Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Captain Pike’s quarters were quiet without the layers of conversation floating throughout the room or the laughter of his crew filling in the spaces between the clink of silverware on ceramic or the flow of wine from the bottle. The crew had begun to filter out after dessert—chocolate lava cakes, which had turned out quite well, if he did say so himself—but many had stuck around to assist with clean up in any way that they could, and by the time the doors closed behind Lieutenant Spock and cadet Uhura, the leftovers had been stored away, and the majority of the dishes were done. Then it was just him and Una and the sound of water from the tap and clack of clean plates stacked atop one another.

Pike settled into that easy rhythm he always seemed to find when they worked together. After so many years, even washing dishes held that effortless flow of anticipating the other’s actions and the companionable silence that needed no explanation.

Comfortable. Easy.

But then Una broke the silence. “I’ve seen you ask that cadet question a hundred times. Tonight it felt different. Is it because of what you told me, about what you saw on Boreth?”

It had been different. Pike had lost himself in good food and good conversation and it had been so easy to forget about his future until he’d started to ask the question.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

It had been different because this time he knew exactly where he would be in ten years: confined to a life support chair. Alive but trapped, all but imprisoned in his own mind.

Pike took the next plate from Una’s hands, drying it as he said, “Turns out knowing your future, kind of takes the fun out of imagining it.” He set the dried plate on top of the stack to be put away and returned for another.

“Chris,” Una started, hands stalling in the sink. “Have you considered that maybe your fate isn’t written?”

Oh, it was written alright.

He remembered the moment he had taken the time crystal from Tenavik, the crystalline sound of fate ringing in like a chorus of bells signaling transubstantiation. The inexplicable spark that had coursed through him, the certainty. Burning acetylene bonding him to his future. In that moment, he had felt fate inscribe itself on his very soul.

But Una would never accept evidence so insubstantial. So he gave her something more concrete.

Pike reached over the counter and took the plate from her. “Dusty Swender. T’quiel Dawn. Muliq Al Alcazar. Yuuto Hoshide. Andrea Lopez. I could keep going,” he added, walking back to the sink and leaning against the countertop. “These are the kids I save when it happens.”

“You know their names,” Una said in quiet realization.

After Kiley 279 and the ensuing fallout, he’d told her about what the time crystal had shown him because as his first officer, she needed to know. Because he needed her to check him if his knowledge ever began to compromise his judgement. But he’d only told her what would happen to him in the most clinical of terms; he hadn’t told her how he’d lived it. How he’d left Boreth with the memories of the man he would become and the echos of his pain permanently seared into his flesh. Only one other person knew the true extent of what he had experienced, and even telling her…

He felt it once more, the sensation of his flesh melting from his bones, the heart-wrenching agony of knowing that he couldn’t save two of those kids, the feeling of entrapment of a sound mind inside a useless body.  

He couldn’t describe it again, couldn’t speak those words aloud. It was too much. Too much pain, too much fear, and the words stalled in his throat while internally he cried out in agony and horror.

Instead, he left Una with the realization that he had played more than simple witness to his future and told her, “Lately, I’ve been saying them over and over again, like a reminder.” He twirled his finger next to his head as he repeated his silent mantra out loud. “Stay the course, save their lives.”

And then repeated it again in his head.

Stay the course, save their lives.

…save their lives.

He could do that. He would do that.

“I refuse to believe there isn’t another way.” Una’s words drew him out of his own head. She was looking at him with that intense gaze of hers, but it was softened. A rarity for Una.

Her conviction should have been comforting, and in any other situation, it might have been. But Pike had traded his future for the time crystal they’d needed to send Discovery to the future. He had chosen his fate. Sealed it.

There will be no escaping it.

There was no other way.

The fate he had seen was imprinted on his future like footprints in the snow. All he could do now was follow them into torment.

Service. Sacrifice. Compassion. Love.

He wanted to tell her not to worry about him, that he had already made peace with his sacrifice. But fear still lurked in the back of his mind like a hungry beast, haunting, waiting, and he didn’t know how to speak without setting it free.

Instead, Pike forced a smile that held none of the reassurance he wanted to convey and took the wet plate from Una’s hands.

The chime of an incoming comm broke the ensuing silence. “Bridge to Captain Pike. I have Admiral Cornwell for you, sir.”

Pike set down the now dry plate on top of the stack of clean dishes and walked over to the comm unit. “Thank you, Ensign. Route her through to my quarters please.”

By the time he walked back into the kitchen, Una was handing him another dripping plate and Kat’s face replaced the usual forest scene on the screen on the back wall. “Admiral,” he greeted formally given Una’s presence and took the plate before any more water could drip onto the floor.

“Captain.” On the screen, Kat frowned, her eyes flicking towards Una. “Is this a bad time?”

“Not at all.” He smiled because suddenly, all morbid thoughts of his impending fate dissipated like smoke. She had a way of doing that, of reassuring him, grounding him even without actually being present. “We were just cleaning up from dinner.”

“Oh yes. The crew dinner. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll have another one when you get here so you can meet everyone.”

“Not that he needs an excuse to throw a party,” interjected Una from the sink.

Pike tossed her a frown that she didn’t see, and on the screen, Kat was stifling a laugh behind her mug. “How was it?” she asked.

“Poor cadet Uhura had a rough go of it,” Una said, passing him another plate to dry.

Kat narrowed her eyes at Pike and oh shit, he had forgotten just how terrifying she could be. “What did you do?” she demanded.

“Nothing!” Pike insisted, throwing his hands up innocently, dish towel arching like a white flag through the air. Kat continued to glare at him, waiting for an answer. “Scout’s honor,” Pike said, drawing an X over his heart.

“Poor thing got tricked into wearing her dress uniform,” Una finally explained, and Pike couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips.

“Chris,” Kat admonished.

Una turned off the the water and faced them, drying her hands on a towel.  “And then Spock and Hemmer tried to trip her up, but I think she got them in the end. Rather brilliantly, I might add.”

Pike laughed again. “It was. Admiral, you should have—” Kat’s intensified glare cut him off. “What? It’s tradition to haze the cadet.”

Una shrugged. “He does have a point, Admiral.”

“I don’t care—”

Kat was interrupted by Spock’s comm from the bridge. “Captain Pike to the bridge. There is a problem with the comet.”

Pike gave Kat an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Admiral. I’m gonna have to call you back.”

“Not a problem. Good luck with your comet.”

“Thank you. Pike out.” Pike clicked off the call and set down the plate he had been drying. “I’ll see you on the bridge,” he said to Una, and went to the bedroom to change his shirt.

“Chris.” Una’s voice stopped him in the living room and he turned around to face her. “Is there something going on between you and the admiral?”

That was the heat of the fire he felt on his face, right?

Pike schooled his expression into something he hoped resembled neutrality. “What do you mean?”

Una shrugged. “Just that this was the third time she’s called you this week.”

“So?”

“Chris, it’s Tuesday.”

Oh.

The second it took Pike to restart his brain was probably long enough for Una to pick up on the fact that he was hiding something. Because he and Kat had agreed to wait to go public with their relationship, he scrambled for an excuse, settling on a lame, “She’s my friend.”

Thankfully Una didn’t press him. “You’d tell me if there was anything I should know?”

“Of course,” he said, hating it for the white lie it was.

Una nodded once and then left for the bridge.

***

After all was said and done and the comet was diverted, Pike poured himself a drink in his ready room and called Admiral Cornwell back. Or tried to. She didn’t answer, but she was probably working. Or sleeping—what time was it in San Francisco anyway? So he left a message.

“Hey. Sorry about earlier. Actually, I supposed that was yesterday at this point. Anyway, good news: crisis averted, the crazy space monks—as Erica calls them—are appeased, and the comet—” He stopped. That was not something he wanted to talk about in a video message. “Actually, I’ll tell you about the comet—and the crazy space monks—when we talk. I’m not really sure what to think about it. Anyway. Talk to you later. Love you.”  

Clicking off the call, he leaned back in his chair and took a sip of brandy.

A prophesying comet of all things. He chuckled. Space really was weird. But damn it if he didn’t love every moment of it.

The door chime was unexpected given the hour, but he called a quick, “Come.”

Una walked into the room, hands clasped behind her back, crossing to his desk with even strides.

“Everything okay on the bridge, Number One?”

“Yes. I just came to see if there was anything you needed.”

Pike levered himself from his chair—an arduous task given how long he’d been awake by this point. “Join me for a drink,” he said, walking around his desk. He motioned for her to join him in the seating area and poured her a glass of brandy. “Crazy day, huh?” he said, handing her the glass and touching it with his own.

“I’ll say.”

Pike gestured for her to sit down, but sight of the comet drew him to the viewport. He watched it for a moment. “A little piece of ice and dust roaming through space,” he mused, “brings life.” He could hardly fathom it, that such a seemingly inconsequential rock fragment could have such a massive impact. Persephone would be forever changed because of it. It seemed impossible. And the message they had received from the comet…

He shook his head and turned away. Those were thoughts for another night.

“I bet you not one of us could have predicted how,” Una said as he settled himself into the chair across from her with a small chuckle. “I’ll give you that,” he said. That Spock could have had a hand in it, that the comet would have known beforehand… He would have thought it impossible if he didn’t already know better.

“So,” Una continued, “just because you receive a message from the future doesn’t mean you understand it.”

“We’re not talking about the comet anymore, are we?” he asked warily.

Una set her drink down on the side table, folded her hands together, and looked at him gravely. “Don’t throw your life away, Chris.”

Definitely not the comet.

He should have known that she wouldn’t let it go so soon. Una didn’t accept no-win scenarios; it was part of what made her an invaluable first officer. It had taken weeks for Pike to see his future as anything other than his impending death; he couldn’t expect her to see it as anything but the same after only a few days.

“Number One…”

“I know you had a vision of the future, but…”

“I made a choice. I accepted my fate,” he explained gently, hoping it would be enough. “It…”

It’s not about me.

His future was bigger than him, but how could he even begin to explain that to her?  

His life for those kids. Ensuring it would happen for the galaxy. He wouldn’t make a different choice. He couldn’t. It hadn’t ever been a choice. Not really. Not for him.

“It goes beyond my own life,” he said simply.

“What if you’re wrong?” she questioned vehemently. “What if you got that message so could save those kids and that’s it? What if you don’t have to ruin your life, too? How do you know you can’t make a different choice? One that saves all of you?” She leaned forward. “What if your fate is what you make it?”

“Una…”

He knew that she was just trying to help in her own way, but he needed her to let this go because he couldn’t think about different possibilities, different outcomes, different futures. Futures in which he is whole and unbroken. Futures in which he can continue to be the man he wants to be rather than the man he will become. He had only just come to terms with the future that would be, made peace with it and with his future self. He couldn’t consider alternatives. Doing so only brought forth the fear—now carefully tucked away beneath layers of therapy—that had chased him away from Enterprise. Even just thinking about it felt like tearing a piece of himself from the bone.

Stay the course…

It’s not an end.

…save their lives.

It’s the start of something new.

New.

Different.

It’s not an end.

Stay the course...

He needed her to understand that what was going to happen to him wasn’t the end. It wasn’t death.

It wasn’t.

If things happened to turn out differently than what he had seen, then so much the better. He was terrified of what was going to happen, and he probably always would be. But he wasn’t going to live in fear of his fate, he wasn’t going to waste time trying to undo the choice he had already made, and he wasn’t going to stop living. Not now, not then.

But anything more he would have said was interrupted by Cadet Uhura’s voice over the comm. “Bridge to Captain Pike. Sir, I have Admiral Cornwell returning your call.”

Under the weight of his previous thoughts, Pike heaved himself from his chair and walked to the comm unit. “Thank you, Cadet. Please route it to my quarters and tell her I’ll be right there.”

“Aye sir.”

One look at Una’s face when he turned around and Pike knew he was caught. “Is it serious?” she asked.

Pike opened his mouth to refute her suspicion, his mind racing to come up with an explanation, but he quickly realized that there was no point. Una was too observant to even bother trying, and he let his denial slip away on a sigh. “Yeah. It’s serious.”

“Does she know about…?” Una raised an eyebrow, giving him a pointed look.

“Oh yeah,” he said, chuckling at the thought of just how much Kat knew. “She knows.”

Was that…chagrin he detected on Una’s face?  

Una didn’t do wrong very well—she didn’t have a lot of practice at it—and he almost wanted to call her out on it.

See? I’m not throwing my life away, Number One.

But it was gone almost a quickly as it had appeared, and Pike recognized that he had hurt her with his secrets, the white lie he had told her after dinner. A pang of guilt lanced through him, and he couldn’t bring himself to even tease her now.

But Una was smiling softly. “Good. I’m happy for you, Chris. For you both.”

He hadn’t been looking for her approval, but unexpectedly it meant more to him than he had thought possible. “Thank you, Number One.”

Una stood, looking like she was going to leave but turned her gaze back to him. “Just don’t…”

Pike raised a brow. “Yes?”

“Don’t throw it out the airlock when it gets too serious. Or too complicated. Or too difficult.”

Pike thought about arguing. It was his first reaction, to balk at the assumption that he sabotaged his relationships (he didn’t, right?). But he swallowed the words because it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because he wan’t going to sabotage this one.

Katrina was the one good thing he was holding onto, the light that had filled the dark hole Boreth had left inside him. She knew exactly what would happen to him and, as surprising as it still was, she hadn’t run away. She loved him anyway.

She had held his heart since first he laid eyes on her, and now she was so inextricably tied to him, he couldn’t let her go if he tried. Not even if she cut his heart from his chest and threw it at his feet. He would still be on his knees before her, holding on to the last fraying threads that bound them together.

So rather than argue, he cleared his throat and said, “That’s not going to happen.”

Una nodded. “Good. Goodnight, Captain.”

“Goodnight, Number One.”

The doors closed behind her, leaving him alone with his thoughts until finally, he made his way to his quarters and the call that was waiting for him.

Chapter Text

Captain Pike didn’t remember the walk from his ready room to his quarters and yet, somehow, he was there. He looked around the darkened living room, noting distantly that perhaps he should increase the lighting, but he was far too preoccupied to be bothered by something as inconsequential as proper illumination.

Retrieving a glass, he poured himself a measure of brandy and drank it far too quickly given the quality of the liquor. But rather than steady his turbulent emotions, the alcohol only seemed to further muddy his thoughts.

A chirping ping rang in his ears, incessant, as if he’d lost his hearing. Shaking his head, he poured another drink and took a sip—as if more alcohol would fix the problem—but that ping wouldn’t stop.

Oh.

Belatedly, he realized that it was the reminder he’d programmed.

Among the haze of grief and worry currently fogging his mind now also swirled guilt. How could he have forgotten?

He silenced the notification and left the unhelpful brandy on the counter as he went into the bedroom to make the scheduled call.

As soon as she answered his call, Admiral Cornwell’s expression said that she knew he wasn’t making a social call. And he wasn’t. At least, not completely.

It was their scheduled comm time; today it just so happened to coincide with one hell of a heart-rending mission and his first officer’s potentially career-ending confession. There wasn’t any point in trying to hide his emotions, and he didn’t know why he even tried.

Ingrained stoicism?

Should he thank his father for that?

He supposed that it didn’t matter where it came from, only that he recognized the tendency. At least, that’s what the woman on the screen would tell him.

On the comm terminal, Kat’s eyebrows drew down in concern. “What’s wrong?”

Pike sat with a thump on the hard platform at end of his bed. “Crappy mission.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The question was genuine, not just the therapist in her coming out to help him, and Pike knew that she would let it go if he did.

But could he? Did he want to?

He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not since Spock had told him that the ethereal lifeforms that had saved their lives were the dead Illyrian colonists. Spirits. Ghosts of a tragic desire to join a Federation that would never have accepted them for who they were.

The words, when he spoke them, came out hollow. Empty shells of events devoid of emotion or meaning. Dry, brittle husks tumbling from his mouth, revealing himself to be just as empty of his previously stalwart faith. Could the organization he swore to uphold truly be so blind? “We were studying an abandoned Illyrian colony trying to figure out what had happened to them,” he said. “Spock and I got caught in an ion storm. We probably would have died. The ghosts…” Emotion crept back in. Disbelief first, followed closely by gratitude. “…they saved our lives.”

He still could hardly believe it. But the fact that he was alive was proof that it had happened. And Pike supposed that stranger things had occurred in space than flesh and blood people transforming into non-corporeal beings.

“And they…” Pike trailed off with a heavy sigh and scrubbed a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. This isn’t your job yet.”

“Chris, you are not a job,” Kat said gently. Then gentler still, “Tell me.”

He felt his mouth open, the words catch in his throat. God! He wished she were here. He’d come to rely on her presence in Montana, her patience and strength, the touch of her hand that could quell even the most tumultuous of emotions.   

“The colonists,” he said, the words eked out around the tempest now raging in his chest, “they died. All of them. They renounced their genetic modifications—the ones that allowed them to live in that hellish environment—so that they could join the Federation and it got them killed.” He recognized the rising tone of his voice, the violence in the movement of his arm as he gestured towards the planet, but he couldn’t help it. The tragedy of it all wasn’t merely unjust; it was wrong.

“And you’re angry.”

“You’re damn right I’m angry!” Pike snapped, letting his rage rear its monstrous head as he launched himself to his feet. “After all this time the Federation is just as scared as it ever was. Those colonists, their spirits or ghosts, they saved my life. Spock’s life. But it won’t change anything. Our findings won’t change anything. So, tell me, Admiral,” he added scathingly. “What did they die for?” The question came out clipped, each word individually forced through clenched teeth as he stared at her, demanding an answer he had no right to demand from her but demanded anyway. For the colonists. For Una. For the next Illyrians the Federation’s fear and prejudice would endanger. He demanded it because for an ugly second, all he saw was her badge, a symbol of authority upholding the very laws that had killed those colonists and would condemn Una to prison if anyone ever learned who she really was. And, however unfairly, he flung all his rage and hurt and grief and fear at her in retaliation, knowing it was wrong, and doing it anyway.

On the screen, Kat studied him with a clinical eye, evaluating, trying to figure him out. But he didn’t want to be evaluated. He didn’t want to be assessed. He needed to protect Una. Kat was too damn perceptive, too damn good at her job. If she got a read on him, she would figure out that he was hiding something. And then it was only a matter of time until she found out what he was hiding. And if she did, would she uphold that bigoted law and have Una arrested?

Try it.

No.

That was unfair. He didn’t think Kat would turn Una in, but she would be obligated to, and for that, he couldn’t tell her. It was too big a risk. If not her, then it would be someone else. And someone else would find out, because that was how secrets worked. As soon as you gave one a crack, it burst through the dam, surging and surging like a newly freed river until everyone knew your secret. And if Kat knew and she didn’t turn Una in, they could come after her, too. He couldn’t risk it.

So he kept quiet and told himself that it wasn’t his secret to tell, hating himself for lying to her. Because while it might not be his secret, but it was his lie.

Damn it, Una!

He would lie to Starfleet, challenge them if it ever came down to it. But now he was lying to the woman he loved.

Is this how Una felt every day? Lying to everyone about who and what she was? Lying to the people she loved? Living with the gnawing guilt inside her stomach day in and day out?

How the hell do you do it?

Perhaps it got easier to live with in time.

Thankfully, Kat didn’t ask why he cared so much. It was an inexcusable tragedy either way, but what had happened to those colonists had hit so much harder when Una had told him her secret. Because it could have been her. Starfleet had been Una’s dream since she was a child. What if she had renounced her modifications to do so?

She would be dead. Everyone on the ship would be dead because she wouldn’t have been able to cure them. Pike’s hands balled into fists at the thought.

“Nothing,” Kat said eventually, her voice a bit torn around the edges. “They died for nothing.” For a brief moment, her expression crumpled and immediately he felt like an ass for having taken his rage out on her.

He sighed, deflating, hands unclenching, and looked at her apologetically. “I’m sorry. That was unfair.”

She nodded slightly. “I’m sorry too.”

Another breath. More anger and resentment released, and he sat back down, weary legs crumbling without the rage to hold him upright. “Will this be classified?”

“An entire colony dead because they wanted to join the Federation? I can almost guarantee it.”

Somehow, that seemed more wrong than the initial tragedy.

Pike breathed out, head hung as he leaned with elbows on his knees. “People should know. People deserve to know.”

“I agree. But it’s not that simple.” This time, those sharp, clinical eyes were turned not to him, but to an indistinct point beyond his head, and even through the screen, he could see the cogs of her mind turning. Assessing. Evaluating.

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing yet.”

“But something?”

Kat leaned forward, chin in hand. “Maybe. Have you submitted your report yet?”

“No, I…” Got distracted by Una…

“You might want to hurry up and do that on the double.” She drummed her fingers on her desk twice in rapid succession as if in impatience. Pike frowned. Then she did it again and he caught on. Double. Duplicate.

Duplicate.

“Yes. Of course. I’ll get right on that, Admiral.”

“Good.”

A little bit of the crushing grief weighing on him lifted just knowing that she was on his side, that she was already considering courses of action. When Katrina Cornwell set her mind to something, it usually got done.

Kat sat back in her chair. “Now, aside from the mission, how are you? How’s the ship?”

Consciously, he avoided her first question and answered only the second. “An epidemic swept through the ship while we were down there.”

“Is everyone alright?”

“Yeah. Chapel and M’Benga found a cure.” The vague explanation was true enough. But it was another secret. Another lie of omission. Quickly, he pushed the thought away and forced a lightness into his tone when he continued. “Everyone is fine. Apparently, everyone became addicted to light of all things.”

Kat’s face grew pensive.

“What?”

“Just trying to decide if that’s more or less weird than a comet that knows its future.”

Pike laughed. “Let’s call it six of one. It’s been a weird week.”

Kat just barely covered a snort of laughter, lurching forward a little, her face scrunching up. It was cute, but she’d grow indigent if he said anything. “I’ll say.”

Pike sighed. He hadn’t been there. His entire crew sick and he’d been trapped on that planet. Not that there was anything he could have done anyway.

As if reading his thoughts, Kat asked, “Do I need to tell you that it wasn’t your fault?”

Pike huffed a small laugh at the knowing lilt in her voice. She really did know him too well. “No,” he told her honestly and pushed away the rest of his melancholy and guilt. With another sigh, he changed the subject and reached down to unbuckle his boots. “How are you? Your test is coming up, right?” The test to renew her license to practice. The test that would put her on Enterprise for a year while she oversaw her fleet counseling initiative.

“Tonight,” she replied.

Pike counted the days and mentally smacked himself. “Damn. That’s right. I forgot what day it was.”

Kat chuckled. “That’s alright. You’ve had a lot on your mind.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked, tugging off a boot. “Ready?”

“Yes. I did used to do this for a living, you know.”

“Right.” He set the first boot off to the side and pulled off the second. “But you said a lot has changed.”

“It has.” She shrugged. “But not so much that the knowledge doesn’t transfer.”

Pike set his second boot next to the first. “Well, good luck anyway. I know you’ll do great.”

“Thank you.”

“I—I should probably let you go.” Once more, he wished she was here. He was unused to needing anyone the way he had come to need her.

“I have some more time if there was something else.”

Pike shook his head. “I just…” He trailed off, unsure how the summarize his emotions.

“Yes?”

Slowly, he let out the breath he’d been holding. “I just miss you.” Now more than ever.

“I miss you too. I’ll be there in two weeks.”

“Feels like a lifetime,” he said, the words only slightly dramatized. He was rewarded with that soft half-smile, the one that made her eyes sparkle all the more even through the screen. “Is there anything else you need me to do here before you arrive?”

“No. The office looks perfect though.”

Pike smiled. “Good. Will you let me know how the test goes?”

“Of course. I’ll comm you after.”

“Thanks. Good luck. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

After Kat had deactivated the call, Pike made a copy of his after-action report for the mission to Hetemit IX and saved it to an external drive. The drive he tucked away inside a desk drawer. The report he submitted without further delay.

 Whatever Kat was planning, he hoped it worked.

For Una’s sake.

Chapter Text

Captain’s log, stardate 3175.7. Enterprise is currently en route to Finibus Three where we will deliver an atmospheric processor upgrade to the colonists there. Before we arrive, we are rendezvousing with Admiral Cornwell, who will be joining our crew on special assignment as ship’s counselor. I must admit, I await her arrival with great anticipation.

***

The curving lines of Enterprise’s hull beckoned in the vast, empty quiet of space. From the first moment she’d seen the ship in space dock, Katrina Cornwell had always thought there was an unassuming beauty about the ship. She was grand, powerful, yet also sleek and simple, strength hidden behind quiet elegance. Now, as she maneuvered the shuttle around Enterprise’s port nacelle, the shuttle bay welcoming her with open arms, Kat wasn’t struck by the ship’s beauty or grace, but rather by her resilience, and the way she swallowed her up in a mother’s embrace.    

Kat cut the thrusters, setting the shuttle down gently on the flight deck and powering down the engines. When the shutdown procedures were complete, she stood from the pilot’s seat and pressed the controls to extend the gangplank. She had to take a steadying breath as she smoothed her jacket, recognizing the unsettled feeling in her stomach for what it was.

Really, Katrina? Butterflies?

When the tiny champagne-bubble feeling rising inside her only intensified, she rolled her eyes at herself before she allowed herself to smile.

Yeah. Butterflies.

The hatch opened at the touch of a control panel, revealing Enterprise’s brightly lit shuttle bay. Captain Pike and his first officer, Una Chin-Riley, stood at attention, flanked on either side by a row of crewmen also respectfully at attention.

Kat made her way down the gangplank and as she stepped onto Enterprise’s flight deck, tritanium solid beneath her feet, the sight of the orange and yellow lights on the gray walls felt like a homecoming. Or perhaps it was the sight of the man in gold, standing in the center of the seal baring his ship’s name.

Around her, crewmen saluted and continued up the gangplank to unload and service the shuttle, but she hardly noticed them. She smiled broadly and crossed the deck.

“Admiral,” greeted Una. “Welcome back to Enterprise.”

“Thank you, Number One.” She opened her mouth to make a comment about the circumstances for her stay being better than last time but thought better of it. The events surrounding her last stay on Enterprise were not something any of them would want to revisit. Instead, she smiled at Commander Chin-Riley and then turned her gaze to Chris whereupon all rational thought immediately flew out of her head.

He was standing there with his hands clasped behind his back, expression cool and collected except for the intensity of his stare that was all pupil. “Admiral.” He said it dispassionately enough, but that one word, the sound of it, licked across her skin like white hot flame.

Kat swallowed. Hard.

And he knew it too, the bastard. He knew exactly what he was doing if that subtle lift of his lips was anything to go by.

Very well, two can play at this game.

“Captain Pike,” she said slowly, her dry mouth making the words an octave lower than her greeting to Una. 

His mouth settled back into a straight line, his throat bobbing on a swallow before he recovered and arched a brow, intrigued. Kat met him head on, eyes fixed on his, welcoming the challenge.

She was more aware of Una’s eye roll than having actually seen it, but Una rolled her eyes with her whole head, the flash of dark hair impossible to miss, and Kat could practically hear the other woman’s thoughts. “Get a room,” that unseen eye roll said. And yes, getting a room sounded like a great idea.

Pull it together, Katrina. You are a Starfleet admiral, not a love-struck teenager.

But she couldn’t help it, and if she were honest, she didn’t care. There were butterflies in her stomach, sparkling champagne bubbles telling her just how in love she was and how much she’d missed him, and for a moment, she let herself be a woman. A woman with butterflies in her stomach.

Giving up the game, she smiled.

Finally, Chris broke his stance, gesturing to the shuttle bay exit with a flash of dimples and sweep of his arm. “Admiral, if you’ll allow me.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she said and fell in beside him.

Typically, it was the first officer’s duty to escort high-ranking visitors or new personnel, but Una remained behind while Chris walked her to the turbolift. To give them privacy or to oversee the unloading of the shuttle? With Una, the chances were equal.

Chris had told her that Una had deduced that there was something going on between them and that was just fine. Eventually they would have to tell Command, file the necessary paperwork. But not yet. Now was the time to explore, to revel in the newness of love without the constant HR supervision. Besides, they would both be dead meat if they told Command before they told their mothers.

Internally, Kat shuddered. Now there was a conversation she did not want to have.

When turbolift doors opened, Chris gestured for her to enter first. The doors closed behind him with a soft whoosh, and Chris called for sickbay.

“Hi,” he breathed.

“Hi.” She couldn’t manage more than a whisper. She was finally here. After months of planning and paperwork and seemingly endless red tape, she was here. She wasn’t looking at him through a screen, and he was smiling at her in that soft way that told her he has missed her just as much, and her heart was skipping beats, and the champagne bubbles in her stomach were fizzing again, and her hands were itching to touch him.

They didn’t have time for anything more than soft smiles and long gazes though as the lift halted and the doors opened.

“Office or sickbay first?” he asked as they stepped out.

“Sickbay. Let’s get that over with.” The sooner she was cleared for duty, the sooner she would be an official member of the crew.

Even if it is only as an adjunct.  

A short walk down the corridor and the sickbay doors were opening at their approach.

Enterprise’s sickbay was bright, all white light and white walls, completely missing the pops of red that broke up the sterility throughout the rest of the ship. But Doctor M’Benga’s broad smile and outstretched hand were warm and inviting.

“Admiral! Welcome to Enterprise.”

Returning his smile, Kat clasped Doctor M’Benga’s forearm. “Doctor.”

“Let me guess,” sighed Chris, “you two know each other.”

“Admiral Cornwell and I served together during the war,” M’Benga explained.

“Ah. Right. I keep forgetting that I’m the odd man out.” There was an edge to the levity in Chris’s words that told her he still wished that he had been a part of the war, as if surviving that hell were some sort of exclusive club, and she longed to tell him, “No. No you don’t actually wish that.” She wouldn’t wish those memories on anyone.

But suddenly her chest was tight, and she couldn’t breathe properly, and she thought that perhaps starting here had been a terribly bad idea because even the thought of Chris longing for the war was enough to remind her how much he’d resented her for her decision to keep him away and how little she regretted that decision. She’d hurt him again and again if it meant keeping him alive and free from the trauma and the nightmares.

Chris had told her that he had veterans on his crew, and clearly this conversation had happened before in some way, shape, or form, and now she’d made her bond with that part of his crew all the more apparent. Because it was a bond; one she would never willingly let him share. And in the face of his guilt and remorse, she couldn’t help but wonder: did he resent her for it still? And perhaps she should have told him the moment she’d read Joesph’s name on the manifest, but she’d thought they were past this. And really, how many more times would they have to have this conversation?

“Doctor,” she forced out and by some miracle, her voice sounded level.  “Perhaps you can clear me for duty tomorrow?”

“Of course, Admiral. Your records came through yesterday. Stop by in the morning and we can take care of the technicalities.”

“Thank you.”

She was first through the door and in the corridor she rounded on Chris. “You don’t actually—”

He raised a hand to stall her. “No. I don’t.”

She nodded and looked back to the sickbay doors.

“I should have realized…” Chris started and trailed off as a trio of unsuspecting crew members walked past with polite nods and quiet acknowledgments of “Captain,” and “Admiral.”

When they were gone, Kat began, “Perhaps I should have said…” But then she paused, noticing two more crewmen coming down the corridor.

More polite nods and tense smiles.

And perhaps they shouldn’t be having this conversation in the corridor, but as soon as the coast was clear, she told him, “I don’t regret it.”

“I know,” he told her. “And I wouldn’t trade it. It’s just…hard sometimes. It’s like constantly missing the punchline of a joke everyone else is laughing at even though I know that I don’t want to know.”

Except no one is laughing at this one.

Chris sighed. “Look, Kat…” They were quiet as another crewman walked past. “What you survived, the war, it’s a hurt I can neither fully understand nor ever heal. So where does that leave me?”

It was Kat’s turn to sigh. “On the outside looking in.” She met his gaze.

“I can’t promise that I’ll ever get over sitting out the war,” he said. “But I can promise you that I understand, and that I’m trying.”

She nodded again because she couldn’t ask for more than that. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

This time, if there were crewmen walking by in the silence, she didn’t notice them. She was too lost in the look on his face, his eyes that echoed the same conviction she’d seen during another conversation in another place when he’d told her that he’d make the same decision she had were their places reversed.

Kat breathed out, loosed the tension between them, and gave him a small smile. He returned it and then cleared his throat.

“Now, can I show you to your new office?” He was grinning like a schoolboy, excited and proud, and she couldn’t help but grin back.

“Lead the way.”

He led her down the corridor, one door down from sickbay and across the hall, and pressed the controls to unlock the door.

The office was basically the same sparse room he’d shown her two weeks ago: plain white walls and straight-lined furniture chosen by a contractor at starship facilities who no doubt actually believed it to be stylish and vogue but had without question never actually sat in one of those chairs. The room was separated into a work area with a large desk and a sitting area with a couch and armchairs positioned around a low coffee table.

It was all functional but impersonal at the moment, in need of personality and perhaps a throw pillow or two to make those chairs bearable. But clearly an attempt had been made to warm up the space. She recognized the wide pottery bowl—the one with the abstract horses painted on the inside, the one she had said that she liked—from Chris’s ready room on Discovery, though the horses were currently hidden beneath a mound of bright green apples. Behind the desk, an aerial shot of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline, taken from the Marin side of the bay, hung in a black frame, and the fresh flowers in the heavy crystal vase on the desk had filled with room with the scent of jasmine and roses.

She thought it sweet that he had made the effort; already the office felt like hers.

And then it hit her.

This wasn’t just her office. This was her practice. This was where her patients would come to discuss their concerns, work through their traumas, and, hopefully, heal.

“Hey.”

Startled, she turned to look at Chris.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking around the room once more. Tomorrow she would hang her diplomas on the wall, display her credentials, and officially become Doctor Cornwell once more. It was…exciting. This was what she had joined Starfleet to do, what she had been working towards since she’d made the switch to command. Decades of training and hard work culminating into this one space. “Yeah, I really am.”

Chris took her hand and squeezed gently.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

Their next stop was the bridge, where Kat didn’t miss the sly smile on Chris’s face after he called out a sharp, “Admiral on deck.”

There were plenty of new faces standing at attention, but the sight of the streaking stars on the view screen was achingly familiar.

“Welcome back, Admiral Cornwell,” said Spock from the science station.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Una nodded from where she stood in front of the command chair. “Admiral.”

Kat thought the tour might be done after that, but Chris showed her to the mess hall, then the bar. She tried to not show her growing frustration. They hadn’t so much as shaken hands since Starbase One and he was leading her on a tour of the ship as if she hadn’t actually been here before. It was maddening.

Finally, just as she was about to say something, they stepped inside the turbolift and he grasped the control handle, calling for quarters.

When the lift doors closed, he looked at her, brow raised. “Separate quarters?”

Kat smiled humorlessly at the reminder of Admiral April’s…advice. “It was not a suggestion.”

April suspected something given her time in Montana, but she had neither confirmed nor denied his suspicions about her and Chris.

She also hadn’t argued with him, though, because April was technically her superior and he had a say in her posting, not to mention Chris’s, and after Kiley 279, the last thing she wanted to do was put Chris under further scrutiny from the brass. When she thought about it rationally, April was probably only looking out for their best interests as well. And besides, this relationship was new. There would no doubt come a time when they both wanted their own space.

However, superior or not, Admiral April did not have a say about what—or who—she did in her bed. And so, she had requisitioned quarters for herself. Whether or not she used them, or used them alone, was not his or anyone else’s concern.

“Ah,” Chris said in understanding.

Kat turned to face him. “I don’t anticipate it being a problem though. Do you?”

“No. Could be fun. I haven’t had to sneak around since I was a lieutenant.” He waggled his eyebrows lasciviously at her and then faced forward again.

Kat swallowed a snort of laughter. She didn’t think Christopher Pike had ever “snuck around.” But if he wanted to pretend, who was she to stop him?

His hand brushed against hers, the motion deliberate even in the confined space of the lift. His skin was pleasantly warm and rough against hers, sending what she swore was an electric current through her fingers and causing her to inhale sharply. He noticed, of course he did. The turbolift was too small and too quiet for him to not, and he looked at her with eyes bright with desire, searing her with ice-blue fire as he looked her up and down.

Her heart rate picked up, her mouth went dry, and her breathing became ragged.

She wanted him.

She’d wanted him since he walked out of her quarters on Starbase One after his mission to Kiley 279. They had talked nearly every day since then, but sex over the comm had been out of the question. Too impersonal. Too…awkward. Plus, Starfleet said it didn’t spy on its officers’ personal calls, but the possibility was too real and the notion too uncomfortable to even consider.

And so she had waited.

And waited again after she’d gotten here for him to lead her on this silly tour for appearance’s sake.

In the small space of the lift, she could hear his own breath turn jagged, the sound of it telling her that he, too, was not unaffected by the waiting.

But then the doors parted, and he led her down the corridor to the same VIP stateroom she’d occupied during her last stay on Enterprise, just down the corridor from his.

“Your things should have been brought up already,” he said, “but if anything is missing, do let me know.”

Kat nodded.

“And now, Admiral, if you would join me for dinner in my cabin?” Chris offered a gentlemanly arm which she took with a smile and a formal, “Of course. Thank you, Captain.”

His arm was warm even through the fabric of his uniform, and walking this close to him, she could practically feel the heat radiating from him. She had forgotten just how hot he ran, and she’d missed it. Missed the heat of his chest against her back, the warmth of his arms surrounding her like a blanket.

Finally, they reached his quarters, he typed in the access code, and they stepped inside. The doors closed behind them and she released his arm, but rather than pull her close and kiss her, or scoop her up and carry her to bed, he walked into the kitchen, seemingly oblivious to the arousal that had been building within her since he’d greeted her in the shuttle bay.

It was a let down so fierce, all she could do was gape at him as he rummaged through a cabinet, and asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

“No.”

“I was planning to make primavera, but if you want something different—”

Kat groaned. “I swear to god, Pike, if you make one more excuse not to fuck me right now, I will demote your ass back—”

She was cut off by his hands on her face, his fingers in her hair, curling behind her head, his lips crashing against hers, his tongue invading her mouth, his taste, his scent surrounding her, heady and intoxicating, his body hard and warm and so damn good against hers. With him pressed against her, she didn’t know where to touch him first: his wrists, his face, his hair, his neck. Nowhere was enough, and after so long, everywhere was new again.

He pulled back, still holding her face in his hands, and looked down at her. “Now. What was that you were saying?”

“I…I don’t remember,” she breathed.

Chris hummed in approval. “Good.” And then he was kissing her again.

His leg between hers urged her back a step, and then another, and there was the wall, solid and unyielding against her back. She let it support her because his hand was trailing up her side, tugging down the zipper on her jacket, and the feel of his other hand on the back of her neck was like a brand, the heat of him seeping into her skin, marking, claiming, and, welcoming his touch, she yielded, sighing into his mouth. His other hand was under her shirt, teasing the sensitive skin over her ribs as his lips moved along her jaw, kissing his way to her neck. Her breath came in shallow pants as his hand moved up, his palm covering her breast, and even through the thin padding of her bra, she could feel his touch brushing against her nipple. Kat moaned, clutching at his shoulders, and only his thigh between her legs kept her from sinking to the floor.

“Chris.” Her voice sounded needy even to her own ears. His lips sucked at that perfect spot on her neck and his thumb stroked over her nipple, rasping back and forth as she wantonly ground herself against his leg. “Chris…”

Without warning her jacket was wrenched down her arms, tossed to the side, her shirt was pulled up and over her head, and when he went to his knees to remove her boots and pants, he did not rise, but watched her intently as he kissed the inside of her thigh before he settled her leg over his shoulder. And then he was kissing her, tongue darting between her nether lips, fingers stroking with an expert touch until she was trembling, whimpering and shaking and crying out at the force of her climax.

She was unsteady on her feet when he lowered her leg and stood, holding onto him for balance even as she urged him to remove his shirt. And when she knelt before him to return the favor, she did so with equal fervor, teasing him with coy smiles as she peeled down his pants, then with gentle licks and the lightest of touches until he groaned her name and his erection leapt in her hand.

He pulled her up, claiming her mouth with a passionate kiss that left her unsteady for a wholly different reason. She clung to him, relishing the way his muscles moved beneath her hands as his own moved over her, holding her hip hard against him, trailing down her spine and between her buttocks, rousing her desire once more.

“Chris,” she breathed again as he kissed her neck, biting gently. “I need…”

She half expected him to fuck her against the wall, and she half wanted him to, but that was not his style. Not like this. Not after weeks of separation and pining and waiting. No. Chris would take his time. And he did. Lifting her from the floor and urging her to wrap her legs around his waist, he carried her to bed where he made love to her beneath the stars streaking past the viewport, until those same stars burst in a kaleidoscope of pleasure as she arched, wide-eyed, when he brought her to climax once more before he buried his face in her neck and she held him close as he shuddered with the force of his own release, murmuring her name over and over.

***

“I missed you,” Kat said later, her head next to his on the pillows, her fingers carding through his hair, the light scrape of her nails against his scalp sending shivers of pleasure through his body.

“I missed you, too,” Pike murmured, his own fingers running absently up and down her spine, tracing nonsensical patterns over her skin.

“Tomorrow is Remembrance Day.”

His fingers froze on her back. Not exactly his favorite day of the year. “Yeah.”

“I have something for you.”

She extracted herself from his embrace and slipped from bed, padding naked to where her jacket lay crumpled on the floor. When she came back, she didn’t crawl beneath the sheets but rather sat on the edge of the bed angled toward him, feet resting on the wooden platform.

Confusion tugging at his brows, Pike sat up. Kat held out her closed fist, and he automatically opened his palm beneath her hand.

“I know it might draw some unwanted attention, and you probably shouldn’t wear it,” she said, dropping her gift into his hand, “but I thought you might want it anyway.”

Pike was motionless as he looked at his palm where now lay a very new, very shiny remembrance pin for the USS Discovery.

A hundred questions raced through his mind as he stared at the pin his hand— How had she gotten it? How many mandates had she skirted? How many people had she sworn to secrecy to get it made? —but none of them mattered. Nothing mattered in the face of the memories that assaulted him, the faces of his former crew, lost not to death but to time.

He closed his fingers around the pin, gripped it tight, eyes clenched shut to keep the tears at bay. They had lost so many that day in a battle waged to determine the fate of the galaxy.

And she had very nearly been one of them.

The hard edges of the pin dug painfully into the creases of his fingers.

“Hey.” Kat’s voice, the soft weight of her hand on his knee atop the covers drew him back, and he opened his eyes to her concerned expression. “I’m sorry, I thought—”

“No. It’s perfect. Thank you.” And then he drew her into a kiss. “Come here,” he said, urging her back into bed. She looked at him, uncertain, and Pike knew she was going to question him. “Please. I just need…” He couldn’t put the need into words, but she let him draw her back under the covers and pull her close.

Pike released a shaky breath, tucked her head beneath his chin, and pressed his cheek to her hair, breathing in the familiar rosemary and mint scent of her shampoo.

She was here. She was alive. And for some reason unbeknownst to him, he was allowed to hold her. To touch her, to love her, though he knew not what he had done to deserve it. He had almost lost her. More than once. But by some miracle, each time she had been returned to him.

He, better than anyone, knew the precarious nature of life, how truly short it was. How precious each and every moment was. And this moment, holding her in the warm afterglow, this was one he wanted to live forever.

He might not ever understand what he had done to deserve the woman in his arms, or why she had chosen him, or how, after all this time, their paths had finally crossed at the right time, like stars colliding in the night. He might not ever believe himself or his future worthy of her, but with her arms around him, he knew that he was worth something.

But in that moment, he realized that he didn’t need to know why or how. He didn’t need anything more than the feeling of her skin against his, and he wasn’t going to waste time questioning why God or the universe or fate had seen fit to give her to him. He would simply endeavor to love her the way she deserved for as long as he was allowed.

He tightened his embrace and pressed a kiss to her hair. Nothing was certain in life; except for this. Except for his murmured, “I love you,” against her head and the same words whispered against his chest. Nothing was certain except the fact that she was here.

She was alive.

Eventually, they would get up, he would make dinner—primavera like he’d planned, with freshly grated Parmesan and the small-batch olive oil he’d gotten from that little farm outside of Siece. He would pour them each a glass of wine—that Chianti he’d been saving—and light the candles on the counter while they ate because it had been too long since he’d seen fire light up her face.

Eventually, he would face reality again. Come morning, he would wear a brave face, give a speech to the crew about the cost of exploration, and he would honor the dead, grateful that he wasn’t wearing a pin to remember her. Eventually his fate—for good or ill—would catch up to him, and he would face that moment when it came.

Eventually.

For now, he held her and counted his blessings.

It was enough.

Chapter Text

There was no dawn on a starship, but Remembrance Day dawned and found Kat still in Chris’s bed where she woke warm and happy, burrowed beneath the blankets and the weight of Chris’s arm.

“Good morning,” Chris said sleepily after silencing the alarm.

“Good morning.” Kat rolled onto her back, yawning and stretching languidly.

Chris leaned over and kissed her. “I’m glad you stayed.”

It had been a near thing. But after dinner, the significance of the pin still hovering between them, she’d gotten the sense that he needed her to stay rather than slink back to her own quarters for propriety’s sake.

“Me too,” she said honestly.

“I’m going to get a run in before watch. Want to join?”

She was cozy beneath the blankets, comfortably nestled in the warm spot he had relinquished upon waking, but after spending two days in a shuttle, her legs were begging for the exercise. So, after going to her quarters to change and pulling her hair back into a ponytail, they headed to deck six where she agreed to join him for five of his planned ten kilometers but kept going after they’d passed six just to wipe that stupid smirk off his face.  

“‘Just five’?” he questioned when they had finished. They were both sweaty and breathing hard, and Kat particularly liked the way Chris’s damp shirt clung to his chest.

Kat wiped the sweat from her forehead with her arm. “Figured I might as well go all the way,” she explained and bent over to stretch her hamstring while they waited for the lift. “Pace was easy enough.” She grinned up at his expression of mock offense.

The lift opened and she straightened as two ensigns exited with wide-eyed and tongue-tied greetings of “Captain” and “Admiral.” Their curious whispers followed her and Chris into the lift where, when the doors closed, they exchanged stifled smiles that turned quickly into unsuppressed laughter.

They stretched in her quarters, partly because they were closest to the lift and partly because she knew that he wouldn’t if she didn’t make him.

“What are you doing today?” Chris asked, bending forward over his right leg.

“Technically I need to let Joseph finally clear me for duty before I do anything.” She released her right leg and straightened it, crossed her left leg over her right and twisted her torso, pushing her left knee across her body with her right elbow. “But then I suppose I’ll finish setting up the office. Oh, that reminds me. Before you go, will you pull that crate down, please?” She nodded to the stack of storage crates against the wall where the crewmen had—most likely unwittingly—stacked the heaviest crate on top.

If it had only been two crates high, she could have managed it on her own, but they were sitting stacked three high, and she would certainly struggle to get the top one down without putting her back, not to mention her toes and the nearby furniture, at risk. And she supposed that she could have gone to facilities for an anti-grav lift, but really. He was right there.

“Not a problem.” Chris sat up and stood.

The crates were large and bulky, and stacked three high they were almost as tall as he was. He reached up to pull down the top one, but it was clear the crate was heavier than he’d anticipated.

“Geez!” he exclaimed, arms straining to keep ahold of the awkward crate. He set it down with a heavy thump, narrowly avoiding dropping it atop his toes. “What do you have in this thing? Rocks?”

Kat stifled a laugh and extended both legs out in front of her and bent forward. “If I said shoes, would you believe me?”

Chris glanced at her feet. “Sweetheart, we wear uniforms. Your shoes are literally stored inside the ship.”

It took her a moment to process the endearment, and when she did, she found that she liked it. (Of course Chris would be a “sweetheart” guy.) The word made her heart constrict and caused champagne bubbles to sparkle in her stomach, and she smiled at him.

“Fine,” she conceded. “That one is books.”

He looked at her, his expression somewhere between appalled and impressed. “You filled this entire thing with books?”

“Well, maybe not the entire thing.”

Chris narrowed his eyes at her.

“I filled the rest of it with rocks,” she said with a smirk.

