This is a shortish chapter because even though I love writing angsty hurt/comfort stories and Blackwall is a great male love interest for that, writing this and the next chapter just Biowared my poor heart right to pieces. Also, does anyone else think it's weird that Blackwall doesn't really get an "I love you" scene like most of the rest of the romances? Fixed that. In the saddest way possible.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person. ~ Tennessee Williams

Nighttime was never quiet in Skyhold. The murmur and shuffle of horses down in the stables below, the dull metallic clanks and gruff exchanges of guards about their patrols, and the distant laughter of late night revelers at the tavern was ever-present. A working fortress never slept, though Blackwall usually did, aided by a nightcap of ale or wine to take the edge off of the day. Not lately, though. And, especially, not tonight.

Aelis lay curled against him, naked, on the straw and furs of his makeshift bed in the barn loft. She slept on fitfully despite the distant reminders of castle life, her breasts rising and falling ever so slightly against his arm. The moon was waxing towards fullness outside tonight, casting a ghostly glow in from the eaves and the barn's hatchway, highlighting the shapes of supple thigh and hip and edging the smooth arcs of her arm and shoulder with silver. Her red hair, usually bound up at the nape of neck, was loose and mussed, throbbing crimson in the chimerical light and standing out against her pale skin.

It was the first time that he had seen her this way. Her body was scrawled here and there with livid scars, just as his was. Testimonies of the violence of their lives and of a ferocious capacity for survival. Some men would have thought her a ruined beauty for those scars, but Blackwall didn't care. Aelis wore them like an Orlesian noblewoman wore jewels, unselfconsciously and as a statement of her worth, and he loved that in her. He loved her, entirely. More, now, than he could bear to.

He had never meant it to come this far, though rarely had there been a night over the preceding few months when he had not wanted it - ached for the release of it, even. She would have taken him to her bed or come to his gladly before now, but he had balked, unable to reconcile his feelings for her with the lie he was living. And the lie had only grown since then, squatting in his mind, reminding him that this could never last. That, in the end, it would destroy him one day. And that day had now come.

It had all started as an innocent flirtation back in Haven. A game. Thom Rainier had both relished and excelled at that sort of game once upon a time. He had tried to stop it when it became obvious that the game was becoming a reality, but it had been too late by then. His heart had been hers long before he had ever so much as kissed her.

Before he had fallen in love with her, he had wanted only to help her. There had been something broken and lost in her there in the early days at Haven; she had needed someone to believe in her, and he had wanted to be that someone. It had seemed such a small thing, and the change in her after that, the way she had put aside her feud with Cassandra almost entirely and focused herself intently on doing right by the people who looked up to her, had been gratifying to see.

If he had known then that she would become the Inquisitor - if he had known how she would twine herself up in his heartstrings before he even realized what was happening - would he have acted differently? Blackwall wanted to say yes. He wanted to believe that he would have done what was necessary to prevent the pain that was now inevitable. In his heart, though, he knew that, given the chance to go back and decide differently, he would only have fallen in love with her again. Another weakness to add to what was already on his conscience.

Compared to her, he was nothing. Less than nothing. A murderer, a traitor, a liar. In his heart of hearts, a coward. And Aelis was the Inquisitor, whether holy and chosen or an accidental victim of chance, risking her life in service of a Maker she didn't even believe in and for people to whom she had no real obligation. She might scoff at her own noble heritage, she might have darkness in her past, but it was her courage in the face of despair and the nobility of spirit in her that others responded to and which had drawn him to her like a moth to a flame. And she loved him. It scarcely seemed real.

And, of course, it wasn't. If she knew him for what he truly was - not the stalwart and righteous Warden Blackwall she had fallen in love with, but corrupt and monstrous Thom Rainier - she would likely hate him. She would hate herself for falling prey to the lie. Once upon a time, she might have understood; she might have been able to forgive him the lie and keep his secret as a friend and comrade, if not a lover. But it had gone too far for that now. Her trust was never given lightly. She would never forgive him for violating it so completely.

But, then, perhaps she never needed to find out. For months now, he had managed to keep the charade going, despite being directly under the nose of one of the best spymasters on the continent. Aelis herself never asked the really inconvenient questions. She - like so many who respected the Wardens - had never given his title a second thought. His crimes were so far in the past now that as long as he played his cards right and avoided old acquaintances, it was likely that he could live out the rest of his days in Skyhold at Aelis' side without anyone being the wiser. The thought of staying in service to the Inquisition, of allowing himself to sleep each night beside this woman as her paramour, allowing himself to be loved by her, awoke a clawing need in him as strong as a starving man being shown a banquet that he would never be able to consume.

Because, of course, Blackwall was supposed to be a Warden, with responsibilities elsewhere and the looming threat of an untimely death in the Deep Roads. He could thank Stroud, Maker rest the man's doomed soul, for enlightening them all about that. It troubled Aelis, though she did not mention it often. She knew that one day he would no longer be able to bear whatever it was the Wardens experienced as their time wore down and the corruption began to overtake them at last. Her fear that she would lose him to the darkness under the earth one day, though it was based on a lie, was real. Even if it were true, she would have insisted on loving him anyway. She would have put a brave face on it and seen him through to the last. He admired that in her even as it made him loathe himself all the more for causing her unnecessary pain.

