Chapter Text
Hawke kept to her room for three days.
Whatever Bodahn or Orana placed in front of her she ate without tasting. Bathing seemed unnecessary, so she didn’t do it. She slept a great deal, but her rest was plagued by nightmares.
Somehow even the nightmares were better than her reality upon waking.
She vaguely remembered speaking to Gamlen, and to Aveline. You know where to find me if you want to talk about it. I understand if you don’t. The particulars of these conversations were all but lost to her, though, dimmed by the fog of her grief. In many ways they seemed less real to her than her dreams.
If she remembered the conversations with Gamlen and Aveline, she’d have to remember what those conversations were about, after all.
She’d have to remember white lilies and pools of blood and Alessa’s bleached hair and dead eyes. She’d have to remember what came next.
She’d have to remember crooked stitches and a madman’s smile and you’ve always made me so proud.
She couldn’t do it. So she stayed in her room, where food was brought to her and her bed was always at hand. She stayed in her room so she wouldn’t have to pass the doorway at the top of the staircase. From the safety of her room Hawke could imagine her mother downstairs, warming her hands by the fire, laughing, singing the little songs she always sang half under her breath and always out of tune.
On the fourth day, Bodahn brought her a note, though he looked almost reluctant to hand it over. The paper was fine, carrying the faintest smell of the chantry incense she always associated with Sebastian. Flipping open the seal—the red wax also reminiscent of the chantry—with the edge of her thumbnail, she unfolded the letter. It was petty of her, perhaps, but she steeled herself for platitudes, for a quote from the Chant, for empty words. Instead, in Sebastian’s clear, elegant script, she saw only a few heartfelt lines.
When you’re ready, and not before. Whatever you need. I’m here. S.
She closed her eyes, swallowing against the sudden flood of emotion, fighting the tears threatening to fall.
She hadn’t cried yet. She couldn’t start now.
She knew if she started, she’d never stop.
Folding the letter once again into its precise thirds, she tucked it into her belt-pouch and rose. The bed called to her; she ignored it. Striding to the sideboard, she poured tepid water into a basin and splashed her face. It wasn’t quite the bath she needed, but it would do.
Hawke stood before the door for several minutes, breathing in and out, in and out, before raising her hand. Once her fingers closed around the handle she had to breathe through yet another attack of nerves, of grief.
She jerked the door open.
The world didn’t end.
Keeping her eyes resolutely turned forward, she strode quickly toward the staircase. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look. Holding tight to the banister, she stumbled down the steps. Her mabari raised his head, but she didn’t meet his eyes; they were too sad.
“Messere! H-how… how nice to see you. I wasn’t expecting… shall I… shall I get you some food? Some nice wine?”
Hawke shook her head. The lure of her bed was still too strong; she had to get away from it. Reaching into her pouch, she withdrew the letter. “Did he deliver this himself?”
“Ahh, yes, messere. He… he did wish to see you, but understood when I said you’d asked to be left alone.”
She didn’t remember that, but she supposed it must be true. So many things were blurry. She supposed she might have said any number of things she no longer remembered saying, and after Gamlen, she’d certainly hadn’t wanted to speak with anyone. He’d been so wounded. So angry.
But then, she could hardly blame him for that.
“Sorry,” said Sandal, his voice low and mournful, his big eyes wide with unrestrained grief.
She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t.
Bodahn’s sharp gaze missed nothing. “You might still catch him, messere.”
“I… yes. I might.”
Puppy (named by Bethany; not her most creative moment) raised his head and whuffed, but she gestured for him to remain by the fire. The same fire in the same hearth. The same writing desk, with all the same blighted correspondence she had yet to deal with. Heart in her throat, she glanced across the room and saw someone had thought discard the vase of white lilies. Thank the Maker.
“Messere,” Bodahn said hesitantly, “would you like me to deal with… with her things? I would have asked before, but—if you’d rather, my boy and I can—”
“No!” Hawke snapped, too sharp, too harsh. She knew the dwarf meant well, meant to spare her, but still the rage boiled in her veins, made her dizzy. “No, just… just leave it. Leave everything.”
Bodahn bowed his head.
“Leave it,” she repeated, and anger did what grief could not: it pushed her toward the front door, and out into the world again.
