Chapter Text
how’s one to know,
i’d meet you where the spirit meets the bones
in a faith-forgotten land?
in from the cold,
your touch brought forth an incandescent glow
tarnished, but so grand.
.
.
.
i.
Captain Christopher Pike is—
—unexpectedly attractive.
Michael haltingly confesses this observation to Tilly over breakfast. She tries to keep her tone impartial. The last thing she wants is for Tilly to think she harbours feelings for the captain. She doesn’t. At least, she won’t for much longer.
(It’s been two weeks since the captain’s arrival on Discovery and Michael is still stubbornly clinging to the belief that ignoring her feelings will make them go away.)
The delight on Tilly’s face suggests she is unsuccessful.
“Attractive is an understatement,” she says emphatically. “He’s hot. Like bend me over the conn and fuck me into next week hot.”
The image is so vivid Michael can see it: Pike, in the captain’s chair; her, sinking down onto him—
“Tilly,” she admonishes. Her face is hot, her skin too tight. There’s an unfamiliar tingling between her legs, painfully sharp. It’s logically impossible, but she feels like she’s about to combust. “He’s the captain.” There are boundaries. The Starfleet code of conduct exists for a reason.
“And?” Tilly tears into her burrito, unfazed. “I’m allowed to look. And he’s definitely allowed to touch. If he wants. Not that he would, because he’s Christopher Pike and he’s the definition of honourable, but he’s definitely allowed. Any time.”
“But he’s your superior.” Michael shreds the edges of her wrap into tiny pieces and tries not to think about Pike’s fingers curled on the back of the captain’s chair, the warmth of his smile. The way her stomach flutters when he looks at her. “It would be inappropriate.”
(Fantasising about her captain is inappropriate; she should stop doing it.)
“He’s a human being, Michael, not a god. Well, he’s about as close to a god as you can get and still be a human—you know with the whole paragon of virtue and the nice hands and that face—but the point is he’s not a monk. Starfleet captains have sex too, you know. Keyla, tell her,” Tilly says, gesturing emphatically as Detmer slides into the empty seat beside Michael. Owo isn’t far behind, eyes sparkling with amusement.
“Tell Michael what?” Detmer asks, bemused.
Tilly huffs, exasperated. “That the captain is a snack.”
Detmer laughs. “Not my speed, Tilly.” Her eyes slide to Owo, slowly, like they’re sharing a secret. The corner of Owo’s mouth twitches warmly in response. Something has passed between them—what, Michael doesn’t know, but she files it away for further examination. Tilly can probably enlighten her, but Michael isn’t sure she wants to broach these topics with Tilly anymore. It feels…dangerous.
“We have heard rumours to that effect,” Owo says slyly.
Tilly smiles, triumphant. “See? Pike is hot. It is known.”
The point is moot, Michael rationalises as she takes her position on the bridge, ignoring Tilly’s pointed looks. Pike would never engage in relations with a member of his crew. He would consider it an abuse of power. Fantasising about impossible outcomes is illogical, not to mention unproductive.
Michael’s afternoon is very unproductive.
It would be easier if the attraction were purely physical. Lust is inconvenient, but easily dealt with. A necessary evil of human biology.
The problem is that Christopher Pike isn’t merely handsome. He’s principled. Open. Honest. He is the living embodiment of Starfleet's ideals. There’s something in his eyes, his stance, his warmth that draws Michael in, like a ship caught in orbit around a blinding sun. He makes her want to confess all her terrible secrets: her pride started a war; she led her captain, her friend, to her death; she failed to notice the presence of a genocidal maniac; she killed a man who wore the face of a friend; she fell in love with the enemy and believed him when he lied.
He makes her want, and Michael has learned the hard way that it is better not to want things.
***
Something clenches in Michael’s gut when Captain Pike and his officers beam aboard the Discovery. In the moment, she rationalises it as disappointment at not seeing Spock, swiftly followed by guilt at the relief that his absence grants her a stay of execution.
(She isn’t afraid to face Spock; she’s afraid of what comes after. At least now, she can live in the liminal space between forgiveness and exile.)
Michael is quickly proven wrong. Pike has a charisma about him, a magnetism, that tugs her from within. There is a resonance between them, his atoms calling to hers, that has nothing to do with Spock.
You have really beautiful nail beds, Tilly says on the bridge, and Michael tenses. Lorca would have—did—brush Tilly aside with a sharp rebuke, but Pike is an unknown quantity. The others exchange worried glances, bracing themselves for the worst, but Pike just smiles and says thank you like it’s an ordinary compliment, like he’s pleased she noticed. Everyone relaxes, until Tilly touches his finger and he gasps like he’s been burned.
Michael’s heart seizes, but—
“Kidding,” Pike says. His smile transforms his face, easy and open and alive; for a moment, Michael forgets how to breathe.
Lorca would never have joked like this. Lorca never cared about making his crew feel at ease. He never needed to; his authority was absolute.
Then Tilly accidentally displays Pike’s record and Michael thinks surely now he will reprimand her, but he just takes it, spreads his hands and tells them to give it a read. He glosses over his successes and instead highlights his failures, a display of humility no doubt intended to remind them that Pike is more than his rank. He reminds Michael of Philippa, although Philippa held herself at a distance—she would have closed the file with a gentle reminder to be more careful with personal information in the future. Let this be a lesson for us all, she would say. Pike’s candour, his willingness to share is refreshing.
Pike settles in the chair, caressing its arm reverently as he orders Detmer to take them to warp. “Hit it,” he says.
Michael shivers.
***
As she steps onto the turbolift at the end of alpha shift, Michael resolves to meditate on her feelings. It’s always helped her clear her mind, focus her thoughts. When she was younger, she would play chess with Spock whenever she was stuck in a tangle of emotions she couldn’t solve, but—
Well. That hasn’t been an option for a long time.
Her lack of control is frustrating. On the Shenzhou, it was easy to bury her feelings, to rely purely on logic. Now, she lacks focus. Discipline. T’Pau would be disappointed to see her failing so dismally at t’san s’at.
Michael's ruminations are interrupted by the hiss of the door opening to reveal none other than Captain Pike himself. Michael schools her features, suppressing the urge to groan—or worse. So close, it’s difficult to ignore the snug curve of his uniform, moulded to his frame like a second skin. She’s never given a second thought to the Starfleet uniforms, but now they seem obscene. Surely someone must have noticed how little they leave to the imagination.
The corner of Pike’s mouth twitches, amused, like he can sense her frustration. It’s so overwhelming, she’s surprised no one else has remarked on it. “Something on your mind, Burnham?”
Michael grimaces before she can stop herself. “The inconvenience of emotion, sir,” she says shortly.
“Ah.” There’s a knowing glint in Pike’s eyes; Michael realises suddenly that he has probably had this conversation with her brother many times before. “They can be. At times. Although you certainly do an excellent job at concealing them.”
Michael counts silently to ten in Vulcan and wills the colour from her cheeks. “Evidently not from you, sir.”
Pike’s expression is sympathetic. “No need to feel bad about that, Burnham. It’s my job to read my crew. Even those raised on Vulcan.”
She thinks of his own demeanour: calm and controlled, professional and yet not unfeeling. For a man who is so open, who reads others so easily, his own feelings are an enigma. “How do you keep them under control, sir? Your emotions.”
“The trick is to know when to let them show,” Pike replies. “Easier said than done, obviously, but it comes with time. And practice.”
Michael nods, watching the decks count down. She can feel the air crackling between them, shockingly alive. She wonders if Pike can feel it too, and then chastises herself for being ridiculous. He’s a professional. He wouldn’t—
—would he?
The trick is to know when to let them show.
Michael hates the confused tangle of emotions roiling inside her. She can’t get a read on Pike’s pleasant neutrality, can’t tell what emotions are real and which are merely her own feelings projected onto him.
“Burnham,” Pike says softly.
Michael starts, eyes meeting his, warm and concerned and endlessly blue. It would be so easy to lose herself in them, to give in to his gravity. To let him soothe the ache, the emptiness, that’s been eating her alive since she started the war. She hasn’t felt this much for anyone, not even Ash. It terrifies her.
She swallows. It’s impossible. It would only end, as everything ends, and Michael isn’t strong enough to survive the heartbreak. She would rather feel nothing thn endure it again.
“You’ve been through an incredible ordeal, one that you didn’t have time to process in the moment. It’s all right to be overwhelmed.” Pike’s tone is reassuring, but there’s a distance in his gaze, a sadness, that startles her. This isn’t just a piece of well-meaning advice; he’s speaking from experience. “These things take— time.”
Michael doesn’t believe that any amount of time can lessen her guilt. She doesn’t think Pike believes it either.
The lift doors open.
Michael straightens her spine. “Thank you, sir. For the advice.”
Pike nods, professional mask back in place. “Anytime, Burnham. My door’s always open, if you ever want to talk.”
“I— I will, sir.”
As Michael walks back to her quarters, it occurs to her that Captain Pike might have demons of his own.
***
Chris’ evenings are reserved for paperwork. At first, it’s something he does to kill time during beta shifts on the bridge as Robert’s first officer; after he makes captain, it becomes a habit out of necessity—there’s no other time to get it done.
Number One and Spock dispute this logic often, but Chris likes to be available to his crew during alpha shift, not sequestered away in his ready room, drowning in requisition forms.
They dispute this logic too.
“The crew knows where to find you, Chris,” Number One says pointedly, after entering the ready room to find him asleep on his PADD one too many times. “They’ll interrupt if they need something.”
“You are working too hard,” Spock tells him over one of their many games of chess.
Chris raises an eyebrow. If there’s anyone else on the Enterprise who can reliably be accused of having an unhealthy work-life balance, it’s his Chief Science Officer.
“Vulcans require less sleep than humans for optimal functioning,” Spock says in response to Chris’ unspoken objection. Then, more kindly: “There is no need to punish yourself for those you could not save, sir.”
Chris does his paperwork in his quarters after that. This way, if he wakes from nightmares facedown on his PADD, no one is the wiser.
Chris figures he’s probably written over a thousand reports to Starfleet Command by now. It’s monotonous, but he follows the advice his mother gave him from decades filling out medical charts: short, sweet, and to the point.
It should not take him eight drafts to describe the rescue on the Hiawatha.
They all start off fine: arrival on the Discovery, the discovery of the Hiawatha on the asteroid, his decision to execute a rescue mission using the landing pods. Connolly’s death is difficult, but Chris has lost enough officers by now to know the procedure by heart.
What brings him up short is what happens next.
***
Four days after the war ends, Kat calls. Chris is in his ready room signing off on the latest progress reports from the command training program when the call comes; he grimaces and tells Garison to put it through. He tendered his resignation, pending the end of the Enterprise’s mission, to Starfleet command yesterday; he’s surprised it’s taken Kat this long.
“You know I can’t accept this, Chris,” she says. Her hologram flickers, ghostly, against his wall, expression sympathetic.
“Hello to you too,” Chris replies, pouring himself a drink. He’s been indulging in too many since Talos. Another reason to throw in the towel: a good captain doesn’t need the bottle to keep his demons at bay.
“Look, I know it wasn’t easy, sitting out the war—”
“You have no idea what it was like,” Chris snaps. He knows he should keep his temper, but he’s tired. Tired of fighting battles he’s destined to lose. Tired of pretending he’s untouchable. Tired of being alone. Kat can rationalise her choice now that the war is won, but it doesn’t lessen the sting of betrayal. “Everyone else came home, Kat. They were dying, and we were—”
Kat meets his gaze head-on. “I don’t regret it, Chris. It was the right call, and I’d make it again.”
Chris sighs wearily. He leans back against his desk; it catches his weight. “I don’t think I can do this anymore, Kat.”
Her expression softens. “You’ve been through a trauma,” she says. “This is a big decision. Think on it.”
Chris is still thinking on it when the signals appear. He isn’t sure he can give Kat the answer she wants.
***
This is what Chris can’t say about his near-death on an asteroid: there’s a tiny part of him, the part that can’t get over the war, the part of him that grieves for all the lives lost (the lives he couldn’t save), that wants to die. Starfleet prepares all their cadets for the possibility of death in line of duty, and Chris is ready to accept that fate.
He isn’t lying when he tells Michael he doesn’t want to lose another officer, but the other side of that truth is that he hates that they’re the ones who always have to die.
He once told Spock that if a spaceship is a chess board, then the captain is the king: responsible for the lives of all, and protected at all costs. They all die by my command, Spock.
And yet, captain, they would gladly give their lives that you might live.
Sometimes, Chris wants to concede.
This is one of those times.
***
It takes him another two drafts to find something passable, but he manages it in the end. It’s a far cry from the truth, but Chris is sure Kat will read between the lines.
REPORT: STF-R-1514993 PIKE, CHRISTOPHER (CAPTAIN) SC0030-0157SHN SUBMITTED: 2257.118 at 20:45:29 Commander Burnham, with the help of Lieutenants Detmer and Owosekun, executed a rescue mission at great personal risk. All three officers are to be commended for their calm under pressure.
What Chris means but doesn’t say is that Michael trusted him when he didn’t trust himself. He may have lost faith, but she believed. She still believes.
