Chapter 40 - Chapter Forty

Gloria signed the discharge forms with a steady hand and a careful breath, the nurse reminding her again that she was cleared to go home because she'd met every marker they set—oxygen saturation, muscle activation, basic endurance—but that strength would come back only if she kept moving, small steps every day, and David stood there holding Buddy's leash while the little mutt wriggled like a spring, tail thumping against his shin, the nurse grinning at the dog and handing over a printout of home exercises that didn't need equipment, ankle pumps, heel slides, sit-to-stands with pauses, light band work to start next week, all laid out in simple boxes that Gloria promised she would actually follow, not because paper told her to but because she could feel how the long stillness had hollowed her muscles and she wanted that gone; they thanked the staff, the aide who'd snuck Buddy into the ward twice when nobody was looking, the calm tech who always explained scans in straight words, the clinician who never treated her like a number, and at the doors David asked one last time if she felt steady and she said yes, and then they stepped out of the clinic into a day that did not smell like Night City used to smell, because the air hit her tongue clean and cool, not acid and dust, and she had to stop just past the threshold and look around to make sure she wasn't imagining it, because the stories David had told her from the chair by her bed had sounded like the kind of hope you repeat to keep someone going, streams outside the wall, green edging along roads, food that wasn't made in a tank, birds returning, but seeing it was different, seeing the strip of planters along the sidewalk full of real flowers and leafy herbs, seeing a line of small trees where there had been nothing but cracked concrete, hearing a faint thread of birdsong from somewhere up the block, and she said softly, almost to herself, that it was real, and David squeezed her hand and said he'd tried to tell her and Buddy barked once like he wanted the world to know he agreed, then leaned into the harness and pulled them toward a patch of sunlight as if he was the one leading the tour. They took it slow because slow was the rule now, not as a punishment but as the way back, and David picked the long route home that the physical therapist had suggested, fifteen minutes turned into thirty with benches along the way and interesting things to look at, and the first interesting thing was a fountain at the corner that actually ran, water clear and constant, not a hologram or a Corpo ad loop of a waterfall but water you could cup in your hand; two kids splashed their fingers and laughed until a caregiver pulled them back and wiped their hands with a towel and glanced around like she expected someone to yell at her for wasting a resource, but nobody did, and Gloria stood and watched the water for a minute with the same careful concentration she used for the breathing exercises, feeling the cool smell of it settle in her chest, and she remembered days when the only water that moved came in bottles with price tags, and this made her throat tight in a good way. Buddy dragged them on to a stall row that had changed while she'd been asleep, because half the vendors who used to sell "deluxe nutrient bars" and "authentic synth fruit cups" now had crates with bruised but real produce stacked under shade cloth, apples dull-skinned but fragrant, pears with scars, small bundles of greens, and a man with a quiet voice selling carrots that looked like carrots instead of uniform extruded sticks, and Gloria pulled a coin from her pocket out of habit and the man shook his head and said no, this one's on the house, welcome back, because he recognized her from the ward and the courtyard and maybe from David's stories, and she tried not to cry and failed a little and took the carrot and held it under Buddy's nose and he sniffed and sneezed and wagged like he wasn't sure if it was food or toy, and she laughed at his confusion and said they'd cook something real tonight. They kept walking and the city kept offering small proof that things were different, a strip of grass along a curb where nothing should have grown, a set of public benches that weren't tagged with ads, a woman in a mechanic's coat sitting under a tree eating bread and meat from a paper wrap instead of a tube, a street musician whose case had more coins than usual because people who felt better tipped better, and when they hit the footbridge over the tram line the perspective opened and Gloria could see beyond the stacks to the edges where the gray broke into green, not a whole forest yet but enough lines and patches to look like a promise, and she just stood there with the railing under her hands and breathed until her legs trembled, then nodded when David asked if she wanted the bench or if she wanted to keep going, choosing the bench because patience isn't weakness and because the PT had said sit before you shake. They watched the cars slide by and Gloria asked in a normal voice what would happen with his classes, and David said he'd figure it out, that he had the delivery job and it paid honest and the clinic had been fair and he wasn't going to do anything stupid, and she gave him the look mothers give when they hear "I'll figure it out" and he smiled and said it again more gently, that he had people watching his back now, that not everything in this city was a scam, that the clinic had been good to him, and she believed him because he didn't say it like a kid lying to make her feel better, he said it like a person who had finally found a steady floor. They crossed the bridge and Buddy led them to a little pocket park that someone had actually cleaned, a square of dirt and plants with a sign asking people to pick up after their dogs and a dispenser full of bags that hadn't been stolen, and three other dogs sniffed at Buddy and then all four ran small circles until their leashes tangled and everyone laughed and apologized and Gloria found herself talking about absolutely nothing to a woman in a warehouse vest who said she'd started taking a late lunch just to sit where there were leaves, and it felt like a normal conversation in a city that had squeezed normal out of its people for years, and she wanted more