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A frantic whinny and the cries of a little boy were all Gabrielle Burnham needed to tell her that this was a chance with taking. At least once. After all the times she tried to save all sentient life and failed, it couldn’t hurt to save this one life and see what happened. Maybe it would help save Christopher Pike from himself in the future and, in turn, give her daughter the life she deserved with a man she so truly loved.
And he loved her. God, did he ever love her. He loved her enough to spare her the pain of watching him succumb to a fate he did not deserve. A fate that would still scar Michael so terribly that she would would once again push her brother away and find herself lost in a universe where she could never be happy.
Thunder cracked and lightning lit up the sky and a pair of flashlights appeared at the door of the house. Pike’s parents coming out to put the pony down, despite little Chris holding him tight and upright, babbling promises to be who he could lean on until his leg healed. Gabrielle made her way inside, still in the suit to give the poor kid a chance at not seeming like a liar when he said an “angel” repaired his pony’s leg. She was giving him a piece of the suit though, something she hoped she would need to repair herself if injured at some point.
Oh well, Sir Neighs-A-Lot needed it more. And Chris needed that pony more than he knew. And Michael…..needed Chris more than she would ever admit.
Another pained whinny and she could wait no longer. “Christopher, I’m here to help.”
Chris turned to look at the strange voice as he held his pony’s neck with all the strength he had. Tears making it difficult to really focus on the lady? who was now rushing towards him and removing a portion of her metal arm. He could only squeak, “Don’t kill him.”
“I’m not. This isn’t the old west, despite how much you pretend it is. The same technology that heals your broken bones can heal his.” Gabrielle took the fabricated split off the pony and put the osteogenic stimulator on its leg and the little shit tried to paw and kick her. “You’re going to have to keep him still while it works, and the most important thing is that you don’t tell anyone where this came from.”
Chris nodded as the lady in the red suit put the thing on his pony’s leg. “So he’s going to live?”.
“Tell your parents to give him some sedative to keep him calm while it works.” Gabrielle said and stood up. “I can’t let them see me. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Thank you.” He sobbed and held his pony tight. "I owe you my life."
She nodded and left the barn just as the Pikes were entering. She listened as Chris babbled about an Angel giving him the tool to fix the pony’s leg and she said to give him sedatives while it worked. His parents thought he was in shock, trying everything– including some toy –to save his pony. Arguments ensued, Chris stood his ground. It was a ridiculous thing to say, that some angel showed up in a red suit and performed emergency veterinary care with future technology and saved a pony– but Chris Pike had a way with words even at this young age. He could convince a grown adult that there was a need to examine and explain, step-by-step, why Chris’s position was wrong. A lesson to be learned, even in tragedy and Chris's Dad took the opportunity.
And she breathed a sigh of relief when Chris Sr. knelt down to explain to his son that a toy wasn’t real–mainly because that pony also tried to strike at him. But the man inspected the stimulator and saw it was way more than it looked–and it was working.
“Chris, where did you get this?”
“An Angel gave it to me.”
“Captain?” Michael asked as Chris seemed to lose a little color in his face. She wondered if Spock’s story about the Red Angel hit some religious meaning for him. She looked to Spock who simply raised an eyebrow, helpful as always. She looked back to Chris, he looked like he had seen a ghost.
“I…” Chris closed his eyes and leaned on his desk. “Honestly, I think I’ve spent most of my life telling myself that I didn’t actually see what I saw.”
Michael dropped the formalities seeing he was distressed by this. “Chris?”
He looked up at her, hearing the concern. He gave her a warm smile, she never failed to get a reaction from him. Spock’s eyebrow raised higher as she saw it. Well, talk about having all of your fun conversations at once. “I also saw an angel as a kid.”
Michael narrowed her eyes at him. Why didn’t he say something earlier about this? Then she watched him stand tall and take a breath and turn to the window. Something he only did when he was trying to gather his thoughts, otherwise he was always making eye contact. She moved around the desk to go to him, Spock already had observed enough to gather they were close. There was no reason to hide anything and Chris needed her. She got close and he turned and smiled again, this time like he was struggling to find meaning.
“I had a pony.” Chris paused. “Sir Neighs-A-Lot.”
Michael snorted in amusement because that….oh….that really was the pony’s name.
