Chapter 27

Into the Past Part 2: Trust Issues

"It's frightening. Unexpected. Frankly, a total utter splattering mess on the carpet. But I am certain, one hundred per cent certain, that we can work this out. Trust me."

Doctor Who

Thrór

Thrór had trouble focusing on court business even on his best days. The proceedings bored him to tears and he found himself easily distracted. It was even worse today. Grór of course could not fail to take note of this and rewarded his elder brother's inattentiveness with the longsuffering looks and sighs that all younger siblings mastered the moment they left the womb.

If this had been a normal day, that would have vexed Thrór. This was not a normal day.

Replaying past events and analysing them to death was something he usually left to his only son, who had made brooding into a form of art and had achieved a mastery in it Thrór could never hope to match. That was why he never bothered with trying. Overthinking only overcomplicated matters and that was not like him at all.

But this was different.

The image of Thorin and his mannish wife – and that in itself was a mystery begging to be solved – had seared into his brain. Just last night he'd visited Thráin and Theyra and he had held the infant Thorin for a good long while. The difference between the careless baby and the careworn grown-up Thorin would not leave him alone.

Freya, as ever, had more aptitude for the business of court and took care to distract those in attendance from the fact that Thrór was rather absent-minded for most of the meeting. Maker bless her. She'd always had a rare talent to take the strangest things in her stride and carry on with what needed doing. Nobody who didn't know would ever suspect they had just met their grandson from the future on their way here.

All the same he was glad when the meeting was over – he couldn't really tell what it had been about despite burying his head in the documents concerning the topic before – and they could leave.

'How did they get here?' he wondered when everyone had gone and he was walking back to their rooms with Freya. He did not expect an answer, but it was a good question.

Freya shrugged. 'I don't think they know.'

That was as good as an undisputed fact. Unless Thorin and his wife had both taken lessons in deceit from the elves, their shock had been very real.

'There must be a reason, surely,' Freya pondered when an answer from Thrór was not forthcoming.

'I would think they don't know the answer to that either,' Thrór remarked wryly. There were altogether too many questions and not nearly enough answers to satisfy him.

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

Their unexpected visitors were on the couch when they entered, but both rose when they noticed them. It didn't take a very perceptive dwarf to see that they had both wept.

'Don't get up on my account,' Thrór told them, hoping to put them somewhat at ease.

Kate managed a smile. It didn't reach her eyes, but it seemed sincere. She seemed better in control of herself than her husband, though to be fair to Thorin, the shock must have been greater for him than for her. 'Thank you,' she said. She sat back down.

Thorin needed a second more to follow her example. He'd grown tall, this grandson of his. And by the way he carried himself Thrór could tell that he had seen battle. Other than that, Thorin gave very little away about himself and by now Thrór's curiosity had reached whole new heights.

'Tea,' Freya decreed and went off to the kitchen to make it, leaving the remaining three people in awkward silence.

Thrór loved to chat – folk were forever telling him it was a trial just to shut him up – but even he could think of nothing to say today. He struggled for a while, but then gave up the fight. The truth was that he did not know either of them well enough to have a good conversation with them and this seemed neither the time nor place for small talk.

So instead he took the time to take stock of the woman Thorin had been quick to proclaim his wife. It was quite probably the truth, but it was a strange truth. Thrór never thought such a union was possible, but the living and breathing proof was sitting in front of him.

Whatever the attraction would have been, it could not have been physical. The woman was of a height with Thorin, which made her small for her people, and she seemed smaller still because she was so frail. Still, the scar on her face looked like a battle-scar, so maybe her appearance was deceptive. Even so, a mannish woman fighting was rarer than mithril these days.

His gaze must have lingered, because she touched the scar and grimaced. 'A whip,' she explained. 'We got on the wrong side of the goblins.'

Not battle then. 'A nasty business,' he agreed. They were making passage through the Misty Mountains all but impossible these days and it irritated him that two hundred years had not seen a change in this.

Kate nodded. 'It was. But at least we got out of there alive.'

With that, the attempts at conversation stranded again and the silence made a return. Usually Freya was there to smooth over any bump in the road, but she was making tea.

Eventually she returned with the promised beverage. Thrór did not like it as much as his wife, but he drank when he needed to. Today seemed like such an occasion.

'Forgive me for asking, but how did you get here?' Freya asked when they had all sat down.

