A/N: A generous amount of exposition, but it's all necessary I swear.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 4

Hawke had intended to pick a few pockets and buy a night at a cheap inn. Perhaps she would even visit a pub and talk to any intriguing looking strangers. It was her tried and true method for gathering both information and funny looks. Then she would start to put together a plan, maybe look into getting some work, and be one step closer to finding her way home.

None of that happened.

Instead she ran into Aerith again. The teenager was being swarmed by a group of monsters and was obviously wounded. Hawke had sighed at how typical it all was and then dished out lightning strikes liberally.

Now she was back in the house filled with flowers. Aerith had offered her a room for the night before retiring for the evening. Now Hawke was trying not to flinch under the glare of the mother, Elmyra. She might face down charging ogres on a regular basis, but something about a mother's 'I'm-so-disappointed-in-you stare' made her feel like a little girl in pigtails again. She didn't even know this woman! And she had just saved Aerith from a swarm of monsters.

Elmyra sat down across from her at the kitchen table, smoothing out her apron and the long green dress beneath it. Her brown hair was pulled back into a bun, wisps of a fringe edging a face lined by stress.

"Aerith told me that you scolded her for healing you this morning." the older woman said in a carefully neutral tone. "She said that you know what she is and that you are the same."

Hawke's store of amassed information was pitifully underwhelming. From what she had gathered, Aerith was half human and half 'Cetra', which sounded a lot like a race of mages. Only their magic wasn't quite the same as Hawke's, there had been no mention of demons. If anything it reminded Hawke of the Dalish elves, they were apparently in tune with nature and the world itself but began to die out when the humans arrived. Aerith was the last of the Cetra and living in hiding.

"I am human, if that's what you're asking." said Hawke. "But I know that your daughter has a connection to the fade- uh, planet. I have something similar."

Elmyra narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Hawke sighed and summoned a blue mage light, the wispy ball of mana floating in her hand and then dispersing when she closed her fist.

The older woman lowered her head. "She went after you, when you left this morning. She said it was because you might get lost, but it wasn't really." Elmyra fixed her eyes on Hawke, "Aerith knows she's different, but she's always wanted just to fit in, to be normal. She may have only met you this morning but in her eyes you are one of her kind."

Hawke was reminded of Bethany. Darling, sweet, Bethany; who only ever wanted to be normal. She had been so ashamed of being a mage, as though it were somehow her fault that they had to hide from the Templars. Bethany had looked up to her, had always trusted that her big sister would protect her. It might have been almost nine years since Bethany's death but the loss still hurt to think about. To remember her mother, tears streaming down her face, asking how she could have let this happen…

Elmyra cleared her throat. "I don't know who you are or why you're here. But I don't want my daughter getting into danger at the example of a strange woman she's only just met."

"My name is Hawke. I'm a mercenary, or an adventurer maybe. I'm new to Midgar."

The woman in front of her just wanted to protect her family. Hawke could respect that.

"I didn't mean to end up at your house or endanger Aerith. I know it must look bad, her following me and then being brought back covered in blood, but I assure you very little of it was hers."

It occurred to Hawke that she wasn't helping her cause. How did Varric make it look so easy? Had it been anything else she wouldn't have minded Elmyra thinking it was her fault. After all Hawke was quite used to everything being her fault, but a desperate mother asking her how she could let her little mage girl get hurt was too close to home. Some things you just couldn't leave behind.

"I probably shouldn't have told her that I'm a mage, but I was a little out of sorts at the time." continued Hawke. "When I saw her being attacked I did everything I could. I'm sorry she was hurt." The reasonable part of her mind said that this wasn't really her business and the best course of action was a swift exit. "I'll leave early or now if you like, so that she can't follow me again. Though I think you should find someone to protect your daughter, or at the very least someone to teach her how to use her own magic. An untrained mage is a danger to themselves."

Elmyra eyed the Hawke's staff leaning against the wall, its blade glinting in the dim kitchen light.

