A/N: So these last two chapters have totally not gone the way I had initially picture them in my mind. But that's okay, I like 'em and it's great the story is taking me down different avenues and basically writing itself. I hope you enjoy.

They had been back in Kirkwall for a week, and Hawke had been avoiding Anders, not that he really blamed her, she had bared a piece of her soul to him, and he said nothing. Even now, he wasn't sure what to say. Her admission to feeling safe with him had be a surprise and unfathomable, not unwelcome just strange. He knew he needed to apologize, he just wasn't sure how to go about it or even what to say to her.

Anders could be thankful for the fact that Varric had not made good on his threat…yet. Maybe he could speak to the dwarf, get him to understand, help him reach Hawke. He could also try going to her home in Lowtown, see if he could find her there. He had no patients currently, so with a fire in his step that had been missing since he had hurt Hawke, he made his way to her uncle's place in Lowtown. He got to the door of the hovel, and hesitated with his hand hovering before the door about to knock. He still wasn't sure what to say if Hawke was actually inside, but if he didn't at least try to apologize he would regret it. He finally knocked, after a few moments a gangly man with a scowl answered.

"What do you want?" he groused out.

"I'm looking for Hawke, is she here?" Anders asked trying to meet the semi-drunken gaze of the man Anders could only assume was her uncle.

"Anders?" Leandra breezed towards the door, trying to usher him into the shack. "Come in, come in. I'm sorry to say that Mari isn't here right now."

"Do you know when she might return?" Anders inquired hope filling his voice as he remained at the threshold.

"No, I'm sorry, she's out doing a favor for Isabela and Meeran," Leandra replied graciously, but her mouth twisted in a frown at the mention of the mercenary leader, telling Anders she did not approve of his task. "I can let her know you stopped by when she gets home."

"Thank you, I'd appreciate that," Anders said, turning to head towards the Hanged Man, and hopefully talk to a possibly angry dwarf. He quickly made his way to the tavern, and hustled up the stairs to Varric's suite. The door to Varric's room was opened, but he found neither leather nor chest hair of the dwarf who lived here. So Anders settled into one of the chairs around the table and waited impatiently for the dwarf to return while trying to think what he would say to Hawke.

"What do you want, Anders?" Varric's normally jovial voice tense with an unknown emotion, finally broke through Anders silent contemplation.

"I need to find Hawke," Anders answered, as he watched Varric removed Bianca as started polishing his precious crossbow.

"I did warn you," Varric stated simple, not bothering to look at the mage. "Why should I help you with this?"

"I'm trying to find her to apologize," Anders replied, unable to tear his gaze from the fearsome crossbow pointed at his head.

"It'll take more than a simple apology."

"I know, but I have to try. She confessed to me something so unfathomable, so surprising that I didn't know what to say. I was blind-sided, caught off guard and when she asked me to leave, I did. I…I want to try to fix it," Anders blurted out as Varric loaded a bolt into Bianca's firing chamber.

"Unfathomable eh?" Varric asked letting Bianca lower a bit as he finally met the mage's eyes. "I suppose I can let her know you're looking for her, but whether she comes to see you is up to her."

"Thank you Varric," Anders whispered.

"You should thank Bianca. She's feeling a little forgiving today," Varric said reverently placing the crossbow on an empty shelf designed to hold his weapon. "Besides, Hawke was in true glib form today. Went to a warehouse with guards and started screaming about a non-existent fire. She got the guards to run checking for the fire while we got inside the warehouse. Funniest thing I've seen in awhile." Varric chuckled, before continuing: "Care for a drink?"

"I should get back to my clinic," Anders said rising from his seat. Anders had made it to the door when Varric called to him one more time.

"Blondie?" Anders turned to look over his shoulder at Varric's call. "Fair warning, Bianca may not be so generous, if you do it again."

"Understood," was all Anders said before leaving the tavern for his clinic.

