Scene: Legacy DLC. Hawke considers the repercussions of making Bethany a Warden.

"I brought this on you."

Anders freezes, a flush creeping up his neck when he realizes the Hawke sisters haven't moved far enough from the campsite to be out of earshot. Or maybe he's the one who is too close because Varric is way over on the other side attending to Bianca, and he's sitting here fretting over food supplies. The fire loudly crackles in front of him, but he can still hear the low murmur of voices that seem to be coming from right behind his back.

"No one could have foreseen that."

"I should've asked first, I shouldn't have agreed so easily…"

"They wouldn't have told you anyway. Warden secrets."

"Regardless, I had a right to know."

Ah. So Hawke is still feeling guilty over what happened in the expedition. Would it have made the decision-making any easier had she known all the gory details? He thinks not. There had been no time to consider, to discuss; Bethany was turning bluer by the hour, her gaunt face spurring them to search for this alleged group of Wardens without another thought on the Afterwards. Anders wasn't even sure if they would run into Stroud or not. And then the other Wardens had suddenly appeared, and Hawke had only minutes to grip her sister's hands and tell her to keep safe before the two parties went their separate ways. Hawke didn't turn around to spare a glance.

He hears a sigh. "You did what you could. Don't blame yourself."

"It wasn't enough."

A soft chuckle. "After all this time, you're still shouldering the world's problems. Some things are simply out of your hands, sister."

"There was another alternative, Bethany, but I wanted you to live. Now look at the life I've doomed you to: a shortened lifespan, nightmares every night, darkspawn constantly clawing at the edges of your mind. If I had known, if only I had known…"

"But you didn't." There is a new edge to her voice now. "What's done is done. Please don't beat yourself up over this anymore, it's been three years."

A hoarse whisper. "I didn't stop Carver from attacking that ogre, and I couldn't even keep you safe. I just wanted to keep you safe."

"…oh sister, haven't you figured it out already? You can't save everyone from everything. You can only try and do your best."

She wouldn't be who she is otherwise, Anders wants to say. After everything that's happened in the last 24 hours, you wouldn't be here, alive (for the most part) and well (all things considered), were it not for her. None of us would. You don't know how lucky you are to have someone like Hawke watching out for you. You couldn't possibly know how fucking lucky—

Enough. You are intruding. Anders shakes his head, unclenches his hands, and gets up to go sit with Varric.

Anders can't sleep. Varric and Bethany have finally dozed off, but the dwarf's snores aren't to blame for his insomnia. There is so much to think about. So much he is wrong about. Magisters: the original darkspawn. He'll have to research this further as soon as they return to Kirkwall. Bethany tosses and turns, a frown on her face as she battles the latest nightmare. He swallows and searches for Hawke's bedroll only to spot her seated on a nearby boulder, her back to him. He doesn't know how long she has been there, awake, watching over them (as usual.) Who watches her?

At first, he is stuck. There is nothing he could say to her that would make things better. Talking to her leads to nowhere productive. She clearly wants to be alone. Shouldn't he be trying to sleep?

None of these reasons can explain why he finds himself walking over to her anyway, and when she doesn't flinch or move as he sits beside her, a small well of hope springs up in his chest that he quickly, vehemently squashes. Their interlude in that cave that night was precisely that—an interlude. Granted, one that had potential until the day he asked Hawke to help him find Alrik in one of the underground passageways beneath the Gallows. If she had not been there, he would have killed Ella. He cannot forget the look on her face after he had regained control. She went to visit him at his clinic a few days later, and the argument that resulted brought half of Darktown's denizens to his doorstep. What chance could they have?

But he aches to be near her so he supposes this (the wanting and dreaming and watching and yearning) will have to do.

Anders jumps when she finally breaks the silence.

"Why didn't you tell me."

It's a question, an accusation, and a plea all rolled into one statement, but the tone is nonthreatening. He glances over to see her staring into the darkness, her profile etched in sharp relief. "I couldn't," he begins, picking his words carefully. "There are some things only the Wardens are privy to, and you can't know them until you've joined."

"How convenient of you to consider yourself as a Warden again," she replies.

He takes a deep breath, acknowledging the hit. "I was wrong. I thought that I had closed that chapter of my life, but the taint will always be inside of me. It's funny, I've been so preoccupied with the mages' plight in Kirkwall that I forgot that…"

He has her full attention now, her steady grey eyes trained on him, waiting for him to finish.

"…that you never stop being a Warden. Even in death."

"The Calling." The words are flat and drawn-out.

"Yes," he answers and feels as if he is the one who has handed Bethany her death sentence and his own as well.

"How long."

He dips his head. "Maybe twenty, thirty years."

Hawkes makes a small sound in her throat, gone too quickly for Anders to interpret, and rakes a hand through the dark curls of her hair. "Dammit," she says shakily, turning her head away.

