I opened my mouth to talk, but Ambrose beat me to it.

“Please don’t.”  A single tear fell down his face.  “I can just see it written all over you face, you’re planning to shut me out.  Please don’t, Maddie.”

He got up and came over to me, and, much to my surprise, wrapped his arms around me and rested his head on my shoulder.  He used to hug me as a child, but adult-version Ambrose was…different.

“Please,” he begged in a tiny voice.  “Please, Maddie.”

I hesitated, then slowly reached up to hug him back.  I didn’t know if I was strong enough to refuse him, even if it was for his safety, but I had to figure out something.

“Six months,” I said abruptly.  “Give me six months to work something out.  At the end of that time, if I’ve dealt with it, we can be friends if you still want to.”

He was quiet for a moment, then raised his head to look at me, his eyes piercing.  “Something…dangerous?  Are you trying to protect me from something?”

“Six months,” I told him firmly.

“And what if you don’t finish whatever it is in that amount of time?”  He looked anxious now.

I considered.  “Fine, if I can’t solve it after six months, then I’ll tell you what’s going on and you can help solve if, it you want to.”

His brows furrowed.  “Is it dangerous?”  He repeated.  “Look, if it is, I won’t – I won’t get involved if you don’t want me to, but at least let me help with the cost of your surgery first.  You need it because of me anyway, and you haven’t gotten it done yet because of finances, right?  I can’t imagine a bartender salary would cover something like that easily.  So let me cover it, so you’ll at least be in better shape to deal with whatever this is.”  His face got the faintest tint of pink.  “If you need it again, I’m guessing it’s causing you issues now, but after you have it and recover, you’d be somewhat better, right?  More able to deal with a dangerous situation than now?”

I didn’t much like the idea, but he wasn’t wrong.  It would help a lot to have more mobility while dealing with this situation.

“I can cover it if I use my savings,” I began.

“But you shouldn’t have to!  This is my responsibility anyway, and I’d rather cover it.  I can do so easily, honest.  I can just make diamonds, too, you know.  I don’t do it often, but if I ever need to, I can – and this would be one of those times.”  He bit his lip.  “Please let me?”

It would do a lot for my peace of mind to have my savings intact, but I wasn’t sure about letting Ambrose just take care of it for me.  Especially if he was using his magic to cover it, given what he’d just talked about with his parents.  Somehow that felt like I’d be taking advantage of him.

“Maddie,” he begged, “my parents helped you financially when you were injured, but it was because of me, and you deserved to have any injuries permanently covered.  I’ve missed out on helping you for decades when you needed it, so at least let me help now, okay?  I feel like I owe it to you, even if you don’t.  I really want to help.”

I honestly didn’t think he owed me that, but I wasn’t sure how to answer.

But he didn’t seem the least bit deterred by my silence.  “And – and – can we at least still talk, a little?  I can do six months, honest, but can I just come by the club, at least?”  His eyes were pleading.  “I hate the idea of not getting to see you at all.”

I sighed a little and leaned against the fridge, thinking, while Ambrose kept his grip on the edge of my shirt, like he was afraid I would run off if he didn’t.  Kind of a silly fear, really, given that running was not within my comfort zone right now.

“Fine,” I agreed after I gave it some thought.  “You can come by the club and talk, but it’s got to be more neutral topics.  Anyone can hear the conversation, so you have to keep that in mind.  You can’t appear to have a special relationship with me.”

Oddly, he seemed to perk up a bit with that.  Maybe because he thought that meant we did have a special relationship, he just had to appear not to?  I mean…probably we did, given our history.

“Okay,” he nodded.  “And the surgery?”

I groaned a little, but gave in.  “Fine.  This time.  Because it’ll be important to be at my best for this.  But only this time.”

He seemed a little self-satisfied with my answer, if the pleased grin was any indication, although I also got the impression he was probably not going to go along with the “only this time” part.  “Can I kiss you?”

I stared at him.  Where had that come from?

Apparently my expression wasn’t what he expected, because he deflated a bit.  “I just – I really like you.  Like, more than just friends.  Really, Maddie.”

I let out a long huff as I considered that.  “Then you need to spend these six months thinking about that.  Hold on,” I held up a finger when he opened his mouth to protest.  “You have a romanticized view of me because of your memories of me taking care of you and protecting you when you were little.  That view isn’t all accurate and isn’t who I am today, but it’s been colored by your fondness for someone who by your own words was the only person who really showed you much affection for several of your formative years.  Now you see me again, all these years later, and I think you might be mixing up your emotions for those memories with a different kind of interest.  So just – try to sort through whether you’re actually feeling something for me versus just being enamored of nostalgia.  Plus, well, I saw you mostly as a child, and I am definitely not interested in children.  You’re a man now, yes, but it’s not something that has particularly crossed my mind.”

At least he didn’t seem offended by my observations, and took a long moment to think through what I said.  “If I decide I really am interested in you, can I start flirting?  So you do start thinking of me more as a man than the kid I used to be?”

