The last thing he felt was the rain soaking through the back of his shirt, like the blood that had soaked through the front. Faint squares of light up ahead on the dark road, his grip slackening, Hawke begging him to stay awake, the sloshing of pooled water and mud as she stumbled onward. He was trying, but his eyelids slid shut, weighted as if by stones. He could barely hear her. Then, nothing.

The door opened moments after Hawke began slamming her fist against it and screaming for the doctor to open up. She barged through in a spray of rainwater, carrying Fenris to the examination table in the center of the room and carefully lowering him onto the stained wood. She barely registered the doctor's assistance or his alarmed questions. The air smelled of the dried herbs hanging from the rafters: dozens of bunches to be used in poultices and potions, and some to be stuffed in the beak of the leather mask hanging on a peg by the door. The crackling logs in the fireplace kept the room almost too warm. Beeswax candles were fixed in a few lanterns on side tables and windowsills. A materia medica lay open below one of them, next to a chipped mug of tea.

Carrying Fenris on her back had taken close to all the strength Hawke had left after killing the last of the slavers, even as the heightened sensation of battle flowed through her, propelling her forward step by step. Her arms were strong from years of staff-fighting, but they trembled with fatigue as she settled a rolled-up cloak beneath Fenris' head. His face had grown peaceful in a way that sent a chill through her.

Hawke's eyes widened for a moment, then narrowed as she turned to the doctor, who had already fetched his box of bandages and gauze. He peeled back her lover's shirt from the oozing gash in his upper abdomen, then removed the wet garment.

"One of those fucking slavers did this," said Hawke. "Right before I threw him into the sea." Fenris' hand was gripped tight in her own. He was a free man; they would not have him, or any other. In her mind there came an echo of his cry when she had fallen in battle before. No! I will not allow it!

"So they returned," said the doctor, in his soft Starkhaven burr, his expression fearful. He leaned in closer with his lamp, stroking his patchy, gray-streaked beard in agitation. The arrowhead was so deeply buried that only the short, jagged splinters that remained of the shaft were visible. Over the decades Doctor Gilburne had spent tending to farmers and fishermen from the string of villages on this curve of the coast, he'd occasionally had to dig out a broken blade or fish hook from an unfortunate patient's gut. All had survived. But something about the dark blood welling up from this wound troubled him. He probed at the edge of it, feeling for the size and shape of the foreign object lodged within.

"It might have hit his liver," said Hawke. She was over at the cabinet of clean implements now, trying to find the right kind of pincers. The doctor was stringent about boiling everything before it could be used and storing it all in drawers sealed so tight they had to be tugged open. Something about keeping the vapors and animalcules out.

He held out his hand and received the pincers. "I'm afraid it may also have been poisoned. Fortunately, I've seen this before. There's a plant that grows in a cove to the north of here. Fade-bringer moss. Make a strong enough extract and a person can lose consciousness in minutes. It spreads through their blood and gives it a peculiar scent. Then they grow feverish and weak, and..."

The pincers were now firmly gripped around the top of the arrowhead. Hawke held Fenris' wound open so the doctor could coax it out. When he removed the dripping shard, blood began to spurt out faster, pouring over Hawke's fingers as she tried to press the torn flesh closed. Desperation clawed at her mind. The vials hidden in her belt were empty, and in her exhaustion there was nothing left for her to call on, nothing that she could use to heal him, to shut this Maker-damned wound before-

There was a wad of gauze between her fingers. A single layer wrapped around a handful of cattail down. Doctor Gilburne had just put it there. She heard him say something about keeping the pressure on while I prepare the antidote. Her fingers moved automatically, grabbing more gauze packets from where they were piled on the edge of the table; droplets scattered across it from her loose hair. She was thinking of this afternoon, when she and Fenris had been sitting in the potter's shed, the three of them talking idly about the news that had drifted in with a traveling peddler. A breeze had gusted through the open window, causing Marcus to stir from his nap in the crook of Fenris' arm with a tiny hiccup. Fenris had adjusted the rust-colored blanket their son was wrapped in, then made a face so he would giggle. Marcus had just laughed for the first time last week.

He was across the village green with Ingrid's family now. The windows were dark. He would be waking up soon.

The scent of poisoned blood had grown strong enough to make her gag, stirring a new surge of panic. She cleared away the gauze that had soaked through and wrapped a length of bandage over a new, clean layer of it, covering the top of the raised tendrils that spread downward to Fenris' navel, as if they were the roots of the scrolls and dots across his chest. The lyrium tattooed into his skin had drawn eyes in every village, encampment, and town they'd passed through. On some occasions the designs were mistaken for unusual vallaslin; on others, they went mostly unnoticed under his cloak and scarf, although it brought him no more safety if humans thought he was a city elf or Dalish. Any questions were quickly diverted, with the exception of a few curious children whom he tolerated. But even when there was no immediate danger, Fenris had admitted to Hawke that the stares put him on edge. Sometimes, looking is touching.

