A/N: My darlings, this chapter is written by RagdollPrincess, and it is the beginning of the end for both our stories, her What the Future Brings and my Thorin's Queen. If you want to find out what happens with her OC and Kili right after this one, you will have to go to her page and read it :)
I will be dealing with the consequences of this chapter for my pairing, Thorin and Wren in the next few chapters, and then the story is done.
Written by RagdollPrincess
"Thank God, it's warmer down here," Reese sighed as she followed Adam and Borgia into the courtyard at Rivendell.
"I'd rather be home," Adam grunted.
"I think this is the last trip I'll be making for awhile," Reese agreed.
"Won't argue with that," Adam muttered.
Reese rubbed her hands together vigorously to warm them, not noticing until she'd run into him that Adam had stopped abruptly before her. Her breath left her as Borgia ran into her from behind, clearly also not paying attention.
"What the …, " Reese asked as she peered around Adam to see what had caused him to stop so suddenly.
"Is that who I think it is?" Adam asked in a low voice. Borgia hissed. Splayed before them on a bench in the courtyard in Rivendell, lay none other than Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain, looking incredibly smug, while a petite ginger haired woman of Men stretched above him like a cat scratching his beard and giggling while he teasingly ran his hand up her heavy velvet skirt.
"We're in Rivendell, right?" Adam muttered, although Reese didn't miss the menacing tone in his voice. She had shared with them the details of her run in with Thorin and Balin when they had returned to Bree from the Shire to pick her up just four weeks earlier. Neither Reese nor Borgia answered as they stared at the pair in dumbfounded silence. She hadn't expected to encounter the dwarves again in Rivendell.
The majestic King Under the Mountain suddenly became aware he and the woman were not alone and looked up at them startled, blinking uncomprehendingly. Then several things happened at once.
Reese found her brain was moving much more quickly than it had been a month earlier now that she'd moved into the second trimester. She was sure she was in the second trimester because she was no longer painfully tired, replaced with instead being painfully aroused at all times. However, she wasn't thinking of her constant state at this moment. She was not going to miss a second opportunity to speak with Kili.
"Kili!" she hollered up into the valley, hoping her calls would reach him, as she began to sprint towards the steps leading up from the courtyard into Rivendell.
Thorin, whose mind appeared to have realised the same as Reese's, unceremoniously dumped the woman on his lap to the cobblestones. The woman gave a small squeak as her backside hit the hard ground. That was going to leave a bruise. She was a ginger afterall. The woman stared after Thorin in astonishment as he leapt to his feet and plummeted towards Reese, remarkably quickly for a dwarf with both a prominent erection and limp. She didn't remember noticing his limp in Bree. He seemed to be favouring his right leg. Had that happened since then? Reese shook the thought from her head.
"Kili!" Reese shrieked again, her shrill panicked voice echoing off the valley and walls, hopefully heard over the sound of the falling water around them that didn't freeze, even in winter. "Kili! Kili!"
"Nooooo!" Thorin bellowed as he raced towards her. Reese didn't know how she was going to evade him. Even when not pregnant she was far from skilled in any form of combat compared to him. However, the ginger appeared to have quickly gleaned Thorin's purpose, and shouted after him.
"No! She's with child!" How the ginger knew this, Reese didn't know, since she was hardly showing through her bulky winter coat, instead looking as though she was just rounder and more plump than before. But she wasn't one to miss an opportunity. Thorin's pause, however slight, as he glanced at the ginger, gave Reese the opening she required as she turned to Thorin and kicked his right leg as hard as she could.
She'd been right that he'd been favouring this leg, and his groan was audible as he stumbled, only to be tackled by Borgia.
"Get off me!" Thorin gasped before cursing as Borgia held a knife to his throat.
"You like manhandling pregnant women who are alone in inns in Bree?" Borgia hissed. For whatever reason, Reese was one person in the world that Borgia was loyal to, cared for in any way for.
Reese glanced over her shoulder to make sure Borgia wasn't doing any real damage to Thorin and saw Adam had entered the scuffle as well while the ginger stood a few steps away turning in confusion between the tangle of men before her and Reese, who was now sprinting up the stairs.
"Kiliiiiiii!" Reese hollered, seeing out of the corner of her eye that Borgia now had Thorin pinned while Adam held Borgia's knife at bay, Adam was clearly not trying very hard to let Thorin get up.
Reese caught sight of a pair of elves nearby who had come to investigate the source of the disturbance but had paused, clearly unwilling to disrupt whatever was taking place between the dwarf king and the Futurians. They stood, mouths slightly agape in indignant shock, as Reese huffed up the stairs, pausing to shout again.
Her yell stopped in her throat when she saw Kili's dark head turn a corner as he peered down into the courtyard, a confused look on his emaciated face.
His features darkened when he saw Reese and he stopped, not moving any further towards her, but she was relieved to see that he didn't move to escape her either.
"Kili!" she gasped one last time, as she finished sprinting up the stairway.
