A date?

Posted on Thu Jul 4th, 2024 @ 10:13am by Commander Benjamin Jamesson & Lieutenant JG Calanthe 'Cal' Diaz

Mission: Remnant
Location: Benjamin's Quarters
Timeline: Day 370
3963 words - 7.9 OF Standard Post Measure

Ben looked around his quarters and frowned. He was still using one of the guest quarters, which was conveniently out of the way and provided him with some much-needed privacy. However, the space was undeniably bare and impersonal. It was not like he had brought much with him across the dimensions. Sure, he had received his alternate self’s personal effects, but there was little in the box that felt like were his. The photos of people he knew were nice. The clothes were practical but not particularly meaningful. The old-fashioned tools that he had never brought with him in his universe but this version did. But none of those items really filled the space and just highlighted how empty it was.

Lost in his thoughts, Ben was abruptly brought back to the present by the chime at his door. He quickly crossed the room, his expression softening into a welcoming smile as he opened the door. “Hey,” he greeted, his voice warm despite the lingering emotion in his eyes.

It was of no surprise that the woman on his doorstep looked animated enough to be powered by pure kinetic energy, generated by the fidget of hands and shift of weight from one foot to the other as she struggled against and then surrendered to the urge to keep moving. Anticipation on any scale had always caused Calanthe to devolve into a small puppy, and she had invested so much extra effort into trying to play it cool all day at work so that nobody noticed how much she was staring down the clock that, now released from the need to, she was positively jumping out of her skin with nervous excitement. As much as she had tried to chastise herself not to expect too much of the night, and had even been struck silent by a sudden overwhelming sense of panic once or twice, there was no escaping the significance of what this particular invitation meant. He had kissed her, after all. If that didn't count as being already halfway over the bridge, she didn't know what would.

"Hey." The faint dimple that threatened to appear as she smiled back came and went as even Cal's smile refused to sit in one place for long. Dark eyes held his, searching by sheer compulsion to be sure for any sign of hesitation or regret. That was the one lecture that had pierced through the excitement to land home; whatever happened was on his terms. That had to include room for reconsideration. "I thought, just for a surprise, that'd I'd actually show up on time for once."

Ben smiled and leant forward and kissed her cheek. “I do not care. You are here.” He said gently moving back to show the set up he had created with limited resources. There was a small table that he had acquired on the pretence of he needed a desk and borrowed some chairs from the observation deck.

"I...don't think those chairs belong here, Commander." Having stepped into the room, Calanthe admired the effort but left some room for mild amusement regarding the man's resourcefulness. "Though I would have paid good money to watch you try to sneak them here in your pockets."

“Perks of living on deck G though I am going to be moving to deck D soon. No one really noticed what I do down here which is nice.” The man admitted with a shrug. It had given him the space to sulk and brood as he needed.

"Well, your secret's safe with me." Folding her arms across her stomach, mostly because she suddenly found it awkward to know what to do with them, Calanthe turned a slow circle to appreciate the rest of the space and found herself quietly reaching much the same conclusion as Ben himself. It was sparce and impersonal, though one detail stopped her in her tracks before prompting several steps to move closer to inspect.

"You found the postcard I painted for him."

Though the situation still felt convoluted, referring to their alternate selves as separate people had been something the pair had agreed upon fairly consistently. In the case of this universe's Ben, there wasn't even the complicating factor of inherited memories. Everything that had been his was reduced to the handful of items now in this Ben's possession. The one Cal was now staring at had been an expenditure of precious art supplies as an attempt to capture a childhood memory Ben had referred to enough times for her to have a decent reference point.

Ben glanced over and nodded as he leaned over to pick up the postcard. It was a sunset close to his home near Edinburgh where he had climbed a tree to watch to the moment a later break his arm. 30 years on he still thought it was the most beautiful sunset he had ever seen. “I did not know you had done it but it was a memory we both seem to share close enough that it felt relevant to keep.” He grinned and looked at the setup up and lowered the lights turning on the fairy lights he had found in the MACO barracks.

It had been the last thing she'd given him, or at least something she'd given him the last time they'd spoken. Calanthe blinked at the small, unframed watercolour and tried not to wallow in the sense of overwhelming sadness that defined this whole situation almost perfectly. Grieving for someone who was also standing right in front of you was a very strange sensation. Distracted by the sudden twinkle of lights, her gaze jerked upwards and, once again, Cal was left staring in silence. Another odd thing was being in the presence of someone who knew you in a way that didn't feel possible. Her obsession with starry nights endured at least several iterations of her life, apparently.

