Chapter Text
“This has to be the stupidest fucking decision a person has ever made,” Elan says.
Lorca regrets having ever started to eat in the mess hall. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“No one ever does.” Elan pokes dubiously at her pancakes. “You’re getting half-naked with…your Vulcan…and touching each other all over, in the privacy of your room, and then letting her put you to bed every night.”
“It’s not every night,” Lorca says, “and it’s a Vulcan medical treatment for sleep problems. Stop playing with your food.”
Elan tears a piece off of her pancake and pinches it between two fingers. “Look, we both know that Vulcans are all repressed and kinky, so I’m not surprised they came up with something like that and call it medical treatment. You know what’s a really good Andorian treatment for sleep problems? Getting completely naked and—”
“Lieutenant Tilly!” Lorca spots her walking by with a tray and calls her over for no reason other than to redirect Elan’s attention.
“Captain?” Too late, he realizes that she’s flanked by Owosekun and Detmer, who always seem to be laughing at him silently these days.
“I’d like a report on the status of the anomaly research after you’ve finished breakfast,” Lorca tells her.
“Yes, sir.” Tilly looks suspicious, which isn’t surprising given that she reported yesterday. “Oh, sir, Keyla had a request.”
He raises an eyebrow at Detmer. “Captain, I’ve done some research into the experiences of other ships on long-term missions,” she says. “The…techniques used to maintain morale.”
“Detmer, if this is a request for another party—”
“No, Captain. Something a little smaller. On some of the earliest missions, they used to hold movie nights.”
Two years ago he was plotting to take over the entire Terran empire, and now he’s on a ship overrun by bunnies with his crew asking permission to watch movies. “You need my authorization for that?”
Owosekun and Detmer are definitely laughing at him. “Noooo,” Detmer says carefully. “We’ve been holding them for a few weeks now. We take turns choosing movies, and Owo suggested that we ask if you’d like to choose the movie tonight.”
Now the only fear he inspires in his crew is, apparently, that he might be insulted they didn’t ask for his opinion on movies earlier. “I don’t watch a lot of movies, Lieutenant.” And the ones he’s seen in Terran society probably never existed in this universe.
“Of course not, sir.” Owosekun gives Detmer a kind of told-you-so look that he resents.
“I’ll come tonight,” Lorca finds himself saying. “You can tell whoever’s choosing to pick something that I’ll like.” He has to take his moments to inspire fear where he can find them these days.
After Tilly’s report, which is as routine as he expected, and an away mission during which the team identifies a new set of fluffy animals that they want to bring home—a request he denies, and feels vindicated when the fluffy animals turn out to have very strong scent glands—and an inspection of the security team, during which Specialist Phreen seems amused by his presence but not remotely concerned, and after dinner, where Elan makes more faces at him and Lorca ignores her…after all that, he allows Detmer and Owosekun to shepherd him to the shuttle bay, where crew are setting up their own chairs in front of a large screen.
“It was Rhys’s turn to choose,” someone says in his ear, and he knows it’s Burnham without turning his head. “He was very intimidated.”
“At least someone is still intimidated.” Lorca doesn’t look at her. He likes this, this tacit acknowledgement of each other’s presence, the fact that she didn’t start by calling him Captain. “People used to fear me.”
“I’m sure they still do,” Burnham assures him, voice low, and he thinks of the way she sounds when they’re alone, when her fingers are tracing out every damaged cluster of nerves, when last night she’d begun working on his chest while he’d stared up at her until he had to close his eyes to stay sane. “You didn’t have any requests?”
“Movies didn’t play a big role in my childhood,” he murmurs. Even without looking, he knows she’s standing very close to him. He keeps his eyes forward, on the collection of people who are laughing and good-naturedly arguing about how low the lights should go. “There were…training holograms. Recordings of simulations.”
