A/N I dunno, I don't have anything witty to say today I guess?

That's not to say I don't like the chapter I just...don't have anything sassy to add in the authors note lol

OH WAIT

Guess what I learned while I was referencing the movie while I was writing. Tolkien's great grandson was in Return of the King AND Desolation of Smaug. Apparently. Thank you amazon prime for being like hey this dude is in this movie you just paused. Heyooooo Royd Tolkien sneaking around as uncredited rangers in things and being kind of also hot too like wft bro...

Anyway, I thought that as pretty bitchin and was kind of surprised I never knew?

ANYWAY

Carry on.

Josephine was so comforted by the light coming through the windows of their chambers she dared not question it. Not the ever present scent of lavender on her pillows or the soft sound of his breathing next to her. She had the sense that she'd just been through something quite trying, but she couldn't remember what it was. Or maybe she had decided she wouldn't remember it, not then. Not there. Not yet.

It didn't matter where she'd come from, or what she'd done. His fingers carded through her hair repeatedly, lulling her almost to sleep, but she didn't dare let go of the moment.

Sighing his name she turned her head to the side and met his eyes, knit with concern but soft and full of love.

"Yes, meleth nin, I am here." He said quietly.

Her arm felt heavy as she reached for him, touching his face and his hair like she was recalling a memory long forgotten. "You've been so far away." No, that wasn't right, he was still where he belonged, it was her. "I've been so far away."

"Far." He agreed, fingers still stroking her hair. "But not alone."

No, she had Bilbo, and the dwarves. The Company! It came back in a rush, the quest and the mountain. The caves and the goblins.

"Sidh, Josephine." Aragorn soothed with his free hand reaching to grasp hers. "Rest now. You have seen much and must give it time to pass."

"There isn't time." She argued, sitting up with an excessive amount of effort. "We have to get to Mirkwood."

Aragorn grasped her by the shoulders and lowered her back onto the bed, getting no resistance from her as she realized it was a feat that she'd even gotten upright to begin with. "Entering Mirkwood as you are now will do naught but make the crossing more perilous." His hand went back to stroking her hair. "Rest, Josephine. Rest."

The bedchamber began to fade and as his voice slipped away she reached for him, but there was nothing to grasp. He was gone again, like smoke through her fingers, and Josephine opened her eyes to the warm glow of a campfire and Bilbo's voice above her.

"-of my mother, Bullroarer Took, well, Bandobras Took but nobody calls him that. Anyway…"

Josephine's head was laying in his lap and he was stroking her hair, going back to his tried and true way of trying to comfort her, by going on about his lengthy family history. She was beginning to think he'd started repeating himself to keep it going but having been unconscious for a lot of it, she couldn't tell.

The sun had moved since she'd laid down, quite a bit actually. It was early evening at least. Bombur was stirring something over the fire and the ponies grazed freely around the camp. She'd slept for hours.

Aragorn's presence hung around her like a cloak, warm and comforting and it stung nearly as much as it soothed. But the dream was worth the sting of her loss. If she stayed still, didn't move even an inch, maybe it would linger. Around the camp Gloin wove through the dwarves, being handed something from each as he went. Bombur began ladling stew into bowls for Bofur who passed them around. The smell wafted over to them and her stomach growled.

"Josephine," Bilbo said softly, touching her shoulder like he was trying to wake her gently. "Time for supper, come on now."

He took her under the arm and helped her sit up. She took it slow, testing how the aches and pulls in her body fared. The mandated several hours of rest had done some good, the pain was hardly what it had been when she'd fallen asleep earlier that day.

With a bowl in each hand, Bofur supplied the both of them with dinner and she dug into it sloppily, not realizing just how hungry she was. "Didn't Bullroarer invent golf?" She mumbled through a full mouth.

Bilbo smiled at her, not having realized she'd been listening but more than happy to continue. "Swung at a goblin so hard it's head flew clean off!"

"Sent it down a rabbit hole." She finished with a sliver of mirth, heartened by the lighthearted nature of the conversation. "We've got golf where I'm from too, but it didn't have anything to do with goblins. We don't even have goblins where I was born."

"In Gondor?"

"No, no a lot farther than that. But it's not important. I definitely don't think how golf was invented in my land was probably nearly as cool as knocking a goblin head into a hole during battle."

Finishing his rounds around the camp, Gloin came over to them with something clutched in his fist. "What are ye talkin' about goblin heads for, now?"

"Golfing." She answered plainly, popping the last chunk of gamey meat in her bowl into her mouth.

"Well, if ye'r gonna be knockin' their heads 'round, best let me rebraid your hair for ye. It's gettin' a might loose."

She'd barely nodded with permission before he plopped himself down behind her with a groan and stuck his beard comb between his teeth while he undid her hair.

"Alright, palm up." He ordered, opening his own hand and letting several silver beads roll into her open hand. She was counting them when he reached around and set one more in the pile, the one she'd worn since he'd given it to her years ago in Rivendell. She froze, having forgotten to hide it from him.

"I'm hopin' you havin' that in our future doesn't mean ye looted mah corpse."

She almost laughed, constantly surprised by their nonchalance at things she'd thought would be far bigger deals. "Just a gift from an old friend before a journey. But where did these come from?" She thumbed over the other beads and felt eyes on her, the other dwarves kept glancing her way and she started to realize why Gloin had been going to each of them earlier. It had her choking up…again. "Come on guys, I'm too emotionally raw for you to be sweet like this."

Gloin ran the comb through her hair and worked far faster than she'd expected as he was already starting to pluck beads from her hand. "Pipe down, lass, and let me finish." He admonished playfully, not really meaning it.

