You have my sincerest apologies on the considerable delay, but I have at long last returned. Thanks so much to my beta, who helped shape this chapter into something worth reading from the considerable mess it was before!

Sarah, Jack and Tom are mine, but Alistair is not! Enjoy.

I got a runnin' start and
During my second wind

Stirred up all the dust
With an iron fist and her hair brush

It was the prettiest picture you ever saw
The prettiest picture not on the wall

The fall colored leaves in the trees shake against each other in a quiet imitation of rain when the surprisingly cold wind slips through their branches. Despite only being late August, it's chilly and I snuggle gratefully into the protection of my jacket. I always forget how much colder it gets up in this part of the country, and how rapidly the seasons change. My cheeks are already a brisk pink from the scolding wind, but the cold doesn't seem to touch Alistair. I don't feel any shivers from where our arms are linked, and while his nose is just the faintest shade of red, he is almost entirely unaffected. "Aren't you cold?" I breathe questioningly, slipping my free hand into the warmth of my fur linked pocket.

He shrugs and the slight movement of his shoulders brings his arm up just so, taking mine with it and for some reason that makes me blush. I duck my head and look away, willing the red flush to vacate my cheeks immediately, or at the very least, for Alistair to contribute it to the wind and nothing more. "It's not so cold; Ferelden gets much colder than this." Dead leaves crunch under his boots and I smile. I love that sound, for some reason. Ever since I was a little kid, there has always just been something so satisfying about the crunch of fall beneath my feet. "Just wait," I chide him, my eyes bouncing to the open window of my nosiest neighbor. "It's not winter yet." She's there, staring at us from the comfort of her living room, a coffee cup in one hand and a phone cradled to her ear in the other. Sarcastically, I lift my hand and wave to her with a smile. She doesn't even have the shame to pretend she's not watching us and I redirect my attention to Alistair.

He's looking everywhere, taking stock and I can practically see him filing it all away. The wind is tousling his hair and he's doing that squinty thing again, but it's kind of adorable when he's not shooting it at me and calling me a demon. We walk in silence for the first block or two, he not asking any questions and me not volunteering any information. I don't want him to be overwhelmed, and so I keep my thoughts quietly to myself. He's doing a pretty good job of not gaping or gasping, but maybe that's because he's not actually surprised or astounded. I chuckle quietly to myself and shake my head, which reminds him of my presence and he looks down at me. "What?"

My hand pulls from my pocket and I wave his question away with a small smile. "It's nothing, I was just thinking about how well you're taking this, and then I realized it's probably actually pretty boring compared to Thedas. No monsters here, I'm afraid. Just taxes and jobs."

He smirks, quirking a blonde eyebrow at me and suddenly the wind doesn't feel quite as cold as it did only moments before. "We have taxes and jobs in Thedas, you know. We have tailors and armorsmiths, arls and arlessas. City squares full of Orlesians and Marchers selling their goods. A lot of people in Ferelden have never even seen a monster."

We turn the corner and I tug him hurriedly across the crosswalk despite the light telling us not to go, but I'm impatient and I can practically feel the curiosity vibrating from Alistair as I pull him along. Those eyes of his are dancing between the changing stoplight and the flashing hand warning us not to get hit by a car. There's something so terribly endearing about the sight of him trying to look at everything all at once that I sneak glances over at him more than a few times."And here I thought you all flew around on dragons valiantly slaying demons and darkspawn," I tease, my feet following the familiar walkway that I know will end at my shop. His gaze returns to me and he laughs, the pleased sound of it making me duck my head again to hide behind my hair.

"Don't forget rescuing pretty damsels," he reminds me, bumping his hip into mine companionably.

"How could I? I'm willing to bet that's your favorite part."

