Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!

There was little talk in the cave that night. By the time Fili and Kili arrived with the screen, Betta had pulled her hood over her face and lay sleeping – or, seeming to sleep – and they did not trouble her to help them with setting it up. Each brother had his own reasons for leaving her to rest. She made no sound or movement and did not rise even when they made too much noise leaning the iron frame against stone and propping it there with fallen rocks. All the muttered dwarvish curses could not cause her to stir.

Fili took advantage of Betta's presence and insisted on taking the first watch as usual. He was not above being suspicious of her, but Kili thought that she was truly asleep and so he would not argue as loudly as he might have done.

Once set as upright as they could lay it, the screen held in most of the heat that they needed, but it was of next to no use when it came to hiding the camp from prying eyes. Far across the cavern, the pale glow of the firelight could be seen shining through the holes in the wool, and the smell of smoke invaded every corner within two dozen yards. Luckily, the stink of the troll would dismay any curious scavengers, but just in case, Fili moved his seat outside the cave between the stone and the angle of the screen where he might yet feel the warmth on his back but, with his sharp dwarf's eyes, he could still see into the darkness of the cave beyond.

At first, Kili was satisfied to sit within the warmth of the cave, keeping wood on the fire and watching his brother's back. He could not leave him alone for longer, however, and the sight of Fili shivering in the dark soon drew him out.

Fili looked up when Kili joined him, and then smiled and shook his head as his brother sat down beside him on the cold floor. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, knee against knee, and each wrapped the corner of his cloak about the other that they might share the warmth of their bodies. With their heads bowed together, they spoke quietly, keeping their voices low so that they might not wake their guide.

But Betta was not sleeping. Her thoughts were too troubled to allow her to rest. The pain in her legs kept her awake and worrying long after Kili had gone to sit with his brother. She could hear their voices murmuring softly, but the crackling of the fire hid any chance that she might hear what it was they said. She guessed that they would speak in the dwarf tongue, a language that she never would or could understand; the thought deepened the sadness in her heart, reminding her that it was her own foolishness that had divided her from them. She wonder what had happened to the happy young woman who, only just that morning, had laughed in relief at finally being free from the burden of travelling in company.

The fire burned low and the night hours passed. The dim light and strain of long travel wore down on them all and first one, and then the other brother began to doze. Midnight found them both asleep at their post, but the troll had been a cunning old sentinel, and he had done his work well; the caves and caverns for more than a mile around his home had been cleared of vermin large and small. There was nothing that would trouble the sleep of the company save their own anxious thoughts and dreams.

Betta listened as the brother's voices dropped low. She watched their shoulders droop and their head bow down until their chins rested upon their chests. She smiled to see them so peacefully asleep in each other's arms. Her body ached and her foot might be broken, but at least all her troubles had kept them the two dwarves safe and together.

Carefully, quietly, she turned onto her side, her back to the fire, and she closed her eyes. Fili's angry words still burned in her ears. She still saw him turning away each time she was about to speak. He had the right to be angry with her; she had abandoned them. The purpose of a company was that each member defended and protected the others, and trusted those others to protect and defend them in their turn. Betta had failed in her duty to the dwarves. She had abandoned them, just as Bereg had once abandoned his family and future in favor of brooding over the long-dead past.

The hours passed and, in spite of her sorrow and anxious thoughts, Betta was eventually lulled to sleep by the heat of the cave and the quiet of the night. Neither brother would think to wake her for her turn at watch; they did not trust her.

From far away, the distant sound of the rushing stream reached her ears, invading her dreams and making her shiver in spite of the warm fire.

.

The cave was pitch dark. The brothers were gone. She lay alone, blind, unable to move, and the only sound that she could hear was the waves washing in the distance.

But no… not distant. They were nearby and practically upon her. She seemed to be laying on a cold, stone ledge beside a rushing torrent. She tried to open her mouth, to call for the dwarves, but her lips were frozen and her voice was gone. A soft whimper escaped from between her teeth, but that was all and there came no answer.

