"Um – Mr Baggins?"

"Bilbo, please," said the hobbit, turning around to face Ella, smiling. He had been watching Bombur cook up dinner. "What can I do for you, Miss Aidan?"

"Ah, it's Ella. Please." She managed a smile. "It's just that my clothes are dry. And I was wondering if you could help me keep watch while I changed."

"Oh." Bilbo blinked. "Of course."

He followed her a little ways into the abandoned farmhouse and stood at the door where he could see the whole company, his back towards her.

Ella changed hurriedly, slipping back into her pair of black Ali Baba pants she remembered getting in Vietnam while on a school trip. She paused, blinking back tears as she remembered bargaining with Jerelee and Tiffany and Addy, trying to get the best price for a steadily increasing number of Ali Baba pants. Jerelee, short and cheerful and always laughing, a hard worker, always so focussed on studies. Tiffany, the joker, laughing hysterically, but always ready for a deep conversation about the world, from the portrayal of relationships in movies to the motivations behind particular Happy Meal toys. Addy, always so self-conscious, always ready to boost up someone's self-esteem. She could see all of them; Jerelee hunched over a book, tackling some mathematics problem; Tiffany, sitting across her in McDonald's, holding up a Tom and Jerry Happy Meal toy as they discussed the meaning behind the production of that particular type of toy; Addy, holding one dress before her and then another, asking for opinions, before dropping everything to put something up to Ella and declare it perfect.

Then Ella shook her head and continued.

She'd left on her high-top Converse, the purple straps laced to the top. She dragged off Bilbo's layer of clothing, pulling on instead her oversized white T-shirt, the sleeves folded up, and the Adidas hoodie jacket she had been wearing as the wind was blowing in on the pier.

Her watch, the white Swatch watch she'd had for so long, had stopped working, but at least she still had it, and the mess of colourful bracelets she always had on her right hand.

She felt better. Even if she wasn't home, back with Emma and her parents and Jerelee and Tiffany and Addy, she was at least wearing something that was from home. Yes; every single thing on her reminded her of them.

She tapped Bilbo on the shoulder, passing back a neatly folded stack of clothes.

"Thank you."

"My pleasure," he said, smiling at her. It was, he thought, rather nice to have someone who seemed like she had real, proper manners; not that the dwarfs weren't polite, it was just that they rather took things for granted most of the time and hardly ever asked or gave a "thank you".

"Dinner!" they heard Bombur call, and he hurried away to pack away his set of clothes while she moved towards the circle of dwarfs uncertainly.

"This is lovely soup," she said, from her position on the log, smiling at Bombur, the large dwarf beaming back at her.

"Good food is important," he said. "Want some more?"

She shook her head, saying that she was much too full; one bowl was more than enough for her.

She sank back into her seat, feeling more comfortable. After accepting that she would probably be spending a long, long time with these dwarfs, she decided that she had to trust them; after all, they had saved her and were treating her kindly. And they were wonderfully friendly and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. She was feeling more and more like herself every moment; feeling more and more like she was around old friends, close friends, despite having known them only half a day.

It was a scary feeling.

She decided she was probably just latching herself onto them and feeling so much at ease because they had found her and they were the only people she knew.

"You've hardly eaten a thing, lass," said Gloin.

She smiled sheepishly, uncertainly. "I never had a very big appetite."

"He's been a long time," she heard Bilbo say, marching back towards them.

"Who?"

"Gandalf."

"He's a wizard! He does as he chooses." Bofur pushed two bowls of soup at the hobbit. "Here, do us a favour; take this to the lads."

"I'll go with you," said Ella, standing up hurriedly and leaving the bowl at her place. She was missing Fili and his easy smiles and laughter. The earlier nervousness and increased heart rate due to his presence had disappeared the longer she had sat on his pony with him, talking. She wouldn't deny that the dwarfs were fun to be around, and Balin was most certainly a comforting presence, and they were all trying to make her comfortable, but Fili would be nice right about now.

"Stop it, you've had plenty," she heard Bofur say, most likely to Bombur, as she took a bowl of soup from Bilbo and walked with him, the laughter of the dwarfs fading into the darkness.

And then she realised that Fili and Kili were staring out into the dark, hardly glancing at them.

"What's the matter?" Bilbo asked, having taken both bowls and stood in between them, holding out the food and being completely ignored.

"We're supposed to be looking out for the ponies," Kili said.

"Only we've encountered a slight problem," said Fili.

"We had sixteen."

"Now there's fourteen."

