The Hanged Man, as always, was bustling. Hawke had just finished the nightly meeting; Varric privately suspected she held them more as an excuse to get out of Gamlen's house every night than for any more practical purpose, but having her here every night was more amusing than the dullness that had preceded his friendship with her, so he wasn't complaining. Before he'd met Hawke, he'd been giving serious consideration to moving away from Kirkwall—he was glad that she had prevented him from having to follow through on such a drastic alteration in his quite comfortable lifestyle.

The fly in the ointment this evening was that he had been waving his mug at Norah the waitress for the last hour, and he knew she'd seen him, but no refill on ale had appeared. She had refilled the mugs of everyone else at the table, whether they needed it or not, which was why Daisy was currently fast asleep on the table. Apparently two ales was at least one too many for the slender elf.

Hawke raised a hand, signaling for another mug, and when Norah brought it to her, slid it down the table to Varric. The glare the dark-haired waitress shot at him said that particular ploy wouldn't work a second time, but once was enough for the moment.

"Was it something you said?" Hawke asked.

"I may have suggested the chamber pots could be cleaned more often." Norah doubled as chambermaid, but it wasn't a job she did willingly, or cheerfully.

"You could always clean them yourself."

"That'll be the day." He grinned at his friend.

Hawke shook her head. "You don't know how good you have it."

"Why don't you try it? There's plenty of extra space, and I could convince Corff to give you a good rate."

She frowned. "Might be all right for me, but can you see Mother and Bethany living in the Hanged Man? I don't think so."

It was on the tip of Varric's tongue to suggest she leave her mother and sister at Gamlen's, where they both seemed much happier than she was, but he knew better. Short as their acquaintance had been, they agreed that there were certain topics best left alone, and Hawke's family was at the top of her list. He looked around for another area of conversation, and caught sight of the tattooed elf, who was just lifting a mug of ale to his mouth.

"So, elf." He kept hoping the elf would be an impermanent enough part of their little crew that he wouldn't have to bother making up a nickname for him; Varric couldn't have said what it was about the broody sod that made him nervous, but something did. Possibly it was the way Hawke looked at him. Not that Varric had any romantic designs on Hawke himself … but he didn't like it, all the same. "Tell me, how does it feel to escape the life of a slave?" It was deliberately an insolent question, to provoke a response, which it did.

Fenris froze, his mug in his mouth. Slowly he put it down and swiveled his head to look at Varric. His response was pronounced precisely and with contempt. "Foolhardy."

"Yet here you are," Varric muttered under his breath, returning to his own ale. He should have known better than to expect anything more interesting.

Fenris frowned at the dwarf. He was aware that Varric viewed him warily, and that was perfectly fine. He returned the wariness tenfold … not just toward the dwarf, but toward the rest of Hawke's crew, as well.

He only wished he felt as wary toward Hawke herself. Lifting his mug again, he took a long swallow of the weakly flavored liquid, using the mug to conceal the way he couldn't stop watching her as she carried on an animated conversation with her sister. Her blue eyes sparkled and snapped, punctuating the lively discussion. Her face was lovely, the features even and precise … but it was her mouth that fascinated Fenris. Sweet and soft, with full lips and a subtle curve that always suggested she was just about to smile. He had a hard time looking anywhere else when she was speaking—something about the way her lips rounded and changed as she spoke was so compelling. Her voice was clear and cool in his ears, sharp, like the air in Kirkwall now that the winter was approaching. None of Danarius's oily tones or Hadriana's sickeningly sweet whine. Hawke's voice said she was in charge, and that she had something to say worth listening to. Fenris could happily have listened to her speak for hours.

As Hawke got up to join Isabela at the bar, Fenris dragged his eyes away from her, staring down into the nearly colorless ale in his mug. He had no right to gaze at her; he was far beneath what Hawke would deserve. And it was a bad idea from his end, as well—he could not afford to have ties that bound him to any one place. It would be only a matter of time, and little time, at that, before Danarius came for him again, and he had resolved to sell his life dearly if it meant a chance at ending his former master's. He would not allow anything to distract him from that purpose. Not even Hawke.

Or so he told himself as his eyes rose as if magnetized from the pale liquid in the mug to the slender, toned figure in the light armor crossing the bar. Perhaps—perhaps it would do no harm just to look.

Fenris was unaware of the eyes that watched him watching Hawke—the dwarf's speculative, Isabela's amused. Isabela had a vantage point that Varric didn't, however: She could see Hawke, too.

"Busy day," she remarked casually, lifting her mug.

Hawke raised her own and clinked it against Isabela's. "Aren't they all?"

"Who are you kidding, sweet thing? You like it that way."

Staring morosely into the cup, Hawke muttered, "It's the only way I can sleep in that place, if I'm too tired to think."

"Gamlen's place that bad? Huh." Isabela hadn't given it much thought. "Sleep in a few shipboard cabins and any bed that holds still is good for sleeping." She winked. "The ones that move are better for other things."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind," Hawke said. She smiled, but the gloom shadowing her blue eyes didn't lift.

"You know what you need, sweetheart," Isabela said. She glanced at Hawke with what appeared to be casual good humor, but she was watching closely for the other woman's reaction. "You need a nice, relaxing … tumble."

Hawke nearly spat her ale out, which wasn't unexpected.

"Come on. I know just the right person, too."

Now it came, Hawke's quick, darting look back toward their table and the beautiful elf whose tattoos shone in the dimly lit bar. Isabela kept her triumphant smile hidden with difficulty, amused that the other woman, usually so quick to spot a trap, had walked right into this one.

"I don't think so, Isabela, but thanks for the offer."

