Rewind. Breath.

Posted on Sat Feb 18th, 2023 @ 4:15pm by Lieutenant JG Calanthe 'Cal' Diaz & Commander Benjamin Jamesson
Edited on on Sat Feb 18th, 2023 @ 5:16pm

Mission: Sojurn
Location: Hysperia
Timeline: Day 233 Late Evening
7408 words - 14.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Benjamin was not lost enough in his own depression and selflessness that he did not feel the weight of what the Staff Sergeant had thrown his way. It was just another thing that weighed down on him - Maybe he had been wrong. It was difficult to admit that he might not have been seeing things the correct way but he was at a loss on how to approach it. He had asked Isaac but the man had just smiled and shrugged, he had already shared his view on how he was seeing things.

He had asked a few crew members around in the shared lodgings about Calanthe and found where she was staying. He had to admit he was wrong before word got back about what had happened with Cusack and made things a lot worse for him. He pressed the chime to the room knowing it was late and he might be waking her but she needed to hear it.

Utterly oblivious for the moment to the fists that had been flung in her honour, Calanthe had spent the day trailing Sloosh around the vast central library in an attempt to pin down exactly what it was the Realian wanted to document. Trying to absorb their hosts' capacity for information storage and retrieval had left her instantly envious but also utterly overwhelmed and when he'd patiently had to show her for the fourth time how to insert an isolinear rod the right way up, the brunette had been about ready to declare herself far too unworthy of the task of linguist representative to an entire species. When she'd finally crashed back through the door to her lodgings, the new snowfall had already started and whatever had transpired had not left any clues by the way of unread emails the way news would normally have travelled on board the ship. People were preoccupied and spread out. She'd kind of been enjoying the breathing room herself.

But the solitude was a different matter and it had taken the ability to trickle out across an entire city for Calanthe to realise that she hadn't done a great job of maintaining friendships lately. Ever since Smith really, whose intent had likely been to somewhat isolate her in the first place. Lexi was a constant but this was such a perfect opportunity for her and Gerhard to spend time together in actual privacy that Cal hadn't had the heart to bother her friend too much. As would ultimately be revealed as extreme irony, it was Nate that had sought her out a couple of times just to make sure she hadn't fallen into a snowdrift. He was tolerable again now that he'd accepted the only level of friendship she was willing to afford him, but even he had to seem preoccupied and breakfast seemed to be the only guaranteed appearance she could count on from him.

Which came with its own issues. Breakfast wasn't his meal.

It wasn't as if the person it belonged to was making any haste to claim it. Talking to Ben had made things worse, finding out what was going on in her head had relieved concerns about what it might have been but driven a wedge she couldn't figure out how to budge. She figured she understood, she had memories she shouldn't and that meant intruding on places she hadn't been invited to. Maybe just let him grieve first. Lexi's attempt at consoling made sense but was awfully hard to do when part of you now remembered a time when you'd never have let him go through this alone. That was before she even considered how prone she was to feeling that way about him before all this.

It was a mess.

As was her hair. Wrapped in a blanket, dressed for bed but huddled instead on the sofa as she squinted bleary eyes at a Realian children's book she was determined to figure out how to read, Cal looked up at the sound of her door chime and frowned. Logically, unless Sloosh hadn't absorbed any information about human sleeping patterns, it was only likely to be one of two people and neither of them was the type to just ring the bell and wait. "Come in?"

The man pressed the door release and strode in blinking in the light as he tried to make sense of the room. He tore off the beanie hat he had been wearing and shook out his hair as he took in the scene. She was practically ready for bed and he was disturbing that. He had been so sure outside the door but now stood there dripping from the snow he was faltering. “Sorry. I know it’s late.” He stumbled through. “But I have fucked up and I need to apologise to you.” It was simple and honest to the point he swore. It was a side that only engineers saw of him most of the time, the raw engineer who did not give two craps who thought him uncouth and gruff.

