Told you it would be quick! Once again, I was BLOWN AWAY by your amazing response to the last chapter, thank you so much!

I'm sorry but this chapter is really quite long, it was over 6000 words and I had to cut it but I didn't know what to cut so it was still really long, I hope it's not too long. This is the long awaited chapter where THE COMPANY ARRIVE! YAY!

As ever, sorry for any mistakes!

Read. Enjoy. Review.

Chapter Five # Forgotten Family #

"...and I'd like three blocks of cheddar. Yes, yes those ones will do nicely, thank you."

"How's young Kíli, Mister Baggins?" Old Hobson Gamgee asked politely as he handed over his daughter's dairy produce.

"Very well, thank you." Bilbo replied with a wry smile. Kíli enjoyed talking to Hamfast's father as one of the select few adult hobbits who had accepted him before the firework incident, and the young dwarf's position as favourite babysitter for Hamfast's young children meant that he was close to three generations of Gamgee. "He's buying the meat at the moment but I'm sure he'll be over shortly."

Hobson chuckled deeply. "I'm not so sure..."

"What?" Bilbo turned to look where Hobson was looking and he sighed in exasperation.

Kíli was running through the meadow behind the market with a group of hobbit children of all ages - the eldest being twenty nine year old Lily Underhill and the youngest being little Pippin Took, Paladin's three year old son who was clinging gleefully to Kíli's back.

As Bilbo watched, his surrogate son wrestled gently with the group, before darting up into a game of chase, singing as he did so.

A strange sensation swooped over Bilbo as he watched.

Kíli was not a hobbit; he had never tried to be. He had a love of battle stories, archery and swordplay (though his swordsmanship skills were sadly lacking due to a lack of instruction) and he was getting the stubble of an early beard. His long hair was never cut - Bilbo knew enough of dwarven culture to know that it was an insult, so most days Kíli dragged his hair into a high ponytail to keep it out of his way.

However, Kíli was far from a conventional dwarf. He rarely wore shoes, only donning a pair of specially made boots when he and Bilbo made occasional trips to Bree or other places of more than two days walk. His clothes were hobbit enough to be odd for a dwarf, though he preferred dark colours and had a strange love of hoods. He was far gentler than any dwarf Bilbo had ever heard rumour of, even when he first arrived in the Shire, and though he loved to rough-house with his numerous friends he was constantly aware of his superior strength.

Bilbo had come to the conclusion that Kíli's biological family were dead. It was the kindest conclusion to come to, because the alternatives were that his family had not searched for him, or even tried to dispose of him themselves.

"Bilbo?"

The hobbit jumped, his dizzying wave of musings and nostalgia disturbed by Kíli's hand on his shoulder. He had barely noticed himself buying for all of his groceries but he must have done because his baskets and his arms were full and Kíli was standing in front of him, concern in his big brown eyes.

"Kíli! What's wrong?"

"Are you alright?" Kíli took the basket from Bilbo's hand automatically. "You look…strange…"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine!"

"There was no beef, but old Proudfoot said there should be some on Wednesday." The young dwarf continued.

"So you decided to run around like a child instead of buying pork instead?" Bilbo asked mildly as they left the marketplace.

"Esme asked me to watch Merry for her while she shopped and then Paladin asked if I'd take the girls and Pippin and Prim gave me Frodo and then Sam followed Frodo of course and it all snowballed from there." Kíli batted his best puppy dog eyes at Bilbo who shook his head.

"The day you stop playing with those children will be a very sad day indeed, for everyone involved."

Kíli grinned, knowing that he was forgiven for any annoyance he had caused his hobbit.

"Kíli, do you still want to go travelling when you come of age?"

Kíli's face fell into seriousness. "Well that depends. Would you still come with me?"

"If you want me to." Bilbo tried to keep his voice casual and Kíli scoffed, before speaking quietly.

"I don't want to go on my own." Kíli's desire to find his past and his family had not intensified or waned over time, instead remaining as a steadily burning fire in his heart, but Bilbo was too dear to him for him to be able to imagine leaving the hobbit for a group of dwarves he could not remember. "I've been thinking...what if they didn't want me? What if that's why no one came? What if there was no one in the first place?" Bilbo opened his mouth but Kíli continued. "I've decided that I'll look, and that I would love to know who my family where, but if I can't I'm more than happy to stay here with you. If you'll let me of course."

