"That was…" Nori pauses as she draws a gasping breath on the floor of the training ring.

"I swear to Mahal, lass, if you say that was a mistake…" Dwalin drawls.

"I was going to say 'stupid'," Nori lies.

"Ah, well, that's different then, isn't it?" Dwalin grumbles. "Stupid I can work with."

"Were you expecting me to be dancing for joy?" She asks, not sure why she is trying to pick a fight now that the deed has been done.

"I'd like a little peace about it," Dwalin begins to get up. "Stupid or not, we both needed it and have for weeks."

"Speak for yourself," she mutters, but subsides when he gives her a level look.

"I'm not an idiot, Nori, I know you're not looking for anything," he is pulling himself together as he speaks, meticulous with it in a way that no one would expect when looking at him. "And even if you were, we both know that this is hardly the time to be thinking about it. You've got your lad to worry about and I've got mine."

"Meaning?" Nori presses, wondering if this is the part where he rejects her outright again as she rights herself.

"Meaning that as good an idea as it is to have Kíli doing caravans now, I doubt we're going to be able to get them both on the same one all the time," Dwalin says. "Which would be stupid anyway. The boys need to learn to stand without one another as well as with."

"I can agree with that," Nori replies.

"So, I've got a proposal, if you'll hear me," he fiddles with his belt and Nori wonders how long he has been thinking about this, or if it is a spur of the moment thing. She nods. "We both know our paths won't be crossing all that much over the next four years. Let's take this layover as it comes, see what happens. When it's done we look at where we are. One 'no' from you and that's the last I'll say on it."

"And if I can't say 'yes'?" She asks as she finishes pulling on her coat, although her braids are beyond salvaging. Part of her does not really care about that. To her surprise he reaches out and pulls her closer, running a finger along her cheek.

"Then whoever hurt you that badly deserves every terrible thing that comes to him," Dwalin says softly, and she flinches because he is talking about a version of himself that she can no longer lash out at. "Alright, I won't…"

She cuts him off with a kiss, because she needs him and as much as she hates admitting that she has been on the edge of this since she first saw him again. It hurts too much to keep him at arm's length and pretend there was never anything between them for her. It hurts too much to still love him and not be able to touch him or show him that her heart is, and always has been, his.

"Just this winter," she says, lying to herself rather than to him, "just to see what happens. If we don't fit, or if we can't take a few years travelling apart we end it before we leave. And if we can, there'll be rules in Thorinuldum to keep us all safe." Or as safe as can be.

"I can get behind that," Dwalin agrees.

"This is a really stupid idea," Nori whispers.

"If there's one thing they like to think of me back home," Dwalin tells her, "it's that I'm not the brightest diamond. As far as they're concerned, this will just be another thing I haven't thought through."

"Have you?" She asks, part of her already knows the answer to that, though.

"Aye, been thinking of little else for a while now," he admits. "Figured I'd blown it until now, so what did it matter asking? Worst you would do was say 'no'."

"I could stab you," Nori points out.

"I didn't think you'd go that far while we were stuck rooming together," Dwalin replies.

"How sure?" Nori cocks her head.

"Reasonably," he replies, although there is a note of uncertainty in his tone.

"Well," Nori breathes, "I've made more than my share of stupid decisions the last few decades, what's one more?"

"Pretty sure I should be offended by that," Dwalin quips. "Says something that I'm not, I suppose."

"I do have one condition I want to put on it, though," Nori tells him before they can go any further. "It stays inside. Just you and me. No one else."

"Not even the boys?"

"If Kíli doesn't work it out I'll be disappointed," Nori admits, "but let's not go announcing anything."

"Done," Dwalin agrees and Nori breathes a sigh of relief. "Speaking of that pair…" Dwalin looks at the door. "Fíli should have been back from the forge by now."

"Suppose we better go and find them," Nori says and Dwalin nods.

They part easily, even though she had almost expected to feel reluctant to leave his side now that they are exploring the possibility of some kind of relationship. Which was something that she promised herself she would not do. Instead they part ways with little more than their now customary smile and nod. For a fleeting moment Nori wants to stop him, to tell him that she wants to take it back and it was a mistake to agree to try something over the winter. It would be the sensible thing to do, after all, she needs to keep a clear head and she promised herself that she would not do this to herself again. Unfortunately, her heart is louder than her head right now.

