A/N: Edited regarding a story line that I had no idea was going to pop up.

Disclaimer: I own very little, aside from my words. Concepts, world, characters - all BioWare/David Gaider/et al.

It had been years since I had last laid eyes on my blond mage. Once the Knight-Commander had been defeated, no matter how wrong she had been, someone had to pay. I wasn't about to let any of my companions take the fall; I thought that the status as Champion and Viscount would soften the blow for me. Perhaps it did; I did not die. Not physically, anyhow.

It had been seven years since I had seen the sun, since I had tasted fresh air. I could barely breathe for all of it, what seemed to be the newness. Like rebirth, though I doubted one's bones ache so much as a newborn.

"...You must know I am sorry," Knight-Commander Cullen, who had been promoted immediately followed Meredith's quite timely demise, frowned as he stood in front of me in the Gallow's courtyard. "I could not..."

I remembered, years ago, him apologizing for taking Bethany from me. The words were almost exactly the same. But they meant more now, despite what had transpired.

"Do not worry," I smiled wanly, "I have had long enough to come to terms with my desire to kill or otherwise injure you. You are safe from my wrath." He looked quite taken aback, though somewhat relieved. And then he let out a quiet chuckle because we both knew the truth. We stood for a moment in silence, just looked at each other. It had been quite a long time since I had seen his face, despite his best efforts to visit me without being suspicious. So much had passed between us over the last seventeen years that it was nearly impossible for me to think of what to say in that moment.

"Tell me...is there news of any of my companions?"

There was, but not much. None were dead, at least not that Cullen could tell; Varric was here or there, Fenris similarly so. Aveline and Donig had returned to our once-home, after about five years of trying to return Kirkwall to some semblance of normalcy by helping to rebuild when the dust had settled. Isabela had disappeared, as we expected, though Merrill had followed her, which we had not. Sebastian, still seething over the loss of the Grand Claric, was nursing his wounds in Starkhaven though there was word that he had a bounty out for Anders. Ahh, Anders. No one had seen or heard from him since I had turned myself in.

Cullen began speaking again, but I was lost in thought at my surroundings. Kirkwall had been built up again and, though it didn't seem much different here in the Gallows, I suspected it was a slight sight better than the last time I had stood on that flagstone walkway. How much better, I did not know. Blood was not running down the steps, though, and that was an improvement.

"...and, though you can't tell a soul, I've got your things," he finished, handing me back every earthly possession he had taken from me that day seven years ago, minus the money I had possessed and the house that had long-since been sold. He had hidden them in the alcove we had once frequented. My heart stopped in my chest as we came upon it. I turned to look at him as he bent to retrieve the trunk he had hidden away. He stood before me, silver threaded through his beautiful curls. Despite myself, I smiled. I remembered the feel of those curls in my fingers and I imagined it was quite the same that day as it had been even as we played at kissing in the halls of the Gallows.

He nodded a little, as if committing to the fact that he was remembering the same things I was. Neither of us spoke as we moved away, though he stopped not far off. Setting the trunk down again, he brought himself closer. He did not touch me, though he reached out as if he would.

"Marion," he murmured, a far-away look in his eyes. He was playing our time together over on loop in his head; I knew this only because it was the same thing I was, and I could see the same thing in his eyes that I was feeling so intensely.

I shook my head a little and moved away, picking up one end of the trunk. I couldn't do it, and I couldn't let him. It would be too easy, for a short time. He hurried over to grab the other, our moment lost.

As we made our way to the dock outside the Gallows, he spoke. Softly, as Cullen had often done. I wasn't paying much attention to the words that left his mouth, though. I couldn't – I couldn't let myself get swept up in the emotion, despite how desperately I wished to. Instead, I was struck suddenly with the memory of our arrival. My brother, recently dead. My mother, still reeling. My sister, terrified of the Templars, like the man I was walking with then, that she knew overran the city we were about to enter. And Aveline. Strong, stalwart Aveline standing at my side as she did for the next ten years.

Twenty. I had been twenty then; I fancied myself mature, as I strove to take care of my family. And failed. The more time I spent in Kirkwall, the more I realized I knew nothing of anything. At three years shy of forty, I still felt very much like I knew little.

Cullen bent to open the trunk of my things beside a small boat that he had procured for me with the remnants of my money. The majority of my fortune had been willingly confiscated (what need did I have of it, rotting in a cell?) for the rebuilding of the city I had helped to destroy. As he revealed the articles of my past to me, I felt inexplicably old. I had far outlived my expected years – harboring apostates since I was a child, it was a wonder I had made it to adolescence. With the sharp and often untamed tongue I possessed, it was certainly a curiosity as to how I had walked away from possibly a hundred different situations entirely intact.

"...Vael thinks you are dead."

The words caught me off guard. I removed myself from my thoughts and looked directly at Knight-Commander Cullen, the age and stress showing in lines around his mouth and eyes.

Sebastian Vael, King of Starkhaven (he had, of course, won back his country), wanted my blood for allowing Anders to live – and, moreover, for standing with the mages. Salt in the wound, or so I imagined.

"You told him-"

"I suggested. There were signs of your companions leaving the city, but you disappeared. Far be it from me to tell him where you were; he never directly asked. He sent people after you, but not a one of them inquired as to your location inside of Kirkwall. I….would not have told him regardless." His eyes, darkened with sadness, made me believe that he really wouldn't have, "There were many bodies so maimed as to be indistinguishable. It was not out of the realm of possibility that you had perished."

"He wouldn't have believed-"

He paused, giving me an indescribable look. "There were thoughts of it not being entirely unintentional."

Not only was I dead, but I had allowed myself to be killed.

