Chapter Text
Laira
Light envelops them, and the shuttle, crackling around her and seeping into her skin. It's not an ion storm, she knows that, not a cosmic string or anything she's ever run into. For a heartbeat, her skin's electric, then not hers, then is hers again, but now she's sitting next to Michael Burnham in the dark, in a shuttle as still as the stars.
"What happened?"
"Some kind of energy field." Michael's hands fly over the controls, but none of them respond. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." She's a little dizzy, but energy just rushed over them both, of course it's disconcerting. It'll pass.
Michael's hand flies to a badge that isn't there. She frowns and Laira reaches for her own. It's also gone, and the fabric beneath her hand is much softer than the jacket she was wearing.
"What happened to our clothes?"
"I don't know." Michael's hair is different, pulled back, braids wrapped into another braid. It was down. "Your hair's down."
Laira didn't even feel it, but she reaches up, and her hair's loose on her shoulders. She hasn't had it down in public in such a long time. A shuttle really isn't public, but Michael's here and they're not friends. This wasn't a vacation— Her train of thought slips because her nose itches, and it's the strangest sensation, like it's crawling upwards into her skull.
"Why would an anomaly change our clothing?"
Michael leaves her chair, pulling panels off the console. "Could be temporal, maybe quantum? I've changed universes before, but we kept the same clothing."
Laira watches her, hands in her lap. Starfleet hates it when anyone touches their ships without being asked; she has to let Michael fix it. "We're in a new universe?"
"No, I don't think so, but without sensors there's no way to tell."
"Are we all right?"
"Yeah, shuttle just needs-" Michael pulls something, switches something else and the lights in her console flick back on. "Programmable matter interfaces depend on quantum states, so a quantum rift fries everything, we'll have to reset all of the interfaces, then we can restart the engines."
The shuttle's big enough that they should have plenty of air, though it might get a little cool. She'll hate that more than Michael, especially with the way her sweater slides off her shoulder.
"You look good in purple," Michael teases from the floor.
"Thank you." Laira stands, but catches the edge of the console when her head spins.
"You sure you're okay?"
"I'm a little lightheaded, I- It's fine."
Michael pauses, but doesn't argue with her yet.
"Do you know how to reverse a matter state control crystal?"
"Is that like a particle manipulation array?" She slips down to the floor beside Michael, and it's much better than standing. "I remember when we got programmable matter on my father's fleet and had to change all of them."
"The crystals are blue," Michael starts, hands deep in the console. "Which doesn't help in the dark, but their endothermic capabilities mean they always feel cool. You pull it out, rotate it 180 degrees and it should snap back in."
"That repolarizes them?"
"It literally trades one pole for another. It's one of this century's most practical designs." Michael tilts her head towards a panel. "If you start there, you should find three."
The panel clicks open, and Laira sets it aside, shifting on her knees to get a better angle. "So I just reach in?"
"I count junctions, they're raised so they're easy to feel, then you want the-"
"The coolest crystal."
"Exactly." Michael smiles at her. "It shouldn't take that long, We won't be late for negotiations."
"I can't be late, they start when I get there." Laira concentrates on her fingers, trying to find the crystal Michael's talking about. She tugs something cool and it slips free. Her sense of accomplishment is short lived, because she sneezes, nearly dropping the crystal.
Michael starts to ask if she's all right,and Laira sneezes again, then a third time. Burying her face in the elbow of her sweater, she tries to nod so Michael won't worry but sneezing takes her whole body.
"I know the shuttle's not dusty," Michael says, tilting her head. "Do you have allergies?"
"No, I—" She sneezes again, has time to catch her breath, and then sneezes again, eyes damp.
"Did you look at a bright light?"
"What?"
"Humans have a photic sneeze reflex, it's an autosomal dominant trait. I have it, and I remember my father explaining how dominant traits work because my mother doesn't have it."
"Genetics at the dinner table?"
"It was a picnic, actually, really bright on that beach."
Picturing Michael and her parents on a picnic, Laira can hear them talking about advanced genetics while tiny Michael devours all the information they can share with her. It suits Michael to have had a childhood full of so much learning.
"That sounds—" she sneezes again, tears clinging hot to her eyelashes. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, ma'am."