Kate took it upon herself to answer. 'I honestly don't know,' she replied. 'As far as I could tell, it was just an ordinary day. We got up, had breakfast and then left. We were headed to the council chambers for a meeting with Dáin. Grór's grandson,' she clarified when she caught the two uncomprehending stares. 'He's probably not born yet. Anyway, we were running a little late, so we kept up the pace, weren't really paying much attention to our surroundings. Well, until we bumped into you, that is.'

He suspected he would get an answer of that kind. They hadn't known what hit them any more than Thrór and Freya did.

'You said that it didn't feel like a wizard's spell,' Freya recounted thoughtfully.

Kate nodded. 'That's right. Doesn't have to mean that it isn't one, though.'

Thrór remembered she had said something along those lines, which begged another question. 'How would you know what a wizard's spell feels like?'

The woman took a deep breath, exchanged a glance with Thorin and then said: 'I have been on the receiving end of one. That was nothing like it.' Then, realising that this answer was not going to cut it, she continued: 'I can't say too much about it, because I don't want to run any risk of accidentally rewriting my own life. What I can say is, I wasn't born in this world. There was a mission of some kind that Gandalf decided could use my help and to that end he took me from my own world and dropped me in this one. And the spell he used to do that was not the kind anybody could fail to miss if it happened to them.' She grimaced. 'That was like being inside a hurricane for a little while.'

He couldn't decide what to wonder about first: that she could speak so calmly about being taken by magic from a world that was not this one, or marvel about the apparent fact that she had been born in said world.

'I know, it sounds insane,' she pre-empted the remark he might have made.

'But it is true.' Thorin hadn't spoken much, but he made it clear that it was something he would not allow being called into question. His right arm had snaked protectively around Kate's waist while he said it. 'And irrelevant for this conversation. Her origins have nothing to do with our current predicament.'

Freya seemed to think it would be wiser not to pursue this point for the time being. 'Perhaps not,' she allowed.

'But maybe Gandalf does have the answer to this riddle.' Kate's mind seemed to run along the same lines. 'What happened to us was quite probably magical in nature, so if there's anyone out there who knows how this happened, it's going to be him.'

That was a course of action that sounded sensible enough to Thrór. He wasn't one for theorising about what happened, but actually doing something was right up his street. 'I'll send someone to find the wizard then.' And once he was found, he could figure out what had gone wrong and send these two back to where they came from.

And perhaps he could solve another mystery or two while he was at it.

Thorin

It was torture to even be here. Thorin Oakenshield had seen a good deal of suffering in his lifetime, but never in his worst nightmares had he imagined a day like this. At first he had thought he had strayed into a dream between breakfast and reaching the council chambers, and it would have been preferable to the reality. The fact that it was all too real opened up a whole new can of worms.

It was real and he couldn't not think of all the possibilities. It was like a fever ran through his blood, his thoughts jumping from one place to the next without stopping. He knew telling them of the dragon could not prevent Smaug's coming, but they would be prepared. The monster might be slain before it ever conquered Erebor. At the very least they could make sure people were out, so his people did not have to mourn so many. He could warn his grandfather about the madness, so he could arm himself against it, as Thorin had done. So much grief could be undone, so many hearts need never be broken.

And Kate ought to realise this like no other. She had read her book, decided she did not like it much and set out to change it. And here he was, suggesting the same thing and she denied him. The rage had been quick to surface and he had spoken words to her he was ashamed to admit now that they had ever crossed his lips.

With the benefits of a few hours of hindsight he could see he had not acted rationally. It was as though a madness had been upon him and only his wife's all too sensible words had dragged him back from the edge. If you change everything now, Gandalf would never have needed an advisor. We would never have met. We would not have married, our children would not have been born and all of the circumstances that led us here won't have happened either. You would never be able to come here and tell them what happened in that future, because by then that future had never happened and you wouldn't be able to remember it. It's a paradox, Thorin. It can't exist.

Those words had hit home where her earlier reasoning had failed to land. Apart from the fact that what he wanted was not possible, he would rewrite everything, including but not limited to his own wife and his own children. It'd be a trade, the ones he loved for the ones he'd lost. And he was not content to have only one or the other. Call it the greed the dwarves were famous for, but he wanted all.

And now he could see that he had hurt Kate. Because when he so neatly rearranged his own life, he would irrevocably change hers. He would push her out, undo everything they had ever been to one another. And Thorin was no stranger to rejection. He knew what his words must have sounded like to her.

