Hello dear readers and welcome to Duly Noted, the outtakes and additions for The Journal. I'd strongly advise to read that first, or this will not make any sense at all.

This is a little earlier than I had planned, but well, The Journal was all such heavy stuff lately and I wanted something a little lighter, I got quite a few requests about one-shots about Thorin, Kate and their kids and so the first outtake was born.

Enjoy!

Duly Noted

Chapter 1

Disagreement

"Do you remember, Cathy, that one time when you caught Thorin and me in the very middle of a minor disagreement about a subject I have long since forgotten? You were only five or six years old, coming over to our room late at night because you were unable to sleep. I remember very well that you were a little scared when you heard us talk in raised voices, using phrases like 'headstrong woman' and 'right royal imbecile.' I explained to you that it was only a disagreement and not a fight, after which you made us swear that we had never really fought, nor would we ever do it in future."

The Journal, Chapter 7: Arguments

Erebor, 2964 TA

This had to be the worst day Thorin Oakenshield had seen in quite some time. On days like these he sometimes wondered why he had ever wanted to reclaim his Mountain in the first place. Or maybe he should have reclaimed it and then left the job of being king to someone else. Apparently being a king in exile and being a king in his own Mountain were two very different things. In the Ered Luin he had not had quite so much paperwork to deal with, not that he could remember anyway. And he did not think there were quite so many nobles complaining about pretty much everything a noble could possibly complain about back then. He could not remember that from his exile anyway.

That would be because most of the Erebor nobles ran to the Iron Hills, a little voice in the back of his head commented. Most of them had only returned once the dragon was dead and the Mountain was theirs again, acting like they had every right to do that. Thorin had been on the verge of saying that if they had not been willing to share the hardship, then they had no right to share the advantages of the restored kingdom either, but it would turn out that they actually did have the right, according to the laws.

It did not mean he had to like that he had to put up with the likes of Lord Nali. The dwarf was positively ancient – had celebrated his two hundred and seventieth birthday last year if Thorin remembered correctly – half deaf and had unfortunately been on the receiving end of Thorin's youngest son's childish mischief.

The King under the Mountain rubbed his forehead, fighting a mild headache, hoping it would just disappear, but the chances of that happening were slim to none. He loved his children dearly, but sometimes he wished there was not so much of him in them. Thorin and Frerin had been the terror of the Mountain as kids and those were stories Dís, being the doting aunt that she was, had always loved to tell. It would now seem that his offspring was trying to prove that they could be just as mischievous as their father had been in his younger days.

Well, thank Mahal that his girls at least knew how to behave themselves. Duria had always been going by the rules, every single rule she had ever been set. She was younger than Thoren and Thráin, but she had been lecturing the boys on their behaviour since approximately the age of five, copying Kate's sternest tone of voice so well it was almost creepy. And Cathy was just a sweet girl who liked to curl up on his lap and fall asleep there while he told her a story or sang her a lullaby.

No, it was his male offspring that caused him headaches and grey hairs. Thoren and Thráin had been a nightmare. The two were what his wife called the dictionary definition of inseparable and always up to one prank or other. Thoren had now become a little more serious. As heir to the throne he could not be seen gallivanting around the palace all hours of the day, playing childish pranks on practically everyone. He had duties to attend to and the lad was coming to see that for himself. Thorin hated the need for his eldest child to grow up so fast, but it would seem that royalty was doomed to that.

Maybe that was, he pondered, why had let the rest of them be childish for as long as they wished. Fortunately Thráin was growing up as well, but the same could not be said about Jack. Six, almost seven, years old and he was a menace, always getting himself and Flói, his partner in crime, into trouble. The worst thing was that most people could not even be really be angry with him. The boy just smiled that sweet innocent smile and all was forgiven and forgotten. Of course Lord Nali had to be the exception.

The king looked at the paperwork on his desk and decided to call it a night. He would not get this done before midnight anyway and he had already missed out on a night with his family. The children would be sleeping by now, but with any luck Kate would still be up, waiting for him, reading a book, seated in her usual seat in front of the fire. Thorin was very tempted to grab some wine and join her there.

True to expectations Kate was where he had expected her to be, nursing a cup of tea and a huge book that was laid open on her lap. 'You're late,' she remarked, not even looking up as Thorin came in and closed the door behind him. 'What kept you, the paperwork or Lord Nali?'

