Title: Enduring Absence
Fandom: Dragon Age
Rating: T
Length: 686 words
Content notes: No warnings apply.
Author notes: Written for the 'negative space' challenge in fan_flashworks and the 'missing persons' prompt in genprompt_bingo.
Summary: Lost in the immediacy of grief following her mother's death, Sara shuts Anders out.

***

When Sara wakes the next morning, everything is fine. The sun is shining brightly through the windows, there are the usual sounds of activity in the streets below. Although... it is strange that Anders is not beside her. He must have worked late at the clinic or perhaps he left early that morning. The angle of the sun does suggest that she has awoken later than normal --

Her brain stutters.

-- and then memory comes crashing down.

Mother, dead.

Murdered.

Turned into a grotesque puppet for a madman.

It can't be real.

But it is.

Sara can't breathe. She is perched on the edge of the bed, head hanging down, gasping for breath, when Orana rushes in.

"Domina, domina!" Orana says with urgency. She kneels down before Sara, takes her hands, shakes them. "Breathe, domina!"

As though responding to Orana's command, the vice that seems to have materialised around Sara's chest loosens. She takes in a deep, ragged breath. Orana's face reflects a sense of relief, but it swiftly crumbles.

Why?

Oh, that sound.

A high-pitched wail.

It is going on and on.

Orana is looking at her with concern. She stands up, backs away several steps.

"I'm going to get Anders," Orana says. She turns and almost flees the room.

The sound continues.

It is only when Sara takes another breath that it stops.

Oh.

She tries to suppress it. But the pressure in her chest needs to go somewhere. The keening erupts from her throat again.

Then, suddenly, Anders is there. It is too quick for Orana to have fetched him from the clinic.

He is coming towards her despite the ghastly sound she is making. She tries to stop, to greet him. She forces her face into a smile but it feels like it is breaking into pieces, with shards sticking out in every direction.

"Oh love," Anders says. His weight bows the bed down when he sits next to her, and he throws his arms around her. "I am so sorry."

The sound, mercifully, stops. But now it has been replaced with wretched sobbing and her face is wet and there is snot dripping onto her lip from somewhere.

Anders tightens his arms around her and there are feathers against her cheeks, tickling her nose. She moves her head to wipe the snot onto them, but it just makes more feathers stick to her. It irritates her, and she pulls back, wiping roughly at her top lip and shaking her head.

Anders is looking at her with sympathy. He smooths down her hair, untangles a knot.

Sara shrinks in on herself. Feet on the bed, knees tucked up under her chin. If she sleeps, maybe it will go away, and when she wakes next everything will be fine again.

Anders' expression has changed to something more like pity. In it, Sara can read his answer: Nothing will ever be fine again.

The wretched sobbing resumes. She buries her face against her knees. She has to keep taking deep lungfuls of air through her mouth because her nose isn't working.

Nothing will ever be fine again.

The truth of that is unbearable. It is a truth that will extend through all time, all futures. Every moment that Sara has yet to live has that truth in it. Endless. Enduring. Her mother's absence, forever. She cannot bear it. It cannot heal. Nothing Anders can do will help.

Is she screaming at him? He is recoiling. The words are coming out of their own accord. They are boiling out of her belly, forcing their way through her lungs, out her mouth. His people. His magic. She is so angry. It is not his fault. But it is coming out anyway.

She wants him to leave her alone. Leave her alone.

He is getting up. His face shows sorrow, but also hurt. A faint throb of guilt inside her, but mostly relief. He is leaving. He is shutting the bedroom door.

She throws herself down onto the bed, shuts her eyes. Forces herself to sleep.

Maybe when she wakes up again everything will be fine.