Hello! I'm sorry it took me so long to upload this! Been really busy with schoolwork and training!
Anyway, I hope you like this!
Been having a lot more inspiration for this fic now! (even though it's come at the cost of my not having a lot of inspiration for my other fics oh dear)
Reviews make me write faster, I promise!
Jerelee sat with her back against the wall of Beorn's house, staring into the garden surrounding her.
"You hardly know him."
She jerked upright, scrambled onto her feet.
"Beorn!"
He stood leaning against the wall not far away, arms crossed, watching her.
"You hardly know him," he repeated. "The dwarf. And dwarfs are greedy creatures, seeing only the gold before them. You should not pine for him so."
Jerelee knew her face was red.
"You shouldn't generalise them like that," she said, quietly. "He's not like that."
"You haven't seen dwarfs around gold."
"He's not like that," she repeated, stubbornly.
She thought of Ori, sweet, awkward Ori, the paper he had pressed into her hands, which she had unfolded once they'd disappeared into the distance.
She smiled faintly to herself.
Beorn said nothing for a while, and they stood there, him leaning against the wall, her standing straight upright, refusing to look at him.
"Jerelee," he said, and he moved forward, placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. "It is not likely that he will come back, or that you should ever see him again. And should you do so, your life is but a fraction of his own years. The race of men may be weak and greedy for power, but there are a few good men as well, and I would have you find someone from your own race who can make you smile than to wait your whole life for a dwarf."
Despite herself, the girl chuckled.
"A few weeks living with you, and you think you're my father?"
And she turned to look at him, the smallest of smiles breaking out across her face.
And then the smile faded.
"I know you mean well," she said, turning her head to look out at the garden once more. "And you've taken care of me, and I know you don't want me to be hurt, and I am grateful for that, I really, truly am. But there are some things worth believing in, and worth waiting for, no matter how long it takes or how hopeless or ridiculous it may seem."
He looked down at her, for a long, long moment.
"Come, then," he said, finally. "There are some things in the house you can help me with."
That night, Ella curled up next to Fili, as she always did, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her.
"Is it still painful?" Fili asked. "Your leg?"
Ella shook her head. "No."
They lay like that for a while, staring out of the bars of the cell.
"What do you think will happen," she said, "at the end of everything?"
She didn't want to say what was really on her mind at the moment.
What will happen to us?
"Make a home in Erebor," Fili said, promptly, without hesitation.
"A home?"
Fili nodded in the darkness – she could see his blond head moving up and down, see him turn his face towards her, his eyes brightening slightly. "We grew up on stories of the Mountain – Kili and me. We were still very young when the dragon came and we fled Erebor. But, somehow, it is home, to us. It always has been."
"Oh."
She didn't know what to say, how to respond. She had never been very good at that kind of thing – it had always been Jerelee who knew exactly the right thing to say, or Emma. And she didn't know how to say what was on her mind, how to ask what she wanted to ask.
Will you stay with Thorin? With Kili? With the other dwarves?
Where will I go?
It was selfish, she knew. This was the dwarves' quest. Their quest for their home. She was simply an unfortunate accident, an unexpected companion.
"But," added Fili, after a moment, "I don't know how you'd like living in Erebor. It's underground, you know."
"What?"
She raised her head, twisted her neck to look at him.
"We could figure something out, I suppose," he said, thoughtfully. "Ori or Balin might have some ideas, you never know – "
"Wait," Ella interrupted, "stay in Erebor? With you?"
He blinked at her. "You don't – you don't want to?"
"Of course I want to," she said, and she buried her head in his shoulder, in his long blond hair. "Of course I do – I just thought – I didn't know if you – I mean, you have Kili and Thorin and all the others, and you're like going to be King after Thorin – "
"Which will be a long time yet," he said. "Of course you're going to stay with me. We'll figure something out."
And to Ella, right then, it didn't seem like the dragon or whatever it was that had taken over Erebor, mattered at all.
It was late in the night when Fili woke up to Ella twisting about in her sleep.
Her face was pale, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her arms wrapped around herself as she curled over.
"No," she was murmuring, "no, no, no – "
Her voice was becoming high, panicked, before fading into whimpers, and Fili heard her crying, sobbing.
Panic overwhelmed him them, hard and fast and strong.
"Ella."
He wrapped his arms around her tightly, placed his head next to hers.
"Ella," he repeated, softly, "Ella, Ella, wake up, it's just a dream, Ella – "
A choked gasp, a shudder, and then her arms were around him, and she was pulling him close, burying her face in his chest, shivering.
"Fili," she was mumbling. "Oh my god, Fili, I can't – I can't – "
"Shh," he said, softly, quietly, holding her close. "Shhh."
It was a long while before Ella managed to compose herself again, before she managed to rub her hands over her eyes and push herself upright and away from Fili, not looking at him.
"Ella – "
"Thank you," she said, quietly, staring down at her hands.
"Ella."
She raised her eyes to meet his.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, her voice low. "Please. I don't. I can't."
He watched her for a long moment, before finally nodding, taking her hands in his.
