The Conclave was finally at hand, ready to start the next morning. Justinia was already at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, along with most of the dignitaries. To Cassandra there seemed to be more dignitaries than citizens of Thedas, but she greeted each new one with her most winning smile.

"You look like you're under torture," said Leliana out of the side of her mouth as they waved a group of Dalish elves through.

"I am."

Leliana rolled her eyes without moving them, an impressive feat. "You're saying hello to people."

"Exactly," said Cassandra with feeling. She looked across the town square, where Cullen was standing in his shiniest mail and looking intimidating. When he saw her staring, he lifted his gauntleted hand in a secret, finger-waggling wave.

The next delegation, a huddled group of mages from the Ostwick Circle, received a more genuine greeting from her than any so far.

Cassandra didn't want to be here. She'd argued that she belonged at the Divine's side as her strong Right Hand and Leliana could handle the niceties in Haven. Justinia had gently overruled her, saying that the possible Inquisitor must be seen, respected, and remembered. Privately, Cassandra thought that it would be better for the Inquisitor to be as obscure as possible, for her own protection.

The Divine couldn't be disobeyed, of course, and a group of Templars and Grey Wardens had taken her place as guards. Cullen had hand-picked the Templars, and Aedan had approved the Wardens. He'd accompanied them as well, but Justinia had ordered Cullen to remain in Haven in what Cassandra now realized was a bid to sweeten the enticement for her to stay behind. Annoyingly, it had worked.

She glanced at him again, mostly to enjoy the way the golden armor complemented his hair, but he was busy talking to a Qunari bodyguard and didn't have time to smile at her. Which was just as well. She was very seriously considering ordering him back to the Chantry to ravish her. It had been almost eight hours since she'd last kissed him, and that was far too long.

"Stop undressing him with your eyes," said Leliana. She smiled and bowed to the next knot of people, a group of dwarves that they shuttled over to Varric. Cassandra saw her signal Carta to him, and he nodded. He was in charge of advance scouting for all underhanded dealers, given his experience with them. Given that he was essentially one of them.

"I would be happy to, if you will allow me to do so with my hands."

"Honestly, you two are enough to make a Blooming Rose worker blush," said Leliana, but she looked proud instead of shocked. "I heard you last night, you know. What exactly was he doing to you? It sounded athletic."

Cassandra flushed scarlet as she remembered the way he'd taken her against the wall, a bruisingly pleasurable experience and one that showed off his strength to perfection. "Nothing special."

"Of course. Well, I won't pry, but I prayed for you both this morning. Just in case you need forgiveness from the Maker."

"I will trip you here, in front of all of these people," said Cassandra through clenched teeth.

Leliana laughed, and several of the people streaming by laughed as well, in case there was something funny they should have understood. "I'm very good on my feet. And off of them, as Aedan has always known."

Cassandra couldn't stop her own smile, and they stood in companionable silence until the last of the new arrivals had passed. "Should we go up to the Temple?" asked Cassandra, watching the line crawl up the mountain face.

Leliana shrugged. "I'd rather sleep here, tonight. They'll already be stacked like firewood up there," she said.

"Yes," said Cassandra. "Justinia has invited too many. I do not like it."

"We've done our best for protection," said Cullen behind her, and she turned around to slide into his arms. "We'll have to trust to the Maker now."

"Did you check the mages that came through?" she asked.

"Yes."

"What about that Qunari? Any trouble with him?"

"She was very amiable. From what I could tell. Most of the Qunari I've met were actively hostile, so that wasn't much of a baseline."

"And there was a man who looked nervous when he came through," she began, and he put a finger over her lips.

"He'd broken a piece off of a holy statue on the way in and was afraid we would put him in the dungeons," said Cullen. "Relax, love."

She fidgeted, then sighed. "I am worried."

"I know. You wouldn't make a good Inquisitor if you weren't."

Cassandra made a face as Leliana chuckled. "I am still praying the Maker intervenes and brings another candidate," she said. "I do not wish to lead."

"Well, even if He does, you'll always be the one I follow," said Cullen.

"And I'll never follow you," added Leliana with a grin.

Varric joined them. "I'm still waiting for cash compensation. You do realize that you haven't paid me a silver piece for all of my efforts here? A dwarf has to live," he said.

Cullen eyed him. "You're still my prisoner, actually."

Cassandra laughed as Varric gaped. "Prisoner? On what charge, Curly? What could the Templars possibly have against a dwarf merchant, adventurer, best-selling author, tremendous lover, barkeep, landlord, and all-around wonderful man?"

"You harbored an apostate."

"I - what? I did not!"

Cullen folded his arms. "You knew where Hawke was. She knew where Anders was. Transitive property," he said.

Varric fumed, and Leliana covered her giggle with her hand. "Look at it this way," she said. "You are not in a cell. And you will have many, many new sex scenes for your books."

The dwarf smiled. "They are pretty loud, aren't they?"

Cullen turned a shade of red that she was sure matched her own, and she burrowed her face under his furry, silly cloak as the dwarf and bard walked back toward the Chantry. The town was relatively empty, now, but there would be food waiting for them there. Leliana had also invited an Antivan noble who she wanted to interview that night for a position with the Chantry and its potential new venture. Cassandra hoped fervently the woman was a good diplomat.

But right now her fervent hopes were somewhere else entirely. "Are they gone?" she asked in a muffled voice.

He kissed the top of her head. "Yes," he said. When she looked up at him, he looked regretful as he pulled off his formal gauntlets behind her before tying them at his waist. "I apologize if I've embarrassed you."

Cassandra raised up on her tiptoes and threaded a hand through his hair, and he obliged her gently tug by kissing her sweetly on the mouth. When he pulled away, she followed him eagerly, and she felt him smile as she swept her tongue into his mouth. She pulled away after the kiss threatened to break her self-control and whispered, "I could never be embarrassed by you."