"You've been busy," she murmured, still transfixed.

"Well seemed a little dire without something a little more... romantic." The man blushed a little despite the beard that covered his face that it covered most of the blush from her. "Found them in the MACO barracks and they felt like they might make things a little more unique." It was hard to date and find places to do it so he worked with what he had.

His choice of words softened Cal's features further, though in typical fashion she broached the heady emotional tension with the lightest touch of humour. "Bonus points for stealing from the marines then." It had been easier to avoid Cusack since their return, and certainly far more palatable to navigate the residual side effects of their encounter with death without having to listen to his grousing. The night had very little to do with Nate, however, and Cal pushed thoughts of him immediately to the side in favour of studying the expression of the man actually present. "You used to do this a lot," she observed quietly, drawing reference from a jumble of memories not entirely her own. "It's..."

She paused, wanting to make sure the conversation got off on the right footing.

"I think I understand what it used to mean then." Turning to face him, she left her arms settled across her stomach and released a slow breath. "But I don't want to read more into it now than you intend so you need to promise me you're not going to spend the night not saying things because you think you shouldn't." An arched eyebrow considered him wryly. "I'd rather know a difficult truth than depend on a comfortable lie."

The man watched her watching him and smiled. He was nervous and he would have normally leaned out and caressed her cheek or snuck a quick kiss before serving food but she was laying out the rules. It was why he was slowly starting to see the differences between the 2 versions he knew and it really did not change what he felt. "MACOs left it so I say it is fair game." The man said moving one of the chairs so she could sit if she wanted. "I did it then because it gave privacy and I do it now for the same reason. I want to get to know you without anyone interrupting us." It was a basic reason for wanting to do it but it was the truth.

It was a simple enough explanation, entirely reasonable, and yet didn't go anywhere close enough for Calanthe's liking to explaining his behaviour in the Communications office. There hadn't been the chance to get to know her Ben well enough to gauge whether his stoic, dependable side had the capacity for impulsiveness but she could draw from stolen memories an impression of a surprisingly passionate nature that simply required a significant amount of trust before he'd let his guard down enough to indulge in it. Slipping into the seat he'd offered, Cal once again squashed an impatient desire to meet that Benjamin Jamesson again and accepted, for now, the pensive gentleman who occupied his comfort zone. "I guess it has been a while since we've been able to just sit and talk." If she thought about it, uninterrupted time alone hadn't really been easy for either of them since leaving Relia.

“We can just eat in silence.” He offered with a grin teasing her as moved the covers from the trays and showed off the food. It was just like the food in the mess but he had gone out of his way to plate it up nicely and got some garnish from hydroponics. He sat opposite and held up a bottle and a jug. “Hooch or juice?” He offered.

Calanthe's eyes narrowed to a playful smirk. "Maybe you can eat in silence. I've not been quite so similarly-blessed," she added, almost unnecessarily. Whatever minor differences there might have been between both versions of her, Calanthe doubted a capacity to sit quietly at the dinner table was one of them. She redirected her attention and arched an eyebrow at the meal on offer, at least partially impressed that it almost looked inviting. "What would the chef recommend?"

He could not help but grin more at her smirk and teasing him back. It was starting to make him relax more from the butterflies about how he had taken a big step in kissing her. “I am going to have some of the hooch. I know how good this version is.” He murmured pouring his own glass whilst he waited for her to make a choice.

There was a school of thought that suggested risking inebriation under current circumstances was just asking for complications. There was also an entirely different view regarding the follies of playing it safe for too long. Mostly, Calanthe recognised a thinly veiled challenge when she heard one. She lifted her glass and tilted it, an offer to fill it from the same bottle. "I'm game to become an absolute disgrace to my mother." Out of context, it was an odd statement, but Calanthe doubted her family's ties to wine making were vastly different in his universe.

"I am sure she would approve knowing the circumstances." He pointed out as he poured her less than him but left the jug close to her so she could decide if she wanted more. He was not planning to have much more, he wanted to keep his wits about him where the woman in front of him was concerned.

