9: Know My Thoughts (Can't Live With Them)

As it turned out, the day did, in fact, get more miserable. And quite spectacularly so.

After Tauriel's return to their set of cells, the others were upon her immediately, asking the same concerned questions she would have asked them, had their positions been reversed. Kíli's voice, almost a growl, drowned out the inquiries of the others.

"What the fuck did they do to you?"

The Dwarf's mouth formed a hard line in his pale face. His eyes had skimmed over her entire, slightly disheveled form the moment she had been shoved into her cell, fixing on her neck and remaining there. The heat—the unmitigated fury— in his eyes did something very odd to Tauriel's stomach.

Confused by Kíli's visceral indignation and, even more so, her reaction to it, Tauriel blinked slowly. Then Suri, on the other side of the corridor, gestured to her own neck, wrapping her fingers around the base of her throat. Tauriel winced as she gently probed her neck with her fingertips and realized that her almost-strangulation by slingshot had left its marks.

"It's nothing." The unexpected roughness of her voice made her frown. Kíli looked like he was about to argue, so she cleared her throat—carefully, very carefully—and tried again. "It is hardly more than a scratch. Really. And either way, that is not what we should be talking about."

Kíli's eyebrows shot up in curiosity, but it was Ruari who asked from across the room, "And what is it then, that we should be talking about?"

Keeping her voice low so as not to put too much unnecessary strain on her sore throat, Tauriel told them about the fight. About how it had ended with three of five contestants still standing, just after she had made the decision to surrender herself to the mercy of her opponent.

"Has that ever happened before? When I arrived, you told me that a fight is only over once all combatants but one are either dead or otherwise incapacitated."

Tauriel looked around the faces behind the bars of the surrounding cells, each of them a similar shade of bemusement. It was Ingolf who answered her question.

"No, that hasn't been known to occur. At least—" he slanted a glance at Kíli's still rather battered face, "—not without punishment for the remaining fighters."

Kíli's lips twisted in acknowledgment of the truth of that statement. He turned to Tauriel. "That man you noticed among the spectators—could it be that he stopped the fight to keep you from getting hurt?"

"You are asking whether he might be on our side? A sympathizer?"

Kíli shrugged. "It would drastically improve our outlook if we had someone who holds some sort of influence out there and is not completely enamored with the idea of letting poor sods like us fight to the death, wouldn't it?"

Tauriel chewed on her lip while she weighed her thoughts. The man had certainly stood out from the rest of the crowd, but if that made him less or more of a threat, she wasn't so sure. The hairs on the back of her neck rose like pinpricks as she recalled the cold feeling the stranger's calculating gaze had left in the pit of her stomach.

"No," she said. "I do not believe he cared one bit about innocent blood being spilled. Whatever his intentions, they were far less selfless than saving a few battered gladiators from their fate."

Kíli deflated visibly at that and Tauriel was unable to tell if she admired or hated the fact that he was still capable of such spontaneous outbursts of hope. Of trusting that somewhere among those people who held them captive like animals for no other apparent reason than their entertainment, some good might yet be found.

"Still, we should watch out for him in any future trips to the arena. If we determine what he wants, we might be able to use that to our advantage," she added, suppressing the impulse to reach through the bars to offer some sort of feeble physical comfort to Kíli. After their tender nightly exchange, she was uncertain if that would be welcome—or even expected, perhaps? At some point in the course of the night before, Kíli had rolled over in his sleep, his hand sliding out of her grip. Tauriel had been left with a curious sense of emptiness and ever since, that feeling of. . . absence hadn't entirely left her. Still, she was hesitant to take the first step that would fill this sudden, gaping hole inside her heart.

And now Kíli was looking at her with a slight quirk to his left eyebrow and she realized that she had been staring at his hands for what must have been several seconds. She blinked and tried to shake off those thoughts that were threatening to lead her astray. Cleared her throat, again. Then she went on to describe the stranger's appearance to her prison mates, making sure that they would know whom to look for.

She had only just finished when the door at the far end of the corridor opened again, slightly cooler, fresher air sneaking its tendrils into their stuffy prison. Tauriel pushed back, away from the bars, expecting the usual, despondent routine of mealtimes. Her head snapped up sharply when she heard not the usual thump of two pairs of feet, but four instead.

