A Note From SF: This chapter is entirely inappropriate, unacceptable and utterly, utterly NSFW.

I apologize in advance.

Everything was unnaturally bright here. And hot.

Brand fanned herself, cursing the dress that clung heavily to her skin. What seemed appropriate wear for Ferelden was hopelessly gauche in this well-appointed apartment in…

Where am I?

She took in the room around her, feet rooted together. Everything here was light and cool except the air itself, which was impossibly thick and there were clothes strewn haphazardly across the floor and the furniture. Brand couldn't blame anyone for going naked here.

The longer she stood, the more she could sense. This place smelled of fresh flowers and, sure enough, there was a clay vase on a table that was full of them, huge and colorful. Flowers in Ferelden were lovely, but never so brilliant.

There were also sounds coming from the next room but still distant, as if the next room was on the other side of a chasm. It wasn't, though, it was just next, and Brand felt herself drifting in and immediately wishing she hadn't. Maybe.

Alistair was there, naked and above a woman who was urging him on with a steady stream of…Brand closed her eyes and thought of Zevran.

This…this is Antiva.

But the woman below Alistair, with her head thrown back so he could bury his face against her throat, was not Antivan at all. It was her.

Maker, is that what I look like when I'm…?

Antivan Brand opened her eyes and they were wrong, blue and not green, the face around them settling into a beautiful version of Brand with darker skin and less awkward limbs. And no scars to speak of.

Alistair should see this, too, that the woman he thrust against as if thrusting was his duty was not her and she felt indignation rising, and just a little bit of jealousy…but he slowed as if sensing that he'd somehow ended up inside the wrong woman, taking a hard look at her before continuing on his merry way. Brand wanted to smack him or something and tell him: "She's wrong. Beautiful, but wrong."

She almost did it, too, which would have been beyond embarrassing, but suddenly she was standing in the yard of the Vigil, Anders beside her looking distinctly amused.

"I had no idea you liked to watch," his eyebrow lowered suggestively. "I bet we could put on a much more entertaining show."

Brand looked down at her bloodstained dress and back to him, "Not wearing these clothes we couldn't."

"That's why we wouldn't be wearing these clothes. Or any clothes," he glanced around the empty yard. "Would you think me depraved, my lady, if I told you I have the sudden urge to bend you over the well?"

"Bend me over the well?" Brand could tell by the curve of his lips and the spark in his eyes that he was mostly joking. "I'd just think you were trying to throw me in and doing a really terrible job of it."

"Oh, there'd be nothing terrible about it," his hand found hers. "But, even here, Garavel's probably lurking around the corner, all scowls and ready disdain. He might push us both in."

He tugged at her and she allowed herself to be led.

"Do you know why you're in the Fade? Do you know about the poison?"

Brand nodded; she'd heard him and Fiona speaking above her body, their voices coming to her as if she were underwater.

"I'm either dead or in some sort of unnatural state of sleep," she bit her lip. "I guess I'm hoping for the latter?"

This made him laugh, and he stopped to wrap his arms around her. "You were sedated so you wouldn't knock about as much. But I think you'll be mostly all right."

"'Mostly all right?' I can't say that I care for the sound of that…" Brand touched her arm where the dagger had bit her, but she was now wearing a wine-colored silk gown, her court uniform, and her arm was unmarred. Being a full-time Arlessa usually meant that she wasn't being stabbed on a regular basis. Well, it used to.

"Fiona thinks you might have lasting damage, from what could spread before we caught it. It should be fairly localized," his finger traced the spot she'd just acknowledged and the wound appeared as it must be now, clotted black with blood and surrounded by faint veins. He moved his hand over again and it vanished even as his face grew serious. "The biggest concern is permanent weakness, in your arm and possibly other places. Like...everywhere."

"Will you still love me if I'm feeble?" Despite the light-hearted joke, this news hurt her more than she let on. She'd been defined by strength for so long, it would be incredibly difficult to lose that. And dangerous. "Now is probably not the best time for me to become a mere mortal."

