A Place to Rest My Head

Summary: Varric has never told Hawke his feelings and to see her being matched with noblemen who don't fit her at all is hard. One drunken night will change everything but will it be for better or worse? F!HawkexVarric

Rating: M+

Warnings: Cursing, Violence.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age II nor any of the characters.

Oh, why you look so sad?
Tears are in your eyes.
Come on and come to me now,
Don't be ashamed to cry.
Let me see you through,
'Cause I've seen the dark side too.

When the night falls on you.
You don't know what to do.
Nothin' you confess, could make me love you less.

~ The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You"

"You met Bianca?" I ask skeptically staring at her as she laughs. The sound is like magic and tingles across my brain making me think she might have inherited a bit more from her father than she let on. Her smile is equally as effective as she looks at me with that expression, which always makes me think she knows more than she should. "What?"

"I did meet the infamous Bianca!" she states though I can tell there is something else that's dying to get out of her brain. "So you go for the beautiful dangerous women, huh?" Her comment is followed by a bought of laughter that warms my bones as if I were sitting in front of a fire. She is her old self again and I can hardly believe it. If I hadn't felt her lips on my own and her curious tongue exploring my mouth I probably wouldn't be so sure about it. Then again, the dreams I had had for the past year felt so real sometimes. Anyways, that was a different story for a different time.

I shake my head but I can feel the heat creeping up my neck. "Yeah, so what?" I ask jokingly. She leans forward and gets close to my face; I can feel the warmth of her breath and I inch back feeling intimidated by her proximity.

"Which one of us was better?" she asks and I suddenly feel like a cornered animal. Such a loaded question and she sees my discomfort answering with a small chuckle. "Just kidding, she was your first love…among other things! I know I will never be able to compare with her!" She adds a bit of drama to her voice and I roll my eyes before returning to her serious expression. "She sends her regards."

I smile slightly with a quiet thanks before asking the dreaded question. "Did she tell you?"

"Of course she did," she answers as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "Why wouldn't she? She never promised not to tell the story!" She knows full well that I was promised to silence on that one story and that the fact that she was able to go straight to the source was unfair, to say the least. Hawke's eyes soften gently as she touches my hand. "I thought she was dead, Varric. You should have told me she was at least alive," she whispers tenderly.

"What so you could go out and find her to beat the story out of her?" I ask teasingly getting a healthy laugh from the girl. I had to admit that I hadn't really wanted her to find out about Bianca but now that she had I felt a bit better about it. At least, she now knew everything about me.

She thinks about it for a few moments with her right leg crossed over the left. "If I fought her now I think I could win but back then…there was no way," she comments though I knew that Bianca had become one of the most talented Berserkers that Orzammar had ever cultivated. She had just become a Berserker when I left her so many years ago. I had heard stories of her though; it didn't surprise me that the two women had gotten along so well when they had met. They were much the same and it was obvious that I saw a lot of Bianca in Hawke and now, it was the other way around as well.

"Well, you going to continue?" I ask wanting to get away from this topic as quickly as possible.

"Of course, of course," she waves her hand and continues.

I'll stand by you,
I'll stand by you.
Won't let nobody hurt you
I'll stand by you.

~ The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You"

"Bianca? Really?" I say, obviously very shocked. She nods her head and I laugh heartily at the irony of this situation. Who would have thought that the ex-lover of my lover would end up being the person I sought out as a tutor? Oh my but did the Maker have a funny sense of humor. "I always figured you died in some freak story telling accident!"

She chuckles lightly. "I guess Varric did keep up his end of the bargain!" she muses and I smirk. "I never thought he had it in him!"

"Yeah, he hasn't told a soul!" I confirm as she shakes her head in disbelief. "I'd really like to know the truth." It just kind of slipped out without me catching it and she looks at me with those beautiful eyes that pinned me to the spot. What was it with Varric and weird eye colors?

She shrugs slightly after a bit of thought. "I never promised Varric anything so I guess I can tell it just this once," she decides sitting down in a chair and gesturing to the other one. "You can sit down if you'd like." I do as she suggests and lean my elbow on the table to listen intently. "I was born into a middle-lower caste family and Varric was born into a noble caste. We weren't really close until I entered the Provings where he saw me fight for the first time. I'm not sure why he took a liking to me but I guess he was tired of all the noblewomen who couldn't do anything." Hm, that sounded familiar. "So he started to court me but of course it wasn't like he got first pick of the batch seeing as he was a younger brother. So his older brother…what was his name?"

"Bartrand."

