So, I kept starting this piece and not finishing it, but I finally got inspired to do so. I put Hawke with Merill in one of my other stories, but I find it so hard to chose between her and Isabela, that I wanted to show our favorite pirate some love too. I hope you enjoy it.

She waited until after dark before entering the estate. It was easy enough. There were no guards posted outside, and while the door was locked, she'd learned long ago how to pick it. There was a time when she wouldn't have had to come in this way. She could have arrived in the middle of the day, knocked, and introduced herself like a respectable visitor. But that was then and after everything that she'd done, Isabela was further than ever from respectable.

So instead, she crept into the silent house in the dead of night. It was even more well-appointed as she remembered, expensive art and fine weapons adorning the walls, with soft carpets to cushion her steps. Hawke had come so far that the pirate could barely picture the hovel in Lowtown she'd been living in when they'd first met. Her rise hadn't been without its costs though. This house had felt empty ever since Leandra's murder. The woman may not have approved of Isabela or her relationship with Hawke, but she had made the estate seem more like a home than a museum.

She was almost at the staircase before she saw the woman standing atop it. Her back was turned, and for a moment, Isabela wasn't sure that she'd been noticed. But then she heard that voice, the one that she'd spent the last three years trying and failing to get out of her head.

"Isabela." The word was harsh as it left Hawke's lips. The open warmth that the pirate captain had enjoyed so much was gone, replaced with anger and distance.

"That's me," she laughed, but the response was forced. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd hoped for tonight, but that one word had already told her she wasn't going to get it.

"You tripped the wards," Hawke said, answering the unasked question as she turned around. Maker, but she looked beautiful. Slim and pale, her long, dark hair flowing unbound down her back, her purple silk robe clinging to her skin: every delicious experience they'd shared ran through Isabela's head. But then there was that staff in her hand, and the dark look in her violet eyes banishing her erotic thoughts back to memory.

"You never used to set those," she quipped, trying to keep her nervousness out of her voice.

"I never needed to. Now, as the Champion of Kirkwall, I attract all sorts of unwanted attention. Assassins, cultists, pirates…"

Once that statement would have been playful, but now the harshness behind it was undeniable. Clearly, Isabela had made a mistake coming back. Turning on her heel, she tossed off a final, "I didn't realize I was such bad company," as she strode towards the front door.

She didn't make it. Behind her, she heard the knock of a wooden staff on the floor and the pirate walked straight into a wall of glimmering force. "No," Hawke insisted, the authority she'd become accustomed to wielding filling her voice. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to throw the entire city into chaos, run off for three years, and then just sneak back into my house in the dead of night without some kind of an explanation as to why you're here."

Why had she come? To see if Hawke was all right? To see if she'd found someone else? Because she wanted to be with her again? Isabela couldn't explain it to herself, let alone her former lover, and so she fell back on her standard facade. "I washed up in town and I thought we might have some fun," she offered, but the smile on her face was even more forced than her laugh had been.

"Some fun!" Rage started to crack the ice around Hawke's words. Magic played wild and bright at her fingertips, and for the first time since she'd met her, Isabela was afraid. She knew what her lover was capable of, but until that moment, the pirate had never believed that she was capable of hurting her. "Is that all you have to offer?"

"What else do you want from me? You want to talk about what happened before I left? About the relic and the Qunari?" The pirate threw up her hands, resisting the urge to reach for her daggers as she did. She wouldn't attack Hawke, not even to try and save herself. She'd cut her enough in other ways. "I lied to you. I did it because I was scared and I was selfish. But you always knew that about me. You can't blame me for being who I am."

"No," Hawke answered. "That's not what I meant either." The anger in her voice had ebbed a little bit, replaced by something else than ran even deeper. "I want to know why you came back. The real reason, not the bullshit you just tried to feed me."

It was sadness, that other thing, and it elicited from Isabela what fear could not: some measure of honesty. "I missed you a bit." She paused, looking into Hawke's eyes for some hint of her response and summoning what strength she could, she continued. "More than a bit, really."

"Then why go?" There was no malice in the question now, only the sorrow she'd sensed before. "Why did you leave me alone to deal with these people?"

