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She dropped henshin just outside of the hospital, and promptly proceeded to lie. He was her uncle--they looked too dissimilar to be father and daughter--and a scary man had attacked them, and she'd gotten away a lot easier because Tony had hit the man upside the head with a rock.

It wasn't completely a lie, and they took her stuttering as nervousness and shock. Then they proceeded to take Tony away somewhere and stitch up the decently-sized gash on her forearm. She'd fallen asleep on a bench in the waiting area, arms wrapped around her chest. And when she'd awoken, she'd been allowed to peek in on Tony before Dad and Pop picked her up. There had been a lecture--walking home at night with someone they didn't know was evidently bad--but they'd consented to allowing her to visit the librarian until he was better.

So she tiptoed into his room, a book clutched to her chest--she'd been reading when she came to visit, mostly fairytales since she didn't have anything else that wasn't romance novels. She was, understandably, a little shocked to see Tony awake, but then she was smiling widely. "Uncle Anthony," she said, brightly, even though the pinkish tone of her cheeks had deepened to cherry red. "I'm so glad you're awake!" The bluenette hurried to his bedside and set her book in the chair pulled up next to the bed; then, gingerly, she gave him a hug. "I told them I was your niece so they'd let me visit," she whispered. "'kay?"

Art class in the college had taught her there were twenty shades of bottled red in oil painting. Her face was hitting alizarin crimson on the scale now, and heading towards mars red, but she was too glad he was alive to stutter through any of her questions now. She felt like the heat in her face was concentrated where he'd kissed her forehead, but that lasted for a few moments.

As he laughed, she sat back into her chair, the book of fairy tales on her lap. Her smile was that of the 'unsure-but-game', waiting to be let in on the joke so she could laugh too.

"I am fine," she acknowledged, and then she looked at her knees a little shamefaced. "You are not though. I'm sorry, I didn't--"

He interrupted her, though, and she frowned. "You did not put me in danger. If I hadn't gotten cut, I would have been just fine." And the Negaverse agent would be dead. "How do you feel?" His face was awful-looking, all bruises, and his leg, and... She pulled her smile back.

She tried not to look at the ugly stitching at the back of Tony's head. She really did, but as always, it didn't work, she she found herself staring at it all the same. There was no excuse, if she had been out with another senshi like she was supposed to be she would have been able to save him and turn that Negaverser into a smear on the pavement. All the same, she hadn't been, and this was the result.

"Three days," she said, deciding she would address this misconception of him letting her get hurt later. For now, though, being nice was the best option. Well, she was always nice, wasn't she? Just this time she was going to be very very very nice. "You were unconscious for three whole days." There were shadows under her eyes, more prominent than before, and there wasn't really a question as to where she had been outside of school.

(It was just after three in the afternoon, and Elke was still wearing her school uniform.)

She lowered her voice. "I--well--you were really hurt. He was hurt pretty bad too, I guess, he was bleeding, s-so I grabbed you and ran." The teenager clenched her teeth, fisted her hands against her knees. "I'm sorry." Which really meant I'll tell you more later.

With an embarrassed smile, she scooted the chair closer and, with the ease that had come about because of her long stays, settled her head on her arms as they rested on the bed. Her shoulders lifted a little in a somewhat sheepish shrug. She couldn't exactly honestly deny being worried about Tony, but she didn't want him to feel guiltier than he already did, so not answering seemed to be the best answer.

"Don't frown," she said, shifting uneasily and crisscrossing her ankles. "Everything's okay. You're gonna be okay and everything will be fine. That is the important thing." She shoved things off to the side: the things were mostly the unhappy truth that she didn't really know if anyone was angry with her. Mostly she had been avoiding everyone.

She glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "I'm taking care of myself fine! I even did my history homework." For once. She hadn't been patrolling at all. And hopefully Hero had had something... hit her upside the head or something, so she hadn't noticed the gym pass or the penicillin. It was hopeful. "I miss you at the library," she said.

"Once you get out," she agreed. No use revealing that she was a sailor senshi on accident, like she had with Tony. Next time, it was going to be very deliberate. And planned. A lot more than it was with Tony. "I was in the hospital once for fifteen days. They came in every half hour for the first week because they had to make sure I wasn't rupturing things, but then I got an infection."

The bluenette sidled a bit, then crossed her eyes to stare at his fingers. "If you pretend you have amnesia," she whispered, "they stop asking you questions. It helps if you cry, too." She really hoped he wasn't planning to tell them a sailor senshi had saved him. Because that sorta directly contradicted her story.

Also it would make her presence harder to explain. "I have them in my bag," she said, "I was going to return them today after I leave." She pulled them out, holding both unharmed books up so Tony could see them. "I was thinking of maybe reading one of them to you if you were still asleep but you are awake so." The leather-bound books were returned to her black backpack, along with her tome of fairy tales. "I'm glad you're okay," she repeated, for perhaps the fifth time. There was a kind of raw emotion in her olive green eyes--she really had worried.

She tilted her head a little bit. Faking amnesia and then just not talk talking seemed to work just fine for her. Of course, she had also had the advantage of the nurses cooing over how adorable and quiet she was. Tony probably would not have that; he was handsome, not adorable.

Elke personally felt she wasn't adorable but it had been an advantage then that she would like to keep until she had a better advantage, like jaw-dropping beauty. This was not likely to happen, so she had to cling to the teary eyes and hope it helped--

Oh!

"You need to sleep," she said into his ear, "and also if you meet a Dr. Baskov don't tell him you saw me." She had been very relieved he had not been the person admitting Tony. That would have been a little awkward and she was sure he would have said something like another mugging? you really need to stop protecting that person and that was what she would not do. "Yes," she agreed, kissing his uninjured cheek gently. "We'll do that from now on. And I won't go out alone any more."

"He's got the white streak in his hair," she informed him, and then she settled back gingerly on the edge of the bed, taking his hand in hers and turning a dull shade of red. She rolled his hand palm up, staring at the lines like she was trying to memorize them. The fight with the pale-haired Negaverser had been too close, far too close. If she had had backup, it would not have been anywhere near that close. And it was only with the interference of Tony that she hadn't also ended up dead.

(You're no longer the indulged baby.)

She smiled at Tony through her bangs, head still canted down. "I don't really have anything to do," she said, "but I guess you need to rest, don't you." The bluenette slipped off the bed, bent over to pick up her leather backpack. It was sort of a travel sack style of bag, with four pockets; they sealed with brass buckles, not zippers. She pulled out the book of fairytales again and set it, quite firmly, on the bedside table. "If you need something to read," she said, suddenly shy and avoiding looking at Tony. "I didn't think you'd like romance novels much. Um..."

Elke pulled her backpack back on and looked up, twiddling her fingers in a rather childlike wave. "I'll come see you again tomorrow, Uncle Anthony. You rest up, okay?" And the bluenette skipped out, her mood much improved from the time she'd entered. Everything was going to be okay.