Chapter Text
Time was a gift. There would never be enough of it. But what they had, they held.
In the days after the battle, Tauriel clung to every breath he drew. Even if he did not wake, the quiet, warm presence of his living form was a gift she treasured. She could not be separated from him. The elven healers who at first asked her to rest apart from him had long since given up, and had left her a cot by his side in the field tent. She knew they disapproved. She did not care.
When she'd found him on the stone, lying in a pool of his own blood, she had thrown her spirit into him and called out to the gods with a desperate, mad plea for his life. She'd poured herself out and asked the gods to trade all she had for a second chance with him. For a single, mortal life with him.
She still did not understand how it had happened. Her shaking fingers had traced his ruined chest and come away slick with blood. She would pour herself into him if it could make him whole, she thought wildly as she smeared his lifeblood across her heart and lowered her head to his. Grief, deep and bottomless, yawned beneath her. Only a single cord of hope anchored her to sanity before that dark chasm would swallow her forever, and it was slipping through her fingers. Please. Let this not be the end. Just a little more time. Please.
She’d kissed him, and his perfectly formed lips were so still and cold. Holding his face in her hands, the last warmth draining from his chilling skin, she had felt her soul bleeding out into the earth, as if she herself had taken a mortal wound. Lady Varda, ancient earth, take my soul for his life. I will pay any price. She repeated the words over and over, aloud or as a silent prayer, she did not know. Time slipped into nothing.
And then, world of worlds, he breathed. Her eyes flew open. She was not sure if she had truly heard it, or if she was succumbing to madness. She lowered her head and felt for his breath. Another interminable moment, and then there it was again. A weak, ragged rattle in the chest, of a breath drawn through blood-soaked lungs, and the faintest brush of air past her hand.
Everything after that was a blur. Her wild shrieks for healers, Legolas trying to calm her, wrenching from his grasp and falling to her knees before Thranduil, pressing her head to the ground in self-effacement, begging, so much begging, until Legolas had to shake her to make her understand: it was done. They were taking him to a healing tent. If he had the will to live, he would be given support.
Everything had drained from her then. She had followed him to his tent like a living shade, and would not be moved from his side. The healers had brought a torch over as they stripped him, gathering around him in horrified awe. How is he alive? Should not be possible. Yet look, he breathes. Seal this, here. Hold him closed while I do it. Valar, I can see into his chest.
Later, a healer had come to her with a heap of bloody linens. “To lose this much, and still be breathing...” He shook his head. “It is beyond my ken. Did you do something for him out on the field?”
“Yes,” she’d answered, from somewhere far away. “I traded my fea.”
Legolas started shouting then, shaking her. Never had she seen him so angry. He wanted to slap her, she noted distantly. He had to be dragged away. “Why, Tauriel? Why in the holy name of all the stars?”
Legolas was gone now. She had not known how to answer him. The young dwarf had fallen into her hands, and she simply couldn’t let him go. It was not an answer that could satisfy him. When he’d told her he was going into the north, and did not know if he would return, she had quietly accepted it.
After Legolas had left, she had lost track of time.
The loss of one’s fea was not something that could be worn on a sleeve, but she felt it, deep in her bones. The healers confirmed it as they checked over her with pitying eyes. The bruises that would once have healed in hours remained tender as the days dragged on. Sleep, that previously light respite, became a heavy weight that dragged her down into death-like oblivion.
When she wasn’t resting, she sat by the side of the mortal dwarf she had traded everything for. He lived, but his life pulsed thin and shallow beneath her hands, and he did not stir. In moments of black, gripping terror, she wondered if he would ever wake. Perhaps she had only managed to bind him here as a sleeping shadow of a man.
Hours went by as she traced the contours of his face, brushed back his hair, and pleaded softly into his ear. “Rest, Kili. But when you have — please, wake up.” Perhaps he could hear her, in whatever deathless place his spirit drifted. She spoke of the life she longed for, the things she hoped they’d see. And she spoke the answer to his question. “Yes, Kili, I could have loved you. I already did. And I always will. Please. Come back.”
The days and nights passed as shifting shadows across the tent.
