Walking out of the clearing proved to be just about the last thing Bilba's adrenaline was willing to help her with. By the time she got back to camp her entire body felt shaky and weak, each footstep dragging with exhaustion. Fili corralled her as soon as she stepped into view and she allowed herself to be led without protest to Oin. He promptly began fussing over her leg and hand while Bilba leaned back against the tree they'd sat her against. Fili dropped beside her and she sighed and leaned against his shoulder.

The action brought back a random memory of her friend Violet Cotton and Violet's older brother, Ardor. He'd been so protective of Violet, following her about, making sure she was safe, offering his shoulder as a pillow any time she tired. Bilba had been so jealous and had begged and begged her mother for a big brother of her own.

Her mind drifted, sleep pressing down and the memories shredded and drifted away like foam on waves.

Whatever happened to Ardor? Her mother's voice, distant and almost indiscernible began speaking and Bilba remembered suddenly being sat down so Belladonna could explain to her that Ardor had been killed by a wolf.

It happened at the beginning of the Fell Winter and his death ended up being simply the herald to many more that would follow.

Violet never smiled again.

Lifting a hand weighted down by the chains of sleep, Bilba awkwardly patted Fili.

"Don't die." Her words were slurred so it was likely he didn't understand what she was saying. She was only barely aware of it herself.

She thought she felt the low bass of his voice answering but, by that time, she was too far gone to hear it.

What in the world was that horrid stink?

Bilba clawed groggily back to consciousness. Her eyelids felt heavy and it took several minutes to pull them open and a few more of blinking to clear the blurriness in her vision.

She was startled to find she was still leaning against the same tree, her head on Fili's shoulder. He, in turn, was sound asleep, his breathing deep and even. Feeling a pressure against her opposite leg Bilba looked to see Kili curled up alongside her, equally sound asleep. A clean white bandage was taped over the slice she'd taken to the thigh and another was sound around her hand, covering the wounds in her palm.

A look out from there revealed almost the entire camp was in the same position. She hadn't particularly thought about it before but it made sense she wouldn't be the only one exhausted from the night before. None of them had slept while tied up in bags, and on a spit, and it was likely many hadn't even gotten dinner before they'd had to run off after the Trolls.

The same stink from before assailed her nostrils and, with a start of horror, Bilba realized she was smelling herself. Her brain dutifully identified the smell as dried Troll blood and just like that her skin was crawling at the thought of having it on her. She scrambled to her feet as quickly and carefully as she could, finding it a testament to their exhaustion that neither of the Pretty Twins moved, went to find her pack and began to pull out a new set of clothes.

Once she had what she wanted she carefully pulled out the rings and doll, wrapped them up in one of her spare handkerchiefs and gently placed them at the very bottom of her pack. She stood up and began carefully picking her way out of the group.

"Don't go far; we don't know what else is in the area."

Bilba bit back a scream and turned to see Bofur sitting in the shade of a tree. He raised an eyebrow at her reaction. "We don't give up on setting watch just because it's daylight you know." He had one arm thrown loosely over his knee and Bilba could see he was holding a block of wood with several pieces carved out. The other hand held a short knife.

"What are you carving?"

He shrugged. "Haven't decided yet." He grinned at her. "That's part of the fun of it though, the finding out."

Bilba felt her own lips tug just a bit in a return smile and began to turn to head out again.

"Thorin's down there somewhere," Bofur's voice came from behind. "Though he's been gone long enough to have had enough baths to last a month."

Bilba felt her face heat as a mental image of Thorin taking a bath jumped unbidden to her mind. She shoved it aside as quickly as possible and without turning said, "well, I'm sure he's probably just off practicing new ways of looking majestic without being obvious he's trying."

A thought occurred to her and she turned slightly to face him. "Did you warn him to not go off to far?"

Bofur lifted the block of wood and idly began carving at it once again. "Nope."

"And why not?"

He reached up and touched the tip of his hat in a mock salute at her. "He remembered to bring his sword."

