Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

YOU’RE THE BEST THING I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED

Kathryn Hawke was running without seeing, feet cutting the familiar path from Gamlen’s house in Lowtown to Anders’ Clinic in Darktown. Tears streamed down her face. She could think of nothing but Bethany’s look of resignation. Of that jerk Cullen’s self-righteousness as if she should be thanking him for taking her beautiful little sister away to the dreaded Circle just because he wasn’t also dragging her, Leandra and Gamlen along with them.

She had threatened him. “Over my dead body,” she’d said, and that bastard had stepped forward like he would quite happily fulfill that request. After she’d saved his life against the corrupted Wilmod. After she’d found and rescued Keran, and through her association with Anders had ensured he could return to the templars without them finding another demon in their midst.

After all she’d done to help Cullen, befriend him, try to reason things through with him, including getting him to admit his narrowmindedness. Extracting a promise from him to look into educating mages better so they better understood why the chantry functions as it does. Not that she wanted there to be Circles, but she had to start somewhere with a lyrium-guzzling soldier, right?

She had even begun training in the templar arts with him. Kathryn could already smite and dispel magic. She had been so proud to have these additional skills that helped so much in battle, and that she intended to help with other things he didn’t need to know about. And he’d happily taught her, showing patience and kindness and being all bumble-lipped around her like maybe he like liked her and…

Now this.

She wanted to scream.

Was this what Anders’ family had felt when he’d been taken away as a mere boy, barely old enough to know his own mind?

Was this what Anders railed about when he talked of children being dragged from their parents’ arms in chains? This had been so much kinder than that on the surface, but underneath…would Cullen really have killed her if she’d let her challenge stand?

Would he?

She burst through the open door of the clinic, only to find it chock-full of coughing, crying people and her with her tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes and heaving chest, yes, she fit right in with the lot of them, fortunately or not.

He knew she was there. He always knew. Through Justice, maybe? She wasn’t certain. But he turned from a patient he’d just helped onto a treatment table and he saw the look on her face and fear overtook his features and like one of Varric’s arrows he was at her side in half a blink and escorting her quickly to the back of the clinic, through a doorway into a private room he usually reserved for serious surgical procedures.

“What…Hawke, what is it?”

She couldn’t stop sobbing. He took her in his arms and soothed her best he could, hand running up and down her back, but she couldn’t get past the pain, the agony, the full-out fear. If what Anders had been saying all along…what if they made Bethany tranquil just to get back at Kathryn and the things she did? She remembered Karl’s bland voice, the flat sound of the woman selling mageware next to Sol’s in the Gallows Courtyard, the abject fear that Bethany had always projected when she talked of tranquility. What if…what if…

“Oh, Maker!” she sobbed, clutching his overcoat in her fists until her knuckles were white with effort.

“Kathryn, sweetheart, please, please,” he begged, tone as soothing as could be, the endearment he’d used for her and only her from the first flowing so freely from his lips. “What’s happened?”

“I…” her chest heaved twice, three times as she tried to curtail her sobs. “He…Cullen…he took her.”

Anders froze. “Who?” He shook her slightly. “Kathryn, who did Cullen take?”

She met his eyes, her lower lip quivering. “Bethany’s gone. He…he would have killed me if I intervened, he…was there with other templars, there at Gamlen’s, by the time I got…I got home, I…she’s gone to the Circle, Anders, the things you tell me about that place…no, please, Maker, help me!”

“Sweet Andraste,” he breathed, trembling. “Not that sweet, sweet girl.”

“I was always with you and your cause, Anders, always, I tried helping, I-I-I helped you with Karl!”

“I know you did, you’ve helped us so much.”

“I kept Bethany hidden, I left her at home no matter how much she wanted to be with me so…so…I…she…” Hawke let out a gut-wrenching sob, why couldn’t Anders fix this, he could fix anything, right? He could, he was…he was Anders! “I thought with me doing so much for…for so many she wouldn’t…g-g-get f-found out in Kirkwall, o-or hurt in the Deep Roads.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“I-I…it turns out…no, no, you don’t understand!” she cried.

“Don’t understand what?” he asked.

“Cullen’s been teaching me templar tricks for the past two months.”

“What?” Anders hissed, letting go of her as though she’d suddenly become a hot coal.

“Not what you th-think,” she hiccoughed, wiping her eyes and cheeks with the sleeves of her loose tunic. “I asked him to show me how they dispel magic, h-how they smite, because I…I wanted to learn so I would know how they did it…so I could…” Fresh tears streamed down her face. “So I could teach you and Bethany and Merrill, so we could…*hic* work together to figure out a way to counter it. To…” She began to cry in earnest again. “To help mages learn how to stop themselves from being taken. How to protect their families if the templars come for them.” She shook her head. “But I wasn’t there when it mattered. I didn’t work fast enough, Anders, I…I failed my brother and now my sister, and…”

She shook her head and turned away from him and suddenly his arms were around her from behind, his chin resting atop her head as he held her tightly. “I’m so sorry, we…look, you know I was with you in the Deep Roads, I just got back, too, and all these people, most of them Fereldans and city elves and apostates, they need my help. There’s an illness going around, and I haven’t been here to help them and—”

“Another thing that’s my fault,” she breathed. “I shouldn’t have made you leave your clinic for so long, Andraste’s fucking ass, why does everything I touch turn to shit?”

With that, Kathryn pulled away from him and determinedly marched out of the clinic despite him calling out for her to wait.

But she couldn’t. She had failed far too many people, all of whom she cared deeply about. No, she needed to let Anders treat all the people who were sicker than they should be because of her dragging him into the Deep Roads that he hated with a passion about as much as he did the Circles.

There had to be something she could do. Yes, perhaps she could go say hello to Merrill. Merrill’s silliness, her naivety, her quirky mannerisms, maybe that would help take her mind off Bethany. She doubted it, but at least Merrill didn’t have a clinic to run and with any luck, there wouldn’t be a way for her to get the poor girl into trouble if she was just sitting in her home talking with her, right? Right.

Chapter Text

As she came down the steps into the alienage, Hawke noticed Feynriel’s mother standing off to the side in front of her hovel door, wringing her hands together. She sniffled and approached the woman. “Arianni? What’s wrong?”

“Oh, good, you got my letter.”

“What? No, I…I’ve been away for some weeks and I just got back to town.”

“Oh, child, you look like you’ve been having a time of it yourself. I’ve no right asking anything of you.”

“No…it’s fine, really. Tell me what’s going on.”

And then she found out Keeper Marethari couldn’t wake Feynriel. That someone needed to go into the Fade and rescue him from demons. At first, Hawke was tempted to say she simply didn’t have it in her right now. But then she reconsidered because she desperately needed a distraction and why not rescue that poor boy from demons? She could do with handing a few of those bastards their asses right now, make them stand-ins for Cullen. All of them. So she could stab him. Repeatedly. Yes. This was a good idea.

She ran to the nearby Hanged Man where she found Varric, Merrill and Fenris sharing a round, none yet into their cups too much. She quickly explained that she needed help going into the Fade to rescue the elf-blooded human.

“The Fade?” Merrill asked. “Physically? How delightful. I’m very curious about that, you know. I’m happy to help.”

“The Fade?” Varric repeated. “Well, why not? We just kicked the Deep Roads’ ass, why not the Fade’s while we’re at it?”

“The Fade,” Fenris stated with all the emotion of an earthworm. “Do you not fear this mage,” and here he gestured toward Merrill, “turning abomination like the other mage?”

“Fenris, if you don’t want to go, we’ll make do.”

“No,” Fenris stated with a shake of his head and a horizontal slice of his hand between them. “I would not see you embark upon such a mission without a balanced team. I will accompany you.”

And that was that.

Or so Hawke thought.

The first of Feynriel’s demons they encountered tempted Merrill, and they had to Fade-kill her and the demon both to move on. In hindsight, Hawke knew Merrill had been a bad choice to bring along given that she viewed consorting with demons as somewhat normal and relatively harmless, but her betrayal stung, nonetheless.

The second of Feynriel’s demons they encountered tempted Fenris, and at first Hawke breathed a sigh of relief, knowing as she did how much the elf loathed mages precisely because of things like blood magic and making deals with demons. She was confident that he wouldn’t even be tempted, let alone take the demon up on whatever it offered.

But to her horror, Hawke knew the moment he’d begun considering the demon’s tempting offer by the wide-eyed look on his face and thus she had said, “Don’t turn on me, Fenris, or you’ll regret it,” thinking it would shock him out of whatever hole his mind had wandered into that it would even consider such a thing. But all he’d done was retort that she was so quickly ready to resort to violence and within seconds had become her enemy as well. Thankfully, it’d been surprisingly easy to beat him, given that both were warriors fairly equally matched in strength and weaponry.

But the point was that she’d had to suffer the remainder of the battles with only poor Varric and her steadfast mabari Draggin to back her up. At least the trio had managed to make it out of the Fade unscathed after that, Feynriel on his way to Tevinter so Hawke hadn’t needed to turn him tranquil, but man, was she annoyed.

Merrill had been warned by her keeper, by Fenris, by Anders and by Hawke. Yet still she listened.

Fenris on his own without any prompting from anyone else hated everything about mages, including the part surrounding them being able to summon and be possessed by demons. To the point where he picked fights with Anders constantly in any and every setting if they were within hearing distance of each other, regardless of what was going on, for having taken a spirit friend – not demon – into himself.

Yet both elves she’d befriended had seen fit to choose demon offerings over loyalty to her while physically inside the Fade where she quite probably had needed the most help of anywhere simply given that she was not a mage.

Hawke wondered if Varric would have been tempted away had a third demon been in play. She decided not to dwell on trying to answer that particular what-if because she wasn’t entirely certain she could handle any more betrayal, even if it was just imagined.

First Cullen. Then Merrill. Then Fenris. All in one fucking day.

An hour later, having somewhat cooled down, Hawke was heading into the Hanged Man to thank Varric for not abandoning her when Fenris came around the side of the building obviously going there himself.

“Hawke,” he said haltingly, obviously not expecting to see her.

“Fenris,” she acknowledged coolly.

“I have been thinking about what happened in the Fade. I apologized for my weakness, but the more I think about it, the more I believe you are also to blame.”

Her jaw dropped. But before she could ask anything he continued.

“Why did you take me into the Fade? We should have hunted the boy’s body down and killed him.”

“I wanted to try to help him if we could!” she protested. “I never wanted to kill him!”

“Not all mages are strong enough to resist demons. I just hope we don’t all live long enough to regret the day you learn just how true that is.”

She felt her head grow so hot she thought it might just explode off her neck at any moment. “You know what, Fenris? I told you that you didn’t have to come. You chose to. So fuck you.”

He snarled, shoved past her, and entered the Hanged Man, leaving her stalking away without any mind as to where she was going, boiling over with so much fury that she didn’t know whether to shriek at the top of her lungs or turn around, march into the bar and take the asshole’s head off. Literally.

How dare he? She had been helping Arianni and Feynriel for quite some time and knew both mother and son well. She had visited the lad several times on Sundermount, had relayed back to his mother time to time how he was. For fuck’s sake, Fenris had been there when they’d rescued the boy from slavers. Had even approved of the deed.

But of course he had, she now realized. Because it was slavers who’d had him. Now, looking back on it, Kathryn was damn certain that if it’d been templars, Fenris would’ve helped them defeat her, Anders and Varric on the spot if it meant turning an apostate over to the Circle.

She wanted it to end. It had to. Mages. Templars. Mage-hating elves. Templar-hating mages. Anders at the very least she understood for the fear, for what he and those he cared about had endured at templar hands. She’d seen with her own eyes what had been done to Karl.

Once, she’d witnessed Anders’ bare back when he’d been removing a good deal of his clothes after a particularly gruesome fight out on the Wounded Coast had left him covered in blood and entrails. The entire expanse of once-beautiful golden-white skin had been covered in scars which appeared to her to be whip marks, and not ones any healer had been allowed to mend. The things he’d endured in Circles were obviously not pretty.

And yes, Kathryn knew damn well that Fenris had suffered as well. They were the same, the two morons, but Fenris was completely unforgiving, not even bothering to try to understand anything beyond his constant mantra of I HATE MAGES every second of the day. He railed against every mage that lived because of what foreign mages in a foreign country which allowed slave ownership had done to him and others like him. None of the mages in Ferelden had tried to enslave him. None of them had tried to use him to prop up furniture or had whipped or beaten him. And the only mages who used their abilities against him were the same ones using their abilities against all of Hawke’s party during battle, not specifically him.

Yet he would give no quarter to anyone born with magic, having lumped each and every one of them into the same privy-bound basket no matter what else they did with their lives. She’d gone toe to toe with Anders from time to time regarding his seemingly equal hatred for templars, and even he had conceded that not all templars were bad after dealing with the likes of Thrask and Emeric. And, originally, Cullen. Bah. Not now, she’d wager.

Tranquility was…it was as unconscionable as slavery, Hawke felt. She’d conversed with Tranquil in the Gallows Courtyard. She’d heard stories from mages themselves now working in Anders’ Clinic. From people like Grace who’d been in Starkhaven’s Circle. From Cullen, too, the rat bastard, regarding Ferelden’s Circle and the depravities visited upon everyone during the last blight. Even Feynriel had known that the templars would brand you for every little thing, never mind Anders telling her that mages who’d already passed their harrowings were being made tranquil just so they wouldn’t speak out against their captors. How could anyone have thought that Hawke would have turned the somniari boy over to them, especially a man who’d killed hundreds of people on his own to escape slavery?

How could Fenris think Kathryn would turn on her own sister, would be hateful and spiteful and wish to lock her away just because she’d been born with magical ability?

Bethany.

Oh, Maker.

Suddenly Hawke looked up right as she ran into a very tall, very solid body. Only when she inhaled to apologize for her rudeness did the scent of who she was inhaling strike a relieved chord within her. Their eyes met as his hands landed on her arms to keep them from colliding.

“Hawke,” he breathed. “Oh, thank the Maker. I was so worried about you.” He pulled her close for a hug. “Let’s go back to the clinic. It’s quiet now.”

She looked up and around, only then realizing that once more her feet had carried her nearly all the way to where he both lived and worked. Suddenly Kathryn felt…heavy. Too heavy to carry herself.

“Is this how you feel all the time?” she asked in an uncharacteristically small voice as he began slowly leading her back to the Clinic.

“What d’you mean?”

“Burdened with the responsibility of everything having gone wrong and nothing you can do to fix it?”

He huffed out a laugh void of mirth. “Pretty much.”

They had just reached the upside of the second-to-last staircase leading to his door, when a firm voice stated, “Apostate. Hold.”

Anders and Kathryn both froze. It was she who turned to face whoever had commanded such. Her eyes widened when she took in a templar in full armor carrying a tiny infant that appeared to be bleeding. Without thinking, Kathryn moved forward even as Anders hissed, “Hawke, no!” at her, trying but failing to grab the sleeve of her tunic as she moved in front of the templar.

“What is the meaning of this?” Hawke asked as the man thrust the baby at her. She took it awkwardly and retreated until she was backed right up to Anders.

“The babe’s mother was killed. I…” The man’s voice wavered. “It has no parents now.”

With that, the templar turned and walked quickly toward the lift that would ferry him to Lowtown.

