Chapter 11: Loose Connection

Wayne Ichigari should never have been left to his own devices. As soon as his guards took their eyes off him, the President of the Federation escaped from his bunker and got captured by the Klingons. Not surprising, since he went searching for them to try and fix his reputation of a "hiding, crying bunker baby." Ichigari was not actually a coward. He agreed with the admirals that as the spokesperson of the Federation, and something of a moral symbol, it was important for him to be safe. But the Klingons spread denigrating rumors about him and Federation citizens started to believe them in an increasingly costly and drawn-out war, so Ichigari decided to show his mettle. Somehow.

A few days after his shuttle vanished, intel arrived saying that he was held on planet Norku, which the Klingons captured from the Vulcans early in the war. It used to be a paradise of a planet, with ancient castles and luxurious forests, but the Klingons turned it into a smoldering wreck in a few months. They used up all the resources and then tested bombs on the land. The atmosphere became toxic and only a few buildings under domes were still used.

The admirals decided a covert operation was necessary if they wanted to get Ichigari out alive. Luckily, he was being kept in a castle that used to belong to Admiral Malek's family. He claimed to know all the ins and outs. Burnham and Saru were to join him.

They beamed down to the planet from a shuttle, wearing suits and carrying an extra one for Ichigari. Burnham wasn't exactly thrilled to be on a mission with the admiral. They had to walk a long distance to the castle and she'd heard that he still had two left feet. He was also kind of weird. But he did all right on the trek. He was upset by the destruction of a pleasant family vacation spot. There was a dried out riverbed, where he used to go swimming as a kid…

They reached the wall of the dome. Burnham attached a device to create a temporary entrance. They squeezed through. The castle and surrounding area still had greenery, though Klingon refuse covered a lot of it. Malek led them past half a dozen giant statues of rotund women with holes in their heads.

"Lorca did that," said Malek, indicating the holes. "These statues were here for 4000 years, experiencing only mild erosion from the weather, until he showed up in a bad mood."

"Why was he here?" Asked Saru.

"It was a vacation," said Malek.

He knew about secret tunnels and they went through a cave entrance hidden in the middle of some more statues. They followed a narrow passage into a chamber. More tunnels connected to the castle. They set up scanning equipment but the Klingons had too many devices in the castle causing interference. They could barely pick up any life signals. They'd have to go in when everybody was asleep and search the castle.

Something rustled and meowed. Malek nearly jumped out of his skin. Saru shined a light down a tunnel and they saw an ugly quadrupedal animal that could loosely be described as a cat. It had loose folds of saggy skin with short grayish brown fur. It meowed again.

"I don't like it!" Said Malek.

"Are such animals native to this planet?" Asked Saru.

Burnham checked her tablet for a list of species and said, "No, it probably snuck over on a Klingon ship."

"It's freaking me out," said Malek.

"Sir, my species is particularly tuned for sensing danger," said Saru. "I can assure you that the animal means us no harm. It is probably just hungry."

Burnham sighed a little, thinking that she'd never known a Vulcan to say he was "freaked out," about anything. But she'd heard that Malek was not quite OK ever since he did that mind-meld on Ash Tyler. Well, he could join the club.

She and Saru continued to tinker with the sensing equipment, hoping to get some useful information, while Malek went up to the cat and crouched a few feet away from it. He stared at the cat. The cat stared at him. This went on for a while. Finally he offered the cat some dried meat and it came closer. It ate from his hand and he picked it up. He clutched it to his face, which Burnham would really have advised against because it most certainly scavenged Klingon offal piles.

"Now that you're on such intimate terms," said Burnham, "why don't you tell us the animal's name?"

"We've got a problem," said Malek.

"Odd name for a cat," said Saru.

"No, it's a real problem," said Malek. "Ichigari is not here anymore."

"And you know this how?" Asked Burnham.

"I can sense it from the cat. It goes all over the castle. Ichigari was here a few days ago, but the cat's memories of his scent are fading. He was taken somewhere else. I'm quite certain of this. If we go into the castle, we'll put ourselves at needless risk."

Burnham and Saru discussed their options. If they went back with only batty Malek's word that some cat told him Ichigari wasn't there, would the other admirals believe them? Did Burnham and Saru believe him? He was their superior officer, they could just let him explain it. Then he had an idea.

