He lays eyes on him, for the first time in six days, and he's breathless. He looks--he looks bigger, but too thin, as Hosack said. Pale and wan, but still healthy. Still swollen, with those things growing in him.

"I'm--" Burr starts, stops. Alexander blinking at him. He wishes only that he could cross the room and take him into his arms and not worry any about words. But, well. He's Alexander. He'll need words. "I don't hate you," Burr says, cringes when he says it. "I can't forgive Alexander, the other one, for what he did. But that doesn't mean--I still--"

"He, you--he was mad at the end, you see. He wasn't himself." Burr is blushingly wildly. He feels like he's defending something, old and passed and tattered. He's talking like a lover. Defending the old Alexander like a lover. And he did want him then, in that way. Perhaps that's why it's been so bitter, stuck with him the longest.

"I don't hold you accountable for it," Burr says. "I don't hate you. I want you to come home. I'm--you know--I love you."

He fingers the ring in his pocket, pulls it out to settle heavy in his palm. "And I want to marry you."