"Bet he gets the sneer though," Hawke chuckled. Then she paled, "Oh Maker, do you think he'll get...everything with the sneer?"
At that the father glowered, and both women broke into laughter. "Honey eyes," Lana snickered while cupping his whiskery cheek. "You can't stop the march of time, nor that..."
"I can burn every blighted copy of that sketch I find, however," Cullen grumbled to himself, his hands crossing against his chest. Maker, she shouldn't prod him but he should stop being so adorable while stewing over it.
After pressing a quick kiss to her husband's sneering lips, Lana's eyes wandered over to the vagabond standing limply in the doorway. "You may come over and see," she said to Anders.
"That..." He bounced up a moment, as curious as Hawke looked, but Cullen's eagle glare winnowed down on the mage who set the world on fire and Anders shrunk back, "I'm fine here. Someone's got to keep the doorframe from collapsing." Lana knew it wouldn't be easy having Anders here, but she didn't think it'd be this hard right out of the gate.
"Look," Hawke shouted, breaking the two mages and templar from glaring around each other, "he's got tiny little fingers!"
"Yes, he does," Lana chuckled. "Ten, in fact."
"How are they so teeny? Look at them!" she fanned out the boy's hand, letting it grip onto her finger to inspect the razor sharp nails better. "Gavin Amell Rutherford," Hawke mused.
"Ah, it's Gavin Grayson Rutherford," Lana corrected quickly, her eyes dashing around the kitchen to make certain no one else was there.
"What?" The goofy aunt fell away to reveal the terrifying woman who stopped an invasion, and all her vitriol was aimed at Cullen. "What happened to Amell? Mother's name, it's important." Her voice dropped lower into what some would probably call the pants-wetting range.
"Hawke," Lana tugged on her arm, trying to get the giantess to break away from her husband before things got messy. "I can't use it, remember. In hiding."
She blinked a moment then sighed and ran her hand through her shaved section of hair. "Right, hiding. Shame though. Amell's a good name to have."
Lana reached around to hold onto her cousin, the only one in her family she ever really got to know outside of moldy memories. "He'll know who he is and where he comes from."
"Comes from?" Hawke twisted her head around, "Yer gonna give 'em the this bit goes into that bit and out pops a baby talk now? Ain't he a little young?"
"For the love of..." Lana cupped her forehead, feeling the familiar headache that came from her spending too much time with her cousin.
That drew such a great enough laugh to Hawke that she slapped her knee and turned back to face Anders. "I forgot how squeamish my cousin is about the dirty bits."
"I am not," Lana rose up to defend herself, but there was little point in it. Switching gears, she shifted in her seat, "Hawke, would you like to hold the baby?"
"M-m-me...? You, you trust me to-to carry something that fragile?" Her cocksure grin flopped into a terror grimace, the Champion's skin paling to a stricken grey as she stared at the rather happy baby.
"He's full, been changed fairly recently, and seems to think you're funny." Lana tried to shift the bundle over, but Hawke kept her arms crossed.
"What if I...I drop him, or-or pinch something, or try to use him to pick up something hot?!" the panic in her face was almost adorable. Lana'd walked the deep roads for weeks with only Hawke and Anders facing every manner of darkspawn those tainted creatures could throw at them and she'd never seen her so terrified. Gavin, unaware of the pressure he could produce, was smiling like mad and gurgling more spit bubbles.
"Try to refrain from doing any of those things, in particular picking up hot things with a baby, and you'll be fine." Lana rose to her feet, and before Hawke could argue, dropped Gavin into her arms.
She locked her hands in tight, but Lana moved them, "He's not a greatsword, you don't need a death grip to keep him from falling, just... There ya go. Hold the head, support his bottom and you're good."
Hawke took a few more breaths, her arms softly bouncing with the weight of the boy. "Good, good, you're good?" She risked staring down at Gavin who was enraptured with his mother being so close. Those little hands that just began grasping for things tried to reach over at her face. Lana laughed at her curious boy and blew a gentle raspberry against his cheek. That got even more happy gurgles, his lips stretching wide in a joyful smile. Hawke was right, there was no way that was Cullen's.
