A/N: Okay, here goes! I decided to go a far different route with this than I had originally intended, so I hope you like it. I almost made myself cry writing it, not sure if that's a plus or a minus. Please excuse my baby-errors, my eyes can't seem to ever catch them in time. This is probably my shortest Author's Note of all time.
"Sleep." Arvaarad told Bethany. They were still a day-and-a-half from Minrathous and they hadn't stopped since the first battle. They had circled back to find the younger Malcom and Leandra, but had miserably failed. Bethany lost her mother. Her father. Her son. She couldn't sleep. Yet here Avaarad sat, telling her to do so. Damn her calm. How could she be so, okay with this? No, Bethany knew better than to think that, there was no way Arvaarad was okay, unless she really was inhuman. She had seen war like Bethany and Hadriana had never seen, the blood bath could not have been anything new. But Hadriana... Bethany knew what went on between them, and despite that she didn't approve, she knew that Arvaarad couldn't just walk away from her unscathed. "Sleep." She repeated with a firm nod and Bethany laid down beside her on the cold stone of the mountainous pass they had decided to take. As much as she didn't want to, she needed sleep.
"You need sleep too, Arvaarad." She whispered up to her.
"No. Watch." And she was right, someone had to keep watch.
"Wake me in a few hours, so you can rest." Bethany said, and the Qunari woman nodded again in reply. Bethany always felt safe with her, her presence made her feel like there was a great wall between her anything that may try to hurt her. Bethany would never know that that wall was slowly crumbling, and she would never see it fall. She would never see Arvaarad turn from the relentless warrior bodyguard that she was into a thief, a shadow. She would never know that one day Arvaarad would lay down her sword in favor of daggers. She wouldn't know because she would be dead. It would be Bethany's own death that finally killed Arvaarad, and it wouldn't be until that moment that Arvaarad would know what it truly meant to be Hawke. It was a still silence, one without even a breeze or the sound of wildlife. It reminded Arvaarad of the calm before a storm, in fact, it was eerily similar to the moments before her last great battle on Seheron. Arvaarad listened to Bethany's breathing, waited for it to slow and signal her sleep. When it finally did, for the first time in her life, Arvaarad cried.
Hawke wasn't being able to fight for what you believed in, it wasn't striking out against injustice. Hawke wasn't honesty or courage. Hawke wasn't even strength. Hawke was loss. The name carried so much loss with it that it couldn't ever mean anything else. Hawke was perseverance. Leandra had to lose her whole family for the man she loved. The whole family had lost everything time and time again fleeing from Templars. Bethany lost her parents and her son. But they kept going, and so would she.
How does Hawke deal with her problems? Or anything?
How does Hawke have a good time?
How does Hawke get to sleep?
What did Hawke turn to when her first love died and she felt like in a single moment she had lost everything and everyone she had ever cared about?
Alcohol.
It was always alcohol with Hawke. Her solutions came in liquid form. The only time she had spent in the past two weeks not totally smashed was in the few moments it took her to latch on to a new bottle in the morning. No one approved, but no one questioned her. No one ever questioned Hawke, she had a tendency to stab people who did. So, when Anders finally arrived her response was not far from the norm. This wasn't normal drunk-Hawke though. This was totally out-of-it, no mouth-mind filter Hawke. Isabela had taken the time to fill Anders in on what happened, and he had spent days trying to figure out what to say to her. As sick to his stomach as he felt about it, he was glad this had happened, maybe he had a chance now that the elf was no where to be seen. But, he was still a mage.
"Hawke?" He lightly knocked on her door at the Hanged Man, it was the middle of the day, but the only time she came out was for food and drink. Luckily she no longer shared a room with Isabela, they had finally earned enough coin to afford another. It made for far less awkward nights.
He heard a loud thud from inside the room, followed by clumsy footsteps and the click of a door latch. It creaked open and there stood Hawke, her hair a right mess and her deep-purple negligee had slipped off of one shoulder. It would have been sexy had she not reeked of bad alcohol, then again, there was this little part of Anders that really didn't care. "The fuck do you want, Anders?" Her speech didn't slur when she was drunk, probably because of how much time she had spent in that state.