"We'll get proof without going into the castle at all," he said. "We'll attach a camera to the cat and she will walk around the castle, filming everything and showing that Ichigari is no longer there."

"I didn't know cats were good camera-people," said Burnham.

"I can convince her to go around and come back. It may take a while, though, but I doubt we will be discovered here."

He pressed the cat to his face some more, apparently communicating with it, and attached the camera to its ear. He set it down and the cat walked off down the tunnel as if it had a mission in mind.

"I did not know Vulcans can communicate with animals so well," said Saru. "I have never seen or heard of mind-melds on animals."

"I seem to be the only one who can do it," said Malek. "I picked it up over the years. Animals are quite pliable, especially if you feed them."

"Bet you anything it will forget once it can't smell Malek," said Burnham.

"Scent lingers much longer for animals than it does for us," said Saru.

Malek found a spot to sit and did something on his tablet. Burnham also did some work, but then remembered something she'd always meant to ask Malek.

"Admiral, do you know why Lorca hates Sarek?" She asked. "It seems to me as though he goes above and beyond his usual bad disposition when it comes to my father."

"Sarek was instrumental in shutting down the experimental fleet my mother and I operated for eight years," said Malek. "It was called the Starfleet-Vulcan Expeditionary Group Coalition. Lorca's ship was part of it. The coalition had fewer rules than either Starfleet or the VEG and Lorca, as well as various dilettantes, enjoyed a lot of freedom. Two years ago, some of our captains almost started the war we're in today. Lorca helped stop them, which is probably why he wasn't fired but allowed to join Starfleet proper."

Burnham had read about S-VEG when she researched Lorca. She hadn't discovered Sarek's part in it, though.

"My mother came up with the idea for S-VEG when she worked closely with Federation officers," said Malek. "She doesn't really like humans but she collected tons of data on instances where humans prevailed despite extraordinary odds and decided that Vulcans are sometimes held back by logic. Instead of making Vulcans more human, she believed we should just have Federation and Vulcan officers working more closely together, much as it would displease the Vulcans. Her ideas were quite revolutionary and it took decades to gather funding for the coalition. Logic extremists made attempts on her life, and mine, quite frequently. Unfortunately, even though we got funding we never had full buy-in and had only a handful of admirals directly overseeing the fleet. It was an administrative nightmare. I try not to remember it and yet I think about it all the time."

Burnham realized too late that he was in a chatty mood and asked a few more questions that somehow led to Malek telling them the story of his life. I'm going to provide a few more details than he did.

So sit back, relax, get a snack or something, cause surprise! It's a flashback episode!

T'Lara's father ended up in a mental facility when she was a little girl because that condition they had, of feeling other people's emotions just by touching, got out of control and drove him mad. T'Lara was ready to do anything to cure herself and luckily, as a female, she could. The condition faded during pregnancy and completely went away after the birth of a child. So T'Lara, who hated kids, picked a sperm donor based on IQ and eventually had Malek.

She never quite got around to putting him up for adoption, since she came from an old aristocratic family that was dying out. Still, she "forgot" him on trains, starships, at the Federation Embassy on Vulcan, at the Vulcan Embassy on Earth, and in Texas. She claimed he wandered away all the time, the little explorer. Anybody who looked at the child clutching his mother's robes seriously doubted that. The Texan family wasn't even sure they should return him to her. T'Lara's housekeeper, Renalle, hated kids too but finally consented to help raise the boy.

T'Lara seemed like the last person to admire humans, and she didn't, but she talked about their achievements all the time with an air of very mild astonishment that Malek never failed to catch. After he'd been at the VEG for several years, he decided to join Starfleet. T'Lara tried to talk him out of it. She warned him about his grandfather, who fell in love with a human woman and went insane over it. However, Vulcan society wasn't big on touching so Malek hardly noticed the effects of his condition and didn't see the danger of working with humans who considered a hug to be a form of greeting.

Malek transferred to Starfleet. T'Lara sometimes seemed to desire for him to fail so she recommended they put him on the Resilience. That ship was legendary, and not in a good way. From the doctor selling prescriptions to the Chief of Security smuggling contraband, the ship had seen its fair share of minor criminal proceedings. Violet Perkins was just about done with it. She wanted to retire and open an antiques store. She planned to open her store with a collection of early 21st Century electronics, including an iPhone 5 that was passed down through her family for generations, but that particular item got destroyed.

