Chapter Text
When Philippa cancels dinner for the first time without an express reason or being called off ship on a mission for Kovich, Michael doesn’t blink.
Philippa must be tired. How the woman does it, Michael never understands, but she sure has benefited from it over the years, now, more than ever as Discovery’s Captain. There is no one else Michael can trust more for a mission.
Well, most missions.
Georgiou doesn’t miss a step on the bridge the next day and Michael figures that the early night in must be to thank. The other woman looks peaked lately whenever she sees her, and Michael, god help her, tends to care about whether her crew lives or dies, and Georgiou frustratingly and particularly so.
And so it follows that the second time Georgiou cancels on Michael, this time for lunch, Michael doesn’t bother pressing her about it. She’s too busy anyway when she gets pulled into the internal politics between two colonies on the outskirts of the Weylon sector and suddenly the entire crew is so slammed that Michael can't remember what she ate for breakfast, let alone who she was supposed to share it with.
It isn’t until the third time that Georgiou reschedules and cancels that Michael finally starts to grow concerned. Now that they’re in a quieter part of space, Michael is beginning to notice the little hiccups, the strangeness in the Commander’s behavior. The off colored moments, the unguarded faces, the slight twitches of hand.
Georgiou’s work is more or less impeccable but her presence feels—different. There’s something different about Georgiou that has Michael completely on edge. Strangely, Michael is almost having trouble concentrating herself, as though there’s something physically compelling her attention elsewhere. At the oddest moments her mind begins to wander and somehow, when she catches herself wandering, her eyes are resting on Georgiou.
It’s ridiculous, she knows, but she can’t shake the feeling that there’s something pulling them together that she can’t quite comprehend.
For a moment she contemplates the possibility that it is something she is intimately familiar with, but the circumstances are all wrong, impossible even, so she lets the matter drop.
And then, striding from one station to another in the middle of a drill, Georgiou stumbles and Michael finds herself at the other woman’s side in an instant, catching her before she falls to the deck. Georgiou’s eyes are wide and glossy and her tongue darts out of her mouth briefly but long enough to make Michael shiver with an indescribable want.
“Careful Commander.” Michael murmurs, one hand at the small of Georgiou’s back and the other reaching for the curtain of hair that has fallen into the other woman’s face, slightly obscuring her dark, beautiful eyes.
Before she can touch it, however, Georgiou pulls back with a discretely uttered, “Aye, Captain.” And returns to her console, leaving Michael standing in the middle of the bridge.
Her hand feels like it’s been struck with an electrical charge and things around her are moving slowly as though she were in a smoke filled haze, the voices of her crew sounding further and further away until a klaxon sounds on the bridge and Michael is snapped back to reality.
“And we’re dead.” Michael calls, realizing what’s happened in the mere moments since she left her chair. “Detmer, I want you watching that port nacelle like a hawk. It’s never been right since the incident at Pallas X. Understood?”
Detmer nods. “Yes sir.”
“Good.” Michael says, trying to calm the shaking in her hand. She hopes no one sees it. “Run it again.”
The bridge erupts into groans but everyone quickly gets back into position waiting for orders. Michael looks at her First Officer and the redhead sighs.
“You heard the Captain. One more time from the top. Just because we’re in a calm part of space doesn’t mean we can afford to get sloppy.” She appreciates Tilly’s support, even if she can tell the younger woman would rather be cleaning plasma manifolds than trying this again.
It’s exactly the kind of attitude she needs from her First Officer.
“Well said, Number One.” Michael smirks, resettling into her chair. “Computer, reset.”
It takes them four tries to get it right. And with a strangely renewed sense of vigor, Michael makes them work for each one of them.
“Commander Georgiou.” Michael says at the end of shift. “My ready room please.”
Georgiou frowns but the woman follows her without complaint. Michael walks over towards the couch and gestures for her guest to take a seat.
“I’d prefer to stand.” Georgiou’s back is rigid and her posture pronounced but no more than the dark circles under her eyes. It looks like she hasn’t slept in days.
It appears that Georgiou isn’t interested in niceties, even if Michael means them. She’ll just have to cut straight to the chase.
“You hesitated back there during the first drill. You nearly hurt yourself.”
Michael draws closer, hoping to command the attention of Philippa who seems to be looking everywhere but at her. Of course, upon closer inspection she can see the streak of blood leading from the corner of Georgiou’s mouth to the middle of her cheek.
“You did hurt yourself.” Michael breathes and Philippa’s eyes close for the briefest of moments.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. You’re bleeding.” Michael can’t stand the sight. She doesn’t ask for permission so much as she steps forward and takes it, thumb coming up to press against the side of the other woman’s pale cheek, wiping at the thin wound.
“I’m fine.” She whispers and Michael shakes her head.
“You’re not. You haven’t been for days. What’s going on, Philippa?”
Philippa’s mouth twists in distaste and for a moment she looks like an animal about to run. But Michael’s never known her to run, even when it would have suited her.
“I said I’m fine, Michael.” Philippa snaps. She looks agitated and shaky and off. There’s something off, something wrong, and if Michael can just figure it out, just get down to the bottom of it, they’ll both be better for it. She just needs to—
“What are you doing?” Philippa says in alarm, bringing Michael’s attention to the positioning of their bodies. Somehow Michael has two hands on the side of Philippa’s face and is drawing her closer and closer, almost into a kiss.
Surprised, Michael drops her hands and backs away.
“I’m sorry.” She breathes. She’s been so focused on what’s happening to Georgiou that she hasn’t taken a moment to consider that something might be happening to her. “I’m sorry. I—”
“I have to go.” Georgiou says flatly.
There is no offer to reschedule, to talk this out, or fight it out on the mat. There isn’t even a terrible joke or the sharp rebuke that Michael surely deserves. She tries to see if she can find anything familiar in the black eyes staring into hers, but she sees nothing but the turmoil reflected in her own.
Staying here, standing here together, it suddenly feels dangerous.
“Dismissed, Commander.”
Philippa all but runs out the door and Michael lets her.
Philippa doesn’t show up for her next shift and Tilly’s only explanation is that the other woman said she wasn’t feeling well.
The morning drags on. Lunch is uneventful and the one person she wants to eat it with isn’t there. All the worse, nothing sounds good to her. Even the tepid tea she dejectedly sips on tastes like ash. She retires to her ready room early, preferring to be out of sight as she tries to work through this draining mood. The ship's morale is fine. She doesn’t need trouble anymore than she needs to be the cause of it.
It’s best she stays out of everyone’s way. It’s also convenient that she’s alone when the discrete message flares to life on the screen that floats above her desk.
Meet me after your shift, I need your help.
The rest of the hours pass in a blur until she finds herself handing over the bridge and letting her feet carry her to the guest quarters on the other side of deck three from where her own quarters are.
She would know the way to Georgiou’s quarters with her eyes closed, and in the last few days she had walked herself there and hoovered outside of the doors, finger poised just before the buzzer before eventually losing her nerve and walking away.