"Because I was ashamed, all right." Isabela had the distinctly unpleasant feeling of guilt roiling her gut. This was why she tried to avoid having feelings. Sometimes, though, the sneaky little bastards got you when you least expected it. "You were the one decent person who'd ever trusted me and I let you down. So I spent three years running, and drinking, and hoping that if I sank low enough I'd forget what I did. But it didn't work." She shook her head. "Bloody hells but it really didn't work. I was miserable, and that's why I came back."

"'Bela." What Hawke used to call her when they were alone. A name she'd heard moaned in passion a hundred times and now whispered more softly. "I didn't realize…"

"Well, you asked." She laughed bitterly. "So how've your last three years been?"

The question seemed to break something in Hawke. The mage stumbled, tossing her staff against the wall in frustration as she sank to her knees. "Everything's falling apart," she screamed. "Meredith's out of control, squeezing the mages so hard they're going to explode. Anders is having a breakdown. Fenris keeps threatening to kill him. I'm losing Merrill to that damned mirror. And you left me. You left me alone to deal with all of them and I don't know if I can do it."

She wanted to run. That was Isabela's default move in these situations. Things would start to collapse, and she'd make sure she to abandon ship before she drowned. The only problem was, that hadn't worked out so well last time, and so she tried something different. She dashed up the stairs and before Hawke could stop her, she wrapped her arms around her lithe form.

"Hey," she started, trying desperately to think of something to say to make things better, "It can't be that bad. I mean, you've still got Aveline, right?"

Hawke shuddered in her arms, her words coming out in between her tears. "It's not the same. She's not you."

"I'm not that special," she protested. "I'm just…"

She didn't get to finish. Instead, Hawke turned in her arms and took hold of her head. Isabela's brain screamed that this was dangerous, but her body reacted anyway, drawing their lips together. The sweet heat of those kisses had haunted her dreams and now she could do nothing but drink it in. No one had ever kissed her way that Hawke did, pouring every bit of herself into the embrace, making Isabela feel like she was so much more than just a quick fuck in the back of a tavern.

"Take me to bed, Bela," she pleaded when the kiss ended.

The touch of those lips had already inflamed her, and after three long years, her body ached at thought. And yet, she feared she'd only hurt Hawke once more. "Are you sure…", she asked.

"Please."

She could hear the depths of Hawke's desperation, and at the sound, her reluctance collapsed. Isabela drew her to her feet, and as she led her down the hallway, the mage clung to her like a drowning woman to rope.

They stumbled into the bedroom, Hawke's hands fumbling with the ties of her shirt until she gave up and just yanked the garment over her head. Isabela was pulled down onto the bed, falling on top of Hawke, her bare breast sliding into her lover's mouth. Her back arched as sweet lips wrapped around the nipple and sucked on it. She had tried to deny the truth but no one else's touch had the same electric effect on her, and between her legs, she felt a long-buried heat rising.

She pulled open Hawke's robe and beneath it, there was only a pair of plain, black smallclothes covering the pale skin she adored. One of her hands cupped a perfect breast while her other caressed Hawke's inner thigh. She growled and Isabela trembled at the desperate sound. Knowing how much she'd been missed stirred a strange mix of guilt and desire in her.

She didn't want to think about it and so instead, she latched her teeth onto Hawke's bare neck, nipping at the soft flesh. A mewling sound pushed Isabela onwards, and she yanked down her lover's smalls, exposing her sex. It was already glistening and when her finger ran along the outer lips, it came away sticky with her arousal.

"Don't tease me," Hawke whimpered. Usually, her lover liked to be taken slowly, but not tonight. Tonight, she was hungry, and Isabela slid two fingers inside, groaning when slick heat clamped down around her. She stroked Hawke's face, kissing her over and over while she claimed her. She'd tried to deny that her heart belonged to the woman who had become the Champion, and failed. Now she needed the proof that Hawke belonged to her too, and with each desperate push of those hips against her hand, she was getting it.

