She shouldn't feel so happy.

No one who had given another person the burden she had should feel so wonderful, should feel so much like laughing and hugging the sky simply because she could. It wasn't something you should do to someone you cared about.

She made herself think about how hard the next few days would be for him. Cullen carried responsibility like… like his own armor: heavy, but a mark of his office that was impossible, unthinkable to set aside. This would only add to that weight.

And just because he didn't blame her for it now didn't mean he wouldn't come to. As he set about filling the holes in his ranks, the empty spots might become too much for him. A small sadness now might grow out of control, turning to anger and hatred.

Or so she tried to counsel herself.

It didn't help.

And the Wardens. What of her own promise to keep secret the ways of the Order? Oh, technically she had never promised – and she must be sure to extract such an oath from Thom in the coming days – but that was a bit of sophistry she wouldn't allow herself. She knew it was forbidden to discuss Warden secrets, and she knew why.

That did disturb her happiness. Corypheus had done so much to destroy faith in the Wardens. The Wardens themselves had done it. Clarel had been so sure she was making the right decision, raising a demon army to march through the Deep Roads, to hunt and slay any old gods they found. Now the Wardens were tainted with Blood Magic, known for sacrificing their own. Especially among the Inquisition soldiers. They had been at Adamant, had seen it for themselves.

Maybe she wouldn't get as many recruits as she thought she might.

There, she thought, satisfied. That had squashed that unreasonable happiness right out of her.

Carefully, Neria began disentangling herself from Cullen. It wasn't easy. He had draped himself over her and around her. She bit her lower lip to keep from laughing at the problem.

Damn it. There was that happiness again.

"Stop squirming," he mumbled against her forehead. "I'm not letting you go."

Her sides hitched with silent laughter. "I have to go check on Thom," she said.

The arm over her tightened and his leg curled, pulling her closer. "Thom's fine," he said. "And I'll be damned if you're leaving my bed to go to another man."

She dropped her head and tried to control herself, but it was no use. Once she started laughing, she couldn't stop.

"What're you giggling about, you lunatic?"

"Nothing," she said finally, smiling against his chest. "Go back to sleep; it's not morning yet."

"Almost is," he said, sighing. He shifted away from her, and she looked up. Not that she could see much in the darkness. But then she realized he was right. There was some light, not enough to call it dawn, but some. And he was frowning.

"What?" she asked, wondering if her dire predictions had come true already.

"Twice."

"Well, actually I think it was more like three times but only because you didn't stop after that second one."

He laughed, and the sound made her heart spin like a top. "Not that." He paused. "Damn, now I can't remember what I was saying."

She wriggled out of his grasp and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. "You think about that while I go check on Thom. He's likely to have had nightmares."

"Nightmares," he said, sitting up. "That's what I was thinking about."

"Wake up with me in your arms, and you're thinking about nightmares? Hardly complimentary."

"That's just it. I always have nightmares. But with you here, I don't. Also, you're not leaving while I'm still lying on your hair."

She tugged and discovered he was right. "You see, this is why I keep it braided."

"We'll strike a bargain," he proposed, lifting himself off the bed so she could free her hair. "You leave it unbraided in our bed and I'll help you get the knots out in the morning."

"You say that now," she said, flipping the (tangled and knotted) mess over and over one hand to twist it, then wrap it around itself in a wide bun. "Just wait until you start. It can take hours."

His hand stroked down her bare back. "Done. I'll expect you to keep your word on this," he said, conveniently ignoring the fact that she hadn't agreed to his bargain at all.

She stood to slide into her shift – it really did need to be washed – and pulled her cloak on. "I … suppose by the time I'm done with Thom, you'll be up and about your duties."

Behind her, she heard him sigh and drop back down to the bed. "Probably," he said. "Come by anyway."

"Are you sure you want me to?" she asked, sitting on the bed with one leg curled under her so she could face him.

"Of course I want you to." He reached up to cup the side of her face in one hand and frowned at her. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I suppose I keep thinking reality is going to set in and you're going to change your mind about me."

"Why would I change my mind?"

"It was unfair of me to tell you what I did," she said. "I'd no right to place that burden on you, not just to make things easier on myself."

"Did it?"

"That's not the point."

"But did it?"

She didn't answer. It shouldn't have, that was the problem. Placing it on his shoulders, having it be easier on her, felt so selfish, so… petty and mean.

He sat up, brushing a kiss across her forehead. "It wouldn't have been better if you'd kept lying to me," he said.

"I should have left before it got to that point."

"You couldn't have."

"Of course I could have, Cullen. I could've had you send any candidates to Amaranthine. I could have even assessed them here and sent the acceptable ones there for the Joining, and never have had to deal with the deaths at all."

"You would have," he said. "Sooner or later. That would only have delayed things a bit. Unless you intended never to come back at all."

