Author's Note:

Hey again! As always, thanks to everyone who favorites or adds to Story Alerts, as well as my silent readers! You guys rock!

I always thought Hawke was a bit too complacent after Fenris left her. She does have an excellent poker face, but you can't really tell what she thinks about it beyond the two or three subsequent conversations with him. I wrote this about the internal pain she must have been suffering from afterward, as well as Leandra's attempts to comfort her. This story is kind of short, but it's more like a filler chapter while I write other stories. I'm thinking about doing a special one for Christmas... :p

Well, I've been thinking about my mother lately, and one of the last conversations I ever had with her. After Fenris... left, I was rather distraught and uptight at home, even though I somehow managed to hide it from the others. Shocking, right? Anyhow, one day Mother walked in and helped me attempt to puzzle everything out. Which didn't exactly work, but she helped me put it into perspective. I never had a chance to thank her for everything she'd done for me, and the least I can do is preserve her memory...

-Hawke

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Hawke sat in her favorite armchair in the library, gazing into the fire with a troubled expression. Her thoughts roiled with questions, reflections, and, above all, a dominating feeling of horrible mental pain. Her hands trembled in her lap, and she could hear the blood roaring in her ears. She rather thought she might faint from the confusion in her mind. Her thoughts twisted in circles, all landing on the same question: Why? Why did he leave her alone in her bed that night?

Distracted as she was by trying to wrestle her thoughts into submission, she missed the light, feminine footsteps that entered the room.

"You are troubled, my daughter," Leandra observed as she approached the chair. Hawke started in surprise; before she realized who it was, she had leapt to her feet and spun around so her back was to the fire and she had drawn her daggers with one fluid movement. Her eyes were wide and frenzied, like a wildcat's. Leandra paused; she didn't exactly look scared, just a little startled and sorrowful. The wild glow slowly faded from Hawke's eyes, and she straightened, moving deliberately. Then a faint whimper rose from her chest and she collapsed in the armchair again.

"Dear Maker, Mother, I'm so sorry!" she whispered, trembling slightly. This time she was alert enough to hear her mother's soft footsteps as she crossed the floor and perched on the arm of the chair. Leandra wrapped her arms around Hawke's rather small shoulders, and Hawke obediently leaned into her mother's embrace.

"What is bothering you, love?" she asked softly.

"It's Fenris." Hawke sighed.

"Ah." Leandra didn't explain or press her for details, so Hawke figured that she'd guessed what had happened. They hadn't exactly been quiet that night, after all. She hesitated, then twisted around to see fury blazing in her mother's almond eyes. She flinched, blinking with surprise. Leandra saw and she smiled sadly, the anger dispersing quickly. "I'm sure he had his reasons for leaving you," she answered with soft apology in her tone. "He seemed like a fine gentleman when I met him."

"I think... I think he's confused. Or... maybe he's trying to protect me? I don't exactly know... I don't understand!" Hawke snapped, jumping to her feet again at her last sentence and breaking her mother's embrace. She paced back and forth above the fireplace, growling swears under her breath while that accursed statue from atop the fireplace frowned disapprovingly at her. She paused to glower up at it. "He hates that statue. He says it reminds him of Tevinter." She drew one of her daggers and pulled her arm back, eyeing it with a narrowed, calculating gaze. She whipped her arm forward and the dagger revolved once before it slammed into the statue, right where its eye was, burying itself hilt-deep in the wood. Undoubtedly there would be a nasty hole there now. I guess nobody liked that statue anyway...

She paused and ran a hand ruefully through her jet black hair before she continued pacing. She'd have to ask Sandal to get the dagger out for her. Or if he couldn't, maybe Merrill or Anders would. Well, maybe it was best not to get Anders just to get her dagger out of the statue, as Fenris would probably have a fit if the "abomination" came into her house. She chuckled wryly under her breath. Note to self: next time I have a temper tantrum, make sure my daggers are out of reach. Leandra watched her, love and sympathy burning in her gaze.

