A.N: This is one of the earliest sections I had written, both the flashback and the present.
Chapter Nineteen: Bluebell
T.A. 2894 Bag End
Bluebell stares at herself in her mother's mirror. Her dark hair has been pinned and styled. Her new dress for her party later is a wonderful shade of deep blue that only seems to bring the indigo of her eyes into sharp focus. Her fifteenth birthday is upon her, very nearly half way to her majority, and she is beginning to show signs of becoming a grown hobbit woman.
This party is to be the first evening celebration for the young lass and her face glows with excitement. She only hopes that her Irak-Adad will turn up, Bluebell has put a lot of work into her gift for him and he's been visiting less over the last four years. She doesn't understand why, and she misses the stories he always tells. Mama writes to him regularly and tells Bluebell that he doesn't visit as much because he is helping his sister with her sons as their father is dead. Bluebell doesn't know whether she believes it, she just knows that when Irak-Adad visits Papa gets quiet and angry and when he leaves Mama and Papa fight for days before settling back to normal.
"I suppose my wife has been telling you when I am not home," she hears her father say through the open window. Her Mama likes the smell of lavender in the evenings and the breeze helps her to sleep so the window is rarely closed unless it is winter.
"Not at all," Bluebell makes a small, excited noise. Frerin has come. "Belladonna said she would be home. I simply came with a gift for Bluebell's birthday."
Bluebell clambers onto the blanket box her mother has placed under the window, kneeling on it so that she can look out of the window and see what is happening. Frerin is barely through the gate and her father is on the steps. She can't see her Papa's face, but her Irak-Adad looks angry.
"I told her to inform you that your presence was unwelcome," Bungo says and Bluebell gasps at her father's lie. Mama misses Frerin and Bluebell always wishes he would stay longer than he does.
"I would hear the words from her own lips," Frerin replies.
"She is my wife," Papa snaps, "the words should be enough from me. That is the way of things here."
Bluebell knows it is. Behind closed doors a hobbit wife may have most of the control but in all legal matters it is the husband who is favoured. Frerin slumps and Bluebell wants to cry out at the unfairness of it all. Her father is ruining her birthday when all she wants is to have a dance with her, often absent, Irak-Adad. Then, later, sit with the other teens and tweens to listen as he and Mama tell stories about their travels and the mischief his nephews get up to. Her father is taking that away.
"Would you at least allow me to give Bluebell her gift?" Frerin asks. It's one of the stranger things about dwarves, that they receive gifts on their birthday's instead of giving them, but she enjoys it because Frerin enjoys it.
"Bluebell is a hobbit and a Baggins," Papa sneers, "she doesn't accept gifts on her birthday. You will have nothing more to do with my daughter, if I see you in the Shire again, I'll summon the bounders. I can't stop my wife from writing to you, but I suggest you do your best to discourage it."
Bluebell doesn't wait to hear the reply, her childish heart wants Frerin to tell her Papa he's going to come in and see her anyway, but her Baggins good sense tells her he is more likely to leave. She runs through the smial, Mama is at the green setting up anyway, and sneaks out of the back door. Hopefully Frerin's path will lead him past her and she will, at least, get the chance to say goodbye.
"Irak-Adad," she says softly as he walks slowly past her hiding place.
"Bluebell?" He's surprised and she feels a little proud of achieving that no matter how angry she is. "What are you doing?"
"I heard what Papa said to you," she says, and even though she promised herself she wouldn't cry tears are forming all the same. "It's not fair!"
"I know," Frerin crouches to wipe the tears from her cheeks, "but he is your father, mizimith."
"Well, I wish he wasn't!" She replies with a sob. "I wish you were!" Frerin is kinder, warmer and more giving with his affection for both her and her Mama.
"You mustn't say things like that," he tells her sternly even though he wraps his arms around her. "He loves you and it would break his heart to hear you say such things." Sometimes Bluebell wonders if her father has a heart under all his Baggins sense, but she doesn't voice the thought.
"I'm sorry, Irak-Adad," she whispers. "I'll miss you."
"And I you, mizimith," he rumbles gently. "But today is not a day for tears. Here. Only make sure your Papa doesn't see it."
She takes the leather pouch he hands to her, opening it with eager fingers. Inside is a beautiful gold bead, all delicate filigree and with a single rune like the one that decorates Frerin's beads in relief on one side.
"It's beautiful," she breathes. "Is it to wear in my hair like you do?"
"Yes," he chuckles. "Have you been practicing your braids?" She nods and shows him the little braid behind her ear she had woven that morning. "Well, when you're ready to go on your travels like your Mama did, place the bead at the end of your braid where it can be seen. Then if you ever find yourself in trouble any dwarf who sees it will help you."