This time her finger hoovers again, despite the summons, but before she can falter, the doors slide open and Michael is greeted by the oppressively cold air that comes flowing out from the darkened quarters into the brightly lit corridor.
The air is frigid, the room so dark that Michael's pupils need time to adjust before she can see, but her nose works just fine and is immediately met with a harsh scent that overwhelms her senses. The smell is foul, obtrusive, and upsetting. It’s upsetting, and Michael finds herself growing agitated, a growl starting at the back of her throat. The hair on her arms stands on edge. This is exactly the confirmation she didn’t know she needed.
Something is wrong. Something is wrong with Philippa.
Her eyes adjust to the sight of a tiny figure huddled on the bed in a nest of rumpled blankets and sheets.
She’s never seen the woman look so small.
“I don’t like this.” Michael whispers harshly, drawing nearer to Philippa’s beside.
Georgiou is shivering but her forehead is drenched in sweat and the sheets around her are soaking wet.
For the first time Michael is able to identify the foul smell. It’s faintly chemical and ill.
“You’re sick.” There’s no other word for it. Philippa smells distinctly unhealthy. It’s enough to make Michael want to call for Dr. Culber immediately, but she knows that the other woman would never forgive her.
“I need you, Michael.” Philippa says and Michael calms a little, though she can feel another part of her brain light up a little, feel a tickle somewhere in the back of her throat at Philippa’s words. “I need you.”
Michael takes a step closer until her knees are at the edge of the mattress and she can look straight down at the former emperor, tangled in the sheets like a sick child.
“You look—” terrible, tortured, and yet all Michael can think of is pressing Georgiou back into the sheets of the bed if it weren’t for that smell, that foul chemical smell–
“Only you can help me.” Philippa says and Michael feels that it is true, that there is no one else that can do what Philippa needs her to do.
Her body longs to sit on the edge of the bed so she lowers herself slowly and a new wave of smell washes over and off of Philippa’s body that begins to overtake the bitter chemical edge with something unfamiliar yet sweet, and wholly Georgiou.
“What can I do?” Michael asks, knowing that this newest smell is enough to make her want to do anything the other woman asks. Anything at all.
“I need to know what your replicator permissions are on this ship.”
A strange question for Georgiou to ask, but one that she is willing to answer.
“I can replicate anything I want.” Michael says simply.
“Even hypos, Michael?” Michael nods as if in a trance. Even those. “Anywhere on the ship?”
“Anywhere.” Michael breathes.
“Good.” Georgiou swallows heavily and reaches out a clammy hand to clutch at Michael’s uniform. “Gonadotropin B,” Georgiou gasps as if every breath is a struggle. “I need it Michael. I won’t make it through the night without it.”
Michael begins to nod. A gonadotropin blocker. She’ll ask the replicator to give Philippa what she needs. Michael goes to stand but stops herself before she rises from the bed.
Gonadotropin B. She knows Gonadotropin B. She knows it precisely because it is an illegal substance. One that could destroy a human and even a terran body if misused. And what in the world would Georgiou need with an illegal hormone blocker?
“Philippa?” Michael croaks. “What the hell is going on here?”
Philippa frowns and tightens her hands in Michael’s uniform.
“I need it and I need it now.” Philippa’s voice has an edge to it, a worrisome quality that makes it sound dangerous and needy all at once.
“Gonadotropin is an illegal substance.” Michael says firmly, hand coming around one of Philippa’s wrists as the fog begins to clear from her brain. “It’s never used except for in extreme circumstances.”
“This is an extreme circumstance.” Philippa pants and Michael carefully prys Georgiou’s fingers from her uniform.
“What do you need it for?” Michael asks. It’s an emergency medical intervention at best, and something known to be abused at worst. She’s only seen it administered a few times, in circumstances where a heat or a rut came on so suddenly, there wasn’t proper time to treat it or make full arrangements.
Suddenly, Georgiou’s absence lately makes sense. The alpha had rejected her invitations to meals, had avoided eye contact on the bridge, and had made herself scarce whenever possible and not just around Michael.
“You’re entering a rut.” Michael says, hand coming under Georgiou’s chin, forcing the other woman to look her in the eye. Perhaps that was the foul smell that Michael had noticed. The unappealing smell of one sexually primed alpha to another.
The smell of other alpha’s hardly bothers Michael, but she’d heard tales of those scents becoming unbearable when certain alphas went into a rut. Perhaps Georgiou and her were so genetically incompatible that the smell was offensive to Michael’s sensibilities. Or maybe it was because Georgiou posed a real, sexual threat to other alphas aboard the ship. She was the only other high-ranking, formidable alpha aboard and Michael’s choice in mate had to be seriously imperiled by Georgiou’s larger than life presence. A woman like Georgiou could have her pick of any beta or omega on Discovery . Who was to say she already hadn’t?
And yet, the idea smarted. Michael knew it wasn’t common and that sometimes it was actively frowned upon, but a part of herself had enjoyed Georgiou’s company enough as of late to wonder if the other alpha might consider something different between them, a carefully negotiated relationship, an agreement that could be reached between two alphas if the circumstances were right.
Georgiou had only ever seemed right to Michael, even when she was wrong.
“It’s not a rut.” Georgiou hisses, snatching her wrists away from Michael’s hands. “You don’t understand.” She complains and Michael shakes her head.
“How can I?” How could she when Philippa won’t say anything?
“Just get me the hypo.” Georgiou growls and Michael growls back, feeling the instincts she usually kept carefully controlled roar to the surface of her skin, fighting to rise up out of her in a way she hasn’t felt in years.
“No.” Michael says springing to her feet. “Absolutely not. You don’t need it.”
Not when Philippa could have anyone she wanted. There was no need for it. No need for her hormones to be blocked. She could face her rut with a usual partner, or go stalking the halls looking for someone who would answer the call of her scent.
Michael won’t risk her career over a hypo and she especially won’t risk Philippa’s health.
Georgiou lurches off of the bed and onto her feet.
“Stop playing with me and replicate the hypo for fuck’s sake.” Georgiou shouts, chest rapidly rising and falling. “There isn’t much time.”
“Oh fuck you, Georgiou.” Michael spits and turns ready to go out the door. She won’t stand here and be disrespected. Already, she can feel her emotions becoming more and more difficult to regulate. Her hormones are already being affected by whatever it is that Georgiou’s body is giving off. Perhaps it’s best that she goes after all. She takes a step towards the doors.
“No!” Georgiou says in a desperate, thready cry. “No! Michael, wait!”
Michael turns in just enough time to catch Georgiou’s flagging body in her arms. The feverish heat from Philippa’s body scorches right through Michael’s uniform.
“I need it now.” Georgiou heaves. “I can’t go through this again.” And the sound nearly wrenches Michael’s heart out of her chest.
“What’s happening?” Michael asks again, lowering to her knees and taking Philippa with her. “You’re scaring me, Philippa.”
Georgiou weakly reaches for her cheek and holds it with a shaking hand.
“I'm in withdrawal.”
