In the end, Varric stayed the night, the pair of them doling out cards, then reminiscing by the fire to drinks. While Hawke insisted he remain due to the storm, the same as with Fenris, no doubt the Viscount had much better means and accommodations awaiting him. But none could be persuaded from Hawke's charms, nor was it easy to leave her side. Fenris sat above, able to overhear some of the conversation - at least all of Hawke's boisterous comments. They talked about politics in Kirkwall, the state of reconstruction and other things that Fenris cared nothing for.
By morning, the dwarf had to leave due to his secretary tracking him down and dragging him back to the keep. It must not have been too hard to guess about Varric's whereabouts, as Hawke gave a polite nod to Bran and then offered him up a "mabari bag" of breakfast to take back with him. Unsurprising Varric would call upon Hawke whenever she was in the city, but it did leave open the question of how often that opportunity was afforded to the Viscount.
With her high profile guest gone, Hawke knocked upon the door to greet Fenris with a hearty, "Good morning!"
He tried to fake he was rising from sleep, tugging the coverlets off his naked chest but she only chuckled at the play.
"Varric's gone, probably won't be back for a few days judging by the vein in Bran's forehead."
"Oh," Fenris blanched, uncertain what to say.
She scooted towards the side of the bed, her bed, and glanced down at the bandage stained with his inner juices. "I didn't say anything to him cause I figured you weren't much in the mood for socializing. Taking a saw blade to the gut and all tends to put a damper on things."
How did she know him so well even after all this time? A grace of a smile flitted with his lips and he tried to nod his thanks.
"How's it feeling?" Hawke asked.
"Stings," was the only answer Fenris could manage. Her hair was yet damp from a very early morning/late night bath while the dwarf snored away upon a couch beside the fire. It dribbled a line of water down her linen shirt, revealing hints of the dark skin below.
Unaware that he couldn't stop staring at her hidden flesh, Hawke sighed, "Best be changing the bandages. Check to make certain I didn't accidentally sew any trinkets or ancient relics in there." She helped to haul him to his feet, a hand slipping around his waist.
"Has that happened before?" Fenris asked.
"Not...exactly," Hawke began to break into a story as she helped him down the stairs and made good on her offer. While cleaning up the wound, she switched to another tale of her time in the Anderfels dealing with Grey Wardens. He'd heard whispers of her visits out there, but never anything concrete. As all things in Hawke's life it seemed to go about as well as she feared.
"...next thing I know, bastard's skin shreds apart and he was a demon the whole time. Course I had to chop his head off. We had so many coulda started our own collection. Skulls ain't good for much though."
Fenris grunted, his hand cupping the fresh bandage against the wound. "Magisters like to use them as drinking vessels."
"Only people trying to show they're super evil and dark do that. It's right stupid. All yer tea's gonna slosh out through the eye sockets. Anyone with any brains can tell ya that," she groaned, having weighed this fact very carefully in her time.
He couldn't stop the chuckle at how seriously she took the matter. Hawke turned from closing up her bag, a question in her face. "Perhaps you should visit Tevinter and inform them of their failure."
A smile rose, and she gestured towards the infamous chair stuffed with griffin down. "Be wanting breakfast? Course you would. No doubt you've been living off of roasted lizard for the past month." Disappearing into the kitchen right near the living room, she left him alone to stare around at the decor.
By the light of dawn, the home looked even more lived in than he'd thought. Magisters had estates fully furnished across the Imperium with slaves sent ahead of their traveling to stoke fires and air out dusty rooms. Their little group took advantage often, squatting where one would have just left or wouldn't be arriving in some time. Once they spent an entire winter in a palace by the sea, the slaves none the wiser as they operated on the lie that they were old friends of the master.
While the homes came equipped with everything one would require to survive, they were never fully lived in. Too clean, too uncluttered, and always lacking in a pair of scissors or pins. It was the small details that tipped them off to whether or not a magister had been by recently. But here teemed with life. Plates of varying design and size sat upon an end table. A ruler marked for both the Free Marches and Ferelden measurements sat next to a broom and mop. And perched upon the antlers of the elk head over the mantle was a dish rag, as if someone began dusting it, had to run off to save the day, and forgot it was there.
