Alistair watched her from his cell; he had been watching her since the man she called Howe, like Howe was the filthiest thing a person could be called, left in a fit of pique. He watched her fall apart from behind, wondering if it was the things this Howe said, or if it was the letter she burnt, or if it was the whole damnable situation that was getting her down. He was still trying to fit everything together, the Arlessa Warden-Commander, the Howe, the mage, the ring and the her arriving to steal him from his boat.

The mage in particular had been on his mind a bit, actually. He arrived like the undead, staggering under a tray loaded with food and assorted medical supplies, eyes shadowed with complete exhaustion but his mouth curved in the barest hint of a grin. Bluth and Barkley were dismissed, both pinned down by the mage's logic as they warned him against being alone with the man in the cell.

All I have to do is think it and, within seconds, he's prisoner pulp.

This was bravado, it would take more than thinking to achieve such an end. The men believed the myth and scurried out, neither wanting to be splattered by prisoner pulp.

The mage gave Alistair food and poked at his face while he ate, working quickly and singing under his breath:

There's a rooster in the henhouse, it came in on the sly
The hens inside are happy, they have no need to fly
The fox outside the henhouse, he's the one that knows-
The rooster's a distraction, and that's the way it goes
That's the way it goes, oh that's the way it goes,
The rooster's a distraction, and that's the way it goes

Alistair could not stop glaring with his one good eye; he channeled every ounce of belligerent rage he possessed into that glare and the mage kept singing that stupid song, smiling and looking whole and almost totally content.

Anders. It was that name she called from the dark. Eons ago, it was Alistair's. He could not heal her, or fix her, or usually do more than die a hundred tiny deaths while she writhed against injuries that would kill most men, but she always called. She always wanted him beside her in case this was it.

How long had she been with this man, this pale mage who seemed at once bookish and like the countless indolent ladykillers Alistair had met in Antiva? They had a history, yet there was something awkward and not quite worked out between them. There was a sense of flux, the lack of defined boundaries and defined responses.

Finished with his task, the mage tucked an errant strand of blond hair behind his ear, his knuckles scraping audibly against his shadowed jaw. Then he smirked.

You know, usually when I heal someone, I get something in return. A silver or two, a gift, a kiss.

Alistair kicked The Glare up a notch, but decided to play along for some reason.

My lips are all I have to offer, but I can't imagine they'd suit your purposes.

The mage chuckled and left Alistair alone in his cell, dropping into the desk chair and immediately turning to elemental tricks to distract himself from what had to be the worst kind of tired. A small ball of lightning crackled in his palm, and he sort of threw it at the wall, where it hit and left the faintest scorch mark. He did this several more times and Alistair gave up trying to think of questions to ask him, but one came anyway:

Does she still have that ticklish spot on her left side, two ribs up? And it hit him in a rush, a perfect moment of her laughter, and her hair dark on pale sheets, and her skin against his, and Maker he would have walked through a sea of fire for that woman. Until she expected you to and you refused.

That's when he dove for the protection of the bedroll, fighting against another barrage of memories, of her face close to his and her voice saying things that made him tingle, blush and beam. On that pallet, he went through those emotions, only they reverberated in the distance and he longed to feel them at full force again, to feel anything but misery and jealousy at full force. You will never learn, will you?

He almost slept; he was there for what seemed like hours, the mage still singing and doing tricks that sounded impressive but probably weren't. He almost slept until she came in, with this Howe in tow, and there was something about a message and Anders burning it and then the Howe challenging her in a cryptic way. Bryce was brought up again, but Alistair kept his attention for the sound of Howe leaving, praying that he might be left alone with her.

And then it happened. He waited for her to approach his cell, but that moment never came. He rolled over to see her leaning against the door, no, yearning against the door, her breathing deep and even until it was suddenly broken. That's when he said her name, that's when he called for her across a small room that might as well have been six years long.

