Warnings: Ehm. Where do I start. Blood, pain, broken bones, fear, crying, intense stuff.

Day sixteen of the journey, after breakfast

Kíli

It was not until we had entered the corridor that lead to the gates of Moria that I truly realised that the war had begun.

Well, not truly, because there was no one yet who was trying or planning to kill us, but there was no way back, anymore.

People were sent forwards to open the gates. I barely noticed them. Our footsteps echoed way too loudly in the otherwise deafening silence underground, and someone sneezed a couple of metres behind me. Fíli. Perhaps he had caught a cold. That would not surprise me at all; he had been walking around without his coat for the past three days.

Someone in the back of the group yelled "Bless you!", and someone else hissed that he had to shut up.

The silence returned, and it stayed for the ten terrible minutes after that. The most terrible thing was that nothing happened. We just walked there, through the empty, dark hallways, too terrified to make any sound, wondering when the Orcs or the Trolls or any other creature that lurked here would notice us. I had an arrow on my bow, ready to shoot when I had to, but there was nothing to shoot at.

It happened when we came close to a huge hall, dimly lit by torches. I guess it was because of the darkness, or because we were becoming less careful, but for some reason, we did not notice the at least twenty Orcs that came creeping up to us from behind.

When we did, all Hell broke loose.

We dashed into the lit hall with the Orcs on our tails, because we would only be able to fight if we could see our opponents, but made the mistake of running into even more evil and ugly creatures. I believe that is when I lost track of time. The only things I can remember for the time after that – it could have been minutes, but it could have been hours as well – were that I had run out of arrows at some point, and that I lost my sword somehow, and that I did not see Fíli or Sam or Mother or Uncle Thorin anymore, just complete chaos all around me, and no way out of it.

I pulled my knife out of the Orc I had just killed while I looked around. Where were those people?

I almost panicked when I didn't see any of them, but then I spotted my brother. He was on the other side of the hall, covered in dust and blood, just like the rest of us, surrounded by Orcs. He looked like he could use some help. I made my way through the crowd, towards him, and when he saw me, he grinned, as if he was happy to see that I was still alive and well.

Unfortunately, that was exactly the distraction that killed him in the end.

An Orc, that was standing behind him, drew his sword.

Everything seemed to happen horribly slowly.

He moved it forwards.

I remember realising that there was no point in trying to push my brother away, there was no time, and I was too far away, but I still hurled towards him, yelling, but forming no words.

I swore I felt the same pain when the Orc stabbed my brother in the chest.

I let out the same cry as Fíli fell on his knees, only I did not fall, I cut the Orc's head off and then kneeled beside my brother, who was lying on the stone floor by then, bleeding and only half conscious. I pulled his arm over my shoulders, trying to ignore the moan he let out, because he really needed to get out of there, and started to drag him towards a spot in the darkness, away from the chaos.

I believe there was still hope inside of me, I was still hoping that he could be saved, that I could spare him all the pain Sam had predicted.

Just when I had almost made it to the shadow, I was roughly pushed aside – by friend or foe, it did not matter. Fíli rolled over the floor, fully unconscious by then, and slipped to a halt by the feet of a Troll.

And.

The.

Troll.

Picked.

Him.

Up.

With.

Its.

Filthy.

Paws.

I do not know what I was thinking when I hurled towards the ugly creature and started to pitch into his shins with my tiny knife.

"Put him down!" I yelled. "Put him down, damn it!"

I must have been so furious that I did not even realise that I was using one of Sam's swear words. The minor wounds my knife caused did not even seem to hurt the Troll. It only surprised him a little.

He looked down at me, my brother's limp body still in his hand, before he gripped him tighter and threw him away, against one of the walls, both actions with the sickening cracking of bones being broken.

Someone screamed somewhere else in the hall. I cried out in agony as well and rushed towards my brother, blinded by panic. I did not care about anything else.

Perhaps that was why I pushed back when somebody pushed me aside, only to realise that that somebody was Sam, and that she was just as frightened as I was.

She turned to me when she saw Fíli lying there, her sweaty hair sticking to her pale face, and yelled: "We've gotta get him outta here! Help me!"

We both threw one of my brother's arms around our shoulders and started to drag him out of the hall. This time, we succeeded, and we lied him down, half upright, with his back against a pillar.

His breath was uneven, and every time he breathed in, there was a horrifying rasping in his chest. Blood was slowly filling his lungs. He would choke on it soon. Unfortunately, I had an awful feeling that that was not the only problem.

Sam crawled forwards, towards him, and shook his shoulders.

"C'mon, Fíli, please," she muttered under her breath. "Please, Fíli, goddammit!"

I was going crazy on the inside. No longer trying to hide the tears in my eyes, I turned to Sam.

"Can you not do something?" I pleaded. "Can you not go back in time already, so that he will not have to suffer that much?"

Sam looked at me. It surprised me how much pain there was in her eyes. She was suffering just as much as Fíli was, and as I was.

"You don't get it, do you?" she snarled, but her voice broke. "I can't go back to save someone if that person isn't dead!"

