Marian was floating, drifting quietly through warm, soft emptiness. Her limbs felt weightless, and for the first time in ages, the tight knot of anxiety didn't have a stranglehold on her heart and lungs.

But why had she been anxious? She tried to remember, but thinking was too much effort. She allowed the thoughts to slip away, and soon she didn't even remember that she had been anxious in the first place.

After what felt like years, or could have possibly been no time at all, the thought occurred to her that she was lying on something. Whatever this surface was, it was soft and warm. She slowly grasped at the surface with her fingers, and found it bunching up in her fist.

A blanket?

Hawke opened her eyes.

Her surroundings were blurred beyond recognition, nothing more than a softly lit gray and black background. But before she could become concerned about this, things began resolving into sharp lines and definite edges. Belatedly, she realized that she was lying in a bed and staring up into the highest ceiling she'd ever seen.

She turned her head to the left. A glass double door was off to the side, one of them open to let in fresh air. A desk was off to the right of it. Her eyes followed the room's walls to pass over a second pair of glass doors, both shut, on either side of a roaring fireplace. She continued following the walls until her eyes fell upon a figure sitting in a chair next to her, slumped over on the bed.

Marian's chest swelled with emotion at the sight of her elven lover as he slept, his head resting next to her arm. Fenris held her hand between both of his, with his dark skin making her look paler than she usually did.

He looked so much more haggard than when she'd seen him last. His dark circles were even more prominent than when he'd learned the truth about his sister years ago. As she watched, he twitched in his sleep and mumbled something under his breath.

Marian gently pulled her hand from his grasp and laid it on his cheek, stroking his smooth skin. He stirred under her touch. Green eyes blinked at her sleepily before they snapped wide open.

"Hawke!" he gasped. Before she could say a word, Hawke found herself enveloped in a painfully tight embrace. She could feel Fenris trembling against her.

She gasped a little; his hug had woken a deep searing pain in her side that made her eyes water. Fenris pulled back immediately, apologies spilling from his lips.

"I'm okay," Hawke groaned, holding her side. "Maker, what happened to me?"

She began sitting up, but her lover held her down gently by her shoulder. "You should rest," he said firmly. "You're incredibly lucky to be alive."

She batted his hand away and sat up anyway, despite his disapproving stare. She lifted up her shirt to examine her side. A truly magnificent bruise covered her entire left half of her ribcage, partially overlapping the massive scar bisecting her middle; the souvenir of her battle with the Arishok.

"Four broken ribs," Fenris supplied, eyebrows drawn together. "They healed them as best as they could, but it will take time for the swelling to go down."

"Fenris, what happened to me?" Hawke asked. She allowed her shirt to fall back down, covering the bruise. "The last thing I remember is taking down the...the nightmare demon. Why am I in this…unnecessarily fancy room?"

The elf sighed but sat on the bed next to her. He kept her hand in his, apparently unwilling to relinquish the contact.

"I rescued you. Well, we rescued you. I convinced the Inquisitor to take me to the Fade so we could find you and get you back. You're in the Inquisitor's room," he explained. "She insisted you use it while you recover after your surgery – in which you nearly died, by the way. She plans on staying with Cullen in the meantime."

Hawke held up a hand, stopping him. "Wait, staying? As in…staying? With Cullen?"

"I believe so, yes."

"The same Cullen we know from Kirkwall? Cullen 'mages cannot be treated like people' Rutherford? Having a mage stay with him?"

"I believe a more accurate description would be 'having sex with'."

"Andraste's dimpled asscheeks, Fenris, please never say that again! That is NOT an image I want in my head." Hawke mimed puking, and she finally saw a ghost of a smile crack on his lips. He must've been more scared than she'd originally thought. Terrified, even. The thought shook her to the core.

She sat up straighter and tried to will the fog to clear from her head. Her eyes fell to the thick blanket covering her, and her eyebrows drew together as she realized something was off. She began pulling the blanket away from her body, but Fenris' hand covered hers and stilled her action.

"Hawke." His eyes met hers and held her gaze. He hesitated; clearly he was unsure about how to proceed. "Just…don't panic, alright?" He released her hand. After a second of deliberation, she pulled back the blanket completely.

Hawke sucked in a shuddering breath. Her hands shook, even when Fenris gripped her hands in his.

The lower half of her right leg was gone.

Her right leg ended just past the knee, which was neatly wrapped in clean white bandages. Belatedly, she realized the fog in her head was likely drugs to keep her from feeling the brunt of the pain. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back.

"What…what happened?" she croaked.