He answers not with words, but with a suggestive waggle of his eyebrows and I can only laugh in response. My arm tightens around his and he mercifully doesn't say anything about it, so I let it be for now and just enjoy it. Jack has never really been about public affection or touching, it's a struggle to even get him to hold my hand when we go out, so this is a nice change. There's something to be said about being on the arm of an attractive man and having him smile down at you - even if he is completely unaware of just how conflicted that smile makes you feel.

It's nearing noon on Saturday but the cold has driven most people to abandon their weekend shopping and stay inside where it's warm, something I'm silently grateful for when I see how empty the main street is. Where usually there are milling groups of people in front of the boutiques and shops that dot the street, only wind and leaves and chilly air stir as we pass. Less people means less gawking. Small town life can be rough, everyone knows everyone else, and everyone knows everyone's business, particularly if you're an outsider. I'm not blind to the fact that Alistair looks more than just a little out of place. All it would take is one or two of my customers seeing us together and soon enough, everyone would know that the girl who owned the flower shop was seen with just the strangest looking man.

He lets me lead him, guided by slight pressure and minor pulls on our joined arms, and I mentally run through the list of everything that I need, everything that he needs and whether or not I can stretch this trip to last all afternoon, so that there's a smaller chance of running into Jack. Boots, jeans, shirts, a jacket, socks. A sigh escapes me when I realize we might have to make a trip or two back home just to drop off our bags, if we plan on getting everything. We need groceries too, and I need to get him man things, like a razor and shampoo and all that stuff that Jack always leaves that I always throw out. Yeah, it's definitely gonna have to be more than one trip, but maybe I can just run the bags inside and leave before Jack sees me. My cheeks puff out in exasperation at the sound of my grandmother's voice in my head, reminding me once again that I really should have just let her brother teach me how to drive. A car would not only make this whole shopping thing easier, but I could use it to escape for the afternoon and put off running into Jack for at least one more day. My plaintive wish for a car reminds me sharply of how dependent I actually am on Jack. With no license, I'm always riding shotgun with him, even when we're split up. It's an ugly thought that turns my stomach and makes me flush with shame, the notion that I cannot get along precisely as I want to without the help of another person. That tiny little wedge in my heart, the one between Jack and I that I'm sure didn't exist before Alistair, shudders and widens just a hair

Alistair's voice threads in and out of my thoughts, heard but not really processed or listened to. His voice is a pleasant rumble, a comfortable sound in the background of my mind that I enjoy without really thinking about. He chatters on about this and that, complaining about the noise of the gulls that carries over from a nearby lake and boggling expressively at the cars. I'm not watching where I'm going and I, of course, stumble on absolutely nothing and nearly face plant onto the cool sidewalk. The jolt brings me back to right now, which is walking down the main street to the little clothing outlet boutique I know is hidden between the hardware store and the pawn shop. "This isn't too drastically different than Denerim," Alistair points out blithely, and I straighten my shoulders, hoping he's missed my graceful demonstration but knowing that it isn't likely. "All these shops lined up in a row," I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that he's focusing on the similarities rather than the differences.

"What's Denerim like?" I ask instead of thinking about it.

"Very loud," he answers immediately, with a fond grin. "Cold or hot, raining or dry, it's always the same. Merchants shouting their wares at you, children running around making noise - and likely picking your pockets. It's...alive. It's human. Once, Elissa and I were looking for a blacksmith to fix this massive dent in my shield and..." he trails off, his face falling and with it, my spirits. We're back to that look of gut wrenching guilt. "I hope they're okay," he says in a small voice, more to himself than to me. "I just left them there, in the Deep Roads." I can see his eyes going to that faraway place, the place that I can't reach.

"Alistair," his name comes from my lips defensively, but he doesn't hear me. "Alistair!" I'm demanding to be heard, a sharp inflection in my voice pricking him and bringing him back to me. "You told me that Elissa is brave, right?"

