It's several days later that the three of them finally get their mother and Gimli to themselves. It's clear that their mother has grown increasingly concerned for them—because more often than not, Kíli wakes up screaming for the nightmares that often make Fíli lose sleep as well. Their rooms are close, in the royal wing—too close—and Kíli knows she hears them every time, though she does not always mention it, and knows better than to try and offer them comfort in the middle of the night.
Even Gimli has noticed the way they have lost some of their cheeriness, their luster, and the way seemingly innocuous comments make them clam up. Kíli knows it's ridiculous, but he can't help it—the last time he saw Gimli, he also saw Ori's corpse and Balin's tomb and all the others who perished in the mines, and the grim set of Gimli's face haunts him (it wasn't him, but it was, and Kíli's still unsteady at the difference), the way he bit back tears as he all but forced the draughts down their throats. Determined to save them when he was not able to in the past, even if it meant his own near-certain death—
They're huddled around the fire in Thorin's spacious rooms, and Bilbo has joined them too, sitting a little ways away and clearly uncomfortable with the situation, his fingers closing around nothing at his sides and his eyes fixed with eerie emptiness on the fireplace.
"There's something wrong with you. All three of you," their mother breaks the heavy silence, and hesitates a moment before putting an arm around Kíli's shoulders. (He barely restrains himself from flinching at the contact.) "You haven't told us everything, have you? Even though the battle was horrible, you aren't…"
She trails off into silence, looking between all three of them, waiting for someone to take the initiative. Thorin's fists are clenched, white-knuckled, in his lap, and Fíli's face is twisted in a pained frown, the scars illuminated eerily in the dim firelight.
Kíli knows this must fall to him—after all, this was his fault to begin with. He was the one who stole the potion, forced his brother to drink it with him…
(Saved all their lives, but honestly, this doesn't feel like any sort of victory, now, watching the worried faces of his mother and cousin, waiting for an explanation nobody wants to give them.)
"We…" he starts, but finds himself unable to continue, choking on his words and biting back what threatens to be a sob even as Fíli shifts beside him, as his mother's arm tightens around his shoulders. "We…"
He does his best, but the words will not come, and Gimli's worried frown deepens, on Fíli's other side, as the seconds grow longer. Eventually, Thorin takes a deep breath, forces his fists to relax, and says, nearly inaudibly—
"Truly, none of us should be alive."
The story comes out in fits and bursts, each of them contributing as they are able, and Kíli feels his mother's grip become tight enough to hurt as the tale comes out. Their travel through time, the purpose of that quest—and Thorin tells of the madness that overtook his mind with a downturned face and a near-inaudible voice, shame and quiet horror evident in every twitching muscle of his broad frame.
But all of that comes out easily—easily, at least, in comparison to the inevitable explanation of Thorin's first statement. Gimli's fists are white-knuckled and shaking as Fíli eventually tells them of what happened in the battle, and their mother—strong, unshakeable Lady Dís, daughter of Thráin, son of Thrór—lets the tears fall unashamedly down her cheeks, barely holding in her sobs as Fíli's voice falls to nothing more than a mutter.
"It was the only thing we could have done," he finishes at last, glancing up from his knees to look at their mother, as if begging for understanding and forgiveness. "He is our uncle and our King—we could not leave him to die. It was only luck that it did not come to that, in this time—but if it did, I'm sorry, Mother, but we would have done it again, without hesitation. We tried so hard to change it, but if we could not, it would have been for nothing, and—"
