Over the years I've watched how anything he was is fading. Going home is difficult for me. Every step is pain, plight, I wish to run but I walk slowly, like my feet are made of stone. I don't want to be back, I don't want to face the void that awaits me, there, where once was devotion and love.

How often have I yelled into his face, forced him to open his eyes? How often I showed him the mirror only to watch how he is crashing it? I fight his fight, which he lost, for him. Something inside me breaks apart. I can feel it.

I see the door, but I pass it. I cannot enter it. Still I can see his manifestos, burning in the fireplace, lying on the desk. Over the years they've became fiercer, bait writings, hate tirades. The thought frightens me.

I stall, turn. No, I can not run away. I wanted it. I wanted him. I've known, what would happen, well, at least I sensed it. I took the warnings of my friends into the wind…

"You believe it's a dumb idea." My voice sounds chilly, which is unusual for me, especially when I'm talking to Fenris. I can see it in his face – this slight frown, that displeasing lineament around his mouth.

"He is more demon than men."

"I know!" I still sound cool. He is right. Anyway, something on Anders draws my attention. There is a fascination I do not want, because I hate the demon inside him. I do not want his feelings, yet they are still there. Like a blain. How often I tried to get rid of them, and how often I failed trying it?

"It is your decision, Hawke." He sounds still displeased. He doesn't understand it, and so do I. But these feelings are nether rational.

"I can't do anything against it. I like to kiss Anders as often as I wish to beat him."

Fenris's silent. I clench my teeth. We glare at each other.

"If he breaks your heart, I'll kill him", he says finally. Deadly sternness lies in his voice.

I nod, determined. If the fight about Anders will be hopeless, death will be a graceful judgement. So shall it be.

"And he will break your heart."

I would disagree with him, but I can't.

I wish to hate Anders, for his foolery, for his ignorance, but I never managed to do so. So Fenris will hate him for me and, hopefully, he will do what I cannot.

I have to laugh, bitterly, thinking back to that day. By now, it seems that he will have to hold his promise, soon. My days with Anders are a constant battle. We are fighting. We are arguing. We are projecting our anger unto the other, and when it begins to tear us apart, we are transforming it into passion, making love… until we fight again.

I tighten my shoulders and enter the estate.

I see him there, wearing that black robe, decorated with feathers, around his shoulders. I hate that thing. This old robe of him I nearly burned in the fireplace.

I also hate how changed he looks. His is pale, and there is only a clue of his old passion in his eyes, that once united us. How can it be right that the anger we feel to another is the only thing able to fuel it now?

"Anders." My voice sounds cool, but assertive. I don't want to talk about it, but I have to. I always did, was must be done, whatever the costs. He never understood that…

"I don't know if I wish to kiss or kill you!" His voice nearly sounds desperate. "You embody everything I hate! A mage that supports the templars. And still you're haunting my dreams."

I take the manifesto out his and and rend it. He tried to convince me, but that will never happen.

"Magic is a curse. I never asked for it. Why should I feel sympathy for other mages, even if they only abuse their power? Blood magic, demonic pacts… These fools deserve no mercy!"

"But it is the chantry, and the Templars, who force them to do so. A caged animal will someday bite back."

"And you believe you will changed anything by scrawling this pages?" My voice sounds sharp and keen.

"If I convince you otherwise, all others can be convinced too."

"That, Anders, will never happen", I answer strictly.

His kiss is his answer. His lips are warm and soft, and his three-day beard is piercing my cheeks. I want to push him away, but instead, I'm pulling him near to me, holding him and biting his lower lips, angrily. The heat of my anger nearly engulfs me. How can I want him if we are so different? I lick his blood from his lips. His tongue, soft, austere but sweet, is even making me more angry. At him. At myself.

I want to push him away, but I can't.

Because I want him.

He steps back from me.

"This won't take a good end, Lorana. But if you want me regardless, I'll be waiting in your estate his evening."

"If it ends badly, Anders, it will be Justice Fault and not mine."

"Sweetheart." The nickname sounds almost like mockery. "You are back, already?"

"You lied to me." My voices is freezing to ice saying this.

"I know." Anders does not avoid my glance, facing it boldly instead. "But you would have never helped me otherwise. You made it very clear on which side you're standing."

"I'm your partner, Anders. If you can't trust me, how else can you trust? Justice?"

"At least Justice supports my goals. For what do I need a partner who doesn't stands at my side?"

"I stand behind you! But that doesn't mean I have to approve your methods."

"You never showed me that you're supporting me. You rather befriend Meredith than fight for your kind. How can you do that? Do you want to be in the circle? You don't know how it his there, otherwise you wouldn't think you do."

