AN: Sorry for the delay! This has been a really, really hard week. If I have not yet replied to your review from the last chapter, I will try to do so this weekend. Thanks for your patience.
On the sixth day of Cloudreach, Fenris steps at last from the carriage to the front door of the Hawke estate. Black banners still hang from the upstairs windows, but the house looks otherwise much the same. The constant downpour since the docks has made the world's scents heavier, even if the rain has slackened to a drizzle, and he doesn't try to keep back the deep, familiar inhale of Bethany's roses and the sharper, brighter scent of the cypress trees lining the avenue.
A year. A year since he's been here. A year since his freedom, since...
He's hardly set hand on the carved front door before it flies open. Bethany stands in the doorway, her hair longer and pulled away from her face, her smile already broadening; even as Fenris takes a step into the atrium she throws her arms around him in delight and nearly knocks him through the door again.
"Bethany," he says, not as effusive but no less glad, and does his best to return the embrace with his bag in one hand and his sword still strapped to his back. Even the house still smells the same after all this time, wax and paper and something deeper, like earth.
"Oh, Fenris, it's so good to see you. It would be good any day, but this—you're early! We weren't expecting you until next week! Oh, where's—Carver? Carver, look who's come!"
"Fenris!" Carver does not hug him—thank the Maker—though his grip on Fenris's hand is suspiciously tight. "You're early!"
"The ship caught a tailwind," he explains, allowing Carver to take the sword when he offers and Bethany the pack. Their eyes are tired, their faces pale in the cool light filtering through the atrium's windows, but even after all this time his heart lifts at the sight of them. "And under certain coaxing, the captain felt it best to leave Amaranthine more...expediently than he anticipated."
Carver snorts. "Right. From what she's been reading us of this Isabela, I can't say I'm surprised. Look at you. The sea's agreed with you, it seems."
He shifts, abruptly aware of his coarser hair, his callused knuckles, the new, strange clothes still faintly smelling of salt air and steel. "More than expected."
"No, don't. You look marvelous." Bethany embraces him again, eyes alight. "You look so happy. Oh, I wish we knew you'd be early—we had all these plans to meet you at the harbor! She'll be so glum about the banner."
Shameful, that after all this time his mouth should be so dry. "Is Hawke..."
Bethany glances at her twin, their amusement identical and nearly as grating. "She's here. She's awfully pathetic, but she's here."
He might as well be still aboard the ship, Escra teasing every bit of entertainment from his ignorance before relenting. "Where?"
"The music room," Carver says at last, and Fenris rolls his eyes. Still, they follow him the whole way, Fenris's sword slung over Carver's shoulder, and when he finally reaches the door Carver scoffs at his hesitation over the familiar bronze handle. "It's not like you have to knock, you know."
But Bethany shushes him, and Fenris grips himself together one last time before opening the door.
She is here. He's not sure why he's so surprised.
The music room is much as he remembers it. The uncovered harp still sits in the same place before the sofa, and the pianoforte's bench has recently slid back over the fine Orlesian carpet—but there Hawke sits across the room at the small white-and-gilt desk by the window, and he can see little else. Her dark hair has been tied at her neck, as usual; her face is turned in profile, staring pensively out the tall window at the light, steady rain. Her chin rests on the heel of her hand, a letter half-finished at her elbow—to him, he realizes, his name visible even from this little distance.
A year, since...
Fenris takes a short, ungraceful step into the room. He says, heart abruptly gone to thunder in his ears, "Hawke."
He can see the moment her stillness becomes a conscious thing, distant thought yielding to a new tension in every line. Her gaze slides towards him, and her body follows; then all at once she stands so quick the chair rattles against the desk.
Her eyes are so blue. He had forgotten.
"Fenris," she says, and then softer, wondering, "you cut your hair."
The smile breaks free against his will. "I did."
"You came back."
"I did."
"Are you going to say anything else?"
"Will you ask a question more complicated?"
She's grinning now, broad enough the lines at the corners of her eyes grow deep. One quick, aborted step forward; then she puts her hands on her hips and lifts her chin. "I missed you," she says, almost defiant. "Did you miss me?"
He barely registers the gentle sound of the door clicking closed behind him. He says, lower, "I did."
"Good," she says, still grinning, but the tears have begun to brim now too. No hesitation this time, not for this; she walks straight into his chest and wraps her arms around his neck, and he has her, he has her here for the first time in a year where he can hold her properly, and when his fingers dig into her back he can't tell who's trembling more.
