A/N: Thanks for sticking with us, all you readers who are still around. Your readership is, as always, hugely appreciated. If I were rich and magical, I'd lavish you all with ice-cream and flying ponies. You deserve them. *nods*

Also- Huge thanks to Eleanor for assuming posting duties while I was being landslided with work. (This is Aranel, back for the foreseeable future.)

VestakiaSilverfur- We enjoyed giving Dain a heroic sendoff. It's sad he's no longer around, but I'm sure he'd be happy to know he'll be remembered with fondness by many, and that he did what he could in the end to right the wrongs he caused.

Thirty Seven

Thorin was no stranger to death, yet the feeling of loss never failed to drain the strength from him when he saw the light fade from a kinsman's eyes, the life leave a warrior's strong face. This, twice in a single day, wounded him deeply in a way he hadn't thought he would feel again - not after losing so many in the Battle, or before that at the gates of Moria, or before that during the first Desolation.

How much more must I lose? How heavy will the burden of memories be, before I can't carry them anymore?

A young dwarf with a ruddy beard was finishing the traditional blessings for the departed, and folded Dain's hands over his blood-stained hauberk.

"Thorin!" As Gandalf's deep voice rolled out over the hill, both Thorin and the young dwarf jumped and looked about.

There was the Wizard, striding downhill with his billowing white robes trailing in the grass behind him. A second old man, also wearing white robes but seeming somehow shrunken, withered, and aged, slunk away across the slope like a beaten dog.

The Southrons seemed checked by uncertainty, gathered a ways apart from the dwarves. Clearly they cared nothing for the orcs now fleeing in droves, and with their Wizard exhibiting no plan of action (or indeed any plan at all), they were likely weighing their options.

Thorin didn't care to ask. His concerns, for the moment, were elsewhere.

"Gandalf! Is she-?"

"I entrusted her to Dain," the Wizard said, looking disconcertingly caught off guard. "Where's she gotten to now ?" Thorin's heart might have given out right then, and threatened to do precisely that. Before it could muster the strength to do so, however, a thin voice called in answer to the Wizard's question.

"I'm up here."

Thorin turned swiftly, nearly upsetting his own balance in seeking for the source of the voice. There she was, tottering unsteadily down the slope toward them, giving the Southrons a wide berth. She looked pale, and pressed a hand against her burgeoning stomach as though she were trying not to be sick. The sight of her nearly finished what his own exhaustion and grief had threatened. Within the devastating relief was also the deepest and most profound guilt. He could hardly bear to look her in the face.

It was true, then. She was alive. She had been all along. She'd been out there, lost, hurt, with child. But somehow, however impossible the vision before him, he'd again misjudged the hobbit's luck. She seemed forever destined to confound the odds.

Thorin took two steps forward and nearly staggered, half-afraid she'd vanish like a puff of smoke if he took his eyes from her. Billa picked her way down the hill, wobbly, but sure of her footing, her face twitching with something like crumbling disbelief.

Gandalf and Stonehelm looked on, the former with a familiar wondering expression. The Southrons waited, though several now looked expectantly to their leader, who stood motionless, dark gaze locked on Thorin.

As the hobbit reached the bottom of the incline, Thorin realized her expression might have been more accurately described as, well, fury. On level ground again, the hobbit fell into a waddling gait, flying toward him, chin lowered like a butting goat.

"You!" she barked, and Thorin backpedaled a step, eyes wide. He could see he was in for it.

"What-?" Thorin's question ended with a grunt as the hobbit hit him, a miniature steam engine on large, hairy feet. They were both a little unsteady, and they both went down, Thorin curling himself protectively around the infuriated hobbit as she pummeled him.

"If you make me think you're dead one more time, just ONE MORE TIME, I swear on my mother's grave I will KILL you!" The pummeling, which hadn't felt like much through his armor, stopped, and became a tight hug. "Don't you ever do that to me again, you confusticating dwarf."

Thorin choked on everything he might've been trying to say, enveloping the hobbit in his arms. They remained so for a handful of moments, Billa laughing through her tears, Thorin only just maintaining his facade of composure.

"I should never have let you go," the dwarf whispered beside her ear, closing blurring eyes against a wave of searing guilt. "I've dreamt of this moment. You're not going to... leave me?"

He'd had her snatched away from him in so many nightmares, waking and sleeping, since first he'd thought her dead. This might be no different.

