Work Text:
When you fly away
Will you hit the ground?
It's an awful sound
--
Sometimes Anders felt like he was Justice, but with Anders’ memories.
Other times, he felt like he was Anders, but with Justice’s memories.
Usually he would fall into a medium somewhere between the two. The memories and thoughts in his mind were wooden dice on a table that would tilt just so, back and forth, sometimes Justice side up and sometimes Anders side up.
Then he saw the Arishok plunge a sword into Hawke’s stomach, and the entire table flipped over and the dice scattered everywhere.
Justice side up.
Shifting into the part of himself that was a dream was a truly odd sensation. The closest thing his mortal thoughts could compare it to was that frightening half-conscious moment between a deep dream and wakefulness; when one’s body is screaming at them to move but the other half of them is still asleep and all of their limbs are paralyzed. Usually Anders had time to prepare, to slide into the dreamsuit like a familiar outfit, to shift from moving as a human to moving as a spirit. But sometimes the switch was too sudden, and the dream would move on its own accord and that always left Anders a bit disoriented. That was the case now, as so many feelings and emotions and sensations and memories came forward, all the dice tumbling together into one dark corner, and that’s how he became Justice, then, crackling blue with electric song and fury, and he went to leap down the stairs and fight the Arishok himself.
The bits of Anders-the-mortal that were still scattered in his brain scrambled about, trying to take control. Not to hold back, of course, never to hold back if Hawke was in danger, but just to have something to hang onto. He’d almost had it when Aveline was on him, and Fenris, and Varric, and Merrill, all grabbing him and desperately trying to keep him from interfering with the duel, and all the Anders mind pieces went skittering back into all the corners of his thoughts, and Justice, his dream-self, his spirit-self, fought back all thunder and storm, and now a Qunari was holding him back too, and—
And then—
And then something happened.
Everyone stopped and looked over, and Anders-as-Justice did too, and Hawke was there, doubled over, bleeding out but alive, and she’d cast a spell or some sort that had the Arishok stumbling about, casting this way and that, clawing at his skin—
Anders took the opportunity to take control of his dream-form as the Arishok fell over, howling in pain, steaming blood seeping from his every orifice, and Hawke climbed atop him, drove a dagger into his neck, and then she fell—
—she fell and Anders wrenched himself free from the grasp of the others and ran to her side.
Not Marian. Not Marian. Maker, if you try to take her from me, I will claw my way back to her and tear her away from you myself.
She was unconscious on the ground. Dark, crimson blood pooled beneath her, its sickly stench hanging in the air. Anders needed mortal memories to heal her, and he needed them fast. But he was in control now, at last, and his mind frantically scooped up all the thought-dice and laid them out, Anders side up, Anders side up, Anders side up. There— he was mortal again, for a moment, as he dropped to his knees beside her, and he was terrified as mortals often are, but he forced himself to shove that aside and his hands lit up with the warm glow of healing energy and he reached into the Fade and plucked out a thread of creation and then, tenderly, began to piece Hawke back together.
This was familiar. He had done this in his clinic, over and over again. He reached inside Hawke with a thought, with the Fade instead of with hands, and he surveyed the damage and closed wounds and patched flesh and carefully melded bones back together. He couldn’t do it alone, and he had spirits around him helping; little wisp-like creatures that flitted about like concerned nurses, reattaching a vein here, doing delicate needlework with nerves over there.
Anders gently ran the threads of the Fade along Hawke’s internal organs, checking to make sure that absolutely nothing was missed. He felt her heart, oh! That beautiful, fierce heart she had, and it was healthy and unharmed and beating softly as he brushed his thoughts across it with all the tenderness he held within himself, and he actually had to stop and choke back love, a sudden and powerful burst of emotion that he forced himself to hold back so he could continue his work.
Again he cast his healing spells, and again, and again, and then he felt himself scraping the edges of his insides for the very last of his mana, but he wasn’t done so he grabbed a lyrium potion from his pouch and drank it and then and then went back to work. Finally, finally he felt satisfied that Hawke was no longer in any danger of immediately dying, and then he reached into his pouch again and produced a bandage roll and he wound it around her middle, tenderly, because she had lost a lot of blood and every last drop that she still had was precious, and he wouldn’t take any chances.
He couldn’t continue any of his healing here, he realized. He had to go home, where he had more tools.
So he reached down and scooped Hawke up in his arms, holding her gently against his chest. She stirred, then, but only just before she lost consciousness again, and Anders tilted his head forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Rest, love,” he whispered, and he stood.
He wasn’t paying attention to his other friends as they stood back and watched with wide, enraptured eyes, but he did see Knight-Commander Meredith when she and Orsino suddenly arrived. His entire being filled with a sort of dark hatred, then, because there she was, the orchestrator of so many grave injustices, mage killer, leader of the wicked, subduer of the innocent.
Someday, he and Hawke were going to kill her.
He and Hawke, together, and his heart was a little ball of warmth and love amidst the inky shadows of his hatred for all injustice, and he clung onto that and walked past Meredith, ignoring her and refusing to give her the satisfaction of making some sort of statement.
He carried Hawke, then, out of the keep and down the streets of Hightown and up to her mansion. The others followed, making sure no one bothered them, at least until they got to front door. Then they dispersed, except for Varric, who followed them inside. Varric, it seemed, knew that Anders was in no state to talk or explain anything, so he took it upon himself to summarize things to Bodahn while Anders carried his precious charge upstairs and into their room, and then he gently laid her on the bed.
