Chapter Text
Starfleet doesn’t send them after Cornwell, as he knew they wouldn’t. The days blur.
Jump. Kill Klingons.
Jump. Approve Stamets’ experiments.
Jump. Practice killing Klingons.
Jump. Kill Klingons.
Jump. Watch Burnham on the bridge.
Jump. Watch Tyler for risk.
Tyler is not a security risk. He’s careful, obedient, dedicated to whatever Lorca asks of him. He has less spine than Landry did, but otherwise is an adequate replacement.
Tyler also makes Burnham smile. Lorca discovered this while monitoring him to make sure he really isn't a security risk; he and Burnham eat lunch together, and when Tyler grins, all dimples and tousled dark hair, she smiles back. She doesn't smile at Lorca.
They’re winning the war. Burnham is steady on the bridge, creative when things go wrong, clear-headed when Detmer loses navigation control or Rhys accidentally fires a torpedo in the wrong direction. She and Cadet Tilly keep Stamets grounded as he begins to float off into the mycelium network. She watches Tyler on the bridge and sometimes half-smiles when he looks at her. Lorca preferred it when he was grim and bloody and beating Klingons to death.
But there’s nothing to be done about that. Lorca doesn’t think of himself as a jealous man; Michael slept with others while they were together, just as he did. Plenty of them made her smile. He brought Tyler on board to protect himself, and Tyler is protecting Burnham too, which protects Lorca in turn. Burnham is a tool. She’s not Michael.
Lorca allows the crew to throw a party. Cornwell wasn’t wrong that he pushes the crew hard, and they have victories to celebrate; there are enough capable people to rotate through so that everyone has the chance to go. He doesn’t, of course. As Tyler leaves the bridge, already giddy, he asks, “Captain, are you coming?”
There’s a long silence, until someone—Lieutenant Rhys, it sounds like—chokes back a laugh. Lorca doesn’t look at Burnham. “No, Lieutenant,” he says. “I’m sure you’re qualified to keep everyone safe.” Lieutenant Rhys laughs again and Lorca takes note as they file out, Tyler and Burnham and Rhys and Detmer.
“Sir,” Saru begins, “If—”
“Monitor for any incoming warp signatures,” Lorca tells him. “We don’t want a Klingon surprise.” He stands up and walks to the front of the bridge, surveying the empty space outside. He’s not interested in watching his crew fall all over each other and then into each other’s beds like drunk cadets at the academy. He’s not the kind of captain who goes to parties, or eats in the mess hall, or spends leisure hours with crew—well. He doesn’t take leisure hours. Saru has the conn when Lorca sleeps, which isn’t for very long. But he allows himself to imagine Burnham at the party. She didn’t bring civilian clothes onboard, only her prison jumpsuit, but she might not keep her uniform zipped all the way to the top in the heat of the party. He wonders what she’ll be like when she’s drinking—loose-limbed, friendly, talkative? Will she laugh easily, touch Tyler, slip away to a dark corner with him? Or fall back further into her Vulcan persona, feign confusion at silly human customs, bafflement at their drunken displays of emotion?
“Sir, I have an unknown signal on sensors,” Saru tells him. “I recommend that we recall Science Specialist Burnham and Lieutenant Tyler to the bridge.”
“If you think they’ll be sober,” Lorca says. It hasn’t been that long since they left for the party, but who knows what’s happened in the interim.
It doesn’t take long for Burnham and Tyler to return. He looks both over as they take their positions. Burnham is straight-backed and serious as ever, and he wonders if she didn’t drink at all. He’d assumed that Cadet Tilly would at least feed her a shot of liquor or two as soon as she arrived. Did Vulcans drink? Or was she just unwilling to risk her self-control? Tyler is different—calmer, slower—and maybe he should have called a different security officer to the bridge, but it’s too late now.
“Captain, the unidentified signal I monitored is directly ahead,” Saru says, and he turns away from the viewscreen and walks back to his chair.
“All right, yellow alert, Mr. Saru. Shields up, phasers to standby.” Maybe he’ll have some excitement tonight after all, something to occupy his thoughts.
“Copy that, sir. Topping up,” Tyler says, and he’s fast enough, at least.
“Scanners identify the object as biological, xenologic classification: gormagander.” If Burnham is remotely affected, he can’t hear it. “Its health appears to be compromised.” Tyler stares at her dumbly.
“Cancel the yellow alert, Mr. Saru.” Not exactly birds of prey. “Thought those things had been hunted to extinction.” In his universe, at least, there were no wild gormaganders; even farmed gormagander was a delicacy.
