"There's some concern you're becoming a recluse."
She jerked her eyes to the side, pretending that she had been studying the beautiful snow covered mountains rather than a shoddily built stable. "Commander Cullen." The greeting started out husky but she bullied her way to a normal tone. "I apologize for my inattentiveness. Did you need something?" As casually as she could she wiped her eyes and then finally turned to face him.
The compassionate smile on the scarred face of her Commander told her the effort had been wasted.
"To help you." He said with a lack of artifice that almost had her smiling. "There's been a distinct lack of your good humor and laughter in our councils recently. Lady Josephine is considering hiring a court jester to take care of the problem."
Her attempt at smiling was an utter failure and she turned her back on him. "Thank you…and the others for your concern. I'll be fine."
"Take it from one accused brooder to another…" She could tell he was moving closer by the volume of his voice. "Staying this long in your own thoughts is never good."
She pressed her palms against the stone balcony railing until her joints and knuckles turned white. "And do you have a cure for a 'brooder'?" Again she tried humor, tried to pretend things were alright and again she failed.
"You could try trusting your advisor." Cullen suggested. "Maybe talk to him about it."
"Talk about it?" She turned to him, her tones overly bright. "Which topic? Where I spared the life of a murderer and condemned a traitor to his place?"
"Traitors deserve death." Cullen stated in flat tones of no compromise.
She flicked a hand in dismissal. "Perhaps it's where I refused to punish that murderer for his crimes? Where I told him I couldn't judge him for the murder of the Callier family, of their servants, because the crime happened in Orlais and I had no purview." She said not turning to face him as he drew closer.
"You're too harsh…"
"He stood before a hangman's noose, Commander, ready to accept that judgment, accept his punishment, until I stole him from it. Stole him and replaced him with a traitor to the Inquisition." A bitter smile soured her lips. "I traded his death with another's. How does that make me, the vaunted Herald of Andraste, any better than he?"
For a long moment Cullen was silent, his hands on the balcony next to hers, looking down at the stables just as she was. "If you think about it, Thom Rainier did die. He died the same day the real Blackwall died. His sins, his cowardice, all dying with him. A hero continued. One who did his best to fulfill the ideals, the promise of everything a Grey Warden could be. Even to offering his very life, should the call for it come."
Rolling her eyes, ignoring the moisture that threatened to fall from them, she shook her head in wordless denial.
"He was Thom Rainier, the coward and traitor who became Warden Blackwall, the warrior and hero." Cullen studied the small figures milling about below, taking careful note of a burley subject who seemed constantly looking toward them. "That man by the stables right now, he is neither Rainier nor Blackwall. Not anymore. But the real…oh, call it what you will…the real tragedy or comedy, is that he is also both."
She glanced toward him, this military advisor, this leader of her army who had started a conversation that had so unexpectedly become something more personal.
"Never a comfortable place to be, that." Cullen continued as if he weren't the one carrying on this very one-sided conversation. "Loathing the man you are. Wishing for the chance, the opportunity to prove the kind of man you can be. The kind of man you so fervently pray you really are."
A silent 'oh' formed on her lips as she faced her Commander, the understanding that he was talking of himself as much as the man in the stable settling over her with compassion.
He met her gaze with a keen expression. "The kind of man worthy of a very special woman's love."
Compassion fled against an onslaught of a freezing kind of terror. Licking her lips, carefully she spoke. "Cullen, I regard you as a good friend and have since we met. I don't think a romantic pairing between the two of us…"
"What? No!" Shock had his face slightly paling. "Maker, as if I'd even dare…uhn, I didn't mean that the way it sounded." He waved a hand at the narrow eyed gaze she slanted toward him. "I'm sure you're a wonderful woman and…oh, Andraste, make me shut up. I knew I would be terrible at this."