He laughed and shook his head. “I’ve got to go.” He bent to plant a kiss on her forehead before he left. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said, walking to the door. “Facilities requisition forms. Maintenance requests. A stone hauler for those rocks.”

If she were any less mature, Kat would have stuck her tongue out at his retreating back. But seeing as she was, in fact, a Starfleet admiral, and already seated on the floor at that, she flung her sweaty workout towel at him instead. He saw it coming, though, and skirted around the bulkhead with a bark of laughter, and the towel sailed benignly through the closing doors before landing in a limp heap in the middle of the corridor. He was still laughing when the doors snapped shut.

***

She woke up on the floor, in the indifferent embrace of the cold, hard deck plating. The corridor was dark, dim red light pulsing in the acrid smoke filling the hall. Bodies littered the deck, a few of them stumbling to their feet, most of them lying motionless. Just beyond the curtain of legs milling about in her field of vision and the hurried feet falling too close to her face, Kat caught the vacant, glassy-eyed stare of a civilian, blood slowly pooling beneath her blonde hair in a macabre halo.

White filled her vision, legs kneeling in front of her, Nurse Chapel’s concerned face, gentle fingers pressed to her neck. Chapel’s lips were moving, but Kat couldn’t hear anything beyond the high-pitched ringing in her ears.

She blinked, focused on the motion of Chapel’s lips.

“Admiral? Admiral, can you hear me?” Chapel’s voice was distant, as if she were speaking underwater, drowned out by the ringing.

What the hell?

Confused, Kat slowly pressed up to her knees, wincing as a sharp pain lanced through her head.

“Are you okay?”

She heard the question, but it was a faraway thing, well beyond the perimeter of her focus.

Kat reached up and gingerly touched the back of her head. She wasn’t bleeding, but she had definitely hit her head hard enough that the slight touch brought on another sharp pain. And not just her head; everything ached as if she’d been hit by a shuttle. Or as was more likely the case, she thought as she looked around, a tritanium wall.

The corridor was chaos, filled with smoke and debris and wounded people, voices that seemed to come from far away, and the red alert klaxon that sounded just as distant, feebly blaring in time with the throbbing in her head.

Red alert?

The last thing she remembered was asking Chief Kyle to transport a storage crate from her quarters to her office. Hanging diplomas on the wall. The taste of green apple as she looked around her newly decorated office.

She thought back. Yes. Now she remembered the first blare of the siren, people looking around in confusion.

People?

The colonists. Finibus Three. The landing party. The lone ship. Rescuing the survivors.

She remembered coming down from the bridge to help in any way she could. Children crying out in terror at the sound of the siren. The momentary panic of not knowing why they were at red alert. She remembered trying to usher everyone down the corridor, and then…

Vaguely, she recalled the explosion, the sudden feeling of weightlessness before everything went black.

“Admiral?” A hand on her shoulder drew her attention back to Nurse Chapel.

Right. She needed to answer her. “I’m fine,” she said, voice rough.  

Chapel nodded before she rose and hurried off to the next of the wounded.

Kat shook her head, trying to dispel that incessant ringing, but that seemed to only make it worse.

The ship shuddered. Weapons fire?

A shower of sparks from above glinted off something on the floor. Looking down, she saw that it was her badge, gold shining out of place amongst the dross littering the deck.

Quickly, she grabbed it and shoved it into her pocket.

All around her, people were crying, children screaming, their frightened voices finally breaking through the fog clouding her head.

Using the wall for support, Kat struggled to her feet. The deck lurched beneath her, sending her careening into the shuddering wall. The corridor spun until she clenched her eyes shut, breathing deep. Finally, it passed.

Close by, a man—a colonist— was limping down the hall, supported by a woman who was bleeding from a head wound and looking just as unsteady as the man. Kat made her way over to them and supported the man’s other side as she led them the short way to the transporter room, the man wincing in pain with every step.

They dematerialized and Kat went back out into the corridor, following the line of walking wounded towards the source of the explosion. Those who could walk on their own she directed to the turbolift to reduce the number of emergency transports to sickbay. The dead she left where they lay.

All the while the ship continued to shudder under weapons fire. Sparks and smoke rained from busted conduit, making the pulsing red light all the more ominous. And her head ached.

An ensign sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, face white with pain and shock. He was young, probably just out of the Academy.

“Can you walk?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Glancing down, Kat noticed the awkward way he was holding his leg.

“Okay. Up you get, Ensign.” She pulled his arm over her shoulder and helped him to stand. He hissed in pain as she got him to his feet but managed to stand awkwardly on one leg. “Lean on me,” she instructed.

He seemed hesitant but a particularly violent volley of fire shook the ship. They stumbled, and he only barely suppressed a scream when he tried to support himself on two legs.  

“I’ve got you, Ensign.”

Tight-lipped, he nodded.

It was harder to support him herself with the floor continuously bucking beneath their feet, but thankfully the transporter room wasn’t far, and as soon as they materialized in sickbay, a nurse was there to support his other side.

“Over here,” said the nurse, directing them to an empty bed.

Kat had to brace herself on the bed when the deck lurched again. When it passed, she nodded to the ensign and went out into the corridor.

It was then that the second explosion sounded. A sudden bloom of flame and smoke and shrapnel bursting from just beyond sickbay. Kat staggered and fell to the deck, the force of the blast sending her across the corridor until she hit the wall. On the floor, she turned away, shielding her face on instinct until the worst was over. But when she lowered her arm, she had to look.

Smoke stung her eyes, itched in the back of her throat, causing her to cough, but through it she could make out the blackened tritanium where once was a storeroom, and the devastation in the corridor.

More bodies. More debris. More screaming. Fire consuming anything it could sink its teeth into.

Bright red and gold amid the ash and smoke drew her attention to the prone form of a lieutenant not far away. He was badly burned, his right leg missing below the knee.

Forcing down the horror climbing up her throat, Kat stumbled to her feet, smoke swirling in her vision. Or was that her vision swirling in the smoke? Her breath was loud in her ears as she made her way closer, tritanium shrapnel sharp and adamantine beneath her boots. Kneeling, she pressed her fingers to his neck. He had a pulse, but it was weak.

She looked back. More medical personnel were arriving to assist the wounded.

“Over here!” she called, ripping the words from her parched and smoke-coated throat.

Nurse Chapel and another crewman rushed over with a stretcher.

“His pulse is weak.”

Kat stood back while they got the lieutenant onto the stretcher, but she stood too fast and had to steady herself against the wall, tasting green apple at the back of her throat once more as the corridor spun out of control.

“You should come with us,” Chapel said.

“I’m fine,” she replied through her teeth. “Go!”  

They did, and Kat wanted nothing more than to sink to the floor, maybe lose the apple in her stomach, but the ship rocked again. Her fingers curled against the wall as she fought back the nausea and dizziness.

They weren’t out of the woods yet.

***

They were safe for now. Their respite wouldn’t last, though. It was a fact Captain Pike was keenly aware of as Hemmer made his report. Even if they could evade the Gorn, unless Hemmer and Uhura could repair the atmospheric processor, they only had so much time until it blew.

“Is it just me or is it hot in here?” he asked the room after Hemmer had exited the call.

“The ionic gas surrounding the ship is overwhelming climate controls,” Spock explained. “Many systems are down.”

At least it’s not just me.

“Including sickbay,” Doctor M’Benga said on the screen. “Everything is off-line. We’re stabilizing patients, but without medical systems, no one is getting better. It’s triage.”

“Casualties?” Pike asked him apprehensively.

“Yes, Captain. Nine confirmed.”

The grief wasn’t sharp, but rather a dull drill bit boring into his gut. The adrenaline crash following the attack and their flight into the brown dwarf had left him too numb to feel anything more.

“How’s Una?” he asked. La’an had said that she had been wounded when she’d left her. 

“I don’t know,” M’Benga replied. “She hasn’t come in.”

Fear sliced through him like an eviscerating blade. Apparently, he could still feel. Was that a good thing?

Pike forced out a strained, “And the admiral?”

“Christine says she took a nasty hit in the initial blast, but she’s been bringing patients in since. I haven’t had time to check her yet. We’re still playing catch up. I’ve activated all backup medical personnel, but what I really need down here are supplies.” Pike could just make out Nurse Chapel in the background calling for M’Benga’s help, and with a quick, “M’Benga out,” he cut the feed to go assist her.

Pike took a moment to force his fear and anxiety into a box in the back of his mind. Emotions to deal with later. There was nothing he could do for Kat or Una or anyone else except get them out of this mess. And to do that, he needed a clear head.

“Okay, people.” He looked around the table at the faces of his remaining bridge crew. “We need ideas. What have we got?” He directed the question to La’an.

“No weapons systems. No phasers.”

“What about photon torpedoes? Those can be self guided.”

“The torpedo bay was hit in the attack. We lost all but one.”

Pike was just as distressed as Erica was upon hearing that news. He listened with half an ear as Spock explained why quantity didn’t matter and Erica hid her growing fear in her usual snarky sarcasm, but Pike was too wrung out at the moment to find it charming.

He should have scolded her, but really, there was no one else here, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her to swallow her fear. He was terrified too. Of the Gorn. Of failure. And if he was honest, he was doing a pretty terrible job of swallowing his own fear.

No weapons, no shields, no sensors. A host of injured crew and civilians and no way to treat them. An enemy seemingly born from a child’s nightmare. And to top it off, an atmospheric processor that had been turned into a ticking time bomb.

Their situation was dire indeed.

And then La’an cut Erica off, and Pike was unsure whether her words were helpful or just more fuel on the fire of fear consuming them all. At the very least they served as a reality check for Erica who was now uncharacteristically silent while La’an described the Gorn.

“Unrelenting” hunters… It was a detail that seemed important. Lions, wolves, cheetahs… There always came a point when even the most dogged and hungry of predators knew to back off. What was that threshold for the Gorn?

Silence descended on the ready room, and Pike was acutely aware of the bead of sweat making its way down the back of his neck.

La’an, Erica, and Spock were all looking at him, waiting for orders, waiting for him to conjure a miracle to get them out of this. But miracles weren’t his department. Still, he made sure the certainty in his voice was unfeigned when he said, “Alright. Get creative. You’re the best of Starfleet. We survive this by working together.”  The words were true after all.

He dismissed them with a nod but asked La’an to stay back. Belief was his department; pulling off a miracle was hers.

***

The corridor was dark and hotter than hell. The blasts rocking the ship seemed to have stopped for now, but Kat didn’t know if it was because they had destroyed the enemy ship or if they had simply outrun them. Were there more? She hated not knowing.

But the enemy fire had been replaced by an ever-increasing heat, making her dizzy for a whole new reason. The ship was now so hot and humid she could hardly breathe.

Sweat pricked at her scalp, dripped down the back of her neck, and the pulsing red lights seemed to swirl in her vision. Perhaps she should have gone to sickbay like Chapel had recommended. And she would. Just as soon as she made sure everyone had gotten out.

She paused for a moment, hand on the bulkhead and closed her eyes, forcing the ship to stop spinning.

There. That was better.

She rounded the corner, her eyes finding first the sharp, twisted pieces of the inner hull, torn off in the explosion, now trained inward like bared teeth. The emergency bulkhead that had slid into place over the transport tube looked oddly pristine among the scorched and torn walls. Shrapnel and debris littered the deck, the more flammable scraps still burning in the smoke-filled corridor.

A groan of pain had her whirling around.

Una sat slumped against the next bulkhead and the inner wall of the corridor, arm wrapped around her middle. Even from a section away, Kat could see she was bleeding from at least one abdominal wound, the fabric of her dress more red than yellow now.

“Jesus, One,” Kat cursed and crossed the corridor at a run, dropping to her knees beside her.

Weary eyes watched her from Una’s pale, drawn face while she stripped off her jacket, and Kat knew that it was adrenaline that kept her hands from shaking as she did so.

“I’m alright,” Una said, her voice tight with pain.

“Of course you are,” Kat replied, folding her jacket into quarters. “And I’m the Queen of Xahea.” Una winced as Kat moved her arm and quickly pressed the material to her stomach. “Hold that tight,” she stated and placed Una’s hand back over her wounds, making sure the other woman’s grip was firm before letting go. “Can you stand?”

Una nodded and rasped, “It’s the Gorn.”

“Lovely,” Kat deadpanned and pulled Una’s other arm over her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you to sickbay.”

Una gasped in pain when Kat stood, all but dragging Una to her feet, and Kat had to close her eyes for a moment and push away the dizziness again.

“You should be on the bridge,” Una said weakly.

“No, I shouldn’t,” was all Kat said in return.

Transporters were off-line—a precaution against the volatile gas comprising the brown dwarf they were currently inside (a brown dwarf? Really, Chris?), at least that was according to the transporter operator—which necessitated a trek of six decks and half the saucer section to get Una to sickbay. But first they needed to get to the turbolift.

Una was too tall for Kat to do anything other than wedge her shoulder under Una’s arm and wrap her free arm around the other woman’s waist to offer support while they stumbled down the corridor.

Skirt the sparking conduit.

Step around the fallen ceiling panel.

Don’t look at the dead colonist.

The turbolift doors opened when Kat touched the keypad. Small mercies, she thought. Kat helped Una inside the lift and let her lean against the wall while she grasped the handle and called for sickbay.

On a normal day, Kat could hardly feel the movement of the lifts. Today however, the rapid ascent had her closing her eyes and clutching her head against the vertigo.

The sound of a body sliding down the wall had Kat opening her eyes in alarm, worry beating out nausea.

She knelt down beside Una. “Number One, you still with me?”

Una’s hold on the wad of uniform over her stomach had loosened and a quick glance at her pallid face showed her nearly unconscious. Gently, Kat lifted the fabric to check her wounds. Blood spilled far too quickly from the tear in Una’s stomach and with a curse, she quickly pressed the makeshift compress back over the wound.

“Hey! One!” Keeping pressure on Una’s wounds with one hand, Kat gently shook her shoulder with the other.

Sluggishly, Una’s eyes opened a fraction before falling closed again.

No, no, no…

Kat glanced up at the deck indicator, willing the lift to move faster. “One, I need you to talk to me.”

So far, she’d been able to keep the worry from her voice, a skill developed over years of brave-facing impossible situations for the sake of morale. But the sight of all that blood pouring from Una’s stomach, her deathly silence and her wan face, had allowed fear to creep out of her throat, high-pitched and anxious.

“Gorn…” Una rasped.

“Yeah? Okay. Good. But I need you to stay with me, alright?”

Una muttered something Kat didn’t catch.

Finally, deck seven…

Kat placed Una’s arm over her wounds again. “Okay, One. I need you to stand again, alright? Keep pressure on that wound.”

Una’s breathing had become shallow and labored, but her arm tightened over her abdomen. Since mentioning the Gorn, she’d kept up a halting string of mostly nonsense, clearly delirious and most likely unaware of where she was. Kat ignored most of it, simply glad Una was still semi-lucid, until she croaked out a weary. “Get to…the…bridge…”

Keeping an eye on the indicator, Kat pulled Una’s other arm over her shoulder. “Not a chance in hell.”

…deck six.

Kat stood. Una cried out in pain. The doors slid open.

Kat took a step forward, but Una didn’t move, instead leaning heavily against Kat’s shoulder.

“One?”

Una’s voice was barely audible, but Kat could just make out a breathy, “The bridge…Chris…”

“Doesn’t need me to beat the Gorn, but if you die on me, he’ll have my ass for saddle leather, so I really need you to walk, One.”

Una took a wobbly step, nearly stumbling to the deck. Kat steadied her and adjusted her grip around Una’s waist.

Step after faltering step, they made their way down the corridor until Una’s weight suddenly became too heavy, throwing Kat off balance. Blood-soaked fabric dropped to the deck with a sickening plop. Una sagged in her grasp, nearly dragging her to the floor as she fought to remain upright against Una’s all but dead weight and her own legs that wanted to take her to the deck.

Kat swore and readjusted her hold on the other woman’s arm and waist, keeping her mostly on her feet. “God damn it, One! You are not allowed to quit on me, you hear? You are not dying today. Now move your damn feet!”

The words were as much for herself as they were for Una, and Kat didn’t know if it was her words or her tone, but something got Una’s feet under her again. Hunched nearly doubled over and hanging off Kat’s shoulder, she started moving again, lurching her way down the hall.

Every step was an effort, but every step also meant that Una hadn’t lost consciousness, and when they finally rounded the last curve, Kat had never been so happy to see a line of wounded people in the corridor. The doors to sickbay were propped open in the commotion, orders and medical codes spilling out in varying degrees of agitation as the nurses triaged patients. Kat ignored them all.

“Doctor!” she called before they’d even fully entered the room. “I need help!”

Chapel and M’Benga rushed to help get Una onto the nearest biobed, and suddenly, Kat was left standing in the middle of sickbay, bloodstained and feeling terribly useless. With nothing left to focus on, she noticed that her hands felt sticky, and she looked down to find them covered in a thin layer of Una’s blood.

She glanced at the biobed where M’Benga and Chapel had already cut away Una’s uniform to begin surgery and told herself that Una would be fine. And it was only through well-practiced compartmentalization that she was able to believe it as she went to wash the blood from her hands.

Chapter Text

Even in her undershirt, sickbay was sweltering, a hothouse of too many bodies, too much blood, and not enough air. Kat wiped her forehead with her arm and knelt down to assist the nurse currently treating a recalcitrant child, no more than five or six years old. The young girl was sitting on the floor next to a biobed in the back corner of sickbay where a woman, presumably her mother judging by the curly blonde hair, lay unconscious but stable from what Kat could see.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked the nurse.

“She won’t let me treat her arm. She’s got second degree burns on most of her arm but every time I try to treat it, she screams and cries.” The nurse sounded frazzled and Kat couldn’t exactly blame her. Supplies were running low and tensions high, but the girl was clearly frightened and no doubt in a great deal of pain.

Kat lowered herself to the floor next to the girl. “My name is Kat. What’s yours?”

The girl looked at her with large green eyes. “Kat?” she asked, and Kat nodded. “Like a cat?”

She chuckled. “Yeah. Just like a cat.”

“Cira.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“I’d rather be a cat,” she said sullenly.

“Ah, well, then you’re in luck.” Kat caught the nurse’s eye over Cira’s head and nodded as she reached into her pocket. “Because today you can be,” she told Cira, holding her badge out to the girl.

“What’s that?”

“This,” she said, holding the badge up by its wreath of delta “leaves,” “this will make you a Kat.”

Doubtful, Cira took it. “How?”

“See this crown of leaves? Those mean that everyone here has to do what I tell them.” Kat drew her finger in a circle to encompass the entire sickbay. “And it’ll do the same for you.”

That seemed to get the girl’s attention. “Really?”

“Mmmhmm.” Kat nodded and drew an X over her heart with her finger. “Scout’s honor.”

“Even you?”

Kat laughed and plucked the badge from Cira’s hand. “Not a chance. I’ll still outrank you, kitten.” Kat eyed the girl archly, twirling the badge in her fingers and letting the gold catch the low emergency lighting. “You still want it?”

Cira nodded enthusiastically.

“Aright. But you have to make a promise first, because you see this?” She touched the delta with its engraved star. “This represents a promise. The crown gives you great power, but this gives you even greater responsibility.”

Cira’s large eyes flicked between the badge and Kat, curious.

“First, you must promise to always strive to put others before yourself and to treat everyone the way you want to be treated. And second, you have to promise to mind the nurses. They’re here to look after you and you have to let them do their jobs, alright? Do you think you can do that?”

Again, Cira nodded. “I promise.”

“Alright. Here you go, Admiral Cira. You wear it here.” Kat touched her chest to indicate the placement.

Cira pinned the badge to her shirt, not even noticing that her arm was now completely healed, and beamed at Kat.

“Very nice,” she told the girl.

The nurse gave Kat a grateful look over Cira’s head and mouthed a silent “Thank you,” before moving on to her next patient.

With a last look at the young girl who was now tugging at her shirt so she could look down at the pin, Kat heaved herself from the floor. Damn, it had felt nice to sit.

“What about yours?”

She turned to find Cira looking up at her, eyes wide with concern. “You keep that one, kitten. I’ll get another one.”

It wasn’t hard to find ways to make herself useful even with her limited first aide knowledge, and Kat wasn’t sure if she should be grateful that she was able to assist or despairing that their situation was so dire that she could be this helpful. She’d been on Enterprise less than twenty-four hours now and already disaster had found them like a damn magnet.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends…

Then the ship groaned.

Collectively, everyone looked around, wondering what could possibly cause a ship to make that sound, fear lurking behind the expressions of the few who knew the answer.

Kat wiped her sweaty palms on her filthy pants and ignored the ominous sound.

Faces blurred together, and she lost count of the number of crewmen she tended.

She didn’t know any of their names. The thought struck her as she held an ensign’s leg steady—the same ensign she’d helped to sickbay—so a nurse could splint it. Nor had she had time to learn the names of any of the nurses before this catastrophe had struck.

“She’s losing too much blood!”

The distress in Doctor M’Benga’s voice had her wiping around to the biobed where he and Chapel were still operating on Una.

“Admiral?”

Kat had to force her eyes back to nurse crouched beside her.

“Move your hand please.” She glanced down at where Kat’s right hand was cradling the unknown ensign’s leg.

Oh.

She moved her hand so the nurse could secure the splint.

“I can’t stop the bleeding,” she heard M’Benga report.

“Our whole blood supply was destroyed.” Chapel said, fear making her voice carry farther than she intended.

Kat craned her neck to look back at them and called, “Do you have any IVs left?”

“Yes,” Chapel answered. “Why?”

The nurse finished securing the temporary splint and Kat rose, crossing the aisle in two strides.

“I’m a universal donor. Set up a transfusion,” she added urgently when they hesitated.

Wide-eyed, Chapel looked frantically from Kat to M’Benga. “But Una’s a—”

“I don’t give a damn what she is!” Kat broke in, pinning them both with a hard stare that warned against argument. “Set up the damn transfusion.”

Frozen, Chapel stared at M’Benga, waiting for his call, and M’Benga stared at Kat, looking a little miffed at having been ordered about in his own sickbay. The silence was tense, and they probably only stood there glaring at each other for a second, but it felt like an hour.

It was M’Benga who finally broke it. “It’ll be fine,” he said to Chapel who, with a last look between Kat and M’Benga, rushed to retrieve the necessary supplies. M’Benga turned to Kat. “But I’m checking you for a concussion as soon as I’m through with Una.”

“Fine,” Kat replied and held her arm out to Chapel.

“You’re going to need to sit,” the nurse said and pushed a chair close to the biobed.

Kat dutifully sat so that Chapel could bind the tourniquet around her arm, clean the skin inside her right elbow, and insert the IV. Then she did the same for Una, connecting her left arm to Kat’s right via the thin tubing. With a quick flick to the stopper, Chapel opened the valve and Kat’s red blood flowed into the tube.

With nothing else to hold her attention, Kat was forced to sit and watch while Doctor M’Benga Nurse Chapel worked to save Una’s life. The biobed only showed the most basic of vital signs, but Kat had a front row seat to every change in Una’s respiration and every falter of her heartbeat during the surgery.

And all the while, Enterprise continued to groan under the pressure of…whatever was attempting to crush her like a tin can. Kat looked up towards the sound.

I hope you know what you’re doing, Chris.

Even while letting the blood drain from her veins to save Una’s life, Kat had never felt more useless.

At last, the surgery was over. Three neat rows of black stitches lined Una’s pale skin, but the steady beep of the biobead read out behind her head meant she was going to be fine.

And then it was Kat’s turn.

“Follow my finger.” M’Benga held his index finger in front of her face and moved it side to side. Kat followed it without trouble. “Any lightheadedness, dizziness, nausea?”

“Yes.”

M’Benga looked down at the tricorder readout. “You have a concussion. But I won’t be able to tell anything more until we get systems back online.”

“Thank you, Doctor. I’ll be fine.”

He eyed her knowingly. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you that you shouldn’t be donating blood, would it?”

“No. It wouldn’t.”

“I figured as much.” He ran the regenerator over her head. “This should help with the swelling.”

It did. The vague dizziness that had remained on her peripheral abated, and the ache in her head gradually eased.

“You saved her life,” M’Benga said when he’d finished. “She ordered me to give the last of the plasma to Ensign Christina.”

Kat looked away. That tracked.

He left her alone after that and Kat contented herself to wait. She still felt useless, seated and doing nothing except serving as a living blood bag, but there truly was nothing else for it. She sighed and allowed herself to slouch back in the hard chair, trying to get comfortable.

The relief afforded by Doctor M’Benga’s treatment was short lived. Less than thirty minutes later and Kat would have sworn she’d hit her head again.

“Admiral, you okay.”

Kat opened her eyes to find nurse Chapel standing beside her. “Yeah, just a little lightheaded.”

“You’ve lost nearly a pint of blood. I can’t let you donate much more. But this should help.” Chapel held out something in a crinkly package.

Kat took it and read the label. “A cookie?”

Chapel smiled teasingly. “Your prize for being such a good patient. And…” She held out a juice box that she’d had hidden behind her PADD. Kat scowled and Chapel rolled her eyes. “You need to keep your blood sugar up.”

Taking the box of juice, Kat drawled an unenthusiastic, “Thanks.”

“And you might want to hurry up and eat that,” Chapel said when Kat made no move to open either item. “The bridge reports oncoming turbulence. Do you want me to strap you in?”

“No. I’ll be fine. Thank you, Christine.”

Chapel nodded and tapped the controls on her PADD to activate a stasis field around Una’s biobed. When she moved on to the next bed, Kat opened the package containing the cookie and took a bite. It was hard and stale and tasted like protein powder. She’d forgotten how much she hated emergency rations, but she ate the whole thing and had to admit to feeling better for the sugar. Or perhaps it was the sound of Chris’s voice over the comm while she washed down the terrible cookie with equally terrible “grape” juice.

“…Earlier today we were reminded of the cost of exploration. What it means to chart the stars, to push the boundaries of what is known and what is possible. When we seek out the unknown, we will find things that challenge us. That frighten us. But we do not back down. We do not give in to fear. And I believe today will not be out last mission, but out finest hour. All hands make ready for impact.”

While he spoke, all around sickbay, medical personnel made patients ready for turbulence, strapping on emergency harnesses where stasis fields wouldn’t work, sedating those patients who needed it.

The impact, when it came, wasn’t so much external as it was internal. The ship banked hard and fast, the inertial dampeners unable to keep up, and the g-force threw Kat into the arm rest of her chair, crushing her skull between her ears. She clenched and released her muscles, attempting to force her blood back to her head.

Clench, release.

Clench, release.

Still, she felt drowsiness pulling her under and had to fight to remain conscious.

It ended just as suddenly as it had begun and when it was over, Kat put her head between her knees and breathed deep.

What the hell was that, Chris?

When she was sure that she wasn’t going to pass out or throw up, Kat sat up and brushed the hair out of her face.

The ship was moving smoothly, the engines humming below them, and the sounds of strained metal had ceased. Whatever they’d done up there on the bridge, it must have worked.

Chapel passed by, disengaging stasis fields and checking vital signs, and the heavy fear that had been lurking in the air seemed to have dissipated.

Kat breathed a sigh of relief.

“Admiral?”

At Una’s confused whisper, Kat leaned forward in her chair. “Hey One.”

Una looked down at her arm, followed the blood-filled IV tube to where it ended taped to the inside of Kat’s elbow. “Thank you,” she said groggily, falling back to the pillow.

“Don’t mention it. I owed you one.”

Una’s head rolled to look at her. “Are we even?”

“Not even close.” Despite the levity in her tone and the slight smile on her face, a knot of emotion tied her throat closed because for a moment, all she could see was the lost and forlorn cadet who had walked into her office almost thirty years ago…

…

“Cadet Chin-Riley. Please, have a—”

“Number One.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can call me Number One.” The tall, raven-haired cadet standing before her with her hands clasped behind her back is perfectly serious, speaking to her superior officer as if rank didn’t matter. She is at least ten years her junior but holds herself with the austere aura of a craggy admiral. Kat likes her already.

“Alright. Number One. Have a seat.” Kat waves to the various seating options. Cadet Chin-Riley—Number One—sits in the nearest armchair and Kat across from her, the PADD containing Chin-Riley’s file resting on her thigh. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Because Commander Grace told me I had to be here.”

“She’s just worried about you,” Kat says gently, trying to soothe the edge of resentment in Chin-Riley’s voice.

“I don’t know why.”

Kat sighs. “One, you were essentially assaulted by a fellow cadet.”

Chin-Riley looks down her nose at her. “And I broke his nose.”

“Yes,” she says on a choked-off laugh. “Rather spectacularly I’m told.” The report had stated that medical had had a hell of a time resetting Brandt’s nose.

“I don’t understand,” says the young cadet, confusion and anger leaking into her tone. “We’re told to defend ourselves, and when we do, we get punished for it.”

“Do you see this as a punishment?”

“What else is mandated therapy supposed to be?”

“Healing?”

“I’m not broken.”

“Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. We can’t always see the cracks in our own surface.”

The look on Chin-Riley’s face tells Kat that she wants to say something but she doesn’t know what. And the not knowing is irritating her.

Ha! Got you, One, Kat thinks. Aloud, she asks, “Have you thought about why Cadet Brandt targeted you specifically?”

Chin-Riley’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Are you blaming me?”

“No. As far as I’m concerned, you should have broken more than his nose.” Chin-Riley looks at her, eyebrows rising up a notch. Kat sits back and tries a different approach. “Number One. That’s quite the nickname. Why Number One?”

Chin-Riley shakes a stray curl behind her shoulder. “Because I am.”

“That must take a lot of effort—to always be the best at everything.”

“Not really.”

“You grew up on an Illyrian colony.” Something akin to wariness flashes in Chin-Riley’s eyes, but it’s gone before Kat can decipher it. “I can imagine that growing up in a place where you are constantly compared to others would be difficult.”

“I managed.”

“I can see that.” She looks down at Chin-Riley’s file. “One and a half times a full course load, highest scorer in all your classes, currently ranked first in your class.” She looks pointedly at the cadet. “That doesn’t leave a lot of time for friendships.”

“I don’t need other people.”

And that thinking is exactly why Chin-Riley is sitting in Kat’s office. Not for punching a fellow cadet because he’d grabbed her arm, but for her well-known status as a loner that had made her such an ideal target for Brandt’s harassment in the first place.

“That may be true,” Kat says. “But have you considered that other people might need you?” The look on Chin-Riley’s face tells Kat that she hadn’t. Kat leans forward as she goes on. “Look, One, your years at the Academy can be some of the best years of your life. You're going to make connections and friendships here that will last a lifetime. I would hate for you to miss out on that because you’re so worried about being the best at everything.”

Cadet Chin-Riley nods, but it is unclear whether or not she has taken the advice to heart.

Kat sets aside the PADD with Chin-Riley’s file and clasps her hands together. “I’ll make a deal with you, One. I’ll recommend to Commander Grace that no more counseling is required, if you do something for me.”

Chin-Riley eyes her warily. “What’s that?”

“Join a team.”

That was clearly not what the cadet was expecting. “A team?”

“Yes. A team. Any team. The shooting team sounds like it would be right up your alley. Or, you’re an excellent pilot. The racing team could use someone like you. Maybe with you at the helm, we could finally bring home that cup. But it doesn’t matter which team. You join one, and I’ll sign your form for Commander Grace. Otherwise, I’ll see you here at the same time next week.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“No more therapy?”

“No more therapy.”

Chin-Riley considers it for a moment and then nods.  

A week later Cadet Chin-Riley arrives for their session a proud member of the school’s First Squadron racing team and presents Kat with the form to release her from mandated therapy.

Kat signs her name to Chin-Riley’s PADD and hands it back.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” says the cadet.

“You’re welcome.”

Chin-Riley turns to leave but Kat stops her before she makes it more than a few steps towards the door.

“And One. I realize that you think you don’t need other people, but if you ever need to talk, or a place to just…be, know that my door is always open.”

Cadet Chin-Riley nods once and leaves.

She doesn’t take Kat up on that offer until three months later. Finals are over, summer session starts in two weeks, and Kat is packing her office, preparing to ship out on the Antares.

“You’re leaving?”

Kat spins around, framed diploma in hand, to find Cadet Chin-Riley standing in her doorway.  

“I am,” she says and places the frame in the box of things for storage. “I’ve been taking the necessary classes to get on the command track, and with those finished, I ship out next week.”

“But…”

Kat glances down to Chin-Riley’s hand where she’s clutching a gold medal. “I saw the news. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Chin-Riley glances down, scuffs her boot against the carpeting.

“How are you doing, One?”

“Fine. I just wanted to—” Her fist tightens around the medal. She looks down at it, then back up at Kat. “Why command?”

Kat’s head cocks to the side as she considers the young woman before her. Is that anger Kat detects in her voice? “It’s the same track you’re on, is it not?”

“It is. But you’re…” She seems to rethink her words mid sentence.

“A therapist?” Kat finishes and the minute pull of Chin-Riley’s eyebrows tell her she’s guessed right. Kat chuckles caustically and packs away the decorative paperweight and card holder from her desk. “Believe me, cadet, I am well aware.”

Chin-Riley’s mouth hardens. “So why?”

Kat sighs. Of all her patients, Chin-Riley seems to be taking her early retirement the worst. And she’s not technically even a patient anymore. “There are things that I want to do that only command will allow me to make happen,” she explains.

“You mean you need power.”

“Power,” Kat echoes. “Often an unfortunate necessity to effect change.”

Chin-Riley glances around the office, her eyes darting to and fro like a nervous rabbit.

“One, my offer stands. I’ll be in deep space, but my door will always be open to you. Here.” Kat reaches into the box and draws out a card with her comm details, holding it out to the young cadet. “If you ever need to talk, about anything at all, call me. Day or night. Even if takes weeks to reach me, I’ll always call back.”

Chin-Riley stares at her a moment, seeming to gauge her sincerity. “I’ll hold you to that,” she says finally and takes the card. 

…

Kat smiled at the memory and laid a hand—the one currently connected to the other woman—over Una’s where it rested on the bed.

That was how Chris found them not a minute later, his audible breath of relief causing Kat to look back and find him standing just beyond the next biobed. He smiled but it was constrained by relief. The one she gave him in return was not. She was too happy to feel relief. Happy that he was alive and well; happy that despite her desire to be on the bridge she had been here, and Una was going to be okay because of it; and happy that despite the death and destruction, Chris had gotten them through it just like she’d known he would.

He walked over and stood next to Kat, laying a hand on her shoulder and smiling down at his first officer. There was a strained almost lachrymal note in his soft, “Hey, Number One. How are you feeling?”

Una’s answering smile was strained only by pain and wearing anesthesia. “Like the ship tried to tear me apart, sir.”

Chris chuckled. “I hope you hit back.” His tone, his smile, his posture, everything about him was light except for the the grip of his hand on her shoulder that told Kat just how terrified he had been.

Kat covered his hand with hers, glancing up at him with a reassuring smile, and she didn’t care who saw.

“Damn straight,” Una said weakly.

“Good. Get some rest.” Chris squeezed Kat’s shoulder briefly. “I’ll be back in a moment,” he said.

Kat watched as he made his way around sickbay, checking in with those patients who were awake, offering a smile and a reassuring touch where necessary. Everyone brightened at his attentions, but Kat noticed that with each crew member he visited, he only grew dimmer, as if he had given away a piece of his light to each of them.

“Saddle leather, hmmm?”

Kat looked back at Una, who was watching her with raised brows and a knowing grin. Kat blushed and broke eye contact.  “Oh, well…”

Una rolled her eyes and turned away, closing her eyes on a sigh and mumbling a sleepy, “At least you’d make a pretty saddle.”

Kat gaped at her. “Number One!”

But Una was already asleep.

***

The doors to Chris’s quarters opened at his command and Kat stepped inside. The lights were dimmed but a fire blazed inside the fireplace, casting a warm sphere of light around the sitting area. Chris was sitting on the couch, whiskey tumbler in hand.

Walking to the kitchen, Kat set the bottle of Bowmore thirty-year on the counter.

“What’s this?” Chris asked. He’d showered and changed into a fresh uniform, looking almost completely normal except for the air of melancholy darkening his expression.

“One of those rocks I hauled all the way here,” she said lightly.

His answering smile was strained.

She noted the decanter of whiskey before him on the coffee table, so she asked, “Can I tempt you?”

“Sure. Whatever you brought is probably better than what I’m drinking anyway.” He threw back what whatever was in the tumbler.

No doubt.

She got him a fresh glass and one for herself and bought the bottle to the coffee table. Sitting next to him on the sofa, she poured them both two fingers worth and touched her glass to his.

“Damn that’s good,” he said after a sip.

It was. The Islay scotch was little more peat-forward than she usually preferred, but the smokey palate suited her mood.

It had been one damn trying day.

She glanced at the coffee table, noticing now the pin she’d given him laying next to the decanter of whiskey. He’d worn it after all, classification be damned. 

“How are you doing?” she asked.

Chris let out a breath and slouched back, letting his head fall against the back of the couch before turning to look at her.

“I killed someone today.”

Scotch rolled in her stomach. “Chris…”

He sat up and continued, cutting off anything more she would have said. “No. I did. I know I did. And if I hadn’t, many more would have died, possibly everyone on board, and I don’t need you or anyone else trying to make me feel better about it.”

“Okay,” she said, because what else was she supposed to say to that?

“I know it was the right call, and yet…” He looked at the fire and then downed the rest of his drink as if the tumbler of rare scotch were a shot of bottom-shelf tequila.

“Sometimes I hate this job,” he admitted. He was still looking at the flames and, in the silence, Kat wondered what she was supposed to say to him. Which part of her did he want? And which part did he need? The doctor, the admiral, or the woman?

In the end she settled on a neutral, “I know,” because she did. It was one of those universal truths among commanders, the pain of losing a crewman. The guilt. And Chris felt things far deeper than most men. There was nothing she could say that would take that pain away, nothing he didn’t already know. So she said nothing more, and they were silent for a long time, the imitated crackle of flames in the fireplace the only sound disturbing the quiet.

Sitting beside him in the firelit silence, she was reminded of all those times they’d sat before a fire in Montana, confessing sins and tragedies, relieving guilts and reconciling their choices. Perhaps there was something to be said for the purifying effects of a burning flame.

“Do you regret coming back?” she asked eventually.

He looked at her intently, firelight dancing in his eyes. “Not even for a second.”

He reached for her hand, and she took it, sipping her scotch and watching the fire.

Tomorrow, there would be a memorial for those they’d lost. Their bodies would be committed to space, their flags conveyed to their families, and the cost of exploration would be counted that much higher. Tomorrow, they would mourn with the crew, Chris would lead the service, and they would both present that practiced front of courage and strength in the face of heartache and sorrow.

But tonight, he grieved. And she lent him the comfort of her hand so that he knew he wasn’t grieving alone.

Kat finished her drink, set the empty glass on the table, and stood. He blinked up at her, eyes alight with sorrow and flame. She offered him a hand.

He took it, and she led him to bed.

Chapter Text

“A whole week of shore leave?” Kat asked with overstated melodrama as she wound her arms around Chris’s neck, leaning heavily against his chest. “Whatever shall we do with all the time?”

After the recent Gorn attack at Finibus Three and their deep dive into a brown dwarf, Enterprise was on her way to Starbase One for repairs, where the crew would also be taking shore leave. The journey had taken longer than it should have with all the damage to the hull and major systems, but they would arrive in just a few days. 

Chris grinned wolfishly, slipping his fingers beneath her shirt and drawing it up. “I can think of a few things,” he said.

Kat raised her arms so he could pull off her shirt and then wrapped them around his neck once more, going up onto her toes to kiss him, humming against his lips. “Do you think we have time to sneak away to Earth?”

 “Earth?” This close, his confusion was hilariously magnified.

Kat covered a snort of laughter at the sight and kissed the corner of his mouth. “We could see the horses…” A kiss to his jaw. “… pack a picnic…” Another to his cheek. “…go for a trail ride.” Finally, she settled back onto her heels and looked up at him. “Plus, I’d like to see Montana in the spring.” The snow was beautiful, but she also wanted to enjoy the landscape without having to wear three layers to avoid frostbite.

Chris’s hands encircled her waist, stroking up, causing her to shiver at the contrasting sensations of his light touch from roughened skin as he bent his head to her neck once more, kissing a path along her shoulder. “Hmmm. I think that can be arranged,” he murmured with a quick pinch to the clasp of her bra. Gentle swipes of his fingers had the straps falling down her arms, and a shrug of her shoulders had the garment dropping to the floor.

She slipped her hands beneath his shirt, taking a moment run her hands over his warm skin, tracing every dip and curve of muscle while she kissed him. Then she pulled back, urging the shirt up over his head.

Pulling it off and dropping it to the floor, he reached for her.

Kat stopped him with a finger on his sternum, slowly drew it down between well-defined pectorals, down the line of his abdominals to the clasp on his pants. Her eyes followed, looking her fill of him shirtless and breathless before her. She didn’t think she would ever tire of the sight of him, never not stand in awe of his beauty.

Slowly, she drew her eyes back up to his, holding his gaze as she flicked open the clasp of his trousers, and when he reached for her this time, she did not stop him, but sighed in pleasure when he cupped her breasts.

It was harder to get his zipper down with him distracting her like this, each brush of his thumbs across her nipples causing her to shiver with delight. And then he bent his head, taking one into his mouth, and she gave up on the zipper entirely, clinging to his shoulders while he sucked and tongued the sensitive bud.

When he lifted his head, he stepped forward, gently urging her back and onto the bed. She crawled back, settling herself fully on the mattress, and leaned back on her elbows to watch while he finished undressing. That knowing smirk played across his lips as he drew out the motions until he stood naked before her.

Kat looked him up and down. He was all lean muscle, toned without the bulk, and what the hell were those stupidly sexy muscles called again?

She never did recall because he crawled over her, pressed a kiss to her belly just above her waist band, and unzipped her pants before pulling them and her underwear down her legs.

His hands on her hips and the unadulterated desire in his eyes as he looked down at her were all the warning she got. With one firm tug, he pulled her to the edge of the mattress, causing her to fall back with a small yelp of surprise before sinking to his knees. He settled her feet wide on the platform below, his firm grip around her ankles holding her legs in place as he took his turn to look his fill.

Warm breath playing over her sex had her hips arching up when he leaned close, taking his time before finally—finally—he touched her, light and teasing at first, then firmer when her hips bucked again, his hands drawing up her legs. One hand splayed on her belly, grounding her, the other squeezed her thigh before his fingers pushed inside of her, eliciting a long, drawn out moan of pleasure.

He built her up carefully, deliberately, attentively. Until her hand fisted the quilt and her hips arched up in time with the thrusts of his fingers. Yes! There. There there there there—

Sound proofing be damned, she turned her head into her arm, stifling her cry of pleasure, her other hand holding him to her as she rode out the climax until she collapsed back down to the bed, fingers slipping nerveless from his hair. He pulled away, but she clamped her legs around his arm, not ready to lose the contact of his hand against her still-throbbing sex. He caught on and held her while she came down, kissing his way up her body.

Her movements were clumsy as she turned her head to look at him, reached a hand up to the back of his neck, and pulled him down into a kiss. The muscles of his back flexed against her other hand as he held himself above her. Wanting more, she parted his lips with her own, deepening the kiss.

The sound of the door chime had them both starting in surprise and pulling away. Briefly, he rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard.

“I’ll get it,” he said with a quick kiss. “Don’t move.”

There was hardly any chance of that happening, she thought. Pleasure still thrummed through her veins and it would be a while before her legs worked properly again. She managed to curl onto her side, sated and languorous, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as Chris pulled on his pants and picked his shirt from the pile of clothes on the floor. Shirt in hand, he drew the partition closed before going to answer the door.

Muffled voices drifted in from the entryway, but Kat only listened with half an ear. Without the warmth of Chris’s body or the heat of building arousal, she shivered as the air cooled the fine sheen of sweat on her skin. But she remained too relaxed, limbs too heavy to even contemplate moving to get under the covers.  

“I’m afraid Montana will have to wait,” Chris said when he came back.

Kat rolled halfway onto her back, watching him over her stacked thighs as he stripped off his shirt and pants. “Oh?”

“Something about the R’ongovian Protectorate.”

She sat up a little at that. “The R’ongovians?”

The R’ongovians were a reticent and unforthcoming people, preferring to keep to themselves rather than mingle or ally with their neighbors. Federation ambassadors had reached out every few years before the war, but had always been turned away. The Federation kept a close watch on them anyway though, owing to the fact that the Protectorate controlled a vital piece of space between the Klingon and Romulan Empires. Everyone wanted an alliance with them, but so far, the R’ongovians had remained staunchly neutral, refusing to even negotiate with anyone.

“I’ll know more after we dock and April arrives to brief us,” Chris said. “But…” He crawled onto the bed beside her, stroking a hand down her arm. “I know for a fact that there’s horseback riding in one of the biodomes. We could still pack that picnic.”

Kat hummed in contemplation. “Not the same, but I suppose I can compromise. And in the meantime…” She pushed him onto his back, throwing her leg over his hip and rolling with him so she was straddling him. Hands splayed on his chest, she bent to kiss him and whispered suggestively, “I can think of other things to ride.”

Surprise and arousal blended together on his face, resulting in a tortured expression as he groaned, hands going to her hips, holding her tight against him as he ground up. “God, yes,” he breathed raggedly.

Kat laughed, free and happy, as she arched back, her own pleasured moan breaking forth at the feel of him hot and hard between her legs. Biting her lip, she reached down to fit him into her before doing exactly what she had implied, riding him until they were both sated and spent, and she collapsed onto his chest, content to remain there with his arms around her, his hands stroking her hair, her back, listening to his heart beat in time with hers.

“I still want to go to Montana,” she murmured sleepily and felt his arms tighten around her and his lips press against her head before he replied, “I promise.”

***

And so it was that two days later, Enterprise safely tucked into her docking bay for repairs, while the rest of the crew disembarked for shore leave, Kat and Chris, along with Lieutenant Spock and Cadet Uhura, filed into the ready room for a briefing with Admiral April.

Apparently, according to the message sent by April two days ago, the Federation had decided to try and woo the R’ongovians into an alliance. April was in charge of the negotiations on their side. He’d mentioned that the R’ongovians were willing to talk, but they wanted to talk with Chris. And only with Chris. As these negotiations would be about the Protectorate joining the Federation, Chris had asked Spock to also sit in on the talks. Cadet Uhura would also be joining as a translator and reporter, and for the valuable experience she would gain observing the negotiations.

Kat took the seat at the head of the table, Chris the one to her left facing the display screen, and Spock the one between him and Cadet Uhura while Admiral April explained the situation with the R’ongovian Protectorate.

“Why haven’t we been able to make inroads with them before?” asked Chris.

“The R’ongovians are extremely private,” Kat explained, also wondering the same thing.

April nodded in agreement. “That’s an understatement. But that all changed after diplomatic relations were undertaken by the Tellarites.”

“I’m sure those went well,” Kat deadpanned.

Chris covered a snort of laughter.

April just hummed in response and tapped the controls on the conference table.

The map on the large display was replaced by a recording of a Tellarite ambassador and a R’ongovian seated at a conference table. When the video played, the R’ongovian stood. “Your beard is as ridiculous as your proposals,” he shouted at the Tellarite. “Every word you speak is an insult to R’ongovia.  I can see why they say—”

April paused the feed.

“And here I thought the Tellarites were rude,” Chris remarked dryly.

“Maybe Ambassador Q’Ral said the wrong thing,” April posited. “We don’t know, and we can’t wait long to find out. We’ve just learned that the R’ongovians are now in negotiation with the Klingons, with the Romulans not far behind. Time isn’t on our side. We need to strike a deal with them first.”

“Well, I’m certain we can handle the  situation with considerably more delicacy and grace than the Tellarites, Bob.”

“Good, ‘cause we’re meeting them tomorrow, first thing.”

“Who’s leading the negotiation on their side?”

April gestured to the screen. “That’s Vasso L’Gaelia, captain of their flagship. Docked—” April tapped another control. “—right over there.”

“Is that an old solar sail ship, sir?” asked cadet Uhura, leaning forward in fascination. Her wonder was infectious, and Kat could admit to a bit of awe as she looked at the golden ship in her moorings.