The king shed his coat and marched over to the vacant chair opposite Kate's, making a small detour to give her a kiss before he sat down. 'You heard?'

The queen closed the book. 'I did.' She tried and failed to keep the corners of her mouth from curling up. 'I know I should not be thinking this funny, but…' A chuckle escaped from her lips. 'Lord Nali, covered in ink from top to toe?' The sound that came out this time was a very unqueenly giggle.

And Thorin could not keep himself from joining in, not entirely. He had been hard-pressed to keep his face straight when he had seen it too. Apparently it had happened in the library where Lord Nali had been doing some research for something. Jack and Flói, being very bored with their lessons a level higher, had watched over the balcony and detected the most annoying noble in all of Erebor right under aforementioned balcony. What had followed was that two – or three, or four… – bottles of ink had suddenly fallen right on top of said lord's head. Lord Nali had been covered in blackish blue ink all over, spoiling his expensive clothes and elaborately braided white hair and beard. It also so happened to be very good ink, durable, very difficult to remove. It would take weeks, if not months, for all of it to come out again and with that the dwarf lord was not pleased.

'What were they thinking?' he wondered, shaking his head. They had been lucky that it was not a foreign dignity this time. Thráin and Thoren had done that once and the chaos had been absolute.

Kate shook her head. 'They weren't.' She snorted. 'And Jack has two older brothers to look up to in that regard. Sometimes I do wonder if naming him after my brother was such a good idea. Jacko was just like that when we were children.'

Thorin sent her an inquisitive look. 'And Cathy is just like you at that age?'

'Afraid not,' his wife told him. 'I used to be in just as much trouble as he was, more even. You know, sometimes it's difficult to punish Jack for just being a young boy making mischief when I used to be so much worse.'

'And when Lord Nali deserved everything he got?' Thorin added.

Life truly was good. It may be filled with paperwork and whining nobles, but he also had a wife and children. Thirty years ago he had not believed that would ever even be for him and he had been content with that. He had not missed it. Of course he had not exactly known what he had been missing out on. Thorin was still none too fond of Gandalf, but he did owe the wizard, if only for whisking Kate away from the world where she had been born.

'Look at you,' Kate said. 'You almost seem to regret that you weren't there with the boys to help them pour the ink over Lord Nali's head.'

It would be a lie to say that after all that whining Thorin was not very close to doing exactly that, no matter how wrong or politically incorrect it was to do so. And diplomacy had never been Thorin's strong point, but he had managed to refrain from saying or doing things he would certainly regret later, instead settling for fantasising about pouring ink over Nali's head while he nodded, made apologies and pretended to fully understand why Nali was so angry.

'He got what he deserved,' Thorin pointed out. 'He's been nagging all week about that new mining shaft.' He got up to pour himself some wine. 'How was your day? Calm?'

'I wish,' his wife muttered. 'I was supposed to have a meeting with some of the tradesmen of Dale, but then Duria had a… problem.'

The way she spoke the word problem made Thorin suspect this was not something he wanted to know about. 'Female problem?' Dwarves did grow up a little slower than the children of the race of Men, if only a little, but his children had a human woman for a mother. Thorin had hoped that he had a few years left before he needed to worry about all that with his eldest daughter, especially since she was the most dwarvish of his offspring.

Kate heard the tone of voice and laughed. 'In a way,' she replied. 'But not what you're thinking. She's had that particular female problem for the last two years, Thorin. Keep up, will you? She has started to grow a beard.'

Thorin frowned and turned around to look at her, trying to hide his unease about the idea of his daughter having that other female problem. 'That's not a problem, is it?' Beards were normal for dwarf women and Duria was half a dwarf. Her human blood was not even visible in her looks at all, but that had never been a problem before. So what was the matter now?

'No, it isn't,' Kate sighed. 'Not really. It was just that she was afraid that she didn't want one.' The queen looked a bit sad now. 'She wanted to look like me and now she's afraid that Narvi might not like her anymore, because she has a beard.'

Good. 'She was too good for him anyway.' There was nothing wrong with Narvi, nothing much anyway, except that he had the guts to trail after Thorin's daughter like a lovesick puppy for nigh on two years.

Kate looked disapproving. 'Thorin…'

'She is,' he insisted. Of course Kate had to side with that boy. She thought it adorable. 'And she is far too young anyway. Have you seen him, Kate? He's at least ten years her senior!'

'Pot, kettle, black,' his wife shot back. 'If you're so obsessed about age, you should not have married me either.'

