Chapter Text
This story began in a nice little countryside GP surgery, where Dr Bilbo Baggins ran his clinics as quickly and as pleasantly as he could, and thanked all that was holy that GPs didn’t have to do out of hours calls anymore.
Not that he was lazy or anything of the sort, but Dr Baggins was a happily settled sort of chap, who’d come into medicine because his father had been a GP and had never seen much joy in the chaos of hospital work. He had much preferred to settle down in his father’s old surgery and watch over his little area’s population of hobbits and Men in a absently caring sort of fashion, noting births and deaths and little changes in family life he had never experienced himself, but enjoyed seeing happening to others.
Anyway, the Shire was a lovely bit of countryside, full of rolling hills, good farmland and cosy villages, not too far from the little town of Bree and beyond the elf cities of Rivendell and Lothlorien. The population was mainly hobbit based, but there were the odd families of Men and an occasional elf to spice up Bilbo’s patient registries. None of this was much bother – Men were probably the most fragile of the three races, as hobbits were hardy and quick folk and elves were bloody impossible to kill unless you ran over them in a bus – but there was a hospital in nearby Rivendell that treated nigh on everyone. Dr Baggins did not have to worry too much for his patients wellbeing.
This morning was a fine morning, and Bilbo had enjoyed his walk down into the sleepy village of Hobbiton and to his little surgery. Already he had seen a little old lady with an ear infection, a family of little hobbit children all dosed with some sort of seasonal cough and a she-elf looking for confirmation of a pregnancy test.
With that small joy out of the way, Dr Baggins went for lunch, and so it was in the pub that Gandalf the social worker found our wise little GP.
“Dr Bilbo Baggins?”
Bilbo looked up from his sandwich, startled, and found himself facing the belt buckle of a Man. He had such a beard Bilbo might have thought him a dwarf, but he towered over all in the little pub, stooping to avoid smacking his head on the rafters.
“Good afternoon?” said Bilbo, deciding to be polite even though he hated having his lunch interrupted. He stood and shook the man’s hand, gesturing for him to sit. The Green Dragon wasn’t necessarily the best place to hold a consultation, but if that was what the man wanted, that was what he would get. “How may I help you?”
“I am Gandalf,” said the man, tucking his beard into the belt of his trousers in a way Bilbo thought unsavoury. “And I am looking for someone for… an adventure, let us put it that way.”
Bilbo partially choked on a bite of his sandwich and had to take a good gulp of his water to clear his throat. “An adventure?!” He laughed hollowly, “Not me, I’m afraid! My adventure was attending medical school, and I only managed that by the skin of my teeth. Here I sit with many fewer liver and brain cells than I should otherwise have!”
“Your mother would frown on you!” said Gandalf, and Bilbo squinted at him in minor annoyance. His mother had been a Took, fierce for a hobbit, and had spent the last few years of her life flitting in and out of dangerous places and delivering goods and aid. She had been a doctor too, and had served her time in Rivendell Teaching Hospital as an obstetrician and a professor, much to her calmer husband’s mild horror. Bilbo still felt her influence urging him to wildness and strange places, but had so far never succumbed; he was irritated to be reminded of his Took side when he had been enjoying such a Baggins-y day. Gandalf seemed to sense his upset. “For now,” he said, “All I need you to do is take on some new patients in your surgery. They are not quite your normal folk, but they have all the necessary documents and are pleasant enough.”
“Why should I?” said Bilbo, even though he was already reaching to his bag for his diary so he could jot this down.
“They are dwarves far from their home,” said Gandalf, standing again, “And I am their social worker. Fear not, Dr Baggins, the papers are already with your receptionist!” And like that he was gone.
Bilbo briefly considered bolting out after him, but then realised all eyes in the pub were already on him. Keen to avoid further embarrassment, he huddled down in his seat and ate the rest of his sandwich in silence – it took a lot more that an unexpected visitor to put a hobbit off his lunch – before he retreated back to his surgery.
The receptionist was stowing files into drawers when he padded in and leant over the shorter half of the desk to see what messages had been left for him – this was one of many problems living in a world where few races were quite the same size, never minding the issue of the car. There were a few letters responding to his referrals, some bumf from drug and equipment suppliers and then one final piece of grey paper with a big letter ‘G’ scrawled in the middle.
