a/n: Now I know why Patrick Weekes says Cole was the hardest companion to write for in Inquisition, because my goodness is it difficult to nail down his personality and dialogue. So… please forgive any vague out-of-character moments of his. I did my best, but shit, he really is a challenge.
Also, regarding my feelings on writing about in-game events: (see a/n in chapter 7). The whole "of course it's blood magic because what else would it be" thing in the Western Approach? I skipped over that. That happened days ago, in the story. It's the future now. But I couldn't find a good way to work that in without it sounding like forced narration, so. :T All you get here is a brief mention that Adamant is the next step in the whole "why is Hawke still here" thing. We all know what happened in the Approach; I'm here to tell you about what should have happened with Hawke. c:
t e n
And as the black clouds came upon them,
They looked on what pride had wrought,
And despaired.
Threnodies 7:10
"She screams where no one can hear. Pain, locked away, claws at its walls, seeping through cracks to poison the light. Drowning in unspoken sorrow, falling into endless night. Cracked, crumbling, crushed, but held together by threads of a humanity she's forgotten."
Alice looked down into the tavern below, leaning on the railing. Hawke was acting out some kind of battle to a thoroughly entertained audience. She swung her staff around, announcing that all evil should fall before her, and then was struck with an imaginary arrow. With dramatics rarely seen outside of the stages in Orlais, she took three more hits, falling to her knees. "Tell my brother," she choked out, her staff clattering to the floor, "I always loved him... the least." Then, she collapsed with a final gasp of air, sprawling herself over as much distance as she could manage. Her audience laughed and clapped and cheered, and after a moment, Hawke jumped to her feet with a blinding grin, bowing with just as much theatrics as she exhibited in the play battle.
"Really?" Alice asked in disbelief, looking back at Cole. "That's what you see when you look at her."
"She has barricades to hide behind," he said. "If she ignores the hurt, if she keeps a space between her and it, it isn't there. But I can see it: it's deep, concealed, but strands of misery unravel and twist around the happy things until she can't even remember how everything really was."
Alice frowned, looking back at Hawke. She had started in on another story - this one likely about a dragon from the way she held her arms out, miming flight - and seemed to have captured Bull's attention, too. He and the rest of the Chargers were watching with the others, calling out remarks about her portrayal of the winged beast. "Can you help her?" Alice asked finally.
Cole was quiet for a moment, and Alice had to look up to make sure he was still there. "I don't know," he said slowly. "The others I help, they want help, even if they don't know it yet. But she has help, and she still hurts."
"She has help?"
"Varric talks to her," Cole explained. "Varric helps her, but she has secret bruises that he can't see."
"Hmm." Hawke was apparently explaining, in excruciating detail, how it felt when the dragon had picked her up by the leg and tossed her back to the ground. "If you can see those 'secret bruises', why not tell Varric? If he's helping her already, maybe he can help her with those, too."
"His eyes look at me like I'm broken," Cole started, and Alice looked up at him. She had come to recognize this as Cole getting a little deeper into someone's head. It hadn't stopped being strange, but she had also always found it insanely interesting. "He thinks I made a mistake, but it's not my fault. I loved him, I… hated everything about him, but I loved him and he left. Anders." Cole's voice broke, and Alice straightened up to face him. "Anders left without saying goodbye. Just like Bethany, like Carver, like Mother. Everyone could leave, and I'll be left, and I- I can't-"
"Cole," Alice interrupted. His expression mirrored the pain that was apparently concealed deep below Hawke's carefree exterior; but it was unlike him to actually show what he was pulling from inside the other woman's memories. Was Hawke really in that much pain?
He took a short breath. "She's afraid," he began, voice steadier, "of being alone. Anders promised her to stay by her side, but he left. Anyone could leave. That's why she keeps the locket against her heart, to remind herself that even love can leave."
"Locket?"
Cole looked up at Alice, his eyes once again the blank, emotionless pits of blue that was the norm. "It's another wound she doesn't share."
Well, that was a better lead than she had before. Alice bid Cole goodbye and set off to find Varric.
