Dramaphone

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

"You never know." He agreed with her calmly. "Agreed- they stepped over the line."

You needed to prepare yourself for every eventuality out there and sometimes that meant over-planning, sometimes it seemed as if you were paranoid, but every once in a while... it paid off in dividends. Ben hadn't really been worried about himself, he could handle them... the Trandoshan would maybe pose problems, but with these tight corridors his size would only play against him. No, his worry had been front and center about Sam and what might happen to her if he started a small-scale warzone here.

It was one of the reasons he had asked for the most secure place on this ship.

To put her in there and then deal with the intruders, but plans change sometimes and what she had rigged up here? It was a far better solution and he didn't-

She had looked up at him, eyes ghosting down lower before rising again.

That only intensified the awareness of how she felt... against him. Without realizing it Ben was already leaning in a bit, she looked down, up, and Ben looked at her. Eyes with a question. There was a moment here, a tight one, it would slip away soon and already his mind was arguing against this course of action.

Kark off.

And Ben pulled her in, lips on hers, kissing her as his eyes closed and he stopped. thinking. so. damn. much.

 

[Sam Paige]

There was something in his gaze. A question that she didn't fully understand right away, not knowing how to answer let alone what he was asking. He leaned in slightly, paused, searched her face and then-

Oh.

Sam froze there completely. Except for her eyes. Impossibly large behind those glasses. Back and forth between his, down to his mouth, back up to his eyes. Back and forth. Down. Up. Back and forth.

It hadn't been that long since he'd told her how he felt. Not nearly long enough for Sam to figure out anything about her own feelings certainly. But as he looked down at her, eyes searching, she felt a flutter in her chest, cheeks hot in self consciousness. For a moment- thinking she knew what he was going to do but no, he definitely couldn't be doing that, that would be ridiculous to assume- she held her breath.

It took eternity but also no time at all.

And then he pulled her in against his chest, kissing her, and everything else stopped instead.

If they had ever talked about it, Sam might have, with no small measure of embarrassment, admitted that she had never been kissed. Had never kissed anyone else in a way that signified. Nothing less chaste than a kiss on the cheek.

So for a moment, she simply stood there, eyes wide open as his closed. But her mouth was soft beneath his and a moment later she tentatively kissed him back. With only one false start, her fingertips rested on his hips and, for this moment at least, nothing else existed.

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

He felt her tentativeness and hesitation on his mouth, on his hips, but right before Ben could decide to pull back and end the kiss? It shifted and Sam kissed him back. There was fire in his chest as she did and after a moment he recognized it for joy.

Their kiss turned deeper as they pressed closer together, his hands brushing down to the small of her back and keeping still there.

Exploring her taste, the softness of lips, his fingers curled into her back. The soft sigh hitching at the back of her mouth as they delved farther. Somehow they had gone from standing to leaning against the wall and it was the cold of the metal on his skin that woke him up. Gently Ben broke their kiss, she looked up in confusion and he nuzzled her softly, his brow leaning against hers.

"Never gonna regret doing that," Ben mumbled softly, a smile peering through.

His attention never really left her, not with her in his arms, part of him didn't want this moment to end. No matter how much danger there was outside of this narrow cramped place.

"Can't find em, they just gone!"

The speaker cackled into existence next to them, before another voice added itself to the mix. "People don't just disappear, you idiot, search every room again!"

 

[Sam Paige]

Everywhere he touched her was on fire. Every brush of his fingers, the feeling of his mouth on hers, the line where they pressed together. Her heart was hammering wildly by the time he broke the kiss, confusion turning into a small, shy smile as she nodded, not really sure just what to say after that, but kind of hoping he'd kiss her again-

But the voice over the radio interupted that, and she blinked in confusion and consternation for a moment.

"Chit, Degan's here, look, pretend we haven't finished searching yet. Rather than telling him we can't find the redhead and the arsehole. Better that way."

