Ordinary

The blue shell still bore its white stars, though one had been scratched near the wrist. She set the hand on the table with more care than she usually gave anything mechanical.

“I can move the fingers,” she explained. “I just cannot feel what they are doing.”

Inez tested the grip. The index and middle fingers closed smoothly, but when she placed an enamel cup between them, the pressure continued building after contact.

Mina watched the rim flex.

“That happened this morning,” she said. “Except the other cup broke.”

“Did it cut you?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly, sharpened by the suspicion that Inez might decide the repair could wait.

Inez removed the wrist cover and examined the connections. The mounting plate remained aligned, and none of the visible wiring had separated. Whatever had failed lay deeper, most likely in the calibration circuit or the sensor reference that translated pressure into sensation, but she did not have the equipment to isolate it at Sera’s table.

“It needs the bench at Rusk’s.”

Mina studied her face rather than the hand. “Then take it there.”

She did not ask whether Tomas would allow Inez inside or whether the argument had ended. To Mina, the problem was simple. Her hand needed both of them, and adults who could fix something were expected to stop being difficult long enough to do it.

Inez could have sent the prosthetic with Jonah. Mina might have carried it herself. Either choice would have allowed her to avoid Rusk’s while pretending the avoidance meant nothing.

She released the socket carefully and wrapped the hand in a clean cloth.

Sera looked up from the stove as Inez crossed the room. “I am going to Rusk’s.”

No advice followed. Sera only glanced toward Mina, who sat with her shortened arm held close to her body.

“Mina needs the hand before dinner.”

The practical answer gave Inez somewhere safe to place her attention. She carried the prosthetic into Mercy Row, toward the shop she had left and the man she had not stopped missing.

* * * *

Tomas was working beneath the inspection lamp when Inez entered Rusk’s. His gaze went first to the cloth-wrapped object in her hands. Only after he recognized its shape did he look at her face.

“What happened?”

“The tactile response failed in two fingers.”

Concern moved through him and became technical before either of them had to acknowledge what else lay between them. He cleared the half-open regulator from the bench and pulled the lamp aside.

“Set it here.”

Inez unwrapped Mina’s prosthetic hand.

Her former place at the bench remained almost unchanged. The narrow driver and modified probe had been arranged on a small shelf beside the insulated picks she preferred for delicate wiring. Beneath them, a strip of tape carried a name in Tomas’s careful block letters. INEZ She noticed it and said nothing.

Tomas removed the wrist plate while she connected the diagnostic lead. The fingertip sensors responded when tested separately, but the signal weakened once the hand was assembled.

“The sensors are working,” Inez told him.

“The socket has tightened.” Tomas ran one finger along the inner mount. “Mina has grown since we fitted this.”

“The pressure is shifting the reference value.”

He nodded and rotated the hand beneath the light. “The circuit reads light contact as interference and rejects it.”

They moved into the repair as though the days apart had been an interruption rather than a rupture. Inez reached for the narrow driver before Tomas asked. He shifted the lamp toward her without looking up. When they both moved for the diagnostic lead, their fingers touched.

Tomas did not pull away. The contact lasted no longer than necessary, but the absence of retreat altered the air between them. Inez took the lead and connected it to the sensor port while Tomas continued measuring the mount.

“The bracket needs to be thinner,” he decided. “Not by much.”

“Point four millimeters.”

He looked at her readings. “Point three.”

“Point four will allow for growth.”

A faint change touched his mouth. “Point four, then.”

Tomas moved to the small mill and began shaping a new bracket while Inez rewrote the rejected reference range. Metal whispered beneath the cutting head, and the diagnostic screen filled with signals she could separate into pattern and error.

The repair required both of them. Tomas understood how the materials would hold under pressure. Inez could see where the circuit stopped believing what the fingers felt. Mina’s hand was a problem with an answer. What remained between Inez and Tomas was not.

Tomas worked the new bracket against a fine file, turning the brass-colored composite after each pass to keep the edge even.

“I thought removing every reason you had to stay would make the choice yours.”

Inez kept her attention on the diagnostic screen. The revised reference values shifted beneath her fingers, settling into a cleaner curve as she adjusted the pressure threshold.

“The choice was already mine.”

“I understand that now.”

She looked at him.

Tomas rarely admitted that he had understood something too late without explaining why the earlier mistake had seemed reasonable. This time, he continued filing, his eyes fixed on the narrow piece held between his fingers.

“You needed the regulator,” he said. “The room was above my shop. Nearly everything you had came through me, or through people who knew you because I opened the door.”

“I knew other people before I left.”

“That was not what I meant.”

“It was what you counted.”

The file paused. Tomas set it down and examined the bracket beneath the lamp. “I thought silence was the only thing I could give you without influencing the answer.”

Inez lowered the diagnostic probe. “You removed yourself from the choice and called it freedom.”

Pain tightened his expression, though he did not reject the accusation. “Writing PAID across the ledger was easier,” he admitted. “I could calculate the materials and the hours. I could close anything that might resemble a debt.”

