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"The police sound an awful lot like Robert," the reply came as Jordan opened the door, "but either way someone's going to bust in yelling." He offered Robert a wan, tired-looking smile. He'd been sorting laundry, putting things away; there was no glass in the widow, but he'd hung a curtain over it. The room was fairly bare, and it was generally obvious, if someone were to look, that the person in the room was in the process of moving in.

Jordan seemed to flinch, very slightly, at make a wish, but he kept the smile on mostly by force of will and said, "Okay, I wish for world peace, or maybe a vacation," and blew out the candle. "Thanks, man. Do you wanna come in?"

"Oh. I'll have to catch a shooting star for that one, then," Jordan said, with a grave nod. His eyes flicked to the other offering Robert had brought as it got slipped under the coffee table, and the smile got a little more genuine again; not because of what it was, but because Robert had remembered, thought of him, and brought cake and a present.

"I'll have to thank her later," he nodded. "I've got forks here somewhere, hang on." The room had a small kitchen, clean and modern but very empty, not even a coffee pot in evidence yet. Jordan took a moment to wash the forks and plate that had been sitting in the sink, then brought them back over to the table. "Sorry, I gotta go shopping," he said, and used both forks to pry a piece of cake loose and onto the plate, then handed one of the forks to Robert before taking a bite.

He wasn't hungry, and he hadn't been eating much, but he'd have some cake, because it had been made for him.

He'd been expecting the question, he was going to have to talk about this and more than once, but that didn't help much. Jordan poked at the cake with his fork. "I left," he said, and, as steadily as he could, "This is going to be my room. I put in for a transfer last night."

He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to explain. People were going to want to know, especially his friends. (He could have friends, he thought with a low edge of unhappy resentment, and then put the thought away, not ready to deal with it or its implications.) It occurred to him that he was going to have to tell America, because otherwise the red-haired woman was likely to keep bugging Rep about the wedding, with the best of intentions. "We've been unhappy for a while," he said, and picked a crumb loose from the cake with one of the tines of the fork. "We ... tried to fix it, but it's just been getting worse." I made mistakes. I made it worse. "I think they'll be okay without me. I'd rather leave and let them patch up what they have than stay and have everything fall apart."

He took several deep breaths, hauling his voice and emotions back under control for now. Then he looked up at Robert. "I still love them," he said. "That's why I left. I want them to be happy." He swallowed down the lump in his throat. "There wasn't a fight, and they didn't kick me out. It wasn't working, and I don't -- the way things are, I didn't see any way it could get better if I stayed." He didn't bother trying to keep his expression controlled; misery and honesty were written on his face. He believed what he was saying, even though it hurt. "Don't think too badly of them," he added quietly. "I guess sometimes, loving someone means accepting that you're -- just not good for them."

He took a bite of cake while he pulled his composure back into place as best he could. World peace, or maybe a vacation. "The island's too small to keep secrets," he said, "but I'm not ready to deal with the gossip just yet. There's probably a betting pool down in the labs. I know how it goes. I'm not asking you not to tell Mimsy," he clarified. "I don't expect you to keep anything from her, and you shouldn't. But please don't talk about it to anyone else yet."

Jordan startled, flinched a little, as Robert swept him into a hug, remained taut as a wire even as Robert reassured him that he wouldn't say anything, tried to comfort him. Robert was crying, and Jordan remembered then that Robert understood, maybe better than anyone else he knew. He'd dug into that sore spot, unthinking, but there wasn't any way around that. Robert understood, and that was a speck of comfort in a sea of grief, and Rep would have been jealous about the hug, but Rep didn't want him any more, either.

Jordan turned his head against Robert's shoulder and let himself take one deep and sobbing breath that shook his whole body and let himself be hugged, because he needed it and he hated to admit it even to himself but he hadn't had to ask.

Jordan stayed where he was for a little while, he would never be quite sure how long, while the tears escaped. If anyone was going to have to witness this, he was mostly okay with it being Robert. Eventually he got it back under control and pulled away, rubbing a hand over his eyes to clear away the remaining wetness there. "Thanks, man," he said, shaky and rough still. "It, yeah, it sucks."

He straightened his back and shoulders and visibly composed himself, drawing the appearance of calm around him like a suit of armor. "The cake's good," he said. "I actually almost forgot it was my birthday. The past couple of years there was some kind of crisis going on, and I missed it."

Jordan winced internally at the casual ruining of a perfectly good shirt. Well, Mimsy probably did laundry, between the two of them, and she probably knew how to get all kinds of stains out of fabric, which was a good skill to have when you had to deal with the kinds of weird stains that tended to get on hunter coats. Not really his business, but it was possible she had better techniques for getting blood out. Maybe he'd ask her sometime.

"Yeah, I wouldn't put it past upper management around here," he agreed with Robert's suggestion, and applied himself to his piece of cake again, determined to at least produce the impression of being okay, even if Robert knew perfectly well that he wasn't. It was less about faking it around Robert, because he trusted Robert not to be an a** about it, and more about himself. If he could act like he was okay most of the time, he could tell himself that he was okay, or that he would be.

(If he'd done that less, whispered a part of his mind that he didn't notice, maybe his guys would have realized how much they meant to him. If. But letting himself break was unacceptable, because in the end nobody else would hold him up, nobody else would protect him, because everyone abandoned him eventually, voluntarily or otherwise, and if he let himself rely on the comfort of others he would have nothing at all left when they were gone.)