Chapter 33
Into the Past Part 7: Cementing the Future
It's a long story, and I don't know most of it.
Doctor Who
Freya
'Sit down.'
It had been a very long time since Thrór had gotten his dander up about anything, Freya reflected. Obnoxious court officials bored him and, if they were being particularly vexing, annoyed him. But he'd shake it off the moment he left the room. Arguments with Thráin about how the kingdom should be run could nudge the irritability level a little closer towards anger, and conversations with elves could push it just a little bit further. Only orc raids and the loss of innocent lives ever provoked this kind of a response and it had been many years since Freya had been forced to witness it.
She would have gladly not witnessed this either, but she did not have a choice. Like it or not, what had happened today warranted her undivided attention. And Thráin was her son. She had a responsibility there.
Having said that, she could hardly bear to look upon him.
She had returned to their place just in time to see Thrór hauling Thráin in by his collar. The image of Thorin beating his hands bloody against the wall was still playing in front of her mind's eye. It was an image that would not leave her alone for some time. To be honest, she didn't think she'd ever seen a body who was in so much emotional pain that inflicting violence on himself became the only way to deal. He had not been aware of himself or his surroundings when she had come upon him. There was an intensity to every blow, to every tear on his face that she had found deeply unsettling.
He has seen much, she'd known then. And little enough of it has been good.
The more she saw, the more convinced she became that Thráin was to blame for much of it. And after what he had done tonight, she was certain.
'I prefer to stand,' Thráin said. He held himself rigid, but calm.
'I told you to sit,' Thrór growled at him. 'And you will obey me.' Thrór pulling rank on anyone was rare. Over the years she had only seen him do it once or twice and never in this manner.
When Thráin did not follow that instruction, Thrór pushed him into the nearest chair with force.
'I am not a child anymore,' Thráin said indignantly. He appeared as though he was getting ready to stand again, but Thrór's withering glare made him reconsider.
'Which makes this so much the worse,' Thrór said. 'I will respect Thorin's decisions, because I think he's the only one who has any right to cast judgement on you. Or his wife, come to think of it. I hope you realise that is the only reason you yet draw breath.'
'You do not see!' Thráin protested. 'I did it for the greater good of our people.'
'Any greater good that condones the murder of innocents is not a greater good I would care to support,' Thrór replied. 'As we tried to teach you, though I reckon we failed in that endeavour.'
'She is not an innocent,' Thráin snarled, back on his feet now. 'By what means she managed to bind my weak-willed son to her, I do not know, but she has polluted our line with mannish blood. Children!' He shook his head. 'Am I the only one who understands she had to be stopped?'
Freya rather thought this painted Kate as far more scheming and cunning than she was. Truth be told, she still wasn't sure what to make of the woman, but she seemed nice enough from what Freya had seen. And there was no doubt that she loved Thorin, wholly and unreservedly. She had been fighting his corner whenever the situation called for it, supporting him, speaking when he could not.
It had taken her a day to work it out, to see the pattern. When it all became too much for Thorin, Kate stepped in. She would keep conversation going or just provide some sort of distraction until Thorin was ready to join them and it all was so natural that it'd be hard to even realise that Thorin had not been mentally present for the proceedings for a little while. Freya may not have the full measure of her character, but her behaviour towards Thorin definitely endeared her to Freya.
Thrór shoved Thráin onto the chair again. 'Even if that were the case, which it is not, you do not decide who lives and who dies. You'll find that this particular privilege only belongs to me under this Mountain. And the way things stand, it will never be yours.'
Freya inhaled sharply. That would be a shock.
'You weren't serious,' Thráin said. Thrór had informed her what he intended to do before he had gone to retrieve Thráin. It was a drastic step, but one Freya felt he had no choice but to make. A murderer could never rule their people.
Thráin had attempted murder only hours ago.
It was as though it was finally starting to sink in. Her own son, her boy, had tried to kill another person. The thought made her sick. She remembered the day she had discovered she was with child, the difficult pregnancy that followed and the hard labour to bring her son into the world. He had been tiny, but perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes and the sweetest smile she ever saw. When he grew up, Thráin had been a quiet child, who preferred his own company to that of others. While unusual for dwarves, Freya didn't think it was any cause for concern. He seemed perfectly happy as he was, after all. And when childhood eventually passed, he spent some time in the Iron Hills. It had been hard for her to be without his company, but she knew he'd return. But he had come back changed.
