Author's notes: Tilly is on the autism spectrum in my writing of her.
Big thanks to aurumcalendula and notyourfuckingalatea for comments and encouragement. This was... much, much longer than I'd planned and you both really helped me push through and finish! And big thanks to ashandalder for digging deep into characterization, prose, and grammar on a Drive Doc like a beta badass! You caught some wobbly stuff and gave me the final push to figure out how to write the conclusion. :) I'm really happy you're in the fandom!
OoO
Tilly didn't like it here. She had spent her life learning her universe, from her first planetary coloring book to the most advanced classes at the Academy. It was an old friend.
This place was a stranger.
These stars seemed so cold. She looked out the window and felt lost in the black, a mote of dust in a whirlwind. Back home, she could always find her way to Earth. It remained, no matter how far she flew away. Even when she got a nagging message from her mother and felt glad for the lightyears between them, she was glad only because it was a distance that could be crossed whenever she wanted. The Earth was still there, safely nestled in the warmth of Sol.
But now they had slid between rather than through space. Distance was a meaningless concept. No matter how far they flew, they would never come home.
Apart from the alien stars, there was the debris field they'd been hiding in. It wasn't a comforting sight either. It just made her think how easily something bigger and meaner than Discovery could come along. Blow them to smithereens. They'd be lost in the debris, just more junk in the cold vacuum of space. No one here would care or remember.
Tilly would give anything to hug her dad. Or her mom. She'd even be happy to hear, for the millionth time, that she'd have better luck in love if she just straightened her hair and stopped talking so much. She understood now why her parents—and so many other humans—never left earth, clinging to their familiar biosphere. Maybe the stars back home seemed as cold to them as these stars seemed to her.
She might never see them again. Never smell the earthy scent of the apple orchard near their house. Or sit beside her dad, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace. Or scratch Cleo under her fuzzy grey chin and feel her purring like a little motorboat.
There weren't any cats on Discovery. There might not be any cats anywhere in this universe. How were people supposed to live like that?
Tilly pulled the comforter tighter around her shoulders and rocked slowly back and forth, the motion easing her mind. There was no reason not to act weird if she needed to; Michael had started sleeping over at Ash's, so Tilly was alone in their room at night. She kept the shades down over the windows and tried to focus on the here and now, the warmth inside this little ship. Their only home. But she couldn't keep the sight of those alien stars and the silently drifting debris out of her mind. It was doom staring them right in the face.
During her shift, there was work to be done, and that helped. Kind of.
As far as she could tell, getting back would require Stamets. But he was already so hurt by what they'd done. He was hooked up to monitors in sick bay, staring at nothing and talking about paths and forests, like he was trapped in a fairy tale. Dr. Culber's heart was breaking and there was nothing she could do about it, except run calculations on how they could use the man he loved one more time. Even though it might kill him.
Tilly thought about her ethics classes and when it was right to disobey an order. At the Academy, she never thought a time like that would come. And if it did, surely it would be obvious, right?
But she'd put canister after canister of spores into the chamber and it hadn't once occurred to her to say no. It didn't seem real, what they were doing to him. They'd win the war and everyone would be fine, right? The important thing was to keep pushing, always, at the edges of the known.
It would all be fine in the end. It would work out.
She'd visit Stamets, look into the clouded whites of his eyes, and think about Marie Curie's bones, still hot with radiation centuries after her death. Or Rosalind Franklin in a lonely damp basement lab at King's College. She chased the shape of the double helix with x-ray after x-ray, slowly poisoning herself. Tilly learned all about them in her history of science class. How had she forgotten?
Sometimes it didn't work out.
She wanted to go home. Its absence ached inside her, so it was like she was walking around hollow inside. But would she go along this time too, do her calculations like a good girl and let Stamets sacrifice himself? Couldn't there be another way?
She wanted to talk about it with Michael. Michael understood these things. She had such a strong sense of herself and what she believed to be right, no matter how many people hated her for it. If Tilly were more like that, they might not be here at all. She could have tried to stop it, maybe. Or at least raised the alarm before the final time.
Tilly had kept Earth in her heart, its star her reference point no matter how far she flew away, but Michael didn't seem to need a specific place like that. Her guiding star was inside her, bright and true.
But Michael wasn't here.
Tilly sat, staring across at her friend's neatly made bed. Michael hadn't slept here in five nights. That made sense. She and Ash had gotten close and now they were clinging to each other to keep the fear at bay. If Tilly had someone she'd do the same, but she didn't. And a casual hookup would just make her feel even more sad right now.
Back in their home universe, before all of this, Michael shared her joy with Tilly. After a date, they'd do a little thing Tilly had started thinking of as The Debrief. Michael wasn't terribly chatty, but Tilly had an idea of what was going on in their adorable, slow-paced romance. She appreciated the way Ash took care of Michael. Tilly didn't think her friend could possibly get prettier, but as they dated Michael seemed to glow under his tender attention.
Seeing them happy warmed Tilly's heart. They were both such good people. And they looked so cute together, with Ash all easy smiles and lanky grace and Michael so petite and laser-focused. The way her body language relaxed around him made Tilly's heart clench. She didn't think anyone had been that sweet to Michael before.
But something had changed and now it was like they spent all their time together. Michael didn't tell her things anymore. For the two weeks since that final jump it was radio silence on all matters personal. They'd still run and share breakfast in the mornings, but Michael was tight-lipped, eating quickly and rushing out before they could have a real chat.
It put a cold knot in Tilly's chest. Had she done something wrong? Was Michael just getting tired of her?
Still, she couldn't begrudge Michael joy. Not at any time, but certainly not now. Michael had given it her all, had done her part in ending the war, and she didn't even get a moment's peace to savor victory. She was pretty and kind and noble-hearted and she deserved a million cute guys, if that's what she wanted.
They'd probably just finally started having sex and Michael, being Michael, was too shy to talk about it. She'd never learned the ways of human girl talk, after all. It would be fine. Michael would come around. She might even err in the other direction and end up giving too much info about all the great sex.
The thought sent some really nice images of Michael and Ash through her mind, along with a warm squirmy feeling in her stomach. Michael would look so cute sitting on his lap. Leaning back against his chest, his arms around her waist, all the tension she carried around eased, a soft smile on her lips.
Guh.
Down, girl.
Tilly took a deep breath. "This is a good thing," she said, firmly, lying down on her side. "She'll come around. I'm happy for her."
Her words faded into the room, not even leaving an echo. Tilly shivered, tightening the comforter around her. "And now I'm gonna stop talking to myself… Computer, dim lights."
OoO
The next day, Tilly stood around like an idiot waiting until she realized that Michael wasn't coming for their morning run. She must have forgotten. Or finally decided that Tilly just wasn't that important.
Stupid hot tears came to her eyes then. Everything was awful and this wasn't that bad, it really wasn't. Tilly knew that. But it was just one more thing that was different and wrong now. Tilly pretended to tie her shoelaces until she got control of herself. Then she raised her chin and set out, footfalls echoing in the hall as people familiar with her routine sent her a little wave. She waved back jauntily, smiling around the pit in her stomach.
Everyone needed normal right now. As much of it as they could get.
