Chapter Text
When Lorca wakes up, his neck is killing him and Burnham is gone. He can’t believe her movement didn’t wake him.
“Captain, are you awake?” Elan’s voice is a little ominous. He’s only barely said yes when she adds, “Are you decent?” and then walks into his quarters.
“Elan!” Andorians have less strict ideas about personal privacy, but they’ve had this talk before.
She takes him in for a moment—obviously just awake, halfway on and halfway off a couch too small for him to sleep on—and then clearly discards whatever she might want to say. “I wanted to tell you privately. Tyler is awake.”
Lorca is up and finding clothes as soon as she says it. “Which Tyler?” Elan hisses in a breath and he realizes she’s seen the constellation of scars across his shoulders and back, long lines and ragged triangles and clumsy circles, from people who didn’t have agonizers and didn’t use light for torture. “No time, Lieutenant, is it Tyler or Voq?”
“As far as we can tell, it’s Tyler. Dr. Pollard has run every scan on him she could think of. No sign of any second person in there, brain patterns completely back to normal.”
He goes into his bedroom and pulls on pants, his uniform top, his Starfleet pin. “Why are you telling me this instead of Saru?”
“Saru is in sickbay with Tyler. Since you both tried to kill Tyler and suggested ‘putting him down,’ Saru sent a security officer to escort you to sickbay to make sure you don’t try again.” Blunt as ever. “How’s Burnham?”
“She’s fine.” It’s obvious she spent the night in his quarters. “All right, let’s go.”
Tyler is sitting up on a bed, unrestrained. “Mr. Saru, what’s going on? Dr. Pollard? Why isn’t he tied down?”
Tyler doesn’t look at him. Saru says, “Captain, after Dr. Pollard conducted her tests and I spoke with Mr. Tyler, we determined that restraints were unnecessary.”
The blind trust of these people, to make that decision so blithely on the strength of a few tests and an undoubtedly heartfelt and emotional conversation with a lot of crying. “Everyone, get out,” he says. “That’s an order. Lieutenant Elan, you too. I won’t harm him,” he adds, when Elan refuses to move. She goes, frowning at him, and closes the doors to sickbay. He can see her face at the window outside.
“Captain,” Tyler says. He’s screamed himself hoarse. “Captain, I’m so sorry.”
“Look at me.” Tyler looks up, and his eyes are red-rimmed, his face pale. The red welts where he’d tried to claw his chest open are still there. “You were planted in the cell for me to find.” Tyler nods. “We were allowed to escape so you could get to the Discovery.” Tyler nods again. “You must have been proud of yourself, when I made you my chief of security. You must have laughed at it.”
“No, sir,” Tyler says. “I didn’t know about—him, then. Voq. The other.” He swallows. “Is she all right?”
“The Klingon?”
“Michael.” He can barely say her name. “Mr. Saru told me she’s alive.” His voice breaks on ‘alive.’ “But I know I must have hurt her. Can you tell me?”
“You did hurt her. I was going to kill you.” Lorca should probably stop saying that, now that they aren’t going to kill him.
“Is she all right?” Tyler keeps repeating it like it’s a talisman, like if Lorca says yes then everything is fine.
“You should ask her that, if she’ll speak to you.” Lorca draws in a deep breath. “You’re telling me you had no idea you were a Klingon until you tried to kill her.”
Tyler shakes his head. “After Pahvo, when I saw L’Rell—I started to get flashes. Of being cut apart. I remember it all now. They broke my Klingon body into pieces to cut it down to a human body. I thought I was just having flashbacks. PTSD, Admiral Cornwell told me. Then it started to get worse. I would lose time, just fifteen seconds, thirty seconds. Not long enough to do anything.” He gulps. “You took me off duty. I thought it had gotten better than. Being around Michael helped. I could focus on her. But then I kept going to the brig. I didn’t talk to L’Rell for a long time. But—then I did, and this happened.”
“Here I thought I’d saved your life,” Lorca says.
Tyler looks at him, beseeching. “You did, Captain. You didn’t have to come back for me, on the Klingon ship. I was wounded. I would have died there if you hadn’t.”
