Year 7

The Hanged Man

On a Saturday

"You know what's terrible?" Hawke asked, one eye squeezed shut as if to focus on what was ahead of her. Varric was watching her with a curious gaze as she tapped the table with her index finger to illustrate her point.

"What's terrible, Champion?" he humoured her, corners of his mouth coming up in a tricky smile.

"My mother came here to take back the Amell's nobility." She trailed off, frowning, wondering if Varric was the person she should be having this conversation with. She looked back down at her nearly empty ale, finishing it off before saying anything more.

"What's so terrible about that?" Varric asked.

Hawke shook her head. "No, it's just I'm the only one left in our family and so far…" Once again, she didn't finish her thought.

"What is it, Hawke? You can tell me." Varric was goading her now, playfully nudging her arm with his elbow.

"I know what this is about." Isabela stepped in towards their table, taking a seat next to Hawke. She looked annoyed when she sat down, having heard this conversation many times in the past few months. She wasn't about to stop Hawke, but her glare was warning enough. Hawke after six pints wasn't about to.

"I've just been thinking, and I don't know why I'm feeling this way." A strong blush came over her face and she brought a hand up to cover it.

"You've been feeling this way because this always happens after enough beer."

Hawke placed her hand on Isabela's back, looking her straight in the eye. "And you are so supportive of me, and that's why I love having you as a friend."

"Okay, what is going on?" Varric said through his laughter. The dwarf looked between the two, just as Hawke was about to stand up, her eyes on the bar, ready for another pint. Isabela put a hand on her shoulder and forced her to sit down, much to Hawke's disapproval.

The pirate just made a sound of disgust. "No more for you! Have a couple more and when Fenris comes by, you'll be leaving begging him to hump a baby into you!"

Varric's eyes widened and any trace of his smirk went away. Isabela shook her head disappointedly and Hawke shook off her shoulder.

"No, that's not- What are you talking about?" she whispered, completely drunk, feigning confusion poorly.

"I'm, uh, really not the person you should be having this conversation with, Hawke." Varric cleared his throat, taking his drink with him, Isabela waving him off as he left their table, probably heading back to his suite for the night.

"I do not do that," Hawke shot back at Isabela, sounding like she was in complete disbelief. She was fully in the room still, her drunkenness mostly influenced by some strange emotions she had been having lately. It was something she would never share with any single one of her friends, but it always happened when she was sorting through her family records, reading up on the Amell timeline, all the families that had branched off and blended in with the other noble families of Kirkwall. And luckily the track record was fairly clean, no arranged marriages ending up in strings of affairs or attempted murders. It was actually fairly boring, but she found herself fascinated by some of the women in her line.

It was strange but whenever she saw the name of one of her own family, a woman, like her great grandmother, or some generations-old cousin, she would study their children's names and her mind began to wonder. What would compel that woman, now a mother, to name her children what they did? How did one come up with a name for another person? A person that would grow up and have their own life, bearing a name they did not choose, but one they owned since they were born. Such thoughts ran through her mind until she had to shut whatever book she was looking at and think harder.

She tried to think back to when Carver and Bethany were born. She had only been three years old, but very faint memories were there, probably some of her earliest. She could distinctly remember the two of them, tiny babies swaddled up in blankets in their small house. Her parents would constantly whisper their fears about raising the unexpected pair of twins, but their faces were always filled with joy and love as they gazed down at their tiny faces.

"Oh, come on, Hawke," Isabela muttered. "You absolutely have baby fever. At your age? It's normal."

She did her best to look offended. "My age? What does that mean?"

She snorted. "Hawke, you aren't much younger than me. I know what it's like, only difference is you actually have someone devoted to you. Makes it much worse."

Hawke shook her head in denial again. "Please, he doesn't even live with me."

"Something I will never understand, but not the point. Maybe Aveline can give you better advice than mine. My advice, which is, don't get so tied down, but I don't think you want to hear that."

Hawke was about to argue, but she stopped. Her mind was starting to drift elsewhere, back to Carver and Bethany. Lately she had been finding it easier to think about her family, three years since she had lost her mother to that twisted blood mage. For a long time it was hard, but it had been getting easy for her to slip into daydreaming about the feeling of having a family without getting teary. She had decided she just missed it. As much as her friends were a family to her, she was lacking something more. Fenris was good at filling that space, but as she had noted, he still lived in that decrepit old mansion of Danarius's. She was convinced he would never leave there, at least not until his old master's heart was crushed dead in his hands. She had brought it up before, only to shrink away and act like she hadn't said anything when his expression turned sad. It made her wonder if he would ever really be free.