“Shit,” Anders cursed quietly. He turned and headed down the staircase and then up the next one and was soon magically unlocking the door to his clinic. “Come on, come on,” he whispered, ushering Hawke in. Very quickly he closed the door and then did some sort of spell she couldn’t decipher exactly, but it seemed to seal the door once again magically. “The baby, how’s the baby?” he asked, flicking his hands here and there to light the nearest lanterns.

She lay the wee thing on the nearest table. It was nude, bloody, still had a cord attached to its belly and was turning blue.

“Flames!” Anders picked up the baby by its ankles in one hand and smacked it lightly on its back twice and then a third time, then took his index finger and scooped into the baby’s mouth. He proceeded to smack its tiny little butt and all at once the silence was filled with the familiar angry cries of a newborn. “Those sons-of-bitches,” he growled, laying the child carefully on the table again before racing to the back where he grabbed a pot of water and some rags, returned to the table, and magically heated the water.

“What can I do?” Hawke asked, frantic but with no outlet for it.

Anders let his magic probe his tiny patient’s body as he directed, “Fetch a blanket…uh…there should be a light brown one back there in the chest, it’s the softest I have. We can wrap him in it after I get him cleaned up and cauterize his cord.”

Hawke ran to the chest where she knew the healer kept clean rags, blankets and other linens and found a brown throw that did indeed seem to be the softest. She raced back, only to stop suddenly when she saw Anders tending to the babe.

Tendrils of hair had loosed themselves and fell softly about his face, which in and of itself seemed quite literally to be wearing a thoroughly blissed-out look. His long fingers deftly washed the baby, which was no longer crying but instead blinking up at him in what seemed like curiosity. The boy’s spindly legs and arms moved randomly, fingers curling and uncurling. His head was covered with blond fuzz and he was quite small and a bit thinner than she would have expected.

“There, now, you’re feeling better, aren’t you?” Anders cooed, booping the end of the boy’s nose very gently with his finger, then dipping the cloth back into the pot of water and wringing it out. He looked up at Hawke and she found herself melting so completely she thought perhaps she’d turned into a puddle of water on the floor. The look on his face…as if…

“Anders,” she whispered.

He blinked and then seemed to give himself an internal shake. “Will you finish cleaning him up? I have to try to find someone to nurse him.”

“Do…what?”

“Nurse him. Unless there’s something you’re not telling me about your current physical state, there’s no one in this clinic who can feed him. He needs a wet nurse.”

“I…but I don’t know how to clean a baby. I was…I didn’t help my mother with the twins. Ever. They…smelled bad.”

Anders chuckled, handed her the still-warm-and-wet rag and softly told her, “Just don’t let him fall off the table and you’ll be fine. But as soon as he’s clean, wrap him in the blanket so he doesn’t get too cold. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”

“Wait, Anders, no, what if that templar’s out there? He knew you were an apostate. He had to know you were also the healer, else he would not have left the child with you! You can’t go out there alone!”

“But I have to find a way to feed the baby—”

“No!” she whisper-screamed. “I can’t lose you, too!”

He stopped, hand raised as if he’d meant to undo the magical lock.

She looked down at the baby when he made a small mewling noise and started to smooth the wet rag down his face. He had such a tiny nose. Such small eyes. Two perfect little ears. Wet little lips. The point of a teeny little tongue poking out.

“Kathryn, I…don’t know what to do. He…he must eat. I don’t for certain know how long ago he was born, but soon he’ll need nourishment and I’ve nothing in the Clinic that works as a makeshift teat.”

“I’m…sorry,” she breathed, not daring to look at him for fear her lonely, angry tears would return. “He’s more important right now.”

She felt Anders come up behind her, no space between their bodies. Noted his hand cover her shaking one. He guided hers slowly and together they finished washing the infant. She was almost hypnotized by the movements, by his warmth, by a gentleness that went beyond what she already had thought of as “her” healer’s gentle touch. She had seen him help so many men, women and children, herself and her companions included.

Her companions. She shook her head. Right now, she wanted to mangle Fenris beyond even Anders’ ability to help. She was simply too furious with him for having the gall to blame her for his weakness. He was mad at himself for giving in to what he complained about day in and day out, and so he took it out on her. Well, he could indeed fuck off as far as she was concerned, and deal with Danarius on his own if the rat bastard ever came looking for his property.

She was done. Done with rants. Done with feeling betrayed every time she turned around. Bartrand leaving them to die in the Deep Roads was just one in a long line of bullshit moves by assholes that she’d been subjected to.

But right here and right now, as Anders carefully lifted the baby from the table and told her, “Now, lay the blanket down in a diamond shape,” and she did, Kathryn became keenly aware that the way she’d been living her life to date had led her to this moment. Right here. Right now. To a crossroads of sorts.

“This is how you swaddle an infant,” Anders explained, and proceeded to fold the blanket just-so this way and that way until there was a little bean-shaped thing lying on the table with a human baby’s face peeking out at them, arms and legs tucked neatly away. He scooped the little boy into his arms, settling him into the crook of his left one and stroking at the tiny cheek with his index finger. “You’re so handsome,” he said softly. Then his face clouded. “I know what happened to your mother, and probably also to your father, and I’m…I’m so sorry, little man.”

Yes, Hawke figured she probably knew, too. Undoubtedly either his mother or his father or both had been apostates, been discovered, and in the course of hauling one or both of them away, been murdered by the templars. Probably for resisting. Or at least, that would be the story they told. Perhaps the child had been born from his mother’s fear or maybe even cut out by the templars after they’d killed her. After what Cullen had seemed prepared to do at Gamlen’s earlier that same day, Hawke would put nothing past them anymore.

“Would you like to hold him while I try to figure out what to do to feed him?” Anders asked. “We’ll have to leave here. I know of a woman whose child is nearing on two. She might have enough milk left to help us.”

“I…don’t know how to hold a baby,” Hawke confessed.

“Easy,” Anders smiled. “Hold your arm just like you see me doing. Right, right, just like that,” he praised quietly as she mimicked him. “Now I’ll hand him to you, and you just hold him to your body, like he’s something very precious you don’t want to let go of.”

Anders transferred the infant to her arm and the moment he was up against her body, held purposely close like that rather than loosely while dripping blood…once she saw his tiny face and his blue eyes looking up at her…she suddenly knew that she would protect this new little life with everything she had in her if it killed her to do it. Fierce, that was it. She felt positively fierce as though she’d just stepped onto a battlefield filled with sixty warriors of her own strength and mettle, knowing she’d take every damn one of them on if it meant protecting the little bean in her arms.

“You look like…” Anders stopped. She looked up at him. She’d never quite seen…that look…on his face before.

“Like what?”

“Like a…mother.” He seemed a bit in awe. “As though he were yours.”

And that was when she realized what that feeling was. It was similar to what she felt for Bethany, though never for Carver since he’d hated her from the moment he was old enough to scowl. A…protectiveness, but much more profound than that.

“Anders, what are we going to do?” she breathed. “I can’t…I won’t let anything happen to him, he’s…” She looked down and then without having any idea she was about to do so, leaned down and placed a tender kiss on his forehead. “He’s perfect.”

“D’you…I mean…are you saying you want to…” He shook his head. “Look, we can figure out what happens with him later. I must find Juliana. She can help. But…obviously the templars know me and where I am. We can’t risk this being a trap.”

“Wait…the Amell house in Hightown.”

“What?”

“I know for a fact it stands empty. Just before I met you to ask for your Deep Roads map, Varric, Bethany, Merrill, Draggin and I cleaned out the slavers that had taken it from Gamlen to settle his debts, and I’ve checked it periodically, but it’s stayed empty. I…well, I was going to use the proceeds from the expedition to buy it back. But the point is, the entrance to its basement is right here outside your clinic and I still have the key!”

“What? You mean that entryway over there?” Anders asked, pointing in the correct general direction.

She nodded. “We can slip in there before anyone even realizes we’ve left the clinic. Where’s this Juliana you were going to ask to help?”

“She’s here in Darktown, not far from where Tomwise is set up, actually. She’s been helping an apostate named Evelina take care of refugee children from Ferelden that Evelina saved and got to Kirkwall all by herself.”

“That’s too far, Anders. You could be caught.”

“Well, if you want to come with me…perhaps you could get…I don’t know…Fenris to watch the baby for a short time? He’s in Hightown, too, after all.”

Kathryn felt like a thundercloud had just covered her and her face must have reflected that because Anders held up his hands and said, “Whoa, wow, okay, untold story there. I thought you two were friends?”

“Hardly,” she responded bitterly, then proceeded to reveal what had transpired after she’d left Anders to his patients and headed for the alienage.

By the time she’d finished, Anders’ face was red with rage. She was starting to wonder if Justice was going to show up next. “He said what to you?”

“Just what I told you,” she confirmed. “If I never see that bastard again, it’ll be too soon.” She shook her head, rolled her shoulders and looked down at the bundle in her arms. “But enough. I would not have these moments with our baby spoiled by talk of that traitor.” Suddenly, Hawke realized what she’d said.

Anders had obviously realized it, too, for he queried, “Our baby?” in a bit of a squeaky voice. Before she could think of something to say that would smooth over the sudden awkwardness, he moved forward, covered her cheek with the palm of his hand and closed his eyes for a moment before reopening them. “Hawke, I…” He looked up at the ceiling as though beseeching the Maker for help.

“Anders?”

“I’ve tried to hold back.” The look on his face was so sad, but she didn’t understand why. “You’ve seen what I am. But I’m still a man.” He shook his head, caressing her face. She leaned into his touch. “You coming to me in agony. Coming to me and no one else, every time you need help. When others hurt and abandon you, you…don’t understand how that makes me feel. And then…seeing you like this, hearing you tease me with things like ‘our baby,’ I…can’t resist forever.”

The last of her doubts melted. This was where her whole life had been leading. She was certain of it, more certain than she’d ever been of anything in her almost-twenty-six-years-of existing. Things had been going wrong because she was going wrong. Then suddenly…a baby is just handed to them by a templar, who doesn’t take Anders in? Here, right here when she was with Anders in Darktown without even her mabari, and outside his clinic. How often did that happen?

Her heart was beating wildly in her chest as her eyes met his and she noted not for the first time how beautiful his were. How they gleamed in the lantern light like dark amber diffusing a sunbeam, and how uniquely magnificent a man he was in looks and heart alike.

She smiled softly. “When did anyone tell you that you had to resist?”

He visibly restrained himself as he leaned forward to press their lips together. A harsh pant against her mouth told him just how much he was holding back, and she began to suspect he’d wanted this for a good, long while.

But then the baby wiggled slightly in her arms and snuffled and they both looked down and smiled at him. “He’s gorgeous,” she whispered as his little eyelids drifted closed.

“Not as gorgeous as you are,” he countered, then kissed her again, much more firmly. “Your hair, the shine of ebony,” *kiss* “the depths of crow feathers in every tress.” He kissed her soundly yet gently. “Your eyes so pale a blue they mirror the sky,” *kiss* “making it jealous of what it sees,” he breathed, then returning to capture her lips.

She moaned softly into him as his hands cradled her head, then smoothed back her waist-length hair before he backed away once more, leaving only the space of a breath between their mouths. “You are the most beautiful woman inside and out, the most honorable, the strongest, most compassionate. Maker, Kathryn, you’re…” He exhaled, as if exasperated or beyond his own vocabulary, and brought his forehead down to rest against hers.

“No one has ever said such things to me,” she confessed, feeling her face heat up.

“This will be a disaster. But I can’t live without it.”

Given recent events in her own life, Hawke couldn’t exactly refute the first part of his statement, even though she wanted to.

“We could die tomorrow,” he continued. “I don’t want it to be before I tell you how I feel.”

She smiled. Maker, it felt so right, so right. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone,” she breathed, truth filling her soul beyond capacity, and his eyes met hers in disbelief.

Anders’ thumbs stroked along her high cheekbones. “I thought with Justice…” His brows furrowed. He looked so sad, oh, how she just wanted to hold him. “…this part of me was over.” He sighed. “I…the baby changes everything, I don’t…I just…”

His shoulders fell. He turned away from her. “Justice and I have been working toward something here in Kirkwall. To help the mages, I mean. Before tonight I would’ve said I can’t give you a normal life. I would have told you that if you’re with me we’ll be hunted, hated.” He turned back to face her, a look of pain covering his beautiful features. “I would have warned you that the whole world would be against us.”

Kathryn felt a small frown crease her forehead. “Why, because you’re an apostate?”

He nodded. “One who’s actively helping the Mage Underground here in Kirkwall. Who’s helping mages flee the Circle. Who’s on the run from both the Circle of Ferelden and the Grey Wardens. Who has written a manifesto designed to turn the tide citizen by citizen, and not in favor of the chantry.”

“Well, how about you try this on for size, then, big and scary mage,” she teased, and his look of surprise made her grin. “I got my brother killed in Ferelden. I got my friends trapped in the Deep Roads just by virtue of asking them to come along. I parade my apostate friends all over Kirkwall as part of my group, just asking the bloody templars to pick them off one by one and then oh, yes, I go and start taking private lessons from the fucking Knight-Captain and then of course, what happens? My own sister gets dragged off to the same Circle that I hear such horror stories about so if she gets made tranquil or raped or beaten, that will also be on me. My mother blames me for both my siblings’ fates and to top it all off, two people I trusted with my life found the offers made by demons preferable to our friendship and so all in the space of one day I’ve lost my sister, two companions and—”

He moved forward and hugged her as hard as he could without squashing the baby between them.

“And then,” she stated softly into the skin of his neck that she just wished she could hold her face against forever to feel its softness and its warmth. “Then I pour my heart out to the only man who’s ever shown me kindness without wanting anything in return, besides Varric, and even he needed my coin and my help. There’s only one man alive who’s ever put my hair and eyes to poetry.” She paused and grinned. “And only one man who’s ever given me a child without even laying with me.”

He barked out a laugh and backed away. She couldn’t help but laugh a bit too hard, if the baby’s fussing was any indication.

“I never said I didn’t want to lay with you,” he whispered, cheeks and ears gone pink.

“No, you haven’t,” she shook her head, mirthful chuckles still emerging. “Anders, I just…feel like this is a turning point. For both of us. We returned from the Deep Roads to find chaos, treachery, betrayal…and I came here…to you…when I couldn’t handle it, and look at what the Maker gifted us with in response.” Here, she moved her arms slightly to indicate the infant.

Anders’ smile was gentle, hopeful, beautiful.

She shook her head, pivoted, and paced through the clinic, arms still holding her little bean to her chest, because as far as she was concerned, he was most definitely hers, regardless how crazy it seemed.

“I’ve a fortune headed my way from what we picked up in the Deep Roads, as do you. If you want to keep the clinic going, help the Mage Underground here, help put the templars out of business, undermine Meredith…we can do that now. We shall soon have the means, and once I’ve bought Mother’s childhood home, we’ll have a base of operations, a safe house for the mages to stay in until passage out of Kirkwall can be arranged."

She whirled to look at him, excitement building throughout every inch of her body.

