Warnings: Complete loss of hope, suicidal themes.

He could run away from the scene but he could not escape the memory of the girl crying out in fear and in pain. Of course she had been afraid, why would she not be? He was a monster and she had seen it, she had seen him for what he was. What he had become and what he had made his friend. Oh, some friend he had been. He had trapped Justice, corrupted him, changed him as well as himself. This was wrong, it had been wrong from the very beginning. He had made a mistake and he could not correct it. Fenris had been right to call him an abomination all those times. He had been right to resist all his attempts at finding common ground, to almost show him nothing but scorn. The few civil conversations they had shared had been a kindness far greater than anything he deserved. He had wanted to speak with someone who might understand him, someone that had gone trough something similar, to connect with someone for once since Karl. And while he had thought that Fenris could be that person, Fenris seemed to believe that he had deserved everything that had happened to him. Anders was starting to feel the same. He had been weak. And he was weak. Much too weak to be able to avoid breaking in pieces now. Much too weak to be able to fit those pieces back together again, much too weak to ever be able to mend. And there was no escape either. There had been before, from the Circle, from the Wardens, but not now, not from his own body. Escaping was all he had done for so long, and now that he finally had stopped running and started to do something, trying to change – change both himself and the world, what had happened? He should have just stuck to running. He should have made that final escape long, long ago. And now it was too late, because neither Justice nor Vengeance would let him. Would they?

Once he had been desperate enough to bring it up with Fenris. Because of all the companions – Hawke's companions, not his – he thought that he would be the one most likely to have had the same thoughts. He had not, but he had not mocked him for the question either. And he must have understood that Anders had, perhaps even suspected that he had tried to. He had not said it outright, but why else bring it up? And he had hoped, hoped when he had tried to reach out and had not had his hand slapped away in return, that maybe he would not need to be quite so alone any longer, but nothing more ever came of it. Because he was too weak for him, and now he was even weaker, weaker than he had ever been and all hope was definitely lost. The other's had surely merely tolerated him this far because he was useful, but now? No, he was all alone now. How was it possible, to be so lonely when he had a spirit in his head? If not for the glowing cracks he would have thought that he had simply gone insane, hearing a voice that was neither a spirit's nor a demon's. Maybe he had gone insane as well as possessed – if he had not been born a mage, he could have had the cell next to Bartrand's at the sanatorium. But if he had not been born a mage, he would probably still be in the Anderfels. Had it ever been worth it? He had never loathed the powers he had been born to manifest, but perhaps they had not done him quite as much good as they had done him bad. But he had done good with them, surely? The healing, the clinic – those were good things, Just things. It was what we was meant to do, wasn't it? To heal, to help. So why would the Circle never let him do so in peace? He had never wanted to rule over anyone. All he had ever wanted to do with his magic was using it to help. Was that so bad? That last capture by the templars, before he became a Warden – the accusation of him being a maleficar had been as laughable as it had been insulting. Why would a healer choose to slice bodies up for power? The only power he wanted was the one to heal, and cutting himself or someone else up would not help any with that, rather the opposite. It was the opposite of what he was.

No, not what he was. What he had been. He was an abomination, now, as Fenris seemed so intent on reminding him of at every turn, considering him as bad as any blood mage or worse. And he could not really claim that he was not, not anymore, not when he had killed someone innocent. Someone he was supposed to help – someone he had wanted to help, to protect. Merrill might be a blood mage, but she had done nothing so horrible as far as he knew. He was worse, much worse. Weak, unworthy, repulsive. And his passenger did not understand, not his anguish and not his shame. And that terrified him, because killing someone over an insult was in no way Just, and if Justice did things that were something so far from being just as that – then he could not very well be Justice anymore, could he?

His hands trembled as he tried to get the door to the clinic open, and when he closed and barred it behind him. He did not have it in him to light the lantern, to heal anyone. He did not want to be alone, but he did not want to risk anyone's safety by being near them either. That was what he was now, a risk, a danger. What could he possibly do for the cause of mages now, now that he had become the very thing that people feared about his kind?
Justice could not tell him, or did not want to. He had been eerily quiet since it happened. Usually he could feel his opinions as a pressure against the inside of his skull, agreement or disapproval. Ideas that were not quite his own would suddenly spring to the surface of his mind. And of course, at other times he would be pushed back inside his own head, forced to only watch, trapped inside himself. Sometimes he had feared that Justice would never let go of his control of him, leaving him there to silently observe for as long as his body lived.

If only he did not have to live.

"It would be wise to ensure that he did get back to the clinic." Fenris insisted.

"Oh? I had no idea you cared!"

Fenris huffed in annoyance. Of course Hawke would try to make light of this.

"I do not. But the man is a danger, to himself as well as others –" At that, Hawke snapped to attention.

"What do you mean, to himself?"

"He… has brought up the taking of ones own life in conversation." He hesitated. "I assume that he would not have done so, had he not considered it himself."

That got her to act.

The tower was not the only place where he had thought about it. He was trapped, as much as Justice was, and he had no other means of escape. In Kirkwall, it had not usually been a consideration as much as a general longing for rest. But now… the cause of mages had been all he had, and if he no longer had even that, what reason did he have to stay? He could not do anything good in this state. All he could do was to continue to poison his friend with his hatred and anger, warping him even further and perhaps irrevocably. But if he were to end it now, then Justice would be free to return to the Fade, return to himself, as he had been before Anders had corrupted him. Freeing his friend was the last good thing he could do, the only good thing he had left to do.

As he sunk down on his cot and unsheeted his knife, he felt a faint touch of approval. It brought a smile to his lips. And it had to be fitting that he would die by the same knife and same hand as Karl had. It might not have been love in the sense that people outside the Circle meant it, but it had been as much love as he had been capable of. It felt right. Karl, the one he had loved the most, and Anders, the one he hated the most.

He lied back and readied the knife, wished for Justice's forgiveness, and drew the edge across his throat as deeply as he could. Then he thought of Karl for the last time, and waited for darkness to come.

They had to break down the door to get in, and no one answered their frantic calls.

"Anders? Are you here?"

He had to be, because the door had been barred. If not, then Varric's lock picks would have been enough to let them in.

Fenris hurried towards the back room where Anders slept, and recoiled from the sight that met him there. Visibly shaken, he backed away from it.

Hawke let out a "No!" and rushed to his side, Merrill and Varric in tow.

Anders did not look peaceful, even in death, only empty. Hawke checked his pulse despite knowing from the wound that all life had deserted this body long ago, forever beyond any healing. Merrill sobbed behind her, covering her mouth with her hands. Hawke got up and pulled her away from the body, letting her hide her face in the crook of her neck.

"Shit, Blondie –"

Fenris stared down at his bare feet. The mage would not be around to heal him when he stepped on something sharp any longer. It should not bother him the way it did. Could he have done something? He had known that the mage was not stable, but… he had seemed too consumed by his cause to truly let go of life. He had been worried when the other's had brought him the news of what had transpired during their latest quest, but he had not truly expected him to give in to despair and desert his post.

"Broody. Come with me, we will get a proper stretcher." He needed the pat on his arm that Varric provided, he noted with dull surprise. "We are not going to leave him down here."

Fenris nodded. "Wait…" A few quick steps took him to Anders' side. He bent down and closed his unseeing eyes, wondering why he had chosen to face death with them open. Before leaving him, he whispered two words that no one else would understand.

Fade blue eyes forced the eyelids open. He still had much to do for the cause of mages.