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Every once in a while, his friends wound up in the hospital. It was, strictly speaking, an occupational hazard of being a superhero - but that didn't mean that it got any easier every time it happened, or that Finn felt any less bad for having not been involved in the going's-on that lead to his friends being in the hospital, in this case a New Years Party that was actually a trap. Like, okay, he had an excuse - his stay in the Galapagos had been extended until just past New Years, and then he'd had Camlann to contend with - but excuses were useless when someone you admired was in the hospital with what sounded like were serious injuries.

Cuz, you know, torture is wrong?

So, despite Elke's visit the day before still weighing heavily on his mind (he didn't know what to feel, if anything, or what he was supposed to do? She hadn't asked for anything. She'd just wanted him to know. And that was... That was... It didn't really beg for a reaction, and that made it all the more difficult to react to), he stopped by the florist on the corner and picked up a bouquet of stargazer lilies (they seemed appropriate for Hvergelmir) and followed the directions to her hospital room.

"Laney?" he called, poking his head around the door and rapping on the frame. It was a two-person room, one bed empty, the one by the window occupied by his friend. "Uh, hey there."

He held the flowers out like a peace offering, trying to convey, I'm sorry I'm a shitty friend who let you get kidnapped by the forces of Chaos and didn't do anything about it, seriously, I'm s**t, why do you put up with me.

Finn hurriedly set the vase in an open spot on the bedside table and moved into prime hugging position. "I wish I'd gotten back sooner!" he exclaimed, stepping back so that he could take Laney's current state in. She'd already been in the hospital for a while, so he was certain that he'd missed the worst of it... but it was never good to see one of your best friends confined to bed rest in the recovery ward.

He let any sentiments about wishing he'd been there to somehow stop this hang unsaid - it wasn't, he'd gathered, a particularly flattering look on him, and changing the past was a fruitless effort. The future, on the other hand, was far less set in stone...

"These are called Stargazers," he said, gesturing to the flowers. "They, uh, they made me think of you. How are you doing?"

Maybe he should send Elke flowers, he thought. He was sure that one of those online services had to deliver to France...

Finn looked at the bedside table again, considering the teddybear and the potted flower each in turn. It was, at present, a bit unclear whether Laney's parents realized that their daughter was twenty-one or not, but asking her about that would probably just come off as callous. "Orchids don't need a whole lot of care," he said instead. "Just keep it out of direct sunlight and water it, like, once a week."

Well, there was more to it than that, but he'd let Laney figure it out on her own. The care and keeping of tropical plants was sort of the least of his concerns right now. "Yeah," he said. "I mean, as far as the Negaverse attacked and kidnapped a bunch of people from a city-sponsored New Years party."

He shook his head at the irony of it all. "And people say we're the terrorists," said Finn. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to help."

Finn wondered briefly why Laney automatically assumed something might be wrong with Arkady. "What?" he asked, fumbling. "No, we're fine. Arkady and I are great." But she'd clearly noticed that there was something bothering him, and if Finn didn't know who he could talk about this with if not Laney. Everyone else just seemed too excitable or prone to gossip or wasn't really a friend.

"Do you - do you know Soldier Virgo?" he asked, but her expression at hearing the name suggested she did not. "She's... she's a friend of mine," he explained. "Has been for a long time. Zodiacs... they've got all their memories from the Silver Millennium, and she has a hard time with hers. Anyway, in her past life, she and my ancestor were lovers? In love? Something. I'm technically descended from both of them."

Which he supposed made everything about the situation mildly weirder.

"Anyway, when I had my ancestor's starseed in my chest, I let him, uh, take over so that he could say goodbye to her? Like, properly?" He didn't doubt that he was completely pink around the ears, but god, if he was this far he was just going to finish the story, because he needed advice more than he was embarrassed to be in this situation.

"After I took him back to the cauldron, she got really sick and her parents took her way to recover. Anorexia, I think. She'd had it for a while." Was that appropriate to share? Whatever. He was far enough into this and he trusted Laney not to gossip.

"I saw her recently," he continued. "She was doing better, but she uh - she told me she'd been pregnant?" Had he said enough for Laney to draw all the lines, or would he need to clarify? God, this was just awkward. "She named the baby Orianna. She was born too early, so she only lived a week and a half, and I didn't know about it until... after. Too late. She wants me to go to Babylon with her to scatter the ashes."

Finn shrugged and looked over at Laney, cringing slightly. "I just - I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this? How I'm supposed to react to it? I can't very well go talking about it with everyone, so I'm kind of just trying to hold it in? Like, I guess I'm sad, but I'm sad for Elke, not really for me? I - I don't know. It's super weird. Life is hard."

Finn smiled at Laney, a bit tight-lipped. He'd been waiting for someone to tell him what she'd just said, although not in any kind of conscious way. "Thanks," he said, squeezing her fingers back. "I..." he began, and trailed off with uncertainty. Plenty of things had run though his head in the last few days that all, in some way or another, related to Orianna and to Elke - but he wasn't sure how to prioritize them, which ones were worth voicing and which ones he should just smother. If Laney was the only person he was going to speak to about this, then he didn't want to waste her time.

