Work Text:
And I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose
Than to have never lain beside at all
- "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie.
“Hey,” a gentle voice said overhead. “Can you hear me?”
A little bit, you wanted to say, but for some reason, you couldn’t move your jaw.
In fact, you couldn’t move anything.
You were weightless, floating on air, and in the void, darkness stretched for miles. It was comforting, in a way. Like a blanket.
The voice rumbled, “If you can hear me, don’t move too much, okay?”
Okay, you said to the void instead. It wasn’t too hard of a task—if you could imagine your limbs responding to what you wanted them to do, you’d be moving them as if you were swimming in water, propelling yourself every which way. The only thing grounding you in the darkness was whoever was talking in the moment.
“I’ve got you,” they reassured, confident and firm. “I got you, you’re safe—”
That sounds nice, you thought, trying to tilt your head to see who was talking. You liked their voice—deep and calming and gentle. It swaddled your soul in warmth, cupped your being in its hands, and held you tenderly as you floated on nothing. You could listen to it for hours on end. It might be your favorite sound.
“—and nothing else’ll hurt you.”
Oh? You felt your eyebrows scrunch. What happened?
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” There was a shake in it, and your frown got deeper. “But I’m here now,” they added in a lower tone, and there was a tightness just below where your shoulders should be. “‘m not gonna let anything else happen to you.”
They sounded so sure, so fiercely protective, that you readily agreed. You’d surrender your life to them in an instant and know that they would take care of you. Made sure you were alright. Cherish you. Hold you. Love—
“What?” the voice asked, confusion in their voice, but it wasn’t directed at you—it sounded like it was for someone else. Was there someone else in the void with you?
Something filtered through all warbled, but the voice said, “Okay, okay,” and then, directed to you, “I’m gonna lay you down, alright? It’ll be easier for them to patch you up like this.”
Them? Who’s—
A searing, white-hot pain tore through your midsection, and the guttural scream you let out resounded throughout the void.
It hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts—
“Easy, Celci!” the voice was angry—but it wasn’t directed at you again. Who was Celci? Why were they mad?
Another warble came through, but it seemed angry, too.
Another surge of pain in the same area, but this time, it was accompanied by a slow trickle of warmth, soothing the areas that had been shocked. What was going on? What was happening to you?
The voice was closer, now, as if it were right above your temple. Something ghosted by your brow. “Shh, I’m sorry, it’s okay. You’ll be okay. You’ll be alright.”
You weren’t prepared for the next shock of pain, this time closer to your side, and whatever tether you had in the void was lost, because the next thing you knew was—
Nothing.
“Vitals are unstable,” the field medic announces, eyes trained on the tablet. “If we don’t stop the bleeding within the next two minutes, we’re gonna lose—”
“We are not gonna lose the Captain,” Celci glares murderously before returning to surgery. “I am arms deep in patching them up—if you’re just gonna shout out numbers instead of getting me another bag of O negative, then you can consider your position terminated, effective immediately. They wouldn’t have bled to this extent had you just done your job.”
The medic—white-faced, disheveled, and covered in soot from the crash—rushes to the nearest ice chest, and Celci briefly glances at Mark, who’s been mumbling to the Captain, their head cushioned on his lap, his fingers cradling their jaw. His eyes hadn’t left their gaunt face once. He’s covered in the Captain’s blood, too, staining his white shirt, dark blue hoodie, and jeans—civvies.
He was supposed to be off today, wasn’t even meant to go on any missions due to his back, but he pushed to be part of the rescue mission. The desperation was evident, and the air he commanded was that of a man who wasn’t budging. Celci had never seen him look like that before.
He had charged through the area where the Captain’s puddle jumper was last tracked, scoping the site in minutes. There had been a crash, obvious signs of a fight, and three other members of the expedition were in critical condition. The rescue team had no way to assess what happened—apparently their assailants had taken off, and any coherent members had fallen unconscious due to their injuries. The Captain had taken the worst of it, dealing with shrapnel in their stomach and a phaser wound to the side. The distress call came as soon as possible, but the field medic with the rest of the group wasn’t able to do his job properly, and the Captain nearly died from blood loss.
Mark had been the one to find them.
A different team led by Gunther was dispatched to recover any essential equipment at the crash site, as well as to find the assailants. The priority was getting all injured members back to base and taken care of.
