Chapter 38

Together or Not At All

Something was not right.

Kate dreamed. People did. It was the most natural thing in the world. But the dreams usually were not this vivid. She was not usually aware that she was dreaming either.

The halls she was in were beautiful and light. Having said that, the design of them seemed more elvish than she was used to. Whoever had a hand in designing this place must've had a good long look around Lord Elrond's halls, because here were all the fragile swirly bits that no dwarf worth his beard would ever have in his home. After a lifetime of hanging around with dwarves, Kate rather saw their point. These little pillars didn't look like they'd hold up in a gentle summer breeze, never mind a storm.

But the tapestries were pretty, she'd give them that.

She wandered over and had a look around. In the distance there was a man on a sort of throne, but since this was a dream, she decided he could wait while she admired his house. In dreams at least she could do that without appearing rude.

Most of the tapestries were of battlefields and important looking folk doing important looking things. There was even the occasional dwarf now and again. She was fairly sure that someone had woven the fall of Khazad-dûm into a tapestry and, since these things seemed to be ordered chronologically, a little further along the wall she found the Battle of Azanulbizar.

Well, that's nice of them, she thought before she found herself.

Huh.

The weaver was very good – the Bayeux tapestry had nothing on this – she had no trouble recognising herself, standing on the mountainside with four companions, holding off the orcs. They'd made it look a lot more heroic than it had felt at the time.

She became aware of someone behind her. 'This is very good,' she said, because this was a dream, so why bother with the niceties?

The lady behind her inclined her head. Long hair obscured her ears from view, but Kate'd wager that she was an elf. 'Thank you, Catherine. This is my work.'

'You're good at it,' Kate said, only slightly taken aback by the fact that the unknown lady knew her name. 'This must have taken forever.'

A smile tugged at the lady's lips. 'Ages,' she agreed. 'Come, my husband is waiting for you.'

That sounded slightly ominous, but deciding that there wasn't a whole lot of harm she could come to in a dream, she followed. The husband in question turned out to be the fellow on the throne-like contraption. It too continued the theme of the rest of the hall and was covered in swirly bits.

Oh joy.

As she walked it occurred to her that she felt more spry and lively than she'd felt in ages. Tugging a strand of hair within view revealed a colour she hadn't been able to claim for a good thirty years. Her hands were smooth and suspiciously devoid of wrinkles. All the little complaints she'd accumulated in the last decade had equally done a disappearing act.

Huh again.

The man on the throne stood quite a bit taller than Kate – nothing new there – but fortunately he remained seated so he did not tower over her as much as he could have done.

'Catherine Sarah Andrews, welcome to my halls,' he said. He had a deep booming sort of voice. She wouldn't like to be around him when he was in a foul mood.

So she kept it light. 'I like what you've done with the place,' she said. 'I especially like your wife's tapestries. They're true masterpieces.' Only the truth and at least that prevented her from speaking her mind about the rest of his interior decorating.

'Long have we watched your doings from afar,' he continued as though she had not spoken at all. 'Yet now your tale is done.'

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that it had been done for about sixty years now, but something in his voice and posture stopped her. Pieces of the puzzle were falling. Her mind finally connected dots that should have joined as soon as she first opened her eyes.

'I am dead.'

Her heart dropped. Hold on, did she still have a heart? Did she still have a body? Pinching herself still hurt, so that was good. It also did not wake her up, which was not good, not good at all.

Shit, I'm dead.

Oh, Thorin.

She swallowed – she was still capable of doing that as well – and took a steadying breath. She knew she was getting on in years, but she'd felt on top of the world last night. Most of the company had been there on the mountainside and they'd all brought spouses, children and friends along. Even Jack had put in an appearance. It was nothing special, just a bit of a knees-up with the people she loved best in all the world. She'd felt alive in ways she hadn't felt for a good long while before that. Only hours ago she'd told her husband that they should do this more often. Then she'd kissed him goodnight. Only she would never wake again and he'd wake up to a nightmare.

This isn't how this is supposed to go.

'Shit.' The word just rolled off her tongue.

The man frowned at her.

Oops. 'You must be Mandos,' she guessed, which would make his wife Vairë, known for her weaving. Bloody hell, she'd been a little slow. She'd always maintained that her body deteriorated, but that her mind was as quick as it'd always been. Clearly it had taken a holiday and left her to fend for herself.

He inclined his head.

Right. 'Begging your pardon for the language.' One did not annoy a Vala. Rumour had it that this was bad for one's health, as Morgoth could probably testify, as well as scores of Noldor elves who'd pissed the Valar off three ages ago. Note to self: keep your tongue under control. Ghostly or otherwise. 'It's just a bit of a shock, finding out I'm dead.'