"I wish I'd been there," he said quietly, after a moment. "Not that I could have helped or changed anything or would have even really belonged there." He and Elke weren't a couple. He didn't even remember the one time they'd slept together, and she'd been pretty deliberate about excluding him - he was nearly certain she'd considered the baby more hers and Menachem's than hers and his.

"Maybe if I'd been there," he shrugged, "All this would feel more real to me. I wouldn't feel like it was something that had only happened to her." He'd had a daughter for a whole week and a half and- Finn stopped himself there. It sounded horrible and selfish, even in his head. "I can't hold it against Elke, though. She was just doing what she thought was best and if I got mad at her for things it would only make all this worse."

I wanted to have good news, he recalled, and felt that much worse for wanting to have known. What difference would it have made, in the long run, if he'd been there to pass that week and a half with Elke? To worry alongside her, to watch Orianna's sudden downward spiral? It was narcissistic to think he could have been the difference between life and death, that one more set of hands to hold a dying child could reverse the organ failure that came with being born too soon.

"I know it's not logical to want to have been involved sooner?" he said, after a long pause, his voice feeling tight in his throat. "I know I couldn't have changed things? But that doesn't make me want it any less." Even to have just held her, just once-

"I mean. Not that I have any idea what either of us would have done if she'd lived," he added, and his thoughts slid awkwardly to Antonia, who if half-remembered visions were anything to believe was only two years away. "Which is to say I agree with you, life is super complicated, and I don't know if any of that made any sense?"

He blinked at her a few times: Help???

It was good to hear her say so, even if Finn still wasn't sure how to feel. He wanted to believe Laney, to take her permission and let himself grieve... but he'd spent the last few days reminding himself over and over that he'd promised not to be angry with Elke, and that was going to take a while to unpack from. "Thanks," he said, giving her fingers a squeeze. "I - can we talk about this again later? I think I need some more time to let this all sink in."

Now, with all that out on the table, he finally realized what a terrible friend he was being. He'd come all the way here to visit a friend in the hospital, and then spent ten minutes whining about his own personal drama! Laney had just been through an ordeal, and in terms of absolute trauma, what he'd been through did not even begin to compare.

"What about you?" he asked, scooting a bit closer to her. Laney was a good person, someone he wanted to protect, and he felt terrible that something so terrible happened to her while he was out of town. (Man, why did all the terrible s**t happen while he was away?) "How are you doing?"

He had no illusions that she wouldn't try to minimize things for him him, but they were two of a kind in that way.

"I should have been here," he sighed. "I shouldn't have changed my flight. I'm just - I'm glad you're okay. For a certain value of okay. That was the wrong word, wasn't it?" A day late and a dollar short, he thought - as usual.

Finn cringed. He could certainly understand why Laney felt guilty, but she hadn't done anything wrong. She'd been as much a victim as anyone else, and how she'd gotten out didn't make her responsible for the fates of anyone else - how to make her see that, though? "That's - it's not selfish that someone helped you," he said, trying to pick his words carefully. "That you were backed into a corner and you couldn't help anyone else. I mean..."

He sighed. Words were hard - but if this was Laney after she'd been on the mend, what state had she been in when she was rescued? It was so like her to be concerned over everyone else, even when she had nothing to feel guilty over. Finn reached for her hand, and then decided no, ******** that, I need the big guns, and put an arm around her shoulder. "You've got a good heart, Laney. And a generous spirit."

"Who helped you and Kai out?" he added after a moment - he had a suspicion. "Titan?"

Titan was a good and loyal friend, thought Babylon, and he didn't know Kerberos but he was certain the same was true of him. "I hope that they're fine," he said. The Negaverse didn't take kindly to traitors, but perhaps in the chaos of the event, two men sneaking two prisoners to safety had been overlooked. He was due to see Titan, anyway. "I could look around and see if I can find them, make certain that they are okay and didn't suffer for helping you."

It seemed like the least he could do, really. He'd already been absent from so much - it was time to begin pulling his own weight again. "I saw last Titan on the fourth," he added, although that was certainly before all this had happened. "I took him to my city and - Mistral helped me build this device that tells what sort of knight a Negaverse officer would be? I'll show it to you sometime when we aren't here. Anyway, with him it only confirmed what I guess we already know - he'd be a knight of Earth."

He couldn't even begin to say what Titan might do with that information. "If you meet anyone else who might... benefit from knowing?" said Finn. "Send them my way."

He slipped his arm carefully away from her, making sure that she could stay upright on her own as he moved. "Laney, I-" I should get going, he thought, but the truth was he didn't actually have many places to go. Arkady was at her wonder. Elke probably didn't want to speak to him more than she had to, ever. He had any number of household chores, but he didn't want to do them and they would keep until tomorrow. "Actually, can I just stay here for a while? You're good company."

And he was in sore need of good company.