A solitary hawk cried out through the setting sun, its wings parting the dusky air as it rose above the Hinterland trees. Cullen watched it for a time, his fingers clinging to the stones of their abbey, when he leaned too far forward. It knocked a stone loose, sending it skittering over the edge where the broken masonry plopped onto the barely tamed ground. A few of their workers glanced over, eyeing up the man supposed to be in charge.

"We'll fix it tomorrow," he said, his stone destroying hand digging into the back of his neck. "Maker, it's been a long day," Cullen groaned. Giving up on any hope of wringing a knot out, he turned away from the lanterns springing up around their refuge to face the bedroom door. They'd only moved into it a few days ago, having needed to clear out where they had been sleeping for an unexpected ill templar.

Cullen lifted the latch with his thumb and pushed on the door, only to have it stick tight. Blighted perfect. Groaning from the days worth of work spent shuffling from bed to bed, trying to clear out the always falling debris in their ramshackle stables, and then showing a Bann around for good measure, he smacked his head against the door. Mercifully, that was enough to unstick the jam, and it whined inward revealing a sight that made it all worth it.

Their room was a disaster, splintered and useless furniture piled up on one side to rot away into a dust heap. But a solitary desk of rosewood was found in a back room in nearly pristine condition. He had to sand it down and revarnish it, but it was sturdy and ready to take on its new life under their hands. All manner of missives, letters, books, research, and their piles of barely washed clothing filled the top as they had yet to find any other dressers or wardrobes. What brought a smile to his face was the plant perched on the edge. Straining to reach out the window, the silver and green leaves of the poisonous adder's hiss glittered by the setting sunlight and the water being poured across it.

Lana looked beautiful, a concentrated smile on her face as she ran thumb and finger across a leaf while humming that damn song about him under her breath. Funny enough, she wore that blue dress she'd gotten in Val Royeaux over a year ago. Ever since they took the land from the crown, she'd been dressed in tunics and trousers with the ratio of stains to rips always altering as their work stretched on. Today, she thought it best to look presentable. The Bann barely cast a glance at the true brains behind their work, but Cullen couldn't take his eyes off her.

The humming faded and she glanced up at him. Her lips lifted even higher, revealing those hidden dimples she kept secreted away. Cullen's legs wobbled from the way she stared up at him. "Long day," stuttered from his lips as he slid into the room. Turning, he tried to yank the door back but it whined even louder before failing to fully close. "Maker's sake!" he cursed under his breath, abandoning the stuck open door for tomorrow.

Lana placed her watering can down and swept across the floor towards him. He barely lifted his arms before she wrapped around him into an embrace. Maker, holding her calmed his blood in a way nothing else ever could. She rolled her fingers over his back and strained on her toes to look up into his eyes.

"We should celebrate," she pronounced, a glint in her eye.

"Oh?" At the moment, all the celebrating Cullen could manage would be the falling to the floor part. Someone else would have to handle all the carousing and drinking.

"It's our first day as a still nameless refuge," she said, waving an arm. Even through the exhaustion, her infectious smile managed to twist his lips up higher.

"First day?" he scoffed. "Then what were the past two months when we had templars in and out of the rooms."

"Practice?" Lana threw out, striking a lightening guffaw from deep in his gut. His fingers ran across her cheek, the calluses from trying to turn the decrepit abbey into something livable grazing upon her skin. Lana didn't flinch from them; she turned so her lips could press against each one. "We're official now, got the chantry's blessing, the crown's..."

"As if that was difficult to do," Cullen grumbled but generally goodnatured. Alistair was on the far side of the country, after all.

"And," Lana drug it out, her eyes rolling at his no doubt 'king sneer,' "with the Bann giving us his approval it's our first day in business. As it were."

Lightly, Cullen tugged off the flour sack she tied around her hair. Her strands burst free of their constraint, the spirals barely contained after a rainstorm moved through a day ago. Tossing it to their bowing desk, he fluffed her hair up savoring the pull of it upon his fingers. Lana's eyes slipped closed, enjoying the gentle scalp massage before Cullen tipped her head back and planted a kiss. He'd been wanting to do it since she slipped on that dress. Yearned to ditch the Bann, pull Lana aside, and lick every delectable curve of her skin.

She smiled, her grin almost breaking free of his lips before she rolled her fingers around his back to tug herself closer to him. A moan parted her lips, nearly primal enough to convince him he wasn't exhausted beyond measure. The tremor in his hands told him otherwise. Slipping away before he did any damage to himself, Cullen ran a finger across her cheek, trailing her scar.

"Something on your mind?" she asked, a purr rolling under her words.

