Chapter Text
Michael
"The holo will let you move around the ship, manipulate objects, hold things. You can't eat or drink, so you'll need to return here to take care of yourself." Hugh holds up the holographic projector. "It's not foolproof, so Owosekun will need to stay in command, but this should keep you from crawling up the walls in here."
It's a small comfort that she doesn't have to be mentally trapped in this tiny room, but it's small. Touching Laira won't feel the same, and she's not the captain right now, but small victories are victories.
"I'd take care of anything your body needs physically before you start wandering."
"And plan for bathroom breaks?" Michael teases him.
Hugh's shrug is obvious, even through his isolation suit "I would."
"Got it."
"I'm not currently detecting any of the scosian virus in your cells, but it's notoriously difficult to isolate, especially in small quantities." He lowers the tricorder. "Considering how dangerous it is."
Hugh doesn't remind her that this virus could devastate the ship, that it's unpredictable, and far more dangerous to Laira and the hitchhiker than anyone else. Most of the time with the resources of a starship or a starbase, it's curable, but there are some cases that just don't follow the rules. Like Laira's mother. She should have lived, but didn't.
"I appreciate your caution."
"Good, because I will sedate you if you don't." Hugh pats her shoulder. "Should just be a couple days."
Repeating it seems like bad luck, so she nods. "Thanks."
When Hugh leaves her alone, Michael eats rations and downs them with water, then uses the toilet without trying to dwell too much on how the quarantine cells in the back of sickbay resemble the cells in the brig on Shenzhou, lifetimes ago. Her life spiraled straight into hell after that cell. This time has to go better, doesn't it? There's not much chance of worse - and no - she's not thinking that. That's not. Everything will be fine. She and Keyla are in quarantine, neither of them is even sick.
Slipping the holo transmitter on, Michael shuts her eyes, and her physical body fades away. The holo makes another self, one that she projects into her quarters, and finally there's Laira, in the middle of a security council meeting.
The table from the conference room at HQ replaces Michael's table, and around it sit the Vice President, Dr. Kovich, Admiral Vance, the head of STarfleet medical and several council members. Laira sits with her back to Michael, listening as Kovich explains the danger of scosian fever reaching the systems around Andoria.
"Public health is difficult to maintain when a government collapses. The Emerland Chain was a cruel regime, but conditions on Andoria were relatively stable. While a government reforms, and there's a struggle for necessary supplies, it'll be messy. We're lucky we caught it now. The exposure of Discovery's two officers on the grain depot highlights how dangerous this could be. Grain depots and supply stations surround Andoria, and if there's not enough food on the planet, they'll be targets."
Jen leans forward, her hands on the table. "We can increase patrols around Andorian space, however, treating Andorians like the enemy will end diplomatic talks, stall their return to the Federation for years, even decades."
Blinking twice, Gozre looks at Laira only briefly, then to Kovich. Michael's chest is warm for a moment, her real one, not the holographic. She doesn't have any real reason to dislike Council member Gozre, and yet—
Michael doesn't linger on that feeling; she'll have to deal with it later. Sheedoesn't even listen to whatever he says, because Laira is using a filter on her holo. That blue suit doesn't fit over her breasts at all right now, and in the holo Laira's suit is closed perfectly, and she less pale. It's fairly easy to tweak a holographic comm channel, especially with Tilly and Joann and Zora, and Adira would help if Laira asked them.
Is she just hiding the baby? Something else? Too tired to put her hair up?
Michael waits, watching until Laira notices her and smiles, really smiles, smiles far too brightly for a meeting about piracy and diseases. Laira pulls it in, drags herself back, but the moment's like a stellar alignment. Michael's missed her palpably and they're so close.
And not, because Michael can touch her, but she won't feel it. It would be real until this horrendous quarantine period is over and they're together.
When it's safe.
The meetings ends, and almost everyone else ends their connection. Jen glances at the corner Michael's standing in and smirks, but disappears without comment.
