Chapter Text
Hugh tilts his head towards the back corner of engineering, and Michael smiles, making sure Laira sees it. They're all right. Change can be painful, so is growing a new life, and they rushed so quickly into this, of course it's hard. They're having a rough patch but their relationships is newer than the baby, so it's logical to struggle. They'll be fine.
Michael wasn't listening. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered if she was, because hearing, taking it in, agreeing with another point of view is all so complicated.
"She's been working too hard."
Studying his face, Michael tries to guess where they're going to start. "Laira said she was, we talked about it. Additional security meetings. She keeps falling asleep."
"Her hormones spiral, build on each other. It's a lot like this storm, really. Too much stress means too much cortisol, too much ghoyoc hormone and she starts running a fever, too much estrogen and her nausea's back."
Hands on her hips, Michael looks down at her boots. "I haven't seen it this bad in weeks."
"It hasn't been this bad. We talked, Laira and I talk every day, and she's had a few rough days leading to tonight, but waking up in the middle of the night for a crisis made all of our stress levels rise. You and I aren't trying to precariously balance being pregnant with the second most stressful job in the galazy."
"The first being?"
"Starfleet captain of Discovery, of course."
"I deserved that."
"You did." Hugh pulls up a holographic display from his tricorder. "These readings are from before you were shot, this is after, and this is the spiral into where we are now."
"She said she was tired. Laira gets feverish when she's tired but—"
"It happens so often you don't really worry about it?"
"She doesn't want me to." It's not the right answer. It's not even a good one, but it's what they do.
"Always do whatever she wants?"
"Try to." Michael takes a breath, centers herself. "I let her tell me she's all right."
Hugh gives her a moment to think about what that really means. "How's that going?"
"Not well."
"Your well-being has a direct connection to hers, and I know you like to tell yourself that the best thing you can do is keep sacrificing yourself for us, but, that's not what I see here." He gestures at the curves on the graph. "This is when she's home, with you."
"I didn't know you were tracking her that closely."
Hugh gives her an gentle look. "That's our baby."
Chuckling wearily, she chews on her lip, fidgeting with her hands. "Right."
"A hybrid pregnancy can be tenuous. Different genetics between parent and child, it's complicated."
"It's a delicate balance." She's heard this, said it. Nothing's going to be stable until the Hitchhiker arrives.
Hugh's smile warms her chest. "In all the important indicators, they're both very healthy. I would like to be able to do more for the uncomfortable parts, but usually they're manageable. Lairaa's doing a wonderful thing, with more patience than most people would have." Hugh touches her shoulder. "We can make it easier for her."
"You mean, I can."
Hugh's gaze moves to Paul in the little group around Laira. They're taking something out of storage, emergency blankets, cushions. They're going to be here awhile, might as well be comfortable. "I left Paul alone," he says. "Didn't mean too, and I got to come back. He still went through hell. I wouldn't want anyone to go through that."
Michael touches his arm. "We've already made it through."
"And we will, until we don't, maybe that never happens. Maybe that happens tomorrow."
"It won't."
Hugh shrugs. "It's a numbers game, isn't it? Risk ourselves enough times and the probability goes up."
"It's not just math. That discounts our skills. We've been through a lot together."
"Maybe enough to take a break." Hugh doesn't take out the tricorder. Doesn't need to. "You nearly died a few weeks ago. We've been outside the galaxy, dodged a plague. The universe finds ways to keep upping the stakes and we've won. Hopefully that streak keeps going because I'd love to see your grandchildren some day."
Michel can't even picture the Hitchhiker's little face, let alone her children and everything that comes next. "Reno's probably seen them."
"That's one possible timeline, not a sure thing." Hugh's smile grows slowly, then lights his eyes again. "I'd like to see it. Catch a few more babies, watch you be the incredible mother I know you'll be."
"And you will." They'll be fine. They've made it through everything. Michael doesn't know where this doubt comes from.