“Withdrawal?” From gonadotropin? And yet it would explain the harsh chemical scent, the intense symptoms Georgiou was experiencing. Could it be that her rut was returning with a vengeance after being suppressed?
“It’s been a long time since my last—” Georgiou breaks off at the end of her sentence with a groan, as her body is wracked with pain.
Michael holds her through the worst of it, waiting for her breath to stabilize and the bone breaking grip of Georgiou’s hand to loosen against her uniform.
“I’ve got you.”
“It hurts.” Philippa hums with dry chapped lips and Michael slowly lets out a deep breath.
“I can’t give you that hypo.” She cares too much and if it pains her to see Philippa like this now, then surely she can’t afford to lose her.
“I know.” Philippa says. “I know you won’t.”
“But I won’t leave you either.” Michael promises, the words rushing forth before she can even think them through. “I won’t.”
“You can’t stay.” Philippa whispers but Michael is already lifting her limp body in her arms.
“We’ll get through this together. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Georgiou whimpers when Michael gently lays her back down in the sheets. They’re only damp now, but Michael can take care of that later, replicate a new blanket, a cool washcloth, something to wipe away at the feverish sweat that clings to Georgiou’s regal brow.
“You have to go.” Philippa uncharacteristically pleads. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me.” Michael was no stranger to a rut, though this kind of withdrawal would be something she’d never navigated before. “I’m not going anywhere, ok? We’ll get through this together even if I have to call Culber.”
“No.” Georgiou protests. “No, Michael.”
“I’m staying and I’ll take care of everything.” Michael says firmly. “You trust me, don’t you Philippa?”
Philippa closes her eyes and lets out a slow breath. “I do.”
Michael brings one of the blankets up around Philippa’s legs.
“But that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
It’s the last thing Philippa murmurs before losing herself to the fever.
The first few days are touch and go. Michael does her best to balance things between the bridge and Georgiou’s quarters. She writes reports and gives most of her orders from the woman’s bedside as she fretfully sleeps.
Michael isn’t able to leave her for long. The fever endures and she feels like she is constantly changing blankets and sheets that Philippa has soaked through with the chills. Whenever she touches her forehead it’s hot, and as her tricorder reminds her, Philippa is warmer than any human or Terran has the constitution to be. She tries what she can to keep her patient’s temperature down, laying cool cloths on her forehead and at the back of her neck, carefully wiping down her body.
Sometimes Philippa wakes moaning, teeth clenched together as she rides a wave of feverish pain and Michael knows nothing else to do but kneel at her bedside and hold one of her hands as she runs the fingers of her other hand along Philippa’s damp forehead and into her dark hair as she talks low and soothingly until Philippa quiets and grows slack.
The fever is rough, but the vomit, Michael decides, is the worst. It isn’t the smell or the sight she’s bothered by, but the damage she knows it causes. Philippa won’t eat and she can’t keep any fluids down. It’s gotten to the point where Philippa is heaving away on an empty stomach. But every time Michael suggests Sickbay the other woman’s eyes grow wide and wild.
Michael kneels on the floor before the mattress holding the receptacle up to Philippa’s head that is bent over the side of the bed.
“I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.” If Philippa looked exhausted to Michael before, she looks like death warmed over now. Her skin is clammy and pale, the circles under her eyes look like elaborate bruises and bring the sharpness of her cheekbones into stark relief. “Please let me have the blocker.”
Georgiou’s calls for the medicine come and go. Some moments the other woman seems to understand clearly why Michael can’t give in, why she shouldn’t give in herself, and others she’s taken to throwing whatever she can get her hands on at Michael, trying to rip things to shreds with her nails. As it is, they’re on their second outfit change of the day.
“You’re alright.” Michael murmurs, a soothing hand against her back. She’s been reading about what to expect in the snatches where Philippa manages to sleep. Today is day four and everything she’s looked over assures her that things will get easier soon. The nausea should pass by the evening and if it did, they could focus on fighting off the last of the fever.
The rut, however, would be unavoidable, that much Michael had been able to glean from her reading, but it was still unclear how intense the backlash would be. Nothing here was very clear about what a rut looked like after abusing gonadotropin and there was so little Michael actually knew. How long had it been since Philippa’s last rut? How long had she been intervening in the hormonal cycle?
She’d feel better about all of this if she could get Hugh’s professional opinion, but Philippa had been clear that she wouldn’t tolerate doctors, not unless it was necessary as a last resort.
“I need to lay down.” Philippa says, shivering and Michael jumps into action, setting the container on the ground and helping Philippa back into bed. She reaches for the blanket but thinks better of it.
“Are you feeling hot or cold?” It seemed to change at random.
“Freezing.” So a blanket was in order.
“Are you thirsty?”
“No.” Georgiou grimaces. The nausea has made her weary of food and drink. As much as she needed the nourishment, she looks so tired Michael decides not to push it. Sleep, in this instance, seems more important.
“Can I get you anything else?” Philippa didn’t always appreciate the questions, but Michael struggles with feeling helpless in situations like this. She’d rather Philippa be annoyed than go without.
“Will you–” Georgiou stops before she finishes with a frustrated look on her face.
“Tell me what you need.” There’s little Michael isn’t willing to do, and it’s good practice for Philippa to communicate her needs.
“Will you lay with me?”
The question catches Michael off guard. In all the years Michael has known the former Emperor, she’s never known her to ask for affection. Though they’ve been dancing around each other for just as long, their encounters have never escalated beyond the touch of a shoulder, a forearm, a knee. The most intimate touches they’ve ever shared only ever mirror the first time they ever touched in the throne room, a palm fitted against a cheek, or the brief moment Michael held Georgiou in the snow, not unlike the last week when twice, Philippa fell into her arms.
But they’ve never laid on a bed together, despite how much Michael would have liked to.
“You want–” Michael is a formidable woman. She’s a captain. She’s not easily reduced to a blushing and mumbling mess.
And yet.
“I’m cold.” Georgiou grumbles and Michael doesn’t bother hiding the hint of her smile.
“Move over.”
Michael lifts up the covers and slides in beside her. The bed is warm and Philippa even more so. She puzzles at what to do with her arms but Philippa rolls into her side and burrows into her body, tucking her head in against Michael’s chest.
Instinctively, Michael’s arms come up around the smaller woman and Philippa’s sigh reflects the calm that washes over Michael after so many days of worry. For the first time in weeks, everything that’s felt upside down finally feels right side up.
“Is this alright?” Michael hopes that it is, it’s the most clear headed she’s felt in days.
She looks down at Philippa, awaiting her answer, but it’s too late. She’s already asleep. Chuckling to herself, Michael closes her eyes and decides to follow suit. She hasn’t slept more than a few minutes at a time since this started. She could use the sleep.
Michael wakes with a start. The mattress beside her is cold and empty. Philippa is gone.
She pushes herself up to rest against the headboard, scanning the room for signs of Philippa. She isn’t anywhere that Michael can see, but the more her eyes adjust and her senses wake, the more she’s able to make out.
