Convalescence [Closed]

She felt a melody embrace her, a cascading gentle rhythm that swept through her. She felt a soft warmth, reminiscent of childhood carried on the edge of that gentle sound. She let the melody carry her, to and from the faintest edge of consciousness and back into the deep inky sleep.

Eventually, the melody changed. It was no longer the comforting quiet sound but a steady hammering noise pulling her up towards the unpleasant sense of consciousness. It was a high pitched repetitive blip synched seemingly with the rise and fall of her own breath. Her eyes fluttered, she strained with the effort of opening them and managed to do so.

Bright lights, a lot of white. She was in a bed, and gentle stretch of her muscles revealed that she was attached to something, a lot of somethings.

"Shit," she mumbled in an accent all her own in a language foreign to the country. She closed her eyes and breathed very hard. The beeping increased with it and she reminded herself to steady. The last thing she needed was someone to come in. She replayed the facts, unwinding the memory as she slowly jump-started her brain through the fog.

She was hunting a Hollow. Check. She was discovered by a Shinigami. *beep beep beep*. She stopped for a moment and the beeping slowed. She fought the Shinigami and was losing...

She reached down and shifted the gown, tracing a finger over her heart where bandage lay. Unable to help herself, transfixed she lifted the sterile clean bandage. Coarse taught skin, bright red and twisted slightly, scarred but...no cut. No injury of much note at all. She remembered the moment vividly.

She won the fight. She killed the Shinigami, and she passed out. Right? She paused for a moment. Someone brought her here, then she was...probably a mess. Cops. There'd be...an investigation? The thoughts came slow and she had to pause again. Right. She looked over at the IV drip. Morphine. That explained the warm floating feeling she was having and that vague sense to just go back to sleep and let the situation work itself out.

She leaned over and studied it. Different than the machines she was useful at home but it was easy enough to figure out how to turn it off. She then carefully removed it from her wrist and held the bandage down. One thing at a time. She looked over to the monitor. She could leave that to the end. She scanned the room, a small box of possessions but none of her clothes. She frowned. Escaping out the window half-naked wasn't ideal... but...

She slowly over the course of a minute stood up and resisted the sense of vertigo and slowly hauled herself towards her things, mindful of the cords and kept her eyes otherwise locked on the door. Her phone, the belt of Ginto in her jacket was missing. Her shoes. She took the phone and studied it for a moment, bare percent of battery left and the date.

She staggered, two days? No. She did the math, it was late when she left, and it was early morning now, a little over a day? Her stomach flipped and she fought back the urge to- oh right she didn't have anything in her stomach did she? She unlocked her phone, and, carrying the resolve of the night prior, texted back

I'm not coming home. I have things I need to do here.

I love you.

Her eyes lingered on the screen as the message turned over, and indicated that it had been seen, and indeed read. The indicator for a response being made showed up.

She closed her eyes and placed a hand over her mouth, her eyes burned for a moment but she smiled. She locked the screen and held it in her left hand. The gown was notoriously pocketless. She slipped her shoes on and moved over to her monitor, spending a minute or so switching off its noises. They might notice the absence but far less than the sudden loss of signal.

Freed of cords, possessions, vital ones at least, in hand she made her way over to the window, pulled it open, and began to climb out.

Kevin had waited up all night with Meridith, lying to the staff that he was her brother because he knew saying he was a strange foreign man who had met her a few days before ran the risk of landing him in all kinds of suspicion. In a sense, he wasn’t entirely lying. He supposed, if you went back far enough, all Quincy were related somehow. Limited numbers would do that to a people.

No matter of familial bonding, fake or real, could stop a man’s stomach from working, especially when he had a daily caloric requirement more than double what they made portion sizes in this country for. As such, the temporary Mr. Sheppard had his way back down to the cafeteria, returning with two trays loaded with Japanese breakfast items and an even wider selection of pudding cups.

As he stepped into the room, he did a double take at Meridith crawling out the window. ”Isometric exercise?” he asked, a quizzical look on his face at the young Quincy’s bizarre actions.