She imagined the rushing river beside her, wide and fast and strong, and then, beneath the sound of the waves, she heard a child's voice laughing. It was her brother's voice. It was Ananndil, laughing as he used to when he played beside the streams of their home in Lebennin, but he was not strong enough to swim in this fast water!

Betta felt a splash of cold on her bare hand. Where were the dwarves? Had she driven them off? Did they leave her secretly in the night just as she had left them? The waves lapped at her fingers and soaked into the sleeve of her coat. It was not a ledge, but a shore. The waves were washing closer. The water spread under her back as the tide came in.

She felt the cold rising over her body, enveloping her legs. The waves lapped at her chin, splashing over her mouth and nose. One of the stable hands from a neighboring farm had warned her against sleeping alone in a strange place. When he was hired to work the harvest on her father's farm, he had slept in the hay loft, but he had insisted on always keep someone by, even if it were only a dog tied to a post near his bed. The man had insisted that dying in your dreams meant dying in the real world as well, and if you did not have someone nearby to wake you...

Suddenly, a hand burst through the water and grasped her shoulder, pulling her out of her dreams. Betta gasped and kicked her legs, then cried out in pain at the strain of her injured muscles. Still half in sleep, she reached blindly for her knife, but it had been too long since she had needed it and her hand could not find the wooden hilt through the twisted folds of blanket and cloak. The hand released her and pulled back in surprise.

"Has it come to that?" a familiar voice said sadly. "You are angry with my brother, not with me." The fire had died down during the night and only the dimmest glow of embers could be seen. It was not enough to light the cave and Betta saw only blackness before her eyes.

"What? Who is that? Kili?" she said, reaching out her hand, afraid that the blindness in her dream had followed her into waking. "I cannot see you."

"Oh," the voice said, and she heard him around the cave, picking up the stacked logs in the corner. "I am sorry. I forget that you do not have a dwarf's eyes." She could hear the laughter in his voice.

Kili added wood to the fire and blew on the embers. He quickly brought the glow up to a low burning flame. It was still very dark, but now Betta could see the outline of his face and the light reflecting in his eyes. She saw the touch of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"I am not afraid of the dark," she insisted.

"Of course not," he said, putting away his smile, but his eyes still sparkled with amusement. "I did not say that you were, but your legs are stronger this morning." He put his hand to his side where she had kicked him. She was stronger, yes, but not strong enough and the blow had hardly been felt through his heavy coat.

"Morning?" she echoed as she lay back again. The memory of her nightmare was fading, but the pain in her body had returned and she ached all over. "It cannot be morning yet."

"Indeed, it is," he said. "The sun has been up for over an hour, and my brother rose with it, waking me. The weather is clear but still cold, and snow covers our trail. This place is secure, however, and it will be safe enough shelter for us to stay another night or two while you heal." Kili looked at her, a strange expression on his face. "It was Fili's idea to wait," he told her.

"He need not wait for me," she said, sadly. "I would rather you both leave while the sky is clear. I do not know whether I can manage here alone if I must also worry that you two are travelling through a storm." She tried to smile, but could not do it.

"You think that Fili would abandon you here?" Kili said, shaking his head. "Well, I will not try to convince you one way or the other. We will leave that to my brother. I only hope that he is able…" His words trailed off and he looked back toward the half-screened mouth of the cave.

"What do you hope?" Betta demanded, sitting up again. "What happened? Where is Fili?"

"Nothing has happened," he assured her. "We are all safe and sound. I only worry about my brother, as I have always worried about him. He is a headstrong dwarf and thinks that as the eldest he is the only one of us with a right to be concerned."

Kili sat down with a sigh and made himself comfortable against the wall of the cave. "I might say that I have worried about him more in the last few days. His duty to our uncle weights heavily on his shoulders, more now that it did before we joined your quest. Something had changed in him."