Bilbo shoved Kíli lightly with his shoulder. "Don't be a dunderhead, Kíli. You can stay with me as long as you want. After all, you're my legal heir."

Kíli grinned, putting his arm around Bilbo and lifting the hobbit clean off the floor.

"Ak! Kíli, put me down!"

Kíli laughed brightly and obeyed, taking the remaining groceries from Bilbo's arms and ran up the remainder of Bagshot Row and Bilbo shook his head. Kíli's common bursts of energy were usually a source of amusement, but now they only reminded Bilbo of how cooped up the energetic dwarf must feel, trapped in the Shire.

After living with Kíli for so long, Bilbo was starting to fear the day the dwarf chose to leave. Despite his earlier games in the market place, Kíli was all but an adult, and one who could defend themselves far better than most hobbits he knew.

If Kíli wanted to go, Bilbo was running out of reasons to justify him staying.

A short while later, Bilbo sat down on the little bench outside his house with his pipe, watching the world go by, and Kíli joined him as usual.

With a soft sigh, Kíli tilted his head back and closed his eyes, basking in the soft sun like a cat. Bilbo chuckled, sucking on his pipe as Kíli stretched.

"Bilbo?"

"Mmh?"

"Can I go hunting?" Kíli asked quietly, his eyes still closed.

"Of course," Bilbo nodded, though his eyebrows knitted into a frown. "Is something troubling you?"

"Nothing in particular. I just feel a little…" Kíli paused with a sigh. "Merry asked me why I am a dwarf when my father is a hobbit; it caught me off of my guard."

"I see." Bilbo mused. "What did you tell him?"

Kíli shook his head. "I told him that you had rescued me from the river when I was just a little dwarfling and that I had been adopted."

"So the truth?"

Kíli nodded. "Then he asked where my dwarf family was…It just…it just made me think."

Recognising Kíli's yearning for a little solitude, Bilbo smiled. "Be back before midnight. And do try not to terrorise poor Madam Proudfoot on the way past this time, you know that she's half bind."

"Thank you, Bilbo." A few minutes later as Kíli waved only half cheerfully and disappeared over the hill, Bilbo started to blow smoke rings, until he was rudely interrupted by a tall man in long, grey robes...

He frowned. "Can I help you?"

"That remains to be seen. I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure." The man announced regally.

Bilbo's stomach curled with anticipation, but then he thought of Kíli, and his lust for adventure. No, whoever this man was he could go elsewhere, Bilbo would not trust Kíli's life nor his own to a stranger, and one of the Big Folk at that. "An adventure? No, I don't imagine anyone west of Bree would have much interest in adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things. Make you late for dinner."

Sensing that the man knew his excuses were largely weak and lacking conviction, Bilbo made a fuss of checking the mailbox, before turning his back on the man.

"Good morning."

"To think that I should have lived to be good morning'd by Belladonna Took's son, as if I were selling buttons at the door." The man rumbled, and Bilbo froze.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You've changed, and not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins."

Bilbo swallowed. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

The man sighed. "Well, you know my name, although you don't remember I belong to it. I'm Gandalf! And Gandalf means … me."

A flare of remembrance lit in Bilbo's heart. "Gandalf...not Gandalf, the wandering Wizard, who made such excellent fireworks! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer's Eve. Ha! Hmm, I had no idea you were still in business."

"And where else should I be?" the wizard asked, looking affronted.

"Ah, hmm..." Recognising his mistake, Bilbo put his pipe in his mouth. Please, please be out of hearing distance, Kíli…

"Well, I'm pleased to find your remember something about me, even if it's only my fireworks. That's decided, then. It will be very good for you, and most amusing for me. I shall inform the others."

Not missing a beat, Bilbo panicked. "Inform the who? What? No. No. No! Wait. We do not want any adventures here, thank you. Not today, not-. I suggest you try over the Hill or across the Water. Good morning."

Scurrying inside, Bilbo shut the door behind him, deciding that Kíli did not need to know about the wizard's visit. The young dwarf would undoubtedly want to follow the wizard on this…adventure…but Bilbo was too afraid of losing Kíli to risk it.

He worried all day, and the fact that he was only cooking for one did not help. Kíli always took food with him to hunt, and would probably eat when he returned, so Bilbo was left to stare at the still sizzling fish alone, in the silence of his house.