***
Chris’ father’s greatest disappointment is that his children are all atheists. It’s your mother’s corrupting influence, he says whenever they challenge him on the finer points of theology, though the words had little bite to them—Charles is as enraptured by science as his wife, even if he understands its relation to the universe differently.
His religious devotion, however, does teach them the power of faith.
Faith is what draws Chris to Starfleet. Starfleet could use someone like you, the now Admiral Marcus says, and Chris doesn’t look back, enamoured with rose-tinted visions of a better future for the universe.
Chris doesn’t believe in God, but he does believe in Starfleet.
His belief carries him through the turbulence of five years in uncharted space; it comforts him when he loses crew members on what should be routine away missions to unexplored planets; it reassures him of his place in the captain’s chair when he doubts. The responsibility of four hundred souls is a heavy burden to bear, but Chris carries the hope that they are making a difference in the universe. That his crew who have lost their lives have not done so in vain.
Then they find Talos. It’s a dream that quickly turns into a nightmare: a mixture of pleasure and pain and desire that makes Chris wish he’d burned alive. The Talosians offer him everything he’s given up for the greater good on a silver platter; after, he can’t shake the despair, the fear that he’s sacrificed it all in service of an illusion. He spends hours in his ready room, nursing whisky and wondering if joining Starfleet wasn’t the worst mistake of his life.
Just when he thinks things can’t get any worse, war breaks out and Kat orders Chris to continue the mission while their brethren die in droves and he questions the point of principles when Starfleet abandons them in their darkest hour. He lies awake at night, trying to square with the fact that the Starfleet he believed in may never have existed, and when he can’t, he tenders his resignation.
Doubt is the most powerful weapon in the universe, his father always says, and Chris smiles and nods with the youthful arrogance of one who believes he is untouchable. Starfleet’s principles are engrained in the fabric of his soul; his faith is unshakeable.
Chris is wrong.
He’s ready to admit defeat when Michael Burnham saves his life. Literally: defies his orders and executes a daring rescue mission even though she’s only known him for about ten minutes, and he’s spent two of those yelling at her.
I told you, she says, voice firm in his ear as he screams towards oblivion, we don’t abandon each other.
Michael Burnham has more cause than most to doubt Starfleet, and yet her faith in its ideals is unshakeable. Her idealism reminds Chris of the man he used to be, a man he believed lost.
Maybe, Chris thinks as he watches the stars flash by his viewport, that man can be found again.
.
.
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ii.
Terralysium is a tipping point. The visceral terror that floods through Michael when Pike steps in front of the phaser is unexpected and— unsettling. She has never experienced such a debilitating paralysis that so completely overwhelms her ability to think clearly. She doesn’t know how she manages to get them into the church without breaking the Prime Directive; the expanse of memory between Pike being shot and Dr Pollard announcing he will live is blank. She has never felt so out of control.
It scares her.
Michael puts on a brave face to meet Pike in his ready room, suppresses the sheer relief that flows though her to see him sitting behind his desk. She ignores the warmth pooling in her belly when he huffs a laugh at her dry remark about her childhood on Vulcan. She can’t have this.
Spock's voice lingers on the edge of her mind. You are emotionally compromised. Your captain almost died as a result.
Michael does not voice these concerns to Pike, despite his earlier invitation: look, if there’s anything you feel you ought to tell me—
She ought to tell him she is happy he is alive. She ought to tell him she is sorry. She ought to tell him that when the phaser blast hit his chest, her heart stopped. She ought to tell him about this thing, this feeling that has settled, cat-like, around her heart.
Instead, Michael tells him about the red angel’s appearance. She apologises for withholding the information. It was logical, she explains; she thought she was hallucinating. She pushes him to give Jacob an explanation, to set his mind at rest.
“He knows in his heart who and what we are, and we chose to lie to him,” she says, and tries to shove aside the truths in her heart that she is choosing to lie about. Some things are better left unsaid.
To serve one goal, the other has to be sacrificed.
Michael knows what Pike will say: this wasn’t her fault, that she can’t foresee all outcomes. She can imagine the charming smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. All’s well that ends well, Burnham, and maybe that’s true, but it doesn’t change the facts.
This is a fact:
Michael was distracted. She was arrested by the sight of Pike in casual dress, the way the jacket hung across his shoulders. She was intrigued by his knowledge of religion, his simultaneous familiarity and discomfort in the church. Her eyes tracked his every move involuntarily, using their guise as travellers as an excuse. To the people of Terralysium, they weren’t captain and commander; they were just Christopher and Michael. Perhaps this distraction has no bearing on what transpired, but she was distracted, and this is what came of it.
This is a fact:
Michael’s impaired judgement has already cost her one captain. Philippa’s death eats away at her. Losing Pike— She can’t let herself contemplate it. It would kill her.
This is a fact:
Michael’s feelings are interfering with her ability to do her duties. They are putting her captain’s life in jeopardy.
The logical conclusion:
Her feelings must be eliminated.
Do you really think you can succeed? Spock asks.
Michael ignores him.
***
Michael doesn’t sleep much anymore. If she’s being honest with herself (a rarity, these days), she hasn’t really slept since the Battle of the Binary Stars. Her dreams are haunted by ghosts: her parents, Spock, Ash, Gant, Lorca, Philippa. Over time, her body has adjusted, learned to conserve energy where it can, using adrenaline to propel her when it cannot.
Now, it is Pike who haunts her dreams. She is frozen, limbs rooted in place as he dies, over and over again, because of her. Just like Philippa. She wants to run, to save him, but all she can do is scream
and scream
and scream.
***
By the fifth night, Michael has abandoned the pretence of sleeping altogether. She lies in bed, staring at the ceiling until Tilly’s breaths deepen and even, then slips from the sheets and pads to the mess. Amanda always used to make tea when Michael had nightmares as a child; perhaps it will soothe her.
She doubts it, but she’s willing to try anything.
Discovery’s corridors are empty at this hour. Gamma shift is always a skeleton crew, and thus the least popular; no one wants to miss out on the action. Michael worked many of these shifts as an ensign on the Shenzhou—she learned quickly that trading her alpha shifts was a way to build rapport with the other ensigns. She didn’t mind the quiet. It helped her focus.
Now, it only reminds Michael of her loneliness.
It’s better this way, she tells herself. No one gets hurt.
Lost in thought, Michael doesn’t notice the captain until she’s at the replicators. He’s seated alone in the corner, staring into a mug like it might contain the answers to the universe’s questions. The abject misery on his face takes Michael aback. The captain has spoken of his guilt at being side-lined during the war, but she never imagined it would be so— intense.
Of course not, Spock chides. Michael doesn’t know when her subconscious adopted his voice. It’s fitting; he’s always been her conscience. You cannot look beyond your own suffering. Or did you really think that the war affected you alone?
Michael shakes her head, clearing her thoughts. Coming here was a mistake. She should leave. The captain obviously wants to be alone, and besides, the tea might not help.
Pike looks up, meeting her gaze. A myriad of emotions fills his eyes: surprise, discomfort, relief.
My door’s always open if you want to talk.
Maybe he doesn’t want to be alone, after all.
“Burnham,” he says quietly.
She inclines her head respectfully. “Captain.”
The corner of his mouth quirks, ruefully. “Chris, please. We’re off duty. And I’m in my pyjamas. Hardly conducive of authority.”
Michael, too busy staring at Pike’s—Chris’—face, has not noticed this; she notices it now. Her eyes involuntarily trace the collar of his blue shirt, the curl of fabric over the top of his rib brace. His pants are soft and grey; she can see the outline of his thighs beneath the fabric. The colour combination brings out the blue in his eyes, the silver sprinkled at his temples. His hair is loose, tousled, like he slept on it. There’s a softness to him, his normally crisp edges blurred. This, Michael realises with a jolt, is what Chris looks like when he’s in bed. The intimacy of the moment makes her cheeks burn.
Michael swallows and looks away. “Tea,” she mutters to the replicator. “Jasmine. Hot.” The replicators are programmed to make Vulcan spice tea, but it never tastes right; jasmine is the closest alternative.
She wait silently. The hum of the replicator is deafening. Her eyes flicker to Chris to find him watching her, the corners of his mouth soft.
Michael’s stomach somersaults.
She keeps her gaze on her fingers until her tea is ready, then walks to Chris’ table. It would be rude not to, now that he’s all but invited her. Still, she hesitates before sitting down.
Chris, sensing her reluctance, gestures to the seat opposite him. “Please.”
Michael should put up some resistance. “I wouldn’t want to intrude, s—Chris.” The name feels strange in her mouth. Weighty. Warm.
An obvious lie, Spock chides. If you meant that, you would not have let yourself be seen.
Chris chuckles, and winces, one hand coming to his ribs. “Rest assured, Michael: your intrusion on my midnight ruminations is most welcome.”
Michael sits, unsure of what to say, where to look. The image of Chris’ dead body lingers in her mind’s eye. She wraps both hands around her mug and watches the steam rise from the surface, trying to quell the turbulent emotions inside her.
“Rough night?” Chris asks gently.
She shrugs. “I don’t sleep much. Not since the war.”
He hums sympathetically. “I understand.”
Sitting out the war took its toll on my crew. On me, he said.
“It’s—” Michael bites the inside of her lip, unable to fight the instinct to dismiss her emotions. You must create the illusion of control, even when you do not feel it, Sarek said, a lifetime ago. “I’m fine.”
She will be. Eventually.
Chris raises an eyebrow. “I think the fact that we’re both sitting here is proof neither of us are fine.”
Michael smiles into her tea. “Point taken.” She nods at his brace. “How are you feeling?”
He grimaces. “Nothing like a brush with death to put things into perspective. Besides, this brace is hell to sleep with.” His mouth quirks conspiratorially. “I thought about taking it off, but I don’t think it’s worth risking Dr Pollard’s wrath.”
“A wise choice,” Michael agrees dryly. She’s been on the receiving end of Dr Pollard’s wrath. Several times.
They sip their tea in companionable silence. Michael watches Chris surreptitiously from beneath her lashes, cataloguing his movements: the curve of his fingers around his mug; the ripple of muscle beneath his sleeves when he raises it to his lips; the line of his neck vanishing beneath his collar. Up close, he looks older; Michael can see the furrows in his brow, the shadows under his eyes. It isn’t only his ribs that keep him up at night.
His presence is soothing; after a while, the panic of her dreams recedes, a warm heaviness taking its place. Michael’s yawn catches her by surprise.
Chris smiles. “Tea’s doing its job, I see.”
Not just the tea, Michael thinks, catching the words on tip of her tongue. Those confessions are dangerous. She stands, smoothing the creases from her trousers. “It’s late. I should go.”
Chris stands too, reflexively. It’s the sort of thing men do in those old Earth films Tilly loves to watch, the ones that make her sigh and lament the death of chivalry. He grins, boyish. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I hope we don’t meet like this again.”
Michael huffs a laugh. “Likewise, sir.”
Liar, Spock whispers.
***
Michael doesn’t mean for her night-time encounters with the captain to become a regular occurrence. In fact, she means for it never to happen again, but when she wakes the next night, Chris’ name dying in her throat, her feet propel her to the mess before she can stop herself. Chris is already there, nursing a cup of tea and reading something on his PADD. His mouth quirks sympathetically when he sees her, but his eyes are warm, like he’s secretly pleased. Michael takes the seat across from him without being asked. They sit in silence for an hour: Chris, reading; Michael, watching him from behind the rim of her mug. She studies the minutiae of his facial expressions: the confused ripple of his brow, the amused twitch of his lips, the surprised hum in the back of his throat.
(That sends heat pulsing through her, followed by visions of his mouth humming against her.)
Michael doesn’t think she has studied anything so intensely since her entrance examinations for the Vulcan Science Academy.
The next night, she brings her own PADD, determined to continue decoding the red angel signals. Chris is doing paperwork; she watches his fingers fly across the PADD instead, memorising the curve of each digit.
She can almost feel Spock’s withering eyebrow.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Chris jokes on the fourth night. He hasn’t brought his PADD this time; instead, he regales her with stories from his childhood on Elysium and his time at the Academy. She learns that his parents are named Charles and Willa, and that he has three older sisters—Mary, Stevie, and Grace. He had two horses, Tango and Mary Lou, and he still craves his mother’s chicken tuna sandwiches. The table in his ready room is from his father’s study. Once, at the Academy, he and Philippa bet on who could drink the most shots of Cantaran firewhisky: “She drank me under the table, and, as punishment I had to lead her astrophysics study groups for the next month. The next morning was probably the worst of my life.”
In exchange, Michael tells him about her childhood on Vulcan, her training on the Shenzhou. She skirts the harder parts: her parents’ death, the bombing of the Learning Centre, her argument with Spock, Sarek’s decision to pass her over for the Vulcan Expeditionary Group. Her stories are far less colourful than Chris’, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“Interesting is a matter of perspective,” he says when Michael apologises.
The next night, he has a chess set with him.
“Your brother found it helpful when he couldn’t sleep,” Chris explains at Michael’s surprised look. “I thought you might feel the same.”
Gratitude fills Michael, unexpectedly warm.
(She refuses to think about the fact that he’s been thinking about her.)
They play three games. Michael wins them all, although Chris, to her surprise, holds his own.
“I have a lot of practice,” he says, seeing her raised brow.
She smirks. “At losing?”
Chris grins, hands raised in surrender. “What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.”