But if that was how the conversation went for moving in with her, she didn't have a hope of convincing him to have children. It was true that a few times when she had been drunk, she went off on wild tangents to Fenris about having children. He just shook it off as her drunken ramblings, but Isabela knew there was more to it than that. It wasn't until she got home and Fenris left her alone for the night did the tears start to fall. Only when she was sober did she even think of the drawbacks to having a child. It meant she couldn't go off adventuring with the others, or spend her nights at the Hanged Man, or doing any of the things she currently did.

There was always a possibility of feigning an accident and forcing them together, but she was always alarmed at herself for even thinking that. (That was one thing magic was good for, preventing pregnancy in the first place.)

"Speaking of which."

Hawke looked up towards the front door of the bar, seeing the guard captain walking in, her red hair worn loose, but still with her signature braided leather headband. She saw the pair and regarded them with a nod before joining them at the table.

"Hawke has something she needs to talk to you about," Isabela said in one quick breath as she immediately left for the bar with a smile.

Aveline looked concerned. "What's going on, Hawke?"

She looked darkly at her for a second, cursing Isabela in her head, but then she broke down with a sigh. It was like all her denial was shattering before her when she opened her mouth to speak. "Oh, just… I want a damn baby."

Aveline laughed at her, but it quickly occurred to her that by Hawke's deathly stare that it wasn't something to laugh about. "Oh. You're serious."

Taking a deep breath, Hawke began to fiddle with her fingers in front of her.

"Have you talked to Fenris about this?"

"No," she groaned defeatedly, beginning to feel herself sobering up. "I don't know what's been wrong with me lately!"

The bartender came around and placed a pint in front of Aveline and Hawke waved to him saying she would get it. The redhead drank from it, giving the dilemma some thought before looking back at her friend.

"I mean, you're married. You've been married before that, did you or have you thought about children?" she asked earnestly. "Isabela just says I have 'baby fever', whatever that's supposed to mean."

Aveline smiled, just taking in the image for a moment. The Champion of Kirkwall half lying on the dirty bar table, in shambles over wanting to have babies. In all the years she had known her, she never actually knew just how old the eldest Hawke child was. She had to guess she may have been barely twenty at the time of their meeting, so this was fairly normal. "Well, I suppose when I was married to Wesley that we talked about it. Of course, I was probably younger than you at the time, but we were both so busy, not to mention away from each other."

"And with Donnic?"

"We've talked about it." She suddenly had a sad look about her that Hawke picked up on.

"Ahh, I see now." Hawke gave her a genuine smile. "Good luck, then."

"And good luck to you, too, Hawke. However things go for you." She took a larger gulp of her ale than she planned. As much as the beer in the Hanged Man was bad, she had acquired a taste for it over the years. So long as it didn't poison her. "Are you at least thinking of marriage?"

Hawke laughed. "I can't even get him to stay over longer than a couple nights. I don't know what it is, but he just loves that horrible old mansion. He's attached to it."

Aveline could do nothing but shrug.

"Not to mention he really has no official and legal claim to his life, he was a slave. Fenris isn't even the name he was born with." She was starting to feel her doubting thoughts coming back to her and she knew the alcohol was leaving her system. If they got married, he had no name for her to take, would he take hers? Not that she ever liked the idea of taking another's name; to others she was always known as Hawke, so why would she bother erasing that part of her? Maybe nobody had to take anybody's name. As the thought of marriage had never even occurred to her before, she felt her head rush like she was falling and put her fingers to her temples.

"I just want to know how to deal with the feeling of wanting a baby." Her eyes took on the look of a kicked puppy and looked to Aveline for an answer. "If we do, it won't be for a while."

"I don't know, Hawke. Maybe just think about all the fun you're having without a child? Or maybe the feeling will pass."

She nodded, considering it, but of course she had to place a hand over her stomach. She felt a bulge there and had to smile. "This is just beer."

Aveline laughed into her mug as she was taking a drink, nearly spitting it out. "Seriously, Hawke. Just know you can't get blackout drunk all the time when you have a child."

"Good point! That might have just killed my desire completely." Hawke sat back in her seat, smiling in her usual cocky way, thinking in the back of her mind just how willing she was to give up hangovers and embarrassing herself regularly for that hypothetical child.

The night wore on as the others joined back in on their conversations, Hawke taking it easy on beers for another hour before the door opened and Fenris walked in. When the table spotted him, Varric, Isabela and Aveline gave him the same collective look and he became apprehensive. Hawke just smiled, leaving them as she left silvers on the table, linking her arm through Fenris's and they left into the night.