At that last word, Fíli bolted upright, coughing violently. He let out a raw sound of pure pain. My sanity disappeared a little more.

"Fíli?" I asked carefully, crawling closer to him. My trousers got soaked in his blood, but I did not care. "Please, say something. Tell me you are okay."

I knew he was not, and that was confirmed when he shook his head.

"I..."

He coughed again.

"I believe I am going to die."

He said it calmly, as if he found it okay, and that was what I found the worst; the day Fíli finds it okay to die is the day it is all over with him.

Sam laughed humorlessly, which I found a prove of her lack of respect; my brother was dying right here, and she was laughing!

"Oh, hell no. You're not. I won't let you. And you promised."

Fíli gave her a piercing look. His eyes were wide with shock and clear with pure fear, but he still managed to look angry.

"Sam, look at me," he said lowly. "I am bleeding to death. I am a hundred percent certain something important got impaled when I was stabbed. And I cannot feel, or move, anything below my middle. Tell me, how am I ever going to recover from this?"

I felt all colour disappear from my face when he said that he could not feel his legs. I had hoped with everything I had that my foreboding was not true, but it was.

Sam reacted with a low hiss and a quickened breath as she panicked.

"I'm... I'm gonna get a Healer," she stammered, starting to leave, but Fíli stopped her.

"No," he whispered hoarsely, again cutting himself off with a coughing fit. "Stay. Please. It is too late for me, any way."

I did not even recognize my own brother, anymore. I guess people change when they are dying.

I swallowed the lump in my throat away and said: "It is all my fault, Fíli. I should have done so much more to prevent all this from happening. I should not have distracted you in the first place, then none of this would have happened."

I pounded my fist on the ground. "Damn Orcs! I will kill every single one of them when I get the chance."

I could not finish that last sentence, because Fíli cut me off somewhere in the middle of it.

"Brother," he said, sounding a little angry, "I do not want you to feel guilt or anger. It was not your fault, do not forget that. If you let anger drive you to madness, you harm others, and if guilt drives you mad, you harm yourself. Either way, innocent blood will be spilled, and therefore I beg you to feel neither of them."

I did not know how to react, although it touched me deeply, and I did not have to. Fíli went on talking, to Sam, and with a hoarser voice, now; I was sure that he was getting exhausted, and I knew that when that happened, bad things would happen.

"And Sam, brave, strong, wonderful Sam..."

A violent coughing fit interrupted what he was going to say, and one single tear rolled over the girl's left cheek.

My brother wiped the blood off his mouth and continued: "I believe you already know this, but I have come to love you."

A sob escaped Sam's throat, and she crawled closer to him to hug him, barely careful with the wound in his chest. Fíli wrapped his arms around her.

"It is a pleasure and an honor to have you here with me, Tale-Changer."

Then my brother hugged me, and I could not keep it together, anymore. I started to cry.

"I love you, brother."

I do not know who said it; our voices sounded the same in that moment, hoarse and choked and trembling.

We sat there for a while, although it felt like it was not long enough, before I could feel Fíli's breath quicken and become uneven. It startled me, and I let go of my brother, as did Sam.

The injured Dwarf on the ground pressed his hands against the wound and moaned quietly, as if he wanted to cry out but was too weak.

Sam made a agonised sound and clenched her fists, as if she was in terrible pain.

I panicked again and started to get up to get one of the Healers, even though I knew it was too late, I wanted to do anything but wait and watch my brother die, but he stopped me before I could even get to my feet.

"No."

He growled because of the effort and pushed himself half upright, causing Sam to collapse even further.

"Kíli, Sam... look at me," Fíli said, his own eyes squeezed shut.

He was going to say something, probably something profound, but a last coughing fit put a stop on that.

Then my brother's chest fell and it did not rise again.

I panicked. I knew he was dead, but I could not believe it. I could not be. There had not been one minute in my entire life that my brother was not there. Now he was gone, and even though I knew Sam would go back to save him, I still could not help but feel like this was for real, that he was truly gone and he would never come back.

I think those were the most terrifying thirty seconds of my entire life.

Not the time when I was the one dying and in terrible pain. Not when I thought Uncle Thorin was dead, but there was no way of knowing for sure, or how bad it was. Not when we left home and we had no idea if we were coming back, or when, and if we would come back alive or in coffins. Not all of that. This was the most terrifying moment in my life.

It ended when Sam moved to wipe her nose on her sleeve after those awful seconds.

"I'm going back," she said.

It was no question. No "Do you think it's okay if I go back in time to save your brother?" or "Do you need a moment?" She knew the answers to those questions: they were yes to the first and no to the second.

And what she had said, was no question, so I did not reply. I only watched her as she pulled her ring out of the pocket of her trousers and spun it around two times in her hand.

She started to fade, as if there was a sudden mist, only there was no mist. As she disappeared, I felt myself disappear as well.

Sam was going to change things.

This would be made undone.

And so I disappeared.

A/N:

I'm a horrible person.