"Why so quiet Hawke?" Anders asked as they trotted their horses toward the hazy blue silhouettes of the Vimmark mountains.

"Sorry. I was just enjoying the silence," she said." You don't get this level of quiet in Kirkwall, unless you're about to be attacked. I suppose that could be the case now, but I am choosing to believe it isn't. I choose silence, and peace."

Anders laughed. "You like the quiet? I would have pegged you as someone who preferred chaos." He said.

"That might be true some of the time, but not all." She answered. "Variety is the spice of life and all that."

"Riiiight. Variety." He said.

"Yes. You can never truly appreciate what you have until you experience its opposite, or close." She said. "Or at least that's what they say."

"Never say never."

She snorted. "Okay, so maybe you can appreciate it, but it's not the same. The value goes up when you know precisely how much you have to lose."

"And you don't think you could just know the value?" he asked. "I mean, I agree with you. But you have to have something worth losing first. Things aren't automatically great just because it's what you happen to have." He answered.

"Obviously. But it goes either way, doesn't it? You wouldn't necessarily know how miserable you are until you have tasted happiness. "

"But so what are you saying? That we should all run out and sample the things that are different from what we are used to, for the sole purpose of finding out if it's what we really want to keep around?" he said, his tone teasingly indignant. "Well, I mean… I guess that does make a certain kind of sense. But it's not always going to be correct." He said.

Hawke laughed deeply. "No, certainly not with everything…" she said. "But, if you're not sure about something, what better way is there to find out?"

"It could be dangerous. You jeopardize the ability to come back to whatever it was that you had, that you thought you were so discontented with."

"Yes, you do." Hawke wasn't exactly sure what they even were referring to now.

"I think trusting ourselves when we are sure about something is also important. Why take an unnecessary risk?" he asked.

"Agreed. So then is it all about simply deciding what it and isn't a necessary risk?"

"Well sure. Necessary risks are a fact of life. We all face them regularly." He said "What was your last necessary risk, Hawke?"

She searched her memory, and found too many things to answer.

"Every little thing I can think of seems like it is a risk in one way or another. Every time I walk out my front door is a risk… every time I light a fire to keep myself warm. Every time I eat food prepared by someone I don't know. Or even someone I do know."

"Yes," he said. "A hard question to answer without miles of lists."

"Do you know yours?"

"Well this, obviously. More specifically, my asking that it just be the two of us. It's a risk to bring more people, most especially the colorful characters YOU keep around, but if it's just the two of us, I might also be endangering you. Especially if Justice makes an appearance."

"Well I can take care of myself. And I knew the risks too, so it's not all on you. It is a burden we are sharing, and an important one." She said, she saw his head turn to look at her but she didn't meet his eyes. "I am happy to shoulder this with you, my dear friend. I might not be a mage, but I know what is at stake." She said.

"You are too good to me." He said quietly. "If anything were to happen to you, I don't know how I would live with myself. The entirety of Kirkwall would be significantly poorer."

"Nonsense. I could die any day, for any reason and there is no one who could stop that." She said. "Also, you deserve every good thing that there is."

Anders had no retort to that, and they settled together into a comfortable silence, with only the clomping of horse hooves and the shrill cries of birds to accompany them. It was a remarkably beautiful day. Or, she thought to herself, perhaps it was just a completely normal day, except that normal days were impossible to enjoy when enclosed on all sides by a dirty, noisy, stinking city.

"You know I do feel a little exposed out here in only my plainclothes." She said eventually. "I understand we need to look normal, but I don't remember the last time I wore even my lightest leathers."

"You'd think you'd relish the chance to get out of those things. I do. Those mages robes provide very little defense anyway. Mostly it's all wards."

"Could you put some wards on our plainclothes, then? Just so that we have something between us and an arrow through the heart?"

"I don't know many. Most of the robes come with the wards, so we don't really need to know them ourselves. I think I know a basic defense ward though. And I know one to help us be more inconspicuous, so we won't stand out in crowds."

"Those sound quite useful." She said.

"Alright, whenever we stop then. I guess I should have thought of this earlier."

"So, mages robes are just… robes? There's no actual armor in there at all?"

"That's right, with magic woven in. But that can be removed, and then they are just plain old robes. And they get hot! Always getting caught on chairs and branches. One time I walked around for an hour with part of a hornet's nest stuck to the train of my robe. I had traveled through a field to retrieve some herbs and didn't notice that one of the nearby felled trees was buzzing with wasps. The worst part is how long it was until someone bothered to tell me. Here I was thinking I was being followed around by a swarm of yellow jackets." He laughed.

"How rude!" Hawke agreed.

