Anders got back to the clinic to find Hawke and Bethany waiting by the locked doors. Hawke was crouched down by the large patch of blood that had soaked into the dirt; it was cold, but still damp judging by the rust-coloured smears on Hawke's fingers as he probed the dirt with a grave expression on his face.
Bethany spotted him first and tapped her brother on the shoulder. "Garrett!" she exclaimed. He glanced up at her then followed her gaze; as his eyes lit on Anders he sprang to his feet, a relieved grin spreading across his face.
"Anders!" he said as he closed the distance between them in a few long strides. For a heart-stopping moment Anders thought the rogue was going to hug him, but Hawke stopped at arm's-length and clasped Anders' shoulders with a hearty slap. "We were so worried about you! You ran off so quickly, and then Varric got word that templars had been seen in Darktown. When we found the blood and no sign of you, I thought -"
He broke off as Anders involuntarily winced. "Anders? Are you alright?" the rogue asked, and then finally he noticed the state of Anders' gambeson. The front was still soaked with blood, drying now, a tear in the shoulder through which he could make out the white gleam of a bandage. "Maker, you're hurt! What happened?"
"Garrett, let him unlock the doors and we can talk about this inside?" suggested Bethany, rolling her eyes at her brother.
Thus rebuked, Hawke stepped away from Anders as he moved to the doors. Unlocking them, he made his way inside and they followed him in, Bethany quietly closing the door behind her.
"Do you..." she began. Anders glanced back at her as he stood his staff in the corner by his preparation bench and raised an eyebrow. "The lanterns... I can light them for you?" she suggested awkwardly.
His expression blanked for a moment, then he shook his head. "No. Leave them unlit," he answered tonelessly as he turned back to the preparation bench, pinching the bridge of his nose with a pained look for a moment before turning to his shelves of herbs. He set out the makings for a herbal tisane then stirred up the embers of the fire in the hearth, adding pieces of wood until they caught with a flare of bright flame. He studied the rekindled fire for a moment then set a pot of water over the fire to boil before standing and stripping off the quilted and studded gambeson. He fingered the tear in the shoulder before laying it aside then stripping off the bloodsoaked shirt he'd worn underneath.
"Please tell me not all that blood is yours?" exclaimed Hawke as he stared at the dark red stains that stood out vivid against the worn linen, grey from too much washing.
Anders brushed the bandage over his left shoulder with his fingertips. "No, this is the only place they caught me. It's not deep; mostly just annoying," he shrugged. He tossed the shirt over into the laundry basket that was already half-full with dirty bed linen. He disappeared behind a curtain hanging over a small alcove then reappeared, pulling on a clean shirt.
"What happened?" asked Hawke as Anders poked the fire with a stick then moved the pot of boiling water off the flames and added a handful of herbs to the water.
"Templars," answered Anders with a shrug. "They were waiting for me. They were rather surprised a Smite was ineffective against me. One of them thought to try magebane. It didn't work either." He grinned mirthlessly. "Well... it pissed me off. Which probably wasn't the effect they were hoping for."
"You took them all out by yourself?" exclaimed Bethany. Anders scowled.
"You needn't sound so surprised," he muttered. "I have been practicing and sparring with Fenris daily for a couple of months. You already saw earlier I can handle myself just fine in a fight."
"I didn't mean -" began Bethany; Anders glanced up at her and relented with a small sigh.
"I'm sorry; I'm tired, my shoulder hurts, my head's throbbing and I'm queasy and ratty. I'm not very good company right now." He stirred the brewing tea and sniffed the steam, then moved over to his racks of herbs and selected a bundle of elfroot. Picking out a tuber, he began to grate it into a bowl.
"Where did you go afterwards?" asked Hawke.
"I dealt with the bodies, then I went to talk to Tomwise. I figured who better to ask about a poison than a poisoner." He tipped the grated elfroot into the brew and stirred it.
"And?" asked Hawke, lifting an eyebrow. Anders sat back on his heels and stared at the pot, not looking up.
"It seems someone wants to put the templars out of action. Tomwise was pretty certain it was tailored specifically to make a templar sick, though he admitted he had no idea what would happen to a mage who drank it."
"And a non-mage who's not a templar?" prompted Hawke slowly.
"See, that's where it gets interesting," remarked Anders as he straightened, lifting the pot and carrying it over to the preparation bench. "That amount of lyrium was enough to kill a man by itself; add the felandaris, and by rights I should have dropped dead on the spot." His hands trembled slightly; setting the pot hastily down on a cast iron trivet, he pressed his hands flat on the bench surface to still the shaking. "I shouldn't be breathing right now."
"But... you're not a..." began Hawke.
"I. KNOW!" screamed Anders as he whirled round and glared at Hawke, who shut his mouth with an audible snap and had the grace to look chagrined.
"Believe me, I know," repeated Anders quietly. "I am aware of it. Not a moment goes by that I don't. It's like losing a hand; it cripples you. You're constantly aware of it, but most of all when you reach for something and there's nothing there. Nothing to reach with. Gone."
