Rowan looked down at the rag in his hands.
He understood.
The specialists had fought for meters.
Machines had trained full gait cycles.
Celeste had fought for complete recovery because complete recovery was the only victory she could imagine.
Rowan had asked for an inch.
Then another.
And another.
The world’s best doctors had not been villains, and Rowan had not defeated medicine.
Arya’s injuries remained real, and her recovery depended on the clinicians, equipment, therapy, and safeguards that kept her body protected while it relearned what it could do.
What Rowan changed was the question.
Not, “Can you become who you were?”
But, “What can you do safely right now?”
For Arya, that question reopened a door everyone had mistaken for a wall.
She turned toward the workshop exit.
“See you Tuesday.”
Rowan raised the new red rag.
“One inch at a time?”
Arya shifted her weight onto her left leg without thinking about it first.
Then she smiled.
“Not anymore.”
