[hr][center][h1][color=#4dff4d]Benji Baker[/color] & [color=009496]Tahlia Spade[/color][/h1][/center][center]Collab between [@beyond visions] and [@TheMadAsshatter][hr][/center] [indent]After helping Benji and Owen get Rend into the Med Bay, Tahlia couldn't help but sit and stare at the old man. In hindsight, she had let her emotions and her cynical side get the better of her, and she nearly pushed humanity that much closer to extinction. Beyond that, regardless of the fact that he damn near killed her, she still nearly executed him, and then beat him within an inch of his life, after she had already disarmed, overpowered, and subdued him. She still thought that he was a threat, even if his current state effectively incapacitated him. She still thought that the crew was better off in every way by letting him die. She still wished that the gun had been fully loaded. But she still couldn't help but be disturbed by her own behavior. Her training hadn't failed her, but her better judgment had. She acted on her own prerogative, rather than allowing for some sort of due process. She acted viciously; almost animalistically. She lost control of herself. That was the worst part. And she knew exactly why she reacted the way she did. And she'd be damned if any of the crew would ever find out about it.[/indent] [hr][center][h3]24 September 2048: Syria[/h3][/center][hr] [i]“Is there some reason you need an M39? You’re leaving in two days, Spade.” [color=009496]“To be honest, no. I just want to go to the range one more time. I’m probably getting out once I get back to the states.”[/color] Sergeant Fox chuckled. “You haven’t even seen your second enlistment yet, you made sergeant below the zone, and you had a fucking hard on for killing some terrorists when you got here. You’re quitting now?” Tahlia sighed heavily. [color=009496]“Just got tired of all the red tape and general bullshit that’s kept me behind the wire. It’s too much of a headache, I’m done with it. Fuck the Colonel.”[/color] Sergeant Fox laughed a little. “So, you’re just going to up and quit that easy?” Tahlia rolled her eyes. [color=009496]“Kiss my ass, Fox.”[/color] “Gladly!” he said, only half-joking. That, of course earned him a disdainful look and a scoff. “Come on, you and I both know I’m not your type,” he quickly followed. “Still, it just doesn’t seem like you.” He wasn’t wrong. [color=009496] “I dunno. I’ve started to wonder if I was right to join the Army in the first place.”[/color] A lie. Sergeant Fox went to the back of the armory to retrieve the requested rifle. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you are by and far the baddest-ass bitch I’ve ever met,” he said, returning with the marksman rifle and some ammo. Tahlia smirked. [color=009496]“You’re goddamn right I am!”[/color] she said, taking the M39 and clearing it before stuffing the magazines in her vest’s ammo pouches and heading for the door. She paused just before crossing the threshold. [color=009496]“In case I don’t see you again before my plane leaves, it’s been real.”[/color] She gave Sergeant Fox a two-fingered salute as she left, which he returned. Rather than heading for the range, she instead walked towards the base perimeter; fully intending to get outside the wire.[/i] [hr][center][h3]The Artemis: Med Bay[/h3][/center][hr] [indent][color=009496]“God… Dammit!”[/color] Tahlia exclaimed as her memory of the incident pervaded her mind. She got up suddenly and began to leave the Med Bay. Instantly, Benji leaped to a slight hop as the cuffs he once kept swinging in view of his face retreated to the floor in a rather thundering crash. [color=#4dff4d][i]So that's what it feels like?[/i][/color] he thought to himself, recalling the times he had delivered what he thought to be a cheerful greeting, yet ended up to be moreover of a scare. Benji was sure the rest had exited the Med Bay, that he was completely alone at this point and by his choice. Though it probably was for the best that he did share the company, in fact he probably needed it. [color=#4dff4d]"T-Tahlia... I didn't k-know y-you were... here...,"[/color] he quietly spoke while kneeling down to retrieve the restraints. Benji was aware of the details, of what played out during the time that he left in hiding after the gunshots were fired. He was briefly told by Owen and Tahlia when they aided him by carrying Rend on the stretcher. The two that lifted the weakened body, were also the two that seemed the most applicable for the role of leader. And after what was suppose to be their second meeting, Benji knew whose side he was on. [color=#4dff4d]"Um... Err... Dr. Childs is the psychiatrist-- And I'm getting the itching uneasy feeling that I-- I NEED to see him. But... I-I don't want to."[/color] Benji placed the handcuffs back around his shoulders before then folding his arms and creasing the brow, looking both frustrated and disturbed. Unlike Benji, he finally confessed what anchored deep in the bottom pits of his wrestling thoughts, [color=#4dff4d]"He shouldn't have stopped you."[/color] Tahlia stopped suddenly. Oddly enough, she hadn’t noticed Benji was still in the room either. She stopped and listened as Benji spoke, not turning around. He paused. Tahlia stood there for another second, wondering if he would continue. She was far from being in a mood to carry a conversation, and hoped that he was. She stopped when he continued, and what he said made her turn and look him dead in the eyes, a look combining anger, disappointment, and regret all in one on her face. [color=009496]”I lost control of myself,”[/color] she said. [color=009496]”He was right to stop me,”[/color] she said. Regardless of how she felt, she knew that she was wrong. [color=#4dff4d]“Hm…,”[/color] he quietly hummed, stroking softly the roots of facial hair patched against his chin. [color=#4dff4d]“I ran... “[/color] Benji’s breathing picked up speed in rapid fire before continuing but quicker this time with far more hysteria in almost a shout, he spoke up saying, [color=#4dff4d]“I [i]ran[/i]! Tahlia, he wanted to kill you.”