Author's Note: So. I don't remember if they've established a more..accurate location for The Aeonar (I know that the characters in this refer to it simply as Aeonar), but for my purposes it is located inside Dragon's Peak until I'm told I'm wrong. Desire is in italics.

Disclaimer: Stuff's not mine.


Beatrice ran for quite some time until she could no longer keep going, at which point she bent at the knees and put her hands on her thighs, retching nothing as her stomach was empty. She jerked back violently at a hand on her shoulder.

"Beatrice, calm down, it's just me," a familiar enough voice, blond hair around a face that she should remember.

"Anders? Anders, is that really…" Beatrice stammered, hands on his arms as he held her still.

"Yes, shh, it's okay, Beatrice. You're okay now, we're out of Aeonar. We need to get further, but you can't keep running like that. It'll kill you. Just breathe for a minute, okay?" Anders' hand stroked her hair, tipping her chin up at the last. "Okay?"

Beatrice nodded solemnly, entirely unsure of how to feel about what was happening. She took Anders' offered hand and let him tug her quickly along.

"I won't be able to go with you all the way. I have to go to Amaranthine, I'm trying to find my phylactery. Apparently, they don't think people in Aeonar will make it out alive because all of my sources say that yours has disappeared."

"Would you…like me to come with you?" Beatrice asked, still incredibly out of sorts, trying to keep her feet moving fast enough to keep up with him.

"It's not safe. If they catch you with me, we'll both be made Tranquil without a doubt. With my phylactery out there somewhere, it's only a matter of time before they track me down. I didn't spend all this time breaking you out just to have that happen."

"But what…where am I going?"

"I have friends in Kirkwall," Anders responded, ducking beneath a tree branch that Beatrice narrowly missed. "They don't know you're coming but it isn't exactly safe to send word. You need to remember 'Darktown'. It's where my clinic and my friend – her name is Beatrice too, actually. Hawke. Remember Hawke. She and her brother will help you as much as they can. I'll go with you as far as I can. You should be able to catch a boat from Amaranthine. Hopefully I won't be too far behind. But the most important thing right now is getting you there. It'll take us several days to get there. I'm sorry we're going to have to push you so much, but we have to get as far away from that place as possible."

"How did you know where I was?"

"Karl, from the Circle. He sent me a missive about what happened. He had to find out for sure, which took months. And then he had to find a way to get it to me. I received it last month, but I had to be able to leave Kirkwall. I had to know where my phylactery was before I risked it. It's a good thing I didn't wait any longer, you look like you wouldn't have lasted."

I could give him to you. The two of you could live happily ever-after, right here…

"Get out of my head!" Beatrice hissed, unknowingly doing so aloud. Anders stopped short, turning to look at her.

"What'd you say, Beatrice?"

"My…head," she whimpered, suddenly terrified that he would turn on her if he knew. She looked at him with eyes that appeared ever-wider because of the gauntness of her cheeks. He remembered her from the Circle; she had been a good kid, young when he was still there but good nonetheless. Quiet and unassuming. She had made friends with that Jowan fellow, perhaps fallen for him – the rumors were always changing. She had passed her Harrowing, they thought he was a blood mage. And then this. Aeonar, for helping him. She was a shell of herself as she stood, shaking like a leaf in front of him.

"What's wrong with your head?" he spoke quietly, hand reaching out to touch her shoulder. He wanted to keep her grounded, to keep her with him. He could feel the Fade pulsing between them and believed he knew, without her speaking, what it was that was bothering her.

"They…they won't leave me alone. Ever since they put my in that cell, the voices…the Fade demons," her eyes burned but she had no water in her to let out in tears. She made a sobbing sort of noise, hands lifting to grasp desperately at his shirt. "Please, Anders, make it stop."

Her fingers were skeletal as she clutched the front of tunic – he had stashed his robes, thinking it would be easier to make a break with her in pants – and he held onto her shoulders firmly. He could feel the muscles move beneath her shirt, beneath her skin. It was disturbing, to say the least. And the terrified look in her eyes.

