Chapter Text
Lorca wakes up before Burnham. She, it seems, has the soldier’s gift of sleeping whenever the opportunity calls for it. He’s never been able to do that, only to stay awake hours longer than a human should. There’s very faint light outside, just enough to turn the shelter roof gray, and he slides out of the sleeping bag and reassembles his clothes. He’s grimy and a little sticky and regrets nothing.
It's very cold when he steps outside, below freezing, but the Starfleet uniform is meant to adapt to external conditions, and after a minute he’s a little warmer. His breath steams in the air as he examines their supplies to find gloves; he finds Burnham’s pair first, tucked neatly into the proper pocket of her bag, and then unearths his own wrapped around a sheathed knife. Whether or not he’s going soft, as Elan claims, his muscles still remember what to do, how to keep safe. He still has a knife strapped flat against his calf, he realizes.
The light is pale over the slot canyon, all the colors muted. The sun hasn’t risen about its walls yet. He can hear soft cries echoing from below—some kind of animals out hunting, it sounds like, not their pursuers from the night before.
“Captain?” Burnham emerges from the shelter fully dressed and walks over to him.
Lorca reaches out and puts an arm around her shoulder, pulls her in, and kisses her, long and deep. Burnham makes a pleased noise and returns the kiss, leaning into him. When he breaks away, he says “Good morning,” mundane as it is, and smiles.
He sees a hint of a smile, but then she begins, “Sir.”
“I think you can call me Gabriel, at this point. When we’re alone,” he adds, though Burnham isn’t the type of person to forget it.
“All right,” she says. She doesn’t try it. She looks uncomfortable. “I don’t have a lot of past experience in—in this type of situation—”
“Fraternization?” Lorca wouldn’t exactly call it that, but he assumes that’s what she means.
Burnham pulls away a little further. “Yes. On the Shenzhou, it would have been inappropriate to pursue a relationship—”
It’s not lost on him that it’s equally if not more inappropriate here, on his end, by Starfleet standards. “And on Vulcan?”
“Things are different, among Vulcan youth,” Burnham says. “Vulcans are engaged when they’re very young. Liaisons with other people are…understood, even assumed, before the marriage is completed.”
“Burnham, don’t tell me you’re engaged.” He thinks he’d be jealous, if that turned out to be the case.
She coughs. “No. Vulcans are engaged to other Vulcans. I mean there was no…risk of expectations being formed. Attachments.”
Lorca doesn’t know what to say to that. “You’re concerned about someone getting attached.”
“It’s a risk,” she says stiffly. She finds her communicator. “Burnham to Discovery, come in.” There’s no response.
“Burnham. I don’t know which of us you’re worried about, but I’m not…proposing marriage.” Of course he’s attached.
She raises a suspicious eyebrow at his choice of words. “I don’t want the rest of the crew to know. It would be inappropriate.” She holds her communicator sandwiched in her bare hands to warm it up. They’re not supposed to be temperature-sensitive, but they are. “Burnham to Discovery,” she tries again.
“The crew doesn’t need to know anything. We can…fraternize as much as you and I want. We can do whatever we want.”
“Burnham to Discovery. Starfleet—”
“Starfleet isn’t out here,” he tells her. Before she can protest, he adds, “Yes, we’ll follow Starfleet’s rules about treatment of prisoners, prime directive, all that. But Starfleet doesn’t need to be in people’s private lives. In my private life.”
“Discovery to Burnham, come in.” Burnham answers, and Saru, because of course Saru would be intruding on this conversation, says, “My apologies, Specialist. The rock formations were giving off some kind of EM radiation during the planet’s dark period that made it impossible to communicate. We can transport you both back to Discovery when you’re ready.”
“Confirmed. We’ll pack up the shelters and let you know when we’re ready.” It’s not lost on him that she said shelters, plural.
Burnham begins to dismantle the emergency shelter, powering down the charged rods that held the shelter’s shape. Without the rods, it flutters to the ground in a heap of fabric. “If you don’t have the relevant experience, let me enlighten you. We can do whatever we want. If you don’t know what you want, tell me.”
“Yes,” she says, “I’m excellent at that.”
“Burnham, was that sarcasm?” Her lips twitch a little.
“What I want right now is to look at all the readings we’ve taken from this planet and to take a hot shower.” Burnham finishes folding the shelter cloth and stuffs it back into its package, then inserts that into her own bag and hefts it on her shoulders.
“I’d even believe you want it in that order.” He lifts his bag. “Lorca to Discovery, two to transport.” They dissolve into golden lights.
Lorca isn’t wrong. They’ve barely stepped off the transporter pad before she’s accepting a PADD and following an ensign out into the hallway. The transport tech looks at him, a little alarmed—technically he didn’t dismiss her—but he just puts his bag down, cracks his neck, and comms Elan, “My ready room, thirty minutes.” Then he goes to his quarters to wash off the residue of the last twenty-four hours.