There was one person who knew him better than all that, who knew what it meant when he walked into the room wearing the wrong version of himself. Keeping her pushed to one side wasn't an easy task; she was stubborn and opinionated and she loved him. There hadn't been a lot of space for her when he was actively avoiding the messenger but Calanthe took one look at the dishevelled hulk of a man, who seemed little more than a husk, and rose from the couch to drag her blanket over, worried eyes studying his face intently. "I don't understand."

“Neither do I today.” The last few hours had been a whirlwind that he did not understand completely himself but he was slowing himself down to understand it all a little better. “But your friend Cusack accused me of fucking with your head when I have been actively trying to not do that by avoiding you so whatever life you had built here and whatever relationship you were in could continue without my presence affecting it because… I know these memories are a complication that most likely messing with your head but I am trying to be the better man here and let you do what you want…” It all came out in a rambling sentence that he was unsure if he had gotten everything out.

One of the things that she had agonized about, which she had then attempted to completely ignore and not even think about, was a comparison between the woman he loved and herself. In a very similar vein, Calanthe had tried not to barge into his life as if there was an expectation she belonged there, despite the fact he was a literal ghost risen from the grave to resemble a missed opportunity she'd never stopped grieving. He had been the reason for her calling off things with Nate, or at least his dead counterpart had been, finding herself not in the least bit ready to compromise on the kind of man she let into her life when she'd come so close to such a better prospect. It hadn't been easy to pull back, none of them knew what the future might bring and there was more to Nate than most tended to see, but he was...complicated. The wrong shape.

Not Ben.

And so, not without hope that she'd return home to Earth with time to grieve properly and find an actual prospect that better suited her life goals, Cal had opted for solitude and been mostly okay with it. Now her life was stuck in rewind and old prospects had returned but they weren't prospects anymore; just a more visceral reminder of what could have been.

His rambling made very little sense. She plucked a name out that served as a good starting point. "I don't remember giving Staff Sergeant Cusack a free pass to be speaking on my behalf." The clench of her jaw instantly put to bed any notion that the pair of them had been as close as Jamesson had interpreted. For the second time that night, someone looked fit to settle things with their fist. Feisty when angry, Cal's brow furrowed as she swallowed back her frustration at the interference and did a much better job than the marine had at talking through her anger. "I certainly didn't give him permission to give you the impression I was in a relationship with anyone." It was about there that Ben's message had got a little warped.

“No, I gave myself the impression that you had a relationship going on. And I thought it was him and I warned someone off of him after catching them in a compromising position but I was wrong and I should not have assumed anything.” There it was his mess up and hope for some type of mercy from the anger that was going to be brewing and directed at him any moment. “You deserved to hear that apology from me and not anyone else.” He had tried to be the better man and to leave her to it all despite how much it had made him sick to his stomach and want to disappear into the nearest black hole.

Minutes ago, she'd been trying to translate the antics of Ado'm, the little blue blobby thing. Might have been a fish. Cal hadn't decided yet. Now she was trying to decipher the distraught engineer and the only thing that was giving her any reference point was the overriding compulsion from within to let him talk. To sit him down, to hold his hand and to get him to spill everything. The original impulse wasn't hers as such, though the memories were starting to embed themselves enough that it was harder and harder to tell where the separation was. As she watched his expression collapse under his desperation, however, Calanthe realised that she didn't need help from a phantom inside her head to worry more about him than whatever apology he thought he owed. Gossip was cheap and easily ignored. The lengths he was going to, however, to disappear from his own life.

"Ben." His name fell tenderly from her lips, the only emotion behind it pure, gentle concern. Compassion softened Cal's features. "You're really not doing okay, are you?"

The impulse to say he was fine so strong that he opened his mouth to actually say it then slammed it shut and shook his head. “No…” with that simple admission, his wall broke and he sunk to the chair that was at the dining table as his strength left him. It was easy to admit it but it did not help the emotions that were threatening to come out inside of him.