Meanwhile her mind kept up its own running commentary on the situation – shit, shit, shit, shit, oh, bloody bleeding hell! – because this was all wrong. Ori had been convinced that for all intents and purposes she now belonged to Durin's Folk. He'd been almost annoyingly concise about the whole thing and it had involved veritable mountains of paperwork and oaths and vows. When it was all done he swore up and down that apart from her physique she was very much a dwarf and there was no reason that he could see why she should not be counted as such after her death.

It was not something she had often – if indeed at all – brought up in discussions with Thorin. She knew he feared their separation. It wouldn't do to raise his hopes, but Kate had privately resolved to go where he went after death. She had no intention whatsoever to spend an eternity sharing the fate of the men of Middle Earth, most of whom she had nothing in common with.

And now the whole thing hadn't worked, because here she was.

You know what they say about best laid plans.

Mandos regarded her calmly. It was said of him that he was grim, that he had to be. Only Lúthien had ever moved him to pity before. And Kate did not have the right sort of singing voice required for such a task. No song of hers could move Mandos when he was not of a mind to be moved. He was a guy who did his job.

And I am a wife doing mine. So she prepared to be obstinate. According to Dori it was not a skill that required much work on her part; it came to her quite naturally.

'You may rest and recover in these halls, Catherine,' he said. 'And then you must go.'

She kept her silence. He may yet send her where she wanted to go.

He did not. 'You must share the fate of Men.'

'Ah. I was afraid we'd hit that little snag.'

Mandos did not look overly pleased. 'You have lived an interesting life,' he granted. 'But this is the fate to which you are bound. It is not for you to question.'

'That's where you're wrong.'

From that look she should have dropped dead on the spot. Good thing you're already dead, Andrews. She had a feeling that not a great many people took that tone with Mandos. For good reason.

'Explain yourself.' The tone suggested she'd better make it good.

'I made a promise.' When all was said and done, this was what it all boiled down to. 'I made a promise when I married Thorin to stay with him, in that world and the next. I don't do keeping only half of my promises.' She crossed her arms over her chest to drive the point home. 'So with all due respect, sir, but I'm not going where you are sending me.'

'It was not for you to make such promises.' Queen Victoria could not have that unamused look any better than he did. She might even have learned a thing or two.

'Well, no one gave me the rulebook.' Wasn't that her whole Middle Earth experience in a nutshell? 'You can't come at me now and say that it wasn't allowed. You're over sixty years too late for that.'

'It is not for you to make your own rules.'

'Be that as it may,' she said, well aware that she was playing with fire. 'The truth of the matter is that I'll not be going.' She stared at him.

It had no effect. 'You will go.'

'Then I'm afraid you'll have to force me there, kicking and screaming.' Perhaps she shouldn't give him any ideas in case he were to treat them as suggestions. 'And then, in due time, you'd have my husband to reckon with and why on earth would you do that to yourself?'

Oh, Thorin.

The realisation that everything they'd had was all over, that he mourned her even now, was tearing her heart into a million pieces. It was as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to her chest, creating a gaping hole that she could not seem to close. Something essential was missing. She'd been on her own before, but never like this, never facing the sure knowledge that she would never lay eyes on any of her loved ones again.

Oh, Thorin.

Her heart wept for him most of all. There'd been too much pain, too much loss and now she'd gone and left him without so much as a farewell. How did he bear this? She only knew that she could barely stand up from the force of it.

And then there were the others. Her children that now she'd never see again. Her friends and family in Erebor. Good grief, Dori must be in a right state! Her mind turned to her elvish friend, the one who'd nearly lost himself to despair when she so much as hinted at the fact that her time was running out.

She hadn't said goodbye to any of them.

And if Mandos had anything to say about it, she would never see any of them again.

We'll see about that. Kate was not known for giving in without a fight. She'd rather hoped that death would be peaceful after all the conflicts she'd got caught up in during her time alive. That was not to be.

Laura had once accused her of thriving on conflict. Time to put that to the test. Kate was used to having to fight for her marriage. It was the noblest of causes.

So she stood her ground.

Mandos's eyebrows were up near his hairline. 'Do you threaten me?' Presumably nobody in their right mind ever did that, but, like she'd said, nobody had given her the rulebook.

'Not at all. I'm just painting you a picture of what's going to happen.' Because Thorin was not going to take this proposed separation lying down any more than she was. 'I am stating my position, if you will, as I believe you have stated yours, which currently seems to leave us at a bit of a stalemate.'

So now what?

Not much, as it turned out. Mandos was either incapable of dragging her away or he simply didn't want to put the thing to the test, because she was still in his halls. Having failed to incinerate her on the spot, he had dismissed her from his presence while he presumably went off to ponder the question of how to resolve this situation.

She had not seen him since.