He watched her turn and walk towards him, pushing the desk chair closer to where he was caged. Instead of unlocking the cell door, Brand merely inserted the key into its hole, the scrape of metal on metal echoing throughout the prison. She withdrew from this door, too, and took a seat on the far end of the desk, shoulders pressed against the stone wall, eyes closed, fingers idly sifting through an abandoned pile of scorched straw.

For a few moments, the key in the door seemed like a trick. Maybe the mage had rigged it to blow when it was turned, who knew? But he was sick of being imprisoned, of the metal between him and…her. He let himself out, eschewing the chair for a perch at the opposite end of the desk. He resumed watching, catching small details like how her skin was even more milk white now that she wasn't exposed to the elements every day, and her hands weren't as calloused.

Then, like the mage, her lips curved in a grin and he couldn't not ask.

"Why are you smiling?"

She looked surprised, her eyes as green as they were the last time he held her, and color rose in her cheeks.

"I was thinking of a stupid joke I told once."

"Just once?" This was old Alistair coming through. Not good.

"Well, I only made this particular stupid joke one time. And I guess it was more of a pun."

"I see," Alistair shifted uncomfortably. "I suppose you didn't come down here to sit in awkward silence or talk about the weather or...joke puns."

"No. But I don't exactly know where to start." She began to speak quickly, "I gave up on ever seeing you again, you know. When you weren't at the palace, and you weren't at Eamon's...I knew then. I stopped looking for you...not active looking, more like watching, I guess. Anyway, I stopped that after the Blight ended. I figured if you couldn't even stick around to..." she hesitated, the knife of what she almost said finding his gut with no difficulty. "Then you certainly wouldn't hang around to hear about all my heroic doings. And whatnot."

Goodwill disappeared, replaced by a desire to return the wound left by implications.

"Well, leaving didn't spare me hearing about your...heroic doings. I think there are probably bars in Par Vollen full of drunken mercenaries who are singing about your...way with a sword."

"My way with a sword?" Brand sat up a little straighter, indignation sparking in her eyes.

The laugh that came out of Alistair was short, mirthless.

"Oh, suddenly you're a proper lady? You live in a keep full of male Wardens and nobody has once mentioned the reputation members of the order have for...prowess," he gave the last word a dangerous amount of subtext, his voice lowering to a purr. "And since you're the ultimate Warden, what with ending the Blight...well, you don't have to guess the number of free rounds I was able to score off my contributions to your myth. My personal favorite is a song that references your skilled grip. I would sing a few lines, but I have a broken jaw."

"And yet you've managed to say an awful lot of...words...with that broken jaw," Brand was seething. "You know, of all the things I thought you might be out there doing, exploiting our sex life for booze was fairly low on the list."

"Well, it wasn't just booze," he leaned towards her, his eye narrowing dangerously, his mouth curling up in a cruel grin. "I managed to talk myself up a bit in the process. By the way, there are quite a few women throughout Thedas who extend their thanks to you."

He wanted her to ask about these women, because he had stories to tell. Embellished, of course, and most of them not his. Nobody would be able to stomach the true tales, the ones that ended with him curled up in the back room of a tavern, sweating ale and desperation, and lost to the fleeting echoes of how it felt to be enveloped by a green-eyed beauty with that smile. Instead she withdrew, her face falling into blankness.

"Why did Eamon bring you back to Ferelden?" Her voice was as smooth and impersonal as glass.

"Eamon? Who said anything about Eamon?" He pitched his innocence over the top; Brand's brows knit together in frustration.

"I found the scroll in your cabin, on the ship. I know that it bore Eamon's seal and that you were supposed to meet him in Amaranthine two days after you arrived."

So the seal was the crux of her argument, the proof she spoke of as if that could explain her being there when his ship came in, or her possessing something she shouldn't. His hand slid to his pocket, and he grasped the object within.

"A seal, eh? That's what you're basing your accusations on?" He pulled his fisted hand out, his fingers curling away to reveal...