It was rare that he would make mistakes like this. They knew each other so well now. They were very similar in many ways, which meant that if Thorin could recognise that a subject was uncomfortable for him, it was very likely for Kate as well. She tended to say they communicated on the same wavelength. He still wasn't entirely sure what she meant by that, but that did not mean she was wrong.

Night had fallen and his grandparents had retired to their own bedroom. Kate and Thorin had been given the guest bedroom for the time being and they were told to make themselves at home. It felt like a cruel sort of joke, or it would have, if he had believed them capable of it.

He'd been sitting in front of the dying fire for some time, thinking. Kate had already gone to bed, though he doubted she would sleep. And he could not remain here all night. No matter how hard he found it, he had to apologise. He had been in the wrong and he had hurt her. It had been unintentional, but that didn't mean anything.

True to expectations he found his wife in bed, but awake. Kate had curled up under the covers, lying far too still. That she did not acknowledge his entrance meant that she was either too deep in thought to notice him or she was so hurt that she couldn't bear to look at him. He hoped for the first, but feared the latter. It had been a long time since they had gone so wrong.

'Kate.' He spoke her name as soft as he could.

She got up in one fluent motion. By the little light they had he could see that she had wept. Even now she wrapped her arms around her legs, bringing them up close to her chest. He recognised this as the pose she took up when she felt vulnerable and braced herself for the worst. 'Thorin.' But her voice was steady.

'I apologise.' He would never be good at this, but he had to. Dwarves as a race were not good at apologising, mainly because they had very little to apologise for, but Thorin was honour bound to make one now. And it was not just honour that compelled him to do so. Some years ago he had decided that his marriage was a cause worth fighting for. And not all fights required swords and axes.

She looked up at him, mouth half open in surprise. 'Oh.' He didn't think she was even aware she had made a sound.

He dared to come closer and sit on the edge of the bed, so that he was level with her instead of towering over her. Kate did not shy away from him, which was a hopeful sign. 'I hurt you and I am sorry.'

It was rarer still to repeat the apology. With others he would not have done this, but with Kate he could be certain she would not fling it back in his face. He may have all but destroyed her faith in him, but his in her was still unshaken, strong as the foundations of the Mountain. It was important that she knew this.

She nodded. 'I know.' She attempted a smile, but it would not fully appear.

Encouraged by this, he reached out and took one of her hands. 'I did not think as I ought to have.' Even to her he dared not to utter the word madness. It was something he still dreaded, but it had been a good long while since he had last thought it would ever be visited upon him. Today he had come closer than he would ever like to be again.

Kate did not try to tell him he hadn't. It would have been a falsehood.

'You were right,' he continued. The truth of that felt like a dagger to the heart. He'd learned to live with his losses. They had been his constant companions for so many years, but as time went on, he found the wounds scabbed over and healed. They had left scars on his heart to be sure, but he had learned to cope. And it had done him good to have retaken Erebor. It had put some ghosts to rest. His wife and children had done much of the rest. He had at long last moved on.

Or so he thought.

This day had made all the pain resurface as strong as it had ever been. And all the while a little voice in the back of his head had whispered what if. What if he told them? He could stop all the suffering before it even began. Ten years ago he might have taken that opportunity, would have grabbed it with both hands. After all, what did he have to lose? But he was here now, and the price would be one he was unwilling to pay. It was too high.

'I don't want to be.' The words were spoken softly and he believed she meant them, that it brought her no joy to dash his hopes, which made his conduct of this morning even worse. She hadn't meant to harm him, but his intent had been the opposite. Mahal, what have I done?

'I know.' There was still distance between them. Kate wouldn't do it on purpose, but trust was not restored in a minute. And it would not make its return until he had spoken certain words. 'I will not tell them. I swear to it.' He looked her in the eyes so she knew he was being truthful. 'I would not exchange you for them. That price is too high to pay.' I choose you over them. Those words however did not cross his lips, but he liked to think she could hear them all the same. Much as she claimed she was no mind reader, she often demonstrated remarkable skill in it, at least where he was concerned.

'You shouldn't have to.' She rubbed her hand over her forehead. 'This shouldn't have happened. And now it's all screwed to hell.' She must have done some thinking of her own.

But she was right. Nothing about this was right or even made sense. And he full well knew that rational thought had only made a reappearance when his grandparents were off to bed. Thorin knew better than to trust himself when he would see them again tomorrow and he would have to fight the same battle he fought – and lost so miserably – today.

Am I being punished? Is the Maker testing me? If so, it was a very cruel test and one that he was certain he had already failed.

'But we are here,' he said softly. 'And there is a choice to be made.'

