It wasn't possible for Killeen to completely avoid Cullen, of course. Even if her duties hadn't brought them together a dozen times a day, in the limited confines of Skyhold it was inevitable they would encounter each other, on the battlements, crossing the courtyard, in the Great Hall as Cullen left the War Room and Killeen hauled yet another arm-load of books up to the library for Dorian's research.

Each time their paths crossed, Killeen kept her face to neutral friendliness, made sure not to stand too close to him, kept her remarks to a minimum.

Each time, Cullen was stilted and awkward and hardly able to meet her gaze.

So when Scout Harding needed reinforcements against the swarming undead of Crestwood, Killeen volunteered to lead the squad.

She expected Cullen to be relieved, but when she proposed it, for an instant she thought she saw shock on his face before he looked down at his desk, picked up a parchment and turned toward the window and its better light.

"Of course," he said absently, already absorbed in whatever problem that parchment contained. "If it's what you want."

"It is," she said

On her way out, she paused with her hand on the doorknob as he cleared his throat. "Kill — I —" He coughed. "You'll be missed."

Killeen forced herself to look back with a grin. "Of course. Who else can forge your signature on requisition slips as well as me?"

Cullen chuckled, perhaps the first time she'd won a laugh from him in days, and if sounded a little forced, well, I'll take what I can get.

She took the memory of that laugh to Crestwood, the memory and the hope that it might mean she hadn't ruined the friendship between them forever with her unwanted attention, that distance and time might let them settle back into the easy friendship that had been the sure and certain underpinning of her life since before the world had begun to end.

The Inquisitor blew through Crestwood like a brisk breeze and, like a brisk breeze, swept away the clouds and endless drizzle. Unlike a breeze, though, she also managed to lay the undead and send the local bandits packing. Killeen moved in to Caer Bronach, which was at least in better shape than Skyhold, and started once again filling sheets and sheets of parchment with lists of supplies and comments on the condition of the armoury.

Then one of the Spymaster's crows brought news of an engineering problem on the Exalted Plains, orders for Killeen to solve it — Cullen's elegant script in the margin, Kill, needs your touch. At least it'll be warm. I'm sending beer.

She spent entirely too much time tracing those words with her finger, holding the scrap of parchment that he'd held, noting the spatter of ink that betrayed his habit of using a quill until it was worn to a nub, legacy of a childhood where learning was valued but funds were short.

She realised she was covering the s in the first sentence with her fingernail just to see how it felt to read …

Blushing crimson despite the fact she was entirely unobserved, Killeen threw the parchment in the fire and went to pack.

It did need her touch, as it turned out, a tunnel full of boulders crammed so tightly that dislodging one threatened to bring the rest down on any work team and a chief engineer enamoured of explosives. Killeen's patience was tested to the limit by the time she'd managed to get him to clear the route without killing or maiming anyone and her report on their success included a pointed remark about her Commander's entirely insufficient ideas about necessary quantities of beer.

Killeen was packing her gear to return to Skyhold when another crow brought news of another problem — building a bridge over sulphuric springs — with Cullen's orders for her, specifically, to attend to it, and she realised that he was doing everything he could to keep her a long way away from him.

Small, painful thump in her chest at that knowledge, that settled into a low ache she carried with her to the Western Approach. The sand and the sun and the stink of sulphur were distractions during the day, but at night Killeen lay in her tent and stared up at the canvas and listened to her labouring, limping heart.

Tried not to imagine what the Inquisitor and Cullen might be doing right at that moment, to wonder if he'd gotten up the courage to speak and they were wrapped in each other's arms, his cloak covering both of them, or if instead they were exchanging shy glances, letting their hands accidentally-on-purpose touch …

Tried and failed.

It was almost a relief when the order came to move on Adamant. The order didn't specifically include Killeen, but it didn't specifically exclude her, either, and all available personnel with experience fighting demons certainly fit her right down to the ground.

And a battlefield would leave her with no time to dwell on anything but staying alive.

It was only when she reached the massive camp spread out on the plains before the fortress and was picking her way through the lines looking for her assigned tent that Killeen realised it had completely slipped her mind that of course the Inquisitor and her Commander would be present for such a crucial engagement.

Fortunately, there were far too many people, and far too much urgency in their preparations, for their paths to cross, and the next night Killeen found herself standing at the foot of a siege ladder in the pre-dawn hours, staring up at the broad backside of the Iron Bull as he led that quarter's assault.

Deep breath. Here we go.

"For the Inquisition!" she yelled, heard the cry echoed by the men and women behind her, and flung herself upward.

She was right behind the Bull as he hurled himself over the battlements, massive axe dealing blow after blow, shield up, sword low, spitted a mage about to hurl fire down on the soldiers still climbing, backhanded another across the face with her shield, turned and saw —

"Demon!" she bellowed, voice cracking, and flung herself aside as the huge grey shape snapped a whip of lightning through the air where she'd just been.

The Bull finished off his last opponent, and turned. "Oh, shit," he said. "Pride demon. These fuckers are tough."

And it was on them.

If not for the Bull, none of them would have survived. The big Qunari could hit hard enough to hurt even a thing like the one they faced, and he kept its attention on him as much as he could, taking lash after lash of blazing lighting without flinching while Killeen and the others who had made it up the ladder tried to get in behind the demon, hacking and slashing and twisting away before it could turn.

But it was tough. Their blows, even the Bull's blows, seemed to hardly have an impact, and more importantly, the demon was tireless, and even the Iron Bull was not. Reactions slowed, shields dipped, legs lost their spring … one man fell, then another.

It's un-fucking-killable, Killeen thought.

There was a cry further along the battlement, a flare of light. The Inquisitor, Killeen realised.

Maker's balls, Cullen will be right by her side.

The pride demon turned, lumbered toward the new threat. Killeen threw herself forward, raining blow after blow on the creature's back, screaming threats and defiance at it until the words vanished into a single howl, hit it and hit it and kept hitting it even as it turned to confront her blows, feeble and ineffectual as they must have seemed to it.

Killeen swung her sword again as sparks arced between the demon's hands, got in one more strike before her whole body exploded in pain.

She flew backwards and landed in darkness.