Welcome to the sequel to One Ring to Desire Him! If you've made it this far, you've gone through what appears to be a tragic story in the first. This one is after Frodo sails to Valinor, to find healing he doesn't expect. If you like, you can think of this story as less of a real turn of events and more of a dream world; I put it as the events actually happening, but the first half may or may not take some getting used to. And for Frodo/Delamarth shippers, this story may or may not itch a little. Give it a shot; if it doesn't turn out the way you want, send me a PM and I'll write an alternate ending just for you. :) It will be labeled with your name and the tag "AU."

Dedicated to Diem Kieu for sticking to the last story so well and encouraging me with all the beautiful reviews! Also for isaacmarble5, who sent me a message about this story and that got me to put it up faster. :D

Frodo could hardly believe his eyes when he saw her. She perched on a rock like a nesting bird, staring down at the sand. She stood only to greet Elrond and bow to the other passangers that had disembarked. He shook his head; it couldn't be her. But it was: he knew her voice, her long, red hair, now even more unruly than before. Her eyes shone, bright like he'd never seen. His heart thudded with anxiety, and he struggled both to speak and to keep himself from speaking. He froze on the ship, unable to step forward.

Sev smiled at the tall creatures surrounding her. Out of courtesy for the newcomers, Sev had concealed her wings and horns upon reaching her perch. She gestured them onward towards her home, and Elrond led them only a few paces before calling out for the other Ringbearers.

Then a surprise came to her as a hobbit descended the landing plank. She gasped.

"Master Bilbo!" Sev exclaimed. She rushed up to him and assisted him over the water, catching him before he could drop into the shallow bay. He chuckled; he looked so much older than when she'd last seen him in Rivendell. "What brings you here?" she asked gently.

Bilbo smiled up at her, a wrinkly, bright smile. "I had to have one last adventure." Frodo stared at them, rendered again shocked.

Then Sev paused. "You were a Ringbearer," she mused. "How?"

Bilbo shrugged. "I had a ring once," he said cheerfully.

Sev glanced up at Gandalf, who waved it aside. She nodded; he would hopefully explain later. She smiled at Bilbo, leading him forward. Elrond directed him down the shore towards the paths towards the heart of Elvendom in Valinor.

Gandalf waited impatiently. "You receive no benefit from simply staying on the ship, Frodo. Healing will not come there—,"

Sev blanched, staring back at Gandalf. "Frodo?" she breathed. Her neck nearly snapped with the frantic energy of her head turning again to the ship. Her heart thudded anxiously.

Frodo exhaled slowly, forcing himself to march straight down and tell her how he felt. He stepped out from behind the white sail, descending the plank. He didn't get far before she caught his eye once again . . . and they both froze, staring at each other as though caught by an army of the enemy.

Sev swallowed. Her heart thudded horribly, afraid and suddenly sick, thrilled and shocked.

"Frodo?" she repeated.

Frodo stepped down ever so hesitantly into the water, approaching her. "Sev?"

Sev bit her lip and clamped her eyes shut. When they eased open again they were brimmed with tears. "Frodo!" She leaped forward, slamming into him. Frodo laughed suddenly and squeezed her close. He spun her around in the water, disbelieving. Tears fell from her eyes and dripped down the back of his cloak; she couldn't believe he was here, alive, in her arms.

"Frodo, you're here!" she exclaimed. Her wings tried to crack out of her back, but she sucked them back in: she wasn't quite so out of control to permit that. "Oh, Frodo, you came!"

Frodo set her down, but continued to embrace her. Gandalf courteously stepped away as the hobbit rubbed her shoulders and her back, feeling her to the best of his ability. "Sev, I didn't think you would be—I didn't know."

Sev pulled away to speak, but Frodo silenced her with a kiss to her cheek. He then considered perhaps that wasn't quite enough: he touched his lips to her forehead, her other cheek, endlessly dotting her gentle face with kisses. Sev's breath caught, and her thoughts began to fizzle away. She buried her jaw in his shoulder, desperately hanging on to him.

"Sev, there's something I wanted to tell you," he said hastily.

Sev pulled away suddenly. "Of course," she said, "but you must come eat first! They don't feed you much on those ships, if I recall correctly."

She dashed away, beckoning for him to follow. He hesitated in place.

"They fed me more than I've eaten in my entire life," he sighed, wondering what it would take to tell her. He slowly walked up the soft beach after her. The sand filtered between his toes, soaking into his very essence. Light enveloped him from all corners; the world suddenly felt so bright and pure. He didn't even remember Delamarth in that moment, all the horror she'd inflicted on him. Everything seemed amazingly perfect and new.

The trees shimmered like an ocean bay when the sunlight filtered through them. Frodo had a hard time keeping up; everything was so beautiful. As they neared the Elvish palaces, some of the trees had pale, gentle blossoms and succulent fruits of all kinds that illuminated the whole of the forest.

"This one," Sev called back as she gestured to the Elvish palace where Frodo would be staying. Frodo walked slowly, turning his head and trying to take everything in at once. When he finally caught up to her, she gently grabbed the back of his head and turned it to see the palace. His back straightened with sudden interest.

"I'm in the one over here," Sev said, gesturing off to the side. Frodo flicked his gaze there, making a note of the distance. Then he wondered if he could transfer to hers, if he received permission from Elrond.

Now that he had the opportunity to be healed, he thought to make Sev a part of him.

He glanced down at her, suddenly fearful she had found someone else. Based on the way she'd greeted him, however, he doubted it. "Sev, are there any other halflings on the island?"

