A/N: Thanks, all you wonderful readers! We especially appreciate those of you who have kindly taken the time to review, many of you faithfully. Without further ado, another installment in the saga of Billa Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield!

Twelve

It was a relief indeed when they finally found a relatively dry, roomy cave, with a sandy floor and a narrow entrance that kept the wind out.

There would be no fire or warm laughter that night. The dwarves huddled together, miserable, wet, and freezing, while they shared provisions and cold, leftover stew from the night before. Billa settled herself against a wall and massaged her aching leg. It wasn't fully healed yet, though the bone had knit together.

Fili watched her, a worried expression on his face. Nudging Kili, he nodded to her and took his paltry dinner with him as he plopped himself down beside the little hobbit lass. "Don't look so glum," he said, poking her with a smile. "Uncle Thorin gets grumpy sometimes. That's not your fault."

Kili sat cross-legged on the other side of Billa, holding his stew bowl in one hand, tousling the hobbit's curls with the other. "I like it, actually," he said. "Your hair. It's... different." Thorin's words had hurt him as well as Billa, and he wasn't sure why. He felt, somehow, as though he'd failed, too. But talking about it wouldn't help; distracting Billa might. "Haven't met such... erm... active rocks in a while, have we, Fili?"

"I'll be happy if we never meet any that active ever again." Fili shook his head. "That was a little too much excitement for the mountains, if you ask me. They needed their rest after all that. A couple hundred years' worth."

Billa chuckled, shaking curls out of her face. "If we were surprised, think about them. Can you imagine waking up and having little people walking all over you? If he hadn't been so distracted, I think he'd have been just as unsettled as we were."

Fili laughed, but wasn't sure he agreed. He could all too easily imagine being smashed like a beetle by a startled giant.

"Hadn't thought of that," said Kili, amused by this idea. He sighed, glancing ruefully down at the congealed, brown glop filling his bowl. "Well. Cold stew. Better than nothing, I guess. I wish Uncle weren't so paranoid. A fire would've been nice." He turned to make sure Thorin hadn't heard his grousing and was surprised to see the dwarf's blue eyes fixed on him. He gulped.

Thorin gestured that he should come, and motioned at Fili, too. The brothers complied, and their uncle took them aside, speaking in an undertone. "From here on out, I am placing Miss Baggins under your protection." Anticipating some question from Fili, as this had been precisely what he'd said the blonde shouldn't do the day before, he went on. "I cannot risk her... compromising this quest. Don't allow anything like what happened earlier to happen again. And tell her nothing of this. Understand?"


The brothers returned to their positions on either side of Billa, making sure they kept up a steady stream of jokes and stories that made her smile. By unspoken consent, the two of them knew that the sadness and pain they'd seen in the halfling's face at Thorin's callous comment on the path couldn't be allowed to surface for too long. Despite being exhausted, wet, and cold, Fili insisted on taking Billa through another round of training. It was slower going tonight, due to the necessity of using real weapons and the relatively cramped size of the cave, but Billa made good progress in spite of these limitations. Kili taught her a little trick he'd learned about disarming Fili (it didn't really work against the others, but Fili was, unfortunately, just predictable enough to be taken advantage of).

Eventually, the Company settled down to sleep for the night, in spite of the howling storm outside. They huddled in their blankets and pressed tightly against one another, and the cave was soon filled with a chorus of snores. Billa shifted and squirmed and rolled over, trying to find a position that didn't feel like she was lying on bare rock. Trying to find a position that didn't feel like she was 'the weak link.'

She's been lost ever since she left home. She should never have come.

Maybe he was right. She had thought she could add something to their Company, that she could be useful. That she could achieve something. But maybe Gandalf was wrong. Maybe Thorin was right.

Restless and angry with herself for slowing them down, angry with herself for thinking that she could be something she wasn't, Billa gave up on sleeping. She was no burglar. She was no adventurer. She was a hobbit. An injured hobbit, at that. She would only endanger them. Thorin had nearly died, saving her today. She couldn't let that happen again. Careful not to wake Fili and Kili, she rolled up her blankets and shouldered her bag. It was time for her to face the facts. She belonged in the Shire.

Bofur, who was sitting nearest the cave entrance on watch duty, sat up sharply as he saw the halfling walking past, her bag packed, her face disconsolate. "Where you goin', Billa?" he whispered in alarm, jumping up and quickly following her. "You can't just... leave. Not like this!" His eyes and voice were plaintive. He'd been very fond of the plucky little hobbit from the first, and he couldn't stand the thought that she'd sneak away without so much as an explanation, a farewell. "Why, Billa?"