Is that where it all went wrong? Freya wondered. His ideas before his stay with Grór had been conservative, but they had never been this strong or so radical. And never, even if she lived to be a thousand years old, would she have believed him capable of wilful murder if she hadn't seen it for herself.
Where did we go wrong? Surely they'd had to fail in the execution of their duty somewhere in order for Thráin to become so… twisted? She wasn't even sure that was the right word for it. Mad, a voice in the back of her mind whispered. He has lost his wits, gone insane.
Had he? Freya considered the evidence in front of her and had to conclude that it was the truth. There was a gleam in his eyes that was almost feverish. And he was still defending what he had done. There was no remorse, no sense of wrong.
The sharp pain in her chest was the feeling of her heart shattering into a million pieces. It was all she could do to remain upright and not crumble to the ground, weeping without restraint.
'You cannot be my heir.' Thrór's tone of voice could have frozen the room. He felt things more deeply than he often let on, but Freya suspected that he had not quite moved on from fury to grief. It would come, but not yet. 'You have shown me that.'
'You have no other heir,' Thráin retorted.
'Thorin will be my heir,' Thrór pointed out. 'Because, unlike you, he has demonstrated considerable talent for being a leader.'
'Like what?' Thráin scoffed.
'Like placing others above himself.' Thrór's response was quick. 'Even a blind fool could have seen he wanted to tear you apart, but he didn't. He didn't even so much as strike you, as you well deserve, make no mistake on that account. He has a self-control I have seldom seen in others. He's a good judge of character too, as far as I can tell.'
Thráin growled. 'Fine judgement he demonstrated in his choice of bride!'
Thrór looked Thráin right in the eyes as he quoted: '"She is counted as a hero among our people, one, an outsider under no obligation to lend us aid, who dared to tread where many others, our own people, did not. She was loyal where our own people deserted us, honourable when they forgot the meaning of the word, brave when they were trembling with fear." Those were Thorin's words,' he added to Freya. 'Spoken in the heat of the moment, too, so I doubt he made it up on the spot. And nothing I've seen of her contradicts it, so I am inclined to believe him.' He looked at Thráin again. 'All those qualities your son possesses that you clearly lack.'
Thráin turned to Freya. 'Amad, you cannot allow this.' He was pleading now.
For just a second she saw her little boy again, begging for something he was not allowed to have. Her heart softened for a moment.
But then she remembered the state of the woman when she had come into the healing rooms. Unconscious, barely breathing, a bloody mess on one side of her head. Even Freya, who as a dwarf was not squeamish, had felt a little nauseous. It was a miracle she lived. She also remembered how distraught Thorin had been, had heard the words he whispered to her when he believed there was no one but Kate to hear them. Hold on. I love you. I love you. Live. I will bring help.
Thráin had sought to tear them apart. He would have seen Kate in the grave and Thorin alone with his grief. And it had been a deliberate act.
So with great effort she closed her heart to him. That act alone made her feel as though what little was left of it broke anew. And though she did not crumble and she did not howl, a few tears slipped out unchecked.
'I will allow it.' Four words had never been harder to speak. No mother should ever have to be in Freya's shoes. It felt as though she was choosing between her son and her grandson. Both were loved equally. Or they should be, at any rate. And a part of her would always love Thráin, because he was her son. She had no choice in that regard. But she could not condone what he had done and what he had become. 'And I will support it.'
Thráin's mouth fell open in disbelief.
'And I suspect I was always going to do it,' Thrór said.
Freya looked at him, puzzled. 'What do you mean?'
'Thorin has made every choice he's made since arriving here with the future as he knows it in mind,' he explained. 'It's why Thráin still has a head on his shoulders with which he can utter all his protests. But when I told him what I fully intend to do, he did not object. He as good as gave me permission.'
He gave both Freya and Thráin some time to let it sink in. And then it hit her like a rock avalanche. If Thorin had indeed told Thrór that he could do this, then it had been like that all along in his memories. He might not have known why Thráin had been passed over, but he had known that it was so. And if that was the case, then Thorin and Kate had been meant to come here too, because without their presence, Thrór never would have had any reason to disinherit Thráin.
Just thinking about this would give a body a headache.
'You take orders from him now?' Thráin demanded at last.
'No, I heed his suggestions.' Thrór was calm and determined. 'The notion was mine. Thorin only approved it. You should have known that, seeing as you were there.'
'You cannot do this!' Thráin cried. 'Folk will wonder why.'
