She takes the least blood-stained bag and fills it with her new belongings. She swings it on and exits the shack.

"Hmmmm," she says, closing her eyes. She spins on the spot, fingers pointing out. A couple of seconds, and then she stops, and opens her eyes. Empty wasteland stretches out in front of her. "This way." 

She threads her thumbs through the straps of her bag, and sets off.

Elsewhere...

"No...no, fuck!" 

Hawke takes another last, desperate look around the room. Clearly a former Institute lab, abandoned when it was clear the Capital wasteland didn't fear them the way they were further up the coast. She'd been raiding them for months, searching them inside and out, tearing them apart for any clue, any sign-

They told her this was it. They'd found him. 

She picks up a terminal and throws it against the wall, howling in fury.

Hawke takes several minutes to calm down, and once she is, most of the lab is destroyed. Which, she surmises, is fine. Less chance of the Institute finding anything if they return. 

Perhaps she should leave even less.

Half an hour later, she is walking back out into the wasteland, and an explosion rips apart the smelting factory behind her, destroying every last trace of the lab.

That night finds Hawke in the bar of a nearby town, on her third glass.

A woman in a mismatch of knitted clothing approaches the bar, and sits next to her. Orders the same thing as Hawke, and another for her.

Hawke catches sight of the lantern tattooed onto the woman's wrist. 

"He wasn't there," she mutters darkly, and throws back the rest of her glass, accepting the new one straight after.

"I figured, since you're here throwing whisky back like water."

The woman nurses her own glass, looking at Hawke out of the corner of her eye. "We are sorry."

"Sorry doesn't undo the last year."

"We know. We are trying. We don't want anyone taken against their will, let alone someone with a life."

The woman takes a sip from her glass, pursing her lips afterwards, like the taste was wrong. Not a drinker, then. "We just seem to always be a few steps behind."

"Please, by all means, give me more excuses. That will soothe the pain of hunting my husband's kidnappers for a whole fucking year."

"Hawke, we are giving you every bit of information we get. We swear."

"Every time I turn up to one of these places, it's been abandoned for months. Months. Nothing. No sign." Hawke drains the entire glass of whisky.

"You're right. They are a few steps ahead. So far ahead, you're not even in the same race anymore."

"That's true. You're exactly right. We need more informants in places the Institute can't touch."

Hawke scoffs. "No shit."

The woman takes in a breath. What she's been told to ask will not be easy, and she's more than aware of Hawke's quick temper.

"The thing is, for us to remain hidden, to keep the others in our care safe, we can't recruit. Not without exposing ourselves. But, there are people out there who align with us, and we know they can be trusted. People with contacts in places with information we couldn't get otherwise."

"And where are these magical people?"

The woman swallows nervously, and drinks a little more of her whisky.

"Well, you are a former Paladin, are you not?"

Hawke goes very still. 

And then the glass in her hand shatters. 

She draws a knife, and holds it to the Railroader's neck, her other hand keeps her head still. 

"You want me, me, to go back to those soulless fucks, and beg for my position back? You want me to go crawling back on my belly to the people who murdered my sister and sent my brothers far enough away that I cannot reach them?"

She presses the knife into the woman's neck. Blood starts to bead along it. "The same people who would've killed my husband if they'd found out what he was?"

The woman is trembling, her heart thumping. She's never been so scared for her life, but oddly enough it makes her mind clearer. 

"Yes. And you know we wouldn't if it wasn't necessary. We're falling too far behind. We don't get new intel from people who can track the Institute, we're sunk. You may as well say goodbye to Anders forever, because we lose his trail, he's gone."

Hawke growls in the back of her throat, but takes the knife away, stowing it back in its sheathe.

The bartender lowers his shotgun from Hawke's head. "You two wanna brawl, take it outside."

He replaces the shotgun below the bar. "You owe me for that glass, too."

Hawke throws caps onto the bar, snarling. 

After a moment, her anger seems less like a wildfire, and more...simmering. She lets herself relax a little. The Railroader has a point. 

"I thought the only way I'd go back is with a Fatman."

"Maybe not yet, but when the time comes, we'll happily help with that."

"Huh." Hawke almost laughs. 

She stands, readjusts her armour, and prepares to head out the door.