There were no water or porridge bowls to be seen, nor was there even a morsel of bread in sight. Instead, two guards stopped in front of Kíli's and Suri's cells each, their intent clear from the disdainful stares they bestowed upon their prisoners.

"No," Tauriel heard herself protest, her voice sounding far away over the sudden ringing in her ears. "No, there must be a mistake. They cannot—I just got back, did I not?"

Kíli's answering grin did not reach his eyes, tinted with bitterness as it was. "Crowd did not quite get what they came for though, right? They'll be eager for another chance to satisfy their thirst for violence."

Rather than answer him, Tauriel turned her gaze unto the guards. "Then take me instead of one of them. It was my fight that did not end properly, after all."

Her stomach churned at what 'properly' meant in this context, but she kept her back ramrod straight, her gaze level. Let them regard her as insubordinate—maybe that would increase her chances at getting her wish and being taken back to the arena. The guards, however, did not even glance at her in reaction to her protest.

"Don't," Kíli said when she made to move forward, prepared to do whatever it took to get the guards' attention.

She turned, ready to argue, but then she saw the look in his eyes.

He did not struggle against the guards while they stepped into his cell and tied his hands behind his back, his gaze locked onto her. "Please," he said, "don't. Driving myself crazy over the question whether you are alright once a day is more than enough. I cannot sit through that a second time."

What about me, though?, a voice inside Tauriel's head lamented. What about what I have to go through whenever you are out there, fighting for your life? She did not give voice to those thoughts, her throat blocked by the tight sensation which Kíli's words had conjured into existence. She knew that he cared, of course she did, but hearing him say so made more of a difference than she would have expected it to.

Unable to do anything else and cursing herself for it, Tauriel gave an infinitesimal nod. Immediately, the hardness in Kíli's gaze relented somewhat. She both hoped and dreaded for him to say something else, and was thus both relieved and disappointed when he didn't and allowed himself to be led away without looking back.

As both Kíli and Suri disappeared from view, the door closing behind them, Tauriel felt the gazes of Ruari and Ingolf linger on her. She turned away, neither ready for their questions nor their pity. And thus, another period of waiting began.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"So, anyway. That woman had two hens, and not much else. One day, she and her children grew so hungry that she saw no other way but to sell the chickens. And so she took them to the market and—"

"That's not right, you're telling it all wrong. Three. She had three hens."

"No, she had two."

"Three. I'm absolutely certain. If you're going to tell a story, at least make sure you've got all the facts straight."

"Two! It's just two. One which lays eggs, and one which doesn't. That's what the whole story is about. What would a third bird do? Shit diamonds?"

"What? No! The third hen is what the entire plot hinges on. It's the one which—" Ruari cut himself off, glanced at Tauriel who was watching the exchange with a mildly amused expression. "Damn it. We're spoiling the story, aren't we?"

Tauriel shrugged. "Possibly. I don't mind, though. This is just as entertaining."

Truth be told, she hadn't been paying much attention to the jokes and little vignettes with which Ingolf and Ruari had been trying to distract both her and themselves for the past hour or so. Both her heart and her head were in another place entirely. Or with another person, rather.

Her pulse skittered away beneath her skin whenever she thought back to those moments before Kíli had been taken away. To the words he had spoken. To what those words meant.

Kíli, he was. . . fearless, it seemed, when it came to admitting what was in his heart. He did not need big words for that, or grand gestures. A brush of his fingers, a plea for her to keep herself safe because the alternative was simply unacceptable to him. . . Those were things that came easy to him. And Tauriel felt that this should have made her more confident in how she was supposed to act around him, how she was supposed to feel about him.

But it didn't. Instead, the memory of those small moments, stolen among this enormous, insurmountable mess they had found themselves in, kept sending all of her thoughts and senses into a state of perpetual confusion, moments of near euphoria followed instantly by gut-wrenching anxiety.

