What Do You Mean, Uh Oh?

[Sam Paige]

The Messenger​

[member="Yvana"]​

"Ouch!"

Sam was (she thought) alone in the primary engine room of her ship, The Messenger. They (this group of surprisingly pleasant crazy people and herself) were in hyperspace between systems. The chatter and press of the group, all working to figure out where they fit in, both within their newly formed fellowship as well as with each other, had gotten to be a little too much for the redhead and she had slipped out of the galley. She didn't think anyone had noticed, but that was okay. She was used to that, and honestly, she didn't really want anyone following her.

Confused, bemused and slightly bewildered, all similar but slightly different approaches to how she was feeling by the sudden influx of strangers didn't mix well with the level of noise for her, so she'd headed down toward the engine room. Arguably louder by any metric than the group she'd just left had been, this at least had the benefit of being familiar, almost comforting noises. The clack, clang and clatter of machinery. The whir and purr of the engines as they powered all parts of the ship.

But as she'd paused in the door way, gazing with an almost affection across the cramped room, she had paused, the little smile turning into a little frown as she cocked her head.

Something sounded wrong.

It wasn't long later that she was scooting out from under something, the surprisingly loud (for her) exclamation cutting through the ambient sound of machinery. She didn't stop to wipe the oil off of her hand, just popped her skinned knuckles into her mouth to suck on where she'd burned them against something that really shouldn't have been hot to begin with.

"What's wrong with you, honey?" She asked thoughtfully, looking up at the bank of machinery with some consternation on her face. "You can tell me."

 

[Eshtaol]

Various things across the past three years had taught Yvana Flynn attentiveness and by now she made a point of it. It rarely paid off to take note of those little things - where people were, what people did, everything happening only in the corner of her eye - but it had proved invaluable to her enough times to see the habit through now that she was no longer subject Nine.

She'd been enjoying the meeting, pleased to be caught in the midst of what felt so much like progress (like something was finally happening) - but it hadn't kept her from noticing when Sam had slunk out of the room.

At first she'd not followed. The group had been in the middle of an animated discussion and Yvana enjoyed debate - especially when it came to matters as important as the Vigil - and she doubted that Sam didn't have a reason for disappearing without announcing her exit. But once enough time had passed a level of concern began to sit in her mind, and eventually she'd decided to excuse herself to see what the redhead was up to.

Light footsteps tapped down the hallways of the Messenger as Yvana's gaze surveyed the ship's interior, trying to decide where Sam had disappeared to. She'd not spoken very much to the Coruscanti since their first meeting - it hadn't been hard to gather that she didn't tend towards talkativeness - but she had faintly gotten an impression of the woman's fondness for her ship. Truthfully, Yvana was still partly amazed at the Messenger's size in contrast to its owner; all potential memories of starships deleted from her mind, she could only begin to imagine how hard it would be to maintain.

Then a lightbulb went off in her head.

It only took her a moment or two longer to find the engine room, and she gently pushed open the door. Eyes wandered for a moment before she spotted the redhead beneath machinery that Yvana couldn't even begin to put a name to, talking softly either to herself or the bulking machine.

"Hey," Yvana said tentatively, stepping inside the room and looking curiously at Sam. "You kind of disappeared back there. Everything okay?"

[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

"Oh! Um. Hey."

The addition of a person to the room brought Sam's voice back down to it's usual levels.

She reached up, wiping the back of her hand against her cheek as she pulled on the messy pony tail, letting her hair fall back down around her face. She had pulled it up to be out of her way when she'd started to work, but she felt more comfortable (or maybe just less uncomfortable) with it down when someone else was around. Her hand left a smudge of black grease across her skin, but she didn't seem to notice.

"It's fine. Um. Everything's just fine it's just-"

Sam looked up, down, all around before it became clear that @Yvanna was not only waiting for a real answer, but that she was going to let her answer it, rather than trying to finish the statement for her, or move on to talking about things that she wanted to talk about instead.

Which was kind of a pleasant, if confusing, surprise.

"I mean. I- you see, I mean it's just-"

And still, the other girl waited, patiently. It took a bit to get out, but finally-

"I'm not. Very comfortable. In big groups. I mean. Everyone is so nice. But. Um. I'm sorry, I know it's rude. I just. I needed. You know. Some quiet?"