Alice had been pleasantly surprised when she met Hawke. The Champion - former Champion, if you listened to Hawke herself - was light-hearted and charming, but Alice had come to notice the slight tremor in her hands, the bags under her eyes, the lethargy in her step when she thought no one was watching. Something was weighing down on Hawke, and though she was but one person in a keep full of war-weary soldiers and struggling refugees, Alice had felt compelled to help her regardless. The few conversations she had had with Hawke were of the carefree and passing-time sort, but what Alice had heard from Varric lead her to believe that there was more under the surface of the otherwise whimsical mage. Thus she had gone to the only person who could see what was hidden underneath. Cole had told her what Alice had already suspected: Hawke was hurting, and wouldn't talk to anyone about it.
"Varric?" As expected, Varric was in the main hall, rifling through some papers or maps or other such documents at his usual table.
"What can I do for you, your inquisitorialness?" he greeted her with barely a glance up.
"I wanted to talk to you about Hawke."
"Popular topic these days, with her wandering around Skyhold," he said with a chuckle. "What about her?"
Alice wasn't entirely sure how to begin. "Well…" Should she just launch right in about the locket? Maybe lead up to it? Ask him how Hawke was doing? "I was talking to Cole, and he mentioned... something about her."
Varric looked up, and Alice noticed the slightest of frowns curl his lips. "Ahh. I'm sure whatever he had to say about Hawke was…"
"Troubling," Alice finished for him when he hesitated to put the word in her mouth. "I knew she couldn't be as carefree as she lets on, but. Well, I knew she'd be at least a little troubled by the events in Kirkwall."
"If only you knew the half of it." Varric shook his head with a humorless little chuckle. "Look, she's been handling herself all right. If you're worried about how she'll operate at Adamant, or anything like that, I can assure you she's done more with less. She'll be fine."
"I have no doubt," Alice agreed. "But I was actually more concerned with …er, with her, as a person. Cole mentioned… he mentioned her locket."
Varric responded exactly the same way she had. "Locket?"
"Apparently she keeps it 'against her heart'. Something about how it's a reminder that love could leave her?" Alice explained.
"Hmm." Varric glanced away in contemplation. "I wonder…" he mused under his breath. "No… can't be."
"Do… you know about it?" Alice prompted.
"She used to wear this locket, back in Kirkwall," he said, rubbing his neck. "Blondie gave it to her after… after they had a bit of a falling out. But I didn't think she'd hold onto it for so long. That was… almost five years ago."
"You should talk to her about it," Alice suggested, glad that Varric seemed to already be on board with the suggestion before it was made.
"Yeah," Varric murmured, turning back to his papers to hide the frown. "I should."
She was never much of a storyteller, but Hawke had picked up a few things from Varric over the years. It helped that she had a few interesting tales to tell. Plus, she never did get tired of an entertained audience.
After her reenactment of the battle at the Bone Pit, the people in the tavern seemed a little more cheerful as they went back to whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. Iron Bull had complimented her on the battle, to which she had laughed and explained she always made it sound simpler than it really was. "Still," he had told her, "taking down a high dragon isn't an easy task." So she accepted the praise, and said that she'd like to spar him at some point because, "It's been a while since I had one of you horned bastards begging for mercy." Luckily, Bull laughed and told her that he'd be delighted to humor her sometime.
She left the tavern in slightly higher spirits, and decided that it was a good time to start bothering Cullen. Even though she had assured him that she would do her best to stay out of his hair during the day when he had work to do or soldiers to train, it never stopped her from popping in and out of his office and distracting him terribly.
"Good afternoon, Commander," she greeted him after ensuring he wasn't in the middle of a meeting and no other soldiers or agents were currently in his office. "You just missed a fabulous retelling of the time I took down that high dragon outside of Kirkwall."
Cullen was considering a map spread out over his desk that had numerous notes scribbled around it. "I've heard that one enough," he told her, looking up with a smile. "It spread to the Gallows quite quickly."