A part of her wanted to give something back, wanted to convey to Kíli that whatever he was trying to let her know with those words, those gestures of his, she felt the same. But then again, she simply wasn't cut from the same cloth he was. Her tongue would get stuck to the roof of her mouth and then the words just wouldn't come when she needed them to. Her fingers would curl into fists instead of reaching out for him, her nails leaving little half-moon imprints on her palm that would sting once the moment had passed and the tension ebbed.

This—now, here—was without doubt the worst situation to begin experiencing those things she had studiously (and successfully!) avoided for the last couple of centuries. And this was not even considering the heritage of the person she was beginning to feel those things for, because once she started on that, then surely her mind would implode, taking the last bit of her good sense with it into an abyss of conflicting emotions, of fear, of curiosity, of want—oh, so much want.

A noise—part sigh, part sob, part laugh—slipped from her lips. Ingolf and Ruari did not pause in their squabbling, thankfully passing it off as a reaction to the increasingly ridiculous claims about chickens, golden eggs, and whatnot they kept throwing at each other's heads.

Stop spinning spiders' webs with your thoughts, she told herself. You will only get yourself tangled in them.

With a considerable effort, she forced herself to try and follow the conversation still flowing back and forth between her two remaining prison mates—only to be jolted into abrupt alertness by the outer door slamming open a few minutes later. It was soon, so much sooner than she had dared to hope for, and when her eyes perceived Kíli walking in on his own two legs, her initial reaction was one of profound relief. That lasted only until she saw the expression on his face, however, and realized that something was very, very wrong.

Kíli was taken to his cell by the two guards who were most heavily packed with muscle and usually didn't so much as quirk an eyebrow, regardless of what the prisoners threw at them. Today was no different, and their apathetic demeanor clashed violently with their charge's very obvious state of agitation. Kíli's face gleamed ghostly white in the dim light, a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his temples. His fists were clenched tightly at his sides and his eyes darted wildly around the room, failing to make contact with either Tauriel, Ingolf, or Ruari.

The second Kíli was shoved into his cell he whirled around, clinging to the bars which had yet to close completely behind him.

"What hap—" Tauriel began, but felt the words die on her tongue when she caught sight of two other guards entering their prison, carrying a limp body clothed in layers of black between them.

"Suri!"

Ingolf's anguished cry rang loudly in Tauriel's ears, momentarily drowning out the hectic thrumming of her own heartbeat. As the guards paused in front of Suri's cell to wait until the door had opened completely, Ingolf reached through the bars in blind desperation, grabbing the guard closer to him by his collar and yanking hard.

"If she's dead I'm going to fucking kill you, I swear it, if she's not coming back, I'll. . ."

He pulled even harder, the tremor in his muscles unmistakable even from across the corridor. The guard had let go of Suri's limp form, his hands scrabbling against his throat in an effort to loosen the Rohir's hold onto his uniform. Ingolf tightened his grip, his face a mask of pain and fury, and the guard's breathing quickly turned to wheezing as he began to choke in earnest.

The other guard uttered what could only be a curse and called something to his comrade operating the locking mechanism of the cells. Hastily, the slighter man began fiddling with the box affixed to the wall, nearly dropping the small tool he used to operate it. In the empty cell next to Tauriel's, the door opened with an unpleasant screech, and the guard now supporting Suri's lifeless form by himself dragged her across the corridor and deposited her in the empty cell none too gently. Her body hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Tauriel was on her knees, reaching through the bars in order to take hold of Suri's body even before the guard had had time to rush to his comrade's aid. A detached part of her consciousness was aware of the sounds of struggle emitted from the other side of the prison, Ingolf's threats growing ever more colorful with each kick, each punch he received in retaliation for his insubordination. The majority of her senses, however, was focused on locating a pulse under Suri's skin. An affirmation of life.

It took her longer than it should have to find it and when she finally did, it did not bring her the jolt of relief she had hoped for. It was faint, too faint, and growing weaker still in the few seconds during which Tauriel kept her fingertips pressed to the side of Suri's neck. Her headscarf had come undone, revealing a long, straight nose and full, dark lips below the usually so expressive eyes Tauriel had grown accustomed to. Now, Suri's eyes were closed, her skin a sickly, greyish pallor.

