AN: This chapter had some explicit(ish) sex that I cut for the sake of ff net's TOS. If you want to see it, you can find the link to my LJ in my profile.

Anders couldn't bring himself to return to the clinic where he had just seen Marian kissing Fenris. Even the elf's words to him couldn't calm the acid seething of jealousy the sight had set boiling in his guts. Fenris would kill him if Anders broke her heart? What about hisheart?

He would go to the Void and back for Marian Hawke, but surely a man had to have some limits. Somewhere? Right…?

He jumped when she put her hand on his arm. "Did you know," she asked, "that you get a line right here…" She touched the top of his nose. "When you sulk?"

"I am not sulking," he said.

Sulkily.

Marian laughed, or tried to, and slipped her arm through his, tugging him away from the clinic door toward a mostly blocked passage that was visible from where they stood.

"Wait." He pulled back against the tugging. "I can't just leave the clinic unlocked."

"Then lock up," she said in her most reasonable, I'm humoring you,tones. "And then come with me."

"No."

That surprised them both.

"No?"

"No, I'm not coming with you. If you want to tell me you prefer Fenris or that you love us both but 'you just can't decide' or try to talk us into some Orlesian threesome with the elf that hates everything we are, the answer is just no." He folded his arms and gave her a stern look he had learned as a Gray Warden. "No."

She tilted her head and slowly smiled. "Anders, I do love Fenris, but not the way he wants, and I don't want an Orlesian threesome." Her smile turned cheeky. "I was much more interested in a foursome."

"You what?" Anders gaped at her until she reached up and put fingers under his chin to close his mouth.

"You don't think we have a foursome right here?" she asked. "You, me, Justice, and Compassion. So will you stop sulking now, lock up, and come with me?"

"Ah…" he found himself tongue-tied and settled for pulling out his key and pulling the clinic door closed, leaving Marian to extinguish the lantern outside the clinic that indicated that the healer was present.

"Where are we going?" he asked when he returned to her and she again took his arm.

"I bet you didn't know that you're almost directly under my estate," she said with a sly grin, helping him pick his way through the rubble and duck the fallen support beams that mostly blocked the entrance she pulled him into.

It was right outside his clinic, how he had never known this was here?

"Up the ladder," she said, motioning to the rickety thing that sat amid the rubble.

He raised an eyebrow and held out a hand. "Ladies first."

"You just want to see up my robe," she accused.

"Guilty."

She laughed and hitched up her robe enough to show most of her calves and, Maker, a glimpse of the tender white skin at the back of her knee. Anders had to force down the image of putting his mouth right there, holding her leg to keep her from squirming away while he licked and sucked.

Down, boy.

"The estate's cellars are through here," she explained when she reached the top of the ladder and stretched her arm out into the shadows to her right, feeling around until she could pull one loose brick free and fish out a key from the declivity behind it. "And now you know how to get in."

Right. He was focused on the hidden key, not her legs up above him and he certainly wasn't straining to see if he could get a glimpse a little higher than just her knee. He also wasn't entertaining the idea of summoning just a tinybit of light to… er… better illuminate things for her. To help her unlock the trap door above her head of course, not for any more personal reasons.

He grimaced at the welling of disapproval from the corner of his mind that was Justice. Shut up, Justice.He didn't do it; he just thought it. A man should be allowed a little bit of fantasizing.

She unlocked the trap door before replacing the key and climbing the last few rungs up to the room above. She helped him up and somehow her hand slipped down from his arm. He found himself folding her slim fingers in his own, almost like a normal pair of lovers sneaking to a secret trysting space.

The cellar was huge, rooms spreading out and away from the alcove they climbed up through. Mostly they held crates of supplies, but a rather shocking amount huge wine casks as well. Maker, what did the Amells ever need that much wine for?

He let Marian lead him farther into the cellar until the sound of whistling made her put a finger to her lips and pull Anders behind one of the casks. Peeking around the huge barrel, Anders saw the dwarf, Bodahn, who seemed to function as Marian's butler. He was carrying a staff and heavy sack, whistling to himself. He turned before reaching their hiding place and went up a flight of stairs with his load.

Marian held Anders in place until they heard Bodahn return, this time without his burden of staff or sack. He returned the way he came and Marian waited until they heard the sound of a door closing upstairs before she tugged Anders out of their hiding place.