Ella didn't like feeling weak or useless.
And yet that had all she had been, these past few days – or these past few weeks, she couldn't even keep track anymore.
What with her injury, and her time of the month, and her nightmares, and her incapability of managing to protect herself.
She curled up against Fili, his arms around her loosely.
She didn't deserve him.
He was good, and kind, and strong, and brave, and caring, and simply just much, much too good for her.
After all, what was she? Selfish. Weak. Pathetic. Slow. Awkward. Useless. Clumsy. Careless. Emotionally weak. Stubborn. Proud.
But for some strange reason or other, Fili didn't seem to care about all that. It was as if he looked at her, and saw something wonderful and amazing.
She wasn't sure, however, if that was just what she wanted to see. Maybe he didn't really look at her that way. Maybe she was just deluding herself.
But whether he looked at her and saw something wonderful and amazing or not, he cared for her. She knew he did. She knew she didn't deserve it. She didn't deserve to have someone as wonderful and good as him care for her, and especially not at the level that Fili cared for her.
She thought of Jerelee, who had always scolded her for having so little confidence, for having such low self-esteem.
Maybe, Ella thought, what she shouldn't be doing was to think of how much she didn't deserve Fili. Because he seemed to think that there was something about her worth caring about. And she didn't want to lose him. Not ever.
Maybe what she needed to do was to prove to herself that she did deserve him.
It was after Tauriel left the dark-haired dwarf's cell that Legolas finally made his way down to do one last check on all the prisoners.
He scowled fiercely as he thought of that dwarf whom Tauriel had smiled at so – what was his name again? Kili? – and his face hardened.
"You didn't let her know, did you?"
His eyes fell on the strange, dark human girl from before, leaning against the blond dwarf, who had fallen asleep. Her eyes, bright behind the strange glass contraption in front of them, were fixed on him.
Legolas' gaze flickered to the dwarf next to her.
"He won't wake up," she said. "He's much too tired. And you're not answering the question. You didn't let her know that you care for her, did you?"
"Tauriel," Legolas said, his voice sharp, "is a captain of the guard, and my friend."
The girl shrugged. "It's your loss that you didn't want to let her know how you feel."
Legolas opened his mouth to reply, then shut it when he took in exactly what she had said, and what she was implying. "You think that she has feelings for your dark-haired friend."
The girl spread her arms, raised her eyebrows at him.
"Don't you think so? I saw you watching them."
But Legolas didn't answer.
His gaze was fixed on the swirling patterns on the inside of her right wrist.
Her eyes flickered downwards, and she drew her arms close to her, crossing them.
"You are an inter-dimensional traveller."
She looked up at him again, her eyes guarded.
"Maybe."
"It matters not what you say," he said. "The proof is there."
"What does it matter, anyway? Whether I'm from here or not?"
"It does not."
Ella opened her mouth, and then shut it again, unsure of what to say.
Legolas found himself stepping closer to the bars of the cell. "What is it like?"
She blinked at him. "I'm sorry?"
"To travel from one life to a new one."
She stared at him, for a long moment.
No one had ever asked her that.
The company had asked her plenty of questions about her old life, and were such a huge part of her new life here in Middle Earth. Even both Elrond and Gandalf had asked after her old life, had asked why she had been given this chance, had asked her so many things. They had all helped her adjust into her new life here.
But none had ever asked about what it had been like to travel from an old life to a new one.
Not even Fili.
"Disconcerting," she said, slowly. "It's – I mean, I try not to think about it. One moment, I'm in a world where there are no elves or dwarves or dragons or hobbits or anything, and suddenly I'm thrown into a world overflowing with them. And I have things that I miss, and people I miss so much that sometimes I think there's an empty hole in my heart. But, I mean, it wasn't so bad. I mean, there were things that kept me sane, and made it okay. There are things that make this new life not so bad, you know? Things that made it easy for me to smile and to let go of the pain of losing my old life."
Her eyes flickered to Fili.
Legolas watched her thoughtfully, not saying anything.
"Do you spend all your time killing spiders?" Ella asked, hurriedly, after a long silence. It felt as if she had said too much, revealed too much.
He chuckled, slightly.
"No," said Legolas. "We protect our borders, that is all. My father has little love for these dark beasts that enter our realm."
She looked at him, slightly confused. "Your father? Is he, like, in charge of defence, or something?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"He is King of the Woodland Realm."
Ella stared at him for a long moment.
"Oh, god," she said. "There are way too many princes and kings and all this royalty stuff in this place."
"I suppose you do not meet your king or his family often, then."
She smiled at him wryly. "I don't even have a king, where I come from."
Fili stirred in his sleep, and she turned to look at him.
Legolas watched as her eyes softened when her gaze fell on him, how her hands automatically moved to cover his.
He felt a strange emptiness in his heart, and Tauriel flashed into his mind.
"I shall leave you now," he said.
Ella nodded, absently.
Quietly, softly, he continued on his round.
Ella rested her head on Fili's shoulder, curled up and closed her eyes.