OoO
When Tilly arrived at the cafeteria, she saw Michael and Ash off at a corner table. Michael's back was to her, but Ash saw her come in. Before he could say something, Tilly looked away. She could go over, say hi, act like everything was okay. But there was a spiky, angry little porcupine in her chest curled up tight. If she went over they'd notice. Well, Ash would. He was the kind of guy who noticed how other people were feeling.
He might even pity her. And then she'd really feel pathetic.
Tilly girded herself and marched over to the replicator. She ordered an egg white veggie omelet with green juice. By the time the food materialized, she'd decided on her course of action. The most important thing in sticky social situations was to pick one and stick with it, even if she was unsure. Especially if she was unsure. And, once a path was chosen, cheerfulness was her first line of defense.
Tilly straightened up, put a bright smile on her face, grabbed her dish and headed off to a table alone.
Once she got there, she felt self-conscious of every little move. The chair squeaked too loudly. Her smiling so widely while sitting by herself looked weird. Where was she supposed to set her eyes? Stare at the grey wall? Smile widely at the grey wall? But if she dropped the smile, then she'd be the miserable girl sitting alone… She wished she'd brought a PADD, so she could at least look like she was reading. Across from her, there was a girl eating a stack of syrup-y waffles who had her nose buried in a PADD.
Tilly burned with envy for that girl. She used to be that well prepared for being alone. But months spent with Michael had weakened her defenses. Michael had weakened her defenses and then got tired of her, just hanging out as an obligation until she finally broke their standing date without warning.
That routine was one of the only good things in Tilly's life right now.
Wasn't all night enough alone time with Ash? Didn't friends matter anymore? It's not even like Michael had such an active social life. She only had to juggle two people!
The porcupine in Tilly's chest got spikier and spikier, jabbing at her heart. She felt her cheeks heat with hurt and ducked her head, resenting how easy to read her coloring made her.
She took a miserable bite of her omelet. It tasted like cardboard. She should go order a stack of pancakes with lots of butter and syrup. Who cared about Michael's dietary advice? They were going to sit here in a debris field, stuck in this universe until they were blown up by some random aliens.
But walking back would look strange, so she kept eating her omelet, chewing and swallowing each flavorless bite and hating everything. She just wanted to go cry. If she could just get rid of the spiky feeling inside she could get on with her day. She'd bounce back. Let Michael off the hook. This wasn't the first time someone grew tired of being the weird girl's friend.
After a while, a shadow fell over her table. Tilly could see in her peripheral vision that it was Ash. She felt her gut churn. She hadn't gone seeking the pity, so the pity had come to her.
Great.
She looked up at him with a fake smile that faded when she really saw him. He looked like shit. There were dark circles under his eyes and lines of tension around his mouth. He was usually so graceful and easygoing. Normally, he'd be leaning against the nearest chair, hip cocked at an angle that made her think sexy thoughts. There'd be a smile starting at the corner of his lips. Instead he was standing there looking uncomfortable, shoulders slumped, hands at his sides.
"Morning," she said, finding herself the one moved to confused pity. What was going on?
"Hi, Tilly. Uh," he licked his lips. "I wanted to apologize. This morning was my fault," he said. "I needed Michael's help with… something at the last minute." He seemed twitchy, the hand at his side tapping against his leg nervously.
Tilly felt a wash of guilt come over her. Something was wrong and here she was only thinking about herself. What could it be, though? In addition to the obvious. Maybe something was going on at the upper levels that only the Chief of Security would know about? That could be why Michael had been so quiet about the time they were spending together; she would never betray a confidence.
"Hey, it's okay," Tilly said.
His hand stopped its nervous tapping. "Thanks," he said, sincerely. "Why don't you come over? She misses you."
Tilly glanced over at Michael. She couldn't blame Ash while he was looking like a kicked puppy, but Michael was another story. Even if something was going on, would it have been so hard to send Tilly a quick message cancelling? "She said that?"
His body language eased, one hand resting against the nearest chair as he bent forward and said, in the tone of one sharing a secret: "She keeps sending these longing looks your way."
Tilly's heart fluttered at his wording, but she would not be so easily moved. "Longing?" she asked, dubiously.
"Uh-huh. You might even say pining." Gentle humor had come into his tone and, ah, yes: there was the cocked hip thing she knew and loved. He combined it with a rather appealing tilt of his head that exposed the long line of his throat.
God, he was cute.
"I don't want to interrupt," Tilly said, still trying to hold out.
"I'm begging you to interrupt," he said, leaning forward to meet her eyes. Sylvia focused on the bridge of his nose and tried not to lean back. "Come on," he said, sounding more like himself. "I'm just a meathead security guy and Michael is a certified genius. I need you to come over and be geniuses together." He smiled endearingly. "Help me out?"
Tilly laughed, charmed despite herself. "Okay, okay—" she grabbed her tray and stood, following him over.
When Tilly sat down at their table, Michael was endearing too: she got all formal and apologized profusely for "neglecting our morning ritual. It means a great deal to me. But I—" her eyes went to Ash and she fell silent.
"I explained that something came up. On the last minute," Ash said. "You were helping me out."
It was so obviously a cover story that Tilly felt bad for them. Something had to be going on there, above Tilly's paygrade. Michael was technically outside the command hierarchy. Ash must have confided in her and now Michael was off trying to save them from some danger a Cadet didn't even have the right to know about.
Tilly pushed at her omelet and tried not to feel queasy at the thought of what they were hiding. The unclassified situation was bad enough. How much worse could things get?
Michael nodded. "Yes. Something came up," she repeated, woodenly. It probably wasn't a lie, but Michael was such a bad liar she even struggled with things that were lie-adjacent. It was actually really cute. "On the last minute." She looked down at her cup of tea and then up, her brown eyes warm and sad. "I'm sorry, Tilly."
"It's really okay!" Tilly rushed to assure her, regretting her earlier anger. Instead of happily knocking boots this morning, they'd been dealing with something terrible. Being heroic and self-sacrificing, probably. They were good at that kind of thing. "There's always tomorrow, right?"
Michael brightened. "Tomorrow," she said, like it was a promise. "I would be honored to join you." From anyone else, it would be strange to talk like that about a morning run. But Michael said it with such sweet sincerity that Tilly truly felt her company was that important to someone. It kind of made her want to cry again, but this time from joy. Tilly's home star was far beyond her reach, but Michael's presence was warm enough to dull her fear, if only just a bit.
"Ash was just telling me about his new simulation programs for phaser accuracy," Michael said. "If you have time, you should come test them out with us tonight."
Tilly's smile froze on her face. The past few weeks, Ash had instituted mandatory weapons training. They were alone out here, with no backup coming, so everyone had to pull their weight. Tilly understood the necessity. She was really getting tired of shooting holographic Klingons in dark hallways, though.
She put in her hours and she wasn't a bad shot, but she wasn't good enough at it to actually enjoy it. With two athletic people like them, she'd be the third-wheel, slowing them down.
The offer was meant kindly though. How could she say no?
