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Time elapses. Rewind is allowed to leave her prison—er, hospital room. She needs to go around on a wheelchair, and it'll still take at least a month for her bones to mend completely, and she needs help to move around and do stuff. But she definitely won't complain about being able to eat real food more often (she is very thankful for the bot bringing her takeout), and she can keep riding along with paramedics even when she can't really move around a lot.
And one of these days, while she's in an ambulance, something lands on it, rocking the vehicle and startling her from her thoughts. The ambulance stops, and whatever it is makes noises as if it's moving and then jumps off it. Rewind twists to see through the window, and—
"Console, a really weird leafy monkey just jumped on the ambulance and then off it," she says into her comm.
"Was talking to your dad about your birthday. So, what do you want me to get you for it?"
"Oh. Um, I don't actually have a wishlist of material consumer goods."
"I was thinking books! Some classical fiction, maybe, but your dad said you have a lot of that, so maybe some sci-fi or fantasy or something but I don't actually know what-all you've already read."
"I thiiiiink my bot's got an up-to-date list of my collection -" The projector produces it. "Yeah, these are ones I own, but it won't have things I got out of the library..."
They look at it. "Hmm, that's a good starting point, though. I'll use that as a filter and then ask you about possibilities to see if you've library'd them, how about that?"
Sigh. "Anyway, I'm gonna go grab my laptop and see if I can't figure out what to give you."
Bella's birthday is a Monday shortly after school starts up again.
"Hi, love!" And he reveals a little box with a bow on top. Not book-sized, because they despaired of finding one. "Happy birthday!"
