Chapter Text
Much later, after explanations that come out half-garbled by exhaustion and layered into a blur of voices where Michael catches one word in three, she gathers that Po beamed over to Enterprise just before the balance of the fight tipped against them; after tears from Tilly – ‘Happy tears, Michael, so fu- fricking happy’; after a scolding from Saru for the state of her hand during a briefing she mostly sleepwalks through, Dr Pollard catching her with a hypospray that dulls the grind of bones in her fingers until they hurt less than the worry, slow-burning in her chest –
- after all that, at the end of a day that lasted over nine hundred years, Michael steals out of her biobed in Discovery’s Sickbay.
Medical advice was for her to rest but all she’s managed is lying awake, fretting behind her closed eyelids. It’s frustrating when there’s no logical reason for sleep to elude her – the lights are dimmed to the night cycle, everyone taking twelve hours downtime to parse the situation now no one’s actively trying to kill them. Po had discharged herself, still limping, for a post-time travel debrief with Tilly that sounded like veiled cover for a slumber party with ice cream, Nhan using the distraction to trail on her crutches after Philippa, when the former emperor slunk out of Sickbay with a pensive look that Michael’s too tired to worry about right now, for all that she’s certain it means trouble. Dr Pollard was ordered off to finally catch some sleep and Dr Culber disappeared ‘for a five minute chat’ with Stamets over two hours ago so Sickbay’s left near-deserted, filled only with the muted glow of the monitors and the hush of a peaceful starship.
Which at least means there’s no one to see Michael give in to temptation and pace silent on bare feet across to the other occupied biobed.
Pike’s asleep, pale in the soft illumination from the monitors displaying his heart rate and breathing, stable oxygen saturation, numbers measuring a steady affirmation of life. Locating a visitor’s chair in the office Michael carries it over, awkward with the bulky cast encasing her hand but she manages with only minor bruising to her shins which frankly, after the day she’s had, barely registers.
Finally, feeling like she’s been chewed up and spat out by a gormagander, she settles herself into the uncomfortable contours of the chair and allows herself to watch her captain’s chest (now safely hidden behind the standard medical gown that manages to be unflattering on anyone else), the steady rise and fall of his breathing easing the fear that’s been a knot in her stomach for days.
‘The captain’ll be okay,’ Dr Culber had reassured her as he’d set her hand earlier; he'd caught up with Pollard while Michael sleepwalked through her own briefing. ‘We won’t know for certain if there’s lasting effects of the oxygen deprivation until he wakes up but all of you did a good job getting him out in time. He’s going to be fine.’
‘Except for being almost a thousand years from where he wanted to be,’ Michael had murmured. In response Culber hesitated, glanced over at Stamets talking to Po and Tilly by the door between frequent glances their way that weren’t anywhere near as subtle as he probably intended.
‘I tried to come back to Discovery during the fight,’ he’d said after a minute where he fussed needlessly with her hand brace. The words were so soft, she almost missed them. ‘Did you know that?’
‘No,’ Michael replied, startled. She’d been out of it during the briefing but she was sure she would’ve caught that, if only from Stamets’ reaction. ‘I thought you’d decided to stay with the Enterprise?’
‘I did- I mean, I had. I was in the Enterprise’s Sickbay ready to help with the casualties once the fight started, when their doctor came over to ask what was wrong with me that they’d kicked me off Discovery.’
Michael suppressed a smile. ‘Sounds like he went to the Dr Pollard School of Bedside Manner’
‘Some days it seems like most of my Starfleet colleagues went there and they think I’m strange for saying good morning instead of greeting them with how many of my crew have injured themselves doing something idiotic since the last time we talked.’ Dr Culber sounded rueful but his professional smile flickered to something genuine at her raised eyebrow. ‘Don’t worry, I always tell them that Discovery’s crew is exemplary and never give me any trouble.’
He’d paused. ‘Also the idiotic things you all do are classified, so... ’
She gave him her best disapproving Vulcan face mostly to make him laugh, pleased when it succeeded.
‘But you still tried to come back to us?’ she’d asked, and almost glanced at Stamets before she controlled the urge; it would be rude to assume but… ‘...you wanted to come to the future with us? That’s a big decision to make under fire.’
‘That’s what I told their doctor, when he asked if I regretted leaving after I said it was my choice.’ Culber avoided her eyes, adjusting her hand with gentle, practiced movements. ‘I mean of course, I told him, I was going to miss Pa- to miss all of you but there were other things to consider. Other factors. Take a breath Michael, this might feel tight at first.’
He’d activated the hand brace and the hum went through Michael like a shudder, as it always did. Sure the things healed bones in a fraction of the time but she could never quite shake the sensation that her spine was vibrating the entire time she wore one.
‘But he disagreed with you,’ she’d said through gritted teeth, tilting her head to accommodate another hypospray which thankfully did something to ease the thrum in her bones. Culber fiddled with the spray casing as if adjusting the dosage and she’d been about to reassure him that she was fine when he flicked her another rueful look.
‘Not quite. He ah, asked if my choice had anything to do with a women.’
Michael winced. ‘That’s potentially awkward.’
‘Pretty much my reaction but when I said no, not really my area… he gave me this look and said, guess it was a man who broke that heart of yours then.’ Culber swallowed, still turning the empty hypospray over in his hand restlessly. ‘So I said no, not quite that either. It was me who broke his heart.’
‘That’s an oversimplification of an impossibly complicated situation,’ Michael said, making her voice as gentle as she knew how. ‘None of us blame you, you know. What you went through – there’s no map for that. It was always going to be something you had to deal with in your own time.’
He’d glanced at her then and she’d known the exact curl of sadness in his mouth, intimately, that feeling of trying and failing to shape a smile.
‘You know, that’s what I told myself when I left? I needed distance, to find who I was in this new context. If I stayed here I’d always be haunted by the old Hugh, this ghost I didn’t recognise. I’d never get past this feeling- like I’m a stranger in my own body.’ He’d flexed his hand on the hypospray again, watching as if his own fingers held a mystery and sighed. ‘He – their doctor – we were already up to our elbows in injured crew by then, but he stopped to push me to one side and said if I was going to be a terrible doctor then I could get out of his Sickbay.’
Michael blinked. ‘Lack of bedside manner aside, that seems – harsh.’
‘You’re telling me.’ Culber glanced toward the group at the door and away again, a shy duck of his head. ‘But you know what? He was right. When I started to tell him that he had no idea what he was talking about, he said-‘ He mimicked a gruffer tone. ‘“son , if I know anything about medicine and love it’s that they both have the same goal and that’s the absence of pain”. He said that Discovery might have the cure for what ails me on it, and it might not, but it was going a hell of a lot further than even a five year mission and if I realised tomorrow that I shouldn’t have let it go, that pain would be with me for the rest of my days.’
