Last night she had told Cullen the truth and today she regretted it. All day Cullen had been ignoring Trevelyan, which she might not have noticed if it wasn't for the fact that they had to spend all day in each other's company because of various planning duties. He didn't even look at her now. This was horrible and she missed… well, him.

"The new improvements to the courtyard seem very festive, do you not think, commander?" Leliana clearly knew something was up and she had been trying to engage Cullen in conversation the whole day. Cullen would only make the minimal noise required to count as a response, unless it was related to the business at hand. "Josephine?" Leliana said when Cullen didn't respond adequately to her question. "Yes indeed!" Josephine said, but she too seemed distracted. Being less subtle than Leliana, Trevelyan had caught Josephine looking at her and Cullen and clearly trying to figure something out. Trevelyan had yet to inform either Josephine or Leliana about the situation, mainly because she didn't know how to do so without making Cullen feel even more self-conscious. And she didn't need him to have more reasons to dislike her. She wanted to discuss things with Cullen first, before revealing his… condition to his colleagues, but whenever she would start to talk to him he would only say "I need a moment" and then disappear off to Maker knows where, or fall into deep silence.

It was near the end of the afternoon when Leliana suggested a break, she asked Trevelyan to speak to her, but as Trevelyan already knew what she would want to discuss, she decided to avoid Leliana. For now at least. Instead Trevelyan hurried after the blur of fuzz and copper cloth, crossing his way across the courtyard, and up the stairs to the battlements.

Trevelyan didn't run, it seemed too obvious and so when she got to Cullen's office he had been far ahead of her. Still she was surprised to see his office empty. She was about to leave disappointed when something fell on her head. She couldn't spot what it had been, but it made her look up and she could see a flash of something. "Cullen?" she called upstairs. No answer, but that was to be expected. Trevelyan felt more bold this time and instead of leaving she headed up the ladder. "Cullen, we need to talk about this. You don't… I mean you can –"

Cullen was sitting on the edge of his bed. He was busy taking of his armour. Trevelyan was startled because she'd never seen him in anything but his armour, and she know felt like a fool because trying to get him to hate her less would not be aided by her invading his privacy. Why had she gone up that ladder? Just because he wouldn't talk to her? Why did that bother her so much?

Cullen placed the breastplate on the bed and then looked up. "I had an itch," he said. And Trevelyan couldn't help but laugh some of the nervous tension finally being released. "I can see how that would be tricky with what you normally wear." Cullen smiled faintly and then got up. She saw him dragging his nails across his chest and he seemed so different, so at ease. Maybe the potion had already worn off.

"Are you all right?" Trevelyan eventually asked, still only half her body was above the floor.

"Apparently not," Cullen replied.

"Oh," Trevelyan said, "so you still feel…"

"I am still in love with you, yes."

Trevelyan was shocked at the confession though why would she be, wasn't that the effect of the potion?

"Cullen…" she wanted to say something but couldn't, her hands tightened on the top rung of the ladder.

"Could you please stand up, I cannot talk to you like this," Cullen said and he walked over to the hole in the floor where half the Inquisitor's body was looking awkward. Cullen held his hand out and Trevelyan took it. Once she was standing face to face with him she said, "I know this is hard, but just think about it, you didn't have these feelings a few days earlier and in a few days you –"

"Please let me speak first."

Trevelyan nodded, believing Cullen didn't want her to discuss his current state she tried to change the subject to the excuse she'd come up with on the way to his office. (It was something Trevelyan genuinely wanted to discuss with Cullen, but if she was honest with herself, it wasn't the reason she'd followed him.) "I just wanted to ask you if we shouldn't tell Leliana and Josephine at least about – "

"About a theory we haven't confirmed yet?" Cullen let go of the hand he'd been holding on to since helping her up the ladder. He turned his back to her.

"We have, I mean it must be hard but you are acting so differently…"

"Because for once I went after what I wanted rather than blindly obeying duty?" Cullen removed the last part of his armour. He started scratching his arms.

Trevelyan stared at his back for a while. She hadn't expected him to be so… so open about everything. "I'm not what you want, it just feels that way."

"Trevelyan," Cullen said rather forcefully. She was surprised to hear him say her name and not address her by her title. "Trevelyan, how long has this potion been in my blood?"

"We think it happened at the Herald's Rest, the night before –"

"Before you left for Redcliffe?" Cullen interrupted, when Trevelyan nodded he continued, "I recall that night. I had been there for about an hour before you arrived." Cullen turned to face her. "Were you not surprised to find me there, in that kind of situation?"

"You mean outside of your office or yelling at recruits? Yes I was very surprised," she grinned, but only for a moment because the look on his face made her nervous. Her heart pounded in her chest, she felt something was about to happen and she didn't know if she wanted to stay and see it through. Eventually Trevelyan shrugged, hoping he'd leave it at that.

"I was there because I knew you would leave the next day and be gone for days or weeks again. With no contact or, no contact I'd be willing to risk. You would be thrown into danger again without… I wouldn't be able to be at your side."