“Oh thank you for the reminder, Mr Gandalf,” grumbled Dr Baggins, and he went off to hold his weekly diabetes clinic.
A few days had passed, and Dr Baggins had almost forgotten Gandalf the social worker’s sudden arrival and invitation to ‘adventure’ – horrible thing that it was – completely.
He had just finished a spectacularly dull afternoon’s work, finishing off letters to be sent to Rivendell, Lothlorien and one to reach the quite distant Mirkwood Hospital, when the door shook with someone’s fist hammering on it. Bilbo sat quite still for a moment, hoping he hadn’t heard the knock until it thudded again. Now the shock was over he was quite annoyed and suspected it would be hobbit children playing silly games after school, so he stomped to the front prepared to put the newcomer in their place.
It was not a hobbit child. Nor a full sized hobbit. It was a dwarf, an unfamiliar face and not a pleasant one at that! He had tattoos on his head, Bilbo noted with a sudden note of hysteria, big runic tattoos on his big, bald head. One of his ears appeared to have been chewed off, and he was wearing those big shit-kicking motorcycle boots that all the dwarves Bilbo had ever met preferred. The dwarf met Bilbo’s gaze through the glass door and knocked again, scowling deeply.
“I’ve come to get me prescription redone,” he shouted, producing a crumpled bit of paper from a pocket in his scruffy jeans and slapping it to the glass. “Just ran out, ye ken?”
Even as part of Bilbo’s brain screamed to run back to his consulting room and hit the silent alarm under the desk , he reached out and unlocked the door. The dwarf stomped in immediately and shoved the paper slip into the hobbit’s hands.
“You’ve left me out there an age!” The dwarf grumbled, patting his truly enormous arm muscles to rid himself of goosebumps. “Some service nowadays!”
“Should have worn a coat,” warbled Bilbo, not as perfunctorily as he would have preferred it to sound. The paper was a list of common enough drugs – mostly painkillers but nothing particularly serious, with a lonely statin at the bottom – and Bilbo looked about for any sign of a name, but couldn’t find one. “Um, excuse me, sir?”
The dwarf looked about from where he had been examining a copy of Hobbit Home and Garden with a disbelieving eye, and grunted.
“Your name and date of birth, please?” Bilbo padded in behind the receptionist’s desk to use her computer.
“I am Dwalin Fundin,” growled the dwarf, rattling off his birth date as well. “Gandalf said you’d know of us by now, doctor.”
Bilbo had been staring in misery at the lists of his patients – Derek and Daniel and even a Dearholm, who had originally hailed from Rohan but had moved because of his terrible horse allergy, but no Dwalin, no dwarves at all in fact – and now started with delight. Of course! Gandalf had left the documents with his receptionist and she had filed them. Bilbo liked to have his patients’ files digitised, for ease of sharing and searching, but this wasn’t a view shared by all physicians. He pulled the stepladder over to the filing cabinet and searched for a moment before he withdrew a hefty folder indeed.
Dwalin Fundin’s medical history was a long and hideous affair, judging by the size of the file, so Bilbo didn’t read too deeply into the stack. Sure enough, he swiftly found a repeating prescription for the painkillers - damaged shoulder in a car accident, stab wound in a knife fight, burns from a house fire – and the statin – dwarves were more prone to high cholesterol after all. He checked a few more details, and then entered the information to the computer and received the prescription in return. After signing it inelegantly, he pushed it across the lower half of the desk to the waiting dwarf and hoped that it would send him on his way quickly.
The dwarf examined the paper narrow eyed and seemed to decide it would do. “Aye, thanks doctor. Ye wouldn’t ken a place to get some grub about here would ye?”
“The Green Dragon next door does a lovely me-“ said Bilbo before his brain told his mouth to stop talking, their favourite haunt would be full of huge, shouty dwarves if he wasn’t careful. “If you like hobbit food,” he added lamely.
“Any food would do now,” said Dwalin, opening the door and stepping away. “I’ll see ye about, doc.”
The dwarf thumped off down the pavement, and Bilbo hurried to lock the door after him, so no more could sneak in.