Author's Note: Apologies to those who thought this would continue - this is it. I always forget to check the complete/incomplete buttons before publishing things. For this, I wanted to leave it open ended. If you've read my other writings, you'll notice I'm not too good at happy endings. I hope you enjoy what's here, because there is not going to be any more.

He paced, as a caged wolf might, along the width of the cave. He had been doing the same when she had seen him in the dungeon at Vigil's Keep; captured and trapped in the place that, as a child, he had known as home. She watched him pace, back and forth, his strides even and smooth, face tilted downward as though to study the floor; yet she knew that his eyes would be unfocused to anyone looking in. His hands clenched, arms bent slightly - overall, his body was the tone of anxiety barely suppressed.

In contrast, she stood against one wall of the cave, nearer to its opening, closer to the rain that had forced them to take shelter in the naturally forming mouth; her arms were lightly crossed over her chest, hands near to her dagger hilts. Knees given at a slight bent, ever ready for action. Despite her defensive stature, several times she had attempted to speak, but after a fish realizes it cannot breathe outside of water, she kept it closed. What was there to say?

Ever since they had left on this journey (a second one, so soon...but it wasn't difficult to believe, not with the turns her life had taken) they had been distant with one another. Finding excuses to leave rooms, standing on different sides of camps, always putting another between them so their eyes might not meet. She knew he was angry: that part was easy. And she knew why. It was her fault, after all, and though she might not regret it, she knew that she might have committed the deed differently had she known that he would reappear. Still, it was far too late to wish upon a star now, and so she had lived with the burden.

And it had been incredibly light, until he came along. Appeared, after so many years, so many years without a word or a letter or anything. She had nearly believed him dead, had it not been for the parting scrawl she had found in her bedroom the two weeks after he had left. A single piece of parchment (now burned to ash, as had so many possessions left after the massacre) scrawled heavily, so much so she could barely believe it was his handwriting, but it hit too close to home for it not to be.

A few months later, after the tears and the heartache and the final letting go, she believed she had come to terms with his sudden departure. She never thought it odd that she wore the ring he had given her on a necklace, fondling it often for comfort or simply out of an unconscious need to deny. His absence had been filled by her family and her nephew, whose childhood she wanted to fill with wonder and laughter and all the good things she could think of. She reveled in being a doting aunt, and soon it seemed that she needed little else other than her family and her music.

That, too, had been torn away, and in her revenge she did not find solace.

This time the absence had been filled by a would-be king, though not completely - that man had not been the one she wanted, though he made her happy and made her laugh. She saw too many obstacles (both real and imaginary), and was unwilling to be anything that might stand in the way of her country's recovery. The second person to fill the absence had been a redheaded bard who loved to laugh and sing, but that too had soon come to an end because her heart had grown cold, and so the bard had been left behind.

The time in Orlais had been mainly spent in taverns. Elissa's experience with such places was limited to their travels throughout Ferelden, and that had always been with purpose in mind, not pleasure. Leliana had a grand time introducing her to all sorts of concoctions that made her head spin and loosened her tongue. It was after one such evening, back in their room where they had sprawled out on the single bed, red faced and well oiled. Leliana was sitting against the headboard, Elissa lying with her head on the bard's lap, the redhead's fingers tangled in Elissa's dark hair.

The Warden was struggling with sleep while Leliana hummed a tune under her breath - perhaps a lullaby, but Elissa had never been one to complain about Leliana's singing abilities - when she started to cry. Unperturbed, Leliana had ceased the song and reached for a cloth sitting on the nightstand - this was not the first time Elissa's guarded emotions had gotten the better of her.

"I miss him so much, Lily."

"I know, sweetheart." She dabbed at Elissa's face, gentle strokes of a dear friend who wanted more. More that would never be, and had become resigned to such a decision.

"I'll never see him again."