Unexpectedly a giggling sort of laugh burbled from her throat. She half caught it, trying not to offend him but the half-grin that cured his face of his usual somber intensity gave her own laughter free reign. The sound was longer and perhaps more intense than the situation required…as if she hadn't laughed in so long she was determined to get all of it out no matter how flimsy the cause.
Cullen never quite joined her in laughing, his wide smile the most carefree she had ever seen him. "I see my work here is done. It's good to hear you laugh again."
She turned to him as he moved to leave. "Thank you, Com…Cullen. I realize talking about a romantic relationship isn't really your forte."
He paused, half turning to look at her, laughing softly. "No, I would prefer to leave that sort of advising to Josephine and Leliana, they've greater skills at it. But if you want to ask me about whether a not a man can change…" He shrugged and gave a slight bow indicating he was at her service.
"And if I were to ask that, the answer would be?" She asked quickly, stumbling over the words as he made again to leave. Impatient she waved a hand in a gesture not even she could interpret. "No, not if. I am asking. Can a man change?"
The smile that gentled his normally serious expression was an odd mix of irony and empathy. "Yes, Inquisitor. A man can change."
She nodded rapidly, turning away. "Of course, of course. Thom Rainier changed to Blackwall. Silly question, really."
"A man can change, Inquisitor, if he wants to." Cullen persisted, his voice carrying the scant distance between them on the bridge. "And if he's given a chance."
Given a chance.
How? How could she give him a chance? He'd hurt her so deeply. Betrayed their love…
"How…" She turned to ask the question and found that she was now alone, the Commander having made a very stealthy, probably very smart, exit.
Was she supposed to forgive him? Forgive the mockery that Thom Rainier/false Warden Blackwall had made of her? She, the leader of the Inquisition, the Herald of Andraste, the…
Oh, Maker…
Pride? Was this about her pride? About being made a fool in front of everyone in Skyhold?
Scrubbing her fingers over her face, she forced herself to face the question honestly. Yes. Yes, it was about her pride. And no, no it wasn't.
Slowly she settled to a sitting position on the balcony, her knees pulled up under her chin, arms wrapped about her legs back against the stone railing. She stared at the cracks and wear patterns of the bridge beneath her feet but her thoughts were so very much farther away.
Being in love with Bla…him had been so wonderful. So perfect. She had felt so safe, trusting him, trusting his integrity and his determination to help others no matter the cost. He'd been her Knight in Shining Armor. The hero she had wanted to sweep her off her feet since her youth.
To find that it had all be a lie…to think she was so foolish, so naïve…Maker, so needy and desperate for a perfect love as if she were a giddy teenager…
How many times had he tried to turn her away and she wouldn't listen? She dismissed it as his natural reserve. With eyes opened to the lie, now, in retrospect, she could see and understand the fear in his eyes that had always been there each time she had pushed and prodded him, forced him to acknowledge feelings she knew were there.
But how could she have guessed at so large a lie? Maybe if she'd known more about the Wardens she would have been warned, but that enigmatic group had always guarded its secrets with a lover's jealousy.
So her perfect love was a lie…
Or maybe…maybe that love was only as perfect as the two people sharing it.
He'd said he didn't know how to love her as Thom Rainier. Maybe she didn't know how to love him as the Herald of Andraste. Maybe…maybe they'd both been wearing a flawless façade to hide behind. Maybe they were both imperfect and guilty and maybe that made them perfect for each other.
She climbed to her feet, resolution replacing the misery of the past days.
One thing was certain, moping about Skyhold wasn't going to fix the problem…although it did put her in the perfect mood to go hunt demons. Particularly her own personal ones.
She searched about in the stable, looking for him, frowning slightly until she reached the loft and bales where she and Bla…he had made love. As she stared out at the yard, at the workers still on the scaffolding repairing the ramparts, the servants carrying crates of food up the curving stairs to the kitchen, she felt her blood run cold. Blessed Andraste you could see most of the loft from the ramparts…and from the top of the kitchen stairs…Maker, how many people had been watching that night they had made love? And she'd woken up to full sunlight without a stitch on…not even a blanket!
