WARNING: Isabela will be talking. There will be cursing.

That is all :P

Thanks again to JacksAreWild for doing a grammar check for me :)

She felt his rage fill the corridor, rippling past her like a gusting wind. Confusion dampened her excitement for a moment, until horror cleared her mind.

How must this look? She, on her knees, covered in blood before a man her husband couldn't know had saved her life. Oh, Andraste.

Liam came to the same conclusion she had, and released his grip on her hand like she'd caught fire. Unsure of what would snap him out of it, Lorelai didn't move. She feared backing away would fuel the impression that Liam intended to harm her.

Alistair began stalking down the hallway, closing the distance between them. Quickly.

Lorelai knew that look on his face. It was not a good one.

She scrambled to her feet to block Liam with her body. "Alistair, no!" she shouted. "He's a friend!"

He'd almost reached them, with no sign that he'd registered her words at all.

Her entire body tensed. Was it so much to ask that she have a normal, happy reunion with her husband? Well, as normal and happy as one could get under these circumstances. Instead, she had to try to derail his battle fervor. Not an easy thing under regular conditions, let alone this. But if she didn't, Liam was going to die.

"Back up," she hissed over her shoulder. He didn't argue, and he won her loyalty all over again. Alistair would literally have to come through her to get to him. Now, what? Inspiration bubbled to the forefront of her mind, tugging on her consciousness insistently. She reached for it, and found Warden Commander. Pleading to be useful.

Before he'd been her King, her husband, her lover, her friend…he'd been her fellow Warden. But she wasn't just a Warden anymore.

She stretched her arm out, a finger pointed imposingly at his chest. "You will stop, Warden!" she thundered as loud as she could, as firmly as she could.

That did it.

Alistair shuddered to a stop as the unreasoning rage left his eyes. His shield and sword clattered to the trembling floor, and he yanked off his helm and let that fall, as well. "Lorelai?" he whispered, tears threading the edges of his voice and his eyes a touch wild.

She inhaled sharply as she dropped her arm, his face a shock to her after so long. With Liam safe, she could let her heart tremble at the sight of him. She tried to speak but couldn't suddenly. Her own tears spilled down her face as she nodded frantically.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, as his eyes flickered over her blood-soaked clothes.

Still feeling like she couldn't trust her voice, she shook her head. Some of the wildness left his eyes, but he continued to stand there, a mere few feet from her. His whole body was rigid. Unable to take it any longer, Lorelai reached out toward him. "Alistair," she begged, desperate to touch him.

His breath came out in a sob as his face crumbled. He grabbed her reaching hands and pressed them hard against his cheeks. His eyes squeezed shut, so tight, and forced two tears down his blood-streaked cheeks. "Oh, Maker. I thought… I thought…"

"I know," she soothed. "It's not mine, none of it's mine."

"It's a lot," he emphasized, eyes still shut, like at the moment it was too much to see her covered in all that blood, even though he knew it wasn't hers. "A lot."

Lorelai couldn't help but let out a watery laugh. "I know."

After a few more moments filled with shaking breaths, he opened his eyes a crack. They traveled the length of her, and stumbled over her belly.

Andraste damn this whole situation! This was not how she wanted to have this conversation with him. Many months ago, she'd imagined cuddling onto his lap, nuzzling his ear and whispering oh-so-softly that he was going to be a father. Instead… "Love-"

"I know," he echoed. Closing his eyes again, he added, "Leliana told me."

Lorelai hissed as anger made her throat hot and tight. The Orlesian would answer for that small betrayal. The reasoning behind it had better be phenomenal.

"Don't be mad," he said, interpreting her look. "I was being a complete idiot, and she'd run out of other things to say that would stop me."

Slightly mollified, Lorelai let her anger subside. But she would be damned if she wasn't going to get some pleasure out of this moment. She wasn't about to let Grady and Gilmore steal all the joy from her condition. Pulling her hands off his cheeks, she took hold of his wrists and pushed his hands against her stomach. "Our son, my King," she whispered fiercely. "Our son."

"Son?" His voice was filled with wonder, and it made Lorelai's heart sing. Alistair's big hands splayed over her rounded belly, trying to cover all of it, as he stared. When he finally raised his eyes, his face was twisted with anguish. "I'm so sorry-"

"No," she interrupted, squeezing his wrists as hard as she could. Sniffing back her own tears, Lorelai shook her head, "Don't you even-"

"Your Majesty, we have to go," Liam urged from behind her.

Her King shot him a hostile look, and pulled her a few steps closer to him, away from Grady's son. She was about to scold him when the background sounds of groaning rock started getting alarmingly loud.

Oh, right. The whole standing-in-a-collapsing-fortress thing. "Let's go."