Mark swipes a thumb over the Captain’s cheeks, and Celci has to look away from the intimate moment.
She tilts her head up towards the ceiling of the transport ship, exhaling sharply, and says to the nurse assisting her, “When that idiot gets back here with that blood bag, hook the Captain up immediately. I’m almost done cauterizing the wound. It should hold until we get back to base. Keep morphine levels the same.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the nurse says, prepping a needle and I.V. line.
The field medic comes back, fumbling the blood bag, and the nurse levels him with a cold look, taking the bag and starting the I.V. Celci finishes patching up the Captain, managing to staunch the blood and pressing trauma pads against the wound.
“Captain’s stabilizing,” the medic says meekly.
Celci jerks a nod. “Keep watch over them.”
She wishes they would arrive at base faster, and she’s about to get up to speak to the pilot when she hears,
“Thank you.”
She glances at Mark again. He’s still looking down at the Captain, but he lifts his head to give her an apologetic look. “Sorry. For snapping earlier.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it.”
He nods once, training his gaze on the Captain once again. The furrow that was in their brow has dissipated, and instead they twitch occasionally in their unconscious state. Mark’s voice is strangely raw when he says, “I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t found them in time.”
Celci doesn’t know what she would have done either. One thing is for sure, though—Mark would have been devastated. Inconsolable. Ripped apart the world. There are no second chances this time around.
But everyone else knows why. They know why Mark was let on the rescue team without a fight. They know why it was imperative that Mark head the operation himself. Maybe she should’ve said something, opposed him because the stress was obviously clouding his head, but she held her tongue. She knew, just like everyone did. It’s no secret to anyone else but the two of them.
“Well,” she swallows. “I’m glad we did.”
He nods again, and doesn’t say anything else to her after that; he just starts mumbling to the Captain again.
It’s another twenty minutes before they get back to base.
You slowly came to in the void again, but there was no warm voice to guide you around. Instead, it was all indistinguishable nonsense, coming from all sides, and there was a constant beeping in the background.
It was very annoying. And displacing. Where was that voice?
You ambled around in the nothingness for a long while. There was no way to keep track of time, and no way to keep yourself busy, either. You couldn’t call out to anyone, and you weren’t even sure if anyone would hear you.
So instead, you thought about the voice.
Where were they? Where did they go? Did they leave you? Were they gonna come back?
The voice helped keep things calm, in the brief time it talked to you. You were starting to miss it. The cadence was soothing, the tone deep and warm, reverberating through your being. You wanted to get swallowed in it.
You mused and mused and mused, wondering how you could talk to the voice again. It offered solace, companionship. It got lonely in the void, and you were starting to freak out about how you couldn’t see or hear anything—
“Hey.”
Oh? There they were!
“I don’t know if you can hear me, but…” the voice trailed off, hesitant. You didn’t want them to stop talking at all. Or ever. It sounded miles better than nothing. “But I’m glad you’re okay.”
Back to this again, you frowned, desperately twisting in place, trying to find the voice. They sounded distressed. What happened?
“They haven’t found the ones that did this to you,” they said, “but we’ll make sure to bring them in. Question them. Ask why they shot you down from your jumper.”
Shot down? What—who shot you down? Why were you being shot down?
“Just when I told myself that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you, too,” they sighed, and you felt something warm blow on your temple. You felt like you were gonna go crazy. Why weren’t they telling you what happened?
It was killing you to not be able to respond.
I’m here, you pleaded. I’m here, I hear you, why do you sound so sad? I’m sorry I made you worry.
But the voice kept going, deaf or oblivious to your thoughts. “There’s no do-overs this time. If you die…then you die. And then I…I don’t know what I would do.” There was a brief pause, and confusion took over.
No do-overs? What—
“I know we haven’t really talked about this, and I was too scared to start it, because I didn’t know how much you would remember, but—I can’t bring myself to make something like the warp core again. Fuck, you know what? I think” —their laugh was sad, and even though it was somber, it was such a pleasant sound to your ears that you wanted to hear them do it again— “I think I might just do that. To bring you back. Break the laws of time and space again so you could be here with me.”
Remember? Again?
You couldn’t wrap your mind around it. One thing was sure, though—
They cared a lot about you. Enough to tear through the fabric of reality. Was that even possible?
Who were they?