Kovich doesn't look, just brushes lint from his suit before he vanishes. "I'm glad you're all right, Captain Burnham."
Laira in her suit beams at Michael, glowing with happiness, and her holophic filter flicks off as well. The smile's the same, but her Laira's hair is down, she's sitting on the sofa in pajamas, and there's no makeup above her eyes. She can be so pale without any of the sparkles she puts on her eyelids, without lipstick, and Hugh said her nausea was back. Green isn't quite the right color, but cheating the holo makes sense.
"I don't know if it's better or worse that you're only a few meters away, but we still have to do this."
"Better," Michael says, crossing the floor and throwing herself into her arms. It's not quite right, hugging her tight. Michael's sense of smell is off and Laira doesn't feel quite like Laira, but it's so close.
Laira exhales quickly enough that she shivers, and leans in, breathing in what she can of this verson of Michael. "It is."
Touching her face, Michael traces her chin with her fingers and sighs. Kissing her like this ill be miserable and hollow. "And worse."
"I'm so happy you're back."
"I'm fine," Michael promises her before Laira can even start worrying out loud. "Keyla and I are both fine. Really fine not you fine."
Chuckling, Laira cups her face, studying the holo. "You look like you."
"It's weird though."
"A little." Laira pulls her in, hugging her again. "It's so close."
Toying with Laira's hair, Michael touches her belly.
Laira smirks down at her hand. "Hugh says in a week or two, you should be able to feel where she is. Not her yet, but..."
"Where she is is something." Running her fingers back and forth, Michael tries to imagine feeling their hitchhiker move. "Feeling her still seems unrealistic."
"And you'd be feeling her on the outside."
"I would, yes, I would." Michael laughs, rests her forehead against Laira's and sighs. "So, are you holding the galaxy together?"
"Andoria won't let us help."
"Needing help and being able to accept it are often far apart."
Laira's cool fingers run across her cheek, then hold her face. "So wise."
"Oh, I've been there."
That little nervous laugh is softer, at least, even partially amused. "I'm glad you're here." Laira sits up, kissing her on the forehead. It doesn't have the same warmth, but Michael's chest aches. Laira could walk right through her, she's not really here. This is all a trick, but it's so much closer than being on the station that it tingles, painfully so.
"I'm glad you're here."
"Sort of."
Laira plays with her hair in front of the replicator, shaking her head. "Talking to you was the highlight of my day." She orders something Bajoran Michael hasn't tried yet, and it's covered in sauce that's probably hot. "This is almost like eating together."
"Isn't that going to be worse if you-"
"I'm not going to."
"When did you become an optimist?"
"Must be this damn ship." Laira sits down and takes a bite, rolling her eyes as she chews. "Optimism in every deck plate."
Watching her eat is almost as good as eating with her, and though Michael can't help feeling like a ghost in her own home, this almost has touching, and Laira is as real as she can safely get her. This is all right. Strange, because Michael has to duck out of the holo to pee, and drink some water, and when she's back Laira's yawning her way through cleaning her teeth. Which is right, this is where she needs to be, but she can only sit on the bed in a recreation of her pajamas. She'll clean her teeth after Laira's gone to sleep.
"I added Bajor to your holo," Laira says over her shoulder, shaking out her hair. "The path up to Resuna Idum, and the village I grew up in."
Chuckling, Michael lies back on the bed. "Zora, show us Laira's village."
"You don't need to—"
The holo sweeps their quarters away and replaces them with walls and a roof, warm brown, some kind of mudbrick, perhaps. Insects hum and drone, and the bird calls are brief and sleepy. Zora's matched night for night, and the wind smells of drying hay and tilled soil. The bedroom's smaller, cozier, and the stars outside the ship are behind a wall. Softer stars twinkle through the memory of a atmosphere.
"I was safe here," Laira says, reaching for a blanket. "Less than I thought at the time, but coming back here always makes my thoughts slow."