"Hey," the Champion whipped her head over at Anders, "look, I'm holding a baby. And no one's crying yet."
The man slid closer to his love, a hand skirting over her back as he dared to let himself get nearer to the boy. "You are, and it is a true miracle of Andraste."
"He really is," Hawke cooed, all her focus on the baby as Anders watched her. They hadn't spoken much while traveling the deep roads, Lana still spitting hot tacks at his betrayal and Anders seeming to regret it. That fact threw her so much, she wasn't certain what to do. Old Anders she knew. He'd have laughed it off, claimed that a dragon can't change its scales and if she were a better Commander she'd have known he'd run off. But this one was quieter, the brashness brushed down to only an occasional prick. It bothered Lana then and unnerved her now how much he changed from Justice.
Lana reached over and cupped Anders' elbow, a small move, but the mage jumped a moment as if he feared the tiny woman would hurl him to the wall. Technically she could, but she'd need to rip apart the veil first. "We should talk," Lana whispered to him, "I have something to show you."
"That..." his wild eyes darted over to the templar in the room, then back to his lover who was enraptured in adorable baby land.
"It won't be more than a minute," Lana assured him.
Anders remained wary, his fingers all but scratching against the veil out of habit. It was so distracting to the mage who felt his tugging, she wanted to reach over and bundle his hands up to get it to stop. Sighing once, he nodded his head, "All right, but you might want to be careful that Hawke doesn't abscond with your baby."
"She'll be..." Lana smiled, when Gavin kicked his leg, dropping a bootie to reveal his naked foot.
"Sweet Maker!" Hawke cried, her fingers lifting the baby's foot higher, "He has tiny toes!"
"Okay," Lana shifted, visions of a distracted Champion wandering off with their child drifting through her thoughts. "Cullen, you can stop Hawke from stealing our baby."
He picked up the lost bootie and moved to add it back before Gavin got cold. Smiling at his son, he whispered, "Of course." Then he drew back and eyed up the muscles prodding out from the Champion's far too open winter wear. Gulping, Cullen softly tacked on, "I hope so."
After kissing a quick goodbye to her son and then husband, who was flocking around Hawke like a dedicated herding dog, Lana shifted out of the kitchen into the bitter cold of a southern winter. So many years out here she'd grown used to it, quick to wrap her cloak tight with one hand while the other clutched her cane, but Anders... The poor man had been up north too long. He blinked against the ice stinging on the wind then huddled his face deeper into his pauldrons, as if that would help.
Taking as quick a step as she could manage, Lana led the man up to her potions room. It'd been quiet as of late. With an infant she barely had time to sneak in and get the cruets bubbling. And sometimes when she tried, Cullen would stand in the doorway and sigh about how they had other hirelings to do the work. The first few times he couldn't get her to give up on her idea so he used the dirty trick of bringing their son along. An adorable, cooing baby pulled her from it every time.
The light rose as she parted fire against each candle and then turned to watch Anders cautiously close the door. His cornered eyes darted around the tiny room once again hunting for anyone that was in hiding to capture or attack him. Lana folded her arms and sighed, "You have nothing to fear here."
"In a place surrounded by templars, I have nothing to fear?" he mirthlessly laughed and then snorted. "Do you also place meat upon the dog
's snout and assume it won't be eaten?"
"If the dog's been told and trained not to, it's not really a problem," she cut back with, already exhausted from Anders. "Maker's sake, why would I go to the bother of having brought you here just to have you hauled off and killed?"
He lifted a shoulder, the man who'd been on the run his entire life sighing, "Anything's possible, Commander. Though, you'd have to get through me and Hawke first."
Something in his cocky tone struck her and Lana spun her hands, the veil parting as if she breathed it, "You really think you can over power me?"
"Hard to say. Hawke kept stopping us before we ever found out," he struck back with and she spotted their old friend cracking out of his skin.
"Blessed Andraste, Anders. Call off Justice. It was a joke," Lana shook off her limp spell that would have only curled his hair. She was almost sad to give it up, he'd look rather hilarious with golden ringlets.
"Why am I here, then?"
