Chapter 35

Into the Past Part 9: Home

My journey is the same as yours, the same as anyone's. It's taken me so many years, so many lifetimes, but, at last, I know where I'm going, where I've always been going: Home, the long way 'round.

Doctor Who

Thorin

Even though Gandalf granted that request – and Thorin had tried his hardest to make it sound as such and not as a command – it would take several hours at least until all was ready for their departure. The healers insisted on giving Kate another thorough once over, backed up by Elvaethor. All they knew – Elvaethor excluded – was that Kate, very much against their advice, would go on a journey. Several had concluded that the grey-robed interloper had something to do with that decision and sent him withering glares as they walked to and fro.

Thrór had disappeared after he had left them alone with their guests – and mercifully, so had Thráin – but someone must have told him, because he returned a while later, Freya in his wake, with bags of their belongings. They had come here with nothing but the clothes on their backs, but Thrór had been generous.

'We do not need these things,' Thorin told him, nonetheless moved. 'Not where we are going.' He had accepted enough of their charity. If he had been in his own time, he would never have needed it and now that he knew he was going back, it seemed greedy and wrong to accept more.

Thrór had clearly anticipated this. 'Well, the way I see it, it's not going anywhere. It's just going to make a jump into the future, but since I intend to make sure that everything I possess is going to be yours after I die anyway, I don't see the trouble with accepting anything now. One way or another, it'll be yours.'

It was hard to argue with this. Nevertheless, he tried to find words to do so, before Kate cut in and saved him from himself. 'You've been more than generous,' she told him.

Thrór shook his head. 'Nonsense, lass. 'Sides, there's some gifts in there. For your children,' he clarified. 'Looks like I'm not going to meet them in this life, so this'll have to make up for it.'

Kate frowned. 'You have nothing to make up for.'

A shadow fell across Thrór's face. 'Indeed,' he said, communicating with the tone of voice that he was of a different opinion. 'Have I not?'

It was odd to hear him talk in such tones. Thorin had memories of his grandfather being bitter and irritable and mad – it hurt to think of it, so he did not dwell on it – but never here, not in this day and age. But it had happened after what Thráin had done. It had changed Thrór.

Is this the start of it? Thorin wondered. The beginning of the end?

He did not dare dwell on that either.

Kate was decisive and quick in her answer. 'You really don't.'

Thrór might have been unwilling to let the matter rest – he was a dwarf after all – had Theyra not entered the room. 'They said you were leaving,' she said. 'Looks like they are right.'

Thorin nodded. 'It is for the best.' He knew that. He felt that. But his resolve wavered yet again when he saw her. When he left this time, it would be in the knowledge that it would be for good, that he would never see them again. Worse, he would leave them to what he knew was coming, the darkest years. The guilt rose up hard and fast, as it always did.

Theyra nodded in return. 'I know.' She thought for a moment, then nodded again and strode towards him. Before Thorin could anticipate what was about to happen, she caught him in a hug.

Not usually being on the receiving end of affection, it took him a few seconds to catch up and return it. Realisation that this was the last time he would see her made him hold on tighter. Theyra was his mother, one of the best and brightest souls the world had ever seen. She deserved all the best it could give her, but she wouldn't receive any of it. None of his family present here today would. They would die before their time and he could do nothing about it.

'I will miss you,' he said, finding to his amazement and embarrassment that he could barely hold back tears.

'And I you,' she said, ending the embrace and holding him at arm's length. 'Odd though that feels to say, because I still have you. A smaller you, but still.'

She had not brought his younger self here today, for which Thorin was grateful. He managed a smile. 'So you do,' he agreed. There would be some good years to come for her before everything went so terribly wrong. And at least she would not be alive for the years of destitution and exile. At least she had been spared that humiliation.

She had looked near tears herself just a moment ago, but she rallied wonderfully. 'So I do,' she said. 'And I'm leaving you in the best pair of hands.' She looked at Kate.

Kate managed a grimace. She had clearly been aiming for a smile, but moved at the same time. Gandalf had taken some of her pain, but not all of it. 'Thank you,' she said, not taking the sentiment for granted. After what Thráin had done, neither of them would ever make that mistake again.

Theyra moved on to Kate and left Thorin in front of his grandmother. 'You will be missed,' Freya said, looking at him quizzically. 'Though I believe you will not miss this place.'