"I thought I was the one who thought too loud?"
Laira chuckles, pulling the blanket up over her legs. "My thoughts run too quickly, not too loud."She pats her feet and sighs, curling up on bed. "You'll disappear when you fall asleep, won't you?"
"If I'm unconscious it'll turn off."
Patting the bed beside her, Laira yawns into her hand. "But I'll fall asleep first."
"Undoubtedly."
"Hey."
"Sorry."
Michael curls up beside her, one arm over Laira's stomach. It's right but not and familiar but not, and she can't help feeling the bed in her quarantine room, not the bed in their quarters. It's still something. "You're cute sleepy."
"Good, because that's all you've been getting."
"You all together and presidential is extraordinary. You half asleep muttering things that aren't words in any language is something I'm very fond of." Michael nuzzles the back of her neck. "I love you."
Laira's long fingers wrap around hers, squeezing once. "Have I told you that I love how incredibly fucking romantic you are?"
"Might have come up."
"Oh dear, I'm too transparent."
"Utterly."
Michael would have believed Laira is asleep, and her own grip on the holo's starting to falter, but Laira whispers into the emptiness.
"I need you to be all right."
"I will be."
Laira's little hum could be optimistic, but Michael knows better.
She lives the next few days as a ghost. Her body hidden from everyone she could possibly endanger behind quarantine fields and sterilized air. Scosian fever is viciously contagious: a prion disease that replicates so slowly at first that it's almost undetectable without a full molecular scan before it establishes itself in the hypothalamus. Even with that - Hugh and Dr. Pollard worry that it hides in misfolded proteins, or reassembles itself into a virus. Parts of it make no biological sense, even to the magics of 31st century medical technology.
"The temporal wars left a mess," is Dr. Kovich's best explanation. "Seed a virus into the population of your enemy millions of years before you even encounter them, and they'll be dead before you can fight each other. We tried to clean up the timelines, but that was the work of lifetimes that we didn't have"
Scosian burns through Andorians, Orions, humans, and Bajorans with equal fervor. Cardassians are less at risk, perhaps Vulcans and Romulans might be safe - proteins in their blood are different enough. Someone, somewhere in time, made this to kill and it can, but time has softened it. They can support the immune system, keep fevers low, prevent dehydration and encephalitis. With a starship or starbase, death is rare but they're still limited. Saru and the Armstrong have already started jumping back and forth to take patients and potential patients to Cardassia and Ni'Var for treatment.
The new spore drive makes that possible, and construction and modifications are continuing on Federations ships, but their ships are so few, even now.
Two more days and Michael and Keyla will be outside the longest incubation period ever recorded for Scosian fever. Her molecular sequence can be compared with her first one from days ago, and Hugh's confident letting Michael and Keyla rejoin the ship would be safe. There will be no unchecked virus replicating within them, just...safe.
Eight days is a long time for refugees and raiders spreading out from Andoria.
Michael eats lunch with Keyla, and it's almost normal, except for the transparent wall between them.
"I don't know how you're doing this," Keyla says over her soup. "You're not going insane."
"I am, I just hide it better."
"You're hiding it too well."
Michael chuckles, and sighs, grabbing her napkin. "It's hideous, isn't it? We're here but wer're not, we can touch them and we can't—"
"And they'ree both working too hard."
"Joann's more sensible."
"Joann is sensibility poured into a person," Keyla agrees, tearing at her bread. "She's working too hard."
"The chair does that to you."
"So does the entire Federation."
Michael toys with her salad. It should be good, she's lived on rations for the last few days, eating as quickly as possible so she can get back to pretending through a holo that she can leave this room. This is real food, with texture and more flavor and good company but—
"The Qowot Milat are coming to help monitor the borders of Andorian space."
"All of them?" Keyla raises her eyebrow. "I wasn't aware Andoria had become a lost cause."