"I know! They were all laughing. It's a good thing I didn't get stung. Can you imagine watching a mage desperately trying to zap hundreds of wasps? All the other mages in the circle might have died of laughter."

"How kind of you to consider them dying of laughter rather than worry about you dying of a hundred wasp stings."

"Oh I am no bleeding heart my darling." Anders said, "Dying of laughter is a painful business. You might as well be suffocating."

At this Hawke began to laugh herself, starting with an unstoppable giggle, that grew into deep breathless whoops and cackles. She couldn't seem to stop herself from picturing a person laughing so hard they ceased to breathe, even as she was practically experiencing it herself. Whatever could do that must have been very funny indeed. It certainly could be from a mage trying to shoot a hundred tiny bolts of lightning at a swarm of attacking bugs. Both of the situations just seemed to be hilarious. Anders joined in and just made it worse, each of them infecting the other with a contagious fit. She roared with laughter until her cheeks and stomach began to ache, but she couldn't seem to keep the laughter down. It just kept bubbling back up despite the aching. Finally she took some deep breaths and forced herself to regain her composure.

"I see what you mean!" she finally gasped, wiping the tears out of her eyes.

"Are you alright?" Anders asked, beaming at her.

She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself. "For now." She said. "By the way that was all your fault." She joked. "Be glad you don't have my death on your head."

He snorted.

An hour passed before they came upon a stream. The mountains were closer now, with the outlines of jagged crevices and rising peaks clearly visible. The stream ran from the direction of a distant white peak ahead of them. She wondered then if they might see snow on their trip.

"We should let the horses drink. And I can put up some wards for protection." Said Anders, and Hawke nodded her agreement.

They dismounted and set the horses by the water, and Anders turned to face her.

"Okay, let me think, let me think…. Wards, wards, wards… I know they taught us this." He said, his face looking pained and full of an exaggerated effort.

Hawke watched him talk to himself with an amused expression. Anders was so cute when he got a little silly.

"Wait! Yes! No! Wait. Okay, I think I've got it. Okay. Yes. Just stand still, stand there and, um, I'm going to have to… lay my hands on you. In places. So, be prepared for that." He said. Hawke relaxed her body.

He took a second to center himself, and then began to chant something low and quiet as he ran his hands along her arms, up toward her shoulders. He went around her back and down her legs, moving around to her front.

Then he came back up her shins, knees and thighs. His touch on the outside of her clothes was soft, almost nonexistent, and it raised a ticklish shiver on the skin under the fabric, but the ease with which she felt such a light touch drove home just how little protection the clothes offered compared to her leathers. Hands moving so lightly over her thick suits would only be felt if a decent amount of pressure was applied. But Anders' soft movements could have practically been on her bare flesh. Despite that, she still felt mostly comfortable, light and loose.

She hoped the wards would hold, and would be effective since it would be all they had. Anders hadn't even brought his staff, though Hawke had a short bow, and two of her smallest daggers.

Slowly he worked his way up her stomach, pulling his hands off her completely as they passed around her breasts, coming back down to rest for a moment over her heart. She felt a low frequency throb emanating from his hands as they lingered there, and for the briefest moment she would have sworn that the throb and her heartbeats synced up in perfect time. Then he continued up, his hands a light caress over her neck, coming to rest on her face and then over the top of her head to sweep her hair back.

She was face to face with him when he did it, his eyes closed and his lips moving almost imperceptibly with the whispered chant. She noticed small freckles on his cheeks, and a silver hair hidden within the brown stubble on his square chin. She decided she wouldn't mention that there was no clothes on her head for him to place a ward.

He then shook out his arms and took a few steps back. Starting the chant back at the beginning, he leaned over and began running his hands up his own legs, passing over his stomach and reaching around to as much of his clothing as his arms could find. Hawke stifled a laugh as she noticed how much it resembled taking a shower. But then the laugh turned into something else entirely when she found herself actually picturing Anders in the shower.

The mages robes and adventurer gear he'd always worn had done little to show off Anders' physical assets. With him in a set of light cotton plainclothes, she could see the gentle swells of toned muscles on his chest and his arms, shoulders that looked much broader than she had realized, and a taut, slender torso. The pants that he had chosen to wear hung attractively from lean hips and well proportioned buttocks. He was the same Anders from the neck up, but from there down had the surprisingly strong, healthy body of a man who worked and battled in equal measure.