Hadn't I?

Marion Hawke was no more. I was now a nameless rogue, with no family or friends. Every member of my family was dead and all of my friends had disappeared. It was better this way; I couldn't hurt them any longer. The only person that knew me in any real way was standing there, fighting against the emotions that I could see in his eyes. I half expected him to up and disappear. Or to never have existed at all.

Shaking my head, I searched through the trunk, picking up a few of the trinkets Cullen had managed to salvage. One that I had not expected thunked hard against the wooden bottom of the trunk as I withdrew a worn leather breastplate, which I unceremoniously dropped onto the deck as I noticed the smaller trinket that remained in the trunk. Tears welled in my eyes and blurred the small wooden statue. I reached out for it but pulled my hand back, afraid of what touching it might do to me. Standing, I swiped at my eyes as inconspicuously as I could manage.

"I can't..." I found his eyes with mine, my fingers suddenly cold as the blood rushed to my rapidly beating heart. "It's-"

"Please, Marion." His voice was choked. He cleared his throat but did not continue.

We stood without speaking for a long while, watching each with looks long forgotten. Letting out a heavy sigh, I lifted the trunk of my own volition and placed it where it was meant to go. What I did next surprised me perhaps more than it did the Knight-Commander. With the trunk loaded onto the boat, everything ready for me to leave, I stepped forward. As I put my hands on Cullen's shoulders, I saw him stiffen noticeably. I believed it was surprise more than anything.

"Thank you." I spoke simply. I knew my eyes were sparkling, I could feel the prick of tears. I had never been one for much serious emotion, though Cullen had seen it more than most. It didn't serve me, so I tried not to acknowledge it much. This was not the first time this man had made me cry but I thought it would be the last.

He nodded, slowly but without any real conviction. He seemed more than a little distracted, unable to take my appreciation for what it really meant. His armor was hard and cold against the thin shirt they had given me to leave the prison in but the human connection, however tenuous, was something I reveled in. He was awkward and stiff, relaxing only after a moment, as if he was giving. When he did, I heard the old and familiar sound of the clinking of his gauntlets hitting the ground. His arms, still shielded, wrapped around me. His hands were warm where they touched my shirt.

"It is I who should be thanking you," He spoke into my ear, my hair cut shorter than either of us was used to. It was easier than trying to untangle it after seven years of very sporadic, cold baths. "You gave up everything...to fix a city that was not your home."

I smiled a little as I pulled back, hands on his shoulders again. "If I remember correctly, Knight-
Commander, you are also a Ferelden at heart. Perhaps I did it for my countryman."

He laughed a little – not loudly but not without amusement. There had been numerous occasions in which I wanted to slit the throat of the man standing before me. Not then, though. No, not then.

I found his gauntlets for him as I had years before, though not to hide my face this time. I was too old to be embarrassed by my feelings, even if they seemed so far gone. I paused as I handed the metal over, his face turned towards mine.

"You could stay," he offered, a plea lacing his words.

I stalled. Part of me, the twenty-year-old me that remembered her first kiss (first million, more like) wanted nothing more than to stay. It had nothing to do with Kirkwall – in fact, I hated Kirkwall. It had taken everything from me and left me dead, or as good as. I knew I couldn't, though. I had no place in his life, in a life in Kirkwall. "And do what, Cullen? As a Knight-Commander, you couldn't very well make a wife of the woman that more or less single-handedly destroyed a Chantry and brought about the rebellion of every Circle in Thedas."

The word 'wife' passed my lips easily, but with a little bitterness. We were married, had been for years, but I had not been given much of a chance to be his wife. I tried; before the fight that had us at odds, before Anders, before he had been forced to lock me into a cell. It seemed so far in the past as to almost be two entirely different people.

He looked hurt but resolute. I could tell he wanted to beg me, as much as a grown man could. I was half-surprised he didn't pick me up and carry me away. I don't think I would have fought very hard.

"Where will you go elsewise?"

"Who knows," I shrugged, needing to leave. If I didn't soon, my resolve would crumble. The idea of settling down, perhaps raising a child (or perhaps not) with a man that had once loved me and still might was too tempting. It would have been easy, I told myself. "Perhaps I'll sail to the ends of the earth and be swallowed up by a sea monster. What a way to go." I laughed. He tried to fight his smile but doing so lost him the battle with his tears. I had seen him cry once before, though not overtly. It was the same then, the shining in his eyes but the refusal to spill. I wanted to touch his cheek, to reassure him. To say, 'Yes, sweetheart, I'll stay with you always.' but I couldn't, and I knew it. Couldn't reassure him, couldn't say it, couldn't stay.

"Will you ever come back?"

"I don't know."

"Will you write?"

"To what end?"

He let out a heavy, dejected sigh and seemed to resign himself to the fact that it was over. Everything. Me.

We stood for a long moment in silence and words passed unspoken between us that we had given up on some years ago. He took a step closer and I did not hesitate to close the space between us. Our lips met for one last, bittersweet kiss. My heart broke again, something I had not thought to be possible. I knew I was crying openly and did little to try and hide it.

"Goodbye, Knight-Commander. May the Maker watch over you and keep you safe."

I turned from him then, the two of us completely disconnected. The stilling air was slightly stale with no breeze coming off of the ocean and a sea of words that ebbed and flowed just beneath the surface of our conversation. I clamored into my little boat, and after he helped to launch me from the dock, he stood back as I began to drift away.

"And may the Maker someday bring you back to me. Dareth, emma lath."

It was all I could do not to jump from the boat and return to him. I could see his tears, then, something I had never experienced.

Again, my heart broke.

And again, I was alone.