A/N: Herein is the first of a series of snippets, post-Origins, setting the stage for a longer and more coherent post-Awakening story. Mostly Warden (MAmell)-, Zevran-, and Alistair-centric, romance and friendship (there will be action when I get to the post-Awakening story), but everyone will get their moment eventually. This deals mostly with the breaking of the party. Needless to say, spoilers.

This is my first fanfic in at least six years, so I'm understandably nervous about sharing it, but I do enough original writing that I can take a few hits. Regardless, I hope you enjoy, and if you don't, I'd like to know why so I can fix it

Groaning, because pain and a foul, burnt stench were the first things to assault his senses, Zevran struggled to open his eyes. His head ached with the ferocity of a thousand hangovers, and his left shoulder was disturbingly numb. Beyond this, his vision was blurry, so it took a moment to realize he was laid out under a cloudy sky, the same one he'd been fighting under all day, firelight still reflecting from the cloud bottoms and turning them into the boiling lava of the Deep Roads.

And then the noise started. Cheering, the like of which he'd never heard, as if the stone of the city itself made a joyous sound. Over the din he heard motion around him, people moving in armor. Arl Eamon's voice, Alistair's in response—they didn't make sense just yet.

Just as his vision resolved, Morrigan's scowling face appeared over him. "Ah, I can think of only one sight I would prefer waking to, my dearest witch."

The witch made a sound of disgust. "Not dead, I see. Pity. The Warden will be pleased, at least. Come on." She grabbed his left forearm and rocked back to let him pull himself up, but as soon as Zevran put his full weight on the arm he was on the ground again, hugging the arm to his chest and blinking back tears.

"You have no idea how much it pleases me to hear you scream like that, elf. But under the circumstance, I think we would be better served having you whole." Morrigan prodded the shoulder, and Zevran cried out again, cursing in Antivan. "Well, whole as I can make you, being no real healer. At least this will stop that head wound bleeding, too."

"What-?" A wave of healing magic numbed the pain in his shoulder, though it did little for the dizziness or the pounding in his skull.

"You are currently a redhead, Zevran." Morrigan smiled grimly. "I must say it suits you, but then I only appreciate your natural beauty when you are covered in blood and near death—it usually means your fool mouth is not running, and I may soon be rid of your presence."

"Surely no sweeter compliment has ever been paid me." Morrigan helped him up using his right arm this time, while Zevran did his best to keep the left immobile and close to his body. The world swam momentarily, but he kept his feet under him.

For the moment that Morrigan kept his attention, her smile warmed. "And yet your irreverent self. I understand, now, why he chose you. Care for him well, and if I ever hear you have done otherwise, I will visit countless torments upon you, the like of which your Crows have never conceived."

Zevran drew in a sharp breath. "Then he's-?"

She gestured. "Go look for yourself."

Zevran stumbled over at roughly the same time Alistair reached the Warden's side. Briefly, Zevran noted that the almost-templar was limping, but walking unaided, so it must not be particularly serious. No, the Warden was of more immediate concern.

He was still breathing. Curled against one of the fort's battlements where he'd been thrown by the explosion, and he was still breathing under all that blood. Alive.

"We need a healer," Alistair said. "Morrigan! Morri—where'd she go?"

Zevran only half heard his companion, focused on the fact that the Warden was laying at his feet, alive. Alistair had told him, early in the morning, that one of them would likely die, and why, and Zevran knew it would be the Warden. Cadryn was the most alive of any person Zevran had ever met, but it meant he valued the lives of others even over his own at times. They were such opposites in that, though similar in so many other ways.

"She's not a very good healer, anyway. She just knows the one spell." Zevran smiled, and to those around him it looked maniacal. "He is alive." And then Zevran started laughing.

When the laughter made him so short of breath his head began to swim again, Zevran collapsed to his knees, and he had no idea when the laughter turned to tears, but by the time Alistair was tugging him up from the ground to follow the litter now bearing their Warden, they were tears indeed. A warehouse near the fort had been cleared out and a makeshift infirmary set up, and that was where they were taking the Warden. By the time they got out of Fort Drakon, Zevran had stopped crying, and now stumbled along, dizzy and elated, an idiotic grin on his face.

A slim handful of men and women with magical or medical training manned the warehouse, and those told to tend the Warden were visibly distraught with the responsibility. Zevran's threat of, "If he does not live, neither will you," didn't much help matters, but by the look on his face Alistair was torn between agreement and disapproval—this was his greatest friend, after all. That brought back Zevran's dumb smile.

Zevran knew better than to crowd the infirmary, so he stood a short distance away, just close enough to make good on his threat should Cadryn perish. Someone found Alistair a chair after helping him remove his armor, and started examining his injured leg. He tried to shoo them off, insisting others could use the help more—the concerned look he shot Zevran only widened the elf's psychotic smile—but the healer persisted.

I must look more what people expect of an assassin. Crazed and blood soaked. But the thought drifted loose among a cloud of others, and Zevran didn't dwell on it.