She can't catch her breath enough to insist that she's fine, or do anything at all. Laira's lost count of how many times she's sneezed, and her head spins a little. Not being able to keep her eyes open is disconcerting, and when she stands, she touches the wall of the shuttle, bracing herself before she sneezes twice more.
Michael pulls her arm out of the console and tilts her head. "The med kit's behind that panel."
"I'm sure it's just a side effect of the anomaly."
Laira doesn't move towards the med kit and Michael doesn't stand up. For a moment they share the silence. Laira half-expects some kind of nasty headache to following the sneezing fit, but she doesn't seem to be ill, not like that, anyway. She 's tired, but that's almost a normal state for her. Taking a few hours in a shuttle, even with - savior of the galaxy - Michael Burnham, is the closest to down time she's had in quite a while.
"Sudden attacks of sneezing aren't a common side effect of inter-univetsal travel.
"Perhaps I'm uncommon."
Michael shakes her head. "You certainly are, madam president."
Trying to control her breathing stalls one sneeze in her throat, but two more follow as she sits down with Michael again.
"Ma'am—"
"Sneezing's hardly life threatening, Captain."
Holding up her free hand, Michael nods, surrendering. "Got it."
When Laira can force herself to concentrate, there's a pleasant rhythm in repolarizing the crystals to repair the shuttle's interface panels. It's calming to do something simple with her hands. Two more panels and they should have most of the systems back online, if she remembers her shuttle schematics properly. Shutting her eyes, Laira rests her head on her knees, centering herself is about as useful as trying to fly through a dark matter nebula with no sensors. Her sensors are scrambled, and she doesn't know how to fix it, if it even can be fixed.
Sneezing again into her knees, Laira sighs, then rubs her forehead. She can't narrow down what it is or why she feels out of sorts, but since the flash something's wrong, different, and it's not something that changed for Michael. Michael's wearing different clothes, but she seems to be the same.
Michael touches her hand, gently seeking her attention. When she looks up, Michael holds out one of the water rations. "Do you know that sneezing has a physiological effect similar to orgasm?"
"Really?" Laira grins. That's unexpected. Michael must be trying to cheer her up, and it's appreciated. Who knew she was funny?
"Changes in blood pressure, diversion of blood flow; the building of pressure for an involuntary release." Michael sips her own water. "Maybe you're lucky you're not going through that."
"I think one of them is distinctly more pleasant."
Michael smirks, and nods. Her eyes still soft with sympathy. "I feel like me, my hair's a little different, and maybe I'm less tense, but I don't want to sneeze."
"How fortunate for you."
The med kit's waits beneath the panel next to this one, waiting for Laira to agree, but Michael isn't pushing. Laira could grab it, she could ask Michael to take it out, but that feels wrong, somehow. There's something in the back of her mind she doesn't want to shine light on.
"What could the rift have done to us?"
"Hard to tell without sensors, but—"
"Your best guess will do, Captain."
"The structure of the shuttle isn't damaged, so it's some kind of energy field, not ionic, not radiation, or both of us would be much worse off. The matter state control crystals have been depolarized, so it's quantum in nature. When we traveled to the Terran universe, it took much more energy, and the spore drive, so this might be a localized quantum event of some kind."
"Which would mean?"
"A much more minor change in timeline. You and I going on the mission to Caldos on a different day, or belonging to a Federation that doesn't have as much of a dress code." Michael tilts her head at Laira's sweater, then touches her own orange sweater. "I have a sweater similar to this one, I got it from the artisans square on Ni'Var. Traditional Romulan knitting has these intricate patterns, and I recognize the stitching."
"You have that sweater?"
"I have one very similar, but, and forgive me for saying it, Madam President, I wouldn't wear it on a trip with you."
"Too unprofessional."
"It wouldn't be appropriate."
Laira nods, closing her eyes tight to try and prevent herself from sneezing again. "This sweater is definitely something I would not wear on an official mission."
"So perhaps we're on a different trip together."
"We barely know each other."
"In this timeline, perhaps that's not the case."
Pulling her knees in, she tries to imagine a universe where she would go on a pleasure trip with Michael. Are they meeting someone? Laira can fly herself in a shuttle - though she often does not - being president requires a certain amount of redundancies at all times.
