A Date... Finally

Posted on Fri Sep 4th, 2026 @ 8:55pm by Commander Benjamin Jamesson & Lieutenant JG Calanthe 'Cal' Diaz

Mission: Royal Mail
4783 words - 9.6 OF Standard Post Measure

Benjamin had left Zac quickly and set about sweet talking chefs into letting him have dinner early in containers that he could keep warm and take with him. The man had not been impressed but he had not refused, something about the the way the engineer was acting alive for once sparked that it was important to him and maybe his road to recovering. He thanked him profusely and promised to come back with everything in the morning.

Benjamin knew he did not have long to set up the hydroponics bay for what could hopefully be the most important date of his life. He wanted to do something more but with limited supplies and space this was the first thing that had come to mind after he confirmed that he sent the message he sat and waited for the woman to arrive. He wanted her, wanted something more between them and as his father used to say actions spoke more than words sometimes.

As a routine part of her job, Calanthe was used to double-checking messages. It was a habit that promoted accurate communication but also had a tendency to drive her slightly mad when the compulsion to hyper-analyse more unorthodox queries threatened to distract her entirely. In a professional capacity, she could pass it off as part of the job; when it came to her personal life, it was a little trickier to explain her fixation with analysing the nuances that sat between the lines.

She was drawing a complete blank this time. Hydroponics? Really? To the best of her recollection, which now included sporadic input from an entirely different dimension, Ben wasn't particularly predisposed towards gardening. Like her, his appreciation of combined efforts came more at the food-end of productivity, which had prompted her to spend every spare moment since receiving his message wondering if the translation circuits were now reinterpreting Standard on top of everything else. Why Hydroponics?

She was barely ten minutes out of the shower in any case, and though she may have spent at least some of her down-time seeking the man out in any case, there was something very unique about an impulsive summons that provoked the brunette's love of a good mystery. Ben was a methodical man, far more inclined to plan out his timetable than Cal. Sponteneity was her thing; the mind boggled.

It said something for how things had settled between them, at least, that she approached the doors with more intrigue than apprehension. It was a strange friendship, weaving in and out of the obliteration of something far deeper, but at least they could talk about it now. More than that, Calanthe felt like she was actually getting to know Ben, this man, not the one he so closely resembled. Not enough that he couldn't still surprise her, it seemed. The doors parted and, hesitant to barge right in before she knew what she was walking into, Cal instead poked her head in through the doorway. "Ding-dong."

The man jerked his head up from where he had been sitting on a large blanket and offered a wave to her. He had shifted a few bays, with Jones's help, to make a space big enough among the greenery to give them some privacy, while also creating the illusion that they were somewhere completely different. He stood slowly and walked over to her.

"Come in... I... I have set up a meal for us." He said quietly, offering his hand. She would know this was not something he normally did, and he had never considered this in the other universe. It had been a different type of dating for them, but this time he needed to make the gestures and take the risks, or he needed to step away and give her a chance to find happiness elsewhere.

There had been progress enough, at least, that Calanthe's reaction was an authentic mixture of confusion and amusement, tinged with the faint flush of adrenaline known for setting her eyes to sparkle. Any wariness was tempered by affection but, at the root of it all, she was left wondering if she'd missed something significant. It wasn't her birthday, she was decently sure it wasn't Ben's, unless...

He wasn't likely to have a different one to his now-dead counterpart, right?

"It looks like you've set up a whole lot more than that. This is nice," she added, wandering over to appreciate the full effect of his efforts. "I guess I haven't been in here in ages, this is so much more growth than I expected."

The man grinned as she finally came over to where he was. “Well maybe a little more but I thought you might enjoy some time together somewhere a little different.” He said quietly and sat down on the blanket. He patted the space next to him hoping she would want to join him. “Makes it seem we are somewhere else.”

Though Calanthe hadn't really stopped to think about it specifically for a while, there was a distinct ease with which she slotted into these moments with Ben. It had been a while since she'd succumbed to the urge to hyper-analyse, to fret and concern herself with what was going on and how best to avoid causing him more harm. It allowed for a lot more focus on the situation itself, and a genuine appreciation as she eased herself to sit beside him for the effect he'd been going for.

