Growing Orchids

Posted on Sun Oct 2nd, 2022 @ 9:26am by Commander Benjamin Jamesson & Lieutenant JG Calanthe 'Cal' Diaz

Mission: Sojurn
Location: Personal quarters
Timeline: Day 329 18:00
4019 words - 8 OF Standard Post Measure

Hydroponics had been a terrible idea.

It had been his suggestion, weeks back when she'd been despondently melancholy for a change of scenery and stuck in the rut of having nothing to do except recuperate, whatever that was meant to look like anyway. It had taken her a couple of days to follow up and, admittedly, there had been more incentive in potentially running into him than watching the plants grow, but the experience hadn't been terrible and there had been an offer to learn enough to assist once in a while. She collected hobbies like most people collected coins, or stamps, or bad habits, and so adding another to the pile, one that perhaps came with some gardening skills to boot, hadn't been objectionable. She liked flowers. Vegetables nearly counted.

She'd even started to enjoy it for its own sake. After the third visit, she'd stopped looking for him and had shown up for the sake of the experience itself. There was some irony to the fact that she had reached that point only for her next encounter to involve almost walking into him with a trowel. She'd been surprised, almost as if she'd forgotten that her being there was his idea in the first place. A sense of pride had attempted to follow and might have succeeded had he not spoken. Had they not wandered the rows of planters, discussing the impending harvest.

Had she not asked one very stupid question. Did you grow anything differently?

I always wanted to grow orchids.

It had hit like a freight train, the visceral recollection of another time when he'd said exactly that same thing. It hadn't been in hydroponics, but stretched out in bed on a morning where neither of them were in any hurry. The lazy trace of his fingertip over the floral tattoo that followed the curve of her hip. A tattoo that didn't exist but was depicted on a page in her sketchbook, poised for permanency now that she'd made her mind to commit to it. Orchids; her namesake. They didn't feature in the tattoo because she'd found the concept trite to say the least, but she'd understood the sentiment behind his horticultural desire and had gifted him a soft kiss for the show of loyalty. Of love.

Love.

She had dodged, for the last two weeks, other people's vague curiosity over her bouts of quiet introspection. There was enough pressure on the entire crew to pull itself out of the haze of Smith's intrusion that only Lexi had really grilled her about it, and that had set the medical team to take mild interest. She had tried harder then, been more intentional, switched to the terrible-tasting coffee and taken up gardening instead of working out to conserve energy; anything to compensate for shattered sleep and a constant influx of memories that weren't real. She didn't think they were real.

This had felt real.

And now, she had drawn attention again. Had moved so quickly through the corridors that people had turned to see where the emergency was. Cracks in the composure and a very stunned Benjamin calling out to her until the turbolift finally took her away. Nice work, Diaz.

She sank, finally home, onto the floor and pressed her back against the closed doors.

Benjamin had been stunned by the sudden departure of the person he had been trying to avoid but kept running into and had followed confused until he couldn’t with the lift taking her away. He was sure as he took the next turbo lift that it was going to be a poor idea but he could not stop himself from doing it when he knew that something he had said had done something to upset her. He gulped as he raised a hand to her door and knocked hard.

If she was honest, she'd lost track of time. With her entire equilibrium tipped upside down, Cal had lost focused on the mundanity of reality and, with her head cradled in bent arms, was exerting all her effort on trying to stem the flow of imagery that wanted to cram her mind full of things that weren't real. Maybe a minute had passed, maybe half an hour. Probably someone had sent for Lexi. She maintained enough presence of mind to realise her friend wouldn't take no for an answer, and bringing in security to force the door open was just going to attract more attention.

"Open."

Benjamin looked down at her sat on the floor barely allowing him into the room. He stepped around and closed the door and crouched in front of her. “Are you okay?” He demanded.

Why does Lexi sound so weird?

The confusion, added to what already existed, was enough to warrant lifting her head. What greeted her was more bafflement, and the disorientation of what seemed, for a moment, to be her mental landscape's insistence on filling her entire sensory bank with Benjamin Jamesson. It took her a moment of staring to realise it was him and, to her horror, Cal's eyes immediately filled with tears.

"I'm fine," she struggled with, so evidently not. "I mean, I'll be fine, I just need a moment."

The man for his blatant lack of emotions most of the time frowned and lent over pulling her forward, wrapping her into a hug whether she wanted it or not. He could not exactly leave her crying over who knew what. “Of course you will be.” He assured and rubbed her back.