She shook her head proudly. Admittedly she was happy to be almost alone, and she grudgingly asserted to herself that it was better being the only one of her species. "Just you and Bilbo." She shuddered in place. "I have so much to show you!" But then she halted herself. "Right; you have things to do first."

Sev turned to walk away, but Frodo grabbed her upper arm first. "What things? Sev, I'm ready."

One of her eyebrows shot up. "You're going to exhaust yourself if you let me take hold of your schedule. Come—you must get settled, or you'll have nowhere to sleep tonight."

Frodo felt the arrangements were taking too long, but he rationalized it was only a desire to tell Sev what he'd meant to in the Shire that kept him from being more tolerant of the process. Sev stood nearby, ensuring he had as much comfort as possible. She took more excitement in designing the final touches for his quarters than for her own, although she knew he might not care about them. She also got him to eat something before conceding to take him outside.

By the time they were finished, half the day had passed. She decided she wouldn't show him the vast majority of the continent until she figured out how to tell him that she was actually a dragon and knew how to fly another person somewhere.

"You're sure you aren't exhausted?" Sev asked skeptically. Since eating, he'd yawned eight times.

He didn't want to be tired right now. He shook his head vehemently, and Sev laughed outright.

"Maybe I'll convince you that you're tired," she chuckled. "But if you fall asleep out there, I'm carrying you back."

Frodo shrugged, his eyelids begging to drag shut. They flickered open, but not for long. "That shouldn't be a problem." Especially if he managed to tell her what he wanted.

She showed him nothing optimal for a sentimental moment that day, however. He felt the moment would come, but every time they turned a corner it was more of an adventure than a sacred, quiet situation for the two of them.

Sev exhausted him quickly. She did, in fact, carry him home. Since arriving in Valinor, she really had the opportunity to use the strength she initially had and discovered a great deal of abilities within herself. So she lifted Frodo into her arms easily and spread her wings, launching carefully into the sky. She sighed at the sudden drift of silver clouds in the snow-white moonlight, at how it made all of the palaces glow like beacons in an inky midnight. She brushed her cheek against Frodo's.

"You would have liked this too," she whispered, ducking back down to the palaces. "Someday, my friend."

She swooped in over one of the balconies of his room and through the marble arch. As outside, moonlight flooded the room. She laid him down on the huge bed and softly kissed his cheek. Initially she began humming. That soon turned to the song she'd been singing earlier before he landed; her fingers traced his pale skin as she sang.

"Don't say we had come so to the end; white shores were calling, you and I have met again." She bit her lip. "And you are here, in my arms." Being a dragon, she knew she was not the most competent singer, but her voice carried a low, uniquely husky tone to it. She brushed the dark curls out of his face. "Sleep well, Hero of Middle Earth."

It had taken her a while to figure out why he'd come, but once she recognized the logic of it he only appealed to her more. He had destroyed the One Ring of Power, had been—according to the Elves and wise leaders she'd spoken to—the only one capable of taking the Ring so far. They said that while he did not destroy it in the end, his actions contributed more than anyone's to its destruction, and he had been strong until it completely crushed him.

Suddenly Frodo tossed with a sharp stab of cold to his shoulder. He winced as a nightmare faded into construction in his mind.

Sev's eyes widened. "Frodo," she hissed. She leaped forward, and claws sprouted from her fingers. Her tongue stuck out and she bit it while she searched for an abnormality . . . and she found four: three were external wounds, theoretically permanent, but two would not be difficult to remove if she could collect enough of her own fresh tears. The fourth, however, worried her. Her fingers roamed over his head. He felt as though he had a swollen goose egg up there, but it couldn't have been; the malady was his entire cranium. It didn't feel like anything stuck out, but it should have, for his entire head stung her skin with the heat of an intensely fatal wound.

Her eyebrows narrowed sharply, and she spun out of the room, clenching her fingers into fists. She threw open the main hall, where Elrond sat with Galadriel in council. They both glanced up as she strode quickly through the double doors, nearly fuming.

"What happened to him?" she demanded.

Both Elves looked flustered until she explained her outburst.

Galadriel turned, her hands folded patiently. "The Rings are very dangerous," she said. "Frodo had to bear the One Ring with a responsibility and a knowledge of its wickedness in a way none of us did."

"And he was stabbed by a Morgul blade!" Sev cried, inspecting her fingers. Black poison lingered in the fingertip of one, and the other held a sickly yellow tint. "And somehow he managed to get one gawking bit of a venomous bite, probably a whole nest of predators at once. And one of his fingers is gone." Then she shook her head. "Something else happened to him." Then her eyes widened again.

Elrond glanced at her. "Sevanaan?"

Her eyes doubled further, and her eyebrows shot upright. "My apologies," she muttered. She bowed before stumbling out. "A good night to you."

She didn't hear their reply. She slowly stepped back into Frodo's room, laying her hand over his heart. She was right; his heart thudded with the empty echo of hidden heartache, and his head throbbed with pain. There was no doubt in her mind that Bilbo's ring had been the One.

Frodo had fallen in love with the One Ring.

She remembered what he told her that day, about how Bilbo's ring could become a woman and had touched him. She grabbed her head, backing away from him frantically: the Ring must have plagued him the whole way to Mordor, somehow making him fall in love with her. She winced at the thought of him throwing the thing he loved into the fires of Mount Doom, or however the Ring had ended up being destroyed.

Sev shook her head, bit her lip until it stung. "Frodo, I'm so sorry," she whispered before backing out.

It might have been easier on her if she'd known he only loved the Ring as a friend, that his heartache meant nothing about romantic affection, and that her power alone plagued his mind.