His eyes were still closed, and he ran his tongue over his upper lip as though he could taste her there. "I'm about to, I think," he murmured, and he dipped down to melt her once more. They stood entwined for a long time, long enough for the Chantry bell to ring again.

Cassandra laughed and stepped away, and she took his hand in her own. "I only fear that it means Justinia has also heard us," she said. "She has had a new twinkle in her eye recently."

Cullen paled so much that she gripped his arm to steady him. "The Maker is going to smite me," he said in a weak voice.

"He will do no such thing," said Cassandra. She leaned closer and breathed, "In truth, Justinia likely had more sex than either of us, in her day."

Cullen took his hand away and covered his ears. "Don't tell me things like that!" he said. "She's holy! She's… she's the Divine!"

He looked so ridiculous and stricken that she had to laugh. "You used to think I was holy," she said teasingly.

"Oh no," he said, a small smile on his face. "I only pretended to. You've never been anything but a very, very earthly woman to me."

She shivered, and he looked pleased. "Of course, if we are that loud, maybe James heard us, too. I certainly hope so."

"You cannot be jealous of him," said Cassandra, only half-joking.

A gust of wind blew through the town, and Cullen led her into the shelter of a building. "I'm not jealous," he said when they were hidden. "I just like to win."

Cassandra rolled her eyes and started to speak when he raised his hands. "I know. You are not a prize. You are Cassandra, and I'm blessed to even be allowed your presence," he said with an easy smile. "I am, you know. And I know that you make your own decisions."

She nodded firmly and settled into the curve of his side. She played with the fur that tickled her chin and asked quietly, "When did you know that you loved me instead of Hawke?"

He twisted to look down at her, and she didn't meet his eyes. "I never loved Hawke," he said.

She sighed. "Then when you chose me. Instead of her. Was it when she left?" It wouldn't change her feelings, but it would be disheartening to know that she had only won her own fake bout because her opponent had vacated the field.

Cullen sounded truly lost as he said, "There was no instead of her. There was you, and only you."

Cassandra snorted. "You were very close to her after you arrived. I had hurt you. You were upset with me, and I had not lived up to the words I had given you. I would not blame you if your attentions slipped. She is very beautiful," she said sadly. Not that she had any right to be sad. All she said was true. But that didn't make it any less painful.

Strong fingers gripped her chin, and she tried to blink away the tears in her eyes before she met his. He looked a little embarrassed. "I was hurt. Moreover I was convinced you only saw me as a temporary lover. And a past one. I may have allowed Hawke to… appear close. To soothe my ego. And to, well, show you that I was still desirable. To some.

"But you don't just stop loving someone," he said. "Even if you really, truly wish to. And I did want to forget, at the beginning. Every time I saw you was a knife in my stomach, and every smile you gave another had me at the training dummies, tearing them apart. But that kind of anger is only from one source, and it never stopped. Never, Cassandra. I was worried I would love you until I died, all alone."

Cassandra sighed and hugged him, and he smiled. "You really thought I could ever be with Hawke after knowing the glory of you?" he asked. His tone softened his words to a comforting affection. "You beautiful idiot."

"I am not an idiot," she muttered.

From the look on his face, he knew better than to argue. "But you are beautiful," he said, tucking her short hair behind her ear. "So the answer is, I chose you before I ever saw your face. I've been choosing you my whole life."

She frowned. "It is unfair that you're so romantic."

"A good Commander never gives up his advantage," he said. He kissed her. "Inquisitor."

She looked up at the Temple again, and he turned to stare as well. "Hopefully it will not come to pass," she said. "Hopefully Justinia will find a way."

"If anyone can, it will be her," said Cullen. "But if she can't, we'll be ready. This is too important to fail."

By unspoken signal they both started walking back to the Chantry. She looked up at his profile, handsome and weathered, but not so old as it once had been. "Does it worry you? That tomorrow, everything could be different?"

"A little," he said after a minute. "Change is never painless." He grinned then, like the light of the sun. Like a young man, without a care in the world. Like a man in love. "But at least I know one thing that will stay the same."

He reached out and took her hand without another word, and they walked under the shadowed arch of the Chantry door. Together, into the future.

A/N: And thus another story has concluded, though I recognize that there is a lot of future that they're walking into! I don't know if I will continue the story in a sequel, because I don't usually write game timeline works! It feels AU enough that it might be interesting but it's also a LOT of backstory to work through. Hopefully some of the shape of what would come is visible in the gloom, such as why Ferelden might have a more personal interest in the Breach, the reason for Leliana's new DAI hardness, and who the Warden is that Hawke brings back to the Inquisition.

Thank you all, as always, for reading and encouraging me and being endlessly sweet. Special thanks to shom, who is a fierce and wonderful reviewer that I'm only ever able to thank in these notes. But every single one of you who I've corresponded with has been great, heartening me when I was down and making me laugh with all of your wry observations. I'm going on vacation starting tomorrow, so I really raced to get this posted so there wouldn't be a week of radio silence and waiting! I hope some of you caught the little things I added in just for you, or that you inspired with your comments. I'm so unspeakably grateful to anyone who takes the time to read, comment, or even just say hi.

I usually don't use songs for inspiration but I really have to credit Tove Lo's "Talking Body", Arctic Monkeys "Do I Wanna Know?" and Relient K's "Be My Escape (Acoustic)" for being the songs I played on repeat over and over again to get the vibe for certain parts of the story. I know some people like to know about author playlists, so those were mine!

So anyway. Yes. Thank you. And I look forward to reading all of your yet-to-be-written stories and to my own muse returning for another round of…. Something! Love you all to pieces.