Her cheeks burning, she stumbled back a step coming all too close to the edge of the loft itself.
"Easy." A familiar voice as she was pulled back against a strong, broad chest. "It's a nasty fall."
For a moment she was still and then she took a deep breath turning to face him. "I know…" Shock had her cutting off the words as she drew the eating dagger from her boot and took several steps back, raising the blade in a ragged defense against the unfamiliar person she had let far too close to her.
The man before her had short, shaggy black hair and a clean shaven milk-white face save for the weathered tan about his eyes and nose.
"I thought we'd progressed beyond you wanting my death." The stranger said with Bla…his deep gravelly voice.
Stunned she stared at him, searching his strong jaw line and the dimpled chin and cheeks. "That's you?" The hand holding the eating dagger dropped as she relaxed her tense body.
Self-consciously he rubbed thick fingers over the nude lower half of his face. "Aye. It's me."
Blinking she continued to gape at him. "I liked the beard." She said in plaintive tones, still trying to reconcile the face before her with the man she had known.
"Blackwall wore a beard so I grew mine to hide behind. To shore up the lie that I was him." He didn't flinch as he said the words this time. "I thought…it seemed important that I stand before you hiding nothing anymore, so I shaved it off."
She reached out a hand, her fingers carefully touching skin that felt as smooth and soft as worn leather. "I really liked the beard."
He laughed taking her palm and pressing his cheek against the calloused skin. "If my Lady wishes, I can grow it back."
She kept her fingers there, smiling as his warmth seeped into her skin. "I wish it." She said and allowed him to use the hand he held to pull her closer. For a moment she stiffened and he stopped. Forcing herself to relax, to look up at him again, she smiled with a gentle sort of sadness. "I'm not sure what to call you anymore. Rainier or Blackwall."
A wry smile kicked up a corner of his mouth. "Not so sure myself." He said and closed his eyes briefly. "I've gotten used to Blackwall…maybe we could look at it more as a title. Like Inquisitor."
There was fear in his eyes. Not of her, she understood with a humbling empathy. But of who he had been. Who Thom Rainier had been. Who he would become if he no longer had the Blackwall name as a constant reminder.
"I have it on rather good authority that you're no longer Thom Rainier." She said quietly, studying him. "But you aren't the Grey Warden Blackwall, either. You're neither…and both."
He frowned at her. "Who told you that?"
"A man who knows what regret is…and how it can make you a better person." With a sigh she moved slightly past him and carefully sat down on the hay bales that had seen a much different use the last time she was on them. "I don't know if I can call you Blackwall." She said finally, her gaze looking down below at the half finished toy he'd spent so many hours carving.
He seemed to hesitate, not wanting to stand over her, not certain if she wanted him near. She resolved the issue for him by patting the bale next to her.
"Oh, I'm sure I can out there." She half-turned to look out the loft window…refused to acknowledge just how many people could look in…and waved a hand to encompass Skyhold in general. "Out there, I can do what I need to. But here…where there is just the two of us…" The words trailed off as she stared straight ahead trying to figure out how to say what her head was thinking.
"I'm not Warden Blackwall. I'm no longer Thom Rainier." He said sitting next to her. "I've been both. Maybe…Thom is a solid enough name. Common. Maybe…"
She looked at him then, studying his face. "You don't look like a Thom. Might be the lack of beard." She mused.
His unfeigned laughter caught her off guard and sent a strong surge of want tingling through, surprising her. She'd thought it would take time to crave his touch again.
"Not going to let that one go, are you?" He said, his beautiful eyes alight with mirth.
"No. Not that one." She agreed, serious again before she looked out at the stable below once more. "But there are other things I will let go. Provided you don't lie to me again. Especially not for my own benefit or because you don't want to hurt my feelings."