"No one ever gets tired of hearing about my heroics," she agreed, leaning over his desk to kiss him. "So, before I try to pull you away from it, what are you in the middle of now?"
"Alice provided me a map of the Western Approach with notes on the various places she thought might be good for our troops to set up supply lines, or camps, or- I don't know, because," he motioned to the map, "I can't read her handwriting."
Hawke looked over it as well, and laughed. "Andraste's tits, she must have skipped penmanship classes at the Ostwick circle."
"Good thing all we need of hers on the official documents is a signature," Cullen said with a sigh. "So I've been attempting to decipher her chicken scratch to determine the usefulness of her information."
"How dull," Hawke said, leaning over the map to block his view of it. "Why don't I distract you for a bit?"
Cullen smiled and kissed her again. "Unfortunately, I really can't spare the time right now. There's a meeting in the war room in an hour, and-"
"Oh, pish tosh," Hawke said dismissively. "You won't last an hour anyway."
With a laugh, Cullen moved around his desk toward her. "I might, if you weren't so relentless in your teasing."
"That's the very point of it, Commander," she said, reaching up to wrap her arms around his shoulders. "I do so love it when you get fed up with me and grab me like you do. It does good for you to let out that aggression." She leaned up to brush her lips against his. "Let's see how quickly I can get you to throw me against your desk, hm?"
"Unfortunately, Hawke-"
"Your work can't wait for a few minutes?"
He laughed again, putting an arm around her. "Now we're down to a few minutes, are we?"
Hawke smiled and kissed him. "I bet I could get it down to two."
Before Cullen could tell her that her suggestion was absolutely ridiculous and that she should by no means attempt it - because he knew his opposition would just encourage her, and regardless of the results, he was sure he would enjoy whatever route she chose to get there - they heard the door open. They both looked to see who it was, but Hawke didn't take her arms from his shoulders. "Oh." It was Varric, though he didn't looked surprised. "Didn't mean to interrupt."
"Please," Cullen said, turning Hawke away from him with clearly feigned annoyance. "She has been a disturbance for long enough, I think."
"Aw, you're no fun," Hawke pouted at him, earning a small chuckle. "Well, fine. If you need to talk to him," she started, looking at Varric.
"Actually, I'm looking for you," the dwarf told her. "Alice said you were in the tavern, but I guess you finished up with storytime?"
Hawke giggled. "I did. You would have been proud."
"I'm sure," he agreed. "But let's let Curly get back to work. I need to talk to you about something."
"Oh, all right," she said, waving vaguely towards the door to motion him out first. Before she left, however, she gave Cullen a quick little peck on the cheek. "Have fun," she told him cheerily. Then she followed Varric out onto the bridge that joined the tower with the main building.
"So, what's on?" she asked as they walked. It was clear Varric had no specific destination, so Hawke steered them towards the edge of the bridge where she swung her legs over and sat on the wall to watch the lower courtyard. Varric leaned against it next to her.
"You and Curly getting on well, then?" he asked.
"Nonsense," she said with a sarcastically disdainful snort. "He can't stand me. Keeps telling me he should have locked me in the Gallows when he had the chance. The nerve of that man."
Varric just chuckled. "As long as you're enjoying yourself, Bubbles."
"Endlessly," she said with a grin. "But I'm sure you had more interesting things to ask about than my love life."
"Actually," Varric said with a little shrug. "Though not about the Commander. Are you still wearing that locket?"
Hawke avoided looking at her friend by instead looking up at the sky. "Locket?"
"You are."
She didn't answer, swinging her feet a little and watching the clouds float in the endless sky above her. "Does it matter?" she asked eventually.
With a sigh, Varric rubbed his head. "It's been five years. You know that thing just reminds you about what happened."
"It also reminds me of one of the few times Anders ever sincerely apologized to me," she countered with a frown. "So you'll forgive me for choosing to keep the only proof I have that that man decided to swallow his damnable pride for once in his life."
Her bitterness was palpable. "Hawke."
"It's fine," she said shortly. "I know… I know it's also a reminder of one of the worst moments in my life, but I'd prefer not to look at it that way."
