Notes: This story is a direct continuation of "A Good Day" and "Turn and Face the Tiger," a mini-series based off of how I would've preferred certain events to transpire, should you make a specific decision during 'The Last Straw' questline. There is one more part that is definitely in the works, and if you want drama and angst, HO BUDDY this will deliver.

Thanks very much to min_o for her beta services!

The three days Hawke had given himself to decide what to do with the prisoner locked away in the Gallows turned out to be unnecessary. As soon as he was alone, he knew with grim certainty that there was only one option.

He sat at his desk and stared at the neatly penned execution order the seneschal had left for his perusal. Death by beheading; a gentler method than traitors and murderers were normally afforded, but Hawke had taken full advantage of his position as Viscount. He'd already requested the services of a well-known Orlesian swordsman residing in Cumberland who would reach the city by nightfall. A skilled hand, he'd been told, who always made it quick and clean. In the thick fog he'd lived in for the past forty-eight hours, Hawke supposed that was a good thing.

The arrangements had been made. Knight-Commander Cullen was on standby. The only thing missing was the Viscount's signature.

Fenris sat across from him. The elf rarely interrupted their silences. Hawke fingered his quill, then dropped it into the inkwell and sank back in his seat. Fenris leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "You can't put this off for much longer."

Hawke shot him a look heavy with old anger that had festered years ago, but wasn't sure who should own it anymore; if it belonged to Anders or Justice, the mages or the templars, the Chantry, the Maker, or just to himself. Definitely not Fenris. He looked aside. "I should have killed him myself when it happened." Mercifully, Fenris held his tongue.

The execution order wasn't going anywhere. It sat innocuously on his desk, the allotted space for Hawke's signature a yawning blank. Hawke pressed his lips into a thin line. "It's that easy, is it," he murmured bitterly.

"No," Fenris said and met his eyes when Hawke looked up. "But it has to be done."

Simply looking the other way and allowing Anders to slip undetected from the Gallows, it seemed, wasn't an option palatable to anyone but himself. Hawke rubbed a hand over his jaw, palm chafing against his neglected stubble, then reached stiffly for his quill again. The weight of it felt unnecessarily substantial between his fingers. "What was he even doing back in the Free Marches? I'd've thought he'd head straight for Minrathous at the first opportunity."

Fenris spread his hands in a wordless gesture, and Hawke found his silence irrationally infuriating. "I need some air." He rose from his seat and made for the door, the order left unsigned on his desk.

"Hawke." Fenris stood and took two steps after him. Hawke paused in the doorway to look back. "For your sake, don't draw this out."

"Don't." Hawke held up a hand to silence him. "Just—don't."

Fenris frowned regretfully. "I'm sorry," he said. Hawke left him standing in his office and disappeared down the corridor.

The keep had a pleasant interior garden accessible only to the Viscount and his household. Hawke imagined that Saemus and Dumar had spent their happier afternoons here together during spring and summer, before the qunari arrived and threw their world into disarray. It was difficult not to find some small joy in the abundance of color and light and the sweet smell of nectar from the flowers, but theirs must have been a lonely life, father and son, alone in this massive keep without a wife or mother or any other family for company.

His legs seemed to move of their own accord and carried him to one of the Tevinter fountains, a relic from a bygone era. He turned one of his old Fereldan coppers over in his palm, then flipped it into the water. It was a childish impulse, but he closed his eyes and wished for something unattainable anyway.

One of the garden doors creaked open. Aveline's gait was easily recognizable to him after six years of enduring her dogged efforts to keep tabs on their eclectic little family, which had grown so very far apart since the rebellion. She came to stand beside him and touched his arm with such gentleness that he shuddered, the tension he'd grown accustomed to carrying tightening impossibly in his shoulders.

"Hawke," she said.

He turned to look at her, at the earnestness on her face and in her green eyes, and found he had to look away immediately. "Maker," he swore, "does the whole keep know?"

Aveline shook her head. "No, Fenris has kept it pretty quiet. But he thought you might need a friend."

They stood together and watched the water spill into the fountain basin, the coins that littered the bottom winking and blinking in the fading afternoon light. Everything looked unfairly beautiful, lit by the orange glow of late summer. Hawke breathed out slowly, steadying himself. "I've made all the necessary preparations." The deed sounded so clinical phrased like that—necessary preparations, the nasty business of orchestrating the execution of a man he'd spent three years loving and protecting. The lump in his throat was hard to swallow, but so was the reality of this nightmarish dream sequence. "There's a swordsman en route. It's just a matter of signing the order and then letting time pass."