"I didn't mean…"
"It did hurt." She cut him off, confronting him, the pain she still felt, the twisting of her fingers with a red-welt agitation the only outward sign of her distress. "I woke up happy and in love and thinking there was nothing in this world I couldn't do with you at my side and you…you were gone. A pathetic note telling me nothing but not to look for you. I was hurt and I was scared that something had happened to you." Her voice drifted silent as she gave a one shouldered shrug.
"I am sorry." He said quietly.
"So am I." She replied, her fingers stilled. "I want…I believe…that we can get past this. I want…to try." Finally she faced him, meeting his shamed gaze. "I love you, Thom Blackwall."
"Maker, I've done nothing to deserve you. This." He cupped her cheek with his broad, calloused hand.
"Stop…you have to stop that." She said and he flinched back, jerking his touch away from her. "No, I didn't mean…not the touching me part, that's okay, I like that. You have to stop telling me you're not worthy of me. I'm not the Herald of Andraste when you're with me. I'm not the Inquisitor. I'm me. The woman who loves you. You have to trust that love." The plea in her voice was stronger than she'd expected but she didn't back down. "You have to trust that it's strong enough to take the bad with the good. That I'm strong enough. That I love you enough."
"And what if there's not enough good to outweigh the bad?" He asked but didn't attempt to touch her again.
She considered the question for a long moment before wrapping his fingers in hers. "I wouldn't have fallen in love with a man defined by murder and treachery. I can't say what Thom Rainier…what you…did was excusable. It wasn't. Innocents were killed. Men and women who would have died for their Captain in honor on the battlefield instead died for him in shame at the end of a noose. I could never have loved a man capable of allowing that to happen."
The expressionless wall he liked to hide behind was firmly in place as he shifted away from her.
"But I don't know that man. I never met him." She continued, her voice still soft. "The man I found worthy of my love was a different man, a hero. One who did not hesitate to place himself in danger if it meant saving those weaker than he. A man who had the patience and the wisdom to train fishermen to defend themselves…and then help them gain the confidence to do so. A man who unhesitatingly followed me into battle prepared to defend not just me with his life, but those he served with, those he called comrades in arms."
"That man doesn't exist." He spoke in a rough voice. "He never did."
"You're wrong." There was no malice in the rebuttal, just utter conviction. "If I am to hold Thom Rainier accountable for his actions, then I must do the same for the man I knew as Grey Warden Blackwall."
"You can't balance them." He shook his head in denial.
"No. You can't." She agreed with slow thoughtfulness. "No matter how many lives you saved as Warden Blackwall, you can never return the Callier family and their retainers to theirs. You can never undo the deaths of the soldiers who paid for your decision."
He looked away from her, his body stiffening as if he were preparing to leave.
"By that same token, you cannot take away the spared lives of those who would have fallen had they not been defended by the false Warden Blackwall. How many over the years have had cause to give thanks that you were there when they needed you most and that you did not turn your back as Thom Rainier did." Her voice trailed away as if she were still thinking about the matter.
After several moments of silence he shifted once more, turning toward her. "And where does that leave us?"
Another shrug. "A crossroads? A new beginning? It's not a second chance…you've already had that." She was quiet, musing the question before taking a sudden deep breath and shaking herself. "Maybe it's not a second chance, but just a chance. No one ever said you could only have two of them. Maybe this is an opportunity to remake yourself once more. Not to shed the past, but to embrace it."
Frowning, he looked at her. "Thom Rainier…"
"Is dead." She cut him off. "So is Warden Blackwall. You'll need to figure out who you are all over again. Perhaps without the lies. The deception. I don't know, it's not a choice I can make for you."
"Bit tough to embrace my past without lies when it's a lie that Thom Rainier is dead. That the truth is the man hung in my place was a fraud." There was an edge of bitterness in his voice again.
"Thom Rainier is dead." This time her own tone was flat and implacable. "You should know that. You killed him, I didn't. I simply made sure there was a body to bury."