“Nor mine,” Burnham tells him. He wonders what she would do if he did close the gap, if he put a friendly hand on her shoulder or a light hand at the small of her back, a little more affectionate. “You should find a seat.”
“And you?” He doesn’t know if it would be better to sit through the movie alone, whether or not it’s enjoyable, or sit through it with Burnham at his elbow and spend it thinking of her.
“I’m sitting at the back with Ash and Tilly,” she says, and that answers that. “Enjoy.” She moves away as Detmer and Owosekun approach to guide him to a seat.
Lorca isn’t sure what Rhys’s movie choice says about his view of Lorca. It’s black-and-white, silent with some placards of text, and culminates in the hero frantically climbing the façade of a building, slipping and nearly falling and nearly being knocked off over and over again. Lorca finds himself gripping the seat of his chair, muscles tensed in sympathy with the climber even as he can see the slapstick humor in it when the man has finally made it to the top and then trips over the rope and falls again…only to somehow swing up and into the arms of his girlfriend. Everyone has been laughing and sighing and cheering around him, but even when it’s over, all he feels is the tension, the fear, the desperation in that climb. In the dark of the shuttle bay, he’s mentally plotted his escape route, and even when the lights come on he’s finding the path out.
“Captain!” Rhys has ventured close enough to catch his attention and Lorca holds every muscle in place, against every instinct. “Sir!” Rhys wants him to say that it was the right choice but doesn’t want to ask.
“Good,” he says, and it sounds forced even to his ears because he’s trying so hard to stay still. “Seems classic.”
“Thank you, sir, I hoped you would enjoy it. I thought something from the early years, not too much talking, simple but catchy—”
“Yes, Lieutenant, I appreciate the thought that went into it.” He nods shortly at Rhys and does make his escape, out a side door to the shuttle bay and down into a dark alcove, and discovers that it’s already occupied.
“Captain.” Tyler is there, breathing hard, and Lorca sees his own feelings there. “Sorry, sir,” Tyler says, and twitches like he’s going to move.
Lorca shakes his head. “At ease.” Tyler might be the only person on this ship who can grasp something of what he’s feeling. They don’t speak more, only stand a safe distance from each other, each breathing in deeply, trying to lock it down, for whatever value of it. The movie should have been funny. He knows that. Everything leading up to that desperate climb had been flimsy, amusing, no weight to it. But he can still feel the agony of wanting to climb himself, having to hold his arms and legs still as he watched because it wasn’t real, he wasn’t the one trying to climb, the one whose hands slipped on the arms of the clock, who dangled out over the street with only a hand on the sheer wall or a windowsill, and that overwhelms any memory of the rest of the movie, floods past the unreality of the final kiss, and he’s still swamped with it.
“Ash,” he hears Burnham say, and then she realizes that they’re both there. She abandons whatever she’d been planning to say to Tyler. “Captain.”
“Burnham,” he says and it’s barely a coherent word, he’s trying so hard to contain this desperate need to run further—his animal brain doesn’t care that he could transport to the safety of his quarters, it wants to steal a shuttle and get away away away—he doesn’t even have a real weapon on him, only a little knife at his ankle—
He doesn’t know what she says to Tyler. He’s barely conscious of Tyler at all. He sees her shape approaching in his peripheral vision, slowly, and she must say his name repeatedly because finally she says “Gabriel” and he looks at her and the panic—because that’s what it is—lessens slightly, enough that he can control it again, more or less.
“Yes,” he says slowly. He shouldn’t have reacted that way to a silly movie. If Rhys had chosen a war movie, maybe, or one of those torture movies that people used to watch, his reaction would make more sense. She reaches toward him slowly again, so that he can see her coming, and takes his hand and holds it clasped between her own, and he grips her hand so tightly that he sees pain cross her face briefly and he releases it. Burnham doesn’t take her own hands away, though.