Culber paused to take a deep breath, and the line of his mouth went soft as he looked back toward the door, all the tension he’d been carrying since his resurrection eased now Michael thought to look for it. ‘He asked if I was sure that was a sentence I could live with. ’
Stamets had looked over at them then, a guilty flick of his gaze that flinched, caught, when he saw them already watching. Only, this time Culber smiled back at him, genuine like all the lights coming on in a brand new starship and Stamet’s mouth dropped open before he got a hold of himself, tentative dawning hope in the way he stood straighter, flushing slightly as he smiled back.
‘That’s when I realised,’ the doctor said as he tore his gaze from that luminous hope, something painfully earnest in the way he smiled to himself. ‘I could live here, on Discovery, if I was wrong; I could bear it. But if I realised when it was too late that I wanted to come back, that I wanted-’
He hesitated again, finished soft as a thought given shape. ‘In realising that I couldn’t bear losing him, I realised I could bear anything else to avoid that.’
‘Was that when you tried to get back to Discovery?’ Michael kept her voice quiet, shared just for them; she wasn’t sure why he’d chosen her to confide in other than perhaps, after her mother, she’ was the only one who could appreciate how it felt to watch time travel snatch something you loved out of reach. ‘Did you know you couldn’t? Once we were under fire our shields- changed, evolved somehow, something to do with the Sphere data - Tilly had to rewire the entire system just to drop them for a second for me to launch in the suit. There was no way you could’ve got to us.’
‘I know. I tried asking the bridge but Captain Pike told me no, it was impossible. He said sorry,’ Culber added softly. ‘As if he knew what it meant. I ran to the transporter room anyway, hoping for another miracle … but as I got there the captain was already calling to abandon ship. I tried to convince the lieutenant on duty to beam me over to you but he was in the middle of trying to lock onto another distress call from a shuttle, already afraid and the evacuation was the push for him to run.’ He’d smiled crookedly. ‘He tried to get me to go too but I’ve died once already. It’s amazing how being rebuilt out of mushrooms after having your neck snapped refocuses your priorities in life or death situations.’
Michael felt her own smile go tight at the edges. ‘Dying does that.’
They’d exchanged a look, a small, bittersweet thing shared between them before the doctor cleared his throat.
‘For all the good it did me, I decided getting back here was more important than running away and giving Control target practice shooting another escape pod out of the sky. I went to the console and finished the transport that was locked in, thinking once the pad was clear I could try- I don’t know, something. Probably something stupid. Only I looked up to check I hadn’t accidentally beamed in an evil AI robot and it was Po.’
He glanced at the group by the door, Po slumped with an arm around Tilly and half-asleep with her face buried in red curls, Tilly’s hand curled secure and safe around the Xahean’s shoulders. ‘She was barely conscious, leg full of shrapnel - she told me to leave her and go but I couldn’t- and I couldn’t risk transporting her anywhere, or finding an escape pod; she’d have bled out in minutes. I got her back to Sickbay and the captain remote-activated the emergency lockdown to give me time to stabilise her. I thought I’d missed my chance.’
‘You saved her life,’ Michael corrected, and tilted her head toward Stamets, starting to drift their way with affected nonchalance. ‘And I’m hardly an expert but I’d say the chance is still there. If you want to take it.’
Culber exhaled, slow, and finally dropped the hypospray in the waste receptacle, closing his hands convulsively on the emptiness. ‘I don’t know about that — I mean I’ve already had a miracle and I wasted it, so why should I assume I’ll get it right this time?’ When he’d looked at her then it had been all question, faint-edged in desperation. ‘What would you do?’
At the time, Michael had only smiled and pushed him gently towards the hovering Stamets, toward awkward conversations and potential, maybe; she hadn’t thought that the question applied. Not to her.
Now, hours later, she rests her bulky cast on the edge of the biobed, watches the steady rise- fall of Pike’s breathing that wouldn’t be there if she’d hesitated to question her actions for even a minute longer and thinks wryly, What wouldn’t I do.
She can’t help speculating if Pike will appreciate the circumstances — if his smile will hold the same soft wonder as the doctor’s. He isn’t Culber, granted a miraculous wish fulfillment – he’d given no indication during their goodbyes on the bridge that he’d considered joining them – and he’s not Po, so effusively happy to see Tilly that Michael suspects some wish fulfillment there too, which might be for the best in light of their kidnapping alien royalty. She hopes Xahea didn’t declare war on Starfleet after they left.
Pike on the other hand was rooted firmly in the Enterprise captaincy and his own crew, his inevitable march towards Starfleet admiralty. Past experience suggests he’ll make the best of the situation; optimism is his nature and she can’t imagine he’d prefer to be dead in the past than alive here. With them. Sure it’s a curveball — but the majority of the Enterprise crew certainly survived, Control is dead as far as they can tell, and they saved all sentient life in the galaxy.
Plus they have a window here to find their feet, opportunity to reflect which is badly overdue for all of them since the war, since... everything. There’s a long list of upsides.
And one giant downside. Being torn over nine hundred years from everything he knew without the chance to say goodbye is a lot to balance.
It’s not unreasonable, she thinks with an edge of desperation she can’t suppress, to predict that he’ll be pleased on some level. He’d always harboured a visible disdain for Starfleet political maneuvering, despite handling it with consummate skill; the opportunity to follow the ideals they signed on for, to boldly go to the literal farthest reaches of the unknown without oversight or petty argument, wasn’t a chance that came along every day. Beyond the quiet hum of Sickbay is the future, exploration and wonder and the tantalising mystery of what happened to Starfleet in the hundreds of years they’ve side-stepped.
Perhaps when he wakes up, she’ll ask him how he’s feeling and like Culber, like Po, the answer will be… positive.
It’s been so long since she’s been able to hope without the fear of unimaginable consequences, her logic rings hollow. If he’d wanted to come with them, he’d have been on Discovery in the first place; she’s never seen him flinch from what he believed to be the right path. The best she can hope for now that he’s trapped here is that he’ll be… that he might look at her with that wistful smile and say…
She’s so tired, the thought won’t finish itself. There’s an impossible tangle of feelings that comes with it, warm and heavy in her chest and she can’t find the thread to unpick it when her eyelids keep sinking. Lulled by the steady pace of Pike’s breathing, she catches her chin tipping as the last of her restless tension seeps away.
No. She can’t fall asleep yet. She needs to ask Pike how he feels about the situation, what he’s going to do about the captaincy he never definitively reassigned. Why he chose not to come with them in the first place. She needs his steadiness to clarify her own thought process, the way he has countless times, be her anchor against her willingness to throw herself into the airless dark.
