Jim joined the breakfast line with a heavy heart. He barely managed to offer a smile when Sy fell in behind him, deep in conversation with Aladdin. The two of them were chatting about some school project, but Jim wasn't certain exactly what class it was in.

He slid his tray along the line, absently taking his selections. A scoop of scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy, ham. The breakfast fruit was running low. There was only one dish of mixed fruit left, and otherwise it was just applesauce. Jim picked up the fruit cup and set it on Sy's tray before taking an applesauce for himself.

Sy smiled. "Thank you." He turned back to Aladdin as he added, "See? This is why I love him."

"He is very thoughtful," Aladdin agreed.

Jim left them to their chat. He wasn't feeling up to maintaining a whole conversation. How could he be when he still felt so responsible for not having done more to help protect Braxton? He selected one of the danishes off a tray and grabbed a cup for coffee.

Gurgie checked him out without issue, though Jim had noticed the creature eyeing up his applesauce. The three young men carried their trays over to the table and took seats amongst their other friends. Sy passed Matt his hard boiled eggs. The empty seat among their friends weighed heavy on Jim's heart. They'd left Braxton's seat open, as if he was still going to join them. Somehow, that felt right.

628 was surprisingly chipper. "Hiii!" The alien pressed his ears to his skull in pleasure.

"Hi 628," Varian slid into his place beside Hogarth. "Hello everyone!"

Matt looked up from spreading jam across his toast. "Good morning. Is everyone ready for their weaponry this morning?"

"Yeah! We're taking our fencing test this morning," Aladdin answered with excitement. "It's such a weird style of sword fighting, but it's a lot of fun! Mellow is the class champion, but I'm determined to beat him yet!"

"How is everyone so happy?" Jim demanded. Was he the only one broken up over Braxton's loss? "Don't any of you care about what happened?"

Around the table blank faces stared back at him.

From behind a familiar voice broke the silence. "Uh, what happened?"

"Braxton!" Jim whipped around to face him. "You're still here!?"

"Well, yeah." Braxton laughed and walked around the table to take his place between Matt and 628.

"You didn't know that?" Matt's puzzlement was evident in both voice and expression.

"Well, no," Jim admitted. "You did?"

"Yeah?" Matt glanced at the others. Around the table heads were nodding in agreement.

"Was I the only one that didn't know?"

"Yeah," This time Braxton answered. He casually piled his eggs on his gravy soaked biscuit and picked the whole thing up to eat it. "Everyone else messaged me to find out how the trial went."

Jim suddenly felt incredibly silly.

Braxton snorted in amusement, but otherwise was kind enough not to point out how much needless worrying Jim just did. Or, at least, he was kind enough not to for exactly as long as it took for him to finish his mouthful of eggs.

"Sy, your boyfriend is something else."

"I know," Sy agreed with laughter, "But I love him anyway."

"Wow, thanks, Sy." Jim groused. "I thought you were supposed to support me, not agree with my friends when they're being mean."

"I do support you," Sy soothed. "I just also happen to agree with Braxton's assessment of you. Did you really not think to ask him how it went?"

"I did not."

"Somehow," Zephyr drawled as he approached the table, "I am unsurprised that you have already disobeyed your instructions."

Sy's already pale face somehow went paler. He immediately scooted further away from Jim, his whole body tense. "Zephyr! What are you doing here? Uh, did you hear any of our conversation just now?"

"I did not," Zephyr replied. He took a seat at the edge of their ever growing group. "Why?"

"Braxton was just telling us that he'd come here by force of habit, but hadn't told us what it was he was supposed to be doing differently. I'm going to guess that you have something to do with it?"

Braxton smirked over at Sy, but offered no counter explanation. In fact, the entire table appeared to have silently agreed not to mention Sy's obvious lie.

"I do." Zephyr agreed. "Unfortunately I have been assigned as Rudforest's peer mentor. I will be accompanying him at all times that he is not in class. And this includes, Rudforest, from first thing in the morning until curfew."

"Look, I'm sorry," Braxton sighed heavily. "This is new to me, yeah? I'll remember to wait for you from now on. I just was excited to come tell Jim the good news. Jelly brain over here didn't think to ask me about the trial yesterday, so I knew he'd be wallowing in all the sad, anxious, frightened mess his brain decided to produce, and I just had to come and reassure him that I'm not going anywhere."

Jim nodded overly eagerly. "He's right, I was the only one that didn't ask. I did honestly think he'd been expelled without even a goodbye. You'll let this one slide, right?"

"Please Zephy?" Sy added softly.

Zephyr sighed heavily. "You are lucky that I also want this tiring exercise to be over. No, I will not say anything, so long as this remains your only infraction. I do not intend to needlessly extend this trial of patience."

"Thank you." Sy reached over to touch Zephyr's hand, his earnest, sweet smile turned up at the senior cadet. "We won't let it happen again."

"See to it that you don't."

Braxton rolled his eyes hard, but made no comment on Zephyr's response. Instead he focused back on his breakfast, which was turning into a sloppy mess in his hands. He didn't care that all his other friends, except 628, had opted to take the civil route of using a fork, he preferred his hands. The fact that Zephyr wrinkled his nose in disgust every time another chunk of egg or soggy biscuit hit his tray was just an added benefit.

Varian almost immediately broke their unusual silence. "Okay, Zephyr, since you're going to be with us for a while, I need to know some information from you."

"I suddenly have a sense of impending doom," Zephyr pivoted slightly in his seat so he was facing Varian. "What would you like to know?"

"Does your world have genies?"

"No?" Zephyr glanced around the group, almost as if to see if this was an elaborate prank. "They're not real, everyone knows they're just a legend."

"Do you think you can get me any books you have on these legends?" Varian whipped out his tablet and started tapping away at some document.

"I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do."

"Excellent, thank you, that was everything on that subject!"

Aladdin wink at Sy, a mischievous smile on his face. "Did you know that genies are-"

"Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, not listening!" Varian clasped his hands over his ears and loudly talked over the other boy. "Your information is tainted and will contaminate the results of the study. Bla bla bla bla bla!"

The table dissolved into laughter. Everything was thankfully exactly as it should be.

Well, almost everything.