She nodded. 'And ultimately, I can't make it for you.' For one who forever insisted she didn't need help fighting her battles, she sounded frustrated when she could not aid him in his.

'But you can,' he said, not understanding. He knew what he had done this morning, but he could hope and pray for the strength not to repeat that error.

She laughed, but there was no mirth in it. 'Oh, I really can't. Because it's not my right to do that, is it? These people are not my family. I've only met them today.' She shook her head. 'And if I did, you would resent me for it. And you'd be right to.'

Kate knew him entirely too well.

And so it came to him. Thorin could feel the weight of responsibility land and settle on his shoulders, an invisible weight that threatened to crush him. He'd carried many burdens over the years, but none had felt quite so heavy as this one. Of course he knew the choices he would have to make, but it felt as if, in making them, he was condoning the suffering of his people.

Kate must have followed his line of thought. 'You aren't making it happen,' she said. 'That is on Smaug, not you.'

He looked at her. 'Is it?'

'Yes, it is.' There was a spark in her eyes that had been absent thus far. 'Smaug chose to attack. You didn't ask him to invade.' She was silent for a moment. 'We were never meant to be here. It's wrong and cruel and messed up. We need to find Gandalf and get the hell out of this place before we do something stupid and reckless that we can't undo.'

Thorin rather thought that if anybody was going to do something reckless, it would be him. Kate would not. And Thorin could only pray he had the strength to do the same. Take us away, he begged. Let us return home and end this!

If the Maker heard him at all, he at the very least ignored Thorin's plea.

'Gandalf will be found,' he said. It would take time, because the grey wizard was a wanderer, hard to get hold of. They could be here for months, perhaps even years if he proved to be elusive. The very thought chilled him to the bone.

'And so we set the future in stone,' Kate whispered. There was a note of sadness in her voice.

This he did not understand. 'How do you mean?'

She elaborated: 'Gandalf will see me. The moment he does, he won't be able to pick anyone else for the job as advisor on your quest. He's already seen me, knows where I'll end up. It doesn't matter how ill-fitted to the job he may think me, he literally won't have a choice. In fact, you might argue that I was the one who made it all happen.'

Thorin thought about it. It was enough to give anyone a headache. But he saw what she meant. And whereas he had attempted to change the future, Kate's actions would ensure it.

'Then he must have known all the while,' he said. 'And yet he never told you.' What was more, the wizard had lied about Kate's purpose.

Kate had an answer to that. 'He could have, but I wouldn't have believed him.' She laughed another humourless laugh. 'And to think that I always blamed him for what he did to me. And now it turns out, none of it was his fault anyway. I actually owe him an apology.'

The implications of this were slow to sink in, but they did. 'Yet you have no choice either.' They hadn't asked to be here. And if they ever wanted to return to their own time, to their friends and family, then Gandalf was by far their best option.

'I never said I had.' She looked at him. 'You'd think it'd end sometime, all the struggles and the fighting. And every single time we get comfortable, something happens and it feels like we're back to square one.'

Thorin strongly suspected she meant their marriage rather than their current obvious predicament.

She wasn't done yet. 'And you'd think that by now I should have known better than to expect an uncomplicated and they lived happily ever after ending, but no, I keep making the same bloody mistake over and over again.'

There were no easy answers. There weren't any answers at all. And nothing Thorin could say could ease either of their hurts. So he lay down next to her and held her, drawing as much comfort from the embrace as it in turn offered to her. They would have to see this through some way.

But he did not know how.

Kate

She must have fallen asleep at some point, Kate reckoned, because when she opened her eyes, the fire in the hearth was only barely smouldering. The room was dark. It would be, what with being situated so deep under the Mountain. After several years she had become used to places without windows, so long as she did not have to live in one. Waking up in utter darkness never failed to remind her of Mirkwood and made her feel almost claustrophobic.

The moment she woke she knew that sleep would elude her for the night. She was too tired still for it to be morning yet, even if she had no way to verify this. She might as well get up and leave Thorin to sleep for as long as he could. This place and its people were taking their toll on him and the longer he could flee into the ignorance of sleep, the better it would be.

Kate replayed the last day in her head. Thorin had apologised for his behaviour and she believed him. That did not mean it did not still hurt. The pull of his long-lost relatives was strong, stronger than he had known how to resist. He had admitted that it caused him to lose all the capacity for rational thought for a short while.

Madness.

Neither of them had used the word. They hadn't needed to.

He won't come that close again, Kate thought. Not now he knows he needs to be on his guard.

