Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Captain Gabriel Lorca was rapidly losing consciousness as the dark void of space encroached on the edges of his vision. Humans only lasted a few minutes out here. The sheer hubris of the Federation would get them all killed one day... Or, more precisely for him, today.

The next thing he knew, he was on some sort of hard surface. And he could breathe again. A repetitive whooshing sounded in his ears. The dark void of space punctuated only by mocking pinpricks of light was gone, replaced by 21st century interior design masquerading as something more futuristic. That wasn’t exactly what Gabriel thought of as his neurons gradually came back online, but that was the reality of where he found himself.

When he'd finished gasping for sweet, sweet air on the grille which served as a floor, he found the wherewithal to ask, "Who the fuck are you?"

"Nice to meet you too, tightly-clad space pilot. I'm The Doctor, but I sometimes go by Michael Burnham. A first and last name is usually more understandable to humans."

The person (he assumed it was a person, or humanoid, at least) who answered was wearing a bright red coat with gold embellishments, the style of which Gabriel had only seen in very old paintings he’d come across when seizing contraband cargo in one of the less savoury corners of space. (Archaic figures of speech didn’t really work in space, did they? ‘Corners’!)

The coat should have looked gaudy but on ‘Michael’ it looked surprisingly authoritative, and it inexplicably made Gabriel want to place all his trust in her, though of course he couldn’t show it. Partly because he was a contrarian bastard.

"Michael? That's a male name, isn't it?"

"Oh you'll find that gender matters very little when you're a timelord."

"A timewhat? Oh fuck this, just get me out of here - I couldn't care less what you are."

“Hang out in the 23rd century, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. Now I’m piloting a glorified rescue ship for a soon-to-be disgraced Starfleet Captain.” Michael’s lips were a thin line, but her tone held a smidgen of humour.

“So you know who I am, then?” he asked, eyebrows raised. His voice was still gravelly from the involuntary space excursion, and his Southern drawl was like honey.

“I know that lots of planets have a South, and that until very recently you were Captain Gabriel Lorca of the USS Buran,” Michael stated.

“Hang on, ‘until very recently’ ? I was just on it!”

“I’m sorry, Gabriel, the USS Buran just switched places with its alternate universe counterpart.”

Gabriel was staring at Michael, frowning. It was a lot to take in.

She continued, “And I’m very sorry, because the disappearance of the Buran is a fixed point in time, I can’t undo it. If my extrapolations are correct, it’s probably being destroyed right about now in the alternate universe. The TARDIS can theoretically go anywhere in time and space if it’s not being stubborn, but my extensive experience tells me it’s a very bad idea to mess with alternate universes.”

Gabriel hadn’t stood up from the floor of the TARDIS control room, but if he had, he’d probably be floored by this tsunami of words he had never thought he would have occasion to hear. Humans could boldly go spread themselves among the stars and be exploring the furthest reaches of the known universe, but they never really lost their ability to be surprised.

His mind latched onto something Michael had said earlier. Disgraced. Falling back on the unspoken but deeply ingrained attitudes he’d picked up at the Academy, he sputtered, “Where I’m from, a Captain goes down with his ship. Put me back on it!”

Michael was fiddling with an impressively chaotic array of controls in the middle of the room. She glanced at him, still on the floor but in a slightly more dignified position, and said, not unkindly, “Sorry, Gabriel, not today. Apparently, the universe has use for you yet.”

“What use is a Captain without his ship in a war with the Klingons?” He was aiming for outraged but some of the adrenaline had left him and he only sounded weary.

Michael didn’t miss a beat as she replied, “When alternate universes exist, rather a lot of use, it turns out. I usually make it up as I go along, but this time, someone handed me a note with detailed instructions on who you are and where you’d be.”

He gingerly tested the mobility of his limbs and stood up with the help of an edge of the console. His helmsman on the Buran would have a field day with this smörgåsbord of controls- oh fuck.

“You look rather shaken up, Gabriel. I’ll just go make some tea for you, shall I?” Michael asked as she tossed him a reflective foil blanket. She disappeared into an adjoining room.