She needs to ask him- she needs-
She doesn’t remember her eyes closing, or sinking forward, has no idea how long she sleeps. When she resurfaces to the soft murmur of her name she’s disorientated, muzzy and when she lifts her head off the edge of the biobed it’s with a groan for the headache pressing against her temples.
‘Sorry to wake you,’ Pike says.
Pike. Awake, and she snaps upright so fast her neck might regret it tomorrow.
Blinking to focus past the ache, she’s met by his quirked apology smile. It’s the one he uses to take the sting out of orders, the one she’s seen countless times when he asks her to take the graveyard shift or to supervise boring but essential repairs – or asks her to persuade Spock not to supervise because he’s been known to make the Engineering ensigns cry. If they can’t see which buttons they’re pressing through tears, they might accidentally eject the warp core and Kat bet me all her paperwork that I’d break another one he’d said the last time, amusement lit beneath solemnity until she couldn’t decide if he was teasing.
The same amusement glitters in his eyes now as he leans easily back against the tilt of the biobed, smile defusing the potential awkwardness of the moment as he always does. The familiarity sweeps her balance from under her, voice lost somewhere in the sudden weight beneath her ribs. She hadn’t realised how resigned she’d been to never getting to see it again.
When she stares at him longer than strictly polite, that familiar, crooked smile pulls in at the edges with concern.
‘Should I have let you sleep?’ he asks softly. ‘Sorry – you just looked like you were getting one hell of a crick in your neck.’
‘The rescue is appreciated, sir,’ she hastens to reassure him and winces at another muscle twinge when she straightens her shoulders. ‘If perhaps somewhat belated.’
This time his smile is sympathetic, crinkling tiredly at the corners of his eyes and there’s that odd flip of her heartbeat again. Perhaps she should ask Dr Pollard for a cardiac scan.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Next time I’ll try to expedite regaining consciousness. Can’t have you damaging that famous Vulcan posture.’
‘I am technically almost one thousand years old if we’re going by stardates. Even Spock might grant me allowance to stoop a little,’ Michael replies dryly, and doesn’t catch her verbal misstep until his smile wipes to a shocked blank. ‘Sir, I didn’t mean – I’m sorry to drop that on you, that- that you’re on this side of the time anomaly. I assumed you knew.’
He looks away briefly, across the other empty biobeds and the dark office – before he breathes a sigh.
‘It’s okay,’ he murmurs and the smile he flashes her is genuine at least. ‘I had an inkling when I realised it was you trying to claw your way through a starship with your bare hands and not Control.’
He taps her cast lightly with a fingertip then hesitates almost imperceptibly before resting his hand on top of the cool alloy. Not quite holding hands – it’s entirely illogical to want that, Michael chides herself; she’s aware of the studies, touch proven to reduce stress hormones even when growing up in a society of touch-telepaths mostly taught her to endure without it, body perhaps craving the contact more after hours inside the rigid armour of the time suit –
But he’s still her superior officer and neither of them need to lean on each other to stay upright at this particular moment. He’s offering comfort within boundaries and she appreciates it.
‘I understood what you were trying to say,’ she offers in return, because she can hardly hold his hand but there’s still a tension lingering in his expression. ‘About Sickbay. They had less than an hour of emergency life support left – if you hadn’t been in that pod, if you hadn’t stayed conscious to tell me they were there, both Dr Culber and Her Highness Po would’ve died. Instead they’re both fine. By being here in the future you saved them,’ she adds before she catches herself on the unnecessary words, frowning. She’s not sure which of them she was trying to reassure.
In the faint glow of the monitors, she can’t read the look that flickers across his face before it turns back into a smile. ‘You were the one who saved them – all of us – Michael. I was only a messenger.’
He rubs a thumb against her cast as if he’s spotted a smudge on the smooth alloy, focusing on that instead of her eyes. And that’s familiar too, she realises with a flicker of discomfort, something she’d forgotten to account for in anticipating his response; his distance over the last few days. Avoiding her eyes more often as if watching something over her shoulder, attention divided.
She’d assumed he was naturally pulling back, preparing to leave them behind for his home on the Enterprise, and she’d let it pass.
There’s nowhere else to go, now.
‘Sir?’ she asks and allows it to come out pointed.
‘So everything went as planned and we travelled into the future?’ he says, still without looking up, still distant – watching something a million light years, or perhaps nine centuries away, and Michael feels the thread of her wariness knot tighter.
‘We did. The suit and time crystal worked, once we accounted for the variance in how large the wormhole needed to be. Discovery was able to follow me through without any discernible problems.’
‘Any other uninvited guests?’ He does look at her finally, a quick flash of blue edged in a rueful frown. ‘Besides me crashing the party. I don’t know if you’d already gone when the remaining Section 31 ships suddenly went dark, as if someone cut Control’s strings -’
‘We believe Philippa severed the connection when she took out Leland,’ Michael says, soft in apology for interrupting and reporting the death of someone he’d known, once. He only flicks up an eyebrow, absorbing the information.
‘Trust her to know how to decapitate an AI. Wish we’d thought of that sooner.’ He sighs again. ‘I thought we’d won the day for a moment when they all went down but then I spotted one last Section 31 shuttle still active and making a kamikaze run at the wormhole. I’d lost pretty much every critical system by that point except sublight engines, and they were running on hope and a prayer. I pointed the Enterprise to intercept before I got in the escape pod, hoping we’d be in the way enough to deflect it off course for long enough. Guess I got too close?’
He looks at her expectantly and Michael automatically straightens her shoulders, falling into the pattern of reporting to her captain.
‘Yes sir,’ she says, ‘the wormhole was pulling you through after us and Discovery used a tractor beam to keep you from being lost in the time ripples.’ She hadn’t known that until the briefing. Saru admitting he’d acted out of concern for what might happen to Enterprise if the ship was left in the wormhole after it closed, acknowledging the possibility with an inflectionless calm that hadn’t stopped Tilly turning grey at the thought.
‘The shuttle you saw was able to follow us,’ she says and adds hastily at his flash of alarm – ‘but we had time to identify it as Section 31 and destroyed it before it could go to warp. We scanned for any other pods or ships once our sensors came back online, but it looks like everyone else stayed in the past.’
(Or were trapped in the wormhole when it closed, lost to time and space but they’d agreed in pained silence, Tilly pale and even Reno wincing, that they couldn’t do anything about it and it was better not to dwell on horrific intangibles.)
Protocol dictates that she allows him to ask questions first when reporting unless directed otherwise and although the next one is logically obvious, she pauses out of habit. He catches it, quirks her a knowing look.