"You're a mercenary?" the older woman finally asked. "And a… a mage, you called it?" Her eyes were calculating. Her tone said she was about to ask for something.

Hawke's internal 'I'm-about-to-make-a-terrible-decision' alarm started clanging.

After peppering her with enough questions to ensure she wasn't a psychopath or a wanted criminal (not on this world, thought Hawke) Elmyra finally made her request.

She wanted Hawke to be Aerith's bodyguard. Hawke didn't have much else to do.

They talked on, eventually coming to an agreement. Elmyra would provide food and lodgings and in return Hawke would protect Aerith and teach her how to use her powers, assuming her own knowledge turned out to be compatible. Most importantly, she would ensure that the tyrannical Shinra didn't steal the young mage away.

Hawke just knew that somewhere Anders would be looking very smug.

Genesis looked out across Midgar. The city stretched out, far below the expansive windows of his office, everything bathed in the golden glow of late afternoon.

He had just received the latest lab results from Hollander. His body's degradation marched on, though it appeared to have been stalled, while his shoulder was now completely healed. Hollander couldn't understand it. No potions, materia, or even traditional medicine had brought the slightest improvement to the wound. Now there was barely a scar.

To Genesis' endless vexation, he couldn't even remember how it had happened. One minute he was talking to a woman in the train graveyard, the next he was waking up to find his unhealable wound had been healed.

"Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess…" he recited to himself. As much as he appreciated this particular gift, the mystery he would not stand for.

He narrowed his eyes at the city beneath him. Somewhere under that giant metal plate was the woman who had fixed his shoulder and then bolted before he could even thank her, let alone interrogate her as he wanted to. He needed to know how she did it and what it would take to heal him completely. Hollander had his own theories, but the ramblings about clones and copies no longer seemed plausible to Genesis. In nothing more than a few short minutes someone had healed the pain he had suffered for months, while Hollander had spent that time floundering amidst old notes and fragmented theories.

Genesis' estimation of the portly scientist was quickly dropping. After all, if Hollander had been competent Genesis' body wouldn't be falling to pieces in the first place. No, the answer to this puzzle wasn't going to come from Shinra or its lackeys. He should have seen that from the beginning.

All he had was a name: Hawke. It wasn't much, but it would suffice. If he truly became desperate he might even ask the assistance of the Turks. They need not know why he wanted to find her, though he would prefer to keep his investigation away from Shinra's vicious little pawns.

Speaking of Shinra's pawns, he was supposed to meet Sephiroth and Angeal in the general's office soon. Perhaps he ought to mention that his wound had healed. Maybe then Angeal would stop giving him worried looks whenever he thought Genesis wasn't looking.

Angeal didn't realise yet but it was only a matter of time before his own body began to degrade. He didn't know that the weakness he saw in Genesis was his own inevitable end, the end that Shinra had damned the both of them to.

Not if Genesis found Hawke again.

He would find the answers. He would save his friend and himself, no matter what it took. Even if he had to level Midgar itself, he would buy them both healing.

He would be the hero.

Hawke was an idiot.

What had she been thinking? 'Sure I'll babysit your teenager!' How on Thedas did she ever think that was a good idea?

She had been in Midgar for over a week. She had spent the majority of the time either 'guarding' Aerith, which amounted to watching her garden in a dilapidated chantry (here they were called 'churches' apparently), or training the girl.

The guarding was peaceful. Hawke didn't remember how to be peaceful, so their time was filled with training.

There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the situation; Aerith was polite, respectful, and competent with the makings of a very powerful mage. Hawke had started with some basic healing spells. It was how her father taught her, and how she taught Bethany. Aerith picked it up immediately. She was obviously a budding spirit healer, just as Bethany had been. She liked helping people, just as Bethany had. Hawke almost resented her for it. She didn't want to be reminded of the sister she had failed, the sister she had never really mourned because there were darkspawn everywhere and then a dragon and then Kirkwall's locked gates.