She was not wrong, but neither was she entirely right. 'I will miss the good people who populate this place,' he corrected her, drinking in the sight of her. The last time he would be able to do so.

Soon enough he would be back home and everything that happened here would be two centuries in the past, out of his reach, safely out of his reach. When he was back home, the urge to change matters that should not be changed would die. Perhaps guilt that he had done nothing would take its place, but that mattered not. Guilt could not transport him back to the past and make changes. It was better that way. Or it should be, which was not the same thing. And he knew himself well enough to know that if he could rewrite the past and keep what he had in his present at the same time, he would grasp that opportunity with both hands. And why should he have a care for the consequences?

But he had, because he could only have one or the other. And so his hands were still tied.

Freya reached for them and held them between her own.

'I do not know what it is that you have not been able to speak of,' she began. 'But I know that you've not had an easy life.'

Thorin remained quiet, because he had nothing to say that could contradict it. Of course, he could have said that there had been others who'd been worse off than he, but that was confirmation of what she'd said rather than denial.

'I don't doubt Thráin is to blame for much of it,' she continued. It must be hard to speak those words. Whatever else Thráin was, he was still her son.

'That is not your doing,' he reminded her.

She smiled wryly at him. 'Perhaps,' she said. 'But I did not notice the change when it occurred.'

Perhaps not. But even though Thorin had suspected that Thráin had lost his mind much sooner than he'd always thought, even he had not really believed that he would go that far, not until it was already too late. The blame was more his than hers; he'd had experience with Thráin's madness before.

'You couldn't have,' he said.

'We will make do,' Freya said, finishing the thought she started with.

You will not. But that was something he could not tell her either.

She must have read the answer in his eyes all the same. She embraced him and held on tight. He did likewise, but he knew he must have scared and worried her. And he could not ease her fears. It would be a lie.

'Farewell,' he said when they parted. Because for him in a few minutes she would have been dead for a very long time. Not for the first time he wished they had never come here. It had been hard to meet them, but it was even harder to part with them.

'Good luck to you,' she said. He suspected she knew more than either of them had said and he hated himself for having destroyed her ignorance, however unintentional. If he could not stop what was coming, at least he would have had them happy before it came. But just by being here, by being who he was, he had already given away too much.

Everything had changed and yet nothing had changed at all either.

Thrór was next. 'Good luck, lad. Go take care of the future.' He was solemn for once.

Thorin nodded. 'I will,' he promised. He would have done that even if he had not been charged to do so. It was his responsibility, the burden that had been passed down to him.

Thrór clapped him on the shoulder. 'Never doubted it.' He looked Thorin in the eye. 'Take good care of that wife of yours, and those children I'll never get to meet.' He held his gaze. 'Looks like our line will endure.'

Not in the way Thráin wanted. He had made that point very clear. He knew Thrór had a different opinion, but it was good to hear him say it.

'It will,' he vowed. That was one of the few things that he could promise, one of the few pieces of good news he was able to relate.

'Good,' Thrór said. 'Very good. It was good to have met you.'

Their coming had turned everything on its head. As far as Thorin was concerned, nothing had been good about it. 'And you,' he said, because it was the truth. He had so many memories of his grandfather either mad or deeply sombre, but very few of him happy. He was glad to have seen that at least, even if their presence here had also taken much of that happiness. All things considered, the downsides far outweighed the upsides.

'Maker keep you,' Thrór said. 'Now, go, my lad. Go home.'

There were no more words he could say. There were many he wanted to utter, but he could not. He wondered if he would ever stop feeling guilty for it, or if it would ever stop hurting. And he doubted that. Perhaps he ought to resign himself to the idea that this was one thing to be added to his burdens.

'I shall,' he said instead.

Kate

'Are you certain you are warm enough, my lady?' Elvaethor asked.

'Perfectly sure,' Kate replied. Besides, she was not going to be in this bed for much longer.

Home. So soon she would be home. Now that she knew it was both possible and imminent, her heart yearned for it. She would never fully belong in this world, but she belonged there more than she ever would in this era. And she had come to think of it as home over the years.

At first she hadn't, those first couple of years, when the longing for England would sneak up on her and take her unawares. She'd feel something tugging at her heart, almost as strong as the ties that bound her to Thorin and Erebor. The fact that his people were not always welcoming did not help much.

