They set up camp inside one of the ruins. It was so dark that Marian could barely see her hand in front of her face, but as Varric said, "Hey, only one person at a time can fit through that door. We don't need to be able to see them to kill them." The small fire they managed to build didn't help; the godforsaken place was so damp that the flames simply flickered weakly, making limp shadows against the stone walls. Marian found herself overcome with random fits of shivers; she didn't think they were all because of the damp, but it undoubtedly didn't help. Still, she pulled her armor off the minute she could - the edges dug into the bruising around her hip, remnants of that day's unexpected battle. A dull pain seemed to throb throughout her skin, even after her undershirt was the only thing separating it from the air.
She, however, was in fabulous shape compared to Anders. He hadn't spoken since they made camp. Now, he sat in the corner with his back against the wall, staring straight ahead at nothing. Every so often, he would shudder violently and hug his arms around his body. Something icy stabbed at Marian's heart every time she looked at him. Once they'd settled all their belongings, she caught Varric's eye. He nodded and turned to Bethany. "Come on, Sunshine, let's go see if we can find anything dry enough to burn around here."
Once they were gone, Marian went to Anders and sank down to the floor in front of him. She laid her hands over his. "Hey," she said softly.
He grasped her hand so tightly that she thought she might lose circulation. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"I know. It wasn't your fault."
"Wasn't it? I could have killed you. All of you."
"You didn't. You're good," she said, trying for a teasing smile, "but up against me and Varric and Bethany? Not a chance."
"You went down," Anders said. "I saw you go down, saw you knocked over by my own magic, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. You didn't move for a moment …" He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. "If I ever hurt you, or worse … I don't know if I could live with myself."
"I'm here, Anders. I'm fine." She brought her free hand up to cup the back of his neck. "The better question is, are you all right?"
His breath huffed out in a pained chuckle. "No. I'm about as far from 'all right' as I can possibly be. I can still hear the voices, that damnable darkspawn is still in my head. I can't get a moment's peace. And every time I close my eyes, I see you lying on the ground …"
"Shhh." Marian pulled her hand out of his grasp to tip his chin up. She kissed him softly. "We all made it through alive and unharmed." She shifted to move away from a rock that was digging into her ass, and was suddenly reminded of the bruises that very likely ran up her entire left side. She winced. "Mostly unharmed," she amended. "Nothing worse than when we have to kick Carta ass in Darktown."
"You're hurt?" Anders frowned. "Let me see."
"Nothing you can do about it. Just bruises." He was already getting up onto his knees, however, so she sighed and pulled her undershirt over her head.
She felt his fingers skim lightly up her side. "It's too bloody dark in here," he murmured. "I can't see a thing."
"Nothing to see, except black and blue. You've seen that before. In fact," she joked, "sometimes I wonder why you want a woman who is so frequently multicolored."
"You're beautiful in any color," he said absently, as he called a small flame into his hand to cast light over her skin. Marian smiled. It sounded so casual, the compliment, which made it all the more dear to her. She frowned again, though, when she felt the telltale warmth of healing magic spreading across her skin. "What are you doing?"
"Just checking to see if there's anything broken in there."
"There's not. And you don't have the mana to spare right now. Stop."
"I think I'm a better judge of my mana and what I should use it for than you are. Stop squirming."
She looked over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at him. Anders didn't look up, but in the flickering light, she could see the corners of his mouth turn up into a small grin. A moment later, he extinguished both the healing and the flame. "Nothing serious," he pronounced. She could hear the note of relief in his voice. Then, quickly, his fingers brushed her belly and found the sensitive spot right above her navel. She let out a small squeak at the light tickle and pushed her shoulder against him. He laughed - a beautiful sound, Marian thought, especially in that moment - and put his arms around her. She settled into his chest and let him bury his face in her hair. "I love you," he murmured, his voice little more than a vibration above her ear.
"I love you," she said. He still trembled slightly, so after a moment's deliberation, she wiggled in his embrace - her hip, she knew, was in just the proper position for distraction. "It's really cold in here," she said, "so you either need to let me put my shirt back on or find some other way to warm me up."
That earned a chuckle. "Here? In the cold and damp, with an audience likely to wander in at any moment?"
"Oh, I'm sure Varric and Bethany will be a while yet. Varric has good instincts about when not to be somewhere." She sat up and repositioned them both until she was straddling his legs. In response, Anders bent his knees so that she slid down his thighs until they were pressed together at the most intimate possible place. Marian could feel him stirring beneath her. She grinned. "And you apparently approve of the idea."