“Yeah,” answered April, not unaffected by the sight. “They bring her out for ceremonial occasions. When they sign a treaty, apparently they fly the flag of their new allies as a tribute.”

Just as he finished, Lieutenant Noonien-Singh’s voice broke through the comm. “Noonien-Singh to the captain. I’m afraid we have a bit of a situation.”

Chris leaned forward and activated the comm. “What’s going on?”

“I have the R’ongovian delegation here and they’re quite insistent on seeing you right now.”

Chris quickly looked from Kat to April. “What are they doing here?”

April looked just as dumbfounded as the rest of them. “No idea.” With a quick series of taps, the screen once more showed the map of Federation and R’ongovian space.

“Well,” said Chris, “there’s one way to find out.” He activated the comm again. “Lieutenant Noonien-Singh, show them in.”

Kat spun her chair around towards the door and stood. Beside her, Chris did the same.

Two R’ongovians walked in ahead of Lieutenant Noonien-Singh, their arrogance only won out by their undisguised anger.

“What is this?” the shorter of the two demanded. “We’ve been waiting on our ship, while you are here discussing our upcoming negotiations?”

The R’ongovians were a gray-skinned humanoid race with symmetrical stripes lining either side of their faces. It might have lessened the threat of the man’s wrath if not for the flash of his pointed teeth.

“You must be Captain Vasso,” said April, taking a step forward.

The shorter R’ongovian looked him up and down. “And you are…Pike?”

“Actually I’m Admiral Robert April. If I may…” He stepped back, intending to introduce the rest of their group, but Vasso cut him off.

“I speak to Captain Pike only.”

Damn. April really hadn’t been kidding about that fact.

“Well, I’m Captain Pike,” Chris said. “Nice to meet you,” he added, walking over to Vasso, hand extended. The captain looked down at Chris’s hand in confusion. Thrown, Chris lowered his hand, quickly defaulting to a smile and joke. “If I had known you were coming early, I could have cooked you up an Earth specialty.”

Vasso blinked at him, and Kat could tell Chris had gone from flustered to nervous as he chuckled at his own joke. He didn’t often meet anyone he couldn’t win over, and clearly he didn’t know what to do with someone who was immune to his charm.

But after a moment the R’ongovian captain laughed and extended his own hand. “Captain Pike. The pleasure is mine,” he said, smiling a pointy-toothed smile and shaking Chris’s hand. “I am Vasso. This is my first officer Brax.”

Brax gave a slight bow, his stern expression unwavering.  

“Very nice to meet you both,” Chris replied. “This is Admiral Cornwell, Lieutenant Spock, and Cadet Uhura.” He indicated each of them in turn. “And of you’ve already met Lieutenant Noonien-Singh.”

“Sir, I should go,” started Noonien-Singh with a tilt of her head to the doors.

“Yes, thank you, La’an,” he said with a nod of dismissal. “We’re good.”

“You are Vulcan,” Brax said to Spock as she left. “Famous for your logic, yes?”

“Indeed,” replied Spock.

“Then, your voice is also a part of the Federation.”

“All members of the Federation have a voice in its governance.”

“That sounds…confusing.” The last word was hard, like Brax could not imagine anything more distressing than competing political voices.

Kat smiled and Chris chuckled knowingly. “Yeah, it can be,” he admitted.

“With so many voices in your Federation,” said Vasso, “how do you decide which one is in control?”

“We vote. We gain our power from all our membership so we try to listen to each other. All of us.”

“We, too, listen. Empathy is a hallmark of our people. Few understand that,” Vasso added, making eye contacted with everyone in the room. Then he clapped a hand to Chris’s arm. “We shall sit and talk.”

And apparently that meant now as Vasso walked past everyone and took a seat at the head of the conference table.

“Oh, ah, okay.” Chris looked around, confused and uncertain.

Just as perplexed, Kat could only shrug when he turned that helpless look onto her. Just go with it.

 “I guess, uh… Let’s begin,” Chris declared and strode to the table.

***

In her quarters Kat checked the weather in the biodome and considered her clothing options. Eventually, she decided on jeans, belt, black tank top, and a plaid flannel shirt.

Negotiations with the R’ongovians had gone well into the evening and would have continued longer if not for Cadet Uhura’s stomach. A loud gurgling had interrupted Captain Vasso mid-sentence while was recounting a story from his time as first officer. Utterly mortified, Uhura had stammered out an apology, quietly explaining that she hadn’t had time for lunch.

Stifling a smile behind her hand, Kat had had to admit that she was starving as well.

Chris had smiled softly at Uhura, smoothly dismissing her embarrassment with a, “That’s okay, cadet. I’m feeling a bit peckish myself,” and suggested to the group that they continue their talks over dinner, even going so far as to offer to prepare that Earth specialty for their guests. Instead, Vasso had agreed to adjourn for the evening, stating that they had all the information they needed and would finalize everything in the morning with Admiral April.

When Kat had asked April if they would be needed for anything further, he’d said no, he could handle any further discussions. The talks had gone so well, they all were anticipating a new member of the Federation before the week’s end.

Despite evidence to the contrary, the R’ongovians had proved to be a congenial bunch, so affable and jovial that Kat had wondered what the Tellarites had done to offend them so. It had, in fact, been one of the easiest, most uncomplicated diplomatic meetings she’d ever sat through.  

Riding the high of their success, she and Chris had celebrated over a late dinner and made plans to go riding the next day. Chris made a reservation with the trail outfitters for the early afternoon which would give them time for a picnic lunch before returning to Enterprise.  Kat didn’t have riding boots, but the shorter of her two pairs of uniform boots would work just fine.

Her door chime sounded just as she finished buckling them up. “Come in,” she called.

“Kat?” Chris called from the front room. “Where are you?”

“Back here!” she called back, pulling her field jacket from the closet. “So I was thinking—” She stopped when she saw him in his off-duty uniform, instantly knowing their plans had changed. “What happened?”

“I’m sorry,” he said walking towards her, shoulders hunched in remorse. “The R’ongovians wanted to cancel all future meetings.”

Concerned, but also confused given how well their talks had gone yesterday, she dropped the jacket onto the bed. “Any idea why?”

He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Bob said something about a connection not being made. He was able to talk them back to the table but now they’ll only talk to Spock. And I can’t leave him on his own.”

“Spock?”

Chris shrugged.

That was interesting. But ultimately it didn’t matter. They needed to make a deal with the R’ongovians. Fast. And if they wanted to talk to Spock, they’d get Spock.

“I’m sorry,” Chris said again, softer this time. “I cancelled the reservation.”

“I understand. Of course. We can go another time.”

“The R’ongovians are allowing us to sit in on the next session. As observers only. But I need to go ask Spock if he is willing to talk with them before they walk away entirely.”

“Where’s the next session?”

“On-base. Yosemite conference room.”

Kat nodded. “Okay. Let me change.”

Chris glanced down. “Shame. I like it,” he said fingering the collar of her flannel shirt.

Kat rolled her eyes and batted his hand away. “Go get Spock. I’ll meet you on-base.”

“Aye aye, Admiral.”

Kat smiled and shook her head at his antics, but she watched him walk away all the same, thinking the very same thing about that green tunic.

***

The Yosemite conference room was far larger than it needed to be for the negotiations at hand. The room was vast, edged in wide viewports that looked out onto the biodomes and docked ships, with Enterprise docked just outside the nearest one, repairs to her crushed decks and damaged systems well underway.

The oval-shaped conference table stood in the center of the room surrounded by various seating areas for observers to watch the proceedings and tables with refreshments. Beyond that was simply empty space that could be filled with more tables and chairs should the occasion call for it. At the moment, the space was filled only by echoes of the conversation taking place at the table.

From the modular couch, Kat watched Spock go back and forth with Vasso and Brax, their queries and responses hurled back and forth across the long conference table like a tennis ball. Chris was right in that the R’ongovians did seem oddly “Vulcan-y” today; a complete 180 from the personalities they’d interacted with yesterday. But it was the odd lilt in the Spock’s voice that alerted her to the fact that something wasn’t right.

Spock had always spoken dryly, even monotone, and with a rhythmic cadence that was uniquely his. But he spoke now with a repeated inflection to his words that did not sound like him at all. The longer the session went on, the more apparent it became.

Chris had mentioned Spock requesting time to spend with his fiancée T’Pring and their wishes to not to be interrupted. Had Chris’s unexpected request for Spock to negotiate with the R’ongovians upset him in some way?

She leaned to her left and whispered to Chris, “Is everything okay with Spock?”

Chris whispered back, “That’s not Spock. That’s T’Pring in Spock’s body.”

She started at him, open-mouthed with shock and outrage. T’Pring? In Spock’s body? And Chris had brought her here to negotiate on behalf of the Federation while pretending to be Spock? “Chris, are you insane?” she asked in the harshest whisper she could manage and not be overheard by those at the table. “Do you have any idea—”

Now it was April’s turn to lean over from her right. “Shhh! We’re supposed to observers only.”

Feeling like a student rapped over the knuckles, Kat crossed her arms and settled back against the couch, her mind still reeling with the implications of what Chris had told her. The safety of the Federation was riding on these talks, and she had never met T’Pring before. She didn’t like putting so much into the hands of an unknown variable. Chris no doubt thought T’Pring could handle it, or he wouldn’t have let her speak with the R’ongovians. Or maybe he simply thought it worth the risk.

How the hell had this happened? What could have caused them to switch…bodies? Consciousnesses? God damn, sometimes space gave her a headache.

“What is the logic of an alliance with a federation whose interdependence merely dilutes the cultures that comprise it?” Vasso questioned?

Spock—T’Pring—didn’t have a ready answer. Kat’s eyes cut to Chris, who also seemed a bit worried about the beat of silence. He sighed and looked passed her to April. April merely took a sip of water and said, “Spock can handle it.”

If you only knew.

Based on T’Pring’s momentary silence and her ensuing comments about wanting to spend more time on Vulcan, Kat sensed that T’Pring was harboring some resentment towards Spock’s position in Starfleet. Was that resentment shared by Spock? As far as she knew, Spock was happy in his career, though, it must be difficult, spending so much time apart from his family and fiancée. And the note of judgement in T’Pring’s words made her wonder if perhaps this wasn’t a point of contention between them.

Kat made a mental note to ask Spock if there was anything he wanted to talk about.

“Are you saying that you do not value the Federation?” asked Vasso.

T’Pring faltered. Again.

Definitely some resentment.

Kat glared at Chris, telling him with a look to fix this mess before T’Pring inadvertently ruined these talks even more.

You brought her here. This is your problem. Fix it, now.

Meeting her eyes, Chris’s unwilling expression also said that he knew what was good for him. He blew out a breath and reluctantly pushed off the couch.

“Chris!” April hissed frantically as he stood up in an attempt to stop him. “Chris! What are you doing?”

Chris just continued to walk calmly towards the conference table. “My apologies, Captain, if I may interject.”

Brax stood and faced him. “You may not. You are here as a courtesy.”

“I’m not speaking up on behalf of the Federation,” he argued sternly, “but rather I am speaking up on behalf of Lieutenant Spock.”

“That is… What?”

“We will allow it,” said Vasso.

“Thank you.” Chris turned to T’Pring. “If I may, Spock. It is a noble sacrifice you have made, to spend so much time away from your own culture.”

“It is?” questioned T’Pring.

“Yes. It is. Your commitment to the Federation and to understanding both the values and plights of cultures wildly different, sometimes at great personal cost, your constant striving for intellectual excellence, and your commitment to the spirit of duty is inspirational.”

As he spoke, the R’ongovians exchanged curious looks.

“To answer the question, ‘Why the Federation?’ one need only look across the table, Captain Vasso. You, mister Spock, are simply everything that is great about Starfleet.”

T’Pring looked sufficiently contrite in the wake of his speech. “I… Thank you, Captain.”

Kat’s lingering irritation dissolved with her heartfelt words. Perhaps T’Pring had simply not understood how valued Spock was by his captain and crew mates, and hopefully now she would not forget it.

Turning back to the R’ongovian delegation, Chris excused himself. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I hope I haven’t insulted you with my presence.”

Vasso and Brax leaned close and whispered quietly while Chris walked over to T’Pring. Kat couldn’t hear what either party was saying, but Chris tilted his head towards the door and T’Pring nodded and turned her chair. Apparently, Chris had decided to pull T’Pring out. But before he could, Vasso and Brax stood.

“Wait,” said Vasso. “Your actions have impressed us, Captain, defending your crewman like that. “We will conclude this session but will offer you the opportunity of summation before we leave.” With fingers steepled over his stomach, Vasso turned and walked out of the room, Brax following a step behind.  

Kat peered at their retreating backs, attempting to understand the R’ongovians’ sudden change of heart regarding the interruption. It didn’t make sense. Chris’s interruption had been in direct violation of their mandates. And she couldn’t reconcile the change in personality. Where was that Vulcan-like logic yesterday? The Rongovians seemed to change prerogatives like they were coats to be slipped on and off. There had to be a reason for it.

Chris looked at her, the same questions plain on his face. She could only shrug in ignorance.

***

“How are Spock and T’Pring?” Kat asked.

“Doctor M’Benga is attempting to switch back their katras now,” Chris said as he whisked butter into the hollandaise sauce. Since they hadn’t had time for breakfast before the negotiations had commenced this morning, he’d invited her to his quarters for brunch. “He seemed confident that it would work.”

“Let’s hope so. For everyone’s sake.”

“Why anyone would want to switch consciousnesses with another person is beyond me.”

“They were just trying to understand each other better,” Kat said sympathetically and took a sip of coffee. T’Pring had explained it to her, briefly, on their way back to Enterprise—a katra transfer to know each other’s minds.

Chris made a sound of disapproval followed quickly by a huff of amusement. “Maybe we should switch katras with Vasso and Brax.”

Kat wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think you could pull off the stripes.”

He looked at her blankly for a moment before he chuckled and turned back to his sauce.

But she did have to admit: it would be one way to understand the R’ongovians’ sudden change in demeanor. And that made her wonder: what would it be like to be inside someone else’s mind? Chris’s mind? To know his every thought, to understand his every facet, wholly and completely? To know his very soul?

Watching him, now, she realized, no, she didn’t want that. Not like that. Not if it was the result of a ritual transference.

She could admit that there was an allure to it. To the deep, no doubt divine-like connection that was part of the Soul Sharing, and there was a part of her that did wonder what that would feel like, to know someone so perfectly. The level of trust required to share yourself so intimately with another was almost inconceivable.

But once the ritual was complete, that was it. The knowledge was shared, the bond created, your soul known.

What humans shared, what she and Chris shared…there was beauty in that as well. A deep and intimate bond forged over years of growing and sharing. She didn’t want to know him as the result of a moment’s decision to engage in a ritual.  She wanted to know him because every day he saw fit to let her see, to let her peel back another layer of the man that was Christopher Pike.

She cherished his trust in her. Every thought, feeling, fear, desire, worry, wish; every piece of himself that he shared with her was a gift. If she knew everything, she would lose that—the giving. And she would rather her knowledge of his soul came gradually, each piece offered on his own terms, in his own way, and on his own time. If that meant she would never truly know him, she could live with that. But somehow, watching him assemble Eggs Florentine as if preparing brunch were the most important thing in the world, she didn’t think that would be the case.

Spock and T’Pring’s problem had ultimately boiled down to a failure to communicate, and they had taken a shortcut of sorts in an attempt to understand each other’s point of view. Perhaps that is why the ritual had only been partially successful. Perhaps to share your soul, you must already be open and honest.

The thunk of a plate set on the counter in front of her snapped Kat back to the present. Chris was leaning over the counter, smiling at her like he’d just learned all her secrets.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve been saying, have you?” His eyes twinkled beneath the bright lights like they always did when he teased her.

Had he been talking?

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What were you saying?”

“What were you thinking about?”

She leaned over the plate he’d deposited in front of her and kissed the smile off his face. “You.” She settled back in her seat and unfolded her napkin. “Thank you for this,” she said, nodding to the Eggs Florentine and roasted potatoes on her plate.

Chris seemed to shake himself out of a stupor. “Always.” He retrieved the second plate and joined her at the counter.

“Now,” said Kat, spearing a chunk of potato, “what were you saying?”

Chris cut into his Florentine, egg yolk bursting bright and yellow over the hollandaise sauce and cooked spinach. “The R’ongovians. I don’t get it.” He paused to eat a bite and then went on. “They were rude to the Tellerites, cordial with us, logical with the Vulcans. It’s like they’re copying whoever they’re speaking to. Is it a negotiation tactic?”

“I suppose it could be,” Kat said, cutting into her own Florentine. And manners be damned because, “Damn that’s good,” and it had to be said before she had finished chewing.

Chris smiled, amused but also pleased, and ate another bite. “But why?” he asked. “What does copying who they’re talking to get them? And why did they take Spock’s side?”

Kat mulled it over as she cut another piece. It was almost as if they had empathized with Spock’s dilemma.

Empathy is a hallmark of our people.

She could have laughed. It had been there all along. Right in front of her face from the start. And then Spock and T’Pring… How had she not seen it before? The coincidence was comedically Shakespearean.

“No! Chris!” Kat dropped her silverware and turned in her stool to face him. Not copying. Empathizing!”

He looked at her, not quite following yet.

“Think about it. They were rude to the Tellarites—” a species not exactly known for their manners— “logical with a Vulcan, and they weren’t just cordial with you, they were downright charming. They’re showing that they can see things from others’ points of view. Maybe we need to do the same.

“Vasso said that empathy is a hallmark of their culture. So, show them that we can do that. Look at it from their point of view. Empathize.”

“Okay. So, looking at it from their point of view, why should they join the Federation?”

Kat huffed a laugh as she picked up her fork. “That’s easy. They shouldn’t.” When she looked back up, he was staring at her. “What?”

Chris stood abruptly. With a hand on the back of her head, he pulled her close and kissed her. Hard. “You’re a genius,” he said when he pulled back.

Startled and at a loss, all she could say was, “Um, thank you?” as he released her head and dashed to his computer console.

“Chris,” Kat said warily. “What are you doing?”

“You said they shouldn’t join the Federation, right?”

“From where they’re sitting, no. They don’t stand to gain as much as we do…” She trailed off as it finally hit her. “That’s it!” she exclaimed, nearly falling off her stool in her excitement.

“Bob said they were walking away because a connection hadn’t been made. What if this is the connection?”

“I think you’re right.”

“And if I’m wrong, it’s not like we have anything to lose at this point.”

That wasn’t entirely true. There was still the possibility that this wouldn’t work, and if it didn’t, not only would they succeed in convincing the R’ongovians to not join the Federation today, but also in putting them off ever coming back to the table in the future.

But that was a whole other conversation. Plus, she actually did think this would work.

Probably.

Maybe.

Actually, perhaps it was best not to think about that.

“Let’s just hope you’re not wrong,” she said.

But an hour later, seated around the conference table, when Vasso walked in and asked the same question Chris had asked her, Kat knew he was right.

“Well, Captain, tell us,” Vasso said as he walked to the table and sat. “Why should we ally with your Federation?”

“Easy,” Chris said, resuming his seat. “You shouldn’t.”

Unaware of their plan—because “where was the drama in that?” —April sat forward in his chair. “Chris.”

Vasso remained enigmatic, but Kat noticed Brax lean forward slightly, eyes alight with curiosity, lips pursed.

“Why would you want to turn our enemies into your enemies?” Chris continued as if April hadn’t spoken. “We’re just a few years clear of the Klingon War. The Romulans are out there biding their time. Who knows what species we’ll piss off next,” he said with a small chuckle.

Unable to stop him and knowing there was no point now in even trying, April sighed and hung his head.

“And it’s not like we’re coming to you with any great respect for your culture,” Chris continued. “We barely know anything about it. No, it’s pretty clear we’re only interested in you for your territory. And what would you get in return? The hypothetical benefit of new trade markets? Scientific advancement? Our promise of support in the event of a crisis, which will probably only come about because you’ve thrown your lot in with us?”

Kat winced internally. Yes, they had talked about this, but did he have to be so damn convincing?

“No,” Chris went on, answering his own questions. “The Federation has lots to offer, sure, but it always exacts a price.” He paused, all humor and lightness gone as he looked across the table at Captain Vasso. “You have good reason to suspect that price is too high for you to pay.”

Brax looked to Vasso, who slowly rose from his seat, resting his hands on the table. “Thank you,” he said simply before straightening and walking out of the room, Brax trailing behind.

“Chris, what the hell was that?” Bob demanded as soon as they were gone.

“Playing a hunch.”

Bob’s expression moved through anger, surprise, confusion, doubt, before finally returning to anger. “You’re risking an alliance that could be the key to the Federation’s future security on a hunch?” He glanced at Kat, looking for either help or answers.

She gave him neither.

“It’s a good hunch,” Chris said and winked at her.

Kat covered her snicker with her glass of water.

April was not amused. “Chris.” His expression demanded an explanation.

Kat set down her glass. “Think about it, Bob,” she said before Chris explained.

“The R’ongovians were rude to the Tellarites, reasonable with us, and deeply logical when talking to a Vulcan.”

“So, you’re saying they copy anyone they come into contact with?” guessed Uhura.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, but then it occurred to me, what if this was a diplomatic technique? They responded positively when I took Spock’s side even though it was in direct violation of what they’d asked. And, thanks to the Admiral—” He smiled at Kat. “—I thought, maybe, they’re just looking for someone to take their point of view. Maybe what they value most in others, is the capacity to see things their way.”

Seated facing the viewport, Kat noticed it first—the raising of the Federation flag on the R’ongovian ship—and nodded towards the view port. “Radical empathy.”

April and Uhura turned their chairs around and stood. Chris smiled at Kat as they, too, stood and made their way over the viewport.

“They’re flying our flag,” stated Uhura, the implications of that fact weighting her words.

Kat stepped up on Chris’s right. “Looks like we have a new ally.”

April looked at her and then at Chris. “Hell of a job, you two.”

The sight of the gold sail unfurling over the solar sail ship was a rare one, and not something any of them would soon forget. They watched as the R’ongovian flag ship took flight from her docking bay, now a proud ally of the United Federation of Planets.

Chapter Text

The sound of the door chime startled Kat out of Dr. Green’s initial report. She had expected a quiet day to get ahead on paperwork. Chris had left early this morning to go fishing, and with the majority of the crew on shore leave, only minimal staff remained on duty at any given time while Enterprise was in space dock. The unfortunate fact of rank meant that Kat was usually always one of those lucky few.

“Come in,” she called.

At the soft whoosh of her office door, Kat looked up from her console to see Una walking in. “Number One,” she greeted. “This is a pleasant surprise. Have a seat.” She waved to the set of chairs facing her desk.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on shore leave?” Una asked, taking a seat.

“You know as well as I do that there’s no such thing as shore leave for an admiral.” Kat closed the console and leaned back in her chair.

“I’m not interrupting anything am I?”

“Not at all.” She waved away Una’s concern with a flick of her wrist. “The paperwork can wait. How are you?”

Una broke eye contact and looked at the desk between them, then over to the viewport. “Fine,” she said finally.

“That’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard, One. Try again.”

Una met her eye again, albeit reluctantly. Her face remained as blank as ever, but Kat noticed the tension in her jaw like she was trying to keep herself from speaking as she leaned back in her chair.

Kat knew that look, the one that said, “present and accounted for, professor, but you said that participation was optional,” and she hadn’t decided whether or not she was going to participate.

Mentally, Kat laughed at the sight. Just like old times, eh, Number One?

…

The first time Cadet Chin-Riley calls her is three weeks into the fall semester to tell Kat that she aced her quiz.

“That’s great! Good job,” Kat tells her.

“We have a test next week.”

“Feeling ready?”

“Yes.”

And that’s it. Less than five minutes after Kat answered the call, Chin-Riley is saying goodbye and cutting the connection.

Kat stares at the blank screen a moment, puzzled and unsure that the interaction even happened. It was such an odd reason to call your former therapist to whom you’d only spoken to three times before. But Kat had told Chin-Riley that she could call any time, about anything. Apparently, for Chin-Riley, that included test scores.

The second time is two weeks later to tell Kat that her squadron took first at their scrimmage.

“Was there any doubt?” Kat asks. Chin-Riley’s squadron had risen considerably in the standings since she’d joined the team last spring.

“It was close there for a few thousand kilometers,” Chin-Riley says. “But we got them in the end.” She’s smiling proudly and Kat can’t help but to return it.

“Way to go, Number One. Hey, how’d your test go last week?”

Immediately that smile fades. “Ninety-five,” Chin-Riley says as if that A were a C.

“That’s still really good,” Kat says, knowing full well that Chin-Riley holds herself to much higher standards than a middling ninety-five.

Chin-Riley shrugs, and less than a minute later she’s saying goodbye.

Once more Kat is left staring at a blank screen, nonplussed. She remembers the medal Chin-Riley had brought to her office. Perhaps the cadet felt like she owed Kat the updates about the squadron because Kat was the one who’d made her join the team. It’s kind of cute, Kat thinks and sets aside the PADD.   

Less than two weeks later Kat gets a video message from a visibly flustered and anxious Cadet Chin-Riley. Clearly, she hadn’t expected to be leaving a message and says simply, “Hi. Clearly you’re busy. Sorry to disturb you. I’ll just… sorry, bye.”

Kat calls her back immediately.

Chin-Riley answers, looking a little shocked and very sleep deprived.

“One. I got your message. How are you?”

Chin-Riley doesn’t answer, but Kat can see her jaw working on the screen as if she’s thinking about it.  

“Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Chin-Riley’s eyes slide away for a moment before she says, “I don’t know.”

“Okay. That’s fine,” Kat says, falling back on her training. “Do you want to talk about something else?”

“Not really. But talk if you want.”

Kat doesn’t know what to say so she says everything. She talks about her recent rotation at Ops and her current rotation at the helm. She talks about the away mission she had been piloting that had kept her from answering Chin-Riley’s earlier call. She talks about how she enjoys navigation more than piloting but can’t see herself sitting at either station. She talks about the Antares and her crew mates and how no matter how she orders it, the computer can’t ever seem to synthesize a proper plate of mushroom risotto.

All the while Chin-Riley sits silently, listening intently while Kat talks herself hoarse. Gradually, the tension in Chin-Riley’s face eases a bit, overcome by weariness, and when Kat mentions that she is looking forward to getting to dismantle a torpedo next week during her tactical rotation, Chin-Riley asks tentatively, “Will you tell me about it?”

“Of course,” Kat says softly. “I’ll comm you next week.”

The young cadet nods. “Cool. Um, bye.”

Three days later, a message arrives for Kat containing instructions for recalibrating the synthesizers to produce the proper consistency for risotto with options for three different types of mushrooms.

When Kat comms a few days after that, Cadet Chin-Riley looks better, back to her not-quite-cheerful but definitely usual self. She doesn’t explain what had prompted her call last week and Kat knows that asking will only cause her to clam up. Instead, she thanks Chin-Riley for the calibrations, saying that they worked flawlessly (“I know,” Chin-Riley says in response), and tells her about getting her hands inside a torpedo so she could practice disarming it (Chin-Riley totally agrees, “That is so cool.”).

In the middle of October, Cadet Chin-Riley comms and says, smile on her face, that she aced all her midterms (five perfect scores and one ninety-seven), but two weeks after that, Kat answers the comm and the young cadet says nothing. Once more she is morose and taciturn, looking like she can’t decide between breaking down into tears or running away. So Kat tells her that she didn’t much enjoy her rotation in engineering, but that she loves the precision of munitions and the physicality of security training.

“I’ll probably request to stay in tactical a while,” she states, “even though Chief Tal is a bit of a misogynist. He didn’t believe a woman of my stature could hold her own in a fight. Don’t worry, I proved him thoroughly wrong.”

That won her a fledgling of a smile.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Chin-Riley says.

“Alright,” Kat replies and tells her about weapons training.

Three weeks later, Chin-Riley comms again, practically bubbling with excitement—if Una Chin-Riley can ever truly “bubble” with excitement—and tells Kat that her squadron took gold at their recent meet. But the week after her winter break, Chin-Riley is quiet again.

“Did finals go okay?” Kat asks.

“Yes.”

Of course they did.

Kat tries again. “Did something happen over break?”

The cadet nods. “I don’t want to talk. Can we just…”

Kat nods in understanding. “Sure, One.”

Chin-Riley turns on some music, a whiny instrumental tune, and Kat sits with her and listens.

The comms continue. Every couple of weeks, sometimes sooner.  Sometimes Kat’s not around to answer the comm immediately and has to call Chin-Riley back. Sometimes Chin-Riley has terrible timing and the only thing that gets Kat to answer the comm is her previous promise to the cadet that her door would always be open to her.

Sometimes the cadet is happy and cheerful, and she shares good news about school or her squadron, news a student would typically share with a parent. Other times Chin-Riley is withdrawn and silent, and Kat can see the worry that lurks behind her eyes. It’s always a toss up during those times whether she will want Kat to fill the silence or sit quietly with her. Kat always asks if she wants to talk about…whatever it is, and sometimes Chin-Riley says no, and sometimes she has to think about it. But she never explains.

It was after the second comm that Kat began to wonder to wonder about Cadet Chin-Riley’s relationship with her parents. From what she can remember from the cadet’s file, her parents were still alive, and she has at least one sibling. But Kat began to wonder if Chin-Riley’s relationship with her family was strained in some way that caused the cadet to call her—her former therapist—whenever she wanted or needed someone to talk to when at their first meeting, Chin-Riley couldn’t get out of her office fast enough. Did Chin-Riley resent her parents for pushing her to achieve perfect grades? Did her parents disapprove of her choice to enroll in the Academy?

It is this knowledge, the knowledge that Cadet Chin-Riley can’t or won’t talk to her family, that she is aloof by nature or by choice and doesn’t have anyone else, that for some reason she has decided to take Kat up on her offer and trust that her door will continue to remain open, that keeps Kat answering the comm. Even when it’s 0200 and she hasn’t slept in twenty hours and she would rather simply collapse into her bunk fully dressed. Even when she’s exhausted from training, or sleep deprived after a double shift, or irritated with her team and she would rather relax with a glass of scotch and a good book. Even when she’s already told that lieutenant yes, she’d love to get that drink this evening and she would rather spend the night in his bed. She answers the comm.

But come April, the morning after a particularly long night of sitting silently with Chin-Riley, the Antares is dispatched to the Vaultera Nebula to assist in the wake of an attack on one of the Federation colonies there.

Chief Tal explains the situation to his team. “Yesterday morning a group of anti-augment terrorists attacked Colony 9-A in the Vaultera…”

And right there in the middle of a briefing, Kat’s stomach drops to the floor. “Oh my God.”

“Lieutenant.” Chief Tal’s stern voice draws her gaze. “Something to say?”

Shit. She’d said that out loud. “No, sir.”

Chief Tal eyes her disapprovingly before resuming his briefing. But that sinking feeling remains in Kat’s stomach.

As soon as she’s dismissed, she checks the computer for recent news about colonies in the Vaultera Nebula. There are dozens of hits, some nothing more than a sentence in a larger report, others, longer accounts of the fighting between Illyrians and non-Illyrians and the recent up tick in violence owing to increasing anti-augment sentiment. She cross checks the dates of the major events on Colony 9-A with her comm logs and is nearly sick when she sees the pattern.

She comms Cadet Chin-Riley.

It’s obvious that she woke the cadet up, but Kat doesn’t apologize. “One. Is your family okay?”

Chin-Riley looks startled by the question but hides it quickly, and Kat knows that it is not just sleep putting the roughness in her voice when she says, “I don’t know.”

Kat breathes out. Exhaustion has made Chin-Riley less guarded, and Kat sees the fear and anxiety in her expression and rheumy eyes.

“The Antares is on the way there now,” Kat says to explain how she knows. “I don’t know what I’ll be able to find out, or what I’ll be allowed to say if anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”

The Antares remains in the Vaultera for several days providing medical and humanitarian aide and assisting with cleanup and rebuilding efforts. It takes hours of searching both on- and off-duty, countless questions to various reporters and aides and clerks, but finally she finds mention of the Chin-Rileys. Alive. In the non-Illyrian city.

Still, she doesn’t have time for more than a quick message to Una.

They’re safe, she writes.

Thank you, comes back.

She comms Una a week later. “Have you been able to contact your parents?”

“Yes. Thank you again.”

“Of course.”

And their pattern resumes. Except that now when Kat asks Una if she wants to talk about something that is bothering her and Una says, “I don’t know,” half the time she continues to remain silent, and the other half of the time she offers minute details.

“I miss my parents,” she admits one day. “My brother was sick,” she says another. But she never says any more than that.

“We had a guest lecturer today,” Una tells her in May.

“Oh?”

“Some cocky test pilot.” Una snorts in amusement, shaking a lock of hair over her shoulder. “He was talking about a flight he’d just made. But he’d made a mistake in reentry sequence. I told him how to fix it after class.”

Of course she did. “Well,” Kat says, “I’m sure he appreciated you waiting until after class to point that out.”

Una frowns. “You think I shouldn’t have corrected him?”

“Oh, no. By all means One, always tell him when he’s wrong.”

Una grins.

Una doesn’t go home for school breaks. Not even for summer. When Kat asks her about it, she states that it’s too far. When Kat asks her if she told her mother that she’d flown the final leg of the race to win her squadron the gold at championships, she says no. “The comms are spotty at home,” she explains.

“Right,” Kat replies knowing full well that the comms in the Vaultera Nebula are just fine.

And when Una comms and blurts out that the captain of her squadron kissed her, Kat tells her crew mates that she’ll meet them in the mess hall and settles onto her bed for some girl talk. And when girl talk unexpectedly turns into a conversation about the proverbial birds and bees, Kat sighs and looks at the frightened and anxious girl on her screen, reminding herself that at nineteen Una is much younger and much more vulnerable than she lets on, and Kat settles in for a much longer, much more intense conversation.

At some point durning that first year, Kat began to look forward to their talks. Una reminds her of her own time at the Academy. She shares both her good news (“I passed my midterms!”), and her bad news (“Professor Pelia gave me a C!”), and when Kat sees that tell-tale tightness in her jaw, she knows that Una is upset or worried about something. Usually that something has to do with her family, but Una refuses to talk about them except to say that they are okay or to say that she misses them.

Three years after they met, while the Antares is docked at Starbase Twelve, Kat packs a bag for shore leave.

Strong arms wrap around her waist from behind. “Where are you going again?”

Kat pushes half-heartedly at Gabriel’s hold. “Stop that,” she murmurs as she simultaneously leans into the solid chest pressed against her back and tilts her neck to grant his lips better access.

“Why can’t you stay?” His tone is more than just a little wheedling.

“It’s Una’s graduation.”

Gabriel chuckles and kisses her neck. “Aww, your puppy is all grown up.”

Kat stiffens and pulls away. “I told you to stop saying that.”

Gabriel flops back onto her bed, hands behind his head, unrepentant and totally unabashed by his current state of undress.

Doing her best to not look at all that maleness spread out on her bead, Kat resumes shoving clothes into her duffle bag. Damn him for being so hot. She’s mad. He’s not allowed to look so appealing when she’s mad. “Una is not a puppy. She’s my…friend. And she’s important to me.”

Gabriel laughs. “Kat, come on. She’s totally your puppy.”

Kat glares at him, letting him know that she’ll choose her damn puppy over his ass in a heartbeat and daring him to test her.

He grins, completely unaffected. “It’s cute.”

She doesn’t dignify that with a response and turns back to her packing.

Gabriel sits up and walks to her, stalling her hands above her duffle bag with his own. “I’m sorry,” he says, his southern drawl more apparent for the sincerity in his tone.

Kat looks up into those blue eyes that have been her downfall on more than one occasion. She hates that he has the power to take her down, but the fall is always so damn good. She’s always loved that hint of mischief in his eyes, the promise of pleasure that glints in them. Now, she sees his apology, and when he looks at her like that, all soft and penitent, she swears she’ll forgive him anything.

Well, almost anything.

“She doesn’t have anyone else to be there for her,” she explains.

Gabriel extracts the shirt from her hands and sets it on top of the stack in her bag. “I know,” he says, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her in for a kiss. “And you’re going to surprise her.”

Unsurprisingly, Kat finds herself wrapping her arms around his neck and returning his kiss. Sue her; it was a good kiss.

“When do you leave?” he asks when they pull apart for air. His voice is rough, and she knows that hers will be no better. His hands are on her ass, and she can feel him growing hard against her belly, and he is so very, very tempting.

“Transport leaves in thirty,” she manages. It is just enough time to finish packing, run her errand, and make her way to the docking bay.

“Hmmm. I can be quick,” he says and kisses her again.

“Maybe you can,” Kat’s says, pulling back, her hands sliding to his chest, and pretending to be totally immune to the way his lips are moving over her throat. “But you can’t finish me that quickly. And if you make me miss my transport, I will never forgive you.”

“Yes, you will,” he said, chuckling against her neck.

Kat scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself, Gabriel. You’re not that good.”

It’s Gabriel’s turn to scoff. “Is that why you keep coming back to my bed?”

It’s hard to think with him sucking that perfect spot that threatens to make her toes curl. “I believe you are in my bed.”

“Any time you want.” He nips lightly at her ear lobe. “Admit it. You’d miss me if you ended this.”

Kat pretends to consider it as she steps away. “I guess it’s a good thing I’ll be gone for a few days. We can test that theory.” She smiles and points to the door. “Now get out of my quarters so I can finish packing in peace.”

Laughing, he dons his scattered clothes, steals one last kiss, and leaves her to do just that.

Una is silent when she sees her after the ceremony, eyes watery, but she returns Kat’s hug. Fiercely.

“Congratulations, One. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you. I can’t believe you came,” Una says when they pull apart. “How did you—”

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Kat tells her. “I’m just sorry your parents couldn’t be here.”

“They wanted to come. But it’s so far.”

“I know. Here.” Kat hands her a PADD containing the message from her parents. “View it later.”

Una nods.

“And…” Kat holds out the small black box she brought from Starbase Twelve. “This is from your parents. I just did the ordering.”

Una opens the lid, revealing the thin open bangle bracelet. The ends are twisted in the intricate knot pattern Una’s mother had sent a picture of, but the rest is plain gold except for the engraving on the inside. Ad astra per aspera.

For a moment, Una simply stares at the bracelet. Then she’s throwing her arms around Kat’s neck in a hug so sudden and so intense, it nearly takes them both to the ground.

After catching her balance, Kat hugs her back.

“Thank you,” Una says and sniffs.

“You’re welcome.”

By the time Una lets go and steps back, she is neither dry-eyed, but nor is she on the verge of tears.

“Now,” Kat says, swallowing the lump in her own throat. “The Martin Luther King Jr. Are you excited?”

“Yes,” Una says. “Second-watch pilot. It’s the best posting out of anyone in my class.”

“You’ll be first-watch in no time, Ensign.”

Una’s smile is tight, and Kat knows it’s due to the sight of all the other graduates milling around the quad with their families.

“Come on,” she says, throwing an arm around Una’s shoulders. “I’m taking you out. Anywhere you want. If I remember correctly, there’s a Peruvian place in North Beach that is to die for. Or, there’s this hole-in-the-wall Thai place down in the Mission with the best pumpkin curry you’ve ever tasted…”

…

Kat stood and stepped around her desk. “Come on.”

Una looked up at her, confused.

“I’m going to get my nails done and you’re going to come with me, and we’ll continue to not talk about whatever it is you’re currently not talking about until you figure out whether or not you want to talk about it.”

“I’m on duty,” Una said inanely.

 “What’s the point of rank of you can’t throw it around every once in a while?” Kat asked with a conspiratorial smirk.

Apparently, Una didn’t have an answer to that one.

“Come on.” Kat waved her up. “Let’s go.”

Finally, Una stood. “Fine.”

The nail salon on Starbase One was on deck twenty, but while they were in the lift, Kat noticed a shop through the transparent siding and stoped the lift on deck nineteen.

“I just want to check something really quick,” she explained.

Wordless, Una followed her around the deck and into the hat store. Kat knew that chances were they probably wouldn’t have what she was looking for, but she decided to look anyway.

The shop was small, made to feel smaller still by the sheer number of hats on display. The walls were covered floor to ceiling with selves and mannequins displaying every style and color of hat she could think of. More shelves formed aisles in the middle of the floor, bursting with hats. They even hung from the ceiling clipped to dangling chains. Feathered hats, bejeweled hats, beanies, fascinators, fedoras, bowlers, berets—the choices and colors were almost overwhelming.

After several minutes of searching high and low, Kat was about to give up when she finally found them. There, on the back shelf, was a row of western hats. Black, tan, grey, flat-brimmed, curled-brimmed, flat-topped or dipped. Every type of cowboy hat she could think of.

She picked out a black, flat-brimmed, felt hat with a braided band for Chris and on a whim, a light-colored woven hat with a curved brim and a dark brown band for herself and took her selections to the sales counter.

Bag in hand, she didn’t miss Una’s knowing smirk as she walked back through the store to the exit. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said.

“Like what?”

“You know exactly what. And just remember, One, payback is a bitch.”

Una just smiled and followed her up to the next deck.

In the salon, Kat eyed the almost innumerable choices of pink nail polish. How could one color have so many varying shades?

“Think fast, Admiral.”

Kat looked to her right, hands automatically coming up to catch the little bottle of polish flying towards her.  Looking down, she found herself holding a bottle of very bold, very red nail polish.

She looked back up at Una and her arch grin. “No.”

She couldn’t possibly… The color was so…loud. Not at all what she’d wear. Maybe when she was thirty years younger…

Exasperated, Una rolled her eyes. “Put it on your toes, Admiral. Surprise him,” she added with a wink before going to sit in one of the open pedicure chairs.

Kat looked once more at the polish in her hand. Curiosity had her turning it over to read the name. “I Can-Can with You, Darling.” What the hell kind of a name was that?

“It’s not even a color,” she said to herself.

And yet, after selecting the neutral pink she’d been considering, she found herself taking both bottles over to the chair next to Una’s.

“How is Chris?” Una asked after they had removed their shoes and socks and settled comfortably into their chairs.  

“Good.” Kat wiggled her toes in the warm water. The salt that had been added to it made the water smell strongly of lavender. “He went fishing with Doctor M’Benga today.”

Una’s answering “Oh,” was little too shrill for normalcy.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kat asked, putting her hand in the bowl of water at the manicurist’s silent instruction.

“Just that Joseph can be a bit…eclectic.”

“And Chris isn’t?”

“Good point,” Una conceded. “I’m just glad he’s taking any sort of shore leave. Unless it has to do with horses, getting that man to take a vacation is like…” She trailed off, head tilting slightly as she considered how to finish her simile.

“Herding cats?” Kat finished for her.

“I would have gone with tribbles but, sure. Herding cats.”

Kat smiled and leaned her head back against her chair. “We were actually going to go to Montana,” she said after a moment.

Una looked at her, brows raised in disbelief. “Was that your idea or his?”

“Mine. But then the meeting with the R’ongovians came up, and well…” She shrugged as much as she could without pulling her hand away from the manicurist who was currently pushing back her cuticles.

“Fishing?”

“Yeah. Fishing,” Kat said before they both dissolved into laughter, causing the nail techs to pause their work until they had sobered.

“I’ll never understand the point of fishing,” Una said once they had, wiggling her spine as she relaxed further into the plush chair. “I mean, you get up at the crack of dawn, you stand there all day holding a string in the water, hoping that something will bite, and when it finally does, you turn around and let it go? It makes no sense.”

“It’s fly fishing,” Kat corrected, putting her hand into the bowl of water and removing her other.

“What?”

Kat looked over to find Una staring at her like she’d suddenly grown an extra head. “They’re fly fishing,” she explained again, and when that didn’t solve anything for Una she added, “You don’t leave the line in the water.”

Una made a sound of disgust. “You two were made for each other.”

Cheeks heating, Kat closed her mouth on a censored, “Oh,” and focused the little flower floating in the water next to her hand.

“I would ask how it’s been serving on the same ship, but you just got here.”

Kat huffed a small laugh. “I know. I hardly needed the shore leave. But it’s good. Or it will be. I don’t know, this is new territory for me.”

“Well, I can’t remember the last time I saw Chris this happy.”

“No?”

Una looked at her pointedly. “He’s been in love with you for nearly as long as I’ve known him.”

“Oh.” Kat looked at her feet, perched on the footrest.

“It’s good to see. I’m happy for you.”

“Thank you. It’s still new, but I’m…happy.” Kat could feel the dopey grin spreading across her face as those now familiar bubbles sparkled in her stomach.

“Good,” Una said emphatically, drawing Kat’s gaze once more. “I would hate to have to throw him out an airlock.”

Kat laughed at Una’s dry humor, but damn that serious expression was a bit scary. She would definitely hate to be on the receiving end of Una’s wrath.

They were quiet for while, simply enjoying the moment of luxury while Kat waited for Una to decide whether or not to talk about whatever had drawn her into Kat’s office. When she finally broke the silence, it was not what Kat had expected. Though, she wasn’t sure exactly what she had expected beyond an amorphous presupposition that it had to do with the crew drama that was unavoidable on starships.

“You never told me.”

Kat looked sharply towards Una.

“About why exactly you wanted to go into command.”

Definitely not what she had expected.

“I didn’t?” Kat thought back, trying to remember ever mentioning specifics, and could only ever remember telling Una that she’d needed power. “I guess you’re right.”

Una was quiet, watching intently while her manicurist painted iridescent blue polish onto her nails. Was this why Una had come to her office? Was she hurt that Kat hadn’t told her exactly why she’d retired all those years ago?

“To be honest,” Kat explained, “I never told anyone in Starfleet why I made the switch. I was too embarrassed.”

Una raised a brow in question.

Kat chuckled, remembering how serious she had been about proving herself. “It seems so silly now, but I was older than most everyone on that track by then, and I thought that if everyone knew that I was only there to improve mental health…” She shrugged and stated simply, “Gossip is a bitch.”

Una scoffed knowingly. “Yeah.”

“I never told anyone until I told Chris,” Kat said. “And I only told him because…”

Because helping him had made me remember that part of myself.

“I didn’t even tell him until after I’d filed the paperwork. But perhaps I should have told people. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have lost sight of my priorities along the way.”

Una nodded and turned to look at her. “I’m just glad you’re here now, Admiral.”

With Chris, “Admiral” could mean many things depending on his tone. A respectful greeting in public, a tease when inflected on the initial syllable and accompanied by a joke, or a turn-on when spoken slowly in that deep tone of his that always shot straight to her core. With Una, “Admiral” was simply her name, respect and friendly affection included.

“Me too, One.”

“Speaking of gossip,” Una said, changing the subject and the tone of the conversation.

Oh, dear.

“Were you and Chris planning on keeping this thing a secret for long?”

“It’s not really a secret per se, just…quiet at the moment,” she explained, but then suspicion took up residence in her stomach. “Why?”

Una hesitated for a moment and then said, “Erica saw you two at Ambrosia last night.”

“She told you?” Had Erica complained?

“No. Erica told Christine, who told La’an, who told me. It’s probably all over the ship by now.”

Kat groaned and let her head fall back against her chair with a thud. Gossip was a bitch. Turning her head to look at Una, she asked, “Remind me why I decided to live on a starship again?”

Una chuckled. “I’m not sure. Was it the job or the captain?”

“Oh, it was definitely the captain,” Kat said, laughing and nearly tearing her hand away from the woman currently buffing her nails to a high shine.

Then she thought back, trying to remember if anything suspicious or untoward had occurred at dinner last night.

Chris had wanted to celebrate their successful negotiations with the R’ongovians, “For real this time,” he had said.

“And just what did you have in mind,” Kat had murmured—somewhat suggestively, she’ll admit—against his lips.

“I was thinking dinner.” Another kiss. “A really old bottle of wine.” Another kiss. And then a few more before they had finally made their way out of his quarters to dinner.

Ambrosia wasn’t the fanciest restaurant on the base, but it was one of Kat’s favorites. It was a classy establishment but laid back, and the chef there could do things with mushrooms that would knock the socks off a slime worm.

They had shared that bottle of wine—nothing inappropriate about that. And the fried mushroom sampler and the roasted artichoke appetizers (“I’d do literally anything if you fed me this and only this for the rest of my life,” she’d told a very wide-eyed Chris around an artichoke leaf). To be expected of appetizers. But they had also shared dessert—was that a “couple” thing or something you regularly did with your close friend/subordinate? And—

Oh.

