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He gave her a pat on the back and a non-commit grunt in return because that much was obvious he knew. Having just one cup of coffee was the bare minimum, like a car running with a sliver of space before it was empty, and that was before his poor sleeping habits had been formed as he fixated on his research. It was a wonder Jack had lasted this long before emotionally shutting down; in fact he was pretty sure had the idea of having a warm body in his bed not been so rewarding at the end of that little roller coaster, he would have flat out just said no and left.

That is not the case and you are very aware of that, Owain gently pointed out. There was a lot more wrong with his thoughts, but one thing at a time.

"Wouldn't be a real nerd if I wasn't at least a little left of center socially, right?" he muttered as they made their way down. He did however cast a glance at Chel occasionally as if making sure she didn't actually fall over.

He unlocked his room and yawned as he started to peel his clothes and half-heartedly fold them out of habit, even though he was tossing them immediately on his desk chair anyway. Reports didn't cover his desk this time: while the rest of his room had been recently cleaned and vaccumed, his desk was riddled with small dinosaur sticky notes for some reason, the new ones Ian had gotten him for Christmas. Next to them were more from the same gift, musical notes that apparently meant the dinos were having a silent concert. More gifts and accompanying letters sat off to the side, over half of which didn't seem opened yet. The shelf housed a few smaller ones as well as the candy bags he hadn't opened, the dragon tooth necklace, and several new books; there was also what seemed to be a small assortment of jewelry at the top, complete with a miniature torso stand to hold them. Above his bed hung a familiar green poster, and Barbara leaned against the wall in her usual corner.

Unsurprisingly, the Halloween wall decals had yet to be removed. In fact additional skeleton reindeer had joined their ranks.

"Yeah, hold on." As Chel cleaned up, he toed his shoes off and nudged them under his chair before crouching by the mini fridge. "There's some sour cream and onion Lays in the snack drawer--third one," he amended, pointing it out. "Some Doritos too, maybe some leftover chocolate covered pretzels. I think in here I have...some rum cake, a pack of raspberries, some yogurt, soda, water, beer, whatever." He wasn't a picky person for island food and often ate in the cafeteria, grabbing his luxuries on the go if he deigned to go off island.

"You really want something, I have some whiskey," he added with a glance up. It wasn't very often he saw Chel without her makeup--it looked almost as strange to him as her new hair cut.

He shrugged and grabbed the requested items and a water bottle before nudging the fridge closed with his foot. "Maybe when I move out," Jack said as he handed her the beer and food and put the water bottle aside for himself. "Then I too can learn the secrets of exotic dishes like mac and cheese."

He hovered awkwardly for a moment, then ducked away to get Barbara before crawling on the bed. There was nothing specifically fueling him to do so, just an instinctual act of busying himself as he tuned her to a little machine. It was "business as usual" since he clearly couldn't do "comfort the mourning".

It helped him to focus on something else. He could pretend Barbara was participating in a conversation formed in musical sign language (how was your day, I'm stuck in s**t again, I know you're going to say it but don't, what should I do, what should we do today, what do you feel like doing, why) and answering in her dulcet tones as cleverly as any humanoid. For a while he was both aware Chel existed in his room and also not aware of her. She melded into the crowd of objects he had easier interactions with than people as he decongested his head of conflicting thoughts through random lyricless songs, some made up and some a tribute and all strangely muted in volume to his ears.

But he felt a little better by the time Chel joined him on the bed. The strumming didn't stop as she settled, but it did slow as he glanced at her. "Got some smokes too," he remembered belatedly, in the same tone one said Don't give up.

He snorted softly at the joke anyway because at this point what wasn't bad for your health? "Nah," he said as he turned his gaze back to the frets. "You've had a shitty day. It's only fair I try and make it a little less so. That's what I'd want, you know, if..."

He cut himself off because ******** if he knew what he would want anymore. Certainly not this half-assed awkward as hell effort.

"Probably should've brought you to AK," Jack sighed. "Isn't she team mom?"

Unconsciously he started to lean in for more but stopped himself a second after. (Don't, he chastised himself.) But a tilt of the head was fine, perching it stop hers was safe. He halted the ringing strum he had left hanging and let things sit quietly for a while, eyes ahead at the color-dotted desk and out of season decorations.

(He can still hear Charlotte's criticism: "It's starting to look tacky, I gots to be honest.")

"Doing any better?" he asked. Am I? Are you? "Sleep helps, if you're tired enough."

A part of him immediately rejected the idea of letting her leave, but he said, "If you want to, go ahead. I'm staying up for a little more." Another part was annoyed—make up your mind, where do you want to go and what do you want?—but it was outnumbered by that which sympathized. Processing death or its very real possibility wasn't ever easy; no matter how many visions of his death own he visited, it was still just unnerving enough to scatter his thoughts in the aftermath.

"I could also try a lullaby," Jack offered with only the fair edge of a joke.

He appeared momentarily pleased up until the abrupt question.

Giving her a strange look, he leaned over and uncapped his water bottle. "I never gave it much thought," Jack answered as he stretched back against his pillow. "Had a false alarm once, if that counts." He took a few gulps and decided to add a little more. "Halmoni naturally wanted me to marry a nice Korean girl, too, which was her excuse to try and get me to go to Seoul for a semester since I 'couldn't trust the ones in America'. Think she's the reason why I never dated another Asian," he said rather fondly.

"Zombies wouldn't be the ones I'd be making here, though, if I could." He grabbed Barbara and lowered her off to the side of the bed to make more room. "You?"