It took Kate less than a week to discover that being dead was boring. She no longer needed sleep or sustenance, which led her to believe that her body was not as corporeal as it felt. Interesting observation though it was, it did little to distract her from the mind-numbing boringness of the place. She had far too much time on her hands – more than she'd had in years – and nothing to fill it with. She'd grown used to the dwarvish way of life, so this idleness nearly drove her up the wall.

It almost made a body want to move on.

Almost.

Kate knew what she had chosen and she would stick with it to her dying breath… Oh, whatever. She knew who she was and she knew what she'd chosen. It had taken the dwarves years to come around to the idea and if that was what it took to get Mandos to see it her way, she was prepared to wait.

Every mind-numbingly boring second of it.

So she explored the halls just to give herself something to do. The men who came here only stayed briefly to recover from whatever shitty life they'd had and then were always eager to move on. The elves currently in residence gave her a wide berth.

Apparently her reputation preceded her.

It was lonely. There was no one to talk to and nothing could distract her from her losses. No one ever thought about the losses of the dead, because the living lost a loved one when said loved one died. It was not supposed to be the other way around. All the pain was supposed to stop after death. That was the accepted way of it.

Then again, she hadn't read the rulebook, so what did she know?

Her heart yearned and her arms craved to hold. She wished she could hold her children, kiss their foreheads and cradle them close, never to let them go again. She longed to see her husband's face, to wrap her arms around him and feel his heartbeat. She wished to hear his voice, soft with love, chuckling in amusement, even tight with barely controlled anger would do.

How did I get it so wrong?

So she wept often. Since she was always alone, there was no one to notice it anyway.

It only made her feel lonelier.

'You often weep,' a voice one day observed, about two weeks after her arrival. The voice itself seemed to contain all the sorrow of the world. It did not in any way help to stem the tide of tears. 'What grieves you so?'

Kate looked up from her hiding place a choice, a secluded little nook off one of the corridors. The lady before her was tall and graceful. Later she couldn't say what colour her eyes were, only that they were filled with grief and compassion both.

The truth slipped out before she could check herself. 'I miss my husband. He is a dwarf, you see.'

Understanding dawned. 'Full of sorrow is your fate, Catherine.'

'Yeah, I know.' She tried to wipe the tears away, but her eyes had developed a leak and they kept coming. Her control over this body was as poor as over the one she'd left behind in Erebor.

The lady did not do anything. She only looked. But Kate felt understood and comforted for the first time since she'd died. Here was someone who understood grief, who had seen it all before and who yet bore it. This must be Nienna, the Vala she'd privately dubbed "the weepy one." But she had done Nienna an injustice by it. This was not someone who wept for the sake of it. This was someone who saw all the hurt in the world and was sore grieved by it. And it seemed that included Kate's heartbreak.

She weeps for all of us who hurt, for the unfairness of it.

'I shall remember you,' Nienna said.

Kate inclined her head and then made an impulsive decision. Nienna was already on her way again, but this ought to be said. 'Thank you,' she called after her.

The lady turned around, looking askance.

'Thank you for caring,' Kate said, struggling to put this thing into words. 'Thank you for seeing all the hurt and not going numb with it. I've got a sister-in-law who'd tell you that crying means that we still feel, that we still care despite what the world decides to throw at us.' Thora, she realised, was exceedingly wise in her own no-nonsense way. 'So thank you.'

Nienna smiled sadly, then turned and walked away.

But Kate felt better for having met her.

'Will you go?'

'No.'

'You were not meant to linger in these halls, Catherine.'

'Finally something we can agree on. So send me where I want to go and I'll get out of your hair.'

'…'

'For heaven's sake! It means I'll stop hanging around and being a thorn in your side.'

'I cannot grant that wish.'

'Then, with regret, sir, I must disappoint you again today.'

'You cannot stay here until Arda is remade.'

'I should hope not. I'd die. Again. But of boredom this time.'

'…'

'Shall we say same time tomorrow?'

It was the day after Kate had met Nienna that Mandos began his routine of summoning her before his throne to see if she was ready to comply yet. So far the meetings generally ended in bitter disappointment for both parties. He didn't want to see it her way and she did not want to see it his way. Without fail this left both of them frustrated.

About two weeks after this she found an elf waiting outside when she exited the audience hall. He smiled and bowed slightly before he entered the hall himself. Kate had seen him before. He'd stood out to her because most other elves were apprehensive around him and he himself did not seem to seek out their company.

Odd.

Curiosity got the better of her – and it was not like she had places to be – so she hoisted herself up onto an obliging banister and waited until he came back out again. He was not in there long.

'You are curious,' he stated.

'True,' Kate said. 'From what I've heard Mandos does not have many audiences, so I wondered what you had done to incur his special attention.' Having been the subject of it herself repeatedly, she could wonder.

'I refuse to obey his wishes,' the elf said.

