Disclaimer:  They all belong to Best Brains, Inc.  I just borrow 'em in a non-profit kinda way.

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"Yeah! Yeah, that's it! You get goin' and I'll stay here, and I'll get busy being a man!"

Yep, he could still act when he had to.  Mike watched for a moment on the outside of the conversation as Joel left the SOL, propelled by the encouragements and sentiments of the 'bots and himself.  He didn't particularly pay much attention to what exactly was being said, hearing them, hearing the Mads, but not listening to them.

Being a man, eh?  He supposed there were worse things said in the history of humanity, but daaaaaamn, that one kinda stung a bit.  So what if he still had a teddy bear?  It was all sentimental, really!  There was absolutely no insecurity involved in sleeping with a teddy bear that smelled like home, like happier days, like...

Huh.  Mike's jaw worked for a moment in something approaching an epiphany, but since he was Mike, that epiphany just whisked right by without so much as a wave.

Pacing a few steps now that the bridge had cleared out and the 'bots had gone off to talk in whispers, he tilted his head and thought.  Not too fast, really, still trying to come to an understanding of what had just taken place.  A man.  Be a man.  Learn to be a man.  This said by someone who, though very intelligent and so sincere in moments, had turned his back on what he had created.

Mike stopped.  He looked for a long moment at the door Joel had left through, then at the monitor, then at the three lights on the console as it started to assemble.

"...the years I spent here on the Satellite of Love were the best damn years of my life..."

Joel meant that.  The first moment Mike had seen him, he could see that much -- the other man just had a look of reliving a moment, a moment he couldn't have again but wanted.

So why had he turned such a complete 180?

Mike frowned.

It was the tube socks, wasn't it?

That had to be it.  'Well,' Mike thought, leaning his elbows on the desk, 'I guess I'd be a little creeped out if someone was borrowing my tube socks for years and years.'  Smiling a bit now that he had found what he considered a plausible explanation for Joel's attitude change and burying any doubts he had deep, he headed off to find the 'bots.  He was still musing a little bit about it (and confusing himself) when he found them in Servo's room, looking out the viewport.

"Hey guys."

"Hey Mike," Servo answered, though his domed head didn't turn.

Crow made a noise that was half-greeting and half-dismissive, and Mike took that as an invitation and weaved a careful path through the waist-high piles of underwear to join the two looking out. "I figured it out," the farmboy stated, almost proudly.

"Quick, contact the Guiness Book of World Records," Crow said, sarcastically.

Mike shot the gold 'bot a briefly annoyed look, but then beamed back to his usual smile. "Well, y'see, I was wondering why Joel would just up and leave like that, y'know?  And I think I have it all figured out."

Servo turned, a strange note in his voice. "Really?"

Mike nodded. "It was the tube socks.  He was freaked out because I've been wearing his socks ever since I got here."

Crow just started laughing, shaking his head.  It was a halfway sincere laugh even, which was a nice sound considering that his creator just up and left him for a second time.  Servo even chuckled a little bit, hovering in a small circle.

"Makes perfect sense.  I mean, who knows where someone's feet have been, right?" Mike grinned, leaning back on a pile of boxers like a lounge chair. "There're all kinds of funguses a person can get, and maybe he was working himself up about all those foot diseases."

"Besides foot-in-mouth disease?"  Crow snickered, trying not to let himself sound bitter.

"Or foot-in-guacamole disease?" Servo added, much easier than Crow in his tone.

Mike nodded, grinning wider. "Or worst of all..." a dramatic pause "Foot-in-stinky-festering-pile-of-dog-vomit-disease!"

The 'bots giggled a bit, and Servo spoke for both of them, "EWWW!  Mike, that's sick!  Besides, that can't be worse than foot-in-Joe-Don-Baker-oiled-flesh-crease-disease."

"Uggggggghhhhh..." Mike shuddered from head to toe.  He wasn't sure he could top that one, and he stood, carefully detaching a pair of red and white, heart and Snoopy boxers from where it static-clung to his pantleg. "Okay, I'm gonna take a shower.  A loooong, hot, sterilizing, burn-all-the-nasty-images-from-my-mind-kinda-shower."

Servo hooted in triumph, and Crow snickered a bit.  Mike shook his head in amusement, making his way back around the underwear yet again to get to the door unscathed.

"Hey, Mike?"  Crow said, just before the farmboy was about to step out.

Mike paused, looking back. "Yeah, Crow?"

Crow nodded, sagely, looking from the window to the human. "The measure of a man ain't what he says, or knows, or what kinda socks he wears."

Silence fell for a brief moment as Mike absorbed that, and then he smiled.  "I know."

He carried that with him when he walked out.