Chapter Text
Usually she doesn't mind an agenda with many bullet points and sub-sections. The added layer of organization makes it clearer to read through. The Andorians, however, have enough subsections in the last paragraph of their proposed realignment with the Federation that the paragraph spreads over her Holo like a generational ship. The space behind her super orbital cranial ridges aches like she's pulled too many Gs going around a binary star. When she starts wishing for her creaky, worn, old pilot's seat, she's exhausted.
There at least she could steal a little sleep between proximity alerts. Rubbing her skull would be a sign of weakness, so she can't touch her face. Slouching would be unpresidential. The Aenar delegates on her right are all far too polite to read her thoughts, but if this meeting goes on as long as the last one, Laura might project her desire for it to end strongly enough that they hear it.
So far, she's projected the right air of calm.and competence, been approachable, not too eager but not aloof. Managing all of her emotions, keeping her posture open: Laira has to control all of it, down to the way she lifts her tea. It's part of the dance - the negotiation - how you get to know each other.
Her hand misses the shift of perspective on her Holo. Small mistake. Could be clumsy. She's not presenting; only she saw it but her hand will not move where she needs it to. The graph about projected dilithium usage remains small when she needs to see the nuance they're arguing with her about.
Reaching for her water glass, Laura listens, nods politely, allows each delegate time to explain their position on the efficiency of dilithium allocation from their mining in the Verubin nebula. She asks for clarification when her hand still won't do what she wants. Her fingers aren't hers, somehow, and letting on would be chaos.
The planets hit hard by the Emerald Chain don't like the Federation meeting with Andor so quickly. Some of the previous Chain members want to go their own way, be the chain reformed. Reforged? That choice is appalling but she can't blame them for turning to what gave them security, even if she hates it. Osyraa ran an efficient organization, in some ways. She provided stability where there was none and sentient species always try so hard to fight the entropy around them.
Her fingers bend slowly as she grabs her water glass. They're numb past her knuckles and even the palm of her hand seems unable to register the coolness of the glass.
It's hardly warm or pleasant in the conference room, but she's not that cold. She can't be that cold. Her sinuses ache but it's so dry here that's to be expected, isn't it? It was bitter cold when they showed her how they're remaking art that honored the Chain into something less oppressive.
The cold always makes her vaguely unwell. Too much of her ancestors hated being cold, but she's been in this room was the last few hours, she should have warmed up.
No, no, they had lunch here, so since breakfast she's been in this room. Is that enough time? Would they have set the controls low to prove a point?
"Madam President?"
Forgive me, I can't feel my hands. Forgive me, I haven't been listening. Forgive me, your methods of negotiation are exhausting and endless and—
Shifting positions makes it easier to concentrate while the delegates across the table discuss how dilithium should be shared through the Andorian sectors. This doesn't need her, but it would be impolite to leave. Her aides know to schedule some kind of intervention with these meetings because otherwise they will drag on far too late and the Andorian day is already much longer than what she's used to on starships.
She nods along to their explanation, folding her hands in her lap so they'll warm, or at least they won't visibly shake.
Laira sees her first through the dense holographic representation of Andorian trade routes. Michael stands in the doorway, patient and professional, haloed in the golden light of Laira's holographic display.
Michael doesn't need her to keep her politician's mask. Michael—
Clearing her throat, she collects herself. "Forgive me, Captain Burnham requires my attention." Starfleet is important enough that she can bow out without offense, finally.
The delegates nod, acknowledging her with the deference her station requires because they too are treating this negotiation with the utmost care. The way they keep talking amongst themselves, antennae flitting back and forth, suggests they still have much to work out. Perhaps they don't trust that they're getting so much dilithium without having to trade for it in some fashion, maybe they don't approve of her suit, but it hardly matters. She's been pried free and they can argue for the rest of the night if they wish.
Thank the Prophets for Michael Burnham, who is an exciting enough visitor that she draws all the free eyes in the room. No one really notices that Laira's steps are halting, or that she's walking on numb feet. These boots are comfortable, and she thought they'd be warm enough but it's like the chill of the glaciers above the city has crept into her cells and taken up residence.
Michael waits in the doorway, remaining at attention until Laira's close enough to shudder at the snow in her hair. Envying Michael's warm jacket over her uniform, Laira resists the unreasonable urge to reach for her. They're not alone, they're not close like that, but Michael's hands were warm when she held them and her fingers are so cold now that they ache.