The temperature in the room has returned to normal parameters. The extra sheets and blankets that laid at the foot of the bed are gone, likely recycled, and other things have been picked up and tidied that Michael didn’t have time to get to before falling asleep. There are remnants of a replicated meal on the table with two place settings.
It’s no wonder that things here seem different. The nearby chronometer tells her that it's been almost ten hours since she first closed her eyes. She can’t believe she’s slept that long. But Philippa’s body had been warm and comfortable against hers and she’d forgotten how nice it could be to sleep in the arms of someone you knew.
Hungry, Michael makes her way over to sit at the table. She feels like she hasn’t eaten in days which she supposes is true. The meal isn’t grand by any means, it’s a bowl of penang assam laska, a favorite of Philippa’s in any universe, especially after a difficult day. Her fingers still remember the replicator programming necessary to get it to taste just like this, the hoops she used to jump through to get her Captain a bowl from Shenzhou’s older replicator system. Making it on Discovery must be simpler, she surmises. Most things were. But sometimes she missed the extra elbow grease her old ship required, and she missed her old Captain far more. After all, it was grief and not misplaced sentimentality for the vexing technology of Shenzhou that had kept her from replicating the meal since her arrival in this millennia four years ago.
She tucks into the bowl of pungent spicy and sour broth and eats it like a starving man.
She’s halfway through the hokkien noodles when she hears the refresher door open and Philippa emerges in a black and gold robe tied loosely around her waist and a towel wringing out her long hair. The color has returned to her cheeks and the bruises under her eyes have faded to faint marks.
The relief that rushes through Michael is immense and enough for her to set down her chopsticks without a second thought.
“Philippa.” Michael has to curb the urge to stand from the table and examine Philippa more closely. Despite the hours spent in each other’s company, she’s not sure the scrutiny would be welcome.
“Michael,” Philippa drapes the towel over the back of a chair and sits down across from her with a sigh, “how are you feeling?”
“I should be asking you the same question.” Michael says, cocking her head a little in suspicion.
Philippa shrugs noncommittally. “I’m fine.”
Michael looks at her pointedly.
“Well, mostly fine, all things considered” Philippa amends, reaching for the pitcher of water on the table and pouring into each of their glasses with a steady hand.
All things considered, as though it were any other afternoon and they were sitting down for a regular meal instead of recovering from days of fighting off a withdrawal from a hormone blocker. They were going to have to talk about it eventually, but she had the feeling Philippa intended to avoid the topic for at least a little while. Normally, it was in Michael’s nature to pry when it came to her friends, but perhaps they both needed some time to process before jumping right into that conversation.
And in truth, Michael hadn’t realized how much she missed sitting across from Philippa like this.
“You still owe me dinner.” It would be nice to find a time to catch up about all the other regular things Michael has missed in the last few weeks.
Philippa smirks. “I thought it was lunch.”
“As I recall, you owe me both. But I’m willing to call this lunch if you are.”
“How gracious of you, Captain Burnham.” Philippa murmurs. “I suppose it’s settled. Dinner a week from now?”
“So long?” Michael says before she can catch herself. One week is perfectly fine, but she hoped to see the other woman sooner. “You’re not being called off ship again, are you?”
Michael prided herself in knowing when those requests came in. Just because Philippa sometimes worked directly with Kovich and Vance didn’t mean she wasn’t part of Discovery’s crew. As Captain, it was Michael's job to know where her crew was at all times if she could help it, and it was important for her to be able to advocate for them when the need arose. And that was the only reason Michael tended to keep an eye on Philippa’s assignments.
“No. Nothing like that. I just have a few personal things to take care of.”
“Ominous.” Michael didn’t like the sound of that.
“One of my many official titles was the Portend of Death and Destruction.”
Michael rolls her eyes. Philippa’s sense of humor was dark but legendary, and yet the Terran Empire had a tendency to be so ridiculous sometimes it was difficult to tell when the other woman was joking.
“Your idea?”
“Not exactly, but you know how palace advisors are.”
“Can’t say I do.” They hadn’t been there long enough for her to find out.
“Then be grateful you don’t.” Philippa says, somehow steering them away from her planned absence. Michael, however, won’t be so easily distracted.
“Philippa…” The way Michael says Philippa’s name pulls her up short and for the briefest moment the older woman looks completely unguarded. “Please, promise me you’ll come to me if you need something. Anything.”
“Anything but gonadotropin?” Philippa says with a raised eyebrow.
Michael frowns. “That’s not fair.”
“But that is your question isn’t it?” Was Philippa already planning an alternative arrangement?
It certainly was one of them. What if they had gotten through this moment only for Philippa to turn back to the drug behind Michael’s back?
“I’m worried about you, Pip. I worry about you. You know that.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Philippa says with a shaky exhale staring down at her hands on the table. Instinctively, Michael moves to cover a smaller hand with her own, but Philippa quickly pulls it off the table and into her lap.
“It’s too late for that.” Michael whispers and Philippa rises from her chair.
“I have to get dressed.”
“I’ll get out of your way.” Michael’s beginning to fear that she’s overstayed her welcome but Philippa shakes her head.
“Stay.” The directive is clear. “Finish your meal. I’m sure it’s been awhile since you’ve had a decent laksa. At least the 32nd century has better replicators.”
“Thank God for small miracles.” That nearly pulls a smile out of Philippa and the faint twitch of lips warms her more than it should. “Maybe I should go. I don’t want to be late for my shift”
“It’s alright.” Philippa says moving towards a wardrobe, pulling out something that is battle ready but no doubt against Starfleet regulations. “I’ve already talked to Tilly. She's rearranged for you to have the day off.”
“The day off? How did you manage to do that?” Michael’s impressed. Today is Tilly’s day off, and Tilly’s favorite part of being First Officer was being able to make her time off sacred.
Philippa huffs out a slight laugh. “I agreed to take it.”
“That–” is an extremely kind gesture, though she’s sure Philippa wouldn’t take too kindly to the observation. Still, this was as close to a thank you as Michael was likely to get. Philippa was always more for actions than words. “You’re not getting soft on me are you, Georgiou?”
“You wish.” Philippa scoffs, making her way back towards the refresher. “Now eat. I’d appreciate the peace and quiet.”
The door closes behind Philippa and Michael looks down at the laksa and smiles. Philippa is welcome to buy a few minutes of her silence, for the right price of course.
For the next week, Michael grows used to seeing Philippa in passing. Whatever deal she made with Tilly means Philippa is entering the bridge when Michael is leaving. It’s good to know she’s leaving her ship in good hands during the Beta shift, but she does miss their bantering.
The distance between them makes her restless. There isn’t any other way to explain it. After being inseparable for the last few days, being apart is unsettling. She finds herself looking forward to the day they’re back on for dinner. They’re scheduled to be on the bridge together for the first time in days and when the morning finally arrives, Michael wakes early after trying and failing to sleep through the night.
Her excitement is short-lived when Ensign Ospina is already at Philippa’s station when she arrives.
She has a feeling today is going to be a very long day.
