Thanks to all of you for reading and following along! Updates should be a bit more on-schedule now that the fall has passed and with it a lot of the extra stuff in my schedule - but no matter how long it takes, I am committed to finishing the story, just so you know. Many thanks to Oleander's One for her patient support and enthusiastic betaing!
Her eyes were burning and her limbs were leaden with exhaustion, but Hawke picked up the sword and began moving in the familiar rhythms of her training regimen one more time. It had been a week since Fenris left. A week of ruthlessly driving herself through routine after routine until her muscles were screaming; polishing and cleaning armor and weaponry over and over again; straightening and scrubbing and refurbishing the house relentlessly. She was in the best shape she'd been in for a decade; her equipment was impeccable; the house was so pristine that she and Orana fought to be the first to the smallest piece of paper fluttering to the floor.
All of the restless energy and constant activity had been aimed at masking the fact that the one thing Hawke couldn't seem to manage to do was go to sleep. She tried. She would collapse into a chair or onto the settee, closing her eyes and trying to surrender her body and mind to the Fade, but alone in the quiet of her thoughts she couldn't keep her emotions at bay. If she happened to fall into a doze she would wake with her face wet with tears. As for sleeping in her own room, in her bed? It was impossible to contemplate. He was everywhere there. Not that he wasn't present in the rest of the house, but in the bedroom she couldn't escape him. The empty place on the table where his gauntlets always rested; the glow from the fireplace that used to highlight his markings so excitingly; the curtains fallen loose around the bed with no ties on them; the pillow that carried his distinctive scent of leather and lyrium.
If there had been just one emotion, if she could have managed to be just hurt, or angry, or lonely, it would have been one thing. But she was all those things, as well as worried about his well-being and outraged that he had left Bianca when their daughter needed both of them. No sooner would she talk herself out of one feeling than another would bubble to the surface.
So it was easier to keep moving. She didn't speak about him; Varric knew better than to bring up the topic, but Aveline kept wanting to go over all the reasons Fenris was a lying, betraying bastard who should be flogged, and Bianca insisted on talking about how they were going to bring her Papa back. Hawke ignored them both, relentlessly focusing on her life and Bianca's in Kirkwall, and what they were going to do there next.
If it was possible for matters to be worse, the distance that already lay between Hawke and her daughter was widening. Fenris and Bianca had always had a bond. They'd always understood each other, gotten along, and laughed at each other's jokes. Entranced by the two of them, Hawke had never entirely minded. There was something in her that required time apart, and the closeness between her husband and daughter had allowed her to keep that freedom while still treasuring her family life. But at what cost? she wondered now. Because she didn't know how to talk to her daughter. Bianca was so angry that they hadn't all just dropped everything to find out where Fenris had gone, and clearly she blamed Hawke more than anyone.
Too tired to continue her exercises, Hawke let the sword fall. Lifting it to hang it back up over the door was almost too much for her leaden arms. She was sweaty and overheated, her eyes drooping, as she dragged herself back into the house. She was glad to close the door—the garden held almost as many memories as the bedroom, and she kept casting sideways glances at the wall, half-expecting him to scale it as he had done so many times before and come across the garden to apologize. Or to argue. Or to make love.
She didn't know what her response would be if he came back, Hawke thought, settling down in the chair with a soft blanket over her. She wanted just to hold him and make sure he was in one piece, then she wanted to hit him for leaving, then she wanted to rip his gauntlets and her clothes off and feel those gentle hands on her again.
"Mother?"
It was a relief to hear Bianca's voice on the stairs, dragging her out of whichever emotion was threatening to swamp her. Hawke sat up, pushing off the blankets.
"Couldn't you sleep again?" There was concern in Bianca's green eyes, but there was judgment there, too, in the set of her little mouth and the crossed arms.
"I'll be fine. It's just going to take some time." She took in her daughter's leather-clad form. "Where are you off to this morning?" Hawke hadn't even noticed the approaching dawn, but the windows told the tale of the long night's end now that she looked at them.
"I'm just running down to the docks." There was a wealth of unspoken commentary in the simple statement. Bianca clung to the idea that somehow Isabela would be able to do what Varric couldn't seem to, and would know where Fenris had gone. At least, that's what Hawke assumed Bianca thought. They hadn't discussed it, or anything, really.
They had both lost Fenris. For his sake and for each other's, they could not afford to lose one another. "Want some company?"
It was on the tip of Bianca's tongue to say no; Hawke could read her daughter's face as clearly as if Bianca had spoken the word. "Are you sure?" the girl said instead. Maybe she was thinking along the same lines Hawke was.
"I might as well get out of the house a little, see if the rest of Kirkwall is still standing."
The doorbell rang through the house. Both women jumped, carefully not looking at one another, not wanting the other to see how quickly hope had risen in their hearts and how thoroughly it was dashed when Orana let Varric and Kethali into the room.