She had fed Chris a bite of her pasta because “You have got to try this.” And then she’d stolen a bite of his polenta because she’d had trouble deciding what she wanted to order and wanted to try both dishes. And he had responded with an indignant “Hey!” but ultimately let her take another bite.

Yep. That was it.

Shit.

“Well,” she said. “That didn’t take long.”

“Nope.”

“I guess that means we’re out.”

“Yep.”

Then Kat winced, realizing who would be the last to know. “I should probably tell Chris.”

“Yeah.”

Kat blew out a breath. That would also mean telling Command.

Lovely.

Curious, she looked at Una. “Was any of this what you wanted to talk about?”

“Oh, that?” Una waved her free hand—the one not currently being painted—flashing nails that changed from blue to purple with the movement. “No. That was nothing. Not even worth mentioning anymore.”

“Alright then.”

Yeah. Just like old times.

Chapter Text

Kat’s hips moved to the beat of the brassy music playing through the speakers as she ladled another scoop of broth over the rice and stirred it in. The fast tempo and upbeat melody matched her good mood which had been helped along by the one… A glance at her wine glass. Two? glasses of Chardonnay she’d already consumed. (Who cares? If she was going to open the bottle for dinner, she might as well enjoy a glass or two while she cooked it.) And inside her boots her toes were painted red and the wine was making the bold polish feel like expensive lingerie.

Leaving the rice to absorb the broth for a moment, she danced to the oven to put in the tray of asparagus.

… three, four, pirouette, six, close the oven, seven, eight, back to the stove…

“Well then my knees dropped to the ground,” she sang along to the chorus.  “And I was really feeling down…”

..sway, sway, ladle more broth, stir…

“Then baby you called me / You called me to tell me you love me…”

The smell of mushroom risotto filled the kitchen, the fragrant garlic and onion mixing with the wine-soaked rice. Chris had said that he would be back from fishing with Joseph in time for dinner, and Kat had decided to surprise him. It was rare that anyone ever cooked for him.

Ladling more broth into the rice, she sashayed over to the counter to chop the parsley, humming along to the next verse. She had to chop quickly before the rice began to burn. Risotto was complicated.

Whose idea was that anyway?

She didn’t answer herself as she scrapped the coarsely chopped parsley into the rice.

…three, four, add more broth, don’t let it burn, stir, seven, eight...

Singing along, she looked around for her glass of wine. “…but everything they had was more than I could afford.”

There it was, over by the sink.

…six, seven, quarter turn and slide to the sink.

“Oh, my lord…”

One, two, sip, step, back to the stove…

She added the last of the broth as she hit the next chorus, stirred the rice, and danced over the cupboard for some dinner bowls, kicking up her feet and pivoting in place.

“…and I was really feeling down…”

Still stepping to the beat, she set the bowls on the counter and bent to check the asparagus.

“…but then baby you called me…”

Not done yet.

“…you called me just to tell me you love me.”

…six, seven, pirou—

Her spin was cut short when Chris caught her by the waist and pulled her into a basic ballroom hold. Startled, her steps faltered until she recognized the basic slow-quick-quick pattern of the quickstep.

“Hi.” He was smiling down at her, eyes crinkling at the corners as he picked up the pace and led her towards the viewport.

“Hi. How long have you been back?”

“Long enough.” He spun her around under his arm and resumed the hold.

… slow, quick, quick, and turn…

“How was fishing? Catch anything?”

“Mmhmm. It was good. The scenery is much better here though.”

“Flatterer.”

Chris happened to be a passable dancer, which she probably should have guessed. Starfleet trained all their command officers in the basic steps of the most popular Federation dances. Clearly the lessons had stuck.

Their chasse led them around the counter where he spun her out into the living room.  

“That’s why you love me, right?” he asked.

Kat let the outward motion of her spin continue through her arm before spinning back into him, ending with her back against his chest. She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Right.”

He spun her into a basic hold once more just as the music began fading out and she found herself dipped low over his arm.

“Thank you for cooking. It smells amazing.”

“You’re welcome,” she said as he stood her back up.

The next song began, another up-beat jazzy tune by the same artist, but Chris made no move to begin the dance again, nor did he release her. He just stood there looking down at her and hummed in contemplation.

“I’m taking you dancing.”

It was so out of the blue—even though they had just been dancing around his kitchen—that she said the first thing that popped into her head. “You hate dancing.”

Chris frowned, straightened his hold, and stepped forward with his right foot, starting the dance again. “That’s not true.”

Kat raised a brow. He hated dancing, and she was fairly certain that it had been at the reception for his own promotion ceremony where he’d said it.

“Maybe I just like dancing with you,” he amended with a grin.

“Ooo! Smooth recovery, Pike.” He spun her out and pulled her back into his chest. “Did you practice that line?”

Chris laughed and spun her back around. “No. But it’s pretty good right?”

Kat didn’t bother to hide her snort of laughter.

“Well? What do you say?”

His eyes, his smile, his genuine enthusiasm were all making it very hard to say no. But why not? They were already “out” anyway, and her toes were painted red, and she had that perfect pair of heels that would show them off and that cocktail dress that dipped low in the back that would make Chris short circuit and she wanted to see that. 

“I think,” she said, twirling beneath his arm, “that sounds lovely, and that I should probably tell you that we’ve been outed.”

“I know,” Chris said and dipped her once more. “Joesph told me.”

“Joesph?” she questioned, crunching her neck up to look at him. “You do?”

“Erica told Christine, who told Joesph, who told me,” he explained as he stood her up, but he didn’t continue the dance. His expression had turned gravely serious. “Are you okay with that?” he asked, letting his arms drop and wrap around her waist.

“Yeah.” Kat looped her arms around his neck. “I am if you are.”

“I’m good if you are.”

“Okay.” Somehow, that seemed too easy. “So. We’re out.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess that means we should tell Command.”

“And mother.”

“And my parents.” Kat winced. Not that her parents wouldn’t be happy for her. Just the opposite in fact. This would be her mother’s dream come true. “Maybe we should start with dinner before it burns,” she said, remembering the asparagus in the oven.

Chris chuckled and kissed her quickly before he released her and followed her to the kitchen.

“Perfect,” she declared, pulling the pan out of the oven and setting it on the trivet.

“Did you use every dish in the kitchen?”

Kat looked up.

Chris was standing on the threshold of the kitchen, eyes wide as he took in the sight. His tone was teasing, but there was also a note of astonishment beneath his slight chuckle, as if he couldn’t believe so many dishes would be necessary.

She looked around the kitchen, counting two pans and the pot on the stove, the ladle and spatula in the spoon rest, and two cutting boards, three knives of various sizes, a collection of measuring spoons, the glass measuring cup, the metal measuring cup, the sieve, the pile of food scraps, the sheet pan of asparagus, tongs, oven mitt, wine bottle, corkscrew, and her lonely glass of wine all cluttering up the counters.

“Maybe,” she said and looked at him pointedly, hands on her hips. “Are you complaining?”

Chris scooped out a bite of risotto with the spatula and tasted it. And it must have been good because his face suffused with pleasure. “Mmm. Hardly.” He walked over and tilted her head back for a kiss. “I simply count my blessings,” he said against her lips. “And give thanks.”

He… wasn’t talking about dinner anymore. And she didn’t know what to say because he was looking at her like she’d handed him the keys to the universe, but really, it was just a pan of risotto.

But that look in his eyes… it was the same feeling she got in her chest every time she thought about how much she loved him, so she just smiled in perfect understanding.

He kissed her again and stepped back. “You sit. I’ll dish up.”

Picking up her wine glass, she did.

***

“Can we go now?” Chris called from the living room of her quarters.

“Calm down, cowboy,” she said walking out of the bedroom as she finished buttoning her shirt. “The horses aren’t going anywhere.” She looked him up and down. Jeans, boots, flannel shirt, canvas jacket. “You’re missing something.” She turned and went back into the bedroom, his impatient sigh following her all the way to the closet.

It was their last day of shore leave. Enterprise would be headed out at 0700 tomorrow morning, and after a week filled with political negotiations, fishing, dinners, and dancing, they were finally going on that trail ride.

Kat retrieved the shopping bag she’d stashed the other day and returned to the living room. Chris eyed her questioningly until she pulled out the black felt hat and plopped it firmly on his head with a little wiggle to seat it in place. He looked up at the brim awkwardly, chuckling and grinning somewhat stupidly.

“Now, you’re ready,” she stated, returning his grin.

Then she reached back into the bag for the second hat, holding it backwards by the brim, flipping it around with a flourish and settling it onto her head. When she looked up at him from beneath the brim, she found him looking at her a bit wide-eyed. Then he closed his gaping mouth and smiled a whole other smile.

Kat laughed and walked past him. “Let’s go, cowboy.”

***

The trail was quiet and peaceful, the horses well-mannered and clearly well cared for, and the hour-long ride had taken them to a manufactured waterfall that eventually flowed into the large lake.

Chris looked quite the part in his hat, grinning like an idiot astride a big bay gelding named Dan while Kat rode alongside on a buckskin named, very originally, Buckskin.

They picnicked under a large tree not far from the waterfall, listening to the soft roar of the water while they sat on the ground and ate pinwheel sandwiches and charcuterie paired with the sparkling curée.

After sitting awhile simply enjoying the peaceful scenery backdropped with cheerful birdsong, they packed up the picnic blanket and dishes, mounted up, and headed back to the stable. The horses seemed to know the way, and the ride was leisurely excepting the fact that entire way back she could feel Chris’s eyes on her, heated and desirous.

It was a whole other feeling than when he looked at her like that in uniform. More dangerous for the hat and denim and the horse. Already dry-mouthed and aching with want, she couldn’t help but wonder what the ensemble would look like with the long hair and beard she’d seen in Montana. And that thought, along with a timely step by Buckskin, had her stifling a gasp when she shifted unexpectedly in the saddle.

Chris saw it, of course, his flirtatious smile fading, his eyes darkening beneath the brim of his hat. Kat’s legs tightened around Buckskin, causing him to speed up his walk, which didn’t exactly help matters. Every plodding step, each shift of the saddle between her legs dragging cotton along hypersensitive flesh.

But thirty minutes was time enough for the desire to ebb once Chris had decided to behave himself.

Back at the stable, Chris thanked the hostler for allowing them to take the horses on a private trail ride and assured him that both horses had done well.

Since they were not required to untack or groom the horses, after one last pat to Buckskin’s neck, they headed back to Enterprise. Kat was sure they made just as beguiling a sight heading back through the corridors as they had on their way out, decked out in western attire as they were, only this time they carried with them the scent of horse and the dust from the trail. But Chris was still smiling like a fool, and she began to wonder what it would take to get him to take that ridiculous hat off.

Not much as it turned out, because as soon as the doors to his quarters closed behind them, he dropped the backpack with the picnic supplies to the floor, flung his hat to the side, and caught her up in a kiss, lifting her from the floor with arms around her waist. Kat squealed in surprise, clinging to him and laughing against his lips for the suddenness of it all. She tried to wrap her legs around his waist but given the way he was holding her she couldn’t quite manage it, her legs only getting halfway over his hips, and she had to trust that he wasn’t going to drop her as he spun her around.

He let her slide to ground before deepening the kiss, coaxing her lips apart with his own, his hands dipping beneath her shirt and attempting to slip below the waistband of her jeans. Thwarted by her belt, he ran his hands over the top of her jeans, squeezing her ass as he pulled her tight against him before stroking around to start on the buttons on her shirt.

He was in a hurry, fingers fumbling with the buttons as he tried to force them through the buttonholes faster than physics would allow. But apparently, she liked that, because now she was in a hurry too.

She had a head start on buttons, already halfway down his shirt, and when she’d undone them all, she ran her palms over his chest, up to his shoulders and beneath the fabric to push it down his arms. Chris took a moment to rip his hands free from the offending garment, tossing it to the side while she finished unbuttoning and removing her own. Then his eager hands were unbuckling her belt, pulling it through the loops with a sharp hiss of leather on denim before dropping it to floor and wrenching loose the top button on her jeans. Kat reached up to take off the hat, which was hardly holding onto her head as it was, but he caught her wrist.

“Leave it,” he said, that deep authoritative tone of command leaking into the words.

She arched a brow, for his words, not his tone, because she’d known that he liked the hat, but holy shit, she hadn’t considered that reaction. But his eyes were boring into hers with pure want, and um, yeah. Okay. She could work with that.

With a seductive smile, she settled the hat more firmly on her head.

After that it was a matter of tugging off boots and jeans between messy kisses while they stumbled to the bedroom.

Kneeling on the bed, Kat removed her bra and tossed it across the room onto the desk. She’d already decided to play his game, so when he climbed onto the bed after her, she pushed him flat onto his back and straddled him.

She took a moment to appreciate him spread out beneath her, all warm skin and hard muscle. Her hands roamed over his chest, nails lightly scraping over his nipples, before she bent to kiss him, deeply. He still smelled of leather and horse and Chris. It was a heady combination.

Warm hands ran over her back, down to her ass, squeezing and stroking as he kissed his way from her mouth to her neck and then down to her breasts, tonguing each of her nipples before continuing further down. Eventually, he settled between her legs, pulling her down to his mouth even as her hips surged to meet him, eager for the touch of his tongue that had her gasping and arching back, hands searching for something to cling to. With nothing in reach, she fell forward, hands braced on the mattress, fisting the blankets and moaning with pleasure when he pressed one thick finger inside her.

Unfortunately, she lost the hat shortly after that.

***

She found it on the pillow next to her head when she stretched out beside him sometime later.

Kat turned her head to look at him. “So. The hat, huh?” she asked archly.

Chris blushed to the tips of his ears.

“And if I had pulled out Risan lingerie instead?”

He reached up to scratch behind his ear. “I mean… I wouldn’t say no…”

Kat laughed, grabbing the hat from the pillow and slapping it down gently over his face.

With out missing a beat, he lifted the hat, eyed it as he sat up, and then set it atop his head, turning to face her with a grin.

Kat tried not to laugh at the sight, but the feminine hat over his decidedly masculine face and body had a grin splitting her face. Sitting up, she plucked it from his head and settled it daintily atop her own.

“Now, Captain Pike,” she intoned in an utterly terrible western drawl, arching her back provocatively, hands in her lap. “I do believe that is something I can work with.”

He caught her around the waist, pulling her beneath him amid the tangled mass of bedding. Laughing, she let him. But rather than kiss her, he paused, staring down at her. Her laughter faded at the sight of him. The look in his eyes said that the silliness was over, but it wasn’t desire that she saw there. It was reverence. An almost uncomprehending awe.

And love.

It was a look that made her smile softly and reach up to stroke her fingers over his cheek because yes, that was exactly what she felt for him.

Slowly, he drew his hand from beneath her back and took off the hat, tossing it to the floor. Only then did he kiss her, cradling her face in his hand. Her fingers threaded into the soft hair at his nape, thumbs stroking over his jaw, now rough with a day’s worth of stubble.

It was a kiss that left her breathless beneath him when he pulled back, and yet, it wasn’t that kiss which caused them to miss their dinner reservation. It was the next one. Because when he pressed up, he looked down at her with that bewildered expression of his, the one that said he was unsure whether he was awake or dreaming. But he must have figured it out because he crashed into her at the same time as she pulled him down into a kiss that was as rough as it was tender. One that didn’t just leave her panting for air but made her forget to breathe entirely. His kiss, his taste, the feel of him surrounding her ignited previously sated lust like a spark setting fire to kindling.

His hand moved down to her breast, teasing her nipple into a stiff peak and gently rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. The pleasure had her moaning into his mouth, clutching at his shoulders and arching into the touch. God! The feel of him against her. Hard and strong, yet yielding to the pressure of her hands as she stroked down his back, muscles flexing beneath her palms as she moved them down, pulling him closer. Ever closer. She would pull all of him inside her if she could. If that would sate her need of him.

Would this wanting ever stop? Would there ever come a day when she didn’t crave him like her lungs craved air?

His lips dragged along her jaw, down to her neck, biting gently and soothing the small hurt with his tongue. With some effort, she untangled her legs from the bedding, kicking the covers away so she could cradle his hips between her thighs. She sighed. And sighed again when he entered her.

No, she knew. She would never not need him like this. Never not suffer for want of this. Never not crave this sense of completeness, the fulfillment that came with holding him like this.

It was slower this time. Slow enough that the sharp ache of climax building low in her belly was a surprise. She gasped, nails digging into his back. He just smiled down at her and continued, adagio, gradually winding that ache tighter and tighter while she urged him to move faster with insistent hands and breathy pleas, yet all but sobbing for how good it felt that he didn’t.

The climax was like standing on a cliff’s edge, unable to jump, unwilling to come back down as he slowly took her higher and higher, until finally, with one small movement, she was falling, flying, crying out while wings of pleasure beat between her legs. 

And when he shuddered with his own release and collapsed on top of her, she held him fast to keep him from rolling away, not ready to lose the feeling of him inside her, relishing his weight atop her. In a moment it would become too much. Even with him holding himself on his forearms, it would soon become hard to breathe with him crushing her like this. But for now, she savored the comfort, the security, of all of him pressing down on her.  

“I love you,” she whispered breathlessly, stroking a hand over his head.

At that, he did press up, and this time she let him. “I love you,” he said and kissed her. And this time, when he rolled to the side, pulling her back against his chest, she pillowed her head on his biceps and sighed in contentment.

And later, when they realized what time it was, they both grinned sheepishly and laughed.

The dinner he made was better anyway.  

Chapter Text

In her office, Admiral Cornwell felt the vibrations of the ship travel from the deck plating up through the soles of her boots, through her desk, and into her arm where it rested against the edge of the metal. Glancing up from the PADD in her hand, she saw the water inside the crystal vase on her desk quivering with the tremors, heard the heavy glass vibrating against the metal, and quickly reached out to steady it.

Just as her fingers closed around the vase, the vibrations ceased, and she released the crystal only to reach for it again half a second later when the gentle vibrations started up again.

Then ceased.

But she didn’t let go of the vase yet.

Turbulence was not out of the ordinary, and if it was expected to get any worse, the bridge would send out a warning to all decks. But Kat did not want to spend the next twenty minutes cleaning up shattered crystal and flower petals. Plus, Chris had given her that vase—a replacement for the one destroyed in the Gorn attack a few weeks ago—and the flowers inside.

Every week there was a new bouquet on her desk, fresh cut from the arboretum and usually hand delivered by the man in question. Otherwise, they seemed to appear by magic, if discreet yeomen could be considered magic.

Kat smiled, remembering the bouquet Chris had brought yesterday.

At the sound of her office chime, she’d called a quick “Come,” without looking up from her console, but when she did, she’d found Chris walking into her office holding a bouquet of—

“Are those…artichokes?” she’d asked with a confused frown, eyeing the globes atop their thick stalks.

“They are.” There was a smile on his face, something between suggestive and affectionate and tinged with amusement. “I seem to remember you saying that you’d do ‘literally anything’ for roasted artichokes.”

Kat had smirked at the reference. She had indeed said that. And meant every innuendo she’d put into the statement.

“My, my, Captain. Feeling a bit presumptuous today, are we?” she’d teased, leaning back in her chair. “I do believe that is the definition of quid pro quo.”

“Hardly,” he replied, which she knew was true. Christopher Pike was the least presumptuous man she knew. “I wanted to ask you to have dinner with me this evening. No ‘pro quo’ required,” he said, holding out the bouquet of thistles.

Careful of the sharp spines, Kat took the bouquet from him and brought the artichokes to her nose, sniffing as if they were flowers. “Why Captain Pike,” she said, playing coy. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Chris leaned forward, hands on her desk, and smiled, eyes bright and crystalline in the light of her desk lamp. “I am.”

When he smiled like that, Kat found it impossible to refuse him anything, least of all dinner. “Alright.”

“Perfect.” He straightened. “My quarters. 1900?”

“It’s a date.”

His smile had faded as he shifted on his feet. “I’m, uh—I’m going to need those back,” he said, glancing down at the artichokes in her hands. “To cook them.”

With a show of reluctance, she’d handed them back.

The artichokes had been good; the “pro quo” had been better. Once more, Kat smiled. She had indeed done everything he wanted. He hadn’t even had to ask. And a single artichoke had appeared among the flowers in the vase this morning.

The vibrations didn’t seem to be getting any worse, so Kat pulled the vase closer to the center of her desk and turned her attention back to Dr. Jensen’s report. As part of the Fleet Counseling program, Kat had counselors stationed on the Cayuga, the Farragut, and the Peregrine. Dr. Jensen was currently stationed on the Farragut, and based on her initial report, Dr. Margret Jensen was a perfect fit for the Farragut’s crew.

Kat got through two more sentences before the red alert klaxon blared, pulsing red light illuminating her office. She stood, intending to make her way to the bridge, but then the ship lurched, causing her to stumble and catch herself against the desk. With nothing steadying it, the crystal vase slipped from the desktop, shattering against the deck with an audible crash, a thousand shards of glass catching the red light. Sparing a moment to mourn the flowers and the second vase lost in less than a month, Kat ordered the computer to deploy the cleaning bot before heading out into the corridor and to the turbolift, drawn to the bridge mainly by curiosity.

She held rank on Enterprise, but this was Chris’s ship. As such, she tried to stay away from the bridge unless there was an emergency. Even then, she sometimes stayed away if she could be of more use elsewhere. But she would admit, she rather enjoyed being on Enterprise’s bridge.

Since the Antares, working with Chris had always been second nature, as seamless as two chords played in harmony, and they’d never had trouble finding equilibrium in command. He valued her opinion; she trusted his judgment. It was a balance, but it was neither delicate nor precarious. Rather, it stood with roots decades deep.

Even on Discovery when he’d questioned her about Section 31, about keeping him out of the war, they’d never had one of those dick measuring contests that always seemed to occur when there were more commanders than bridges on a starship. Not really. And that, she knew, came down to trust and nothing else. The urge to whip it out and measure didn’t win out if you trusted one another. Kat wore the bigger badge, but she trusted Chris with her life, and with a whole hell of a lot more than that. Trusting his decisions in a crisis was a nonissue.

One deck away from the bridge, the red alert klaxon cut off and the lights returned to standard illumination. The turbolift doors parted, depositing Kat onto Enterprise’s bridge, the sound of the boatswain’s whistle announcing her presence. Chris turned at the sound, that soft, dimpled smile she loved so much spreading across his face before he turned to Una.

“Let’s go meet our guests,” he said, already mounting the steps to the upper level of the bridge. “Admiral. Join us?”

Kat turned on her heel and followed them back into the turbolift. “Someone want to catch me up real quick?” she asked after Chris had called for deck six.

“We received a distress call from a shuttle under attack by a small combat cruiser,” Una stated succinctly.

“When we tried to intervene, the cruiser fired on us and learned that the bigger dog bites harder. We’re beaming aboard the survivors from the shuttle,” Chris finished.

From the turbolift, it was a short walk to the transporter room. The doors opened just as three transporter patterns were rematerializing on the transporter pad. Moments later, the three shimmering forms were replaced by three humanoids, their ocular ridges distinguishing them as Majalans: a red-headed woman; a young boy with a shaggy mop of black hair, holding a compress to his head; and a man who appeared to be the boy’s father, judging by the similarities in hair and skin tone and the concerned expression on his face as he knelt behind the boy to check the kid’s wound. The child was still standing on his own and didn’t appear to be in any immediate distress, nor did the man or woman appear overly concerned about his condition. The wound was probably just a small bump on the head.

“Lieutenant Pike?”

At the mention of Chris’s name, Kat’s eyes snapped to the redhead who’d spoken. She was tall and slender, probably in her forties by human standards, and currently staring at Chris with an expression of joyful surprise.

“Alora?” Chris returned, equally astonished.

“You know her, Captain?” asked Una. “Or should I call you, Lieutenant?” she added teasingly.

As for Kat, she was too shocked to speak. Something akin to trepidation was written on Chris’s face, an odd combination of fear and desire, as if he were meeting his boyhood celebrity crush or—

“Alora and I met years ago,” Chris said somewhat absently, but Kat didn’t miss the note of nostalgia in his voice.

—an old flame.

Kat looked back to Alora. Was she a previous one-night stand or an old girlfriend?

Kat hardly had time to acknowledge the spark of jealousy that burned hot and fast in her stomach. She wasn’t typically the jealous type, but Alora was looking at Chris as if the stars had just aligned. Later, when she analyzed the emotion more closely, she would realize that it stemmed from her own insecurity about having pushed Chris away all those years ago and the time lost because of that choice. But then Kat looked once more at Chris and the growing uncertainty on his face, the sudden awkwardness in his posture, and it smothered that spark in its infancy.

One-night stand, Kat concluded.

Chris was adorably modest when it came to his love life. If he and Alora had dated, even recently—and by Alora’s use of “Lieutenant” Kat knew that wasn’t the case—Chris would be able to cobble together a better greeting than a clumsy explanation as to how he knew her and put on a better expression than the gaping incredulity currently gracing his face.

Lost in her thoughts, Kat was only dimly aware of the conversation taking place right in front of her. “He rescued me from another shuttle,” Alora was saying, and Una was turning from Chris to Alora, clasping her hands behind her back, and her tone was that shrill, false normal she used whenever she was hiding what she really thought and didn’t care if you knew it when she said, “Seems like you have bad luck with shuttles.” Her sarcasm pulled Kat back into the conversation and she had to look away to hide her snort of laughter. Una had clearly made up her mind about the other woman.

“Or good,” Alora returned defensively, not bothering to hide the suggestion in her own tone, “depending on how you look at it.” Under the bright lights of the transporter room, her already fiery hair seemed to glow, like a burning halo.

Kat watched a sultry smirk slowly spread across Alora’s face and wanted to laugh. At the very least this conversation would be entertaining.

Good luck, honey.

If she didn’t know Chris the way she did, that spark of jealousy might have flared anew, it’s green light casting Alora as a rival. But she did know him, and this was just another instance where trust and confidence won out over every other emotion.

Chris seemed to shake himself from a stupor. “Well,” he said, completely unaffected by that smirk, “allow me to welcome you all to Enterprise.”

Alora sauntered down the steps of the transporter pad, hips swaying exaggeratedly. She looked almost ethereal with her pale skin and the white light glinting off the colorful scale-like fabric of her coat. “Your new uniform is, uh…very yellow.”

Chris looked down at his shirt, chuckling slightly. “Oh, it’s gold, technically, because I’m um…” He plucked at the hem and rocked back on his heels. “I’m a captain. So…”

Maybe not so unaffected. Kat turned her eyes up at him, watching the blush rise in his cheeks. Really, Chris?

“Well, on behalf of Majalis,” said Alora, “we thank you for your help, Captain Pike.”

It was the way she drawled his name that had Kat turning narrowed eyes back to Alora. Could she be any more obvious? Then Alora’s hand alighted on Chris’s forearm, and Kat didn’t miss the minute flex of his arm beneath her hand, the slight downward tug of his lips until he fixed his smile. After a moment, Alora removed her hand, but that smile remained, the obvious interest in her eyes as she looked up at him.

“Uh, this is my Number One,” Chris said, turning to Una and proceeding to forget her name. His mouth opened stupidly, fingers poised on a snap he never completed as he strained to reactivate brain cells.

Kat was pleased to see the glare in Una’s eyes as she waited for him to continue and the look on her face that said he would not be living this moment down. Ever.

After a moment, Chris found his tongue. “Una… uh, Lieu-Lieutenant-Commander Una Chin-Riley.”

Sort of.

He turned to Kat. “And this is Ka-aa-Admiral Katrina Cornwell.”

It was Kat’s turn to glare at him, but she didn’t think he even noticed because Alora hadn’t stopped smiling at him. “A pleasure.” And then Alora stepped closer, and closer…

And then Kat lost the conversation entirely because Alora touched Chris again, this time a lingering hand on his biceps as she laughed exaggeratedly at something he had said. What it was Kat didn’t know. She was aware of nothing except the rage roaring in her ears for the way Chris flinched like a stung horse beneath Alora’s hand.

Behind her back, Kat’s hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms, her entire body tense and nearly vibrating with anger.

“…debrief…”

“…medical facilities…”

“…of course…”

Bits of conversation floated around the room like flotsam on the sea, but it was the movement of the Majalans from the transporter pad, Chris stepping away, the soft whoosh of the doors opening, that alerted her to the fact that in her anger, she had missed an entire portion of the conversation.

Shit.

“Alora,” Kat called before the Majalan woman could walk out the door. Everyone stopped and turned to face her, expressions ranging from confused to expectation. “A moment please?” At Chris’s questioning look, Kat added, “You all go on. We’ll catch up in just a minute.”

“Right,” Chris said. Then to the boy and his father, “If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to sickbay.”

Una bent lower to Kat’s ear. “Do I need to stay here for this?” she asked quietly.

Kat snorted in amusement. “I don’t need a witness, but if you’d like to stick around and spectate?” She waved a hand. “By all means.”

Una straightened and squared her shoulders, smiling as if settling in for a show. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Alora walked back over from the doors, expression all sweet innocence and confusion, but there was a definite edge to her next words. “It’s Minister.”

There was no politeness in Kat’s “Excuse me?”

“My title. Minister.”

“Right.” Kat filed that information away for a time when she actually cared. “Minister. I’m aware that you and Captain Pike have a…history.” When Alora opened her mouth to interject, Kat cut her off. “I’m not sure how they do things on Majalis, but you’re on a Federation starship now, and while you are here, you will abide by our laws.”

“I’m not sure what you’re getting at Admiral,” Alora said, sharpening her words.

“Then let me make myself abundantly clear. Touch him again with out his consent, and I will have you arrested for sexual assault.”

Alora balked, but she hid it quickly, her expression hardening. “I’m not a Federation citizen. You have no jurisdiction over me.” She was only a few centimeters taller than Kat, but the way she stood a little straighter, the subtle lift of her chin, coupled with the challenge in her words said she thought those centimeters a mile. As if that height gave her some sort of advantage.

Kat’s lips wanted to curl in a feral smile. “As long as you are on this ship, I do. With one order I can have you arrested and thrown in our brig until we get around to sorting out the political red tape of putting you on trial.” She purposefully lowered her voice before adding, “And I can make that take a very long time. Do we have an understanding?”

Alora looked at her with pure contempt. “Yes, Admiral. I believe we understand each other perfectly.”

“Good. Now, Commander Chin-Riley will escort you to the ready room.”

With one last lingering glare, Alora turned and proceeded Una out of the transporter room.

Once the doors closed behind them, Kat released a breath. “Sorry about that Kyle.”

“Don’t worry about it, sir.” There was a definite waver in the young transporter chief’s voice, his words a little too high-pitched.

When she turned around, Kyle was shifting on his feet, hands clasped behind his back, eyes darting uncomfortably between her face and the transporter console between them.

“I would appreciate it if word of this…conversation didn’t make its way around the ship,” Kat told him.

“No, sir. I mean uh, no need to worry about that. Um, aye, sir.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile that seemed to put him at ease.

The delay meant she was late to Alora’s debriefing, but it also meant less time spent in the Majalan woman’s presence, which Kat counted as a win at the moment.

When she walked into the ready room, Chris was seated at one end of the conference table and Alora at the other. Spock and Una had taken the seats adjacent to Chris, Lieutenant Noonien-Singh the one next to Una. But upon Kat’s entrance, both Chris and Spock stood, and by some unspoken agreement, Spock shifted down one chair, Chris took Spock’s vacated seat, and Kat gratefully took the now empty chair at the head of the table.

“Okay,” said Chris, resuming the briefing once everyone was settled. He angled his chair so he could look at Alora. “What were you doing on that moon?” he asked her.

“On that moon is an ancient retreat for the First Servant’s studies. Elder Gamal and I were returning him to Majalis when the ship attacked us and demanded we surrender the child.”

Kat mentally attached the titles First Servant and Elder Gamal to the boy and his father respectively.

“And you have no idea who they were?” asked Lieutenant Noonien-Singh.

“The closest inhabitable planet is occupied by descendants of a long-abandoned alien colony,” Alora answered, speaking to Chris rather than the room at large. “Still our two worlds have coexisted peacefully for centuries.” She paused, seeming to gather her thoughts, or perhaps unwilling to speak them. “I believe it is possible they were after a ransom. In two days, I will be overseeing the First Servant’s ascension to the throne. It’s a sacred ceremony. If outsiders knew about that, they would also know Majalis would pay anything for the child’s safe return.”

“We should send a landing party,” suggested Lieutenant Noonien-Singh, “to investigate the crashed ship.”

“There is a chance,” explained Spock, “however slight, that your attackers survived.”

“An investigation won’t be necessary,” Alora said quickly. “All I ask is that you return us peacefully to Majalis.”

Kat frowned at that. Why wouldn’t she want answers or help getting them? Especially if the child’s welfare was at stake? Next to her, Chris was having much the same thoughts if the puzzled look on his face was anything to go by.

“An investigation is not only necessary,” Una stated tightly, “it is required.”

Almost chastised, Alora looked down at her lap, then turned her eyes up coyly to Chris.

Almost.

“Captain Pike,” she said demurely. “My people didn’t join the Federation. We’ve always handled things for ourselves. Please, let us handle this,” she implored.

Unaffected, Chris replied, “Starfleet regulations require us to investigate any vessel that attacks us, with or without your cooperation I’m afraid.” He softened the denial with an apologetic smile and a soft, “I’m sorry.”

Alora sat up a little straighter in her chair. “If you insist. I’m coming too. With or without your cooperation,” she added with a smirk.

Beginning to regret having ever left her office, Kat mentally rolled her eyes.

“Very well,” said Chris, standing. “Lieutenant Noonien-Singh, prep a landing party. See to it that Minister Alora is aware of our procedures.”

“Aye, sir. Minister. If you’ll follow me.”

It wasn’t relief Kat felt when Alora followed Lieutenant Noonien-Singh out of the ready room, but it was damn close to it.

***

“So. Alora,” Kat said by way of starting the conversation Chris had wanted to have.

After the others had filed out of the ready room, rather than join the landing party as Kat had thought he would, Chris had asked, more than a little tentatively, if they could talk.

“Of course,” she had said.

“I need to check in with the bridge, but… My cabin, ten minutes?”

Since they had been alone in the ready room, she had agreed with a kiss on his cheek before leaving. After stopping by her office to quickly skim the rest of Dr. Jensen’s report to ensure it contained nothing pressing, she had made her way to Chris’s quarters.

Chris blushed from his neck to the tips of his ears. “Yeah…” He drew the word out self-consciously and reached up to rub the back of his neck. “It was a long time ago.” He settled himself into one of the barstools at the L-shaped counter.

“Yes, I’m aware, Lieutenant Pike,” Kat returned, following him to the counter.

Chris’s face twisted into an exasperated frown. “Was it that obvious?”

“Oh, the whole ship knows by now,” Kat stated with a teasing smile as she slid onto the adjacent stool.

But Chris either didn’t see it or chose to ignore the light-heartedness in her tone. He groaned, looking up at the ceiling momentarily. “Alora is—was…” He took a breath. “It was a long time after I left the Antares.”

Kat’s smile faded like water poured down the drain. Was he…explaining himself to her?

“It was one night,” he said, “and honestly, I never expected to see her again. It was startling, and I’m sorry. I probably could have—”

He was.

“Chris,” she cut him off. “Are you telling me because you want me to know or because you think I want to know?”

He blinked at her, silent for a beat, brows tugging downward as he considered her question. Finally, he answered with a firm, “I have no interest in Alora.”

It wasn’t the answer she had expected, but it was telling enough.

“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,” she told him.

Earnest confusion put a line between his brows. “And you’re…okay with her being here?”

Kat didn’t answer right away, and instead looked at her hand on the counter. For some reason the simple “yes” she wanted to give him stuck in her throat. Probably because it wasn’t that simple. Not after what had occurred in the transporter room. She didn’t doubt Chris, but Alora had made her intentions more than clear. And the memory of Chris flinching at her touch was still fresh in Kat’s mind.

Kat let out a heavy breath. Chris was an adult who could take care of himself. He didn’t need her to defend his honor; she’d already interfered more than she should have. If Chris wanted to help Alora and the First Servant, she would support that.

Finally, she answered honestly, “I’ll admit that I was a little jealous at first.” In contrast to the forced levity in her own tone, Chris was genuinely baffled when he said, “You were?”

“I was,” Kat replied, stressing the verb. “She’s a very beautiful woman.”

At that, Chris’s expression fell, his puzzlement turning to dismay. Perhaps she should have chosen her words more carefully. “Kat—”

She stalled him with a finger against his lips. “I don’t doubt you. This isn’t about that. This is about me and my momentary insecurity about a decision I made decades ago.”

Her hand settled atop the counter once more as she watched understanding dawn on his face, but it was tempered with a distress that almost made her regret telling him.

He leaned forward slightly, his lips parting as he sought the right words. “If you thought—even for a second—that I—

“I didn’t. I don’t.” She sighed, watched him blink those earnest blue eyes of his. “You’re allowed to have your past and I don’t begrudge you that. I promise I’m not jealous.”

He nodded solemnly. “Good, because…for me, it’s you, Kat.” He took her hand in his. “For me, it’s always going to be you.”

The sincerity in his eyes, the note of emotion that caused his voice to catch, went straight to her heart and she surged across the counter, her lips crashing into his. She caught him off guard, but his free hand came up, cupped her cheek, and she melted further into him, moaning and parting her lips to deepen the kiss. His tongue slid against hers and she had to steady herself with a hand on his leg or risk falling off of her stool.

When the kiss had reached its natural terminus, he pulled back, just far enough that he could look into her eyes as he tucked her hair behind her ear. “Have I told you today how beautiful you are?”

Kat’s lips twitched up. Anyone else and she would have believed the question motivated by her previous statement, but with Chris, she knew better.

“I believe you said something about that yesterday,” she whispered. Last night to be specific. In bed. Well, she’d been in bed. He’d been kneeling on the floor with his head between her legs.

“Then I’m long overdue,” he said and kissed her again. “You are beautiful, and smart, and strong, and sexy as hell,” he said between kisses trailed from her mouth to her jaw, his words ghosting over her neck, as delicate as butterfly wings. “And I’m fairly certain you know five different ways to kill me with just your pinky but damn it if that doesn’t turn me on as well.”

Kat couldn’t help the snort of amusement at that last one. “Six. And I’ll need at least my thumb.”

He huffed a small laugh and slipped off his stool, closed the step of distance between them to stand between her legs. His hands were hot on her arms through the fabric of her jacket, all amusement gone from his expression as he looked down at her. “I mean that,” he told her gravely though she already knew that was true. A finger under her chin tilted her head up. “I only want you.”

“I know,” she whispered before he kissed her again. It was softer than the last, languorous. His hand on her neck, his arm around her waist, pulling her close, his scent surrounding her: she surrendered to it all, and released her breath on a sigh when they parted.

His eyes were heated when she looked, burning desire and need setting her alight.

She smiled.

The mood was changed, lighter for the element of seduction and the lust that gripped her tight.

She looked him up and down. The angle was wrong with him standing. Or, she amended, her eyes traveling lower, maybe the angle was just right.

“And you, dear man,” she returned, sliding her hands over his chest and wrapping her legs around his, “are devilishly handsome, and charming, and kind.”

Chris spun them so her back was to the counter, wrapped one arm around her waist, and leaned even closer to steal a kiss. Kat felt the edge of the counter against her back when she pulled back slightly, just far enough to whisper against his lips, “And so damn good to me.” Then with a hand on the back of his neck, she hauled him into another kiss, her tongue licking into his mouth, her fingers threading into his hair. “And I only want you,” she added breathlessly, the words tumbling from her mouth into his.

A warm hand gripped her hip, tilting her precariously on the edge of the stool, hitching her leg higher on his hip.

Definitely the wrong angle.

And the stool was making it difficult to press closer. She sat up, clinging to his shoulders for balance, and felt his hands move to her ass and his arms flex to lift her, and—

The sound of the door chime broke them apart. Chris groaned in frustration, his forehead resting against hers as he pulled in ragged breaths. Kat was no better off herself, as she let her legs fall from his waist.

“Hold that thought,” he said and went to answer the door.

After a moment, Kat heard the soft pneumatic hiss of the doors opening behind her and then Chris’s startled, “Alora!”

Kat contained her groan. Barely.

“Chris, we found something down there. Something bad.” As Alora’s footsteps and panicked voice grew closer, Kat spun around in her stool and stood.

“Alora,” started Chris, ineffectively trailing after the Majalan woman currently barging into his quarters without invitation. “Now really isn’t—”

Alora stopped in her tracks at the sight of Kat. “Oh. I’m sorry, Chris, I didn’t realize—”

“It’s fine,” Kat butted in, though it really wasn’t. “I was just leaving.”  For Chris’s sake, she gave the other woman a tight smile, which was emphatically not returned, and started for the door.

She knew that Chris would want to help Alora, and that was fine. It was clear that Alora was scared of something; it was written plain on her face, and she would have an easier time opening up when she wasn’t expending half her energy alternating between ignoring Kat and glaring daggers at her. For a politician, Alora had a terrible poker face. Either she needed to work on her mask of neutrality, or she didn’t care if others knew she didn’t like them. Kat suspected it was the latter. But no matter. She would spare them both the pain of suffering the other’s presence.

Chris reached out to stop her as she drew near. “I…” He was clearly conflicted.

Kat laid a light hand on his arm. It was less a show of possession for Alora and more a gesture of reassurance for Chris. “It’s alright. Really,” she told him with an encouraging smile, and waited until he nodded before adding, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She squeezed his arm gently before removing her hand.

Then she left and went to bury herself in reports, which, while tedious, had the added benefit of lacking entirely in red-headed Majalans.

Chapter Text

The next day, while Chris played bodyguard on the surface, Kat had patients.

Lieutenant Noonien-Singh arrived at precisely 0800, though, Kat had already begun to suspect that there wasn’t much about Lieutenant La’an Noonien-Singh that wasn’t precise.

“Lieutenant. Good morning,” Kat greeted, standing and walking around her desk.

Lieutenant Noonien-Singh simply nodded in return. The security chief was standing stiffly just inside Kat’s office, her expression as severe as her ponytail, hands clasped behind her back, and giving Kat a massive case of déjà vu. The lieutenant glanced around the office from where she stood. A habit of checking for threats or quick reconnaissance of the doctor she would be talking to?

It was all so achingly familiar: Noonien-Singh’s severity, her wariness, her obvious reluctance. Kat wanted to laugh, but only allowed herself to smile softly. With any luck, the lieutenant would think it a smile of reassurance rather than one of remembrance.

“Una—Co-commander Chin-Riley said that—” Noonien-Singh stammered out. “Well, she said that you helped her a while ago, and that…” She paused for a breath. “She said that I should talk to you. About…stuff.”

Well, that was one way of putting it.

“Una and I have known each other a long time,” Kat said, motioning to the seating area to indicate that she should sit.

Noonien-Singh looked over at the couch but didn’t move. Nor did she say anything. In the silence, Kat took her PADD and stylus and sat in the chair facing the reticent lieutenant, waiting.

Under Kat’s scrutiny, Noonien-Singh shifted on her feet. “Look I’ll be honest with you, Admiral. I don’t believe in this therapy mumbo-jumbo, and the last thing I want is some stranger rooting around in my head trying to figure me out.” It wasn’t the worst description of therapy Kat had ever heard. Her patient lifted her chin and added, “I’m not broken.” 

Now where have I heard that one before?

“But Una trusts you,” Noonien-Singh continued. “And if Una trusts someone, that’s good enough for me.”

“Fair enough, Lieutenant,” Kat returned. “I promise to leave the ‘rooting around in your head’ to you.”

Noonien-Singh frowned, considering Kat’s response, then nodded succinctly. “Right. So, how do we do this?”

“Well, usually one starts by sitting down,” Kat said wryly and gestured to the chair in front of her.

Somewhat startled by the sarcastic tone, Noonien-Singh stepped around the nearest chair and sat, back ramrod straight, fingers knotted tensely in her lap.

“Next,” Kat went on, leaning forward slightly, “I’m here to help you, Lieutenant, but I can’t do that unless you want to be here.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Lieutenant Noonien-Singh’s blunt words were sharp in tone, but Kat didn’t take offense.

“Physically, yes. But as this session is not mandated, unless you actually want to be here, this could be a waste of both our time.”

Noonien-Singh considered that for a moment. “And if it were mandated?”

Kat wanted to laugh. She could see why Una liked La’an. “We could very well sit in silence for all I care.”

Lieutenant Noonien-Singh sat back in the chair, arms resettling on the arm rests. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say.”

Kat shrugged. “Whatever you want to say.”

Her patient peered at her with narrowed eyes. “And if I want to sit in silence for an hour?”

At that Kat did laugh. “You and I both have better things to be doing, Lieutenant.”

Noonien-Singh’s lips twitched in an involuntary smile.

Sensing she’d earned a measure of the young woman’s trust, Kat softened her voice when she asked, “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

***

Kier’s death had rattled Alora. She was scared, more so now than she had been last night. Pike knew she hadn’t wanted to believe that one of the Linnarean guards had betrayed them, but Kier had. And then he had died at her hand. It did matter that it had technically been an accident. It didn’t matter that it was in self defense. She had known him, had probably come up with him, and now she was terrified, seeing enemies everywhere.

“What if there are others who feel the same way he did?” she asked outside her chambers. “That I thought I knew. I feel like there’s no one I can trust.”

Leaning against the wrought-iron door, Pike glanced around the wide hallway, noting possible points of entry. The palace had been designed for spectacle, not security. Wide windows, crystal chandeliers, wood trim, delicate wallpaper over drywall. Even the door he was leaning against served no function other than beauty. “I’m going to put a guard out here just to be safe.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Alora demurred.

“I didn’t save you from a pulsar just so you could get killed,” he returned lightly.

“I meant,” she started, “you could come in with me, instead.” The invitation wasn’t quite a question, but the way she looked up at him, the subtle suggestion in her tone made Pike wonder if she wasn’t inviting him to do more than just continue to play bodyguard while they caught up.

And then she stepped closer. And closer. And Pike realized that yes, she was suggesting exactly what he feared she was. He scrambled for the words to let her down gently, but her lips were already against his.

Pike froze.

She was kissing him.

She, Alora, was kissing him.

And her hand was on his shoulder, and she was kissing him.

Still.

And he had no idea what to do.

He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he also didn’t want to be kissing her. Finally, he stepped back, put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from following him.

“Alora…” he said when the kiss was broken.

She stepped back and blinked confused eyes at him. “I’m sorry,” she said, blushing and pulling her hand away as if he’d burned her. “I thought—”

“Alora, I can’t. I’m sorry.” His lips still tingled with the touch of hers, her scent still lingered in the air around him, foreign and unfamiliar.

“You’re on duty,” she surmised, and Pike could detect a faint spark of hope flashing in her eyes.

“No, I’m just…very much in love with someone else,” he said gently, hoping she would understand. He hated to see the crestfallen look on her face, but she needed to know, in no uncertain terms, that he was no longer interested.

“Your admiral?”

“What makes you say that?”

“She…” Alora glanced away. “It doesn’t matter. I’d better turn in.”

Pike nodded slowly. “I’ll post a guard outside.”

“Whatever you think is best.” She turned away, stepping towards the doors.  “Goodnight, Chris.”

“Goodnight,” he returned, but he was speaking to a closed door.

***

Kat set her glass of wine down on the counter when she heard the doors swish open and stepped out of the kitchen. Chris had been planet-side most of the day, acting as bodyguard for Alora. He hadn’t known how long he would be, so he’d said that they should simply meet for dinner in his quarters. And after Alora’s interruption last night, she was looking forward to it.

Chris stalked through the room with predatory purpose, eyes feral. At the sight, her smile fell into a frown.

What the—

She didn’t even get to finish the thought because his hands were on her face, and his lips were crashing against hers. Her gasp of surprise provided the perfected opportunity for him to deepen the kiss, and he did, swallowing the sound, his tongue tangling with hers.  

He tasted like whatever he’d had to drink down on the planet, sweet and floral, but he smelled like Chris, wood and spice, and she was lost in him, drowning in the kiss, the feel of his hands holding her head. He was everywhere, her every sense flooded with him. It was almost too much. It had her whimpering against his mouth, clutching at his wrists.

