Title: Catalyst

Disclaimer: BioWare owns all; I just play in their pond.

Related Twice Bitten Chapter: Eight - Beginnings

POV: Alistair

Characters: Alistair, Aedan

Author's Notes: Alistair chases Aedan down after it becomes necessary for the Warden to disclose the events that led to his induction into the order.

Reviews are always welcome!

All Alistair could think as he followed Aedan down the hall was that there was no way he could have gone through a story like that without any display of emotion. The door to his friend's room was just closing as he left Wynne's quarters, and when he got there he had a moment's doubt as to whether he should interfere. Would he want Aedan to see him after something like that?

The thing was, Aedan had. The man had calmly stood there and held him up while he spewed out all of his grief over Duncan and the other Wardens, all those men his friend had never met. And Alistair had felt just fine about letting him do it, but now… Maker, all the things he'd just heard had to have happened no more than a fortnight before they reached Lothering.

And… hadn't he felt better, somehow, after Aedan had pulled him away and let him grieve? He really didn't know what he was doing, but it didn't seem right not to at least acknowledge that. But what if his friend had already gotten past it? He couldn't have, it hadn't even been a month.

You can stand here in the hall and argue with yourself all night, Alistair. He took a deep breath, trying and failing to smooth out the knot in his gut, and knocked on the door. He was almost ready to give it up and walk away when he heard Aedan's voice calling him in.

His friend looked… empty, Alistair thought, sitting on the bed and staring at the wall. He recognized it now. How could he not have seen it before? But Aedan had said on the boat, going to the Circle, that he didn't want… Maker, but Alistair was out of his depth.

So what else is new?

"What can I do for you, Alistair?" Aedan sounded flat, hollow. And ouch. Why would he just assume Alistair wanted something? And it was on him all at once, that all he'd done since they met was ask for things. Don't make me do this, help me with that, I have this sister, it's not fair this got pinned on me.

Feeling small, cursing his voice for matching it, the blond man leaned on the small desk in the small room. "I… That couldn't have been easy." No kidding, Alistair. "I'm sorry. That was obvious. What I mean is, if you need… you know, anything…"

"No, Alistair, I really don't. I've taken enough from everyone who's counted on me already."

"But… That can't be right. It isn't right, for you to think you have to carry all the rest of us."

"Someone has to do it, yeah?"

"I…" Yep. Completely out of my depth. But he's right. "I want to say I'm sorry for that, but that just makes it sound like it's about me again. And it's not. Or it shouldn't be. I don't… I don't really know how to be what you need, right now, but I want to try. And…" He lined up his words and fired them off before he could convince himself to shut up. "And you haven't failed anyone. Not in Highever, and not since."

Something must have been right, because Aedan looked over at him then, curious. "No? Then what would you say to the families of everyone slaughtered, to those left behind by the ones who died so I could get away?"

Alistair started to sweat, just a little, but he couldn't back down now. "Maybe I'm wrong, Aedan, but… How would it have been better if there was no one left to see Howe pays for what he did? And how could you have prevented any of it? You're not supposed to expect a knife in the back from your friends, are you?" He knew he was asking, praying for his friend to tell him he was right.

"Ha. I've said that to myself any number of times. Not sure I'll ever believe it, told as I was from the day I was old enough to listen the proper role of my 'station.'"

"Then, maybe… Not that I'm suggesting you don't, please don't believe that, but maybe it's because you listened so well to all of it and didn't fail them they were willing to… do what they did, for you to get out. Maybe the best way to thank them for it and honor what all of you had is to go on and get them the justice they're owed?"

Alistair had a few very long minutes to be terrified he'd said the wrong thing. Very, very long minutes during which Aedan just looked at him, before he finally said in a voice almost too low to be heard, "You could be right."

The blond man immediately regretted the sigh of relief that escaped him at hearing this, and froze like a boy caught misbehaving. And then he sighed again when his friend started laughing.

"It occurs to me we're sitting in your old home, Alistair. How is it all this is such new territory for you?"

"Well…" He hesitated. This wasn't why he was here, but…

"Yes, I realize it's about you," Aedan said, shaking his head in amusement. "But it can be, without any guilt from you, because I asked."

"It's only… the castle wasn't really my home, when I lived here." Now it was Alistair's turn to look away, to face the wall. And it didn't matter what his friend had just said, he did feel guilty. "And I told you they spent all that time telling me to forget who my father was, that it wasn't my place to do anything really important."

"If this wasn't your home, where did you live?" Aedan sounded thoroughly confused. And when Alistair said, quietly enough not to be heard if one wasn't listening closely, that he'd spent most of the time in the stables, Aedan shot to his feet and sounded thoroughly livid. Even if all he managed to say for a while was some of the most inventive profanity the blond man had ever heard. "Sorry. I'm sorry for that, truly. You can't be surprised, knowing what I was raised to think about responsibility and all that. And… thank you, Alistair. For trusting me, and for reminding me there are people who need me. Past and present."

"So… you're going back to things as they were? No. Just, no. You're not taking it all on by yourself. If I… will you teach me? The things you do? Maybe you're right, you have your duty, but so do I. I just…"

"You just need someone to show you what the bastard who had charge of your care never bothered to teach. So yes, I will." Aedan held up a hand now, knowing what would come. "And you're not taking from me. You're giving, being willing to learn how to help. And I just remembered…"

Aedan fished around in his packs, coming up with something that glinted in the candlelight. "Found this in the study downstairs while I was looking for… well, nothing really, but you know me, and with one thing and another I ended up forgetting."

Duty or not, Alistair thought for a moment how it had felt hearing Aedan tell him he'd been right. And as he took the trinket he'd been convinced was lost to his own rash stupidity, he thought he might understand, now, what his friend had said on the road the other day about rewards. He could learn to like this.