He remembers the stench of the ship, the feeling of the disruptor in his hand, the way it jumped when he fired. “I trusted you with my life. The crew’s lives. Burnham’s life.” Tyler, of all people, should understand the significance of Burnham’s life.
“I’m so sorry,” Tyler says again. “Captain, I’m so sorry. I don’t have the words, but—”
“You’re sorry. I got it.” He believes Pollard and Saru that Tyler is just a human now. Not a very useful one anymore. “What am I going to do with you?”
There’s the tiniest bit of hope on Tyler’s face. “It sounds like you’re not going to kill me, sir?”
“People keep telling me I shouldn’t. I can’t keep you in the brig. The Klingon is down there and anyway, I suppose I don’t think you’re a danger anymore.” He looks at the door, beckons Saru and Pollard and Elan back in. “What do we do with him?”
They decide to…release him, for lack of a better word. Limit his access to anything important, put a monitor on him just in case. Tyler doesn’t chafe at any of it. Lorca knows that what he wants is to see Burnham. He doesn’t know if Burnham wants to see Tyler. But she will, it’s inevitable, and there’s nothing he can realistically do but let her know what’s happening.
He means to find her and tell her as soon as they let Tyler go. But, on the bridge: they discover another Class M planet. Another tropical one. Lorca would call it boring, if he didn’t think they could all use a bit of that right now. This part of the galaxy may be quiet, save the occasional anomaly, but the ship itself has been…difficult lately. “Begin scanning,” he tells Burnham. “Let’s see if it’s time for more shore leave.” It hasn’t been that long since the last time, but it would be good to get some of the crew off the ship before too much gossip circulates about Tyler. Better to distract everyone with sandy beaches and cool blue water and cocktails made with the different kinds of moonshine the cadets have been brewing down in an unused science lab. They’re very proud of it. “If it’s safe, I want every one of you to take a turn down there,” he says to the bridge crew. “No exceptions. We don’t know how long it’ll be until we find another one and you all deserve a rest.”
“Preliminary scans suggest that the planet would be hospitable for crew visits,” Burnham says. Detmer and Owosekun are listening closely, he sees. “The only large life-forms are in the highlands. With adequate security, the beach should be safe.” Adequate security, ha. They’re down another member, without Tyler, and he’s not putting a phaser in Tyler’s hands unless they’re under attack. He may have to let Elan poach from another division again. “The average temperature is eighty degrees on the beach, with estimated nighttime lows around sixty-five and daytime highs up to ninety. Seawater appears to be eighty degrees with minimal variation predicted.” She looks up from her station. “With a day’s sensor readings to ensure no unexpected temperature fluctuations or incursions by dangerous wildlife, we should be able to determine the safety of a leisure visit within acceptable parameters.”
“Good,” Lorca says. “Mr. Saru, draw up lists. We’ll keep a rotating skeleton crew on the ship, but I want everyone to take a turn down there for at least thirty-six hours.”
“Yes, sir. Would you like to be in the first rotation on the beach?”
“No.” He isn’t planning to go down at all. “Consult with Lieutenant Tilly on the distribution of crew.”
“Captain?” Saru is…flabbergasted. “I beg your pardon?”
“She’s been promoted.”
“Captain!” Saru is almost certainly about to tell him something about proper procedures for advancing up the ranks in Starfleet and the proper order of those ranks.
“We’ll have this discussion later, Mr. Saru,” he says. “For now, let’s get to work. And yes,” he tells Burnham, “If the scientists want to spend their leisure time collecting specimens or running experiments, they can do that. As long as it’s on the planet.” She quirks her eyebrow and he smiles.
He doesn’t get around to telling her about Tyler, but it doesn’t matter. He’s keeping an eye on Tyler, when he’s not on duty. He hears them talking in a quiet corner and stays just close enough to be able to intervene if needed.
“Michael,” Tyler says. “I’m so, so sorry. Words can’t express—”
“I know, Ash.” Lorca can hear the hurt in her voice. “I know it wasn’t you.”