"What do you mean? He's only a few days' horse ride away. You left him in a castle, remember? There's little chance of him escaping." Leliana's poor attempt at a joke only brought forth a sob from Elissa, followed by a quick breath as the Warden attempted to control herself. She opened her mouth as though to speak, but closed it as Leliana finished her ministrations and moved her hand to one side, still touching Elissa's face for the sheer pleasure of a mere caress. Elissa turned to look up at Leliana, who smiled down at her.

"Not Alistair." Leliana's smile faded a little, and she nodded, knowing what Elissa meant. It seemed that her advice had not taken root, that Elissa was incapable of letting go of the past. She wore her facade well - it seemed that she had put the memories of her family to bed, that she had released the heartache of a lost love, that she had severed ties with the relationship she had held with the now-king of Ferelden, that she had accepted her role as Grey Warden without complaint. But that one small answer had revealed what the bard had been suspecting for some time.

After all, had the Warden not kept her at arm's length, teasing her only when she was inebriated, but once sober acted as though nothing had come to pass? How many nights they had spent together, where she had held her Warden close, only to be explained as comfort between close friends?

And yet she had allowed it to continue, without a thought for her own heart, thinking that she was content with this. She knew she wasn't. It was obvious that Elissa had clung to her out of fear of being alone - fear of having to finally confront everything she had been able to run from by concentrating solely on the Wardens and her duty to Ferelden.

But Leliana never objected, never raised a question in defense of her own emotions. She accepted what Elissa could offer her, until the time came that Elissa slipped away quietly like a thief in the night, removing herself to the Anderfels and her duty and away from everything that frightened her. Everything that Leliana could not protect her from.

Now here she was, in a cave with the first person who had ever left her, the person who had carved a hole in her heart, and she couldn't have been wishing harder to be elsewhere. She was a different person - where once there had been laughter, gaiety, and music was now a somber, logic-driven shell - but so was he, and she had been part of what had changed him so harshly. He had been somber in his youth, but that had given way to hate. She knew what hate felt like, had caused it in so many others: and she loathed that she had caused it in him.

Her gaze flicked back to the rain outside - it was a torrent, and, in some ways, a blessing from the Maker. Their team had been attacked, ambushed by bandits in the forest while looking for a recently found opening to the Deep Roads. The opening had literally been stumbled upon by two hunters: they had fallen into the gorge, and had spied a group of darkspawn traveling into the opening. Strangely enough, the darkspawn had paid no mind to the hunters, though they had made a spectacular amount of noise both before, during, and after their fall. Elissa had wasted little time in gathering her group and setting out for the Wending Wood - but the wood had held more dangers than any of them could have guessed.

The bandits were a real threat, and beyond that there was another problem. A dalish elf, screaming about her sister being taken, was wrecking havoc on any passerby. The elf was the true cause of trade caravans going missing, as she blamed any human in her sight for the disappearance of her sister. She had brought the trees themselves to life, setting them on Elissa and her small band of Wardens, speeding away on some other errand once she saw them properly distracted. Bandits had descended moments after the trees had been felled.

Overwhelmed, their party had been separated into two groups and then the rain had come, creating cover for them to flee. The mage and the dwarf were lost, but she had no fear that they would be found again. No, her only fear was pacing to and fro a mere five feet away from her. Her eyes were drawn back to him, over and over. It was him - he looked, sounded, and, Maker's breath, he even smelled the same. That alone had brought back so many memories, ones she had been fighting to repress for so long. She cleared her throat, as quietly as she could, still trying to make herself small. The noise caused him to pause in his movements, and for a moment, brown met gray.

"My lady, we have a prisoner in the dungeon." Elissa didn't look up from the paperwork she was sorting through - now that Vigil's Keep had been somewhat secured after the darkspawn attack, and the passage leading to the Deep Roads sealed, she was attempting to make some order of her new charge as Warden Commander and arlessa.

The farmsteads around Vigil's Keep had not been faring well due to bandit attacks and missing trade caravans, and were demanding soldiers to protect themselves. Opposing were the nobles, who demanded soldiers to protect Amaranthine from further darkspawn attacks. She couldn't remember her father ever having this much trouble at Highever.

