By the fifth morning, Willow felt different.
Not healed. Not strong. But herself again in small returning pieces, the way sunlight slowly pushes through fog after days of gray.
She noticed it first in the quiet moments. Her thoughts began forming in full sentences instead of broken fragments. Her breathing no longer felt like something she had to manage deliberately with every inhale. Her body still hurt, but it was pain she could understand now, pain with boundaries and rules instead of the chaotic storm it had been days before.
Her abdomen still pulled whenever she shifted. Walking required short, careful steps. Pain tightened sharply when she stood too long. Yet her blood pressure had stabilized, the hematoma had stopped expanding, and that morning the attending physician finally spoke the words she had been waiting to hear.
"You are stable enough to go home tomorrow."
Willow blinked slowly at her. "Home?"
