Alistair and Terrance made it back to Denerim as the last of the darkspawn charge to the gate was dispatched. There was a lull in the attack but Alistair didn't trust it to last long. Slapping Terrance on his shoulder, he shouted. "Go to the palace and make sure that Anora has been evacuated. Just in case I, we fail."

The young man shook his head. "Your Majesty…"

Alistair rounded on him. "That is an order, guardsman!"

"I…Yes, sire." Pale, Terrance nonetheless grabbed a surviving guard and ran towards the palace. Alistair turned to the gate and saw Finbar, licking a massive paw. Maker, she'd left her mabari behind? There was only…no, he wouldn't think of that. "Finbar!"

The hound trotted up, whining and pushed his massive, bloodied head under Alistair's hand. "We're going to go get her, we'll find her," Alistair promised. A sharp bark acknowledged him and they headed off, both ignoring the calls from Sten and Oghren.

Broken and burning around them, the calls of the dying and the terrified washing over him, but Alistair ignored them. Focused, turning himself back to that duty he could never forsake. Racing back to Melisande's side where he belonged.

Alistair pelted up the steps of Fort Drakon, Finbar at his heels.

He berated himself again as he stalked through the keep, past the piles of bodies. He'd left her to this. Maker, no wonder he'd been having nightmares.

Countless darkspawn lay interspersed with handfuls of the troops they, she, had gathered. Denerim was a charnel house, and he'd let her come into it without her second, hated her for not putting his wants, his hurts ahead of her command decisions.

Chest heaving with the effort, Alistair stood at the door of the roof, buffeted by the noise and chaos of the battle. His dauntless mental smart-mouth couldn't help but ask, Really? Purple fire. This was a thing. Maker. Remnants of a firestorm licked past him and Finbar, who whined at his hesitation. He brought his shield up, nearly on reflex at the advance of a hurlock, who noticed the new wardenmeat.

A bash and a stroke and the creature was dispatched as the mabari barreled past him, tiny gleaming eyes locked on a distant target. Finbar would know where she was, even if Alistair couldn't divine that singular pull, surrounded by taint.

It took more than a mabari howl and a couple of bashes to clear the path though. By the time they got to the center ballista dais, his formerly gleaming armor was black with gore, Maric's sword dripping with tainted blood. He saw the Archdemon collapse and then he heard the screaming. Her screaming. He whipped around in a panicas Finbar charged forward with a baying cry.

There.

She was caught in a bubble of familiar magic, the sort Wynne normally used to protect a fallen comrade until help could arrive. Melisande, his Meli, shrieking at the center of the crystalline shield, her low, sweet voice gone hoarse and ragged in exhaustion and pain.

"Letmegoletmegodon'tmakemeIcan'tWynneIjustcan'tnomoreletmegonotbymyself, please. Maker. Wynne, let me end it."

Sweet Andraste. Was it blood magic? Was Wynne enthralled? Alistair ran to aid her, dragging in a centering breath to drop a Silence on the mage as he came up behind her, to break whatever hold she was attempting on Melisande.

"Loghain!" Wynne gasped, the bubble holding a struggling Melisande clearly taking all her will to maintain. "Now! I can't hold her."

Alistair realized then - Wynne wasn't trying to hurt her, this was no darkspawn trick or confusion. She was trying to keep Melisande from killing the Archdemon herself.

If Loghain couldn't, he could. Alistair turned towards the huge tainted dragon... thing only to hear a crack like lightning striking a tree as Melisande wrenched herself from Wynne's control. He reacted on instinct, grabbing her slim wrist as she launched past him and she slashed at him blindly with one of the endless array of knives Meli kept stashed, a snarl on her bloodied lips. A brief look of confusion crossed her face looking at him, before she turned back to the Archdemon.

He took the blow, armor absorbing most of the impact. Maker, she didn't even seem to recognize him. He dithered for a minute. Had to kill the damned thing, but if he let her go...

Loghain appeared, relieving him of his choice at the same moment that Wynne snatched Melisande into another spell. She was screaming again. This time though, it was pain from the magic, not frustration. Wynne was using whatever she could to hold her. No finesse now, he could feel the mana waning, proof that the mage was wilting. Tears streamed down Melisande's face as she fought, her wild grey eyes locked on the tainted dragon.

There was part of a broken blade jutting out of the teyrn's shoulder, blood and darkspawn bile coating the blackened metal. He paused for a minute, trying to catch his breath. Alistair tried to think of something to say, but Loghain, like Melisande, seemed caught in the fight and had eyes for nothing but his own death as he gathered himself and ran towards the Archdemon and his fate.