Slowly, and almost without her noticing, that had changed. It had taken her until a trying visit to the Iron Hills in 2947 to realise it. The dwarves there got on her every last nerve and the proceedings had dragged on so long that even patient Ori had been overheard saying he wished he could strangle each and every one of them. At that point Kate had thought that she was more than ready to go home again. And that thought had stopped her in her tracks, because she'd never really thought of Erebor that way before.

'Thank you,' she added. 'For what you did for us.' She meant that, every word. Not only had he saved her life, but he'd also enabled them to return to where they belonged. Sometimes it felt as though she was getting deeper into his debt with every encounter they had. There's no repaying him for all of that, not if I'd lived to be a thousand years old.

Elvaethor conjured up one of his enigmatic smiles. 'It was my pleasure, my lady.'

But Kate had known him long enough to know when he was fibbing. 'No, it wasn't.' Hell, it must have been more stressful for him than she could imagine. There was a reason she'd assumed he had run off, never to return. Honestly, if she had been in his place she might have run for the hills without a second thought. 'But you'll change your mind eventually.'

The smile faded. 'How long?' he asked.

Kate didn't need any clarification. 'A while,' she replied. Giving him the exact date wouldn't be a good idea. If her memory served her right, he had been surprised to encounter them in Mirkwood. And not even Elvaethor was that good of an actor to fake that. 'But we will meet. Of course, Fryr and I won't have any memory of this encounter, because for us it won't have happened yet.' She grimaced, not in pain for once. 'Time travel. It would be enough to give me a headache. You know, if I didn't have one already.' Gandalf's magical healing had done much, but, like he'd said, healing was a natural process. And Kate knew already that she didn't have nearly enough patience to deal with it.

How Thorin puts up with my company at the moment is a miracle. I don't even like my own.

'You will mend, my lady,' Elvaethor assured her.

Just not fast enough for my liking. And she also knew that Thorin wouldn't stop feeling guilty until most of the visible reminders of this incident had gone. Kate had no idea why he thought he should have developed psychic abilities that should have told him about Thráin's intentions before the dwarf in question had them, but that was beside the point. Thráin was Thorin's father and so Thorin thought he had some responsibility there. Kate disagreed. She thought that Thráin being a little shit was mostly his own fault. Thorin had nothing to do with that.

'The sooner, the better,' she said.

Gandalf moved into sight, stopping Elvaethor from saying whatever it was that he wanted to say.

'Are you prepared?' he asked.

I was prepared weeks ago. She'd been ready to be sent home whenever Gandalf would set foot inside Erebor. 'I am.'

It felt awkward, interacting with Gandalf. After all, it was difficult, meeting someone you'd hated for so long. And Kate had hated him. It had been low-key and she hadn't felt any real anger towards him in years, but neither was she comfortable with his presence. Call it dislike, for lack of a better word. He had taken her from her own world without so much as a by-your-leave, without explanation and without a chance to say goodbye to her loved ones. That was abduction. And for uprooting her and trapping her in a world not her own, she had never forgiven him, no matter how much she loved her life as it was now.

Except now it had become clear that her hate had been wholly misplaced. The specifics of time travel would give anybody nightmares, but she had understood enough to know that Gandalf had never really had a choice when he took her. If he'd told her what she was going to do before she switched worlds, she wouldn't have believed him. She certainly would not have come willingly. And her not coming to Middle Earth would have done things she did not want to contemplate.

I can't hate him, not now. In fact, Kate was not even sure that she could so much as dislike him anymore. Yes, he had lied to her, but with good reason. I would never have believed him and I would most certainly have tried to prove him wrong. And then where would we be? No, much as she hated it, she owed him not only gratitude for helping them now, but also a very big apology for the way she had treated him – or would treat him in his future – when she had first met him. And Kate Andrews had never liked to admit that she was wrong.

But it had to be done, and so she took a deep breath and got it over with. 'I owe you an apology,' she said bluntly.

He frowned. 'Whatever for?'

Right, of course he wouldn't know. And she could not tell him all of it. But she had to do it now, because if she did not, she would chicken out and not do it in the future. Now that she had plucked up the courage, it was the best to make use of it.