"To check on you, and to offer my condolences. May I come in?" He spoke as softly as he could.
"No, no, and more fucking no." Hawke snarled.
"I- I am sorry. I'll-" Anders started before Hawke cut him off.
"No you aren't. You're trying to score, and you always have been, but you can't take a fucking hint. I don't like you, Anders, not at all, and I never have. You are a mage. You are an abomination. You need to leave me the fuck alone, or I'll rip out your teeth and shove them so far up your ass you can chew with them again, do you understand?" She said, quite articulate about her speech.
"Yes. I'll go." He hung his head, looking an awful lot like a kicked puppy. He had been afraid of this, he had only ever tried to do right by her, but he always knew that there was that mage-hating part of her that could never be fixed. Maybe she and the elf really did belong together.
"Sorry, kid." Varric said from across the hall, apparently having heard everything, "Let's go." And the two trudged out of the corridor.
Isabela stopped him on his sad trudge out of the Hanged Man, "How'd it go? Is she any better?"
"No. She's not. It's been what, two weeks now? You have to do something, she wants absolutely nothing to do with me ever again. I want to hate her for it, but I really can't blame her." The slightly rational part of Anders reared his head.
"You're right, you can't. We'll figure something out." Isabela spoke.
"Good." And Anders left.
Isabela turned to Varric as he perched on the bar-stool next to her, "Go sober up Fenris, he needs to hear what Hawke has to say."
"Are you sure? Hawke is going to be pissed when she gets off this bender." Varric asked, hopping off his bar-stool just as quickly as he had sat on it.
"I don't care, she can be as mad as she wants as long she's sober." Isabela scoffed, "He's the only thing that's going to pull her out of this, and I sure as hell can't get him to leave his house. Can you figure out why he's holed himself up in there, too? I mean, he's got it bad for that girl, you'd think he'd have gotten over himself and realized that the only person that really lost anything here is her."
"I'm betting he thinks she's strong enough to deal with it herself, and she'll come for him if she really cares. He took a big a hit, I think it's his ego more than anything."
"What the hell does his ego have to do with it?"
"Think about it, Isabela, those two are secretly in love with each other, but for all their smarts they're too stupid to realize it. Then Fenris finds out that she was totally head-over-heels for a woman that tortured him for years? How would you feel?" Varric asked, lightly stroking Bianca for some reason. But really, did he need a reason?
"I suppose I see your point, now get going."
It wasn't that he had let the mansion fall apart in his long-term stupor, because it had always been a mess. It wasn't even that the door wasn't locked like it usually was, not that that would have stopped him. It was the fact that he had just stopped trying to hide the fact that he was drinking, there were bottles everywhere. At least Hawke had the class to clean up after herself.
"Oh, Fenris!" Varric called out to warn him of his arrival. No reply, not that he had expected one. Varric's first guess was usually the right one, and he guessed bedroom, which, lo and behold, was correct. When he found Fenris he was passed out in bed and Varric had to chuckle. He had never seen Fenris divested of his armor, but that wasn't the funny part. The part that had Varric in stitches was how he was posed, he looked suspiciously like he was cuddling with an imaginary friend. Eventually Varric's laughter woke the beast and he shot up all aglow. Fenris only heard manly laughter, and, of course, tried to attack it, but only succeeded in making Varric laugh harder. Fenris fell. He had drank so much that he woke up still tipsy and crashed on the floor when he tried to stand. "I can see why Hawke likes you so much, but seriously, put some pants on."
"Wha' Varric?" Fenris mumbled, scrambling for a pair of trousers a few feet away.
"Nothing, I just said pants."
"You lie." Fenris said, slightly more coherent. Maybe pants made him sober?
"A lot." Varric nodded as Fenris reached for an already open bottle on his half-broken nightstand. "No, no, no. Not today, Glow-boy, not today!"
"Why the hell not?" Fenris argued, only half convinced himself.
"Because my room shares a very thin wall with Hawke's."
"I don't want to see her." He snarled and flung the bottle at a nearby wall, realizing too late that he didn't have another handy.