'Then let them wonder to their heart's content,' Thrór said. 'I care not.' He levelled his sternest stare at Thráin. 'This is my final word. I suggest you go home and inform Theyra of your change in circumstances and I suggest you do so without telling her the truth.' A shadow of bitterness swept over his face. 'I am sure you don't need me to tell you that would be in your best interest.'
'You have gone mad,' Thráin declared.
'Have I indeed?' Thrór asked. All of a sudden he seemed exhausted. All the fight had gone out of him. 'If so, I count myself blessed. A madness that preaches me not to harm others is one I fully embrace. Get out. I can hardly bear to look at you.'
Thráin hesitated for a moment and then turned to the door.
Thrór's voice stopped him before he could take his leave. 'If I find you have gone near Kate, I will call the guard on you.'
Thráin slammed the door shut without answering.
Thrór lowered himself into a chair, staring at the flames in the hearth without seeing them. 'You'd think we'd have noticed that out own son went so far wrong,' he said. 'You'd think we'd have noticed that his sanity abandoned him.'
Freya sat down beside him. She was feeling oddly numb, as though the aftermath of the pain of her heart being crushed left her without the capacity for any further emotion, at least temporarily.
'I don't know,' she admitted. She felt like she didn't know anything, not anymore. 'What did you mean before, that Theyra cannot be told? Surely she has a right.'
'Thorin is supposed to have siblings,' Thrór replied, rubbing his forehead as though fighting a headache. Then again, he probably was. 'Not something she's going to allow to happen if she ever knew, is she?'
A few days ago the prospect of more grandchildren would have cheered Freya immensely. Now it seemed the price to pay for their existence was paid in lies and deceit. It left a bad taste in her mouth.
'We're letting him get away with it,' she said softly. Every fibre of her being rebelled against the notion of someone or something hurting her only son, but her principles spoke louder. No other dwarf would be allowed to take another's life – or attempt to do so – and walk away unhindered. Just because Thráin was her son did not mean she should judge him any different.
'We have no choice,' Thrór said. 'The decision was Thorin's. It is not my place to take any more from him than he's already lost.'
They exchanged looks. They had never discussed it, but they both knew it. Thorin and Kate had been careful not to reveal too much, but Freya had pieced together much by herself, simply by observing. She could tell that the place they came from was good, because it was spoken of in warm tones and remembered with looks of fondness and longing. It was the bit between here and then that worried her. They carefully avoided mentioning any of it, but Thorin certainly did not seem to have had an easy life. Much of that was down to Thráin, she knew now, but there were other things. And when Thrór had quoted Thorin just now, he had said something about their own people abandoning him, and Kate being one of the few to stand with him. What could ever lead our people to such a dishonourable course of action?
'No,' Freya agreed, though she did not like it. 'It is not.'
Kate
Kate woke to an excruciatingly pounding headache. She didn't think she'd ever had one that bad, not even after the time when she had accidentally walked into a lamppost.
She had seen Thorin at work countless times. Her husband never was a shabby sight really, but Kate was partial to seeing him busy at the forge. She had always admired the strength of him and felt almost somewhat sorry for the poor object that got stuck between the anvil and the hammer he wielded, because there was considerable force behind his blows. Today she felt like she was not a spectator, but instead whatever object was on the anvil. And there was a hammer pounding relentlessly on the right side of her head.
She reached for the memory for how it had come to be that way, but came up empty. It was like grasping fog. It swirled and fled before her hands and reformed before she could get a decent look at the other side. She got glimpses, fragments, disjointed images. They made little sense.
So she opened her eyes. The room she was in was dimly lit. By the way the light flickered in the corner of her left eye, she could tell that there was a candle on a table and there was the tell-tale glow of a fire in the hearth from across the room. But she did not know this place.
But she knew its occupant and that was a relief.
'Elvaethor?'
Her chest swelled with hope. If he was here, that must mean she was home. In the time that she had been asleep – but if that was the case, then why couldn't she remember? – they must have found a way back.
His head snapped up. And Kate knew she had been very wrong. She had known the former captain of the Mirkwood guard for more than eight years now, so reason demanded that he looked at her with recognition. But his eyes were only inquisitive and just a tiny bit suspicious.
Well, shit.
'You know me?' he asked, wonder in his voice.
'Not really.' If she was at the top of her game, she would never have made a mistake like this. But her head hurt and she couldn't think straight. And she still couldn't remember what happened. 'Where am I?' The filter between her mouth and her brain was gone as well, so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
Fortunately Elvaethor's task as a healer took precedence over his questions. 'The healing rooms of Erebor.'