"Why?" She asks.
"Because it shows you are part of my family, and my family is important enough that most dwarves would help you. It's dangerous as well," he adds, "my family has enemies too." Bluebell knows from the stories and she nods.
"Can I show Mama?"
"Of course, mizim," he laughs. "Now go home before your father misses you." He presses his forehead to hers gently, mindful of the fact that her hobbit skull is more fragile than his, then gets to his feet and strolls down the road.
Bluebell never finds out that the little gold bead had not been his intended gift to her that day.
T.A. 2941 Somewhere Under Goblin Town
Bluebell knows as soon as she sees the knife plunge into Fili's ribs that this is it. If he doesn't get treatment, and even if he does, Fili is dead. It's a fatal wound, her limited ability to tap into the earth tells her that much as she draws on her ability to see his life light. For an awful moment it fades entirely, only to return weak and pulsing like some terrible countdown of his heartbeats.
She avoids looking at life lights usually, it was about the only part of the Blessing her father had ever been able to wield (and even then, imperfectly) but she knows he must have seen the bond between her mother and Frerin at least once. Little wonder her parent's marriage had soured with such proof always lingering in front of him. Fili's light, the forge orange nearly overwhelmed by the mithril of his Stone Sense, is edged in tendrils of green and indigo, like a climbing, flowering, vine and it makes her glad she never looked. She isn't sure if she had hoped or feared what she would find if she did, but to see so much of her in him when she's about to lose him is devastating. She won't fade if he dies before they make it out of this horrible place, but she doubts she will ever recover, whether she had bothered to look at his light or not.
With that in mind she doesn't even attempt to get out of the way when the goblin with the knife kicks Fili off his blade and towards the edge of the wide platform they are all gathered on. She just tangles her arms around him and holds on. Her mother's agonised scream as they fall will haunt her.
The landing hurts and she loses consciousness for a moment. Or it could be hours, there's no way for her to know. When she comes to, she panics. She can feel the blood in her hair and the sting of a cut on her forehead. Her dress, already torn by goblins, is in tatters and her shoulder hurts where the strap from her pack must have caught on something on the way down.
"Fili," she whispers, there's just enough earth here for her to pull it into herself so that she can enhance her vision. Not that it does much good. This is the deep dark of the inside of a mountain and she isn't sure even a dwarf could see this deep without some illumination.
"Bluebell," he rasps back, and his voice is wet and pained. Between the sound and her small use of the Blessing she is able to find him, her hand nudging his boot first. "What are you-?" He coughs before he can finish the question. She presses her finger to his lips and the wet there is thick, sticky, and very likely to be blood. She doesn't have much time, it's probably sheer chance that he's alive, let alone conscious.
"No," she says softly. "Shh, don't- we don't- I need to-"
Her seeking hands find the wound as she struggles to put words together. Delicate fingers probe for shards of metal that might be embedded and though she doesn't find anything her hands are filthy. The ground beneath Fili is wet and slippery with his blood. She grabs for anything, everything, that the small amount of earth beneath them can give, pouring it into healing and replacing and burning but it isn't enough. There isn't enough to work with. She sobs, reaching further and deeper, but it still won't be enough. Not to get Fili out of the mountain alive. She will have to take from herself too and that will kill her because of how badly injured he is and even then, he could die anyway.
"Bluebell, stop," he says hoarsely. "You're hurting yourself, you need to stop."
"No!" She sobs, looking at his face to see that his eyes are glowing mithril in the blackness.
His hand, wet with his blood, finds her cheek with none of the difficulty she experienced. He traces the line of her hair and brushes the cut on her forehead. She whimpers and feels a surge of something for the briefest moment. The song of the stone.
"It's alright," he insists, "I knew as soon as I saw the knife. You can stop."
She shakes her head and shifts her focus to reach for the stone. Its hard, so hard, without her mother and Adad talking her through it. She takes Fili's hand in hers and the surge comes again. It fills her, the power of the stone, rolling and clashing with Yavanna's Blessing and then something in her mind shifts and clicks and instead of fighting it, she welcomes it.
"Bluebell, what are you doing?" Fili demands, his voice already stronger and his concern clear.
She can see him, she marvels, even though his expression is alarmed. She can see and feel his wound knitting closed under her hands into a fresh, sensitive, scar. With just the smallest push, she thinks as she sinks deeper into the call of the mountain, it could become- Fili snatches his hand from hers and just like that the stone is fighting her again. She flings herself from it, from him, and exhaustion slams into her.
"What did you do?" He demands again as he examines himself. She can't see him anymore, but she can hear the rustling of his clothes as he moves. She can see the burn of his eyes as he glares at her.
