Chapter Text
"Sometimes, it's your job to say no. Be polite, be charming, and say no for her, because sometimes she can't." Arjun, the Vice President's husband, had smiled and nodded the line of reporters waiting for their chance to ask questions on Bajor. "Jen's excellent at blaming me for things now, and after a few decades, we have a good system. You'll get there."
Michael sighed, looking across the busy garden full of reporters. "We're not telepathic."
"It's not a requirement." Arjun finished his tea, setting down the cup. "I can read Jen's facial expressions faster than I can read her thoughts. You get so accustomed to shielding when you're not on Betazed."
"Do non-telepaths think loudly?"
"About everything." He patted her hand. "But, after decades, I'm used to it. Jen almost prefers it. Other telepaths are almost too easy to talk to. What they say and think matches, no challenge."
Michael laughed, and Arjun told her about the first time he'd spoken to the press after their wedding, and how awkward it had been.
Now that Discovery has arrived on Tellar Prime, Arjun and the Vice President have returned to Headquarters and the Federation council, leaving the never ending press tour for Laira and her aides. The Armstrong has picked up some of the journalists and planetary dignitaries who were eager to experience the spore drive for themselves, and no immediate crises mean Laira can take the time to do a full official press junket. That hasn't been achieved since before the Burn.
Visiting all the official Federation member worlds, even with a spore drive, is an undertaking. Meeting with journalists after a day of meetings is optimistic. Yes, Laira's feeling better, and it's important to see how each planet in the Federation adds to the whole.
They can remind each planet that they matter. If they manage to finish before the hitchhiker arrives, Michael will be grateful, if not wildly optimistic that they can stick to the timeline.
Tellar Prime was scheduled for three days, and they're mostly through the second, but the itinerary for tomorrow just keeps getting longer.
It's raining outside the Great Hall of Leadership. The trees climb high and green into the clouds, branches forming a thick canopy that breaks the rain into mist. It's raining so hard above that the droplets have time to coalesce before they fall. Some of the trees are well over two hundred meters, and the sunlight rarely reaches down this far. It gives the whole campus of diplomatic halls a sense of being inside a much larger temple of green.
It's beautiful, and wet, and barely thirteen degrees. Michael has her leather coat over her uniform, and uniforms are designed to be comfortable in most weather, but it's a shock after the pleasant temperatures of Bajor.
Aides and council members start streaming out of the Great Hall and Michael heads in against the current. Her badge chirps, and she pauses, ducking into a side corridor of living wood. It's dark and carved like stone. The scent of the air is almost sharp, like sap.
"Captain, we've received a request for aid." Joann's voice is calm, but concerned. She's still a little nervous in the big chair. That takes awhile to go away. Owosekun was the right choice for first officer, definitely, but it'll take time until she believes that as wholeheartedly as Michael does.
"Gather the senior staff, evaluate what they need, then report back. You've got this." Michael smiles, knowing Joann will hear it. "Let me know what you need."
"Yes, Captain. Thank you."
She closes the channel, smiles up towards her ship above. It was a few lifetimes ago, but she remembers being that nervous with Georgiou in command. Philippa would be proud now. Her ship is her own and she's developing her own crew. Joann will be an incredible captain some day if that's what she wants. Maybe she and Keyla will even...
Michael smirks, because it's not her place to intervene. Her relationship fell into her lap out of a warp bubble. It made the dating part much easier, maybe too easy because they just—
But it was right. This is right. She's calmer, stiller somehow. On Vulcan, when it was Vulcan, she listened to them talk about the peace of meditation. How she'd know it when she found logic.
Maybe it works with love too.
Michael's still shaking rain from her braids when she enters the hotel room. It smells of wood smoke, which is odd, and old, but there's a fire, a real fire in the fireplace and she holds up her hands.
Laira's suit jacket is on the chair and her trousers hang near the fire on a hook. She sits on the sofa in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket up to her neck. Her hair's down in damp curls on top of the blanket, red-gold in the firelight. "I forget how much it rains here."
"Zora mentioned it," Michael begins, peeling off her damp uniform jacket. "Figured it's just rain."
"But then it falls all day."
"You got cold."
Laira hums that little noise where she's not going to agree, and not going to argue. "I'm not cold now."
"The fires of home are a central part of Tellarite culture. Clan fires, communal fires."
"This fireplace connects to the one in the hall downstairs, they have--" Laira stops, sneezing once, then again.
"Regenerative wood burning." Michael sits down beside her, letting the heat seep into her skin now that her arms are bare. "The molecules are continually cycled so the fire burns the same wood, over and over. It's clever."
Laira sneezes twice more into the blanket and nods. "And it smells good."