"Where did you get that?" Brand grabbed for the signet ring but he anticipated her, yanking away just before she could reach him. She lost her balance and nearly fell off the desk, a silver amulet spilling out of her blouse, the flickering torchlight catching in it.

"I got it from your pack. What I want to know is where you got it," he was legitimately angry now. "Why in Andraste's name would you be carrying Eamon's signet ring?"

"It's not Eamon's ring," Brand spoke with carefully controlled rage, clinging to the amulet as if it were an anchor.

"It certainly looks like Eamon's. I used to steal it away and play with it when I was younger. Did you steal it away and play with it recently, dear Brandelyn?" He was speaking at a caress again, and it gave the words a sour taste in his mouth, "If you wanted me to come back so badly, you could have just written a nice note as yourself. I might have actually considered it; I do have such fond memories of your grip."

"Give me that ring," this was an order issued from Warden-Commander Brand Cousland, Conqueror of the Blight.

"Not until I get an explanation. About everything," this was a retort from a man with nothing left to lose, a man who didn't quail at the steel in her eyes because he would embrace it cutting him down.

"That ring belongs to me," throats could be slit with the precision of her speech. "It belongs to me and my son."

"Why would your son have Eamon's..." Alistair's mouth had gone rogue, his brain clicking just a few seconds too slow. Son. It was a round word wrong son, you fool and why did she just say it? My son. Is it my son? His heart clenched and he was twenty-one again, touching her bared shoulder and breaking the news about Grey Wardens and the whole childlessness thing. What if they were both so broken that the taint actually fixed them? Hope took root in poisoned soil and it was the worst of all possible things to happen. "You...have a son?"

"Yes."

"Oh," Alistair examined the ring again rings are also round nodding as a realization struck him. "His name is Bryce, isn't it? After your father, of course."

"Of course," her eyes were drawn shut, her chin lowering. She was touched, momentarily, but by what? His remembering a detail such as her father's name?

"Who is?...How old?...What is his age?" There was a small boy in him that clung to a window ledge, peering outside at a perfect sky, into a day full of unlimited possibilities. Why should that sky be so blue? As if this would be a good thing? As if this could save you?

"Bryce is four. He just recently turned, in fact."

"Ah, four." No amount of mathematical gymnastics could make that work and things crashed down inside him. "I hear they're...something, at that age. Just full of...fourness."

He stared at the ring in his hand, at this huge thing it represented, and suddenly there were many of him there, fighting for dominance; the harsh man he was, the good man he had been, the child retreating from a glorious day because the monastery was expecting him later that morning and maybe you can play outside with the other children once you've been settled. There was also a man caught between shifts, stumbling away from the palace, his heart not breaking but numb how could I have been so wrong about her, and where would he go to die from what felt like a sword through his stomach but was only disappointment tinged with betrayal and topped with how did things fall apart so quickly?

Bryce. Brand always said that name with such pride, when she could bring herself to say it at all. He imagined son Bryce had given her some immunity to the sorrow that always distorted her face when she thought about her father. Maker. Brand has a son and this was his ring, a ring that Alistair had once coveted. Besides the pretty designs it left in dirt and stolen bits of dough, it also meant something to others. If he couldn't be king, he could wear this ring and everyone would look at him like he mattered and not like he was going to just get his sticky, muddy bastard hands all over their finery.

He had another worry, shadowy but gaining form. Why did this belong to Brand and her son? Where had Bryce come from? Not the mage, things were too uncertain between them for there to be a five year bond, and why would a mage have this ring? He felt his forehead sort of contract and then there was this:

Do you have any family, yourself?

Oh... you mean, am I married? I... no. No, I've never had the pleasure. If I did, I'd be lucky to find a woman as lovely as yourself. If I may be so bold, what of you, my lady? Are you married?

No, I'm not.

I find that hard to believe. Surely, that is a crime somewhere.

