Tump is scrambling out of the pod nearly the second he realizes where he's woken up, shaky fingers scrabbling over the dusty control panel for the release button. He only just manages to drag himself over the rim before he has to catch his breath, crumpled on the floor where he landed. There is a steady pounding in his head like the blood his heart pumps is pressing directly on his brain.

His legs nearly fail him as he stumbles down the hallway, so weak after months of inactivity that he has to half drag himself along with both hands on the wall. It's grimy and suspiciously damp in places, but it's still better than crawling.
Atrophied muscles aside, the movement feels less awkward the longer he walks, like his brain is taking its time relearning the process. Tump grits his teeth and determinedly drags himself down the stairs with the aid of the handrail. And then finally, he's pushing open the heavy metal door to their prison.

The 10th floor hallways are carpet instead of cold industrial linoleum like the stairwell. The slight give of it makes Tump wobble on his feet, but his growing proximity to her keeps him upright. Around one corner, two, then through a clandestine white door marked 'department personnel only', and he reaches the laboratory.
Free standing in the cavernous room are about a dozen large tubes, connected by machines and cables he trips over multiple times, but the whole floor remains silent as a grave. Not a beep or blinking light disturb his heavy breaths as he drags himself forward like a man possessed, past the tubes and dead control panels: he knows without reading the plaques which of the tubes he's looking for, like there is an invisible string connecting him to her that Tump need only follow.

The once clear fluid that fills the tank has gone cloudy, no longer being circulated and filtered, and some of the wires are rusting. In the back something has broken and leaked, which raised the humidity in the room enough for algae to gain a hold of parts of the carpeting. It coats the inside of the glass tubing and lurks in the cracks between the fogged up windows' frames, but he pays it no mind.

Tump casts around for a blunt, heavy object. He cannot lift anything too heavy, but the rubble and equipment littering the lab offer options aplenty. Eventually, he selects a metal footstool, stored against the wall under one of the many screens which are now nothing more than expensive mirrors. With a lot of willpower and all the strength left in his body, he heaves the stool over and brings it down against the thick glass of her tank, again and again, until it finally cracks, and gives.
Brown, malodorous fluid gushes out and hits his shins, a tidal wave of tiny glass shards and rotted tissue scraps. Tump can do nothing but cringe and bear it, because just a moment later, he can see her: cables and wires snap as Lia's limp body falls to a pile in front of him, wet and decaying, and he drops to his knees urgently as though he might catch her yet. Not heeding the glass digging into his knees, he slips loving hands behind her neck and back and lifts her body into his arms.

Lia's skin is tinged brown and green, soft and slipping in places, and he has to be gentle with the back of her head lest he tear her scalp and destroy her beautiful long hair. It spreads out around them as the fluid continues pouring out, the formerly white strands darkened and writhing in it like tentacles.
He runs a gentle hand over her belly, swollen by decay, while in contrast her arms and legs look like they've whithered - barely a muscle on her bones, and so painfully delicate. She'd always had dainty hands, but now he can make out the taut sinew in every finger.
She's beautiful, even with her eye sockets gaping and her face puffy and bloodless. Her white dress has gone an indefinable shade of greyish brown, but the fabric still flows around her body as he moves her like it did the last time they were together.

After sitting with her for a while and looking, overjoyed at even just getting to see her in the flesh again, Tump tenderly places a hand under her hanging jaw to close her mouth and touches his lips to hers. Her mouth is cold and spongy against him, but he doesn't mind at all.

He's dreamed of this moment for years, so he rests his forehead against hers and runs careful fingers through her wet hair, drawing the moment out as long as he can justify to himself.
There isn't as much time as he'd like, so eventually he pulls away, his fringe sticking to her forehead. He came for a reason: his nails push through the pliable dead muscle of her neck with ease, and so it doesn't take him long to pull the weakly blinking chip free. Her head lolls to the side as he lays her down gently, but he doesn't need to spend any more time with her body: He has her on his palm now, reverently held, and there is no time to lose in rehoming her consciousness. The chip clenched in his hand, Tump drags himself back up, leaving a wet trail of muck and blood behind him as he heads back up to floor 12.