Nessa woke sometime in the middle of the night. It was very dark; the candle had burnt down to nothing and gone out. There was only enough moonlight from her tiny window to give the suggestion of shape to the items in the room. She sat up to look for the sound which had woken her. There was a mound on the bed beside her — Zevran had stayed, she realized with surprise. He appeared to be sleeping, but not easily or well. He lay on top of the covers, fully clothed, and his limbs jerked sharply. He made a noise of protest, then mumbled something she didn't understand. She wasn't sure if it was Antivan or just the garbled speech of nightmare.

"Zev?" She scooted closer. "Hey. Hey, it's all right." His head turned toward the sound of her voice, so she leaned over and wrapped an arm around him.

She should have known that would be a mistake.

Before she could do more than gasp, she found herself flat on her back. Zevran had flipped from prone to his knees in one quick snap, and was pinning her down into the bed. His knee dug into her pelvis, and the hard bone of his forearm was pressed tight against her throat, making it difficult to breathe. It took all her self control not to struggle. If she fought him, she would lose — she had no doubt about that, especially tangled in the blankets as she was — so she willed her body to remain still.

"It's Nessa," she choked out.

There was a long, terrible pause before he eased the pressure on her throat and sat back. Nessa rolled onto her side, gasping for air. Zevran melted backwards off the bed. By the time she recovered enough to look he was all the way across the room, his outline barely visible in the dim light.

"I am sorry," he said faintly.

"No, it's my fault," she said, struggling to sit up. "I should have known better than to wake you that way. You were having a nightmare – I didn't think." She stopped to cough. Zevran seemed to have pulled farther back into the shadows by the time she finished. She wished she could see his face. Or… any of him at all.

"If you are all right..." he said. His voice didn't come from where she'd expected him to be. She heard a rustling from the corner near the window and thought maybe he was putting on his boots.

"I'm fine, I promise. Zev..." She pushed back the blankets and started to rise.

"Then I believe I should go," he said quickly. "I will check on our friends, yes? Make sure that Glenn knows how to set a proper watch."

Nessa frowned in the dark. "Are you okay?"

"Perfectly so," he said, moving in front of the window so she could see him at last. He gave her an careless smile and a shrug.

"It was a dream and nothing more. Truth be told, I have many such. You should go back to sleep, Warden. It will be a busy and unpleasant day tomorrow."

He slid open the window and eased his shoulders through. It was a tight fit, even for Zevran. Once his upper body was outside, he pulled the rest of himself up and out. His boots rested on the windowsill for only a moment before he disappeared altogether.

He was embarrassed about trying to kill her; she understood that. It was all right; it had been an accident. But she had an uneasy feeling that wasn't the only thing wrong. He'd been strange and stiff all day. And why had he gone out the window when the people he said he wanted to check on were just down the hall? It didn't make any sense.

Zevran slithered out the window, grabbing hold of the frame and yanking his hips through the narrow opening. He rested his feet on the sill while he worked out a path; then started up the wall. Jamming his fingertips into the cracks between the stones, he made his way brick by brick to the roof. His feet were not much help with boots on, but he could carry his weight on his hands for this short distance. Once he swung up onto the roof, he dusted himself off and looked out over Kirkwall.

What he had told Nessa had not been a lie; he was indeed frequently plagued with nightmares. Truly, with all that he had seen and done it would be surprising if he were not. While he had a set of carefully cultivated callouses, a sort of armor for the heart, this protection faded without careful maintenance. Perhaps he'd been neglecting it of late.

But no matter how he fought to shield himself, he had always dreamed. He had nightmares of the hunt, of predator becoming prey. He had nightmares of training, where over and over he failed the tests and died. He had wrenching nightmares of Rinna's tears and the hot red wash of her blood. Since Orzammar he'd had nightmares of never ending tunnels, stale air filled with the whispers of darkspawn and the weight of mountains pressing down. But never before had he felt so trapped, reaching for a woman with storm blue eyes who laughed as she turned away.

He paced the perimeter of the roof, twitching with the urge to run. When Nessa had been hesitant to become lovers… he had pitied her small-mindedness and thought her limited by the traditions of her upbringing. Now he realized it had been he who had been naïve. The irony was laughable, though he could not bring himself to feel amused.

Perhaps he should go. The Blight was over. He had kept his oath, passed pleasant times as well as unpleasant, learned many things. He had met some fine people and enjoyed his time with them. But the world was wide. There was much to see and do.

Zevran stretched his neck, rolled his shoulders. He took off at a run, leaping from the edge of the roof, sailing over the cobbled street below, and landing with a neat roll on the opposite rooftop. He travelled quickly and lightly over the tops of the buildings, away from the water and out of the Docks district.