When he finally pulled back, he didn’t go far, his breath mingling with hers in the space between them.

“What was that for?” she asked, breathless, her hands sliding to his forearms.

“No reason. I just…” He kissed her quickly, and then looked down at her, eyes still wild, untamed. “I love you.”

Confused, she gave the only answer she had. “I love you, too.”

She thought that might be the end of it, but his hands slid to the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair, warm against the back of her neck, and he kissed her again, deeply, until all she could do was cling to him and gasp.

Something, and she didn’t know what, but something had unmoored him. Something had happened between this morning and Chris stalking through his quarters like a panther—and she guessed that whatever it was had happened fairly recently given the vehemence of his reaction.

This wasn’t just a declaration of love; there was a need in him. She could feel it in the intensity of his hands on her, the tension in his body against hers, the way he seemed to tremble beneath her hands. Something surging under his skin. Something about to break free.

 “I love you,” he murmured against her lips; “I love you,” whispered against her cheek; “I love you,” drawn along her jaw. “I love you.” His grip tightened, and he sucked in a breath, pressed his lips hard against her temple. “So much it hurts.”

“I know,” she breathed, trying to soothe whatever was raging inside him with gentle hands over his arms, his back, any part of him she could reach. “I know. I know…”

He was panting against her neck, great pulls of oxygen that might have actually been smothered sobs. “Kat, I need…I need…” His hands became insistent on her waist, her hips, flexing and gripping, pulling her closer with almost desperate fistfuls of clothing and flesh, as if she were water and he was trying to gather as much of her as possible while she continually flowed away.

“Yes,” she whispered against his cheek, her own hands clutching at his shoulders, pressing herself as close as possible. “Whatever you need. Yes.”

Clothing was left in a trail of starched cotton, leather boots, and delicate undergarments from the living room to the bed where he pulled her naked into his lap. Kat wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, letting herself succumb to the feel of his lips against hers, the warmth of his large hands on her back, the sensation of her nipples brushing against his chest.

Chis leaned back, pulling her with him until she had to brace a hand against the low headboard to keep from falling on top of him. But she doubted he would have cared if she had as he kissed his way to her breasts, then lower, shimmying down the mattress until his head was between her thighs and his hands were pulling her hips to his mouth.

Kat gasped, arching back and clutching at the wall, catching sight of the stars beyond the viewport.

She always took longer in this position, but he didn’t seem to care, and she let him love her in the way that he needed, every lick, every stroke building her desire until her hand slapped down in the well of the viewport and a thousand stars went supernova when the climax burst inside her, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through her limbs.

Boneless, Kat slumped against the wall, still holding the windowsill, breathing hard and trembling with the aftershocks of her climax.

Chris’s warmth draped over her back, lips touching her neck, his arms wrapping around her, surrounding her in a warm cocoon of love. The last remains of her strength gave out and she slid down the wall, sitting back on her heels and curling in on herself over her knees. He went with her, remaining curled over her like the warmest, safest blanket.

She could feel his erection against her hip, but he made no move to progress things further, seeming content to kiss his way down her spine, to cup her breast, to draw his fingers up the inside of her thigh. Kat gasped at the gentle brush of his fingers against her sex, reached down to hold his hand more firmly against herself, and ground herself against their joined hands, pushing his finger inside of her.

“Fuck!” she breathed. Or was that a sob? She couldn’t be sure. All she was aware of was how impossibly good it felt, the feeling of his roughened skin against her desire-slick flesh, the intimacy of holding his hand as he slowly thrust his finger inside her. Her hips thrust against his palm, and she was dimly aware of the strangled sound emanating from her throat, and oh shit. If she wasn’t sobbing before, she was now but fuck all if she actually cared because it was so. Damn. Good.

He pulled away, but rather than feeling his erection against her, she felt his warm breath caressing the dip of her spine, trailing past the cleft of her ass until she felt the touch of his tongue once more, building her up with broad strokes and sharp thrusts until she collapsed into the pillows, screaming her pleasure into his white cotton sheets.

***

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked later. He was curled on his side, facing the foot of the bed, his head pillowed on her thigh. Kat was curled around his back, running her fingers absently through his hair.

“Talk about what?” he murmured drowsily.   

Kat hummed in amusement and waved a hand over the bed to indicate the marathon sex that had left her limp and sore in the best possible way. “Whatever that was.”

He chuckled lightly but quickly grew pensive again, stroking a hand down her calf to her ankle. She thought briefly that he wouldn’t respond at all, but then, “Alora kissed me,” he said after a moment.

Kat’s fingers stilled in a moment of shock and anger. Clearly Alora had thought to press her advantage away from Enterprise and threats of assault charges, but Kat quickly forced thoughts of the other woman from her mind. This wasn’t about her or her rage. This was about Chris and whatever it was he was feeling, which Kat guessed began with a sense of violation and ended with—knowing him—some amount of guilt.

With effort, Kat forced herself to relax against him, and slowly drew her nails along his scalp in the way she knew that he liked. “Are you alright?”

“I’m… For a moment, I didn’t even know what was happening, but after, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had led her on, given her some reason to think I was interested.” His hand tightened around her ankle. “I’m sorry.”

Anger stilled her hand once more. “Chris, will you look at me?”

Slowly, he rolled onto his back and looked up at her.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t know—”

“Stop.” She silenced him with a hand on his cheek. The other she laid in the center of his chest. “I know you. You are the kindest man I know. You would gift the stars to a stranger if he asked for them, and I love you for it. But don’t you dare take responsibility for her actions.”

Chris blinked at her, lifted her hand from his chest, brought it to his lips, and then curled his fingers around hers and held her hand over his heart. “I love you.”

Kat bent down and kissed him lightly. “I know. And I love you. But I don’t need you to prove it to me every time someone hits on you. I don’t think I could survive it,” she added with a small laugh, thinking about his means of proof.

He sat up. And up. His eyes sparkling with mirth, lips quirking in a flirtatious smile, as he caught her about the waist with one arm. Kat leaned back and let him lower her down to the mattress. “Shall we test that theory, Admiral?”  he asked, all mischief.

Hands on his shoulders, Kat stared up at him, brows raised. “Are you…?” She glanced down.

He was.

They’d just had sex in every conceivable position—and a few slightly more inconceivable ones—allotted by the bed and he wanted to go again?

She met his eyes again and Chris raised an inquiring brow, putting whatever happened next firmly in her hands.

 Kat laughed freely, and this time it was she who shimmied down the mattress, and he who gasped aloud when she pulled his hips to her mouth. And perhaps, she thought, she should take her own advice as she proceeded to prove her trust in him the way he had thought to prove his love for her. But when he breathed her name on a reverent sigh, she decided that tomorrow was as good a time as any to take that advice and continued to draw his pleasure from him until he groaned and stiffened above her.

Yes, tomorrow indeed, because for now, she thought she might very well be dead.

***

Captain Pike had fallen into that heavy place between waking and sleep when Una’s voice over the comm unceremoniously yanked him out of it and drew him from bed.

“Number One to Captain Pike. Please report to the bridge.”

Careful not to disturb Kat, Pike slipped from beneath her arm and out of bed, padding barefoot to the comm unit. “What is it, Number One?” he asked quietly, voice rough with exhaustion.

In the bedroom, Kat shifted in sleep, unconsciously curling towards the space he had previously occupied.

“Sir, some information has come to light that you need to know about,” Una reported.

“Can it wait?”

“No, sir, I’m afraid it can’t.”

Internally, Pike sighed. “I’ll be right there.”

After cutting the connection, he went to the closet for a fresh uniform—yesterday’s was unsalvageable after spending so long lying crumpled on the floor.

When he walked out of the bathroom, Kat was still asleep. He was loathe to wake her—if she’d slept through the comm, she probably needed the rest—but he also didn’t want to leave without telling her where he’d gone. And ultimately, he knew she’d want to know. If he couldn’t deal with whatever Una needed quickly, he wanted her to have the choice to come to the bridge or not.

Her skin was sleep-warmed when he touched her back and leaned down to press a kiss to her temple. Still, she didn’t wake up.

“Kat,” he said quietly, and gently shook her shoulder.

At that she did wake with an undignified groan and a cranky “mmmph.” After so long behind a desk away from the constant and unpredictable threat of red alert, Admiral Cornwell was hopelessly in love with her sleep. And if anyone else found out, they would probably find themselves suddenly assigned to the furthest corner of the galaxy or lost in the deepest, darkest black-site prison cell. Pike still wasn’t quite sure which it was more likely to be, but he did know that he was liable to find himself right next to that poor devil should he ever find out, so he guarded her secret carefully.

After a moment, she blinked unfocused eyes at him.

“Something’s come up,” he said quietly.

“Trouble?” she mumbled, the syllables just this side of intelligible.

“I don’t know. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Mmkay.” She closed her eyes, snuggling back into the pillow.

“I love you,” he whispered, pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and smiled against her hair when she mumbled something that sounded vaguely like “I love you” spoken in all M sounds.

Pike headed to the bridge before the temptation to slip back into bed and pull her close could take root. He’d find out what Una needed to tell him, deal with it, and be back in a few minutes. Then, he could do just that.

He entered the bridge to the sound of the boatswain's whistle, shriller than usual for having been pulled from his bed.

“Okay I’m here,” he announced, somewhat grudgingly and to no one in particular. “Someone want to tell me what’s so important it can’t wait until morning?”

Una rose from the command chair and met him on the upper level of the bridge. “Apologies for the disruption, Captain but Cadet Uhura and Lieutenant Noonien-Singh have discovered some information that you need to see.”

“Okay…”

Later, he would want to commend Cadet Uhura for remaining poised in the face of his skepticism. Pike didn’t want to believe that Alora and Elder Gamal were hiding something, but Uhura presented some pretty damning evidence.

“Why would anyone leave paradise for Prospect Seven?” La’an asked rhetorically. “There has to be a reason.”

“And if the colony is connected to Majalis,” Spock questioned, “why would Elder Gamal and Minister Alora tell us otherwise?”

Pike found that he didn’t have an answer. Majalans were untrusting of outsiders. It was on the tip of his tongue to say so, but that didn’t explain the connection. It didn’t answer their questions.

Alora hadn’t wanted them to investigate the crashed ship. Could this connection be the reason why? And if so, what else was she hiding?

But before they could posit any theories, before Pike could even say, “I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” because he did intend to find out, M’Benga was hailing from sickbay, and Pike was racing down to the transporter room, and before he knew it, he was running back up to the bridge to play tug-of-war with a cruiser that had kidnapped the First Servant.

So much for going back to bed.

He was not surprised when, after less than ten minutes after the first blare of the red alert siren, Kat walked into the bridge, bright-eyed and looking perfectly combed and pressed, as if she hadn’t been half asleep and incoherent minutes before. She descended to the lower level and took up her customary position behind his right shoulder, and Pike was glad of it. Her presence was like a bulwark, steadying.

“I have to increase our structural integrity field,” reported Ensign Mitchell from ops.

“If they still try to go to warp it could destroy the cruiser,” said Spock.

And by the looks of things, the aliens on board the cruiser were prepared to do just that. 

“We can’t risk harming them,” Pike said. “Disengage.”

He saw Mitchell working to do just that, her fingers flying across the controls, but the tractor beam was still engaged.

“Now, Mitchell!”

But they weren’t fast enough, and Pike watched, helpless, as the cruiser exploded in a fiery ball of light. He heard Kat’s sharp intake of breath, Elder Gamal’s shuddering gasps. All around him, everyone stared in shock and horror at the shrapnel and debris floating on the screen. Pike allowed himself the moment to mourn the tragedy before he swallowed his own emotions and stood.

“Hail Minister Alora,” he ordered. Best to get this over with quickly.

***

The chime on her office door was unexpected. She had no patients scheduled for the afternoon, Chris was planet-side for the Ascension, and contact with the planet had been blocked. Enterprise was quiet, the air turned thick and heavy with what they had learned, knowledge that quelled even the will to speak.

At the sound, Kat looked up from her console and the first draft of her report where the words “First Servant” and “Ascension” burned hot with consequences. She doubted Majalis would ever petition for Federation membership now, but she wanted the “custom” on record anyway. She wanted the entire Federation to know the truth about their “sacred ceremony.”

Forcing down the sick feeling that had taken up residence in her stomach since she’d learned the truth, Kat called, “Come.”

She remained seated, but when Chris walked in, one look at his tortured expression had her rising to her feet. “Chris. What’s—”

“Do you have patients?” His voice, as broken as the vase that had fallen from her desk, spoke hurried words, their edges all the more rough and jagged for the somber air that amplified them.

Silenced by his words and the look on his face, she slowly shook her head.

When had he beamed back?

He went to the couch and didn’t so much sit as fall onto it. Worried, Kat walked around the desk towards him.

“Alora…”

She froze halfway to the seating area at his mention of the other woman’s name.

“The child…” Chris scrubbed a hand down his face then leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “He’s—” His voice broke.  Unable to finish, he hung his head in his hands, fingers curling like claws, shoulders shaking slightly. Kat closed the rest of the distance between them. When he finally looked up, his eyes were red. “He’s going to die. Horribly.”

Standing before him, Kat reached out, intending to comfort him. There was nothing else she could do. Nothing else anyone could do.

He fell forward, wrapping his arms around her waist, his cheek pressed against her stomach. She wrapped her arms around his head.

“She knew,” he said tearfully, his breath warm against her belly. “She knew all along.”

Kat didn’t tell him that she already knew. When she and Una had interviewed Elder Gamal, he’d told them how the Majalans repeatedly sacrificed a child for the good of the planet, how Majalan scientists had searched for an alternative, how he had tried to save his son, and what he had tried to save him from.

When she’d learned the truth, Kat knew that Alora had kept the exact nature of the Ascension a secret on purpose. Chris would never have agreed to help her if she hadn’t, and Alora had known that all along, too.

The revelation had been horrifying, but by the time they’d learned it, there had been nothing they could do. And Majalis was outside Starfleet jurisdiction.

If only she had questioned Elder Gamal sooner.

If…

“She wanted me to see.” Chris shuddered.

Kat’s heart ached. For the boy who would suffer for a civilization, for the piece of Chris that had loved Alora, for the man in her arms who refused to believe that people could be so cruel. She pressed her lips to his head, wishing there was something she could say, something she could do, some way to save the child and spare him his fate.

But there was nothing.

 When Chris finally loosened his hold, Kat loosened hers and took half a step back, cupping his face in her hands.  

“I’m sorry,” he said, his hands falling to her hips.

She brushed back the lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. “Don’t be.”

He looked away.

With gentle fingers she turned his head back to face her. “Please don’t hide.”

Chris closed his eyes, reached up and removed her hands, before he stood.

Kat gripped his fingers tight when he would have stepped away. “Chris.” The knuckles on his right hand were scraped, red blemishes stark against his pale skin. She didn’t ask.

Chris pulled his hands away, fingers clenching and flexing, but he didn’t move.

“Please talk to me.” There was a pleading note in her voice but she didn’t care. Chris was prone to isolation when faced with bouts of melancholia, and she didn’t want him to be alone with his grief.

He didn’t respond right away, staring at some point across the room, jaw tense, throat working. Finally, “He didn’t—I tried to—” A breath, emotions caged before he continued. “She told me, maybe in the future I’d see things her way. But I already do, don’t I?”

Kat drew in a sharp breath. She hadn’t seen the parallels before, but now, they were so clear. Pain, suffering, borne by one who had accepted it.

No. That was wrong. It wasn’t a parallel but a mirror image, distorted and perverted upon reflection. Chris had made his sacrifice to save others. Foreknowledge or not, he would always make that choice.

The First Servant, a child, had been raised to believe his sacrifice was necessary, told over and over again that it was his duty to save everyone simply because the alternative was too difficult for others to consider. Under that kind of pressure, no one, least of all a child, could truly make that choice.

“Chris, it’s not the same,” she told him.

His eyes snapped to hers, pinning her with his sharp gaze, a hawk finding its prey. “Isn’t it?”

His words were weak, quiet, a half-hearted attempt at arguing his point, but Kat still found herself rearing back for the bite in them, that scornful note that compared his choice to Alora’s—Alora who chose to sacrifice a child for her city. Kat took the verbal blow like a punch, letting it slide off on a turned shoulder, and stood her ground, meeting him head on with an intense stare of her own. “Not even remotely, and you know it. He didn’t choose that.”

He was quiet again, staring at her across the arm’s length of space between them, eyes as turbulent as a raging sea. He didn’t argue further, but she hadn’t expected him to. But nor did he shut down and simply accept her word. She could practically see the internal debate taking place behind his eyes, arguments put forth and discarded one by one.

Silent, Kat waited and let him work through them, knowing that eventually he would come to the same conclusions she had. He was too wrung out to have seen it already, the experience too raw to see past the similarities between his fate and the First Servant’s, because they were similar. After what he had seen, after trying and failing to stop it...

She had no doubt that his heart was hemorrhaging. That Alora had forced him to witness it was salt on the wound.

Gradually, the tension in his jaw eased, the fire in his eyes dimmed to a rheumy sheen, the wound scabbed over.

When he finally did move, it was to release a heavy breath, to crumple back down onto the couch as if his legs had quit working. Slowly, Kat lowered herself down to sit beside him.

“Kat?” He was staring at that indeterminate point across the room again.

“Yeah?”

“Have I ever thanked you?”

“For what?”

He turned and looked at her. “For not looking away from me?”

Confused, all she could do was shake her head. She had no idea what he meant by that, but she could always ask him later. Now didn’t feel like the right time.

He took her hand in his, battered knuckles hidden against the couch cushion. “Thank you.”

Unsure of what to say, Kat squeezed his fingers, brought his hand to her lips, and kissed the raw skin of his knuckles. “Do you need to go to sickbay?”

He glanced down at their hands and then shook his head. “No. I don’t—” A breath. A moment to look away.  “I don’t want to talk about it. Not now.” When she thought that would be the end of it, he turned watery eyes back to her. “But I also don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay.”

She stood, not letting go of his hand. After a moment, he rose and followed where she led.

Loving Chris was many things. It was choice, one she made every day, not in spite of his future, but because of it. It was joy, encompassed in the sound of his laughter. It was divinity, a consecration of flesh in holy sacrament. It was need, as unquenchable as the want of the desert for the river. It was pain, begot of a certain future and a finite present.

But this time, it was healing, soul-deep wounds washed clean with tears, grief assuaged by the feeling of her skin against his. It was grace conferred with a kiss and salvation found in two bodies moving together as one.

And it was a promise, a vow. To never turn, to never run. To never let go and never look away.

It was love, amaranthine.

Chapter Text

Captain Pike waited on the edge of his seat—figuratively—while Lieutenant Ortegas sailed Enterprise gracefully through the asteroid field. In fact, he sat casually, leaning back with his elbow propped on the armrest and attempting to project that calm, everything-is-going-to-work-out energy that was essential for crew morale in situations like this. But he was anxious. They were inching closer to the border of Federation space, tracking the pirates who had abducted the colonists, and as they crept closer, that anxiety only grew.

Pike rubbed his thumb against his forefinger, an outlet for that nervous energy. It helped him focus, and to anyone who didn’t know him well, it would appear as if he were deep in thought.

According to Dr. Aspen, the colonists they were assisting had nothing worth stealing. Which meant that whoever had attacked them had been after the colonists themselves.

Slavers.

Pike had to consciously keep his fists from clenching every time he thought about it.

The pirates had destroyed two of the colonial ships, leaving behind nothing but debris and an unidentifiable warp trail. Now it was a race to catch up before they crossed the border out of Federation space. But as the hours ticked by, the unease in Pike’s stomach only grew. If the pirates got across the border, Pike’s ability to help the colonists would become limited. Crossing that border required dispensation from Starfleet, and Starfleet didn’t like its ships sailing into non-Federation territory, even with the proper approvals.

“Captain, we’ll cross into non-Federation space in five minutes.”

Damn.

“Thank you, Erica.” Pike spun his chair towards the science station and looked to Spock. “How long to get a message to Starfleet?”

“At this distance? Two days,” replied the science officer. “We are too far from Federation subspace relays for rapid communication.”

The news wasn’t surprising given their location, but Pike wasn’t waiting two days. He stood and crossed the bridge to Una’s station. “Pull up Admiral Cornwell’s schedule, please,” he said quietly, hoping she wasn’t with a patient. Out here, Admiral Cornwell was the closest thing they had to Starfleet Command.

Una tapped the console, the screen changed. “Looks like she’s…with Dr. Hu,” she said, reading the public description of a ninety-minute block of time tagged “Do not disturb.”

Pike wasn’t waiting ninety minutes.

He considered his options. He could honor that do-not-disturb, give the order, and fly his ship across the border. Internally he snorted in amusement, a very Kat-like expression, because if he did that, when Kat found out, they would fight, he would lose, and they would go after the colonists anyway, proving the aforementioned fight to be both pride-fueled and superfluous.

Oka-ay. Not that.

He could comm her. Yeah, and have that same fight—discussion—over the comm? Because they would discuss it. Kat wouldn’t let him give that order unless she were thoroughly convinced it was necessary, and that was not a conversation for the bridge. No, thank you.

Nor did he want to call her to the bridge for this conversation. If Kat had gone to see Dr. Hu, something was wrong, and he wouldn’t be the reason she missed treatment.

But the colonists didn’t have ninety minutes to wait. Pike needed an answer, and he needed it now, before the pirates got any further ahead of them.

An in-person interruption it was.

Mind made up, Pike slapped the console in emphasis. “You have the bridge, Number One. Take us to the edge of Federation space and then hold position.” He turned to the science station. “Send the request to Starfleet, Mister Spock.”

“Where are you going, sir?” Number One asked as Pike started for the turbolift.

“To get us permission to cross the border before those colonists end up on the auction block.”

***

Kat suppressed a groan as Moria’s hands pushed up her spine, causing her vertebrae to pop audibly.

“How’s the pressure so far?” asked Moria. 

Kat’s reply was muffled by the face pillow. “Perfect.”

Perhaps the best part of seeing Dr. Richard Hu for chiropractic care was his coupling treatment with massage therapy. And given the pain she’d been in for the last few days, the combination of therapeutic massage and spinal adjustment was a necessity.

“Let me know if you need more or less,” Moria said quietly, working loose a knot in Kat’s shoulder.

The massage table was heated, the treatment room filled with the relaxing scent of eucalyptus and the calming sounds of nature and singing bowls. The massage was an indulgence she could hardly afford at the moment, chasing pirates as they were and in light of Kat’s personal mission to figure out where she’d heard the name Dr. Aspen before. But her research would be more productive without the debilitating pain in her back, and the adjustment to her lower spine would be more effective with her muscles relaxed. If only she could stop thinking about what she was supposed to be doing and actually relax.

An hour ago, deep into Dr. Aspen’s personal files, the pain in her spine had become bad enough to make it hard to concentrate. A hypospray would certainly have masked the pain, but experience told her that fixing the root cause was the best solution for long term relief. So here she was. Indulging.

“Okay, I’m going to move to your lower back,” Moria warned. “I’ll start light. Tell me if it’s too much.” She worked her way down Kat’s back, easing the pressure as she moved lower.

As she often assisted Dr. Hu, Moria was well aware of Kat’s medical history, about the chronic pain that was the result of damaged nerves and spinal trauma that had left her paralyzed from the waist down, and Kat had explained before they’d gotten started the excruciating pain that had been plaguing her off and on for two days.

The lighter pressure was perfect until Moria pressed her forearm gently over Kat’s hip and glute. Kat sucked in a sharp breath and shied away. “Too much,” she said, though it was obvious.

“Okay then. Let’s start with some heat there.”

A moment later, Moria laid a heat pack over Kat’s lower back and hips before resuming work on her mid back and then up to her shoulder again.

Moria Larsson was a slight woman with ice blue eyes and white blonde hair that she usually kept pulled back into a severe ponytail. She was also one of the best damn massage therapists Kat had ever had, and the more terrifying of Enterprises’s physical therapists. It was a well-known fact that if you skipped your exercises while under her care, Moria would smile and then make you regret it.

Kat had just started to truly relax, letting the strain of the last week drift away, aided by the soft music and Moria’s expert touch when the door chime sounded. Moria didn’t huff, but Kat could feel her irritation in the way her hands tensed.

“Sorry about that, Admiral. Just one moment.” Moria pulled the sheet up to Kat’s shoulders and went to answer the door.

Kat kept her head down and her eyes closed, but she could hear the soft pneumatic hiss of the door opening, faint whispers of conversation, another quiet hiss as the door closed, and then Moria’s footsteps coming closer.

“Apologies, Admiral. It’s Captain Pike. He says it can’t wait.”

Kat sighed. If Chris said it couldn’t wait, it couldn’t wait. “Show him in,” she said, pulling her arms up and lifting her head. But she didn’t get up, instead propping up on her elbows as much as she was able without putting any strain on her lower back. Moria pulled the blanket up to her shoulders and then left the room.

The doors closed automatically behind Chris when he entered the treatment room and came closer. He gave her a soft smile of greeting and crouched down in front of the table so they were on the same level. Kat stacked her hands on the face pillow and rested her chin atop them, giving him a look of annoyance that went wholly unseen.

“How long has your back been hurting?” he asked gently. Of course, he could guess that this wasn’t just a leisurely massage. His perceptiveness made it impossible to hide anything from him, and her annoyance for his interruption faded somewhat in the face of his concern.

“A few days,” she admitted.

He frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.” At his reproving look, she added, “I’m fine. Just been sitting at my desk too much lately.”

Chris leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Anything I can do?”

“Yes. You can tell me why you’re here so that I can get on with my appointment.”

“Right,” he said a little sheepishly. “The pirates crossed back over the border with the colonists. I had Spock send a request to Command, but it’ll take two days to reach them and two days to get a reply.”

“Chris…” Kat sighed, knowing exactly why he was here.

Trying and ultimately failing to hide her wince, she reached back beneath the sheet to remove the heat pack from her back and sat up, bringing the sheet with her. “Will you hand me that robe, please?” she asked, motioning with her chin to the fluffy white robe on the hook by the door. This was not a conversation she wanted to have naked, and somehow, having it while wrapped only in a sheet only made it feel more intimate.

Chris retrieved the robe and, thus clothed, Kat tried to explain her hesitation. “Something isn’t right.”

Chris crossed his arms and leaned against the edge of the table next to her. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. But Dr. Aspen… Something’s off. I know it is.”

“You checked their file,” he replied, half question, half statement.

“I did. So far everything checks out. But I remember that name. I just can’t remember where, and I’ve been combing through files and racking my brain all night trying to figure it out.” Feeling a migraine coming on, Kat rubbed her temple. It had been a while since she’d last pulled an all nighter, and the sleep deprivation was making itself known.

Chris looked down at her, jaw working as he considered her words. “But you haven’t found any evidence that Dr. Aspen is lying?”

Forced to admit that she had nothing to back up her suspicions, she shook her head. “No.”

Chris was silent another moment, deep in thought. Kat could tell the moment he made up his mind to argue because he stood up, straightened his spine minutely, and squared his shoulders, facing her as if they were facing off in the sparring ring. Chris didn’t argue about everyday things like what to have for dinner or what temperature the bedroom should be at. He hardly ever put forth a contradictory opinion on the bridge, rather trusting that his officers gave him the best possible option in the first place. But this—the choice whether or not to charge headlong into enemy territory to save innocent lives—he would argue this point until they were both blue in the face.

“Without evidence,” he started, “I can’t just abandon them. We need to cross the border, and they don’t have four days to wait.”

Kat could tell that he was waiting for her answer, but it was clear that he’d had his mind made up before he’d walked through that door. And he hadn’t come here for alternative options.

She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “Does what I say even matter?”

Chris reared back, eyes wide, mouth open on a retort that he never said.

It was harsh, throwing his principles in his face, but she knew that if she weren’t here, Chris would already be across that border, permission be damned. But she was here, and the question was now: would he follow orders to hold position here? And perhaps more importantly, if he did, would he hate her for it?

A moment later, Chris closed his mouth. “You’re right,” he said carefully. “Subconsciously, I came here expecting you to say yes because of us, and I’m sorry. I promised you when we started this that I would never use you like that, and I did. I apologize, and I promise to try to never let that happen again.”

Kat nodded, accepting his apology.

He stepped closer. “But if there is even a chance that two hundred federation citizens are being trafficked over the border, I can’t just sit here. We have to try.”

“I know,” she said, because she did. Chris could never walk away from someone in need. Not when he could help. His heart was just one thing she loved about him.

And what choice would she make, were she in his position? Wait for proof of foul play or take the risk in the name of saving lives?

At her continued silence, Chris continued. “Look, I understand your concern,” he said, reaching for her hands, and she didn’t protest when he took them in his. “But we can’t assume Aspen is guilty of something without proof. We’ll go slow, check every sensor reading twice. If Aspen is playing us, we’ll have plenty of warning.”

With nothing to argue with except a hunch, there was nothing else she could do except nod and give her consent. “Okay.”

Relief suffused his face. “Thank you.”

Chris squeezed her hands gently, a silent gesture of love. She returned it before pulling her hands away and slipping off the massage table.

“You’re not going to finish your appointment?” Chris asked as she started getting dressed.

Kat shook her head. “If we’re leaving Federation space, I don’t have time.” An industrial grade painkiller would just have to do until she discovered whatever it was that was nagging the back of her mind. Once they were safely back on this side of the border, she could treat the cause instead of the symptoms.

The look on Chris’s face told her that he wanted to argue, but he wisely stayed silent.

***

He was wrong.

It was her first coherent thought as she came to on the floor, carpet in her mouth. He was wrong, the knowledge an echo sounding through the fog of pain in her mind. Her head was throbbing, her throat was parched, and every muscle was aching with that all too familiar arthritic stiffness left behind by energy weapons, telling her that Chris had been so very wrong.

Blinking, Kat opened her eyes. The warm, yellow light was blinding until her eyes adjusted. Then: furniture legs, and battered boots pacing the length of the rug. The one on the floor of her office where she was lying, cheek pressed to the pile.

So the pirates hadn’t moved her, or hadn’t had a chance to yet. How long had she been out?

When she tried to sit up, she discovered two things. First was that the analgesic she had taken earlier had worn off. Pain radiated up her spine in spasms more blinding than the light, causing her to gasp and to discover the second thing: that her hands were bound behind her back. With thin, plastic ties judging by the flexibility of the bonds tying her wrists together.

The battered boots stalled their pacing, toes angled towards her face, their wearer having no doubt been alerted to her consciousness by her stifled gasp. A second pair, clean and polished, tapped their way across the deck and entered her field of vision.

“Well, Admiral.” Dr. Aspen. Or rather, as Kat now knew, the person masquerading as Dr. Aspen. Unwilling to face the imposter lying on the floor, Kat started to sit up. “I wouldn’t if I were you,” not Dr. Aspen warned. “These stun settings pack quite the punch, don’t they?”

The pain in Kat’s head agreed. The pain in her back told her to lay back down. And the pain that was her old companion reminded her that discretion was the better part of valor. She ignored them all and continued to sit up. Experience had taught her when to give in and when to resist, and she was not yet ready to give in to the imposter who was currently showing off the weapon that had rendered her unconscious, lips twisted up in amusement. Starfleet phaser, Kat noted before a pained wince had her eyes clenching shut again.

The imposter’s cruel smile dimmed somewhat as Kat maneuvered to lean back against the edge of the couch, but the pain of forcing strained muscles into compliance kept her from reveling in the small victory. She was still on the floor, but at least she wasn’t lying prone on it anymore.

Panting, she took the moment to catch her breath and looked up at not Dr. Aspen.

“I don’t suppose I could trouble you for that hypospray on the desk, could I?” she asked, voice raspy with disuse and dehydration.

The question took the imposter off guard, which had been the main point. The small possibility of actually getting the analgesic and the pain relief it promised was simply a bonus. But surprise was quickly replaced by hubris, and not Dr. Aspen turned and walked to the desk, boots tap-tapping on the deck, and exchanged the phaser for the hypospray. But just when actual hope began to blossom in Kat’s chest, the imposter turned back around, eyes shining with something far more malicious than hubris.

Holding Kat’s gaze, not Dr. Aspen made a show of holding up the hypospray and pressing the button to release the cartridge. The vial of medicine fell to the deck with a crystalline ping before rolling to the bulkhead.

So it’s going to be like that, is it? Kat thought to herself. Very well.

Outwardly, she shrugged off her captor’s cruelty. “Ah, well.” Not bothering to hide the grimace of pain it caused, she bent one leg and used her foot to push herself into a more seated position. “It was worth a shot.” Another painful shift… There. That was better. Those stun settings really did pack a punch.

Sitting nearly fully upright now, Kat straightened her leg and looked up casually at not Dr. Aspen. “So. Where’s the real Dr. Aspen?”

Not Dr. Aspen shrugged indifferently. “Probably still on that moon I dumped them on.” The words were steeped in boredom, Dr. Aspen’s life worth nothing more than a name to mask this imposter’s deception.

Kat’s gaze slid to the pirate standing between her and the door—Battered Boots—and the phaser rifle in his hands. “There never were any colonists.”

“Got it in one,” not Dr. Aspen said cheerily. “I made up some sob story I knew would get you out here and you all fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker.”

Damn it, Chris! She should have grounded him. At least until she was sure. Why hadn’t she? Because of us? Had she let their relationship cloud her judgment?

No time to think about that now.

“Frankly, I’m almost disappointed at how easy it was,” not Dr. Aspen continued, lounging easily in one of the armchairs across from the couch, legs draped over the arm. “What gave me away?”

“For a counselor, you know a lot about electromagnetic nets.”

Not Dr. Aspen chuckled quietly. “Can you blame me for wanting to show off?”

Kat chose not to answer that particular question. But whoever this person was, they certainly seemed the type to enjoy showing off.

The imposter shook a lock of hair behind their shoulder. “Name’s Angel by the way. Captain Angel,” the pirate amended with pride.

“And let me guess,” Kat started, lacing her words with a boredom equal to Angel’s. “The Serene Squall is your ship.” Behind her back, she tested the ties on her wrists. They weren’t overly tight, thankfully, but maybe… Damn. Not enough give to slip off.

“Bingo!” Angel smiled almost proudly, eyes dipping to Kat’s chest. “I can see why they gave you the big badge. How did you finally figure it out anyway? If you’d seen through me earlier, I never would have made it off the bridge.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“So, tell me, Admiral.” Angel’s smile morphed into a mocking frown. “Or is it counselor?” Cruel laughter echoed off the walls of Kat’s office as the pirate swung around in the chair and leaned forward, elbows on knees, as if eagerly awaiting the story. “Tell me what did me in?”

“You’re a captain. What’s the worst part about holding authority?”

“I’ve never known there to be a downside.”

“Give it a little longer,” Kat said with an ominous smile. “Power is a tricky thing. Get enough of it and suddenly, everyone wants to be your friend. It’s rather tedious, don’t you think?” Kat’s lips tilted up sarcastically. “You did a brilliant job on the files, by the way. No one who didn’t know Dr. Aspen would have suspected a thing. And smart choice in Dr. Aspen, choosing someone retired long enough that no one at Headquarters would look up, and no one in Records would remember. So, when you altered the files, no one knew what you had altered.”

Angel’s expression darkened slightly, a child angry at having the magic of the trick explained to them. Glossy enchantment dulled by exposition.

“I’ll admit that you almost had me,” Kat went on casually. “But you forgot one crucial detail.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“I was invited to his retirement party. His picture was right there on the invitation.” Kat smiled a triumphant smile. “You changed all the images on record, but you couldn’t touch those that had already been disseminated.”

It was ironic, that something so innocuous as a party invitation for a man she’d never met, delivered and forgotten years ago, should be the conveyance of such exhaustive proof. She’d never gone. Never even responded to the invitation, too busy trying to prevent a war from breaking out for such things as retirement parties for counselors she’d never met.

“Neat trick,” Angel said.

Yep. Definitely angry.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Kat stated, but Angel didn’t answer. “Why? What is it that you want? It can’t be the ship. You’re far too smart to steal the Enterprise, knowing that it will only invite a host of trouble you don’t want. So, what is it? What do you want?”

Angel smiled ominously, stood, and stalked closer. “Maybe I want your crew.”

“Do you?”

“Trying to analyze me, Admiral?” Angel tsked. “It won’t work.”

“Something tells me that we could sit here for all eternity and I would still never be able to accurately analyze you.”

“You got that right. But I will admit, I don’t want your crew. Not all of them. I just need one. The ship and the others are just payment to my associates.”

“You have me. Now what do you want?”

Angel chuffed a derisive laugh. “You think very highly of yourself, don’t you? No, I don’t want you. But I do need your command override codes to unlock the Enterprise.”

Kat laughed. “Now who thinks highly of themselves? You think I’m going to turn the Enterprise over to you so your friends can sell me to the highest bidder? I gave you too much credit before. I don’t need eternity to analyze you. I’m done now.”

Expression dangerously calm, Angel crouched in front of her, putting them on the same level. “Have you ever been tortured Admiral?”

Oddly, it wasn’t fear that was Kat’s initial reaction to that question, but amusement, a huff of laughter rising in her chest. After weeks on a Klingon prison ship, there wasn’t much that Angel could do to her that hadn’t already been done.  

The fear came second, a chilling wave of memories prickling her skin, smothering that laughter and seeming to strip the room of air. Torture was not an experience she cared to relive. 

She forced strained lungs to pull in oxygen and swallowed thickly, trying and failing to wet her dry throat. Her eyes slid to Battered Boots hulking nearby, and she tugged once more on the bonds securing her wrists, finding them still too tight to slip.

Training kicked in after another shaky breath and she schooled her expression into something that hopefully resembled neutrality. Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing evened, dark memories dissipated. “Is that what you’re going to do?” she asked Angel. “Torture me?”

There was nothing she could do to stop them outnumbered, bound, and already in pain as she was. But if she could keep Angel talking, she might at least be able to get some more information out of them before things…escalated.

“If you don’t give me what I want,” Angel said in a tone that made Kat believe every word.

The pirate captain held up a previously unseen vial of red liquid. It was then that Kat remembered the empty hypospray dispenser, still in Angel’s hand. “Rothvarian fire peppers. Have you ever tasted one?”

“Can’t say that I have.” She had never even heard of them.

“Pity. They’re an exquisite study of duality,” Angel said, examining the vial intently. “On the one side, pleasure. If cooked properly, they’re said to be an aphrodisiac so potent, even a eunuch can get it up. On the other…” Angel turned the vial around to show the other side. “Pain. In their raw state, one drop of juice is enough to leave second degree burns on even the thickest of skins. Ironic, don’t you think?”

“Not really,” Kat replied, unimpressed. “I’ve found that most things often aren’t as they first appear.”

Angel’s expression hardened. “The codes.”

“No.”

“Last chance.” Angel’s words were punctuated by the click of the vial locking into place inside the dispenser.

Kat felt her heart rate ratchet up a notch. Memories swirled and collided on the edges of her consciousness, cloying and oppressive. A darkness rolling in like a poisonous fog.

“Why the Enterprise?” she asked quickly, and if her voice was shaking with fear, it was because she was very much afraid. “You already have a ship. So what do you want?”

Angel studied her for a moment. “You actually want to know, don’t you?”

Had Angel mistaken fear for necessity?

“I just usually like to know why I’m getting tortured,” Kat said evasively.

“Hmmm…” Another moment under the pirate’s microscope. “Why does anyone do anything?” Angel asked and then answered, “For love.”

A realization came over Angel. Dark eyes widened with the sudden knowledge, brows rising slightly. That look was ominous, promising something far more sinister than second degree burns. “And that’s something you know about, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Captain Pike,” Angel said, as if it were obvious. “I read your file.” Her file? What the hell did her file have to do with any of this? “And even if I hadn’t, I saw the way he looked at you. And the way you looked at him.” The relationship disclosure forms. Angel knew. “I never would have figured you, so authoritative and confident, for the big strong masculine type, but—”

Careful control snapped. Torture she could handle. Ridicule she could endure. But Kat would not abide Angel disparaging Chris. “You don’t know a thing about me,” she said harshly.

Angel’s hands went up in mock surrender. “Hey. Whatever gets your engine purring.”

“Go to hell.”

“Undoubtedly. But not today.”

Kat wanted to roll her eyes, and just barely contained it. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“So masochistic.” Angel chuckled. “You are just full of surprises. Normally I’d be glad to indulge you and your kink, but as it so happens, I have something better in mind.”

Kat wanted to ask what but dared not.

“See, while we’ve been having this admittedly delightful chat, Captain Pike has been having a much less pleasant time aboard the Serene Squall.”

Kat’s stomach sank, a knot of anxiety taking up residence in her belly.

“You’re right Admiral,” Angel went on, “I don’t know you or Captain Pike. But I do know that Captain Pike would never give up his ship under torture. But for his crew? For you? He would never stand to see you hurt, not when words could stop it.”

Angel stood and motioned to Battered Boots. The second pirate moved closer, taking Kat’s arm in a vise grip and hauling her to her feet. Pain shot though her at the motion, the beginnings of a pained cry making their way passed her lips before she locked her her jaw and cut it off.

“Take her to the Serene Squall,” Angel ordered. “Tell our friends that should the captain prove tight lipped, she’s the key that will loosen his tongue.”

Chapter Text

The pirate’s fist smashed into Pike’s jaw once more, hard enough that Pike tasted blood. While the pirate captain chuckled, Pike ran his tongue along his back teeth. Split cheek, definitely a loose molar. A few more hits like that and Dr. M’Benga would be replacing his teeth.

The pirate captain, Remy, rose from where he was lounging behind his desk and came closer. “Look, we’ve taken your ship, caged your crew, so this whole defiant captain drama?” He clapped the guard—the one who had been beating Pike for the last ten minutes—on the shoulder and looked at Pike with a mocking frown. “It’s sad.”

Silent, Pike stared up at the captain from where he knelt. The Orion appeared larger from this vantage point. Ten minutes ago, before the guards had forced Pike to his knees, the pirate had looked so much smaller. A matter of perspective, Pike thought to himself and then tried not to laugh.

Remy was in fact a large man in every way except height and morals: girth, beard, ego… Pike could go on, but at a tilt of Remy’s head, the guard struck him again.

By contrast, the pirate doing his best to break Pike’s jaw was tall and lanky with an emaciated look about his spike-lined face. For all that, his fist was as hard as iron. It smashed into Pike’s face like a boulder.

Pike grunted in pain, the blow throwing him off balance. The two goons positioned behind him kept him from falling to the deck, but they couldn’t keep the room from spinning behind his eyelids. Blood gushed warm and slick on his tongue. Lying down was starting to sound pretty good right about now.

At Pike’s continued silence, the guard on his right, a human female, sighed in exasperation. “We’re wasting our time.”

Pike chuffed. “So, she’s the smart one.”

“Handsome and witty,” Remy mocked. “Aren’t you a charmer? Perhaps I should start air locking your crew into space, huh? Maybe that will loosen your tongue?”

Pike smirked knowingly. If these guys were willing to kill them, they would have done so already. But everyone from his crew that he’d seen had been taken alive, and Remy himself had stated that his people had only caged Pike’s crew, not killed them. That meant that the pirates not only needed them alive, but they needed them to stay that way. Pike was willing to bet that Remy intended to sell them. “And ruin your profit margin?” he quipped.

Remy motioned to Spike Face, who smiled sadistically and punched Pike again.

Damn it! The least these assholes could do was break his face evenly.

Pike opened and closed his mouth experimentally, moved his jaw left and right. At least everything still worked. For now.

Remy chuckled. “I’ll make up for it with your ship. A lot of people in the quadrant who’d pay a high price for it.”

Pike choked on a laugh and the blood spilling from his split cheek. The ship you can’t control. The blood he spat out onto the deck. The laugh he let twist his lips up, baring blood-stained teeth. “Good luck with that.” Remy would have to find a truly unsuspecting or overly gullible buyer to get them to pay to put a target on their own back.

Remy’s hand whipped out, fingers closing around Pike’s swollen and bruised jaw. “The Klingon’s are going to enjoy breaking you,” he growled menacingly.

So that was a yes on selling them.

Behind Pike, the two guards shifted nervously on their feet. Practically sandwiched between them and Remy, Pike was acutely aware of the movement.

As Spock would say, fascinating.

“Yeah, well,” Pike forced out around the vise of Remy’s fingers. “You know why people like you don’t get into deals with the Klingons? It’s ‘cause they don’t tend to get out alive.”

Remy sneered and thrust Pike away. Pike wavered. An instant later, Spike Face’s fist struck him again, a blow to his temple this time. Stars burst in Pike’s vision; the room spun even behind his closed eyelids. Worse when he opened them. Thankfully, the guards behind him kept him from falling to the deck. Doubled over, he sucked in deep lungfuls of oxygen, trying to regain his bearings and still the room.

The steel toe of a heavy boot drove into his stomach, hard enough to force the air from his lungs and to have him choking down bile. He listed to the side, heaving and coughing wetly into the carpeting. The guards hauled him dazed and gasping back to his knees.

The pneumatic hiss of a door opening drew Remy’s attention. Pike concentrated on breathing and staying upright when his entire body wanted to sink to the floor. The chest plate on his uniform felt like it had shrunk several sizes. He couldn’t seem to get enough air.

“Ah yes, the admiral graces us with her presence.”

Remy’s words forced the room to stillness. Instantly on alert, Pike looked up sharply, heart in his throat. Sure enough, Kat was stumbling into the room after no doubt having been shoved through the door. Damn it. It had been too much to hope that she had been placed with the rest of his crew, just another officer. Or better yet, that she had escaped the pirates’ notice all together.

Even with her hands bound behind her back, she kept her footing on the carpeted deck. The guard who had brought her whispered something to Remy, but with all his attention on Kat, Pike didn’t hear it.

Her hair was disheveled, and there was a bruise on her cheek. Outwardly, she otherwise appeared no worse for wear, but Pike could see the telltale tightness in her jaw that said she was in pain.

Pike watched her straighten and turn defiant eyes up to Remy who nodded. The goon who had been doing his best to break Pike’s jaw struck her with a closed fist, sending her to deck. Pike forced himself to not react, both to the initial strike and to the sight of blood trickling from her split lip as she started to pull herself up. If Remy found out there was anything between them, things would get a lot worse than a light beating. But rage coiled in his chest, a beast ready to strike.

Kat was just getting to her feet when the pirates forced her to her knees. She went down with a muffled “oomph” when her knees struck the floor.

“The captain doesn’t seem to care if I start airlocking his crew,” said Remy, as he strode towards her, chuckling. He reached out with one meaty, green hand and swiped the lock of hair stuck to her bloody lip off to the side with one finger before gripping her jaw and forcing her eyes up. “But I’m told that he cares about you.”

Fuck.

“What’s it going to be, Admiral? Are you going to spare him the sight of more violence and give me your codes?”

Kat didn’t even blink. “No.”

Remy tsked and stepped back.

Spike Face’s fist smashed into her face once more. This time she caught herself before falling to the deck and spat blood at the guard’s feet.

“Let me tell you how this is going to go,” said Remy, hands on his hips. He stepped towards her once more, stopping less than a pace from where she knelt and leaning forward, looming over her. “I’m going to ask for the codes, and for every unsatisfactory answer, you are going to pay the price until one of you talks.”

“If that’s the case,” Kat said, shaking the hair out of her face and shifting on her knees, “you all better make yourselves comfortable. Because we’re going to be here for a while.”

“Oh-ho!” intoned Remy, heavy on the sarcasm. “Got ourselves another witty one. We’ll see if you’re still making jokes after the Klingons get through with you.”

Kat frowned at the mention of Klingons.

“Didn’t you hear, Admiral?” Pike said around the pain in his jaw. “They’re selling us to the Klingons.”

“Are they?” Kat’s eyes cut to Pike, then turned back up to Remy. “Good luck with that.”

This time, Remy backhanded her himself. Unprepared for it, she hit the deck. Pike couldn’t help his sharp intake of breath.

Shit.

Glancing at Pike, Remy smirked and chuckled again. “We’ll see about that. The codes, Captain.”

Pike clenched his teeth and said nothing.

