Cullen stared at the aggravated anchor on Alice's hand. "I didn't know it had gotten this bad," he whispered. The night sky was quiet above them as they stood in the empty courtyard, the only people around being the Inquisition soldiers that stood guard over the storeroom nearby. "I knew it had been hurting you but I didn't…why didn't you show me? Why didn't you tell me?"

Alice smiled sadly, closing her eyes against a possibility of tears welling up. She couldn't cry, couldn't show weakness now. She had to be strong for him, because if she wasn't he would surely break too. "It's not exactly honeymoon talk, Cullen."

"All in the last few days?" he asked. "It's gotten this much worse since we got here?"

"I don't know why it's happening," Alice said, repeating what she had told him and the other advisors earlier. "All I know is it's getting worse and I have to finish this before…"

"Don't," Cullen told her roughly, his hand closing on hers, squeezing it tightly. "Don't even imply that. This won't kill you. It can't."

Alice shook her head, somehow unable to stop smiling. He was so determined. In his eyes, she was both indestructible and infinitely fragile at the same time. Unable to bear the thought of losing her and sure of the idea that she would survive anything at the same time. "It can," Alice whispered. "I can feel it, Cullen. It's what was happening before—when the Breach was first created. It was killing me then, too. Only now…there's no Breach to seal, no way to stop it."

Cullen's shoulders gave a slight lurch as he bent his head forward, hiding his face from Alice. She reached out immediately, cupping a hand on his cheek and gently tilting his face back up. Tears glistened in those golden eyes, a few escaping as he looked at her and running in salty paths down his cheek. Alice wiped one tear away, only for it to be replaced by another. "Poor Cullen," she murmured, fighting against tears herself. "To be a widower so soon after becoming a husband."

"I can't lose you," he whispered, voice thick with emotion. "You…you can't die. You're everything."

"I'm sorry, love," Alice said. "But I can't be your everything forever. You might need to find a new everything."

"You can't go into this thinking you'll die," Cullen said, a little louder than before, his grief building up. "If you do, you will. You have to believe in yourself. Please, Alice…believe that you can live."

Alice felt a tear finally run down her own cheek. "You have my word that I will do everything I can to come back to you," she promised. "That was never in doubt. I don't want to leave you."

Cullen nodded, his face still a mask of misery and despair. "That's all I can ask of you then."

"You have to promise me something," Alice told him. "If I don't come back…" She had to pause for a minute as her voice broke and swallow around the lump in her throat. Cullen's hand tightened on hers, the other finding its way to her cheek, mirroring the way she held his face in her hand. "If I don't come back," she began again after regaining her self-control, "you have to promise that you won't give up. You won't give in to despair. You won't take lyrium again. You won't waste the rest of your life."

"Alice," he whispered, leaning his forehead against hers.

"Don't make my death the reason you give up," she told him firmly. "Don't put that on me. Let me have some peace knowing that you'll be okay if I'm gone."

Cullen's eyes were squeezed shut. He was quiet for a few minutes, both of them just standing there in the dark, forehead to forehead, quiet except for their breathing and sniffling. "All right," he finally said. "I promise. I won't…I won't give up."

If Alice was honest with herself, she wasn't sure that he could make such a promise as that, but it comforted her nonetheless to have heard it. "Okay," she replied. She took a deep breath. "I have to go," she told him. "The others are waiting for me."

Suddenly, Cullen's lips were on hers, desperate, fervent, intense, passionate. She closed her eyes, taking this moment to memorize the feel of his lips on hers. The texture of his stubbly beard beneath her palm. His smell of metal and leather and spice. She knew he was doing the same with her. This was very likely their last moment, their last chance.

This was a goodbye.

Too soon, they had to pull apart. "Love, please," he whispered, voice breaking a little bit again, so quiet she could scarcely hear. "Come back."

Alice nodded, running her hand through his blonde curls one final time. "I'll try," she promised. "I'll try."

Somehow she managed to let go of him and start to walk away, towards the storeroom where the others waited to go through the eluvian with her. She stopped, and turned back, ten feet or so separating her and her husband. "I love you," she told him.

Cullen looked up at her from where he had trained his gaze on the ground. "And I love you," he replied. "Forever. No matter what happens."

Alice nodded, blinking back a few final tears. All she wanted to do was run back to him, to fall into his arms and never leave them again. But she had to be strong. Just one last time, she had to be strong.

She turned away and walked towards the storeroom. Towards that one last adventure waiting for her.