Aveline considered her words. "Don't you think it might be better to let someone else—"

Hawke looked at her sharply. "Let someone else what? Take care of all the messy details for me so I don't have to get my hands dirty?"

"Yes," Aveline countered, "that is exactly what I was going to say, if by 'get your hands dirty' you mean 'torment yourself unnecessarily with cruel and extended heartache.'" She frowned at him crossly. "Try not to put words in my mouth."

Hawke bit his tongue and studied the greenery surrounding them. "Sorry."

"I'm not your enemy," she reminded him.

"I said I was sorry, Aveline." They shared a half-hearted glare between themselves, before Aveline's brow smoothed some and she settled her hand against his arm again. It took him a moment, but Hawke covered her hand with his and squeezed. "I have to be the one to take care of this. I owe him that much."

She accepted his answer with a nod. "When will it happen?"

"Tomorrow, at noon." His breath left him in a rush, and every muscle trembled as if from physical strain that had gone on for too long. "I don't understand why he didn't just stay away."

Aveline stood beside him in silence. There was nothing that she could have told him that he didn't already know himself; that it was this or war with Starkhaven, that the law demanded it and Anders' victims deserved it, that this inevitability had been set in stone by a naïve and idealistic young man in Amaranthine years before Hawke could have even known him to intervene. Anders had to die. Better it was death by a hand that loved him in spite of everything, than by a prince who hated him, still bent on perpetuating a destructive cycle of vengeance.

"Have you been to see him in the Gallows?" Aveline asked, interrupting the stretch of silence. Hawke couldn't get his voice to cooperate, not without sacrificing the composure that kept his chin up and his back straight, and shook his head tautly. She frowned. "Listen to me: if there is anything left unsaid between you, you need to say it."

The unspoken 'before it's too late' sank heavily against his back. 'Too late' was a vague blue-gray shape in the distance gathering form and substance with each passing minute, and no amount of fervent denial would push it away or freeze it in place. What words could they share that wouldn't collapse under the weight of what had already happened, or what was coming? "One last shouting match before the end," he said bitterly, "what could be better."

Aveline looked like she might strike him. "Don't be a coward. If you don't do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"I'm about to sign his death warrant. What could I possibly say to him that he'd want to hear?"

"None of this is about want. It's about need—yours, to say nothing of his." She watched his profile twitch into a pained frown. "Just consider it. That's all I ask."

Hawke stared at the garden path without seeing it, but dragged his eyes to Aveline's face when she took his hand. She didn't quite smile, but the hard, reliable kindness that had always defined her was there, a steady hand to help him pick up the pieces when the time came. "I'm here when you need me, Hawke."

"Like always," he said. "Thank you, Aveline."

Nights at the Hanged Man had lost their appeal over the long months since the rebellion was put down, but Fenris knew of no other place to go to stifle the growing disquietude that twisted in his stomach. He shouldered the door open and ducked inside, overwhelmed by the pungent and peculiarly reassuring stink of Lowtown nightlife, and squinted as his eyes adjusted.

The rest of Kirkwall was afire with change, but the Hanged Man apparently mistook itself for the leopard with a disinclination to alter the arrangement of its spots, and had stubbornly remained the same. The scorch marks charred into the walls from misfired spells might as well have been decorative pieces, and a stray qunari pike lodged impossibly deep into the floorboards now served as a coat rack. Only the clientèle had changed over the months. Fenris sent a tentative glance towards the bar, but Isabela still wasn't there.

"Well, look who it is. Pull up a chair, elf, I was just thinking about you."

Unwillingly, the corners of his mouth turned up in something that might have been a smile. Varric Tethras had staked his claim on a small table near the fireplace, his attention divided between the beer in his hand and the book in his lap. Fenris picked his way fastidiously forward. "Dwarf," he greeted. "I see you still burn the midnight oil."

"Not a common occurrence these days, I assure you," Varric chuckled. "You'd know that if you stopped by to do more than stare broodingly at that vacant bar stool."

"I might if you didn't insist on bringing that up in every conversation." Fenris slid into an empty seat. One of the barmaids came up to him with his usual tankard of beer, but he stopped her. "Whiskey for me tonight, I think. Two." She blinked at him, surprised, but complied and went back to the bar.

Varric raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline. "Well, that was... unexpected. And expensive." Fenric leveled him with an unreadable look. The dwarf closed his book, set it aside, and leaned his forearms against the table. "What's going on?"

