Both of the commanding officers had left the operating theater not long after that, leaving the four of them alone with their caretakers. Spike lowered his head and shut his eyes, letting the doctors do their work.
He could practically feel the others trying to restrain themselves from talking, and he knew that, as soon as they were alone, they were all going to start questioning him. He wasn't looking forward to that, but for the moment he was content to simply lie still and bask in the feeling of his injuries being washed away.
It wasn't going to fully undo everything that had happened to him, he knew. He'd been to Ponyville General a few times, and had his wounds treated magically there. Unicorn magic simply wasn't strong enough to completely undo something like a broken bone without extreme exertion, careful preparation, and multiple practitioners working in concert - something along the lines of what Doctor Grey had done for Tailspin - but it was enough to set the bones and mend the tears and let the body do its own healing.
Before, his body had been overwhelmed by dozens of little agonies that had all blended together into a symphony of pain. Now he simply felt bruised. Sore, yes. Stiff, yes. But not broken beyond repair any more. He would heal.
All except for the three wounds left by Queen Chrysalis. Those remained as painful as they had been during the blizzard. The sensation of ice being stabbed into him was still there, accompanied by the dull, burning, acidic feeling.
Still. It was an improvement, and it was the best he had felt in a long time. If it weren't for the fact that his traveling companions were being quiet so loudly that he couldn't think straight, he would have allowed himself to fall asleep right there. As it was, he just sat and waited for somepony to break the silence.
It was one of the doctors that spoke first. Spike blinked slightly at the sound of her voice; in his half-doze, he had almost forgotten that she was there. She didn't look at any of them as she spoke. She was too preoccupied with levitating a pen and clipboard in front of her and scribbling notes onto the latter.
"That's all that we can do for now," she said. "None of you are in any immediate physical danger, though those of you with broken bones-" she jabbed her pen towards Spike and Pith in turn, without looking up from the clipboard "-will need to take things easy for a few days. Walking and other standard activities are acceptable, but nothing more strenuous. And I'm afraid that there isn't anything more that we can do about your wounds."
She looked up at him, frowning, and continued, "We'll continue to search for information on a possible treatment, but these are magical in nature. None of them are deep enough to be life-threatening, and the... discharge... does not appear to be blood. What it is, we cannot be sure just yet, and there may be some sort of magical damage that we lack the knowledge to even identify, let alone treat. I would advise strict rest, and report any change in your condition immediately. Now." She made a few final notes on the clipboard, then slipped the pen into the pocket of her coat and looked up at him. "If you will excuse us, we have other patients to see to. The general will send for you when you are needed again."
Spike stared at her for a moment. She wasn't waiting for any sort of response. She simply turned and motioned for the other doctors to follow her. It only occurred to him that he should have thanked her when the door was already shut behind them.
As soon as the doctors had left, there was the sound of a set of hooves hitting the floor. He turned. It was, unsurprisingly, Tailspin. The flame-colored pegasus was walking over to him, frowning heavily. At the other end of the room, Pith was standing up as well, though the stallion was taking rather longer to do so. His leg wasn't bent in all the wrong places any more, but he still obviously didn't want to put much weight on it. Compass seemed content to simply remain curled up, though she was watching him with narrowed eyes.
He looked back down to Tailspin, waiting for her to start shouting. Her expression was serious and unmoving as she looked him up and down.
When she spoke, though, her voice was surprisingly gentle. "Spike, are you okay?"
The dragon blinked. He had been expecting a rant. "What?" It was all he could manage, for the moment. His train of thought had been derailed.
"I said, are you okay?" she repeated. "You're kind of scaring me, for more than one reason."
Spike felt a few of the ridges on his back fold downward automatically, and couldn't stop his body from curling in on itself. It wasn't a particularly obvious motion - he doubted that he had moved more than half an inch - but he saw Tailspin's frown deepen as he did it.
"I'm fine," he said. Once again, he found his voice coming out harsher than he intended it to. He paused for a moment, mastering his vocal cords, and tried again. "I'm fine. Better than I have been in a long time. I don't feel like somepony's just finished beating me with a sledgehammer, at least."
"Not what she meant," said Pith, drawing up beside the pegasus, "and you know it."
Tailspin nodded her agreement, and Spike frowned. "I'm fine, I said."
Pith's broad, flat face was as expressionless as ever, but Spike was getting the hang of reading the stallion's emotions through the blankness. He saw the disbelief in the way the stallion's eyes flickered over towards Compass, and the slight downward twitch at the corners of the mouth.
