Hey guys. So this took longer than I thought, for a few reasons. The main one is that my family and I have had a difficult few weeks - we lost two close family friends in the space of a few days. The other is that 'a bit of editing' turned into almost a full re-write. A lot of the dialogue is the same, if tweaked, but there are new sections and the action is very different to the original draft.

As ever, I hope you like it. No warnings needed for this chapter, which is a relief after the last few. If I've made a mistake anywhere, please let me know (I've done the 'finish it and post it straight away' thing again).

That's it really, other than Bioware owns all characters and settings, and enjoy!

Hawke's gasps were ragged, almost sobs as Fenris' hand, clear of her blood, came between them and pushed her back to collapse against the wall instead of his chest.

She slid slightly down the wall until her knees firmed, leaving her hair bunched up on the stone behind her and her eyes closed as one hand pressed tight against her chest.

He waited until her breathing had slowed and steadied before shifting back a half-step.

The slight movement caught her attention; her eyes opened and her head tilted forward from the wall as her legs tensed, pushing her a little straighter.

He ignored her hooded stare, instead turning his head aside to glare at the wall. He could still feel the phantom imprint of her heart against his hand. Looking at her only tempted him to replace it with the real thing. "Explain."

She dipped her head, hair falling forwards. Her hand moved from her chest to the wall, pushing her fully to her feet. A glance towards her showed her legs rigid but trembling, her arms crossing across her chest – to protect it, or to stop her hands from shaking? "There's a lot to tell." Her voice rasped and caught in her throat. She cleared it and licked her lips before continuing, only a little stronger than before. She glanced up at him, her eyes exhausted but clear. "Danarius had an apprentice before Varania. Her name was Hadriana."

Fenris tilted his head, eyes narrowing. There was the slightest pause before the name, a hint of emphasis, as though she expected the name to mean something to him. Fenris just turned his head fractionally more towards her to show he was listening.

Hawke drew in a breath, lifting her shoulders as her eyes dropped again. "She made your life unbearable, Fenris. Three years ago, we were at the Wounded Coast, doing some errand or another when a group of slave hunters found you. The last one alive told you that Hadriana was nearby, at the Holding Caves. We went straight there to confront her. When we won, she tried to bargain for her life. She told you that you had a sister."

Fenris' hands tightened. "Varania." When she nodded, he took two stiff steps away from Hawke, to restrain himself. It wasn't quite pacing, but it was close. "What did she say?"

Hawke sighed. "That was just to get your attention; to stop you from killing her immediately. Hadriana said she would tell you about her if you spared her life. You agreed." Hawke's shoulders lifted slightly. "Hadriana said she was a servant in a magister's household in Qarinus."

Fenris' shoulders loosened slightly, staring at the far wall without focus. "A servant, you said?"

He saw her nod out of the corner of his eye. "She wasn't a slave. She'd left the magister's service, and came here to Minrathous. She was a tailor."

Fenris nodded, a sharp jerk of his head. "What then? This Hadriana – what happened?" He heard Hawke sigh, chanced a look back at her.

She shrugged when she caught his eyes. "She died. You killed her."

Fenris turned slowly, a small frown tightening his brow. "Although I had given my word to spare her," he said, drawing the words out.

It hadn't been meant as a question, but Hawke nodded anyway. "Yes. She deserved it. You'd told me that much."

Fenris ducked his hand and slashed his hand through the air between them. "Irrelevant. It is done now. What came of this information?"

Hawke nodded, taking a deep breath and looking up at the ceiling. It wasn't the old look, the one she used when avoiding a topic. It was just tired. "You tracked your sister down. You wrote to her, and eventually sent her enough coin for passage to Kirkwall. You were worried though. You thought it could be a trap. The fact she was in Minrathous and not Qarinus made things more difficult."

Fenris lifted his hands, palms up, before letting them fall back to his side. "How so?"

Hawke closed her eyes, smiled. There was a breath of air that might have been a snort if it was stronger. "Because this is the capital of the Imperium, and where Danarius lived. He hadn't stopped hunting you since you escaped the first time. You'd spent the past few years being paranoid, and it had saved you more than once. If Hadriana knew you had a sister, then so did Danarius, and you knew he wouldn't hesitate to use her against you."

