Anders doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary until he's already at the door of his clinic. He can't stop thinking about Hawk - all the things she'd said and not said before she'd pulled away from him again, the moment they returned to the city.

The familiar lamplight glows within his window, though its brightness is cut by a shield of waxed paper over the glass. It hadn't been lit when he'd left. He's almost certain. He pushes the door open carefully, holding his breath until he recognizes that the shadows he'd seen moving within the space aren't a threat. They're just kids. Kai jumps to his feet as soon as he sees Anders. "You did it!" he exclaims.

Anders can only summon up a tired smile in response. He looks past Kai to the girl he's trying to protect. She glances up nervously as soon as Anders' gaze sweeps over her. Even with Kai there hovering, she is unmistakably alone, looking fragile and tiny, curled up on a cot with her back pressed against the wall. She still wears Circle robes, torn and ill-fitting.

"I'll find you something else to wear," Anders murmurs. He moves around with aimless urgency, uncertain of what he's supposed to say. He's never seen running away from this angle before. What is she doing here? "Kai..."

"I didn't know where else to bring her. Lirene said..."

"I know." Anders breathes in through his nose, slow and careful. He knew this was coming. He'd hoped this was coming. He and Cullen had traded notes, and if any of them had been intercepted there would have been a templar patrol waiting for him rather than a young girl. So why is he still so nervous?

He's halfway through digging through drawers and baskets and boxes before he realizes… "I don't have any clothes for girls." He slams the clothes trunk closed and spins around.

"That's okay. I'll just…"

"You can't wear that," he insists, nodding at the mage robes. "Here." He shoves one of his shirts at the girl. As she slips it over her head, he tries not to notice the bruises and scratches scattered over her pale skin.

She stares at him as much as she can without actually making eye contact. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she finally admits, her voice breaking.

Anders clears his throat awkwardly as he casts a simple warming spell on a pot of water. The girl jumps as soon as she feels the mana beginning to actively flow. Anders slowly shuts down the spell, letting the magic bleed away gradually, as he pours a cup of tea for her. "You don't have to be afraid of me," he promises.

She's so young. Too young for this life he's forced on her without even asking if she wanted it. But there's no going backward from this choice.

"So I'm an apostate now," she says softly, testing the words on her tongue. They die quickly in the silent air.

"Yeah, I'm… sorry."

The girl shrugs. Choices have been made for her for so long that this just seems like another in a long line. He gets that.

She ignores the mug of tea he's put in front of her, but Anders won't try to force her to drink it. Instead, he begins packing up the kind of food that will last a while, enough to sustain her wherever she goes from here. Where is she supposed to go from here? He doesn't think things through. He never has.

"What's your name?" he finally asks, because talking gives him something to do.

"Arleigh," the girl replies, after a long moment. Her voice hasn't gotten any louder than the rough whisper she started with. She only answers direct questions.

Anders' stomach hurts, his whole body sings with primal fear, a recognition of a kindred spirit. How old is she? Twelve? Thirteen? He sighs. "Did you… want out?" he asks carefully. Arleigh shrugs. Anders recognizes a nonverbal deflection when he sees one. Or maybe she really isn't sure. He understands that too. "You don't have to lie to me," he tells her gently. "You can tell me what really happened to you."

"I don't really feel like talking about it," she mutters. "No offense."

Anders nods. "I understand," he says simply.

He knows plenty of people who say that, but he means it, and Arleigh relaxes slightly as she lets herself believe the truth of his words. Her hands wrap around the still-warm mug full of tea, though she still doesn't drink it. She glances up, frowning at Anders, trying to figure out if she can trust him, and how much. Her dark brown eyes seem to pierce through him, reading him as easily as an open book. "Anyway, you already know what happened, don't you."

"Not your specific details. I know enough."

Arleigh nods again. It's amazing how much she can say without making eye contact. "You were there, weren't you?"

"Not the Gallows. But yes, I've been where you are." He pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to show her the phylactery scar, and she nods in immediate recognition.

"I wasn't trying to escape," she insists. "I didn't want to. I don't know… I mean… why me? It's not fair."

"You were the one we could get to," Anders replies honestly.

"So what, it was just… random luck?"

"No. It wasn't." Kai's voice breaks through the quiet little bubble between Anders and Arleigh. His sudden presence sends Arleigh into a violent and reactive fight or flight mode. Anders can feel her magic spiking, and he lashes out instinctively, pulling her power into himself. They both are breathing heavily, and Arleigh's hands are clenched into tight fists. He's taken away her ability to fight with magic, so she fights physically. But she's a twelve-year-old girl, taught repeatedly and effectively that she doesn't have the right to fight back, not without permission. As soon as Anders wraps his arms around her, she stops struggling. Her breathing still comes in sporadic, choking gasps.

