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Chapter Text

“Respectfully, Captain, I do not see why she needs to be the one sent to examine this anomaly, let alone why I need to go with her.”

Burnham took a deep breath and tried to focus on her pre-flight check, but Commander Saru’s pained tone was difficult to ignore. As was Captain Lorca’s tone of light amusement. Captain Georgiou had often derived amusement from the interactions between her first officer and her science officer, but this was... less well-intentioned, to say the least.

“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t send her?” Lorca asked, putting on a show of obtuseness. He knew full well why Saru didn't want Burnham to go, or to be forced to accompany her, or have her on the ship at all. And Saru knew that the captain knew, but that didn’t prevent him from reiterating the obvious.

“It would be remiss of me not to point out that the last time Michael Burnham was sent to investigate an anomalous occurrence, she started a war.”

“Well, now you’ve pointed it out, so you may consider your duties satisfied, Commander. Have a good trip.”

“Captain—”

“Commander. Do you really expect Burnham to ignite a second war on this away mission? Two in one year is a record I can’t see anyone managing accidentally. I’m sending her because she’s doing good work, and this is the sort of problem she’s best at. And I’m sending you so that if there is any danger, you can pull rank on Burnham and get yourselves the hell out of there.”

“If she’ll follow orders.”

Burnham felt Lorca’s eyes on the back of her head.

“She’ll follow orders.”

Lorca departed the shuttle and Saru boarded in an entirely ill humor. “Pre-flight check is complete,” Burnham reported quietly. “We’re ready for take-off.”

“I’ll run the check again,” said Saru, biting his words off short. “If you don't mind.”

“Of course not.”

The more things change, Burnham thought with exhaustion, the more they stay the same. Her time on the Shenzhou had been full of what Captain Georgiou had fondly called ‘head-butting” between her first officer and her science officer. Saru, she knew, disliked her as much as he respected her. For her part, Burnham had always felt sisterly feelings towards her colleague. Saru reminded her so much of her foster brother, now serving in Starfleet himself, and their competitive back-and-forth felt entirely familiar and comfortable to Burnham.

But it was a dynamic she had never attempted to describe to Saru, and she understood that the time for that was long past. Even if she could have explained, Saru had no interest in being considered her brother now. Not even Spock was willing to acknowledge her anymore. And Captain Georgiou was...

“I have completed my checks,” Saru announced. “Before we leave, I want your word that if I sense any danger of any kind – any kind whatsoever – you will turn this shuttle around and return to Discovery.”

“Saru, I’m not going to deliberately put you in danger for the sake of a few scans and samples.”

“Your word, Burnham.”

“If you don’t trust my intentions without my word, why will you trust me with it?”

Saru’s sea-green eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust you at all.” He gestured to a light on his console, indicating that all of their conversation was being recorded, and in the event of the shuttle's destruction, would be transmitted to the black box. “But I want your response on the record.”

Burnham said nothing in reply, only finalized both pre-flight checks and signaled to the shuttle bay crew that they were ready to depart.

It took them approximately thirty minutes to approach the anomaly, to reach a hopefully-safe distance that would still allow them to take detailed scans for study. Sensors told Burnham when they were in position, but there was nothing to be seen through the forward windows but the usual vista of deep space. She felt a vague sense of disappointment; she had hoped for something more visually intriguing.

Discovery’s initial readings had indicated heavy ionizing radiation, so the shuttle’s shields had been reinforced, but they would not last long under constant bombardment from ion particles. “Shields are at one hundred percent and holding,” she reported.

“Good. Let’s just hope they stay that way long enough for us to get what we came for.” Saru’s long fingers pressed the controls with delicate precision. “Hmm. That’s interesting. There is a significant level of polaron particles being emitted from the anomaly. We’re practically enveloped in them. Can the shields withstand these?”

“Yes, for a little while.”

“How long?”

“Approximately twelve-point-nine minutes.” Burnham leaned closer to study his display, and tried not to take offense at how he canted his tall body away from her, considering that Kelpians as a culture were not particular about their personal space. “That’s strange. Polaron particles aren’t physically capable of existing in the presence of ionizing radiation.”

“No.” Saru snaked an arm past her, elbowing her back. “They should be converted into polaric ions.”

“Perhaps the polaron particles are a byproduct of the anomaly, somehow?

“That is a theory, although not a particularly plausible one,” Saru said, rather condescendingly. “Think about it: if that’s the case, why they aren’t being immediately ionized by the radiation as fast as they’re produced? Certainly they don’t appear to be at high enough levels to pose any kind of dangerous instability—”

The shuttle suddenly lurched up and then back down, with such an abrupt jolt that they were knocked into the forward panels.

“Ow,” Burnham said loudly, after a moment. “Thanks for the warning. You could have mentioned we were about to hit a speed bump.”