***
The following night, he’s distracted; Michael beats him in ten moves.
(It could have been three, but she decided to spare him.)
“Ouch.” Chris scrubs a hand over his face. He looks exhausted, the shadows under his eyes deeper than before. Dr Pollard gave him a clean bill of health two days ago; something else must be on his mind.
“Is everything alright?” Michael asks hesitantly as she resets the pieces. He always shares his feelings so freely, but she doesn’t want to pry.
Chris exhales wearily. Michael watches him weigh his words before he speaks. “During the war, we all felt so helpless. Our brothers and sisters were dying, and we were just— cruising in space. It felt pointless. Like we were abandoning them.” He runs a hand through his hair. “It made me question my place in Starfleet.”
Michael’s surprise at his admission of doubt is quickly overwhelmed by an ache for him, carrying this burden alone. She thinks of her own sleepless nights in her cell, agonising over every possible outcome of the battle, wondering if it could have turned out differently. Wondering if she could have kept Philippa alive. She could easily have driven herself mad—she might have, if Lorca’s transport order hadn’t come when it did.
“I—” Michael swallows, licks her lips, and begins again. “After the Battle of the Binary Stars, I spent a lot of time thinking about what might have happened if I had made different choices. But, after a while, I realised it didn’t matter: the choices I made that day were the logical ones, based on the information I had. Without prior knowledge of the outcome, I would always make that choice, and that—” She inhales shakily, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. “That was a hard pill to swallow.”
A hand closes over hers, warm and dry. Michael’s gaze snaps up. Chris’ expression is full of compassion, understanding, and— something else. For the first time since Philippa died, the ache in her chest eases somewhat.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I—” The words die in Michael’s throat as she registers the weight of Chris’ hand on hers. Her heart pounds erratically. She can feel the ridges of his fingers, the slight dampness of his palm; she imagines, impossibly, that she can feel the point of contact between each cell. For Vulcans, touching hands like this is as intimate as intercourse.
Michael closes her eyes and focuses on her breath, willing her heart to slow. Chris likely does not know about Vulcan customs; she can’t imagine Spock imparting this information—and besides, Michael is human. Physical contact is normal for her species; it shouldn’t bother her. It’s a comforting gesture between friends, nothing more.
When she feels sufficiently calm, she opens her eyes and continues: “What I’m trying to say is that— What happened during the war wasn’t your fault. You had your orders, and you followed them.”
They both hear what she doesn’t say: it was my fault.
“It wasn’t your fault either, Michael,” Chris says quietly, like he can read her mind. He’s still holding her hand, his thumb tracing absent patterns against her knuckles. Michael wonders if he’s aware of it. She isn’t sure she wants him to stop. “You might have ignited the spark, but that war was a long time coming.”
Michael nods stiffly. “I am trying to accept that. It’s— difficult.”
Chris’ lips twitch bitterly. “Don’t I know it. The admiralty had their reasons for keeping the Enterprise away, but the guilt still eats me up at night. I like to be useful. Sitting out the war felt like a slap on the wrist.”
Michael, who still lives the pain of the war every day, is selfishly glad the Enterprise was light-years away.
“For what it’s worth,” she says quietly, “I’m glad you weren’t there. If only because you’re here now.” She squeezes his fingers, tentatively, hoping that they will convey what she cannot say.
His expression softens. “I’m glad you’re here too, Michael.” There’s a promise in his eyes that scares Michael. She pulls her hand away abruptly and then, realising it may look rude, tries to cover it by taking a sip of her tea, carefully schooling her expression into something resembling neutrality.
Chris leans back in his chair, stretching his arms overhead. If he is bothered by her sudden change, he doesn’t let on. “Ready for another round?”
Michael smirks, relieved to be on familiar ground. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“That last one was a tough loss, Michael. At least let a guy redeem himself.”
***
Chris smiles when Michael steps onto the bridge the next morning. It’s professional, but she isn’t imagining the warmth in his eyes, the softness at the edges, that’s just for her.
She nods and makes her way to her station, flustered. Her face feels hot; it takes her a moment to process the readings in front of her. Things are rapidly spiralling out of her control. The more she learns about the man beneath the captain’s mask, the harder it is to ignore her feelings for him.
It would be so easy to love him. Michael can see their future unfolding effortlessly before them—meeting his family and introducing him to her parents; spending their nights together, drinking tea and playing chess and talking. The force of her want takes her by surprise. She never imagined that she could feel so deeply—not only physical attraction, but admiration and comfort and security. With Ash, it was the intense physical magnetism, then later fear and loneliness, that pushed her into his arms, but with Chris, it’s different. His steadiness, his warmth, quiet the voices in her head, the fears in her heart. When Michael is with him, she isn’t thinking about lives she’s taken or lost, the guilt she carries. In those moments together, it seems like her pain might be surmountable, that the emptiness inside her might not be forever.
Growing up on Vulcan, Michael never imagined herself having a partner (her lack of touch-telepathy made it impossible, and she wanted so desperately to be Vulcan, to bury her hurt beneath the comfort of logic that she never considered looking anywhere else) but now—
Now, she hopes, and hope is a dangerous thing.
She ought to pull away, to remove herself before things get worse.
If you haven’t realised it is too late for that than you are a greater fool than I thought, Spock says scornfully.
***
“So,” Tilly says slowly, sidling up to Michael as she exits the bathroom at the end of alpha shift. “You and the captain have been really chummy lately. Anything you want to share with the class?”
Michael wills herself not to react. “We’re both suffering from insomnia. We’ve been helping each other through it.”
It isn’t until after the words have left her mouth that she realises it might have been the wrong thing to say.
Tilly grins. “Insomnia, huh?”
Michael grits her teeth. “Yes. We play chess. Or talk. It’s nothing.”
“Captain Christopher Hotpants Pike, pride of Starfleet and star of all our wet dreams, spending personal time with you off-duty doesn’t sound like nothing to me.” Tilly rocks back on her heels, vibrating with excitement. “Michael, this is Dating 101. He likes you.”
Michael swallows the automatic denial on the tip of her tongue. She can’t ignore the light in Chris’ eyes, the softness in his voice, that says his regard for her is more than purely professional admiration. There must be a reason he isn’t acting on his feeling. She should follow his lead. “He hasn’t expressed any interest.”
“Or,” Tilly counters, determined, “he’s waiting for you to make the first move. You know, respect for authority, professional boundaries, all that stuff. He wouldn’t want you to feel pressured if you weren’t interested.” She pauses, concerned. “He does know you’re interested, right? Because if not, you should clear that up, pronto. I would hate for you to miss out on that mouth because of a miscommunication.”
Michael refuses to think about all the things Chris’ mouth could be doing to her. “Even if he were aware, it would be unprofessional. He’s my direct superior.”
“Pretty sure there’s no Starfleet regulation that says captains can’t have hot, consensual sex with their chief science officers. Especially if said officer initiates.”
Michael shakes her head, resolute. “It’s a bad idea, Tilly.”
Tilly frowns, like she isn’t sure which flaw in Michael’s logic to point out first. “Okay, but I want to state for the record that I am totally against this. You both like each other. You already spend all your free time together. Denying yourself the pleasure of multiple orgasms is just unfair.”
Michael blinks, surprised at the lack of resistance. Tilly never gives ground so easily. “You’re just going to— let it go?”
Tilly smiles. “Time is on my side, Michael,” she says cryptically. “You’ll see.”
***
Chris falls for Michael writing reports.
She laughs when he tells her this, years later. They’re in bed together, her hands tracing idle patterns on his chest.
“You did not,” she will say, but she will laugh, and he will grin, teasing, and tell her that she wooed him over the chessboard.
Both are true. His affection for Michael is a slow, creeping thing; its roots are deeply-seeded by the time he notices it. The first roots are laid in her capture of his pieces, but he can trace its growth in the lines of his weekly reports.
REPORT: STF-R-1514995 PIKE, CHRISTOPHER (CAPTAIN) SC0030-0157SHN SUBMITTED: 2257.145 at 23:59:59 Integration with the crew is progressing rapidly, thanks to the ready assistance of Commander Burnham, whose impressive knowledge of her fellow crew members has been invaluable.
Three days earlier, Chris spends an afternoon doing rounds on the lower decks. He asks Michael to join him. He tells himself that it’s a professional choice—after having spent more than half his life (and isn’t that a sobering thought) on a starship, Chris has learned that his best resource in any situation is his crew—but the truth is, it’s a feeble pretence to spend more time with her. As former acting captain and first officer, Saru is the obvious choice.
He’s exploiting loopholes in his own rules for selfish purposes, and Chris might be ashamed of himself if he didn’t turn out to be right: the NCOs flock to Michael, eager to share updates on life below decks. A small, fond smile curls at the corners of Michael’s mouth when they meet the first yeoman; it stays in place as she listens to each of them. Chris says little, content to watch the proceedings.
The best way to learn is to listen, Philippa used to say at the Academy.
Words to live by, but then again, Pippa always was a font of wisdom.
He learns that Petty Officer Jones is progressing well in her hand-to-hand combat training. Yeoman Zhao, an avid harpist, is working to organise an orchestra. Specialist D’qal’s mother is recovering from the Levodian flu.
He also hears a lot of gossip.
“Nice to see Commander Reno is settling in nicely,” Chris murmurs after a third specialist tells them about an argument between Reno and the chief engineer. “Although, I have to admit, Burnham, I never would have pegged you for a gossip.”
Michael smiles, amused. “Tilly’s the one with an ear for gossip, sir. I’m just the messenger.”
Chris might believe it, if Michael didn’t seem so much more at ease down here than she does among her commissioned peers. On the upper decks, she holds herself at a distance, like she can’t afford a misstep. Like she has something to prove—and perhaps she feels she does; the sting of her mutiny, Chris imagines, is felt more keenly by those who knew her.
He raises an eyebrow. “Something tells me you’re a willing participant.”
“Things are— Easier, sir. Down here. Simpler.” Something—vulnerability, perhaps—flickers across her face before her mask slips back into place. “Besides, Phil—Captain Georgiou impressed upon me the importance of getting to know your crew, no matter their rank.” Her mouth twists, bitter with remembrance. “I might not be on the command track anymore but the lesson remains valuable.”
Chris has never been a gambling man, but if he were, he’d wager Michael’s command career is only beginning.
REPORT: STF-R-1514996 PIKE, CHRISTOPHER (CAPTAIN) SC0030-0157SHN SUBMITTED: 2257.178 at 19:02:48 Commander Burnham’s quick thinking and calm professionalism preserved her captain's life while respecting General Order 1.
The truth Chris admits to himself as he nurses his scotch and ruminates on his fragile mortality is this: Michael has breathed life back into him in a million little ways.
Occasionally, when he’s feeling particularly maudlin, Chris will allow himself to imagine their future. Sometimes, he dreams of their life beyond the ‘fleet (a house on the hill, horses in the pasture, two curly-haired children playing in the dirt). Mostly, he thinks about having someone to come home to at the end of the day, a place to lay his head. He sits alone in his quarters, downing whisky like water, and imagines confessing the fears that keep him up at night into the curve of her shoulder. He wants to give her the still-beating heart in his chest and say it’s yours now. Keep it.
He always wakes up the next morning, disappointment sour in his mouth.
Kat, of course, reads between the lines; after all these years, Chris expects nothing less.
“You seem to have found your footing,” she says with a smile, nodding at his brace.
Chris grins. “You know me. I love danger.”
Amusement flickers across Kat’s features. “How’s Burnham?”
“An exemplary officer,” Chris replies, tone carefully neutral. The image her of in the mess hall, hands curled around a cup of tea, rises unbidden, but he pushes it aside.
“So you’ve said,” Kat replies dryly. Her expression is shrewd; he recognises it from many sessions in her office at the Academy. “Repeatedly.”
There’s an invitation in her tone that Chris declines to take. He knows what she’s thinking— the lines between professional admiration and physical attraction can often blur—but his feelings for Michael are a complex tangle he isn’t ready to interrogate. He won’t deny it if Kat pushes—Chris has many skills, but deception has never been one of them—but he won’t volunteer the information, either.
So he falls back on his old habits, and deflects.
“What?” Chris flashes his most charming grin, the one that Una claims has turned heads and broken hearts all over the universe. “I believe in giving credit where credit is due.”
Kat laughs, and Chris feels as though a weight between them has lifted, an old easiness returning for the first time in years. “Just be careful,” she says.
“Always am,” he replies easily, but there’s a seriousness underneath. Chris is no stranger to the complexities of relationships with colleagues on both sides of the power divide, but this feels different. His previous relationship were always fleeting, cut short by career prospects and reassignments. It never bothered him; he valued the connection in the moment, but never expected permanence. The captain is the loneliest member of the crew, Robert April said when Chris joined the Enterprise, a lifetime ago, and Chris feels its ache more keenly since Talos. He’s tired of kindling false hopes.
Michael makes those hopes feel dangerously real. With her, the intangible becomes the potential, and Chris—
Chris is finding it harder to resist.
.
.
.
iii.
The sheer relief Michael feels when Amanda materialises on the transporter pad takes her by surprise. She is expecting Sarek, has braced herself to (reluctantly) continue their unfinished conversation about Spock, but when Amanda enfolds her in a hug, Michael realises how grateful she is for her mother’s presence. The last few weeks have been confusing, and Amanda is a much-needed comfort.
