Chapter 40:

Out of the shadows came a very familiar shape. "Freya?" he asked in disbelief. "Freya!" he breathed as he realized that it was really me, and suddenly there was a Dwarf embracing me.

"Hello, Kili," I said wearily, hugging him tightly. I became conscious that his entire body was quivering, possibly from relief.

He pulled back, his hands on either side of my face as he stared hard and worriedly at me. "You're okay," he whispered, chuckling airly. "You look awful," he commented, pulling back a tiny bit further to examine me closely.

"Do I?" I asked. He gave me a look, so with a sigh I conjured a mirror to my right and turned at looked at myself -

and nearly fainted. "Holy shit," I murmured.

"Yeah," Kili said, sounding a bit like he was wincing.

My clothes were all scorched, and my cloak was still smoking at the end. My face was covered in soot and burns, my eyes staring out glassily and a seemingly etched expression of weary, but determined badassery. My hands were deeply scratched and bleeding, in addition to my knee and palm from earlier, and my boots were scuffed. I was soaking wet, my hair hanging out of my braid in slightly singed, tangly, damp chunks. I had a feeling that when I looked at the insides of my legs later, they would be scraped and bleeding, judging by the pain right now.

I blew out a deep breath. "Well. Okay."

"How did you get like this?" asked Kili, sounding baffled.

"I - I jumped off the statue -"

"And landed in the gold, I saw that. And then Smaug reared up and flew off, and I thought for a second I saw you clinging to his back, but that seemed ridiculous, so we searched the cavern and you weren't there and Thorin gave you up for dead and they all stopped looking about a foot past the front gate and left me out here to look for you myself and -"

I carefully placed my bloody, burned, soaked hand over his mouth. "Kili, please," I whispered. "Please be quiet."

He pushed my hand away, his eyes burning with something I couldn't name. "I thought you were dead," he told me roughly, and I shivered at his voice, swallowing. "I thought you were dead," he said again, softer, but his eyes, if anything, got darker.

My heartbeat sped up, and I felt my breathing quicken, and I reached out and grabbed Kili's collar, pulling his mouth down to mine.

His lips crashed against mine, pressing hard and expressing what he could not in words - how incredibly euphoric and relieved he was that I was alive, how he probably would have died himself if I had died, and so much more.

After about a full minute, I broke away from him and leaned my forehead against his collarbone. "Oh, Valar, Kili, how in God's name do you do this to me?" I asked softly into his shoulder.

He replied with a jumping laugh, low in his throat. "Come on, we must tell the others that you are alive."

"Okay," I agreed, but on my first step forward, my scraped knee crumpled from sheer exhaustion. I was only saved from a fall by Kili's quick catch, and he hoisted me into his arms, supporting me under my knees and shoulders.

I squeaked, but he shushed me. "Hey, it's okay. I got you, Frey," he said sincerely, fixing me with his honest brown eyes. I nodded, and he walked towards the Mountain.

"Wait a moment," he said suddenly, stopping.

"What?" I asked, surprised.

"You never told me what happened," he replied simply.
"Oh. That. Well, I - Smaug carried me quite a ways, and then somehow I ended up on his belly and I stabbed him and he died and we fell into the lake in a huge screaming fireball," I informed him brightly.

"You killed Smaug?" Kili sounded shocked, and I bristled.

"Hey, I'm fairly capable!" I growled.

"Who's carrying who?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"If it's that much trouble, I'll just walk myself," I muttered, shoving out of his arms - and promptly collapsing in a heap of pain and exhaustion.

"Yup. You totally will," grunted Kili as he lifted me up again. "Honestly, Freya, I'm not surprised because it's you - I'm surprised because he was a dragon. Dragon's are notoriously hard to kill."

"Technically, he did have a patch on his chest where there were no scales, so I stabbed him there," I pointed out truthfully.

"I see. Still, it's incredibly difficult to get close enough to a dragon to stab him in any weak spot. I congratulate you."

"Hey, thanks."

We finally reached the Mountain, where we were greeted warmly. Kili, with help from his brother, treated my hands, neck, and face, although I did the insides of my legs myself, thanks very much.

Eventually, the whole Company sat in a lovely circle.

"Now what?" asked Kili.

Thorin seemed troubled when he replied, "We will have to wait here. No fires, no loud noises. Nothing that could alert Smaug of our presence."

I sighed. "He's dead."

They all stared at me, or at least I assume they did. "Uh, what?" asked Fili, confused. Only Kili from his position right next to me, didn't stiffen or seem confused, just tightened his grip on my shoulder as if he didn't want me to tell them.

I did anyway. "I killed him."

There was an uproar, and lots of jumping up and down with glee.

"You have killed the Dragon, Smaug the Terrible! Oh, this is tremendous, lass!" yelled Bofur.

"Oi," I grumbled, clutching my head in my hands. "I stabbed him in his weakspot after practically tricking him into flying with me on his back, how is that so heroic?"

"You saved many lives," Bilbo said quietly. "That is heroic enough."

There was quiet after that, but I sensed a sort of awe exuding from the dwarves as they looked at my tired and beat-up form.

"Even if I hadn't killed him, he would've died anyway," I muttered, but it came out louder than I meant it, and everybody stared. Kili's grip started on my shoulder again.