“And what remained?”

“I did not know how to measure it.”

“You did not have to.”

Tomas’s thumb moved along the newly filed edge, searching for a roughness too small to see. “I could not tell whether gratitude had become affection, or whether asking you to stay would make affection another obligation.”

Inez felt the old anger stir, but it no longer carried the same heat. “You treated uncertainty as evidence against me,” she told him. “You decided my feelings could not be trusted because they began while I needed you.”

Tomas placed the bracket on the bench. “I was wrong.”

The words arrived without defense. He did not ask her to excuse what he had done or soften the harm because his reasons had been careful.

Inez looked toward the small mill, where fine metal dust remained beneath the cutting head. “I used Jan and Helix because I knew they would hurt you.”

“I know.”

“I wanted them to.”

His face shifted, but he waited.

She returned her attention to him and continued, “That does not mean everything I said was false.”

“No.”

“You do try to repair things when wanting them frightens you.”

Tomas picked up the bracket again and ran his thumb across the edge. “Repair has instructions.”

“People do not.”

“I noticed.”

The faint humor in his voice did not erase what had passed between them, but it made room inside it. After a moment, Tomas set the bracket beside Mina’s hand.

“I did not know how to ask you to stay without making the question unfair.”

Inez thought of the cup she had returned to the communal crate and the fear she had carried when she asked Sera if she could keep it.

“You could have asked,” she said. “Then you could have allowed the answer to belong to me.”

Tomas met her gaze. This time, he did not explain. He listened.

* * * *

Mina returned before dinner with Jonah a few steps behind her. He remained near the front counter while she crossed to the bench and held out her shortened arm.

Tomas fitted the prosthetic over the socket, tightening the new bracket until the housing settled without pressure against the wrist. Inez connected the diagnostic lead and adjusted the tactile range while Mina opened and closed the fingers.

“Try the cup.”

Mina lifted an empty enamel cup from the bench. Her grip tightened, then stopped before the rim flexed.

“Now this.” Inez placed a small fastener near her hand.

Mina caught it between thumb and forefinger. She rolled it once, feeling the edges through the restored sensors, then gave a serious nod.

“Better.”

From Mina, the judgment carried more weight than praise.

“Can I help Pip with his trap now?”

Jonah pushed himself away from the counter. “You can come home before Pip convinces you to test it on someone.”

“He already tested it on Niko.”

“That does not improve the argument.”

Mina allowed herself to be led away, though she looked back at Inez and Tomas standing beside the same bench. Whatever she noticed did not interest her enough to delay the trap.

After the door closed, Tomas swept the metal filings into his palm. Inez returned the probe to the small shelf and looked again at the strip of tape beneath it.

“You made this while I was gone.”

Tomas glanced at her name. “Your tools were in everyone else’s way.”

“They are shop tools.”

“You are the only person who uses half of them correctly.” The excuse was unconvincing, and neither pretended otherwise.

Inez placed the narrow driver beside the picks. Tomas remained near her after the bench was clean, his shoulder close enough that she could feel his warmth without contact.

“I missed you.” He spoke quietly, but he did not retreat from the admission or bury it beneath an explanation.

“I know.”

Her answer held no triumph. She knew because she had seen how much effort his distance required. More softly, she added, “I missed you too.”

Tomas looked at her, and something guarded in his expression loosened.

“I am keeping the room at Sera’s,” she told him.

“Good. You should.”

Inez searched his face for another attempt to push her toward the open door. She found none.

“I do not need this room. I do not need the shop, and I do not need you to keep the regulator working.”

“I know.”

She let the words settle before continuing. “I am staying here tonight.”

Tomas drew a slow breath. This time, he did not question the choice or ask what had caused it. He allowed the answer to belong to her.

* * * *

Inez returned to Sera’s before evening.

She found her sorting clinic linens at the table while Niko argued with a motor that had stopped responding to threats. Sera looked up when Inez entered, taking in the small change in her expression before her gaze moved toward the empty cup in Inez’s hand.

Sera folded another cloth along its worn seam without looking up. “You are staying at Rusk's tonight.”

It was not a question. Inez had not said it yet.

“Yes.”

“All right." Sera set the folded cloth on the stack and reached for the next one, her hands not pausing long enough to make the moment larger than it needed to be. "Your room will still be here tomorrow.”

Inez nodded. The reassurance settled somewhere deeper than she expected. Choosing one door did not require her to close another.

She packed clean clothing into a small bag and left the travel case beneath the cot. Jan’s calibration weight remained wrapped among her belongings. She carried the enamel cup back because Mrs. Ortega had filled it twice that afternoon and because using it had become more natural than protecting it.

Upstairs at Rusk’s, Tomas had prepared food.

This time, he sat across from her while they ate. They discussed Mina’s new calibration and whether the thinner bracket would hold until her next growth adjustment. Tomas believed the clinic cooler needed a complete control replacement. Inez suspected Pip had stolen another spring because he had spent the afternoon walking with one hand closed.

“He does that when he has stolen something,” Tomas observed.

