Author's Note: Wow. I was going to update on Monday but I honestly forgot. I'm a terrible person.

Chapter 36-Among the Living

Karra never knew how long she sat there, holding Fili's cold hand. The battlefield with its thousands of dead spun out of focus and she sat alone with the body that was once Fili. With everything that was left in her, she resisted, refused to believe. She wanted to run away and fall asleep and dream forever that Fili was alive. She wanted to go home. Home. If she had never left home, none of this would have happened. If it hadn't snowed that night, she would have gone to dinner with Kat and she wouldn't be sitting here, staring at her beloved's pale face, laying in the muddy brown snow.

She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. She clutched it to her chest, trying to feel, trying to feel the horror, the pain, the grief.

Fili was dead.

Her Fili was dead.

She needed to cry. She needed to do anything other than just sit here, time slowing to a stop, every second seeming to pound deeper into her mind the horrible fact that Fili was dead. Her hands shaking, she ran her fingers over the wound, searching with hopeless desperation for any sign of life. She felt his hand, searching for a pulse. She held her hand over his lips, and felt no breath.

She laid her head on his chest, not caring that it was stained with blood. Her head throbbed. Her side throbbed. She tried to force a sob from her throat, but it wouldn't come. Her eyes were dry—terribly dry, uncomfortable dry, painfully dry. She blinked.

The sun began to sink, shedding blood-red rays over the battlefield. Still she sat there, her mind numb, her head pillowed on his chest. It began to grow dark. She didn't care. She didn't care if anyone came for her now.

Just last night—it was just last night. Just last night he had taken her face in his hands, and kissed her. Just last night she had danced down the hallway hugging her father's journal. Just this morning she had told him to leave—just leave.

Just go—her last words to him. She rolled over, and pressed a last kiss to his lips. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you. I'm sorry I told I told you to leave. I'm sorry. Please forgive me!" The key fell from under her shirt and lay on his chest, looking black in the starlight. She remembered his last words to her. I'll be back! I promise.

Silence fell, a cold, merciless silence.

A shred of mist in the cool night air; Karra caught her breath. That was all; just a tiny breath of steam. She blinked and looked again. No; she must have imagined it. The pain, the smell of battlefield gore, the weariness—she must be dreaming. A shiver ran down her spine. The moonlight cast eerie shadows over the scene. Fili's hand, resting in hers, gave a slight, almost imperceptible movement.

She jumped back, her heart beating loud in her ears. "Fili. Fili!" A tiny wisp of steam escaped his lips. She leaned closer, hardly daring to breathe. His lips parted.

She jumped to her feet. "Help!" she cried. "Somebody help me!" Her cries fell on dead air. All activity seemed to have slowed to a stop with the coming of night. Her hands shaking with desperation, she dropped to Fili's side again, searching the corners of her mind for something, anything she remembered about reviving someone close to death.

Nothing. She knew nothing.

She took his hand again, gently now, afraid of crushing what little life was left in his body with her touch. "Anyone?" Her voice was quieter now, and her shoulders slumped. For a moment there was silence, but now the silence didn't seem quite so cold. She ran her fingers over his chest with as much careful tenderness as she could, and lifted his tunic and placed it over the bloodied area.

A footstep fell behind her, and she turned, careful not to bump or jar Fili's body.

"Och, lassie. I'm sorry I left. I would have come for you sooner—"

"Balin!" Karra's voice quavered with nervous excitement. "You're here! I've been waiting—"

"I'm sorry, lass." Balin dropped to his knees beside her. "Come. We've come to bear his body from the battlefield."

They still think he's dead! "No!"

Balin wrinkled his brow. "No?"

"No! It's not…it's not his body!"

"What do you mean, lass?" For the first time, Karra saw Oin and Dwalin standing behind Balin, hidden in the nighttime shadows.

"He's…you can't just bury him!" The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "He'll die if you leave him here! I mean, I know you aren't going to leave him here. Just…what I'm saying is…" Her voice trailed off, and she saw the three dwarves looking at her with pity in their eyes. Oin put out a hand to help her to her feet.

"Come, Karra. We'll get you to the tents of the wounded."

"No! No, don't just leave him here!"

"We aren't. But, Karra," said Balin, "he would want us to care for you."

"Aye." Dwalin spoke for the first time. "The living before the…" He seemed to struggle with the word. "Before the dead."

"But he's not dead!"

The three dwarves fell silent. Karra felt a flush rising in her cheeks. She wanted to creep away and hide, away from their blank, pitying stares.

"I'm not imagining it, I swear!" What could she saw that would convince them? "I saw his hand move! And he breathed! He'll die if he stays here much longer!"

"Very well." Oin reached a hand forward again. "Come with us, we'll see that he's well cared for."

"You don't believe me!" Karra felt like a little girl trying to tell her mom she'd seen a fairy in the woods.

"I saw it happen, lassie." Dwalin's voice wavered. His shoulders slumped and Karra thought she caught a glimpse of a tear glistening in his eye. "After what I saw, there is no way he could have…lived."

Karra looked at Fili's pale face again, and she felt a deep dread creeping over her. Had Balin woken her from a feverish dream? She clutched the key and felt herself slump, the wild hope of a moment before shifting once more into a dark void of grief.

"Take me to the tents," she said.

A cry came from behind her.

"The lass is right!" cried Oin. "She's right! Fili's alive!"

Karra felt her body go weak with—was it relief? Surprise? Dwalin's arms slid around her waist and she leaned her head against him, her heart beating so hard she was afraid he would hear it. The sudden frenzy of activity whirled around her, blurred and out of focus.

Fili was alive.

She could have flown over the battlefield. She wanted to sob and laugh at the same time. She could have hugged Oin, if he wasn't scurrying around so busily. She just stood there, her mind whirling with confused emotions. In one moment, her life had gone from horrible to wonderful. She didn't care where she went or how she got there. She wanted to think but she couldn't.

The trip across the battlefield seemed to take only moments—or was it hours? She floated on a wave of elation and exhaustion, fragments of thoughts spinning past and disappearing before she could catch them. She thought she walked but she might have flown. The flap of a hastily erected tent stood before her, yellow light glowing from inside. The first and last thing she saw was a woman, sitting beside a cot, leaning over a wounded man. And then blackness swallowed her up and took her mercifully away.

Well then.

Once again, I have nothing to say.