"Ah yes, he took a liking to me after his brother did," she says making me wince. No wonder Varric and his brother didn't get along very well. "Yeah, he was adamant that I be with him so he went behind Varric's back and rigged the Provings so that I would have a better chance of winning. When he told me, he expected that I would be thankful for the 'help' but-"

I nod my head in understanding when she trails off. "Who would be happy for someone destroying the chance for a challenge," I fill in for her.

She went on to explain that she had told Bartrand such and he left her alone. She kept her mouth shut about the incident because she knew that if she were to expose the older brother then the younger one would suffer as well. She was already in love with Varric by that point and as their relationship grew so did their want to get married. Sadly, Varric's mother didn't like Bianca because of the fact that she was so low in the caste system. Varric didn't care, obviously, and was ready to throw himself out of his family's good graces to be with her.

Before he could do such though, Bianca won the whole Provings for the first time. This bumped her status up considerably and then Varric's mother was more than happy with her second son marrying this woman. About this same time, another suitor came forward to claim the woman's hand. He was a much higher caste than Varric and her family urged her to marry the wealthier man but she wanted Varric so she declined the other suitor.

Two weeks before their wedding, Bartrand's little mishap was exposed and their house was knocked down from the nobles. They were banished to the surface because of their disgrace. Before Varric left though he convinced his lover to marry the wealthy man; she would have an easier time that way. She wanted to go with him but he wouldn't allow that to happen. She had too much potential to waste it on him and even though she hated it…he was right.

"Against my better judgment, I went with the plan. I married the wealthy man, whom I happen to still be married to, and he moved to Kirkwall in search of something his brother thought would regain their status back," she finishes staring at the wall as if it had all the answers.

"Do you like the man you're married to?" I ask hesitantly but she just smiles.

"Oh yes," she smiles. "He's sweet, loving and a very good father to the kids but…I still miss Varric and the excitement we had down in the Deep Roads when we were young and rambunctious. I miss swinging a sword around as freely as I used to." I smile sadly at her look of wistful sadness. "But, now I have a student! The boys have been wanting me to teach them to fight so I might as well teach you as I teach them!"

Training with a couple of ten year olds? Great.

Come to find out, the kids weren't that bad. They had been training with their father for a long time but their mother refused to fight with them until they were old enough to at least survive by their selves. Insult to her husband? Probably but I wasn't dwelling on it. I didn't have any time to dwell on it with Bianca on my ass 24/7. She beat the shit out of me every day both mentally and physically.

I think the mental frustration was the worst part about it. "You have to overcome all of the emotions plaguing your mind for you to be able to control being a Berserker," she said one day when we were out on the surface so that I could get some fresh air. Staying underground had done a lot of damage to my dusty skin, which was now a sickly pale color and Bianca had convinced her husband to let us go up above. She wasn't like most of the Dwarven kind; she had been above plenty of times and even though she liked it, she preferred the underground.

"That means that you have to come to terms with everything that makes you angry, sad, or happy," she continues making my heart clench. "Let's start with what makes you happy; this is the easy part. What makes you so happy that tears spring into your eyes."

I stare down at the ground and think back to a time when I was actually happy. The image of my entire team sitting at a table in the Hanged Man pops into my head. Before all of the betrayal and hurt, I had been so happy to have a pint with my friends and laugh about how broody Fenris was or when Isabella would try to make him flush with her disgusting talk. I feel a faint smile creep across my lips. "My friends before…everything," I whisper watching the woman look at me. "I haven't been happy in a long time. There's only one thing that would make me happy."

"What is that?" she asks softly but I can tell she knows the answer.

I look up at the lightly powdered landscape. "I want to lie around in bed with Varric. I want a day where we can just lazy around in our bedroom; we can make love at leisure or just cuddle under the blankets; and I want to be able to kiss him without worrying about who is about to kill me," I mutter thinking about a day when I wouldn't have to hide or try to slink around. "Varric is the only thing that makes me happy."

"Good," she states after a few moments of silence. "Then we will keep that in mind as our goal in the end. A nice, lazy day lounging with Varric in a bed. Now, let's go on to what makes you sad and angry."

I feel the emotions rush forth at the thought of everything that happened in Kirkwall. I can still see Fenris' green eyes full of hurt when I side with the mages and I can see the acceptance in Anders' eyes when he thought I was going to take his life in one of my bouts of rage. I could feel the anger bubble forth as I thought about the note Isabella left me to tell me she was going away with the relic. I could see the Arishok's golden eyes staring up at me as I sliced through his neck. I could see the cloudy eyes of my mother as I held her while she told me that she was proud of me; I could see the spark go out. Tears boiled over and I felt my insides crumbling around me. "I-I didn't want to kill him and I-I wanted her to be protected and yet I failed," I wail loudly pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. "I wanted to save the Arishok just as much as my mother! I couldn't protect the one warrior I respected above all and the one woman I loved more than my own life! I killed both of them!"

