In an instant all of Bilba's newfound courage fled and she found herself ten years in the past, twenty once more, cowering before monsters as they slaughtered everyone she ever loved.

Time seemed to stretch, an Age passing between every beat of her heart.

Bilba felt as though she were in another place, watching events as they happened to some else instead of her.

The Troll's eyes widened.

Everyone had gone on without her.

The creature said something but all sound had vanished, save the noise of her own harsh breathing and ragged heartbeat.

Fleeing into shadow, where she could never follow.

The Troll began to get up, looming over her to the point where nothing existed but it and its monstrous shadow falling before it, swallowing her up.

Leaving her lost.

It began to stride forward, each step sending the very earth to trembling.

And alone.

An arm reached out.

Bilba closed her eyes.

Good-bye.

Something small whished past each side of her head, so close on the left she felt a slight snick of pain as it sliced the tip of her earlobe.

The pain snapped through her, fire vibrating through her nerves and her eyes opened in shock. Sound rushed in, the Dwarves screaming at her to run, screaming at the Troll to leave her alone.

Dwalin fought like one gone berserk, wrenching at his bindings so hard it was a wonder he didn't break bone. Gloin had somehow managed to get to his feet and was attempting to hop to her side.

Before her the Troll shrieked in pain, lunging back. Its hand clutched its face and thick blood spurted between several fingers.

Another object whizzed past her head, light breeze brushing her hair and suddenly the creature had an arrow lodged in the center of its throat.

The Troll jerked its hands away and now Bilba could see an arrow lodged firmly in its right eye, while the left sported one wedged between the crease of the eye and the ridge of the brow.

The Troll made a strangled, gagging sound. It staggered a foot or two and then collapsed on the ground, its hands pawing weakly at its throat.

The entire thing took mere moments; the other two Trolls were still in the process of getting up.

Bilba stumbled back as they did. Her heel hit the pile of weapons and she fell, landing in the pile. Pain sliced up her left calf as the edge of a blade grazed her.

More arrows flew past her, catching each Troll solidly in the eye. As with the first they both lurched backwards, their hands instinctively going up, and quickly found themselves with arrows lodged dead center in their throats.

It wasn't enough to kill them, but it put them on the ground, strangled, gurgling sounds coming from deep inside as they fought to breathe with blood slowly filling their lungs.

The entire thing probably took under a minute.

Bilba stared, pushed up slightly on her elbows.

Footsteps and then Thorin knelt behind her, stepping right onto the weapons in his heavy boots. Kili, who'd lost his boots when captured, stood slightly to the side keeping an arrow at the ready in case one of the Trolls got up.

"Are you all right?" Thorin slid his hands under her arms and started to hoist her up, only to hesitate as several of the blades shifted and threatened to slice her further. Swearing softly in Khuzdul, he shifted his angle, slid an arm under her legs and another behind her back and lifted her straight up into his arms. Then, tightening his grip to try and center his own balance, he carefully stepped off the pile and set her down.

As he did pain lanced through her leg again and Bilba grimaced, a hand automatically going to it.

"Kili," Thorin ordered, his voice flat, "watch her."

Kili nodded and loaned her an arm to lean on while still managing to keep his weapon up. Thorin, his face downright thunderous, stalked past to release the others.

"So," Bibla said, finally finding her voice. "He seems upset."

Kili didn't look at her. "He's not the only one. What were you thinking?"

"That I didn't want anyone to die?" Bilba answered. "What else was I supposed to do?"

"How about letting us help instead of trying to get yourself killed doing it all on your own?" His voice was tight with anger and it occurred to Bilba that she hadn't realized he could get angry. Every interaction she'd had with him so far he'd been lighthearted and cheerful.

She gave a slight shrug. "You did help," she said in a quiet voice, "you shot them for me."

He didn't answer and Bilba sighed. She hated it when people were angry with her but, honestly, she couldn't think of anything else to be done. If the Troll hadn't noticed her at the last second she'd have been safely in the trees again and they'd probably have been congratulating her on her efforts.

A dim light caught her eye and she looked to see the first rays of dawn coming over the edge of the ring of stones they stood in.

Thorin had released the Dwarves tied up on the ground and they were working on getting the ones off the spit.

On the ground the one of the Trolls barely moved. A second twisted this way and that, clawing weakly at its throat, while the third attempted to move toward the Dwarves, only to stop each time Kili began to take aim at him.

"I see I missed quite the excitement while I was gone."

Bilba twitched as Gandalf appeared on the top of the embankment. The rays of the sun backlit him for a moment before he stepped forward out of them and headed down.

Thorin was just finishing getting Dwalin off the spit. He clapped him on the back and then moved to the center to where Gandalf had stopped.

As he did he began to draw his sword and Bilba felt her breath catch in her throat.

"Leave them," Gandalf said. "There is no need to waste time. The sun will deal with them soon enough. "

What?

Thorin hesitated, his hand still wrapped around the hilt of the weapon.

Bilba pushed carefully off Kili's arm, ignoring the questioning look he gave her and hobbled over to the two. Her leg ached, blood still sluggishly running down it, but she continued on.

"Kill them." Her voice sounded calm.

Thorin looked at her. He opened his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by Gandalf.

"As I said, there is no need. There--"

Bilba swore at him in Black Speech.

