Many thanks to my beta, Olndina.

Anders was asleep when Oghren banged on the door to his room before opening it and sticking his head inside. "C'mon, lad. We're headin' under the Keep again. Voldrik finally got the passage cleared out."

Anders stifled a groan. Voldrik and the other soldiers had been working on the blocked passageway in the basement of the Keep for nearly two months now, and progress had been slow. There had been several huge chunks of rock that needed to be cleared out, as well as literally tons of smaller debris. Anders had secretly hoped that they would give up on the task before they'd finished, and seeing as how there were few soldiers who had survived the darkspawn attack that had wiped out the Orlesian Wardens—and that their main task was still the safe-guarding of the Keep—it wasn't that far-fetched of an idea.

Anders was good at keeping his eyes and ears open, and from everything he'd heard, few people really thought the darkspawn were getting in from some secret underground passage that led to the Deep Roads, despite astounding evidence to the contrary. He had been in the Keep the night of the attack, and there had to have been at least a hundred darkspawn raging through the compound. True, Anders had not been a Warden at the time of the attack, but even the newest of recruits could feel the hair-raising sense of being watched when darkspawn were nearby. According to Gideon, veteran Wardens could not only sense nearby groups, but they could also measure the distance, count the group's number, and distinguish among the genlocks, hurlocks, and ogres. If not a single residing Warden sensed the darkspawn before all hell broke loose, there had to be some sort of underground passage. Anders, intellectually, knew this, but that didn't stop him from praying to the Maker that Gideon and Voldrik were really, really wrong. The last thing Anders wanted to do was return to the Deep Roads. It was times like this when he wished that he weren't the only decent healer. Hell, he almost wished that Wynne, the busiest of busybodies in the Fereldan Circle, were there just so he could miss one or two excursions with the Warden Commander.

He shooed Oghren out of the room and dragged himself out of bed, searching through his wardrobe for a clean set of robes. It was probably too much to hope that Nathaniel wouldn't be joining them. This was Nathaniel's childhood home—he would definitely see it as an insult if Gideon didn't take him along—which would mean that this whole thing was going to be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, as well as claustrophobic and panic-attack-inducing. It had been nearly a week since Anders' intimate encounter with Nathaniel, and while the other man wasn't exactly giving Anders the silent treatment, there was a very obvious, and very large, rift between them now. Nathaniel was polite, but distant when he spoke to Anders, his tone formal and completely devoid of emotion.

Anders had always been a look-before-leaping type of person. There had been times when his impetuousness had paid off, true, but there had been other times when it hadn't. For instance, there had been the milkmaid in Lothering. Two nights of glorious passion had gone off without a hitch, but then her father had caught them and Anders had nearly lost an eye from the man's deadly prowess with a pitchfork. Then, there had been the deflowering of the Chantry sister in the bedchambers of the Revered Mother. Whilst he hadn't been caught that time, it had still been a reckless and foolish thing to do that could very well have cost him some time in solitary confinement. And, while losing an eye and his freedom would have been awful, this current act of idiotic impulsivity was going to cost him something he really and truly valued: Nathaniel's friendship. Stupid, stupid, stupid. With each echo of the word "stupid" in his head, Anders thumped his forehead against the wardrobe's door. He had gone too fast, had pushed the other man too far, too quickly. Anders had known how difficult it must have been for Nathaniel to express his desire, yet Anders had practically pounced on him.

He had been so happy to have finally won the brooding rogue over, and was crushed when the man had rejected him so harshly. It bothered Anders much more than it should have, and it bothered him that it bothered him. He'd known for a long time that he'd let himself get too close to Nathaniel, but he hadn't realized how much Nathaniel's rejection of him would actually hurt. Nathaniel had allowed Anders inside for a few brief and blissful moments, and then violently shut him out again.

The next morning, Nathaniel acted as if nothing had happened; he greeted Anders casually at breakfast, yet Anders couldn't help but notice that the other man avoided looking at him directly. He had wanted to confront Nathaniel, to force him to talk about it, but he was too afraid that doing so would hurt far more than it would help. There wasn't really much that Nathaniel could say, anyway. Whatever demons haunted him, they were obviously too much for him to overcome. Either that, or he just didn't really want Anders after all. That night could have just been a fluke; maybe Nathaniel just hadn't had sex in a really long time and Anders happened to be there. Anders should have been completely fine with that—Maker knew he'd used more than his share of people for just such a reason—but he wasn't. Nathaniel was special to him, and it wounded him that the other man might not feel the same way.

