Living without you -- a FenHawke Fanfic

3

       The inquisitor sat at her desk, head in her hands as she attempted to keep herself awake. Another sleepless night. Another night spent thinking of all the atrocities that this awful set of circumstances had brought upon Ferelden itself, let alone Thedas.  She traced the anchor shaped marking imbedded in the palm of  her left hand with a single finger beneath the candle light, wishing that Andraste had chosen someone else, anyone else.

"What is bothering you, love?" His voice asked, startling the lady inquisitor as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh!--Cullen, it's you." She exclaimed, placing a hand over her racing heart and scowling disapprovingly at the commander. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

"Were you expecting someone else?" Cullen teased, pecking the inquisitor on the cheek before rounding her chair and leaning back against the writing desk. His presence comforted her, allowed her to be more at ease in these troubling times. She gazed up at him, his short, wavy blonde hair, rough, scruff covered chin, the small scar that accented his upper lip, and his eyes... Oh those eyes that, at times, were shadowed by a lack of pleasant sleep that rivaled even her own, courtesy of the Lyrium withdrawals.

"No," she replied, laughing awkwardly to herself. "No, I suppose I'm just being paranoid, aren't I?"

"Not paranoid, just exhausted from working too much." The commander commented, motioning to the stacks of paper and crumpled beginnings of letters that riddled her desktop.  "What's all this then?"

"Reports from every single person in Ferelden, it would seem." She said, pausing before picking up one of the crumpled pieces of parchment. "And letter drafts to Fenris, Hawke's lover.."  Her eyes fell, she couldn't close her eyes without imagining Varric's letter reaching him, how he would feel.. She knew that if something ever happened to Cullen.. She would be devastated. Though he knew them both better than she, leaving the job to Varric to break the news to Fenris seemed..wrong.

"If there had been another way, you would have known it." The ex Templar said sympathetically, lightly brushing her cheek in his hand. "The wardens needed hope, and you couldn't have convinced Hawke not to stay if she were that convinced that killing Corypheus was her responsibility. All we can do now, is make sure that Fenris knows that Hawke died a hero. For Thedas."

"You know, Cullen, you are very articulate when you try to be." The inquisitor smiled weakly, still unconvinced but wanting the conversation to end. "I only hope that Fenris can forgive me..forgive the choice I made to leave her in the fade.. Maker knows I would be out for blood if someone did that to you.." She trailed off, reluctant to admit the shameful truth.

Cullen Rutherford cupped the inquisitor's face in his hands, kneeling in between where she sat and the desk. The inquisitor stared back sadly into his amber eyes before sinking into a long desired, and needed, kiss which was successfully able to pull her from the sea of worries and stresses that she had been swimming in for far too long. They both sank into one another, temporarily forgetting their ails. Cullen, his horrid memories of Kirkwall and the unbearable pain that accompanied a need for Lyrium and its power, and the lady inquisitor, the searing pain in her hand as well as the deep rooted guilt she carried with her as a result of Hawke's death.  The two allowed themselves the night, with nothing but each other before them, the night to themselves so that they might forget.