Thinking about home, and specifically her parents and what her disappearance must have been like from their perspective, provoked a pang of sorrow that Calanthe thought best to avoid entirely. It was a topic she'd confided in her Ben, back in the earlier days when everything still seemed so fresh, and it wasn't that it didn't seem possible to trust this version with a similar vulnerability. It just wasn't the time and place, not when he had lost everything and the Earth they were valiantly trying to return to wasn't strictly his. Reaching forward, she lifted her glass and held it across the table to clink against his. "Santé." There was mischief in her eyes as she had yet to test him on his understanding of French. ""À nous couvrir de honte sans aucun regret."

“Been a long time since I’ve spoken French properly but I believe you have just said … To disgrace ourselves without regret. It is not a bad sentiment but I am not here to disgrace myself, been doing enough of that.” He grinned clinking his glass against hers gently and decided to tuck into the food he had not eat much all day in a nervous state of things trying to sort out a decent date.

As much as she was honestly pleased enough that he'd understood her intentional bypass of the translator, Calanthe found herself instantly distracted by the notion of the noble-hearted engineer disgracing himself in any capacity. Following his lead, she picked up her fork, but took a moment to poke food onto it so that she could ask, "Either you've been up to mischief I haven't heard about or you're being too hard on yourself again."

“Too hard.” He answered quickly before shrugging, giving her a bit of a helpless look. “Come on, tuck in.” He instructed. It was a simple pasta salad with chicken and bread as the dessert was more important, as it was chocolate goodness.

"Too hard sounds about right," Calanthe agreed, stabbing a spear of pasta with her fork and pointing it at him before eating it. "I don't think you'd know how to be a disgrace even if you set out to attempt it on purpose."

He inclined his head in a way that spoke she did know him well even if they were meeting each other on a different road than they were used to. "I believe that I would not know how to be a disgrace. I have worked too hard to get where I want to be." He admitted. He had spent most of his life studying to get among the stars.

A faint glimmer of sadness lingered in Calanthe's eyes for a moment before she made an effort to snuff it out. It was hard to conceptualise just how much Ben and the others had lost, not just in the same sense that they were all facing now with the uncertainty of ever seeing Earth again, but just the ability to cling to hope that it might one day be possible. Even if they did return, it wouldn't be the same. Just close enough to be a constant, painful reminder.

Kind of like her.

"Tell me about this new position you've carved out for yourself," she opted for, figuring a career shift that was of his own design might be more of a positive topic to dwell on.

Benjamin smiled a little at her question taking just a small sip of the drink. He did not react to the burn as it was enjoyable and reminded him of nights of wild camping back on Earth. "I do not know if I curved it out but it is nice to have something unique for myself. The ship needs someone looking after just the engines otherwise we will stop moving and someone needs to look after other systems so it is logical to split it apart." He took another bit before continuing. "Me and this girl do not vibe quite as much as my version so it was easy for me to step aside."

"Ben used to talk about being able to read the ship's moods."

It had taken them a while to land on the best way to refer to the other versions of themselves but giving them an identity of their own had wound up preferrable. After all, she couldn't replace the woman he'd lost any more than he would fill the role of a man who was gone from her life before she had a chance to include him the way she wanted. Calanthe had been worried, at first, that Ben's grief would make even a friendship impossible and so the effort he'd gone to, as well as the events leading up to this dinner, were reassuring if nothing else that he was open to healing.

"We're lucky to have someone with your experience able to step away from Engineering, honestly. Even if you did spoil my sauna." The flash of devilment in her eyes teased him over a mouthful of pasta, though there was something deliberate about Calanthe's specific reference. Friendship had been as much as she'd dared hope for, but Ben didn't seem the type to go around kissing his mates.

“Well, I do not believe that everyone would appreciate it. Some people have been complaining loudly about the cold elsewhere.” He pointed out grinning back. He was not far gone into his brooding to be tempted back. “I appreciate you saying that.” He never blew his own trumpet in throwing around his experience or anything so it was nice to be complimented.

Chewing thoughtful on her next mouthful, Calanthe replied candidly, "As much as a malfunction isn't the best thing to celebrate, it was nice to remember what heat actually feels like. Space travel is chilly, I don't care what anyone claims about temperature control." She poked a forkful of pasta in his direction. "Even Relia had the balance right. The bonfires were nice too." As much as it hadn't been her ideal climate, Cal recalled their time on the planet with wistful fondness. She may have locked herself away in the archives for a lot of it but there was something to be said for walking on actual solid ground under an actual sky through a bout of actual weather.