"It would not be protocol for me to take any kind of trip alone, assuming I'm still president in this universe."
"It's a Starfleet shuttle, so maybe I'm the president and you're the captain of a starship." Michael's smile is so sincere that she has to smile back. "Maybe you should call me ma'am, captain."
Laira shakes her head, waving that off. "We're out of uniform, the protocol isn't necessary for me." It takes her a moment to form the next thought, and saying it feels like opening something she's not quite ready to face. "You feel normal?"
"I feel like me."
It goes unsaid that Laira's existence is off. Her head's foggy, her sinuses tingle, her skin's somehow too tight around her chest, and when she pulls her knees closer, her breasts ache. Why would her breasts ache? Has she been in an accident, or hit herself against the console? The shuttle did buck, it's just—
Sneezing once, and again, Laira remembers one of her neighbors laughing as she sneezed in the garden. Orjale had been so happy that summer, sneezing her way through the harvest before her son was born. Bajoran women sneeze when they're pregnant. Laira's own mother had joked about how Laira had made her presence known like a bad cold. Could this timeline be that different? Not just the clothes and the idea of time off, but—
She put this thought aside. Shelved the very idea of even contemplating such a thing. She had the Federation to run, and that was her family, her legacy; the reason she woke up at night.
She couldn't have a baby, the presidency was far too important, too demanding, she'd made her choice when she decided to run. Laira had set aside the idea of children, for now, for awhile, for the rest of her life — nothing was ever certain.
Had this her made another choice? Was that why she was on some kind of trip? How pregnant could she be? There are no signs of—
Her breasts itch. Her skin's not hers and she can't stop sneezing. She's - no - she can't be - that's not - she wouldn't —
But she's never felt like this, never had any kind of infection that made her sneeze this much, or been anywhere this dusty. This is wrong and new, and she has no idea how to handle it.
And Michael's fine.
Perfect Michael Burnham is absolutely fine in her orange sweater with her braids wrapped together down her back.
The elimination of all other possibilities takes moments, and the truth of it settles hard in her stomach.
Is it even possible?
"What else could be different from our timeline?"
"Hmm?" Michael replaces another panel and thinks for a moment. "Little things. Where you flew your shuttles, when we met. Perhaps in this timeline I crashed into your ship instead of Book's, or there was no DMA, so we met under other circumstances. If we're traveling together without badges, it's something outside of Starfleet, e're off duty, or it's something very classified." Michael pauses, runs her hands over the panels and the shuttle obediently.starts to come to life again. "Maybe our badges are in the back of the shuttle."
Michael tilts her head at the shuttle. "The computers chronometrics are fried so it'll need awhile to compete autonomous repairs."
'So our flash of light was time?" In this timeline she- Laira can't even think about it without her chest getting tight.
"It looks that way." Michael sits down next to her. Not too close, but enough to be friendly. Are they friendly now?
"So we could have made different choices here."
"Or had different choices." Michael rests her hands on her knees and looks ahead, watching the lights on the programmable matter interface start to come on.
Laira's never seen a Starfleet shuttle come on so slowly. Maybe time's slowed down as much as her thoughts, because they're swirling around the black hole that she can't name. She wanted this so badly, just months ago she almost let herself have it. Explaning the Burn, finally, meant peace, having enough dilithium.meant stability, she could—
"Did I ever tell you why I ran for president?"
"Maybe you did in this nice sweater timeline."
"Is that what you're calling it?"
"The sweater universe is much less intimidating than mirror."
Laira smiles, surprised. Michael meant to be funny. She's trying to make her smile, and it's the kindest thing anyone done in a long time. Her stomach keeps twisting and it's more than anxiety. It's as if knowing brought it on, and the more she thinks about it the worse it gets. Laira can hide much, she's very practiced, but her face can never hide an illness of any kind. Her skin's too delicate.
"I think I made a significant choice differently in the sweater universe.
"You're.not president?"
"This sweater is the least presidential thing I have "
Michael touches her arm, feeling the lilac knit. "Not Romulan."
"Bajoran. Geometric designs have been culturally favored for centuries."
"Like your bracelet." Michael points to her wrist. "It's beautiful."
"This style is from my grandfather's province, the interconnected links represent the chain of lakes that the farms depend on."