When Malek arrived wearing gloves and explaining about an "allergy to the oils secreted by humans," she figured she'd just stick him in Engineering. Then she asked him to bring her a tray of tea and he spilled it on her. She decided this accident-prone fellow was the perfect punishment for her former First Officer, Gabriel Lorca, who currently held a middle management position in Security.

Lorca used to have four close friends who graduated from the Academy at the same time. They did everything together. They had each other's backs. A few months before Malek arrived, Lorca was in sickbay from an accident during a mission. His four friends beamed to a remote astronomical station in a nebula to investigate why it stopped sending readings. The station had junk from various civilizations and one of the officers even found a canister of Romulan ale, though nobody had seen a Romulan in decades. The officer (the Charlie who gave Lorca the Lord of the Rings books) texted Lorca the message, "I don't know what this blue stuff is, but I'd sell my soul for more of it."

An unexpected storm sprang up and Perkins feared the ship would get smashed by asteroids. The ship was too far to beam up Lorca's friends and she figured they'd be safe on a station that survived for centuries. But the station was destroyed in the storm and Lorca's friends perished.

He completely blamed Perkins. He ranted and raged against her, phasered something in her office, and made her afraid for her life. She almost threw him in the brig. The hostility continued. He talked back to her and questioned her every command. Perkins felt guilty about his friends and didn't court martial him. She sent him to Security to stay out of her sight.

No one had ever yelled at Malek before and Lorca sure loved that activity. He made Malek do all his paperwork and oversee his shift in the Security Center…basically his entire job. He spent that time watching TV and drinking. Perkins and the other commanders knew this but nobody cared anymore. After the incident with Lorca's friends, Perkins decided to retire earlier than planned. They had only six months left to tie up business before the ship got sent to maintenance for a major overhaul and everybody left for new jobs. Well, almost everybody. Who the hell would hire Lorca? Perkins sure wasn't writing him a rec letter.

One day, Perkins met with some other captains and officers on a planet to discuss its food shortage issues. The natives still randomly attacked people sometimes so Lorca and Malek went down too and guarded the grove where the captains met. Lorca was angry as hell because one of the captains, who'd been at the Academy with him, had insulted him. Malek noticed something interesting on a plant behind a bush and tried to reach it. He got stuck in the bush. He tried to get out quietly but only got more stuck.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Said Lorca when he noticed.

He grabbed Malek by the neck and jacket and yanked him out. Malek had skillfully avoided any contact with the humans and was completely unprepared for Lorca's anger, irritation, anxiety, and below all that, unspeakable hurt. Though Lorca let him go quickly enough, those feelings lingered and Malek couldn't compose himself. But Lorca forgot about him and glared at the captains as they came back out of the grove.

"What were you in that thicket for?" He snapped after they were gone.

Malek showed him a large cotton boll (or the equivalent, on this alien planet) filled with boll weevil eggs.

"How interesting, let me see," said Lorca, and tossed it in a canal.

His drinking got worse and sometimes Malek didn't see him for days. People tried to help but he chewed their heads off and nobody had the patience of Saru. Perkins told Malek it was Lorca's business if he wanted to drink himself into an early grave. Malek performed Lorca's duties but he felt this wasn't right. Starfleet did not allow its members to throw their lives away. Just because they were about to disband the crew did not mean they could abandon somebody.

He took a deep breath and went into Lorca's room. It wasn't pretty and smelled worse. Lorca yelled some curses when Malek turned on the light. He threw a bottle at the Vulcan.

"You need to go back to work and start doing your job," said Malek.

"Like fuck I do!"

"I checked and you're still getting a paycheck, so by lying around here you are robbing Starfleet. This behavior is reprehensible. Get out of bed, clean yourself up, and start acting like a proper Starfleet officer."

"Oh, I'm going to get up…and break your neck!"

Malek easily overpowered his hungover commander, which didn't improve Lorca's temper. But he couldn't summon up the energy to give Malek a proper beating.

"It's OK, commander," said Malek, trying to imitate what he'd heard other humans saying to each other. "Things will get better. I know how you feel."

