"At least he can't complain about his looks," Hawke says, not a stranger anymore and not yet a friend. Anders' blood runs cold. He knows where this will end. He has been down this road before. Karl's blood is still warm on his hands.
"Don't. I'll break your heart," he says, and her lips turn upward into a crooked grin.
"Maybe my heart needs to be broken," she says, and Anders thinks maybe she would break his heart, instead.
Some nights, when he can't sleep, he lays awake thinking of her.
Your obsession with her is a distraction, Justice says.
Some distractions are worth it, thinks Anders.
He thinks that she might be the salvation he is looking for, that it might be the kind of salvation he would find in the sway of her hips and the curve of her smile.
Justice doesn't reply. It is a conversation they will have often.
"It's all went wrong. Justice and I…we're a monster now. Just like any other abomination," Anders says bitterly, and Hawke rests her hand on her shoulder.
"You're not a monster, Anders. You're just a man that made a choice," Hawke says, and Anders wonders if it is really so simple. He doubts he has been a man for a long time.
"I appreciate your faith in me, as misplaced as it is," Anders replies, and when Hawke grins at him he thinks that he would gladly let his heart break over that smile. He can feel Justice humming in the back of his skull, but he pays no mind to the spirit.
"I'm still a man, Hawke. You can't tease me like this and expect me to resist forever," he says, and there is something desperate in his voice. He doesn't know what he wants her to do.
"Then don't resist," she says, and his hands pull her closer as his lips find hers. She tangles her fingers in his coat and kisses back with a fierceness only she could possess.
Her lips taste like war, Anders realizes, and he doesn't want to stop.
When he pulls back, she has that easy, crooked grin on her face.
"This will be a disaster," he tells her, and something wicked flashes in her eyes. He thinks that, no matter how this ends, it will all be worth it.
He almost expected her door to be locked. Instead, he strolls inside and sees her standing in front of the fire, her back to him. "You're here," she breathes, as if she'd expected him not to come.
""When I was in the Circle, love was only a game. It gave the templars too much power if you had something to lose. It would kill me to lose you," he says, and he thinks that he has already let his heart break over the curl of her lips and the fire in her eyes.
"You're not going to lose me," she promises, and he reaches out to cup her face, as though she'll vanish at any moment.
"No mage I know has ever dared to fall in love. This is the rule I will most cherish breaking," he whispers, and this time Hawke is the one who presses a needy kiss against his lips.
The next morning, he begins the process of moving to Hightown. She wouldn't hear any other option.
Hawke brings him a cat one morning, a tiny grey thing that squeaks more than it can meow. It's dirty and hungry, and Anders loves it immediately.
"I thought you'd like her. She's no Ser Pounce, but maybe that'll be all right," she says, and Anders cradles the cat against his chest. She bats at one of the stray feathers on his coat, and Anders laughs.
"He realizes this may be the first time he's laughed in months.
"Thank you," he says, and Hawke presses a kiss to his cheek. He leans into her touch absentmindedly, and his smile is blinding.
Kirkwall burns around them, and Hawke stands over the Arishok, her staff held like a blade. As soon as Aveline and Fenris release him, Anders rushes forward, his hands moving everywhere at once and checking her for injuries.
"It's okay, Anders, I'm all right," she says, and she is still breathing heavily. He kisses her, then, worry and fear leaving him in a heavy sigh.
"I thought I would lose you," he says, and Hawke grins against his mouth.
"It'll take more than that to get rid of me," she says, and he lets out a shaky laugh that is almost a sob.
The second time Kirkwall burns around them, Anders almost collapses, crumbling in on himself. "Do what you will with him. He's your friend," the First Enchanter says, and then Hawke is there, a hand on his shoulder.
"There's nothing you can say to me that I haven't said to myself," Anders says, and he is braced for a knife in the back that never comes.
"I love you," Hawke says, and Anders stiffens with the shock of it. When she kisses him, she tastes like war and revolution and Anders realizes he would gladly die by her side.
"Although, when this is over, we are having a talk about why you thought it was okay to keep me in the dark with this," she says, but it is the idea of any sort of after with her that Anders clings to.
In the end, they have years to have to have that talk. Their enemies are dead, and they leave Kirkwall before the flames have even been put out, everyone scattering. It was not how he expected it to end, but it was a better ending than he could have ever anticipated.
Years later, Anders and Hawke have disappeared. Instead, there are two farmers in a small village in Fereldan. Sometimes, whispers of the Champion will leave the village, and sometimes people will travel to the village to find the woman who shouldered a city. Instead, they will find a woman, her fingers linked with a man's, and a child with wide blue eyes asking half a dozen questions a minute. This cannot be the Champion, they will think, and then they will leave. The woman and the man will go home, the child scampering ahead of them, and later the woman will turn to the man.
She is not a Champion that served a city, and he is not a revolutionary that started a war. The years have worn away the titles and the armor, leaving behind the people behind the legends. She is Hawke and he is Anders, and there are no more Templars to tear them apart.