“We didn’t hit anything, and kindly do not blame me for the shuttle’s bad behavior. I sense the presence of death, not mechanical inconvenience.” Saru’s profile positively bristled with resentment. “Are the shields holding?”

“Yes, although the external sensors were knocked off-line. They’re rebooting now.”

“Once they’re finished, we should turn back. We didn’t take the possibility of polaron radiation into account.”

“Agreed, sir.” If he was waiting for her to argue, he was disappointed. “But it wasn’t the shuttle’s fault. We hit something – or were hit by something. I thought you said there was no instability,” Burnham grumbled, rubbing her forearm where it had hit the dash panel.

“No dangerous instability,” Saru retorted. “And the polaron levels weren’t high enough! I sensed no threat and neither did the scanners!”

“Normally, I’d trust your threat ganglia over a shuttlecraft’s scanners any day, but I think they were too busy talking down to me...” The external sensors beeped, and at the readings, Burnham frowned. “That’s odd. We’re detecting a ship, about five thousand kilometers, immediately ahead of us.”

“Did it come from the anomaly?”

“No... Saru, the anomaly’s changed positions. It’s behind us.” Burnham could suddenly hear her heart pounding in her ears, in spite of all her Vulcan calming techniques. “It would appear that we went though the anomaly.”

He stared at her blankly; his face did not have the requisite muscles for detailed expression, but his eyes were horrified. Swiftly, he turned and began running calculations. “What kind of ship are we approaching?” he demanded. “We may need to take evasive action.”

“Federation vessel,” Burnham reported after a moment. “Walker-class. Coming into view now...”

She trailed off, staring out the shuttle's forward screen in utter astonishment. Distantly, she heard Commander Saru's equally dumbfounded, "It can't be." On the dash, the subspace indicator blinked.

"They are hailing us," said Burnham, her voice gone eerily calm.

"Don't answer. We should go back."

"There's nothing to go back to. Sensors indicate that Discovery is gone. Or more accurately, was never there to begin with."

"Burnham, we can't be seeing what we're seeing."

"'When you have eliminated the impossible,'" she replied, quoting an old Earth story about a detective whom her foster-mother claimed to be descended from, "'whatever remains, however improbable—'"

"This is beyond improbable, this is beyond madness!"

"'—must be true.'" Burnham reached for the subspace transmitter and switched it on.

"--do you copy? Unknown shuttle, this is the USS Shenzhou, can you respond? Do you copy?"

"Affirmative, Shenzhou," said Burnham firmly, gazing up at the ship she had inadvertently caused to be destroyed. "We copy."

***

Onboard the Shenzhou's bridge, at the sound of the voice responding to their hails, Captain Philippa Georgiou went pale. "It can't be."

Chapter Text

They landed in the shuttlebay, disembarked in the presence of security, and waited. The captain and first officer would be with them shortly, they were told, but until then they were to be detained in the bay. Burnham recognized both security officers: Kendricks had been killed during the initial attack by the Klingons, and Najarian had been so badly injured during the evacuation that she took a medical retirement from Starfleet.

Both officers were looking at her as though they had seen a ghost. Burnham wondered a little at that, and then shrugged it off. She probably looked the same way.

Then the doors opened, and Burnham did see a ghost. She felt the blood draining from her face, and only by swiftly digging her fingernails into her palms did she manage to stay conscious and upright and able to stand at attention when the captain and first officer walked into the bay, both of whom she also knew quite well. Saru... and Captain Georgiou.

Philippa... She felt her throat starting to close and her eyes to burn, and she bit the inside of her cheek, hard, to keep back the tears. No Vulcan meditation techniques now, only brute Human force would help her stay focused, would keep her from breaking down in rough, tearing sobs and blurting out all the things she had always wanted to say to her captain, but had never dared.

As she and First Officer Saru approached, Captain Georgiou’s eyes widened in shock, and she came to a stop directly in front of Burnham. “Michael...”

The two women stared at one another, each frozen to the spot and trapped in their own thoughts.

A sudden zap and a mutual “Ouch!” from the two Sarus broke them from their trance. “What happened?” Georgiou demanded.

“I’m not sure,” said the Saru that Burnham had arrived with. “We stretched out our hands to touch and—”

“There was a discharge,” continued the Shenzhou’s Saru, “not unlike static electricity, but why that should be—”

“Well. Perhaps when we understand who these people are and what they’re doing here, we’ll have more of an explanation.” Georgiou looked Burnham and her Saru over, but the moment was passed, and her eyes were now shuttered. “My ready room. Commander Saru – my Saru – you will walk with me. Security, bring up the rear.”

The walk to the bridge seemed to take forever, especially when the six of them had to crowd into a turbolift in such a way as to keep the two Sarus from touching. Burnham found herself sandwiched between her Saru and Lieutenant Najarian, with Kendricks and Captain Georgiou forming a barrier between them and the other Saru. Georgiou’s shoulder was pressed against Burnham’s chest, and the close quarters combined with the sheer illogic of the situation was rapidly becoming intolerable.