He stood staring at her as though unable to believe that she was actually standing before him. She took a step towards him but stopped, instincts telling her she should not move any closer, and instead clutched the railing at the top of the stairs, gasping for breath.
She heard Thorin make muffled shouting noises and followed Kili's gazed glanced over her shoulder to see that Borgia and Adam had Thorin pinned like a starfish and that the petite woman was now straddling Thorin's chest, muffling his shouts with her small hand as he rolled his head around wildly trying to see where Reese and Kili were.
By this time they had drawn quite a crowd of elves who were much more interested in the scene before them than in the dwarf and Futurian that stood partially obscured by a tree on a small landing. She even saw that Balin had joined the crowd but was only sitting sweetly on the bench Thorin and the ginger had previously occupied, doing nothing to protect the king he was so loyal to. He glanced up at Reese and Kili before turning back to the scene before him.
Reese blinked once to make sure she was seeing the situation correctly before turning back to Kili. Her heart warmed to see a flash of confusion followed by humour cross his eyes before replaced again by the lost dead look that frightened her.
"Reese," he said in a flat tone, "Why have Wren, Adam, and Borgia attacked uncle in the courtyard?"
She bit her lip nervously. "Well, I believe Adam and Borgia are a bit annoyed at him for something he did to me in Bree a month ago," she began. Kili blinked when she referred to seeing Thorin in Bree as she continued. "I don't know why that woman is trying to muffle him, but maybe it has to do with his dumping her unceremoniously on her bum when he tried to tackle me before I started shouting for you and running up these stairs."
She watched him carefully as she spoke, gauging his reaction to see if he wanted to be protected from her. His lips twitched and he swallowed before he spoke. "Fili will be furious that he missed this."
Reese ventured to move towards him again and this time felt she had permission to come closer. She did so until she stood before him, all thought of the scene behind her now forgotten, when she realized she didn't know what to say.
She stood before him, mouth slightly open as though ready to speak, raised hands clasped in front of her chin, and hardly knew where to start. She watched his gaze travel over her, surveying her. He was calm, bordering on detached, but she saw sadness there as well. Deep, unrelenting sadness and grief.
She swallowed once and closed her eyes, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to cry, and fought back tears. She would for once in her life not selfishly put her own emotions before his. She may never change, but maybe just in this moment she could manage to be the person he deserved. Taking a breath she lowered her hands to hold them loosely before her and straightened her back, returning his sad calm gaze. She wished she saw hope there. She finally opened her mouth again and let the words come.
"Kili," she said his name, again. "I've spent months yearning for this moment. I've done nothing but think about if you would take me back, if you could forgive me for leaving like that, for being so foolish, so selfish, so inconsiderate. For not trusting you. I've spent hours and hours wondering if it I would be making it even worse if I tried to contact you, or even tried to go to you. And I realized just this moment that I never once spent a moment thinking about what I would say. And I feel so silly now, because you'd think I'd have thought about that, right? I mean, and the thing is all I could think about is getting to you, being with you, and if you still wanted me."
She paused. His face hadn't changed at all as she spoke, and he continued to survey her with the same detached sad expression, his beautiful brown eyes tired and hollow. She felt tears prick her eyes again and took another deep breath as she closed them tightly.
"I'm so sorry, Kili. For everything. For leaving the way I did. But not just for that. I'm sorry for everything I put you through, for always pushing you away. For being childish and selfish. I did everything I could to avoid the love you were offering me, and I shouldn't have. I should have gone forward, accepted it, even though it was scary." She paused and had to clasp her hands tightly again as they had started to shake.
"I've made so many mistakes, and the thing is, I'll probably make hundreds more. And you deserve so much better than me, but please, I need to know ... I mean ... I was hoping you could tell me, is it at all possible, that is." She felt herself stumble over her words, trying to not sound demanding or insistent. She wanted to make it easy for him to say no, and she avoided his gaze as she spoke the most difficult words.
"What I mean to say is that I love you, more than ever, and I never stopped loving you. And if you still love me, do you think you could give me a second chance? To show you how much I respect and trust you? To treat you the way you deserve to be treated? Because I see now how horrible I was, that I treated you as an inconvenience, as though having you in my life made it worse. And it didn't. It made it so much better, Kili. You brought me back to life. And I threw it away because I'm a selfish, self-centered woman, who always puts herself first. And that's probably not the best way to try to convince you, but I need you to see that I know that now. And the thing is that looking back, I don't think you should take me back, because I think I make you miserable. I made your life hell, while you made mine beautiful and joyful. But I hope that you'll give me a second chance, a chance to make your life better too, not just take for myself and suck you dry. To show you the love that you deserve."
She realized she'd started to ramble and as she stopped talking she wasn't even sure if she'd asked a clear question. She raised her eyes to his and gasped, seeing that they were full of tears. She'd never seen him cry and was astonished, unsure what to do or say. She moved to touch him, but he held his hand up abruptly, stopping her. She clasped her hands together again, gripping them tightly as her heart and throat ached as she saw him struggle with his pain.