Step 10: To continue reflecting, making amends where capable.

Thud, thud.

Amelia’s fingers drummed against her wallet, the soft leather providing a rhythm as her fingertips bounced off impatiently. She’d removed the money she owed Jeremiah from its interior, but she couldn’t but clutch it in her hands, keeping it close. Like clutching onto your heart before cardiac arrest. There was a bizarre bliss amidst the panic. A bad dream finally reaching the conclusion. All that awaited was the knock at the door.

Thud, thud.

The drumming seemed to drown out everything. She stared absently at the folded stack of hundreds that pressed against the side opposite her tapping fingers. Everything seemed to have a glazed over tint, the world taking on a plastic quality to match how manufactured it all felt. Couldn’t be real. She wasn’t about to abandon the past. Amelia didn’t receive happy endings. There must’ve been a catch.

Knock, knock.

Getting to her feet so she didn’t have to repair the door again, she gripped the handle, turning it open. Jeremiah’s henchman stood, his immaculate blonde hair shining in the fluorescent light outside her apartment. She inhaled, subtly pocketing her wallet, handing him the three thousand he'd demanded. The enforcer studied each bill efficiently, but the counting still felt like eternity. Eventually, it ended.

“It’s all there,” he confirmed, Amelia nearly tearing up from relief. She attempted to shut her door, interrupted by his foot propping it open. His threatening maw grinned as it peaked inwards.

“Oh, we’re not done here, sweetheart,” he added, the plastic sheen covering her vision fading into familiar, saturated reality. This was the life she understood.

“We still have the matter of interest.”

The memory shocked Amy awake, greeted by the hospital instruments surrounding her.

And by Darcy Ellis.

---

Nathaniel sat outside at a cafe near his house. He hadn’t lived in Chicago long, but it resembled much of the city life he recalled, minus the baggage. He’d agreed to meet Ned here, not deciding on appearing until this morning. They’d reconnected around their father’s death, but that brotherhood collapsed Ned publicly melted down, isolating from his family, leaving Nate to run The Notorious Gym and merely hope that his brother was alright. Sane. Soon, the world rejoiced as Ned finally found himself, overcoming the fractured identity that defined him for almost a year, returning to the man everyone knew he had to be.

Except for Nate.

He might have been overjoyed at Ned's survival, but the year of radio silence did little to build rapport. He threw away everything; for what? Going insane on an international stage? It angered Nate to even contemplate. Yet he still showed up. Waiting. For answers. For closure.

For Ned.

His brother faded into view several blocks down. Nate wasn’t certain if it was him initially, but the closer he stepped, the more details fell into place. The cocktail of emotions stirring within him begged to spill, to put Ned in his place. Nate kept them corked, even as Ned finally sat across from him, glancing over the menu obligatorily.

“Hey,” Ned spoke with a hint of strain.

“Ned,” Nate responded, intense, but understated.

They were well aware why they were here. Through some research, Darcy deduced that the loan Amelia’s father used to move went through Western Allied Banks. Nate wasn’t a senior with the company, but finding a phone number was easy. It was just whether or not he'd share it. But, before that, Nate needed answers.

“Why?”

Ned’s face twisted confusedly, struggling to understand. Thankfully, Nate amended his inquiry.

“Why come all this way for a phone number?”

Ned looked down, deciphering how best to answer. He’d always been that way. Looking for analytical questions to passionate problems.

“Amelia’s in the hospital. Her dad deserves a chance to say goodbye if… if this is it,” Ned established, carefully side-stepping a specific word.

“I know,” Nate dismissed, “that’s not my question. Why come to Chicago for something I could text you. Is this another game of yours? Just gotta yank around your brother, huh?”

“You know that’s not what this is. I don’t play games with people!” Ned defended himself, raising his voice slightly, something he’d regret instantly.

“I see. So, smashing Caedus into a liquor cabinet? That wasn’t a game? And leaving me and Mom in the dark while you went on that Chameleon bullshit? I imagine that was all normal as well.”

“I couldn't contact you as The Chameleon!”

“Then why be it?!”

“Because I hated myself!” Ned slammed his hand down on the table, the thin metal ringing out.

“I nearly died ostracizing the people I loved for a belt. Leather with some metal on it. Do you know how ashamed I was? I couldn’t look you in the eye if I wanted to, so I just tried to disappear because it was easy. And it was one of the worst decisions of my life.”

Nate wanted to fuss. Explain why it was foolish, but he knew he wouldn’t say anything that hadn't crossed Ned's mind. Plus, could he say much when he initially pushed Ned towards alcohol when they were younger?

“So, the number’s not the only reason, huh? Come to say you’re sorry? Get it over with,” Nate pushed the feelings back, something he had gotten more proficient at.

“Yeah. I want you to know that I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart for everything in case… I can’t later.”

“Why wouldn’t you be able to later?”

Ned stayed hush.