What had happened to them?

“All right, you two,” Captain Georgiou said, when they had traversed the staring eyes on the bridge and made it to the safety of her ready room. “I want answers.”

Burnham left it to her Saru to explain the anomaly, the ionic radiation and the polaron particles and the utter lack of warning signs. “There was no indication of anything strange taking place,” he said, at the end of the debriefing. “The shuttle experienced what felt like an impact – what Burnham referred to as a ‘speed bump’ – and then the anomaly was behind us, Discovery was nowhere to be seen, and the Shenzhou was... here. With everything exactly as it was before...” Saru’s hesitation was so brief, no one would have noticed it, except the three people in the ready room. “Before Burnham and I were reassigned to the Discovery.”

“More than a mere reassignment, I should think,” said Georgiou, pacing around the conference table. “As your former superior officer no longer appears to have any rank whatsoever.”

“There was an... incident,” said Saru carefully.

“I’m not surprised,” said the Shenzhou’s Saru (Burnham had mentally designated him as Saru-S and her own as Saru-D, after the manner of a ship who was given the same name as a predecessor). “She was always prone to ‘incidents.’”

“That’s enough, Commander,” Georgiou snapped, and then apologized when everyone looked at her with varying degrees of confusion.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” said Saru-S gently. “It was meant with affection.”

Burnham took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly, picturing the exhalation in her mind as a calm, white light, and focusing on it. “Captain Georgiou. I could not fail to notice that while almost everything else on the Shenzhou is exactly as I remember it, there is one thing that is conspicuously missing: the presence of Commander Michael Burnham.” Burnham saw an unmistakable flicker of pain in Georgiou’s eyes. “When I arrived on this ship, the shuttlebay crew and the security guards looked at Commander Saru in surprise, but when they saw me, they were astonished. And they were afraid.” Both emotions that she was all too accustomed to seeing on the faces of the people she encountered now, wherever she went. “What happened to me, Captain?”

Georgiou and her first officer glanced at one another uneasily. Then Georgiou turned and walked to the window, folding her hands behind her back as she gazed out into space.

“We encountered a unknown vessel in Federation space. Saru wanted to retreat from the area, but Commander Burnham wanted to investigate it. She was curious... and God forgive me, so was I.” The back she had turned to the two Sarus and to Burnham was rigid, the clasped hands were tight, and there were tears evident in her voice. “I don’t know what happened to her. We were told by T’Kuvma that she was... killed.” Then her voice broke, and they all fell silent to allow her to compose herself.

“Prior to the loss of Commander Burnham,” said Saru-S, “Captain Georgiou attempted to engage in peaceful negotiations with the Klingons, but after... well.” He folded his hands primly on the ready room table and looked at his captain.

“I opened fire on the Klingon vessel. My retaliation was ill-considered,” Georgiou admitted. “I was... stricken with grief. I wasn’t thinking clearly. And my actions escalated the situation almost to the brink of war.”

Burnham felt Saru-D’s gaze slide towards her, but she had eyes only for Georgiou. Her chest felt unbearably constricted, as though the oxygen in the room was becoming depleted. “What happened?”

“Before reinforcements from Starfleet could arrive, we were surrounded by Klingon Birds of Prey. I thought we were about to be destroyed... but we got lucky. The ships were a war fleet, sent by the Klingon High Command. They had been looking for T’Kuvma and his followers for some time, and they were not happy that he had taken it upon himself to ‘antagonize’ Starfleet.” Georgiou turned away from the stars and sat down, finally, in the chair across the table from Burnham, but still shied away from eye contact. “They essentially told him to take his toys and go home. When he refused and opened fire on him, they destroyed his ship and picked up whatever survivors they could find.” She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “The head of the fleet offered me T’Kuvma for my prisoner, to execute in exchange for my first officer, ‘so that honor may be satisfied.’ I told him that the Federation doesn’t allow for the death penalty. Then he beheaded T’Kuvma, so that the entire fleet could see.

“And then they were gone, and Commander Burnham... we were never able to recover her body.” She looked across the table and met Burnham’s eyes.

“Things happened... rather differently, in our timeline,” said Saru-D, in his most matter-of-fact way.

Burnham said nothing. She was too stunned by the expression of loss on Captain Georgiou’s face.

Chapter Text

The two Sarus retreated to the bridge and then back to the shuttlebay, to ignore questions from the crew and to try to determine how the shuttle had come through the anomaly to this reality, that was so close to the one they had come from, but not quite parallel.

Burnham remained in the captain’s ready room. For a long time, the two women stood a few paces apart, in complete silence. There were tears in Georgiou’s eyes that she was plainly struggling to restrain, as she gazed upon the first officer and friend she had lost. Burnham simply drank in the sight of her captain, reliving and re-memorizing the color and shine of her hair, the shape of her face, the way her fingers laced together and the ovals of her fingernails.

