who else would ever stay?
(this is an alternate version of marked for death, which didn't hit the highlights I wanted it to but is still pretty good. short. ~500 words)
On the second day after Saburo-sama’s death, Goro wakes up in a dark, strange room. Those first few minutes of tired confusion are the best ones he’ll ever have again, unburdened as they are by the knowledge of his greatest failure. He feels half-dead himself, not only from the wound in his side but from the loss of so much of his cyberware functionality that he wonders how he will even begin to do all that must be done, alone in this disgusting excuse for a city.
He’s managed to prop himself up when the door to the room opens, and the ripperdoc who has pulled him back from the brink of death enters. Exhaustion seems to have aged him nearly a decade, but he dutifully sinks into the chair next to Goro’s bed and pulls up the diagnostics on the tiny portable panel next to his cot.
“Really shouldn’t be sitting up just yet,” he says, distractedly. “I know you’re tough but you’ll heal even faster if you take it easy.”