‘And exactly how far in the past is that, Michael? You led us to where we wanted to be, didn’t you.’
That last isn’t a question; he assumes her competence, unhesitating.
It’s somewhat bitter to disappoint him. ‘Almost. I- we aren’t sure if our calculations were off. We haven’t had time to run a diagnostic yet...’
‘But based on the way you’re talking around the problem, you have an alternative explanation?’ he guesses, eyes kind beneath the curiosity and she gives up trying to hide it any longer, letting out the guilt that’s been coalescing under her every thought since the briefing.
‘Yes sir. I- I think I panicked. Inside the wormhole,’ she clarifies at the sudden focus of his concern. ‘The suit knew where it was going but the readings were tracking too fast for me to follow and I was having trouble breathing in the gravitational force of the rift. I’m speculating but I suspect the diagnostic will show that the suit has built-in safety features to detect potential harm to the user and it initiated a failsafe to break the jump early.’
‘How early?’ he asks – curious only, soft with the lack of judgment. She meets his gaze and he’s truly concerned now – for her only, centred outside his own thoughts for the first time in days. Present. She takes a slow breath, letting his attention anchor her against the weight of it, how far they’d come and how short it fell, and says:
‘We travelled nine hundred and twenty-seven years, seven months, three weeks, and one day into the future.’
Tilly had been disgruntled when she reported it at the briefing, unable to find a scientific explanation for them to land such a random time out of target and perplexed that Michael wasn’t more disappointed. Trying not to think too hard about how much of the error was her fault while she was too exhausted to be sure, Michael couldn’t summon a response and it took Reno intervening to deescalate the tetchy, over-tired argument, rolling her eyes and pointing out that the time crystal hadn’t overloaded on the trip like they’d expected which expanded their options.
It’s not stable she’d admitted, but offered tomorrow, with Po here and if the rest of you take your tantrums out of our way, maybe we can calibrate it for a short hop forward, and that’d been the end of it, Michael not able to form her thoughts clear enough for an objection.
But now-
- now her bones ache and Pike is watching her with familiar warm concern, and she has Spock to continue rebuilding her relationship with, and under extreme torture she might even admit that she’s happy that Philippa came with them, for all that’s going to be a full time job distracting her from trying to take over the entire future out of sheer boredom without Section 31 to hem her in.No one is trying to kill them, Michael’s not incarcerated for mutiny or at war or heartbroken, and the thought she’d been working on before she fell asleep resurfaces into a clear, decisive conclusion:
It’s not so long to wait.
Now she only has to hope that the rest of the crew agree.
‘That’s what, two years and four months, give or take, before your mother gets here?’ Pike’s concern dissolves into an unexpected smile, none of Tilly’s frustration behind it. ‘That’s a win, Michael. You were piloting experimental tech without any prior training and in the whole expanse of time and space, you landed within touching distance of your target. Test pilots would be throwing a party in your honour. Be happy.’
‘I am happy,’ she says and is surprised to feel the truth of it settle inside her, curving up the corners of her mouth. ‘I’m happy we all survived. I’m happy my mother is so close and will be able to help us work out the time suit. We won this one – we’re picking up traces of warp signatures and long range transmissions so there’s life, people. No Control.’
She tilts her head, watching him start to withdraw behind his eyes again even as he smiles at her. The same distance, creeping back in – brooding she’d call it, if the Tilly voice in her head wouldn’t choke out a laughing ‘hypocrite’ – and he hasn’t volunteered an explanation. It’s unreasonable of her to assume she’s entitled to one.
Except- they’re still captain and science officer where it counts but there’s no Starfleet, no Enterprise waiting to call him home. She thinks perhaps, in this safe pause for breath in the aftermath, she’s allowed to push those boundaries.
‘Sir,’ she says, slow, and asks what she’s been wondering for days of half-finished sentences and ducked glances. ‘I am happy, that’s true. But forgive me for saying so, you don’t seem to be.’
‘Almost a thousand years is a lot to age unexpectedly, Michael, give a man a minute to process.’
It’s said lightly but Michael, qualified expert in sidestepping inconvenient emotions, knows an evasion when she hears one. She gives him the eyebrow tilt she learned from Spock – the Vulcan Bullshit Alarm Tilly calls it – and he’s clearly familiar enough with it to wince.
‘It isn’t that I’m unhappy to be alive so you can stop with the family death glare. This was- unexpected, that’s all.’
‘It was unexpected for all of-’
Mid-sentence into her instinct to press the attack, Michael cuts herself off because the expression that flashes over his face is pain, genuine and raw. It’s hastily shuttered behind the neutral mask that he’s worn for days but this is more than just Control and the time jump stranding, she’s sure now.
‘Captain,’ she tries instead and the kind expanse of her tone, encouraging the other to speak without censure, she knows she learned from him. ‘You promised once to always be honest with me in return for my confidence. If there’s something wrong, I hope you feel you can tell me. Perhaps I can help.’
The careful distance in his expression doesn’t waver, all his captain’s walls up and for perhaps the first time she finds his professionalism irritating rather than admirable.
‘Thanks for the offer,’ he says, somehow cloaked in the aura of aloof captain despite the shadows of exhaustion on his face, the strange dissonance of hospital gown instead of uniform, ‘but sometimes there are things that can’t be helped by talking about them, We’d be better focusing on what we can change – have you discussed options for what you might do during the two year wait yet?’
Subject change; he’s deflecting. Interesting. ‘We thought it best to get some rest before making any definite decisions,’ Michael says, slow as she eyes him contemplatively. ‘There are variables to consider.’
‘Such as?’
Variables such as Philippa’s tone, the boredom veneered thin over perhaps genuine concern as she told Michael you’ll throw yourself into an entire fleet of wrecked ships for him. Of the broken bones of her hand and how much of the time she’s spent serving with him has been panic and fear, explosions in asteroid fields and phaser blasts to the chest. Of the nanobots from Gant, dropping inert just beyond the tips of her boots.
She would’ve killed Pike if she’d gone back to Discovery as Control after that; she understands it in her gut where her terror sits. He would have stopped at nothing to prevent Control taking the Sphere data, she knows that with all her certainty, and once inside her head Control would’ve known it too. If there’d been anything left of her after the nanobots invaded, she would’ve had to watch her own hands fire the phaser and been powerless to stop it.
What wouldn’t I do.
‘Sir,’ she says again and this time his eyes narrow suspiciously at the abruptness in her tone. ‘Before we discuss any courses of action, there’s something I think you need to understand about me. About the factors influencing my choices. There are- extenuating circumstances.’
