Thank you all for reading! Huge thanks to suilven for her speedy and thoughtful betaing!

A pudgy hand reached up from the cradle, fingers spread like a star. They grazed Lilias's face, and she giggled. "Papa, it tickles."

"She likes you. Remember, you're her big sister—she'll look up to you, and you'll look out for her. It's the way families are."

…

"Wiwi, Wiwi, wait for me!"

Lilias ran on ahead, giggling, but stopped when she heard the cries behind her, the wails that said Bethany had fallen on her toddling little feet. She turned and went back, lifting the little girl back off the ground and brushing off her dirty clothes. "It's okay. I'll walk with you." She put out her hand, and Bethany's sticky fingers closed on it.

…

The loft above her was silent, but Lilias knew Bethany was there. It was their private place, where they went to get away from all of Carver's noise and the bustle of the little farmyard. "Bethany," she whispered.

No response, but she climbed the ladder anyway.

"I know you're here."

In the far corner, shadowy in the waning light of the afternoon, she found her sister huddled, knees drawn up and face hidden in them. The tear-stained face looked up at her. "Lilias … I'm—I'm a mage."

"I know." They all knew; Bethany had made it abundantly clear when she'd sent Carver flying across the yard, lightning crackling where she'd pushed him. He was fine—you couldn't hurt Carver with a hammer—but Bethany had been stunned, horrified by what she'd done.

"What are we going to do, sister?"

"Father will train you," Lilias said with a confidence she was far from feeling. "And we'll all hide you. No one is taking you away, Bethany. I promise. Not ever."

But someone had taken her away. Bethany herself had chosen death over remaining in the world. Lilias shivered, curled into a ball under the covers. Had they all chosen death? Father, Carver, Mother, Bethany? She was the only one left—had she done something wrong, to be left behind like this, alone?

Maybe she should go, too. Nothing was keeping her here.

Her mind drifted in the direction of a pair of broad, warm shoulders and a smile, but she pulled it back as if the image was glass and would cut her if she touched it. He didn't want her; he was still pining for the Hero of Ferelden. Who had also chosen death, or been chosen by it, one or the other.

Yes, she thought, maybe it was time. Maybe it was well past time.

A knock sounded on the door, nearly deafening in the silence Lilias had been trying to wrap around herself. When the door opened moments later, she felt the ghost of a familiar smile tug at the corner of her mouth. Her lips formed the name. Varric.

"Taking yourself a little midafternoon snooze, Hawke?" he asked briskly.

"Time to get up, lethallan," another voice said, more gently.

She wanted to ask them why, but she was afraid they'd give her an answer. So she said nothing.

The mattress sagged slightly as one of them, almost certainly Merrill, sat down next to Lilias. In a moment, she felt the familiar light touch of the mage's hand on her hair. "Bethany was a hero. Let her sacrifice matter, lethallan. Don't diminish it by trying to hold onto her against her wishes."

"How do you know her wishes?"

"She told His Majesty it was her choice."

"That's what he said," Lilias said dully. She didn't really think Alistair would lie, but … why would Bethany choose to give up her life?

"It isn't his fault," Merrill said, her hand still stroking Lilias's hair, the motion repetitive and soothing.

"Isn't it? He could have stayed, and fought. He's a Grey Warden."

"He does have a kingdom to look after," Varric pointed out.

Lilias pushed herself up into a sitting position, blinking at the dwarf in the light as the covers slid off her head. "He's not looking after it now," she said belligerently.

"I believe he thinks he is, by helping to fight Corypheus. Sunshine's not the first we've lost to that bastard … Sadly, she won't be the last. We have to stop him, Hawke. You and me. The way we tried to the first time."

"Tried and failed," she reminded him.

"Yes, and that makes it our job to try again, and to keep trying until it's gone. All these people are here in Skyhold because of what we awakened, what we set free and allowed to escape."

"How?"

"I don't know how," he snapped impatiently. "I only know that we had a chance to stop it before it came to this and we failed, and now we have to be there until the end. We can't give up, Hawke!"

She had never seen him quite this agitated. "Can we, Varric? Do you really believe we can do it this time when we didn't before?"

It was on the tip of his tongue to offer her a glib assurance; she knew him well enough to see that. But he stopped himself, and sighed, and said, "I don't know, Lilias. I don't know. But I have to try. And … I think you do, too."

"I miss her, Varric. And my mother, and my father, and Carver … I hate being the last one left. As long as I had Bethany, it was like I could still be part of that, still be one of the Hawkes and not just the Hawke, you know?" She scrunched up her face, holding back tears, and felt Merrill's gentle hands on her shoulders, the light touch so familiar. Merrill had been there all along, after the Chantry and after her mother and after Alistair. She reached up and took one of the mage's hands in hers. "Thank you, Merrill. So much. For everything."

"My pleasure, always, lethallan."

