Anders talked, sometimes. Just a word or two, but compared to his previous blank silences it was a change that made pretty much everyone happy. He watched people, paid attention to them, his eyes turning from face to face as conversations went on around him. He listened, even if he almost never spoke, and if someone asked him to do something – pass the salt, hold this for a moment, come for a walk with us – he usually did it. Silently, still mostly withdrawn into himself, but at least there and aware. No longer a ghost.

He still spent most of his time trailing Fenris, but that had become so much his place now that Fenris thought it would be strange to turn his head and not see the mage right there. Strange to go into battle without that sudden nearby eruption of magic. Strange to not have that constant little this way tug on his senses, that whiff of ozone scent that wasn't really a smell at all, and had nothing to do with his nose. The few times when they were briefly separated for one reason or another, it bothered him a little, a nagging feeling of lack, and then relief when Anders reappeared, the mage moving back into his habitual position at Fenris' side.

He woke early one morning, to find Anders out of his own bed again – an increasingly rare occurrence since the mage had regained more awareness of himself and those around him. Anders had his head resting on folded arms on the edge of Fenris' bed, snoring softly, his legs curled up loosely beneath him. It couldn't have been a particularly comfortable position, his bare legs poking out from under the hem of his nightshirt, knobbly knees and bare toes pressed against the cold stone floor where they overhung the edges of the rag-rug beside the bed.

Fenris sat up, and shook the mage's shoulder. Anders started awake, looking around with a frightened expression on his face for a moment before recognizing where he was. "Go back to bed, Anders," Fenris said quietly.

The mage nodded, and pushed himself to his feet, stumbling back across the narrow space between their beds before sitting down heavily on his own. He didn't get into it, but instead sat slumped on the edge, face buried in his hands, elbows resting on knees. Something was clearly bothering him, though Fenris was hesitant to ask what.

"Want to go for a walk?" he asked after a while. Anders looked up, then nodded. "All right. Get dressed; it's cold out."

They both dressed, in layers of warm clothing, with heavy cloaks over top, then Fenris led the way out of their room and through the darkened, silent hallways, up to the castle battlements. It was even colder there, the stones dusted with snow, a few patches of ice visible here and there in the dim grey pre-dawn light. There was a slight breeze, just enough to make the skin of his face tingle, and make him feel very thankful for the fur-lined cloak and gloves he'd been supplied with. The pair of them walked slowly around the heights of the castle, around to the eastern side, where Fenris finally stopped, sitting down on a bench from which, he knew, there'd be a good view of the dawn sky. Though as overcast as the sky was, he doubted there'd be much in the way of a sunrise.

Anders sat down beside him, gloved hands braced on his knees, looking to the east as well. For a long time they just sat there silently, watching the clouds lighten, watching the world slowly begin to acquire colours; going from dark grey to lighter, then to blues and purples, the first shades of dawn.

Fenris watched Anders more than he watched the clouds. The mage's face was very still; not the empty blankness it had been for so long after he'd first rescued him, but calm. Waiting. Accepting whatever happened to him, or around him, as if it was all things he had no control over, no ability to interfere or change.

He found himself remembering his time among the Fog Warriors, far to the north in distant Seheron. How panicked he'd been at first, finding himself left behind and wounded, his master – the centre of his existence, back then – gone away without him. Abandoned. He'd wanted to die – expected to, when the rebels found him. And instead one of them had saved his life, bandaging his wounds, bringing him back to their encampment deep in the jungle. He'd taken the deeply confused elf in and fed him, looked after him. Given him a home; given him a taste of freedom, of life without a master. Fenris had asked why, once, just a few days before Danarius had returned and reclaimed his service with bloodshed and violence and pain.

"I saved you," the man had told him, shrugging, as if the answer was obvious. "I'm responsible for you now; I owe it to you to look after you."

He hadn't understood, back then; surely it should be the other way around? That he owed his rescuer?

But now, looking at Anders... it made sense. If he hadn't intervened in Anders' life, hadn't saved him, had left him to the templars... Anders would be dead now, or tranquil. Gone, in either case, his broken existence ended, his fears and worries and needs all at an end. But he had saved Anders, and by doing so, accepted the responsibility to see that he was looked after, cared for, clothed and fed. Because really saving him took more than just taking him away from the templars; it took looking after him until he was finally able to look after himself, to stand on his own without help. Saving him over and over again, day after day, in tiny increments, in little steps forward and back again.

It had been his choice to save Anders. Now, he wondered if Anders would have chosen to be saved, had he been capable of the choice, or whether he would have preferred to die. But it was not a question he could ask the mage, no more than he could bring himself to ask what had happened to Anders and Hawke. Whatever had occurred, it had clearly been ugly; ugly enough to break the mage, when little else in his life had ever succeeded at doing so. The horrors Fenris imagined in his head were bad enough; he had no need to learn which, if any, of them were closest to the truth.

It was possible, too, that Anders might not even be capable of remembering what had happened now; Fenris had seen that happen sometimes in Tevinter, when slaves were badly broken by some particularly traumatic event. Some of them went mad, and some simply... forgot. The mind protecting itself, as much as it could. Witness himself, for that matter, unable to really remember anything prior to the incredible pain of his lyrium markings being etched into his very skin. No. Better not to ask; to just give Anders space and time, and a place where he hopefully felt safe, and maybe, perhaps, in time, he'd recover enough to not need saving any more.

Even if he ever did recover, Fenris doubted he'd be anything like the man he'd been in the past; that man was dead, beyond recovery, as surely as Fenris' own younger self was. Someone that Fenris once had been; someone he could never be again, too much pain and too much time between that boy and himself. So with Anders as well, he guessed; no going back to what, to who, he had been before.

Anders shifted position, still watching the sky, the clouds all orange and yellow now, brightening to the bright white-grey of another overcast winter day. His hand closed on Fenris' hand, rather to the elf's surprise; seeking comfort, perhaps. He didn't draw away, but instead remained still, watching the sunrise with the mage.

Another day dawning, for both of them.