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Maker's breath, how he missed her. He'd been managing well enough without her these months they'd been apart, staying afloat by reading her letters again and again until they were memorized and the words, carefully written in her firm hand, scrolled past his eyes when he closed them at night, each hard line and looping scroll, each "my darling Alistair" and "ever yours, Amélie" a balm for his raw and aching heart.
His haphazardly constructed focus had been broken that day in Crestwood when the Inquisitor, about to leave, had fallen behind her companions and Hawke, pausing before turning back to ask: "Is it true? What they say about you and the Hero of Ferelden?"
Maker, he'd thought of nothing but her since—her long, impractical hair; the way her nose scrunched up when she was angry; how she laughed at all of his jokes, even the ones that probably didn't deserve it (especially those ones); the unpracticed ease with which she made him a better man, bringing him out from under his anxieties so he could really and truly stand beside her. He still couldn't believe his luck, that he'd somehow attracted her attention in the weeks and months after Ostagar, and managed to hold it all these years later.
And now, he sat in Skyhold's garden, drinking in the relative peace and safety, and longing beyond words that she were here with him. It was a perverse irony that they were losing so much of their precious time together while she was off trying to find a way to extend their shortened lives. If they weren't wardens, if they'd met when they were younger, if, if, if—they'd have another 30, 40, 50 years ahead of them and no need to be apart right now. As it were—a decade past their joinings already—their days were numbered, and they found themselves on opposite sides of Thedas fighting what might very well turn out to be inevitable.
He didn't notice the Inquisitor when she first walked up, lost in his own thoughts as he was.
"A letter for you," she said, extending her arm with the parchment held delicately in her fingers. "It was delivered with a missive for us from Warden Cousland."
He swallowed, taking the letter from her with as much ease as he could feign. "Thank you."
She lingered, another question she wasn't sure if she should ask clearly forming on her lips.
"Something else, Inquisitor?"
She shifted her weight gently from one foot to the other before hazarding a simple, "Is it worth it?"
A smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. "Thinking of your own warden, are you?"
She blushed, looking down at her feet to try to hide the smile she had failed to suppress at the thought of him.
He should warn her, tell her it was a hard life, a dangerous life. He should hint that wardens don't live long; even a lucky warden will face their end younger than they should, and Warden Blackwall was not that young. But he thought of Amélie and the meaning she brought to his life, and despite it all, despite everything they'd suffered already and all the suffering still to come, he couldn't imagine doing any of this without her. She was his first, his only.
He nodded. "It is. More than I can say."
She offered him another smile as she turned to go, one that was soft and knowing, conspiratorial in his joy. Alistair watched her go, lost in memories of those early days—the shy smiles, the longing glances, trying to find any excuse to be near her, to touch, and beneath and between it all, his heart fluttering at every thought of her—before cracking the seal and reading his lover's words.