Hawkquisition Part I: To Remain at Your Side
Chapter 1

Wherein Hawke repents of an ill-considered departure

"Still a day or so till we hit the Imperial highway at Montfort, my lady," the Warden recruit said all too cheerfully as Lisbet Hawke scraped yet more of the mud of the Nahashin Marshes from her boot.

"Splendid," she sighed, glancing up at the scar in the sky where the Breach had been. She'd been trudging through desert and marsh with the exiled remnants of Orlais's Gray Wardens for weeks, leaving it to the Inquisitor to deal with Corypheus. It felt like an exile of her own, running away to Weisshaupt when she should be dealing with her mistake. Hawke had been haunted by Varric's words ever since she opened his letter asking her to come to Skyhold: Seems Corypheus wasn't as dead as we thought. He couldn't have been any more dead, she was sure, when they left his corpse in that Warden prison; but the Inquisitor's account of the fall of Haven had convinced her that they had walked away from the Vimmarks too soon. And Thedas was suffering for it now. But the Inquisitor - Lord Trevelyan - seemed to know what he was doing. Somewhere to the south and east, Skyhold still held against the Elder One. For that, at least, she was grateful.

She glanced back at the cheerful Warden - Jacques, wasn't it? An Orlesian, only recently added to the Warden ranks, he hailed from Serault, a marquisate located somewhere near these marshes and known, so Jacques had told her (frequently) for its glassworks. (He'd been apprenticed in the glassworks, it turned out, until some vaguely described accident there had gotten him sent away in shame and straight into the arms of a group of Warden recruiters.) His familiarity with the region made him navigator for their group, though Hawke was beginning to doubt that decision. "And once we reach the highway," she asked, "how many months more till we reach Weisshaupt?"

"Oh, we'll travel much faster on the road. You'll see. And there'll be inns - I know an innkeep along the way between Montfort and Ghislain, he'll -"

"Let's hurry up and get to that road then, shall we?" Hawke said before Jacques could break into another of his rambling stories and promises. The boy wasn't that bad a storyteller, in truth, but it made her miss hearing Varric tell one properly. And then she'd miss - other things. Other friends. The Wardens, what remained of them, leaderless and (save for the garrulous Jacques) treating her with the sort of reverence that she supposed made sense after they'd seen her step out of the Fade in the flesh with the Inquisitor, made for poor companions. Jacques seemed undaunted by default, but the other Wardens bore the weight of what had happened at Adamant Fortress less easily. They accepted Hawke as a de facto leader to escort them back to the Warden base in the Anderfels, but they did not go out of their way to speak to her or include her even in the mundane tasks of camp each night. She had seldom felt so alone.

The Nahashin Marshes were finally behind them and Hawke smiled to travel on firm ground again, with trees shading their passage. Even Jacques seemed less annoying here; but nevertheless, Hawke wasn't paying enough attention to the recruit's latest monologue to know what she had missed when it was suddenly interrupted by a loud and relentless barking.

One of the elder Wardens had hailed from Ferelden before he joined the Order. "Andraste's purple knickers, is that a mabari?" he said in almost hopeful tones.

And of course it was, and the barks that had preceded him, like scouts, soon were followed by the dog himself, leaping upon Hawke in a flurry of limbs.

"My lady - !" shouted Jacques and, she thought, a few other Wardens, turning to rescue her from the beast. Hawke laughed, even though the dog's bulk had immediately thrown her to the ground - where she now managed to sit up, somehow, wrestling him back. "Tiberius! There's a good puppy - what in Thedas are you doing out here in - in the middle of nowhere? Where are we, anyway, Jacques?"

"Er...still in Orlais, my lady...excuse me, are you saying you know this creature?"

"Of course I do. Came with me from Ferelden when we fled the Blight, didn't you, Tibby?" She scratched the ecstatic dog behind his ears while the Wardens looked on, bemused.

"But why's he here?" Jacques persisted.

"Well, he didn't come with me to Adamant, that's for sure. I left him with…" And the realization dawned. "He's here?" she asked the dog, who only cocked his head at her as if to ask, Who's here? I'm here!, then rolled over to have his belly rubbed. "I suppose he must be," Hawke sighed. "Come on, Tiberius. Lead the way."