Bilba rolled her eyes. Bofur chuckled and shook his head and Bilba decided it was really time to leave.

The camp had been deliberately set along a path that led straight to the edge of the river and Bilba followed it dutifully through the trees. The sound of the rushing water grew steadily louder and she found her pace quickening at the thought of just being clean soon.

The trees opened onto the banks and she stepped out with a sigh at the sight of the rushing water. The river was wide but very shallow, at least at this point. She doubted it would go up much further than her waist which was fine with her.

She cast about for a place to set her things and stuttered to a complete stop as her eyes found Thorin.

Thorin, who'd stripped down to nothing but his breeches and boots and was currently lying on his back, one hand under his head, the other across his stomach, sound asleep. A few feet away lay most of his equipment. All of it had been scrubbed clean of filth and blood and was laid out neatly, drying slowly in the sun.

Bilba tore her eyes away, her face on fire. The Dwarf wore so much armor and padding she hadn't realized how EXCEPTIONALLY fit he was.

She started to set her things on the ground, then frowned and straightened back up, grimacing as pulled muscles complained at her audacity in forcing them to continue working. Her gaze drifted back to Thorin and she chewed on her lower lip.

She wasn't an IDIOT. She didn't care how tired Thorin was, she'd seen him twitch awake at someone whispering the WORD Orc.

"You know," she said, conversationally, "I would have expected more honor from you, O King."

He snorted, his eyes still closed. "I had no intention of spying on you, Burglar. As you can see, my eyes remain shut."

Bilba rolled her eyes. "Even so, I'll take myself a little further downstream if you don't mind."

"I do mind," he said, his voice firm. "We missed three Trolls. Who knows what else may be lurking out there?"

"You're out here alone," Bilba pointed out.

"That's different," Thorin said, his voice heavy with fatigue. "I have my sword."

"I have one too."

He laughed. "Not with you and you forget I've seen you practice with it."

Bilba made a face at him. So what if she wasn't particularly good? She'd barely started being able to practice with someone who actually knew what they were doing.

Thorin pulled his arm off his stomach and draped it across his face. "Besides, it isn't as though I ask something outrageous. The boys generally accompany you outside of camp do they not?"

Bilba blushed again. "That's different!"

"Is it? In what way?"

Bilba stammered. "Well...I don't....I mean....it's....it just IS!"

Honestly, what a ridiculous question. Obviously there was a difference between Fili and Kili standing guard while she took a bath and THORIN standing guard.

Just because she wasn't...quite...clear...on what that difference was didn't mean there WASN'T one.

Honestly.

"Do you truly question my honor?"

Bila gaped. Was it just her or did he actually sound HURT?

"No," she said. "I just..." Her voice trailed off as she realized she'd well and truly backed herself into a corner.

That or Thorin was a master of verbal strategy and had skillfully worked her into a position where she couldn't leave without insulting him on multiple levels.

No, her mind said instantly, there was no way Thorin Didn't-Know-When-To-Keep-His-Mouth-Shut Oakenshield was that smart.

Regardless....she sighed in annoyance and then stalked to the edge of the water and set her things down.

Purposefully ignoring Thorin, she stepped in and gasped in shock at the cold feeling of the water licking at her feet. Gritting her teeth, she plunged in to her waist and began furiously scrubbing, trying her best to clean herself and her clothes without taking them off.

She usually didn't get undressed when Fili or Kili were there either but, with them, she never felt quite so self-conscious either.

What would Priscilla and Seth think if they could see her now? What about the rest of her neighbors and relatives?

What about Fram?

Her hands stopped in the middle of trying to get the grime from under her fingernails.

When was the last time she'd thought about Fram? Guilt assailed her as she thought back to him waiting in the dark to say good-bye. He'd clearly thought about her but she couldn't be bothered to return the favor.

Her spirits lowered. She lowered her hands into the river and watched as the water soaked through her sleeves. Streams of dark mud, mixed with red drifted off into the water. The bandages on her hand and leg soon grew sodden and begin to break up and float away. Oin must have put something on the wounds underneath because both remained sealed and didn't reopen.