It was a short walk from her suite to the formal chambers, but that walk is through an open square and spring in the Andorian historical capital city is thirty degrees colder than it would be on Bajor. It was merely overcast and cold this morning, now it's dark, and the wind whips hard through the stone and metal buildings. Much of the structures around them were built thousands of years ago and updated (or not) as the times require.
"The temperature has fallen several degrees since the morning," Michael says as they stand in the doorway. "The stones underneath us are orthorhombic heagaitite they and interfere with transporters. It's a great security feature, but it's about half a kilometer to the Rounem Gate, then personal transporters will work."
Half a kilometer is barely any distance at all, but today it stretches on like the Delphic expanse, dark and impenetrable except for the snow blowing between the buildings.
"The buildings are placed so the wind can pass between them, historically it cut down on snow drifts." Michael pulls on her gloves and looks around the door. "In my century, there were coats and winter apparel here, for visitors."
"Things have changed. Visitors were more common when they were part of the Federation."
Even through the doorway the cold's intense enough that Laira's hands remember sensation enough to sting, sending daggers up her wrists. She rubs her hands together once, but she doesn't dare keep doing it. Someone will notice; the perception of weakness could be enough to damage their negotiations.
"Are you all right?"
Michael's expression softens and she reaches for Laura's hand. It's such an immediate, instinctual 'let me help' that Laira's chest tightens. How rarely anyone asks that and means it the way Michael does.
"It's been a long day. " Both true and understated to the point that Michael will not be able to leave it. She should have said something else, given more away, but security is near.
Michael's forehead furrows so those little lines stand out between her eyebrows. Her face is so expressive, so lively that she tells stories just with her eyes. "The schedule says your meetings started at nine, and it's well past nineteen-hundred. On my ship, that would get you tomorrow off unless it's a crisis."
"My only scheduled appearance tomorrow is an opera."
"Hopefully in the evening."
"I believe that's when opera begins."
"Do you want my coat?" Michael starts to remove it, but then removes the gloves she just put on instead. "Take these at least."
"Thank you." Laira tilts her head, but has to refuse. "I'll bring a coat when negotiations resume."
"If we keep in the middle of the buildings—"
"It's all right, Michael."
Using her name, not captain, frees the most beautiful smile to light Michael's face.
Outside the wind whirls around them, stinging her skin. Some of the historical documentation on Andor, before the Burn, mentioned how their weather control systems maintained their climate whilst making it less unpleasant for visitors from warmer planets, but there's been no such accommodation here now. Andor did not suffer as much as other planets during the period of limited warp travel. Being one of the home planets of the Emerald Chain brought it material comfort and stability as the Chain preyed on the surrounding worlds.
The chill hasn't just been in the weather during her visit. Her entourage was limited, a Federation Starship was not allowed to remain in orbit for the duration of their talks, as would be standard practice. Discovery was able to maintain comms distance for safety, but letting herself be vulnerable - surely Andorian security will be enough for you, Madam President - has been essential for this mission. Andor wants the Federation to return as the petitioner, not the bringer of gifts.
"Was the Aenar delegation willing to begin working to Auriello and the other spore drive scientists?" Michael may have asked the question twice, because she touches Laira's wrist and the sudden warmth of her fingertips hurts. "Laira?"
Hearing her own name is enough of a surprise that she stops worrying about the icy stones beneath her numb feet and turns. Michael asked for honesty; the wind is loud enough that no one will hear. "I can't feel my hands."
Michael takes her hands, staring at the blue-white skin of Laira's numb fingers before she removes her gloves and wraps Laira's hands in her own. Her skin's warm enough to shock like an unshielded EPS relay. "For how long?"
"I don't know, it crept up on me."
"Laira—" Michael rubs her hands along Laira's and the friction stings.
Hearing her name shocks Laira too, but in a warmer way. She hears it so rarely unless it's a message from home. Her breath catches for a moment, and surely her eyes are just misty because of the cold. Her eyelashes catch, freezing together when she blinks.
"You're likely hypothermic. Cardassians and Bajorans are less cold tolerant than humans, and much less so than Andorians."
"I assure you that I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
"I'm not doubting that, I-" Michael pauses, stares at her hands and then meets her eyes, radiant even in the darkness. "I was capable of taking care of myself for years, and then I started a war." Guilt lies dark in Michael's eyes, and no matter how much time has passed, she still carries it.
"You ended something worse than a war here."
Michael opens her coat and pulls their hands in, pressing them against the warmth of her stomach. "I thought I was a wrecking ball."