"Was this your idea?" She accused.

"Ori's, actually." Bofur supplied.

Across the fire, Ori shrank in embarrassment. "Hoped it might cheer you up."

Another bead left her hand and she nodded carefully, trying not to interfere with Gloin's work. "It does, thank you. All of you."

None of them seemed to want to dwell on their good deed for long and Dwalin, who's contribution found its place in her hair next, began to hum quietly. He was conscious of their precariously safe place in the wilds, with the only thing standing between them and orcs being a shapeshifting bear somewhere in the forest around them. His tone stayed low and Balin joined in. The Company didn't sing it, their words weren't safe in the wide world now, but the swells of their song from Bilbo's living room filled the camp.

As Aragorn's presence slipped further and further the longer she was awake, the thrum of their voices washed over like Beorn's salve against her wounds. His words from her dream came back to her and she let them sink in.

Far. But not alone.

They set out the next day, though not early and they kept a slower pace. Oin set her back with a clean dressing and the numbing from the salve made the journey far more bearable than it had been up to that point. Even with that, and the mandated rest, Josephine was still sat behind Thorin on his pony without comment. Apparently Gandalf wasn't keeping a close enough eye on her for his taste.

She hated to admit it to him, but he'd been right. The nearly full day and night of rest had done more than she'd thought it would. An extra day at Beorn's would've been, at least as far as her recovery was concerned, the right choice.

They saw the dark of Mirkwood at least an hour before they reached its edge. When they paused at the gate, Josephine peered around Thorin and shuddered. Fangorn hadn't been the least bit frightening to her, but all it had had in store for her had been Gandalf and maybe an Ent.

She slid down carefully, following Gandalf towards the path. It was eerily quiet, not a single bird or insect made a sound. But there was something else, deeper than that, that came from the trees. Like a hum in her bones, low and unsettling.

"Here lies our path through Mirkwood." Gandalf called back.

"No sign of the orcs." Dwalin said. "We have luck on our side."

Josephine looked up through the branches warily, almost wishing she could go with Gandalf to the High Fells instead.

"Set the ponies loose! Let them return to their master." Gandalf instructed the company, who quickly began to dismount and unpack their gear.

"This forest feels…sick." Bilbo said, creeping towards the entrance where Josephine and Gandalf had just passed. "As if a disease lies upon it. Is there no way around?"

"Not unless we go two hundred miles north, or twice that distance south."

He was distracted, like he was looking for something, and Josephine followed closely. Down steps, towards a statue covered in old vines. He reached up, and quickly pulled them away, freezing the moment he did.

Josephine looked at the red eye painted on the statue and pursed her lips. The darkness was still growing in this time, hidden. Whispers that didn't dare put a name to it even though everyone was already thinking it. A war coming with their only hope sitting in the pocket of the Hobbit behind her.

"You've seen this before." Gandalf said. "But not here."

Hundreds of them, thousands of them, on shields and catapults and helmets. But she couldn't elaborate, so she just nodded.

"The High Fells." He confirmed at her solemn answer. "So be it." They returned to the elven gate and saw the ponies running back towards the mountains. "Not my horse! I need it!"

Bilbo looked disheartened. "You're not leaving us?"

"I would not do this unless I had to." He exchanged a look with Thorin and returned his attention to Bilbo. "You've changed, Bilbo Baggins. You're not the same Hobbit as the one who left the Shire."

"I was going to tell you, I…I found something in the goblin tunnels."

Gandalf could sense something was going on, and Josephine watched the two closely. Mixed in with the hum of the forest she felt something else, something familiar.

"Found what?" Gandalf pressed. "What did you find?"

She wondered if the Ring could tell she recognized it. Just how sentient was Sauron's horcrux anyway? Was she going to have to watch herself around the Ring too? Just to be safe, whether it really worked or not, she tried to impress upon it that it had better keep its grubby little mind games away from her. She had the damn trinket's number.

Bilbo's fingers slipped into his vest pocket and he gave a couple false starts. "My courage." He finally scratched out. His hand dropped to his side and the tension in him slipped away.

"Good. Well, that's good." Gandalf covered up his suspicion and straightened back up. "You'll need it."

He met Josephine's eyes again and she realized she'd been caught staring, only serving to make him more suspicious. But there wasn't time to investigate further and he turned to his horse.

"I'll be waiting for you at the overlook, before the slopes of Erebor. Keep the map and key safe. Do not enter that mountain without me."

They all dispersed their supplies between them, Josephine being handed nothing more than her sword belt while the rest of them shouldered heavy packs. They waited at the edge while Gandalf finished his preparations, none of them prepared to leave him any sooner than necessary.

"This is not the Greenwood of old." He continued to instruct. There is a stream in the woods that carries a dark enchantment. Do not touch the water. Cross only by the stone bridge. The very air of the forest is heavy with illusion. It will seek to enter your mind and lead you astray."

"Lead us astray? What does that mean?" Bilbo asked.

"You must stay on the path, do not leave it. If you do, you'll never find it again." He turned his horse and began riding off the same way the ponies had gone. "No matter what may come, stay on the path!"

And with that, he was gone.

"Come on." Thorin barked. "The sooner we enter this accursed forest, the sooner we'll leave it. Fili, Kili, look after Lady Josephine."

She was ushered to the center of the line of dwarves, sandwiched between the two brothers as they warily crossed into the forest and the sunlight began to grow cold.

They had a long month ahead of them, and Josephine was dreading every moment of it.