In the bright noon hours, she placed a cold cloth upon his fevered head. At least he was warm now. Almost too warm, like a burning coal beneath her hands. Perhaps it was indecent, but she pulled back the blanket and placed her hands across the un-bandaged breadth of his chest. Deep, broad muscles, and endless hair. She resisted the urge to bury her nose there. Perhaps he was not, in the end, a willing captive. He would have to wake in order to freely give himself.
In the purple shadowed evenings, she stayed beside him as well, drifting off with her fingers entwined with his. The healers moved around her like she was a piece of the cot, and left food and water beside her head. They pitied her, it was clear, but as long as they did not disturb her, she did not care. She would sleep on her knees beside him. She would crawl through the desert for a thousand years to be next to him. She did not care.
---
The dwarves came asking for him when they could not find his body. Rumors swirled of the last living heir to Erebor bring carried off by elves, and they wanted him back, alive or dead. The commotion at the edge of camp rose until it could not be ignored.
The healers bade Tauriel to answer to them, dragging her unwillingly away from his side. “You claimed him. You speak for him.”
Elven guards barred the way with a grim expression before a band of dwarves that looked like they were about ready to fight their way into the camp.
Gruff, bearded faces shouted, any attempt at reason already gone. “What have you done with him? Why can't we see him? If he’s alive, where is he?”
She stepped past the guards, summoning all of her strength. “Kili is alive. I saved him.”
They quieted. “Let us see him,” a bald dwarf stated.
A cold fear gripped her. If they saw him, they would take him away from her, and then all would be lost. “He’s... not well. He can’t be seen.”
“We won’t hurt him. Let us see him,” he repeated.
She didn’t know how to explain how she felt she knew that he didn’t want to be seen. How she felt his spirit somewhere lost and drifting, fighting his way back only for her. It was a mad, fierce possessiveness that had gripped her, causing her to lay such totalizing claim to her kin, but she could not fight it. “He doesn’t want to be seen.”
Eyes widened. “He’s awake? Did he not ask for us?”
“No. He’s lost, and can’t be seen.”
Several dwarves tried to push past her.
“What do you mean?”
“Let us see him!”
“Stop speaking nonsense, elf!”
She put a hand out to stop him, summoning the icy authority of the elvenking to her voice. "He can’t be seen. I gave my immortal soul to drag him back from death, and he has not yet fully returned. If he loses his way now, he will not return. And I have sacrificed too much to lose him. I swear it to you this is true, in the name of your gods and mine."
They regarded her with suspicion and fear in their eyes. One was starting to raise an axe when another shoved his way over and forcibly lowered it. “Lay off. Let's go. I was with them in Laketown when the lad was on the verge of death. She followed us all the way there to heal him with some uncanny light. If she didn’t hurt him then, she won't hurt him now. We can come back later."
Under the friendly dwarf's persuasion, the others finally turned to go. “We’ll be back.”
She gave a weak nod.
When she got back to the tent, she collapsed in exhaustion at the side of his cot. "Kili, where are you? Come back.”
She kissed his hand and pressed her head against it.
---
One late afternoon, when the tent was gold with the setting sun, his breathing began to change. The steady rasp of his breath became more ragged and disjointed. His brow grew furrowed and feverish beneath her hands, and he made small, restless movements like a dreamer struggling to wake. She shouted for the healers.
“If this hadhod wakes, it would be a kind of recovery never before seen,” they remarked as they replaced his bandages. “A hole straight through his chest.”
“He’ll wake,” she insisted. “He will.”
With a skeptical shrug, they left her to her vigil.
She held his hand through the long hours as evening descended, turning it slick with her sweat. Whatever she had left to give, she pressed into him as a healing light. Wake, she willed him. Heal, and wake.
At first she thought it was her imagination when she saw his lips move. Then she heard it. The faintest whisper forming the shape of her name. “Tauriel...”
Her heart leapt like a thousand startled birds taking flight. She gripped his hand, and there was the faintest twitch of his fingers gripping back. “Kili, I’m here. I’m here with you,” she began to repeat. His head turned slightly towards her, but he did not wake. She stroked his hair, and spoke to him softly as she had many times before. The last of day faded into night.