"Makes it sound worse, doesn't it?" Michael tries to take another bite, and stops. She's not hungry. "The Federation isn't officially welcome on Andoria. Laira thinks it might be about trying to keep the galaxy from becoming a lost cause."
"It got that bad?"
"It could." Maybe that's why she's not hungry. "It gets to her."
"Of course it does. You said her mother died of it." Keyla rubs her neck, then picks up her water. "That's a lot."
"Her village died." Michael pushes her plate forward. "I don't know how much of it she remembers, losing her mother would have made everyone else fade into the background. Bajor sent Hugh the records from the last scosian outbreak, and they didn't have resources: unreliable replicators, no starships, and they lost thousands of people."
"Reminds you of another tragedy?"
"Docturi Alpha? My father and the whole nolony? Yeah, it does, except that was intentional. Section 31 and the Klingons, all these moving parts I didn't understand. A virus doesn't have a mission."
"We'll stop it."
Michael nods, and sighs. "I'll feel better about stopping it out there."
"Yeah, who wouldn't?" Keyla laughs, rubs her neck one more time and gets up to put her plates into the replicator. "Joann's been a great captain."
"She has."
"I know she would be."
Chuckling, Michael beams at her. "And only you."
"I know her best." Keyla stretches and sits down on her bed. "Thanks for the company."
"I'm sorry you're stuck here, but I'm not."
"I get it." Keyla smirks up at the ceiling. "I make most places better. It's a gift."
When she's back in the holo, Michael has to wander the ship for once to find Laira. She's not in her office (formerly one of the starboard science labs). She's not in the briefing room or the ready room with Joann. Michael should be able to find her wife without trying. She knows her schedule - but Laira's off schedule - and finally she has to ask Zora to tell her.
"President Rillak is in cargo bay two."
Michael can transfer herself there, and perhaps it's her own fault for worrying about Laira first, before speaking to Joann about the ship's log. She's not the captain today, Joann can handle it, it's just—
Laira slips into Cardassian when she's angry. The translators catch it, there's not even a delay, but her tone grows clipped and flat. Michael didn't even realize it until a few weeks ago. Bajoran is for the soft moments, curled in bed together. Federation Standard, which resembles the English Michael knew, is every day. What she speaks in meetings, but when she's mad, it's always Cardassian.
Michael doubts the Qowot Milat sister Laira's arguing with caught the nuance, but Michael hasn't heard her so angry since Book and Tarka disappeared in Book's ship.
Zora transferred her in behind the sister, out of Laira's eyeline, because they're over to side, beside a Ni'Var shuttle.
"Being a parent is not a convenient burden you can set down at will."
"And what do you know of it?" The sister asks - Gabrielle, this is her mother - because Michael would know her voice anywhere.
Laira is silent, still, and it's the kind of stillness from her that comes from fury.
"You think you hold the Federation in your hands, and you might. You put the weight of billions on your shoulders, but it's just one moment. You haven't seen what will happen if you fail." Gabrielle takes a breath, squaring her shoulders. "You mean well, and Michael loves you. She does that, better than anyone I've known. That comes from her father."
"Of course." Laira wraps her hands together, fingers over fingers. It's her secret to tell, but now is not the time. "At least you appreciate that about her."
"I hope you do."
"I do."
"Then we'll get along great."
Laira turns her head, glancing past Gabrielle, and she finds Michael. The smile happens in a moment, bright and sad all at once. "Michael."
"You didn't tell me you were coming."
"We did not know," that voice is familiar, but it takes a moment for Michael to find the speaker. Someone else is here. J'Vini, standing beside her mother. She was so focused, Michael didn't notice her. "This deployment of Qowot Milat is most extensive in recent history."
Including pulling J'Vini from rehabilitation.
"Ni'Var sent the Qowot Milat to help quarantine Andorian space. Romulans are less likely to suffer from Scosian fever." Laira's explanation is soft, her words no longer Cardassian. "It is still a dangerous mission, and trying to quarantine Andorian space is extremely difficult."
