Work Text:
Starfleet is a promise.
Chris has been using that line since the Academy. It was cute, back then. Earnest. Meaningless.
Turns out he’s right.
Starfleet is a promise.
A promise that you will learn to live without sleep. Learn to rest without resting, fully dressed in a bed that will never quite feel like your own. Learn to swallow down your rage and smile when you are disturbed for the seventh time in a night, for the seventh night in a row, with an emergency that only you can resolve. Learn to recognise the face that stares back at you from the mirror, older than you remember, pale and tired, so tired--
A promise of cold hours spent in front of screens and flickering holograms, together and still apart, separated by the stars you both swore to serve. That you will snatch comfort in heady nights of shore leave, press together for moments stolen in stalled turbolifts and empty meeting rooms, and find their touch, the warmth of them , surprising. That you, the you whose chest beats with two hearts, the you that might have been an us in some other, kinder place, can only exist here in the edges around protocol, in between rank and duty and the chain of command. Always in the dark, always under the radar, always soon, not now, later, later--
I'm sorry.
A promise of an interesting death, at least - on a swift, sharp blade, while the universe you loved so much runs headlong into war behind you, or abandoned, alone, forgotten under unfamiliar, unfeeling constellations, or on the wrong side of a door that can only be closed from the inside--
I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
A promise of loss, of endless loss, a promise that you will lose, and remain, and recover, and rebuild just to lose more, a promise that you will lose colleagues, lose captains, lose friends, lose lovers, lose Pippa and Gabriel and Pippa and Gabriel all over again, lose even when you win, lose your principles, lose your way, lose yourself, lose and lose and lose and still give everything of the nothing you have left because you made a promise--
I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry--
You made a promise and it’s terrible, the awful weight of it, carried too far, for too long. But you would make it again in a flash. In a heartbeat. In every universe and in any timeline. Make it again and scream it until you were hoarse, then turn once more to face it, calm, even knowing everything you know now, because you know everything you know now--
Starfleet is a promise.