Without thinking, Anders lightly touches her back. "I'm sor—"

The warrior jerks and grabs his hand, the muscles of her jaw working restlessly. "I don't want your sympathy," she grounds out. "I want an explanation."

His goodwill crumbles instantly as he yanks his hand back and snaps, "I gave you one."

"Three years too late!" she roars, jumping to her feet.

"And knowing it won't change anything," he snarls, getting up as well.

"My sister is breathing and walking and talking, but she isn't alive. What kind of life is that, Anders? Tell me."

"It's one where she's still standing in front of you!" How quickly they fall back into this pattern despite all of their efforts to remain civil. He doesn't know how else to talk to her these days. "And now that you know, would you have granted her a quicker death then? Could you have really done it, put the blade to her throat or her gut or her chest and tell her goodbye—"

"Don't," Hawke gasps, but Anders can't seem to stop.

"You chose to take her with us. You chose to look for Stroud. In the end, everything was your call." Laughing bitterly, he adds, "It always has been."

They both fall silent, taking the measure of each other. Sometimes he forgets that she's nearly his height and is startled when she can evenly meet his eyes. Hawke could also break him in half if she were so inclined. They breathe hard through their noses.

"Why didn't I leave her at home?" she asks in a voice so low he leans forward to hear her, a move he soon realizes is a mistake as the scent of her—however unkempt and dirty—washes over him. He instinctively shudders and prays that she doesn't notice.

She doesn't. "The templars were starting to come around, ask questions. I thought," she continues, shaking her head, "I thought that—with me—she…"

Bethany indeed knows her sister all too well. Tentatively, he puts his hands on her shoulders, and when she doesn't flinch, he says, "After you decided to look for the Wardens, we were lost down there for days. Bethany, she asked you over and over to just kill her and get it over with, remember? But you refused to give up. And when we finally found Stroud, he almost didn't take her, but you made that happen too. Can't you see?"

There is something like expectation in her gaze. "What do you see?"

Mages and templars and injustice and darkspawn and chaos and uncertainty and lyrium and patients and stray cats and dwarves who talk too much and you. Always you. "I see a woman who makes things happen. A woman who holds her family above all else and does her best to live honorably. Even I can see that, despite our differences."

Anders stops Hawke before she can protest. "You did help Bethany, in the best way you could."

Instead, she takes his hands away. "She's living on borrowed time."

"You can't save everyone you know," he exclaims exasperatedly and freezes at the look on her face as she realizes that he had overheard the sisters' conversation.

"Hawke," he begins to apologize, but she waves him off. "Just when I think there's something redeeming about you…"

Her response hurts him more than it should. "I didn't hear anymore after that, I swear. But she's right. You—"

"Go back to sleep," she orders, squaring her shoulders and turning away. "I'm taking the watch patrol tonight."

"No," he growls, blocking her path. "Listen to me, Thomas."

A thrill runs up his spine at the sound of those two simple syllables (every time why must it be every single damn time), like he's uttered a curse and a prayer. As always, she stops when he says her name and holds him in place with a steely glare, waiting.

"I know you take my words with a grain of salt, but…it isn't your fault. None of this is. You didn't draw the darkspawn to us, you didn't condemn Bethany to anything, and you haven't failed as a daughter or a friend. You've accomplished more than you think."

The flare of her temper seems to die down again as she exhales, absorbing his laughable attempt at comfort, and Anders marvels at this dialogue they're having because this is the first real conversation between them since the disaster with Alrik months ago—only this time, he's bearing witness to all of the rawness and vulnerabilities beneath the warrior's plating. Now he knows, heart pounding in his ears, now he knows what brings her low. Will he use it against her, or keep this new piece of knowledge locked away in his chest, merely one more secret about her to take out and hold in his fingers at night?

Can she read him? He worries. Maker knows he wears his feelings on his threadbare sleeve often enough, but Hawke gives no hint of acknowledgment as she nods slowly. "Bethany's returning to Ansburg as soon as we get back to Kirkwall. She'll rest at the house for the night, but in the morning… will I ever see her again?"

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "I didn't think we would ever see her again after the Deep Roads, but it seems I was wrong."

"When it's time for her Calling—are Wardens permitted to contact their families before going into the Deep Roads?"

"Most Wardens cut off all ties to their families after their Joining. It's easier that way. But," he continues quickly, "there aren't any rules barring her from seeing you and your mother."

"She has a choice then," Hawke notes with some satisfaction. "At the very least, she can choose this."

There must be a way to recover this conversation. "The life of a Warden isn't always doom and gloom," he says lightly. "Most friendships forged between Wardens are for life. She will never feel alone."

She fixes with him that unblinking stare. "And what of your friendships?" she points out.

