"She hates me."

Beside him, Kili barely twitched. Fili waited patiently as the glazed look in his brother's eyes slowly faded and his mind returned from its wanderings.

His brother did not do well with boredom. Over the years, Kili had perfected the ability of just...going away during such times to some place in his head where boredom didn't exist. It used to drive their mother and uncle crazy but eventually the two had resigned themselves to it.

Kili suddenly twisted in his saddle to look behind them and Fili resisted the urge to shout at him.

He settled for hissing, "Could you maybe act a little less obvious?"

"Relax," Kili turned back and settled into his saddle again. "They've stopped so she can do push-ups again."

Fili could almost feel Kili's eyes boring into him. He stubbornly fixed his eyes on his uncle's back where he rode at the front of the line, tightened his grip on the pony's reins and held his back so rigid his muscles began to cramp.

He was the rightful Crown Prince of Erebor, damn it. He was not going to give in to the urge to turn around, and especially not with his little brother trying to silently goad him into it.

"Hmph" Kili grumbled after a minute. "You're no fun."

Fili ignored him. Bilba and Dwalin must have been close when they halted because he could hear the faint, albeit fading, sound of their voices. He wished they would either speak quieter so he couldn't hear them at all, or louder so he could understand them.

Beside him, Kili twisted in his saddle again, one hand braced on the saddle. This time Fili snarled at him under his breath. "Really?"

"Oh, relax," Kili settled into his saddle again. "There's no rule that says I can't look on my own. It's kind of fun watching her. I almost want to challenge her to a push-up contest."

Fili let out a small huff and his lips quirked. "Give her a few days and you probably can."

Bilba had started out riding near their uncle but kept stopping to dismount and go through a full calisthenic routine. The rest of them had stopped for her the first few times, but when it became apparent this was going to be a thing they'd simply continued and let her catch up. Dwalin was the only one who kept waiting, eventually leaving the two of them behind the rest of the Company.

"She's certainly committed to getting in shape," Kili said cheerfully.

"She's in fine enough shape as it is," Fili muttered. "Even if she wasn't, we have months before we're anywhere near Erebor. She doesn't need to kill herself." Kili barely turned his head, but Fili saw his brother's eyes cut toward him in a slightly exaggerated manner and he scowled. "What?"

Kili shrugged innocently. "Just questioning how it is that Lord Responsible came to be obsessed with a woman who hates him and is with someone else." Kili leaned over, bracing one foot in his stirrup as he shifted most of his weight to that leg. "Dwalin, by the way. The someone else is Dwalin."

Fili's jaw clenched and his gut twisted. For the briefest instance, he felt something truly ugly, and utterly irrational, toward the dwarf who'd treated him and Kili like sons after their father's death. Then the feeling faded, and he shook his head as if he could somehow physically dislodge the remnants. "I thought you said she didn't hate me."

Kili tilted his head toward him. "I said she was doing push-ups. She absolutely hates you."

Fili glared at him, but it only got him a grin in return. "Has anyone actually said she's with Dwalin? They could just be friends."

"You hope they're just friends," Kili corrected, grin widening. He was clearly enjoying this turn as the more responsible brother. Then his expression turned serious, and that was almost worse. There was very little in life that Kili took seriously if he could help it. "Just what's going on with you? You literally just met her yesterday, and I don't think you've even exchanged two words yet."

Fili shook his head and pressed his lips together in a tight line. "It's not like that," he argued in annoyance. "I'm just wondering what her issue is with me."

"Sure," Kili said in disbelief. "That's why you've spent the better part of the morning talking about her." His eyes widened as a thought hit him. "Maybe it's proof Dwalin likes me better than you. He's been filling her head with stories about you and your bad decisions."

"My bad decisions?" Fili asked incredulously. "Of the two of us I don't think I'm the one with poor decision-making skills."

Kili tilted his head and looked upward before conceding. "Fine. I have no idea why she hates you. Maybe you should just ask her. Or just grab her and kiss her, whatever."

A mental image of Bilba kissing Dwalin raced unbidden through his mind and Fili's mood soured. Then it soured further because the image bothered him, and he had no idea why. It was idiotic, and irrational and he didn't do things like this. He wasn't a child prone to silly infatuations over random women. "I have no desire to kiss her, or anyone else for that matter."