Lorca breathes in, out, tries to match the breathing she’s taught him in the neuro-pressure sessions, tries to slow his heart down. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I’m fine.” He can read her expressions well enough now, even under the Vulcan façade, to know that she doesn’t believe him. “I’m fine,” he repeats.
“No one ever means that when they say it,” she tells him. “Come on.” She keeps his hand clasped in one of her own as though he’ll run away if she lets go and leads him along the hallway until they come to the cargo bay, one end open to the vastness of space with only the forcefield to keep the air in. Lorca goes willingly as she walks almost to the open end. There’s a line of crates there and Burnham hops up on one, helps him up onto the next.
“You told me that no matter how deep in space you are, you can always see home.”
“Burnham, I was lying,” he says, and she laughs a little at that.
“Yes, and about your eyes, and about being mysterious. I realized that, eventually.”
They’re silent for a little while, watching those unfamiliar stars. The urge to run is starting to subside. “Elan thought I’d been Section 31,” he says. “I didn’t correct her. Would you have liked it better, if I’d told you that?”
“No.” Burnham’s answer follows right on the heels of his question. “No. I would rather know the truth, even if it’s worse.”
“Would that have been a better truth?” He’s not quite asking her, but working it through himself. “If whatever terrible things I’ve done and whatever flexible morality I have was in service of the Federation? Or is it better that the Federation’s hands are clean of all that, at least when it comes to me?”
Burnham jostles his knee with her own, almost casually affectionate. “I’m not blind to the…darker parts of the Federation, of Starfleet. I can believe in the principles and in the laws without believing that everything the Federation does is meritorious.” She looks out at the stars. “And I don’t know. It’s difficult to compare you as I know you to whoever you would be if you’d grown up here and then become part of Section 31.”
“Do kids here grow up wanting to be spies?” He turns away from the stars and looks at her. “What did you want to be when you grew up, when you were a kid?”
“I wanted to join the Vulcan Expeditionary Group,” she says automatically.
“Why didn’t you?”
Some emotion flashes across her face. “Admission was…selective.”
“I have trouble imagining that you weren’t the best.” He doesn’t want to re-open old wounds, but he wants to know, if she’ll tell him.
“I thought I wasn’t, for a long time,” Burnham tells him. “I thought I’d failed. Until we rescued Sarek and I saw inside his mind. He was given a choice, to choose which of his not-quite-Vulcans would be accepted.”
He can see where this is going. “He chose his son.”
“My brother. Spock.” She shakes her head. “I was ashamed for years, when I thought I’d failed him, and more ashamed to be experiencing such a human emotion. And then I learned what he had done and I thought I should be angry.”
“You should be.” He’s angry on her behalf.
Burnham sighs and looks away from him, out into space. “I think I used up the energy for those feelings with all the time I spent suppressing them. I’m not angry that he didn’t choose me. I understand why he didn’t. I know that Spock came first, for him. I was…angry that he never told me. That he allowed me to believe that I had failed him.” She laughs shortly, quietly. “His own emotional failing, that he was afraid of how I might react. I doubt he’s ever told my mother.”
“You don’t have to be Vulcan here,” he says. “You’re allowed to have feelings.”
“Oh, I do.” Burnham smiles a little at that, a private kind of smile. “I would say that since arriving here, I’ve experienced, and displayed, more emotions than in the twenty years before. But it can be—comforting, not to feel them, or to try not to, sometimes.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “I would think that in your universe, people would have emotional control closer to Vulcans.”
“No,” he says, and surprises himself with the vehemence of it. “No. In the Terran universe, there were certain acceptable emotions. Pride, anger. Desire. It would be strange to find a Terran soldier who didn’t show those openly. Happiness, of a certain kind. And everyone felt fear, too—it was almost the animating principle—but you couldn’t show that.” He remembers that constant thrum of fear, that inability to trust anyone, ever. “And unacceptable emotions. Sorrow.”
“Love,” she says, and she’s not wrong.
