i. There is suffering too terrible to name

Hawke is alone. Hawke is isolated. Hawke is crying into a mabari's fur. There are no hands resting on her shoulder, or hugs with the twins. The last few years have brought one loss after another, starting with her father to a mysterious illness that none of them could cure, then her siblings to darkspawn and the taint, and finally her mother to a psychopath. Her uncle was lost to her the moment they met, and the rift is too deep to heal, and getting deeper every day.

She is the last.

She gets up, forced by the mass of fluff more than by hunger, and follows Sniffer, named by Bethany too many years ago, and even the name is a reminder of what Hawke has lost, of who she has lost, of how alone she is, and she collapses to the cold floor of the kitchen. She stays there for the rest of the night.

Grief is a terrible thing.

ii. Push away the unimaginable

Hawke gets up every day, she leaves her house looking as perfect as she can, trying to look like she's coping, to stop people asking questions she can't answer. She slaughters bandits and demons and dragonlings, and doesn't talk about the grief, doesn't talk about how she's feeling. Each day is the same routine, of the struggle to leave the house, of forcing herself through the motions, of slaying the enemies, healing Fenris and Isabela and Varric and Merrill and Sebastian and Aveline and Anders. Any change would have all of them invading her home and wanting to talk; Hawke does not want to talk, she does not want to think.

Each day is a challenge, each day Hawke avoids facing the reality that she is alone. She does not go into her mother's room, she does not go anywhere near Carver's sword and Bethany's staff, where the toys the three of them played with when they were children.

iii. The moments when you're in so deep/It feels easier to just swim down

She is so deep in her grief that it seems that there is no way out, that any hand that is extended to her to help her is too far away, is from the wrong person, is extended at the wrong time. She is swallowed by the grief, trapped in the rapids, unable to get out, moving too fast to reach for a branch. She is drowning, swallowed by emotions she has no name for. Sometimes, it seems easier to let them swallow her.

When leaving the house is too much, when all she can do is stare blankly and know how alone she is, like an island in the middle of the Amaranthine Ocean, far from Thedas, where no ships and no creatures ever roam. She feels alone. She misses her family, all of them, even though it is years since Father died and she thought she had dealt with his loss forever before the Blight struck. She is lost without her family, she has no guidance without her parents, she has noone she trusts as much as trusted Carver and Bethany.

Each night she sits in her room, by the fire, and she just wants Carver or Bethany or Mother or Father to be there, for all of them to be back in Lothering before the Blight, before it all went wrong. She cries and cries and cries until it feels like there are no more tears left and she is sat by the fire, cold and empty.

iv. Learn to live with the unimaginable

Each day gets a little bit easier, a little bit more manageable. The ache is still there, the pain is still raw, she still cries every night, but it is easier to be with her friends, the ones who laugh when Anders loses almost everything to Varric when they play Wicked Grace, when Fenris takes Isabela's hand in his own and Merrill's eyes go as wide as saucers. Hawke manages a weak smile as they tease each other and Varric orders another round of drinks.

But she never forgets, she never lets herself forget that Carver should be there, awkwardly trying to flirt with Merrill, and Bethany should be there, talking to Varric about books, giving Sniffer scraps under the table, Bethany who never made it to Kirkwall, Bethany who always had a smile on her face, always made the best of things.

She leaves The Hanged Man early that night, barely able to contain her grief before she leaves, tears streaming down her face as she walks home.

How can there be a world where she is the last Hawke? Why is she the only one left?

v. Walk alone to the store

"No, Bodahn, spend some time with Sandal, take the day off, I'll go myself," she finds herself saying a few days later. Bodahn nods, and seems to be getting ready to go somewhere with Sandal when Hawke slips out of the back door and heads to one of the bakeries.

It isn't that she needs something from there, or that she wants bread or pastries, she just can't stand being at home any more with Bodahn hovering, asking how she is. She understands why he's hovering, she does. It's been six month since...since...since what happened to her mother...happened, and in a few weeks time it will be roughly four years since Carver died, and then a few weeks after that five years since Bethany died. A few days ago it was the seventh anniversary of her father's death.

She still expects them to be there when she turns around, and it hurts, having all that space in her grandparents' house. Grandparents she never met, she never got the chance to meet, grandparents she didn't know she had to grieve for, but part of her is grieving for them now, and she just needs to get out of there, to be somewhere else, just for a little while.