"Suit yourself," Kili said airily. "Bree is the last town we'll be hitting before Lake-town and I, for one, intend to have a good time before spending months slowly dying of boredom."

"I wouldn't, if I were you," Fili warned. "You barely convinced Amad and Uncle to let you come. You go off carousing, you'll probably find yourself walking back home while the rest of us go ahead."

Kili's good humor vanished and he glowered. "You're like a miniature version of Uncle sometimes, you know that?"

"It's been mentioned," Fili muttered absently. He forced his eyes to focus on the scenery on both sides of the path, to get his mind off Bilba Baggins and anything associated with her. Maybe he could learn whatever Kili's technique was and just go away inside his head for a while.

They'd only been traveling an hour or so, along a quiet path lined on both sides by trees. The day was cooler under the canopy, but still hot enough to raise a low sheen of sweat that prickled on the back of his neck. The pony's hooves kicked up a small layer of dust that clung to him and left him feeling covered in grime, while simultaneously drying out his throat and giving him a constant urge to cough.

Dimly, past the clomp of the ponies and the low murmur of the Company members, he could hear the chirp of birds deeper in the forest, the buzz of insects that would probably be trying to eat him alive soon, and the faint rustle of animals moving through the underbrush.

His eyes caught on a massive, ancient oak tree growing near the path. The trunk was crooked and narrow, winding up into twisted branches that rose high over their heads. One branch hung low over the path, close enough to touch if he reached up.

They passed it, leaving it behind and, without fully understanding why, Fili found himself grabbing the back of his saddle to twist and look behind him.

Bilba and Dwalin had stopped and dismounted beneath the oak tree. Bilba said something to Dwalin who, with an exasperated expression, knelt, wrapped his arms around her legs and stood back up, lifting her straight into the air.

Bilba braced a hand on his shoulder before grabbing the low hanging branch and shoving her hand in to fish amongst the leaves. After a moment, Dwalin loosened his hold and she dropped to the path beside him. Fili saw her hand, clenched into a fist, but couldn't see what she held.

She flashed a tight smile at Dwalin, an action that caused Fili's heart to jolt in his chest, and then her eyes lifted and locked with his. For a second, so fast he wasn't sure he even saw it, a look of almost unbearable pain flashed over her. Then her eyes went flat and she pulled her gaze away, breaking the connection.

"I really am a bad influence," Kili said from next to him, back to his cheerfulness already. There was little that could get Kili down and, on the rare occasion it did happen it was never for long. "Forget about it. Even if you could make it past the hatred, and Dwalin, you'd still find yourself facing off against half the Company."

Fili's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "What? How's that possible? They just met her last night."

"You just met her last night," Kili pointed out.

"I just want to know why she hates me," Fili repeated through clenched teeth.

"You keep telling yourself that," his brother replied airily. "Maybe one day someone will actually believe you."

Fili shook his head in irritation and decided to change the subject. "What's this about the rest of the Company?"

"She's a badass" Kili explained. "Strong willed, in control, pretty-"

"Beautiful," Fili corrected. "She's beautiful."

"Right," Kili said dryly. "Noticed that while you were wondering why she hated you, huh?"

Fili ignored him. Any idiot with a brain could see that Bilba Baggins was a beautiful woman, even with the, yet unexplained, black eye spreading across her face, choppy uneven haircut and oversized clothes that clearly weren't hers.

Fili hadn't been surprised to see her later with a new haircut. Dori had been watching her all evening, fingers twitching as if he already wielded shears.

Kili was still talking and, with effort, Fili refocused on him. "She's the sort of woman who'd draw attention back home, and she's certainly drawing it here."

Fili snorted. The sort of woman who drew attention in Ered Luin was a woman, period. Dwarven women were in short supply, so much so that the few there were often dressed as men to avoid being constantly harassed by single male dwarves looking for a mate.

Still, he understood what Kili was saying. It was bred into them from an early age that the search for a mate, assuming you even wanted one, was a competition for a rare prize that few obtained. It got so fierce at times that, when Gloin and Bera married, two dwarves petitioned their uncle to try and stop it, citing they had more of a right to her than Gloin did.

