Surveying the options on the counter, Emery looked deeply disappointed. "Milk and cereal? I thought the one good thing that would come of this insistence on breakfast would be your coffee."

"I know you love my coffee. I also know it's not wise to give coffee to someone who can't reliably answer the question of when they last ate. I'm not drinking any either in solidarity, which is the best you'll get. Now eat your cereal."

"I'm not a child."

Josh found the idea of Emery having been born an adult likelier than the one of him ever having been a child. "No, a child would be less stubborn. Eat the damn cereal unless you'd prefer the rest of last night's soup for breakfast."

Emery sneered but started eating, a small mercy in and of itself.

"Anyway," Josh continued, "what were you saying about Roger?"

"Roger, yes. He thought I'd return in a few weeks; a month, perhaps. I was away for almost a year. Some clients left us — it's understandable; if they wanted their money to stay put they might as well have stashed it under the mattress. Roger had his own money heavily invested in the firm as well, as did I, and my absence unnerved him. One day it made him reckless enough to try his hand at investing it himself, on a small scale."

Emery played with his spoon, watching milk ebb and flow from one side of the bowl to the other as if nothing were quite as interesting, putting distance between himself and his retelling by that act alone. "If he'd lost money then, everything would have worked out, but his luck was our downfall. He saw some returns and risked more and more — I studied the entire train wreck for my trial — until he found what he must have thought was a sure thing. That's why you shouldn't invest if you don't know what you're doing — I could have told him it was far from a sure thing; I could have seen the potential risks coming a mile away. But he couldn't, and he invested client money alongside his own. And lost. A great deal."

Josh couldn't eat his own breakfast, enthralled by the contrast between Emery's distant voice and the look of sharp regret in his eyes.

"I still might have saved the company if he'd come to me — it'd take admitting to clients what had happened, asking for permission to invest the rest over a period of two or three years, but I could have balanced it. But he knew I'd have made him take responsibility. He knew I'd have turned him in. So, instead he panicked. He took the rest of the money and vanished. He left nothing behind, not even in the accounts of our most vulnerable clients — he just took everything and ran."

Something Emma had told him suddenly clicked in Josh's mind. "And you had your silly romantic ideals."

Emery's head snapped up. "I'm sorry?"

"That's something Emma once said, when I assumed she had as much money as you did. That she'd pulled her share of the money from the company long ago because she didn't need to be a millionaire, and you had your silly romantic ideals. That even the house was tied to the company and what she had was enough to take care of both of you if something happened that made you realize you couldn't control everything. That's what her money was for."

Emery closed his eyes for a moment, his face a mask of grief. When he opened them again he'd gotten his emotions back under control. "I believe she feared recession more than she did Roger but yes, I can imagine her saying that. They weren't silly romantic ideals — I had absolute faith in every decision I made. If I weren't prepared to take the same risks as my clients, how could I ask them to trust me with their lives' savings?"

This. This was why it was so hard to dismiss Emery as just a stubborn hedgehog, this was why people waited in line for him to take their money and make it grow. This integrity, the strength of his character, how he'd never ask anyone to do anything he wouldn't do himself. And this was why it was so very hard for Josh to forget him, in spite of... The rest. In spite of the rest. "Was Roger's house tied up in it too?"

Emery's answering smile was subdued. "Like I said, he was a lawyer. He had the house in Annie's — his wife's — name. The house is still hers, thankfully. She had nothing to do with his actions and didn't deserve to be caught in the fallout."

"You lost everything and they banned you for it." The unfairness of it all left Josh incensed, the spoon clattering on the half-eaten bowl of cereal and splashing milk on the counter.

Emery looked perfectly calm about his fate. "I shouldn't have given him power of attorney to begin with."

Always the weight of everyone's responsibility on his shoulders. "But didn't... Wasn't..."

"What?"

"I don't really know how to say this without sounding offensive."

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you that my own approach has always been to simply say things without fear of offending."

Josh felt like he'd been punched, jaw clenching. It helped him do away with his outrage on Emery's behalf much faster than he'd otherwise have managed. "No, you don't. Okay then: weren't there people who owed you favors? Strings you could pull so you wouldn't be banned from doing what you do best? The general idea I have is that rules bending for wealthy people is the norm."

Emery stared at him as if Josh were a particularly dense child. "I'm sorry to shatter your linear worldview, but you're mistaking money for power. While I found I was particularly good at accumulating the first, I have never had any interest, inclination, or even the ability to gather the latter."

He coughed again, shoulders shaking and face paling. It took him a moment to be able to continue. "My clients were regular people, with regular incomes; I made enemies along the way by refusing to work with bigger fish. There would have been no one to bend the rules for me who wouldn't have rather bent them against me, if it came to it."

"Can I ask why you wouldn't work with them?"

"Because I was the company. Every decision was ultimately run by me, and there are only so many hours in the day. I started trading because I knew I'd be good at it, and because I knew we'd need more money for Emma's care than we had; I used to like to think I was helping other Emmas with the way I ran the company."