She ends up at a bakery overlooking the ocean, in the shadow of the Viscount's Keep. She buys herself an Orlesian pastry, pain au chocolat, and she finds a quiet spot, and just sits by herself for a while.

Going home (to her grandparents' home, her mother's home, the home Bethany would have loved at first sight, and Carver would have grown to love, and her Father would have loved because of the library and only the library) is less difficult than she thought it would be.

vi. I never liked the quiet before

Hawke was always the noisy one. Always. Bethany was always comfortable and happy when it was quiet, Carver was almost always brooding. Hawke couldn't do that. She had to interact, to start play fights, to make a mess, to start a debate, to do something, to make noise.

Now, she is different. Those moments of quiet, the ones of true quiet where it is just her and her thoughts are moments of peace, often snatched at the end of a day that has driven her almost to tears. In those moments, she thinks of Bethany, of Bethany's quiet, of Carver, of his brooding and silence and how he always had to be better than her, how he tried and tried, and never succeeded, of her mother's exasperated sighs and pursed lips, of the smile that tugged at her mouth over her sewing while the three of them were being siblings, being children, no matter how many years that had been alive. She thinks of her father, of his pensive silence, how he'd hold a quill under his chin and move it back and forth, how he'd tap his fingers against a table or a book or the arm of a chair if he didn't have a quill.

She allows herself to miss them more than she will ever admit to anyone in those moments of quiet.

vii. You would like it uptown

Mother liked it in Hightown, and Hawke is sure that Bethany would have as well. Carver might have grumbled about it, about the snobs, and Hawke would have agreed with him, but he'd have grown to love the estate, and he'd have loved having so much space to train, and a room to himself.

The twins' birthday, what would have been their twenty third birthday, approaches, and Hawke feels like she should be buying gifts and making sure that Mother knows what to buy, and what food not to include, but there's nobody to buy presents for, nobody to eat the food with, so when Hawke makes the dinner that Bethany and Carver had both loved (shepherd's pie), had had every year for as long as anyone can remember, she doesn't know what to do. She has too much food for herself, and Bodahn and Sandal have already tried shepherd's pie, and decided it's not for them.

She invites Aveline and Anders and Fenris and Varric and Merrill and Isabela and Sebastian round. She doesn't explain why, doesn't give any reasons for her face being slightly red, but Varric and Aveline, and maybe some of the others, seem to know not to pry, and they help themselves, and discuss their own lives. None of them try to draw Hawke into the conversation, they leave her to her thoughts.

Hawke thinks that she would like it in Hightown more if Bethany and Carver and Mother and Father were here, if this were a family meal celebrating her siblings' birthday, with both her new family, the family she has found in Kirkwall, and the family she was born into, the place she never knew she belonged until she had lost it.

viii. I fall apart

It is on Mother's birthday that Hawke does not leave her room, does not even let Sniffer in. She hears Bodahn talking to people downstairs but she does not want to see anybody today, doesn't want to talk.

She failed Mother, failed Carver, failed Bethany, failed Father. She has never been good enough for her family, always trying to save them, always trying to make a difference, to keep them safe. She has never succeeded, she has lost them all because she has never been good enough, never been who she should have been.

Nobody understands the guilt, the way she feels. Every member of her family was lost before they should have been, each one had years ahead of them, was filled with potential, and then they were taken away by illness and darkspawn and psychopaths. Hawke should have been able to protect them, to save them.

Instead, she is alone, in a cold room, crying until there are no tears left.

ix. Can you imagine?

Imagine

Father isn't dead, and when Carver gets back from Ostagar, he leads them (Mother, Carver, Bethany and Hawke - all of them, together!) and Aveline away from the horde, and they make it to Kirkwall, all of them, nobody dies, no deals are made with dragons or witches.

Carver becomes a member of the Guard, with Aveline, who takes him under her wing, helping him, giving him tips on how to keep his temper. Father finds Anders, and they expand the clinic, helping more people. Hawke and Bethany join them sometimes, after Hawke has paid off Gamlen's debts for getting them into the city.

They are always watching for the templars, but they are together, they are all alive, and Hawke is happy.

Bethany wants to move to Hightown, Mother wants to move to Hightown, Gamlen wants them to leave his hovel in Lowtown. Hawke and Father and Carver just want to be safe, so she and Carver and Bethany all save as much as they can. They invest in Bartrand's expedition.

Father raises an eyebrow and shakes his head slightly when they tell him what they're doing. "I did much crazier things when I was your age, so please, be careful."