"Which is why we're here." Gabrielle smiles, turning to look at Michael. "You don't look bad for a holo."
"Thanks." Michael folds her hands behind her back. "Dr. Culber says I can leave quarantine in a few more hours."
"Not that you're counting down the minutes," Gabrielle says, her smile growing a little. "I'm glad you've gotten more patient."
Since she was a child, yes, of course she has, but that's not important. "You could have mentioned you were coming."
"We could have." J'Vini looks at Gabrielle and there's something there, Laira senses it too, but there's no time for a more serious conversation. "I know it is more traditional to meet over food after a life event such as a wedding, on Ni'Var, we would have had several days of feasting to celebrate."
"Even the Qowot Milat?" Laira tilts her head, and her eyes sparkle. "That would have been nice."
"We're nuns, not the Borg," J'Vini replies with a smile. "Congratulations to you both."
Gabrielle meets Michael's eyes, and regret - longing - something makes her blink. "We don't have time to do this the right way, we're being deployed, you can't eat, but we'll be back."
J'Vini takes her hand, announcing something with the joining of their fingers. Perhaps there's several conversations they need to have. "We would like to have dinner with you both, when we have time to do so."
Laira's fingers touch Michael's arm, calming her. "We'd like that." Diplomatic as always.
There's always so much more to say then there is time. Gabrielle's always going somewhere, doing something, finishing one last part of her project before dinner - many other things in her life come before Micahel - and she knows this. She's faced this, and yet, she didn't write, didn't even say they'd left P'Jahr, or hey thanks for saving Ni'Var and negotiating with the Ten-C. No wonder Laira's speaking Cardassian.
Gabrielle and J'Vini beam into the shuttle and Laira sighs, one hand on her hip.
"I didn't tell her."
"You could have."
"I know." Laira shakes her head, then reaches for Michael again. "How many hours?"
"Five hours, about twenty minutes."
"Oh that's nothing."
"Right?" Michael puts her hand over Liar's on her hip, then pulls her a little closer. "You're very attractive angry."
The shuttle powers up and leaves the shuttle bay, leaving them alone with the stars.
Chuckling, Laira rests her forehead on Michael's. "She's your mother."
"It's complicated."
"It shouldn't be."
"Funny how the universe just doesn't—"
Sighing again, Laira laughs that sad little laugh and nods. "I'll be asleep in five hours."
"I'll wake you up."
"Oh you will?"
"Yeah." Michael touches her chin, losing herself in her eyes. "I've missed you."
Laira kisses her forehead, then releases her, pacing while she puts her thoughts in order. "Ni'Var offered the Qowot Milat, and we couldn't turn them down."
"It's all right."
"I thought we'd get a few shuttles, but they sent nearly everyone."
"J'Vini and my mother left P'Jahr."
"I didn't know."
Michael nods. "That's how she is." There's nothing she can say, and this will take awhile.
"I have the Federation Council in a few minutes."
Touching Laira's cheek, Michael nods. "Of course."
"Dinner with them will be nice, I think."
"We can have dinner with your family too, on Earth, when you talk to them."
Laira raises her eye ridges. "Oh, we're talking about that now?"
"You wanted to talk about family."
"I wanted to talk about your mother and her—"
"Very good friend?" Michael finishes. Romulan step-mother was not what she imagined, and J'Vini is extreme, at times, but there's a logic to how the Qowot Milat live. What choices they make. She can make this work.
Everything seems possible in five hours when she gets to be herself again and get out of quarantine. The holo is useful, but it's empty. It's a chance to be a ghost in her own life. Michael checks in with Joann and all the other departments, taking her time, five hours is plenty of time.
Too much time.
Yet time passes, as everything does. She's eaten and showered, dressed in her uniform - finally - when Hugh and Dr. Pollard come down to do the final sweep for prions, viruses and misfolded proteins.