“Why-”

“...I talked to a doctor shortly after Amelia got hospitalized. Stretching myself in so many different directions might've helped me sponsor someone and forward my career, but… I’ve got some minor injuries that could get worse and I’m developing vertigo. Saturday, I’m about to stand atop a box of metal, get shot at by fireworks, and smack a wall of muscle who thinks beating me will make him look less pathetic this year.”

Nate gave a bewildered expression, “why not just pull out of the match?”

Silence.

“To get the leather with metal on it? You’d jeopardize your life for that?”

Ned shook his head, “not get. Give.”

“You remember how we got treated by other kids in the neighborhood?” Ned asked.

Nate shrugged, “well, I managed. But they gave you hell. Week after week.”

Nodding, Ned continued, “the fact is that having someone to look towards, a hero that embraced their struggle to overcome them saved my life. And if I can give that to somebody else, I have to try. If I can give people hope, then it’s worth it.”

“You can’t save everyone, Ned. You might be resilient, but nobody can give that much before it takes its toll.”

Ned’s response was nearly a whisper.

“But I have to try, right?”

And suddenly, it all fell into place. Nathaniel wanted to be spiteful, angry, and hurt, but he just couldn’t find it in him. He couldn’t add to Ned's need for atonement. Sighing, he took out a small piece of paper containing the number and handed it to his brother.

“Do what you need to do.”

---

---

---

“Our failures haunt us.”

“That’s the lesson I’ve learned endlessly. That each mistake and misstep can take a life of its own; follow you no matter where you go. That the ghosts of our misdeeds will take shelter in the attics of our minds and stir ceaselessly. But there’s something else I’ve learned as I’ve improved. As I’ve gone forward, refined, and fought, that lesson was given nuance. Our failures haunt us… if we allow them to.”

“And Bobby Bourbon is a goddamned burial ground.”

“I gotta admit, it was cute to see him do his whole song and dance. To play into the myth and act like the biggest man on campus, but Bobby’s big speech to deconstruct me and crush my world? He said he was strong and I was boring and stretched it out for about as long as he could manage. It couldn’t be more padded if it was the feminine products aisle of a supermarket. But gee whiz, Bob, you sure did repeat Sarah Lacklan’s greatest hits. You know, the ones that accompanied her to the most disastrous point of her entire career. Not only that, but you saw her grand strategy to beat you, poison mist, and after watching it fail spectacularly, you decide “yeah, that’s the ticket!” You adopted a losing strategy to face me in a master scheme that would be equivalent to me building a ring to take you down. But hey, let’s give you the benefit of the doubt, Bobby. Let’s say everything you said about me was true. Then why pursue the mist? You don’t need it if you have me pegged, so why bother? What are you so afraid of?”

“I don’t even need to provide an explanation that Bobby’s talking out of his ass here. His actions contradict his words and that tells the full story. See, Bobby resents me because I’m doing the one thing he is too much of a coward to even try: I’m facing my failures head on. I’m not retreating into codependence on a night celebrating independence, I’m pushing forward. I’m stepping up. I lose to Chris? I step up and go through March Madness. I lose to Sidney? I step up and win War Games. But all you do is step off the gas. Beat Mark Flynn? You let your ego ruin the one golden moment it needed this year. You have a chance to beat Kido twice? You take him too lightly and imprint your mugshot into the dirt. I step up. You step off. I’m battling potential injury and vertigo and a fear of heights? Staring downward and watching death glance upward at me, feeling every bit of my body tense as I struggle to step, I say the hell with it and fight regardless. You have every clear advantage in your favor? “Well shit, what if I learned how to spit goo at Ned?” You don’t trust your talent or instincts or strength or even your own mouth because you’ve seen where they lead you. You're not the sizzle of the steak. You’re not even steak cooked rare or blue. You’re cooked fucking indigo. You'd rather imitate Sarah Lacklan at her worst than Bobby Bourbon at his best. And who can blame you? Bobby Bourbon at his best squanders the moment. He lets the things he cherishes most slip past his fingertips. He follows the lead of Charlie Nickles.”

“I am getting Bobby Bourbon at his best.”

“And he knows it. Every single word, deep down he’s damn aware of that fact. That’s why he pretends I’m just talking about why I don’t like him instead of the myriad of ways he turns himself into a failure. He has to be someone else to stand a chance of beating me. I just have to be the best me. And, believe it or not, Bourbon, I empathize. I was where you were once. Angry at myself, trying to fill up the gaps with parts of other people. Haunted by every failure. When I look at you, I see that scared version of myself in The Chameleon mask, hoping I can just be something different. I don’t have to like you to understand. But the difference is that I’ve overcome that fear. Not all fear, mind you. I’m afraid of hurting the people I love again. I’m afraid of getting injured in this complete shitshow of a stipulation. I’m afraid that every time I step into this ring, my bump card will be far shorter than I’m prepared for. But you, Bobby?”

“You don’t want to be haunted by your failures. You want to die with them. After we’re done, The Ace kills the myth and lets the man be reborn.”

“Be someone worth a damn this time.”

"You can't run from yourself."