Billa stopped, surprised. She didn't turn to face him. Couldn't. Not without making this ever so much harder for herself. "I can't stay with you, Bofur," she whispered, her words tight with pain. "Thorin's right- I'm not cut out for this. You all... you're used to this. Living on the road, fighting and traveling. I belong at home. In the Shire. I was a fool to come at all, and I'm only slowing you down." She glanced out into the storm, which seemed to have calmed down a little since they'd found their shelter. "You saw what nearly happened today. Thorin could have died trying to save my life. How could I live with myself if one of you... any of you... didn't make it, because of me?"

Bofur shook his head. "No, Miss. You haven't slowed us down at all. You've been..." He lowered his voice even more. "You've been the best thing that's happened to this Company. I really believe that."

Billa shot him a confused glance, skepticism clear in her lowered eyebrows. How could she be, when she was always such an... inconvenience?

As faint as Bofur's voice was, his words were still quite distinct in Thorin's ears. The dwarf hadn't gone to sleep at all. He'd heard Billa packing, seen her walking toward the door. He would have gone after her himself if Bofur hadn't beaten him to it. Now he lay still, listening. Feeling conflicted. He hadn't meant them, the words he'd said to her after he'd saved her. They'd issued from frustration with himself, frustration at the power she unconsciously had over him, at the need he felt to protect her. Frustration with the fact that this quest was endangering her life. There. Now he'd admitted it to himself. He didn't want her to be hurt, or killed, or worse. She was a little, delicate thing, a thing he felt compelled to protect. No, she didn't understand what he'd meant, the meaning behind the words. Even he didn't fully understand.

Bofur lay a hand on Billa's shoulder. "Forget what Thorin said; he didn't mean it. I'm sure he didn't. You're welcome among us." He smiled sheepishly. "Even if we don't all show it at times."

Billa hesitated, conflict in her face as she glanced back at the jumble of snoring dwarves. "I... want you to be safe," she whispered, half to herself. "But... even if I left... you wouldn't be. I just... wouldn't be here to see it." Her halting words accompanied fierce pangs of grief. She didn't want to lose them. She didn't want to see them disappear into death. She didn't want to be alone again. The halfling shifted her weight off her aching leg, unintentionally leaning into Bofur's strong hand. After a long moment, she sighed, and it was the sound of one who'd come to the conclusion that her decision had been made quite a while ago, and she'd just refused to see it.

Thorin's relief was mingled with something very close to guilt. She wanted to get away from him so badly she'd risk the wrath of the stone giants again? Risk traveling the treacherous mountain path, alone, in the dark and driving rain? Idle words seemed ever destined to be his bane. He'd thought nothing of how his remarks would affect her; not then, anyway. He'd thought only of his own weakness, a weakness he'd not even known existed within him until he had to make the choice of an instant. 'The weak link' he'd spoken of in Rivendell seemed, at the moment, to be himself.

Billa went on. "Gandalf keeps insisting that you need me. I suppose I ought to..." She lifted her head, ears twitching slightly as she scanned the cave. "Do you hear something?" A grinding, rumbling sound that wasn't part of the snoring symphony. She could feel it in her toes. Were the giants at it again?

Thorin felt the rumbling, too, and sat up quickly. "Everyone up! Get up! NOW!"

He was too late. Before most of the dwarves could do more than grunt and peel tired eyes open, the entire floor fell out from beneath them, sending the startled Company - and all of their bedding and gear - plummeting into the darkness below.

They rolled and slid and skidded and collided with each other, down two hundred feet of nearly vertical stone channel. Finally, they were deposited as neatly as you please into what seemed a hideous parody of a basket, woven of bones and sinews and oily ropes. Bombur came last, plopping loudly on top of the pile of dwarves and the halfling, all of whom now lay, groaning, stunned, bruised, and weak, but thankfully alive.

"Fili, where's Billa?" Thorin coughed faintly, grimacing, massaging what was most likely a sprained shoulder.

"I can hear you just fine," groaned the halfling, looking pale-faced and holding her injured leg gingerly. "I'm right here." She was near the top of the pile and was only half-under Bombur, who was working very hard to pull himself upright. That process only put more strain on the dwarves below, who were making various noises of discomfort and protest. Fili was squirming, valiantly trying to get out from under Gloin and Dwalin, who were growling profanities at one another in Khuzdul as they tried to right themselves.

A loud, cackling laugh split the darkness, and a smoky torch bobbed into view. Beneath it, the malformed face of a goblin peered through the bones at them, grinning wickedly. "Lookit what we got 'ere. Trespassers."

More goblins poured into the chamber behind the first, filling the air with their foul voices and leering smiles. Most of them appeared to be armed, and as the bone-basket was suddenly opened, several of the dwarves felt the sharp, threatening prod of a crooked, rusty blade.

"Come along, then," said the one with the torch, who seemed to be the leader. "Down, down we go." As the dwarves and halfling were herded along the smokey tunnel, tripped and slapped and poked as they went, the goblins started a chilling, chanting song in time to the flapping of their big, flat feet. They sang in garbled rhyme and descriptive, painful phrases about what would happen to the dwarves once they reached "Goblin-town."