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Michael does all she can to find out what happened to The Federation but she is in a new, wide, scary world. Book is her only anchor and searching for the Federation her only life vest, if she lets go of either she's worried...no...afraid that she will simply float away. Too consumed with what this world is, an aversion to everything she thought herself to be.
She often told herself that the world needed the Federation but she was apart of this world now, she missed her friends, her crew, her ship, even Philippa. It doesn't take Book long to pick up on this. After all, he was out here alone too but for different reasons, but he had done it longer and survived, thrived even, to a point.
"I wondered, when I was a boy, what it was like to go somewhere completely new. I thought about who I would leave behind but...you've lived it." He said.
"But you left your family."
"Yes." He said, Grudge was curled up in his lap while he brushed her fur. "And I'm not welcome back, I've properly mourned whatever life it was that would've been and moved on."
"I can't just move on from the federation." She said, that was a lie, she could do anything, apparently jump in through a wormhole and come out in tact. She wasn't ready to let the Federation and Discovery go, not yet. That would mean she was truly alone, she looked over at Book, well, maybe not completely alone. She had at least one friend.
"That's very obvious, Michael." He said, "You can love something, people, even Queens, very much and still let them go. These officers wouldn't want you in pieces, alone in the future."
"Well, I have you."
"Of course you do." He said. Grudge looked up at him and tilted her head before purring, he nodded and placed her down on the ground. "And whenever you're ready to start living fully I'll be here."
"Thanks, Book." She said, she hated to admit he was correct. It was hard to think that they were gone, trapped in some pocket of the future so far from her. But she was still apart of the Federation no matter how far apart they were.
It is nearly a month later that she began to tell them about her crew. One by one, who they were, what they stood for, what she missed most. She told him about her family, her parents, and he listened and shared his own stories with her. Despite the malice his family might have felt due to his decision to choose another path, he doesn't love them any less. She doesn't love her crew any less...regardless of wherever or whenever they are.
There isn't a special day or moment, just a weight that has been removed. She will always check, regardless of where she goes but she has let them go. However there is a day where Michael is staring at her things from before arriving in the future, it's so solid and suffocating holding what once meant the world to her, and what it means now, more so a weight tied around her ankles and less of an ideal of hope meant to help her soar.
"What was your rank?" Book asked, he asked from the doorway because she needed him to ask but wasn't sure how to get to that point.
"Commander." She said, "I hoped to be Captain one day."
"Did you really?" He asked.
"What's that mean?'
"Did you really want to be Captain or did you want to want to be Captain." He said, she snapped the case shut, unsure of how to answer. Michael from nine hundred and thirty years ago would tell him that she always desired it but now she wasn't so sure. “You’ve done a lot of things for a lot of people, even I am grateful for the sacrifices, but what do you really want?”
“Is it weird not to know?”
“In this moment? No.” He said, “You’re a new person in a new world with a wide variety of choices at your disposal. But you know what I do when I’m unsure of where to go next?”
“No, what?”
“Get drunk. C’mon, I’m buying this round. Once we get you set up as a proper courier you can pay me back.”
“I plan to pay you back tenfold.” She said.
“I know you do.” He said, she placed the box of antiques in her drawer and followed behind Book. True to his word they do get drunk and he does get her set up as a proper courier. He becomes a friend and a teacher, teaching her to tightrope the line of structured evil and survival. Some couriers are used as bait for dilithium, trafficking and all matters of schemes and trickery. There are so many interesting ways to die in this new world and even more ways to be left stranded but when she calls Book always comes, and she does the same for him.
He has become a friend, a true and real friend, expecting nothing but mutual respect in return. And Michael has truly changed becoming a new version of herself she never expected to see, but she doesn’t hate it, like shedding an old skin to become something a bit more vibrant and comfortable. There's pain but the outcome is worth it. She has outgrown her old skin and perhaps even the gadgets and antiques in her bedside drawer.
It is during the handful of times when she’s roped him into braiding her hair that she’s never felt more at home. It doesn’t feel like a costume, or shoving a square peg into a circular hole, this is who she is shaping up to be, and she doesn’t loathe the entire experience. He showed her the finished product, she has loathed having to twist and pull at her hair these past few months, and it looks better than she expected.
“It’s amazing.” She said and turned to face him, “Thank you, Book.”
“Well this wasn’t done completely out of the goodness of my heart.”
“What’s the price?”
“A place Ikasu…”
“Why so far--” She started.
“Michael, you’re a courier now, what have we talked about?"
"Don't ask questions you don't really want the answer to." She said, her voice droning on, mocking his accent through the entire thing.
"Oh, I will remember that, Burnham." He said. He stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. She thought a million things in that moment, mostly naive, youth riddled anxiety about love and sex and what it means in the grand scheme of things, if anything at all. Book reached up curling the braids around his fingers and gave a half hearted tug, not hard but just enough that her sensitive scalp seemed to scream.
"You bastard." She said and chased after him. He takes her playful punches and jabs but she can't help but think….
No.
Book is a friend, she won't taint that by blurring the lines. But there are moments where she feels she needs more than a friend. Book can be many things but maybe he doesn't have to be that for her.
It's much later that night after Book has started to pilot towards a humid, swampy planet known as Ikasu that she finally speaks.
"Why are you alone?" She asked.
"I'm assuming that you mean in life, and besides I'm not alone, Michael." He said and snorted at the idea. "I have Grudge."
"Grudge is a cat." Michael said, he loves Grudge more than anything in the world.
"No, Grudge is a Queen, my Queen," he corrected with one finger in the air. "Besides, you're here, Commander. I'm never alone."
"And if I left?"
"I'd miss you, of course." He said. "Your company hasn't been entirely terrible."
"And if I asked you to come with me.
"So you can henpeck me into some Starfleet uniform, trying to turn me into some upstanding member of the Federation?" He asked, he smirked at the idea.
"I do not henpeck." She said incredulously. "And the world could use more people like you."
"Flattery will get you everywhere, Commander." He said, "But as tempting as it is to be led around the known universe by thee Commander Michael Burnham, there are beings out there who need me, I could never give that up."
"Even if I asked nicely?"
"Since when are you nice?" He asked and scoffed, "And are you asking, Michael?"
"No, of course not Book. I don't even know if there is a Federation out there." She said, "But if…"
"We could discuss the possibility but right now we only need to discuss how you're going to not get covered head to toe in leeches."
"You never said anything about leeches." She said and turned to him slowly, her eyes wide.
"You never asked." He retorted.
"You told me not to ask questions!" She exclaimed.
"That's your fault, now let's come up with a plan, a good one…" He said, and they do and despite the plan she ends up covered in them and when she call he comes. In a world where even the Federation and Discovery are uncertain to ever return Book is there.