks like you, though, Thorin. Always running around looking angry."

Thorin scoffed. "I don't always look angry, and if the boy has your nose, Frerin, he will be forever ashamed."

Frerin felt his nose and scowled. "Just because it's not quite as straight as yours," he huffed. "He'll like me better than you, just wait and see."

"Firnen looks nothing like us," Thorin reminded Frerin. "The child may not resemble us at all."

"Nonsense," Frerin said confidently, "The child will be of Durin's line. If he doesn't look at least a little like us, I will eat my boot."

Thorin chuckled, almost hoping their nephew didn't resemble them at all so Frerin would be forced to make good on his inane bet. And then something else struck him. "Ah, and what if it's a girl?"

Frerin's grin only widened. "The girls love me, brother. More than you." Bending down to the side of the road, he plucked a daffodil, twirling it between his fingers, enjoying the fresh air of the spring evening and the exuberance of the blossom in his hand and it danced in the breeze.

Not deigning to even respond to his blockhead of a brother, Thorin stepped up to Dis's door and knocked, ignoring Frerin whistling an irritatingly repetitive tune behind him.

The door opened in moments, and the princes' dark-blond brother-in-law Firnen stood framed in the doorway. For a moment he gaped, and then he grinned. "Dis!" he bellowed, ushering the brothers inside, "Would you come here a moment?" He turned back to them, clasping Thorin's hand and then giving Frerin a tight hug – he and Frerin had always been closer, maybe because their names were so similar. Besides, Thorin had a tendency to intimidate his brother-in-law. Once a protective older brother, always a protective older brother.

"Thorin!" Dis flung herself into her brother's arms, clasping him tightly. "Thirteen months you two have been gone," she scolded, shoving Firnen away so she could hug her other older brother. "What on earth have you been doing?"

"That's a tale for later," Frerin said, trying to twine the daffodil into one of his protesting brother-in-law's braids. Thorin rolled his eyes, ignoring the twinge of regret he was feeling. Her stomach was flat. They had missed the child.

Dis caught him looking, and smiled at Thorin. "There's someone Firnen and I want you two to meet," she said softly, leaning into her husband as he wrapped an arm around her.

Minutes later they were all in a different room, and Dis was reaching down into a small crib by the fireplace, lifting out a tiny bundle in a rather fuzzy blue blanket. "Thorin, Frerin, this is Fili," she beamed as her brothers crowded around to see.

Thorin smiled ruefully as he saw the bright golden hair on the baby's brow. He had gone on Firnen, although his hair was even brighter than his father's. But the nose was very definitely of Durin's line – straight and regal, the way it should be.

"He doesn't have my hair," Frerin pouted, and Firnen laughed.

"He's my son, remember? Why would he ever want your hair?"

Thorin ignored the quarreling two behind him, instead reaching out and gently stroking the baby's soft cheek. His calloused finger looked so rough next to the fair, unblemished skin. "Fili," Thorin repeated. "It's a good name." He paused, itching to ask but not sure if it would be tactful to, considering he hadn't been there for his own nephew's birth. "How long ago –"

"He'll be three months old in a week," Dis said, rocking her baby gently.

"I am sorry," Thorin said quietly. "I wanted to be here when –"

"It's alright." Dis had always been quick to forgive him. "You had your duty to do, after all." She grinned up at him; the rascally expression reminded him of their younger years, when she had come up with one idea after another that had invariably gotten them into trouble, including "borrowing" their grandfather's crown and giving it to Thorin's baby pony to wear instead. Minty had been pleased – Thror had not. "Do you know what color his eyes are?"

"No," Thorin said, involuntarily glancing over at Frerin, who had brown eyes, and Firnen, whose were a startling green.

"You're in luck," Dis laughed. "I think Firnen and Frerin are being too loud. He's waking, look."

Sure enough, tiny, chubby fists emerged from the blanket as the baby yawned widely before his eyes cracked open, and Thorin gasped. Intelligent, piercing blue eyes stared at him, lashed with gold, and Dis smiled at her brother triumphantly.

"He has our eyes," she offered, seeing in Thorin's eyes a pride and love that made her own heart swell.

"It matters not whose features he has," Thorin said quietly, letting the baby's fingers grasp his index finger tightly. Fili gurgled, and Dis rocked him, humming softly.

"Would you like to hold him?" Dis asked, laughing when Thorin gaped at her. "You won't drop him, I promise. Just copy me. Hold your arms like this, and –" She deposited the tiny dwarfling in his arms, and Thorin stared down at his new sister-son.

He felt the twinge of regret that he hadn't been there when the child had been born, but more than that, there was a sense of purpose rising within him. As Fili began babbling, his clear blue eyes roving over his uncle's face, Thorin smiled at the babe in his arms. One day he would return to Erebor. He would win it back. Fili had a kingdom to inherit.