She didn't remember that chip on his shoulder. They didn't quite run in the same circles in the Circle, especially with Anders pulling a runner all the time. She was the sweet, devoted to chantry law type, while he was more or less forced through his Harrowing at age 16 because the templars wanted him to fail to get rid of him. Oops. But even as Anders bedded and charmed his way into and out of the Tower, he was never conceited about it. Back then everything ran off his back like water and now it seemed as if everything stuck instead.
"For this," Lana reached into her steel box and extracted out the potion she'd been working on for a week since receiving Hawke's note about a visit.
Anders stared the nondescript clear bottle up and down before he folded his arms, "For your sake I hope that's not a love potion. I know I'm irresistible, but Hawke can get a bit clingy and then very punchy. Sometimes kicky too."
She glared at him, not saying a word, but inside Lana was surprised. This was the first sign of old Anders she'd seen in years. Maybe there was some hope still. Tipping her chin at the bottle she said, "When I took over in Amaranthine, I didn't realize what I was agreeing to. The burden I had to fill everyone's blood with, the weight of it. I regret what I had to do, to all of them. To you."
Anders' eyes opened wide, his mouth falling slightly open in surprise. The bastard was always so certain he knew everything about everyone at a glance, but he never once thought Lana might regret her choices made in the heat of battle?
"This is my apology, I suppose. Your freedom from the taint. Though its effectivity seems to only last a year or so."
He blinked rapidly, eyeing with caution the bottle that would clear away the nightmares and the looming lone walk at the end. Anders stared over at her, his lips popping in thought before he spoke, "Only a year? Is this your way to keep me tethered to you, Commander? Always coming back so I don't die from the taint, giving you the perfect opportunity to keep tabs on me?"
Snorting, Lana rolled her eyes, "Well, I imagine Hawke's going to want to see her baby nephew grow up, and the way I hear it you're rather tethered to her now."
At that Anders shrunk, his fingers wiping across the stubble of his chin. Even with the hair obscuring it, Lana could make out a great scar below that didn't look like it healed well. She knew the promise he made Hawke, and that if he ever broke it and left her again, Anders had a lot more to fear than some old templars chasing after him.
"I'm working to make the potion last longer, which you will also receive if that happens. For the time being I'm afraid we're all tethered to this if we want to survive to see...our children grow." She tried to shake away the tears in her eyes quickly, but Anders had to see.
He spotted them once when they were in Amaranthine, the freshly appointed scary Warden Commander suffering a breakdown in the armory. It was over something foolish and unimportant. No, it was because she'd had the entire mess of a failing arling and talking darkspawn dropped on her head with nary a friend in sight. It broke her, as sad as that was, and who should stroll in to find her weeping on the ground but the smart-ass mage? He'd made a few biting comments, which reminded her a bit of Alistair funny enough, then slugged her in the shoulder and told her it'd be okay. Either they'd get out of this mess or all wind up dead. It wasn't any reason to go crying over.
"Why are you giving this to me?" Anders whispered, dragging Lana from her memory. "I...there didn't seem to be much love lost between us."
She was angry with him, his abandoning her and their cause the second it grew rocky. And, in some ways, even more angry when she learned that he'd stayed by Hawke's side. What was it about her cousin that was so much better than Lana? Meeting Hawke helped answer that question a bit, but the fact of it still stung.
"I don't hate you Anders," Lana confessed. He scoffed a moment, his eyes rolling. "Do not take that as saying I forgive your choices. But I know you. I knew you'd run because that's what you do, what you've always done. I tried to not take it personally. Didn't you ever wonder why no Grey Wardens tried to come and collect you?"
Anders shrugged, "As if Grey Wardens were going to let an abomination into their ranks."
"We had a few for a time, actually. It didn't end well, but...there was an avvar mage with a spirit of wisdom in her head. That was an interesting year," she confessed, the man gasping in greater shock. Did he really think none of them would have understood? They knew him, knew Justice, and Lana had a habit of forging her own path regardless of what the First Warden thought. "I let you go. I gave you your freedom. Granted, then you turned around and started a holy war upon the mages, so..."