"You know how I feel? You, pretentious Pointy Ears, who wouldn't know a real feeling if it ran him over? Get out of here! Leave me alone! Just let me drown out my sorrow with booze and fade away into obscurity."

"But I really do know how you feel," said Malek, and explained about his ability though he hadn't wanted the humans to know about it.

Lorca was immediately intrigued and forgot that he wanted to beat up Malek. He insisted on Malek proving it and grabbed the Vulcan's wrist. He thought of various objects and Malek stated them correctly. Then Lorca posed questions.

Do you think Drake and Whitney are going to break up? He thought.

"I have no comment on the matter, nor does it concern me," said Malek.

Using your logic and power of observation, what do you think?

"Fine, I have seen them arguing and if that is a factor in determining whether or not a couple will break up, then there seems to be some likelihood of the occurrence."

Next Lorca imagined an entire scene and asked Malek to repeat it, but since it was obviously inappropriate Malek just said, "I cannot believe Captain Perkins would be interested in doing such things with me."

Lorca had one more question for Malek even though he knew the answer already: have you ever even been on a date with someone?

Malek guilelessly said no.

"How does that make you feel?" Asked Lorca aloud.

"My feelings on this matter are irrelevant to the task at hand."

"What task?"

"Getting you to do your job again."

"And are your feelings completely irrelevant, to everything, in the grand scheme of things?"

Malek wasn't sure how to answer or if it was a serious question and Lorca didn't push him but said he'd try to get back to work. Satisfied, Malek left. Lorca looked around at the mess of his room but he wasn't seeing it, or ashamed of it. He had a new goal in life! He was going to make this silly, supercilious, inexperienced little Vulcan fall in love with him! But since Malek knew how he felt, Lorca couldn't fake it and would have to fall in love for real. What a challenge![1]

He attacked the task immediately. He cleaned up his room and got back to work with a vigor that scared the crap out of the other Security personnel. He completely stopped yelling at Malek and frequently had lunch with him, letting the Vulcan ramble on about boll weevils or whatever insects interested him at the time. Except it had to be real! Lorca couldn't just pretend to like Malek, he had to actually appreciate him. But still, he couldn't force himself to take in all that information about boll weevils. Instead he just rested his head on his hand and looked dreamily at Malek, thinking, He's so clever! His knowledge of insects is practically encyclopedic. And he's so pretty, too.

Malek made Lorca fill out job applications but nobody wanted a disreputable commander with no recommendations, at least nobody in Starfleet. Malek figured Lorca could still get a job in Security on a commercial vessel but Lorca had other plans and tried to steer Malek in the right direction. For weeks, Malek had been triumphant that T'Lara finally got the funding and permission to develop S-VEG. Naturally, the new organization created job opportunities. Lorca praised the entire venture often enough that Malek realized he should come work with them. And since T'Lara, Malek, and the housekeeper Renalle lived in a big empty house, Lorca could just save on rent and live with them.

So at the distinctive age of 37, Malek called T'Lara and asked, "Mom, can my friend come stay with us?"

It never occurred to Lorca that he would soon become a captain in S-VEG. That was not his plan at all. He kind of felt that his chances at captain were ruined permanently and just went to Vulcan because of this charade-like romance with Malek.

On their last day on the Resilience, Lorca and Malek went up to the empty bridge. Lorca sat in the captain's chair and insisted Malek squeeze in with him.

"I used to think I'd be standing on my own bridge one day," said Lorca. "I'd have my own crew. We'd go on crazy adventures. Ah well, I guess I'll die an administrator."

"Must you always be so morbid?" Said Malek. "There is nothing wrong with the life of an administrator. We can't all have crazy adventures."

"Why did you join Starfleet, anyway? You've been here what, eight months? Now you're going back to Vulcan."

"I wanted to work with humans firsthand…and prove to my mother that my condition is not an impediment to success."

"Always with the mommy issues. Of course your condition is not an impediment when you wear gloves and a high collar. That's not what your mother was worried about."

"I don't think she was really 'worried' about anything. She doesn't exactly like me."

"Well…I do."

Pleased that Malek provided him with such a perfect cue, Lorca kissed him there in the captain's chair. Then he got up and started to walk away without another word. Malek just sat there, stunned, then followed him.

"Wait, explain this behavior!" He said. "I don't understand."

"Not even when you know how I feel?"

"No, I still don't understand."

"Course you don't."