At the worktable, Doctor Gilburne poured a translucent, reddish-gold extract into a mortar and mixed it with dry herbs. He used the pestle to spread a thick green paste onto a square of linen that he passed to Hawke. With her other hand, she peeled away the bandage and gauze so that she could press the poultice into the gash and cover it before the bleeding started again. She held the bandage pack in place, moving her hand away hesitantly once it seemed safe. A moment passed. She leaned down to kiss Fenris' forehead. He was warm, but not burning with fever. Not yet. He would not.

At the doctor's insistence that she get some sleep, she rinsed her hands and changed into the oversized tunic he offered to replace the bloodstained one she was wearing. He draped another spare tunic over Fenris in case of chills. Hawke curled up on the workbench with a folded dishtowel for a pillow. She'd slept in wetter clothes and worse conditions before. Soon, she was drifting in and out of half-sketched dreams filled with familiar voices and the shadows of the faces they belonged to, none of them in the right place.

Hawke woke in the middle of the night and rolled over to see Fenris still unconscious and Doctor Gilburne still hunched over his text, the remaining lantern's candle burning low. She hauled herself up and they spoke for a while, establishing in greater detail what had happened. The warning of a slaver sighting had come suddenly, while their neighbors slept, leaving no time for complicated armor or more than a swift glance back at Marcus. The choke point on the cliffside had allowed them to ambush the party of about a dozen that had been approaching the village and the refugees who lived there. Fenris and Hawke had fought alongside each other for years and knew their tactics well. But the swirling rain had hindered their sight, and as Fenris lowered his sword after killing one of the slavers he had shuddered and buckled inward. When he turned toward Hawke, who was in the midst of creating a jagged arc of ice, he was clutching at something that protruded from his chest.

As Doctor Gilburne attempted to half-encourage, half-console her, Hawke noticed a flicker of light from outside the fogged window. She opened the door just wide enough to see across the green. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. The glow was coming from the front window of Ingrid's house. A candle that had just been lit. Hawke glanced back at the doctor, then longer at Fenris. She told them she would be back soon.

"Beth! What's happened? Where's Verus? I thought you would have-"

Ingrid was sitting by the cold fireplace in the main room, nursing her daughter, Stella. Her voice was lowered to an anxious whisper. Hawke shut the door and crossed to her after wiping her muddy boots on the threshold.

More whispers. A nod, a gesture to the room behind them. Ingrid watched with a hand still over her mouth in shock as Hawke went to retrieve her son from the basket that served as a makeshift cradle. He wiggled his legs and blinked up at her as she carried him over and sat down on a stool across from Ingrid and Stella.

Hawke tapped Marcus' nose, making a noise of surprise. "Who's this? Oh, I think I remember you. It's been ages, hasn't it?"

"He's grown up so much," said Ingrid. "Barely recognizable."

"Except! I'd never mistake this. Hello, bee." Hawke's finger skipped to the spot on his shoulder where a little dark birthmark sat.

Ingrid drew her shawl tighter around her with her free hand. "I fed and changed him and Stella again after you left."

"Thank you, I owe you for that," Hawke replied, with a tired smile.

Ingrid frowned. Beth could be a bit strange sometimes. "If you two hadn't gone out there, we'd be shackled and the whole place would be up in flames by now. I'm the one who's in debt here. We all are. Besides, what else was I going to do, let him go hungry?"

"It just means a lot that you'd do this for me, Ingrid. I'd do the same for you, if it came to that."

Hawke kissed her son's fat cheeks and smoothed his downy black curls around the points of his ears. Her own hair was deep brown and wavy and dented with bedhead that she didn't care about at the moment. People were starting to say that Marcus looked like her, though. She would grin and shrug at that, saying that to her, he just looked like a baby. Although she swore he had stared at her the other day with the same skeptical expression as his father in those big green eyes.

Well, all in all, she stuck to what she'd said (exhausted but still entirely cognizant) on the day he was born, namely that he was perfect, and that she was glad the local midwife knew what she was doing. It would be very disappointing to have to miss out on any of this.

She tickled Marcus under the chin and was rewarded by a gurgling laugh. Hawke loved how whenever she smiled at her son, he smiled right back. She also loved how he slept about twenty hours a day and didn't seem to understand the concept of a good, long cry. The Amell side of the family had always had famously well-behaved babies. Mother would be proud. She should be here now.

Hawke sighed. She didn't need any more of that at the moment. Things that would make her want to lie down and turn her face to the wall.