"I needed the stone to heal you," she explains. "I've never done anything that big with it before, but I wasn't about to let you die."
"It could have killed you!" He hisses. "You didn't anchor yourself and you could have been lost to the stone! You nearly were!"
"You were my anchor," she tells him, seeking hands finally finding his hair, then his cheek. He splutters for a moment and then his lips are on hers and the kiss is harsh, bruising, furious and desperate and she returns it in kind.
"Don't ever do that to me again," he orders, hands exploring the skin revealed by the ruins of her dress and lips forming the words between one kiss and the next.
"Don't get stabbed again," she replies, dragging him back with her. The ground is hard and cold beneath her, but Fili is so warm above her, alive her mind supplies, that Bluebell doesn't care.
"I can't promise that," he responds fumbling with the remaining ties of her dress.
Her nimble fingers are having more luck, shoving his coat from his shoulders and helping him remove his ruined tunic. She runs her fingers over his back once it is bared to her, relishing in the feeling of the thick hair that covers him under her fingers. This isn't the place for it really, but she's wanted him since Bag End and the only thing that has stopped her from allowing things to get to this far is her mother's pointed advice and the fear of what would happen if he died. She doesn't care anymore, she nearly lost him, and right how he is pressed hotly against her and even if they were in the most comfortable bed it couldn't feel more right than it does now. It's hard and desperate and perfect and she relishes it even as reality begins to seep through in the moments after. They have become friends during the weeks of travelling, floated on the edge of this more than once, but she had never imagined the shift from friends to this would happen this way.
"You're hurt," he says softly. He's like a furnace above her and she can see the burn of his eyes as she feels his hand trace the cut on her forehead.
"It happened when we fell," she replies with a shrug as they both sit, and she drags his coat around her. Her head has long stopped bleeding and it's far from their most pressing problem.
"Can't you fix it?" He asks.
"It doesn't work like that," she replies, blindly searching for her pack and hoping it made it down with her and isn't caught on something a little further up. She has clothes in there that she can change into and even before their mutual moment of blind passion her dress had been beyond hope. "I can only use it to heal others, the earth won't let me heal myself."
"Isn't there any way?" His voice is concerned, and she feels him press a pack into her hand. The strap is torn but the feel of the clasp tells her that it is her own.
"My mother broke that rule once," she explains as she fumbles for her spare dress. All of her travelling dresses look the same and are, fortunately, far easier to put on than her usual day wear. "It almost destroyed her mind and left her without any healing abilities at all. It took nearly twenty years before she could touch the Blessing without any backlash. There isn't any way and hobbits heal faster than the other races anyway, I'll be fine."
Fili huffs and she can hear him rummaging as she shrugs his coat off and works her way into her dress. The warmth of it is welcome but she knows she won't feel that much better until she has something to eat and gets some sleep. She can hear him cursing as she ties her laces and tugs her pack and his coat with her as she follows the sound to him. She nearly topples over him when she does find him, crouched as he is at the base of the cliff they tumbled down.
"Careful," he says, catching her and she feels his bare chest under her fingers. Foolishly, given what happened between them only minutes ago, she feels herself flush.
"I can't see a bloody thing," she grumbles. "We need to find a way out, or back up to the rest of the Company." He releases her to continue with his previous task. "What are you doing?"
"Looking through the other packs that fell with us. I need a spare tunic and I'm hoping Thorin or Dwalin had one." She can imagine he's reluctant to put his blood soaked one back on. He makes a triumphant noise. "Hopefully uncle won't mind."
"I should imagine he will just be glad you're alive," she listens to the shift of fabric against skin, her hearing more sensitive now that her sight is denied to her.
"After he's finished shouting at me for letting myself get distracted," he chuckles depreciatively, but wraps an arm around Bluebell's shoulders and pulls her close. She leans into his warmth with a sigh. "There's no guarantee that the others survived the goblins, or that they will manage to escape," it's said gently but she doesn't miss the hitch in his voice. "We need to get out of the mountain and find a way to discover if they made it out and which direction they went in."
"Which isn't going to be easy this deep in the mountain with no light," she adds.
"I can guide us," he assures her. "I won't allow you to fall or lose your way." His fingers comb through her hair soothingly until they find the little bead she usually keeps so carefully hidden.
"Do you know what this means, Bluebell?" He asks her softly.
"Frerin told me it's a sign we're family," she replies. "He said that even though we don't share any blood, in his heart I'm his daughter and he wanted it to show. Which is why he gave me the bead."
"Why hide it?" He sounds genuinely curious rather than accusatory.
"Because," she hesitates. "Because it isn't done in the Shire. Hobbits typically have so many faunts that trying to claim someone else's as your own is seen as greedy and twisted. They would have chased Frerin out had we told them the truth, so he remained 'uncle' and we hid the bead to prevent the questions," she shrugs. "In the end it was enough that we knew the truth."