Malek continued to exist in a state of confusion after they went to live on Vulcan, but the confusion was not nearly as bad as the embarrassment. With so little intimate human experience, Malek didn't realize that Lorca's behavior was aberrant, creepy, and just that of a jerk, even though he claimed he was completely head over heels for his friend. Malek couldn't tell if Lorca's affection was real. He didn't have anything to compare it to. He also tried desperately to avoid letting Lorca touch him at all, putting them in a crazy tug-of-war situation.

The main problem was Vulcan society. Public displays of affection? What? Vulcans could be fined for that! Seriously! It was considered a dangerous disruption to everyday business. Vulcans didn't hold hands on walks, make out in the doorways of cutsey shops during a downpour, or even drink from the same cup. People maintained an acceptable social distance.

Lorca didn't give a rat's ass about fines or customs. He grabbed Malek by the arm whenever he wanted, pulled him somewhere, and hugged him in public. He refused to wear robes like most Vulcans ("Why the hell are you all dressed like priests?") so he was quickly identified as human even from a distance. Malek was mortified to be seen with him. Even though he explicitly said that to Lorca, his friend wasn't offended and didn't listen.

They worked in a building adjacent to the offices of the VEG. T'Lara was on Earth for a few weeks after they got back from the Resilience, but when she returned things got even more strained for Malek. Pretty much the first thing she asked when she saw him for the first time in a year was, "Are you sleeping with the human?" She never called Lorca by name, only "the human." She was very upset with her son. Messing around with humans was what put her father in the crazy house. Did Malek want to follow in his footsteps? Did he want to stare at a wall all day, counting imaginary beings? She urged him to kick Lorca out of their house but Malek just couldn't bring himself to do it. Nor could he bring himself to accept and respond to Lorca's attentions.

Technically, Lorca was Malek's secretary. His job description was more like "administrative aide," but he organized things for Malek and answered the phone, did some paperwork, etc. Just to piss everybody off, Lorca blatantly broke the rules on office décor. They weren't supposed to have anything except necessary items and a cabinet could contain certain Vulcan religious tchotchkes, but Lorca acquired a toy train and set it up to run all around his office. He attached a little basketball hoop to the wall and if he threw the ball at the right time at the right angle, it landed in the train, which brought it back to him. This took practice, but since Lorca did only the bare minimum of his job, he found time.

Malek stayed at work until late and left early, mostly to avoid Lorca. This left Lorca with time to wander Vulcan or hang around in T'Lara's house. Renalle, whom Lorca called Albert (being the Albert to T'Lara's Batman) tolerated his presence, though he feared for the floors whenever Lorca stomped on them. But one day Renalle caught Lorca picking up family heirlooms and made a bargain with the former Starfleet officer. He would teach Lorca Vulcan martial arts in exchange for Lorca not touching anything.

At first, Renalle commented that Lorca "would never make any progress, just like the rest of his inferior species." Later, he said that Lorca "would never advance beyond mediocrity." Finally, when Lorca got pretty good at the skill, Renalle did not say anything. Renalle did not give out compliments to anybody, human or Vulcan.

"Renalle!" Complained Lorca one day. "What should I do to win Malek's heart?"

"Although I know what the expression means, I still find it ridiculous," said the housekeeper. "Winning someone's heart! It only seems applicable to cardiac surgeons, or barbarians."

"But what should I do? I love him and I want us to be together."

"I do not approve of interspecies relationships. Read Sarek's book if you're so interested."

Lorca looked up the book Sarek wrote about his marriage, which he referred to as an "experiment." Luckily Sarek and his family were away that year, or Lorca might have shown up at their house to do what he only did many years later, that is, hit on Burnham's mother.

Instead, he hit on Malek's mother. It was a peculiarity of most of the Gabriel Lorcas in the Supraverse that they thought it was OK to engage in relationships with several members of a family. They all seemed likely to say, "Look, I'm into you, but I like your mother too (or daughter, brother, etc.) and there's nothing you can do about it, so be cool."

Not that he got anywhere with T'Lara. He once prepared a romantic dinner when she got home and she knocked him out when he just barely moved toward her. When Malek got home even later, she said, "The human tried to seduce me today," much in the same tone she would use to say, "The dog left a puddle in the hallway."

