A Home

Carver sat glowering in the passenger seat of the car, arms crossed and a new bruise along his jaw. "Jesus Hawke, I need to get home. Go." The traffic getting out of the academy's parking lot was notoriously bad, jammed bumper to bumper after school with little hope of a quick getaway.

Hawke inhaled deeply, letting all the breath out through her nose in a careful exhale. The cars inched along slowly, too, too slowly. Though Carver was more of a prat about it, Hawke was becoming steadily annoyed by the pace as well.

"I really can't affect the tide of traffic, Carver," she said evenly. "Why do you need to get home so badly anyway?"

He huffed, shifting to cross his arms and stare daggers at a car trying to cut ahead of them.

"Mom needs my help."

A car honked, and Hawke slammed on the brakes, catapulting her brother forward.

"God dammit! Hawke, what the hell are you doing?"

She grit her teeth. Hawke had been on edge since Latin, where she had refused to look Fenris in the eye all period. Now cars were jumping out at her.

"Hightown housewives need to learn how to signal," she muttered.

When they successfully got out of the parking lot after precious minutes of tentative jolts and slow movement, Hawke headed for Lowtown. "Gamlen can't help her? He could certainly use a break from the whiskey."

Carver let out a snort before his face twisted with familiar anger.

"Gamlen is a bloody idiot. There's no way I'm letting him anywhere near Mom."

His fists clenched, anger radiating from him in waves.

She agreed wholeheartedly with her brother. Gamlen wasn't a bad man, not really, but he was a drunken fool most of the time, who couldn't hold down a job to save his life. And he was a detriment to their mother, in her current state of disarray...

"Don't you have work tonight? You can't be late again; Meeran won't be so lenient if it keeps happening."

"Meeran can bugger off." He simply sat for a moment, grinding his teeth in thought before adding, "Maybe if you had a proper job I wouldn't need to work so often. You don't help her- all you do is brood and do your homework."

Hawke gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. She didn't earn as much as Carver, but it was all she could do to manage her grades and balance tutoring. "I'm doing my best. It's all we can do."

How her life had gotten like this so quickly was a mystery. It was all so wrong, so surreal. She missed Bethany; her sister would have made her feel better.

And her father would have known what to do. He was the real Hawke, not me.

The traffic picked up and Hawke took a deep breath, sucking in as much resolve as she could.

She knew she'd need it.


Carver went through the door first, and Hawke followed.

Leandra sat rocking in the living room, which may have once been considered modern, years ago, a Hallmark movie muted in the background. The only sound in the house was the groan of the chair, harsh and deafening in the oppressive silence.

"Hey, Mom," he said, voice as close to soft as it ever was.

Leandra rocked back and forth twice before answering in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Carver," she breathed. Her eyes found his and she smiled, thin face peeling back and limp hair rustling.

Her eyes trailed over to where her daughter stood, half in, half out of the cluttered old room.

For a moment, her dull eyes focused. Leandra's smile turned sad, painfully grieving, and withered slowly.

"Bethany?" The muffled hope in her voice was stinging, as painful as a slap, and suddenly Hawke was choking on the dust motes floating in the air.

Carver swallowed hard and his eyes flickered back to his sister.

"No, Mom," he corrected quietly, kneeling beside her. "Hawke."

Hawke. Her mother hadn't called her by Bethany's name in a long while; she thought that they were all moving on slowly, making minimal but steady progress...

But really they were all stuck, unmoving- frozen. The creaking of the rocking chair was grating on Hawke's nerves, slowly but surely. Facing Leandra was the last thing she wanted to do- Hawke wished nothing more in that moment than to screw her responsibilities, go upstairs, take a bath and shut herself in her room with a distracting romance novel.

Hawke wanted Bethany back. If only it had been herself who had the bad genes, to follow in her father's footsteps... Maybe then her mother wouldn't look at her like that.

"It's me, Mom," she said tiredly. "It's Hawke."

"Where's Bethy?"

Carver and Hawke shared a pained look. It was as close to understanding each other as they'd ever get, these little moments.

"I'll get dinner going later. I have homework."

Hawke trudged up the stairs without a glance backward.


The weekend came and went, dragging by slowly.

Fenris had been consumed with thoughts of his newest student for the entirety of those days.

He wanted to apologize- he needed to apologize again. As he walked to the bus and sat staring out its window with the other denizens of Lowtown, he cringed at the memories of what he asked and how he had asked it.

When he finally arrived, Kirkwall Academy loomed beautiful and tall into the sky, a beacon of learning and knowledge, and when he walked in, he couldn't help but wonder if it made everyone feels so very small.


Fenris had his back to the class, writing out the day's final translation when he heard a familiar voice. He finished and turned to face his students, and was surprised to find Hawke conversing with Sebastian. Of her own free will. Not about Latin.

He blinked in surprise but continued on, "Translate the following: 'Flectere si nequeo superos, acheronta movebo.'"

Hawke was actually enjoying a conversation. It was an absolute shock, but it wasn't an unpleasant one. Sebastian was a sweet guy, a little timid but incredibly bright, with a brogue that charmed her and eyes like the sky. They were discussing Isabela and her penchant for the perverse, as their buxom classmate wasn't actually present that day.

Hawke also felt a glow in her chest at knowing Isabela wouldn't mind her friends having a laugh at her expense so long as she was made privy to it later, (or got to smack someone's bum by the end of the day). Hawke couldn't remember the last time she actually laughed.

It felt nice.