Betta looked away, and her cheeks flushed red with shame. "I do not mean you," Kili said quickly, "though that, too, has changed him. I think that something happened two nights ago when he and I were separated by the mist. I know that I heard whispers and saw strange lights, and he told me that he saw them as well, but then he hesitated. I think that there were other things that he saw upon the hillside, things that he will not speak of."

"More ghosts," Betta muttered.

"Perhaps," he said, thoughtfully, and then he looked up. "Perhaps you might get it out of him," he said.

"Me? Fili will not even look at me. Why would he confide in me something that he will not tell his brother?"

"You know of ghosts, and of strained family ties," Kili said. "And there is no harm in trying. You might begin by entrusting to him some little thing by way of encouragement. I think that it is a harder struggle for Fili not to speak to you than you think."

"I do not think that it is my place to speak first…"

"But you will try?" he asked earnestly.

Betta frowned and considered his words. Fili had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her. His confessions of love two days ago had been forgotten in favor of his anger and harsh words, but if Kili was right and he was not very angry. This might be the way to earn Fili's forgiveness.

She looked up and saw Kili's eager expression. She smiled at him and laughed. "You are more clever than you let on, Kili," she said. "Of perhaps you have only had more practice dealing with stubbornness. If I did not know better, I would say that this whole journey had somehow been contrived by you, and that it was you who convinced your brother to come along, not the other way around."

"I cannot take credit for that," he said gravely. "It was Fili's idea to convince our uncle, and he who realized that your quest was the way to do it." He shook his head. "Please, do not think that I am being clever. You are my friend, but my place is by my brother's side, and if he should choose to leave you, then I would go with him. But Fili loves you; of this, I have no doubt. If I interfere, it is only because I would see him happy as well as safe. That is the reason and no other. Will you at least try to make peace with my brother?"

"I will try," Betta said. "But I have little hope in the endeavor. For my part, I no longer blame him for anything. It was my quest, and if our company has failed, it is because of me."

Kili nodded, but he did not seem to have much more hope that she did. He fed a few more logs into the fire, and then left her. Betta guessed that he had gone in search of his brother, but she did not believe that Fili could be convinced to return to the cave - and to her - until the midday meal, at least. She had time to sit and think, two things that she did not wish to do.

Kili said that she must entrust something of herself to Fili, but what could she say that he would wish to hear from her? How could she make up for all the things that she had refused to say during their time together?

Expecting to be left alone for some time, Betta massaged the tense muscles of her legs, and then lay with her back to the stone floor and stretched out the protesting limbs. She was eager to regain her independence, still certain that the brothers would choose to move on before she could go with them. All in all, her outlook was hopeful. Her legs were less sore than they had been the night before, though they still ached and were difficult to move. It would be another day at least before she was able to walk without support; but, with the wall behind her, and with patience, she was able to pull herself upright and to stand, so long as she did not put weight on her left foot. That part of her injury had not improved.

Sitting down again – or, if she were honest with herself, falling down – Betta reluctantly set to work unlacing the ties of her boot.

It was a long process. The boots were new to her, but they were not new. She had bought them from the wife of the landlord of the inn where she had stayed beneath Ered Luin. Not that she would admit that to Fili, who had paid no attention to her boots since his disparaging comments the morning before they had left the mountains.

She had gotten a good deal on the pair; there was not much call for heavy, winter boots in a young woman's size and, to Betta's eye, well-practiced in negotiation, she had seen that the women was eager to get rid of them at any price. The innkeeper's wife had been fond of Betta, though she stayed for only three nights. Betta guessed that the woman had calculated on the independent streak in her young guest; most wandering women made their money in the rooms of inns, and the profits were generally guaranteed to be shared all around.

Betta had no intention of returning to the inn to offer any such services, but she had paid for the boots that she now wore. There were many extra buckles and laces that had been added over the years to hold together the worn leather, but the fire was warm and there would be no better chance than this to take a look at her injury.