'In the future, when we meet, I'm not going to be all that nice to you,' she explained, remaining vague on the details, because he couldn't know those yet. She had been abrasive, argumentative and downright rude and he had borne it with the patience of a saint… most of the time. 'Knowing what I do now, that wasn't right.' She smiled wryly. 'I am sorry for it, so please bear that in mind when I'm being unbearable then.'

Kate was older and wiser now. And on top of that, she had the benefit of hindsight and some years' distance between the time of the quest and her present. It helped putting things into perspective. It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps Gandalf had chosen her – would choose her – as advisor because today she had made a far more favourable impression on him than she would on the actual quest. The thought almost made her laugh out loud.

Apparently this was such a new situation for Gandalf as well that for once in his life, he was lost for words. Time travel was uncharted territory, even for him. He frowned a little and then looked long and hard at Kate.

Eventually he nodded. 'I shall remember that.'

Kate felt instinctively that it was wise not to take this any further. There was nothing really more to say, not without giving away things that should remain unspoken of. And it was good the way it was. Kate felt lighter for having said it. It wouldn't mean that she would ever be friends with the grey wizard; that would be stretching it a bit. But at least she had finally been able to let go of her resentment towards him, and that had to count for something.

Perhaps this is what it feels like to forgive. Kate wouldn't really now, not being intimately acquainted with the institution. She was like a dwarf in that respect; once wronged, the offence was hard to forgive and even harder to forget. Kate Andrews had never been in the habit to forgive any major slight; she'd sooner break the offender's nose and have done with it that way.

But that wouldn't have sufficed now, so she had done the right thing. And now that it was done, she was ready to go home.

Thorin must have been thinking along the same lines. He had been taking to Thrór, but now there was one last hug and Thorin tore himself away from his grandfather one last time. Maker knew what it cost him. He had forced his emotions under control quick enough, but Kate knew. These days, she always knew.

We know each other so well now. And if someone had told her that ten years ago, she'd have told them they were bonkers.

'Ready?' he asked.

Kate nodded, relishing the feeling of being able to do so without screaming her head off with pain. 'Home,' she said decisively.

Gandalf had explained that it would be best if they were touching when he sent them back. Kate couldn't stand yet, so Thorin would have to carry her. Fair play to him, he did his level best to lift her gently and to keep the most injured side of her body away from his, but Kate hadn't left the bed in a week and had rather underestimated the amount of damage done to it. Being lifted was extremely painful and it took every last scrap of will-power not to scream.

Bloody Thráin. The more she realised what he had done to her, the more her anger with him blossomed into hatred. He had not actually succeeded in killing her, but he had ensured that now her own husband could barely touch her without hurting her. That Thorin, and not Thráin, was feeling guilty for it was just icing on the cake. That little piece of shit must be feeling very pleased with himself.

'I am sorry,' Thorin said, because of course he had noticed Kate's discomfort. He had probably anticipated it.

Kate gritted her teeth and forced the pain under control. 'Not your fault.'

Thorin took her word for it. He probably didn't believe it, but, like her, he was not willing to waste any more time. They had said their goodbyes. Dragging it out would serve no point. It might only make matters more painful.

'Begin,' he told Gandalf.

Kate had wondered if it would be the same as it had been when she had been taken from the street years ago. She had almost believed that because time travel was involved, it would be different.

It wasn't.

The soft breeze came first, barely there, but it quickly grew in strength. Thorin said nothing and stood as still as a statue, but he radiated tension. Never a fan of magic on a good day, this must be an absolute nightmare for him. Kate herself was calmer. She had done this once already – or had it done to her would be a slightly more accurate description – and she knew where she was headed this time.

Home. I'm going home.

As it had been the first time, it was over as soon as it had begun. The healing rooms had gone, as had the people in it, and the light had faded to semi-darkness. Kate blinked a few times, allowing her eyes the time to adjust.

'The carving's there.'

And it was. They were back in the same corridor they had been in when they had accidentally stumbled into the past and the carving, the lack of which had first alerted Kate to the reality of their time travelling, was firmly back where it belonged. She'd never found it particularly beautiful, but right now she could have sworn to it that it was the most inspired piece of art she had ever come across.

Home. They were really home.

'We are,' Thorin agreed. She must have spoken aloud without realising.