She stared downward at the distance between her room and the ground for a long pensive moment as she perched half through the window. A sound behind her caused her to jolt, she craned her head back. "Just getting ai-"

crack

She let out a yelp and pulled out of the window after hitting her head against the pane, nearly losing her balance and falling. She grabbed her head in one hand and winced as she looked up to Kevin. She let out a sigh of relief when she realized it was his familiar face. "You scared me, I thought you were a doctor or the pol-you brought me here didn't you," she said, her voice gaining an edge to it.

"What were you thinking!"

Kevin rushed forward to help as Meridith cracked her head on the window, setting the trays on a small table by the door. He stopped a few feet away from her, arm outstretched for her to take if she decided she needed the support, but not trying to force physical contact on an obviously irritated young lady. He hadn’t expected to see her like this, but he certainly hadn’t expected to see her so angry. He’d saved her and gotten her to a hospital. She was safe, so why was she acting like he’d done something wrong by helping out?

”I was thinking that you looked really fucked up,” he responded, slightly hurt by her tone. Maybe it was just the meds coming off that had put her on edge. If she had ripped them out on her own, then she was probably in a bad state of things. Why didn’t he call a nurse when he stepped away?

” I wasn’t going to leave you sitting in an alleyway with that weird ass dog thing. I told them to give you a rabies test just to be sure,” he said in a brighter voice, hoping to inject some lightheartedness into things. He had asked for the rabies test, of course. Even if it was a spirit, you never knew what kinds of diseases feral animals carried. He’d been wondering with every minor itch that hit him over the course of the day if he’d gotten some kind of supernatural fleas from carrying the unconscious Yuki around.

She waved him off gently, it sounded worse than it was and she'd be damned if she was gonna crack her head open twice in front of him. As if such an assertion could alter reality she was fine. She nodded to him, turning her waving away to a flat palm of peace. Her demeanour shifted.

"Sorry, you're right, you helped me and I owe you for that. It's been a lot very quickly." She glanced towards the door. "Forgive my rudeness. I was just thinking about the police getting involved and how bad I feel and...you don't deserve that at all."

She nodded to him and felt a bit of brightness fill her face when he mentioned the rabies test only to immediately darken. "Ah...you saw them. That was a Shinigami, I'm sure you realized. I had to..." She lingered on that thought, glancing away from him.

"I had to kill them. They caught me fighting a Hollow and tried to kill me, came at me from behind with their sword. I didn't expect to run into one, let alone did I realize how quickly they would attack me. But...at least word won't return that I was hunting." So sure she was, that blow was decisive, final. And if Kevin got her, and brought her here then surely it was done with. Still, the weight of that decision still hung heavily to her. The decision to take her life seemed easy at the moment.

”That was a Shinigami?” Kevin asked, biting his lip slightly, ”I mean, the robes and sword made sense, but the ears kinda got me thinking it was something else. Some weird ass Japanese stray dog spirit or something, maybe.”

He hesitated a bit, not sure if he should tell her the truth about what happened, especially with what she’d just told him. He knew how much the reapers scared her, but he also had a feeling she was made of stronger stuff than he’d originally assessed her as having. The fact that she’d thought she had killed one of them and was taking it this well was enough to push that needle over the threshold.

”You didn’t actually kill her. I mean, I don’t think you did. She was still breathing when I got you taken care of, at least,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. Should he have done what she tried to?

Was Kevin even capable of killing another sentient being? Hollow were one thing, and he’d long ago decided that that was okay. They were mindless murder machines, but Shinigami could actually think for themselves. They might talk about starting a new ghost Nazi empire, but it was one thing to glorify killing a bunch of murdering fascists and another entirely to hurl a fastball made of reishi at the head of what looked to be an unconscious teenager.

”I could go check, if you want,” he offered, holding an arm out to stop her from blowing past him in her hospital gown despite the fact that she had no idea where he’d actually set the pupper down at.

There was something in the way he said it that just felt a little off. She nodded slowly as if to confirm, yes Kevin, the black-robed individual with the katana was indeed a Shinigami. Then, she saw the way he bit his lip, and hesitated and just stared at him. She had nothing to do now, other than to wait for the inevitable reveal, and to allow this multiday long slow-motion train derailment to continue.