A frown dimple forms between his brows but he’s been through enough and-another-thing about Discovery’s bizarre history now to roll with it so- ‘Okay,’ he agrees, watching her with wide, wary eyes. ‘Though Michael, before you tell me anything you may regret, I feel you should also understand that I trust you implicitly and it’s unlikely anything you say at this point will convince me otherwise.’
Her heartbeat stutters again at the trust – the faith – and she has to hesitate to line up her words because she’s afraid if she stumbles, she’ll hold back and that’s unacceptable.
‘You asked me if I was happy,’ she settles on after a moment to think, voice tight, ‘and I am. Specifically I’m happy that my captain is safe – that you’re safe.’
Surprise splashes across his expression; he wasn’t expecting that.
‘Michael,’ he says softly. ‘I-’
She cuts him off; there’s emotion balled in her throat and if she stops for a moment, she’ll stop. ‘There are issues you may not be fully aware of when it comes to myself and captains, issues that may impair my logical judgment.’ She swallows. ‘You know about Lorca, obviously, and -’
‘Philippa,’ he supplies when she falters. His voice is still soft, encouraging although he quirks a smile when she blinks at him. ‘You told me about this Michael, remember? I know we have a doppelganger.’
She had told him that part, broken Starfleet’s stringent classification of the finer details of their multiverse trip in a quiet moment, back when they still had those. She’d told him Philippa was Terran, that their own Philippa died in the war – and watching the way he’d flinched at the death of his friend she hadn’t been able to carry on with the details of how exactly it played out.
‘It was my fault.’ That lands hard, telegraphed by his sharp intake of breath. Shaking off the ever-present flare of grief, Michael forces her voice rigid. ‘I got the captain I respected more than anyone killed because I was arrogant enough to think I knew better, and then I let the next one use me for his own ends until I was no longer useful, because he played on my grief and I allowed it. And then after pulling me out of myself, giving me a hand up from rock bottom and then betraying everything I thought I’d managed to rebuild, he died too.’
She meets Pike’s gaze, the open empathy in it, and ruthlessly does not let the burn of her tears spill over.
‘As you can imagine,’ she says, ‘I have- issues when it comes to my captains dying. So when I say that I would rather I died over there on the Enterprise than you – that I will make that trade every time – please understand that I mean it. I will not lose another captain on my watch.’
There’s a long pause. Michael watches the readout of his stats over his shoulder, the pulse rate skipping higher and distracts herself from tears wondering about her own, the steady thump of it beneath her skin that feels electrified, restless. She never expected to tell anyone that — barely shaped the thought of it, until she was hanging weightless in space counting the seconds until he suffocated.
There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to save him. And it would be worth it.
‘Michael...’ he starts finally, voice rough at the edges with compassion. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’ve gone through more than anyone should have to endure-’
She sits up straighter — irritated that words have failed her. ‘No, that isn’t- I didn’t tell you this for sympathy, captain.’ Even if she longs for it, the wound of Philippa’s words on the Enterprise still raw – but this isn’t about her. ‘I’m telling you now because it’s pertinent to how we move forward, now that you’re here. We have multiple potential paths to follow and I would like my decision to account for your safety by factoring in all the necessary information. If you have any intentions, now that you’re here it would be helpful to know what they are – if there’s anything that’s been bothering you since-’
The word is on the tip of her tongue before her conscious thought catches up but the moment it shapes, she feels the truth of it. ‘Since Boreth?’
For a few moments, the same melancholia that he’s worn like a shield these last few days chases indecision over his face and she braces for the rejection.
Then he sighs, long and low, and his shoulders slump back against the bed, head tipping back as he mutters a Klingon curse that the computer either doesn’t recognise, or primly refuses to translate. Still staring at the ceiling, he says,
‘How did you know I was keeping something from you?’
‘Because it isn’t like you to talk in riddles and you have, ever since I got back from the encounter with Gant. I was waiting for you to offer me the answers or at least the clues, but there was no time. Also on the Enterprise...’ She closes her own eyes against the memory, faltering briefly. ‘You were in a much more life-threatening situation than those in Sickbay and you still tried to make me leave you to rescue them instead. It would’ve been leaving you to die.’
She opens her eyes in time to catch the stricken look that crosses his face. ‘You’re selfless and brave, captain, but to my knowledge not illogically suicidal. It was almost as if you were assured of your own safety beyond reason.’
‘In my defence I did think you were Leland at first.’ His tone is artificially light but he winces when she gives him her least impressed look. ‘Sorry. Only I thought I’d managed to hide it – I tried. All this time and I’m still caught underestimating you.’ He pats her cast, too gently for the vibration to jar her hand and when he speaks again it’s muted, his focus turning reflective. ‘You have this tendency to defy the odds time and again, even when the cause seems lost. I wanted to keep you from worrying about it, true, but... more than anything, I think that’s why I didn’t tell you.’
Michael’s wound so tight, she can hardly make herself breathe. ‘Tell me what?’
He’s quiet for another pause, clearly choosing his words with care.
‘It seemed- petty to worry about myself, when I had your example right there’ he says eventually. ‘You were so willing to throw yourself at what needed to be done, regardless of the consequences.’ His gaze goes distant – as if he’s watching something beyond Sickbay again, reliving something terrible until he blinks back to her here, now and understanding shadows his frown. ‘Also, it’s true that I did make a promise not to tell anyone and I haven’t. I wasn’t deliberately leaving you out.’
The knot of worry in her chest is back and it only loosens slightly at that. He’s been carrying whatever this is alone, and she’d rather he’d trusted anyone rather than that – even if it couldn’t be her.
She makes her voice as persuasive as she knows how, which is still nowhere near as much as she’d like. ‘Surely the circumstances have changed? Whoever you made that promise to, they’ve been dead for nine hundred years.’
Unexpectedly Pike hesitates. ‘Actually I’m not sure. Time was- negotiable.’
Before she can ask, he shakes his head. ‘Michael, other promises aside… I meant it when I said you had enough to deal with; I didn’t want you to carry this truth on top of that. I promised myself that I would never tell you.’
She tries to keep the sting of that off her face; she suddenly misses standing, the way she can tuck her hands behind her back to centre all her uneasiness in regulation posture, but if she retreats, she’ll disrupt the moment and she can’t risk it, not when he’s clearly considering breaking the rule of silence he imposed on himself. ‘What truth is that, captain?’ she asks.
Something of her hurt must bleed through anyway because he looks at her, really seeing this time, eyes wide and it’s that instant that she sees the decision made, the way his shoulders straighten and his chin comes up. One hundred percent the Starfleet captain bracing himself for a tough negotiation. He’s going to be honest.
