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Nimona was watching him again.
He knew she was watching him, and he knew she wanted him to know she was watching him, because she had taken the form of an owl and was sitting four feet away from him, tracking his every movement and staring at him unblinkingly with wide, piercing eyes.
Nimona had many fantastic qualities, as he was coming to learn. Subtlety was not one of them.
She’d only been back for a week, and he was trying his hardest to make up for the way he’d treated her before. So far she’d only responded with polite, somewhat condescending coldness. Which he couldn’t blame her for! He wouldn’t blame her if she never forgave him. But he did genuinely want to get to know her, and she hadn’t responded with outright hostility, so he kept trying.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked. He was up to his elbows in soapy water as he washed dishes, so escaping the conversation wasn’t going to be easy. He suspected that’s why she chose this moment to do . . . whatever it was she was doing.
“Nope,” she said, popping the “p”. She let herself swing forward from her perch so she was hanging upside down, facing away from him, then rotated her head so she was still staring at him. It was unsettling, which he thought was the point.
“Okay,” he said. He debated if he was supposed to ask further questions, or if he should just let her be.
“I’m just waiting to see how long it’ll take you to figure it out,” she said, resolving the choice for him.
“Figure what out?” he said.
“That this isn’t going to work.” She flipped off her perch, shifting into her human form as she did so. She sat down, kicking her feet up onto the kitchen table, and went back to staring at him. It wasn’t any less unsettling than it had been coming from an owl, as it turned out.
“What isn’t?”
“Uh, you? Being here?”
“I live here.” He kept his tone calm, but anxiety was creeping up on him. Maybe Nimona had more of a problem with him than he’d thought.
She gave an exaggerated sigh, rolling her eyes and tipping her chair back to balance on the back legs. “Come on man, you’re not stupid. You can’t actually think this whole domestic thing is gonna work.”
He tensed. Things had been - rough, for the first month or so after everything went down. Nightmares, panic attacks, screaming arguments as he and Ballister tried to work through everything that had happened. Nimona hadn’t been there for that though, and they were better now. They were still working on some things, but things were good.
“And why wouldn’t it?”
The chair clattered back to all fours with a crash. “Dude, you cut off his arm,” Nimona said pityingly, and Ambrosius’s stomach dropped abruptly. “His arm. Who does that?!”
So they were talking about it now. That was fine. Nimona hadn’t been around when he and Ballister had . . . discussed the whole issue. So she wanted to make sure things had been properly settled, totally normal. Everything was totally fine.
“Bal and I talked that out,” he said. “I apologized. A lot.” He stared into the sink, hands stilling unconsciously. “It was the worst mistake I ever made in my life and I regret it every day.”
Nimona cast him a skeptical look. “Yeah, and I’m sure he said he forgives you. But . . . you don’t think he really forgave you, do you?”
No, Ambrosius thought immediately, the familiar sick sense of guilt flooding him. He didn’t, he can’t have, he shouldn’t have. It’s not a forgivable crime. If he had any sense he’d kick me to the curb, if I had any willpower I would leave so he never has to look at me again. I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve him, and the fact that we’re still here and together is some horrible oversight that the universe will correct any day now.
“Yes, I do,” is what he said instead. It doesn’t come out as strongly as he would like.
“Come on,” Nimona said. “You don’t think he still resents you juuuuust a little?”
Nimona had an uncanny knack for zeroing in on a person’s worst insecurities, Ambrosius thought vaguely as panic threatened to overwhelm him. That exact terror kept him up some nights. The idea that Ballister was harboring some small seed of resentment, that some day a week or a month or a year down the line Bal would suddenly come to his senses, tell Ambrosius that he couldn’t possibly forgive him after all and that he’d better leave.
He took a deep breath. No. They’d talked about this. And Bal had told him - promised him - that that wasn’t the case. And Bal wouldn’t lie to him, so it had to be the truth.
They were working on it, on communicating properly instead of assuming that some things didn’t need to be said. He was working on telling Bal when he was feeling anxious or insecure, and Bal would reassure him that he was there, that things were good. And in turn Bal would tell him when he was struggling or having a bad day, and it was Ambrosius’s turn to reassure him that he wasn’t a burden, that Ambrosius wanted to help. And it was better, was the thing. It was still hard, but in some ways it was better than what they’d had before. And he wasn’t going to give up on it - give up on them - just because of his own anxieties. They’d gone through far too much to give up now.
“No.” Ambrosius said, and this time his voice was steady. “He said he doesn’t. He said he forgave me.”
“And you believe him?”
“Yes. I do,” Ambrosius said. He set down the dish he was holding and turned to face Nimona. “Look. I don’t know why or even how he forgave me. I certainly haven’t. But he said that he did, and all I can do is believe him. This - none of this - works if I don’t believe him. We’ve talked about it a hundred times. I have to trust that if he does resent me, or if he someday decides that he can’t do this after all, that he’ll tell me.”
Nimona just sat there, considering him, and he took a deep breath. “If you have a problem with me, that’s - I understand,” he said. “If you want me to leave, we can - we can figure something out, we can talk about it. But as far as Ballister goes . . . I trust him. So if he says he forgives me, then that’s that.”
“Huh,” Nimona said. “I guess you can be taught after all.” She leveled a glare at him. “It wasn’t ever the arm that bothered him, you know. It’s that you didn’t trust him.”
“I know.” They’d talked about that, too.
Nimona’s steely gaze met his for another moment, and then her face suddenly cleared. She leaned back in her chair again. “Okay,” she said cheerfully. “But if you hurt him again - physically or emotionally - I hurt you, ya got it?”
Ambrosius snorted, not sure if he should be relieved or worried. “If I ever hurt him again, you have my full permission,” he said. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the slight smile he saw on Nimona’s lips meant he’d said the right thing.
“So what do you think about zombie movies?” Nimona said. She shifted into a bird and fluttered to perch on the sink as Ambrosius turned back to the dishes. “Cause I saw this great one yesterday -”
She chattered on, far more animated and friendly than she’d been to him thus far, and Ambrosius relished the opportunity he knew he’d been given.
Things were good now. And he was confident that they were going to keep getting better.