She grimaced as she pried the boot from her swollen foot. One by one, she peeled off the three layers of stocking that she wore and set them to dry by the fire. If only the brothers had managed to hold onto the large cook pot. Hot water and a warm fire would have done wonders to get the stink out of their clothes.

Tired from her exertions, Betta leaned back against the wall of the cave and looked down at her bare foot. It had been days since she had seen any part of her body bare save her hands, and it took a few minutes before she recognized the foot as her own. It was swollen and mottled with blue and purple bruises around her ankle and the skin was red and raw from being wrapped up for so long.

She sighed and looked sadly down at the bruised limb. All the trouble had been for nothing. She was too sore and too wrapped up in warm clothes to bend her leg and bring her foot up into her lap to look at the injuries. Perhaps if she could have removed her trousers and leggings as well, she might have been able to…

"Will you let me look?"

Fili stood between the screen and the stone, looking into the dimly lit cave. The fire had burned down again while Betta stretched her legs and struggled with her boot. She guessed that two hours had passed. Fili's face was hidden in shadows and she could not read his expression. He entered the cave carrying a bundle of wood under one arm and crouched down to tend the fire.

Soon enough, the cave was bright and warm again. Betta had eased herself back into the farthest corner to give him room to work. He had hardly looked at her when he'd entered, and then his eyes were on the fire. Now, he looked down at her swollen ankle and bruised foot, not at her face. Betta considered her foot as well, noting that the bones were too sharply outlined, the blue veins too defined through the thin, translucent skin. It took a lot of hunger to thin out the already thin skin of the hands and feet, but she had been hungry for a long time and could not remember the last time that she had gone to sleep at night with the certainty of breakfast in the morning.

"Will you let me look?" Fili asked again.

Betta nodded, and he sat down, taking her foot into his lap. He frowned as he tested each bone, winced every time she winced at the pain caused by his fingers. He pressed his thumb into the tender inner arch of the ball of her foot, and she cried out sharply, pulling her foot away.

He looked up, then, and looked at her for the first time that morning. His eyes met hers, and she saw the same grief and pain in his face that she felt in her heart. She looked away. She let him take her foot again to finish his examination. She clenched her teeth and refused to cry out again, but it took all her strength not to pull away as he pressed his fingers into the bruises, searching the bones and tendons for damage.

Finally, he sighed and sat back, the examination over, but he still held her bare foot in his warm hands.

"Well?" she asked. "Is it broken?"

It was a moment before he could answer. "No," he said. "The pad is bruised, and the ankle is badly sprained, but there are no bones broken. You are a very lucky woman."

She laughed bitterly. "You would say that," she muttered.

The softness that had crept into his face hardened again. Fili folded his own scarf and laid her foot to rest upon it for a pillow near to the fire where she would be warm, and then he stood up.

"Keep the boot off," he said. "Rest, and Kili will bring you something to eat."

He was at the mouth of the cave and had drawn back the screen before Betta was able to swallow her pride and apprehension. She called out to him, "Wait!"

Fili hesitated, but did not turn back.

"Would it help if I said that I was sorry?" she asked.

"You would apologize for doing what you thought best?" he asked, shaking his head. "That does not sound like the woman I know."

"My decision was right," she said. "But I apologize for the way that I came by it. I see now that I should have included you and your brother in my thoughts. We are a company, and I should have told you what I had begun to suspect."

For a moment, Fili did not move, and she expected him to leave, but he did not. He looked back over his shoulder. "Why didn't you trust me?" he asked.

"I do not know," she confessed. "I am not used to being trusted, and so, I suppose, I do not trust easily. I have always been the stranger, the woman alone, and an offense to the small towns and villages that I passed through on my journey. The dwarves never trusted me, and the good folk of my own race that I met thought that I was at best an exile and at worst…" She felt her cheeks color again. "I am used to being suspected, and so I am wary and suspicious of others. Even of my friends."

"This has not always been your life. You trusted your brothers."

