A/N: Almost finished, thanks so much for the encouraging reviews!

IX.

In your dreams, you're floating. It's a strange sensation, weightlessly observing your world and somewhere below, you think you can see Alistair. Hardly the first time you've seen him in your dreams, but there is no clamp on your heart, squeezing painfully at the very thought of him. Instead, you float weightlessly and watch him, your heart strangely quiet. The newfound calmness almost overwhelming and you want to sigh, but within the dream you do not.

Faintly, you can hear someone murmuring. Voice low and, oh, you're being shaken softly?

Blinking the sleep from your eyes, you force them open, adjusting to the darkness around you to find Alistair leaning over you with a quizzical expression.

So you close your eyes again, a smile playing at your lips as you hold the pillow closer. "Hi."

"Hi, yourself." He sounds a little unsure, but you can feel him sit down on the edge of the bed and go about removing his boots. You settle somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, content with his nearness, with the everyday sounds as he undresses for bed.

He pulls at the blankets to slip in beside you and the throaty, repeated "Hi" at your lack of attire pulls you a little more awake, as you slide closer to curl up against his side.

"I don't keep spare bedclothes in guest rooms." You state innocently, as if that explains perfectly well why he's come up to find you naked in his bed. But your hands are exploring his chest, playing with the buttons of his shirt, and there's hardly anything innocent about the way his breath hitches as your fingers pull at the rest of his clothes. He complies, lifting his hips and discarding the last that covered him.

"I won't leave my position with the Grey Wardens." You say conversationally even as you lift yourself up to straddle his thighs. "I've worked too hard here to abandon it, married or no."

"I wouldn't expect you to." His voice is low, his hands resting against your hips and he's looking up at you with the most hopeful expression.

You don't move, just hold his gaze with a smile. "I'd have to split my time between Denerim and Amaranthine, I'd imagine." You rest your hands on his stomach, biting back a grin as you feel his muscles tense under your touch.

"That's fine." His voice is a little bit strangled, but he's still staring with that same expression. As though his world only makes sense when arranged around you, Teagan had said, and staring at him now you can see what he meant. With so much pain and so many years between you, there's a voice inside you screaming that it shouldn't be this easy to trust him, to give yourself to him again.

But he's looking at you like that and you think you probably look the same. Your heart feels full to bursting, and maybe this is how it was supposed to be? If you'd married him right off you never would have accomplished everything with The Grey Wardens, he never would've figured out how to be a ruler. So wrapped up in each other, you would not have had time to grow into your own people in the post-Blight world.

In the darkness of the bedroom, yean lean over to kiss him. His hands slide up your sides, your shoulder, holding your face to his own and he murmurs against your lips. "I love you."

"I love you too." His hands feel like a vice against your face, holding you in place as he kisses you with more love and passion than you've ever experienced. It's a little like the first time, standing near the campfire, for his mouth is not skilled or practiced and you never want it to stop, kissing him back with all the earnestness you can muster.

When he releases you, his head drops back to the pillow, looking up at you with a wide grin. "This mean you're saying yes?"

You grin back. "Maybe." He opens his mouth to protest, but you shift your hips, taking him deep inside and he can only groan and close his eyes.

Joined like this, he fills you so completely that you want to break down into tears because it's been so long since you felt this complete. All the bad things, all the pain and the hurt, they don't matter anymore because you are together and you love each other and who cares what anyone else thinks? You'll figure out a plan for an heir later, you'll figure everything else out later, for now it's just the two of you. No Darkspawn, no Blight. No band of friends camping in the darkness on a mission that couldn't possibly succeed... Improbably, it did. You won't think of the cost, of the choices you had to make because now, in this moment, you are making love to the man who kept you sane through all the trials. The man who, impossibly, nursed your heart back to health after Arl Howe's betrayal stole your family, the man who made a difficult decision five years ago that even now you know what probably the right one but who cares? In times of peace, one can afford to be a little selfish.

It is slow and tender and your eyes stay locked on his as you move together. His hands touch you everywhere they can reach, and you don't think you've ever felt this warm, this happy, this loved. There is no desperation in your movement, no desperate push for release, each gasp and each sigh promises that this is only the beginning of your lives together. And when he does arch beneath you, fingers digging into your hips and his head rolling back, you follow him over the edge, mouth hot against his as you shudder out his name.

Dawn is already breaking when you finally drift towards sleep, exhausted and satisfied. His arm rests across your waist, holding you to his chest and you can feel his breathing somewhere behind your ear. You lace your fingers with his own, tugging gently to get his attention. "Alistair?"

"Mmm?" He's halfway to sleep and you smile at how young and innocent and non-Kingly he sounds.

"I'm saying yes."

In response, he tightens his arm around you and you can feel him press a kiss to your hair. "About time."

You laugh so easily now, held in his arms as your eyes close.

And in your dreams, he is floating with you.