“She meant a great deal to you,” Burnham ventured. “Your Commander Burnham.”

Georgiou managed a smile. “Is it that obvious?”

“The way you speak of her, your actions after her death, your angered reaction to Commander Saru’s comment... your apparent devastation right now... it is all more than the grief of a commanding officer and friend.”

“So it is... may I assume that you and your captain were not... as close?”

“We...” Burnham closed her eyes briefly, allowing her long-suppressed emotions of desire and longing for Philippa Georgiou to rise, if only for a moment, to the forefront of her mind. She was so physically close, Burnham could have reached out and touched her. Even knowing, intellectually, that she was a different woman from the captain Burnham had loved, her irrational instinctive emotions made her long to take that step, one that she had always held back from. “It would have been improper. Unprofessional.”

“It would. It was. But we went ahead with it anyway.” Georgiou smiled slightly, and brushed away her tears with a tired, practiced gesture. “The crew all seemed to accept it as a foregone conclusion.”

The poorly-healed crack in Burnham’s heart opened and bled a little more. “How long were... how long did you have?”

“Two years. Two glorious years that went by in the blink of an eye. And since I lost her... the last eight months have felt like eight lifetimes.”

“I’m sorry,” said Burnham softly. “I am so sorry.”

“So am I,” Georgiou said, just as softly. “I look into your eyes, and see my own pain reflected back. What happened to me, in your timeline?”

“I went out to the Klingon ship. I got into a fight with a guard patrolling the hull, and in the altercation, he was killed. When I returned to the ship, I encouraged Captain Georgiou... my Captain Georgiou, to destroy the ship. I believed that it was the only way to avoid outright war. My captain disagreed.” Burnham swallowed. It had been nearly a year since that horrific day, but the events and her actions were as clear in her mind as though they had just taken place. She relived them every single day, and the memories were untarnished by much handling. “I used a Vulcan subduing technique and attempted to take over the Shenzhou. It went... badly. I was taken to the brig. Then the Klingon fleet arrived, but they weren’t there to fight T’Kuvma. Captain Georgiou...”

She couldn’t. She couldn’t tell the rest, how she and Philippa had gone to the Klingon ship at Burnham’s suggestion, to try and capture T’Kuvma, how she had come back and Philippa had not. She pressed her lips together, hard. “She’s dead because of me, and so are thousands more. And I... it should have been me. Not her.”

“No.” Georgiou reached out and gripped both of Burnham’s hands in hers. Both women shivered at the contact, as though someone had walked over their graves. “If she felt for you even an iota of what I feel for mine—”

“You... she... left me her telescope in her will.” Both Burnham and Georgiou’s eyes wandered to the antique lensed apparatus in the corner of the ready room. “In her final message to me, she said that she had always looked on me as her own daughter. I’d never known that before. It made me... very proud. And very sad. I never felt that way about my captain. Many ways... but not that way.”

Georgiou laughed a little. She was closer now; instead of a few paces apart, only a few inches separated them. “No... I never felt that way about my Burnham, either.” Her thumbs brushed lightly over Burnham’s knuckles, making her gasp.

“There were many other kinds of emotions, but... never maternal ones.”

Still a little stunned, Burnham looked up into Captain Georgiou’s face. She had never been quite so close to her before, save for a few brief, intense moments on the worst day of her life. Her desire to kiss her captain had never been as strong as it was now...

In a hot, crowded rush of a second, she dropped Captain Georgiou’s grasp and cupped her face in her hands and pressed her lips to hers. It was clumsy and desperate and wonderful, nothing like she had ever anticipated, better than anything she could have imagined.

The captain’s hands were moving; first they were gripping Burnham’s waist, pulling her close, then they were tangled in her curly hair. And all the while, their kisses became deeper and more heated. When Burnham felt Georgiou’s tongue – Philippa’s tongue – on her lips, she broke the kiss suddenly, staring at her in astonishment, breathing hard.

“Philippa...

“My God, Michael,” the captain gasped, carding her fingers through Burnham’s hair, “I’ve missed you so damned much.”

“I’ve... missed you too.” A weight lifted from Burnham’s chest and then came crashing back down. “I’ve missed you too,” she choked, tears burning her eyes.

Georgiou kissed her eyelids and her cheeks, following the tracks of the tears on down to the corners of her mouth—

The ship lurched suddenly. An ominous familiar vibration rumbled through the structure, and a second later, Saru’s voice over the intercom interrupted them.

“Captain Georgiou to the bridge. We are under attack.”

Chapter Text

“Report!” Georgiou barked, striding onto the bridge with Burnham following close behind her. There were one or two gasps from the crew, but the rest were focused on their stations and on the ship bearing down on them.

Burnham’s heart nearly stopped. She knew that ship. She saw it every night, in her nightmares. “That’s T’Kuvma’s ship,” she said, her blood beginning to race. “I thought you said the Klingons destroyed it.”