-000-

Alistair insisted on carrying Melisande from the keep, himself. She'd collapsed in the aftermath of the Archdemon's explosive death, dropping with only a whimper as Wynne released her. He'd grabbed her up and only just managed not to snarl like her mabari when Leliana tried to touch her. She was too light in his arms, even in the foreboding unfamiliar black leathers she'd encased herself in. Meli, who never liked to wear a full set because she wasn't a soldier, she was a sneak. She was even wearing a hood.

"Haven't you fed her in the last two weeks?" He couldn't help but growl at Wynne, limping just behind them. She turned cool eyes on him and replied in her Grand Cleric voice.

"You have no right to question her treatment since you abandoned her, Alistair." And blast it, she was right, so he shut up until they reached the healer's tent that the Chantry had set up just moments before. It had always been him to slip an apple or bread or jerky in her hand when she'd forgotten or been too tired to eat the extras that a warden required. He'd laughed over it, his heavy duty as her second. Shocking that anyone could forget to eat.

Alistair laid her down on the first empty cot and let Wynne and another healer fuss over her. He only wanted to watch over her, to not take his eyes from her. But he couldn't help but ask when they pulled the armor's hood back, "When did she cut her hair?" All of her beautiful, thick long red-gold hair just gone. It was shorn nearly to her skull at the back, bangs ragged and singed where fire had sparked through them and too long over her face.

"It was like that when she came down the morning we left for Redcliffe." Leliana answered slowly, her normally sparkling eyes dull and they closed as she braced against the tent pole. "I trimmed it up at camp one evening, she finally let me." It hadn't been necessary to say why. They all knew why.

The new healer looked up from his examination of the prone Warden, her lithe form limp against the bedding. "I believe it to be a natural sleep, Your Majesty. She is simply exhausted, understandably. A head wound, but no concussion. There are injuries, of course and some extensive bruising, but nothing that will not be easily healed." He paused before continuing. "There is some…perhaps rations were short on her march?" The old mage didn't want to suggest that the Warden had been starved and hurriedly moved on with a fluttering of his hands. "None of her wounds are terribly serious. She should recover soon, if she is allowed to rest and sleep herself out." Wynne nodded her agreement, wearily. After sending a warm pulse of healing magic through Melisande, the man turned to Leliana to address the gash across her chin and the nasty bruises blooming on her arms.

"We will let her sleep, then." Alistair said. He shucked a few pieces of the armor she'd found for him, spaulders and vambraces, sliding down the braced fabric wall to sit next to the cot on the hastily planked rough floor, never taking his eyes from her pale face, the long eyelashes in bright fans against her skin. Finbar laid himself beside Alistair, eyes in much the same track. The mabari had followed Alistair down from the Fort, determined not to be left again. Finbar had finally seemed to accept that Alistair would be beside his mistress.

The healer set orders for Melisande to receive a bolstering rejuvenation spell in an hour and cleared the rest of them with only superficial wounds as the companions who held the gate trickled in to check on their leader. Alistair accepted their silences as his due, though he appreciated Oghren's rough clap on the shoulder before the dwarf left.

She still hadn't woken two hours later, when they transferred her to the palace. The building had remained relatively unscathed, once the fires were out, and the Chantry's healing tent was needed for the vast number of dying and injured.

Alone, Alistair stripped her from her armor, after a bit of hesitation. The leather was too tainted to take a chance that someone else could be exposed to the blight. He wrapped it in a blanket and set it outside the door, so that it could be burned.

With a sigh, he turned back and set about trying to clean her up. There weren't many servants around at the moment and Leliana and Wynne were both, hopefully, resting. There was only him, even though it felt like a dreadful invasion of Melisande's privacy. But she would hate a stranger touching her. Swallowing hard, he picked up the flannel cloth in the bowl of water and wiped her face, working his way down her neck. Alistair spied a leather thong and tugging at it…oh. She was wearing the Warden's Oath as well, his…tucked carefully under…

The tunic…oh, blast. Far too big and sweat-stained, Alistair recognized it one of his own. There on the shoulder was one of his inexpert mends. It took him a moment to continue, rubbing the slubby fabric between his fingers.

Steeling himself, with a mocking thought, he lifted the shirttail only to stop again, gasping at the scar that splayed under her ribs. What in Andraste's name had happened there? It looked like something had come very close to gutting her and the puckered skin was a sure sign that healing had come slowly. He brushed it with the damp cloth, yanking back guiltily when her skin twitched under his touch.

Finally, he just slit the fabric up the middle and the sleeves and eased it off of her. She'd kept it. It had meant something to her, but it was filthy. A maid could tend the rest of her, relatively safely, he decided, tucking the blankets around her.