Alistair had been in a bit of a fugue state that day, half elated that Brand finally knew his dark secret and seemed more inclined to joke about it than care, and half worried for the fate of his home village. The flirtation between his lover and his ex-ward's younger brother seemed nothing more than courtly banter, although Teagan had laid it on thick later you are brave as well as beautiful, it seems and found it difficult to tear his eyes away from her for the rest of their visit.

He saw them together, an imagined moment that shocked him with its graphic clarity, and it was obviously the answer to this conundrum. Another piece clicked, his quick calculations on Bryce's age yielding a truth that sent a flare of jealousy through him.

"You got pregnant within a year?"

Brand did not respond, but leveled a glare of her own at him. It said how dare you pass judgment on how I spent these past few years and within a year of what, I wonder?

"I'm not talking about this with you," she stood, and immediately stumbled. Alistair remembered her bloody footprints in the yard before dawn, the sword moving down her leg, the knife in her stomach and again there was that painful twist-slide from man to man and he caught her so she wouldn't fall. She automatically clung to him, her fingertips digging but not painfully into his forearms and her weight shifting her closer as he didn't let go, even though she was stable on two feet again, and even though the feeling of her there near was horrible.

Like not having a drink when drink is how you've lived your life for the past sixty-odd months, the dive headlong into this after so long of going without was...ouch. And what was this?

This was almost immediately forgiving her for letting him ruin his life, for her role in that ruin and the things he threw away because she took herself away from him. In a way. This was not even caring that she had a child with another man, and had a mage who had somehow slipped through time and taken Alistair's spot with her in the Wardens but if Teagan is Bryce's father, where is Teagan now? This was needing, desperately, to kiss her with the lips she bruised, to pull her into his arms again and erase the past sixty-odd months from existence, to pick up where they left off outside of the Landsmeet Chamber. Maybe he would end the day where he started- tangled and laughing and sort of sad but mostly fine instead of tangled and devastated and wishing woe upon the whole world, but especially her and especially himself.

This was round in his mind, a perfect circle, and his skin still against hers. Then it was what the full force of that long distant emotion felt like when it flooded every corner of his being. In the forest and in the yard it had trickled a bit, an automatic response to her voice, or her pain, or her face. But that had been "Has anyone ever told you how handsome you are" and this was "So, how would you like to join me in my tent?"

It hurt, a physical pain that wrenched his stomach and made him want to let loose his breakfast. Some places went sweaty, some went numb, his hands and feet prickled like they'd been asleep for years and his eyes loss their ability to focus on anything but a particular place on her body. He went for her neck, her fingertips relinquishing his forearms as he tugged back the collar of her blouse, and peeled away the compress stuck where her left shoulder met. His own teeth marks greeted him, the wound wounds partially healed but the personal venom that went into their making still obvious

If Brand looked closely, she would have seen two men standing in front of her. The first was seventy-odd months gone, furious fist curling into the collar of her blouse as he fumed over the asshole who could hurt her like this, how could anyone lose themselves like that? The other was absolutely present, and absolutely knew how a person could lose himself like that, but that didn't make it right. His fist also twisted in the collar, even as guilt and shame twisted within him.

The first man sensed the culpability, sensed a burgeoning need for atonement, and blinked into this other man, who knew and understood the inherent unfairness of life. That was the man who could better cope with sudden sons, and lives that were lived while time seemingly stood still. He was the one who knew all about the undertow, and was the man who could make it back to shore when Brand finally allowed really real recognition to show itself in her features, causing his limbs to go tingly heavy with the full force of hope expanding. Maybe I'm not so far gone.

There was something else in her expression, her own regret as she looked at him with wide eyes dyed in sorrow, and said:

"Eamon is dead, Alistair."

It was her turn to catch him as his knees buckled. She didn't let go for the longest time, her fingertips returning to his arms, squeezing in sympathy and he fought back another urge to kiss her, fighting because now was not the time, and she wasn't exactly healing him by being so close. He pulled away without warning and pushed his hands through his hair. It was too long on top and he had a tendency to make it peak backwards and why am I thinking about my hair?