Malek didn't realize that having his boyfriend, or whatever Lorca was to him, hit on his mother was pretty creepy. He just warned Lorca that next time she would break a rib.

Wayne Ichigari thought S-VEG was super cool and organized a big celebration. Ichigari really wanted Vulcans to lighten up and be more fun so costumes were mandatory. Lorca was thrilled and spent several weeks building a prop for the party.

In the present, Malek said to Burnham and Saru, "He kept it covered in his office and showed me when it was almost done. To this day I don't think he's forgiven me for thinking it was R2D2 when it was actually a Dalek, but he hadn't attached the eyestalk yet!"

"What did the Dalek do?" Asked Burnham.

"Not much. Lorca was lousy at robotic engineering. It just moved its eyestalk up and down and yelled, 'Exterminate,' when people came up to get dessert at the party."

Saru asked what costumes he and Lorca wore. Malek described Lorca's costume first. It wasn't anything fancy, just a long jacket and he grew his hair out. He was trying to look like David Tennant as Doctor Who. He got a light up pen that made a funny sound—a "sonic screwdriver," and a little notepad. When people asked what the notepad was for, he explained that it was psychic paper. It sensed people's expectations somehow and showed them what they were prepared to see. Except this notepad contained commercials for things like a strip club famous for having, "Girls, girls, girls! Guys, guys, guys! And everything beyond and in between," or a "Ye Olde Apothecary" specializing in all-natural aphrodisiacs.

"So what did you wear?" Asked Burnham. "If Lorca was Doctor Who, were you one of the companions? Rose or Martha?"

"I could see you as Donna Noble," said Saru.[2]

Malek sighed and said, "No, I was Madame de Pompadour."

It was the biggest embarrassment of Malek's life. He let Lorca convince him to put on a blond wig, makeup, jewelry, and a glittery white dress. Malek agreed because the other Vulcans were required to wear costumes too. But they cheated. Ichigari's invitation did not say anywhere that it had to be a full-body costume. They brought masks on sticks. Ichigari was pissed at them. He dressed up as a lion, with his wife and two daughters as lionesses.

It didn't bother Malek that he was dressed up as a woman but that he was dressed up at all, while the other Vulcans twirled their masks and looked at him judgmentally. T'Lara refused to sit at his table and switched with somebody. Lorca had a great time, surprising people with his psychic papers. The Dalek didn't last throughout the event. One of Ichigari's lion cubs ripped off its eyestalk.

At some point during dinner, Malek saw a Vulcan glance at him and whisper to another, "It was only logical to follow the instructions up to, but not exceeding, the recommendation." What a terrible insult! Malek couldn't stand it and rushed off to a unisex bathroom, where he cried for the first time since he was a child who got chastised for displaying so much emotion.

Lorca found him there and said, "Good thing we went with false eyelashes instead of mascara, or you'd look a mess."

"Good thing? There's nothing good today, nothing at all! I should never have let you convince me to wear this outfit. I shouldn't have let you work for me at all. You're nothing but trouble and embarrassment."

"What are you so upset about? What people think? Who cares? All that matters is how you feel about yourself."

"I feel like a fool."

"But you look beautiful! Don't let your silly peers bring you down. Own it! Go back out there and walk like you own this place. You let them win by hiding here and crying. Tonight is your night, damn it! You and T'Lara worked really hard to make this happen and you can finally celebrate, looking your best. Do you think I made you put this on because I wanted to play a stupid joke on you?"

Malek had to admit that he did.

"No!" Said Lorca. "I would have made you dress up as Goofy if I wanted to laugh at you. You're dressed up as Madame de Pompadour from an episode of Doctor Who that was important to me. Having us dressed up as characters from the show makes me feel like some of that magic exists in our world, but unlike in the story, the girl in the fireplace does get to go home with me."

Malek brought a tissue to his eyes and looked at the floor.

"You don't believe me?" Asked Lorca and took him by the wrist. Malek looked even more uncomfortable.

"Trust me," said Lorca. "I'm the Doctor."

He dragged Malek back into the ballroom and with the help of some shots of whiskey, had him dancing by midnight. T'Lara rolled her eyes. Ichigari was plastered by then and tried to drag her out to the dance floor. She nearly smothered him with his lion muzzle. His wife did nothing to help him.

