I know I promised this a long time ago, but things have been busy here (had a baby, graduated from one college and started at another, and a few other things.) So my apologies as always for the ridiculous delay. I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things!

Anders' warmth was replaced by a cold chill that filled the hollow of Selise's bones. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that everything was wrong anyway, that even the visions she'd held onto were just little boxed moments spiraling through an infinite abyss. The room fell away, and the dank shadows of the cave behind it retreated too. It felt too real to be only a memory, but it was achieved too easily to be fully trusted. Surely everything she'd seen and felt was all merely an imaginary construct? An illusion? They didn't bear the flavor of her usual visions, of the flashes of knowing that had invaded her out of the blue her whole life. These were all something different.

But she'd felt him. She'd been touched by his flesh, comforted by his heartbeat and his voice in her ear. And that warmth… how could a heat that had thawed her blood against the icy snow and wind be only a fantasy?

No, it wasn't fantasy. Or not exactly. Dreams, of a sort. An usually powerful sort. Yes, for a moment she remembered. She'd done all that herself. She'd known it at the time but things were getting blurrier and blurrier. Distantly, Solas' words echoed in her memory. An explanation of what she could do, of what she was. The knowledge slipped away again. Her mind was so weak, unable to hold on to the bits of thought she could manage to form.

The darkness gave way to white, a blinding wall of it that blared its brightness through the pink of her closed eyelids. Heavy, nearly immovable eyelids, closing in the pounding in her skull that clouded out all sound in a deafening lub…lub…lub.

The cold biting at her skin felt the same as burning. Torched alive in a casket of ice.

There was darkness at the edges; a peaceful nothingness. No burning, no wondering, no wandering lost inside the confines of her own mind. The Fade pulsed its proximity, a breeze of whispers caressing at the furthest limits of her awareness. With Anders gone again she was left at the mercy of her internal sea, a storm raging, pushing the vessel of her body over crests of pain and disorientation.

She turned away from the icy burning, from the sickly glow of the Fade and faced the black. Deep and oily, the Void gaped endlessly at her. Within the darkness was an enticing lull of stillness. Something close to… peace.

She floated for a moment within the silence, the pain of the ice dissolving away. It held her in its soft nothingness, soothing away the agony until all that remained was numbness. She'd been out of her body then back in again, and now… she wasn't sure where she was. She wasn't sure what she was.

Until a voice cut through the dark. It took a moment to realize it was her own, coming from some reptilian depth, her primal drive for survival lashing out against the fading.

NO!

Be strong!

It had only been moments ago that Anders' arms were around her. His tender touch, imbued with awe and love… for the moments she'd been beside him nothing else mattered. If her life was fading away, she didn't want to be lost to some empty blackness. She at the very least wanted to be near Anders. This had all been for him, hadn't it? To let go now, to sever her last remaining ties to this world, to leave him abandoned alone in the caves to starve would mean that Julian, despite his death, had accomplished some of what he'd set out for.

And that simply could not be.

Gathering what strength remained took effort enough to almost drain those last bits away completely. She squeezed at her mind, bore down toward what sensation lingered and called up a new vision. The white of the world ebbed slowly into the blackness. She was pushing it away as much as she was pulling herself back up, an expansion of any scrap of herself she could reach until the brightness enveloped her again. With it came the searing pain, scraping away her flesh until she felt like a mass of raw, exposed nerves, inundated with hunger and injury and cold. Her slowing heart still beat, and until her body reached some crucial threshold of blood loss, her mind still worked. There was precious little time.

It was Anders she pictured as she gathered her will into a ball in her chest. Anders' amber eyes, the soft caress of his magic, the sadness of his memories, the strength of his convictions, his passion, his love. It filled her, slowly but powerfully, like the fire she'd exuded before she cooked Julian's flesh. Suddenly the Fade was there as instantaneously as if it had been there all along. And of course it had been. With her energy coiled, the Fade at her fingertips, her mind holding fast to its last bit of lucidity, to Anders, she burst into a new place, piercing through the veil and the void and landing somewhere filled with cold, shifting images.

Green, shimmering, fluid shapes manifesting and dissolving. Selise was once again within the Fade.