For a moment Thorin basked in the warm glow of that beautiful evening. But then another reality came crashing down upon him: everyone from that memory, except for Fili, was dead. And the boy still didn't know that Dis was gone. How was he to tell him? Thorin had been the bearer of bad news once already. He didn't want to do it again.

Thorin stood outside the tent, drying his tears and hoping his eyes weren't noticeably red. He had finally gotten Dis settled in her tent, along with the new baby. She had been weeping hysterically until about five minutes ago, when she and the bawling baby had finally foregone tears for sleep. Now he was outside Balin's tent, where he had moved Fili until Dis had calmed. He didn't want the child to see his mother in such a state.

When he stepped in, he found Fili sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Balin, listening eagerly to a story about how Balin had caught his first fish when he was fifteen summers old. Thorin cleared his throat, and Balin smoothly excused himself, leaving Fili looking confused. Thorin sat wearily next to his nephew, letting the child cuddle up next to him, yawning.

"Fili," Thorin rasped, and then cleared his throat. "Fili," he said again.

"Unca Thorin," the sleepy dwarfling mumbled, a small fist clenching on top of Thorin's knee.

"Fili, your father…" Thorin choked on the words, feeling them ramming up against each other in his throat as his mouth refused to give voice to them. How in Mahal's name was he to tell his sister-son – still a baby, by Aulë's tears! – that Firnen was never going to come home? How could he do this without destroying forever the exhilarating sense of invincibility that lends childhood its beauty, ensconcing it in the mind as a time of exquisite joy and freedom? No child deserves to have his joy torn from him while he is still so young, has so much more to discover and wonder at. The day death becomes a reality is the day childhood's innocence dies.

Two blue eyes peeked at Thorin over his knee, brightening instantly. "Daddy?"

Thorin's heart broke in that moment, and he gathered Fili close, running a finger over one of the neat braids that Firnen had twined the golden strands into that morning. He didn't want to say it, but the boy needed to know.

"Your father isn't coming home anymore." Each word tasted like a lime squeezed over Thorin's tongue, so sour he wanted to spit it out, never have to fully comprehend the flavor. But he had to. Because it wasn't just Firnen who wasn't coming home.

Fili's eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at Thorin, puzzled. "Where he go?"

Thorin had his eyes squeezed shut, but a hot, traitorous tear seeped out from beneath a closed lid, and he felt the child stiffen in his arms.

"Unca Thorin?" There was so much fear in those four syllables that Thorin wrapped Fili tightly in his arms, kissing the top of his head desperately.

"Your father is never coming back," Thorin said, his voice shaking with pain. He had never been too close to Firnen, but they had been family. And he loved Fili so much…

"But why?" Fili nearly screamed, gripping Thorin's hair tightly in his fingers as he stood on his uncle's knee, identical pairs of blue eyes staring into each other.

"He's dead," Thorin confessed, unable to meet his nephew's gaze. "I'm sorry, Fili. I'm sorry."

Later on, Thorin didn't remember how many times he had attempted to explain the reality of Firnen's death to his nephew before Fili had finally cottoned on, or how long they both sat there, weeping into each other's hair, clutching each other as if there was no one left for them to hold but the person in their arms. Thorin's fears that Fili wouldn't even want to see his face after the news were groundless; the child clung to him tightly, and Thorin did his best to comfort his nephew through his own tears.

What Thorin had never known was how closely grief and fear were intertwined. Now that his family had been shattered so completely in the course of only one day, he cradled his nephew all the more tenderly, with a love he feared he had never shown before.

Because this day had brought home a terrifying reality: if the orcs had found the tents, if they had ventured beyond the battlefield, Fili could easily have been added to the list of the dead. It was luck that his nephew had survived – the dwarven camp had been barely a fifteen-minute trek from where the battle had taken place. At least Firnen and the others had been able to fight for their lives. They had consciously taken the gamble, and had lost. But if it had been Fili's corpse instead of Frerin's that Thorin had screamed at to open his eyes again, the body of an innocent child who had so much of life left to live…He would probably have lost his mind. As his father had done.

The grief and fear and relief and love and a couple other emotions he couldn't even identify all vied for the upper hand inside him; Thorin couldn't understand what he was feeling at that moment, except for that his heart felt as if it had been compressed to the extent that he could barely breathe, and he felt unnaturally dizzy.

Minutes ago he would gladly have given his life for his brother's, but now Thorin was selfishly glad that he had survived the battle. Because if he hadn't, he wouldn't have been able to hold Fili like this. He couldn't even remember the last time he had, and that more than anything threatened to break him. What if his nephew grew up unused to any affection from him? He knew that was a very real possibility; he was not like Dis or Frerin, affection was not as natural to him as it was to them, and he was about to become the official king of their people. His shoulders were about to be burdened with a weight greater than that of little Fili riding on his shoulders, and Thorin wasn't sure if he could balance his two lives as king and uncle.