"Here we go," Hawke announced, dropping into his lap a plate overstuffed with sausages, beans, toast, fried tomatoes, eggs, and a garnish of elf root. It was enough to feed an entire household, and he glanced over expecting Hawke to join him, but she had her own plate perched upon her lap as she fell into the chair across.
Biting off half a sausage, she mused, "Don't think I've ever been to Tevinter. Been damn near everywhere else, but not there. Though, may have been under once. Not sure, it's easy to get all turned around in the Deep Roads."
"I thought you were finished with the deep roads," Fenris mused, taking smaller bites of the black bread. His wound groaned at the movement, but it did feel good to have real food sloshing down his throat. It was eerie how close Hawke was to being right.
She tipped her head back and forth, "Me too, which is why I stopped saying never. Nevers always bite me in the butt, ya know. I'll never fight a qunari invasion. Blah! I'll never get caught in the middle of this mage and templar bullshit. Ha! I'll never traipse right on into the fade and...uh..."
The sound of her bubbly voice fading to a whimper snapped Fenris' head straight up. "Is this about the Inquisition?"
Her bright face tipped back and forth, but the smile couldn't be pinned down. "Kinda. Sorta. I'm surprised you weren't there, truth be told. Mad magister, everyone ganging up to destroy him, lots of crazy Vints being pulverized to goo. Sounds like the perfect recipe for Fenris and friends."
He'd thought about it when word flitted through the streets of Minrathous about a cult of Tevinter blood mages down south, but as the tide in Tevinter turned against them Fenris considered it not his problem. Then he heard the name of who was behind it, and his heart leaped for the woman who tried to kill the creature years before.
"It wasn't your fault," he grumbled, his eyes trying to catch hers.
But Hawke wasn't in the mood to bend to his words. She scratched at the back of her neck and sighed. "No. Course not. I mean, it ain't as if it was my blood that released him. My sword that failed to strike the bastard down. My back that was turned as he gathered up his own army..."
He wanted to stagger to his knees and pull her close for a hug. To comfort her the way normal people did, smooth down that wet hair and kiss her cheek. Instead, Fenris glared at his breakfast congealing on the plate.
"Did I tell you I met my cousin?" Hawke turned the conversation fully around, "The famous one, not Gamlen's kid. Already knew her anyway."
"No, I hadn't heard. What's she like?"
"Dead," Hawke spat out quickly, then blinked like mad. "Sorry, uh, not as if you'd have known about the fade and the Inquisitor. Never mind. She was smart, that magey kind of smart where they know words that'd fill an entire page and could turn a simple herb into some kind of grenade."
"Wonderful," Fenris rolled his eyes. The world needed far less mages capable of that.
"Funny too, funnier than one would expect. And so tiny, I think she was shorter than Bethy. Like..." Hawke held out her hand and vaguely skirted it right in line with her nipples, "Came up to here and that was wearing her heely shoes. When she walked around barefoot I feared she'd fall into a hole or something. Saved the whole world and she'd need to stand on an apple box to see a proper joust. Maker's funny sometimes."
"I take it you got on," Fenris said, then blanched. There wasn't anyone who properly knew Hawke that didn't come to love her. It seemed to be impossible.
"Yep," Hawke smiled, then nodded her head a few more times, "Got on really well. She...that's a painting of her up there. Not very Wardeny or Heroic without the dead dragons that always come in the paintings, but more her."
He followed her point to the painting that caught his eye earlier. No wonder the woman looked both familiar and also strange. "She does remind me of Bethany," Fenris remarked. "How is your sister?"
"Good, moved on down south with the rest of the mages in their new college. Said that it was a good place to do her learning. I think she just got tired of hiding out." Hawke paused and swirled her spoon through the beans, "Bethany wanted to come with me to fight Corypheus but I couldn't. I mean, we barely survived the first time, going a second round? There's no way I'd be the cause of my sister's death. Nope. Not...not again."
Sister.
After Hawke became Champion, things between them became strained. Not due to anything on her part, her time was merely stretched even thinner than before. Kirkwall, without a Viscount, needed someone to slot into the smiling politician role and decided Hawke was the best fit. Fenris would often not see her for weeks, sometimes a month, but whenever he'd poke his head out of his rancid mansion to stop by her home she'd always clear out time for him. Even with the abomination squatting in her house, Fenris found himself able to look past it for her.