Travel here was an afterthought. As quickly as she registered the familiar forms of memories moving across the land, she was at the mouth of the cave again. This blasted, murderous cave that she'd sooner bring to a permanent, violent end than have to enter one more time. But within there were energies, even… lights? A blue glow, bright like lyrium, like anger and defiance, like… Justice.

A deep, angry voice, punctuated by the quieter placations of a softer one. She heard the rumbles and murmuring, felt the thrumming in the Fade as the figures moved and spoke. There was rage and magic, the Fade disturbed by a wake of conflict. One figure pushed while the other pulled, mismatched in their efforts and locked into an unproductive dance.

Selise entered, and the forms inside stopped, two sets of eyes turned toward her.

If she'd been there in the flesh, she'd have collapsed with relief. Cole's strange form promised help. But it was clear that Justice was not accepting it.

Instead of collapsing, she eliminated the distance between herself and Justice with a blink. Cole stepped aside, his comforting presence exuding a calm determination. Selise took Justice's hand and looked into the glowing blue orbs of his eyes. The essence of Justice that had climbed up her arms before seemed to overtake her almost immediately. It found no body to grasp but it infected her with emotion. She felt the ghosts of her nerves buzz and inflame, rising with the anger Justice felt toward Cole.

"Why?" she asked, exasperated. "He's here to help."

"His type of help is not desired," came the answer.

"If Anders does not leave this cage, he will die. You know this. You know he wants out. He needs out. There's no time for this!"

"This spirit has been pestering me since our arrival at Skyhold," Justice's voice echoed in her mind. "He wishes to interfere where he is not needed."

"He IS needed!"

"NO," growled Justice.

Selise craned her neck to look at the skinny boy. Standing pale and still, Cole was unyielding, standing firm with a black ring of keys dangling from his hand. Taking them herself barely needed considering; she had no body present with which to grasp the physical objects. Cole, however, seemed to be able to manifest a physical force, an ability to move within the world as half spirit, half body. He alone could unlock the cell door.

"You have to let him unlock the gate, Justice," Selise insisted.

A surge of power rang out from where her Fade form joined with Justice, bringing with it a new knowing that she experienced as her own.

Fear. Fear of nothingness, of becoming obsolete, worthless.

She turned again to look into the blue glow of Justice's eyes, and beneath that glow, Anders' face. Her love. So thin and weak looking. She could feel the feeble beat of his heart, the chill in his bones. A new pang of sorrow cut through Justice' influence.

"He seeks to separate us," Justice stated. "Anders and me."

Selise drew an instinctive breath, inhaling nothing into her absent lungs.

"But he couldn't…."

She turned again toward Cole, who was taking a step closer.

"A power I do not have," Cole confirmed. "I only want to help."

"Separation would be the result of your help," Justice retorted.

Cole took yet another step, then stopped and trained his ghostly grey eyes upon hers.

"I cannot heal a fellow spirit. But Anders... always carried by a foreign current, crashing through darkness to wake with bloody hands… this is not what he agreed to… "

Selise almost laughed. "But separation is not even possible. You two knew that when you joined."

The cave seemed to go silent for a long moment.

"It is possible," Cole said quietly. Selise glared at him in disbelief. "You've not read it in the book yet, but it is there… cloaked by smoke and prayers, to all but the highest alighted, what they don't know won't hurt them, the ends justify the means…

"And Anders could do it?" she gaped at the fluid form of him, growing transparent and then solid again. The outskirts of her vision swarmed with the movement of other figures within the Fade.

"Anders could seek other mages for assistance. But someone could… Anders… or you, could…" Cole stopped, the words apparently frozen on his lips. His eyes flicked to Justice, whose energy responded with a burst of angry intensity.

"What?"

The words left her only a moment before the realization came to her on its own. Of course. Kill Justice. Kill the spirit here in the Fade and Anders would be free?

"Is that what you mean to do?" she asked Cole before he had a chance to answer. It would make sense. Freeing Anders would go a long way toward that 'help' that he so needed. And whatever hurt remained after the separation, Cole could heal as well.

She felt Justice feel her, picking up her thoughts and reacting, preparing for a fight and growing too intense to be contained. It streamed through her like a river, pushing at the boundaries of her own control.

