Feeling suddenly weak, Bilba sagged onto the floor, back against the bathroom wall. Her breathing was short and shallow, and her heart hammered a staccato beat in her ears. Her entire body began to shake violently and spots spun about in her vision as her consciousness wavered.

She couldn't do this.

She couldn't. She couldn't even bear the thought of him and she was supposed to travel with him? See him every day without being able to touch him?

Watch him look at her without so much as a spark of recognition?

It would kill her.

And, even if it didn't, then what? She was going to save them? How arrogant to even think it. She couldn't save them the first time; how could she think the second time would be different? There was no way to predict what, if anything, would happen as a result of her changing things. She could make it better, or exponentially worse.

Change something here, and the trolls eat a few members of the Company.

A seemingly insignificant step there and Azog kills them all outside the goblin caves.

A slight misstep and Smaug roasts them all alive.

A momentary lapse of attention and Sauron has the ring and all Middle Earth is doomed and she saved her friends only to watch them die anyway.

A shadow fell over her and then Dwalin was stiffly lowering himself with a grunt to sit against the wall of the bathroom opposite her.

Bilba found herself smirking in spite of her rising panic. "What's wrong, Gaffer?" The words were stuttered and breathy as she struggled to catch her breath, one hand pressed against her chest where her heart hammered wildly. "Getting arthritis already?"

He had been the last time she'd seen him, before the whole stabbed in the back thing. Not much, but a little. He'd been stiffer in the mornings, his reaction times just a little slower. Seeing it had brought a gut-clenching terror because she'd already known that, while he was aging, she was not.

"Gotta say, I was expecting a different reaction," Dwalin drawled, ignoring the jibe as he always did. "Less panic, more me having to try and explain why you tackled the Crown Prince."

"Screw you, Bastard." Bilba braced her feet, shoved against the wall and arched her back to try and get more air. Her heartrate slowed fractionally and her breathing, while still shallow, got just a little better. She still felt ice cold and an involuntary shiver ran over her frame. She clenched her teeth until her jaw creaked. "Does he remember?"

Dwalin's face was expressionless. "No."

Bile surged up her throat. Bilba grimaced and pressed the back of a fist to her mouth, shutting her eyes as she tried to keep from getting sick all over again.

"You could always just tell him," Dwalin said mildly.

Bilba barked out a harsh laugh. "Oh, I'm sure that would go over well." She could just imagine their reaction. Especially when she got to the part where she stood by and watched them die. Her heart twisted so hard in her chest she gasped in pain. They'd blame her. Of course, they would. "They wouldn't let me on the Quest."

"You don't get ahold of yourself," Dwalin said flatly, "you won't be going anyway. Ring or no ring."

Bilba frowned in surprise. "You know?"

"Ran into Gandalf." He studied her for a few minutes. "I should have been there."

"You'd have just died alongside me." Bilba muttered. She let her eyes slide shut again, braced her hands against the floor and pressed upward as if the action would somehow allow her to get a deep breath. "How did you get back here, anyway?"

"Fell asleep," he said, voice flat. "Suddenly found myself standing on the road. Figured it was a dream at first."

She opened her eyes and locked them with his. "If it weren't for the ring, would you let me go?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Could I have stopped you?"

"Probably not," she got out through clenched teeth. It was proof of how selfish she still was, and he knew it. Too selfish to risk her life saving the other half of her heart, too selfish to stand by and let others fix things where she hadn't...couldn't.

"Akul Kurf."

Bilba blinked in surprise at the title, given to her by the orc that had taken over after Azog and Bolg's deaths. Loosely translated, the name meant Ice Bitch, and it had been apt for decades, right up until that morning when everything had been turned upside down. It felt like those early days all over again, when everything had been twisted and turned inside out.

"Is that how you've been dealing with it?" she asked. "Shutting it all out?" He was certainly doing that now. Dwalin was always considered so stoic, like a rock, but Bilba knew he was as flesh and blood as anybody else. He'd cried after Thorin and the boys, and again after Balin.

Cried, and then locked it away the same as her, had possibly pushed it even deeper than she had. He'd become cold for a long time, near brutal in how he fought, harsh and biting in his interactions.

They'd actively sought out fights with orcs and goblins in those early days, seeking vengeance in the futile hope that it would somehow absolve them of the near soul crushing guilt. Dwalin liked to claim she was the one with the death wish, but he'd fought in a blind, near berserker rage. He'd wade into every battle as if it were his last, as if he prayed it was his last, and would come out with his weapons almost black with the blood and ichor of his enemies.