"Yeah, right."

She squeezed his hand, then turned around in the small space. Trembling slightly, a combination of the last few minutes (seconds? days? She wasn't really sure and she could still taste him which was beyond distracting), and what she knew she had to do.

"Um. This. Right here."

She pointed at the screen to a line of code. It currently read .15A

"In case. You ever need. You know. In case something happens...... in case I'm not here. Right here, these numbers are the amperage output. Ignore the first ones, those are volts- unless the ship's been over run with droids, then that one is good. But here- the higher the number input the more power, see? It doesn't look like much. But it's enough to cause a fatal arrhythmia in the average human."

Tapping the keys, she changed the input.

.5A

"That's 500 miliamps. That should at least stun the trandoshan if he's here. But."

Despite the weight of the 'but', she didn't alter the number again.

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]
But maybe the Trandoshan wasn't here.

It would kill anyone else who was on the ship several times over.

He felt the doubt on her mind, because it was echoed by his own doubt in the moment. Ben didn't like the act of killing, even now it made his stomach upset to consider it - different when you were in the field of battle and the adrenaline pumped through your veins. The entire world looked different then. This wasn't that though - they were safe here (for now) and were making a conscious decision to end the lives of the people currently skulking around on this ship.

Then Ben thought back to their little encounter.

The looks they had been sending to Sam and it made him wonder how long... how long before they would want more. Jaw was set and he closed the distance between them. This time Ortega thought nothing of pressing himself against her, arm moving past until his hand was on hers.

"They used up their benefit." Ben echoed her once more, firmer this time. "We will do it together- share the burden, okay?"

Part of him wanted to spare her completely.

Push her out of the way and do it himself. How many could be out there? A dozen? What was a dozen compared to the lives he had already taken since joining the military? But that wasn't fair, this wasn't just his fight, it was hers as well.

 

[Sam Paige]

Even with what was happening, she felt like her skin was on fire everywhere he touched her. Her cheeks flamed as he moved up right against her back, his hand moving to cover hers.

"W-wait," she said quietly, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Let's make sure. Before. If the trandoshan is here."

She could stun all of the humans will a lower setting reliably. Short of someone having an already weak heart, she could take them out without killing all of them. Tie them up, call station authorities. As long as they didn't bring the trandoshan everyone could live and she wouldn't have to be the one to .

"Have you found them yet?"

Degan's voice came through the speaker, unmistakable. That easy, smirking 'hey we're all friends here' tone no where in evidence, but still Degan nonetheless.

"Girl's probably got half a dozen hidey holes in this place. You saw the equipment she was bringing in here. Start ripping up the floors."

The sound of heavy foot falls echoed painfully around them. Sam looked up, face stark. Too heavy for a human. Her hand shook slightly. Even if Degan hadn't just given that order, the heaviness above them told her everything she needed to know. None of the humans walked that heavily. Someone was up there with Degan. And it wasn't another human.

She nodded finally, closing her eyes.

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

His hand curled into hers and he squeezed when they heard the heavy footfalls.

There were possibilities here. It could be a droid, could be someone in heavy armor, could be any number of things that Ben could count from the top of his head, but here was the problem: they couldn't know for sure. It wasn't a risk worth taking, not when these were thugs and criminals here to hurt them or kill them.

There was no option here to take a chance, not one that was worth the risk.

"Three." Ben added his voice to hers and then they touched the controls at the same time. For a moment nothing happened, he was about to ask if something went wrong... when it happened.

The sizzling.

The choked-off attempt at screaming, until their vocal chords constricted and left nothing for their throat to work with. Just the dry hggggggggggg, until a dozen thuds sounded one after another. Then another one, heavier, bigger, it was a thud instead. "Might be best if you wait here for a moment," He mumbled against her, trying to feel how he felt about all of this.

"We might have missed something, alright?"

A beat.

Sam nodded then and Ben squeezed her hand one last time, before stepping out into... a mess.