“He does it when he wants people to think he has stolen something.”

“That is not an important distinction.”

“It is to Pip.”

The conversation remained ordinary, but neither of them mistook ordinary for unimportant.

Afterward, Tomas reached for her coat where it hung beside the chair. His fingers approached the clasp he had repaired, then stopped before touching it.

Inez saw the hesitation. She took his hand and placed it against the metal at her throat.

Tomas’s fingers remained still. “Are you certain?”

Irritation rose quickly, sharpened by everything they had already said downstairs. Then she felt the care beneath the question and allowed the anger to pass without using it against him.

“I am not here because of the regulator.”

“I know.”

“I am not paying a debt.”

“I know that too.”

“I can leave in the morning.”

Something tightened in his face, but he did not look away. “Yes.”

Inez closed her hand around his wrist. “Then believe that I am choosing this.”

Tomas leaned toward her slowly enough that she could stop him. When she did not, the last distance between them disappeared.

Nothing that followed was graceful. Tomas's damaged hip resisted when he shifted his weight, and Inez adjusted without pretending not to notice. He avoided the regulator port beneath her skin until she guided his hand across it, showing him that care did not require fear.

He kept the frame within reach out of habit, close enough beside the bed that his hand found the edge of it once without meaning to. Inez felt him catch himself, felt the small tension that came before he could stop it, the same instinct that made him check a locked door twice or count a repaired joint's tolerance before trusting it. In the shop, he decided how much of the frame anyone else was permitted to see working. Here there was no controlling it. His weight shifted against her, uneven, honest, and he did not reach for the brace to correct it.

"I don't need it," he said, though she had not asked.

"I know."

"I know you know." He exhaled something close to a laugh, unsteady in a way his voice rarely was. "I am telling myself."

Their bodies carried old damage and habits of protection neither could abandon simply because they wanted one another. She had spent years learning to move through pain without announcing it. He had spent years building machinery so no one would have to watch him fail to. Tonight neither strategy was available, and neither of them reached for a substitute.

At one point Relay leapt onto the bed and lodged himself between them with an offended sound.

Tomas laughed against her shoulder, the sound easier now than it had been a moment before. "He thinks this is his room."

"He is wrong."

Relay responded by digging his claws into the blanket.

They moved him together, and the awkwardness loosened something neither apology had reached.

Later, when the room became quiet, Inez rested beside Tomas with his hand open against the sheet between them. Nothing had been repaired. No debt had been paid, and neither of them had promised that wanting would become safe.

They had only stopped treating vulnerability as a problem requiring a solution. For that night, it was enough.

Tomas fell asleep before the pipes beneath the street had finished cooling. His support frame rested beside the bed within reach, its metal joints folded into the shape he would need when he woke. The regulator at Inez’s neck pulsed with its quiet, measured rhythm. Once, the sound had marked the distance between one cartridge and the next. Tonight it belonged to her body and nothing else.

Relay returned after several offended circuits of the room and forced himself into the narrow space between them. Tomas shifted without waking. Inez moved her leg, but the cat expanded against every concession and refused to surrender any part of the blanket.

She remained awake.

Beyond the walls, Mercy Row settled into the sounds it made when no one required saving. An argument near the transit station rose, lost its purpose, and ended in laughter. Music drifted from an upper apartment until someone complained through the floor. Farther below, water moved through the repaired pipes with a faint knocking that travelled from building to building.

Nothing extraordinary was happening. The realization came quietly enough that Inez nearly missed it. She was happy.

Not only because Tomas slept beside her, his hand open against the sheet where she could reach it. Happiness had accumulated in smaller places. It waited in the shop downstairs, where a shelf carried her chosen name. It sat in the chipped enamel cup beside the bed and in the room at Sera’s that would still be hers tomorrow.

Mina would return with another problem she had helped create. Pip would ask a dangerous question and pretend it was theoretical. Lio would meet her eyes at the clinic. Mrs. Ortega would save her a place at the domino table while insisting she had not.

People knew where to find her.

The tears reached her before she understood what had broken open.

Her breathing changed, and Tomas woke immediately. His hand moved toward the regulator before his eyes had fully opened.

“Are you hurt?”

Inez shook her head. The answer should have been simple, but her throat closed around it.

Tomas pushed himself upright, pain briefly tightening his face. “What is wrong?”

She tried to speak and could not. He did not touch her until she reached across Relay and closed her fingers around his hand.

“I am happy,” she managed.

Confusion crossed his tired expression, followed by concern of a different kind. He lay down again and let her move closer without asking her to explain something she did not yet understand.

Happiness had given her what survival never had. There was a home that could be destroyed now. There were people whose absence would leave shapes inside her life. She had a future long enough to imagine losing it.

Rourke may have arranged the road that brought her to Mercy Row. Orison had built the architecture that nearly killed her. Neither of them had designed this room or the voices outside it.

Inez pressed her face against Tomas’s shoulder while Mercy Row breathed beyond the walls. She had escaped with nothing. Now there was something to lose.

The end of Part II: Things We Repair