[/color] And suddenly the silence returned as Benji recollected his reason to never deactivate the cryo-tanks, and it was a reason rooted in fear. Every scarring circumstance would never exists if he did not destroy a slumber that shielded what could have been left as serenity. Now, humanity lowers it chance of survival because of a malfunction, [i]his[/i] malfunction. Yet, perhaps without Rend, the percentage increases. [color=#4dff4d]“And isn’t it because you stood in his way? Is that why-- [i]how[/i]-- Andrew was replaced? The gun, that’s the murder weapon…”[/color] Benji, consumed by distraught, he leaned his back against the wall, until he felt his body slide downwards entire until he felt his body drop completely to the floor. [color=#4dff4d]“Help me, Tahlia. I don’t want to think this way. I don’t want to imagine the pull of a trigger with a loaded gun just as fatal as the pull of a plug… but it is.”[/color] Benji angled his head then at the ventilator. [color=#4dff4d]“This death would be a mercy act.”[/color] [color=009496]“It would still be a murder,”[/color] she said. She wasn’t even angry anymore. She knew it was her fault. She had put him in that bed and got him in such a state that he needed to be hooked up to a ventilator. She was disgusted with herself. She had barely even registered how Benji was behaving, but one thing did stick out to her. [color=009496]“You may be right, about Rend killing and replacing Andrew. But killing him now isn’t going to do any good on that point… though, I know it may save us later on, in more ways than one.”[/color] She got up and walked over to the machine. [color=009496]“If anyone should do it, I should. You’re a doctor, killing people, or even letting them die, isn’t your business. I used to kill for a living.”[/color] She stopped herself at that, realizing what she had let slip out. She was startled slightly, hearing the words leave her lips, but at the moment she was too busy contemplating what to do next to pay too much attention to it. [color=009496]“Still, this is different,” she said, not adding any more detail than that.[/color] [color=#4dff4d]“B-But what do you mean?”[/color] Benji did not wish to intrude on the mystery, but truly it was not one he could just let be silent on. Benji was aware that Tahlia was a soldier, and yes by definition, she did kill people. Though to say as so, it just sounded nothing more than [i]heartless[/i]. Naturally, the doctor is a naive kind of guy, the type to blindly trust anybody due to pure optimism. Yet, he deserves the right to know why this indeed [i]is different[/i]. Benji frowned, breaking his stare at the ground and instead looking back at her, [color=#4dff4d]“No more secrets, Tahlia. I want to be able to trust you… I-I mean, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to tell me [i]right[/i] now…”[/color] He turned his eyes in the direction of the med bay’s cameras. [color=#4dff4d]“Please. If there was anyone on the ship I call leader, it would be you. You were trying to protect us! What if Rend fired the gun off on Owen? What would he do in your shoes?”[/color] He paused shaking his head. [color=#4dff4d]“Sorry, ‘what ifs’ questions can be dangerous, driving people to do crazy things all because of a hypothesis. Earlier, in the cockpit, you told me to ‘just focus on the present’. But I can’t help but want to know about the past first.”[/color] He then adjust back onto his feet, walking as he made his way to the exit. [color=#4dff4d]“Listen, Rend’s living on a ventilator, but is he really-- you know, living? I’ve never wished a patient dead, that’s a sick doctor. But I can’t say this man is even alive at this point-- his life beats on the program of a machine. He scoffed at Yaz for an augmented limb, what would now say about himself? Pull the plug, you know I couldn’t do it myself.”[/color] He departed from the room, to only stick his head back in the doorway, [color=#4dff4d]“Oh, and Tahlia, when you have the time, please consider meeting me in my room. You can tell me everything there.”[/color] [color=009496]“It’s different because he’s defenseless. He was defenseless even when I had him pinned. I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t have the ability and desire to kill me. Sure, he wanted to kill me, but I overpowered him so easily.”[/color] She stopped for a moment, thinking about her statement. Yes, she had killed before, and at the time she had no problem with it. They were terrorists; they deserved what was coming to them… but she ambushed them, had better training and equipment than them, and at the ranges she was at, they had no chance of effectively returning fire. She had them by the neck, and then she squeezed, notwithstanding the circumstances. In retrospect, she was wrong in almost every way. [color=009496]“It was hardly a fair fight,”[/color] she finished, running a hand over her head. She sighed, lowering her head as she recalled the events that transpired that night. She thought she had left it behind her; she had hoped that leaving everything behind would be the final nail in the coffin. But conflict had found her again, and she let it get the better of her again. And she still was wondering if she should finish the job. She gazed at the machine. How easy would it be to just turn it off and just let him stop breathing? Too easy… but no matter how she thought about it, the only thing that made keeping him alive a good idea was that it would be one more person alive. Still, what was that worth? What would he contribute to humanity after they find their new home? And what amount of danger did he still present the crew if he somehow managed to recover? Tahlia barely registered Benji’s offer. She responded with a low grunt of acknowledgment. Benji left the room a moment later, leaving just Tahlia and the man she nearly killed. She looked between the man and the machine. It would be so simple… but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The crew would undoubtedly have a meeting about what to do with him later. She wasn’t a dictator, nor a murderer. Her, along with the others, would decide his fate in a democratic fashion. [/indent]