Hello little nuggets

Here is the next instalment! Not so late this time haha. I was amazed that people were still waiting for me to update, it made me feel incredibly happy and even guiltier. So thank you ever so much!
Yet here I am, I like this chapter so hopefully you all do too. Let me know what you think, I would love to hear your opinions.

Cheers for the f/f: ChaseAwaytheNightmares, alexma, guardian of durins line, , silverwolf-fox, gincitri, Chiichobi, dancergirl829, midnightstorm111, Vexrin, Lovina Rossi-Vardas, chiOokamiRyu, skittlelover1998, The Noise Of Thunder, Gryromice89, e.c.r, .x, M4RYJO, Noxy the Proxy & Silversun XD.

Cheers for the reviews: Drake Rhapsody, Noxy the Proxy, Lucy, Kimmy & Silversun XD.

I only own Todd!

Chapter 20 – Darling One

"Ok, let me have a look then lassie?" Oin asked as he came to a seat on the ground beside Todd and good few feet from the settling camp. Todd jumped as the healer pounced upon her. She had been sat whilst the rest went about their nightly rituals of chatting and story telling. Her mind had been elsewhere, maybe it was the stress of trying to avoid a certain someone, or maybe she needed to start drinking more water, but the hissing and itching in her head had been driving her insane.

It had started up again after a rather vivid and tiring nightmare, the first night she had spent not sandwiched in between Bilbo and Bofur. Because of her avoidance of Bofur, she had managed to find a spot just a little way out from the gathering of the company. Yet she found her sleep fitful and colder than usual. It came just after the sounds of deep sleep induced snoring started. The whole company fast asleep, as her mind descended. First it was recognition of something being there, stirring again in her mind, almost like it was right behind her eyelids, like watching the sun through closed eyes. Then it spread to an itching, then an almost burning inside her head. She tried to open her eyes to see the stars, hoping they would take her mind off it, but her eyes felt different, darker if it made sense to explain it that way. Her dream was nothing too joyous either. One eye was watching her, she finally recognised it. In all the nightmares she ever had as a child and then as a young adult, there had been a glowing ominous shape, and recently it had been getting clearer and clearer, until now. She could pick out that it was an eye, and she loathed to behold it, and loathed to block it away. A rather nasty and confusing feeling altogether. She had been thinking on it all day.

She had taken to sitting a little further back, but the others weren't pushing her again. She would come back to them when she wanted. Bofur, Bilbo and Ori were always by her side any way, On this rare occasion that she was alone, Oin had come to insist she let him check over her back wounds.

Nodding her head she smiled to him, shifting so that her back was facing him and away from the company. She pulled her borrowed clothing up and over her back, yet still holding it firmly over her front, just her stomach showing a little over the top of her borrowed trousers. She immediately felt Oin's nimble fingers gently prodding and probing her wounds. It ached, but the sharp and stabbing pains had subsided and she was pretty sure she would be unaware of the feeling of them soon.

"Your healing rate is extraordinary, I thought us dwarves were a hardy bunch!" Oin muttered as he worked. She heard him pulling out his pouch and rummaging through bits and pieces, before she felt a gooey mixture being rubbed over her back. "Fascinating."

"Oin?" She tried.

"Yes Lassie?"

"Do you have a Dwarrodam waiting at home for you?" Her question came quiet and tentatively. Oin was shocked at the question at first, but his heart warmed with thoughts of his loved ones.

"Aye, and two bonnie daughters too, I was blessed!" He breathed, pure happiness in his tone. Todd melted a little, a warm smile coming over her.

"Very lucky" She offered, sighing a little. Oin caught it and paused in his movements.

"Why the sudden question lass?" He asked. "What's got ya thinking about these things?"

He watched as the woman in front of him went a brighter shade of red than he thought was possible, he could see the tips of her ears burning up. He had half a mind to check her temperature. When he heard a set of boots heading over, he quickly finished his work and pulled Todd's clothes down. Bofur plopped down with them and ran a hand through his loose hair. He silently, as if completely unaware that Oin was just treating wounds on the bare back of a woman, started picking at the dirt on his boots. Todd shuffled round so she was facing them both, her eyes darting from Oin to Bofur, her cheeks going redder every time she glanced at Bofur

"How she doing?" He finally asked Oin.

"She is fine, healing up at a faster rate than I have ever seen, good thing too, they were real nasty ones!" He replied. Tucking away his pouch and making sure that it was securely hidden under this clothes.

"That's good, she's been walking better today, hasn't needed as much help too" He smiled to her then. Her heart jumped into her stomach. Her conversation from a few days ago with the Durin Brothers flew through her mind. She hadn't even seen it coming, yet not she saw it, it made complete sense to her. He was the first person along side Bllbo and Ori to understand her and know her not as a scary evil retched Rebhane, but as the person she had always been. He had looked out for her and confided in her. She had trusted him with truths that had never once left her lips. His happy light emanating eyes warmed her up and his smile was completely contagious to her. She couldn't help but smile back to him. Yet the feeling she had found unsettled her greatly.

