Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age, sadly. If I did, Alistair would be a bisexual romance option.

Author's Note: No excuses - even though I know I said this story wasn't going to have a regular update schedule, two months is still pushing it. I got swept up in another fandom, and this story got pushed to the back burner - but I have not abandoned it! For those of you who read chapter one when it first came out, thank you for coming back for chapter two. For those of you just reading this now, thank you for reading both chapters at once. Please enjoy!

Special thanks to my tireless beta-reader, Teakwood, who somehow manages to keep track of all the stories, original and fanfiction, that I through at him. Also a big thanks to lisakodysam, who nudged me relentlessly until I got this chapter done and posted.

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Forever
Chapter Two

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"Nathaniel?"

Anders winced as the word left his throat, his voice scratchy and unrecognizable. His mouth felt dry; his entire body ached. His mind processed these facts as soon as he awoke, but promptly pushed them to the side as his blurred vision came into focus, recognition jolting through him as he stared at the dark-haired rogue that sat near his bed.

No...no, it can't be. Not now. Not here.

Panic gripped him, made his chest and throat tighten. How? Why? What reason could Nathaniel Howe have to be in the woods of the Free Marches, so far from Ferelden and Amaranthine and any sort of Grey Warden outpost?

Hazy memories returned, recollections of what had happened just moments before he'd blacked out. He remembered seeing the templars fall, the arrow protruding from the throat of one of them with the tip buried in the man's carotid artery – that the shot had met its target spoke either of incredible luck or years of carefully honed skill. And here was the best archer in Ferelden, sitting mere inches from him, so close that Anders could reach out and touch him if he wanted to.

"Anders."

Oh, Maker. That voice, low and deep and rolling smoothly around his name as if it were a physical entity to be caressed. Seven years hadn't changed Nathaniel's voice in the least, and just the sound of it made Anders' heart ache. For a moment he felt as if he were walking down one of the many corridors in Vigil's Keep and that he was hearing that voice behind him, calling to him, capturing his attention in a way that no one else ever had. He'd heard that voice shout in anger, snap with orders, banter with sarcastic wit, groan with desire...

A shock of pain surged through him, causing his shoulders to tense up and a startled gasp to tear from his throat. Without thinking he'd attempted to shift his position onto his side, and his ribs were screaming in furious protest. The plus side was that it effectively cut off his undesired walk down memory lane. Unfortunately, it also hurt like hell. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, and he drew in a shuddering breath to try and keep from passing out again.

And with the pain came the memory of how he'd gotten the injury, of the metal-toed templar boot that had connected squarely with his ribs and knocked the wind from him.

A firm hand grasped his shoulder, pushing him back down on to the bed and keeping him firmly in place. Involuntarily a shudder rippled through Anders at the touch, but Nathaniel didn't release him – he held fast, looking down at the mage with a stoic, unreadable expression.

Unable to move and without the strength to try and resist Anders could only lie there, drawing in gasping breaths as he struggled through the pain. Soon it began to subside, the forced position allowing the pressure to ease off of his aching rib cage.

"Idiot," Nathanial said, a harsh growl rolling through the timbre of his Ferelden accent. "Have the years left your mind addled? You're a healer, you ought to know better than to move after sustaining the kind of injuries you have!"

Anders winced, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. "Didn't…remember," he whispered, attempting a few slow, deep breaths and managing only shallow ones. Oh, yes. At least one broken rib, possibly two or maybe even three. If the pain wasn't proof enough of that, his own body's inability to function was filling in the blanks quite nicely.

He closed his eyes and focused, reaching for his replenished mana reserves. His hand flared ethereal blue, the tips of his fingers near white as he ran them down along the length of his rib cage. It wasn't painless – healing magic repaired the body, but didn't numb it, and he had none of his usual poultices with which to do so. The pain would fade within moments once the healing was complete, but the process itself was another matter entirely.

Nathaniel watched quietly as Anders healed himself, seeing the sweat breaking out across the mage's forehead, watching the way he bit his lip and listening to his labored breaths of exertion. He knew what the mage had to be feeling – he'd been healed enough himself, both before the Wardens and since, to know what being on the end of such spells entailed. Broken bones were the worst, because they required setting before healing – and if they weren't, the spell would attempt to compensate. That was likely what Anders was dealing with now, for there was no way to set a rib.

Finally Anders relaxed, the glow on his fingers dying out and the tension escaping from his muscles. It was clear that he'd used up a good portion of his replenished mana to perform the spell, however – he was pale and sweating, clearly exhausted by that one simple act. Nathaniel couldn't help but think back to their time in Amaranthine, when Anders could cast healing spell after healing spell with almost no amount of hesitation. Was it just his current injuries that made it so difficult, or was it something more?

"Can I get you anything?" Nathaniel finally asked, breaking the silence that stretched between them. There wasn't much in the waystation that he could offer, but there was food and water. No alcohol, but then neither of them needed to be getting drunk. "Do you think you could keep down food?"

"I don't…" Anders' voice trailed off as his stomach released a particularly fierce growl, as if to counteract the mage's argument before it even began. Without a word Nathaniel rose to his feet and went to the dry storage shelves, selecting a few samples from the dried meat and fruit selection and then adding a bit of cheese and bread from his own supplies. Not nearly enough by Grey Warden standards, but given Anders' current state introducing large quantities of food into his stomach at all once was probably even less of a good idea then it sounded. In fact, Nathaniel suspected the mage would have likely starved to death long before now if it weren't for Warden stamina.