"Agriculture has always been important there?"
"Bajor grows like no other planet."
Michael turns her head, meeting her eyes. "You grew up there?"
Laira starts to nod but moving her head makes her stomach churn, so she winces and holds very still. "Before the Burn growing food was a point of pride. Afterwards, it was a necessity. Cardassia had so little agriculture, so many people lived in starbases or on colonies that needed their replicators."
"And their anti-matter reactors."
"My grandfather grew food, my father's fleet sent it all over the sector."
"At sublight?"
"With solar sails and the right currents, you could get it down to three years. We tried to save the dilithium for emergencies."
Opening her eyes wide, Michael shakes her head. "I can't imagine."
"Your galaxy was full of dilithium." Their eyes meet and Michael's are so warm and concerned. They barely know each other, yet Michael's so caring.
"We warped everywhere."
"Then you got a spore drive."
"It didn't work, at first. Stamets really deserves the credit."
"For illegal genetic manipulation."
"Maybe you'd pardon him."
"It was 900 years ago, not my jurisdiction."
Michael chuckles. "Thanks."
"Any time." Laira lowers her head, but that makes her nausea worse, so she lifts it again. "I think I know a choice I made differently in this sweater timeline."
"Not just in outfit?"
"No, I-" Laira takes a breath, tries to focus on the motionless stars outside the shuttle. "I was an ambassador before I ran for president."
"Oh no, " Michael lifts her hand, "I believe 'the Federation's top ambassador, one of the most effective in the last several centuries' have been said, multiple times, by multiple people. Vance says you are the Federation."
"As president—"
"You know, we watched the debates when you were running, my crew and I cheered for you."
"What?" Laira turns her head, regretting it immediately. Nausea rises hot in her throat.
"We put them on in the shuttlebay, watched you debate your opponent. I think all of us voted for you."
"Thanks."
"Compared to where we left, everyone was so closed off, worn down by the Burn, when you got up there, you talked about hope. We needed that."
"You don't hate politics."
"I do—"
Chuckling makes her nausea fade for a moment. "Sure."
"Do you think you're not president here?"
"Maybe not."
"You would have chosen not to run?"
"If President Aramin hadn't stepped down, I would have remained an ambassador, happily."
Michael's smile has a hint of reservation that Laira can't place.
"I wanted-" Laira begins, and stops, again. Thinking about it, trying to find words for it, makes her nausea surge upward like an unshielded reactor. "I'd been ambassador for twenty years, I'm good at it, it's an incredible job, but—"
"You wanted more."
"I could have done more."
Michael reaches over, taking her hand. Her fingers are so warm and sure that Laira misses what she says.
"Hmm?"
"I said that sense of duty is a lot, isn't it?"
"There's so much we have to do."
Michael nods, squeezing her fingers. "What else did you find to do in this universe?"
Heat rushes to her face. Laira's not sure if she's embarrassed, about to throw up, or both. "I think - here in this timeline - this body - I'm pregnant."
Michael swallows, and her grip on Laira's hand tightens. She turns, leaving Laira's side to kneel in front of her, looking at her face. Michael extends her other hand, offering support.
"The switch is likely temporary, hours, days at most. All the recorded instances of changing timelines were brief, without lasting changes."
"Don't fuck it up?"
"Don't panic."
"I'm not—"
Michael holds her hands, constant. "The sneezing is a sign?"
"Bajorans sneeze their way through their pregnancies."
"Beats nausea."
Laira shuts her eyes. Michael's right, sneezing is much better than nausea but suspecting seems to have brought out her human side.
"You have that too."
Humming her agreement, Laira presses her lips together. Think about something, anything but the churning of her stomach.. "I thought about - I wanted - before the election. It's lonely, traveling, always visiting the homes of others, asking them to join you, but I was never home, I—"
"You wanted someone."
"I wanted someone."
Leaning in, Michael touches her forehead to Laira's. "In this timeline, you found them."
"I think—"
"Breathe."
"I knew - I mean - I've heard, Ronia said she was sick when she was pregnant."
"Admiral Vance's wife?"
Laira swallows instead of nodding. Pulling her hand, and Michael's, to her mouth, she tries to keep herself still, but something's wrong. Her stomach's all wrong. "Michael—"
Meeting her eyes, Michael takes a moment. Releasing Laira's hands, she guides her up, walks her back.