"Hawke! You look ... fit," Varric said. Even he couldn't mask his concern for her—the sleepless nights must show in her face, she thought.
"Mistress Bianca," Kethali said, bowing over her hand. Bianca turned a becoming shade of pink under his gaze, and Hawke wondered if this was where her affections would flow, or if one of Aveline's boys would be the one to win the girl's heart. Couldn't fault her for falling for a handsome elf, Hawke thought. Imagining what Fenris might have said twenty years ago if someone told him his daughter might marry Merrill's son made her laugh out loud.
Varric cocked an eyebrow at her, and Hawke shook her head. "Wouldn't translate." Still, it was nice to be amused for a change. "Bianca and I were just about to head for the docks."
The dwarf smiled. "It'll be nice to see Rivaini again, almost li—" He broke off, and Hawke was glad. If he'd actually said anything about it being like old times, she might have had to hit him. "And Sunshine, too, of course. I like those two together—ever since they took up, that pirate's kept her lecherous eyes off Bianca." He patted the crossbow. "Bianca Senior, that is."
Bianca Junior smiled at him. It hadn't taken long for her lifelong idolization of the imagined Varric to transfer to the real one.
"Mistress Bethany is a very special soul," Kethali said. "She has taught me much."
Hawke looked at him in surprise, but it made sense, she realized. "Of course, they must dock in Denerim fairly regularly. And it's only natural that they visit Merrill; Isabela always had a soft spot for her. Oh, not like that," she added hastily, seeing Kethali's face pale. "Strictly platonic, or as platonic as Isabela ever gets."
"Ah." The elf looked relieved.
"Shall we?" Hawke asked. The others fell into step, Varric next to her, and Kethali and Bianca walking behind her. She paused for a moment on the doorstep, taking a deep breath of the clean air of Hightown, preparing herself for what she would encounter as she walked the streets of the city. She was not the Champion of Kirkwall any longer, Hawke reminded herself, and she should not expect to be treated that way. Twenty years had passed, or nearly that, since she'd left here, and she should not expect to see familiar faces. Most importantly, Fenris was gone, and he wasn't coming back, and she should not let her heartrate rise every time she saw a white-haired elf.
"You all right, Hawke?"
"I'll be fine, Varric. It just ... all takes some getting used to."
He was silent, and they kept moving, out of the courtyard and into the streets.
"Varric?"
"Hawke."
"Have you ... heard anything?" It was the first she had asked; mostly she hadn't wanted to think. But it had been such a long time, surely Varric's contacts knew something.
He cleared his throat. "Not a thing." He pulled Bianca over his shoulder. "Hm, I think Bianca's gotten scratched."
"Varric Tethras." She stopped walking and stared down at him.
"Hm?"
The little sound was vintage Varric, innocent as the day he was born ... but this was Varric, and she knew he'd hardly been innocent even as a babe. "You know something you're not telling me."
Varric glanced quickly over his shoulder, and Hawke followed suit. Bianca and Kethali were laughing together, walking companionably shoulder to shoulder. Hawke had to look quickly away because the memory of walking with someone that way, being that natural, hit her like a blow to the stomach, making her eyes water.
"You sure you want to hear this?" Varric asked quietly.
"Yes. Whatever you know, I need to hear it. Right now, Varric," she added when he hesitated.
"I haven't heard anything ... because I haven't looked." At Hawke's sharp intake of breath, Varric looked up, his expression serious as she had rarely seen it. "He asked me to, Hawke. He sent me a note telling me that he was leaving for your safety and asking me to look after you, and most of all, to keep you from coming after him."
"And you just ... did it? I didn't think you liked Fenris that much," she said, whispering around the iron band that was squeezing her chest. It had never occurred to her that Varric would lie to her about something like this, or that Fenris would ask him to. They felt suddenly like conspirators, and she like their pitiable dupe.
Varric shrugged, but his face said he knew what she felt. "I thought maybe he had a point. I don't think he should have left you the first time, but he'd done it once, I always thought it was only a matter of time." She must have made some small sound, because he glanced up at her out of the corner of his eye. "Sorry, Hawke."
"Maybe you were right, Varric." She snorted humorlessly. "No maybe about it, is there? You were right. I was the fool to trust him."
"Once you start running, it's hard to stop. Or so I understand."
"If you agreed with him, why are you telling me this now?"
"Because the part of me that thinks he was right keeps arguing with the part of me that thinks you deserved a choice in the matter."
His obvious unhappiness eased the bitterness within her, and she smiled fondly down at him in a step toward forgiveness. "What made you decide to go with the second part?"
"I figured once I told you, it would be too late for the part that agreed with Broody to do anything about it, and it might just shut up."
"Let me know how that works out for you."