Hawke could never before remember seeing Fenris look so somber. "We found you in the Fade," he explained. "You were bleeding, and badly wounded…you were a breath away from death. We brought you back here, to Skyhold, and the healers and doctors did all they could for you. We left some minor injuries for you to heal on your own. The worst of them was your leg." He glanced at the missing limb. "The spider monster had apparently injected you with venom of some kind when it gave you that wound. The healers could not save your foot…and they almost could not save the rest of you."

Marian's hand found its way back into Fenris'. She squeezed lightly, and he squeezed back.

"Your heart stopped for nearly a whole minute," he whispered.

"Fenris…"

"How could you sacrifice yourself for them?" he demanded. "Fasta vass, you finally have a life free of fear of the Circle, and you choose to go get mixed up in the most dangerous events in Thedas right now, and fucking volunteer to stay in the Fade-"

"Fenris."

His eyes snapped back up to hers as her hands cupped his face gently. She ghosted a kiss across his lips, then pulled him into a tight hug, ignoring her ribs' protests. His arms wound around her after a moment.

They sat there, simply holding one another. After a few minutes, they heard a knock at the door. Fenris pulled away from her as they heard it open. He wiped his eyes and gave her a weak smile. Marian smiled back softly as footsteps came up the stairwell and the Inquisitor appeared.

"I'm not interrupting, am I?" she asked. Hawke shook her head, and Evans came up to the bed.

"I see you've noticed your, ah," Evans mumbled, and gestured towards what was left of Hawke's leg, "your…yeah."

"Yeah," Hawke echoed.

"You know…while you were unconscious, after it was clear you were going to recover, I had Dagna make something up for you," the Inquisitor offered. "I know you don't know her, but she's the best arcanist I know, and I told her to make it really special for you."

"Actually, I met her once," Hawke said lightly. "Please tell me she didn't make me a bomb."

Evans chuckled. "No, it's not a bomb. Well, I don't think so at least. It's the most complicated looking thing I've ever seen her make. Would you like to see?"

Marian's face fell. Before she could voice her doubt about her mobility, however, Fenris interjected.

"Is it necessary to have her up and about so soon?" he asked pointedly. "She is recovering from a near death experience, after all."

Evans raised her hands in a peace-making gesture. "I didn't mean for you to go to see it, I was going to bring it up here for you. If you feel like guests, that is."

Hawke nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'll see Dagna," she said eventually.

"Okay, I'll go ahead and go get her." The Inquisitor turned and descended the stairs again. However, she paused just a couple steps down. "Varric wants to see you too," she added, addressing Hawke. "But he acknowledges that at present, he may not be welcome." Evans' eyes flicked over to Fenris, who remained silent. Then, she ducked her head and vanished out the door.

"You need to forgive Varric."

"What?" Fenris snapped.

"Let it go. He did his best, but in the end I made my own choice," Hawke argued. "Continuing to be angry with him will do nothing but make everybody miserable. We're all safe and happy, even though there's a long way to go to defeat Corypheus."

Fenris stopped, the anger fading from his face. Suddenly, he looked almost…guilty.

"What?"

"Nothing," he replied, a knee-jerk reaction.

"I know that look. Something's wrong."

Fenris sighed. "Hawke…the Inquisition is planning its final assault on Corypheus, as soon as they can locate his lair," he told her. "Evans succeeded in thwarting his plans to corrupt the Wardens, assassinate the empress of Orlais, as well as use an eluvian to enter the fade by roundabout means."

Hawke stared at him in disbelief. "I was gone, what, a day? Two days? There's no way all that happened in that time." But as she stared at her lover, his expression told her differently. "Fenris…how long was I gone?"

"Hawke…"

"How long?" she demanded.

He hesitated. "Over a month."

Hawke reeled back, even more stunned than just a bit ago finding she had one less limb. "Over a month?" she repeated in a whisper.

"Time passes differently in the Fade," Fenris said, echoing the Inquisitor's words. Marian dragged her hands down her face wearily, trying to force the pieces of the puzzle into some semblance of order in her mind.

"You'd think I'd be used to this kind of thing, being a mage and all," she sighed eventually. A thought seemed to strike her, and she squinted at her lover. He watched her warily, noticing her attitude shift.

"Where's Bethany?" Hawke asked suspiciously. Fenris blinked, thrown off.

"What?"

"I swear to Andraste, Fenris, if you're about to tell me that you left Bethany alone in that tiny mabari shitpile of a village-"

"Yes Hawke, because I'm a completely irresponsible father. Of course I didn't leave Bethany alone," he said scathingly. "Venhedis, what kind of a parent do you take me for?"

"Well don't tell me you took her here."

"Aveline and Donnic agreed to care for her until we returned."

"You left Bethany in Kirkwall!?"