Chapter 9
Anders watched Fenris as he ascended the stairs leading out of the alienage before walking the few steps towards Annette soo he was right behind her. He placed a hand on her shoulder as lightly as possible and murmured in her ear, "Do you want me to look at your arm?"
Annette glanced down at Anders' hand before wiping more blood away from her arm again. "No thank you; I'll be fine," she said simply.
"Hawke, please," Anders begged softly, "You could get an infection."
Annette turned her head to look into Anders' eyes, tracing every emotion crossing them. She let out a sigh to signal herb defeat before turning to Isabela and Varric. "Could the two of you go to The Hanged Man and check on my sister and Merrill?"
"Of course, Hawke," Isabela said almost too quickly. Isabela lightly tapped Varric with her foot and motioned for the dwarf to follow her as she hurried up the stairs, eager to leave the two alone together.
Anders removed his hand from Annette's shoulder and moved it to her elbow. He gently guided her to the steps of the alienage. He sat next to her soo the arrow impaling her arm was towards him. He removed everything he would need, gauze, herbs, potions etc. and laid them beside Annette soo he had easy access.
"This will hurt," Anders warned, "I'm going to have to push the arrow out of your arm, the point going to the left but to keep the amount of blood loss to a minimum I'm going to have to put a strong amount of heat on the opening where the blunt end of the arrow is," Anders hoped everything he had said was understandable for Annette, but what Anders didn't know was that Annette was pretty experienced with all of this from her time in Lothering.
"Just do it, Anders," she told him.
Anders created a fireball in the palm of his hand, he could feel it heating up his palm as placed his other hand on Annette's upper right arm with his thumb over the blunt end of the arrow. He put little pressure on the arrow, watching Annette's face for any signs of pain. Annette had become an expert at keeping a straight face when it came to injuries soo when Anders saw that she wasn't in any pain and placed more pressure on the arrow and watched as it began to disappear into Annette's arm.
When the blunt end of the arrow was in line with Annette's skin on her arm, Anders placed his hand without the fireball in it in the wood of the arrow before the sharp end. He pulled on the wood as gently and slowly as possible and spread the fireball across to his fingertips, placing them over the now-open wound. Annette drew in a sharp intake of breath as she felt Anders' touch over the wound.
"Am I hurting you?" Anders asked Annette, concern coating every word he said.
"No, no you're not," she answered and gave him a small smile as he glanced at her face.
Time passed slowly as Anders pulled the arrow out of Annette's arm and repeated the process of closing the wound to prevent bleeding.
Annette turned her head to watch as Anders started casting a spell to seal the wound over. She watched as the skin on her arm grew, meeting and attaching and only leaving a pink line like when she had gotten into fights in Lothering and cut her leg except it took a week for the wound to completely heal over and Annette to be left with the pink line.
Anders repeated the process on the other side of her arm before tearing a piece of gauze off and laying it beside Annette. He removed the cap off of one of the bottles he had pulled out, picked up the gauze and laid it over the opening of the bottle. He tipped the gauze and bottle upside down, feeling the liquid seep through the gauze and dampening his hands.
He set the two items right way up and placed the cap back on the bottle before handing the piece of now-herb soaked gauze to Annette.
"Clean your arm with this," he told her, "Blood is hard to remove off of skin, but this will make it easier."
Annette nodded once and took the gauze from Anders. She began to clean away the blood that had dried on her arm and hand as Anders packed up the rest of the bottles except one which he placed beside Annette. "Keep this bottle, it's a herbal mix soo if you feel any pain or show any signs of an infection you can drink this."
"Thank you, Anders," Annette said with a smile in the mage's direction.
There was an awkward silence that had fallen between the two as they both worked. Annette's mind was begging for Anders to start a conversation for she was terrible at starting conversations in awkward times.
"Why didn't you want me to do this?" Anders asked and he gestured to her arm which she was still cleaning. "It's what I'm good at, it's helping you." Anders had finished putting everything away now and was sat facing Annette.
"You heal people for a living – out of the goodness of your heart. I like to see it as, when you're with me, or with our small group, you can forget about everything, relax and don't have to heal us all the time.
"I've had many injuries before and Bethany would always put salves on them to help the healing speed along. I don't want you to feel you have to heal us when we're injured for small things that aren't life threatening."
Annette watched Anders' face as she spoke, how his expression changed from confused to understanding quickly as she explained everything to him.
"I understand how you feel, Hawke, but you lead this group – we all follow you – and we don't really want you to be injured, especially where we have the rest of the night where we are helping out an elf."
Annette stayed silent for a while – not knowing what to say. She glanced around the alienage to make sure there were no elves wandering around, trying to find out what happened. They'd have a big enough surprise in the morning when they see all the dead men on the floor.
"Shall we get to The Hanged Man for Isabela and Varric?" Annette asked Anders.
"That would be wise," Anders agreed.
The two stood from where they sat and Annette picked up the little bottle Anders told her to keep and put it in her pack. The two made their way up the stairs, making their way through Lowtown and to the well-known tavern.
As the two walked in through the tavern door, Bethany rose from her seat next to her blood-mage friend and made her way over to her sister.
"What happened?" Bethany asked straight away, "Isabela said you were hurt."
Annette wanted to hug her sister for being soo worried, to calm her down and tell her not to worry, but Annette was never the one for public displays of affection.
"I just had an arrow through my arm, Anders took care of me," Annette assured her. "Don't worry yourself over me; you know I can handle myself."
Bethany let out a small sigh after her sister had finished speaking and walked beside her sister over to the table Isabela, Varric and Merrill were sat at.
"Are the two of you ready to go?" Annette asked Isabela and Varric.
"You're not finished?" Merrill asked.
"No, there is something else that needs to be done," Annette answered, not sure on what she could share with the young elf.
"Can I come with you?" Bethany asked. She wanted to make sure her older sister was okay; Bethany loved her family even though they might fight a lot.
"Stay here and give Merrill some company," Annette murmured to her sister who was still stood beside her, "She doesn't have a lot of friends in the alienage and Isabela worries for her."
"Fine," Bethany said, annoyed. She walked over to her seat beside Merrill and tried to find something to busy herself with.
Isabela and Varric stood up from their seats and followed Annette and Anders out of the tavern and in the direction of Hightown.
It's early :)
I wanted a little Anders/Hawke bit here
Thank you for your reviews, and thank you for reading, it keeps me writing!