“I didn’t—I could see what I was doing but I couldn’t stop—”
“I understand.” She’s a lot more understanding than Lorca was. “How are you doing?”
“The Klingon—L’Rell—she fixed me. Took him out of my head. I still have his memories, but they’re completely—separate. Another person lived them.” There’s a long silence. “I’m trying to put myself back together.”
“You will,” Burnham says. “It’ll take time.”
“Michael—Ash Tyler, he loved—I love you. It’s what kept me from breaking for so long. I need you. I can’t do this alone.” In the shadows, Lorca sees Tyler reach out to touch her face.
Burnham flinches away. “It can’t be me,” she says softly. “I care about you, Ash. I probably could have loved you, with time. But I can still feel your hands around my throat.” She puts her hand to her neck. “I looked into your eyes and I saw how much you wanted to kill me. No matter how much I try, when I look in your eyes, I see his eyes.”
Tyler shakes his head. “Michael—”
“You have to put your own self back together,” she says. “I know. After the Battle of the Binary Stars, I was so lost. I had to sit with myself. I had to work through it. I had to crawl my way back. I’m still not there, but I’m trying. That kind of work—reclaiming life—it’s punishing, and it’s relentless. And it’s solitary.”
“Michael—” He tries again.
“I’m your friend, Ash. I’ll always be your friend, and I’ll support you. Don’t ask me for something different.”
She walks away then, leaves Tyler in shadow with his head bowed. Lorca tries to slip away, leave Tyler some semblance of privacy in this moment, but Tyler must hear him. He lifts his head, laughs bitterly. “Checking up on me, sir?”
“Yes,” Lorca says. He’s not going to lie about it.
“We choose our own pain—right, sir?”
“Do you think,” Lorca asks slowly, “that after the Buran, I was—?” He doesn’t know exactly what he’s trying to say to Tyler. “I lost my ship. I lost my crew. I had to find a way to live with causing the deaths of men and women who believed in me, who trusted me, to keep them safe. A way to live with surviving myself. I have to,” he says, and he’ll be that honest only this moment. “I understand, Tyler.”
Tyler is quiet for a long time. “Thank you, sir,” he says finally.
* * *
They’re still scanning the planet, making sure it isn’t going to rain fire overnight or produce dinosaurs from underground or something. In his ready room, Lorca is looking at the reports and contemplating going to his quarters and trying to sleep in a horizontal position. Burnham enters. “Captain,” she says, brusque. “It would be helpful to me if I could sleep on your couch again tonight.”
“You can stay for as many nights as you need,” Lorca says. “You can stay forever if you want.” He means it as hyperbole, not a marriage proposal, doesn’t realize how much it reveals until Burnham looks at him like a startled gazelle. “You’re a valuable member of the crew. Your health is important.” He wants her to be happy.
“Thank you, Captain. A few more nights should be enough.”
She turns to leave. “You should really take the bed, though,” he tells her.
“You don’t fit on the couch.” They could both sleep in the bed. He’s not going to suggest it. “I do. Logically, I should take the couch.”
“You can’t just slap ‘logically’ onto the beginning of a sentence and win the argument,” he tells her.
Burnham raises an eyebrow. He thinks she might be laughing at him. “Do you disagree with the logic of my conclusion?”
He doesn’t. “I disagree with your use of the word ‘logically’ as a rhetorical technique.”
“Logic is my rhetorical technique. Logos. Use of the word ‘logically’ indicates that my reasoning is based on logic rather than pathos or ethos.”
“I would never insult you by accusing you of making a pathos-based argument, Burnham,” he assures her. She smiles a little at that and he can’t stop the answering grin, doesn’t really want to. “I’ll see you later in my quarters.”
It feels almost…domestic, planning it like that. Even during the brief time that they’d been sleeping together, he’d never been certain that she was going to come by; it was when their schedules overlapped, when he wasn’t lingering on the bridge or she wasn’t absorbed in some project, when they both felt like it. This is…knowing she’ll be there. That he’ll see her, unguarded—well, less guarded.
