By the time Orcrist's anchor lines were cut and the Jaeger sent plunging into the sea, Bilbo was all but champing at the bit to get going.
Orcrist stood tall, striding forwards through the roiling waters, waves breaking against its legs, her pilots perfectly in sync. Bilbo and Thorin's Drift had remained steady and strong on the way over, and now, as the Kaiju Bolg turned its attention towards them, Bilbo could feel the rush of heightened anticipation from Thorin, thrumming through their link.
Kíli and Fíli are out there, Bilbo thought, utterly defenceless. But not for long. Not if they could help it.
Bilbo was not prepared for the explosion his promise invoked. A terrible roar of rage and burning hatred, bound up in fierce protectiveness surged through the Drift, so sudden and strong that Bilbo flinched bodily, gasping for air. In front of him, his console registered the spike in his heart rate, giving a little beep in warning.
The howling bloodlust dimmed, and shame and regret beat through the link.
I am sorry, said Thorin, I'll try and-
No! It was just a little sudden, said Bilbo, mentally taking a hold of Thorin's retreating presence in his mind. Don't do that - we can't fight with you holding back, he said firmly, physically turning to look at Thorin in the cockpit, Thorin turning his head just enough to meet his eyes. The storm beat down on Orcrist, relentless, and Bilbo heard the rumble of thunder through the sensors.
We could use it. It's not a bad thing.
Thorin's trepidation was plain to see on his face. Are you sure?
I am. Don't hold back. Trust me, Bilbo said, heart thumping with nerves, but trying to show the depth of his conviction through his eyes, flooding his mind with it until the fear was tucked away in one corner. For a split second, Thorin's emotions were held in check, and then - just as he had in Dís' office - Bilbo felt Thorin loosen his hold. This time when the rage came, Bilbo was ready for it.
It was still overwhelming. It still felt like he was stood in the path of a hurricane, blood burning in an echo of Thorin's anger. But Bilbo kept his head and rose up to meet it, embraced it, because this was a part of Thorin, too, and he'd spoken the truth – they could use this. All it needed was a little focus, and Bilbo could provide that.
Moments later, when Bolg bared its teeth and roared, leaping forward with a speed such a large creature should not be able to achieve, Orcristwas there to meet it with the strength to match.
Being unceremoniously thrown out onto the street by Nori's goons was had hardly been at the top of his to-do list that day, but Bofur took it in his stride, getting to his feet quickly and hurrying for the nearest shelter, barely sparing a thought for Nori's unkindness beyond the thought that the dwarf's secret bunker would surely have room for just one more person.
The doors to the public shelter were closing, but Bofur slipped through before the stern human attendant heaved it shut. It was icy cold inside the shelter, but it was quickly warming up from the amount of people all squeezed into one space.
Bofur put his arms around himself and kept his head down. It was deathly quiet – not even the young children and infants uttered a sound, as if the slightest whimper would provoke the all-too real monster that was bearing down on them.
As one mass they waited with baited breath. Waiting for a sound, any sound, from the world above that might tell them what was happening. Humans, Elves, Dwarves – even a couple of Hobbits in the far corner. A few were clutching at shopping bags, or things that they'd grabbed in their haste to leave their homes – Bofur saw with some amusement that an elderly dwarf to his left was hugging a desk lamp. Others were clinging to each other in family groups, friends standing close, couples hiding their faces in each other's necks. Sweeping his eyes over the crowd, Bofur was painfully reminded of how alone he was. He thought of his brother and cousin, safe back at the refugee camps, and Lobelia, tucked up in the K-science labs, and with a sudden rush of feeling Bofur was glad of his loneliness.
A young woman, cradling a tiny baby in the crook of her arm, was stood huddled against one of the support struts. Her cheeks glinted with tears in the dim overhead lights, her face pale and washed out, screwed up in distress. She was wearing a furry dressing gown, and it was clear that she'd left the house in a rush, barely enough time to wrap something warm around the squirming child in her arms. Bofur, thinking of his tiny young nephews, started forward, but a male elf got there first, offering her a flask from his leather satchel. On the woman's other side an elderly female dwarf, with a sleeping infant strapped to her chest, offered the woman the use of her spare carry crib.
A deep boom shook the shelter, dislodging dust from the ceiling. A few people made soft, quiet sounds of distress, quickly cut off. Another boom, louder this time, and they rocked backwards with it, those frail and unsteady on their feet losing their balance altogether. The overhead strips of light flickered and surged. Bofur's heart almost stopped beating altogether. His quick mind was racing with Nori's sly words. The Drift is a two way system, Nori had snapped, did you really think you were the only one that got the information you wanted?