You felt attached to this voice in a way you hadn’t with anything else. Granted, there wasn’t a lot to latch onto in the void in the first place, but they grounded you. Brought you to a standstill in the tides of nothingness. You would do anything to keep the sadness out of their tone.
“I’d be insane if I did,” they continued, melancholy still, “but I’d do it. Talking about it now, I’d do it. I know I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I don’t want to hurt people. So please—” and he said a name, a name that you were both familiar and unfamiliar with, that sounded so much like home coming from him— “please wake up. The doctors—they said you’ve lost a lot of blood. They don’t know when you’ll wake up and—” his breath hitches, and No, you think, no, no, I’m sorry, please don’t cry over me— “I don’t know. I’ve woken up in too many universes without you there.”
Your breath stills.
“All those people, all those lifetimes…you never gave up hope.” A sniffle. “You never gave up on me. And I have so many other things I need to say. So please,” a forehead thunks against yours, fingers cupping your cheek and jaw, “please wake up. Come back to me.”
As if the wind knocks right through you, everything in the darkness comes into focus, and you’re able to speak again.
I don’t know how to! you cry out, swimming through the void. Help me! Please! Lead me to you! Mark—
Waking up is slow.
It reminds you of the gentle ascent from cryosleep. Not the jarring rush of the wormhole depositing you unceremoniously into the cryopod itself—no, nothing like that. It’s a lull. Peaceful.
Until all the pain from your stomach and side rings out like a motherfucker, and all you can rasp is,
“Ow.”
But nothing comes out—there’s a feeding tube down your throat, and all that comes out is a garbled noise.
There’s a rustling from your left side, a screech of a chair, and the mental vision of someone gripping onto the bedrail. Which, you assume, is where you’ve been laying, based on how firm the cot is. Beeping from the monitors filters through your ears, and you can feel a tight bandage around your temple. The needles in the crook of your elbows poke obnoxiously.
“Captain?”
You make another guttural noise. It doesn’t sound very attractive.
“Hang on, let me—oh my god. Celci!”
Your eyes flutter open to the sound of multiple people entering the space around your bed, Celci at the forefront of them. She gasps, hand over her mouth, and it is so strange seeing her in scrubs and a doctor’s coat. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She’s tired, and you wonder what kind of hell you put her through this time around.
You attempt to lift a hand to wave hello, but it’s weak, so it just ends up flopping on top of the bed. It’s the push for people to start moving around, with a couple of nurses helping to take the feeding tube out of your mouth and a few others checking vitals. There’s a blood bag up to your right, and your brows furrow, wondering why you need it.
The nurses manage to pull the tube from your throat, causing you to cough harshly. One nurse puts a water cup with a straw up to your lips, and you drink the cool liquid greedily, the water soothing all the dry areas of your throat.
“Careful there,” Celci says, looking up from her datapad. “Sips, not gulps.”
You’re tempted to flip her the finger as a joke, but with the fact that you can barely lift your arms, you resort to doing it in your head. You do try to control yourself into taking sips instead of gulps, though.
“How’s your pain level so far?” she asks. “Can you point, on a scale from one to ten, how bad it is?” She moves the datapad closer to your hand, and you’re able to press the number “8”.
She purses her lips, nodding for a nurse to adjust something out of your sight. “We can increase the levels for the morphine drip. But just a little bit! Don’t want you getting addicted.”
You manage a thumbs up with the datapad hand.
Once the nurses have finished collecting all of the information they need, they slowly file out of the door, leaving you and Celci alone in the room. It’s only then that you realize that Mark isn’t there.
You lick your lips. “W-where—”
“Just outside,” Celci says, and on cue, Mark comes in, but he’s holding a bouquet of adieroot flowers in one hand and a small box of candies—no, chocolates—in the other. You tilt your head in curiosity, recognizing the brand, and—oh, you think with a budding hope of excitement. It's your favorite.
Celci asks, “What is all that?”
Mark glares at her mildly while putting the adieroot in a vase. “Flowers and chocolate. For the Captain. Obviously.”
“It’s not like I was asking if they were for me,” Celci scoffs, and you can feel the banter beginning to escalate.
“S-stop,” you rasp, and Mark glances down at you, looking sheepish. It’s then that you notice his clothing.
Hoodie. White shirt. Jeans. They’re covered in blood, and panic rises in your throat— no, you think, did something happen to—
Your heart monitor escalates, and Celci rushes over to check it while Mark steps closer to the bed, worried. “Captain,” his hands hover above you, unsure of what to do. “Captain, what’s—”
“Your shirt,” you say, attempting to lift your arm again. You could do it with much more gusto this time around.