“Hunting isn’t the cause of its reduced numbers,” she says, and looks at him. “It’s primarily due to their mating practices,” and he can’t tell if he’s imagining the extra emphasis on the last two words, but he turns his chair to face her fully. “Or lack thereof. They spend their lives feeding on alpha particles in solar winds. They’re often so consumed by this task that they ignore all other instincts.” Tyler is gaping at her.
“That’s as depressing a trait as I’ve ever heard,” Lorca says, and turns his chair back to face front. He shifts a little in the chair. He doesn’t need to hear about the mating practices of gormaganders, or Burnham’s thoughts on the issue, or see Tyler’s reaction. Mudd saves him from that misery.
The ship explodes. Lorca dies.
Mudd shoots him. Lorca dies.
Mudd stabs him. Lorca dies.
Mudd transports him into space. Lorca dies gasping.
Mudd tells Lorca to beg and he’ll spare the crew. The words stick in his throat. Mudd cuts it.
Mudd tells Lorca to beg and he’ll spare Burnham. Lorca begs. Mudd burns him from the inside out.
Mudd disintegrates every person on the bridge in front of Lorca, Burnham last—it takes up almost all of that time loop—and then kills him with dark matter. Lorca dies screaming.
In the time he knows, though, Tyler and Burnham come to the bridge. Burnham says, “Sir, you have to listen to me, we’re in a time loop and we have to act quickly.” She leans down and whispers, so quietly that it’s barely more than a hot breath, “You said you would believe me if I told you that you should remember the Emperor’s daughter.” She moves so quickly that her lips brush the shell of his ear before she steps back.
Lorca jerks away from her words and slams one hand down on the armrest of his chair. She smells like sweat and sweet liquor from the party and there’s a fleck of glitter at the corner of one eyes. Things must have been desperate for him to risk mentioning Michael. “Go ahead,” he says. “Do whatever you need to.” He must have believed they were all going to die anyway to have told her.
Tyler programs something into his chair and retakes control of the computer. Lorca has to swallow the bitter taste of turning the ship over to Mudd, however temporarily. He has to tell Mudd that he’ll trade the lives of the rest of his crew for Burnham, the ship, and Stamets, that he can’t have a repeat of the Buran—that they’ll do whatever their new masters want, as long as the crew goes free. He assumes that Mudd plans to kill him before it’s over, and he holds out his hand for Mudd to shake. This is the plan, he tells himself. This is finesse, not what he wants, which is to grip the man’s hand, pull him in close, and then, with one hand on Mudd’s chin and the other on his shoulder, snap his neck. Throw his body to the floor, shoot him just to be sure. Maybe even twice.
Lorca fights himself. He lets his arm go limp as Mudd shakes it, and then steps back, the picture of defeat, as Mudd gloats, “This is your last chance to stop me…You’ve only got about 30 seconds before we rejoin the time stream and there’s no going back.”
The time expires and a ship appears. He starts to follow Mudd, Burnham, and Stamets to the transporter, but Mudd tells him, “Not you, old man. Lorca, I’m really going to miss killing you.” Letting him take Burnham and Stamets alone wasn’t the plan—Lorca was supposed to be there, be the easy target—but he can’t fight it now without ruining everything.
* * *
Once Mudd has been sent on his way and they’re all safe, Stamets seems to forget the horror of it, or at least covers well by gleefully telling everyone what happened to them in the previous timelines. Down in Engineering, while Burnham does something with a spore drive, Stamets tells him, with an inappropriate level of relish, about all the different ways that Mudd killed him. “And those are only the ones I know about,” he adds. “He killed you in most of the other time loops too, but I wasn’t around to see those deaths.”
Then, like a child distracted by a sparkle, he turns to Burnham and says, “You and Tyler danced—well, I had to teach you to dance, but after that you managed!” He lowers his voice as much as he ever can and says, “And you kissed! Finally!”
Burnham has had her eyes fixed straight ahead ever since Stamets began describing Lorca’s deaths. “Lieutenant,” Lorca says. “Are we done here?”
“What? Oh, yes, yes, I’ll implement this with our next jump.” Stamets waves a hand at him. “Back to the bridge with you.”
“I’m going that way too,” Burnham says, and follows him out.
“My ready room, Burnham. This was a catastrophe and I want to hear how we make sure the next gormagander doesn’t kill us all. Computer.” In the next moment, they’re in the ready room. He walks behind his desk as the lights come up slowly. “I suppose I should ask Mr. Saru and Lieutenant Tyler to join us,” he says, though he’s not eager to do so.
