Warnings: Language. A lot of swear words. Some injuries. Some blood. Manly tears. Stubborn Dwarves.

Day three, somewhere after sunrise

Sam

I woke up to a furious yell.

Well, that's one unusual way to wake up.

It took my sleepy brain a couple of seconds to figure out what was going on. Then I hurled out of my room, bare-feeted and dressed in only my underwear and a plain black T-shirt, towards the barricade. When I arrived there, I found out that I had been right about what was happening.

Thorin had pushed Bilbo onto the barricade, hand knotted in the front of his shirt and sword drawn. He had found out that the Hobbit had stolen his precious Arkenstone.

I kept as quiet as possible; if I intervened, I might make it worse, and I wasn't planning on making it worse. My job was to make stuff better, after all.

I shivered. It was winter, and it was cold, but I couldn't bear turning away now. It felt like my feet had been glued to the floor.

Thorin stepped forwards, and Bilbo looked him in the eyes, a frightened expression on his face. Just when I thought that the King under the Mountain was going to either slit the burglar's throat or throw him over the wall, a loud voice sounded from somewhere in the huge army in front of the front door – wait, I hadn't even noticed that.

"It is my burglar, Thorin Oakenshield," Gandalf shouted, "and if you do not like him, please don't damage him. Let him go."

The Dwarf grumbled something under his breath, but he let go of Bilbo, who got to his feet, trembling. He seemed to understand that he had to climb down, or he'd get thrown down, so he started to clamber down the wall. No words were spoken as the Hobbit stood next to the Wizard, or after. There was a horrible, tense silence.

I knew that there'd be a couple of minutes before the Orcs would arrive, and that I had time to put on my clothes so that I wouldn't freeze to death, but I didn't dare to move. I watched in utter silence as Thorin spun around on his heels, majestic as usual, and stamped off to the hallway I had come from. He didn't even bother looking at me as he brushed past me, which was fine, otherwise he would've seen the relaxed look on my face.

Everything was going just as planned.

I knew that Thorin was now going to the Gallery of Kings, where he'd go even crazier, to the point that he figures it all out himself. I didn't exactly know how it worked, but I knew he'd cure himself of Dragon-sickness.

Now that their leader had left, the Dwarves turned to me.

"You know how it is going to end, do you not?" Dwalin asked me – I assumed that all of the Dwarves had been told why I was here. "What do we have to do, now?"

"We wait," I replied. It was as simple as that. "There'll be an army of Orcs, and they'll be defeated. If you do nothing at all – admit it, you're horribly outnumbered – they'll get defeated just as well. Stay here. I know who dies and who doesn't, and I assume you know as well. If you wanna keep your King under the Mountain, I advice you to stay here."

With that, I turned around and walked towards my room to put on my clothes before I turned into a popsicle. I was just putting on my grey Converses when I heard the sound of boots in the hallway. Thorin was returning – there was no one else who walked like that.

I had to hurry up, before he convinced his Company to go to the battle.

I knotted the shoelaces of my second shoe and threw my hair into a quick braid on the way to the wall, but I was too late.

I already heard the King's deep voice when I was only halfway there.

"Will you follow me one last time?"

I winced as I heard the Dwarfs' approving battle cries. I cursed under my breath and broke into a sprint. This wasn't going well at all.

When I reached the barricade, the Dwarfs were climbing down the rope. Most of them were already standing on the ground, among others Fíli. His brother was still climbing.

I growled in frustration and finally let out the thoughts I had been having for the past two days.

"You stubborn assholes!" I cried out. "You don't give a shit about who dies and who lives, do you? Goddamn blockheads!"

But nobody seemed to hear me over the battle sounds, and maybe that was for the best; if they had heard and understood what I was calling them, they'd never take me seriously.

I sighed. Now the only option was going with them and trying to protect at least one of them as well as I could. I needed a weapon. I sprinted towards the weapons room – fortunately, I knew where it was – and grabbed the first thing I saw. A sword. It was a little too big for me, but I couldn't care less at that moment. I went back to the barricade and started to glide down the rope.

The Dwarves had already gone; I was happy that I knew where they were going. Now I needed to get to the mountain without being beheaded. How the hell was I going to do that?

I stood there for a moment, just looking around in the shadow of the wall, before I realised that I was wasting way too much time. There wouldn't be more than a couple of minutes before the first heir of Durin would be killed – Fíli.

I decided that I didn't care whether I was killed or not, and I hurled into the fighting mass. Luckily, I was quite small, so I could dodge most of the weapons, because they were above me.

I was about halfway there when suddenly a huge figure stood in front of me.

An Orc.

And I was his target.

He grinned cruelly and swung his huge sword towards me. I ducked out of the way just in time, and leaped through the gap between his legs. Then I disappeared in the crowd again.

My small victory had made me less careful, so I discovered, and before I even knew it, something hit my face.

It was someone's knee – I didn't care whether it was an enemy or not, because it had gone by accident, anyway – and it hit me really hard. I felt my nose crack, and my hand flew towards it instinctively.

I swore loudly. Ow, that hurt!

I was bleeding, too, and badly. I probably looked like I was some war victim, which I would be if I didn't move out of the way quickly. I broke into a sprint, and I didn't stop until I had reached the foot of the mountain, where Fíli, Kíli, Thorin, Dwalin and Bilbo were, although I could see only four of them.