"My body often approves of things my brain doesn't necessarily think are wise," he grumbled, but the hand that skimmed up her belly to palm one of her breasts through the thin cloth that still covered them gave the statement far less weight. Maker, but she loved his hands, his long, clever fingers that knew every inch of her body, even in the dark. And if those fingers grasped her just a bit too hard around her waist right now, well, the momentary pain was worth the pleasure of his other thumb tracing feather-light circles around her nipple. His breath ghosted against her neck, and he leaned close enough that she could feel his stubble scratch against her jaw.
Anders could make her feel so many things - pleasure and pain, joy and anger, love and that horrible, gut-wrenching terror that had come that day when Justice glowed from his eyes and launched an attack. She had to draw her blades and lunge at him, hoping against all hopes that she wouldn't have to plant one in his heart. When she got back to Kirkwall, she was going to gift Aveline with the best bottle of wine Hightown had to offer, because Marian had absolutely no idea how much it must have cost her to kill her the man she loved until she'd been forced to contemplate the idea herself. She'd nicked him a few times, she knew, and she'd seen an arrow or two hit its mark - in places far from the heart, because Varric was a good man who knew a little bit about being forced to kill loved ones. Even though he'd healed himself a bit after the fight, she knew Anders must be hurting just as bad, if not worse than she was. But he'd never let her see, never allow her to know about whatever injury she'd caused. He'd consider it penance … justice, if you would.
But just because he wouldn't tell her about them didn't mean that Marian didn't remember each spot where she'd caused him to bleed. So she was careful as she tightened her arms around him; she was not careful, however, with the kiss she claimed from him. That kiss held all the terror, all the sick guilt and all the relief she felt, wrapped up in all the love she thought she would never see the end of. There'd been a moment - a brief, horrible moment - that day when she'd thought she might never taste him like this again. The kiss felt like a gift from the Maker, and she didn't intend to squander it.
The ground was almost numbingly cold after she took off her trousers; her knees dug into dust and pebbles that would almost certainly leave marks. None of that mattered, though, when Anders groaned into her neck and thrust up into the hand she was trying to use to unfasten his robes. "Help me here," she said, tugging on the layers of clothing he insisted on wearing. This wasn't usually their style - most of the time, they spent hours laying across their bed, kissing and touching and wrestling like giddy children before they got down to the real business. But Marian suddenly needed to feel him right now, as if she couldn't believe they were both still there unless he was buried deep inside her.
… so perhaps she wasn't as calm about the whole experience as she'd pretended to be. Story of her life, really, to always be the voice of reason while someone else fell apart. That was fine, she'd take that role just as long as Anders was there to hold her tight when she finally fell apart.
As soon as he'd managed to free his cock from underneath his robes, Marian grasped it, positioned herself, and sank down onto him. She realized too late that she wasn't nearly as wet as she should have been - the friction caused a burning sensation that had her tensing up. Anders must have felt it, because he slid his hand between them and rubbed a finger along her sensitive flesh. He kissed her temple softly. "So good," he murmured. "Maker, you always feel so good."
The combination of his fingers and the vibration of his voice against her skin started to do the job; when she lifted herself up again, the burning was replaced by slick, wet heat. She closed her eyes, braced her hands against the wall behind him, and started to rock her hips in a rhythm fast enough to make Anders bite off his next words with a loud gasp. That was fine. At this point, his words weren't what she needed - she needed the feeling of his cock sliding in and out of her, the feel of his fingers digging into her bruised hip as he tried to find the rhythm that drove her. She needed his stubble scraping the skin of her neck raw as his whole body shook with each thrust. She needed to be so close to him that she forgot where he ended and she began.
Her orgasm came almost by surprise. It was a bright flash of light behind her eyelids, a spasm so violent that her hands slipped off the wall. She ended up collapsed against his shoulder, with just enough presence of mind to continue moving her hips until she felt him empty inside her. He muttered something as he came - whether it was actual words or just sound, Marian didn't know, because all she could really hear was her own pulse pounding in her ears.
Some minutes later - hours, perhaps, Marian lost track of time somewhere in there - she found herself sitting on Anders' lap, cradled against his chest with her head resting against the feathers on his coat. "We're still here," she murmured.
"We're still here," he repeated softly. When she lifted her head, he kissed her on the tip of her nose. "I love you. I may have said that already, but it bears repeating."
She smiled. "Tell me again tomorrow night. And the night after that. And all the nights after those."
For a moment, something passed across Anders' face, and Marian steeled herself. But the shadow disappeared almost as soon as it began, and he held her tighter against his chest. "I will," he promised. "For the rest of our lives."
There, in the cold, damp dark, Marian could hold onto him and almost allow herself to believe it.