The campfire had burned down to embers, the chatter and banter among the four friends had died down to occasional whispers, Do you have my blanket? or Maker, these stitches itch. and Dammit, Isabela, I already said no!
Garrett lay on his back with his head pillowed on his hands. "Do you ever wonder if this is all worth it?"
It was one of those things that crosses a person's mind on the threshhold into the Fade, and he hadn't meant to say it aloud, but once spoken, it was too late to take it back.
The night seemed to hold its breath, waiting for the answer.
"Yes." This from the unlikeliest of sources, considering the mage's zeal for his cause, but it was Anders who answered first. "But what are the alternatives?"
"Running away," Isabela said. "Running away is always an option."
"Like you did, leaving Hawke to clean up your mess?" Anders retorted, sitting up in his bedroll. "That's not an option."
"Whoa, hold on there," Garrett interrupted. "Lie back down, magey. It's too late for fighting."
Anders subsided and lay down again, but not without a hot glower in the pirate's direction.
"What about you, Hawke," Aveline asked to quell the argument between Anders and Isabela. "Since you brought it up."
"You first," Garret said. "Does the human battering ram ever wonder if this is worth it? All the fighting and the blood." All the loss?
Aveline didn't hesitate for a moment. "No. I can't." What went unsaid was that she had to have her certainties or she would surely flounder.
"Your turn now, Hawke." Isabela said. "What about your doubt?"
Garrett's mind swam with memories of his mother's face, Anders' admission that no there was no potion that would free him of Justice, his sister looking at him through a barred Gallows window, the deaths, the losses, the endless procession of people he had slain despite the fact that they had mothers and sisters and brothers of their own.
He sighed and closed his eyes. "My doubt?
"Oh, it's big."