Anders paused outside the entrance to the main hall, straining his ears for the familiar rumble of Nathaniel's voice. With the Keep as big as it was and Nathaniel's newly-developed habit of taking his meals after everyone else, Anders had not seen Nathaniel since that first morning after. With Anders' lack of courage to break the silence and Nathaniel's apparent lack of desire, Anders knew they were destined to let things go unresolved forever, unless, of course, Gideon forced them together. With one last stomach flip that was part dread at seeing Nathaniel and (Dear Maker, I miss him!) the other part dread that he wouldn't, Anders pushed the door open and strode in, his eyes immediately landing on Nathaniel, who was standing beside Gideon and Oghren.

Anders let his gaze linger on Nathaniel, but the rogue said nothing to Anders, didn't even look at him. Gideon looked from one man to the other, eyebrow arched, but when neither man said anything, he shrugged and drilled everyone about their readiness for the sojourn ahead.

While this was supposed to be just a quick trip beneath the Keep, with the possibility of an entrance into the Deep Roads, not to mention the possibility of a rockslide or ceiling caving in on them, they each needed to carry several days' rations of food a potions. Anders shuddered. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that the Wardens were an order dedicated to making sure large open, outdoor, spaces were safe, rather than the Deep Roads.

Confident that everyone was ready, Gideon ordered them to set out. "Where's Sigrun?" Anders asked, as they headed across the courtyard.

"Doing something with Dworkin, I think," Gideon responded, "though they won't say what. Hopefully it'll be something to reinforce the Keep, rather than blowing it up. We've got to get this place ready, just in case there's an assault." He shook his head, irritated. "We need more Wardens. There was a reason why Weisshaupt sent so many Orlesian Wardens; there's so much to do to get this place ready to be a fully functioning Warden Outpost, and that's without the new darkspawn threat."

Anders frowned. "You're not going to force more people to go through the Joining involuntarily, are you?"

Gideon shrugged. "It served you well. And believe it or not, there are some people who actually want to become Wardens. Mhairi did. Besides, we need to rebuild the Order, even if it means we have to conscript people. Though I'd rather not have to do it that way."

"But – "

"Stop questioning the Commander," Nathaniel interrupted gruffly. "It's not for you to decide what he should or shouldn't do."

Anders was stung by Nathaniel's admonition, knowing that the comment had a double meaning. Just like Anders was himself, Nathaniel was blaming the mage for what had happened between them, possibly even felt like he hadn't been given a choice. Anders hadn't forced himself on Nathaniel by any means, but he hadn't exactly asked for permission either. Anders frowned deeply, fresh guilt gnawing at him.

Gideon cast him another questioning look, but again kept to his usual standard of not prying. Anders just shrugged and offered him a cheeky smile, though he knew it looked forced. Shaking his head, Gideon strode into the entrance to the Keep's basement, Oghren just behind him. Nathaniel avoided looking at Anders as he followed his commander.

Once they were inside, Anders walked several steps behind Nathaniel, taking the opportunity to study the rogue unchecked, and thinking back to that fateful night. He tried hard to focus on the perfect moments of that night—the feeling of Nathaniel's lips against his, the press of his warm body, the heady scent of him, the taste of his seed as he swallowed it down. Those sensations always gave way to the ones that became more vivid as the days went by: the look of anguish on the rogue's face, the tightening in Anders' chest as he realized he was being rejected, the sound of his fist pounding on Nathaniel's door, trying to get him to come out and just talk to him.

He wasn't exactly sure how long he had knocked on Nathaniel's door, alternating between asking and demanding that Nathaniel open it. Probably just a few minutes. He'd given up eventually, worried that he'd draw the attention of a nearby servant, and knowing that his efforts were in vain. Nathaniel could be a stubborn bastard when he wanted to, and Anders was confident that he could have banged on that door until morning and not gotten so much as a peep from the other side.

Anders shook himself from those memories and saw that the basement had been cleared of the darkspawn corpses and inanimate skeletons. Nathaniel had come down here not long after their first exploration and recovered Adria's body. He had buried her in the woods not far from the Keep, ignoring Gideon's warning that her Tainted body might infect the ground. Nathaniel had dug the hole himself and lined it with large, flat stones, spreading a layer of earth on top of that before gently lowering her into it. Though he'd refused to allow anyone else to be present, obviously feeling that this was a task he needed to do himself, Anders had watched unnoticed from behind a line of thick trees that surrounded the clearing Nathaniel had chosen for Adria's final resting place.

The four Wardens made their way through the cleared basement, meeting up with Voldrik at the far end. He was standing next to a newly-opened pit, a long ladder leading down into the depths. "I told you there was an entrance to the Deep Roads here," he said to Gideon triumphantly.

The Commander nodded. "I never doubted you. I was just hoping we were both wrong."

"You and me both, lad," Voldrik confessed. He leaned over and looked down into the abyss. "This has to be how the darkspawn got into the Keep. There could be dozens of entrances to the Deep Roads down there."

Anders groaned. "Wonderful. I suppose we have to close them all off?"

Gideon shrugged. "We will if we have to."

