Thanks to everyone who adds, and to my reviewers: FeeKilico, piatek, Skywolf42, Vanafindiel, sarah0406, InezSophia, KelseyBl, Punky Warhammer, FiliaFamilias, jennlit, Marina Oakenshield, and Rhyska Nevar!

Always a special thanks to Distorted Lullabies.

Chapter 26 - Unexpected Awakening

Hanah looked at Fíli, waiting for him to continue.

"I already had this gnawing feeling, but Thorin made me acknowledge just how wrong I treated you."

Fíli turned on his back, staring up into the ceiling with an arm flung over his head.

"I should have made my intentions clear from the beginning. Instead I tried to make you as addicted to me as I was to you. And simply because of my station, I made things difficult for you. I knew, deep down, there was a risk that you accepted my advances because of my title, for fear of displeasing me, or want to further your own station. That's the real reason I never corrected you when you called me lord. If you knew I was a prince, I would never know if you really wanted me."

He smiled without humour.

"What about now? she asked. "How do you know I'm not takin' advantage of you?"

"Because you asked me to stop visiting you," he replied, turning his head to look at her, searching. "I had not succeeded in my endeavor to claim and secure your affections. Quite the opposite—I made you feel replaceable. Never could I have dreamed that by knowing who I really was you would reject me."

Hanah's cheeks flushed, though she had already apologized to him. "I didn't reject you, I just—"

She looked down.

"I know." Fíli reached up to cup her face and make her look at him. "I know that now."

His face was calm, his eyes encompassing, enveloping her. He was old, she suddenly realized. She had never thought about it before, but she could tell he was very much older than her. There was a determination and an honesty there which she had never seen before. He must have thought about this a lot.

"I created an impossible situation," he stated. "Of course you would distance yourself. I threatened your business as well as your reputation. I was unfair."

Hanah's eyes burned with unshed tears as she thought about all the times she had beaten her head against the wall trying to figure him out. All the times she had questioned herself and her actions. His words were a balm on her frayed feelings.

Fíli sat up, facing her.

"Over ninety years in this world and then suddenly a girl of men comes along, showing me I don't know everything I thought I did. Showing me I'm not alone."

His thumb caressed her ear.

"I just needed to know you felt the same," he said, he shrugged with one shoulder. His mustache twitched in an uncertain smile.

Hanah kissed him then, willing away her tears. She had no reason to cry anymore. Fíli's hands held her to him, molding their lips together a long moment. Then he slowly lowered her down on her back, covering her with his body.

"What's this?" he asked, feigning annoyance at the fur she had clutched to her chest. He pulled it away, leaving nothing but naked skin between them. "No more of that."

She smiled against his lips.

When Hanah stirred from her slumber, she wondered what had awakened her. The room was silent. Too silent.

The fire had dulled to a bed of red glowing embers, no crackle. No music or roar of people celebrating Durin's Day in the center of the mountain reached them in Fíli's quarters. Even the dwarf himself was quiet beside her.

It was late. She should return home. Hemery would worry.

Carefully, Hanah slipped out of bed and dressed. She contemplated leaving without waking Fíli, but then it would be strange the next time they met. She did not want to leave things uncertain between them.

She leaned over him where he lay on his back, furs and blankets covering his lower half. She stroke his arm gently.

"Fíli. I'm leavin'."

He did not stir.

"Fíli. I need to go."

No motion nor sound escaped him.

"Fíli?"

Hanah could not distinguish any movement of his chest. She put a hand on his heart. It beat a very slow rhythm. She reached for the empty silver platter from his bedside table, probably an ashtray, and held it to his face. Only a smudge of mist caught on the silver surface. He was barely breathing.

"Fíli?" She shook him now, hard. "Fíli."

His head fell to the side, limp, with no indication of waking. What had happened? Was he ill?

During one horrible, confused moment, a thought struck her head as suddenly and irrationally as lightening—what if she had caused this? He had been fine before and then they... and now... No. Of course it could not be that. People do not just fall asleep and then—

...you'll fall into a deep, deep sleep from which you cannot wake...

Hanah remembered the pain medication Healer Elín had supplied her with. There were plenty of substances found in nature—roots, bark, berries, fruits—which could alter one's state of consciousness; make you happy, make you aggressive, make you sleep, or even kill you. Hanah's throat constricted painfully at the thought.

But Fíli was a healthy, strong dwarf. He would have no need for such medication. And if he had not done this to himself, then—

Hanah tore from the room, desperate to find help. The guards would hear her if she called from the corridor. She opened the door between Fíli's study and the hallway, and a dwarf tumbled into the room.

Kíli had sat with his back to the door, falling backwards on Fíli's carpet when it opened. His attempt to rectify his horizontal mode was very cumbersome and sluggish, which indicated he had been sleeping while sitting by his brother's door.