"With the added bonus," she observed, her gaze still tracking the array of plant-life from her fresh vantage, "of a distinct lack of ants. They've really expanded things in here," Cal continued, her tone conveying just how impressed she was. "I had no idea."

"Jones has been working really hard, and now things have been organised a little more; he has space and power allocation for lighting. We should not go without fresh food." He said proud of the crewman who had not given up when science as a department had been so depleted with the Vrav attack. "I also got some... creation from Ensigh McManus." He held up a dark liquid along with the usual fruit juice and water they always had.

The look of narrow-eyed suspicion Cal gave him was purely playful, though not without some basis for merit. If anything highlighted just how vastly different their physiques were, it was how much moonshine it took either of them to fall over. In Ben's case, it was still to be determined because he'd yet to reach that limit. Cal, on the other hand, was a cheap drunk and she knew it. "What's it made from this time?"

“I did not ask in all honesty.” Ben had learned in both universes not to ask questions when it came to the moonshine. “You do not need to have any. I brought it along in case you need liquid courage.” He teased a little as he poured her some of the juice and held it out.

A familiar look of narrow-eyed playfulness was all it took for Calanthe to accept the glass, drain it of its juice and promptly hand it back again. "I'm game, though knowing Duncan's track record, the courage is more an initial prerequisite than a resulting consequence." Watching as Ben poured, she added, "I'm not due on duty until a reasonable hour in the morning, and our guests haven't shown any signs yet of hostile take-over tactics so I probably don't need to be excessively eloquent anyway."

"I do not want you to think I only had that to offer." He said as he poured a little bit into the glass and did the same to his own. "But he assured me that this one tasted okay and it had no lingering effects, but his heart is in the right place." Duncan wanted to find something to help the ship and had gone right ahead to sort it out. "They have not shown any hostilities and have been quite kind in their speech and action."

An initial grimace suggested McManus had delievered a predictable potency at least, though Calanthe's subsequent nod of appreciation was indication enough that he'd improved the aftertaste at least. "So far, none of our visitors seem overly problematic," she agreed, "Though if inquisitiveness is an affliction, Captain Vohra may well have a terminal case. Do you know his ship is powered by an integrated A.I.? Jen hasn't shut up about it all day."

Benjamin smirked at the grimace and put his own glass down and sat up, sitting cross-legged, which did nothing to help with the size of him. "I did not know anything about the AI. What else do you know?" He wondered thoughtfully. He had not had much experience with AI, but like any engineer, he knew the basics.

The question earned Ben a 'look', a very familiar pointed deadpan that, whilst offered in the best of spirits, still didn't pull a lot of punches. "Bold of you to assume there was an opportunity to ask. You know what she's like when there's half a chance there might be a new toy to pull to pieces. From what I gather, there's a personality to interact with, which might have its uses but probably also is just a bit frustrating. I'd never see you at all," she teased, "if you could actually have an argument with the ship."

Ben took a sip of drink and nodded. He could not deny that accurate description of what he would do if he could actually interact. “Me and this Atlantis are slowly getting on. I am starting to understand her.” He said smiling a little more. “But would like to visit the other ship so I might have to make friends with people other than you.”

"Perish the thought." A pair of raised eyebrows teased him, knowing better than to take offense though being equally as prepared to retaliate with a fiestiness they both knew Ben usually gave up trying to match. "Is that why we're hiding out in hydroponics?" It evidently wasn't but, whilst Calanthe was quietly optimistic about this renewed motivation to connect, she knew better than to make too much fuss about it.

“Maybe?” The man leaned back and stretched out his back and started up at the ceiling and snorted. “I did not realise someone has put glow in the dark stars up there.” He laughed thinking that he might not have been the first person to create this spot.

When craning her head didn't provide quite the right vantage, Calanthe did the obvious and balanced her drink precariously enough to shift position and stretch out beside the man. With a slight scootch, she considered the smattering of luminous decals and scrunched her face into an exaggerated grimace of amusement. "The smiley face is a nice touch, if not a little creepy."

“Feels like a McManus move.” The man said looking from the ceiling to look at the woman smiled at how she stretched out beside her. “Thank you for coming tonight.” He said quietly leaning over to caress her cheek with his calloused thumb.

