AN: Headcanon time! I read a story by inkling on AO3 where Fili and Kili had different, unknown fathers, so that they could only ever be claimed by the Line of Durin. And then this happened. Also I've noticed a few people calling Gloin's wife Hervor, but I chose not to.

Spoilers: The Hobbit

Rating: Teen.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not mine at all.

Warnings: Canon compliant character death.

Characters/Pairing: Dis/Dwalin, Dis, Dwalin, Thorin, Balin, Fili, Kili, Gloin, Gloin's wife, Gimli.

Summary: When Fili, born blond and squalling, is passed to Thorin instead of a father for his public naming, Dwalin says nothing, because it is not his place.

Chapter One

When Fili, born blond and squalling, is passed to Thorin instead of a father for his public naming, Dwalin says nothing, because it is not his place.

He understands, Mahal quench them all, why she has done it, why Dis, a princess of the highest blood has chosen to give her brother kin to whom only he can lay claim, but the emptiness beside her gnaws at him in a way he thought he'd buried before Azanulbizar. He says nothing, but he has memorized the measuring look in her eyes, the way she stood and watched, the way she sighed. When Fili is four, and Dis sighs enough to break stone, he does not miss it.

And, this time, Dwalin does not hold his peace.

He finds his courage quickly. She cannot best him at strength or arms, but she has never needed to: she holds his heart and knows it, though she has been kind enough to not press her advantage. He is not the strategist of the family, he does not have his brother's cunning, but he marshals his arguments, clumsy and half-formed, and specifically lacking all the things he's promised himself he'll never tell her.

"And I swear to you," he concludes, desperately staring over her shoulder to avoid eye contact, "I'll swear on whatever you will, I'll never lay claim to any child of yours."

She reaches up, her hands on either side of his face, and pulls him down to look at her. He follows her lead. If he cannot look at her now, he has no right at all to that which he has just suggested. Her eyes are stormy, lighter than her brother's and much, much more deadly, but Dwalin does not drop his gaze.

"Dwalin," she says, so quietly and with so much feeling that he can almost imagine it for the feeling he has always craved.

"I don't need an answer right away," he tells her, not sure for whom he is softening the blow. "I know it is no easy choice. I understand if you wish…" He cannot finish the sentence.

"If I wish to allow any rambler into my bed?" she says, some bite to her tone. Her nails press against his jaw, the shadow of a threat.

"No!" he says. "No, it is your right to choose whomever you will, and not my place to stand in judgement even if I did disapprove."

"Which you do not?" she says.

"I do not," he tells her. "Our life here is hard, and we are forced to make more choices than we would otherwise."

"I bore my son for Thorin, and for Erebor," Dis says. "And nothing else."

"My princess," he says to her, even though she is not his alone, "I would give Erebor everything I have as well."

She draws him in, further, and the kiss she bestows upon his mouth is not like the others she has gifted him over the years. This is not the kiss of a sister, nor a cousin, and it is not the kiss of a princess to her faithful guardsman. That affection and friendship have long been his, and he has been content to bide with it. Now, for the first time, he feels the forge-fire of her touch, the hammer of his heart and hers, as they are worked by a common smith.

She closes the space he had left between them, and his hands find her waist of their own accord. Her fingers thread into his beard, and her mouth falls open under his. The fire rages through him now, different from the fire of battle and certainly more welcome, as their tongue meet, and she presses against him.

"Mama!" comes a shout from the hallway, as the front door crashes open and Fili barrels across the threshold. "Mama, is Mister Dwalin here? His hammer is leaning up against the wall under the bell!"

They break apart before he rounds the corner and finds them, and are standing a respectable distance from one another again by the time he skids to halt. Then he smiles, and flings himself into Dwalin's arms, to be caught up and swung above his head, giggling madly as he passes within a hair's breadth of the ceiling beams. When Dwalin sets him down, Dis is laughing, but there is a solemn promise in her eyes.

"What is this?" Dis says, brandishing his packed bedroll as though it has offended her deeply.

"I thought you would want me gone," he says. He cannot look at her. "I thought – I thought it might be easier. For you."

She takes a long time in answering, and he fears the worst. She had made the announcement at dinner, to everyone, that she is expecting again. Thorin had led several toasts, and laughed more than Dwalin had seen since Fili was born. He had not expected her to tell him first, but he finds that suddenly she is dearer to him than she has been in decades, and he's not sure he can bear to watch her grow heavy with child, even his.

"For me?" she asks, putting the bedroll down. She doesn't touch him. She will probably never touch him again. "Or for you?"

He says nothing. He has promised that there will never be anything to say. But by the Maker, the words he could give to her right now. They eat him up with wanting out, and it takes some effort to swallow them back down.

"If you want," she says, and stills. "If you can. If it is not too hard. I would have you stay."

He stays.

To be continued...