"Or we could do something tomorrow night. Maybe watch a movie?" Ash offered, seeming to read her mind. She knew she was transparent, but she'd gotten used to Michael, who wasn't as clued in. Tilly felt unsettled, even as she was grateful for the intervention.
"Maybe Casablanca," she suggested, drawing on her own insights. "You like that one, right?"
He blinked at her. "Yeah. How did you know?"
"You quoted it during the first mandatory training class." She'd started paying attention to him when she decided to nudge Michael his way. Had to make sure he was a good guy. And then the habit kinda stuck. "You said we might not like training, but if we don't have the skills when we need them we'll regret it…. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but,'" he joined in and they finished the quote together, "soon and for the rest of your life."
Ash laughed. "Did I really say that?" He looked embarrassed. "I don't remember. My mom used that line all the time to get me to do homework." He shrugged. "I guess it sunk in pretty deep."
"It's a good line," Tilly said. "And a good movie." She looked over at Michael, who was watching them with interest. "Have you seen many movies?"
Michael shook her head. "My adoptive mother preferred human literature to cinema."
"I think you'd like it. It's all about, um," Tilly struggled to find the words to convey it, the way it seemed to have something at its core that reminded her of Michael, "duty, honor, love." She could picture Michael as Victor Laszo, blazing against the darkness that surrounded them.
If we stop fighting, the world will die.
"Yeah," Ash agreed, looking thoughtful. "There's something almost Vulcan about it, isn't there?" His voice lowered to an approximation of Humphrey Bogart's: "The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." He grinned at them, almost seeming like his old self.
Tilly clapped, laughing. "Not bad!"
Michael's eyebrow shot up. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," she said, nodding solemnly. It sounded like she had translated it into a quote she knew, or just found the heart of it beneath the 20th Century slang.
Hearing it said that way, Tilly felt inexplicably sad. She thought about Dr. Culber looking at Stamets through the chamber's glass as they made jump after jump. And their kiss. Maybe the last kiss they'd ever have. She thought about all the people who had died and how afraid she was all the time. How much she just wanted to stop everything and go home.
Michael looked between them, cupping her hands lightly around her green tea. "And this is a human film?"
"Humans can be selfless," Tilly said quietly, her thoughts still on Stamets.
"Yeah," Ash agreed, his own mood dimming in response to the shift in conversation. "And there was a war on. That brings it out in people."
Would it be harder to watch the movie now that she knew what war was like? The icy terror in her gut. The knowledge that a bunch of people who didn't even know her wanted her dead. The Klingons would have laid waste to everything she loved if they could. And for no good reason. Just because they were different.
Just thinking about it made her heart ache.
"Well," Tilly said, "if we do watch it, I'm warning you in advance that I'm probably going to go through an entire box of tissues. I've been needing a good cry." That could be nice. A little spot of safety. Maybe Michael would put an arm around her.
Michael's brow furrowed. "We shouldn't watch if it will upset you," she said, concerned.
"A good cry isn't like regular crying," Ash explained. "My mom used to do that too –" he smiled fondly. "Get a pint of ice cream and a box of tissues and watch an old movie."
"Why?" Michael asked, clearly puzzled.
"It's a safe way to let your feelings out," Tilly said.
Ash nodded. "It's fiction, so it's not really hurting you. And you feel better after."
Michael nodded, taking that in. "Does everyone do it? Will both of you," she said the next part precisely, like she'd learned a new technical term, "have 'a good cry'?" Her sweet brown eyes were wide with curiosity.
Ash laughed sharply. "Better not." He rubbed at his neck, made a face. "I don't know. If I get started I might not stop." It might have been a joke, but it didn't feel like one to Tilly. He seemed to be sinking back under the weariness she saw in him earlier.
Tilly looked down at her eggs, uncomfortable. They all had so much pain to carry these days. Him particularly. What Tilly knew about his time as a POW was vague, and honestly she didn't want to know more if she could avoid it. It was hard enough carrying her own burdens. But she didn't want to be callous, either.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
"I'd share my box of tissues," she offered, gingerly. "Or we could watch something else." Putting a burst of perkiness in her tone, she enthused: "There's lots of other movies!"
"It's fine," Ash said, dismissively. "Besides, I really think Michael will like it."
"I'm not sure whether I will be able to join you in having 'a good cry' either, Tilly," Michael said, frowning. "Do you think it's cultural or biological to have this reaction to human cinema?"
Tilly shrugged. "Um. I don't know. I don't think anyone's studied it. It's probably a little of both?"
"What if I can't participate?" Michael asked, looking between her and Ash. "What should I do?"
Something warm and protective rose up in Tilly at Michael's heartbreaking sincerity. There was so much about her experience of life that was as weird, in its way, as Tilly's. It was nice to be able to ease the way for her as she figured things out.
"That's okay!" Tilly said, reaching out to give Michael's hand a gentle pat. "You can be my designated shoulder to cry on," she offered. "It's a very important supplemental role." And usually something romantic couples did together, but Tilly didn't mention that. The thought of her and Ash being cuddled up on either side of Michael, her arms around them both, was warm and tingly in a way that Tilly didn't want to look too hard at.
When she looked over at Ash he was smiling at their interplay. "Okay," he said. "Now we really have to do this, if only for science. Does tomorrow at 2100 work for you both? We can use my cabin. I'll replicate us some ice cream and," he inclined his head toward Tilly, "tissues, of course."
"I would like that," Michael said and looked over at Tilly.
The words it's a date nearly came out of Tilly's mouth but she stopped herself just in time. "Sounds great," she said instead.
OoO
As the day passed, Tilly really started looking forward to movie night. She missed Michael and Ash was good company, even with whatever was up with him. Besides, it would be good to lose herself in a story for a while. If there were couch cuddles at some point, then all the better. She fell asleep looking forward to it.
Those pleasant hopes were shattered bright and early the next morning. Tilly was jolted out of sleep by the door chime at 0400, a good two hours before she was due to get up. She dragged herself out of bed, opened the door, and saw Ash and Michael standing there in t-shirts and pajama bottoms. Ash's usually pristine hair looked like it had been put through a blender and Michael was frowning.
Tilly opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled noise came out. She closed her mouth, cleared her throat, tried again. "Wha—what are you guys doing out here?"
"Can we come in?" Ash asked. Why was Michael standing outside with her boyfriend asking to be let into her own room? She knew the door code. Tilly wondered idly if this was the beginning of a bizarre sex dream.
We've just got to have you! they'd exclaim and then everyone's clothes would disappear.
That might be nice, but Tilly's toes were cold against the floor and everything felt real enough.
She stepped back, letting them in. "It's your room too, Michael. You—" Tilly pressed her hand to her mouth to cover a yawn, "you don't have to use the chime." She left the you didn't have to wake me up unspoken.
Maybe they had a good reason for being so rude.
"She didn't," Ash explained. "I did when she wouldn't open the door."
That didn't sound good. Tilly walked over to her bed and sat on it, frowning at them. "What? Why?" Michael was standing with her arms crossed, a disapproving twist to her lips. Ash was tapping his hand against his leg again, his whole body vibrating with nerves. "What's going on?"
"If we need your help with something," Ash started, gripping his hands together to still them, "something dangerous and you can't ask questions, would you – would you help us?"