Remy motioned to Spike Face, who hauled Kat up by her uniform and punched her twice in quick succession before letting her crumble back to the deck.

Everything in Pike told him to get up, to fight back, to end this in any way he could.

Duty kept him silent.

On the floor, Kat laughed, somewhat manically, and Pike did his best not to frown. But her reaction confused and angered Remy, who stepped back, and belatedly, Pike realized that had been her intention. Angry interrogators made mistakes.

Oldest trick in the book.

Sobering to defiance, she pulled herself up, blood trickling from her nose and mouth. “Rule one of torture, you piece of shit: know your victim. And if you think threatening me is going to get either one of us to talk, I gave you far too much credit.” She made a show of looking the pirate up and down, and sneered at him. “But now it’s obvious why you’re always second best.”

Remy growled low in his throat, his eyes narrowing behind bushy eyebrows. “You think you know me?” There was a dangerous edge to his voice, and it sent an icy chill down Pike’s spine.

What are you doing, Kat?

There was angry, and then there was murderous. Kat was walking a very thin line with Remy.

“I know enough,” she returned confidently. “I know that you’re not really the one who’s in charge around here. I know that you’re just play acting at being captain while your master is away, high on an artificial power trip. But really, you’re just a second with delusions of grandeur. And that’s all you’ll ever be: second. Because you don’t have what it takes to be a captain, and secretly—” Her voice dropped, as if she were telling Remy a secret. “—you know it.”

Remy snarled, an animalistic sound, as his hand whipped out and latched around her throat. Her eyes went wide, her mouth opened on a cut-off gasp. Helpless, Pike watched Remy study her, beady eyes drawing up and down her form. And then the pirate chuckled, a menacing sound full of sadistic promise.

“You’re on your knees, little admiral. In shackles, and I’m still standing. It seems you need to be reminded of that.”

Pike had called Remy’s bluff about spacing his crew. The gamble had paid off. The pirates needed them to remain alive because you can’t make money off the dead. But now he threatened Kat, and so far Pike had been able to hold his tongue through the beatings. But if this kept up, if Remy escalated things further, Pike knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep silent for much longer.

Did she know? Is that why she drew Remy’s attention away from the codes and onto herself? Because she knew that Pike would talk to save her? Damn it, Kat!

He didn’t know what she was planning. All he knew was that Remy’s hand was tightening around her neck, and her mouth was opening and closing, desperately trying to pull in oxygen denied by the Orion’s grip, and he had to stop this before it went any further.

“Hey, now,” he said calmly, “why don’t we—”

Remy cut him off. “Put him with the others.” Without looking, the pirate waved his other hand towards Pike.

Hands tugged Pike to his feet. Remy’s lips twisted in a smile that held the promise of pain as he looked down at Kat.

“No, wait.” Pike dug in his heels but he was powerless with his hands bound against the three pirates intent on following orders.

Something flashed in Kat’s eyes just before the guards dragged Pike from the room.

Fear.

“Wait!” Pike’s cry of desperation went unheard, and the last thing he saw before the doors closed was Kat struggling against the hand cutting off her oxygen.

He was thrown stumbling into the cage in the cargo hold currently holding his original landing party and several others of his crew. They all appeared well enough, all showing varying expressions of relief and concern. Una attempted to hide her relief in a succinct status report. M’Benga had managed to hold onto a medical tricorder and was intent on scanning Pike’s jaw.

Pike waved them all away. At least his handcuffs had been removed before the pirates had shoved him in here. After assuring himself that everyone present were no worse for wear, he moved to the edge of the cage, curling his fingers around the bars but lacking the strength to pry them apart. He tried though, fists clenched to crush the metal, arms straining to pull them open. It was fruitless, but it gave him something to do, a lens through which to focus the rage coursing through him.

Of three things Pike was absolutely certain.

One, Remy was not the captain of the Serene Squall. And while Pike didn’t know who was, he did know that her captain wasn’t even here.

Two, Kat had knowingly sacrificed herself to get him that information so that he could use it to get them out of this, and after seeing the look on Remy’s face, he didn’t have much time. Because he also knew that Kat wasn’t going to break no matter what Remy did in an attempt to pry the codes from her. She had bested the most experienced of Klingon torturers; what was a pathological Orion pirate in comparison? But it was clear that Remy was not a patient man, and Pike guessed that he would kill Kat before he got the information he wanted.

And three, once he had used that hard-won knowledge to get his crew out of here, Pike was going to repay Remy for every second he spent hurting her.

And he was going to enjoy it.

It should have been a terrifying thought, relishing such violence, and as the minutes ticked silently by, it became so. The Talosians had taught him long ago that he couldn’t hold hate at the forefront of his mind forever. Even when it was necessary, the emotion was too exhausting to hold on to, and here, now, that hate would serve him no purpose. He needed to figure out a way to get them all out of this mess, rescue Kat, and get the Enterprise back. And to do that, he needed a clear head, not visions of Orions bleeding at his feet. He let the hate go, relaxed his hold on the metal bars, and focused on formulating a plan to get them out of this.

Una joined him after a while, her steps quiet and her posture hesitant, like a wary doe trying to decide if he was friend or foe. Pike sighed and sat, resting his arms on his knees as he looked towards that closed door. Damn it the waiting was torture. What the hell was happening in there?

Una lowered herself to the floor next to him, crossing her legs. “I haven’t seen the Admiral. Have you?”

In answer, Pike looked towards the office.

In the quiet of the ship’s hold, Pike could make out Una’s sharp intake of breath.

Yeah.

His stomach twisted.

Una’s hand touched his arm, a gesture of reassurance, but Pike felt none.

“She’s strong,” she said quietly.

Pike shook his head. Yes, she was, but he couldn’t think about that, about what she might be enduring. That way led to thoughts of rage and hate. He focused instead on the information Kat had given him.

“Remy’s not the captain,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Remy’s not the captain.” Then, because suddenly it was the key to everything, he turned to Una and said again, “Remy’s not the captain.”

Una’s eyes narrowed in thought, then went wide with realization. “Oh Chris. Oh no. Not Alpha Braga Four.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Alpha Braga Four.”

Una blew out a breath. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me too, Number One.”

And then Pike learned that he was wrong: it could get much much worse than waiting in silence.

A scream made its way from beyond the closed door, seeming to echo in the cavernous hold of the ship. But Pike knew that the echo was mostly in his mind, in his rage-savaged mind. The sound was cut off, the echo flitting away, dying out as though too weak to continue beating fragile wings across the wide space, and in its wake, the hold was eerily silent.

Pike felt Una’s gaze land heavily upon him, like a crushing weight he could not move. He ignored her in favor of staring a hole in the bulkhead beyond the bars caging him. His heart beat hard and fast, like thunder in his chest, slamming with bruising force against his ribs. Rage thrummed in his veins, tingling to the tips of his fingers that itched to draw so much Orion blood that he would be picking the bastard from beneath his nails even days later.

Another scream made its way to his ears, louder than the last before it was cut off. Cut off by whom? By Kat or by Remy’s method of torture? Did it matter? The sound was a knife plunged into his gut.

For the briefest of instants, time seemed to slow. Pike’s heart stopped beating. His lungs stilled. The ship quieted. The moment stretched indefinitely, time nothing more than a vast empty moment like the vacuum of space.

Then it all snapped back. His heart beat slow and steady; his lungs expanded, drawing in precious oxygen; the rage clouding his mind faded away, leaving absolute clarity.

He was going to take everything from Remy, strip him of every single thing he held dear—his pretense of command, his pride, his wealth, his followers. But first, he was going to shackle the fucker, take his freedom, and force him to watch while he did it.

***

It was easy—almost too easy—to convince Remy’s crew to mutiny and to let his own crew help. Fran didn’t relish the idea of getting into negotiations with the Klingons, nor did many of the crew. Moreover, though she seemed fine with the idea of selling Pike and his crew into slavery, she had seemed uncomfortable with the screams that sounded from the closed office every so often. Then again, Fran had also attempted to hurry along Pike’s own interrogation so perhaps she was simply uncomfortable with unnecessary violence. He’d used that.

Remy had paused his torture to try and stop the take over of his ship, and Pike had taken great pleasure in shooting the bastard. The rest of Remy’s crew stood down after that. But it wasn’t over, because then the Enterprise crew had turned on the mutineers.

Surprise was on their side, and it was quick and dirty. A coordinated barrage of phaser fire, pirates stunned and cuffed, separated from Remy’s supporters, a lock clicked into place, and then it was over. The Serene Squall was theirs.

Orders were handed down, Erica, Christina, and La’an sent to the bridge, Erica seeming all too pleased at the prospect of flying a pirate ship. Any other time Pike would have shared in her delight. More orders, guards set on the pirates, nurses to treat the wounded—but not M’Benga. Pike needed him elsewhere and he suspected that the doctor knew it. And then, finally, he could go to her.

He ran, but it was as if he were running under water. Everything moved as if in slow motion. The deck plating felt like deep sand beneath his feet. His heartbeat slowed. Every sound seemed to come from far away. And when he finally reached that office, it was as if all the air was suddenly taken from the ship. His heart stopped. He couldn’t breathe.

Kat was laying on the floor, hands still bound behind her back, but now she was barefoot, her legs bound together at the ankle, and her feet—

Pike crossed the room in two strides and dropped to his knees at her side. “Admiral?” he tried, mindful of M’Benga, who was only steps behind him, kneeling at her side and scanning her with the medical tricorder. “Admiral?”

She was conscious but not responding. There was still quite a bit of blood on her face, her lip was swollen, and Pike could make out the beginnings of finger-shaped bruises forming on her neck.

Pike’s heart had stopped before, but now it was beating too fast as he drew his knife and turned her gently so he could cut free the ties on her wrists. They were the simple plastic ties that the pirates had used to bind the rest of them, but Kat’s had cut into her skin. Probably when she’d struggled, considering the rug burns on her hands, but they were still loose enough around her swollen wrists that Pike could easily slip his knife under the thin plastic and cut it free.

His hands were shaking as he moved her arms from beneath her back, gently easing them back into a normal position after hours lying bound. “Kat?” he tried, softer, moving into her field of vision as he took her hand and brushed the hair out of her face. “Kat, can you hear me?” Her hand was cold. Too cold.

“She’s in shock,” M’Benga said, and then glanced over his shoulder at Una. Una? She’d followed too? “See if you can find a medkit.” M’Benga set down the tricorder and took the knife from where Pike had set it on the floor, cutting cord around Kat’s ankles. “She’ll be fine if we can get her treatment soon, but she’s not walking out of here.”

“What—”

“He probably used the sjambok.” M’Benga flung away the length of cord and nodded to the desk where lay a thick leather whip, approximately 100 centimeters in length.

Rage—primitive, terrible rage—roared through Pike, white-hot and ravenous, unlike anything he had ever felt before. Not even the Talosians had made him feel this. Its claws sank deep, squeezed around his lungs, making his breath come in sharp, forceful pants. It stripped away every good intention, smothered every ounce of mercy until he was nothing but primal anger, salivating for revenge.

He stood. His feet moved of their own volition, three steps to the desk, and he felt his hand close around the thicker end of the sjambok. He turned, his gaze homing in on Remy in the main cargo hold, sitting on the floor, hands bound behind his back. Helpless. Helpless as she had been.

Pike stalked out of the room, footfalls ringing of intention as his boots fell heavy against the metal deck plating.

Somewhere in the distance, someone called his name, but he paid them no mind. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except slaking the bloodlust that was going to flay the Orion pirate alive.

When he reached the Orion’s boot tips, Pike crouched in front of him.

“Cunning device you have here,” Pike said, eyeing the sjambok as if it were a coveted piece of treasure rather than the repulsive weapon of torture that it was. “Bet you use it to keep your cargo in line, hmm? Discipline an unruly slave?” Pike tapped the end of the whip against Remy’s shoulder, let it rest there atop the pirate's bushy beard. “You ever been struck by one? Answer me,” he added harshly when Remy didn’t answer.

“No.” The Orion slaver was all defiance. Pike smiled malevolently. That defiance wouldn’t last long.

“See, Earth had a similar weapon.” Pike flicked the sjambok through the air, testing its rigidity. “Interesting thing about it is, depending on how you wield it, it’s capable of cutting through flesh like a knife or of causing lethal amounts of internal bleeding without even breaking the skin.” He turned cutting eyes back to his prey. “But I’m guessing you already knew that. Care to guess how I’m going to use it to kill you?”

There was a flash of fear in Remy’s eyes before he hardened his expression.

Good.

Pike stood and raised his arm.

“Captain!”

Una’s voice rang out across the Serene Squall, freezing his arm mid-strike.

Pike looked sharply toward the office, to Una standing in the doorway, looking at him with a mixture of horror and sympathy on her face.

“Don’t,” she implored. “He’s not worth it.”

Pike looked from Una to Remy, cowering at his feet. Back to Una, who was waiting for him to do the right thing. He was the Boy Scout after all, right?

Fuck. That.

Doing the right thing had kept him out of the war, left Kat in the hands of the Klingons and now this piece of shit slaver at his feet. Doing the right thing had meant knowingly leaving her in both situations.

Stay on mission.

Her words. Stay in the Pergamum. Don’t come back. Orders to stay away when his friends and loved ones were being tortured and killed.

Stay on mission.

Pike’s hand tightened around the leather. It was worn smooth from use, ironically soft against his hand, pain wrapped in petal-soft deception. How many people had Remy hurt with it?

No. He was done putting the mission first. He was done following orders when his conscience demanded he act otherwise. He was done letting the people he loved get hurt for the greater good.

Pike turned his eyes once more to Remy. Remy didn’t deserve the right thing. He deserved to pay for the wounds he had inflicted. A taste of his own medicine seemed like a fitting punishment.

The rage inside Pike concurred.

“Chris.” It was Una, still pleading, though she had not moved to stop him. “Don’t.”

“I can see why Starfleet calls you their Boy Scout.”

“I’m not…”

“Chris, it’s in your file.”

Kat’s cheeky smile over the rim of a wine glass. “I might have put it there.”

She always did put too much faith in him.

“You sat out the war because if we’d lost to the Klingons, we wanted the best of Starfleet to survive. And as this conversation makes clear, that was you, and all you represent.”

Damn her.

Pike’s hold on the sjambok tightened to the point of pain as he continued to stare down at Remy. Remy who did not deserve the right thing but was going to get it anyway, because when it came down to it, it wasn’t a question of whether Pike would let his arm fall, of whether he would strike and rend flesh from bone, but of what she would think of him if he did. And given the choice between exacting Hammurabic justice or getting to see that smile one more time, it wasn’t really a choice.

Damn. Her.

Damn her for being his mirror, the perfect reflection of who he strived to be. She looked to him for her morality, but he had always measured himself against her expectations. If he did this, he would cease to be who she thought he was, and he would rather die than let her down.  

In one motion, Pike brought the butt of the sjambok down hard on Remy’s temple. The Orion’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he collapsed sideways to the deck, unconscious.  

Pike stepped back, still breathing hard, still clutching the whip. He wanted to hurl the thing out an airlock, incinerate it into nothingness. But rational thought had begun to creep back into his brain, and he knew they needed evidence.

Evidence.

If they could even bring Remy to court. Remy had kidnapped his crew with the intent to sell them all into slavery, stolen his ship, and tortured Kat. But he had done it all outside of Federation space because Pike had fallen for his trap. Because Pike had ordered Enterprise to cross the border, and Kat had given permission based solely on his word. He had been wrong, and Kat had paid the price.

Pike turned away and stalked across the cargo hold until he was halted by the bulkhead. Clubbing Remy hadn’t been enough. Rage still thrummed like adrenaline through his veins, flush beneath his skin.

His fists curled. He wanted to drive one through the bulkhead. Maybe the pain of shattered bones in his hand would take away the pain of guilt in his chest.

Kat had known that something wasn’t right with this mission. She had known and she’d tried to warn him. He should have listened. He should have waited! But he’d seen those two hundred life signs and run straight into the baited trap, and now Kat—

He’d hardly spared a second for the scene, but now he couldn’t get the sight out of his head. It was seared into his brain like a brand. He could still see it—the pattern of blood spatter on the walls, blood-stained carpet. He could still smell it—the scent of blood and sweat and fear—

“Chris.” Una. Again? Still? How long had he been staring at that bulkhead? Pike wasn’t sure.

He turned. Una tilted her head behind her.

Kat.

Pike crossed the cargo hold with hurried strides, pressing the sjambok into Una’s hands. “Take care of that,” he said gruffly, not waiting for a response.

In the office, he dropped to his knees at Kat’s side. She was lucid now, curled on her side, shivering just a little.

Right. Shock.

M’Benga packed a hypospray into the unearthed medkit and then rose to his feet. “I’m going to find a blanket,” the doctor said before retreating from the room.

Pike turned back to Kat. “Hey,” he said softly, bending close and reaching out to lay his palm on her cheek before thinking better of it. She might not be ready for physical contact yet. “Can I—” He cleared the emotions from his throat and tried again. “Can I touch you?”

He thought he saw her nod but couldn’t be sure, so he didn’t move to touch her, just set his hand on the floor near hers, palm up in silent offer.

She took it.

“Cold.” Her voice was small and thin, a layer of velum over the noise wandering in from the rest of the ship and trembling just a little.

Pike reached out with his free hand, gently smoothing sweat-dampened hair off her face and cradling her head. “Joseph went to find a blanket,” he whispered. He wished like hell that he wasn’t wearing tactical gear right now. The urge to pull her close, to hold her, was physical. He wished he could remember if he should. Would moving her exacerbate her injuries? Make her condition worse? What was the procedure for treating shock, beyond keeping the patient warm? He knew the answers, but he couldn’t think beyond the sight of her, so fragile and in pain, her skin cold and clammy against his.

“Cold,” she said again, and the frail word decided it. He wasn’t waiting for Joseph. He was getting her off the floor. Now.

Pike looked around the room, taking stock of his options. Desk, chairs, shelving units—nothing warm or comfortable.

With a little effort and some careful maneuvering, he got his arm under her shoulders, then his other under her knees and carefully lifted her from the floor. Mindful of her feet, he sat in one of the two chairs in front of the desk, holding her close in his lap with her legs propped on the arm.

“Okay?”

Still shivering, her only answer was to let her head fall against his shoulder and lay her hand on his chest, fingers spread over the gold-toned armor.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing his cheek against her hair. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Moments later, Joseph arrived with a blanket. “It smells awful, but it’s warm,” he said, shaking open the thick, green-brown fabric.

It took some more careful maneuvering to keep from jostling Kat’s feet, and the blanket smelled like a dead animal, but eventually they got her wrapped up with her feet properly elevated on the desk. Right, Pike thought. He shouldn’t have moved her. But Joseph was kind enough not to say anything.

After a few minutes, her shivering eased, and Kat’s head rolled against his shoulder. “Chris…” she said weakly, looking up at him.

“Yeah?”

“Next time, it’s your turn to get tortured, okay?”

Something between a bitter laugh and a strangled sob escaped Pike’s throat before he cut it off and closed his eyes, hiding his face against her hair. “You got it.”

Gladly.

Chapter Text

Kat woke up in sickbay. At first, the bright light and the white ceiling were disorienting until she remembered the distant sounds of phaser fire, Chris’s hand around hers, the foul smell of a warm blanket, rough metal under her palm, the soft tingle of the transporter. But they were all like memories of a dream, fading even as she recalled them.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. They’d won. They’d taken the Enterprise back. She was no longer in that room with Remy.

Kat opened her eyes again and sat up. She was wearing a standard medical gown and had been covered with a blanket. So relieved was she to be back, that it came as a surprise when she realized that her back no longer hurt. M’Benga must have healed that, too, while she was out.

“Welcome back, Admiral,” nurse Chapel said, coming over to check the readings on Kat’s biobed. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Kat said and resisted the urge to throw off the blanket and look at her feet. She’d caught a glimpse of them when Remy had cut her legs down, and the sight had been enough to fuel her nightmares for a year. Instead, she surreptitiously flexed and curled her toes beneath the blanket.

No pain.

Kat swallowed the sob of relief threatening to spill from her chest.

The realization that even if she survived her injuries, unless Chris and his crew could take over the Serene Squall and get her treatment, she might never walk—never dance—again, had been enough to send her into a depressive spiral until Chris and M’Benga had burst into that room.

Had Remy known? Had Angel told him what was in her file? Had he known the importance of feet to a dancer?

Suddenly feeling the urge to move, she flexed her feet again. She wanted to run, to leap, to pirouette á la seconde, but settled for pointing her toes. If Chapel caught the movement beneath the blanket, she was kind enough not to mention it.

“Everything looks good,” Chapel said. “Dr. M’Benga wanted to run one more scan, but after that, we should be able to get you out of here. Let me go get him. Would you like some water?”

Staring at her toes beneath the blanket, feeling joy crowd her chest, Kat could hardly keep up with the nurse. Belatedly, she murmured a distracted, “Please.”

“Okay, sit tight,” Chapel said, laying a gentle hand on Kat’s. “I’ll be right back.”

She returned a minute later with a cup of water and Dr. M’Benga. The doctor ran his scan while Kat sipped her water.

“Everything looks normal,” Dr. M’Benga said. “I can go ahead and discharge you if you’re feeling ready.”

“Yes, thank you,” Kat replied.

“The captain asked to be alerted when you woke up. I held off for now, wanting to ask you first. Should I call him?”

Chris…

Kat opened her mouth to reply but found that she didn’t have an answer.

“He was very worried about you,” M’Benga added at her silence. Kat wanted to scold him for his impropriety, but again, found that no words would come.

There was a part of her that didn’t want to see Chris because she knew that he would be concerned. He would want to talk, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to. He would ask if she was okay and when she lied to ease his guilt, he would see through it.

Another part wanted to fling herself into his arms and cry on his shoulder. That part wanted him to hold her, to protect her, to block out the fear and the memories. Perhaps then she would feel safe again.

And there was a small part, a dark part, a part buried deep inside her that she didn’t want to acknowledge but was making itself known. That part told her to buck up and get back to work. This was nothing she hadn’t survived before. She would survive this, too.

“No, thank you,” she said eventually. “I’ll tell him. For now, I’d just like to sleep in my own bed if that’s alright?” Besides, the fact that Chris wasn’t there told her that he was still dealing with the aftermath of the take over. Otherwise, she knew he would have been the first face she’d seen when she woke up.

M’Benga nodded. “Of course.”

With discharge instructions to rest and to follow the advice she would give to anyone else in her situation, Kat was free to leave. She had no intentions of doing anything except showering, putting on her own clothes, and going to bed.

When she entered her quarters, she did just that. Dressed in pajamas, she took a moment to send a message to Chris so he wouldn’t find out from someone else that she had been discharged from sickbay.

Joseph let me go. I’m fine, just want to sleep. Comm you later. Love you, K.

Then she crawled into bed and ordered the computer to turn off the lights. Even after hours spent unconscious, she was dead tired and fell asleep moments after her head hit the pillow.

***

Kat dreamed.

She dreamed of Lorca, his hand on her leg, his mouth on hers, his body pressing her down.

Down, down, down.

“Gabriel, wait—”

Mental cries of “Wait” and “No” went unheard, and down down down he took her, too hard, too fast.

“Scream.”

Pain licked across her feet, spread like wildfire through her veins. Above her was not Lorca, not Kol, but Remy, his hand around her neck, phaser pointed at her head.

“Scream,” he said again.

She did. So loud that she woke herself up.

Bathed in sweat, she sat in the dark, her breath coming in harsh, unsteady gasps, her heart pounding frantically in her chest.

Her feet.

She needed to see her feet.

Frantic, she threw back the covers, pulled her feet in, but it was too dark to see.

“Lights!” she gasped. White light assaulted her eyes, causing her to squint, but she didn’t lower the illumination. Rather, she waited, blinking in the brightness until she could make out the soles of her feet, the flesh new and clean. She touched them, just to be sure.

Healed.

Swallowing a sob, she flopped back.

Damn it. Nightmares already. She had hoped that this time, she might get through the aftermath without them, but it would appear that she wasn’t going to get so lucky.

She turned her head to look at the clock, but the readout was blurry. Damn it! She blinked, wiped the tears from her eyes and tried again.

0200.

She’d been asleep for nearly ten hours. And she felt as though she could sleep for ten more. A spark of fear flared at the thought of sleep. Okay, no going back to sleep. But it was 0200 and even on a starship, there wasn’t much to do at 0200. Hit the gym? Too tired. Work? Probably not the best idea given the circumstances. She could go to the mess hall, but the thought of other people was petrifying. But nor did she want to be alone. Slowly, still unsure about it, she shifted to the edge of the bed and activated the comm. “Cornwell to Captain Pike.”

It took a minute, but eventually his roughened voice sounded over the comm. “Pike here.”

He’d been asleep. She should have guessed that.

She should apologize for waking him up. She should have waited to call him until a more reasonable hour.

And yet she knew that he wouldn’t have wanted her to wait. And she probably would have woken him up anyway had they been in the same bed.

And why weren’t they in the same bed?

She wanted to be in the same bed.

She wanted him here, with her, because for just one fucking second, she wanted someone else to be the strong one.

She opened her mouth to tell him… To tell him… Something.

“Kat?”

“I…” The words lodged in her throat, stoppered by the tightly contained sob that screamed for release. She shifted on the bed, pulling her legs up to look at her feet once more. “They’re healed,” she wanted to say. Would he understand?

“Don’t go anywhere.” The sound of rustling fabric over the comm said that he was moving, throwing off the covers and getting up. “I’ll be right there.” There was a note of concern in his voice, a bit of panic dusting the words like spice thrown into the pan. She contemplated that simile—the way flavors grew bolder, stronger, the longer they were left on the burner, or so he had said—until the door chime sounded.

She couldn’t call for entry; the tears she wouldn’t let loose still clogged her throat, clawing for escape. But she had given Chris access to her quarters months ago, and when she didn’t answer the chime, he let himself in.

The worry she had heard in his voice was in his eyes as he rounded the corner into the sleeping area, wide-eyed and out of breath. He’d dressed in a hurry, hair still messy with sleep, his quarter-zip shirt unzipped, half the collar caught inside out. He froze on the threshold of the bedroom, taking in the sight of her on the bed.

She knew what he must have seen; the tangled bedsheets, the unshed tears in her eyes, her feet cradled in her hands because the soles of them were still healed and she could hardly make sense of that fact.

He stepped forward, cautiously, and when she didn’t stop him, two more quick strides and he was sitting beside her, hands tentatively reaching for hers, gently prying her fingers away from her feet. He held both her hands in one of his, stroked his other over the sole of one foot, cupping her heel in his palm.

She could have wept for the tenderness in his touch, for the tears and the guilt she could see gathering in his own eyes as he looked at her foot.

Then his eyes met hers. A silent tear broke free, making its way down her cheek.

He released her foot and pulled her close, tucking her head beneath his chin. She let him. Head on his chest, breathing him in, she let him comfort her and let herself be comforted because this time, she didn’t want to get through this on her own.

It was different this time. Already that was clear. Last time, there had been a war, a distraction from the reality of what had happened to her.

Now, there was only time. And memories.

“Kat…”

“Don’t.”

“Wha—”

“Just don’t.”

“Okay.” He pressed a kiss to her hair and tightened his hold. “What do you need?”

“Just hold me.” He did, pulling her with him down to the mattress. “Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

Eventually, she slept, lulled into unconsciousness by the steady beat of his heart and the warmth of his arms around her. This time sleep was dreamless, and she woke up feeling if not restored, at least refreshed, the previous night’s nightmares a distant memory.

Chris’ arm was heavy across her waist, his chest warm against her back, his steady inhales and exhales whispering across the sheets above her head. He’d pulled up the covers and dimmed the lights before drifting off himself, still fully clothed.

She wanted to stay there, wrapped up with him, but her bladder had other ideas. And she desperately needed a glass of water. A glance at the clock told her she’d slept for another five hours.

Carefully, she eased out from beneath Chris’ arm and slipped from bed, padding quietly to the bathroom.

Chris was still asleep when she emerged, belting a robe around her waist. She stood beside the bed for a moment, studying him. His arm was still outstretched, reaching for her. His hair, already tousled when he’d arrived, was even messier now, half standing on end and half curling in wild disarray. His own injuries had long since been healed, the bruising and swelling erased as if it had never been there; it was only now that she noticed. How could she only now be bothered to notice?

Consciously and with effort, she forced away the self-reproach before it could become something stronger and went back to bed.

Not tired anymore, she simply sat, facing him and watching. She loved seeing him like this, relaxed in sleep, unrestrained by duty or fate. But he must be hot, sleeping in sweats. Chris ran hot, and while she enjoyed cuddling against his warmth, he hated wearing a shirt to bed.

Any other day he’d already be on the bridge at this hour. Had he taken leave to recover?

No. He hadn’t even taken leave after Talos.

Slowly, she reached out, lightly caressed his face.

He came awake gradually, consciousness dawning like the sun rising over the mountains, and blinked at her. “Hey,” he said, voice rough with sleep.

She smiled softly. “Hey. It’s late. Do you need to go?”

Though captain’s prerogative gave him the right to command the ship from wherever he pleased, she knew he would want to be on the bridge after what had happened.

Chris took her hand and brought it to his lips. “No.” He didn’t say anything more for which she was grateful. Him staying meant shift rotations, shuffled workloads, extra work just to pass on the extra work. And they both knew why he was here; she didn’t want to give voice to it.

It would be callous to think that what he went through was simple, but she knew him well enough to know that his thoughts were far from his own experiences. It was part of why he knew not to elaborate. Nor did he ask how she was feeling, as if her experience was nothing more than a cold, easily overcome and easily forgotten.

Instead, he folded her hand in his and looked up at her, eyes shining with patience, love, and understanding. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving actually.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. It had to have been at least yesterday morning, and she didn’t think the saline solution in sickbay counted.

Chris sat up. “Breakfast in bed?”

Kat smiled. Now there was a Chris solution to every problem: food and comfort.

If they were in his quarters, there would be a fire going, and he would make that breakfast from scratch, carrying a dozen different options to her in bed and saying nothing when she took a bite from every one, thereby not allowing him to choose his own dish, and forcing him to sample everything. Omelets with hand-beaten eggs, fresh-picked herbs, and creamy chèvre, buttered toast, fluffy pancakes with maple syrup, warm French toast with fresh whipped cream and juicy strawberries, quiche baked to perfection.

But since they were in hers, there was no fire, breakfast was delivered from the galley via Chris’ yeoman, and the omelet had too much spinach and not enough mushrooms inside, the toast was too dark, the French toast didn’t have enough whipped cream on top, the pancakes weren’t fluffy enough, and the quiche was underbaked.

She ate and said nothing.

 It was clear from the way he watched her like a concerned mother that he wanted to ask, but he thankfully abstained, her previous warning enough to forestall questions about her mental state or whether or not she wanted to talk about it.

She didn’t.

But it worked. She felt better for the dreamless rest and food in her belly, the trauma a little less heavy, the nightmare a little more distant. And later, she put on her uniform, she read the reports about the mutiny on the Serene Squall and wrote her own—brief though it was—and she read the reports about the exchange Angel had tried to make with T’Pring (so it had all been for love. It was surprising.). She went to work because she would not let the bastard in the brig beneath her feet win. And it all felt…if not normal, then at least something akin to it. Something close enough.

Chris came back that evening bearing dinner that he’d cooked himself—she could tell by the smell even before he lifted the silver dome from the dish of his famous four-cheese truffled macaroni and cheese. “Comfort food,” he had called it all those years ago when he’d first made it for her. Only this time, he’d topped it with freshly shaved truffles. (Any ship captained by Christopher Pike would of course stock fresh truffles in its pantry. Naturally.)

Over dinner he gave her an update regarding their prisoner transfer request. The Cayuga was the closest ship and would rendezvous with them at 0700. Angel had escaped, but Remy and the rest of his crew would stand trial.

Many of their own crew had been shaken by the experience, but no one else had been seriously harmed. In fact, if it weren’t for the pirate ship being towed in their tractor beam or the prisoners in their brig, it would have been business as usual for the crew of the Enterprise.

They’d gotten lucky. Things could have ended up much worse.

Lucky.

Kat took a sip of her wine.

T’Pring had arrived on board, Chris said. Spock had wanted to explain his and Christine’s deception in person. Ever the optimist, Chris was confident that they would be able to work things out. Kat hoped he was right.

 Chris was hesitant after dinner, reluctant to leave yet unsure whether she wanted him to stay. She’d already changed out of her uniform; he’d cleaned up the remains of their meal. Now, he stood before her, leaning against the bedroom partition.

“Do you want me to stay?”

Her answer was not immediate, weighing the imposition with her desire to not be alone. Beneath that thought was the knowledge that he would never think it an imposition. Nor would she, were their places reversed. And yet, even now, leaning on someone else felt like a sign of weakness, a weakness that had already been exploited.

But the thought of being alone brought with it images from her nightmares, memories, both distant and recent, of pain and cold and fear.

“Yes,” she finally replied.

He kissed her, soft and delicate. It was a kiss and nothing more. He was not asking for anything—he would never even presume to ask. A chaste kiss, a sign of his love, given out of habit if nothing else. And yet, she stiffened at the touch of his lips against hers, the weight of his hand settling on her arm.

He pulled away, eyes wide with concern.

“I need…” It was on the tip of her tongue to say “time,” but with the taste of him still on her lips, the warmth of his hand lingering on her arm, and the sight of his worried eyes filling her vision, she realized that she didn’t need time. She needed…

She didn’t know what she needed. More pain? A rough fuck, quick, dirty, and bruising? Slow, gentle love-making that lasted all night? She didn’t know. She knew only that whatever it was, it began and ended with him. Here. Now.

Silent, he waited, so still that if not for the gentle stirring of the air between them, she would have thought he’d quit breathing.

She needed him. And that was all she knew.

“You,” she whispered. “I need you.”

The look on his face made it clear he was thinking the same thing she had been— that it was too soon, that she was coping—and caught between concern and desire he remained uncertain. “You’re sure?”

She understood his worry. It was not in him to be anything less than one hundred and ten percent focused on his partner’s comfort and pleasure. She understood, but she did not agree.

She looked him up and down, then up again until she was looking into his worry-filled eyes once more. “Take off your clothes.” It was more a sigh than an order, but he followed it anyway, the ghost of a smile playing about his lips until he stood naked before her.

She let the robe fall from her shoulders and then slowly, she closed the distance between them, let her hands settle on his shoulders when she went up on her toes to kiss him, coaxing his lips apart. But when his arms came around her, when his hands came to rest on her hips, she pulled away, falling back onto her heels and gently pushing at his shoulders until his hands slipped from her hips and he took a step back. And then another. And another.

And when his legs hit the bed frame, he gave her a questioning look as he sat back on the bed. She answered it with a brow raised in challenge.

He crawled back, moving to make room for her on the bed, his erection hardening when she pushed her pants down over hips, letting the soft fabric puddle about her feet. Pulling her shirt over her head, she crawled onto the bed next to him, pushed him flat on his back, and swung her leg over his hips, straddling him.

He reached for her, but she caught his wrists, drew his hands up, pinned them on either side of his head, and kissed him, deeply, her hair falling about their faces like a curtain. When she pulled back, she pulled back slowly. Chris strained up to continue the kiss, but she kept just out of reach.

“Don’t move,” she whispered, her lips a hair’s breadth from his.

His answering smile was all lust and she answered it with one of her own before releasing her hold on his wrists, pleased to find that he left his hands by his head when she trailed her fingers lightly over his arms to his chest. Humming in pleasure, she bent to kiss his neck, biting down where his neck met his shoulder and soothing the hurt with her tongue. Chris groaned, his hips arching beneath her. But still, he did not move his hands.

She took her time, kissing his shoulder and arm, tracing the lines of muscle as she made her way down his sternum and across his chest, her tongue laving over a nipple, fingers playing with the other and causing him to suck in a sharp breath, muscles straining against his will to remain still.

Kat smiled against his skin.

Clinically, she knew what she was doing: taking back a measure of the control that had been stripped from her and taking it from him. And by the looks of it, he was letting her.

At that thought, she quickly sat up, all arousal immediately doused in a chilling wave of guilt. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I can’t…” she stammered, scrambling off him and out of bed.

She would not allow specters of her traumas into their bed.

Chris sat up. “Kat, what’s wrong?”

She searched for her robe, needing—needing—to not be naked, as if the flimsy silk she found on the floor were shielding against the shame and fear. She shrugged it on, hastily tying the belt in a slip knot. “That wasn’t love, Chris,” she explained. “That was a poor excuse for therapy. And I’m sorry.”

He frowned at her. “Are you stopping because you want to or because you think I didn’t enjoy it? Because I can assure you that I did. Very much.”

Kat waved a hand at the bed before crossing her arms. “Is that what you want?”

Chris considered her for a moment. “If you’re asking me if I want to be submissive to you, my answer is no. You’re my superior officer and out there—” He pointed toward the door. “—I’ll follow your orders because I respect the hell out of you. But in this relationship, we are equals in all things. Sex included. However.” He stood and strode towards her, completely unabashed by his nakedness, shadows playing about the dips and swells of his flanks. “If you're asking me if I’m okay with you wanting or needing to take a little control sometimes, my answer is hell yes.”

She couldn’t be sure of the look on her face, but whatever it was, he responded with a quiet chortle, lips tilting up crookedly, eyes twinkling. “Kat, there aren’t many things you can do that wouldn’t turn me on.”

The honesty in his tone, his earnest expression, had a blush rising to her cheeks. She smiled simply because she couldn’t help it, but it was a small and weak thing.

Chris reached out and stroked his fingers over her cheek. “I need you to tell me what happened back there. I need to know what you’re thinking.”

Her feeble smile faded, and she looked up at him, resolute. “I won’t let them into our bed.”

Understanding dawned on his face. He saw them: Lorca, Kol, Remy— her nightmares, lurking at the edge of her subconscious. He saw them all and he understood. The need to subdue previously conquered demons, the horror and revulsion that had chased her from bed.

“They’re not here,” he said softly, his hand settling on the back of her neck, warm and solid and oh so sure. “It’s just you and me. What do you need?”

The heat of his skin seeped into hers, chasing away her doubt and guilt. She knew that if she wanted to simply go to bed and sleep, he would be as okay with that as he would be with letting her push him back down to the mattress and do as she willed.

The choice was hers.

She also knew at least a dozen other ways to work through what had happened with Remy, none of which involved topping Chris in the bedroom. But all far less pleasurable.

Kat uncrossed her arms and reached up to take his hand from her neck. He let his arm fall to his side and waited, wordless. Unhurriedly, she drew her eyes up his form, blatantly admiring his beauty, thick legs, lean hips, well-defined chest, large hands, muscled arms, and finally, crystalline blue eyes that saw every part of her and didn’t turn away.

She swallowed and licked her lips.

Her voice was husky when she finally said, “Undress me.”

He did, achingly slow, drawing out the motion of reaching for the tail of her belt and pulling it loose. With a gentle brush of his hand, he pushed the fabric from her shoulders, letting it cascade to the floor in a ripple of black silk.

Her heart was beating hard against her ribs, but she didn’t know if it was because of nervousness or excitement for what they were doing. Perhaps it was the overt submission and the saintly patience in his eyes as he waited for her.

“Kiss me.”

He bent his head to hers, intending to do as she bid, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. Confused, he looked at her. With a minute shake of her head, Kat slid her hand to his shoulder and pressed down.

Smiling, he obliged.

***

“Will you tell me about it?” he asked some time later.

He was still lying half on top of her, his head on her chest, his fingers still laced with hers by her head. The weight of him was a warm comfort, and she held his head to her breast, absently running her fingers through his hair.

“About what?” she asked, smoothing a lock of hair back from where it had fallen over his brow.

“About Remy. About the Klingons. About…what they did to you.” There was a broken note in his voice, one she recognized as going with that rheumy expression that told of regrets and wounds he could not heal.

She was quiet for long moments, staring up at the ceiling. She’d told her mandated therapist the basics of what had happened to her in Kol’s…tender care. The rest she’d worked through herself. Most of it she’d tried to forget. Chris knew about the nightmares, but she’d never offered details. It was not something she cared to relive.

If she was honest, she was surprised Chris had waited this long to ask for specifics. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to know before now. Perhaps he hadn’t thought he could bear it until he’d seen it for himself. Experienced a taste of it.

“Do you truly want to know?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment, seriously considering her question for which she was grateful. These were not details to be tossed about like a baseball. “Yes,” he said eventually, tightening his hold on her hand. “Yes, I want to know if you want to tell me.”

And so, she told him. She told him how Remy had beaten her feet until she feared that she would never walk again. About Kol and his interrogators and their pain sticks, and how they had delighted in breaking the smallest bones first. About being unable to pass out because of the stimulant they’d injected her with.

All the while she kept her eyes on the ceiling because telling the metal plating was easier than telling the man holding her. Every memory, every torment that fell from her lips felt like breaking off a piece of herself, but she kept talking because the pain of ripping away the memories gave way to the sweetest relief. And while she talked, he kept her wrapped in his embrace, holding her together while she tore herself to pieces.

She told him what it felt like to suffocate and the exact number of times her heart had stopped only to be restarted by a machine. And she told him how she’d made peace with the fact that she was going to die in that cell, alone and afraid. And finally, she told him how her rescue from the Sarcophagus had been an accident, and how on the Serene Squall she’d held on to her faith that he would come through.

He was quiet while she talked, hot tears falling from his face onto her breast, and when she was done, he pulled her close, burying his face in her hair and pressing his lips to her head.

“I am so sorry you had to go through that again,” he said, the words just as broken as her. “I am so fucking sorry.”

It was only then that Kat realized she was crying too.

***

Katrina dancing was always a sight to behold. It was also such a rarity that Pike could remember every instance with aching clarity.

There was that time he’d stumbled upon her in the studio on the Antares and she’d glared at him with murderous intent for messing up her grand jeté. Then the single time she’d allowed him to watch because she’d needed a partner, and he was the only one who knew her secret that she trusted to catch her. And then, years later, at her promotion ceremony when he’d watched her glide across the floor in the arms of captains and admirals too numerous to count. Then, at his promotion ceremony when she’d torn herself away from her partners and flung herself, laughing, into the chair next to his, breathless when she’d asked him to dance, and he’d told her that he hated dancing because he knew that if he danced with her he would fall in love with her. And, more recently, the time in his quarters when he’d caught her dancing in the kitchen, and then again, a few days later at the salsa club on Starbase One, sweat dampening her hair, exhilaration flushing her face, joy lighting up her eyes.

Each moment was a tableau imprinted on his mind, the collection a music box of moving images, twirling on the strings of Tchaikovsky whenever he wound it up.

She was always captivating, whether she was dancing with him or in the arms of another man. But she was mesmerizing when she danced by herself, all her grace and strength stunningly on display. And never more so than the next morning when he found her in Enterprise’s dance studio, dancing the White Swan with tears on her cheeks.

Chapter Text

Admiral Cornwell found herself in Chris’s bed with absolutely no recollection of how she’d gotten there. No. She wasn’t in his bed; she was on it, and somehow, that was even more disconcerting. The last thing she remembered was filling out patient summaries in her office. And yet there she was, lying across the foot of his bed as if she’d laid down for a nap.

She sat up. The slither of warmed metal against her skin had her looking down…

And bolting out of bed, gossamer fabric tangling about her legs. Aside from the harness of delicate gold chains running between her breasts and draping over her hips, the only clothing she had on was the long dress of sheer, dark blue fabric. And she had no memory of putting on either item.

Kat raced to the closet, hands tugging and shoving at the unfamiliar gown, but she had to slow down to figure out how to remove the harness. She studied it in the mirror. It ran from the choker of diamonds and sapphires encircling her throat, down her back and between her breasts before splitting into more stands and wrapping around her waist. Three clips in the small of her back, two clasps at the back of her neck, and the whole thing crumpled to the floor in a heap of gold and glittering gemstones.

She yanked open the top drawer and rooted through her spare clothes for a bra and underwear, tore through the closet until she found her spare uniform, and was dressed faster than if a barrage of enemy fire and a red alert had pulled her from bed. Feeling better for the familiar weave of regulation fabric against her skin and thankful that she’d taken Chris’ suggestion and started storing a change of clothes here, Kat eyed the pile of…clothing on the floor. The items were not hers, and Chris knew better than to gift her lingerie.

So where had they come from?

Scooping up the strange items, she was moments from recycling the whole pile when she remembered Chris’ reaction to her comment about Risan lingerie.

On second thought…

It was just a dress. And it had been somewhat pretty before she’d thrown it on the floor, with its delicate cowl neckline and low back, and the way it had clung to her hips before falling nearly to the floor. Maybe even sexy if she thought about it.

She still wanted to know where the items had come from, and more importantly, how she’d come to be wearing them, but she supposed there was no harm in keeping them. Perhaps one day she could surprise him—after she had solved the mystery of how she’d come by them.

Carefully, Kat folded the dress and wound up the harness, tucking both safely into the back of the drawer, and then pushed the drawer closed with a heavy sigh. Problem one packed away for later. On to the next.

She stepped out of the closet and peeked out into the living room.

“Chris?” she called, but there was no answer.

She looked around but didn’t see him in the kitchen. She walked back into the bedroom. The bathroom door slid open at her approach, revealing another Chris-less room. So where was he? And why was she here?

Back in the living room, Kat crossed her arms and stared at the empty quarters.

“Computer, what time is it?”

“The time is 1635.”

No, it wasn’t. It had been 1115 just a minute ago. She’d checked the time. She remembered explicitly checking the time because she’d wanted another cup of coffee and couldn’t believe that it had only been an hour since her last.

“Computer. Restate. What time is it?”

“The time is 1636.”

“When did I arrive in these quarters?”

“1124.”

“What?” she breathed incredulously. How was that possible?

“Admiral Katrina Cornwell arrived at Captain Pike’s quarters at—”

“No, not you!” Kat snapped at the computer and pinched the bridge of her nose, trying and ultimately failing to remember why she’d come here and what she’d been doing for the last five hours.

She tried a new approach. Turning, she walked back into the bedroom.

“Computer, display ship’s logs for the past five hours.” The display screen over the desk lit up, displaying internal, external, and official crew logs for the last five minutes. “Computer, display previous log entries for today.” The display refreshed, displaying a list of logs beginning at 0001.

Kat quickly scrolled through the entries until the time stamps read 1115. Then she slowed down, making sure to verify the time of each log.

“Eleven seventeen and 50 seconds, eleven seventeen and fifty-three seconds…” And then the entries jumped, five hours missing as if they had never been there in the first place. Or were deleted. “Computer, have these logs been tampered with?”

“Negative.”

Frustrated, she closed the display. Perhaps someone on the bridge had a better idea of what had happened to the logs. And she could stop by sickbay on the way to make sure nothing was wrong with her memory. She refused to believe that she had simply forgotten.

No. There had to be an explanation. Maybe it was something she ate, or maybe it had something to do with the nebula they had been exploring. Amnesia causing gases or—

The pneumatic hiss of the doors opening drew her attention to the living room. She turned.

Chris walked in looking like he’d stepped out of a Tudor painting in a high-collared, green and gold doublet, black leather pants and boots, a gaudy chain of office draped across his chest, and a heavy fur-trimmed cloak slung over one shoulder.

The sight took her aback, but only for a moment. Clearly whatever had caused her wind up dressed so strangely had affected more than just her. She released a breath of relief. At least she wasn’t alone in her predicament. And perhaps Chris had an explanation. And looking at him, she couldn’t wait to hear it. She smiled and eyed him up and down, admiring the fit of those pants but stifling a laugh at the foppish fall of his hair.

“Nice outfit,” she drawled, crossing her arms. “Care to explain?”

He looked down, eyeing the velvet doublet and breeches uncertainly. “You know, I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

Why was that not surprising? Inwardly, she sighed. “Just another day on the Enterprise,” she intoned.

He laughed. “Yeah. It’s strange though.”

“What’s that?”

“Knowing there’s a piece of your life that you’re missing. Something happened in the last five hours, but I can’t…” He trailed off, pensive for a moment before he clucked his tongue. “Ah, well.”

He seemed to be taking this much better than she had. But then again, he wasn’t dressed in unfamiliar lingerie. And Chris tended to accept life’s inexplicable mysteries with the grace of a believer.