* * *
Because he and Burnham transported out, Lorca doesn’t discover that the scientists brought back two furry pets until one of them escapes the lab and races down the hallway with T’Lac in hot pursuit. It’s at least four times the size of a tribble, dun-colored, most reminiscent of a jackrabbit, but with stubby ears and a longer snout. The thing hops into a recessed vent in the hallway. “Ensign,” he says, “what is that?”
Chandavarkar is only a few steps behind T’Lac with a very large net in his hands. “We brought it back from the planet, sir.” He and T’Lac spread out and attempt to corner the creature.
“Did you test it for diseases? Consider the implications of bringing something like that on board?”
T’Lac looks slightly insulted, for a Vulcan. “We did, sir. We followed all standard protocols. And cleared it with the chief of xenobiology.”
That must have been while he and Burnham were fighting off nine people in the middle of a rock trap. “Fine,” he says. “Catch it and don’t let it escape again.”
“No, sir,” Chandavarkar assures him. “We didn’t realize how high it could jump, but we’ll be ready next time.” The creature makes a break for it and Chandavarkar throws the net above it; the containment field activates and sedates it.
“Chandavarkar, weren’t you reassigned to security?”
“Yes, sir.” He lifts the net off the ground and hands it to T’Lac. “T’Lac contacted security to help retrieve the creature. I know the layout of the lab, so I responded.”
Lorca looks down at the creature. It’s already woken from the sedation and is watching him with what he thinks is too intelligent a gaze. “Send me a report when you’ve finished your preliminary analysis. I want to know what you’ve brought on board my ship.”
* * *
Burnham almost laughs when he tells her about it at lunch. She’s joined him at his usual table in the mess hall, an act that leaves at least three tables talking in hushed tones, and says, “You allowed them to bring back something…sentient?”
“Ensign T’Lac assured me that they followed protocols.” He’s still suspicious.
“Vulcans don’t lie.” She glances down at her tray and he sees the smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “I’m sure the crew will appreciate having it on board. And will not treat it like a pet.”
He sighs. “They brought back two. Different sexes, as far as they can tell.” He holds up his PADD with the report. “Do Vulcans even have pets?”
“Vulcan children keep sehlats.” Burnham takes the PADD and calls up an image for him. “They’re dangerous creatures, even the domesticated ones. It teaches responsibility.” She does smile then, almost fondly. “My mother always warned us not to be late with its dinner.”
The thing is massive, with teeth meant for rending flesh. This, he really would call Ripper. “You had one?”
“No, my brother, he had one. It was our father’s, but it was very devoted to my brother. I stayed away from it.” She shakes her head. “You know it won’t take them long to name the new creatures,” she warns.
“T’Lac identified some possible taxonomies in her report, based on its similarities to known species in the Federation database.”
“No, something like Fluffy or Thumper,” she says. “My brother’s sehlat was called I-Chaya.” Burnham takes a large bite of her vegetable lasagna. “I believe Admiral Archer brought a dog with him on the first Enterprise mission. Pets can be good for crew morale.”
Lorca stares into his coffee. A month ago, they were in a battle to the death with the Klingons. He was planning the final pieces of his return home and his swift capture of the Terran throne. Burnham was—who knows what Burnham was, then. And now—well. Now the crew are bringing home pets and he has an Andorian in charge of his life and Burnham was in his bed (or he was in hers) and is at his table. “I don’t think we’ve descended so far as to need pets.”
“Captain,” she says, almost chiding. “There are some crew, myself included, that—enjoy this detour. But there are others who were eager to get back to their families, and this journey is taking a toll. If the pets are more like Fluffy than sehlats and boost morale, logic dictates that they should remain.” She’s finished her meal and she stands. “I’ll see you on the bridge, sir.” Lorca nods shortly and watches her walk away.
He enjoys a moment of peace before he sees both Elan and Tilly making a beeline for his table. He frowns at both of them, and Tilly at least has the sense to realize what she’s doing and choose another table. As Elan starts to sit down, he stands up. “Lieutenant,” he says.
Elan, for all her brash attitude, can tell when something is off-limits. She holds up her hands in a don’t-shoot gesture. “No problem, Captain.” But he can feel her eyes on him as he leaves.
* * *
Days pass. Saru has to admit that his estimates about their location may have been drastically off. The ensigns name their pets Tom and Jerry and sometimes there’s a line at the entrance to the biology lab of crew waiting to play with them. They still hit the odd anomaly and Chrian complains about the state of the warp drive. Stamets plays with the smoke creature in the mycelium cultivation bay, but he doesn’t name it. Culber watches Lorca to see if he’ll try to use the spore drive again, and he doesn’t. He installs chairs in the ready room. Elan unveils the modified food synthesizer and throws an Andorian feast.
