Disclaimer: I do not own the Hobbit.

Man I an on a roll with these chapters, or maybe I'm just way too keen to get to the fluff and Smaug. Eh who cares, I am FIRE! (pun intended) Also, see if you can spot the FotR reference. Added it in for fun.

Enjoy and review :P

"They're late again."

The sun, long since passed midday, prickled Bard's cheek. It brought little comfort to him. He had been waiting a whole day now for the return of barrels from the elves. But in keeping with their capricious ways there had been no sign of the goods. No doubt they had forgotten and were still feasting away in their mysterious halls.

Bard huffed and patted down his coat as he stood. He had been sitting since daybreak and he'll be damned if he was to continue doing so. The ache in his back shifted and eased a little as pace the length of the pier. All he had to spare himself from the unbearable silence was the scuff of his boot and the distant twittering of birds.

It was a sweet sound to the bargeman. There were no birds beyond the boundaries of the once great Greenwood, none had dared to nest near the lands of the Lonely Mountain. Not since the dragon came. But during the last trip he had made across the lake, Bard had thought he'd seen some brave little thrush darting across the sky and towards the mountain. That was a rare sight for anyone of Lake Town.

When he had told his little Tilda of this, she demanded a full account of it. Such a sweet girl, with her thoughts so full of dreams and the stories he and ... his wife had told them.

He clasped his hands and rubbed them together, not to warm his flesh but out of habit.

He did not wish to be kept away from home any longer, leaving his children alone to the mercy of the Master's many prying eyes.

Bard decided to check the banks of the river for any sign of his cargo, stopping only to look back at his barge, or to be more precise the long bow and quiver he had been granted to use. There had been no need for them thus far so it would stand to reason he could go without them ... for now.

He jumped across the rocks easily, following along the safest route he had walked since his youth. He reached the top of his unofficial look out and stared across the river. The water looked particularly darker today, a more foreboding blue than Bard was used to. It made this place he had travelled to for countless years seems almost beautiful for once.

Still no sign of the barrels. A sigh of annoyance escaped him and he gritted his teeth.

'Bloody elves.'

His tired gaze scanned the banks one last time, looking for anything and nothing. He was ready to head back to the pier but out of the corner of his eye he noticed an uncharacteristic ripple emanating from behind a boulder. Bard's curiosity drove him to move, leaping down from his perch and walked towards the boulder with no fear. He rounded it but stopped dead at what he saw.

There was a small body collapsed upon the river bank, limbs tangled in awful angles as it gently rocked back and forth with the water. Judging by the size, Bard assumed it was a child and immediately he reacted. He rushed down and flipped the body over, the child's long hair draped across her face like a dark veil. A pair of pointed ears poked out from the dripping wet locks. "An elf child?" Bard wondered. Elf children were rare even for elf standards, so for one to be found outside the Woodland Realm was a sign of sorts, at least the old wives tales taught as much. He pulled her away from the water as gently as he could, his fingers wrapped around the lapels of the child's over sized jacket as he raised her upper body up to prevent her head from hitting the rocks.

Bard kept a hand rested under the nape of her neck and brushed the hair away. To his surprise, he was staring down at not the face of an elf child, but the mature features of a woman. That caught him off guard and did a double take at the creature lying before him. This ... woman ... was no taller than a young child yes, but defiantly had the physic of a regular woman under her humble but tattered clothes. Then there were the feet, which look a size too much for someone so small, and with wisps of hair no less.

After a moment of gawking, it dawned on Bard that the woman was too still ... and she wasn't breathing.

"Come on now." Bard tapped the side of her face, "Come on now lass breathe."

The woman didn't respond. Bard gave her another little shake. "Don't you go dying on me now." He settled her back down on the rock and placed a hand over her collar bone and sternum. "Just open those eyes for me." He pressed down sharply and at last got a reaction. The woman's body lurched and water spurted out from her blue lips. Her throat made a gurgling sound as she cough up the water left in her lungs. Bard turned her on her side to stop her choking on it. "There we go, there's a good lass."

Her haggard breathing was fast and uncomfortable to hear, but in time it slowed. The woman rolled herself onto her back, her body racked with tremors as her eyes darted about.

"Easy there, easy." Bard said in a soothing voice one could only gain from fatherhood. "You're alright now."

He felt like the woman was staring into his soul with those eyes, a brilliant shade of green no woman he had ever met possessed. At first they were filled with terror but that terror faded the longer she stared at him, but she soon relaxed.