It had been a quiet evening, and Anders had extinguished the lanterns for his clinic a couple hours ago. The doors to his clinic were closed but not locked yet, since he was hoping Hawke would come to see him. He was sitting at his desk writing, first it was a list of supplies for the clinic, and he intended to give it to Lirene the next time he was in Lowtown. Now he was scribbling ideas for a paper or manifesto about mage freedom haphazardly on another couple pieces of parchment.

"I understand you've been looking for me," a voice said quietly next to him, causing Anders to jump, knocking over the chair he was sitting in and turn on the intruder in surprise.

"Mari! Oh Maker, you scared the piss out of me," Anders said pulling in a few deep breaths to still his fast beating heart. "Isabela must be teaching you how to sneak around."

"What did you want?" a touch of venom in her voice as she crossed her arms in front of her and stared him down.

"I needed to apologize," Anders responded, fighting the itch to want to touch her. Hawke's eyes narrow at his admission, but she says nothing and continues to stare at him with her aquamarine eyes. "You have to realize that my whole life I've been told I was dangerous because I'm a mage, just one step away from giving into blood magic and being an abomination. Then to have you admit, to my face, that you feel safe with me…"

"But you didn't say anything," Hawke replied fiercely, arms uncrossing as she came and poked him in the chest in anger. "You didn't do anything. You just stared at me, and I couldn't even read the expression on you face. It was like you put up this wall and I couldn't get in."

"I was blind-sighted," Anders confirmed. "You actually managed to catch me off guard. Something very few people can achieve, mind you."

"And why should I believe any of this?" Hawke asked, throwing her arms up in the air in frustration. "For all I know, this could be an elaborate hoax to try and get under my robes. You've had a week to plan and think. Why should I believe you?"

"I…well…" Anders was flummoxed. What is it about her that always makes me tongue tied?

"Good bye Anders," Hawke said with so much finality, Anders knew he would never see her again if she walked out that door.

"Wait, please Mari, don't go," he called after her. She stopped at the door to the clinic, her hand on the door but she didn't turn to face him, she just waited. "Here's some truth: you fascinate me, you have from the first moment I saw you at Tomwise's stall, and the first time I heard you laugh." With each confession, Anders took a step towards her. "I enjoy your company and not just because you're a mage, which is wonderful by the way. You're humorous, easy to talk to, selfless, you're a big ball of energy and its hard not to get caught up in your wake. But I'm rubbish when it comes to showing someone these things, or even telling them. I'm all flash and charm."

"You're not rubbish," Hawke whispered to the door. Anders by this point was standing right behind her and he could feel the heat of her body because of their proximity, but as much as he wanted to touch her, he was afraid if he did, she would spook like a hare and be gone forever.

"Sure I am," injecting some humor into his tone. "Complete rubbish, I'm just trying to make myself look like a pretty boy, why do you think I have the earring?"

"I like your earring," Hawke admitted, finally turning around. She reached up a hand, a small smile on her lip, and gently tugged the gold hoop in his ear. "It suits you, makes you look more the part of the rebel mage."

"Ha-ha, see you already know me so well," Anders said capturing her hand and kissing her knuckles like he did the first day we met. A thrill ran through him straight to his groin when Hawke's breath caught and he watched her eyes darken with desire.

"I'm just unsure if all your slick talk is because you want me or you like me," Hawke stated defiantly, staring at Anders lips still hovering close to her knuckles, his warm breath cascading over her hand.

"Sweetheart, there's no reason it can't be both," Anders grinned down at her with an express amusement dancing in his eyes. Anders tenderly turned Hawke's hand over so it was palm up, and he kissed her palm enjoying how her hand started to shake under the attention. "Why do you fight me so much?"

"Because I'm careful, I've been burned once already by someone and I really don't want it to happen again," Hawke stated firmly, pulling her traitorous, trembling hand from Anders' grasp. "In Lothering, there was a young man who would come get drinks at the bar. He would always flirt with me, and at first I just brushed him off, so certain he flirted with all the women there. But then I heard some of the other barmaids complaining that he never flirted with them and they wanted to know what I had done to get his attention. I wasn't sure, I couldn't even fathom it. He was handsome, true but I was just a local girl from Lothering."