"Yes, another death on my conscience…" He began in heated tones
"Oh, Maker, get over yourself." She rolled her eyes. "Thom Rainier was a traitor and a coward. A traitor and a coward now lies in a pauper's grave with his name. The balance of the universe is maintained."
"You should not have made that choice." He stood, his fists clenched. "It was mine…"
"You were mine!" She shouted the words rising to her feet just as quickly. "Was I to let you go as if you meant nothing to me? Was I to let them hang you…no matter how deserved it might be…when I had the power to free you? The only choice that I was never going to make was the one where I allowed you to die. You don't get the easy way out, Thom Blackwall!"
"Easy?" He repeated the word at a low roar. "D'you think it was easy leaving you? I watched the dawn rise in the shades of light on your skin! I listened to you breathe marveling that you trusted me enough to sleep so peacefully in my arms. I lost my nerve time and again deciding to go or to stay, promising myself that leaving Mornay to die would be the last black mark against my soul, so long as I could love you."
She stepped closer to him, her palm finding the smooth skin of his cheek, daring that simple touch in the face of his anger. "Mornay lives and you can still love me."
"I've done nothing to deserve this. To deserve you." The anger seeped out of him but the despair remained like a slow killing poison.
"Not lately, you haven't." She agreed and he actually smiled. "I made my choice, Thom Blackwall. I choose you. I choose us." She pressed her forehead against his, her hands still on his face. "Why can't you choose the same?"
She heard him swallow, felt his hands come up to hold her arms.
"I'm afraid to."
"Then until the fear is gone, I'll be here. With you."
He shifted slightly, moving his forehead back and to the side so his lips could find hers. Pressing deeper when she didn't reject or refuse him, tasting her as he gently lowered her back against the bales once more. Urgency began to make itself known then. The need to feel flesh against flesh, to remove any and all barriers between them, anything that would even try to keep them apart. She felt those clever, blunt fingertips against the soft curve of her breast and sucked in a much needed breath, joy mixing with the want as the dread that she would never have this again finally began to fade.
Then she gave a startled squawk of noise, pushing against him, trying to shove him off of her with an almost fiendish desperation.
"Wh…what?" He pulled back, his face flushed and full of confusion.
Wide eyed she stared at him. "I have a bed." She blurted in the tones of a true believer intending to convert the skeptic. "And it's a big bed, too."
His thoughts completely elsewhere, the struggle to focus on her and comprehend the words she spoke apparent, he gaped at her. "What?"
"It's up there." She pointed in the general direction. "Where people can't look in and watch us…well, us." This time her hand moved to the window and several not so subtle observers.
He followed her gesture and stared at the yard. "Oh." Was his articulate answer.
"Maker, I really don't want to think about someone grabbing a snack out of the kitchen and then just sitting down to enjoy the show." Her face grew hot and she used her palms to hide behind.
"I didn't think of that." He said in his slow, deliberate way. "All I could think of that night was how beautiful your body looked in the moonlight and what a lucky man I was."
"Oh." This time she was the one with the profound utterance, her hands falling away as heat of another sort rose in her. "Well, maybe we could go through the kitchen, pick up our own snacks and then I could show you that bed I was talking about."
He looked at her, a smile curving his lips until two dimples showed strong in his cheeks. "As you wish. You are, after all, in charge."
A sputtering laugh escaped her and she cupped his face again for another, lingering kiss, his hands maintaining a disappointing respectfulness at her waist. A long, both frustrating and satisfying breath later, she pulled back, her fingers stroking his face.
"Just so you know, that is utterly strange without the beard."
A barking laugh from him answered her as he pulled her to her feet and began escorting her down from the loft. "You'll be happy to know, then, that I've already started growing it back."
At the bottom of the ladder, she watched him descend, waiting for him to join her. "I am." She said taking his hand in hers once he'd stepped next to her. "Happy."