"Fortunately for us, Brand Cousland as mere mortal is still probably ten times as badass as the next ranking badass," he caught her chin and tilted her head back. "And as long as you keep your tongue and your smile, it would take a minor miracle, or a gaggle of exceptionally attractive damsels, to tear me away."

She couldn't help but grin at that, and he responded with a kiss, hand sliding along her jaw into her hair and his mouth pressing against hers with a command of desire that took her breath away. She pushed forward the tiniest bit so that their tongues could draw at one another's lips before meeting. His palm slid from her neck down her back to pull their hips tantalizingly close and if she concentrated hard enough, she could feel...

Brand's eyes opened suddenly. She was alone in a bed in an unfamiliar room and the warmth of Anders' dream lips remained. Odd how even her mind wouldn't let her seal the deal with him.

What if this is just a sign that you aren't meant to be?

Sadness ached her throat as she remembered the words he'd spoken to her before she collapsed. There was so much promise there, but also so much concern implied by certain words, like templars and normal.

They weren't normal. He was a mage, and she was the mother of the heir to the arling of Redcliffe. She'd tried to avoid that truth, that Bryce had any responsibility to the Guerrin name, but after spending a few minutes with Eamon's body, truth had began to gnaw at her.

It was one thing for a Grey Warden to fall in love with another Grey Warden, titles and magic were secondary to them being Wardens. But for an arlessa, even one just holding the title until her son came of age, to be with an apostate...that would be entirely unacceptable. Yet that's exactly what she and Anders would be. An arlessa and her apostate.

Unacceptable. Just like we would have been at any point since we met.

Fiona had only spoken of the father of her child on one occasion, the impossible weight of an impossible decision bowing her shoulders even twenty-five years later. He was a respectable man, she said, a man who couldn't afford to have an elven mistress, much less one that was a mage. He'd wanted her to remain close, he'd wanted their child in his life, but she had no place outside of the Wardens, where she'd be labeled an apostate and reduced to hiding her magic beneath menial labor or subsisting on money he sent her, and always, always, always fearful that the templars would find her, to take her away without warning.

Brand had thought about that man quite a bit, wondering why he would allow himself to get involved with Fiona, much less impregnate her, knowing what she was and that they couldn't be together, even privately.

Now, as she laid there half delirious from magicked sleep, she knew exactly why he'd done it. She even understood what must have been his sad and desperate hope for impossible happiness. He probably even imagined, as Anders had, a life where he and Fiona and their daughter could be a family, safe and normal and...a family.

Instead, he'd gotten nothing. Fiona had gotten nothing. And their child was out there somewhere, now an adult who had no idea the tragedy of societal pressures that meant she lived without ever knowing either of them and how her life was the product of a fleeting and doomed love that existed even though it was never meant to be.

It was a trap all along, and now you're caught, too.

Brand slid back into unconsciousness, choosing sleep over pondering the implications of that.

She awoke to soft fingertips against her cheeks, her vision struggling to make sense of the shape at her head, pale in the otherwise dark of the unfamiliar room.

"Hi, Momma," Bryce whispered this and she realized he was sitting on the edge of the bed next to her, his head bowed above her own. She waited for more to come, the story of how he'd found himself here and possibly what he had eaten for dinner. Instead he remained silent, his hand now brushing at her hair.

"Hi, Bryce," her voice was so quiet, it seemed a thought rather than speech.

"You're hurt," he sat up and folded his arms across his stomach, and she almost expected a lecture. "Pounce hurt me, but he was trying to help find bad people."

She almost asked, but decided against it. Whatever explanation he gave would have just enough details to set her to fretting without actually giving her anything to fret about. She noticed he was chewing on his lip, looking thoughtfully at her, and she became aware of more than just him there with her in the bed.

"Anders is hugging you," this was said with an incredible amount of frankness and more than a little and how long has this been going on? And he was hugging her, in a way. She could feel his breath in her hair, his stomach pressed against her arm and his arm securely across her stomach. It wasn't right, though, all sensations muted as if she'd been outside in the cold for too long and her skin had gone numb from exposure.

Bryce was waiting for a response, and perhaps an explanation.