Spock frowned. So far the pony sounded obnoxious just from the name it earned, but a wise woman once told him to never engage with the captain when he was talking about horses. So he stayed silent and let his sister walk that road on her own.
“He broke his leg one night when I was a kid. Best I can figure is the thunderstorm opened up a varmint hole and well, he stepped in it. I went to bring him in because the storm was bad and didn’t find him, found him out in the pasture whinnying. Not his normal neigh, he was hurt. I saw the leg in the light of the lightning and I knew it was broke. So I just grabbed some branches and tore my shirt and made a splint and stayed by his side as we limped back to the barn.”
Spock wondered if this horrible story was why Una said to never ask about horses. Michael looked like she wanted to cry. He was feeling emotions too and put a stop to that fast.
“And Dad, well the road was washed out and there was nothing a vet was going to be able to do so he said we had to do what was merciful for the pony. And I cried and begged…” Chris felt tears coming like this was yesterday and Michael was crying and he closed his eyes. Ok Chris, stop the cowboy stories now is not the time and this is not the story you’re trying to tell. “Anyhow, I was in the barn with him and this angel shows up. An angel in red. She comes over and tells me she’s saving my pony and puts the most advanced osteopathic stimulator on his leg that I still haven’t seen, and tells me not to tell anyone where it came from.”
Michael’s eyes grew wide.
“She saved my pony.” Chris said.
“You’ve known all along that this angel is real?” Michael asked. After the Hiawatha, when she saw the angel and confessed to him she saw it. He said nothing. After Terralysium, when they saw the stained glass and helmet cam footage, he said nothing.
“You have to understand that I was just a kid and this memory of some angel showing up and saving my pony was not something I could process.” Chris said. "I never wanted to relive it."
“I do understand.” Spock said.
Chris smiled at him. Yeah, that was not why his sister was pissed. He looked at her and took her hands. “What happened that night felt like a nightmare and nobody could explain it. An angel saved my pony, it secured my faith. And my parents....didn't ask questions.”
“That doesn’t explain why you said nothing about this until now, Chris.” Michael replied, thinking about what that context would have done for her as she poured through Spock’s notes. As they searched for these signals, knowing that Chris had already crossed paths with the angel would have....
“Because it sounded crazy.” Chris said.
“Indeed.” Spock nodded in an attempt to back up his captain as his sister struggled to figure out if she was betrayed. “I had myself committed to a mental health facility because of it.”
Michael took a deep breath. “So, someone from the future has come back to change things by showing Spock what needs to be done to prevent it and saving your childhood pony? While also sending us to places in the galaxy to save people?”
Chris shrugged. “I would have told you if I was at all confident that my memories of that night were real. I woke up the next day and that pony was fine and healthy and I didn’t ask my parents about it. I just loved him more because I almost lost him.“
Spock chimed in, “ It is logical to assume that your parents wanted to keep it quiet because that technology should not have existed. And I think they genuinely were afraid that someone, probably you, used time travel and came back to save Sir Neighs-A-Lot.”
Michael’s tension eased a little as her brother uttered the words ‘Sir Neighs-a-Lot’ and made her want to laugh. “What does a pony have to do with any of this?”
“I don’t know.” Chris said and she squeezed his hand to tell him it was fine. She didn’t hold this against him. That things would be okay. There were a lot of ‘I don’t knows’ going around and this was not a deal breaker of any kind.
“Okay…” Chris said as Michael’s Mom hit him with a barrage of words immediately after he showed his face. He never got to even introduce himself, she did it for him. Captain Christopher Pike. In temporary command of Discovery. But soon you'll return to your ship. I could say more about your future, but you won't like it. He recovered the best he could, “Well, we're, uh, not here to talk about me.”
“Actually, we are.”
Chris was already chalking this up to the worst introduction to a girlfriend’s parent ever, which was saying a lot considering meeting Amanda Grayson for the first time led her to believe he was sleeping with Spock and put him in the mental facility that way. Weird that of all Michael’s parents Georgiou was the one he got along best with. “Is this about Michael?”
“Yes. I’m here to save my daughter and you deceived me.”
“If you think that was an easy choice, to let her risk her life like that, you’re wrong.” Chris countered.
“She loves you.” Gabrielle said bluntly.
Chris blinked at her. This woman was like having a conversation with a scattergun. “And I love her.”