“Where’s Georgiou?” Michael asks Tilly after retiring to her ready room to work on the backlog of paperwork she accrued the other week. The redhead sits across from her drinking a raktajino as she goes through some paperwork of her own.
“What do you mean?”
“Georgiou. She’s supposed to be back at her station today. Our schedules should be realigned by now.”
“Why Captain, I’ve never seen you take such an interest in my duty roster before.” Tilly smirks as she lifts the cup up to her mouth.
“I just happen to like when things on my bridge are orderly and predictable.”
“Predictable? This from a woman who would sooner fly us into the center of a star than have to take the long way a conference in Htyan.”
“That was one time.” And she still didn’t regret it.
“What’s going on with the two of you, Michael? You’ve been strange lately.”
“I’ve been strange lately?” She has felt strange lately but it wasn’t something she considered other people might be able to see. Then again, Tilly wasn’t most people.
“Yes.” Tilly says pointedly. “Very strange. You even smell a little different.”
“I do not!” The last thing she needed was for Tilly to decide she smelled like Philippa. She’s not sure either of them would ever be able to live it down, even if she had been in the Commander’s bed for less than scintillating reasons.
“You do too. And not to mention Georgiou. I don’t think she’s ever publicly gone out of her way to make anyone’s life easier, let alone yours. Why’d she want to trade shifts with you the other day?”
So maybe Philippa didn’t have a reputation for being the most accommodating but she wasn’t all that bad.
“I thought you two were on good terms?”
“Oh, I adore her. I’m pretty sure she likes me too. We grab lunch together, but that still doesn’t mean she goes around taking extra shifts for just anyone.”
“Here we go again.” Michael says with a tired sigh. Despite coming from a place of care, Michael finds Tilly’s meddling tiresome.
“Michael. The two of you clearly—”
“Clearly what?” Tilly has a knack for pushing Michael to places she isn’t quite ready to go, and usually before she’s finished working out her own feelings about these sorts of things.
And yet, Tilly refuses to be slowed by Michael’s recalcitrance.
“I know she’s an alpha but it’s the 32nd century and I thought you didn’t subscribe to that kind of thinking anyway.”
“I don’t,” she never has, “and that’s not the issue.”
“Then what is?”
“I can’t—it’s complicated.” Too many years of history between the both of them. On both sides of the mirror.
Tilly’s face falls a little.
“Keyla, she said that maybe you and your Captain…”
“Drop it.” Michael says flatly. “It was a long time ago, Tilly.”
“Michael, if the two of you—”
“I said let it go, Commander.” Michael’s gone over five years without having to wade through this field of emotional landmines, she isn’t planning on starting now.
Tilly deflates but recognizes a hard boundary when she sees one.
“Alright.” Tilly nudges Michael with her knee. “But if you ever want to talk…”
“I’ll let you know.”
Tilly nods and flips through a report in her hands for a bit before changing tactics. Certain elements of the conversation may be off limits, but leave it to her First Officer to find a work around.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, she asks about you.”
“Hmm?” Michael asks distractedly, reading through an uninspiring report. Though she can’t say how anyone can make power redistribution a compelling topic, even if she still wishes they would try.
“Georgiou, when we meet up for lunch. She always asks how you’re doing. In fact, she asked about you when we met up yesterday, and after that crazy fiasco in the Weylon system.”
“She—you two had lunch then?” She hasn’t seen the other woman in days, and when they were in the Weylon system Georgiou had canceled on her twice by then.
“Yeah, if you think you’re regimented, you should see her. Her old military timing is impeccable. She never misses a date and she’s never late either. It’s how I know she likes me.” Tilly looks up from her padd and grins but Michael can’t return the smile.
Something about all this feels wrong and Michael can’t put her finger on it, at least not without a little help. And she has a feeling Tilly is hiding something from her.
“Why isn’t Georgiou here today, Tilly?”
Tilly’s boisterous attitude turns furtive.
“Oh, well, y’know, it’s just Ensign Ospina’s day to—”
“You’re a terrible liar Sylvia Tilly.” And even when she isn’t, Michael can always tell.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tilly says picking the worst time to turn tight lipped. Michael isn’t interested in a drawn out recon mission.
“Tell me right now, Tilly. I order you to.”
“That is a gross abuse of power, Captain.”
“Not as your captain.” Michael clarifies, crossing her arms over her chest. “I order you to tell me as your best friend.” Because whatever Tilly is keeping from her has nothing to do with her position.
“Oh, come on Michael, don’t mess things up for me! She and I have a good thing going.” Tilly whines. “She’s never going to trust me again.”
“Tough luck, Tilly. Spill.” Michael raises an expectant eyebrow and waits for Tilly to crack. Luckily, it doesn’t take long.
“I really don’t know. She said she wasn’t feeling that well and that she anticipates needing a few days off so I just did what I normally do and—”
“Caved?” Michael says under her breath.
“No, I respected her privacy and granted the days off without question. You know as well as I do that she has protected status, it’s in her contract that she can negotiate time off for a cycle as necessary.”
“A cycle? You think she’s—” finally in the rut that she’d been planning to forestall with gonadotropin.
“As her supervisors I think it’s none of our business. But as the only person who can tolerate you enough to call you their best friend, yeah. She smells different, she’s been a little distracted, and she seems a little restless. Like someone else I know.”
“I can assure you that I’m not going into a rut.” Sure, she’d felt unsettled lately, but that was Philippa’s presence and Philippa’s presence alone. She wasn’t due another rut for a long time.
“Thanks, but TMI. Not everything you think needs to be shared with the class.”
As if the beta didn’t obsessively ask Michael question after question about what it was like to be an alpha and how it affected her sexual exploits, which Tilly also enjoyed details of, on the rare occasion Michael was willing to share them.
“You’re unbelievable.” Michael mutters and Tilly laughs.
“You know what’s really unbelievable? The fact that somewhere on this ship, there is someone that Georgiou is about to knock it out of the park with.”
“Knock it out of the park with?” Michael can never tell if the references Tilly makes now are old ones she never learned with Amanda and Sarek or ones she just hasn’t had the chance to encounter in the 32nd century. She never did have a knack for these kinds of things.
“It’s a baseball reference, you know, like to score a home run with someone?”
“This may seem like a surprise to you but we didn’t exactly have baseball on Vulcan.” Michael says dryly.
“I’m talking about whoever the lucky duck is that gets to hang in there while Georgiou lets it all hang out?”
“This isn't another baseball reference is it?”
“You really are hopeless aren’t you?” Tilly says, tipping her chair back dangerously. “I mean her rut! Someone is out there right now on their way to her quarters about to get their brains fucked out and I would pay real gold plated latinum to know who it—oh my god, Michael!”
Michael’s upended the entirety of her lukewarm hibiscus mint tea all over her uniform and the holopadd that promptly fizzled out of existence, but she’s sure Tilly’s reaction has much more to do with the look on her face than anything else.
“I—let me—uh—let me replicate something for you.” Tilly jumps up to get a towel but by the time she’s returned to the desk Michael has already made up her mind.