That made sense, seeing as how she was in considerable pain. The rest of her body was starting to remind her that it was there with a series of stings and aches that she didn't think she'd had before she had ended up here.
'I'm injured.' The realisation came with the words. Would that it provided her with clarity about how she had gotten these injuries.
'Rather badly, my lady,' Elvaethor confirmed quite unnecessarily. He hadn't addressed her like that in years. If he wanted to vex her, he called her Lady Kate, but generally he used her first name. But this Elvaethor did not know her yet. And in her befuddled state she may have just dropped one of the biggest spoilers on him. Good job, Andrews.
She tried to move and instantly regretted that. 'I can tell. How bad?'
'Your right leg is broken,' he reported. 'Several of your ribs have suffered the same fate. And there are numerous other bruises, but your head was hurt worst of all.'
Again, she could tell. When she had tried to move it just now a blinding spike of pain had almost made her lose consciousness again. As it was, she was still trying to catch her breath. 'Huh, must have got a concussion. Never had one of those before. I think.' Her memory as a whole was a little fuzzy at the moment. 'Aren't you supposed to ask me all sorts of questions to determine that I still know who I am and all of that?'
A smile tugged at his lips. It was gone again almost before she could register it properly, but it was definitely there and not a figment of her pain-riddled imagination. 'Indeed, my lady. If you are conscious enough to allow me to do so?'
'Do I look asleep to you?' she retorted.
'What year is this?' Elvaethor asked, not dignifying that too rude remark with a response.
'27… 50?' She hated that she had to think about it. 'No, damn it, 2746. That's it.' She'd been thinking about 2950, because that was the year she really came from, but they had gone a little over two hundred years into the past. The headache was not helping matters. 'Third Age.' At least she had that one right.
Worry was etched deep into his forehead. Kate had known without this that her answer was both lacking and too slow in coming.
'Who is King under the Mountain?' was the next question.
Sense was slowly catching up with her, so that one she could answer quickly. 'Thrór son of Dáin.' If that had been the question he'd chosen to start with, she couldn't be sure that she wouldn't have answered with Thorin son of Thráin and then where would they have been?
'Your name?'
'Lily.' Bloody stupid flowery name that it was.
He nodded. 'Your memory seems to be in better shape than I had feared.'
If that was the case, she had bad news for him. 'I don't remember how I got here,' she confessed. 'Do you know what happened, how I was hurt?' Somewhere beyond the fog an alarm was going off. There was something she should remember, something urgent and important. But the harder she tried to reach it, the more it evaded her. It retreated deeper into the fog in her mind, teasing her, but never offering her any real answers. All she had was a sense of dread and more questions than she had answers.
'I only know stairs were involved,' Elvaethor replied. 'Beyond that I was not informed.'
Kate frowned. There was a faint sense of recognition when he mentioned stairs, but it was gone before she could pursue it. And at the same time it sounded ridiculous. She had never taken a tumble down the stairs before. It wasn't like her to start now.
'Bloody hell.' Trust her to actually get into such a scrape. She had survived a dragon unscathed, but now a staircase nearly did her in? It was honestly quite embarrassing. Kate began to laugh at the absurdity, but quickly thought better of it as the movement made her ribcage hurt like hell and her head soon joined in. 'Aw…'
Worry made a spectacular reappearance on her elvish friend's face. 'Are you in pain?'
'Only when I breathe.' It seemed that was all the movement she could manage for now.
'How much pain?' Judging from the tone of voice he could hazard a relatively educated guess, but he clearly preferred to hear it from her. Healers were the same everywhere.
'Giving birth was fun compared to this,' she replied, laying on the sarcasm perhaps a little too thickly. Then again, it was the truth.
He held up a cup of something. 'Drink this,' he said. 'It will help.'
It tasted horrible in the time-honoured tradition of medicines everywhere. It also made her eyelids far too heavy, so heavy, in fact, that when she opened them again Elvaethor was gone and the fire in the hearth was only barely smouldering. But he hadn't lied. The medicine did help. The pounding in her head was ever so slightly dulled and so long as she didn't move, she could pretend the rest of her body was fine. Just a shame that she actually needed to breathe.
Kate tried to move her head just a little. The pain returned in full force and she had to force herself to breathe deeply a few times – another thing her body didn't thank her for – in order to keep herself from blacking out. Note to self: do not move.
But she had managed to turn her head ever so slightly to the right. And now she could see what she hadn't been able to last night – had it been night? – the person holding her hand. Not that she had realised that somebody was holding it, but she had a vague recollection of it being inexplicably being warmer than the other hand.