‘The truth is... that you weren’t leaving me behind in the past to a glorious future of admiralty and eventual retirement to a nice warm planet where no one hassled me daily to make the hard choices. That I couldn’t come with Discovery even-’ He trips briefly, voice catching before he steadies it, looks at her with his shoulders curling in more defensive than she’s ever seen him. ‘Even if I wanted to.’
She looks at him for a long moment, the tired lines around his eyes, the shadow of unhappiness beneath a smile that trembles, unconvincing and she doesn’t mean her voice to come out plaintive but it scrapes out that way, pressed thin by the worry that’s akin to fear now.
‘Captain, what happened to you on Boreth?’
He touches the side of his face and his hand- his hand shakes. Even as the quiet drags out, she knows better than to speak; she’s said everything she can to persuade him and the decision now has to be his alone, even if she sits here all night. He’s held on to it for this long after all.
And then, in the sleeping hush of Discovery at rest with the monitors humming a descant to the terrible, simple words, he tells her. About the vision he’d seen in the time crystal and Tenavik’s surety of his fate, about his decision to take it anyway in light of the threat to all sentient life. In soft, stumbling words he spells out his belief in his own inconsequentiality when set against the survival of the galaxy and how it was no one’s burden to bear but his own.
‘You didn’t need to wrestle with my problems on top of what you had to deal with, Michael,’ he finishes, voice gone hollow with the effort of holding it steady. ‘I didn’t intend to tell anyone; it wouldn’t make a difference. None of this is in any way your fault, you have to be clear on that. I made my own choice.’
Michael’s silent in the pause after he’s finished, aware of the tangle of her emotions but unsure how to begin unravelling it. That he’d gone through that, alone – that he’d carried the weight of that choice and led them through the battle with Control unwavering, the surety of his confidence their bulwark against despair – how does she begin to question that?
Try to convince your stupidly noble captain that his survival matters, Philippa mutters in her mind but that’s the wrong tack she’s sure; Pike’s already weighed himself against the galaxy and found the balance not in his favour. A selfish argument won’t work.
Instead, counterpoint and yet kin to Philippa’s unwavering hard sympathy, she thinks of Sarek’s voice. A half forgotten memory of when she tried to skip steps in her math he was helping her with as a child: You cannot build the house that lasts if you do not first ensure you have the correct foundations.
It’s back to logic, then.
‘If I may, captain,’ she asks, careful to keep her tone neutral, ‘would you permit me to ask some questions?’
Pike almost smiles, wry as if he expected it. ‘By all means. Gather your data but I warn you that the conclusions will be the same.’
Michael gives that last the consideration it deserves and ignores it. ‘You believe this future to be the only remaining path open to you, yes?’
‘Yes. Tenavik was very clear when I took the crystal that it set my fate inexorably on that course.’
‘And you trust him to have told you the truth?’
Pike blinks. ‘...Of course. What reason would he have to lie?’
Raising her gaze upward just short of an eye roll, Michael takes a moment to reflect on the novelty of wishing for more patience with Pike; usually it’s reserved for Spock playing the you illogical humans card, or Philippa’s more trying Supreme Emperor flashbacks.
‘Captain,’ she says in the measured tone she’s been told soundlessly tacks you are an idiot onto every word (Amanda says she learned it from Sarek, but Michael’s pretty sure Sarek refined it listening to Amanda talk to Vulcans who mistreated Spock), ‘why would you trust a Klingon you’d never met, whose sole purpose in allowing you access to the crystals was to assess the strength of your conviction and the nobility of your purpose? If the crystal had shown you a vision of yourself as Admiral, or being saved here in the future, or sipping plomeek tea on a pleasure beach on Risa, would that have told him anything about your worthiness to take it?’
Pike frowns. ‘His words had the ring of truth Michael, and from what I saw of their time manipulation, he would know. Besides I’m not Admiral, or on Risa, and I’m not likely to be now. Only the rescue would be true.’
‘At this precise moment, your vision hasn’t come true either,’ she points out. ‘Do you recognise the cadets in your future – do you think they could be on Discovery?’
His silence is the wariness of someone searching for the catch, expecting disappointment and Michael aches; she knows that bleakness intimately. Before she can second guess herself she reaches with her good hand, stilling his restless fingers against her brace and tangling their hands together in a press of reassurance.
When he flashes her a startled look, she meets it with a steady one. It’s okay , she hopes it says, I’ve got this and perhaps it’s the surroundings – Sickbay always throws off their usual boundaries, lack of uniforms and fragile tempers and that time they’d been up to their elbows in blood together, assisting Dr Pollard during an emergency – but it feels natural to be sitting in the shaded darkness, holding hands. His doesn’t quite dwarf hers, palm broader but her fingers longer, warmth shared, and it’s familiar in a way that’s completely new.
Judging from his faintly perplexed expression, he’s noticing that too but at least it’s eased his visible unhappiness. After a moment he sighs.
‘No, they aren’t here – the uniforms were different, Starfleet but not Discovery. And they were too young, fresh out of the Academy if they’d even graduated.’
Michael lifts one, pointed eyebrow. ‘But now you’re here. No Academy, no Starfleet as far as we know. Close to a thousand years away from what the crystal showed you as a potential-’
‘As a certain-’
‘As a potential future, Captain.’ Michael squeezes his hand, gentle when his fingers tremble in hers. ‘I can prove it. I touched the crystal too, remember?’
Amusement lights his expression briefly. ‘I don’t remember but I guessed as much – in light of our situation I’ll skip the I told you sos and ask what you saw. It was about the fight, wasn’t it? You had the look when Discovery wouldn’t be destroyed.’
‘Yes sir. I saw the torpedo lodged in Enterprise’s hull during the fight. I saw-’ Breathing fails her momentarily but his hand grounds her, their shared warmth an anchor point against the sense-memory of her throat being crushed. Her voice stills comes out raw. ‘I saw Leland kill everyone on Discovery’s bridge, including me. Without mercy.’
‘I’m sorry you had to see that,’ Pike murmurs, but Michael shakes her head.
‘I’m glad I did. It allowed me to set in motion a new chain of events, events that led to me not being on the bridge when he walked in. The crystal showed me my worst possible future which meant I had a chance to change it.’
Pike’s mouth sets stubborn, his I’m facing down Leland on an obstreperous day look, an inherent refusal of the temptation. ‘But the torpedo hit the Enterprise. That came true-’
‘The vision I saw had a live torpedo, lights on, counting down. Changing events so we had more time on Discovery or perhaps we accessed the Sphere data in a different way, I don’t know – but showing me which course of action not to follow changed that outcome. It allowed the Sphere data to integrate far enough to upgrade Discovery’s shields and deactivate the Section 31 torpedos.’ Michael’s sure of her reasoning now, determination burning beneath her outward calm; she lets her voice go pointed, watches it hit home. ‘That led to the Enterprise drawing fire while we took no damage, meaning we stayed too close to cover you and you were pulled into the wormhole with us. And it let me warn Philippa to expect Leland to board so she was prepared with a contingency plan to contain him. I changed events because of what I saw and it meant that no one died.’