When they weren't training, Aerith's charming innocence as she potted about with her flowers had Hawke doing everything she could to not think about Merrill. It was a shame because Aerith was lovely, and under any other circumstances Hawke was sure she'd enjoy spending the time with her.

The whole endeavour was far more emotionally draining that Hawke had anticipated. She wasn't usually this sensitive. Hopefully it wouldn't last.

Hawke kept reminding herself not to see other people in Aerith. She did need that right now, on top of everything that had happened at the gallows- which she still wasn't thinking about. It occurred to Hawke that her tendency to use survival as an excuse to not think about her loses was one meltdown away from backfiring terribly. It was unfair on Aerith, who was obviously thrilled about the whole situation. She had looked so relieved at having someone to talk to about the voices she heard, someone who didn't think her powers were scary.

The voices Aerith was born hearing seemingly came from the planet itself. She admitted it with a lot of hesitance, obviously never having told anyone other than Elmyra. Hawke asked what the planet said about her. Apparently it didn't know what to make of her but thought she made a nice addition anyway. Hawke had snorted and then talked Aerith through the techniques for ignoring constant mental bombardment and what to do if she met any malicious spirits in the life stream.

Despite being officially the teacher, Hawke was learning a lot as well.

This place, this world, it was insane. Everything was so complicated nobody actually knew how any of it worked. No one could tell her how a light bulb worked, despite there being hundreds of the things everywhere. No one knew how magic (you could call it 'mako' as much as you liked, Hawke knew magic when she felt it) was drilled up from the ground, processed into not magic, and then used to fuel everything.

Aerith had gone on to show her a world map. She assured Hawke that if you continued beyond the right edge of the map you just wound up on the left edge again. Wherever Thedas was, she wouldn't be sailing there. Magic had made this problem, hopefully magic could fix it.

Then there was Shinra; the business that ran the world. They pumped their soldiers full of mako, renamed them SOLDIERS, and promptly started conquering everyone. It was as though the Templars had trained the mages into warriors and then went invading, which was actually a wasted opportunity now that she thought about it.

Apparently Hawke had even met one of these SOLDIERs, one of the most famous ones in fact. First Class Soldier Genesis Rhapsodos, or 'the warrior poet' according to some ridiculous posters (Varric would just love this Hawke thought) was one of Shinra's finest. She should have guessed; Genesis definitely had the air of someone who thought himself rather fabulous. He would do wonderfully in Orlais.

On the first couple of days Hawke had felt as though they were being watched. Their spectator was obviously very skilled; it had taken Hawke three days to catch a glimpse of them. If she hadn't spent the last four years on the Antivan Crows' hit list she never would have noticed the unassuming dark blue suit perched on one of the nearby roofs. Aerith had said they were friends from Shinra, which struck Hawke as highly unlikely. Since it was obvious the girl knew they were there and they didn't appear to be threatening Hawke made a point of waving obnoxiously to the next one she saw. The messy looking red head waved right back. His bald partner was not amused.

Right now Hawke was alone again. She had dropped Aerith off at the house and left after a quick dinner. The house was starting to feel stifling again. After nearly a decade of Varric and Isabela's irreverence, spending an entire week with an innocent teenager was something of a shock.

It was a Thursday evening and years of tradition said she was supposed to be down at the Hanged Man with her friends. As neither her friends nor the Hanged Man had appeared she would simply have to make do.

Hawke wove her way through the slums, looking for a place she had spotted earlier.

The Fat Chocobo. As respectably seedy an alehouse as she could ask for. A rusty old sign edged with blown out lights proudly displayed the name, a picture of a fat chicken thing wearing a funny hat was dangling underneath the letters. The sounds of spirited revelry accompanied by a jaunty tune could be heard from outside. Hawke smiled broadly and pushed the door open.

She was met with a filthy and poorly lit pub reeking of beer and vomit. It felt a little like home.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review, I'm looking to improve my writing so any and all critiques are welcomed :)

This may feel like it's not going anywhere but trust me it is. This one was mostly filler, but next time there'll be dialogue and everything!

Next Time: Spies and Drunkards.