Isabela couldn't help but be impressed by the speediness with which Hawke had covered her lapse, so she went along with it, in the spirit of the thing. And because she had a certain curiosity about Hawke, which she wouldn't have minded sating in any number of different pleasurable ways. "You don't know what you're missing."

"I spend enough time here, I think I've seen most of it."

"Seeing is nothing. You should try feeling."

Hawke turned so her back was resting against the edge of the bar, casually, but Isabela didn't miss the way her eyes searched the dim back of the room for the flash of the elf's white hair. There was a naked longing on her face that almost made Isabela feel she should look away. Then Hawke blinked, shuttering her eyes and composing her features, and she shook her head. "Not now. Not until Bethany is safe and we have a place we Hawkes can call home here in Kirkwall. Then, maybe, I'll have time for my own feelings."

"You know, a person can choke on nobility."

"I'm not a noble."

Isabela huffed a laugh. "Didn't say you were. Said you have nobility—there's a difference. I think you got a bit too much of it, though."

Hawke squinted at her, then sighed. "I can't follow you tonight. Too tired. I think I'll go—back to Gamlen's, see if I can get some sleep. Maybe if I get home before he gets back from the Blooming Rose, I won't hear him snoring all night."

"Good luck." Isabela had been in the Rose once or twice when a new girl had let Gamlen fall asleep. It wasn't pretty. She watched Hawke leave the bar with sympathetic eyes, and relief at being unfettered by her own family. Freedom was well worth whatever it might cost, she thought, reaching for her mug.

A flash of white caught her eye, and she lifted an eyebrow, drinking deeply as she observed Fenris's hasty departure. So it was mutual, was it? How interesting.

Hawke paused outside the Hanged Man, breathing in the still, heavy air. Lowtown at night was hardly refreshing, but it was still better than being in the midst of the crush of people who filled the bar. She looked up, trying to see the stars through the narrow gap between buildings. One of the things she missed most about Ferelden—the stars. The trees, the fields, the sense of openness … Kirkwall was short on all of them.

She sighed, beginning to move toward the squalid tenements where Gamlen's place was located. It wasn't considered safe to walk alone in any part of Lowtown, but her growing reputation kept the more legitimate—and therefore better trained—groups off of her. Hawke almost hoped some of the less legitimate ruffians would jump her. A good fight would be something tangible to do, some way to hit out at all the nameless things that were bothering her about her life. Bethany, her mother, Gamlen, trying to make enough money to buy into Varric's expedition … Her mind drifted in the direction of Fenris's beautiful green eyes and smoky voice and she resolutely plucked it back. The elf might be temptation personified, but he, and any other men, were off limits.

Lost in her determined thoughts, Hawke was startled to hear the voice that had figured so largely in them coming from the shadows behind her.

"You should pay more attention to your surroundings. In these alleys, many things lie in wait."

"I've spent more time in Lowtown than you have, Fenris. There's no need to lecture me," she said tartly.

"There is when a person can sneak up on you without you being aware of their approach."

"Worried about me?" The words left her lips without forethought, and her eyes met Fenris's in a moment that made the air of Lowtown seem to still and hang arrested between them.

Fenris looked away first, and Hawke frowned at herself. She must have imagined it; an elf on the run from the Tevinters had more on his mind than lust. Just like she ought to.

Clearing his throat, Fenris said, "Perhaps you would allow me to accompany you back to Gamlen's."

Hawke knew her cheeks must have turned bright red—and not, as they should have, in embarrassment—because he hastened to keep talking.

"To add another blade, in the event you should run into some manner of ruffian along the way."

Maker, she even found his overly ornate way of talking sexy. Oh, she was in big trouble here. Big trouble. Unable to speak, afraid she might accidentally say all the things she was thinking, she nodded instead, and Fenris fell into step beside her.

"It is a surprisingly peaceful night," he observed.

"That, or Varric's finally managed to make me seem scary."

"He has his work cut out for him."

Hawke glanced Fenris's way, but he wasn't looking at her, and his face gave no clue as to how he had meant the comment. She let it go, and he didn't speak again until they were at the foot of the cracked stairs leading up to Gamlen's.

"Safely arrived."

"Yes, thank you." Not that he had done much except ruin whatever peace of mind she had hoped to rebuild in the solitude. Hawke was grateful for once that Gamlen's provided no privacy, because otherwise she might have been tempted to ask Fenris in and damn the consequences.

"Hawke."

"Yes?"

"It is I who should be thanking you. It has been a long time—That is, never in my life have I had the freedom to walk down the street when I chose to do so, and the confidence of knowing that if I were to be attacked by Danarius's men, someone else would be at my side to aid in my fight. I owe you—"

"No, you don't," she cut in. "Really."

"I add nothing of value to your band of adventurers; it is your generosity that has found me a place there."

"You're here, aren't you? Walking me home? None of the others would have thought to do that." Evelyn left unsaid the fact that she wouldn't have let any of the others walk with her. That was beside the point. "You have value to me."

A shaft of moonlight filtered through the clouds and made its way between the slanting roofs of the buildings to illuminate his face as they looked at one another, and Evelyn felt a tug deep in her heart, a strange sensation she'd never felt before. It disturbed her profoundly.

"Good-night, Fenris," she said hurriedly.

"Good-night, Hawke." He gave her a formal nod of his head before turning toward the Hightown stairs. As she watched him go, she wondered what it would be like to hear him call her 'Evelyn'. Then she shoved that thought down next to the memory of that strange tug at her heartstrings, safely away where she wouldn't have to think of them, and she went inside Gamlen's to another sleepless night on her thin pallet.