"Oh."

She continued to stare at him as the weight of the realization hit her. She felt sick again. The room spun, but she stayed upright to her credit. She was alive. Kevin had found her there, still breathing despite Meridiths' best effort and then a whole day passed. And Meridith had a feeling that if she survived then so too did her opponent. The Shinigami who saw her hunting, who tried to kill her, escaped. And now the Quincy were known again.

She stepped back and sat against the window and held her face for a moment with one hand. It wasn't a desperate gesture, she seemed perplexed, like someone who just found out dinner got burned. Perhaps it was the morphine. Thinking about it, it wasn't that bad was it? Hadn't she resolved to stop hiding, to take on any Shinigami who sought to stop her from hunting, to protect whoever the hell she wanted however the hell she wanted to do it? Perhaps this just affirmed her path, perhaps this just meant she had to do it now?

This was...a complication, of course, she expected she'd have more time. There was so much to do now, so much to handle. She had to come up with a plan, she had to-

"...Did you just say go check?"

”Okay, the doctors really said you needed the rest, Meridith,” Kevin started, hesitating again because he really didn’t want to set her off and send her back on a warpath. She’d been sad because she thought she’d killed the Shinigami but, now, seemed way more upset that she hadn’t. The temptation to lie was strong, but what would that get him? A few hours of her not being upset and, worse, her deciding not to trust him afterward?

He needed her. Sure, there were other Quincy out there, but Kevin saw what happened to her when she went up against one of the Shinigami alone and he wasn’t about to get in the same situation just because he was frightened of a teenage girl’s moodswings. He had faced down the best batters Major League Baseball had to offer and, most of the time, he’d come out on top. Why was it that she was somehow being more intimidating than them?

Probably the whole being able to send evil monsters to hell with mystical spirit energy

Committing himself to the honesty he’d shown her so far, Kevin kept his arms ready to catch her in case she bolted past him or returned to trying to jump out the window. ”I brought the Shinigami here with us. She’s out in the hospital garden, or at least she was when we got here last night.”

No matter how she felt she had to accept the reality she was given, but where there once was nothing but the path ahead she now had a little flicker of hope. Either way, she'd know for certain, she wouldn't have to lay in her bed wondering if the reaper was coming, she'd know. Better to stand up and face it than to run and hide and wonder. Do away with the lingering nature of her doubts.

She leaned off the wall and exhaled soft and slow. He was ready to grab her, she almost smiled. A little part of her wanted to make him try, but she put it aside. Kevin was a good person, she could see that, and she admired it too. Better than her, probably.

She would have run that Shinigami through if she found her as Kevin had. Maybe he truly believed she wasn't a Shinigami. Maybe, but then, would he stop her now if she lay dying in that garden? Would he try to pull her back? Would she let him?

"I need rest, but it wasn't the doctors who fixed this hole over my heart, Kevin," she said, pulling the gown enough to reveal the ugly scar lingering. A fatal wound, almost certainly. She let the gown back up, the point made. "A souvenir I'll carry for the rest of my life I suspect, from the Zanpakuto they used to try to kill me for saving someone from a Hollow. I need a rest but I won't have any until you take me to see them. Until I know they're gone, either by my hand or because they survived it."

She stepped towards him. "And not until we figure out what comes next. Are you with me?" She caught his gaze and did her best to hold it. She felt calm, but she knew it was only because of him and that boldly outstretched arm. Knowing that he'd try to stop her if she went too far was enough to keep her from trying in the first place.

She was tired. She was hurting. She was, no matter the burning sense of resolve in her, scared. The last thing she wanted was to be alone.

”Of course I’m with you, Meridith. We’re in this together. If I’d have known you were going to be in trouble, I’d have been by your side when the Shinigami attacked you, you know that.” Kevin was insistent in his tone, but his face showed hesitation. His hesitation wasn’t toward the answer, though. He didn’t want her to risk herself.

