New year, new multichapter Duly Noted project. It may end up being AU, but I am trying to keep it fitting in with Written Word canon.

Anyone up for time travel?

Enjoy!

Chapter 26

Into the Past Part 1: Down Memory Lane

"Gosh, that takes me back... or forward. That's the trouble with time travel, you can never remember."

Doctor Who

Erebor, spring 2950 TA

Thorin

'Are you finishing this?' The request had barely been answered with a shake of the head on Thorin's part before his wife with a grateful 'thanks' had snatched the last piece of toast off his plate. It made a short detour to avoid the eager hands of Thráin and then ended up between Kate's teeth.

'We will need to leave soon,' he pointed out, trying and failing to keep Duria's little fingers out of his beard. She was at that age where she didn't really understand what she was doing, but she grabbed everything that came within reach nonetheless.

'Thora'll be here in a minute,' Kate replied. At least, that was what Thorin assumed she was saying; it was difficult to tell for sure with the toast in her mouth.

Thorin had privately questioned the wisdom of selecting Kate's best friend as a childminder. She was too flighty and not serious enough by half. He himself preferred Bombur's wife Dara for that kind of responsibility, but unfortunately for him Bombur, Dara and all their offspring had gone on a trip to the Iron Hills to oversee construction work in the mines. Well, Bombur had gone for the construction work and his family happily tagged along, depriving the royal family of a much-needed babysitter. That was how Thora had ended up being chosen. Dís was off to Esgaroth, most of their kith and kin were generally busy and even Thorin agreed that his children had done nothing to warrant the punishment of having to put up with their Uncle Dori for an entire day.

He nodded. Better save himself the argument he knew was coming if he suggested otherwise. Then again, it was no news that Thora's timekeeping was at least a little erratic.

'It would be best not to keep Dáin waiting,' he pointed out instead.

'Dáin is not exactly punctual himself,' Kate said, which was not strictly speaking untrue. Thorin just didn't want to be late himself. 'Thoren, kindly put that down again,' she added in the same breath.

Their eldest put Kate's teacup back on the table with an incredulous look. 'You didn't even see!' he complained.

Thorin himself often wondered at Kate's ability to manage three children all by herself with only one pair of eyes and hands at her disposal, whereas he turned his back for a second to find that mayhem had broken out in the moment he had looked away.

'Didn't you know, I've got eyes in the back of my head?' Kate asked sunnily. 'And a sixth sense that tells me whenever my morning cup of tea is in immediate danger.'

Thoren frowned suspiciously. 'You'd need to be a wizard,' he declared, clearly being well aware that such powers were beyond ordinary mortals.

Kate smirked. 'Well, that's for me to know and for you to wonder at, darling. Now, go put your boots on. Aunt Thora isn't likely to wait for stragglers and it's a bit cold to go around barefoot.'

'Hobbits do it all the time,' said Thráin, obviously proud of himself for remembering.

'You are not a hobbit,' Thorin reminded him.

'And believe me, with the amount of food you lot wolf down, I've checked,' Kate muttered.

It took ten more minutes and two timely interventions on Kate's part, but then the three of them were taken away by Thora with the promise of a treat from the markets around lunch time ('nothing focuses a dwarf like the promise of food,' Kate had observed) and Thorin and Kate were about ready to leave themselves. By then it was really getting late and Dáin would almost certainly arrive in the council chambers before they did. And Dáin did not approve of tardiness unless it was his own.

Fortunately there were shortcuts. Most of them he remembered from his childhood, when he had been running around the Mountain with Frerin at his heels. Some of those had been made unusable thanks to Smaug, but at least others were still able to be of service.

As always, the ghosts of the past were never far off. Memories could jump out at him from behind any given corner or niche. They were not as tangible and frightening as some years ago and they were easier to ignore when there was somebody with him, when he wasn't left alone to dwell on memories all by himself. But still, it took recalling he had run around here with Frerin to miss him all over again, to feel the loss of all that might have been just as keenly as he had felt it all those years in exile.

But today Kate was with him and the meeting with Dáin was on his mind. He should have needed no more distraction than that. That was why he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the two ghosts at the end of the corridor.

Erebor, spring 2746 TA

Freya

'We are going to be late,' Freya, Queen under the Mountain and self-appointed keeper of the King's agenda, reminded her husband. Thrór was taking the time with his breakfast, documents of all sorts spread out before him. If there was any order or sense to this lay-out, Freya had yet to see it.