Thorin was lying, if one could call it that – in the most uncomfortable position Kate could think of. He was sitting on a chair, but had slumped forward so that his head was on the mattress just next to the hand he was holding. He must have been watching over her when sleep overtook him. Knowing just how long Thorin could force his body into staying awake – honestly past the point of common sense – they might have been here for a long time.
Just how bad was it?
People could actually die from falling down the stairs, couldn't they? And Kate could tell from the amount of pain that she was in that she must have made a very unfortunate sort of landing.
She squeezed her husband's hand gently, which took up most of her strength anyway, but she was pleasantly surprised that she could do it without causing her pain levels to go through the roof. Well, that was one reason for optimism.
True to expectations, Thorin woke immediately. Unless he was in his own bed, he was a very light sleeper. He blinked a couple of times and looked up at her.
'You're awake.' He sounded as though he could barely believe it.
Uh oh. It had been that bad? 'I suppose so,' she said.
Concern flashed across his face, quickly followed by something that looked like fear. 'Do you know who I am?'
'Of course I know who you are.' She'd better; she'd been married to him for years. Then rational thought caught up with her and reminded her that she had a head injury – as if she needed reminding – and that could cause all kinds of problems. So she obliged him: 'You're Thorin, you're my husband, the year is 2746 of the Third Age.'
The relief washed over him. 'Thank the Maker.'
Kate bit her lip. 'You might want to wait with that for a bit,' she told him. 'Because I can't for the life of me remember how I got here, in this state no less.'
A shadow moved across his face. 'Thráin.'
That single word left Kate lost for words. She remembered that Thorin had been afraid of such a thing happening. And while she had not thought his fears were completely unfounded, she still hadn't believed something like that could actually happen. After all, murder wasn't something that was done by dwarves, ever. And whatever else Thráin was – and Kate had opinions about that – he was still a dwarf.
Apparently that counted for less than she'd thought.
'He pushed me down the stairs?' she asked, putting two and two together.
'You remember?' She could hear the hope in his voice.
'Not really,' she was forced to admit. 'Elvaethor mentioned stairs when I woke earlier. But I don't remember. I've got a glimpse here and there, but that's about it. I've got a clear memory until the morning, Thrór inviting us to a feast with the elves. Everything after that is a little fuzzy.' She didn't like it one bit.
Judging by the concern on Thorin's face, neither did he.
'You regained consciousness briefly after I found you,' he said. Kate found the fact that he had found her reassuring. Not that she remembered any of it, or of what she had said to him, but that didn't matter. 'You told me someone had been there with you.'
'I don't remember any of that.' That frightened her. She had never been a fighter, but she had always been able to rely on her own wits, her memory. But a part of it was gone now, hidden behind the fog and she couldn't reach it.
'He didn't deny it,' Thorin added softly.
They were quiet for a while. Even if her thought process wouldn't be suffering from a Thráin-induced fall from the stairs headache, she didn't think she had words for this. Her heart went out to Thorin and she desperately wished she could be there for him now. He must be going through hell right now. Nobody ever needed to find out that their father was… well, like Thráin. Kate's own father might have been an arse, but he had never been a murdering arse.
And of course she wouldn't mind shredding Thráin to pieces with her bare hands for what he had done to her, but she wasn't half as mad as she probably should have been. Oh, she was furious with Thráin, no doubt about that, but more over what this would have done to Thorin than what it had very obviously done to her. Maybe that would come when she could think straight again.
She squeezed his hand again. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I wish… '
He looked at her. 'That we had never come here?'
'Do you?' she asked.
'Yes.' Brutal honesty.
'At least you got the chance to say goodbye properly,' she reminded him. 'And I liked meeting your family. They're rather amazing, well, most of them.'
There was blazing fire in Thorin's eyes. 'You almost died.' Kate didn't need another reminder. Her body was taking care of that job well enough on its own. 'Your life is not a price worth paying for an opportunity to do something I want.' She might have felt afraid if she had been convinced that this growling was in any way him being furious with her.
'Well, we both know Thráin is not in his right mind,' she said sensibly. In fact, she was pretty certain that the madness was already there, long before it had really shown itself to the world at large. 'And neither of us asked to come here, as I recall. Though my recollection is a little hazy at the moment, so don't quote me on that.' Her mouth was running away with her again. Turned out that it wasn't only lack of sleep that caused it. A good knock on the head would do the job as well.
