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.

Summary: On the way to the Undying Lands, Billa Baggins is eaten by a time-traveling sea monster. She wakes up in her 33-year-old body and realizes she has a chance to change everything. Unfortunately, Thorin has a tendency to run around shirtless, and Dis thinks she has improper designs on Fili and Kili, but if she can convince the Shire that Dwalin is a dance teacher, things might be okay.


Chapter 47

"Miss Billa Baggins, as I live and breathe," exclaimed the stranger on her porch. "Will you marry me?"

"Errr..." Billa said hesitantly, glancing behind her to where Balin was sitting in the living room, looking just as surprised as she.

"This may indeed come as a shock, Miss Baggins, that such a respectable gentlehobbit as I would ever pay such attentions to such a wild lass teetering on the edge of unrespectability, but my duty, Miss Baggins, nay my honor, demands that I offer you the protection of my name before you disgrace yourself entirely."

Billa's hesitance disappeared and her indignation swelled, exacerbated by sore muscles from the way Balin had trounced her in a spar two days earlier before and her bitter disappointment that no party from Ered Luin had arrived yet.

"Is that so, Mister Gentlehobbit? I must say, I had not thought it at all respectable to propose to a lass who doesn't even know your name! It seems like the height of presumption and ill manners to me," Billa said, with a little more spite in her voice than normal.

Balin, behind her, stifled a snicker. They'd resolved most of their differences over the winter. He could (though he would never, ever admit it, not even to save his life) now understand a little of Sindarin, enough to get through the greetings and ask for directions and get the jist of most conversations. He'd changed her bandages after the patrol attacks, and they'd played several chess games and other strategy games to fill the time in the early spring. They swapped stories and shared histories, and Billa was glad to have built a new rapport with the dwarf she had once so admired.

However, the gentlehobbit at the front door still required her attention.

"I'm sure it would seem so to you, Miss Baggins, but you must trust me to know the right of it. I am Robin Longlocks, and I am here to save you from yourself." Billa was so stupefied by his rudeness, from a Hobbit no less!, that she missed her chance to slam the door on his face. He walked right past her and, after sniffing disdainfully at Balin, made himself at home on her sofa. Billa gritted her teeth, and clenched her fists, and made ready to give him a well-deserved tongue-lashing when the bell rang again.

Probably a whole horde of his self-important relatives, she seethed, come to host the wedding party before I've even met any of them! and she threw the door open with a bang.

"WHAT?" she shouted as she turned to face the entry. Balin snorted again, and Mister Longlocks sniffed even more disdainfully.

Then she gasped, and her face turned from fury, to surprise, to delight. A huge grin split her face, and a blush lit up her cheeks.

"THORIN!" she cried, and Thorin it was!

She leapt into his arms, confident he would catch her, and he did. He was warm, and just a bit sweaty, and solid as ever. He smelled sweet, and musky, and here and safe and hers. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and pressed her cheek against his, turning her head every moment or two to kiss his cheek, or his forehead, or even (so scandalous!) his ear.

It was after she had pressed a daring kiss to his ear that the unwelcome Mister Longlocks made himself known.

"This is the exactly kind of behavior, Miss Baggins, which has so disgraced you. Occasional business dealing with dwarves was bad enough, let alone actually allowing them into your house, but this! This is beyond the pale! Release that dwarf, Miss Baggins! As your fiance, I demand it!" Mister Longlocks cried.

Billa's face contorted again, from extreme joy to extreme fury and Thorin's face went pale with dismay.

"Billa," he stammered as he carefully put her down, "Your ... your fiance?"

"No, Thorin," she tried to reassure him, clutching his hands. "He's not!"

"I am so, Miss Baggins, and I insist we wed at once. Your manners are far more disreputable than I had feared, and must be corrected immediately!"

Billa Baggins whirled around to set her wrath on the stupid little gentlehobbit.

"Your behavior has been nothing but disrespectful, unwelcome, presumptuous, ungentlehobbitish, and worst of all," she seethed, "impolite!" As she turned, Thorin could see the knife he had forged her, still worn proudly at her side.

Mister Longlocks went pale and took a step back, before gathering his courage and narrowing his eyes at her.

"Miss Baggins, you are entirely out of order! Desist such wretched insults at once. I am a respectable gentlehobbit as you well know, and will not be treated thusly. This inexcusable behavior proves beyond all doubt how badly you need my help- my immediate help! Come my dear, and we'll be wed before nightfall. Fear not! You'll never have to consort with these- these ruffians ever again! We'll have you well again in no time." Mister Longlocks began to match actions to words, and so seized Billa by the arm to try and drag her out the door.

That, alas, was his mistake.

Thorin, not sure why Billa had chosen this man as her suitor, but unwilling to see her manhandled all the same, struck faster than any cobra.

Billa found herself freed of Mister Longlocks' grasp less than a second after she had entered it, and Mister Longlocks found himself up against the wall of Bag End's entryway with Thorin's hand clenched around his neck.

"I do not know," Thorin said with quiet menace, "why you claim Billa as your betrothed and she denies it, and I do not know how these events came to be. But," he said grimly as his voice dropped into a deep register and became nearly a growl, "I will not allow you to put your hands on her against her will."

Now, it shall be known that Billa could have made Mister Longlocks release her. However, she did not mind Thorin's actions in the least.

"Thorin," she said softly, coming up behind him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

Thorin turned to look at her, sadness in his eyes. "Have I lost you, Billa?" he said, his voice no more than a whisper. It made Billa's heart ache just to hear it.

"Never, Thorin," she promised him, her heart in her eyes.

"Then, why...?" his voice trailed off weakly.

Before Mister Longlocks could take the chance to break into the conversation, Balin spoke.

"Neither Lady Billa nor I had ever seen this... person before today, Thorin," Balin said calmly, and Thorin's eyes darted to him. "He knocked on the door about two minutes before you did and proposed marriage before we'd even learned his name. He insulted all of us rather badly, and Miss Billa was just getting ready to give him a piece of her mind when you knocked on the door instead. I daresay, she was so pleased to see you, she didn't care one whit what Mister Shortbrains here thought." Balin delivered most of this speech with a placidity that soothed Thorin immensely, although he did snicker a little at the end.

With this new information, Thorin felt entirely confident in tossing Mister Shortbrains or Longbutt or whatever his name was out of the door, ignoring his yelp, and locking the door behind him. Then he turned and stared directly at Billa.

Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were bright, and she was gazing up at him with hope and adoration in her eyes. Balin tactfully made himself scarce.

"Thorin?" she breathed hopefully.

"Billa," Thorin whispered as he gathered her into his arms. "Oh, Billa."

For the next several minutes, the lips, hands and ears of the dwarf and the hobbit in the entry-way were rather scandalously occupied.

If the great dwarf king-in-exile got down on his knees and told Billa he loved her ardently, forgave her every fault, and that it was his truest desire to marry her, well, Billa would never tell what passed between them.

If the time-traveling hobbit princess threw her arms around Thorin and told him she adored him, she loved him, and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, well, Thorin would treasure those words secretly in his heart forever.

As for why no one looked at all surprised when Billa and Thorin showed up the next morning with courting braids and beads in their hair and clasping each other's hands, well... Nori had always been watching in the shadows, from the very beginning. Why should this be any different?

However - he did make QUITE a lot of money off his bet with Bifur. Dori would be scandalized.