"You sell yourself short," Anders interjected.

"Maybe but before Birk, I was so busy hiding my abilities trying not to be seen that I couldn't imagine someone being interested in me. He brought me out of my unobservant shell, and I flirted back but I was so timid. I didn't know what I was doing. After a few weeks, he kissed me after walking me home from the bar. After a few more weeks of kissing, sometimes tender, sometimes passionate, Birk and I…well…umm…"

"Made love?" Anders choked out the words, trying to close his mind's eye from the images of his Mari with another man.

"Yes," she coughed delicately, moving to sit down on one of the cots in the clinic. "He left me when he was done with me, told me I wasn't any good. He would ignore me in the tavern. He started flirting with another of the barmaids. He was rude to me when I would bring him drinks. I know it was stupid of me but I was so inexperience, I thought he cared for me. I thought he loved me, he even told me as such. But it was all lies, he lied to get what he wanted and when he was done…he just left without a look back. Then he went to Ostagar with my brother. He didn't come back; my brother said he got cut down by darkspawn."

Anders didn't know what to say, yet again. So he sat next to Mari, and put his arms around her pulling her close to him as he hugged her. As he sat there holding her, everything clicked into place. The reasons for her reticence, it wasn't because she didn't actually care for him, didn't actually want him, it was because she was scared he only wanted one thing from her.

"Mari, I won't deny that I want you, I'm still having dreams about you from that day at the Hanged Man," Anders expressed, causing Hawke to giggle quietly in his arms. "But now that I have no phylactery tying me to templars, I'm a free man. And I want to be able to experience everything men experience: love, life, liberty, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." Another giggle from Hawke and she turned her face into his neck. "And if I'm really lucky, I'll find a pretty girl who will love me as much as I love her and would want to have a family."

"Pretty girl right here you know," Hawke murmured into his neck.

"Really? I hadn't noticed. Are you sure you're a pretty girl?" Anders joked, and was rewarded with Hawke's musical laughter that he was beginning to love to hear.

"Not to put a damper on this, but you sound like my father," Hawke told him, pulling away to meet his honeyed gaze. "He said all he wanted while living in the circle was the chance to fall in love and then he managed to meet my mother. They fell in love and a templar helped him escape."

"A templar, really?" Anders asked in disbelief.

"Carver's namesake, it turns out," Hawke confirmed, snuggling back into the crook of his neck. "This was before Meredith took over, when the rules of the order were a little more relaxed and open to interpretation."

"I wonder if anymore templars exist like that now," Anders mused.

"I guess we'll just have to keep your eyes and ears open," Hawke uttered, and Anders could feel her shrug.

Anders began feeling a bit braver with Hawke snuggled so close to him, so he moved one of his arms under her knees and picked her up to deposit her sideways on his lap.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, perplexed as she let go of him.

"Enjoying you," Anders replied saucily.

"Enjoying me? And what makes you think I enjoy you?" she sassed, with a wink.

"Oh ouch, dagger right through my heart," Anders laughed. "I think I'll just have to prove to you how much you enjoy me."

"I doubt you could," Hawke quipped, a smirk playing across her full lips.

"Challenge accepted," Anders countered with a devilish grin, before kissing her neck and jaw line. Hawke sighed and tilted her head back, giving him more access to her neck as she reached around fisting her hand in his bound up hair, causing his blonde hair to come undone.

"I don't really like the clothes you're wearing today either," Anders commented on the robes she was wearing with a high neck, giving very little access to her creamy shoulders.

"You seemed to like the leather outfit well enough," she reminded him.

"Yes I very much indeed did, but these robes, with the collar up to your neck and no skin showing. It's very disheartening," he pouted at Hawke. "It's like you enjoy tormenting me."