“My—” and then he looks down, eyes widening once he sees what you’re pointing at. “Oh. Oh, no, Captain, I’m okay.” He smiles placatingly. “I’m okay, really.”
“I told you to change your clothes,” Celci hisses. “They’d freak out!”
Mark rounds on her. “I didn’t have time, alright—”
“Wh-whose blood,” you swallow, “is that?”
They both turn their gazes on you, confused. Celci closes her eyes momentarily, and Mark’s jaw snaps shut, looking worried.
“It’s yours,” Celci says after a beat. “Captain, I’m not sure how much you remember.”
“Remember?”
Celci explains, Mark stays silent, and a lot of things begin to come back.
The Yulans had been tailing your crew’s jumper via their aircrafts. You didn’t immediately recognize the signs until too late, being preoccupied with looking over the scans for the terrain. The enemy popped up on the radar, coming in too fast for you to order the crew to do evasive maneuvers.
The crash happened shortly afterwards, and a small shootout broke between your crew and the Yulans. Gasping for breath from the brunt of the wound you’d gotten in your midsection, you’d taken shelter behind a large piece of metal, pistol at the ready, making each bullet count. Dr. Furukawa had rooted around the wreckage to find a way to send out a distress-signal, and the blaring sound it emitted scared off the assailants.
You barely had time to register which way they went before passing out in a pool of your own blood.
Well. That explains the transfusion bag.
“I think they were rebels,” you say hoarsely, and Celci grabs your water cup to tilt the straw in your mouth. You sip obediently, your throat feeling leagues better. “The Yulans have been having…civil issues for some time now. It’s possible…the rebels…were trying to get back…at their tribe.”
“Gunther found them a few hours ago,” Mark nods. “He wants to see if you’d like to be there for questioning.”
“How?” Celci gestures to your entire state. “They can’t even move.”
“I can move,” you protest. “Like, two fingers.”
“You are not going to the interrogation room yourself,” Celci orders, shaking her head. “We’ll do a live feed on your datapad. You are on severe bedrest and you won’t be taking on any missions until we’re sure it’s safe.”
Your nostrils flare. “Celci—”
“Captain,” she levels you with a look of finality, “those are the doctor’s orders. They are also my orders. I am begging you, please do not do anything drastic.”
Her tone stops you from saying anything further, and your jaw clamps shut, watching her walk out of the room.
You turn to Mark, who’s frowning at the bedrail.
“What is it?”
He pushes a button to make it slide down, removing the barrier between the two of you. He opens his mouth once, twice, then sighs, moving some of the tubes attached to you so that he can sit down.
There’s a long stretch of silence where he observes everything else in the room besides you. In turn, you gaze at his fingers. There’s blood— your blood, your mind supplies unhelpfully—underneath his fingernails, and your stomach churns. How bad was your state for it to affect him like this?
“Thank god you’re awake,” he says nervously, eyes landing somewhere on your shoulder. “I—we were really worried.”
Your blinks are slow, listening to him. His voice is pitched low, gentle, and oddly enough, it reminds you of something you can’t quite put a finger on. Maybe it was from a dream?
“It’s been a day since we got you back. Dr. Furukawa, Dr. Isaacs, and Summers are stable. Their wounds weren’t as bad as yours, but…I think we’re lucky that your wounds were just that.”
His voice trembles towards the end. You muster all your strength to reach out for his hand.
He takes it, laces his fingers through yours.
They’re shaking.
He’s shaking.
“Mark,” you whisper, tugging, and he leans down to gently rest his forehead against yours, closing his eyes briefly. You swallow. “I’m sorry.”
A minute shake of the head. “It’s not your fault.”
“I made you worry,” you say, and the words echo in your mind as if they’d already been uttered before.
“You’re awake,” he squeezes your clasped hands, “and that’s all that matters. You came back.”
Come back to me.
Your lips part in surprise.
Oh.
Of course. Who else would it have been?
Who else would have strong-armed his way to get you to safety? Who, none other than the person who’s been the most loyal to you from the beginning? Who better than the one who’s spent countless universes trying to figure out how to save you and your ship from total destruction?
