A/N: I promise I haven't stopped my work on Oaths – in fact the next chapter is nearly finished, but this has been rolling around in my head and was distracting me so I had to get it out of there. I usually don't do stories like this, but I blame the result on playing Dragon Age while listening to "Far Away" by Nickelback. Shows you how my mind works.

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The morning is chill and heavy with mist on the day that you realize you can no longer ignore the Call. For weeks you have felt the pull of the Deep Roads and you have waited, trying to pretend that there is nothing wrong and that the entire compound is not aware of the nightmares that plague you. It has been twenty five years since the death of the Archdemon, and the more experienced Wardens from Orlais warned you long ago that your compromised lifespan had been shortened further by the ordeal.

You took the news with a weary kind of acceptance. After all, the Joining has done nothing but demand sacrifices, over and over again through the years, until you are so used to giving things up you no longer expect anything to last forever. That kind of naivety left you long ago, on a day when it seemed your heart would stop beating all together in a dark hallway of the Royal Palace, when he walked away without a backwards glance.

Before the sun rises you creep down the hallway to the room of the only person from that time who has not left you alone to your fate. He is still asleep, and for a moment you are thankful that you are the only person alive who can sneak up on him while he is resting. He has never lost his accent, though over the years it has softened and grown faint enough that only you remember its origin. He has been your friend, loyally remaining by your side since the day he held you back to allow Loghain to redeem himself as a hero of the people.

And you were left realizing there was no place for you but Amaranthine.

Zevran has never joined, and though his presence is a mystery to every recruit you have brought through the doors he is accepted here. Often he jokes that Antiva does not promise the same hospitality, so what reason is there to leave?

And he has loved you, that you have no doubt of, even if in all this time he has never managed to say it and you are still not certain if you wanted to hear it. He loved you like you were his best and only friend, as if you were the center of his world and sometimes you have hated yourself for not being able to love him the same way. He earned it hundreds of times over, but you were too weak, too unable to give your heart away again.

He has never asked you to.

The only thing he has ever asked of you is that you not tell him when the time has come. He doesn't want to know, doesn't want to say goodbye. So you do the only thing you can think of and take the pendent from around your neck, the Warden's Oath that was given to you at your Joining that has never once left its place near your heart, and you leave it on the pillow beside his sleeping form.

You stare at him for a long time, wishing you could burn the image of him so peaceful into your mind for what remains of forever, before you whisper goodbye and prepare for your journey.

~*~

The road is lonelier than you would have ever imagined without the familiar banter of your best friend, and as the days and nights blend and the miles disappear behind you, you miss him so badly that your chest physically aches from it, but you know he will not follow. You only hope that he manages to find his way back to the warm sunrise over Antiva one day.

As you pass through Highever the riders come, criers of Denerim announcing the death of the king of Ferelden. The news hits you like a blow, and you are left in both pain and bewilderment because no matter what has happened between you, he was never really gone. The tainted bond that grew between you back in the height of your youth when you were lovers has never disappeared completely and you are certain you should feel differently somehow if he is really gone. Your morning meditation reveals the truth – he is still alive. And though you are confused you think you know what he is doing and so hole up in an inn to wait.

It does not take long before he finds you there. Though he is trying to keep himself hidden from the general public you recognize him instantly. Save for a scatter of grey in his hair and a few more care lines than he had in his youth he hasn't really changed much. Over time he has been able to set aside his anger and you have had a civil if distant relationship, one such as the Warden Commander and the King should have, had the circumstances been remotely normal. They are not, and with each trip to Denerim the wound has reopened and so you have made your visits as brief and infrequent as possible.

"What are you doing here?" you ask him without preamble as he takes the seat across from you with a tankard in hand, and he doesn't answer right away, staring into the amber liquid as though it holds some sort of articulate answer for him that he would never be able to form on his own.

Finally he shrugs. "We have a standing appointment, you and I."