"I already told you I did," she winked at him.

"You just make it so hard," he whined.

"Do I?" she asked, as she shifted her hip against his groin, sending a jolt of pleasure through his body. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"You have been spending too much time with Isabela," he groused, which made Hawke burst out in a fit of laughter, causing her to slide off his lap onto the cot behind her.

"Maybe I have," she replied after her laughter had subsided, she then lay back on the cot with her arms behind her head and looked at him with hooded, cobalt eyes.

Anders could only stare at the beautiful mage, her cobalt eyes meeting his toffee colored ones, and he found a growing desire to have this fascinating woman here and now. He also knew, if he pushed his luck he would never see her again, so he took a chance. He angled his body so he was facing her and moved his hand under her robes, and began inching his way up her shapely leg, stroking and caressing as he went.

"What are you doing?" Hawke's husky voice asked, causing Anders to raise an eyebrow at the passion dripping from the question.

"Playing," he answered simply, as he continued probing up her leg until he reached her hot center. He rubbed her core with his knuckle through her small clothes, causing her to groan at the touch. He felt his own erection twitch at the groan, but Anders knew this was about her right now. He could forgo his own comfort until later. He rubbed her again, and even though her eyes drifted close, he knew he had her attention. He pushed aside the fabric of her smalls and tested her opening with his index finger causing Hawke to gasp and her eyes to fly open. He was surprised at how wet she was, so all he did was grin down at her as his index thrust into her. Hawke squirmed with pleasure, and she moaned his name, which only made him harder in response. Her arms were no longer behind her head, but rather trying to pull up the fabric of her robes to give him better access but she soon gave up and one hand gripped the fabric of her robes pooling at her hip and the other grabbed the edge of the cot.

He began working his index finger inside her, stretching her, because she was so tight. As he began thrusting his finger faster and faster, Hawke's breathes became gasps and she would occasionally say his name and it was just as he had imagined. When it seemed she was loose enough, he slipped a second finger inside her, and marveled at her warmth and the moan that escaped her lips. He began thrusting into her with two fingers, and watched as she began writhing on the cot. Soon he moved his thumb to her nerve center, and began rubbing her there in time with his thrusting. Hawke's hips tilted, and her back arced as the nerves in her body began dancing with sensation. Moans were ripped from her lips as Anders' fingers kept up their rhythm. She was close and a slow grin blossomed on Anders' face as he sent a tiny jolt of lightning through his fingers into Hawke, causing her to buck and shatter at his touch. Her muscles clenching around his fingers as her orgasm continued from the electricity still coursing through her body.

He slowed the pace of his fingers, as he watched her convulsions slow. When her body calmed, he stopped as well, pulled his fingers from her and licked them clean, enjoying her salty taste. Then he waited for her reaction. He watched a slow smile light up her face as she looked at him with sated eyes.

"Mmm, that was…" she could only finish with a throaty, sultry chuckle, as she ran her hands through her hair and looked much like a cat as she continued to smile at him.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"So that's the lightning thing?" she sat up a little and leaned on her elbows.

"Guilty," Anders admitted.

Hawke tilted her head back and she hummed to herself as her body shivered at the memory.

"When you feel you can move properly, I can walk you home," Anders said with a grin, watching her with fascination.

"What about-"her head snapped up to look at him.

"That's not necessary," Anders interrupted. "When you want to reciprocate you can, but you are under no obligation tonight. This was just about you," he answered, causing her smile to deepen even more, since he understood her so well already.

She shivered again, before she sat up, took his face between her hands and gave him a tender kiss. "Thank you," she whispered, a small smirk playing on her lips.

"You are most welcome."

When she was ready to go, she stood up and straightened her robes. She stuck out her hand for him to take, and all the way to her home they walked hand in hand. He left her at her uncle's hovel, giving her another gentle kiss before she went inside. Anders found himself missing the feel of her small hand, as he made his way back to his Darktown clinic.