Until the doorbell rang.

Wondering if he had accidentally locked Kíli out, Bilbo walked up and opened the door, freezing shock at the dwarf – most certainly not his dwarf – that towered over him outside.

"Dwalin, at your service." The dwarf bowed.

"B-Bilbo Baggins, at yours!" Bilbo stammered, tying up his dressing gown.

As the dwarf proceeded to barge in and begin to eat his dinner, Bilbo tried not to quiver in fear. Had the dwarf come to take Kíli away? What was he doing here, who was the 'he' who said that there would be food? What would happen when Kíli returned?

His fears grew and grew with the number of dwarves entering his home, and by the time their company had reached ten in number, with the addition of the troublesome wizard, Bilbo was utterly terrified about what would happen when Kíli returned.

Would his surrogate son be angry, confused, happy, afraid? How would the dwarves react? What were they doing there anyway?

His Baggins side took over automatically, acting as a host making forced but polite conversation with his guests where possible such as –

"I hope that your journey here was peaceful?"

"Oh aye, laddie, a little too peaceful for my liking."

Or-

"Please don't wipe your boots on that, it's over a hundred years old!"

"Really? My apologises…"

Or even -

"Do all dwarves have rhyming names?"

"No, no, it's normally just family, - y'know, brothers and cousins, the like."

By the time they started to sing and throw his dishes around, Bilbo protested adamantly, throwing all of his fear for Kíli into fear for his dishes.

As they finished laughing after their merry little song, Bilbo grabbed his coat from the coat hook and put it on quickly as he spoke. "You will have to excuse me, I have to go."

"Go where?" Gandalf asked, his face displaying a mixture of amusement and confusion.

Bilbo cleared his throat, the presence of dwarf's making him more protective – and possessive - than usual. "I have to go and find my son."

"Your son?" Now the wizard looked nothing but shocked. "Forgive me, my dear Bilbo, I had no idea that you had a family."

"I don't." Bilbo replied shortly, looking around for a lamp.

Why can't Kíli ever put things back where he finds them? He thought in frustration as he spoke different words aloud. "At least not in the sense you mean, it's simply me and him. He's adopted, and if he comes home to find a company of dwarves all over the place he will be-"

Knock, knock, knock.

Bilbo groaned as he realised that his guests had not yet finished arriving, and Gandalf looked at the door.

"They are here."

"Who?" Bilbo moaned as he opened the door.

The moment he saw the two figures behind the door he staggered backwards in shock, which allowed the final two dwarves to stride in.

"Bilbo Baggins, allow me to introduce Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thror, King-In-Exile of Durin's folk, and his nephew and heir, Fíli, son of Dis."

Not even bothering to try to be courteous, Bilbo let his mouth hand open. "No…no…"

The dwarves you had already wiped out his kitchen looked as shocked as the wizard at his sudden lack of manners, but Bilbo could not care less.

Do all dwarves have rhyming names?

No, no, it's normally just family - y'know, brothers and cousins, the like?

His name was Thorin...a shield of solid oak... Fee...I remember the name Fee...

Fee. Fee-lee. Fili. That rhymed with Kíli.

And the two dwarves now closing the door behind themselves looked uncannily like the sketches in Kíli's little book, and Thorin was both the name and the face of the dwarf that attacked Kíli in his dream.

"This is the hobbit?" Thorin raised an eyebrow at Bilbo sceptically.

"Yes, though he isn't usually this rude." Gandalf frowned, but Bilbo just shook his head.

"Tell me something, Thorin Oakenshield..." his quiet voice shook slightly, though he did not know if it were from fear or the anger that he felt bubbling in his stomach. "What does the name Kíli mean to you?"

Instantly the King-In-Exile stiffened and his kin began to mutter. The dwarf's voice was all but a growl. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said, that does the name Kíli mean to you." Bilbo stood up a little taller and spoke a little stronger. So they had heard of Kíli.

It was Fíli who spoke. "I had a little brother called Kíli. He died years ago, when we were but children..."

"Oh really? How did that happen?"

"You are prying into matters that are no concern of yours, hobbit." Thorin growled and Bilbo tried not to cower. "What did you tell this halfling, wizard?"

"Nothing of this matter, I can assure you. How did you know, Bilbo?" Gandalf frowned.