"Yes," he sighed, "but all my body wants is to curl into bed."

Lana's smile didn't falter, no doubt she was as exhausted, but her eyes darted to their mattress tossed onto the floor. "More like crawl into bed."

He groaned, "Yes, I know. I'll get to it one of these days." He'd had a lofty idea of building his first ever headboard and bed frame, because that was so easy.

"Cullen," she caught his hand and pinned it in her own. Lana's fingers dug into his palm, trying to massage away the calluses sprouting calluses, "I know you will. You always finish what you start."

That wasn't true, there were plenty of things in his life he had to abandon over the years. Like her. Maker, how many times did he walk away from Lana never knowing if he'd ever see her again, if she'd ever want to see him?

The dark turn in his mood must have shone through as she brushed her fingers across his clean shaven face. That earned a momentary frown, Cullen well aware of her preferences. Cupping her wrist, he sighed, "Give it a day and it will return."

"I hope so," she smiled. "The Bann was hardly worth it."

"On that I will concur," he said, tipping his forehead against hers.

"Really?" Lana pursed her lips, drawing his attention to the succulent temptation. "Commander Cullen thinking that the nobility are overrated. I am shocked."

He snickered, "I'm no longer the Commander, remember."

"Yes you are," she said. "Doesn't matter how far you are into retirement. Titles like that, the ones earned in war, they never go away. Well, not unless you go deep into hiding, maybe fake your own death, and then everyone thinks you're the maid or something."

She slipped on an easy smile, but he knew it had to bother her. It angered him to no end when they'd meet with the dignitaries who'd fall all over Cullen as if he pissed gold but barely deign a glance at the woman beside him. The only ones who gave her the respect she deserved were the King and Arl Teagan, the people who knew who Lana truly was. "You deserve better," he huffed.

"I don't know, sometimes it's nice to be a nobody," she said running her fingers down his shirt. As they traipsed near his stomach, Lana's tongue trailed across her lips. "I get to overhear the noble women all a titter over the Commander in their midst. When they're not asking me to fetch them more wine."

He didn't understand it. So many of the gentry treated Lana like furniture, as if she faded into the wallpaper, while he couldn't remember a time that she didn't command his attention from across a crowded room. "I wish I could whack them all about the head," he growled.

"No you don't," Lana chastised, before tipping her head, "all right, some of them I'll give you. Cullen," she drew her fingers down his cheeks, pulling his eyes to hers, "I don't mind. I don't care because, for the love of Andraste, I have you. It's worth it to be able to wake every day in your arms not fearing a darkspawn attack or an army come to knock down our little abbey's walls."

"They could do it with a sneeze," he sighed, well aware of the work still ahead of him. Biting on his lip, he butted his forehead tighter to hers. "I'm...having you here, with me. Doing what we're doing for the good of..."

He'd had a speech prepared for nearly a month now, one that spoke of how his heart beat only in time with hers, how he'd try to wake a few minutes before she did just to watch her slumber in peace. That he loved her beyond reason, and never in his life imagined he could be this happy. But anytime he tried to begin it, the words jumbled in his throat, his tongue rolled upon itself, and he glanced over at her bemused expression realizing that he'd blown his moment. There was always the next time, Cullen kept repeating to himself. He could ask her again later, when he hadn't inserted his foot into his mouth.

At the rate his attempts were going, the likelihood of that seemed to be sometime within the next twenty years.

For her part, Lana waited, her fingers knotting around his as she tugged them down to hang between their pressed bodies. His thumb rolled across each of them, knocking about the ring she always wore. Maker, why couldn't he do it? It was two simple words but any time he thought of it his brow perspired in terror and his tongue scampered down his throat. He knew she loved him, knew she wanted to be with him. Maybe, maybe that was all they needed and he was stressing himself over a frivolity.

"Cullen," she breathed, her eyes staring down at their conjoined hands - both of them cracked and knotted from the work they put in, their lives donated to the cause. A knot of a smile lifted up her lips and Lana raised her eyes up to his. "Would you marry me?"

Shocked, he jerked back. She did it, took the fear and trepidation away from him with a single twist of that beautiful mouth. "Yes," Cullen gasped, giddiness replacing the flop sweat. "Maker's breath, yes." Cupping her jaw, he kissed her with a purity they hadn't felt since that very first one in the deeproads. When he'd stood there with his heart in his hand, risking everything, and she gladly accepted it. Now it was his turn.

"I..." he slid back before diving back for another kiss, this one burning through his soul and awakening every fiber of his being. "I love you," he sighed.