Bethany and Carver don't go on the expedition, Bethany because Hawke is taking Anders, and someone needs to help Father with the clinic, and Carver wants to protect Bethany from the templars.

Hawke is relieved that they stay behind, and is even more relieved that she doesn't have to worry about them as she and Varric and Anders and Aveline fight their way through the Deep Roads after Bartrand betrays them.

Hawke returns home and finds everybody happy and healthy, and Mother has made progress with the Viscount, and now all they need to do is to bribe the right people and the estate is theirs again (Carver is unhappy at how easily certain officials are bribed, but he doesn't complain too loudly, and Hawke knows he wants to change Kirkwall).

They move into the estate, and Mother and Bethany and Carver and Father and Hawke are safe, they never have to worry about the templars or being able to feed themselves, they can help people.

Imagine

Hawke knows that none of this is real, that she is alone, but sometimes, all she can do is dream of what could have been, what should have been.

x. Look at where we are

Kirkwall, City of Chains. It is a difficult place to live at the best of times, and it can be a lonely place as well. She has Varric and Aveline and the rest of them, but it's not the same.

She has a place here, she is Champion now, and she knows she has almost as much influence as Meredith, and that Meredith wants to put her in the Circle, but can't because she saved the city last week, because she and Orsino want the mages to be treated better and putting them in the same place allows them to plot.

She has the estate, the large sprawling estate that has never felt truly like home, because her family is not there.

xi. Look at where we started

Lothering. When they lived in Lothering they struggled. It was a difficult life, but there was always someone to talk to, always people who wanted to help out, someone always had a smile and a short conversation.

She had a place there, one that caused curiosity, especially after Father died and Carver had to join the army to support them, but there were plenty of odd people in Lothering and nobody minded too much when Hawke's visits to their farms cured any ill animals they had. Nobody looked too closely at her or Bethany, and they had small jobs on farms, while Mother made a small living from her skills with embroidery.

Lothering was home because her family was there, her family stayed together through the good times and the bad. Lothering was everything Hawke never knew she wanted until it was taken away from her, until a dragon whisked them away to Gwaren, until they boarded the boat going to Kirkwall.

xii. That would be enough

Just one member of the family, just one less loss, just something to ease the pain, so she can share this estate, this life with someone. That's all she wants.

Bethany would also have a hug for her, would always find something to talk about, to distract her. She would have loved Merrill, even if Merrill's attitude towards blood magic would have worried Bethany, like it worries Hawke.

Carver met all of them, the whole gang, even Sebastian, if only for a little while. He had opinions about them all and even if he didn't agree with most of them, even if he found Varric annoying and thought Isabela was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen (Hawke wishes she could have told him that part of her agrees with him), he would have been down at The Hanged Man as often as possible, because they were his friends as much as they are Hawke's.

Mother would have, and was, searching for happiness, for a way to be the person she'd been raised to be, and the person she'd chosen to be at the same time. She wanted love and happiness and grandchildren and a big family. She wanted to be proud of her name, her home, everything.

Father would just have wanted Mother and Hawke and Bethany and Carver to be happy and safe. Hawke understands him more than she ever thought she would, and she wishes he was still here, she has so much she could ask him.

What Hawke wants most of all is to see them again for just a moment. She wants to tell them she loves them, that she will never stop loving them, never forget them. She never told them that enough when they were here, and now they are gone.

xiii. If I could spare his life/If I could trade his life for mine/He'd be standing here right now

Mother had been heartbroken when she'd returned from the Deep Roads without Carver, had blamed her for her brother's death the same way she'd blamed Hawke for Bethany's death. Hawke had only ever wanted to make Mother happy, for Mother to be proud of her. Instead, Hawke had been, and still is, a disappointment, a child with magic who cannot protect her family, cannot keep her younger siblings safe, cannot heal the pain they feel.

"I'm sorry," she had said each time she'd failed, and each time Mother had looked at her with something Hawke couldn't read in her eyes, something she didn't understand. Mother had never needed to say anything for Hawke to know she was (is) a disappointment.

"I should have protected him better, I shouldn't have taken him to the Deep Roads with me," she told Mother, knowing that without Carver there to watch her back she'd likely have died in the Deep Roads, died when Bartrand betrayed them.