He began to walk, not in the direction of the council chambers – Maker only knew how much time had passed on this end, so it made no sense to go to a meeting that had probably finished weeks ago – but back towards their own rooms. Every step hurt, but she clenched her hands into fists and bit her tongue. She wouldn't scream. And, like Elvaethor had said, she would heal. She would be fine. Eventually.

'Maker be good, what happened?'

Kate could hear Lufur before she could see him. The familiar voice was another firm reminder that their ordeal was now over.

'Kate had an accident,' Thorin reported.

She could tell how much it pained him to not be completely honest about this, but this was neither the time nor the place for explanations. She for one would be perfectly happy to tell the whole story at some point, when she was feeling better and she had slept a while, preferably a week. Good grief, she didn't remember being this exhausted after her first magical transportation. Then again, she had not been injured at the time. The pain drained her energy faster than she could replenish it these days.

'When, my lord?' Lufur asked in bewilderment. 'Why, you only left the quarter of an hour ago.'

Thorin stumbled and halted as the implications of this started to sink in. They hadn't been missing for weeks, as they had feared. Gandalf must have put them back right at the time after they had disappeared. In this familiar Erebor, they had never really been gone.

The strength of her relief almost made her pass out.

'It is a long story,' Thorin replied brusquely.

Lufur's face hovered into view, brow furrowed. Confusion and worry fought a war for dominance on his face and neither emotion appeared to be winning. Of course, her injuries did not look as if only just sustained; they were a week old already. And now he had to struggle these two irreconcilable things into some sort of harmony: the fact that he had seen her barely fifteen minutes ago and the fact that she was showing up with a week old injuries and in clothes she hadn't worn this very morning.

But he was a dwarf and for a dwarf action was always better than idle chatter. He told them to come inside, held the door open and ushered them in, making offers of finding healers and supplies and whatever they could need.

'Sleep, I think,' Kate said. Not so long ago she had been complaining about how it was all she seemed to be doing lately, but her body's demands were stronger than her frustration. Much though she loathed it, she needed the rest. She could barely keep her eyes open.

Thorin nodded and carried her into their bedroom. Kate had a vague recollection of forgetting to make the bed before they went out and, true to expectations, it was unmade and messy, even still a little warm. They had slept late, she recalled, and had needed to hurry up before the meeting with Dáin.

The meeting…

Bloody hell. 'You need to go,' she told Thorin when he had put her down.

He frowned. 'There is no need.'

If they didn't want to explain the extent of this debacle to Dáin – and that was something they could really do without – then he had very little choice. 'The meeting,' she reminded him. 'With Dáin.'

Judging by the look on his face, he had forgotten all about it. Not anymore, though, not now she had reminded him of it. And she could read the reluctance on his face. He didn't really want to leave, but his duty dictated that he went and sorted out whatever it was that Dáin had come here for in the first place. It had been so long she had completely forgotten the reason for his presence in Erebor. Trade, maybe? Some laws that needed reviewing? It'd probably come to her once she'd slept. She could only hope Thorin's memory was more reliable.

'Are you certain?' he asked.

'I'm going to sleep.' It was a trial just trying to keep her eyes open. 'I won't be fit company for anyone for hours yet. And I wouldn't know if you were here or somewhere else,' she added for good measure.

Truth was, she didn't feel like being parted from him quite yet either, but being Queen under the Mountain had taught her that there were times when personal preference just didn't come into it. And it would be a bad idea to antagonise the Iron Hills dwarves. Kate remembered Grór and honestly, she didn't think there had been much of an improvement since then. Dáin could be reasonable enough, she supposed. But he point blank refused to show up to kill a dragon.

'I will leave Lufur here,' Thorin said. It was a compromise, one he wasn't happy with. But Kate knew he trusted Lufur. He had kept her safe during the Battle of the Five Armies, after all.

Kate didn't say she wouldn't be much aware of his presence either. Neither did she point out that there was no murderous dwarf lurking nearby intent on killing her as soon as his back was turned. As it was, she was only barely aware of him leaving the room.

In fact, the first thing that she heard when she regained some form of awareness was the presence of another person. Must be Thorin, come back early, her sleepy brain supplied. Or late. These days she could be out for hours at a time. She hadn't slept so much in years.

'Quiet,' a voice instructed. Not Thorin. 'Amad's ill.'