"If you're going to throw up, might as well be in the right place."
The refresher is small, and the walls are close. It's almost a dance to get Laira kneeling in front of the toilet, Michael beside her.
"Slow breaths."
"I haven't been nauseated since--" Laira can barely remember. They lost gyroscopic stabilizers once, and the entire ship pitched and limped its way to port. She didn't vomit then, and now the back of her throat stings, but it's not as sharp as she remembers.
Is there something different about being pregnant? Does it--
Her stomach twists, forcing her chest up, and it's far worse than the sneezing. Michael's hand fly to her hair, keeping it out of the way. Her mother did that, when she was a child. Laira remembers vomiting in the dirt when she was small. One of those little bugs children get.
The shuttle refresher has a soft blue light and without the hum of the engines it's very quiet, just Michael's gentle whispers that's she's all right.
And Laira is, oddly. Does her body remember even if she does not? Is she happy to be pregnant? Relieved that she'll be leaving this behind? She wipes her mouth, but it starts again, shaking her whole body. Sweat beads up on her skin, even her soft sweater seems too constricting.
"It's all right," Michael whispers. Her hands are constant and steady.
Like the sneezing, this comes in waves, hot and overwhelming. Tears cling to her eyelashes, cooling on her cheek. Time softens, shifting like her vision. She wanted this, and this her has it. This Laira wears sweaters without her badge and flies across the galaxy with Michael Burnham.
Is she an escort?
A friend?
Laira's forgotten how it felt having friends this close. Michael's hands are on her neck, in her hair. Michael's breath is steady when hers is not. Michael holds her head in her lap when Laira's stomach is empty, but her body objects .
She should hate this. She ought to care that perfect Captain Burnham's rubbing her neck, and that the thigh beneath her head is hers.
No one's held her since—
That aches more than the heaving of her chest, and the burn in her throat.
"Guess that's why you have an escort."
Does this keep happening? Did Michael agree to travel with her because Laira can hardly run the autopilot from the refresher floor?
Michael's left hand rests on her shoulder while she strokes her hair with her right. The minute shift in the vibration of the deck is the engines returning to power.
It's calming.
Almost as nice as way Michael touches her cheek. Safety has been fleeting since her family died, following each other, one at a time until all Laira had was their memory, and all she could do was try to make things more stable.
Keep everyone else's family intact, even when hers is gone.
Shutting her eyes, Laira remembers her mother laughing, her father kissing her forehead; her grandparents holding her tight.
The warmth of them has been gone a very long time. She tries not to miss it. To be strong and capable and be the light for others.
She can bring warmth into the Federation; she remembers what it feels like.
The heat of Michael's hand on her forehead is sharp, slicing through the scar tissue over the memory.
This is safe.
This is what it felt like.
Laira cups her belly with her hand, not at her stomach, but lower, beneath her navel. This child is loved, like she was. This version of Laira must be glowing with affection; overcome with joy.
And nausea, and sneezing and--
"I think I know what of type of rift this is."
Laira waits, moving at all seems like tempting fate too strongly.
"It's a rift called a quantum fissure, very localized, short range. We must have opened it with the warp engines of the shuttle, but it'll close again. " Michael pauses for Laira's unasked question. "I can't know for sure without checking the sensors, but if it's like the others in the historical records, our quantum signatures will tug us back, like magnets."
"Back?"
"To our own timeline."
This will be gone: the baby she never let herself want - let alone have - goes back to being part of some other life.
Where she wears sweaters.
Where she goes on shuttle journeys with Michael Burnham.
Where she--
Coughing hides her shock, somewhat. Her body's a mess, lightheaded, nauseated, and just thinking about sneezing is almost enough to make her sneeze again.
But there's a baby. This her gets a baby - a future - a tiny selfish thing in a galaxy of duty and responsibility. Laira's eyes sting. She blinks, clears her throat, but lifting her head is a mistake followed by a wave of nausea.
There's nothing left to throw up, but moving is beyond her abilities.
"I'm going to get the med kit." Michael trades her lap for a towel, placing it under Laira's head with the same care as if she were moving dilithium. Michael strokes her forehead again. "Don't move."