A Place to Call Home: Chapter 7 & 8

[ladydamodred]

Title: A Place to Call Home
Characters: Alistair/Maeve (OC)
Written With: Ravenia aka Sylvanaerie
Word Count: 4,200
Rating: M (These chapters T.)
Summary: A gift is given and it forces the truth to come out. No one can keep there past buried forever, and sometimes you don't want to.

 

Chapter Seven

 

Maeve sighed. Opening the trunk at the foot of her bed that contained the few things she had been unable to part with after her husband’s death four years ago, she removed his most prized possession—an excellent and well maintained sword.

 

The scabbard was made of dark leather and she gripped the hilt, pulling it out carefully. Since his death she’d kept it and cared for it. It had been his most prized possession and he had wanted to give it to their son when he came of age.

 

She bit her bottom lip recalling the babe born not long after she had lost Robert. A son. But their little one hadn’t survived the birth.

 

After that she hadn’t been able to part with it—it had been something her husband treasured and her last real link to him. It felt wrong to just sell it, though there were times she could have used the money.

 

She looked it over. It was well oiled and the blade shimmered in the low light. She’d also kept it sharp. It was a fine blade and would serve a worthy owner well.

 

Her mind kept going back to the scene in the practice yard—the guards’ teasing and digs, Alistair moving a bit awkwardly at first as Jakon tested his resolve and skill. When his body remembered his training, he moved with more confidence.  He had almost seemed like a completely different man as she had watched him press his advantage on Jakon and overcome him.

 

The guards had been a lot more enthusiastic about him joining them then.

 

A small, sad smile played on her lips. He would be provided a blade and armor from the armory, but she knew this blade was of better quality and that he would use it well. Moreover, he was the first man she had met worthy of the gift. Well, second. Jakon had refused it, saying she should keep it or sell it as she saw fit.

 

She slipped the blade back into the scabbard and held it to her chest. It was time to say goodbye. Putting the sword behind her back, she opened the door and stepped back into the main room.

 

Alistair hadn’t sat down. He stood there, tall and golden, and when he saw her holding something behind her back, he looked at her curiously and grinned.

 

“What do you have there? A surprise? I like surprises.” The grin never left his face.

 

“Something…you can use.”

 

She giggled when he reached to try and grab it, and tried to back away, but ended up against the kitchen table. With a small sigh, she pulled it from behind her back and held it out to him.

 

“Oh, Maeve, this is….”

 

He took the blade from her and slid it from its sheath. Hefting the handle expertly he backed away, gave it a swing and then a few more, checking the balance and weight. Her memories supplied the image of Robert doing the exact same thing, but this time the slight ache that accompanied thoughts of her late husband was gone.

 

Satisfied, he put the blade back into its scabbard and tried to give it back, but she shook her head, holding her hands behind her back. Then it was his turn to shake his head.

 

“No, Maeve, this is a very valuable blade. You should sell it, get yourself something you can use, not waste it on me.”

 

“It’s not a waste. This was my husband’s. I was going to give it to our son, but he…he was stillborn. I have no one else to give it to, and I can’t sell it. Please, I think he would want you to have it.”

 

He pulled it back toward him, his expression reluctant.

 

“Jakon says you’re very good. He’s an experienced soldier, so if he vouches for you I know you’ll be all right. But a sword like that will help.”

 

“Maeve, I….” He swallowed and took a deep breath. “I like you.”

 

“I like you, too.”

 

“I don’t mean as just a friend.”

 

“I know.”

 

He appeared indecisive for a moment, then he sighed and nodded as if he had come to some conclusion.

 

“I need to be honest here, no matter what the cost. If I’ve any hope of something with you, then it’s time I told you, Maeve—who and what I am.”

 

~*~

 

Alistair sat Maeve down at her table, laid the blade down upon it and started to sit before changing his mind. Sitting was too still. He had no idea how she was going to react to this and he needed the freedom to move to help him get this out. After pacing back and forth for a minute, he turned to face her.

 

“You know that I’m from Ferelden and that I used to be a fighter.” She nodded. “I had training growing up—in the Chantry, actually.”

