This is just a snap-shot I might make more of it at some other time. But for the moment this is only a one shot. It takes place in Act 2. Mild spoilers and some fluff. ;D
All cred to the mighty BIOWARE!
The low crackling of the fire was soothing and made her sleepy. She should be worried that Anders was so late but it was most probably just a case of him being hold up by a patient. It should make her furious since they had so precious little time to spend together. He was the only healer that helped people without money and in a city like Kirkwall almost no one had money. He was their guardian angel. When the door opened and Anders stepped in she got up and walked over to her.
"I'm so sorry. I was held up. The Inkwell's child had the most terrible cough. The house that they live in is not hot enough. They need a better home or that child is not going to make it."
She saw that he was sad. That was the worst part of his work. When he knew that he could heal someone many times and in the end the way they had to live would kill them anyway.
"I not angry. I know you wouldn't forget me and that you had a reason to be late."
He sat down next to her and smiled. When Anders smiled the lines of his hard life softened and he looked like the young man that he actually was. It was hard to imagine him having time to live trough so much and still be only a little above 30.
"I hurried as fast as I could. We almost have no time now a days. You always try to save this city from crime and unfairness and me trying to heal all the poor people."
She took his hand and let out a sigh of contentment. His hand was warm and rough and all man. She looked down on the innocent way they were linked. His darker bigger manly hand holding her white and utter feminine hand. This was everything she wanted. When she was fighting she did it for him. If she could give people a better life they wouldn't need him as much or if they could they would at least be able to pay him a little. He never asked for money from them but she saw that his donation box always was empty expect for what she put in there.
"I will always fight for those who need me and I need someone to help them with what I can't. I am no healer and I need you. I need you to heal the people I save"
He pulled her up form the chair she was sitting in and pulled her down in his lap. This was as close as he had ever let her come. For the most part he did not like to be close. He was so afraid that he would hurt her. She wasn't, he would never hurt her and if Justice ever did she was capable of defending herself.
"I feel so much like a girl when I'm with you."
What she said made him sad. She was so young, only 23 and she had the world on her shoulders. She had saved her family from the blight and then she had taken all the blame for her sister's death and when they came to Kirkwall she had gone against everything that matter to her and worked with mercenaries. All so that her mother and little brother could get some sort of home. But it did not end there. She had worked her ass of trying the get money so she could get her family a better home. She went down to the deep roads even if she hated cramped spaces. Now she was helping people that really needed her help. Had she ever been young? What had she been like before the blight?
"I truly wish I could take part in your burden more than I do."
She smiled sweetly at him and nuzzled closer.
"Anders, you can't. There are not enough hours in the day for you to do any more than you do and by just being you help me a lot."
The fire had simmered down and the darkness became thicker and thicker. The quiet between them did not bother them. It felt nice since they almost always were surrounded by noise. But Marian soon felt that she had to say something. Something she needed him to know.
"I am so in love with you, Anders."
When he opened his mouth to protest she silently placed her fingers over it.
"Let me finish. I know that you are afraid to hurt me but you should know that you already do. Working side by side with you but not being able to be close to you. To have these late night meetings, the only time we can relax and this feeling of love that is in everything I do. I hurts me that I can't say to the world that I truly love you. An obsessed apostate"
When she fell silent again he said nothing. He knew that every word of what she was saying was the epitome of truth.
"I know all this, Marian. I know it! Damn it"
She got up from his knee and stared down at him. He could see the fury as a quiet glare in her deep blue eyes.
"You think that knowing what we both feel for each other doesn't hurt me? It's worse than having my heart broken because this could be something so wonderful!"
He looked up at her with true wonder in his eyes. She was beautiful, more beautiful than ever before. The low dark red from the almost dead fire made her skin glow and her hair was out, falling in blonde curls around her body. He got to his feat and pulled her in. The kiss held all the desire that had been building inside of them for three years. She gasped with surprise but answered the kiss with the same fire.
"I need you more than you can ever understand! You are not the one that is only a vessel. When Justice wants to he can control me. Make me do things that Anders would never do. Don't you understand? I would never break you heart. But he could!"
With that he left her with burning lips and shaking with desire. With a sigh she sat down again. This was unexpected and it might even be a good thing. His defences were wearing down and she could most definitively work with that.
Anders walked fast. He hated this! In this moment he hated Justice more than he ever had before. He had been a different person before Justice. A person that would not be walking home leaving a beautiful woman that wanted him. A woman he happened to be so much in love with. He would not have ended the kiss but taken her to bed and make her his forever. But he could not risk it. If he gave in to his emotion and did what she almost begged him to do he would break her heart in the worst way imaginable. He would let her down and use her. Use her and her trust. He yanked the door to his home open and slammed it shut.
"Well well, someone's a bit upset tonight."
Isabella knew were Anders had been. There was only one girl that could give him that look.
"Why are you here? Gotten another of those diseases?"
Definitely been at Hawke's and it had not ended on the note that Hawke and Anders had wanted.
"No, I wanted to tell you something. You know what you asked me to look into."
All of a sudden the anger disappeared. He almost looked eager.
"You found something?"
She nodded and walked to a chair and sat down.
"You were right. There truly is some apostate mages that have an underground organisation that help mages to run away."
She looked at him. The eagerness disappeared and he almost looked sad.
"You planning on running away or what?"
He shook his head and sat down.
"No, but it just makes me so sad that mages have to go to those extremes to have a free life."
Isabella nodded. She did truly feel for mages. They had to live in places that were only a step up from prison and they could be punished at any time just to be made example of. She would die without her freedom and she had chosen freedom and she was not hunted unless she wanted to be.
"Good thing that you are not running away. Who would then take care of my… love bugs… and who would hinder Hawke form becoming a machine. She would ne less human without her feeling for you."
Anders only looked at her.
"She has her family and her friends. Those matter to her so much that she would not forget them."
She was amazed at how stubborn this man was.
"You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel any better. But we all know that she would be less than what she is without you. Some of the things she does if for no one else but you."
Isabella's words should not make him so terrified. He did not want that to be the truth. He would die if he hurt her so much that she would never forgive him. Isabella saw that the message sank in and she got up and left him alone. All alone and that was all his fault.