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The Captain and Engineer Mark met as cadets. Despite the Captain’s selective mutism, they hit it off instantly. Mark learns ASL so he can talk to them more easily. One thing leads to another, and they have a ship together. The Captain, Mark, and their crew are leading a mission from Earth to find a new inhabitable planet using Mark’s life-changing wormhole technology. The mission has been in its preparation stages for years, Mark and the other main crew have been living aboard the Invincible for much of that time, definitely since it’s been sitting out in space. Finally, it’s time to go. The Captain boards. Something goes horribly wrong-
The Invincible II is finally ready to leave. The Captain boards. Their crew is desperate for the success of this mission. It would have incredible implications for the human race. The Captain is not really sure how they got into this prestigious position, but they are determined to do right by their crew.
By this time, the Captain and the Engineer are pretty close. Nothing more than good friends though. They know each other’s mannerisms and fears and things like that, but Mark is almost as close with Gunther, Burt, and CC, so it’s nothing special… yet.
Everyone is in their Cryopods. The future is close enough to touch.
ERROR. ERROR. INITIATING EMERGENCY WAKEY WAKEY PROTOCOL. CURRENT SHIP STATUS IS: ABSOLUTELY CATASTROPHIC-
You know what happens next. The multiverses. The eternities. The deaths.
Despite being broken beyond recognition, even after seeing it all over and over and over again, the Captain decides to Hold On to Mark’s hand. He’s all they have. He shrieks at them. Then, the realization creeps in. They don’t get angry. They can’t. They’re just as guilty as he is. He breaks down. They cry together as the universe implodes around them.
SOFTWARE UPDATE COMPLETE. Initializing Wakey Wakey Protocol. Current ship status is: Nominal.
It’s over. It’s… over? Everyone is alive? We… made it?
Everyone is acting normal. They did it. They found a planet to colonize. They completed the mission. Could it really all have just been a bad dream?
Mark hands the Captain their coffee and thanks them for not giving up on him. There’s something… knowing about the way he says it. But, he can’t know, can he?
Despite neither of them confiding that they remember at first, they become inexplicably closer from this point on. Maybe overcompensating for their guilt, maybe trying to subconsciously let the other know that they remember.
The next phase of the mission begins at once. Over the next few months, scouting teams will explore the new planet, and once infrastructure is established, the colonists will be woken from their cryosleep. In the meantime, the crew is awake and living in their own quarters on the ship like normal. The Captain and the Engineer are getting flirtier, pet names and more physical contact. The crew doesn’t question it all that much. They’re the two parents of the ship, makes sense.
At first, the Captain resigns themself to pretending the incidents with Warp Core never happened. None of it did, for all they know. They block it out and try to focus on their duties. Reestablishing civilization and all that. But pushing it down can only work for so long. Shortly before moving into their new quarters on the new planet, they start to have nightmares about the experiences from the wormhole, growing in their frequency and intensity each night. They take this to mean that it wasn’t a dream after all. They are plagued by guilt over what happened in the other universes, though at this point it’s getting harder and harder to remember the details. They quickly begin to lose sleep. They stop taking care of themselves. They have panic attacks. They’re leaving their quarters less and less. All of this makes it hard to notice that the same symptoms are appearing in their Head Engineer.
He’s slightly more perceptive, however. Feeling still that he is completely at fault for everything that happened, he watches the Captain closely for signs that they remember. He notices the bags under their eyes. They’ve been missing meals. They clutch their left wrist at random times. Something has to be wrong.
The Invincible’s main crew are worried about the Captain and Mark, but are unsure of how to help. One day, Mark is out doing his rounds, inspecting the integrity of the newly-installed infrastructure and passes by the Captain’s quarters. He decides enough is enough and, hoping beyond hope that they’re doing badly for some reason unrelated to the Warp Core, he knocks on their door. They don’t answer but he can hear shuffling going on inside. Growing anxious, he throws caution to the wind and hand-scans into their quarters.