Thorin looked at her. 'Don't.' It was more a plea than a command.
Kate grimaced. 'Sorry.' That joke had been distasteful.
'Why?' he asked her, completely bewildered. 'Why are you not angrier?'
It was a valid question. If there was one thing Kate excelled at, it was being angry with people who had gotten on her wrong side. And Thráin had attempted to kill her. Perhaps it was because that was something she could barely wrap her head around it that her reaction was so different from what it probably would have been. Or perhaps she was more angry with Thráin on Thorin's behalf, because no father should ever do something like that to his own son. And Thorin had suffered enough for a hundred bloody lifetimes already.
'I am,' she said and that was the truth. She was silent for a moment while she contemplated how to explain it best, which wasn't easy with that raging headache going on. 'But more for you than for me. But that's probably because it hasn't quite landed just yet.'
She wasn't quite sure how to describe the expression that settled on Thorin's face then. She decided on a mix between horror and disbelief in the end. 'Do you value your own life so little?'
'No.' Of course not. It was her life and she loved it. 'But I live. I survived. I'm more or less in one piece and when I'm up and about again, I'll gladly tell Thráin exactly what I think of him, which is probably all I can do, given that we have a timeline to maintain.'
Bloody hell, there was the timeline to reckon with as well. For all she knew that could have gone straight to hell while she was out.
'You didn't…' There were bandages around his hands that suggested that he had been in something of a fight.
'Kill him?' Thorin supplied. 'No.' Of course that did not exclude the chance that Thráin had received quite a beating.
She decided not to ask. 'Good.' Or it should be. Those two weren't necessarily the same. He needed to be alive for the future to be as it was, but at the same time, Kate would not really mind spinning Thráin's head around a couple of times.
Thorin shook his head. 'It is not. None of this is.' Kate hated that look in his eyes, so haunted. And from where she was lying right now, there was not a single thing she could do about it, yet another thing to add to her rapidly growing list of frustrations.
'I'll get better,' she said. 'It'll take a while, but I'll get out of this bed sooner or later.'
Thorin's face was troubled. 'You very nearly didn't.'
Kate was very glad she had not been awake for that bit. Or perhaps she had been, but she simply didn't remember it.
'I know.' She wanted to say she was sorry again, but technically it wasn't her fault. She hadn't asked to be shoved down a flight of stairs. All she wanted was to save him the pain of losing yet somebody else. So get well and stop moping, Andrews. And then, for good measure, break Thráin's nose. That won't damage the timeline in any way. And he certainly deserved it.
Thorin looked pensively ahead of him. 'If you hadn't survived, I would have killed him.' The tone suggested that he still wanted to, but wouldn't for the timeline's sake.
'You could have unwritten everything,' Kate breathed, slightly shocked.
'It wouldn't have mattered.'
It sounded like madness, and maybe it was. Thorin had said it himself: his family was susceptible to it. And Thráin would owe his ultimate fall to grief. Am I the only thing standing between Thorin and that fate? That would be a very heavy burden to bear if that was the case and she did not want it. I am not supposed to be the last bastion of sanity.
'I am not worth such a reaction,' she replied decisively. 'If I died now, we would still have our children in the future. We couldn't do that to them.'
'It would not be a place I cared to be,' Thorin said.
'No, it would be a place where I cared you to be,' Kate insisted. They were, to her own surprise, rapidly heading towards an argument. 'To look after them, see them grow up and do all those things with them that I wouldn't be able to. And if you killed Thráin, who knows what would become of the future. We may not even have met, for all we know. Is that really a chance you'd want to take? Because I sure as hell wouldn't.'
That got through to him. She could see the realisation on his face, the horror when he finally saw what consequences his potential actions could have.
'It matters not,' he said eventually. 'You live.'
Part of Kate wanted to press the point, but her head ached too much for a full-blown argument and so she let it go. After all, he did have a point. She was alive and out of danger. Well, she was relatively sure she was. If that hadn't been the case, she might have noticed. She liked to think so, anyway.
'I do,' she agreed. 'But if something ever happened… just don't go off the rails. I'm really not worth that.'
Thorin looked at her. 'Worth that? You undervalue yourself.'
Kate didn't think she was.
Thorin looked like he was struggling to find the right words and Kate gave him that time. It was never easy for either of them to discuss matters of the heart and to her endless frustration they had gotten only a little better at it over the years. Then again, they didn't often need to speak of it, because they knew. Talking about it wouldn't tell either of them anything they did not already know.