"What's your name lass? Mine is Bard."

"Ma ... Mar .. rie" She said between strained breaths, "Marie ... Ba .. Bagg ... ins" It pained her to speak so Bard did not press for anything. She groaned and curled herself into a ball. Bard thought her heard a sob coming from her. He carefully picked her up and carried her back to the barge.

"Can you sit?" Bard propped the woman, Marie, onto a stone ledge. She nodded to him and held a hand against her throat, her shoulders rocking back and forth dangerously.

"Tttthhan ... thank you." She muttered.

Bard knelt down so that he was looking up at her. "Now, let's have a look at you." He tilted her chin up, keeping his touch soft so not to startle the poor thing.

There were a few minor scraps on her right cheek and jaw line and also a long cut on her calf muscle, blood dripping down her leg slowly. Bard ripped a piece of cloth already hanging from the inside of coat and patted the cut clean. It was the most he could do, other than keeping this strange little woman from passing out again.

"It may not be any of my business, but it does make me curious." He said. "You seem too short to be neither an elf or mortal, and too tall for a faerie."

The woman, 'Marie you fool, she has a name,' parted her lips to speak but instead a husky cough come out.

"Alright. Take your time." Bard rested his hands on her tiny shoulders. "Don't you be falling over and doing more damage to yourself."

She huffed again, only it sounded more like a chuckle. "I didn't do this to myself."

"Well then. How did you end up in the river?" He inquired. He would get the answers he wanted out of her soon but he would ease them out of her.

"I ... fell." Marie's eyes stared down at her knees.

"Did you now?" Bard didn't believe she was informing him of the whole truth. "You're very lucky to be alive miss. If the water hadn't drowned you it would have frozen you."

"Are ... you always this ..." Marie coughed into her hand, "This chiva ... chivalrous to those you rescue, or just to damsels in distress?"

Bard gave her a lopsided grin. "Only the ones who are pretty."

She did not look flustered by his harmless flirt, but appeared distracted but something else entirely. Her thoughts plaguing her attention until Bard may as well not have been there. He did not take this as sign of rudeness and thought it best to give her room to truly adjust to her surrounds.

He stood, leaving her to sit on the rock, and headed aboard his barge in search for the sheet of tough ram's wool that was a blanket. He would not let a lady freeze, no matter what she was.

"What day is it?"

Bard turned back to the woman, "Half of what's left Highday."

"By which month I mean?" Her hands clenched in her lap, tugging at her pants. There was something frantic in her strained voice. "What date? Is Autumn over yet?"

"Autumn?" Bard asked, confused by her sudden agitation, "Almost. Those only two ..."

"Make for the shore!"

Bard's demeanour snapped to high alert as he heard a stranger's voice coming from the banks, Marie too became alert.

"Stay here Miss Marie."

The bargeman took up his arrows and long bow.

xxxx

"Make for the shore!"

A command that was easier said than done. The thirteen drenched and exhausted dwarves paddled their way to the shore. They had long since lost the river's current that had aided their escape and now just idly bobbed along, just the perfect type of target for a blood thirsty orc pack.

Sitting ducks.

The barrels toppled onto their sides as they neared the rocks and the dwarves climbed out in the most awkward of fashions. Bombur of coarse needed assistance thanks to his impressive girth.

It wasn't going to take long for the pack to catch up once they regain their scent. They had no clue just where they were, no plan formulated to fix their current disposition, no weapons and worse, no burglar.

What a fine mess this was.

Balin tried to station himself at Thorin's side but the dwarf kept shifting about, as though he was looking for something. Balin settled for his brother's side. "So what now?"

"We keep moving."

"To where? There is a lake between us and the mountain."

"We have no weapons and that pack will run us down before we even make it half way round." Dwalin said. "Not to mention we're are one member short .."

"I know that." Growled Thorin. He stalked about like a riled up wolf, his face haughty with frustration. The pained groan from Kili only made him even more tense. The boy fell to his knees, clutching the darkened patch of blood forming at his thigh.

"Kili's wounded. His leg needs binding." Fili was at his side in a flash.

"Bind it and be quick about it." Thorin's frustration cloaked his concern for his kin. "You have two minutes."

Bofur helped Fili with the binding and the rest of the dwarves just stood, waiting for someone to come up with a plan. Thorin could hear the Balin muttering his younger brother.

"This is a turn if ever I'd seen one. And just what has become of Miss Marie?"

