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Glitch wasn't entirely ready for this, but he didn't think he ever was going to be. You didn't get ready for someone doing a reinstalling transplant of your brain back into your head when you couldn't even actually remember having it taken out in the first place.

They had him dressed in a loose, open necked and shapeless shirt with similarly matched trousers, the theory being that he'd feel more comfortable and relaxed in calming clothes. And he knew that Wyatt and DG were outside the door, well, Wyatt, DG had been pale and struggling and she might have gone now that he was walking into the surgery and being helped to lie down.

"Just lie down, Ambrose, and we'll get you nicely under. You won't feel anything."

He lay down, a nurse looked at him with warm eyes as she stroked his forehead and hair, checking for signs of trouble along the zip. The doctor nodded, white lights being turned on and the mask over his lower face.

Glitch felt his heart start racing.

"All right now, Ambrose. Just count back from a hundred, ninety-nine-"

Glitch remembered nothing more. Certainly not flipping to his feet and off the table and definitely not barreling out of the surgery doors, through the waiting area and out of the hospital entirely at a flat sprint that he never would have credited himself as being able to do.

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They get Glitch settling into the table, the nurse petting his hair while the doctor sets everything up again.

"Okay, Ambrose, everything's going to be fine. Just close your eyes, relax, and recite the periodic table for me, okay?"

"Sure," he mumbles. "Um-"

And then he's out.

There's the sound of a zip being undone, too loud in the room.

Surgery will be a while.

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It is a while, and a long while at that, but both DG and Cain remains in the waiting room, the obligatory trips to the bathroom, fetching coffee and other such things excluded.

It isn't long before Cain stands up and starts pacing, as if expecting Glitch to come bounding out of there again. It's not that he doesn't trust Glitch, it's the doctors he doesn't have faith in. Common sense tells him they didn't know, but it still stings. This entire ordeal is traumatic enough for him to--

"You're wearing down the floor, Mister Cain," DG points out, helpful as always.

He doesn't reply. He sets his jaw, glancing at her, at the door, and he turns away his eyes. "I'll get us some coffee. Don't go anywhere."

DG salutes him, smiling bravely. She's not the kind of girl to run at the first sign of trouble. She's never been that kind of girl.

So much for first impressions and a cynical mindset, but he'll never forget his first impression of Glitch.

Two, big, unfathomably dark brown eyes on the outside looking in. He hopes they'll never change for the worse.

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Unsurprisingly, Glitch does not walk out. The nurse comes out, hours later and smiles at them both. If she has timed this or just fluked having them both is hard to say. "Princess, Officer, Advisor Ambrose is settled in his room. The sedation will be wearing off soon, but so far to appears that everything is going smoothly.

"I can take you down to his room if you would like to come and see him?"

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DG's off her chair faster than Cain can say 'Thank you', which she does in his stead.

The nurse takes them down a long hallway intersected by more of them, full of people as any other part of the building, but here people seem to move at a rather more sedate pace. Not from anything but the very atmosphere of the intensive care ward; it's quieter, calmer, softer, almost.

Cain doesn't speak; he'll leave the pleasantries to the princess. He will glare at the door as if he can see right through it.

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The door is slid open.

Glitch is asleep in a bed, propped up on pillows and peaceful looking. The zipper has some neat, near invisible stitches woven holding it shut and the tag is gone, replaced with more dark stitches vanishing into his hair to hold it firmly shut.

"He'll be awake presently."

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"Thank you." Cain gives the woman a curt nod, then looking at DG, communicates that she should go first.

He takes his hat off; somehow it feels wrong to wear it here. Back in the waiting room, it was a shield, like everything else familiar, from his revolver to his vest to the star in his coat pocket. In here, it will cast his eyes in shadow. He doesn't want that.

It's DG who talks first, standing at the foot of Glitch's bed. "He looks so peaceful. Like he's had all the apples in the forest."

Cain comes to a stop to the side of the bed, not knowing where to look. That same, ferocious sense of this being wrong is slowly filling him to the brim, just watching Glitch lying there.

But it isn't Glitch's fault. It's no one's fault but the evil witch.

"He does, at that."

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And Glitch gives a small sigh, almost a huff, his hands flexing spasmodically before settling. "Could go an apple..."

His eyes aren't open. He isn't really all awake. Or mostly awake. But he's awake enough to here the promise of fruit.

"No. Don't want to... I like it all purple like that."

And not quite be lucid.

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It's only now, with the release of tension, that DG's brave face crumbles around the edges. Her chin trembles slightly, but she's smiling, and Cain can't for the life of him imagine a person better suited to rule the land one day.

"It's okay," he murmurs, placing his hand on her shoulder. "He's going to be okay. Come on."