An instant later, Zevran was sitting in a chair that hadn't been there before, curledaround his arm again—he couldn't curl around the pain, because something was wrong with his shoulder, but he did his best—blinking back tears once more. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Wynne told us to get you off your feet. I didn't think..."

"Didn't look like she put more'n a whisker's weight down on you. What-"

"Don't," Zevran hissed, and Oghren's hand stopped in midair. Terrified he'd missed something, Zevran looked up to the Warden, saw Wynne hovering over Cadryn now. The old mage spared him a glance, said something harsh to one of the attendants seeing to the Warden and pointed to Zevran. The attendant immediately broke off and came to them.

Leliana remained, hovering in near-silence, nervous over the almost crazed tension in Zevran's form, but Oghren left immediately. He could stand the sight of their "fearless leader" at death's door—wasn't the first time, though it was probably the worst—but not Zevran, blood soaked and clearly unhinged. As soon as he stepped out of the warehouse Cassius stood, padded up to him, and gave a concerned whine.

"Let's go help those tall sodders clean up the stragglers, huh?" Cassius made a grumbling noise in response, and returned to his spot curled up next to the entrance. "Fine! More for me." Killing more darkspawn would be better than this waiting, easier than confessing any concern.

ooooooo

Late that evening they moved the Warden and all his companions to the palace. It was something akin to house arrest, but after seeing the attention lavished on Alistair and the number of people lined up to get a glimpse of the Warden, Zevran understood: it was more for their protection than anything else. And some time after the move he finally got his shoulder pieced back together with a pretty young mage's gentle telekinesis (it was still the second most painful experience of his life). Apparently it had taken the brunt of his fall when the Archdemon died in a brilliant explosion of energy, and he had landed very close, so a great deal of pressure had managed to shatter part of his shoulder and collar bone. Now the arm was bound to his chest to keep it completely immobile, and would stay so for an uncomfortably long time to keep the pieces from shifting. Magic could only encourage the growth, could not heal bone, especially not so badly damaged.

Zevran closed his eyes to shut out the guest room, settled his forehead on the chair back, still able to feel the cool wood through his bandages, taking great pleasure in the sensation. He wanted more than anything right now to be curled against Cadryn's chest, listening to the man's heartbeat for certainty that the mage yet lived, his good hand twined in Cadryn's fingers. Surprising, that he did not fantasize about the mage's jest, his first challenge, entering Zevran's game of wordplay as a competitor as opposed to a victim, After I ravish you in celebration? It had caught him off guard, because the Warden had always responded stoically to any flirtation or verbal joust. Cracks in the mask, to the man beneath the Warden, to Cadryn. It was after that Zevran had been more forthcoming, because he had but one weapon to wield against someone so strong: truth. I will see more of the stranger beneath the Warden, he had thought, and alternately the truth of me will push him away or the truth of me will draw his pity.

Neither. Sympathy and understanding, not pity. But opening up all his old wounds for the Warden had the desired effect, and once he had it Zevran nearly ran away screaming. Because the man beneath the Warden made him want to live. Selfless care, but not to the point of naivete, and the power and confidence were no show to keep his little team together. The parts of Warden he admired and respected were real, and the personality behind it shared his sick appreciation of schadenfreude, ironic without being jaded. That Cadryn was one of those try-anything-once people and had never been out of the Circle for more than a handful of hours before becoming a Grey Warden had been exciting enough already, and the thought that he could show Cadryn so much more of life in the peace ahead seemed a pleasant dream.

"Hey," soft. "You were drifting." More care in that voice than he was used to. But the poke accompanying the words was irksome.

Zevran groaned. "Are you going to stop that any time soon?"

He could hear Alistair's smirk. "Would you rather I wake you up every hour, on the hour? Less chance of you slipping off when no one's looking, this way."

The way Alistair said slipping off made it sound as if they were afraid Zevran would vanish like Morrigan had. He had no such intentions, but Alistair was right all the same. After so sincerely wanting his own death, to have it frighten him anew was more than a little distressing. But Cadryn had lived, somehow, and he must as well. If that meant spending the entire night with Alistair prodding him and saying inane things to keep him aware when blood loss and exhaustion and the concussion made it hard to stay awake, then he would be grateful that the not-quite-templar cared enough about Cadryn that his care extended to Zevran.

"I'm going to regret asking this," Alistair started, "but what are you thinking about?"

What to say? I just want to hold him right now or I am certain, if I described my thoughts to you, the resulting nosebleed would be so catastrophic as to kill you, and it would be a shame to survive the Archdemon only to be slain by secondhand embarrassment. Perhaps, I am grateful for your presence, even if it is in friendship to Cadryn and not to me or Whether you would have the gall to continue poking me if I broke all your fingers. Maybe, I wanted to die, and my chosen method of suicide saved me, how do you come to terms with such a thing or How very grateful I am that it is my shoulder that was injured and not my face.

In the end Zevran said, "We are alive, my friend. I am simply basking in the glory of it."

That for once Alistair did not object to being called a friend made the next several hours more bearable.