That scar looked awful, and he could tell that she was weak despite her show of force. She was leaning, barely able to walk, in a worse state than when they first met each other. Still, just as she was back then, she had that same fighting spirit about her. What he had in raw power, she more than made up for in knowledge, understanding, and will. She might feel like she needed him, but, if Kevin was being true to himself, he needed her more.

”I’ll take you, but you’re going in a wheelchair. Your cross is over by those pudding cups if you didn’t get it already,” he said, pointing toward the tray he’d moved off her bed. He walked over by the doorway and busied himself getting a wheelchair ready. After quickly digging in his own bag, he tossed his pitcher’s mitt on the handle of the wheelchair and spun back around to face her.

”I’m sorry I ate them all. It was a long night,” he said with a little smile at her as he pushed the wheelchair over, ready to escort her to the gardens to check on their furry eared foe from another dimension.

Tension defused. He was, as she suspected, as good and honest as anyone had any right to be. "I do know that, but this more than I should ever assume to ask. More, I think, than I have any right to ask. But I'm selfish enough to ask anyway," she smiled easily and stepped forward. "You were there when you could be, and when you needed to be. You saved my life, I don't think I would have survived if not for you," she said but was uncertain. To what extent he played in her miraculous survival she wasn't sure. She should have been dead, she knew that much. "That's two I owe you."

She sighed weakly. "Fine fine, but let's make an effort to spend time together when I am not narrowly surviving a life and death situation. I don't think it's making a very good impression. And for that pudding cup, you owe me food when we get out of here. A burger." She glanced over towards the pudding cups for her cross but realized that it was inexplicably wrapped tight around her wrist, held in her hand. When did she...? She put it out of her mind. One thing at a time, every time she tried to hold on to more than a thought she felt dizzy and warm.

She moved over to the chair and took a seat. "And pants. I'd really like to get a proper pair of pants." The sense of urgency was gone, somehow she knew what they'd find. A whole day had passed. She knew they weren't quick but she doubted even they would have made it this long as they had if they left a wounded member for an entire day.

She folded her legs and adjusted the gown as best she could manage, gesturing her chariot forward. "I'll steal a pair if I have to."

Kevin brushed away the offer of Meridith owing him. If they got into keeping score, someone was just going to be embarrassed after a while and he’d rather that not be him. Taking the handles of the wheelchair, he pushed Meridith out of the room and set off for the garden. ”Don’t go stealing pants,” he said with a little eyeroll as they crossed the threshold, glad she couldn’t see his face to chew him out. The morphine was probably still in her system if she felt comfortable talking about stealing clothes while they were still in a hospital. Best to humor the silliness instead of press her on how much of her wardrobe was purchased with the five finger discount.

”As for the burger, I’ve got just the place. I’ve been there twice already, so while I can’t give a recommendation on everything on the menu, I can say it’s at least passable. The second go around was better. I think I let the reviews taint my dining experience the first time around if I’m being honest,” he blabbered on in a stream of consciousness, cutting just short of talking about his run-in with the lovely Quincy woman he’d bumped into after his second trip. He’d have plenty of time to tell her about that later after they’d taken care of checking on the Shinigami. Idle conversation was good, but letting her know that QuincyCon seemed to be happening in Japan this year would just add more agitation.

He did have something that was bothering him, though, and he realized that it was probably important to get an answer before they got there just in case the Shinigami hadn’t bailed out. Still, it wasn’t the sort of thing you mentioned around hospital staff. Rounding a corner and spotting his turn for the garden coming up, Kevin’s hands reflexively tightened on the chair as his feet slowed down slightly. ”You can’t speak English by any chance, can you? My German is awful and my French isn’t that much better.”

He might not be keeping score but she was. She wouldn't have cared if the tables were turned of course, but it wasn't her right to say so while owing him. "Well, there's probably a place to buy a pair in here," she said offhand. She didn't want to have to book it out of here with her butt flapping in the open wind if she could help it. That was the kind of attention she didn't want. Better than her miraculous survival and the subsequent police investigation snagging national headlines though. Especially considering the fact her family would almost certainly see it.