of it. The last stretch to their building showed the strangest change of all, not dramatic but deep, because the hallway didn't smell like stale heat and chemicals, it just smelled like dust and cooking, and someone had propped the stair door open and stuck a potted plant on the landing like a dare, and when they stepped into their apartment Gloria stopped again and took it in the way you take in a room you weren't sure you'd ever see again, the old couch with the blanket David never folded properly, the table with a corner chipped, the little kitchen that had been more storage than stove because the city had trained them to eat from machines, and she put the carrot on the counter like a flag, then sat carefully, and Buddy did a full circuit of the room and hopped up beside her and put his chin on her knee like he'd been assigned to keep her from slipping away again. David asked if she wanted tea or water or food and she said water and he poured from the tap and she braced to taste metal and then smiled because it just tasted like water, not perfect but better than before, and she drank and felt it like a small promise to her body that it would be treated right. He put a list from the therapist on the table and they read it together and she did the first set because waiting to start made it easier to stop later, ten ankle pumps each side, ten heel slides, seated marches, and then two sit-to-stands with a count to three on the way up and three on the way down, and she hated the burn but loved what it meant, and when she finished she was sweating a little and David handed her a towel and Buddy licked her knuckles and she said she'd do it again after dinner. He showed her the food he'd bought on the way back from a previous run, a small bundle of greens, two eggs, a piece of meat that looked like it came from an actual animal, a lemon that was more rind than juice but smelled like sun, and he said he'd picked up a cheap pan because someone on a route told him the trick to searing was heat and patience, and she laughed because she used to say that and the city had made her forget, and together they figured out how to cook in that tiny kitchen again, oil and a hot pan, meat down and don't touch it right away, salt from a packet, greens wilted with garlic from a jar, lemon squeezed over at the end, and when they ate at the table under the same bad light as always it felt like they'd moved into a new place without moving at all, because the food tasted like food, not an idea of food, and the room felt warmer even though the heat was the same. After dinner she napped on the couch while David cleaned, and when she woke up the sky outside had shifted to evening, pale oranges and the first neon thread, and she asked if she'd missed anything and he said no, just a broadcast about a new city popping up out in the green and corpos arguing on feeds about permits, and she said let them argue, and he agreed, and they put on a dumb show for background noise and talked about Buddy's future because the dog needed a harness that fit and maybe a tag with his name, and maybe a vet check when they had time, and maybe a bed that wasn't a folded blanket, and it was the kind of conversation that makes a life. Later they took one more short walk because the therapist wanted two sessions a day if possible, down to the corner and back, Buddy trotting with pride, neighbors nodding or saying welcome back because news travels in a building faster than on the Net, and an old man on the third floor who'd been loud in the hallways during the worst nights just tipped his hat and said glad to see you up, and Gloria said thanks and meant it and tucked that small kindness where she kept strength. Back upstairs David showed her a card from the clinic with the emergency number and the schedule for checkups and she taped it to the fridge where she could find it in the dark, and she wrote out a simple calendar for exercises and therapy sessions because she'd learned you can't trust memory when you're tired, and she circled the first weekend with a question mark and wrote "park?" because she wanted a goal that wasn't just stairs. They called a friend from her old building who had moved across town after a rent hike and left a message because she wasn't home, and when the call came back the friend cried and Gloria cried and they promised to see each other soon and then laughed at themselves for being dramatic and then made a plan to meet at the clinic cafeteria because everyone liked the food and it was neutral ground for bus rides and long walks. The night settled and the city hummed and a line of birds crossed the sky like darts, and for once the sound of traffic didn't make Gloria brace for sirens, it just sounded like living, and she told David that she could feel muscles waking up in her back and legs and that it ached but in a direction that felt right, and he said he knew that feeling and that the ache meant tomorrow would be a little easier, and she nodded and closed her eyes for a second and let the couch hold her. Before bed they took stock like people who have learned to count small wins, water in the tap that didn't taste like a pipe, a pan with grease cleanly wiped because they couldn't waste soap, Buddy asleep on the rug with his feet twitching while he dreamed, a carrot top on the windowsill in a cup of water just because it looked like something that should root, a list of exercises with two neat check marks, and a city that felt a fraction softer than the one that put her in a hospital; Gloria brushed her teeth slow, looked in the mirror at a face that had lines she didn't remember and eyes that were still her own, and she told the mirror she'd keep moving, that she'd do the work, that she'd let the new air do what it could, and then she went to bed with Buddy's new tag plans in her head and the sound of leaves outside the window and the knowledge that tomorrow would be another long walk with benches, another set of reps, another carrot or apple or green, and she was ready for that because coming home wasn't the end of anything, it was the start of a different kind of fight that she could win one step at a time, and when she drifted off she did it with the simple thought that she had seen the city change with her own eyes and that meant she could change with it.