A burst of adrenaline cleared some of the cobwebs away from Tilly's brain. It looked like they were going to read her in on whatever trouble they were facing. Okay. Wow. She was honored and really scared too. "Yes," she said. "Absolutely."
Ash sighed a relieved breath. "Thank you, Tilly."
"This isn't right," Michael broke in. She was speaking directly to Ash, her body turned to face him. "We can't ask this of her."
"We're out of options," Ash said. "Can't you see that?"
Tilly watched them, uncomfortable. Should she offer to leave? But they'd come here. Clearly they wanted her in on this. Or he did, at least. Tilly was hurt that Michael was against it. Hadn't she proved herself before?
"You're overreacting," Michael said, not unkindly.
"Two cracked ribs," Ash said, and Tilly could hear his voice shake, "and a sprained wrist." He heaved a deep breath and continued, more firmly: "I am not overreacting."
There was such raw pain coming off him Tilly had to look away. Of all the intimate things she'd daydreamed about sharing with them, a painful quarrel was nowhere on the list. Especially not one that came with a disturbingly vague injury list.
Who exactly had gotten hurt and why?
"It was an accident," Michael insisted.
"And what about the next time I—?" Ash started and broke off, his voice strangled. Tilly looked back in time to see the horror on this face. He wrapped his arms around his waist and glanced away, shaking his head. He looked like he wanted to cry. Tilly felt emotion well up in her own eyes. She was frozen and confused, watching something horrible that she didn't understand unfolding.
After a while, Ash mastered himself enough to continue: "I won't do it anymore. I won't take the risk. It's either this or I go down to the brig and lock myself in an empty cell."
"How can you say that?" Michael asked, aghast.
"Will you two please stop?" Tilly cut in. She was trying to sound commanding, and almost managed it, but her next words came out a jittery squeak: "You're scaring me."
They turned to look at her, as if they'd forgotten she was there. Michael's face fell and Ash bowed his head. "Sorry," he said.
"You're talking about me like I'm not here," Tilly said. "And I don't like it." Her tone grew stronger as she went on, found her voice. "And you're talking like you have a choice about telling me… whatever it is you're not telling me, but you don't anymore! You woke me up and marched in here and scared me and now you owe me some answers." She crossed her own arms and glared at them. "Right now."
That actually seemed to ease Michael's mind. Her posture relaxed and she sighed. "You're right." She cut her eyes to Ash and then back to Tilly. "The choice has already been made," she said, heavily.
"Okay," Tilly said. "So, which one of you is going to tell me?"
Michael gave Ash a sharp look but his eyes were on the floor. After a moment, she started speaking. "Ash has been experiencing vivid flashbacks with concurrent somnambulism for the past two weeks. The symptoms began after he met one of the Klingons who tortured him aboard the Ship of the Dead. She is currently a prisoner in our brig. When these episodes first started, he woke up in front of her cell several times. Since then we have been trying to prevent them, with some success."
Ash looked up. "Limited success," he said, tightly.
"Two cracked ribs and a sprained wrist," Tilly repeated, glancing between the two of them. Who…?
Ash flinched and looked away.
Oh.
Oh, no. Michael must have tried to grab him during an episode and he resisted. Thoughts of Michael being tossed across the room went through her head, sharp and sickening. That was not anything like what she'd wanted for Michael when she'd encouraged her best friend to date. Tilly thought she'd nudged Michael toward something sweet. A gentle first love. And instead… Tilly felt guilt twist in her stomach. She should have left well enough alone. What kind of an idiot foists her best friend off on a POW fresh from months of torture without thinking?
"I'm sorry," Tilly said. "That's awful." She didn't even want to think about what this must be like for Ash. If she ever hurt Michael she'd want to throw herself out the nearest airlock. First the Klingons tortured him and now it seemed like they still had some kind of control over him. He couldn't even have a good night's sleep without being reminded of what happened. "Have you spoken to Dr. Culber? Or the ship's counselor?"
They couldn't have; Ash would have been relieved of duty. If there was any chance he could be used by the enemy, the captain would have had him confined to quarters.
"No," Ash said. "And we can't explain why. Those are some of the things you can't ask questions about."
Tilly didn't like the sound of that. There must be something else going on, in addition to the ship's Chief of Security falling under the influence of Klingon mind control. Something bad enough that he had to be free to help Michael with whatever it was.
"Because knowing would make me complicit?" Tilly guessed.
Michael gave her a stern look and neither of them spoke, which amounted to a yes. That was definitely not good. Tilly just hoped Michael wasn't planning another mutiny. Her heroics during the war might just help her against the first sentence, but two mutinies was really pushing it. They were right, though; if she knew about anything serious, she could be held accountable for it.
Helping them with this could be written off, probably. She hoped. She really did want to make captain one day. But she needed to live if she was going to see that day, and whatever Michael and Ash were dealing with must be life-threateningly important. They wouldn't act like this for anything less.
"Why don't you two sit down?" Tilly asked, gesturing at the small table. "I need coffee." She headed for the replicator, mulling over the situation.
She started to order herself a coffee and then thought better of it. Instead, she ordered up a tray with a pot of coffee, a cup of green tea for Michael, and milk and sugar. When she carried it over, Ash dove right in, pouring his coffee black and throwing in three cubes of sugar. He barely stirred it before he took a long sip. Even Michael added a single cube to her green tea, which Tilly had never seen her do before. That gave Tilly an idea; she went back to the replicator and ordered up an assortment of miniature muffins.
They'd all feel better with proper fortification.
"Just like a late night study session at the Academy," Tilly chirped, setting the plate of muffins down.
Just like that. Except that instead of joking around in the dorm and griping about professors, everything was horrible and they were all probably going to die here in this alien universe, far from home.
Michael bought the lie pretty easily, nodding as she reached for a raisin bran muffin. She'd never been to the Academy and didn't know any better. Ash had though; he stared at Tilly a long moment in disbelief, but was too polite to contradict her. Instead he snatched up a blueberry muffin. He peeled the paper away with his nimble fingers and took a large bite.
There was nothing like a little comfort food. Tilly took her time preparing her own coffee and a lemon poppy seed muffin. The mundanities of food and drink seemed to have calmed Michael and Ash down a bit. She needed them thinking clearly if she was going to be able to help.
Once everything was set, Tilly took a long sip of coffee and moved them to the topic at hand. A systematic approach would work best. She needed to keep things professional, orderly. "Okay. First things first. How long have you had these symptoms?"
"About ten days," Ash said.
"And what methods have you tried to control them?"
"Stimulants," Ash said.
The logic there seemed to be: if the problem was sleep, just don't sleep. That… was a very tough Security guy kind of approach, and doomed to failure. "How well did that work?" she asked, already guessing the answer.
"It was fine," Ash said, "for a while."
"He hadn't slept for three and a half days when he finally told me," Michael said, hands cupped around her green tea. She raised the clear cup to her lips with great deliberation and took a sip before returning it carefully to its place on the table. "By that point, he had begun to hallucinate." Her tone was controlled, not accusative, but the cold facts were damning enough.