Well, who needed to breathe anyway.

For a while now, whenever Lexi or Jen tried to press for details on what was going on with Ben, Calanthe had dodged specifics by falling into the familiar pattern of claiming they were just 'taking it day by day'. Which was true, there really wasn't a better way of handling things and, in any case, the same mantra could apply to just about anything the crew did. Whilst the evasiveness had something to do with a sense of protectiveness, not wanting Ben's personal journey through intense grief to be the subject of gossip, it was also the product of a genuine degree of uncertainty on Cal's part.

Sometimes, it seemed very obvious how things were going; they were good friends, they had specific moments throughout the day where they naturally sought each other out, and she would give them credit for doing a pretty decent job of navigating the awkwardness of inherited intimacy. There were moments though, like this, or the time he'd given into impulse and kissed her, or the handful of times they'd literally slept together whilst she sorted out her insomnia, when Calanthe understood that the real reason she had no definitive answer for her friends was because there was a world of difference between what she and Ben were consciously constructing and what kept instinctively drawing them back together again. No matter how many weeks went by on an even keel, there were moments like these that blew all attempts to define their relationship out of the water.

"Do I get to know what it's all about yet?"

It was a quiet question, without accusation but also left no room for pretense. If nothing else, they had reached a point where Calanthe didn't feel any pressure to hide how easy it was to know when Ben's mind was churning over something he didn't quite know how to approach. She'd been catching him more and more in moments of vacant silence lately, and while it was an expected part of the healing process, that didn't make it any easier to figure him out when he disappeared right in front of her.

Benjamin glanced around at her question and raised an eyebrow at what he had thought was pretty self explanatory. Maybe he should have made the gesture bigger but it was hard to do with limited things so he thought his presence might be better.

“I thought… well I hoped you might like to go on a proper date.” He said quietly as he brought his hand back and lay it on his side. He was ready, he wanted to show her that he was ready with wanting to find something with her.

Dark eyes searched his face, a deeply intuitive scrutiny that called upon a few cheatsheet hints stolen from her counterpart but also relied on the steadily-growing familiarity that time and genuine intent had help foster. Getting Ben to a point where he'd open up and talk beyond practical terms was an effort in itself, one she knew his version of Calanthe Diaz had already conquered once. It was just a matter of persistence, tinged with the reminder that he couldn't fool her that easily.

"Yeah, I clocked that much," she replied with a faint smile. "And I'm here so mystery over in that regard. I'm more talking about what's going on in Ben's head for him to arrive at the 'proper date' scenario in the first place." Reaching up, she tapped a gentle index finger against his forehead. "Talk to me."

Benjamin looked at her for a moment before he smiled a little more and shrugged just a little as he thought about why he came to the scenario. “I… I wanted to show you I cared and I was interested and I’m not a perfect man but I would like to date you.” He should have realised this would come up. She would not just accepted it which made the words he spilled out feel wrong and rushed.

The greatest surprise, paradoxically, was the absence of any real surprise at all. That didn't make it less complicated but it did prompt Cal to hesitate before replying, not out of any real sense of confusion or apprehension but to allow the pieces to slot together without additional force. Things hadn't been strictly-platonic between them for a while now, Lexi had called her on it only recently in the way only a good friend could. For someone who speaks so many languages, you've gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid the one word that actually fits. There hadn't been a lot to say to that, denying it would have been dishonest and that wasn't Cal's style. She just hadn't felt like there was much she could do about it.

Waiting for Ben to be ready, whilst acknowledging the possibility that he never would be, had been harder than Cal had really known how to talk about. So, instead, she simply hadn't and had relegated the over-thinking to the privacy of her own insomnia whilst refusing to buckle in any obvious way that might have got back to the engineer. Lexi and Jen's attempts to gang up on her had provided a measure of release but even then it had been far more controlled than they were used to from their hot-headed friend. Calanthe hadn't been protecting just herself, however, and was nothing if not stubborn once she'd set her mind to something. Both she and Ben were healing and that couldn't be rushed just because she was feeling things that warranted a more concrete definition every day.