"Beatrice, listen to me. Are you listening?"

She let out a tiny noise, like a strangled cat, but nodded almost imperceptibly in the affirmative.

"You can't let them win, Beatrice. If you let them in, you are proving those Templars right. You have to keep them out of your head and be strong. I know it is difficult and I know you are in so very much pain, but you can do it. You are strong. You can fight back."

"I have been fighting for so long," she whispered, her grip relaxing and her shoulders sagging.

"Let me…" Anders began, lifting a hand and spreading his fingers back into her dirty hair. His palm rested against her forehead and the warmth first of his skin and then of his magic was a welcome foreign feeling. She could not remember the last time she had been touched – in a pleasant way – by another human being. A dull blue light glowed from beneath his hand, just inside her field of sight as she looked up towards his wrist. The feeling was calming, gentle, soothing. It would not keep the voices away, but it made her feel slightly less like she needed to pass out and let them take over.

After another brief moment of standing, silently, in the middle of the woods the pair began again towards Amaranthine.

They stayed as far from the North Road as they could without running directly into the Hafter River's south-reaching tributary. It was imperative that they stay away from civilization and any discernable path. So far they had remained uninterrupted by anyone, for which they were both intensely grateful.

After walking for nearly an entire day straight, Anders decided they were safe to stop off in a small cave. First he checked to ensure that it was uninhabited and then he cleared it out enough for give her a place to lie down. He would cover the entrance over after finding some food, coming back to find her passed out in the dirt.

Laying the food in front of her, a tiny fire just enough to throw light on the close stone walls, Anders leaned back and watched her squirming frame. Her breathing was uneven in sleep and her face looked pained, as though she was being physically harmed while unconscious. He shook his head, reaching out for a few of the berries he had been able to scrounge up. It wasn't much, but there was a small rabbit slowly cooking over the fire that they would be able to share. It was better than starving.

He missed his Beatrice – Hawke. Looking at this girl reminded him of the young woman he had left behind in Kirkwall. She had offered to come with him but he wouldn't think of it. To put her in danger like that was impossible. He may have been quite the ladies' man before, he may have done his share of philandering, and he may have been quite selfish – but he would not ask her to risk her life to save someone she had never met, nor to help him on his fool's errand of finding his phylactery. No, he would find it on his own. And destroy it much the same way.

Eventually Beatrice startled and sat up, nearly screaming as she did so. Anders, who had dozed off a little, jerked and nearly gave himself a concussion against the wall he used as a pillow. "Andraste's knickerweasels, Bea, what is wrong?"

"…nightmares," was all she said in response as she frowned sheepishly, eyes adjusting to the light in the cave before she saw the food he had left on her side of the fire. "Is this for me?"

"Yes. I tried to split it as best I could, what's left is for you. I'm going to try to get some more sleep. Wake me when you're finished so we can start again."

Despite what Anders had said, about Karl (whom she had spent some time with in the library) telling her tale of woe, Beatrice didn't quite understand why he had risked his life to save her. It would have been easy to leave her as she had been, half-dead and half-crazy (neither of which had truly been fixed) and never think twice. But the man that had barely spoken to her in the Circle was sitting across from her, running with her. It was not that he had ever been mean to her at the Circle, he was merely older than she was and spent as little time in the library as he could get away with. When Beatrice wasn't in class, she was either reading or with Jowan. Karl, whom Anders had had a tryst with that many knew about but few mentioned to keep their secret…well, secret, had spent nearly as much time with his nose in a book as Beatrice did. Through this they formed a sort of camaraderie, but they spoke infrequently. She had, apparently, made a bigger impression that she had known. Why else would the two men go through such trouble to save her? It didn't make sense, but she wasn't about to tell Anders he needn't mind and she'd just make her way back to Aeonar. The thought almost made her laugh.

Almost.