Emery lifted his hand up to his face, before remembering he had no beard to pull on and letting it drop. "And then Emma was gone and I went from being a control freak to dropping everything and relying on Roger to maintain course. I lost people their lives' savings the minute my motivation for growing my own capital ceased to exist."

The only reward for Emery's renewed attempt at breath was another round of helpless coughing. Josh got up and busied himself with wiping the counter clean, returning the milk to the fridge, and putting the cereal back in the cupboard, to have something to do that wasn't staring at Emery while he was like that.

"I'm sorry," Emery continued once Josh rose from his crouched position. "I can't help you — I can recommend a few people to work with if you're looking to invest. Best not to use just one — you never know where the next Roger is working. Please write the names down; I can't do it without my glasses."

Josh smacked his hand down on the counter, frustrated that he wasn't getting anywhere. "Damn it, Emery, look at me! Do you really think I care about investing? About making more money than I'd know how to spend?"

"I don't understand. You said—"

"I said whatever I thought would convince you not to leave when you've nowhere to go!"

In the space of a heartbeat, Emery looked raw and vulnerable, that weary resignation fleeing his eyes to give way to something fragile Josh couldn't quite name. "So that isn't why you went searching for me last night?"

"Of course it isn't. You're always so eager to think the worst of me."

"I'm no— apologies. I most likely am. If it's any consolation, your worst is considerably better than most people's best." A grimace trying its best to masquerade as a smile. "I know I hurt you back then, I know—"

"We're not discussing that," Josh said, ignoring the jolt of pleasure he got from the unexpected compliment.

"Very well; there's no point in discussing the past. Thank you, Josh. For last night."

"You can thank me by coming to the hospital with me."

Emery shook his head, placing the spoon on his mostly-full bowl without spilling a drop. "I'm done being a burden on you."

"Okay. Then come to the bank with me and open an account so I can transfer what's left of Emma's money to you. Like I said, I still have most of it."

"That's completely out of the question."

"Didn't you hear what I said? That was why Emma kept her money separate—"

"Regardless, what she feared didn't come to pass in her lifetime. She left that money to you, and—"

"Shut up and listen." On some level, Josh had always known it would come to this — that Emery wouldn't do what was best for him without driving Josh to use underhanded, hurtful tactics — but a part of him had clung to that naive hope regardless. A quick glance at his microwave's digital clock confirmed they had to be on their way soon if they were to be at the hospital on time, and Emery was still in a bathrobe and slipppers. The time for coddling was over. "When I tried not to accept that money, you called me into your office and told me you'd be damned if you'd allow me to disrespect her wishes. I thought at the time it was because you didn't want them disrespected. Silly me, it turns out it was because you wanted the monopoly on disrespecting them."

"I never—"

"Shut up. I'm not done. I have money. I have an extra bedroom. I have very little patience and the ability to be as stubborn as you are. Your choice: take the money and walk away, or stay and let me help you get back on your feet, no matter how long it takes. Or reject both of those options, spit right in the face of what your dead sister would have wanted, and watch me follow you around wherever you go as you try and get yourself killed as unassumingly as possible. I have a tent somewhere — I can join the 'homeless by choice' club. She didn't have a choice when it came to dying. You do. What will it be?"

Josh mentally cursed Emery for driving him to be this cruel. His brown eyes were a play of conflicting emotions. "You can't just think I'll—"

"What. Will. It. Be?"

"Josh, please. There's nothing for me anymore. Nothing I want, nothing to strive for, no one to miss me. I've made my peace with that; being on the streets or not, it makes no difference. There's nothing I want. Please don't make me choose between taking your money or becoming a burden on you — I've ruined enough lives."

Josh leaned forward across the counter, eyes blinking fast at such a devastating confession. He placed his hand on Emery's forearm and didn't miss the slight hitch in his breathing. There were things Emery wanted — a purpose to his life, the ability to rebuild, companionship, affection, someone to miss him. He just hadn't realized he wanted them yet. After their shared past, Josh would never allow that someone to be him, but he'd be damned if he didn't help Emery get to that point. His tone turned soft, pleading. "Then don't ruin mine by forcing me to wonder if you're dead or alive somewhere every day. Let me help you get back on your feet. You're not a burden."

Emery made an aborted gesture with his hand as he squinted, probably trying to discern Josh's expression; just as the previous night, Josh could have sworn Emery had been on the verge of touching him before he thought it through.

"You're a good man, Josh. You always were. I'm sorry for how I hurt you."

"I told you, we're not discussing that. What will it be?"

"I'm not insured—"

"Don't care," Josh interrupted before Emery could launch himself on another money-related diatribe. "If it turns out to be nothing it won't cost that much, and if it's something bad you're still technically homeless. I'm sure Mark will know what forms you have to fill for them to waive the fees."

Emery's eyebrows rose in a question. "Mark?"

"My best friend. He's a doctor there."

Emery was silent for a moment, lost in thought. "I'll go with you to the hospital if that's what you require to feel at peace. Don't ask me to take your money."

It was good enough for Josh.