“We had every indication that it was destroyed,” Georgiou said shortly, sitting down in the captain’s chair. “But we’re still unfamiliar with Klingon technology. It appears we were mistaken.”

Instinctively, and not wanting to look at the ship anymore, Burnham turned and took half a step towards her accustomed station, and then stopped. There was one Saru at the first officer console and another at the science station. Two identical Kelpians standing nearly shoulder to shoulder, so engrossed in maintaining battle readiness that every time one of them shifted his balance, the air between them crackled. So Burnham stayed where she was, standing behind the captain’s chair, at Georgiou’s shoulder.

Even in the tension that preceded a battle, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“Lieutenant Januzzi,” said Georgiou, “send a message to the Klingons. Tell them we’re—”

“They’re hailing us, Captain!”

The whole bridge suddenly fell silent.

Burnham had an abrupt, horrible sense of déjà vu. She felt nauseous.

“Put them though,” said the captain.

A washed-out image flickered into life in the holo-viewer. It was the Klingon that Burnham had fought on the ship, while Philippa – Captain Georgiou –

Her stomach rolled violently, and she stepped back, into the shadows of the darkened bridge, out of the holo-viewer’s range.

“Captain Georgiou,” said the ghostly Klingon, in a thick, husky voice that sounded unused to vowels, “I am Voq. We meet... at last.”

“I could have lived without the pleasure,” said Georgiou coldly. “You are in Federation space. I advice you to return to your own borders.”

“Thanks to you, I and my followers are forbidden to return to the Empire.”

“If you’re here to ask for sanctuary, I’m not prepared to escort you. But we’ll alert the nearest Star Base and they can send—”

“I am here to destroy you, captain,” Voq snarled. “You are the reason our leader T’Kuvma is among the dishonored dead. You are the reason that I can never return to my people. You are—”

“And you are the reason my first officer is dead! An unprovoked murder—”

Voq turned and barked something in Klingonese.

“Captain,” said Lieutenant Kant, the tactical officer, “they’re preparing to fire!”

“Red alert! Shield up!”

The subspace hologram blinked out.

“We’ve got incoming,” Kant said.

“Brace for impact!”

The Klingon torpedoes hit the forward shields, causing a power surge that sent sparks flying into the faces of the nav and helm officers.

“Shields at seventy percent,” Saru-S reported. “There is also substantial damage to the forward sensors.”

“Get the repair teams on it, we can’t afford to be flying blind.”

“We can’t outgun them,” Burnham said, her voice flat and calm as her Vulcan training took over. “Even as damaged as they are, they can still take us apart without even flinching.”

“As much as it pains me, Captain,” said Saru-D, “she’s right. Unlike you, our ship did not survive its encounter with that Klingon vessel.”

The ship rocked again. “Shields at fifty percent.”

“Return fire!”

“Damage to enemy ship is negligible.”

Burnham, eyes on the viewscreen, did not altogether realize what she was doing. She thought she was frozen to the spot. But somehow she had resumed her place behind Georgiou’s chair, and placed her hand on her captain’s shoulder.

She had to do something. She had to find something that she could do. She couldn’t let Philippa die on her watch again.

Around her, the bridge ran like a well-oiled machine, and she could hear the crew relaying results and responding to commands. Shields at forty percent... load photon torpedoes and fire... fire phasers at will... helm, hard to starboard... shields at thirty percent... forward sensors gone... shields at twenty percent...

And through it all, she stood at Captain Georgiou’s right hand, gripping her shoulder lightly.

“They’ve ceased fire,” Kant reported. “They’re just... sitting there.”

Georgiou frowned. “Why?” She turned to the Kelpians. “Saru?”

The two Sarus glanced at each other. “I’m not completely certain,” said Saru-D, “but I believe the polaron particles from the spatial anomaly make be confusing their sensors.”

“But the anomaly isn’t discernible from this position.”

“No, but the shuttle that Burnham and I arrived on was covered in them, and the residue from the shuttle has likely been pulled into the warp core and is now distributed throughout the ship.”

“They think we’re more helpless than we are,” Burnham realized. “They’re savoring the moment. Commander Saru—”

“Which one?”

“Either one! Can we shift the polaron load to the front of the ship, to blank out their sensor array?”

Saru-S looked at his counterpart and then at his captain. “I believe so. It would give us the tactical upper hand. But we’ll need time to pull the particles together.”

“I can stall them.” Burnham tightened her grip on Georgiou’s shoulder, and then stepped round and stood before her. “I can do this.”

Georgiou looked at her in momentary terror, and it flashed into Burnham’s mind that Philippa was as frightened of losing her again as she was of losing Philippa. Then the captain nodded. “Do what you have to do. Mr. Saru! Get that energy shifted.”

Burnham took a deep breath, and then turned. “Lieutenant Januzzi. Open a channel to the Klingons.”

“...Channel open.”