Bile burned at the back of Bofur's throat, and he barely registered the third, dull impact. Getting closer, observed the part of Bofur that was still able to think above his distress, almost on top of us. It's looking for something. Or someone.
It's all my fault, despaired Bofur as cracks began to appear in the ceiling. They're coming forme.
Orcrist turned its head towards the city of Ered Luin, away from where the smoking remains of Bolg's carcass lay scattered across the docks.
One down...Bilbo thought, and at last, Thorin's rage dimmed, mixing with soft waves of relief. Kíli and Fíli were safe. Rayade would keep them dry and warm until the Jumphawk helicopters came to bear them away, or the Base reset their systems – whichever came first. Whatever happened now, they at least knew that Kíli and Fíli were no longer in immediate danger.
Thorin brushed against his mind, turning his attention towards a huge oil tanker that was sat in a dry dock.
I like your thinking, grinned Bilbo through their link, and together they heaved the ship off out of its supports, setting off for the city in long, effortless strides, the oil tanker throwing up sparks as it was dragged along behind them.
As they walked, a thought passed through Bilbo's mind, and, high off of their recent victory, he laughed.
What is it? asked Thorin curiously as they walked Orcrist towards their second adversary.
Bilbo brought the evening of his Birthday to the forefront of his mind, showing Thorin the argument between Fíli and Gimli, and was rewarded with a golden thread of amusement humming through the Drift.
Fíli would laugh if he could see us now, Bilbo said.
He could sense Thorin considering it. We're almost there, but not quite, Thorin said,if only we were holding hands – it would complete the picture.
If it was possible to stare at someone through the Drift, then Bilbo was certainly giving it a good go. His mind had stalled, and he could feel Thorin's rich, warm good humour at catching Bilbo off-guard. Bilbo had only a split second to splutter to himself, did he just flirt with me? before they heard a distant roar coming from the heart of Ered Luin, and they both had to turn their minds towards tracking Azog's trail of destruction.
In the still-dark of the Command Centre, Dís and Tauriel were pouring over maps of Ered Luin in an attempt to understand where the second Kaiju had gone, and why, and what the potential fall-out might be. The Comms Room's usual roster of staff members had been bolstered by an influx of engineers, all of them working as hard as they could to restore full power to the Base and reset their systems. Thanks to the emergency back-up generators, electricity had been restored to the Base's most important functions, but their helicopter crews had not been so lucky. The EMP wave had hit their individual radios and short circuited them, and as a result they had been reduced to communicating through slow light signals, relayed across the bay.
A flustered elf approached Dís respectfully, and Dís looked up from the map to hear his message.
'Marshall,' said the elf, licking his lips nervously, 'We've...we've received word from the Jumphawks. They've pulled two bodies from the wreckage.'
Several staff members who were working closest to Dís began to surreptitiously eavesdrop on their conversation.
'And?' demanded Dís when the elf did not continue.
'They're alive, Marshall, but barely, barely,' said the elf in a rush, 'they've both been badly wounded. They're on their way over now.'
Tauriel let out a hissed breath, passing a hand over her eyes.
'Send a runner to the medical wing and tell them to prepare for their arrival,' said Dís, 'tell them they'll need to prep for theatre as soon as that helicopter touches down. We'll need a full medical team on the landing pads immediately. No,' corrected Dís, thinking about it for a moment, 'put as many teams on the pads as can be spared.'
'Yes Marshall!' said the elf, and he quickly made his way towards the exit.
Dís ignored the whoops and cheers of her staff as the news was relayed around the room. Instead she looked towards Tauriel, waiting patiently for her second-in-command to recover her composure. She did not have to wait long; after a moment, Tauriel turned her face back to the maps in front of them, her expression carefully neutral. She glanced up at Dís and Dís gave her a small smile. They both knew that, even if Arwen and Aragorn survived the ride back to the Base, it was too early to celebrate. The night was far from over, and it was too much to hope that there would be no further casualties by the time morning came.
Bofur had never seen a Kaiju in the flesh. He'd seen plenty of Kaiju broken down into their composite parts, bottled up and all but dead, and he'd seen Kaiju on the news and in recordings, but never up close. He'd always wanted to, even if he knew, logically, that there was no other way to see a Kaiju than in battle. His mother had always told him that his curiosity would get him killed. She would never know how right she was.
When the Kaiju had turned its attention away from him, distracted if only for a split second, Bofur had taken his chance and run, as fast as he could, in the opposite direction, and he hadn't looked back even for a second. The weight and presence of the Kaiju was like a weight as his back, pushing him onwards, faster and faster, terror choking his lungs and blind panic wiping his mind utterly free of thought.
