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Blackwall's day had involved far fewer conversations with other people than Bridget's, but had been no less filled with tense discussion. He had argued furiously with himself all day. He wanted to stay, Maker knew he wanted nothing else, but how could he stay and still be the man Bridget cared for? That man was honorable, he was upright. He would never let someone else die for his crimes.
But to go and turn himself in would be to drop the name of Blackwall, the person he had tried to be, and become Thom Rainier again, vain and selfish and greedy. Thom Rainier, murderer for hire. Essentially, it would be to renounce the man Bridget had come to know and to let all of Thedas see him for who he really was.
It was to tear the living heart out of his own chest.
In the end, he knew he had no choice. So he made his plans, in hopes that by the time the Inquisition's spy network found him, it would be over and he would have hurt Bridget as little as he possibly could.
The thought of her moving on eventually hurt, no question there, but move on she must. She was young and beautiful and worthy of being loved, and he would not want her to keep from that on his account.
He thought as much as he leaned against the doorway of the barn and watched her walk toward him, noticing how much more confident she had become since those early days in Haven. She stopped, with glances in his direction of amused frustration, to talk to everyone along the way who wished to converse with the Inquisitor, and she knew just what to say to each of them. She had grown into her position, and he could not have been more proud of her.
Blackwall smiled as she finally reached him. "There you are. Long day?"
"Incredibly long. Just when you think you've got through one hurdle, there's another put in front of you."
"What now?"
"The Chantry wants to take Leliana and Cassandra and make one of them Divine."
"Do they not realize what that will do to the Inquisition?"
Bridget sighed, and he could see the weariness in her. "Either they don't care … or they're happy about it, so that they can reduce the Inquisition's power."
"Likely the latter."
"Likely," she agreed.
"Why don't you come inside? You look like you could use a drink."
"I could at that. And good company."
"I'm afraid you'll have to make do with mine, my lady."
"The very best there is." She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.
"Go on with you now." He turned toward the barn doors, pushing them closed, his heart clamoring to be heard on the subject of how much she needed him and how could he do this to her. But the decision was made—in order to be the man she thought he was, he had to right this wrong. All there was left to him was to leave her with a night of love and support that he hoped would last her until she found someone else more worthy of her.
He poured the wine he had cadged from the kitchens earlier, watching as she leaned back on one of his simple handmade seats and took a sip, the tension easing from her.
She looked up at him, and frowned. "You seem troubled. Is there something on your mind?"
"It's nothing. You deserve a quiet night, not to be bothered with an old soldier's troubles."
Bridget stood up, putting a hand on his shoulder, looking up into his eyes. "I would rather hear your troubles than someone else's praise. I'm here for you. You know that, right?"
"I …" Maker, he wanted to tell her everything. But he couldn't. He couldn't bear to see the love and trust in her eyes turn to suspicion and judgment. "I was just thinking about when we went to the ruin and found the Warden's badge. Everything seemed clear then, like I could do anything with you at my side."
"You can."
He smiled down at her. She was so young. "'Anything' is a hard word. It means a lot."
"We have each other. 'Anything' is just the beginning." She smiled, her cheeks pinkening. "I wondered if maybe …" Her hand went to the chain around her neck, the locket she wore, as it often did when she was feeling particularly emotional.
"Maybe?"
"Nothing. A discussion for a different time."
He wondered what it was she had wanted to say, knowing, as she did not, that there would be no different time. "Bridget." He gathered her small hands in his, kissing her fingers. "I just want you to know that if there is any good in my life, it came from you. You have been … an inspiration. And so much more."
"Blackwall …" It was a breath of his name, even as her fingers tightened around his. "You give so much just by being here."
The words hurt. Because he knew the truth of them. "I want so much to be the man you think I am." From his pocket, he took the Warden badge, placing it into her hands and closing them over it. "Whatever else is true, always know that that is."
"I do know that. And you are that man. Please don't sell yourself short." There were tears in her eyes as she stretched up to kiss him.
