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The four of them made their way through Lowtown toward the docks. The streets were chaos—Hawke hadn't realized how many mages were loose in the city. To think, Meredith thought she ran such a tight ship.

Templars were swarming, as well. Were there more now than there used to be? It seemed like it. Maybe Meredith had been quietly bringing troops in all along. Preparing for any excuse to exercise the Right of Annulment. Well, it wasn't going to be this day. Hawke wasn't losing her sister to some madwoman's attempt to grab power she didn't deserve.

In an alley, she saw a mage backing away from a group of Templars, but before Hawke and her team could join the mage in support, she had given way to a demon, and shades were rising from the ground. Now it was Templars and demons against Hawke's people. What a delightful city this was. Why did she live here again?

A groan from behind her was a vivid reminder. A Templar's arrow had caught Varric in the upper thigh, and he was down.

Hawke swung wildly, nearly clipping Fenris in her haste to be done with the battle. He caught her arm, his lyrium tattoos alight. "Go! I will handle this."

From anyone else, Hawke wouldn't have accepted the dismissal—or the assurance. But she had fought at Fenris's side for enough years to know his skills, especially when they were backed by Isabela's. With a sharp nod, she turned away from the combat, trusting to her team to cover her while she scrambled to Varric.

"I'm fine, Hawke. Go finish the fight."

"You are not, and I'm staying right here," she told him. With trembling fingers she dug a health poultice out of her bag, ripping it open. "This is going to hurt like the Void," she warned Varric before she tugged on the arrow, giving it a steady pull. The head came cleanly out of the wound, to her relief, and she slapped the poultice on it before the blood had time to flow freely.

Varric's face was twisted with pain, but he nodded at her. "I'm okay now. You don't have to babysit me."

"If you think I'm stirring a step before this wound stops bleeding, you're out of your mind."

"The Templars—"

"Are no match for Fenris and Isabela. Now shut up and let yourself heal, you idiot."

"Anyone would think it was my fault I got hit," he grumbled, closing his eyes.

"In all this time, haven't you learned to duck better than that?"

"Apparently not."

Hawke lifted the poultice just a little to look under it. The edges of the wound were knitting together. "Won't be long now and we'll have you back on your feet again."

"Just in time for more fighting."

"That does seem to be our life."

Their eyes caught and held. This was the last fight; Hawke was sure of that. Whatever was left of Kirkwall after today, whoever was still standing, there would be no place left here for her. Not after she had declared war on the Chantry by standing for the rights of mages.

"Varric …"

"Don't."

"If not now, then when? Later? There might not be a later."

"Hawke—Mina … I can't—" His hands reached for hers, those strong clever fingers wrapping around her longer ones and holding on tightly.

"Varric," she whispered again, leaning in. She disentangled one hand from his, lifting it to cup his cheek, and then she kissed him. His free hand grasped her upper arm and he kissed her back, all the banked fire and unspoken feelings of the last six years behind the urgency of his mouth on hers. Pulling back, Mina looked at him again. Her eyes were filled with tears, and his were suspiciously bright. "After this, Varric, if I—if I live through it …"

"Don't talk like that. This isn't the way your story ends. It can't be."

"Maybe not. I hope not." She thought she hoped not, but she wasn't entirely sure. What was there left in her future, without Kirkwall, without Bethany, without him? "But I think it's the way ours does."

She waited there a moment, crouching next to him, wanting him to tell her she was wrong about him, to promise her that he could change, but who was she kidding? He was who he was. His feelings for her weren't in question, but his ability to turn those into a life they could live together certainly was.

Rocking back on her heels, Hawke lifted the poultice again. The healing skin was shiny, but the wound was closed. "You can walk on it now." She got to her feet and held out a hand for him.

As he scrambled up, she looked over her shoulder at Fenris and Isabela, who were pointedly focusing on looting the fallen Templars and ostentatiously not looking at them.

"You ever notice how Templars never have decent loot?" Isabela complained. "And here you two are letting us do all the work while you take a nice picnic in the middle of battle."

"Sorry, Rivaini."

"Won't happen again," Hawke promised. "Varric promises to dodge better next time."

"He certainly should. I would hate to have to carry him." Fenris cast Varric a malicious smile, which was returned in kind.

"The day you try it, Broody, you lose an arm."

Fenris's snort indicated exactly how unlikely he thought that outcome was.

Hawke looked up ahead. More fighting. More Templars, more mages, more innocent civilians caught in the middle of a combat they'd never asked for. "We should go. There's no telling what waits for us across the harbor."

"More of the same, no doubt," Fenris said gloomily.

"After today, it will be over. It has to be," Varric said. Unspoken was the thought that after today, there might well be no one left to fight. Hawke was no longer sure if she thought that was a good thing or a bad one.