"Does Anders hugging me bother you?" He pondered this for a moment, then shook his head. "Good. Do you want to stay with me for the rest of the night? I need to sleep, and you should try, too. If you can't, though, you'll have to sit quietly. All right?"

"Sig- Sigrun let me in," he moved down so he could fit under her arm and she held onto him as tightly as she could, willing strength into her fingers so he would feel secure beside her.

A few seconds later, she heard Bryce giggle, followed by a soft snort of amusement from Anders.

"Bryce's fat belly is imposing on my hand space," this was a low murmur, and Bryce made an indignant sound then laughed again when Anders gave his stomach another gentle poke. "Ugh, you are a noisy thing. Some people are trying to sleep."

She could feel Bryce smiling against her side, and she imagined that his face must look very much like her own at that moment, especially when Anders pressed closer so his hand could cover her own at Bryce's back.

And it felt the furthest thing in the world from a trap.

When Brand opened her eyes again, Fiona sat vigil in a chair by a shuttered window, sunlight filtering in haphazardly through uneven wooden slats. Second day of travel and we're already behind schedule. Brand made an attempt to sit up quickly, but every muscle in her body resisted and her left arm offered no support at all, buckling uselessly beneath her weight.

"Dammit," she could see the elven woman watching her, face in blank observational mode. Brand wondered if Fiona could sense the ache in Brand's breast that wasn't physical hurt but worry.

"Did Anders tell you about the weakness?" Fiona stood and came to sit on the edge of the bed, but kept her hands close as Brand made a second effort to force herself upright. This time she succeeded. Although her head buzzed with the effort, she felt a small surge of victory.

"Sort of," Brand tried to recapture the details of her dream. "We were in the Fade, maybe? Or perhaps he told me while I slept and it seeped into my subconscious."

Fiona nodded, "He might have been able to access you in the Fade, given the sheer amount of lyrium and magic in use last night."

"Would I have been able to see Alistair's dreams?" Blood rushed to her face as soon as she asked the question, and Fiona looked distinctly taken aback.

"There's no reason...why you should have...Why do you ask?" The other woman's eyes were bright with interest. Brand had noticed her being strangely outgoing with Alistair the day before, but her flicker of curiosity had gotten buried beneath everything else that happened.

"Oh, then that must mean it was my dream and not his...dammit," Brand kneaded her forehead, trying to eradicate the image of Alistair and a woman who might have been her or not. "I think the events of the past few days are starting to get to me."

Fiona wasn't listening, her brown eyes staring off someplace Brand could never hope to see. She startled suddenly, as if poked, and blinked a few times.

"Might I ask about him?" It seemed an oddly formal request, and not one Brand was in the mood to grant until she remembered that Fiona had probably spent much of the night worrying over her.

"Anders didn't put you up to this, did he?" Brand plucked at the blanket covering her legs. "I keep waiting for him to ask for more of an explanation, but he never does. I'm starting to think that Oghren or Zevran may have told him when he first joined the Wardens."

"So it is him, the comrade you mentioned," the mage's mouth turned down at the corners and she pulled at her robes, looking discomfited by this small revelation. "He's the one you said was betrayed."

All Brand could do was nod dumbly and hope that her face didn't betray too much of anything. She wasn't even able to identify all the emotions tumbling in her head like the rocks found on Eamon's body when she shook them in her hand.

"What happened?" Fiona's voice was almost otherworldly in its softness.

For a few moments, what happened seemed too far away for Brand to grasp, much less dust off and regurgitate. Sure, there was the academic version, but she imagined Fiona wanted more.

"We were lovers, during the Blight," and that seemed like a lie, somehow. It did nothing to touch how desperately close they'd become; two people who'd lost everyone else clinging to each other to avoid adding one more name to that list. She didn't want to go beyond that, though. She scratched the surface of truth but she could not bring herself to resurrect the pain that would be caused by speaking it aloud.

"You know the rest of the story. Ostagar happened, and only two Grey Wardens survived; one of us ended the Blight and the other turned his back on his country. The detail everyone omits these days is that the hero betrayed the exile by expecting him to serve alongside the man who killed his order and his brother."