"I did. And they are dead." Her throat tightened and she looked up at him. "Who would you trust if your brother was…"

"No!" Fili turned toward her and his face was fierce. "You will not say that!"

She flinched and looked away, covering her eyes, but not before he saw the tears in them. "You think that I am too cold and too hard," she said. "You think that I did not suffer when my brothers died. But you have one brother to lose, and I had five. I lost them all. If I had not hardened my heart, it would have broken. I would have died."

Fili's scowl fell away. "I am sorry. I did not mean to suggest…" He sighed and moved to sit near to her.

"You are right," he said, "and many times I have thought you both hard and cold, but perhaps those things are not so troubling to a dwarf. It has not lessened my feelings for you. We are not a very gentle race, and I have been less kind to you than a human man might have been in my place."

"You have had your reasons," she said. "I would not blame you if you never forgave me, and you were right about…"

"About what?"

Betta hesitated then. She had gone beyond what she owed to Kili, and Fili was speaking with her again, but her troubled thoughts would not rest so long as she carried this burden alone. "You were right about my father," she said. "When I did not tell you what I knew about the pearl, I truly believed that there was no harm in it, but I was wrong. Your words have opened my eyes to something that I had refused to see. My father was affected by the box and what was inside it."

"It may not have been the pearl," Fili said.

"No," Betta agreed, "perhaps not, but it was certainly his obsession with the box and the past that drove him from his family." She remembered the many scenes of her childhood, of her father's distance and strange behavior. "I hope that you need never watch someone you love fall to madness and obsession."

Fili frowned, and his heart was troubled. He had more experience than she knew with watching a loved one fall into obsession. Thorin was not mad with it, but his desire for the treasure or Erebor had been dangerous enough that it caused his sister to worry. And yet, Fili did not believe that his uncle would sacrifice his family to the quest. He had refused to take Fili and Kili with him in order to protect them. And that, more than anything, was why Fili was determined to go; Thorin needed his nephews to guard his back and keep him grounded. His uncle would not ask for help.

He looked up from his thoughts and saw that Betta was watching him with apprehension. He smiled at her and moved closer so that he might take her hand. He kissed her fingers and said, "I understand your caution now, and if you have done anything that you regret, then I forgive you for it. I hope that you forgive me for my anger."

"I never blamed you for it," she said. "And now we are friends again. Kili will be glad."

Fili smiled. He felt more than friendship for her, and saw in her eyes that more than friendship was returned. He leaned forward, and she met him halfway. Their second kiss was warm, and it heated their blood more than any fire. For the first time in a long time, Betta was satisfied and happy; she had forgotten to ask the questions that Kili had wished her to ask his brother, but she was not worried. There would be other opportunities to dredge up old ghosts. For now, she was content.

.

Outside the cavern, after his brother left him, Kili kept himself busy for as long as he could bear it, but curiosity eventually got the better of him, and he returned, not sure what he would find. He looked in through the angle of the screen with apprehension, expecting to find them fighting again, but what he saw had him staring in amazement.

The fire was burning bright and cheerfully, and the cave was comfortably warm. Fili and Betta were seated against the back wall of the small cave, but they were not arguing. Both of Betta's feet were now bare. Her boots and stockings laid up near the fire, she sat with her legs stretched over Fili's lap. He had pulled the blanket up to cover them both and their hands, clasped together, lay between them. Betta's head was resting against the wall and her eyes were closed while she listened to Fili tell yet another tale of the history of the old dwarf kingdoms.

When he saw his brother looking in, Fili motioned for him to keep quiet and join them. Smiling smugly at his handiwork, Kili entered the cave, bringing with him another armload of wood. He hung a few skewers of meat over the fire for their midday meal and then sat down to listen to his brother's tale. He had heard this one before, but he was glad to hear it again. For an hour, at least, they might all sit together and forget their troubles. Outside the cave was cold and danger, but for now, they sat as a family, content.