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The last time he saw her, they had made love until the wee hours of the morning. It had been desperate, grasping and hurried, and yet utterly slow and tender.
It had been goodbye.
He hadn’t known it at the time. Hadn’t known it would be the last time he saw her, the last time he tasted her. She’d left him a letter, saying that she was sorry, that she couldn’t risk him dying to fix her mistake. She’d said she loved him, that she wasn’t abandoning him. It was a sweet note, her messy scrawl running into the margins, her scent imprinted on the page.
The next letter he received said that she was gone.
Varric’s handwriting was decidedly neater, a side effect of constantly writing for business. Fenris wasn’t sure if the tear stains were the dwarf’s or his. He didn’t particularly care.
At first he was empty. His mind had gone completely blank. He’d stared at the letter, willing the damned words to change, to be something other than what they were. Then, all at once, the pain hit him. It was like he’d taken his own hand and gripped his heart. It spread throughout his body, a viscous, living poison that sucked the life from him- and yet he still lived. Maker he lived. The broken weapon. The runaway slave. He lived.
And she did not.
It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. Maker but it wasn’t fair.
Both of their lives had been one gross tragedy after another. There were trails of blood and tears behind them, spreading as far back as either of them could remember. And then they had found one another. He’d been a bitter, hateful creature and she was everything he hated. Until suddenly she wasn’t. She was everything good and wonderful in the world. They were broken, hopeless creatures who’d found hope in one another. Yes, there had been hope. Hope that they could have an almost normal life. Hope that he could die old and grey with her. He should have known better. Should have protected her. Should have felt her leave, stopped her, gone with her- done something. Instead he was left clutching a letter that smelled like her, huddled in a caved and sobbing so hard he thought his lungs would implode on themselves.
Between the bouts of crushing despair, he raged at the world. He hated Varric for writing her, for taking advantage of how good she was. He hated the Inquisitor for letting her die- for leaving her behind. He imagined going to Skyhold and ripping the heart from her, if only so someone else could feel how he felt. Once again, magic had taken everything from him. Only this time he could remember every second of it. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
He’d planned to go to Skyhold and kill everyone. Anyone he could get his hands on. Find the person the Inquisitor loved and tear their heart from their body, right in front her murderer. He’d even stepped out of the cave to do so, when his mind was hit with a resounding “NO”.
It sounded like her voice.
“No, Fenris” it said, “don’t destroy what I died for. Don’t make what I did in vain. Don’t destroy yourself. Live. Fight. I’ll be there for you.”
It felt like, just for a moment, that she was there. Just beyond his reach. He could almost smell her. And then the sensation was gone and he was alone again.
He collapsed back in the cave and found that he could still cry.
He couldn’t ignore that voice, real or part of his imaginings. He wanted her to be alive. He wanted to die. He wanted the pain to stop. But she wanted him to live. So he would.
__
Two years. Two years without her. Every day was as trying as the day he found out she was gone. There had been a moment of relief, when the monster that had killed her had died. It had been a harsh, vindictive feeling. Then the relief was gone and the emptiness came back.
Every day he hunted down slavers. Every day he visited horror upon horror on them. He fought boldly. He fought recklessly. He fought like a man who was already dead. Maybe he was. Maybe his body just didn’t know it yet. Maybe he was trying to die.
He ignored the thanks of the people he freed. In truth, he didn’t care anymore. He found no joy in his own freedom, let alone the freedom of others. He gained scar after scar in his bloody pursuit, his attempt at drowning his ache in blood. Every time he was wounded, he felt his heart beat again for a moment. “This is it” he would think “finally over.”
But none of the bastards he killed were ever good enough. They died quickly and he was left with another reminder that he was alive and she was not.
This last group had been clever though. He’d killed all of them, but had been wounded in the process. It was a scratch, really, and he’d ignored it (not that he’d really tended any of his other, much more serious wounds to begin with.) It wasn’t until the last slave had been freed that he felt the poison kick in. He realized that this group had been a suicide squad, one whose sole intention was to kill him. The slaves had been a lure.
He was relieved.
There was nothing he could do- not really. He was too far up the coast to reach a healer in time. Whatever they had poisoned him with was working quickly. Eyes drooping, his body wracked with pain, he staggered from the slaver’s den and headed to the small camp he’d made further up the coast. There, he took out the letters he’d wrote to his friends beforehand (he never knew which fight would be his last) and placed them on top of his pack. The blood mage would no doubt wonder by soon, collecting the elves he had freed. She would send them.
His mission accomplished her curled up on his bed roll and promptly vomited. He should have been more concerned by the blood, concerned with the mess Merrill would find. The pain was excruciating, and yet he couldn’t remember a time in the past two years that he had been happier. Finally, the emptiness would end. Finally, the fight was over. Finally, he’d see her again. He could feel his heart slow. He could feel breathing his breathing get harder and harder. He closed his eyes.
And then he opened them.
The pain was gone.
He was in Kirkwall again. Cool, white light filtered in through the windows, shining almost blindingly on the white silk sheets he found himself under. He furrowed his brow, confused, and lifted his hands to cover his eyes. Then he paused. His hands. His unmarked hands. Not a lyrium brand to be found. Before he could panic, another hand covered his own, this one much smaller and paler than his own. He became aware of a soft, curvy body pressed to his side, the familiar tickle of long, red hair in the curve of his neck. He inhaled shakily, a scent he’d only smelt faintly from tear soaked parchment greeting his nose.
“I’ve been waiting, my love.”
He smiled and turned to face eternity.