"We're with you, Spike," said Pith. "We'll back your play on this."
Spike felt a twinge of annoyance. He could almost hear the unspoken "but". Having everypony tread lightly around him was beginning to wear thin. It wasn't as though he were a child.
"Good," he said flatly. "Then we're all on the same page here."
It was Compass Rose who spoke up next. The unicorn was giving him a stern look, but there was concern in her eyes. "We are with you, Spike." She turned and stepped down off of her table, then paused to shake out her tangled mane. "But..."
Ah, he thought. There it is.
He tilted his head to one side and gave her a quizzical look. "'But'...?"
"But we need to know that you're still with us," said Tailspin flatly. Spike grunted and turned his head to face her again, frowning now. "You've been off, lately. Ever since we talked to Discord."
Spike gave an exasperated snort, trying to ignore the renewed ache in his wounds as he did so. The motion of his chest caused the scales around them to shift uncomfortably. "Of course I'm still with you. We're partners, remember?"
"That's not what I meant." Tailspin prodded at the floor with the tip of one hoof, frowning heavily now. When she continued, her words came out slowly, each obviously selected with some care. "I saw your expression when we were trapped by the windigos and you said that you wanted to fight them. And I saw the way you looked when you were thinking about facing Chrysalis again."
Spike's eyes narrowed. "And?"
The pegasus drew herself up, glanced at Pith, and then turned back to Spike. "Are you trying to get yourself killed, or are you just losing it?"
The dragon stared at her. Before he could answer, she continued, "You knew you couldn't beat the windigos without magic, and you know Queen Chrysalis is stronger than you. You were even ready to attack Discord just for giving us some information you didn't like. What's going on with you?"
There was another pang from his wounds. Spike ignored it. "I'm doing what needs to be done," he said. "Somepony has to take on Chrysalis. I'm the one she wants, and I'm the one who might actually survive it. It's the best plan we have."
"Nopony's arguing against that." Tailspin frowned and tapped her hoof against the flooring again. "I'm worried that you're so eager to do it because you know it's not going to go well for you."
A metallic scraping sound filled the air as Spike pushed himself into a sitting position. When he was upright, he stared down at the two ponies in front of him, still frowning. "If you think I'm doing this because I want to die or something, you can stop worrying about that," he said flatly. "I said I would do it because it needs to be done."
"No, you didn't." Tailspin's gaze didn't even waver for an instant, and Spike suddenly found himself remembering her as the nervous mare that had practically hidden in the rafters of Carousel Boutique to keep him from even looking at her. It was an odd contrast. "It needs to be done, but that's not why you're so eager to do it. You want to fight her."
One of the purple dragon's claws twitched, scoring a shallow groove across the surface of the table. "Fine," he snapped. "Yes. I want to fight her. I want another shot at her. What's your point?"
Again, Compass spoke, and Spike had to turn his head to face her. She was still standing beside her own table, and gave no sign of wanting to come any closer. "That you didn't before," she said. "You let her live before, even after everything she did to you. To us. Now you look..." She lowered her eyes, and Spike thought that he saw a slight shudder pass through her body. "You look like you're ready to kill her."
"And?" Spike's voice rose slightly, and he turned his head, his gaze traveling across each of his companions in turn. "So what if I do? She's a monster. She's killed and tortured dozens of ponies. She tortured you." He pointed one claw, almost accusatorially, towards Tailspin. This time, the pegasus did flinch. "You're only alive because we got lucky, and we still don't know how long that'll last."
Tailspin's smaller form was suddenly pressed up against Pith's larger one. The stallion had placed one foreleg over her barrel and pulled her in protectively. There was a hint of defensiveness in his posture as he looked up at Spike, but his face was as blank as ever.
The dragon snorted. "I know you'd kill her if you got the chance," he said, addressing Pith now. "You wouldn't even think twice about it."
Pith didn't miss a beat. He simply opened his mouth and said, with all of his usual calmness and certainty, "You would."
"I would have." Spike raised his head until he was surveying the pair of ponies down the full length of his snout. "But I've had a long time to think about that since then. She's a monster, and somepony's got to put her down."
"You never talked like this before," Tailspin said quietly. Her expression had softened now. She didn't look upset. She just looked sad, and very, very tired. "You..." She trailed off and shook her head.
Without really thinking about it, Spike spread his wings. He felt them ache and throb as he did so, but they answered, and there was no pain that he couldn't take. They were bruised and sore, but they were whole again, and they blocked out the light from the lamps in the room as they opened. Tailspin and Pith were left standing in his shadow.