"The vault's up there," she explained, leading him to the stairs. "We can be safe and private in there. And it looks like Bodahn dropped off the things from the list I gave Carver. That was definitely my staff."

Anders stopped at the door to the vault and frowned. "Is that an ogre skull?" he asked incredulously.

"Hm?" She glanced up at the horned skull over the door. "Oh, yes. Mother said something about my great-uncle killing it, but I don't know the story. He was a mage, too. Our family has been magical for generations. It would have made me a poor marriage match even before I became an abomination."

This time she bent down by his feet and moved another brick, removing the vault key and unlocking the door. She threw it open and held out her arm with a flourish to show him the Hawke treasure vault.

"You should have seen it when Carver and I came here the first time," she said as she followed him into the room, locking the door behind them. "It was bare compared to this."

There were chests, their heavy locks looking as though they would present a challenge even to Isabela's light fingers, wardrobes stood against three walls, and everywhere there were souvenirs of Hawke's adventures in Kirkwall and the Deep Roads. Glinting sets of armor, swords, knives that rippled when he looked at them too closely, their enchantment making the air shimmer like desert air under a burning sun. Piles of furs taken from smugglers, boxes of spices releasing a scent that reminded him of other times and other places.

It was like being transported into some tale of pirate treasure rooms or dragon hoards albeit without the loose piles of gold sovereigns everywhere.

Marian stood in the middle of the room and did a pirouette. "My ill-gotten gains."

Her smile slipped as she looked at the piled riches and disappeared when she saw where Bodahn had propped her staff. She took it in hand, caressing the studded wood in a way that roused a tingle of jealousy from Anders.

It had been fartoo long if he was jealous of a piece of wood. He had never been the jealous type in his wilder youth. He did not particularly like the sensation now.

The staff was a wicked-looking weapon. Tipped at one end with a human skull and at the other end with a long blade with saw teeth on the last foot or so. It looked like everything an apostate's staff should be. Marian held it like a lost part of herself.

"It's a cold thing," she murmured. "Not like Parlathan. Parlathan is all fire." She raised it high in one hand and filled the air with the chill of magic coalescing in the staff, sending wisps of steam off its blade as it gathered a rime of frost. "But they took Parlathan from me."

She slammed it down and thrust the power out into the room, turning the air bitter cold for a fleeting instant before she pulled the magic back into herself.

Anders raised his hand and summoned fire, chasing back the chill with gentle heat. Closing the distance between them, he put his hand on her staff, letting the warmth he had summoned run lightly along its surface, melting the frost, dancing along her blue fingers to coax blood back into them.

He let the fire go and pried her fingers carefully off the staff's shaft, noting how they shook when they had nothing to cling to. When he'd gotten the staff out of her grip he propped it against the wall and cautiously gathered her into his arms, feeling her trembling and cold against him.

His plans to confront her about kissing Fenris evaporated like the last remnants of the magical frost.

"I thought it was gone forever," she whispered. "In that last moment before the Rite was complete, when I could feel it like a dragon dropping on me out of the sky. I screamed because I thought I would never feel my magic again."

She fisted her hands in his coat and shook harder. "And he laughed at me."

Justice swelled in him, joined with Anders' own rage at the thought of anyone cutting away Marian's Maker-given gift and laughing.

She thumped a fist against his chest. "Don't you dare."

"What?"

She thumped him again. "Don't you make this about how angry you are." She turned her face up to him to let him see her eyes, shining with tears just waiting to spill down her cheeks. "Just be my safe place for a little while."

He swallowed hard, forcing down the lump of anger in his throat, pushing back the rage that he wanted to wallow in, requiring Justice to see that she was right. She deserved what she was asking for. It was just.

Then he held her while she wept. He held her until the sobs made her start to slide to the floor, then he picked her up and settled into one of the piles of furs, cradling her against his chest like a child. He held her and murmured the meaningless things universal to times like those. Shh… I'm here. You're safe. Shh…

Her sobs slowed to hiccups, her hiccups slowed to sniffles, and finally she lay in Anders' arms only occasionally catching her breath in hitching jerks. When the hitches finally stopped, she sat up and scrubbed her face on her sleeve.

"Not very attractive, I bet," she said, rubbing her eyes.

Her face had hectic red splotches, her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, her nose a brilliant red, but Anders shook his head. "You are still the most beautiful woman I have ever known."