“Templars will be hard-pressed to cause that much of a fuss in Hightown; they won’t dare raid. We can have wards on the doors, I have Draggin to guard. Don’t you see? And on top of that we have this little guy now, and we’ll own a safe place to raise him. My mother will kill to take charge of a grandchild, and Orana will help and Sandal will be endlessly playful with him and Bodahn will be like a second father and Draggin will guard him like he’s his own and—”

Anders surged forward and kissed her with much more passion this time, panting hard as he kissed, pulled away, kissed, pulled away, angled their heads, ran his tongue along her bottom lip, plunged it into her mouth and she was gone, lost in the feel and the taste of him and oh, how she wanted. His fingers tangled in her hair and she heard him making small mewling noises as much as she was, whimpers from them both, a deep groan here and there, a breathless sigh or sharp intake of air as every second of their lives converged into this one life-changing, magical flash of understanding between them.

His voice was gruff when he spoke next, their noses touching. “I’ll…yes. Yes to anything you ask, I…I do have to go find Juliana, love, I must, else soon our boy will be hungry, and he’ll cry, and everyone will know where we are then. Please trust me, I can take care of myself in Darktown. There are too many here who will not see me hauled away in chains for the services I have done them.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay. Let me just unlock the door and then I’ll give you the key. You and Juliana can get back in that way and in the meantime, perhaps I can get word to Varric asking him if he knows anyone who can help for future feedings. I mean, he knows everybody in Kirkwall, right?”

“Are you…” Anders shook his head. “Kathryn, are you certain about this? Do you know what you’re getting yourself into with me, with the baby? What you’re getting this child into being around me?”

“I got myself into it when I told you that you had a sexy tortured look.”

Anders barked out a laugh. “You did say that didn’t you?” He shook his head. “I just figured you were one of those flirtatious women who did so simply because she knew she was the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Kathryn’s cheeks burned. “The things you say.”

“It’s true, my beautiful geliefde. So true.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh. Anderfellan. It…means…” He looked away and blushed quite thoroughly. “Well, it’s sort of like ‘beloved,’ would be the closest I could get.”

Her face seemed even hotter. “And as for the child…with beautiful words like that escaping your lips, you must realize that you won’t hurt him anymore than I will.”

“Justice.”

“Does not go around murdering babies.”

A huffed-out laugh later, he conceded, “Okay. Yes. You’re right. But we should go, now, quickly, as planned. I’ll be there with Juliana as fast as I can, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

He gave her a quick kiss on her temple and after making their way quietly out of the clinic, Kathryn soon found herself in the sub-basement of the Amell home with her arms still full of currently sleeping newborn baby boy. Anders conjured a small white wisp and set it on her shoulder. “That will stay with you to provide light. If you need it brighter, just say ‘brighter’, and ‘dimmer’, for dimmer. It will remain with you until I return.”

“Now that is neat.”

He smiled. “We mages have our uses.”

“Of that I’ve little doubt. I heard something about electricity…”

It was Anders’ turn to blush. “I will never live that down, will I?”

“Oh, I don’t expect you to. I expect you to live up to it.”

He chuckled. “Fair enough. Can you summon Draggin? At least then I know you’ll have some protection. After all, you can’t use a greatsword with two armfuls of Baby.”

“True. I…usually do this funky move with my hand but…hang on.” Hawke shifted the infant to one arm…both of her arms were actually getting pretty tired…and managed to use her right hand to make the gesture that she’d been taught when she’d first been given Draggin by her father.

The dog was beside himself to see her, and immediately nosed into the bundle in her arms to sniff. He whined a question and twisted his head. “I’ll take it from here,” Kathryn stated as she headed toward the first set of stairs. “Brighter,” she said to the wisp as Anders closed and locked the entryway behind him.

Chapter Text

It had been probably about an hour since Anders had departed. Kathryn had managed to find a good number of things left behind in the house that were useful. The sheets weren’t altogether that clean, but she’d shaken them out and made a small nest in the middle of the master bed to put the baby in. Luckily he was still asleep, but he’d stirred a couple of times so she wasn’t sure how long that would last.

She was fairly certain that Draggin understood the baby and that he was to protect him just as ferociously as he did her, but she never would truly know what he was thinking, she was aware. Still, he’d been gentle as she’d guided him by watching him approach the babe and correcting him if he got too snuffly or licky. She was shocked to see that Draggin’s head was at least three times bigger than the bean and then thought she might want to stop calling him the bean or suddenly that’d be all he got called the rest of his life.

When she heard a noise in another part of the house, Kathryn rose to her feet, grabbed her long-coveted and hard-earned ‘The Empress’s Point’ greatsword and stood just inside the master bedroom door with it raised. Footsteps shuffled up the stairs and a soft voice called out, “Love?”

With a great sigh of relief, Kathryn laid the Point down on the floor and rushed out of the room into Anders’ waiting arms.

“Sweetheart, this is Juliana, the woman I told you about,” he said softly after kissing the crown of her head.

“Please to meet another Fereldan, I am,” Juliana said with a curtsy. “Where might the child be, milady?”

Hawke eyed the slightly plump woman. Greying dark hair was tied back in a haphazard bun and her clothes were somewhat wrinkled. She had the kind of face that made you suddenly feel as if you were one of her children along with everyone else the woman tended to. Suddenly Hawke felt bad that Juliana might have been awakened for this. “He’s sleeping in the middle of the bed, in there,” she said, waving at the master bedroom doorway.

“Right, let’s see what we have,” Juliana nodded, and went off to look after the little boy.

Hawke sank into her mage’s embrace, exhausted. “I just…Anders…”

“It’s okay. We have time, Kathryn. Just…let me hold you for a minute.”

“Mm, better be longer than that.”

He smiled against her head. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“I’m glad you’re safe.”

Moments passed. They heard Juliana speaking. Anders traveled a little wisp into the bedroom so the woman could see better than just with the hall lanterns he’d been lighting on his way up from the sub- and regular basements.

Anders took a deep breath, sighed it out and tightened his hold on her. “How are we going to explain that boy?” he finally asked.

“Why not with the truth?” she replied. They parted just enough that their eyes could meet.

“The truth? You mean that a templar brought him to us?”

“Why not? Let Kirkwall infer what they may. We don’t have to draw their conclusions for them. We only have to give them the facts.”

“Wait, what are you talking about here? You mean just for the baby? Or..?”

“I have ideas. Thoughts that won’t stop,” Kathryn confessed. “Instead of sensationalism or grandstanding or grand gestures, why not simply plaster the truth of Meredith’s Circle, her reign of terror, all over Kirkwall? You have magic. We have, like, two friends left we can hopefully kind of trust. Maybe. But more importantly, you’re with the mage underground. You could get something like this planned and executed in a fortnight with your connections and knowledge of all these tunnels and passages and so forth.”

“But to what end?”

“Listen. If people see the truth. If it moves from head knowledge into heart knowledge, then they will speak with whatever power is upon them. We needn’t tell them how to think or feel. That is up to their conscience, each and every one of them. We simply need to list the atrocities, for facts are what they lack. And they will act once they know, the ones who matter will. Whether it’s communities ganging up on templars who come for apostates or the Dalish accepting elven apostates into the fold or…”

“Learning how templars control us so we can figure out a way to break that hold on us?” Anders finished for her. He smiled. “That was a brilliant idea, by the way.”

“And we’ll have many more of them. I just…the more anonymously we can pass along facts and stories of real situations out there, the less danger all mages will be in. I don’t want Bethany targeted for being my sister just because they know I’m running around Kirkwall like the Town Crier, screaming about Meredith. You know there are more mages in the Circle than templars. All it would take is a moderately-sized rebellion inside that prison and poof, they’d be free, the templars would be dead and that would be that.” She shrugged. “I’m probably oversimplifying.”

“You’re optimistic, to be sure, but I don’t find your suggestions unrealistic. We have much to discuss, but…I think tonight we’re both more than just a little bit tired.”

“And what of the babe? Is Juliana going to want to take him?”

“No, milady,” the woman said as she emerged from the bedroom with a sound asleep child.

“But how will I feed him, then?” Hawke asked. “I seem to recall Mother talking about having to awaken every couple of hours or so to feed Carver and Bethany.”

“You intend to keep him, milady, do you not?”

“I…” Hawke looked up at Anders, who gave her that heart-melting smile again. Maker’s breath, the man could ask her to blow up the chantry and she’d do it without regret. “Yes, I intend just that.”

“Then you can feed him yourself.”

“But…I didn’t…that is to say…”

“We’ve adopted him,” Anders stated. “Look, truth is, Juliana, a templar was practically at my clinic door with a bleeding newborn. He gave the boy to Hawke, told us the babe’s parents were dead, and left.”

“Andraste’s sweetest song,” Juliana breathed. “For surely ‘twas she who brought him to you and meant for you to be his mother.”

“Well, it is awfully strange,” Anders conceded, “given our history with the templars here, that he would come to my clinic and lift not a finger to haul me in. Come to think of it, it’s actually worse than that because it means templars know where the clinic is.”

“And yet you’re still freely operating,” Juliana pointed out.

Kathryn’s brow puckered slightly. “He certainly could not have expected to find me there, for I came only upon a whim after my sister was taken to Circle just today.”

Juliana peered into Kathryn’s eyes and then looked up at Anders before handing the little bean back to Hawke. “I’ve birthed and nursed eight of my own children,” she stated, laying a hand on Hawke’s forearm. “I’ve also nursed thirty-two other children, three of which were elf-blooded.”

“I didn’t realize you’d worked with so many!” Anders exclaimed softly.

“Aye, and your boy here makes thirty-three. But take it from me when I say, all you need do for your wee one to get his milk from you, milady, is suckle him for a few days and your body will do the rest.”

“Really?” Hawke asked incredulously.

She nodded.

“But he’ll need actual sustenance in the interim,” Anders protested.

“Wait, you knew I could do this?”

“I knew it was possible, of course. I just…” He shrugged. “Wasn’t certain exactly how far you were willing to go.”

“As far as I need to, to ensure he has a better life than either of us have,” Kathryn replied without hesitation. Once again, her own vehemence shocked her, yet felt completely natural. She turned her attention back to Juliana. “Will you teach me how? I…admit to being in unfamiliar territory.”

“Of course. I’ll be back in two hours. I suggest you get as much sleep as possible, young’uns, as babies tend to throw your schedule out.”

“Juliana, I’ll walk you down to the door, and I’ll put a ward on it which allows only you to open it if you say a certain word. What word would you like it to be?”

“My eldest boy, Drothal’s name, if you please. He’s been with the Maker these eight years and I miss him so. ‘Twould do the heart good to have a reason to speak it.”

“I’ll be right back, love,” Anders said softly, leaving Hawke with a kiss on her forehead.

Hawke returned to the master bedroom, crawled into bed, placed the little guy in his nest and told Draggin to not let anyone into the estate but Anders and Juliana, and anyone they brought with them provided he didn’t perceive a threat. He barked his understanding. The baby jumped but didn’t wake. And without realizing it was even happening, Hawke fell asleep.

Chapter Text

She awoke sometime later to a gentle shake of her shoulder. “Sweetheart,” she heard him, and her eyes fluttered lazily open, a smile already blooming on her lips. “There you are,” he whispered, smoothing a long lock of hair away from her cheek.

“Anders,” she smiled even more broadly.

“I hope you always have that reaction to me,” he quipped, trying for joking but obviously much more serious.

She looked into his eyes and raised a hand to his jaw. “Always,” she promised. “You woke me, is something wrong?”

“No. Juliana’s here to teach you to feed the baby. You know, we should probably give him a name at some point here.”

“We should,” she nodded sleepily as he helped her sit up. Only then did she note Juliana standing behind him with the little bean who sounded like he might be getting a bit cranky what with the fitful squawks emerging from the blankets.

“You know,” Juliana said, “I’ve never seen our ‘ealer like this.”

Anders had the decency to blush beautifully in response. Hawke was delighted as she kissed the tip of his nose. “If you had known me before now,” she replied, “you would be saying the same of me.”

“All right, lovebirds, there are a few points of wisdom to pass along,” Juliana clucked brusquely, though with a large smile on her face. “First, I’ve brought you clouts and pilches for the baby’s releasings. You’ve a servant or two to keep up daily wash of the cloth, yes?”

“Yes, though I may need more help given our plans,” Hawke replied.

“My daughter Lizzie, she’s just twelve, but she’s done the washin’ and cleanin’ for nigh on five years now and I was hopin’ to position her soon to help with family costs.”

“Send her our way and I’ll pay her well,” Hawke decided with a nod. Juliana beamed, as did Anders. “I don’t suppose you’ve a boy of similar age to spare.”

“Not I, but one of Evelina’s. His name is Walter, ‘e’s Fereldan, and a good, strong back ‘e has. ‘e’d be right good help to clean your place up here and I can send a few more for the short-term.”

“Done and done,” Hawke nodded. “If Walter wants the job, it’s his, and I will have Varric see to the purchase of the home today.”

“Shall I fetch him, love?” Anders asked, rising from where he’d been seated at the edge of the bed.

“No, I need you here,” Juliana countered.

Anders looked confused. “Why? I thought this was about breastfeeding.”

“It is, but it’s not just the mum who can feed, the dad can, too, ‘specially if he’s a magicker like you.”

Kathryn looked at the woman like she’d grown a second head. Anders’ reaction was similar. “Come again?” he squeaked.

“Oi, and you call yourself an ‘ealer.”

“I’m a spirit healer, not a lactation specialist. Besides, I’m a man. We’ve not the bits for what you suggest.”

“You may not have ‘em soft and squishy like we, but you have the latent equipment, for the Maker saw to all possibilities, ‘e did. There’s a root that Sol sells there from the Gallows Courtyard, called witherstalk. And I know a lad who shimmies through places on the Wounded Coast that would make your ‘air curl, who managed to find a place where Arbor Blessing grows. I learned about this many years ago in Ferelden, when a woman died in childbirth and left behind the newborn and a slightly elder child ‘oo was still nursin’.”

“You…wait, witherstalk…doesn’t that have psychedelic properties?” Anders asked. “I worked with it only once, when an apprentice imbibed too much of its sap and I had to help Wynne mix potions to counteract it.”

“Aye, and that’s not something you’ll want anyone getting’ hold of directly, leastwise wee’uns. But if you mix its sap with crushed Arbor Blessing leaves, boil it in water and drink it as a tea, it will stimulate you,” she nodded at Anders, “to be able to make milk to feed your boy. It’ll not give you a full account of it, but should the mother be gone for some time, the child shan’t scream from ‘unger, is all.”

Anders’ mouth opened and then clacked shut. Hawke stared at him. “You’re serious,” she then said to Juliana.

“Oh, ‘e doesn’t ‘ave to, but I’d like to teach it all at once and be done with it, if you please. I don’t often ‘ave to do this, but the one time I did have success was with that man in Ferelden, who successfully fed both his pups through their weaning without a wet nurse, which he couldn’t afford. So…it works. And it may be ‘elpful.”

Anders shrugged. “In the space of one day I went from the Deep Roads to a breakout of illness in Darktown to a templar coming at me but not hauling me back to a Circle, to an armful of a woman I’ve loved for years looking at me like all of a sudden the sun was rising in my face to somehow becoming a kind of father to a newborn baby to…breastfeeding? I mean…what’s one more weird thing, right? Might even become helpful in the clinic for my patients, you know?”

“Woman you’ve loved for…Anders?” Hawke breathed.