Later, she will say it is this relief that makes her forget that her Vulcan training has never been a sufficient defence against Amanda’s perceptiveness. The truth: she thinks, naively, that her mother’s concern for Spock will blind her to Michael’s affections for her captain.
She is wrong: Amanda clocks it immediately.
Even worse, she approves.
“He’s bold,” Amanda says as they make their way to the lab, eyes sparkling. “Flirting with you in front of your mother. I like him.”
Michael blushes furiously. Now is not the time to be having this conversation—not that there is ever a good time to be having this conversation. “He wasn’t—”
“He called you bossy,” her mother replies pointedly.
Michael refuses to think about the teasing quirk to Chris’ mouth, the delighted sparkle in his eyes when she cited protocol at him. Was she this bossy as a kid?
“It is factually correct—”
“He lights up when you enter the room, sweetheart.” Amanda’s tone is gentle. “So do you, for that matter.”
Michael frowns. She hadn’t realised her feelings were so obvious. Tilly noticed, but Tilly, like Amanda, has an uncanny knack of seeing through her façades. “He’s my captain. It would be completely inappropriate.”
Amanda’s lips twitch, amused. “I wasn’t aware that Starfleet regulations required captains to be celibate.”
Tilly said a similar thing last night; for a panicked moment, Michael wonders if they have been talking. She shakes her head, dismissing the thought. Tilly would have mentioned it. Or Amanda. Neither one of them are particularly good at withholding their opinions about Michael’s personal life. Instead, she focuses on inputting the lab’s access code. There are more pressing things to worry about right now—like finding Spock, who is wanted for murder, a murder for which Starfleet, for reasons unknown, might have framed him.
Like the mysterious people who are looking for him.
(Michael has heard whispers about Section 31, the elite taskforce within Starfleet that operates outside Federation jurisdiction. In the grey, Lorca said. Just like us. It pleased him; it repulses Michael.)
“Captain Pike already has a ship and a crew,” she says stiffly. “His tenure on the Discovery is temporary.”
The lab doors slide open with a hiss and Michael strides to the workstation, determined to focus on the task at hand. Amanda is here for Michael’s help, not to dissect her love life—or lack thereof. Michael has already let her brother down once; she isn’t about to do it a second time. She shoves the data chip into the computer with more force than necessary and initiates the decryption process.
Amanda, however, is persistent.
A family trait, apparently.
On Vulcan, we call it persistent, and yes, she was. She gets it from me.
“Distance is hardly an obstacle, Michael. Your father and I were apart for months before we were married. Captain Pike is a good man. Spock speaks highly of him, and he obviously holds you in very high regard—”
“I appreciate your input, Mother,” Michael cuts in sharply, “but we should focus on the problem at hand. Spock is counting on us.”
Amanda purses her lips, disapproving. “You deserve to be happy, Michael. He makes you happy.”
Michael thinks of the tension in Chris’ shoulders when he admitted to reporting Spock’s knowledge of the signals, his guilt at betraying his friend’s trust even though protocol dictated it. How he gave her a direct order to break into Spock’s file to ensure that he would take the blame, even though it was Michael’s mother who stole the files, and Michael who pushed him to decrypt them against his better judgement. He is so principled, so good. He deserves better.
“I—” Michael swallows. The display swims before her eyes; she blinks the tears away furiously. She is better than this. She has to be. “I can’t.”
“Michael.” Amanda’s hand covers hers. The compassion in her expression has been a constant companion throughout the turbulence of Michael’s adolescence. “You aren’t defined by your past. Your mistakes do not make you less deserving of love and happiness. If he’s really worthy of you, he’ll love all of you—good and bad.” She smiles, but the distance in her eyes suggests she isn’t talking about Michael anymore. “Neither of you is perfect. Loving one another is about embracing those imperfections.”
Michael cannot deny the truth in this, so she says nothing at all.
***
At Starfleet Academy, the first of many industrious command-track cadets are writing their dissertations on the Battle of the Binary Stars. Many of them analyse Commander Burnham’s actions, but only one of them—Cadet Mary-Lynne Chapel, whose baby sister, Christine, will go on to achieve notoriety as Dr McCoy’s right hand on the Enterprise—considers the role of logic and emotion in the events of that day. Commander Burnham’s choices, she notes, are the result of faultless logical reasoning, her decision to mutiny, the result of a lack of emotional nuance. Both, Chapel reasons, are critical components of a captain’s decision-making process; thus, command-track cadets should receive training in Vulcan logic, balanced with emotion-based reasoning.
In the heat of battle, Commander Burnham fell back on her Vulcan training. While she correctly deduced the logical course of action, a more nuanced, emotional understanding might have balanced the human cost—a cost that included her captain.
What Cadet Chapel doesn’t know is that this is not the first time Michael’s logic has incurred a human cost. By the time Michael decides to mutiny, the ache of betrayal is already an old friend.
I don’t want a freak like you as a brother.
You’re not worth my effort.
I don’t want you in my life.
You will always be cold and distant.
Weird little half-breed.
Michael has held this truth close to her chest for decades now, but she can feel it slipping from her grasp.
***
Amanda blames herself for Spock’s disappearance. Amanda thinks that she didn’t love Spock enough. Amanda thinks she is a bad mother, but she doesn’t know that Michael is to blame, that she hurt Spock so deeply he convinced himself it was better not to feel. Michael thinks of their home on Vulcan: full of Amanda’s smiles, her encouragement, her comfort. Amanda’s love was the only thing that kept Michael going on the days when she thought her fear and grief would overwhelm her.
If he could have been permitted to embrace the feelings he has inside of him, I know it would have saved him from all the trouble he’s in now.
Michael has always been too scared to tell Amanda the truth, but, as her mother blames the red angel for Spock’s distance, she realises she can’t hide it any longer.
“It wasn’t because of a vision. It was because of me.”
Michael has spent the last twenty years preparing for this moment. She has imagined her parents’ reaction: hurt, anger, disappointment, confusion. She knows she deserves it all.
Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of those emotions flashing across her mother’s face.
“I’ll find him,” she whispers, squeezing her mother’s hands, willing her to understand the depths of her remorse. “I promise.”
“No.” Amanda kisses her cheek, but her voice is cold. “I will.”
She collects the data chip and leaves the room, Michael helpless to stop her.
Of all the outcomes she imagined, it never occurred to Michael that she wouldn’t be forgiven. In hindsight, it should have been obvious.
***
0145 finds Michael in the lab, trying to decode Spock’s drawings. Solving Tilly’s problem was a temporary fix, but her guilt and shame eventually crept back. Working is the only way to keep them at bay.
She can’t return to her quarters. Tilly will be back from sickbay now; Tilly will read her instantly and Michael doesn’t want to talk about her feelings. She doesn’t want to hear kind lies about her goodness and kindness. Tilly believes these things, but Michael knows they aren’t true. She’s destructive. She has corrupted everyone she’s ever loved:
her parents, dead because of she wanted to watch a supernova;
Spock, humanity destroyed by her words;
Philippa, killed by her recklessness;
Terran Gant, killed by her own hand;
Ash, whose betrayal she refused to see;
Amanda, repulsed at her inhumanity.
The logical conclusion:
Michael is not fit to be around people. Her only value is her mind, her ability to work. She will save Spock; she will make things right. It won’t fix what’s broken inside of her, but it’s a start.
Tears burn her eyes; she wipes them away, frustrated. She doesn’t understand why she can no longer control her emotions. She hasn’t forgotten her training, it’s just— ineffective. Logic is no match for the storm raging inside of her.
Tilly would tell her to let it go. Embrace the feeling.
Sometimes, you just need to cry it out, Michael.
Tilly is a firm believer in feeling your feelings.
Michael wishes she could feel her feelings a little less.
“Burnham?”
Chris’ voice yanks her back to reality, and she rushes to collect herself.
“Captain,” she says, pushing aside the stab of disappointment that he called her Burnham, even though they’re off-duty and alone. This is exactly what she wanted. Professionalism. Propriety. Respect for the rules. She keeps her eyes on the data in front of her. She doesn’t want him to know she’s been crying.
“Tilly said I might find you here.”
***
Thirty minutes earlier, in sickbay, Chris asks Tilly: “Where’s Burnham?”
It’s an innocuous request, one Chris makes often and in many ways.
Where’s Burnham? I want to go over her report.
Have Burnham report to my ready room when she arrives. I want her opinion.
Has anyone seen Burnham?
What he means:
Michael has built a fortress around herself, and Chris is trying his damnedest to scale its walls. He basks in the glow of the smiles he coaxes from her, bright and warm and wide; relishes the rare bursts of laughter he startles from her. Michael’s strength is forged in the fires of battle and sacrifice and loss, but there is a light in her, a radiance, brighter than a thousand suns. Chris sees it; he wants Michael to see it too.
This time, when Chris says where’s Burnham, there's no ulterior meaning. Michael is very protective of her people; he’s surprised she isn’t glued to Tilly’s bedside.
“In the lab, doing feeling avoidance,” Tilly replies. Her tone is overly casual, like they’re talking about the weather, or the quality of the replicator’s chicken pot pie. Chris has the prickling feeling he’s walked into a trap. “You should find her; you’re probably the only one she only person she won’t shoo away with her scary data-analysis face. Other than me that is, but I am clearly the second-best option in this scenario.”
Chris’ confusion must show on his face because:
“She doesn’t want to sleep with me,” Tilly clarifies.
It takes all Chris’ training to keep his expression neutral.
Tilly smirks, and Chris realises he has underestimated her. A rookie mistake: “Tilly’s the social hub of the ship,” Michael said to him, weeks ago. “Anything that goes on here, she hears about it.” She paused meaningfully. “If there’s anything you want known, she will circulate it. Discretely.”
“Don’t even try to deny it, Michael is my best friend, I know all,” Tilly says. “And even if I weren’t, I have eyes. We all do.”
Tilly’s words linger, ignite a spark of shame in Chris’ gut that burns as he wends his way through Discovery’s corridors, taking the long way to the labs. He’s better than this. He needs to be; otherwise, he is no better than the man who haunts his nightmares. The man he was on Talos—the man who wanted Vina in all her forms, even when they compromised his principles. He very nearly acted on his temptation then; it’s even harder to resist when the temptation is real.
Sometimes, Chris worries that his attraction to Michael is a defence mechanism. Talos made him question the very fabric of reality, and sometimes, Chris needs to throw caution to the wind to remind himself he’s alive. That this world isn’t some fever dream.
I want her, he thinks.
You wanted Vina too.
Chris took an oath to put his crew first, always. His own desires are immaterial. He’d do well to remember it.
***
“Tilly said I might find you here,” Chris says, and Michael curses Tilly and feelings and Sarek for making her join Starfleet in the first place. Her life would have been so much simpler if she’d joined the Vulcan Expeditionary Group. Less— emotional.
Michael swallows, glancing surreptitiously at Chris. He’s leaning casually against the wall, still in his uniform. It’s the first time Michael has seen him in it off-duty in weeks. Illogically, she misses his pyjamas.
“How is she?” she asks, careful to keep her tone neutral. They’re wading through an emotional minefield and the last thing she wants to do is tip Chris off.
His mouth twitches. “She’s fine—once I assured her that mouthing off at a projection generated by a parasitic organism wasn’t sufficient cause to expel her from the command training program.” He pauses, disquiet suffusing his features. “I don’t like anything about this, Michael. I can’t shake the feeling we’re missing something.”
Michael nods, relieved that her emotional turmoil has gone unnoticed. She still has some control over herself. “I agree, sir. I find the fact that Starfleet would keep information from us is… suspicious.”
“That makes two of us.” Chris pushes off the wall and rubs a hand over his face. The gesture is a reminder of the late hour and the exhaustion seeping into her bones. “Which is why I asked Number One to take a look into Spock’s file.”
Michael frowns. “I thought it was classified, sir. Priority-1.”
Chris grins. “Number One has a knack for wringing secrets out of people. She’s coming to update me on the Enterprise in a few days. Knowing her, she’ll have news. Until then—” He gestures at Spock’s files, projected between them. “What have you got?”
“Not much, sir. Other than that Spock was—” She pauses. “— Emotionally compromised. When he was admitted.”
Extreme empathy deficit.
I caused that.
Chris clocks her distress, brow furrowing. “Today’s been a turbulent day. How are you holding up?”
“I’m— I’m—” fine, Michael wants to say, but the word catches in her throat. Spock’s devastated face swims before her eyes. Stop following me, you weird little half-breed. “I’m—”
“Michael,” Chris says softly, moving towards her. His expression is pained, like he feels the hollowness inside her, like he wants to carry it for her. Michael shouldn’t reach for him, should fight the tide rising inside her, but she’s tired.
Feel your feelings, Michael.
Michael gives in.
Once the tears start falling, she can’t stop them. Michael presses her face into Chris’ jacket and pours out twenty years of heartbreak and loneliness and fear. She cries for Philippa, for Ash, for the end of her Starfleet career; she cries for Spock, stranded alone in space, for her mother and father who believed they were to blame; she cries for all the nights in the Terran universe, terrified for her life. Chris comforts her through it, strokes her back and makes soothing noises into her hair.