Kate grinned at him, somewhat pleased to find that she was not the only one after all. 'So do I,' she said. 'Kate Andrews, pleasure to meet you.'

He inclined his head. 'Fëanor. The pleasure is mine, my lady. It is not often one meets a kindred spirit.'

Oh. She'd heard of him, of course. He was the hot-headed one, the one who had created the Silmarils and then began one hell of a feud against Morgoth who took them. He would not have been one to cross. Rumour had it he still dwelled in the Halls of Mandos, though nobody knew for certain and certainly nobody knew why.

'You must have been here for centuries,' she said.

'Millenia,' he corrected her.

'Why?' She realised that was too blunt and added: 'If it's none of my business, you are very welcome to tell me to shove off.'

'I do not belong now to that world,' Fëanor said. 'It has moved on without me.'

He said no more, so Kate did not ask.

'And what of you?' he asked. 'What have you done to so displease Mandos?'

Uh oh. 'He was in a bit of a mood then?' The quick nod confirmed that. 'I refuse to move on. Mandos thinks I should stop being so obstinate and go be with all the other men.'

'You do not wish to?'

'I was married to a dwarf.' She took a little private amusement over his shocked face. Seeing as how he was apparently not in on the whole story, she filled him in on what he'd missed. It took a while, but neither of them had anywhere they needed to be, so that was all right. Fëanor was a good listener, which she had not really expected from him, but he clearly approved of her actions, which she had expected. He was a bit of a rebel himself after all.

'Lúthien sang to Mandos,' Fëanor said eventually.

Kate scowled. 'Not the right singing voice.' She pondered that and added: 'Or the composing skills.'

Begging and pleading had never really been her kind of way. She had become too dwarvish for it. This was not where she was meant to go. This was not her place. Someone somewhere should realise this and set it all right. And until then she was not going anywhere. Once she left, there was no coming back.

'Besides, I don't think singing a song is going to do the trick, especially not now.' If that had been her strategy, she should have implemented it straight away, not four weeks on when she had already made it plain that she for one was not going to budge.

He conceded that point gracefully.

'So, what do you do to keep busy around these parts?'

'The time has come.'

'To what exactly?'

'You must go. Men were not made to linger in these halls for so long.'

'I quite agree. So, are you sending me to the dwarves yet?'

'That is not your fate.'

'Then I won't go. Sorry, not sorry.'

'This cannot continue.'

'Good grief, I hope not.'

'Go.'

'Only out the door, I'm afraid. See you tomorrow.'

It is an unquestioned rule that outcasts usually find each other to band together, because nobody else will have them. It was like this for Kate and Fëanor. He knew this place like the back of his hand. He pointed her in the direction of the library and the outdoorsy bits that she could visit without actually leaving the premises. She was not supposed to do that. Fëanor seemed to think they wouldn't be capable and Kate was not putting it to the test.

He also showed her the halls filled with tapestries. Mandos's audience hall was not the only one practically groaning under the weight of them and Fëanor had been around these parts long enough to see most of them woven and hung up when they were new.

One day they stopped to peer at a tapestry showing the Battle of the Unnumbered Tears. The figures on the right side were depicted in bright colours and great detail. The other side was shown in dark colours. Kate might have said a thing or two about bias, but the wrong side was Morgoth's and he was good news to nobody, so she quite agreed with it.

'Vairë is a master in this.' For all that the lady sided with her husband concerning Kate's case, she was a skilled weaver. Only a blind man would deny it. The scene was very vivid. If she had known any of those present, she might have recognised them in real life easily.

Hold on.

She moved closer and squinted. 'Oh. Wow.'

Her elvish companion had become used to her outlandish words and phrases enough that he did not question them. 'What is it that you see?'

'A friend of mine, I think.' She tilted her head a bit and considered the evidence before her. 'Yes, I'm fairly sure. That's Elvaethor. Blimey!'

She had always known that he was old. But he had never told her how old and she had never been able to wheedle it out of him. But here he was, fighting in one of the most well-known battles of this world. And he didn't look a day older these days than he had then.

What in the world was he doing playing at serving someone like Thranduil?

Fëanor's response surprised her even more. 'Elvaethor? Maethor's son?'

Right.

'Yes. Bloody hell, you know him?'

The answer was obvious of course. By now she should have learned her lesson that she could never quite figure her elvish friend out. His past was shrouded in mystery. He seemed to have been present at every major event of the past three ages. She tried to recall if he had ever told her which group of elves he originally belonged to, but came up empty.

Bloody hell, my friend.

'I only knew him as a child,' Fëanor replied. 'But yes, he was known to me.'

The tone implied that this was the end of the discussion, so Kate asked no further questions. Instead she looked at her friend's likeness and wondered if he was all right now, if he was dealing with the loss any better than he had the last time he lost a mortal friend. I did all that I could for him, she knew, but her best did not feel like enough.