They all examined the group of ponies, Ella blinking uncertainly in the darkness, trailing after them.

"Daisy and Bungo are missing."

"Well, that's not good. That is not good at all. Shouldn't we tell Thorin?"

"Uhh, no. Let's not worry him. As our official burglar, we thought you might like to look into it."

Ella blinked again. "Official burglar?"

At that, Fili and Kili whirled around to face her, eyes wide, realising for the first time that she was there. "Ella!"

"I get it," she said, taking in Fili's worried face, Kili's wide eyes. "It's one of those super-secret things about this super-secret quest I'm not allowed to know about, right?"

"You told her?" Kili all but yelped, Fili looking sheepish.

"I guessed," she said, quickly. "It wasn't very difficult."

"You, my pretty little thing," Kili said, "should not let my uncle find out you know that we are on a quest."

"Well, uh…look, some – something big uprooted these trees," Bilbo was saying, allowing her to turn to face him instead, letting her hair swing forward to hide her blushing face. Pretty little thing?

Kili, she decided, was just trying to be nice and gallant and chivalrous and a prince-on-a-white-horse type of guy. Or maybe he was just too female-deprived.

"That was our thinking," Kili turned back to him.

"Something very big, and possibly quite dangerous."

"Hey! There's a light. Over here. Stay down."

Ella followed, quietly as she could, as Fili led them to where he had seen the light.

"What is it?"

"Trolls."

"Hoot twice like a barn owl, once like a brown owl," Ella was muttering to herself, squirming in the sack that the trolls had thrown her into, gnashing her teeth. "Drop him. Everyone attacking at once, swarming all over the place, axes and swords and whatnot."

"What's that thing muttering?" one of the trolls, disgusting and slimy and just plain gross, was staring at her at where she was squashed up against Kili.

"I don't think that's a dwarf," another troll said, sticking a finger up his nose. Ella closed her eyes, wincing. Oh god. Disgusting.

"Looks skinnier than this lot," the third troll said, poking her, then turning back to the fire. "Let's eat her later. Dessert."

The other two grinned and nodded as Ella fought down the rising wave of nausea.

Lovely. Get rescued from drowning in one world to be eaten by trolls in another.

She hadn't even lasted a day.

She muttered some more, falling quiet just as she heard one of the trolls say " – fancy being turned into stone."

Ella raised her head.

"Wait! You are making a terrible mistake!"

She glanced up slightly to see Bilbo trying to jump to his feet.

"You can't reason with them, they're half-wits!"

"Half-wits? What does that make us?"

Finally Bilbo got to his feet and jumped over to the trolls.

Ella couldn't help but watch, amused, as Bilbo attempted to play for time, the trolls looking down at him suspiciously. Somehow – she didn't know why, or how – she knew, suddenly, that they would not die tonight.

"Yeah, he's got worms in his…tubes," she heard Bilbo say.

"In – in fact, they all have, they're in-infested with parasites," Bilbo prattled on as the troll dropped Bombur. "It's a terrible business; I wouldn't risk it, I really wouldn't."

"Parasites, did he say parasites?"

"We don't have parasites! You have parasites!"

"What are you talking about, laddie?"

Growling slightly, Ella jerked in her sack to kick at any dwarf she could reach, just as Thorin gave them all a firm kick.

Kili glanced at her, back at his uncle, and understanding dawned on his face, just as the others quickly grasped what Bilbo was trying to do.

"I've got parasites as big as my arm!"

"Mine are the biggest parasites, I've got huge parasites!"

"We're riddled!"

Ella couldn't help but choke back laughter, shifting in her sack, Thorin's eyes falling on her and his lips unwillingly twisting up into a smile.

They were untied within a short time once the trolls had all turned to stone, Fili almost instantly heading over to Ella to make sure she was alright. To his surprise, he found Ori already there, the two of them exchanging uncertain, nervous smiles, standing nearly a foot away from each other.

"You are okay, aren't you?" he heard Ella asking, worriedly, as he neared. Fili remained where he was; it was clear they were halfway through a conversation. "I mean, you were tied up on top of that fire, and everything – "

"Oh, I'm fine," Ori said, hurriedly, his face turning slightly red. "Yes, yes, I mean, it wasn't so bad, it wasn't so bad at all."

Ella smiled. "That's good, then." Then her eyes widened. "Wait here a moment!"

She hurried over to the ponies, found Fili's, and drew out a neatly folded cloak from one of the packs.

