Marie waited patiently with her dad as the elevator went up. They were visiting Albert again. They had been visiting him every day. It was a welcome distraction from getting her press conference speech ready.

Marie and her dad walked down the hall to see Albert’s parents waiting in the hallway a few doors down from Albert’s room. There was a small group of individuals from the press getting them ready with microphones. Marie’s dad took a few steps forward. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine, fine. The press wants to talk to us for about an hour. Albert’s inside if you want to visit him. They finished taping his interview,” Mrs. Einstein said.

Marie nodded and started to head toward Albert’s room. Marie was playing with the ends of her hair when her dad cleared his throat. Marie glanced over her shoulder at him.

Her dad looked like he wanted to say something. He had stopped in the hallway, studying Albert’s door. He put his hands in his pockets. “Go ahead, Marie. I’ll wait out here.”

Marie stared at him, struggling to keep her face from going bright red. No one would be in there but her and Albert. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Go on.” He was already heading back toward Albert’s parents. Marie tried to remember the last time she was with Albert alone. Had it really been when she told him about the omnitocil in her system? That felt like ages ago.

Marie knocked softly on the door before opening it a little. “Albert?”

“Hey Marie,” Albert said.

Marie walked farther into the room, desperately trying to control her burning cheeks. Albert had been healing for about a week now. The large bruise on his face was fading, and he was actually walking around on his legs, even if he was using a cane with his good hand to make sure he wasn’t putting too much pressure on them.

The back of the bed was reclined in a way that Albert was comfortably sitting up, a book to one side of him. Marie sat down in the chair next to his bed, tucking her hair behind her burning ears. “I’m so glad you’re doing better.”

Albert smiled. “Yeah, me too. Practically back to normal.”

Marie gave a nervous chuckle. “Well, I mean, the cast might give people the wrong idea of how back to normal you are, but I’ll give you this one.”

Albert raised his hand to look at his cast before setting it back down on his lap. “I should be going home soon. It should have been sooner, but Mr. Wayne doesn’t want me to leave until a security team is set up at my place.”

Marie raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think it’s that dangerous?”

“No, it’s not. My parents were the ones that requested it.” Albert gave a small smile in the direction of the door. “They don’t exactly trust me like they used to. The security might be more so I don’t sneak out anymore.”

Marie made a conscious effort to stop playing with the ends of her hair. “So now that it’s been a week, are you going to tell me if you have any more injuries you were hiding?”

Albert gave her a playful smile. “To my credit, you asked a day after my surgery. Not even I knew half the stuff that was going on with me.”

Marie laughed as she shook her head. “Yeah, okay. But you’re doing better?”

“Much better. I’m working with a physical therapist. Since I’m still young, as long as I do what they say, I should heal completely fine,” Albert said.

“And no head injury, right?” Marie asked.

“No, no. My head’s just fine.”

“You’re nose, though.” Marie pointed to her own nose. “That was broken, right?”

“Not too bad.” Albert tenderly touched his nose with his fingers. “It’s healing pretty well.”

“Right.” Marie let out a breath, then motioned on herself everything below her nose. “That’s all okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it’s really just my legs and arms that need-”

Marie stood up, grabbed Albert’s head as tenderly as she could and kissed him as hard as she dared. She didn’t move much, aware that his nose was still very much broken. She kissed him for another second before she broke away and sat back down on her chair, her face a deep red color as she focused most of her attention on the hospital bed. Albert was silent, which prompted Marie to look over to make sure he was alright. Albert’s eyes were wide, and it looked like his brain was computing what happened.

“Albert?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?”

“Spectacular.” Albert stared at her as his brain struggled to come back online.

“Okay. Good. I guess I forgot to ask. Pressure? To your lips? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No, no. My lips are…” Albert seemed to be coming back to the present. “Yeah, lips are fine. Perfectly fine.”

“Okay good.”

There was another pause, another moment when Marie realized how incredible it felt to kiss Albert and how she didn’t want to impose by going for it again. Then again, Albert looked like he wanted more too. There was only one more second before both reached for each other again. Marie sat on the edge of his hospital bed as she kissed him, still too afraid to move too much. His casted arm was on her back, his other hand in her hair. She kissed him, almost desperate. Their lives had turned insane, and she had almost lost him. He almost lost her. Now it was over. They had survived.