"Kíli, what happened to her? I can see no wounds, no blood." Tauriel tore her gaze away from the young woman to look at the Dwarf. He, too, had sunk to his knees, his hands wrapped so tightly around the bars separating their cells that his knuckles turned white. His eyes were fixed on Suri, a stricken, far-away look to them. He didn't acknowledge Tauriel's question in the slightest.

"Kíli," she tried again, "I need you to tell me what happened. We don't have much time, she is growing weaker by the second."

That seemed to do the trick, awareness flickering back into Kíli's eyes. "I didn't mean—" he began, then broke off to draw a shuddering breath. "This is all my fault. I should have stopped her, should never have let her—"

He buried his face in his hands, his fingers threading into the roots of his hair, pulling hard as his voice broke.

"Kíli! What happened? How did she get hurt?"

Panic edged into Tauriel's voice. There were a few things she might do to save their friend, but judging by Suri's state, she did not have time to simply try all of them. She needed to do the right thing, and she needed to do it soon.

Kíli lifted his head, looking at her with such palpable pain that Tauriel felt the ground sway beneath her for a second.

"She fell on her head, I think," he finally said. "We were giving them a good show, and it was almost fun, for a moment, but then I had to go and take things too far and she followed, and fell. . ."

Again, his voice broke.

"Fell from where?" Tauriel asked even as she reached through the bars again, slipping her fingers underneath Suri's headscarf to gently examine her skull for any external injuries. Her fingers came away dry—no blood. A blunt hit to the head, then.

"We were using some of those things they've put in the arena to climb on," Kíli said, sounding rueful. "We got cocky. She must have slipped trying to chase me, hit her head a couple of times on her way down. When I turned around at the roar of the crowd, she was already on the ground. If she—" He gave a tortured moan and the sound tore at Tauriel's heartstrings. "If she dies because of something so stupidly unnecessary, I will never forgive myself for it."

Tauriel's fingers clenched onto a fist, her mind racing through her few options. "Let us make sure she doesn't, then," she finally said.

Kíli's eyes shifted from Suri to her, the hope in them momentarily triumphing over the pain, the guilt. "You are going to save her?"

"I am going to try."

Tauriel's tongue was pressed against the back of her front teeth to the point of painfulness while she considered her next steps. She was glad that there was no open wound to deal with. Without any herbs and plants to aid her, there would not have been much she could have done had Suri been about to bleed out at her feet.

At the same time, without a visible injury there was not much to go by when it came to determining the cause of Suri's unconsciousness and her chances at recovery. All that was left for Tauriel to do was to take a bit of a gamble and hope that it was mostly the spirit which had abandoned Suri in a moment of intense physical trauma and that the body which housed it was still intact enough to go on living. The spirit was what she connected with when she exercised her gift of healing to its full extent and she had to trust that now, here, this would be enough to bring Suri back.

The part of her that was not at all sure of herself and tended to season her thoughts with doubt and uncertainty made her glance one more time over her shoulder towards where Kíli was still crouched on the floor. He had made no secret of his reservations about Elven powers when they had first met. Would he see her differently once he witnessed the true extent of her gift? Would what she had slowly come to acknowledge as admiration and genuine affection wither and shrivel, to re-emerge as distrust and reluctance?

It didn't matter. Or, it did, quite a bit, to be honest. But it didn't factor into her decision. If there was any way to help Suri, she would take it, regardless of the consequences.

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she reached through the bars again, gently cradling Suri's head between her palms. And then she locked everything else out—the feeling of Kíli's eyes on her back, the sounds of struggle and aggression coming from the other cells—until it felt as if it were just her and Suri, stranded in a vast, empty space.

In her mind, she formed the words necessary to call out to the powers which had bestowed her gift unto her. If they left her lips as an echo in the world of matter she could not tell, immersed as she was in the realm of spirits.

Lend me the strength to guide this tormented spirit back into her body, she prayed, for it is not her time to leave this world just yet. You have given me the gift of life, let me share it with her.

Accessing her gift was a curious experience which never failed to surprise her, no matter how often she made use of it. A bit like a limb that had temporarily gone dead from lack of use and was coming back alive with the sensation of pins and needles underneath her skin.