"This is yours," she said, hurrying back and passing him back his cloak. "I forgot to pass it to you yesterday – I'm fine, I've got this now if I'm cold." She tugged at the coat-like garment with a hood over her top, looking down but glancing up, a small, uncertain smile on her face, when Ori tried to return her the cloak.

"Well, if you're certain – you can, uh, you can always borrow it again," Fili heard Ori say. "It's perfectly alright, all you have to do is, you know, uh, ask."

"I, ah, I'll keep that in mind," Ella said, her whole face turning pink as she did so.

Mahal. It looked as if Ori was just slightly besotted with her, after only having known her for less than a day – and Ella had no idea what to do.

"Find the troll-hole," Thorin all but barked as he swept past them, Gandalf in his wake.

At his voice, Ori took a few steps backwards nervously, smiled again at Ella and went to find his brothers.

Ella decided to stick to Fili.

He didn't seem to mind her company, asking her if she could see as far as him even with her funny glasses, laughing when she couldn't and wincing when she whacked him on the arm. She was, Fili realised, far from delicate. Even through his garments, he could feel the whack sting.

The whacking, hopefully, meant that she was getting even more comfortable around them.

"Oh, what's that stench?" he heard Nori say as they neared the cave.

"It's a troll-hoard," Gandalf said. "Be careful what you touch."

Fili, as he had done the previous night, lifted her off the pony, grinning at her disgruntled expression.

"You're going in?" he said, alarmed, when he saw her walking towards the entrance of the hole.

"Well, I might as well look inside. As far as I can stand the smell." She scrunched up her nose. "It's not like I'll ever get a chance to see this kind of thing again."

She suddenly fell silent, remembering the hundreds of times she had heard that said. A favourite line of her father's, whenever he booked them expensive holidays and flew them all over, Egypt, Italy, London, Turkey. Then she shook her head again, pushed it out of her mind.

She clambered through into the hole.

She was out only a few seconds later, coughing and spluttering.

"Disgusting smell, isn't it?" Fili said, cheerfully.

"I hate you," was all she said, causing him to laugh.

"I'm sure you've really secretly grown to love me in the last day," he informed her. "Really, you're just denying your feelings."

"And you," she told him, sticking out her tongue, "are completely delusional."

"Miss Ella," Kili called out, "if my brother's annoying you, you're welcome to stick with me." He grinned at her, raised his eyebrows.

As he'd expected, she flushed.

"Ah, uh, no thanks, Kili. I'm good."

She moved to where Ori was instead, seated with an open book in his hands, sketching the three trolls from the night before.

Ella felt something catch in her throat.

Drawing. Sketching.

Emma.

Ori looked up when the first tear fell onto his sketch.

"Oh, god, I am so, so sorry," Ella was blabbering, rubbing at her eyes, blinking furiously. "I – I'll just go away, I'm so sorry – "

"Hey, it's okay!" Ori looked alarmed, and patted the ground next to him. "It's alright. Sit down."

With nowhere else to go except maybe back to Fili, she swallowed and sunk to the ground, rubbing at her eyes.

"I'm really, really sorry."

"It's alright, it doesn't matter." Ori was smiling at her, gently, and somehow Ella found herself smiling back. "If it's okay – I mean, did something happen? To, um – " He gestured at her face, as if wondering what was the most tactful way to ask why she was crying.

"No, it's just – " Ella paused, swallowed, wondering if she should continue or leave Ori in peace. To her own disgust, she found the need to talk spill over her, and, reluctantly, she gave in. "It's just that my younger sister – she loved to draw. To sketch. Anything and everyone and everywhere. And she was good, she was really, really good. And she'd just have this little sketchbook, and if she saw something interesting she would just start drawing – "

She swallowed again. No more crying. No.

"Ella? Is something wrong?"

Fili was on the ground in front of her, watching the girl bury her face in her hands, her body shaking slightly. Kili wasn't far behind, placing himself next to her instead.

"Yeah, I just – I just – memories, you know. A shock." She swallowed, lifted her head back up.

Her eyes were red, she knew. Red and puffy. And so was her face, probably. She was waiting for Fili to back away, mutter some excuse and saying that he'd leave her alone if she was feeling alright.

Instead, he lifted a hand and brushed away some hair that had fallen over her eyes.

She froze. Tensed up.

Don, making her laugh as they stood on the beach with their class during a barbeque, brushing her hair away and asking her why she had cut bangs.

No. No. Everything had to go. She couldn't break down like this every time she was reminded of something. Especially not if she could ever return.

"I'm fine," she said, moving her face back, away from his hand. Turned to Ori. "Could I see any of your other sketches?"