Thorin, I could tell, was staring at me like I had several extra heads. "How do you know this, Freya?"

I groaned. "Let's just stick with that I know, okay, because you might flip if I told you."

Thorin was shooting me a confused look. "We have nowhere to be, Freya. At least tell us the general outline of this mess you are in."

I sighed. "Okay, fine. I come from this other world, called Earth. What happened, though, was that I was originally here - as Tralique, a dwarf-human witch. Then I accidentally cast a rather powerful spell that sent me to Earth, where I lived twenty-four years of a rather pointless human existence. Then, I'm pretty sure I died there, and so I came back here. Oddly enough, on Earth, this place is fictional. There are books on what happens here, and I've read them. A long time ago, yes, but I remember some details. And I happen to know that Smaug is going to die tonight, and a man from Lake-town, a man called Bard, is going to kill him."

There was a long silence, and Kili's grip on my shoulder was tight enough that I could barely feel my fingers.

It was Fili who spoke first: "Well, that explains a lot."

I couldn't help laughing quite hard at that. "Yeah," I gasped once I caught my breath. "Yeah, it does."

Thorin let out a sigh. "Yes. It certainly does explain a lot. Let me guess - Gandalf requested you not tell us of this?"

I glanced at Kili, who was staring at me with wide eyes. "Yeah," I said after a beat. "Gandalf said not to tell you. But - I told Kili anyway." I stared back at my boots.

There was some more silence, and then I heard the smile in Thorin's voice as he said warmly, "Freya, you seem to think we won't accept you because of your past. Have you not proved, over the course of this quest, that you are worthy of our respect and affection? You have. So do not think that this changes much, especially when it was you who killed the Dragon. Thanks to you, we can now journey to the treasure room. It merely makes us more impressed. After all, you must be very powerful indeed, to have the power to send yourself to another world for twenty-four years."

"It was only three months of this time," I murmured, feeling my cheeks burn. "But - thank you, Thorin. It means a lot."

I could almost see him incline his head in reply, a tiny smile on his face. There was yet another brief silence, and then we started moving towards the treasure room.

Once there, Bilbo seemed to disappear. I followed Kili, my mouth open as I saw the room for real this time.

Huge mounds of gold were piled on the floor, and instruments hung from the walls, jewels in huge piles, solid gold dinnerware, including goblets encrusted with precious gems, huge amounts of armour, and weapons littered the entire cavern.

The dwarves spread out, but I picked my way after Kili until we were actually alone and the yells of the others died away, except for the echoes. Then Kili turned and looked at me. "You know, you never explained why you came down here last night."

I chuckled, despite my surprise. "I'm a fangirl, Kili. On Earth - you remember me telling you about the film of this whole adventure?"

"Yes," he replied warily.

"Well, one of my favourite actors on the planet did the voice for Smaug. Since this is film-verse, it still sounds like him, even though I know that it's real." I hadn't realised that it hadn't been a purely fangirling thing, either. It had sort of been a reminder of the life that I had lost.

But I wouldn't trade this for anything, I thought to myself, looking at Kili. Anything at all.

As if he could read my thoughts, Kili asked softly, "You don't regret it, do you? Coming back here?"

I sighed. then stepped forward and caught up his lips in a sudden whirlwind of heat and passion. After a minute, I broke away, eliciting a tiny moan from Kili. I rested my forehead against his and whispered, my breathing ragged, "Never. I wouldn't have missed this if I got to spend a thousand years on Earth, even if I died tomorrow."

His grip on my hair and my back tightened and I gasped slightly. "Don't say that," he said, his voice rougher than usual, making me shiver. "Don't say things like that."

I, in turn, tightened my fists in his shirt and hissed, "Fine. If you say so." And then on impulse I lunged forward and sank my teeth into his ear, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough so that he gasped in surprise and pain.

In retaliation he shoved me against the wall of the cavern and held me there, pinning my arms with one hand and a knee. Then he took his hand and started making swirling patterns with his fingertip on my collarbone.

Let it be noted, however, that while he did that I did not let go of his ear.

He let out an animalistic growl and I snarled back between my teeth, "Don't tell me what to do."

He gave a little jumping chuckle, deep in his throat where I actually felt it vibrate and I couldn't suppress a shudder. "I do what I want."

Suddenly, his finger's movements reminded me forcibly of what the goblin captain had done to me underground, under the Misty Mountains. I let out a ragged gasp, raking my teeth along Kili's ear and dragging a grunt of pain from him while wrenching my hands from his grasp. A red haze settled over my vision and I let out a feral cry, shoving him backwards with both hands on his chest and punching him in the jaw, causing him to double over with a yell of pain.

Then I slumped over next to a pile of gold, panting and gasping over and over, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kili."

He eventually stopped rubbing his jaw and said softly, "Are you okay?"

I shook my head briefly. "Goblins," I muttered by way of explanation.

He got the gist, however. He sat down next to me and pulled me into his lap (in the most innocent sense of the term) and cuddled with me, just holding me close to him. "I'm sorry, Freya," he murmured into my hair, having buried his face in it already. "I didn't know."

I shivered, burying my face in the little dip where his neck met his shoulder.

We sat like that for a long while, trying to forget.

*tour guide voice* And on your right, you will see this fanfiction moving back into it's original state.

Basically, that.^