Author's Note: This is my first fanfic so the characters may be a little OOC.
Who Will Protect You?
After everything he had gone through, a door was stopping him. The torture of lyrium being branded into his skin, the torment of magisters as a slave, and fighting countless battles with slavers, blood mages, and Maker knows what else, but a simple door was stopping him in his tracks.
He hadn't seen Hawke in days, none of them had. Ever since they had basically dragged her away from her mother's body and out of the killer's lair, each of them came to her estate to give her their condolences and comfort her but none of it seemed to help. So that eventually led him to do it too. Finally deciding to enter, Fenris knocked twice on the door.
No response.
He knocked once more, but there was still no response. Not bothering to wait any longer he entered without her answer. "Hawke?" He asked while entering. He set his sword next to the door and closed it behind him. Surveying the room he found her sitting in one of the chairs next to the fireplace. Her legs were tucked up to her chest and her head was resting on top of them. She was staring intently into the fire, not bothering to acknowledge him. Fenris could barely hear her mumbling something, but he couldn't tell what it was. The fireplace was barely still alive leaving an eerie glow across the room.
"I don't know what to say, but I am here," he said to her, not sure what else to say after what had happened.
She slightly acknowledges him, with the slight turn of her head but turns back towards the dying fire. "Is it my fault that she died? Is it my fault that they're all dead?"
Fenris notices how lifeless her eyes look. The fire that was raging in her eyes while they went through the killer's lair was now gone. He sat down in the chair next to her and watched her stare deeply into the fire. "It wasn't your fault," he said quietly. "It was blood magic."
"I promised my father that I would protect her," she continued. "That I would make sure nothing would happen to them…." Tears started streaming down her face. "But now they're all dead and I am left alone."
Fenris watched the woman break down in front of him. He had never seen her look this broken before. She was always so strong willed and determined to get anything done that she had already started. She had built up barriers to make sure no one could make their way inside. When someone did though it caused her to promise herself that she had to protect that person too and then when they were ripped away from her, it slowly broke apart those barriers.
But he guessed that her mother's death had broken that last barrier that prevented anyone from entering and seeing her like this.
Taking off his gauntlets, he sets them down beside him. Without thinking of anything better to do with her broken down crying in front of him, he stood up and slowly made his way over to her. Stopping right in front of her, he gently picked her up and carried her in his arms. She grabbed onto one of his shoulders and hid her face into his chest. Sitting down on her bed, he leaned against the head board and silently stroked her hair. She rested her head against his chest and curled up into a ball next to him.
They laid in that position for a while until her sobs quieted and her chest slowly raised and fell with each of her breaths. "Hawke?" He whispered. When she didn't respond he came to the conclusion that she had fallen asleep. Slowly starting to get up to leave, he tried to get his arm free of hers. Only as he tried to get out of her grip did she seem to move tighter around his arm, like she would lose him at any second. Not wanting to wake her up again, he settles back against the headboard and closes his eyes. 'Probably going to be here the rest of the night anyway,' he thought to himself before falling asleep.
The next morning he woke up with her still sleeping soundly right next to him. The sun had started to rise and was shining brightly into her room. He could still feel her clutching onto his arm, so he stayed in his current position. At that moment, he had decided something. While she was busy protecting everyone else he was going to protect her. Even if she didn't need him to or want him to, he was going to stand by her side.
"I will always protect you Amelia," he whispered into her ear.
"Is that a promise?" she quietly asked back.
Fenris smiled. "Yes." With that he gently placed a kiss on her forehead as she smiled back at him.