Uncle simply laughed and sent them into a room where their mother and Bera had been waiting. Fili had no idea what had happened, but when the two dwarves had come out they'd been pale and quiet. They'd both bowed to his uncle, apologized for bothering him, and then proceeded to move to the Iron Hills.

In any event, finding a mate wasn't easy within dwarven society and most were too caught up in their own crafts and lives to bother leaving to search for one in outside society.

Which meant having a woman like Bilba Baggins, who was behaving far more like a proper dwarven woman than a hobbit woman, and who was guaranteed to be in their company for the foreseeable future was far too great an opportunity to pass up. Now that he thought about it, it was a wonder the entire Company, sans Gloin and possibly his uncle, hadn't already taken notice of her.

Speaking of which...

"What about you?" he asked, keeping his voice level.

Kili laughed. "No, thank you. Unlike you, I have no desire to have Dwalin angry at me."

Fili nodded slowly. "Neither do I."

"Good," Kili said with a nod. "Then start thinking about something else. Maybe they'll be an interested barmaid at the inn, and you can get your mind off what you can't have."

Fili's eyebrows drew together, and he braced a hand on his thigh to study his brother. "Who are you and what did you do with my brother?"

Kili shrugged. "I don't know, maybe the boredom is affecting me. What do you say we have a shooting challenge?" He held up his bow as he spoke, and Fili laughed as he relaxed back into his saddle.

"There's the brother I know and love."

""They're wasting arrows."

Dwalin sighed. "It'll be good practice."

Bilba pursed her lips as she watched Kili send another arrow whipping at some unseen target in the woods. "And what happens when they accidentally hit a Ranger?"

Dwalin frowned at her. "They aren't careless. They wouldn't fire at something unless they knew it was clear."

"Of course you'd stick up for them," Bilba muttered, covering over the barb of hurt that sliced through her. She'd always known Dwalin only stayed by her side because of his loyalty to the line of Durin. In the end even that hadn't been enough to keep him there forever and, really, she knew that so getting hurt over being reminded was simply idiotic.

With a grimace, she shifted in her saddle. Her old body had muscle and padding in all the right places. This one did not, and it promised a miserable time until she got re-used to riding for hours at a time.

Idly, she tightened her hand around the small acorn in her hand. Useless sentimentality. She couldn't even be sure it was the same one; it most likely wasn't, all things considered. She'd only grabbed it because -

She didn't know why.

Maybe she just enjoyed torturing herself. Picking away at a wound, unable to stop in spite of the sharp stings of pain encouraging her to do just that.

...she'd forgotten that tree.

She'd believed she remembered every second of that first trip. Every word, every smile...but she hadn't. Hadn't remembered a single bit of that tree until she'd seen it and suddenly it had all come flooding back.

The tree was so magnificent, so majestic that it caused her to forget all about the awkwardness of her position.

She sat up straight with an audible gasp and a laugh of pure joy, nearly managing to clock Fili in the chin in the process.

"Do you see that?" she asked in excitement, pointing at the tree. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"I guess?" Fili replied dubiously. "It's just a tree."

"Just a-" Bilba leaned her head back to look up at him. "Uncultured swine."

His eyes narrowed and he studied her as if she'd just sprouted horns. "I beg your pardon?"

"You may not." Bilba said with a huff. She couldn't flounce away like Lobelia would have, so she settled for whirling to face away from him and crossing her arms. As she did, she saw they were passing directly under the tree and a low hanging branch was almost directly over her head, heavy with acorns.

Bilba braced her hands on Fili's thighs and pushed, trying to scramble to her feet. He made an unintelligible exclamation, wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled the pony to a halt with the other.

Bilba shoved at his arm, squirmed free and managed to gingerly get to her feet on the pony's back. She reached up and snatched an acorn, before unceremoniously losing her balance and falling with a shriek that quickly turned into laughter.

Fili's arms caught her and dragged her back against his chest. Bilba ended up far closer than she'd ever expected to be, with her legs draped over his and, oh yeah, now she remembered her current circumstances.

White hot heat flooded her face and she scrambled away from him, or as much as one could when sharing a saddle with said other person. Lifting her eyes revealed the entire Company had come to a stop to watch her antics and now it was quite possible she might actually die from sheer mortification.

