Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, or any associated characters or concepts. Quotes in this chapter taken directly from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.

Some people have mentioned that this is a fairly cheerful and happy fic. I think there's enough sadness and cruelty in the real world without bringing an excessive amount of angst and suffering into our stories just for the sake of it. We treasure fairy tales, not because they teach us that dragons exist, but because they teach us that dragons can be beaten. That said, of course there is suffering in this fic. Duh. We've talked about Billa's parents being killed in front of her eyes, starving and sick people dying in winter, and there is the past and future trauma of Smaug and the quest to address. The first chapter begins with Billa being eaten and then dying of a heart attack, for goodness sake. So, yes, bad things happen. The difference is the characters are going to do something about it, instead of me just subjecting them to endless misery and angst while they run around in circles crying, "Woe is me." There was enough tearful, miserable happenings in the first Quest. This is a fix it fic, ergo, things will be fixed.

Then, some people have a problem with Billa's plans for smoothing the way in the Shire. Hullo, it's the Shire. Billa is just being creative at finding ways to tie in new dwarvish behaviors with things that hobbits actually like. Hobbits are usually really wary with outsiders, so Billa is pulling out all the stops and is willing to make a spectacle of herself and the dwarves to ensure that Thorin's people will survive the winter. Simple folk with simple pleasures, pleasures like dancing and gossiping and fancying themselves in love with heroes from hobbitish romance novels. Okay? Deal with it.

One of my favorite readers helpfully gave me realistic time frames for forging. Since those time frames don't work for my story, I hereby proclaim that dwarves have forgotten more about forging than any modern-day Mannish expert will ever know, and can forge harder, better, faster, and stronger. Also, Thorin has the super-power of his biceps. We poor humans will never compete.

Finally, last Monday, when I published the first two chapters for this fic, they got 89 views and had 37 readers. Today alone, this story got 2,580 views and 292 visitors! Last Monday, there were sixteen hundred words total and today, counting this chapter, there are thirty-nine thousand five hundred and fifty words! Whoo-hoo! Thank you everyone for reading!

Summary: On the way to the Undying Lands, Billa is eaten by a time-traveling sea monster. The elves on board attack the monster in retaliation, and it escapes by swimming into the past: several decades into the past. Billa wakes up in a sweat, gasping and frightened, only to realize that she is back in her thirty-three-year old body. What on earth is she going to do?


Chapter 24

Billa was hiding. Dwalin had told her that if he found her, he would make her do thirty pushups, and her arms just couldn't take any more. So, she was hiding while he hunted for her. Thorin, curse him, had taken her walking stick and was down at the forge, probably using it for kindling. It had been several days since the other dwarves had moved on, and her training had exhausted her. Everything hurt. Everything.

And so, Billa hid in her front garden while Dwalin hunted her. Then, she heard the worst noise possible. Giggles and faint voices, coming ever closer. Oh no! she thought, someone is coming to visit!

"Dwalin!" she hissed. "Dwalin!" He popped out of hiding, much closer to finding her than she had hoped. Still, this was important. "Dwalin, quick! Our disguise!"

"Well, go on lass," he hissed back at her.

They quickly made themselves ready. Billa threw on a skirt she'd been carrying for just such a circumstance, while Dwalin hid his axes behind a bush and put on a hat to hide his fearsome tattoos. It had taken some convincing (and bribery) but the effect was worth it. Dwalin still looked like he could eat you for breakfast, but he no longer looked like he wanted to.

Dwalin took a demanding pose, and Billa started to dance just as a group of giggling girls turned the corner and came into view. A few gasps and whispers were heard. Who was that fierce stranger? What on earth was Billa Baggins doing with such a person? And what was she- she... is she dancing?

Then the girls were silent, watching in awe as Billa's hard work and Dwalin's careful planning paid off. She was dancing, yes, but it was the most graceful and quick-footed dancing the girls had ever seen.

At hobbit parties, the music in each song started off slowly, and then slowly sped up. The people who could dance the longest and the fastest were the most admired, and here was Billa Baggins, previously known to be a shut in and shunner of parties, dancing faster than any of them had ever seen!

The fierce looking creature with her was clapping his hands and keeping the rhythm, eyeing her critically. "Wait!" he bellowed, and the girls gasped. Billa Baggins froze exactly as she was, and the girls gasped again, this time from wonder instead of fright. Dwalin paced around her, readjusting her feet and straightening her posture before returning to his watching place. He clapped his hands to set a rhythm, and then called, "Again!"

Billa started dancing just as before. The girls watched, stunned, as her feet seemed to blur. How remarkable! However does she do it? Do you think he's a teacher? She must have hired him!

