Chapter Text
What if, in another universe, I deserve you?
Hear me out. There’s this philosopher from the 1890s named William James, and he coined this theory about “the multiverse” which suggests that a hypothetical set of multiple universes comprises everything that can possibly exist simultaneously.
Are you following? The entirety of space, time, matter and energy is all happening at once in different timelines: It’s the idea of parallel universes. Right? So okay, let’s presume the multiverse is real.
Well then, maybe somewhere in those infinite universes is one, or several, where I deserve you.
…You just found me in the wrong universe. That’s all. This is, as they say, the darkest timeline.
- Gaby Dunn, “Maybe In Another Universe, I Deserve You"
Ceres
Julie Mao spits in his face.
Impressive distance and accuracy, given that it was through the bars of her cell. Miller gives her a mental nod of approval even as he wipes the spittle off his cheek with the back of his hand. She stands defiant, daring him to throw open the door and beat the shit out of her. Or at least try to. He’d seen the jiu jitsu awards in her apartment, and luring a cop into the cell only to take him down was just the sort of thing Miller would do too. At least, he would if he was a rich kid runaway with a brown belt and delusions of Belter solidarity.
Miller instead drags a metal stool screeching over the concrete floor and sits down. Julie towers over him, arms folded, still wearing the red jumpsuit he had caught her in when she and her crew had been on the way to their ship, the Scopuli. The rest of the crew had taken off without her, and Miller hadn’t stopped them. He didn’t have a warrant anyway, and they weren’t breaking any laws even if everything about their mission was practically an advertisement for shady OPA dealings. No, he was just there for Juliette Andromeda Mao.
“I am not going back to my parents,” she says, eyes burning as she stares him down. “And you can’t detain me like this, I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“That may be,” Miller says pleasantly. He takes off his hat and slicks back his hair, looking up at Julie. He makes a small gestures for her to sit but isn’t surprised when she doesn’t oblige. The hat hangs idly from one finger while he talks. “But ‘wrong’ and ‘legal’ are two different things, much as I’d like it to be otherwise. Last I checked, aiding a terrorist organization counted as wrong and illegal. And this little kidnapping job your pops ordered? It gave me access to some interesting correspondences you keep, which unless I miss my guess could give me everything I need to send you back in cuffs. So what I suggest—”
Julie makes a sound of disgust. “Is this where you tell me we can do this the easy way or the hard way?”
“Frankly, Miss Julie, I don’t care what happens to you.” The lie tastes sour on his tongue. “But I don’t like kidnapping jobs. They don’t sit right with me. You’re a grown-ass woman and if you want to get yourself killed trying to help us Belters, that’s your business. The problem is, it’s a crazy thing to do, just crazy enough that your folks can label you disturbed and claim custody. There’s enough evidence out there for that too, so you’d go back to Earth in a straightjacket instead of cuffs.”
The threat must have struck some memory, because Julie blanches though the set of her jaw remains firm. “Earth is not my home."
“See, right there? That’s crazy. Why would you ever live out here when you could live in a place where a crack in the hull can’t kill you on any given day?” he says, half to himself. Earth would be torture for him, but Julie could have lived there in the lap of luxury and just… didn’t. Why? He thought he’d found the answer in his snooping through her apartment here on Ceres, but Miller was willing to admit that he could have built a fairytale for himself; an image of her cobbled together from half-finished letters and old take-out receipts. He wants to hear the truth from her.
“Are you asking for my life story?” she says. Her disdain shades to incredulity.
Yes. “No,” Miller chuckles.“I just need you to answer one question to my satisfaction.” I want to understand you. He leans back, looks up at Julie Mao and says, “Why should I let you go?”
Her hand slams against the bars. “Where do I start?”
“Maybe I should make it clearer,” Miller says. “Why should I believe letting you go isn’t going to end with your brains splattered across a wall somewhere by the end of the week?”
Her laugh cuts deep. “So what if it does? Any of us could die on any day. I can at least look in the mirror and know I died doing something worthwhile. That I helped people. Can you say the same?”