"I don't read reviews before I eat at any place," she said with a gentle wave of her hand. It felt weird to be talking about something so mundane now. As much as she wanted to, her mind was still abuzz. The thought that she killed someone, that she might not have, that a war had been inadvertently declared, that it might have been narrowly avoided. It showed in the tone of her voice, the waver of the adrenaline she felt as they began to get closer to the garden.

"Wha-?" She was caught off guard by that. Did he just ask if she spoke English? She looked up at him from the chair with disbelief in her face. Her accent shifted from the somewhat formless nationless foreigner Japanese she spoke and became, perhaps to Kevin, nearly impenetrably thick Welsh English.

"Is that a joke? Ydw i'n siarad Saesneg? I spoke Welsh when we first met. I'm Welsh, Kevin. My name is Meridith? Yes, I speak English, and Welsh and Japanese. Why would I speak German?" She spoke quickly, not with any hint of anger just absolute reactionary shedding of her seemingly refined foreign accent.

”I don’t speak Welsh!” he insisted defensively in English, happily dropping into his comfortable Midwest drawl. That made a lot more sense, but why had they been insisting on using Japanese this whole time? He’d mentioned being American, hadn’t he? Racking his brain, he realized that he had not in fact explicitly told her that. She must have thought he was French!

”Well shit, I’m sorry. You sounded German to me. Not a lot of Welsh speakers in Pennsylvania, I’m American, by the way, in case you didn’t know. I know lots of folks who use fake names that’re easier for the Japanese to say, but I guess you wouldn’t have picked a name with an ‘R’ in it if you were doing that,” he said, musing aloud as to why he must have missed the correlations.

He felt exceedingly foolish at the misunderstanding but, instead of beating himself up, had a quick laugh at himself before getting back to the original reason he’d asked her that. ”The dog looked like she’d been cut up when I got to her, not made into some kind of ghostie pincushion. Was that you or is there someone else out there?” he asked with a hesitant lilt at the end as he pushed the wheelchair around the last corner and peeked out into the garden.

She gave a little giggle and sighed. Ridiculous. What a ridiculous mess of a man. "I know your American. You have an accent, and you played baseball. Outside shot at Canadian I guess, but...no. Not really." She hadn't even considered a reality where he wasn't American. There wasn't a chance.

She glanced down at the cross still clutched in her hand. "That was me," she said gently. "Their Zanpakuto cut through my weapon as if it wasn't even there. So...well. I'll show you later."

She peered at the sign, as he pulled into the garden. She climbed to her feet now, stepped forward as it came into view. Spiritual particles collected around her hand, giving off an ethereal glow invisible to the people present. She steeled herself, and then...she stopped, and stared, and sighed.

Gone.

"So. They're gone."

She lowered her hand, and the spiritual particles scattered. She tightened the fist, pursed her lips tightly and fought back tears. Frustrating. "Okay. That's that, then, right. Time to go. I guess." There was a vague sense of relief mingled in with the immense disappointment. Relief, perhaps at not having to fight. Relief at the choice being taken away from her.

Word would get out. The Quincy were back.

She turned around to face Kevin and forced a bright smile. "I guess we have some things to figure out, huhn?"

”I look forward to it,” he said in response to her statement about showing him what she did. He’d never actually seen her do anything beyond healing and, though that was impressive, he was looking forward to seeing what else she could pull off. If she went toe to toe with a Shinigami, she might even be able to teach him a few things.

”I played minor league ball in Canada for a while, actually. Winnipeg Goldeyes. We had a good year, ended with an ERA of-“ he started, absentmindedly ready to ramble off some stats as he saw her start to stand and draw forth little sparkles of spiritual light. He pulled his own mitt off the handle of the wheelchair and started doing the same, preparing for he knew not what.

He could see her cascade of emotion at the empty garden in front of them and knew that she was likely fighting internally after what she’d said in the room. There was a sadness to her tone, but part of him was glad that the Shinigami had gotten away. Meridith was, in her way, still clean. She was still better than the ancient ghosts who had executed their ancestors.