Marcus had begun to open his mouth and nuzzle at the front of her tunic. All right, let's just focus on routine, thought Hawke. Leave the moping for later. She unlaced the borrowed outer garment with her free hand and tugged her shirt down, removing the folded rags from her smallclothes and wincing at the friction against her swollen breasts. Relief soon followed after Marcus latched on, and a warm, calming sensation she'd never been able to explain. Like everything was all right. Such an alien feeling.

Ingrid and her houseguest passed the time by talking of what had happened that night, and then about other things that didn't matter so much but were just enough of a distraction. Despite telling herself to be cautious around the other human woman, Hawke had liked Ingrid from the day they met. It was a joy to have your good instincts about a person gradually proven right. She had more often been given reason to doubt them.

There were still no signs of activity in the doctor's window after Marcus had fed, but Hawke felt anxious about being away for so long. After a brief farewell and a comforting hand on her arm, she tucked a sleeping Marcus close and shut the door behind her.

The village was cast in bluish predawn light, the air slightly warmer than before and blurred with mist. A bird warbled and was answered nearby, where the forest met the farthest houses. Then came a rustling sound that might have been a fox. No; a rabbit. It dashed across the green in a brindled grey streak, startling the breath out of Hawke and causing her to clutch Marcus so tight that he whimpered.

Her heart was still pounding as she settled herself and the baby into a chair next to Fenris, while Doctor Gilburne climbed up to the loft to shut his bleary eyes.

She could feel that she had more power to draw on after getting some rest. And now that they were alone and the antidote had set in, it was safe. Hawke slipped her free hand under the bandage pack, into the wound and wet paste, and an icy glow began to radiate from it as her healing magic did its work. Muscle and tissue met and fought off their infection, the stench of the poison now gone; his body heat lowered just the fraction that was needed. Her magic interacted in a silent thrum with the lyrium in his tattoos, like the rumble of cart wheels on stone. He'd said that her magic didn't hurt him. But it felt wrong not to be able to ask for his permission this time. As she worked, his eyes moved under closed lids.

Hours passed. Hawke tried to concentrate on reading a local plant guide, got up and paced, poked at the fireplace, sat down, paced again. She pressed Fenris' hand against her cheek and kissed his palm and his knuckles. Marcus dozed in her arms, then woke up and started to squirm. Murmuring to him about being patient just a moment longer, Hawke loosened her clothes again to feed him. Thankfully she still hadn't leaked all the way through her breast band. She'd been paranoid ever since it had happened at a traveling theater troupe's performance of Pernilla at the River. Yesterday she'd had a nightmare about dark patches spreading on the front of her dress during a grand ball at the Fereldan court. Well, at least she hadn't been naked.

When she'd told Fenris of the dream while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes the next morning, he commented that he'd been under the impression that she was a farm girl from Lothering. True, she replied, but being the Champion of Kirkwall must get you into a few parties. At least, it used to. I hear they do like their champions in Denerim. Mead for all!

"I believe I've tried mead once," said Fenris, amused. "Although the man pouring it claimed it was dragon's blood. It did look the part, but I would argue the taste was far better."

Hawke was certainly awake now. "You've had Nevarran Dragon's Blood?"

"At a summer tournament in Cumberland, yes. On my way to Kirkwall."

"Fen, that's... that's like the Aggregio Pavalli of mead! You're better prepared for this Denerim banquet than I am." She paused, moving his arm so that it was draped in a more comfortable position across her waist. Her expression shaded into puzzlement. "How did you end up at a tournament when you were supposed to be a fugitive? That's rather conspicuous."

"In a sea of garishly dressed people?"

"Aha! Like the time we all crashed the De Launcets' Wintersend party and ran back to Lowtown. Thank the Maker they didn't recognize any of us later. But anyway, that doesn't fully answer my question, love."

"It's a long story. I'll tell you over dinner tonight."

"Well, I look forward to it. Just like I'm already looking forward to that imaginary royal soirée." She rolled over to check on Marcus. Still asleep in his basket, after what must have been four hours. She wished she had managed to keep her eyes shut a little longer.

As the two of them avoided getting up, they picked over the most recent news they'd heard out of Denerim. Hawke then started to ramble for the hundredth time of the places she had once known, further out in the countryside. She and her family had wandered Ferelden for most of her childhood and her memories were sharp. Mountains overlooking steep green valleys and swamps. Lakes rimmed with large-leafed spindleweed and lotus blossoms. Wide plains threaded with wild forests, hidden under the silence of snow in winter. The warmth of a central firepit, and the steam from a cup of mulled cider.

"Is this some sort of hint, Riana?" asked Fenris, running his fingers through her hair.

"Hmm? Can't imagine what you mean."