They were friends and he needed that far more than anything romantic. He'd convinced himself that whatever they'd had in the past was just that, until the day he tried to find his own family...and in the process learned everything he never wanted to know.
He barely stumbled into his house before Hawke followed. She left the others at the Hanged Man to deal with...the clean up. Fenris glanced back once, peering through the far too long hair he never bothered to comb back. For once, Hawke seemed leery, as leery as she was capable of being. Clinging to her broadsword, Hawke picked at a bit of demon guts that clung to her pointy Champion armor.
"I don't wish to speak of it," Fenris grumbled out.
She threw a hand up and slotted her sword on her back. "Fine by me. I ain't the one to tell all your troubles to anyway." She was lying, Hawke was the only person he felt he could share anything under his skin with. But not now, not with Danarius' blood stuck under his fingernails.
"Freedom," Fenris breathed, a hand clasping to the wall as he pulled in his first sip of air without fear. No more magister hunting his every move. No mages stalking the shadows for their lost prize to slap back in chains.
A hand brushed through his hair, barely sliding it back, and he turned fast to watch Hawke staring down at him. Something indescribable warped with her features, it was both concern but also pride - as if she was uncertain how far to trust Fenris to go on his own out of his nest.
Danarius made her an offer, which was what he did - blinding all with wealth to get his way. Give Fenris up and she was free to walk away with a heavier purse. But she didn't. Despite everything he did, every snide comment made about her abomination, every trying second he wore upon her life she kept him.
"Thank you," Fenris whispered, his eyes shut tight. He had to say it now because he knew he never would again.
Hawke blinked and tugged her hand away to tousle her own hair. "I...I didn't think you wanted to talk about it."
He snorted at that and, with a jerk of his chin, led them both to what had once been a trophy room. As the winters grew harsher, Fenris took to burning most of the stuffed animal heads and hides. A few he turned into boots to brave walking the cold sands of the wounded coast or up the mountain. But one remained, a small cloven hoofed animal with dark tan skin and white stripes in various patterns and stripes across its body.
Onto that he leaned his sword before dropping into a chair covered in antlers. Hawke skirted in beside; she hadn't been in this room often, never having a good reason to see it. In many ways it was Fenris' refuge from everyone. Even those few who drifted into his life he sometimes needed an escape from, but what did it matter who saw it now? What did it matter to try and hide away what remained below the scars? They all saw him, saw where he came from, who he ran to escape, and...
Extending his hand, he watched the play of firelight against the white swirls etched into his skin. Closing his fist, the tattoos lit up blue a moment before he shook it all away.
And who he did it for.
"So," Hawke spoke up from the corner, "some gossip is needed right now. Uh, turns out that Knight-Captain is back from wherever he vanished off to. The one with hair like noodles who is always glaring as if a bird just shat on his shoulder."
Fenris glanced over at her, "He disappeared?"
"Yeah, for a whole week. Real weird like 'cause he was always march, march, templar this, chantry that. Heard from Bethany that he seems...calmer now, but also sadder. Whatever that means. Maybe they finally got him a kitten but it's kinda ugly."
"You," Fenris turned away to stare into the fire, "you speak with your sister?"
"Any chance I can manage," she paused in swinging her arm through the air as if a sword was in it and stepped closer to his chair. "Fenris...?" Her voice breathed his name, Hawke's normally booming tone diminished to a whisper. That caused him to shudder.
He should speak to her, tell her everything weighing upon his mind, but - in truth - Fenris couldn't piece together a scrap of it. It felt as if a giant fist shattered his psyche into a million pieces and all he could manage was a quick glance at the jagged emotions. Silence thudded through the room growing ever warmer from the pair of bodies trying to not feel so awkward.
"Can I just say one thing?" Hawke said so earnestly, it drew his attention to her. "You do not look like a Leto."
It was foolish, but a single laugh rumbled in his throat.
"Fenris is a far better name for you. It's got that edge to it, it sings. Leto waddles around in a circle on the rug before passing out. Got to have a name that fits or people don't know what to do. Utter chaos. Panic in the streets."
He stared up into her stormy eyes and asked, "Is that why everyone calls you Hawke?"
Hawke snorted, that pulverizing head that he watched crunch through Danarius' nose shaking in silent laughter. "Anything's better than Minerva. I don't have a blighted clue what my parents were thinking. Minerva? Sounds like prissy girls in ruffly dresses suffering from consumption vapors so they ain't allowed to ever go outside. Have I ever in any way looked like a Minerva?"
