In-Between

Summary: A collection of little moments in the life of Tauriel and Kíli from the time they leave everything behind after the battle. There will be kids, old friends and new faces along the way… and the War of the Ring is approaching.

Another round of remarks before the story: as for aging of the kids, I would say it is close to that of Dwarfs, though it is nothing like that of Elves (that's just freaks me out). That would mean that by the time of the War, they'd be considered still relatively young. As for Tauriel, she may be a mortal, but she's still an Elf so I'd say that she is aging in a rather slow pace. As for the twins, Elladan and Elrohir, I've just begun to taking a fancy to them and seeing that they spent a lot of time with the Rangers, I thought why not have them meet Kíli and Tauriel as well.

"Greetings, brother," Legolas walked up to Kíli who was lounging in the shade of the large oak tree next to the house. He was merrily puffing on his pipe… in the company of two familiar Elves. "Elladan, Elrohir. It is good to see you."

"Legolas!" The twins sprang up from their seats to give an enthusiastic hug to their friend.

"Aragorn told us that you are spending time in the North but we have yet to meet," Elladan stepped back to let his brother give a hug to the other Elf.

"He told us that you are practically shadowing him," Elrohir grinned.

"I am merely instructing him when it is needed."

"He might have told just that," Elrohir conceded.

"Come on, join us," Elladan invited him as he settled back to his seat. "We've just bought pipe weed from a Dwarf merchant."

"And how mighty good it is," Kíli exclaimed with a satisfied grin.

Legolas eyed the pipes in the Elves' hands warily. "Maybe next time…"

"Always says that," Kíli huffed.

Legolas watched as Tauriel practiced her dagger skills, the two blades moving in her hands as if they were a part of her. It was always like that. She tried the sword, the double sword and she was excellent with a bow. It was always the knife that she preferred, though. She liked getting up close with her enemy.

He smiled when he spotted Thoriel a little farther with two sticks in her hands, trying to mirror her mother's graceful movements.

That little three-year-old reminded him so much of her mother. Not yet entirely sure on her own two feet but hell-bent of becoming a warrior. And she was good, too, Legolas noted, because even though her little legs wobbled sometimes, her hold on the sticks was steady.

He laughed when he realized that Tauriel was spying the toddler from the corner of her eye and, slowly, changed her movements so that they would more befit the abilities of her ambitious daughter. It was adorable.

It was just like their father did when he caught them during his training sessions.

His laughter turned into a bittersweet sigh. Those were happy times. How many times was the mighty king of Mirkwood chastised by his wife for indulging the children too much… letting them run wild? How many times did he join them in mischief?

With Thranduil getting more and more lost in darkness, it was so easy to forget that under the cold façade there was a warm heart which, once upon a time, was beating for his family.

It was so easy to be angry at the man.

Legolas knew that it was particularly hard on Tauriel. Thranduil always doted on her – she was his little warrior princess. He taught her everything he knew about fighting and Legolas knew he was proud of her. He was proud of both of them. But then their mother died and their father closed off to the outside world to which their children weren't exceptions, either, because no matter how much the man loved his children, it was his wife who truly lit up his life.

They knew the reasons behind the walls he built not only around his heart but around his realm as well. They recognized the desperate need to keep everybody safe… to keep himself safe. They understood it. But it was hard to accept. Legolas chose quiet resignation. It was easier for him, after all he was the heir - the male heir - and as such he enjoyed relative freedom. Tauriel, however, went head to head with her father - she would not be closed up in an ivory tower. Unfortunately Thranduil was a stubborn one, not unlike his daughter, and in his misguided need to keep her safe, he made her choose between family and a life she was born to.

He had brought her up as a warrior… and disowned her because of her being one.

He knew she'd never stopped loving their father. And he constantly wondered about it. He loved him, of course, but he was too angry and too disappointed most of the time to acknowledge it.

"What bothers your mind, Legolas?" He was pulled out of his thoughts when Tauriel sat down next to him with Thoriel. The little girl promptly climbed over into his lap.

"I was just reminiscing about the old days when everything was… brighter."

"You were thinking about Adar?" Tauriel asked surprised. That was not a subject he liked to bring up.

"You know he used to do the same thing you just did with Thoriel."

"I remember," she smiled fondly at the memory. "I also remember his face when Naneth found us trying to use his swords."

"He found that amusing if I recall it correctly." At the time Thranduil's twin swords were not much shorter than the little Elflings trying to wield them.