"I did it for the mages," he spat back, "for people like us, who could be free to fall in love with whomever they want, have children to raise without the chantry stealing them away. Maker's breath, how do you not fear every day that one of the templars here won't rip your baby out of your arms?"
Anders was clearly looking for a fight, but Lana didn't rise to it. She shuddered in a breath and admitted, "Who says I don't? It doesn't change what you did, the innocents you slaughtered for your means."
"Innocents," he snickered. "What of your husband, father of your child, imprisoner of mages and Maker knows what else?" That earned him a snarl, Lana well aware of what Anders wasn't saying with his implications. "Do you know how many innocents he harmed with his devotion to the chantry?"
"Yes," Lana breathed, causing Anders to blink. The certainty in his eyes faded at that as if he was so certain that she'd ignored everything in Cullen's past for her own needs. "We all have blood on our hands: you, Cullen, me, even Hawke. None of us are clean."
"So this is..." He clasped a hand to his forehead, seeming to lose his trail of thought. Justice's influence or too much time barely surviving in the wilds? "Then why? Why bring this up?"
"To tell you that I don't approve of what you did, of the choice you stole from Kirkwall, eliminating a chance for peace, but..." Lana sucked in a breath, "I am in someways no better. I stole from you your life, your future. Even if in doing so I saved it. That's what this is. A way to try and make up for my damage."
Anders mouth dropped open, breath whistling through his teeth as his palm skirted around the bottle. "Then, it really will cure the taint?"
"Of course. Did you think it was poison or something?" Lana rolled her eyes, "If I intended to poison you I could come up with ten better ways off hand that wouldn't require you to willingly drink it." She stared down at the liquid that gifted her her son, Alistair his daughter, and a whole lot of questions on their horizon. They could fight back, but it may take all of her strength to keep going.
"It's funny, but your running away from the Wardens," she drummed her fingers on her counter, terrified of the thought that often rattled in her head, "it was the only thing that wound up saving your life. All of them, lost." She failed them all, every man and woman Lana took under her wing either flocked to Corypheus' side for his mad plans or was turned by Clarel. "I was the worst leader you could have been stuck with."
"Sigurin," Anders spoke, his head
bowed. Lana narrowed her eyes, suddenly aware that she'd let a tear slip free. He licked his lips and then turned to her, "She's still alive, or was a few years ago. I bumped into her in the deep roads, still as chipper and death happy as ever."
Lana smiled at the memory of the dead dwarf that kept somehow surviving much to her chagrin. There'd been no one on her return from Seheron, no hint that Sigruin must have taken to the deep roads on her own before Corypheus took them all.
"Commander," Anders reached over and picked up her hand. He felt cool to the touch, but began to warm rapidly in her grip.
Snickering at his patronizing name for her, Lana sighed, "You can stop calling me that. I gave up the foolish mantle long ago."
"I don't call you Commander to poke fun," Anders swallowed, the man looking more uncomfortable with every word. "You deserve it. The title, the prestige. Whatever comes with all that. I know I'm not a joy to deal with, even before I merged a spirit with my soul. But you took a chance on me, gave me my freedom with only a verbal promise to remain, which I broke. I didn't regret leaving the Wardens, and I'd do it over again and again, but I did wish I hadn't hurt you in the process."
Lana stared into his deep brown eyes expecting to find Justice's sense of duty shimmering from within but all she could see was Anders. Was it age that finally caught up to him or the pain of watching the entire world flounder from his actions? "Thank you," she shook their conjoined hands.
"You're welcome, and you swear none of the templars here are going to drag me out back and try to string me up by the neck?" For a brief window the old Anders spark glittered in his eyes.
"Well, no one knows you're here, save Cullen whom you must have taunted often in the Gallows because I think he hates you more than Ali, and that's impressive. Still, I wouldn't go running around screaming about mage oppression at the top of your lungs unless you want to start a fight." She meant it as a laugh but then leaned close to him and in her Commander voice hissed, "Do not start a fight."
"Got it," Anders nodded, cowed by the tiny woman who hobbled to get around. He picked up the bottle and twisted it around. "Does it hurt when you take it?"
Love's Blush Page 101
