Who: Sam What: Relocating Where: UMC → Henderson Healthcare Center When: This morningish Warnings/Rating: Language
They moved Sam early in the morning, before visiting hours, when the hospital thought it was safest.
And, ok, so that was some scary fucking shit. She wasn't scared of the hospital people or anything, but after three weeks it was kind of a big fucking deal to actually go outside. Yeah, so she'd been asleep for like a week and a half, but whatever. It was still a big deal. But she'd known this shit was coming. They'd taken the shunt out the day she woke up, and the stitches had come out the day before. And sure, she knew that shit was still weird. They said something about relearning things, and that was supposed to explain why she needed to hold onto shit if she was walking more than a few wobbly steps. And her writing just got worse when she got tired, but it wasn't like her fingers were fucked or anything. No, it was like her brain just didn't know how to tell her hands to make the letters right. And they said that was normal, and that it would get better with practice, and practice needed to happen somewhere else.
Home was an option, yeah, but only if they could afford a nurse or something, which they couldn't. The doctors said she was still too unsteady to be outpatient, and they still needed to monitor for swelling for at least a week, and so they put her in something that looked a lot like a fucking ambulance. They shuttled her over to Henderson Healthcare Center, with press flashing cameras outside and reporters trying to ask questioned as they rolled her in, even thought it was barely sun-up.
The facility was ass, and that was obvious as soon as the fucking doors parted, but it wasn't worse than any of the places Sam had lived growing up. Yeah, if it wasn't for the old people it would almost feel like the building Al had run back in Jersey. They put her in a room with a woman recovering from a fall, broken arm and leg and a bruised eye that still hadn't fucking faded, and Sam knew the woman hadn't fallen down the stairs on her own. But the place was mostly old people recovering from shit they would never recover from, and despite being overcrowded and dirty, it felt safe enough.
And she wasn't a prisoner, which was cool. She was allowed out, as long as someone came to get her. And, maybe, she could go out on her own on the old people bus if she got steadier on her feet. And there was the memory thing, and maybe she forgot stupid shit sometimes, like where she was and what day of the week it was. But that shit would get better, they said, and she believed them. And the therapist that started coming almost immediately, she felt familiar. Not that Sam had anything to fucking say, really, but the woman kept looking at a file, and Sam was sure that thing contained all the shit she didn't want to remember. But the woman didn't push and, ok, so, maybe this would be ok.
Did she need anything?
And she had to think that shit over. She wanted better food, but she'd already decided that Joey was going to bring her something decent every fucking day. End of fucking story. And, yeah, she kind of wanted to see Tessy, but that could wait until she'd taken a nap. And she wanted to shake Iris until whatever was rattling inside that fucking head came loose. And she wanted to bitch at Shane, but that shit could wait too. And she wasn't going to push Neil and call him, no way, because she knew he was going to go into full fucking guilt mode once he saw this shitthole. She wanted everybody to buy her happy, everything is fucking fine routine, but that shit wasn't something the nurse could get her. So, yeah, did she want anything?
"Some black hair dye?"
Because she'd gotten shot in the head but, like she told Iris, she wasn't a fucking retard. She'd seen all the flashing cameras, and she didn't remember the Murphys, but she knew they were out there somewhere, looking for some blonde they hadn't managed to kill, one who could maybe ID the shooter or whatever.
"Oh, yeah, and can you point me to the computers?"
Even a place like this had to have some shitty laptops or something for the residents to play solitaire on, yeah? She had the Murphy names, and maybe it wouldn't be so fucking hard to find images of them online. That way she'd at least know what they fucking looked like if they showed up with a fake pizza delivery or something.