Fenris hated to say it, but no, she didn't. Perhaps that was why it was easy to default to her family name. Swift and fearless, darting in out of nowhere to save the day - that was Hawke.
"You can't even do nothing with Minerva," she continued to rant, taking the pressure off of him.
"What about Min?" he suggest. The giant goddess paused in her rant stomping to turn and glare at him. Slowly, she drew a hand up and down her impressive form before roaming around again.
After muttering a few more curses against her given name, she paused and almost ruefully turned to him. "You don't...do you want to be called Leto?"
"No, I..." He hadn't considered. Twisting his arm around, he felt the memory of his sister's terror reverberating in the air. She was dead certain he was going to kill her, and he would have to if Hawke hadn't been there. The only woman who could stop him, the only one who got him to stop for 6 years.
He wanted these? He chose them?
"I remember," Fenris whispered, lost in the fading of the tattoos, "when my...she started crying. The magister who owned us, owned my family, he was going to sell her off. Didn't need another kitchen girl. We were never going to see her again and when news came she cried with her back pressed to the garden wall."
Hawke's fingers skirted gently down his arm, the tattoos flickering off as they followed her touch. "Is that why...?"
"I don't know," he said, his head lolling forward. It would be a simple explanation, a good one. He'd seem the hero, using his sister's tears to guide him to fight for his family before they lost each other. But in doing it, he lost them anyway. It didn't matter. It was a foolish choice by an idiotic slave boy who had no idea what he was doing.
"How do you feel?" Hawke spoke, her voice tickling near his ear as she stood rod straight behind the chair.
Free. No more Danarius. No more looking over his shoulder. No more cowering in dark corners and dilapidated mansions fearing a return to the leash.
Chained. The family he wondered about, dreamed of being an answer to his loneliness, bit back at his proffered hand. Poisoned him, perhaps forever to the idea. Those memories, which had only been slips of emotion and flashes of faces, knotted up his mind worse than before.
Blinking against the firelight, Fenris turned to her concerned smile, "I don't know that either."
"Then," Hawke smiled wide and leaned back, "I propose we drink until we figure it out or can't figure out how doors work!"
Fenris chuckled at her enthusiasm as she revealed a bottle from behind her back to place into his hands. "A 7:32 Halamshiral Red? Where did you get it?"
Hawke grabbed up one of the tables that once held golden furs and dragged it near. Plopping onto it she shrugged, "Turns out when you're Champion of Kirkwall you can just shout to random citizens 'Hey, I need that for Champion reasons!' and they have to give it to you."
"Did that really happen?" Fenris asked while tugging out the cork.
"No, but it's a much better story than 'I walked the markets, then bought a bottle off a guy who was selling it.'"
A laugh rolled in his stomach at that and he tipped back the bottle, letting the first sip wash down his throat. It'd been many weeks since his last drink, and this felt sharper than the others. A sense of finality rang through it.
"So, how is it? With the really fancy ones it's either the best thing you ever had, or very expensive vinegar?"
He wiped off the top and passed the bottle to Hawke. After taking her own swig she grimaced and smacked her tongue, "Ugh, the vinegar." Fenris reached over to take it back, but she shook her head. "Doesn't mean I won't drink it. I've sampled some of the finest vinegars thedas has to offer."
For a time they traded the bottle back and forth, each drink diminishing it until nothing but a small sip remained. He offered it up to Hawke, but she refused on the grounds that it was his celebratory bottle. That gave him pause, Fenris suddenly unable to chase the end.
"Do you ever consider what comes next?" his voice broke the easy silence. Hawke sat up from where she'd been picking at a hole in the breastplate she removed. Perhaps seeing her in the tight underarmor tunic would be considered indecent, but they were both too far gone to care about such matters.
"Normally, there's clean up, maybe paying off any witnesses. Uh, patching," she gestured to the hole then returned to no doubt making it worse before Bodahn could fix it.
Fenris shook his head, enjoying the swish of his hair as it landed against his forehead. "You are the Champion, respected in the throngs of Kirkwall, which is well deserved. Have you never thought of settling down?"