“I am here to save all sentient life in the galaxy but it does not help save the galaxy if the two people who could pave the way for a better future are not in it.” Gabrielle said. “She sacrifices herself and so do you.”
“Saving all sentient life sounds like a valiant reason to…”
“No.” Gabrielle said. “You save it, you save the galaxy, it’s after. It’s after you accept a fate handed to you by a faith you don’t believe in. It’s after she goes to the future or stays and, no matter what, carries the weight of your loss with her until she dies.”
He could say nothing because she just kept yelling at him and clearly didn’t want a reply.
“She has to stay and you have to make her want to live. Enjoy life. You have to want to live for that to happen, as much as you wanted that pony to live.”
And his jaw dropped and in a hushed whisper he said, “You saved Sir Neighs-A-Lot?”
"Yes."
“Michael.” Chris said as he opened the door of his Montana cabin to see her standing in the cold. Snow coating her hair and coat, a smile on her face.
“Your Mom told me where to find you.” She explained. “Something about sulking up in the mountains of Montana because you don’t want to be at home in California where they can drag you out of your cabin and snap out of your mood.”
He leaned against the door. Of course his Mom would say that. And call his girlfriend to drag him back home. “Come in out of the cold.”
Michael walked in and looked him over, his hair and beard were something else. “Quite the look.”
“I’m…trying to figure out what to do with my future now that I have one.” He said, saving the universe from Control and convincing Michael to not fly to the future should have been enough for a happy ending. Instead he was left with the weight of knowing what his future held. Even with the scolding from Gabrielle Burnham, it was not easy to shake that and embrace a future with Michael that would only leave her caring for him after a few years.
“I understand.” She said and kept staring at his hair. “I’m thinking of growing mine out as well.”
He smiled at her and gave in and hugged her. That alone was enough to take the weight of his fate off him for a brief moment.
“I also met Sir Neighs-A-Lot.” Michael whispered in his ear. “I was unaware that ponies had a Vulcan lifespan.”
“Yeah, well…” Chris had to smile, a genuine smile, because Michael almost broke down laughing when saying the pony’s name. “You know what they say. Ponies are short because that puts them closer to hell where they came from. Apparently that gives them immortality.”
She laughed, “I don’t believe I heard that one while your Father cursed at it for being on the couch. I was not expecting your pony to be…”
“A little asshole?” Chris said and nodded. “Yeah, he’s gotten more rank with age.”
“From what you told me, the story that made us all cry, I was expecting a loveable little horse.” She said.
Chris shook his head and smiled. “He never was. But he was my best friend. And we had great times together and….did you say he was on the couch?”
“It appears that he has taken up residence on the couch when his best friend is not home to greet in the field. “ She repeated the information Chris’s father had told her as she watched a pony lay on a couch and have a dream. His little legs running after something. Ears and lips twitching. A fan was blowing on him because he had developed a thyroid condition in his old age and only went outside at night. “Your parents were trying to convince me to take him with me to see you. He has been certified as a therapy animal and they expect you to come and collect him.”
“That’s impossible.” Chris said and realized this conversation was doing so much to change him mood, or maybe it was just the proximity to Michael.
“I believe Admiral Cornwell signed the paperwork as Admiral April insisted it was time for you to ‘get your ass back to work’.” Michael said. "Which is a reason why I have come to find you."
“And you want to get back to work too?” Chris asked.
“I want my Chris back.” Michael said and almost choked on a sob out of nowhere.
“Your Mom, when I talked to her, said she saved that pony so it could save me.” Chris reminded her. As if Michael was going to make sense of that any more than he could.
“If getting kicked by a hairy little pony as it takes fresh baked cookies from your Mom is what she considers saving, then who am I to argue.”
“My parents are really getting as ornery as that pony.” Chris said and looked at Michael and thought about a future that he had daydreamed about. About them being that couple in the farmhouse he grew up in with a pony on the couch, maybe a kid or two to keep him from getting too fat.
“They’re nice, your parents. They’re really worried about you.” Michael said. They were nice. They were so happy to meet her too because he apparently talked to his Mom a lot about her.
“Considering I came up here to the mountains to avoid them helping me through this soul-seraching, yeah I can see why.” Chris sat on the couch arm and Michael took the opportunity to pull his head to her chest and hold him there. Her hand going through his hair, kiss to his forehead. Comfort. “So you like the hair, huh?”