“Everyone I love is— Spock, and Philippa, and—” She can’t bring herself to say Ash’s name. “I’m toxic,” she whispers.
Chris’ arms tense around her. “Michael, no,” he murmurs, lips brushing her forehead. “I know it’s easy to see the worst parts of ourselves, but we see you for who you are, Michael, and that person isn’t toxic. Far from it.” His fingers trace the ridges of her spine. “You’re worthy of being loved the way you love others. The way others love you.”
Michael closes her eyes, overwhelmed by the warmth in his voice, the conviction. He has such unwavering faith in her. He believes in her the way she wishes she could believe in herself. She wants to be this person that he sees. She wants to be worthy of him; he makes her believe she can be.
If he’s really worthy of you, he’ll love all of you—good and bad.
If only Chris' worthiness were the problem.
***
On the flyleaf of Michael’s copy of Alice in Wonderland, there is a fragment of an old Earth poem, inscribed in Amanda’s looping hand:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference.
Michael asks her mother about the significance of the passage once, at the end of the war. At first, she thought they were meant as a reference to her uniqueness as the first human to join the Vulcan Expeditionary Group (the book, after all, was a gift for completing her exams, and Amanda could not have known that dream was never meant to be), but after the war, she wonders. If she had taken a different road at the Battle of the Binary Stars, perhaps—
But it does little good to dwell on ghosts.
Amanda smiles sadly, like she understands. She has always known what Michael means, even when Michael does not know herself. “There will be times in your life when logic will lead you down one path, and your heart, another,” she says. “Follow your heart, Michael. It may lead you to unexpected places, but your life will be richer for it.”
***
Two roads diverge before Michael. Her heart urges her to confess her feelings, to watch this fragile thing between them bloom into something beautiful. Her head cautions her that beautiful things are always the first to die.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
Michael takes a deep breath, savours the moment—
and locks it away.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she says quietly, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands as she pulls away. “I don’t know what came over me.”
Disappointment flickers in Chris’ eyes, but it’s quickly shuttered. He straightens, steps back. The space between them looms, chasm-like. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, Burnham. Everyone needs a good cry sometimes.”
Michael smiles tremulously. “Tilly says the same thing.”
The corner of his mouth twitches sadly. “Tilly’s right.”
“She’ll be pleased you think so, sir.” Michael retreats to the workstation, closing Spock’s files. “I should be going. It’s late.”
“Yes.” Chris crosses to the door, then hesitates, his hand gripping the frame. His gaze is searing, deep and full of feeling. There’s something on the tip of his tongue. Michael holds her breath. Will he—?
Chris shakes his head, collecting himself. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Burnham. We all make mistakes. What matters is how we fix them.”
Michael nods, heart sinking. “Yes, sir.”
He shoots her a parting look, indecipherable, and is gone.
Michael exhales, suddenly exhausted. She’s made the right choice.
Hasn’t she?
.
.
.
iv.
To say Chris is relieved to see Number One is an understatement. It’s been a shitty few days, and he needs someone to talk sense into him before he does something stupid like resign (again) or ask his chief science officer on a date. Saru is an exemplary first officer, but he’s a stickler for protocol. Una treats protocol like a guideline—good on paper, not so much in the field, she always says; she’s certainly not above giving her captain a stern talking to when she thinks he needs it.
Mostly, Chris misses his best friend.
If theirs was that kind of relationship, Chris would hug her, but it isn’t, so he settles for a tired smile and a firm hand on her shoulder. He trusts her to read between the lines.
As usual, Number One doesn’t disappoint: to the untrained eye, she delivers updates with her usual brisk efficiency, but Chris recognises the crease between her brows. He might appear collected, but Una has always seen through him; she’ll have clocked his distraction the moment she materialised.
Granted, Chris thinks he’s entitled to a little lost focus: Spock is on the run for a murder he couldn’t have committed; Starfleet’s less-than-honest actions are once again making Chris question his principles; and Michael has been avoiding him since their conversation in the lab two nights ago. Add onto that the fact that he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since Terralysium, and it’s a miracle he’s even functioning. Exhaustion and fear are at war beneath his skin; Chris isn’t sure which one of them will win.
Michael’s midnight confession chases itself in circles in his mind.
I’m toxic.
The captain in Chris knows that this is a natural part of a trauma response, that this is how Michael has learned to cope with the extraordinarily shitty hand the universe has dealt her. He struggled with the same guilt, the same lack of self-worth after Talos. He still struggles with it. He might always struggle with it. The man in him, who is very quickly falling hard for this beautiful, brilliant woman, aches for her. He knows the fear, the loneliness, all too well, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. He wants to reach for her, to carry her burdens; he wants to throw caution to the wind, to bend every one of his carefully constructed rules and carve a space for them in the ruins.
Again, Chris finds himself wishing he’d never sat in the captain’s chair.
Number One keeps the conversation light as they make their way to the mess, but it’s only a matter of time. She’s a panther, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Chris waits for it as she teases him about his aversion to holographic comms and he her calorie addiction. Then, just when he expects her to deliver the killing blow, she pivots, gracefully: pushes a data pad into his hands and tells him about Spock.
For a fraction of a second, Chris relaxes, which, of course, is when she strikes.
“How’s Burnham coping with the news?”
It’s an innocent question, but Chris knows better. “She’s— managing. Why the sudden interest?”
Number One shrugs. “She’s his sister,” she says nonchalantly. Then, just when Chris thinks he might be in the clear: “And you seem to have a vested interest in her.”
“My relationship with Michael is strictly professional.”
Number One raises an eyebrow and Chris curses the slip. “Michael, huh?” She dips a fry in habanero sauce, considering. “Good for you. It’s about time you got back in the saddle, if you catch my drift.”
He does—too well. “She’s almost twenty years younger than me, Una.” Michael barely looks a day over twenty-five; he remembers the stab of relief when he read her personnel file, followed by the guilt that he’d even been thinking about her that way at all. He’s too old to be acting like a love-struck teenager. He’s too old for her, period. “She’s got her whole life ahead of her.”
Number One scoffs. “Have you heard what they say about you on the lower decks? You’ve still got it, Captain Sexypants.”
“Very funny,” he retorts dryly. It has absolutely zero effect.
“You didn’t care about age when you were seeing Kat.”
“She’s only got ten years on me and that was twenty years ago. Besides, it was never serious. We were both going in different directions, and we knew it.”
Number One’s expression softens. It’s a rarity, reserved for the precious few occasions where tough love isn’t enough. Chris has been seeing a lot of it recently: Rigel VII, Talos, Michael. “And you want something serious. With her.”
Chris sighs. He feels ancient. “It would never work,” he says. He wishes more than anything— But wishing only leads to heartache. When Chris was younger, he was more reckless with his affections, wore his heart on his sleeve, but Talos has sharpened his self-preservation instinct, taught him to push where he once would have pulled. “I’m the captain, Una. It’s my job to lead my crew to be better version of themselves. The best I can hope for is to learn something from them along the way.”
Number One’s hand closes over his; her grip is gently but firm. “Have you ever considered that you might make each other better?” she asks.
Chris shakes his head. He can’t let himself go down that road. “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s exactly that simple.” She levels him with a challenging look. “You never used to be afraid of vulnerability.”
He grimaces. “Now, you sound like Kat. Did she put you up to this?”
“No, but she’s right,” Number One says firmly. “You’re afraid, Chris. And you’ll spend your life alone if you let it control you.”
She’s right, of course: he is afraid. Talos made him want, pierced him with a bone-deep loneliness he can’t shake, but opening himself up to others only invites the pain of loss.
Overhead, the intercom chimes.
Captain Pike to the ready room.
Chris has never been happier for a briefing in his life.
“I’m late for a briefing,” he says regretfully as he stands. “I am glad you came. I’m sorry you can’t stay longer.”
Number One raises a single, sceptical eyebrow. Bullshit, it says. “Be careful, Captain,” she says, sliding the datapad across the table. There’s a warning in her eyes: but not too careful.
The corner of Chris’ mouth twitches. “You too, Number One.”
***
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Sylvia Tilly is an awesome friend.
(Okay, well maybe not universally acknowledged—teenaged Tilly was pretty terrible friend, but every teenager is a bit of a disaster, and Tilly thinks it’s unfair to let a few bad years besmirch her otherwise flawless record.)
The point is that Tilly makes it her mission to look out for people. Space is a wacky place, and Starfleet, in Tilly’s experience, attracts the kind of people who are really smart and thrive under pressure—and generally have unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Like Michael. Tilly is pretty sure that if there were an Unhealthy Coping Mechanism Olympics, Michael would get first place. Handily.
Case in point: Michael is currently in engineering, hiding from her feelings. (Michael also thinks that she’s hiding from Tilly, but Tilly runs an active network of spies for the exact purpose of thwarting people’s unhealthy coping mechanisms, so. She knows.) She’s also hiding from Captain Pike, because she thinks she can ignore her feelings for him and also, she confessed some pretty repressed feelings to him in the heat of the moment last night, and now she’s panicking about it.
I told him I was toxic. I cried on his jacket, Tilly. I can’t believe I cried on his jacket.
Yeah, we can talk about that, but first let’s circle back to why you think you’re toxic.
Michael, predictably, did not want to have that conversation, but Tilly has plans to revisit it another time.
Tilly doesn’t plan to stage an intervention with the captain. Two of the most humiliating moments of her life to-date include the pride of Starfleet, and she’d really like for that number not to grow, but she also isn’t about to let her best friend wallow in misery for the rest of her days, either. Michael keeps saying she’s made the right choice, but she also stares at Pike any time they’re in the same room and spends her nights with him in the mess and cries on him in labs, so obviously, there are mixed messages going on there. Tilly, for the record, emphatically disagrees—feeling feelings is healthy and normal and to be encouraged—but she also knows that pushing Michael Burnham to do anything is pretty much guaranteed to make her do the exact opposite thing, so she doesn’t push. The only thing they can do is show Michael that they love her, that it’s okay, and hope that she can come to accept herself.
Tilly worries that Pike might not get that. He’s definitely into Michael—the longing looks and the way he pulls her aside to have deep, meaningful conversations like he personally values her insight would have given it away, even if he hadn’t all but confessed to it last night—but he’s also a consummate professional. He believes in boundaries. Tilly knows—he’s already shut down Wells’ advances twice. He’s noble and upstanding, and that is amazing, that is the dream, but Michael needs a bit of a push. Michael can make the first move, but Pike needs to be explicit that this offer is on the table. Michael likes to use inaction as an excuse to stick her head in the sand, and Michael is a person, not an ostrich.
When she sees Pike exiting the mess as she’s heading to breakfast, it feels like fate.
“Hey, uh, captain?”
Pike turns. Tilly sees a flicker of surprise in his eyes—probably because she looks like she’s about to crawl out of her skin (accurate)—but it quickly vanishes.
“Ensign Tilly,” he says. His tone is pleasant, but cautious. He knows what’s coming. Good. This will save Tilly a whole lot of awkward beating around the bush, which neither of them has time for, because he’s late for his briefing and she has been dreaming about bacon all morning.
Tilly takes a deep breath. Here goes. “Okay, look, I don’t want to do this because you’re my captain and I’ve already had enough embarrassing run-ins with authority in my brief time on the command track, but Michael’s my best friend and she doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to looking out for herself, so—”
“Tilly.” Pike raises a hand. “Breathe.”
Uh huh. Breathing. That’s important. Paul told her she should say fewer things, and—
Well. That isn’t working out so well for her. In her defence, it’s kind of an impossible ask.
Tilly blushes. “Right. Sorry.” She rocks on the balls of her feet, gathering her thoughts. Pike has definitely not had enough coffee to deal with the shit that was Michael’s Last Year, and besides, she doesn’t want to share anything her friend hasn’t already told him. Stick to the basics, Tilly. Short and sweet. “Excuse my language, sir, but Michael has had a really shitty year. Like epically shitty. I don’t know how much she’s told you about what happened to us in the Terran universe, but things were— It was bad. Especially for her.”
Bad is an understatement. Extremely fucked up is probably more accurate, but Tilly really needs to break her habit of swearing in front of her commanding officers if she ever wants to make captain.
Pike stiffens. So, he knows some things. Probably whatever was in the briefing Starfleet gave him—which would be none of the important things, Michael always edits the emotional stuff out—but it’s enough to give him a general picture of how messed up things were over there.
Overhead, the intercom chimes again.
Captain Pike to the ready room.
Pike grimaces. “Ensign, I appreciate the sentiment, really, but—”
“Look, I know she’s pushing you away,” Tilly says quickly, “but she doesn’t want to. It’s a defence mechanism. She doesn’t want to get hurt again, so she pushes everyone away. I would know.” She thinks of the first few weeks she and Michael shared a room together—how quiet Michael was, how stiff. Like she was trying to make Tilly believe all horrible things she’d heard about Starfleet’s first mutineer. “When Michael first arrived on the Discovery— The rumours about her, about what she did, were really horrible and I think she believed them. She thought she belonged in prison, so she built one for herself. I wore her down eventually, but it was hard.”
Something pained flashes in Pike’s eyes, like he understands where this is going. Good. It will spare Tilly embarrassing herself by trying to get the words out. “Tilly, I’m not going to force myself on her.”