Fenris tensed again, a muscle in his jaw ticking. It wasn't what she told him as much as her attitude. Her smile, the almost-laugh, the weary way she recited everything as though it was all obvious, and he particularly dim for not knowing it already.

He was aware that he wasn't being entirely fair, but the shaking in his hands hadn't stopped, the choking, burning weight in his chest hadn't lifted. Hawke's heart pressed against his hand again, and he clenched it into a fist to kill the sensation.

He could do it, if he chose. He could kill her. She wasn't watching him, her arms were looser – not that they could stop him anyway.

Danarius' warning rang in his head, but Fenris shook it away. A maiming could go wrong, leave her dead. Who would argue that her heart was crushed when confronted with a destroyed limb? If bones shattered, they could so easily hit an artery. He would be punished, but he had survived that before. It would be worth it.

For a sister he'd never known?

Fenris dipped his head, turning away sharply from his own thoughts.

For a sister he could have had.

Hawke had known. All this time, she could have told him. Given him something to value. Instead she stole even the chance away.

She deserved to die for that.

But... if she knew about Varania, what else did she know about? What else was she hiding from him?

He remembered the story about Hadriana, promising her life then taking it away after she had given him what he needed to know. What was to stop him doing the same here?

He didn't even have to say he would spare her. All she had asked for was the chance to explain. He could get the answer to all of his questions before he killed her, and he wouldn't even be breaking his word.

Slowly, his muscles loosened, the tension slipping out of him as the same kind of calm he felt in battle sank in.

He didn't know if Hawke noticed the change, didn't much care. It didn't matter if she did.

"What then?" His voice sounded different; hollow, drained. He turned to look at her again, caught her watching him. The wariness was there again, the brief smile gone in favour of lips pressed into a line and tight eyes.

She stayed silent for a long moment, staring at him from behind her closed expression. She must have drawn some conclusion from his face, because her eyes closed briefly and her head dipped, her breath sighing out of her.

Then her eyes opened and she turned her head away to look at the floor, her voice steady but tired. "It took three years for Varania to arrive; I guess a lot of that was gathering enough coin for passage, but you never said. You only told me you'd been looking for her after she'd reached Kirkwall. You'd asked Aveline – you remember she's Guard Captain? – if she could monitor the incoming ships. She did, and told you when your sister arrived and that she appeared to be alone. You asked me to come to the Hanged Man – where Varania was staying – with you. You still thought it might be a trap."

Fenris drew in a deep breath, turning his head away again. "And was it?"

"Yes."

He clamped his eyes shut, breathing again as his hands clenched and relaxed.

She could be lying. It would give her a reason to kill Varania, after all. What better way to avoid paying for her own betrayal than by revealing and avenging another?

Even if she was, how would he know? She was the only one who would tell him any version of the story, true or not. If he didn't believe her, he was no better off than he was now.

But if he did believe her... would he be better off for knowing he had a traitor for a sister?

Hawke didn't wait for his prompt this time, pressing on. Her voice was tight, bitter.

Fenris wondered if she could fake that.

"Varania had led Danarius and his men to Kirkwall. She said she had no choice, but from the sound of it she wasn't forced into it. Danarius was going to make her his apprentice if she helped him. She could have said no, she could have left you alone, but she didn't." Hawke was rushing now, spitting the words out.

Fenris remembered the gash in the elf – in Varania's throat. She'd looked tiny, delicate. He wasn't surprised she had fallen to such anger.

"He was in the tavern, with some of his soldiers. He was ready to kill you for the lyrium in your body if you refused to return with him to Minrathous." Hawke shook her head, folding her arms around herself in that old gesture that struck Fenris as painfully familiar. He half-expected her teeth to start worrying her lip, or her eyes to start darting across the floor. Chasing invisible spiders.

Instead she sighed, tilted her head back and shook it, eyes unfocused but steady. One arm unfolded to rest a hand against her neck, thumb running idly over the bruises and blood he'd left there. "I wouldn't let him take you."

He didn't freeze, he wasn't tense enough for that, but a stillness settled into his muscles that paralysed him all the same. "'Let'? What do you mean?"