And then there’s Burnham. She comes to his quarters more days than not. Sometimes they talk, but mostly they tumble into bed, and she’s just as clever and creative there as on the bridge. One night, when they’ve just finished and are both lying flat on the bed, too sweaty for Lorca to touch more than his fingertips against her wrist, she finally says, “Gabriel.”
Hearing it feels like touching a live conduit. He pulls her close, heat be damned, and kisses her long and slow and thorough. He’s attached, however she feels. She returns the kiss, but eventually she pushes him off and says, “It’s too hot in here.”
“That’s because of you.”
“Hmph.” The noise is quiet. “Gabriel,” she tries again, and he didn’t realize how much it would mean to hear her say it. Then she says something else: “I looked up Gabriel Lorca in the Starfleet database.”
Lorca’s entire body is suddenly numb. His hand wants a knife, but he can’t move, and anyway it’s Burnham. Anyone, anywhere else, he would have been able to respond correctly, would have been able to offer an explanation.
“I’ve been trying to understand the logic behind your actions.” Burnham isn’t touching him anymore. “Either your Starfleet file details a modified version of your past or you’ve been blatantly lying. If your file has been modified, telling me your true past would undermine whatever purpose was served by the Starfleet file, and there’s no logic to that. But it would also be illogical to lie so obviously, given how easily your statements could be disproven.”
“What do you think it is, then?” He keeps his voice steady. He thinks he sounds unaffected.
“I’ve been thinking about it. Neither option makes sense. That suggests a third option I hadn’t considered before.”
Lorca doesn’t want to ask, but he can’t help himself. “And what’s that?”
“That you’re not, in fact, Captain Gabriel Lorca.”
He shouldn’t, but he does roll away then, off the bed, to the bedside table he keeps a phaser in. He doesn’t open the drawer, though. “Maybe I lied to make you sympathize with me.”
“And you hoped that it would never occur to me to investigate something as drastic as a violent xenophobic imperial sect?” She’s watching him carefully.
“Is that what this is, what it’s all been? Trying to figure out my secret?”
Burnham stands slowly, cautiously, on the other side of the bed. “No, but learning the truth became more important to me as this continued. Am I right?”
“No. I am Captain Gabriel Lorca.” She doesn’t speak. “But…I’m not the Gabriel Lorca of this universe.” It’s almost unthinkable to say it, after so long.
She’s silent for a long time. Then she says, “That’s why you talked to Stamets about alternate universes. You wanted to go back to your own.”
He should lie to her. “I wanted to know if it was possible.” Truth, if incomplete. He can’t make himself step away from the phaser.
“You corrupted the coordinates for our last jump.”
“No.” Lorca has to deny that.
“I saw you using your chair control just before we jumped.”
“I didn’t go back, all right? I didn’t take us all there. I stayed here.”
“You’re responsible for what happened to Stamets.” Something dawns on her. “You didn’t bring me onto Discovery to work on the spore drive. I was part of some plan. Your plan to go back to your universe, or something you were going to do when you got there.” She begins dressing quickly, efficiently. “The Emperor’s daughter.”
“No—Burnham,” he says, and it feels like his throat is full of broken glass. “Michael. I—”
She must be able to tell what he’s about to say, because she snaps, “No. No.” She finds her shoes and slips them on, and then walks toward the door. He follows.
“Please don’t tell the crew” is all he can manage to say. He remembers, viscerally, begging Cornwell not to take his ship. “Please don’t.”
“No,” she says. “That would serve no purpose. I won’t tell unless I believe you’re endangering the ship.” Then she walks out.
He’s still numb. He tells himself that in his own universe, he wouldn’t have let her leave the room. The old Lorca would accuse her of attacking him, claim she had attempted another mutiny. That would discredit whatever she tried to say about him to the crew. He hasn’t slipped up with anyone else.
Lorca doesn’t do it. Burnham would hate him, more than she already does. The crew might not believe him, or worse, might approve. She doesn’t lie. He believes that she won’t reveal it until—unless—she thinks she has to.
He finds pants, puts them on. Takes the phaser from his bedside table and tucks it into the waistband at the small of his back, where it used to live. It feels…alien. Straps a knife to his calf, where it used to live. He gets out a bottle of whiskey—he’s down to the last few—and sits on his couch and opens it. It would be a gross dereliction of duty to drink now. He’s not on shift for hours, but Saru or Elan or whoever else has the conn will expect to be able to reach him, expect him to be functional.
He finds that he doesn’t care as much as he should. He’s not going to indulge in self-pity or self-hatred or regret after this. He’ll be the same man that he’s been; no one will look at him and suspect that anything happened tonight. When Michael died, he was—broken. It won’t be like that. But he needs this now, to wash it all clean and drain it off. So he allows himself this one indulgence.