'That's different,' he said dismissively. Really, she should be on his side in this. They were Duria's parents, they should present a united front on this matter, to protect their little girl.

'Yes, we have an age gap of exactly one hundred and seventy-two years,' Kate reminded him. 'That's quite a bit more. I haven't heard you about that awfully much.' She turned back to the fire and Thorin re-joined her. 'She's fine now, more or less.'

They would need to have this discussion about Narvi and Duria another time, Thorin decided. He did not have the energy for it now. And this was one of the very few subjects the two of them would never agree on. 'That's good,' he said, secretly grateful that she had handled this. He might not have done so well. As Dís – and Kate on occasion as well – never tired of reminding him, he was not very skilled in the art of reassuring people at all. 'What else happened?' he questioned. That scowl he well knew had crept onto Kate's forehead. Something had displeased her.

'Nai happened,' she replied. 'Lord Nali's daughter. She came banging at the door just after noon, I think, to demand my full apologies for the ink incident.' The scowl deepened. 'She even had the nerve to tell me how I was to raise my children, since I was clearly incapable of giving them a good dwarvish upbringing.'

Thorin's hands clenched into fists at the mere mention of this. He knew his decision to marry Kate Andrews had been not well received by each and every one of his people. Like a certain elf had once remarked, it was quite unheard of and yet he had done it all the same. Some had accepted it, with or without a little help, but there were those that remained hostile towards the once company advisor. Nai, daughter of Nali, was a prime example of that. Although in Thorin's opinion no one was less suitable for lecturing someone on non-existing parenting skills than that woman, because her children were quite the bullies and Nai let them.

But at least Thorin knew that he had married a woman who could hold her own. Gandalf had told Kate long ago that it had been her temper that had made her so well qualified for the job of company advisor, but it was an asset for the Queen under the Mountain as well. With so many people at least very sceptical of Thorin's bride, even now, it was a good that she could stand her own ground.

'How dare she?' he growled.

'That's what I said,' Kate said. 'What a harpy that woman is. I may or may not have told her that she was to look at her own children before she came near mine again. Then the whole usual blah blah followed.'

'Usual blah blah?' That did not bode well. It meant that he had missed something that could be important.

'About how you could have married a much better woman than me, that I had polluted the line of Durin etcetera.' Kate shook her head. It was almost, Thorin realised, as if she had heard it all before, heard it before and could not really care anymore.

The point was that he had never heard any of this before. 'Polluted?' he echoed, his voice dangerously low. Maybe it would be best for everyone if Nai and her children were exiled from Erebor. That would make it clear that he did not tolerate this kind of behaviour towards his wife. If he had gotten his way, he'd have thrown her from the gate, but as a king he could probably not been seen doing that, or be seen losing control of his temper in such a manner.

'Poisoned was the word used,' Kate said. 'Along with polluted.' She gave him a scrutinising glance. 'Don't beat yourself up over it, will you? I can handle her. I did make her back off eventually.'

Of that he had no doubt – and it was not quite of the question that Nai had been in tears when Kate was through with her – but he could not let this pass either. 'You are my wife and she insulted you.'

'You used to insult me on a daily basis once, if my memory serves me well,' she shot back.

'But…' he began.

'Good grief, Thorin, knock it off, will you?' They may have been married for more than twenty years now, but that did not mean that they did not clash anymore and some things never really changed. 'Stop fighting my bloody battles for me! I can do that myself well enough, thank you very much.'

She may be a queen of a dwarven kingdom, but sometimes she really did not understand a thing about their culture. 'Is it so disagreeable to you that I would want to stand up for you, headstrong woman?' he demanded. He did not exactly know when he had ended up on his feet, but when he checked again he was standing and the wine lay on the floor.

'And so you can go ahead and bite everyone's head off when they so much as look at me the wrong way?' Kate too was now standing. 'Oh yes, I am sure that would make for a fine scene to look at. Sometimes you can be a right royal imbecile, Thorin Oakenshield. That will only succeed in making it worse!'

And her words made this situation worse. 'How long has this been going on?' He had believed that the talks at least had stopped years ago, even if some people refused to get it into their thick skulls that it was none of their business who their king had married. He could not take away their opinions or their prejudices, but he could put an end to them voicing said opinions.

Kate knew what he was doing. 'Forget it,' she snapped at him. 'And you're not getting any names either. Not as long as you're like this.'