I'll never see him again either way.

The thought saddened her greatly.

'Have you made up your mind to be obedient?'

'What do you think?'

The Halls of Mandos were pretty – even if they were still far too elvish in design – and thanks to Fëanor she was no longer so isolated. She even had something to do to fill the days. But she was drifting still.

Mandos had not told her a lie when he said that she was not meant to linger here; Kate felt it. Something pulled at her and urged her to leave. Kate ignored it as best she could. It grew stronger as time passed. By the time she had been there for two months – good grief, two entire months cut off from everyone she loved! – it was becoming hard to fight. It was no more than a feeling, but one that told her that she did not belong, that she was meant to go elsewhere.

But Thorin is not there, so screw that.

Her mind had been made up long ago.

Fëanor accompanied her to the audience hall, as had become his habit. He himself only had to appear once a month on account on having been here so long. Even then it was mostly a formality; Mandos had no real hopes of getting the most recalcitrant elf who ever lived to comply with his wishes.

Why on earth he still thought to get anywhere with Kate, she never knew.

'This shouldn't take long,' Kate said at the doors. 'In and out in under five minutes.'

'I shall wait here.'

'Yeah, because you have nothing better to do.'

'There I many things I could do, Kate Andrews, all of them without your sparkling company.'

He was bluffing of course. It was just better with company. They'd both been alone too long. 'We could have a look at the northern section of the library later,' she suggested.

She opened the door and all thoughts of books went right out of her head.

Oh.

Well, shit.

She almost backed away and out of the door again, but she stopped herself. She didn't run away. That was no longer what she did, so she walked forward with as much courage and dignity as she could muster.

'My lords and ladies,' she acknowledged with a nod of the head when she had come close enough.

They were all here. Oh, bloody, bleeding hell they were all here. She did a quick and discreet headcount, but yes, every single one of them was assembled in this room. Mandos had ceded his chair to a taller guy she suspected was Manwë. He did Queen Victoria even better than Mandos.

And none of the others looked particularly pleased to be here.

'Catherine Sarah Andrews, come before the Valar.'

She couldn't see who had spoken, but obediently she did another few steps forwards.

'You have disobeyed Mandos's commands,' the one she thought was Manwë said.

'I have.' She saw no reason to deny that.

'Never has one of your kind done so before.'

'Is that a question?' Keep your tongue in check, girl, before he loses patience. He might just hurl you into the void to keep Morgoth company for all eternity. That prospect was not very tempting.

'Why have you done so?' The tone was annoyed, but not yet angry.

Kate took this as a good omen. 'Because that is not in accordance with my promise. I promised to stay with my husband in that world and the next. And he is a dwarf. So that's where the problem lies, sir.' Because courtesies never hurt anyone and better late than never.

Having said that, Kate was fully prepared to be just as recalcitrant and cooperative with all fourteen as she had been with just Mandos. She had made her choice. She had married Thorin and that didn't mean chickening out when it all got difficult.

I miss you.

Just the thought of never seeing him again made tears trickle down her cheeks. It was more than she knew how to bear. She had never thought of herself as the sentimental type, or the weepy type come to think of it, but isolation had done that to her. Why would this not end? It could not be so terrible to let her go, could it?

'And if I am right I am not the first in a similar situation,' she said. Inga and Dari had lived and died some centuries ago. She didn't think they had been content to be separated for all eternity, not after all the stories Elvaethor had told her about them. Neither of them were here, which was interesting.

The Valar's faces reflected this estimation.

She did not ask who went where. It was not relevant. 'It is my firm believe that Dari and Inga were not permanently separated, so I see no reason why Thorin and I should be any different.' And she had not seen Inga skulking around because the world did not mysteriously rearrange itself in accordance with her wishes.

'You would ask to be counted as one of Aulë's children,' one of the female Valar said.

'I do.'

'None has asked that before of us,' she continued, answering the question Kate had not been about to ask. Dari had given up his people for Inga. Kate was not about to ask the same of Thorin. She had joined his people, not the other way around.

'I have lost one of my children,' a booming voice spoke. 'He was given the grace to go where none of mine have gone before.' Kate looked up and saw the one whose name she had quite often taken in vain. Oh, well. 'Can I not claim one as mine who was not born as such?'

Manwë looked like there was not enough time in the world to deal with all of this. He looked at Aulë, whom Kate knew better as Mahal these days, and then back at Kate again. 'Would you choose this?'

Honestly. 'I have been stating that desire since the moment I came here, sir.' She crossed her arms over her chest, even if only to stop them from shaking. It could not be this easy. She daren't even hope.

'The fate of the dwarves is different than those of men and elves,' he said.