She might have fired the first shot, but it was an honorable one straight up in the air, not a killing blow. That meant something. It had to. Walking over to the bench he’d set Yuki on, he looked down to see if he could see any semblance of her spiritual signature. He thought he could pick some of it up, perhaps mingled with another vaguely off-putting scent, but he was unsure if the lingering breeze he was feeling was actually her signature or just the natural wind moving through the open-air garden.

”I guess so,” he replied to her, turning around with a sigh of his own, ”You want to head back to the room? I told them we were related so they wouldn’t pester me too much about staying around overnight.”

She watched as he filtered past her and into the garden, folded an arm over her chest. What was he doing? She could see the look on his face...

Ah, of course. He brought her here, he pulled her from the ground and wanted to save her too. He didn't know that she was Shinigami but now she couldn't help but wonder, would he have done any different? Maybe not let her go so willy-nilly but she had a feeling he hoped she was out there somewhere alright. Unlike her she-

She let out a sigh as he turned back to her. A somewhat tired somewhat amused expression on her face. What part of this plan was he not getting!

"Haha, we can't go back. We have less than ten minutes I imagine before they check on my room and find me missing. At that point they're going to lock down the hospital for a missing patient. And if I stay, the police are going to ask me about all those sword wounds, and then doctors are going to ask me about that hole that looks suspiciously close to my heart. Then they'll want to ask for ID, and then they'll want to reach out to my family, and anyway. I'm not dealing with going back or staying."

She shrugged gently and continued. "So, I'm going to go to the shop here, hope they have some clothes, and then I'm going to depart as quietly as I can, and failing that, as quickly. Then I'm going to eat a burger. Then I'll live on forever here as that strange foreigner who they say haunts these halls or whatever."

"Friend or foe Kevin!" She said urgently, but with a hushed tone.

”Friend,” he acknowledged with a resigned sigh of his own, ”They think you’re my sister, so I’ll call them up after we get you out of her and tell them we transferred you back to our family doctor. My extended Quincy family has some doctors in it in France and, if I asked, and explained the situation to them, they could probably clear this all up so we don’t have any police chasing after us.”

There was no point in fighting with her on this. Kevin could tell that she was spooked and needed to get out of the place he’d left the Shinigami the night before. Maybe she too could pick up on the girl’s lingering spiritual signature. ”Can you walk okay? I could go, buy you the clothes, and meet you back up in your room. It wouldn’t take long and, that way, nobody will think twice about a patient shopping for something to wear. Any preferences? What size should I be looking for?”

That really was their best play, Kevin felt. If they left as they were, there were just too many unknown variables. Being a loud obnoxious foreigner worked great elsewhere in Japan, but too many of these doctors had learned in the West or taken English classes in college. He’d ran into one in the cafeteria who actually recognized him from his days in baseball, for crying out loud. The man was a superfan of the local team, so the recognition hadn’t been entirely out of nowhere, but he knew that bumping into someone like that while they were trying to make their escape would have been a one way ticket toward being spotted if Meridith weren’t looking her best.

”Just have some of the food I left in the room and wait for me, okay?” he asked, hoping she'd take him up on his offer for both of their sakes.

She made a face and considered his plan. "Well, I don't think they're going to let us walk out so cleanly. But I'll let you give it a shot. I really think the best play is to just go get me pants and walk out that door over there," she gestured and thought about it a moment longer. She glanced back at the garden then shrugged gently. She owed it to him to trust him at least a little bit.

"Asking for my measurements!" She scolded him with a coy smile and shrugged, telling him. "Style and preference is whatever. I can pick up better clothes when we're free of here." She was really gonna miss that jacket. She stayed up all night sewing in the little ginto pockets. She sighed. And the pants! She had to put actual pockets in those too. What had women's fashion come to?

She patted his shoulder and turned. "Don't be long. If I see one whiff of trouble I'm out that window. This gown might not be suited to escapes but I'll make it work," she warned and began to make his way up to their room.

Kevin gave a little laugh back at Meridith over his request for her sizes. It was a good sign that, in spite of all of this, she could still find something amusing in life. He almost insisted, as he had no idea what size women’s clothes actually corresponded to, but figured it was best to leave it as a funny occurrence to help bolster her mood.

