"Perhaps it is time to move forward. I just don't know where that leads. Do you?" Fenris watched Marian as he spoke. He had to be fooling himself, she wouldn't have waited for him, not for this long… would she?

She smiled gently, her springtime eyes lighting up as she spoke, "Wherever it leads, I hope it means we'll stay together."

Fenris felt the words send sparks through his entire body. She still wanted him. She still wanted to be with him. He watched her as he mentioned the night, that night. The wariness was there, as it had been for the past three years, and he ached. It was not all mended.

"I felt like a fool. I thought it better if you hated me- I deserved no less," I felt like I didn't deserve anything good from you, Fenris thought. "But it isn't better. That night…"

He drew a deep breath, stomach gone to butterflies and his heart pounding in his chest.

"I remember your touch as if it were yesterday."

Tears filled her eyes, she knew what it meant for him to remember that.

"I should have asked your forgiveness long ago. I hope you can forgive me now."

Marian bit her lip, stifling a sob. Fenris reached out, pausing before touching her cheek to carefully wipe away a tear that had escaped to run down the smooth skin. She let out a shuddering breath, leaning into his touch before piercing him with a look.

"I need to understand why you left, Fenris."

There was the specter of Leandra. The accusation that Fenris had left Marian for not fitting Leandra's vision of feminine was galling, and some of the anger directed toward a woman three years dead came out in his voice.

"I've thought about the answer a thousand times. The pain, the memories it brought up…" He swallowed, even now the memories of Danarius's abuses sent chills down his arms, "It was too much. I was a coward."

As relief crossed Marian's face, he dropped his hand and thought, I couldn't tell you that I didn't deserve any kindness from you, that I soiled you with my presence.

"If I could go back, I would stay. Tell you how I felt."

"What would you have said?"

"Nothing could be worse than the thought of living without you."

Every time he prepared himself to run, she was there with her smiles, her wit, the unending and undeserved kindness and understanding. The agony of the lyrium brands was nothing compared to a life without Marian Hawke cracking poor jokes and falling up or down stairs into his arms.

Fenris could hear the tears of joy she was holding back as she quipped, "Oh, I don't know. This might be fun to hold over you a while longer."

He shook his head and chuckled. Maddening woman. "If there is a future to be had, I will walk into it gladly at your side."

Marian stood and looped her arms around his neck, leaning her forehead gently against his. He pulled her closer, kissing her properly for the first time in three years. The small pecks on the cheek and quick brushes of lips that they had shared were nothing compared to the feeling of breathing her in. Her pulse fluttered against the fingers he slid over her neck and into her hair.

"Come home with me." She breathed it against his lips in between kisses.

"Yes."

"Stay the night?"

"Most definitely."

"Live with me?"

"Perhaps."

"At least clean up this pile in the meantime?"

Fenris pulled away and fixed her with a mock-stern look. "What's wrong with my housekeeping?"

"There are bodies in your entryway still! It's been six years!"

"I needed an audience for my dancing."

Marian burst out laughing, "Are you actually making a joke?"

"Perhaps."