"Sometimes I think, the circle would have been better for me."

"You don't know what you're talking!"

I hate it then he tries to lecture me, to convince me, that he is right. He has to know that I will never share his opinion. Why he hasn't learned that yet?

"What have you done? What have you concealed before me?"

"It will help many mages, Lorana. You have to know no more."

"What are you planning?" I know him. His face, when he is troubled. This unrest is his eyes. This distorted corners of his mouth. "Anders! If you ever loved me, you will tell me that is going on – now!"

"I can't tell you, Lorana." His hand is going through his hair. "Andraste!"

For whatever reason, I feel ill. No! I sense it. The demon.

"You're still able to stop it, Anders!"

"No… it is too late. It's too important."

"Important enough, so it's worth the price you pay for it?"

He's avoiding my eyes.

„Look at me!", I command him.

Our eyes meet. „I no longer can stop it."

"You can! Do you want this bloody demon consuming you? You're stronger them him, you yourself claimed it. Prove it to me!" I'm challenging him. I provoke him, 'cause I don't reach him otherwise. Not more.

„Maybe you're right…" He's staring right into my eyes. I can see him in this eyes, determined, fierce, my Anders, not this pitiable shade Justice made of him. "Time… perhaps there is still time… I have to stop it… before it is too late!"

He turns and goes. To the door.

I'm respiring. Finally I've reached him. For the first time I dare to hope again.

"Leave!", I hear his voice saying. Thundering and loudly. Full of cold, inhuman anger. Anders' eyes are no longer brown, glowing azure now. „You won't stop us, woman!"

„Hello Justice." My voice is cold as is and dark from hate. This hated demon ripped my partner from me, step by step, detracted his soul, destroyed and devastated and ruined him. I hate him for that and I hate his pathetic black and white thinking. I hate him for being a demon.

"Leave!", the demon repeats and he dares to abuse Anders' mouth for saying it. "Anders has no need of you!"

"I think, this is still Anders' decision and not yours, Justice."

"I am Anders!"

I answer that by laughing him into his face. „I swear to you, Justice, I will find a way to fetch you out of him and then I will tear you in so little rags in the fade that even the Maker himself won't be able to put you together again!"

"You can't stop this, woman. No one will ever separate us!"

"I am not No one. I'm the woman who loves him, and as such I tell you: Leave and let him be!"

Anders dithers. That inhuman hate and the glowing are fading and again I see into the eyes of the man I love, even if I've tried to kill that feeling inside me. I'm taking his arm and holding him.

"S-sweetheart…" He looks at me, confuses, desorientaded… „What is happened? What are we talking about?"

„You don't remember?"

"We argued…" He sighs. „I wanted to do something… What was it?"

"That was Justice doing. He's deleting your memories."

"I know… Sweetheart, I believe, you're right. I'm losing myself." He looks broken, devastated. I realize what is happened, and it's killing me. Slowly, piece by piece, it is ripping my heart into frazzles. That heart, that I believed to be hard and steadfast. "I thought, knowing you… loving you… would chance something. But it hasn't. Justice… he is too strong." Anders' looks at me, his eyes begging for my forgiveness. "Please, don't hate me for failing."

I do not answer. I just stir at him. I'm searching the man I once loved in his eyes, the man I loved without wanting it, that man full of love and devotion…

He is embracing me shoulders, kissing the back of my head. I lean back unto his chest, and I'm feeling light and free. We seldom agree. But this night, in this night, we were one. I grab behind me and fondle his cheeks. His three-days beard is scratching my skin.

"I love you!" I says it with such persuasion, as if he was never so certain before.

"I love you, Anders." I know it's true the time I'm saying it. "Move in. I will have you with me, when I fall asleep and when I awake. Always."

He slowly turns me around and smiles. Full of devotion and joy. Pure. "So you're ready? You're ready to show Meredith and the whole world that you love an apostate and want to be with him?"

"I would even tell the Divine herself."

His hand touches my cheek and I nestle against it. It feels so good, when he touches me. Full of devotion, true.

„For three years I've been laying awake, aching for you", he mumbles, his lips coming closer to mine. "I'm still terrified I wake up."

"You do not have to…", I whisper and close his lips with mine…

This man before me is no longer him.

The Anders back than is long gone, a broken shadow of himself.

I want to tell him, that I will not hate him for failing, but I can't do it without laying to myself. And I could never be anything then honest to myself.

For his failing, I hate him. For his weakness. For his fainting to that demon, that destroys him. I hate him for all that with a force shocking me.

But still… even if it is dumb, even if it destroys me, rips my heart out and slashes it… I can't stop loving him.