"That's a good reason to get married," she said straight laced, before smirking.

"What will I...?" he began, shaking his head even as a lightness lifted his soul ever skyward. It'd been weighed by rocks, some of his own choosing and others heaped upon him from outside forces. But Lana, that little mage who flitted through his mind with an elegant ease for so long, removed each one piece by piece until he thought he could fly. "I've wanted to ask you, to...but I didn't know if," he stuttered, mashing his forehead against hers.

"We certainly don't need anyone's blessing," she sighed, her fingers straining to knot behind the back of his neck. "There's no land to tie up, no dowries to pass back and forth, but..." her lips parted and she took in a breath. Rolling those endless brown eyes up at him, Lana sighed, "I know what the Maker means to you, and having Andraste forge our union would..."

"Lana," Cullen smiled, pushing back the invading hairs he freed, "you don't have to explain it."

"Sorry," she smiled, "old habit."

"One of many I love," he wrapped her tight against his chest and the weight of their struggle crashed upon him. "And never want to lose."

Fifteen years since the blight, when she vanished from his life to warp and hone herself into a slayer of darkspawn. Fifteen years since his heart, his certainty, was shattered by blood mages leaving him a jagged edge that slit apart all who drew near. So long, it could have failed dozens of times over but they kept finding each other. A long, knotted road for both to travel before stumbling upon a place of peace.

Maker, Andraste, thank You both for giving me the patience to wait, and the sight to know when it was love before me.

Lana mumbled something incoherent, dragging Cullen away from his musings. He tried to lift her off his chest, but she clung tight. "It's probably tradition to celebrate ones engagement and, any other time I'd tear those pants suckered to your ass off you, but I'm afraid I'm waning quickly."

Trying to not laugh at his...Maker's breath, she was his fiancé now. The idea drew a smile to Cullen's lips which he placed onto the top of her head. Tugging her upward, Lana slipped weary feet on top of his and together they staggered towards the mattress that would one day become a bed. Their bed, a marital bed. It seemed too much to hope for.

Rolling onto the straw and snatching up a blanket, Lana slid over onto her side. Her head dug deep into the pillow, those lush lashes slipped tight. Cullen took his time, yanking off his boots and clothes, arranging them onto their lone chair and then burrowing under the blanket to watch her, his future wife. He was going to be the Hero of Ferelden's husband. That was...

After she left him in Kirkwall, he'd often start from a dream unlike the others that haunted him. There were no blood mages, no demons, simply Lana and Cullen together, as impossible as it seemed. It was foolish to cling to, but as his world crumbled around him, the hope was all he had - an impossible future that somehow became reality. Cullen caressed his thumb across her cheek, watching the gentle rise and fall as she breathed deep.

"I love you beyond reason," he whispered to the night air.

Her cheek lifted below him, a smile answering his confession, "And I you, even if you won't go to sleep."

Whispering a wordless apology for keeping her awake, he tugged his hand back to his side but kept watching Lana. The candles dampened, only a blue haze from their brazier lifting awake, even though Lana didn't shift in her dreams. Her magic was a whisper through the world, barely noticeable to him anymore. Happy beyond his wildest dreams, Cullen felt the sweet bliss of sleep waiting for him.

"You know," Lana's thoughts interrupted from the darkness, "we're going to have to have a wedding and invite all our friends."

He started wide awake at the idea of the Divine, the king of Ferelden, the Inquisitor, the Champion of Kirkwall, and anyone else who bore the power to sway nations all swooping into their little abbey for a wedding. Groaning at the idea, Cullen tried to mash his face into his pillow, "Oh Maker."

Lana simply chuckled.

THE END

A/N:

First of all, the bad. Aside from a little fall/halloween themed short coming in October this is the last of Lana and Cullen. I'm retiring them before I break everything I made while on some kind of godzilla sugared up rampage.

The good, I'm not done with the universe I built. Which means there's another story I'm working on, though it's in the preliminary figuring everything out stage. It's about Alistair settling into life with his two children. When his happiness is threatened he finds himself entangled with an elven bodyguard opening up a chapter in his life he thought he closed, burned, buried, and then burned again. I have no idea when I'll start on it, fall is turbulent for me, but one thing I can always use is names.

I love making up new characters, even small side ones, but I hate naming them. If you ever wanted to be tossed into this thing now's your opportunity. Give me a name and tell me if you only want to be a good guy or if you really want to be a bad guy. Some physical traits are good, or I can just wing it all. Thanks for any help. Naming stuff if boring!

One more thing. Seeing as how this is the same universe, there might be a cameo by Lady Amell and her husband from time to time. You never know.