Here's the next chapter, I wanted to upload it yesterday along with the second one but I found it a bit diffcult to get on with. I feel like this chapter and the next, from a writing point of view, are almost 'filler' before I get to write the things I really want to write.
They're necessary and I like writing them but I really really want to start writing the stuff that comes after that. I'm trying not to rush it.
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Cassandra was in half a mind to give up on the stories. What was Varric's game? He'd said he wanted her to understand why he didn't want Hawke to join the Inquisition, but all she was reading so far was drunken escapades and friendly banter. With a frown on her face she almost took the manuscripts back to the dwarf but they were still waiting on word from Adamant and she could see his worry grow by the day.

It was almost as if… No, it couldn't be. Could it?

Her new realisation spurred her back into reading, maybe things were about to get more interesting.

Hawke visited me last night. I'm not sure how to begin with this. Nine times out of ten I write because I enjoy it, but today I feel like I'm writing to cope. Hawke and I have always been close, don't get me wrong, but we don't really talk about our feelings openly. It's all buried beneath several layers of sarcasm and distraction. In any case, let's go over the events leading up to her visit.

Hawke had a brother and a sister when she left Lothering. Her sister, Bethany Hawke, died en route during a fight with an Ogre. The fact that any of them survived was practically a miracle. An incident like that was sad enough on its own without the destruction of her hometown, being practically sold into servitude and then being lost in the Deep Roads. The Deep Roads expedition had been an unmitigated disaster. Carver Hawke, her brother, had been injured and began to get sick with the blight. We had no way of telling how long it would take us to return to the surface after Bartrand locked us away down there. In the end Hawke had to kill her own brother out of mercy. It's a story I could do without recounting in detail.

There were a few things that stuck out at me from that expedition that still haunt me to this day. The thought that my brother was responsible for the death of Hawke's brother, that by extension I was somewhat responsible for it. The expression on Carver's face as he realised he'd become blighted. Hawke humming a song for him as he slipped away, without shedding a single tear. The conversation about our party choices, that Hawke felt if she hadn't brought him - or if she'd brought Anders - he'd still be with us. Perhaps most prominently the sound of her vomiting around a corner from us from the sickness of grief and what she'd had to do.

We'd caught up with Bartrand eventually after he returned to Kirkwall. I've already recounted the story of how we found him and that by some strange screwed up karma I had to kill him. My brother made Hawke kill Carver, and now he was making it so I had to kill him too. I've not felt any sense of closure from it, or any sense of satisfaction. I know Hawke felt no better about Carver after the fact.

We hoped that it would feel good, like shutting the lid on a bad smell, but it didn't. If anything the stench got worse.

And that's how Hawke came to visit me unannounced.

Hawke stood in the doorway, as if she didn't know whether to enter or not. I gestured for her to come inside, so she did. I was sat in my chair nursing a glass of wine like it was my only hope. She sat across from me and poured herself a glass too before shaking her head and opting instead to uncork another bottle and drink straight from that. I drained the rest of what I had and followed suit.

Nights like this required the restraints to be removed.

"Varric," she began, looking pained. We didn't talk about this sort of thing, about Bethany or Carver or Bartrand or any of the people we'd lost or killed along the way. "I'm sorry."

It was the typical response, the thing that everyone is supposed to say when someone's in mourning. What a stupid sentiment, sorry for what? It either conveyed a sense of guilt or a sense of pity, and I didn't like either of those.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for." I replied simply, and we drank in silence for a time.

"Yes I do." She replied eventually. It was quiet, I almost missed it, which was very unlike her.

"Such as? Bartrand did this to himself, nobody else made him lock us down there."

She frowned, reaching out to place a hand on my arm. It was warm and comforting.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't save him. I'm sorry that you seem so convinced you're to blame for it all, for Carver."

"There was no magic in the world that could have done anything for my brother, Hawke. Don't apologise."

"I just know how it feels, what you did was a good thing."

"Killing my brother was a good thing? Gee thanks." I immediately regretted what I'd said, why was I biting at her so much when she'd done the exact same thing those years ago. "Shit Hawke, I'm sorry."

She smiled sadly at me and took her hand away, my arm felt strangely empty without it.

"Want to play cards?"

We were back to our usual strategy of ignorance and avoidance. I had ended one of the few deep conversations we'd had about this sort of thing by cutting her off like that. The problem being that neither of us knew how to bring it back on track in a way that would be constructive or useful.

"Sure."

I smiled back at her as best I could and we went back to playing Wicked Grace like always. Somewhere between the drinking and the games we always found a way to help each other heal. For two emotionally stunted people sometimes the thing we needed the most was just someone to be there.

Hawke was a constant, she was always there, you could always count on her. There weren't many things you could rely on in the world but she was one of them. You could expect her to survive even the most impossible of odds, to laugh when everyone else felt like giving up, and to ignore any and all protests when she set her mind to something.

A bottle and a half of wine each later and our troubles were buried deep once again.

"Hey," she asked eventually, the cards discarded and scattered around the table. "So seriously, what's with the crossbow?"

I laughed at her, casting my eyes over to where Bianca was propped up against the end of the bed.

"What about her?"

"You know what, why is she called Bianca?"

Hawke had referred to her as a she. It meant acknowledging the pseudo-person the weapon had become. A stand-in for a real person.

"And you know I'm not going to tell you that. Not even after this much wine."

She pouted, mumbling something that I didn't hear.

"What was that?" I asked her with a smirk. "She'll get angry if you're talking about her while she's right there."

Smiling over the top of her bottle she tapped the side of her nose, she had the same look on her face as she gave everyone she tried to win over.

"Now, you know I'm not going to tell you that." Mimicking what I'd said earlier she laughed a little. "Not even after this much wine."

I threw one of the corks at her across the table. She just laughed at me, but eyed me in a way I hadn't been on the recieving end of before. It was a little unsettling. I knew she was trying to manipulate me into telling her about Bianca, but seeing her use that expression on other people was funny. When she used it on me it was just, uncomfortable. I didn't want to refer to it as 'seductive', because that lends it more credit than it was due in this situation. She wasn't trying to seduce me, just get me to talk. However the only time I'd ever seen her pull that face with anyone else it had been because she was planning on getting into their pants, so that was what I associated it with.

"Don't give me that look." I groaned, waving a hand at her.

"Why not?"

"You know why, I'm not one of your various booty calls, gimme gimme doesn't get."

"Ah damn, I'd hoped you'd find me completely irresistible and spill all your darkest secrets."

"You're lovely Hawke, but you know I don't fall for the wiles of women, especially deadly insane ones."

"That's where I'm going wrong! And here I thought it was my looks."

Even this could be diffused by joking and skirting around the matter. She gave up trying to get me to answer her and instead returned to nursing her bottle.

"Hey, Varric," she began, staring at the green glass against the palm of her hand.

"Yes, Hawke?" I asked in response, slightly amused by our previous conversation.

"Do you think we're gonna die alone…?"

The air was heavy, thick with an overwhelming feeling of dread that screamed run, run now and don't turn back. I didn't know what to say to her. After a little while she spoke again.

"Like, everyone we care about dies or leaves. Is it some kind of punishment for the things we do?"

In the end I opted to take the bottle out of her hands and offer her a smile.

"I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled too then, in response.

"Me neither."