Hawke glanced up at him, eyes flickering as she caught his expression, before huffing, shaking her head again. "Not what you're thinking. You were never my slave nor my servant, Fenris, no matter what Danarius thought." Her lip curled around the name, brows dipping. "I wouldn't let him take you, because you were one of the closest friends I had and-" She stopped dead, mouth open but no sound coming out. Her eyes, previously so steady on his, faltered and dropped. Her mouth closed, she took a breath, and continued with something Fenris was certain she hadn't been about to say.

"... And I couldn't bear the thought of you returning to Minrathous, or dying. I wasn't about to let Danarius take you away or kill you, and I wasn't going to let him leave after what you'd told me about him. Not that he would have done, of course. He was there to win, but I don't think he ever expected to lose."

Fenris opened his mouth, hesitated, clamped his teeth together but kept his lips drawn back. He was torn between demanding to know what she had really intended to say, and learning about their final minutes of freedom.

His gauntlets were digging into his palms, leaving white-to-red marks in his skin.

History won. That didn't stop his frustration from leaking out.

"Yet despite all your determination, we failed," he snarled, a petty surge of pleasure at any of her failings rising in his gut. It didn't matter that he had also lost, just that she had-

She was shaking her head.

Fenris growled and threw himself into pacing. It didn't help. "If we did not fail, then why are we here?"

Hawke's shoulders hunched, and her thumb paused over one of the raised welts in her neck left by his gauntlet. "That's where Varania becomes involved."

Fenris slowed to a halt, closing his eyes briefly before giving a terse nod. "Continue."

Hawke dipped her head before looking past him to the far wall, talking quietly. "We beat Danarius, despite the slavers and demons and spells he threw at us. You dealt what we thought was the finishing blow; two punctures to his throat." She said, tilting her head to the right and raising her other hand to briefly tap the left side of her neck with two fingers before folding the arm around her ribs again.

Fenris turned. He'd seen those scars, usually hidden behind Danarius' high collars. Two sets of four marks. One set were clearly punctures, but the others were ragged, long, deeper at one end than the other, as though Danarius had been moving away when he received them. Fenris had wondered about them, but never dared ask nor even look at them too long. He looked down at his hand, running his armoured thumb across the inside of his fingers. He'd never have imagined he had been the one to put them there.

Somehow, out of everything, that little detail struck him as true. If she was honest about that, then maybe none of it was a lie.

He pushed the thought away. The best lies were woven through with truth. That's what made them believable. Besides, Hawke had probably seen the scars herself. She could have invented where Danarius had gained them.

Then why did the shape and size of the scars match the fingers of his gauntlets so well?

Hawke shifted against the wall, transferring her weight to her off leg. "But then you went after Varania."

His sister's name caught his attention, and he looked up from his hand.

"You couldn't see past her betrayal; she was just another puppet of the magisters', one used to trick you. You wanted to kill her." Her head fell back towards the wall and she gave a small breath of a laugh. This one was so bitter that he couldn't find any anger for it. "I told you to let her live. I'd lost my whole family – my parents and brother dead, my sister imprisoned in the Gallows – and I still regret not being able to save any of them. I may not have killed any of them outright, but I couldn't stand by and let you make that mistake, because I knew how much having a family meant to you."

She shook her head, turning aside and swallowing. "I was certain that you would regret killing Varania if I didn't stop you." She bared her teeth, but there was no smile there. "Now I regret getting you to listen. You let her go, but as soon as we left the Hanged Man, she came back and used blood magic to save Danarius. He wasn't quite dead – unconscious, and had he been left, he would have bled out within minutes. But Varania used the blood of the slavers we'd killed, and her own, to save him. Of course, Danarius couldn't deny her an apprenticeship after that." Her lips were hitched up over her teeth, watching her it seemed like she had to force them down in order to press her lips tight together in a grimace.

Fenris had seen disgust on his master's face while escorting him through the peasants in the streets often enough to recognise it on Hawke's now.

Yet something wasn't right.

"You said we had left. How do you know what she did afterward?" He asked, spreading his hands, frowning.

His hope that this was a slip, a sign it was all a story, dimmed as Hawke answered easily, without any hesitation or rush to indicate she was lying.