The barmaid returned with both his shots. Fenris picked up one of the small glasses and sniffed the stuff, tossed it back, and grunted involuntarily as it tore a fiery path down his throat. "I'm surprised you don't already know," he rasped and smirked without satisfaction. He toyed with the empty glass, then set it down heavily. "Perhaps I've grown better at managing the flow of information than I realized."

"Now you're just toying with me."

Fenris picked up the second glass and swallowed the whiskey down, bared his teeth briefly, then dropped the glass to join its partner. "A mage and a Fade spirit walk into a city-state," he began and looked at Varric, whose short-lived confusion quickly gave way to a knowing, dismayed wince.

"Stick with the sullen, taciturn routine, elf," he said. "Your comedic timing is terrible."

"So I've been told."

"Bloody ancestors." Varric sighed and reached for his mug, started to lift it, shook his head, and set it down again. "And Hawke is—?"

"Dealing with him." He hoped. The unsigned order of execution flitted through his thoughts. "He's a fool if he thinks Sebastian won't raze Kirkwall to the ground otherwise."

Varric cleared his throat. "Point of interest? Killing him won't rebuild the Chantry, or resurrect the Grand Cleric."

"Do you have a better alternative?" Fenris retorted, noticed a few curious glances sent towards their table, and lowered his voice to a bitter whisper. "Let him go free to incite further rebellion across Thedas? No, why not invite him to move into the Viscount's suite? That is exactly what this city desires in His Excellency's consort: an apostate terrorist possessed by a vengeance demon." He scowled over his shoulder at the bar. "Where has that wench gone? I need another drink."

"All I'm saying," Varric argued lowly, "is that Choir-Boy had better come up with a more compelling reason to play at generals and soldiers here in Kirkwall than a disagreement over due process. What Hawke does with Anders is—" He hunted for the right word, then shook his head and threw a hand up in defeat. "Sod it, I don't even know. He's a friend, it's a separate issue."

Vitriol left a sour taste in Fenris' mouth. He looked towards the large table near the middle of the common room they had crowded around on nights when the weather rolling off the Waking Sea was so intolerable it chased them all into each other's company—some willingly, some, like himself, for want of other options. "Circumstances kept us all close together for a long time."

"That's a sweetly sentimental and mostly inaccurate assessment of the past," Varric remarked.

Fenris sent him a withering look. The barmaid returned with a third shot of whiskey, which he let sit on the table for a moment. He watched her go, then curled his fingers around the glass. "My point is, it cannot matter what we used to be to each other. The past is done. It must be let go for us to deal with the present."

The dwarf snorted. "Yeah, sure, elf. Let me know how that works out for you." He nodded pointedly to the bar. "You should've gone with her."

"I couldn't. Hawke—" Fenris stopped himself. "I have my responsibilities here."

Varric regarded him dubiously, cut his eyes to the torn and faded strip of red fabric still tied around the hilt of the elf's knife, then hoisted himself to his feet. "I'm feeling the need for another round. What about you?"

Fenris picked up the shot glass and downed its contents in one swallow. His buzz had effectively muted the persistent internal monologue that never gave him a moment's peace. "One more," he said. It was, after all, a Hanged Man kind of night.

The long walk back to Hightown in the black hours preceding dawn helped to mostly sober him up. He bumped into Donnic en route, though whether that was a matter of dumb luck or Varric's intervention, Fenris wasn't sure. The guardsman escorted him as far as the square leading up to Viscount's Keep, then went back to his patrol.

Inside the halls were quiet and empty, with only the occasional guard making the rounds to interrupt the silence with the sound of boots on stone. Fenris's small room was tucked into an out of the way corridor no where near the Viscount's quarters, and so he could provide no compelling reason for why he approached the closed office door save for a sudden rush of intuition. He rested his hand on the latch, and it gave when he twisted it.

Hawke wasn't inside when he opened the door, but smoke still drifted upwards from the doused lamps. He hadn't been gone for long.

Fenris moved through the dark to the desk and reached for the execution order, which still sat where it had been abandoned that afternoon. He stopped just short of touching it.

At the very bottom of the page, Hawke had signed his name.

Dawn was only a pale line of bluish white beginning to form on the eastern horizon as Hawke followed Knight-Commander Cullen up what felt like the single-most daunting, spiraling flight of stairs he'd ever tried to scale. There was no real precedent for how to deal with a visit from the Viscount at this absurdly early hour, but the templar had taken being roused from his bed well, considering the circumstances.

