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The doctors don't want to let Red go. Neither do the police. But she passed all of her cognitive tests with flying colors, so Dr. Quack is forced to back off for once. And Durkin pressured that idiot Palmer into dropping the assault charges, which are the only thing the police can pin on her now that the forensics on Michael Cooper's death have come back.
Red seems eager to go. But when she gets to her feet, she stumbles a bit, staggering back against the hospital bed.
The nurse frowns. "Maybe we should keep you overnight. Just for observation, to make sure there are no long-term effects from … whatever it was that happened to you."
"No!" Red says stubbornly. And then, more calmly: "No, I just want to get back to my apartment. Get some sleep."
Joey can't blame her. What can these quacks tell her about her condition, anyway? She just crawled her way back from the edge of the void. She just had the entire universe in her head, speaking through her. She just sent all the ghosts in the world into the light. She just turned him human, for pete's sake. Their medical tests aren't going to do squat.
"You sure?" asks the nurse.
"My friend will help me," Red says, and turns to look at him. "Right, Joey?"
Joey blinks. He's not used to having her look at him in public, where anyone can see. He's not used to being able to respond, either. "Right," he agrees.
He stands up — and boy, does it feel weird to have legs again — and walks over to Red. She throws an arm around his shoulder, he puts his hands on her waist, and between the two of them they manage to get her to her feet. "See?" she says to the nurse. "All good." She's sagging against him, leaning most of her weight on him, but he can't say he minds.
The nurse looks dubious, but lets them go anyway.
Outside, the snow is falling. Joey closes his eyes for a second and takes it all in — the crispness of the air, the faint smell of exhaust, the flakes melting onto his face, the feel of Red's hair against his cheek. Even the things that he was capable of perceiving before — the shape of their shadows on the freshly fallen snow, the sound of an ambulance siren in the distance — feel in-focus in a way that they never were, when he was dead.
Rosa looks tired, in the yellow light of the street lamps — dark circles under her eyes, eyelids drooping, mouth set in a frown, lips chapped. He presses a slow kiss to her forehead, cataloguing the feel of her skin under his lips and the smell of her hair against his nose.
"I'm so tired, Joey," she says into his shoulder.
"Come on, darling," he says. "I'll call us a cab."
*
Red perks up a bit after napping in the cab, but she still seems a little weak around the knees. Joey holds out an arm to keep her steady while she peels off her coat and her earmuffs, then wraps his arm around her waist again and helps her across the room.
At the bedroom door, however, Rosa stops and blinks, slowly. She cocks her head to look at him, and frowns.
Joey looks back at her, puzzled, trying to work out what she's thinking.
Eventually, Rosa sighs, and steps into her bedroom, pulling Joey after her. "Come on," she says. "You can sleep here tonight."
Joey blinks. "Sleep?" Right. He hasn't slept in over eighty years — he hadn't even considered that it was something that he might need to do again. But now that she mentions it, he can feel … something. A pressure hovering somewhere near his ears, and a certain weight in his limbs. He thinks exhaustion might have felt like that, back when he was still capable of feeling it.
Rosa takes two steps towards the bed and then flops face-down into the pillows. "If you don't want to wear your suit to bed, I have some old exercise clothes that might fit you," she says, voice half-muffled. "Bottom drawer on the right. You can change in the bathroom."
Joey blinks. Clothes. Another thing that hadn't occurred to him.
By the time he gets back from the bathroom, wearing a shirt and a pair of soft trousers that are just a little bit too small for him, Red has removed her shoes and socks and glasses, and slipped underneath the blankets. She's lying on her side, facing the window, leaving the side of the bed closer to the bathroom wide open.
He slips beneath the covers, careful not to wake her.
All of this feels so new — the way the mattress dips beneath his weight, the smell of Red's shampoo imprinted on the pillowcase, the weight of the blankets pressing down on his chest, the color of the street lights filtering through the window and falling on Red's face. Even the sound of her breathing feels like a revelation. He's heard it before, but not like this — so crisp and clear and soft.
He matches it, breathing in when she does, breathing out when she does.
*
In the morning, when the light streaming through the window wakes him, he finds that they've drifted together during the night. His right arm is wrapped around her waist; her head is resting on his shoulder. She's breathing slowly and evenly, each exhale stirring the thin fabric of the shirt he borrowed.
He probably ought to pull away. She invited him to sleep in her bed, not to hold her in his arms. But Red is warm and soft and alive against him, and he's loath to let her go.
Instead, he reaches out with his free hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. It's soft and smooth against his knuckles, and it catches the light in a way that he's pretty sure he's never seen before, shimmering with each rise and fall of her chest. He reaches out and slides his fingers through it, memorizing the feel of it on his skin, the drape of it over her shoulders, the shifting colors as it passes between light and shadow.
She stirs, and his hand stills. Is she going to pull away? Kick him out?
But she just raises her head, and looks at him. "Morning," she says, then settles back against him.
"Good morning, sweetheart," he says, and resumes stroking her hair. "Did you sleep well?"
She hums into his collarbone, then raises her head to answer. "Yeah, actually. I was worried having you here would keep me awake. But it was fine. Good, even."
He doesn't bother to stifle the smile that pulls at the corners of his lips. "Maybe you should try it more often."
Rosa looks up again, propping her chin on the back of her hands. "Yeah," she says softly. "Maybe I should."