A/N: I was never all that satisfied by the way Hawke's mournng period went after her mother died, and thought that maybe there was more of a story to be told. Written for dramatic effect, please pardon any inconsistencies with the original timeline. In other news, is anyone else as sick of this Type 2 Error thing as I am?

Rated M for safety (includes some usage of strong language, references to violence and heavy emotional themes).

Part 1 of 7

It smelled of rot, blood, and burning metal.

"Get out. All of you."

"Hawke…"

"Leave me! For once in your life, just do as you're told."

They'd left, then, each of her friends melting away into the night. Someone went to fetch the guard, one to gather the rest of their companions, and still another to the estate to tell them to make ready.

When the guards arrived to retrieve her mother's body and the mangled corpse of the mage, Hawke was not there.

She'd come as soon as she'd heard, her heart heavy in her chest. The uniform she was so proud of, the one that proclaimed her Guard-Captain and protector, weighed her down like an armload of bricks.

It was Wesley all over again. Another soul who depended on her, taken from her care by forces she could not fight and circumstances she could not prevent.

And if Aveline was blaming herself, she could only imagine how Hawke would feel.

She found her friend sitting at her desk, the scratching of a pen the only sound that filled the large and sparsely appointed bedchamber. Hawke did not even look up.

"Hawke…" The expression on the other woman's face was cold and blank, almost as though she were asleep or dead, but yet her hand kept writing, undeterred. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Everything is fine, Aveline. There is nothing more to be done tonight."

Bullshit. "Hawke, stop it. Don't do this to yourself."

"Leave it, Guard-Captain."

"Hawke."

Nothing.

"Marian…"

The scratching sound abruptly stopped, but still Hawke didn't look at her, staring straight ahead at the wall instead.

"Don't. Just don't."

Aveline had never been on a ship before. Sure, there had been the occasional small ferry, but only for crossing rivers. Never before had she been out on the wild sea where every gust of wind, every wave against the hull made the ship rock perilously. It made her sick, more often than not.

They had been at sea for weeks, and for the most part she had sat quietly, curled beneath a blanket that all of the women shared, Hawke, her sister Bethany, their mother. None of them felt much like talking, only trying their best to persevere as the days dragged on and on. The air in the hold was foul; the smell of far too many bodies packed all together was overwhelming, even when one had grown used to it. Tempers were high, nerves worn raw by the shortage of food, poor water, and the utter lack of privacy.

Someone had grabbed her arm when she stood up to relieve herself, luridly offering to help. She'd shaken off the offending hand, lip curling in disgust. Hawke had gotten up at that point, taking off the tattered jacket she wore and handing it to her sister, proceeding to beat the man savagely and dispassionately with her fists while the rest of the passengers looked on in silence, too numb to even care.

Everyone had left them alone, after that.

It had taken everything they had just to get this far, all their fighting skill, all their coin, all their energy. Aveline was not sure that the sacrifice was a worthy one. They had nowhere to go, nothing to do but sit and think and hurt.

Bethany cried sometimes at night, her head pillowed against her mother's arm as Leandra sought to sooth her daughter's grief, mourning the twin whose body had been crushed defending their mother from an ogre.

An ogre. Maker. It was the stuff of violent fairytales.

Hawke, for her part, had not uttered more than a cursory word to anyone in days. The woman's gaze was haunted, dark circles beneath piercing blue eyes telling only of heartache and sleeplessness. Aveline could not bear to approach her yet, only able to think of Wesley and the part, small but significant, that Hawke had played in his death.

The image of Hawke handing her a dagger, standing at her elbow to see the deed done, replayed over and over in her mind.

It had not been until they had breached the docks of Kirkwall that her grief had come fully to bear. Like so many other refugees they were left to prowl the Gallows, barred entry into the city without the proper bribes. Hawke was determined to get them in, somehow, no matter what she had to steal or who she had to kill. The idea of trading their bodies for coin was at the forefront of all of their minds, more so as their supplies ran ever lower. Bethany had been propositioned twice, and that was in spite of her elder sister reacting in the only way she seemed to know how, with violence and less than idle threats.

Eventually it was too much, it was all too much; Aveline had taken herself down by the waterside, sitting alone on the steps there with Wesley's shield in her lap. There was still blood caked in the crevasses, making the heraldry there stand out all the more harshly.

Eventually it was Leandra who came to sit at her side, arms folded around her knees as both women watched the waves break softly against the pylons. The silence stretched out like the ocean before them.

"I'm sorry about your man, your Wesley," the older women had offered finally, her voice soft. It made the grief squeeze around Aveline's heart. "That you grieve for him so tells me that he was a good man. I will never forget how he offered Carver absolution at the last. It makes it all somehow easier to carry, impossible as it is. And heavy."

"He was a good man," Aveline agreed, softly. "I failed him."

"You gave him peace, which was all he asked for at the end. He spoke of love to you, not regret."

Aveline could not find anything to say, the lump in her throat having risen to impressive size.

Leandra sighed, and was silent for a time. "It is never easy to lose the ones you call your own. Malcolm was a good man, too, Marian and Bethany's father. And Carver's. He was an apostate like Bethany, so life was never going to be easy. But when he smiled, Maker. It put the world right. That's all that mattered." Leandra's smile was wistful, reflective. "That's what I try to remember, when things get hard. To live for him and all the little blessings he gave me."

Aveline closed her eyes, all of the memories she had denied herself pouring back in to fill her up like a cup, overfull. She remembered the longing looks, the gentle touches, the pleasure they shared and the love that gave her happiness for all the time they had together. How it was all worth it, so worth it, fleeting as it might have been.

For the first time since Wesley died in her arms, she wept and Leandra held her, rocking her quietly as she cried herself out.

And the next day she traded his templar shield for food to fill their bellies.