When they were galloping away from the stream, it occurred to Hawke how little she had thought of Fenris that day. But once she had opened the door in her mind to him, he would not leave. After five weeks of not seeing or speaking to him, laying her eyes upon him again was like coming up for air after floundering for days underwater. He at least didn't want them to part ways completely. She hadn't always seen eye to eye with Fenris, particularly on the subject of magic, but no matter how much they disagreed he had never given her the impression that he would abandon their friendship over their differences in opinion. A fact which she initially barely believed could be true based on how vehemently he would spar with anyone over the dangers of mages.

But he wanted her to come back again, like old times, if they could be called that already. He missed their conversations.

Of course he did, she told herself. She is the only one who really talks to him, the only one who will let him ramble on and on and will actually listen to it all. Fenris would often get bored of talking about himself and begin asking questions about her, showing a true interest in her thoughts and feelings on numerous topics, but if she wasn't there for him to vent to, to purge his mind to, then she didn't know if he would have anyone else. Would he just leave, then, the way he had so many other places? Just continue to be a ghost, wandering from place to place, putting down no roots and establishing no real connections?

Hawke knew that no matter how Fenris might shy away from the more intense aspects of love, she was the deepest connection he had made with anyone since fleeing Danarius, and probably well before that.

He needed her.

"Well, look at that." Anders said when they came across the lights of a distant village, situated right at the base of the mountain. "There is a town in our camping spot."

"Do you think they'd let us set up our tent in the tavern yard?" she asked jokingly.

"Probably, but then we'd spend the evening getting pissed on."

"Well at least we'll be close to the wine." She agreed.

"I guess we might as well get a room then. Or two, if you'd prefer." He said.

"Seems a bit of a waste of coin to get two." She said and he nodded. "Plus it wouldn't be safe being separated in such an unfamiliar place."

"Well, on we go." He said as he urged the horse forward.

They were at a much higher elevation now than they were back in Kirkwall, and when Hawke had yawned she felt her ears pop. The air held a brisk chill and she rubbed her arms, reminding herself to place her coat at the top of her pack when they left the next morning, so that it was easy to reach if things got too cold.

The town was small, consisting of only several scattered homes and structures, but the tavern sat right in the middle with a hanging lantern outside the door, just like every tavern in every town she had ever been in. They tied up their horses at a hitching post and Hawke followed Anders into the dimly lit building.

It wasn't exactly a scene in which every head turned their direction the moment they walked in the door, but she did meet the curious staring eyes of almost every single person there while on the walk up to the bar.

Anders quietly secured a room for the night, and ordered two plates of food and a bottle of wine, which they carried up the stairs and down a dark and narrow hall.

"The last door on the right…" Anders muttered as they made their way to the dead end.

The key worked on the door, and he banged his foot as he felt around the dark room for the lantern, which turned out to be conveniently placed on a small table right inside the door.

It illuminated a room that was tiny, with one window, one small table and two chairs and a single bed. There wasn't so much as a rug or a cask of water about beyond that.

"No wonder it was so cheap." He said.

Setting the food and wine bottle down on the table, they dropped their packs in a heap in the one open corner of the room and both stood looking at the tiny bed.

"He said this was the last room." She said.

"I find that hard to believe." Anders replied. "How many people are honestly traveling through this town tonight?"

Hawke shrugged.

"You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor." Anders said.

"Where exactly? There is barely enough room for us to even stand here, much less for you to try and lie down."

"No matter. I'll figure something out."

"Absolutely not." Hawke answered. "If anyone should sleep on the floor, it should be me. I am much smaller than you so I would fit down there better. Maybe if I removed my legs, or squeezed my head under the bed." She said as she tilted her head, trying to appraise the floor from a different angle.

Anders laughed.

"We have slept in the same bed before. We'll just have to get close again." She said, the thought making her stomach flutter.

She thought she saw a small blush creeping over Anders' face, but he only looked at the bed, his eyes appearing slightly glassy, and then turned to the food.

They sat together at the table, eating their wedges of bread and mutton and drinking the wine straight from the bottle when she noticed the serious expression on Anders' face.

"Thinking about the documents?" Hawke asked. He nodded.

"To become Tranquil you must completely sever your spirit's connection to the fade. I just can't fathom anything that could restore that once it's been done." He said. "I am not optimistic that we will find anything that can truly reverse tranquility."

"But there must be something in those documents, if the Seekers have been sent out. Or, are Seekers always sent out when a Templar deserts the order?"

"Maybe. I suppose it could just be that, though Sylvan specifically mentioned that they were asking about the documents. No, it doesn't matter; they could just be a recipe for peach jam and I would still need to see them."

Hawke sighed at the thought of peach jam. She hadn't had that since her days in Lothering, years before the blight.

"Does your contact know the apostates who are hiding him? Will he be able to get us to them?" she asked.

"That much is unclear." He answered.