Kate nodded. 'I am well aware.' Why did everyone assume that she made this choice lightly? She knew what she was doing.

And she hardly dared to hope now, because this was the closest she had come to getting her way. Yet nothing had been easy these past two months and Mandos had been singularly uncooperative in every imaginable way. It could not be this easy.

'And yet you still choose it?'

Time to be frank. 'You'll have been made aware that I am not of this world,' she said. She wondered if he had been one of the Valar who'd had a hand in that unfortunate time travel debacle fifty years ago. 'I left behind everyone I ever knew and loved when Gandalf brought me here. The dwarves took me in. They are not my family by blood, but they are the family I chose and the family that chose me. I married a dwarf I love dearly, with all my heart, and I miss him greatly. I will not be separated from him for eternity. I won't do that.' She refused point blank to be alone forever. That was not what she had chosen.

'You love a dwarf?' another Vala asked, incredulity in his voice. She had no clue which one he was. None of them had bothered to introduce themselves.

Typical.

She answered promptly. 'Yes, I do. With every fibre of my being.' She'd been about to say with every breath in her body, but she didn't have a real body anymore on account of being dead. It was vastly annoying.

He fixed her with a stare. 'Why?' He almost made it out like Thorin was some sort of criminal. 'All dwarves lust after gold and riches more than folk of flesh and blood.'

Could she get away with punching him? On reflection, probably not. So words would have to do her. It was therefore a good thing that they did not often let her down. 'Well, someone hasn't had a look around Middle Earth in forever,' she sneered. 'Thorin is the best and brightest soul you could ever hope to meet, who led his people through years and years of exile before he retook Erebor from a bloody fire-breathing dragon. He's not greedy. He never has been.' Why did people always insist on thinking the worst of dwarves? There were very few things that really made her mad these days, but this never failed to rile her. If she had blood, it'd reach boiling point by now. 'And he's a great deal more pleasant to be around than anyone I've ever met and certainly anyone present in this room. Bloody hell!'

She stopped herself at last, but she'd probably done more than enough damage anyway. If she wanted them to give her what she wanted, it probably would not do to annoy them to such an extent that they'd rather toss her into an active volcano.

Have I just messed up my chances of ever seeing him again?

It took all her willpower to remain standing.

Silence ruled supreme for what felt like an eternity.

'I vouch for her,' a soft voice spoke.

Every head in the room turned to Nienna.

'Sister, would you explain yourself?' Mandos asked. He did not at all like where this was going if that look was anything to go by. He had however been surprisingly quiet during the proceedings.

Kate wondered about that.

'Catherine has a compassionate soul,' said Nienna. 'I have seen this myself.' Kate remembered that encounter, but her recollection was nothing like what Nienna described. She'd just done the decent thing. 'What she says is true. We know this. She has given up much. Are we to begrudge her this boon now?'

Mahal spoke up, because as a smith he knew to strike when the iron was hot. 'I should like to claim this soul for myself,' he said. 'One of my children was lost to me. If I shall have one that was not born as mine in recompense, I shall declare myself satisfied and consider a debt repaid.'

Did he smile? It was gone again too quick to be certain.

But it worked. The arguing went back and forth for a while. All Kate could do was to stand back, let them get on with it and hope for the best. She had her fingers crossed behind her back. It was a strange superstition from her own world that she'd never been able to shake. And it was not like it could harm her cause.

She did that well enough herself.

'You are certain of your choice?' Mandos asked at last and she knew that the fight was won. 'Once chosen, you cannot go back on it.'

'I've never been so sure of anything in my life. And death.' Being dead really wreaked havoc with popular expressions. 'Yes, I am sure.'

She could have done a little happy dance on the spot, but she contained herself.

'Then go with Aulë and leave my halls.' He sounded extremely relieved to be rid of her at last. The feeling was entirely mutual. 'You belong with his children now and they have no place here.'

'Thank goodness, because your interior decorating is really grating on my nerves.' Because keeping your mouth shut is just so difficult, isn't it, girl? Then again, he'd started the insulting game. 'Sorry, none of my business anymore. Begging your pardon, sir, would it be permitted to say goodbye to a friend of mine before we leave?'

'What friend is this?' asked Mahal.

'Fëanor,' Kate replied, keeping her voice carefully neutral.

'Him,' said Manwë. The other troublemaker. He didn't need to say it for Kate to hear it. 'Be quick about it.'

She knew better than to risk it, so she ran the length of the hall – it was nice to be able to run again after decades of not being able to on the account of creaky joints and dodgy knees – and through the door to find Fëanor on the other side.

'They are letting me go,' she said without preamble.

He looked pleased and disappointed all at once. 'It is good for you,' he said.