There came the sound of a foghorn, and Bofur would know that sound anywhere – every Jaeger came with its own unique warning siren, and Bofur had heard this one plenty of times back in the Base to know who it belonged to: Orcrist Sting.
It was familiar enough to cut through his fear, to slow his feet to a walk, and Bofur gathered the tattered remains of his courage to turn at chance a glance at the battle that was about to unfold.
Common sense would have dictated that Bofur take this opportunity to keep running, to run until he couldn't run a moment longer, as long as he was as far away as possible from the battle of monsters taking place before his very eyes. But common sense could go and hang for all Bofur cared – this was extraordinary, and his curiosity burned through him until he had no choice but to stay and observe, to study.
Orcrist, he noticed, was holding its own – barely. It was clear even from where Bofur stood – a considerable distance from the battle – that the Jaeger had taken quite a few hits already and, well, would you look at that, the Kaiju was spitting venom, so acidic it melted the side of a skyscraper in seconds, Orcrist dodging the spray just in time. Bofur's mind was turning over how such a potent acid could be created by a living organism when several things happened in quick succession.
The Kaiju curled its tail around Orcrist's arm, constricting so tightly Bofur could see rents appearing in the armour. Orcrist responded by dumping its coolant, freezing the tail and, reaching in to the Kaiju's maw, tore the Kaiju's tongue from its mouth.
Good move, approved Bofur, but he had scarcely completed the thought before the Kaiju unleashed something neither he, nor the pilots ofOrcrist Sting could have ever seen coming - a set of webbed wings burst from its front arms, and with a screech the Kaiju leapt on the Jaeger, bearing it up, up and up into the night's sky.
'Well, shit,' said Bofur aloud to the empty, eerie streets of Ered Luin. He titled his head back to track the progress of the two. The enormity of what he had just seen filtered through his astonished mind after a good full minute. 'Shit,' he said again, but more decisively.
Bilbo was up there, along with Dís' brother. Every inch of Bofur quailed at the thought of his friend in the clutches of the Kaiju, but Bofur was dwarf enough to admit – at least to himself – that deep, deep down he was praying that above all else the Kaiju brain remained intact if it fell back to earth.
Up in the sky above Ered Luin, Orcrist twisted and grappled with the Kaiju, searching for an opening, her great fists pummelling the weak spots in the Kaiju's armour. Nothing was working.
A litany of Khuzdul curses served as background noise as Thorin and Bilbo fought.
Bilbo swung another uppercut towards the underside of Azog's belly, but it was difficult to put any sort of power behind their punches when they were dangling in the air. His and Thorin's minds were both racing with ideas, their thoughts coming so fast and furious that they had discussed and rejected three different plans by the time Bilbo had landed the hit. The readings on the console were off the charts, and if they didn't act soon, they would lose all power, and their fight would be lost.
Determination surged through their link from both sides. It was getting hard to breathe, but they weren't done yet.
Do we have anything left? said Thorin, but even as he thought it, their respective minds were lit up with one last option. Bilbo would never know who had had the idea first. It was a long shot – they had little manoeuvrability to speak of, and no guarantee that the weapons would work on the Kaiju's thick, armour-plated hide. If they attempted this, it would be their last move.
Thorin's conviction burnt through the Drift. Let's do it, he said, and Bilbo needed no further prompting.
Bilbo reached out with his spare hand and activated the weapon on his console screen. From Orcrist's left wrist extended a wickedly sharp, short blade. Thorin and Bilbo heaved Orcrist to one side, giving them as much space as could be allowed in the Kaiju's punishingly tight grip. With a yell Bilbo summoned all of his strength to drive the blade home into the Kaiju's side. The blade slid through soft tissue, piercing a weak point in the Kaiju's side, Bilbo flicking his wrist sharply to make sure the blade was firmly lodged.
The Kaiju screamed, its retaliation swift, savagely biting down onto Orcrist's shoulder, but its wings faltered for a moment, and as it turned to attack Orcrist it left its side wide open for Thorin.
That's Sting, said Bilbo.
And now for Orcrist, said Thorin.
A second, larger blade flew from the Jaeger's right arm. Lightning-fast, Thorin swung the sword up and around, hurtling towards the Kaiju with their combined strength, Thorin and Bilbo snarling out a battle cry together as the blade sliced through the Kaiju's body, cutting Azog completely in half.
They were free, but Bilbo and Thorin only had a moment to bask in their hard-won victory. They were falling, and falling fast. They both knew the truth without having to express it, or from looking at their read-outs – unless they slowed their descent, Orcrist would be destroyed.
I don't particularly want to be a Hobbit pancake, laughed Bilbo with an edge of hysteria-fuelled panic.
It was Thorin's turn to reach out, his presence wrapping around Bilbo's mind, steadying him with his unshakable focus, and Bilbo's panic dulled.
