The replacement mattress was thin and not particularly soft, and the foam topper Jordan had put over it to make it a little less uncomfortable wasn't really adequate. He needed to go out and get his own replacement, rather than the one the quartermaster had had in stock, but it seemed less than smart to try to carry a mattress back in the steady rain pouring down on the island, so that would have to wait a while longer. In the meantime, he would have to make the best of it, but he often lay awake for longer than he wanted to, waiting for sleep to overcome him at last.

Tonight he lay awake and uncomfortable, thinking about his talk with Melvin in spite of his best efforts to silence his thoughts and let himself rest. Whoever that is, I want you to be happy with them, Melvin had said, and it was relief and disquiet all at once, because he'd said it himself first, said someone rather than saying a name. He'd let himself open up that possibility for the first time, thinking not of one of two specific people but of someone, an abstract, a placeholder with no real identity. Someone, and what he wanted, what he really wanted, was never going to happen, so why shouldn't he start to think of something else?

The thought inspired a swell of guilt, a matching swell of anger. He still loved them, and he'd been faithful to that love. He'd been faithful to that love with nothing to show for it but pain and loneliness. He'd waited and waited, and what had he gotten? Occasional scraps of attention from Rep, a word or two of reassurance that might as well be empty for all the good it did. He still slept alone in an empty bed in a silent room. He didn't want anyone else, but he couldn't have what he wanted, and the waiting and wanting were eroding him slowly, bit by bit, like water over stone. It might not seem to be having any effect, but steady slow pressure would grind away at him, bit by bit, until all remaining hope he might have would be extinguished. He had nothing now, and he would have nothing then, and what was the difference, and what was the point?

Ferros stirred within him, solemn and sad. What Ferros wanted was straightforward, if not simple. Ferros wanted Jordan and Rep to be on good terms, so that he would not be cut off entirely from Tracey. He would have preferred them to be together still, so that he and Tracey could touch through the hands and bodies of their hunters. In the dreams, they were independent; in the dreams, they were together. If Jordan and Rep were separate, the dreams would be all they had left.

I won't cut that off, Jordan said to Ferros. I won't tear you away like that. Even if they couldn't come to an agreement, he wouldn't ask for the dreams to be stopped, for Ferros's sake, and never mind what problems that might cause for him.

I'm sorry, Ferros said, subdued. They'd thought it lucky, once, never considering that it was even possible that anything would break apart this way.

It's not your fault. Jordan brought his hand up to his face, touching the ring to his cheek in a gentle, affectionate gesture. We did this to you.

He knew what Ferros wanted, but Ferros, too, was affected by his quiet misery. Jordan was unhappy, and in a bond as deep as theirs, that meant that Ferros was unhappy as well. They were in stasis, waiting, continuing to loop through a holding pattern with no end in sight. It was becoming unbearable.

Someone, he thought again, and turned over in an attempt to find a comfortable place to sleep. He didn't want someone else, but he was exhausted, fraying slowly, his hopes breaking down strand by strand by strand. He wanted to be touched. He wanted to be held, and he'd had so very little of that, and it all came down to what lay between him and Rep and how long he was willing to deny himself for the sake of what was left between them, when he barely knew what was left between them in the first place.

There had been the argument in the simulation, left on a frustratingly uncertain note. There had been moments of comfort snatched on the island in the dream. There were the fragile and unsatisfying strands of attempted friendship, heavy with the awkward unspoken knowledge that both sides wanted more. Was it even possible to be only friends any more? If he tore himself away in selfish self-preservation, where would that leave Rep?

Harrison was done with him, and he had to accept that; the island had been a dream, but it had been a shared dream, and Harrison had kept him at arm's length for almost a year, pointedly and determinedly no more than friendly. That hurt, but it was a dull ache, now. He was used to it. In a few more years, it might even stop hurting. In a few more years, he might be able to forgive.

I'm so tired of someone else getting what I want,, and it was true, and it stayed true even if he didn't want it to be true. Resentment was a dark and brittle thing, and he'd barely even let himself admit to it, but it was there, sharp and dark and poisonous. If he couldn't somehow resolve it, it would break things for him. He didn't know how. He didn't want it, and yet here it was.

So much undone. So much unanswered. I want to sleep, he said plaintively to Ferros, but it was still a long unsettled time before sleep took him and plunged him into uneasy dreams.