He nods, then touches her shoulders, wrapping his arm around her. "I don't think you realize how much we love you, all of us, especially your wife." He leans in to whisper. "And she feels like shit right now, so as your doctor, the kindest thing you could do - for all of us -would be let things be boring for a few more months."
"We haven't had much boring."
"We could try it, just for the novelty."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Adrenaline makes everyone hungry. It doesn't matter that it's creeping up on oh-three hundred, or that the storm outside whispers against the hull like sand. She hasn't been in a sandstorm since she walked across the desert with Philippa, lifetimes ago. They could have been stuck there together, and must have been, in one of the branching timelines.
There must be one where Philippa's here, either of them, both— Michael takes some of the nuts Paul offers her and listens while Reno explains how they turned a large stack of rations into a picnic. The stack of crackers in front of Laira is more than she could eat in a day, and Tilly's organizing them. Laira's head rests on her shoulder, and Keyla's on her other side. Michael smiles, trying to decide how that seating configuration came to be.
Her crew can have a very detailed discussion about absolutely anything, Michael realizes as they continue discussing the crackers in the ration packs.
"One of the Bajoran ration packs has good crackers."
"If you can find Earth- they should have crackers."
"I thought everyone had invented a cracker at some point."
"Vulcan food is about as tasteless as the wrapper it comes in." Veddra drops two packs of emeregency rations onto the pile, eating the pickles out of one of the Cardassian ones in front of her.
Reno lifts her hand, stopping Laira's protest as soon as she opens her mouth. "We all have to eat."
Laira's very tired smile is gorgeous. "You don't have to open all of them."
"It's a picnic." Tilly sits down beside Laira, easing in close. "You like picnics."
Laira squeezes Michael's hand when Michael starts to stand. She needs to talk to Hugh, and Laira's all right. the crew has her. She's safe with them. "We seem to keep having them."
"Because food is better shared."
Paul opens one of the packs and takes out the cheese before passing the crackers to Tilly. "I used to eat as quickly as possible to get back to my work, and I would have eaten at my desk, but it would have gotten spores in my food, so—"
"Those aren't the pizza mushrooms," Reno says. "Oh, here, try these." She passes over another set of crackers, and the pile in front of Laira keeps growing. Then Reno breaks up a chocolate bar and passes pieces around. "Keyla's the warmest."
"How did you decide that?"
Joann shrugs. "She is."
"Keeping Mrs. Burnham warm might help convince her Cardassian side that she doesn't need to turn up the heat for the baby."
"Crude, but accurate."
Michael reaches for her, and Laira's fingers are less damp. Still too warm, but sweating less might mean she's less nauseated. Maybe that's too hopeful. "Thanks, everyone."
"Reno got to eat all the olives from about eight packs of rations, this probably counts as the best date we've had."
"Oh it does, culinarily. This is excellent. Rations have greatly improved in this century."
"Starfleet has the good ones," Laira says, looking at Veddra for confirmation.
"Oh the Ni'Var fleet's are terrible. Too much Vulcan influence, everything that's supposed to have a flavor tastes like a mufelk root."
"I hate mufelk root."
"Everyone with taste does."
Michael's crew glances between each other.
"I didn't think it was that bad," Joann says. Michael can't remember trying it, so it must be Romulan in origin.
"Because you haven't had vinareen."
Reno leans back, eating almonds. "That is apparently the most delicious thing to exist, but we haven't been to Ni'Var since we started dating, and the replicator won't do it justice, so…"
They make it seem so easy to tell stories about how they dated. Joann and Keyla have one about eating Betazoid street food together, when Keyla was safe from scosian fever. Paul and Hugh have years of dinners and breakfasts that they've shared, and the story Hugh choses is how many times their attempt at getting dinner went wrong before the opera Paul didn't want to see.
"It's only the most romantic Kasselian opera of all time."
"Which means it's a great tragedy, all of them are tragedies." Paul mock glares at Hugh, and Hugh meets his gaze with affection.
"Watching a tragedy reminds you to treasure what you have."
"And I have the best."
"Damn right you do."
