A/N: Written for Hawke Twins Appreciation Week on Tumblr.
"You just saved my life," Bethany gasps, knuckles white around her staff. She holds it like a cane, trying to compensate for her limp, until Carver takes pity on her and lets her slide an arm over his shoulders.
"None of that now," he says, more brisk than humble. Bloodstained though he is, his sister still smiles when he hoists her up with ease.
"I didn't know you'd gotten so strong - "
"There are a lot of things you don't know, Beth."
She laughs hoarsely, wheezes when it pulls on aching flesh. "Like where to find more lyrium so I can take care of this leg. And you."
"We'll find some, and then we're getting out of here. Come on."
"You've got me," she reminds him, shifting more comfortably in his grip. When he walks, it's careful yet brisk, mindful of their injuries.
"Of course I do."
Her eyes flutter closed, and she smiles. "Brother and sister together again, just like old times."
The Champion of Kirkwall waves to them in the distance.
"Go! Get to the Gallows before it's too late!"
Carver wrenches open the passageway entrance as mages come flooding through. It's meant for templar knowledge and use only, but it will save these people's lives if they run quickly enough. Without double-crossers in the Order, the entirety of the Circle will be slaughtered for what one apostate has done. Maker damn that man, he thinks, hands curling into fists. If Marian doesn't have his head I swear I'll -
No, now isn't the time. The Tranquil are doomed without someone to protect them. So are the apprentices - and they can feel pain and terror.
"BETHANY!"
The same worry about apprentices in her eyes as she draws up to him, the same raw panic about everything else. There's no time for minced words.
"Take them through the lower passageway. Ser Adrian will keep them safe. Then you come back and fight!"
"I'm ready for anything!"
She'll never see them again, but they'll be alive. Adrian will make it, too, out of the Free Marches before anyone knows he's gone with a little luck. But Carver? Meredith will uncover this and order his execution by the end of the day.
Maybe it's the price for being someone. But the Hawkes that remain deserve to know, in the end.
The other templars know of their connection, and make sure the two don't speak much. She leaves him instructions in letters ostensibly meant to be combed through, censored, and mailed home. He conveniently forgets the third step every time.
Thank the Maker that Kirkwall is short on templars and they didn't simply send him elsewhere. But then, with the things they do here, maybe it's more surprising there are this many left.
He draws a map with one hand, shattering phylacteries with the other.
Marian disappears to Sundermount for days, and the next time she sees him - dressed and ready to leave - she draws to a stop.
"Carver," she says, voice entirely too even, "what are you wearing?"
Over the course of all these weeks, all the snatched visits to the Gallows, the second and third Hawke children have come to understandings. He'd asked Bethany if he should explain it to Marian, and she shook her head.
"It's not that she won't understand - I mean, she won't. But it's also that she can't, no matter how hard you try."
She's like Mother that way, he thought but didn't say. And there's that line in Marian's forehead as she frowns at his brief explanation, the same one Mother had. He'd tell her, if he thought she'd understand, but he doesn't. She'd tell him not to be a hero, make it all about herself.
"I know the value of family."
Marian stares after him, openmouthed, as he walks out.
Dear Carver and Marian:
I'm sorry I haven't written. The templars haven't been allowing much mail in or out since the fight. They say it gets us stirred up to hear about the outside, but it is worse being in the dark. One of the apprentices, Elisa, hasn't gotten a letter in over three months. I don't know what to tell her when she asks why not.
Lessons have been changing more and more. They're training us for another battle, but they won't say when it might arrive. I think they might be looking to train up an army before it's needed. The children are always happy when I arrive to fetch them and they're able to think about more useful things, like stoking a fire or treating a fever. Some of the older ones are interested as well, but I fear that [the rest of this paragraph has been scribbled over]
Please look after each other. Don't worry about me.
With love,
Bethany
All Marian can focus on is that damned scribbled-over part. Squinting at it, holding it up to the light, frowning as though that will help.
"I wish they weren't so thorough about it. If I could only read bits of it, maybe a few letters here and there, I could at least guess - " She frowns at Carver when he gives an irritable rub of his temples. "You could show a little sympathy."
"Sister," he says with a long-suffering sigh. Marian's gaze goes back to the letter, and so does his own.
He remembers, now, that she doesn't understand. He realizes he will have to be the one to take action.
The sound of the door opening breaks their silence. Marian keeps her eyes on her house shoes; Carver looks up to see Uncle Gamlen return.
"What did she say?" the older Hawke mutters.
