Hazelnuts and plaid

[Marian Hawke]

Marian wraps her arms around her Papa, resting her head on his shoulder. "You are well? I was worried about you."

[Varric]

"I'm fine," he says instantly, dismissively. "Worried about you. And everyone else."

[Marian Hawke]

Marian is quiet for a moment before she pulls back. "Please," she says quietly, eyes on her lap. "I know I don't deserve your trust. But you have to talk to someone. Please talk to me?"

[Varric]

Varric pales as if stabbed in the gut, his breath rushing from his lungs. He tries to speak, to say something, anything, but fails. After a helpless moment, he bows his head. Before Hawke can decide how to respond, she hears another exhalation. Soft, muffled...

A sob.

[Marian Hawke]

Hawke pulls him close again, rubbing his back with one hand, her fingers sliding into his hair with the other. "Oh, Papa," she says quietly. "Oh, Papa. I know."

[Varric]

"I'm sorry," he chokes out, trembling. "I'm sorry."

[Marian Hawke]

"You did nothing wrong," she argues, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "You were only trying to help. I'm the one that failed you."

[Varric]

"Trying? Maybe," he says, disgust in his voice. "Cowardice a plenty too. And trying or not, I failed. Hard."

[Marian Hawke]

"You never believed I had that kind of weakness in me," she whispers. "Not once, not how long I've been trying to tell you. I can admire that. You always see the hero in me, never the... never the failure."

[Varric]

Varric is already shaking his head before she finishes. "No, I knew," he disagrees, reluctant but honest. "I just thought... I wanted to believe that I wasn't needed, so I convinced myself I wasn't." He frowns. "No, that's not-- I was scared. I didn't want to be- to be that important. I always knew that you... you came to me first. But I-- Realizing what you'd do if I was hurt, if I died, and you blamed someone... I couldn't handle being that. And instead of talking to you about it or asking for help, I decided I knew best and ran away."

[Marian Hawke]

Hawke takes a deep breath, lets it out. "You didn't have any idea I would take to drink. And... while my behavior has been atrocious... what happened to Merrill was an accident. I never meant to do it. I'd still rather die than hurt her. So... so really... it's been better than I feared."

[Aveline Vallen]

"That part is shared with us," Aveline puts in quietly, resting a hand on Hawke's head, She'd have prefered to hug her, or at least touch her shoulder, but she's not really capable of leaning down that far. "It shouldn't have-- You were wrong to run. But you weren't wrong to not... to not be so important, so vital, to Hawke that she couldn't cope without you."

[Marian Hawke]

"I turned my back on Clan. I should never have. It's just... they stood between me and drinking, and drinking felt... important."

[Aveline Vallen]

Aveline stares to protest, starts to argue again but stops herself as something from one of her most recent training courses bubbles up. In large part due to the Doctor's rising prestige and popularity, Nyra is in the infancy of a renaissance of mental and emotional healing.While the Doctor has focused his efforts on understanding and assisting those with extreme, generally debilitating mental conditions, others have emerged with other specialties. In this case, the guard has recently bought a series of courses geared towards officers and up to notice, identify and help address what the course called 'gateway conditions' such as burnout, inferiority/martyr/messiah/divinity complexes, addiction dependency and aggression mismanagement. 

"Why did it feel important?" she asks instead, seeking understanding, seeking to work through why Hawke felt that she was solely to blame so they can address those reasons instead of just denying it outright.

[Marian Hawke]

"I didn't... I didn't think I could function without it. Everything hurt so much. I didn't think I could do without something to dull the pain."