“And I’m not saying you should—consent is amazing and we need more of that, honestly the phaser bros have no idea—but just don’t give up on her, okay?” Tilly smiles sadly. “She deserves to be happy. You both do.”
Pike blinks, like he’s surprised that Tilly’s thought about his happiness. (Which, hello, terrible coping mechanisms.) “I won’t push,” he says gently, “but I won’t pull away.”
Tilly nods. It’s not the outcome she wanted—Michael definitely needs a push, but Tilly can work that angle. “Good. Great. Thank you, sir. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”
Tilly allows herself to glance back, once, halfway to the replicators. Pike is waiting for the turbolift, his expression a mixture of amazement and incredulity like he can’t believe this has happened. Which, fair; she can’t entirely believe it either.
Okay, that’s a lie. This was inevitable.
***
Six days before Terralysium, Michael is unusually subdued at breakfast. Tilly watches her pick listlessly at her egg whites until she can’t take it anymore—which is about five seconds.
“Okay, seriously, who peed in your cornflakes?”
Michael blinks in that simultaneously startled and guilty way she does whenever Tilly brings up the elephant in the room: her feelings.
“I’m fine,” she says, flat and emotionless. This is the tone she uses to scare phaser bros belowdecks; it doesn’t scare Tilly.
“I will acknowledge that there are many definitions of fine, but I’m pretty sure none of them apply to you.” She downs her single, Michael-approved espresso shot and sets the cup down on the table with slightly more force than is strictly necessary. It’s an accident, but it’s good for dramatic effect. “Spill.”
“I—” Michael swallows, muscles in her throat constricting. She stares morosely at her untouched eggs. “The captain seems to hold you in high regard.”
For a second, Tilly is at a genuine loss for words: for all it sounds like a non sequitur, she’s pretty sure this is the point. She lets herself gape for three seconds because what and then pulls herself together.
“I’m sorry,” she says, shaking herself. “I just had this hallucination where you told me that Captain Pike has a crush on me.”
Michael frowns, but persists, like she’s resigned to her misery. “You get along well. The captain has eaten lunch with us three days in a row. You make each other laugh.” She ticks the points off on her fingers; clearly, she’s spent time considering the logic of the situation. Tilly is more interested in interrogating why Michael is twisting herself into logical knots to justify illogical conclusions, but they’ll get to that.
“True, but that doesn’t mean he’s interested,” Tilly says. “Don’t get me wrong, Pike is super hot, but I’m way too young for him, and even if he didn’t have rules about sleeping with people young enough to be his kids—which he does, he told Wells—I would literally embarrass myself to death in the bedroom. I already did that on the bridge, not super keen to repeat. Besides, I think you’re missing the obvious conclusion here.”
Michael stares, clearly not following.
When in doubt, logic it out.
“Okay. Here’s what we know: Pike is a professional. A hot professional, but still a professional. Has the whole strong, silent, feelings are a total enigma thing down to a science. Like, he engages with us, but it’s from a respectful distance, you know? He’s a cool, supportive Space Dad.”
Michael raises a disbelieving eyebrow. “Supportive Space Dad?”
Tilly holds up her hands in surrender. “Reno said it, we all just accepted it. The point is, he doesn’t open up with the rest of us.” She smiles slyly. “Well, most of us. There’s an exception to every rule.”
Michael nods, like this confirms her point.
“And that exception is not me.”
“Tilly—” Michael protests.
“The data doesn’t lie, Michael. Having deep, philosophical conversations in the halls? Playing chess in the mess after hours? Exchanging meaningful smiles on the bridge?” Tilly pauses, eyebrows raised meaningfully. Surely, Michael sees the picture she’s painting her. “Sound familiar?”
Michael shakes her head. “It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that,” Tilly says emphatically. “Pike isn’t eating lunch with us because he enjoys my company.”
“You’re— That’s— Ridiculous,” Michael says faintly, but she’s blushing, so score.
Tilly: 1, Michael: 0.
***
Tilly is still mentally fist-bumping herself as she waits for her breakfast.
“Well done, Ensign.”
Tilly turns so fast she nearly loses her entire breakfast tray. (Which would be a tragedy; she has been salivating for this bacon omelette.) For a second, she wonders if she’s still sleeping because there is no way that Pike’s Number One is talking to her. She’s a legend. There are so many stories floating around about her and all of them are awesome. She blinks a few times, to clear her vision, and— nope, still there.
“This is not a dream, right? Please tell me I am not dreaming.”
Number One smiles, amused. “If this were a dream, I’d have a milkshake. And less paperwork to fill out.”
“Right. Cool. Not dreaming.” Tilly sucks in a breath. She is having an actual conversation with Number One. Tilly would probably have a poster of this woman on her wall if (1) posters existed and (2) it wouldn’t be super weird. Today has gone from awful to amazing. She drops into the seat opposite Number One without waiting for an invitation—she’s pretty sure the whole well done, ensign thing was an invitation and if she’s wrong she doesn’t care—and tears into her omelette.
Heavenly.
It occurs to Tilly, as she shovels eggs and bacon into her mouth while Number One takes a prim bite of her cheeseburger, that she is sitting on a literal gold mine of dirt about the captain. Yesterday, Tilly was pretty pissed at the universe for making her the host of a manipulative alien parasite, but today, the universe is making it up to her by giving her the opportunity to test all her theories about Captain Pike.
And, boy, does she have theories.
She’s trying to decide which one to start with when Number One speaks.
“That was impressive, what you did back there. Most ensigns would be quaking in their boots if Captain Pike so much as looked at them.”
Tilly shrugs, reaching over to grab the habanero sauce off Number One’s tray and dousing her eggs. She never gets to have this stuff anymore; Michael says it’s bad for her. “The captain doesn’t scare me— Okay, that’s a lie, he terrifies the pants off of me, but needs must, you know? Best friend duty trumps every time.”
“Indeed,” Number One replies cryptically. “I take it, then, that you’re aware of the captain’s situation?”
“You mean, the fact that he and Michael spend their days mooning over each other but aren’t doing anything about it? Yep, totally on top of that.” Tilly downs two espresso shots in rapid succession. She didn’t sleep much last night, what with the heart-to-heart with Michael and then dreams about parasites eating her skin. Michael isn’t here to stare judgementally at her and lecture her about the dangers of over-caffeination and she plans to take full advantage. “Which is why I’m here right? You’re Pike’s Tilly. We have to trade notes. It’s, like, a rule of the universe or something.”
Number One laughs. “I like you, Ensign Tilly.”
“Yeah, I’m awesome,” Tilly says casually, even though she is doing cartwheels inside. “So are you, by the way. Legendary. If I can be half as cool as you when I’m someone’s first officer, I will be so happy.”
“Something tells me you’ll be just fine, Ensign.” Number One pops the last of her fries in her mouth and pushes her tray aside. She leans forward, expression conspiratorial. Tilly mirrors her, heart pounding. They’re plotting to get Michael and the captain together. This is so cool. “Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed that the captain likes to keep to himself—”
“If by ‘keep to himself’ you mean, ‘is single’, then yes. Believe me, we’ve all noticed. Some of us have made it our personal mission to change that.”
Number One smirks. “I’m sure that’s going well.”
Tilly laughs. “Yeah, Wells has already been shot down twice, but I think at this point she’s just using him as target practice for the laser brains on the lower decks. The only person he’s got eyes for is Michael.”
“She’s going to have to make the first move. Pike sets rigorous rules for himself when it comes to relationships; he can’t talk himself out of it if it’s her idea.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be a challenge. Michael grew up on Vulcan, emotions are not really her thing. We’re working on it.”
Number One snorts delicately. “I work with Spock, remember? They’re two peas in an emotionally repressed pod.” There’s a glimmer of something in her eyes, and there is definitely a story there, but Tilly does not have time to get it out of her now, not unless she wants Stamets to tear her a new one for being late. Another time. “Michael isn’t the only one who’s worried about being hurt. Chris has—” She pauses, considering. “He experienced some things on our five-year mission that hurt him. He’s convinced himself he’s better off alone.”
Tilly grins, triumphant. “I knew it.”
Number One raises a surprised eyebrow.
“His favourite space song is “Rocket Man”,” Tilly says despairingly. She still isn’t over the fact that when given the choice between Bowie and John, he didn’t pick Bowie. “Lonely man in space, missing his home, but knowing that he’ll be just as lonely when—if—he gets back? Starfleet is a magnet for people with martyr complexes and terrible coping mechanisms; it was an intuitive leap.”
“Very perceptive, Ensign.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of my thing. And it’s Tilly. Ensign makes me feel like I have to salute or say sir. Which I probably should have been doing, Commander, sir—”
“Una,” Number One cuts in smoothly. “Please.” Her communicator buzzes: she glances at it and grimaces. “Duty calls. Unfortunate; I was hoping to hear how you managed to wheedle that information out of Chris. He keeps his cards close to his chest.”
“Oh yeah, there’s a whole story. That I will tell you. Another time. Any time.” It’s all Tilly can do to keep from grabbing Una’s communicator and programming her personal comm line like she’s twelve and at summer camp.
Number One’s smile is sharklike. “I look forward to it. Keep me updated, Tilly.”
Tilly grins. “You bet.”
She’s friends with Number One. Today is literally the best day.
(It’s actually the worst day, but Tilly doesn’t know that yet.)
***
Michael isn’t hiding. She isn’t. It isn’t every day that your best friend is host to an unknown parasitic organism from another dimension. It’s a dereliction of her duties as Chief Science Officer not to conduct a full analysis of the organisms’ genetic properties. This is her purpose on the Discovery; letting the opportunity go to waste is illogical.
Here, Tilly will interject that it’s also illogical to skip breakfast, but some sacrifices are necessary in the pursuit of truth. That’s all it is—a necessary sacrifice.
Micheal is not trying to avoid the captain. Or Tilly. To do so would be childish, illogical. She has nothing to hide from either of them.
She’s fine.
If you think you are fooling anyone, sister, you are mistaken, Spock intones.
It isn't until Michael returns from the lab that she registers the magnitude of what happened, and then it’s all she could think about. She cried all over her captain. She told him she was toxic. She very nearly confessed her deepest, darkest fears. She has never let her guard down so completely around another person, not even Tilly.
It’s humiliating.
Michael lays awake all night, replaying the scene in her mind like a disjointed nightmare. In the morning, she rises and makes her way to the lab, where she spends the day fruitlessly analysing Spock’s files. They yield no new information, but Michael does not expect them to. She’s only using it as an excuse to avoid the bridge. Chris will read her like an open book—he has always known how, long before she gave him the key; she cannot bear his pity, or worse, his understanding.
Michael does not want compassion. Michael wants to wallow in her own grief until she drowns.
Tilly has no intention of letting Michael drown.
“Something happened,” she says, when Michael shows up at dinner the night after the lab incident. It’s earlier than she normally eats, but Chris will still be in his ready room, finishing the day’s paperwork. “Talk to me.”
“I’m fine,” Michael says, but of course, she isn’t, and Tilly is relentless in pursuit of the truth. So that night, under the cover of darkness, Michael confesses the whole sordid tale. It sounds ever worse to say out loud.
Tilly wants Michael to talk to Chris.
Pike is chill. He’ll understand. Besides, if you don’t bring it up, he will. He’s not the type to let things fester.
Tilly also wants to talk about Michael’s self-image.
Toxic’s a pretty strong word, Michael. Let’s talk about why you feel that way.
Michael wants to talk about exactly none of these things—which is why she’s come to engineering. She wants to run some simulations on May’s genetic properties before the morning briefing. The comfort of numbers, of logic, will help her think. It carries her out of herself, frees her from the confusion of feelings, the curse of her own traitorous biochemistry.
Logic never lets her down.
***
Michael’s first year on Vulcan is awful. The planet is hot and dry; the language is stilted and strange, unfamiliar sounds that trip on her tongue and stick in the back of her throat; the food is at once familiar and alien, just close enough to dishes from home that Michael thinks she knows them until the moment it touches her lips and the taste reminds her that home is a dream. Insults are hurled at her everywhere she goes, subtle barbs that stick under her skin like knives.
Emotions are a human weakness.
She does not have the dedication necessary to master logic.
It is logical that you of all people should take on such a pet project, Sarek, given your fondness for the species.
Most nights, Michael cries herself to sleep. In her dreams, her parents die in a blinding flash of red light.
Some nights, Michael wishes she had died on Doctari Alpha.
Her instructors tell her, tonelessly, that she feels too much. Sarek urges her to master her emotions. Amanda tells her that feelings are human, but there is a warning in her eyes. You must learn to hide them if you wish to survive.
But when Michael steps into her pod at the Learning Centre, all the feelings—anger, sadness, fear, loneliness—disappear, swept away in a current of facts and numbers and truth.
Logic promises numbness and Michael is tired of feeling, so she surrenders.
***
Stamets arrives at 0730. If he is surprised to see Michael at Tilly’s station, it doesn’t show; he barely glances her way before beginning his daily check of the spore canisters.
He’s quieter, since Hugh. Less snarky. Michael misses it. It meant he cared.
This is how it would have gone, before: Stamets would enter the lab, level Michael with the full force of his disapproving glare, and say, “Oh no, you do not get to throw your pity party in my lab. Go find Tilly.”