Now, more than anything, there was a crushing sense of relief to have arrived at a point where certain truths could be spoken. It hadn't really mattered if Ben's behaviour had started to shift to give obvious signs of connection; she had needed to know for sure that he was ready to call it what it was. Her dark eyes searched his, not the first time by this point that she'd tried to decipher his thoughts that way, and put a strangle-hold on her own eagerness to make sure she trod gently.

"Have I ever lead you to believe I expect you to be a perfect man?" she asked quietly.

The man found himself laughing a little and shook his head. The man had never been led by her to believe he was perfect, but he knew that he should be better; he should be perfect for her. "No, but I do want to be perfect for you." He said quietly, leaning out to caress her cheek again, trying to at least connect somehow with her. "I want to be a good man for you."

By now, the moments that blurred between her own experiences and those memories she'd inherited had become such a part of Calanthe's daily life that they weren't nearly as jarring as they had been in the beginning. Hughes had praised her, in fact, on her resilience, a reassuring professional opinion that her mind had integrated the information dump as best could be expected. It wasn't without a cost, the battle with insomnia and night terrors was not entirely over, but it no longer stopped her in her tracks when something came up and she was confronted by a recollection that felt in every way her own except for the tiny technicality that it wasn't.

Ben had said this before.

And she knew what that version of Calanthe Diaz had said to him then, and though her opinion wasn't a whole lot different, what she did have was the benefit of all the months of knowing him that had come afterwards. A better understanding of his motivations, the passions that drove him, the intensity of his self-discipline and why he was just so damn hard on himself. There was a new element now too, a darker stain left behind as grief's ink blot that added an undeniable challenge to Ben's struggles. Trying to rebuild himself after everything that happened wasn't easy, even for a man of his strength, and she understood that part of his concern now was that he wouldn't ever get back to the man he'd been when he allowed himself to consider himself worthy.

It struck her then how unfair she'd been. Perhaps not always, there had definitely been a time where patience had been important. But lately, when things had progressed and they'd shifted into the grey-zone of ambiguous definition, Calanthe had still been too concerned with Ben's recovery to succumb to her own impulses. The handful of times he'd insisted on being there so she could sleep had been down to Ben's persistence, not because Cal had allowed herself to seek him out. And yet, when it came to what she knew of their relationship in both prior instances, there wasn't any point denying that the bulk of the chase had been entirely her doing. Ben Jamesson wasn't very good at allowing Ben Jamesson to have what he wanted; once she'd figured that out, and had arrived at the understanding that restraint wasn't the same as refusal, she'd just put herself in his path until he'd given up trying to pretend he wasn't interested.

And here she was, making him do all the work.

Pulling herself up to kiss him was impulsive enough in the context of her recent behaviour to cause surprise but, overall, when it really came down to how well this man knew her, Cal was pretty sure the most Ben was going to say was 'what took you so long?' It wasn't a tentative kiss, it wasn't a hesistant kiss fraught with concern for overstepping boundaries. She knew his boundaries, had already trampled them down once, and she'd be damned if she was going to hear his self-doubts play out with at least reminding him of who he was dealing with.

The man froze for a second as her lips crushed against his before he remembered who he was and who she was and grabbed her up pulling her closer. His hands stroked her hair back from her face and held her there for a moment before he pulled back reluctantly and raised an eyebrow. “That was nice.” He said quietly stroking his thumb along her lips as he took in her face.

It would long be remembered that, right at the turning point, Calanthe laughed. It was a theme that applied to a lot of situations really because, if nothing else, the woman had a capacity for finding joy against all odds. In this particular case, it was the general absurdity of their situation and the sheer lack of definition for even trying to explain what they had that prompted the snort. In the end, the only thing she could land on was that it was their first time after a whole lot of borrowed practise. It wasn't elegant but Cal was kind of done, if she was honest, with trying to make sense of it all.

"Nice is a good start," she agreed, careful to maintain proximity lest he get any funny ideas about escaping.

“It is a good start.” He agreed leaning forward to kiss her again this time less hesitant and certainly more confident than the first kiss. She was beautiful and passionate and somehow seemed interested in his after everything. How had his luck turned around so quickly?