“Blurted that one out, then, did’ya, ‘ealer?” Juliana chuckled. “Come, come, feed the babe, he’ll be fussing soon.”

Hawke looked away from Anders’ intense gaze and focused all her attention on the next hour of instruction provided by Juliana first to her, and then to Anders. And she did not at all find it hot and sexy to watch Anders appearing to naturally feed the baby. Nope. Not one bit. Uh-uh.

Holy blood of Andraste. Apparently, this was a thing. Sort of. Yes. Now. Maker’s chin whiskers!

The next time she woke up it was to the bean’s all-out crying and so without even thinking about it, Hawke rolled over in the bed, pulled out her breast and offered it to the loud little nug. She had to admit the sensation was a bit odd, but he took it right away without hesitation and some thirty minutes later, as he was starting to get frustrated that nothing was forthcoming, Juliana returned to take over for the sustenance part.

Anders had been nowhere to be seen, but Juliana asked her not to worry. “He’s gone to round up the ‘elp in Darktown to clean your ‘ouse, and to fetch the one you call Varric and see about buying this place, and then ‘e said ‘e was going to send someone named Isabela to…what did ‘e call it…Gamlen’s in Lowtown so your mother would know what was ‘appening. ‘e had a full day planned, ‘e did. Oh, and he’s off to get those herbs, too.”

“Herbs. You mean for him to drink as tea for…” She waved at hand at what Juliana was doing. “That?”

“Aye, for the feedings,” she nodded. “He’s so lucky to ‘ave you. I used to look at my Jaymes the way you look at him, I reckon.”

“Used to?”

Her face fell. “Blighted darkspawn took him, our oldest boy Drothal and our youngest girl, Ember. I made my way ‘ere with the rest of the children and…just started ‘elpin’ children. I miss him. Every blighted day, it hurts.” She shook her head and smiled at Hawke. “Don’t take one moment for granted with our Anders. ‘e’s a beau’iful, special soul. ‘e’s helped ‘undreds. Thousands, I daresay, in ‘is time ‘ere, and always with the prospect of tranquility or death or at the very least, capture, ‘angin’ over ‘is pretty head like a cloud. ‘e loves you, that much is plain to see, an’ make no mistake.”

“And I love him,” Hawke admitted. The moment the words left her lips it was as if a cool spring air blew through her torso, uplifting her and settling such clarity upon her mind that she didn’t understand how she’d not borne witness to it before. “I…I love him.”

Juliana smiled. “You ought to marry. He’s a fine catch, our ‘ealer. Never seen a one like ‘im.”

Hawke felt her face heat up. “We’ve only just figured out we’re more than friends,” she protested weakly.

“Not one minute for gran’ed, child,” Juliana admonished gently. “Grab ‘old of what you’ve found with both ‘ands and don’t ever let go.” She clucked her tongue. “But ah, ‘ere I am telling youngsters ‘ow to live their lives. My Lizzie is always after me so, for it.”

Hawke rose to her feet, stretched and said, “It’s all right. I appreciate the advice, for you’ve known him far longer than I. I, um…I’m going to wash up, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, milady.”

Juliana had given Hawke a lot to think about. Bells, the last day or two had given her a lot to think about, Juliana notwithstanding. In just that short space of time her entire world had flipped on its side, then righted itself the other way ‘round from how it had been going and a whole new future, a blank slate of a thing, was spread out before her.

Before her and Anders.

Before her, Anders and…their baby.

Who still didn’t have a name.

She barked out a laugh as she removed her clothing and used a rag to wash herself top to bottom.

What name would suit the young one with the light dusting of hair so blond it was almost white? With the deep blue eyes? She knew babies’ eyes changed color. After all, Bethany’s had turned brown, Carver’s had lightened a wee bit and her own had become an extremely pale blue, when Mother had said all three were born with dark blue eyes. She wondered what color this little one’s eyes would end up being and suddenly her very next thought was of her father. That led her to thinking of Anders as a father, and then she suddenly realized that she didn’t even know his name. Not his real one, anyway.

These things had to be known before they could marry, surely.

Marry? Maker’s breath, the things Juliana had put in her head!

Hawke finished her ablutions and was going around to the various beds to gather linens when she heard a knock on the front door. She tensed and within seconds, Draggin was by her side. But rather than growling at whatever was on the other side of the door he barked happily, his whole butt wagging excitedly. She took that to mean there was no threat and unlocked, then opened the door.

There stood Anders and Varric, arms laden with all manner of food. Behind them, Isabela and a bunch of ragtag kids that could only be from Darktown. They started marching into the house like a parade, with Anders giving her a quick peck on the top of her head as he passed. He started telling various this one and that one’s where to go, what to do. Then came Sandal with his enchantment apparatus and Bodahn with bags filled to bigger than he was, soon followed by Hawke’s very own mother and the next thing she knew, Corff the bartender was carting in a box of varying kinds of drink, Seamus the viscount’s boy was entering with a stack of papers and…purple flames of destiny, Bethany glided through the door accompanied by an older mage she didn’t recognize.

Hawke dropped the dirty linens and let out a wail that mirrored Bethany’s as the sisters embraced so fiercely, they nearly knocked each other down. It was all she could do to get herself under control enough to be introduced to First Enchanter Orsino, who had managed to spirit Bethany from the Circle under the guise of needing a hand for herb shopping, and they’d already been to Gamlen’s where her reunion with Leandra had been just as emotional.

When at last Juliana emerged with a fully sated bean in her arms and handed him to Hawke, Leandra and Bethany fussed and fussed over him in the way new grandmothers and new aunts are wont to do, and they held him and cooed at him and played with him and then Bethany looked up at her and asked, “What is his name?”

Hawke’s mouth opened, closed and opened again and she looked up at Anders. “We need to discuss that,” she admitted. “It’s all happened a little bit fast.”

Leandra walked up to Anders. “You…have designs on my firstborn?” she asked firmly.

“Mother,” Hawke nearly whined, rolling her eyes.

“No, it’s okay,” Anders smiled. “If you were my firstborn, I’d be protective of you, too.”

Hawke knew her face had gone red as she smacked her palm against it.

“Madam Hawke,” Anders stated with a bow, “may we walk and talk together? There is a lovely garden area I’m hoping you will enjoy once we get our special healing herbs and flowers growing there. I thought I might ask you for some suggestions.”

Hawke could not believe the change in her mother’s demeanor. She almost shyly took Anders’ offered arm and had eyes only for him as he led her away. Anders looked briefly at Kathryn over his shoulder and winked at her, before focusing wholly on Leandra.

“Well, he’s charmed the smalls right off Mother, hasn’t he?” Bethany asked, to which Hawke replied by smacking her shoulder. “Ah, sister, you’re so lucky. I didn’t know Anders very well from the beginning, but he’s so very kind, and the fact that he heals our people for nothing, and helps mages…he’s pretty close to perfect, you know.”

“I…yes,” Kathryn nodded. “I do know. I just…it took me so long to climb out of my own dog shit to see it.”

Draggin whined a question.

“No offense, boy,” Kathryn amended, patting his head. He barked his acceptance. She sighed. “I feel like I’m in a dream.”

“Tell me about this baby,” Bethany insisted. “I want the whole story about you and Anders and this precious thing, for I’ve only today and then Orsino has to take me back.”

Kathryn’s face clouded over. “Not for long,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing. Never mind. Let me show you the house and give you the story.”

Chapter Text

Some ten hours later, the cacophonous noise in the estate had finally abated to a dull roar. Twenty or so souls from Darktown had managed to get the place so squeaky-clean that Leandra remarked it looked even better than when she’d lived there as a girl.

Hawke dutifully ensured that each and every one of them was paid, and let Bodahn figure out quarters for himself and Sandal since he insisted upon serving her now as a sort of butler and house-organizer, and Sandal would look after some of the more mundane tasks, and Lizzie was the washer girl and would have her own room, and Walter insisted he return to Darktown every night to help Evelina and the rest of the children so he didn’t want or need his own room, and brand-new linens Leandra had been embroidering herself for something to do in the long hours of nothingness at Gamlen’s now adorned the master bed, and they’d found all sorts of interesting things in the crawlspace atop the house including an old cradle that Anders himself cleaned meticulously for the child he was already referring to as his son, and Leandra had moved quite happily into her old childhood room to the side of the master, gleefully shopping for new linens with Isabela after Anders had given her the garden tour and, apparently, had a good, long talk with her.

Hawke had been taking over feedings, though not yet producing, while Juliana kept up with the actual feedings of the bean, and Anders had already taken one cup of the tea, which made everything inside Hawke flutter like…he was actually, completely, totally, all-in on this to the point of doing something no man she’d ever heard of would’ve tried.

It made her malleable inside and out and as such she found herself sitting on a long couch the boys had brought down from the crawlspace to place on the second floor of their library where things like barrels of wine and statues and a writing desk were sort of haphazardly placed. Anders soon climbed the short flight of stairs and eased into place beside her, his arm coming round her shoulders. She leaned into him automatically, as though they had always sat together like this.

They hadn’t. It was the first time.

There were lots of first times happening, and her head was spinning from it all.

Seamus had brought papers from the viscount’s office, after Varric had signed, sealed and delivered on the purchase of the Amell estate acting as her and Anders’ agent, and then Hawke and Anders themselves had signed a bunch of papers and Seamus had taken them back for Seneschal Bran to labor over.

“So…” Hawke wondered aloud, “how much intense questioning did Mother subject you to?”

Anders chuckled. “Actually, I did more talking than she did asking.” He shrugged. “I told her about me…minus, um…Justice, of course. Can’t go frightening her half to death on the first day.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I wanted her to know how…how I feel about her daughter.” He turned his head as she turned hers. Their eyes met. Her belly felt all squiggly inside. “I wanted to…” He huffed out a breath. “I don’t know that I should be…” Anders scooted away from her side, turned and took both of her hands in his, effectively forcing her to turn so she was facing him as well.

“What is it?” she asked, rubbing her thumbs on the backs of his hands and oh, the skin there was so very soft. She couldn’t help but close her eyes and revel in the feel of it, wondering what the rest of him would feel like against the rest of her.

“I love you,” he blurted out. “I’ve been holding back from saying that directly, though I kind of let it slip earlier.”

She smiled softly.

“You should have a normal life, not be tied down to a fugitive with no future. But…I don’t ever want to leave you.”

“Don’t ever leave.”

His breath hitched, eyes holding all the surprise he was feeling. “Do you mean that?” His smile, so sweet it was almost painful in its simplicity. “Would you have me here? Living with you? Would you tell the world, the Knight-Commander, that you love an apostate and you will stand beside him?”

“I want you right here,” Hawke replied with so much conviction it surprised even her, “until the day we die.”

“For three years I have lain awake every night aching for you,” he confessed. “I’m still terrified I’ll wake up,” he finished with a smile on his face that made her so happy she didn’t know whether to cry or dance.

Then his mouth was on hers and they were holding and kissing and touching and Maker, she wanted more, so much more, but right now too many people were working all over the estate still and they were right out there in the open and blasted flames, the timing of it all!

“I love you,” she panted into his ear when at last they parted to breathe. “But I don’t even know your name.”

He pulled away and smiled. “I told your mother. She knew Anders could only be a nickname, and so I told her.”

“Are you telling me that you and I have a baby together and my mother knows your name before I?” Hawke asked, pouting with pretense.

Anders chuckled. “I don’t recall whether or not my family used a surname, but I know that my given name was the same as my grandfather’s. I never met him; he passed to the Maker’s side in a farming accident that I don’t remember if anyone ever really explained to me. But he was so-named because his father was a renowned bow hunter, having been taught by the Dalish when they camped one year near his village in the Anderfels. The Charge of Andruil, Goddess of the Hunt, ends with the lines, ‘Remember the Ways of the Hunter and I shall be with you,’ and thus Hunter was he so-named.”

Hawke kissed his knuckles and then his fingers and then the backs of his hands as he continued.

“My great-grandfather used to bring in so much meat they had to start selling it, and made quite a tidy little profit. Those profits led to being able to build my grandfather and grandmother a home when they married. They moved to Ferelden when my father was a young lad, and my grandparents in turn did so well at farming that they were able to buy my father and mother their own farm between their town and the next.”

Hawke wasn’t quite certain she’d ever heard Anders say this many words at once, but it was more than she’d ever known about him, so she just let him keep going, reveling in each new detail he revealed about his past. He smiled and laced their fingers together, leaned in and kissed her forehead and she’d never seen anyone more desirable.

“Our name – my grandfather’s and mine – is Hunter. And because our farm was called Wolf Hollow, I was known as Hunter of Wolf Hollow, although now I think on it, I do believe I once heard someone call my father Finnian Wolf. So I suppose it could become a surname, at that.”

“Hunter,” Hawke breathed, beaming at him. “I know your name,” she continued with wonder, having already repeated it a hundred times in her head.

“I…” He looked away, cheeks tinged pink. “The first time I said your given name I felt as if I’d violated you.”

“And now it feels as if I’m…joining with you. At last.” She pulled him into a hug and whispered, “Hunter Wolf,” into his ear, holding him tighter when he let out a choked sob.

“Not even Karl knew I had any other name than Anders,” he confessed in a shaky voice. “I haven’t spoken it aloud since I was twelve.”

“Well, now you can. After all, if you and my mother also talked of the something else that I think you did, you’ve got to become a respectable gentleman up here in Hightown. At least, on the surface.”

He barked out a series of laughs, covering his mouth like he daren’t laugh too hard, yet unable to contain the irony of it all. When he’d calmed enough, he looked at her and nodded. “I did talk with your mother about a something else, it’s true.”

She lifted an eyebrow and smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Not now, sweetheart. I…well, although we’ve put the cart before the horse with that little bean around…and yes, you’ve got me calling him that already, too…I want to try to do this right. We have…plans, now. Plans that involve doing things in a different way than Justice and I had first conceived of.”

“Justice,” she said, with a slight shake of her head. “What is he making of all this? It’s so sudden, but…has he an opinion?”

“Surprisingly, he’s been largely absent after the templar who gave us the baby didn’t try to capture me. As if…I don’t know. It got me to re-evaluate things. Maybe he’s doing the same thing.” He reached out and cupped her face in a way she could only describe as lovingly. “Will you bear me some patience, love? I mean it when I say I want to do this right.”

She nodded. “I will move as you need me to. Fast, slow,” she growled or maybe sort of moaned, reaching out and touching her fingers to his neck and then moving her hand down the front of his overcoat as she continued, “now…later…”

He groaned. “You are a minx.”

“And you love me.”

“Yes,” he said, eyes popping open, whiskey irises doused in desire. “I do. And I will until the day we die.”

Their lips met again and then suddenly she pulled back and crowed, “I have it!”

“Have what?” he asked, bemused.

“I know what we should name the baby,” she smiled, using her thumb to wipe some of her own spit from his lower lip. “Finnian, after your father. We can call him Finn for short!”

Anders’ eyes widened and filled with tears. “But…what of your own father, and brother? Surely we must honor them? I…don’t even know if my father’s still alive.”

“I’m not bestowing upon my son three given names,” Hawke laughed. “Besides,” she lowered her voice to the sultry range, “I suspect there will be more chances to name…babes….in our future.”

