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The nurse poked into his room while Ambrosius was trying to get comfortable in his bed after another grueling physical therapy session. He was fairly certain his leg would never regain the strength it once had, but even worse was compensating for the missing eye. He hadn't realized how much it would affect him, but he could hardly even pick things up without knocking them over.
He wondered, occasionally, if this off-balance feeling was how Ballister had felt, after the joust. He didn't let himself think about it too long.
"Sir Goldenloin?" the nurse asked hesitantly.
"Ambrosius, please," he told her, just like he'd said every time before. Hearing his title made his skin crawl. "What is it?"
"I was hoping we could discuss your… current situation," the nurse said. "The doctors think you should be ready to be discharged in a few days, but there's the matter of where you would… go."
Because, of course, the Institution was destroyed, and its headquarters had literally gone up in flames. His room had been on the third floor anyway, and with his leg like this, there was no way he would have been able to get up there even if the room still existed.
Which it didn't. He didn't let himself think about that too long either.
"It would be best if you could stay with someone," the nurse continued. "There are options for hired caregivers that we can discuss, but… Generally, we find it to be preferable if patients are able to stay with a friend or family member. I don't mean to intrude, but would this be something to discuss with… with Lord Blackheart?"
"No," Ambrosius said, his refusal immediate and firm and a little bit desperate. "Don't say anything to Ballister about this."
The nurse nodded, her eyes wide. "Then… Would you be interested in discussing the options for hired caregivers?"
"Do we have to discuss it right now?" Ambrosius asked, hardly able to care about how pathetic he definitely sounded.
The nurse's face softened. He must have sounded really pathetic. "No, Sir Goldenloin, we don't have to discuss it right now. I can get together a few pamphlets, if that would be helpful."
Ambrosius nodded, then winced as he shifted the wrong way and his side lit up in pain. No wonder the nurse didn't want him to live alone; he couldn't even lie in a bed right.
"Do you need assistance?" the nurse asked.
"I'm alright," Ambrosius replied, shifting again in a way that was thankfully far less painful. "Thank you."
The nurse nodded. "Alright. I'll let you rest, and I'll get those pamphlets for you." She hesitated like she wanted to say something else, but in the end, she just slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Ambrosius alone.
He tried not think of it as a metaphor for his life, but there were only so many things he could not-think about at once.
The problem was…
Well, part of the problem was that there were too many problems to consolidate into just one. The biggest problem at that exact moment, Ambrosius figured, was that he didn't have any friends or family who he could stay with upon being discharged. He was an orphan with a dead mother, no living maternal relatives, and an unknown father, so that eliminated any family, and he was an awful person who had been, until recently, an insufferable workaholic, so that eliminated any friends. The closest thing he had to either category was Ballister, which he thought said enough about his position as a miserable excuse for a human being without any further elaboration needed. If he wanted to elaborate, he could add that he wanted to be able to count Ballister with a fervency that was pathetic, even for him, but that was one of the many things he was trying not to think about.
Not-thinking about things had gotten Ambrosius through fifteen years of knighthood without Ballister, for a given value of getting through it. He hadn't been happy, no matter how he acted, but he hadn't deserved to be. He'd put one foot in front of the other, and he'd kept himself together, and he'd done his job. That was, in retrospect, perhaps not a good thing, but he hadn't known that at the time.
Or, more truthfully, it was one of many things Ambrosius had not let himself think about.
He didn't think not-thinking would be as helpful anymore. He had to make his own decisions, without the Institution to tell him what to do, and that meant he had to think about what to do. And he had to do the right thing. He refused to be an easily-manipulated lackey any longer.
He thought it would be easier if Ballister was there to help him. But even if he was trying to do less not-thinking, he was pretty sure it was best not to think about that.
Ballister visited Ambrosius in the hospital the next day. Ambrosius almost wished he wouldn't. He didn't truthfully wish he wouldn't, of course - he craved Ballister's company to a ridiculous extent, especially given that he was the one who'd driven a wedge between them in the first place - but it would have made things easier. Ambrosius knew Ballister didn't like him, not anymore, but when Ballister did things like visit him in the hospital, it was too easy to pretend otherwise.