 

“The Chantry? But the only people they train in arms are….”

 

“Templars, yes.”

 

“You’re a templar?” she asked incredulously. Oh, joy. If that was so hard to believe, she was just going to love the rest of this.

 

“Not quite a templar. I…left before I took my final vows. Anyway, I did get some training there, but I learned most of my skills during the Blight.”

 

Her face softened in compassion. “I think that’s true for a lot of people. I know Robert had a lot of work during that time, with the civil war and everything. It seemed like everyone was just fighting for survival.”

 

He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I learned most of my skills fighting the Blight. I was involved in the civil war, sort of, but that’s not where most of my attention was focused.”

 

“You fought darkspawn? Oh, Alistair. That must have been terrible. Robert told stories about when they had no choice but to do that, and it sounded ghastly. And you did it willingly? That’s very brave.” She smiled at him. “And next you’ll be telling me you’re a Grey Warden, right?”

 

Saying nothing, he simply met her gaze steadily. He had no idea when she had left Ferelden or how much she knew about occurred toward the end. It might be easier to let her piece things together as much as she could and then fill in the rest.

 

The smile slowly faltered and her eyes widened as realization dawned. “You’re…you’re really a Grey Warden?”

 

“Yes.” When she just continued to stare, he looked away from her. “That’s how I got out of the Chantry. Duncan, the Warden-Commander, recruited me.”

 

Maeve ran her hands through her hair. “That’s…that’s incredible. I had no idea.”

 

“You had no reason to.” Alistair shrugged. “It’s not like you ever saw anything from me that would give that impression.”

 

She opened her mouth to answer and then closed it, nodding ruefully. “So how did you end up here? If you’re a Warden, shouldn’t you be with them?”

 

“I…left.”

 

“You left? I didn’t know you could do that. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of, unless….” She paused and frowned in thought. “Wait, did you leave during the Blight?!”

 

She looked at him aghast and Alistair felt the same self-recriminations he had when he first fully realized what he’d done—the same feelings that drove him to the bottle in the first place. His hands twitched. A drink would help now—numb him a bit so he could finish this story. Surely one drink couldn’t—

 

A hand touched his arm.

 

He looked back at Maeve as she tugged him toward the seat next to her, pulling him down. “Try starting from the beginning,” she said softly. “Take your time.”

 

Drawing a deep breath, he nodded and tried to settle. “Duncan recruited me. I was with the Wardens for about six months. I loved it. I finally had a place to belong, where people accepted me and I didn’t have to worry about…anything else.”

 

“And then?” prompted Maeve when he fell silent.

 

“And then Ostagar happened.”

 

Her hand covered his where it rested on the arm of the chair. “You were there?”

 

“I was.”

 

“I’m so sorry, Alistair. We were still in Ferelden then and we heard about that.”

 

“It was a massacre,” he said quietly. “Solona and I were the only Wardens to survive.”

 

“Solona?” she asked. “Solona Amell?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Her brow furrowed as she thought. “I heard about that. The Wardens were blamed for King Cailan’s death and—”

 

“We didn’t!” he burst out savagely. “Loghain betrayed us, betrayed Cailan! The bastard left all those people to be slaughtered and then had the gall to blame it on us!”

 

Alistair jerked his hand from beneath her, curling it into a fist as he struggled to control the surge of anger. Maeve touched his arm tentatively, rubbing gently.

 

“I remember that. I never believed it. It made no sense.” She paused. “But, Alistair, I don’t understand. Loghain ended the Blight. We left before then, but everyone knows that. If you felt that strongly about him, how did that happen?”

 

“Because she chose him over me.” It hurt to say that out loud, to verbally admit the choice that the woman he’d loved had made. “After everything we’d been through, after everything we’d done, it didn’t matter what we meant to each other—what I thought we’d meant to each other. She chose him.”

 

Maeve’s hand continued stroking his arm and the sense of anticipation was heavy in the room.

 

“This was at the Landsmeet?”

 

“Yes. What should have been a scene of justice instead became a mockery of everything I’ve loved.”