"Well good, because you don't have to see her, you have to hear her." Varric shrugged.
"I don't want to hear her either." Fenris argued.
"Too bad, and you're a terrible liar."
"You can't make me do anything, Varric, I don't want anything to do with Hawke, not yet. It's only been three days, do you really expect me to be ready to see her?" Fenris was totally sure of his statement. He must have drank more than Varric thought, but, to be honest, this was the most sober he had seen him the whole time, so it wasn't that far of a stretch.
"Three days? You two have both been in alcoholic comas for two weeks!"
"You're shitting me." Fenris used a very uncharacteristic term he had probably picked up from Varric himself, truly incredulous.
"Not at all. Isabela and I are getting tired of it. Isabela especially, the shit she has to put up with from that woman is heartbreaking."
"What do you mean?" Fenris asked, finally finding the courtesy to don a shirt as well.
"Every night Isabela goes to check on her, and every night she and Hawke have the exact same conversation, but Hawke doesn't remember it the next night. She hasn't even progressed the three days you have, she just keeps reliving that same day over and over again." Varric shook his head in dismay, "Even after Bethany I had never seen her cry, but in the past two weeks that woman has bawled the Waking Sea twice over."
"You're kidding." It seemed like more of a demand than anything, Fenris didn't want to believe Varric. Deny, deny, deny, and it didn't happen. He couldn't stand to, or even begin to imagine Hawke crying. Hawke bitched, Hawke laughed, Hawke got angry, Hawke told jokes, but Hawke never cried. Yeah, she was an emotional wrecking ball half the time, but it was never this kind of emotion.
"I wish I was, my friend, I wish I was. Now come on, get up, we've only got a couple before tonight's show." Varric unsuccessfully tried to put a light spin on the situation.
"No, I can't. She can handle this on her own." Fenris sat back down on the edge of his bed.
"See, that's the thing, she can't. I'm sure she believes she can, but she's obviously proven otherwise. I can't help, Isabela can't help, Aveline can't help, hell, we even tried Anders."
"Anders?" Fenris growled his answer just a little venomously.
"Right there, that's proof you care, and don't worry, Hawke threatened to 'rip his teeth out and shove them so far up his ass he could chew with them again'. Personally, I think it's one of her better threats." Fenris couldn't help but to (very badly) try and stifle a chuckle, "See, knew that'd get you."
"It doesn't change anything." Fenris quickly changed his tune, "I can't help her, I can't even understand her."
"Fenris, you understand her better than any of us do. We'll never get how the Qunari part of her brain works, or the slave part, or the mage-hate part, but you do. Sure, you don't understand everything, but you're really her only hope, and if you just hear her out you might realize why." Varric took a few waddling steps towards him.
"Can't you just tell me?" He asked.
"No, it's not something I can repeat, but I can tell you this, she thinks she's lost everything. Even if you lost your family, you don't remember them, but she does. She's painfully aware of everything she's lost, and all this has done is serve to remind her of it, can you even begin to imagine what she's going though? Regardless of who Hadriana was?" Varric had obviously touched a sore spot, but it had to happen.
"No, I can't, but I also can't just disregard who that bitch was. Do you have any idea what that woman did to people?" Fenris yelled.
"Yes, Fenris, I do." Varric's voice hardly raised at all, "Do you have any idea how badly Hawke is beating herself up for that, too? She's certain that it's her fault, if she had been stronger or smarter or faster she could have stopped her, and you know why?" Varric waited for an answer he wasn't going to get, so he just continued, "You. She could care less about anyone else she hurt, she told me that there will always be another magister, but there will never be another you. Maker, she's a sappy drunk." Varric only muttered his last sentence, not that that stopped Fenris from hearing it.
Fenris blinked up at Varric, or down, whichever direction he was, Fenris was still a little off on the spatial orientation thing. Seriously? She was blaming herself for that? That wasn't why Fenris was mad at her, he knew that if it wasn't Hadriana it would have been someone else, he was mad because she had loved that thing. He was mad because he didn't know how to handle the situation, so he turned to the same thing she had. "Really? She said that?"