"The nurse said you're doing better," Ballister said, sitting down next to the bed. His arm was no longer in a sling, but Ambrosius had noticed he was still careful with it. Once, Ambrosius had thought to himself petulantly that it wasn't fair that Ballister came out of the fight comparatively unscathed when it was his shapeshifter who had started the fight in the first place, and then he'd violently hated himself for even thinking it. It wasn't Ballister's fault. It wasn't even the shapeshifter's fault, not entirely. It was the Director's fault, and the Institution's fault, and that made it Ambrosius's own fault by extension. The scars and injuries were nothing more than what he deserved.
"My leg won't ever heal fully," Ambrosius replied. "But the doctors think I should be able to walk, even though I might need a mobility aid for a while. Possibly permanently, depending on how the healing process goes."
"There are options for that," Ballister said, and even though there was no accusation in his voice, Ambrosius's gaze caught on his prosthetic, and he hated himself again. Of course Ballister knew all about that, all about figuring out ways to move forward from a permanent life-altering injury. Ambrosius had only lost an eye, not a limb; he had no right to complain.
"The nurse said I can be discharged in a few days," he said quickly. "So you won't need to visit me here anymore."
Ballister blinked, looking shocked. "Really? Where will you go?"
"I'll… figure something out."
"You don't still have that apartment, do you?"
Ambrosius shook his head. For a short time, he'd had an apartment separate from the Institution, but he'd hardly spent any time in it, and the Director had called him in at odd hours so often that he'd ended up staying overnight at the Institution at least three times a week anyway. The apartment had been a waste of money, and so he'd moved back into the Institution.
Ballister had been to his apartment only once, when Ambrosius had gone out to fight him while sick and Ballister had, for reasons Ambrosius still didn't understand, brought him home. Ambrosius still thought about that sometimes, when he was too busy to stop himself from doing it.
Ballister had made him soup. Ambrosius really tried not to think about that.
"That apartment wouldn't have worked anyway," Ambrosius said, his voice coming out a bit too loud as he did his best to get himself under control. "It was upstairs. A ground floor apartment would be best now."
Ballister nodded slowly. "Do you want… help finding one?"
Ambrosius wished Ballister wouldn't make polite offers that he couldn't possibly mean, because every time, Ambrosius almost wanted to accept. He knew Ballister didn't actually want him to, and he knew he was enough of a burden already, but part of him just wanted so desperately to cling to Ballister and never let go.
But he was already doing that too much. He'd called for Ballister when he'd first woken, and Ballister had actually come when a nurse went to fetch him, and then, he had just… kept coming. Ambrosius knew he should tell him that he didn't have to anymore, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.
If he was being discharged soon, then he only had a few days left. Surely it couldn't be too awful of him to enjoy those days as much as he could? Surely, in the grand scheme of all the awful things he had done, this couldn't be too bad?
"It's alright," Ambrosius told Ballister. "I'll figure things out."
A nurse came in with a wheelchair to bring Ambrosius to his physical therapy, and Ballister helped get him settled in a way that made Ambrosius's skin ache for his touch. Ballister would be gone when he got back, he knew. Ballister was always gone when he got back from physical therapy.
"If you need help," Ballister said, hand lingering for a moment, "you can ask me."
Ambrosius absolutely, absolutely couldn't.
It wasn't that he didn't want Ballister's help. He wanted it so badly it hurt. He dreamed of being able to stay with Ballister, perhaps even to live with him for a while as he healed. In his wildest daydreams, he even imagined Ballister forgiving him, and the two of them living together forever.
But Ballister didn't forgive him. He'd made that clear. Ballister had no reason to forgive him, of course, so Ambrosius couldn't blame him at all. Ballister didn't forgive him, and Ambrosius couldn't let himself be any more of a burden than he already was. He could want Ballister as much as his heart could handle, maybe more, but he couldn't make it Ballister's problem.