She hadn't been the only one given a title. She had been Akul Kurf.

Dwalin had been Vadok.

Death.

Bilba had always been mildly insulted by that. He got to be Death, and she got to be the hobbit with the bad attitude.

Her eyes were still locked with his and, slowly, she could feel herself starting to calm. Her heartrate slowed, and her lungs finally released and allowed her to start drawing in deeper draughts of air. The trembling in her body eased, and the temperature didn't seem quite as low anymore.

A thought occurred, and Bilba surprised herself by chuckling. At Dwalin's questioning look, she said, "Maybe this time around you'll get to be Akul Kurf and I can be Vadok."

He snorted. "You're assuming Gurag is even old enough to be a-" He paused with a frown and then conceded, "Yeah, with our luck, he probably is."

"Probably." Bilba eased back down to a fully seated position and rolled her shoulders, trying to work out some of the tension. She felt drained and relaxed against the wall.

From outside the bathroom, and her room, the sound of multiple voices came through and she let out a sigh. "Sounds like the rest of them are here."

Dwalin grunted. "Probably questioning why their host is holed up inside her bedroom with one of the guests."

Bilba let out a sharp bark of laughter that was only slightly edged in hysteria. "I doubt they think I dragged you off to knock boots before dinner, Dwalin, and if they do they're idiots. Hospitality clearly demands I wait until after dinner for such things."

He smirked and then carefully got himself to his feet. He took a few steps forward and held a hand down toward her. Bilba glowered but reached up to grasp his forearm and allowed him to haul her to her feet.

"You gonna be all right?" Dwalin asked.

"No," Bilba confessed, "but when has that ever mattered?"

He shrugged. "Fair enough." He strode easily past her, idly clapping her on the shoulder as he did. "Might want to run a few laps after dinner," he called as he reached to her door. "Else the orcs might name you Dobat."

Weak, Bilba translated automatically, and sneered at his back. "You wouldn't be saying that if I had a knife."

He laughed as he headed out the door. "With that muscle tone, can you even lift one?"

The door shut before she could respond, leaving her alone. Bilba made a mental note to throw a knife at him later, and then let out a breath and walked back into her bathroom.

A glance in the mirror confirmed her hair looked as awful as she'd thought it would, and that the pain and puffy feeling in her face came from a spectacular black eye courtesy of the idiots in Bree. Dwalin was so used to her propensity for finding trouble he hadn't even commented on it.

They'd think her unstable when they saw her. Thorin hadn't reacted too harshly, but he'd had other things on his mind. The rest of the Company would simply be confronted with her, exactly the way she was.

Which was nothing at all like she had been.

The last time she'd already been so embarrassed. Thanks to Gandalf's lack of warning she'd had no time to clean, put on her best dress, do her hair or, you know, make dinner.

She'd cornered the wizard later, once the others had settled down and she'd been given a moment to breathe.

"You made me look entirely rude, Gandalf," she scolded, wagging a finger at the wizard where he sat in her father's armchair. "My parents would be mortified if they were still here."

"Are you quite sure of that?" Gandalf had replied, amused. "I feel your mother might have quite enjoyed it."

Bilba had been offended to have him behave as if he'd known her mother better than she had but, on reflection, he probably had. Her mother had always been running off on adventures with him, only to return days, if not a week or two later, flushed and excited and filled with tales of all she'd seen and done while gone.

She'd invited Bilba along a time or two, but she'd always declined, too afraid of what lay beyond her front door to venture out. The Quest had been the first time anyone had asked her on an adventure since her mother's death and maybe, in some small way, she'd done it for the other woman. A way to honor her memory and say yes, in death, to what she'd always said no to in life.

Or maybe she'd done it for herself.

Her mother had always filled Bag End with visitors upon her return, the perfect hostess who served tea and then provided the entertainment as well. Bilba well remembered how her mother could bring total silence to a room filled with people, each of them spellbound and hanging upon her every word.

Bag End would never be filled again afterwards. The doors had been closed and locked, and not opened again for visitors until Dwalin had beat upon her door to demand entrance.

Bilba sighed. Her story had certainly not turned out anything like her mother's had. Whereas Belladonna's were always heroic and exciting, Bilba's held nothing but tragedy and her own cowardice.

Cowardice that had ended the life of the one person she'd loved more than anything else in the world. The one person who'd protected her, looked after her and lifted her up, sometimes literally, when she needed it.

And in return, at the one moment when he'd needed her in turn?

She'd let him down.