He walks in to find the Captain sitting on the floor propped up against their couch, their chest rapidly rising and falling, eyes dilated. They're clutching themselves and rocking back and forth slightly, shaking.
Mark rushes over to them. “Captain! Are you okay?” they don’t seem to hear or see him. His throat tightens. “Captain? It’s me! Captain? What’s wrong?” his voice cracks. They just stare straight ahead, their breath heaving. He begins to panic. Is this his fault? That's not important right now. he reminds himself. He sits down in front of them. "Y/N," he starts softly. That seems to get their attention, as they stop rocking. He almost never uses their real name. "You're safe. You're home on our new planet. Whatever you're feeling will pass. Try to concentrate on your breath, I'll be right here." The Captain loosens their grip on their arms a little and their breathing starts to slow. They blink a few times and look wildly around the room before finally noticing Mark there. “M- Mark!” they exclaim hoarsely and recoil slightly in shock and in shame. “Captain!” he says breathlessly. He resists embracing them as not to overwhelm them. After taking a few deep breaths and wiping their eyes, they finally sign with still-shaky hands, “What are you doing here?” He tells them he heard noises from outside their quarters. He helps them up and gets them a glass of water. They make small talk about being busy with the establishment of the colony and not getting enough sleep. The bigger conversation looms over them both.
It’s sunset (or the new planet equivalent?), a few hours later. They are both standing on the Captain’s porch, each with a mug of coffee in their hands. The Captain goes for a sip, Mark takes his chance. “Captain… can I ask you a… a weird question?” it takes all the willpower in his body to turn to them as he asks. He’s certain no matter their answer they’ll end up hating him. They set their cup down but don’t look at him. “Sure”. they say croakily, their voice small from limited use.
He can’t keep looking at them. He joins them in staring at the railing and slowly asks: “Do you remember… the stuff that happened between going into the cryopods on warp day and waking up to the new planet being discovered?” before he can even finish they quickly whip their head back up to face him with a look of betrayal. He looks at them hesitantly. “This whole time? You knew?” they don’t mean to make him feel worse than he probably already does but they can’t help feeling hurt. He looks away. “I’m so sorry. I am so so so sorry, Captain, for everything. I understand if you hate me. So many people got hurt because of me. I haven’t been able to get them out of my head since I woke up that day. I hoped you had forgotten. But I’ve noticed… things about you recently. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”
The Captain can barely take this in. But weirdly, part of them is immensely relieved. They finally have someone to confide in. They’re not crazy. “Mark…” they begin and he finally looks at them again with teary eyes. “I did just as much terrible shit to those timelines as you did, maybe even more. You were just doing what you thought was right. I… I could never hate you.” they look down again. Silence for a while. Mark pipes up, “The nightmares? Is that why you’ve been losing sleep?” they look back at him and nod. He hesitantly continues, “Is that why you’ve… stopped eating?” they turn away. He'd noticed more than they'd thought. There’s a long silence. Mark puts a hand on their shoulder. “I feel like I don’t… deserve this.” they finally say, lifting off their Captain’s hat. “I never really have. I’ve just been following your coattail, ever since we were young. The disaster with the Warp Core, it just proved what I already knew: I’m not cut out for this. All I do is hurt people”. Mark can’t bear to hear the Captain talk about themselves that way, especially when he’s the one that did this to them. “Y/N…” he struggles to think of something to console them. “…all we can do is our best, right? In this universe, you led your crew to a new planet. You did it. WE did it. Isn’t THAT worth something?” the Captain doesn’t look up from their hat. “Maybe…” he continues, “…maybe we vow to stop hating ourselves as long as we do our very best to take care of this universe? We don’t know if we get any do-overs with this one. Please, Captain, we’ll just drive ourselves insane if we keep dwelling on everything that happened. And we’d probably deserve it, too. But it’s our job to take care of these colonists and create humanity’s future, and now we have each other to talk to. So can we just… focus on trying to make things right?”