 

“But, Alistair, from what I remember hearing about the Landsmeet, the only two Wardens who were there were Solona Amell and the Warden being put forward…as a contender…for the…throne….”

 

Her voice trailed off and he chanced a quick look at her. Maeve’s eyes were absolutely huge, her eyebrows almost up to her hairline. She looked at him intently, gray eyes flicking back and forth, almost like she was seeing him for the first time.

 

She stood up abruptly.

 

“Maeve!” He reached for her, wanting her to understand what he was trying to say, what he couldn’t figure out how to say.

 

Holding up a hand, she said, “Wait. Wait right here a minute.” Dashing into her room, she didn’t bother closing the door. Alistair sat, listening to the sounds of her rummaging through something.

 

When she came back out, she was holding something small in her hands. As she sat down, he could see the glint of gold from two coins. With a slightly shaking hand, she reached out and gently grasped his chin, turning his head to the side so she could see him in profile. He watched from the corner of his eyes as compared his image to those stamped on the coins.

 

Finally, she sagged back in her seat, lowering her hands to rest limply on her thighs. “Oh holy Maker,” she breathed, squeezing her eyes shut tight. “Alistair, you’re a prince!”

 

Andraste, no! This was exactly what he didn’t want to happen. She was wrong, so wrong, and he had to make her see that.

 

“No.” He reached out, grabbed her hands in his, forcing her to look at him. “No, Maeve, I’m not. I’m not! For my entire life, I never was, and I’m definitely not now. Not even counting the fact that I completely swore off my heritage before the entire Landsmeet, I was never meant to be anything other than a commoner. I was something inconvenient and supposed to be hidden away. Who my father was only became important and useful when we were trying to stop Loghain.

 

“It wasn’t something I ever wanted. Don’t get me wrong—had things been different, I would have done my duty. But…that’s not the way things turned out. In the end, I abandoned everything—every person who ever believed in me and every duty I had. What I used to be doesn’t matter anymore. Who I used to be doesn’t matter. That life…that life is dead and gone now.”

 

He gestured to himself helplessly. “This is what’s left—a recovering drunk who’s lived most of the last seven years of his life in the gutter. A man who has nothing except maybe a second chance, and I only have that much because of you.”

 

“This…this is so hard to believe, Alistair. I mean, it sounds insane.”

 

“Do you think I’m lying?” Her answer was incredibly important.

 

“No,” she said slowly. “I don’t. I can’t see any possible benefit to you making it up, not in this situation, and I think you’re too good a person to lie to me like this.

 

“But this is a huge shock. You can see that, can’t you? I don’t know what to think right now. I hate to do this, I really do, but I need some time to absorb this. It’s…it’s a little much to take in.”

 

Alistair nodded and stood. “I understand.” He picked up the sword and held it out. “Here.”

 

“No.” Maeve pushed it back against his chest. “I still want you to keep it.” She walked him to the door, holding it open. He wanted to say something, but didn’t know what. Instead he just brushed his fingertips across her cheek briefly and stepped outside.

 

“Alistair!” she called softly when he’d gotten maybe a dozen paces away. “Why did you tell me? You didn’t have to.”

 

He stopped and turned back to look at her over his shoulder. “Because you deserved the truth, as ugly as it is. You deserve someone who’s honest with you. And…and I wanted someone to know. It’s not fair to you, but I didn’t want to be alone with this anymore.”

 

Turning away, he continued quickly up the street. Maeve wasn’t the only one who needed time. He had to come to grips with it himself—sober, this time.

Chapter Eight

 

Alistair lay on his bed, thinking. He’d done a lot of that the last few days. Questions about whether or not he should have told Maeve everything kept going through his mind. It shouldn’t affect anything, he knew that. What he used to be didn’t matter anymore—not here, not now. The only reasons he’d told her were what he admitted. She deserved the truth, even if it drove her from him—Maker, please, no—and he was tired of hiding what he was from everyone. He didn’t want to keep facing the burden of his past alone.

 

He was tired of being alone.

