Author's notes: Hello gentle readers! Thanks for being here! I was nervous about that last chapter and was absolutely thrilled with the reviews I got! You guys are the best!

Thanks to my ever amazing beta, Epiphany sola Gratia! Have you read her stories yet?

"So, I'm going to bed," Kallian said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

He hesitated. Should he lean in, kiss her in front of the others?

In the Deep Roads, it had only been Oghren and Shale, and they both really could not care less. Here, in camp, things were different. He wasn't sure if she wanted people to know. He wasn't even sure she wanted to pursue this while they were on the road. He was pretty sure that was a conversation they should have had way before coming back to camp, now that he thought of it.

She crossed her arms, biting her lip and looking into the fire. "You're coming with me, right?"

Her hesitant tone made his heart swell with love. She was as unsure as he was.

"The others are going to talk. They do that, you know."

She shrugged, still not looking at him.

"But… but do you want to join me?"

He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips, kissing her palm.

"Nothing would make me happier," he murmured.

Her whole face lit up. She grabbed his hand and dragged him across the camp to her tent.

"The others… you really think they will notice?"

"Absolutely."

"Well then," she said, turning to face the rest of the camp. "All right, listen everyone! I'm going into my tent and Alistair's coming with me, and we're going to have sex because we love each other! Anyone have a problem with that?"

Only silence answered her.

"Good!" she exclaimed, drawing her weapons and shoving them into the ground by the tent's entrance. "Now when my weapons are like this, it means we are not to be disturbed, unless you want me to shove them into your gut instead! Got it?"

"Got it, boss!" Oghren answered with a salacious wink.

She disappeared inside the tent and Alistair followed, trying hard not to laugh. They sat by each other trying to silence their fits of laughter and listened to what the others were saying.

There was a long silence, then he heard Oghren say: "You're a weird bunch, the lot of you."

"Says the drunk surfacer dwarf with braids in his moustache," Zevran's voice answered.

"Ha! Got me there!"

Then nothing.

"See? Nothing to worry about. Now come here," Kallian said, pulling him closer.

"It's only because they're all scared of you."

"They better be."

He was going to lose her.

Flat on his back, eyes wide in horror, he watched helplessly as the high dragon took Kallian in its huge jaws and shook her violently. She was trying to fight it, he could see, but her limbs were flying in every direction, twisting and flailing in impossible ways. The dragon finally spat her out, throwing her away, and she fell on the ground, lying like a broken doll, unmoving.

He heard a thundering, heart-rending roar, and only when he had to breathe did he realized that he was the one screaming. Without any memory of how it happened, he was on his feet and running, blood boiling in his veins and rage burning in his lungs. He vaguely heard Oghren yell: "By the bloody stone, get out of his way!"

He reached the dragon, focused on one absolute certainty: the beast was going to die.

He would not lose her.

Afterwards, when Wynne had assured him that she was still alive and safe, although she was very badly injured and needed some rest (she said that last part while sending a meaningful glare his way), he sat by her, utterly spent, cradling her head in his lap. He felt a hand fall heavily on his shoulder.

"Didn't know you had the making of a berserker in you. Good on you, boy," Oghren said before walking away.

He didn't know either. He only knew he would do anything.

He would not lose her.

The ashes worked. Arl Eamon was alive, awake and well. Alistair had yet to decide if it was a good or a bad thing.

The more the arl talked, the more it seemed like a bad thing, though. Arl Eamon wanted him to be king and that made no sense, no sense at all. Eamon knew how bad a king he would make better than anyone. He had never been in charge of anything and anyone who knew him in the slightest knew what a good thing that was. He couldn't even lead their merry band of mismatched companions.

The leader of said band was standing just in front of him, listening to Arl Eamon, and he realized with growing dread that she would not save him from this. The old arl was a true noble, descendant of a long line of nobles. Nobility was in his blood, in his voice, in his posture and Kallian was reacting to it the way he should have expected her to. The careful kindness in the arl's voice seemed to put her ill at ease. She was fidgeting, shifting her feet restlessly. She had accepted the shield he had bestowed upon her with stuttering awkwardness. Her head hung low as she feebly nodded to everything the arl was saying, mumbling answers like: "Yes, my Lord. Of course, my Lord. If my Lord thinks it is best…"

"What about me?" he suddenly interjected. "Does anyone care what I want?"

Kallian visibly flinched, her back hunching and she threw him a desperate look. Already the arl was turning to him, his eyes reduced to two slits, unleashing his Powers of Nobility against him and using words like "honour" and "responsibility" in that disappointed tone he knew oh so well. Soon enough Alistair was also looking at his boots and stuttering semi-answers like: "I understand…" and "Maybe…"

Everything was decided, it seemed. He knew it was the end, of course. If he was king, she would go away. He was losing her and it was her own fault. How could he fight that?

