A/N: Okay, this story is just rolling and rolling and rolling right along. That probably has something to do with all of the really lovely comments it's gotten so far, so thank you all!

Also, I feel a little compelled to apologize to those of you who love fluffy sweetness and sexytimes – there's more sexy to follow, but it gets a little less sweet from here on out. Or maybe a lot less sweet. Apparently the angst-monster driveth my life and my ability to write, so you have been warned!

The last chapter should be up sometime tonight. The author must eat so she can type. Or something like that.


He takes her hard and often, enough to satisfy the prolonged ache, the burning wrapped up tight within him during the long days before. He is rough with her, rougher than he likes, and the loving moments afterward are often spent in hushed apologies and his magic's gentle coaxing of bruises from her flesh.

But when his hands turn to tenderness, gentle on her skin, she takes control and plays the aggressor, taunting and teasing him until he loses himself and returns to the hardness once more.

It is slowly killing him.

Nothing with Hawke has been the way he imagined so often, lying alone in the darkness of his clinic, the image of her face hovering before him behind closed eyes.

He has loved her from afar, desperately, completely, with no hope that she would ever give him cause to plead his case, nor feeling even wholly the right to do so, broken as he is. And now she is here beside him more often than not, spending the night in his bed and the days at his side, toiling over menial things that can hardly matter to her if not for his sake. She has shared herself with him with such trust that he can only tread around her with quiet, cautious steps, careful to remain worthy of her conviction.

It is not right that he should be resentful of her because the kind of love she needs is not the kind of love he wants to give her. It is not right to find it frustrating that she will not tell him what secrets those blue eyes hold, what hurts and horrors they have seen. He should feel honored that she'd come to him, that she'd stayed to find the comfort that he can provide, even if at times it is at arm's length. She has just lost her sister; it was not right for him to expect more. She had given him her body and had shown him that he has a place in her heart, why can he not be content with that? Why must it feel like he must take possession of the entirety of her soul, too, before it will satisfy the ache in him?

Justice was right, he is obsessed. It is just as dangerous as standing in a hay loft, playing with fire.

And still he cannot be satisfied, not even when he takes his frustration out on her flesh and his hands riddle bruises up and down her arms, and she lies limp and spent and vulnerable beneath him.


He is standing at the bank of a river, and the air is golden in a way it only can be in the height of spring when sunlight comes through fresh green leaves. His feet are bare in the grass and it is soft under him, the sounds of water a constant murmur, holding the memories of snow.

There is a woman in the river, all pale skin and dark hair, and it is then that he knows that this is a memory, a dream.

The setting takes on a shape – Sundermount. They are at the base of the mountain enjoying an unexpectedly warm day in the midst of the rain and cold. She is washing a battle from her skin. It is something he loves about her that he also finds amusing, that she must always be clean. It is a ritual he intrudes upon – she does not know he is there.

When it was real he had blushed and stumbled away, embarrassed and ashamed of the way his eyes lingered on her naked back, wishing to trace the rivulets coursing down her flesh with his fingertips, wishing to lick the beaded water from her skin. But this is just a dream, and so he stays, sinking down into the grass on the bank of the river to watch his lover as she moves like a water sprite, graceful among the eddies.

She dips and ducks down beneath the shimmering face of the water and he stands, moving to the river's edge to beckon to her when she resurfaces. She smiles that smile that is so typical of her, the bright flash of emotion that is so certain, so unapologetic, so her, and takes his hand.

And then it is wrong, because her hand feels strange in his. Softer, gentler, more unsure. This dream world spins around him and then it is no longer Hawke who stands there, naked in her glory, but her sister. Soft, adoring little Bethany.

He can hardly breathe.

The smile is different now, even if some of the features are the same. It is something soft, hesitant almost, and so sweet. Nervous, he realizes, and remembers how the same look often flitted across her features when she had been… had been…

She's close suddenly and then her lips are on his, and again his mind swims with the incongruity of it. This kiss is not the kiss of a woman grown and confident, even cognizant, of her power to sway the mind of a man with such things. This kiss is a question, yielding and hesitant and wanting without demand.

And because it is just a dream, he gives into temptation like he never has before.

He kisses her, shaping the gentle curve of her cheek with his palm, sweeping his fingers through her hair. It is dark like her sister's, but longer. Her face is gentler, more rounded like the rest of her young body. Slender and strong, but without the hard planes and angles of the Hawke that he calls his. She is lush, generous, and his hands travel the familiar and yet unfamiliar curve of her hips, the pads of his fingertips sliding upward until his arms come around her.

He spreads his coat on the soft grass and he lays her body down on top of it, sinking into the supple sweetness of her.

He knows the wrongness of it, but his body wants, and it is only a dream. And so he loves her, all gentle kindness and tender indulgence, the way he wishes that he could love her sister.