Lorca practically carried Malek home and helped him take off the costume. Malek hugged him and said, "Show me how much you love me!" But Lorca just put him to bed. The next morning, Malek came down to the kitchen with a bad hangover and found Lorca already up, reading a newspaper.

"I bet you feel like clockwork droids stole your brain," said Lorca.

This could have been a turning point in their relationship. Perhaps, if it hadn't been for bigots and extremists, Lorca would still be living on Vulcan today. But knowing him—nah! Anyway, Malek felt much more affectionate toward Lorca after the party and considered taking the next step, though he wasn't too sure what that would be and felt nervous thinking about it.

A week after the party, Lorca and Renalle went shopping for the home-cooked meals Renalle made T'Lara. Replicator food was not good enough for her, of course. Lorca rambled on about the plot of a recent movie,[3] seemingly unaware of his surroundings, but when a bomb was thrown at them he managed to get Renalle out of the way. Renalle never thanked him for saving his life but did occasionally make Lorca dinner after that.

Lorca ended up in the hospital for five days. Malek felt it was his fault. He should have known logic extremists would target his human friend. He should have hired guards and rented a shuttle instead of letting Lorca walk around. Malek sat with Lorca for hours, holding him by the hand. The doctor didn't like how delirious Lorca became (clearly she didn't know Lorca well) and decreased his pain medication. Malek experienced all of it; Lorca's pain, confusion, and his various delusional thoughts.

T'Lara noticed that Malek wasn't at work and found him at the hospital. She crept up behind him next to Lorca's bed and glared at him for an hour without saying anything.

"Why do you want to share his pain?" She finally asked.

Malek nearly fell off his chair in surprise.

"This human is an idiot," continued T'Lara. "You are just like my father. He became stupid over some fly-by-night too, someone who couldn't support him. If you so desperately need companionship, though I certainly don't understand why, can't you find a sensible and patient person like Sarek's Amanda, one who will yield to Vulcan customs? This one will lead you to the grave, if not the insane asylum."

"He's hurt because of me," said Malek.

"I could argue about that but I see you don't care. Just don't touch him anymore. You can't handle his emotions. He can't either, but he's been a mess his whole life so he can just drink his problems away…or find someone to love for the time being."

"What are you saying, mother? You think he doesn't love me? But every time he wakes up he's so happy that I'm here."

"That's not the point. The exact nature of his feelings is irrelevant. What's not irrelevant is their effect on you. My father…"

But T'Lara could not keep going. She had never told anyone how it had felt to lose her father to himself and she certainly couldn't do it now. Being a Vulcan very much used to suppressing her emotions, she knew that if she kept going she might break down, and it was somehow more important to avoid this than to connect with her son. If Malek were as logical as she, he would see the situation clearly.

"His emotions are not healthy for you," she just said and left.

She was right. After Lorca returned from the hospital, Malek found it increasingly difficult to get back to work. He couldn't concentrate and forgot about calls and meetings. He dropped things and broke stuff. He became nervous and agitated. He finally told Lorca he wanted to move forward with their relationship and they took a short vacation to that very same planet Norku. But Malek became so fidgety and anxious when they were alone together that Lorca couldn't bring himself to make the first move.

"Your voice says yes but your face clearly says no," said Lorca. "Make up your mind already. I won't make it up for you."

Pissed, he went to make some improvements on the statues. They returned to Vulcan rather dejected and Malek continued to mess things up. T'Lara picked up the slack but after a month of this, she got tired and one day she asked Lorca to accompany her somewhere on a shuttle. He was pretty sure she was taking him to some out of the way place to kill him but they just went to the facility where her father resided.

They watched the older Vulcan stare at the wall, sometimes drawing something in the air with his finger.

"Is he solving quantum physical problems?" Asked Lorca.

"I don't know," said T'Lara. "He doesn't respond when you ask him. He doesn't remember who I am. And this is all because he became enamored with a willful woman, a musician who dragged him all over the galaxy to her gigs. She eventually dumped him and he just became worse and worse. The same thing will happen to my son if you don't leave him alone."

"You have no evidence. They're different people."

"On the contrary, Malek's and my father's condition is well-documented in the medical archives. Doctors agree that interactions with particularly…let's say, unbalanced human beings lead to mental deterioration."

"That's just you Vulcans being dicks! Malek is stronger than that. We love each other and we'll work it out."