Voldrik looked thoughtful. "No matter how many tunnels are down there, they all feed into this one. Maybe you can find a choke-point and close that off."

"How're we supposed to do that?" Oghren asked.

"We'll figure it out," Gideon said confidently.

Anders shook his head, wishing he felt half as confident as his commander did. Slowly they began to descend the ladder, bracing themselves for whatever they might find.

oOoOo

A few hours later, and Anders was actually starting to feel a bit nostalgic for Kal'Hirol. At least in the dwarven fortress many of the halls and rooms had been fairly large, practically cavernous. In the portion of the Deep Roads running beneath Vigil's Keep, the naturally created tunnels were narrow enough that the Wardens had to walk single file. At several points, Anders could have stretched out his arms and placed the flats of his hands on both sides of the tunnel without straining. Torches—courtesy of Voldrik and his men, no doubt—lined the walls for the first few hundred feet of tunnels, and after that there was almost complete darkness. Anders cast a spell wisp to light their way, casting everything in an ominous green glow. Kal'Hirol had also been better due to the fact that Nathaniel had been there, offering Anders a bit of distraction or comfort when needed. Down here, though, Nathaniel was silent, his attention focused on leading them through the winding tunnels.

As soon as the tunnels gave way to the dwarven-built stone halls, the darkspawn set upon them. They streamed from every nook and cranny, grouping together to swarm out and attack the Wardens, and though the Wardens made it through more or less unscathed, with only a few minor injuries for Anders to heal, it wasn't until they reached their intended destination that things got really fun: a large group of darkspawn—complete with a couple of emissaries—was surrounding the biggest darkspawn Anders had ever seen. Gideon's grumbled curse of "fucking ogre," was not reassuring. Nor was the fact that once they'd managed to defeat it (along with all of its friends), the thing apparently became possessed by some malevolent spirit and wakened from its death stronger and angrier than before.

There was a terrifying, heart-stopping moment when the ogre grabbed Nathaniel in one large, clawed fist, shaking him angrily before pitching him into the wall. As Nathaniel hit the hard stone wall, Anders heard several bones snapping. Ignoring everything around him, Anders drew on every drop of mana he had to heal the unconscious rogue. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gideon leap onto the ogre, a battle cry tearing from him as he stabbed his longsword into the beast's skull. He jumped off neatly as the ogre collapsed to the ground, a grin of triumph on his face. The grin faded as he noticed Nathaniel slumped against the ground.

Anders was still focusing on the last bits of healing as Gideon and Oghren hurried over to Nathaniel's prone form. Gideon shook him firmly, trying to wake him up. When that didn't work, he lightly slapped Nathaniel's face. Tactless as it might have seemed, it actually worked, and Nathaniel's eyes fluttered open. With help from Oghren, he slowly sat up, looking dazed but fully healed. As soon as Anders saw that Nathaniel was awake, he slumped to the floor, utterly exhausted. He was breathing hard and shaking, partly from using so much mana so quickly, and partly because of the sheer terror he'd felt at seeing Nathaniel in such grave danger. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the feeling that the entire room was spinning. Unfortunately this only made things worse.

Gideon saw Anders' predicament and walked over to him, kneeling down next to him. "Water or lyrium?" Gideon asked.

"Both," Anders rasped hoarsely. The quick tilt of the room was starting to get to him, and he felt as if he was going to vomit.

Gideon pressed a lyrium potion into his hand. "Drink this first." Anders nodded and downed the contents quickly. The dizziness began to subside and his head started to clear. Gideon exchanged the empty lyrium bottle with his water flask. Anders took several swallows before he finally felt himself again.

"Are you all right?" Nathaniel was standing over him, his voice earnest, and surprisingly unguarded for the first time in days.

He nodded slowly, afraid his head might topple off. "I'm fine. What about you?"

Nathaniel's smile was small, but still there and genuine. "Good as new, though I think these leathers are shot." He indicated a long jagged tear in the leather of his chestpiece. Anders shuddered. That ogre must have had sharp claws indeed to cut through boiled leather that easily; it was a miracle that Nathaniel had survived. The reminder of how much danger Nathaniel had been in made Anders feel nauseous again, but he swallowed down the rising bile and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

Oghren had moved away and was examining a huge steel door stretching the length and width of the tunnel ahead of them. It was half-opened, an indication that whoever had last attempted to close it had been interrupted in their task. "Hey Commander, look at this!"

Gideon walked over to Oghren, inspecting the door. "That's interesting."

Oghren snorted. "You bet your arse it is! It's a dwarven barrier door. It's built to block the cities off from one another in case one of 'em got invaded by darkspawn. The city'd fall, but at least the blighted nughumpers wouldn't get any further." He looked at the door mournfully. "It's a shame they never got a chance to seal this one off. If they did . . . maybe Orzammar wouldn't be the only city left standin'." He spat on the ground. "Eh, what's done is done. Let's get this thing closed before any more of those sons of bitches show up."