The sun was setting when they reached the camp. He was sitting not far from his small campfire, his back against a tree, reading from a book propped on one knee. Still as handsome as the day she'd met him - more so than when she'd seen him last, fretting against the necessity of rest while his wound healed. Hawke hesitated at the edge of the camp and would have gladly paused a long moment more just to cherish the sight of him, alive and well, but of course the sounds of heavily armed Wardens marching along behind her and Tiberius panting at her heels prevented that. He looked up, meeting her eyes with an inscrutable stare.

"Fenris," Hawke greeted him, managing a half-smile as he set the book aside and got to his feet. "You're - looking well. The wound's healed?" To her relief, he didn't seem to be favoring it. Then, finally, he returned the smile, and that was all she needed to see; a heartbeat later she was in his arms.

"Hawke," he said. "Now you're babysitting Gray Wardens?"

"You know how it is. Odd jobs," she sighed, loosening her grip on him, shifting her hands to where she knew his markings were less sensitive.

"I thought there'd be more of them. Varric's letter said you were leading every Warden in Orlais to Weisshaupt."

"This is every Warden in Orlais, now."

He glanced past her, taking in the sight of them, a handful of bedraggled warriors and not a single mage. "Ah."

"Didn't Varric tell you this was just an escort job? I'm not staying at Weisshaupt. You didn't have to come looking for me, not while you're healing -"

"I'm fine, Hawke. And I'm already here. You can't go off without me again - not this time, not when I'm well enough to follow."

"So I see." Remembering why she had gone off without him, she took a step away, looked back at the Wardens. "We may as well camp here. See to the tents, will you?" Without a word they set to work, and Hawke took Fenris' hand to lead him a few steps away from the others, into the cover of the trees.

She could feel the tension in his hand, beneath the veneer of calm with which he'd greeted her in front of her companions. She let him begin the argument. "I should have been with you, Hawke. I know how Varric exaggerates, but when I got his letter -" He exhaled slowly, glanced away. "I was almost afraid to open it. I was so sure it'd be - that you'd have -"

She leaned her head on his shoulder, cautious as always of his markings, sensitive to touch, even to hers. "I'm still here, love."

"But what if you hadn't come back? I don't even know what happened. Varric was uncharacteristically brief on the details. And when that dwarf fails to embroider a story to his usual standards, I can only assume it was a truly horrendous experience."

She thought of the Fade, of the Nightmare demon, taunting her: Did you think anything you ever did mattered? Fenris is going to die, just like everyone you ever cared about, and she shuddered. "I'll tell you all about it later. Promise."

He pulled away without a reply, looking back toward the camp. "Fenris?" she asked. No answer. "You understand why I went alone, don't you?" No answer. "You were hurt so badly in that last fight, when the slavers ambushed us. Maker knows you fight like...like a thunderstorm, like a whirlwind, dashing through a place and leaving destruction in its wake, at the best of times, but you're always cautious too. You know when to move out of the way. And then...you didn't."

"The arrow was meant for you," he finally said, his voice so hushed she could barely make out the words. "I couldn't let -"

"You almost died for me. Don't do that, my wolf. I couldn't bear to lose you, too."

He turned to face her again, and she was shaken by the anger in his eyes. "But you could bear to leave me behind? Without even a word of good-bye?"

Hawke winced. "I...left a note?"

"Lucky thing you taught me to read, then! Hawke, picture it: I awoke to find you gone, nothing to explain it but a letter from Varric with your note on the back. Not even a proper letter worthy of its own page!" And from his belt he drew the letter itself, waving it before her as an accusation. "And while I'm reading that, just beginning to realize you've gone off to save the world and I might never see you again, Merrill comes in to check on my wound! You left the blood mage in charge of my welfare, Hawke!"

"I don't think she uses blood magic for healing!" Hawke protested. "She's really quite good with more traditional methods. You are looking much better now, after all."

Fenris scoffed, "You probably at least told her good-bye in person. Could you not have waited till morning to leave?" He reached for her hands, the anger in his eyes giving way to hurt. "One last kiss? One last chance to look upon your face, my little bird, before you flew away? You could have died, and the last word I had from you would have been three lines on the back of Varric's letter."