'Nah, Grór's not exactly going to be early,' said Thrór, trying to simultaneously braid his beard, eat his sausage and read his correspondence. 'And neither is Thráin, what with a new-born keeping him up from dusk till dawn.'

Freya found it hard to argue with the latter one; little Thorin hadn't been feeling well these past few days and had made his illness known in the only way he knew how. But Grór was another matter entirely. He'd never been late if he could help it.

'Your brother's always been very punctual,' Freya disagreed. And he'd always held it as a point of pride that he was, yet another thing he could lord over his kingly elder brother. Freya would never say so – Thrór was far too fond of his brother to tolerate such talk – but she rather thought that his move to the Iron Hills had changed him, and not for the better. There was something stuck-up and snobbish about the Iron Hills folk, as if it was somehow better to have a whole mountain range instead of one Mountain, never mind that Erebor was much richer in gems, metals and minerals than the whole range in the east.

'Well, yes,' Thrór agreed. 'But he knows he can't get anything done till I get there, and he knows me, so he probably can't be bothered to show up early. No sense in waiting, is there?'

'He might show up early just on the small odds that you will be on time.' In fact, that was probably most likely.

'Well, then a little waiting won't kill him.' Thrór was the most easy-going dwarf Freya had ever met, one of the most good-humoured ones too, come to think of it. Though he was King under the Mountain, he took pleasure in the smallest things. He used to say his wealth was mainly in family and friends and good work before wealth and power. He found the proceedings of court dull and mind-numbing, which was why he could almost never be bothered to show up on time. If not for Freya gently nudging him out of the door, he might not get going at all.

'True,' Freya agreed, resolving to use more subtle means to get her husband to hurry a little bit more. 'But if we don't leave now, we most certainly won't be done at lunchtime.' It was a well-known fact – although only among dwarves; they would never share such knowledge with outsiders – that nothing made a dwarf focus like good food. Thrór was no exception to the rule.

It worked like a charm.

'No, can't have that,' he said. 'I've promised to mind young Thorin for a bit after noon, poor lad. Maybe I'll take him on a walk,' he pondered. 'Nip down to the forges to show him round.'

Freya laughed. 'He's too young for an apprenticeship.'

'Aye, but it won't hurt him to look.' All he wanted was to show off his grandson to folk. If Freya thought he had been proud when Thráin was born, he was even more so when little Thorin came along. Here was a child he could indulge as much as he wanted and then he could leave the actual raising to his parents.

It still took them ten more minutes before the sausage had been finished, Thrór had redone his braid without breakfast plaited into it and the correspondence had been cleared away. Well, at least there was no evidence of his meal on his clothes, Freya reflected. It was one thing for the people to know that their king needed sustenance like they did, but it was quite another matter entirely to see the evidence in stains on his garments.

Fortunately they both knew a number of shortcuts that would save them some time. Most of those alleyways were rarely used and therefore poorly lit. And they were in such a hurry that Freya did not particularly notice the two figures who had come to an abrupt standstill at the sight of them until one of them spoke.

'Whoah, hold your horses!' a female voice exclaimed when Thrór, trying to get in a last-minute look at his documents – that he should have read much sooner – almost collided with the other one. Freya had the good sense to grab her husband by the back of his coat before he could have an actual run-in with the other dwarf.

'Apologies!' Thrór said cheerfully and he would have been on his merry way if Freya hadn't had him by the coat. And she did, because now that she really looked, there was something decidedly odd about these two. She would have deemed the dwarf who was staring open-mouthed at them like he could not believe his eyes the strangest, but then she caught sight of his companion.

'No problem,' the mannish woman said, smiling apologetically. 'We weren't exactly looking where we were going either.' If she thought there was anything at all strange about this encounter, she hid it well. 'Well, we'll be off. As it happens, we're running a little late.'

It seemed to dawn on Thrór now as well that this was a rather unusual development. He blinked and had another good look at her. 'I think you are a bit lost,' he observed. Men did not usually come this deep into the Mountain and if they did, they went no further than the council chambers. They certainly did not come this close to the residential areas.

She frowned, as though she did not entirely understand his remark. 'Don't think so. The council chambers are still that way, yes? Unless they've moved them overnight and I rather think I would have noticed that.'

