Quatre relaxes, a bit. "I'm glad," he says, sincere. "I don't think many people at home realize how much Earth is hurting, too."

The fact that the United Earth Sphere Alliance are hurting it burns strangely in Quatre's heart; in one way, it is less painful than the control of the colonies -- L4 is his home, and deserves its freedom and safety. But the people of Earth are the Alliance's responsibility; to hurt ones own civilians strikes him as doubly wrong.