"Now I really must put my foot down," he said, holding up a finger forbiddingly, while stretching himself to his full height. "And insist on escorting you home at once, Miss Hanah."

Hanah did not allow herself to reflect on how long he had been waiting, or whether he knew how long he had been sleeping while waiting for her.

"There is somethin' wrong with Fíli. I can't wake him."

"What?" The haze disappeared from Kíli's eyes.

"He's barely breathin'. Somethin's happened. You must get help."

Kíli seemed torn between going to see his brother's condition for himself and using time effectively by retrieving a healer at once. Kíli knew where to find the nearest healer, she did not. He looked from the door leading to Fíli's bedroom to Hanah, regarding her. What he saw there must have made up his mind because he nodded and took off running.

She turned to go back inside when a movement caught her eye. Taking a step back out into the corridor, she noticed on her right—the opposite direction of Kíli's route—a figure retreating down the hall. A guard?

"Wait! Please, help," Hanah called out.

The figure did not stop. The distance between them was not great. She should have been heard.

The person wore a cloak with little to no indication whether he lived or worked on the third floor of the south wing. He also seemed slimmer than a dwarf, making no sound as he moved away on quick feet.

Hanah began to follow, to meet the person and spread her plea for help.

"Stop. Please, help me!"

As she was about to lose sight of the cloak wearer around the corner where the corridor opened up and dropped down to the entrance hall, the figure paused, turned and glanced at Hanah, half hidden behind the hood.

Hanah stopped in her tracks out of pure shock. She knew that face. A young woman, with hair and bodily features clad in cloak and shadows. But where from?

Hanah began to run now. She quickly reached the balcony, but not quickly enough. The woman was gone. Few people milled around. Looking around, she saw a stream of dwarves and men moving from another corridor and down a staircase. The woman would most likely attempt to blend into the crowd to get to the exit.

Hanah joined the slow-moving river of people, slipping between them, cutting in front of them, trying to catch a glimpse of a raised hood. When she was almost at the bottom of the stairs in the entrance hall, she could see the slim figure in the sea of broad shoulders, but as soon as she came to the same level, the crowd swallowed the cloak.

She could not ignore the risk that this woman came from Blackwater. Not when they had only earlier that same evening talked about the threat of assassination. What would she be doing in the south wing? Only dwarves worked and lived there, no men.

Fire and ice waged war inside her at the thought. Hanah had to find her.

She climbed up on the base of a stone statue off to the side to be able to see over everyone's heads. People were not only going in one direction now. Some were going out, some in, and some simply stood still, immersed in loud conversations to be heard by their comrades over the clamour. It was impossible to fix even one person with her eyes and follow them, let alone find a specific someone in the crowd. Though it must have been midnight, or perhaps later, the celebration seemed nowhere near its end.

When she had scanned the room so long that the flames and frost inside her had consumed each other instead of her innards, and her worry for Fíli was stronger than her patience for detective work, she returned to the south wing. It took much longer to go up the stairs than down. When she approached the corridor on the third floor, six guards who had not been there before barred her way.

Hanah stated her need to see Prince Fíli, but the guards responded with the edge of their spears pointed at her.

"The prince is not available," one claimed in polite terms, though his rough articulation through clenched teeth suggested it was not meant as such. Thus, with no coddle, she was told to go away, sharpish.

So Kíli had summoned reinforcements as well as healers. It was probably wise, Hanah conceded, though she would much rather have been at Fíli's side at the moment. She had no idea how grave danger he was in. She could only fear. But she tried to convince herself that if anyone would receive the best medical care, it would be Crown Prince Fíli.

King Thorin would have heard of his nephew's condition by now. It surprised her that he had not yet forced the mountain to a grinding halt. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before they were all interrogated by the royal guard, including her. She was the only one who was in the room with Fíli when he... fell ill.

She had better go home to Hemery and tell her what was happening, before she was summoned to the city again. What would she say when they asked? That she had been asleep and then she saw a strange woman leave the corridor? It sounded ridiculous, though she knew it to be truth. It made Hanah's skin crawl to know someone had been in the room as she and Fíli slept.

Her steps faltered.

The door.

The bedroom door had been locked. Fíli had locked it when they entered. The perpetrator must have had knowledge of lock picking. Or a key. Although Kíli had remained at the door all night, that was not the only door leading to Fíli's chambers. If one had a map, it would be no problem finding a way in.

But they would wonder why Hanah had not stayed with Fíli to secure his safety while Kíli fetched help. Without the mysterious woman, it would be impossible to convince the king that Hanah had nothing to do with this. If they searched her house, they would even find remains of Elín's medication. It all looked very suspicious. Hanah's heart began to hammer in her chest.

As soon as she had passed Dale, Hanah ran the rest of the way home. She would raise Hemery from bed and go to Dwalin. He would know what to do.

Dwalin's yard lay dark when she got there. He would have gone to bed by now. If not, he would be at The Dragon's Head. In any case, it should be easy enough to find him.