He gave a hesitant nod at her plan, uncertain if she should be doing that but knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop her. ”If you do take off without me, we’ll meet up at my hotel,” he instructed, taking off for the lobby at a light jog that quickly turned into a brisk walk after a nurse shouted at him as he reentered the building.

It didn’t take long for him to locate the hospital gift shop. Blazing past the massive display of get well cards and balloons, the masterful Quincy hunter spotted his prey. Scooping up a small and an extra small pair of fuzzy purple sweatpants with a cute little yellow bear sewn on top of the pockets that looked exceedingly comfortable, if a little garish, he eyed up the options for tops. That same bear was present on everything, and, turning past the clothes, Kevin soon spotted why.

There was a respectable collection of stuffed animals, each one being that bear in some manner of medical outfit. ”Japanese people and their mascots,” he mumbled, turning back to the tops and grabbing a small orange sweatshirt bearing the bear in doctors robes and a medium white t-shirt that had a massive bear holding a clipboard and a stethoscope.

Completing the ensemble with a pair of sandals and a set of flats that featured little smiling bear faces on them, Kevin made to set off for the room before doubling back, grabbing one of the stuffed animals in a nurse outfit, and buying that too.

He arrived in Meridith’s room shortly thereafter, holding the bag aloft with the little stuffed animal head peeking out. ”Got ‘em! You ready?” he asked, peeking around for his young companion.

Meridith returned back upstairs to her room as quickly and quietly as she could. She got some looks, but nothing that made her dive out the nearest window. It was a stoic and quiet elevator ride and she thought for a moment about all the people and all the lives currently going on around her.

Her family practically owned the nearby clinic, her parents worked in it, she had siblings who once upon a time interned there. They saved lives, even when Quincy were outlawed they still found a way to save people. They might not have been hunting Hollow's but...

And she could do the same. Or could have and yet here she was. She had the talent but even then she knew that she'd have to hide it. She'd always have to look over her shoulder wondering if the use of her abilities was going to get her or her loved ones killed. She'd have to shut her eyes and her ears to the sound of the spiritual hell that people had to endure day in and day out.

She should be at a place like this, but she couldn't be. And it was her duty to change that.

The elevator doors opened and she quickly slipped into her room. No panic abuzz on the floor yet so she grabbed a seat opposite the door and pulled up her now-dead phone with a sigh and a shrug. She looked between the door and the window and prepared to escape if needed.

It wasn't long, but longer than she hoped before Kevin arrived.

She leaned off the wall and nodded to him moving to snatch the bag and moved wordlessly behind the curtain to change into it. She let out a sound, an exclamation of sorts whose purpose might have been unknown. She got changed none the less. "All set," she said, stepping out from behind the curtain with a very subdued look. "Let's get out of here," she gestured out the door.

It had pockets at least.

After the exchange was made, Kevin turned his back to the curtain in order to give her the maximum amount of privacy he could while still standing guard. Though he did glance back at her noise, he reverted his head when he saw an indeterminate portion of exposed skin. Not until after she let him know did he fully turn around. The mismatched nature of what he picked up suddenly became very obvious, and he was unable to hide his smile. They really were the best things in the hospital gift shop, though. He could have gotten her the yoga pants and a tighter shirt, but that might have sent a horribly inappropriate message on top of potentially aggravating her injuries.

”You look good,” he said, failing to hold back his smile as he grabbed his own bag and hers, ”The pants really tie it all together. I’d have gotten a pair for myself, but they didn’t have them in men’s sizes.” Leading the way, he set about getting them a car out of the hospital on his cell phone, using his special superpower of being a big foreign guy to draw attention away from her and clear them a path.

After they’d made it outside and directions to the chosen burger joint had been handed off to the driver, he glanced back over their shoulder at the hospital, wondering how long would be too long to make the necessary legal arrangements to not draw any watchful eyes. Surely they had an hour or so to unwind without him needing to drag that up.

”Oh, I ran into another one of us the other day. At least I’m pretty sure she’s one of us. Was walking back from this burger joint and I just kind of happened upon her. Maybe the burgers have magic spirit powers?” he mused, finally breaching a topic he’d been holding back on until she was free from the stress of her medical worries.