It was hard to call it progress. Watching him suffer broke every piece of fractured parts that somehow coalesced to form her whole. Getting him to stop and admit defeat was something though because there hadn't been any way forward through the steel wall he'd erected. Calanthe had tried to remind herself that it was reasonable, that he was in pain and that seeing her wasn't likely to bring the closure he was seeking, but avoidance wasn't going to work. How could they spend the rest of what might be a very long time hiding from each other?

There was no temperance to her reaction now, none of the second-guessing that had plagued them both. The moment his stoic frame had crumpled into the seat, Cal simply let instinct take over. Trying to think and plan and plot a course hadn't worked, maybe a purely emotional response would yield something. Short steps brought her alongside and, without hesitation, she swung the blanket around his back and then sat on the arm of the chair to ease him sideways so that her chin could find a place amongst damp hair to nestle. There was no need to attempt to wrap her arms around him, it was his head that she gently cradled and, without hesitation, Cal pressed her face against his temple.

"You don't have to be okay," she murmured. "But if you think you're some sort of imposition on my life, you're wrong." She lowered her head until her forehead settled where her nose had been resting. "Just talk to me."

“I am… I am not sure if it really understood but I messed up. The staff sergeant was lucky to have gotten the first punch in and that I was not more than one drink in to respond straight away and that Voznyuk stepped in. It is a mess of my own calling but I thought I was helping in keeping your life on track.” It had been all he could think on to try and not deviate her life from how it should have been without him crash landing there and always taking over without meaning to.

The punching would have to wait, though she filed it away for curiosity's sake later on. "You keep saying that," Cal replied softly, letting him go long enough to pull over her own chair to sit opposite him. "But what makes you think my life has a track?" It sounded melodramatic even to her ears and Cal huffed a faint scoff of laughter and then leaned against the table to prop her head up on a balled fist. "I handle communications, drive Lexi around the twist, beat Gerhard at poker and go to bed alone. Yeah, Nate and I tried for a little while but I just..." It was her turn to struggle with an explanation. "He was a rebound and I didn't realise it at the time because the person I was rebounding from was dead." Her dark eyes found his and hoped he didn't miss her meaning. "And also hadn't been more to me than a friend. It wasn't really a fun time to realise after he was gone how much I wished I'd done something to change that."

As an admission, an explanation, it didn't really fix things however. With a sigh, Cal redirected her gaze towards the window for a moment and tried to arrive at something that might actually get them over whatever this hurdle was. "I don't have the life you think I do," she eventually said quietly. "Most of the time, especially lately, it's just me on my own."

“Because it should have a track. You should have had someone to keep you going.” He said bluntly. Maybe it was his own need for her to have something good that had blinded him to what was really going on here. “I am sorry I… I messed up in trying to not mess up.” He sighed and scrubbed at his hair in a frustrated way as if it that would help in the slightest. “You have your own problems and I should not have assumed to try and fix them.”

With her gaze still directed at the swirling snowflakes outside, Cal smiled faintly. "Messing up trying not to mess up is my trick," she pointed out, finally allowing her gaze to drift back to meet his.

All he had to do was say it aloud and she would understand his descent into unravelling more so than his colleagues in some respect. He had isolated himself away from anyone who could offer anything to help. “I am in love with you or more precisely my version of you and I … it is hard seeing you here and I saw you guys together and assumed. I’ve made a complete ass of all of this.”

Hearing those words was supposed to be a joyous thing, at least when they came from someone you so desperately wanted to hear them from. His qualifier had hit the nail on the proverbial head though and Cal weathered the flip-flop of her stomach to breathe through the vice-hold on her heart. "I can't tell from her memories how much we're alike." Her voice was thin, her eyes dropping to stare at the tabletop because it was just easier to focus when she couldn't see his pain. "Part of me hopes nothing at all, but it's a very small part. The rest of me just wants..."

She turned her head towards the window.

"...what it can't have. You haven't made this mess, Ben, it just is messy."