Bilba shuddered again as her mind ran over the events of the night before. There was Troll blood on her. Forget having to take baths with someone watching her, who would want her covered in blood?

Haven't you always been covered in blood? Her mind whispered at her. Just because you didn't remember...

"Shut up," she muttered.

Angrily, she began scrubbing at her clothes and skin again. More red whipped into the river as the blood on her dissolved and now she felt again the itch on her scalp, the feeling of grime dried on her face.

Disgusting, she was DISGUSTING.

She ducked under the water, barely feeling the ice cold water as it swirled around her head. She burst back up and scrubbed at her head before putting it back into the water.

How could Fili have let her sleep against him? How could Kili have wanted to sleep next to her or Bofur speak to her?

Her throat clogged and tears began streaming down her face. Angry, she scrubbed at them, and then pushed a fist into her mouth to bite back a sob.

It didn't help and she gave up, letting out another sob as she did. She wrapped her arms around her chest and cried, shivering at the ice cold wrapped around her. She shot a glance back toward Thorin but he didn't seem to be able to hear her over the rush of the river and stayed where he was.

She sighed in relief; at least breaking down in front of Thorin was one humiliation she would avoid. Bad enough she'd done it in front of Fili and Kili. The thought brought a new rush of guilt; she hadn't even apologized to Fili for her unwarranted assault on him.

Sometimes it felt like the list of her mistakes was so great it was a wonder she didn't drown under the weight of them.

She got herself back under control and slowly finished washing, not leaving until there wasn't a speck on her anywhere.

By then she was nearly frozen from the cold, her body shivering and her teeth chattering.

She waded out of the water and studied her pile of dry clothes and the towel she'd left next to her. Finally she gathered them up and made her way to a nearby tree. Scooting behind it she undressed as quickly as possible, dried off and dressed in the new set of clothes.

She gathered up her wet items and brought them back around, taking them over to spread out near where Thorin had put his. There was a light breeze moving through the clearing and she shivered again, looking forlornly at her soaking wet coat.

Her eyes drifted past it to where Thorin's ridiculous coat was spread out. It looked completely dry and really, really warm.

She shot a glance toward the Dwarf and found his chest moving in the slow, regular cadence of sleep. He'd woken up enough to register that she wasn't a threat and his sub-conscious now reacted accordingly, allowing him to sleep even with her so near.

Lucky her. She snatched the coat and pulled it on, relaxing as the sun-warmed leather wrapped around her. It had no sleeves but the fur and leather still made it extremely warm and comfortable. No wonder he liked it so much.

She got up and stepped over his legs, moving to the other side and collapsing down next to him.

"I expect that back."

Bilba jerked in surprise. How'd he even know with his eyes still shut?

"Go back to sleep."

He grumbled something and moved his arm back to where it had originally been resting across his stomach.

The sun beat down on her and Bilba felt her body slowly start to relax.

"If only it had been sunny that day, "she whispered.

"Why?" Thorin asked.

Bilba shrugged. "It was overcast, that's why the Trolls were wandering out during the day. If it had been sunny they would have been in a cave and Atherton, Bungo and I never would have run into them."

"Who's Atherton?"

"The son of the farmer couple at that burned out house," Bilba kept her eyes up, focusing on the sun. Under her the ground was hard and uneven, a particularly obnoxious rock dug into the back of her neck and she tried to move to a more comfortable position. "He was nice. We went on a walk with Bungo, my little brother." She stopped for a moment. "I was more interested in talking to Atherton than Bungo. He ran ahead and stumbled right into the middle of the clearing where the Trolls were."

Her little brother's scream echoed through her mind and her lip trembled as tears threatened again.

"Does your lover from the Shire know about this Atherton?"

Her thoughts derailed, and she made an exasperated noise at his continued insistence upon calling Fram her lover no matter what she said to the contrary. "No. What would it matter if he did? Atherton's dead."