When the inevitable moment arrived that they were to climb into the bed, they both stood there nervously, removing the outer layer of their clothes.

Anders paused in his undressing and asked, "Should I keep mine on?"

"Please don't. You're covered in dust and the cuffs of your pants have inexplicably gotten muddy," she answered. "Did I miss the part where we ran through a field of mud?"

He snickered.

"Fine. Ask and ye shall receive." He said as he dropped his pants. "Thankfully I don't make a habit of going commando, like some of the mages in the Circle did."

"Did they really?"

"Yes, easier access to the goods in those rushed, private moments." he smiled, eyes twinkling mischieviously.

"Were there a lot of those?"

"Of course. You lock a bunch of people up in a tower together for years and that stuff is going to happen. All we had in the world was each other. And, as you know, humans have needs." He pulled his hair out of its ponytail and shook it loose. It fell down in his face and Hawke felt the flutter in her stomach again.

"Yes, I suppose it would be much stranger if things like that didn't happen," she said as she folded her clothes up. She left on her undergarments and put on a light shirt that reached to her mid-thigh. He too retained a shirt, and a pair of undershorts. "Sounds sort of romantic though. Secret rendezvous and rushed trysts and all that."

"Romantic? Yes, I supposed for a few it probably was. Until the Templars found out and did everything in their power to keep them apart, or made their lovers watch while the other was punished." He said. "Mostly it was all a game. It was just safer that way. People cared about each other of course, but love was dangerous. It made you weak, vulnerable."

"How sad." Hawke said. She climbed onto the furthest side of the bed, up against the wall, leaving the other half of the bed as open as she could manage.

"Did you have anyone there?"

"I had a few dalliances. There was one person that I came to care about a bit, but it wasn't love, and it didn't last." He said, as he slid into the bed beside her. They were squeezed tight together and he raised his arm to allow her to get under it. She settled into the crook of his body the same way she had back in his room that night in Kirkwall. She almost groaned at how soothing it was to be up against his warm body again. She rested her head on his shoulder, and found herself savoring his subtle but comforting scent.

"Do you love Fenris?" he asked her finally as he waved his fingers toward the lantern, sending over an icy chill to extinguish the flame within, draping the room in darkness.

"Yes. I do." She answered.

"I still don't understand why." He said.

"No, I don't imagine you would be able to. No one sees how different he is when it is just the two of us."

"But do you want to be with a man who behaves in ways no one else could understand? Who you would have to explain to everyone? Or has he gotten softer since the last time I have seen him? If anyone could tame the man, it's you."

"Well…" she began. She was holding onto the hope that Fenris would return to her, but didn't know how likely that would be. She certainly didn't feel she had tamed him. "The fact is, I guess I'm not really with him anymore. I don't think anyway. The one night we had… he walked out. So it doesn't really matter now."

"Right. You did say that before, didn't you." he said. "But wait, you think? You're not sure?"

"He had flashes of lost memories return while we were…together. It upset him. He said it was too much for him and he was sorry and then he left."

"I see. What a blighted fool." Anders said. "And did you think that was your fault?"

"Not exactly. I don't really think it is either of our fault. It just… it is what it is."

"But he obviously hurt you. I could kill him for that." he asked as his arm tightened around her.

"I guess this is what I get for liking the complicated ones." She said.

"So have you really never loved anyone Anders?" she asked, raising her face to try to see his in the dark.

"I wouldn't say that." He answered quietly.

She slid a hand up to his chest, and lay it over his heart. She felt it beating strong under her hand and she closed her eyes. She felt safe, secure there beside him.

"The night you showed up at my door…" he began, "You scared me a little bit."

"I'm sorry. I am sorry about that whole night."

"Yes, you keep apologizing. But there's no need to. Had you been trying to hurt yourself?" he asked. "With the fight and the blood... and then, with me?" Her breath caught in her throat and her mind began to race. To whom could she confide if not in Anders?

"Yes."

"Over Fenris?"

"I don't know. I guess Fenris was just…. The straw that broke the camel's back."

"I think I understand the urge." He said. "No, I know I do. I am sorry you had to feel that too."

She recalled the two words he had uttered that had echoed through her mind countless times since that night. Two words inviting her to ruin him. Two words that had summed up so much inside her that she didn't know how to speak. "Hurt me." He must have understood. He had to, to say something like that.

She nestled closer into him, and felt his body return the movement. She exhaled a deep, shaky breath and felt the day's tension bleed out from her limbs.

"Do you believe a person can love two people at the same time?" she asked.

"I don't know. Probably." He almost whispered. "But even if you truly love two, you'd eventually have to choose just one."