It took a moment for his words to pierce through the vinegar's fog before Hawke snorted. "What? Marriage? As in me get married?" Laying her hands behind her head, Hawke leaned back against the wall. "I ain't exactly the marrying type, as all those frilly stuffed shirts are quick to find out."
He narrowed his eyes, confused at her meaning.
"They throw all them balls and what not and simply must invite the Champion. Can't not have her appear. It'd be the height of discordance, or something like that. Then there's the dancing. At first they seemed to think I'd clop in like an unbroken horse and shatter a few toes," she smiled wide at the thought and Fenris shared it. Any who saw how gracefully she moved on the battlefield would expect nothing less in a ballroom.
"Fools," he added.
"Course, once they figured out 'hey, she isn't some ill bred hick out of Ferelden after all' out came all the frills who thought 'if I can get one dance with her then she'll be my bride,'" Hawke paused and swung her one free foot back and forth inches off the ground. "It ain't so bad, kinda funny when they realize I showed up, ate all their food, drank all their wine, and have no intention of accepting any of their intentions."
Kirkwall had become an interesting sight under her watch. Without a Viscount to parade about in the political sphere, many turned to Hawke to play ambassador. She was brash but her charm somehow kept most of the City-States from trying to invade, though some of that could be due to the iron fist of the templars. It was a rare time that Fenris would walk through the markets and not hear someone talking about the last monocle dropping debacle of the Champion swimming through high society. Her trying to avoid all the pomp attached to the life didn't surprise him, but it wasn't as if she had been alone for the past three years either.
"You've been living together for many years and yet you have no intentions to marry..." Fenris' tongue snapped back into his mouth, his brain realizing what he was about to put to her.
Hawke sobered up quickly, shifting on the table so both her feet hit the ground. "That's...not really something you need to be asking me about."
Her tone was stern, clearly hoping to shut up the conversation, but the drink in his system and the ache in his heart couldn't be easily swayed. "You took him to bed so quickly," Fenris whispered to himself.
Hissing, Hawke glowered, the smile fully obliterated now. Fenris winced when he realized it sounded as if he was shaming her.
"Fell in love with him so quickly," he tacked on, trying to cover for striking at her without meaning to.
Hawke knocked her knuckles together, the bones beating against the thick air the way a dragon's wings did. "You don't have to be in love to sleep with someone," she said softly. Then her lips twisted into almost a sneer and she turned towards him, "You ought to know that."
He did. Isabela spoke of it a few times, whenever she was in the mood to, but Fenris never made mention of it again, nor did anyone else. Even the abomination left it alone, almost as if it stung Hawke and he didn't want to hurt her while attacking Fenris. If he could do it over, it wouldn't matter. That was how little difference bedding Isabela was in his life.
But Hawke...
"Why not marry the mage? Make him official, ensure the templars wouldn't get at him while he's on your arm?" Fenris ground out the words like gravel in his teeth. It was logical. He'd been girding himself for the eventuality ever since he learned the abomination moved into her house. And yet...nothing. Three years and no ceremony.
"You really think a scrap of paper or the blessing of Andraste will stop the templars?" Hawke scoffed, reigniting the only fight ringing across all of Kirkwall. She loved mages, they were her friends, her family, her lover - she'd defend them to the death if it came to it. And he...he'd defend her. There was nothing else Fenris could promise.
"Anders is in as much of a marrying mood as I am, if you must know, since you can't stop asking about it. So there, subject dropped. Can we move on?" She spat it out, clearly trying to find anything else.
"If you did not love him, why did he move into your house?"
"Oh for the love of Andraste," Hawke leaped to her feet, her hands slapping into her sides in rage. "Three years later and you bring it up now? How long's it been chewing away at your colon to figure out what I was thinking? Why? Why would I keep him somewhere safe? Maybe this thing called templars. Kinda known for getting a wee bit pith happy with the ol' branding iron. And if they found him they sure weren't going to sit down to a lesson on the difference between spirits and demons before chopping his head off."
Fenris sighed, well aware he was treading upon thin ice but needing to ask the question. "That was a long time ago. More than enough for the danger to pass. For the abom..." at her glare, he restarted, "the man to find somewhere else safe to stay."
"Maker's blighting ass blisters, I didn't keep him around in my life for his sake, or because I get bored easily. Or even 'cause the bed gets cold at night. I didn't love him when he came to me, that much I'll say, but I do now. And even if...well, with him it's more a case of when, shit goes bad, I will be there beside him, no matter what."