He nodded crouched over a little as he settled for holding his head in his hands for a moment and just stared at the floor. Something blank would do something to calm the emotions that were threatening to over power him. “It really is messy.” He finally whispered sitting up properly. “I am not here offering myself on a plate or anything so please this is not that. I would accept you just telling me to get out at this stage as I know how broken I am but … if you want me I want nothing more than to hug you.” He said slowly.

For the first time, as she whipped her head back around to stare at him, Cal was met by the gaze of someone who she instantly recalled as a man capable of seeing right through her. Up until now, his thoughts had turned inwards and his own stare had been glazed over by inner turmoil. All she saw now was Ben, vulnerable and defeated, and it wasn't through the lens of somebody else, nor was it the Ghost of Christmas Past come back to haunt her. It was this Ben, in this reality and somehow the pair of them had to find themselves within all this. They were the only ones who really understood what the other was going through.

Rising slowly, a single swallow her best attempt at calming the throb of her pulse against her throat, Cal held out a hand to pull him up from the seat. The height difference was significant but not insurmountable and she realised, even before she let him pull her towards him, that they'd already figured out how to navigate it. They knew how they fit together. Arms wound around his stooped neck, Calanthe screwed up her face in a valiant effort to stay dry-eyed and exhaled as a sudden woosh as they suddenly clicked together, a pair of magnets drawn by each other's pull.

Ben closed his eyes as she pulled on him and he followed her path to the hug easily. It was a hug that made you feel safe and loved, and it was a hug that lasted just long enough to make you feel completely embraced despite the height differences between them. He needed it and for a moment he just stopped juggling all the plates and expectations for him dwindled away until all he could think about was them.

“Thank you.” He whispered pulling back enough to look down at her and offered a sad smile. He was trying to put his thoughts into some type of order but the closeness of her was perfect and he would die happy if he did now to have her that close again.

Her smile reflected a similar melancholy. "Always." And she meant it. Cal was aware that there were complications around the sentiment, that this was still too much of a muddle of each other's perceptions of ghosts, but somewhere amidst all that there had to be room for him, and her. Some way of functioning. Allowing herself to stay within the circle of his arms despite knowing that it was a risky place emotionally for both of them, the brunette nevertheless revealed her suitably for her job by choosing her next words wisely. "I think this is something we have to go through instead of trying to skirt around it. We've both lost someone who changed us and I know acting on those feelings is probably risky. But you can't be so different to him, and I hope I'm not so different to her, that there isn't some hope that there's something here that both of us knows we'll need if we're going to make this trip home. I want a relationship with you. I want to get to know you." Deflating slightly from the fatigue of it, Calanthe sighed. "It may not be the same. I realise how serious the two of you were, maybe you won't be able to find a way back to that with me." Her dark eyes found his again. "But I'd really like it if you stopped assuming that I'd rather you just left me alone. I frankly can't think of anything worse."

“I would like that chance to get to know you better too.” Ben slowly nodded as his gaze held hers and he smiled more. He leant out and caressed her face with a finger before pulling back. “You are no matter the universe the more elegant of us and have a better way with words.” He said trying to find words despite the emotional state his mind was in. His Calanthe had changed him for the greater good but now he felt vulnerable and that was not where he often found himself in or out of a relationship. “Slowly...” Isaac would be scared and proud of the conversation he was having there but he hoped it would be the right choice and the man would be happy for him. He took a deep breath and sat back on his chair looking up at her.

"Friends first, right?" And despite the wistfulness behind her eyes, Cal's demeanour suggested a grounded and sensible understanding that it was the right course for them. They didn't know each other, the closest she could get was a handful of memories that weren't her own and they simply managed to give her hope, not certainty. Impatience now would only cost them in the long term; if things did turn out far too different, or too difficult, for them to move past a platonic connection, rushing into anything would be devastating later on. Healing was more important.