He flushed crimson and shook his head and growled, “You’re making it very difficult for me to remain honorable, Kathryn.”

She moaned. “And when you hiss my name like that, you’re making it very difficult for me not to help you become dishonorable, Ser Wolf.”

Anders shook his head and they laughed together. “Ser Wolf,” he said. “That sounds so…strange.”

“So what do you say?” Hawke asked. “Tell me…Hunter…” she drawled, and he closed his eyes and took in two hitched breaths before reopening them. “Shall we call our child Finnian Wolf, then?”

“I…yes,” he nodded. “Yes, little Finn.”

“Little Finn,” she confirmed. “Shall we tell everyone?”

He got up from the couch and pulled her to her feet. “We shall.”

Kathryn didn’t know how she could possibly get much happier. Until early the next week, when she did.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SIX

She and Anders had managed to get a rhythm going with the whole feeding-Finn thing, which allowed them to let Nature take its course while Juliana provided what the baby needed to become healthy. For though there’d been nothing exactly wrong with him, Anders had determined that he’d been born earlier than he should have been, possibly by as much as a month. Given the way the templar had obviously treated the infant, it’d been a miracle that Finn had survived at all.

Life was settling down a bit. All repairs to the Amell estate – now officially known as the Wolf-Hawke Estate - had been completed. A garden had been planted under Anders’ strict supervision. Leandra, Bodahn, Sandal and Lizzie all had their own rooms. Lizzie, Walter, Bodahn and Sandal worked as paid servants and Anders had moved into the master bedroom with Hawke, though they’d not yet broken his “I want to do this right” vow.

It had been tempting. More than once. All the time, actually. Neither was certain they’d be able to handle much more of the unresolved sexual tension. Luckily, Finn kept them sleepy enough that it helped in that arena.

But now they were planning. Big things were going to happen. They wanted to marry, but they didn’t want the chantry to have any part of it. Only Varric and Isabela had been to their home, and they’d made it clear to both that they were the only two welcome. Sebastian was simply too wrapped up in the chantry for Anders or Hawke to want him inside what was going to rapidly become a place of safety and refuge for the very people that the templars didn’t even think were people.

Bastards.

Eventually the viscount agreed to perform their nuptials and so in his Throne room at the Viscount’s Keep, Varric stood with Anders and Isabela stood with Hawke. Bodahn walked her down the aisle, Sandal sat with Draggin, Leandra held Finn and Walter awkwardly escorted Lizzie. Many of their friends from Darktown had also come, dressed in the best clothing they had. Though Viscount Dumar had at first seemed wary of the lot of them, once the official part of the joining was over he was shocked to discover that most of them not only liked him, but praised him endlessly for protecting the man who healed them for free and the woman who protected them from fates worse than death. He, they seemed to believe, had sanctioned all the do-gooding performed by the couple now known to their Darktown friends as The Wolf and The Hawke.

They couldn’t help but grin. Hawke felt that sounded better than Wolf and Wife and anyway, given that she was a rather fiercely independent woman, she liked keeping her family name. Most people they knew still called them Hawke and Anders, though, and that suited them both just fine. Finn grew stronger and healthier as the weeks passed. Leandra was being courted. They’d heard that Fenris had defeated a sometime torturer of his from Tevinter named Hadriana, and while some part of Hawke was glad he hadn’t been recaptured, she still didn’t trust him to put his own needs aside for her, nor to hide his hatred of mages. He was literally one of the last people she’d ever want to know what they were going to be doing in this mansion.

She and Anders talked about what they’d do if it turned out Finn was a mage.

They talked about whether to trust Aveline and decided it was too risky since she’d become Guard-Captain.

And then they got down to the business of putting their hard-earned Deep Roads wealth to use when Anders brought two strangers home for supper one night. They were a couple, a nobleman and his wife. And, it turned out, the second and third-in-command of Kirkwall’s Mage Underground. Neither was a mage, but their two daughters had been. Both had been hauled off to the Circle on the same day ten years ago. One was killed at her Harrowing and the other was made tranquil for attempting an escape after she’d been beaten by a templar for refusing his sexual advances.

There had been no justice for their Molena or their Camila. Thus, Lord and Lady Courteney had been running the Mew, as they called it in place of its acronym MU, for the past eight years, alongside the woman who’d started it all. Anders didn’t know her identity, and the Courteneys made it clear this information would never be divulged by them. But now that Hawke had become nobility, and Anders had been booted up the social ladder by virtue of their union, there was one additional piece of information that they could know, for the couple felt it vital given what they knew of both Wolfs’ dealings with the templars.

“Lady Kathryn,” Lady Moira stated as she looked her directly in the eyes, “there are four templars who are active within the Mew. The newest one is a man I believe you know well.”

Hawke froze. She shook her head. “You can’t be serious.”

“Wait,” Anders said, slicing the air in front of himself and Hawke where they sat on the couch above the Library opposite the other couple, “you’re not saying Cullen Rutherford is in this.”

Moira nodded. “And Thrask, but I suppose you could have guessed that given that he asked for your assistance with the Starkhaven Circle’s escapees.”

“You cannot trust Cullen,” Hawke said bitterly, rising to her feet and pacing away. Anders followed her, placing a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look up at him and he shrugged, indicating he’d no idea. She returned to stand before the Courteneys. “You don’t understand. He pretended to be my friend. He was even teaching me templar techniques and then while I was on an expedition to the Deep Roads he came to my uncle’s house, with nobody there who could defend them, and took my sister Bethany to the Circle. I even threatened him. Told him he’d be taking her over my dead body, and he stepped forward to challenge me, daring me to attack.” She shook her head vehemently. “I promise you, that lying bastard is no friend of mages or those who support them.”

“Oh,” Moira shook her head, rising to her feet and coming to stand before Hawke. She took her hands and Hawke noted how warm Moira’s were. “Oh, dearest, no, you have it completely backwards. I know what it appeared happened that day but let me explain what really happened.” She gestured back to the couch. Hawke reluctantly returned just as Leandra brought a fussing Finn up the stairs. She handed him to Anders with, “He really wants his father and mother!”

They fussed and cooed over their boy, presenting him proudly to the Courteneys, but then catching on quickly to something being not quite right about it all.

“Anders,” Hawke said with something like a warning growl beneath her breath, for her gut was usually right and she hated that fact a lot right now.

“Lord Aidan,” Anders said congenially, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Finn, would you?”

Lady Moira went still, her cheeks tinging red. Lord Aidan cleared his throat. “We…do.”

“Do you know whose child he is?” Hawke demanded.

The noble couple’s eyes met, Aidan nodded, and they returned their gazes to the Wolfs. “Well?” Anders prompted.

Moira sighed and nodded to Aidan, who explained, “A mage was…in a relationship…in the Circle. She was found at some point to be with child. The child’s father helped her escape when she was into her eighth month. The woman had been using cloaks, claiming frigidity and feigning illness to keep it hidden.”

“How did another mage help her escape?” Anders asked. “The tunnel to Darktown that we use?”

Moira shook her head. “The child’s father – the man the mage was in a relationship with – it wasn’t another mage. It was…a templar.”

Hawke stared at her for a moment, then turned to look at Finn, held in the crook of Anders’ arm. Her eyes moved up to his and he shook his head slightly in disbelief. “He’s…you mean Finn is the son of a mage and a templar?” he finally asked.

“Yes,” Aidan confirmed. “This actually ties in a bit with what we were about to tell you before Lady Leandra brought the child to you.”

Hawke scrunched up her face. “Weren’t you going to explain to us about—” Suddenly it was as if ice water was running through her veins. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, turning to look at Finn again, looking at Anders, who was frowning, looking back to the Courteneys, whose twin looks of sympathy seemed to confirm the thoughts that were hammering at her nonstop. “Dear Maker,” she finally exhaled.

“What is it, lo—?” And that was when it hit Anders, too. He looked down at the infant. Noted his blond hair. Closed his eyes. “This is Cullen’s son. Isn’t it.”

It wasn’t a question. Not really.

“Yes,” Moira quietly confirmed. “The mage he was involved with…he loved her so much. So very much.”

“Who was she?” Hawke asked.

“Her name was Shiran. She had been transferred in from the Circle of Ferelden after the Hero of Ferelden saved the mages who remained in the aftermath of Uldred’s depravities.”

“The Hero also saved Cullen, did she not?” Hawke asked.

“Yes. She, her now-husband Zevran, a Sister Leliana and Circle Spirit Healer Wynne.”

“I know Wynne,” Anders stated. “At least, I did whenever I wasn’t in Solitary. She’s who I studied with.”

“As a Spirit Healer, I’m not surprised,” Aidan smiled. “She always was said to be the best.”

“Shiran had originally come from the alienage in Denerim. She’d been romantically involved with Cullen at the Circle of Ferelden, and though Cullen would never admit to it, we believe fairly strongly that he pulled some strings to make it seem as though Kirkwall needed her particular talents.”

“Which were?” Hawke asked.

“Shiran was a rare elf indeed, for she was adept at entropy.”

“Elf…” Anders muttered. “So Finn is elf-blooded.”

“Yes,” Aidan acknowledged. “Though it doesn’t appear that you can tell. He seems human-looking enough.”

“So we’re treating Cullen Rutherford’s child as our own,” Hawke stated and honestly didn’t know how to feel about that. “Why isn’t he doing something about him? How was it that some random templar found us in Darktown, thrust the child into my hands and left? Why?”

“That is part of the explanation we need to provide,” Aidan explained.

Just then, Bodahn brought a tray of refreshments up the stairs, quietly served each of them a cool glass of freshly-squeezed lemonade and small sandwiches, and left just as inconspicuously.

Anders cuddled Finn while he bolted back a few sandwiches. After a few dainty bites of her own, Moira finally began her tale.

“Cullen was only nineteen years old when he was assigned to the Circle of Ferelden one year after making his vows. When the Circle battle happened after the failure at Ostagar, the templars were outnumbered and unprepared for the blood magic and demon summoning that all but destroyed the tower.”

“As you know,” Aidan continued, “the Hero and her entourage saved the mages from the Right of Annulment, and saved Cullen as one of only three surviving templars, two of which had only survived because they weren’t actually in the tower proper when it was taken over. He was tortured for six solid weeks, deprived of food, demons trying to infiltrate his mind. It made him hate mages and yet the moment he found out Shiran had survived he reacted so…shall we say, positively…to the news that his superior immediately accused him of fraternizing with her. He lied and said they’d only talked, but that was part of why he was transferred out of Kinloch to Kirkwall.”

Moira shook her head. “Greagoir moved on from Kinloch, too – he’d been Cullen’s commander there – and within months of a new Knight-Commander being appointed, Cullen had sent a bundle of requests for mages with certain specialties, all of which had been fully sanctioned by Meredith, who’d had no idea about Shiran because of Greagoir no longer being at that Circle.”

Anders lifted Finn, put him over his shoulder and rubbed his little back in gentle circles. Hawke absentmindedly stroked the baby’s chubby little cheek as her husband spoke. “So Cullen got Shiran transferred to Kirkwall’s Circle, where they resumed their relationship.”

“Yes, exactly,” Moira nodded.

“I never would’ve figured him for it,” was the healer’s reply.

“Me either. He always seemed so bumble-lipped when talking about things like sex. Remember how much he stammered about the Blooming Rose?”

Aidan laughed. “Cullen’s just shy in general about the topic, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t engaged in any of it.”

Hawke snorted out a laugh, causing Moira to chuckle. Then her face fell as her husband picked the matter back up.

“Of course, her condition was discovered. It’s not like you can hide such things. She refused to disclose the identity of the father. Cullen was given the order to sequester her. She was to deliver the child, it would be taken away as all Circle babies are, and then Shiran was to be made tranquil.”

“Sons-of-bitches,” Anders spat.

“There was no way Cullen was having that,” Moira continued. “So since he was put in charge of her, he was able to help her escape – and yes, using our tunnel that goes from the Gallows to Darktown. He got help from Suzey but other than that it was a very low-key operation. He was actually intending to bring her to your clinic, Anders, just for you to check her health before they moved on.”

“Moved on?” Hawke repeated. “Was he going to…flee with her?”

“He was,” Aidan confirmed. “Suzey had a horse waiting for them on the road out of Kirkwall.”

“Heading into the Free Marches,” Anders remarked as Finn squawked a bit. He handed the babe over to Hawke, who held him close and kissed the crown of his fuzzy head. “What happened?”

“It was a trap, set by Knight-Lieutenant Karras.”

“That nug-licking…urghh,” Hawke growled with a sideways glance at Finn, causing Moira to stifle a snort-laugh, and both Anders and Aidan to smirk.

“I remember him well,” Anders stated with a nod. “I also remember Varric telling him a story that managed to see Grace and the others released.”

“Only to be recaptured, blasted flames,” Hawke groused.

Aidan sighed. “Karras had ten templars lying in wait not far from your clinic. Cullen was nearly killed. Shiran was killed. They left Cullen for dead, but then one of the templars came back to get him at Karras’ orders, and found that Shiran had delivered the child, though when he found her, she was dead.”

“So he brought Finn to us.”

“Yes, Lady Kathryn,” Moira nodded. “He was once Cullen’s friend, from his early days in Kirkwall, which was why he saved the babe.”

“Where is Cullen now?” Hawke asked, feeling like complete shit all of a sudden.

“Well, he mended thanks to Circle healers, and then he was questioned about what he had done. He was punished, though he would never say how. His first assignment after that was to bring Bethany in.”

“Meredith’s doing, no doubt,” Anders snapped.

“It was, son,” Aidan acknowledged and only then did Kathryn realize that the Courteneys were probably a good twenty years older than she and Anders. “But it’s good it was him, or your mother and everyone else in that Lowtown house would have been dead before you returned from the Deep Roads.”

“For harboring an apostate,” Kathryn gritted out, holding little Finn even tighter.

“And you would have been killed the moment you reentered Kirkwall.” Aidan sighed deeply. “Cullen walks a very fine and very dangerous line. He’s doing what he can to push back openly, but when that fails he does things like this, like trying to smuggle Shiran out, like pleading with the viscount to contact Meredith and ask her to spare your entire family. And he watches over Bethany at the Circle, as does Thrask. They keep her as sheltered as they can.”

“He didn’t betray you that day,” Moira said firmly. “If you had interfered, he would have been forced to fight you aggressively to keep your mother and uncle and Bethany unharmed, yes. But he was banking on the friendship you had developed during your training sessions to keep you from actually attacking him. And let me tell you, that young man was very relieved that you didn’t. With the other templars there, he would have had no choice but to fight back.”

“And I would have killed him.”

“You most certainly would have, love,” Anders nodded. “You’ve taken down more templars alone and injured than the whole lot of the rest of us combined and healthy.”

Silence reigned, each of the adults lost in their thoughts, Finn seeking his early afternoon meal. Finally, Moira and Aidan stood, the latter shaking hands with Anders. “I hope you’ll consider bringing Cullen in on our planning sessions. If you give the word, I will ask him to attend our next meeting. Just let me know by Wednesday, as he may need to shuffle his rotations.”

“But…does he want the baby back?”

Moira and Aidan exchanged glances before she replied, “He doesn’t know the child survived. His friend lied and told him both mother and child were killed.”

“What if he wants him back?” Hawke asked. “Anders, I can’t…he can’t have him.”