There was no time to thank Thorin. The speed of their fall pressed against Bilbo's chest until he couldn't draw a full breath, only shallow, faint gasps. His organs felt as though they were being pushed back towards his spine, and raising his arm to reach the console took such an effort that Bilbo almost blacked out from it. But he persisted, fingers brushing feather-light over the controls, and beside him Thorin was gritting his teeth against the force, jaw clenched so tight it was causing him physical pain. As one they loosened the shock absorbers and shifted Orcrist into a spread-eagle stance to increase their drag.
But they were still coming in too fast. The storm over Ered Luin was a like a grey wall rising up in front of them, and Thorin, in abstract thoughts more than words, whispered hold on, hold on – this is going to hurt, followed by a series of images in quick succession, suggestions to slow their fall: the gyroscope, curling up into a ball once they broke the cloud cover and then – then they would simply have to hold on, and hope.
Bilbo hurried to comply. Orcrist hit the storm and the roar was deafening, louder than anything he'd ever heard. Gyroscope set, Bilbo and Thorin curled up, Orcrist following their movements, and Bilbo screwed his eyes tightly shut, not daring to look at the land and sea below.
Let's just hope we don't hit anything important, said Thorin, with black humour, Dís will make me pay for it out of my wages. Bilbo couldn't help but snort in laughter.
It was the last thought that either of them had before they hit.
'I want eyes on them, right now, get the Jumphawks over there,' snapped Tauriel to the radio team, 'why aren't they over there already? What use is it to have one so far away? Give me the radio, pass it over-'
Tauriel didn't move from her spot beside Dís, even as the technician passed her the radio. In the last five minutes they had managed to establish a radio link with the lead helicopter out in the bay. This had been a small victory for the engineers on the base. The pilot might soon be not so thankful.
Dís tuned out Tauriel's tirade to the pilot, focused instead on the one screen that was showing the shaky, blurry feed of the descent of Orcrist Sting. Tauriel aside, all other movements in the room had ceased, everyone's attention fixed solely on the Jaeger falling like a meteor from the sky.
'Come on, brother,' murmured Dís under her breath, 'not tonight. Come on.'
Inside the cockpit of Orcrist Sting, silence reigned for several long minutes, and Bilbo could hear nothing beyond the sound of his own breathing and the steady purr of Orcrist's engines.
He let out a giddy whoop. They were alive, They were alive.
Thorin was grinning outright beside him, the sight of it enough to send Bilbo's heart racing in an altogether different way, adrenaline and relief a heady rush, his limbs shaking uncontrollably.
'Where did we land?' asked Thorin aloud.
They turned Orcrist's head left and right, reaching out through the sensors and relays. They seemed to have landed on some sort of industrial estate, a warehouse if Bilbo was seeing it right through the dust. A building began to slowly emerge from the dust cloud to their right, and the strong, elegant lines of the unveiled architecture alerted them to the fact that this particular building was definitely not a warehouse, and that it had survived their impact with nothing more than a shower of debris.
Ered Luin Central Library read the sign above the door.
Thank Mahal.
Thank goodness, thought Bilbo in exactly the same moment.
Thorin and Bilbo looked at each other, and Bilbo burst out laughing, Thorin following suit with his own, quieter chuckles. They were still laughing when Tauriel's voice filtered through their Comms systems, asking them for a status report in an increasingly impatient tone.
Almost every member of staff had assembled in the hangar bay to welcome them home. The roar of noise hit Bilbo the very moment he emerged into the hangar, Thorin by his side. They were surrounded by well-wishers, a sea of happy faces, and Bilbo was glad of his armour for the amount of slaps he received on his back. Bilbo's eyes, almost against his will, wandered back to Thorin, who was bearing it all with nothing more than a small smile, but Bilbo knew Thorin was full to the brim with a deep sense of satisfaction of a job well done, just as Bilbo was.
The crowd parted for Dís as she made her way towards them, her mouth curled up in a warm smile.
'Rangers,' she said aloud, and her formal greeting was allayed by the gratitude Bilbo could see in her dark eyes. 'Good job.' Then, addressing the staff, she said, 'through the skill and hard work of everyone on this Base Ered Luin – the world – still stands.'
A roar of approval went up at this, Bilbo joining in unreservedly. Dís waited patiently for them to quiet, her eyes shadowed and serious once more.
'But there will be time to celebrate later,' in her steady, unyielding voice. 'We can be sure that the Kaiju will retaliate, and soon,' said Dís, slowly turning to take in all of her personnel. 'We must take this chance. The bomb will be dropped within the next twelve hours.'