Moving towards the small kitchen space, with its fancy buttons and ability to produce food and drinks out of thin air, Cal stood for a moment in front of the contraption she'd only had a crash course in working and winced hesitantly. "I'd offer you a drink but I'm worried if I touch any of these buttons, something's going to explode. You must be in your element," she added, tentatively flicking a green switch that seemed to turn a lot of flashing lights on. "Some of this technology is beyond me."

“Right… first.” He agreed. He need that moment of clarity to relearn how to be around Calanthe when he had spent the last month or so ignoring her and anything around her. The man rose from the chair that squeaked relieved that the bulk was no longer there putting a strain on it. “I am in my technical element. It’s intriguing and blows my mind at the same time. They are so far advanced but a lot of it is simplistic.” The basics was they had different materials to work with. “It’s straight forward like anything technical apart from this machine or at least the one in my room. It will only give me green sludge. I do not like green sludge.”

"Green sludge would be variety, at least. I can only get it to make what I can only assume is fish paste. I don't know what it would be used for, I can't think of any way that I'd eat it, but a mug of it sure isn't appealing."

Cal squinted at the device, just another enigma in need of translation, only in this case whatever language it used wasn't something remotely intuitive. Deciding that she couldn't face another disappointment, not one that would leave a stench in her small igloo of a room right before bed, she moved instead to the more traditional option of boiling water in a vessel. The little sachets of premixed whatever it was were at least palatable and she'd been having fun determining which ones she liked and which ones tasted like crab. With the kettle, or the best approximation of one, set to heat, Cal pulled down the stash she'd amassed as some sort of personal research venture and started waving offerings at him. "Do you want purple-swirl-with-gold-lettering or minty-green-with-a-picture-of-a..." She held it up and then stretched it out towards him. "That looks like a sad frog with an umbrella, right?"

The humour wasn't forced, for all there was some intention behind her mood. As with most things Calanthe set her mind to, she wasn't about to waste time starting-over with Ben worrying about whether or not he'd appreciate her train-of-consciousness tendency to pick out life's little absurdities. Either he'd find it familiar or refreshing, one or the other, and whatever the case, he'd have to get used to it. Lexi was available for lessons on navigating Calanthe Diaz's Have you noticed? query-cycle, though if Cal's memory served her correctly, he wouldn't need it.

“Yes certainly a frog with an umbrella. It looks more enjoyable and interesting.” He offered smiling sadly at the offered selection. “Aren’t some of those the narcotic ones?” He had through he had observed some people in the cafe that he had been drinking similar satchels and looking stoned but maybe he had misread the situation.

A pair of wide eyes confirmed Cal's obliviousness. "Really?" She regarded the sachet in her hand with fresh wariness. It was entirely in keeping of her luck in any universe to be the one person to stumble into recreational drug use whilst mistaking it for simple low-level stimulants. At the very least, her surprise seemed to reassure that she hadn't collected them with the express purpose of wiping herself out. Turning back to her stash, Cal picked up the container and presented it to him. "Okay, I can only vouch for a couple of them." She studied his face intently, eyes alive with a familiar daring. "You want to risk it?"

The man shrugged. Things couldn’t get any worse, and he was out there to have an adventure after all that was the reason why he had first joined Earth Starfleet over a decade ago. “But really I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people stoned on these. It is up to you, I could just go we can carry this on another day.” He offered leaning against the counter and leaned over to sniff the satchel that he had picked. “Smells minty.”

"But I had this caramel one!" Holding up the packet in question, Calanthe stared at it with fresh suspicion. "I mean, it tasted somewhat caramel. I don't think I felt any kind of buzz." Frantically, as was somewhat typical of her it had to be said when dealing with the consequences of oblivious impulsivity, Cal replayed the last day or so in her head. "There's no way." Yanking out another of the bronze-coloured package, she set the container aside and turned to pull down two mugs. "Well, now I've got to know." She cast him a sideways look and smothered a twitching grin. "You've been here five minutes and you're already a terrible influence."