He shut his eyes, his brain pounding all of her words against his spine. She loved him. He knew it, could see it every time they were together, but hearing it from her lips...the lips he kissed and then ran out on. "I hope for your sake, it is not too great a test."
Her glower fell apart, the familiar Hawke smile lifting a moment as she snorted, "Knowing me it'll be ten archdemons and a golem king."
Placing the bottle to his lips, Fenris whispered, "Indeed," before finishing off the last taste. Empty, the useless bottle rolled back and forth through his fingers. What would its future hold? He could refill it with water, or another liquid. Store potions, poisons, or even quills inside. Or, most likely, it would be shattered along with so many, its broken bits shoved into the gutter.
"I know you don't have many reasons to stick around here," Hawke whispered, her voice as solemn as the grave. Fenris turned in his chair to look over at her clinging tight to her breastplate. "But I'm asking that you stay, for a little while anyway. For me?"
There was much of thedas he hadn't seen outside of the slums or in shadow. So many opportunities available to the man freed of his shackles. Gripping onto her hand, Fenris let the warmth of her run through him. "I will," he swore, willingly binding himself to her. He hadn't been strong enough those three years ago, had feared what giving away his heart would do. Now...he barely flinched at the concept. A shame that she only had a use for his arm and skills.
Hawke smiled wide and shook his hand, "Good, 'cause I don't know about you but it sure feels like something big's coming. Like squatting over a powder keg while fiddling with matches. Who knows how many'll get snagged in the crossfire. But, knowing you're there will help a lot."
He kept his promise, standing by her side as Kirkwall split itself in half. Even as the abomination stood before her with chantry blood on his hands, even as she absolved him of his treachery, even as they turned upon templars, Fenris remained. Hawke needed him, no...Hawke wanted him. Perhaps not in every way he wanted her but it was enough.
Leaving the city was when everything changed. They'd all traveled together as a group, with little on their backs save what they could scrounge from homes before at first taking a ship and then disembarking further inland. The other City-States turned upon the Champion, as much in honor of the dead Grand Cleric as to throw in some claim to take shattered Kirkwall.
Whenever swords clashed, Fenris was by her side, prepared to take the brunt of it off her. But then the abomination was stricken. Not enough to kill him, sadly, but it slowed the party down. Varric and Isabela arranged another ship to provide a distraction, leaving their group. The blood mage frolicked back into the woods, no doubt to find the only other elves that could stand her.
Fenris was strong, but not strong enough to deal with a Hawke tending lovingly to the creature that sewed nothing but chaos in his wake. One night, while she dabbed off the blood upon Anders' skin, Fenris said he was going to scout on ahead for a few days. Prepare the way for anything that could get to them.
He had every intention to do just that, to return to her as he had promised, but watching the woman that stole his heart coo to the mage leaning against her chest, his mind betrayed him. Hawke must have sensed that something was wrong. Fenris made it a few yards down the road when she came running up. Her fingers gripped onto his hand and she asked him point blank, "You are coming back, right?"
"I..." he couldn't bring himself to lie, not to her. He had no idea when or if he would ever see her. Where he would go. All Fenris knew was that he could not spend the rest of his days watching his heart fade away. "I will find you again," were his parting words. Not goodbye, nor thanks for all she did for him. He ran, never looking back, as if all that time in Kirkwall meant nothing.
Seven years he slit the throats of Tevinter slavers and magisters, honing his mind and body to become the Wolf the entire magisterium would fear. He never sent word to Hawke, even when the dwarf would find ways to keep tabs upon him. Fenris assumed Varric was sharing his findings with the woman who no doubt asked him to look into the wayward wolf, but he broke his word to her. He left her alone to wander the world with that abomination. Left her to face against their old foe from the Grey Warden prison and whatever horrors awaited Hawke in the Fade. Even when he learned of her near end, still Fenris wouldn't contact her. He hadn't felt so unclean since the Fog Warriors, being given the chance to make his own choices and failing with every one.
Landing upon her doorstep, years later, bloody and broken with nothing to his name but dark rumors and fear, she should have turned him away. It was fully within her rights to toss him back to the streets that birthed him, that drew that sulking elf into her life. But no, not Hawke.
He found her again, and somehow this time everything felt different. Maybe he could do more than make amends.