Setting: The Mirror Verse

Timing: The one-year anniversary of the death of Dr. Hugh Culber

You will never feel good again. You know this fact deep in the marrow of each of your bones. You will never again sleep a full night, you will never enjoy a morsel of any of your meals, you only vaguely remember the time you used to enjoy your life's work.

Your research partner and closest friend Straal contacts you. You try to focus on the conversation and look at his image on the screen. You notice the pity and fear in his eyes. You know it's nice of him to remember this anniversary and you know that you should feel touched. But let's be honest, nothing but more pain and more numbness await you. You blink at the screen. Since Hugh died, everything is a bit fuzzy and dull.

Your mother contacts you as well, on this most grim of anniversaries. She begs you to eat more. She tells you that she loved Hugh too, and she reminds you that there are so many people in the universe. She tells you that you will love again, and she promises that someday you won't hurt so much.

The ship's nurse who has been your medical contact visits you in person, at your quarters. She wants you to go back into counseling and she wants to do another examination on you. Perhaps get you back on medication. No, there's no cure for this. The drugs were nice but they didn't help. She starts to talk about how much she liked Dr. Culber, how everyone in sickbay misses him. You tell her you need to go.

Hugh's parents try to contact you too but you don't pick up, letting them leave a message instead. You can't look at them. Hugh's father's face looks like Hugh's, and Hugh's mother has his mannerisms. The way she tilts her head, the way her eyes sometimes widen, even the inflections in her words. There's no way you can interact with them now, or maybe ever again.

One day after another, each the same, each endless. Sometimes it feels like it's been days since Hugh died, other times it feels like five years.

Setting: Discovery

Timing: Two days after Stamets injected the tardigrade DNA into his system, thus inadvertently switching places with his Mirror Verse counterpart

If you had someone with whom to discuss this, you would try to come up with a good analogy. Perhaps it's like you had been constantly wearing a backpack, one that weighed at least half of your own body weight. You had been wearing it each day, you slept with it at night, you tried to shower in it and it had caused every muscle in your body to scream in pain. And now it's gone. You can breathe. Happiness can re-enter your life; your body is comfortable.

Ethically and morally, you know that this is wrong. And yet the idea of coming clean is something you cannot even consider.

Not when you get moments like these: Your communicator chirps, and Hugh is asking "Dinner in our quarters or the mess hall?"

You reply, "Our quarters." You think for one more second and add. "Naked."

You hesitated to add the word "naked" only because the sex – while wonderful as it always was – is so secondary at this point. But you knew Hugh would get a kick out of that comment.

This verse's Hugh is just like your Hugh. He is sweet and loving and utterly devoted to you. Is he suspicious or worried? Yes, definitely but at least he has a good explanation for your behavior. Getting alien DNA injected into your body can explain almost anything.

"I can't believe you're not worried about getting crumbs in the bed," Hugh chuckles, not much later on. You're both sitting with your backs against the pillows, you're almost too happy to eat but you force yourself to do so.

"I guess the tardigrade has taught me to live in the moment," you say, smiling. You caress Hugh's cheek with a finger, and then use it to turn his head towards you. You pull him in for a kiss. You love the warmth of Hugh's body, you love his wet lips against yours.

"I'm not complaining," Hugh tells you. "I love the compliments you've been giving me."

"I should've given you way, way more compliments over the years. I should've been less prickly. And I should have –" Your voice almost breaks.

"You're a wonderful husband, Paul," Hugh says. His voice is so warm. It's like a healing balm. It's sunshine on skin that had been bitterly chilled. "You don't need to ever say any 'should haves' or 'would haves'."

You almost cry at that point, so instead you grab both Hugh's plate and yours. You set them onto the nightstand. You then pull Hugh against you, reveling in the feel of the skin on skin contact, his body against yours. This version of paradise that you had thought you'd lost forever.

You guess that this verse's version of Paul Stamets has switched places with you, and so is probably living your old life. If that's the case, you know it must be an unbearable agony for him. The guilt truly does stab you in the gut. But that is only a minuscule amount of pain compared to what you had been living with before. As you fall asleep in your husband's arms, you silently apologize to the other Paul. Then you revel in the warmth and comfort that Hugh provides. Your dreams will be good ones tonight.

THE END

Notes:

Inspired by a prompt from Paulculberr

Apologies to folks who are more well-versed in Star Trek than I am. I made the mirror versions of Hugh and Paul pretty similar to the Discovery versions, and I think that's a no-no!