"Fires at home?"
"Sometimes." She shifts a little and blanket slips, and her shoulder's bare in the firelight. "Summer's hot, but we'd have fires in the winter. My mother liked to cook over them."
"That sounds nice."
Laira stretches and sighs, the blanket falls a little lower and her other shoulder is bare, so is her chest. Her skin glows pink in the firelight and Michael gasps. That's enough to make her flush.
"It was nice." She shrugs off the blanket, exposing her back, and her stomach and oh she's naked. Completely naked. "Speaking of nice - I was thinking of you during my meetings."
"Oh?" Michael stares at her breasts, then looks up, grinning. "I should take off my boots."
"You should." Laira lifts her knee, hugging it to her chest and that makes the blanket fall away to the sofa, and yes, naked. "You're overdressed for this."
"So many rules."
"Get naked, Captain."
"Yes ma'am."
Slipping off her boots, Michael knees on the floor, turning so she's between Laira's legs and Laira touches her shoulder with her bare foot. "The ambassadors just kept talking and all I could think about was you, and your arms when you get back from the gym."
"Sweaty?"
"Gorgeous. Joann makes you glow when she puts you in your place."
"Seems like you want to put me in a different one, ma'am."
Laira shivers, but that has nothing to do with the driving rain outside. "Should I tell you what to do?"
"No," Michael kisses her knee, guiding both of her legs up over Michael's shoulders. "No, just tell me about your day."
"Oh?"
"See how long you can do it." Michael slips her fingers higher, teasing her thigh and Laira's eyes go wide and dark, reflecting the fire. "Bet I break you before lunch."
Laira sighs up at the ceiling, squeezing Michael's shoulder. "If only you had."
"Your first meeting was security," Michael prompts, sliding her fingers over Laira's hips. She nuzzles her inner thigh and Laira shivers.
"We apprehended another spy at the Archer spacedock, presumably trying to—" Laira breaks off, whimpering when Michael licks across her skin on her way up. Taking her time is a gamble, Laira recounts the raids of the resettlement camps near Inferna Prime, how Andoria's still having trouble reconvening a central government after the fall of the Emerald Chain. Elections are a trick business, not as intricate as the patterns Michael makes with her tongue.
Laira's concentration is impressive, because she is almost making sense while explain the engineering discussion that followed, but the inner workings of the spore drive are a tangle on a good day and prototaxies is a mouthful.
(really the problem is that Michael has her mouth full but she'll give Laira some of the benefit of the doubt).
That little hiss of pleasure is sexy enough that it's Michael's turn to shiver.
"Stella-vi-" Laira slips into a string of curses Michael doesn't know and her translator doesn't pick up. "Fuck, Michael, dammit, why—" She doesn't speak after that, too far gone, and it's teeth and lips and curling her fingers inward until Laira's trembling on the sofa, gasping.
Slipping off her trousers, Michael drops to the sofa next to her.
"You're a menace."
"Wrecked you, didn't I?"
Laughing, Laira shakes her head. She turns, straggling Michael's lap. She's still flushed pink and her skins a little damp with sweat, but she tugs Michael's tank top off her shoulders. They're clumsy, hurried and they tumble onto the floor together, blankets beneath them.
Laira holds her face, her thumb running along Michael's cheek. "I love you."
Michael rises to kiss her, pressing their bodies together. Laira's hands are already trailing down her stomach, searching, promising, and talking is a foolish use of her breath when she'll need it to sigh and gasp into Laira's shoulder.
The fire crackles beside them, heating their skin while they trace patterns that are as familiar as trade routes. Michael lets her release come quickly instead of holding it off. She nibbles Laira's neck and whispers she loves her over and over again and it's rusing.
They're rushing, maybe it's the thudding of her heart - Laira's heart - maybe it's breathing together apart - within —
Laira's head lies on her chest, between her breasts. Her hair's sticking to her skin and Michael's fingers are slick.
"Who knew the mushrooms were sexy?"
"Stamets, I think, and Hugh but—"
"I won't ask with you around," Laira promises, giggling contentedly. "I've had relationships where we didn't leave bed, or the cockpit, for days but this is different, isn't it?"
"This is marriage."
"I only have a vague idea what that's like."
Michael kisses her damp forehead. "Me too. I know it can be good."
"We're good, aren't we?"
"So far, we're incredible." Michael curls around her, watching the fire throw shadows onto the ceiling. "I keep thinking about my parents, what they were like together. I don't remember a lot of my birth parents, I was so young when they together. Sarek and Amanda were happy, mostly good for each other. Sometimes I think the best marriage I know is Paul and Hugh."
