When Anders returned to the clinic, passing Aveline along the way, he found Hawke staring up at the ceiling with a troubled look on her face.

"Are you feeling all right?" he asked worriedly, bending over her and resting his hand against her forehead. "I knew you would tire yourself out. That's it, no more visitors."

"When were you going to tell me?" she said quietly.

The question had a jagged edge to it; it signaled danger approaching.

Anders only brushed her hair from her forehead tenderly, and said in an affectionate tone: "Tell you what, darling?"

Wrong answer.

"Were you ever going to tell me that Fenris is here? Here in the clinic? In the next bloody room?"

Anders straightened, and his face assumed a blank expression she was becoming very familiar with.

"Oh, him. Maker, Hawke, if I'd known it mattered I would have told you right away."

Sadie scowled at him. "No big deal. I've just been lying here wondering why one of my best friends hasn't come to see me after I came back from the dead. Of course it matters!"

"Look." Anders ran a hand through his long blonde hair, an old habit of his when he was nervous. Hawke knew him all too well. "You have a lot of recovering to do, Sadie. I just didn't want you to be distracted. That's all."

For someone who did a fair amount of lying, Anders was truly terrible at it. A cold feeling spread in Hawke's belly.

"What else haven't you told me? How was he injured?"

"It's nothing serious," Anders said. "He just overexerted himself and needs to rest."

"That isn't what Aveline tells me. She said he could have died."

He narrowed his eyes at that. "Aveline exaggerates. And she agreed not to trouble you until you were better."

He's jealous,Sadie saw. And she couldn't help being glad, fiercely, bitterly glad. It was more feeling than she had gotten from him in months. At least it was something. At once she was ashamed of herself, and felt slightly pathetic. She had never really realized how bad things had gotten between them until now.

"He will recover fully?"

"Of course." He threw in a quick aside- "Justice is concerned about his lyrium brands, they may be.. malfunctioning. But he'll be fine."

"Is he awake? Could I talk to him?"

"No, Hawke, he is resting and you need to stay in bed."

"I just want to make sure-"

The healer cut her off. "He's fine." He shook his head solemnly. "I just can't understand your fascination with that wretched elf. He's done nothing but snarl at us and cause you trouble from Day One."

"We've discussed this. He's been every bit as loyal and dependable as the rest of us. And he's a friend."

"Some friend. A crazed, blood-thirsty mage-hater. I tell you, you keep extending a hand to him, he'll bite it off at the knuckle. He's more animal than man."

"Don't you dare!" Sadie shouted at him abruptly, pulling herself upright in the bed.

The lovers stared at each other.

Hawke settled back again, painfully aware of the line she was crossing. "Fenris did more for me in the last few days than you have in a long time. If it were up to you, I would be dead right now. So show a little respect."

There was a long silence.

"You didn't need his help, or anybody's," Anders said, looking somewhere over her head. "You never have. You pulled yourself out of that hole."

"And, what, you're disappointed?" Her jaw clenched as she recalled how terribly alone she had been. "Have I not suffered enough for you? Do you know what it was like to wake up forgotten in the dark, knowing no one would come for me? Well gee, I'm sorry I didn't just lie down and die so you could feel better about yourself!"

"Sadie!"

"No, I am! And I'm sorry I never stepped back and let you lead us into war with the Templars like you always wanted! I'm sorry I didn't follow all your instructions without question! I should just shut up and let you do your covert mage underground thing without worrying my little head about it!"

"That isn't what I wanted at all!"

"Isn't it? That is why you stopped coming home to me, isn't it? When I stopped doing your little errands without asking what they were for? You gave up on me, Anders. That's what the problem is! You gave up on me ages ago."

Suddenly Anders slammed his fist onto a tray of glass bottles, knocking several of them off to shatter on the floor. Now he was angry too, and for once Justice didn't show himself.

"You're angry at me because Fenris waited around for you and I didn't? Is that it? Do you have any idea what I've been through? I was falling apart without you, Sadie! Justice had to bring me home and keep me going the whole time! I closed the clinic – I haven't left here since it happened! If Justice hadn't taken over I don't know what I might have done! What do you want from me?"

"You could have believed in me a little," Hawke said, frustrated.

"Should I have been the big hero and saved you? As if you would thank me for that!" A bitter edge crept into his voice. "I'm sorry if I couldn't be properly stoic and rational about this, I was a little busy coping with the crushing grief of losing the love of my life. I doubt he has any feelings at all!"

"Do you want to talk about feelings? Let's talk about feelings." Hawke spoke faster and louder the more agitated she became. Her throat ached with the strain. "How about lonely, there's a feeling for you. Lonely because my lover doesn't talk to me anymore, not really, and he certainly doesn't come to my bed. How about sad? How about feeling guilty and selfish for wanting just a little bit of your time? I know your feelings. I do nothing but think about your feelings. When do my feelings start to matter?"

She felt, as she usually did when she tried to argue with Anders, like a petulant bitch. But she couldn't help it. The flood-gates had opened, and now everything she had been keeping inside came pouring out.

"Our whole relationship has been about you, what you need, how you're feeling, and of course your cause. Your all-consuming mission. Next to that I'm just an afterthought, if anything at all! I'm the person who helps you sometimes when you need something or when you want a warm body, but when I need you, when I need you, Anders, you're never there. It's always me sitting here alone hoping eventually you'll show up."

Anders, still stuck on Fenris, seemed to hear none of what she was saying.

"All he had to do was wait around for you, and suddenly he's a big hero? My fault for having responsibilities! Fenris, he has nothing else in his life, he can go sit in the Bone Pit, he doesn't have patients to look after and apostates constantly approaching him for protection! I'm the one who used up everything I had to heal the both of you!"

"This isn't about Fenris! We're done talking about Fenris! I'm talking about you and me! And the lying! And how everything else comes first! Do I even rank in your priorities?"

A coughing fit took her, bending her back down on the bed.

Anders rushed to her side, his hands rubbing her soothingly. "Sadie, Sadie, you need to calm down. You're still not well."

Still coughing, Hawke curled onto her side. "Go away," she choked out.

"Just let me-"

"Leave me alone," she rasped, squeezing her eyes shut.

He lingered, waiting for her to call him back. To take back what she'd said, so he could embrace her and chalk it up to injury and stress and never speak of it again.

But she didn't, and finally he walked out of the clinic, banging the door shut behind him.