The man smiled more and dumped the minty green satchel into his own mug before pouring some water into his mug and watching it all turn gloopy. “Most likely safe options.” He said trying to not compare the lack of impulse control that both versions of Calanthe seemed to have. It was difficult not to compare so he kept the thoughts close and nodded.

"So I see the obsession with mint rings true."

The observation was far less careful about the comparison but was spoken in a tone that didn't seek to make a great deal of fuss over it. Whether they realised it right away or not, it was also a snapshot of the complimentary differences in their personalities; Ben's reserved and careful precision when it came to his work and conduct, and Calanthe's far more passionate and creative flair. She wasn't capricious, she certainly wasn't thoughtless, nor was she fickle or indecisive. If anything, she was the far more stubborn of the pair, though the jury was out on how close that race was. To Cal's way of thinking, comparison was the whole point of spending time together and was natural and hard to avoid. Where they needed to draw the line in the sand was judging based on similarities and differences.

Very carefully, she picked up her mug and sloshed the contents around in circles. Now that she had some concern over the drink's intentions, it was hard not to smell undertones beyond the very obvious toffee-caramel. "I suppose we ought to be thankful that they have anything we can digest at all." And it was ridiculous after so long on limited fare to be picky but the cuisine was just another part of Realian culture that was going to take a moment to adjust to.

"I like mint." He said smiling with a bit of a blush. "Mint hot chocolate and I am happy. The crewman in hydroponics... Jones said I could have as much mint as I liked as it grows wild otherwise and it was one less herb for him to worry about." It was the simple things that made him happy if he was honest. Mint just gave him the lift he needed. "Very thankful... In my universe we turned up at a planet that used some type of mineral from the mud... it was not an enjoyable couple of days trying to process that to give more protein to our resequencers." There journey had just been off my a couple of light years but it had changed some of the details enough to give them others stories to tell.

A mutual love of mint was a good connection to retain, though Calanthe was left to wonder if it had made her counterpart sneeze as much as she did. The glimmer of divergence from her own experiences was far more enticing prospect for further questioning, however. Taking her maybe-caramel drink, Cal wrapped both hands around the mug and leaned back against the counter. "Mud burgers? They don't sound a lot more appealing, at least in principle, than our swamp patties." The brunette huffed with soft laughter. "Even more reason to learn how to use these magical food dispensers, I live in the desperate hope that I can train one to make a decent truffade." For someone with a partially-French palate, the absence of cheese had been the hardest to bear.

Benjamin nodded. “If anyone has been able to make one of these create something so ... french best to speak to Leroux." If anyone could make someone do something like that it would be the Captain. He had spoken to her recently about the thing she had desperately missed over the last year and food was the bigger one. "It is all protein end of the day. Molecules shifted to make new things... rinse and repeat." He shrugged. It did not make a difference to him just that he eat. He took a sip of the drink and smiled at the minty flavour.

"She and I have consoled each other more than once by swapping recipes." The best part of sharing a departmental discipline with the Captain was Leroux's tendency to sneak back into the Communications office to count it as 'down time'. Cal liked the woman, found her easily relatable and definitely someone with excellent taste in food. "Though eventually it becomes self-inflicted misery and we promise never to do it again until the next time." Cal grinned. "Have you tried much of the actual food they serve here yet? There's a heap of eateries nearby, I've just spend most of the day in the Central Library."

"Not really. I got off went to the bar had an incident then came here." He said slowly with a shrug as he took another sip of the drink. His day had been pretty strange, to say the least, and he was realising it had been strange since he had gotten off the ship. "She is a good Captain. It has been nice reconnecting with her when my version died nearly a year back." He been trying to connect with who he could without causing to much heartache.

Calanthe regarded him for a moment over the top of her mug, a long sip giving her time to consider the broader picture. It had been an easy pitfall to see his experience only through the lens of the relationship he'd lost but there was a whole gamut of muddled up details that must have been making things weird. "How different is it?," she asked gently but with fairly typical curiosity. "It's got to be hard, you've gone from being in charge to not even running Engineering. Some of the crew composition is different, I assume. Your doctor, for example."

