F**k Bianca

"Archer!"

Varric barely had time to register Bull's words before turning to see an arrow fly over his shoulder into the room. They had been ass deep in Carta thugs and assassins after a day of wandering through Valammar. The odds were definitely not in their favor, but damn if they weren't going to get to the bottom of the red lyrium trade. One of the girls...no, both of the girls, he amended to himself...let out a mingled shout, but whether it was from pain, anger, or frustrated exhaustion, Varric couldn't really tell. He was too busy giving the sneaky thug a bolt through the scull.

Another projectile flew over in the opposite direction, the fletching identifying it as belonging to the Inquisitor. He followed its path, watching it lodge itself in the chest of a wandering hurlock seconds before the Iron Bull's battle-axe severed the head.

It was done. Thank the Maker, they had reached their goal intact. The ghost of a smile began to spread across Varric's face as he turned towards the center of the chamber, but it froze when he saw the girls. They were both down. Heart lurching, he ran across the battle-slick stone as the sounds of Bianca's cursing reached his ears.

"Fucking get off of me," she complained, appearing to be more annoyed than hurt as Ellana lay prone on top of her. "Andraste's tits, Varric, she just knocked me over..."

Inquisitor Adaar, with her longer stride, had reached their companions first, lifting the petite elf gently off the still-complaining dwarf and sitting on the cobbles. "Quit bitching. She took a fucking arrow for you." Turning her attention to Ellana, the qunari snapped the shaft and put a hand against the entry wound.

Blood. Maker, that was too much blood for one tiny elf to contain. And she did it why? Varric practically slid along the floor to kneel at her side, peering down into her eyes as he cradled Ellana's face in his hands.

"The head went through, Varric," the Inquisitor told him calmly. "We need to..."

"I know what we need to do," he replied, easing her against his legs and tuning everything else around him out. "You with me, Lana? You gonna stay with me?" He said it as much to keep himself calm as he did for her, but Varric had never been so terrified in his life.

"I'm right here," she managed to get out right before she arched and attempted to writhe in pain while their fearless leader pulled the shaft through the wound. But his girl was a trooper. She kept her gaze on Varric the entire time.

"There's too much blood," Bull mentioned casually as he finally approached the rest of the companions. "These Carta assholes use poison?"

The words snapped Varric's attention away from the elf for only a split second. He knew exactly what the gang had used, and where the antidote was in his pack. "White vial," he said quickly, pointing at where he had dropped it. "Size of my pinkie." He looked back at the mage, noting how pale she had gotten in those few stolen seconds. "Stay with me, Lana."

"I'm still here," she whispered, eyes drooping.

"We'll get you fixed up," he reassured her. Then, "Why'd you do it, Lana?"

Her gaze shifted to where Bianca stood, staring in disbelief at the other woman in his arms. "You love her."

"Damnit, Ellana, that's not fair," Varric managed to get out, choking back a sob as her breath evened out and she slipped into the oblivion of unconsciousness. "You stay with me," he insisted, sending a prayer to the Maker, Andraste, or whatever deity would listen as he pressed his lips fiercely against her forehead. Someone, probably one of the qunari, had found the antitoxin and began to doctor her wounds, but Varric was blind to it.

"Stay with me, Lana," he pleaded, even knowing she couldn't hear, not caring who else did. "I love you, too."

.oOo.

The first thought she had upon waking was that, wherever she was, it was really damn dark. Her second thought was that it might help to open her eyes, which Ellana immediately regretted acting upon. Pain shot through her skull, and she snapped the orbs shut with a whimper. Taking slow, deep breaths as the agony dulled to a low ache, the young mage tuned her other senses up a notch to get her bearings.

As true consciousness took over her mind, Ellana felt the dull throb from where a Carta arrow had lodged itself in her shoulder. A experimental shift in body weight indicated that someone had not only tended to it, but plopped her dead weight in a bedroll. Not the epitome of comfort, perhaps, but still better than bleeding out on a stone floor.

The clank of armor and shuffling of boots were muffled, which pointed to her being in a tent at one of the many base camps in the region. Which meant they had made it out of the damn cave. She had managed to stay conscious long enough to know that they had all survived, but what transpired after Varric discovered the arrow been poisoned was a blur of colors and voices.

Hoping to make a less painful attempt at being able to see, Ellana lifted her good arm to shade her eyes as she fluttered her lids again. It filtered just enough light for her to notice the skin was bare, and confirmed her assumption about being in camp. But someone must have been watching, for the movement drew in a hasty set of footsteps and a shadow at the open tent flap.

"Maker's balls, woman," groused a voice she hadn't expected to hear. "I step away for ten minutes to take a piss and wash up and you decide to finally wake up." Canvas rustled as he spoke, and the cursed sunlight faded. "And since I know you're going to ask..." He moved closer. She could smell him now, too. "Twenty-seven hours."

It was a good thing that Varric was doing all the talking. Ellana couldn't seem to put words in her mouth, though there were several swimming through her mind. But as he lifted her arm from her face and folded her tiny hand within both of his when he kneeled beside her, her eyes adjusted to the dim and she gazed at the dwarf curiously.

He had, indeed, just bathed, his hair damp and unbound, wearing nothing but breeches and boots. The musky scent of spice, leather, and the oils he used to keep his weapon clean that still clung to him faintly. If Varric had come to her under different circumstances, Ellana wouldn't have hesitated to indulge. But given he had just told her she had been oblivious to the world for more than a day, the mood was fleeting.

"Poison?" was all she managed to squeak out.

"An anticoagulant," Varric confirmed with a solemn nod. "You lost a lot of blood before the antidote kicked in."

"And Bianca?" He knew she didn't mean the crossbow, and his expression darkened.

"Fuck Bianca." Something had definitely happened in the dwarven ruins after Ellana inconveniently passed out. The look of hurt and fury on the dwarf's face ripped at her heart before he took a long breath and shook his head as if he still couldn't believe what happened. "She sold out the location of the thaig. I should have just kept my big fat mouth shut about it and this whole mess could have been avoided."

"This whole mess?" Ellana was stunned. How could he be blaming himself? And for what? Struggling to sit up, her vision went blurry and the room began to spin, but she was damned determined to get whatever bug had crawled up Varric's butt out in the open so it could be squashed. She felt him press a water-skin into her hand, which the elf sipped at until her head cleared, thankful that he hadn't forced her to lie back down.

"Please tell me you're not shouldering the blame for that giant hole in the sky," she pleaded softly. When Varric's face fell from anger to shame, Ellana had her answer. And it was not the one she wanted.

"It all circles back to Kirkwall," he moped. "And I was there. I was part of it. The red lyrium. Corypheus. The mages and templars."

"So was Hawke. Is any of this his fault?"

"Some people think so."

"Do you?"

"Of course not!" Varric defended. "I was..." He sighed as he realized the argument discouraged his guilt as much as encouraged it. "I was there. Damnit, Lana. I'm not inviting you to any more of my pity parties." She gave him a weak smile at the nickname he rarely used for her as Varric gently eased Ellana into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She was already beginning to tire from the simple act of sitting up, and leaning against the soft golden curls on his chest gave her a great deal more comfort than the pile of blankets on the ground.

"I've lost so much," he began quietly, tangling his fingers in her hair and tucking Ellana's head against his shoulder. "We've all lost so much. We might never know where all this shit started, or how it will all turn out, or who's really to blame. But I would never have forgiven myself if I had lost you."