After several moments of letting the girls watch their fill, Dwalin turned his stern look on them. To his complete surprise, instead of paling and backing away, a few of them actually blushed and waved shyly at him. Billa was huffing and puffing by now, but still going as fast as she could. Finally, Dwalin called a halt.

"Miss Billa, you're doing much better, but your endurance still isn't quite up to standard yet," he said. Billa hung her head as if ashamed. The girls gaped. But she kept that back-breaking pace for so long! I wonder what he considers up to standard? Mmmm, I think he's up to standard. Shh!

"Here, lass," Dwalin said, willing to show off. They had planned for this too. "Let me show you once more how it's done." And then Dwalin burst into motion as Billa sank gratefully into a nearby chair, sipping a glass of water. He started slow, following the dance steps perfectly. But he accelerated so quickly, the girls' mouths were soon hanging open. After a few minutes of demonstration, Dwalin paused.

"And you must be able to not only reach that pace, but maintain it. It will take much more practice before you are ready. Run around the smial twice, and then we will continue," Dwalin said, and Billa was off like a shot.

Their ploy had worked perfectly. Dwalin would be introduced in gossip as Miss Baggins's new, incredible dance teacher, and people would start to come and watch their lessons. The watchers would be introduced to a variety of exercises, all claiming to improve dancing in one way or another. Even the hide-and-seek game could plausibly improve her dancing by teaching her to step lightly! Soon, their would be a clamor for dance teachers in the Shire, just in time for the first arrivals of dwarves from Ered Luin. After the dancing teachers were widely accepted, Billa would stage something where the dwarves rescued them from bandits or something, and were revealed to be not only dance teachers, but also great warriors. One thing would lead to another, and eventually, hobbits would be practicing with weapons.

It didn't hurt when Thorin brought back her walking stick, adorned with metal endcaps with threads of steel winding around the stick, protecting it. The center had leather grips as well. It was beautiful, and she loved it. She hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek before she dashed away, waving it at Dwalin and exclaiming over how beautiful it was.

It was now more recognizable as a weapon than as a simple walking stick, and she started to carry it with her everywhere. At first she got strange looks and whispers behind her back, but when she mentioned that it was the most practical gift she'd ever received (the most important kind of gift, to hobbits), people slowly began to admire it. It was slow, but it was progress. First, her walking stick weapon would be accepted. Eventually, she hoped that Dwalin would be able to wear his axes, or Bifur could walk around with an ax in his head and no one would blink an eye.


Billa sipped tea, smiling insipidly at her guests. Myrtle Bracegirdle and her miserable daughter, Lobelia, future bride of the Sackville-Bagginses, were here, in her smial.

As soon as she had seen the invaders coming up the path, she had ushered the dwarves out of sight and told them to hush. They had protested, until she threatened to stop baking with cranberries and blackberries for the foreseeable future.

"So, Miss Billa," Myrtle said, ignoring the way her daughter swung her legs against the antique chair and banged her best silver spoons against the table. Even as a child, Lobelia Bracegirdle Sackville-Baggins was an absolute plague. "I've heard you've been consorting with dwarves," she said, saying the name like it was some sort of swamp monster. Billa decided that Myrtle deserved one of the far-less-accurate explanations of how Dwalin had come to be in her home. She summoned her appreciation for all things truly ridiculous, and began to act.

"Oh, it was so romantic!" she cried, immediately putting on her best performance. "I had decided to go on a walking tour when I was set upon by brigands and rascals! They were Big Folk, cruel and callous, and when I cried out for mercy they only laughed at my tears," Billa whimpered. Myrtle's eyes were huge, and she was lapping the story up.

"And then," Billa gasped, eyes wide and staring into the distance, "There he was, my fearsome dwarf. All alone, with no one to guard his back. He drew his weapon and charged, driving the foul brigands off in a ferocious display of skill that made my heart sing. Then, turning to me, he knelt at my feet, untying my bonds with gentle hands, wiping away my tears. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around me to protect me from the chill night air. He introduced himself as Dwalin, Defender of the Innocent and Protector of the Weak. He had taken an oath, long ago in his youth, to wander the lands and protect those who could not protect themselves. Then he bowed low, over my hand, and kissed it," Billa said, wistfulness and longing in her tone.

Myrtle's mouth was wide open as she hung on Billa's every word. Even little Lobelia, curse her name, had stopped trying to dent her spoons in favor of listening.

"He escorted me safely home, and I begged him to stay for a few days to take his rest. He's been so long and so far from home, adrift in his personal Wandering Days," Billa said, surreptitiously eyeing the lone tear slipping down Myrtle's cheek. "He's been here ever since, watching over me, and preparing me for the day when he leaves again," Billa said soulfully, her eyes wide and full of sorrow. "Even if he cares for me, I know he won't stay forever, and his heart is bound to keep his oath, but I can't help longing, and hoping that someday... someday... he might return to me, and we can be together... forever," Billa finished, dabbing at her perfectly dry eyes with a handkerchief.