#
Blinking in the sudden sunlight, Hawke raised a hand to shade her eyes. It seemed wrong, somehow, to find the world so bright after… after everything. She wanted grey skies and pounding rain. She wanted to slog through mud. Indeed, the fine weather was nearly enough to drive her back to the safe darkness of her estate. Instead, she took one step and then a second, allowing her feet to take her toward the chantry. She pretended not to hear when one of her neighbors called out. She didn’t want greetings. She didn’t want condolences.
With her eyes turned resolutely forward, she nearly walked past Sebastian entirely. At the last moment, he turned and the sun caught the white enamel of his armor. It was enough to give her pause, enough to stop the endless circling thoughts of should have been and might have been and Maker, I came too late. He’d been kneeling, she saw, speaking with one of the urchin children who sometimes begged outside Hightown’s noble estates. As she watched, the child pocketed a glinting coin and darted away, disappearing into shadows with her prize.
Sebastian's eyes caught hers as he bent to brush the dirt from his knees, and she saw sorrow flit behind them. “Hawke.”
She nodded, suddenly at a loss. Folding her hands in front of her, she twisted her fingers together tightly because she didn’t know what else to do with them. It seemed foolish to have run immediately after him because he’d written her a one-line note. She was all too aware of her dirty hair and the clothes she ought to have changed. Whatever you need, his note had said.
But he couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she needed. He couldn’t erase what had already been done.
Sebastian’s blue gaze missed nothing, and after only a moment’s hesitation he strode over to her and offered one arm. Uncomprehending, she only stared at it.
“Walk with me, Hawke?”
Again she nodded, slowly uncurling her fingers and looping one arm through his. Her hands shook. She was close enough now to smell the familiar incense clinging to his clothing, layered with the scents of his soap and his skin and the resin and oil he used on his bow. She felt something shift within her, bringing her once again dangerously close to tears, as he tucked her arm close to him.
“You needn’t speak, if you don’t wish to,” Sebastian continued, his tone too light and conversational and careful. “It is good to see you.”
“I… got your note.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears, hollow and rough with disuse, but if he noticed, Sebastian did not remark upon it.
She stopped abruptly, forcing Sebastian to stop with her, and causing someone behind them to curse under their breath when they nearly collided. Frowning, she glanced down at her feet. “I don’t know what to do. I want… I want to… I wish I could kill him all over again. I wish I could make it hurt more.” Her words tasted of bile, of hate.
Sebastian merely nodded. “I understand.”
She tilted her chin up. Instead of the pity she dreaded, she saw only grim compassion. “You do.” It wasn’t a question. Breathing deeply, she continued, “It doesn’t seem quite real. I keep thinking she’s just… away. I have no idea where she’d have gone but—” Shaking her head, she said, “Just before I left, Bodahn asked me if I wanted him to go through her things, and I nearly took his head off. I can’t explain it. It was so sudden, so visceral.”
“He wants to make things easier for you.”
“I know.”
“He… doesn’t realize he can’t.”
“I… I know. Just like I know I have to be the one to… to box up her clothing and throw away the detritus she’s collected. Not that there’s much of that, given how much we ran, and how suddenly we left Kirkwall. Still, I know it’s something I have to do. Me, and no one else. And yet I don’t want to do it. I want to kill something. I want to pound my fist into the face of some deserving bastard until I feel better.”
“There are always slavers on the Wounded Coast.”
Her lips twitched. “True enough.”
Inclining his head, he said, “My bow is yours if you require it.”
“It is tempting,” she replied, because it was. If she was lost in the heat and whirl and burn of battle, she wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to remember. “But I—”
He said nothing. He didn’t have to. The concern and the genuine sorrow in his eyes spoke volumes.
Her throat felt tight. “I need to go through her things. I feel like the longer I put it off, the harder it will be. I feel like… I feel like if I don’t do it soon, it won’t ever start feeling real.”
For several long moments Sebastian was silent. She watched the ghosts walk behind his eyes; she almost recognized their faces. She wondered if he saw similar phantoms in hers. Mother. Father. Carver. Bethany in the Circle and all but dead to her now. Very softly he said, “I understand that as well.”
Gently she extracted her arm from his. “But I wanted to thank you. For the note. It… just… thank you. It seemed really important that I thank you.”
Touching his fingers gently to the back of her hand, he said, “Forgive me the platitude, but it will become more bearable. In time.”
She nodded and turned back toward her own manor, thinking of the door at the top of the stairs and the darkened room behind it. “Sebastian?”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
A long pause. “In the afternoon.”
“Good,” she said. “We’ll shoot together.”
Even with the trials ahead, she walked away feeling lighter than she had in days.