Abby

I started awake, suddenly feeling cold. I reached to pull the covers more tightly around me and groaned. My whole body was sore. I heard a quiet chuckle from beside my head.

"Fenris?" I asked shifting to my back.

"How are you feeling, Abby?"

"Like I got hit by a rock wraith again."

"Do you want me to go and get Anders?" He offered.

"Nah. I'll be alright in a bit." I sighed and rubbed my eyes. "I had the weirdest dream though." I snuggled into the bed for a moment and then realized I was naked. I shouldn't have been naked or in bed. And I definitely shouldn't have been naked, in bed, and with Fenris. "Fenris? Why am I naked and in bed? And why are you in my room?" I asked trying to make my mind work.

"You're in my room." He said. I opened my eyes and looked over at him. I sat up, clutching the sheet to me.

"What the Void?"

"What do you remember?" He asked. He was sitting in a chair next to the bed, watching me with worried eyes.

I shoved my hair back from my face and chewed my lip as I thought. "Well, we went to help that mage friend of Anders. The one that Meredith was wanting me to bring back or kill."

"Uh, huh." He nodded.

"We found her." I said slowly. My mind felt a bit fuzzy. "She was scared and summoned demons. Then…" I trailed off and shrugged. "So care to explain why I'm naked and in your bed?"

"You don't remember her casting a spell on you?" He asked.

"She cast a spell on me to make me naked and in your bed?"

"Abby, please. Do you remember what happened next?"

"No. I remember finding her and then…well, waking up sore."

"You said you had a weird dream." Fenris prompted.

"Not going to answer the naked thing are you?"

"Humor me."

"Fenris, I'll tell you all about my crazy dream if you give me some clothes."

"I can't. You don't have any here. Or any that will fit you now."

"What is that supposed to mean? I didn't walk through Hightown naked."

"Tell me about the dream."

I sighed and shifted so I was sitting on the bed. I didn't miss his eyeing my bare legs as I shifted the sheet around to keep me covered. Maybe he wasn't entirely immune to me. "I was a kid again. I didn't remember being me. I thought I was little again. Or still little. I don't know."

"You remember being a kid."

"Of course I remember being a kid, Fenris. No one wiped my memories." He cringed as I said it. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be an ass. This is just…"

"I didn't mean when you were first little. The mage turned you back into a child. She hit you with some warped time spell and made you a child. We've been trying to bring you back for a couple of days now."

I laughed. "Very funny."

"I'm serious. Do you remember the templars?"

I frowned at him. "Karras took me. And you…you saved me from them. Merrill!" I cried and started up. He pushed me back down. His hand stayed resting on my shoulder.

"She's fine. Anders healed her." He assured me.

"That…that wasn't a dream? That was real?"

"Yes." He said watching me worriedly again.

"Setting the library on fire?"

"Happened."

"And fighting with the armor?"

"You mean losing to the armor?"

"And the whole I want to be a princess and you're my knight?" I asked barely able to get the words out past the humiliation that was squeezing my throat.

"And the pigtails and pretty dress." He nodded with a slight smirk now.

"Great. Just freaking perfect." I said and laid my head on my knees as I curled up. All of the dream was real. The acting afraid, clinging to Fenris, calling him my knight. I gasped as I remembered the damn dream of fighting the Arishok. I had admitted being afraid. I had told him that I felt he had betrayed me.

"Abby?" He asked quietly and shifted to sitting beside me.

"If the ground would open me up and swallow me, that would be great." He chuckled.

"You were cute."

"You said I was trouble."

"Well, you wouldn't be you if you weren't."

"Fenris, can you do me a favor?" I asked unable to look over at him.

"What?"

"Can you do your glowy thing and crush my heart?"

"What?" He demanded and jerked me around to look at him.

"I can't look at any of you ever again. So, you know, kill me and spare me the misery."

"Abby, you did nothing wrong. Sure you were a bit…difficult, but you were a child."

"Nothing wrong?" I yelled and stood up, taking the sheet with me. I wrapped it around me and paced the room. "Other than act like a girly girl, cling to you like a freaking monkey, cry repeatedly, run off and nearly get Merrill killed, destroy your house, and say things I never would have said." I ran my hand through my hair. "I was weak. Damn it. Why couldn't she have turned me just one year older? I wasn't that stupid weak girl then. This wouldn't be happening right now."

"What?" He asked moving to stop my pacing.

"I was five. If she had made me six instead none of that would have happened." I pulled away and resumed pacing. "We were found shortly before I turned six. I saw Father kill the templars who came for him. We had to run. I started my training in earnest then. I knew then that there was never going to be someone to save me. I would always have to save myself. I swore I would never be weak or stupid again. And now…" I trailed off in misery.

"Admitting you were scared and crying doesn't make you weak, Abby."

I whirled and glared at him. "Says the man who never admits to a single moment of weakness. The man who can walk away without a single thought to another. The man who seems almost inhuman with his strength."