He nods a little absently, his shoulders slumped. "She's a great warrior, isn't she?" I persist. The words themselves feel like nonsense in my mouth, it's awkward to talk about warriors and magic. "Strong enough to carry her burdens and yours, strong enough to carry the world?"He's looking at me now like he didn't expect me to actually remember something that he'd said to me, and I can't even begin for the life of me to figure out why. "Yes?" His response is more of a question, the confused lilt in his voice giving away the fact that he's not sure where I'm going with this. To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going with this either, but I don't let it stop me. "Leliana and...Wynne," I struggle briefly to remember the old woman's name but I get it eventually. "They're her friends, too, like you are?"

I'm back to being squinted at, but his back has straightened and the conversation is moving again. "Yes, absolutely. I don't know a single person who couldn't be Elissa's friend if they tried."

"Well, there you go." I'm sounding far more confident than I feel, but as long as it wipes that look of self-inflicted betrayal off of Alistair's face, I'm willing to wing it. "Elissa is a brave, stalwart warrior who is strong enough to carry the world on her shoulders, and she's with two people that she considers her friends. She'll be fine, Alistair. They will be fine for a few days without their knight in shining armor to stand valiantly before them, a lusty maiden under each of his arms and a third clinging to his leg."

His snort is one of amusement and I grin up at him, feeling far more redeemed by this exchange than I have any right to.

"Only three lusty maidens? You wound me."

"Not nearly as much as I'll wound you if you don't walk a little faster."

The bell above the door in the boutique jingles prettily when we step inside, the sudden rush of warm air flushing my cheeks and wresting a comfortable sigh from my chest. Alistair looks impressed, and I feel myself puff up ridiculously. Thedas might have magic and dragons, but I bet it doesn't have central heating. I'm standing there, feeling like a badass for living in a world that has something in it that I in no way contributed to, when Alistair pulls me off to the side. We've not been in the store but five seconds, and I'm worried that maybe he's suddenly too anxious, that it's too soon to go through with this.

"Your obvious miscalculation about the number of lusty maidens that follow me aside, I just wanted to say thank you," he whispers earnestly, finally unclasping our arms. "You've made this a lot easier than it could have been and, I just...thanks."

My breath catches and a heat that has nothing to do with technology flares in my chest. It's gratitude he's giving me, and nothing more, but that sweet, sweet look on his face is tempting me to do something I'll regret, so I just smile and nod. I propel him forward with my hands, toward the back of the store where they keep the jeans, and try to ignore this stuttering in my chest and brain.

"I know how to wear clothes, Sarah," Alistair whines as I circle around him like a shark, tugging on the relaxed fabric of the dark red shirt I've picked out for him. It slides easily over his skin, sitting across his shoulders in a way that makes him look no less overwhelmingly large than his armor. He looks like he should be playing football for some fancily named University and while I have never really been attracted to jocks or athletes; it's an appealing look for Alistair. He is every inch the knight, even in regular clothes bought at a corner shop.

"No," I gasp sarcastically, smoothing the material over his shoulders and stepping back to take inventory of my finished project. Shirt? Check. Jeans? Oh lord, check. Boots? No dice, he wants to wear his own. "I thought for certain that you and everyone else in Ferelden ran around naked when you weren't buckled into your tin cans. Surely you aren't telling me that you people actually have clothes where you're from? Do the similarities never end?"

"You live to hurt me," he complains, tousling his hair with both hands, expertly messing it up juuuust so, and without even looking. I'm a little bit jealous. My own hair is wild and obnoxious, thick half waves that are constantly just begging to get chopped off.

"That's me," I quip, turning away from him to scan the store one last time, just in case I missed anything we might end up needing. "If I'm not harassing you, then well, I'm just not happy." It takes some effort in keeping my tone light and easy so as not to give away the stone that just sank six feet deep into my stomach. I'm proud when my smile doesn't falter and I make a show of passing my fingers through my bangs when I'm really just trying to hide my face. Spinning on my heel and hoping that I'm being at least a little bit inconspicuous, I discreetly shove Alistair right back into the changing room and follow him inside. There's alarm spreading rapidly across his face and he's staring down at me dubiously. I don't mean to freak him out unnecessarily, especially when it's not that much of a big deal. It's just that I've been reminded of the second downside to small town life; not only does everyone know everyone else but they're all related to each other and I'm a deer caught in headlights because there at the counter, waiting to get checked out, is Jack's cousin. I know her only vaguely, she's his cousin through marriage twice removed or something ridiculous like that but small towns have ridiculous rules. We've met once or twice, she's been into my shop and I'm just praying that she didn't see me.