“Nope,” Miller says. “Not the answer I was looking for. Here’s my deal: I’ll give you twenty-four hours to come up with a better answer than that kaka felota, otherwise I hand you over to mom and dad.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to some well wala traitor,” Julie snaps, shooting Belter creole right back at him. The accent isn’t half bad, either. Miller smiles wryly and stands.
“First lesson? You don’t have to say ‘well wala traitor'. It already means traitor,” Miller says, and replaces his hat. "I would know. Now if you’ll excuse me, tracking your ass down has been hungry work, so I’ll be getting us some food.”
By the time he comes back with two bowls of rice and fungal beans, she’s sitting on the cot in the corner of her cell. He can’t tell if the look she’s giving him is defiant or just surly, and doesn’t feel like arguing with her. He slides the bowl through the slat at the bottom of the door and takes his seat again. She doesn’t complain about the food, or hesitate to eat it. After she finishes, she watches him.
Fine, two can play at that game. He sets aside his own empty bowl, takes out his terminal and begins flipping through station reports.
To her credit, it takes her a few hours to crack. He’s read through a stack of paperwork, and is down to the reports they usually set aside to break in rookies, when she speaks.
“You don’t have to stay here all night.” She nods up at the cameras. “I’m still watched, and I can’t get out on my own. What are you trying to accomplish?”
“I don’t know, maybe you’ll feel chatty in the middle of the night,” Miller says without looking up. “And I wouldn’t want you to have to wait to unburden yourself.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Julie says. The intensity of her tone forces him to look up. “Why these games? You can let me go or you can ship me off. But I’m not going to betray my comrades. You’re not going to get information out of me, even if you torture me. If you want my word that I won’t continue to fight for Belters, it will just be a lie and you know it. So why are you doing this?”
Because I’m scared shitless for you, that’s why. Miller wants to grab her through the bars and shake her. He wants to tell her that challenging anyone else in his position to torture her is a good way to get what she asks for. The fake smirk is gone, he can’t maintain it when listening to her earnestness and anger. Worse, it's all justified. In her position, he’d clock his captor in the teeth as soon as look at him and then make a run for it. He might not spit in a guard’s face but that’s only because he’s never cared enough about anything to do so. Well, except for clean air and water on Ceres, and that didn’t make him special. That just made him an average low-life Belter.
The problem was this pervasive sense of doom that hovered over Julie Mao. If Miller was a romantic, he’d say it was like a shadow, only glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. If he can just hold her here-- if he can keep her from going wherever it was in the universe that wanted to chew her up and spit her out-- he knows he could keep something terrible from happening.
He doesn’t want to ship her back to Earth, but he knows the minute he sets her free she’s going to fly back into the teeth of that shadow faster than he can blink. She’s like a bird that will beat itself to death against this cause. Julie Mao needs to learn quick who she can trust in this mess of thugs, terrorists, and suicidal heroes that fight for the OPA cause. Someone needs to teach her, and that can't be him. She won't want it to be him. So maybe he can hold her here, for just a day, and hope that shadow passes on to other victims.
It’s crazy superstition, and he knows it, but he can’t shake it. So he’ll wait. Twenty-four hours in a holding cell when there’s an active contract on her? He’d put drunks away to sleep it off for longer. And she is drunk, she’s drunk on this fucking OPA cause, she’s drunk on a life that isn’t hers and she’s going to throw the one she has away on it.
We’re not worth it, Miller wants to tell her, but he can’t even believe it himself. Why else was he here, working as a cop on Ceres except to protect these people? How can he tell her not to do what he’s doing, only better, with more guts and less brains?
Christ, he’s staring at her, he must have been staring at her for the past five minutes like some nut job, not saying a word. She must think he’s as bugfuck crazy as he looks, she should. It would be good instincts if she realizes a guy keeping her in a prison cell is bad news.
But those dark eyes that had only looked at him with hatred outside of the photographs softened, just a little, at his silence. She steps forwards and kneels in front of the bars so they’re face to face, wrapping her hands around the bars so he can feel the heat coming off her fingers.