For a long time you can only stare at him, because he still has five years left and has he gone insane? No one walks into the finality of the Deep Roads until they can no longer avoid it, until the taint twists and burns in their veins like it does in yours and they are in danger of losing all that they ever were. Yes, you once made the promise to each other that you would take that long walk together, but those promises have been dead and gone for a long time now, crushed under the weight of heated words and actions that can't ever be taken back.

"Alistair, go home," you say tiredly, as if this were just another of his impetuous acts of affection. "You still have time yet. There's no reason for this."

But he's shaking his head, and there's a determination in his eyes that was never there before you made him king. "Anora was left with instruction," he explains quietly, as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. "I told her a long time ago that it would … that I would be leaving sooner than I had expected. She's already taken care of everything."

"I don't care. I can't let you do this."

There's a ghost of his old humor pulling at his lips as he answers, "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but you're not exactly in a position to tell me what to do."

You seem to have forgotten how infuriating he can be when he sets his feet about something, and it's with deliberate calm that you argue with him now. "I'm...touched, that you would remember, given everything that's happened," you say quietly and ignore the way he flinches at that. "But this isn't how it works and you know it. I have to do this, and I have to go alone."

He's quiet for a long, long time, then, staring at the table as he can't seem to meet your eyes. "I already left you once to fight a battle alone."

All the grief and guilt and sleepless nights you have endured are tangled around that single confession and you can't answer or wonder when it was that he forgave you. The only scattered thought you can manage is that you can't remember the last time someone left you staring like a half wit, but you are sure it was him.

He runs his hands through his hair and the words begin to burst forth from him, the apologies you've desperately wanted to hear for so long, but you stop him, because really, it doesn't matter now. You've run every 'could have' and 'should have' in your mind a hundred times, spent hours wondering what would have happened if you had acted differently or if he had responded differently and it never, ever helps, because you can't go back and change it. You suddenly feel impossibly weary, and his hand slides into yours as easily as if it had been there yesterday as he senses your concession. You don't pull it away, because although he's late, he is finally here, when it matters most, and if his timing had always been perfect you probably wouldn't have fallen in love with him in the first place.

~*~

The days are no longer lonely and it only takes Alistair a short while before he seems to remember who he was before the kingship, and you slide into the same easy friendship you had in the days after Ostagar. It's a little unnerving, how quickly the years seem to melt away into a faded memory and you feel like no time has passed at all since you were in this place. He makes you laugh and it seems normal enough, because last time you journeyed together you were walking into certain death as well and it was kind of funny then, too, right?

Yet at night the nightmares come, stronger than before. When you wake up screaming like the hells are opening up beneath you Alistair is done with pretenses and ridiculous boundaries because you are in this together now, and he lies down behind you and slips his arms around you, murmuring soothing nonsense until you stop shaking. Even though every vindictive and angry thought you've ever had is demanding that you shove him away you can't bring yourself to do it, because you've missed him even more than you realized and time is painfully short for ridiculous things like petty vengeance and hurt feelings. Instead you curl up in his arms and fall asleep, and the rest of the night is spent in peace.

The remaining time given to you is spent the same way after that, with Alistair at your side during the day and protectively draped around you at night, and it all seems like some bizarre dream because it couldn't really be happening. Yet it is, and it is proven to you when the gates of Orzammar appear in the distance.

You are quiet as you approach the city, every sense reaching out from you to take in the sun, and the wind, and the view of the endless sky before you step through the gates and lose them forever.

Before you can take that step Alistair catches your arm, and suddenly you are up against him and his mouth is on yours, and it feels warm and impossibly familiar as he tries to make up for twenty five years in a single kiss, and as it goes on and on and his fingers tangle in your hair you dazedly think that he just might.

When he finally pulls away he doesn't let you go, just stares into your eyes as though trying to memorize every detail. Though there's been an unspoken agreement between you not to talk about the past he can't seem to help himself, and his eyes are pained with old grief and a million things he can't figure out how to say and so he just whispers, "I should have been yours."

You respond the only way you can. "You are now."

"Always," he replies earnestly, and you blink back tears because deep down beneath the anger and hurt, you've known. You would not have stayed away for so long if it were otherwise.

He clasps your hand to seal his promise and together you step into darkness.