Bilbo shut his eyes and shook his head. I'm going to lose him… "Was he a small child, for a dwarf? About fifty six years old, dark hair, dark eyes, carried a little wooden bow?"

"Yes..." Fíli whispered in a hollow voice, his previously calm countenance clouded with puzzled pain.

Bilbo turned to the chest just behind him and pulled out the little bow that Kíli had clutched when he was first found. Thorin snarled, shock anger and suspicion darkening his face and he stepped forward.

A shadow appeared at the window unnoticed by any but Bilbo, who felt his heart sink.

"Where did you get that?"

"He...he had a shield, a shield made of solid oak, and he was hitting me with it, over and over again..."

Bilbo froze, remembering Daisy's suspicions that the dwarfling had been attacked. Could the dwarf from Kíli's dreams be his attacker?

"There was...he had a name."

"A name?" Bilbo asked, a little surprised.

Kíli nodded. "I doubt it is really his name, if he even exists, but in the dream he was called Thorin, and he was my uncle."

Maybe Kíli's dream had been a memory. Bilbo retorted uncontrollably, two decades of pent up anger at the family that had abandoned his Kíli taking over his tongue. "Did you do it?"

"What?" Thorin all but roared, and Bilbo shouted back, fiery fury burning away all trace of reason.

"Did you hit him over the head with that ridiculous shield of yours and throw him into the river?"

He regretted the uncharacteristically rash words immediately when, to his horror, Thorin roared and lunged at him. Gandalf made to move himself, yelling the dwarf's name but before he could the door flew open and a blur raced across the room with an impassioned cry of "No!"

The hooded figure smashed a large stick into Thorin's head, sending the dwarf crashing to the floor. Bilbo gasped in shock as Fíli raced towards the hooded newcomer and tackled him to the floor with a yell, knife in hand, while the other dwarves searched for their weapons.

"No, Kíli, no!" He cried, terrified of his loyal but inexperienced young dwarf getting seriously hurt.

Kíli's hood fell from his face due to the struggle as Bilbo yelled, and he snarled viciously at the attacker that had wrestled him to the floor.

"Kíli?" Fíli whispered as recognition flooded his eyes, and Kíli smashed a fist into the blonde's nose.

While the blond was stunned Kíli scrambled out from underneath him and backed away towards Bilbo, reaching for the hobbit's wrist protectively, though Bilbo could feel the young dwarf's hand shaking.

"What's going on?" Kíli cried. "What are these...people...doing here?"

"I have absolutely no idea." Bilbo admitted shakily. "Ask the wizard?"

"Wizard?" Kíli looked up in shock.

"I am Gandalf the Grey." The wizard nodded curiously. "And you are?"

Kíli all but growled. "Kíli Baggins, this is my home. What are you doing here?"

The entire room burst into mutters and rumours of all volume levels and Kíli looked at Bilbo.

"Are you alright?"

Bilbo half laughed. "I'm fine."

"Why are there dwarves here?" Kíli directed his question at Gandalf, and the dwarf with the hat, Bofur if Bilbo remembered correctly, frowned.

"But you're a dwarf."

Kíli sent the older dwarf a scathing look, speaking with more venom than Bilbo knew was possible. "I know what I am, I'm not a simpleton."

"Kíli Baggins?" Fíli whispered, ignoring his bleeding nose, and Kíli looked at him properly for the first time.

Bilbo watched Kíli blink disbelievingly. "I...I've seen..." He shook his head, his eyes falling on the rising Thorin and he staggered backwards. "Impossible!"

"What is impossible?" Gandalf asked with confusion that Bilbo suspected to be at least partly feigned.

"They're...they're not real!" Kíli stammered, stepping closer to Bilbo in an unconscious plea for protection. "They're just...just dreams, this isn't...Bilbo?"

"You're alive!" Fíli laughed suddenly, an almost maniacal laugh that Bilbo would wager was not his usual chuckle. "Thorin, look at his eyes, it's him, it's Kíli, it's Kíli! He's alive!"

Thorin stared wordlessly at Kíli, shock evident across his whole face as he slowly shook his head.

Fíli took a step forward, freezing when Kíli flinched away. His face fell as if he had been told that the world was about to collapse. "You…you don't remember me, do you?"

