The Reasons Why
He's been sitting here for hours. His friends are engaged in conversation and rounds after rounds of diamondback. He hears them laugh and joke and have a good time but Anders does not feel like joining them tonight. Not with all the thoughts and memories chasing one another in his head. He does not want to think and he especially doesn't want to remember.
He takes another drink from the mug of ale in front of him and feels the stale, bitter liquid burning in his throat and stomach. His head already feels heavy as does his whole body and he couldn't focus on anything in particular if his life depended on it but it is still not enough to chase away the memories of her.
He had not thought of her in years, or at least he tried not to, and just when he thought he finally succeeded in burying the memories in a place he could never reach again, that mage girl had to show up. Those eyes… she had her eyes.
Maybe it had been just the poor light down in the sewers when he led her group through the secret tunnels into freedom or his imagination played tricks with his perception but no matter what it was, he felt as if he was looking into her eyes again. That same gray-blue color, like storm clouds over a troubled sea. He felt as if an iron claw closed around his chest and pressed all air out of his lungs. Every little thing he so carefully hid away in the farthest corner of his mind swept back to the surface and threatened to swallow him whole.
He misses her still, even after all this time and he doesn't want to miss her because it hurts and he doesn't want to hurt. Not because of something that is done and over. Not because of something he cannot change.
He drains his mug and signals the barkeeper to bring another one when a heavy hand falls down on his shoulder and someone settles on the stool next to him. Slowly, he turns his heavy head. The move makes him feel dizzy and he squints his eyes to be able to recognize who is sitting by his side. A bearded face grins back at him and he suppresses a groan.
"What do you want?" he asks tiredly. He does not feel like talking to anyone right now. Not even to Hawke.
"To check on you," comes the cheerful reply and it grates on his already highly tensed nerves. "You seem unusually quiet tonight."
He does not bother to answer that, just stares into the full mug the barkeeper has just set down in front of him. Maybe if he ignores the other man he will leave him alone again.
Silence falls between them and he resumes his quest of trying to forget by stoically drinking away at his ale. He has almost forgotten about his friend's presence again when Hawke addresses him once more.
"Who's she?"
He should have known he wouldn't get off the hook so easily and as always, Hawke placed his finger on the sore spot. How does he do that, always knowing what it is that bothers people?
"Don't know what you mean," he tries to deflect the question. He really doesn't want to talk about her. Not now. Not ever. She does not matter anymore, never should have mattered in the first place.
"Oh but you do," the young rogue insistently objects. "It is always about a woman when a man tries to drown his misery in cheap ale. So who is she? Tell me about her."
The question brings forth a new wave of unwanted emotions and memories. The sound of laughter, soft skin under his hands, the scent of vanilla, his name on her lips… the images are so strong, so vivid. Maker, why can't he forget?
"She's beautiful," he hears himself muttering before he knows what he's doing. He still doesn't want to talk about her, yet the words come easy all of a sudden. They just spill over his lips like water over the rim of a too full bucket and he tells Hawke about how they met, about how she gave him his cat, about all the important and unimportant details that made her so special to him.
It is painful but even more than that it is relieving and he keeps on talking. He does not try to fight it anymore, neither the good nor the bad things and Hawke listens, doesn't interrupt. His friend seems to instinctively know what he just now begins to understand: that he needs to talk; that he needs someone to just listen, without judging.
When he has ended, silence falls again. He feels Hawke staring at him but he can't bring himself to meet his eyes.
"You really loved her, didn't you?" the other man asks and it sounds amazed and a little surprised. He smiles. A bitter, little smile full of guilt and regret.
"I never stopped, Hawke. I never stopped," he admits quietly.
"Then why did you leave? Wasn't she worth it?"
He could be offended by those questions but he isn't. There is no accusation in Hawke's voice, just the plain and simple desire to understand, and he expected it, anyway. He asked himself the exact same thing before: every time, when the nightmares threatened to suffocate him and there was no cool hand on his forehead, no soft whisper in the dark to comfort him; when he lay awake at night in his room at the clinic with nothing but the coughs and moans from his patients to keep him company instead of a warm, lithe body warming his back.
In those moments, he knows he was a fool to leave her, to run from that one chance on happiness he was ever given. He never dwells on that thought, though. Instead he calls onto the voice of reason to tell him why it was the right thing to go when he did. He would have hurt her. He would have endangered her life. He would have forced her to fight a war that is not hers.
He knows the answers to Hawke's questions but he doesn't give them because it is none of his friend's business and because he is afraid that the perceptive rogue will see right through the excuses and dig up the real reasons, the ones he does not even admit to himself.
"I left because I love her," he finally says, "and she would have been worth everything."
With that he drains the last of his ale and stands from his stool with uneasy legs. Hawke is smart enough not to prod any further. His friend stands as well and instead nods at the table in the corner that is alive with laughter and song and dirty jokes.
"Care for a game of diamondback?"
"Sure," he agrees with a smile because he does not feel like being alone tonight. Not with all the thoughts and memories chasing one another in his head. He does not want to think and he especially doesn't want to remember…