Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was the nights that were the worst. During the day, Jordan could train and work, focus on keeping in fighting shape and performing well on missions and duties, stay busy. Have things to do, things to think about, and the ache of loneliness didn't color everything he said and thought and did; it wasn't his life, it didn't define him; he refused to allow it to.

Nights still hurt. He had trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, and in the empty dark of his room the rhythm of breathing and the warmth in the sheets were only his own. When he woke and stared sleepless at the ceiling, it was too easy to slip into a well-worn track of guilt and hurt, of self-blame and dark, despairing thoughts, until sleep departed entirely and he got up to distract himself with something, anything, anything that wasn't being alone with his thoughts in an empty bed.

Tonight he'd gone out jogging, had made several loops around the grounds, letting the exertion and the familiar-strange contours of the fields lit by moonlight wash away the troubling, jagged shapes of feelings he couldn't wrestle under control, thoughts he didn't want to be thinking. He'd slowed to a walk on this portion of the path, watching the edge of the trail and making himself think about the lay of the land rather than anything else. Melvin's voice startled him, and he stopped sharply, looking up. "Hey," he said after a moment, and hauled on a wan smile. "What're you doing up so late? Or early, whatever."

"Couldn't get back to sleep," Jordan admitted, his eyes sliding away, perhaps in embarrassment. "Didn't feel like staring at the ceiling, so I came out to run a while. Two birds with one stone or something." He tucked his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants.

"You look pretty tired," he said after a moment. "Haven't slept yet?"

"I haven't been sleeping very well either." Jordan sighed. "Thought of asking for sleep aids, but then I'd get asked why I'm having trouble sleeping." He nodded at the path. "Want to walk?"

"You have a point. I guess I could." It hadn't occurred to him, and he wasn't sure why. Ferros grumbled a little, and Jordan sighed. "I'm not sure how long it'd last. Ferros doesn't like it when I'm drugged up."

He'd handed Melvin an opening to ask, and expected it. "Not used to sleeping alone any more," he said, and slid a tired, embarrassed glance sideways at Melvin. "Didn't expect that to keep me up, but it does."

"I wouldn't want to be unable to wake up," Jordan said, low-voiced, and a small shudder went down his spine. He'd submitted voluntarily to full sedation when the worm had been in his body, but that had been monitored. The idea of being stuck in sleep without any failsafes other than the drug wearing off was an unappealing one. He shook his head. "I'm probably just going to keep getting up when I wake up."

"I have a full-size now. It feels small and way too big all at once," he admitted, and gave Melvin a thoughtful, sympathetic look. "I feel like kind of an a*****e comparing my problem to yours." The guys were alive, at least, and he knew they were okay. Rin was gone, and the cold stretch of emptiness where she'd been must be so much worse.

"I got a room with a kitchen and a big shower. I feel like I ought to appreciate it more." Jordan sighed. "There's space," he agreed. "I don't know what to do about it." The space that he still automatically left in the closet or on the desk, the way he absentmindedly held the door a second longer than he needed to on the way in or out. The way his stuff was starting, slowly, to creep into that unused space, and even though it only reminded him of what he'd lost, it still hurt to think of losing the habit of leaving it open.

He shook his head wordlessly when Melvin called himself an a*****e, then gave Melvin a long and silent look as the other man went on. When she comes back. Jordan had been there, and he'd seen the aftermath; Rin was almost certainly not coming back. Melvin might be denying it still, holding onto the slim and tiny hope granted by the fact that they'd all seen that death wasn't always quite the final ending. Or maybe he meant it a different way, meant it the way Jordan did when he thought next time I meet them, another place, another time, another world, another life, because he'd seen that in iteration after iteration they'd come together and sometimes it hadn't worked, but sometimes it had. Next time. Either way, even if Melvin was wrong, he couldn't bring himself to contradict the statement. You took what you had and you coped in whatever way you could, and maybe the way you coped was ******** up, but nobody here wasn't broken.

Gently, he said, "If you want her there and she wants to be there, don't push her away." His throat closed up on anything further he might have been intending to say, and he swallowed hard and breathed in and out, slow and steady.

"I'm not looking for anyone." Jordan looked off down the path, his eyes going distant and the corners of his mouth pulling down a little. "I'm -- just going to have to get used to it." He didn't want a replacement, didn't want someone just to occupy a space, and he'd meant it when he'd said that not being married didn't change his feelings, even though that had been before it ended, even though he'd left and he wasn't going back. It had only been a month. He wasn't ready to think about anyone else, and he didn't know if he ever would be.

At Melvin's question, half-rhetorical though it was, he winced a little. The thought hit way too close to home. After a moment, he asked, "Were you hurting each other? Were the problems things you could work out together, still?" Even as he spoke, he was painfully aware that the questions were uncomfortably telling, would probably give Melvin enough information to work out what had happened, at least in rough outline. He swallowed again, choking back the still-raw hurt and regret. "Pushing her away will hurt her just as much. Don't -- don't do it if you have another option."