"Charles and Ronia," Laira says. She starts to add something else, but her sneezing's back. After the fourth one, she pauses, fingers splayed on Michael's stomach. "My grandparents were happy together. Sarcastic, and happy. They teased each other so much."
"Should I tease you more?"
"Is that possible?"
Michael shuts her eyes, slipping her fingers into Laira's damp hair. "I could work on it."
"Doing the impossible is kind of your thing."
"Says the woman who pulled our baby out of a pocket universe."
Sitting up enough to look at Michael, Laira smiles down at her, her eyes so soft they could be part of the fog outside. "You're nine hundred years out of time, you keep saving the universe with hope and mushrooms, maybe your baby is the easiest thing."
"She hasn't been easy." Guilt stings, but she strokes Laira's hip, letting it go.
Laira kisses her cheek. "Easy is relative, dear.It's not like you've let me suffer alone."
"I can't."
"I know." Laira kisses her nose, then her chin. "It's cute."
"Cute?"
"Oppressive is a little too strong."
"I-" Michael stumbles over her thoughts, trying to sort the ideas in her heads even as she's speaking. "I need it to be ours. I know it's yours, but I can't—"
"You need to save the very small universe too."
"I get to worry about you in all the universes, regardless of how big the universe is, I'm your wife now."
Laira traces her fingers along her cheek, smiling like she's finally found the right treaty. "Wife sounds nice, doesn't it?"
"It's beautiful."
Laira's mouth brushes warm against hers, then Michael sighs into her, and talking, no matter how wonderful, is unnecessary.
As Michael flies through space in the tiny worker bee, she keeps thinking of what she wants to tell Laira when Discovery returns for them. "Ever get one of your old freighters stuck in an asteroid belt?" The older models of sub light, solar sail freighters, are huge ships, difficult to turn, even more difficult to carefully pry out of dense crystalline asteroids without damaging the ship or the cargo of grain.
Michael left a message for when Laira finally got out of her meetings, teasing her about leaving the bridge to flit around in a worker bee with Keyla. Laira hadn't replied when Discovery dropped them off, but she'll read it.
Michael eases a piece of crystal out of the nanomesh of the solar sail.
"Do you think they'll retire these things when we can give everyone a spore drive, or just make them even bigger so you can move all the grain in one jump?" Keyla's worker bee drifts past her to another choke point.
"We'll probably use what we have, retrofit until we can build new ships."
"And then jump them from place to place?"
"Means our cargo pilots can get in a lot less trouble."
There's a pause, and Keyla's tone changes. "Thought you liked it if when the cargo pilots got in trouble."
"What?"
"You want me to believe you haven't gotten into a little—" Keyla pauses, and Michael's doomed. Maybe she needs to pretend her comms aren't working.
Of course, Keyla keeps going. "Why yes, Captain, I'm only in port for tonight why don't we—"
"Keyla—"
"That sounds more fun than 'Madam President, here's a treaty for you to sign.' "
"Depends on what you think is fun."
"For you? Probably the mysterious cargo pilot who's only going to be here for a night."
"And I make her take out her jumpsuits?"
"Does she still have them?"
Michael sighs. "I haven't asked."
"You should."
Michael rolls her eyes towards the space in Keyla's direction and scans for the next place to work. "Your concern about my sex life is noted."
"You're married now, wouldn't want it to be boring."
Michael flushes, her face warm and tight. "Now I'm supposed to tell you some lurid detail, proving it's not boring and then you tell Joann and Tilly, winning some bet."
"Five-to-one odds that you ask her to wear her suit jackets to bed. Ten-to-one that you wear them, then of course, Reno thinks you're both into something kinkier."
"Your pilot scenario?"
"Oh that's pretty mild. Maybe it's rival couriers trying to get the same score or something leather."
"Leather?"
"Georgiou left you her things, there's a lot of leather." Keyla pauses, amused at her own cleverness. "I think that's it. It's gotta to be the leather. Swearing fealty and kissing the boots or something."
Michael waves one of the arms of her worker bee towards Keyla's menacingly. "Maybe you're trying to distract me from asking about you and Owo."
"Oh you can ask, you just don't because you're still Vulcan, underneath the charming captain thing, you're still Vulcan."
"Vulcans can be funny."
"So it's just you?"
Michael tries to keep a straight face, but starts to chuckle. "I really might be the problem." Stars spin around her worker bee as she rights herself, finds another place to work and frees the solar sail.
Keyla's worker bee disappears behind the huge freighter and the deep purple asteroid. The comm's still open, and Michael can hear her breath. It' comforting, not being alone in the quiet of space.
"You're happy now."
