It was certain to be their last night in a bed for some time, and Alistair was very vocal about his delight over the fact. "I mean, it smells a bit funny, but I'll take soft and funny smelling over hard rocks jabbing into your back."
He turned back to Elissa after she finished helping unbuckle his armor. She remained silent, eyes downcast, thoughts a million miles away.
"Darling," he said softly and lifted a hand to brush his fingertips along her temple. "I wish you would tell me what was going on in there."
Elissa blinked, her blue eyes focusing on him. She gave him a light smile and shook her head. "Nothing." She crawled into the narrow bed, "You've got more room to stretch out in a tent, I'll say that much."
He watched her move away from him, and he let out a long sigh. Alistair wasn't imagining it. No, she'd never been very forthcoming with her thoughts. But whenever he would ask, she would share them. His inquiries would always break the dam between her head and her tongue, and words would tumble out freely. The sheer amount of ideas, fears, opinions, and doubts that she kept to herself always surprised him, and there were many nights spent together tangled and talking. But now? He got literally 'nothing.'
He never should have gone to Highever.
Alistair pushed a hand through his hair and followed her to the bed, "I love you. More than anything. You know that."
She lay on her side and propped her head up on her arm, that same faint smile still on her face as she watched him, "I know."
"And you..." Alistair knelt beside the bed and ran his fingers through her soft brown curls, "love me too, right?"
Elissa's smile grew warmer, and she leaned closer to kiss his lips, "I love you, too."
"We haven't..." He frowned, grasping for words. "It's been different, somehow. I mean, I know, everything is different now that the Blight is over... Maker, I'm not even sure what it is I want to say here..."
She rested her head back on the pillow, looking away from him as she traced designs on the bedspread.
"We haven't even properly... made love since I got back."
She looked back at him, her brows pulling together, "That's not true."
"It felt like you weren't there," he answered with a wrinkled brow. "I want to know what's going on with you."
Elissa rolled away from him onto her other side with a sigh, "I'm tired, Alistair, I am not in the mood for this."
"And it seems like you never will be." He gripped the edge of the narrow wooden bed and pulled it away from the wall, slipping around to the other side to keep her face in view.
"Maker, Alistair, I don't know what you want me to say."
"Something is different with you!"
"Nothing is different!"
"That's bullocks, and you know it!" His fingers dug into the blankets, gaze intense on her, "I feel as though you're slipping away from me, and that terrifies me! And… and you're not even making an effort to hang on!"
Her blue gaze fixed on his face, and her chin wrinkled as she frowned at him. Elissa sat up and slid towards him, wrapping both arms about him and buried his face in her chest. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Alistair sighed and shook his head as he wrapped his arms back about her. "That's not good enough. Tell me."
"Wynn and I talked about you once. About us. How love is selfish, how we as Grey Wardens should know better."
"Yeah… she gave me the same lecture."
"And how unwilling I would be some day to sacrifice that love for the greater good." Elissa loosened her hold and leaned back to look down at him. "And then Paien shows up and says the same thing, more or less. And now I have to prove myself to him that I am capable, that I am able to lead and make the right choices…"
Alistair slid onto the bed to sit beside her, icy dread creeping up from the base of his spine. "So… what are you saying?"
"I don't know what I'm saying. I don't even know what I'm thinking or feeling or…" She dropped her elbows to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
Alistair ran a hand up her back, watching her closely. "Do you… regret it? Us?"
"Maker, no." She dropped her hands into her lap and stared at him.
"I'm not… proud of what I had to do to keep us both alive." He paused, "I certainly didn't enjoy it. Honestly, I just kept my eyes closed as much as possible."
Elissa slid away from him with an expression of disgust, "I don't want to hear about this."
Alistair's mouth tightened, voice taking on a harder edge, "So it should just remain this horrible unspoken thing that's quietly poisoning everything else?" He got to his feet, "You go on about being unwilling to make sacrifices, but I am the one who did it. I did not enjoy it, and Morrigan- Maker, Morrigan." He shook his head and paced to the other side of the room.
"I don't want to hear this," Elissa said again.