Nori is not romantic. She never has been. She does not believe in one love above all others, or heart mates, or soul matches or any of the other names that she hears such things given. She knows that love exists, she has felt it, but in her opinion it is messy and gets in the way of life in general. Before the Dwalin of the future she had no time for it, any inkling that it might be making its way into her life had her instantly pushing the other dwarf away. Dwalin was always different, and this time the difference is even more stark. Her request for secrecy had not just been something practical. It had been something of a test as well. The Dwalin of her past, and his future, had balked at the idea of keeping things quiet. They had been dancing around one another for a while, everyone had seen it and known it so what was the point of hiding things? The short answer; it had made it harder for Nori to do her job. The long answer had involved a lot more shouting, swearing, some angry sex, some make up sex, and both sides eventually compromising on keeping it quiet for a few months until Nori felt more settled.

She had settled into it with far more ease than she had liked.

What she and Dwalin are starting now is not much different from what she had started with that other version of him. Something casual that could turn into more. The thing is not so different, but the beginning is. In her past Nori allowed herself to be persuaded, she gave Dwalin the opportunity to convince her that it would not be a temporary thing. She gave him time to convince her it would be forever no matter the doubts they both had about the wisdom of their decision. Neither of them have touched on that this time. In fact, this time Dwalin has made it clear that until Kíli's training is complete and until the two boys are done with the caravans and she and Dwalin are free of those obligations it would be better to keep this casual. She has not come into his life, this time, as a thief hired to find an errant boy who had run away after his brother. She has not come into his life as someone he has to watch over because no one was really sure where she fit in once she took on the role of Wolf. This time she is Kíli's teacher, she is protective of the lad and his brother in a way that Dwalin understands. This time she is his equal in position, he taught the boys to fight, she is teaching Kíli to reach his full potential. This time Dwalin has not had the years of working with her to protect Thorin, Dís and the boys to fall in love with her enough to want to try for permanence, Dwalin has only the weeks on the caravan and the short time here in Labamgarel Zarrakh. It is not enough to make him want forever, but it is enough for him to offer her something safe and constant. It is enough for him to give her a safe person, a safe place and a safe ear should she need it and somehow that means more than all of the assurances that the Dwalin of her past gave her that her craft would never come between them even though she knew that it one day would.

It always does.

Or she always thought it would, because as closely as she and the other, future, Dwalin had worked together it had never been as close as he had thought. Nori let that Dwalin see all the hidden softness, she let him into her most vulnerable places and moments, but she never let him see who she was when she was searching for the information they needed. She never let him see the Nori who would pin another thief to the ground in a busy street and threaten to gut him. He never saw, and nor has this one really, the calculating assassin behind every counter kill when someone got it in their minds to attempt to kill Thorin, Dís or the boys. They fought together, both each other and side by side, but he never sat in with her when she argued with Thorin for Kíli's sake, he rarely got involved in street and tavern brawls with her because she never let him come with her. She never wanted him to see that part of her, the part that made her mother weep and that Dori despises. She never wanted him to see what she is and what Kíli should have become. What he now is becoming. She walks the walk, talks the talk and as far as everyone is concerned she is happy with what she is. She is happy with what she is, but she is acutely aware that others cannot accept it and she did not lie to Kíli when all this began with him, it never stops hurting to know that the people you love and look up to view you as less simply because of what Mahal made you.

Perhaps, she acknowledges a little sadly, that is where so many of the little things about Dwalin she disliked came from. Perhaps that is why his occasionally ignorant suggestions about how she might achieve something annoyed her so much. He does not make them here, because this Dwalin has seen how different her side of their world is. So maybe it is her fault that her job would cause fights between her and the Dwalin of her past. Maybe the fact that he did not know anything about her work is what drove enough of a wedge between them to make him think that it would be better to let her go after Thorin and the boys were killed. Nori has to be in the right place at the right time to get information, some of it is purely due to random chance. The fact that this seems to have been happening in her favour since falling into the past has not escaped her notice, no matter how focussed she may be on whatever this thing with Dwalin is. No matter her thoughts on whether he should have been exposed to the realities of her life and Kíli's.

Much as she had fought against beginning anything with either version of Dwalin, she has always known that his opinion of her is important to her. She has never wanted to appear less to him, which is why she never let that future Dwalin see her at work. Perhaps that future Dwalin would have seen her as lower, dishonourable, for it. But this Dwalin, the Dwalin of now, accepts it, perhaps even desires her in those moments when she is feral and free in her element and the world he should never have been part of. She will fall, she thinks, without the position of Wolf to keep her truly honest once Kíli's training is over, and she will take Dwalin with her. She should push him away.

She knows she will not.

A.N: It would be amazing if Nori and Dwalin would do as they're told. They won't. So I guess life goes on.