Their uncle barely grunts. "You'll have to ask her. I could hardly hear anything but the sniveling hysterics about blood magic - "
Carver glances at his sister sharply. "You didn't even go to the Circle to tell her about Mother?"
"It's not as if you did any differently." She buries her face in her hands.
"When you said you'd taken care of it, I thought you meant - " He splutters, shaking his head. "You don't think about anyone but yourself, do you?"
"Carver," she says when he gets up - and then again, louder: "Carver!"
But the door shuts, and he is gone.
Marian puts off moving furniture into the estate so she has a chance to hear her voice echo in the empty space. She won't admit to it, but it's evident in the way she whoops.
"Maker," he snaps, grabbing her on her next run-through, "can't you stop that?"
Her cheeks are flushed with pride. "You can't blame me for taking an opportunity to be someone, Carver."
He snarls after her. Mother touches his arm. "At least she wants to be happy, even after everything."
They come for Bethany first, and she responds as calmly as if she's invited them herself. Carver watches from the bedroom doorway as she goes bravely to greet the templars at the door, shedding her life as an apostate for that of a Circle mage.
The one who protests is Marian, who walks through the door still streaked with grime and darkspawn blood. Bethany gestures for her to calm down. She's going quietly, in order to protect them.
"Look after Mother," is all she says. And when Mother hits the floor sobbing, all Carver can do is hold her as Marian stands by dumbfounded.
He looks up once more, as his sister takes a single backwards glance, and the expression in her eyes sears itself into his brain.
"I just need to know one thing." Mother's gaze trails from Carver to Bethany and then back to Marian. "Are you planning on taking the twins with you?"
The oldest of the three shakes her head. "I don't need them along."
Bethany politely doesn't comment when their sister instead has another warrior and apostate accompany her into the Deep Roads. There isn't a word about it from Carver, either, mainly because he's more focused on trying to keep her from working herself up about the templars.
It's only once she's sure they won't be overheard that Bethany brings up what's been troubling her since they heard rumors in the Gallows this morning. "If the templars censor their mail, how does anyone's family know when they need help? They can't have just run home and expected to be sheltered."
"They could have a code," her brother answers flippantly, more focused on the cracks in the wall than conversation. "Something no one would think to keep them from saying."
"If I found myself in the Gallows, I'd want one. Something to say I need help."
He raises an eyebrow. "You wouldn't be the type to run, anyway." It's not derogatory, just fact, and Bethany has to admit to herself that it's true. "You'd be devoted to them, if you went."
"Not about running away. Something to say I need help, you need to find me so I can give you details. The templars let family visit, you know." Her fingers play along the wood of an end table. "Something. A - a woman's name. They wouldn't censor that. Elisa."
"And let's suppose there really is an Elisa, somewhere."
There's a pause, and then that telltale catch in her voice, the one that prompted him to first improvise a jig all those years ago.
"Carver," she says, "please."
He catches her gaze and nods with a roll of his eyes. She can't help but smile.
Night two of waiting for Gamlen to get them into the city. Carver stands watch as Mother and Marian sleep, with Bethany only halfway there, and Aveline pacing in hopes of tiring herself out. The soft shuffle of her footsteps almost passes for white noise.
"Beth."
It's so quiet she almost misses it, but she rolls over in his direction and lifts her head in invitation to go on.
"About what you did in Ferelden…"
Her mind is thick with exhaustion, words slurring. "I did a lot of things in Ferelden."
"Beth," he says again. "What you did in Ferelden." A pause long enough that she almost drifts off before he continues. "It was the right thing."
"Mm?"
"I won't say it twice, you know."
Her hand rests on his booted foot. "Good night, brother."
Bethany is used to seeing fight in her brother's eyes. He is a warrior, and high on adrenaline since they started running from the darkspawn. But looking over at him and not the ogre when it roars - catching him at the moment the fight turns to rashness - that's something else entirely.
"You soulless - "
If she had to guess, she'd call it luck that her staff hits the ground halfway through his exclamation, force magic tossing him over just as the ogre reaches out. That extra two seconds' delay gives the templar's wife just enough time to sink her blade into its leg. And then it's all a mess of swords and electricity, over before Carver recovers from having the wind knocked out of him.
"Sister," he snaps before he's even gotten his breath, "control that thing of yours."
"Maker, give me strength." She sighs, turning her gaze skyward. "You stupid ass. Trying to charge an ogre all by yourself - "
Carver's in her face in two strides. "You attacked me, you - "
"No." Marian's voice is steady as she sheathes her daggers. "She just saved your life."