Not a thought he wanted to focus on at the moment.

Nathaniel reached to offer Anders a hand as the mage struggled into a sitting position, but the flicker of apprehension that appeared in his eyes was enough to halt him – and he had to try and ignore how much that look bothered him. He watched silently as Anders, wincing from the effort, got himself settled and then quietly accepted the food that Nathaniel held out to him.

He sat back into the chair as Anders set to work on the food at a slow, methodical pace despite the fact that the man had to be ravenous. With a pang Nathaniel recognized it as the eating habit of someone who couldn't be sure of when or what his next meal would be and was trying to make his current one last for as long as it could.

"When was the last time you had anything to eat?" Nathaniel finally had to ask, after Anders had taken the last bite and then cleaned off his fingers to catch every last bit and crumb from them.

The mage paused, staring at his hands for a moment, then lowering them and turning his head slightly towards Nathaniel – but not looking right at him. He hadn't done that since he'd woken up. "You mean something other than scavenged plants and berries and the occasional rabbit? Not since…" He frowned slightly. "I think it was a village just west of Ostwick. That's where I was headed when the Templars got back on my trail."

Nathaniel stared at Anders for a measured moment, running this information through the mental map in his head. They were well into the forest that ran along the foot of the Vimmark Mountains – north of Ostwick now, actually, much closer to Markham. Even if Anders had covered most of that distance at a run it was still too long for him to have gone without a meal. He had to have been exhausted, both physically and mentally. No wonder the Templars had caught up to him. If Nathaniel hadn't managed come across the mage's path when he had…

Well, he already knew what would have happened. The intentions of those Templars had been perfectly clear, and Nathaniel still couldn't remember the precise moment he'd drawn his bow and released his arrows – he could only recall the red haze of fury that had clouded his thoughts.

Even if he hadn't been under orders to take whatever steps were necessary to secure Anders, those men would not have left the forest alive.

He kept those thoughts to himself, however, and instead voiced the more obvious ones. "You must have been without food for days," he said.

Anders gave an indifferent shrug. "It's nothing I'm not used to. A good solid meal wasn't the easiest thing to come by in Darktown, and I didn't exactly have time to pack up supplies before I… left." It didn't go unnoticed by Nathaniel, the way that his voice caught on that last word.

Silence fell between them then, tense and heavy and full of seven years of unspoken words. Nathaniel suddenly wished that the waystation was a little larger, enough to necessitate a second room, because then he might have been able to come up with a reason to get up and leave for a few moments, to give himself a chance to gather his thoughts.

Excellent, Howe, he thought sardonically. You can face down a ten foot ogre with nothing but a bow on your back and a dagger in your boot, but you can't handle being in the same room with the man you –

"Why are you here?"

Anders' abrupt question snapped Nathaniel out of his thoughts again, only to be met with a sharp and shrewd glare that seemed out of place on the once-familiar face that had changed so much – a harsh reminder that the man before him was no longer the same man that he'd once known.

"And don't give me some half-assed response about just happening to be in the right place at the right time," Anders caustically added. "No one passes through this forest with the road between Markham and Ostwick being both faster and safer, and it's sure as hell not darkspawn activity – I'd know. So tell me – why are you here, Nathaniel Howe?"

The honey-brown of his eyes were the same as they'd been seven years earlier, but there was no warmth in that gaze. There was only apprehension, wariness, and yes…fear. It was the fear that made Nathaniel's gut twist, because Anders had never before looked at him that way. He'd never given him a reason to.

He hoped he wasn't about to give him another one.

"You're right," Nathanial said finally. There was no point in hiding the truth. "It's not darkspawn, and I don't have business in either Markham or Ostwick. I'm not even here on official Warden business, although it was Ferelden's Warden-Commander who sent me."

Anders grew tense. "Colin?" he whispered. "Sent you?"

"Yes." Nathaniel leveled his gaze. "As soon as he received word of what happened in Kirkwall, he sent me here to find you. To bring you back to Amaranthine – and to the Grey Wardens."

He wasn't sure what he'd expected Anders' reaction to be. Alarm, he supposed. Certainly resistance, given that Anders had shown absolutely no interest in rejoining the Wardens ever since his sudden and unexplained defection and disappearance. He'd hoped for some sign of relief, given the mage's current situation. After all, if it was a choice between the Templars and the Wardens, surely Anders would choose his former comrades. Right?

The way Anders' face turned white at his words said differently.

"No," Anders whispered, eyes wide with fear and alarm. "No, you can't… I won't... No!" With a burst of unexpected strength and speed the mage suddenly launched himself from the bed, making a clear attempt to break past Nathaniel for the door. And he might have succeeded, taking advantage of the rogue's shock, if he hadn't suddenly cried out and caught his side, stumbling forward from the momentum.

"Anders!" Nathaniel turned and reached for him.

"Don't!" Anders shouted, just as Nathaniel's hand closed around his arm, the panicked warning spoken too late.

The last thing Nathaniel saw as something threw his body across the room, crashing into the first thing it came into contact with, was a blinding, blue-white flash of light.