There was also the issue of Mornay's impending execution. The news had reached him as they passed through Val Royeaux on their way back from the Approach like a bolt of judgement from the Maker himself. Mornay. How long had it been since he'd seen the man, his former lieutenant and second in command? Mornay had been a good second, a good soldier. He'd been as loyal a friend as Thom Rainier had ever had. The man had really believed in the Empire, despite its flaws, and that was was why, on that cold dawn, he and the others had executed their orders perfectly, though they had all heard the voices of the children in the carriage.

Blackwall knew that he had failed Mornay and the other men under his command in the most heinous of ways possible. They had trusted him, and he had led them to their own ruin and deaths for nothing more than gold and his own craven pride. Now, it was Aelis who trusted him. It was Aelis who thought him a hero, while the last man who had trusted him awaited execution perhaps a hundred miles away. It wasn't right. It was grotesque. The man he wanted to be, the man that Aelis loved, would not stand by and let others pay for his own mistakes, even at this late date. He couldn't save the others, most were now long dead, but he could save Mornay. He'd lose his own life in the bargain, as the uncompromising hand of justice tightened around his throat at last, but that would almost be a relief at this point compared to continuing on as he had, never knowing when the truth would catch up to him.

Aelis sighed and shifted a little, her fingers curling on the dark mat of Blackwall's chest hair as her cheek settled further against his shoulder. The night was chilly and, unconsciously, she snuggled closer for warmth. Awake, she was fierce and vibrant, a tower of strength. The tough mercenary braggadocio had never really left her, though she had walked out of that life and into something better. Tonight, naked in his arms, was the most vulnerable he had ever seen her. He brushed a wisp of hair from her face and felt the heat of frustrated shame suffusing him.

He hadn't realized that she was a virgin until the moment, groaning with the urgency of his need and her desire, he had mounted her there on the straw and furs and felt the brief resistance and give, her body tightening and her breath gasping out against his shoulder as he breached her. She had spent years fighting in the hells of the Orlesian civil war, and he had assumed that, like most soldiers, she had taken what comfort she could along the way. But, no. He had frozen there, still buried inside of her, and seen the truth of it in her eyes without needing to ask.

Everything had changed in that instant. He had loved her before, but the knowledge that she had - for whatever reason, and he would now never be able to ask her - kept herself through years of war and pain and the uncertainty of a violent death forever close at hand and then given herself up to him there in a stable loft as if he were worthy of something that pure humbled him in a way that nothing else in his life ever had. Don't stop, she had whispered, kissing him, assuring him that it was alright. And so he hadn't. He had given her everything he had to give, body and soul - the best of himself, though it was not nearly enough. And it was then that he had known, with crushing certainty, that he could not stay.

Even if Aelis never found out the truth about him, even if he could extend the lie out for the rest of his life in order to be with her, he owed her more than that. She deserved better. She deserved a man like the real Blackwall, who did the right thing, who sacrificed his own self-interest in service to others. Aelis believed unquestioningly in the goodness in him and would not be swayed. She was wrong, but he could still - even now - prove her at least half-right. He could face the music and accept the justice that was due. It was a cruel joke of fate that he would lose Aelis anyway, but his suffering would be short. Hers, though, when she found out . . .

Blackwall had left it as late as he could. Mornay was set to be executed in a matter of days, and he would have to leave before daylight tonight if he were going to make it to Val Royeaux in time to stop it. His leaving would hurt Aelis, but she was going to be hurt anyway no matter what he did. If he left tonight, before she could question it, there would be less to explain. With her fears about the Calling, she would assume that his time had finally come and he had not wanted to spoil their last night together. Let her hold Warden Blackwall - who had deserved a woman like her - in her memory as a good man who had loved her for as long as he was able. And let Thom Rainier go to a hangman's noose unloved and unmourned, as he deserved.

Gently, he eased himself carefully from her arms and stood. Moving slowly to avoid unnecessary noise, he gathered his clothes and dressed in the chilly moonlight. His gear was already in a state of readiness down below, as it always was. Outside, the indifferent stars drifted indolently in a lightening sky. Another cold dawn was no more than an hour or two away, and the day of judgement was at hand.

He felt in his belt pouch until his hand closed around the familiar pitted metal of the real Blackwall's Warden-Constable badge. His heart seized, remembering the touch of Aelis' hands on his and the hope in her eyes when they had found it. He withdrew the talisman from his pouch, bit his lip hard with sorrow, and then crossed the loft floor to where she lay, still sleeping.

Maker, she was beautiful. He stared down at her, drinking in this last sight of her - he could allow himself that, at least - and then knelt. He placed the badge where he had lain on the furs next to her. It would further implicate the Deep Roads as his destination, for there was no reason a Warden would leave it behind unless he did not intend to come back. She could keep it to remember him by or fling it from the ramparts in fury or grief, which ever would let her move forward from this.

He reached out, brushing her cheek and neck with his fingers, his regret a palpable bitter taste in his mouth.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, unable to stop himself from saying the words that he desperately wanted her to hear. "Forgive me."

His voice roused her very slightly, and for an instant he was afraid she would waken. His breath caught, but her eyes did not open.

"I love you," she murmured, drowsily, and hearing it broke his heart as sharply as anything ever had. They had never actually exchanged those words out loud before now. The timing had never seemed right. And, yet, she held him so deeply in her heart that she could tell him so even in her sleep. She would not remember when she woke, but he wanted to tell her now, at this last possible moment.

"I love you, too."

The corner of her lip tipped up very slightly, though her breathing had slowed and settled again, and he rose shaking. A moment longer, and he would falter under the weight of his fear and his love for her. Not this time. This time, he would be good. He would be the man she believed him to be. Pretending was no longer enough.