Hawke's guts had twisted up inside him like a tangle of fishing wire, and he wondered if he'd made a mistake in taking Aveline's advice to heart. He brooded upon his indecision as he followed behind Cullen, caught up in his thoughts, but stopped when the templar did.

"I feel obligated to make mention of our other option, Excellency," Cullen said very quietly as they finally reached the top of the stairs. Two more templars stood guard outside a wooden door mottled all over with runes that seemed to undulate through the grain. "For how to deal with the apostate."

Hawke looked at him sideways with a bemused frown. Cullen cleared his throat. "The Rite of Tranquility would—"

His brief vision of Anders, the lyrium brand burnt into his forehead and all the vibrant light and passion in the world bled out of his eyes as he stared expressionlessly forward, churned his insides with sudden sickness. Hawke would sooner take the sword in hand himself. "That is out of the question."

Cullen didn't look surprised by his response, but persisted with a placating gesture. "There are compelling reasons for Your Excellency to consider this alternative, and I encourage you not to dismiss it out of hand. Executing the symbolic leader of a mage revolution could potentially—"

Hawke cut him off. "Anders is not the leader of anything, symbolic or otherwise. He is a traitor and a murderer, and this city makes an example of its traitors and murderers through lawful execution. That is the only course of action I will allow."

The templars guarding the door exchanged glances with each other. Cullen's jaw tightened. "I beg you to consider the long-term ramifications of this course of action, and what further trouble it could bring down upon the faithful."

"My decision is final." Hawke motioned towards the barred cell door. "I will speak to him in private now, Knight-Commander. Thank you."

Cullen held his stare for a long, tense moment, and Hawke fully expected to meet with more stubborn resistance. But the templar only inclined his head stiffly. "As you wish, Your Excellency." He turned to the two posted guards and nodded once. One of them fetched out a set of keys and proceeded to unlock the series of latches and deadbolts. Hawke waited in silence and subtly curled his fingers into fists to keep himself from fidgeting, to maintain some sense of decorum.

The templar opened the door an inch and looked back to Cullen questioningly. The Knight-Commander motioned them away with a nod, took hold of the keys, and offered them to Hawke with poorly disguised apprehension. "For when you take your leave." They turned, then, and picked their way down the stairs single file, but Hawke knew they wouldn't venture far. He waited until he could no longer see Cullen's shadow cast long against the stone wall, then approached the door, keenly aware of the unsteadiness in his hands and his dry throat. Cool evening light spilled through the tiny gap, but no noise. Hawke settled his hand on the latch, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The prison cell was small and drafty, but at least possessed a wood-burning stove, a clean bed, and one window barred both by steel mesh and rods so that moon and starlight and some fresh air could pass through. The view of the city and the sea might have been tolerable under better circumstances. Anders, whose Gallows tunic did nothing to ward off the nighttime summer breeze, had drawn his chair up to the stove to sit and warm himself near the flames, but had risen to his feet when the door opened. When he saw Hawke, the defiance in his eyes and mouth that had undoubtedly been intended for the templars faded, and he looked at a loss for what to do with himself.

The feeling was mutual. Hawke stood in the doorway and stared like he hadn't just seen him two days ago, eight months' worth of anger and despair and betrayal and completely unjustifiable love balled up tightly in his chest. All he could think to say was, "Hello."

Caught off-guard, Anders breathed out a little laugh. "Hello."

He realized he still held the cell keys in his hand, and pocketed them as he stepped inside and closed the door. Watching him, Anders managed a shade of his usual wry humor. "I'd offer you a seat and something to drink, but..."

Hawke's involuntary laugh caught in his throat. "That's not funny." He could never have prepared himself for the excruciating agony of this confrontation, and thought of Wesley and Aveline, and the knife in her hand. A cruel cut, indeed.

"Thought I might as well give it a try," Anders said, wearing a wan smile. It faded gradually into something like resignation. "The Knight-Commander said noon, today."

Hawke looked out the cell's only window at the brightening eastern horizon, which had begun to take on a periwinkle hue as the stars overhead winked and blinked out of sight. Dawn would arrive within the hour. "Yes."

"How will..." Anders began, lost his voice to a whisper, and had to try again. "How will it happen?"

"A swordsman. One of the best." The qualifier felt absurd. The whole explanation felt absurd. Hawke took an unexpected step forward. "It will be over quickly. You shouldn't feel—feel any pain."