"Cullen, I don't know what – "

"I was there because I hoped to see you before you left. I had duties I was neglecting, but I hoped, wanted, to see you before you left."

Trevelyan felt her heart lift, but she reminded herself that none of this was real. "Then maybe the potion was given to you earlier, maybe it wasn't meant for me after all, you don't prepare your own food so you don't know." She shook her head. "And maybe it's changing your memories of me from before as well? Or you can't tell when you felt you wanted to see me maybe it was after – "

Cullen threw his hands in the air. "How much earlier could they have given it to me?" He was angry now. "Days? Weeks? Months?" Cullen seemed to pause to give Trevelyan the chance to respond but she didn't say anything. He crossed the room now. "Because it would have had to have been months!" Cullen stood just a few feet from her now. "I have felt like this for longer than the past few days, believe me."

Trevelyan shook her head. "You didn't Cullen, not before the potion! Believe me you have never said or done anything that would – "

"Because I didn't think it was possible! You're our leader, and a mage, I didn't think it could work."

"Because I'm a mage?" Trevelyan felt genuinely insulted now. Cullen wasn't the only one starting to sound angry.

"You've lived in a circle for most of your life, I doubt you have a very high opinion of Templars." Cullen hadn't meant it that way, but to Trevelyan it sounded like an insult.

"Me?" She said incredulously. "You hate magic, you hate mages!"

Cullen threw his hands in the air. "Can't you see I regret that life, I can't change that now!"

Trevelyan huffed. "I remember your reaction when I recruited the mages!"

Cullen shook his head so vigorously it looked like it was going to fly off his neck. "Because they are unstable, unorganised and dangerous, and you let them into our camp without any supervision whatsoever!"

"I let them into the camp as our allies!" Trevelyan countered. Everyone seemed bent on leashing mages as dogs. "You would've imprisoned them I suppose? Started the 'circle of the Inquisition,' locked me in there as well!?"

"I never did anything to endanger the alliance, but – "

"Except bicker with me offer my decision! Wonder how many rumours that stirred in the barracks. Do you not think that will have an effect on how the men see me? How anyone I have to present as a leader to will see me? You might not have stopped the alliance but you didn't help it either!"

"I have not expressed my unease to anyone but you and the most trusted people in the Inquisition. I would not endanger our position nor your position as our leader. But recruiting the mages was wrong," Cullen wasn't calming down. "I have seen what magic can do and it cannot be ungoverned – "

"It is no more ungoverned than your soldiers are!" Trevelyan wasn't calming down either.

"My soldiers can't single-handedly take down a building."

"No they can just be controlled by – " she stopped talking because the expression on Cullen's face changed. Suddenly she felt there was something he feared she'd say that would hurt him and she decided to stop before she did. After all arguing was not why she had come here.

"What!" Cullen demanded, naturally unaware of the truce Trevelyan had just called in her own mind.

Suddenly a horrible realisation dawned on Trevelyan. She shook her head. Cullen looked at her expectantly, he didn't speak and seemed calmer as well. Perhaps he'd noticed her expression as well. Trevelyan glanced at Cullen and that made it really sink in. This was something she had thought of earlier, when he was still ignoring her. Trevelyan shook her head again, then in a small voice she said, "You will never forgive me after this is over," she looked at his armour on the bed. There was still a Templar emblem on the armguards. "You will never trust magic or mages."

"It isn't that I don't trust mages, I –"

"I don't know whether you do now, but you will never trust them again after this." Cullen frowned. "Trevelyan, I have never feared you. Well, maybe after the conclave, but after you helped us close the breach, or attempt to that first day, I never feared you."

Trevelyan looked up at him. "But you will after this, you will hate me. That's what this potion has really done," and as Trevelyan was speaking she finally felt it, the real reason she had run away from this problem. "The potion, it's made me – " she fell silent.

Cullen looked at her expectantly, after a long silence he spoke "made you what?" he said tensely.

Cullen was a few feet away from her, she realised this was the first time she had seen him without any of his armour on. His brown shirt hung loosely around him and for the first time she didn't see him as the commander but just a man. It also occurred to her she might never see him like this again. "It's made me lose something I didn't even realise I wanted, I cared about."

"And that is?" Cullen moved slightly forward.

"You," she answered, barely looking at him. Just like that Cullen closed the gap between them and, cupping her face with his hands, kissed her. For a second Trevelyan remembered she should back away, he wasn't in his right mind and she had no right to use him. But the second his lips touched hers, Trevelyan had realised she had wanted this for longer than she knew herself. After a minute she tried to break off the kiss, but Cullen put his arms around her waist and pulled her back. And as she realised, or rather admitted to herself that she didn't want to leave, she threw her arms around his neck. With neither of them in their armour, this was the first time their bodies were pushed against each other. Lost in the moment Trevelyan didn't think about the potion or how wrong it was to use someone under the influence of magic. This moment was perfect and exactly what she had wanted, she wasn't even sure how long she had wanted this, longer than she would admit to even herself, maybe because she hadn't believed it possible either.