"I'm sorry!" Billa sniffled, hiding her eyes behind her handkerchief. "It is too painful to speak of any more." Myrtle looked horrified and delighted, and quickly excused herself, almost running down the door to share the story. Billa peeked an eye out from behind her handkerchief to make sure they were gone, and then burst out into hearty, belly-deep laughter.

Thorin and Dwalin cautiously edged out of their hiding places, eyeing her warily. She took a look at their faces, and only laughed harder.


Thorin and Dwalin overheard more such tales during their stay, each one just as outrageous as the last.

Dwalin had found her when she'd been lost, cold, and frightened in the Old Forest and had escorted her safely home.

Dwalin had saved her from a ravenous pack of hobbit-eating wolves as she toured the edges of the Shire.

Dwalin had saved her from drowning after a herd of stampeding ponies had knocked her into the Brandywine River.

Thorin had grown increasingly jealous until he'd finally asked her, trying his hardest to be polite, why it was Dwalin featuring in all of these stories instead of (not him, of course) Kili, for instance.

Billa had gone into fits of laughter, and when he pried an answer out of her, he felt like laughing himself.

Apparently, each story she had told was very similar to some of the most popular romance stories in the Shire, and Dwalin was starring in the place of the hero. Tall, muscular and gruff, he was very unhobbitish, but he was also very heroic, and Billa was doing her best to romanticize him. Soon, all the ladies would be sighing over the stories, and by extension, over Dwalin. Every time they saw his glare, they'd imagine he was scouring the horizon for danger, intent on keeping them safe. His scary scowl would become a look of intense devotion, or a painful remembrance of tortured memories. He was the scariest of the dwarves, and if she could get the hobbits to admire him, the rest of the dwarves would be easy in comparison. When the other dwarves arrived, they'd be introduced as Friends of Dwalin or Dwalin's Kin, and be made welcome and fawned over too. The hobbit lads would sit up and take note, and when the lasses started joining the weapons classes to coo over the dwarves, the lads would have to join too, just to keep an eye on the girls they fancied. It might not affect every hobbit in the Shire, but it would affect enough to make a difference.

Billa gave the rumors several days to spread, and the crowds coming to watch her lessons grew larger and larger. Some even started trying to mimic her, or do the exercises Dwalin gave her. After a few days, she brought Dwalin and Thorin down to the market with her. She introduced Thorin as "Dear Mister Dwalin's cousin, Mister Thorin, the finest blacksmith I've ever seen," and things went quite smoothly after that.

Dwalin gained a following of pink-cheeked hobbit lasses and ladies, each glancing at him speculatively and making excuses to speak with him or brush up against him. Dwalin's ears started turning pink from all the attention, which only encouraged them.

Billa enjoyed the chaos with a shark-like grin, considering it revenge for all the sore muscles she'd endured at his hands. Thorin looked on with amusement, staying close to Billa and carrying her purchases. She proved to be an adequate shield, placing a hand on his arm or bringing his attention to her every time a female tried to pester him. He passed through the crowds unmolested while Dwalin was swarmed with affection and attention.

After a few hours in the market, Billa finally steered them back up to Bag End, and Thorin couldn't contain his smirk at Dwalin's appearance. He was entirely in disarray, his hair ruffled, his furs pulled this way and that. Hand-embroidered, monogrammed handkerchiefs had been pressed into his collar and his pockets, making it look like he was wearing a great, white ruffly shirt beneath his furs.

"What's this about, then?" Dwalin asked, scowling, as he plucked handkerchief after handkerchief from his clothing. He made to drop them on the ground, but Billa quickly stopped him.

"Oh no, Mister Dwalin, you'll not want to drop these where hobbits can see you!" She explained, pressing them into his hands. "These handkerchiefs are from lasses who hope that you will call on them and invite them to take a walk with you. It's one of the first steps to courtship, you know. Weren't you listening when I explained all this to Fili and Kili?" she asked.

Dwalin's ears turned a bright, tomato red, and two red spots appeared, high in his cheeks.

"You mean all of these...?" he trailed off, totally discombobulated.

Billa nodded emphatically. "That's right, Mister Dwalin, you are now a very popular and very desirable dwarf, and each of these lasses is hoping you'll be her suitor."

Thorin laughed at Dwalin's utterly flabbergasted expression. Throughout the rest of the day, Dwalin's ears would suddenly turn pink, and he would eye his collection of handkerchiefs with trepidation before a teeny smile would peek out from behind his beard.