Opening his heavy eyelids felt like such a daunting task, but Kíli forced himself to do it anyway. As everything came into focus around him, it became clear that he was in a tent, and the dim glow of a single candle at his bedside being the only source of light meant it was some time in the middle of the night. Then, the aches and pain of his wounds set in, tearing a weak, raspy groan from the back of his throat.

"Kíli?" a tired voice gasped.

Hands gently grab at Kíli's face and turn his gaze to the tear soaked eyes of the she-elf he fell head over heels for.

"Tauriel." Kíli coughed out, smiling despite the painful dryness of his throat.

A cup of water was brought to his lips and the prince accepts it without hesitation. He drank the water so sloppily that some of it spilled out of the corner of his mouth, wetting his cheek, ear, and neck. After his thirst had been satisfied, Tauriel takes away the cup and dries his face with a cloth.

She's smiling, but Kíli can see the anguish in her eyes. As Tauriel tends to him, he watches her hold back her emotions. It left a deep ache in his chest (the one not caused by the stab wound) to see her that way. He wished she would just release the tears she kept at bay.

Kíli would tell Tauriel that she would be more than welcome to be vulnerable around him, but he was too weak to form much more than a few words at a time.

"My love, it makes my heart sing to see you alive and breathing." Tauriel sighed, taking Kíli's hand in her own.

His hand receives a kiss and a firm, yet also gentle, caress as Tauriel brings it to her face. He also feels a couple tears drip onto his knuckles.

"I feared that I had lost you after I had only just found you." Tauriel said, her voice breaking.

Their feelings for each other had developed quickly over the short period of time since they met. They knew that what they felt for one another couldn't be anything other than true love. Only true love can feel like absolute bliss one moment and absolute pain the next.

It pained Tauriel when Kíli nearly died in her arms. If felt like she too had been stabbed in the chest when he was. As if their souls were intertwined, and what ever pain was afflicted onto one would also be felt by the other. And for all Tauriel knew, this had to be the case, because the pain of nearly losing her love was like no other pain she had ever felt.

"C'mere." Kíli mumbled, tugging on the hold Tauriel had on his hand to beckon her closer.

Tauriel moves her stool closer to Kíli's cot and leans over him to rest her forehead against his. They remained in that position, finding comfort in the warmth of each other's presence.

Kíli felt the trembling of Tauriel's anxiety and worry fade. It relieved him to see her finally relax. Relaxing himself, Kíli thinks of the events that led him and Tauriel to where they are now.

That's when he also remembered what happened just before. What that d*mn monster, Azog, did to his brother.

"F-Fíli!" Kíli whimpered, his breaths quickening as he starts to panic.

"Shh, shh, easy. Easy, Kíli, your brother lives. He's alright." Tauriel said, soothing his hair and placing her hand to his chest to keep him from getting up and straining his injuries.

"He lays on the cot next to yours, look." she told Kíli, gently turning his head to the side.

Just as Tauriel had told him, there on a cot laid his older brother. The brother he thought he had lost when he was dropped, seemingly dead, at his feet. Fíli looked so pale and so still, Kíli feared he may have succumbed to his wounds during the night without anyone noticing.

He needed to know that his brother was okay. That he was still alive. That he won't have to get to know a world without him in it.

Even though his limbs felt like lead and it hurt to move them, Kíli still attempted to reach his hand out to Fíli. Kíli grunts disappointedly when he couldn't quite reach what he wanted. Then, suddenly his cot is sliding closer to Fíli's, until Kíli was able to wrap his hand around his brother's wrist. Looking back, he saw Tauriel smiling tenderly at him, and he returns it, grateful for her help.

While gripping Fíli's wrist, a steady pulse was felt. Overwhelmed with relief, Kíli lacked the strength to hold back his emotions. His sobs shudder out of him in waves, Tauriel holding him and whispering comforting words in his ear. He was intensely glad that Fíli hadn't died, he thanked Mahal above that they had both made it through the battle.

His sobbing, losing steam, turns to soft, sniffling weeping. And Tauriel doesn't stop comforting him, kissing away his tears. Beyond Fíli's cot, a few feet away, Thorin laid in a cot of his own, covered in bruises and bandages. Sitting at his bedside, bent over their clasped hands asleep, was Bilbo.

Then something occurs to Kíli. His uncle has Bilbo to hold his hand, he has Tauriel to hold his, but Fíli...

"He has no one to hold his hand...no one to give him comfort." Kíli cried.

Kíli slides his hand from Fíli's wrist into his hand and squeezes, hoping the other can feel his presence and know that he's not alone.

"I admire your devotion to your family." Tauriel tells him.

"I believe that is what made me fall for you. Your heart loves so strongly, it's beautiful." she said, nuzzling her face to the side of his.

"Your drive to do what is right, even if you stand alone, is what I find beautiful in you." Kíli admitted.

"You are also very pretty." he giggled under his breath.

"You charmer." Tauriel giggled back.

She presses a kiss to Kíli's lips.

"You need more rest. It'll aid in your recovery." Tauriel said.

"Rest with me. I'd hate for you to neglect yourself caring for me." Kíli replied.

Feeling the weight of her exhaustion begin to crush her, Tauriel squeezes herself into Kíli's cot, laying alongside him. Her feet dangled off the edge (it was a dwarven cot, so in no way elf-sized), but she didn't care. She laid her head on her dwarf's shoulder and allows her eyes to slip closed.

"I love you." Tauriel whispered, a single tear escaping and landing on Kíli's neck.

"I love you, too." Kíli whispered back, kissing her head as she drifted off to sleep, him falling not too far behind.

In the morning, the healers who came to check on the king and his heirs were surprised (except Óin) to find a she-elf cuddling with the youngest prince.