In Which Greta Is A Terrible Patient
The thing is, the more she worked with Kevin over the years, the more she adopted the neighborhood into her heart, and it hurts to see the place so broken. It hurts to know that she is herself too broken to help rebuild--Greta is entirely unused to feeling useless. Macy has to damn near sit on her to keep her in bed - for her leg to heal, she needs to sit still, dammit!
"But," Greta argues back, "I'm sure I could be some use--people are rebuilding, aren't they? I could just give some advice."
Macy shoves a pointy little finger into her face. "No!" she snaps, exhausted and cranky and frustrated. "You will sit, you will do nothing but heal! Do you hear me."
"But!" Greta protests again.
Macy snaps and shuts her up with a kiss.
Greta smiles, says, "You can't think you'll shut me up like that forever."
She sounds amused, though, leans in for another kiss, and doesn't even try to get up and walk around again for several hours.
If anyone notices, no-one comments, or indeed even cares. As a whole, they didn't have much beyond scraps, but it was theirs. Now they didn't even have that, just the still gently smouldering ashes.
There was too much work to do to care about some vague sense of morality that was beyond them anyway.
Joe smiled tiredly before reluctantly breaking in, "Mace, I'm really sorry, but where were you keeping the astringents? I'm out again and--" he broke off to wave his hand vaguely at the chaos.
Macy pecks another kiss to Greta's slack lips - she brewed Greta's pain medicine herself, and it's strong stuff, Greta is already starting to drift off now she's actually let herself relax - and reluctantly stands. "I'll fetch it," she says softly.
At the door, she looks back, reassuring herself one last time that Greta is here, and she's going to be okay, before hurrying back to work.
Greta's going to be alright, though she's going to continue to be a terrible patient ("Almost as bad as Kevin," Joe mutters to himself as he changes a bandage, looking up at her laughing face to continue, "I didn't even know that was possible."
Greta laughs, though. "I'm going to take that as a compliment."
"You would."). She's going to keep getting better, every day, right up until she steps out into the street for the first time in a long time, standing on shaky legs and gazing around with wonder at all that's been destroyed and all that's been rebuilt.