“The longer it’s been, the more I realize how terrible it was.” It’s strange to say it aloud. “Even happiness—no one was happy the way that Tilly is.”
“No one is happy the way Tilly is,” Burnham tells him, and he hears the affection in her voice.
“I want you to be happy too,” he says, and from the way Burnham stiffens, it was the wrong thing to say.
“You keep saying that,” Burnham says. “What if I’m not happy? Am I supposed to smile and tell you that I am so that you feel good?”
Lorca flounders. “No, of course not. It’s—a request to the universe, not an instruction to you. I want good things to happen to you,” he tries. “You’re important.” None of what he says is exactly right because none of it is quite what he means but won’t say, which is: I love you.
She settles a little. “I want good things to happen to you too,” she says.
“I’m happier than I’ve ever been, I think.” He’s surprised as he says it, but it’s true. This conversation has grown too heavy, too introspective, for him. He shifts, jumps down from the crate, and turns to look up at Burnham. “Burnham,” he says, “tell me you’ve adopted one of the thumpers by now.”
She grimaces and starts to move, and he offers his arms; he catches her when she jumps down. She meets his eyes and—grins? and he smiles back even as he wonders what she sees when she looks at him. “They weren’t supposed to be pets. I told the biology division not to allow it.”
“Tilly brought one home, didn’t she.” Burnham’s long-suffering expression tells him that he’s right. He realizes that they’re walking more or less in the direction of quarters. “Is it secretly dangerous? Are you taking me to be mauled?”
“Captain,” she says, and he realizes with some delight that she’s teasing him. “They have very dull teeth. It would only be a light mauling.”
When she opens the doors to her quarters, there’s a creature curled up on her bed. It’s nearly half the length of the bed and is covered in thick, curly fur. “Burnham. That doesn’t look like what they brought back.” The animal glares at him.
Burnham clears her throat. “It turns out that the small size and thin coat were a function of living in a desert environment. They appear to be…thriving here.” She gestures to the thumper. “This is Agatha.”
“…Agatha.”
“Off the bed,” Burnham tells it. “Go on, go to Tilly’s bed.” Agatha crouches and then leaps, propelling itself to land on Tilly’s bed. “Yes. Tilly named it.” She sits down on her bed and, after a moment, gestures to a nearby chair. “Sit.”
He does, and even stretches his legs out to prop them on the bedside table. Elan would approve. Burnham quirks an eyebrow. “How many of these things are running around the ship by now?”
“Something like forty,” Burnham says, and he chokes. “They learn very quickly, so xenobiology is working with linguistics to see if they can identify common markers. For now, they appear to understand basic English, but haven’t communicated in response.”
“Well, now it feels strange to talk in front of Agatha,” Lorca complains. Agatha makes a sort of disgruntled chirping noise and walks to the doors, which open. After a disdainful glance back, she walks out. “Terrifying,” he amends.
“I’m surprised you let them bring the thumpers on board.” Burnham sits cross-legged on her bed, leaning against the wall. He hasn’t been in here since Tyler attacked her.
“I didn’t,” he says. “Ensign T’Lac told me it had been approved by the head of xenobiology while you and I were…out of radio contact.”
“I suppose you told me that, and Vulcans don’t lie, as a general rule.” Burnham brushes some fur off her blanket.
“T’Lac doesn’t seem like a very good Vulcan,” Lorca says. “The first time I met her she was practically hysterical with laughter.”
“Tilly and Chandavarkar had concocted something special for her.” She smiles a little at the memory, and he remembers kissing her in the hallway that night. “She is much more reserved, usually.”
“Of course. And she doesn’t lie.” Lorca shakes his head. “Is anyone on this ship afraid of me anymore, Burnham?”
She quirks an eyebrow. “‘Afraid’ is a subjective term, Captain. Please elucidate.” He sees the smile playing on her lips.
“Intimidated. Acting out of anticipation of consequences rather than according to hierarchy.”
