They make it back. They actually make it back. The bridge descends into stunned silence as the Centaur tumbles, uncaffeinated, over into Federation space. Part of Una had expected cheering what with the entire crew assembled to catch the moment, but it turns out life's more complicated. That's not how suicide missions end. All of them left expecting not to come back here. Not hoping not to, that would have been disqualifying, but expecting. No one has any plans for the future. There's an overriding sense of now what? A blanket of entropy that falls over the ship. People have no loves, no homes, no purpose beyond what they've just left behind them. Their mission is over, and just like that their usefulness goes with it. Una wants to see La'an, and Chris, and the rest of the Enterprise team, find Bob April, give him the mother of all everlasting briefings. Help work out what to do with the intelligence they've gathered. But also… It feels like a bubble bursting around her. Long months of safety found in unrelenting danger suddenly scattering into what am I going to do? Marie's quiet at her console, staring into the starscape. Then she flickers.

"We aren't done here. This isn't over. We're still a crew, and we stay a crew, even when we reach headquarters. Anyone who wants to stay here can stay. The ship needs repairs, we need to train the next rotation. Suggest improvements."

"Bigger beds" Norgay mutters, glancing at Harrington. There's a general snicker. "More coffee." Albano chimes in. Then "More hydroponics." from Idowu, "More alcohol." from Kavorkian, and suddenly everyone's talking, naming what they've missed here, what they're going to do once they get out. Una watches Marie smile to herself in the chaos, letting it flow around her, the speech forgotten. If she even had one to begin with. She puts on a stellar front, Marie Batel. It's kind of mesmerising.

But it doesn't quite last.

Command provide counsellors. The lag time is minimal during Una's first session, but she still finds her attention drifting. She doesn't really want to be doing this. None of them do, even if all of them need it. It has something to do with running on adrenalin, Idowu explains that first evening, crammed all together into the mess; having lived on high alert for so long that safety suddenly feels suspect, that the mundane becomes empty and numb. "Stay busy." He advises them. "Be patient. That feeling will fade. And if it doesn't, we have treatments."

The crew get to cleaning and collating and fixing everything that's stayed broken because no one has had time for repairs, and it works, for most of them. Sort of. Certainly they're warding off despair. They have valuable data to process, technology that's yet to be studied, and besides that there's a kind of deep, undeniable satisfaction in making the impossible Centaur gleam. Marie throws herself at the paperwork with a vengeance, writing the mission report they'll be presenting to command. Which does need doing, Una can't dispute that fact, and it certainly qualifies as 'staying busy', but they have time, and their schedules have switched back to politely separated but Una isn't entirely convinced she's sleeping, and something about the relentlessness of her focus just feels... off.

"Where will you go, when you get home?" Doctor Bakker asks her, finally managing to regain her focus. Una stares at him, drawing a blank. For decades now home has been a ship, but it isn't this one. Much as she's kept them alive the Centaur is deeply unlovable, a nightmare in a hull. She doesn't want to stay here. She doesn't want to leave, either. She doesn't know how to tell him that, this man she doesn't know who reminds her vaguely of her father. So she doesn't. She has time still. Space is astonishingly big, when it comes to it. They have weeks before they reach Earth.

"Headquarters." She says, because it has guest accommodation. It doesn't feel right somehow, but it seems like a sensible solution. For now, it will have to do.

By day five they've managed to arrange a rendezvous with a passing Iroquois-class ship. The Seneca offers to beam basic supplies over, and the prospect of coffee, finally, draws that first, long awaited cheer. Marie brightens as she thanks captain Emden, tasks Norgay with compiling a wish list. Actually smiles as she watches her squabble with Harrington over what qualifies as 'basic' in this context. "No alcohol." She throws in sternly, knowing she'll be overruled by what is functionally a democracy by now, saying it anyway because it's what medical recommends. They have a point, Una thinks privately. Not that she'd brave telling Kavorkian that. Leave that to the counsellors.

"We have visuals." Norgay announces a few minutes later. It's the first real glimpse of home they've had, it should be cause for celebration, but the bridge falls silent as the Seneca looms into view. Una watches Marie falter, all the burgeoning lightness dropping as everyone's eyes flick to her, because it has to be like seeing a ghost. She never talks about the Cayuga. Maybe it's time someone asked. Una waits until they're holding position, until the transfer is underway, then sends Harrington and Norgay off to greet the care package. Toggles the viewscreen over to aft. Marie doesn't say anything, but she comes and drops into the chair at helm, pinching her fingers together. She looks tired, more than anything. Worn down. Exhausted.

"Rough reminder." Una says quietly, because she has to start somewhere.

Marie's silent for a moment, and Una thinks she might not respond, then, "It feels like I lost a friend. I know that's…" She shrugs abortively, but Una recognises that feeling. You get attached to the ships you serve on as much as to the people who crew them. The wreck of the Cayuga was a bereavement at scale; it's simply easier to focus that loss, to mourn the metal, rather than the souls.

"You did." She watches Marie nod, accept that, as if she's been told before. "You brought this one back." She's brought all of them back.

"But this one's an asshole."

It's true, she can't hold a candle to the Cayuga. "She's still our asshole."

Marie smiles at that, blink-and-you'll-miss-it genuine before the emptiness washes back. "Not for long. Three weeks of overhaul, then she's back out with another crew."

She must have received the message this morning. They'd known it was going to happen, Starfleet won't send them out again, but having it confirmed brings it sharply into focus; this mission is over. This ship was theirs, this crew was theirs. However grinding and awful their time together, it was their time. And soon it won't be.