He would never see her the same way, he just wouldn't. She was a broken woman, even though he had said otherwise. Yet its one thing to say that to her to calm her and keep her from ripping her hair out, and another thing to accept her being tainted and broken. He was a handsome and wonderful Dwarve, women would flock to him once they welcomed the caravans to the reclaimed land of Erebor. He would end up courting a wealthy young Dwarrow with hair as long and silky as possible, with fine clothes and rich jewellery. She could offer none of these things. She had nothing but the necklace hanging from her neck and the twin blades Bilbo had saved from the cliff fight. She was not fit to be a wife. She was not fit for love, the eye flashed her mind.

She felt her smile fade a little and shook her head, his hat staying still and secure over her hair. She reached up to touch it and then sighed.

"Thank you Oin" She stated quickly before standing fast and shuffling over to Bilbo. Oin and Bofur watched her go with confusion over their features, they watched her plop herself down next to the friendly hobbit, Bilbo went to greet her, then thought twice at the look of her expression, he paused and immediately looked to Bofur, shrugging his shoulders as if to ask 'what was the matter with her?'. Both Dwarves shrugged back to him.

Dinner was a quiet affair. Todd managed to sit between Bilbo and Ori, both not knowing that their idle chatter about Bilbo's book collection from back in his cosy hobbit hole, was helping to keep her mind clear of thoughts of a certain Dwarve. Bombur had been in charge of the dinner like every other evening. With Kili and Fili being entrusted to finding meat for a stew, only to return with just one hare for the whole company. Needless to say there was a low grumble emanating around company.

Nori, surprisingly was the worse, complaining that he had eaten better in the slums of a human market once. Todd looked to Bombur and caught eyes with him, he looked a little heartbroken at the thieves words, food was his passion, so she slammed some of the stew into her mouth and gave him the biggest grin, making the rotund Dwarve cheer up a little more. The chatter then took a more joyous course, Bilbo mentioned rather regretfully to missing music. He stated that the songs within his local inn were ones that cheered anyone on up, and got everyone dancing no matter how old or cantankerous.

Todd agreed, it had been a lifetime ago that she had sung with her Father, they had songs for nearly every occasion, yet with the lack of instruments music was only found within their minds.

"I miss my flute" Bofur sighed, other dwarves nodding along with him.

"Your flute playing is the most revered at home so I daresay we all miss your flute" Balin chortled from across the gathered company. Dwalin nodding away to agree with his brother.

"Are you really that good?" Todd found herself asking, her eyes floating up to meet his.

"Oh aye!" Fili piped up, his lips moving around his pipe to talk and grin at her. Bofur waved his hands and shook his head, a completely modest expression over took his features making Todd blush a little.

"Well I would like to hear it again then" She smiled, making the usually hated dwarve blush. Fili and Kili noticing and chuckling to each other at the sight of both Bofur and Todd looking bright red.

"Well, you have a rather good set of lungs on you though, we've heard you sing!" Dori smiled.

"Oh I remember, Mahal above that seems like so long ago." She breathed, reaching up to touch her borrowed hat. The others all hummed in agreement. Everyone seemed to tune into the conversation then, the whole company together and chatting, as a group instead of separately like usual.

"Why don't you sing us a tune?" Gandalf asked, his eyes dancing.

Todd looked nervous for a second then, but the thought of singing sounded quite nice. She hadn't let her fathers lyrics pass her lips in a long long time, maybe it was time to test a song out again. She let her shock form into a warm smile. Nodding she straightened herself in her seated position on the floor.

"Ok, let me think of something though" She then closed her eyes and got thinking. Songs flowed through her mind, but there was only really one she wanted to sing. It would mean nothing to the company, but it meant everything to her. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. The whole company was waiting, not a word passed between them. Some were looking tired, others interested, and others neither and both at the same time.

"I have one, my Father used to sing it, after Mother passed." She stated, seeing Bilbo, Bofur and Bombur tense at her words. "The first verse he sang for my Mother, the second for me"

She looked to the company as they nodded to her, waiting. So she sucked in a deep breath and began singing, her voice a stark contrast to the dead silence surrounding them, no instruments to accompany her, her voice was naked.

"If you must leave, leave as though fire burns under your feet

If you must speak, speak every words as though it were unique

If you must die sweetheart, die knowing your life was my life's best part,

If you must die, remember your life…

She let her mothers verse flow through her and out through her voice. The words her Father would sing every night before she went to sleep for a good few years after they lost her Mother. She felt the raw emotion fill her as she moved on, her eyes closed and impervious to the glistening eyes and rapt attention that was being directed her way by the ever-silent company.

If you must fight, fight with yourself and your thoughts in the night,

If you must work, work to leave some part of you on this earth

If you must live darling one, just live….

Just live…"

And in that moment, with her voice singing those lines she had never really understood, something clicked in her and the itching vanished, if only for a while. A resolve of some kind tightened within her and she smiled at the memory of her Father.