I had to hurry.

As I started to run up the slope, I pressed my sleeve against my nose to stop it from bleeding. My vest was ruined, anyway.

I arrived just in time, at exactly the right spot, and maybe that wasn't accidentally. I was standing behind an Orc. Azog, to be precise, and he was holding Fíli in a dangerous grasp, and he was probably explaining that the three of them would be killed, and the Orcs would finally have their revenge, blah blah blah.

I knew that if I didn't act quickly, the poor Dwarf would be killed, and that's why I didn't hesitate.

I let out a loud cry and hurled towards the ugly creature, and before he could even turn around, I had hit him on the head with my sword. Like, really hard.

Azog went still and fell forwards, pushing Fíli off the rock. The Dwarf fell down with a yelp and crashed into the rock with a sickening crack, a couple of metres below.

I ran towards the edge of the plateau where I was and peered down. Fíli had landed on one of the rare patches of snow, which had softened his landing a little bit. He was unconscious, but he wasn't bleeding. I assumed it was just because he had hit his head really hard.

Thorin, who was on the same 'floor' as his nephew, and Kíli, who was a little above that, were both staring at me with their mouths open. Thorin crouched next to Fíli, then stood up.

"He is alive," he said, visibly relaxing.

Kíli let out a relieved sigh. He hurried down to get to his older brother, and kneeled next to him to try to wake him up.

It was just then that a loud scream came from some place near.

It was Tauriel, and she was being attacked by Bolg.

Kíli's eyes grew wide in horror – he knew, too.

"Tauriel," he muttered. He got to his feet and ran off to the place where the sound came from. That was good – otherwise Tauriel would be killed – but I needed to act quickly, before Kíli would be killed, too.

All of a sudden, the leader inside of me woke up.

"Thorin," I yelled, "get over here and finish this guy off."

I pointed at Azog, who was still unconscious, but I knew he'd wake up any time soon.

"I'm going after Kíli and distract Bolg. And both of you..." I looked at Thorin and Fíli, "stay alive."

Thank goodness they didn't ask questions. I made my way down as fast as I could, while Thorin followed the same path upwards. I broke into a sprint as soon as I reached smoother grounds.

I was just in time, once again; Bolg had already thrown Tauriel onto the ground and Kíli onto a set of stairs, and he had bent over the last one in a threatening pose.

I couldn't really think of anything, so I just yelled: "'Hey, you! Fat-ass!"

Bolg spun around immediately, pointing his attention to me, and started to stamp towards me. I jogged in another direction.

"Come and get me, you dumbfuck!"

Luckily, that gave Kíli just enough time to scramble up, grab his bow and an arrow, and shoot Bolg through his head. The Orc crashed down immediately.

I locked eyes with Kíli. We were both out of breath; I could see his chest heaving from ten metres distance. I gave a nod, and he returned the gesture, and I turned around to help Tauriel up. She gave me a breathless smile.

"Thank you," she said, and I couldn't say anything else than "No problem."

The following quiet was interrupted by a cry; a loud, raw cry. I couldn't help but feel frustrated, though I knew very well what was going on.

I knew that Thorin was about to be killed, and that he was probably screaming because Azog had pierced his foot, but couldn't there be any moment of fucking rest? But there wasn't, and I wasn't planning on getting it at the cost of someone's life.

I dug up the little bit of energy I had left and ran into that direction. I heard that the Dwarf and the Elf I had just saved followed my lead.

When we arrived, Thorin was already lying on the ice, and Azog was on top of him, slowly cutting through his opponent's sword to eventually kill him.

I knew I'd never get there in time; I wasn't the best runner on ice, and I wasn't strong enough to kill the Orc. I spun around to give the two people behind me an order, but they already knew.

They aimed carefully, and before Azog even knew it, his head had been pierced by two arrows. He was dead in an instant.

The three of us broke into a run simultaneously. I slipped on the ice a couple of times, but I was happy to know that I wouldn't have to hurry off it again. I was done for today. The Battle would be won by the other armies, and it would be really soon.

With the help of Tauriel and Kíli, I rolled Azog's body off Thorin.

The King gasped a simple "Thank you", but he obviously wasn't prepared for the hug his nephew was going to give to him. They both started sobbing of happiness, and maybe a little of pain, because Thorin's foot was, well, pretty much fucked up, and because we'd find out that Kíli had broken a couple of ribs later on, but mostly happiness.

When Fíli came stumbling around the corner, a couple of minutes later, a huge smile appeared on his face, and he ran towards his family and threw himself into the hug.

Tauriel and I were looking a little uncomfortably at the pile of joyfully hugging Dwarves, although both with a smile on our faces.

A lot of manly tears were spilled that day, but none of sadness.

It wasn't until the sun had started to set that they finally stood up and started to walk back to the Lonely Mountain, the two brothers supporting their uncle. Tauriel had left by then, probably to help in Dale, where they had used some houses to aid the injured.

We, of course, didn't go there; the Company wanted a victory party that evening, and nobody wanted to miss that, right?

Right.

A/N:

It took me slightly longer to write this, but it's longer than the previous chapters, so I hope that makes it up. I loved this chapter, and I hope you loved it, too! Please let me know what you think, I'm a little uncertain about if it's all right or if it's unrealistic or something :P