Bethany's hands flew to her mouth and she made a small, horrified, choking sound. Anders glanced to her, and he nodded. "You can imagine it, can't you?" he said quietly. She slowly nodded, her eyes misting.
"Carver spiked my stew with magebane once. It was horrible," she said quietly.
"Dad was furious," said Hawke quietly. "Carver had to take all his meals standing up for a week afterwards."
Anders was still staring at Bethany. "Remember how that felt. Now imagine feeling like that all the time."
"How can you bear it?" she cried. He stared at her, and his shoulders slumped.
"I don't know," he answered in a small voice, looking lost and troubled. "I'm not sure I -"
What he was about to say was lost as the double doors of the clinic were suddenly flung open and Fenris burst in. "Hawke! the mage, where -"
Anders cleared his throat and wiped a hand over his face. "The mage is fine," he called out, gesturing to Bethany. "The former mage is tired and crabby and hopes you're going to pay to fix those doors you just wrecked." He turned around and studiously ignored them all as he returned to his potion, carefully straining the liquid into a cup.
"Way to go, Fenris," muttered Hawke.
"I... apologise," said Fenris stiffly as he approached. Anders' hands stilled on the cup, and then he laughed.
"I must be hallucinating from the magebane; I thought I heard Fenris apologise to me," he mused. Hawke sighed.
"Anders," he shook his head.
Anders turned, the cup cradled in his hands, steam wafting up from the hot liquid. "I can't figure you out," he said, his one eye boring into the white-haired elf. "I've known you perhaps a year now, and in all that time all you've ever done is carp and snipe at me every time I open my mouth - and often before I can even speak. Then I step in front of a crossbow bolt - aimed for you, I might add - and nearly die, I lose my eye and my magic - and suddenly you can tolerate my presence? Not only that, but you take it upon yourself to teach me how to wield my staff." He took a step towards Fenris, then another. "Yet you still insist on calling me something I am not, reminding me of what I've lost." His face twisted into a look of distress. "What did I ever do to you? Why must you keep tormenting me?" he whispered. "I thought perhaps we were becoming friends, and then you do this. Why do you hate me so?"
They stood perhaps a footstep apart, the elf staring up at Anders. This close, he could see the lines of care and exhaustion around the shadowed eye; he could see from the slightly stiff way Anders held himself as he clutched the cup that he was in pain. He was overwrought, his emotions in turmoil, perhaps a hair away from hysteria.
"I do not hate you," Fenris rumbled quietly.
"Then why?" whispered Anders.
"Because he's an idiot? Force of habit?" suggested Hawke cheerily. Fenris turned and glared at him; the rogue grinned at him unrepentantly.
"Force of habit, perhaps," allowed the elf as he inclined his head, conceding the point. "I will try harder to overcome it."
"I'd appreciate that," said Anders with a weary sigh as he turned away. He made his way over to the nearest cot and sat on the edge before sipping slowly.
"Right, glad we've got that out of the way!" announced Hawke with a bright yet false grin. "So, about this tainted lyrium that should have killed Anders on the spot but didn't, for no apparent reason any of us can fathom..."
Fenris blinked. "Killed...?" He turned and stared at Anders as though he expected the former Warden to just keel over dead on the spot.
"You'll notice I'm still very much in the land of the living," Anders pointed out the obvious before taking another sip of his tea. "No thanks to you - again. I feel like nug shit, but at least I'm still alive to do so which has to be better than the alternative. No," he added, lifting one hand to forestall Fenris, "I have no idea why either."
Bethany walked over to the cot and sat down next to Anders.
"How are you feeling now?" she asked him gently.
"A little better," replied Anders. "The tea is helping to settle my stomach, and my head's not throbbing quite so much as it was earlier."
"Magebane gave me a splitting headache too," she sympathised.
Hawke was frowning at Anders. "This is probably a daft question, but are you sure you're not still a mage?"
Anders gave him a flat stare over the rim of his cup. "I'm sorry, was I talking to myself earlier? Were you not listening when I said I can't feel my magic? Because I could have sworn you were standing not five feet away from me at the time."
Hawke shook his head. "I heard you, but this makes no sense. The tainted lyrium should have killed you - but you're still alive. The magebane should have had no effect on you - but you're queasy and your head hurts. Anders, your body is behaving exactly as it would have before you lost your eye." Hawke shook his head in exasperated confusion. "Anders, to all appearances you appear to still be a mage."
Anders cradled his empty cup in his hands as he sat in silence for long minutes, taking that in. Finally he lifted his head to stare at Hawke, his one eye red-rimmed and glistening wetly. "Then why can't I feel my magic?" he whispered hoarsely. "Why can't I hear Justice any more?"
The cup fell to the floor as he wrapped his arms around his body and began to weep. Each ragged sob shook his slender body as he finally let himself go.
Bethany glanced up at her brother hopelessly as she gently rubbed Anders' back in comforting circles. Anders leaned into her touch and she wrapped her arms around him as he cried.
Hawke moved over to the cot and gingerly sat down on Anders' other side, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder, trying to avoid the white bandages. Fenris remained where he was, shifting his weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.
The room was silent save for the sounds of Anders' sobbing and grief.