"Sometimes the structures have lost their use, or even become dangerous, and need to come down." It's not an apology. Michael has swung the universe around like she had a DMA controller of her own, buried in those endless brown eyes. She saved the galaxy in coming here, then saved them again, even saved those who hurt them from isolytic weapons and toxic subspace. Michael keeps saving everyone.
Even her.
Laira doesn't need to be saved, right? There's nothing wrong with the endless days of work and mandatory down time that seems to just involve more work. Laira goes from starship to planet to starship, never resting. Space is her home, and it's cold and dark, like the Andorian night.
Yet Michael is the sun in the morning. Michael is the supernova that creates a whole stellar nursery. She's warmth itself distilled into the most sincere smile. Maybe what needs to come down is her fear of holding Michael's blissfully warm hands, or playing with her hair. Help me with myself, savior of the galaxy.
"Let me get you inside."
Without Michael's fingers around her hands, her fingers sting, then burn as they go numb again. Her feet are worse, and Laira grabs the wall when she stumbles. Snow meets her fingers and it doesn't even hurt.
"Hey."
"I think I'm lightheaded."
"About a hundred meters." Michael glances around, planning their path. "May I?"
Michael's arm slips around her back and she doesn't have to find her footing, just follow Michael's lead. How rare it is to just follow, without worrying, without thinking.
The Rounem Gate passes over their heads and they can beam away, find the warmth Laira's forgotten how to feel, but there are aides here, security and deputy ambassadors. Half-collapsing into Michael's arms before they beam away will be a news item that reaches the far fringes. Weakness could be her undoing. Her feet are the Federation's and they dare not fail.
Against the tall stone wall, out of most of the prying eyes, Michael reaches up, touching her cheek. "I didn't think you could get more pale."
Her teeth clack together, and it's the strangest sensation. "Even my human side is cold."
"I can beam us to your suite."
Leaning against the frigid wall saps the last of her body heat, but it keeps her up. "Discovery returns in two days."
Michael tuts like her grandma worrying over a fever. "And you should stay in bed for both of them."
"I--"
"Madam President—"
The news service homes in on them like photon torpedos, looking for a useful quote. Michael leans in close, keeping her steady, she touches her chin, then Michael's lips press against her cheek so close that Laira tastes her skin.
It's not a kiss.
It sure as hell looked like one.
Michael has a plan, that was politics not—
They materialize in Michael's hotel room. The decorations around the fireplace have that curling, intricate Orion design. This was for Emerald Chain visitors. It has that cuphea wood scent. Though it's brighter and the wind isn't tearing at her face, it doesn't feel any warmer than being outside, and Michael drags her to towards the sofa.
"Sit." Michael touches her face again, molten fingertips against her cheek.
Sparkling lights float through her vision, threads of silver overriding everything else. Sitting is the first time she's felt steady. Michael returns without her jacket, arms full of blankets and a bright green box.
"Is it all right if--"
Nodding makes those silver lights dance, and even Michael's beautiful eyes can't hold her focus. "Sorry."
"I'm not sure what a baseline is for you, but your blood pressure's about 30 points too low for a human." When she doesn't reply, Michael touches her chin, lifting it. "Stay with me."
Does she know how tempting that is? Laira never gets to hold still, but this—
"When you get too cold, your body tries to pull your circulation back to your torso and protect your organs." Michael's tricorder collects information in gold and red (red is probably bad) and then Michael flicks the display away. Throwing a blanket over Laira's shoulders, Michael opens the medkit, digs through, reading things with her tricorder and frowning.
"When I was twelve, I thought I could hike up the mountain in the B'Lei on Vulcan, behind our house. It looks so close and I knew it was far, but I was mad and lonely. Never made friends in school, so I thought I'd climb to the top, look around, then I'd understand...everything."
"So ambitious."
"Oh I was." Michael chuckles, setting the medkit down.
That worried furrow between her eyebrows is back, and deeper this time. Her skin looks so soft and Laura can't help wondering what it would feel like to touch her.
"It's an Orion medkit: the painkillers are toxic, the antimicrobials would probably burn our skin, but the dermal regenerator would work great." Michael reaches for Laira's hands, carefully checking her knuckles, and her fingertips. " I don't think you got frostbite.'
"Next time."
Michael's face is just as stern as her grandmother. Suppose that fits, she's almost a thousand years old.
"Next time you bring gloves." Michael wraps her hands around Laira's, resting them on her knees. She's sitting on the table in front of the sofa, worrying and smiling, because she can't avoid her optimism. "When I was hiking up B'Lei, I made it much further than you'd think, but the nights in Vulcan are cold, and it comes quick, and when I'd found the rescue station my fingers didn't even bend they were so cold."