Mother hadn't said anything, had just huffed a little, and then sighed before going for a walk. She hadn't spoken to Hawke for days after that.

xiv. I don't pretend to know/The challenges we're facing

Hawke tries to make amends with Gamlen on Mother's birthday. She goes to Lowtown, to his home, with some food for him. He looks at her like Mother had, when she returned without Carver from the Deep Roads.

"Why are you here?" he goes back to his chair and slumps in it. Hawke hovers by the door.

"I only want to give you this," she holds up the bag, but leaves it on the table by the door, "and I want to apologise for not coming to see you earlier. I'm sorry, Uncle."

Gamlen only grunts at her. "You've never cared about me before. Not even when I got you into this city, when I gave you a home," he snarls, still staring at the wall.

"I'm sorry. I just wanted Mother and Carver and me to be safe and happy and together, and we didn't feel safe and Mother wasn't happy. I'm sorry. I was cruel, and mean, and I never thanked you. I'm sorry," she tries again, and Gamlen nods.

"Uncle, we're all that's left now. Father and Bethany and Carver and Mother are gone, Grandmother and Grandfather are gone. Could we try to be the family we should have been from the start, from when we arrived in Kirkwall and you helped us?"

xv. I know there's no replacing what we've lost

Gamlen agrees to have tea with her once a fortnight, and even if they don't feel like family, they're both trying, and it means a lot to Hawke that she hasn't lost everyone, that Gamlen is trying. She is trying. Aveline tells her that's all she can do.

It's not the same as it was before Mother died, or before they left Lowtown, or even before they left Lothering, but it will never be the same as any of those times, any of those places. Hawke knows this, and it is...easier, she supposes, to accept that they are gone, to continue living her life, even if she is still terribly lonely.

She smiles more at The Hanged Man, and she tells stories and joins in with the anecdotes they tell Sebastian, who seems to want to hear everything about their adventures.

She still misses Bethany and Carver and Mother and Father, but the loss isn't as painful, it is no longer the dominant part of her life, she is living, doing what Father told her to in those final days, and she will not give up on her life. She will keep her new family, the family she has found, safe. They are not those she has lost, but they are her family.

xvi. There is a grace too powerful to name

She defeats Corypheus, and sees Father's legacy, stopping an insane darkspawn from escaping, using blood magic because the Wardens asked him to, because they threatened Mother, threatened his family.

Hearing his voice for the first time in years has left Hawke reeling, and any balance she might have gained since the grief began to swallow her and it was all she could do to stay afloat. Father had been like her, he'd been proud of her, he'd taught her and Bethany how to use their magic responsibly. She hasn't missed him this much since she was faced with getting her family to Kirkwall, to safety.

She looks at his staff, and knows she has to decide whether she should use it, or leave it in the room with Bethany's staff and Carver's sword, in the room she never enters, the one she doesn't feel ready to enter, the one she may never feel ready to enter.

It is not until she is home, until she is back in the estate and is stood in the doorway to the room that she knows that Father would want her to use this staff, to continue to protect people, to protect her family, even if that family is not the same family that stayed with Father as he died.

She thinks that something pushes her to use the staff, to continue Father's work. She wishes she could be sure that it was Father whispering to her and giving her advice from the Fade.

xvii. We push away what we can never understand

It still hurts, and Hawke's better relationship with Gamlen doesn't change that, and Hawke still tries her best to ignore the pain and the loneliness, the fact that even when Mother was alive, the estate had felt empty and had echoed.

If Father hadn't been an apostate, or had been able to hide his magic, Hawke and Bethany and Carver might have grown up in the estate, with money and power and all of the things that Bethany wanted and Carver disdained, that Mother always longed for, that Father had laughed about, that Hawke had only ever wanted because you heard that mages with power and money were safe, even in places like Kirkwall.

Hawke is safe, secure in a way that she never has been before. She has friends in the Guard, friends in the Merchants' Guild, friends all over the city. She's also the Champion. That probably helps in not getting her carted off to the Circle.

She isn't ignoring the grief anymore, or not entirely. She accepts that she is grieving, that she has to grieve, that feeling alone is understable. She misses them, and she wants them back. She doesn't want to say that out loud, not yet.

These days, whenever someone asks if she's okay, she answers with a shrug. Starting a conversation about this isn't at the top of her to-do list, and non-committal answers that people can't use as a way to make her talk about her feelings (the ones she doesn't understand, hasn't really understood since that day when an ogre crushed Bethany as she saved Mother, when Bethany noticed what Hawke should have noticed, if Hawke had noticed, Bethany wouldn't be dead). Talking about her feelings would not help her try and keep balance in this city, and she has other people to keep an eye on.