‘But you didn’t know that.’
And that- that’s new. She’s never heard that almost fragile tone from him before, the terrible weight of doubt back in the tired lines of his face.
Abruptly she’s furious, reason subsumed in an illogical urge to track that Klingon monk down and scream her rage. How dare they take Pike’s shining conviction in a just universe and twist it into a whip to drive him to despair? All the power of time at hand and they couldn’t see the terrible abuse that it was?
She thinks of Ash suddenly, of his tentative smile before, of the harsh bite of Klingon in his throat after. Perhaps they could see the unfairness. Perhaps they simply didn’t care.
‘No, I didn’t know,’ she bites out. ‘But I took the chance at a better future. All of us did, when we travelled here,’
Indecision wars with refusal across Pike’s face, his thumb tracing pensive circles across her knuckles and then-
‘A chance isn’t enough,’ he says and it’s resigned, refusal winning out. ‘Even if I could believe Tenavik lied to me about it being set in stone then everything you did to avert the future you saw was just guesswork, and I can’t live my life second-guessing my every choice, Michael. I accepted my fate when I took the crystal. To spend what life I have left attempting to cheat that fate – a fate I do believe is inevitable – would lessen that life. Would lessen me.’ He squeezes her hand gently, even as something desolate shadows over his face. ‘I’m willing to follow my path.’
Delightfully predictable, the echo of Philippa says scornfully in Michael’s thoughts. This time, Michael can’t disagree.
‘And that’s how Tenavik knew for certain it was inevitable,’ she says, soft, watching the thread of hope versus horror war behind his eyes. She’s started wars and won them; whatever it takes, she will not let this one steal another captain from her. ‘I believe the crystals show us the worst possible outcome – those we will most instinctively reject, because otherwise how would the monks know who is worthy to take them? Tenavik tested your strength of purpose and by accepting your terrible end as the price, you proved that you were worthy. You also proved that you were the kind of man who would make your own end a truth by simply walking toward it, head on. Unafraid.’
As if her words were a sucker punch his gaze immediately drops from hers, pulling inward on himself and dismayed, Michael wonders what she’s said wrong this time. Wanting to get this right doesn’t make her good at it, not when the problems she’s trying to solve are people rather than science. She’d solved Spock but that took Amanda and forgiveness she can’t quite fathom and Spock laying out the way to Talos predictable as an equation; it doesn’t translate. She doesn’t have the math to solve what the Klingons did to Pike.
Then he speaks and her heart breaks.
‘I am afraid,’ he says simply. Almost matter of fact, except for the way his mouth trembles before he firms it. ‘I was afraid when I touched the crystal, I was afraid when I took it, and I’m afraid now that if I let myself think, hey maybe I don’t have to be afraid because it won’t happen, I won’t be able to handle it when it does. Or that in avoiding it, I may cause something worse.’ He looks up at her and his eyes are very bright in the half-light, reflected lights of the monitors gleaming over the tired lines. ‘You were ready to give up everything to go alone with Discovery. If my whole life until this point was a path leading me to the moment I could lend you the hand you needed to save the galaxy then well, that’s worth it. I’ll pay that price.’
Michael opens her mouth only to find a void where her voice should be. All her careful arguments disintegrate; for an instant she’s weightless again in the timestream, the lights of Sickbay blurred to sparks when her eyes fill.
She thought he knew her, as well as anyone outside her immediate family and he has the audacity-
‘You think I’d want that?’ Without conscious thought correlated to movement she’s on her feet, backing away with the memory of his warmth fading from her palm as she clenches her fist. ‘I told you about Philippa and you still think I wouldn’t move the universe itself to come back for you?’
He’s staring at her, hand half-lifted as if he’d like to reach for her. When she backs up another step, a wince crosses his face.
‘That’s the point,’ he admits and it’s the same tone of unshakeable faith as when he’d asked if she’d brought them to the future. ‘I know you would. Why do you think I didn’t tell you nine hundred years ago? No matter how afraid I am for myself, I was more afraid that any concern you had for me may have led to you deviating from your true purpose.’
When he tries a smile, it’s barely an unhappy twist of his mouth. ‘You already saved my life, Michael. Let me save yours.’
‘Those two things are not mutually exclusive. You’re already here in the future, we’re safe. Your fate is different now.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ He asks it quietly, without censure. ‘You need to go back at some point to set the signals we know about, and the two we’ve yet to uncover. Time is getting somewhat- fluid. Your mother herself told me that time is a living thing, with a will to correct the course of events.’
He seems to realise his hand is still half-extended and pulls it back, fingers in a loose, almost defensive curl against his chest and that, combined with the raw edge of his next words, hurt so much that she almost reaches out herself. ‘Please don’t blame yourself for any of this, Michael. That was never my intention. You don’t hold any responsibility in this.’
She’s shaking, she realises distantly – she thinks they both might be. There’s a wire-tight tension in opening themselves up like this and she’s grateful suddenly for the quiet, and the dark. In uniform, barriers up, they might never have done this and she would’ve watched him leave one day, comforted in that glorious future of admiralty and peaceful retirement until they perhaps found some old Starfleet records almost a thousand years later that told her it had all been a lie.
‘If it’d been me,’ she says, stumbling. ‘If I had told you I was going to the future to save the entire galaxy, that I hoped to find my mother and live happily ever after but you later found out that I knew I wouldn’t survive the trip – would you listen, if Spock told you not to feel responsible?’
The silence drags out for an achingly long moment. When he looks away from her, it’s answer enough.
‘No,’ he murmurs. ‘I’d never forgive myself.’
‘Then stay.’ She almost adds with me before she swallows it; she isn’t sure that’s a piece she can play. ‘Accept that we’ve changed the future because you made it here. Going back now, to walk into that… that’s not fate, that’s a choice.’
He doesn’t flinch, but there’s a coiled tension in his shoulders that suggests he’d like to. ‘And if those cadets all die because I’m not where I’m supposed to be?’
‘Then I have a time suit, I’ll-’
Too late she bites off her mistake, numb with the realisation of her misstep. Ruefully, he gives her a smile that’s only tired.
‘And there you have it. In avoiding my own fate, I’ll likely get you killed. That’s not a trade I’ll make.’