“We’ll talk about it, love. Don’t worry, all right, just…we’ll talk.”

He moved to see the Courteneys out while Hawke sat back down on the couch and bared herself for Finn, who happily latched on. She smiled at him. Stroked his head.

“Maker take me,” Anders whispered as he returned and saw his wife and their little baby that way, “but you are…perfect.”

Hawke smiled. And decided that she could extend a peace offering to Cullen. After all, if they were going to do all the things that she and Anders had been talking of doing for the past couple of weeks, then they most definitely would come out the better having a templar ally.

Only in the moment when Anders came to sit down next to her, jostling Finn a bit in her arms, did Hawke suddenly realize something. It was when she felt liquid falling away from where the baby’s mouth had popped off her nipple that she exclaimed, “I’m feeding him! Anders, I’m finally feeding him!”

Her husband smiled at her proudly. Hawke’s joy that day knew no bounds.

Chapter Text

CHAPTER SEVEN

A year and some later…

For the first time in a long time, the Wolf-Hawke Estate was quiet. Leandra was visiting Gamlen and every single one of the household’s helpers – a word Hawke insisted they use rather than ‘servants’ – was out and about Kirkwall running various and sundry errands. Anders was manning his clinic, currently mired waist-deep in a frightening surgical procedure that would see a ten-year old child either live or die.

And Hawke? Was standing in front of the fireplace in the master bedroom, staring glassy-eyed and exhausted as she wondered what she’d done. What she’d taken on. Whether she’d been right to veer her life so unalteringly as she had into a relationship with no preamble and embarking upon motherhood with barely any romantic relationship to speak of coming before.

But what raised more questions than answers for her most in the moment was the man standing behind her awkwardly in a bedroom not his, a home not his, but carrying a child that was his.

Kathryn turned as Cullen looked in wonder at the babe who’d already passed his first year, in his arms. She’d gotten used to working with him in the Mew enough these many months later that trust had returned to their slightly stilted and somewhat uncomfortable dynamic, though normally she’d never meet with him if Anders wasn’t present. But this…had been a surprise visit from the templar. And she’d decided to tell him the truth about Finn at last.

Because as much as Hawke and Anders loved their little blonde-haired boy whose eyes were quickly turning a pale shade of brown, they’d both agreed some weeks earlier that Cullen deserved to know the love he’d borne a mage had also borne him a son. And through many tears and moments of sheer anguish and doubt, they’d agreed that if Cullen decided he wanted to take his son for his own rather than leave him with an apostate and former mercenary, they would – reluctantly – let him go.

“I was torn from my parents’ arms and knew no father thereafter,” Anders had stated.

“And I lost my beloved father far too soon, even though I was already an adult,” Hawke replied.

“If Cullen wants to be Finn’s father, if he wants to raise him…” Anders had turned away from her, then, heartbroken as Finn cooed at them both while crawling toward them from where he’d been cuddling with Draggin on the floor. “I can no more deny him that right than I could have denied my father if he’d ever wanted me back as a boy.”

So many tears. So much pain. More rising unbidden to her eyes as she watched Cullen Rutherford the mage-hunting templar fall irrevocably in love with the son he’d never known he’d had. He collapsed to his knees, holding a smiling Finn against his shoulder and Hawke could almost see his memories flowing of the mage he’d loved so deeply that he’d been ready to leave the Order, flee, become a deserter with an apostate, just to save her life and the life of their unborn child. He’d nearly died for it. Had suffered terrible punishments, all without complaint. Helped in ways that could see him killed and had many times already seen him beaten by fellow templars accusing him of being soft on the robes.

“My son,” he whispered, voice breaking, cheek molded to the side of the little boy’s head. “Oh, Shiran, look what our love wrought in the end.” He kissed Finn’s forehead, crying freely, then his eyes met Hawke’s and she hitched out a sob at the scene. “Thank you for saving him. For…loving him.”

Her voice having left her, all she could do was nod as he rose back to his feet. With one last kiss to Finn’s chubby little cheek, he moved forward and handed the baby back to her. She was confused. After what she’d just witnessed, she was more certain than ever that Cullen would want to take Finn from them.

The templar’s lower lip trembled a bit as he spoke. “He has a stable life here with you and Anders,” he said softly, gently, in a voice she had seldom heard pass his lips. “All I ask is that I can be part of his life in some small way. That I…may watch him grow to a man.”

“Then…” Hawke frowned. “You don’t want to take him?”

Cullen shook his head. “I want nothing more, Kathryn,” he whispered, reverting back to the days when the younger man had been teaching the younger woman how templars stopped magic, when she’d insisted he call her by her given name. “But I cannot raise a child alone in the Circle, nor would I wish to. As well, it is not nearly stable enough for me to do so. I fear the end is nigh, for Knight-Commander Meredith grows more paranoid with each passing hour, and the revolt we stage a fortnight from now will make all of Kirkwall more unsafe than it already is.”

He was right, of course. For the better part of a year, she and her husband and the Mew and so many Ferelden refugees, Darktown residents, alienage elves…countless mages and templars and everyday folk and chantry brothers and sisters, all of them had been working together to change the world in ways none had ever thought possible until the love two bore for a child not their own, and a forbidden love between apostate and warrior, painted Kirkwall in shades of hope, showed them what could be if they opened their hearts to becoming better themselves.

“I ask only that you see him away from here before the time comes,” Cullen continued, hand reaching out to stroke the smiling cheek of his boy. “Remove him from danger, that I might know something of Shiran and I will continue on even should my life be forfeit in the storm and what comes after.”

On impulse, Hawke lunged forward and engaged the man in a one-armed hug. His arms encircled both her and the boy and he trembled. Then again, so did she. There was so much that she wanted to say but couldn’t, and she guessed the same was true of him. Eventually Finn fussed at the constraint of the hug. Cullen loosed his grip and said into her hair, “Bethany will be free nine hours from now. I suggest that might be a good reason to begone from here.”

In surprise she reeled back. “You’re getting her out of the Gallows?”

He nodded. “It was to be a surprise for you. In fact, Anders and I together are orchestrating smuggling her through the tunnel, only this time we’re prepared should any of the others have become aware as they did with Shiran.”

“Maker,” Hawke breathed. “Then I must get her out of Kirkwall.”

“I have arranged a ship to take you, Bethany and Finnian away,” he revealed. “Anders and I will deliver her to the docks nearest Mistress Selby’s haunt.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?” she breathed. “Why would Anders keep something so important from me?”

Cullen shook his head sadly. “He knew you would try to stop him.”

“From freeing Bethany? Is he mad?”

“No,” Cullen shook his head. “From sending you and Finn and Bethany on ahead while he remains.”

The sound of the estate’s front door opening startled them both. Cullen pulled away as though burned by hot coals. “I must away before I am missed,” he explained.

“Does Anders know you’ve told me about Bethany?”

“I told him I would and in return he revealed that Finn is my son. That’s why I came here, I…knew already, before you admitted it.” He shook his head. “Although I wish…I’d known sooner. That I could’ve been part of his life from the beginning.” When she opened her mouth to explain herself, he stayed her protests with a raised hand. “I understand why you didn’t reveal such to me until now and I agree with your decision, for his safety is what matters most, above and beyond what any of us may feel.”

She huffed out a breath of air as the child squirmed in her arms. She put him down on the floor and he began crawling toward the bed, which he loved scooting under to play.

“Cullen, if…I…thank you. For Bethany’s life.”

He nodded toward where Finn’s butt was disappearing beneath the bed. “Repayment for my son’s.” And with that he was gone, and Bodahn and Sandal were fretting and clucking about not having been there to see to Lady Kathryn’s guest and then suddenly Anders was home and she alternately raged at him for daring to send her away without even asking, yet simultaneously clung to him in desperation, terrified that taking their son away from the epicenter of an explosion meant to rock Thedas would see them parted forever.

Yes, their relationship had been odd. Baby first, them second. Rarely-stolen moments alone together. Constantly helping mages and refugees and mages’ families. Hiding people throughout their estate. Working to see them freed into the Marches or across the Waking Sea to Ferelden or to Ostwick or Starkhaven or Orlais or Antiva, and one even to Tevinter, the seat of all evil if you listened to the chantry’s lies.

But Anders had to stay in Kirkwall, for this had always been his and Justice’s fight. Someone needed to protect Bethany and Finn, and Hawke trusted that to few others. In mere hours, their fragile family unit would be torn asunder. In mere hours, her sister would be free. In mere hours, her life would take yet another hard right turn only this time, Hawke didn’t know what stood at the end of that path.

She knew her mother would have to come as well, and so explained the situation and left Leandra to pack and watch the baby. It gave her and Anders one last moment. One last ‘together,’ as they’d come to call the stolen minutes meant only for them, their love…for the ‘us’ that was strong beyond measure.

She closed their bedroom door. He locked it.

She turned to find him divesting himself of his robe. His boots. Pants. Shirt.

Pulling the tie from his hair. She watched breathlessly, eyes moving over his chiseled form inch by beautiful inch.

Oh, how she loved this man. How every cell of her being yearned for him. How his smile lit up her day. How his whispered confessions made her heart hammer against her ribs. How his sense of humor made her smile and laugh no matter how fraught the situations they encountered.

How she always knew it was them. The two of them. Against. Meredith. Against templars. Against Circles. Against Kirkwall. Against Thedas. Against the world.

She allowed him to undress her, for he had once confessed how it always felt like a gift, her letting him unwrap her, touch her, kiss her, love all of her body.

“So fierce,” he whispered against her cheek. “My warrior, so strong in body. In heart. In mind and soul.” He kissed his way along her jaw as the last of her clothing swished to the floor. “I love you,” Anders breathed into her neck, his fully naked form molded to hers. “By the Maker, I wish I could come with you.”

“You know I understand, my love.” She leaned her head back as he kissed to the hollow of her throat. “I have always understood.”

“So remarkable. So giving. By all the gods of Tevinter and the Maker and his Bride and the gods of the elves, how I worship you.”

“And I, you, my husband. Your convictions. Your sweet, wonderful face. Your strong, solid body, your unwavering ideals, your bravery. All the dwarven paragons blessed my life beyond measure the day Varric led me to your door.”

Tears welled up in his eyes. “You weren’t a mage, yet you didn’t fear me. Or mock me. You…accepted me.”

“And now I’m married to you.”

“All the pain I have endured was worth this…the greatest reward that I could never even have imagined.”

One tear tracked slowly down his cheek. She took her face in his hands, wiping it away. “Just…stay alive for me, Hunter, please. I beg of you, do not leave me alone in this world. Don’t leave us.”

And tears fell again that day as man and wife joined, merged, melded together body and soul, heart and mind, celebrating and mourning, hoping and fearing, clinging and pushing away. Loving as neither had ever loved before.

The hour neared.

She and her mabari and sister and mother and son made their way to the docks.

‘Twas Captain Isabela in command as they boarded a brigantine that Hawke had never seen in Kirkwall before. Handing Finn off to Bethany before Izzy got their party out to the brig via rowboat, Hawke turned to Anders while Cullen hovered in the shadows behind them. She held her husband. Kissed him. Whispered her love into his ears. Inhaled his scent. Reveled in his hands and arms and body against her. Looked into his eyes and scanned every inch of his face to commit him to memory one last time.

Finally waved Cullen forward, launched herself into his arms, whispered a fierce “Thank you” into his ear and then pulled away and gave him an order. “Bring him home,” she said through streaming tears. “Promise me.”

Cullen could only nod, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. Then he touched Anders’ arm to remind him they had to leave before anyone spotted them and they scurried into the shadows. Izzy barked her name from the rowboat that would ferry her out to the waiting ship, where all her family save one, waited.

“Anders,” she whispered, sobs taking over and wracking her body. She sprinted along the wharf to as far as he and Cullen had gotten and leapt into his waiting arms, their tears mingling as their lips met, as they rained kisses over each other’s faces, as they implored the Maker and Andraste to see them safely reunited. “I want more time. Anders, it’s not enough!”

“I know, love. I know. So do I. We’ll have it. I promise, Maker willing, Kathryn, please, keep everyone safe for me. I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I don’t think I can do this.”

He smiled sadly and shook his head. “No. Never doubt yourself, Kathryn Hawke-Wolf. You are everything! And you can do anything.”

And then Izzy was grabbing her sleeve and hauling her away and Anders was whispering, “Goodbye, love,” and like shadows he and Cullen were gone and a gut-wrenching cry tore from her chest as she boarded the rowboat and Izzy’s First Mate ferried them into the harbor.

Like a thief in the night, Kathryn stole away to fulfill the promises she’d made to both Cullen and Anders. But her heart was torn in two and she bled and bled and bled inside the further they sailed from Kirkwall’s shores.

Toward safety.

Away from insanity.

Too far from the man she loved more than life itself.

“Anders,” she whispered from the ship’s stern as the giant chains of Kirkwall faded into the mist. Hawke slumped to the deck, defeated. Aching.

Would she ever see him again?

Chapter Text

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nearly a full year had passed. As had been her wont for all that time, on this farm once owned by Cullen’s family before they’d left Honnleath for South Reach, Kathryn Hawke-Wolf sat atop the barn housing cows and oxen and horses all, while Bethany and Leandra amused her toddling son with the help of spring lambs and mabari pups and a colt on spindly legs learning how to run in the pasture nearby while its patient mother grazed alongside a few cows and goats and the lambs’ mothers.

Farmers all, but taking a break as Nature nurtured their grain crops and lazy sheeps’ wool clouds drifted past in a pale blue sky. Shadow and light alternately painted the land and while some part of her admired the picturesque view as she always did, the other part stood solitary, hollow and aching, yearning to perceive a point past the visible horizon, beyond the gently rolling hills and carefully planted fields and the occasional copse of trees dotting as far as the naked eye could see.

She had sent one message to Cullen upon arrival at the farm he’d told her could be their hideaway before she’d left Kirkwall. They’d located the friends the templar said would lend hands to tidy the property, make the home livable and be discreet. The women of the Amell-Hawke-Wolf dynasty boasted a decent enough income from the meat and milk and wool and cheese and grains that the money Kathryn and Anders had saved from their ill-fated expedition with Varric and Bartrand was still tucked away, hidden in various places throughout the farm where only Kathryn, Bethany and Leandra could find it.

Farmhands and local lads and lasses took care of the mundane. Hawke devoted her time to writing about everything she’d experienced, but most especially detailing her life in Kirkwall, how she’d changed from being a warrior that worried only about her own apostate sister, to a woman who’d been willing to risk everything to see her husband’s dreams of justice for all come to pass.

Justice. She wondered if Anders still lived. Refused to believe he didn’t. But then wondered what that meant about Justice and his place within the Spirit Healer. She’d heard about the overthrow in the place she’d called home for so long. The successful mage rebellion that left the Gallows empty of both its abusers and the abused. It had spread beyond Kirkwall to the rest of the Free Marches, beyond there to Ostwick, beyond there to Ferelden. Always vigilant, Kathryn allowed her family to be comfortable but not complacent. Never complacent.

And every single day she sat or stood right here in the very spot she was sitting on at this moment, scanning the northern horizon for travelers. Once again, after 342 days, seeing none.