Chris stepped back and swept aside the cloak, bowing with flourish. “At your service, milady.” He straightened, his smile every bit as ridiculous as his clothes, and then tugged at the cloak.

Kat smiled, suppressing a chuckle. “Would you like some help?”

Frowning, Chris looked down at the strap of leather bisecting his chest, twisting around, hands searching for a buckle. She pursed her lips against a laugh at the sight of him spinning in place like a dog chasing its tail, but it ultimately burst through.

“How exactly did I get this on?” Chris asked in defeat, stilling.

She wiped her watering eyes and motioned him closer. “Turn around. I wasn’t exactly dressed like myself either,” she confessed, unbuckling the cloak.

“Oh?”

“It was considerably less…” The heavy cloak slid from his shoulder, the thick fabric soft and silky in her hands. Kat tossed it over the back of the nearest chair where it landed with the gentle splash of puddling fabric and the muffled clink of metal and leather. “…complicated.”

“Nearly everyone I passed seemed to be dressed in something similar,” he said, turning back around. “Did we put on a play? Go to a costume party? No one seems to know. And the logs aren’t any help.”

“I saw.”

“At least no one appears any worse for wear. It’s as if we’ve all simply…forgotten the last five hours. Disconcerting, but if this is the worst to have happened—” He plucked at the hem of the doublet. “—I can live with that.”

Kat fingered a ruffle on his collar. “It is a little…” She searched for the right word.

“Ridiculous, I know,” he finished for her, looking down at his clothes.

“I was actually going to say archaic, but ridiculous works too. Especially this,” she added, flicking one of those curls over his brow. “But…” She bit her lip, looked him up and down. “I think I like it.”

Chris’ lips quirked up on one side. “Oh yeah?”

“Mmmhmmm…” she hummed and ran her finger over the chain draped across his chest. “All that’s missing is the white horse for you to ride in on and sweep me off my feet.”

“I’m fresh out of horses but…” He smiled mischievously and bent to scoop her up bridal style.

“Chris!” Kat shrieked in surprise, clinging to him. “What are you doing? Put me down!”

“Sweeping you off your feet, milady,” he said with a cheeky grin, carrying her towards the bedroom.

“I didn’t mean literally, you muttonheaded oaf! Put me down!”

“As you wish, Admiral.” He stopped at the edge of the bed, arms flexing beneath her.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned him, tightening her grasp around his neck. But rather than toss her onto the bed as she feared, he knelt on the platform and gently deposited her onto the mattress with a kiss.

“I would never,” he said and kissed her again. “But you should know,” he added, pulling back as much as her arms around his neck would allow, “that I take all matters concerning you—feet sweeping and otherwise—very seriously.”

His eyes twinkled above her, ice blue and crystalline in the warm light of the bedroom, sending refractions of love and desire back towards her.

Kat fisted a hand around that ridiculous necklace and tugged, pulling him down into a bruising kiss. Chris’s grunt of surprise turned into a groan as he settled himself more firmly above her, arms on either side of her shoulders, one knee between hers. Without breaking contact, Kat’s hands went to the buttons on his doublet, slipping each golden disk from the heavy velvet brocade. But there were so damn many of them she had to break the kiss and look down, growling in frustration when she saw that she’d only made it about a quarter of the way down. “What the hell?” But she was laughing, the giggle rising up through the growing arousal for how ridiculous this was.

Clearly just as frustrated by the complexities of ancient clothing styles, Chris sat back on his heels and reached over his head to pull off the jacket. But he was thwarted by the linen shirt underneath, hands scrabbling for more and more fabric and finally getting it over his head only to have all that fabric caught inside out around his wrists. He tugged, but it was too much fabric being forcibly turned over too small a point, and he was effectively trapped. Kat’s giggle turned to eye-watering laughter at the sight of his struggles, the mess he’d made of that stupid hairstyle. He cut her a glance, and she sat up, wiping her eyes and reaching up under all that fabric to extricate his hands from the bunched-up sleeves. Finally freed, Chris flung the offending garments toward the living room and reached for her.

“Hmmm that’s better,” she hummed, running her hands over his chest and then through his hair in an attempt to tame the strands into a semblance of normalcy. It didn’t work and all she succeeded in doing was making it stand on end.

“The hell with it,” Chris said impatiently and kissed her.

Kat smiled against his lips reaching down for the ties on his breeches. This, at least, was simpler. Or rather, it was simple enough to undo the knot, but she had to look to loosen the tight lacing, noticing with another laugh how much more complicated male anatomy was currently making this particular task.

With a groan of frustration, Chris stood, loosening and then toeing off his boots and all but ripping the pants off his legs. Kat took the moment to remove her jacket and undershirt, tossing each off to the side, followed by boots and socks. She was just getting her pants unzipped when Chris—finally naked—grasped the cuffs and pulled them straight off her legs in two tugs.

When she was in nothing but her underwear, he crawled back onto the bed, settling himself above her once more. “Now, milady,” he said, leaning in for another kiss as she wound her arms around his neck. “Where were we?”

Chapter Text

The alarm went off earlier than usual, the shrill sound dragging Admiral Cornwell from a deep sleep. Chris had wanted to get an early start on the food prep for the party later, and last night lying next to him on the couch, leaving for her own quarters had sounded far too difficult to manage. Now, of course, being pulled from slumber by the irritating squawk of the alarm, she wondered if perhaps the effort might have been worth it.

Reluctant to wake up, she ignored the beeping. Beside her, Chris shifted, stirring the air beneath the covers, and she groaned, curling closer against the invasion of cold air. Finally, he silenced the alarm and shifted again, settling back beside her with another incursion of cold air.

The first glow of the gradually brightening lights assailed the room, causing Kat to groan again, turning her face into the pillow. Chris chuckled, a rich and throaty sound thick with sleep.

It was fruitless. She sighed and rolled onto her back, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

“Good morning,” Chris murmured. He was sitting up slightly, looking annoyingly bright-eyed and bushy tailed given it was 0400. The bastard.

In response, Kat yawned and stretched exaggeratedly beneath the covers. “Good morning,” she mumbled when she was done and rolled onto her side, facing him.

He was close enough that a small shift was all it took. He leaned in and kissed her but didn’t pull away when he was done. Instead he smiled against her lips, his hand curling over her waist, and kissed her again. And again, his lips moving to her jaw and then to her neck as his hand stroked down to her ass, bunching the fabric of her shorts.

“Good morning,” he said again, moving to her collarbone.

“Indeed.”

Kat rolled, shifting onto her back to give him better access. His hand came up, dipping beneath her tank top, his palm sliding up her waist, drawing her shirt up, his skin warm and deliciously rough against hers. His lips moved lower, trailing kisses across the skin of her chest. Well. If she had to wake up at 0400, this was certainly the way to do it.

“Do you want…?” His fingers grazed the underside of her breast.

“Do we have time?” It came out a little breathy as he nuzzled her shirt out of his way, coarse stubble rasping over delicate skin.

“I can be quick,” he said, just before his tongue found her nipple. Pleasure shot through her, warm and tingly.

“Oh, can you?” she questioned, playfully doubtful even as she arched into his touch, a tiny little whine catching in her throat. Even fully aroused, it usually took him several minutes to bring her to climax, and currently, her arousal was just beginning to poke its head up from beneath the covers.

“Maybe,” he breathed, sucking lightly on the hardening bud. “Worth being late to try.” And okay, maybe her arousal was more awake than she thought, because fuck! She could feel his breath skating across her wet nipple between her legs, and there was no way she was letting him stop now.

“Well then.” She drew her leg up and outward, opening to him beneath the covers. “Get to work, Captain.”

***

Chris was already in the kitchen when she emerged from the bedroom, showered and dressed in uniform. Her first appointment wasn’t for another hour. Plenty of time for a cup of coffee.

She followed the smell of freshly brewed coffee across the living room and joined him in the kitchen. Hardly pausing his chopping, Chris handed her a mug of coffee, poured recently enough to still be steaming.

“Mmm, thank you,” she said gratefully, taking a sip.

“And…” Next, he passed her a plate of scrambled eggs and avocado toast topped with micro greens, thin slices of tomato, and freshly ground salt and pepper. “Sit. Eat,” he ordered, pointing to the bar top where a glass of juice and a napkin sat in front of one of the chairs.

“Did you already eat?”

“I’ll eat at the party.”

Procuring a fork and a knife, Kat took her breakfast to the counter and sat, watching him while she ate.

The knife flashed in his hand, its keen edge glinting in the bright light as it sliced through spears of zucchini advanced steadily by the fingers of his other hand. Kat always loved watching Chris in the kitchen, the sheer skill on display, the heart he put into everything he made. It truly was a love language for him, a silent devotion to preparing nourishment for those he cared about. She loved the way his hands moved, fingers deft and confident. The same fingers he had moved over her body with that same skill to give her pleasure not an hour before.

The thought had her swallowing hard, eyes watering as she choked on a bite of egg. Coughing, she reached for the glass of juice.

Chris looked up. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said after a sip.

Chris returned his attention to his task, his fingers swiping stray chunks of zucchini from the blade before curling around an onion, and Kat concentrated on chewing her food and not thinking about those same fingers fucking her senseless. A difficult task, to be sure. It had been a very good morning.

“I still have some time before my first appointment,” she said after washing her plate. “Anything I can help with?”

“Actually…” Chris set a bunch of asparagus on the counter in front of her. “Take the ends off these please.”

Kat laid the asparagus out on a cutting board and began chopping off the ends. The strangled sound emanating from Chris’s throat and the lurching motion he made towards the knife stopped her mid-chop.

She sighed. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, the word high-pitched and untruthful. “But technically…” Delicately, he extracted the knife from her grasp and laid it aside. “You need to snap the ends off.”

“Snap?”

“Yes.” He picked up a spear, holding each end between two fingers and bending it until the spear snapped nearly in half. “Like that. Let each one break where it wants,” he instructed.

Kat looked from the two pieces of asparagus in his hands to the pile of skinny vegetables on the cutting board. He couldn’t be serious. It would take all day! Plus, what was the difference? It was a vegetable, incapable of wanting anything, much less knowing what it wanted.

She looked back up at Chris, brows raised, and asked, “You seriously want me to break each individual piece like that?”

“I seriously do,” he said with a smile and then kissed her forehead.

“You’re lucky I love you,” she teased.

Eyeing him, she picked up an asparagus spear, held it between them, and roughly snapped it in two. But the sound of the thin vegetable breaking in half was far too feeble to carry the threat she had put in her expression.

Chris chuckled. “I really am,” he said fondly before turning back to his frittata.

And how could she argue with that smile of his? Resigned, she got to work on the vegetables.

After breaking each spear of asparagus as per his instructions, she didn’t have much time left before her first appointment.

“You sure you can’t stay?” Chris asked as she dried off her hands.

“Can’t,” she confirmed, pecking him on the cheek. “I’ve got patients. Love you.”

“Come by after?” It seemed important to him.

Kat softened her expression. “Of course,” she said and kissed him again, this time on the lips. “I’ll be back when I can.”

The party was long over by the time she made it back several hours later. However, it wasn’t patients that had kept her. Starfleet had lost contact with the Peregrine over Valeo Beta Five shortly after the ship had activated its distress beacon.

Dr. Sanchez’s report had been late. Now Kat knew why.

Enterprise was the closest ship in the fleet and was now charged with finding out what had happened to the ship and aiding its crew. And somehow, they were to do this at the same time as completing their current mission to K-7.

Chris would have to split the crew, Kat thought as she keyed in her entry code to his quarters to join the strategy session. Though, by the sounds of things, the meeting was already wrapping up.

“Admiral!”

Chris’ cheerful exclamation stopped her in her tracks as she neared the kitchen. He was standing on the kitchen side of the L-shaped counter, serving tongs in hand. Una, Dr. M’Benga, and Lieutenant Noonien-Singh were seated on the other side, the latter two enjoying plates of leftovers. Spock was washing dishes and looking very domestic wearing Chris’ apron.

“Pack the station wagon,” Chris said, a dopey grin on his face. “We’re going on a road trip.”

“Do I—?” Kat stopped herself and shook her head. “No, don’t.” She held up a hand, stalling his explanation. “I don’t want to know.”

She didn’t miss Una’s sly smile from where she sat across the bar.

“Sir,” said Spock, hands stalling in the sink, water running. “The station wagon?”

From the stove, Chris brandished his tongs at everyone in turn, playfully stern. “If anyone has to go, now’s the time. Do not make me turn this car around.” Clap-clap went the tongs in his hand, holding about as much threat as a sock puppet.

Una looked at Kat, brows raised, a reluctant smile tugging at her lips. You put up with this? that look seemed to say. Voluntarily?

Kat bit her lip to hide her own smile because… Yeah… She did. She returned Una’s look with a slight shrug that said It’s a practiced skill, before her eyes slid back to Chris and the awful impression of severity on his face, and let the grin split her face. Good thing that skill came naturally.

***

Valeo Beta Five was cold. Colder than cold. The kind of cold that made Kat regret agreeing to come on this little road trip. The wind bit at her cheeks, her fingers were frozen inside her gloves, and she was fairly certain that snow had already made its way inside her boots.

Atmospheric conditions had required them to land the shuttles several kilometers from the Peregrine, and the weather was making the hike feel longer than it actually was. In fact, she  was beginning to think that the massive saucer of the Peregrine in the distance was just a mirage. She glanced up at the crashed ship, judging the distance left to it. Surely, they were closer than that?

As she trudged through the calf-deep snow, feeling very much like an ungainly fawn high stepping on new legs, she eyed the man who had talked her into this little adventure through her goggles. He was strolling next to her, smiling as if they were out for a walk in the park.

There was no logical reason for her to be on this mission, no reason for him to have asked her, and even less for her to have agreed. None except for the fact that their time together lately had been limited to late nights and early mornings, and debriefing Dr. Sanchez had seemed like grounds enough to get off the ship together if anyone from Command saw fit to question her presence in the landing party. Anyone besides herself, that was.

“Next time,” she groused, pitching her voice so it wouldn’t get carried away on the wind, “I get to choose the location for the date.” The snow was deep, dry, and unpacked, rendering their snowshoes all but useless.

Behind his hood, Chris laughed, rich and full-bellied.

With spiteful timing on the part of Valeo Beta Five, Kat’s foot sank deeper than she’d anticipated, causing her to lurch forward. With a frustrated groan, she straightened and pulled her foot out of the hole her snowshoe had made, pausing a moment to flick a toe-full of powder at Chris. Only the smallest of chunks landed, though, tiny snowballs bursting harmlessly against his jacket. Again, he laughed and offered her his arm. She took it and picked her way to slightly more solid footing.

“Remind me why I let you talk me into this?” she asked.

“Come on! It’s fun!”

“No, skiing is fun. Snowmobiling is fun. This is diabolical.”

He chuckled and glanced behind them. “At least the kids appear to be enjoying themselves.”

Those “kids” were actually two full-grown cadets, four lieutenants, one doctor, and a nurse. Hearty laughter and shouts of “you owe him a drink!” were carried on the wind for a second time, Lieutenant Duke’s extra rank stripe still new enough to be easily forgotten beneath his jacket.

And Kat didn’t think “enjoying” was the correct verb. If anything, everyone was simply miserable enough as to find hilarity in their mutual suffering. Everyone but Hemmer that was. Chris might be in his element roughing it like a pioneer on the untamed frontier, but Hemmer was at home on this frozen hellscape of a planet, turning his face into the oncoming gust of wind, his expression one of ecstasy.

At least someone is enjoying themselves.

Hemmer had mentioned more than once already that the planet reminded him of Andoria, and Kat supposed that she could see the resemblance. Cold. Frozen. Wind-whipped. The pleasantness of the weather however, was firmly in the eye of the beholder, and she did not behold.

She couldn’t remember ever being this cold in her life, though, that was most likely an exaggeration after decades in the service and countless missions. But the current weather was making it hard to remember anything beyond the symptoms of frostbite and the fact that her socks were definitely wet. She certainly hadn’t been nearly this cold in Montana. Had she been cold in Montana? She couldn’t actually remember. Logically, she knew that the nights had been well below freezing and the days only moderately warmer, but looking back, all she could remember was the warmth of the fire, the embrace of thick blankets, the exhilaration of racing across the landscape on horseback. The heat of newly discovered love.

Raucous laughter drew her gaze back to the gaggle of young officers bringing up the rear of their party.

No. Valeo Beta Five reminded her nothing of Montana.

With a smile Chris didn’t see, Kat released his arm and adjusted the strap of her rifle on her shoulder as she turned back towards the Peregrine.

They didn’t know what they’d find once they reached the Peregrine, so the team had brought a variety of medical and engineering supplies from the Enterprise in addition to all the standard landing party gear, and this was one instance where rank certainly had its privileges. Kat definitely did not miss carrying what amounted to her body weight in gear on her back. Currently, that particular task fell to the lieutenants. They’d left the sleeping bags on the shuttles for now so in addition to her gun belt, which held her knife, phaser, and extra energy cells for both guns, Kat’s backpack contained only an emergency blanket, a first aid kit, several bottles of water, a few ration bars, a couple unappetizing MREs, an emergency beacon, flares, a wrist light, glow sticks, a tricorder, and the one item she’d learned on her first away mission to always carry whether or not the mission might call for it and whether or not her pack had room for it—an extra pair of socks. Socks: glorious, warm, dry socks. Socks she was definitely changing  into at the first opportunity.

Before Kat could take another step towards the crashed ship however, Dr. M’Benga held up his tricorder to get their attention, trudging over to join them. Chris had charged him and Lieutenant Noonien-Singh with searching for life signs. The shuttle sensors hadn’t picked up anything from the atmosphere, but that was most likely due to the interference.

“Anything?” Chris asked once M’Benga had joined them.

“Still too much interference,” M’Benga reported. “But according to these readings, the Peregrine made landfall at the edge of a great chasm.”

Kat looked out over the jagged, snow-covered landscape towards the planet-bound ship. Centuries of wind and ice storms had carved the exposed rock formations into sharp points, like giant chevaux-de-frise waiting to skewer crashing ships.

“Captain! Admiral!” Lieutenant Noonien-Singh’s shout came from up ahead.

As quickly as they could, they made their way over to the lieutenant.

“It might not be a scanning problem,” reported the security chief, staring down at the red-stained snow.

“That looks like blood,” Chris said.

“It’s human,” M’Benga confirmed, reading his tricorder.

“Predators?” Kat asked, hoping the readings had revealed what had done this.

“No way of knowing.”

“Right,” Chris said. “Doc, La’an, search the area. Stick together. Meet us at the ship.”

M’Benga and Noonien-Singh nodded and set off.

Chris turned toward the others, who had nearly caught up, and called out over the roar of the wind. “All right everyone listen up!”

Chatter quieted as they approached and heads perked up, braving the bite of the wind to give him their full attention. Hemmer and Spock stood stoically amid the chill, Hemmer with his hood down and without goggles. Nurse Chapel’s hood blew back but she didn’t raise it. Lieutenant Kirk had strategically placed himself behind Hemmer, using the Aenar as a living windbreak. Cadet Chia huddled in her coat close to Lieutenant Duke, and Uhura stood clutching her hood under her chin, teeth chattering.

“Eyes and ears open,” said Chris. “We’ve got unknown hostiles. Our mission hasn’t changed, but no one goes anywhere alone until we know what we’re dealing with, got it?” Heads bobbed in answer. “Spock, Hemmer, Uhura, you’re with us. The rest of you, pair up and fan out. Search for survivors or any clues as to what happened here.” He dismissed everyone with a nod. “Head on a swivel, people.”

As the others took off, Chris adjusted his grip on his rifle. “Alright. We’ve still got a long hike ahead of us and less than six hours until that storm hits. Let’s get moving.”

It took nearly an hour to hike the rest of the way to the Peregrine. She had indeed crashed at the edge of a sheer cliff. A couple more meters and she’d have fallen to the bottom of it. But that was where her luck ended; the ship had come down hard enough to crush her lowest decks. Without aid, she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The safest airlock to enter the ship was in the stardrive section. Everyone unclipped from their snowshoes and powered up their rifles while Hemmer and Spock opened the hatch.

Chris went first, followed closely by Spock, then Kat and Uhura, and lastly Hemmer. Inside the shelter of the ship, Kat pushed back her hood and tugged her goggles down around her neck. The airlock was dark and only slightly warmer than outside, but it was sheltered from the wind. Small mercies.

“Blood,” came Chris’ ominous report from the main display panel. Beneath a swatch of frozen blood, the screen flickered before he hit it with his fist and the display begrudgingly steadied.

“There is more blood over here too,” reported Spock from the auxiliary panel.

“I want a full diagnostic,” Chris said to Hemmer and Spock. “As fast as you can. Uhura, are the Peregrine’s internal comms functional?”

“Let me check.” The cadet dropped her gear at the console Chris had been standing at and got to work.

“See if you can’t pull up their logs while you’re at it,” Kat instructed. Hopeful, she pulled her communicator out of her pocket and flipped it open. Nothing. “Damn,” she said under her breath. The hull plating wasn’t enough to combat the atmospheric interference. She slipped the device back into her pocket. Without shields, they were dark.

For a moment, the airlock was filled only with the howl of the wind and the blunt taps of gloved fingers on frozen display panels.

“I don’t like the look of those clouds.” It was Chris, drawing her attention to the open hatch where he now stood looking out over the snow-covered landscape.

Kat moved to his side and followed his gaze. Swirling eddies of snow obscured her view, a thick, writhing curtain covering the terrain, but through them she could still make out the jagged rock formations spearing towards a sky heavy with clouds. But on the horizon, and inching visibly closer, ominous clouds marred the gray expanse like giant bruises, surging and black.

“That storm is going to be here sooner than we expected,” said Chris.

Perfect.

“How soon?” she asked.

“Three hours,” he answered quietly. “Maybe a little more if we’re lucky. Less if we’re not.”

“Comms are down,” Uhura announced. “We won’t be able to reestablish them from here.”

“And their logs?” Kat prompted, turning.

“Working on it.”

“Captain, the bridge is completely offline,” reported Spock. “Someone hardwired all the controls to engineering.”

“Why would they do that?” Chris asked before she could.

“Plasma in the main circuits,” said Hemmer. Kat didn’t need Hemmer to tell her that that wasn’t typical. “They were likely using energy from the warp core injectors as emergency power.”

“But that would imply no back up batteries,” Spock said.

“And the matter-antimatter reactor’s been busted,” Uhura chimed in.

Chris looked impressed. “Clearly I brought the right people for the job. Hem, can you fix it?” he asked, stepping away from the hatch.

“Perhaps. I’ll have to work in engineering. Mr. Spock, can you manage restoring bridge functions?”

“I will attempt to make quick work of it.”

“I’ve got their logs,” said Uhura. But it was then that a clang of metal on metal drew everyone’s attention to the hatch where Lieutenant Noonien-Singh and Dr. M’Benga were entering.

“Lieutenant, sitrep,” Kat ordered once they were inside and had taken a moment to remove at least their goggles.

“It’s grim,” reported Noonien-Singh, a bit out of breath. “Twenty casualties so far, one of them the captain.” She held out a badge to Chris, its once shining surface now turned to dross, scratched and covered in frozen blood.

Chris took it somewhat mechanically, grief plain on his face as he stared down at the insignia. Captain Gavin’s name and serial number would be engraved on the other side. Her badge would be returned to her family. Would they be able to return her body? Or would Gavin and her crew be forever relegated to this frozen rock?

Space was frozen, vast and empty—nothingness. Some might say that it was a cold and lonely place to bury your dead. And perhaps it was. But in that moment, Valeo Beta Five seemed far, far colder.

“The Peregrine has a crew of ninety-nine,” Chris said, that same grief evident in his carefully controlled voice. Kat knew that he felt the loss of each one of those ninety-nine lives.

“There could be more we didn’t find,” offered M’Benga, unzipping his coat. “Most died of hypothermia. Their suits are shredded by the elements.”

Kat thought about that biting wind and suppressed a shiver.

“Some were picked apart,” Noonien-Singh added, “maybe…local wildlife? Maybe something else.”

“As far as I can tell,” said M’Benga, “the crew went outside, got caught in a brutal storm, and couldn’t find their way back to the ship.”

“But why?” Kat voiced the question they were all thinking: why would the crew have wandered so far from the ship? What had drawn them outside in the first place?

 Chris closed his fist around Gavin’s badge and looked to Cadet Uhura. “Pull up those logs.”

Chapter Text

Gorn.

It just had to be Gorn, didn’t it?

A bitter laugh bubbled in Kat’s chest as she was suddenly reminded of walking into Chris’ quarters and her response to his suggestion that she pack the station wagon. It seemed so long ago—prepping vegetables, the party, those stupid tongs clacking in their faces. They’d taken a road trip and driven straight into a nightmare. She had been joking when she said that she didn’t want to know, but now she truly wished that she didn’t know.

We didn’t know what we didn’t know. Captain Gavin’s previous words echoed through her mind.

Gorn.

Yeah. She really wished that she didn’t know. Sometimes, ignorance truly was bliss.

Right up until it kills you.

“Spock, M’Benga.” Chris’ voice was thick with tension. “Go get the others. Now.”

“If you’re watching this,” Gavin’s log continued as the two men pulled up their goggles and stepped out of the hatch, “chances are we didn’t survive.”

The log ended—or was cut off—leaving only the disquieting whistle of the wind in its wake. Anxiety weighted the air; fear had long since leeched the color from the faces around the airlock, now frozen into masks of shock and terror. For most, the Gorn were just a fiction, the boogeyman from ghost stories used to scare children into behaving; not possibly real because no one living had ever seen one.

But for the crew of the Enterprise, the Gorn were very, very real.

Kat breathed deep, forcing her heart rate to slow. They’d beaten the Gorn once; they could do it again.

Chris glanced down at the badge in his hand, weighing it in his palm before closing his fingers around the delta. “Alright,” he said after a moment, looking up. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We look for survivors, we get them out, we go home.” Nods answered all round and he turned to his security chief. “La’an. We’re going to need any insight you can give us.”

The lieutenant raised her chin, her expression determined. “The Gorn harvest their young sporadically, so any that are here are probably alone. But don’t take comfort in that,” she added hastily. “They’re equally dangerous on the ground. Also, the Gorn hate the cold.” She said it like the stroke of fortune it was.

“That certainly gives us an advantage,” Kat said simply to have something to say. The airlock had begun to feel like a prison cell, and that was a thought she could ill afford to have at the moment.

“I’ll take it,” said Chris. “Uhura.”

“Still no comms, but ops are coming back online. I have two life signs on deck five.”

Two. Out of a crew of ninety-nine.

Ever practical, Noonien-Singh asked, “Human or Gorn?”

“One human. The other…unknown.”

“Hemmer, Uhura,” Chris started, “get to engineering. Keep powering up what you can. Admiral?” He didn’t need to say anything more. With a word, he was asking if she agreed with his plan and giving her the option to join him or not.

Eager to put her anxiety to use, Kat powered up her rifle in answer. “Let’s go see who’s home.”

Chris nodded, succinct. “La’an, you’re with us.”

The expression on the young lieutenant’s face was intent, but Kat knew that beneath her hardened exterior, Lieutenant Noonien-Singh was just as frightened as the rest of them. Perhaps more so.

La’an had told her about freezing up during the attack at Finibus Three, the flashbacks, and the memories Spock had helped her uncover. La’an was making progress recovering more of her memories and coming to terms with them, but her trauma was far from healed. Then again, was anyone’s trauma ever truly healed?

Kat thought of Chris and the fear and despair that often overcame him at the thought of his impending fate, the way he sometimes looked at her with such sorrow in his eyes, as if his heart were breaking, and the feeble smile he would give her when she caught him at it. Of the nightmares that still haunted her, dark and twisted, often waking her with a scream on her lips.

Inwardly, she scoffed. No, some traumas didn’t heal; sometimes you just had to learn to live with the scars.

It was a long trek to deck five without turbolifts, and by the time they arrived, Kat wasn’t sure if the climb up was better or worse than trekking through deep snow.

Better, she thought, feeling the water squelch out of her socks with every step. Definitely better.

Here, like the rest of the ship, the destruction was immense, though how much was from the initial crash and how much from the ensuing fight remained unclear. Broken conduit and wiring hung from the ceiling with grasping fingers. Display panels had been smashed, storage crates overturned, bulkheads scored with phaser burns, and everywhere, blood. It streaked the deck in large frozen swathes, ruby-bright even in the dim emergency lighting.

By some unspoken agreement, Chris took point and Noonien-Singh the rear guard position, leaving Kat obligatorily in the protected middle of their group. Silently, she sighed and swallowed her protest. Both Chris and Lieutenant Noonien-Singh were better shots than she anyway so it didn’t really matter. Rank had its privileges, but sometimes it chafed.

Tricorder readings led them to a cargo bay, where, as it turned out, the unknown life sign wasn’t Gorn. He—for they would come to find out that the alien was a he—also wasn’t any species any of them had encountered before, and the universal translator couldn’t parse his language.

It was Kat who noticed his body language—defensive, protective—and, remembering that there were two life signs here, suggested that he was protecting the second. Noonien-Singh wasn’t so sure, but Chris was willing to go on faith, and when the alien turned out to be protecting a human child, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief. No Gorn. But they also still had no comms with which to alert everyone else.

“La’an,” said Chris, “go get M’Benga and Chapel. Tell them to meet us in sickbay. Have Spock, Duke, and Kirk start working on restoring bridge functions, and then let Chia and Uhura know that they’ve drawn the short straws.” Meaning that by the basis of rank, the two cadets had just been chosen as runners until comms were restored.

The lieutenant pursed her lips, looking a bit annoyed at having to play runner herself, a role she no doubt hadn’t been saddled with in years, if ever, but she nodded succinctly and headed off to do as ordered.

With some coaxing, Kat and Chris managed to persuade the girl and her alien protector to follow them to sickbay. Though, by the time they managed to get there, M’Benga, Chapel, and Chia weren’t far behind. After that, it was a matter of powering up sickbay as much as possible before finally—finally—Kat was able to pull herself away, at least as far as the doctor’s office, where she dropped her gear to the deck, sat, and bent to unlace her boots.

Chris, who had been studying a sensor readout on the display panel, turned at the sound, smiling fondly when he saw what she was doing, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Kat raised a brow. “What? I’m not going to spend the next however many hours with cold feet.”

His lips twitched but his smile quickly faded. “Comms are still down,” he said. “But, the good news is that sensors show the ship is clean. Whatever happened outside seems to be the end of it.”

Kat suppressed a shudder and opened her rucksack to dig out her extra socks. Lieutenant Kirk had reported his team’s findings. At least they knew what had happened to the rest of the crew.

“Okay, why aren’t socks part of the standard away mission packing list?”

Kat looked up to find Cadet Uhura standing in the doorway, slightly breathless and staring covetously at the socks in Kat’s hand.

“Lesson eight of security, Cadet,” said Lieutenant Noonien-Singh, walking in with a PADD in hand. “Prepare for every catastrophe.” After a moment, she added a reluctant, “Up to and including wet socks,” before thrusting the PADD at Chris. Kat looked away and concentrated on pulling on her socks so that the security chief wouldn’t see her grin.

“Bet you’ll never forget to pack them again, now will you, Cadet?” Chris asked Uhura good-naturedly as he activated the PADD.

“No,” Uhura said sadly and then looked to La’an, whispering, “You, too?”

La’an looked away, saying nothing.

“Reported missing two years ago?” Chris’ alarmed tone of voice drew everyone’s attention. He was staring at La’an now, the look on his face asking for an explanation.

“The girl and the two aliens were probably refugees from a breeding planet,” La’an surmised.

Chris nodded, looking back down at the PADD. “We’ll see that she gets back to her family.”

“Captain, if they’re infected—”

“I thought Joseph said their scans were negative.” It wasn’t quite a question.

A terse silence followed. Kat glanced up as she removed the damp lining from her boots and laced them up. Lieutenant Noonien-Singh was staring at the girl—Oriana—through the clear partition. “Why didn’t she warn them,” the security chief asked angrily. But it was clear that she didn’t expect an answer. “She could have saved—”

“Lieutenant.” Kat sat up straight, her eyes firmly on La’an’s. “It’s not her fault. Okay? The only ones to blame here are the Gorn. Not Oriana, not Buckley…” Not yourself, went unspoken but La’an seemed to understand anyway.

Besides Oriana and Buckley, La’an was the only one here who understood the true horror of what the Peregrine’s crew had experienced before they died. She was also the only one who could understand what Oriana was going through. La’an, too, had been a child when she’d escaped the Gorn.

When this was all over and they’d returned to the Enterprise, Kat hoped that La’an and Oriana might be able to help each other learn to live with what they had lost, but that wouldn’t happen if La’an resented the girl’s involuntary role in what happened on the Peregrine.

After a moment, the lieutenant released a breath, her posture relaxing ever so slightly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But we can’t let our guard down,” she added quickly. “It only takes one Gorn.”

“Sensors aren’t showing anything,” Chris repeated for La’an’s benefit, “but we can do a security sweep just in case. Admiral Cornwell and I’ll start here and work up to the bridge. You and Joseph work your way down to the lower decks.”

Noonien-Singh nodded.

“Did you have something to report, Cadet?” Kat asked Uhura when it was clear that Noonien-Singh had nothing to add to Chris’ plan.

“Life support and environmental systems are back online,” the cadet replied. “So, good news: it should be getting warmer in here soon. Bad news is that it’ll be a while longer before comms and navigation are online.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” said Chris. “Uhura, you’ll come with us. As soon as we confirm it’s clear, you’ll report back to Hemmer. If comms aren’t back online by then, La’an and M’Benga will rendezvous with you in engineering.” With that he gathered up his rucksack and rifle.

Kat stood and shouldered her own ruck. Her boots were a couple centimeters too big without the lining, but they were dry, and serviceable still. She didn’t miss Cadet Uhura staring longingly down at them.

As yet unaware of her superior’s  scrutiny, Uhura shifted slightly, looking down at her own feet, and whispered quietly, most likely to herself, “Definitely putting in a request to update that list.”

“And deprive the next generation of cadets a share in your misery?” questioned Kat, buckling the chest strap on her pack.

Three pairs of incredulous eyes landed on her. She shook the hair out of her face and shrugged, looking directly at Chris. “What? It’s tradition to haze the boot,” she explained and then winked at his stunned expression before retreating from the office, his bark of genuine laughter trailing after her.

***

They stopped at the armory at Lieutenant Noonien-Singh’s insistence before setting out, jackets stripped and then redonned over tactical vests. Environmental systems might be coming back online, but it was still near freezing inside the ship. The weapons cache had been raided by the crew, but there was still a variety of tactical gear to choose from.

After that, they split up, M’Benga and Noonien-Singh going down to deck seven, and Kat, Chris, and Uhura finishing the sweep of deck six.

The deck was clear and so they made their way up to deck five. It took a long time to clear the decks of a Sombra-class starship with only three people, longer still because Chris was reluctant to let them get too far from each other. But as they cleared section after section, the anxiety that had weighed on their team began to ease. Unfortunately, they had no way of knowing if the other team was having the same luck.

Deck five was also clear so they climbed to deck four and began their sweep again.

“Admiral?” Uhura asked as they worked their way around the corridor. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Deck four was clear so far, and this was their final section. Chris had doubled back as he had on the previous two decks, wary of bogies flanking them from behind.

“How do you know if you’re making the right choice?”

Kat’s lips tilted up. “That’s easy. You don’t.” But Uhura was not amused so Kat gentled her voice and asked, “What’s this about, Cadet?”

“I just— I’m not sure if I belong here. In Starfleet I mean. To be honest, I’m not sure I ever did.”

Chris had mentioned Uhura confessing something similar a while back.  

“And now you’ve decided that you want to quit,” Kat surmised.

Uhura sighed, frustrated but Kat could tell that her  frustration was only with herself. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what my path is. It might be this, but how will I know if it’s supposed to be something else if I stay here?”

Kat hummed in contemplation. “Now that is a question humanity’s greatest minds have been contemplating for centuries. And you know what they’ve decided?”

“What?” the cadet asked eagerly, hopeful for an answer.

“Nothing.”

Uhura looked away, frowning in disappointment.

“The untraveled road is just that, Cadet: untraveled. If you try to walk them all to see where they go, you’ll be wandering forever, never reaching your destination. You have to choose which path to take, for good or ill, and be content not knowing where the others lead.”

Uhura seemed to contemplate that as they walked, but when it became clear that she wasn’t going to respond, Kat ventured, “I read your file, Cadet. Is this about your career or is this about your fear of potentially losing the connections you’ve made here?”

Uhura froze and stared at her for a moment, incredulous. “How did you—?”

Kat turned and looked at the young cadet, a small but knowing smile on her lips. “It’s my job.”

“Hemmer said pretty much the same thing.”

“Well. Two out of two counselors can’t be wrong,” Kat said lightly but the levity did nothing to ease Uhura’s dilemma. “Look, Cadet. I don’t know your path, or which choice is right for you. But whatever choice you make, just remember: connections go two ways. And so does the joy and pain that comes with them. Don’t sever those ties out of fear.”

Uhura looked at her intently for a moment. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you, Admiral.”

“Any time.”

They continued down the corridor and met up with Chris.

“We’re still clear,” he said.

“Good. Let’s move—” Kat broke off abruptly, whirling around towards the service tube that led down to deck five.

“What is it?” Chris asked, stepping up to her side.

“I thought I heard…” There it was again. A heavy rustling inside the Jefferies tube. She raised her rifle. Beside her Chris did the same as he paced another step towards the tube. Behind her, Kat could hear Cadet Uhura’s breath becoming labored with fear.

There was a hiss, a high-pitched growl, a screech, and then a miniature Gorn was on the deck between them and the tube.

Chris fired, but the Gorn was already in the air, launching itself at him. Too slow on the turn, Kat’s shot went wide, and Chris couldn’t raise his gun fast enough; the Gorn was on him almost as soon as it had left the ground. He spun, trying to dislodge the creature as it scratched and clawed and bit anything it could reach. Unwilling to risk hitting him, Kat tracked it with her rifle, waiting for an opening, but the thing was too small, too quick, all but lost in a writhing mass of fabric and arms. She could only catch fleeting glimpses as it jumped, searching for an advantage. It screeched, Starfleet body armor proving more difficult than it had anticipated.

A breath in…

Hold.

Chris screamed and stumbled.

Hold!

…and out.  

He went down, his leg crumpling beneath him. But Kat got a clear shot when the Gorn jumped from his leg to his shoulder, angling for his throat.

A breath in…

She fired.

It was a glancing blow, but the Gorn screeched and jumped away, hissing and clicking in anger. She fired again, two shots in rapid succession, but the Gorn was too quick, already bounding down the corridor with an angry squall.

When she was sure that it was gone, Kat lowered her rifle and rushed to Chris. He had rolled halfway onto his side, clutching his thigh with both hands, teeth gritted against the pain. She went to her knees beside him and dropped her rifle. The gun hit the deck with a dull clatter, resounding in the quiet corridor. The only other sound was his muffled groans.

His jacket was shredded, multiple tears over his shoulders and chest plate plus several on his unprotected arms, red staining the yellow fabric beneath. But it was the leg wound that worried her. Already blood was pooling on the deck beneath him.

Quickly, she pushed him onto his back to get a better look at his leg, but she still had to pry his hands away from the wound before she could tear the rip in his pants wider.

“Shit,” she swore under her breath upon seeing the extent of the injury. The lights on her tactical vest illuminated the gash running diagonally across half the length of his thigh, nearly bone deep through the muscle. At first glance, the cut didn’t appear to be long enough to have hit an artery, but blood was flowing alarmingly fast from the wound. “Give me the med kit,” she said to Uhura, her hands already undoing the buckle on her gun belt. The first aid kit in her pack didn’t contain the supplies she needed to triage a wound of this size.

Cadet Uhura’s eyes were wide as she stared down at the wound in Chris’s leg, face pale with shock as she slowly shook her head. “I—I don’t have it.”

It was then that Kat noticed that the cadet didn’t have her rucksack. She must have left it in Engineering. But Kat did not have time for the flare of irritation in her chest; she would harangue the cadet for her lapse later. “Find one!” she ordered, stripping the belt of its gear. When Uhura still didn’t move, she added a sharp, “Now!”

That spurred the young woman into motion, and she raced down the corridor in the opposite direction the Gorn had gone.

Kat wrapped the belt around Chris’s leg above the wound.

“We need to move,” he said, his voice tight with pain.

Threading the belt through the buckle and pulling tight, she said only, “You’re not going anywhere like this.” But even with the tourniquet, blood was still oozing from the wound. Far too much blood. She pulled tighter, bloody gloves slipping along bloody leather. His jacket was already shredded. If she could rip a strip off, she could make a compress. And his leg should be elevated, she thought. Perhaps her own ruck would work if could manage to slip it off her shoulders before he bled out.

Chris sat up slightly and peered down at the gash in his thigh before collapsing back to the deck. “Cauterize it,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, dismissing his suggestion for the idiocy that it was and searching for her knife to cut off a piece of his jacket. He could hold the compress and the tourniquet while she got her pack under his leg.

“Do it.” He was completely serious, and Kat pinned him with a horrified stare. “Are you insane?” she questioned. “It’s too dangerous.” She could just as soon kill him as stop the bleeding.

“It’s too dangerous not to. Even if—Ahg!” He was panting, breathless with pain, the muscles in his neck drawn tight, his hands clenching at his sides. “Even if she can find a medkit, that’ll take too long to heal with a regenerator, if it even can be. And even if I can make it to sickbay like this, the blood will lead them straight to us. Cauterize it or leave me here.”

He was right, as much as she was loath to admit it.

“God damn you, Christopher Pike,” she muttered under her breath and wrenched the belt a little tighter, causing Chris to wince and let out a grunt of pain. She pressed the prong into the leather as deep as possible to hold it in place. “Cadet! Get back here. Now!” Kat drew the knife from the sheath lying beside her leg, sliced a piece of leather from the tail of the makeshift tourniquet, and slipped the scrap between Chris’ teeth.

Cadet Uhura’s hurried footsteps came to a skidding halt just as Kat was adjusting the settings on her phaser. Strong enough to burn, but weak enough not to stun. She needed him conscious. Getting an unconscious Chris to sickbay would be more difficult than they had time for.

“Hold him down,” she told Uhura.

“W-what?”

“Hold him down!” The words were harsher the second time. Chris didn’t have time for her to being repeating orders. “This is going to hurt like hell and if he moves, he could lose his leg.”

Uhura dropped to her knees beside him and tentatively put her hands on his shoulders. With one knee on the joint between his hip and thigh, and a hand on his knee, Kat used all her weight to keep his leg immobile.

“I mean it, Cadet,” she said to Uhura. “Keep him still.”

With a nod, Uhura seemed to grow a little more emboldened and adjusted her weight against Chris’s chest.

Kat looked to Chris. “Ready?”

He nodded, but the way he broke eye contact and looked to the ceiling, and the heavy, rapid breaths coming from between his teeth belied his certainty.

But there was nothing for it. She positioned her phaser scant centimeters from his wound and fired.

He struggled, instinct proving too strong to lay passively while she shot burning energy into his flesh. His leg bucked beneath her weight, and he let out a muffled grunt that turned into a scream, hands clenching at his sides. She had to let her finger off the trigger or risk further injury and pressed his leg back down before firing again.

He was able to cut his scream short the second time, but his leg still pulled at her grip, hands scrambling for purchase on the deck. His efforts were weaker though, perhaps more prepared for the pain, and his scream turned into a series of muffled cries he couldn’t hold back.

She had to stop once more, her hand shaking too badly to hold the phaser steady. “Fuck!” she cursed, breathless. Come on, Katrina. You can do this. She was not going to let him die like this. Chris panted heavily through clenched teeth while she readjusted her grip, and then she fired again.

It seemed to take forever, but finally it was done. The wound was closed. A furrow of burned and blistered skin traversed his blood-soaked thigh where before had been a gaping wound. Kat collapsed to the deck beside him, utterly spent, phaser slipping from nerveless fingers.

“Do you people ever have a normal day on the job?” she asked as soon as she had the breath for words.

“This is normal, Admiral,” said Uhura from her knees at Chris’ side. The young cadet was breathing just as hard as she was.

Chris made a sound that Kat deciphered as a weary huff of laughter. “Regretting your decision to sign on, Admiral?” Sweat and tear tracks glinted on his face. Despite his jovial intent, his expression was still strained, his face pale.    

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Pike.” Kat climbed to her feet on shaky legs and pushed away the emotions that made her want to sink back to the deck. She could fall apart once they were safe.

Her knife and extra charges went into her rucksack, her phaser back into its holster at her thigh, her rifle was slung over her shoulder, and then she reached down for Chris’ hand. “Come on Captain. On your feet.”

It took both her and Uhura, but they managed to get him up, with Uhura remaining at his side for support while Kat raised her rifle and led the way to the Jefferies tube.

The journey to sickbay was slow going, every step taking twice as long while Chris tried to keep weight off his injured leg, and every moment holding the possibility that the next would bring the Gorn. By some miracle however, their path remained clear; no sign of the Gorn, and no sound except for Chris’ awkward, hopping steps  and occasional pain-filled grunt or hiss. Kat wasn’t sure how he managed it; the Jefferies tubes alone must have been torture.

He was limping heavily by the time they made it to sickbay, no longer able to put even the slightest amount of weight on his left leg. He paused after every step, breathing heavily, his face drawn and streaked with sweat. Stowing her rifle over her shoulder, Kat stepped closer, pulled his arm around her neck, and prayed that no Gorn snuck up behind them.

Sickbay was quiet when they entered. Too quiet. And if the silence wasn’t enough to alert them that something was wrong, the stench of fresh blood was. The air was thick with it, the reeking miasma of death, the walls painted with arching, gorey splatters, still wet and gleaming.

Kat ignored it all and led Chris to the closest biobed.

“Oh thank god!”

In the middle of helping Chris onto the bed, Kat turned sharply towards the relieved voice of Nurse Chapel, who was standing frozen on the threshold of the CMO’s office.

“Th-they came out of him,” Chapel said. She was clearly in shock, face white, eyes wide. She glanced down at the floor between the beds. Kat followed her gaze to the corpse of the alien Buckley. What was left of him. The Gorn had torn their way into existence through his chest.

Not far away was the body of Cadet Chia, her throat torn out, face frozen on a scream.

“Where’s the girl?” Kat asked Chapel.

Chapel shook her head, mouth opening and closing several times before she could answer. “I—I don’t know.”

Kat spared a moment to hope that Oriana had gotten away, but only a moment.

“What do we do?” Chapel asked, panicked. “What do we do?”

“You, help him,” Kat answered, indicating that the nurse should treat Chris’ injury. Hopefully having something to do would bring her out of shock. “One deep laceration along with a burn wound to the upper leg, and multiple lacerations to the upper body.”

It worked. Chapel looked at Chris, seeming to just now notice him, and after a beat, she came over and began scanning his leg. “Get his jacket off.”

That ended up being more tricky than it sounded. It was torn, but he didn’t have another so Kat helped him to sit up and eased it off his shoulders rather than cut it away.

“We need to warn the others,” Chris forced out between gritted teeth, his attempts to help her strip off his jacket only making the process more painful.

Kat looked to Cadet Uhura who was frozen at the sight of Cadet Chia. “Cadet. Any luck on those comms?”

Uhura gasped and jumped, startled out of her stupor, but her voice was still somewhat dazed when she said, “Let me check.” Then she dashed to the closest panel to check.

“Scan for bio signatures as well.”

His jacket off, Kat could see that one of the scratches on Chris’ arm curved close to the edge of his tactical vest and removed that as well before she let him lay back down.

“Did you…cauterize this wound?” Chapel asked, sounding almost horrified as she peered at Chris’ leg.

“I did,” Kat replied, only a hint of defensiveness in the words as she helped ease Chris back down to the bed.

Chapel glanced up but wisely said nothing more and concentrated on her patient. A moment later, she loaded a hypospray and reached for his neck. “This is for the pain,” she said to him.

Chris lifted a hand to stall her. “No.”

The nurse frowned, her hand freezing mid-reach. “I’m about to perform minor surgery on your leg, Captain. Trust me, you do not want to feel this.”

