Logically, Tristan had known that what had happened to Ariel had not been his fault. But even with his mind knowing that he was not at fault, his heart had struggled to accept the truth. He had been quietly beating himself up about it the entire time.
So finally getting to speak with Ariel and hearing it from her that she did not blame him, had really helped push Tristan towards forgiving himself. With his heart no longer heavy, he could have gone back to his regular schedule, going to work during the day and then coming to visit Ariel in the evenings.
But instead, Tristan was continuing on as he had been doing since she had been admitted. He was working from her room. Normally her presence would have been distracting with Ariel chatting about this and that and wanting to be entertained. She'd never been good at just lazing around no matter how hard she tried. But now Ariel was in recovery. So even though when she was awake she was fully alert.