T'Lara looked at him so condescendingly that Lorca drew back and looked at her father again. The Vulcan was now on the floor, scribbling something on the tiles with his finger.

"For Vulcans, love should be delivered in moderation," said T'Lara. "Your ridiculous antics and haphazard advances will drive my son crazy. Besides, haven't you looked at him closely? Does he really love you or is he just reflecting your feelings because he can't figure out his own?"

"So he'll figure them out. We've got time. I'm not going anywhere."

T'Lara realized that was true and did the only logical thing she could think of to save her son, whether he needed saving or not. A few days later she offered Lorca command of one of her program's new starships. This nearly drove her mad because she highly doubted his capabilities. She prioritized a personal matter over a professional one and certainly, during that first shaky year when it looked like he'd crash and burn any moment, she regretted it dearly.

Lorca really couldn't say no. A command position, after he thought he'd screwed up too badly to ever make anything of himself? He had to take it, had to prove to the old man back in a Missouri graveyard that he was not good for nothing after all! But most all, he missed the adventure.

He never really said goodbye to Malek, who'd been promoted to admiral. He half-jokingly asked if Malek wanted to come be his First Officer and Malek said, "Are you insane?" That was the last exchange they had for years, since Lorca reported to someone else.

Renalle saw Lorca off to the spaceport on his last day. The old Vulcan seemed to want to say something during the whole ride but whatever it was, he never got it out. Vulcans were like that. They could travel 100,000 miles to say, "Never mind."

"Well, good luck, Albert old pal," said Lorca once they reached the spaceport. "Don't let T'Lara boss you around too much. And give Malek my best."

"Give him your best?" Said Renalle. "What does that even mean? But perhaps, in this situation, your typical human lack of specificity is apt."

Malek made a full recovery to his usual hardworking, attention to detail self a few weeks after Lorca left. Sometimes he remembered that time rather wistfully. On a few instances he even opened the bottom drawer of his cabinet and looked at the costume he wore to that party. He recalled how just that one time, he had imagined that he was the glittering center of attention, admired by everybody, and dancing with a prince. But then he reminded himself that had been the alcohol affecting him and things like glamour are superfluous for Vulcans.

Surprisingly, the cat returned. Burnham skimmed the footage and decided it was good enough to prove Ichigari wasn't in there. Malek unpacked the extra spacesuit they'd brought and put the cat in it. Burnham and Saru didn't comment. He took the cat back to Discovery and named her Captain Ragsy, because of her rag-like appearance.

Clearly, promoting people who don't deserve it to captain runs in the family, thought Burnham.

Footnotes

[1] Malek, naturally, did not tell this part to Burnham and Saru, largely because he never realized it. You've really got to thank me for providing you with the juicy bits of the story and not the boring stuff he actually told them.

[2] After a year with Lorca, they knew their Doctor Who trivia. They didn't want to know it, but they did.

[3] It was the new Batman movie where it turned out that Alfred was both Batman's father and the Joker's and then they all somehow ended up fighting evil Spiderman. You see, in the future, the DC Comics and Marvel universes got mashed together (again) because people were completely out of ideas.

Intermission: A Total Gag Scene

Most of the Terran Lorcas went to Hell. They wandered around a big room, pissed off and upset. Only the one we met stood in the center, wide-eyed, clasping his hands over his heart and looking unblinkingly from one doppelganger to another.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!" He said. "I just can't decide which of you is the cutest!"

He picked one to bother at random and it happened to be the one from the original Discovery (from the set of universes I took the liberty of numbering 25/24). He came over and said, "Isn't this great?"

"Great?" Said Lorca24. "How can this be great? We're all abject failures. Our plans were thwarted by Burnham and Georgiou. Destiny always favored them, after all."

"That's not how it was for me!" Said Lorca50. "But I'll tell you about it after we…get better acquainted."

"I don't want to get better acquainted!" Said Lorca24, trying to push him away. "Let go of me, you sick freak! I think you must be the Devil in disguise!"

"I'm not but I'd like to get better acquainted with him too. He must be cool, since he put us all together like this! We can have a twenty-way every day!"

In an epic mixing of different TV shows, Lucifer Morningstar appeared and said, "Did I hear something about a twenty-way? Let's make it twenty one!"