"I said it already. I do not mean to kill. I mean to save. To help." Cole insisted as he took another step forward, the keys jingling as he moved. "It is not in my power to kill another spirit."

Selise's mind raced. Was killing Justice something she should do? Was it something she could do?

Another step closer, just a dozen more and Cole would have the keys at the door.

Justice flared, a roar filling the cave and saturating the air. Anders' frail body vibrated with the presence of the magic that was pulled to the surface by Justice. But the pool of mana upon which Justice drew was frighteningly shallow. It shouldn't have been, with Anders' spirit passenger fully immersed within the Fade and strengthening his connection. This realization made it clear to Selise just how dire Anders' situation was. There was so little of him remaining that was holding onto life. The knowledge was a dagger through her soul. She turned to Cole again, his pale eyes were narrowed, his face screwed up into a wince.

"Pain so loud, so loud it hurts… Without it Anders would be stronger, better, he could heal more, help others the way I do…"

The closer he approached, the more Justice strengthened. Every spark of Selise's awareness was filled with conflicting energies, her own precariously balanced on the edge of oblivion, Anders growing fainter by the minute, Justice preparing for a fight, while Cole was pulled toward them, compelled beyond his own ability to resist…

Selise steeled herself, habitually trying to tune into her breathing, to find an internal center. But nothing was where it was supposed to be. The maelstrom of Justice's energy was disorienting. A slip of her mind fell back to her body, snapped into place by some unseen corridor. The pain there had melded entirely with the cold, but a dangerous numbness had started creeping in.

"There is a third option," strained Cole. "If they chose… if they both agreed to part, the same as they both agreed to merge…"

Selise stared at the spirit boy as hard as she could muster. It seemed absurd that there could be a solution that simple.

"They never tried it because they didn't know, " he said.

Selise was frozen into place, her mouth hanging open.

"But the Chantry says that's impossible!" she cried.

"Lies, lies," murmured Cole, " temples built on lies… less power, less resistance… the ends justifies the means…"

The cave began to spin, its walls wobbling around her like a child's plastic top. The new information sent her skittering to comprehend the implications. The Chantry… that fucking Chantry! Of course it was lies such as this that made the Seeker book so valuable. Lies such as this that Anders sought to reveal, that had brought him to Skyhold to begin with.

To remove possession, they merely needed to choose, they'd both need to choose, to agree. And would they? They'd proved themselves discordant in so many ways… what were either getting out of their union now anyway?

Selise felt dizzier for the lack of solid ground beneath her feet. It was only Justice's iron grip that kept her locked into place as she grappled with this revelation.

She tried to take a deep breath, more for the comforting familiarity than for a need for air. She closed her own new rage out of her mind and tried to focus.

Whatever else there was to learn, it would have to wait. The immediate priority wasn't uncovering Chantry secrets, it was getting the gate open.

But Justice's defiance was unwavering.

"Justice," Selise implored, pulling a vein of magic through her, magic she didn't want to use. Everything felt uncertain here, so unpredictable. To weaken Justice with the drain spell might risk removing the last bit of life out of Anders himself. It might mean draining her own energy beyond the point of recovery. Selise slowed the stream of magic, struggling to hold her power in check.

Far away, the lub lub lub of her own heart continued to slow. Black spots danced around her eyes, what little energy that was sustaining her getting consumed bit by bit in the effort of keeping her magic close but under tight reins.

On the edges of her mind remained the cold burning of her body. There was only so long it could last laying encased in ice. If blood loss hadn't killed her yet, hypothermia eventually would.

With each moment she stood with her magic at the ready, she felt herself slipping.

Selise sighed and released the magic tether, letting it all fall away while her sluggish mind raced for other answers. It was like wading through mud. Her brain must not have been getting a full blood supply anymore, and would only continue to get less the longer her body languished without aid.

She refocused on Justice. No, her entropy spells were not an option. She didn't have the strength and there was too much at risk. She would have to talk him out of this. And quickly.

Selise softened her voice and reached her energy toward the glowing figure. He felt tense and erratic, his energy an assault on her own. The one grace was that he seemed to register on a low scale that Anders' body was not capable of the physical pacing and fighting that he desired. Still, he held Anders' magic, balancing him precariously on a brink of depletion.

