Chapter Text
Spoilers for the entire work before this one.
This is a quick recap of what the last story was about, there is no real need to read the last story before this one. Although it will certainly help with understanding emotional complexities.
Previously Shane lost his job when JojaMart was run out of business, and overtime reclaimed sobriety by way of inaccessibility. His options became few, but he was offered a job on the farm by Laura, the local farmer. Taking it on, he eventually moved into her house with Jas, and a closer relationship was made. They shared a kiss and expressed emotions for each other, but it was short lived as a shadow brute had been lurking, seeking revenge on Laura for the slaughter of his people over the years in her time in the mines. But once she had gathered what felt like a small family, she stopped visiting the mines, and the shadow brute, Olc, now had time to fester on his hatred. In an attempt to get her alone in the mines where he’d have an upper hand, Olc stole away Jas. With help from Krobus and the wizard Rasmodius, Shane and Laura were able to brave through a bottom layer of the mines, only accessible from the sewers, and rescue Jas. In his attempt to kill Laura, though, Olc and Laura fell from a great height after Laura forced Shane to leave with Jas in order to save themselves. Olc died in the bottom of the mine, while Laura barely survived it. She was found by Krobus, and with the wizard’s help and magic, she lost a portion of her left leg to ensure her chances of survival. A plan was made, that a spell would be placed over Jas to replace the memories from the mine, with a trip to the mountain they would have taken, and an avalanche would be the reason they sustained injuries. The town would now believe this rather than know there were far greater monsters than slimes and flies in the mines. Now, Shane is wrestling with his emotions surrounding the entire situation, and his feelings for Laura, while she comes to terms with the loss of her left leg, but with a still physically demanding job she needs to get used to under new circumstances. Everyone is forced into a juggling act while Laura and Shane’s relationship has now been cast into limbo, new and delicate before, and now rocky and filled with doubt.
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With all wounds, it was primarily time that did the healing. Laura had gone into it feeling fairly strong, devastated by the slow crumble of her relationship with Shane, but felt she could solve that and all her other problems by just trudging through. Not that it was at all easy. Even eight weeks post amputation and the skin was shiny and new, mottled and uneven and she’d become slightly fixated on staring at it. Running her fingers over the end of her leg, and thinking how often she had taken having both legs for granted. Maru and Harvey had known there was some degree of magic that had gone into her healing, but curiously, neither really mentioned it. Laura had chocked it up to the somewhat large division between magic and science, even in modern times.
“What are you thinking about?” Maru asked, and Laura looked up to see Maru staring just as intently at the rounded edge of her limb. She smiled, and shrugged, watching as Maru’s gaze flickered up to her own.
“Nothing really just… reflecting. Thanks again for doing all this, it really beats driving out to Zuzu City for physical therapy.”
“Absolutely, it’s been interesting. Plus, I’ve had a great time tweaking your prosthetic! Dr. Harvey was telling me all about how difficult joint replacement is but I really think this prosthetic will be a step up from what you can get on the regular market. Maybe you can even let Shane go,” Maru said, and Laura’s head ducked down from what may have been the emotional pain of that statement. “Laura, You know I’m not trying to be mean, it’s just,-”
“I know what you mean but… I hired him even before my amputation, I don’t know if I could do it without him anyways.”
“Linus could come help.”
“Linus is a great guy, but he doesn’t seem to enjoy the farm, I think he’s happier out in the forest…”
“Well hire Sam, or Alex, I mean maybe even Sebastian could help, there has to be a more reasonable solution. Shane is unhinged.”
“He’s not unhinged…”
“Well the bolts are loose on the door, Laura. You have bent over backwards for him, and I mean why is he being so crazy? You both chose to go on that mountain trip, how can he blame you for Jas getting hurt?”
“Maru…” Laura looked up at her new found friend through glossy eyes, it was always hard to keep calm during these talks. The emotions easily found their way into the raw edges of her heart.
“Okay, okay. I just… well, I’ll let it go. Just be sure to keep yourself at a priority, okay?” Maru rested a closed hand on one hip, and peered over her glasses at Laura who shrugged half heartedly and offered a weak smile. Maru only rolled her eyes gently, before patting her shoulder and nodding a “go ahead” to hop off the bed. Laura then went to sit more comfortably in a chair settled in a corner, hopping over with relative familiarity, and pulled on a silicone sleeve before fixing on the prosthetic, moving around until it sealed in as well as it could. Her friend watched with rapt attention, as usual. Marveling at her own impressive work, surely. Laura offered her a hug, knocking one of Maru’s feet with her prosthetic, a gesture she knew made Maru beam with pride. The amount of function she got out of her new leg, it was great that they’d grown close since her incident. How she longed to fess up, and admit all that had happened. But Rasmodius and Marlon had both agreed, it was better not to rile up the townspeople. Most had some knowledge of the bats, bugs, and slimes… but the deeper creatures had faded into myths for almost everyone over the generations. People had even been quick to assume the skeletons Marlon brought out for Halloween were faked. Laura didn’t want to be the reason for a town wide panic.
Despite Maru’s desire to have Shane be let go from the farm, she hadn’t even seen me as much lately. A week after they’d been back, and Laura was at least getting around on crutches, Shane had moved back in with Marnie, who had quietly taken him back in and not said a single word to Laura since this had all gone down. Laura speculated she knew, but was keeping it quiet like she did all things related to Mayor Lewis. She also speculated that Marnie might harbor some resentment for the role Laura played in all this, as she knew Shane did. All these thoughts did a quick whirl, more like a constant little song and dance of failures playing in the back of her mind and she let go of Maru, and said her final goodbyes. Harvey wasn’t at the front desk when she left, and so the walk back to the house was quiet and relatively peaceful.
The past eight weeks had been… difficult. But, she was glad that she’d gotten at least relatively used to her new life before winter. Maru even had a plan to outfit her shoes with “state of the art” ice cleats while she was still relatively new to the amputee life.