Failed, utterly. That was the long and short of it, no matter what Dwalin or anyone else said.

"Less panic, more me having to try and explain why you tackled the Crown Prince."

Bilba shook her head. She was supposed to tackle him when he didn't remember? Had no idea how she'd betrayed him?

How she'd failed him.

She wouldn't do that to him. She might have been too selfish to save him the first time, and she was certainly too selfish to stay away from the Quest the second time, ring or no ring.

But she wasn't so selfish as to pursue someone who couldn't even remember that he should hate her.

Who had no memory of the fact that she'd stood by and let him die, or that she'd personally killed the woman she'd once been.

The woman he'd loved.

In her mirror, Bilba watched as her expression cooled and her eyes slowly hardened. The emotions swirling inside her stilled and emptiness settled within her like an old friend being welcomed home.

"Fili," she whispered.

The word was like a razor, and she could swear she almost felt it slicing her throat as it rose, could almost taste the metallic tang of blood as it slid over her tongue.

"Fili," she said again, louder this time, and her hands clenched into fists, so tight she felt the skin of her palms burst beneath her fingernails, sending sharp, burning tendrils of pain flying along her palms.

It was all just a dream, she told herself firmly. A dead lover in someone else's tale. Someone else's tragedy.

Her One was dead, and so was the one he'd loved.

She raised her chin and turned her back from the mirror. A familiar coldness spread through her, ice building at the base of her spine and slowly slipping into her veins, rushing through her bloodstream until, by the time she reached her bedroom door, she was as cold as Fili had been when they'd brought him off the battlefield.

As cold as she'd been every day since.

Akul Kurf indeed.

Dwalin sat quietly in a seat and watched the Company. He felt strangely detached, set apart as if he were a stranger accidentally sat at the wrong table.

He hadn't spoken to most of them in decades.

His eyes found Balin and he scowled, still unsure of how he felt about seeing his brother again. Part of him had wanted to hug the other dwarf, while the other half wanted to punch him and demand to know what he'd been thinking.

"Is our host all right?"

Thorin's voice broke into his thoughts and Dwalin dragged himself back into the present to nod at him. "She's fine."

Thorin nodded, but his eyes continued to study him. "You two share a history."

Dwalin shrugged. He'd forgotten how damn perceptive Thorin could be.

Thorin shifted as, on his other side, Fili leaned over to say something to him. Dwalin watched him, before going to Kili next to him, and then back to Thorin once more.

He'd also forgotten just how deep Thorin's voice was, how bright Fili's eyes got when he was excited about something, how easily Kili smiled at the slightest thing. Further down his brother nodded along to something Bifur was saying, the two animated and lively while, further still, Nori gestured wildly to Ori, who stared back with all the hero worship a younger brother could scrounge up for their elder sibling.

A little over half the people at this table had been dead the day before. Of those left, Bombur had been in poor health and Dori...Dori had been but a shadow of the dwarf he'd been before he'd lost both his brothers.

Gloin had returned to his family in Ered Luin and never visited Erebor again, while Bofur had simply...left one day, never to be seen or heard from again.

Erebor might have been retaken, but it had been at the cost of those who'd fought to reclaim her. Thorin, Fili and Kili had fallen while the rest had simply been lost. There had been no room for them in Erebor. Dain had brought his own guard, his own councilors and nobles with him. There was no place for them, and few who desired them there. Their loyalty was to Thorin and, as much as Dain tried to make a place for them, there was little he could do against his entire court.

And so there was nothing left; no place to go, no land left to be reclaimed, no more wars still to be fought.

All that was left was for them to decide what, if anything, they could cling to until, and if, they found where it was they belonged in a world that had passed them by.

For Dwalin, son of Fundin, that thing had been the knowledge that others needed him to keep going.

That Bilba needed him to keep going.

That thought, and that alone, had been all that had kept him from throwing himself from the top of Ravenhill the day he'd failed his king, been too slow to reach him, too preoccupied with goddamn goblin mercenaries of all things to be there while his shield brother bled out in the snow and ice.

Bilba had been there, sitting quietly by Thorin's side.

It was clear she'd been crying before, but not then. She'd simply been sitting, staring out into the distance, the only movement a few loose tendrils of hair as the wind had lifted them.

Dwalin could still feel the crushing grief that had frozen him in place, standing over his best friend, knowing the two of them had not fallen in battle together as they should have.

The others had arrived slowly, some crashing to their knees in grief, others supporting one another. Through it all, Dwalin had stayed apart, precisely where he was.