Hanah reached her own door and stopped dead. The door was open. Not much, only an inch, but a sliver of black in the moonlight told her the latch was off.

Carefully, she pulled the door open. The uncovered windows allowed a dull grey light to drape the kitchen in shadowed shadows. Something like a boot scuffed against the floor, before silence descended once more.

Slowly, she moved toward the alcove where Hemery should be sleeping. Her footsteps were soft, but still made too much noise for her liking. She stopped in the doorway. It was almost pitch black in their sleeping space. She stood still, trying to distinguish anything in the murk, other than the dancing colours and shapes her eyes painted in their attempt to see patterns out of nothing.

Her breath was loud in her ears from the run, and her heart beat painfully from the fear, but was hers the only ones in the room?

"Hem?"

"Hanah?" her sister's voice quivered from the darkness.

Hanah had not seen her sister cry in a long time, but even without seeing her face, she recognized the choked, wet sobs. Why was she crying?

Something shifted. Shuffle of feet and rustling of clothes. A figure emerged from the corner. Hemery with something heavy around her neck, and a towering shadow with gleaming eyes. Was it the woman from the corridor? It had to be.

"Who are you?" Hanah asked.

"You don't know me?" a female voice answered, out of breath, from excitement or the run here—Hanah did not know.

"I know you, Hanah the dwarf spy. Skinner the sinner."

Hanah wanted to ask how she knew about her charges at Blackwater, how she knew where she lived, how she knew of her relation with Fíli, but she did not have to.

"Rumours travel fast."

If the woman thought she was a spy and wished to punish her for it, Hanah had to come up with a way to get Hemery out of her claws. She had her arm tightly around Hemery's neck, the girl's throat clamped in the crook of her elbow.

"I alerted the guards," Hanah said. "They'll be here any moment."

"No, they won't," the woman answered, unbothered. "You haven't told them anythin'. You're too afraid they'll suspect you. After all, you left the scene in quite the hurry, sneakin' back here, probably to collect this," she held up a purse jingling with coin, "before leavin' the mountain."

"What do you want?" Hanah's jaws clenched. "Money? Take it. I don't care."

"I want you to go to Blackwater with me."

Hanah's intestines turned themselves inside out. She would surely be executed if she went back. And what about Hemery? She looked her sister where she squirmed in the woman's grip. Hanah could not bear the thought of leaving her sister in that place, returning her to the hell from which they escaped from by the skin of their teeth.

"Not going to happen."

"Oh? Then I don't need this one anymore," the woman looked at Hemery, pressing a knife under her jaw.

"No!" Hanah cried out.

Hemery elbowed the woman in the stomach, with the right and then the left, and ducked out of her loosened grasp. She threw herself at Hanah who caught her with hard hands under her arms. Quickly, she pushed Hemery behind her, keeping her eyes firmly on the woman.

The stranger soon straightened, with a chuckle on her lips. She seemed in no hurry to leave, nor to retaliate.

"We met once under similar clandestine circumstances," she said.

Similar? Hanah had never stood face to face with someone who threatened her sister's life. Though she had feared for it every day since—

Blackwater. The Big House. Their meeting had been very short, but she remembered now.

"The maid," Hanah acknowledged.

"Maaret, please. We were goin' to be sisters. No need to stand on ceremony."

Hanah glanced at Hemery. She had a red line across her neck, but the blood flow was minor. Again, her little sister paid for Hanah's mistakes.

"Sisters?" The word made Hanah sick, coming from this harpy.

"Graham's my brother. I know what you're thinkin'. What is the daughter of a wealthy tradesman doin' workin' as a maid? Well, accordin' to the old man, we all need to do our part for the good of the family. Especially now when the landlords have incarcerated my brother for conspirin' against them. I've got to do whatever they say, to keep that witch from killin' him."

"What did he do?"

"What did my family do?" Maaret sat down then, tired, calm almost, leaning against the wall. "Those who have everythin' wants more. Everybody knows Brage's gettin' old, and his woman's gettin' crazy. Her teeth growin' black from that shit she's smokin'. Father thought his time was comin', that they just needed a push. He was wrong. They're more vigilant and suspicious than ever. And now they've got my brother."

"Why can't you help him out, like you helped me?"

"That trick only works once. They have reinforced the cells. And they know who I am now. Why do you think I'm here? I'm the Blackwater spy." Maaret splayed her fingers next to her face, like she was revealing a secret, smiling without any enthusiasm or joy.

Hanah regarded Maaret, feeling Hemery at her back, clutching her tunic. Everything was quiet in the night, until Maaret stood. Knife still in her hand, glinting.

"What will you do now?" Hanah asked.

"They will never stop using me, unless I have somethin' to barter with. If I give them you," Maaret pointed at Hanah with her knife, "they'll have to release my brother. And then I'll leave that damned place forever.