Ice formed in Tilly's stomach at the thought of what that had been like. Michael's calm recitation made it all the more ominous somehow. Tilly took a long drink of her coffee to warm herself. "That's…" she swallowed hard, "um, okay, we have to focus here, but I'm really sorry this is happening. And I'm going to do everything I can to help." She looked between them. "Okay?"
"You're already helping," Ash said, his brown eyes warm and gentle. "We were…" he struggled for a moment to find the right words, "at an impasse."
An impasse with hallucinations and an injury list. Tilly shuddered. "Yeah… okay. So, what else have you tried?"
"Sedatives," Michael said.
"That just made the episode last longer," Ash explained.
"They might work at a higher dose," Michael said, "but I was concerned about the health risks."
"One of the first things I tried was restraints, but apparently I remember where I hid the key even when I'm…" Ash's eyes were haunted, "not myself. I tried it without the key and woke up with two dislocated thumbs." A wry twist came to his lips. "You can't fault my dedication."
"…um, yeah," Tilly said, softly. Honestly, the picture that was forming in her mind of what the past two weeks had been like for them sounded like a Horror vid. Something with creepy cover art depicting a mouth twisted in a silent scream. SOMNAMBULIST II: NO REST FOR THE WICKED. Coming to a vid screen near you this Halloween!
Only, Ash wasn't wicked. He was a good person. A hero. And he was still being tortured by the horrible people who had hurt him. And Michael was too, right along with him. Tilly took another drink of her coffee and reflected that she was joining the club. Hopefully with a good solution.
"Okay," she said. "Have you tried doing a sleep study?"
They gave her twin blank looks.
"Sleep study?" Ash asked.
They should have done that right away, but Tilly didn't waste time chastising them for it. They weren't thinking clearly. That was understandable. Anyway, this meant getting to a solution might be easier than Tilly feared.
"You make a record of someone's entire sleep cycle, including their brainwave patterns," she explained, "and then you can use it to solve a bunch of issues – I've had to do them for my breathing problems since I was a kid." It would be great if it could be this simple. "It's no big deal," she went on, warming to the topic. "And it's really effective. If we can record the aberrant brainwave pattern we can probably design a system to identify and interrupt it before it has a chance to set in."
Michael was looking at Tilly like she'd just opened up a portal back to their home universe. "We should have told you days ago," she said.
"How soon can we do this?" Ash asked, skipping over the chance to say I told you so. Even though it seemed like he'd been wanting to ask for her help for a while. Tilly appreciated that about him; she was also touched at Michael's reasons for keeping her out of this. She was just trying to protect Tilly, as misplaced as it was in this case.
The brainwave monitor wasn't dangerous equipment; she could borrow it from sick bay without much trouble. She'd have to do a little more dancing to get a paralytic hypospray in case things went wrong, but Jamie the med tech thought she was cute, so it should be okay. "Tonight?" she suggested. "We were going to meet anyway."
Ash seemed confused. "Oh, yeah. Movie night… seems like ages ago we talked about that."
It was just yesterday morning. Tilly didn't mention that either, though. Presumably the days bled together when you were trapped in a living nightmare. She made a show of looking at the clock. "Um, Michael and I need to start getting ready."
Ash stood. "Of course." He looked uncertain and then reached out to touch her shoulder quickly, just a featherlight brush of fingers. "Thank you, Tilly," he said, and there was something heartbreaking about how sincere it was. Then he looked over at Michael a long moment. There was so much there, hurt and love and a bunch of other things, that Tilly felt a lump in her throat just seeing it.
He looked like he wanted to touch her, but didn't. What was it like, knowing you'd hurt someone you cared about and couldn't even remember it?
Tilly hoped she never, ever found out.
Michael slid her hand out toward him across the table, palm up, and held that pose a long moment until he gave in, brushing his fingers over hers. Her hand flexed in response to the contact, as if she wanted to take his, but she refrained. "We will—" Michael was so eloquent normally, but words seemed to fail her. "We will find a way," she promised him.
Ash took a deep breath. "Yeah," he agreed. "See you tonight."
When the door slid shut behind him, Tilly moved her chair closer to Michael. "Are you okay?" She hadn't wanted to ask in front of Ash. He felt bad enough already.
Michael shook her head. "I've—" she swallowed hard, her throat working, "been very worried. But I am reluctant to reflect or… process my emotions, until we have found a solution." She looked up at Tilly. "Does that make sense?"
What had Ash said about the movie? If I start crying, I might not stop... Tilly could understand that. Sometimes you just had to keep going and not stop until you were safe enough to let yourself feel how much it hurt.
"Yeah," Tilly said. "Of course. But I'm here, okay?" Tilly leaned closer, put her arm around Michael's narrow shoulders. "I'm here."
Michael leaned into the contact, her head resting against Tilly's shoulder. Tilly felt her take several long, slow breaths. Michael's eyes started to flutter shut. Poor thing. She must be so exhausted. Tilly stroked her arm.
After a minute, Michael patted her hand and straightened. "We have to get ready."
Tilly let go, but shook her head. "You should probably nap instead of going for our run. How much sleep did you get last night, you know, with the whole—" totally not his fault but still really fucking scary Horror movie boyfriend "thing going on?"
"A couple hours." Michael's eyes went to her bed in silent yearning.
"Yeah," Tilly nodded. "Okay, you're skipping our plans and napping then. Definitely." She took Michael's hand and led her over to her bed. "Okay?"
Michael yawned and crawled under the covers. As soon as her head hit the pillow she seemed to deflate into it, exhaustion taking over. Tilly pulled the blankets up around her, smoothing them over her shoulders. She looked down at Michael and gently but firmly pushed aside the urge to kiss her forehead. Michael was so kind and the universe—or universes now, Tilly supposed—had gotten really mean lately.
Tilly got dressed quietly, though Michael seemed so tired she'd probably sleep through a little noise. After setting an alarm to wake Michael before her shift, she left with her gym bag and several new goals for the day. She used the silence of her run to spin out possible solutions. She could sweet talk Jaime for the equipment over her lunch break. And then, once they knew what the aberrant brainwave pattern looked like, they could go after it. She might not be the best for hand-to-hand combat or taking out 30 Klingons with one phaser rifle, but this was one bad guy she could hunt down, no problem.
OoO
That night, Tilly went by Ash's cabin a little early to set up. When he opened the door, she stepped in, and started to say "How are you?" That was a thing she'd learned to say, and learned how to answer appropriately, even though she still thought it was strange that you weren't supposed to be honest. It was more of an empty verbal gesture than anything. But Ash was sporting the same misery in casual wear look from this morning—the t-shirt and pajama bottoms had been paired with a navy blue hoodie, though, so now he seemed miserable and cold—and they both knew things weren't good so she caught herself at "How—" looked around his cabin in desperation and said, "how about that view!" with an unnecessarily bright wave of her hand toward said view.
Ash glanced at the window in confusion and then back. "Uh, yeah," he said. "It's pretty nice." He wandered over to the couch, and sat down, looking exhausted with his shoulders hunched. "I've never rated my own cabin before, so…" he bobbed his head, "it's nice. Yeah." He put on a tight-lipped smile. "Want something to drink?"