 

[Sam Paige]

Once he was out of the space, she let her knees go out from under her. Slowly sinking down to the floor, she leaned against the inner wall. Taking her glasses off, she rubbed her hand over her face and closed her eyes. A long, low and shaking breath- and then knees pulled up and she rested her forehead on them, trying not to think too hard about what they had just done.

It wasn't really possible.

Above, the ship was full of bodies. Seven in total. The trandoshan was there, alive and struggling to rise, skin burned and blistered. The smell of burned meat filled the dark spaces. Degan stared up, his face lit in a final moment of surprise, but no longer seeing.

She knew what she had done. But it hadn't hit her fully yet. In would.

Pinch bumped into her leg. He didn't offer a comforting warble or a sympathetic beep. The little droid would have shocked the chit out of them all on its own if it could have. Those last couple of hours before the programing had left its system on Rishi had been the best hours of its tiny, angry existence. No, it didn't comfort her.

Beeeewomp!

But it did congratulate.

"Coming from you, I don't think that's exactly something I can be proud of," she said quietly.

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

Impassive Ben surveyed the 'damage' they had done.

It was a mess, it smelled and it was ugly, exactly how war had always been in his experience. No glory whatsoever, just people dead and their dreams forgotten in ashes. This did not prevent him from raising his blaster to take out the Trandoshan- until something stopped him. It wasn't concern of morality and neither was it the sudden fear in the lizard's eyes as he tried to crawl away. Instead, Benedict started wondering towards the future and what their actions would mean.

There are always consequences.

"Who do you work for?" The lizard looked up, if it could have scowled or frowned it would have, instead the Trandoshan weakly sliced with his paw through the air.

Probably imagining his ruined claws cutting through the fleshy human. "K-k-k-kark offffff." The alien finally got out, before growing still- not dead, but impassively still as it watched Ben from the slits of his eyes.

"You can still be saved- tell me who you work for... ain't Degan, we both know that."

Suddenly the Trandoshan moved.

It had been fast, sudden and with all the remaining strength it had conserved in that little moment. Trying to cut a path straight through Ben and carve him up, but the barrel of the blaster was faster.

Boom-bang-boom.

Where there was a head... now just a hole half a meter away from Ben.

 

[Sam Paige]

She heard it all.

The conversation. The hiss of pain, the struggle to move. The sudden scramble.

The resounding retort of the blaster.

She wished that she hadn't.

Ben would find her right where he left her. She had stayed put. Of course now she was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her face and arms wrapped around her legs. Pinch was snugged up right next to her, her glasses on top of his casing (which might have been amusing in other circumstances). She was gripping opposite elbow so hard that her knuckles were white.

She wasn't crying. But it was a near thing, and the way the tension sang in her shoulders would make that obvious to someone as observant as Ben.


[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

For a moment Ben just looked, brows furrowed, before sighing and settling himself down next to her.

An arm wrapped itself around her shoulders, pulling her against him for something akin to a hug. Part of him wondered if he shouldn't blindfold her while they did the walk through the ship. It was a mess down there, it smelled bad, looked bad and there was nothing good that would come from her seeing it. But perhaps she needed to? She was a strong one, even if she didn't look the part immediately, it would hurt her, but it could also strengthen her in the long run.

"Gonna take some time for the ship to clear out, also need to repair the hole." Ortega mumbled against her. "We can use my ship in the meantime, cramped, way smaller than this thing, but... think that will be better for now."

He squeezed her arm, slightly, reaffirming that everything was over now.

Even if it didn't seem that way.

"You could close your eyes, I will lead you out, if you don't want to see it." The gentle offer came. He didn't think it would be good for her in the long run, but the tension against him... he had to offer it.

 

[Sam Paige]

She leaned into him when he put his arm around her, but didn't look up.

"No," she said quietly. "I- did it."