An irrational part of her whispered to not be so sure. Kate swatted at it like she would at a fly. It wasn't realistic and as frightening as this all was, she knew Thorin. She knew his strengths and his weaknesses. And his own terror at the idea of losing his mind would enable him to keep a very firm grip on it. And Kate's own conduct of the previous day was not exactly painting her in a positive light either. We have both been acting like morons.

Then again, was it any wonder? She had been shocked to find that travel between worlds was an actual thing that could happen. And now time travel was real too? It was a lot to swallow. It would have been for anyone.

Next to her she could hear Thorin's breathing, deep and calm, telling her that he was asleep. His arm was still draped over her waist, drawing her close. If this was hell for her, how much worse would it be for him?

Let us find Gandalf quickly, she prayed. Let him know what to do, because I don't have the foggiest. The mere idea that putting them back where they came from might be beyond his skill was so terrifying it made her tremble. No, you can't think like that, Andrews. If you start panicking now, there's no telling where this might end.

She disentangled herself from Thorin's embrace, an exercise that took up the better part of five minutes. He always held on tighter when he was unconscious and he felt that she was slipping away. And she didn't want to wake him in the process. Eventually she managed. Thorin voiced his sleepy protest with an unhappy grunt, but remained asleep.

Hoping to keep it that way, she tip-toed out of the room and into the living room. She only took an extra blanket to wrap around her for warmth. She had been told to make herself at home, but it would be some time before she had rekindled the fire and it would be warm enough not to need it. Besides, if someone came out, they wouldn't be shocked at her state of undress.

As it turned out, there was no need to rekindle the fire; someone had already done that. Thrór was sitting in the chair before the hearth, staring into the flames.

Kate stopped dead in her tracks. This was still his home and he may not welcome the company. And even if he did, Kate had no idea how to behave around him.

She had heard enough stories about the late – or not so late right now – King under the Mountain. Thorin did not speak of him often, but she knew he had been extremely fond of his grandfather, but was deeply ashamed of the madness that had sunk its claws into him. His death had been one of the losses that had hit him hardest, combating for first place only with the death of his mother.

But there were others who would tell tales. And many of those had not praised Thrór, but rather had whispered about his sanity and the lack thereof. They called him the king who had caused his people's suffering, a madman, a blight on their people. Then again, Kate had heard the last said about herself more than once.

But those were the stories. Now that she had seen the real Thrór, she saw that Thorin's regard was not unfounded. He appeared to be a very generous and jovial kind of dwarf, nothing like the gold-obsessed king he would become. Such a cruel fate, to lose oneself like that. Kate could not picture Thrór in the throes of madness. He seemed so nice.

But he is, she realised. The gold sickness will change him, but that is the affliction. It's not really him.

Strange perhaps that she had not thought as in-depth about it as she should have. But then, she had always fought to keep Thorin away from the madness and the madness away from him. And she had succeeded. So no, she had not spent much time imagining just what the gold sickness could have done to her husband.

'There's no need to lurk,' an amused voice told her. 'I'm not an orc; I won't bite.' Thrór had turned around while she had been debating what to do.

'No one would mistake you for one,' Kate told him. Truth was, she liked him. It remained to be seen if that feeling was mutual. Lord knew what he made of her. For all she knew he would join the ranks of those who thought she had no place among Durin's Folk.

'There's never any telling what the elven king thinks,' Thrór countered.

'Ah, so he's as much of a joy to be around now as he will be in the future,' Kate observed. She walked over to the other chair that Thrór was beckoning for her to make good use of and sat down.

'I'd have been surprised if that had changed,' Thrór said easily.

'Well, no surprises on that count,' Kate remarked wryly. Thorin had told her that while his people had been on more or less friendly terms with the elves before the fall of Erebor, relations were always a little strained. Of course, it had gone from bad to worse after Smaug's invasion and Thranduil still took delight in vexing them whenever he could.

'Couldn't sleep?' Thrór asked.

'No more than you could.' The words were out before she could stop herself. Lack of sleep always bloody did that. She'd think something and before she knew it that thought had been translated into the spoken word. And she hardly knew him long enough to be so informal around him. 'Sorry, that wasn't very polite.'

He waved her apology away. 'No matter. It's true.'

'It's been a strange sort of day,' she said. That sentence alone was worthy of the title Understatement of the Century. And Kate Andrews had seen a great many things she would have believed impossible before they happened. She would have been happy if the impossibilities were left in the past.