It was such simple kindness, a gentleness from such a hulk of a man that felt immediately familiar and only heightened her fractured perception. Has she hugged Ben before? Her Ben? Maybe? Why was it so hard to remember the difference between then and now? Trembling with the effort to hold herself together, always a victim of the big emotions that defined her personality, Calanthe forced herself to exhale slowly.

He could feel her relaxing but that did not mean he was going to back off yet. “Want to talk about it?” He asked gently, knowing it was more for him now than her. If he had said something wrong, he needed to know what it was to make sure it never happened again.

"I don't know how to."

The plaintive confession, her voice struggling to maintain its usual strength, became the first admission that she'd reached the end of her capacity to keep this to herself. She couldn't just keep not sleeping properly, and this hallucination, if that's what it was, had been the most powerfully compelling yet. She wasn't getting better, she was getting worse, and the past weeks' of concern that Smith had permanently damaged her or, worse, that this was proof that some part of him still lingered, suddenly spilled over as hot tears that dripped from her long, dark lashes.

He slowly moved from crouching to sit on the floor holding her close still. “I’m getting old. My knees.” He said trying to lighten the mood seeing at he was pretty sure this was not going to be a quick fix. “Okay…. Well can I help with any of it?” He offered slightly at a lost how to help her but wanting to either way.

It wasn't the first time they'd sat like this. Not again. Either that, or the way that she molded into his side was such an instantly compelling comfort that Calanthe clung to it like some sort of epiphany. The silence that followed was also a gift she'd unwrapped before, his unhurried capacity to just be with her until she was ready.

"Ben," she started, and in that one syllable, her voice seemed to hold an emotional weight that went well beyond their muddled acquaintance. "I think something's wrong with me."

The man cooked an eyebrow and looked at her confused. "How so?" He questioned softly wanting to understand what is going on.

"Ever since Smith attacked me, I keep getting these...visions? Dreams? I don't know what to call them. They only happened when I was trying to sleep at first, but now it doesn't seem to matter and I can't figure out what triggers them."

Cal paused for a moment, knowing that the explanation wasn't helpful. Now that she was trying to frame the experience in a way that another person could understand, she was fast coming to the realisation that she would require details and specifics to really drive home the point, and those involved a confronting amount of revelation regarding who she had mostly been dreaming of.

"They're like..." Forcing herself to look at him, her dark eyes locked for a moment on the calming blue of his and another wave of longing, so similar to what had overwhelmed her in hydroponics, nearly took her breath way. Her head shook faintly, confusion robbing her of the coherency to forge a clear definition of what she was experiencing. "Memories. They're so vivid." Her voice, little more than a whisper, spiraled slowly into the despair of defeat. "But they're not mine. I'm in them, but they're not mine."

Raw emotion stained the rims of her eyes red as she stared at him.

"You're in them too. Or at least, a lot of them. I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"You know all of this sounds bonkers right?" He asked quickly looking at the look in her eyes that said that she was truly believing what was going on in her head. "But I can see that you really believe it all. Have you... do you have any proof other than..." He indicated the current mess of them on the floor.

"Proof of what? That Smith did something to me?" It was the first time she'd said it out loud and giving it that space, that room to exist, was terrifying. "That he blasted a hole right in my sanity and now I'm just slowly losing it?" Cal lowered her eyes, her head shaking as fresh moisture overwhelmed her. "I don't even know what I'd be trying to prove."

She paused then, an acknowledgement that the barrage she'd been dealing with contained far too many incoherent details to work as a decent narrative. In the absence of any ability to spell it out from start to finish, Cal settled on a reference that would at least answer some of his earlier confusion.

"You told me you always wanted to grow orchids." Fixing her gaze on a point across the room, the brunette's features slackened to an exhausted stare. "You told me today and another time." She faltered then, not wanting to place the vision in the intimate context that it had adopted. "And I had a tattoo that I never actually got, but I drew over a year ago."

Realisation dawned. It didn't really count as proof because Cal didn't believe there was anything that evidence would explain, but it was something she needed to see for herself, a reference to reassure herself that at least one aspect of her recollection was correct. She moved until she could stretch upwards to drag her sketchbook from the desk and then slowly flicked through from the start until she landed on the page she was looking for.

She traced her fingertip over the petals.

"I nearly got it before we left but I lost my nerve last minute and told myself I'd wait until I could rework the design. This is the only place it exists and yet if I close my eyes, I can see it. I remember you...touching it."