It wasn't that the confusion disappeared, Calanthe realised. She supposed it would possibly always be the case that she'd be haunted with the weird deja vu that came from possessing another person's actual memories, even if she could get a sense for how time would shape how that experience impacted her at least. It was more that it was no longer the only source of input, now that she'd been given an opportunity to get to know the man on her own terms. Somewhere along the way, possibly without her noticing when the switch had actually occured, he had become her Ben and it left her hopeful that he had likewise moved past the impulse to consider her a desperate replacement for a love lost.

Or perhaps she was entirely deluded and this was all a terrible idea. Calanthe was ready to call it quits on being the sensible one; it wasn't her strong point to replace impulse with caution anyway.

"You know I can't promise you," she murmured, reluctantly pulling back to instigate the conversation that still needed to happen regardless of her natural gifts, "the life you expected to have. If we do this, it has to become its own thing."

The man paused, looked at her carefully, and smiled. His fingers were itching to do something other than freeze up as he tried to decide how to answer her statement. He found himself slowly brushing a stray piece of hair back from her face and nodded. "I never expected to have anyone ever again promise me anything, Calanthe." He said as he slowly shifted her off his lap so she was sitting next to him for this conversation. "But I promise you this is very much its own thing already. You have taken the time to let me heal in my own messy way over the last six months."

It still wasn't nearly enough time, Calanthe knew that. Not in the empathetic way that others could understand how something as profoundly disturbing as what had happened to Ben's crew could affect someone for life, but as an actual visceral certainty drawn from the inherited recollection of being tormented to death. She knew what he had lost because she had a decent amount of the first-person perspective of it lodged in her memory banks and it did so like to surface when she tried to sleep. She also knew, because he had gradually found the courage to tell her, that he hadn't anticipated surviving any of it. Rebuilding life after losing his ship, his crew and his fiance hadn't really been on the cards because his initial plan had been to lay down beside the woman he'd lost and wait for the ship to obliterate them both.

She still hadn't quite figured out how to thank Nish for interrupting that.

It didn't eliminate the struggle, however, or what felt like a very natural desire to help him find something to make survival worthwhile. It made pursuing a relationship complicated, entangled as it was in the temptation of escapism, but there also just came a point where the psychology of it all ran the risk of getting in the way of the very simplest truths. He was a good man, who deserved good things, and he made her feel safe when the rest of the universe was doing its damn best to make sure she wasn't.

"I think I'm just reminding myself," she admitted. "Trying to live up to a dead version of myself sounds like a recipe for disappointment."

Ben leaned over and pressed his lips against hers hard for a moment before he pulled back and leaned back, looking at her. "You do not have to live up to anyone, especially another version of yourself that is very different." He said firmly before biting his lip. "Have a biscuit." He offered, trying to find something less daunting, and the selection of large biscuits were the first thing that he looked at.

Somehow, in the midst of everything, the offer was so absurdly simple that it stopped Calanthe in her tracks. Her dark eyes studied the careworn features she'd already committed to memory and, out of no where, the inexplicable urge to laugh once again overwhelmed her. He was ridiculous. Wonderfully, gloriously ridiculous. It didn't matter what was going on, Ben's primary motivation was making sure everyone around him was okay, and if that meant smoothing over existential dread with a biscuit, then of course he had one prepared.

She took one. There was no version of events that would have allowed her to do anything else.

"Not bad for a guy who claims to be terrible at dating," she teased him, gently because it was information that fell into the hybrid category, having been gleaned both from borrowed memories and their own conversations.

“I am sure if you could speak to my exs they would agree.” The man said simply as he picked up his own biscuit and took a bite. “Or maybe this old dog is learning new tricks.” He offered as a suggestion on what was happening but he was relieved that the tension was no longer there. It had settled and he no longer felt the heaviness between them.

It earned him a slowly arched eyebrow. On the balance of things, Calanthe was pretty sure he'd already predicted it. There wasn't any amount of ignorance left in the universe that would allow her to claim she hadn't been flirting with him all these months but the invitation to stop trying to keep it under control was more relief than she'd anticipated. The size of the elephant sitting on her chest had been way more significant than Cal had realised.

It made crawling back into his lap permissible. If she weren't so amused, that single fallen boundary might almost have made her cry.

"Is that so?"

A gentle finger brushed a crumb from his beard.

"I guess wonders never do cease."