"Thanks," she said.
Cody nearly dropped it in surprise.
She ate the dinners Reese brought.
She let Marcus replace a broken lamp upstairs without asking what she owed him.
When she woke at three in the morning, sometimes she still sat upright with her heart racing. But instead of treating the fear as proof that disaster was coming, she began naming what was actually true.
The shop is downstairs.
My leg is healing.
People stayed.
Nothing is wrong right now.
Sometimes that was enough.
When it was not, she went down to the main bay and sat in the quiet. More than once, somebody found her.
Reese came in early one morning and sat on the opposite end of the workbench without asking questions. Cody wandered in another night because he had forgotten his wallet and ended up making tea badly enough that Emily had to coach him through boiling water. Marcus once appeared at four-thirty and admitted he had driven across town because his own divorce had left him unable to sleep.
The strange thing was that helping them did not feel like a burden.
That realization changed something in Emily.
She had always assumed needing another person made you heavy. Yet when Marcus sat across from her at four-thirty talking about his son, Emily did not feel trapped. She felt trusted.
Maybe, she began to understand, that was what Cole had been trying to tell her.
Being allowed to help someone was not always a cost.
Sometimes it was the relationship itself.
Six weeks after surgery, Emily crossed the shop floor with one crutch instead of two.
At eight weeks, she used a cane.
At ten, Maya told her they were ready to attempt a short unsupported walk.
Emily insisted on doing it at Thunder Ridge.
"Of course you do," Maya said.
The entire shop pretended not to be waiting.
Reese was reorganizing tools he had already organized. Cody wiped the same fender six times. Marcus stood beside a lift holding a clipboard upside down.
Emily started near the parts counter.
The distance to Cole's workbench was only thirty feet.
It felt longer than the road out of her final deployment.
She took the first step.
The knee held.
Second.
Third.
By the tenth, her breathing had changed.
She could feel everybody watching.
Halfway across, fear struck hard and irrationally. She stopped.
The old memory of collapse flashed through her body.
Cole leaned against the bench at the far end.
"Don't you stop there."
Emily looked up.
"I said don't stop."
"Very supportive."
"Move your feet, Carter."
She laughed.
Then she took another step.