Welcome to Gaia! ::

Robert reached out and gave one of Ennea's hairbuns a honk as his greeting, before lifting his head up and sniffing the air.

"No." He responded to Madison's question - and then started walking very self-assuredly in one direction. "But I bet I can find it."

He turned around, and hopped a step as he walked backwards, grinning foolishly at his squadmates. He was openly happy to be with them again.

"So did you guys sleep well? Like your new digs? I kind of hope they're going to let me paint mine. That whole gray wall motif they've got going is going to seriously bum me out."

Madison started at her shoes - simple, utilitarian white tennis shoes from 'her' new closet, just her size if not her style. "Do you guys... like, think they'll let us go back? Ever? I mean, like, I saw shadows and monsters back home, there was, like, one in my closet, y'know, and, like, in the salon and there was a haunted house in my neighborhood, like, a few blocks over, so maybe we could visit... or something..."

... She hadn't meant to say so much. At all. Her voice trailed off; she did not lift her head. Once again, her cheeks burned, though this time it was with embarrassment and a bit of shame at being so... so obvious.

Jordan's smile faded, and he turned to walk backwards, looking at Madison. "I don't think they will," he replied soberly. "Not for a long time, at least. They'll want to be absolutely sure we'll come back here if we're allowed to go back. I mean, they've obviously spent a lot of time and effort finding us and bringing us here, then running us through the tests they set up. And you saw how many pods were in the room where we woke up, and how few of us were in the orientation room. We're the ones that passed. They need us."

He paused to breathe and swallow against the tightness in his throat, the sharp pang of grief and homesickness refreshing itself. "We're - we should assume that we're not going home. Going back. We can't depend on a false hope if we're going to be effective. I'm sorry," he added, feeling suddenly thoroughly guilty and awkward. Would she cry? He hoped not, because he wouldn't really have any way to comfort her.

The conversation was just enough of a distraction that he stopped paying attention to where he was going for a moment; the heel of his shoe caught against the floor, and he unbalanced with a startled yelp, landing hard on his a**. " ... That was graceful," he grumbled, feeling his cheeks flush as he picked himself up, embarrassed. "No injuries, except for my dignity."

Robert heard Maddie's question, but his footsteps never faltered. The grin and dedication on his face wavered, but they couldn't see it. They returned instantly as soon as Ennea bounced against him, and he reached over to give the girl a friendly squeeze before holding open the other door of the mess hall, and standing against it to hold it open for the rest.

That was when he turned, and saw Jordan on the ground. His eyes widened and his hand clamped down on his mouth, to muffle the barking laughter that was rising up from his throat. He swallowed the laugh, choosing instead to focus on the girl that had shown up behind him.

His girl.

Robert leaned his head against the door, looking more like a sappy fool than a full grown man, and waited against the door for the rest of his squad to enter.

Madison's throat tightened at Jordan's words... and she wasn't, wasn't going to cry, so she couldn't risk speaking just yet. Instead, she nodded at him, a quick jerk of the head. And then he tumbled, and she started forward, only for Petra to appear, seemingly out of nowhere. The knot of tears vanished, swallowed for now.

"Good morning," she said, quietly, nodding at her greeting, not really caring that she'd been greeted by number rather than name. Among the Phoenixes, it didn't really matter - they'd known each other that way first, after all. She slipped inside and shook her head slightly, her braids slapping her cheek as she did so.

Food first. Difficult thoughts later. Just the scent of it was making her stomach throttle her spine, demanding to be filled.

There was his love for Petra, and there was his love for food. They were separate loves, living in separate lands of obsession.

And yet, when faced with the choice, it was clear what Robert's first love truly was.

He came down on that buffet table like a bat out of hell, and left it looking like a ravaged field in Nam.

There was four pieces of bread in his mouth at once when he finally looked up, cocked his head, and innocently spat out something that sounded like it might have been a word, if there was not half a loaf shoved in it's way.

"MWUUF?"

It seemed that there were still some constants in the universe, after all. Ennea had gotten distracted from the conversation, and Robert was now thoroughly preoccupied with food - not that Jordan had seen the big man eat before, but had anyone asked him to guess, he would have said that Robert would be the sort to have a scorched-earth policy about buffet tables. Well. That was all right then.

Jordan would still keep half an eye on Madison, but then again, he was watching everyone. If he could help, he would. The thought that they weren't going home again ... no, okay, he didn't really want to think about it either, and he'd already voiced his thoughts. It'd come up again, he was sure. But for now, breakfast. And most importantly ... coffee.

A somewhat deflated donut and a banana were easily enough swiped sidewise as he made his way over to the coffee urns. Their contents smelled like institutional coffee: probably terrible, but scalding hot and saturated with caffeine. That was the important part. He carried his tray over to the table, pausing briefly when he heard the solitary guy at the next table humming. Why did that sound familiar?

He sat down, throwing another glance at the man. There was something prickling at the back of his mind about that tune. Maybe coffee would help bring it into focus.

As predicted, the stuff was barely tolerable, but Jordan could practically feel the first few molecules of precious caffeine making their way into his bloodstream. "Oh, I have missed you so much," he told the coffee cup, not caring at all for the moment that he probably looked really silly.

Ennéa giggled at Jordan hunched over his coffee mug in a state of caffeine bliss. It was nice to see their overly serious leader relax a little. He was far too tense in Ennéa's opinion.

She leaned her head on one syrup sticky hand and marveled at Jordan's ability to drink the stuff straight and black like that. Ennéa never drank coffee unless she had a copious amount of sugar on hand to sweeten it to her liking. And even then she rarely drank the stuff because the resulting sugar and caffeine rush usually ended with her getting a headache, and that never was much fun.

Ennéa's attention wandered around the table, pausing to watch in fascination as Robert tried to stuff several slices of toast into his mouth in one go. He looked a little like that boa constrictor she had seen at the zoo once; Ennéa had watched it eat a baby pig by stretching its mouth impossibly wide and swallowing it whole. She idly pondered if Robert could do something like that. Probably not, she decided. The large man had an equally large mouth but she doubted even he could open his mouth that wide. Though it would be entertaining to watch him try. Ennéa giggled at the thought.

Her giggles grew louder when she noticed that Madison somehow had managed to get strawberry jam on her nose. "You look like you have a zit." she said to the other girl and pointing to her nose. She offered the other girl a napkin with a helpful smile; using another to wipe her own hands that were still sticky with syrup. That was the problem with waffles.

Hands mostly clean, Ennéa sighed contentedly and leaned back in her chair. It was nice being with everyone and just relaxing like this. She basked in the pleasant breakfast atmosphere.

Everyone ate so slowly though and eventually Ennéa got bored. She leaned further back in her chair, tipping it so she could look at the ceiling. It was dull and uninteresting acoustic tile.

Dissatisfied with that, Ennéa flicked her eyes to look upside-down at the person sitting at the next table over. He seemed oddly familiar somehow -- especially the humming. She watched him curiously for several moments then sat back up and twisted around to look at him properly. "Hello." she said with a friendly smile. "What are you humming?"