Michael would keep her features neutral and inform Stamets, calmly, that she isn’t having a pity party. She’s processing data. The fact that the data she’s processing is not the data in front of her is a technicality.
This is how it goes, after: silence.
Michael stares at the genetic map in front of her, its helices an indecipherable blur of colour. The morning briefing is in thirty minutes. Michael feigned a headache yesterday and spent her morning staring listlessly at Spock’s drawings, but she can’t get away with that a second time. Her colleagues might right off one absence, but two would arouse suspicion. Michael is never sick.
Besides, Tilly will be here soon, and Michael would rather avoid Chris’ eyes in front of the bridge crew than subject herself to an interrogation about her feelings.
Michael steels herself. She can do this. She will go up to the ready room, will sit next to Detmer and opposite Saru. Chris will be late, coffee in hand. He will be smiling, and Michael will tell herself it's because he’s glad to see Number One. He isn’t smiling for her. Michael will keep her expression neutral as he takes a seat. Her eyes will not linger on his fingers as they flex around his coffee cup. Her insides will not be warmed by the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth when Linus makes a terrible joke. She will not react when Chris dismisses everyone but her. She will apologise for her behaviour. He will remind her that she can confide him in him and she will thank him and they will go on as if it never happened.
They have to.
Stamets’ voice startles Michael from her thoughts.
“I get it,” he says quietly. His attention remains fixed on the spore canisters; for a second, Michael thinks she’s misheard. Stamets has barely spoken a dozen words to her—to anyone—since the end of the war.
Michael opens her mouth, and then closes it, unsure of what to say. Her initial reaction is panic—how does he know? Did Tilly tell him?—but she quickly tamps it down. Tilly is her friend; she would never betray Michael’s trust unless she thought Michael was in danger, which is clearly not the case. Perhaps he is referring to the visit with her mother, or the accusations against Spock. Neither are public knowledge, but gossip breeds like tribbles on a ship this size; someone could have overheard. She will have to be more discrete in the future.
He can’t possibly be referring to her feelings for Chris.
I have eyes, Tilly said, when Michael tried to deny her feelings. It’s obvious you’re into each other.
Are you okay? Owo asked on Terralyisum. You keep staring at the captain.
In hindsight, Michael’s feelings may be more obvious than she anticipated.
The corner of Stamets’ mouth quirks mournfully, like he understands her struggle. “Why you want to hide,” he clarifies.
I’m not, Michael wants to say, but that would be a lie, and she thinks that if anyone deserve the truth, it’s Stamets. “Tilly told me you’re leaving,” she says instead. “Congratulations. It's a great honour for a non-Vulcan to receive a position.”
Stamets nods. He doesn’t look happy about it, just resigned. “Tilly’s upset,” he says. “She wants me to stay, but I— I see Hugh everywhere, and I— I can’t do it anymore.”
Michael’s heart clenches. This is what she is afraid of. Tilly thinks she should go after what she wants, but Tilly doesn’t know what it’s like to lose the people she loves, to have her heart ripped out and crushed in front of her eyes; Tilly doesn’t know what it’s like to have blood on her hands—
Stamets understands these things.
***
Michael and Stamets talk about Hugh’s death exactly once, after the commendation ceremony at Starfleet headquarters. Michael has just delivered a rousing speech about the values of Starfleet, about remaining strong in the face of fear. She has acknowledged her moral failings in front of her brethren and urged them not to do the same. Do as I say, not as I do. It’s exactly the sort of thing Starfleet expects from a mutineer-turned-war-hero. Overnight, Michael will become the poster of Starfleet; her speech will be broadcast on newsreels all over the galaxy for weeks, a much-needed publicity boost to rehabilitate Starfleet’s tattered image. We fought the enemy and we emerged, unscathed, principles intact. Enrolment will triple at a time when the Federation needs it most.
Later, Michael will watch her pixelated face on a viewscreen in a café, as she sips tea and listens to Tilly recount their adventures to her friends from the Academy. The disingenuity will make her uncomfortable. Her words are a carefully chosen truth: the Federation emerged, victorious, but it very nearly lost everything in the process.
There’s a reception after the ceremony. Starfleet has pulled out all the stops: champagne, tiny appetisers on self-propelling trays. The press has been invited; the admiralty is eager to show off Starfleet’s newest heroes in their best light.
Michael, who has already been paraded around Paris by Starfleet’s delegation to the peace talks, whose face once-again dominates viewscreens albeit for different reasons, is exhausted by the thought of more attention. She feigns a headache, asks Saru to convey her regrets, and slips away. Her feet carry her through the now-empty halls, her footsteps on the floor the only sound. Unlike her crew mates, she has no fond memories of these halls, no charming anecdotes from classes or parties. She has only been here once before, for her court-martial.
She doesn’t realise where her feet are taking her until the Starfleet Memorial Wall looms above her. Her parents’ names are on this wall, as are the crew members of the Shenzhou who lost their lives at the Battle of the Binary Stars. Philippa’s name is not, but it should be; Michael’s mentor is long dead, her mantle claimed by another who wears her face.
Michael does not know how long she stands in silence, watching the names and faces of the fallen flash before her.
How many of you died because of me?
The sound of footsteps startles her; she turns, guiltily, to see Stamets. Michael’s first thought is that he is looking for her, but then his eyes flicker towards the wall and she remembers: Hugh’s name is there now.
Michael stands, rooted to the spot. She has no right to be here, to intrude on the grief of others—grief she caused—but leaving now seems disrespectful. There are no words to express the magnitude of the guilt pulsing in her veins. If only she had seen through Ash’s façade, if only she had pushed him to get help—
Saying these things, however, will not bring Dr Culber back, so Michael says nothing at all.
“We had our second date here,” Stamets says quietly. “Turns out we had the same favourite coffeeshop. The Bean. It’s close to Medical; a lot of doctors go there.” His eyes are faraway, the corners of his mouth soft with remembrance. “We laughed about it, after: we’d been going to the same coffee shop for years, but it took a trip to Alpha Centauri for us to meet. Hugh said it was proof we were destined for one another.”
“Paul—” Michael stops herself from reaching for him at the last minute, her hand falling limply in the space between them. “I’m so sorry.”
I should have stopped him.
I should have known what he was.
Stamets smiles sadly, like he can hear the thoughts in Michael’s head, like he feels the grief in her heart. “It’s not your fault, Michael. We see the best in people we love.”
Maybe, but Michael never should have loved him in the first place.
***
Amanda says that to love is to be alive. Michael has long ago given up debating the logic of the statement—she is kept alive by blood and breath and cellular function—but then she is with Ash and suddenly the world burns. Michael has been living in the darkness, but now she sees the light. It carries her, and she is happy to go, drunk on its buoyancy.
Until it ends, with his hands around her throat, the taste of blood and bile in her mouth.
It ends in accusations of cowardice.
You were just looking for an excuse to run.
I see Hugh everywhere, Stamets says, and Michael knows that she is not the only one whose every step is dogged by the ghosts of loves lost.
If Michael could go back and do it again, she would never have let Ash kiss her. She never would have let Philippa get close.
If Michael could go back and do it again, she would bury her feelings deep down and lock them away.
“I understand,” Michael says quietly. “Why you have to go.”
Stamets smiles sadly, and suddenly, Michael is standing in front of the Memorial Wall again, drowning in her own guilt. “I don’t think you do, Michael,” he says kindly. “Hugh’s death guts me every day, but if I could go back and do it all over again, I would. A hundred time over, in a hundred universes.”
Confusion creeps like ice through Michael’s veins. “But you lost him.”
“And I carry that loss every minute of every day. But I also loved him, Michael. Our life together was cut short and I hate that we don’t get more time, but I would never, ever, wish not to have known him. I treasure every moment we had together. I would rather lose him a hundred times than go a single day without knowing the love we shared.”
When Michael thinks of love, she thinks of pain, of loss.
Stamets sees love as a gift, in spite of its loss.
“There’s this line from this old Earth poem: '’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all'.” Stamets twists his fingers in front of him, lost in remembrance. “I used to quote it to Hugh whenever he was annoyed with me, as a joke, but now— Well. It’s true.”
It is illogical to speculate about how things might have been, if you would have made the same choices, Spock says. The logical course of action is to learn from one’s mistakes so as not to repeat them.
“I—” Michael hesitates, confession on the tip of her tongue. She glances at the chronometer. 0750. Tilly will be here any minute. “I should go.” She closes her data.
She’s almost to the door when—
“Michael?”
She turns to find Stamets looking at her earnestly.
“If you have half the chance of having what Hugh and I had—and I think you do—you should take it. Don’t hesitate. Don’t live your life with regret.” His mouth twists, bittersweet. “You’ve lost enough. You deserve some happiness.”
***
There are many reasons why Michael should not pursue a relationship with her commanding officer:
Fraternisation regulations exist for a reason.
His tenure on Discovery is temporary; he could be recalled to the Enterprise at any time.
Michael’s relationship history is limited to a few unfortunate one-night stands and a Klingon spy.
Emotions compromise Michael’s ability to do her job. They make her vulnerable and rash. They put everyone’s lives at risk.
Michael is afraid.
And yet—
Your mistakes don’t make you any less deserving of happiness.
And yet—
You’re worthy of being loved the way you love others. The way others love you.
And yet—
You deserve happiness.
And yet—
Michael wants.
***
Sometimes it’s best to lower our expectations, Commander, Chris says before stepping onto Discovery’s bridge for the first time. That way we aren’t disappointed.
After everything, Michael should know better than to get her hopes up.
***
Chris has always believed that there’s a purpose to the universe. Everything happens for a reason. He has to believe it, because the alternative is that the universe is just chaos, and Chris refuses to be a nihilist. Thirty people have died on his watch since his command career began; their deaths can’t have been in vain.
(It doesn’t mean he wishes he couldn’t save every one of them. It doesn’t mean he thinks their deaths were fair. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t trade his life for each of theirs in a heartbeat.)
Spock calls this belief illogical. It is illogical to presume the presence of some higher power, sir. We cannot assign intention to what is merely a series of random events, sir. Spock believes that it does not do to dwell on that which one cannot change. Sometimes, Chris envies his calm in the face of tragedy. Some might call it unfeeling, but Chris knows that Spock feels—he simply accepts that his feelings cannot change the past.
Wishing it were otherwise will not make it so, Captain. Perhaps that brings you solace, but I prefer to focus on that which I can control.
Smart man, Spock.
If Spock’s logic is ice, then Michael’s is an inferno. Beneath her composed demeanour and carefully chosen words blazes a passion for truth, for reason, unlike any Chris has ever seen. Spock would dismiss the people of New Eden as a misguided curiosity, but Michael is determined to convert them, to supplant their faith with logic. Chris doesn’t point out the parallels between New Eden and the followers of Surak, does not suggest that logic and faith might be two sides of the same coin. He knows better; he’s already withered under the arch of Spock’s disbelieving brow.
Science and religion are hardly similar, sir.
Chris laughed. If that’s true, then my father’s rolling over in his grave.
Chris appreciates their insight. He’s always fallen just this side of incurable optimism—or he did, before Talos—and, as his mother says, a reality check never hurts. Still, there are limits to the power of logic. Some things have to be taken on faith.
And yet, Chris has difficulty reconciling the events of the day with the universe’s grand design. At first, when they are pulled from warp and Spock begins to slip from their grasp, he tells himself that this is just a test. Discovery’s crew has never let him down; they won’t now. But when Saru’s vahar’ai begins and Chris watches Michael’s face shatter, he tastes fear, rancid and familiar, on the back of his tongue. This can’t be how it ends. It seems a cruel joke, for Saru to survive the war, only to die now.
Death is inevitable, sir; the question is when, not if, Spock said, after Rigel VII, and maybe that’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact the three people died that day on Chris’ orders. Seven more could have—Spock included.
Death is the captain’s burden to bear. Chris cradles the lives of his crew in his hands, but Michael—
Michael has already lost so much. To lose another loved one seems callous.
He catches her in the turbolift, on the way back to the bridge. He hasn’t had time to wash the blood from under his fingernails, can still feel the ensign’s pulse jumping under his hands. Pollard says he will live, but Chris can’t shake the dread sunk like a stone in his gut. His father would call it divine insight, his mother, a premonition; Chris knows it’s a captain’s instinct.
A good captain always listens to his gut, Jonathan Archer told him once at the Academy.
Chris’ gut tells him death is looming.
Michael is subdued, all the fight gone out of her. Chris hates to see her like this; worse, he hates that there’s nothing he can do. Command entails making hard calls, accepting no win scenarios, but the Maru never prepared him for the agony of those sacrifices. No simulation can teach him how to look the woman he might love in the eyes and know that he can’t spare her the heartache on the horizon.
“How’s Saru?” Chris asks quietly. He knows the answer, but he can’t stand the silence.
“Worsening. He suspects he has hours at most before the madness sets in.” The corner of Michael’s mouth twitches sadly. “I tried to convince him to rest, but he insisted on monitoring the antibodies. They’re working— slowly.”
Chris hears what she doesn’t say: not quickly enough.