All of their eyes are on them when they kiss, gentle and calm. That's where Michael and Laira have to reach, happily teasing each other as they recount how strange the beginning of their relationship was. Laira sneezing in the shuttle is funny, so are the strange little moments where they started, learning to trust each other as lovers, as partners, eventually parents.
They'll get there.
Laira winces a little, sleepily rubbing a spot on her belly while Veddra tells a story about Reno on Earth and the dive bar Reno insisted they absolutely had to go to.
"Just for the potatoes."
"French fries are divine."
Everyone has an opinion about potatoes, fried, deep fried or otherwise. Michael lets the conversation wash around her, focusing on the little ways Laira bites her lip that have no pattern. The Hitchhiker must be awake, and determined to make her presence known. Hopefully it's comforting, if strange. She's been getting stronger. Laira tried to explain it as a difference between bubbles and tapping fingers but it still seems surreal.
"Do you have a date story for us?" Tully looks at Michael, rubbing Laira's elbow. Laira's too close to asleep to tell a story, if she even has one she wants to share. Their relationship developed like they'd jumped into it from the mycelial network.
"We had to go camping, on Bajor, walking up to Resuna Idum."
"Sacred camping," Keyla adds, stealing a piece of dried fruit from the food in the center. "Fancy sacred camping."
"Fancy would have been letting us sleep in a thousand year old hotel."
Laira smiles, and her eyes are closing as her head rests on Tilly's shoulder. "Michael hated every minute of it," she says, ending in a yawn.
"Every minute, especially the birds and the trees and worrying that the tent wasn't sound proof." Michael pauses, giving Keyla time to raise her eyebrows. "The coffee was good."
Telling stories gets them through closer to ship's dawn, and their collective adrenaline's starting to fade when they're all yawning more than teasing each other. The programmable matter they have doesn't need much power to turn into sleeping mats. They'll be firm, like Vulcan meditation rooms, but it'll do. Nicer than the cargo bay they slept in once on Shenzhou.
They have to wake Laira to move her from one corner to the other, and Michael's chest aches. She's still feverish, and she has to be so much more exhausted than any of them. She could be in her own comfortable bed on HQ, not balancing with her hands Michael and Tilly's shoulders.
"Nausea's better?" Hugh asks, checking her eyes. "Fever's worse, but at least you're only lightheaded."
Laira nods, returning his smile. "You're not going to need to ask me questions anymore. You know all my answers."
"Oh no, when I learn them something changes."
Michael kneels to remove her shoes, and she turns to help with Laira's, but Laira is barefoot already.
Has been, now that Michael thinks of it.
It's the middle of the night and her pregnant wife is barefoot in engineering, waiting to see if they survive the radiation swirling around them.
She hates this. Loathes it with all of her. Laira should be safe. (The idea that Michael should have left the ship to be safe with her seems as out of place as Laira's bare feet.)
"Where are your shoes?"
Shrugging once, Laira leans against the wall, careful to mind her balance. "We talked about them."
Tilly's little smile is apologetic. "We did. It was quick."
"Someone was more worried about me throwing up on the deck."
Micahel had thought - hoped - Laira slept through the yellow alert because she was tried, and she sent Tilly because Tilly could have evacuated with her. That was logical. Tilly keeping Laira here, bringing her to engineering, making her part of their little skeleton crew: all of that is an illogical mess. Going down for Laira herself never occurred to her. Michael's place is on the bridge.
Except when it's not.
They could have jumped, found another ship, transported everyone they could. She thought of alternatives, Michael has to consider everything. She rejected them. Discovery could do this better. They developed the relay protocol for these situations. Almost everyone beamed off, even Tilly's cadets.
Not Laira. (Laira should have beamed off the ship and been safe and not here.)
Michael sits down beside them, arranging emergency blankets and watching Tilly turn programmable matter into pillows. Laira's hands are cool, but her face is too warm. She leans into Michael's hand.
"I told you I was cold."
It would be nice if cold meant cold, not that Laira's fever's back and some combination of hormones aren't balanced. What little Hugh can do in sickbay isn't even possible here. Hating that Laira's here won't help either of them, so Michael forces that down. Worrying about what can't be changed is a waste of energy.