Space stretches out vast and silent between them except for the tiny sounds of the worker bee. Michael smiles to no one, even catches herself nodding.
"I am." That's not enough. "I have things I wanted in a relationship, in a family, and it's a little faster than I would have allowed myself to have."
"Because of the ship?"
"Because I take forever to do things. Took me more than a year to let Book in."
"Then he betrayed you."
Michael doesn't need Keyla to say us, because she can hear it. "He lost his planet."
Silence holds them for awhile. Michael's thoughts wander. It's delicate and difficult in the three-dimensional chaos of the worker bee, but it doesn't take much of her head.
"Faster with her makes sense." Keyla sighs, and Michael can almost hear her shaking her head. "Sometimes things take a really long time to work out, because you don't want to mess it up, risk losing osmething good to maybe get something better, and I suppose sometimes you just know."
How does Michael explain? "Laira's an incredible person, and I knew that, I respected her before I liked her. After I saw her, really saw her, the rest just popped into existence."
"In the bubble."
"Perhaps not how I'd recommend anyone start a relationship but-" Michael pauses, trying to get the laser cutter perfectly aligned. If she just turns a little more— "It works for us."
"And you could never have a boring relationship."
"If it wants to be boring from now on—"
"Oh no," Keyla insists. "It'll never be boring. It's you, it's her, she's the president of the Federation and cargo pilots are always trouble, even retired ones."
They stop for lunch, and it's only a few more hours until they've freed the ship, like a giant butterfly from a strange crystal web. Peeling off her environmental suit is a wonderful feeling, like her skin can breathe again. Yes, it's thermoregular, yes the suit balances the moisture for most species so her skin is fine, it's just sticky.
"Nice, isn't it?" Keyla says, stepping naked into the sonic shower. "Feel like the suits been wearing you after awhile."
"Years ago, Georgiou and I did advanced training in these for weeks, we slept in them. Taking them off is always a gift." Michael steps out of the last of her clothes and walks into the sonic shower next to Keyla. There's no privacy here, it's a all purpose barracks, and the crew's up in control so it's just them but she still halts for awhile.
"Bet your wife isn't a prude like you."
"No," Michael says, laughing into the warmth of the shower. "Oh no, yesterday she waited naked for me to come back to our room."
"Naked?"
"There was a blanket."
"Blanket didn't stay on very long, did it?"
"No, it did not." Michael shakes her braids under the sonic cleanser, watching the dirt and sweet swirl away. "It was fun."
"Good." The way Keyla grins at her makes Michael's face sting, but this is all right. This is good.
"Jealous?"
"My empty quarters and I are just fine, thanks."
"I've heard they're not that empty."
Keyla looks away, staring down at her feet as she puts her socks back on. "Mine are so empty."
Michael pauses, beaming. "Oh, Joann's are better?"
"Better view. Starboard gets the good nebulas."
"And her bed?"
"Warmer, somehow." Keyla pulls on her uniform jacket, leaving it unzipped. She lets her hair fall onto her shoulders and waits for Michael to finish getting dressed.
"So you're saying your room could be free, because I need to make more space for visiting dignitaries." It's a joke, really, Keyla can keep her own quarters as long as she wants, butKeyla's smile warms and she glances down just like Laira does.
"You know, next time that comes up, let me know."
Touching her shoulder, Michael lingers for a moment, then pulls her in, hugging her tight. "I'm so happy for you."
Keyla hugs her back, sighing in, holding her tight. "You should be, the nebulas on the port side are just lackluster and you don't want me to have to live with that."
After cheerful, delicious dinner with the Tellarite freighter crew, Michael returns to her guest quarters. It's small, utilitarian, but the sleeping alcove is carved wood, and it smells warm, homey. A little like the forests around Sarek's home. Checking the time, she taps her badge to interface with the ship's comms. It's late, but Laira never goes to sleep as early as she should, and a Tellarite freighter's on the same time as the Tellarite capital.
The gruff voice of the freighter computer announces they have made a connection with Discovery, and Zora replaces them.
"Captain Burnham, it is pleasant to hear your voice."
"It is nice to speak to you too, Zora. Is the president still awake?"
"President Rillak is not taking messages at this time."
Michael pauses, smiling at the single porthole in bulkhead. "What about my wife?"
"Movement in your quarters suggest she is still awake. Would you like me to raise her on comms?"
"Yes please."
"Captain, I must inform you that the vessel you are on does not have holographic capabilities and the connection will be audio only."
"That's fine Zora, I'll have to imagine what she looks like.
"I believe that will not be difficult for you."
"Thanks."