He could argue, say that 'we' did it, but that wasn't what she meant. She wasn't taking all of the weight of the responsibility onto herself. But she was accepting her fair share. At least as far as she was able.

She looked up at him. Without her glasses on, she squinted at him slightly. Her face was tight, but her eyes were dry.

"I can do it. But. I..... can we go now? I don't think I can stay here, anymore."

He nodded.

"Of course we can."

She didn't see it all. They didn't go on a tour through the ship, after all, and not all of them had been at their egress point. But she saw Degan. The trandoshan. She was silent as they moved through, and silent, answering any questions with either a nod or shake of her head, while heading to his ship.

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

Ben didn't ask many questions after that.

Something told him that this was the first time that Sam had taken a life and instead of it being a single one, she had been forced to take half a dozen all at once and it hadn't been clean. Not clean at all, the air hanging heavy with sizzled flesh and grime, there was nothing pleasant about being there in that moment.

But she'd get through it.

The former Jedi had taken a moment to lock down the nav-computer, making sure nobody would try to fly away with it while they were gone, but that was as much as he could do right now.

Some stray sheets of metal (probably Sam's plan to reinforce some of the hull) were placed against the hole. It wouldn't do anything, but cover it from side-glances. Ten minutes later they walked up the ramp into his little freighter. It wasn't much to look at, really, Corellian-made, back before the Netherworld broke it apart.

It had a little cargo-hold, engine room and a small sleeping cottage above the pilot's nest. The ramp closed down behind them and he finally sighed.

They were safe here.

"Want to talk about it? or sleep."

 

[Sam Paige]

"Um. Just sleep. If that's okay."

Of course it was. She didn't think that it wasn't. Or that he would think that. But speech habits are hardest to shake when someone is at their lowest, and it had nothing to do with actually asking his permission.

She looked around at the ship as they moved through it- even here and now it was a compulsion. She didn't have the energy to start cataloguing improvements. She felt hollowed out, numb. Shouldn't she be feeling.... something else? Should she be angry? Sad? Surely she ought to be feeling something right now, right?

He showed her a bunk, said he was going to clean up, and she just nodded. She sat on the edge of it tentatively after he left. Slowly, she laid down, curling up on her side.

Why didn't she feel anything?

Taking off her glasses, she set them on the small shelf and rolled over, facing the wall.

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

He returned not long after that.

This time he did wear a shirt and also had a sweater with him, that last one not for him. Ben watched her for a moment, her shoulders were still tensed up, but she didn't shake. No tears, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. It was shock, he thought, he had seen that a lot during the early years of war against the One Sith.

Usually it passed.

Settling down on the edge, he carefully covered her with the sweater, give her some warmth. "I... can stay if you want? You shouldn't be alone after all this."

Suddenly Ben realized what that sounded like.

Cheeks turned a bright side of red, he gulped and shook his head. "I meant... just to sleep, nothing more, company... really nothing besides." Ohhh, that was smooth, you recovered yourself correctly there, Ben! Poor girl just killed her first few sentients, is in shock and that is the thing you gonna bring up!

Fark off, I didn't want that at all.

Uh huh.

 

[Sam Paige]

Sam entirely missed the implication of what he thought his words sounded like. Which was probably for the best right now anyway.

She reached up, gripping the sweater slightly, and nodded.

"I'd like that."

Normally, Sam handled things better on her own. Or at least, she thought she did. Mostly because until recently, there hadn't been many other options. When the choices were handle something alone or not handle it at all, it seemed pretty obvious after all. But the things she had been handling before? With the exception of the day she and Ben had met.... it was nothing real. Hurt feelings. Anxieties. Not even the normal stresses someone else might experience. Sam's family was rich. She'd never wanted, materially, for anything in her life. She didn't know hunger or real hardship. She slept on a hammock in an engine room because she wanted to.

There was no place the events of the evening could easily fit into her psyche, and until she figured that out, it was going to sit there, looming.