Billa let out a strangled, semi-hysterical laugh. He could feel her shake with it, and even through his armor, the warmth of her small body was a comfort. A balm to his grief-wounded and overburdened mind.

"Never. I'll never let you out of my sight again."

A stir nearby made Thorin aware that the world about them still existed. Reluctantly, he looked up, though he didn't release the hobbit. From the gathered Southrons, a single dark-skinned man strode forward. After a moment, he recognized the bearded face. Hakim, their one-time jailer and tormentor.

"Oakenshield," he called, stopping at a relatively decent distance, "we have unfinished business."

An unexpected surge of fear thrilled through the dwarf. Billa's grip on him tightened as she instantly recognized the implications.

"No," she said firmly, shaking her head. "You can't. I won't let you."

Thorin's gaze returned to his One, and he sighed softly. "I would let you hold me here forever. You know that." He brushed his fingers across her tear-streaked cheek, regretting their roughness and grime. "But I have given my word. Only once have I proven false my own vow, and it will haunt me until the end. I'll not do so again, Billa."

He saw her eyes widen, and the terror in her expression threatened to break him. Death would have been easier to endure, but the idea of leaving his brave little burglar to fend for herself and their little one. The thought sent a lance of pain through his heart.

"I'm sorry, Billa." Thorin made himself release her, but she didn't move, and seemed determined to keep him pinned to the ground, though the idea of so small a creature restraining him was almost ridiculous enough to make him laugh, though he didn't feel at all amused.

"No! No, I won't let you! You can't Thorin! Don't leave me!"

"What do you mean, Thorin?" Gandalf's voice broke in from behind, tone full of puzzlement and concern.

Prying Billa's hands from his arms was less easy than it might have been, and Thorin realized this was because she'd been employing every ounce of her strength to cling to him. The anguish and desperation in her hazel eyes, the gleaming trails streaking through the dust on her cheeks... he couldn't bear the thought that he must cause her such distress and pain so shortly after their reunion, but he had little choice.

It was the Southron's wife and child Smaug had claimed, and Hakim knew what little value Thorin placed in himself. Once refused, he would strike with everything he had, and the target would be Billa. Thorin would not put his One's life in the balance again. Certainly not to save his own.

"Hold her, Gandalf," he said quietly, throat tight with pain. "You must keep her safe this time. On the weight of our friendship, do not argue. I beg you."

But Billa had other ideas. As soon as she realized that Thorin had won the struggle, that she wouldn't be able to hold on any longer, she tore away and bolted. Gandalf let out a cry of protest, maybe her name. Thorin wasn't listening. He was breaking inside.

"BILLA!" He lurched forward. There was the other Wizard. There was Saruman. He appeared, almost out of nowhere, the flash of a knife in his hand. Billa was too close to him. She would die, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Involuntarily, Thorin shut his eyes. It might have been that every one of his nerves was on edge, every bit of his will strained to the fullest, every ounce of his caring required. It might have been that after weeks of hardening himself to all feeling, as duty demanded, this moment was the final straw. But in the instant he was given, a choice was nonetheless made. He could not watch.

Sounds blurred at his ears, voices unrecognizable. How could he have prevented this? To have come so close, and then... this. To lose her twice over. All this flashed through his mind in the space of a second, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw two things.

One, that the Wizard no longer held the knife. Two, that there was a dark streak of blood blossoming out and down from the white robe a good arm's length above Billa's curly head. The dagger was now lodged in the Wizard's body, held firmly in place by the halfling's shaking hands.

Billa looked as shocked as Thorin felt, though her surprise was colored with some of the same fury she'd vented on him not long before.

"I'm not a rat," she said, and her tone was almost savage. "I'm a burglar." Then the hobbit released the knife, and Saruman tottered a step or two away before collapsing, his face turning ashen as his eyes glazed over.

Thorin's knees nearly gave out, the combination of shock and relief overpowering.

"Billa." The name passed his lips even as he felt some return of constancy. He became aware once more of life and breath, the control of his own limbs and the strength that powered them. He must fight. That duty remained.

The hobbit lifted her eyes from the dark blood on her fingers and met his gaze across the gulf between them. Gandalf reached her, and as he steadied her she seemed to crumble, bursting into heaving, tearless sobs.

On the rocky hillside, Saruman twitched in his final throes.

Thorin heard a grunt of surprise behind him, and glanced back to see grudging admiration on the swarthy face of Hakim. "I underestimated her," he admitted, then turned his dark eyes on Thorin, his expression settling into one of determination. "Choose your weapon. We settle this now."