 

Telling Maeve might have been a huge mistake. He hope—prayed—that it hadn’t been. But he’d had to tell her before he got so attached that her rejection wouldn’t hurt. From the way he felt right now, it was probably already too late for that. Fear that she would ultimately turn him away kept him up at night and he’d packed his bag a half dozen times, mind made up to just go, slip out of town and not have to face that. And a half dozen times he’d unpacked his bag, realizing the insanity and futility of that plan.

 

In the dark room, for he hadn’t bothered to light the single lamp, his thoughts inevitably turned to Solona. The dark-eyed and dark-haired mage that had been everything to him—sister-Warden, friend, lover. He had loved her so much that it made him ache and he would have done almost anything for her.

 

And then in the course of less than five minutes, she’d destroyed his world, irrevocably shattering the dreams he’d had and tearing the heart from his chest. He’d been a wreck when he’d left Denerim, numb to everything except the pain inside him. That pain had slowly turned to rage and the guilt he felt from abandoning Ferelden to the Blight twisted and festered like a sickness in his soul.

 

Alcohol had numbed everything for a long, long time. But since Maeve rescued him, he didn’t have that to shield him from the knowledge of what he’d done. The fact that the Blight had been ended didn’t excuse his actions. Some part of him would probably always feel guilty over that, he realized. But he had to let it go. If he couldn’t, there was no hope of a future for him, let alone one that included someone else.

 

A future with someone. It was easy, so easy, to picture that someone as Maeve. She was warm and kind and gentle. No great warrior, no hero striding through history, just an amazing woman who’d lost more than he’d ever had and still had so much to give—even to someone like him.

 

He ached for her, wanted her in a way that was more than just physical. He wanted just to be near her, to hear her talk and laugh, and watch her smile as she worked. If he tried, he could be someone she could be proud of. That’s what prompted him to ask about the job Jakon offered. He could make enough to provide for himself, but it wasn’t enough if he hoped to include her in his life. She deserved more.

 

And if she decided she wanted something with him, there was still more he needed to tell her.

 

He threw an arm over his eyes. How could he tell her that? He couldn’t. It was one thing that she knew about the monster he had been, but for her to know that someday in the future he would quite literally turn into one if he didn’t kill himself first was too much. It was a burden she shouldn’t have to bear. So while he wouldn’t lie to her about what it meant for him or for them, he also wouldn’t reveal the entire ghastly truth. When the time came—if indeed the point wasn’t long moot by then—there were ways it could be dealt with.

 

There was a soft knock on his door and he held his breath. That would be Hilda. The older woman had warmed up to Alistair considerably since he’d begun renting from her. If there were nights he didn’t go to Maeve’s—which were admittedly few and far between—she would check on him to see if he wanted to eat dinner with the others. These last few nights he’d stayed shut in his room, and from the side long glances she’d given him, he knew she was both curious and worried as to what had happened between him and Maeve.

 

The knock came again and he sighed, lowering his arm and sitting up. “Look, Mrs. Miller,” he said, standing up and opening the door. “I appreciate what….”

 

His words trailed off. Standing on the other side of the door wasn’t Hilda, but Maeve. She looked up at him and they stood there in the awkward silence.

 

“Can, um, I come in?” she eventually asked. Alistair stepped back, allowing her room to enter. She crossed the threshold and shut the door behind her.

 

“Maker’s breath, it’s dark in here!”

 

“Er, sorry. Hold on.” He fumbled for the striker on the small table and lit the lamp, turning the wick up a bit higher so that the room was fully illuminated.

 

“Much better.” She stood, twisting her hands together in a nervous fashion.

 

Alistair gestured toward the bed lamely. “I’d offer you a place to sit, but that’s all I’ve got.”

 

“It’s fine,” Maeve said quickly, perching on the edge of the bed.

 

“So….”

 

“So…I’ve been thinking. It goes without saying that I was more than a little shocked by what you told me. I had a hard time understanding how someone like you could have ended up in the place you did. No, wait, let me finish,” she said, holding up a hand.

 

“I realized I have no right to judge you. You’ve been through things most people couldn’t imagine if they tried and not only did you survive, you’re still a good, strong person. All those things you said? They don’t matter. I don’t care who you used to be, I only care who you are now. And I like who you are now.”