"You captured one of the darkspawn? Why?"

"No, my lady - we found a thief invading the premises shortly before the attack." Elissa looked up, suddenly curious. Who would invade one of the oldest and longest standing arlings, knowing full well that a contingent of battle-hardened Grey Wardens were settling inside?

"Who is he?"

"He will not say. We caught him filching antiques and some other things that were worthless, at least from a trader's point of view. What would you like done with him?" Elissa stood from the chair, and moved around the desk, heading for the door.

"I want to see him in person; it doesn't sit well with me to pass judgment on a man I've never met." She needed no directions - she knew exactly where the dungeon was. She knew where everything in this arling was, and how could she not after having visited it so many times as a child? She still couldn't shake the eeriness of not seeing the Howes in their rightful home. (Rightful no longer, she often had to remind herself.)

Having just arrived back in Ferelden after a lengthy trip to the Anderfels and other parts of Thedas, she had no idea that the Wardens had gone ahead and set up a base. Alistair's work, of course, as they had not only contacted her. Especially after she disappeared for the better part of six months. No word to anyone, not any of her party members, and most certainly not Alistair. Only Leliana had any idea (she had been there) and she wasn't one to kiss and tell.

Soldiers saluted her, servants made way in the halls; keeping a brisk pace that called for no nonsense, she nodded here and smiled there, attempting to play the part of the benevolent leader. Little did they know that, inside, she could care less about all of this, these Wardens and this arling. Not out of simple apathy, but more out of guilt. She was still unable to shake the feeling after so long, but she had been able to bury it under responsibility; she had become very good at that.

She opened her own doors - she didn't need to be waited on like some invalid, and it made the going faster - and stepped into the dungeon. Her gaze went straight to the cell in the back of the room; there was only one cell here, but there were others beneath the keep in a separate room full of torture instruments that she had deemed off limits.

There, a figure pacing inside of the small cell, his body radiating anger. She took one look at him, and instantly recognized who he was. She stopped dead in her tracks, having to put a hand to a nearby table to keep from falling. Her accompanying soldiers grew wary, one with his arms out to steady her should it be necessary. She held up a hand, waving him off.

"Whatever he took, let him keep it. Let him go." Her escorts were stunned.

"But, my lady, he-"

"Do as I say." With that, she turned on her heel and left, but not before she heard him say her name like a question, loud enough for her to catch it as the door was closing behind her. She closed her eyes and willed the sound away, made that much harder because of the desire to turn and go running back.

Their eyes met, and she looked away first; what was there to be said, or done, aside from waiting for the rain to abate? One hand lightly petted the hilt of one dagger - she had no real reason to believe he'd do her harm, but she'd never let that sort of sentiment stand in the way of her own defense before. He had stopped pacing, now turned to look at her and his gaze was solid.

"How long has it been, Elissa?" His voice was attempting to be civil, but it was mocking. The voice she'd come to cherish, to need, was now reminiscent of his father. His face, his gait, everything about him was not him, but someone else. Someone she had murdered, and how could he ever forgive her for it?

"Eleven years, three months, five weeks and a day." She glanced at him to notice him blink in surprise. Of course she had kept careful track; at Highever, she had a space on her bedroom wall where she had written marks using kohl. Her mother had been disapproving of her use of makeup, but then she had simply started hiding the marks behind her vanity. After three years, she had started keeping track in her mind; now it had become her way to tell the days apart.

How could she not have kept careful track, when she had had no idea of when he would return? Especially since she had had no warning of his departure? He had vanished like smoke, like fog on a sunny day. They lapsed back into silence again. One of her hands snaked up to fold hair behind one ear and scratch an itch on the back of her skull. The other hand remained near her weapon.

"You've changed." He paused as though uncertain what to say. "You cut your hair." The statement was short, unnecessary.