A disappointed sigh as the sun slid inexorably toward the horizon. She made her way down the long ladder built just for her, boots hitting the ground with a thump as she jumped down from the fifth rung as she always did. Finn ran squealing and giggling into her arms. Four mabari pups tried to follow him, proud papa Draggin happy to be rid of their ear-pulling and tail-nipping as equally proud mama Ruthie, the friendly bitch they’d purchased from a nearby breeder, rolled onto her back for a Bethany-style belly rub. Leandra moved to the kitchens as usual to oversee supper preparations, swearing that the cook they’d hired salted the stew too much even when she witnessed the making of it with her own eyes and saw no evidence of salt anywhere near the pot.

Kathryn sent Finn inside with his nurse, who was tasked with his general care and education and was a mage, just in case at any point the boy showed them he was, too.

But something tugged at her as the sun dipped even lower in the sky to her left and she began walking the path that led away from their ample home toward the north, where it would eventually join with the main thoroughfare through these farmsteads that stood west of Honnleath proper.

She missed Anders. That went without saying. But what she could barely cope with, was the ache inside her growing and growing and growing rather than waning in any way, shape or form. Perhaps it was simply not knowing where he was, if he was healthy, if he was even alive, that caused the ever-increasing abyss. It certainly wasn’t going away any time soon.

“Kathryn!” Leandra called from the front door as a baby’s cries reached her ears. She smiled and turned back toward the house, meeting her mother halfway and quickly taking the fussing baby boy who was just over two months old, from her. “Mal’s hungry. Seti told me he just woke up from his afternoon nap. She’s giving Finn a bath now.”

“Thanks, Mother.”

“Oh, but he’s a beautiful child. Both of your boys are,” Leandra smiled. Then the smile vanished. “I’m sorry, my sweet girl.”

Hawke nodded as she pulled her shirt down to nurse her hungry child. Recalled how Anders had reacted when he’d come back from seeing the Courteneys to their door, to find her breastfeeding their little Finn, and how it’d been the very first time she’d actually been able to feed him without Juliana’s intervention.

Gods, but that seemed like a lifetime ago and yet the memory brought tears of both pain and joy to her now, so freshly that she couldn’t keep them in her eyes. As she always did, Leandra stood silently shoulder-to-shoulder with her during these moments of despair, doing her best to lend her daughter the strength to go on. There were no more words that could be spoken, for Hawke had cried them all a thousand times.

After a few minutes, Leandra returned to the house and Kathryn continued walking along the path, humming softly to the infant she had labored for three days to bring into the world.

“Mmmmmm mmmm-mmmm, hmmmmmm-mmmmm, mmmmm-mmmmm,” she hummed, then sang softly as her infant suckled, “Western wind, when will thou blow? The tears rain down deep in my soul. O, if my love were in my arms, and I abed to know her charms.”

A rich baritone seemed to haunt the air around her, words floating to her on a soft breeze picking up from the northwest. “’Bring western wind that I can know, and let our love in my heart grow.”

Tears filled her eyes anew, for she saw not a form against the horizon yet knew the voice well and joined its lyrical strains with, “And I, with my love, shall rise again, and so the wind shall blow her in.”

A shadow appeared on the path, just the other side of the small rise that led to Paddock Lane and she stopped short with jaw dropped open and disbelief coursing through her veins as the blazing oranges and purples from the setting sun reflected reddish gold highlights from the head of a man heading her way.

The closer he got, the more she wept until her chest was heaving so strongly that the baby suckled harder in protest.

“And from that day, that blessed day, when Maker’s smiles are here made known.”

Then she could see his face.

“When all the cattle tended to and the seeds so deftly sown.”

Then she could make out his eyes.

“We’ll stand together side by side, ‘neath flight of whitest, purest dove.”

Then she could see his smile.

“And know that with Andraste’s light, we show this world the Maker’s love.” As soon as her mouth closed from singing, she sobbed his name, grinning all the while, “Anders!” Weeping as he drew nearer and nearer and then suddenly like magic he was standing before her.

He looked down in surprise at the child held to her breast. His hand moved to her cheek real and touched her skin Hunter and he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers you’re alive and whispered, “Kathryn, my Kathryn, my love.”

When he pulled back and looked down at the child again, a question tilted his head and in that moment, she felt, knew, that the spirit was gone from him, that he was for the first time since she’d met him, nothing and nobody but, “Anders.” She nodded gently toward the little boy with naught but golden fuzz for hair and wide, dark blue eyes staring at his own fist. “Meet your son.”

Anders dropped his pack, his bag, his staff. Gasped softly. Gently touched the baby’s forehead and soft crown. “Mine?”

She nodded. “He made his entrance two months past.”

The boy let go his mother’s teat and she tucked herself back in as she wiped his mouth with the edge of her tunic before handing him to his father.

“What have you called him?”

She smiled. “Malcolm. But we mostly just call him Mal.”

“After your father,” he acknowledged, holding Mal in the crook of his arm, smiling down at the child, letting him grasp his pinky finger. “He’s beautiful.” Anders’ eyes met hers. “You’re beautiful.”

“I never knew…never understood…how much I needed you,” she blurted out. “How I’ve missed you.” They embraced and kissed and kissed and oh, how she moaned into the feeling of having his scent, his mouth, Kathryn thought she might just die and she needed air but didn’t care because he’s home and she would happily crawl inside of this moment and keep it forever.

“My love,” Anders panted as their lips popped apart. Mal watched them with wide eyes as he leaned down and nuzzled her neck, kissing all the way up to her ear, around her jaw and chin to the other ear, down to her collarbone, whispering words of love, epithets for their forced separation, gratitude for her health, for their baby, for him being home at last with her.

When at last he released her, just to resettle Mal on his shoulder, Kathryn fell to her knees and thanked the Maker right then and right there for answering every prayer she had uttered for almost an entire year. Anders came down with her, weeping with joy as she did, blessing their luck and the Maker and Andraste right along with her.

Slowly their tears abated. They stared into each other’s eyes, nose to nose, for seemingly endless minutes until at last Mal squiggled and squealed in his father’s arm to let him know he wasn’t appreciating whatever was or wasn’t happening. The mage’s head cocked to the side and then shook gently as he took in all the little fingers and toes and chubby cheeks and button nose and long, pale eyelashes and light smattering of freckles across the almost nonexistent bridge of Mal’s tiny nose.

“By the Maker, but he’s perfect, Kathryn.”

“He’s made of us, Anders. Of our love. A mage and a mundane, married and birthing a child. Did you ever believe it could be?”

“No,” he half-sobbed, smiling as he fought another wave of tears. “You have given me a life unlike any I would have known without you.” His hand flattened against her cheek. “I never knew I needed you either, until I had to watch Isabela take you away from me.”

“Never again, my love.”

He shook his head, then returned his eyes to his son. Flesh of his flesh. Blood of his blood. The one thing he truly never thought could happen for him. After looking in awe at the son he hadn’t known to expect, Anders rose, helped Kathryn up, leaned in and hugged her carefully to keep from squishing Mal. “Cullen’s just behind me, love, with a wagon. He’s going to come spend some time with Finn and then join the Inquisition.”

“I heard of that when I was last in Honnleath village.”

“He met with a former Seeker named Cassandra, who came looking for…well, for you, actually. I stayed out of sight, but Cullen, he believes in what the Inquisition intends to do, to restore order with templars and mages fighting each other all over the place.”

“Is it that bad?”

He nodded. “It is worse than your imagination could provide.”

“And what of…you? Please don’t tell me you’re leaving me after just returning. I couldn’t bear it.”

“I would speak with you about everything that has transpired and what is yet to come, you and Cullen and your sister and mother, and we can decide together as a family what we wish to do.”

“But the farm. We have it running and it’s doing well. We’re comfortable here, Anders, why must…”

“HAWKE!”

Kathryn’s sharp intake of air was followed by her peering around her husband. Headed their way was a two-horse-drawn cart with Cullen holding the reigns seated in the front seat while Varric was standing on the front seat.

Varric?

“VARRIC!” she cried, running full tilt toward the cart, which Cullen brought to a stop as the dwarf somersaulted to the ground and ran straight into her laughing, crying, waiting, hugging arms. Cullen joined them and soon Leandra and Bethany brought Finn to see what all the fuss was about and there, as darkness fell and the stars and a reddish-white moon filled most of the southern sky, they returned to each other at last. As friends. As allies. As trustworthy confidantes. As family.

“I love you,” Hawke whispered to Anders as he held her, twirled her around and refused to let go of her while they eventually and slowly wended their way back to the house.

“I meant it, you know. I never knew how much I needed you, either,” Anders confessed again as he kissed her temple, “until you left with Izzy. I almost came after you. Cullen had to physically hold me back.”

“Izzy did the same to me.”

“We’re safe. Both of us. All of us. That’s what matters now.”

Kathryn hummed in agreement. “I’ve written down all that’s happened.”

“As has Varric.”

“I want you,” she blurted out.

“Oh, love, you have no idea.”

“Yes. I do.”

“That’s what the room over the barn is for,” Leandra reminded her eldest daughter.

“I’ve no concerns beyond the actual act of sleeping. I’ll take a hayloft, a pile of hay. The back of a ram,” Cullen offered through a huge yawn. He was currently carrying Finnian, who rested on his father’s broad shoulder without even realizing it was his father. He didn’t know any father, so young had he been upon their departure from Kirkwall.

Anders gave Hawke a knowing look and she nodded. There was nothing wrong with Finn knowing who was who as far as she was concerned.

And then there was Mal, whose evening meal had been interrupted, and so Anders and Hawke took their food in the master bedroom with the wee one, while the others dined together in the large dining room at their very long table.

Old connections reformed. New connections were birthed. Long-missed stories and goings-on retold. Laughter filled the house. Sometimes tears. Always love.

Once little Mal was asleep, and despite his road-weariness and what he considered to be unacceptable traveler’s odor, Anders was treated to his wife’s ministrations built upon the pretense of cleansing him outwardly, while she actually went about cleansing him inwardly as well. A warm bath that turned into the promise of ever so much more.

“I’m never leaving you again, love,” Anders promised sometime later as, sated, he lounged upon the bed with his wife in his arms. “Where you go, I go.”

“And where you go, we all go. Well, except perhaps for Mother and Bethany.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Bethany’s discovered her own love in Ashton Reiterson down the way.”

“Really? Blanthan Reiter’s boy?”

“Aye, and I think Ashton comes to muck out the barn much more than necessary so he’s of similar mind. He’s fascinated by her magic. Makes her start little things on fire all the time and looks like a child unwrapping a gift when she does.”

Anders chuckled. “I’m glad. She deserves a good man to love, and Reiter’s family has always been salt of the earth.”

They grew quiet, and Anders’ breathing became steady. The rise and fall of his chest, the scent of the soap from his bath, his breath moving her hair ever so slightly…it comforted her ever so much.

Cullen had brought him home, just as she’d asked him to. She would thank the former templar tomorrow.

Tonight, she just wanted her man. And she had him, in every way a woman could.

Chapter Text

The next morning, as Seti the magically gifted nurse tended to two little boys, the adults lingered at the dining table long after a huge, delicious breakfast had been shared, enjoyed and brought more laughs and even a few tears among those who now faced a whole new future.

Cullen fidgeted. Leandra kept looking back and forth among him, Anders and her two daughters. Finally, Cullen couldn’t stand it anymore. He looked to Anders, who nodded, and then looked Kathryn in the eyes.

“I suppose Anders has told you that I’m moving on in a fortnight.”

“Yes,” she nodded, dabbing at her lips with a linen cloth. “You’re joining the Inquisition?”

“Yes, I…will oversee the soldiers. Commander of their forces, I suppose, is the actual title.”

“Congratulations,” she smiled, and genuinely felt it. “You deserve your own command.”

His cheeks pinked a bit as he looked everywhere but down the table to where she sat at its foot. “I…” He inhaled. Exhaled. “About Finnian…”

Her gut clenched. Hard. “Do you wish to take him with you?”

“I…was…” he looked helplessly to Anders, sat just to his left at the head of the table. “I think the Inquisition would benefit greatly if both of you joined as well.” He shook his head. “Hawke, you and Anders, you worked so hard toward this and then Anders and I finished it in Kirkwall, which started it for the rest of Thedas. Divine Justinia V’s conclave, well, there’s no telling what will come of it.”

“That’s right,” Anders nodded. “Either way, someone needs to be watching out for the mages, no matter the concord reached.”

“And if it goes badly, as some fear it might, then the Inquisition will actually be formally convened to deal with it. Right now, it’s not officially been called, but Leliana and Cassandra are certain it will be and they wanted you to lead it,” Cullen finished, eyes on Hawke.

“What? Me? Why on earth..?”

“You and Anders,” he quickly corrected. “Both of you. Together.”

Leandra perked up. “Is this the Leliana who knew the Hero of Ferelden? It’s such an uncommon name.”

“One and the same,” Cullen nodded. “And Lady Cassandra is a former Seeker. They both work for the Divine.”

“Remember I told you Cullen met with Cassandra, love.” Off Hawke’s nod, Anders continued. “And that she was there looking for you? It was to ask you to lead the group. But when Cullen spoke with her, he hinted that we were a package deal.”

“We are,” she stated. “I told you last night that where you go, I go.”

“And I, you,” he affirmed. “We don’t have to decide now, and we…can talk about it more later, alone.”

“Where are they going to operate from?” Leandra asked. “If you’re to take the children, it must be suitable for them, not military barracks.”

“Well, I don’t want to go anywhere,” Bethany pouted.

“You may remain here, as many of you as you wish, for as long as you wish, even forever,” Cullen offered. “I certainly would not be returning any time soon myself, I should think, given my new role. And even if I do, there are plenty of locations on the farm for me to sleep.”

“I will speak with my husband further,” Kathryn stated softly.

Cullen nodded, rose to his feet and headed outside. Leandra said, “I think that I should remain with Bethany, for if she moves things along with her young suitor, she might be in need of help.”

“Oh, Mother, yes, please, I would really love to have you with me,” Bethany nodded, giving Leandra a hug.

“Then I shall leave the two of you,” she said to Anders and Hawke, “to decide your futures, and those of my grandsons.”

The ladies left through the back door, undoubtedly to take a stroll in the flower and herb garden the two had nurtured from nothing and were so proud of.

"Varric?" Hawke asked of the dwarf as he, too, rose to his feet. "What of you?"

"Eh, I think that depends on whether or not you two are headed that way. Thought I might at least help Curly get settled, though, I dunno." He shrugged and followed Cullen out of the house.

Anders and Hawke retired to the master bedroom, where a plush loveseat became the focal point for both their recent past and their entire future.

“There is so much to consider,” Hawke said softly, hand stroking her husband’s cheek first with the backs of her fingers, then the fronts, then the backs again, over and over.

“I know. And the old me would have simply gone with the black-and-white decision-making process that stemmed largely from Justice’s view of the world, and left within a day for this new cause.”

“Where is he?”

Anders looked startled. “You can…tell?”

She nodded. “I have never known you without him, so when you met me on the road yester-eve I knew immediately something was different about you. Something tangible yet nothing I can hold.” She looked deeply into his eyes. “Tell me.”