Voq appeared in the viewer, apparently ready to gloat. But as he took in the woman who stood before him, he seemed to become paler.

“You!”

She couldn’t read Klingon facial expressions, but somethings were universal. Like the look on someone’s face when they think they’ve just seen a ghost.

“Me.”

“No... no, it cannot be! You are dead!” He snarled something in Klingon that the translator couldn’t quite read. “I disposed of your corpse myself. Personally!”

Something about that ‘personally’ made the bile rise in Burnham’s throat. “You underestimated me,” she said simply. “You underestimated us.” Behind her, she heard the Sarus muttering to one another, and Captain Georgiou urging them to hurry. “You won’t do it again.”

“Your shields are gone, and your weapons will not last long. And you—you are some foul Federation science experiment. Humans do not come back from the dead.”

“Who said I was Human?”

Voq’s sneer faded. “What... what are you?”

“Captain,” one of the Sarus said, under his breath, “the polarons have been deployed. Their sensors are blanked.”

“Mr. Kant,” Georgiou whispered, “lock phasers and photon torpedoes.”

Burnham did not smile, but if there was a certain grim smugness in her voice, she felt the universe owed her that. “I am what happens when your failures come back to haunt you.”

“Mr. Kant, fire!”

The hologram shredded and winked out, and the ship on the forward viewscreen was engulfed in flame for several brief, horrible moments, as explosions consumed the oxygen onboard.

The bridge fell silent once more, save for the emergency klaxons and the quiet, persistent beeping of hazard alarms. Burnham closed her eyes against a sudden impulse to sob.

“Captain, we’ve got company,” Kant announced, causing everyone to tense again. “Klingon Bird of Prey decloaking off the port side. They’re hailing us.”

“Put them through.” Georgiou glanced at Burnham and briefly smiled. “I think I know who it is. We’ve dealt with her before.” She rose and stepped down in front of the holo-viewer, facing the Klingon woman who shimmered into view. “Captain L’Rell. I’m afraid we’ve destroyed the ship you were tracking.”

The Klingon captain’s response was brief and to the point. “Good. You have rid us of a nuisance. The Klingon Empire extends it thanks. L’Rell out.”

She winked out of existence.

“Bird of Prey is moving off... they’ve gone to warp.”

Georgiou finally allowed herself to slump. “Stand down from Red Alert,” she sighed. Turning around, she reached for Burnham’s hand, and then, briefly, rested her cheek against Burnham’s fingers.

Then she spoke up. “I’ll be in my quarters. Commander Saru, you have the conn. Burnham?”

“Captain?”

“You’re with me.”

Chapter Text

Burnham had been in the captain’s quarters on a few separate occasions in the past, not often enough to know the layout of the room intimately, but she knew how the furniture was arranged and what colors Georgiou preferred, and she was stunned to see how exactly this Georgiou’s living quarters resembled though of the captain she has lost, save for one thing: a holo of herself and Georgiou, taken when she had first joined the crew of the Shenzhou. In the past, it had always been in Georgiou’s ready room. Now it was on her bedside table.

She saw all of this quickly, in the moment between entering the room after the captain and when the doors closed behind them, when Georgiou – Philippa – turned and pulled Burnham into her arms. “I thought I was going to lose you again,” Philippa said, in between frantic and increasingly heated kisses, “I thought—”

“I know, I know...” Burnham framed Philippa’s face in her hands, drinking in the impossible sight of her. “I thought the same thing. And last time... I watched you die. I couldn’t do it again.”

Philippa’s arms around her waist pulled her even closer. “Michael... And yet, I’m going to have to lose you again. Saru is going to find a way to get you home.”

Michael dared to let her fingers drift though Philippa’s soft dark hair. “It’s not home anymore. It hasn’t been home since...” Philippa kissed her before she could finish her sentence, before she could even finish her thought, but they both knew what she had been about to say. The kisses became deeper and more urgent, and their hands began to wander purposefully, and when Philippa tugged her towards the bed, Michael went, glad to follow wherever her captain might lead.

When she reached for the zip of Michael’s uniform, though, she stopped her. “I’ve – I’ve never done this before. I don’t have any sexual experience with other partners.”

Philippa smiled. “I know. My Michael didn’t, either.” She sat back, but kept hold of Michael’s hand. “So you tell me: what do you want?”

Michael froze, staring at Philippa in silent yearning. All her Vulcan upbringing, all her professional training, every Starfleet regulation – all her common sense! – was telling her that this was not right. This was her captain (Lorca had ceased to exist, in her mind); captains and first officers did not engage in sexual encounters with one another. And – this was not her Philippa. She was not this woman’s Michael Burnham. It was real enough, they were sitting there together, but neither of them were the women they had loved and lost, not really.

And Michael decided that it did not matter.

“I want you,” she said. “I want you to... not hold back.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do everything you did for her. Love me. Make me... shake. Terrify me.” Michael took a deep, shuddering breath. “Because we won’t have this chance again.”

