The rumors had been true. When she saw Anders, Bethany almost wished they hadn't been.

He lay on a cot in the Dalish camp, face bruised almost beyond recognition, dressed in a cloak that more resembled rags than a piece of clothing. "We tried to offer him another robe," the Keeper told her, "but he fought anyone who tried to touch him."

This wasn't the man she remembered from Kirkwall. That Anders had seemed ten feet tall at times, an apostate with courage to spare, who could toss a bandit fifty feet with a flick of his hand … she'd had a serious case of hero worship back then. And, if she was honest, a rather embarrassing crush. Now, when she looked at him, all she could muster was pity. Pity, and a vague sense of anger - at who, she couldn't say. The Chantry, her brother, the Wardens, Anders himself … it all mixed up into a heavy weight in her stomach.

Bethany dropped to her knees next to the cot and touched Anders' shoulder. He flinched and opened his eyes. "Who …" His voice was little more than a croak.

"Do you remember me, Anders?"

He blinked. "Bethany?"

"Yes." She looked up at the Keeper. "I can take it from here."

The Keeper bowed and left them alone in the tent. Bethany sat back on her heels and watched Anders struggle to a sitting position. "Do you need healing?"

"No." He coughed. When he spoke again, he sounded less like he was in danger of imminent death. "The Keeper took care of what she could." He looked around the tent. "Where are we?"

"You don't know?" He shook his head. She continued, "We're west of Tantervale. Still too close to Starkhaven for your continued survival, if I've heard correctly."

Anders winced. "I remember." He rubbed his forehead. "How long has it been? Since … Kirkwall?"

"You don't know?" When Anders shook his head, Bethany felt the pity spike with a bit of alarm. "Almost two years."

"Maker's breath," he whispered. "I remember … not enough. And too much." He looked over at Bethany. "He's gone, you know."

"I know."

Anders blinked again. "How do you know?"

"The Wardens know a lot more than one would think." She laid her hand gently on his. He stiffened, but didn't pull away. "I know you were in Tevinter, and I know Justice is gone. Beyond that, I'm hoping you can fill in the blanks."

Anders closed his eyes. "Don't hope too hard. I'm not up for memories right now."

"No, you're not." Bethany stood up. "Let me get you a clean robe."

He nodded, and she crossed the room to grab the garment. When she turned back, he was on his feet - unsteadily, with his hand on the tent pole to steady himself. The rags of his former cloak pooled on the floor around his feet, leaving him naked and shivering. Bethany bit back a distressed noise. Maker, but he was thin, with white scars crossing the skin of his chest and stomach. The bruising seemed to stop just below his shoulders, but he was so dirty that Bethany wasn't sure.

When she handed him the robe, he wrapped it around his body and gave her a ghost of a smile. "That," he said, "is not necessarily the expression a man hopes to inspire in a beautiful woman when he's naked."

Bethany surprised herself with a laugh. "Yes, well, try me again when you've had a bath and a few dozen meals." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to take them back - they sounded too much like flirting, and that wasn't what she intended, no matter what kind of schoolgirl feelings she may have had nearly a decade ago. Wrong time, wrong place.

Anders sighed and sat back down on the cot. "Meals," he said, his voice getting distant, his eyes on the floor. "I feel like I haven't been hungry in months."

"I'll have someone bring you something. And you'll eat it," she insisted. "Promise me."

He nodded, almost imperceptibly. Then, he looked up. "Bethany, why are you here?"

"The Wardens sent me."

"Why?"

She looked away. "We should have this conversation later. When you're stronger."

"But we will have it."

"I promise."

It was, a small part of her mind whispered, possibly more than he deserved - she'd been standing in the middle of a Lowtown street when the earth began to shake underneath her feet and the red blast of magic tore the sky in two. She hadn't thought that anything could ever hold a candle to the darkspawn-infested dreams of a Warden, but the Gallows battle still appeared to her in the night from time to time.

Still … after all was said and done, she understood. And that was why she was here. The orders from Weisshaupt had merely been a good excuse.

She felt his eyes on her back as she left the tent. More conversation - and her own conscience's tug-of-war - would wait until he was a little better.

A shy Dalish girl brought him a bowl of stew. The sight of it almost made Anders' stomach turn, but he was still enough of a healer to know that Bethany was right - food would make him feel better, more so than any healing or salves.

As he ate, he cycled through his mess of memories. His brain felt rather like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, with lots of strange fragments that probably went together somehow, if only he could figure out which piece connected to which. He remembered nights curled up in muddy holes, praying not to be discovered. He remembered another mage - a Tevinter magister, something told him, though he couldn't remember how he knew that or how he met the man. He remembered pain. He remembered begging … for what, he couldn't recall. And he remembered-

Anders shoved his bowl to the side and stood up. That was the problem with feeling better. He remembered.