Later on he had introduced Fili to Kili, a moment that was bittersweet, given how much Kili resembled his dead Uncle Frerin – and how little he resembled his own father. But that particular memory defied Thorin's attempts to immerse himself in it, to force it to capture him within its vividly colored depths the way the previous two had. Instead, he was left with an unbearably sour taste in his mouth. He was slipping – and he knew he was close to death, very close.

Fili's blue eyes stood out clearly as he tried to mentally picture his boys; those blue eyes morphed into Dis, and there she was again, the light in her eyes fading as she lay dying in his arms, and he remembered.

Be strong for my sons.

He had broken enough of his promises. He had watched enough of his family members die. He knew how it felt to be abandoned by those you love; to shake their cold, bloodied bodies and scream for them to wake up again so you don't have to be alone in a cold, friendless world that cares naught for who you are and who you love. And never in a million years would he abandon his young nephews to such a fate.

Thorin growled in his mind, forcing the scattered fragments of himself back together. A pathetic little scratch had never taken him down before, and it wasn't going to start now. With a gargantuan effort, he focused his mind, determined to reattach it to his body, and suddenly his eyelids snapped open and he could feel again.

For a moment the world was silent, and Thorin sat up. He was fully dressed, but his torso was bare, a large white bandage wrapped around his middle, thankfully stained only lightly with blood. His shirt and coat were draped over a chair, and Thorin gritted his teeth before standing up. His vision blurred and black spots danced before his eyes, but he had endured worse pain before. A bowl of poppy seeds caught his eye, and he popped a few in his mouth, knowing it would take a few moments before the pain would begin to abate.

His shaking fingers had barely finished slipping his clothes on when the throbbing in his head and side lessened ever so slightly, and his ears stopped buzzing. That was when the unmistakable sound of a child sobbing reached him.

Thorin tried to stride from his room, losing his balance as he did so and staggering into the doorframe, cursing his disorientation and pain. But as he glanced down the hall, he caught side of a familiar blond head, the small shoulders shaking as the crying continued.

"Fili!" In moments he was crouching down beside the child, pulling his sister-son against him, shushing him gently. "What's the –"

"Kili's dying!" Fili screamed through his tears, flinging his arms around his uncle's neck and holding on so tightly Thorin was sure the boy would throttle him.

"What?" Thorin's throat was so dry the word was barely a whisper, but Fili hadn't even stopped to listen to him.

"He's bleeding – I'm sorry, Uncle Thorin! – he won't wake up – they won't let me in – I shouldn't have moved – Kili's dying!" Fili's hysterical shouts crashed like an ocean of sound against Thorin's ears, but at the moment he didn't care what had happened so much as what was going to. The one thing he had gleaned from his nephew's distraught explanation – if the combination of loud sobs and choked screams was any explanation at all – was that someone had separated Fili from his brother by means of the door in front of him. And that Kili was…no, he couldn't be.

Thorin rapped authoritatively on the door, but when it remained closed, Fili gave another wail, and something inside Thorin snapped. Forgetting his own wound and the intermittent twinges of a pain too acute to be merely pain but dulled enough by the poppy seeds not to be agony, Thorin rammed his shoulder hard into the door, and the wood splintered as he crashed his body into it a second time. With a third try, he was in.

"For Mahal's sake –" Thorin was brushing healers aside as if parting stalks of wheat, but his heart stopped dead in his chest when he saw the tiny dwarfling lying still on the bed, the bedsheets around him stained with a deep, glistening wet crimson. Fili moaned softly, clinging to him, and Thorin stared down at the bandage that Oin was wrapping with an awful sense of finality around his younger sister-son's chest. A chest that wasn't moving.

Oin glanced over at Fili and then gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, and Thorin understood. The healer would tell him nothing while Fili was still in the room.

"He'll be alright, Fili," Thorin whispered, trying to make his cracked, grief-stricken voice sound calm and reassuring. He knew he had failed as Fili's eyes crinkled shut, fat tears leaking out, but the boy began to panic only when Thorin began carrying him away from the bed.

"Kili!" Fili screamed, thrashing in Thorin's grip, trying desperately to break free and run to his brother. "Kili! Get up! Kili, please! I'm sorry! Kili!"

A/N: Um. Not sure what to say about this chapter, so I won't say anything at all. I'm sorry I took so long to update – I had a really busy week at school, a lot of stressful days, and limited time to write. I really am sorry! Please leave me a review – I would LOVE to hear what you have to say, as I always do! Thank you all for reading, love you! The little box is right below ;)