He pulls up a chair beside their friend's bed and sits her down. "Glitch... It's over now. You don't have to worry about a thing."

DG nods agreement, reaching out to take his hand with both her own.

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"I don't want it to be over." He finally opens his eyes, slightly bruised looking from the surgery but the white is white and the iris is dark and there's some sparks of recognition.

He closes his eyes again, then opens them with a smile. "Eell, aren't you a pretty pair of faces to wake up to. I must have been the luckiest man at the dance last night."

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"You remember dancing?" DG smiles brighter, but whether it's from relief or affectionate delight at Glitch's post-operative delusions, Cain isn't sure. At least the atmosphere of the room's lifted; you can breathe again.

Cain says nothing, just stays put, his eyes smiling even when his mouth isn't.

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"Sure, doll. Dancing... dancing..." His eyes blink closed for a moment. "Dancing outside by the stream, the moonight and the breeze and a solid hand in my own..."

He slows again, appearing asleep again until he suddenly sits up, eyes open and wide. "I can only feel two of my feet!"

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For a moment, brief though it is, Cain's face does the unthinkable. It heats up ever so slightly at Glitch's words, at the dreamy tone of his voice. He remembers them dancing, that night. It shouldn't matter if DG knows, but it does. He feels vaguely childish for thinking it, but it isn't DG's memory. It's theirs.

...two feet? Right. He sets his jaws, and moves around the bed, giving DG a look as he sits down beside Glitch. Not Ambrose, Glitch, and presses his hand to his arm.

"It's okay, Glitch. You never had four to begin with."

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"I didn't?" He collapses back into the pillows. "Thank goodness for that, I was about to get pretty concerned." His eyes drift shut again, only to fly open as something else sparks and surges in his mind. "Do I know you?" He looks to DG. "Have I shrunk? Or am I falling?"

He looks back to Cain. "Wyatt, my eyes can't open."

Yes, he is looking at him and clearly seeing him.

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Fear sparks for the span of a racing heartbeat, and Cain hopes by Ozma Glitch won't stay like this, that this is just his brain coping with getting reacquainted.

"Shh," he soothes, smoothing the back of his hand over Glitch's forehead, mindful of the zipper as always - DG still hasn't let go of his hands.

"I'm DG, Glitch. You know me." She speaks firmly, with authority borne from a lifetime of independence at the Other Side. "You're at the hospital, and you're fine. Just fine. You should try to relax."

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He relaxes again. "Of course I know you, Princess. Just keep your hands out of my experiments, I don't want to have your sister scolding me for little fingers getting caught in cogs again."

He gives Wyatt a last hooded, sleepy look. "You better be here when I wake up, or the wedding's off."

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On the other side of the bed, DG cracks up - quietly - eyes boring into Cain like particularly relentless drills through wood.

He glances at her, unable not to be amused. "I'll be here, Sweetheart. You try get some rest. Princess's orders."

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Glitch smiles and sighs softly as he slips back into comfortable sleep.

The nurse peers in through the door. "Has he woken up yet?"

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"For a moment," DG turns to the nurse with a smile. "Rambled all kinds of coocoo talk, but he's fine. He went back to sleep."

Cain stands up, but doesn't move away from the bed. The fingertips of his right hand linger at the bedding. Soft, crisp sheets.

He'd prefer sleeping outdoors almost any day.

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"It's to be expected. He has to recalibrate his body and mind back together. He'll be a bit addled for a few days, but a good sleep should do him a world of good."

Glitch slumbers on. His fingers twitch, randomly at first, but distinctly settling into the rhythm of piano playing.

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DG nods, glancing back at Glitch, then to Cain, who meets her eyes with the same fond gratitude that she show the nurse.

"Thank you so much. I mean that. You have no idea how much."

Cain would tip his hat if he wasn't holding it in his hand. As such, he gives her a curt nod.

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"He'll be asleep for some time yet. Can I get you anything, your highness? Officer? Even just chairs?"

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"A chair would be nice," Cain speaks up. "Please."

DG nods. "Maybe something for Glitch once he wakes up. He really likes apples. Red ones?"

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

The nurse heads off. She came back with two comfortable chairs and a plate with three apples and a small paring on it.

They might be in for a bit of wait.

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"Soooo," DG moves her chair all the way up snug against Cain's, watching him with her impossibly big blue eyes. As of this moment, full to the brim with mischief.

"Can I be your maid of honor?"

...it's going to be a long wait, all right.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

Hours will pass.

Glitch sleeps, mostly peacefully, though there's the occasionally bout of twitching and thrashing that quickly settles again, small mumbled words and protests and, once, a giggle.

Much, much later, Glitch stirs. His eyes open slowly, looking around once before closing again.

Then he opens his eyes, looking around with confusion. "Where am I?"