"You have your own space, do you not increase the heat?" He wondered knowing that his quarters were slightly cooler than most people liked because he spent most of the time crawling about Jeffrey tubes and in tight spaces. "Want me to turn the heat up here?" He asked shifting slightly to get up.

Calanthe diverted her attention for a moment to picking up several pieces of pasta, caught out amidst her playful banter for yet another tiny self-sacrifice. They were becoming more and more frequent as time went by. "No, it's fine. I'm hardly frozen and power doesn't come from no where." Looking up again, she added, "I'm warm enough to be healthy, anything more would be a luxury and that's just not responsible."

The man stopped and nodded. "Well, sometimes you do not need to be quite so self-sacrificing." He teased just a little looking up at her with a smirk. He knew exactly what he was saying and had no shame about it.

"Listen, I'm a big deal around here now." Calanthe got away with the grandiose jest because it was about as far removed from how she actually behaved as she could get. "In charge of a whole department, trying to make it look like I know what I'm doing on a daily basis. Sacrifices are part of leadership, or so they tell me anyway."

"Add ten years and you will finally get it." He laughed sitting back to just look at her over his glass. "I am glad we did this." It was a big admittance from him but he was glad he had grown a pair and kissed her there and then when he had.

Pausing mid-bite, Calanthe gazed at him a moment before lowering the fork and nodding gently in agreement. "So am I." Her dark eyes studied his expression, trying to read between the lines of stoicism and close-to-the-chest reservation. "Do I get to know what prompted it?" There was a lot that sat in their history that would have seemed like a perfectly adequate explanation except that none of it really accounted for the right-now aspect of Ben's uncharacteristic impatience. She'd spent the best part of forever, it felt like, just trying to convince him he wasn't ruining her life just by talking to her.

Now that was the million-dollar question, to say the least. He made several faces taking a sip before he answered. "I thought I was going to lose you again and this time to space fauna. And then I was all hot and bothered and... it just happened. I let my feelings take the wheel instead of my brain telling me that I was being daft for trying to recapture something, which I am not. You are very different from her but I am very attracted to this variation of you as well." He winced wondering if he sounded as stupid as he felt.

Of all aspects of his confession, perhaps the most surprising was knowing he considered her significantly different to her other version. Everything she knew of the woman, which admittedly was information she'd accumulated in a very unnatural way, had reassured Calanthe that at least at a very fundamental, internal level, they were basically the same person. Access to firsthand impressions and thoughts had seemed instantly familiar, but she supposed it made sense that circumstance had shaped their expression a little differently. His version of Calanthe Diaz had retrained to join the Armory, after all, which in itself spoke of how much harsher their reality had been in those early days.

"Different in what way?" Curiosity got the better of her, and it seemed somewhat pivotal to how Ben was processing everything.

"You are softer." He said gently. "It's not a bad thing." He did not want her to think it was a bad thing when it was simply how he saw the differences between the pair. It was how he was able to venture into this potential without causing more torture to himself and the jumble she had in her head.

A sense of playfulness attempted to provoke an element of protest but Calanthe thought better of it, knowing that it had always been likely that Ben would have to find ways to convince himself he wasn't replacing his fiancée if he stood any chance of rebuilding a life for himself. The mess of memories she'd inherited had complicated her own expectations but Cal had always recognised that she ran the greatest risk of viewing him as a second chance at a missed opportunity. Forcing herself to expect nothing more than friendship and viewing that as a goal worthy of intentional care and attention had involved squashing down some initial hope and anticipation but it had honestly seemed difficult enough to manage. It hadn't been that long ago he'd been actively avoiding her.

"Not soft enough to let a giant houseplant get the better of me," she reassured gently. "And not soft enough to be overly spooked by your non-apologetic side." Cal's lips twitched as she recalled his brazenness, which she had always suspected he was capable of if you could figure out how to flip his lid off. Watching him carefully, she added, "If anything, it's pretty attractive."

"Oh really?" He laughed. The redness of embarrassment of realising she knew about that side of him rose to his cheeks and made him coyly look away. "Well, we shall have to wait and see if that side comes out more." He had felt broken since he had come across the universes so it would be interesting to see where he was heading.

The impressive control over an impeccably-arched eyebrow was a skill that had transcended interdimensional interference. Wearing an expression he'd seen altogether too many times before, Cal pursed her lips to suppress a grin and dipped her head in agreement.

"We can only hope."