‘There are other ways,’ she says but she’s surrendered the high ground and her voice comes out thin with despair. She can’t keep him here against his will and he won’t stay voluntarily, given the choice. They have to go back to set the signals to avoid breaking the timeline and once they’ve worked out how to do that, on one of the trips one day, he’ll slip quietly back to Starfleet and everything that’s waiting for him.
Still, she refuses-
‘At least stay with us as long as you can,’ she insists. ‘Saru’s suggestion was that if we have to wait that we continue with the plan to build a base on Terralysium, so we have a safe bolt hole if we need it – you integrated better than any of us last time. I suspect we won’t adequately refine the time jumps until my mother gets here, that’s over two years-’
‘Two years in which you’re hoping to change my mind?’ He sighs. ‘I understand the impulse, truly I do. But Michael, if you’re hoping I’ll spend two plus years with you – all of you – and enjoy it so much that I won’t want to leave… well you’re most likely right. But I cannot see myself avoiding my fate in the longer term, not when I took the time crystal and accepted the cost. To allow myself to believe in a reprieve now...’ For the first time in a while she sees his composure crack, tears gleaming before he looks down to blink them away. ‘I don’t know if I could bear it, to have hope taken away a second time. Please don’t ask that of me.’
That last is fragile again and it’s a plea she can’t refuse. He won’t stay, not while he believes he has no other options and she’s angry at him for doing this to her, for taking away the tentative, fresh-grown hope she’d felt take root when she realised that he was here – that they might get to keep him after all. That Stamets and Tilly got their miracles and just maybe this time, she might.
She boxes that hope up, closes the lid before tucking it out of reach and weariness washes over her in the wake. There’s no escaping that she’s bitter for her own sake and his, refusing acceptance of his wishes and so, so sure that she’s right. That she can fix everything with her actions if she ignores everything he’s asking of her.
It’s Philippa all over again, and she aches as her certainty hollows into grief.
‘Fine,’ she says, voice ragged. When she steps back towards the bed, her knees threaten to buckle and when he reaches out to steady her she relinquishes her hand easily, fingers twined. ‘I won’t hound you to change your mind, I won’t argue. I won’t even tell the others if you would prefer this kept between us, although if Spock finds out on his own then I also won’t stand in the way when he nerve pinches you and tosses you in the brig until you see sense.’
His mouth quirks. ‘Fair.’
‘But,’ she adds, ‘you said you don’t want to lessen yourself – so don’t. We have over two years to wait for my mother, longer probably before we find the way back to set the signals.’ She allows her voice to crack into something pleading. ‘Come and live with us, even for a little while. Take this… sabbatical as the gift it is and make the most of it, captain.’
As if she’s lifted a weight threatening to crush them both, something lighter flits across his expression. ‘Chris.’
She blinks. ‘What?’
‘Chris,’ he repeats and squeezes her hand, apparently enjoying her puzzlement. ‘I gave up the captaincy remember? If we intend to live for any length of time on Terralysium, we can’t have captains and commanders; it’ll sound ridiculous. You should call me Chris.’
She tests the shape of it, holding it on her tongue for a moment as the precursor to something new that it is. ‘Chris,’ she repeats, watching his slow smile – then she frowns. ‘Wait, does this mean that you agree to my terms?’
‘Cheating the future – past – whatever – is not a negotiation, Michael,’ he sighs but the smile playing over his mouth is genuine. ‘Yes I’ll come with you, not that I have many options.’ He pauses contemplatively. ‘Other than running away to become a future space pirate I suppose and as tempting as that sounds, I’m not sure I’d be any good at demanding people hand over their cargo in a suitably threatening fashion. I couldn’t shake the memory of my mother scolding me for being impolite.’
‘You can always charm them out of their possessions,’ Michael says dryly and he laughs.
‘I’d be a very poor pirate if I relied on charm.’
You’d be a very successful pirate , she thinks but keeps it to herself. Instead she opens her mouth to ask him what he intends to do about the vacant captaincy –
To have the first syllable dissolve into a jaw-cracking yawn. Only his hand in hers keeps her from stumbling as she sways on her feet.
‘I’m keeping you up,’ he says, contrite lines creasing at the corners of his eyes. ‘Get some sleep Michael. Any decisions we have to make will keep ‘til morning.’
‘No mornings in space,’ she says muzzily. As if the yawn unlocked something, it’s getting harder to keep her eyes open. ‘We’re having a briefing in- ten hours?’
‘Then you can sleep for nine and a half of those.’ He uses his grip on her hand to turn her, propel her gently back toward her own biobed. ‘Go on.’
She takes two steps, then hesitates to glance back. He’s still sitting up watching her. When their eyes meet, his smile quirks a question and she knows she’s frowning, struggling to form coherent words from the sudden roil of fear that shivers her all over, something tugging for her attention without quite being ready to form into a thought.
Finally she says, too tired to make it less raw: ‘Don’t go anywhere without telling me – I mean waking me.’ She swallows, something fragile fluttering in her chest when his expression goes startled and open. ‘Please.’
‘You have my word,’ he says softly. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Michael.’
She feels his gaze on her all the way back to her own bed, feather-pressure of it between her shoulderblades but when she glances back he’s already lying back down with his eyes closed. After a brief hesitation she lies down on her side facing him.
It’s only practical, she tells herself; it allows her to rest the bulky cast on the bed without straining her shoulder. It has nothing to do with watching him through her eyelashes, trying to pin down the elusive thought waving for her attention through the haze of tiredness. It’s a niggle that keeps her from sleep even as his breathing levels out and she allows it to ease the tension still lingering in her every muscle, listening to the steady pattern and closing her hand around the sense-memory of his fingers in hers, warm and sure.
She’s saved him but she’s somehow lost him at the same time. He’s right there breathing steadily for now, but one day she’s going to reach for his hand and, like Philippa, like Lorca – he’s not going to be there to reach back.
The thought that’s fluttering at the edges of wakefulness finally steadies and clears, dawning on her like the answer to a math problem and like that, once she sees it, it’s simple:
No .
She’s all but promised him that she won’t travel back to save him directly, which rules it out as an option. That leaves changing his mind, and once he’s decided that a path is the right one, he won’t deviate from it without good reason. That reason needs to be evidence based, neatly-plotted math showing him that what he intended to do wasn’t the best course after all in clear strokes.
The certainty settles into her bones, conviction so strong, she feels weighted with it, pressed into the mattress.
All she has to do is find that evidence to prove to him that he doesn’t have to go back, that it won’t harm anyone else. He may not be hers – theirs – to keep, but he isn’t the universe’s to rip away either. Two years, four months is more time than she had with Philippa; this time, knowing what she knows now, she won’t fail and and as she finally gives in to sleep, letting herself drift, one last thought repeats in the steady rhythm of his breathing:
Time may be a living thing with a will.
But so is she.