Bilbo felt his happiness splutter out like a candle in a high wind. Thorin's handsome face had become stern and unforgiving once more, and Bilbo mourned the loss of his easy smile.
'It has been a long night. A long war,' Dís continued, flicking a glance in Thorin's direction. 'And I must ask more of you, now, for this last push. At last...at last, it is time to take this fight to them. To your posts, everyone!'
There was a few shouted out, 'yes, ma'ams!' and a ripple of salutes, though salutes had not been used on the Base since their parting with the Last Alliance. The staff began to file out, faces grim and determined as they passed Bilbo.
Dís came to stand before them. 'As for you two,' she said with a hint of a smile, 'rest. Right now.'
'Marshall,' said Bilbo, 'Marshall, has there been any sign of-'
'Yes,' said Dís heavily, 'we pulled Arwen and Aragorn from the water not long after your were deployed. They're critical, both of them. There's not much you can do now, so rest. That includes you, brother.'
'I would not dare to disobey the orders of my Marshall,' said Thorin.
Dís narrowed her eyes at him. Thorin narrowed his eyes back. Bilbo wondered if they had once bickered as much as Kíli and Fíli do.
'I should think not,' said Dís with mock-haughtiness. She shook her head, and her look became touched with reverence, passing over Bilbo and Thorin as if seeing them in a new light. 'Two Kaiju. Two.'
Bilbo ducked his head. He still couldn't believe it himself.
'We had a little help,' he said.
'Did they pout much, when they returned without a single kill?' asked Thorin.
'Only a little,' Dís said, fighting a smile, 'mostly they were more concerned about their Uncle falling out of the sky.'
Their link was still holding steady enough that Bilbo caught the full weight of that single sentence, like a punch to the gut. Outwardly, Thorin showed no sign of how it had affected him beyond raised brows. Inwardly, though, his emotions were blending together so quickly that Bilbo could barely keep up with them – relief, love, affection, relief again, and a sense of happiness so acute it felt as though it were piercing Bilbo's chest. Bilbo, for his part, pushed as much of his own happiness for Thorin in his co-pilot's direction. As distracted as Thorin was, Bilbo didn't know if he had picked up on any of it, but it was the thought that counted.
'I have to obey my own orders now, and return to my post' said Dís, her eyes glancing between Bilbo and Thorin, considering them in a way that made Bilbo shift uncomfortably as if caught doing something wrong. 'Don't make me say it again: rest, for Durin's sake. That's your friend and your sister asking.'
She walked away, not waiting for a response, squeezing Thorin's arm as she passed, leaving Bilbo and Thorin alone in the mostly-empty hangar. A question was forming in Thorin's mind, and without thinking it, Bilbo answered before Thorin even had the chance to voice it.
'No, I'm going to check in quickly at the hospital wing,' he said, and smiled to see Thorin's surprise.
'No, it's alright, I don't need company. But thank you,' said Bilbo as Thorin opened his mouth to attempt another question. Thorin's brow furrowed, and he opened his mouth to try again. Bilbo beat him to it. 'Yes, that's technically disobeying orders, but Dís didn't specify a time for us to go to bed. Quite lax of her, really.'
Thorin's expression was warring between amusement and annoyance, but amusement was winning. Bilbo bounced up and down on the balls of his feet and tried not to feel absurdly pleased.
'You are infuriating, you know that?' said Thorin, ducking his head and attempting to hide the curl of his mouth.
Bilbo could have brushed it off, could have said,it's a Hobbit trait, don't you know? and left it there. But the night had made him bold, and so instead he looked Thorin dead on and said, 'and yet, here we are.'
The edges of Thorin's eyes creased, and there was warmth in his steady gaze and affection feeding through their link. Thorin wasn't even bothering to attempt to hide it.
'Here we are,' said Thorin quietly, looking at Bilbo under his dark brows, and it was all too much. Thorin reached out and took Bilbo's helmet from his hand, his gauntleted fingers brushing over Bilbo's as he did so.
'Go on,' he said, 'go and get unsuited. I'll update the engineers on the damage to Orcrist.'
'Are you ordering me to bed, too?' said Bilbo shakily.
'No, just pushing. Gently.' He let out a little breath through his nose, 'I'll even be able to make sure you're asleep.'
Bilbo shook his head, smiling. 'Damn, I hadn't thought of that,' he said.
'I'm picking up on some Hobbit tactics, you see,' said Thorin.
Bilbo couldn't help but laugh, and inwardly he was praying that Thorin couldn't sense the true extent of Bilbo's emotions, that he didn't know how deeply the vein of Bilbo's affection stretched.
'I'll have to get Lobelia to teach me some new techniques,' he said, 'thank you, for the, for the-' he gestured to the helmet. 'See you in a few hours.'