When he came to her that night, her door was locked. She opened it, though, when he knocked.

There it was, what he had dreaded the most: the low eyes, the deferential bow of the head, the submissive attitude. It made him want to grab her by the shoulders and shake it out of her.

"Look at me," he said in a husky voice.

She hesitated then raised her head to meet his eyes. He realized he had been wrong. She was not being submissive.

She was hiding her tears.

"What do you want, Alistair?" she asked, her voice tired. "You're here to tell me it's over? I already know that, thanks."

"No!"

"Then you're just toying with me. What other choice do you have but to let me go? You think I don't understand that if you're king, we can never be together?" She sighed, retreating inside the room. "Anyway, it's not your fault, really. It's mine. I always do that."

"Oh, really? This is a frequent occurrence for you?"

She let herself fall into a nearby chair, sagging as if all strength had left her body.

"I always let myself believe I can have things that are not mine to have. Oh, Kallian is so special. Kallian wants to learn how to fight. Kallian wants to choose the man she's going to marry. Kallian wants a mabari hound. Kallian wants to love a prince and live happily ever after like in the storybooks." She shook her head, "I should have known better. I should have known my place."

"Your place is with me. I love you," Alistair said in a desperate whisper.

She didn't raise her head. "I love you too."

It should have been all that mattered, but it wasn't. It felt like it wasn't enough.

It felt like goodbye.

The road back to Denerim was a nightmare. Arl Eamon wanted to keep him by his side, so he didn't get to travel with the rest of his companions. That meant he couldn't even catch a glance of Kallian, even less attempt to talk to her.

The arl was driving him crazy, always talking to him about the Theirin bloodline, giving him any advice he could to help him in the Landsmeet, naming all the people Alistair would see there. He forgot everything the minute the arl was done talking, craning his neck to try and see her at the end of the caravan.

Their first meeting with Loghain was an unexpected, unwelcome surprise. He stood there beside Kallian as Arl Eamon and the general exchanged falsely polite words. She stayed silent and didn't raise her head to look at them until Loghain introduced Rendon Howe as the new Arl of Denerim.

"So you're the one who butchered my kin?" she asked him with venom in her voice.

"When the animals turn against their masters, it is sometimes necessary to cull the herd," Arl Howe said in a contemptuous tone, crossing his arms.

"Oh look, the regent owns a talking ass," she retorted, fuming with rage, before she truly realized to whom she was speaking.

Her eyes widened in horror and her hand moved, making it halfway to her mouth before she could stop herself. Howe looked at her as a feral grin slowly curved his lips, his eyes raking over her body from head to toe, looking every bit like a predator in front of an interesting, very tempting prey.

Alistair felt sick.

Kallian's head bowed again under Howe's lurid stare and she looked at the floor, but he could see her small hands curl into fists.

"Well, if I'm going to be king, I might as well start acting like a jerk," he thought, taking two steps forward.

He punched Arl Howe in the face.

"You give this woman the respect she deserves!" he stated, pointing at Kallian.

There was a moment of uncertain silence, as if no one could really believe what had just happened. Howe was looking at him with eyebrows raised, a hand covering his bloody nose.

The warrior woman finally spoke.

"You're either very bold or very stupid to assault the arl before witnesses."

He arched his eyebrows at her as if he couldn't believe she was talking to him in that manner. Maybe there was some part of being king he could get used to, after all. The getting-away-with-stuff part seemed pretty awesome.

"Enough, Cauthrien," Loghain said, forcing the woman to retreat a few steps. Alistair took his place back and looked sideways at Kallian. Her face was partially hidden because her head was bowed low, but he was pretty sure she was smiling.

"That felt really good," he whispered without looking directly at her. "I would have preferred to punch Loghain though."

"You've been around me for too long. I'm rubbing off on you," she whispered back, shaking her head slightly. For a wonderful second, everything was as it had been before.

Then she went to help the queen and didn't bring him along.

When Sten, Zevran and Wynne came back from Arl Howe's estate saying that Kallian had been arrested and brought to Fort Drakon, he felt his heart stop. He spent the next few hours waiting in agonizing worry as others went to save her, pacing the halls and wondering briefly if punching the arrogant queen in the face would bring him some kind of relief too.

When he got word that she was back and safe, resting in her room, it felt like he was coming back to life. Something had changed in these few hours; a decision had been made without any conscious effort on his part. He had learned the hard way he simply could not live without her.

So he wouldn't.

He didn't think he had ever felt this nervous before. He must have stood for more than half an hour outside her door, raising his fist to knock and letting it fall back at his side again and again. He had exactly one chance at this. He prayed fervently that when he would finally gather the courage to knock and she'd open the door, he wouldn't just stick his foot in his mouth and then run away to hide his shame… oh, the interesting, disturbing mental image that particular figure of speech brought up…

Focus.