"Where are you going, after…" Marie worries a cuticle, her eyes on the floor.

Wherever you go, Una hears herself thinking, then feels the swift internal mockery that tells her that's straight out of a romance novel. A cheap one, at that. Chapel has told her repeatedly where society can stick those things, how unequal they are to humanity. But it's true, she recognises suddenly. That is what she wants.

She's spared the embarrassment of giving that answer, of coming up with anything less inappropriate and hopelessly clichéd, because the doors hiss open to reveal Kavorkian leading a disorderly procession, bearing the coffee pot aloft like some sacred artefact. Norgay and Albano bring up the rear with stainless mugs and full-fat creamer as between them everyone piles onto the bridge. "Coffee!" Kavorkian pronounces in a ringing bass. "Thank fuck." Norgay appends to general consensus. The pouring feels like a ritual, some kind of cult initiation, everybody sipping at once. Sighing in satisfaction. "Thank you Seneca!" gets broadcast through the vacuum like an ancient benediction, and Una can only sit and savour it, smile at the familiar madness.

And then try not to notice as Marie disappears.

Marie completes the mission report barely a week later. Una reads it while she hovers, pretends not to, her tension visible only in her hands. "If there's anything…" There isn't. This thing's long, and detailed, and crystal clear. Nothing else needs to happen to it. "It's good." Una says, and signs, and watches Marie's eyes go vacant. What now? The mission is over. Una doesn't have an answer.

She becomes increasingly absent, after that. The crew start to notice, then worry, and no one says anything, because no one's in any position right now and she's very much still doing the job, but the consensus by way of unmade comments and undisguised looks is that this is Una's problem, and Una needs to step up and fix it. Which is fair, Una's still her XO, only she's drawing a blank as to how. Command has a battery of shrinks on the job. Idowu has told them these things will take time. Still, the third evening Marie doesn't appear in the mess hall Una gives in and goes looking, finds her sat on their bed in the silence of an empty, for the sake of being generous, 'room', with her arms wrapped around her knees, staring at nothing at all.

Una's entrance barely draws a reaction, but Marie's always been easy to read and this isn't a no, or a leave me alone so Una sits, carefully, finds her hand amidst the knot of limbs. Watches Marie's eyes blink closed, something instantly giving, and realises in that moment that she hasn't done this in weeks. They'd crossed the Federation border, she'd taken that first watch, and then abruptly, after months of impossible chaos, polite scheduling had returned. They haven't shared this bed, or dressed together, or done nothing together at all, and Marie's the captain, and even in these narrow quarters no one reaches for her really, and humans like being touched, need to be touched; it keeps them alive. Una can't fathom how she forgot except that everything's been such a mess and a blur and she should probably acknowledge that she's reverted to type. Stress brings out the self-preservation in people, and her habits are a lifetime of ingrained. A lifetime's worth of keeping still, and looking first, and leaping almost never.

Maybe now is the time to leap, Una thinks, watching Marie hold, and stay there, because she's never going to make the first move, but all she can manage is to climb up beside her, sit and stroke her hair, slow and gentle until her head drops, until her frame relaxes, until she loosens to the point where she can surface, and straighten, and look almost like herself.

"Did I miss dinner?"

"We'll make something else."

And it's enough, for a little while, but it doesn't fix it. Nowhere close. Una doesn't try to get her to talk, because it turns out processing is sometimes overrated, sometimes people just need to be, but she sits with her when it happens, ruffles though her hair, learning the pressure points that make her breathing deepen, the warmth of her temples, the curve of her ears. I love you surfaces more and more readily, but they have careers to think of, and there's an ocean of regulation, and this looming, impossible war is everywhere and when the crew start looking at her as the days wear on as if there's anything more she could be doing there's the hardly insignificant fact that no one here could sight sanity through a radio telescope at the moment, except possibly Kavorkian. There's always Kavorkian.

He's never been deferential with Marie - Una imagines he's never been deferential with anyone - and he rushes her one day without any kind of warning, gripping her around the waist to lift her bodily into the air in the one place on this bucket that has any headroom, the main bay in engineering, and Marie shrieks as he spins her and spins her until she's gasping for air, almost crying with laughter, and then she is crying, suddenly, tipping over some invisible line, and Kavorkian's setting her down, turning to Una, "Your turn, Chin-Riley. Time to talk." keeping his hand on her arm until Una shifts into motion, never leaving her alone.

"I'm sorry." Marie manages, batting at her face with the handkerchief he provided, pressing it into her hand before he left.

"Why?"

Marie shakes her head, trying to say things that won't be formed. Can't be articulated, because she will not make this first move. That has to be Una. And it has to be now.

"Where do you want to go, when we get back?"

Marie smiles, breathing around the enormity of that concept. They're actually going to make it. "Home." She manages after a moment, and Una realises they've never talked about anything like that, that she doesn't even know where that is, that it really doesn't matter in the slightest, and leaps.

"Why don't we start out at headquarters," She pulls in a tight breath, "and then see."

And Marie unfolds as if a stay has just been broken, steps into Una's space to pull her into a hug tight with relief and exhaustion and everything else. "Tell me you don't cook." She says against her shoulder, voice unsteady with what they've just done.

"I don't cook." And she's never starting.

Marie sags into her. "Oh thank…"

The obscenity is drowned out by actual cheering, the deck rumbling in celebration as the crew flood in from wherever they've been hiding, presumably with baited breath, because why would you expect privacy in this warren. "Jesus Chin-Riley." Norgay grins at her, clapping her solidly on the back. "Could it have taken you any longer?"

No, it probably couldn't. Because they're suddenly, impossibly, only three days from home.