Chapter Text
It has been two years since Kirkwall fell, yet it takes nothing short of a miracle to occasionally remind Varric that his friends’ lives do, in his absence, move on.
Nicolas is the first such miracle. A letter reaches Varric at Skyhold, passed in rare fashion from Leliana’s hand to his own. He meets her small, curving smile with a lifted brow, but before he can inquire after the reason, she spymaster is melting into the mill of bodies in the great hall.
His name on the envelope is comprised of rigid angles and tight curves, a hand he would have recognized as Aveline’s in an instant. His heart sinks with worry as he works his thumb beneath the seal. It has been months since Hawke rode west to Weisshaupt, laden with supplies and light on plans. Starkhaven still stands at Kirkwall’s gates, and Varric dares not wonder which of the many potential disasters would have prompted Aveline, chief defender of the city, to write him directly.
He reads the first line, then the second, and faster until he has nearly inhaled the missive in one breath. When he finishes, he nearly drops the paper as the strength leaves his fingers.
Varric,
The siege progresses. I doubt I can tell you anything you don’t already know, but I will try:
We have a son. We’ve named him Nicolas, and he was born on First Day. All are well. I thought you would like to know.
Be safe.
--Aveline
And then, in a hastily scrawled post script (Donnic’s work, from the tilting lines): “Managed to keep Aveline out of work and off the parapets. Whole guard has rallied to keep her in the dark. Wish us luck. – D”
Varric’s laughter is loud enough to startle the ravens from their rookery.
The siege ends, and Corypheus is defeated, and Solas vanishes. No word comes from Hawke, and Varric is left in a more or less permanent state of worry that reminds him more of his last days in Kirkwall than he’d like to admit. Eventually, he takes his leave of the Inquisition and returns to the city. They name him Viscount (an act of stupidity so brazen he wonders if, somewhere, Hawke is behind it) and he tries to find amusement, however small, in the drudgery. Cassandra visits when she can, but theirs is a relationship of distance and longing, and the bitterness of her departures does its best to eat away at the last threads of joy as he watches her ship depart.
Nicolas (sandy-haired, wide-eyed and with a look of permanent concern) is joined, a year into Varric’s return, by a brother, Benoit. This time Varric is on hand to ensure that the Hendyr family celebrates properly, with plenty of ale for Donnic and a plate of formerly-forbidden soft cheeses for Aveline. Varric plies the guard-captain with ale and off-color stories until she is grinning despite herself. The sight of Aveline’s begrudging grin makes him feel Isabela’s absence like a sudden, dull ache in his chest, and for the span of a breath he thinks he sees Aveline’s eyes cloud as well.
In the end, it takes about two years for the pirate to catch wind of the growing family. Varric is at his desk, skimming a note from Divine Victoria on the state of her latest nug litter which, when read correctly, lays out a detailed report on their ongoing failure to find Solas (Fen’Harel, he reminds himself with a sigh as he smooths the paper). He is considering throwing the note into the hearth behind him when the door flings open. He looks up to find Aveline storming into the room, and Isabela—skin a dark, sun-kissed brown, head capped with an impressively large feathered hat—trailing behind her. Aveline explains through gritted teeth that she woke up to find the pirate asleep inside the boys’ nursery, sprawled on the floor with both children curled against her. Isabela protests she was just visiting her “nephews” (Aveline’s indignant cry goes unheeded), and that if Aveline is really serious about keeping her out, she’ll need to pay for better locks, and not some shoddy Kirkwall rust pin any thief could open in the dark while drunk; and besides, Isabela was a great babysitter, and Hawke and Fenris were much more grateful for her babysitting services, so who was Aveline to complain—?
Aveline is about to slap the hat from Isabela’s head when Varric grabs both women’s arms. “What?”
That, in typical Hawke fashion, is how the birth—and existence—of Elata Hawke, daughter of Fenris and Marian Hawke, is announced to the world. The family is living in rural Ferelden, lying low and maintaining their anonymity under protection of the Grey Wardens, of all people. Isabela reckons the girl to be still shy of crawling age, perhaps three months at the most. Varric has Bran cancel all his appointments, and offers Isabela a positively vulgar sum to transport him straight to Ferelden.
They are off within the hour.
He broods and frets by turns the entire voyage. Why hadn’t Hawke contacted him to say she was safe? Why was she in hiding? And why, by Andraste’s golden tits, hadn’t she sent word that she’d had a child? But it’s only after he lands, as he crests a small hillock and spots the almost ludicrously picturesque cottage—small, thatched, with smoke curling from its chimney where it nestles among the wheat fields—that he realizes he doesn’t know what to say.
So, lacking any plan or even certainty of his own emotion, he knocks on the door. After a moment, he hears shuffling feet. He’s contemplating turning back when Fenris opens the door. He’s as lean as ever, but there are bags under his eyes, and his hair is an unbrushed mess. He holds a bundle of blankets in one arm, and the two men blink slowly at one another.
“Varric?” the elf asks, his voice thick with sleep.
“I—,” he begins. He gets no further before the sound of footsteps makes him pause.
“Who—?” Hawke emerges into the hall behind Fenris, and stops dead as her eyes land on Varric.
Varric, for the first time in his life, cannot make his mouth work. His mind races with reassurances, repeating them in a desperate bid to make him believe: Hawke is safe. Hawke is whole. Hawke is a mother.
They stand, locked in a silent tableau, until the bundle in Fenris’ arms hiccups. Three pairs of eyes lower as one to the source of the sound. Fenris brushes back the blanket to reveal a small face, scrunched against the daylight and capped with a shock of pitch-black hair.
Varric feels the air rush from his lungs. “Is that--?"
The bundle is held out to him. When he looks up, he sees Fenris’ face, a small smile cracking across the stoic plain of his face. Hawke has moved quietly to stand behind him, blue eyes locked on Varric’s with an expression he can’t, for all of his words, describe, except to say that he suddenly feels that his heart has grown too large for his chest.
Varric reaches out, hesitantly, as Fenris slides the squirming bundle into his arms. Sensing the change in position, the babe opens its eyes—icy blue, and clear as the sky—and looks directly at Varric.
Later, he will take comfort in the fact that he is not the only one who cries.