'And like what am I?' he growled. Kate was as stubborn as any dwarf he had ever met, but she was still not used to being protected. And if she could, she would stop him from doing so. It was one of the things that frustrated him most.

'You're about to storm off and teach those people a lesson with your fists the moment I tell you those names,' she said. 'And that's not going to happen.'

Did she truly not understand? 'Kate…'

'Mama?'

Whatever Thorin had been planning to say, the sound of his youngest daughter's voice stopped him from saying it. He swivelled around to see Cathy in her night's clothes in the opening of the door, looking utterly forlorn. She had a thumb in her mouth and was staring at the two of them. Mahal help him, she was barefooted as well and that while it was still winter.

And that was not to be borne. He took three big steps and lifted his little girl from the ground. Kate used to call him a big softie where Cathy was concerned, but on this he tended to ignore her. 'What are you doing out so late?' he asked gently. 'It's almost midnight.'

'Couldn't sleep.' Cathy was Kate's spitting image, but she was much shyer than her mother. That showed now that she buried her head in Thorin's hair.

'Do you want me to sing you a lullaby then?' he inquired. For some reason his daughter liked those and it had always helped her to sleep. Of course that meant that he usually ended up having to carry her back to her room, but he did not really care about that. Kate usually just smiled and remarked that her youngest had her father wrapped around her little finger.

'Yes please.' The words were hardly audible since she muttered them against his hair, but it was a predictable answer anyway. And so he sat down in his chair and favoured his wife with that look that told her that they were not yet done talking about this. But he was not having his discussions with Kate in front of the children.

'You were fighting,' Cathy said as Thorin set her on his lap. There was an underlying tone of fear there.

It must be father's instinct to put his little girl at ease. 'No, we were not, dear girl,' he told Cathy. Well, they had been, but she needed to be reassured.

'You were shouting,' Cathy insisted. 'Mama and Lady Nai were shouting too.'

Mahal only knew what Cathy had overheard. Part of him was not sure he even wanted to know, but he was quite sure that it was nothing a girl her age should have heard. He knew the ugly things Nai, daughter of Nali, could say – no doubt her father's bad example was contagious – and he knew that Kate could lose her temper quite impressively as well. Today was clearly not his day.

'That was a fight, dear.' Kate had rolled her eyes at his immediate denial of what they had been doing being a fight, but she was not showing any of that now. 'Your father and I merely had a disagreement. That's something else. I was really angry with Lady Nai for something she said, because she said something very mean. Your father and I had a different opinion about something. It's not the same.'

Thorin nodded. 'Aye. It was a disagreement. We don't fight, Cathy.'

Kate quickly gave him a well-known on-your-head-be-it-look that their daughter did not see. And he might even have to admit that this was not the cleverest thing he had ever done, but what mattered now was that Cathy was reassured enough so that she could get the sleep she needed.

'You never fought?' Cathy asked.

'We didn't,' Thorin lied. Oh, he was getting himself into trouble with this, not in the last place with his own wife, but it was for the greater good.

'And you promise you never will?' his daughter insisted. Shy she might be, but when she had her mind set on something, she was just her mother; not giving up until she had what she came for. Quite a feat for a six year old. And when Thorin found himself on the receiving end of her demands, she did get what she wanted. He'd better make sure that Thranduil did not find out how easily he could give in sometimes.

'Promise,' Thorin said. After all, if their latest fight counted as a disagreement, then they would have no problem at all keeping that promise. It would be easy. 'Now, how about that lullaby?'

Cathy soon drifted off to sleep, too tired to stay awake for much longer. Sometimes Thorin suspected her of staying awake on purpose when he had a lot of work to do and could not be there when Kate put her and her twin brother to bed. It made him smile, even if he really ought to reprimand her for it. Well, he could always do that some other time, surely.

Kate arched an eyebrow at him as she watched him. 'Honestly, Thorin? We never fought?' Disbelief was obvious in her voice. 'And in what parallel universe did we never fight, if I may be so bold to ask?' She might be disapproving of what he had said, but she was amused as well. The dwarf king knew her long enough to know that.

'We argued,' he told her, rather pleased with his own explanation. 'We fought orcs.'

Kate just threw her head back and laughed.

Updates for this one may be a little irregular for a while since I have a few other things to finish as well, but I do have quite a few ideas already. Of course, if there is something you want me to write, just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Reviews would be very welcome. I'd love to hear what you think about this one!