Gabriel wrapped the blanket around himself. It crinkled and was not the least bit cozy, but after a few minutes he felt warmth return to his fingers and toes.

Michael returned. Their fingers brushed as she handed him an industrial-sized thermos. “Sugar is in one of the wall panels somewhere,” she said absentmindedly.

She left him to it, going to a blackboard near the far wall to scribble indecipherable symbols on it and mutter to herself.

Just when he’d slurped enough hot tea to feel a normal human temperature again, she turned around with an incandescent smile, which lit up her eyes and made Gabriel’s heart give a lurch. Seemingly apropos of nothing, she said, “Alright, want to get your captaincy back? We’re just going to go on a short trip in time and space. Cross your fingers that we land exactly where we need to be.” Her hand hovered over one of the switches.

“Aren’t we going a bit fast, here? I’d really like some time to process all this. We don’t have to compress everything into an hour-long episode, you know.”

She paused, and looked at Gabriel, considering. “You’re right. I can take the time to bring you up to speed. A few days off would do me some good too. We’ll go when you’re ready.” She smiled, and again Gabriel wasn’t sure if he was feeling the effects of that smile or if it was the aftershocks of nearly dying.

A hot meal and some first aid later, Michael finally began explaining the plan to Gabriel. It wasn’t very clear at first what was going to happen.

She said, “Gabriel, I want you to think of all the worst aspects of your personality and imagine they’re magnified several times over. Then think about how you’re going to talk that version of yourself out of the Captain’s chair. And if you can think about how to take him out in a fight, that’d be useful too. But we’re aiming to be completely above board and family-friendly here, so that’s a last resort.”

“You mean there’s going to be an evil doppelgänger of me and we’re boarding a starship to get rid of him?” Gabriel asked incredulously.

“Yes, exactly right." Michael nodded. “Except we’ll be trying to send him back into his own universe. We’ll need an ion storm for that - not too easy to come by - but you don’t need to worry about ion storms yet. If we don’t manage to send him back, I have good intel that the Federation is going to have quite some trouble ahead. I want you to put your strategic genius to good use and we’ll have an element of surprise when we meet him. What you’ll get out of all this is that you’ll take your rightful place as Captain of the USS Discovery. I hope you’re a fan of poetic justice.”

Over the next few days, when Michael and Gabriel weren’t discussing and refining the plan, Gabriel wandered around Michael’s TARDIS. It was unlike any Federation ship he’d known, seemingly organised on the same architectural principles as a rabbit warren. The control room was cool chrome, as were many of the corridors, but there were some more homey looking rooms, when he could find them. He tried to wander from one edge to another of the TARDIS to have a measure of how large it was, but there was one massive problem with that attempt.

“Michael, why can’t I find a single window?”

She looked up from where she was tinkering with the innards of the console, and answered, “There aren’t any - we haven’t got as big a CGI budget as the Discovery.”

Michael had said this so nonchalantly that Gabriel’s first instinct was to nod as if that explained everything. Then, on second thought, he said, “What-”

“Gabriel, I’m in the middle of something here. I have to reverse the polarity of several components to make sure the landing will go exactly right. The TARDIS appreciates it when I care. I’ll explain it later.”

When later came around, he’d found something else to be puzzled about: “I’ve been in Starfleet for a while - if you go around saving people and planets, why have I never heard of you?”

“Because I’m - for all intents and purposes - the last of my kind, and I have a predilection for hovering around 20th and 21st century Earth - for a long time I also had a thing for London. Back then, you lot were still messing about with vanity projects like leaving a car to float in space.”

Gabriel had a feeling his default mode around Michael would be feeling rather off-kilter but also hopelessly attracted.

Three days later, Gabriel supposed he was as ready as he’d ever be to take on his doppelgänger and save the universe, or maybe just the Federation. The more rational part of his mind whispered to him, Delusions of grandeur, Gabriel.

Michael looked a touch crestfallen when he told her he was ready, her large, expressive eyes speaking volumes. “Sick of my company already, are you?”