"Yes, now would you go bathe or something, we've gotta get going. Isabela is going to be royally pissed if she has to have this talk with Hawke again."
"No, I, I still can't, I'm sorry." Fenris hung his head yet again.
"Why the hell not?" Varric asked, actually sounding angry, he was getting really tired of thinking he was making progress just to get another 'No, I can't.'
Fenris was silent for a long time, hoping that the either the dwarf would leave or he would find the courage to say what he actually needed to say. It was really weird to talk about this with another man, another anything actually, he had played it so close to the vest letting someone else know seemed out of the question. Varric was stubborn though, he just wouldn't leave. Fenris heaved a long sigh before he finally spit it out, "I can't handle her leaving again, I feel terrible about it because I was going to leave her, but it feels like shit being on the other side of it."
"You were gonna what?" Varric asked, raising an eyebrow.
"That night, all of my memories flooded back and escaped me just as quickly, I couldn't deal with it so I was going to leave her, but I awoke and she was already gone. I wouldn't ever do it now that I know what it feels like." Fenris explained, and Varric almost wanted to hit him for even thinking about leaving her, but he supposed that part of him understood.
"From what Isabela tells me that thing you two had wasn't exactly serious." Varric raised an eyebrow.
"But it was, Varric. I don't know how to explain it to you, but we- we had something. But she doesn't care about me, Varric, why would she leave me if she did? She obviously never left Hadriana." Fenris really didn't know how to explain it to anyone, he knew that Hawke's mentality would have never let her actually do 'friends with benefits' as she had said. Part of him thought he was being narcissistic in thinking that she would make up an excuse just so she wouldn't have to admit her feelings for him, but he knew he was right, because it's exactly what he would do. Hell, he was going to do it.
Varric actually snorted a laugh, "I'm glad you asked that, it's one of the many questions she covers in her teary-eyed rant. Now get off your ass and get going!" Maker, they were so perfect for each other, but they were idiots. Fenris looked at him funny for a moment before he finally did get his ass in gear, and it took just about the perfect amount of time for him to clean himself up before they had to go. Varric was still muttering under his breath about something as he scribbled on some sort of note-pad while he waited.
"Are you finally ready? I swear, you take longer to get ready than any woman I've ever met."
"Yes, yes, stop complaining. How exactly are we doing this, now?" Fenris asked, hefting his sword onto his back for what must have been more than the thousandth time.
"We're going directly to my room, you can hear everything clear as a bell through the wall. Isabela gave me a time, so if we're late it's your loss."
"Then let us go."
"Hawke! Hawke, let me in!" Isabela pounded on her door as a part of their normal routine.
"No! This is your fault!" Hawke shouted through the door.
"How the hell is this my fault?" Isabela yelled back.
"Ugh, I don't know, that's supposed to get you to go away!" Hawke argued, she didn't blame Isabela, she just didn't want to talk to her right now, Hadriana had only died a few hours ago, couldn't she just leave her alone?
"Well I'm not leaving. Let me in!"
The latch clicked but Hawke didn't open the door, she just slunk back to her big, comfy chair that was probably only comfortable because she didn't really care whether it was or wasn't. Isabela of course locked the door behind her and sat across from Hawke on the edge of her bed. It wasn't until that moment that Isabela actually got a decent look at Hawke, her leg draped over one arm of the chair, and Isabela's jaw just about dropped out of it's socket.
Hawke's hair was still a flailing mess, but she had at least made her way out of her negligee, and into a very sexy teddy with cut-out sides and not nearly enough coverage for her cleavage. The matching panties weren't much better. "What the hell are you wearing? Thank the Maker Anders didn't come to see you when you were wearing that. Did Anders see you in that?" Isabela asked, incredulous.
"No, I just got it out of my drawer, it's awfully cold though. Good think I can drink. Oh look at me, rhyming." Hawke giggled, obviously over her previous hostility.
"Hawke, that's because it's one of those garments that you wear when you, you know, want somebody else to warm you up?"
"Oh, don't be silly, I don't own any of those."