How does she do that? How does she make him scramble for words in every one of their exchanges? "Bethany's circumstances aren't as…unique as mine," he finishes lamely.

Hawke says nothing for a long time, her face twisting and shifting until she slowly shakes her head. "Stop making excuses."

"I—what?" He opens his mouth but can't get another word in edgewise as she puts up her hand. "You're the one who decided to leave the Wardens because you decided to let a spirit possess you and become this demon—"

"Andraste's ass, not this again—" he snarls, throwing his arms up.

"So don't, don't give me these tired justifications for the simple fact that you've screwed up tremendously and ran away instead of—"

"Instead of what?" And he's right back in her face again, nostrils flared and Justice brimming underneath his skin, "Instead of being dragged back to the Tower to be locked away again for a year or two or ten and have the templars make me Tranquil like all good mages should be? Oh you'd love that, wouldn't you—"

"For once this has nothing to do with mages and templars. It's about facing your mistakes and owning your decisions come hell or high water, because running away is not, has never been, a bloody cure-all solution—"

"Don't you dare judge my choices, you weren't born with magic and branded less than human since infancy, you've never been a Warden plagued by nightmares of the Archdemon calling to you every night with your mortality constantly looming over your head—"

"That doesn't mean you walk away from your life on a whim!" Hawke shouts, nearly hoarse. "Because of me, Bethany won't even live to see the far side of fifty," and here her voice shudders, threatening to break, "but I won't be sneaking her away from her duties or telling her to run while she can. You're right. What happened in the Deep Roads was my decision, my call." She swallows. "But I'm not afraid to live with the consequences."

Foolish woman. The gall of her assumptions. She knows nothing of the mages' suffering. She knows nothing of you—Anders is close, dangerously close to his breaking point, and the blue winks in and out of his veins like firelight. He takes several breaths, digs his feet into the dirt, and somehow regains tenuous, fragile control.

But where the hell is this argument going? Hawke is spare with words, and arguments with her are even rarer (unless you count yours truly), so why now? Why the pointless goading? Suddenly, Anders' shoulders slump, bone-tired and weary of darkspawn, Tevinter magisters, and Hawke's eyes looking down on him. He gets this often enough from Aveline and Fenris, but Hawke's version positively exhausts him.

"Yes, you're right," he hears himself say, "you are a moral, upstanding citizen, and I'm just a dirty apostate living in the sewers. Congratulations, you're a better person than I am. Just turn me in to the Wardens while we're here."

The fire that seems to burst from her snuffs out just as quickly, and Hawke blinks, shaking her head as if waking up from the effects of whatever had posses—taken over her. "I—"

Anders holds up his hands. "Go on, I won't even try to fight this time."

Suddenly, the set of her jaw can cut through glass, and she slaps his hands away. "I will not," she grits, "be toyed with."

And before he can stop himself, "Then Maker, what are you doing to me?"

For a few seconds, Hawke actually appears confused, as if she doesn't know what Anders could possibly be talking about. It's a rare expression, and the treacherous part of his mind notes how endearing it looks on her, all slightly cocked head and wrinkled brow, before her face wipes itself clean again. She swallows, lips parting, and exhales. "Is that what you think I've been doing?"

How clueless can she be? Scoffing, he throws his hands up in the air. "What do you call this then? What do you call the past three years?"

Hawke keeps her eyes on him. "I thought," she answers quietly, "that I had made it clear to you. After the incident with Ser Alrik…"

"Right, the argument afterwards in my clinic. Let's see, there was shouting, objects thrown, and words that shouldn't have—or should have—been said. Then you stormed out. Do you honestly believe anything was resolved from that mess? If so, you're a lot more socially incompetent than most people think—"

"Then let me make it clear," she says flatly and grabs his shoulders. Again, the minute difference in height throws him off, and Anders can't not pay attention to the rock-steady conviction in her grey eyes. Her voice keeps even and level from the start. "You have a corrupt spirit cohabitating inside your body. A few weeks ago you would have killed Ella had I not stopped you. Earlier today, Corypheus nearly drove you insane, and I had to knock you out. This—this isn't right." Hawke's grip on him tightens. "We're not right."

Somewhere, a pin drops, but no one is awake to hear it. The mage glances away, eyes shut. There she goes again, saying what needs to be said. Some nights he can recall the ghost-nick on the corner of his mouth from where she had kissed and bitten him that night in the cave. His tongue unconsciously darts out, wetting that spot. That wasn't right either. None of this is. He's wrong, all wrong, and no good for her.

When he finally speaks, he doesn't quite register his words. "At last, the record's been set straight." Pulling away, he adds with no small touch of bitterness, "Forgive me madam, for taking up so much of your time."

Hawke nods and lets him go. "It's late, and we have an early day tomorrow. There's still the walk back to Kirkwall."