Fenris' voice alerted her to the work she needed to be doing. "Flectere... I have no idea," she said to Sebastian. "At this rate I might need tutoring for once," she joked miserably.

Sebastian smiled bashfully, blue eyes staring down at the floor before coming to meet Hawke's again.

"If you want, I could go over vocabulary with you." His cheeks turned scarlet and he coughed, obviously trying not to think too hard about the girl next to him.

Fenris watched the exchange with eyes like granite. The way the acolyte stammered and blushed made it very clear how he was feeling, and Hawke's thoughtful smile back at him made something in Fenris' heart jerk.

He wanted to be on the receiving end of that expression.

"Hawke," he snapped. "The answer. I assume you've finished since you are so clearly not translating."

Her smile died and she looked down at her paper and back up at him with wide eyes.

Sebastian whispered, quickly and quietly to Hawke, "If I cannot deflect the will of heaven, then I shall move hell."

Hawke stared blankly forward for a moment. His voice was curt and his eyes were as stony as ever. He was a total contradiction to the man who demanded she tell him about her personal life, who made her vulnerable and weak.

"I don't know," she said shortly, returning Fenris' glare. "Something about hell?"

"That was an excellent translation Sebastian provided for you. You would do well to use it," he replied icily.

Out of the corner of his eye Fenris saw Sebastian go even redder.

Hawke swallowed hard but kept her nerve. "I'll just have to study harder then, won't I?" she shot back.

The tension in the classroom weighed like a sack of bricks on all their shoulders. Before Hawke and Fenris had a chance to exchange further words, the bell chimed the end of another day. Hawke gathered her bag and made for the door immediately.

"Hawke," Fenris thundered, making the class jump and freeze. "Stay."

The others filed out with pitying glances, all except Sebastian who paused to murmur quietly in her ear, "I'll wait for you outside."

Hawke jerked her head over her shoulder and looked at Fenris. "No," she said to Sebastian. "I might be a while. Say hello to Merrill and the others for me."

Sebastian hesitated a moment, looking between his friend and their teacher. With a resigned nod, he moved toward the door.

Fenris stood, fists clenched and eyes like thunderheads.

Hawke dropped her bag to the floor with a solid thump. "Is there something I can do for you, Fenris?" she asked dryly. "I've got to be somewhere. Soon."

He let out an angry huff of breath, though it was not directed at Hawke. This was not how he wanted to be with her, who he wanted to be with her.

Fenris knew the look in her eyes well, the fight or flight fear, the defensive posture.

"Hawke," he sighed. "I want to apologize. For everything. I know not why, but your presence makes me... different."

Hawke stared at him blankly for a moment, before a choked, quasi-laugh escaped her. "Is that all?" she sputtered, raking her hand up through her hair and down her neck.

Fenris looked confused by her reaction, and seemed to open his mouth to say something. Hawke didn't particularly want to hear it. "It's nothing. It's not like any of that is a secret anyway. Everyone knows about the tragic Hawkes, their tragic pasts and lives. Now you know my tragic inability to learn Latin too. It comes full circle."

"If it is any consolation, I did not mean to upset you," he stepped towards her, just one small movement, but to Fenris it felt as if he had crossed the world.

Her eyes were locked on his, and he could see how she breathed unevenly.

He approached, just a step, really, but Hawke's heart jumped into her throat anyways. "I... I wasn't upset. Just a bad day. It's nothing."

It wasn't nothing, though. Fenris only scratched the surface of Hawke's wooden heart, but some long-forgotten thing came trickling through the top.

Hawke didn't like being so easily taken apart and looked through. Fenris looked at her like a wolf looked at prey, and she wanted to run almost as much as she wanted to stay.

"I can teach you. Tutor you privately, if you want," he said quietly.

"Sebastian's offered to tutor me. You don't need to bother yourself over it. I'll fumble less sooner or later. Anything else?"

She waited a beat then turned to leave, eyes betraying her level tone and belying her assertion that nothing was wrong.

"Wait," he called, as she began to walk away. She didn't stop.

"Hawke, wait."

He moved after her and caught her wrist, delicate and hot, pulse jumping against his fingers.

And it didn't burn.

She turned to look at him, eyes wide with surprise and other emotions Fenris could not pick out.

"Allow me to help you," he said softly, still holding her. "Please."

Hawke could only stare. He touched her and it was like being shocked, like her entire existence jolted back to life.

In that moment, something between them shifted. Hawke didn't pull away when Fenris pulled her in slightly. A part of her wanted to, and a part of her didn't, but she was drawn in, closer.

Too close.

"I don't need help," she whispered. "I can do it. I can do it..."

"You need not do it alone."

His voice hung in the air, hung between them like something real and heavy.

He couldn't look away. He couldn't let go. It was wrong by definition on every pamphlet and guide book ever printed about student-teacher relationships- but for the life of him, Fenris did not care.

Fenris was looking at her so intently, speaking to her softly. Hawke was at an absolute loss. It could have been sincere; he could have meant every word.

"Why are you doing this?"

Hawke didn't need to hear the answer- she didn't want to know. She snatched her hand from his like his touch had turned to acid, and made for the outside world, for reality.

Before she exited the room though, she paused at the door. "I... may need the extra help. I'll stay after class Friday. Maybe."

And with that, she was gone, and Fenris was left once again with an empty class and strange thoughts of the first person in a very long while who made him feel whole.


A/N: Still working on the editing! I write most of this on the go on my phone, so unfortunately it's riddled with odd errors. Thanks again to everyone reading :D