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The sky hadn't seen fit to dump feet of snow on the city yet, just rain and cold wind to free the road slick-black and make parking lots and sidewalks treacherous, sea-snake humps with the dead leaves. At least after dark it was bad. During the day, still, the rain wasn't freezing and everyone outside just joined in a community spirit of dismal Wet.

The day was only just thinking of starting as Quenton made his was as quickly as wouldn't garner attention along the sidewalk to the ER entrance of the metropolitan hospital. It was perfectly normal during 'closed' hours that all comers were funneled into the ER, so he didn't sweat that. It was, however, odd to not have anything really apparently wrong with himself as he approached the sign in desk. "I need to see a Dr. Xander Jacobs. Is he in tonight...today...whatever it qualifies as?"

The annoying problem with 4 am. What did it really qualify as, anyway.

He just looked back at her with even, tragic eyes, a small celebration in his stomach when she used the intercom. He took a seat away from the drunk, folding his gangly self down to be still for a few moments and hope that the man wouldn't take long.

Only really, did it matter THAT much? There was a time limit for the starseeds, yes, but if their owners were in the hospital they certainly wouldn't be getting up and wandering away anytime soon without them.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees and hands cupped together as though holding rosaries inside them, possibly praying. But he wasn't holding any symbols, and he wasn't pleading with any disembodied deity either- the starseeds were there, intact, cupped stable and secure in his hands as fragile as caught lightning bugs that he worried would try to escape.

His forehead touched the tips of his fingers, eyes at the floor between his knees, and he tried to breath. What do I say? She said he is her brother. But do I really say, 'hey, Maia sent me' ? Maia. It will give away I'm most probably a powered individual of some sort- a knight, a senshi, something. Am I doing this? How can I not? I have to try to find the bodies. Even if it outs me to Maia's brother and Maia by proxy who Thraen is when the magic is gone. Has he done this before? Maia had not done this before. It isn't likely he has. Does he know about starseeds? What they are?

While he didn't startle violently, too much aware of the delicate cargo he held, Quenton's shoulders did shift suddenly and he did look up when there was a voice near.

He said the most instinctual, dumbest reaction to suddenly being faced with another person that had nothing to do with the question he'd just been asked, "Hello-"

Then Quenton blinked, scowled at himself, and offered softly, only to their own hearing, "Maia. Maia said to ask for you."

"It's urgent...I don't know how much time is left." He wasn't certain how much more to offer in the waiting room, in 'public'. Was any part safe from surveillance enough to show him the starseeds? Certainly not right there, anyway. He transferred them into one hand, to un-pray them.

Lily

It wasn't a name he ever expected to need to remember or use, but it was inevitably humanizing to have it known even for a few hours or days. Maia must be Lily. And if they were the usual sort of brother and sister family, it might be Lily Jacobs.

He didn't know if it fit the idea and impression he had in his head of the eternal senshi or not. But he didn't dwell on the revelation as long as he otherwise would have, instead following quietly along the doctor's lead to whichever little creepy room with its single bed and machines-that-go-Bing he chose.

Only once they'd paused, he ventured (feeling like Gandalf), "Is it secret here?"

Quenton took the offered seat, if only to look like an actual patient in some capacity more than want of it. He felt like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin, let alone sit down again.

"Do you know what starseeds are?" He asked it as he lifted and opened his hand carefully. "The owners of these may be here, dying slowly. Maybe not. Its the best chance I've got to get them returned in time."

"I don't think they were harvested tonight, so it would be someone here for more than this night. Yestereve or older."

Quenton slowly closed his hand again, and brought it close against his chest as though in some archaic salute before a bow. Obediently he rose and followed the Doctor's lead, avoiding any jostles and still roll-stepping as they traversed the halls.

I don't think he's done this before any more than Maia has. It was at least an answer to his earlier mental queries. But he wasn't sure what else to offer in conversation, feeling ragged by the situation as it was. That he might need to return with the same situation in the future was dismal and just begged questions about his magic and persona- and it was very real that he could get more starseeds off of other officers once they were passed out face first in flowers. Talking about the exchanges with Maia and ********* also was strange for public hallways and then the elevator to the correct floor.

Looking at the doctor, the red mane was similar to Maia's. There were features that were telling of relation as well. "Thank you for the help....Dr. Jacobs."

He could have as easily turned this away at the door. This is his civilian life, whether Maia volunteered him for it or not.

Five years.
It was a number to consider the gravity of later. It attached to a lot of positive and negative trails of reasoning that he wasn't comfortable following with a more pressing matter very real in his hand.

The warning of the coma floor was appreciated, but unnecessary. Bodies immobile and lacking life except what machines pumped into them was immaterial to his horror factor compared to bodies without souls. Depending the belief system, he supposed it was possible that the souls of some had left long ago, knowing their body was dead- rather than the alternative he help of living essence removed forcibly and unnaturally. That souls were now a given and a certainty of existing, fragile and gentle in his hand, was disturbing enough.

He followed the doctor into the silent hall when the elevator doors opened. "Where do we start? Have you ever returned one to know how it is done?"

Otherwise, he was just going to hope that putting it on the respective person's chest where agents stuck their fists anyway would work- if souls could osmosis their way back in.

"Having a lookout is wiser. " And the information on the charts- he couldn't read medical speak, let alone medical handwriting. It was dour work anyway. Quenton went into the first, careful with the starseed as ever- a thing of thin glass and small hopes.

Delicate dreams and moth wings.

He set it on each chest. Counted breaths like counting petals plucked for love. It did not match, it did not sink in.
It did not match.
It did not sink in. One room. Two rooms.
Silent mouths with intubators, almost imperceptible movements up and down. Imbolie limbs stayed stark and still on white hospital blankets. No eyes opened all down the hall. The whole wing. Two starseeds, no bodies.

He came out the final room, already knowing they were at the end of the hall. "It was a good try. Not here either. I ...don't supposed there's a second floor like this. Or any other ideas. Maybe another hospital, but there's no one safe to ask for help at others, I expect?"

He felt like a leaf. What now? He was holding lives in his hand and they had no bodies. Was he really going to have to just give them memorium? There was really nothing more to do? How can we try so hard...more than one of us, and it really add up to nothing? How can this be allowed?