"Why do you think people forget that part?" Fiona sounded genuinely curious.

"Nobody wants their hero to be less than perfect. And they don't want to put themselves into his shoes, because nobody wants to think they could walk away from a house on fire knowing full well that there are still people inside screaming for help. But I don't blame him for leaving Ferelden. I made it clear that I was in charge and had it all under control."

And words could not describe the bitterness of her tone at the last bit. Before that, her voice unspooled into stillness with an eerie lack of affect, calm despite the lives that were destroyed in between carefully neutral and deliberately chosen explanations.

"But you blame him for leaving you," there was an idle assumption to the way this came out that struck Brand all wrong.

"No, I can't. I would have done the same thing had he asked to spare Howe, knowing what he took from me," that thought burned. "As far as I'm concerned, I failed him more than anyone had his entire life. And, considering that his real father shunted him off as an embarrassment and his foster father kept him in a hayloft until he could be packed away to the Chantry, that's an unforgiveable amount of failure."

This was as much as she could bear to say, fatigue suddenly pulling her mind and body down as if it were a physical weight hanging from her. A week's worth of being near him without ever truly acknowledging the things that had transpired between them- from beginning to end- was starting to take a mental toll. She gave into rest once more, even as Fiona silently absolved her of being the person who had failed Alistair the most.

That was a mantle that Fiona had borne for over twenty-five years. She wasn't about to give it up now.

Anders watched Brand sleep, having relieved Fiona in mid-afternoon. The day had gone by with excruciating slowness as only Bryce and Nathaniel's young nephew were able to ignore the import of the events from the previous evening. The adults sat in a pall cast by injuries and concern, even Sigrun drawn and cranky from what they all perceived as failure.

Ser Pounce-a-lot was the only one of them who'd actually manage to get things right; Nathaniel allowing a assassin to go undetected on the battlement, Sigrun leading Brand and Alistair out where they were easy targets and not being mindful of the location of their enemies before doing so. Even Fiona and Anders had dropped the ball; only Bryce's cry when Pounce escaped had prevented one of them from being the victim of the arrow which fell the shaky shopkeep.

And now we're behind schedule. Anders made the decision to not even attempt to move Brand that morning, choosing to announce their delay via courier. Fergus would no doubt be irritated, but Anders couldn't be bothered to care. He wasn't going to allow the Cousland family impatience to infringe on Brand's much needed rest time.

Not that he wasn't thrilled when she stirred beside him where he sat reading on the bed. He'd been nursing a large mug of tea brewed with elfroot which he shared with her immediately, knowing she'd be thirsty and that the concoction would perk her up and take the edge off the headache induced by drugged sleep.

"Thank you," she buried her face against his shoulder after she'd finished drinking and he was surprised by the affectionate nuzzle. "Hmmm, where's Bryce?"

"He's playing with Will. Everyone has been instructed that you are not to be bothered," he startled as her fingers began toying with his shirt fastens, lazily pulling at them until they gave. And, even though he knew the answer, "Why do you ask?"

"I dreamt about you last night," she shifted so that she could kiss him, her lips teasingly soft against his own. "I thought we might really be together in the Fade, but now I don't think we were."

"I have no memory of...that," her exploration began before he even opened his mouth to respond, nails dragging along his bared chest and stomach. Breath catching, his hips twitched involuntarily as she drew her body closer to his and slipped one hand past the waistband of his pants. "Brand, I really don't think this is the best idea."

But his protestation was incredibly weak, a mumbled nod towards how he'd been trying to keep this from happening too soon, and how he'd wanted to wait until she was whole again.

He had the presence of mind to cradle her face between his palms, allowing himself a brief moment of searching. No pain returned. One of the side effects of the healing last night was that her sundry injuries were all but gone and there certainly seemed to be nothing wrong with her as she moved against him everywhere, mouth on his, breasts firm at his chest and her legs rubbing along his own. Above it all, though, was her hand and the way it woke him up, shoving aside anything resembling resolve as he gave them both a bit more space, unlacing his trousers and pushing them off with her help

Even though he didn't want to end this way, he luxuriated in the sensation of just being held by her, allowing himself to thrust forward into her grip a few times before he maneuvered her back onto the bed, tugging her undergarments down her legs with deliberate care, his palms dragging along her thighs and calves.

