There are moments-peaceful, quiet moments just after dawn-when Fenris can simply watch her. He'll open his eyes and she'll be there, head pillowed on his chest, dark hair fanned out across the bed, slumbering and unaware, wandering the Fade.
He never thought he'd like the idea of a mage touching the Fade, but when Hawke describes her nighttime travels, they are always beautiful and always happy. So unlike his own dreams. Hawke may have her demons, but they do not find her in the Fade.
Sometimes when he wakes he lies there for a moment, just a moment, and pretends that this-this moment with Hawke across his chest, with their clothing scattered around her room-could be his forever. He pretends that he is not broken and pretends that he deserves her. Those days are the hardest. Those days when he leaves her to wake alone, he feels both guilty and relieved. Guilty because he knows that he has hurt her and relieved because alone, in his dilapidated mansion his thoughts are not clouded and his memory returns.
Those days Hawke comes to find him. Maybe for a reading lesson, maybe just because. He doesn't always know the reasons, but she always comes to find him.
But sometimes he lingers. Sometimes he lets her warmth and her breathing lull him back to sleep. Sometimes he will watch as the sunlight crosses her face-her delicate jaw, her flickering eyelids, the shape of her lips. Sometimes he will brush the hair from her face, or trace her lips with his finger, or kiss her awake because she makes him want.
Sometimes Fenris stays.