"I'm sorry," he croons gently. The mana drain has left Arleigh weak and shaken. And somehow he has to convince her that she's still safe with him.

Kai lets the door to the clinic slam shut behind him as he steps inside. He watches Arleigh's reaction with wide eyes. He's clearly in over his head. He shuffles his feet, and ducks his head. His eyes flicker to Anders. "She's okay, isn't she?" he whines.

Arleigh pulls herself out of Anders' arms. "I'm fine," she snaps. Kai licks his lips, and nods, accepting her words even if he clearly doesn't believe them. Arleigh looks him up and down, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. "So you're the one who… what? Rescued me."

"I didn't know what else to do!"

"I never asked for help."

"Yes, you did," Kai insists. "You did."

Arleigh doesn't say anything else. She doesn't confirm or deny Kai's self-congratulatory heroism. She doesn't thank him, either of them. She looks terrified. "What happens now?" she finally asks.

Kai, who is also just a child, casts a glance at Anders.

"I'll find you somewhere safe to go," Anders replies immediately. "I promise, Arleigh."

"Okay," she replies. She doesn't sound as if she believes him. But what else is there?

Anders quickly packs a bag with as many of his old clothes as he can fit, and as much food as he can part with. He shoves the sack into the girl's hands, knowing that the sooner she untangles herself from him, the better it will be, for both of them. The note hidden inside the pile of clothes he'd given her will steer her to safety. If he can trust Cullen, anyway. He has no idea what the scribbled message says. If he doesn't know where she is he can't accidentally give her location away. In the future, he knows, it's better if he stays out of these kinds of rescue missions completely.

Arleigh slips the bag over her shoulder and doesn't look back.

Anders doesn't follow her. He can't let himself get caught up in her, where she goes, what she does. She could go back to the Gallows, if that's her choice. It has to be her choice that matters.

He holds his breath and drums his fingers against the wall just inside the door.

After a minute that seems to stretch into eternity, he sits down. Collapses, more like. The enormity of what he's just done has finally caught up to him. He's thinking about a future full of rescue missions, and the image fits so easily in his head.

"So I still don't get to see her?" Kai asks. The boy watches Anders warily from another unused cot.

"She's not safe here, Kai." This is good. Reminding himself of the dangers, the reality of the situation, that's what he needs to do. This was a one time thing. It does not signal a trend. He's smarter than that. He has to be.

"That's not fair!" Kai protests. "That's what they said before!"

Anders frowns, too tired and conflicted to know how to navigate a childish tantrum. "Before?" he repeats, still confused. Kai seems far away, unrelated to the emotional turbulence Anders struggles to navigate. He'd gotten out. How can the Circle still manage to claw at him? How is he still being drawn back, even when no one is hunting him?

"When the templars came," the boy clarifies. "They said they had to take her away so she'd be safe. She's not dangerous."

"Maybe," Anders hedges. "But she is in danger. She can't stay here. You have to know that."

"Yeah. I know that."

Anders sighs. The kid is putting on a brave front, but he's not a good liar. And Anders hasn't ever been good at disregarding other people's problems. Maybe it's only because they serve as a welcome distraction from his own issues. Whatever the reason, he can't ever seem to stop himself from meddling, from trying to fix.

"You… really like her, don't you?" he asks easily. He pulls a small wrinkled apple from a nearby crate and tosses it to Kai. "She's more than just a friend."

The kid nods. "I've known her forever. Since we were little. She was the only friend I ever had."

The boy waits for a long moment, holding his breath, holding Anders' gaze. But Anders can't give him what he wants. They're not friends. Anders can't afford to have any more friends.

After a moment, Kai seems to understand the rejection. He leaves Anders alone, and the healer tries to tell himself that it's for the best, that this is what he wanted.

In truth, the clinic feels too quiet now, with Kai and Arleigh both gone. Anders still feels responsible for them, both of them, but especially the mage girl. On the run for the rest of her life, because he hadn't given her any other choice. And he's possibly the only one in the entire world who knows exactly what kind of life he's doomed her to.

He forces himself to lay still on his cot, although sleep is out of the question. He stares up at the dark ceiling, feeling time slide away. He finally rolls onto his stomach, allowing him to reach under his bed and pull out a stack of loose parchment and a bit of charcoal. He blows off the worst of the dust. He lets the worst of his own memories and his fears of Arleigh's truth carry his fingers over the paper. He presses down hard lines, shades in black shadows and piercing bright lights. Children cowering in darkened cells, the enchanted antimagic shackles locked so tightly around their wrists that they left behind blood and weeping blisters, the grief of mothers and the wordless terror of the children pulled from their arms. Tally lines carved into stone walls or wooden bunks. Enforced silence. Empty prayers.