When the healers came to do their final round, they pulled back the lids of his eyes. Her breath hitched to see his warm brown eyes again, but they were still lost and staring, unregistering of anything.
They lit a candle and left her to sit watch.
Despite her resolve to watch him through the night, the wild excitement after so many days of senseless grief was too much. She must have fallen asleep leaning against his cot, for when she opened her eyes the night was deep. And something had changed. She lifted her head.
His eyes were warm, brown, and shining with life — and looking straight at her. “Amrâlimê”, he whispered almost inaudibly. “You didn’t let me go.”
“Oh, Kili.” The tears she had held back since her furious fight to wrench him back from death now spilled forth. He made a move as if to raise his hand to her face, so she lowered her face to their clasped hands and bathed them in her tears. When she raised her head, he was smiling, and trying again to speak.
“I was gone, but then I felt you holding onto me.” He paused to breathe, grimacing as liquid rattled horribly through his lungs. “So I held on too.”
She swept her tears away with her sleeve so she could better see his face. “I couldn’t live without you, Kili. Without ever letting you know that I love you.”
“I knew.” His eyes shone with tenderness. “I only wished I could have given you a lifetime of happiness.”
“Now you can.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice caught, and only a liquid cough came out instead. He winced.
“Shh.” She brushed her hands over his face. “Rest now, meleth nin. We’ll have time to speak.” But she could not bring herself to tear her gaze away from his.
They drank each other in, a silent gaze communicating what words could not.
Tauriel. He mouthed the words of her name, and she bent towards him like a leaf in the wind. Many times she had traced the outline of his features and run her fingers over his lips, but she had not kissed him again since she had pressed her lips to his on Ravenhill. Now his lips parted, warm and alive.
She brought her face down to his until she felt his breath on her lips. His breath, that she had listened to all day and night, like a prayer that all would be well. And then he tilted his head up. His lips were warm as they pressed softly into hers.
Oh, she could stay like this. For a moment, or for an eternity.
She felt his lips curve against hers in a smile. She broke the kiss to pull back and look at him. “What is it, love?”
His gaze held hers, tender and steady, full of the warm light she had first seen in them on the beach. “Stay,” he whispered.
“I will. Always. I will.” She returned to his lips, and they lost themselves for many moments more.
The candle sputtering as it reached its end roused them. The frail light in the tent flickered. A few more moments and they would be left in the dark.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked, scanning his dimly lit surroundings.
“If you are, I’m right here with you.”
“Mm. Dreams don’t hurt like this,” he concluded, and she realized with a jolt that he must be in great pain.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kept—“
He cut her off. “Don’t. You made me forget,” he assured her. “But I think...” A hacking cough broke him off. “I need to rest.”
She traced her thumbs over the dark circles under his eyes. Their brief conversation had clearly drained him.
His dark eyes smiled up at her. “You look terrible. Get some sleep,” he whispered.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“If I’m not dead yet, I won’t die now.”
She planted one last, lingering kiss on his lips, then settled to her knees beside her cot. “Then sleep, meleth nin. I’ll be right here.”
“Have you been sleeping like this?” he asked softly.
“Yes.”
He paused, then squeezed her hand. “I love you.”
His simply stated words sent a thrill down to her core. “I love you as well.” Tears brimmed in her eyes as her words sunk down into the silence of the room, and she could feel a reciprocating emotion rising up from him.
The candle guttered out, and darkness enveloped them.
He gave a happy sigh as his fingers relaxed in hers. In a few breaths, he was asleep again.
Still holding his hand, she folded herself up beside him and let the oblivion of sleep descend.
---
She hadn’t wanted to tell him the price she'd paid for his life, but it didn’t take him long to get it out of her. He knew, just as he’d known his brother and uncle were dead.
He was sitting up in bed, and gazed into the distance when she told him. “I think I was at the Halls of Mandos when you called me back. I saw Fili and Thorin walk through a set of huge doors, but I didn’t want to go. I was waiting for something, though I couldn’t remember what, and when you called me, I was able to turn around and walk back. There was a cord I could pull on, and following it brought me closer to you.” He turned and looked at her. “That was your spirit?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
He touched his hand to her chest. “We’re connected then. I never let go. I followed that cord all the way back to my body and woke up here, with you.”