No one had questioned him, asked him how it was Thorin was dead and he was not, but it had been there just the same. He'd seen it in their eyes, felt it in their words. He'd been set apart from that day onward, a part of the Company and yet not.

Bilba was the only one who'd never blamed him, who'd trusted him as much as she ever had. When he'd moved to lift Thorin's corpse there had been cries of dissent, arguments over the best way to move him, loud voices raised from every direction, save one.

When he'd knelt, Bilba had quietly moved to stand behind him, waiting in silence.

Slowly, the others had fallen silent in turn, and no one had spoken as Dwalin had lifted Thorin, armor and all, and turned back toward the cursed tower where Azog had commanded his army.

It had been a solemn procession back, broken only by the discovery that Thorin and Fili had not been the only Durins to fall.

Kili, his eyes open and fixed, staring upwards at a sky he could no longer see. The elf woman, Tauriel, had been kneeling beside him, gripping his hand in hers. The lost look in her eyes had so perfectly matched the one in Bilba's that Dwalin had instinctively turned to look at her.

She'd vanished, and no one had to ask where she'd gone.

There had been no time, in the heat of battle, to go to where the Crown Prince of Erebor had fallen, and no need.

There was no question the thrust of Azog's sword had delivered a mortal blow, and what little chance there may have been was ended instantly when his body had impacted the rocks at the base of the tower.

All of them had known it, and Dwalin had known also that, to his dying day, he would never forget the look in Thorin's eyes as he'd watched his nephew die. Would forever hear Kili and Bilba screaming. Would forever recall the look of fear in Fili's eyes, the short, sharp intake of breath as the sword had passed through him.

Would forever recall the exact moment his own heart had shattered into a million pieces.

"Take him," he'd ordered, and hands had immediately come and relieved him of his burden. He'd nodded toward Kili's body and then at a few of the other members of the Company. He could no longer remember which ones, no longer cared. "Help me with the princes."

He'd gone then and, as expected, Bilba was where he'd known she'd be. Unlike Tauriel, she'd been stretched out alongside Fili, head and arm resting on his chest, either unseeing or uncaring of the blood slowly soaking into her hair and clothing.

She hadn't reacted when he'd spoken to her.

When he'd pulled her up, she'd fought him.

When she'd realized she couldn't break free, she'd started screaming. Harsh guttural sounds that had been ripped out of her more than released, torn from some place deep inside and he knew immediately that the wounds being left in their wake would never heal.

She'd taken a mortal blow alongside her One, and the person he carried down from the hill that day was not the same one who'd come up.

It was for that reason he was able to keep going after Ravenhill. Bore the glances, the mutterings from nobles come from the Iron Hills. Fili would have wanted it but, beyond that, he wanted it. Wanted someone to still need him, to look at him as if they weren't forever questioning why he was alive when his king was not.

As if it wasn't a question he constantly asked himself.

The funeral had nearly killed Bilba, and it had quickly become clear that staying in Erebor would. He'd taken her home only to find that, in her absence, her relations had picked over her home like maggots crawling about a corpse, stripping it of everything even remotely of value and leaving nothing but bones behind.

She'd stood in the center of her parlor, debris and trash tangled about her feet, the house just as empty as she was and he'd realized in that instant that, were he to walk out, she would never leave again. Whatever survived, if anything did, would be but a shadow haunting the halls of its own crypt.

So he'd taken her with him, and he'd goaded her and pushed her because it was the only thing that got any sort of reaction. He'd taught her to fight because it gave her an outlet for the anger that had come later, went after orcs in the hope it would help her find some semblance of peace.

It hadn't, but keeping her going had kept him going, right up until the day he'd realized what he was doing wasn't helping either one of them. He'd made a choice and watched her faith and trust in him crumble before his eyes.

And now? Now he had no idea. Gandalf claimed she was expected to save the world, and he was meant to help her. Anything else was a distraction, the wizard had explained. It was important to ignore it and look at the bigger picture.

Dwalin's response to that had been descriptive, and he knew from the resigned look in Gandalf's eyes that Bilba's reply had probably been similar.

Dwalin had tried looking at the bigger picture once, and only once.

He'd believed he was doing the right thing, and quickly found out he'd never been so wrong.

So screw the damn ring, and the whole "fate of Middle Earth" crap Gandalf was trying to feed him, and had the audacity to try and feed Bilba.

Bilba, Thorin, Fili, Kili.

He'd failed them all once.

He wasn't failing them again.

He was Vadok.

Aule help anyone who stood in his way.