"Mother...?" He remembered her strangled voice.

He couldn't get her face out of his mind. He couldn't imagine losing his family. He never knew his family. Perhaps that is small comfort. He could not mourn them like she would.

He paced in front of the fireplace. The rug under his feet threadbare from this repeated habit. He sighed, and brushed a piece of stark white hair that had fallen into his eyes. He felt like he should do something, but what? What could he say to her? What comfort could he give? He knew none. "Venhedis.. " he whispered to the air.

When she had seen her mother, a walking corpse, she had just snapped. He had attempted to keep her safe throughout the battle as she recklessly had run forward in her rage. Straight to the mage who had done this. Lightning and fire and curses pouring forth from her in quantities that slightly frightened him. A mage unhinged. It had been futile to try to keep her back. So he had just tried to keep any enemies from attacking her from behind, allowing her the vengeance she sought. The mage, Quentin, had gone down in a bombardment of lightning and fire. Hawke screamed a guttural cry full of rage as she unleashed her magic on him. A final raised corpse got her knife between its long empty eye sockets.

Yet afterwards, when all that was left was Leandra; it had been like something deep inside Hawke had just severed suddenly. For a moment she appeared merely a girl. A girl who wanted her mother to be alright, and yet knowing the truth of it. A fool's hope. A child's hope.

The strong mage he had come to know, to trust, to... care for. She had broken in that moment. Reverted back to a lost child as her mother had fallen into her arms.

A powerful mage's selfish and sadistic desires had done this. A powerful mage who had go unnoticed by the circle, the Templars and the guard, and even Hawke. He suddenly punched the wall with a gauntleted fist in a moment of blind anger. His markings hummed to life, a slight buzzing tingling across his flesh. He had failed to protect her from this. Magic haunted him no matter where he went, but Hawke? Did it have to continue to hurt the people around him as well?

He couldn't get the image out of his mind. Her sitting there, silently broken, cradling her mother in her arms as she would a treasured possession. She sat for a long moment, perfectly still, and the only sound in that empty pit was her quickened breathing and the thundering of blood in his ears from his heart beating too fast. The abomination had been there, and Isabela, but they said nothing. He had followed suit. Not knowing what to say.

She had finally turned and looked directly at him. Her bright blue eyes were dull and lifeless, but no tears were there. She spoke to him in a stranger's tone, devoid of all emotion "help me... take care of her.." and she had attempted to pick up the body of her mother, obviously not strong enough to carry the dead weight alone.

Anders had said "We can send someone for her Hawke. There is no reason to carry that burden..." he didn't get a chance to finish.

Hawke, in a wrathful voice laced with some hidden power he recognized from when mages called on the fade, bellowed at Anders, cutting him off. "I will NOT leave her here! This dusty hole of gore and rot and death will NOT be my mother's tomb!" She looked down.

"So help me... or leave me..." she choked as her voice cracked.

Anders only nodded.

Fenris had helped carry the corpse along with Hawke, who had refused to let him take the burden fully. As tired as she was from battle, she trudged on, stumbling a few times, but catching herself with an intake of breath. Her lifeless eyes were a match to the corpse she carried. If any of the others attempted to take her place, she shrugged them off with a glare that froze them in their tracks.

She spoke not a word. Isabela had gone ahead at Anders' suggestion to get the local coroner to meet them with a cart for the body.

Fenris had almost to pry the body away from Hawke's grip. Her knuckle white hands clenching to the remnants of her family.

"Hawke, let go.." he had said.

Only then did she uncurl her fingers and release her grip. She allowed the cart to drive off, and without a word had walked away from all of them. Toward hightown, and her home. Where she no doubt resided now.

It had been hours. The day had waned to night and the moon was full in the sky.

I should go to her.. he thought.

Useless... what good will it do? he argued back.

I can't just sit here and do nothing.. I have to try. came his answer.

What does an ex-slave who is good at nothing but killing have to say to a grieving woman? To Hawke? Especially after what you did to her. a good point, he thought.

Yet his feet were moving him toward the door regardless. Pretty soon he was outside with the moon reflecting down on him. His markings slightly shimmering as the light caught them. He would go, although he had no idea why or what he would do when he got there. He couldn't leave it like this. Her lifeless eyes, the silent way she had crumpled, and broken. He had to make sure the Hawke he knew, his Hawke, was still there.

He paced outside her door. Paced and paced, thinking of going back. Of how useless this was. Of how ill prepared he was to comfort someone grieving. "Fastevas... what am I doing?" He growled, but as soon as he had made his mind up to walk away the door opened. Gamlen stood there, his eyes rimmed with held back tears. He only stared at the elf, and moved past him quickly muttering something under his breath. Bodhan had let him out and stood staring at Fenris.