He gave a gasp of pain and she immediately broke away to make sure he was okay, but Albert grabbed the back of her head and kissed her again. Marie tried to ignore her cautious mind while trying to remember the full extent of Albert’s injuries. Broken legs, broken arm and wrist, some broken ribs, broken nose. It had been almost a week since his torture, but these things still needed to heal and she needed to be careful.

Though Albert was right. His lips were perfectly fine.

***

Ron finished packing up his office and sat down at his now empty desk. He stared out the window at the wall surrounding the city. There was still only a small portion of it that had come down, though he had authorized turning off the knockout gas. Guards were patrolling around the length of it, but almost anyone from the clearing who came to look for their family was quickly helped and integrated into Musical Land through their clearance system. It would take a while for the public to get used to the idea of no wall there. After decades of indoctrination about how dangerous the forest was, they couldn’t expect everyone to be on board with tearing down the wall. But it would come with time.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Ron said.

John poked his head inside. “Hey, almost moved out?”

“Yeah,” Ron said, looking at the boxes in his room. “Almost.”

John opened the jar of jelly beans on Ron’s desk before grabbing a huge handful. He sat down in the other chair, popping a few in his mouth. It almost felt like old times. There was another knock on the door.

“Mr. Reagan?” It was Fred.

“Come in, Fred,” Ron said.

Fred walked inside, smiling. “You wanted to see me?”

“I did. Now, Fred, I wanted to offer you a job here in the government. You were an essential part in helping us make peace with the scientists, and that is something I value a lot.”

Fred thought it over. “I was actually wondering if I could instead have a children’s program?”

Ron stared at Fred, a frown on his face. “Sorry, a what?”

“I’d like to produce a children’s program. It’s always been a dream of mine,” Fred said.

“Children’s… like a TV show?” Ron asked.

“Yes,” Fred said. “I’d like to try my hand at it.”

“You know that’s not a lucrative job, right?” Ron said. “Shows for children don’t get a lot of attention.”

“I know, yes. I’d still very much like to have my own, though. On whatever channel will take me,” Fred said.

Ron shrugged. “Alright. If that’s what you want, I’ll point you over to Walt. You two can discuss where you should go.”

Fred smiled. “Thank you.”

Fred left, closing the door behind him.

“Maybe when his show ends he’ll think again about your offer,” John said.

“We’ll see. I’m sure Fred’ll surprise us,” Ron said. John placed a few more jelly beans in his mouth. There was silence before Ron situated the boxes on his desk. “I heard you’re going to start exploring what’s on the other side of the wall.”

“Yeah.” John glanced out the window as he ate a few more jelly beans. “Me and Steve Irwin are getting a group together to search the forest for that mad scientist.”

“Your old college roommate? I thought you hated him,” Ron said.

“In the beginning I did. He’s a super chatty guy. Almost chaotic. But he has a heart of gold. There were way too many nights where we were convinced we were insane enough to jump over the wall and see what was on the other side. Now that we know the truth of what’s out there, we’re going to explore it with a group. See how much we could branch out. It’s too crowded here in the city for us.”

Ron nodded, feeling happy for his friend, but also a twinge of sadness. “Well, I will miss you my friend.”

John gave a small smile. “Won’t be leaving for a few more weeks, but yeah. Thanks for making an office job bearable.” John stood up and ate the rest of the jelly beans.

“I’ll be seeing you around, then?” Ron asked.

“Of course.” John kept chewing the jelly beans, pushing them to the side of his mouth. “You’ll have this place up and running before Freedom Day.”

“Walt and I and a few others are still working out the details of what we should do,” Ron said.

“Well, destroying the device recording everyone’s songs on camera was a smart move,” John stretched. “Are we still on for Friday at the shooting range?”

“You mean where I watch you shoot things because I’m still healing?” Ron asked.

“Exactly.”

Ron gave a pained laugh. “Can we move it to Saturday? I actually have a date.”

“What? No way!” John said.

“Yeah, with Nancy,” Ron said.

John gave a smile and nod. “Nice. Alright, see you Saturday, then.”

Ron shook John’s hand, then watched him leave the empty office. Ron looked at his boxes of things, then picked one up and headed out the door and to the elevator. They already had the elevator buttons replaced. The basement button was properly labeled, and no one needed a key card for that. They had gone through the basement rooms with a team of trusted scientists and properly got rid of many of the vials and formula’s the lab still had. They had others come and dismantle Mr. Holmes’ torture room. They redistributed some of the nicer lab equipment to the universities who desperately needed it. The janitors had asked for more storage for their cleaning supplies, and Ron happily gave the basement to them. What else were they going to use it for?