“It’s because you care,” Julie says. She’s studying his face as she speaks. “If you didn’t, you would have put me on a ship back to my family already. You care about the cause, and you know this is wrong.”
You’re half right, he wants to say. I do care, just not about the cause.
“It’s just a job, Miss Julie,” Miller says, and winces at the waver in his voice, the cracks in his affected nonchalance.
“You could come with me,” she says, pouncing on his hesitation. “You haven’t reported that you have me, or you’d have to turn me over. You know this is all bullshit. It takes people like us, people who care, to stop it.”
Her face lights up, and he can see a glimpse of that girl from the picture, the pinnace racer who beams like the sun. And he suddenly gets where that little girl went. What mattered to her more than the freedom of racing the Razorback: this is her new Razorback, this cause, his people.
Their people.
“We can hail the Scopuli, they’ll come back for me, explain to them you switched sides…”
The spell breaks at that name: Scopuli. Miller recoils. “Hell no, we’re not getting on that ship, you’re not getting on that ship!” There’s panic in his chest, he can feel it rising up and choking him and doesn’t know when he stood, but he’s looming over her now, hands clenched, knuckles white at his side. “Listen to me, Julie…”
BANG!
The percussive blast as the door blows off its hinge sends Miller rocking back on his heels. He threw his arms up against the debris, and shards of metal cut into his forearms. One slices his cheek. In the split second of shock, he’d put himself between Julie and the door. There’s a tinny, high-pitched squeal ringing in Miller's ears. His wits are scrambled, his instincts gone all wrong when he turns to check on Julie instead of being alert for whoever is behind the smoke cloud. She’s taken a step back, her arms up in a defensive block. She lowers them, and he knows it's all gone wrong when her face creases into a broad grin.
Miller turns just in time for Anderson Dawes to pistol whip him across mouth. Pain explodes through his veins and nerves, and he tastes blood. Goes down. Hands root around his belt, pulling out the keys to Julie’s cell, his gun.
He watches as if from far away as Dawes opens the cell door, and hands Julie a gun. There’s more people beyond them, Miller notes. His befuddled gaze drifting to the crowd of OPA-tattooed thugs at the door.
He knows he should stay down. There’s blood in the air and violence is a frenzy that spreads on the smell of it, he’d be just one more casualty. But he’s grabbing the bars, hanging off of them as he hauls himself to his feet just in time to look Julie Mao in the eye. Then down the barrel of the gun, his gun, that she's trained on him.
“Detective Miller,” Dawes drawls from behind her. “I told you we would find Julie Mao. But what happened to your claims that you would not turn her over to her family if you found her first?”
“Simple: he lied,” Julie says, not taking her eyes off Miller. “He’s well wala.”
She didn’t add traitor. Miller feels a surge of pride that she had heard him, that she had been listening. He takes a step forward, hands open and empty. “Julie, think about what you’re doing. These people don’t give a damn about you.”
“They got me out of your cage,” she says.
Alright, fair point. “This time,” Miller counters. “If you go, promise me you’ll keep your eyes open, don’t—”
“The alarm override will not last long,” Dawes says, and Julie looks back over her shoulder. “We have to go.”
“Wait, Julie!” Miller says, and grabs for her arm.
Shock lances up his leg, and then he hears the gunshot, smells the powder in the air, sees Julie above him, her face gone pale with as much shock as he’s feeling. The numbness sweeps up after, and his limbs go cold. He’s going into shock, the only warmth in his body is the blood leaking from what must be his shattered kneecap. Only surprise keeps Miller from screaming, but he has a feeling that’s going to wear off in a moment.
“Goodbye, Detective Miller,” says Dawes, and takes Julie’s hand, giving her a shake as she stands there, frozen. “Julie, we will send someone for him. But now we must go.”
Don’t, Miller tries to say, but the words never reach his lips. Pain is rushing up his nerves, it’s going to hit him any second, but now all he can see is her. The last look she sends over her shoulder as Dawes pulls her away, resolve and terror, and that unnameable expression when she had invited him to join her cause. Miller clutches his leg as he watches her turn and vanish out the door, eyes locked until the last possible moment.
Then the pain hits.