Stranger and stranger, Freya thought. What would a mannish woman have to do in the council chambers? From what she knew of their mannish neighbours, she wouldn't have thought they let their women anywhere near an important meeting, especially not without one of their own men as an escort.

Thrór was frowning now as well. 'As far as I remember, they are.'

She smiled. 'So, not lost then,' she said. 'Well, we must be off. Thorin?'

The dwarf she called Thorin was still rooted to the spot. To be honest, his incredulous gaze was making Freya feel a little uncomfortable. She had never been the subject of such scrutiny and could not for the life of her determine what he thought. All she saw was naked shock on his face.

The woman noted it too. 'Thorin?' The frown deepened. 'Are you all right?'

He didn't look right to Freya.

Whatever Thrór's thoughts on the woman, his attention too shifted to the open-mouthed fellow. 'If it's the healers you need, I can walk you.' Typical Thrór. Never mind that he had a meeting to go to, as soon as he noticed someone in some sort of trouble, he would make them his first priority. Freya knew that while the folk in trouble always very much appreciated this, his own council and his own brother were not likely to be so understanding.

'I… I don't need a healer.' This Thorin sounded like he had trouble forming words and when Freya looked closer, she saw his hands were shaking.

The frown on the woman's face deepened a bit more, as though she wasn't convinced by this any more than Thrór and Freya were. 'I'd hate to agree, but you do look awfully pale all of a sudden. But if you're sure you're fine?' She phrased it as a question, but Freya tasted the unspoken request to tell her what was going on behind it.

Thorin tore his gaze away from Freya and turned to her. 'You can see them too?' He sounded almost surprised.

'Yes, I can,' the woman said, sounding distinctly worried now. 'Okay, you're starting to scare me. What the hell is going on?'

Now Freya was sure this lady did not come from anywhere near here. Quite apart from the fact that she'd never seen her before and it was highly irregular for anyone of the race of Men to venture this deep into the Mountain, she had so far counted two unfamiliar words. Nobody in Dale spoke quite like that.

Thorin swallowed. 'They are the spitting image of my grandparents. If this is a jest of some kind…' He turned to them again and this time she glimpsed the first hints of anger, ready to be unleashed the moment someone told him they'd done this for a bit of a laugh.

Thrór completely missed it. 'That's funny,' he said and Freya could have cheerfully gagged him for making light of this dwarf's clear distress. Maker knew what had happened to his grandparents and how long they had been gone. No wonder he reacted as he did when he met their image in the street. Either way, he was unlikely to have much patience for Thrór's ill-advised remarks. 'I've got a grandson called Thorin, but he's still a tiny little thing.'

The silence that followed those words was deafening.

Thorin shook his head. 'It cannot be.' Whom those words were directed at was anyone's guess.

The woman with him looked puzzled for a moment. 'Wait a minute. You don't mean…? I mean, I know stranger things have happened, but that? That's the stuff stories are made of.'

Freya had lost track of what was being said, but it seemed Thorin had not. 'I should think you of all people should know not to discount anything purely on the basis that it is more like a story than reality,' he said and it would have sounded wry if not for the pure shock that still influenced his voice.

She wrinkled her nose. 'Touché.'

Thrór's well of patience had already been exhausted. 'What do you mean?' he demanded. 'What is wrong?'

The woman rallied. 'Hopefully, nothing,' she said. 'In that case we'll all be on our way, going about our urgent business and we'll laugh about it over dinner. So, we'll just…' She fell silent. 'Now, maybe my memory's going, but I could have sworn there was a carving in that wall only yesterday.'

Thrór turned to the piece of wall that had caught her attention. 'You must be mistaken,' he said. 'That wall's been bare for as long as I can remember and that's a good deal longer than you've been on this earth.'

She went pale. 'Oh, dear.' She had gone as pale as her companion.

'So, something is wrong.' Thrór stated it as fact rather than question.

'Yes, quite possibly.' She hesitated for a moment and then barrelled on. 'Listen, this may seem like a very stupid question, but would you mind answering it anyway?'

Thrór sounded just as confused as Freya felt. 'What question would that be?'

'What year is this?' Of all the things Freya might have expected, this surely wasn't it.

'How can you not know what year it is?' Thrór's sense of tact left a lot to be desired when he was at his best. As it was, he would feel remarkably out of his depth.