Varric watched until Lilias managed to push herself out of the bed, and then he nodded, as if satisfied. "When this is all over, Hawke, when we're picking pieces of Corypheus out of our clothes, if you still want to give up, I'll let you. But until then—we need you. We need the woman who came to Kirkwall and took charge, who brought a whole motley crew together and made us a team. We need the Champion of Kirkwall."

Lilias sighed. She wasn't sure if there had ever really been a Champion of Kirkwall, and certainly wasn't sure if that person still lurked somewhere inside her. But Varric was right—she had an obligation to help defeat Corypheus, and the person she had been since Anders blew up the Chantry wasn't going to get that done.

The statue of Andraste still wasn't speaking to her, as much as Leliana wished it would. She used to be so certain of the Maker's words, of His love for the world He had created. She missed that certainty.

A squeak of leather on stone behind her caused her to freeze in her position, her mind automatically tracing the path her fingers would take to the blade concealed in her boot.

And then a familiar chuckle sounded, and she allowed herself to breathe out. "Inquisitor," she said, getting to her feet. "Sometimes I forget you have been trained so well."

"The Carta does like its sneaks and spies," he agreed amiably.

"Must you practice on your own Spymaster?"

"Can't go letting my skills get rusty." He grinned at her, and she smiled back, glad once more that the Inquisitor was a man she could genuinely respect.

"Nor mine, I suppose. I was lost in thought and didn't hear you enter."

"Thought, but not prayer?" he asked.

"Yes. Sadly."

"I hope when this is over, you can learn to pray again."

"As do I." She nodded. "Yes. Thank you for the thought." Leliana looked down at him in curiosity. "You said that after your trip through the Fade, you remember everything, yes? All the memories you lost after the Conclave?"

"Yes. I remember." He looked as if he wished he didn't.

"I understand Justinia was with you, in the Fade. But only you emerged in the end. Why? Why were you the only survivor?"

"I tried, Leliana. I really tried. She helped me to climb to the Breach, pushed me through. I reached back for her, but—demons tore her from me. I couldn't stop them."

"There was no time to think. Only to act."

Thule nodded. "I … should have been quicker. To think, and to act, but …" He spread his hands out before him, helplessly, and Leliana caught the glint of green from the Anchor. "I'm a dwarf. I was in the Fade. I—it was all so unbelievable. I'm sorry."

Leliana nodded. She believed him, for all that she had spent many hours since learning of this going over the events in her mind, trying to imagine how she could have saved Justinia had she only been there, where she should have been. "Her message to me," she said softly. "'I failed you, too.' I'm trying to understand it."

"She meant it. It was heartfelt. If spirits, or memories, or whatever that was, have hearts."

"Was there anything else? Any other message, other words? Please, if you remember anything …" She hated to beg, but … Justinia had been her rock, her comfort and support. Without her, Leliana felt bereft, as though she was no longer the person she had once known herself to be. She had changed so often before, you would think she would be used to it now, but … she wasn't.

"Leliana." Thule's frank blue eyes were on her, studying her, and she quailed from his gaze, not wanting him to see how lost she was. "It does you no good to dwell on her now. She wouldn't want that. She's gone, and I think she would want you to accept that."

"How do you know what she would want?" Leliana protested. She could hear the heaviness of tears in her own voice, and she took a step back from him, to keep him from seeing. She waved a hand angrily in front of her. "It is not for you to decide what is and isn't good for me."

"But I do have to decide what is and isn't good for the Inquisition." His voice was as gentle as the words were firm. "We need you, Leliana, and we need all of you, what's good and gentle as well as what's hard and willing to make the decisions that must be made."

"But you don't understand," she cried. "Justinia never failed me! She was always there, always what I needed. How can her last words to me be those I do not understand? And more than that—I was her Left Hand. I was meant to protect her, but Corypheus gained access to the Conclave under my very nose. He brought in Grey Wardens without my knowledge. I failed her! Don't you see? I failed her, and she is the one apologizing!"

She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the flow of words, unable to believe she had let herself go like that. When was the last time she had spoken so openly, so from the tumultuous depths of her heart? In the dead of night, at Justinia's side, whispering her secrets and her sins into the ears that were always listening.

Thule just looked at her. He didn't move toward her, he didn't run, he didn't reach to comfort her. He just waited while she got herself under control.

And then, in a voice that was even and soft and thoughtful, he said, "That is the Leliana we need. If being the Left Hand caused you to cut yourself off from that, maybe that's what the Divine was apologizing for." He gave a small smile. "When you find yourself at the Maker's side, you can ask her."

"I …" Leliana wanted to apologize for losing control in front of him, but she was still trying to understand what he meant by "that is the Leliana we need". Emotional? Distraught? Confused? At sea? How could that Leliana run a spy ring—or anything? From anyone else, she would have discounted the words, but the Inquisitor had earned her respect. He had earned the right for his words to be taken seriously.

He was still watching her, and now he smiled, seeming to follow her thought processes. "You let me know when you figure it out."

Then he was gone, leaving Leliana alone with the silent Andraste and the memory of the dead.