His fist came up again… then went down again. He sighed. He was going to mess it up. He was going to stammer something unintelligible and then make an inappropriate joke and get punched in the face. He didn't see any other way this could end.

His fist came up again… and he watched in some kind of transfixed horror as it knocked on the wooden door.

She was going to open the door, now, right? She would open the door and then he would just ruin everything…

She opened the door, her eyes going wide in surprise at the sight of him, and he felt his nervousness fade away, replaced by devouring concern… and rage.

The whole left side of her face was blue. The arch of her right eyebrow was caked with dried blood. There were small bruises on her upper arms that looked like fingerprints, as if someone had squeezed her hard enough to leave marks.

He slowly raised a hand to gently touch her cheek but she flinched away, lowering her face, trying to hide her left side as she retreated backwards into the room.

"I thought… I thought it was… What do you want now, Alistair?"

He lowered his hand.

"Kalli…" he whispered, his voice imploring. She squeezed her eyes shut and kept her head bowed.

"It looks worse than it is. It barely hurts anymore." She let out a shaky sigh. "What do you want?" she repeated harshly.

What did he want?

His hands curled into fists. He wanted to storm Fort Drakon and slaughter everyone in his path. He wanted to find her jailors and make them suffer. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be fine. He wanted to raise his shield and protect her from the world. He wanted…

"I want you," he murmured.

Her head snapped back up in surprise and she looked at him. He took a step towards her and his heart jumped in his chest when she didn't back away, watching him approach with wary eyes.

"You can't…"

"Yes, I can!" he said, taking another step. "I want you… only you! I'm not talking about you coming to live at the castle as my mistress and hiding in some secluded chamber like you're something to be ashamed of. I'm talking just you and me. I don't want to be king."

"How can you not want to be king?" she murmured, shaking her head.

"Oh, that's the easy part. I don't have any effort to make, really. I don't even have to work at it. Not wanting to be king comes to me quite naturally." He took her hands in his and was amazed that she let him.

"I can't be… you must want something…" Her eyes shined with repressed tears as she looked at him, imploring. He cupped her right cheek with his hand.

"I want to be with you. Anywhere. We could live in a house in the alienage, in a tent on the road or in a wooden box on the docks. I don't care. We could keep on travelling, killing darkspawn, hunting for our food – don't look at me like that, I can learn how to hunt! We'd live on bread and hard cheese and grey stew. We could find a house by Lake Calenhad and adopt Blight orphans and you could teach me how to live in a family. We can do anything you want, just… I just want you."

She was openly sobbing by then, laughing through her tears and trying not to choke with limited success. He opened his arms and she fell against his chest with a shaky sigh. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned his cheek against the top of her head.

"I love you," he said, and she laughed against his chest. "I can't live without you. Please don't make me live without you. We can have it all, Kalli. I just need you to make it happen. Anora's a better ruler than I can ever hope to be anyway. It's better for everyone. I never want to spend another minute apart from you ever again."

"I was so scared…" she whispered, clinging to him. "I was left lying on the ground in this cold cell, beaten up and bloodied, and all I could think about was that I needed to get out of there just so I could see you again… I… I can't do this without you either."

He held her tighter against him, gently rocking her in his arms until her sniffling sobs subsided.

"But what… what are we going to tell Arl Eamon?" she asked when her breathing was more even.

"I say… we tell him nothing. Let's make it a surprise!"

"Oh, you're evil."

"An evil genius, maybe."

She laughed again, then fell silent. He could feel her warm breath against his chest as her breathing slowed.

"This is not going to be easy, you know. You're asking me – me – to stand in front of the whole Landsmeet and tell them we're putting Anora on the throne."

"You won't be alone. I'll be with you, always."

She held him tighter.

"I can do it. For you… I can do it. Right?"

"Right. For us."

She let go of him, pushing him away to look in his eyes. There was that little lopsided smile of hers again, like a ray of light after the rain, and his heart jumped in his chest.

"Tell me you want me again…"

"I want you," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. She swallowed loudly.

"I'm going to go see Wynne for a minute," she said, sliding a finger along the laces of his shirt. "Do you know what you're going to do in the meantime?"

"Why don't you tell me, oh fearless leader?"

"You're going to… take… off… these… clothes," she said, undoing the laces a little more with each word. "Then you're going to lie down in front of this fireplace and wait for me to come back. Absolutely not covering yourself in any way."

"And then?" he asked, his breath hitching.

"Then…" she said, leaning closer to him, her head tilted back, her lips almost brushing his. "… We're going to make up for lost time."

He remembers make-up sex. Make-up sex was awesome.