The channel goes quiet while Zora speaks to Laira, getting her permission to make the connection, and a moment later the kind of silence changes.
That's their quarters.
"Can't sleep?" Laira's voice is soft, gentle. There's none of her presidential tone, so she's long done for the day.
"I wanted to hear your voice." Michael leans back on the bulkhead, moving the heavy pillow so it's comfortable behind her neck.
"Ah," Laira pauses and Michael can see that sleep smile of hers. "I miss you too."
"Got used to having you in bed."
"Stealing your heat."
"Yeah, yeah that's a thing. I'll barely need a blanket here."
Laira hums in disagreement. "It's a Tellarite ship, you'll need two, even without me." She pauses, and silence carries them. There's an edge in her voice, a roughness. She hasn't been crying, Michael knows how that changes her voice, this is something else.
"Tellar Prime a little cold for you?"
"It's freezing, and wet, and—" Laira sighs. Fabric rustles. She'll have a blanket, even two without Michael there to keep her warm.
"Can't wear a field jacket to meetings?"
"I wish I could. Zora and I put more insulation into one of my suits." I'm fine dear.
"She's helpful."
"She is."
"You know, Keyla told me the stellar phenomena are better on the starboard side. Is that true, in your experience?"
"You mean in my years of ancient freighters with tiny portholes like the one you're looking out of now?"
"Yeah, tell me about that."
Laira sighs again, maybe she stretches. The bed wouldn't make that sound so now Michael wonders. Is she on the sofa? No, that's not right either.
"The first ship I ever flew was Cardassian, all angles and sharp corners. It was like trying to fly a rastipod through space, but she always brought me home."
"Never got caught up on a tetragonal spire asteroid belt?"
"With that ship?" Laira chuckles a little, then coughs, There's a pause while she reaches for her water. Maybe she has tea.
That's it. Her throat's raw. Not the sneezing Michael worried about. She threw up. She'd had weeks of relative calm. The nausea might have even been over with, but it seems like it's not.
"That ship could have plowed through a lattice of duranium."
"Good to be a rastipod."
"If you want to fly in a straight line for light-years, yes."
Michael glances down at her own tea. "I have some Tellar Gryzhu bark tea, which is a strange blue color but really good. Like cinnamon."
"Are you going to guess what I have?"
"This time of night?" Michael plays along. If she was really fine, it would be deka tea, because she loves the bite. If she's been throwing up again, it'll be something else. "Deka tea."
Laira makes that half-accusatory little sound that goes with that look. "You know it's Phyrellean ginger, why don't you just say it?"
"Maybe I want you to tell me."
"I was tired, I skipped dinner. Then Tilly and Joann had me eat with them, and I almost finished before I threw up."
"All over the mess hall?"
"Corridor, actually." Laira sighs, exhausted when she's not trying to hide it. "I thought I was done."
Michael holds her knee, wishing she could touch Laira over subspace. "I'm sorry."
"It's because you're gone."
"It must be."
"The hitchhiker misses you enough to mess everything up."
"Protest hormones?"
Laira's little chuckle carries like she's in the room with her. "I'm certainly protesting."
"I'll be back tomorrow. Discovery's going to pick us up on your way to Rigel V."
"I suppose I'll make do until then, somehow."
"I love you, get some sleep."
"Yes, ma'am." Laira's tone softens. "I love you too."
"Would you like to hear about how Keyla and I valiant untangled the solar sails or how Keyla told me she's moved into Joann's quarters."
That makes Laira perk up. "Really?"
"Oh, yes, solar sails are so delicate."
"No, no, Keyla and Joann, please."
"I knew you'd like the gossip."
Laira sips her tea again, but she sounds better. "Joann is so kind, and Keyla understands all my spacer jokes, tell me, please."
"Joann's quarters are so much less messy and have a better view because—"
"Starboard, yes, go on."
Michael tells her about Keyla and Joann, and how they moved in so quietly after such a long time. Then she fills in the gaps of their history, how Keyla and Michael became friends way back on Shenzhou, and how Michael and Joann connected years later.
They brush their teeth together, across light years, Michael reminding her to stay awake long enough to get to bed.
Eventually, Zora's voice replaces Laira's. "She's asleep, captain."
"Thank you, Zora."
"Sleep well, Captain Burnham, we will look forward to your return."
"You're in capable hands with Owosekun."
"Yes, we are."
The channel closes, and Michael shifts the blankets and pillows around until she's comfortable. Tellarite beds are almost like nests, and it's one of the more cozy bunks she's ever slept in. Would be better if Laira was here, but she's taken care of. She's all right, even if she's not. She's surrounded by people who love her, and that's the most Michael can ask for when she can't be there herself.