"She told me, in the cellar. That's why I killed her. I... I couldn't deal with the knowledge that had I just kept quiet, we wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be here. If it was just me, I wouldn't care so much, but..." she trailed off, head tilted back to rest against the wall, eyes closed but brow furrowed. Her shoulders lifted with her breath and her eyes opened, staring at the ceiling as she continued. "But because of me, you had to come back here knowing exactly what would happen. You knew Danarius would take your memories, take everything from you, and it was my fault, Fenris, and I'm so sorry-" She cut herself off, eyes blinking rapidly as they rove over the ceiling.

Her bruises pulsed and sank as she swallowed, sucking in a sharp breath. Both hands were gripping her elbows, her large, bony knuckles white, her thin bones below her fingers standing out in the hollows of her skin.

Fenris bowed his head. This reaction, this guilt, he believed.

That didn't mean he could stop now. "If Danarius didn't capture us then; how were we enslaved?" He let his voice soften, and fatigue seeped in without his permission.

Hawke closed her eyes, and her shoulders trembled as she held her breath in, but when she let it out in a long, controlled sigh, her voice was steady if thick. "We let our guard down. You'd gone back to your mansion after-"

He had to interrupt. "My what?"

That triggered an unintended smile. "It was Danarius' borrowed estate, but you moved in after we scared Danarius out of Kirkwall. You took great pleasure in tearing it apart, even though we all went on at you to at least do something about the mushrooms growing in the foyer."

His eyebrows were creeping up his forehead. He knew it, could feel it, but couldn't quite wrestle back control of them to lower them.

Hawke let her head fall forward from the wall and managed a small grin when she saw his expression. "It's true. We all just started calling it 'Fenris' Mansion'. You never did get rid of the mushrooms, you know." Then the smile dimmed, and her eyes slid away from his as she lifted a hand away from her elbow and waved it, brushing the detail aside.

Invisible weight settled back on his shoulders, his skin prickling. It was like standing underground, feeling the weight of the earth above.

A tiny frown puckered his brow. How did he know what being underground felt like?

"Anyway, you'd gone home after the battle. I went to see how you were later that night. You didn't feel as... victorious, I guess, as you expected to. You'd spent so long running and waiting for the chance to kill Danarius that you didn't know what else to do, or how to move on."

The stop wasn't as sudden this time, but there was a definite pause there, not merely one to gather her thoughts. Something was telling him she was holding back again, but he couldn't place what. Her posture, her expression-

She bit her lip. It was fast, more of a scrape, but that little stifled tell made him certain he was right.

"You're holding something back, Hawke."

It was gratifying to see her wince, though she recovered quickly. She eyed him side-on, and he recognised her way of debating with herself, wondering if she could get away with refusing.

Three weeks ago, yes. Not now.

"Tell me."

She glanced at the ceiling in either frustration or prayer, he couldn't tell. "Fenris, I- all we did was talk."

He raised an eyebrow. "So why hesitate?"

She hesitated. "I- well, do you remember every conversation you had four months ago?"

His other eyebrow joined the first, but his voice was mild. "I don't remember four months ago."

She grimaced at that, opened her mouth – presumably to apologise.

Fenris didn't give her the chance. "Which is why I'm asking you, Hawke."

Her mouth closed. She stared at him, realised that, no, he wasn't going to stop asking, and dropped her head back against the wall with a small thud. "Fine. Given what I did today, I doubt you'll like it."

When he didn't change his mind, Hawke let her eyes slide away and instead fixed them on a point on the opposite wall, her voice flat and carefully controlled.

"We had slept together, after that fight with Hadriana. Just one night. It could have been more, but it brought your memories back, just for a moment. You couldn't cope with them all surging back only to vanish again, so you left." Her eyes were cool, but her jaw was tense, the muscle flickering.

It was only seeing hers that made him realise his own jaw was aching from the pressure. He loosened it and drew a breath in – what felt like the first breath since she'd spoken – and turned away. He wanted to pace again, but couldn't bring himself to move.

He'd slept with her. Slept with his sister's murderer.

He should feel angry – should feel sick-

He didn't. Just a distant pang of disappointment. He wasn't even sure if it was with himself.