Your free hand moves of its own accord, straining against the weight of your battered body, and it lands somewhere on the hinge of his jaw. Your thumb swipes what it can reach, and Mark uses his own free hand to keep yours where it is.
“Please don’t scare me like that again.”
Your fingers curl where it reaches his hair. It’s long now, longer than you’ve ever seen it, and it suits him incredibly well. You want to tell him this, but your jaw won’t move to make the words. Instead, it moves to say, “I can’t make that promise.”
His eyes flutter open, meeting yours with a tortured expression. He says your name in the most agonizing whisper. “If I lost you like that—I—I can’t—”
“I can’t make that promise because I can’t guarantee anything,” you rasp. “I can’t. But I can try,” you press your hand against his cheek, and he blinks slowly with the gesture. “I can try.” He opens his mouth to say something, but you shift the hand so that your thumb presses against his lips. They’re plush. Soft. You’ve dreamed about them on more occasions than you can count. “But Mark. Do not fuck up the multiverse just because of me.”
His eyes widen. “You—did you—”
“Heard a lot of things,” your thumb swipes along the length of his bottom lip. “But we can talk about them later. I think it’s very sweet of you to want to destroy time and space just so you could bring me back. But you know that I would never let you do it.”
He pouts, slightly, and you wonder if he truly, actually considered it.
“If it makes you feel any better,” you continue, “it’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
His eyes crinkle, the corner of his mouth giving way to his lopsided grin.
“There it is,” you whisper. That’s what you were going for.
It simmers, though, and he presses closer to you. This is not a position you are unfamiliar with.
“Thank you for coming back for me,” you mouth.
“Thank you for coming back to me,” he says in the same breath. “I can’t lose you.”
Your heart hammers out of your chest. It’s not how many times he’s said it, it’s the way he says it at this moment.
It’s loaded with hope and fear and concern and heartbreak. It’s full of the unspoken things you’ve been meaning to say to each other all this time. Ever since the beginning. Ever since he found out he was the one who caused the wormhole to open. Ever since he joined you on the balcony, face turned up to the array of stars and the pale light of the two moons. Ever since that near-kiss in front of your quarters, where you promised him soon, that you would talk about things, lay out everything, and if he would still have you, after all of your misgivings and mistakes. You now know that he would look past them, if it meant still being in this universe with you.
There’s a lot that is unsaid. But you understand that when he says, “I can’t lose you,” what he truly means is,
I love you. Stay here. Be with me.
And you will. Happily. If it meant having him. If it meant spending the rest of your days growing old on this new colony you’ve built. If it meant waking up next to each other in the same bed, looking forward to whatever life throws at you as the years pass.
“I know,” you rasp. “I can’t lose you, either.”
And you know that he knows, by his grin against your thumb, by the way he kisses it and nudges to the side so that he can reach your lips, and oh.
It’s warm, and lovely, and euphoria bottled in one. He kisses gently, tenderly, mindful of your injuries, and your heart has never hammered so fast.
“Captain! Your heart rate! Are you—oh.”
Mark jerks away slightly, and instead of looking embarrassed at getting caught by Celci, he’s more irritated—glaring daggers at the doctor, the corners of her lips raising higher and higher like the cat who caught the canary.
“Leave,” Mark gruffs, and Celci grins at you.
“Finally,” she sighs, nearly skipping out the door. “I’ll tell the others not to disturb you. Keep it above the collarbone, asshat!”
His eyeroll was audible, and you can’t help the giggle that bubbles past your lips, amused by it all.
“Sorry,” you snicker when Mark turns back to you in disbelief, and you start coughing from the sheer stupidity of it all, gesturing for your water cup. He lets you sip from it, affronted.
“How the hell is she gonna know if we keep it above the collarbone?” he asks, exasperated.
“I don’t think that’s what you—” a cough, sip, then, “—what you should be getting out of this.”
He exhales, placing the water cup on your tray, then turns to gaze at you. It’s full of affection and love and you truly wonder how blind you were in the beginning to not see it.
“We’ll have more time to talk,” you say. “Once I’m out of all this.”
He nods, bringing your still-clasped fingers up to his lips and kissing your knuckles. The action makes you hitch a breath, the blip of the heartbeat recorded on the monitor, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by him, the bastard.
Mark grins, excited. “Huh. I wonder what else I can do to you to make that happen.”
A lot, you don’t say, but you smile helplessly at the man you love, and it is enough.