"Hawke," he murmurs, and her face drops against his neck. "I am sorry about your father."
Hot, damp tears on his collar; her arms tighten. "Me, too."
"I was not here when you needed me."
"You were where you needed to be."
"Hawke," he sighs. "Allow me the regret of this."
She lifts her face from where it's buried in the crook of his neck, her cheek turning against his. "Never," she says fiercely, though her voice is still thick. "Fenris, never. Not only because of Danarius—and I am dying to hear that one properly, just so you know—but because as much as I hated it you were right the whole time. You needed to go. You needed that time and you needed something that was for—only you. And as much as I'll hate it again, if you ever need to go again, just give the word and I'll—I'll pack you myself. And I—"
His hand sliding into her hair stops the torrent. She looks at him, so close her nose brushes over his own, the tears now steady tracks down her cheeks. His thumb passes through one trail; then his hand slips to frame her face, smoothing a bit of hair from her eyes. "I've only just arrived. Already you send me away?"
Her arms still have not loosened. "If I don't say it now, I won't have the courage later."
"Fortunate for us both I have no desire to go."
"Well, I'd hoped not. Not immediately, anyway." She presses her forehead to his, her grip tight on his back. "Fenris, I'm so glad you're here."
She's lost weight. He had not realized it until he had her in his arms, her cheeks shallower, her shoulders sharper where she bends them. But still, so beautiful—and as he leans back to see her better that same familiar smile blooms across her face. Her arms loosen, her fingers sliding up into the white hair that now comes to a tapered point at his nape, shorn short after a Tal-Vashoth had caught the braid during battle and nearly broken his neck.
He has missed her.
There aren't words enough for it in any language he knows. Hardly enough in him as it is to recognize the enormity of the moment, to comprehend how the past year of storms and battle and brilliant blue skies over southern mountains has ended at last with him here, home, where he ought to be.
Hawke's smile softens. Fenris smiles himself, the world made abruptly right, and he kisses her.
No fire. That will come later, when they are shut away in his room with the blue coverlet, when they can lock the door and close out everything that is not of their making. This is softer, more gentle: her body close against his, his thumbs stroking over her cheeks, the lyrium in his palms and chin practically singing at the return of her magic. She tastes the same as he remembers, even through the salt of tears, and when she angles her head better to meet him it's as close as he can remember to joy.
He had forgotten this. The way she moves against him, the heat of her mouth, the quiet breaths between kisses mingling on his skin. But—even after all this time he is not made to trust such easy elation, and when her kiss grows quieter he allows his heart to calm as well.
"Fenris," she says quietly, her lips still touching his. "I've got to tell you something."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Can you guess what it is?"
He closes his eyes, opens them again to find her watching him, her delight barely contained by her smile. "Tell me, Hawke."
She kisses him again, delicate agony, and holds his face in both hands. "Let me get it."
Before he can protest she pulls away, moves across the music room to the desk with her letter. It's the same as the rest when she places it in his hands, crisp, fine paper, her hand slanted and looping, his name across the top.
Dearest, beloved Fenris,
I don't know why I'm writing considering you'll be here before this leaves, but I have to tell you again. I'm in love with you. I have been for months, even before I knew what I was doing, and now that I've said it once it feels ready to explode out of me again without the slightest warning. I love you, Fenris. I love you more ferociously and desperately than I could have ever imagined loving another person, and the idea that I'd lost you before you knew nearly killed me twice over.
I wish there were more words for it. Even "adore" isn't strong enough. How do you tell someone you can't bear the thought of living another day without them, especially when you can't even find the words for the love you're soaring in?
He feels more than sees the lyrium ignite, a quick ripple of power through the markings—and gone. Hawke does not withdraw; instead she smiles again, her eyes crinkling, and kisses the corner of his mouth, then his cheek, then pulls him once more into a tight embrace. He stares over her shoulder at the uncovered harp, the writing desk against the tall white curtains. Outside the window the rain still falls just as light and steady, drumming on the spring-green grass as if the last few minutes have not seen his life shift course.
"I had to tell you," she murmurs. "I spent enough time thinking you were gone forever not to make it perfectly clear now."
Somehow he finds his voice. "I swore to you I would come back."
"And Danarius came, and winter, and storms, and who knows what else. Terrible things that don't understand promises."