Once that feeling had passed, it was as if she glimpsed a different version of reality, one in which the spirit was a tangible thing with its own will, its own agenda. She could sense Kíli's presence in this non-space, her acute awareness of everything about him clearly also extending into this realm. He was. . . incandescent, and Tauriel had to exert all her willpower to not glance in his direction. Ingolf, Ruari, and even the guards were flickers at the edge of her perception that she tried to eclipse for now, focusing solely on Suri.

As she gazed at the young woman, Tauriel was shocked to find her spirit, her essence, blurry and somewhat fuzzy around the edges, as if one were looking at it through murky waters. This wasn't a good sign.

Come now, she coaxed the spirit, come back to where you belong. You are safe with me. With all of us here.

There was a faint quiver, and for a moment Tauriel thought that this might be it, that her plea had gotten through and Suri was ready to wake up. Then the spirit suddenly shrank back from her, burying itself even deeper into its protective shell.

If you stay there for too long, your body will wither away, Tauriel wanted to cry, but stopped herself. Neither begging nor threats would help her here. Instead, she closed her eyes and plunged forward with her mind, imagining herself taking hold of Suri's spirit. The sensation of being submerged in muddy water intensified, and she groped blindly in the darkness, forcing herself to remain calm despite the choking sense of panic which threatened to close her throat. And then, finally, she felt it, the silky warmth of Suri's essence brushing against her own.

Tauriel did not hesitate. With every ounce of strength her mind had to offer, she latched herself onto Suri's spirit and held on tight, picturing herself as a drowning person who had finally found her footing and pushed herself upwards, towards the surface, towards the breath of air her lungs were screaming for.

She awoke from her trance with a gasp and very nearly tumbled backwards onto the floor, only her sharp reflexes preventing her from doing so. Her eyes flew to Suri's still form. The young woman's eyes were still closed, but the faint trace of color in her cheeks was already enough to give Tauriel some hope. A press of her fingertips against her patient's neck confirmed it—the unthinkable had been averted and, with a bit of time and rest, Suri might yet make a full recovery.

With trembling fingers, Tauriel refastened Suri's headscarf over the lower half of her face, not wanting her first sensation when she woke up to be one of discomfort. Then she sank back onto her heels, her strength evaporating alongside her fear. It was only then that she noticed the uncharacteristic silence in the room.

Glancing about herself, she found several pairs of eyes fixed onto her. One of the two guards still lingering in front of Ingolf's cell leaned over to his comrade to mutter something. The other guard nodded, and they cautiously withdrew, not taking their narrowed eyes off of Tauriel. She mustered just enough strength to fix them with a glare which ensured their hasty and complete retreat. Let them think her some sort of sorceress—it hardly mattered as long as they left her in peace long enough to regain her strength.

Only once the door had fallen shut behind them did she dare roll her shoulders and shake some of the tension from her neck.

"Did you—is she—"

One glance at Ingolf's desperate, bruised face evoked sufficient pity for Tauriel not to hold out on him.

"She's alive," she confirmed. "It might take a little while yet, but I think she ought to wake up soon."

Ingolf made a choked off noise, part sigh, part laugh, part sob. "Thank the heavens. I don't know what I—How I—"

He did not finish his sentence, but he didn't have to. They all knew what he was trying to say. That somehow, between bowls of bland porridge and foul water, treating each other's wounds, and telling stories of the lives they'd led before, they had become a family, their will to keep going despite the dreariness of their circumstances dependent on each other's well-being. If one of them fell, they would not be able to push past that loss without losing at least part of themselves as well.

Gently, Tauriel rearranged Suri's limbs, trying to make her as comfortable as she could. Ingolf shrugged out of the sleeveless vest he wore over his tunic and tossed it across the corridor without comment. Careful not to jostle her too much, Tauriel eased it under Suri's head as a cushion. Once finished, she dropped her hands into her lap.

"There is not much we can do now except wait for her to wake up."

Ingolf nodded, lowering himself to the ground a little stiffly. He had to be in quite a bit of pain from his altercation with the guards, but Tauriel supposed it had been worth it. Had they not put Suri in the cell beside hers, she would not have been able to treat her.