Philippa pulled her close again. Uniforms and boots were quickly discarded, revealing bodies that one knew intimately, and the other had only dared dream of. Michael laid back on the blue bedspread, her breath coming low and quick, glad to let Philippa take the lead. She was quickly overwhelmed by the onslaught of physical sensations. Her captain’s hands and mouth seemed to be everywhere, but her lips always came back to Michael’s, frequently returning from their exploration of her body to kiss away Michael’s tears of disbelief and joy, and to murmur words of love against her skin.

Michael wasn’t completely ignorant of sex, or the pleasurable responses that one’s body could produce. Her foster mother had been very honest and open about Human sexuality and sexual practices, and had always encouraged Michael’s questions about attraction and intercourse and masturbation, and what she had a right to expect from her future partners. But there had never been any partners. Her Vulcan classmates at the science academy had been physiologically immature, and when she arrived on the Shenzhou, she had been far more interested in proving herself than in looking for pleasure.

And then her heart and her desires had been overtaken by Captain Georgiou. She had fantasized about her captain so many times...

Philippa’s lips closed around her nipple, and Michael gasped sharply, fisting her hand into Philippa’s hair. “That’s... I... words. I can’t... words.”

“Don’t worry about words,” Philippa chuckled. “They’re not important right now.” She stroked down the inside of Michael’s thigh, then back up. Her fingers rubbed through the damp public hair and then slipped between the lips of Michael’s vulva.

Michael groaned hard in the back of her throat and canted her hips up to take Philippa’s fingers deeper. Phillipa’s tongue kept laving over Michael’s nipple, slowly and steadily, while her fingers matched the same rhythm. A growing tightness built and built in Michael’s middle, and then Philippa pushed her fingers even deeper, and pressed upward.

An exquisite hot flame of pleasure slashed through Michael’s body, and instinctively, she threw her arm over her mouth to muffle the sharp, primal sound that tore from her throat. Then, as the first shock of orgasm faded, the weight of what had just happened came crashing down on her, and she began to cry.

Philippa wrapped her arms around Michael and held her close, letting her bury her face against the side of her neck. She stroked Michael’s curly hair and murmured comfortingly in Malay. It had always been in the back of Michael’s mind to learn her captain’s native language, but it had never been a priority. “I thought we’d have so much time,” she choked though her tears. “I thought...”

“I know,” said Philippa. “I thought the same thing.” Then she kissed Michael’s forehead and laid her cheek against her hair. “I love you.”

Michael clung to her. “I love you too.”

When she had calmed, Michael reluctantly released her grip on her captain, and they pulled the blankets back and snuggled down together. “This feels... natural. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“I’m not her. You’re not her.”

“Michael.” Philippa smiled sadly and brushed the backs of her knuckles over Michael’s smooth dark cheek. “You don’t have to question every gift the universe puts in your path. We’re together. Accept it.”

“How can I?” For a moment, Michael thought she might begin to cry again, but she was simply too wrung out. “When her death was my fault? When all the deaths are my fault?”

“Michael...” her captain sighed. “The guilt you feel for her death, it may be right that you bear it, and you will bear it, for the rest of your life. But there is no reason – no logical reason – for you to bear the burden of the war as well.”

Burnham felt something inside her, something already held very tightly, curl in on itself even more.

“You and I both know that T’Kuvma and his followers were looking for a fight. Any fight, any reason to start a war with the Federation. If it hadn’t been you and the Shenzhou, it could just as easily have been any other ship that struck the spark of the conflict. It could have been the Enterprise,” she added, “and your foster brother. He has your same burning curiosity.”

“...You’ve met Spock?”

“Yes, and Amanda, as well. At the memorial service. I’d never met her before. Your foster mother is an incredible woman.”

“Amanda is... amazing. She made transitioning to life on Vulcan so much easier. And she was much more sympathetic to Spock’s feelings of displacement, when I joined their family, than Sarek was."

“I wondered if Sarek’s absence from your memorial service was due to Lieutenant Commander Spock's presence.”

“I’m surprised Spock was there,” Michael said, not even registering that Philippa had said ‘your memorial service’. “He and I never really got along. We were both always trying to be the better Vulcan, to get Sarek’s approval.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound familiar at all,” said Philippa dryly. She stroked Michael’s hair and then coaxed her against her chest, to hold her close. “We have this time. You said so yourself: we need to make the most of it.”

“For a little while. Commander Saru will find a way to return us to our own reality.”

“I’m sure one of them will. Or both. They seem to work well together.”

“Better than he and I ever did.”

Philippa responded with a mock scowl. “You and Saru are two of the best officers I have ever served with. And you would work better together if you would stop trying to get my attention. You’re precisely like a pair of competitive siblings, each determined to prove yourselves to a demanding parent. But you don’t have to prove your respective worths to me; I know what kind of officers and scientists you are. And I’ve never had maternal feelings for either of you.” Her hands moved purposefully underneath the sheets. “Certainly not for you.”

