Author's Note: Many thanks to those that have already watched and reviewed. Specifically leogrl19, Eryn S, and Toki the Mistress of Snow. I appreciate you!

And now for everyone's favortie goofball templar...Cullen! (kidding!)


When he found out that he wasn't dead, he wanted to be. His shoulder burned from arrow wounds, his left arm had popped out of its socket, his skull was fractured (damn that ogre), and every bit of him was covered in large purple bruises.

He had woken up as the witch--Morrigan's mother--stitched up the wound on his shoulder. The pain, the blood still in his eyes, and the gnarled face of his healer, had him convinced that he was...wherever mad men went when they died.

And then the witch had cackled, telling him that he was lucky. And he had asked why.

He stared at the ceiling for some time after that.

When a few days had passed and the wounds began to itch, Alistair found that he had to move, to scratch at them. And once he had moved just a little, it did not end his world to move some more. He looked around.

The hut possessed only a single room, though spacious. It was not as dark and gloomy as he had thought a witch's house would be. The smell was spot-on, though; there were profusions of herbs that, despite their various magical, medicinal, or poisonous properties, smelled mostly of garlic.

He had been placed in a pallet on the floor, due in large part to the fact that he was too tall for the bed, and in even larger part because it was occupied by his fellow Grey Warden.

She slept, still. He watched her breathe, her chest rising in shallow, ragged jumps. In every way, she made him look like a sobbing weakling. Or so Morrigan said. But in this instance, Alistair had to agree with her. He had one arrow wound? His partner had five. He had a fractured skull? She had a broken her collar bone, nose, and several ribs. Oh, he had dislocated his shoulder? She had done that, and had a detached retina. As he watched Morrigan and her mother work their healing magic on her each day, to seemingly little effect, he began to wonder if she would survive.

Andraste's mercy...if she died, he would be the last Grey Warden in Ferelden. Him, against the Blight. Alone.

She couldn't die.

He remembered how she had collapsed in her Joining, and for a brief and terrible moment he had thought her dead, thought that they had lost them all. But Duncan held him back, and soon she began to gasp, and opened her eyes.

She would live this time, too. Right?

Right?

And so when night fell and Morrigan and her mother had gone (he knew not where they slept each night, but it was not in the hut), Alistair picked himself up and stumbled--crawled, really--to the other Warden's bedside.

She was, of course, still asleep. Alistair wondered for a moment at how her face was so relaxed and open in dreaming. When they fought the Darkspawn she had been so fierce, her blood-stained face twisted in anger, shouting a war cry...and yet, still beautiful. Not necessarily beautiful to him, no, she was a beautiful woman of course, but...Maker's breath, she was a fellow Warden!

Alistair shook himself and leaned in close to her ear.

"Hello," he whispered. "Remember me? It's um, it's Alistair. But you probably knew that. So, listen...don't die. It's just you and me left out here in the middle of the Wilds, with that creepy witch and her creepy mother. You can't just leave me alone with them, right? You can't...not alone."

The grief washed over him again, and he felt like he was drowning. He must be, or why would there be saltwater coming out of his eyes?

"Don't leave," he said, and he was blubbering and he knew it, but right then he didn't care. "Don't leave me alone. Everyone else is gone and I can't do this by myself, I can't.

"Look, just stay alive. Please. I'll do whatever you want--you're the boss. Anywhere you go, I'll follow. Not that I mind, you're so much better than me anyway, and you're beautiful, and you're strong...please don't die.

"Please."