They sit, side by side, Laira leaning back against the bulkhead behind them, eyes closed. She should be asleep. Michael touches her shoulder, then pulls her in. Laira slips into her lap, which is right. She's fallen asleep this way so many times. Michael strokes her hair, running her fingers across Laira's scalp. On the other side of the radiation shielding, particles whisper across the hull before they continue their journey across space.
"When we came here, in the wormhole, time rushed by me, and in the timesuit, everything was so close, like I could touch the centuries as they passed. Yet it was quiet; it felt like I was still as the rest of space surged around me, and then I crashed and it was a whole mess, but I heard the universe." Shutting her eyes, Michael listens to the rustling of her family getting comfortable around them: Keyla and Joann turning off emergency lights, Reno getting more blankets as Paul programs pillows to line against the wall. Something about sleeping in a group reminds her of the Shenzhou, and a few long missions where they slept on the ground together.
Her Captain Philippa would be so calm here, telling stories, teasing Michael for worrying.
Michael camped with Laira on the way to their wedding, and the storm outside is louder than the humming insects in the deep forest. Maybe Michael needs to think of this as just another journey. Walk up the mountain. Trust.
Tilly settles in beside them, drinking some water before she sets it aside. She smiles down at Laira for a moment. "Miss the part where you just had sex all the time?"
"What?"
"Yoou were like two slime devils. I thought Hugh was going to have to start giving you vitamins."
Running her fingers through Laira's hair, Michael stares upward. "Felt like command training all over again."
"Stopped when you got shot, didn't it?"
So this is where they're going. Michael stretches, nods to Tilly but slips down beside Laira, curling into her. This conversation doesn't have to continue, but it will. Tilly's looking for something.
Tilly lies on the mat behind her, getting comfortable with a little sigh. "Sex isn't just about hormones you know."
"She worked too much after I was injured, her security briefings started taking up too much time. She was too tired. It asn't like we were fighting"
"All that energy disappeared?"
"It went into meetings."
"Bet those weren't as much fun as you."
Michael's face burns, and she slows her breathing. She could just fall asleep and end this discussion, but Tilly knows that trick. She's used it too often in the past.
"You're still awake."
"I am not."
"I bet that at first you were greateful for the break from constantly having sex with your gorgeous wife, but now, it's been a few weeks and sex is just not something you're talking about."
"We're fine."
"Laira thinks she's about to lose you."
"But that's not going to happen."
"You know, if anything happened to us, she'd be alone, like, totally alone." Tilly settles in beside her, snuggled up so she only has to whisper. "Vance and everyone would try to help--"
"But they're not us."
"Especially not you."
"We're going to be fine." They're not in any real danger, they'll return.
Tilly curls a little closer. "That's the problem though, isn't it? If we're not in danger, there's no problem with Laira staying, and if we're in danger, then—"
"I'm still the captain, we're—"
"An ancient starship, kind of retired. An antique with diplomats and cadets and—"
"We were the closest."
Tilly sighs, resting her hand on Michael's shoulder. "There are seven ships with spore drives now. Close no longer matters. The Mitchell has enough power that her shields could wrap around this little station aand all the ships without even a drain."
They didn't need the Mitchell, they could handle the storm.
Yawning, Tilly mumbles a little, then repeats herself. "I know you throw yourself at every problem that needs solving in the universe, but you're going to be someone's mom. You're married, you're ours. Maybe we share the problems with the other starships, you know, spread the galaxy-saving around."
Michael lies there in the dark, listening to the whispered conversations until everyone else is asleep. She curls around Laira, resting her forehead on Laira's back. Her hand finds her belly, holding her lightly. Their Hitchhiker's down there. Swimming, sleeping- there's no way for Michael to know. Laira's mentioned her squirming, kicking out in her sleep, not enough to wake Laira, not most of the time. Though, when was it? Three days ago? The baby was active enough that Laira was awake for hours. Michael felt her come back to bed.
Tilly's right.