Yes, it was. 'I hope you'll find contentment,' she wished him, taking the initiative to give him a hug. Inappropriate by Middle Earth standards, but what could she care? Dwarves were well known for being completely inappropriate anyway. 'You're Fëanor. You'll be fine.'

He held her at arm's length. 'I do not believe that this is the last we shall see of one another.'

'Oh, I should think not,' Kate grinned. 'Take care of yourself. And if Elvaethor's ever stupid enough to get himself killed, you'll tell him where I've gone, yes?'

He'd want to know.

And that should give him hope.

Kate had no idea where they were going. Mahal ensured her that it was not a long journey. At this point she didn't mind how long it'd take, so long as she got there in the end. Now that it was all happening it felt a little surreal, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. She was too happy to be here.

'Thank you, sir,' she said to the Maker whose name she'd so often called out in frustration. He did not seem to hold that against her. 'For adopting me. I'm very grateful, honestly.'

He inclined his head. 'You did not belong there,' he said. 'I made my children to work and live their lives to the full, as I am wont to do. You share those gifts.' He grinned at her, the solemn mask falling away. 'And if I did not bring you home, some of my children would never have forgiven me. Go. The door is open to you.'

She hadn't noticed her surroundings in a bit, but now she did. She stood in a corridor of stone, so reminiscent of the halls she had lived in most of her life. A door was at the end of it, slightly ajar, beckoning her through.

'Thank you,' she said again, but he was already gone.

So get a move on yourself, Andrews.

She didn't think the offer would rescinded if she did not get on with this within a certain time frame, but it was foolish to risk it. So she walked the short distance and halted just before the ornately carved door. Here were the patterns she had so missed these past two months. Here were the sturdy structures she had longed for. The stone was cool beneath her fingers and reassuringly strong.

This feels like home.

With that thought in her head she pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.

She did not get the opportunity to take in her surroundings. She had a fleeting impression of a great hall before she was enveloped in a hug that involved too many arms to belong to just one person. The purpose of this seemed to be to squeeze the life out of her lungs, which would be quite the achievement given that she was already dead. Then again, no dwarf worth his beard ever shied away from a bit of a challenge.

'Can't breathe!' she choked out.

Her assailants let her go so that she could get a good look at them. Kíli was the first one she saw, grinning like a madman and looking really pleased with himself. Kate recalled Mahal's comment about some of his children. She'd hazard a guess that Kíli had been as good as first in line in this mad venture. Next was Bifur, minus axe, also smiling and also a little bit smug. The last one of that trio she'd never met.

He smiled at her, almost shyly, and oh, Mahal, she knew that smile.

'Hello, amad.'

If she'd still had a heart, it'd have stopped. She knew him, but she had never known him like that. He hadn't lived long enough. Here was the child she'd borne too soon, who had never once drawn breath in the living world. But he was here, alive and whole and everything she'd ever hoped he would be. Most of his features were Thorin's, including that heart melting smile of his. But the curls were all her and so was the nose.

'I am so very pleased to meet you,' she said, because all other words failed her. She drew him in for another hug and relished the experience of holding this child she'd never raised. And yet he was still hers, every inch of him. She had mourned his death, but here he was.

He was never lost, she thought. He still made it here.

'I'm feeling left out,' Kíli complained playfully.

'You can wait your turn,' she admonished. 'I'm meeting my son.' She held him at arm's length. 'I am so sorry, love, I don't even know your name.' Well, wasn't that embarrassing.

He smiled again. 'Kíli said you were going to call me Dari, so that's my name.'

It suited him well. 'I am so pleased to meet you, Dari.' Thorin, you would be so proud of him.

This reunion was bittersweet. The elation still reigned, and she was overjoyed to be here at last. But she still missed Thorin. How she would have loved to share this with him, to look over her shoulder and tell him that they had a son and that he was wonderful. Wasn't he everything they could ever have hoped for?

But Thorin wasn't here.

It felt as though she had left a piece of her heart behind in Erebor, where it lay, still in Thorin's keeping.

She was not allowed to dwell on it. Kíli demanded another hug, Bifur clapped her on the shoulder and greeted her, with no small amount of satisfaction, in the Common Tongue. Kate, with no less pleasure, returned the courtesy in the Khuzdul that she now spoke fluently. They hadn't been able to communicate in life, but those obstacles were all gone here.

'Let me through, my lads,' another voice she recognised demanded. Thrór elbowed his way through and clapped her jovially on the shoulder. 'It's been a long time, my lass, but here you are at last!'

The last she'd seen of him was during that whole time travel nightmare, before he ever lost his mind. She'd never known him mad. He certainly was not in this place either. In fact, he was as she remembered him, jovial and cheerful, bouncing on his feet with enthusiasm, as he had been when he tried to wheedle information about the future out of her and was very pleased with the meaningless little titbits she'd allowed him to coax out of her.

'I am indeed,' she said. 'It is very good to see you again.'