"Naneth definitely did not think so."

"I wonder sometimes how it would be if she were here still."

"You know there is no use doing so," Tauriel gave him a sad smile. "We are here now and we cannot change that. But for what it is worth, I think Adar is trying to change."

"I have yet to see that," Legolas told her and when he saw that she was trying to continue that line of conversation, he quickly changed the subject. "So, when are you planning to share the good news?" Legolas asked, nodding towards her obvious baby bump.

"Is it really that obvious?" Tauriel blushed. Legolas raised an eyebrow. "I believed it was too early yet."

"Maybe you are having a real elf-sized baby this time," he grinned.

"I don't know. Thoriel looks like an average Elf babe." That was true. Despite her young years, the toddler was lean and definitely taller than her siblings were at that age. She also had a much fairer complexion than that of the other two.

"Then you are having an elf-sized Dwarf."

That was a frightening thought.

"We should move," Kíli stated solemnly as he watched her wife cradle their sleeping son. Fíli looked so small in his mother's arms.

"We cannot go," Tauriel answered in a low voice. "Not now." Of course, Kíli knew that. The roads were dangerous as it was with Orcs crawling around in alarming numbers. Packing up a family with four small children, among them a babe and a gravely injured one, would be foolish. Yet, Kíli felt that he had to do something.

He was losing his wife.

The light was fading from her eyes more and more every day and it filled him with dread.

He'd never seen her in so much dispair.

No matter what fate would throw into their way, Tauriel bore everything with never-ending patience. And Mahal knows, they had their share of heartaches all through the years. She was one of the strongest women he had ever met. She gave him life when he was at the brink of death. She took the road with him while he was still hardly conscious most of the time, all the while dealing with the pain of losing a child. And when they lost their second child, Kíli saw his wife taking the pain – both physical and emotional – in silent agony.

But she took everything in stride. She looked to him for support and she persevered. She'd never given into despair, always finding something to hold onto.

And he himself always found strenght and courage in the light that shone in her eyes.

That light was taken over by sheer panic when their son was struck down by an Orc in their own home.

The look in her eyes that night chilled him to the bone.

And to make things worse, there was the guilt he shared with her. They should have been able to keep their family safe. They should have been able to shelter their children from the darkness that lurked around them.

They failed… and Fíli paid the price for that. His left leg was crushed leaving their lively child crippled. And leaving them with a constant reminder of what they had failed to do.

"Legolas will be back in two moons," Tauriel added silently. Kíli nodded.

"I'll try to send a message to Elladan and Elrohir. With them, we can go."

The Orcs came again.

Ever since the first attack, Kíli and Tauriel were taking turns for watch and some of the Rangers were popping up more frequently, giving them updates about Orc movements.

So it didn't take them unawares. And yet, Tauriel found herself frozen to the ground when she heard the footsteps in the woods. Suddenly she didn't know what to do. Should she run back to the house? Or go and check on the numbers of the intruders? All the possible scenarios were running through her head but all her thoughts were jumbled by one single question: how could she keep her children safe?

She simply couldn't find the best option and the fear that they could get injured or worse kept her immobilized.

On their own accord, her hands found her knives and she pulled them. The feel of the solid handles in her hands made her realize that she'd never feared the Orcs before. She had always fought them with steady spirit and sure hands, focusing on one single mission – getting the world rid of that filth.

With that thought, her features hardened with determination and something dangerous shone in her eyes. In that moment a pack of Orcs appeared from the tree line and Tauriel knew that she was out of options. With a loud cry that she hoped would alert Kíli, she started towards the foul creatures and started killing them one by one.

Kíli found her in the middle of a bloody mess of Orc corpses, posture straight, daggers in hand... and her eyes alive with renewed purpose.

No Orc would lay a dirty hand on her children. Not again.

Two days later, Elladan and Elrohir arrived and they started their journey westward.

Legolas was beginning to panic.

It was the first time for him to stay alone with Kíli and Tauriel's children. He loved the children. They were adorable and always fun to be with which Legolas sorely needed these days.

Being left alone with them turned out to be something else, though.

Things were getting out of hand at an alarming speed.

It'd been already the fourth time that he got an axe out of the two-year-old Angion's hands. It didn't matter where he put the dangerous weapon, the toddler always could get his hands on it. And if it wasn't an axe, it was something equally dangerous and made the Elf's blood run cold. And if there was nothing sharp-edged, tipped or otherwise dangerous to get a hold on, he would throw random things into the fireplace.