"Have you tried talking to him about it?" she asked. Hawke paused again, frowning at the rug as she thought. She noticed idly that she was wearing a depression into it, what with all the pacing she'd been doing lately. Grim amusement rose inside her at the thought, and she irritably repressed it.

"I don't have to. He doesn't want to talk about it," she answered at last. "He hasn't said anything, but I can tell. He's riddled with guilt, but his resolve is strong..."

Leandra watched, her eyes soft with sympathy.

"You seem to understand him well," she commented.

"About everything but this," she corrected her mother's statement. "He said he started to get his memory back... Is he scared to remember? I find that a little hard to believe." She scowled at the ground. Fenris, scared? That sounded absurd, impossible for even Hawke to imagine, as strange to think of as a Qunari chasing butterflies.

"You should try to speak with him anyway," Leandra suggested. "Silence is no way to run a relationship."

"I know," Hawke answered, running her hand through her hair and looking a little harassed. "I know," she repeated with a sigh. "But I don't want to push him. I... I can wait until he's ready to talk about it, or change his mind." Not necessarily in that order. "At any rate, I want him to have time to sort out his feelings. It was unusually rash of him, what he did that night."

"You must love him very much," her mother observed quietly, her eyes filled with respect and compassion for her daughter.

"I do," Hawke admitted, in no uncertain terms. Her icy gaze flashed with pride, and a small, sad smile spread across her lips. The sad smile was becoming all too frequent, but it was one of her few honest smiles. "And I think... no. I know he loves me too. It's for my sake he's doing this, the crazy elf." A fond glow lit her eyes. She imagined his own small smirk that he reserved only for her, and her heart throbbed with yearning desire.

"I think it's the curse of Amell women to fall in love with the forbidden," Leandra commented with a light chuckle. Her gaze was shrewd as she inspected Hawke. She always had the feeling that her mother could see right through her, and she seemed to know all her deepest secrets.

"Ah, you have a point. Just my luck, right?" Hawke gave a bitter laugh. She turned to stare into the fire with another glazed, thoughtful expression, head tilted in thought. "I'll give him three years," she asserted. "If he hasn't changed his mind or anything by then, I'll broach the topic myself." She felt more relieved now that she'd reached a decision.

"Why three years?" her mother queried. Hawke turned and eyed her thoughtfully.

"It took three years before he decided to trust me enough," she answered finally. "Besides, what with everything that's going on now, I think I have other, slightly more important things to focus on besides my confusing relationship with Fenris. Hopefully by then those things will have sorted themselves out as well." She uttered another humorless laugh and continued pacing, muttering something under her breath about "damn Qunari..." She watched her mother ponder her words from the corner of her eye.

"That... makes sense," Leandra finally admitted. "What will you do if he stands by his decision?"

"Well..." Hawke paused, her shoulders slumping. Another wave of pain broke over her, and she shuddered at the thought. "I'll... cross that bridge if it comes to it."

"Do you think he'll come back to you?"

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have given him so long," Hawke answered with a shrug. "As it is, there's a slight chance." She turned to face her mother full-on, her expression narrowing slightly with curiosity. "How did you and Father deal with everything?"

"It was hard," her mother confessed. "But once we realized I was expecting-" her gaze twinkled at her daughter- "he pledged his love and support to me, and I agreed to run away with him."

"I can't imagine what that must have been like, leaving your whole family behind..." Hawke trailed off, turning to frown reflectively into the fire. She thought she could see herself doing that, but she couldn't imagine leaving her mother behind. Just thinking about it put a bleak pit in her stomach. She pushed the thought away. There was enough grief in her life without her imagining things like that anyway.

"We were young and completely infatuated with each other," Leandra chuckled. A shadow of grief flickered across her face. Hawke gave a small smile before striding over to her mother and embracing her.

"Thank you, Mother," she murmured. "I love you." She forced herself to push away the dreary thoughts and cheer up, if for nothing but her mother's sake. Then she pulled away and strode over to the doorway. "Sandal! I need your help, please!"