He returned her kiss with ardor and a deep longing. He could not have done otherwise. "I am not worthy of you," he whispered as she pulled away. "I never have been."
"You are worthy of me and of much much more."
"Bridget." He removed her arms from around his neck. "There is no future for us with me as a Warden. Someday they will come calling and want me to go to Weisshaupt, and I will have to go."
"Someday will have to take care of itself, and you don't know what it holds any better than I do," she whispered, grasping the front of his jacket and pulling him towards her. "We have tonight. Let's not waste it worrying."
"Yes. For now, let there be no one else. Nothing else. Just you and me."
Kissing her, lost in the warmth and the sweetness of her mouth, he backed her up until they were pressed against the ladder that led up into the loft.
She glanced at the ladder and back at him, her blue eyes sparkling. They had never been together here. Always before, it had been in her quarters. With a mischievous smile, she turned and hurried up the ladder.
When he followed, she was waiting for him, the buttons on her jacket partially undone. He caught her hands before she could undo any more. "Are you certain this is what you want, my lady?"
"I want you. Whenever, wherever … forever."
He wanted that, too, more than he could have told her if he had a thousand nights. But he had only the one, and he wanted it to be a night they could both remember for a long time.
Letting go of her small hands, he finished unbuttoning the jacket. Together, they pushed it off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Blackwall put his hands on her waist, crumpling the fabric of the thin camisole she wore beneath it. "You are so beautiful."
"Please," she whispered, reaching for the hem of the garment, pulling it up and over her head, and then deftly unfastening the breastband she wore, drawing his hands up until he was cupping her breasts. He bent, suckling first one nipple and then the other, loving the way they hardened at his touch. Kissing his way up from there to her collarbone and her neck and her ear and then reclaiming her mouth again, he walked her back to the stack of haybales where he often slept. A layer of canvas covered them, with a blanket on top of that, and he laid her back on the stack, still kissing her. He never wanted to take his mouth from hers, never again, just to go on kissing her forever.
Her hands on his neck, her fingers in his hair, the way they held him to her, said she felt the same way. They lay, just kissing, for a long time, bodies moving restlessly against each other but neither in a hurry to move on.
At last the heat of the room and the heavy restriction of his jacket were too much for him, and he sat up, stripping himself to the waist, tugging off his boots even as Bridget twisted awkwardly to unlace one of her own boots and then the other.
She put her small hands on his chest, stroking the hair there, leaning in to brush her cheek against it, finding his nipples and tugging on them with her teeth. Her hands roamed across his shoulders and back as she leaned up to kiss him again, hungrily, as if she couldn't get enough. As if somehow she knew what this night meant, Blackwall thought with some alarm. But how could she? No one knew. If they did, someone would have come for him, to take him away to Orlais for trial and execution, long ago. No, this was about something else for her—about Halamshiral, and about how hard she worked to be someone she had not been raised to be, and about the extra weight she bore because she was a mage in a position of power. His heart smote him. She needed him, needed him here with her, to afford her these moments when she could be simply herself, and if she needed him then so did the Inquisition. What did he risk by taking himself away, by proving himself a liar and a murderer?
But the cost of not going was as great. He hoped that when he came to the seat of the Maker, his final decision to turn himself in, the good he had tried to do in the world since the death of Blackwall, would be weighed against that earlier crime. Bridget would be hurt by his leaving, and even more hurt when the tale of his deception was made plain to her, but it would pass. Someday she would understand why he had done it, what he had hoped to accomplish.
For now, he couldn't bear to think of it any longer. He turned her over, unfastening her pants and tugging them down over her hips, along with her smallclothes, so that she could kick them off. She lay naked beneath him in the silvery moonlight streaming in through the window. Blackwall wanted to ask her to take her hair down, to see it in all its glory spread across her body, but she would find that an odd request given that she was lying on a bed of hay. He had enough memories of her with her hair unbound, he told himself, and he set about instead making memories for her, worshipping every inch of her body the way she deserved to be worshiped. Beneath his touch, Bridget sighed and moaned and twisted and writhed as he stoked the fire inside her, building her pleasure slowly and deliberately, making it last.