She sighed, her body slumping slightly into the ground.

Beside her Thorin stayed quiet. Bilba warred with herself over whether or not she should continue. Finally she decided Thorin deserved to know what his oath had been given for. Not only that but, perhaps, if she told him then he could pass it onto the others and spare her having to repeat it over and over.

Bilba kept her eyes up at the sky, not looking at him. For all she knew he'd fallen back asleep. Part of her hoped he had. He deserved to know though, in any event.

So she told him.

About dear Atherton and his parents. About the walk that ended abruptly with the sound of her brother's scream.

She told him of racing to the edge of the clearing and snatching her brother away from the Trolls just as they reached for them.

She tried to detach herself as she talked of fleeing through the trees. As she mentioned Atherton flinging his body behind them her voice trembled and, in the end, skipped over the details of his fate. She hadn't looked but she'd heard, the horrific squelch and crunch as one of the Troll's feet had come crashing down. They hadn't even paused in their pursuit, simply ended his life as though he were an insect on the forest floor.

Thorin, she was sure, could fill in the blanks himself.

"I was still at the age where I thought parents could solve everything," she whispered to the sky, forgetting for a brief instance that Thorin was even there. "They were PARENTS. I hadn't realized yet they were also people."

She'd thought, when they reached the clearing and saw the adults running toward them, that they were SAFE. Her father and Atherton's father had run forward, trying to distract the Trolls so Bilba, Bungo, Atheron's mother and Belladonna could escape.

One of the Trolls had caught her father with a long swipe of an arm. Bilba could still see him in her mind's eye, flying across the clearing, could still hear the noise his body made as it crashed through the wall of the farmhouse and vanished inside.

Looking back now she knew there was no way he could have survived such a blow. Then, however, her mind had been panicked at him being gone and had desperately hoped for him to reappear quickly and save them.

She hadn't realized parents couldn't fix everything, she CERTAINLY hadn't realized parents could die.

Belladonna had screamed and run toward the house, racing inside after her husband and leaving her children alone outside.

Bilba hadn't known what to do, to run with Bungo, stay where she was or go after her mother.

The indecision had cost her.

Atherton's father had been cast aside just as easily, flying to one end of the clearing where he'd lain still.

His young wife had run forward screaming at the Trolls, demanding to know what the fate of her son.

They had ended her screaming soon enough.

Bilba stopped talking, her eyes tracking a cloud roving across the sky. The ground still annoyed her and she wondered how Thorin managed to lay so perfectly still, as though he were on a feather mattress and not the bare dirt.

"And what of your family?"

She'd half hoped he'd been asleep. Trust Thorin to be contrary.

Her eyes stayed fixed on that cloud. If she squinted it almost looked like a small child, just a little.

Her eyes watered. She held them as long as possible but was finally forced to blink, causing them to spill over all at once and track down her face.

She was tired of crying. She'd buried her parents in her mind years ago. She may not have remembered what happened but she knew enough to realize they weren't coming back.

When setting out from Hobbiton her belief had been she'd have no reaction to getting the memories back, if she got them back at all. She'd never thought it would be like losing them all over again or that the wound on her soul would reopen.

The sun seemed to cool overhead, its rays no longer able to reach her.

She took a deep breath and then suddenly, before she could talk herself out of it, sat up and shifted over. She turned her body horizontal to Thorin's and lay back down, placing her head right on his stomach though she continued to stare upward at the sky.

If he wanted to make her relive her family's deaths again the least he could do was be there with her.

For a brief second the thought of what Fram would think touched her mind but she shoved it away. Fram didn't need to know everything.

Under her head she felt the muscles of his stomach contract, from surprise she supposed, and then relax again.

He made no comment, for which she was grateful.

"My mother came out just as Atherton's mother died. She had my father with her, dragging him as best she could. He was--" Her voice trailed off. Again, looking back, it became obvious her father was beyond help. Then, however, she hadn't realized.

There were a lot of things she hadn't realized.