“What is wrong with your face,” Elan says flatly. They’re in the mess hall, because he hasn’t eaten anything for a while and he wants to see how the crew are taking the possibility of more shore leave. Fairly well, generally.
“Lieutenant?” He’s skipped the nutrient beverage, now that he’s noticed the taste, and is eating the club sandwich that the synthesizer provided when he requested a sandwich.
“You look happy.” She’s grumpy. At least she isn’t eating redbat today. “You’re mooning over your Vulcan.”
His gaze keeps landing on Burnham’s table, he realizes. “You’re moping over yours.”
“Is she spending the night again? Kicking you out to your couch?”
“No.” He takes a bite of his sandwich and chews, ignoring Elan’s doubtful antennae. Technically, he’s not lying. Burnham is sleeping on the couch.
“Gabe,” Elan says, and he hears both sympathy and warning in her voice. “Don’t be stupid. You know how this ends.”
He does. “Nothing’s happening,” he tells her.
“You’re lying to me!” She sounds hurt. “We don’t lie to each other. Is this because I stopped you from killing Tyler?”
“Elan. Drop it.”
“Of course. Sir.” Burnham gets up to leave. She meets his eyes as she picks up her tray, and he could swear she raises an eyebrow just a little, like a challenge. Then she glances away, turns to Tilly, says something, starts walking. “You’re fucked,” Elan tells him, and he doesn’t bother arguing.
Burnham is already in his quarters when he arrives—there’s a bag next to the couch, her PADD on the table, her shoes by the door. She comes out of the bathroom in a soft shirt and sleep pants, shoulders bare and straight as they always are. His hands remember the heat of her skin. “Make yourself comfortable,” he says, and tosses her last night’s blanket.
She catches it with both hands. “Yes, Captain.” Her eyes sparkle a little and he wants to push her down on the couch, slide her shirt up over her head and kiss her until neither of them can breathe.
That’s not what she’s here for. “If you get cold,” he says, and stops. She’s not going to get cold.
“I appreciate it.” Burnham sits cross-legged on the couch and draws the blanket up. “Permission to speak freely?”
“Yes,” he says. He’s forgotten that she doesn’t usually speak freely. She’s left two of the cushions empty, and he walks to the couch and sits down at the other end so he isn’t looming while she talks.
“You wanted to kill Ash.”
Lorca wasn’t expecting that, of all things. He’s not ashamed of it, but he wishes she didn’t know. “I did try to kill Tyler,” he corrects. He remembers the blind rage. “Elan—Elan and Chandavarkar stopped me.”
“Would you have killed him if they hadn’t?”
There’s no point lying to her about things like this anymore. “Yes,” he says. “I killed the officer who killed the Emperor’s daughter on the spot.”
“It’s against Federation law.” She’s watching him carefully, body still.
“Elan reminded me.” He might as well admit it. “I told her I didn’t care.”
Burnham shifts the slightest bit. “You didn’t kill him, though.”
“No.” He closes his eyes. He can hear her breathing very lightly. “Elan told me you’d never forgive me.” Her breath stops momentarily. “I told her I didn’t care.” Burnham breathes in again, then out slowly.
“I don’t know if I would,” she said.
“You weren’t there to tell me it was wrong.”
“That shouldn’t—”
“Don’t,” Lorca says. “You know it does.” He opens his eyes again and looks at Burnham. “You know why I wanted to kill him.”
“Yes.” She’s silent. “I’ll tell you when I think it’s wrong, but you can’t make me your moral compass, Lorca.” Not Captain, but not Gabriel either. “You can’t put it all on me. Why didn’t you kill him, if you didn’t care whether I would forgive you?”
“I would’ve had to kill one of them to get to him. Elan, or Chandavarkar. I suppose that’s progress.” Lorca laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You may not think it means much. But I didn’t kill him because I would’ve had to kill one of them and I couldn’t do that.” He doesn’t say, not again, but she can hear it.
Burnham lets her head fall back to rest against the arm of the couch and takes in another long, even breath. “I don’t know what to do,” she admits. “You said you know me, I hate to be wrong. And I hate to be uncertain. You make me…uncertain.”