'Goodnight, Bilbo,' said Thorin, and there was still that smile there, hidden away in the corners of his mouth.
Bilbo's heart did a slow, painful back flip in his chest. Oh, he thought to himself, you are so far gone.
Aragorn and Arwen had been given a private ward, just for the two of them. This was standard procedure for injured pilots, and the medical wing contained many of these two bed, specifically-made rooms. No one could quite understand why, but pilots always, without fail, healed better when they were put within reach of each other during their recovery. It was the commonly held view that it was something to do with the deep bonds forged by the Drift, but they could only ever speculate. No one had ever been able to prove it.
There was no one on duty at the reception, and Bilbo was wondering if he should attempt to find Aragorn and Arwen's room on his own when a voice floated over his shoulder.
'They're in surgery, Bilbo.'
Bilbo spun around, to see Tauriel sat on one of the waiting room chairs, a stack of paperwork at her side. Bilbo stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, before the meaning sunk in.
'Oh,' he said. 'Any...any news?'
Tauriel shook her head. 'No. We'll know when they come out, but not before.'
If they come out, added Bilbo to himself, and immediately banished such a gloomy thought. The guilt, however, remained – he knew he should have more faith in Aragorn and Arwen.
'Would you like to sit with me and wait?' offered Tauriel, 'though I'm not sure we'll be seeing either of them any time soon.'
'Yes, I will. Thank you,' said Bilbo, sitting on the spare chair beside her. There was a clock on the wall opposite them, and Bilbo noticed with a huff that it had stopped. He turned back to Tauriel, and saw that she was scanning over an open file on her lap.
'I didn't realise you wore glasses,' he blurted out.
'Oh, yes,' said Tauriel touching the frames, 'I'd forgotten I was wearing them. The perils of doing far too much paperwork, I suppose.'
'They suit you,' said Bilbo, and she gave a little hum that was neither thanks nor disagreement. Bracing himself, he asked, very quietly, 'what's the damage?'
'I don't think I need to say that it's bad,' Tauriel said, closing her file, 'their injuries are numerous. We are lucky they have such strong spirits, or we would have lost them already.'
She took a deep breath. 'The worst of it is this: Aragorn's right leg and right arm were both crushed, his right lung collapsed' – here Bilbo gasped, his hand coming up to clench at the front of his shirt – 'and as for Arwen...Arwen...' Tauriel trailed off.
'Tauriel?' prompted Bilbo gently, though he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear what she had to say.
'She took the worst of it,' said Tauriel, voice as cold as stone, 'her back was broken, and we believe she has lost her Grace.'
'Her back,' choked out Bilbo, barely able to get the words out. His throat had all but closed up. 'Will she be able to walk? Is she – is sheparalysed?'
'We have no way of knowing.'
'That's...that's awful' Bilbo breathed. 'But I don't understand – she lost her Grace?'
'Yes,' said Tauriel, and her green eyes - dulled by exhaustion - slid shut. 'She is mortal, now.'
'But - how? How is that possible?'
'Drifting with a mortal,' Tauriel said, turning to look at Bilbo once more, 'we always suspected that it might have side-effects, if something were to go wrong. Even the act of Drifting itself, sharing your mind and soul as deeply as Arwen and Aragorn have...it has consequences.'
'Is there any way-'
'No,' said Tauriel sharply.
Bilbo's insides twisted and constricted. He couldn't comprehend what such a loss would do to Arwen, should she survive – he was more concerned by her broken spine. But Tauriel - Tauriel would understand Arwen's loss. The image of Arwen and Tauriel, heads bent together, laughing breathlessly over their hot chocolates, flashed through Bilbo's mind.
'Are you still on duty?' he asked into the ensuing silence.
Tauriel snorted through her nose. 'No,' she said with a small smile, 'the Marshall told me to get an of hours worth of rest, while I still could.'
'Asked...or ordered?'
'Ordered,' Tauriel said, smile becoming wry. 'I tried to tell her that I was fine, but she said-'
'We don't do 'fine' around here,' Bilbo said at the same time as Tauriel, and they shared an amused look.
An odd contradiction, Bilbo thought – to be ordered to rest so that you might do your duty, but be unable to catch a wink of sleep for the love of your friends. The quiet stretched out between him and Tauriel, not uncomfortable by any means, but too weighted by circumstance to put either of them completely at ease. But Bilbo, though removed from the Shire since he was seventeen, still had a gift for small talk, as all Hobbits do, and he couldn't help but fill the silence with chatter to distract them both.
'You've known Dís a long time, haven't you?' said Bilbo.
Tauriel favoured him with a shrewd look over the top of her glasses. 'Did you glean that from the Drift, or did you figure that out yourself?'