"I…" Words failing, Hawke clasped his hands to her cheeks, wetting them with her tears. "I'm so sorry. That was cowardly of me. I wanted to tell you in the morning, but I feared you'd want to come with me. And it's not so much that you were still healing...I know you heal fast, you'd have managed on the road. But ever since that fight, I've feared it happening again. You try so hard to protect me. What good is that if I can't protect you, too? I knew I had to go help as Varric asked. I just wanted to know you were safe in the meantime. I spent half the night writing those three lines, because I kept putting it down and starting to come back to bed, to wait until morning; but then I'd see you in those bandages and I just couldn't bear it."

His anger spent, Fenris held her in his arms and let her cry. When the tears finally passed, he murmured: "You really think I fight like a...whirlwind?"

"Possibly a hurricane," she said with a laugh that was still half-sob. "Something quite stormy, anyway. I can't really keep track of you in a fight, you know. It's like you're everywhere at once."

"Hm," he said, in the voice of one trying to hold back laughter. "Come on. Let's see if those Wardens have finished setting up camp. And dinner. My wife, my heart, has, against all odds, returned to me alive. That is cause for celebration."

"Warden rations for a celebration? Your wound may have healed, but perhaps you got hit on the head harder than I realized in that fight…"

"There is nothing wrong with my head. Skip dinner, then. There are other ways to celebrate." And he drew her in for a kiss of a very celebratory sort.

That night in her tent, Hawke told him all that had happened. Skyhold, Crestwood, Adamant...the Fade. The Nightmare. Stroud, staying behind to guard their escape, leaving the Wardens leaderless and Hawke feeling responsible for them since she had been the one to get him involved with the Inquisition in the first place. Somehow, lying there in the dark, it was easier to speak of it. Or perhaps it was his hand in hers that made it possible to speak of it at all.

"Mattered?" he said when she repeated what the Nightmare demon had said to her. "Of course what you do matters. Whether it mattered to Kirkwall is irrelevant. It matters to me."

"It knew our fears all too well," Hawke sighed. "It also said you were going to die, Fenris."

"Which you feared so much you left me behind, I know. Where I could have just as easily died from this wound if Merrill had tried to heal it with blood magic. Or from pining away with worry about you. Or from countless other causes. It's a pointless fear, Hawke."

"Oh, thank you for being so understanding…" Hawke rolled her eyes.

A smiling kiss brushed her forehead. "It's just that I know you're brave, Hawke. Stop pretending you aren't."

She frowned. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"You fear losing me. I fear losing you too, of course. But no one lives forever - except maybe Corypheus, after we were so sure we'd killed him, but I don't even want to think about what sort of magic is keeping him alive. So we should make the most of our days together, little bird. No more leaving each other behind for their own safety."

"I can hardly leave you behind anyway, when you're not bedridden, can I? How did you even find us out here?"

"Varric said you were going to Weisshaupt. From Adamant Fortress. I consulted a map, and I brought your dog. He's a good tracker."

"Clever."

"Desperate, Hawke."

"I missed you," Hawke admitted. "I'd...forgotten what it's like to fight without you. Someone who knows me as well as you do, anticipates my tactics…"

"Occasionally anticipates the arrow flying at you and jumps in front of it?" There was no scorn in Fenris' voice now, only amusement.

"I still wish you wouldn't do that," Hawke clarified. "I'm perfectly capable of a barrier spell. But it was like I had to relearn how to fight on my own. Not really on my own; but the Inquisitor's people, none of them fight quite like you and I."

He held her tighter. "I know what you meant. I missed you as well. I tried to continue our investigations into the red lyrium while you were gone and it just wasn't the same, fighting alone. I actually missed seeing your magic flying beside me, perish the thought. We're better together, Lisbet Hawke."

"That is why I married you," Hawke murmured; even in the darkness of the tent he could hear the smile in her voice.

"And here I thought you were just avoiding the seneschal's son trying to court you…"

No reply. He heard her breathing, slow and even; she was asleep. But Fenris lay awake for some time yet, holding her and remembering:

She had been viscountess barely a month. They had each kept their promise to not die, in the battle at the Gallows, but the hard-won victory and her sudden elevation had left him uncertain. Fenris still made his home in the mansion he had once believed to be Danarius', seeking out Hawke when he could, though she seemed perpetually surrounded by advisors and citizens demanding that she singlehandedly restore Kirkwall to its former glory.