Thorin clenched his fists tightly. Marie was missing, again. And this time it was his fault.

His fault that she had been taken by the rapids. His fault that the orc had not plucked, but dragged her out and away from them to ...

Thorin dared not to think of it. He refused to think of her dead. She had done this before to them, disappear then suddenly emerge from nowhere. But still, her screams pierced him deeper than a blade. He had seen only brief glimpses of what had happened. He saw her on the rocks before being she had been yanked across them like a doll then her neck being throttled by the foul creatures, but within a second she was gone.

Dragged away or thrown into the river, who knew.

His men were wise enough to give him a wide berth was he continued to pace. As he passed Nori, he noticed that the locksmith still held Marie's sword.

The foolish hobbit should have kept it for herself. And she had the map and key.

Their quest was tilting upon the edge of a knife.

"No doubt the orcs have her." Dwalin tone was dark, but not without his own concern. "You saw it, they plucked her out of the river like nothing. Chances are they cut her thr .."

"Brother. Don't." Balin warned him. A good thing to, for Thorin was just about ready to explode. He started to move away, but his down cast eyes saw something that not just stopped him, but oddly lifted his spirits.

A small trail of blood.

Thorin's followed it towards the river, when in he made another discovery. He practically ran to pick it up, his knees skidding over the harsh rock. He rolled the small object between his fingers. There was no mistaking the rusted colouring, and the imprint of the acorn.

'It's somewhat of a good luck charm now.'

"Dwalin!"

The large dwarf came quickly. "Search the whole area. Everything within a mile."

"Thorin, what ..."

"Just do it." Thorin snapped as he stood, eyes still fixated on the button.

"Thorin."

"What?"

Dwalin was glaring at something behind Thorin. "We're not alone."

The dwarf king turned and saw what he meant. A mortal man stood just above them on a boulder, his a long bow and arrow ready to use on any one of the dwarves, if the look on his face was anything to go on.

Dwalin, being prone to violence first questions later, reacted by grabbing for a weapon a piece of drift wood. But before he could raise it up, the man aimed and fired at it, imbedding the long arrow into the frail wood. Another arrow was fired at the rock in Kili's hand that he had secretly procured.

This archer was fast.

"Do it again and your dead." He pointed a third arrow at Thorin. His eyes sharp as his arrows.

"Excuse me," Balin approached the stranger with his hands in the air to show he posed no threat. It did not stop the man from turning his aim onto him. "You're from Lake Town if I'm not mistaken."

The man did not give him an answer.

"They call me Balin. By what name may I call you good sir."

"I'm no sir." The man said, "First tell what you are doing here. Then I may not kill you."

"Wait!"

That voice. Thorin stepped forward, "Can it be?" He murmured.

He was not the only one to react to voice. The man lowered his bow and turned his head to look back over his shoulder. Balin took this chance to get closer to the man, or so Thorin thought.

"Miss Marie, is that you dear?"

"Balin?! Yes I'm alright!" He reply came in a horse tone. Thorin moved quickly and headed towards the source. He wasn't the only one. Bofur, Nori and Dwalin follow along behind him. Kili tried to move, but his injured leg slowed him. Fili stayed back to help him.

The archer let them pass, but did not uncock his arrow just yet.

Standing along on an old stone pier was a shaking Marie Baggins, thankfully in one piece. Her gaze met with Thorin's and the dwarf found himself slowing with his approach. Bofur and Nori passed him and got to Marie first, who enveloped them both with relieved hugs.

"Bless my soul. Lass you're alive and breathing."

"Gave us a scare there again." Nori handed back her sword.

"Thank goodness you're all alright." She said as the others encircled her. Thorin's feet felt like lead as he dragged them along, his own guilt adding to the weight of them.

"Kili. Your leg." The hobbit rushed towards the youth, but not without limping. Kili pulled free from Fili's hold and caught her in his arms.

"I'm fine, it's nothing Marie." He told her. A blatant lie.

Marie pulled away and clutched his face, "You recklessly brave boy." She chided, with a smile on her face, "Scared me to death you did."

"You're one to talk."

She turned her attention to Fili and Balin.

"I take it Miss Marie that you know theses ... dwarves?" Thorin glanced behind him as the archer approached, placing his unused arrow back into the tattered quiver on his back.

Marie freed herself from Balin's snowy beard. "Yes they are ..." Her violent coughing fit startled the dwarves. "They are my travelling companions."