He shut the door, wanting some semblance of privacy, and he shed his feathered green coat, which was soaked with Hawke’s blood. He approached the bed and carefully removed her armor, piece by piece. He saved the frock she wore— her father’s— for last. It was sticky with blood and sweat and a few faintly glowing lyrium stains, and Anders’ bandages were wound around the middle, where the Arishok’s sword had pierced her. Gently Anders removed the bloodied bandage and then the robe, unfastening the back and carefully tugging it off. Next, he took a pitcher of water that was on the desk, dipped a cloth in it, and softly washed the blood away from her skin as best as he could. He worked another quick healing spell, checking, making sure that she was still stable and making a few adjustments. Finally he pulled a crate out of the closet; within were several emergency medical materials that he liked to have on hand. From this he produced a mortar and pestle, a packet of dried herbs, and some potions, and he mixed these together to create a poultice which he gently rubbed onto Hawke’s wound. Finally, he wound her up in fresh bandages and tugged a loose shirt on her— one of his shirts, in fact. She was starting to stir, again, and as much as Anders wanted to talk to her, he knew it was imperative that she rest, so he returned to the desk, mixed up a thin elixir, and then returned to Hawke’s side, where he propped her up, carefully, and held the liquid to her lips. She was only half-conscious and she struggled a bit, but he tilted the cup into her mouth so she could have a sip, and then moments later she passed out again, into Anders’ arms this time. Good. He kissed the top of her head and then, gently, laid her back down on the bed and pulled a thin sheet up to her chin.
She’d survived.
She’d survived, and Anders was brimming with love and relief.
He pulled the desk chair over to the edge of the bed and sat down. And then, because it was well into the night and he was exhausted from effort, he fell asleep.
The dreams about the Blight and the Archdemon seemed to come less frequently since he and Justice became one.
And when they did come, they ended earlier than they used to, the countless darkspawn hordes fought off by spirits, who seemed to have become fond of Anders.
They almost always called him “Justice,” which was fine with Anders, because that is what he was now, after all.
He wondered, sometimes, if the spirits— if Justice— would slow the inevitable darkspawn taint in his blood and put off his Calling. Yes, the Calling, that awful thing that claimed all Wardens in the end, and which would occasionally find its way into his thoughts when all was quiet and he could sometimes pick out darkspawn song the same way he could pick out lyrium song when he was Justice in Amaranthine. He hadn’t told Hawke about it yet. He wondered if she already knew. He’d certainly heard various rumors about the Wardens’ traditional grisly fate when he was young.
If she knew, she hadn’t asked about it.
In fact, she was probably intending to walk into the Deep Roads and find and kill the two remaining old gods herself to prevent his Calling from ever occurring.
Anders smiled, here in the Fade.
Spirits drifted around him, having repelled the darkspawn from his dreams, again, and one of them lingered. “Justice, Plight of Mages,” it called to him. “Hawke is here.”
“In the Fade, you mean?” Anders asked. When he had given Hawke the potion he’d mixed together, it had been to put her in a medicated unconscious state, which was dreamless by definition. But depending on how long it had been since then, it was very possible that the drug’s effects had worn off and she’d slipped into a comfortable sleep and was now walking the Fade.
“Yes,” said the spirit.
“Good,” said Anders. “She needs rest to heal.”
“We have talked to her, sometimes,” said the spirit. “She loves you dearly. She wants to fight for you. She would bring down the world for you and your cause.”
“I know,” said Anders.
“And you would let her do this?” the spirit asked. It wasn’t an indictment, it was simply curious.
Anders felt a prickle of fear sticking in the back of his throat, and he gulped. “Yes. I would not deny her own purpose any more than she would deny mine.”
“Even if she is not a spirit?” If the formless spirit had a head, it would have tilted it at him.
“She has the conviction of one,” said Anders.
“And it is possible for mortals to have such conviction?”
“Yes.”
The spirit thought on this. “I am glad,” it said. “I am glad to know that these virtues can be found among mortals as well.”
“As am I,” said Anders, and he marveled a bit at the fact that Hawke existed, that Hawke believed in his cause— their cause, that she was all spitfire and flashing storm and mage freedom, and that she loved him, that for him and him alone she let down that guard she usually held around herself like a protective shell and pressed herself into his chest every night, the one person in the world who wasn’t scared of him, who didn’t see him as a monster, who saw him for who he was in all his raw edges and understood.
He heard a noise behind him, he thought, and he turned to face it, and that pulled him out of the Fade and then he was in a dark room in a chair beside a bed, and the noise was Hawke turning in bed and Anders jumped up and soothed her back to sleep, and then he felt her pulse and put a hand to her forehead, making certain she wasn’t feverish, and then he reached out with the Fade to magically check her again.
She was healing.
Slowly, she was healing.
And for the moment, that was all that mattered, because Anders needed her. His heart needed her heart, and his cause needed her fury.
He sat down and fell asleep in the chair again.
On and off throughout the night and most of the next day, he would wake up every few hours to tend to Hawke and work any spells as needed and then fall back into an exhausted sleep. She was healing, for now, and making progress, but she wasn't quite in the clear yet and he refused to let his diligence down. He made a new medicine, one that would lull the imbiber into a deep slumber rather than total unconsciousness, and gently fed it to her every so often. If she woke, he knew, she would want to get back on her feet immediately, and as much as he loved her for it, she needed to rest as much as possible.
One of her hands, he noticed at one point, had dried blood caked across it, and he gently washed it and then held it to his lips and kissed it.
He only ever left the room to relieve himself. Bodahn would bring him food and water every so often, which he picked at, and at some point Varric showed up to check on him, but he left him alone soon after.
But no, no, Anders would not leave her. He would be there for her when she woke up. And so he sat next to her, and as the day wound into night his exhaustion set in again, and he scooted the chair up closer still so he could rest his head on the bed close to hers and sleep there—
—and when he woke up, Hawke’s fingers were in his hair, and she smiled weakly at him, and Anders smiled back.
She had returned to him. Just as she had promised she always would.