“That’s difficult to quantify. But I would hypothesize, based on the interactions I’ve observed, that the crew are…less afraid of you.” Burnham’s voice loses some of its performative tone and turns sincere. “Is that a bad thing?”
He thinks of Elan, of Chandavarkar refusing to let him kill Tyler, Tilly sitting at his table, Detmer and Owosekun’s laughing eyes, Stamets and his own smoke pet—“No,” he says. “I suppose not.”
Burnham’s gaze locks with his, and—
And then Tilly walks in with T’Lac and Chandavarkar, Agatha twining between their legs. Silence falls. It’s excruciating. He can’t think of a good reason for being here, a reason other than having come here because he likes talking to Burnham and she likes talking to him.
He stands. “Burnham,” he says, and nods at the rest of them in general acknowledgement. “Enjoy your night.”
Lorca has made it almost halfway to his own quarters when he hears Burnham call “Captain!” from behind him. She’s followed him from her room. “I don’t think I’m up for a neuro-pressure session tonight.”
He tilts his head to look at her. She followed him to tell him something that’s abundantly obvious? He reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. “There,” he says. “Neuro-pressure complete.”
Burnham actually laughs at that, and he never wants her to stop. “I appreciate it.” She takes his hand and squeezes it briefly. “Neuro-pressure complete. Sleep well. Sir.” She walks away and he walks to his own quarters with the sound of her laugh in his ears.
* * *
Minimal neuro-pressure notwithstanding, he sleeps poorly that night. He dreams of fleeing down a hallway as it narrows in front of him, Michael ahead of him and the Emperor’s soldier’s at his back, and he knows she won’t come back if he falls. He wakes before they catch him and dreams of that instant on the Buran when he saw the Starfleet symbols and knew that something was terribly wrong, and then it’s Cornwell, staring unmoved as he begs her not to take Discovery away from him.
When he wakes up for the third time, he gives up on sleeping. It’s been four hours and that’s enough, at least for now. In another thirty minutes he’s back on the bridge with the last few hours of gamma shift, and he finds himself feeling a little guilty (guilty!) that he hasn’t consulted with Saru recently beyond asking, yet again, whether they’ve discovered anything about the anomalies that they still hit occasionally. “Mr. Saru,” he says. “Good to see you.”
“Captain?” The question in Saru’s voice says that he thinks Lorca must have a head injury. Again. “It is…good to see you as well, sir.”
“What’s the galaxy looking like out there?” They’re crawling along at warp four, but at least they have a destination now. “Anything interesting?”
“Sir, I don’t know if this would qualify as interesting, but there is a planet along our current course that scans suggest may be at some level of technological development beyond those we’ve previously encountered.”
Lorca keeps from jumping out of his chair, but only just. “Excellent! Set course for that planet,” he says. “When we drop out of warp, scan from a safe distance until we have a better sense of what we’re dealing with.” He’s almost—exhilarated at the thought of an inhabited planet with people who are something more than desert scavengers. Burnham will be excited too, when she hears about it.
Elan arrives on the bridge on the dot for the beginning of alpha shift and gives him a tall cup in which she appears to have combined coffee and a nutrient beverage. It’s already separating. “Captain. What’s this I hear about a new planet?” Burnham walks in a step behind her, smiles at Lorca—he’s too surprised to smile back—and goes to her own station.
“Scans indicate a civilization that has advanced to…early industrialization,” Saru says. “Steam power. No warp signatures.”
“Another excellent opportunity to violate the Prime Directive!” Elan declares cheerfully.
Burnham hides another smile—Lorca sees it—and scrolls through the information at her station. “It appears to be another humanoid species. There’s nothing about their appearance that we can’t synthesize, if we want to take a look without making official contact.”
“Put together a team,” he says. “Once our scans are finished, if there’s nothing strange, you can transport down to the planet. Lieutenant Elan, coordinate with Burnham on the team.”