Chapter 64: The Long Recovery
Roy woke with a start, his hand already reaching across the mattress before his eyes opened. The space beside him was empty. Cold. His heart hammered against his ribs for three full seconds before he registered the sound of water running in the bathroom down the hall.
He let out a breath. For almost two months now, he'd woken expecting Rosa to be still asleep beside him. But she was up. She was always up these days, moving through the dorm with a furious restlessness that made his bones ache to watch.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. His body still felt wrong. Too large. Every step he took seemed to echo off the floorboards, every movement heavy and clumsy. He'd spent so long measuring the world in Rosa's heartbeat that being this big again felt like walking around with someone else's skin on.
The common room was warm when he got there. The wood stove crackled, throwing orange light across the cracked linoleum. Rosa sat on the couch with her back to him, her broken arm still in its sling, her good hand pressed flat against her sternum. She didn't turn when he approached, and he knew that posture. The one where she was somewhere else entirely.
"Morning," he said, keeping his voice low.
She dropped her hand. "Hey." Her voice was rough. Sleep-creased.
Roy crossed the room and lowered himself onto the couch beside her, careful to keep his distance. That was the other thing that felt wrong now. The space between them. He'd spent months pressed against her skin, hearing her heartbeat, feeling her pulse under his palm. Now they sat apart, two people taking up separate slices of the same cushion.
"I had the dream again," Rosa said. She didn't look at him. "The sewer."
The word landed in his chest like a stone. He'd had it too. The black water, the rushing current, the sound of his own voice swallowed by the tunnel. In his version, he was full-sized again, running through the dark, reaching for her hand that was always just out of reach.
"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "I know."
The fire popped. A log shifted and settled into ash.
Rosa finally turned to look at him. The bruising around her eye had faded to a sickly yellow-green weeks ago, but the shadows underneath were still there. She studied his face for a long moment, and he let her. There was nothing to hide. His body was too big, his hands too clumsy, but at least he could let her look. He owed her that.
"You keep touching your chest," he said. "When you think I'm not watching."
Her hand drifted up again before she caught herself and let it drop to her lap. "Habit," she said. "You were there for so long. I feel it missing."
"I used to fall asleep against your collarbone." The words came out softer than he intended. "I'd feel your pulse in my cheek. Like a second heartbeat. I don't know how to sleep without it now."
Rosa's jaw tightened. She looked at the fire. "Sandy says I can take the sling off in a week."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know." She pulled the hem of the oversized shirt he'd given her weeks ago down over her knees. His shirt. She'd kept it. "I just don't know how to talk about it without feeling like we lost something."
"We didn't lose anything," he said.
Rosa made a small sound in the back of her throat. Not quite a laugh. "You're tall again. I'm not carrying you in my braid or keeping you in a pocket. That's gone."
Roy shifted closer. Just an inch. But the couch was old and the springs complained. "We're still here. Both of us. That's not nothing."
She was silent for a long moment, staring into the fire. Her hand came up again, pressing against her sternum, and this time she didn't stop herself.
"Will you stay close tonight?" she asked. "I keep waking up reaching for you and you're not there."
Roy felt something break open in his chest. "Yeah," he said. "I'll be there. I'll always be there."
The rest of the day passed in that strange, suspended way that days after grief often do. Rosa moved through her chores with her usual efficiency, one-handed, gruff, refusing help. Roy shadowed her. Not too close. Close enough that when she turned suddenly and found him there, she didn't startle.
They ate dinner with the others in the kitchen. Jason kept glancing between them, reading the air. He didn't ask. He just squeezed Rosa's shoulder on his way past and left two cups of dandelion tea steaming at the table.
When the common room emptied, Roy helped Rosa up the stairs. She didn't complain about the stairs being better now, or about the sling, and he didn't offer his arm. They just walked, their footsteps falling into an old rhythm.
At her door, Rosa paused. "You coming in, or are you going to stand out here all night?"
He swallowed. "Yeah. Coming."
Her room was warm, the little wood stove in the corner already glowing. Rosa had banked it early, the way she always did before bed. The blankets on her bed were rumpled, the pillow still dented from where she'd slept the night before.
Roy took his time. He pulled on the loose shirt he'd brought, then stood at the foot of the bed, suddenly aware of every inch of his own body. He was too tall for this room. Too broad. He'd spent so long being small, tucked into her collar, folded against her pulse. Now he felt like he might knock something over just by breathing.
Rosa watched him from the bed. She didn't say anything. She just patted the mattress beside her.
He climbed in, keeping to his side. A generous foot of space between them. An entire world.
Rosa rolled her eyes.
She closed the distance in one fluid motion, using her good hand to catch his shoulder and drag him toward her. His head landed in the hollow of her chest. His whole body followed, half sprawled across her, his face pressed against the worn cotton of his own shirt that she still wore to sleep.
"Rosa," he said. His voice came out muffled.
"Shut up," she murmured. Her good hand came up and slid through his hair, her fingers curling against his scalp. "You said you'd be here. Be here."
He went still. Then, slowly, he relaxed. His body settled against her, heavy in a way it never had been when he was small. She could feel the weight of him, the broad span of his back, the solid warmth of his chest against her side. It was different. It was a lot.
But her ear was close enough to his face that she could hear him breathe. That breath, shallow and careful at first, then evening out into something steady.
His hand found her stomach. Palm flat, fingers spread, like he was checking. Like he was measuring.
"I missed your heartbeat," she said. Her voice came out rougher than she meant.
He pressed his ear against her sternum, right where his head had landed. "It's still there."
"Different angle."
He laughed, a quiet huff of air against her shirt. "You sound like you're complaining."
"I'm not." She swallowed. Her fingers tightened in his hair, just a little. "I just had it memorized. The old one. I could tell when you were dreaming."
"I remember." He shifted, lifting his head just enough to look at her. His eyes were dark in the dim light. "I could tell when you were lying to me."
"I never lied."
"You thought about it, though."
Rosa's mouth curved, half a smile. "Thinking about it doesn't count."
He eased his head back down, settling into the hollow of her collarbone, the place he'd learned by heart. His breathing slowed. His hand stayed on her stomach.
"I'm going to fix it," she said. "Lee's working on the control box. We're going to figure out how to do it on purpose, so you can go small whenever you want. So you can be here and there."
"With you there?" he asked.
"With me there." She said it like a vow. "You're always going to be there, Roy. Big or small. I'm done not having you close."
He didn't answer. But his hand curled against her side, and she felt him breathe out, long and slow, like something heavy had finally settled.
The fire crackled. Her fingers kept moving through his hair.
Outside, the wind picked up against the boarded windows. Inside, they stayed tangled together, two people learning to fit a new shape.