He wondered if it would ever get easier. He had fifteen years of evidence to indicate that it wouldn't.
Ballister was sitting next to the bed when Ambrosius returned from physical therapy, turning a stack of pamphlets over and over in his hands. Ambrosius watched him warily as he got out of the wheelchair and back into his bed. Ballister was always gone when he got back from physical therapy, and Ambrosius didn't understand why that had changed.
"A nurse came in with these," Ballister said, tossing the pamphlets at Ambrosius. They scattered across the bed, and Ambrosius saw they were for hired caregivers, just like the nurse had mentioned the day before. "She said you need someone to take care of you when you're discharged."
Ambrosius didn't look up from the pamphlets, but he snuck a peek at Ballister out of the corner of his eye. "I asked her not to say anything to you about it."
That was the wrong thing to say; something in Ballister's expression twisted. "Is it pride?"
Ambrosius looked up at him. "Is… What?"
"Are you just too proud to let the villain help you?" Ballister demanded. "Because you're too late for that, if you are. I was the one who carried you out of that lab." His expression twisted further. "Unless that's part of the problem. Trying to prove you don't need me?"
"What?" Ambrosius repeated, his voice coming out small. "I don't understand."
"Neither do I!" Ballister retorted, his voice almost a yell. He was on his feet now, and Ambrosius didn't know what he'd done to make him so angry. "I don't understand why you won't just get over yourself and ask me for help!"
Ambrosius blinked. That was… strange. Ballister could be cruel, certainly, but normally only after Ambrosius started it. Of course, Ambrosius had started it, back with the joust, but…
"But you don't want to help me."
Ballister stared down at him, incredulity and anger warring on his face. "What are you talking about?"
"You said you didn't forgive me," Ambrosius said. "You told me that it didn't matter if I apologized. I am sorry, but- You don't have to forgive me. And you don't have to help me. I know you don't want to." He looked back down at the pamphlets scattered across his bed, not letting his gaze focus enough to actually read what they said. "I know you don't want to help, and you don't have to, so I'm- I was trying not to ask."
For a moment, the room was silent, then Ballister slumped back into his chair with a sigh. "Ambrosius, I…" He shook his head. "We can't go back to the way things were."
"I know. I… I chose to play along, and that doesn't just go away."
That was what Ballister had said. The words were burned into Ambrosius's mind; he wouldn't forget them any time soon. And they were true, and they were fair, and it didn't matter if Ambrosius hated them, because it was Ballister's decision whether or not he could forgive the person who blew his arm off.
Ballister winced slightly. "It… It doesn't. And we can't pretend the last fifteen years haven't happened."
Ambrosius would love it if the last fifteen years hadn't happened, but he knew Ballister was right. He'd spent fifteen years consistently doing the wrong thing, and he had to pay for that.
"But…" Ballister said slowly, "that doesn't mean we can't try to fix things."
Ambrosius's breath caught in his throat, and his body felt hot and cold at the same time. "I- I don't understand."
"Why did you think I was visiting you in the hospital every day?"
"I-" Ambrosius had been trying not to think about it too hard. If he thought about it, he was worried Ballister would disappear.
"I want to try again," Ballister said. "We can't undo what happened, but we can move on. I want…" He looked at the pamphlets, then at Ambrosius. "You need somewhere to stay after you leave the hospital, and you need someone to help take care of you. Do you want to stay with me?" And then, hesitantly, like he had to sell it, he added, "My place is all one floor."
I love you, Ambrosius wanted to say. I love you, and I have always loved you, and I will never stop. I thought I would be alone forever, and I would deserve it, but I never stopped wanting you. I am so, so sorry.
But if they were going to start again, they should start smaller than that. Ambrosius knew better than to reach for too much, too fast.
He wanted this. If he had to move slowly to keep it, he would.
"Are you sure?" he asked Ballister, because if he started letting himself believe, he didn't think he could stop.
"I'm sure," Ballister said. "Do you want to stay?"
Slowly, carefully, Ambrosius nodded. "I do. I- I'd like that."
I still love you, he didn't say, but maybe someday, he could.