The man swished the almost hot chocolate around his mouth and sighed just a little as she tried to form the words that he knew were going to have to be spoken. “The crew was slightly different. Maybe 25% different but most of them at the base level were the same. Being no longer in charge is probably for the best at the moment. I needed a break from all the requests and date. I have been enjoying really just getting down to repairing stuff. It has been nice getting back to basics with myself and the ship.” He said the ship fondly, she was his second lady after all. He had always had a good relationship with the ship but this ship here was not at all as nice. The relationship was strained.

There was a wistfulness to Cal's smile that she didn't elaborate on, though a reflection on the fact that she had only known a version of him as an engineer perhaps suggested where her fondness stemmed from. "Well, if you could talk to her and maybe convince her that falling to pieces all the time isn't necessary, I'm sure we'd all appreciate it." This last problem had been very scary for a while, and though there was no doubt that the Realian's intervention had been a god-send, Cal didn't like just how close to miraculous the odds actually were. Somewhere, in yet another universe, they would still be stranded.

“Well this ship does not quite like me.” He admitted with a shrug and an awkward look. “She does not trust me and I do not trust myself there yet.” He scratched the back of his neck and offered a confused look. It was hard to explain to someone who was not an engineer but it just felt like he was out of synch with everything including the ship.

A faint half-smile flared as wistfulness in Cal's eyes again. "She'll come around," she said gently, aware of the loaded meaning. "She's probably just wondering why you were gone so long."

With the conversation circling the inevitable, the brunette turned to put her stash of questionable concoctions back into the cupboard and wandered over to claim the armchair, leaving the sofa for Ben's larger bulk to sink into if he wanted to follow. "Do you think there's anything here that we can take with us at least?" She'd been swept up by similar thoughts when it came to the data storage systems Saloosh had introduced her to.

The man slowly followed and sat down on the chair, testing it before sitting back and relaxing a little. He shrugged as he just stared into the minty green-flavoured concoction. He shrugged. He was not sure as he could not claim to know much about the planet, other than they had concoctions that got people high and had machines that were far more advanced than anything he had seen before. The Vulcans would be envious to say the least. “I am not sure at all. I have not done much exploring really other than the bar and here.” He explained.

"Really? You should come see the Central Library tomorrow, the storage systems they have for archiving are insane." It wasn't an engine so Cal knew it would probably have limited appeal but, despite all her issues making it work, there were just so many advanced features to the interface that she'd been like a kid in a candy store. "They have, like, automated projections that you can activate that will let you interact with them. First time I set off a proximity sensor on one, I nearly had a heart attack."

"Yes really. I was just in a pub figuring out what I was going to do and then things changed." He said with a shrug. "Maybe... I am not sure what I am doing right now let alone tomorrow. But that sounds impressive especially if they use that type of thing elsewhere." He mused thinking of what that automated projections could be used for else where. It had so much potential.

Calanthe's features softened and, despite her genuine desire to show him the technology that had been blowing her mind all day, she recognised the strain the evening had taken. Hell, hadn't he said he'd been punched? He didn't look much worse for wear so she assumed the other guy had come off second best but it still probably hadn't put him in much of a mood for listening to her prattle on about moving light shows. "I don't know if I can help with all of your tomorrow," she replied gently, "but I have a breakfast slot free if you're up for it."

"Breakfast was always our time." Benjamin decided as he nodded thinking it would be a good start to the day if he planned to do anything other than sleep or going back to the ship to help more with jobs. It would give him a bit of time to get his thoughts and head together better to mentally prepare.

"Yeah, it sure was."

And this was what it was going to be like, Cal supposed. Finding the overlaps, noticing the disparities, and acknowledging all of them before setting them aside to create a new sense of normal. Breakfast on a strange planet was a good way to establish their own routines, though it was going to eventually be difficult to replicate them when they were once again reduced to dealing with whatever Atlantis could put on the menu.