"It would have been for the best."

"For the best for whom? Not for me. This burden you've shared, I may not yet know what I'll do about it, but I don't regret making you tell me. Certainly not if it means this." He slid a hand up her arm. "Unless… Unless you don't want this."

"This?"

"Us."

Us. Was she part of an 'us', now? Did she want to be?

"Us," she said, her smile returning. Then she made herself stop doing that. "'Us' is impossible. I'll be going from one end of Ferelden to the other, recruiting and testing, and you've this massive army to command."

"I know."

"It's not remotely practical. We'll hardly ever see each other."

"I understand that."

"You know there's still the real Calling."

He sighed heavily. "Yes well, every relationship has its difficulties. Neria, I'm not planning the rest of our lives, but neither do I want this to end just because we cannot guarantee tomorrow. And you still haven't answered me. Do you want this?"

She did, she realized. She wanted exactly this: mornings with him, waking up to hear his voice, to laugh at his teasing. She wanted to go to sleep at night, warm and with someone she could rely on to be there, to help her, to match her.

That, she admitted to herself, was something she had never had with Alistair. Could never have had. Oh, in combat he more than held his own but he had always looked to her to lead, to decide. He had never wanted the responsibility.

She hadn't minded. She had even, foolish girl that she'd been, taken a somewhat perverse enjoyment out of having the former Templar do her bidding. And it was something she used ruthlessly to make him see that marrying Anora was the best for Ferelden.

At which point he'd promptly stopped listening to her and refused to continue their relationship, breaking her heart in return for her breaking his by telling him to marry another woman. Then he'd said he loved her, and killed a dragon for her.

"I see," Cullen said, breaking into her thoughts. He released her arm and sat back, turning away.

"No, wait," she said, twisting toward him.

He paused, looking back at her.

"I do. I want this. Even… even though I'm not entirely sure what 'this' is. I want you."

Lines of tension relaxed in his muscles, and that too-charming half a smile appeared.

He slid towards her again, rested his forehead against hers. "I don't know what this is either," he said, "but I know I don't want to lose it before we even get the chance to find out."

"Remarkably, that is exactly what I know about it," she said.

They rested against each other, one long moment of absolutely nothing, shared between them.

Then he tilted his head to kiss her. "Go check on your newborn Warden," he said, "then come back to me."

"I will," she whispered. "I promise."

(End notes, almost cut-n-pasted from AO3, with an additional tidbit: There is a lot more in this story, in a sense. What happens when Cullen gets his first glimpse at Neria demonstrating the power of that fully operational mage Warden? In DAO, she could drop a firestorm, a hurricane, AND a blizzard and still have enough whammy to fireball anyone audacious enough to survive. Compared to DAI mages, she was beastmode all day, every day. What happens when Neria discovers Cullen's carrying around a lyrium potion just in case he has to shut her down hardcore? What happens when she actually does kill some of his soldiers, his friends, in a Joining ritual? And what happens when she comes back?

But that's not the story I've been wanting to tell since way back when Alistair died in Origins. I replayed that scene a million times with different choices, always trying to force a different ending. Neria thought she was going to die, I thought she was going to die, and Alistair's death was one of the most shocking moments of my very long gaming life. So since that time, I've been looking for a way to mend Neria's broken heart.

Now that I've written this, I don't want to write any further. I've given Neria a beginning for something new with someone who's her equal in every way, damn near the perfect partner for her. I gave Cullen his fairy tale, the woman he never forgot, and someone who truly can understand what they did to him, why he has nightmares, and how to deal with them.

The one thing I haven't explained is that in headcanon, his nightmares don't stop just because he's sleeping with a woman - they don't stop if you romance Cullen in DAI after all - but because she's just so powerful she actually exudes magic. She physically alleviates some of the symptoms of lyrium withdrawal for him. But odds are neither of them would ever figure that out, so I'm fine with them both assuming it's a love/sex thing.

The other thing I didn't explain, as was pointed out on AO3, was Neria's insanity. She IS insane. She's a borderline sociopath, and she took some serious mental damage to make her that way. All Grey Wardens have to be, in a sense. Canonically, they will raze entire villages to kill darkspawn, if they must. I'm not sure many Grey Wardens would have disagreed with the mayor of Crestwood's methods, just his sorting. In a headcanon scene, Bull explains it to Evelyn by saying that Neria doesn't see most people. She looks at them. But she does see Cullen. Her insanity is not cured in this story, and it probably should have been at least dealt with so I'm sorry for that dangling thread.

All of that was to say I'm done. This is the story I wanted to tell. Two walking wounded who found each other, older and wiser but somewhere inside still the naive Templar and his cocky little mage. They have a long way to go in terms of building on these beginnings, but they're both battle-scarred enough to know that all they have to do now is not let anything stop them.

I'm happy with this story. I hope you are as well.)