He chuckled, and they made their way slowly through the crowds on the Lowtown stairs. Hawke was back to feeling the nauseating mix of emotions rolling around in her stomach. So sweet, but so incredibly arrogant, too, that he would write to Varric and tell Varric to "care for" her. Of course, the juxtaposition of sweetness and arrogance had always been what she loved about Fenris; could she love it any less when it was aimed at what he saw as her well-being?
They arrived on the docks without further incident, and Varric excused himself to check with the dockmaster's assistant. He came back beaming. "The Temptress of the Seas is due into port sometime today, best they can reckon."
Hawke glanced up at the blue sky. It was better to be here than at home, she thought. "I think I'll wait." Her first instinct was to turn to Varric ... but something led her eyes in another direction. "Bianca, what do you think? Do we—do you have anything better to do?" She saw her daughter's cheeks pinken with surprise and then pleasure at being the first to be consulted.
"No, Mother, not really. I think we should stay here and greet them as soon as they step foot on shore!"
"If you will stay, Mistress Bianca, so will I," Kethali said.
Varric grinned. "I already took the liberty of ordering a little lunch from one of the taverns. If the ladies Hawke would accompany me?" He bowed low, and Hawke smiled down at him. How she had missed him.
She and Bianca took Varric's arm and he led them to a small, obviously hastily created, seating area with a fine view of the dock, and protected by a stack of sandbags from some of the worst of the oily, fishy stench that was so much a part of the docks.
They ate the meal, talking casually, mostly about Kethali's upbringing in Ferelden and about Merrill. Varric seemed comfortable enough with Merrill's marriage and her life in the alienage, Hawke noted. If he felt any twinges of loss, or wished he hadn't let her go, they were buried deep inside him, like everything else in his past. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth at the thought that maybe her first move now should be to find Varric some happiness.
"Good to see that smile again," Varric commented quietly. "Or is it? Seems to me I recall that smile leading us into some less-than-pleasant situations. Maybe I'm filled with foreboding."
"Oh, you should be," she assured him. "I'm thinking about finding you a woman."
"Hawke, you of all people should know there's only room for one woman in my life." He patted Bianca fondly. The crossbow still shone as if she was brand-new, testament to years of Varric's loving tending.
"Hm. We'll have to see about that."
"As I live and breathe," Varric said, standing up and shading his eyes. "I believe that's the Temptress right now."
Hawke stood up, too. She couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face at the thought of seeing her sister and Isabela again. The beautiful ship came slowly into the harbor, heading for the first dock in line. It was impeccably maintained, highly polished, the crisp white sails flapping in the breeze.
"Business must be slow," Varric observed. "Usually she's limping in here looking like the Hanged Man on a Monday morning."
"Maybe she just wanted to look her best for us," Hawke said.
She admired the figurehead, a woman in a seductive pose and not much clothing who looked remarkably like Isabela. Hawke happened to know that the model for the figurehead had been Isabela's grandmother, a spirited old lady who was still alive somewhere in Rivain, telling fortunes and scaring the populace. To hear Isabela tell it, her grandmother had been the original scourge of the seas, and had taught Isabela everything she knew.
The ship docked expertly. By the time it was moored securely and the gangplank was being lowered, Hawke and her companions were waiting on the jetty.
"Sister!" The shriek turned heads all over the dock, but Bethany ignored them all. Clad in billowing black shirt and ragged cut-off pants, she ran barefoot down the gangplank and threw herself at Hawke. Isabela wasn't far behind, but Hawke paid no attention to the banter between Varric and the pirate, focused instead on her sister's long-familiar embrace. She wanted to give way, sure of Bethany's love and support, but this was hardly the place. Hawke tightened her jaw and broke the embrace, stepping back to look at her sister.
Bethany's black hair was short-cropped, her fair Fereldan skin tanned over long years on the water to a glowing golden color that set off her amber eyes. The pirate life clearly suited her, and she and Isabela were as happy as ever, to judge from the warm looks they cast each other.
As soon as Hawke's arms were free, Isabela launched herself at them. Hawke had to laugh at the pirate's exuberance. "I missed you, too," she said, as soon as Isabela's embrace eased enough that she can breathe.
"'Bout time we were all together again," Isabela said. She glanced over Hawke's shoulder at the others. "But where's the broody guy? I was hoping for a decent game of Wicked Grace."
Bianca, nestled in her Aunt Bethany's arms, burst into tears. She pressed her face against Bethany's shoulder, much the way Hawke herself had wanted to do. Staring at her daughter, Hawke wasn't sure if she envied the girl her easy tears, or was disappointed in her lack of control.
Isabela leaned back far enough to be able to look Hawke in the face. "Hawke?" When Hawke couldn't bring herself to answer, afraid of what would come out if she opened her mouth, Isabela looked down at Varric.
The dwarf shook his head. "Broody's gone."