At least the two eldest children seemed to contend themselves by sitting peacefully. Dís was drawing by the table while Fíli was carving a piece of wood with surprisingly apt movements for an eleven years old. As much as the two eldest children were like Dwarves, their calm dispositions were like those of Elves. At least until Angion had thrown one of Dís' drawings into the fire. There was nothing remotely elvish about the way the little girl reacted.

Thoriel wouldn't sit in peace like her older siblings, either, and she spent the time climbing on everything and anything where she could find a purchase. Normally that wouldn't bother Legolas that much. Elf children had an exceptionally good balance. He and Tauriel pulled their own stunts in their time, too. They were firm on their feet and had a steady grip… they had the build and the disposition of an Elf which, Legolas had to admit, Thoriel didn't fully possessed. As much as she looked like an Elf, she had a good amount of dwarven blood in her. And Legolas wouldn't trust a Dwarf to keep balance when her two feet was not steady on the ground. There was a reason for them being short and stuffy, he believed. And what if the little girl seemed absolutely confidant? It had never hurt to err on the cautious side.

So Legolas spent the better part of the day running after Thoriel and getting her off of things and hurrying to prevent Angion from burning down the house or injuring himself otherwise. Sometimes he did the two things simultaneously.

By the time the parents got home, he felt like he had aged a thousand years.

Kíli was beginning to think that playing hide and seek with his two youngest kids was not the greatest idea. At the time it surely seemed so. Tauriel needed to rest and while Fíli and Dís were old enough – and sensible enough – to understand that, Thoriel and Angion were bursting with hardly contained energy.

So playing in the woods seemed a good idea.

Not so much after an eternity spent by looking for the children.

He wasn't exactly worried. They had, after all, a strict rule regarding the distance the children were allowed to venture on their own. But he was a damned good tracker and he found it hard to believe that he'd lost his kids. It seemed to be the sad reality, however. He'd checked every bush and every stone. His ears picked up every little noise on the ground. And yet, after his fourth round around the homestead, he was forced to accept the fact that he had lost. The kids outsmarted him.

There was one thing he forgot to consider, he realized belatedly: his little Dwarves were just as much Elves as Dwarves.

He looked up.

And sure enough, the little rascals were perched on a thick branch, grinning down at him gleefully.

She was on the verge of crying.

She was an Elf, damn it, she thought. She could go days without proper sleep. She could walk for days on any terrain and in any weather without feeling the effect of it. And certainly she could keep her composure in any situation.

And yet, there she was, holding a crying babe and feeling utterly dejected and so much exhausted that even her limbs were protesting her every movement as she was trying to sooth little Mirel.

It was raining so hard outside that it woke up Mirel not long after Tauriel had just managed to get her to sleep. She was wailing so hard that Tauriel worried whether she could breathe at all. It wasn't looking good at all. Mirel was so worked up and Tauriel was so agitated that the two of them were just pushing the other to the limit.

Tauriel knew that she was unable to stop it. She was so very tired. She just wanted to sleep. She wanted Kíli.

But Kíli was out on watch with Fíli and he wouldn't be back till the morning.

The night had never seemed so long before.

When she was just ready to give up, her ears caught on a noise. No, it wasn't a noise. It was singing, starting out silently but slowly growing into the deep and rich voice of her eldest daughter. And it was soon joined by the even deeper one of Angion and the bell-like voice of Thoriel.

Tears sprung into her eyes as the children were singing from their beds the song she used to sing to them when they couldn't sleep. The same song her mother used to sing to her and Legolas.

She joined the children, though she was too tired to form the actual words. She hummed silently until the siblings slowly sang their young sister into sleep. Then carefully, she placed Mirel into her crib and she all but fell into bed.

In the morning, when Kíli climbed into bed next to her, she only stirred to wrap herself around her husband, then she was back to sleep.

"You seem worried," Legolas remarked amused as Tauriel and he made their way back from town.

"I am just being silly," she dismissed him.

"It is not foolish to ponder the fact of impending doom when you leave your husband alone with the twins."

"And you are of no help here," she chided the Elf playfully. In truth, Tauriel was indeed apprehensive about what she had just got herself into when she left the children with Elladan and Elrohir… and Kíli of course. Those three were never up to any good she came to quickly learn after Aragorn had introduced the elven twins to them.