"You're right, now that you mention it. Wait, that's mine. I thought that harlot from the Rose stole it! It's my favorite, give it back!" Isabela demanded.
"Alright, it was in my drawer, but if you insist..." So Hawke shakily stood up, and started to disrobe.
"Wait, no! Just- leave it on." Isabela sighed, and Hawke shrugged, "Put that robe on though, you never know who might walk in."
"If you say so, Isabela." Hawke was awfully suggestible tonight.
"Is that silk?"
"Nah, just looks like it."
"Oh, never mind, sit back down." And Hawke did as she was told, "Are you alright, love? Do you know how long you've been in here?" Isabela finally got down to business.
"I have no clue, but don't tell me, I won't like it." Hawke leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling.
"Probably not. Are you... okay?"
"Am I okay?" Hawke's voice cracked with tears almost instantly, "I'm responsible for the deaths of everyone I cared about before I met you, not to mention royally fucking over half the people I care about now, and you think there's even a possibility of me being okay? No, Isabela, I am not fucking okay." Her hostility flooded back.
"You aren't responsible, Hawke, you-"
"I'm not? Really? Maybe you can get away with saying that I wasn't responsible for the merciless slaughter of every man, woman, and child in that village, but Bethany and Hadriana? There's no way you can say that's not on me. I killed both of them." Hawke hissed.
"You said Hadriana was already dead, how could you have killed her?"
"Do you really think that matters? I left her, again. I my as well have killed her twice."
"What do you mean, Hawke?"
"I knew she was alive, Isabela, but I wasn't strong enough to do for her what I did for Bethany, I couldn't even put her out of her misery and look what she did. I ran away from her because I thought she only had moments to live, but she- How could I have done something like that to someone that I was supposed to love?" Hawke cried.
"Maybe you didn't really love her. After all, she was-" Isabela was actually prepared for the cut-off point.
"No! No, I will not hear this from you! Everyone already thinks I was in love with a monster, I will not have you thinking that too! The Hadriana I loved was not that freak!"
"Then educate me, Hawke, what was she?"
"She was sweet and attentive and she never got tired of me or fed up when I couldn't express myself. She was the only light I had when I was separated from everyone by an entire language. I mean, even Bethany got frustrated with me, but never her. Do you have any idea how hard it is when no one understands a word you say? I actually talked to myself just so I could understand something."
"Did you ever consider siding with her and turning against us?"
"No. I told the truth, Isabela, I knew she had to die."
"So, how much of what you said to her was true then?" Isabela asked.
"All of it. I stretched some of it out, I'll admit, someone had to stall until that shield fell, but I meant every word."
"She- Hadriana said something about a giant, gaping hole, what did she mean?" Isabela questioned.
"You change subjects awfully fast, you know." Hawke pointed out.
"I have a lot to cover, and that's really all I needed to hear, I have no doubt that you loved her. For what she was, of course, not what she became."
"Oh, what was the question again?"
"The hole in your side? The one you got during your escape?"
"Ah, that. Varnard was a nasty man, and a powerful mage, as all magisters are. If we were to fight him again today the battle would go much differently, but then, back when I was hefting around that greatsword, I took the brunt of the damage. He was going to kill her, he came so close, but I got in his line of fire and took a concentrated bolt of lightning to my side, if it had been anything but that I would have asked for healing, but it burned the blood vessels enough to stop it from bleeding, and we had to run." Hawke explained, lightly clutching at a phantom pain in her stomach.
"I'm sorry, I wish things had turned out differently."
"Not me, if it hadn't gone that way we would have never gotten out of there. He would have killed all of us, or worse."
"What do you mean, 'or worse'? What's worse than death?"
"At first I thought that being a slave was worse, but it's not, because eventually, if you're strong enough, it ends. But when I found out what Varnard had planned for me, that was the end. Our escape happened ahead of schedule, maybe if we had had more time, but, it wasn't so." Hawke was being vague again.
"You're not telling me the whole story, what was planned for you?" Isabela raised an eyebrow.