Gideon nodded. "Sounds good to me." He called Anders and Nathaniel over to help, and among the four of them, they managed to swing the heavy door shut. Gideon and Nathaniel turned the large wheel on the door, sealing it once and for all. "Let's go," Gideon said, clapping a hand on Oghren's shoulder companionably. None of them needed to be told twice, and they set off, retracing their path until they finally reached the blessedly cool air of the Keep's courtyard. It was nightfall by the time they emerged—nearly an entire day after they'd set out—and the soft breeze was refreshing.

Voldrik was waiting for them, looking more than a little anxious. "How'd it go? Did you find anything useful?" Gideon nodded and proceeded to tell the dwarf about the barrier door and how they'd managed to get it closed.

Voldrik beamed. "Excellent! It's not a sure-fire thing, but it'll buy us a few years, at least. We can get started on building something more permanent right away."

Gideon smirked. "So long as there's enough coin, right?"

Voldrik chuckled. "Money certainly does grease a lot of wheels."

"And doors, apparently," Gideon said. "I'll get you your money. We need to make sure this never happens again."

Listening idly to the conversation, Anders casually glanced around the courtyard. It was then that he saw the cat.

It was a tiny thing, huddled in a corner made by two buildings and mewing softly. "Oh, look at the little kitty," Anders cooed, forgetting everything else for the moment in favor of the adorable tabby. He crouched down next to the kitten and scratched under its chin, crooning to it amiably. He laughed when the cat rumbled a deep purr.

"Maker preserve us," Gideon mumbled under his breath, just loud enough for Anders to hear

Anders looked up at Gideon questioningly. "What?"

"Do you always talk to cats as if they're infants?" Gideon looked distinctly amused.

"Well he—" Anders picked the kitten up and tilted it to make sure of the gender— "he is just a baby. Probably just weaned from his mother. I wonder where she is." He cradled the kitten in his arms as he stood up again. "Poor kitty," he murmured. "Are you all alone? Are you?" The kitten mewed sadly as if in reply. Anders turned to Gideon. "Can I keep him? Please? He's got no one else—we can't just leave him to his own devices. He could get stepped on. Or eaten!" He cast a significant look at Oghren.

The dwarf grunted. "Don't you go lookin' at me; dwarves don't eat cats, I don't care what anyone says. We don't even have cats in Orzammar."

Gideon rolled his eyes. "He's yours if you want him. Though you're going to have to find someone to take care of him while you're out on missions."

"No, no, I can bring him with me!" Anders grinned. "You won't be a bother, will you kitty? You can stay in my pack." The kitten mewed again.

Nathaniel finally spoke up. "Anders, you can't take him with us when we're fighting darkspawn. If anyone's likely to eat him, it's them." Anders noted the careful distance that had crept back into the rogue's voice.

Anders shook his head. "Not if I keep him in my pack, they won't," he said dismissively. As far as he was concerned, the matter was already closed. "I can't keep calling you kitty. You need a proper name." An image of an old textbook he'd once doodled in whilst living in the Tower of Magi suddenly sprang up. "Ser Pounce-a-lot! That's your name, alright." Another tiny mew and a gentle swat at Anders' nose indicated the kitten approved of his new name. Anders laughed delightedly. "Such a smart kitty you are, you already know your name!"

"He's just gonna wind up pissin' all over your pack," Oghren grumbled.

"Don't listen to him, Ser Pounce-a-lot," Anders cooed. "You're going to be a lean, mean, darkspawn-fighting machine."

Gideon and Nathaniel both rolled their eyes at the exact same time, Gideon murmuring something about idiot mages.

Anders ignored them and tucked Ser Pounce-a-lot into his pack. Almost immediately, the kitten curled up into a tiny ball and fell asleep. Anders nodded with satisfaction, smiling broadly. It had been a long time since he'd had a cat. It'd be nice to have the company again. Mister Whiskers—the Tower's mouser—had been a great comfort to him during his year of solitary confinement. True, Anders' circumstances had greatly improved since then, but it would still be nice to have someone around for company, someone who wouldn't judge him. If Pounce was like other cats, all it would take would be a bowl of milk and a bit of brushing to win over the creature's undying affection.

As he cooed and fussed over the kitten, Nathaniel brushed past him, heading for the Keep. Anders looked up frowning. There was nothing for it—something was going to have to be done about the rogue.

Leaving Gideon and Oghren to talk with Voldrik about reinforcements and money, Anders headed up to his room and deposited his new kitten on the bed, bunching up a blanket for Pounce to nestle into. Satisfied that the animal was comfortable and asleep, Anders headed out of his room, his face set with determination as he marched towards Nathaniel's quarters.