"I want to say it." He turned back to her. "She was so damn determined. Toying with me, playing with me, smirking at my protests. Trying to get a reaction out of me, like always. I did not want to be with her. But I did it anyways." He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand.
Elissa stared up at him, hands clasped between her knees. When she spoke, her voice was barely there. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to do that…"
"What alternative was there?" He walked towards her, and dropped to his knees again. "Losing you? Battling over who would get to die? Don't pretend that wouldn't have turned into a fist fight up on that tower." Alistair shook his head, "And don't regret for one minute the choice we made, don't you dare."
"Would you ever ask me to do the same?"
The question caught him off guard, and for a few moments, Alistair said nothing. But for some reason, he pictured Nathaniel Howe.
She pressed him in his silence, "If there was a man that I did not like, and he asked you for permission to lay with me..."
Alistair shook his head to clear it of unsavory images, and he wrapped his arms about her middle as he rested his head in her lap. "Stop this, I mean it. Forgive yourself. And you have nothing to prove to anyone. Certainly not to Paien. If he thinks that you're somehow weak because you're in love," he lifted his head to look up at her, "then he can get stuffed. Man doesn't know the first thing about strength. And not a damn thing about you."
He felt her light fingers stroking his scalp. "I feel," she said slowly, "like I need to think."
Alistair's shoulders dropped as he looked back up at her. "About what?" he asked, his voice a bit more cross than he had intended.
She blinked at him, brows lifting. "About… what I want, what my place is, what's best for the Wardens…"
He fell back to sit on the ground, staring up at her in disbelief. About… what she wants? Did… did she not want him? "Maker," he said. "What happened while I was away?"
Elissa frowned, "Nothing happened, I just-"
"Is this about the Howe?"
Her head tipped back in frustration, "Not this again. Alistair."
Alistair was on his feet, scowling down at her, "You two, laughing it up at dinner, giggling together on the boat while I was feeding the fish my innards."
She glared right back at him, "You're being ridiculous. Stop."
"I'm sorry I wasn't raised wealthy and well off and… and knowing which spoons to use when. I'm sorry I'm such a step down for you."
"Enough," Elissa said, getting to her feet. "Do you hear yourself?"
He shook his head and stepped back. "You have to think about what you want. You have me, you are a Warden, and you can still lead them at some point. You have everything, so what more can you want, Elissa?" He threw his hands into the air.
Elissa glared at him, "There is what I want, and then there is what is best. I don't know if they are the same thing anymore."
Alistair stared at her a long moment in silence, and he could feel his whole body trembling. Finally, he crossed the room and pulled on his boots. "And you expect me to just wait until you make a decision."
"I don't want to lose you," Elissa began.
"But you convinced yourself you can't have it all! So now you get to figure out which you want more. To the Void with what I want."
She followed him across the little room, scowling, "You're being childish. You've been needling at me for weeks to tell you what's been on my mind, and I finally do, and this is how you react."
"Right," he drawled, turning to the door, "You didn't want my input at all. I'll leave you to think." The sound of the door slamming behind him was immensely satisfying.
They'd had rows before, of course. They certainly weren't immune to the sort of disagreements that any other couple had. This was his first romance, after all, and he'd made his share of blunders. But it occurred to him as he stalked out into the dark silence of the hallway that this was the first time he'd ever walked out after an argument, and he was overcome with the desire to turn right back around and start apologizing.
"Apologize for what?" the still peeved part of his mind spat back. "You have been loving and faithful, and she is actually thinking of abandoning you for…" Here he faltered. For what? A greater cause? Because he was too much of a distraction? Bit late for that, wasn't it?
Alistair plopped himself down on a barstool in the empty tavern below and dropped his head onto the bar top with a faint thunk. He should really go apologize, shouldn't he? If he wanted to keep her, he was doing a bang-up job of making his case.
He sat that way in silence for several more minutes, forehead resting on the bar, eyes closed. He ran several scenarios and apologies through his head several times. He finally settled on the simplistic, "I love you and I don't want to lose you either," before he got back to his feet and walked back up the stairs to their room.