"There's a reason that it was Danarius that found Hadriana. He are Varnard were research partners, and, friends." Hawke snarled over the word, "I only knew what Varnard was going to do because I had seen it, his body-count was enormous. Most of them didn't even survive what he called the 'planning' segment, where he carved the patterns into conscious victims. I had no doubt that the pain of that wouldn't kill me, but at the time he was using far too much lyrium and I was smart enough to know I wouldn't survive. I wasn't going to let myself be another failed experiment."
"Wait, he was going to do to you what Danarius did to- How did you even know about the amount of lyrium?" Isabela was a wonderful actress, if Hawke knew she was faking this 'first time hearing it' reaction she didn't let on.
"He was. The Qunari are always looking for more effective ways to wage war, we were not oblivious of these lyrium warriors, and we had even looked into them ourselves. It took our scholars less than a month to deem the experiments too dangerous to even attempt, and these are people that believe saar-qamek is a good idea, mind you. I didn't need to read his papers to see that what he was doing to those people was more than any living thing could take." Hawke was chatty drunk, even though to anyone else she would appear totally sober. She talked about things she would never talk about if she were in her right mind though, and if she were to try and do anything that required any sort of hand-eye coordination, oh no, she would be screwed. In fact, if she was just sitting there she was probably the highest functioning drunk in Thedas.
"But how could you have been sure that you were really next?"
Hawke cringed before she answered, "He had started injecting lyrium into my bloodstream, testing my limits, it was the greatest physical pain I had ever felt. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to be-" And Hawke finally burst into an all out cry. Isabela sat and let her bawl it out, even though it took several minutes and it was painful to watch, especially when this was like the fifteenth time.
"Now, now, Hawke, what is it?" Isabela tried her best to sound sympathetic.
"It's just, you heard her. Didn't you?"
"Heard what, dear, you aren't making any sense."
"She told everyone that it was my fault. And it was! I could have stopped her, Isabela, she would have never hurt anyone if I had just stopped her."
"Good lords, more crying." Isabela muttered under her breath as Hawke started sobbing again, luckily she had gotten over the loud part of it, but then again, that wasn't so lucky for Isabela.
"What did you say?" Cover. Blown.
"Nothing, it's just that people can hear you, you know? I don't care, but they might." Isabela lost a large portion of her sensitivity, on purpose, she had finally choreographed this routine perfectly.
"Do I look like I give a shit?" Hawke barked at her, "Have I ever cared what the hell anyone else thought about me?"
"See! There's Hawke! I knew you were still in there. Now you get off this 'Everyone Hates Me' binge right this instant! In all the time you've spent barricaded in here there's only one person that you care about that hasn't come to tell you that they really don't hate you, so you have no reason to think that." Isabela stood up and acted as furious as she could.
Hawke threw her hands up in the air, it almost looked comical from where she was sitting, "Fine! I'm off it, now I'm on the 'It's Only Fenris That Hates Me And I Have A Tendency To Murder The People I Love' binge."
"Little long for a binge name, isn't it?" Isabela cocked her head to the side and donned a smug grin.
"Maker, go away, Isabela." Hawke covered her face with her hand, trying to make it look like she was disgusted with her, but they both knew she was hiding a grin of her own.
"You have to go talk to him." Isabela sat down again.
"No." Hawke disagreed.
"Why not? He's the last thing standing between you and a life of at least partial sobriety."
"No, Malcom is the last thing, I'll see that through if it kills me."
"And it will kill you if you go about it the way you have been the past few times I've talked to you. You do remember how well it went for you the last time you 'stormed Minrathous'? And you had Bethany then."
"I have you now. I don't expect anyone else to go, but I know you'd follow me to the Void and back if I asked you to." Even like this she was totally sure of herself.
"The others would too, but we also care enough about you not to let you. There's another way."
"No, you don't get it, Isabela, this is my last stand. There is no other way. If I can't save him, I have nothing left." Hawke's voice grew dark.
"Bullshit. You have us. Not to mention this city, everyone outside of those posh Hightown gates adores you. Besides, I'm not letting you run into the Imperium to save a kid you don't even know is alive, especially when there's a better option."