The corners of her mouth twitched with her attempt at a smile before she kissed him. It was tender only until the surprise passed, then Anders twined his fingers in her hair and took it deeper, moaning into her mouth when she parted her lips to let him taste her, to press his tongue deep into her mouth, feeling his need for her as a physical ache now.

Marian broke first, panting for breath. "Can't breathe through my nose yet," she apologized.

Anders brushed a thumb over her cheekbone. "I can find ways to work around that," he promised.

He started with the soft line of her jaw, tracing it with his lips. Maker, how he had dreamed of this, burned for this. It might all end in tears, but he needed her like he needed his next breath.

She tipped her head back, sighing, murmuring his name. Perhaps he shouldn't be doing this with a woman who had just been sobbing in his arms, but he trusted Hawke to be clear with her limits. Even if she made them clear by breaking the hand he slid up her ribs to cup her breast, it would be worth it.

She did not break his hand, only sighed again and shifted her weight in his lap, making him groan. He muffled it against her throat, kissing the long line she had exposed when she tilted her head back.

Justice was a faint clamor in his mind, like a distant tocsin warning him that they were in dangerous waters. Didn't he just know it.

He raised his head to see her face.

"I love you, you know." His heart clenched and almost stopped from making that admission. He had just opened himself – and Justice – to a world of vulnerability. It went against everything he had learned in the Circle.

She licked her lips as though he had brought her back to herself and nodded. "I know." She brushed away a strand of hair that had escaped his ponytail. "And because he won't admit it, I'll say it for him. I know that Justice loves me, too."

Anders froze. Justice twisted. "Wha—"

"Compassion saw it in the Fade. She saw you all." She laughed softly. "I know more about you four than I ever thought I would know. Justice is why she agreed to come. If it had been just four mortals who loved me, she might have stayed to do her duty in the Fade, but a spirit of Justice that…."

She unconsciously touched the brand on her forehead, her fingers tracing the sunburst before she caught herself and dropped her hand.

"Justice said it himself, living outside the Fade changes one, and she wanted to be here for him. I think now she's getting a taste of how that change happens."

Anders was still having a little trouble making the transition for imminent sexytimes to serious conversation, but he was doing his best to keep up. Thank Andraste, Marian was merciful.

"We can talk about it later," she said, grinning that crooked grin of hers that he always wanted to kiss. "Long story short, you love me, Justice loves me, I love you, and Compassion loves… pretty much everyone. And she's not a stick in the mud about sex."

She tapped him on the nose. "Let that be an object lesson, Justice. Sex is a good thing, so don't get in Anders' way because I'm about to take off my robe."

She was about to… Maker, yes!

• • •

Later, when they lay lazily entwined, Anders was driven to finally ask the question that had been nagging at him. "Why did you kiss Fenris like that?"

She lazily combed her fingers through his hair, reminding him that if he was going to get even semi-regular sex he should wash it more often.

"I kissed him because I love him, but we are nevergoing to be lovers. It would be worse than a disaster, but I thought that if I loved you, you loved me, and you told me that we could never be together, I would want at least one kiss to remember. So I gave him that."

She leaned up on her elbow and took in the look on his face. He couldn't see it, but he knew it wasn't a happy look. "Anders, I love Merrill and Isabela, too. And I love Aveline and Varric, but they don't love me that way so it's easier. Isabela hates the word love and she won't pine. Merrill will let me treat her like a little sister instead of a lover. Fenris is the only one I had to confront it with directly, so I did. He respects directness."

She grinned and poked him in the chest. "Name one thing Fenris and I have in common other than sex appeal."

Anders pinched her thigh. "I can't think of a single thing other than that you both breathe."

She giggled. Actually giggled.How could she giggle when she just admitted to loving another man? "You just admitted Fenris has sex appeal. Now name five things you and I have in common."

He held up his closed fist and poked out his thumb. "We're mages."

He held up his first finger. "We both have live-in Fade spirits."

He held up his second finger. "We both want freedom for mages."

He held up his third finger. "We're both likely to say inappropriate things."

He opened his hand. "We both have tremendous sex appeal."

She pulled him down and nipped his earlobe. "Anders, I want to be with you. Not Fenris. So you and Justice can stop being such jealous creatures. And you forgot to mention another thing we have in common right now. We're both naked. And I still want to know if the stories about Gray Warden endurance are fact or fiction."