"Before?" His voice came out as a rasp now. "Before was more than eight hundred years ago. Before was back in Ponyville, when all the ponies I knew and loved growing up were alive. Before was when Equestria was happy and beautiful. Don't talk to me about before."
A deep, tectonic growl rose up from his throat, and he felt as though the acid were building up inside him again, flooding his insides and drowning out his natural flame. "I've seen a lot of monsters," he hissed. "Queen Chrysalis. Nightmare Moon. Discord. And they weren't the only ones. They weren't even the worst." He snarled the word. "I faced King Sombra twice before I went to sleep. The nightmare fog in the north that you're all so afraid of? That's only a fraction of what I saw him do. It's only a fraction of what we had to face. And back then, I was too afraid to really fight. And do you know what I got for that?"
His voice rose again, became a roar that left the others' ears ringing. "I got to find my wife's dead body lying there with a hole in her chest, because she did what none of the rest of us could! Because she was strong enough to fight, when I wasn't!"
He stopped, breathing hard, and forced his wings to fold in against his sides again. "She had to die to save us because I was weak," he said, more quietly. "Because I was weak, I told Twilight that I needed time away from the world when they all passed away. Because I was weak, I wasn't there when she needed me. Because I was weak, even more innocent ponies are dying. There are more monsters in the world now than there ever were before. Equestria is gone. Twilight is alone and in pain. Because I was weak."
He tossed his head, turned his gaze upwards, towards the ceiling. "I'm not going to let Chrysalis live this time," he finished. "Not if I get the chance. I'm done letting monsters like her live to hurt more innocent ponies just because I can't stomach the thought of finishing them off myself. I've seen the consequences now. I'm not letting it happen again."
There was a long silence. It took Spike several seconds to realize that somepony had set a hoof against his hand.
He looked down.
It was Compass Rose. The unicorn was looking up at him with an expression that he couldn't quite read. There was a myriad of emotions tangled up in that look: pain, fear, a touch of anger... and, behind all of it, a deep, deep sadness.
She didn't say anything. She just stood there, keeping her hoof pressed against his hand and keeping eye contact. She didn't move, didn't blink, even though her eyes were glistening. She was just... there, a tiny bit of physical contact.
It was an anchor. Spike knew the feeling, knew the simple power of a touch. Countless times, when he was younger, Twilight would simply place a hoof on his shoulder or pull him into a brief hug. No words needed to be exchanged. That simple contact said everything that needed to be said.
Slowly, very, very slowly, Spike felt his body begin to relax. The muscles of his back came first, leaving his wings to settle into a more natural position. Then came his breathing, easing into a slow, even pattern. Even his brow unknit itself.
It wasn't pleasant. He felt as though he were breaking apart with every motion. But it was better than what he had felt inside when he had shouted at Pith and Tailspin. The growing ache in his chest was nothing compared to the unnatural feeling of acid eating away at him from the inside.
Inch by inch, he sank back down onto the table. When he was lying fully upon it again, he blinked and looked away from Compass, back to the other two. Both of them were wearing the same expression that Compass was.
It hurt too much to look at them. He shut his eyes tight, feeling the tears leak from under his eyelids, and murmured, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay." It was Tailspin's voice. Even without opening his eyes, he could tell the pegasus was smiling at him. "We're your friends, Spike. We're saying these things because we care about you. We're worried about you."
He heard her move closer. "We know Chrysalis is a monster," she continued. "I'd kill her in a heartbeat if I had the chance. But I also know you, Spike, and I know you wouldn't. You're not a killer, Spike. That doesn't make you weak. You're... you're one of the gentlest ponies I've ever met, even though you're a dragon." She laughed, and he could hear genuine affection in it, even if it did sound hollow. "We know you're hurting. We're here for you. Just come to us, okay? When you need help, we're here. Don't just let it fester. That'll just end up with you ending up like..."
She paused, and he knew that she had been about to say "Twilight". He was glad that she didn't.
"...Like Luna. Don't let that happen, okay? We'll be here for you, but you've got to meet us halfway."
Spike nodded once, without opening his eyes. He felt very, very small.
Compass Rose pressed against his hand for a moment. "You've saved all our lives more times than I really want to count," she said quietly. "I never really had any friends before the three of you. I'm not the best at this, but I don't want to lose you. Any of you. And I'll do what I can."
"Same," grunted Pith.
Despite the empty feeling inside him, Spike smiled. "Thank you," he whispered. "I'll... I'll keep that in mind."
This time, when silence fell over them again, no one tried to break it.