The woman didn't seem to mind. 'Pretend I'm an idiot,' she suggested.

Thrór did not look like he had to pretend, but he answered all the same. 'It is spring of the year 2746,' he replied. 'Third Age, in case you were wondering.'

She grimaced. 'I wasn't, but thanks all the same.'

Freya felt it was about time to intervene before Thrór offered any real insult. Besides, some answers would be nice. She felt as if she was on the verge of discovering something important, something the woman had already realised. She also felt like maybe the answer was already within reach, but she couldn't quite comprehend it just yet.

'Maybe you can explain what is wrong,' she said gently, directing the request to the mannish woman rather than Thorin, who seemed to have lost his tongue all over again.

She bit her lip. 'Well, when we got out of bed this morning, it was spring of the year 2950,' she said. 'Third Age, if you were wondering.'

Oh. The pieces were falling into place now, all of them fitting neatly together in the time it took to blink. Thorin's shock, his refusal to believe it was real, the confession they looked like his grandparents… 'Maker be good.' She turned to Thorin. 'You are…' And now her words failed her. It was almost too impossible to grasp, but she also never doubted that it was the truth. Dwarves weren't made for dissembling and deceit and Thorin's emotions had been written all across his face for all to see.

He nodded solemnly. 'Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór.'

Now that she knew, she could see it. He resembled Thráin quite much, but there was something of Theyra in him as well. But he was not the babe she knew. This Thorin was all grown-up.

'You're my grandson.' Thrór too needed some time, and a verbal confirmation.

Thorin nodded again.

'From the future.'

Freya did a quick count and if it had indeed been 2950 where he had come from, he was about the same age as they were. But he somehow appeared older, as though he had seen much more than they ever had and most of it wasn't good. Or maybe that was just the shock that made him appear like that.

'I don't know how.' Thorin turned back to his friend. 'Do you…?'

'Don't look at me,' she said. 'I don't know any more about time travel than you do. And for what it's worth, it doesn't feel like a wizard's spell. Not that I'm the biggest authority on that matter, but it doesn't feel the same. If it had been his work and these things would more or less work the same, we couldn't have failed to notice it.'

In this case, Thrór's mouth kept pace with Freya's thoughts. 'Who are you?' he asked. 'I can accept that Thorin is my grandson from the future, but that does not explain you.'

She realised she had been amiss. 'Sorry, should have thought of that. I'm Kate. Short for Catherine. I probably should have introduced myself earlier, but it's been something of a morning.'

Thrór let out a bark of laughter. There was little humour in it, though. The situation was too strange for that.

'Strange for a woman of your people to know Erebor so well, though.' Thrór was still trying to work it all out. So was Freya, albeit more silently. Of course, she did not get far. 'Rather unusual really. How come?'

Kate grimaced. 'You couldn't have started off with something a little easier, could you? I understand you have questions, but could we at least have a little time to gather our thoughts before we jump into the particulars of my life's story?'

Freya was about to agree. No matter how many questions they had, Thorin and Kate must have just about as many, if not more. And theirs had been the greater shock. At least Freya could rest assured in the knowledge that this was still the Mountain she knew. These two were not so blessed. Everything they knew must have been turned on its head in the time it took to blink. And if she was still reeling, then so must they.

Thorin however was quicker than she was. He wrapped an arm around Kate's waist and looked them right in the eye. 'Kate is my wife.'

Kate

Kate knew that it would have been a good idea to stay in bed this morning. Of course, this insight was little use after disaster had already struck. Can't we catch a bloody break? And there was no time to recover, no time to agree on any sort of strategy. It was happening, it was happening right now and they had to make it up as they went along. And all the while she had to fight down the panic that was gripping her by the throat so tightly she could barely breathe. It was happening all over again. She'd been stolen away from all she knew a second time and there was nothing she could do about it. She felt cold and thought that maybe she was going to vomit.

I can't have a breakdown now! Thorin was barely holding it together and it had always been her job to stand in and deal with the matter in hand until he had rallied himself and was able to re-join the game. But she had been caught on the back foot and the sensation of flashback was stronger than she could fight for long. It had been a long time since she had felt this powerless, this lost. And while she had been taken from her own world once, time travel was a new one for her as well. It was a discovery she really could have done without.

'Your wife?' The incredulity in Thrór's voice – the actual Thrór, in the flesh – was far from flattering. 'Beg pardon, but I think I just heard you say she was your wife?'