"No, thanks." His current skills at light conversation weren't that much better than hers, it seemed. "Okay, so," Tilly sat down beside him and started pulling equipment out of her bag, arranging it on the table in front of the couch. "Here's the stuff and I just need to, uh—" she fumbled around.
Where had the electrodes gotten to?
As she felt around in her bag, Ash reached out, picked up the vid chip from the pile. "What's this?"
"Casablanca," Tilly said, her fingers finally locating the soft material of the electrode pouch. Ha! Gotcha.
When she looked up, Ash was holding the vid chip up like it was an alien artifact. "We're still going to watch a movie?" he asked.
"Sure," Tilly said. "Movies are nice when you're sick." She didn't want to just sit around with Michael staring at him all night. Why make this any worse than it had to be?
Ash set the vid chip on the table and shook his head. "I'm not sick," he said, his voice rough. "They... did something to me. I'm—some kind of," he took a couple short, fast breaths and then a long deep one, calming himself. "I'm something dangerous now," he said, his despair so stark that Tilly looked away, afraid of being sucked in.
The big window was nice, but it was currently showing a debris field in an alien universe. Looking at that hardly lifted her spirits. She glanced down at her hands and thought about what to say. After a while, she started, speaking to her hands because it was just too much to look him in the face right now.
"Brains do things," she said. "Weird things. Sometimes you're born different. Or something… happens." How many people had the Klingons tortured to death? Or left to suffer like this… She clenched her hands tighter. She didn't like the way hate spread inside her chest when she thought about it, like a snakebite swelling up all hot and purple and ugly. "But it's not the end of the world. We just have to find a way to hack the system." She glanced up at him and then back down. "Okay?"
"Okay," he said, his voice flat.
She looked up, studied his face. It hadn't worked. He probably thought she just wanted him to shut up and stop making her uncomfortable.
Okay, time to bring out the big guns.
"I'm not just saying this," she insisted. "My brain's weird too."
He tilted his head. "It is?"
"Uh-huh." She didn't like talking about the things that made her weird, but he shouldn't feel alone in it. Nobody should feel that alone. And like a burden. "I didn't speak until I was six years old," she said, offering the most obvious example of her weirdness.
His eyes widened. "I'm—" his mouth worked. Maybe he was going to say sorry or surprised or something. When she told a classmate at the Academy, the girl made a joke about how Tilly must be making up for lost time. You know, because Tilly talked so much now. Tilly didn't think it was meant to be cruel, but it had really hurt. She hadn't told anyone after that. But Ash closed his mouth around whatever he'd been able to say and tried again. "I didn't know that," he said. "Are you… okay?" His genuine concern made her heart twist. He really was such a good guy.
"Oh, yeah! Yeah… I mean, I'm different, but there's nothing wrong with me." That's what her father always said, anyway. And all the Federation specialists. "My dad taught me sign language, so… I communicated that way and then, when I had to go to school, he made me a program that translated signs to speech. It had thousands of voices to pick from!"
"Oh," Ash said. "Was that tough? With the other kids."
"They were really nice," Tilly said, brightly.
"Tilly…" he said, and gave her a look. He wasn't buying it.
"They were," she insisted. "It's just… not a lot of people want get close to the weird girl, you know? But I had my parents and other kids like me to talk to over comms and stuff. So…" she took a deep breath. Time to get back to what she was trying to say here. "It's really not the end of the world. I know you've probably always been normal, and it must be so frightening to lose that. But there's a lot of weird people around, living our lives. It's not so bad. People care about you and we're going to help you hack it. Like my dad helped me. And I'm okay."
Ash looked at her a long moment, as if he'd never seen her before. "You're a lot better than okay," he said warmly. "You're amazing. Michael is lucky to have a friend like you."
Hearing that made her heart melt. It was good, to be able to use something that hurt her to help someone else. Welcome a new kid to the Weird Club. She was so scared it wouldn't help.
"I'm your friend too," Tilly said.
"But you like her best," Ash said. "And that's good."
Tilly didn't see his point. "It's not a competition."
"It might be," Ash said. "If this doesn't work out. If I'm really dangerous—" his expression darkened. "If there's a choice, you have to choose her." He reached out, clasped Tilly's hand where it rested between them on the couch. "I need you to protect her. She won't do it herself. She's always protecting everybody else, but," his breath hitched, "she doesn't know how to look out for herself." His hand tightened further, until his grip was almost painful. "Promise me, Tilly."
Tilly felt trapped. The awareness that she was alone with someone bigger and stronger than her crawled up the back of her neck. Someone who wasn't in the best emotional state right now. She wasn't sure what he was asking. Turn him in? Shoot him? Take him out with her truly pathetic hand-to-hand skills? He had to know how bad she was at that. She tried to flex her fingers but his grip didn't loosen.
She couldn't think while he was doing that.
"Please let go," she whispered awkwardly, not wanting to be rude about it.
His eyes widened. He looked down at their hands as if he hadn't even realized what he'd been doing. Snatching his hand away, he seemed to curl in on himself, shoulders slumping. "Sorry," he glanced up at her and then back down. "God, Tilly, I'm so sorry."
All of Tilly's pretty words about Weird Kid solidarity took on a sadder hue. She could only understand so far. Nobody had ever hurt her. She was just born different, not tortured by monsters. It had been painful growing up, but she'd learned to like herself. And she'd never hurt anybody, not ever. Not unless you counted her mother's disappointment in not having the perfect daughter, and Tilly was learning not to count that.
Ash was staring down at his hands, looking defeated. Tilly took a breath and gently reached for the hand nearest her. She laced her fingers with his loosely.
Ash looked over at her, wary.
"I promise," Tilly said. It was an easy promise to make. Michael was her best friend; Tilly would always be there for her. But if he needed to hear it, she didn't mind saying it out loud. Anyway, he was right about Michael. She worked so hard to save everyone else and gave so little thought to protecting herself. She needed people around who had her back. It was sad how Ash only wanted to be one of those people and instead he had to worry about hurting her.
He opened his mouth to reply. Just then, the door chimed. He brushed his thumb over Tilly's knuckles gently. "Thank you," he said, and went to open the door.
Tilly set up the equipment while Michael and Ash replicated ice cream, popcorn, and of course a box of tissues. It was easy enough to arrange. Once she got it running, all Ash had to do was stick two electrodes to his temples and the machine started recording his brainwave patterns. They lowered the shades, blocking Ash's nice view, and settled in to watch the movie.
The last time Tilly saw Casablanca was before she left for the Academy. The distance between then and now never seemed so far. She used to be all about the romance, but now it was the desperate refugees fleeing the Nazis that made her eyes heat with tears. They thronged the small city of Casablanca, desperate for any way out.
They were so afraid. Trapped in place as the darkness rose up around them. They had to sit, waiting and hoping, pretending like everything was okay. She remembered times like that here on Discovery. Times when she found a classmate on the casualty list and still had to go about her day, drink her green juice and eat her eggs like there wasn't a hole opened up inside her heart.
"Will they die," Michael asked, "if they can't get exit visas?"
"I think so," Ash said. "A lot of people died."