She nodded, slowly; though she had maintained the cut all this time, it still felt strange to not have her hair hanging past her shoulders, down to the small of her back. It felt as though part of her was missing. She saw him tense, fighting not to take a step forward; she pressed a little further back against the wall, as though she could will herself to sink into it.

"A lot has changed, Nathaniel." Everything has changed, she thought. Even he: before he had been withdrawn, quiet. Now he was simply angry. They had seemed an odd pair, when they were younger - she, delighting in music and laughter and fun, had become an eager friend of the quiet young man, Arl Howe's eldest. She had an explanation, though: she loved to make him smile, make him laugh. In contrast to his usual nature, his smile lit up his face. Since his laughter was seldom heard, she welcomed it all the more. Yes, she had been a friend of Delilah, Howe's only daughter; the two girls had had much to discuss in fashion and more, but on her trips with her father to visit Vigil's Keep (and vice versa, when the Howes visited Highever), the one person she always hoped to see was him.

"So I have been told. But I had no idea of the reality..." He frowned, the usual expression that graced his features. She worried her lip with her teeth, dreading the inevitable questions. So she stemmed them with what she could. The sound interrupting his, cracking the silence that continued to well between them.

"Where did you go?" The question was spoken with a voice she'd not heard in these long months - a childlike voice, full of hurt. She knew she had the right to be angry, herself - but she was so tired of feeling anger, hate. She was tired of having to make the choices that no one else would. His eyes widened, denoting shock, and then his brow furrowed.

"What?"

"Where did you go? After...after that day. When we fought." He seemed to be struggling to understand her question, so she rushed forward with further explanation.

"You had made the trip on your own to Highever. You waited for me in the courtyard - I...I had come from a fight with my mother," she tried to laugh, to downplay the fount of emotions welling up in her belly. She strictly told herself that she would not cry. She could remember the last two times she had cried, and both were inappropriate to think of now.

"She had been chiding me about ditching the suitor she had brought all the way from Gwaren. How could I not have? His voice...it was so...high pitched and ridiculous..." As she continued with her story, she didn't notice that Nathaniel's features was slowly losing the perpetual scowl; that the beginnings of a smile were growing on his lips. She told stories or sang songs, and he would get wrapped up in her voice, her words. It didn't matter what she might say or sing, just that she was there.

"So I was in a dark mood. And you were waiting for me in the courtyard; you had something to give to me. I was such a brat. I took it out on you, without thinking. You handed me a box, saying that it had belonged to your mother and that you had wanted me to have it. But I couldn't have it until I answered a question that you needed to ask me.

"I said something stupid, something like 'I don't need any hand-me-downs from anyone, much less a dead woman's things.' The moment I said it, I regretted it; the look on your face..." She looked up and saw the ghost of a smile, the amusement in his expression. All of it very faint. But there, and that was what was important. "I opened my mouth to apologize, but you had jumped on your horse and...were gone. From there, from your home, from Ferelden.

"Where did you go?"

"You really don't know?" The smile, the amusement, all of it faded, replaced by the hardness that had grown in his jaw, the anger that lit his eyes. She nodded, waiting for his explanation. Instead, he reached into a small pack that he was carrying, shuffling through it. After a moment he withdrew a small square of paper, which he unfolded six times over. He offered it to her without a word. Glancing at it, and then at him, she took it from his hand and unfolded the last bit to reveal a letter written in a longhand scrawl similar to her own handwriting. The paper was old, fraying - it had been handled often. Her brow furrowed as she read the words and took in the signature of her name at the bottom.

Nathaniel Howe,

Please do not contact me again. My mother has found a suitable husband for
me and we are to wed within the month. I understand that your father has found
work for you in the Free Marches. I wish you the best of luck and happiness.

Elissa Cousland

"What is this?" It was so brief and to the point - she could understand how something like this would have broken his heart, especially when she had seen what was in the box. She had opened it when she was alone in her room, having to wave off her mother and her maid, Abby, who were both concerned when she had returned from her meeting with Nathaniel in tears and nearly gasped aloud at what she had found within.