She could feel Thorin's tension almost crawling through the fabric of her dress, seeping through her skin and into her bloodstream, where it added to her own. By now she was used to having to defend her marital status, and so was Thorin. But this was different. These were his grandparents and their opinion of him and his actions mattered.

He stood his ground. 'You would have heard correctly.'

Oh, for heaven's sake! 'Do we have to do this now?' she asked. It only could go wrong. Thorin could snap at any moment and Kate could practically feel herself unravelling on the spot. And the last time she'd been magically abducted, she'd had a very embarrassing breakdown in front of people she'd never have wanted to see that. 'Or can we agree, at least for the moment, that this is a very long and complicated story which I, for one, don't want to recount in the middle of a bloody street.'

Bloody hell, her hands were shaking now as well. The panic only increased as the situation started to sink in. This didn't feel like Gandalf's work, so who had done this to them? What reason could they possibly have? Were they in danger? What would happen in their time? What would happen to her children? Would they ever see any of their loved ones again? She had to consciously stop herself from going down that path. If she travelled further down it, there was no telling if she ever found her way back again. And she really couldn't afford to lose it here.

Fortunately it seemed that every little thing she'd ever heard about Freya was true. 'It can wait,' the present Queen under the Mountain decided. 'What do you need?'

A one-way ticket back to the thirtieth century of the Third Age would be lovely, thanks.

To her surprise Thorin answered. 'I would like a place where I can speak with my wife in private,' he said. He was doing that it again, the oddly formal way of communicating he would use when he was very far out of his comfort zone, even when he was among family. One had to know him well to recognise it for what it was, but Kate had known him for the better part of a decade and she knew him well. 'And a cup of tea would be much appreciated as well.' For all who didn't know him, he was holding himself together admirably, but Kate knew he craved the privacy and a place to regroup as much, if not more, than she did.

'We have a meeting to attend,' Freya said, not so subtly nudging her husband in the ribs when he was about to protest. 'And our rooms are not far away. You are welcome to make use of them until our return.'

Kate nodded. 'Thank you.'

Freya took them there, not saying a word while she did that. Thrór, with some grumbling, had gone on ahead. No matter what crisis happened along, the kingdom wouldn't stop going on and a kingdom this large needed running. Kate knew that from experience. And all things considered, it was best not to leave the council to their own devices. At least, that was what it was like in her time. Nothing she knew about then could be in any way assumed for now.

'Make yourselves at home,' Freya said, not unkindly, when she let them in. 'We'll be a while.'

'Thank you,' Kate said again. Freya must have all sorts of questions, but she hadn't asked a single one, quite possibly out of sympathy for their situation.

'Catch your breaths for now,' she counselled. 'We will sort this thing out.'

She was gone before Kate felt compelled to thank her yet again.

They stood there for some time in silence. Kate suspected they both needed the time to catch their breaths, to let it sink in that this was happening to them and to come to terms with it as best they could.

It was not an easy task.

At least when she had been taken to Middle Earth she had known where she was and more or less what she was doing there. She'd also known the way back. Just because Gandalf wasn't cooperating then didn't mean she was unaware that he could put her back just as swiftly as he had taken her.

She had no such answers now. There was not even the certainty that there even was a way back.

Slow down, Andrews, she snapped at herself when the tides of panic rose again. You don't know that there isn't.

Thorin uncharacteristically had sunk down onto the couch, his entire posture radiating despair and shock. If this was bad for Kate, it must be so much worse for him. These were the people he loved and the people he had lost. Those wounds had never fully healed.

'Gandalf might know how to get us back,' she offered, avoiding the minefield of his pain and her fears in favour of jumping straight to a plan of action. 'If we can find him…'

Thorin managed a nod. 'Aye, he might.' She could see him attempt to pull himself together and fail miserably. 'How?' he asked, and it was clear that he didn't inquire how to locate the wizard.

He didn't expect her to know the answer to that, she thought. She could not possibly know. But the need to know was so strong, the question needed asking. If Thorin hadn't beaten her to it, Kate might have asked it herself.

'And why?' she added. Was there a purpose to this? Someone must have done this to them. One did not walk from one century into the next – or the previous – by accident. Even in a world with magic, it didn't work like that. And if I'd stepped into a TARDIS, I would have noticed that, she thought wryly. And at least then I would know how to get back home.