So, if you're mad, get mad!
Don't hold it all inside.
Come on and talk to me now.

Hey, what you got to hide?
I get angry too.
Well I'm a lot like you.

~ The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You"

I scream and curse at myself for a long time letting the emotions finally cascade out of my body and into the mind of my new teacher. She listened to every word; every incoherent and inaudible word that came out of my mouth. Not a word was spared by her until I finally wore myself out and slumped forward. My emotions were drained from my body completely and even though it felt good…it felt…empty inside.

"You've released all of your pent up emotions and it feels good, right?" she asks and I nod my head. I hadn't realized how many emotions I had held in for the past couple of years but now I feel as if I can actually function in normal life. "Good, now let's talk about those experiences. Even though you don't want to relive them it's good to get them off of your chest and onto someone else's."

So we did. She listened to every one of my sad, pathetic tales up until the very end where I was denied the one woman's head that I had wanted to kill. She was the only person I had wanted to kill throughout the entire journey and even that was denied of me. I think this was the last straw that broke my back; I had wanted to take out that frustration and anger out on that women but instead I got a scar for it and that was all. I undo the loose shirt over my chest and show the scar that goes from the hallow of my throat straight down the valley between my breasts to my bellybutton. I could still feel the searing pain as lyrium heat lanced through my body threatening to overtake my heart.

We did this along with training every day for the next couple of months. I would relive my past pains until the ache was a dull throb that I could handle it. It actually worked and soon I was laughing about happy moments just as much as crying about the losses that I had aquired through the years. I found that I missed Fenris' moody spells where he would drink and spill his guts to me; I missed Anders and his passion about fighting for mages; I missed Merril who would go on about nothing and everything at the same time; I missed Aveline's conversations about her husband and how they were thinking about having children after everything was settled; I missed Isabella's sexual innuendos; I missed Bethany's talks of times in Lothering; but most of all…I missed Varric. I missed his musky smell and the way his large, calloused hands felt across my skin. I missed the way his eyes would glimmer when I ran my hands through his hair. I missed his kisses and his laughter and his sense of humor and the way he could always make me feel better without meaning to.

I just missed him, desperately.

The months dragged on until I had been in Orzammar a total of half a year but by then, I had mastered my other side. Bianca was shocked because it had taken her a decade to fully understand being a Berserker and that was with a teacher as well. I shrugged when she said this and answered that I had always been a faster learner. "It's time for you to go, isn't it?" she asks one day when she sees that my minimal things are packed up.

"I have to find Varric," I say as my way of explanation smiling at her. She knew that this day was coming and after she had nothing else to teach me…I would need to leave. "I have to find him and apologize for all of this shit I put him through."

"Yes, I know," she chuckles lightly walking over to place something in my hand. I look down to see a beautifully drawn map of Thedas and surrounding countries. "This will help you in your quest to find your lover. Where will you look first?"

When you're standing at the crossroads,
And don't know which path to choose,
Let me come along,
'Cause even if you're wrong.

I'll stand by you,
I'll stand by you.
Won't let nobody hurt you,
I'll stand by you.

~ The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You"

I hadn't really thought about it but Denerim seemed like the perfect place to start. It was a very large city and I could use the King to ask for directions or if he had seen Varric around anywhere. He had seen the Dwarf when he had come to Kirkwall so maybe he would have heard of a Dwarf wandering around telling stories. It was worth a try and while on my way I could pick up information about how things were going in Kirkwall.

I said my good-byes to the woman and departed from Orzammar after catching up with Talna who gave me a small thing of ale to keep me going on my journeys. "May you have great luck, my friend. You are always welcome back here anytime you wish to return," she said and I gave the woman a tight hug. We had kept in touch when I had moved into Hightown and to get some frustration out I had helped the Dusters whenever they had problems. Bianca had thought it a great idea to help clean up the lower towns of her city and it was looking pretty good from what I could tell as I walked away.

I made my way to Denerim from Orzammar, which was a long ways away but I slowly made my way through the towns asking around about my handsome, blond Dwarf. Most of the smaller towns hadn't heard of him but once I got to the bigger towns people started to take notice and started to tell his story to me but in each town it was different and never fully correct. I was never told to be in love with the Dwarf. It was always the other team members and it made me wonder why Varric would tell this side of the story instead of the truth one. Maybe he was trying to move on? The thought hurt too deeply for me to dwell over.