"I was brought back to, possibly, be named Eamon's heir. He said...he said that he wanted to make it up to me. To make up everything," Alistair was still clutching the Guerrin family signet ring, a representation of the legitimacy he thought he might be able to achieve upon his return to Ferelden. It was either that or alcohol soaked death in a foreign gutter. "It seemed like a long shot, but he said he was certain he could smooth things over with...with Anora and the nobility. I was on my way to a tavern when I got the letter, determined to kill myself in ounces and over months. It felt like a sign, and all I could think about was not being this," he gestured to his broken, haggard face. "And trust me when I say that I deserve to be this. But I thought maybe I could leave it behind. I wanted to leave it behind."

"Did you leave any of it behind?"

"No. It's still all right in front of you. Nothing is that easy," Alistair offered the ring, dropping it into her outstretched palm. She immediately slid it on and Alistair's heart twisted.

"I can't leave you down here. I wanted to help the man on that ship, not imprison him," her voice was soft as she contemplated her hand. "But I still don't know who tried to kill you, or me, or who...got to Eamon. Until I do, I'm not comfortable with anyone else knowing you're here. I have...I have a spare room in my apartment. You can sleep there and, if anyone asks, I'll just tell them that Anders is staying with us for awhile, until things settle."

"And that won't raise any suspicions?"

If she heard the unasked question, she didn't address it.

"No. Anders and my Senior Warden, Fiona, are always in and out. Raising Bryce is bit of a group effort, I guess you could say," she moved towards a door that Alistair hadn't noticed until that moment. "It leads to the tunnels under the Vigil and a passageway to my rooms. Whoever built this place was committed to such features. It's a bit creepy, but we shouldn't encounter anyone between here and there."

She grabbed a torch, and they were on their way. This was familiar, following her into the unknown, and it made him feel disjointed, the clarity from earlier muddled again by questions he needed answered. Catching her arm, he spun her around to face him.

"Where will Anders actually be sleeping during all this?"

"Wherever he wants, I imagine," Brand's cheeks were colored by more than torchlight. "Either in his chamber, or our sitting room. Sometimes he sits up with Bryce, and there's a...a possibility he might stay with me. Why does it matter?"

Confirmation. Confirmation of one thing, but not the other niggling detail.

"And what of Teagan, what does he think of your relationship with the mage? He never struck me as the type to be fine with sharing the mother of his child."

This was greeted with a sharp inhalation, and Brand's face closed. If he would have asked before, she would have let him keel over at the news of Eamon's death.

"I'm not talking about that with you," again she said it and this time did not fall as she hurried ahead of him. Alistair could feel the enclosing shadows, the light growing smaller the longer he waited to chase after her. He didn't know which he preferred. With Eamon gone, Brand was the only person in the world who might be willing to fight for him, to keep him safe, or to save him herself.

She didn't fight for you at the Landsmeet, she didn't come to save you when you left.

He shut his eye tight against that small voice. You wanted to abandon that bitterness to the sea. When he looked again, he could see shapes in the black around him, echoes perhaps of other men who had walked a similar path from personal darkness to something...less dark.

In the distance, the torchlight stopped getting smaller, Brand waiting for him despite...despite everything. When he finally caught up with her, she held the light to his face, to the uncovered left side that he'd unconsciously kept hidden during their conversation. She stared at his bruises and cuts, her eyes glowing with unshed tears caught in flame and her free hand reached up to brush very, very lightly against his jaw.

"I'm sorry," and she meant it. It covered several years of contusions and lacerations, of silence and absence. It did not heal him, however; there were still wounds that were just too deep for two words to close- those caused by small betrayals, avoided questions and personal complications. So he did not kiss her in thanks, even though he wanted to do more than just follow the light out of darkness.

Instead, he smiled as much as he could with an impossible weight on him; exhaustion, loss and the constant confused flickering of who he was at any given moment nearly dragging him beneath the surface.

"I'm sorry, too."

And despite the words and the history yawning between them, this felt like a beginning.