Balin rubbed her back as she coughed again. "You have our gratitude sir for helping Miss Baggins." The old dwarf turned his ever knowing eye to Thorin. "We would have truly been lost without her."

Thorin bit the inside of his mouth.

Marie turned to him and offered him her gentle smile, one that he was certainly not entitled to but grateful for none the less. He was surprised when her arms came around his neck he was pulled down to her level.

"The key and map are safe." She muttered into his ear, her voice like a humming bird against the skin. She had misplaced to look on his as concern for his possessions rather than for her herself. Regardless her reassuring hold on him did release the pent up fury in him slowly. He wrapped an arm around her, resting his hand just at the curve of her waist. He did not let the affection last for too long, and neither did Marie. Her small hands slid out from his back and pushed him back upright as he let his arm drop.

Meanwhile Balin and turned to the archer and said in a simple friendly tone. "If I may ask, your barge. It wouldn't be for hire would it?"

Bartering and finding suitable agreements for the dwarves was always something Balin excelled in. His calm nature made it easy for others to at least hear what he had to say, and his otherwise portly and older statue disguised the seasoned warrior true potential.

But for all the charm he mustered, the Lakeman seemed immune to it. He listened to Balin talk as he moved the damaged barrels from the shore to the barge but denied their request for passage, food and weapons each time, justifying it with some matter concerning the Master and his tradings with the elves.

They did not have time for this, and Thorin was sorely tempted to mention the impending threat of the orc pack. But such information would only sour their chances.

Between watching Balin lie about their intentions and the man fussed over his quarry, Thorin's gaze fell on Marie. She had wedged herself between Bofur and Bifur while the company waited for an outcome. Her hand kept coming up and resting gingerly at her collar and neck, her eyes drooping before she would right herself. She looked like she was about to collapse.

When Balin looked back at Thorin, he mouthed 'Offer him more'. They had to get to Lake Town.

"I'll wager there are ways to enter that town unseen." The old dwarf said.

That must have interested the man. He paused in his work to contemplate before carrying on. "Aye. But for that you would need a smuggler." There was a subtle smugness about his words, something Balin picked up on.

"For which we'd pay double. Fifty silver pieces." A steep price for the dwarves, but it was finally enough to entice the Lakeman into their services.

"Fifty pieces?" He raised a dark eyebrow at Balin.

"No more no less, upon my word as an honest dwarf."

"Are you then?" The Lakeman straightened his back a casted a weathered eye over the sorry portrayal of the company. "Very well then." He and Balin shook hands.

"Whoa whoa lass. Lass?"

Thorin snapped his head around. Marie's legs had given way and she slumped against Bofur, who caught her quickly before she could fall. "What's the matter?"

"Is she alright?" Ori asked.

"I'm ... I'm fine." Marie told him, but her voice betrayed her. Her head fell forward before she jerked it back up.

"Just when was the last time you got any sleep Lass?"

"Bring her aboard." The Lakeman told them, "I feared she would black out again."

'Again?' Thorin's anger flared up once more.

Bofur scooped up the hobbit and carried her bridal style onto the barge. The Lakeman pointed to the bow, "Set her there. There should be a blanket." Bofur did so and wrapped her up tightly to ward of the cold.

As the dwarves piled onto the barge, Oin and Thorin took Bofur's place at Marie's side. The Lakeman made the last of the preparations to set sail, with the added and reluctant assistance of some of the dwarves.

"Exhaustion." Oin said, "She needs her rest more than anything, and a good feed like the rest of us."

"I am alright." Marie protested and tried to sit up.

"No you don't Miss. As a man of medicine I am ordering you to be still and close your eyes." Oin placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her but withdrew when she flinched, her face contorted with pain.

"You get her to stay put while I tend to the lad." Oin told Thorin before crossing the crowed deck to find Kili.

Thorin stepped closer. Marie hade another try to sit but was blocked by Thorin.

"You heard Oin."

Marie head lolled from side to side, like she was shaking her head to him. "I will no ... not be ... I will ..."

"Shh." Thorin hushed her. "Sleep." He stopped her head from shaking with a light touch of his hand.

Whatever her response it was lost amongst her mumblings as she stilled and succumbed to sleep, her breathing constricted and sharp to hear. Thorin's thumb brushed along her brow, offering his own comfort to her.

"You've done well Marie."

Side Note: Highday in the Middle Earth calendar is Friday.