A/N: Originally written for Selena in the Star Trek Holidays 2020 event on AO3.
To Breathe
There is a moment.
Michael sags against the walls of the turbolift while she stares at Captain Danby Connor - or what remains of him - and feels the despair sink deeper into her bones. Seeing his face had been a shock to her system to begin with. The fresh-faced Connor had been one of the first casualties she had to come to terms with after the battle of the binary stars. After all, she had watched him get ripped away from the Shenzhou when he'd deliriously come to find her.
How desperate had he been to seek her out directly after witnessing her mutiny firsthand?
Michael stares now at another body, this one painfully still rather than being whisked away to the vacuum of space. This one still the direct result of her actions. No matter the universe, no matter the manner of it, it seems that Michael Burnham will be the cause of Connor's death.
Michael feels the knife still in her hand. The life or death situation is now over. Her hand does not tremble. She doesn't know what this all means.
Ash grounds her, tethers her as he calls it. Being on this twisted version of the Shenzhou is draining. Dragging herself from the privacy of her room requires Michael to come down hard on that tether. The Terrans here are watching her for any sign of weakness regardless of the apparent gift she returned with, and she must watch her back with extreme prejudice. There is no security in her room, either, but it is private at that is almost enough.
"We can't leave him down there," Ash has said more than a few times. When all Michael wants to do is collapse underneath the golden collar around her neck, Ash's reminder feels like another weight. He is right, of course. Regardless of the guilt that fuels his insistence - the captain was the one who pulled him out from that hell he still cannot speak freely about - Michael knows that Ash's point is well made.
None of them are safe. Connor's ghost still dogs Michael's dreams, a constant reminder of that. At least Michael and Ash tether one another. Lorca has been thrown to the wolves with an experimental pain blocker and nothing else.
Ash owes Lorca his life and Michael owes Ash her sanity. She calls for Lorca to be brought to her quarters under whatever pretence the Terrans give her. No one questions their captain summoning her prisoner to play with. Knowing looks follow Michael when she leaves the bridge.
Michael's shoulders sag under the heavy gold when it's only her and Ash in the turbolift. "They didn't question it," she murmurs, bewildered.
His hand on her shoulder is another weight. They can't speak freely here. She shouldn't have said anything at all. Still, Ash keeps her standing even with his silent support. When the doors open, his hand is gone and Michael walks out the hardened Terran everyone expects. There is a whisper in the air that Michael cannot ignore. The agonizers are efficient, but Connor's knife on her hip is fun.
There is a moment.
Her boot catches on the deck plating. Her heart falls from it's unexpected surge to drop to her stomach. They have only been here in this strange, murky universe for a handful of shifts. How has she fallen into place within it so effortlessly? Ash's hand pulls back from her elbow where he had moved to catch her. They exchange a look which certainly cannot be thankful, not here in this den of killers waiting for an opportunity.
A cruel dismissal slips from Michael's tongue and as soon as the doors to her quarters close behind her she has her hands in Ash's uniform, her lips against his in silent apology. When they break away, he keeps them together with his forehead resting gently on hers. "You're doing well," Ash whispers in encouragement.
She wishes it wasn't true.
This moment could be sweet. Ash's fingertips run along her back in soothing motions that Michael so dearly wishes she could sink into. Instead-
"They'll be here soon with Lorca," Michael replies as she steps out of his embrace. Already the habit to call Lorca Captain has been stripped away. There had been one close call. Ever since, Michael had been forced to abandon the title.
She is correct and that is why Ash's face doesn't twist to frustration. Or perhaps that is because he really is just that good. Two members of the Shenzhou's security team throw Lorca bodily to his knees and wait expectantly for Michael. "Leave us," she demands and they obey with razor sharp smiles. As soon as they are gone, Michael feels the last of the iron in her spine dissolve. What now? The path in front of her has been obscured from the moment she stepped foot on the Shenzhou.
There is a moment.
Ash has the next dose of the neuro-damper in hand. His purpose helps drive him, and Michael can't help but feel a stab of envy as the man dutifully attends to Lorca. Her tether grounds another for a handful of minutes, checking for physical injuries and administering the hypospray with careful movements. Michael stands helplessly in the center of the room, her feet frozen in place and her voice stuck in her throat.
She cannot breathe. How is she supposed to handle this strange, impossibly different world around her? One where she is able to kill without thought, fall in step with the Terrans, and let them take Lorca away once more for hours of pointless pain. How has she been able to do so already? It shouldn't be possible.
Lorca is standing on his own now, albeit with Ash's arm waiting not-so-subtly behind to catch him. He approaches with steps that stagger, yet he still carries himself more firmly than Michael feels she can just now. "Hanging in there, Burnham?" Lorca asks and it's the way that his voice trembles on her name that sets her off.
His thumb swipes the tears from her cheeks. Murmuring words of comfort shouldn't be coming from her commanding officer, but nothing about Michael's life has been proper since crossing over, since Discovery, since the Binary Stars, since ever, really.
When Ash mentions the incident with Connor it sets Lorca's expression to some new, inexplicable one. It isn't the same cheerful, "knew you had it in you" look that Ash wears on their away missions together, but it gives Michael the same burst of warmth in her belly. Lorca does not let her collapse, reassuring her that she's doing so well, truly.
It's too close to what Ash said just minutes ago and that is what Michael tells herself, later, when she tries to dissect the next few seconds. There is no easy cause and effect to pinpoint just how Michael ends up stumbling backwards to the bed with Lorca's mouth pressing hungrily against hers. Her hands aren't sure where to touch or not, but Lorca has no such compunction from roaming. She breaks off the kiss to find air once more.
"Ash," Michael gasps. She can see him still by the front of the room, and her stomach drops out from under her. He has stepped away, his face pointedly looking away and silent. Lorca's ministrations on the dip of her collarbones pause as he joins in twisting his head to the security officer.
Lorca's eyes swipe from Ash to Michael and back. "Tell him to come," Lorca mutters into her throat before mouthing over the skin there once more. Michael shivers under his attention, yet the words she wants to say are stuck once again in her mouth. The universe seems to shift and twist once more under her feet or maybe that is just her head hitting against the mattress. Lorca is poised over her but doesn't join her, not yet. He is looking once again at Ash.
A snap of Lorca's fingers capture's Ash's attention. "She wants you," Lorca says with the same weight as a command given on the bridge, the same expectation to obey. It's a wonder to Michael that Ash still takes nearly a minute to walk over. But he still does.
Both men turn to look down at Michael. There is a painful twist in Michael's chest as she thinks they are waiting for her to explain or worse to choose between them. Her lips part as she once again fights to keep spots from overtaking her vision. She can't keep finding herself in these moments of breathlessness. Everything else is too much. This should be simple.
"Don't leave me." Michael exhales an order she doesn't have the right to make.
She needs this moment, just this one, to breathe.
A/N: I've been dying to write something for Michael/Lorca/Ash for, uh, a while now. This event was the nudge I needed to get it done!
Blanket statement for my oneshots - Please do not ask if I am continuing these. They are single "chapter" fics which I am considering complete. Thank you. - DragonMaster65