He raised an eyebrow. Maybe both, but the other half of his face was buried in a pillow. Branch-dappled sunlight streamed through the loft's wide window above them. She watched it glide across the angles of his face and jaw, further shadowing the dark circle under his one visible eye, a badge of the constant sleep deprivation they shared. A faint scar showed itself on his forehead, from the first time he had let her heal him with her hands and a lyrium vial.

"You've told me your home is elsewhere now. But… would you want to see Ferelden again someday?"

"I... I don't know." She turned onto her back and stared at the cross-beamed ceiling, the straw mattress crunching beneath her. It had been almost nine years. The Blight was long over, and the foxgloves would be blooming again in the Bannorn. She had, in truth, wondered what it would be like, but had always ended up discarding the thought before it grew too painful.

She shifted back to face Fenris, and they regarded each other for a quiet moment.

"I would like the chance to finally see it for myself," he offered. "If you wanted to. We could see if there is somewhere that would have us."

There was no guarantee of that. The two of them hadn't used their old names since they fled Kirkwall, and had been able to conceal her apostate magic. Every day they lived with the risk; Hawke found herself relying on what her parents had taught her as a child about hiding in plain sight. But her relationship with Fenris couldn't be hidden, nor would either of them want it to be. In their travels across the Free Marches, they had been met with varied treatment, from acceptance to cruelty. They had ended up here after meeting Ingrid at a nearby market where she was selling food, with Stella on her hip. Hawke had gone into labor just as they were settling in, a few weeks before Marcus was due, in early summer.

The Mage-Templar War was nothing more than rumors here, rumors that were growing louder but had not yet become real. Hawke prayed they never would, although she wasn't the most pious woman in the first place and had her doubts about whether anyone was listening. Then there was the idea, which had taken firm hold in her mind despite Fenris' protestations, that she was culpable for the war and had a responsibility to help end it, and to ensure that there wouldn't be a return to the Circles of Magi and the Templars' abuses - the life her father had fled. She often agonized over her failures in the late hours of the night, sifting through all her oversights and misjudgments that had led to outcomes more horrific than she had been able to imagine.

The year since the Kirkwall Rebellion was drawing to a close. Varric's last letter brought news of Seekers and a warning that their correspondence should stop for some time. She and Fenris had discussed the letter while sitting against the loft wall late last night, waiting for Marcus to fall asleep.

Hawke traced a finger across her lover's shoulder, saying nothing. His hand rested on her thigh, under her shift, warm against her skin.

"Whatever happens, we will have to stop running someday," he said, softly. "You and I both know what it means to not feel safe, or at home. It wouldn't be right to raise him like that."

"No, it wouldn't. At least we know that much." A bittersweet smile cracked across Hawke's face. She felt an overwhelming rush of love for him and their son, mingled with terror and confusion at the empty, branching path they all faced.

The sun was starting to warm the edge of the sky. Hawke wandered over to the east-facing window, patting Marcus' back and humming a song she had heard Merrill singing back in the Kirkwall alienage. The knitted blanket he was wrapped in had been a gift from Merrill. Varric had seen that it made it here unharmed, with the onion-dyed wool still clean, and a note from him with news and a mention that there were ten or twenty children in the alienage going around wearing matching scarves and hats.

As Hawke was nodding off, slumped sideways against the worktable with her head on her arm and Marcus tied to her front, there came a violent cough and a groan from the middle of the room.

"Fen!"

The chair nearly toppled backward onto the packed earth floor.

The first thing he felt was a wave of nausea.

Fenris struggled up into a sitting position, supported not two seconds later by Hawke's arm around him in a rush of damp wool and wildflowers. Marcus peeked out from his blanket, curious and uncomprehending.

Hawke was kissing him and asking how he felt, are you in any pain, do you feel ill, I had to use magic, the antidote wasn't enough.

"Andraste's arse, I almost thought... Fenris, love, can you hear me?"

"Yes. I am… fine." He rested his forehead against hers as dizziness overcame him, pulling back once his head was clear.

He squinted at the thick bandages around his torso, then at Hawke, who was watching him closely. She offered him the shirt that was crumpled on his lap. He thanked her as he pulled it on with slow, deliberate movements.

At that moment, as she dabbed the sweat from his forehead with her sleeve, all he wanted to do was draw her close and bury his face in her hair. He would melt into her and feel only her soft strength and a gentle exhale against his neck.

That would have to wait. For now, they sat together in silence, facing the window, watching the dawn light diffuse through the mist and across the grass.

Thanks for reading! Critiques welcome - feedback would make my day. :)

Notes:

Hawke and Fenris still get random letters signed "yrs. respectfully, Dr. A. F. Gilburne."

He likes to give them odd but useful advice. Especially after Hawke starts formal training as a doctor.

Ingrid writes to them, too. They always write back.