'A little of both,' admitted Bilbo, 'it wasn't hard to guess, anyway – you seem very close.'
'We are,' said Tauriel easily, 'I have known Dís for a long time.'
'How did you meet?'
Tauriel shrugged. 'Erebor was close to New Greenwood.'
'Ah, of course,' nodded Bilbo, although that hardly answered his question.
'I was stationed at the Ereborean stronghold,' added Tauriel.
Now that was news to Bilbo. 'So, you met through the Jaeger programme?' he asked, but he had barely completed his question before Tauriel was shaking her head.
'No,' she said, 'we knew each other before that. But do not look so shocked, Bilbo – Elves from New Greenwood often travelled to Erebor, whether for business or for other reasons. I myself met Dís at a Royal Ceremony,' Tauriel gave a small chuckle. 'It was so dull. We stood in a corner, tried to get as drunk as we could, complained about everyone else for the rest of the night and persuaded Frerin to ask inappropriate questions of all the guests.' She smiled to herself, eyes warm with affection. 'He was so young, back then.'
Tauriel's gaze re-focused, snapping back to Bilbo. 'Is it really so surprising that Dwarves and Elves would mix?'
'No, no – of course not,' Bilbo said, abashed, 'I'm sorry, I suppose I'm just used to Lothlorien. There were no Dwarves there, and no one seemed to want them there, either.'
Tauriel gave a little hum, tilting her head to one side. 'The old divisions are still hard to bridge, even in these times,' she said, 'but the fact that Dís and I were already friends certainly helped when the Last Alliance proposed a collaboration between the two countries. A small envoy of Elves was sent from New Greenwood to the Ereborean Stronghold, and I was among them.'
Bilbo turned this over in his mind. He had seen Tauriel only once during either of the two Drifts, and he'd rather not dwell on such a memory for more than a moment if he could. He couldn't recall seeing Tauriel anywhere else in Thorin's memories – not to say that Tauriel was lying, of course, only that he was seeing things through Thorin's eyes, not his sister's, and it afforded him only a limited view of the past. But still, Bilbo found the lack of Tauriel's presence in either of the Drifts surprising; from what Bilbo had seen of them, Dís and Tauriel hardly seemed to be apart for long. They were always together, and Tauriel had already stated that her trust in Dís' judgement was absolute, and Tauriel seemed to be a rock to Dís...
Bilbo's train of thought ground to a halt.
'It was you,' he said softly, wonderingly, 'you were Dís' partner.'
Tauriel smiled, eyes crinkling behind her glasses, and said, 'you're very astute, Bilbo.'
'I thought...I thought Arwen and Aragorn were...'
'We beat them by a week. I've never let Arwen hear the end of it,' said Tauriel. She seemed thoroughly amused by Bilbo's astonishment, and it was enough to chase away the pain and sadness in her eyes, if only for a moment.
'But why, why cover it up?' said Bilbo, still unable to grasp his discovery, 'all this time I've been on the Base and I never knew. Why?'
Tauriel's gaze slipped away from him, and she tapped her long fingers against the file on her lap. 'I was a game, at first,' she said, 'we thought it was funny, to keep it a mystery, to keep them guessing. Vili – Dís' husband – thought it was hilarious. He kept pretending to be oblivious to it all, deliberately misunderstanding all of the press' questions. I was the one who suggested we keep it going. It was something to distract the population from what was happening. From the horror of it all. Dís agreed.'
'How on Arda did you keep it a secret?'
Tauriel gave him a look over the top of her glasses. 'Dwarf Base,' she said.
'Ah, of course,' murmured Bilbo, but then frowned. 'I'm sorry, but I still can't believe you'd want to keep it a secret for that long.'
'You don't know what it was like, Bilbo,' said Tauriel, 'the level of exposure, the attention, the fame. Every inch of Thorin and Frerin and Dís' life was poured over, and it was made worse because of their lineage. Thorin and Frerin bore the majority of it.' She raised an eyebrow. 'I think Frerin enjoyed all the attention. But Dís and me...we just wanted to do our jobs.'
Bilbo took her in. He felt as though he were looking at her anew.
'What happened in Minas Tirith...I...I can thank you enough.'
He was treated to a long, hard look in return for his thanks. 'We did our duty,' Tauriel said firmly.
'Still,' said Bilbo, 'you saved my life.'
'And now you will save all of ours,' said Tauriel with a shrug. The light glinted over the lenses of her glasses for a moment, and Bilbo blinked.
