"Fili..."

Thorin flung himself to the ground beside his wounded kinsman, his heart thudding. This was his fault - he had led them into an ambush, and now the snow of the high pass was splattered with dark goblin blood; he could hear the last of them wailing in terror as they fled from Dwalin's axe, back into the rocks from which they had come. A worthless victory in a skirmish which should never have needed to be fought, bought at a price beyond counting. The young dwarf's shoulders wrestled the ground. His once-golden plaits, darkened with sweat, clung to a face drained pale and ugly with pain.

"Thorin? "

"Save your strength," Thorin told him, knowing as he said it that there was nothing left to save, that no dwarf could survive that gaping wound, and blessed Durin, what was he going to say to Dis?

"Fili..." Floi said again. His voice was becoming shrill, and Thorin gripped his hand. A strong hand, calloused with long hours of wielding his twin swords: Thorin would have bruises for a week. "I want - Fili to have my swords. Train him well."

"I will."

"...and Dis - and the baby... Yours to protect, now - Brother - "

"As my own," Thorin promised.

"Loved her." The last word was a scream, and there was nothing Thorin could do to help as his friend and brother-in-law tried feebly to arch and twist himself away from the pain. He couldn't manage it of course, not when he was cut all but in two, with blood and worse than blood steaming in the cold air. "Hurts - " Floi moaned then, and Thorin had been wrong, because there was one thing he could do after all. And only one. He held Floi's wild eyes steadily with his own and fumbled for his dagger -

He was saved by the arrival of Dwalin. Taking in the situation at a glance, the big Dwarf shouldered Thorin gently aside and with a merciful matter-of-factness slid his own knife very efficiently between their injured comrade's ribs. Thorin had time to see the relief drain into Floi's pale face before it emptied completely.

Then Balin's hand was on his elbow, not quite assisting him to rise. "That's for the best, laddie," the older Dwarf nodded towards Dwalin soberly cleaning his knife. "No need to add to your poor sister's grief. She'll be needing you by her, and her with two bairns now. She'll be thankful it was done, but it's just as well it was not you that did it."

And Thorin had nodded and left it at that, knowing all the time that it had been him who did it. Because he was the captain and he had taken the wrong path, and because of that The Lion was dead.

To the Hobbit, now, he said only, "He fell. My sister was carrying Kili at the time. I think the shock almost killed her."

It was he who had broken the news to Dis, and he who had caught her and carried her to her chamber while the women clucked around them like stupid, jostling hens. And she had birthed Kili in grief and hope over two days. Uncle Thorin's had been the first male hands to hold Kili, two darkling Longbeard princes together - one nervous as hell and the other asleep - while what was left of Dis's shattered smile warmed them both. "He's an ugly little scrap. He looks like you."

But Fili was another matter altogether.

"I found him in the forge." His forge, of all places. Nearly eighty years later and Thorin was still completely bewildered by that. And half his extended family there with him apparently: Balin, who might have suceeded if he had been alone, Gloin's young wife Niris and several others, all of them trying to pet Fili and comfort him - and in the middle of it all the taut, distant figure of Fili himself, shrugging them off and putting his chin in the air. When he saw Thorin he had run to him on toddling legs and flung his arms about his knees.

"I expected he would fear me," Thorin said. "Young dwarves often do."

Only the young ones? wondered Bella. But she was seeing a different side of him tonight, wasn't she just? So she stood quietly and held him, gazing out across the dark lake with her raggedy-cropped head resting snugly beneath his chin... It already felt like somewhere she belonged.

"He had such courage." In spite of everything, Thorin spoke with an edge of amused pride. "He glared at Balin and he said, 'Uncle Thorin will let me vengle him.' Vengle. He could not say Avenge."

"And did he?" Bella stroked his face. "Did he vengle the Lion?"

