"No…no! Mother! No!" She had held herself together admirably until her mother actually slipped away, cradled in her arms. "Anders, do something!"

"I can't," Anders said hopelessly. "I already told you—I'm sorry, I can't. She's gone, Hawke."

"No!" Hawke screamed. Fenris reached down to pull her away from the mutilated body of her mother. Hawke gently set her mother's head onto the ground but immediately pounced for Anders once she had. "You have to help her!" she screamed at him. Fenris grabbed her around the waist, pinning her arms to her side, before she could dig her nails in Anders' flesh or pull one of her hidden daggers.

Hawke struggled against him, feet kicking off the ground as Anders and Aveline stared in shock. "You have to do something! She's not dead! She can't be dead!"

"Hawke!" Fenris exclaimed, holding her tightly as much to restrain her as to calm her. "Get ahold of yourself. Calm down!"

"Let me go! Let me go now!"

"You're going to hurt someone if you don't calm down!" Fenris told her firmly and yet worriedly, his mouth right next to her ear. Hawke seemed to go limp in his arms very suddenly, feet dropping to the ground and then melting to her knees, pulling Fenris down with her. All the while, he kept a firm hold on her.

"I'll get help from the guard—and maybe the Templars—to clear this place out," Aveline said. "If you two can manage to keep Hawke safe, that is?" Anders nodded as he hesitantly sank to one knee in front of Hawke and Fenris.

"We will get her home safely," Fenris said quietly as Hawke slowly started sobbing.

"She won't leave her room, messere," Bodahn fretted, glancing up the stairs at the bedroom door. "I can't even get her to eat much of anything. I'll be honest, I'm quite worried, messere."

"It has been days, and she won't eat anything?" Fenris asked.

"She eats some, not enough," Bodahnn said. "Lord Varric's tried talking to her, and she gave me express orders not to let Master Anders or the good guard-captain Aveline into the house. Never mentioned you though, that's why I let you in." A small consolation prize, Fenris supposed. "She's barely said more than ten words since you left a few days ago." Bodahnn gestured to a corner, where a familiar bow lay abandoned. "She flung that there the night it happened—I've been too afraid to touch it, you know how she is about it—but she's not shown any sign of wanting to even retrieve it."

Fenris glanced at the tray of dinner things that the slave-turned-servant girl Orana was holding and took it from her. Ignoring her surprised squeak and objections, he set off up the stairs. Balancing the tray on one hand, he knocked on the heavy wooden door.

"No, Orana," was the simple reply he heard. It was short, terse, and her voice was hard. Fenris tried the door anyway, and was relieved to find that he could open it.

The room was dark, the curtains drawn and only a few candles lit here and there. Hawke's ever faithful mabari, Haru, lay at the end of the bed and raised his head and wagged his tail tentatively when he saw Fenris enter. Hawke, sitting at the head of the bed, dressed only in a nightdress with her normally so carefully arranged hair loose around her shoulders, started only a little at the sound of the door opening. She didn't look up from the journal she was aimlessly flipping through. "I said no, Orana," she repeated.

"It is me, Hawke," Fenris said simply. This finally got Hawke to look up. Her face was unnaturally calm—no hint of her normal smile, but also no sign of tears having been shed recently. Her eyes flicked from Fenris's face to the tray in his hands. Fenris followed her gaze and smiled slightly. "I didn't think I'd be serving someone their dinner ever again," he joked, walking to the bed and setting the tray in front of her. "But if that someone is you, I will not object."

"No," she said for the third time, pulling her eyes away from Fenris and back to the book.

"You have to eat," Fenris told her. She made no response. "Hawke. Hawke," he repeated firmly. Finally she looked up, annoyance in her eyes. "You have to eat," he said again.

"I do eat," she said.

"Not enough. I spoke to Bodahnn."

"And no doubt he's fretting over me as if I were a child and he my nursemaid, but I am not such and neither is he nor you," Hawke spat, then sat looking surprised at having said so much. She cleared her throat and then looked away. "I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat still," Fenris answered, not willing to give in. "Would your mother want you to starve yourself because of grief?"

"Don't," Hawke said sharply. "Just don't."

"Hawke," Fenris said softly. "Please."

She made no answer, but simply got up from the bed, taking her journal and placing it back on her desk. She stayed there, with her back turned, hands gripping the edge of the desk so hard he could see her knuckles turn white. "Leave me alone," she demanded. Her voice was hard, unforgiving, and cruel—it was not her voice. The woman he knew had a voice that was soft and encouraging, always with the sound of a smile in it somewhere. When you spoke to her you couldn't help but feel hopeful. This voice was angry—beyond angry. It was something he had not heard from her before.

"I will not."

Hawke turned to face him, looking desperate. "Now you won't leave? You've always been so eager to before."

Fenris closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She certainly had a talent for striking where it hurt most, physically or emotionally. "I've made mistakes, Hawke. Many of them. None so great as…as choosing to leave you."