Hawke doesn't have time to try and understand her own feelings, she is trying to keep an entire city from falling apart.

xviii. She takes his hand

Hawke squirms as Varric looks at her, looks through her, as he sees through the masks and glimpses a little bit of the pain she's been hiding.

"Is this why you told me to let Bartrand live? Why you took that piece of the idol from me last week?" he asks, standing in front of where she is sat on the floor of her bedroom. She nods, and takes a swig from the cup of tea that Varric had given her a few minutes ago.

"I let Bethany die. I had to kill Carver. I let Mother die," she stares into the cup as she speaks, "And I didn't want you to have to live with yourself, to feel what I've felt," she looks up to see the briefest flicker of shock on Varric's face before he is once more a dwarf of the Merchant's Guild. "He is your brother, even if he was horrible. Letting him live, getting rid of that piece of the idol, all of it was so you could have as much of your family as possible," she takes a deep breath and looks Varric in the eye, "I don't want this for you," she says, gesturing at the estate, at where she is, at her tear-stained face.

"Hawke, thank you," he says, "Now, please trust me to help you. I don't understand, not entirely, you've made sure I won't have to understand what you're feeling, but let me help. Let Aveline help. You expect us to lean on you, you support us, but you don't lean on us, you don't ask us for help, you don't say when you're having a difficult time."

Hawke takes his hand, and together they manage to get her to her feet.

xix. Forgiveness.

"You idiot," Aveline says, punching Hawke's arm before pulling her into the tightest hug Hawke has experienced in weeks (or maybe even months). Varric stands slightly to the side, smug and proud and relieved. Hawke hugs Aveline back, as tightly as she can.

When they have finished, after Aveline has given Hawke an extra squeeze, they sit at Varric's table in The Hanged Man and talk for hours. Aveline tells them about how it felt to grow up with only her father, how she was allowed to do anything as long as she stuck to it and tried her best. Aveline admits that her determination, the fact that she never gives up is something she has her father to thank for, how she remembers that he made her into who she is today.

"I still miss him, and he passed away years ago," she says, reaching for Hawke's hand, "like I still miss Wesley. It still hurts, but I talked to Wesley about my father, I talked to you about Wesley. Talking about it can help."

Varric takes Hawke's other hand as she stumbles over the words, trying to explain what she's feeling, to talk to someone, like Aveline had, to lean on people, like Varric wants her to.

At some point, she no longer feels the need to swallow down the sobs, and she places her head in her hands and cries as Aveline rubs her back and Varric is a calm, steady presence at her side.

She lets go of the grief she has been holding onto for far too long.

xx. They are going through the unimaginable

Anders has blown up the Chantry, and Hawke's last hope of solving this conflict quietly in the future is gone. There is no question about who she will side with, who she will fight in this battle, she owes it to Bethany and Father and even Carver who would have fought for the mages if she had asked, to save them from a zealot who wants nothing more than to extinguish magic from the world because of fear.

Varric and Aveline are at her side, as always, and she glances over at the others. "Decide whether you side with me or with Meredith," she says, ignoring Anders for the moment, "I won't force you to side with the mages, with me, if you don't want to, but they are not guilty of this. They don't deserve this punishment."

Anders wants to become a martyr, that much is obvious. He wants to be a beacon of hope for mages across Thedas, to show that you can stand up to the templars. Hawke does not want to kill Anders, not because she doesn't want him to become a martyr (she thinks martyrdom might suit him quite well), but because she can't bear the thought of losing another friend, of losing someone who reminds her of Father, who Father would have helped.

She helps Anders up from where he is sat, ignoring Sebastian's angry shout, and looks him in the eye. "Anders, help us defend the mages you have condemned. Help us, and I will try my best to help you and Justice," she says, and holds out her hand. He takes it, and Sebastian storms away.

She looks back towards the others, to the family she found, and none of them have moved towards Meredith. Then, Fenris steps forward, and Hawke holds her breath until he grabs her elbow and moves her back to where the rest of them are waiting, Anders following close behind.

Meredith scoffs and leads her templars back towards the Gallows. Varric coughs once they've gone. "I happen to know a shortcut," he says, looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"Lead the way," Hawke says, shifting her staff in her hands.

A/N: The title and the headings for each section come from the song "It's Quiet Uptown" from Hamilton. Please leave a review!