Anders watches campfire shadows exaggerate the circles under her eyes. "You're exhausted."

"I'll manage," she responds coolly.

She has dark, unidentifiable smudges on her cheeks. The straps holding her greatsword are cutting into her shoulders. Her hair is pulled tight and thin in a bun, but wavy strands keep escaping, and all he wants to do is tuck them behind her ears, wipe the filth from her face, take off her sword, and massage the weariness from her body. He sighs. "You always do."

And just like that, Anders returns to his bedroll, the ache in his chest no lessened. She couldn't have meant it. He turns over on his side, his back against her hunched figure on that same rock she was perched on earlier. She can't mean it. There's much more important work to be done. Now you are done with her and can focus on the task at hand. Eventually, he falls back to sleep.

"Ready?"

Startled, Bethany looks up to her sister holding her things—cradling, more like. She sighs inwardly, almost thankful to be returning to Ansburg. Seeing mother had been exhausting, but at least her reunion at the Hanged Man with Merrill, Varric, and the rest had almost made her feel normal again. She had choked on her mug of stale piss masquerading as ale, won money in several rounds of Diamondback, and even traded stories with Isabela. The only dampener on her evening was the sight of Thomas hunched over her drink, very quiet and very drunk. She had left early.

"Just about," Bethany replies, patting the space beside her on the bed. Thomas obligingly sits, the solid weight of her a comfort. "I'll leave within the hour."

"Would you like me to walk you part of the way?"

The back of her neck prickles. "I'll be fine. No need to hold my hand."

Thomas glances over, a wan smile on her face. "Maybe I simply want to."

As always, she can't help but indulge in her sister's overprotective leanings. "Walk me to the outskirts of town then. I'm sure your ragtag group can survive without you for a few hours."

"Some days I'm not so sure," she chuckles.

"You've really become their leader over the years." Bethany smirks. "Not that I'm surprised."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The younger sibling settles in, bumping her arm against her sister. "Oh nothing—you just have a way of bringing people together. Telling them what to do without sounding like you are. Making them follow you everywhere. It's a talent."

"And here I thought they kept in touch for the pleasure of my company."

"Haha, they do." Shaking her head, she adds, "I swear, they're all a bit in love with you."

There's a slight pause before Thomas says, "Now that's not true."

Bethany turns to face her. "Isn't it? Last night I won two sovereigns because Merrill couldn't keep her eyes off you, the sash tied around Fenris' wrist looks suspiciously like the ribbon you use for your hair, and aren't you and Isabela still…?"

"…not anymore, no," Thomas answers in a daze.

She laughs. "Don't look so shocked. I'm not blind, Sister; anyone with eyes could tell. Although the only one who didn't give you puppy dog eyes was Anders—"

And Bethany stops in amazement at the sudden, complete lack of expression on her sister's face; then an image from last night rises unbidden in her mind: Anders and Thomas seated side-by-side at the table, and the careful way they avoided touching each other. They had butted heads from their very first meeting, true, but watching them interact (or not interact) at the Hanged Man was a different animal altogether. She swallows loudly. Oh, Maker.

"You care for him," she slowly realizes.

Thomas holds Bethany's wide-eyed stare for several seconds and drops her shoulders. "More than I should."

She bites her lip to stifle the nervous giggle threatening to bubble up. "Do the others know?" At her sister's raised eyebrow, she quickly finishes, "I guess not then."

"It isn't their concern." She rises to add another water canteen to Bethany's knapsack.

She decides to address the griffon in the room. "What about him?"

"What about him?" Thomas intones back.

"Sister—"

"He knows," she says firmly, "that nothing will come of it."

There isn't a visible or audible change in her older sister, but Bethany senses the shift in the air itself as it moves from tolerably tense to deadly quiet. She used to talk to Thomas about everything, but even right up until the night before the Deep Roads Expedition, she has always known that the mage running the free clinic in Darktown was—is—a closed subject, and for much different reasons now than before.

She tries anyway. "Do you?"

Thomas stills, hands fisted at her sides. "Bethany," she warns.

"You look tired," she presses, "and lonely."

"This doesn't have anything—"

"Would it kill you to let him in?"

Silence drops over them as Bethany squirms under her sister's scrutinizing gaze. This is the furthest she's pushed Thomas. She never has before, always nodding and going, "Yes, Sister," "I agree, Sister," or "You're right, Sister." She forgets, sometimes, how much Thomas hides from their mother, their friends, her—everyone.

The corners of Thomas's mouth twist, and Bethany has her answer. Slinging the knapsack over her back, she gets up and places a hand on her sister's shoulder. "I'm going to talk to Mother one more time." She squeezes. "Please…just think about what I said."

With that, Bethany turns on her heel and leaves her sister standing in the doorway.