Benjamin had a sinking feeling as he took in everything she said. He looked at the piece of paper that she was indicating and picked it up. How could he not remember the tattoo? How could you not remember every moment you spent kissing and caressing it? It was like he was suddenly hit with a bucket of ice. “I... Cal? This is impossible. The other version of you from the other universe my universe had this. But it’s impossible that you know that as no one knew it apart for me.” He said quietly putting the piece of paper down before it ripped in his hands.

The lump in her throat solidified and, for a moment, Cal worried that she'd be able to breathe, let alone talk. Once or twice, she'd entertained the idea that perhaps her experiences were the result of knowing things, now that she understood that different versions of her life existed out there somewhere, but the idea had never taken traction, or at least she'd never allowed herself to dwell on the possibility for too long. In the beginning, it was because the imagery was too terrifying.

After that, it was because it was too tempting.

"Everything is just fragments," she eventually murmured. "Sometimes they come and go so fast that I can barely remember them. Others are more vivid and I..." Her voice trailed off. How could she explain why her mind would collapse in this way? That it would invent so many absurd, melancholy, wistful things? "Things like eggs for breakfast, and everyone celebrating because there were eggs for breakfast." That vision had cropped up a few times. "Listening to everyone butcher 'Happy birthday' in French." A jagged intake of breath nearly counted as a sob of laughter. "Being promoted."

That had seemed overly fanciful.

She looked at him then, her glistening expression full of longing and confusion, and hopeless apology. "Waking up next to you." There was a lot more but she couldn't bring herself to tell him. Guilt twisted her stomach, both at the presumption of her mind to turn him into some idle fantasy, and because of how much she craved those particular moments. It wasn't the worst of it though, and though some of those very simple examples of deep affection were crystal clear, they weren't the most profound.

Her expression darkened.

"I could deal with all that though. Going crazy and making up nice things isn't so much of a problem as not being able to close my eyes without seeing...him." Cal lowered her gaze again and then closed her eyes entirely. Behind the darkness of her lids, the recollection was painfully easy to evoke. "Lexi says it's just the stress but everyone else that he attacked is getting better. Meanwhile, I can't sleep without feeling his hands around my throat and his voice inside my head telling me nobody's coming to save me."

The man closed his eyes tightly as a listen to every word that sounded like a stabbing point in his heart. He shook his head several times as if it would navigate the growing suspicion that he had. He wanted to scream at her that if he had known the other her was in trouble he would have broken down every bulkhead to get to her but he had not know at all. The mess hall was a scene that he played over and over in his head but now it was added to from Calanthe’s point of view. “I think Smith did something to you…” he finally whispered when she stopped talking.

"I know." Her voice was just as fragile. "I'm sorry." Unable to look at him, Cal confessed, "The stuff between us is kind of....intense." With her tone caught somewhere between guilt and the same terrible, all-consuming longing that had overwhelmed her earlier, the brunette shuddered in resignation. "There's a lot of unresolved stuff between Ben and I." No point denying it now. "I guess my brain just decided to use you being here as some kind of excuse."

“No… I think you might have my Calanthe in there.” He finally said looking at her shocked at the possibility of it all. How was it possible that Smith had done that? But then again they barely knew what the being was possible of other than feeding on them telepathically. It almost stood to reason that he had more telepathic abilities.

That's my Cal.

A recollection, not of someone present, but of her father. A manipulation of a phrase to apply the fact that her name rhymed with 'gal'. Somehow, evoking his memory, such a titan in her life, was all it took to send the dominos scattering. All the layers of self-doubt, the uncertainty and unwillingness to pin any sort of explanation on something as factual as legitimate memory, everything evaporated with the implied confirmation in his tone. He recognised her references.

She froze to allow realisation to sink in, the slow drain of ice from head to toe.

It was all real, or had been. Smith had killed her, specifically her, in the way she kept recalling. The greater implication of the life she recalled sat wedged behind that final detail because it, more than the rest of the memories, was responsible for her current frailty. "Oh God."

“Yeah…” The man said slowly.

And if it was real and that had been the way she'd died in his universe, then the woman's last moments had been horrifying. Like a cat toying with its food, Smith had taken his time, spurred on by a genuine menace and the clear provocation of whatever she'd done to irritate him. She hadn't liked him here either, had found him unnerving and slimy whilst the rest of the crew fawned over him. Had she been just as rude to him there? If that was the case, she'd paid the ultimate price but a single pinprick of emotion sat nestled amongst the fear and pain, the sorrow and grief of a mind that knew it was dying.