"And now it can be again. I'm so glad you're here." Given the woman's inability to lie effectively, there was no room for empty platitudes in the admission. "Probably selfish given what you had to go through to get here but..." Cal hunched a shoulder. "I think it goes without saying I'd be the first to help you back if I could. Since it's not likely, I'm just going to choose to count my blessings.”

The man nodded. It went without saying but he was glad that she did say something. It made the choices he was making easier on his head and soul. It was soothing. “I am glad I am here. It’s not selfish.” Not if she did not want it to be.

It was a hard thing to celebrate nonetheless. A version of herself had died horribly, as had many others. Still people in their own rights, every bit as much as she felt the certainty of her sovereign independence, Cal didn't expect their deaths to evaporate just because there were viable replacements. It didn't work like that. She smiled faintly at his reassurances, a facet of his nature that seemed relatively unchanged, and steered them away from the conversation with an optimism that was pretty standard for hers.

"Hey, if I find some warmer clothes, you want to go take a closer look at some of these bars? I'll assume Nate's been sent to his room for the night, we might be able to find something that serves palatable food." It was getting late, well beyond dinner time, but late night snacks were permissible.

It was a tempting offer but he was at the point of feeling like he could fall asleep sat there. “Let’s rain check for tonight. We both need some sleep if we are going to have breakfast.” He said feeling like he might be able to sleep that night for the first time in a long time. It was not him wanting to reject but he wanted to be able to focus properly in the morning.

A tad too far. Cal wasn't disappointed so much as she was thoughtful, filing away the lack of uptake on the offer as something to consider before rushing ahead again. "You going to be okay to walk back on your own?," she asked instead with a smile, aware of the irony of her offering any sort of protection to a guy of his stature. "He didn't hit you too hard I hope."

The man rose from the couch and offered her a smile. “I will be fine. It is only a floor or so down.” He assured. He felt back and touched the lump on head and shrugged. “Not hard enough to be a permanent issue.” He said brightly or at least as bright as he could muster. It was not a big deal and he would not hold it against the man as he had done it after miscommunication but it did smart a little.

Rising also, Cal craned her head around to read the markings above the door and then nodded to indicate he could take note of them. "Well, apparently that's my room number." Turning back to consider him with a keen curiosity that was on the cusp of becoming concern, she offered. "Call me if you start feeling nauseous." There was zero chance she'd be forgiving anyone if he went to bed with a concussion.

The man looked at the markings on the door and raised an eyebrow. “I guess I’ll try, and remember,” he said, with a small smile on his face at the tone that he was using. He turned a glance at her as he felt her concern for him and leant over and touched her cheek. “If jumping through universes has not killed me off a punch from a Marine won’t either.” He advised in a gruff tone that spoke of how deep the sentiment that someone cared about him went.

Despite her best judgement, Cal closed her eyes at the touch and did her best to limit the turn of her head to lean into it. It was a fleeting lapse but drove to the core of her longing, the jumble of still-messy emotions that she needed to avoid drowning in. Opening her eyes again, there was a ruefulness to the brunette's smile that acknowledged the struggle both of them were having. At least they'd finally got off the starting blocks. "Thanks for talking to me. Finally." Her eyes glinted with the tease. "I'll see you in the morning, hey?"

The man gulped back his retort to her and just nodded. It would be so simple to fall and cause destruction to the budding connection between them so he simply nodded. “In the morning.” He affirmed pressing the door release and disappearing off down the corridor. It would be so simple but he was so much stronger than it and had to slow down his own reactions to see it all properly.

"Night, Ben."

The farewell was uttered more or less to the closed door, which Calanthe watched for a moment before sighing. Collecting both mugs, she set them both in the cleaning unit and then wandered over to pick up the illustrated book she'd been attempting to translate earlier. With her ability to concentrate well and truly shot, she set it aside as the impulse to draw herself a bath took over. Something to calm her nerves, and then an attempt at sleep.

She had an early morning, after all.