Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

Rating: T+

Spoilers: Spoilers for Origins only.

A/N: No longer a one-shot, but no more than a three-parter.

The Pillow Talk That Never Happened

It was a chill, damp night, even after the rain stopped, but lying wakeful beneath a warm bundle of naked woman, Loghain hardly felt the cold. For the life of him, he could not figure out how he got in this position.

You were never my enemy. She said it more than once. Could it really be true? Did she really understand the things he'd done? Did she really forgive him?

What, exactly, did it mean that she was in his arms now?

She stirred, stretched, and stroked her hand across his bare chest. "Did you sleep at all?" she asked.

"Not yet. You didn't sleep long."

"I feel like I did. Best rest I've gotten in a year."

He hadn't the first least clue what he ought to say, or do. He felt vaguely that he might owe her an apology.

"What…do I do now?" he asked, because he truly did not know.

"Hmm, that depends on how much energy you've got left," she said, and her hand slipped down from his chest to points south.

"This is…an experience you'd care to repeat?" he asked, once he caught his breath.

"As often as possible," she said, "if it always feels as good as this."

"I might have thought you'd prefer to forget this night ever happened."

"Why would I want that?"

"Because…this…was…a mistake?"

"Hm? Not for me. If you want to leave, though, go ahead. I suggest you put your trou on first."

"I don't…particularly…want to leave. Unless you want me to."

"I'd sooner you didn't."

"Then I shan't. But I confess myself confused as to why you would not wish me to."

"I need the company. I rather thought that you might, too." She sat up on one elbow. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for anything beyond this. I mean, once upon a time, perhaps, I would have thought pretty carefully before jumping under the covers with…someone like you, but now, you know, we're both infertile, and neither of us has any sort of future…I've learned to live for the moment. I didn't have a choice."

"What do you mean, 'someone like me?'" he asked.

"You're going to put me on the spot, aren't you? All right, let me sort out my mind and clarify for both of us." She sat up and breathed deeply.

"Someone like you," she said at last. "Someone…someone I can respect. Someone who might well have been a marriage prospect for me, previously. Someone…I could potentially lose my heart to."

He propped himself up on an elbow. "Would that be bad? Losing your heart to anyone, I mean."

"Yes, it would. All my life, I've fought against becoming some man's appendage. Marriage, for me, meant giving up my independence, my individuality. I fought my parents tooth and nail when they tried to put me on the marriage market. This tattoo on my face? The only reason I have it is to make myself look like a bad bargain. Maybe it worked."

"You can't be yourself, or be free, if you're married? Not even if you're in love?"

"Are you trying to tell me that I can?" she asked, with a trace of a humorless laugh in her voice. "To me, it doesn't look much as if marriage works that way. It's bondage."

"Do you think your mother lived in bondage?"

She chuckled. "Mother loved Father, and she loved her family, but she was a warrior, a soldier. She had to give it all up when she got married. She had to remake herself."

"You don't think she simply chose to set that side of herself behind her in favor of a sweeter life?"

"Maybe. Maybe a husband and babies was what she wanted. It's not what I want. Now I don't have to worry about it any longer. It's the one good thing about being a Grey Warden."

"You don't want children? Ever?"

"Dear Maker, no. What do I want with a bunch of smelly, squirmy, noisy skirt-clingers?"

"Good question. I've got another for you: Would you have said the same thing before you became infertile?" he asked.

"Of course," she said, but she didn't sound a hundred percent certain of herself.

"Very well, then. Being a Grey Warden has done no evil to you."

"The hell it hasn't," she said, heatedly. "I'll die young - if I'm lucky. If I'm unlucky I'll eventually live out my days popping out darkspawn after darkspawn as a broodmother. And even if I didn't want children, at least it was my choice. Now it's not."

"Even if you didn't?"

"Stop trying to put words in my mouth."

"The words came out of your mouth, my dear, even if you did not recognize their implications. So being a Warden is an evil."

"Of course it is. Do you think this is what I wanted? The sleepless nights? The knowledge that no matter how well I perform my duty, the work will never be complete? I hate being a Warden."

She shivered and hugged herself. "It's cold," he said. "Why don't you lie back down?"

"I don't want to."

"Warden. Lie down."

"Don't call me that."

"Everyone else does."

"I know they do. But don't you call me that. Please."

"Very well. Elilia, then. Please, lie down."

He tugged gently at her arm and she allowed him to pull her back into his. Her skin was chilled and she was pale in the filtered moonlight that was their only illumination since the rain drowned the campfire.

"I feel I understand you better, now," he said, after he had warmed her. "Perhaps you and I are not so different as I thought. We hide ourselves within our armor, behind our swords and shields, so that our weakness doesn't show. I understand now what you were looking for, tonight. Not love but understanding. I'll give you whatever it is you need to take from this, whether its pleasure or comfort or what have you. But I can't promise you that I won't fall for you. If that's a problem, we'd best end this now."

She lay silent for a long moment. Then, finally, she said, "That's not a problem."