"Justice," she said, forcing her voice into as soothing a tone as she could manage. The root of his disdain for Cole was the fear of separation. It was this fear she would need to address.

"Why won't you let Cole help? Even if Anders did decide to separate, he can't do it alone. And if he sought the help of other mages… well that only means that you would be free again, without the restrictions of a body that has different needs from your own."

"I cannot remain in the Fade. I am ineffective here. The Fade is not where injustices exist. The other side is where I can make a difference."

"But you already have. Anders will continue even without you," she said softly.

"NO!" Justice roared, his blue glow flaring. "He wants to rest. His body does not have the energy it once had."

"Well…" Selise began, "that's kind of exactly the point, isn't it? He can't really do all the things you want him to anyway. Or he won't be able to for much longer, anyway."

"His having to fight you all the time is what makes him so tired," added Cole.

"Then he should not fight!"

But of course Anders was going to fight… after what had happened in Kirkwall? Even if he shared the goal of his passenger spirit, how could he trust his methods?

Selise's vision was beginning to blur. She paused for a moment, wondering how vision that did not occur due to the physical existence of eyes could malfunction. She could only discern that this was due to the shut down of her brain: that organ that facilitated her thoughts, her senses and awareness, even her magic abilities. A shudder of panic rose through her energetic form. Justice felt it, his glow flaring in response. She wanted to release him, to step away. Maybe not being connected in this place would help her keep a better handle on herself. But Justice was so strong… and she was growing less and less so.

Behind her, Cole took another step.

Selise felt ice. Not ice back with her body, but ice coming from Anders himself. His magic… Justice was ready to use it, consequences be damned.

"You're going to kill Anders," Selise warned with a feeble voice.

"I would rather wield a deceased body than return to a life without form," answered Justice with a chilling calm.

Selise's thoughts stumbled toward any other solution that presented itself, any argument at all that might work. She had to find something that stuck before she slipped away entirely.

"You'd still be trapped in this cage, and what injustices could you address then?" she asked.

Justice growled as Cole took another step.

Selise glanced toward the spirit boy. His face remained pained, but resolute. It was clear he was hearing something that was causing him intense discomfort, to such a degree that he seemed entranced, moving almost outside of his own volition. She felt a surge of empathy for him in the moment; she knew the need to staunch the bleeding of a lifetaking wound, to scratch an itch that rattled every nerve in your body. He could hardly help himself. The purpose of his very existence compelled him forward, to quiet Anders' pain. He wouldn't be able to get close without trying to do what it was that he existed to do. To help.

"Maybe in the Fade you could find another host? A stronger, younger host?" Selise offered frantically. She blinked her absent eyelids hard, trying to hold fast to the vision of Justice's face, to the outline of Anders's features below it. There was so little of Anders there in appearance, but she felt him there. For now at least, his body lived. For now, hers did too. But it wouldn't be much longer before they were both lost.

Panic flooded Selise's mind. Cole advanced further. She tried weakly to pull away from Justice, to insert herself between them, but Justice held her fast while he gathered strength, preparing to strike against the spirit that would render his host hostile. She had to find the right argument, and fast.

Blackness was closing in, her field of vision getting smaller.

"Justice!" she cried, the end terrifyingly imminent. Selise did not know what could possibly come next, after she'd been pulled away from this place.

"Justice… join me," she said. The words were out. She didn't know if they would work, but she knew Justice had sought entrance into her before. The end was seconds away.

"My body… I'm younger, I have more time… but you must let Cole unlock the gate," she faded out for a moment, the blackness taking over before she surfaced again quickly. The second it took to reformulate her thoughts seemed to last an eternity.

"You must hurry…"

With a familiar lurch, Anders returned to the helm. The hum of Justice was receding, leaving behind the imprint of confusion. Anders blinked, the eyes Justice had been using already adjusted to the brightness of the snowy white landscape. Stilling his body mid-stride, he waited for a long moment, getting his bearings as he always had to do once Justice abandoned him in the middle of an action. The confusion soured into annoyance, but the open view before him squelched that irritation quickly.