Liam side-stepped around them, giving Alistair as much space as possible. Giving the other man a semi-bow, he reached down to pick Alistair's sword and shield off the ground. "Your Majesty," he said quietly, offering them up.

Lorelai could see the tightness in her husband's jaw as his teeth ground together. But he accepted his weapons, if with poor grace. Without thinking, she reached down like she was going to get his helm.

"What are you doing?" they both snapped simultaneously.

She could've pointed out that she'd been spry enough to slay Gilmore – to bend down and pick up the wooden club that had been her salvation, to jump on top of him and slit his throat. But neither of the men with her now had seen that. They saw her as the rescued, pregnant damsel. Lorelai had had enough of being helpless.

But then she stalled the sharp retort that was on her lips. "Right, sorry," she said, straightening up and holding out her hands like she was surrendering.

Alistair snatched his own helm off the finely trembling floor and shot her a disgusted look. "Honestly, woman."

Lorelai said nothing, and shoved her pride aside to enjoy the first coddling she'd gotten to have while pregnant.

Nodding to Liam, Alistair slipped his helm back on and sheathed his sword. Pinning her to his side with his free arm, he braced the shield out in front of them firmly, as if he expected enemies at any moment.

Not a bad assumption.

Liam, blades drawn, took the lead. As they started walking, Alistair bent his head and asked, "Are you all right, or do you need me to carry you?"

"No, I'm fine," she answered, leaning her face against his breastplate. It didn't bother her that it was sticky with blood. Nothing like that could bother her right now. Not with that arm around her and that shield in front of her.

Liam turned a corner, only to be bashed backwards by a metallic and blonde blur. He went down with a crash, and his attacker straddled him, sword flashing forward, intending to decapitate him.

"Aednat!" Alistair shouted.

It worked, barely. The blonde elf managed to stop with her sword inches from Liam's throat, her shield temporarily cast aside to free up both hands for optimum strength. "My apologies, Your Majesty," she hissed into Liam's face, leaning over him. "Did you want to kill this one?"

Lorelai moved Alistair's shield out of the way so she could be seen. "Your Arlessa orders you to stand down."

Aednat flinched as she whipped her head around. Her eyes widened, and she scrambled off of Liam. "Forgive me, my lady," she responded. The elf turned and offered a hand to the man she'd nearly killed.

Swallowing hard, Liam took her hand and got to his feet. Once standing, his fear of the blonde warrior seemed to melt away. He stared at her face for a moment, then groped around blindly at his feet until he came up with her shield. "Yours, my lady."

Aednat accepted her shield as her cheeks flushed scarlet.

Lorelai bit her lip to keep the laughter from bursting out. Perhaps she should get kidnapped more often; it seemed to have amazing match-making potential.

"Oh, do not tell me you're standing here undressing a man with your eyes at a time like this!" snapped a voice Lorelai hadn't heard in years.

She looked, and Isabela was stomping down the corridor, Nathaniel and Sigrun in tow. But the archer only had eyes for the mabari hound bounding in front of them. Her beautiful, blood-soaked Jacob.

Oh, if she broke down now, they may as well take a seat and wait for the fortress to crush them. Grasping his massive head between her hands, she pressed a quick kiss between his eyebrows. "I thought I'd lost you, brother," she whispered against his fur, and even that was almost too much, almost undid her.

"All right, no more reunions!" Isabela barked. "I'm sure you lovebirds," she glared at Alistair and Lorelai, "have wasted quite enough time. We left that great, whacking golem at the entrance, but it's not like it'll be able to hold the place up. Let's go, get going, move." She swatted at Aednat with one of her daggers.

The elf, thoroughly chagrined, immediately started back the way they'd come. Liam kept right on her heels, obedient as a puppy. Lorelai looked past the pirate Queen to see her Wardens.

It wasn't the happy, relieved-beyond-measure looks on their faces that drew her eyes and made her throat tight…but their tightly clasped hands. Some dim piece of her mind couldn't help but wonder if they'd finally found what they were looking for. Right in front of them all these years.

She could only hope that two other Wardens had, against odds and tradition, found love.

"No, no way!" Isabela shouted before any of them could say anything. "Outside, under the bloody, great sky. Not in here!"

"All right, all right, you filthy wench," Sigrun snorted. She dragged her archer back down the corridor at a run.

Isabela turned blazing eyes on Lorelai and Alistair. "We're going, we're going! Don't yell!" Alistair said hastily, sweeping Lorelai against his body again.

The pirate glared, and Lorelai saw fear rimming the edges of her eyes.

"Move, love," she whispered.

He did.