"Blackwall." She reached for him, pulling him up so she could kiss him again, and again, murmuring incoherently even as she pressed herself up against him.
"You are the most …" He groaned as she found him, guiding him to her center. "The most …"
"Yes. Yes." She lifted her hips and he slid inside, the heat there enfolding him and filling him and consuming him. He had meant to go slowly, to savor every moment, but Bridget's legs were wrapped around his waist, her sweet mouth was on his, her hands were tangled in his hair, and he was utterly lost.
They lay there together, exchanging small kisses, murmurs of happiness, holding each other. Blackwall took in every movement, every small sigh or quiet laugh. He had never been as content, as sure of his place in the world, as he was right now, as he was with her. He never would be again, even if by some miracle his life lasted longer than it took Celene to throw a rope over a crossbeam and string him up. If it lasted another fifty years, he would never know another woman like this one. He knew that without a shadow of a doubt.
Eventually, she slept. The days had been long ones, and he knew how hard she pushed herself. Her sleep would be deep.
He slid carefully out of her arms, every movement of his body a separate torture. Reaching for the extra blankets he kept next to his makeshift bed, he tucked two of them around her. She would be cold before the night was over, and she wasn't wearing any clothes. He would have dressed her if he'd thought he could without waking her. But the blankets were the next best thing.
She was so beautiful, so peaceful, lying there asleep. He drank in the sight of her face, more intoxicating than the finest wines. He needed to go, to put some distance behind him before the rest of Skyhold was awake and moving. It would be challenging enough to elude the Spymaster's gaze as it was. But it was so hard to turn from Bridget, her face lit by moonlight, when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and hold her and never let her go. Softly, he let his hand stray across her forehead, smoothing back a lock of hair that had come loose from her braid. She shifted, smilng in her sleep, and he felt tears spring to his eyes. Bending over, he kissed her forehead softly.
"I love you," he breathed, wishing he had dared to say those words while she was awake, knowing it was best that he hadn't.
The note had been written earlier, and now he tucked it into the hay where she would find it in the morning when she woke. And with a wrench of his own heart from his body, he turned away from her, gathering his clothes, and moved down the ladder. Used to him as they were, the horses didn't stir when he crept among them, or when he hastily dressed himself. He had left the small bag of belongings he intended to bring with him—he wouldn't need much while hanging from Celene's gibbet, after all—in the stall, and he slung it on the back of the horse he had been accustomed to ride. When he got to Val Royeaux, he would find a way to see that it was returned to the Inquisition.
And then he was gone, riding down the mountain road, his decision irrevocably made. He couldn't return now.
Bridget stirred, the lumpy hay beneath her uncomfortable. Pieces were poking up into her back. "Blackwall?" she asked sleepily, reaching out and finding him already gone. This wasn't unusual—he was often awake before she was. Years in the wilderness had him arising with the first fingers of the dawn, and a light sleeper to boot.
Dawn wasn't even peeking over the mountains yet, the moon still high in the sky. She hadn't slept very long, it appeared. She sat up, pulling the blankets with her, finding her clothes thoughtfully laid out in a neat pile next to the hay. Quickly she brushed the hay from her back and dressed. "Blackwall?" she called again, keeping her voice soft to avoid bothering the horses.
She shook out the blankets, meaning to replace them on the pile of hay, ready for the next time he would sleep there. Only then did she notice the bit of parchment sticking up. She plucked it out, curious, and turned it over. Seeing her name there in Blackwall's bold, blocky print, she smiled. He had such a romantic soul.
Once she opened it, the smile disappeared. Perhaps she would never smile again.
The note said: "There is little I can say that will ease this pain. Just know that while it hurt to leave, it would've hurt more if I stayed. I am deeply sorry."