"Why not say anything to the rest of us?" He demands, and she hears all the hurt that she was expecting.
"Habit," she answers quickly, "not that it matters so much now," she tilts her head so that she can see the mithril glow of his eyes. She can't see his expression and she has no idea what he sees on her face, only that it makes him lean in and kiss her. This kiss is almost hesitant, now that there isn't the frenzy of relief between them, and she appreciates the softness of his lips as they caress hers.
"I've wanted to do that since the moment you twisted my ear," he admits when they part.
"Feel free to do it as often as you like," she breathes and feels him smile. "After we get out of here," she adds because she wants to see him, and she needs to find her family and friends.
"You're right," he sighs and offers her his hand to help her to her feet.
He keeps a tight hold of her hand, grabbing the salvaged packs with the other, and begins to walk. Bluebell follows his lead and careful instructions when they're needed. The darkness of the mountain presses down on her, the earth above too far away to do any more than offer a distant comfort. She feels herself starting to panic.
"Mahal's balls," Fili hisses from ahead of her.
"What's wrong?" She ignores how high and thin her voice sounds, although the way that Fili squeezes her hand makes her realise he heard it.
"It occurs to me," they take a turn, "that if Thorin doesn't kill me for getting distracted, Frerin will. You're his daughter."
She can't help but laugh. Frerin has been asking her to let him terrorise suitors for years, but she thinks that as far as Fili is concerned, he won't be all that threatening. Frerin would talk about Fili and Kili a lot when she was a faunt, less so when he returned during her tweens, but he always spoke of them fondly. Fili's words, however, lessen the pressure of the mountain and helps bring her rising panic back under control.
They continue on, walking through passages and squeezing through gaps so tight they wonder if they will have to abandon the packs more than once. They are exhausted and bearing more than one extra scrape by the time they reach the exit. The bodies of goblins strewn around it tells them that someone has passed through recently. It makes hope flare anew as they rush outside into the warmer evening air. They pause, although the only place they can go is down, just to relish the fact that they have made it out and to look one another over in the light of day. Fili's borrowed tunic is far too big, almost silly looking, but Bluebell is more focused on raising it so that she can look at the scar on his ribs. The wound is still slightly open, only a scratch now, but she soothes it closed with a whisper from the earth beneath her. It turns into a moment that Fili uses to brush some of the dried blood from her face and wince sheepishly at the marks he left on her neck during their frantic coupling. Finally, it is a brief pause for them to share a kiss that is sweet and chaste but full of promises, and then they begin to walk.
"We have to go back!" They hear Kili shout long before they find the group. "Fili and Bluebell could still be alive!"
"They could both be hurt, please, Thorin," her mother sounds like she's begging.
"Enough!" Thorin cuts over the rumbling sound that has to be the opinions of the others. "We cannot, by nightfall the mountain will be overrun with goblins. We must move forwards. Fili would not want us to sacrifice ourselves for his sake." Bluebell sees Fili's face fall.
"How can you say that?" They hear Kili ask.
"That's our sister's son in there, Thorin," Frerin snaps. "Your heir, and my daughter." Fili mutters something and she looks at him curiously.
"You think I don't want to?" Thorin asks, and they speed up, the voices are carrying well, and nightfall isn't far away. "You think I don't want to keep the promise I made to our sister and bring Fili home safe? I cannot always be a brother or an uncle, I do not have that luxury. I am king. You will never know the agony that responsibility brings."
"We're here," Bluebell calls. "We're alright, we found our way out."
She doesn't get any more out as the Company clamour in delight and her mother wraps her in a tight hug. Frerin isn't far behind and he engulfs them both in his arms, only shifting slightly so that Kili can attach himself to his brother's side. Her Adad's beard is suspiciously wet, and she can see tears in Kili's eyes too. She doesn't blame them, she's near enough to crying herself. Then everyone moves aside and Thorin steps forward. He nods regally to Bluebell, the smallest smile on his lips as he touches her shoulder briefly.
"I am glad you are returned to us," he says, and his tone is the softest it has ever been for her. His eyes turn to Fili, then, who straightens under his gaze as Thorin searches for the injury that should be there. "Fili," he says, and it holds everything. Relief, love, gratitude. His hand is on the back of Fili's neck, their foreheads pressed together, and for this moment they are nothing more than uncle and nephew, all the pressures of Fili's future are gone.
In all the fuss and joy, Fili and Bluebell don't let go of one another's hands.
A.N: Fili and Thorin should have had more moments in the movies, just saying, we had loads of Kili and Thorin moments and poor Fili was mostly left out.