"Eighty million," Tilly pitched in, "including civilians." It was one of those numbers that had always stuck in her head. Eighty million. The number was more real now that she'd been in a war, but it was still beyond her comprehension. Federation losses in the recent war were in the tens of thousands and that hurt almost more than she could bear. She didn't know how anyone endured living through so much death on one small planet.
Michael cast a sad look her way. "So many," she whispered.
"Yeah."
"At least war isn't like this anymore," Ash said, quietly. "At least we don't do this to each other anymore."
There was some comfort in that, now that Tilly thought about it.
It wasn't all sad reflection. There was laughter too, at the witty dialogue between Captain Renault and Rick. And there was the eternally beautiful Ingrid Bergman, her image carried forward into a future she could scarcely imagine. She hummed a few bars from the film's love song to Sam and then the camera pushed in on her face as she listened to him play. Tilly's heart clenched at the sight.
Ilsa was so beautiful and so noble, her firm composure concealing a loving heart. She did her duty, but inside she burned with passion and tenderness. Tilly glanced over at the elegant lines of Michael's face and half-smiled.
Tilly definitely had a type.
Later on, she was confused to feel Michael's body stiffen beside her. On screen, a young refugee girl was near tears. Captain Renault was demanding sex in exchange for the papers she and her husband needed to escape the Nazis. She was from Bulgaria, a country where she said the devil has the people by the throat. All she wanted was a new life, far away. Tilly noticed, this time around, that the girl was just a teenager and the predatory way Renault seemed to delight in her helplessness.
"The captain is an evil man," Michael said with terrible gravity, as if he was a real person and she was passing sentence.
"It's okay," Ash whispered back, sliding his hand into Michael's. "Rick's going to help her."
When the girl was saved by Rick's kindness, Michael let out a long, slow breath and relaxed back into the couch. She seemed to warm to Rick after that; she let out a cute little sad noise when he told Ilsa to go ahead and shoot, you'll be doing me a favor and Tilly saw a tear roll down her cheek at the final scene.
Tilly quietly passed her a tissue which Michael took with a nod of thanks.
Tilly herself hadn't cried much, not like she did as a girl. But she felt like she understood it more now than she had back then. It was satisfying, somehow, to grow up into it. No matter how horrible things got, there were millennia of humans who had known the same tragedies or worse, and all their stories and songs. They came along with her, their brokenhearted wisdom speaking out across the centuries.
There was nothing alien about the pain in her heart. Maybe one day there would be no more war and these stories could fade into the dark. But for now they reminded her that life could go on.
She glanced over and saw that Ash had fallen asleep at some point. The monitor readout wasn't showing unusual activity yet, but Tilly pulled out the hypospray just in case. She passed it to Michael, who held it in her right hand, waiting as the credits rolled and a documentary about World War II began on screen. The oldest movies came with hours of extra content like this, for school kids watching it on assignment or anyone not up on their history.
Tilly got lost in watching until she heard the most gut-wrenching sound. It was a whimper of pain followed by a short gasping breath. She looked over and saw Ash, twisting in his sleep, covered in sweat. Her breath caught; she'd never seen someone in so much pain. And this wasn't even the real thing, it was a memory of it. She was frozen, watching as his thrashing got worse.
Michael reached out, gently cradled his head and pressed the hypospray to his neck. His body went rigid and then slack.
Tilly hurried to check the readouts monitoring his respiration and heart rate. Thankfully, they were normal. Like increasing the sedative dosage, using a paralytic like this could be dangerous. She tapped through to the menu and set an alarm to go off if his vitals dropped. Then she let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding, and checked the brainwave readout. It had gone haywire a few minutes ago and, with a sinking heart, she saw that it still was. The paralytic stopped him from hurting anybody, but he was still reliving torture in his mind.
She looked over and saw from the horror on Michael's face that she had come to the same conclusion. "In the future, we can rig up something up to wake him before an episode sets in, instead of…"
"Trapping him," Michael whispered, her eyes haunted.
"Yeah," Tilly admitted. "Once we have the recording, we won't have to do it this way." She licked her lips. "It's going to be okay."
But Michael wasn't listening. She was staring at the screen in front of them, where bombs rained down on European cities, fire blossoming across the screen in black and white newsreel footage. Tilly reached for the remote and shut it off quickly. Michael kept staring at the blank screen a long moment.
"All this pain," Michael said. She turned to face Tilly. "When does it stop?"
Tears came to Tilly's eyes. "I don't know. But it will. It has to," she said. "We'll stop it." It was more a statement of faith than anything. She had no idea what was going to happen and, in truth, she was afraid it wouldn't be good.
Michael looked over at Ash. He seemed so peaceful from the outside, but the monitor was still recording an episode, its wavelength jagged like an earthquake seismograph. "If I hadn't… if there hadn't been a war, he'd never have—"
Tilly put her arm around Michael's shoulders. "No," she said firmly. "Don't do that. You know it's not true." She thought about her promise to Ash that she'd protect Michael and said what she knew he'd say, if he could: "This is not your fault."
That broke Michael's composure. She leaned into Tilly's shoulder and gripped her hand tightly. After a long moment, she shook with silent sobs. "Why can't I make it stop," she gasped through her ragged breaths, clinging to Tilly as if she was the only thing holding her together. "Why—" she broke off as Tilly pulled her closer and began rocking, as much for herself as Michael.
Tilly stroked Michael's back and said comforting things like "I'm here" and "It's okay" for a while as hot tears rolled down her own cheeks. When she ran out of phrases like that, she started humming the song from Casablanca softly, still rocking slowly with Michael. After a while, Michael's sobs ebbed but Tilly was still crying. She felt like she'd finally gotten drawn into the vortex and she couldn't pull herself back out.
"Are you okay?" Michael whispered.
"I don't know," Tilly sniffled.
Michael shifted, so Tilly was the one embraced against her chest. She kept up slowly rocking with her, which was nice.
"Can you hold me tighter?" Tilly asked.
There was strength in Michael's thin arms; she wrapped them around Tilly nice and snug. It was comforting. Tilly leaned her head against Michael's and sighed. Her tears were beginning to ease.
"You said it helps you to talk," Michael said, nuzzling her forehead against Tilly's. "You can talk to me."
"I just want to go home," Tilly blurted out, and the words brought on another wave of tears. She reached for tissues and blotted her eyes, frustrated with herself. "That's all," she said. It didn't seem very important compared to everything Michael and Ash were dealing with. Klingon torture, the survival of Discovery, and the fate of the Federation. "Sorry. It's stupid."
Tilly could feel Michael shake her head. "Don't be sorry. We're going to get you home. I promise."
Considering everything Michael had accomplished, when she said something like that, Tilly believed it. She snuggled closer, closing her eyes. "Okay." Michael felt nice and warm.
"You should go get some sleep," Michael said, but made no move to release her.
"No way," Tilly said. "I'm not leaving you here to keep watch all by yourself." Not after what had happened.
"This couch isn't very comfortable," Michael warned.
"I've had worse." It came out sounding as if she'd led some kind of rugged Starfleet life. The truth was she'd just pulled a lot of all-nighters during Academy and fallen asleep on any number of uncomfortable surfaces.