Which of course, they technically are.

'Aye, you can say that.'

'I just hope there's a way back,' she said softly and really, that was supposed to stay in her head as well. For heaven's sake, she barely knew Thrór!

If Thrór minded, he did not say. 'Folk waiting for you?'

It took her half a second to realise that Thrór was not in fact trying to interrogate her, but rather that he was just a little nosy. It was something she had learned was one of Thorin's vices, though he kept it well hidden. I suppose I know where he gets it from.

And she really didn't mind answering. In fact, it was one of the few things she could tell him. 'Yes, my children among them. Three of them,' she told him before he could ask. 'Two boys and a girl.'

'The Maker blessed you,' he observed.

It was a common phrase among dwarves. Kate had heard it used dozens of times, but it was notably unused by those who hated her very existence. They thought her children were abominations, things that should not be suffered to live. Their number was dwindling, not in the least because her nearest and dearest were always quick to shut them up when they came across these fellows.

And now Thrór, who only met her yesterday and who was likely not sure what to make of anything right now, had called them blessings. For a moment she was speechless.

This in turn puzzled him. 'You doubt that?'

Kate shook her head. 'I don't.' If anything, if there hadn't been a blessing on her marriage, she doubted she would have conceived at all, never mind on the first try. Not that it had been a try at that stage, but still. 'But not everyone shares the sentiment.' When this didn't seem to prompt a lightbulb moment, she added: 'A lot of people don't like the fact that I'm… well, not a dwarf.' Because in the end it all came down to that basic fact and no matter how hard she tried to fit in, that was something she could never change. 'Actually, I'm surprised you haven't commented on it.'

Blimey, Kate, keep a lid on it, will you? Her mouth was running away with her. It had always been a weakness and lack of sleep always made it worse.

'Not my business,' Thrór said. That rang true. While he was apparently just as curious as Thorin – Thorin always said he just liked to be well-informed – he also didn't think it his right to judge that which he didn't have the measure of. And to keep the future on track, she could never fully explain.

Curse this whole madness to hell, she thought furiously. Her whole life had turned into a bloody game of mincing her words lest she'd say something that nobody understood. On some level she was almost used to that. But now she had to be extremely careful not to say something that had the potential to derail her own life.

And at the same time we're allowing him to fall prey to insanity. Because she did understand Thorin's reasoning and it was hard not to feel guilty about it. They could change everything. At the same time they had to make a conscious choice not to. Can't somebody else make the hard choices for a change? Why does it always have to be down to us?

'If I could tell you, I would,' she said empathetically.

'But you can't,' Thrór added. He did not necessarily sound happy with that. She had told him before that she could not tell him much, if anything. But that did not mean he did not have a thousand questions all begging to be answered.

'I honestly don't know how without changing everything.' And in telling him that she had more than suggested there would be a great many things he would like to change if he knew how. From their very presence here and their behaviour he must have surmised that the future was not a particularly good place.

They ran out of words after that. Kate could normally easily outtalk an elf and from Thorin's stories she knew that Thrór was commonly known as something of a chatterbox as well. And now neither of them had the words.

It was even more frustrating because Kate was sure that without all the secrets standing between them, they would probably really have gotten along.

Minutes turned into hours of silence until eventually Thorin and Freya woke up and saved them. Freya, bless her, had an uncanny ability to diffuse every kind of tension by focusing on what they could talk about rather than what they couldn't. She talked easily about the weather and the relations with the people of Dale and the state of the roads. They were safe topics and Kate was eager to join in. Thrór found his tongue again as well. Only Thorin was expectedly taciturn. Conversation on the whole during breakfast was actually not as strained as she had expected.

She should have known everything was going too smoothly. It could never last.

Kate was about to offer Freya her help in clearing the table when there was a knock on the door. Thrór had told them to enter before Thorin and Kate had gotten a chance to disappear out of sight.

Another dwarf entered the room. He was about Thorin's height and had the same colouring, but she didn't know him.

But it appeared Thorin did. He was sitting next to her and when the door opened she could feel him freeze.

'Ah, Thráin. Good morning,' Thrór said, blissfully unaware of the importance of the moment.

Realisation washed over her.

Oh, shit.

Next time on Into the Past: Thráin puts in an appearance.

There will be another Duly Noted chapter in Thursday, to celebrate the five year anniversary of this series, so do come and take a look. That won't be another chapter for this project, mind, but something a little bit celebratory.

Thank you very much for reading. Your feedback/reviews as always would be very, very welcome.