When they stepped out of the trees by their house, prepared for anything, they stopped taken by surprise. Legolas arched an eyebrow while Tauriel's eyes lit up with an affectionate, if startles, smile.

Children and adults alike were sitting in the grass in a row one behind the other and they were deeply engrossed in braiding the hair of the one sitting in front of them.

It was Fíli sitting at the end of the line braiding Dís' raven black hair, seeing that he usually wore his dark hair shorter than the others, wearing braids only in his beard. Dís was making intricate dwarven braids into Elladan's long hair while the Elf was working on his brother's locks. Elrohir in turn had just finished a neat elvish braid in Thoriel's auburn curls. Angion seemed blissfully unaware of the fact that her sister was making a carnival clown out of him while he was merrily braiding Mirel's soft curls. Her youngest daughter's hands weren't idle, either, as she was trying to braid her father's dark hair but only managed, as it seemed, to make a mess of it. But Kíli was taking it with the patience of a doting father while he himself held Mirel's doll in his hands, braiding its hair as instructed by his baby girl.

They were surely a sight to behold.

"I figured I had to keep their hands busy," Fíli offered as a way of explanation when he noticed his mother and uncle.

Valar bless her always sensible son.

The sun was already coming up on the sky when Kíli stirred as Tauriel slipped into bed next to him.

"Good morning, love," he mumbled as he buried his face into her neck.

"Good morning."

"How was the night watch?"

"Blissfully uneventful," she gently stroked his messy curls. "We spent most of the night running through the forest," she shared with a dreamy smile, remembering how she, Elladan and Elrohir were jumping from branch to branch. "Not the Mirkwood but there are some beautiful large trees to climb."

"Elves."

"Fíli is already up working in the barn. I made breakfast so you can eat before you go out. And I thought I would just lie here with you just for a little while."

"Excellent idea."

"Although I think it would not be too long before Angion wakes up."

"I bet he's already up," Kíli chuckled.

"He is really excited about his first watch."

"To put it mildly," he grinned up at his wife with an adorable sleepy look. "And now kiss me good morning before he breaks the door down."

When the little homestead came into view, a joyous smile appeared on the man's face. He got off his horse and made the remaining distance on foot.

"Who are you?" The young woman, working in the small garden, turned to him with a distrustful look as soon as she heard him approach. She had black hair and a proud bearing. She looked around twenty or something, but it was always hard to tell with these folks.

The man stopped and opened his mouth to answer and state his purpose when two other figures appeared. Two men around the age of the woman, who was currently frowning at him. One was tall and lean with black hair and the other was shorter, sturdier, with a somewhat lighter complexion. They looked like two sides of a coin and yet, they couldn't be more similar.

They approached the woman – one with a limp, the man noted – and stood protectively in front of her, which only earned an indignant huff from her. The man smiled.

"I am…"

"Nethon," came the answer from somewhere behind him and he smiled.

"I'm getting too old for that endearment." He turned to his dear friend and held out his arms as Tauriel walked into them.

"Gi suilon, mellon," she finally said, letting him go and pressing her forehead against his as a greeting. "My heart sings to see you again."

"It's been too long, Tauriel," the man agreed.

"And whose fault is that?" came an indignant voice from behind the couple. A bemused smile played on his lips as they parted, and he looked towards the voice.

"I'd have been here earlier if you lot hadn't had packed up and moved away, Master Dwarf."

Kíli pondered it for a while before a huge grin broke across his face. "Fair enough, Strider. Fair enough."

"Good to see you, my friend," Aragorn walked up to the man and they shook hands. "I can see, you kept busy," he remarked with a bemused undertone as he looked around.

When he left the pair to travel south, two dark-haired rascals were running around and causing havoc, even though one of them could barely walk at the time. Now the only little one was a tiny little thing hiding behind her father.

"Oh, we're always busy," Kíli wriggled his eyebrows as a chorus of groans and scoffs broke out.

TBC

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

I don't know whether you need it to follow the events but here are the most important dates so far:

Battle of the Five Armies - 2941

Kíli and Tauriel meets Aragorn in 2951

Birth of Fíli – 2953

Birth of Dís – 2955

Aragorn leaves for the south around 2957 and returns around 2982

Birth of Thoriel – 2958

Birth of Angion – 2962

Birth of Mirel – 2972