"I know that I'm hard to resist but uh, if you don't mind too terribly, what exactly are you doing?" Alistair jokes. His cheeks have pinked and he's making a studious effort to stare at some point over my head instead of looking at me. The changing room is small, but I somehow manage to find room to crack the door and press my face right against it to spy on Jack's cousin.

"That's Megan out there," I hiss ridiculously, as though he'll just know who that is and what I'm talking about.

"Oh right, of course, Megan," he drones sarcastically. "Why didn't you just say so? That explains everything. Maker preserve us, Megan is here!"

Still peeping out through the crack in the dressing room door, I catch him lightly in the shin with my foot. "This is serious," I grumble, mentally trying to make her leave a little faster. She's just standing there, chatting with the cashier and not getting any closer to the door. "Megan is Jack's cousin."

A quick backward glance at Alistair reveals he's still utterly lost and I roll my eyes. Don't they have high schools in Thedas?

"Riiiight," he drawls out in a way that I have begun to associate with his confusion or disbelief. "So are you going to tell me what that this is all about or should I start guessing? I warn you, my skills of deduction are unmatched."

I snort and close the door again with a quiet click. She's finally leaving, but I'm not ready to leave just yet. I'm perfectly willing to wait until I know she's gotten back into her car and driven away, or at the very least, gotten far enough down Main Street that we can beat our escape.

"Megan is a gossip," I explain, leaning against the door and folding my arms across my chest. My nerves are settling back into place and I wonder for the millionth time about how jumpy I've been lately. "I bet you dollars to dimes that if she'd seen us, she'd be texting Jack and telling him that I was cruising around town with my new boyfriend and that we were all over each other, or something. Megan is definitely the queen of stretching stories until they're not even remotely true, and then telling literally everyone she can find. That's the kind of trouble we don't need right now."

Understanding dawns on his face in the form of a grin that soon melts into quiet laughter as he reaches around me and pushes the door open, herding me back outside. "Every time I think a woman is fearless," he chuckles, "it turns out they're actually afraid of other women and their gossip."

I fish my wallet out of my purse, trying to hide the small smile that springs to my lips at his indirect praise. I'm sure he's just compared some part of me to some part of Elissa, and it makes me stand a little taller that I could have something in common with someone who seems very much like she might be the perfect woman. "I wasn't afraid of her," I defend, unable to keep the smile from my voice. I hand my credit card over to the distinctly disinterested looking cashier, drumming my fingers on the counter while he runs it and hands me my copy of the slip to sign. Alistair watches with interest as I scrawl my messy signature across the bottom and slide it back, but he doesn't ask about it.

"Right, let me guess, you were simply being 'cautious and trying to avoid something unpleasant, which is completely different from being afraid', am I right?" The way his brows arch and that damn smug smirk is hanging on his lips gives me the impression that he's had a conversation like this before and instead of giving him the satisfaction of being right, I scoop up a few of our bags and bolt from the store. I've left Alistair inside, but he doesn't linger at all and rejoins me where I stand waiting on the sidewalk. He looks vaguely freaked out, and I immediately feel sorry for leaving him alone, even if it was only for a second.

The wind has picked up since last we were outside and the clouds have grown considerably darker with the threat of more rain, which means our shopping day has just ended. I grumble half curses at the sky and my bad luck with eyes closed. When I open them again, there is a very perplexed Alistair very close to my face. I tilt backwards with a surprised squeak, having expected sky to greet my vision. I would have fallen over, landing on my butt as I do far too often anyways as I had already demonstrated earlier in the day, had it not been for the ninja like reflexes of my chivalrous companion.