"Maker, yes," she purred. Hawke's eyes were lidded, her mouth open, and her body tense with her building climax. "You look so delicious like that. Makes me want to eat you up." Isabela's mouth closed around a stiff, pink nipple while her thumb drew Hawke's swollen clit out from beneath it's hood and pressed down against it, tracing small circles as her fingers explored inside. A pale hand clutched at her bare thigh, squeezing down harder with each thrust she made. "Oh, Bela," Hawke moaned, "Please. I need… I need…"

She kept repeating the words until they collapsed into screams of pleasure, her body going rigid as she soaked Isabela's hand. Hawke pulsed around her again and again until at last she collapsed into the bed. Her breath was coming in sharp gasps, and she sobbed with relief, tears running down her beautiful face. The sight of it made Isabela's heart hurt and she started to say something, but before she could, Hawke reached up and grabbed hold of her shoulders, flipping her onto her back.

Hawke didn't bother removing Isabela's skirt or even her boots, instead undoing her smalls and going straight for what she wanted. Isabela could do nothing but spread her legs and let Hawke have it; she was too turned on to consider anything else. Teeth clamped down on her inner thigh, hard enough to send a delicious jolt to her core, before being replaced with soft lips. She moaned at the contrast, and before she knew it, a hungry tongue was drawing near to her sex, lapping up the wetness that was already spilling out of her.

"Andraste's tits, Hawke," she mumbled, "I though I was the impatient one." But it seemed as if the other woman barely heard her. She needed this, to take the pirate as she'd been taken, and so Isabela lay back and enjoyed the voyage.

Hawke's tongue slipped past the tight muscle of her entrance, drinking her arousal straight from the source, before moving up to find her clit. She lashed it with her tongue, travelling up and down the shaft in the way she knew Isabela liked best. She tangled her hands in her lover's long, dark hair, silently urging her onwards, though Hawke hardly needed the encouragement. She drew the throbbing bud between her lips, sucking on it roughly while gripping Isabela's full ass, pulling them as close together as she could.

Already, Isabela felt the familiar warmth spreading out from her core, and Hawke was giving her no respite. Two fingers slide easily inside of her, fucking her hard as that wonderful tongue kept working. "Maker, yes," she screamed as she unraveled, her thighs tensing around the head between them and her grip tightening, but even as her release coated Hawke's lips, the mage didn't stop.

She feasted on Isabela like she was starving, refusing to relinquish her clit, licking and sucking her through one peak after another. Every time the pirate thought she was spent, her lover would draw more pleasure out of her, working her with a relentless skill. By the end, Isabela felt as if her whole body was charged with lightning, the shocks of her final climax spreading all the way to her fingertips and toes before they left her lying in a boneless heap on the bed.

She was too dazed to really notice when Hawke pulled off her boots and tossed aside her sticky skirt, but when the Champion fell into her arms, she managed to wrap her arms around her slim form. At first, Hawke just nuzzled her head against Isabela's breasts, but before either of them could get too comfortable, a question broke the silence.

"Was that what you wanted?", Hawke asked, and Isabela couldn't tell what she was supposed to say.

"Maybe," she tried. "It was…" Maker, but it was so much easier to get Hawke off than to tell her how she felt. How could she explain that she'd spent three years craving this and yet fearing the strength of her need? She'd always thought that one partner was more or less as good as the next, and she'd been so very wrong. No one else had ever made her feel the way she did right now. "It was bloody incredible," she finally confessed.

"Are you leaving again?" The vulnerability Hawke had shown after her climax was gone now, replaced once more with the hard shell of a woman determined not to let herself be hurt any worse than she already had been.

"Do you want me to stay?", she asked, not even sure what answer she wanted to hear.

Hawke turned away from her, burying her face in the pillows. "Stay if you want to. I'm not some charity case you need to pity fuck if you don't."

"I'd never think that," she protested. "I just… Fuck, I'm no good at this, Hawke," she blurted out, giving voice to the doubts that had nagged at her for so long. "I'm no good for anyone. How can you want me to stay after what I did?"

She sighed as she said the words, but before she could surrender entirely to her fears, Hawke caught her, her hand wrapping in her hair while she claimed her lips once more. "I don't know," she admitted when the kiss was done, "I don't know if there's any way to fix the past. But I don't care anymore. Something bad is coming, and I just want you here with me, helping me to face it."

"You make it sound like such fun," she joked weakly, but she already knew what her answer would be. She'd spent most of her life running from trouble, but this was different. This was worth fighting for, and so smiled and said, "I'm in. I guess this time, the captain goes down with the ship." She might as well. Without Hawke, she'd been drowning anyway.