Note: This story does have a very happy ending, but it has some bittersweet and sad moments at the beginning, in keeping with the themes of memories and loss. But don't be discouraged; the ending will be worth it.

Also, I assume that if you're a Kiliel shipper, you're not a hardcore purist. Don't be surprised that I exploit every single loophole regarding the afterlife and happily-ever-afters in this fic. I've conformed to canon as much as possible and improvised the rest.

Chapter One: A Welcome

It was not hard to leave Middle-earth, Tauriel found. Far more difficult had been her departure from Erebor several centuries earlier.

She had only dwelt beneath the Mountain for a short time, by the reckoning of her people, and yet it truly had become a home to her, in a way that even her own forest never had been. Under the mountain, she had married Kíli, and through him received parents, brother and sister, children. Odd, perhaps, that an elf should count her family among mortals. But she had.

Kíli's death had marked the limit of her stay in Erebor. Oh, she had lingered several decades more after he had been laid in the stone, but she had known that her time there was over. Her own children were grown and must take her own and Kíli's places beside their king, Fíli's great grandson. And Tauriel, for all that she had grown accustomed to the swift passage of mortal lives, could not bear to remain and watch more things change.

So Tauriel had travelled Middle-earth once more—sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of one or two others—discovering new places far beyond those she had seen even with Kíli. And though she missed true fullness of joy that Kili's face had once reflected back to her, still she was content.

Increasingly, her wanderlust led her back westward until, passing once more through Imladris, she had chosen to follow the elven lord Celeborn, once of Lothlorien, on the last ship into the Farthest West. The thought of that distant blessed country now woke the same yearning she had once felt listening to Kíli's long-ago words of fire-moons and a world beyond her forest walls, and she was sure that, could Kíli speak to her now, he would have urged her to undertake this new journey.

Thus it was with wistfulness, but no true regret, that Tauriel had watched the last shores of Middle-earth, rimmed with the Ered Luin mountains—the place of Kíli's birth—slip below the eastern horizon. She had felt one last sharp, poignant tug, as if the ties to that old place were pulling loose, and then she had known release, freedom, peace.

And the joy of the open sea! Tauriel had never had a view of so much sky, untrammeled by trees or mountaintops, with the sea glittering beneath it like some great blue-green gem. And at night, there were so many stars, above and on every side, as if the sky surrounded her like an overturned cup. She often lay on deck and watched those stars in their slow, wheeling dance until dawn.

When the white shore of their destination had come into sight at last, a thrill of excitement such as she had not known in years passed through her.

And as her toes sank into the soft sand of the beach, she felt through the soles of her feet that this land was where she needed to be.

Legolas's house was easy to distinguish among the dwellings of the city. Its structure, though no less airy and graceful than the surrounding houses, bore the distinct sharp angles and straight lines of dwarvish architecture. Standing beneath the pointed arch of the entrance, Tauriel almost felt that she was back in Erebor once more.

Clearly the place had been designed by the dwarf who had once been Legolas's dear friend. Yet now Gimli, like her own Kíli, surely waited in the halls of his fathers.

Thrusting down the sudden wave of grief and nostalgia that threatened to overwhelm her, Tauriel pulled the bell.

There came soft footsteps, and then the door was opened.

Legolas stared for a moment, his expression blank with astonishment. Then he caught her to him in a joyful embrace. "Tauriel! By the Valar, you came!" He kissed her cheek. "I thought you meant to stay."

"Meldir!" She laughed and kissed him in return. "I, too, found myself drawn here. And I did miss you." Closing her eyes, she rested her brow against his, a gesture she still retained from her days among dwarves.

"Hello, cousin," came a rich, deep voice behind them.

Tauriel's eyes flew open, and she glanced over Legolas' shoulder to see her husband's kinsman, Gimli, standing in the doorway to the house. He was still hale and in his prime, the rich auburn of his hair and beard untouched by silver and his face no more weathered than before. Indeed, it was possible he looked more youthful than when she had last seen him in Middle-earth.

"Yer the first family I've seen these few centuries," the dwarf went on happily. "What took ye so long?" And he held out his arms to her.

"Ah, Gimli! I never thought to see you here!" she cried, slipping to her knee and letting him fold his arms around her. Valar, how she had missed the warm, sturdy clasp of a dwarvish embrace. For a moment, she felt near again to all those who had ever held her so: Kíli, Thorin, Fíli.

Gimli chuckled. "I'll outlive Blessed Durin yet."

