Each day, Bastion woke up in a real bad. He stretched, and took a shower in a real shower, enjoying the benefits of his cousins hospitality. Then he dressed, and walked the distance over to his shrub. He knew that Noni wouldn't have minded if he'd taken all of his crafting devices into her home, but he'd declined to do so. He preferred it there, in the heat and close quarters of the only home he'd known for many, many months. It was there that he was most lucid. There that he always found the perfect mix of metal and gem, the perfect pull of melted gold to twirl and do with as he pleased. It was a haven, though there was nothing left to run away from. It was simply.. one might call it his happy place.

So it was there that he walked every morning, and stoked the fires of his pit, until it burned white hot. There, that he heated all the little pieces of glass he knew how to manipulate, time and time again. They clinked when he put them together, and then held the small blowtorch to the seam, until the glass gleamed hot. And when he was done, in his hand each day there was a perfect glass rose, which he let cool on the metal plate.

This was the first day he decided to bring the rose over to Sophie's dorm, and hang it, very carefully, by a string to her door. He didn't knock, and he didn't make a sound. Whether she found it that day or not was of no concern to him. She would eventually find it.