He was out! Anders spun in a frantic survey of his surroundings, stumbling for a moment as his balance gave way under his weakness. He steadied himself with a deep breath and turned his face away from the frigid mountain breeze. Footprints trailed behind him, leading to a rising cluster of rocks and foothills, the ones that must have housed the caves. With burning lungs, Anders collapsed to his knees. His chest spasmed in painful, frantic exhalations and it took a moment to realize he was sobbing. With relief, with exhaustion, with hope. That kid, the skinny kid. Cole.

There were no memories to access of what exactly happened, at least nothing beyond that final glimpse of an approaching silhouette. Justice, the hard-nosed bastard, had apparently decided to work with the kid this time. There wasn't time to wish he could know what was said, especially after the way Justice had responded to him the one other time they'd met. Now, he merely needed to press forward, hoping that somehow Justice knew in which direction to travel, and had started him out correctly. Straight ahead lay a forest of spindly green pines, with the occasional boulder peeking out from the white blanket of snow.

His legs were heavy and cold, but they still functioned as they were supposed to, despite the ever-present lightheadedness. His own weakness was unignorable and even his mana existed in only a paltry film. It was a good thing he was physically whole; if he'd been in need of healing in that moment he'd have been almost entirely helpless.

If only Justice had thought to search the cave for provisions before leading their body away from it.

But even as that thought passed, he recognized its futility. Why would Julian, or the others that lived, leave any food behind? They too had an arduous journey through the mountains and knew they would need every scrap. Leaving any edible bits behind for the taking was tantamount to suicidal recklessness.

Anders sighed. Certainly Justice hadn't tried because he'd considered that point. He hadn't tried because that was not the sort of thing he thought about. So many years now of sharing a body and still that bloody spirit neglected things that his mortal host couldn't help but need. It's not as if Anders was trying to be a nuisance with his hunger and thirst and tiredness…. In fact, if he could abolish those needs completely that would make life so much easier on everyone.

Yes, me and my bloody addiction to food and water, right Justice? Such an inconvenience. Besides, starvation is such a great bloody time! Who wouldn't love feeling like their flesh is eating itself alive? It's like a party inside my skin!

The elation of his freedom subsided quickly. Now fully exposed to the mountain wind, his teeth chattered violently. Slowly, with measured step after measured step, Anders climbed across the snowy field toward the trees. Movement was his only defense against the cold, but his exhaustion was bone deep. With every passing moment he dreamed of collapsing into the soft snow for a quick nap, but there was no question that would be a nap from which he would not wake. Time floated by without measure, his eyelids taking on the weight of lead.

As the landscape settled into a predictable procession of images, Anders' mind wandered back to the cave. Rotting, bloated bodies, a dream about that bald elf who told him about the water, and then… Selise. Of course she was always there in his mind, coloring the background of his thoughts, no matter how mundane. But she had actually been there… in the cave and then…

Anders' breath caught in his throat. She'd pulled him into a dream, said she couldn't wake.

A new flood of cold spread down his body, a rush of adrenaline that quickened his steps. Something was wrong. Of course it was wrong. A fucking blood mage was marching her through the mountains like a marionette! But it had to have been more than that now.

I can't wake up.

His breath seemed to escape his chest, the air around him evading his lungs. He had to find her.

Justice rumbled to life just enough to be felt, but Anders' vision did not cloud. Instead he felt his passenger lending him some strength, urging him forward. Justice had rarely intervened in situations not directly relevant to some larger, overarching cause, but he'd certainly seemed to have his own set of thoughts regarding Selise. Anders had felt it a few times now.

Oh sure, suddenly you've found it in your heart to help me? Where were you all the countless other times I could have used your assistance? And not for Chantry explosions or, I don't know, mangling and driving away the people I love…

The thought echoed in his mind disdainfully, his skin prickling with the same irritation that had arisen just after he'd come to. But of course Justice didn't have a heart. Justice was what he was, with his own motivations and ideas. Anders sighed, accepting the surge of energy that was propelling him faster along. For whatever reason, Justice was helping him, urging him forward. The image of Selise stayed fast in his mind, bring his heartrate up to a dizzying intensity.

But even as he moved, something felt different. Thinking back over their time together, of all the weeks and months that he couldn't find the boundaries of himself and the beginnings of Justice, he suddenly felt strangely removed from the spirit he'd once considered a friend. Justice's cause wasn't always as shared as he'd once claimed.