Michael turned eagerly into her embrace, thrusting away the intruding thoughts of departure. Philippa kissed her thoroughly and then pushed the covers off of them both. “Philippa, what—?”

The captain responded with a small smile of infinite impishness and then shifted down to lie between Michael’s thighs. “...Oh,” said Michael. And then, at the first touch of Philippa’s tongue against her clitoris, “Oh!”

And it was a long time before Michael could speak coherently again.

“I can barely move,” she muttered eventually, her voice muffled in Philippa’s hair. “Is it your turn yet? Do I ever get to make you orgasm?”

“Oh, eventually,” Philippa chuckled, rubbing Michael’s back. “When you’re ready.”

Chapter Text

Saru-D smacked his PADD down on the table. “What do you mean, you’re not ‘going back’?” he demanded.

“Exactly that.” She reached out and delicately straightened the angle of the PADD. “I’m staying here.”

“Burnham.” He glared down at her in familiar frustration. “I have spent the last ten days working with my counterpart to find us a way back to our own reality, while you’ve been doing who knows what—”

“I've been with Captain Georgiou.”

“Yes. So my counterpart has told me. In great detail,” he added, with a flat intonation that made Burnham raise an eyebrow solely so she wouldn’t blush from the memories. “He seemed very... tolerant. Of the situation. Far more than I would be. This reality is more different than we realized. Different actions have led to different outcomes. You cannot expect to just slip back into your old life!”

Burnham met his gaze squarely. “Your disapproval will not change my mind.”

“No. It never has.” Saru’s narrow shoulders slumped, and he sighed with something almost amounting to sadness. “Burnham. ...Michael. She’s not our Captain Georgiou. And you’re not the person she lost.”

“Ohhh, I know.” A muscle in her jaw jumped. “I’ll never forget that. Every time I look at her, I’ll see our Captain Georgiou getting stabbed by a Klingon blade. And every time I look in the mirror, I’ll see the other Michael Burnham and wonder, ‘Why was she the one to die? Why did I get to live?’ Every day and every night and in my nightmares, til the day I die. But I’ll be with her, and she’ll have me. And for that, I can live with a few more nightmares.”

“But should you? Think of your mental stability, your... stability as an officer. This isn’t...”

“Real? Right?”

“Healthy,” he said gently. “I can’t think of any species where this would be considered an acceptable part of the grieving process.”

“Saru, I know this doesn’t alter what happened in our reality’s past. I know I can’t change that. But I’m still staying.”

“Why?”

“Because she needs me.”

“Doesn’t Captain Lorca? I may disapprove of nearly every decision he makes regarding you but he is still your commanding officer. He got you out of prison, gave you a second chance—”

“He’s using me. I know that. And I’m resent it, and I’m done with it.”

“And Stamets? Cadet Tilley? Me? Are we using you?”

“Yes,” said Burnham bluntly. “Apart from Tilley.” Saru’s face fell. “We’re not friends. We never really were, and we’re certainly not now. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“I was... afraid. Captain Lorca didn’t tell me he was planning to recruit you, and I had worked hard to establish myself in a new command structure, without—” He broke off guiltily.

“Without me undermining you. I know.”

“I thought you were dangerous.”

“I am dangerous. I loved my crewmates and my captain more than I loved my career. It’s a very Human trait and a very Vulcan one, though you’ll never get a Vulcan to admit it.”

“Which raises another point: Ambassador Sarek. Do you expect him to believe whatever cover story you create? How can you justify what you’re about to do to him and his wife and son back in our own reality?”

“I don’t, and I can’t. This isn’t a moral decision, Saru, but it is a logical one. It’s logical for me. And for you – you’ll finally get rid of me. Or do you just want me to go back to prison, instead of getting a second chance at being happy?”

“I don’t think you deserve this second chance, no. This is just running away. What about the war? The war that you helped to start? Are you really going to abandon that fight—”

Burnham shot to her feet, eyes and face blazing at him. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you…” She gritted her teeth, feeling so painfully Human in the face of his lofty superiority. “Saru. I am so tired of having my feelings of guilt be used to force me into things I want no part of. And I’m done with it. I will step into the place my deceased counterpart left, and you can return to Discovery without me and tell everyone I died here, which will please almost everyone. Apart from Lorca. You’ll have to tell him the truth.”

“He will be… less than pleased,” Saru agreed. He retrieved his PADD and looked at Burnham now with open sadness. “You did promise to obey my orders, you know.”

“I did. Please don’t make me into a mutineer again.” She raised her hand in a Vulcan salute. “Live long, and prosper, Saru.”

He simply nodded. “And what am I to tell your foster family?”

Michael Burnham took a deep breath, and then smiled. “That I’m with my captain, where I was meant to be.”