Are they losing the wonder of this? Buried in the day to day, surviving. Enduring. There's a person beneath her hand, getting stronger every day, getting closer to them. It doesn't feel real. That's a part of the process, starting to live with the reality of a person.
Their person.
Mkchael traces Laira's belly, finding a good spot for her hand. She's almost asleep. It's warm here between Laira and Tilly, and the rushing of the ion storm is calming. It hasn't changed, hasn't snuck up after them, they're all right. They can sleep.
Everyone around her is already asleep. She just needs to let go.
Something taps her hand. Laira must have moved. Michael takes a breath, begins her centering exercises again. The tap happens again, a nudge, closer to her palm. Laira doesn't move, her breathing is even. She's still asleep, as is Tilly.
That little motion happens again, and again, nudge followed by nudge, without a pattern or method.
Random, joyful, kicking tiny legs, flailing little arms: it must be so satisfying to have movement, to be able to start being part of the universe.
Swimming, twisting, tapping, over and over.
She can't sleep, and neither can the baby. Michael follows her with her hand, chasing that motion until finally the baby must be asleep, like everyone else. Laira has said that the baby has long periods of activity, that sometimes it feels like she'd never sleep. Michael can see her smile; that little head tilt.
Their baby's with them; moves with them.
This is her home. It's not that Michael has to bring her home, keep her safe intil they arrive, no, Discovery is home.
Michael wanted to send her away. She's not fighting to bring their baby home, or even to get back to her, she's here and they're trapped, but it's not right.
(They're all right, they're safe here).
Michael buries her face in the back of Laira's neck, snuggling in while her eyes burn.
"We should have jumped," she mutters to no one.
The lights are out, and the engineering lab is blue-white from the glow of spore canisters. The depot beneath their shields is safe, as are the ships.
They could have been safe another way. She flew their home into danger. She's been doing it all wrong. Framing this as something she needed to protect Laira and the baby from, sending her away, separating them.
Discovery was the the ship that went everywhere, did everything, the first responder.
And now they're not. They're something else, Michael has to let them be something else. Let them grow.
It's all changing around her again, but this time she's not putting out the timesuit or failing Philippa, she's raising a person.
Tap by tap.
Michael lies awake, wrapped in the breath of her family, drifting in the storm.
This is home. Hers and Laira's and the baby's. It's a nursery, and it'll be a flight school, part of the Academy; whatever it needs to be so the cadets are ready to be the next officers.
Discovery is more than their ship. She's their family. Nearly everyone who will love their daughter is here. They will guide her daughter in ways they can't even dream of yet. She'll learn compassion and laugh and tug Keyla's uniform until she gest to sit on her lap. Reno's seen her growing up here.
Discovery is their village. They'll all grow here. Michael holds on to that idea, centers it, and starts the rebuilding of her universe. She focuses on saving everyone because it's the right thing to do. For such a long time, it felt like they were the only ones who could solve the problems they came up against.
But there are more spore drives. Ships with better equipment and crews with rescue experience. Saru has his own ship and he's one of the most competent and compassionate captains she knows.
Laira told her that she risked too much on the first day they met, and Michael dug into proving her wrong, over and over, but perhaps…she's been right. Even Philippa thought she took too much on her shoulders, and Philippa was from a place where they saved no one.
Michael shuts her eyes tight again, letting her tears die in her throat. Philippa would be proud. She'd be so thrilled about the baby, and Laira, and even though she hadn't experienced romantic love the way people did in this universe, she'd understand this. Probably be right here with Tilly, telling her how to do better.
Being mom first is terrifying, but she's faced everything the universe can throw at her. She's got this. She's not doing it alone.
She has to make sure Laira doesn't need to. That their hitchhiker gets both of them for as long as she can, and that will involve sacrifices. Not the kind she keeps wanting to make, not the easy ones.
There will be distress calls they don't answer. Missions they give away to the Armstrong and the Mitchell, and the rest of Starfleet. Discovery is their home, and she has to protect it.
She can do that.
She has to teach herself how.