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Dwalin wasn’t asleep, more slumbering with one eye open, a tactic perfected over many years of taking midnight watches on the road. During those years he’d protected the most vulnerable of their people, the dams and the pebbles kept safe in their bedrolls by him and the other guards.
No watch had ever felt more important than this one, however. In the healing halls behind him, Bilbo Baggins lay sleeping, the hobbitess recuperating from being attacked from behind by a band of cowardly dwarrow. During the journey that had spanned half of the world, during which he had at first thought she wouldn’t be more than a nuisance the whole way – something he was quickly proven wrong about. She was clever, kind and courageous. Above all, he found her selfless, in a way they as dwarrow had rarely seen. Dwalin couldn’t think of a single person, in myth or history, that had sacrificed anything to save a dwarf… and she had almost given her own life to see theirs saved, and that more than once.
Bilbo had very quickly carved herself a space in his heart. He hadn’t expected to find his One, his amrâlimê, on the quest for Erebor, but somehow he had.
She was the adopted sister of the Princes, had riddled with a dragon and saved the life of a King - what could a grizzled old dwarf like him possibly offer someone like her? He wasn’t normally the kind of dwarf who second-guessed himself, hadn’t ever had use of insecurity or self-doubt, but in this, there was nothing else to do.
A near-silent noise roused him from his thoughts, and he was on his feet, hand clasped around his dagger before he properly registered where it came from. The noise, what sounded like a whimper, came again, and this time he heard loud and clear where from.
Over in her bed, Bilbo was shaking under the cover, whimpering in her sleep. Dwalin glanced around the healing halls before approaching her bed. It wasn’t strictly proper, his long since dead amad admonished him, being near an unmarried lass in her bed, whether that bed was in the healing halls or not. That the lass in question was his One, that didn’t make things more innocent, especially when he hadn’t yet asked her family for permission to approach her – not that he would ever gather up the courage to do so.
Dwalin wasn’t very brave when it came to matters of the heart – but his One was crying in her sleep, and in this, he would be as brave as in battle.
He hesitated as he got near the bed – what was he supposed to do? If he woke her up, she might startle badly, which wouldn’t be good for her injuries. If he touched her in any way, she had the right to demand anything of him if she opposed his touch – up to and including his beard and him being banished. As he stood there, hesitant and debating with himself, it was instead Bilbo who startled him.
“The only thing that allowed me to fall asleep tonight was knowing you were guarding the only entrance to the halls,” she whispered suddenly, and as he froze by the end of her bed she turned almost luminous eyes on him. “During the quest you made me feel safer than even the Shire ever had, and now it is the same. Yet I still wake with nightmares, of what they could have done to me, what they still can do if they get to me…”
“Miss Bilbo,” Dwalin began, the words making their way out before he even knew he was going to speak. “What…”
“I know you don’t feel the same,” she kept going, unheeding of his words, voice low and measured. “You make me feel safe, and for that, I am ever grateful, and I could never ask for more of you, not when you don’t want to give it.”
Dwalin suddenly realised he still had one hand on his dagger, clenched so hard around the hilt he almost doubted he’d ever be able to release it. He thought she – but she couldn’t be saying what it sounded like, could it? He wasn’t an unlucky dwarf per se, but he never had this kind of luck.
“With you here, they can’t get to me, but then… what if they get to you instead? You getting hurt trying to rescue me – again – there is nothing in this world worthy of that sacrifice.” Bilbo took a deep, shuddering breath, still on the brink of tears. Had he not decided it earlier, he did then – the dwarf or dwarrow who had done this would be shorn and at the very least thrown from the mountain. She probably wouldn’t want them executed, which would be an entirely reasonable demand to make otherwise.
“If they dare attack an unarmed dam from behind, they will not go toe to toe wit’ me, Bilbo,” Dwalin said, words escaping between gritted teeth, one hand stretched out to her, hovering, unsure of his welcome. “I will protect ye until my dying breath, I will keep ye safe, amrâlimê.”
“But I could never forgive myself!” She almost burst into action, hands reaching out to grasp his tightly, those epidote eyes of hers looking beseechingly at him. Against the stark white of the bandage that was wrapped around her head, she looked more sickly than she had during the day. “I love you, cariad, and even if you will not have me, I will have no other.”
Dwalin was fairly certain he could have been pushed over by a feather when hearing that declaration. If he hadn’t technically been on watch, on duty, he would’ve thought he had fallen asleep, the words taken straight from every single dream he had dreamt the past months. He stood there, blinking dumbfoundedly at her, and the longer he was silent the redder she blushed. It wasn’t until she started trying to detangle their hands, muttering her apologies and looking like she wanted to sink through the bed and end up in the deepest mine of Erebor.
Reflexively he tightened the grip he had on her hand, suddenly realising that if he let go then he would probably never get a second chance.
He fell to his knees, for once glad he was a tall dwarf. Now that she was sitting up, he was just below her when kneeling, for the first time not towering over her.
“Amrâlimê, Bilbo,” he breathed, pulling their clasped hands closer until his lips just barely ghosted across her knuckles. Pressing their joined hands to his forehead, Dwalin said the words he had longed to tell her for so long. “Ye are my love, my treasure of all treasures, my One – if ye are willing, may I offer my undying love and neverending protection, may I beg of ye to let me?”
It didn’t flow properly in Westron, didn’t have the same weight as it did in Khuzdul, but all he wanted was for her to understand the depth of the feelings he held for her. If she wouldn’t have him, he would have no other.
Still clasping her hands to his forehead, he almost keened like a pebble when she withdrew from his grasp, only to go wide-eyed in surprise when she cautiously raked a hand through what little hair he had left. He felt ashamed when he realised she was probably getting a good look at his mangled ear, could see every scar marring his head – he did not come to her the dwarf she deserved, a young, handsome dwarf with his whole life ahead of him.
“I don’t want a young, handsome dwarf, cariad, all I want is you, for however long I can keep you,” Bilbo said, suddenly making him realise that he’d said most of that out loud. “You are the most handsome dwarf I know, the kindest and most patient – the only one in whose presence I feel entirely safe.”
“I will do everything I can to never let ye down, amrâlimê,” Dwalin swore, her earnestness making him blush all the way to the top of his head.
“You will have to convince my brothers – and their uncle, of course – that you be allowed to court me,” she mumbled a while later, once she had laid down again, as close to asleep as she could be without actually sleeping.
Dwalin, who had almost entered that half-slumbering watch tactic, opened his eyes wide. He thought they just wanted their sister, adopted or not, to live her happiest life, but he also remembered some cruel and unusual punishments they had gone through while training with him – and some embarrassing defeats Thorin had suffered at his hand.
Dwalin gulped, but one look at Bilbo, peacefully sleeping and the image only ruined by the bandage wrapped around her head, reminded him that it would be worth it.