"I'll watch over her," Ingolf now said. And then, to Tauriel, "You should get some rest. Looks like you might need it."

Tauriel didn't even bother denying the truth of that. It had been a long day and helping Suri appeared to have drained the last bit of her resources. Nodding gratefully at Ingolf, she took a second to steel herself for the thing she had been dreading for the last couple of minutes—turning around and facing Kíli.

And because she could be a bit of a coward—at least when it came to those small things which did not involve a battlefield or a heroic sacrifice—she did not immediately lift her eyes to him when she finally did turn around, pretending to sort out her rumpled clothing instead. Around her, the prison took on a semblance of its usual atmosphere, Ruari and Ingolf conversing quietly (and surprisingly civilly) on their side of the cell block. It was only when the strange pressure inside her chest grew too much to bear that Tauriel finally looked at Kíli.

If it was mistrust she had feared to find in his gaze, or, worse, repulsion, she could not have been further off her mark. Instead, Kíli was staring at her as if she had hung not just the moon but all the stars alongside it into the sky, his eyes wide and his fingers still wrapped around the bars separating them.

"How did you—what did you just do there?"

She gave a small shrug, one corner of her mouth lifting in a self-conscious grin. "That was what you would call the witchy stuff, I believe." she chewed her lip, her smile fading. " Now, I know you are not overly fond of that. . ."

"Not overly—" Kíli shook himself. "What are you talking about? That was. . . beautiful." He paused, took a breath. "You were beautiful."

And just like that, Tauriel couldn't speak, could only stare at her hands where they were folded in her lap. The words she wanted to say but didn't dare utter swelled on her tongue until they threatened to spill over and she swallowed, embarrassed by her clumsiness. The silence between them grew heavier still, until Kíli finally gave a tired yawn and chuckled.

"Ingolf's right, probably. We should all get some rest while we can."

Tauriel managed to meet his gaze at last and smiled when she found him rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes and then trying (and failing) to push the tangled mess that was his hair back from his forehead with an irritated frown.

"Here, let me help you with that," she offered, glad for a chance to make up for her earlier reservedness.

He followed the path of her hands with his eyes as she reached for his hair. "You don't have to," he said, although the glint of curiosity in his eyes contradicted his words.

"I do not mind," she muttered absently as she ran her fingers through his dark tresses, carefully disentangling the worst of the knots. With no small amount of satisfaction, she felt him relax under her hands, his eyes sliding shut as he gave himself over to her touch.

Little by little, the tension drained from her as well, and she found herself quite enjoying her task. Kíli's hair was softer than it looked, and more than once she let a strand of it slide through her fingers even after the knots were already gone. Silence descended over their small set of cells, the sounds of regular breathing which filled the air indicating that the others had either gone to sleep or were as close to sleep as they would allow themselves to get while still keeping an eye on Suri.

Once Tauriel felt herself run out of excuses to continue combing Kíli's hair, she parted a section of it and fashioned a simple braid which ran along the side of his head. Maybe this would keep his hair from falling into his face when he fought, at least for a little while. Turning his head with gentle fingers, she repeated the process on the other side.

"My mother used to do this for me," he said, sounding far away in his thoughts. "Never lasted long, though. I always messed it up again immediately."

Tauriel smiled to herself, not entirely surprised by the picture Kíli painted of himself as a younger person. As always, the topic of his mother, so present in his thoughts, evoked a certain sense of curiosity. "You miss her," she observed. "Would you like to talk about her?"

His reply was very quiet. "Yes," he said, "and also no. Too painful."

Silently accepting his choice, Tauriel finished the second braid and tied it with a piece of yarn. Together with the other braid and a portion of his hair, she fastened it with yet another bit of string at the back of his neck. Briefly, she dropped her hands to his shoulders and gave them a light squeeze before sitting back on her heels, her palms coming to rest on her knees.

Kíli's head was tipped forward as he fiddled with a loose thread on the hem of his trousers, and she could tell from the tension in his neck that he was thinking. After another moment, he abandoned the loose thread and lifted his head, but did not turn around.