"Fenris, ser, Hawke is.."

"I know. I was there." he said tersely and truthfully.

The dwarf raised an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched up in an understanding smile. He nodded and opened the door. Fenris entered past him. The point of no return.

"She has been upstairs in her room for a long time. Gamlen was here for a while even after they talked. He sealed up Mistress Leandra's room. I haven't seen her in hours, ser." Bodhan was doing his best to hide his outright concern.

Fenris took an intake of air. Realizing suddenly he had been holding his breath as he ascended the stairs.

The door to Hawke's room was ajar, and he could see her sitting on the edge of the bed. Her head was bent, and she was staring intently at the fire. Her eyes were dark and dull, not the bright orbs full of life he knew and had come to rely on.

"I don't know what to say, but I am here.." he managed to say as he entered the room. He did not know if she would hear him or not. She was so very still.

Her head lolled towards him. A dull sheen glazing over her eyes, but he didn't see tears. For some reason that didn't surprise him.

He stood stiffly and his discomfort under her corpse-like gaze made his inadequacy and arrogance at thinking he could do anything for her very apparent.

"Just say something, anything..." she finally spoke, and her voice cracked a little.

He moved closer to her, trying to recollect anything that might be appropriate. He recalled a time when he had been ordered by Danarius to kill an old slave who had displeased him. When it was done he had heard the daughter of the old man later wailing and crying in the slave quarter and another woman had said some words of comfort to her. They had stuck with him.

"They say... death is only a journey..." he stumbled over the words slightly cringing inside at the weight of his own memories. Hawke only stared at him with that dull stare. "Does that help?" he offered.

"It just raises more questions. Journey to where?" She lowered her head as she spoke. He suddenly felt a need inside of him to be closer to her. He moved and took a seat down beside her on the bed. She watched him, a spark of life coming into her eyes. Then fading.

"I don't know... It's just something people say." He said truthfully remembering how little it seemed to comfort the wailing slave when the woman had said the same to her. Remorse tugged at his heart. He was a fool to think that would help anything.

Hawke sighed, her eyes gleaming wet in the firelight. She was holding back tears. He searched himself. Something, anything. Finally, he went with his instinct. The only truth he knew about comfort was that nothing he could say was going to make a difference.

"To be honest, I don't think there is much point in filling these moments with empty talk." He hoped she knew how much he meant it.

Her gaze met his, and she took a quick intake of breath suddenly, like a sob. She gave a small nod. He took it as a queue to leave and moved to get up. A hand reached up and clung itself to his jerkin. A strong grip but he felt the tremors vibrate through even as the white knuckled claw stopped him.

The look he gave her was a pleading look. Eyes moist and deep, and so painful to watch in their despair. A look he had seen stare back at him from his own victims. A plea for him to spare them. To let them live. This time, though he only wished he had the kind of power to give her what she needed. To spare her from this.

He didn't move. He removed her hand gently and stayed, sitting next to her. In the silence the only sound was the dull thud of his own heart pounding in his ears and the soft, even waves of her breathing. Every once in a while a gasp or a sob would escape her lips. Once she had whispered "mother..." and he looked over at her in concern. Silent tears rolled down her cheeks making her eyes shine like gems.
Time seemed to vanish as they sat there in silence. Then suddenly after what could have been minutes, hours, he couldn't tell, she moved herself closer to him. Without a word she lay her head against him. He froze, muscles tensing. Her weight fell on him and her head seemed to find a perfect fit on his arm. Avoiding the sharp spikes of his shoulderpads.

The contact made his markings sing, that slight buzzing under his skin. Yet this was Hawke, and he knew this touch, and a part of him ached for it. He relaxed. A savage emotion deep within himself he didn't quite understand boiled and made his heart beat slightly faster. He suddenly wished, not for the first time, that he could go back in time and change things between them. Such selfish thoughts. Now was not the time.
He stared at the woman leaning on him, her hair shone in the firelight. Her breathing becoming slow and calm. The gasps and sobs had stopped.

She turned her head upward and met his gaze with her own as if she had felt him watching her. Dried tears still stained her face. Her eyes were red rimmed, but there was a bit of the old Hawke he knew in that gaze. She was there still, and he wanted to hold onto her. He took his arm and wrapped it slowly around her. She leaned in closer, and her head fell perfectly into place on his chest. Her body curling into him.

She reached and grabbed his other hand with her own. Tentatively, she drew it around her. A hug. Such a foreign thing to him. A simple hug. That's all she had wanted, and he had been too blind to see it. Or too scared. She sighed deeply and the corners of her mouth turned upward slightly into a sad smile that faded as quickly as it had manifested. He marveled how it felt to have her in his arms. How strange and perfect it seemed.

They stayed, intertwined, silent, until sleep claimed them both.