She brought her hand to his heart as well. “If we weren’t connected before, we are now. But I think we were.”
He lifted her hand and kissed it. “And if my life didn’t belong to you already, it does now.” He clasped her hand. “Tauriel, I wish I could ask you this under better circumstances, but there’s no time to waste. Will you marry me?” His eyes were large and earnest.
“Oh Kili — yes. Of course. Any time. Always.” She was flushed, she was on her knees in front of him again. He was kissing her, and her hands were in his hair again.
When they broke apart, he was serious. “Thank you for keeping my people away. You were right that I wanted to be left alone. It's given me time to think about what we have to do for them to honor the bond we've forged. As much as I wish I could court you properly, I think it would be best if we married in secret and left here as soon as possible. I must abdicate to my uncle Dain.”
Tauriel stared at him, shocked at his conviction in a plan he had not yet discussed with her.
He went on. “Dwarves are too stubborn, and the enmity between our people runs too deep. My people will never accept an elven queen, and not marrying you is not an option for me. It’s better for me to accept that and leave the crown and this mountain behind, than for me to try and force the issue.”
Tauriel was at a loss for words. "You would be... You are king then, since your brother and uncle..." In their brief and rapid descent into passion, she had only dimly become aware at some point that he was in the line of dwarven succession.
"I'm not king yet. From the outside it's still unclear if I've lived or died. But they'll want to crown me. I can't accept. The only path I'm willing to walk is the one that puts you first." He kissed her hand.
"So you wish to leave here without seeing your people?" She did not think the dwarves who had tried to burst into the camp would like that.
"I can see some of them, briefly, once we're legally wed. And then we should leave before word spreads and people have time to make plans to pull us apart. We can go west. Find a place to settle, just you and me. I said I'd take you traveling with me someday, didn't I? I always keep my promises." He smiled winningly.
She kissed him. Against all odds, it looked like he did. But she was only beginning to grasp what he was offering her. "But it's not just the crown, Kili, it's your people... I’m already lost to my people, why throw aside yours as well, before you’ve even tried to see if they’d accept us? My king banished me, but he still took you in, and they’ve still treated us, still made sure you recovered.”
He grimaced. “If I were anyone else, I'd try. But I’m the heir to the throne, and the consequences of me trying and failing to get acceptance for this path... I would be unable to take it back. It could be very dangerous for you. And me.”
Her mind reeled with implications she had not even considered. In all the weeks at his bedside, she had mostly been hoping and praying for his recovery. She had vaguely known that he was now the only living heir to Durin’s line, but whether he became king or not had seemed immaterial in her mind. The only sure, solid thing was the love that tethered them, in life or in death, and she had been focused on pulling on it to bring him back. She had known what it had cost her, but not what it was going to cost him. “You’d be leaving this mountain, and these people you fought with and almost died for.”
He smiled softly. “Tauriel, I did die. You know as well as I do — I was not in the land of the living when you found me on that ledge. I died, along with Thorin, Fili..." He paused and closed his eyes, collecting himself. "There is nothing left here for me. The part of me that belongs to my people, I gave on Ravenhill. Only what belongs to you came back. And only because you paid a terrible price for it. I plan to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, and I hope I make it worth it.”
She looked into his eyes and saw a fierce, steady expression that she was starting to learn meant his mind was irrevocably set. She had given up her people and immortality for him, but it was a gift freely given. She did not expect him to immediately give up everything for her. "You don't have to do this," she said. "I saved you because I loved you. Nothing more."
"And because of that," he said, "your love is worth even more than if you had expected me to return it. To pay such a high price, and expect nothing in return... there is no limit to the wealth of your soul. I am humbled before you." He somberly put his hand over his heart. "But like you freely gave, I freely return. Let me make this choice for you. I get one more chance at life, and this is what I want. I’ve never wanted to be king, but for as long as I’ve known you, I’ve wanted you.”
She smiled. “Very well, stubborn Dwarf. I accept your decision. I can’t say I don’t love the idea of having you all to myself.”