Maker damn every single one of those sappy, sentimental idiots. Isabela stood in the dust-choked courtyard, taking in gulping breaths of air as she waited for the crushing claustrophobia to leave her chest. What would they have done without her, exactly? Had all their bloody hugs inside while the walls came down around their fucking ears? She couldn't even look at them right now, or she'd start shouting again. Best not to shout at the royals unless all their bloody lives were in danger, right?

Not that keeping her back to them was much better. On the opposite side of the courtyard – could you call it a courtyard anymore, without half its walls? – stood the elephants. They shuffled their massive feet, as if at a loss for what to do. Isabela did not like them all staring at her, or even in her direction. And this wasn't even the whole herd; some had stayed out of the courtyard.

Dear Maker.

She turned around, determined not to lose her temper with the royalty. The Warden – Queen, whatever – was trying to haul Howe to his feet. He seemed determined to prostrate himself on the ground in front of her, though.

Andraste take the lot of them. Was this a fucking picnic, and no one had mentioned it to her? She took a deep breath, getting ready to yell at them again.

Any berating she had in mind was drowned out as, with one final heart-stopping screech of stone, the fortress lost its fight with age, gravity, and the elephants' fatally weakening assault.

The elephants bugled in alarm, managing to be heard over the deafening collapse. They surged forward, even as everyone else scrambled backwards toward the center. Isabela stood her ground, or at least that's what she would tell anyone who asked. In actuality, she was frozen with fear. Afraid to move into the elephants' ways. They moved past her, placing themselves between the not-long-for-this-world remaining courtyard wall and the people. The Queen, in particular.

Of course. They wouldn't let their puppeteer be harmed.

Isabela frowned at the bitter twist of her words. Well, apparently she'd been terrified one too many times today, and it had burned her politeness away. As long as she kept it in her head, everything would be fine.

The final courtyard wall smashed to the ground. For whatever miracle, it didn't fall towards them. Not really. It just crumbled, going from organized wall to mess of broken stone in a very safely downward way.

Everyone was coughing up their lungs as the ancient dust from ancient stones billowed around them. For a few moments, Isabela couldn't see a thing. The claustrophobia returned again, strangling the breath in her throat. She swallowed past it and marched forward. Surely she'd see a looming elephant body before she ran into one.

She found them just as the dust was finally clearing, elephants and people and mabari. The destruction was total, and what had once been a fortress was now just a treacherous pile of stone. The jungle would reclaim it eventually. It took everything back.

Trying to be as civil as possible, she waved her arms in the direction of the jungle. "Can we get away from this wreck now? I promise you, you can have all the hugging and kissing on my ship that you like, but I really want-"

"Aideen," the blonde elf interrupted suddenly. Her right hand, as if without her instruction, groped out wildly. It found the stranger beside her, and snatched his hand like it was the last stable thing in the world. "The others."

Isabela choked on the rest of her sentence. Zev. The perky bard and her love sick mage. The other elf, the brunette one. The drunken dwarf. Zev.

Everyone paled, except the golem. The Warden Queen closed her eyes and swayed on her feet. Her King instinctively reached out to steady her, but turned his face towards the rubble.

"I can't feel them," Sigrun moaned, and she turned quickly, burying her face in Howe's chest.

"I feel magic," Alistair said quietly, staring out across the mountain of broken stone searchingly.

Lorelai opened her eyes and grabbed him. "Where?"

He smiled at her, and kissed her forehead. "This way, come on." Taking her carefully by the hand he led the way. The others followed, keeping desperately close as if proximity to him would speed the search. Lorelai spared a backwards glance, and the elephants moved as one, following the group out of the ruined courtyard.

Leaving Isabela standing alone.

She took a deep breath, momentarily shutting her eyes. Pushing all thoughts of Zev to the back of her mind, she instead focused on the bottle of brandy she had waiting in her cabin.

There, now she had her composure back.

Alistair didn't really need to think; it was like breathing for him to sense magic. All that damned templar training. Morrigan used to torment him in the camp, deliberately making even the most mundane magic "loud", ripping into the Fade instead of gently sliding in, until his head was throbbing with it. Since no one could sense it but him, she'd gotten away with it. Complaining to Lorelai had been out of the question. Mostly because he was trying to impress her. Whiny, sniveling almost-templars aren't generally impressive.

It was good that he didn't need to think, really good. He wasn't sure he'd have been able to sense much of anything if organized thought were required.

Husband and Lover had finally fallen quiet, and King had pulled away with them. His mind was his own again, not dominated by facets of himself that were all clamoring for their demands to be met. He was whole again, the sum of his parts.

He had her back.

