Hawke was disappointed when Varric warned her to keep her distance from Anders.

"I really don't think it would help right now, kid. I'm handling it," he'd told her when she seeked him out at the Hanged Man. She'd been trying to distract herself as much as possible in order to keep her mind, and her feet, from wandering over to his clinic at random hours. But it was not easy. She was keeping her distance from Fenris too, and while her days were filled with the usual Kirkwall business, they were increasingly lonely.

Hawke blinked her eyes in disbelief when Anders walked through the door of her library of his own accord, looking weary and thin, but not the ghost she had pulled from his bed three weeks ago now. She scrambled to her feet, wanting to rush to him and pull him into her arms, but she stopped herself.

"Anders?"

"Hello," he said simply as he hovered just inside the door. Her mind started racing through all the things she wanted to say to him. Now that there was a bit more distance between her and the events in the cave, she had found herself thinking back more and more to the days just before that.

"I'm… I'm so happy to see you," she said.

"You are? Why?"

"Why?" she almost laughed. "Because I have been so worried about you."

"Well, I'm still here. For some reason," he said.

She took a few tentative steps out from behind the table toward him. "I'm glad," she said.

He gave a small laugh, "how can you say that? If you have forgiven what I've done, then you're a fool."

"Yes, I am definitely that," she answered seriouslys. She took another small step toward him. Would he let her hug him at least, she wondered? His eyes got sad for a moment, his brows flickering in a frown. "I don't really know why I came here. I guess I just thought it was time," he said.

He wasn't withdrawing so she kept taking slow steps toward him. She felt like she was trying to approach an abused, frightened animal.

"Anders…" she started, "I was afraid you'd never want to see me again."

"Isn't that what I should be saying? I am the offending party here, and I… I still am what I am," he said. "Thank you, by the way, for not telling everyone. I was sure I'd be facing a lynch mob once everyone learned what I did to you."

"It wasn't you that did it."

"Not willingly, but those were my hands."

Hawke was close enough now that she could reach out and touch him. Any remaining anger she had was melting away, and all that she felt was a deep relief that he was there, looking normal and no longer on the brink of emaciation.

She reached out for one of his hands and took it into her own. "I'm just glad you're okay." This time his hand was warm, and held hers back.

"I'm not actually. Not at all," he said, his eyes deepening.

"Well, me either. But we're both still standing here. For now anyway. That's something."

"I guess so," he said. "Are your nightmares any better?"

"A little. But you need to be able to sleep in the first place to have nightmares," she answered.

"Yes, you do look tired. I could probably give you something for that. I have a potion recipe that is quite good for sleep.."

"I… actually yes, I think I would like that," she said.

"Good. Maybe that'll finally help you stay out of the streets at night."

Hawke sighed. "Where else am I supposed to go for a walk to clear my head? Sometimes that's the only thing that helps."

"Well it'll help you straight into the grave. For good this time. No one wants to see that."

"I'm not so sure about that."

"Well okay, none of your friends want that. Maybe some others might…" he gave a small joking smile.

"Anders?"

"Yes."

"Can I hold you, just for a moment? Please?"

His face fell, looking scared and pale, and he gave a small nod.

Hawke pulled him in and wrapped her arms around him. She could feel his ribs through his robes and the protruding bones of his shoulders under her hands. He rest his head in the crook of her neck, and she reached up to caress his hair. She held him tightly, trying to shower him in warmth, and hoping that it might help soothe him somehow. No doubt he still wrestled with the memories the way she did, or probably more so. She had wished on so many occasions over the past few week that she had someone who would pull her into their arms and just hold her for a while. Fenris probably would have if she'd gone to him, but she feared that that would only have ended up causing her more pain, and she had been trying to keep their interactions as clean and simple as possible. But the truth was, she needed this as much as Anders.

Finally she felt his hands press more strongly on her back, and begin to fully embrace her in return. She nestled her head into his neck and breathed in the clean scent of his hair, finally feeling a little comforted herself. He smelled the same, the way he had in the tent and in the room at the Inn. It invoked vivid memories, bringing with them the urge to feel his kisses again, but knew that would just complicate what was already a complete mess. Instead she pulled back gently, letting him unwrap himself from her in his own time.

"Thank you," she said. "I needed that too."

He kept his face cast to the floor as he took soft steps backward toward the door.

"I gotta..." He began as he retreated pointing to the exit, "Come by the clinic sometime and I'll get you that potion," he said quietly.

She watched him walk away, feeling the same despair at his departure that she had felt the night he had left her alone in his room.

