Author's Note: I tried to get this out yesterday so that I could say I had three in one month, but sadly, I got distracted. :(

My goal is to get three in one month this month, which may or may not happen, but that's the goal!

Keep those suggestions coming! I love them!

Thank you to all who favorite and review and follow, it gives me warm fuzzy feelings every time :D

Also, I've got a new story going. It's a Mass Effect thing, so y'all may or may not be interested, but if you are, take a look. It's nothing major, just a fun challenge to help me practice writing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, BioWare owns all!

Three glasses of whiskey later, she was admiring the way the world tilted. She was in a corner of the bar at a table to herself watching the other patrons. They were oblivious to her and she liked that. She was incog… incognemo… incogneato? She was drunk.

She rested her head on the table and looked at the world sideways. The tilting and whirling increased and she giggled. An altogether strange sound, she decided, considering she was utterly miserable. Not that that made much sense. It's not like she'd done anything besides kiss the man. They hadn't even talked after! What if this was her fault? What if he thought she'd been avoiding him? She shook her head—an odd function considering it was on a table—she had looked for him. She hadn't been able to find him. Because of his father.

She wondered briefly if she should go to Giles and tell him about Tilne's Lord father. The elf might find it interesting—Maker, she certainly did—but would Tilne want her to tell him? He kept it secret for a reason, right? Was Tilne hiding because of his father, or was his father the one hiding him?

Thinking about Tilne made her want to bang her head against the table. What had happened? Was she insane for thinking there was something between them? He'd sent half his squad with her to make sure she was safe; that had to mean something.

She groaned. He'd sent half his squad and gotten hurt because of it. And who's the go-to person for the Red Iron when someone is injured? Elegant.

She couldn't blame Elegant. Her friend probably didn't even realize that she and Tilne were… Were what? Were they anything? It was a kiss. She would certainly have liked it to be something more, but…

That's really what it came down to. She had no idea how Tilne felt. If he wanted anything more. She had hoped, but maybe it had been wishful thinking. She wasn't sure which was worse. That Tilne had wanted something and went with Elegant anyway, or that she had made the whole thing up in her mind.

Maybe she should talk to him. Be an adult and confront him about what was bothering her.

Or.

She could drink more. Yes, that sounded like a much better plan. Less humiliation that way. She drained her glass and ordered another.

Another two glasses later and her whole body felt very heavy. Lifting her glass to her mouth was such an effort, but a very tasty effort. Once it was empty she allowed her arms to rest on the table. Her head too. It was a really comfy table.

"So this is where you went in such a hurry."

"Shut up Carver." Over course, with the effort required to move her mouth, it came out, "Shhp, Vr."

"Just how many have you had?" He asked lifting one of her empty mugs to his nose and wincing.

She shrugged, which took a monumental effort, and tried counting. She lost track at three.

Strong arms lifted her up and she was forced to consider the benefits and drawbacks to vomiting as the world lost solid direction. She decided that vomiting would probably end badly considering Carver was directly in her path and so forced herself not to. While she was focusing on that, her brother tossed her over his shoulder and headed for the door.

This very undignified form of travel also had the downside of turning the world upside down and she had to try even harder to keep from retching. She was not really succeeding and she could tell that she was about to let loose. She must have groaned appropriately because Carver promptly let her down and aimed her away from his person. She emptied the contents of her stomach and felt marginally better. Less likely to vomit again anyway.

"Can you walk?"

She nodded and hobbled along next to her brother. She was slow, but she was moving on her own. She took that as a good sign. One foot in front of the other, and if she watched them, her feet were far more likely to do just that.

"Tempy…" Carver said quietly.

"Shh!" She frowned, stumbling a bit. "You're throwing off my concentration."

She vaguely registered the sound of his sword being drawn as probably important, but she was too busy making sure her feet were doing as they were told to connect the important dots.

"Stop looking at your feet and pay attention."

Frustrated, she glared up at him. Finally noticing that he had his weapon at the ready and was looking sternly ahead of them. Confused, she glanced that way too. Three men, weapons drawn, were advancing on their location. They did not look very friendly, she decided.

She thought that she should tell her brother this certitude. "They don't look very friendly."

"Brilliant observation, Sister."