Kate smiled. 'Not ill, just a little bruised,' she corrected her eldest.

Now that she had her eyes open, she could not keep them off her children. Thoren and Thráin, much more well-behaved and quiet than they usually were, each held one of Duria's hands, so she could more or less move on her own legs. If she had been capable, she would have got up and embraced them all until they'd start to wriggle out of her arms, complaining that they were too old for this. But she couldn't. She had to wait for them.

'Bruised,' Thoren corrected, completely unfazed. 'Carefully now.' He mimicked his Aunt Thora so well it was a little scary.

'Up,' Duria demanded. 'Ma, up!'

Thráin looked at her for either confirmation or denial. 'Can she?'

And Kate was not ever going to turn them away. She had longed to hold them for weeks and now here they were. 'With your help, certainly,' she said.

Thoren was the one who actually lifted his sister – something he wasn't allowed to do and he knew it, judging by the skilful looking in the other direction – onto the bed. Duria wasted no time and crawled under Kate's uninjured arm as if she was drawn there by a magnet. She lay down and curled up, thumb in her mouth, and then promptly fell asleep.

Kate had not spent any time thinking about her homecoming, what it would or should look like, but this was the closest thing to perfect she could have with an injury of this magnitude. Her daughter's body was warm and tangible. Real and present. And it didn't matter that she had gone right back to sleep, because Kate didn't need her to be awake. She just needed her there.

She beckoned to her boys. 'Come on in, lads. The bed's big enough for all of us.'

Thoren was still hesitating, but Thráin didn't need telling twice. He climbed on up after his sister and installed himself next to Kate's head. 'Are you ill?' he inquired, looking her over. He was too young to realise that her injuries looked older than they could reasonably be expected to be. But he was old enough to question his brother's judgement and feel the need to ask for himself.

'I fell down the stairs, darling,' Kate explained. 'Nothing more.' She almost ended by saying that she would be back on her feet in no time, but that would be a lie. This morning's short trip had made it more than clear that she wouldn't be walking anywhere in the foreseeable future.

Thráin nodded solemnly, pondered this information for a moment and then leaned forward to press a quick kiss to her forehead. 'Kissing it better,' he declared. 'Now you'll be better very soon.'

'I feel much better already,' Kate told him. It was not even a lie. Just being home gave her a sense of peace and belonging. Just seeing her children again eased the insistent ache in her chest. This was how it was supposed to be, this was where they were supposed to remain.

Having completed his job, Thráin lay down as well. There was a contented smile on his face. Her little boy was nothing like the dwarf who had also borne his name. She had wondered at times why Thorin had insisted on the name Thráin for their second child, had wondered if he had ever experienced any trouble keeping the two apart. But now she knew. She had no issues telling one from the other. Her Thráin had made that name his own without even trying. And he was wonderful, kind and loving. In short, he was everything his grandfather was decidedly not.

'Aren't you coming in?' Kate asked Thoren.

He looked a little torn between wanting to come in and a completely misplaced sense of being too old for such a family moment.

Thráin rolled his eyes. 'Don't dawdle,' he told his brother, imitating his Uncle Dori. 'We're not waiting all day for you.'

'Thráin…' she chided.

He pretended he hadn't heard her. Either way, it was enough to convince Thoren he didn't want to be left out after all. He hopped onto the bed and sat down on Kate's other side, the injured side. He was sensible enough not to touch her, another thing Kate held Thráin the Elder entirely responsible for. I wonder Middle Earth has something like hell. If not, it should be invented for that waste of space alone.

But Thráin was far away now, long years in the past. Dead and gone. He couldn't hurt them here, not anymore. He had done what he could to prevent the future and he had failed. That Kate and her children were still here was proof enough of that.

We will heal, she knew. And it will all be well.

With that though she fell asleep again.

And that concludes the Into the Past project. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I've got one chapter of the new project as good as done, so I will upload that either Friday or Saturday to see what people think and then I'll go on holiday for a couple of weeks. But I've had this idea that since I actually have a Tumblr account, I might as well use it to keep readers up to date with what I'm up to concerning my writing (you know, if I can remember to use it). Username is amy-a, so do take a look and say hello, if you feel like it.

As always, thank you very much for reading. Reviews/feedback/DN prompts and ideas would be very welcome. I'd love to hear what you think.