Thorin called something back in another language (seriously, so rude. How was she supposed to know if he was talking about her or not?) and Fili replied in the same, tone almost bored.

Thorin looked annoyed but he pulled his pony back around and the rest of the Company obediently fell in behind. Kili, who'd stopped nearby to witness her humiliation, also started off again, leaving them momentarily alone.

Bilba looked down at the small acorn in her hands and couldn't help the smile that spread across her face.

"What are you planning to do with that?" Fili asked.

"Plant it somewhere when I get home," she said happily.

"When you get home?" Fili repeated blankly. "You do realize how long we'll be gone, right?

Bilba shrugged. "It'll be just like carrying a small piece of the Shire."

A slow smirk spread across his face. "Funny, I thought the same thing when you started riding with me."

Heat flared across Bilba's face and she glared at him.

He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her back, before his eyebrows suddenly knit together and his eyes narrowed. "Wait, we're barely outside the Shire and on the main road. How have you never seen this tree before?"

"I don't get out much," Bilba said, with just the tiniest hint of guilt. She hadn't meant for any of them to find that out.

"You've never been outside the Shire?" Fili asked, dumbfounded. "And you thought your first trip should be to Erebor?"

Holding her body halfway around to see him was uncomfortable so Bilba settled forward again and studied the pony's mane. She lightly kicked at the animal's side in the hopes of convincing it to start moving and carry her away from this conversation, but it stubbornly refused to obey.

"Are you sure about this?" Fili asked seriously. "You can still turn back."

"I already signed the contract," Bilba argued softly.

"Uncle won't hold you to it," Fili countered. He'd wrapped an arm around her waist at some point and squeezed her back against his chest. "What about your family? Did you even tell them you were leaving?"

"I doubt they'll even notice I'm gone," Bilba said honestly. Lobelia would probably hope she was gone for good, allowing her to move into Bag End, while the rest of her family didn't even live in Hobbiton and rarely saw her as it was.

Bilba leaned her head back, pressing her entire back against his chest and resting her head against his shoulder to look up at him. "Do you want me to go home?"

As she spoke, she rested a hand on his where it was locked around her waist. It was incredibly forward of her, and not at all like her, but she couldn't seem to help it. As much as this entire thing was awkward and he was intimidating (and he was very intimidating), she also felt a strange sort of...familiarity with him. As if they were simply two very old friends meeting again after a long time apart.

It was comforting and deeply disturbing, at the same time.

Fili grimaced, and Bilba's good humor faded. He turned his head to the path behind them. "No, you can't go back now."

He seemed annoyed by it and Bilba resisted the urge to apologize. Instead she quietly cupped her hands around her acorn and kept her head down. She didn't mean to be a burden, honest, she didn't.

At the front of the Company, Thorin turned halfway around to shout something at Fili, still in another language. He responded in kind, even more annoyed than before, and kicked the pony into a brisk trot.

As he did, Bilba tightened her grip around the acorn and silently promised that she'd find a way to make herself useful. She'd be like the acorn, a little seed ready to sprout into a wonderful oak tree. Then they'd be happy she'd come and everyone would stop scowling all the time.

Well, mainly Thorin. Thorin would stop scowling all the time.

That would be nice.

The memory faded and an all too familiar pain settled deep into her bones.

Bilba looked down at the acorn in her hand and bit back a laugh at how utterly naive she'd been back then. So sure she'd have a fun adventure, prove her worth to the Company and return a hero with a plethora of stories to tell. She'd even thought she'd return to find her family looking after Bag End and ready to throw a party to celebrate her return. She'd plant her oak tree and, once it was big enough, she'd hang a porch swing from it. Every afternoon she'd go to sit in it with a cup of tea and people would gather from far and wide to listen to her tell her grand story of adventure.

None of that had happened. Instead of the hero returning to accolades and applause she'd returned broken to an empty house and the whispers of vindictive gossips.

"Foolish girl," she whispered to the acorn. "You really did know nothing of the world, did you?"

She scowled and then tossed the acorn into the bushes on the side of the trail.

Beside her, she could feel Dwalin's eyes studying her, but he said nothing.

Together, they rode on in silence.