Gandalf's jaw clicked shut, stunned. Around her the others were staring at her in equal stages of shock.

"You don't get a say," Bilba said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. "You're a murderer six times over. My family is dead because of you. You put the ideas of adventure in my mother's head. You set her on the path she took."

Fury began to unfold within her, white hot and bitter. She stepped forward, looking up into the wizard's eyes. "And you're not even done, are you?" She hissed. "Thorin wouldn't even be ON this trip if you hadn't goaded him into it. You've sent him to face a DRAGON with nothing more than a group of those to loyal to him to say no."

Ice crept into her voice, lacing through each word. "You're the worst kind of evil. You INSPIRE people to run, arms wide open, to their own death. You set them on a path straight to darkness and don't even have the decency to stay and watch them BURN."

Her voice lowered to barely a whisper, each word barbed with pure ice. "You. Say. NOTHING."

With that she spun on one foot, barely feeling the pain in her leg any longer, putting her back toward him.

She faced Thorin instead. Her chest heaved; breath short in her lungs.

"You swore an oath, carry it out."

He stared at her, his eyes wide. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

It occurred to her, in a sudden burst of unwelcome insight that if Thorin denied the oath there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. The Dwarves were on his side, not hers.

She felt the anger begin to drain away once more, the loss of adrenaline leaving her cold and trembling from exhaustion.

"Thorin," her voice gave an embarrassing crack and she swallowed hard to fight back the tears that suddenly burned at the back of her eyes. "You PROMISED."

She sounded like a child, demanding fairness from a patently unfair world.

Something passed through Thorin's eyes. He pulled the sword from its sheath in one, smooth motion and nodded at her.

"It shall be done."

Bilba felt a rush of gratitude toward him so powerful that, at that moment, she would have done anything he asked of her without question.

Thorin stalked to the nearest Troll and without ceremony plunged the sword into the slight depression where the back of its head met its neck. The Troll stopped moving instantly.

Over the outcropping of rock the sun continued to rise and Bilba felt a sudden fear that the rays of light would creep over and turn the other two into stone before Thorin could kill them. She couldn't stand the thought of them getting out of it so easily, just simply to stone instead of justice being done upon them. It felt too much like an escape to her. It wasn't, she knew rationally, but her heart screamed for justice and to have a personal hand in it.

The second Troll lay on its back, blocking access to the back of its skull.

Kili walked forward, offering to end it with another arrow. Thorin waved him off but took the bow and arrows, setting his own sword to the side.

He shot three arrows, one after another, straight through the Troll's ear. The arrows were the ones she'd gathered from the cave, thick shafts and tipped with fat triangles of iron the size of her fist.

The second Troll went still.

The third, by this time, had also gone still, the only sound a strangled wheezing as it struggled to draw air past the arrow in its throat.

Thorin began to ready another arrow, but Bilba found herself moving forward.

Her fingers closed around the hilt of Thorin's sword and she dragged it out from where he'd planted it in the ground. The blade was enormous, to the point she was forced to drag the tip in the dirt as she marched forward.

She reached the Troll's side and grabbed a fistful of the straps it used as clothing.

Suddenly the sword was no longer in her hand and she turned to see Thorin beside her, offering her a leg up, the sword lying next to him.

Another rush of gratitude, almost stronger than the first, nearly brought her to tears right then but she managed to choke it back. If this was anywhere close to what the rest of the Dwarves felt for him it was little wonder they were willing to take on a Dragon at his request.

She placed a foot in his cupped hands and he hefted her up onto the creature's chest. He joined her a moment later.

Bilba stumbled forward, grimacing at the feel of the Troll's skin moving beneath her feet. She reached where the arrow stuck out of its neck and nearly gagged at the feel of the thing's blood coating her feet.

She dug her fingers into its jawline and dragged herself up onto its face, carefully avoiding the mouth.

She knelt carefully next to its eye. The massive orb rolled in the socket, focusing on her and then away again.

"Hi," Bilba said, her voice that strange calm again. "Remember me?"

It gave her no response, merely a gurgling noise that caused blood to bubble up around the arrow wound. More trickled out of the corner of its mouth and Bilba remembered the same thing happening to her father right before the end.

"I remember you," she said, dropping her voice to the barest of whispers. "You.

ATE.

MY.

BROTHER."

Her hand clenched into a fist again, digging back into the same grooves she'd left there before. Hatred, thick and cloying, clawed up her throat and threatened to choke her.

She pushed to her feet and held a hand out to Thorin for the sword.

"I'll do it," he said quietly.

Bilba's head snapped toward him. "Give me the sword, Thorin."

"I gave you my word I would do it," he replied. "I will see it done."

They stared at one another for several long minutes, a silent war of wills going on. If it had been anyone else Bilba wasn't sure she would have given in. For Thorin, however, for him she could.

She took a deep breath and stepped aside, allowing him to take her place.

He raised the sword over his head and, in one quick motion, drove it straight through the creature's eye, the blade vanishing all the way down to the hilt.

Ichor and blood sprayed upward, a thin film coating her clothing and clinging to her hair.

The Troll's eyes lost focus and its chest stopped moving.

And just like that it was done.

Done at long last.

Done, but not quite over.

She still had one thing left to do.