He pulled her close, resting her cheek upon his chest as he leaned back on the love seat and stroked through her long, raven locks which had grown out to the bottom of her arse by now. “I understand so much more now than I did when I offered Justice my body to keep him from being trapped outside the Fade for too long,” he began, voice soft, speech punctuated by kisses to the crown of her head. “Once Cullen and I…after the Circle revolt, there was a truly unbelievable showdown with Meredith and her templars, and those who supported their stance. She’d gone mad, love, from using red lyrium, and many of her templars as well. There was a great battle in the Gallows courtyard. Even nobles took up arms.”

Hawke frowned when he stopped, and pulled her head back to look at his face. He appeared stricken. Oh, how she knew his faces well, and so she asked, “What is it?”

He swallowed hard and looked down at her. “Those we used to travel with also participated in the battle in varying ways.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“Varric, of course, was with us defending the mages from Meredith when she called for the Right of Annulment to proceed.”

“That bitch did what?” Hawke snarled.

Anders chuckled. “It’s okay, love. We ensured it didn’t happen. On top of that, she can never hurt anyone again, I promise.”

Hawke growled. How she wished she’d been there fighting at her husband’s side with her beloved greatsword. She hadn’t even thought of battle for so long thanks to her family and the farm, yet in that moment dismembering a bunch of mage-killing templars sounded heavenly indeed.

“Varric fought with Cullen and I and the many mages and templars and refugees we’d gathered into an army of our own. Nearly all of Darktown and the alienage rose up against their oppressors and Aveline and Donnic, too!”

“Straight-laced Aveline battled templars?” Hawke laughed out loud.

“Well, in her defense, we actually had more templars on our side than Meredith did.”

She laughed some more. “You and Cullen truly are miracle workers.”

He grinned, but that smile soon faded. “Merrill…” He sighed and shook his head. “During the battle she was struck by a templar’s sword. In an effort to heal herself, she used blood magic.”

“Oh, shit,” Hawke breathed.

Anders nodded at her correct internal conclusion. “When another templar tried to smite her, she…turned into an abomination and attacked. They had no choice.”

“You and I both knew she was headed down that path,” Hawke replied, shaking her head. “If only she had listened to us.”

“I know,” Anders replied, cradling her head against his chest again, holding it there gently, lowing his mouth to the top of her head. “Love…Sebastian fought against us. So did Fenris. They were…the things they said about me, Cullen, you, little Finn…” As Hawke pulled back again to look into his eyes, he shook his head, closing them briefly. “It was like they were completely different people. I remember when we met Fenris, on the run from slavers. I remember when we met Sebastian, when you went to the chantry to tell him we’d slain the mercenaries. It seemed like they were…well, those people you remember weren’t the men we had to fight, Kathryn.”

“Was it…very bad?”

Anders bowed his head. “Fenris came at me glowing so blue he looked like a ball of light rather than a running elf. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, bloody murder. I…I’d never heard anything like it.”

“You had to kill him.”

He swallowed and shook his head. “No. I mean, I was prepared to if need be, but as I began casting a freeze spell just to stop him in his tracks while I could figure out what to do about him, Varric hit him with the triple threat. Between one blink and the next, he had three arrows sticking out of his skull and was dead before he hit the ground.”

Hawke shook her head. “And Sebastian?”

“Cullen tried to get him to listen. Tried to help him see reason. But Sebastian claimed that anyone who would destroy such a sacred chantry institution as the Circles of Magi as we’d done, could never be forgiven or trusted.”

“Even though all of us tried for years to get them to acknowledge the abuse and change their ways?”

He nodded. “The chantry itself was blown to hell, but not even by mages or templars. Once it went, however, Sebastian blamed mages, blamed me and you and Cullen. Even though as far as we know, not one was left in there when the explosion happened. The Grand Cleric, all the brothers and sisters, those who’d sought refuge there. We had one of our own templars warn them before the rebellion began. He evacuated them to the Viscount’s Keep with Aveline’s help.” Anders sighed deeply. “I didn’t, I mean, Sebastian was…it was…”

“Justice.”

“Yes. He was so enraged that someone proclaiming to be righteous could so ignore the Maker’s words regarding all being treated as equals, that he…” Anders’ face fell. “I…told him that after everything, to transform without warning just to kill Seb because Justice hated what he stood for, that he couldn’t see beyond his self-righteousness long enough to…” He huffed out a mirthless laugh. “I’m sorry. There I go preaching again.”

She shook her head, kissed his lips softly and bade him continue.

“I told Justice that killing Sebastian, especially with my hands, was the gravest form of injustice he could ever have committed, for I suffered no violence unless it was absolutely necessary. Killing Sebastian was not only unnecessary, but could bring the Free Marches to war given that he was the true inheritor of the title Prince of Starkhaven.”

“What would you have done?”

“Simply incapacitated him, which was what I wanted to do with Fenris. Bind them somehow, place them in a…I don’t know, perhaps the Keep’s dungeons…until the battle was won, and then have Aveline release them well after Cullen and I had escaped Kirkwall.”

“You always were sensible.”

Anders snorted. “Nobody outside the Mew believed that. They all thought I was stark, raving mad.”

“And yet people you had once healed many times over, tried killing you. Who does that, then, make stark raving mad? I mean, especially when you didn’t even try killing them when they came at you?”

He nodded sadly. “In the face of my rebuke, Justice was unable to cope with what he had done. It…perverted him from his true form and before I knew it, he was screaming out of me into a ghastly shape that looked like no creature I’ve ever seen. I was…surprised. It was painful, Kathryn. I could feel nothing but agony. Cullen said I was writhing on the ground screaming, scrabbling at my clothing as though being burned from the inside, out.

She kissed him softly, holding her lips against his skin as he took a deep breath in the face of such a painful recollection. He gave her a barely-there smile, hands never stopping their roaming of the parts of her body he could reach as they snuggled.

"In the aftermath, I was shocked that I still lived, for I had always expected he would transform me, and the pain was so great I thought surely I could not bear it. I had always been so certain that at some point, Anders would cease to exist completely as his own man, and I thought that moment was it.”

“Why didn’t he transform you, then?”

“I truly believe it was because I had not invited him to possess me. I had made no bargains with him such as you would make with a demon, for he was not such when I took him in. Therefore, when he transformed from Justice to Vengeance completely to slay Sebastian, and I then called him on it, he had no choice but to separate for he was now a demon within a body uninvited.”

“He left you because you pointed out he’d done an injustice?”

Anders nodded. “Justice knows he was wrong, and he understands why, but he could not reconcile what he had become – the demon Vengeance – which took him down the wrong path. I felt these thoughts from him just before separation, love.”

“I take it that in pure demon form, he was an…unwelcome participant in the battle.”

“He purposely went directly for Cullen, knowing full well he would kill him.”

“So Varric killed Fenris, Justice killed Sebastian and Cullen killed Justice.”

“Yes. And it was Aveline that slew Merrill.”

“Dear Maker,” Hawke breathed.

“Isabela did not return to Kirkwall at all, as far as I know. I have no news of her. Do you know that Zevran aided us?”

“Truly? I thought he was returning to his warden.”

“After the fact, he confessed that she had been there at the battle but fighting in disguise lest she be recognized.” He smiled slightly. “I fought side by side with the Hero of Ferelden whom I knew well once, and didn’t even realize it to be her.”

“Where have they gone?”

“I met with them both sometime later as we were heading to the secret docks beyond the Gallows to take ship. They came with us as far as the shores of Ferelden, so we had much time together and it was a gift I shall always treasure.” Anders smiled. “It was Zuleika, after all, who saved my life by making me a warden, and I truly believe it shall be she who saves it again by finding a way to erase the taint from our bodies.”

“Can this truly be done?” Hawke breathed, not daring to hope but unable to help it.

“My darling, of all the peoples of Thedas, if anyone could transform the Grey Wardens in such a way it would be that remarkable woman.” He gently prodded her into sitting upright, turning Hawke and himself just enough that they were mostly facing one another on the love seat now. “I feel the same way about you and this new Inquisition. Leliana truly believes it will become necessary because of old hates and prejudices and fears that will not abate simply because Justinia asks for such. And both Cassandra and Leliana want the mundane and magical represented equally in the coming months.”

“So this Conclave is meant to address all this fighting I’ve heard about between mages and templars.”

Anders nodded. “The mundane are caught in the middle. The templars believe they are acting righteously, or some are simply angry that there's no more free lyrium to feed their addictions, and still others are angry that they've lost their access and license to do as they please to helpless humans and elves. As was so in the Circles, many take it too far and are maiming, torturing, murdering, as though the mage rebellion has given their hideous desires sanction to say and do the twisted things that infect their hearts.”

Hawke shook her head. “You never truly know the nature of a man until his feet are held to the fire.”

“Never truer words spoken, sweetheart,” Anders nodded, kissing her forehead. “Kathryn, I…as much as I would have you kept safe within anonymity, with our sons and even Cullen and Varric, I know that you were not destined to be a farmer’s wife, nor even a domesticated mage’s wife. You were meant for more. Much, much more.”

She looked down at their joined hands, tears filling her eyes. “Do you know,” she whispered, a sob threatening to choke her, “that Sebastian once said those very words to me one day in the chantry?”

“Truly?”

With a nod, she inhaled shakily, then met his eyes. “I liked him ever so much. We spoke for so many hours about so many things. He seemed so…golden-hearted. So…pure. And yet when it came down to it, his prejudices overrode the man he could have so easily allowed himself to be.”

Anders nodded. “As did Fenris’s. I never begrudged him the hatred he felt toward the Tevinters who had mistreated him. But blaming every mage that ever lived, including ones who healed him and shielded him in battle like Merrill and I did…he was so damaged inside, just as damaged as I was when I accepted Justice.”

“You grew. Evolved,” Hawke whispered, bowing her head. “He didn’t seem able to, going so far as to blame me for him giving in to the demon’s lies in the Fade.”

“I remember that day. You were…oh, love, I’d never seen you so angry, but it was an anger born of feeling as though you’d been run through by someone you'd given your trust to.”

“I had,” Kathryn acknowledged. “It still hurts, even though you relayed that he is now dead and gone.”

The two embraced, rocking to and fro slightly for long moments as they took solace in one another’s hearts.

“I think you should lead the Inquisition as Cassandra wishes,” Anders finally said softly into her hair. “Sebastian was right in what he said. A year ago, you had to step back from leading us in Kirkwall because of Finn and Bethany and your mother.” He pulled away and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, cradling her face in his hands. “But Kirkwall is in the past for us now, and the world needs to see the warrior who married a mage, who bore his child, standing for the equality of all, whether those differences be caused by species or magic. Love, we are the example of what could be…what can be…when cooler heads prevail and Andraste’s words are followed as they were meant to be, rather than twisted to adopt the prejudices of an institution. We show everyone that we are simply a man and a woman who loved each other enough to marry and bear children. We wanted a family. We made a family. And that Maker has yet to strike any of us down.”

She gave him a wry grin. "I'd like to see him try."

Anders laughed out loud, the tears of pride for his wife and the family he was now head of, shining in his eyes. "I love you so much. You are the most perfect person for me in every way. You know this, right?"

Hawke nodded. "And you are the most perfect person for me, and always will be, my magical husband."

Their lips met and did not part for many, many long minutes. At last, however, they finally separated, both panting and taking the opportunity to slide hands up and around and behind and underneath blockades of clothing that had the nerve to interrupt their continued pleasure. But even as they touched, Hawke's mind was turning and turning over all Anders had told her.

“This would mean taking our boys where?” she finally asked.

“Haven. It was once the home of a cult that believed Andraste had returned in the form of a dragon, but Zuleika disavowed them of that notion and, with Brother Genitivi, located the Urn of Sacred Ashes.”

“That which cured Arl Eamon. These stories are fact?”

“Oh, yes. I heard them from Zuleika and Zevran themselves. I shall regale you with the tale one long winter’s night when there is naught to do but keep warm by the fire.” He smiled and she melted as she always did with her Anders, so very close to giving in to her desires. “There are many unoccupied homes there, Leliana has said, and we may choose that which suits our family as needed.”

“They don’t mind children being present.”

“Not at all. There are many with their own children whose other parent is missing or slain. There are several pregnant women who wish to return to battle once their children are born.”

“I imagine they need a healer.”

“They have two non-mage healers right now but yes, as one who has run a clinic, and is a Spirit Healer, I asked that very question. Cassandra did seem rather desperate for a knowledgeable, experienced healer even though she also wanted to kill me and kiss me in equal parts for my role in dismantling Kirkwall’s Circle.”

Hawke burst out laughing. “If she kisses you, I’ll punch her lights out.”

“That’s my girl,” he grinned.

She sobered. “So you would be the voice of mages.”

“Aye,” Anders nodded. “And you of the mundane. And both of us for mixed families such as ours.”

“And Cullen the voice of the former templars?”

“He wants to be. For those who have not gone mad from lyrium or their own hatred. He…well, he has stopped taking lyrium, and hopes that if he can remain free of it. I have vowed to help him, including researching what they do in Tevinter, for in a place such as that where mages rule there must surely be remedies to help. He wants to prove they can beat the addiction and live, so he can turn that proof into helping other templars be free of that which has been wielded by the chantry in order to leash them like dogs.” Anders shook his head. “Before I began speaking with Cullen, I had no idea of the brutality templars often also endured, though I still say it doesn’t hold a candle to their treatment of mages.”

Kathryn hummed in recognition and understanding. She looked down at their joined hands, deep in thought. As always, her husband understood and allowed her mind time to process, to think through possible outcomes, to review all angles as she had always so expertly done as the leader of her own gang.

“Cullen. Me. You. The three of us and our boys.” She met his eyes. “We can do this. The five of us. Together. Yes?”

“Oh, yes,” Anders nodded, curling his hand into a fist and lifting her chin gently as his thumb ran the length of her lower lip. “Kathryn, we have the opportunity to continue what we started in Kirkwall, this time for the entirety of Thedas. We are at the forefront of a revolution the likes of which has not been seen since Ferelden rebelled against the Orlais occupation and before that, against Tevinter. We can make this right for everyone. Mages, templars, people who aren’t either. Elves, dwarves, humans…Andraste’s knickers, even Qunari!”

“I do so adore it when you become maniacally idealistic,” she teased, then closed the remaining space between their mouths and swallowed his laughter whole. Some minutes later, both of them once again breathless and flushed, she finally nodded. “Very well, my husband. We will join this Inquisition and we will save the world from itself, for if ever it needed saving, it is evident that time has come.”

Anders grabbed hold of her, crushing her to his body, wordlessly weeping in delight, in pure joy, as he took her, then took her again, then took her thrice in a mad, passionate portent of all the things that were to come, including those they had never before imagined.

It had never been part of Kathryn’s makeup, this needing someone as much she needed her Anders. Not until a tiny newborn babe had entered their lives, flipped them upside-down and made a healer’s presence as necessary as the air she breathed.

Anders had always believed there was no such thing needing another human being as he now needed his Hawke, for he had once lived and been willing to die thinking that nothing but justice for mages was what would see him through. How glad he was to have been proven wrong.

And the couple had never fathomed that an ex-templar, his son and their own little boy would become as vital to them as rain to the plants and trees of Thedas.

Until every bit of it actually happened. And all because of one single day filled with betrayal that irrevocably altered the lives of a Darktown apostate healer and the warrior he had always loved. Their love was best thing both never knew they needed.