“Burnham,” he says, and stops. The coward’s way out is to leave this conversation. Nothing she says next is going to make anything better. “You must know—”
She lifts her head, shakes it. “I trust you with my life, Captain. But I can’t trust you…beyond that.”
“No,” he says. He stands up. “I know.” He leaves the room. When he goes to the bathroom to shower, her toothbrush is set on the sink, neatly capped, and seeing it feels like a pinched nerve. His whole body is uncomfortable, feels put together wrong, his muscles jumpy. His head, his mind, are exhausted, but it takes him hours to fall asleep.
In the morning, he walks into the living room and says, “Good morning, Burnham,” like nothing ever happened.
She’s fully dressed in uniform, sitting up straight on the couch, blanket folded neatly beside her. “Good morning, Captain. We’ve confirmed that the planet is appropriate for crew recreation.”
“Good,” he says. “Have Saru and Tilly drawn up the lists?” He wants to make himself coffee but he gave the Andorians his food synthesizer to reprogram. He has a headache again.
“I have them here.” Burnham holds up the PADD. “It looks like Tilly put you on the list. Should I remove you?”
“No, I suppose I should go,” he says. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been off the ship.” They both know when that was.
He goes down to the planet. The cadets load large water jugs full of their liquor onto the last shuttle. Everyone drinks. When night falls, everyone drinks more and wades into the water and stares up at the achingly bright stars they don’t recognize. Lorca walks along the waterline and drinks and doesn’t think about anything. On his way back, he meets someone—she tells him she’s a specialist in engineering, but that she heard they need someone in security, and he says, “Talk to Lieutenant Elan, she picks her team,” and she smiles and says, “Well, now that that’s out of the way,” and kisses him. She has very short magenta hair and ridges along her cheekbones and jawline and she laughs and the sex is good, easy, fun, like being a captain in the Terran universe again, but without the edge beneath it. When they’re done she grins and says “Thanks” and wanders away, around the edge of the cove and back to where everyone else is still drinking and someone has started to sing too poorly to be understood.
“Lorca to Discovery.”
“Is everything all right, Captain?” Saru is supposed to go down with the second group, though he’s hesitant to leave his post.
“Yes,” he says. “But I need to transport back.” It was a bad idea to come down. He needs to sober up and he needs to take a shower and he needs to figure out what he just did.
“Yes, sir.”
The cove dissolves in front of him and the transport room appears. The transporter technician stares at him and Lorca says, “Computer, site-to-site transport,” and is back in his quarters.
He’s forgotten, though. Burnham is sleeping here again. He’d told he she could, that he would be gone. She’s curled up on the couch anyway—not the bed—and she wakes and says, “Captain?” sleepily.
Lorca can’t deal with it. “No,” he says, and walks back to the bathroom. He doesn’t know what he looks like, but from the way the technician stared at him, it must be…outrageous. He avoids the mirror and gets into the shower and lets his head fall back against the wall, water streaming down. Going to the planet was a mistake. He’d only done it because it seemed like a good idea to get away from Burnham, but it hasn’t made anything better. He hopes the engineer…isn’t going to mention it to anyone. Especially Elan, who will either be judgmental or pleased and either one would be bad.
He brushes his teeth to get the tastes out of his mouth, pulls on sleep pants because he can’t walk around naked with Burnham around, and opens the door. Burnham is there, waiting. “Captain,” she says again.
His throat is painful. “You must…know,” he says.
She stares at him wide-eyed for a long time. “I know,” she says, almost wonderingly, like she’s realizing it for the first time. She must be the last person on the ship to know.
“And you’ve never been in love.”
“No.”
He wants to pull her tight against him and bury his face in her hair and feel the shape of her bones under his hands, the heat of her skin. He wants her to stay here, in his quarters, in his room, in his bed, while the ship wanders through space and her quick mind works out all the galaxy’s secrets. He wants her to lie to him. He’s drunk. He hopes he doesn’t remember this. “As long as we’re clear,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”
He doesn’t remember it. Burnham isn’t there when he wakes up.