Hawke was quiet next to Fenris as they walked through the quiet and foreboding streets of Lowtown. The night was still, and the pair was sure they were being watched. After a few more seconds, Hawke would be certain they wouldn't be suddenly met with assailants; it was incredibly rare these days to face an attacker in the streets. She and her friends had the kind of reputation that was clear to common street thugs, don't mess with them.

After a moment of no conversation, Fenris broke their silence. "Good to see you aren't falling over this time."

She playfully smacked him in the ribs, arm still laced around his. "Thought I'd save myself the headache."

"The amount you can put away is certainly impressive, Hawke." He said it with a smile and Hawke leaned into his shoulder, free of its usual spiked armour. His arm unhooked from her arm and he placed it around her waist, holding her close. The walk back to her house wasn't a long one, but they spent it silently, enjoying each other's company.

"Stay the night," Hawke said as they approached the front door of her house. He gladly followed her inside. The front room was illuminated by the fire as the Mabari hound was fast asleep in the middle of the carpet. His fur had been flecked with grey strands, mostly in his face, and Hawke was fairly certain he couldn't hear her as well as he used to.

She turned around to put her arms around Fenris's neck and kissed him, her breath likely tasting of ale, but he never complained. She just wished he would stay over more often, and by more often, she meant forever. Hawke always felt a wave of sadness if she ever rolled over in the night only to find the other side of her bed empty. The reminder of that feeling washed over her and her face fell, pulling away from Fenris. She focused on his eyes, trying to find something inside. There had to be something in there that wanted all the things she did. But even if there was, she feared the one threat to his freedom that still existed out there was holding him back.

His hand was on her cheek, thumb brushing just under her eye as he kissed her again, his way of asking her, "what's wrong?" It was worth another shot, just to ask, and when her stomach pressed against his, the sudden wave of emotion hit her in a way it was hard to hold back tears. Her lips pursed together before she tried.

"I've been thinking." The worst kind of sentences always started off this way, but she smiled, trying to reassure him. "I love you. So much, and I know you've said no before, but…" She paused, already knowing the answer but still choosing her words carefully. "I want you to live with me."

Fenris grew nervous and Hawke could see just how desperately he wanted to say yes. In all the time she had known him, he was so very stubborn. She supposed he needed that resolve to have gotten as far as he did, and it was because of that she had been patient with him.

"I'm sorry," he said, so quietly, and her heart broke. But she understood. She always understood, she had to.

That night Hawke didn't sleep soundly as she usually did in his presence. For the most part she just laid in bed, lazily touching the strands of his hair, running them through her fingers. She watched him sleep, relishing the moments in which she could see him completely at peace. His breath was steady and even, and so slow that sometimes she caught herself worrying that he had stopped. But as she watched him, her mind clouded with thoughts of motherhood, she began to fantasize her life differently.

Her hand touched her stomach and she began to see visions of the two of them, and their child. She tried to visualize a son, a daughter, what would they look like? She saw both a son and daughter looking like Carver and Bethany did when they were small, with the dark Amell hair and possibly her eyes. But of course they would still look like their father, maybe have long pointed ears, skin darker than her own. Or maybe they would have eyes just as green and intense as their father's. Then she thought of the possibility of their child being a mage; it was very likely, and then her mind flashed to what that could mean. Could she as the Champion have her mage children excused from the Circle's grasp? And just how would Fenris take the possibility of his own offspring being mages? She almost had to smile at the thought. But he had become slightly more tolerant over the years. Just slightly.

There was no hope for sleep if she kept up this line of thinking. Carefully, Hawke slid out from under the covers, slipping her feet into a pair of fur-lined slippers and pulling on her robe. She took one more look at Fenris before stepping out of the room. Treading carefully, she took down the stairs to the library, producing a tiny glowing ball of arcane light in her hand to see. The book she wanted was sitting right on the table where she left it and she curled up with it in one of the arm chairs sitting in the corner. It was still one of the old Amell family record books, a thick piece of ribbon sandwiched between the pages she had left off on. Once again she began looking over the names that were present, losing herself in imagining their faces.

Eventually she would council herself for that night with thoughts of not even being nearly close to her "prime", as Mother had once called it, let alone grown past it. It would take time to progress with Fenris, it always had. She just knew what, or rather who, was standing in the way of him moving on with his life and finally breaking the chains. The only way that was going to happen was when Danarius's heart had ripped from his chest. At this point, Hawke was ready to do that herself.