 

Alistair squeezed his eyes shut tight, almost not daring to believe it was happening. Then he took a deep breath and opened them, moving to sit next to Maeve. Reaching out tentatively to catch her hand, she flipped it over so that she could lace her fingers with his. He kept his gaze focused on their hands.

 

“Does that mean you might like…to see if this goes anywhere?”

 

“I would like that very much,” she answered softly.

 

“Then I have something else I need to tell you. A long time ago, something happened to me. It…changed me.” Her hand tightened in his. “I’ll never live to be old, Maeve. And I can’t have children. I can’t give you a family or real life together. I can’t even give you a name, if it comes to that. This…this isn’t fair to you. You should try to find happiness somewhere else.”

 

“No!” Her denial was sharp and Alistair jerked his head up to look at her. “You don’t get to decide what’s fair for me, not on your own. It’s not fair? Well, guess what? Life isn’t fair! We both know that. Everything we have can be taken from us any moment and I won’t live my life in fear or be consumed with maybes and what-ifs.”

 

Her other hand came up to cup his cheek. “Anything can happen, and I won’t deny what’s right in front of me because I might lose it someday.”

 

“There’s no ‘might’ about it, Maeve. I will die someday and—”

 

“And that someday could be tomorrow!” she interrupted him. “You could be killed any day of the week doing your job. I know this. I’ve already lived it once. It doesn’t matter to me. And you never know. Something could happen to me. I could have an accident or get sick or be attacked—”

 

He pulled her against him. “Don’t! Don’t say it. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

 

“Oh, Alistair,” she sagged against him. “You can’t promise that.”

 

“I can and I do.” He wouldn’t let her be hurt. If there was one thing he was good at, it was protecting people and there was no one more deserving of it than her.

 

He felt her smile against his neck.

 

“And as for the other things,” she continued. “Children? It might have been nice to be a mother, but I don’t think it’s something the Maker intended for me. I already lost one babe. In truth, I’m relieved because I don’t know that I could survive losing another.

 

“And as for a name, if as you say, we get there someday, I already have one, and if that’s not to your liking, we can make one up. Things like that don’t matter, Alistair, not in the long run.”

 

Alistair rested his cheek against the top of her head, inhaling the clean scent of her hair.

 

“So shall we see where this takes us?” he asked.

 

“Let’s.”

 

“In that case….” He pulled away so he could look down at her. “I want to do this properly. I’d like to court you, Maeve.”

 

“Court me?” Her eyes widened. “You say that as if I’m a lady.”

 

“You are,” he said earnestly. “And you deserve to have someone worthy, someone who’ll treat you as such. I’d like to be that someone.” He raised her hand still held in his, shifting it so he could press a kiss to her knuckles.

 

Maeve blinked several times, raising her free hand to wipe her eyes. “I would love that,” she choked out. “But there’s one thing you should know.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“This lady likes kisses.”

 

Alistair grinned and pulled her back against him. Lowering his head, he whispered against her lips, “Then what the lady likes, the lady shall have.”

 

The kiss was slow and sweet. Alistair was mesmerized by the softness of her lips and the way they yielded under his. He’d missed closeness, intimacy like this, found in nothing more than an embrace and a gentle exploration of another’s willing mouth.

 

And Maeve wasn’t shy about returning the kiss, her own tongue tracing along his lips and slipping into his mouth.

 

Eventually, with a groan, Alistair eased himself away. “If I’m going to be a gentleman, I think I should see the lady home.”

 

Maeve clucked her tongue in irritation, but moved away herself. “If you insist.”

 

Alistair helped her up and opened the door. They walked past a very curious Hilda hand-in-hand and Alistair tucked her arm through his for the walk home.

 

When they arrived back at her place, Alistair bowed over her hand again. “Good night, my lady.”

 

Maeve giggled slightly, a huge grin on her face. “Good night, my prince.”

 

Alistair watched until she shut the door and then turned back toward his lodgings. The honorific hadn’t stung when Maeve used it. If she wanted him to be her prince, he could do that.