“Do you think you can watch the bridge for a bit?” Michael asks, chest tight and heart pounding, “I’ve got to go.”
“Back home to change right?” Tilly asks unconvincingly and Michael shoots up out of her chair and stalks towards the door.
Home is the last place she’s headed. But as Captain of this vessel, the very least she can do is maintain the illusion.
“Yes.” Michael grounds out. “My quarters, to change.”
“Oh no.” Tilly groans, because they both know that’s not where she’s headed.
That’s not where she’s headed at all.
Michael notes with a pang that Georgiou’s doors are no longer programmed to open when she appears at the threshold which only stands to upset her more than she already was when she got on the turbolift, not to mention how upset she was when she got off of it.
The idea of Georgiou even being in the proximity of someone that isn’t her right now is enough to make Michael’s vision go white with rage, but the thought of her scoring a homerun with someone was enough to make Michael want to shoot herself out of an airlock.
She’s incensed. There isn’t any other word for it in an earthen language that she knows. But there’s a vulcan word for it that comes to mind.
Plak tow. Blood fever
The blood literally feels like it’s boiling in her veins and as she programs her security override codes into the door it occurs to her that she may walk in on the Commander with a suitor. If she does, there’s no saying what she might do next.
When she forces her way in, she swallows down a feeling of deja vu. The lights are low, the temperature control is back on freezing, and the quarters are seemingly back in disarray. This time, however, the room is thick with an overwhelming heady, bold scent that Michael recognizes immediately.
It’s Philippa.
“Get out, Michael.”
“You didn’t call.” Michael says harshly, chest rapidly rising and falling. Philippa’s words are hurtful but they contrast with the enticing smell rolling off of her in waves.
Come closer.
“I’m not obligated to call.” Philippa’s voice is soft and hissing like a snake.
“You didn’t show up on the bridge today and you weren’t planning on showing up for dinner either, were you?”
Michael’s eyes adjust to the darkness to find Philippa dressed in a robe, laying on her side with her knees hugged to her chest. She's surrounded by what Michael can only describe as a nest of blankets. Michael can smell the prick of sweat at Philippa’s brow, the heat that rises out of her blood and to the surface of her skin.
Philippa isn’t at the beginning of a cycle, she’s in the throes of it.
“Your rut is here.” Michael says and Philippa growls in frustration.
“I told you to get out.” Philippa insists but Michael shakes her head and stands her ground.
“Tell me you don’t want me here, Philippa.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not.”
“Because it would be a lie!” Philippa cries, eyes wild.
From here she can see Philippa visibly shiver and this time, knowing that what is effecting Philippa isn’t the withdrawal and isn’t the drugs but her desire for Michael’s presence drives her forward and further into the room.
“You’ll regret this, Michael.” The distress in Philippa’s voice is oddly contrasted by her smooth and sexually inviting delivery. She sounds sibilant, like the temptress in the garden of Eden, wrapped around a dripping, reddened, fruit.
Regret?
“Impossible.” She can’t imagine a world where this isn’t exactly what she wants.
She draws closer to Philippa who begins to unfurl from her position on the bed, her limbs lengthening in response to Michael’s approach, to Michael’s voice, to Michael’s presence as though she were a snake charmer. And yet, it’s clear Philippa’s presence has just as much of an influence on her, if not more.
Without thinking Michael has already found herself at the foot of the bed. It’s as if there is something unseen between them that keeps Michael moving, like that day in the ready room, or the day Philippa had asked for the gonadotropin. She can feel that same force working between them, but this time it feels exponentially stronger. It’s so thick in the air that it almost feels palpable, as though Michael can reach into the air and produce a fruit of it in her hand, but she’d much rather take a bite out of Philippa.
“Philippa.” Michael husks. She cannot cross this boundary without permission, she knows that, but she is absolutely certain that Philippa will give it to her. “Please.”
“Once we cross this line, we can’t come back from it.” Philippa warns. “Everything will change.”
Change. What between them could change? What about them hasn’t been hurtling towards this event since the moment they met? If anything, this feels like the lifting of a veil, like a door inside Michael that had been closed but is finally, finally open.
If this brings change, then the change it brings can only be good. That much, she can feel in her bones.
“I know.” Michael whispers.
“You don’t understand, Michael.”
Perhaps she doesn’t. She’s been with a range of different betas and different omegas, but she’s never truly been with another alpha before. She’s never experienced a rut that she wasn’t on the other side of. She’s only ever been in the heat of it, she’s never been consumed by it.
But she’s willing.
“I want to understand.”
The tension between them pulls tighter and Michael can feel the hair on the back of her neck rise to attention, can feel her mouth grow dry, feel a sweet ache begin to build in the pit of her stomach.
“Help me understand.”
Philippa’s breath quickens, her hips rock forward a little and her hands clutch at the sheets. Michael is captivated, not a single detail escapes her, the wisp of hair that curls at her temple, the trembling of her knees, the apples of her cheeks turned pink with exertion.
Philippa is exquisite and all Michael wants to do is make her feel good. She doesn’t need to be an omega to do that, she only needs Philippa’s permission.
“Is there a chance—” Michael takes a deep breath and tries to find that invisible string again, to hold it taut, “Is there a chance you’d let me stay, a chance you’d let me help you? I want to help you, Philippa.”
That’s all she ever wants to do. She’d brought Philippa to this universe with that intention, helped her integrate into the crew, helped her start over. Michael wants what’s best for Philippa, she’d give anything, even leave if it were the answer, but she can’t bear the thought of Philippa with anyone else.
She lowers herself gingerly onto the bed and reaches out a hand, letting her fingers brush against the bare skin of a pale ankle.
“I want to make you feel good.” Michael whispers. “Will you let me make you feel good?”
Philippa whimpers.
“Yes, Michael. Yes.”
Michael’s hand tremors with excitement and lust as it slips up from the ankle to the calf and settles behind the knee which opens up to her invitingly. She’s imagined variations of this moment before, but ever since lying in bed with Philippa, it’s been all she can think about. Thinking about what it would be like to lean in and cover Philippa’s mouth with hers, to kiss down the side of her neck, between the valley of her breasts, to slip her fingers into the woman’s underwear and feel the hard length of her pumping into her hand.
The heady scent compels her, she crawls forward and drops her head between Philippa’s knees, breathing for a beat before untying the robe and resting her face against the heat of Philippa’s belly, the lace of her underwear scraping against Michael’s cheek.
Fuck , Philippa looks so good in this underwear. It’s exactly the kind of underwear Michael always imagined she’d wear at a time like this. Something too delicate and too complicated to belong beneath a Starfleet uniform.
It’s a good thing Philippa never wears one.
She almost wishes she were in a corset but Michael’s not picky, not at all. Her breasts are just as nice encased in the soft silk, the pinkish peaks of her brown nipples brushing against the fabric as Philippa’s back arches off of the bed ever so slightly, a keening sound in the back of her throat.
