Sigh. More hugs.

More clinging.

Anwar and Sargon come back to the ship and are... moderately surprised by the condition they find it in.

"Hello," says Bea, still hugging Tina. "Stuff happened while you were out."

"I can see that," says Anwar.

"Tina—"

Flinch.

—okay. He stays well back, then.

"Someone came to see her. There was an accident. The police already came by, confirmed that it was an accident, and retrieved the corpse. She's been incredibly shaken up since then."

"Who, uh, was it?"

"His name was Obadiah Stane." She firmly suppresses the urge to make a comment about stains and the consistency of his upper torso.

"Huh," says Sargon. Where has he heard that name before - prominent Alliance military supplier, right, but where else -

- he glances at Tina again and it clicks. 'Obie used to—', when Tina was explaining why she did not want to try certain things. Okay. Something is definitely going on here.

"Erika's the one who found them like that and got me, if you want to talk to her about it; I don't know if she knows much more than I do but Tina's understandably not very coherent right now." Hug.

Uh-huh.

"Yeah, let's go talk to Erika."

Erika is in her room, sitting quietly and looking at her coat, which is draped over her lap.

When the door opens she looks up, sees who it is, and flinches slightly, her gaze dropping back down.

He motions for Sargon to close the door behind them, and then he goes over and puts his hand on Erika's shoulder.

"What happened?" he asks quietly.

She buries her face in her hands.

"It wasn't an accident," she mumbles.

Anwar hugs her.

She starts crying, her shoulders shaking slightly as wetness trails down her face.

"I wasn't thinking--I don't deserve--"

Hugs.

"I was feeling--tense--so I was walking around the ship--I heard a noise from the engine room. I went to check it out. I heard Tina saying no like she didn't expect whoever she was talking to to listen. I burst in, he had her all but pinned to the wall, I yanked him off her and to the ground. I asked her if killing him would help anything.  She wanted to know how I knew to come, I told her. She said he never listened when she said no. He said something to the effect of she had no right to say no. 

I got--so cold--I thought I was being reasonable but I wasn't thinking at all. I broke his ribs with a wrench and told him that when someone says no you stop and when you're Alliance and a browncoat offers to kill you you treat them like a threat. It felt so good. Like--like it meant I wasn't helpless in the face of every fucking thing the Alliance has done to us. He said--something calculated to hurt her. I smashed his head in.

That felt good too until I realized I had done it right in front of her and looked up and she was terrified of me."

...Well now Sargon's going to hug her too.

"We made it look like an accident. I went and got Bea and she went and hugged Tina and her client called the cops. I hid my coat in my room so they wouldn't have--motive reasons--to think it wasn't an accident.

If she hates and fears me forever now it's my own fault and I deserve it."

Hugs. So much hugs.

"I came to rescue her and I just hurt her more."