"Is this what you want?" He positioned himself on top of her; she automatically put her knees at his hips while his lighting quick hands started stroking her breasts, her stomach, and below.

"Of course it is," this was punctuated with a moan as he began pressing against her, shallow and deep, outside and in, and she'd been here before but this was different, this was more everything as she started to move with his hand while his mouth found her nipple through the thin fabric of a chest wrap that he pulled off in one practiced motion.

He remained at her breasts for a few moments, teeth and breath taunting her, before moving lower to settle at her hips, his fingers easily making their way back in and his tongue following them to begin slowly tracing a languid and unceasing path around her. If his fingers were lighting, this was a whole storm and possibly an earthquake for good measure. He kept the heat rising, building steadily beneath her skin as he read her every move like she was calling out instructions and not just making incomprehensible gasps and moans.

Or maybe he'd done this so often that he was now fluent in incomprehensible gasps and moans.

The muscles adjacent to where he plied were pulled tight and thrumming pleasure up her thighs and down her stomach, all shivery with anticipation. Sensing her about to come undone, he went a little faster and teased out tiny spasms that somehow pushed above the cacophony of Maker, yes to be echoed below and around fingers possessing more than just magic. Without warning, something electric pulsed out of his busy fingertips and shot like embers across and beneath her skin seconds before everything he touched ignited and she climaxed with a cry that required absolutely no experience to be interpreted.

"Think you have the energy to carry on?" He never ceased his efforts, but merely slowed to a lazy pace. This caused warm waves of pleasure to crest up her spine and down her legs even as the muscles between them were still sparking from the intensity of it all.

Brand urged him back up. As good as it felt, and it felt better than pretty much anything ever, she wanted him in a hundred other ways, her entire body yearning for more.

He complied without hesitation, allowing himself to enjoy points of interest he'd glossed over on the way down and to catch himself on her smile, radiant. Radiant and his.

"I think I need to tell you how incredibly gorgeous you are, my dear," his mouth touched hers and her entire body breathed against his in response.

"Even with my scars?" Her fingers were winding into his hair, and she writhed when he responded by kissing the line by her mouth, his lips sliding down her neck to the most recent point of concern, the wound healed to a shiny, pink star below her collarbone. "Anders, I'm ready."

He lingered above her heart, the beat steady against his mouth. He'd been ready for years, probably from the moment she'd set him free with a breathtaking smile that he'd been slavishly devoted to ever since. For a moment, he almost tripped over the I can't believe that this is happening, like a competitive jouster fumbling the lance, but he recovered when he realized that nothing could take her away from him. Not today.

He entered her, one hand on her hip, fingers finding their place as if they were always meant to be there, his forehead pressed against her chest so he could focus only on how it felt. And it felt the way he'd always imagined, which was the same as every other woman he'd ever been inside yet distinctly Brand. With almost imperceptible shifts, he slid back and forth, getting a sense of her before burying himself as deeply as she would allow, reveling in heat and closeness and her. He startled at the needful moan this produced and the undeniable urging of her fingers at his waist.

Raising his gaze to meet hers, eyes shining yet dark, he began to thrust and it was slow, every inch of him catching on every inch of her with a pause as their hips met, and then back out.

Wherever he touched, she responded, every movement he made was intense yet muted joy. He could see her so clearly, but she'd angle herself up slightly and things would hit just a bit differently and his stomach would shiver and his vision would blur and for a few seconds he'd only have the electricity of her skin against his, her voice murmuring his name and the scent of her so maddeningly near.

And I have her.

This was not how he thought it would be, from the desperate way things had went before. This was more reflective of what they actually were, what this actually was. Five years of quiet devotion, of almost having but not holding, of dreaming each other while entangled with nameless flings and a perfectly lovely husband that was never loved. This was orbits and not collisions, this was hope but never realization.