“Michael—” He touches her elbow instinctively, ignoring the voice in his head that reminds him of duty and propriety and rules. He can’t watch Michael’s heart break in front of him and not try to hold it together with his bare hands. “I’m here. Whenever you need me. No questions asked.” He hopes she can hear the words he can’t say: I would do anything for you. I would die a thousand times if it would ease your suffering.
There’s something soft and fathomless in Michael’s eyes, in the edges of her tremulous smile, that make Chris’ stomach swoop. They’re teetering on the edge of a precipice; she is about to pull him off and he will let her—
The lift doors open. Michael swallows, and they step out onto the bridge like nothing has happened, captain and commander once more.
***
After Tilly vanishes, Michael wanders the corridors, numb. She can’t go back to her quarters and stare at Tilly’s side of the room, so bright and alive, overflowing with memories of her loved ones. She doesn’t want to lie in her bed and know that she may never gossip after dark with Tilly again, that she may never lie awake after a nightmare and listen to Tilly snore. Their quarters are bursting to the brim with Tilly, and Michael can’t—
Michael can’t stop thinking about the emptiness of her space. It was logical at first—she was on the Discoverytemporarily, but eventually she would go back to prison. Getting attached would only make it harder to leave. After, after Tilly wormed her way into Michael’s heart, after Michael realised that family was more than blood, after Starfleet pardoned her and named her a hero, Michael told herself that there was no need to be sentimental. Her friends knew she held them in high regard; there was no need to put it on display.
Attachment to inanimate objects is illogical, Spock said when he saw the stuffed rabbit she brought with her from Doctari Alpha.
(She never slept with the rabbit again.)
If Michael disappeared today, her quarters would have no echo of her presence. It would be as if she had never existed.
Michael traces her fingers against the walls, feels the hum of Discovery beneath her fingertips. She wandered the ship often when she first arrived, explored her nooks and crannies when the ache of loneliness was too much to bear. She used to touch the walls then, place her fingers on Discovery’s pulse. It soothed her. Every step takes her further from engineering, where Stamets refuses to give up hope that Tilly can be saved. Michael should be helping him—Tilly would be helping him; Tilly would move heaven and earth to bring Michael back—but she can’t think. Her mind is clouded. For once, logic offers no comfort. It allows for uncertainty, but it cannot quantify its unique agony.
She relives Saru’s near-death as she walks: the knife in her hand, reaching for his ganglia, only to have them fall in her hand—
It took his nearly dying for Michael to realise the depth of her affection for Saru. She wasted so many years fighting, the two of them locked in a petty rivalry for Philippa’s affections like children. At the time, it was so important to outdo him, to prove her place as Philippa’s number one, but now, it seems ridiculous. They could have relied on and supported one another through those years, could have grown together as officers. Saru lamented having lost himself to his rank and uniform, but it’s Michael who lost herself, who buried her hurt under logic and closed herself off from the world.
We cannot escape death, Sarek said, when Michael raged at her parents’ incomprehensible deaths. It comes for us all.
Michael carries that lesson with her for years. She doesn’t dwell on things, just locks them away. Deep in Michael’s heart, there is a box full of losses and disappointments and unrequited dreams, a box Michael has resolved never to open.
Until—
“Logic and emotion aren’t incompatible, you know,” Tilly says shortly after Michael arrives on the Discovery. She rolls over in bed and props her chin on one hand, fixing Michael with her gaze. Michael pretends to be engrossed in her PADD. “Math is pure logic and I love math, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have feelings. Feelings are what make life worth living.”
“Feelings are a distraction,” Michael replies.
Tilly rolls her eyes. “Yeah, a distraction from the confusion that is being alive.”
Michael raises a sceptical eyebrow and goes back to her reading, but Tilly’s words linger. Tilly lingers. Michael tries to push her away, but Tilly clings like a stubborn burr until Michael relents. When Michael returns to the Discovery from the Charon, clinging to the ghost of the captain she couldn’t save, Tilly pulls her into a hug and holds on like she’ll never let go. Tilly comforts Michael while she cries, talks Michael through the nights she wakes with Voq’s hands around her throat. Tilly is her anchor; without her, Michael is adrift.
Michael doesn’t realise her feet are carrying her to Chris’ quarters until she’s standing outside the door. She reaches for the chime, and hesitates. This is the point of no return: if she crosses this threshold now, she can never go back. She cannot protect herself from being hurt, from hurting.
To follow Surak is to purge yourself of selfish desire, Solkar told Michael when she announced her intention to attend the Vulcan Science Academy. Failure to do so will leave you vulnerable.
Michael can practically hear Tilly’s scoff. You deserve to be loved, Michael. You are loved, by so many people, and we’re going to keep loving you, even if you don’t love yourself.
Tilly would tell her to walk through that door.
Tilly would say that life is too short to be wasted on fear and what-ifs.
You make the life you deserve, Michael. No one else can do that for you.
Tilly wouldn’t live with regrets.
Michael has enough regrets for a lifetime.
She presses the chime. The door swings open at her touch, like it’s been waiting for her. Like it’s inevitable.
Chris is on the couch, nursing a scotch. He’s dressed for sleep: a soft, blue shirt and grey drawstring pants. A PADD rests on one thigh, but the haunted look in his eyes suggests he isn’t paying much attention to its contents. He stands when she enters; the PADD is tossed aside carelessly, the drink drained and then set down. Michael’s eyes trace the strong curve of his legs through the soft material of his pants until she catches herself and looks away. Even after everything, the sight of him still makes her heart pound.
“Michael,” he says. “Come in.” His tone is welcoming, but Michael can trace the lines of grief in his face. He’s lost crew before, but Tilly’s loss weighs just as heavily.
Michael understands. Loss, in her experience, gets more difficult, not easier.
Standing outside his door, the choice seemed simple; now that she’s here, facing him, Michael has no idea what to say. She fights the familiar panic rising inside her, the urge to hide beneath the guise of logic and professionalism. She isn’t here to be professional: she’s here to throw herself into the void.
Chris must sense her discomfort: he stands taller, exhaustion vanishing behind his usual calm. He places a professional distance between them, despite the intimacy of the setting, the tension crackling between them.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” she says. The apology is a reflex; Michael isn’t sure if she means it. “I couldn’t sleep and I— I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Hey,” Chris says gently. His stance is still professional, but his eyes are soft. “I said you could come to me with anything, and I meant it.” He gestures to the couch. “Take a seat. I’ll make some tea.”
Michael nods jerkily. Tea is good. Tea will help. If nothing else, it will give her something to do with her hands. She perches on the edge of the couch, but she’s too restless to sit; she jumps to her feet as soon as Chris’ back is turned. She tugs on the bottom of her jacket, a nervous habit from her days on the Shenzhou. Her uniform suddenly feels too tight, too stiff; she fights the overwhelming urge to strip off her jacket and pace the length of the room. Instead, she settles into parade rest and casts her eyes about the room. She never had occasion to visit the captain’s quarters under Lorca’s command—much, she’s now certain, to his disappointment—but she’s certain that the decor must be all Chris. Lorca didn’t seem like the type to hang pictures of the Orion Nebula on the wall, or collect earthenware pots in the shape of horses. To the untrained eye, it’s Academy-neat, but a closer inspection reveals the evidence of the man who fills the space: a rumpled throw on the couch, a forgotten coffee cup on the table, a stack of PADDs leaning precariously on the desk. It’s strangely endearing.
And intimate.
Chris is drinking alone. In his pyjamas.
Maybe coming here was a mistake.
***
The night before Amanda arrives on the Discovery, something changes.
It’s 0115 and Michael and Chris are in the mess, playing chess. Michael should have returned to her quarters an hour ago, if only to give the illusion she will get some sleep before alpha shift, but Chris has beat her twice and she’s determined to wipe the smug smile of Chris’ face. He is getting too much enjoyment out of her frustration.
Michael is playing white. She starts with a classic opening: pawn to king’s fourth. It’s the logical choice, leaving her with the greatest number of options, the highest probability of establishing a stronghold. Chris will respond, as he always does, with the Sicilian defence: pawn to queen’s bishop four.
Except he doesn’t: he mirrors her, pawn to king’s fourth.
Fascinating, Spock remarks.
Michael doesn’t like it. It’s an illogical response for a player of his skill, and chess is a game of logic.
(Michael will learn, in time, that chess is more about surprise than logic.)
It could be a trap. Still, Michael makes the next logical move: queen to king’s rook five.
Predictably, Chris counters. Queen’s knight to queen’s bishop third.
Michael responds by moving her king’s bishop to queen’s bishop four.
Chris is hardly an amateur player; apart from Spock, he is the most skilled opponent Michael has faced. He will see that she is setting up the Scholar’s Mate. He can still defend: if he moves his pawn to king’s knight two, her queen will be blocked. The game will continue.
Chris studies the board intently. He reaches for his pawn; Michael relaxes—
He moves his king’s knight to king’s bishop three instead, leaving his king exposed.
Check.
Michael hesitates fingers hovering over her queen. The logical move is queen to king’s bishop seven—checkmate—but it’s too easy. Her eyes scan the board for something she might have missed, but the pieces do not lie.
Chris is watching her intently. There’s a question in his eyes, like maybe this isn’t about chess at all.
Suddenly it hits her: it isn’t. She is the queen and he is the king.
Michael recalls her conversation with Tilly a week ago.
He hasn’t expressed any interest.
Or, maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move.
Chris has left himself wide open. It would be so easy to take him. Logical, even.
Michael ignores the disappointment in Chris’ eyes when she retreats.
***
“Michael?”
Michael blinks.
Chris is standing in front of her, holding two cups of tea. His brow is furrowed; surely, he can read her panic. Slowly, he sets the tea down on the end table and straightens, palms wide, telegraphing his movements. Michael has the sudden vivd image of him as a young man on a farm, gentling the trembling flank of a young mare with the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice. Michael wants desperately to let herself be soothed by those hands, but first—
“Tilly was always getting after me to decorate. She thought I should brighten up the space, but I resisted. It seemed silly. Sentimental.”
If Chris is surprised by Michael’s sudden, burning desire to talk about her roommate’s decorating choices, he doesn’t show it.
“I told her that it was illogical to get attached to inanimate objects. I like things orderly; decorating would only add clutter.” She laughs quietly. “Tilly’s side is overflowing with things. Pictures, plants, rocks she collected during shore leave on Risa. I didn’t understand it. Everyone who knew Tilly loved her. Commodifying those relationships seemed to— cheapen them, somehow. Make them trivial.” Michael pauses, trying to collect herself. She can feel the fragile edges of her control slipping through her fingers; soon she will be unravelling like Amanda’s half-hearted knitting attempts.
Chris waits patiently for her to continue. His expression is open, earnest, understanding. Michael admires many things about him, but chief among them is his ability to listen. No matter who is speaking, he always grants them his full attention, his active consideration.
Later, when Michael makes captain, she will ask Chris for advice. Her tone is light, teasing—she has been learning from him since the moment they met—but she means it. There is a terror pounding against her ribcage, an old worry that this is all a terrible mistake, even as the thought of sitting in the captain’s chair makes her blood sing.
He will smile, like he understands. (He does, he always has. Often, he sees her better than she sees herself.) “A captain’s job, above all, is to listen. Her crew is her best resource—but you already know that.”
The fact that he is listening now steadies her.
“I get it now. Why she cared so much. Those things, the things she chose to display— they’re a reflection of the things she loved. Of Tilly. You can tell who she is the moment you walk in the room. Her life is so full and mine is so—”
Empty.
“I could—” The tide of grief is rising faster now, and Michael can barely keep her head afloat. “There is no trace of me in that room. I could die tomorrow, and it would be like I never existed. All they would see is Michael Burnham, mutineer-turned-hero.”
“Michael,” Chris says, breathlessly, like her name pains him. He takes a step towards and then stops. Michael can see the moment his resolve takes hold, the tide of emotions disappearing underneath his impressive control. It more than professionalism; there’s some other hesitation in his eyes, something else holding him back. “If you died tomorrow, there are many who would mourn you. Not Commander Burnham, but Michael.”
This is the moment. The king is unprotected; the logical choice is to seize it. She just needs to take the steps.
Be brave, Michael, Tilly whispers.
Queen to king’s bishop seven.
Michael closes the space between them in two steps. The air between them is electric, charged with heat and longing. She places a hand on Chris’ chest, potential energy becoming kinetic.
“Would you?” she asks. Her voice is barely more than a whisper. Beneath her fingers, his heart pounds in time with her own.
When Chris looks at her, there are no walls between them, his feelings laid bare in the depth of his gaze, the desperate twist of his mouth. It’s the same look he gave her in the turbolift this afternoon.
Michael shivers.
There is a moment, before they surrender, where time seems to stand still. Michael can feel the energy passing between them, through her palm, the resonance of their atoms resolving from two frequencies to one. Her breath catches in her throat, and then—
Checkmate.
***
They move in concert, two neutron stars spiralling to their inevitable fusion. It’s soft and tender and Michael could sink into it forever, could lose herself in the touch of his fingers, the curve of his mouth, the slide of his tongue against hers. He tastes of scotch and spearmint toothpaste and home. Michael is overwhelmed by the incredible rightness of it all, like a final puzzle piece in her soul has fallen into place.
Oh.
There you are.
.
.
.
oh, i can’t
stop you putting roots in my dreamland
my house of stone, your ivy grows
and now I’m covered in you.