Characters/Pairing: F!Hawke/Fenris
Rating: G
Word Count: 1750
Prompt: from belannadelrey: fenris/hawke as crime-fighting investigators ala holmes and watson

Notes: Probably one of my favorites out of the whole meme.

—

I MET THE MAN who would become my partner on Saturday, the 18th of April, in an alley off Low Street, where I kept my small apartment. I had been at the milliner's the whole morning, accompanying a friend of mine who was overfond of hats. When at last her purchases were made and the receipts signed it was well after noon, and I, aggravated by the length of the visit and the increasing reminders of my rather light breakfast, hurried from the shop into the street without looking.

I collided with a stranger. We were both knocked to the ground; he sprang up first, face like thunder, until he saw me at his feet, and extended a reluctant hand to assist me to mine.

"Apologies," he said in a low, rich voice, though the effect was lessened by his annoyance. He was not tall, his hair gone white before his age, his hat jammed low over his eyes. His coat was well-made but worn thin at the elbows and the wrists; his boots seemed more suited to a field than the city. His wrist bore a queer silver mark that vanished beneath his glove before I could make it out.

"I ought to have watched myself," I replied, curious at his haste. Isabela had joined me by now; she dusted my skirts, then smiled charmingly at the stranger, who looked surprised at her attention.

"You seem lost, sweet. I don't suppose you need directions?"

"No," he said curtly, and with a glance over his shoulder and a short bow to my companion and me, he hurried away.

Isabela linked her arm with mine and led me the other direction, where we intended to take a brief dinner at DeSoto. "A handsome pet, that one," said she, laughing, "a little lamb in a top-hat."

I smiled and did not answer. I could not share her mirth; for an instant when we had struck, before recognition had settled upon him, I had seen in his green eyes a look of nothing less than mortal fear.

—

I returned to my rooms in Low Street just after two o'clock, where my uncle met me at the door. He was a man perpetually unhappy and pleased to be so, and though I believe he really loved my mother she had made him bitter with her elopement, and that left a longstanding, affectionate sort of animosity between us.

"Visitor," he said, scowling, and jerked his head towards the sitting-room. "Man. Refused to leave, though I told 'im you were out. He's been quiet, if shabby enough he'd do better at the old place." He pursed his lips. "I thought you'd finally managed to improve your lot of clients."

"Oh," said I, "never so, with you here to average out the whole."

My uncle frowned and stomped out behind me to smoke, and, after Orana had helped me off with my coat and hat and I had straightened my hair in the hall mirror, I went to the sitting-room to see to my guest. I heard the voice before I saw him, a hot, familiar mutter that rankled with agitation as he apparently worked to convince himself of something. The language seemed to be Italian, and as I rounded the door, shock arrested me not two steps into the room.

"You!" I cried, astonished.

The stranger from the street looked up from the gingham sofa. His eyes were wild; his cheeks paled and then flushed, and he rose abruptly to his feet, his hat clenched in his hand. "Have you followed me?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Accidenti! Why are you here?"

"These rooms are mine."

"Yours!"

"Euphemia Hawke, sir, at your service." I nodded to the door. "Perhaps you missed the placard on the gate…?"

"I came here in search of help."

"My primary profession, as it so happens."

He cut his hand across the air impatiently. "You cannot do what I require."

That stung my pride, for I had gone to great trouble over the years to securely establish my professional reputation. I had begun with nothing in the poorest district of the city. Now, after scores of sleepless nights and more than one evening spent in the company of Inspector Hendyr—on both sides of her prison bars, for Aveline loved nothing so much as order, and woe betide those who disturbed it even in pursuit of true criminals—I had created at last for my family a respectable living. My mother had been installed in a very well-fitted apartment on High Street, and returned to the society she loved so well; my sister lived with her and worked occasionally at a nursery as she wished; my brother had gone into the service after the second year, furious at first at my perceived interference with his commission, but the last years had mended much between us and we kept a regular correspondence.

All of this, I thought angrily, from a dilapidated tenement and a handful of pounds from a questionable moneylender.

The stranger had taken a wary step back, perhaps perceiving my irritation. "Sir," said I, with great sarcasm, "far be it from me to detain you from any flight you may deem necessary. I understand completely. You have come here out of your way, presumably on the recommendation of another, or perhaps on word of my own reputation (which is, frankly, deserved); and although I have failed to meet your invisible standards of whatever small task you may need accomplished, I pray that the visit has not inconvenienced you irreparably. I invite you to stay for tea; or, if you prefer," I added with a grand gesture, "I will accompany you to the door."

His breath came hard, and I quickly perceived that whatever issue had brought him to my door, it was no trifling matter. He said a few words in Italian I will not translate here, and then he said, "You are very sure of your own abilities."

"History has taught me to be so."

"I have no proof save another's word that you are as capable as you claim. This is a matter of life and death."

"Whose?"

"Mine," he said quietly, and it seemed to me that a hundred years of suffering fit into that word.

My anger dissolved, and I felt once again that familiar regret caused by my own temper. "Excuse me. I should not have spoken to you so heatedly. Still," I added, and crossed closer to him, "I would have you understand, sir, that I am the best this city has to offer you, and should you choose to engage my services I will not fail to aid you to the best of my ability. I will not promise miracles. But you have taken the trouble to come here in spite of your own misgivings, and I am willing to help you, and if you would tell me your story I believe I would be grateful, and not only for my employment."

The stranger stood very still for several minutes. He studied me as intently as my old school-teachers when I had been misbehaving, but I could not read the look in his eyes. His brow was creased with concern and, I thought, weariness, and for some time I thought he might still take his leave of me without another word.

It is curious to think, now, what might have happened to us both if he had indeed walked away. At the time I had no hint that this man would soon become not only my most interesting client, but my most cherished; I could not have fathomed that in less than a year, I would come to love him as I loved few people on earth. Nor could I have foreseen how our unpleasant meeting would have turned to a rough acquaintanceship, and then camaraderie, and then a real and lasting friendship as we searched together for the man who had marked the silver lines into his skin.

He would tell me later that he felt as if he walked upon a knife's edge, as if one wrong step might cast him back into the torment he had so recently escaped. Astounding, to think that all our present happiness depended so heavily on this one moment! and the both of us unaware of its great significance.

(Fenris has looked over my shoulder at my last few lines. He disapproves, for he says such things should not be made ready for the public eye; I have told him that he may choose what to include the day he decides to epistle it himself, and he has stalked away in disgust. Varric, my editor, tells me often that I ought to afford him the same privilege, but I have read his prose in the Times and he often makes me out either a nitwit or a holy saint, neither of which fits well with my character. Rather, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.)

But we did not know then what the coming months would bring. Then, I had a stranger in my sitting-room and the lovely thought of a month's wages, and when he shifted his feet I said, "Sir, will you allow me to help you?"

He frowned, but there was resignation in his face, and at last, he sighed. "I am being hunted," said he, though the words seemed difficult to force as quick-sand, "and the men who follow do not care whether or not I survive the hunting. Will you help me?"

"Yes," I said.

He set his hat upon the sideboard and extended his hand to me; then, he smiled. I have seen that expression on his face many times since that afternoon on Low Street. It is not common to his character, but the rarity has only increased its value, and for every frown and every scowl there are two or three moments the more precious for knowing his smile has been behind it.

—Forgive me. I have strayed from my original purpose. But this case introduced me to the man I love, and of all the intrigue and violence and death that followed this introduction, it is this moment I best remember. Of all my cases this brought me the most sorrow and the most joy; and of all his smiles, this one was my most cherished, for it was the first.