She hadn't murdered Varania then, he reasoned. She would just be a name to her for years yet. Even so, his sister had betrayed him, had turned him into Danarius when he had wanted to remain free – had fought to stay free for years.

They had to be why he wasn't disgusted, furious with himself. There had to be some explanation, one he hadn't thought of yet.

He shook his head once, sharply. Focus. He could think his reaction through later.

"My memories... something else you lied about."

He could only see her legs clearly, the rest of her blurring into his peripheral vision, but he could see her tense.

"I didn't lie about them, Fenris."

He turned back to her, movements sharp.

Her arms were still crossed, her expression closed off, but he could see the beginnings of a frown around her mouth.

"So seeing someone from my past and sleeping with you is the same thing, according to you?"

Her eyes hardened and her nostrils flared, jaw tensing again. "I didn't lie." Each word surged, rising in the middle before her voice faded and she bit out the next. "You saw someone – Varania, in fact, just minutes before Danarius arrived – and remembered playing with her as a child while your mother worked. When we slept together, your memories came back. All of them, from what I can gather. There was a big difference."

Fenris dipped his head, acknowledging it, though the burning in his gut compelled him to object, if softer than the feeling demanded. "You still could have told me."

He wondered if she'd picked up on the quiet tone, because while frustration bled into every word, the anger he expected wasn't there. "Fenris, I wasn't even supposed to see you, never mind tell you that you'd got your memories back for all of a second after sleeping together."

He snorted, his hands snapping through frustrated gestures. "That didn't stop you before, Hawke. You have told me so many things that you shouldn't have. Why not this? Why not my sister?"

While he was sharp movements, she was still, calm, but her eyes were tight when she met his. "Because I wasn't in danger of dying before. I had something to lose by ignoring Danarius' orders. But if you're going to kill me, I at least want to make sure it's after you've got the whole story. You deserve that. We both do."

That brought him to a stop, his hands drifting back to his sides, almost forgotten.

She smiled, a bitter little twist at one corner spoiling it. "We both know that could happen. If it does..." She shrugged; looking away, off to a middle distance instead of at anything in the room. "Well, maybe it'll help you escape one day. I hope one of us gets out, at least. I'm starting to doubt both of us can. Two other slaves, maybe. Just not us."

Fenris' head dipped, turning slightly so he didn't have to look at her. His fingers folded in against his palm, but he couldn't feel her heart anymore. "You never did tell me about your escape attempt. Or why you never tried since." His voice was lower than he expected, rougher. He could feel the anger still seething in his chest, but it felt smothered, out of reach.

He heard her sigh and shift, but didn't look. Staring at a bookcase was easier.

"Our escape attempt," she said softly. "We tried a few times. Stirred up a slave rebellion on the ship here, fought our way out of the dungeons and into the courtyard. Right into a trap; Danarius expected us to try something. They took you straight to his workshop, to erase your memories, and threw me in the cells for a few weeks. I couldn't try again after that. I couldn't leave you behind." She laughed, quiet and bitter. "You probably think that was stupid of me."

'No.'

He flinched from the stray thought, then shifted his shoulders to mask the movement. "I don't know, Hawke. If freedom is what you truly want... I don't see why you would stay because of me. I don't know if that makes you a fool."

She gave a small hum of a laugh. "Neither do I. So where does that leave us?"

His lips lifted, and he shook his head. Smiling. After all this, he was smiling.

He was mad. He had to be.

"Three years ago, I believe," He lifted his head so she could see his face, the curve of his mouth.

That single laugh again. "Of course, though there isn't much more to say. You left, and that was it. We weren't the same as before, not exactly, but we tried to be. We never talked about it though. You were too ashamed, too afraid. I was too stubborn. I told myself I was just giving you space, but really I just didn't want to be the one to bring it up first." She rolled her eyes and grinned to herself. "Cowards, the pair of us."

The insinuation should have rankled. He should have wanted to argue. Instead, there was just the bizarre urge to laugh and nod. He stifled the sound, but had to settle for dipping his head and shuffling when the nod refused to be quelled.