I was kind of startled with the suggestion.  “I guess,” I said slowly, “but remember it’s at the club and I can’t really flirt back.”

He looked disappointed, then forgot about that almost as quickly as it appeared.  “So could we, like, have a special code for if you were trying to flirt back just without anyone else realizing?  Um, recommending a drink or something?  I don’t know?”

I was really not sure about why we needed to go into detail with this potential scenario, but on the other hand, if I was forbidding him to contact me in other than a patron/bartender context for six months, maybe it was better to iron out all the details now.  Even if I thought some of them were unnecessary.

“Fine, yes, I’ll,” I tried to think of a subtle way to flirt, “I’ll give you black napkins for your drinks.  Something.  I’ll let you figure it out, actually.”  I looked at him smugly.  “That’ll be your job.”

He groaned, but didn’t seem upside.  “Okay, okay.  And, um, six months?  You promise you’ll tell me then?  And you won’t disappear or anything?”

“Promise.”  A thought crossed my mind.  “Though if you’re coming by the club regularly, don’t just pick alcohol.  I don’t want to contribute to you getting alcohol poisoning or messing up your liver.  Get some non-alcoholic stuff if you’re going to become a regular.”

He nodded obediently.  “I’ll be careful, honest.”  He bit his lip, his eyes searching my face.  “Why is it that I’ve survived almost 75 years without you, but the idea of six months without really hanging out just sucks?”

“It’s just six months,” I told him.  “It’ll be fine.”

I just hoped six months was long enough for me to fix a decades-long problem on my own.  Without having the same fighting capabilities I used to.

I would just have to make sure it was enough.

~~~~~

I groaned slightly as I sat down at the doctor’s office, leaning my head against the wall as I did.  My doctor had been happy to have me call to schedule the surgery, but now we had some pre-surgery stuff to deal with.

Honestly, I would be glad to get this done.  I needed it, and Ambrose was right about one thing – it would help with my plan.  My plan.  The one that was really non-existent so far, just a vague idea that somehow I needed to face this head-on instead of hiding like I had for years.

While I waited to be called, I watched the other patients in the office.  Mostly supernaturals, which made sense, because this was a supernatural doctor who tried to specialize in supernaturals, particularly any long-term conditions and effects that might persist past what human doctors would assume human lifespans might be.

The doors opened and another patient came in and headed over to the front desk.  When she finished, she glanced back around the room uncertainly, before her eyes fell on me, and for a moment we stared at each other, equally surprised.

After that moment, though, the female demon hesitantly came in my direction.  “Mind if I sit here?”

I shrugged a little.  I knew Leo had thought she was dead, but I wasn’t entirely surprised to find out she’d survived – although I was surprised to see her again myself.

She sat, then glanced at me a couple of times, uncertainly.  “You’re here because of that day?”  She finally asked.

I shrugged slightly.  “Yeah.  Hip replacement.  Bones don’t regenerate, unfortunately.”

“I guess that interferes a bit with your fighting,” she mused.

“Yeah, that and the eye.  It limits my mobility and creates a blind spot that I could miss people from, though the eye’s easier to work around.”  I shrugged again.  “For most people, probably not that huge of a deal.  I suppose for people like us, it complicates life more.”  I glanced over at her.  “You?”

“Surgery can put stuff back together but can’t solve everything.”  She huffed a bit.  “Some of my sinus and ear stuff got all messed up.  It works, but not well enough if I’m exerting myself, so I start to have issues getting enough oxygen.  I can breathe through my mouth, but there are limits to that.  The doc here thinks he might be able to fix that, but not sure.  We’ll see, I guess.  But the bigger problem is my ears.”  She tapped her foot against the cane she’d used coming in.  “I never realized before how much getting your inner ears messed up could affect your life.  Vestibular dysfunction or whatever, I don’t know, they all call it something different, but the end result is the same.  Everything can turn topsy-turvy for me in a second and I’ll end up flat on the ground.  Definitely ended my fighting days.”  She sighed deeply, but didn’t seem to be too put out about it.  “Odd, isn’t it?  How one fight can permanently change two people’s lives so much?  You’re right, it doesn’t matter to everyone, but for demons and naga, not being able to fight is a problem.”

She abruptly glared at nothing in particular.  “My old pandemonium kicked me out over it.  It took me a while to heal from everything, and then it took years to even get to the point where I could kind of walk around again.  I’m actually a lot better than how I used to be.  But to a pandemonium, I was just a liability.”  She threw a look at me.  “Did your nest do that, too?”

“Not really.  I kicked myself out of my nest before that, and never tried joining one since, but you’re right – no nest would be happy to have me as a member now.  They want members who make their nest stronger.  If I were already a member and injured, it might be one thing, but letting in a new member who provides no benefit to the nest?”  I shrugged.  “Not really ideal.”