The days were long, empty and unending. Her heart just was not in the usual business of collecting debts, fighting troublemakers and going on scavenger hunts. When Fenris insisted upon coming along on a trip out to the Wounded Coast to seek some slavers that were rumored to be in the area, she did her best not to look at him unless she had to. Every once in a while she felt his eyes on her or saw them in the corner of her vision, shining large, luminous and worried. But instead of turning to face him, she would turn her back or walk away. She wasn't trying to be hurtful or punishing, but she was tired of aching all the time, and his eyes could make her ache even when she wasn't looking directly at them. The safest bet was to just get out of their line of sight entirely. At one point he walked up to her to ask if they could slip away to visit the pool. She told him it wasn't a good day for it, even though she had already been wanting to do the same thing herself. The thought of seeing him loose and easy, and half naked, was exactly the sort of thing that she needed to avoid.

She had been making more of an effort to eat after she began to feel her leathers grow looser and looser. She realized she had been avoiding aggravating her already raw stomach with food, but knew she needed to do something about it when she began feeling the effects in her fighting. She tired quickly and felt weaker. Less wine, more eating, she decided, and had been doing reasonably well at forcing herself to at least have two full meals a day. Anders had also commented on her thinness during one of her regular visits for his sleep potion, and the last thing she wanted was for her friends to begin to doubt her ability to hold her own in a fight. They all relied on each other when they were out working. She had always been the strongest link in the group, but somewhere along the way she found herself feeling like the one about to break, letting everyone else down. That, along with so many other things, simply needed to change.

"You're going through these awfully fast." Anders commented on her last visit to his clinic. "You're only using one per night?"

"Yes," she answered, "But I might have dropped one or two by accident." He eyed her suspiciously.

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Well even if I did take more than one, they won't hurt me, right?" she asked impatiently.

"No. But you don't need more than one. If you can stay awake after taking just one then you've got other problems."

"Well that's not it anyway," she said.

He gave her a questioning look, but she broke from his eyes, and stood to leave.

"Thanks again," she said, turning toward the door.

"Hawke," he called and stopped, "If you need to talk… you can come by anytime."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Or we could meet at the Hanged Man, if you'd prefer."

She turned back to look at him and nodded a wary acceptance, and then strode out the door.

The fact was that on two different days she had feigned sick and stayed in bed sleeping all day. The potions knocked her out completely, and kept all dreams at bay, which was a welcome respite from her normal, nightmare plagued sleep, which could barely be considered sleeping at all. She hadn't meant to do it, it just happened. She woke up and found herself completely unable to bear facing the day ahead, and couldn't even pinpoint the reasons why. And once the potions were drunk, there was no going back. She woke from a solid day and night's sleep with her head throbbing, throat parched and desperately needing to attend the call of nature. But she had been grateful for the break from life. And about a week later, the same thing happened again.

Even if she could sleep, keeping the dreams at bay was the potion's greatest gift. Before she went to Anders the nightmares had started featuring more than just glowing faces and creeping blackness. They began to include glowing bodies and twisting bedsheets.

She was surprised at Anders' invitation. He too had seemed to be trying to keep some distance from her, which she expected and understood. And as much as she would enjoy his company, she felt cautious. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to reclaim the friendship they'd had before everything went to shit, but knew it could never be that simple, for him or for her.

That night she stood in her room with a bottle of potion in her hand, ready to throw back the pungent liquid and fall into bed. But instead she froze with the vial just inches from her lips, replaced the stopper and put her boots back on. She grabbed her blades, and exited the house as quietly as possible. She knew she'd hear no end of grief if certain people found out she was out wandering the streets in the middle of the night again, but she decided she would use this walk as an exercise in stealth. That was supposed to be her specialty anyway, and normally she could slip undetected into and out of any really dark area. It was nice to be able to relax and just wander where her mind wanted to go, but if she couldn't do that, she could at least get in some useful practice.

She closed the front door behind her quietly, and looked around the courtyard to map out the shadows leading to all the exits into other parts of the city. She kept her footsteps light and silent as she moved from one shadow to the other, making her way in the darkness from her front door toward the stairwell on the farthest side. She had barely gone twenty steps when she heard a light scraping sound. She froze, all her senses now on high alert. Someone was there, somewhere in the darkness. She squinted deep into the shadows of the courtyard and saw nothing. The closest anyone could be would be one of the passageways. She was sure she could make it across the courtyard and to the exit she was already pointed toward without anyone being the wiser, but now she was curious. She heard another sound, so light it had barely registered, and she probably wouldn't have heard at all if she wasn't actively listening. It seemed to come from the passageway on the other side of her house.