Shaking his head, Kíli swallowed. "Bilbo who are these people, why did they attack you?"

"I might have provoked them a little – this is Thorin Oakenshield and his nephew Fíli." Bilbo murmured and Kíli froze.

"Thor-what? Fíli? Fee-li? Oh..." his eyes opened with wonder as he made the same links that Bilbo had. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" Thorin asked shakily.

"I live here." Kíli answered coldly. "Bilbo pulled me out of the river when I was a child; he took me in when no one came for me."

"Out of the Brandywine?" Thorin's eyes finally lit with belief and hope.

"Yes... Now answer my question."

"We came to recruit a burglar." The apparent leader of the company answered instantly.

Kíli laughed with a frown. "From the Shire?"

"Gandalf insisted that we have a halfling." Thorin glared at the wizard in question. "And he has suggested Mr Baggins."

"Chosen." Gandalf corrected, and Kíli's frown deepened.

"You won't catch Bilbo stealing anything! He's one of the most respectable hobbits in the whole Shire!"

Pride swelled in Bilbo's heart as his nephew defended him.

Fíli took another step forward, this time slowly. His voice was low and quiet, and he stared at Kíli with such intensity that Bilbo shuddered. "Twenty one years, three months and twelve days ago, I lost my little brother. They told me that he was dead. His name was Kíli."

Kíli's mouth fell open and he stared back at the golden haired dwarfling, who continued to talk.

"My brother had a little scar on his hand, a crescent moon shape right in the centre of his left palm, from where we duelled with these stupid pipes as children…" Fíli murmured, and Kíli automatically curled up his left hand to hide the white scar.

Bilbo swallowed, answering for his son. "Kíli has a scar."

"You don't remember me?" Fíli begged.

Kíli looked completely crushed as he shook his head and Bilbo squeezed his shaking hand. "I don't…I don't remember anything before waking up in the Shire, I-I never have! I've tried, oh I've tried so hard to remember but… I used to dream of your face but I thought it was just a dream, I didn't…"

"When I pulled him out of the river he had a serious head wound." Bilbo informed the dwarves quietly. "We assumed that that was why he lost his memory. But there is one word you've always remembered."

Kíli's eyes fluttered to the floor. "Fee."

Fíli's mouth fell open and he looked like a hound being told to sit while a herd of deer dashed by. "That was what you called me. No one else ever does. Oh, Kíli, I thought you were dead!"

"Why?" Kíli croaked, his eyes settling a little fearfully on the still silent Thorin.

"I think this conversation would be better held on a full stomach for everyone involved." Gandalf hinted and Kíli nodded.

As the dwarves settled around the table, Kíli went into the pantry. "Hey!"

"What's wrong?" Bilbo called back, wondering what had injected more indignation than fear into Kíli's voice.

"Bilbo, did they ask for all of this? We have nothing left!" Kíli demanded, gesturing to the empty pantry and sending the trademark glare that sent any unwelcome hobbits running for the hills at the dwarves.

Having met Thorin, Bilbo could now see exactly where it came from. "Well, um..."

"It's rude to take food from a stranger without even asking."

"Kíli..." Bilbo warned mildly. "It's rude to insult your guests without knowing the full extent of the situation."

Kíli poked his head around the corner and pointed a carrot at Bilbo. "Leave me be, Bilbo, I'm a very confused young person who is trying to establish a sense of authority in his own home. And according to you, you did the exact same thing less than five minutes ago!"

"You're always a confused young person who is trying to establish a sense of authority in his own home, but usually you have manners." Bilbo quipped and Kíli rolled his eyes, disappearing back into the pantry.

Bilbo followed him, and was sadly unsurprised to see Kíli trying to steady himself with deep, shaking breaths.

"Oh, Kíli..." He breathed, knowing that the muttering dwarves could not hear him.

"I'm so confused..." Kíli whispered. "I remember their faces, from my dreams, from my nightmares! I feel angry and afraid and happy and hopeful all at the same time and just so confused!"

Bilbo nodded. "Shall we hear what they have to say?"

Kíli nodded, whipping around to hug Bilbo tightly. "I love you, Bilbo."

"I love you too." Bilbo whispered back and Kíli pulled away with a watery smile.

"Who hasn't eaten?"

"Thorin and Fíli, they just arrived."