"What are you doing here, Fenris?" she asked him, her voice flat.

"I am worried about you," he told her. "You told me to go away when I came to you a few days ago, and stupidly, I obeyed. Now, I won't. Come here." He stretched out his hand towards her.

Surprisingly, she took it, and let him lead her back to the bed. She sat back in her spot at the pillows, and he sat on the edge of the bed, clasping his hands together and resting his forearms on his thighs. He nodded towards the food pointedly. "Eat. Please."

"I'm not in danger of starving to death, Fen," she said, her usual affectionate nickname for him finally coming out. "You needn't be so worried." Despite her words, she picked up the silver spoon that lay on the tray and started in on the soup that was getting cold in front of her.

Fenris let her eat in silence for a few minutes before speaking up again. "Bodahnn says you won't see anyone," he commented quietly, not looking away from his clasped hands.

"I saw Varric just a few days ago," she replied quietly. "Granted, he didn't wait for Bodahnn to open the door, just stormed right in and up the stairs."

"You're turning away Anders and Aveline," Fenris said, glancing over at her. Their eyes met for a moment before she dropped her gaze to her tray. "They are your closest friends, are they not? Why won't you see them?"

"Don't, Fenris," Hawke told him, that unfamiliar anger creeping back into her voice. "I don't want to discuss it."

Fenris paused, then spoke again. "You are angry with them, aren't you?"

"They didn't do anything," Hawke whispered, her voice so full of rage that Fenris was surprised. "Aveline—if she had only been able to investigate the murders, to catch that monster before…before this…and Anders couldn't do anything! He didn't even try!" In a sudden fit of rage, she grabbed the hairbrush from her bedside table and flung it at the opposing wall. Haru started barking at the quick movement and crash of the brush against the wall—the noise seemed to startle Hawke out of her rage. "No, it's all right, boy," she soothed the dog. "I'm sorry." Haru wagged his tail slightly and lay his head back down, keeping his eyes on Hawke, watching closely.

Hawke looked back at Fenris, who had sat up in surprise when she had flung the brush. She could meet his gaze for only a moment before looking away again. "I'm done with this," she said coldly, gesturing to the tray.

Fenris glanced at it and, noting that she had eaten most of the soup and bread while ignoring the main meal, sighed. "You've barely touched it…"

"I said I'm finished, Fenris," she said again. "Please take it away. I can't eat anymore."

Fenris nodded and took the tray. "You will start eating meals again, Hawke," he said, walking across the room to put the tray on her desk. "You have to keep your strength up."

Hawke stared at where he had put the tray, and then at Fenris as he stood at the end of the bed. "Are you going to leave now?" she asked.

"No."

"I thought you would, when I gave you an excuse."

"I won't leave again."

Hawke stared at him for a moment longer. "Come here."

Fenris did not hesitate to obey her commands. He lay down on the bed next to her, placing an arm around her shoulders as she curled her body next to his and rested her head on his shoulder. "You should not blame your friends," he told her softly.

"I never thought I would live to see a day where you defended Anders," Hawke said.

"You knew he couldn't do anything," Fenris continued softly. "There are some things even cursed abominations can't do." Hawke made no answer—normally she would have scolded Fenris for speaking of Anders in such a way. He sighed and brushed a lock of ginger hair from her face. "This is not you, to be so silent and angry, Abigail," he told her.

She glanced at him in surprise. "I think the last time I heard you use my given name was…was the night we slept together."

"No one does use it," he commented.

"Mother did," she replied. "Mother was the only one left who called me my given name. She was the only one left…at all, Fenris. First Father. Then Carver, and then Bethany, she might as well be dead. And now Mother. I'm alone."

"I am here," Fenris said. "And while I may not know exactly how to be with you romantically…know that I will never abandon you. Only death could take me from you."

Hawke laughed, the action so sudden and unexpected that it startled Fenris. "Given my record, that's not exactly reassuring," she explained, her voice mixed in humor and grief. "If anything…if anything ever happened to you…" Her voice choked on tears that went unshed.

"Hawke," Fenris said firmly, yet somehow still soothingly.

"I couldn't live with myself, Fenris, if you died—"

"Hawke," Fenris said again. He grasped her chin lightly in his free hand, tipping her face up to look at him. "You cannot live your life in fear. You cannot let your grief swallow you. And you cannot blame yourself for every bad thing that happens to someone you love. Things just…happen."

She took his free hand away from her face, grasping it tightly in her own and squeezing. "Promise me," she said. "Promise me you won't die."

"I cannot promise you that," Fenris told her honestly. "And you know I cannot."

Hawke closed her eyes and a tear slipped out from beneath one lid. "I know," she whispered. "Thank you, though."

Fenris stayed there, holding her. "Of course, Hawke," he murmured. He lay his cheek on the top of her head as she rested her own against his shoulder still. "Of course."