I made it to Denerim after days of travel and asked to be seen by the King. Of course, there was a hesitation and even when I stated that I knew the King they wouldn't let me in. Sighing, I made my way to the local tavern where I ordered a very hard drink. How was I to find out anything about my lover if I couldn't get an audience with the King? I sat down at one of the tables and started to drink back my ale when a figure sat down in front of me. I looked up to see an elf sitting there smiling at me. "Uh…hi," I say wondering why this random elf would just sit down with me.

"Hello, Champion," she states in a voice that is soft as silk but full of mirth and age. I jump at the title but she chuckles brightly pushing over another mug of ale. "You look like you need another."

"How do you know me?" I whisper as she downs her own drink and gestures for another one. She turns her beautiful crystalline blue eyes on me and I feel as if every person I meet has the strangest eyes I've ever seen. Not to mention she had snow white hair that was long enough to push back behind her pointed ears but cut short in the back. Her skin was a pretty olive color and I could see the fairest hints at tattoos on her high, sharp cheekbones.

She smirks as she gets another mug and starts sipping at that one. "It's not hard to recognize a hero with beautiful chestnut hair and eyes so silver they make dragon scales jealous," she quotes making me perk up. "Yes, your Dwarf has been through here. Not too long ago actually. He passed by not but a few days before your arrival."

"Did he say where he was going?" I ask frantically but she holds up her slender, delicate-looking hand.

"He did," she states easily as her blue eyes sparkle dangerously. "He hopped a boat to Antiva not too long ago." Antiva? Why would he go there? "He said he had to spread the story and keep moving so we helped him find passage to Antiva. If we had known you would be here looking for him…we would have locked him up."

"We?" I ask skeptically as she chuckles.

"Me and the King Alistair," she says calmly and I stare at her oddly. "You really don't know who I am, do you?" Her eyes glimmer with a kind of elfish mischief that I must be completely dumb to. She looks down at her pants and shirt and shrugs. "I'm not in my armor so I guess it's a little harder to place me than normal."

"I'm still afraid I don't follow," I say feeling a bit stupid for not being able to place this woman.

"My name is Korashk but most call me Kora or Hero," she states easily and if I had felt stupid earlier I felt like a downright moron now! How had I not noticed that this woman was the Hero of Ferelden? "It's alright, I'm not as noticeable as you are."

"Stop trying to make me feel better," I chuckle and hear her let out a small laugh of her own. "So why are you here?"

She smirks and sets her second empty mug down before relaxing back. "I caught one of the guards after he told another person that Alistair couldn't be bothered and when he told me of the person who had been asking…I had to come see her for myself," she says folding her hands across her flat stomach. "When he said you had silver eyes…I thought to myself, 'hm…no way can the Champion be this far from home!' but here you are! Imagine my surprise! I've been waiting a long time to see you!"

I feel flattered at the fact that the Hero I had only heard stories about, the woman that had ended the Arch Demon and lived to tell the tale, had wanted to meet me! I feel myself flush lightly; she was my hero. She was the one that I had always looked up to and here she was telling me that she was excited to meet me! "Well…I-ah…me too," I say finally. My tongue felt too big and stupid to speak proper English.

She laughs brightly throwing her head back to enjoy her moment. "Though, I heard you came from Lothering, is that correct?" she asks staring into her empty mug as she waves over for another one.

"Yes, that was my home before Kirkwall," I confirm watching the sadness flit across her face.

"I visited Lothering right after the battle of Ostagar but…" she shakes her head and takes the mug offered to her. "I'm sorry I couldn't get rid of the Blight quick enough to save your home."

Her apology shocks me to silence as I look at how genuinely sorry she is for not saving one small, rundown refugee town in all of Thedas. "Kora, you don't have to be sorry for Lothering!" I laugh softly reaching over to pat her hand. "In the end, I ended up with more knowledge and experience under my belt. I became stronger in the long run from that initial trifle. Don't be sorry. You did all you could and I feel no hate for you not saving Lothering. It was war. There were going to be casualties."

She sighs deeply as if I have taken a heavy weight from her shoulders. "Thank you, the destruction of such a heavily populated town has been on my mind ever since I was too late to save it," she states honestly and I smile gently. "I can get you an audience with the King, Champion-"

"Call me Lillian," I interrupt.

"Lillian," she smiles. "He helped me with the Blight…he will see you if I bring you." I can hear the underlying tone that he didn't just help her with the Blight. I had a feeling there was something she didn't want me to know but I kept it to myself. "But, for this favor I must ask one of you as well."

I perk up and tilt my head curiously. What could the Hero of Ferelden want from me? I was just a wanderer now!

"I want you to take me with you."

Take me in, into your darkest hour.
And I'll never desert you,
I'll stand by you.

And when, when the night falls on you, baby,
You're feelin' all alone,
You won't be on your own.

~ The Pretenders "I'll Stand By You"