Thorin shuddered. He was exhausted, wounded, and burdened by grief. Hakim seemed fresh, and it looked to be an uneven match at best.

"Swords," he said, with as much calm and strength as he could muster. He had ever been more skilled with a sword than an ax, though he had naturally been trained in both. The others were beginning to catch up, and if they didn't start soon, both parties might decide to forego their leaders' appointed duel.

He found his sword, bloodied and nicked all along the length if its grooved blade, and picked it up, hiding his weariness. He could still hear Billa's sobs, interspersed with gasps and moaning his name now and again. It broke his heart to hear it, but what choice did he have? Fight now, or sacrifice her to Hakim's thirst for vengeance. He tested the blade with shaking fingers, satisfied it would serve him at least this much longer. In this match, where his advantages at the moment were decidedly few, the familiarity of the weapon was a help, however small. Hakim stood poised only three strides away, his men closing in to form a wide ring around the two.

"At your word, Oakenshield." The Southron's voice was low, his demeanor even. Blank, almost. He, too, was performing a duty. To his wife and child. For that reason, Thorin could take no solace in the notion that he was "right." But the dwarf had the will again to live, for Billa's sake at least. He wouldn't be parted from her again if his actions here had any say in the matter.

If she ever forgives me for this, he mused bleakly.

"Come, then," Thorin bid, lowering his sword point in readiness.

The first meeting of blades was cautious, probing. The second, less so. The third became a furious rush, and Thorin perceived that they both wanted this over quickly. An unpleasant task, the accomplishment of which gave no real satisfaction. Dimly, as though from a great distance, he heard the heartbroken moaning of his burglar, pierced now and again by a cry of fear. Why hadn't Gandalf taken her away? She need not see this.

But his determination was redoubled, and he pressed the attack vigorously, his wounded arm screaming in protest. This, Thorin knew, was his greatest advantage. The reason for his struggle was still alive, still needed him. Vengeance would never match that.

The duel went on, the force of blows and their turning aside a breathless blur of instinct and adrenaline. Thorin distanced himself from the world around him, from the pain of his physical body. This was life and death now, the difference between having Billa in his arms again and never again feeling her touch, seeing her smile. He forced himself on, the blades clanging harder and fiercer, screaming off each other's edges, glancing and notching.

Still, none struck home.

Seconds seemed minutes, minutes seemed hours.

Thorin was already exhausted, endurance pushed beyond the breaking point in fending off the strokes of the Southron, a tireless, never-ending rain. Now he felt his limbs betraying his will, his body slowing, his blocking and parrying only just sufficient in turning aside his opponent.

He heard Billa again, screaming desperately, though the words blurred together and were lost. It would only take one mistake, Thorin knew. One mistake, and the Southron would have him.

There. He shifted his weight too soon, overextended a fraction. The Southron retaliated, and his parry threw Thorin's blade wide, exposing his chest for a quick counter-strike.

Just let it come. Just give in and let it come.

No. Billa needed him. Their child needed him.

You've done enough. You've lost enough. Let it come. Sleep.

He was tired, but his burglar needed him.

With a violent effort, he lashed out. It was a clumsy attempt at best, and he nearly overbalanced in the process, but he succeeded in knocking aside the blow that might have taken his life. Hakim's blade sliced through part of Thorin's shoulder. It felt like fire.

He saw the Southron's face tighten, and received the curious impression that the man had little desire to cause him further pain.

"Wait! Stop!"

Billa? No. The voice was masculine, though high with distress. Both duelists voice had been familiar. To both, Thorin judged, else it would likely have been ignored.

The dwarf's shoulder throbbed hotly, blood soaking the sleeve as he staggered back a step, keeping his eyes on the Southron. He could only ignore the injury so long if the duel continued, as it surely must.

"Who says this?" Hakim demanded, half out of breath. The Southron's men stood aside, allowing a gangly, wide-eyed figure to enter the ring.

"Don't kill him! Please, Uncle. Stop this." The newcomer was just a boy, and as Thorin finally ventured a glance at him, the connection was made. Galan, the swarthy boy who had traveled with them from the crossing at Anduin, the boy who had betrayed them to Saruman, the boy who ought to be lying still tied in Orthanc, dead of starvation. But he was there, and though he looked thin and ragged, he was very much alive.

"This is not your fight," said Hakim, and turned as though determined to ignore him, but the persistent boy threw himself between the duelists, thin chest heaving.