'You are irreplaceable,' he said at last. 'To me, if not to others. Valued.'
On some level, she had known that. After all the hurdles they'd had to overcome to get married in the first place, he had to feel that way. Else, why would he have bothered? But to hear it spoken did something to her.
She would never go as far as to say that she had been unhappy before she came to Middle Earth. Well, she had been at times, with good reason to. But all things considered, she'd had a good life, with friends and family who loved her. And of course she was irreplaceable to her mother – the familiar stab of guilt blended in well with all the other pains and aches she had – but not exactly to a lot of other people. That point had been more than driven home by Marc when he cheated on her. She was replaceable, quite easily too.
But she wasn't to Thorin. He'd had few reasons to like her, even less to love her. There was pressure on him from so many sides to set her aside, to undo what he did when he married her. But still here he was. And for reasons quite beyond her comprehension, she was special in his eyes, loved and valued.
Tears came to her eyes.
'Are you in pain?' Thorin asked.
Pain? Well, yes, perhaps. 'Good pain,' she told him. 'It's just, well, I guess I'm not used to being cherished by someone like that.'
'You are by me,' he said, holding her gaze. 'Never doubt it.'
She never really had. Still, the words meant something to her, more that she could eloquently put into words. 'I love you.' That was the best she could do, but it was the truth. And it would do for now.
Elvaethor
Elvaethor had gone outside. The Mountain felt stifling, both the memories and the walls closing in on him. He craved the open air and the stars above him. As it happened, night had made way for day and there were no stars to be had. He must have lost track of time, because the full light of day took him almost completely by surprise.
But his head was reeling. The woman had known him. She had called him by name. Puzzlement, relief, warmth. All of that he had heard in her voice when she woke and found him there keeping vigil at her bedside. She had even started to smile when she recognised him, before the pain caught up with her and overtook her.
He was unused to mysteries. He had searched his memory long and hard, but had come up empty. Never in all his days had he met this lady. And though he had tended to her for hours, he did not know her name, not her real name. The one she had given him, Lily, did not fit her. Apparently she was of that opinion herself, for she had wrinkled her nose in disgust when she answered him.
Fryr and Lily were an enigma. Neither of them had given their real name, there was the involvement of the King and Queen under the Mountain to consider and then there was something else that made little sense. When asked about the date, Lily had answered wrongly at first. The year 2750, she'd said. Now it wasn't unusual for one with a head injury to get the date wrong, but their answer was generally a date of sometime in the past, not the future.
The answers eluded him. The only way he was going to get anything was by asking. And at least for now his curiosity overrode his urge to run and not look back.
So his feet carried him back into the Mountain and straight to the healing rooms. The trade talks would have begun by now, Elvaethor's absence noted. Thranduil would not be pleased, but Elvaethor could not bring himself to care. He had more pressing matters to attend to.
The guard on the door looked him over with barely concealed suspicion when he reached his destination. It was another than the one who had been on duty during the night, but he must have received orders that Elvaethor was allowed to enter, for after a moment of intense and almost hostile scrutiny, he stepped aside and gestured at him to pass and be quick about it.
Lily was dozing on the bed when he came in. Her husband had only removed himself as far as the bed that was closest by, where exhaustion had caught up with him at last. Even in sleep his face looked troubled.
Lily's eyes opened when she heard the door. 'Good morning,' she said. 'Or afternoon. I'm not entirely sure.'
'Afternoon,' Elvaethor told her.
'Good afternoon, then,' she said. She nodded before she remembered that her head did not appreciate motion. She winced. 'I keep bloody forgetting not to do that.' She turned to Elvaethor again. 'What can I do for you, Master Elf?'
He shook his head. 'Please, do not pretend, my lady. You and I both know you are familiar with my name. I would beg you to be so kind as to use it. And perhaps you might tell me how it is that you know me.'
'I know of you,' Lily said. Another lie.
'You are telling a falsehood, I think,' Elvaethor remarked. 'You greeted me as you would a friend, when you first awoke.'
And he had not been met with such friendship in a long, long time. For a moment he had almost believed himself to be in the past, when he arrived at Dari and Inga's humble house and his dwarvish friend would come out to meet him. 'Elvaethor, my pointy-eared friend!' he'd exclaim jovially, or something very similar. 'You're a sight for sore eyes. Come in. It's so good to see your face again.' It had never failed to warm his heart, never failed to wake a sense of belonging in him that he no longer felt among his own.
But those days were dead and buried and the belonging had died with his friends. And while Elvaethor believed that the longing for such a friendship had died as well, he now found that it was very much alive after all.