He searches out her hair with one hand, twists his fingers into the black strands. "You should have trusted me."
"I did. I do."
"Hawke," he says again, and this sigh carries the weight of a year with it when it goes. "I am yours. Do you understand? Nothing will keep me from you."
She shudders in his arms. And again, her arms tightening, and a moment later he feels the hot tears begin to seep into his shirt. She does not speak, though, and does not pull away, and Fenris finds himself content to hold her here until her sorrow eases.
Only a few minutes before she steps back to wipe her face, though her hand tangles with his at their sides. "I'm sorry," she says, half-laughing. "I don't know why I'm falling to pieces. I'll bounce back soon enough, I'm sure."
"It's fine, Hawke. It doesn't matter."
She smiles again, and he can't resist brushing the backs of his fingers over her cheek. "We should go soon," she murmurs, though she leans into his touch. "Mother will be glad to know you've made it safely. And I think you might send the dog into a fit of joy."
"I was most concerned about the dog," he says, voice dry, but he moves as readily as Hawke to the door. A year. A year since Toby, since the gardens and the olive trees and the benches in the courtyard. A year since Orana's kindness, or Cork's cooking, or the early hours training with Carver.
Hawke opens the door and tugs him through after, laughing, and Fenris doesn't try to keep back his smile.
He is so glad to be home.
—
There is a hole where Malcolm used to be. Fenris knew there would be, though he does not understand the depth of it until they are all arranged in the sitting room once more, himself on the sofa with Hawke beside him, Bethany and her mother across. Carver cannot settle; he stands by the unlit fireplace, moves to the window with the rain still falling just beyond, comes again to lean his elbow on the back of his father's empty chair. His name is mentioned only rarely; even then it comes with a sense of bruising, a new wound too soon pressed, and the conversation turns again as swiftly as possible.
Fenris's own adventures, then, become the safe haven around which they gather. He doesn't mind this transparent interest; though he has no great skill at relaying the stories they listen avidly, and their questions spur enough memories the conversation continues without much strain.
Isabela, of course, they adore, even through Leandra's shocked laughter at her various boldnesses. Escra prompts a more reluctant admiration, especially when Fenris recounts the second time the man had fallen over the aft rail while in Amaranthine's port. He describes Naryse and Hugh and their legendary Orlesian furies; he tells them of the battles against the pirates and the raiders in Rivain, edited for his audience—though Hawke's dark looks inform him she will have the unvarnished stories behind his newer scars later, in privacy. Carver he tells of Isabela's daggers, and Thalia's staff, and the sword Escra used before it broke; Bethany he tells of Nor Emilio and his magic, and the way he whistled around his missing front tooth when he liked the healing of a wound.
He has gifts for them, too, memories of the farther places as he had once been given himself. The delivery is inexpert and humiliating—he would have preferred to leave them to be found when he might be safely out of the house—but Leandra exclaims over her shawl, and Bethany's smile is wet-eyed at her unfolding of the packet of seeds, strange Rivaini roses that climbed walls and burst in the spring to sweet, brilliant clusters of blossoms. Even Carver grins at the small charm from Ferelden, an etching of a howling mabari strung on a leather thong; with it comes a better wrapping for his sword's hilt and an oil Fenris had procured in Cirymea for polishing steel. Hawke laughs at the last one, considering it smells even stronger than the old, but Carver's thanks are entirely genuine.
Hawke's own gift he will give her later, though the look in her eyes is enough to have Carver gagging—and then Toby bursts through the door with a clacking of nails on tile, Orana just behind, and the moment is thankfully interrupted.
Lydas comes with her, and Bodahn, and Sandal and even Cork, half of them with trays of sandwiches nearly upset by the dog's joyful bounding. Eventually Fenris coaxes him to his side, his head heavy on Fenris's knee; Hawke's hand rests gently on the other, just for a few moments, before she rises to fetch them both plates. Lydas comes to clasp arms with him, smiling; Bodahn claps him on the shoulder, and even Orana manages to give him a one-armed embrace over the sofa's back.
Later, he will tell them of Danarius. Later, he will mourn with them for Malcolm, and all the loss with him. But here, for now, with these people he has come to care for surrounding him, safe and secure and free in more ways than a paper can grant—
It is enough. He is content.
He thinks privately, as the rain begins at last to slacken and the clouds break to something brighter, it is time he learned to allow himself the feeling.