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Hawke accompanied Varric back to the Hanged Man. He hadn't spoken a word since they left Bartrand's mansion, and she didn't know what to say to him when he was in this mood. She didn't think he had ever been silent for this long in all the time they had known each other. She ached to comfort him, but … was there any real comfort to give someone who had just seen his brother turned into something closely resembling an abomination, and had to kill him in order to save him?

So she also remained silent, and she stayed at his side even as he stalked through the tavern of the Hanged Man and up the stairs without responding to any of the conversation flying past.

He tried to slam the door of his rooms shut behind him and Hawke caught it before it could shut her out, following him inside and closing the door behind her more carefully.

She leaned back against the door, waiting, as Varric unslung Bianca and began the lengthy process of oiling and polishing her with which he usually ended the night.

Without looking up at her, he barked a short, bitter laugh. "Do you know what I was thinking, standing there on his doorstep? I was imagining taking out all his lackeys single-handedly, just me and Bianca, imagining Bartrand on his knees in front of me … 'You're strong and handsome and so very smart,' he would have said. 'How can I ever compete with you?'"

All those things were true, as far as Hawke was concerned, but she kept her mouth shut and let Varric talk.

"What a selfish ass I am," Varric muttered. Laying aside the polishing cloth, he looked up at Hawke for the first time. "I should thank you for your help." He swallowed visibly. "Bartrand was a jackass, always had been, and he tried to kill us … but that was the hardest thing I've ever done."

Mina had imagined Bethany turning, having to kill her, over and over—it was the stuff of many nightmares—but she didn't know even now if she could have.

"I don't know," Varric added softly. "Maybe I could have found help for him, isntead of—"

"You heard Anders," Hawke said. "He was beyond help, and obviously suffering. You did the only thing you could do. And you spared him—and others—a lot of misery."

Varric looked down at his hands, resting on the table. She wasn't used to seeing his hands empty; he always had a quill or a tankard or Bianca in them. "Then why doesn't it feel like that? Why do I feel like I just murdered my brother?"

Pushing herself off the door, Hawke went to him, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. "Because you're a good man, whether you like to think so or not."

"Maybe. Thanks, Hawke." He shrugged her hand away, moving to place Bianca on her stand. "I don't know if surface dwarves go back to the Stone or hang around singing hymns at the side of Andraste, or what."

At the thought of Bartrand in white robes singing the Chant, Hawke nearly snorted with laughter, but she muffled it in time, sobering as a thought struck her. "I'm sure he's at the Maker's side, or nestled in the bosom of the Stone, whichever. Varric, Bartrand locking us in the Deep Roads may have saved our lives."

Varric frowned up at Hawke. "Come again?"

"Think about it. If that idol did that to him, what could it have done to you, or Fenris, or Anders? And any one of you losing your minds in some kind of murderous, cannibalistic rage would have done far more damage than Bartrand did."

"Well, damn," Varric muttered. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

"I hadn't, either, until just now." She winced as another thought struck her. "He said he sold it to someone. Varric, we need to find out who that was, before—anything else happens."

"If we're lucky, maybe they melted it down for scrap." But she had a point. Varric would have to find out who had bought the idol, among the rest of the mountain of paperwork that waited for him in settling Bartrand's estate. "Selfish bastard," he growled, but with affection this time. Leaving Varric to smother under the weight of Tethras Brothers, Ltd., was exactly the kind of vindictive legacy Bartrand would have chuckled over. Well, as long as he'd had a chance to take as much gold with him into the afterlife as his spirit could carry.

A stab of grief made him grimace with the pain of it. "Hawke, how do you do it? How do you carry all this grief and not just … collapse?"

She was in front of him now, her strong hands on his shoulders, her green eyes soft as they looked into his. "I have you. And you're worth—all of it."

He caught her wrists, holding her there. "You mean that?"

"I do."

They held each other's gaze. Everything in the world had ceased to exist except for her. The sounds of the tavern below, the scents, the gleam of Bianca's stock, all of it meaningless next to the way Hawke was looking at him, the thudding of his heart in his chest, the remembered taste of her kiss.

He loved her. Was in love with her. Desperately; completely; irrevocably. And somehow the shock of that knowledge was harder to bear than the weight of his grief and guilt over his brother.

Tearing his hands from her wrists, Varric backed away from her so quickly he nearly fell. "I've … got a lot of work to do, Hawke. Thanks—thanks for being here."

"Anytime." Her voice was cool and distant. He had hurt her again, turned her away again. But he had to, he told himself as the door closed behind her with a soft but final click. Look at how badly he had messsed things up with Bianca. He was no good for any woman, much less one as extraordinary as Hawke.

Resolutely, he put her out of his mind and drew a stack of paper toward him, beginning to write a list of what needed to be done to settle Bartrand's estate.