"He should've killed me for what I did, Uncle," Galan insisted, glancing back at Thorin. "I pledged myself to him, and... and I didn't keep my word. He spared me when others counseled him to end me outright. You can't kill him."

Hakim took a step forward, dark fury written on his face. "You interfere with my business, boy. Stand aside." He raised his sword-point to his nephew's chin, fury melting into something like pleading. "Last remaining kin you may be, but I will not turn from the deed if you force my hand."

There was a moment of silence, and the stillness between them was so absolute that the movement of the gathering crowd about them seemed like the heaving of an endless sea. Or maybe that was just Thorin's head, spinning dangerously as he lost blood and weakened.

He couldn't hear Billa's sobbing anymore, and when he looked up, he could see that Gandalf and the hobbit were both gone. It was good. She didn't need to see this.

"Uncle," said Galan softly, and lifted his chin to expose his throat. Though his hands shook, he stood fast in the face of his kinsman's anger. "I owe him my life. If I can make up for my cowardice by dying now, I will. It would be a warrior's death." After he finished his speech, Galan closed his eyes, clearly expecting to die. Thorin himself was a little surprised when the boy didn't immediately fall with Hakim's sword in his breast.

The Southron whipped his weapon furiously to the side, burying the blade in the rocky ground. The grating of metal on stone made every dwarf smith in the audience wince.

"I concede defeat," he said formally, and indeed he looked utterly defeated. "I cannot slay the last of my kin." Galan, for all the courage he'd displayed a moment before, practically crumpled inward, chest heaving with relief and nerves.

Thorin could scarcely process this turn. How minor sometimes are the decisions that write destiny. An unworthy life spared, and his given him in return.

Lowering his chin to mask the pain now too overwhelming to ignore, he fought off a wave of nausea, letting the irreparably notched blade drop from his fingers. If there was one person he trusted to honor his word, it was Hakim. Strange as it seemed.

The Southron studied him, resignation and self-loathing in his eyes. He likely saw himself as having failed his wife and child through his own weakness. He could not avenge them as he had vowed, but unless Thorin missed his guess, his quarrel with the bringer of Smaug was now ended.

"Go your way, Oakenshield," Hakim bid him, waving a hand in lethargic command. "Your life I grant you, as the gods seem content to keep you ever from your just repayment. You have shown great honor, and so have stolen from me the fire of my hate. Go your way, and I will go mine."

Thorin was temporarily speechless. Someone approached, a dwarf he didn't immediately recognize, and started to bind his shoulder to stop the bleeding.

"You need a Healer," the dwarf muttered, and sounded worried around the Iron Hills accent. Thorin forced himself to focus. It was Dain's son, the younger Thorin.

"Where's the hobbit?" Thorin thought he sounded just a little insane, or possibly drunk. Drunk on pain, perhaps.

"Hobbit?" The young dwarf looked confused, and Thorin spoke louder, hoping someone who knew might answer.

"Where's my burglar?"

Nikû was beside him in a moment. "The Wizard took her inside. Fíli is with them."

"Fíli?" Thorin repeated, squinting unsurely into the distance. Something was becoming jumbled in his head. Indeed, his face and limbs now seemed cold and numb. A hard jolt announced he was on the ground. Voices and faces spun above him.

"Stay still, my king." The words must have been Nikû's. "You've lost too much blood."

"Fíli. Don't tell him," Thorin murmured, tensing with sudden desperation. "Keep him safe."

"Fíli is safe," Nikû assured him, and her tone was soothing. Thorin was aware of being lifted, but not by whom.

"Keep him safe," he repeated, only just remembering that he'd already said it. "I promised her."

There were voices around him, muted and distant. Pain was a veil between him and the world, which he knew was a good thing, in a way. When he had been on the brink of death before, with a spear through his belly, everything had been cold and numb. He wasn't numb now, so he was still alive.

I won't give up, Billa. I swear it.

"Take him inside," said a voice that sounded like Nikû. He hadn't told her yet that her mistress was gone. But when he tried to form the words, they were slurred and incoherent.

"It's alright, sir. Your kingdom is your own again." The words were the last he understood for a while, the pain-muted whisperings and reverential utterances concerning his disposition lost on him. He was moved, gently, onto a stretcher, and carried for a considerable distance. The ride was bumpy, each jolt painful, but Thorin managed to maintain some form of consciousness.

Hopeful as he was that he wasn't at death's door, he had no wish to tempt fate. He needed to stay awake. For Billa.