The men surged forward. Two of them tried to back Carver away from Hawke, while the third grabbed her by the arm and put a dagger to her throat. His breath as he whispered threats was almost enough to make her throw up again. She stumbled along as he dragged her a little ways from Carver and the others, allowing him to do so simply because she wanted Carver out of range when she tossed the fireball she was preparing. Once she felt he was far enough away not to get toasty, she cast her spell.

She caught fire.

This had the welcomed effect of making her attacker let her go, but fire was hot! It hurt a lot and she quickly cast a water spell she normally used to fill tubs for baths. She only wanted enough to extinguish the fires, but ended up drenched in the torrential onslaught of water.

Now sopping wet, in pain from minor burns, and still drunk Hawke sat down on a nearby barrel, deciding she had had quiet enough of this day. The lid promptly gave up on life and she fell, ass first, into the wooden menace. Trapped.

Luckily for her, the only person around to witness this display of humiliation was her brother. Their would-be attackers had fled when she set herself on fire, believing her to be either possessed or crazy.

"Ow."

Rolling his eyes, Carver pulled her out and set her on her feet again. "What did you do?"

"My spell did something wonky." She muttered, embarrassed.

"Wonky." Carver made the word accuse her of stupidity. Could a word accuse someone?

She frowned. "I think I'm drunk."

"No argument from me." Carver let her lean on him as they made their way to Gamlen's.

Climbing the short staircase seemed particularly daunting. Narrow as it was, the two of them wouldn't be able to make it comfortably side by side, even with her leaning on him. She didn't have to brave them, however, for at that moment, Tilne walked out the door. She spun around on her heel and began walking in another direction. The world spun a bit, even after she had stopped, but she put of foot in front of the other, stubbornly.

"Temperance, wait." He caught up to her easily.

"No. Not waiting. Walking."

"I want to explain."

She kept walking. It was slow going, not tripping over her feet, though, so he easily kept pace. Did she want him to explain? Would he tell her anything she hadn't already guessed?

"Explain what? That you're the son of a noble? That you've been, what, hiding in the Iron? That became fairly obvious. As obvious—in fact—as my naivety, so yes, please, explain to me what I've already figured out."

"It's not what you think." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Please, hear me out."

She stopped and looked at him, not daring to hope she might be wrong.

"Elegant and I are betrothed."

It felt like she'd been kicked in the gut. Grimacing she spat, "Wonderful. Felicitations. Leave."

"You don't understand. We've been betrothed for months." Months. Hawke thought about that for a few moments. The implications… "When my father demanded that I give up this 'foolish notion of playing soldier' and start accepting my 'noble responsibility' I tried to resist. I hated the idea of courting some nobleman's idiotic daughter." He scowled at the very notion, but continued. "Elegant was…"

"Elegant." Hawke offered.

He nodded. "She was everything I wanted in a wife. Strong, intelligent, beautiful. And she knew how to present herself as someone of birth, which would be important to my father. I began courting her a year ago."

Hawke ran a frustrated hand through her hair and groaned. This was ridiculous. It was just a kiss; she should be able to accept this graciously and walk away. They weren't involved, they weren't courting, and she certainly wasn't going to try to steal him away from Elegant. She felt betrayed, but she had been foolish enough to fall too fast.

She stepped out of his reach and schooled her features before asking, "Then why did you kiss me?"

He sighed. "I never thought I'd meet someone like you. When you started at the Iron… It was like seeing the ideal and realizing that Elegant was a pale comparison."

"Don't say that!" She was angry enough to hit him and might have tried if she weren't still drunk. "Elegant is a great person; you're damn lucky to have her!"

"She is great. You're fantastic."

"I'm a mage, an apostate. From Ferelden. I am not anything you should want." Hawke took a further step back and looked at Tilne a little lost. "Why did you come here?"

"I wanted to apologize—"

"Fine. Apology accepted. Go home."

"But seeing you again—"

She shoved him. "Go home. Go back to Elegant."

He easily caught her arms in his hands and held her there. "You don't get it. After the kiss, I thought if I could stay away from you, I could get you out of my mind, and I thought it was working, until I saw you today.

"I don't want Elegant—"

She interrupted him for a third time. "Stop! Just stop." She wriggled out of his hold. "I don't know what it is you think you want, but it isn't me. You and Elegant are an excellent match, and she loves you. I saw it. Go back to her, go back to your father, and leave me alone."

