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Why was he letting this bother him so much? Jordan put his book aside, upside down and open on the quilt to keep his place. He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. Ofelia's accusation lingered, disturbing problems long buried and left to rot. Biased? Yes. He couldn't avoid it. Nobody could. But he tried to keep it out of his decisions, out of his attempts to mediate. Then again, he'd never been in a relationship before. Not one where his emotions and needs were fully engaged.

How deeply was this changing him?

Giving it up was out of the question. Not an option. But when he paid attention, he could sense paradigms and schema subtly rearranging themselves on a half-conscious level, glacially slow in terms of thought processes, but immediate in their effects on the rest of his mind. His personality, even.

Ferros stirred. You're still you, the weapon pointed out.

I should understand myself better.

I don't think most beings understand themselves very well.

I should. Jordan's thumb absently rubbed at the band of Ferros's ring, a habit he'd acquired soon after they'd bonded. He didn't know exactly when he'd started doing it. He hadn't been paying attention.

The sound of the door closing brought Jordan out of his introspection, and he opened his eyes. Harrison had claimed the desk chair, deliberately quiet; he'd probably thought Jordan was asleep. "Hey," Jordan said, smiling faintly.

"Nah, I was just thinking about some stuff," Jordan said, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed closest to the chair. "What've you got?" It looked like Harrison had been intending to read too. Or maybe it was B0nez who wanted to read, considering that there were gamer magazines in the stack.

Jordan hesitated. He should probably just let Harrison read. But - "Am I biased?" he heard himself ask.

"In general. I mean." Jordan folded his hands and looked down at them. "I don't - I try not to take sides. It's bugging me. About Ofelia," he clarified. "It's stupid, I know."

"There's no getting around it sometimes, I guess," Jordan conceded. "I just don't like it." He sighed.

"She pissed Rep off and then refused to leave when he told her to. You know him; you can guess how well that went over. Then she got angry when I didn't believe that he was actually trying to kill her." Jordan shrugged. "Apparently that counts as picking sides. I don't know. It might just be her being crazy."

His thumb rubbed over the band of Ferros's ring. "I don't want to be missing things because of personal biases. If I am, I can't tell, and I wouldn't be able to. That worries me. Regardless of whether Ofelia is being crazy or not."

Jordan listened quietly to what Harrison had to say, and was silent a moment, turning it over in his head. If I have to pick sides ...

"I guess I already made my choice, didn't I?" he said. "If it has to be one or the other - " he swallowed hard, " - well, I'm going to side with the people I love."

"Thanks," Jordan said, with a small, shy smile. "I feel better." Anything else he could think of to say was going to get into embarrassingly mushy territory; instead he got up and moved over so he could kiss Harrison gratefully.

Jordan leaned against the desk instead of going back to the bed. Harrison had a knack for being able to calm him down, steady and grounded and straightforward. Jordan was grateful for that.

"Yeah," he answered. "She's a Sun. Reckless disregard for personal safety and all that." There was a bitter note to the joke. "She's pretty clumsy; you'd think her weapon would be helping out, keeping her from getting so beat up." He frowned.

She said Rue hates her, Ferros put in. Remember?

"That's right, yeah. Ferros just reminded me that she said her weapon hates her. I figured that was hyperbole, since she's so dramatic about everything, but if she wasn't exaggerating, maybe her weapon isn't protecting her. Is that even possible?"