Mahal, how did she do that? Thorin remembered that night in the Weathertop Hills - how many moons ago was it now? - when Balin had spoken of Azanulbilar, and Bella, "Bilbo" as he had thought she was then, had asked straight out what became of the Pale Orc. It was as if she could hear any story and fasten immediately onto the one part of it which mattered most to Thorin. For how could he even speak of revenge to Fili when it was his fault his father had died? He remembered how they had knelt there between the thorn-bush stacks of half-made weapons on the floor of the forge, with Fili at last howling healthily in his arms, and Thorin himself beyond devastated because out of everyone in the room, Fili had run to him.

And I killed his Da.

"Thorin." He had looked up to see Balin watching him sadly. "Don't do this to yourself, Lad. Evil happens. It isn't your fault. And not even you can always prevent it. All you can do is try to make things as right as they can be, afterwards."

"One pack of goblins looks much like another, " he said evasively, now, to Bella. "We'd already killed most of them. But - I swore then, I would never let anything hurt him again... I would take every arrow for him..."

In the shadow of his alcove, Fili was shaking, and it shamed him. It wasn't the recital of his father's death - he had heard that story before, including, once he was old enough, all the details which he noticed his uncle hadn't told the hobbit. And he'd heard that damned Vengle thing til he was sick of it. But Thorin's voice when he spoke of himself, of Fili - Fili bit his lip.

"You can not, of course," that deep voice was continuing. "You have to let them stand. To fall if they are going to. You have to let them fight - And by Durin, that boy can fight. I do not have the words. My heart is aflame with pride when I see the Dwarf he has become."

"You speak of him the way a father speaks of a son," whispered Bella.

"Of an heir," Thorin agreed. "I do not know that I could love a son more dearly. I am sorry if this offends you - "

"No," Bella said quickly. In fact if anything she sounded faintly relieved, although Thorin failed to notice. Durin's Beard, what had he just said? He had lost her. He and his stupid mouth had lost her, and even the sure knowledge that Fili was worth it - both the boys were worth it - ...Even that was a bitter comfort when his Hobbit looked up at him with her head on one side, crinkling her brow so adorably in that way she had when she was puzzled... or thinking... all dishevelled and blotchy from having cried earlier, cupping the side of his face in her hand and stroking his moustache with her thumb... Oh.

"I think - I do believe I love you, Thorin Oakenshield," said Bella.

... - What had they been talking about? Fili? Seriously?! - And why in Durin's Name were they talking about his boys at a time like this?

"Mistress Baggins," - it was close to a growl - "If you continue to do that I shall not be responsible for my actions."

Oh but goodness, he was beautiful. Her strong Dwarf who had so many hidden facets like a dark jewel beneath the steel and mithril armour he wore against the past. Bella was not sure what, if anything, had been resolved. She was sure that she didn't care. With a shy smile, she very deliberately increased the pressure in one long caress down his cheek-bone, and slid her thumb into his mouth.

Thorin just as deliberately bit her. It was the gentlest of nips, but when Bella's breath caught in her throat he not only stopped thinking about the boys, he stopped thinking at all... Instead they were kissing as if they were dying of thirst in Mirkwood and each was the other's well, and Bella felt those magnificent hands rough on the bare skin of her back as he shoved the borrowed dress to her waist. "Burglar -" He was gasping almost as hard as she was. "It appears - that I am begging after all... Lodgings, Burglar. Now."

Fili heard none of it. You are my Heir. Later, he would feel foolish, even ashamed, that he had never understood the layers of meaning his Uncle placed upon that word. He would certainly feel guilty for storming out like that in such a smoldering Longbeard temper. For now there no space inside him for any emotion but one. You speak of him the way a father speaks of a son.

And Fili sat for a long time in the darkness after his Uncle and the Hobbit had left, with an irrepressible grin on his face, and the corners of his blue eyes dimpled with tears.

oOo

Author's Note: Well, 'tis done. I'm sorry, I know some of you will hate me for leaving the proposal unresolved. But I realised that I do not want to loathe my Bella - and I would, if I let her carry her plighted troth on top of everything else into the horrible, horrible mess which is going to be the Arkenstone. So I left it open-ended. But you, Dear Reader, of course are free to decide for yourself whether Thorin asked her again before morning - and what she might have said. I am so grateful to you for reading. xx S.