"Got it." After slapping together two sandwiches with the meagre supplies left to him and delivering them to 'his' uncle and brother, Kíli took a carrot in one hand and a scone from his secret stash in the other and joined Bilbo standing at the head of the table, his presence bringing a sudden hush. He blushed.

Thorin cleared his throat. "It was your birthday. You...you asked us if we would take you exploring, your mother, Dwalin, Balin and I. You said that it was high time you and Fíli saw the world; I was so amused that I had to agree. We travelled from our home in Ered Luin to a colony in Lake Evendim, where we had several relations living at the time, including Óin and Glóin. While we were there, however, there was a ferocious storm and a band of orcs came down from the hills and attacked the settlement. I had to make a decision; you and your brother were too young to defend yourselves and they were burning all of the houses, so I gave you to Fíli and told you both to run. I planned on following, keeping them away from you but I fell behind. It was the worst mistake I ever made…"

Fíli took over the narrative, his eyes closed and his face pinched with what was undoubtedly a painful memory. "We ran down towards the lake, we'd been playing in the caves earlier that day, I thought we could hide. The goblins followed us, you tripped...They…"

Thorin took a deep breath, and his voice hardened. "They ripped you out of your brother's arms, smashed their filthy hammers into your head and tossed you into the lake. We slaughtered each and every one of them, but though we searched, we couldn't find you anywhere. We walked for days, but then we received word that a child had been pulled, dead from the river and buried, halfway to the Shire. Fíli grew ill, the winter was too harsh to continue searching with so many signs that you were dead…"

"We gave up." Fíli looked up at Kíli with shame burning in his eyes. "We just gave up."

"It's alright." Kíli replied quietly, looking up at Fíli with a little smile. "It was hard at first, when I didn't know who I was or where I came from, but it's alright now. When no one came and Bilbo brought me back here...I've always been happy here, I am happy here."

"What purpose did you have taking in a dwarf?" Dwalin's tone was suspicious and automatically Kíli tensed, shifting a little further towards Bilbo. "I thought halflings held little trust for our folk?"

"Apparently the feeling is mutual." Bilbo muttered. "He was a child, and we were both alone. I needed no reason other than that, and the fact that I was already rather fond of him."

Kíli's sharp ears picked up Dwalin's mutter to Bifur about folk forcing innocent dwarf children into servitude and he threw the last bit of his carrot at the startled dwarf angrily. "You have no idea what Bilbo sacrificed bringing me here! For weeks, his family and friends were too afraid and ashamed of him and of me to come within five yards of Bag End! He spent years, years defending me from all sorts of things - maybe not orcs and wargs and goblins but gossips and rotten fruit and suspicious mothers. He took me in when I had nothing and no one, he named me his heir and he has asked nothing in return! Frankly, for as long as you scorn Bilbo I don't care who you are, only that you stay out of my way. He may not be the only family I have ever had, but Bilbo Baggins is the only family I know!"

Once again Kíli stunned the company to silence, until the offensive dwarf cleared his throat. "My sincerest apologies to the both of you. I didn't understand. And if it ever will mean anything to you, laddie, my name is Dwalin, and I'm your cousin, several times removed."

Kíli's stony face split into a more familiar grin. "Pleased to meet you, Dwalin."

The older dwarf smiled back, allowing the young dwarf at the far end of the table to speak a little timidly.

"You really don't remember anything?"

"No..." Kíli admitted shyly. "My first memories are of waking up to Bilbo telling me everything was going to be alright."

"This was a very unexpected twist indeed." Gandalf looked very pleased with himself. "But not altogether a bad one at all. I think that our hosts now have twice the right to hear our purpose, Thorin?"

Thorin nodded, turning to Kíli (and to a lesser extent Bilbo) as an old map was placed on the table. "What do you know of Erebor?"

Kíli frowned. "The Lonely Mountain? Wasn't it a great dwarven kingdom that fell to a dragon near two hundred years ago?"

"Indeed." Thorin looked pleased that Kíli knew, even more so when the young dwarf added that –

"I think the king's name was Thrór?"

"It was." Thorin nodded. "He was your grandfather."

"Oh." Kíli nodded, and then the words sank in as he took a sip of ale which he promptly choked on. "What?!"

"I am Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King-In-Exile of Durin's folk, and you and your older brother are my heirs."

Kíli went very pale. "Heirs as in..."