​The lilt at the end, as if she were asking permission, if that was okay.

The engine room was most assuredly not quiet. But it was clear what Sam meant.

"D-did- did you need anything?"

That must be why she'd come, after all. Usually, people didn't seek Sam out, after all.

 

[Eshtaol]

By all accounts, Yvana knew how to be patient. Listening to Sam struggle through her sentences, though, didn't feel like being patient; she wasn't bored waiting for the other woman to finish talking, not at all. No-merely curious as to Sam's answer. Her distress steeped into Yvana's mind, tangling into her own thoughts and shaping a wave of sympathy for the redhead.

She was suddenly very pleased to have followed Sam.

"Not rude," she assured her, "not rude at all." Smiles did not come naturally to Yvana but she managed one now for Sam's sake, small and kind and if it was what she was aiming for, calming.

"D-did- did you need anything?"

A pause, surprise.

"Oh! No, I didn't need anything." A hand brushed hair past the nape of her neck as Yvana crouched, sitting down on her knees next to the other girl. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

She hadn't realised that her words had dropped a notch in volume as if to match Sam's. Yvana was used to speaking in utterly flat, even tones - the voice of a soldier reporting for duty, the voice of a servant's compliance to their orders. Time outside of the laboratories had let personality leak into her composition. Taught her to gesture as she spoke, taught her to speak with anger or energy or glee.
But she spent so much of her time these days in animated conversation, heated debate, pressing argument.
Rarely did she get to speak so gently, one person to another.

"So, uh - what's. . . happening?" Yvana asked, motioning between the machinery and Sam in an air of mild bewilderment.

[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

"I don't know yet," Sam admitted, her tone clearly frustrated, but not with @Yvana.

She craned her neck, leaning back and starting to mutter, half to herself and half to the other woman. As she spoke, talking about the engine and why something seemed off, her words got smoother, less choppy and littered with fillers. It even rose in volume slightly. Never loud, just less of the near whisper than one had to struggle to hear, and almost a normal volume.

"-And the primary manifold- here? See? - It's hot. It's not supposed to be because the buffers handle that. But the buffers are working the way they are supposed to, so I don't know why it's hot, just that it is." She finished with a bit of a huff.

"I need to get into it, but I'm worried about opening it up while we're in hyperspace you know?"

It was amazing. But when Sam was talking about engines, she almost sounded..... normal.

 

[Eshtaol]

She shuffled closer to the machine and into a more comfortable position as grey eyes ran up and down the length of the engine, trying to follow along with Sam's explanation. It was nonsensical to begin with—faint awe at how at ease Sam seemed with the whole thing would've been clear on her face if the redhead hadn't been focusing on the machinery—but she managed to pick up enough that when Sam ended by addressing Yvana the clone could nod in agreement without having to pretend her understanding.

"Yeah, fair." Words accompanied the gesture of agreement as her gaze traced the machinery, trying to infer how everything connected. "So how do you get into it without it causing a problem? You need a hand with it?"

Doubtless the answer was no—it had far from slipped her how capable Sam was with engines, and Yvana didn't trust that she could provide any sort of help even if it was needed. But she was enjoying herself talking to the Coruscanti and it couldn't hurt to offer.

Besides, this ship was essentially home to the entire Vigil. It would probably be a good idea to keep it in working order.

[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

"Yes, I mean no. I mean-" Sam made an irritated sound in her throat, but it had nothing to do with [member="Yvana"] or her question.

"The panel is *hot*," she said, as if that explained everything. She glanced over at the other woman and realized, belatedly, that it didn't, not even a little. Her face got a little red.

"S-sorry. Just. I mean. Can't stop that part of the. Um. The engine. In hyperspace? We'd literally fall out into. Yeah. And I don't even know if I'll be able to *fix* it once it's stopped? I don't know if I have the parts I need- until I get in there to look at it? But until it stops, the outside won't cool down enough to touch safely."

She flapped her hands a little, clearly distressed and not knowing what to do with it.

"But if I *don't* get in there, then it might fail and set off a chain reaction that'll be even *worse*? And we could all be stranded in the middle of nowhere and-"

It'll be my fault hung in the air.