'A rocky road it was,' he agreed, summarising two hellish centuries in just five words. 'You did very well, very well indeed, my lass. I knew I'd left the future in capable hands.'

She felt herself grow an inch or two at the compliment.

Theyra and Freya came to greet her as well, followed by Thorin's brother Frerin, whom she recognised on sight because he resembled his brother so much. Thráin the Elder was nowhere to be seen however, and she didn't want to ask. That was not an affair that should be dragged up at such a happy occasion.

But eventually the greetings were out of the way and something Dari had said demanded her attention. 'Kíli, how did you know that my son was going to be called Dari?' She had only ever discussed that with Thorin. Nobody else could possibly know. And after her miscarriage there had never been any need to speak the name.

It was too painful.

So how had he known?

'We can watch,' Kíli explained. 'So we do, from time to time, just to see how everyone fares.' He looked slightly apologetic.

It was an effort to not ask him what exactly he had seen. Kate decided she did not need to know.

'You can see?' she asked. 'How?'

So he showed her and she saw her husband. Who was not coping.

The days had often felt endless and heavy to Thorin, but they were more so now than they had ever been before. There seemed to be so little point to them these days. His hands felt too heavy to lift up to work. The world had faded to greys and blacks.

The colour had gone out of it when Kate died.

The moment between sleeping and waking was both the best and the worst. Still half asleep he reached out to the other side of the bed to touch her. Without fail there was nothing there and the truth would make itself known to him.

She was gone.

So nothing made any sense anymore.

He had never craved sleep in the way he did now, because in his dreams at least the world was still right. During the day Erebor was full of ghosts, of echoes and memories, of reminders of people long gone. There was nothing there to hold them at bay anymore. So sleep became a refuge.

This dream however was different. He stood in a hallway that felt like the halls he knew, but that he did not recognise. Some distance before him was an ornately carved door standing slightly ajar. Light fell through the crack into the dark corridor. Laughter and excited voices drifted through it.

He did not look behind him, but began to walk. It seemed it was expected of him. At the door itself he halted. He put his hands against it, without yet pushing. They were not the hands he recognised. These hands were young and smooth as they had not been for some time now. He plucked up a strand of hair for his inspection and found that it was no longer grey.

How odd.

He did not knock. Dreams never warranted that. The door swung open and he stepped over the threshold.

There she was, young and unscarred and smiling so widely that it should have split her face in half.

It didn't.

He had no memory of moving, nor did he see her move. He only felt her in his arms, vibrant and tangible. He heard her delighted laughter in his ears. Some of his dreams had played tricks on him where she evaporated the moment he reached out to touch. This was not one such.

'Can't breathe,' she reminded him at last. 'Not that we technically need to.'

The comment puzzled him, so he broke the embrace and held her at arm's length. 'What do you mean?'

Kate smiled, but it was one tinged with sadness. 'We're dead,' she told him. 'That's why I am here and that's why you're here now. It's not a dream, Thorin. We're here. We're both here.' She reached out and caressed his cheek. Her hand was warm against his skin.

The pieces fell into place. The thought caused surprisingly little distress. Where else could he have been bound? His life was at its end, he had known that. He had just not anticipated it to be like this.

'You are here.' He reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from her face, red and wild as it had been when he first met her. 'I believed we would never meet again.' How could they? She was mannish. He'd attempted to trick himself into believing that sixty years had been enough to sustain him, but they were not, not by a long stretch. He had barely lasted four without.

'Together or not at all,' Kate said, smiling again. 'That was the promise.' The smile widened to a grin. 'It took some doing to get everyone else to see it my way, but we got there in the end, that's all that counts.' She looked him in the eyes. 'I have missed you,' she whispered. 'And now you're here and I shouldn't be so glad about it because it means you've died and…'

He stopped her mouth with a kiss that stole the breath they no longer needed from their lungs. 'Tell me later,' he told her at last, his forehead resting against hers. 'It does not matter now.' Against all the odds, here she was. He kissed her again. 'I love you.' How he'd wished these past months that he had told her more often. It was not an oversight he'd allow to happen again.

'And I you,' Kate said. She had not let him go yet. Neither had he relinquished his hold on her. Not yet. 'And so do a lot of other people.' She reached for his hand and smiled even more. 'Come and meet our son, Thorin…'

This chapter was born a couple of weeks ago when I listened to Eurielle's Lúthien's Lament and I wondered how Kate would have gone about persuading the Valar to let her stay with Thorin after death. Somehow it did not seem likely she would sing Mandos a song and get her way like that. Inspiration struck and two days later I had somehow written this piece.

Next weeks it's back to The Book. Tragedy is lurking only just around the corner for our protagonists in Erebor…

Thank you so much for reading! Reviews would be so very much appreciated.