Anders's lips turned up at their corners in a tiny half-smile, like whatever he was feeling took him by surprise, but not unpleasantly. "I'm not worried about pain. But it helps, somehow. Knowing what is to come."

"I'm pleased one of us can make sense of this," Hawke said, bitterness creeping in.

Anders wasn't looking at him anymore, his eyes off to the side seeing something far past the Gallows walls."I can because I understand now. Why this has to be done, I mean. So does Justice." The mage stepped towards him and took his hand, and numbly Hawke allowed it, unable to speak. "This—all of it—it's been necessary from the very beginning. I didn't realize it at first. I thought, when you told me to leave, I thought perhaps I could find common purpose in Tevinter, perhaps find allies in the Free Marches, gather resources and stay the course. Then that bloody prince found me, and then iyou/i found me, and all I could think of was myself and my fear and failure, and what a ridiculous parody of itself my life had become. I was so angry."

"Anders." Hawke spoke his name like a summoning and tried to meet his eyes.

Anders traced his thumb over each of Hawke's knuckles, his touch so warm and familiar that they may as well have been standing in front of the hearthfire at the estate, embracing each other affectionately before falling into bed. Hawke tenderly touched the narrow line of his jaw without thinking and just checked the instinct to kiss him. Anders exhaled, a ragged sound filled with determination. "But I see my purpose now." He raised his eyes to meet Hawke's, but there was too much of Justice in the muddy brown irises, the timbre of his voice. "My death. It will be a healing balm for the lives I've ruined, and a rallying call to mages throughout Thedas. It evens the score and lays the foundation for what has to come next."

Hawke ripped his hand out of Anders' grasp and seized his shoulders, his melancholy overrun by fury so swiftly that he saw red. If rage alone could sunder the Veil and allow him to reach inside Anders and rip out the Fade spirit possessing him, he would have done it in an instant, if only for the opportunity to finally bludgeon into oblivion the creature whose single-minded drive to embody an unattainable virtue had ruined everything. It was easier to lay all of the blame at Justice's feet than to hate the willing host whose longing for freedom and purpose had invited the monster in to begin with. He couldn't bring himself to hate Anders, not now, not ever again. But he could certainly shout at him.

Anders' eyes quickened with alarm when Hawke grabbed hold of him, and he jerked his shackled hands up to grasp his wrists. "Hawke—"

"You have always, always been a blind fool!" White anger pressed outwardly against the backs of his eyes as it rose, burning inside him. This wasn't what he came for, a small voice reminded him, but he ignored it and forged on. "A blind, stubborn, arrogant and idealistic fool, and now look at what you've done. It wasn't enough for you to escape from the Circle and just stay gone, or find new purpose with the Wardens. Everything the Maker has given you you've squandered, because you think you know the world better than anyone else. Well I'll tell you now, you don't, and if you'd just left well enough alone then—then—" He grasped for the right words but couldn't find them, and his retort died sharply on his lips.

Anders left his fingers curled around Hawke's wrists and met his eyes in a challenge. "Then what?" he demanded without expecting an answer. "We'd be happy together? The world would have been a better place? You don't really believe that. You can't possibly."

Hawke kept hold of his shoulders and felt the subtle shift of sinewy muscle under his touch. He should have let go. He didn't. "You murdered the Grand Cleric. You murdered her, Anders."

"I know," Anders said, and Hawke heard in his voice, saw in the contraction of his brow, a note of grief so deep that neither tears nor words could ever touch it. "Sometimes you have to shatter the world completely to change it for the better. Even the gentle things."

Inevitability settled around them in the room's empty spaces, cold and persistent like snow, and Hawke stepped close to Anders to keep it from dividing them. They were near enough to each other to share breath. "Why was it never enough for you to simply be free, and know that I loved you?"

Anders' fingers trembled some when he let go of Hawke's wrist and instead rested his palm against his cheek. "Don't ask me that. You know the answer already."

A warm yellow glow fell across the side of Anders' face and cast half his features into shadow. They both looked to the window in time to squint against the early morning sunlight. Down by the wharf, the ferryman would be preparing to cast off and sail for the mainland. Anders turned Hawke's face back to his with urgency. "Stay with me. Just for a little longer."