Philippa wants her, wants her so badly that she can hardly keep herself together and the realization makes Michael so hot and hard that it hurts. She can feel herself straining against the fabric of her uniform pants and it hurts so good. She wants to put her mouth on Philippa. She wants Philippa sliding in and out of her mouth. She wants to hollow her cheeks as she sucks Philippa off, closed fist working at the base of her cock.
Slowly, torturously, Michael brings her mouth to the waistband of Philippa’s underwear to pull the lace down with her teeth. Michael is too distracted by the smell of her, the sight of her flexed calves to catch the sight of her cock springing free. Michael doesn’t need to see it to know it, to taste it on the tip of her tongue. She’ll wait. Michael is an expert at waiting. She’s become an expert at this Philippa Georgiou, and it pleases her to know she can please Philippa at her own pace, right to the edge of ecstasy and madness.
“Michael!” Philippa’s cries, hands plunging into Michael’s curls and Michael moans at the scratch of nails at her scalp, the sharp pull of strands, the other hand that rests over her neck, and the nails breaking the skin there.
Michael uses her mouth to bite down into Philippa’s thigh just shy of punishing, just enough to make Philippa’s hips buck off the bed and thrust against Michael, looking for more.
“Patience, Philippa.” She whispers and Philippa groans her name again when Michael’s teeth successfully peel the fabric down past her knees.
Happy with her work, Michael drags her mouth up from the back of Philippa’s knee to the inside of her thigh, approaching her sex, prepared to take the whole of the alpha into her mouth, to bring her tongue down and around Philippa’s shaft, to encircle the head of her cock in her mouth, to hollow her cheeks and suck.
Grinning, Michael pulls apart Philippa’s thighs but the sight that greets her is jarring and unexpected.
Philippa doesn’t have a cock.
Michael stares down in awe, the haze of lust not clearing from the room so much as thickening as the dark, heavy smell of the other woman fills Michael’s nostrils.
“Philippa?” Michael asks hoarsely. The confusion tussles with the lust, with the something else that is exploding in her brain, a growing temptation, an increasing need, a clear directive.
Clumsily, she tries to push the growing lust aside, tries to ignore the throbbing of her cock, the hammering drive in her head.
The Emperor is an alpha. Everyone knows that. It was part of the theater and the allure, part of the way she moved in her corseted armor, the crown sitting firmly on her head. Michael didn’t know an adult alive who had seen the Emperor on her throne and hadn’t longed to be underneath her heeled boot, hadn’t felt compelled to kneel at her feet without the Emperor needing to utter a single word.
How many times had Michael dreamed of dropping before the throne just to lay her head in the Emperor’s lap, to feel the hot length of her pressed against her cheek as she listened to the other woman’s sparse yet lovely praise?
Had the Emperor been a beta all this time, hiding in plain sight pretending to be an alpha? How hadn’t anyone noticed? How hadn’t Michael noticed? How could she have been so oblivious?
Her breath starts coming in pants, for reasons she can’t quite put her finger on, as though something else is taking over her body, some other need Michael hasn’t experienced in years.
She rises up to look at Philippa, to really look at her, but the other woman’s pupils are unnaturally blown black, her lips full and drawn open, her breath ragged, chest heaving.
It’s been a long time since Michael’s seen anything like it, since she’s seen anything so wanton, so perilously beautiful.
But something is wrong.
“You’re a—” The word beta won’t come to her lips because it doesn’t quite fit. Something about it feels wrong, like a fork scraping against a plate. Beta feels too simple. Not expansive enough to contain Georgiou, to contain her multitudes, to contain the feeling that is building in Michael’s root.
The gonadotropin, the withdrawal. The seeming symptoms of a rut. None of it makes sense. Betas don’t have ruts.
And then it begins to dawn on her as her face returns to hovers above Georgiou’s sex that the other woman isn’t an alpha at all and she isn’t a beta either.
“Philippa?” Michael says again, mouth dry at the sight of Philippa glistening below her. The other woman’s inverted sex quivers as Michael breathes in quiet disbelief. “Fuck.”
Suddenly it all makes sense and comes slamming down on her like a wave crashing into her with a roar. This mounting feeling, this need, this knocking on the inside of her head that won’t stop. The directive that grows louder and louder and clearer and clearer.
Knot her.
Philippa is an omega and she’s in heat.
Michael stumbles away from the bed and pushes herself back onto her feet. She needs to get up, she needs to put as much distance between the two of them as she possibly can.
This can’t be happening. It can’t.
Not again.
“Fuck!” Michael shouts spinning around to yank a chair up from the dining table and send it careening towards the floor. “Fuck!”
The rage expanding inside of her is exactly why she dreads encounters like this, exactly why she’s been avoiding this possibility at all costs. Michael can feel all logic threatening to leave her, threatening to strand her high and dry in return for the promise of Philippa’s slick skin moving against hers.
Michael presses her fists to her eyes and stalks ups and down the length of the room. This time sending a vase crashing to the floor.
“It’s part of your nature, Michael.” Amanda once told her, the first time she presented as a girl. “You can’t fight it and you can’t change it, but you can learn to temper it.”
Michael is trying but it isn’t working.
“Goddammit, Philippa. Why didn’t you warn me?”
That’s not fair, she knows it isn’t fair. Philippa had tried to tell her.
Get out, Michael. Philippa had cried but Michael refused to listen, insisting she knew better.
Now look at them.
Philippa whimpers from the bed, caught between a basic instinct of fear and arousal. Philippa needs help, she doesn’t need Michael’s petty display of dominance. She doesn’t need the anger and grandstanding and the mess.
Philippa needs Michael and Michael has to fight every instinct to go running towards her.
The whimpering is hard wired to affect her, Michael reminds herself. It’s not Philippa, it’s not the years of complicated feelings she has for her, it’s not the way Philippa’s eyes catch in the reflective light of a passing star, or the way her voice sounds after a long night on the observation deck and drinking with the others, not the way her long hair looks pulled back over a shoulder in a way that only ever makes Michael’s fingers itch with a need to run through the strands.
It’s not the sound and the sight and the smell of Philippa, her Philippa, that makes Michael want to comfort her. That isn’t it at all.
Philippa is an omega and Michael is undeniably an alpha. Everything about this spells trouble. And Michael hates trouble. She does. But she’s never been able to avoid any trouble named Philippa Georgiou.
“How long?” Michael asks, needing to know. How long had she been hiding the truth, how long had she been hiding the heats?
“Twenty years.” Philippa croaks, voice strange and scratchy. “I haven’t had one in twenty years.”
Michael forces out a breath, tries to steady herself. Twenty years. It’s a miracle Philippa isn’t dead.
“How long have you…” Been on fire. How long has the tension been mounting, how long has she been trying and failing to find the hormone blocker?
“Three weeks.”
“Is that why you’ve been so distant?” Canceling every plan, avoiding every look, wrenching back from every touch. Is that why Philippa has been hiding from her?
“You make it worse.” Philippa says, swallowing heavily. “Your presence makes it worse.”