She turned around, and crept silently through the shadows back to her door, and then to the area of the sound. She was grateful that there was no moon tonight, and that the shadows were as black as pitch. When she reached the edge of the house she stopped and waited, listening again. Slowly, she peeked around the corner, and let the corridor of blackness settle under her vision, revealing deeper levels of shapes and shadows within the wall of darkness. At the end of the corridor was definite movement, but she couldn't make out number of people or their position. She slid around the corner avoiding the bushes planted along the collonnades, and keeping her back as close to the wall of the house as she could without touching. Without a sound, she made her way down the passageway and toward the movement. It seemed to just be a single person, and it too was clearly skilled in the arts of stealth.

She took a few more steps and got close enough that she could make out the outline of a tall, slender body. When the figure turned, she caught the sharp angles of the head and armor of a distinct and familiar figure. She was surprised, but didn't know if she should be. But what was Fenris doing out here? She also noticed with a start that he was coming toward her. Had he seen or heard her? She didn't think it was possible, but now she watched the shadow get closer, on a definite collision course with her own position. Caught momentarily off guard, she took a careless step back, and her foot scraped just enough to make him freeze in place. Now he'd heard her for sure. She froze too, hearing the pounding of her heart grow in her ears. Should she just say something? More importantly, did she want to endure whatever conversation followed?

His shadow retreated one step at a time. He must not be able to see her, she thought. Looking around her, she knew that was impossible, as she was deep inside an inky blackness. She began to feel a little amused, and decided to wait and see where he was going to go. They hadn't spoken at all in a week, and in the weeks before that all their conversations had been relatively short, and mostly about business.

She blinked through the darkness for his shape, but couldn't locate it again. He must have found a particularly good shadow in which to hide in himself. Hawke waited, listening for any sounds of his movement, but nothing came. She took a tentative step forward, slowly working her way back down the corridor. The shadows were all empty. Giving up, she stepped out of her position and said, "Fenris?" She kept her voice low, but if he was close, he would hear it. But only silence greeted her in return. She crept softly over to the area where he was originally sighted, and found still nothing.

So she had caught him, waiting, loitering about outside her house. But where was he going when he had started advancing on her? Was he coming to talk? Was he somehow expecting, or sensing that she would be out here tonight? Her heart felt heavy again as she thought about what it might mean.

Fenris cared deeply about her. He always had. She'd be a fool not to see that. All the ways that he was there for her, how he looked at her, how he allowed her to entry into all his darkest places, something he offered no one else. Of course he cared. A deep regret began to swell up within her at how cold she had been to him over the past weeks. He was just trying to survive in this world just like she was, trying to heal from his past and find the best way forward. She ached to be around him, but her life with him in the outskirts was no better. She could at least speak with him, she thought. At least be kind to him. She started taking her silent steps in the darkness again, this time pointed toward his house.

He was sitting on the stoop of his stairs with his head hanging heavily in his hands. Around his right wrist was tied a ribbon of bright red.

"Fenris," she said softly as she approached him. He hadn't heard her coming and his head shot up in surprise, but he made no response. She lowered herself to sit beside him on the stairs and looked over at him, only a silhouette in the darkness.

In a swift movement he turned and caught her face, laying his lips gently on hers. At first she startled and reached up for his hands, but then relaxed and felt herself getting pulled into his kiss. His lips were as satiny soft as she remembered them and tasted again of wine. She opened her mouth and felt his tongue slide in, instantly flooding her whole body with warmth as her blood started flowing faster in her veins. She kissed him back feverishly, feeling her love for him pulling heavy on her heart, but she tried to restrain herself. As much as this was exactly what she wanted, she couldn't just let her guard down again so easily.

The kiss ended with a sigh, and he pulled his face back, reaching a hand up to smooth back her hair. She had her hands at his face too, and gave his cheek one last caress, drinking in his velvet skin with her hands for a final second before pulling gently away.

He leaned his head down to rest on her shoulder. "I wish I could be what you want me to be," he whispered.

She lowered her face to his hair and inhaled, kissing his temple. His statement only intensified her painful pangs of regret. She had spent so much time wrapped up in her own feelings that she had neglected to give much consideration to his.

"I know," she said quietly.

"Maybe someday I'll get there."

"If you do, I'll be here."

"But how long will you wait for me Hawke?"

"As long as I can."

"I'll understand if you can't."

"I know."