Untold hours pass as Anders tries to make people see, the only way he knows how. Nobody's ever listened before, but somehow it feels different now. Somehow it seems both possible and necessary for him to make them hear. His desperation is overwhelmingly loud in the empty room, as he scribbles together fragmented sentences and garbled pleas. He'll fix it all later. He just has to get the words down before he loses them.

He nearly jumps out of his skin at the sound of a loud pounding on the door. He curses himself for not paying enough attention, then reminds himself that templars wouldn't knock. He jumps up, crinkling small mountains of paper and tangled bedsheets as he does. "Be right there!" he yells. He curses again as he trips over one of the clinic cots that stands between him and the entrance to his hovel. His shin throbs with residual pain, and he limps slightly as he yanks open the door.

"I brought you some food," Lirene announces proudly, holding out a bowl.

"It looks good. Smells good."

"You don't have to act so surprised."

"I'm not. I'm… what're you doing here?"

"Just came to talk," Lirene promises.

She sets out a couple of chairs and sets the bowl full of soup in front of Anders. He runs his spoon through it, and then takes a sip. The steam wafts into his face, warming him from the outside in. He closes his eyes and breathes it in: onions, broth, spices… "Did you get a real chicken from somewhere?"

"Just eat."

He does, knowing that it'll be easier just to do what she says than listen to her badgering him into finally following her friendly orders. Lirene is stubbornly kind, taking care of everyone around her whether they want her to or not.

"Hey, what's this?"

Anders looks up, feeling his stomach constrict as he recognizes what Lirene is looking at. Why hadn't he hidden those drawings? Or burned them. Nobody's supposed to see that stuff; it's so raw and broken. He's raw and broken.

"Nothing."

"Did you draw these? … Anders, they're really good."

He shakes his head. What is she talking about? Why doesn't she understand? Doesn't she see?

Lirene recognizes his discomfort, of course she does. She takes care of people, every waking moment. "Anders, come here."

It's a soft invitation, but Anders feels himself drawn toward it, pulled in by the promise of someone who might care. He isn't alone anymore. He sits down on his bed, next to her, close enough to touch, although they don't. Lirene smooths down a flat space in the blankets, and she spreads his drawings out, showing him the things he's committed to paper. There are words too, but those aren't as clear. Not yet.

"Is this what's happened to you?" Lirene asks. Her voice is a choked whisper in the flickering candlelight. Her fingers skim over charcoal lines, deep pools of darkness that he can never forget or outrun. Anders looks up, looking at Lirene instead. She is real and solid, and he can hold on to that.

"Not just me," he hedges, a breathless admission that is the closest thing to a confession he can give her.

Lirene closes her eyes. Her fingernail flicks at a bright white Chantry sun that takes up most of one piece of paper. She taps a sporadic rhythm, then opens her eyes again. Anders swears he can actually feel the breath that she's holding. There's something inside him that wants to reach out, but that urge is buried deep; it feels dangerous. He folds his fingers into a loose fist instead, and tucks his hair behind his ear with his free hand. He watches her, waiting. They sit together in the silence of a held breath, but Anders has never been especially good at sitting still. Lirene stirs when he does, although her fingers still remain clenched tightly around the paper in her hand, half-crumpled into a ball.

"Everyone around me just… tried to pretend she'd died. But worse than that. Like she'd never existed at all. And here I am, with this… hole. This emptiness inside that I'm not even allowed to talk about."

"Your… daughter?" He's guessing, but there's something broken in her that reaches something in him. He barely remembers his mother, but that empty hole hasn't gone away, not from Lirene's life and not from his either. "Your daughter's a mage?"

She nods. "Mira."

Anders stomach flips. "I… knew her," he chokes out, carefully. He could lie. How would she know? He doesn't want to tell the truth. Not when he sees the spark of hope flickering in Lirene's eyes. How can he be the one to kill that?

"What happened to her? Tell me. Tell me the truth."

"I… can't." he insists. He's begging her not to push it, he doesn't want to.

"Please, Anders. I have to know."

Anders closes his eyes again, struggling to breathe. He doesn't look at Lirene as he talks. He looks at the drawings instead. The stained glass windows of the chapel, the rough waves of the lake crashing against the tower's rocky shore. "They made you a promise they had no intention of keeping," he insists. He doesn't even try to hide the bitterness from his tone. "They told you they'd keep your child safe. Teach her. That she'd grow up to be somebody." He knows all of this, he's pieced together the story from a dozen conversations scattered over the years. It started in Amaranthine, when he realized that there were people out there who did care what happened to mages, even if they had to hide their caring. He saw another side of it then. It wasn't enough to change him, yet, but it had planted a seed.