Lily sighed, winced as that caused her more pain and then looked at him long and hard. 'I can't tell you the truth. Not all of it anyway.' He could tell by the look on her face that she didn't like it.
'Your name, perhaps?' After all, he was curious. 'The one that is yours, not the one that you now use.'
'Not an option, I'm afraid.' At least she no longer pretended that the name she'd given him was her own.
'When I asked you about the date, you answered 2750,' Elvaethor said.
She tapped lightly on the uninjured side of her head. 'I cracked my skull open, more or less. If you were expecting me to think straight after that, you need some more healer training.'
He laughed. 'Most folk with such injuries would think of a date in the past. None of them have ever answered with one that has not yet arrived.'
Lily looked at him again. Elvaethor could tell she was weighing her options, how much she could tell him. 'We're out of our time, Fryr and I,' she replied at last. 'I'm guessing you already suspected as much.'
He looked at her, not understanding. And when he did understand, he must have looked incredulous, because it wasn't possible.
He must have spoken aloud, because she responded. 'Time travel is supposed to be impossible,' Lily agreed. 'I'd have paid good money to never have to discover that it is real, but here we are.'
'You have come here from the future?'
How long had he not been wishing for time travel, for a way to reach into the past and undo what went wrong? He could have saved Inga, could have had many years of that wonderful friendship before it was ripped away.
Lily nodded.
'And you know me.' He had known it already, but he felt he needed the confirmation. Hope was growing, ever growing. Did he perhaps find this kind of friendship again in the days to come? Could he ever find that companionship again? This woman's way of treating him suggested, more than suggested, that it was so. Yet he could barely believe it, dared not believe it perhaps for fear of being disappointed.
'Don't tell me you hadn't worked it out yet,' she said.
'I had.' But he had needed to hear it from her lips. 'How?' he asked. She should not be here. Logic dictated that it was impossible.
'I wish I knew. One moment I was in the future, the next in this place.' She bit her lip. 'Thrór has sent messengers to try and track Gandalf down. You might know him better as Mithrandir,' she added.
'The grey wizard,' Elvaethor nodded. He knew him and liked him. The wizard had the best interests of this world in mind before anything else, which was refreshing after encountering so many who only furthered their own. Elvaethor's own king was like that and he found it tiring and frustrating.
'Hopefully he can put us back where we belong,' Lily said. 'Because I haven't got a clue how to go about it.'
Elvaethor looked at her. Truth was that he knew where the wizard would be. They were friends of a sort after all. If need be, Elvaethor knew how to contact him. It would mean leaving Erebor against his king's orders, though. No doubt Thranduil was already displeased with his apparent lack of effort and his continued absence. There would be consequences if he disobeyed his orders any more than he already had, especially on behalf of people he barely knew.
'Indeed,' he said. He thought for a moment. 'Are we friends, in this time to come?'
Lily looked at him, searching his face. 'You need to ask?' She was careful about revealing too much and he understood why now. Even so, she had given him all the answer he needed.
'No,' he said. 'I do not think there is any need.'
He wanted to scold his future self for throwing himself into such a scenario again. Hadn't he learned the last time that it could only ever end in heartbreak? Should he not be wiser than to risk so much? Yet something tugged at his heart, a longing so strong it was almost a physical ache.
'You should sleep,' he instructed her.
'I do nothing but sleep,' Lily grumbled. And although it was her husband who resembled Dari so much in looks, it was this woman whose manners reminded him most of his lost friend.
'You will have to be confined to your bed for some time,' Elvaethor gently reminded her. 'Sleep will help to pass the time.'
'I might get sick of my sickbed before long.'
Elvaethor chuckled, a real one that verged on an actual laugh. The feeling was so foreign that he was startled by it, by the sincerity of it. How long had it been since he had experienced real joy? It had been so long.
And that decided him.
'Sleep, my lady,' he counselled her. 'You will mend.'
The lack of protest was testimony to how tired she still was. Her eyes closed and did not open, which allowed Elvaethor to leave the room unnoticed by its occupants. From there he made his way to the stables to fetch a horse. The guard on duty at the gate asked where he was going, but Elvaethor gave no answer. It wouldn't do to raise anybody's hopes.
Not yet.
Next time: an interesting meeting. There might be a slight delay, because I've got a busy week ahead, but I'll try to upload something. But just in case I won't manage, you'll know why.
Thank you very much for reading. Reviews would be very much appreciated.