"Princes. When we reclaim the mountain from Smaug." Fíli confirmed and Kíli looked horrified.

"I can't be a prince!"

"Why ever not?" Gandalf was the first to verbalise everyone's question.

"I spend half my time causing trouble and the rest of it making sure that no one gets actually hurt!" Kíli cried, and Bilbo laughed at the truthfulness of his statement, and to his surprise, Thorin also gave a little chuckle.

"You were much like that as a child. You were forever sneaking up on people, pulling pranks and teasing just about every soul you could find, but always lingering to wipe away any tears or hurt you had caused."

"We are most definitely talking about the same child." Bilbo smiled wryly. "Except he was well behind everyone else on the sneaking side until about twelve years ago."

"Hobbits are exceptionally sneaky." Kíli shrugged, unaffected as ever by the physical differences between him and his 'family' and friends in the Shire. "So you said 'after we reclaim it'. Is that what you are doing?"

"Yes." Thorin nodded.

Kíli raised his eyebrows. "From a dragon? With...twelve dwarves, and a hobbit?"

A red headed dwarf with a handsome beard replied. "Óin, my brother here, has read the portents and the portents say it is time. And I am Glóin, another distant cousin of yours."

The grey haired dwarf next to him nodded. "Ravens have been seen returning to the mountain, as it was foretold. When the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end."

"I see." Kíli nodded thoughtfully.

"And we may be few in number, but we're fighters. All of us, to the last dwarf!" The blond Fíli, who Kíli was still struggling to think of as brother, grinned fiercely.

"I suppose you also have a wizard in your company." Kíli nodded, looking back at the grey clad figure in question. "Gandalf will have killed hundreds of dragons in his time."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" Gandalf coughed.

"How many then?" Asked a dwarf with intricate braids.

"What?"

"How many dragons have you killed?" From Gandalf's reaction, Kíli guessed that his previous assumption was wrong - in fact he doubted if Gandalf had ever seen a dragon. The company, apparently, did not see it this way, and an immense argument began.

"Shazara!" Thorin yelled, and the arguing company quieted. "If we have read these signs, do you not think others have read them to? Eyes look east to the mountain, assessing, wondering, weighing the risk. Perhaps the vast wealth of our people lies unprotected, do you sit back while we let others claim what is rightfully ours, or do we seize this chance to take back Erebor! Du bekar!"

Balin sighed. "You forget the Front Gate is sealed! There is no way into the mountain."

Gandalf grinned, pulling a key out from his sleeve. "That, my dear Balin, is not entirely true."

Thorin took the key, awe in his eyes. "How came you by this?

"It was given to me by your father, Thráin. For safekeeping. It is yours now." Gandalf clapped his hands together. "Now, the task I have in mind requires a great deal of stealth, and no small supply of courage."

"That's why we need a burglar." The youngest dwarf informed Kíli shyly.

"Other than me." The starry haired dwarf to the younger one's right snorted. "Apparently, though, I'm not up to the task. Nori, at your service Master Kíli, and these are my brothers Ori and Dori. The rest of 'em are Bifur-" the axe ridden dwarf nodded strongly at Kíli "Bofur-"

"'s good to meet ya both." Bofur grinned at both Kíli and Bilbo.

"And Bombur." a large dwarf at the end of the table waved.

Kíli nodded, taking in the strange names.

"We know all about your burglary skills, thief." Dwalin growled and Nori waved it off.

They have issues…Kíli mused, though aloud he said instead - "So you think Bilbo would be a good burglar?"

"Yes." Gandalf replied shortly, and Bilbo let out a sound that was half a whimper and half a groan.

"I suppose you're right." Kíli mused, sending a cheeky grin at his 'father'.

Thorin nodded at Kíli's response and leant over to speak to Balin in low Khuzdul that Kíli could not understand a word of. Fíli interjected, speaking passionately in the same tongue. Thorin nodded with an unreadable expression and turned to the two Baggins.

"We have a proposition for you, Kíli. We would like you to join this company – with or without Bilbo Baggins. It is entirely your choice."

Sorry if that's a bit of a lame ending, like I said I had to cut some off of the end :(

A note about angry Bilbo – living with Kíli means he hasn't grown up the same way he did in the book/film, and he's very protective over his dwarf. I hope it wasn't too much :S

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!