“I feel like you’re hiding behind it. Like looking in the mirror and seeing this makes you feel better about what you're doing, because you don’t recognize who is looking back at you.” I did the same thing with leather and make-up in the mirror universe to be Captain Burnham.”
“Well that’s an image I definitely don’t need when you’re squeezing my head between your breasts.” He mumbled and got his hair tugged for that.
“Why? I’d like to get you in bed, remind you what you’re missing out on, but I’m not sure where the bedroom is.” Michael chirped.
“I have a future that I don’t think I want to subject you to, Michael.” Chris said.
“You have a pony nobody wants to be subjected to, Christopher.” Michael said and kissed his forehead again. “And a ship that needs a captain and a Number One who is missing.”
Chris froze and looked up at her.
“And there he is, the man I fell in love with. The captain who never accepted ‘we can’t’ as an answer. Who saved people who weren’t going to be saved. Who is, and always will be, the shining example of what Starfleet means. Well, once he shaves and cuts his hair.” Michael said. “What is broken can be mended, you just have to have a little faith. Or so an angel told me.”
Chris leaned into her.
“Tilly, however, told me to 'save a horse and ride a cowboy'…” She said and felt him start laughing. “So, let’s celebrate a future we’re going to embark on together, Chris, no matter what it may be.”
He stood up, still laughing, and looked at her. Beautiful as ever. The woman he had fallen so hard for. The woman who deserved happiness more than anyone and there was an incredible amount of faith in him to be the one who gave it to her.
“Is that a horse?” Nyota Uhura was certain that this had to be part of the hazing. First the dress uniform, now it was a tiny horse following the captain around as he carried a tray to the table. It’s little horse nose was trying to smack the plate out of his hand.
“Sir Neighs-A-Lot.” Ortegas said with a grin and left it at that.
Uhura was sure it had to be a hologram. A huge joke.
“He’s not a hologram.” Michael came over and informed their new cadet. She hated the hazing aspect of Starfleet. It wasn’t fair, it was hard enough being the outsider and teasing seemed to be cruel. Then again she used to think parties were cruel but Chris had changed her mind on that. The gatherings were more like family dinner here, as opposed to the drunken orgy that Discovery’s parties had been. “That is the captain’s childhood pony who is now his therapy animal.”
“You’re kidding.” Uhura replied before she remembered who she was talking to. This was the captain’s girlfriend. The chief science officer. THE Michael Burnham. A prodigy turned mutineer turned hero. Someone who definitely didn’t kid.
“Less therapy, more couch warmer.” She said with a shrug. “Captain Lorca has a therapy Tribble on Discovery, it’s actually becoming more common after the war thanks to Admiral Cornwell’s new directive to normalize mental health.”
“A pony .” Uhara said. “On a Starship .”
“We do not let him out of the cabin, he kicks.” Michael said. “Here, however, he seems to be content to deny people places to sit and steal food off the table. Chris can not be in a bad mood around him, he will get nipped.”
“I heard stories about him being a cowboy…I never expected there was an actual horse on board.”
“There isn’t a horse and we draw the line there.” Michael signed . “He swears the pony needs a friend. Number One points out that Chris is his friend and that the only reason they allow this horse is because nobody wanted to deal with him on Earth.”
“You said…childhood pony?” Uhura asked. “How old is this thing?”
“Apparently ponies live longer than horses, especially if you can regenerate teeth that they otherwise would have lost.” Michael shrugged. "Space and Chris have give Sir Neighs-A-Lot a new purpose and I believe he is in a better mood here. People feed him all the time."
“And how do you feel about living with the Captain and his pet pony?” Uhura asked, treading on waters she wasn’t sure if she should but Burnham gave her a grin.
“He’s less of a pain in the ass than my brother.” She shrugged and walked behind the counter to take some purple carrots for the pony from Hemmer and nudged Spock as she went.
“I still do not believe that Sir Neighs-A-Lot should outrank me.” Spock said.
“Take it up with the Admiral.” Michael said and went to the table to lure Sir Neighs-A-Lot away from Chris with the carrot and then tossed it on the couch to get the pony away from her spot at the table, which he always claimed as his own. She pulled her chair back over and then she sat next to Chris who put an arm around her as he told a story she had yet to hear about his stint in security.
This, felt like home. It felt like the start of a good future.