He'd waited too long to lance the wound, this was only making matters worse. Hawke started to shake his head and reached up to grasp Anders' hand, to pull it away, but instead found himself lacing their fingers together tightly, pressing the mage's warm palm to his lips. Emotion heaved from someplace deep inside him, his shoulders shaking. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Maker help me," he whispered, but his words were suddenly half muffled by Anders' mouth against his, the mage kissing him with insistent, burning need. Hawke's limbs were lethargic, slow to respond at first, until his long dormant desire flared to life and woke in him a ravenous hunger. He raked both hands up the back of Anders' neck and buried them in his fine, fair hair.

They didn't have the luxury of time that slow, tender lovemaking demanded, but they made do with the late hour and the drafty quarters and the cramped prison bed that gave in all the wrong places. Hawke reveled in the almost cerebral satisfaction of surrendering control of himself to Anders, who moved against him, and inside of him, with the raw and guileless want that had always been part of his better nature. They rediscovered each other's bodies like a lost path in the wilderness, groping clumsily for direction at first, then deftly as they stopped struggling with each other and began to move in tandem, reading each other's sighs and gasps, caught up in the hard, rough friction of skin against skin. With Anders between his knees, Hawke splayed a hand at the small of his back, feeling the muscles under his fingers flex and twitch with each rocking, driving thrust forward. He threw his head back against the mattress, his clenched teeth stifling a sound of pleasure.

"Garrett," Anders breathed against his jaw and fisted a hand in the sheet beside his head. His every movement pulled his body taut as a bowstring ready to snap, until Hawke felt a shudder run the length of him as he came, muffling his groan into Hawke's neck. Hawke hadn't intended to strive towards release, but Anders was nothing if not a diligent and attentive lover, and brought him gasping to completion with his touch moments later.

He lay still as he regained his senses, with his eyes closed and his arm flung over his head, struggling to catch his breath. Anders' fingers curling against his chest made him turn to meet his eyes eyes, and he realized in a glance that this hadn't changed anything, that the road had still run out and there was no more track to follow before the ledge. Knowledge cut through the afterglow without remorse. Anders brushed a loose lock of hair back from his face and said measuredly, "You should go now."

Hawke swore and reached for his face. "Anders, there's still so much—" he began, but Anders covered his mouth with his fingers and quieted him. "No. No, there isn't," he said.

They dressed without conversation, the buzz of morning activity filtering in blandly through the window. Somewhere below them, a templar recruit laughed mid-conversation with his fellows. Hawke's fingers moved thickly on his belt, fumbling with it. Anders stilled his hands and fastened it for him, smoothed out some of the wrinkles in his dark coat, and straightened his cuffs. The exchange was so familiar, so simple and domestic, but enduring it was like swallowing poison. He had to leave. There was no dignity to be found for either of them in delaying this any longer than they already had.

Anders must have read the intent on his face. If he felt fear, he kept it tamped down. "I'm so sorry," he said, earnestly but quietly, "that I was never what you needed. I tried."

If they'd had all the time in the world, Hawke realized without feeling, this was still the clearest the air would ever be between them, and that would have to be enough. He rested a hand against the side of Anders' neck and kissed his forehead, let his lips linger a moment, eyes closed. When he drew back Anders looked at him, his eyes weighted with expectation, but all Hawke could manage was a detached sounding, "Maker keep you," before he turned his back on him and left the room. In the end, he barely glimpsed the half-formed emotion on his lover's face as he shut the door and secured the latch.

For an interminable stretch of time Hawke stood in the corridor, breathing and taking measure of his thoughts. He pressed his hand and cheek against the wood and listened, but heard nothing at first. Then, gradually, the muted shuffle of footsteps reached him through the grain as Anders moved around inside the cell. Cleaning up, Hawke suspected. It was the most surreal of feelings, to know that on one side of door Anders was alive and breathing, and yet in a matter of hours he would be dead, and they would never see each other again. They would never touch each other, or kiss each other, or make love, or fight, or tell lies and keep dark secrets. The knowledge seeded relief traitorously in his heart. Some part of him had wanted this for years, a chance to let Anders go for good, to leave the past where it belonged and look forwards. He felt vile acknowledging it.

At the base of the spiraling stairwell, the Knight-Commander had left a small guard detail on duty to await his return. They rose to their feet respectfully when Hawke came into view. Dully, Hawke wondered if they expected him to salute.

"Here are the keys," he said colorlessly and offered them out. "Give the Knight-Commander my thanks."

One of the templars took the keys and dipped his head. "Yes, Your Excellency." But Hawke was already walking past him, out of the small station and onto the wharf where the morning sunlight glittered across the channel like gold.