As the weeks wore on, Sam gained more and more control over his body. It had started a few days after his stroll through the garden with Rose. Something about her made him focus even more on getting better. He didn't know if it was because she was beautiful, or that he just liked her company, but when she left him in the room, he started exercising his big toe until it worked for him. It took many hours before the tremors turned into movement.
As soon as the big toe moved, he was able to move down the list to the other toes a little easier. By the first week of staying in Greenfield General, he was able to move his toes more freely. One day, Rose walked in to see him moving his feet and began physical therapy lessons with him.
Sam wasn't too embarassed by a beautiful woman handling him as he used his arms to steady himself on bars. The idea was for him to balance on the bars while walking the platform. At first it hurt horribly and he fell many times.
He was worried that if he fell, the other orderlies would be called in order to help him up. Instead, Rose would put one of his arms over her shoulder and lifted him back to the bars herself. When he was at his full height on the bars, she had come up to his collar bone, adding to what he knew of her.
He fell more often than not, and each time just a word of encouragement got him back to his feet and ready to try again.
As they worked together, Sam got to know Rose more. Since the garden, she had volunteered most of her time to caring for him. As she fed him in the cafeteria, she told him more of her life. He had learned that she was an only child to two doctors and felt the weight of expectation to gain residency by the end of the year.
Sam felt that he should have something to bring to the table in the conversations, yet everytime he thought of something, he knew he couldn't say it in case he said anything that would lead back to his family. If someone from the hospital called his brother to let him know they found his brother, he was sure it wouldn't end well. After all, people don't just come back from the dead looking like someone else, right?
Sam woke up to see the sun rising past the garden one morning. His throat was parched, yet the water that the orderlies left for him was on a far counter near the sink. He of course knew what they wanted and brought his feet to the edge of the bed. There was a cane by his feet, leaning against the edge of a holder for him to pick up.
Using the weight of his arm on the cane, he lifted himself up and slowly made his way to the sink. The fact he didn't fall astounded him as he made it there, poured a cup of water from the pitcher and took a large pull from it.
After he wet his mouth enough, he hobbled his way back to the bed and put the cane back in the rack. He then got to his knees, put his hands to the ground and tried to do a pushup with his knees still on the tile flooring.
Sam weighed next to nothing compared to what he used to, yet it was still an effort just to lower the top part of his body to the floor and back. He was able to make it to ten before his arms began to shake. "I guess ten is going to be my limit for a while." He sighed to himself as he hooked his feet under his bed and used the weight to pull himself up, doing five situps.
Laying on the floor, Sam felt sweat cover his body. If his soldiers could see him now, they would be embarrassed to call him Sergeant. He waited for an hour, then repeated the process. His arms became tight with the effort. He repeated the process until his body just couldn't take anymore.
All the while, Rose stood at the behind the door, looking through the window as the man with no memories worked out his own body. A feeling of uncertainty grew within her as she watched. She knew that some people had muscle memory when dealing with amnesia, but Sam sat up after finishing his exercises and began to stretch while seated much the same as someone who had done those same moves for a lifetime.
For the next week, Rose did not use the wheelchair for Sam. Instead, she helped him use the cane for a few hours a day, as well as his regular walking physical therapy. At night, she would watch him while he continued his pushups and situps. Each day he added more and more before he added other exercises as well. He carried himself as someone who had trained others in how to do what he was doing, but when she questioned him one day, he told her he didn't know where he learned.
Rose thought he either had military training or was on the police force, but when she asked around, both the national guard base in the area as well as the police station didn't recognize him when she showed them pictures.
Within a few months, Rose had watched a man who was weakened from a ten year sleep do hundreds of each exercise each day. His arms and legs filled out after some time, and his stomach gained the lean form of a runner. Instead of walking, they went out of the hospital to take runs in the morning, which was his suggestion.
By the fourth month, Sam had recovered the muscle mass that he had originally had in his previous life. The only difference was his long unruly black hair that he kept in a ponytail, and he happened to be more lean like a tiger instead of the lion he used to be.