"I am the cause of mages. There is nothing else left inside me," were words he'd once said to Hawke. They felt true then. More importantly, he'd believed them then completely. Though he couldn't deny that he'd wondered before if he'd had felt the same if she hadn't chosen Fenris. If Hawke, then the object of his infatuation, had asked him to give up his cause, or at least delay his crusade and to run away with her, would he have done so?

He would have considered it. But things after the Chantry were so muddied. He'd known then that he - they - had changed his life irrevocably, that he'd be vilified far and wide for an action he was sure was completely necessary. He might as well embrace that change. Go all in.

Not that he wasn't already all in.

At least he told himself he was, told everyone else that he was. Talking big was required, for everyone whop questioned him, but also for himself, to keep his own commitment firm and assuage that little piece of his mind that wondered if he wasn't actually just a common murderer.

So much struggling to accept the new order of the world as his fault, as what he wanted, despite the fact that it was Justice who controlled the hands that built the bomb, it was Justice's added rage that magnified his own into something uncontrollable.

Not that it mattered. No one else discerned which actions were taken by Justice, and which by himself. So much of the time not even he could, feeling more at some points that they were one, and sensing at others that there remained a division. He'd have to accept Justice's crimes as his own, as they were in the sense that he gave Justice the body with which to commit his crimes. He'd shared the opinion, still shared the opinion, and always would, that the mages needed to be free. That revolutionary action needed to be taken. Would the pre-Justice Anders have taken such actions that killed so very many innocents? Or would he have found another way? He certainly wouldn't have attacked Hawke. When he'd taken on Justice, he'd never considered the possibility of Justice becoming Vengeance.

The line between who he was in his heart, and who he'd become because of Justice's usurpation of his mind and body was suddenly sparklingly clear.

It's feeling awfully crowded in here at the moment.

Anders shook his head. These weren't the first time he'd such thoughts, but it felt like the first time these thoughts felt entirely, wholly true. It didn't feel like musings or speculation anymore, it felt like cold, hard facts. The clarity was bone chilling.

But what did it really matter? Nothing could be done about it anyway. What was done was done, the past was in the past. Surely Justice would act out again, his antics only demonizing Anders further to those it victimzied. It was only a matter of time. At least it would all benefit the Tranquil, who needed access to a spirit in order to be cured. That might make up for some of the havok that Justice had wrought upon Thedas. For whatever transgressions Justice had saddled Anders with, Anders needed him now. Freeing the Tranquil was his own cause, one that he'd known he'd someday champion the moment he'd taken Hawke into the Chantry to try to save Karl.

It was relief to know they'd share a goal again, instead of constantly fighting. When they both genuinely shared a goal they became so in tune that it was almost like Justice wasn't there anymore. Things were always so much easier that way. He slept better, his thoughts were clearer, he felt healthier.

He never would have guessed that so much of the time, he and Justice would be so damned incompatible.

A crunch in the snow some yards ahead broke Anders out of his thoughts. He blinked again, his vision gone blurry from exhaustion, from the constant barrage of icy wind at his face. He looked ahead, feeling Justice coming alert again along with him.

A figure, stumbling wearily through the snow. Body and clothes blackened, except for a mess of pulpy flesh on the forearms, neck and face. Vaguely familiar, yet frighteningly transformed, the man was clearly injured, but not enough to keep him from walking. Anders stopped for a moment to watch, searching the figure for an identifying feature.

It took a moment as the man slowly came closer before Anders' placed the familiar build and gait.

His steps resumed, stumbling in the shin-deep snow as he attempted to pick up speed. That man, Qaris, had been with the blood mages, with Selise. Anders cast his eyes into the surrounding trees, searching for any sign of the others, for his lover. But he saw only the same empty forest he'd been walking in since he'd regained control of his body.

Still, it was something. He could lead him back, take him to her…. Or what remained of her…

The thought was unacceptable. Even Justice railed against the idea, a new fury inflaming his chest and driving him forward, step after step, quickly closing the gap where the blistered man had now stopped, his black elven eyes taking in the thin form of an enraged mage.