BioWare owns all, I just play in their pond.


11. Causa – Anders

The run had been a disaster. It was unlikely they would ever know when or where the escape had been found out; the leak could have been with the mage herself or one of the many messengers involved in smuggling messages between Gallows prisoners and the underground. Wherever it had broken down, Anders had come back to himself surrounded by half a dozen dead – and badly ended, at that – Templars.

It never failed to worry him that the first thing he noticed after Justice receded was always something inconsequential, his first thought being something thoroughly inappropriate to the situation. This morning, he had noted Hawke's wisp, bobbing in the air in a way that could only be described as jaunty, as if it hadn't a care in the world.

Vying for second place in his rapidly-awakening thoughts were the bodies of the Templars and the fact that Hawke had simply helped him to his feet and moved on through the tunnels as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Aside from me losing control to a spirit and raging around the cavern as an abomination, sure. Perfectly normal morning, even for him.

After each of these thoughts had passed through his mind several times in turn, another presented itself: I've gone mad. Well and truly mad. It was this alarming notion that occupied him during the long walk back to his clinic, after the mage had been set free with the admonishment to keep her destination to herself.

As soon as the clinic door clicked shut, Anders steeled himself to say the last thing in Thedas he wanted to say, knowing that it was the only thing he could say.

"Davin, you need to stay away from me. If this morning showed us anything, it's that… that I'll only end up risking you, or hurting you, or…" Deep breath. "You should go."

Hawke finished rolling the action of the morning out of his shoulders, dropped into his usual spot at the crafting table, and tilted his head as if considering for a moment. As he drew breath to speak he lifted a finger, as one would to illustrate a point, and said, simply, "No."

"Davin… You saw what happened to those Templars." What I did to those Templars.

"I was there, yes. I distinctly recall helping that happen to those Templars."

Anders could only stare at him.

"Give Justice a kick, see if he remembers it the same way. Or don't, now I come to think of it, because I'm not interested in talking with him right this minute. Try this, instead: take Justice out of the equation entirely. If it had been you, just you, confronted by armed Templars trying to stop that girl getting out of the Gallows, what would you have done?"

"I… I would have fought. But that's not the point-"

"That's exactly the point. Anders, at the risk of making you think about it again, I'll remind you that you ran nearly full-stop into a number of Templars in a dark cave. I'm not at all surprised Justice took over to keep things moving. In fact, that's what I would have expected to happen under those circumstances. Doesn't mean your control is slipping, or that you're weak; all it means is that two very strong and negative aspects of your past hit you at the same time."

"Two… But I haven't…"

"Told me about the Templars, I know, and I don't expect you to until and unless you decide you want to pick through it all. You have told me about the rest, and I assume as … acquainted … as the two of you are, Justice knows everything about the Templars?"

"Maker, that just sounds wrong, that he should know something you don't."

"It doesn't bother me. Really, it doesn't, because I know telling me about it will take you back there, and that's not something I'd ever wish on you for any twisted sense of my own gain." Hawke stood and crossed the room, judging that something more was needed to prove… Prove what? My point? My resolution? Either way, it'll give it some emphasis. He embraced the healer and just stood with him, lowering his voice with the close contact.

"Justice may have gone overboard when he horned in this morning, I'll give you that. But… he's Justice, and he found himself confronted with symbols of people who have done you a very great injustice. In the end, the result is really no different than what it would have been if he'd stayed out of it. Freeing those mages is worth doing, and defending ourselves, to the death if we have to, isn't something we should be ashamed of."

That may be, Anders thought. But it still doesn't address the cause. Easing away from his friend, aware of any number of possible reactions to that cause, he said, "Davin. I'm an abomination."

"Ah. So that explains the tumorous outcroppings and deformities I see no sign of whatsoever."

"Will you stop…"

"Stop… what, exactly? Refusing to believe you're a danger to yourself and everyone around you? That's not going to happen. All right, all right… You've known me long enough by now to be aware that the humor is the last bit of the battle high to settle down. Straight out, then: Anders, you are not a monster. Quite the opposite, in fact – you give so much of yourself to help and to heal others that I'm surprised you have anything left at the end of the day."

"You're determined to win this, aren't you? How can you be, when you don't know how much I haven't told you?" Close as I'm getting to asking why he puts up with me.

"I'm a bloody persistent bastard. You told me a while ago that you and Justice merged, that you're one entity now. Truth? I don't see it. Justice acts differently, talks differently – from what I've seen of the both of you now, I can even tell he thinks differently. The separation is clear to me, and I'm sure I'd see it if one of you started bleeding into the other. "

"You're trusting me with a lot, thinking like that."

"No more than the other way around. I told you before, I'm not going anywhere."

Anders sighed, visibly deflating in the process. "Justice doesn't understand that, you know?"

"Why's that? Loyalty doesn't seem like it should be such a foreign concept to him."

"Loyalty, friendship, love, he doesn't get any of it."

"He's not human, and never has been. Maybe he needs to realize that, much as you gave up to bring him in, you're still human, and won't do him much good without all of that, hmm?" Cavalier as that answer might have been, Hawke filed it away for future use. In case Justice needs to be calmed down again later.

"That sounds like something I would have said, not too long ago."

"So you needed a reminder. If it's necessary, I'll nag your ears off, but I'm not letting you go."