Laira's still bend, but they have no feeling, like they're someone else's hands.
"You also have a viral infection, that the tricorder is sequencing." Michael pulls the blanket tighter around Laira's shoulders. "Hopefully it's something you've been innoculated against."
"We do have innoculations in this century."
"Probably more, and better ones." Michael checks the tricorder again, then leans in, touching their foreheads together. "I can bring you to the med center-"
"No."
"I can try and find an off book doctor."
"I'll be fine."
Michael looks at her tricorder readout again and sighs."I didn't know metapneumoviruses had a group J."
Laira's very small smile only makes Michael roll her eyes. "Don't know, haven't had it."
"You have now."
"Oh."
"I don't even remember this being a virus that caused any problems in my century, adult seroprevalence of antibodies was almost one hundred percent in the 23rd century, but I don't remember knowing anyone who became sick with it."
"You went everywhere." She doesn't mean to sound wistful, but it can't be helped. Laira blinks and forces herself to focus on Michael's eyes. "Starfleet medical has reported that the incidence of minor diseases, ones we wouldn't think of vaccinating for, is up almost eighteen hundred percent since the resumption of mass warp travel. We've been marooned, and then you came."
"Well, Madam President, I think you have a simple upper respiratory infection, made worse by a mild case of hypothermia."
"Remind me never to experience a moderate one."
Michael's eyebrows fly up. "Absolutely not."
"Your bedside manner is excellent."
"Glad you think so, because we have to take off your clothes and get you warmed up."
"We?"
"You undoing those clasps on your coat with numb fingers?"
She can't even remember what she's wearing, it's like her brain's gone numb too.
Michael waits for the witty retort she doesn't have words for. "Thought so."
Holding out her wrist is about all she can do to help, and Michael's fingers open clasps, remove her bracelet, and then she switches to the other wrist, easing Laira's jacket loose with the gentlest hands. Her breath catches when Michael touches her neck. Michael's hands slip over the lapels of her jacket, then settle on the clasps in the center of her chest.
"I'm sorry, did I?"
"I haven't, no one's—"
Michael rests her hands on her chest, warm and firm. "No one touches you for months, then someone brushes against you and it's like your nerves are on fire."
"You're fire."
"I'll try not to burn you." The darkness fades from Michael's face as she smiles. She must have been so isolated in prison, six months of being Stafleet's only mutineer, alone with her thoughts. It's past now, healed, not without a scar, of course, but there's no hesitation in how she reaches out.
Growing up on cargo ships, things were tight, she was close to her crew, and Laira had to learn that the boisterous culture of hugs and enthusiasm she'd left in her grandparents homes was not the same one as the political area, which required space and a lack of contact. She learnt to lock her hands behind her back, to stay still and nonthreatening, not to move too close to anyone, lest it be a threat in these sensitive times.
"When we shook hands, on Ni'Var, your hands were so warm."
"I dreaded going on that mission."
"I thought so."
"It turned out well"
"You were perfect." Keep talking, don't think about Michael's hands easing her jacket off her shoulders, and the way the only fabric between her skin and Michael's hands is her camisole. Being surprised by Michael at least is a kind of warmth, one she'd almost forgotten she had.
Michael lays Laira's jacket on the sofa beside her and bends down to remove her boots.
"Are you like that with everything?"
Looking up, Michael tilts her head. "What?"
"Good at it, even if you hate it."
"I'm not good at everything." Michael removes her other boot and grins. "I'm a terrible dancer."
"I see. What a weakness."
"I'm awful at parties."
"I don't believe that."
"Because I avoid most of them." Michael reaches up, holding a tissue, and she brushes Laira's lipstick from her mouth with the same delicacy of Bajoran jeweler making sacred earrings. "Your lips are blue."
"I don't feel cold."
"You don't feel much right now, I bet."
"Well, now that you mention it."
"All right, well, sonic showers don't make a lot of heat, and hypothermia is serious, so, you're going to get into bed with me."
"It's been a while, but I think that's a very creative way to proposition someone."
"You know me, always looking for ways to make waves."
Michael offers both hands to get to her feet, she has to be warmer now, she should be fine, but her legs are shaky, her feet hurt and Michael reads her like an ancient scroll.
Tapping her badge once, Michael transports them the handful of meters to the bedroom. Sitting Laira in the bed, she strips off her own dress uniform top, baring muscled arms that glow soft brown in the firelight. Watching Michael take off her trousers is almost too intimate, Laira looks away, her cheeks almost warm enough to blush. Knowing her, they're probably bright red anyway, or blue, or—
Michael lifts her chin. "I need to take your hair down, but I think I can do that in bed. Is it all right if I...?"