"But how...?"

"These are the Undying Lands," Legolas answered behind her. "There is great grace upon this place, and death does not come here uninvited."

Tauriel's breath caught for a moment. She regretted nothing about having lived a full life beside Kíli in Erebor, but still it hurt to think she might have had a chance to keep him beside her for eternity, had she come West sooner with him. Kíli could have been beside her now, his arm the one tucked about her waist...

She forced herself to draw another breath and then kissed Gimli's brow. "It's good to see you, cousin," she said.

"Won't you come in?" Legolas asked as Tauriel rose to her feet. "We were just about to have supper, and I've opened a very fine bottle of wine. Though perhaps you would prefer to try Gimli's latest batch of ale?"

She smiled, truly glad at the prospect of a drink shared in the warm company of old friends.

"It's been very long since I've tasted a real dwarvish ale. I think I'll have that."

The following morning, Tauriel was returning from an early walk through the gardens when she came on Gimli sitting alone beneath the trellised porch behind the house. It seemed he was waiting for her, for he watched her all the while she approached, and when she was near, he called her.

"Tauriel Uzbadnâtha!"

She laughed; it had been many years since anyone had addressed her by that royal title. She had quite missed it, she discovered; that name was tied to many dear memories of Erebor.

"Master Gimli," she returned. "Good morning!"

"And how d'ye find the gardens?"

"Very beautiful. I especially love the little lilac grove at the bottom."

"Ye can give Legolas credit for all that." Gimli seemed as proud of his friend's accomplishments as if they had been his own.

"Oh? I saw some statues which I believe must be your doing." The marble sculptures of elven ladies had been incredibly lifelike, and Tauriel had not missed the fact that several of them bore a marked likeness to the onetime Queen of Lothlorien.

Gimli colored. "Just a few modest contributions. Ta balance out all the trees, ye know."

"They're very lovely."

"Come sit with me?"

After a minute or two of silence, during which time Gimli studied her intently, the dwarf finally said, "Tauriel, there's somethin' ye should know."

"Yes?" she answered cautiously. She could tell from his manner that the subject was serious. Was it something to do with an old grievance? Yet she could remember none from their time in Middle-earth.

Gimli continued slowly. "Ye know that when we dwarves die, our spirits enter the halls set aside fer us under Mandos' care."

Tauriel nodded.

"Well, Kíli— His spirit never entered those halls."

"What?!" An icy dread gripped Tauriel's heart. Had she been wrong, all these years, to imagine the spirit of her beloved Kíli dwelling safe and protected in the company of his departed kin?

Gimli's hand shot out to take her own. "Hush, lass; he's in no danger."

"Where— What became of him? Is he lost?" Tauriel wailed softly.

"He's here." The dwarf squeezed his big hand reassuringly about her own. "He's lingered outside the gates ta the Halls of Waiting for nigh on four centuries now."

"How? Have you seen him?" Just as swiftly as it had come, her fear now turned to a wild, inexplicable hope.

"No." Gimli shook his head. "Even here I canna' see everythin' an elf could. One o' those high elves, the Vanyar, first saw the ghost of the dwarf with elvish braids in his hair idlin' about the gate. The news got to Legolas and me quick enough. Like I said, I couldna' see him when I went to check. But I could sorta sense him, the way you can tell someone's recently been sittin' on a stone bench. He was there. And still is."

"Gimli." Tauriel found she was gripping his hand hard. "I must go to him."

"Aye, I thought ye'd say that."

She turned pleading eyes to him.

"Will you take me?"

"O' course." He brushed a soothing hand over hers. "But ye must know there'll be little enough he can give to ye, even if ye can see him."

"I know." Tauriel smiled gently, grateful for his attempt to spare her further hurt and disappointment. She knew surely it would hurt to encounter Kíli and yet be unable to touch or hear him, bodiless spirit as he now was. But if he still lingered outside the gate of the dead, he must have found no peace or comfort all these long years. Did he wait for her? Shouldn't she ease whatever troubled him and urge him to seek rest at last? She would not rest herself until she had done whatever she could for him.

"When can we leave?" she demanded, rising inadvertently from her seat.

Gimli laughed. "As soon as we've eaten breakfast. Let's go in; I'm sure Legolas has somethin' ready by now."

Author's note:

meldir - friend (masculine)

Uzbadnâtha - princess

The idea that mortals do not die in Valinor is respectfully borrowed from kaotic312's lovely afterlife fic, "Because it's Real."