"Something wrong?"

I feel my brows threatening to draw together in exasperation. I am a grown woman, I own my own business, I own my own home, I am responsible enough to take care of a cat! Sure, I don't have a car and I'm too chicken to actually get my license, confrontation freaks me out and my socks never match, but I should not be so easily struck speechless just by his proximity. This does not happen to me, I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually happen to anyone.

"It's going to rain," I answer, taking a few nonchalant steps back and putting some distance between us. How stupid I feel, that I can't even think properly when he's near me.

He peers up at the sky, much like I did, a furrow in his brow and his lips pursed. "It's going to rain and that's bad because…" He trails off obviously, waiting for me to finish the thought and give him some insight into why the weather has me so out of sorts.

"It's inconvenient," I offer in explanation. "It means that not only do we need to try and beat the rain so that we don't ruin everything we just bought, but it means I'm going to have to explain you to Jack a lot sooner than I wanted to."

"You make it sound so dirty," he scolded, better adjusting his hold on his bags so that he could reprimand me properly. "If you stopped assuming that everyone will think something scandalous is going on, you'd be a lot more relaxed. Besides, that rain is at least an hour off, maybe two." The way he says it makes it sound so obvious, like clearly I should have been able to tell that just by how far off the clouds still are. What do I look like, some kind of meteorological genius? Still, he's obviously trying to make me feel better, and it's working. Something tells me it would take a stronger woman than I to stay grumpy in his presence for long.

"Well, if we're going to beat the rain, we'd better hurry," I chime cheerily, sweeping past him at a brisk pace. I pause a few feet down the sidewalk to allow him to catch up and feel the beginnings of mischief stirring in me. "Besides, you could use the exercise, you're a little pudgy."

"Pudgy!" he protests vainly, adopting an air of hurt pride. "I certainly am not pudgy. I'm fit and dashing, a brave and romantic knight that's all muscles and giant arms. Ladies swoon over me, Sarah. They just fall right down where they stand when I walk by, calling after me. Wait Alistair, we love you Alistair, you're the farthest thing from pudgy we've ever seen Alistair."

This man is ridiculous.

Catching up, he comes to a halt beside me and pats his stomach. "That was a totally true story I just told you there." Of course my eyes are drawn to the area in question. I feel my teeth clench together and I purse my lips disapprovingly at my own reaction. My mood is flipping back and forth so stupidly fast I should probably be concerned. He is certainly not pudgy, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was easy to ignore just how attractive he is when he was stuffed into heavy armor, or slouching around my apartment in those weird cotton and linen things he wore underneath. My mind is off a mile a minute and he's just standing there patting his stomach like it's his oldest friend. Shifting my bags to one arm, I whack him on the shoulder and start us moving again. He whines, more wounded puppy than heroic knight who's staved off unthinkable monsters, and I can't help the laugh that ripples through me like water. This might be a disaster, how easy he makes me laugh, how magnetic his smile is, but at least it's a disaster that I can enjoy.

The rest of our shopping goes by faster than the clothes did, mostly because he doesn't have to try anything on. I just pile bag after bag into his arms and he carries them without complaint. From what he's told me of Leliana, and her love of shoes and shopping, this is probably something he's done before.

We make it home just before the rain but our good time means absolutely nothing to me when I see that Jack's truck is parked in my driveway, all half-assed and sloppy, taking up the whole thing like he owns it. It's a little thing, something that never irritated me before but now it does. What if I wanted to have company? What if I was out with someone who had a car? The lack of consideration heats the inside of my stomach and makes me cranky. Alistair picks up on it right away and takes my bags away from me. "Jack, right?" he ventures.

I nod and my legs move woodenly up the walk to my front door, not a single glance spared toward my lawn gnomes today. "Right again, Sir Lance-a-lot."