He had managed to catch her at home one night when he called upon her, and the way her eyes widened and a smile brightened her face when she saw him standing there gave him hope, so he stayed. They sat for hours in front of her fire, enjoying each other's company and one of the finer wines from the viscount's cellars first in silence, then in the scattered scraps of conversation that suffice between companions who have weathered so many storms together. Until finally Hawke turned her eyes upon him and said:

"Someone's been trying to court me, I think. Flowers - not lilies, thank the Maker - keep getting sent anonymously to my office."

"What?" That woke him from the drowsy contentment they both seemed to have slipped into. "Why?"

Her bemused smile tactfully pointed out his gaffe. "I - I mean," he stammered, "Of course people want to court you. I shouldn't be surprised. You're a remarkable woman, Hawke, and...and…"

"And the viscountess. And no doubt this mysterious suitor is unaware that I already have a lover, since lately you are so seldom seen with me…"

"You...seemed busy. I thought I should keep out of the way."

"The last time you tried to 'keep out of my way,' that ribbon of mine was the only thing that made me think perhaps you still cared." She touched that ribbon, the favor he still wore in a band of red around his wrist, with a light caress. "So apparently you do now, too."

"Of course I do. I always will, Hawke. Never doubt that."

She looked away, staring into the fire for a long moment, and then finally burst out, "Fenris. Let's get married."

"I - what?!"

Still not looking at him, Hawke continued, "Seneschal Bran has a son, did you know? My mother used to talk about arranging a match between him and me. Now that I'm viscountess, I suspect his father would like to arrange it too. It might explain the flowers."

"Are you...saying you're thinking of marrying the seneschal's son?" Fenris frowned, trying to follow her thoughts. "Or you want me to marry you...so he'll stop pursuing you?"

"No!" she gasped, and laughed in surprise, smiling over at him. "I want to marry you because you are you, my wolf."

Fenris gazed down at their clasped hands and her favor on his wrist. "I am yours, little bird. But do you really want to be married to an elf? A former slave? People will talk. This city needs confidence in its viscountess if it is to recover. I don't want to jeopardize that."

Hawke stood suddenly with a huff of disgust. "This city will keep throwing suitors at its viscountess before it even thinks of recovering. I could be petulant, ugly, unpleasant - I could be as mad as Meredith - they'd still crave a match with power. I want none of it. But they'll keep asking as long as I'm viscountess and I'm eligible. And I'll have to keep turning them down. Because I'm not eligible, really. There's no one I would marry but you."

Her eyes brimmed with tears as he rose and gathered her in his arms, then gathered his thoughts. After a brief silence he said firmly: "I never dared hope to marry. Slaves seldom do, and when I was running, it would have been folly to chain a wife to such peril as I constantly found myself in. So I must apologize; it had never even occurred to me that we might -" He leaned back, looking at her as she brushed at her eyes. "And what human would deign to marry an elf, anyway?"

"Marrying you," Hawke insisted, "is not deigning. I...I wasn't sure I should bring it up. We've been happy as we are, and I thought maybe, marriage vows, pledging yourself to someone, it would be too much like servitude again for you -"

His eyes widened. "Never say it. I am with you by my choice. It is no slavery. In fact, it is -" He shook his head. "Allow me to do this properly," Fenris said as he knelt before her, taking her hand. "Lisbet Hawke. Meeting you changed my life. Never had I dreamed there lived a woman so brave and beautiful - and a mage, yet so wise and good that I could not help but love her and trust her. I thought I had broken my chains when I fled my master, but you alone have made me truly believe I am free." His dark gaze fixed intently on her, taking in her drying tears, her dawning smile. "You know I am yours," he said, "and my place is at your side. If 'husband' is the title that will reserve that place for me, then will you grant it to me, my little bird, and do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

He could never remember exactly when she had said yes (amidst the kisses that inevitably followed) but she must have, for three weeks later they had said their vows to each other, in the presence of what remained of their friends and family, with Sebastian reciting the Chant's blessings upon their union, at Hawke's estate, since the Chantry had yet to be rebuilt. They had been inseparable since...until the day he woke to find her gone to Skyhold.

With that separation over at last, Fenris joined her in sleep, at peace once more.