"I trust you."
Taking a step closer, Michael embraces her for a moment, Laira's forehead against Michael's warm stomach. "Good, because I have to take off your pants."
"I can help."
"I got it."
Being released from Michael's embrace hurts like the windows are open to the snow outside, but Michael eases her trousers off Laira's hips, as gentle as she's efficient.
Michael circles the bed, and it creaks as she crawls over. Laira has to pick up her feet, lie back, and she knows the motions, but her limbs are stiff. Michael sits behind her, warm and steady and then they're under the blankets, wrapped together, Michael pressed against her like a rock in the sauna.
"You're so warm."
"You're an icicle."
"Mentions were made of me being emotionless in the past."
"You too?" Michael wraps her arms around her shoulders, her fingers tracing the markings on Laira's collarbone. That she feels acutely, like fire licking her skin, and she wants to hold Michael's hands to her chest until she's warm again.
"I was too emotional for a Vulcan," Michael continues, "too stoic for a human for a lot of years. Like to think I found a balance now, but sometimes I wonder. Is this who I am, really am, or is it another point I'll look back on."
Chuckling, Laira pulls Michael's hand into hers, squeezing it tight. "This is how you get to sleep?"
"I read, usually, but I need to take the pins out of your hair, and I can't hold my book."
"Hold?" That doesn't make sense. "How do you hold a book?"
"It's paper."
"You have a paper book?"
"In my bag."
"Here?"
"Yeah."
"Paper books are- well, they're- I've never seen one outside of a museum."
"Seriously?"
"We stopped making paper centuries ago, except for, traditionalists, hobbyists, I—" she stops, stumped. "I don't even know if I could get one if I tried."
Michael's very quiet behind her. "There must be planets where they still write their stories on paper."
"None that I've been too."
"My mom, Amanda, and I used to go to book exchanges. We'd shuttle all over the quadrant, meeting people and trading books. There would be stacks of them on tables, taller than I was, stories and poetry and textbooks full of drawings. The smell is incredible."
Michael shifts a little, possibly content for the moment that she's warm enough, and releases her hand to start pulling force pins from Laira's hair. She's careful and quick; her fingers brush Laira's scalp, tingling in the most pleasant way.
"Books have a smell?" She wants to turn, but Michael has both hands in her hair and her head doesn't ache as much if she doesn't move.
"They smell like libraries, leather, kind of dusty, but in a nice way." Michael pauses, her fingers tracing Laira's forehead. It's an idle motion, one of Michael's many little fidgets. "Suppose your libraries don't smell like that. Have you been to the Vulcan Temple of Vre'Shara? That has a book smell."
"I haven't been in with the scrolls. No one goes in there except for the most senior monks."
Michael sets the last pin aside and runs her fingers through Laira's hair, making sure she got them all. Her hair's damp from the snow, and Michael's fingers slide through easily. Curling up back behind her, Michael sighs contentedly. Her warm thighs press against Laira's own frigid skin. "Sometimes it feels like no time has passed, people are people, the Federation is here, there's Starfleet and we're still saving the galaxy, but Spock's drawings from when he was a child are precious relics and my ship's an antique and I—"
"Am a transplant in a new century."
"Yeah."
"You're thriving here."
"Am I?"
Rolling over would be too much effort, but kissing Michael's wrist is easy enough. "You're the brightest flower in the garden."
"Not too showy?"
"I might need to replant some things around you."
"Thought so."
For all she's lost and left behind, this century needed Michael. She has to know that.
Michael takes a breath, and the hand on Laira's shoulder runs delightfully over her skin. After a pause, she recites, as easily as the words were in front of her eyes, "Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do : once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it.“and what is the purpose of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?""
"Is that your book?"
Michael nuzzles her back, almost sheepish. "I've read it so many times."
"I don't know if I have anything like that in my head."
"I also went through Vulcan educational conditioning."
There's another story there. So many behind Michael's little pieces of herself that she offers. Laira should ask: she wants to hear all of it, but the aches are fading into warmth, and she didn't realize how tired she was. "Keep going, please."
Michael settles in, her hands points of warmth where they rest on Laira's shoulders. "So, she was considering in her own mind, as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel sleepy and stupid—"
How nice it would be to be hot. Sleepy and stupid, Laira can manage. This is the best she's felt in bed for Prophet's only know how long. Michael can tell her stories tomorrow, and she's looking forward to it.