"At least let me get a blanket," Michael said, disentangling herself.
She came back with two. The first one she put over Ash, after gently moving his head into a more comfortable position. She cupped his cheek and looked down at him with such tenderness that Tilly wished she could just make everything okay for them. He needed to make it through this, for both their sakes.
When she was done seeing to Ash, Michael came back over and settled in with Tilly, spreading the soft blue blanket out over them. It was nice, holding the warmth of their bodies in until it felt like they were sharing a cozy little cocoon. They shifted until their bodies aligned comfortably enough to sleep and drifted off to the soft murmur of the ship.
Tilly woke to the smell of coffee and a sharp, stabbing ache in her neck. "Ow," she muttered softly. Michael was still asleep cuddled against her, which made her reluctant to move. She shifted just enough to rub at her neck, until the stabbing pain eased into a dull throb.
Peeling first one then another eyelid open, she saw Ash on the other side of the couch. "Morning," he whispered, and gave her a smile. There was a cup of coffee in his hand and he looked more at ease than he had yesterday. Tilly kind of got where he was coming from. Sometimes things hurt so much that just having a little pressure off could feel like peace.
But Tilly didn't feel peaceful. She felt gross. Her teeth were all yicky and her neck hurt. "Morning," she whispered back. "Ugh." She really wanted to get up, but Michael seemed so comfy snuggled against her chest.
"You two look cute together," Ash said, his expression soft.
That was usually Tilly's thought about the two of them. It seemed a little unlikely going the other way around this early in the morning. She squinted at him. "I'm pretty sure I drooled on your couch," she confessed.
Ash huffed a laugh. "Still cute," he said. Then his smile dimmed. He looked at her a long moment, until the silence grew heavy. Tilly raked her eyes over his face but couldn't guess what he was thinking. "You ever regret nudging her my way?" he asked, finally.
Tilly blinked at him in confusion. The question felt like trouble and her head was too woolly for trouble. But she didn't want to just fob him off. "You make her happy," she said, reaching for the first thing that came to mind. She wanted Michael to feel as good as she could while she could. Of course Tilly had secret plans to see if Michael's sentence could be reduced; she'd be glad to testify on her behalf and drag anyone else who'd go along too. But Starfleet wanted to make an example of their first mutineer. It might take years for them to cool down.
Ash's expression darkened. "Not lately," he muttered, glancing away.
Tilly winced. She hadn't meant that to come across as an accusation. Being with someone didn't have to be pure joy 24/7. "Don't do that. You did the right thing. You got help. You—"
Michael stirred in her arms. They exchanged good mornings and Tilly gently guided her up and over to Ash. Once Tilly had full range of motion back, she stretched, yawning hugely. The tingly numbness in her left arm faded and she sighed, rubbing her neck. On the other side of the couch Ash and Michael settled together as if by instinct. He put his arm around her shoulders and she cuddled up against him, still half asleep, sighing and closing her eyes.
There was something so trusting and open about her with him. Tilly watched them, captivated, until she saw Ash had noticed. He raised an eyebrow at her and Tilly felt her face heat. "You look cute together," she said pointedly, repeating his line.
He inclined his head in acknowledgment, his hand rubbing soothing circles against Michael's back. Michael cuddled closer, her arm around his waist.
Tilly didn't know whether she'd really gotten through to him that a medical condition didn't make him a bad boyfriend, but she'd tried. That was all she could do. "You do need to see a real doctor," she said, continuing to less pleasant matters. "And soon. I can help you manage symptoms but," she spread her hands, "I can't tell you what's really going on. Or what it's doing to you." She didn't want to scare them with worst case scenarios, but it was possible that each episode was causing permanent brain damage.
"I'll put myself on medical leave as soon as we get home," Ash promised.
"And that's… going to be pretty soon, right?"
That got Michael's attention. She opened her eyes. "Yes, it is," she said firmly, not giving any further details.
Ash looked down at her and then up at Tilly with an apologetic shrug. "You really don't want to know," he told her. "I almost wish I didn't."
Tilly sighed. She might need to lead two defenses for convicted friends soon, if the trouble they were getting into was big enough. It probably was smart for her to keep clear of it, if only so she could pester Starfleet effectively. "All right, well," she pulled out her bag and started gathering equipment. "I'll analyze the data and we can talk options tonight." When she had everything gathered, she put out her hand for the electrodes that were still stuck to Ash's temples.
He looked down at her empty hand and up at her face in confusion.
Tilly tapped her own temples with her index finger and saw him realize. He peeled them off with a bemused look. "I was thinking of starting a trend."
"Very chic," Tilly said, "but Jamie would have my ass."
Ash laughed.
"What?"
"You're so sweet and then out comes the, er," his lip quirked, "colorful language."
"I have a charmingly multifaceted personality," Tilly said, raising her chin. She saw him grin and shifted her attention to Michael, who was looking amused at their byplay. That gave Tilly an idea for leaving off on a cheerful note, which she launched into with gusto. "As the nearest thing to a doctor you've got," Tilly told them both, "I prescribe rest and cuddles." She patted the couch for emphasis. "And lots of 'em." She reached for Michael's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "We'll run tomorrow, okay?"
From her position happily and bonelessly snuggled up against her boyfriend, Michael frowned. "I've postponed twice already," she said, sounding guilty. "It's important to keep a regular schedule." The words were said with confidence, but she remained where she was, unable to rip herself away from Ash's side to follow through.
Tilly thought it was sweet that she'd even consider it, given the circumstances. She didn't want to be negative, but there were no guarantees. Not for any of them, but especially not a guy facing down the barrel of… whatever had been done to Ash. Any peace they could find they should grab with both hands. "It's important to give yourself a break sometimes too," Tilly said. "Besides," she added, playing her trump card, "I'm pretty tired."
Michael's expression smoothed out and she nodded, snuggling closer to Ash. She'd had a heck of a lot of responsibility hammered into her head on Vulcan, but it was getting easier and easier to encourage her to be kind to herself. Especially if you let her know it would be kind to someone else too. Michael squeezed Tilly's hand. "Thank you," she said, and her words seemed to encompass more than just Tilly encouraging her to rest. Her eyes were so warm and kind; Tilly felt a flutter in her stomach.
"Sure," Tilly said, feeling a little self-conscious. She stood. "Okay, team," she chirped. "Tonight, 20:00. Don't be late!" She sketched a wave at them and headed for the door. She was really looking forward to a long, hot shower. And then she could dive headfirst into a cup of coffee and listen to The Clash until her brain fog cleared. She needed a little recharge if she was going to spend the day calculating a way home while stealing time to analyze brainwave data.
She still wanted to talk with Michael about the ethics of working on the spore drive, but she suspected that would come up against whatever Michael didn't want to talk about. Hopefully the question would be moot after Michael and Ash did their thing. Whatever hair-raisingly heroic thing that was. Tilly had watched the Ship of the Dead explode before her eyes just a few weeks ago. Michael had done that. And now Michael had promised that she'd get Tilly home. So, home they would be. And soon. All Tilly had to do was her small part. For all the upset of the past 24 hours, she felt hopeful.
-end-