He locks eyes with Lirene, takes a deep breath. "Is that why you're doing this? Helping me?" Motivations matter. And maybe he can stall. Maybe she won't make him be the bearer of the worst news there is.

"I'm helping people because people need help." Lirene replies immediately. She is still locked onto the topic at hand. Of course she is. It's her daughter.

"She's dead," Anders spits. He tries to tell her gently, but he can barely choke the words out, so it comes out sounding harsh and angry. He expects Lirene to flinch, or retaliate, but she just sits, still as a statue. Something flickers across her face, a held-in grief. But she doesn't look surprised. "She did it herself. I mean, there's that, I guess." It hurts how easy it is to talk about suicide. He can't look at Lirene while he does it, and he's not sure anymore if he's talking about a girl he'd barely known, or himself. "It happened a lot. More than anyone ever wants to admit."

Lirene nods. She's not looking at him either. Anders knows enough to recognize the way she pulls away, struggling to process everything he's just told her. It's like a part of her has shut down. She flips through his drawings, determined, single-mindedly focused. She studies them carefully, every detail. She takes it all in and says nothing.

"People should know," she finally declares.

"What?" Anders had lost track of the conversation. But Lirene locks eyes with him, and it's like she'd never missed a beat.

"It's not fair that they get away with this. It's not fair that no one knows the truth." Anders holds his breath. She's right, of course she is, but he's been screaming into the silence for as long as he's been alive, and the world has never been fair before.

"Was she right, do you think?" Lirene finally asks. "That death was her best option?"

"I don't know," Anders replies honestly.

"Maker," Lirene breathes. It's just an expression, but it startles him all the same. It's the first time he's heard her make even a token reference to faith of any kind. Maybe it's just something you say when you don't know what else to say. But maybe it's a plea for help. He latches onto it.

"Do you believe in it?" he presses, caring for some reason he can't pinpoint. It doesn't matter if her answer is yes or no, but it suddenly seems to matter, and matter a lot, that she has an answer. "Any of it? The Chantry?"

She shrugs. "I don't know, maybe. It's a hard habit to shake."

"Yeah. I know what you mean." She's just as confused as he is. She's been just as disappointed, just as damaged. She's lost just as much. They have something in common. Somehow he'd always figured that mages had to be different, that because they'd been torn away from the world of regular people, their suffering and brokenness would be different too, somehow. On a different scale. But Lirene hurts too, and her pain feels exactly the same as his.

Slowly, carefully, he gathers up the drawings she's been fixating on. In deference to her earlier suggestion, that other people should see them, he tucks them away inside a hidden drawer rather than just lighting them on fire the way he usually would. "You get her out of here?" he finally asks. He doesn't say Arleigh's name, both in the interests of paranoia and security, and because it provides some needed distance between him and the consequences of his actions. Lirene knows exactly who he means anyway.

She holds his gaze for a long moment, then shakes her head. "She didn't want to go."

"The hell do you mean, she didn't want to go?"

"She's got family here, Anders, she grew up here. She's not like us."

Panic seizes, tight fingers squeezing around his heart, making it hard to breathe. His eyes squeeze shut as he tries to fight the pain behind his skull.

"Hey," Lirene grabs his wrist, feeling his pulse fluttering under his skin. "Calm down." Her fingers run through his tangled hair, helping to center him. He sighs, and reaches out for his stash of vials, searching for something that'll help him stay calm think straight… Lirene closes her fingers overtop of his, wrestling him away from the drugs. "What in the Void do you think you're doing?" she hisses.

"She'll get killed," he mumbles, incoherently. "She doesn't know… she doesn't know anything! I have to find her!"

"She knows how to hide, Anders," Lirene soothes. "She won't waste the chance you've given her."

"She's just a kid."

"How old was Mira?" Lirene replies steadily. Anders stares at her, mouth agape. How could she use her own daughter as a weapon like that, as an argument? But damn it, it's an effective one. He settles, leaning his head back against the rough splintered wood of the clinic's makeshift wall. How old was Mira? Fifteen and staring down a life without a future, with nothing but memories of a life where nobody wanted her.

The aching in his gut doesn't go away. He knows Lirene, he trusts her, but it's hard now not to look at her and see another mother who did nothing to protect her child from the Chantry's oppression. No wonder then, that she would do this, to try to make up for what she's lost. His jaw drops open. "She's with you."

Lirene does not confirm or deny his realization. She doesn't have to. "Do you want me to go?" she asks. He shakes his head, even though he thinks that might be exactly what he wants. He can't even summon up the energy to tell her how dangerous it is, this thing she's doing. She already knows. She's been putting herself in the line of fire to help others in need for a long time. Decades. And in her mind, adopting a Gallows runaway is no different from everything she's already done. Lirene pats his arm, and gives him a tired smile. "Thank you," she says softly. "For telling me the truth."