She had breakfast at about 11am, but whatever.

After a few hours, she texts Cynthia to say, I'm not sure what happened last night.

Cynthia would be awake after a few hours of course. Being awake from 7AM to get to and participate in school, and sleeping atleast no earlier than 12:30AM doesn't leave much time during the week to sleep. Catching up is the standard plan.

She lives in her own dingy apartment, basically a glorified hotel room (It atleast sections the bedroom and the kitchen/living room). Reasons for this aside for now, Cynthia easily looks away from meandering on her computer to read the text, and reply.

This is T right? Call if you want or text whatever its c [sic]

Thea's usually okay on sleep, even if she's not been getting as much as she should, so while she does catch up on sleeping by sleeping in, it's usually not too long.

Yeah, it's 'T'. What did happen last night, then? Shadow didn't kill me?

Check your pulse everything is fine tonight u libby

I know I'm alive, or enough to make no difference. So... she's gone?

She is libby now damn sure

Cynthia curses having to actually type things on a phone again.

K, responds Thea. Turns out she doesn't have anything to add.

Slight annoyance, but it turns out neither does Cynthia. It'd be fifteen minutes before she sends another text.

1050 meet dinner then hour?

Sure.

Hopefully one word responses mean good thoughts?

Either way, Cynthia will spend her time online. She trawls up conspiracy sites and local news for anything that would link to her or the Midnight Hour. She decides against trying to phone her estranged friend, leaving the line open in case of Thea.

Her arriving time in the alley remains impeccable when the time arrives.

They mean 'I'm tired and have a headache and can't be bothered with pleasantries right now', but sure, you can believe there are good thoughts behind them.

Thea sleeps a bit more in the afternoon and doesn't message Cynthia again, but she can also be found in the alley at the appropriate time. "Hi."

"Hi." Same direction, same wave, different clothes. Cynthia isn't wearing the plain white-shirt and jeans outfit that she does on schooldays.

She's wearing her template's default outfit. Tight fitting black long sleeve shirt, loose black skirt over a set of cargo shorts. A navy-blue corset is over top her shirt, but it hangs loosely. Her leg brace is on her right leg, blue with an out-of-place looking orange trim to it, currently not being used for actual support. Backpack rests on her shoulders, the same beat-up black one from before, carrying the same sort of stuff.

Thea... is wearing a jeans, a blue top, a jacket, and a pair of sneakers.

"So. How are you?" she asks, a little bit awkwardly.

Cynthia takes a moment of blank staring, as if searching her brain as to how she's supposed to react to being asked that again.

"Good. How are you?"

"I'm fine. A little tired – last night was weird – but mostly good."

Cynthia visibly relaxes, back to something she knows how to answer.

"Usually ends up that way. That's the hard part over with! At least I think so."

"Soooo food? Or something? I'm still fine with just showing up five minutes early if you want that."

"Yeah, food sounds good."

Right. Helpful.

"I... Don't know anything about what you'd want to eat?"

"I'm okay with whatever really – fries? Chinese? Pasta or something?"

"Uh... Want to just like, get takeout downtown or something? I have no idea what serves all of that."

"... I mean any of it, so yeah, sure, we can go get takeout downtown."

"Well I dunno. I usually just get whatever is nearby where I want to hang out at night. Usually means cheap burgers and stuff. I wouldn't know if you're a vegetarian or anything."

"Oh, right, nah, I'm not a vegetarian; burgers are fine."

Cynthia motions for her to walk, and begins to walk herself.

"Do you have money and stuff? Am I buying? Do you care if it's cheap? Do we need to hit one of the big names?"

Thea follows alongside her. "Yeah, I've got some cash on me. Cheap-ish would be preferable, but I don't really care much."

... And eventually: food!