It was an accomplishment, as if it wasn't supposed to happen and they'd somehow circumvented fate and destiny and sidestepped the Maker himself to find themselves pushing and pressing against one another.

And it stretched. Their skin was slick with sweat from the effort of restraint; he ran his hand down her chest and his fingertips left dry tracks from her collarbone to the dusky peak of her nipple. Her thighs raised to replace her hands, her hands raising to curl into his hair, to pull his mouth down to hers in a silent acknowledgement that what she wanted to say was this: thank you, and I love you, and I'm sorry it took so long for this to happen. And he tenderly caught her lip between his teeth: you're here now, that's all that matters a hundred times over.

As they neared the end, never going faster just deeper and a little harder, backs arched and hips moving in counter-circles to one another as the whole point of joining made itself plain, she stopped him with her hand splayed against his stomach, her fingernails scraping and shooting sparks up his chest and down to other places that didn't necessarily need the extra stimulation.

There was nothing she wanted to say, not anything she wanted to do but lay beneath him with her eyes closed, head tilted back and breath held still in her lungs. It was an attempt to capture something whole, and he also allowed himself to think it through, the way they were connected at the core, the fact that a grasp so perfectly gentle could ensnare him so completely.

He started when she twitched her hips against his in a signal to finish and things did go faster from there. He felt the smallest clench around him and the muscles in his legs began to tighten slightly, and every push gripped a little more. Beyond his vision, her hands fell so her fingers could twist into the sheets, gathering the fabric into her fists and using the leverage to better meet him, her thighs still propped against his waist for control that she never exerted.

She held herself up for him, moving with him and without him, hips rolling and breasts pressed skyward and from there it was just a march home. His vision narrowed on her throat, his mouth compelled forward and his tongue running unbidden to taste sweat and skin as every nerve in his body seem to redirect to the tip of him as it traced back and forth along its intended path. Heat, and patience, and delayed gratification became immediate and she came before he did, tightening around him and after him as he continued- he could feel her longing to collapse into the bed but unwilling to relinquish him.

He slid his palm beneath her for support and her hands were able to return to his shoulders. From there she ran them down his back, trying to map him in these final seconds before fire caught fire and he spilled into her with the slightest hitch and moan, then a minute's worth of slowing thrusts that made everything feel liquid and indistinct as all of him pulsed to a stop.

She fell back to earth and brought him with her, and it was fine because they had each others' arms to protect them and her lips were searching him from the outside in. Still connected, he moved them to their sides so she could venture down his neck, her mouth impossibly hot as she tasted him, her tongue burning his skin and her hands exploring his chest and arms.

As air cooled him off and she turned him back on, he touched the top of her head, smoothing mussed chestnut strands as though he could make any real difference. Then he kissed her crown, and breathed into her hair, overwhelmed by nearness and release and

"I love you."

He'd said these words before, but not to her, and he couldn't remember the faces of any of the other women who'd been on the receiving end. But he would remember this I love you above all others because before it was always an overstatement and now it seemed so completely inadequate. He wished there was something else he could say that would express everything he was feeling, everything he had been feeling, since she'd smirked at him in the lower halls of the Vigil and set him free. Not even thank you or this means everything or I want to be with you like this until your Calling becomes our Calling and we go into that endless night together were enough for what he really wanted to say.

Despite his concerns, it seemed to work for her. She moved to look him in the eye, her own glossy with gratitude, hope and the faintest sheen of distant sorrow.

"This is all a trap, you know."

He nodded and tightened his arms around her. He had known that since the day he discovered his pulse was destined to always quicken when she smiled at anyone, not least of all him.

"There are worse things in the world than being caught like this. Although I will admit to just now realizing that Nathaniel's sister might not be as thrilled."

She laughed, all sorrow near and far disappearing as she turned herself over to him again and completely, thoughts of traps, Alistair, exhaustion and Fiona's sad love affair (and poor Delilah's sheets) fading exactly the way she hoped they would when she'd first opened her eyes to find him beside her.