"Don't say that, he has to be alive, Isabela, and what the hell is this option you keep talking about?" Hawke inquired.
"Think about it, you twit, you only have to wait. It's been this many years, you really think a little more time is going to hurt? Just wait for Danarius to come for Fenris. Hadriana said he was 'training', not 'slaving', he has to be his new apprentice." Isabela explained the most obvious course of action.
"Do you have any idea of one, how long that could take, and two, how much damage that could do to him?" Hawke argued.
"More damage than all the rest of this time already has? Face it, Hawke, if he's broken it's happened already."
Hawke sighed, "You're right. I suppose I do just have to wait."
"But first you have to go talk to Fenris." Isabela reminded.
"I already told you, no."
"And I already asked, why not?"
Something twitched in Hawke's face, "I can't, Isabela, I was already avoiding him before all this happened, and now... I just can't do it."
"Hawke saying can't? I call bullshit, besides, you weren't avoiding him, you were busy." She countered.
"I was busy because I was avoiding him."
"Ah, well..." Isabela seemed to think, "Why? Is a one-night stand really that hard for you to deal with?"
"That's not what it was, and no, and- and Maker, you really don't get it, do you?" Hawke talked like it should be obvious.
"Hawke, I don't get half the shit that comes out of your mouth, yet alone this. Explain."
"It's just that, I never- I mean, I had, but..." She couldn't figure out quite how to say what she meant.
"Never by choice." Isabela finished her thought with a somber shake of her head.
"It's, more than that though, it's not that I wasn't sure of what I was doing, because I was, and I don't regret it. But again..." Hawke trailed off.
"But what? You still have every right to be nervous about it, I mean, I know you left early, but that was well within your rights. Not talking to him was a little harsh, but still, that's fixable."
"It was dark." Hawke blurted out.
"What? What are you talking about?"
"Just that, it was dark. Everything was perfect until he fell asleep and the fire went out."
"You left because you're afraid of the dark? That seems a little silly for a woman your age, doesn't it?"
"You don't understand, Isabela, it's," Hawke voice cracked again and tears welled in her eyes, this was the part Isabela really hated, and she would never forget the look on Hawke's face as she spoke, "it's more than the dark. It's what happens in the dark. My eyes were the only weapon I had left when I was-" Hawke stopped and wiped her eyes, not that it helped. Her voice was breathy and low, "And so he used magic to blind me, I spent days upon days in total darkness. That- That part of me will never escape the Imperium, when I close my eyes I will always be there." This time Hawke's tears were silent, but they fell nonetheless.
"But Hawke, you're in the dark here before you sleep, why was it any different?" Isabela quickly regretted her question when she saw the look of shock on Hawke's face, she had only asked it once in all the times this conversation had taken place and that look of utter terror was more than enough to disparage it, "I'm sorry, love, I suppose I didn't really think that one through. That's why you can't talk to him, isn't it?"
Hawke nodded, "How am I supposed to explain to him that I left because I thought he was going to turn on me? I know he wouldn't ever do that to me, but lying there it was all I could think about."
"I'm so sorry. Do you want me to go talk to him for you? You know he'll understand, even if it is too hard for you to tell him." Isabela offered for the very first time, hoping it would snap her out of it, unlike everything else she had tried.
"No, you can't, no one can know! I can't be that person anymore, I'm supposed to be Hawke." She pleaded.
"You are Hawke, dear, now get some sleep, and I'm taking your alcohol."
Hawke just nodded and started to drift off right there in the chair.
"Now do you see why I couldn't just tell you?" Varric asked Fenris, whose face was totally unreadable.
"I do." He replied as they heard the door creak open.
"I sure as hell hope you know how to fix this." Isabela said as she sauntered in, "I cannot stand to see that woman cry again."
"And she won't if I have any say in it." Fenris said as he stepped around Isabela to exit the room.
A/N: Alright, R&R as usual, you guys really keep me going! The next chapter will be the sappy parts, of course (I know it's your favorite), and the final run-in with the Qunari. And don't worry, snarky Hawke is coming back! (She's been far too emotional lately.)