This is a shorty short end chapter. I can't believe this is over! Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed! I appreciate you more than I can say! I hope my wonderful readers will continue along with me in Part 2, where Cullen and Hawke reunite four years down the road in Skyhold.

Avery was grateful for the rain on the boat ride back to Kirkwall. While Varric and the others huddled under a sail, trying to dodge the spray of the storm, Avery sat exposed on the bench, letting the fat, wet drops soak her to the skin. She wasn't sure what of it all came from the sea and what came from the sky, and she didn't really care. She let her own tears join the deluge, blending right in with the streaming water already pouring from her hair and running down her face. Her companions had looked at her with concern when they boarded, asking gently if she was okay, confused at her reaction to the end of the battle. But she'd only made a point of turning her back to them and sitting alone. Under normal circumstances, she'd be leading them to the Hanged Man and buying them all a pint. But now she wasn't sure if the Hanged Man even still existed. And even if it did, she couldn't imagine sitting amongst her friends and trying to act like she was holding it together.

Of all the times to have her heart shattered, to do so immediately after the longest, hardest battle of her life, and the destruction of the city she called home, just seemed extra cruel.

Of course Cullen wouldn't just leave the Order behind. She'd probably been a fool to believe that he ever actually would. It was likely that once they'd fled together, boarded the ships that he said he'd hated so much, that he'd have second thoughts, that he'd change his mind and try to return. He had duties, and he'd known nothing other than the Order since he was thirteen years old. Would it have been better to have the heartbreak come late? After she'd sent all her letters and bid her friends a last goodbye? Or was it better to have it just all done at once? So many old problems solved in one single day, and so many new ones just begun. It seemed petty that the loss of a man was the the straw that broke her back, after her hand in the Chantry explosion, after the carnage she and her friends just endured. After the rubble that their home was reduced to. But there it was. The tears streaming down her cheeks were not for the mages or Elthina or Kirkwall. They were for herself and her demolished, bloody heart. She allowed herself the boat ride to wallow, and when it finally docked in Kirkwall, she wiped her face dry and plunged once again into chaos, joining the mages there in mending wounds and digging people free, working til her fingers bled and no corner of Kirkwall had been left unturned.

Avery opened her Hightown door to Fenris, and he greeted her warmly as he walked inside, squinting into the darkness. The morning sun was bright beyond the door but the interior of her estate was only navigable by candle light. The blast from the Chantry had knocked out windows in all of Hightown, and hers were freshly boarded up, blocking out all but the smallest slivers of sun. Brutus pranced around the main room, wiggling a joyful hello at Fenris and clearly sensing that something momentous was about to happen.

Avery had her pack ready, fully loaded and sitting next to her new sofa. If she had known that sofa would have gotten so little use before it was draped in a sheet and left behind, she wouldn't have bothered buying it to begin with. She winced against a memory of a night sitting uncomfortably on the floor in front of her fire, of the scent of golden skin and hair as it rested up against her, and she hastened her movements, drawing her focus away from the emotional memory with physical action.

She rushed around, closing the doors to all the rooms in the house, and paused for a moment outside her mother's bedroom. Tentatively, hesitantly, she turned the latch and let the door swing open. She still hadn't set foot in the room since that terrible day a few years ago. It was Fenris who had entered in order to clean up the shattered glass and board the window the day before, but now finally she began her own first step inside.

It was dark, the glow of her candle flickering in the mirror above her mother's vanity, illuminating almost nothing else. The furniture remained only a collection of dark shadows along the walls, though Avery remembered exactly what was there. Her mother's hair brush still sat on the vanity, still full of strands of brown hair. A book sat on the bedside table, a ribbon marking the last page that she'd read. Her nightgown was draped over a chair in the corner. Avery took a deep breath, savoring the last floral wisps of the remaining scent of her mother, and she closed her eyes, conjuring up a picture of the way her mother had been before, wanting to see not the monstrosity she was turned into at the hands of the murderer, but the kind, laughing woman who had always been ready with a warm hug, and who'd remained her daughter's biggest cheerleader until her final day. Avery smiled sadly, and then backed out, closing the door once again.

Everything was done. It was three days since the fight at the Gallows, since the last time she had seen Cullen. Once the rescue attempt was over, which wasn't until well into the next day, she came directly home and before she bathed, before she slept, she'd finished what she was doing when Anders had let himself into her bedroom. Her clothes still sat in a pile on her bed, her half filled pack behind them. The letter from Orsino asking her to come to the Gallows sat upon the blanket. As weary and bloody as she was, she'd simply brushed away the dust and particles of glass, and kept packing as though nothing had ever interrupted her. She knew there was no way she could stay in Kirkwall, even if she'd wanted to. Fenris expected her to leave with him now, and that is what she would do.

The food in the larders had been donated to the victims' shelters. Bodahn and Sandal had departed the day before on a ship headed to Orlais. All the windows were boarded up and the vault had been locked tight. Aveline had keys to everything and would be kept apprised of their whereabouts. Varric assured them that somewhere down the line, he'd try to meet up with them. There was nothing left to do. She took one last look around her estate, bidding a quiet farewell to her old life.

"Are you ready?" Fenris asked.

Avery nodded and set down the candle, picking up her pack and securing it to her back. She still felt numb and drained, like she'd left a huge chunk of herself behind in the wreckage of the city somewhere. She still hadn't quite dealt with much of what happened at the Gallows, or allowed herself to feel any more of the loss of Cullen, of the future she'd imagined for them both for such a short, precious period of time. And she knew that it would likely work itself out of her system on the road, probably at some unexpected, inopportune moment. She'd warned Fenris of that and he was as understanding as always. He was, after all, no stranger to his own emotional roadblocks and disturbing memories. Avery knew that even if all he could offer was his quiet companionship in the face of her inevitable breakdown, it would be a comfort she would appreciate. Maybe she'd even finally tell Fenris the full truth of everything that had happened.

"Have you decided where we're going yet?" he asked.

"Let's go somewhere we've never been before," Avery answered. "What do you know about Nevarra?"

"I know that it is too close to Tevinter," he smirked unhappily.

"Antiva, then?"

"Also close to Tevinter."

"Yes but there are mountains in the way, aren't there?"

"Technically."

"Fine, then we'll just head west along the sea. As long as you're okay with the fact that we'll probably end up in Orlais," she said.

Fenris snorted. "And why would I mind Orlais? It is not near Tevinter."

"Oh, pomp and circumstance and all that. I never quite liked the whole mask business myself," Avery said.

"If it is that disagreeable then we'll just keep moving," he shrugged.

"Okay then." Avery sighed. She motioned Brutus out the door, and locked it up tight.