Hawke sighed. "Anyway, three years passed, Varania arrived and we fought Danarius. When we talked afterwards at the mansion, you brought it up. We talked things through, realised we'd both been stupid for leaving it that long. We decided we wanted to try again, see if we could make things work." She gave him a small smile, but the skin around her eyes was creased. "Won't hold you to that, by the way. Wouldn't be fair, and- well. A lot's happened." Her voice faded out and her eyes drifted away, distant.

He didn't say it, but even if he did care for her as much as she remembered, he knew they both might have changed too much for them to work now.

Still, the idea that he had cared for her – for anyone – that much... how much trust had he placed in her? If he could trust her then...

It was only then he realised he'd stopped doubting her at some point, but couldn't place when.

Hawke leant away from the wall, rolled her shoulders and cleared her throat, frowning as her eyes came back into focus.

"Regardless, we didn't get much of a chance at anything. We heard footsteps on the stairs. You thought it was Varric, picking up his pack of cards or something, but when you opened the door... " She wrapped her arms around herself again, shoulders hunching in a shrug but staying up as she huddled back against the wall. "Neither of us expected a dead man and a group of soldiers to be on your landing. We were unarmed, heavily outnumbered, taken by surprise. Even we couldn't beat those odds." She was staring at nothing again, the skin around her eyes hollow and dark. Exhausted.

Fenris shifted, only then becoming aware that his legs had started to ache from standing so long. He had no idea how long they had been here.

In that case, a little longer wouldn't go amiss.

"And your friends? Your Guard Captain and this... Varric? They haven't come after you?" He asked, his hands opening and lifting slightly from his sides, palms out, as much a question as his words.

Hawke's mouth thinned and she turned her head away, shoulders tightening. "I'm sure they tried. Maybe they still are. There wasn't much to go on though, Fenris. We were both unconscious, so we couldn't leave a trail or make enough noise to be noticed while being transferred to the ship. The only likely culprit was dead as far as they knew; some of them had been with us in the tavern. They saw Danarius die. How could they know he was responsible after that?"

He shook his head, lifted his shoulders in defeat. "I'm sorry, Hawke."

She stretched her mouth, but it wasn't really a smile. "That makes two of us."

They both lapsed into silence, not quite looking at each other, but not ignoring each other either. More waiting for one to break the quiet.

Eventually, Hawke lifted her head from contemplating the floor and sighed, the noise knocking through the stillness of Fenris' muscles. He straightened and stretched, rolling his shoulders as Hawke pushed her arms away from her, flexing her fingers as she stepped away from the wall. When her arms fell, her loose, ready stance reminded him of the early days in the training ring. Deceptively relaxed until she had to move. Her eyes were tense but clear, meeting his squarely for what felt like the first time in a long while. "So, what now?"

He tilted his head, eyebrows lifted.

She gave a smile without teeth and lifted a hand to tap the bruises he'd left on her neck, then dropped it to rest over her heart. "Still going to kill me, Fenris?"

He stared, mouth slightly open for an automatic answer that didn't come. He took a breath, turned to face her fully, fingers closing and opening against his palm.

Was he?

He reached for that anger, the fury of she killed your sister, and found something old and tired, smouldering but nothing like the blaze it had been.

He turned to the stories, the memories he didn't have. Worry and hope and paranoia proved right. A sister who betrayed him. A sister he had tried to kill. A dead master surviving after all. Failed escape attempts. Memories stolen again. Through it all, Hawke beside him. Hawke he went to for help, for support. Hawke who refused to leave this life while he was still here.

Hawke who was standing there, waiting to die.

Fenris closed his eyes, drew in a breath that made him shake. His fist clenched for a moment, the pain of metal digging into his skin helping him focus.

He lifted his head and met her eyes, completely free of secrets for the first time. He didn't know everything, not by far, but she wouldn't hide it anymore.

So wary, so tired. He wondered if she'd fight back if he said yes. He'd be hard-pressed if she did. He'd win, she had too many disadvantages, but she'd make him struggle first.

Had he lost anything, really? A sister, but a traitor.

What would he lose, if he killed her?

His past. Who he was. Everything she knew he would lose.

Slowly, he shook his head. "No, Hawke. I won't kill you."

Slowly, her muscles softened and she smiled fully for the first time.

It didn't fix everything. Maybe nothing would.

Yet maybe there was a chance.