He left the tent, for the first time since he'd been discovered by the Dalish hunters. That was … several days? A week? He felt his cheeks redden as he remembered getting up periodically to relieve himself in the corner of the tent. Someone had obviously cleaned up after him, as the tent didn't smell like his own waste. The Dalish had been better to him than he deserved. Really, he'd nearly considered his time in the tent a hallucination, until Bethany showed up.

Outside, she sat cross-legged next to the fire, speaking in a low voice with one of the hunters. Anders tried to remember the last time he'd seen her. Years … the Deep Roads, he suddenly recalled, with Nathaniel Howe. Or, no, that wasn't right, hadn't she been there at the end, in Kirkwall? He could almost see the her Warden armor in his mind, before Garrett had driven him off … but that night could be an elusive memory, and perhaps he was imagining it.

It was strange, mistrusting his own mind like this.

All he could be certain of was the present, and right now, Bethany's armor glinted blue in the waning sunlight. Her dark hair was bundled into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, and her staff lay balanced in her lap. The years had obviously been far kinder to her than to him. His mind projected an image of a shy, coltish young woman, hanging back behind her brother as they came to his clinic for the first time. He was surprised, actually, that he could remember so well what she looked like - back then, Garrett Hawke often seemed to fill every corner of his mind that wasn't taken by Justice. (Ah, unrequited love. Lust. Obsession. He never had been able to categorize those feelings properly.) He wouldn't have thought there was much room for Garrett's younger sister to take up residence. But, remember he did, suddenly; a wide-eyed girl who had possibly been the first person to seriously, without reservation, tell him that she admired his goals.

This Bethany, ten years older and wiser, certainly wasn't going to look at him with quite the same admiration. But at least she didn't look at him with disgust, which was an improvement over some people. The last time he'd seen Garrett … the memory slipped away almost as quickly as it had popped up. Anders was grateful. Some things weren't really worth remembering.

He moved toward the fire. Slowly, every person in the area turned to stare at him. "Do I look that bad?" he asked.

"It's good to see you up," the hunter next to Bethany spoke. Perhaps he was one of the ones who found Anders - that much was still a blur. "We weren't sure you would ever emerge."

"Yeah, me either." Anders folded himself into a sitting position next to Bethany. Every one of his joints and muscles seemed to protest; the pain must have shown on his face, because when he settled, Bethany laid a hand on his back. He felt the telltale warmth of healing, and suddenly all his muscles relaxed. "Bless you," he said. "I'm getting old."

"I think that's more injury than age," she said.

"Maybe."

She grabbed his chin and looked him over. "You have a little more color now," she observed.

"I feel more awake than I have in a while. Which, granted, isn't terribly awake. But still. I'm not likely to fall face-first into the fire, so I consider it a victory."

Bethany smiled, and Anders was struck with the sudden urge to lean over and kiss her. The idea startled him enough that he turned his head and stared into the fire. This felt foreign - it had been forever, too long since he'd felt any urges other than the conflicting desires for survival and death. Justice hadn't left him much room for anything else, not once the chantry plan was hatched. And, Anders marveled, wasn't that an even more foreign feeling - contemplating any sort of sexual desire without a disapproving voice in the back of his head. It still felt wrong, like he was half-deaf.

Bethany went back to chatting with the hunter. Anders didn't pay attention to the conversation; he just let the sound of Bethany's voice wash over him. She sounded … familiar. Like he could just close his eyes and transport himself back to those first years in Kirkwall, when he'd gained a certain amount of freedom from everything - from the Circle, from the Wardens, from the Templars. Even Justice was quieter then, watching and waiting for an opportunity to right wrongs. He should have appreciated those years more. He should have laughed more, drank more, maybe even kissed a pretty girl who looked at him like he was amazing.

"Do you miss it?" he asked aloud. When Bethany looked at him, confused, he realized he was continuing a mental conversation. "Kirkwall," he clarified. "Before the Deep Roads."

She gave him a sad smile. "Sometimes. I more miss Lothering, when my whole family was alive and well. But yes, I do miss Kirkwall from time to time."

"What do you miss most?"

She hesitated. "Hope," she said finally. "I had so much hope back then. The viscount would grant Mother our estate, we'd make enough money on the Deep Roads expedition to get out of Gamlen's house and start rebuilding a real life again."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'd be dead if it weren't for you, remember?" She shook her head, as if to clear it, and Anders wanted to apologize for bringing the subject up. Before he could speak, she looked back at him. "Do you?"

"Miss it?" When she nodded, he stared back at the fire. "I miss the opportunities I neglected to take."

He felt a hand wrap gently around his arm. It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but suddenly, Anders had a horrible sense of a larger hand squeezing his arm and pushing him to the floor. "Are you ready?" an unfamiliar deep voice whispered in his ear. But he wasn't ready, not at all, this wasn't what he'd expected, but before he could tell the man he'd changed his mind his arms were clapped in irons and …

Anders was on his feet before he knew he'd moved. He heard Bethany and the hunter stand as well, but he couldn't bring himself to look at them. "I have to go," he muttered, before fleeing into the tent.