Waiting For Hawke

by PragmaticHominid

Anders comes to Skyhold in search of Hawke, and the Inquisitor offers to keep him safely hidden until Hawke returns from business elsewhere. But the cell the former Saarebas gives him reminds Anders too much of his time in the Circle's prison, even if the cell door at Skyhold is never locked. Cole senses his fear and loneliness and tries to help.

1. Chapter 1

I.

Anders lowered his hood to look around the cell.

That it was a cell was an undeniable, and that the narrow space was well-appointed and the gray stone walls clean and dry did not change this essential fact, nor did the soft bed or the neat bookcase or the Inquisitor's promise that the door would not be locked. The thought of hearing that door click shut behind him tightened his chest and made his breath come short.

They were far beneath Skyhold, below the Inquisitor's own quarters. "You will be safe here," Anders heard the Inquisitor say.

He turned and craned his head back on his neck to look up at the Qunari. For all his height, the Inquisitor wasn't nearly as heavily built as the Qunari that Anders had seen in Kirkwall. Anders was intimately familiar with hunger, and it was easy for him to recognize himself in the other mage's rangy frame and gaunt face. The scars where stitches had once been set in the Inquisitor's lips were harder to understand. Anders tried not to stare.

Anders knew the risk that the Inquisitor was taking in hiding him here, and he did not feel that it would be right to complain, but the Qunari seemed to sense his unease at being left in this cell.

"Hawke will be back soon," he promised.

II.

The nightmare was one which Anders had experienced many times before. In the dream everything happened exactly as it did on that last day in Kirkwall.

Among all the chaos and burning a child was sitting in the street. There was blood in his hair and he was screaming, and even over the all the shouting and the roaring of the flames Anders could hear him.

He started toward the boy and Hawke moved with him as though one, but Hawke wasn't turning to the the child - perhaps had not even seen him. Hawke raised their staff, the blood from where they had cut themself dripping down the shaft. An instant later the Templars were upon them all, a dozen of them at least, ringing in himself and Hawke and Fenris and Merrill.

By the time they had fought their way free the boy was gone. In the dream, as in real life, Anders was certain that he had been killed, and the sense of guilt that gripped him was sickening. It pulled him up from sleep.

Anders staggered up from the bed, fighting the need to retch, and made it to the bucket just in time. He was drenched in a clammy sweat, and in the chill of the cell his entire body began to shiver. He'd left the oil lamp burning - he could not have withstood waking alone in the dark - but the wick had burned low and the light it cast was flickering and sickly.

The unlocked door was a monstrous temptation, but he knew that if he went through it he would not be able to stop until he was above ground, and if he was discovered there it might well mean his death, so he pushed himself along the floor of the cell until his back came up against the wall, as far from the exit as he could get, and drew his legs up to his chest.

The lamp's light dimmed and went out, and in the new darkness a cool hand pressed against his forehead.

For a moment he thought it must be the Inquisitor, woken by the noise he'd made, but the hand was far too small for that. The touch did not frighten Anders. After a while his other fears seemed to recede, and the shaking stopped.

Somehow he found his way back into the bed. He slept well, and in his dreams the boy was safe. He grew to be a mage, and Anders watched him grow and saw his pride when his magic first manifested, saw the way he grew strong and confident in his abilities. In the dream the boy was free, and he had a family that loved him and he loved them and he loved himself, and all was well.

III.

Anders awoke to the sound of the Inquisitor rapping his knuckles softly on the bars of the cell. The details of the dream were still fresh in his mind, strangely vivid. The dream stayed with him throughout the day, so despite the loneliness and claustrophobia he would occasionally find himself smiling at the thought.

He knew mages who had visions, and though he never had before the strange quality of the dream made him wonder if he had been shown a true thing. It gave him a speck of hope.

He had no recollection of Cole visiting him in the cell.