Something had been niggling at Bilbo since the start of their conversation, a thought that had kept itself at a distance - until now. Before, he hadn't had the information to understand what was wrong, but with all of Tauriel's revelations, it finally came to him. Realisation dawned on him slowly, a gradual shift from curiosity, to understanding, to outright dread. Tauriel's glasses. He'd never seen an Elf wearing glasses before – their vision was perfect, and remained so over the course of their lifetime. It never changed. Her glasses.
'Tauriel. Tauriel, are you...did you...'
She smiled, and it looked like it took a great deal of effort. 'Yes,' she said, 'I am mortal.'
'Tauriel...'
'I went in to this battle knowing that it might lead to my end, that I might die fighting,' said Tauriel, and she let out a soft, bitter laugh, 'and now I find that I am to have a slow death.'
Bilbo could barely form his next question. Luckily, Tauriel caught his meaning well enough on her own.
'That last battle in Minis Tirith – our core shielding was all but destroyed in the fight. We got a full blast of radiation, directly aimed at us. I bore the worst of it - it caused me to lose consciousness. Dís...Dís managed to stay awake long enough to take the damn thing down. But she came out of it with cancer. Not terminal, thank goodness – if she had been anything other than the hardy Dwarf she is, she might not have been so lucky to get away with just that.'
Cancer. That explained at least one of Thorin's memories.
'And after, I woke up, and I was mortal,' said Tauriel matter-of-factly.
Bilbo stared at her lovely, strong profile, utterly lost for words.
'Do you know how long we'd be able to pilot for?' Tauriel continued, and Bilbo shivered to hear the anger in her voice, to see the aching grief lining her young face. 'Ten minutes. Ten minutes in Jaeger would likely get us out of the Stronghold, nothing more. Ten minutes and we'd be dead. So now we have to be content with sitting on the sidelines, ordering loved ones into battle in our places.'
'You are still fighting,' Bilbo said firmly, and Tauriel turned her head to look at him. He almost flinched to see the helpless fury in her eyes, but he persisted, laying a hand on her forearm. 'You're still fighting alongside of us. You're just using different weapons, nowadays.'
Tauriel let out a derisive snort, shaking her head sharply. 'You know nothing about it,' she said in a low, furious tone.
'No, no I don't. I just know we wouldn't have gotten this far without you. Without both of you. Goodness, could you imagine this Base without you and Dís at the helm? Absolute chaos.' Bilbo kept his voice light enough, but he accompanied it with a serious look, because it was true. They'd be lost without Dís and Tauriel.
For a second Bilbo thought Tauriel would pull away for him altogether and brush off his hand, turn to him and tell him to leave. But neither of them had enough energy to argue over it, and after a beat the fire in Tauriel's eyes abated.
'The world has changed so much in these last two centuries,' she said softly. 'It was so exciting. I had thought I might live to see...' she trailed off, and put her hand over Bilbo's. 'Never mind,' she said tightly, 'it doesn't matter. Not now, at least.'
She turned her face away, and Bilbo let her take a few moments. He would have been glad for the ticking of the clock to fill up the beats of silence.
After a long minute, Tauriel turned back to him. This time, when she smiled, it was a little more genuine. 'You should get some rest, Bilbo. You're to pilot a Jaeger in a few hours.'
But Bilbo stayed with her, brushing off her suggestion with a shake of his head. Her words could have been taken as an order, but she did not press the point. He waited with her in the quiet, empty room, and he no longer felt he had to fill the time with idle chatter. Hours might have passed, or only a few minutes – Bilbo didn't know – but at long last a nurse appeared to tell them that Aragorn was stable, if still critical, and that they were still working on Arwen. Tauriel's ramrod straight spine bowed at the news, her whole body slumping, and when she repeated her order once more she was more successful in persuading Bilbo to go to bed. She squeezed Bilbo's hand one last time in unspoken thanks, and told him that she would be checking to make sure that he really had gone back to his room.
Her warning was unnecessary – Bilbo went gladly in the end, feet dragging and head spinning, and when he reached his room he didn't even pause to take off his boots on his way to the bed. The mattress rushed up to meet him, hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs. He rolled onto his side. He couldn't summon up the energy to take off his clothes, or even pull the covers up to his shoulders. He lay there for a while, picking at the fraying edges of his pillowcase, turning his and Tauriel's conversation over and over in his head. How close Dís and Tauriel must be, Bilbo thought – not only to have piloted with each other, but to have stood side-by-side in the aftermath, through Erebor's destruction and the Last Alliance's abandonment of the Jaeger programme. He wondered, in the privacy of his mind, if pilots who Drifted as deeply as Tauriel and Dís, Arwen and Aragorn, forged a bond that would remain throughout life. His last thought, before sleep finally claimed him and set his tired mind to rest, was that he wouldn't mind if the same was true for him and Thorin.