She walked back to Gamlen's to find both Carver and Leandra on the steps, watching. Carver looked like he wanted to hit something—probably Tilne—but Leandra was holding him back with a motherly hand on his shoulder. Her mother guided Carver in as Hawke started up the stairs.

In a rare show of brotherly affection, Carver flopped down on the couch and pointed her to the bed he'd previously claimed. It would probably only be for a night or two, but she was grateful. She was also grateful that her mother didn't try to talk to her about what had just happened. She just wanted this day to be over.

Preparing herself to enter the Fade was harder than normal. Being drunk made it hard to concentrate. Which—in retrospect—was probably why her spell had backfired. Magic required concentration. She'd had to concentrate to get her feet to move properly. She really should not have tried to cast a spell.

Prepared at last, Hawke drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke the next morning, she felt better. The headache was bad, the nausea was uncomfortable, and the dizziness was altogether discombobulating, but she felt better about herself and the situation with Tilne. She had done the right thing, had helped her friend, and she accepted that as what ought to have happened and felt good about it.

Tilne's actions still made her hurt, but she shoved that away. She had work to do.

She expected a letter from Meeran today, but she was pleased that one didn't arrive. It was nice to just relax occasionally. So she did other things. Meditation, sparing, shopping, cooking, even some reading. Leandra had spent a little of the Wounded Coast money on a couple of books for Hawke to read.

When evening came, Hawke was still undecided as to whether or not to go to Giles' for the game. Ultimately, it was something Carver said that made her get off her ass and out the door.

"Don't let that twat decided what you do; otherwise, you'll be the twat."

The evening at Giles was Tilne free and a lot of fun. It was nice to add the non-Iron players back into the game and sharing stories from the trip was amusing. Hearing the others' perspectives on what went down had Hawke in tears she was laughing so hard.

"Embellishment, thy name is Giles." She said between gasps of breath.

He winked. "More fun that way, Lass."

The next several weeks were not fun. Mission after mission—sometimes three in the same day!—had Hawke exhausted. The only good part about it was that she didn't see Tilne that often. When he was assigned to the same jobs, she kept it professional, and so did he. He would try to talk to her after a job, but unless it was directly related to a job or the Iron, she would have none of it.

She was becoming fairly well known within the Red Iron and was surprised that some of the men were requesting her for their missions, which—she discovered—was one of the reasons she had so many. She'd asked Giles about it one night during Diamond Back. The others laughed and explained to her that the survival rates of the Iron had dramatically increased since she enlisted. This made Hawke scoff and sent her on a rant about Meeran's ineptitude. It was unanimously agreed and led to several horror stories of jobs gone wrong.

Several of the situations she heard sounded familiar to things she'd been assigned to do. She'd managed to not get everyone killed usually by gathering what information she could ahead of time. Magic helped too.

The workload didn't really ease up for about three months. She welcomed the constant activity, finding that on her rare days off she had too much energy just to lie around. Resting was for once everything had been taken care of.

She was able to pull Aveline into one or two of her jobs that didn't involve illegal activity and only when Aveline didn't have a patrol. On one such occasion, they'd managed to—inadvertently—rescue a nobleman's young son. Stumbling upon the den of slavers in the Undercity had not really been in the original plan, but it had turned out well. Ewald, as his last act before transferring, promoted Aveline to Lieutenant, much to Jeven's vexation.

Once the three-month mark hit, Hawke started putting her ear to the ground for work outside of the Red Iron. She would be on her own without the Iron for protection and she needed to find some way to keep the Templars off her back and earn some coin. She also put feelers out with Worthy and Thomwise to see if they heard anything they could pass her way.

She hesitated about approaching Elegant.

Elegant had moved into Tilne's estate after the wedding (which Hawke had politely attended in support of her friend) and she hadn't seen either of them since. She didn't want to see Tilne for risk of Elegant finding out about her new husband's unfaithful attraction, and since she couldn't visit Elegant without also visiting Tilne, she had avoided the place.

She had run out of hair oil too.

Hawke decided she might be overreacting or over thinking, but she didn't want to risk it. She resolutely decided against visiting Elegant unless she absolutely had to. If she still hadn't heard of work by the two-week mark, she'd go to Elegant. Until then, she would rely on other contacts.

She was three months to freedom, three months to the unknown, three months to getting her life back.