She made a face at him as he most certainly teased her and politely said, "Oh shut up,"and rolled her eyes. She knew how ridiculous she looked but realizing she might have been taken too seriously sighed and waved her hand with a flourish. "Thank you," she said more sincerely.

She followed behind, using him to more or less hide behind him before they exited the station she was located in. Once the faces grew less familiar she stepped out from his shadow and moved alongside as warily as if they weren't breaking out of here. Well. She tried to.

She didn't relax until they got in the car. She sighed, this was the last time. No more stumbling into cars exhausted and hurt. A real drag all in all. Still, the thought of food made her stomach both violently rumble and cheered her mood, she perked up.

"Eh? What was her name? Two is a fun coincidence, three is something else. I wasn't sure there were this many Quincy in the world and there's three here? I bet there's a lot more of us in this city. Tell me about her."

Kevin spent the remainder of the car ride going through the events that had taken place during their time apart, skipping over any salacious details and focusing on how he had randomly stumbled upon Geminae after he picked up his burger, giving no small attention to the supernatural powers that these burgers must be capable of bestowing. It had certainly been an interesting meeting, what with Kevin so quickly running into another Quincy ‘in the wild’ so soon after meeting Meridith, and he couldn’t help but feel like there was something more potent at play drawing all these spiritualists to him. If they had been baseball fans, maybe it might make sense, but Meridith hadn’t followed the sport and Geminae had remarked that baseball must pay well. Were all other Quincy so sadly uneducated about the world of sport?

They arrived outside of the burger shop, Kevin handling payment for the ride, and he acted the gentleman for his injured companion, getting doors for her and letting her enter the restaurant properly. It wasn’t a huge place, but it had some good character. The space had clearly originally been the site of a more traditional Japanese restaurant that had been Americanized slightly, allowing Kevin to procure a private dining area for the two of them.

Settling in and deciding that his recent trips hadn’t been enough to establish a ‘usual’ order yet, he perused a menu as the wait staff busied themselves with beverages for the duo. ”Like I was saying,” he remarked, resuming where he’d left off in the car, ”So far the majority of westerners I’ve run into in Japan are Quincy. Not a big sample size, sure, but I’d wager it’s more than just you and me out there. That’s the problem with the whole going to ground stuff, though. It’s hard to find people who are trying stay hidden while you’re doing the same yourself.”

She leaned her head against the side of the car and listened to him talk about this and that. It had all seemed so bleak but over the last hour, she felt a sense of life fill her once again. The fear of her conflict, the dread of what was to come, it was all still there lurking beneath the surface but now it felt manageable. No matter what was going to happen she'd be able to face it.

When they arrived she stepped out into a world that felt for a moment alien. It was so strange to be so far from home. To go from a life and death battle in the middle of nowhere to a hospital to here outside of some restaurant. She lingered a moment as Kevin began to head into the point she had to hustle to catch up.

There they were.

She sat across from him, leaned forward in the booth to the point her chin rested on a folded hand not far from the surface of the table. She was listening but her mind was elsewhere until at last, he said the thing.

She closed her eyes and let a moment of silence hang. It was one thing to think it, to even know it deep in her heart, but it was entirely another to say it out loud, especially to another. She leaned off her hand and pulled her elbow off the table, opened her eyes and looked into his. "...There's more than us. A lot more, I think. And you're right, we can't find those hiding while we're hiding ourselves, and to be truthful," she gestured and went on.

"We have to make a choice of which side of the line we're gonna be on. If we're hiding, we need to leave town, we need to vanish off the Earth because I think they're gonna really hunt us soon. And if we're not going to hide then we need to really not do it anymore. No more skulking about, or jumping at shadows."

"I'm done hiding. I'm done being afraid and standing aside knowing people are getting hurt because we're not out there doing what we were born to do, and I want to find as many people who feel the same as possible and stand up together."

She locked his gaze for a moment. There was no walking back this decision, the moment she formed that blade she declared war in the very heart of her soul over the unjust eradication of her people.