He wanted to just fall down at her feet, wrap his arms around her waist, and cry. That was first and foremost. Next, he was going to inspect every inch of her to make certain she wasn't hurt. Not that he didn't believe her, of course. More that he had to assure himself that those kidnapping bastards hadn't touched her. Then, he would hold her in his arms for as long as she would let him. If she wanted to go somewhere, he would carry her. Preferably, he didn't want to let her go or put her down until they were back in the palace in Denerim. After that, she wasn't really allowed out of his sight. Ever again.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, he had so many questions. Where had she been, the whole time Nathaniel had been searching? Did she think Anora was or wasn't behind this? Who was the man who, at this very moment, was hovering close to the distraught Aednat? Where in the Maker's name had all that blood come from? Where was Grady, so Alistair might split his heart and watch the man's life bleed out of his eyes?

How did she know she was carrying a son?

He bit his tongue, though it was hard, especially about Grady. There were more important things at hand. Aednat's face was enough to drive him forward. He didn't share her anxiety; he could feel the magic Anders was casting somewhere under the rubble. He knew they lived. Or at least Anders did.

Following where the rubble met the gauntlet of old stone that ringed the former fortress, what used to be the outer wall, Alistair let that whispering in his mind pull him gently.

"Love, are you sure?" Lorelai asked worriedly, her grip on his hand tight.

The blessed sound of her voice, no longer an echo between his ears but real and here and with him, made him go fuzzy for a second. He pulled himself together to answer her. "Anders is alive, I promise."

"Just him?" she asked desperately.

"I don't think so," he replied, trying to be reassuring. It was hard to explain something that was obvious to him, but to no one else.

"Please, darling, you're killing me," she said frantically. "If they're dead, any of them, it's my fault. I asked the herd to tear the fortress down. I was so angry, so-"

"Hey," he interrupted, turning to look over his shoulder at her. As distressed as she was, he didn't like the look in Aednat's eye. If he stopped walking to comfort Lorelai, he worried the elf might just snap. "I'm sorry, I'll explain better." From the corner of his eye, he saw Aednat perk up, listening as well. "I feel Anders pulling from the Fade. It's continuous, like he's maintaining…something. Now, he could be doing that if he were massively healing someone-"

Aednat let out a whimper, and the stranger gave her hand a squeeze.

Alistair hurried on. "-but if that's what he's doing, then where are they?"

There was a pause, then his beautiful wife answered, "You think he's made a shield, and they're holed up under the rubble. That's why we can't sense them; the shield is blocking the taint."

"Yes," he said.

"Thank Andraste," she breathed, her face filling with relief. Everyone let out a sigh, and the tension in their little group dropped significantly.

Maker, it was bizarre to be the level-headed one for a while. Normally it was Lorelai who kept his feet on the ground, kept his battle instincts leashed by her side as surely as if he were on a chain. Now, they were all looking at him, and they were all relieved by his assurances. They'd needed hope, and he'd given it to them.

King whispered, rippling along the edges of his mind. Maybe this was the kind of ruler he was meant to be.

He allowed himself a moment to be dazzled by the procession of elephants following quietly behind them, as silent as they'd been loud before. The animals looked no worse for their brutal use of their bodies. A few bloody gashes, their great bodies coated liberally with pulverized rock and old mortar. But they were as bright-eyed and imposing they'd been at the start.

Alistair's feet stopped before his mind could issue an order. He looked out over the rubble, and felt the magic chiming in his head. The source of the chiming wasn't too far in, but far enough that this could be problematic.

"Where is it, love? Show me," Lorelai asked.

"About thirty paces in," he answered obediently. "Straight in."

"How are we going to get them out?" demanded Isabela. She waved an angry hand at the masses of fallen rock. "We've got one golem, not a whole bloody herd of them!"

Lorelai smiled, a fiercely proud one that very nearly overwhelmed Alistair with its familiarity and beauty. "No, but we do have them." She flicked her head at the herd behind them.

Isabela seemed to swallow her anger, even as her eyes blinked rapidly. She stole a glance at the silent titans behind them and swallowed again. "Your elephants have brawn, sure, but what about brains? What's to keep this fucking wasteland from shifting once they start moving rocks around?"

"Isabela," Nathaniel said sternly. Alistair was fairly sure the archer was reprimanding her for her language in front of Lorelai…which was almost hilarious. If only Howe had been with them during the Blight, and heard Bryce Cousland's daughter's filthy mouth.

"Elephants," Lorelai repeated, looking at the animals like she'd never seen them before. It occurred to Alistair that just because she was communicating with them, didn't mean she knew what people called them. He didn't imagine the elephants called themselves "elephants", did they?

As the look of understanding faded from her eyes, it was replaced with doubt. Isabela's concern was valid, and strength would not guarantee safety.

"I can," Sigrun said suddenly.

"Can what?" snapped Isabela.

"I can keep this fucking wasteland from shifting," the dwarf retorted sharply, her eyes gleaming.