She scooted slightly, making room for him on the bunk. There was some shifting behind her, then he lay down. She could feel the warmth of his hand where it hovered over her arm for a moment. Without thinking about it too much, she rolled over, her face and body still tense, but something lurking in her eyes.

"I think I could really use a hug right now, Ben."

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

He almost pulled his hand back when she shifted around to face him.

His eyes searched hers for a moment, before giving a small nod and pulling her closely to him. Arms wrapped around her, gentle yet firm, as he nuzzled her neck and tried to think of something to say. But what was there really to say in a situation like this: it will get better? It will get easier? This is what we signed up for? They were bad people? They deserved it? None of that was strictly false, but none of them seemed to fit with the situation and with what Sam needed right now.

If only Ben knew what she needed.

"I am here for you, Sam." Ben whispered instead, reaffirming that in this moment she wasn't alone and didn't have to deal with this entire thing on her own. They both carried this burden and they could support each other, if that was something she needed- or wanted for that matter. If that meant... talking?

He'd try for her.

If it meant just being there and cuddle, he could do that as well.

 

[Sam Paige]

He didn't need to wonder what she needed. He was already doing exactly that.

She curled her lower arm up against herself, the other going around his waist and hugging him back.

It took a little while for him to figure out that she was crying. There was no shaking shoulders, no sniffling. Just silent tears that slowly seeped into the shoulder of his shirt. This wasn't the fear and shock of the attack the first time they'd met. This was something different. This was not a visceral reaction that had no sense of anything but the moment. Sam couldn't have explained it, the difference between that and this.

She wasn't trying to hide it, to suppress it. She just didn't really know what to do with it either. She still felt hollow and numb- the tears felt more like they belonged to someone else than to her. But they came, and she let him, and wondered just how long it would take before they felt like her own again.

Neither of them said anything- Ben, because he didn't know what, and Sam because she didn't want to.

When she finally fell asleep there in his arms, her face was still wet.

[member="Benedict Ortega"]

 

[Hira Mitsae]

[member="Sam Paige"]

Once Ben noticed the tears he got anxious again.

What do I do??

But eventually he simply pulled her in closer, held her in his arms and offered soft kisses. More if she responded, less if it seemed like she wasn't into it at all. This was... unbroken ground for him, he did things by what he had read, saw in movies, it seemed to be the right thing to do. It felt right to do in the moment.

Sleep didn't come to him, not while she was awake, not when she finally drifted asleep.

Instead Ben stayed completely awake, guarding, at ready if she needed something, planning for what he would have to do in the next few days, if he wanted to guarantee their security. Today started with blood, ended with it, but by no means was it over- there was more work to do, if they were to be left alone.

* * *​

​

The next morning she shook and yawned and it took Ben out of his thoughts.

"...hey you." He mumbled, scooting over to give her some space if it was necessary.

 

[Sam Paige]

She didn't sleep well or long, but she did sleep. A scant few hours, but she was still and quiet. She didn't whimper, didn't cry out, didn't toss and turn. If not necessarily restful, it was at least not haunted. Whether that was because of the very basic nature of Sam though, or the presence of Ben was impossible to tell.

Sam didn't startle awake. She came to slowly, conscious of him before fully waking up. There was no confusion when she opened her eyes, but there was a lot of squinting and she did move back slightly to get his face into focus. There was a very narrow slice of the world she could see clear-ish without her glasses. And she centered him in it for the moment.

For a moment she didn't reply, wanting to think of something clever or sweet.

"Hey back," she replied.

Oh well.

She grimaced, reaching out and patting around the shelf she'd left her glasses on. Drawing them over, she put them back on, smiling a bit when he came into focus.

And suddenly becoming very, very aware of how close they were.... and that she'd slept at least part of that night in his arms.

"Um. I'm s-sorry. You are probably really uncomfortable. I- I can move."

[member="Benedict Ortega"]