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No doubt it was purposeful to send him home on a weekend- there was more chance that he would spend the days resting, might have a monitor in his cousin. Stroud wasn't able to be there to get him from the University Hospital lobby across the length of the ovals and campus to his apartment, but Quenton didn't mind.

He'd spent the last year with the freedom of speed and strength outside regular human reckoning- rooftops his regular run and the very cosmos as the only boundaries. The bedridden first few weeks, the limitations to one room, then the addition of the physical therapy room was a slow march back to sanity and freedom that culminated in being able to go outside. At least, over the week, Stroud had been able to bring him clothes. He was able to cross campus in pajama bottoms, actual shoes with socks (not stupid footies with rubber bottoms), and soft-worn button down long since lost of stiff, starch lines. There was no jacket, but the CT's had given him one of the hospital blankets to wrap in. It was cold, but he didn't care.

Patience was a virtue he was getting plenty of practice in. As it was, he stopped by a raised planter and used it for a bench. The bag he had- filled with dressings, antibiotics and medication, and directions on how to change the wound packing was put down as well. It was difficult to carry much for long. Patrolling is going to be a nightmare. Everyone must be in classes...its about a right hour for that. I'm going to have to take incompletes or medical withdrawals. A month of work to make up..

Mostly studio work, thankfully. Being bedridden and cabin-fevered had the unexpected serendipity of hyperdriving his compositional studies. He only needed to see to two performances and he'd be set for his minor.

He'd been miles away, mentally, just breathing and feeling the natural sunlight on his shoulders. A shadow coming near was the first catch to his attention, lifting his eyes from closed contemplation of the red aura of lifting closed eyes to the sun. It was a girl.

No, it was Delilah.

And she'd apparently gotten her self lost enough on campus that she was oblivious as to the presence of others. She looked put together and vital as ever- and he was about as far from either as he could imagine being for meeting anyone he knew out and about. Well, I'm not the first, nor the last, college student to be out on campus in pajamas on any day of the year. At least I have a reason other than just not feeling like putting on actual clothes or having no clean laundry.

"What were you looking for, Delilah?"

He offered a nod of greeting, lifting his thinned arm to show off the hospital id bracelets that still tagged him as a patient. "I've been up since about 7, when I had to prove competence to the physical therapist at dressing myself before they'd release me to outpatient."

"Touring campus today?" He knew the map by heart, having handed out enough of them through student affairs events for prospective new students, so he didn't really have to ask other than for polite inquiry. "Or meeting Mathias?"

Some explanation apparently unavoidable, the poor girl's mind hijacked by the injuries. It was kind though, that she was concerned. He didn't expect it of casual acquaintances. She might be tenderhearted. Of course this sort of thing is shocking. Who even among the senshi and knights care of the wounds and deaths except when its someone they know, or a situation they are directly privy to. the rest all humanity pushes under rugs. Convenient fiction and drama from far away.

"The same. Some of the 'terrorists' came by in time, so the guy reaching into my chest just put a hole through me. After that it gets hazy. If it wasn't for those others, I would be dead. "

"But that is all old news. I don't want to make you late if you're meeting someone? Or going to a seminar?"

He quirked, watching how her whole body contributed to the expression of trauma at the news. The tensile muscles, carriage and shiver of shoulders, all far more indicative of knowledge not wholly limited to the fairly 'benign' violence at the Convention. Youma had run about there, but there wasn't a lot of rampant starseeding of civilians.

Saved by one from what? There's chance enough she could be an agent, but her horror seems genuine. Its hard to fake how the throat flashes with real fear and worry. Or the hands. A face can lie, hands so rarely do. And she'll be the only civilian I've said directly I'm sympathetic to senshi to, so if someone comes looking for me, it's plain the source of the leak. I am tired of cautious chess.

"They're not terrorists."
"I help them where and when I can. Would that I had made girasol rings for all the people who would be allies to them. Maybe someday I will. "

Quenton watched her sit, offering no objection. It was curious how much she latched onto this topic. She might have stood up herself, or very much wants to. What else is the youth around me but so searching for leadership and wishing themselves they had some direction. They do not look for direction in themselves. Saying what I think may put her in danger. The same danger and face who do stand for anything.

"Indifference in one of the greatest evils of the post modern world. "

"You've seen the effects of getting involved." He lifted his hands to work the buttons of his shirt and opened the chest of it, showing off the gauze packed and taped over hole the size of a hand. "So weigh what I say carefully before acting, if you choose to."

"To start, Why should I not act? There is a level of vigilante law to be considered. But there are things that can be done to help. To keep others who support society safe. There is danger and injustice and people are dying. There are other instances where this has been true, with other reasons- the underground railroad, the smuggling of Jews, protestors who sit before gunfire against the forces of governments. "

"What is going on in this city is a slow sapping of life, sanity, safety- the oppression of reason by terror. The media supports it with terror mongering. The police can't touch the source because it defies science. But there are people out there that are fighting it, and they are doing it alone. "

"And I have seen them die doing it. They're better equipped, maybe, but its little helps and little successes that overwhelm the world. I will not be indifferent. I will not leave lights to stand alone in the dark. I am happy to leave a candle in my window as a sign that the senshi and the knights can come to me for help. Did you know that a candle in the window used to mean you could go to that house for help? A lot of people think its just a christmas decoration. Indifference. Ignorance. And worst of all fear. "

"Most of them don't even know. They're a bunch of kids."

Quenton shook his head, and returned his hands to buttoning the shirt closed again. "There's always personal and then high-level reasons. Some are out there think they're super heroes. Some are trying to just protect their friends and family from shadows. I haven't come across many that actualized anything outside of those personals. "

"As for the hostiles, they seem to keep their secrets close as a hand of cards. No I don't know what the whole thing is about. They drain energy. They steal souls. I don't know what for, " his brow arched, daring. "You, however, are either very good at an innocent act, or you're very bad at holding your cards close to chest. You're far too interested, and your fear looking at my chest was real. So you've either considered acting on behalf for one side or the other, or you already are. Are you part of it, Delilah?"

I don't feel like waiting to get my neck broken if you're an agent. If you are, we can have it out on the street right here.