“My presence?” Michael asks, needing to know the whole truth. There are other alphas on this ship, others who would jump at the chance to mount Georgiou.
A regular heat is just that, a heat. A random biological urge meant to keep the human race alive and thriving, an evolutionary curse, something that cannot be avoided forever despite Georgiou’s decades of success.
But this isn’t a regular heat.
“This is different isn’t it?” Michael questions, and the voice in her head gets louder and louder, the chanting worse than before.
Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.
“No.” Philippa says and Michael growls advancing on the bed.
“Don’t lie to me, Philippa. You’ve never lied to me before. Don’t start now.”
“Why ask me if you already know?” Philippa turns her face away in shame, fear, rejection.
Michael growls again, turning away, trying to catch her breath as the chorus drones on.
Mine, mine, mine.
The words threaten to tumble from her mouth. The words make her weak. She doesn’t know that she can fight them.
“We—we’re,” unavoidably compatible. painfully well matched.
Perfect for each other in every way.
“Fuck, Philippa.” Michael wants to send her fist through something, maybe that way she can control the fire, dampen it, redirect it out of this room.
But there’s no getting out of this room, not yet, and metaphorically, maybe not ever.
“If we do this...” Michael’s throat thickens with emotion. “If we do this it can’t be undone.”
They’d be jiwa-jiwa, two souls terikat , forever bound.
“Yes.”
“There’s no going back Philippa, you do know that don’t you?”
“Of course I know it!” Philippa cries frustratedly. “Of course I know.”
Michael always thought that if this were to happen, it would have happened to them already, it should have happened that first year together, it should have happened after Qo’noS, it should have happened after Spock, it should have happened after they were reunited and Michael thought she might never see the genuine object of her most secret desires and affections ever again.
Why would it happen now when everything has finally settled, when Michael had finally made her peace with the past, made her peace with the ghost of her Captain, found a way to let her old mate go to make room for this Philippa Georgiou and all her wild and vexing behavior? Why would it happen after all the lust and all the attraction had tempered into something like love?
Why, when she had been getting so good at forgetting?
You know why. A voice whispers in her ear. One she hasn’t heard in nearly six years and yet the one she heard only moments ago.
“I’m sorry.” Michael says, fighting the tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Every moment she delays is a moment that Philippa is nearing the edge of madness and dissolution. A bond like this is inescapable. So naturally, to try and fight it will only lead to one of their deaths.
“What about the gonadotropin?” Michael tries. Maybe it isn’t too late. Maybe she can still save this, put them on a different path, a path that they get to choose, not a path already chosen for them by fate or the inalterable path of two universes that collided without care for what it would mean for everyone involved. “I’ll replicate the blocker.”
Starfleet tribunal be damned.
Michael hurries to the bed and kneels before it, taking Philippa’s hand in hers.
“Tell me what to do, k’diwa.” Michael asks, the endearment falling from her lips with ease, just like it used to. “Tell me what to do.”
Philippa smiles wanly, body trembling at Michael’s proximity. “We’re past that point, Michael. You know that.”
She does. She does.
“But you can still go.” Philippa says and Michael wants to cry.
“I can’t.” She can’t stay but she can’t go, and yet she can’t do this all over again. “I can’t.”
“It’s not too late.” Philippa reminds her but it’s twelve years too late, one rejection from the Vulcan Expeditionary Group too late, one assignment to Shenzhou too late. One trip through the looking glass too late.
If it will follow them across universes and millennia, then it will follow them anywhere.
“I won’t leave you.” Michael whispers into the palm of Philippa’s hand. Because can’t isn’t a choice but won’t is. She won’t leave Philippa. She won’t leave her because she doesn’t want to. Not because she can’t.
There’s a difference. She hopes Philippa can hear it.
“Michael.” Philippa breathes as Michael loosens the buckle of her pants and shimmies them down her legs and steps out of them.
“Michael.” Philippa breathes as Michael slips off her undershirt and climbs onto the bed naked.
“I’m here.” Michael whispers, swinging a leg over Philippa’s hips and planting a palm on either side of her head, until Michael is on her knees hovering above Philippa, close enough to feel the other woman’s pants of breath against her cheek.
Her eyes sweep over Philippa’s brow, over the proud set of her cheek bones, over the pronounced pout of her rosy lips. She’s so lovely that Michael hardly realizes she’s crying until Philippa brings her attention to it, careful thumbs wiping beneath her eyes.
“I had a mate once.” Michael says shakily. That She looked like you, goes unsaid but Philippa nods, pulling Michael’s face down to hers.
“I had a mate once too.”
Michael wonders if that death had been just as gruesome, just as wrenching. If something happens to this Philippa, will it hurt just the same?
She still remembers the searing pain, the flaying open of her chest the moment she knew her mate was gone from her forever. It’s not something one forgets, it’s not something she’d ever want to forget. That, she knows, is the price of being loved, the price of the bond. And yet, the pain of being loved, of being loved so wholly and completely, that is the part of her heart she willingly shrouds away in mystery. It’s the only part of it all that she’s ever tried to forget.
There is much to fear. Anything could happen. Their lines of work are dangerous. Death cannot be avoided, not even in this future, especially when the future seems more and more perilous than the past.
What can they promise each other? After losing everything, what do they possibly have left to give? And yet, who are they to intervene?
These are the things that the gods decide.
“I’m not perfect.” Michael needs her to know. As much as she tries, she’s never gotten everything right.
Philippa shakily huffs out a laugh. “Neither am I.”
But that has never mattered to Michael.
“And I’ll hurt you.” Michael murmurs. She’s been told she’s selfishly selfless, infuriatingly relentless, too demanding of herself but never others, too dismissive of danger yet protective to a fault.
“I’ll hurt you.” Philippa says simply, and Michael knows that it’s true.
“But I will love you.” Michael promises. How could she not. She fears she already does.
“Oh, Michael.” Philippa says softly. “I know.”
Michael surges forward and Philippa rises up to meet her in a deep, heated kiss. The first one of the evening, the first one of the rest of their lives.
There’s no turning back now. But first…
“I want to hear you say it.” Michael says when she pulls away gasping for breath. She won’t do this if Philippa isn’t all in, isn’t all there, isn’t all willing. “I need to hear you say it, Philippa.”
And the look on Philippa’s face tells her she’s ready to say exactly what Michael needs to hear.
“I’m yours, Michael Burnham. I’m yours.” And Michael is hers.
So Michael does what is expected, what cannot be avoided, does what she has wanted to do since the very first time she felt Philippa’s fingers on her face in the golden throne room surrounded by all who could see.
She dips down and takes the little bit of skin between Philippa’s neck and shoulder between her lips and sucks it gently into her mouth, letting her lips settle over the sinew and the muscle and the bone she knows must be underneath. This is a fine place for a mark. Easy to display but easy enough to hide if need be.
She wonders where Philippa will choose to make hers. Probably somewhere obvious and difficult to hide. Just because she wasn’t an alpha didn’t mean she didn’t act like one.
But Michael won’t mind.
She smiles against the skin and bites down hard.