"There's something else I'd like to do, though."

If her hearing hadn't been quite as keen, she might not have heard him at all for the low pitch of his voice. As it was, her breath hitched in her throat at his quiet words for reasons she couldn't have explained if she'd tried.

Steadying herself with a hand against the bars separating them, she leaned forward just a little, unable to stop herself. "And what is that?"

Another moment during which Kíli stared into the opposite direction. Then he squared his shoulders and turned around, his eyes darkly intense as they met hers.

Tauriel didn't know what she expected him to do, didn't know what she wanted him to do. Or, at least, she thought that she didn't, until he moved, kneeling in front of the bars and reaching through to cup her cheek in his palm. He was close now, so close that even in the dim light, Tauriel could discern the tiny flecks of amber in his brown eyes.

He traced his thumb across her skin in a slow half circle—Tauriel leaning helplessly into his touch—before sliding his hand around to the back of her neck. His other hand came up to cover hers where it was clutched the bars.

"This," he whispered and tipped his head forward just a little, touching his lips to hers.

Tauriel's heart skipped a beat or two—was this really happening? Was she really kissing a Dwarf, tall and handsome as he might be, in some dank, dark cell, not knowing what fresh misfortunes might befall them within the next days—or hours, even? Yes, it certainly seemed that she was, she thought as he pressed against her a little more confidently after the first, hesitant brush of his lips. And for some reason beyond her comprehension, it felt like the best decision she had ever made.

Boldly, she leaned into the kiss, angling her face as far to the side as the bars would permit her without breaking contact, and parted her lips for Kíli. He gave a small sigh of contentment, the hand he had wrapped around the back of her neck flexing against her skin while he traced the contour of her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Tauriel was about to imitate the action, to chase his tongue back into his mouth with her own and sample a taste, when a loud snore ripped through the silence surrounding them and caused them both to flinch back.

For a few blissful seconds, Tauriel had in fact forgotten that they weren't alone, and it seemed that so had Kíli, judging by his puzzled frown. Then Ruari muttered something rather obscene in his sleep, which drew a snort of laughter from Kíli and caused Tauriel's eyes to bulge, her palm pressed firmly against her still tingling lips to stop herself from giggling.

A glance over her shoulder confirmed that, indeed, Ruari was stretched out on his back, snoring loudly. Ingolf, meanwhile, had angled his body towards Suri's sleeping form, so that he wasn't looking in Kíli's and Tauriel's direction. Whether he had been doing so all along or had adopted this pose quite recently to give them some privacy, was impossible to tell. Tauriel suspected the latter and felt her cheeks grow quite warm.

She turned back to Kíli and found him studying her, the warmth in his eyes drawing a smile from her, despite her acute mortification. At least he, too, bore a little more color than usual in his cheeks, betraying his own embarrassment over getting this caught up in a moment of passion.

"Perhaps we ought to follow his example," he remarked, rolling his eyes towards Ruari.

"I hope you are just talking about the sleeping, not the snoring."

He chuckled. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone if you do."

"Very funny." She mustered a decent glare, grateful that the last few minutes had not left her incapable of an innocent bit of banter. Eventually, they would need to address what had just happened between them, but maybe, for now, it would be alright to simply seek some respite from the hardships of this long, confusing day and to be thankful they had both come out of it in one piece.

Feeling a bit silly but unable to help herself, Tauriel ducked her head in a halfhearted effort to hide a shy smile and stretched out on her side in an exact imitation of her position the night before. Her unspoken invitation was instantly rewarded with a reaction from Kíli, his face lighting up with a smile of his own before he, too, lowered himself to the floor, his head coming to rest on the crook of his left arm.

His face was close, mere inches from hers, and Tauriel would have been quite content to simply lie there all night and watch his dreams leave their shadowy traces on his handsome features. When he reached through the bars to lightly grasp her fingers in his, however, she felt all residual tension leave her body and the instant surge of affection rushing through her veins left her with no doubt that no matter what tomorrow would bring, no matter how dire their situation might become still, she would not regret what had come to pass between them.

Not now, not ever.

A/N: Chapter title inspired by Wye Oak's song "Civilian".