Thorin stood up, too restless to sit down any longer. 'They will have questions,' he said.

'Questions we can't answer.' Kate would not claim to be an expert on time travel. Most of her knowledge on the subject came straight from Doctor Who. True enough, those rules concerning time travel had made a bit of sense, in a science fiction sort of way. And if time travel were actually real. It was a nasty shock to find that it was.

Thorin swivelled around, looking her straight in the eyes. 'What do you mean?'

Kate hated that. She hated her own words even more. 'We can't tell them about the future. We could end up rewriting the whole thing.' She grimaced. 'Or unwriting it. For all I know we could even end up blowing a hole in the universe or something.'

Not that the time travel rules of Doctor Who were the gospel, but they were all she had right now. She decided that it was better than nothing.

'We don't know what we're doing, Thorin,' she pleaded. He was going to fight her on this; the look in his eyes was all she needed to see to know this for a fact.

She was proven right. 'They needn't die.' The fight was back in him. 'None of them.' The unspoken accusation that she would be the one responsible for their deaths if she stood in his way hurt.

'But they did die,' she said. 'We know that they did. For us, this is history.' Her hands had started to shake and her vision was already blurring. It was bad enough that they were suddenly stuck in the past and that they did not know how to get back. The little treacherous voice whispering in her head wasn't helping. He would rather unwrite everything you ever were to him, your whole life, your children, if it brought back the ones he'd lost than keep you. He would leave. You know he would. In her current mental state Kate did not have the ammunition to fight back.

Thorin must have been oblivious to her distress to respond the way he did. 'They are not. You have seen them. They are as alive as you and I.'

The fear clenched its cold fingers around her heart and squeezed. 'You can't rewrite your own personal timeline,' she countered, throwing back the first thing she could remember from hours of watching the Doctor.

Thorin's eyes told her this was bullshit. 'How is what you did any different?' he demanded. 'You knew what would happen and you changed it because it did not suit you.'

'That was different,' she argued. It had been, but in the heat of the moment it was hard to adequately explain it to him.

'How?' he demanded.

'It wasn't my own personal timeline for starters.' She had raised her voice.

How had it come to this? It had been years since they had a fight of this magnitude. They quarrelled from time to time, sure enough, but it had not been like this since the time after they'd defeated Smaug and they had not spoken for two weeks. Their marriage had been good just this morning, not a cloud of trouble on their marital horizon. And only an hour or so later they were falling apart.

'Nor is this.'

Didn't he see? The thought was enough to give her pause.

'Yes, it is.' She clenched her hands into fists and forced herself to focus. 'Think on it. 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.' How she was able to make such a strong argument, she did not know. She was barely hanging on to what was left of her composure and her sanity by this point.

But something in her words had hit a chord somewhere. It stopped Thorin dead in his tracks. She did not even dare to hope that the thought of unwriting their marriage had made a difference.

It did to her. It made all the difference in the world. Years ago, when she had first arrived in this world, she would have given her right arm for the chance to erase all memory of her trip to another world so she could carry on living her life as she had expected. But now, almost ten years later, the thought was abhorrent. Her life was never perfect, but she had chosen this. And it was good. Just the mere idea of never seeing her children again, of them never having even existed, made her feel like she was drowning. And then there was Thorin, whom she loved more deeply and fiercely than she had believed herself capable of. Deep down she knew she would never have found a love like this in England. Nor would she want to. This was her life now and despite her many regrets, she wanted it.

And Thorin was ready to throw it all away for the chance of changing history.

It couldn't not hurt.

Her hands were shaking uncontrollably and she thought she was maybe going to be sick. Her legs gave out underneath her and she sank to the ground, sobs shaking her shoulders. A pretty picture she would make now, she suspected, but all her self-control was gone and she couldn't stop herself no matter how hard she tried.

A minute passed or maybe it was an eternity. Kate couldn't tell. But suddenly Thorin was there, on his knees before her, bringing him level with her. And then his arms went around her and he held her.

His tears mixed with hers.

I've been writing bits and pieces for this over the past few months, never really intending to post it. But I had about two and a half chapter all written and I rather like it, so here we are.

Your feedback on this would be much appreciated, because this is uncharted territory for me and I'd like to know what you think. So, please review.

Thank you for reading and until the next time!