"Even so," he tried tentatively, "it carries those memories whether you want it to or not."
One of her hands slowly went to her chest. Under her clothing, pressed against her left breast, she could just feel the metal locket. "Alexandra," she said quietly. Varric gave her a questioning look. "It was the only name he didn't immediately disagree with. Alexandra for a girl, but we never could agree on a boy's name."
"I still think Fenris was a good one," Varric said, and Hawke smiled very slightly. "I remember how Blondie fumed at the suggestion."
"You weren't there when I told him I liked 'Isabela' for a girl. I don't think I even finished saying the name before he blurted 'no!'" She let her hand fall into her lap, and looked back up at the sky. "Five years. I was almost a mother, Varric. My mother would have been so happy, too. Wherever she is, I just know she would have been thrilled."
Varric watched her for a moment. This was a conversation they had not had in five years. The day Hawke had found out she was pregnant was one of the happiest of her life. She had glowed with a blinding radiance, but had kept it a secret from all but Anders and himself, not wanting to "curse it", since it was still early. While he had never heard how she had broken the news to Anders himself, he realized very quickly that a child was the last thing the mage had wanted. Varric would often overhear Hawke cheerfully suggesting names to him, but Anders' exasperation on the matter was tangible, even from halfway across the Hanged Man. And then, a month later, Hawke had walked into Varric's suite at the tavern and collapsed into a chair, burying her head in her arms. "Lost it," she said bluntly. "Could use a drink. Or five. You buying?"
She never had been one to talk about her problems, but the number of drinks she went through that night said enough. In addition, the tension between her and Anders for the next few weeks was thick enough to choke on just by being in a twenty-foot radius of the couple. The cause of that was something else that Hawke had never told him about, but Varric had stopped by the estate a few days later and heard from Bodahn that on the morning of the unfortunate loss, Hawke and Anders had been screaming at each other loud enough to warrant a call from the City Guard.
"He got me a book, y'know," Hawke cut through Varric's recollections. "A book and the locket."
"A book?" he asked when no elaboration came.
"Said he saw it in the market. A book of baby names." She chuckled, looking down at her hands in her lap. "Said that he was sorry for what he said, and that if I really wanted a child, we should probably agree on a name first."
"And…" This was more about the situation than Varric could ever remember hearing. "What did he say, exactly, that he apologized for?"
Hawke looked over at him. "He was right," she said with an unexpected sort of strength in her voice. "I didn't see it at the time, but he was right. Losing the child was the best thing that could have happened. I mean, it was practically a week later when Orsino thought it would be a good idea to incite a riot at the Gallows. And everything really just went downhill from there. No way I could have raised a child in that. He was right."
"He told you it was good, what happened?" Varric was surprised, but maybe not as much as he should have been.
"He was right, though," Hawke insisted. "And I mean that. Could you imagine worrying about a baby during that fight with Meredith? 'Sh sweetie, no it's fine. Don't mind those statues or the insane Templar. Shh, no, don't cry.'" She laughed a little. "Sure, I might have threatened to kill him - a few times - for saying it back then, but looking back, he was, actually, right. And how would I have ever explained to a kid what her - or his - father had done? 'Oh, the Chantry blowing up was a terrible tragedy that could have been avoided? No, don't be ridiculous; your dad had only the best intentions.' I would have sounded mental."
"You're better off without him," Varric said firmly.
"I'd like to believe it," she agreed with a smile. "But the locket's staying right here." She patted her chest for emphasis. "Can you remember any other time he admitted he was wrong?"
"Fair enough."
Hawke smiled, and ruffled Varric's hair. "Enough talk, love. Between you and Cullen, my days are becoming one big flashback. Let's go see if Dorian's up for another round of Wicked Grace. He claims he finally figured out my tells."
Varric followed her as she nearly skipped to where they found Dorian sitting in the window and reading. She joyously goaded him into another round of cards, and laughed when he insisted he'd win this time. With an internal smirk, Varric realized Hawke fooled the world around her every day; there was no way she'd lose at something as simple as a card game.