“Captain,” she says, and it’s not her usual tone of assent.
“Burnham?” He realizes what’s about to happen. He can see her struggling to find the politest way to demand an answer from him; that he can see her struggle at all is alarming.
“The Emperor’s daughter, sir?” She lifts her eyes to his and holds him there, transfixed. The lights are still rising.
To look away would be an admission. “Someone I knew. Well.” Lorca can’t hold her eyes anymore—he glances away, down, to the bowl of fortune cookies, and picks up one by the corner. He remembers handing her one, that night that he asked her to stay, the brief moment when their fingers touched.
“Before the Buran.” She’s not really asking him. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
He has to look back at her then. Burnham has never requested permission to speak freely. He nods once and sets the cookie down. Then he sets his hands carefully apart, carefully casual, on the smooth surface of the desk and nods again.
“Sometimes,” she says, and then stops, clears her throat, straightens her spine. “Captain, there are times that you look at me and appear to see…someone else. In my place.”
This is excruciating, and he can’t do it like this. He reaches down behind the desk and grasps the bottle of whiskey he’d shared with Cornwell before he sent her to her death. Burnham’s face registers mild surprise when he puts it on the desk, more when he reaches down again and sets out two glasses. But she doesn’t say anything more. She’s waiting to see what he does next.
Lorca pours a splash, and only that, into each glass while he tries to think how to answer. He passes one of the glasses to her and lifts his own to his lips, closing his eyes; he finds himself swallowing it all. When he opens his eyes, he sees that she’s finished her glass. But she doesn’t say anything more.
“Yes,” he says, and his voice sounds like gravel. “Sometimes.”
She reaches over to the bottle of whiskey and pours a little more in her own glass, drinks it down. He follows suit.
“You told me to tell you to remember the Emperor’s daughter.”
“I did.” He regrets it now, of course.
“That’s who you see.” Burnham still sounds steady, calm, because she doesn’t know how catastrophic one wrong word would be for him.
“You remind me of her. In some ways.”
“And…you cared for her.” She speaks each sentence the way she does when describing the solution to a problem, each word a dawning realization that leads to the end.
The silence holds for a long time, long enough that his answer must be apparent. “Burnham,” he says finally, “she’s dead. It was partly my fault. You remind me of her less and less every day.” All true.
“You…loved her?” She hesitates on ‘loved.’ He wonders if Vulcans even say it.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, and the anger is growing, the impatience with the tension building beneath this conversation. What is he worried about? That she’ll accuse him of being from another universe? Of all the answers, that has to be the most ludicrous. Let her think she reminds him of a dead lover who was the daughter of an emperor, it’s close enough to the truth. “Burnham, if you have a real question, ask it. We have more important things to do than discuss my past.”
“Captain,” she says. “I admit to a certain lack of personal experience with human behavior—”
“You were on the Shenzhou for seven years, you know how to interact with humans. You didn’t beam here straight from Vulcan. What is it, Burnham?”
“I asked you a question and you took out a bottle of whiskey,” she says. “That is a disproportionate response.” He hates when she does this, when she plays Vulcan to distance herself from whatever’s happening but expects the humans to explain themselves.
“Getting a bottle of whiskey would be a proportionate response to plenty of questions.” He picks up the bottle to demonstrate and refills his own glass.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
He drains the glass, refills it. “Burnham, go away. I’m going to stay here and ponder my own mortality. Dismissed.”
“Sir—”
“Permission to speak freely rescinded, specialist. Dismissed.”
She finally obeys, thank god. The last thing he wants is to stand here, drinking steadily more whiskey, thinking about Stamets saying, “He told you to beg for Burnham’s life and you did. He killed her last,” with Burnham right in front of him, Burnham who’s glad to serve under a captain like him. No, worse than that would be to walk to her, to pull her to him, tilt her face up and kiss her long and slow in a way he’d never kissed the Michael he knew. Take her into the low light of his quarters, scatter the pieces of her uniform across the floor, lay her back on the bed—slide down between her legs and lick until she was shaking and gripping his hair to hold his head in place—slip two fingers inside of her, glance up to see her watching him until she came clenching down around his fingers, soft little moans from her mouth. And he would be hard, desperate, slide into her while she was still shuddering, lose all thought—
That would be worse. Remember the Emperor’s daughter. Burnham is a tool. They died eighty-seven times according to Stamets and it only takes once more to stick.