"From what I've gathered from the research, the Scosian prions affect the proteins in the hypothalamus, interfering with pyrogens, which is why the fever is so intense after infection. Sequencing them in a way we can easily screen for is proving difficult."
Pollard nods, running a final scan on Keyla while she sleeps. "WE can easily weed out viruses with the biofilters, prions we can detect most of the time, but these break down, we've found unwelcome lipopolysaccharides in the blood of infected Andorians, and in old Bajoran blood samples from the last outbreak on Bajor. They're so small compared to a virus, and so common that it's difficult to find the right one."
Hugh's tricorder beeps approvingly. "There are no signs of any scosian fever components in your blood, brain or nervous system. You're officially released from quarantine, Captain."
Michael steps out, beaming at them both. "Thank you."
In her cell, Keyla's fast asleep beneath her blankets. Which is strange, Joann will be waiting for her. She has her quarters—
Pollard's tricorder makes a shrill alarm, not a beep, and Keyla doesn't move.
Keyla doesn't turn over as they try to get her attention.
"Her body temperature is elevated by two degrees."
"Detmer?"
"Keyla?"
"Her pyrogens are elevated-"
"Heart rate is also too fast for her to be asleep-"
Hugh and Pollard talk over each other, running sequence after sequence and Michel has to leave them to go to the bridge.
Joann's on the bridge. Michael has to tell her that she's out, and Keyla isn't. Her captain's uniform has that familiar heaviness again. Shoulders back, head up. Look after the crew.
"We're transferring Keyla to the Starfleet Medical, I'm so sorry."
Joann nods, her shoulders steady even though her eyes soft with worry. "She'll be all right."
"HQ is sending us the three decks of Starfleet Medical to be used for a field hospital. The Armstrong and Discovery can jump with them, set up a base of operations at one of the grain depots near CJ-884. She'll be all right."
"I know."
But she can't. There's no way to know Keyla will be fine. She'll have the best care, she's tough, Starfleet Medical is always discovering new ways to help people.
But this is nasty.
And this is Keyla.
Michael hugs her, holds her tight and hopes, because that's all they have.
It's much later than Michael intended when she finally returns to their quarters. Laira's been asleep for hours, curled into blankets in the holo of her village. It's safe there - here - comforting in a way Michael would be if she was here. Michael finishes approving messages, and the last one is from Jen, who is pleased she's out of quarantine, and worried about Laira if she's hiding behind a holo.
Michael shakes her head and sends back a note that Laira feels like hell sometimes, but she's fine. Jen can somehow tell when she's lying in a note.
Cleaning her teeth, she fusses with the things Laira's left out in the bathroom. They're only a little out of place - Laira's had the whole place to herself for more than two weeks - and it's better with everything back in their places.
Michael strips off her uniform and leaves it on the chair by the bed. Her pajamas are there, but Laira's so warm lately, so she crawls in next to her in just her tank top and underwear. Michael nuzzles the back of her neck, then wraps her arms around her.
Startling a little, Laira moans, then starts to smile. "Hi."
"Sorry."
"Sorry?" Laira wraps her arms around Michael and holds them tight to her chest. "Like I can sleep without you."
"You seemed to be asleep."
Laira yawns into the pillow. "It doesn't count without you."
"Fair."
Crisis is simmering around them, Keyla's in danger, Michael has to support Joann and look after the ship and protect Starfleet Medical while they treat the infected, but she has Laira. She has the sounds of lazy insects in the night on Bajor and the smell of unfamiliar trees. Start here, start small, then save the galaxy.
"-love you," Laira yawns again, guiding Michael's hands down towards their hitchhiker.
"I love you too." Both of you.
Laira should be asleep, her breath has slowed, but she sighs again. "I forgot how good you feel."
"I'm pretty incredible."
"You are." Laira kisses her hand and her lips are exquisite, warm and soft.