"She was determined to distract him long enough to give the rest of you a chance," she murmured, accepting the inevitability of his accuracy without fighting it. Having a head full of another person's memories was far more preferable to going insane by her own impetus.

“We did not even realise there was a problem.” Benjamin admitted as he sat down on the edge of the bed hearing the mattress make a noise under his bulk. “I walked into the mess hall after it all happened looking for mood and found everyone dead.” He leant forward putting his head in his hands.

Something inside of Calanthe stirred. Now that she had a proper means of identifying it, she didn't shy from its input but rather saturated herself in it for a moment as she watched him from the floor.

“I am not sure what he hoped to achieve with you but I am so sorry. His hatred for me has done this to you when you are innocent here.” The man whispered wishing he could figure out it all better other than some type of transfer.

"I'll be fine." This time, her gentle tone held a lot more certainty. "Not knowing what was going on was making it really hard but this...makes sense in a way. He and I never got along." She paused, frowning as if listening to something else. "She wasn't taken by him either, so I doubt this was purely your fault."

Watching him for a moment, taking in the stoop of his shoulders and the radiating pain that was so evident now that he wasn't trying to mask it, Cal felt another surge of emotion. This time, it sat outside herself and felt much more familiar. He's suffered so much. Look after him. Slowly picking herself up, she moved to drag her desk chair over and sat directly opposite him, not too close but close enough to reach out and lay a hand over his.

"Ben, I'm so sorry."

It echoed his earlier sentiment but carried the weight of knowledge previously unrealised. Now that she had context for them, memories flitted in and out as a stabbing reminder of everything he'd lost. Everything they'd lost. As muddled as her head was, Cal hadn't reached a point where she couldn't separate her identity from the woman he'd dated but the emotional impact was no less because it was borrowed. More than that, she was realising with sinking dread, this made any attempt at rekindling a friendship infinitely more problematic. It hadn't happened yet but Cal was sure she'd lost something precious too.

Selfishness didn't sit well with the brunette, however, and with dual motivation to nurture and protect, she rallied out of the clutches of self-pity and exhaled slowly. "Listen, these memories are personal. The last thing I want to do is intrude so we don't have to talk about them again. I'll be okay." She hesitated, trying to ignore the ache in her chest, "You need to worry about yourself. You've been through hell."

“But so are you now.” The man sighed softly to himself but did not look up. “They are personal… we went through a lot.” He could not even begin to explain what had been going on between them. It had been beautiful and something unexpected. “You could judge our age difference but it is no
different than O’Connery and Gerhard in this universe. I did not use my position I swear. I actually fell for her.” He said feeling the need to defend the relationship even to another version of her.

"Hey, she wasn't that young."

It was a push, trying to find any speck of humour in the situation, but the fake protest managed to put a faint smile on Cal's face briefly. It was best, she decided, that she never attempt to explain this sensation to him, or anyone for that matter. The way that references to his other life sparked a connection within her that hadn't been earned and couldn't be capitalised on. Part of her didn't just remember events from a third person perspective; she remembered being the Calanthe Diaz of his time stream, and though Smith hadn't been able to gift her an entire lifetime, there was enough. Enough to know just how much his last sentiment had been reciprocated.

"And I know." Again, it felt wrong to reference anything, to indicate just how much of a very private relationship now resonated inside her head. "More important, she knew."

This ends now. She couldn't have this conversation with him. Couldn't trust herself not to become more emotionally entangled than she already was. It had only been minutes but already the longing was in danger of turning to stark envy.

"Like I said, we don't have to talk about it." She sat back then, gifting him some physical distance. "I'm sure I only know snippets anyway, they'll probably fade over time." It hurt, to pull away when so much of the chaos was a vacuum straight towards him but it couldn't be helped. He'd never see her as anything more than a poor substitute.

“You need to see the doctors.” He said finally looking up. He looked tired and like he wanted to cry but he looked her straight in and offered a reassuring smile. “It’ll be okay.” He said gently.

The part she had dodged for the last couple of weeks. Cal wasn't fond of the idea, though it was less alarming now that it didn't seem like a sign of mental decay. "I will," she promised, and realised she meant it. Maybe seeking something to help her sleep would break her out of the nightmare's repetitive insistence. Perhaps, if it was strong enough, it would numb some of the pain of looking at him when he was like this.

Somewhere, now buried within her, someone wanted to reach out and hold him.