Week 6 Downtime: Keng Awakes, Thursday Afternoon.

The hospital seemed less desolate, less empty this time around. Sosie had received a note this morning, "Keng awake." Mrs. Keng didn't mince words, but Sosie felt hopefully. She sent out a text to let anyone who would care about Keng, let them know what time she was going, and struck out on her own.

Keng had been moved to a different ward, still in the new wing of the building. His plastic coffin had been replaced with a clean bed with crisp sheets, and the room still smelled of flowers and solvents, minus the burnt hair.

Mrs. Keng still sat by her husband, her face a mix of joy and a different, deeper kind of worry. Mr. Keng sat slightly upright, propped up on pillows. His right arm, the remaining one, hung limply, his right eye covered with a white eye patch. Mrs. Keng held his right hand, and his fingers moved weakly to try to bring comfort. His body was still covered with wounds, burns, and cuts, but they were bandaged, giving the impression of a clean and incomplete mummy. He still had no limbs, though what was visible of the stumps were bloodless and covered with tender looking pink scars mixed with even more tender looking new tissue.

In short, he looked better but still very bad.

Sosie, still trained as a doctor, greeted both of them softly and walked to chart at the end of the bed. She tapped on it and frowned. Brain damage. Definite global aphasia, with right hemiparesis. Still, the prognosis wasn't bad. Sure, he couldn't talk or understand what was spoken, but that could be fixed.

There were three seats in here, and Sosie took on of them sitting opposite Mrs. Keng. She smiled at him. "I know you don't understand what I'm saying, but everything will be fine." She punctuated it with a thumbs up and another smile. She looked at Mrs. Keng. "Has everything been explained to you? And, importantly, has anyone tried to explain it to him?"

Mrs Keng nodded mutely to Sosie's question. She hadn't said anything in a long time, even since her husband had woken up, so it seemed natural to keep it that way. Although neither Keng could understand the other's words, Mrs Keng knew that her presence was bringing some feeling of comfort, some small amount of sanity to this madness for her husband.

Han popped his head around the door. He glanced at Sosie and then bowed deferentially to Mrs Keng.
"May I come in?" He asked.

Sosie turned to Han, and nodded, smiling softly. "You can come in. Mr. Keng is up." Her voice was soft, even for a smeaker. "He won't understand a word you say, but he can read facial expressions and gestures, though his eyesight is poor."

Mrs. Keng nodded too, barely turning back to glance at Han. Sosie's soft voice was back, speaking over the local smeaker, "She hasn't spoke since the accident."

The cyberneticist gently tapped on the bed with her fingers, smiling. "The prognosis isn't bad at all. He'll need a few more surgeries to get his limbs back, and some therapy to help him regain his speech. But he'll be right as rain in a month or so."

Han smeakered back; "I'm glad to hear that. I couldn't live with myself if it had been permanent damage." Turning to Mrs Keng, Han placed a large covered dish on the side of the table near her. "I didn't know how well you'd been eating, I know hospital food can be pretty grim, so I had my...I had a friend whip up some old Kowloon recipes, you know, good hearty food. I thought it might be a nice change."

*Pinkie strode through the hospital, noting the viable exits of each room she entered. She hadn't dressed for trouble but that didn't mean she wouldn't handle it when it happened. Reaching Keng's room she ducked inside quickly, nodded once to Sosie, glanced at Hann, and bowed to Ms. Keng.*

Mrs. Keng simply nodded and smiled to the agents when they entered the room. Almost all of her attention was focused on Mr. Keng. The two of them looked each other in the eyes as much as was possible given Mr. Keng's eye patch and lack of mobility.

Sosie reached out and removed the pad that held the chart to the bed. Her fingers tapped on it. "COMMENTS: Requesting a psych eval for Mrs. Keng. For understandable reasons, she may have untreated PTSD."

She slid the chart back. To Mrs. Keng, she said, "If you want to return to the restaurant, you'll be happy to know that we're rebuilt it. Stronger, safer. The alterations are not done inside, it needs some redecorating, but it's almost done. It'll be ready if.. if you want to return."

She cleared her throat. She had come here out of a sense of obligation, sure in the knowledge that she would observe, help. To Mr. Keng, she smiled at him, pointed to him, pointed to his head, frowned. Then she raised a finger as if in thought, the word BUT! clearly on her face. She gestured to his head, then around the room, a sweeping motion meant to encompass the hospital. She tapped her watch, then did the universal sign for a short, small, pinching her fingers slightly in the air. Then she smiled reassuringly, pointed to his head and gave him a thumbs up.

"Charades. He can understand those." She gave a little sad, amused smile to Han and Pinkie.

Darya leaned against the wall of the hospital lobby, making sure she stayed alert and ready, a auto-responsive shield ready to activate at her waist. Biting down hard on her smeaker, she murmered `How is he?`.