The healers and the First Enchanter himself agreed on her relative health. Teagan had begged Alistair to rest while he could before the duties of state began. He was about to go and bathe, at least, when he heard a voice that was familiar in cadence and accent if far lower in pitch.

"She's here. I'm her brother. You will bloody well let me in!"

Alistair stuck his head out of the door and recognized somehow- a man he'd never seen, arguing with the guard at the entrance to the hall. Melisande had described Fergus Cousland to a t. Finbar roused himself and gave a decidedly acknowledging huff of a bark.

Alistair waved off the guard as Fergus stuck his hand out to the hound for a sniff and then scratched the little ears before raising an eerily familiar eyebrow to Alistair. "Finbar, thank the Maker. Who in Flames are you?"

The guard looked to be close to apoplexy but Alistair shook his head. "Alistair." He got a blank stare from the Teyrn of Highever. "Oh. Right, of course. Um. I'm the...other Grey Warden."

"I see." Though it was plain he didn't. "She really did it? Ran off and joined the Wardens even though Father forbade it?"

"Not exactly."

Fergus shook his head. "Where is she?"

Alistair opened the door wider and stood aside to let Cousland by, into the neat room. He was given a decidedly older brother look when Fergus saw his sister in her smalls on the bed. She'd shifted and the green woolen blanket had fallen away a bit. Alistair twitched it back into place.

"Always a restless sleeper." Oh, great. Good thing to say to her brother. He wanted to bite his tongue, but Cousland ignored him to brush his fingers over Melisande's cheek.

"Was she injured?" He whispered.

Alistair shrugged and whispered back. "No more than usually. It's been a hard year and the last two weeks have been...She's just tired, they tell me. But, she should wake soon."

"Alright. When did she cut her hair?"

"Uh. A week ago, apparently." He received an appraising glance from cool blue eyes, very like his sister's in shape if not color. Fergus had the Cousland blues. I got mother's grey, he recalled her saying.

Fergus was quiet for a moment, tracing her face with his gaze, as if he'd never expected to see her again. "She believed it to be her fault, then. Whatever occurred between you."

"What?" No, seriously. This was slack-jawed, even for him. The man was going to think he was an idiot, which was not the opinion Alistair wanted his lover's brother to hold.

Fergus touched one ragged red lock. "It's a custom among the women of Highever. If they've grieved a loved one. If they believe they've done something unforgivable. In atonement, to show public contrition, they crop their hair and don the black."

Alistair stared a minute. He did manage not to stammer. "It wasn't her fault. It was me being an idiot, again. I couldn't see what she was...I didn't listen. She told me. I couldn't believe that Duncan wouldn't have. The fault was mine." He whispered the last, willing her to hear him. He wanted to gather her up to his chest again, tuck her into his shoulder, to beg forgiveness. Alistair had been telling her sorry since they'd left her to him, but he'd been afraid to touch her again without her permission. The way she'd looked at him when he turned from her.

"She always mocked the custom. Said it was foolish, sentimental nonsense, too little, too late. The women of the castle and village said it was because she hadn't the heart to feel sorrow." Fergus smoothed her blanket, unconsciously unable to stop touching the little sister he'd believed dead until a week ago. Whispers of the Warden had reached him in the Highever hovel he'd been holed up in for the last few months, running a resistance to Howe since he'd crept home from the south.

Fergus explained at Alistair's questioning look. "She was always a cool one. Shallow, I suppose. Kind enough, if it suited her, but...she'd occasionally forget." The teyrn frowned at Alistair's clear surprise. "That other people needed tending and care for their feelings," he explained.

"That is not the woman I've come to know." Alistair paused. "If anything, she cared too much, fought too hard to save us all."

"Perhaps then, she finally grew up. Mother always said she would." Fergus sighed and rubbed his hand down over his worn face and unkempt beard. It was clear that he had been recently ill and that he'd spent far too much time on the road. Alistair caught his elbow as he staggered.

"There are cots set up in the room down the hall."

"I should probably take advantage of that." Fergus rubbed Finbar's ears again, earning a fond low rumble. "Nothing will get past this lad. I'm glad to see him still with her."

The two men left the room as the mabari settled in the shadowy corner. Alistair looked back before he closed the door, but Melisande hadn't stirred. Still and pale as death, though the healers had assured him otherwise.

Alistair bathed and meant only to claim a bed, but they directed him to his own room, of course. The hard ride to Redcliffe to try and catch up to his companions, only to reverse course halfway when the horde turned, caught up with him. He sat, just for a moment, and then leaned back and was asleep.