“Just the local,” he rasped and explained, “I need to stay alert.” And then he huffed, lips tilting up on one side in a strained smile. “Remember when La’an said something similar right before you turned her into a Kileyn?”

Chapel smiled faintly at whatever memory they were reliving and patted an uninjured spot on his shoulder. “Hang in there, sister.” Then she set aside the rejected hypospray and began prepping for surgery.

“No comms yet,” reported Uhura from the wall console. “And ops are showing our people, but so sign of the Gorn.”

Damn. That would make warning the others that much harder. “They must have found a way to avoid our sensors,” Kat surmised. “Alright we need to—”

A sound at the door cut her off. The phaser on her thigh was an easier draw and she pulled it, whirling, her other hand coming up to steady her aim as she sighted center mass on her target. Fear and adrenaline meant it took her half a second longer to recognize Spock and Kirk than it would have otherwise, both of whom stood frozen in her sights, grim-faced and blood spattered. Kat lowered her gun with an audible breath of relief, allowing the lieutenants to further enter sickbay.

“Where’s Duke?” asked Chapel, though, by the looks on Kirk and Spock’s faces, the answer was clear.

“Lieutenant Duke is dead,” Spock confirmed after a moment.

Silence followed his declaration, heavy and mournful, as they all took in that information before it was abruptly broken by the sound of Lieutenant Kirk’s fist slamming into the bulkhead.

He spun, breathing hard, and said to the room at large, “We need to make a run for the shuttles. We stay in here, we’re lizard chow.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Kat said, holstering her phaser and giving the lieutenant only half her attention as she weighed sending a team for Hemmer and the others versus waiting for comms to be restored. On the one hand, Hemmer seemed to be making progress. They had main power now, ops, life support, environmental systems… But the Gorn would be faster. Three dead so far. And then there was the girl. They needed to find her, move Buckley and Chia’s bodies, find a way to enhance their sensors to track the Gorn…  

“The storm outside has not let up,” said Spock as Kat continued to mentally arrange and then rearrange her priorities. “It is not safe to leave the ship.”

“It’s not safe inside the ship!” cried Kirk. “But hey, at least we’ll all die nice and warm.”

“Sam…” Chris said wearily from the bed, but Kat was quicker.

“Stow it, Kirk!” Her words cracked whip-like across sickbay, sharp and biting. Kirk froze. Actually everyone did, all of them staring at her. But she ignored them all and stalked towards Lieutenant Kirk, until they stood nearly toe to toe. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, barely above a whisper and edged with danger. “You’re scared? We’re all scared. But right now, I don’t have time for your fatalism or your sarcasm.” Anger crowded her chest, making the words tremble as she forced them out. “So, unless you have something useful to contribute, you will either shut up and do your job, or you can go sit outside the ship where it’s nice and cold. Do I make myself clear?”

Looking more than a little chastised, Kirk swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing noticeably. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” She stepped back a pace. “Now, work with Lieutenant Spock. See what you can find out about the Gorn. Pull the CMO’s logs on the Orion, compare any findings to whatever information we were able to get on Buckley before he died. We need a way to track these things.”

The lieutenant looked as though he wanted to argue, but he simply nodded and forced out a terse, “Yes, sir,” and got to work.

“Admiral!” called Cadet Uhura, excitedly. “Internal comms are back online.” There was a small, relieved smile on her face.

Inwardly, Kat sighed, feeling that same sense of relief. Finally something was going right. “Open a channel. All decks.” Uhura nodded, and then again when the channel was open. “All hands this Admiral Cornwell. Emergency protocol. Rendezvous in sickbay. Repeat: Emergency protocol. Rendezvous in sickbay.”

And then it was a waiting game.

The others occupied with their assigned tasks, Kat had Uhura help her move and cover the bodies of Chia and Buckley. The anti-grav stretcher made the job easier, but it was still grim work, made grimmer somehow when the cleaning bot was deployed to scrub away the pools of blood on the floor, humming softly as it erased the carnage. As if it was never there.

To her credit, Cadet Uhura didn’t balk and assisted with a grim-faced determination. She took a moment, however, before she covered Chia with the emergency blanket, staring down at the body of her cohort. “We’d just finished,” she whispered quietly.

It was a cruel twist of fate, to have come so far, to be so close to her commission, only to die here on this frozen rock.

Uhura only let herself mourn a moment, though, before she took a breath and shook out the blanket, letting the shiny, silver material float down and shroud Cadet Chia.  

At the medical sciences station, Spock and Kirk exchanged only occasional words, Kirk preferring to work in taciturn silence if his blunt replies to Spock’s directions were any indication. Kat did her best to ignore them. At the moment, she didn’t care how Kirk felt about his job as long as he did it. Frankly, a cheerful attitude was a luxury right about now, so as long as he didn’t become outright insubordinate, she would let Spock decide how to deal with his subordinate on his own.

Instead, she found her attention continuously drawn back to the biobed where Chapel had begun the surgery to heal Chris’ leg. She’d given him a local anesthetic, but from the way the tendons stood out on his neck and the way his fists curled around the edge of the bed, it was clear he could still feel it.

As soon as she could, she went over and took his hand in hers. “How are you doing?”

His answer was a strained and raspy, “Christine says I’ll live.”

“You probably saved his life,” Chapel said, still concentrating on knitting muscle tissue back together. “His femoral was nicked.”

Kat didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing and simply squeezed Chris’ hand lightly.

After what seemed like an eternity but was actually less than fifteen minutes after her comm, M’Benga, Noonien-Singh, and Hemmer arrived, along with Oriana, who was clinging monkey-like to M’Benga’s back. After setting her down on the closest open biobed, the doctor moved quickly to assist Chapel. The others took seats on whatever flat surface they could find, catching their breaths.

“Admiral,” called Spock a short time later, drawing Kat over to the console where he and Kirk were working.

“Did you find something?” she asked hopefully.

Spock, however, had nothing good to report. “The Gorn’s biological makeup renders them invisible to all of our sensors.”

 “That must be why I missed them inside of Buckley,” M’Benga said. He had begun regenerating the wound on Chris’ shoulder, but paused momentarily to look over at the screen.

“Is there anything from his bioscan you can use?” Kat asked Spock. “Something trackable?”

“We don’t even know what species he was,” said Kirk.

“And according to the Peregrine’s CMO’s analysis,” added Spock, “the maturity cycle depends on the host. In the Orion it took weeks. Humans, days.”

“These ducts in the mouth likely expel venom,” Kirk said, pointing to the image on the screen.

“Yes,” said Hemmer. “And at great distances, too. Fortunately,” he added with a hint of levity, “the one we encountered in engineering wasn’t very accurate.”

“It’s probably a toxin meant to blind its victims,” Kirk hypothesized. “Or render them otherwise incapacitated.”

“It’s more than that,” said Noonien-Singh. “It’s how they reproduce. You get one drop of it on your skin, you’re as good as dead.”

“Hemmer.” It was Chris, wincing as he sat upright on the biobed. His leg was healed, the flesh peeking through the tear in his pants smooth and pink. Chapel wiped his blood off her hands with a white cloth, staining it red. Acutely aware of the blood staining her clothes, Kat turned away. “I know you have rules about telepathy, but any chance those don’t apply to an enemy that’s trying to eat us?” He tried to stand, but M’Benga kept him in place with a hand on his shoulder so he could  finish with the cuts on his arms.

Hemmer shook his head. “If I could, I would. But it appears they have a psychic barrier to my abilities. I cannot sense them.”

“Impressive,” remarked Spock. “Like their genetic coding. No doubt another evolution in order to hunt undetected.”

“Impressive?” Kirk questioned harshly, rounding on Spock. “You think this is impressive?”

“Kirk.” Kat’s warning was swift and stern. Kirk snapped his mouth shut on whatever he was going to say next and backed down.

“It was merely an observation,” Spock commented quietly.

“Stop it, both of you,” she snapped out. Spock’s brows rose at her rebuke, no doubt wondering why he was the subject of her reprimand. “Now is not the time to be having it out over your difference of opinion. You want to yell at each other, do it on your own time. Right now, we need a plan.”

“La’an,” said Chris, shrugging on his torn coat. “Tactical analysis.”

During the preceding argument, Lieutenant Noonien-Singh had moved over to where Kat and Uhura had stored the bodies of Buckley and Chia and was now crouched down examining Buckley’s corpse. “Four hatchlings, one dead here, one dead in engineering. That leaves two.” She stood straight and turned to face everyone. “The hatchlings have begun molting, but they aren’t fully mature. At this stage, younglings have an intense drive for alpha dominance. The two left will be strongest, the smartest, and extremely hostile to each other.” She paced as she spoke, wringing her hands together as if to expel extra energy.

“That’s a weak spot,” Chris said calmly. “We can work together. That’s our advantage.”

Noonien-Singh paused her pacing and faced him. “No matter what, we have to kill them now. We’d have no chance against even one adult Gorn.”

“We need something other than phasers,” Kat said. “They’re too fast.” Even her indirect shot had been lucky, and taken at great risk.

“We can create a choke point,” M’Benga suggested. “Slow them down.”

“A simple trap won’t work,” said Noonien-Singh. “They’re too smart for that, even at this stage.”

“How are we supposed to hunt them?” Kirk questioned. “We can’t even track them with sensors.” He had a point, despite the pessimism in his tone.

But Uhura had an answer. “We make them come to us.”

“That is…very logical,” agreed Spock after a beat.

“Gorn can’t resist aggressive behavior,” Noonien-Singh said. “They won’t back down from a challenge, so we can use that to draw them out, put them down.”

“Great. Now we’re bait,” Kirk commented, fear fueling the contempt beneath his words.

But once more, he had a point. Simply antagonizing the Gorn was risky and left far too much to chance. They’d need something else to ensure that the hatchlings went where they wanted them to.

Remembering their only other advantage, Kat asked, “What about the environmental controls?” Noonien-Singh looked at her, her expression asking for more. One by one, more pairs of eyes landed on her. “The Gorn don’t like the cold, right?” A loathing she could certainly relate to. But, if being cold could get them out of this, she’d gladly endure it.

Realization seemed to wash over Lieutenant Noonien-Singh and her eyes slid to Oriana. “The Peregrine’s crew tricked the Gorn into going outside. We can do the same,” she said, walking over to the console and pulling up a diagram of the ship, “force them into the areas we want them in.”

“Now this…sounds like the start of a plan,” said Chris, slipping off of the bed and gingerly testing his leg. He didn’t bother hiding his relief when it held his weight; everyone already knew. When he looked up, his eyes found Kat’s first, a small smile on his face before he hid it and looked at everyone else in turn, once more all business. “Alright. Let’s get to work.”

Chapter Text

It worked.

By some miracle, their plan had been executed successfully and without further casualties. The Gorn were dead, the Peregrine’s systems repaired enough for the ship to make it out of the atmosphere, but even two days later, safely back aboard the Enterprise, Kat was still wondering how they’d managed to pull it off. Things could have turned out much differently if they’d made even the slightest mistake. Still, the cost was high.

They’d salvaged the Peregrine, but her crew was gone, as were Lieutenant Duke and Cadet Chia. And then there was Oriana, a child forced to witness unimaginable horrors, nightmares that would haunt her, likely for the rest of her life.

She’d been reported missing by her family two years ago, but their contact information was out of date and they had no other information on file, so as of yet, social services hadn’t been able to get in touch. Likely, her family had moved beyond Federation space which would make finding them that much more difficult, if not impossible. But in the time between killing the Gorn and rendezvousing with the Enterprise, Oriana had attached herself quite firmly to Lieutenant Noonien-Singh.

“I…see myself in her,” La’an had said when Kat asked her about it. “I survived the Gorn, but things could have turned out differently for me if Una hadn’t found me and given me a…a place. But there’s surviving and then there’s living. And I’ve been surviving up until recently. If I can help her see the difference…” She’d trailed off, eyes turning to the young girl in the shuttle’s aft-section, who was stabbing her fork at the contents of an MRE with scholarly focus. “Maybe it’ll make my experience worthwhile,” La’an finished.

The Peregrine was now safely tied in Enterprise’s tractor beam, a memorial for her crew and for those they had lost in her recovery would be held the next day. For now, Kat concentrated on dinner, on the steady fall of the knife in her hand, the sizzle of the oil when she added the onions to each pot, and the enticing scent of garlic as it heated.

“You didn’t have to make two kinds of soup,” Chris said, not for the first time.

“I don’t mind,” Kat assured him with a smile. Again, not for the first time.

“I would have been just fine eating your” —he peered over the counter—“tofu noodle soup.”

She waved him back into his seat with a flick of her wrist and stirred the sautéing chicken and onions. “You’re recovering,” she said, knocking the spoon against the pot a few times to dislodge the clinging bits of onion and garlic before she set it on the spoon rest. “I’m making you the soup you like. Synthesized chicken and all.”

It was his mother’s recipe, a childhood favorite on sick days, or so Willa had said when Kat had commed her to ask for the recipe.

Technically, he’d already been cleared for duty, but he was mourning. They all were. Duke, Chia, the crew of the Peregrine, Buckley, Pasko… One hundred and three lives weighed heavy on the heart. They could all use a little comfort right about now, and nothing comforted like homemade soup. Or so Chris would say.

Now, what was next? She looked at the vegetables on the counter. Ah, yes. Celery. The celery went in next. She gathered the ribs and started chopping.

But she’d only gotten through a few slices when he protested once more.

“I just meant—”

Kat’s hands slammed down onto the counter, the sharp ping of the knife cutting through the room. “Chris!” She had to close her eyes for a moment, fingers digging into the countertop. When she spoke, her words trembled along the taut line of her body and into the waiting silence. “I shot you.”

“You didn’t—”

On the counter, her hands clenched into fists, cutting him off, the handle of the knife hard and unbending despite her white-knuckled grip. “I fired a phaser at your leg.”

“And if you hadn’t we might all be dead.” He said it like it was a simple fact. But it wasn’t simple. 

“I could have—” Abruptly, she pushed off the counter and turned away, one hand going to her mouth to hold in the sob that threatened to escape, the other wrapping around her waist, clutching at her side as if she could hold the fracturing pieces of herself together.

His femoral was nicked. She had known even as Chapel said the words what they meant. If she had been off by even a fraction of a centimeter with that phaser beam, if she had argued with him even a minute longer, if she hadn’t eventually conceded to his request, she would have lost him, and the knowledge was devastating.

She was not so certain of his future as he.

She didn’t even know he’d moved until his hands were turning her, arms wrapping around her and holding her close. She didn’t protest, but leaned into him. Face buried against his chest, she shuddered.

“I’m sorry you had to do that,” he said, cheek pressed to her head. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I could have killed you,” she said miserably.

Chris released his hold on her and stepped back, holding her at arm’s length. “I trust you. Unreservedly. I never doubted that you’d get it right.” She knew that, but his words did nothing to ease her fear or her guilt. He ducked his head, trying to catch her eye, and smiled wryly when she finally let him. “You think I’d let just anyone shoot me in the leg?”

That did it. A huff of laughter burst from her chest through pursed lips. Shaking slightly, she fell into him, forehead on his chest as she wrapped her arms around his waist and felt his arms envelope her once more. She was trembling, her breath coming in great gulps and puffs of air released into his shirt, but she didn’t know if she was laughing or crying. Maybe it was both.

He held her, his hand cradling the back of her head, swaying gently as though soothing a child.

“Chris I can’t lose you,” she admitted when she could speak. “I can’t. I’m not that strong.”

“Yes you are. You’re the strongest person I know.” She felt his soft words rumble in his chest, the whisper of them through her hair. “But you’re not going to lose me,” he added and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re not going to lose me,” he murmured again, tucking her head beneath his chin. “I promise.”

For a moment, she was content to remain like that, in his arms, holding him close, breathing him in. But then the scent of burning garlic hit her nose and she pulled away. “Dinner’s burning.”

Letting her go, he reached over and turned off the stove.

Kat looked into one pot, then the other. Inside both, the onions were several shades past caramelized, and the garlic was black in some spots. Anxiously, she picked up the pot with the chicken and attempted to stir the contents. Everything was stuck to the bottom of the pot, charred where she could scrape it loose, leaving the thin, outer layers behind like shadowy wraiths fused to the steel.

Something snapped inside her at the sight of her failure, neglected emotions breaking loose and poured forth on a scream. “Damnit! It’s ruined.” Tears stung her eyes. How could she have screwed up something as simple as soup? His favorite soup?

“Hey.” Gently, Chris extracted the pot and spoon from her hands, setting them aside, and cupped her face in his palm. “It’s okay. I’m not really hungry, anyway. Are you?”

Kat looked up, meeting earnest blue eyes. It had never been about the soup. She was self-aware enough to know that. And given the way he was looking at her, as if nothing else existed in the universe, he knew it, too.

She could have killed him. She could have killed him trying to save his life, and now here she was, still trying to heal that wound with a pot of soup.

“No,” she breathed.

He smiled.

His kiss was tender, sweet—the gentle prelude to passion. She returned it with near savage intensity, surging against him and forcing him a stumbling step back into the counter.  

“Kat—”

She stole the sound of her name from his mouth, cut him off with her tongue tangling with his. His hands flexed on her hips, wanting. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, gripping the back of his neck to force him closer, closer, closer.

She could feel his desire growing against her belly where she pressed up against him. Slick heat rushed to her core, consuming her. A shift of her foot, the tiniest of steps forward, and his leg was between hers. He took the hint, put the slightest bend in his knee, making it easier for her to grind down on his thigh as his hands moved over her hips, so warm and alive. She wanted them on her body, palming her breasts. She wanted to feel the constellations of every scar and callus sliding over every inch of her skin. To feel him thrust inside her over and over again with all his strength and passion. To feel his blood coursing beneath his skin hot and fast. Alive.

Clawed hands raked down his chest, nails catching on the fabric of his shirt, and reached for the clasp of his pants.

Without her hold on his neck, he was able to pull away. “Kat. Kat, wait!” He released her hips in favor of capturing her hands with his. “Wait.”

She was breathless, panting with need and still plastered against him as she looked up. “I don’t want to wait.”

She wanted him to remind her that he was alive.

“Then what do you want? Spell it out for me.” Dimly, she noted that he was breathing just as heavily as she was.  

But the cloud of lust in her mind parted just a little with his request, rational thought shining through like a ray of sun until she could take in the concern mixed with desire in his eyes.

They’d had rougher sex before, but not like this. Not hard and fast and bruising right out of the gate. And given her previous emotional outburst…

He was right to be concerned, right to make her say it.

“I want…” But the words wouldn’t come. Because it was a want she couldn’t describe.

How did one describe love?

She wanted to feel him, vital and alive, yes. But the need went far deeper than rough sex. It was like needing air, water. Like a bird needed to stretch its wings and soar. She needed him to fill her, body and soul, to blot out every awful thought until all she was left with was him. Them. Together, alive and soaring.

“I want…” She touched his leg where it pressed against her hip, drew her fingers along the same path she had burned into his flesh. “You’re alive,” she said, fingers curling into fabric and flesh. “Remind me.”

The rest of her answer must have been written on her face because he released her hands, cradled her face in his palm, thumb stroking across her cheek. “Okay.”

Gripping her hip, he pulled her in for another kiss before turning them both, lifting her easily from the ground. She locked her ankles behind his back, squeezing his hips with her thighs and clinging to his neck as she deepened the kiss.

He traversed the living room by memory and tiny glances around her head. In the bedroom, he set her on her feet, his hands going to her shirt. Clothing was wrenched away, seams straining, threads crying out, fabric puddling on the floor until they came together again.

He was rougher than his wont; even in the throes of passion, it was not within Chris to be ought but gentle. But she had told him to remind her, and he took her with hot hands on her bare flesh, needy and wanting; with desperate, consuming kisses that stole her very soul. And when he bore her down onto the bed, it wasn’t a fight for dominance, but a surrender to his. To his hold on her wrists above her head, iron-hard when she tugged, reveling in the strength of it. To his hands parting her thighs, holding her open as his lips trailed down her body, lips and teeth and tongue on her nipple, then lower still. To the inevitable climax pulled from her body by his learned touch. To the feeling of him inside her, hot and hard and so damn good, easing his way in because even now—with the walls of her sex still throbbing, and his fingers vise-like on her thigh, and his eyes as intense as a gathering storm, wanting—even now he was careful not to hurt her.

Fully seated inside her, he kissed her, hard, his lips parting hers, swallowing the sound of her gasp, tasting, taking. The kiss ended as abruptly as it began, violently ripped asunder when he tore away from her mouth. And then he was moving, his pace relentless and demanding, proof that he was alive—alive and whole—pulling a string of incoherent sounds from her throat as he drove her to a second climax, her nails raking down his back, her body going rigid beneath him.

Only he wasn’t done. Not by half.

He kept going, and only after he had wrung every ounce of pleasure from her body did he take his own, gasping and shuddering against her, hands clenching on her hips. After a moment, his arms came around her, pulling her close as he laid down, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths against her back, his skin warm and alive everywhere he touched her.

Alive. When she had come so close to losing him.

She wanted to make him promise to never scare her like that again, to swear to never ask her to do something so risky again. But once more, words would not come. So she turned, laid her head on his chest and her hand over his heart, feeling it beat strong and steady as she drifted off to sleep.

***

Kat watched as Spock walked to the door of her office unsure if their session had been productive or inefficient. He’d been angry today, combative and snappish. Her poor chair had borne the brunt of it, its metal armrest crumpled in the shape of his fist until he’d realized what he’d done and attempted to pull the metal back to rights.

The doors opened at his approach and then closed with a soft whoosh after he left.

Kat sighed.

Poor Spock. So uncertain, now more than ever, of himself, of his place in the universe. This last mission had undone all the careful progress they’d made after Angel’s time on Enterprise posing as Dr. Aspen. Angel had made him question himself—human or Vulcan, or perhaps neither at all? —but Valeo Beta Five had made him question his self.

“I cannot contain it,” he’d told her. “I let something out and now I don’t know how to control it.”

Spock had had to antagonize a Gorn and to do that, he’d been forced to loose the careful control he kept around his emotions. And now, he didn’t know how to suppress them again.  

Kat had suggested finding an outlet for the emotions he couldn’t contain. “A creative outlet,” she’d amended when he said that he’d already tried meditation and the gym. “Paint, sing, write, play an instrument.”

He’d seemed to consider that last one for a moment. “There is logic in music.”

“Yes, but there’s also emotion.” Two halves, one whole. Just like him.

He’d promised to at least try, and she could only hope that he did.  

After a moment of staring at the closed door she rose and went to her desk. Their session had gone long and now she only had a few minutes to finish her notes before her next appointment. And that appointment had come as a surprise when she’d seen it appear on her schedule yesterday.

The door chime sounded at exactly 0900, and Kat couldn’t help the twitch of her lips. Ever prompt.

“Come,” she said and the doors parted, allowing Una to enter.

“Good morning, One,” she greeted with a smile, but Una just stood there, hands behind her back, her expression neutral, the picture of military deportment.

“Admiral,” she said stiffly.

So, it’s like that, is it, One? Una always retreated to formality when she was nervous.

Kat waved a hand towards the seating area. “Have a seat. I’ll be right there.”

While she closed out of Spock’s file and gathered her PADD, Una walked to the couch as if she were walking to her execution and sat rigidly, hands clasped in her lap.

Kat joined her, relaxing back into the nearest armchair, the one that had escaped Spock’s fist. “How are you doing, One?”

“Good.” For long moments, Una said nothing more. Knowing that she would talk when she was ready, Kat let the silence stretch.

“La’an said that you’ve been really helpful for her,” Una said eventually.

“You know I can’t talk about that.”

“I know. I just wanted you to know since I know she’ll never admit it.”

Kat smiled, both because she was happy to hear that Lieutenant Noonien-Singh was finding their sessions helpful, and because she knew Una better than that. Number One was stalling, and Number One didn’t often stall. Kat eyed the other woman knowingly and decided to move this conversation along. “You didn’t make this appointment to talk about La’an.”

Una opened and closed her mouth once before admitting, “No.”

“Then why did you?”

Another moment of silence. Una glanced away, then looked up at Kat once more. “Something happened on K-7.”

Kat frowned. “I read your report. You didn’t mention any—”

“That’s because I didn’t put it in the report.”

Kat stared at her patient and friend, trying to understand why Una had made a counseling appointment to tell her about something that had happened on a mission. For Una to have not put something in the report, it must be serious, and by making an official appointment, she’d effectively bound Kat by doctor-patient confidentiality. Whatever had happened, Una didn’t want it making it back to Command.

Nervous now, Kat licked her lips. “What happened?”

“There was an accident in the power distribution room,” Una said. “One of the power cells fell from the anti-grav sled. Lieutenant Renik didn’t see it in time. He was going to be crushed. I didn’t think. I just—” Una looked away briefly. Dread took up residence in Kat’s gut. “Admiral, I’ve been lying to you, to everyone, and now—”

Kat sat forward. An unconscious movement as she raised a hand to stop Una. “Number One, stop.”

Una was startled into silence by the interruption, and indeed it wasn’t often Kat that interrupted a patient. But Una was treading on dangerous ground.

“If you’re about to say what I think you’re about to say, I need you to stop and think very hard about it before you do. Because once you tell me, once I know, I can’t pretend.”

“I know.” Una’s words were resolute. Still, Kat asked, “You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

Kat nodded. “Alright.”

Una’s next words were rushed, the syllables hastily strung together like she couldn’t get them out fast enough. “I’m an Illyrian.”

While the confirmation was news to Kat, she was not surprised. She was saddened that her friend had been forced to hide such an integral part of herself for so long, aggrieved that Una was now forced to reveal her secret out of fear, and angry that she’d had to keep it a secret in the first place. She was hurt that Una had told her only because circumstances had forced her hand, offended that Una felt that she had to bind her by confidentiality to tell her at all while simultaneously left wondering if Una was not deliberately protecting her with that same confidentiality. She was anxious because Una was clearly worried about her secret actually getting out, a secret she had successfully kept for more than twenty years, and she was already busy considering what she could do to help her friend.

But she wasn’t surprised.  

Only seconds passed while Kat considered all this, but the longer the silence stretched, the more nervous Una became of her response. Or lack of one. Her composure slipped by degrees until she became visibly distressed, small fidgets that took her to the edge of her seat, her eyes darting about the room as though searching for an exit.

“I’m sorry to lay all of this on you, Admiral,” she said hurriedly, apprehensively, fearful of her superior’s reaction. But Kat was already moving, setting her PADD and stylus aside, standing and going to sit beside her friend, so that Una’s meek, “I just didn’t know who else to talk to,” was punctuated by Kat putting her arms around her and drawing her close.

Unprepared for the gesture, it took a moment for Una to reciprocate, but when she did, she returned the hug fiercely, and Kat was reminded of a younger Una, the one who had hugged her on her graduation day with tears in her eyes because she was no longer alone while standing in a crowd of people.

“You knew?” Una asked when they’d separated.

“No. Not for sure.” It was the simple answer, but Una didn’t ask for more.

Questions were dangerous, because questions had answers. Answers that could destroy lives with a careless whisper, a single word sparking a vindictive flame that would burn unchecked. And a post-war Federation was a veritable tinderbox, just waiting to be ignited. For decades, Kat had avoided asking questions, knowing just how dangerous the answers could be. Now she had them, and she felt their weight heavy on her shoulders. And her heart.

Una stared at her with a mixture of relief and gratitude. With a small smile, Kat reached out and laid her hand over Una’s where it rested on her leg, squeezing gently. A promise, understanding, acceptance. A reminder that she wasn’t alone.

“Does Chris know?” Kat asked after she’d released Una’s hand.

Una nodded. “I told him after Hetemit Nine.”

Hetemit Nine. He had been so upset after that mission. Now Kat suspected that she knew at least part of the reason why. He’d seen his friend in those colonists, perhaps her future.

Una huffed a humorless laugh. “I tried to resign. He wouldn’t let me.”

 “That sounds like Chris,” Kat said with a wry smile. He knew what Starfleet meant to Una, and he would never let her quit because of a law he felt was wrong.

Una’s own smile faded quickly as she looked down at her hands, her voice small when she said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s discuss that in a moment. Tell me about Renik. Will he file a report?”

The change in Una was almost immediate. She sat up straighter, her usual cool and collected demeanor washing over her worried and frightened expression with almost practiced ease. Which, it probably was. How many times had Una been forced to put on a brave face in order to hide her secret?

“Engineer on K-7,” Una said. “Pathological rule-follower. If he doesn’t file a separate incident report, he’ll at least have something to say about the strapping or the height at which the sled was operating in his write-up.”

Kat nodded slowly. She knew the type. “Do you think he knows?”

“Hard to say. He knows something. No human could have caught that cell. If he doesn’t put it together, someone at Command will.”

“And there’s a good chance that by now that report has already been filed and reviewed by half a dozen senior officers. Altering or deleting it could only raise more red flags.” Day-to-day reports weren’t usually heavily scrutinized, but if even one of those officers knew about Illyrians… If Renik talked to his friends…

The way she saw it, they didn’t have many options. Of course there was the chance that Renik wouldn’t mention the incident in his report at all, but even if his report didn’t raise any immediate suspicions, all it would take was one careless word spoken in the presence of the wrong person to launch an investigation. Una would be constantly looking over her shoulder, waiting for the day the arresting officers arrived. Perhaps if Kat had been there instead of on Valeo Beta Five, she might have been able to intervene, but rank only went so far; there wasn’t much she could do now.

Kat looked at her friend. Beneath her carefully neutral expression, Una was scared. If word got out that she was an Illyrian, Una’s career would be over. And that was the best case scenario. The current JAG took a rather rigid interpretation of the law. Admiral Pasalk was one of those pathological rule followers, a trait that had served him well as a prosecutor.

It was more likely that Una would be arrested, quietly tried, and imprisoned on the charge of being who she was all because of an antiquated, immoral, bigoted law. A law that had been put up for repeal at least once a year before the war but could never gain enough votes to be struck down. Old fears were hard to let go of and minds were slow to change, especially after the war. But until they did, people like Una would never be considered equal.

But Pasalk wouldn’t just go after Una, he would go after her friends—Chris, Kat as well, anyone he suspected of having aided in her deception. The only way they would be safe would be if Una resigned and ran away to non-Federation space. Or… If the law against genetic modification was struck down.

It hadn’t been put up for repeal since before the war; the Federation had been too busy rebuilding to be bothered with the rights of nonmembers. Especially since Illyrians weren’t currently clamoring for membership. But surely at least one sympathizer could be persuaded to put forth a bill now. Though, Una might not have time to wait for a vote.

“Una.” It seemed important, to use her name in that moment even though Kat couldn’t remember ever calling Una by her first name before. It startled Una, who looked at her sharply, eyes wide. “Do you want to stay in Starfleet?”

Una’s reply was a breathy and immediate, “More than anything. Starfleet is all I’ve ever wanted. But…” She bit her lip, a rare tell of uncertainty that made her look eighteen years old again.

But staying was dangerous. For her. For those she loved.

But nothing worthwhile was ever easy. Or safe.  

“Okay then,” Kat said simply. “Now we can talk about what we’re going to do.”

Una looked at her, brows drawn together in confusion, as if she couldn’t believe that it could be so simple. “We?”

Kat smiled. “Yes, One,” she said and gently laid a hand over Una’s. “We.”

Chapter Text

Admiral Cornwell was in a hurry. The Cayuga was on the other side of the Neutral Zone, but her captain had already been handed orders so she wouldn’t remain there long. Kat guessed that she had a couple of hours until the other ship arrived. Maybe less, depending on how quickly Captain Batel dropped her current assignment at Outpost 23 and weighed anchor. Damn it! She thought she’d have more time.

Anxiety weighted her steps as she strode towards Chris’ quarters, her apprehension resounding off the walls of the corridor. Crewmen nodded deference as she passed, but she paid them no mind. She didn’t have time to stand on ceremony or civility. No time, her steps seemed to say, a hurried heel-toe tap of No-time, no-time…

She’d known that Command would send someone; ordering a captain to arrest his own first officer was a command even Admiral Pasalk knew better than to hand down—poor for morale at best, engendering a flight-risk at worst. But she’d thought that they’d send someone else, not tear the nearest ship off a priority mission for one non-violent offender.

It didn’t make any sense!

There was something she was missing, something she hadn’t foreseen. But she could worry about that later. Right now, she needed that data chip—the chip with Chris’ report from Hetemit Nine. The report detailing how an entire Illyrian colony had died trying to join the Federation.

Una’s case was not one that could be won in the courtroom alone. The law was not on her side, and she’d willfully broken it. But, if they could get the public on her side...

If.

If if if.

The court of public opinion worked swiftly, but the bureaucrats in Paris moved like glaciers, and the brass moved only when pushed by the bureaucrats: they needed every minute they could get. Already they might be too late.

Quickly, she keyed in her entry code and wedged herself through the parting doors before they’d finished opening. When she’d asked him the other day, Chris had said that the chip was in a drawer above the desk, left-hand side of the console. So focused was she on her mission that she didn’t register the sound of raised voices until the sight of four unfamiliar men in the living room stopped her dead in her tracks.

They were clustered around the coffee table, arguing with waving arms and angry expressions.

What the hell? The Enterprise had welcomed no guests from the outpost except for Commander Al Salah and his son, and any guests would not be making use of the captain’s quarters uninvited.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded once the initial shock had worn off enough to form words.

As one, the four men paused their arguing and turned towards her. Four pairs of blue eyes pinned her in place.

The one closest to her was a man of middle years with a thin face and dark hair that was going gray at his temples, and wearing a bright yellow facsimile of a Starfleet captain’s uniform, gold rank stripes and all. The man next to him could have been his twin except for the eyepatch covering his left eye and being dressed all in black—black coat, black pants, black boots.

The other two men were at least a decade younger than the others, also identical to each other except for their clothing—same build, same dark hair. One was wearing the Starfleet captain’s uniform of several years ago—the gold turtleneck sweater. The other was clad in a sleeveless green tunic adorned with various medals she didn’t spare the time to take in, and belted at the waist with a gold sash.  

After a beat of silence in which they all stared at her with varying expressions of surprise, the one in the bright yellow shirt stepped forward. “I’m Christopher Pike. Could you tell—”

“I’m Christopher Pike,” said his twin with the eyepatch (was it just for show, or had he truly lost the eye?)  as he, too, took a step forward, looking not at Kat, but at the other Christopher Pike.

“I’m Christopher Pike,” declared the one in green, glaring daggers at the man in black.  

And the one in the old Starfleet uniform? Well, he didn’t answer, but from the stunned look on his face and the way his eyes darted between the other three, he was yet another Christopher Pike.

In that instant, it was all Kat could do to stare, rooted to the deck, looking at each man in turn. What the hell was going on? This had to be some kind of joke.

“No, I’m Spartacus,” said a raspy voice from the the kitchen, a sardonically amused voice, a voice very much like—

Kat whirled around. It was—

He was older, dressed in a uniform she’d never seen before: red, with some version of Starfleet’s delta pinned to his chest. But those eyes, that crooked smile—those she would know anywhere.

Unconsciously, she took a step towards him. “Chris?” She could barely get his name out around the disbelief crowding her chest.

“Hi, Kat.”

***

Dazed, Kat stepped around the support beam but didn’t move any closer. This couldn’t possibly be real. He couldn’t possibly be real. Her mouth opened and closed on a silent string of unfinished questions—Who—? What—? How—?

The man in the kitchen simply stared at her with rheumy eyes and an all too familiar expression of sorrow-filled joy from across the counter. Chris’ favorite knives were laid out before him on the island as if he’d been about to start making dinner.

He’d known where they were.

Questions and explanations for his presence raced through her mind, too fast to become fully formed before giving way to the next, but her mind snagged upon this singular fact: he’d known where the knives where.

Chris was particular about his knives; he did not leave them laying out, and the set currently on the counter was kept rolled up in the drawer beside the knives he allowed the crew to use whenever they assisted him. The man in the kitchen had to have known where they were and what the roll contained. Either that or he’d been here long enough to search through the cupboards and drawers, find the leather roll, and open it up. But the kitchen was otherwise immaculate, and why else would he have taken it out unless he knew what it contained?

Kat swallowed thickly. “Are you really—?”

The older Chris blinked, seeming to come out of whatever reverie he’d been caught in. “Him?” he finished for her, a small, rueful smile quirking his lips. “Yeah.” But he quickly turned pensive and looked down, trailed his fingers along the handle of one of the knives, something like reverence on his face. “Or rather, a version of him that should never have happened.” His voice was deeper, time-textured, but so achingly similar.

 “How am I supposed to believe that?” she retorted, questioning the first part of his statement. She didn’t know yet what to make of the second. “If you know anything about me, you know I’m not just going to take your word for it,” she added as he moved across the kitchen. One too many encounters with displaced Terrans had made her skeptical.

Hands clasped on the counter top, Future Chris hummed in contemplation. “You love to dance but kept it a secret to protect your image.” He chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “I thought you were going to gut me where I stood the day I caught you in the gym. Instead you asked me to partner you.”

Kat crossed her arms, unsure if the gesture was a show of indignation or a coping mechanism, because that voice, the roughened timbre of it, familiar and yet not, brushed against her skin like luxurious velvet, like his, and it lent credence to his claim. Could she truly be standing before a Chris who’s fate had been changed? Was Chris’ fate not as inevitable as he claimed? Was this who he would become?

Shock had dried her throat, and she had to swallow before she could say, “Pas de deux lifts are about trust—”

“As much as they are about strength,” he finished for her, repeating the words she’d told him that day.

“That gym was hardly private,” she argued, knowing it was weak. “And you could have read that in my file.” She’d hardly kept dancing a secret until she made the switch to command.

Older Chris stared at her intently, all trace of amusement gone from his expression. “Does the name Leiper’s Fork mean anything to you?”

Kat’s breath caught in her throat. That was not something he could have read in a personnel file.

“Did you ever tell anyone about that?”

Stunned, she could only shake her head. Of course he would remember the label. Her Chris probably did, too. That damn Tennessee whiskey.

The older Chris smiled at her fondly, a smile so familiar it made her chest ache. There were more lines on his face, canyons carved by rivers of time, more creases at the corners of his eyes, more gray in his hair. But the joy, the melancholy in those eyes, the way he was looking at her with an expression filled with the sweetest sorrow, as if he were gazing at some precious thing he was about to lose—that was the same.

So. This was real.

The confirmation had her heart rate picking up because holy shit this was real. He was real.

And if he was real…

Kat glanced over at the other “Christopher Pikes” in the living room, now talking amongst themselves. Four different versions. Different pasts? Presents? Different universes? All of them somehow brought here. But how? And why?

She counted two Starfleet command badges among them, and it was then that she noticed the Terran insignia on the chest of the Pike in green and swore to herself. Not another one. Emperor Georgiou had been enough Terran for one lifetime, not to mention—

Oh, god! Would they be able to return all these Pikes to wherever they’d come from? What the hell would they do with them all if they couldn’t? They emphatically did not need an extra quintet of Christopher Pikes running around, and she certainly did not want to have to explain this one to Command.

“It’s good to see you, Kat,” the older Chris said, drawing her attention back to him. His smile was warm, tender. Still, when he stepped around the counter, coming towards her, she retreated a step on instinct, the shock of all of this still too new for comfort.

Future Chris froze, stricken, dismay plain on his face. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly, regretful, receding that step of distance. He looked so hurt that the pain of having caused it was a physical thing. “It’s just that…where I’m from—when I’m from—you’re...” He paused, seeming to gather strength rather than words. “You died,” he finished.

 Kat drew in a sharp breath. “What do you mean?”

“There was a battle, Control…”

“The torpedo.” It came out as a whisper, barely that. A note of horror played on a broken instrument.

Future Chris nodded. If he answered further, she didn’t hear it. She heard nothing except for the roar of her blood in her ears, her heart beating to the rhythm of a red alert klaxon that wasn’t actually sounding.

She had very nearly died that day. That she was standing here at all was nothing short of a miracle. She saw it all again: the briefing room, the torpedo, Chris’ determination to save her life—“If you do this, you die. This is my ship. My responsibility.” —the wretched look of anguish on his face when she ordered him to walk away, the open terror in his eyes as he watched from the other side of the blast door.

Had it been the same for her—her other self? The one who had died. Had they stood together in that room, knowing that one of them likely wouldn’t make it out? Chris—any Chris—would never let someone make that sacrifice, not if he could help it. Ever the hero. But she couldn’t let him take that risk. He’d had so much life left ahead of him. Dying while trying to disarm a rogue torpedo was not—would not be—his end. ”This isn’t where your story ends…” At the time, she’d only been thinking of saving his life so that he could live it; it was only later that she’d learned just how vatic her words had been. He had things to do, lives to save.

Had her other self believed the same? Had she ordered him to walk away? Had he watched, helpless, as the torpedo detonated?

From the look on his face, she knew the answer.

Oh, Chris…

How long had he been living with that memory? How long had he been carrying the guilt of living? She wanted to weep for the tragedy of it all.

She wished she could take this from him, the pain, the memory, rewrite the past so that he wouldn’t have to live with it. “I’m sorry,” she told him. For dying. For making you witness it. “I—I’m sorry.” As if that were enough.

“Yeah. Me too.” There was no blame in his words. Only regret. “I still have that bottle, you know. There’s one shot left. I was going to drink it on—” He stopped abruptly, shaking his head as though it didn’t matter. Instead, he looked at her and said wistfully, “It really is good to see you.”

Kat found that she had to blink to clear the tears gathering in her eyes. It hurt, knowing now what he’d felt then. What he’d always felt. “I—” She couldn’t get any more out around the lump in her throat.

And then her thoughts were quickly submerged by the rising tide of voices behind her.

How long had she been standing there staring at this older version of Chris? Long enough for the arguing to start again, a cacophony of voices too loud and too flurried to pick out more than a word or two here and there. Something about an alternate reality and Nero—and Kat didn’t think they meant the Roman.

Or maybe the volume was all in her head, amplified by the headache she could feel coming on, the by-product of the pressure from unreleased tears combined with the rising noise. She winced and managed to resist the urge to massage her temples. Barely.

“Enterprise” was thrown around a few times, and she could only hope that they didn’t start a “my starship is bigger than your starship” competition. That’s just what I need right now.

She needed to get them out of here, Future Chris included. And to do that, she needed to find out what was going on, how they’d gotten here, and hopefully figure out a way to send them back that didn’t involve mushrooms or tardigrades or an experimental spore drive.  

Damn it! The Cayuga was on its way! She didn’t have time to deal with a…migraine of Pikes!

She looked at Future Chris, silently asking if he would be so kind as to deal with his counterparts. He just raised a brow as if to say They’re all yours, Admiral. Kat eyed him threateningly, and when he smiled at her in return, she scoffed and rolled her eyes, turning away. Some things never changed.

“Be quiet!” Her voice sliced through the din with practiced authority, cutting the four men off at the throat.

Silence, instant and obedient, followed.

There. That’s better.

She took a preparatory breath. “Terran, Mirror, Prime, or whatever alternate reality you come from, frankly I don’t care. I am aware that you don’t want to be here, trust me the feeling is mutual. But if we’re going to send you back, we need to start with how the hell you got here.” She surveyed them each in turn, turning the statement into a question with a look. The four Pikes in the living room glanced around inquiringly, each expecting someone else to answer. “Well?” she demanded of everyone and of no one in particular.

“Uh, I believe that would be my fault,” said Future Chris into the waiting silence, index finger held up in indication.

“You?” snarled the Terran Pike in green. “What did you do to us?” The medals on his chest flashed a warning as he advanced, his hand going to the knife at his waist. He was halted by the Pike in yellow uncrossing one arm and raising his hand so that the Terran Pike walked right into it.

“Let’s hear him out,” said the one in yellow calmly but with an air of authority that said he expected to be obeyed.

Some things never changed.

With an audible growl of frustration, the Terran captain stepped back, but he made a show of fingering the  hilt of his knife.

“What do you mean this is your fault?” Kat prompted the future Pike.

In answer, he walked into the living room. “I actually came for him,” he said, reaching down for a small box on the coffee table she hadn’t noticed before. “Well, me,” he amended with a small chuckle. He held the box in the palm of one hand, the other poised to lift the lid, and looked at Kat with a raised brow, daring her to come closer. Warily, she did, as did the four other Pikes, all eager for a look at the box’s contents. Finally, Future Chris removed the lid.

Whatever she’d expected, the glowing green crystal nestled in the black silk was not it. “Is that a—?”

“Time crystal?” Future Chris finished for her. “Yeah.”

“What the hell is a time crystal?” asked the Pike in yellow. Kat could see that there was more grey in his hair than she’d originally thought now that she took the time to look. Same with his twin in the eyepatch (was he also a Terran counterpart?)

The Pike of the future replaced the lid, covering the crystal. “Be grateful that you don’t know,” he told the other Pike before he looked at Kat once more. “He told you?” he asked and she nodded once in the affirmative. “All of it?” Another nod. He studied her for a moment before he finally continued. “The monks sent me to show him—myself—something.”

It was uncanny, the way she could read this Chris, so different from hers and yet so similar, the silent question on his face and the request in his words.

She acquiesced and walked into the kitchen to comm Chris, and when she told him to report to his quarters—immediately—she used the deck and section number so that anyone within hearing range wouldn’t hear the captain’s girlfriend ordering him to his cabin. At least, they wouldn’t unless they knew the exact location of his quarters, and those she hoped would be satisfied with her simple explanation of “there’s something you need to see.”

She returned to the living room just as the Pike in the old Starfleet uniform was asking, “And what exactly does this have to do with the rest of us?”

“Nothing,” Future Chris answered. “Maybe everything. Time is…delicate. Causality, complex. One seemingly small change can have a ripple effect, altering events across timelines. Across universes.”

Future Pike paused and looked at Kat.  “The monks showed me this moment countless times,” he told her. “A hundred different presents, a hundred different choices, a thousand possible futures. But something happened that the monks didn’t foresee.”

When he didn’t go on, Kat looked at him expectantly, brows raised.

“You,” he said finally.

“Me? What do I have to do with any of this?”

“A thousand different timelines diverging from Boreth and you weren’t in a single one of them past Control.”

It was a moment before she could manage a breathy, “I’m the anomaly.”

Future Chris nodded.

“I was supposed to die with that torpedo.” She hadn’t realized she’d said the words out loud until she heard someone ask, “What torpedo?” and an angry “She’s the reason we’re here?” but the words came from far away.

She was drowning. In a room full of oxygen, she was sinking down down down, unable to move, unable to breathe, the memory an anchor dragging her under.

“An undetonated photon torpedo has breached the hull!”

The room went dark, her vision red-washed, pulsing crimson; smoke filled the air, clogging her lungs; and the tick-tick of that indicator whispered impending death.

“There’s an emergency lever for the blast door. I can bring it down manually from the inside.”

“No.”

“We are out of time!”

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t…

couldn’t—

Tick-tick…

Future Chris stepped towards her, hand outstretched. “Kat…”

Gasping, she stepped back, one hand held up as if that could stop him, the other reaching behind her for something to steady herself because her legs didn’t seem to be working correctly. The room tilted; she’d stumbled, collided with a chair, knocking it into the table she caught herself against. Chess pieces tipped and scattered, many tumbling to the floor, knocked from their board by her grasping hand.

She recognized the numb feeling in her limbs, the way her mind had detached itself from her body. You’re in shock.

Well of course you’re in shock.

It was confirmation of one of her worst nightmares—literally.

Sweater Pike tried to come to her aid, a hurried step towards her, blue eyes wide with concern. She stumbled back another step on shaky legs, this time angling herself so she could keep them all in her line of sight. More chess pieces scattered. “Stay away from me!” she managed, a frail, half-gasped order. Sweater Pike froze.

Somehow she kept her feet, but her lungs still wouldn’t work right. Panic attack, she diagnosed absently. You need to calm down, Katrina. You’re hyperventilating.

She needed to sit down. Sit down before she fell down. 

Yes, sitting down sounded like a really good idea.

But she was still there, caught halfway in the flashback, facing down that torpedo.

“Una, get a transporter lock on Admiral Cornwell. Prepare to—”

The closing door cut off the rest of his order. She couldn’t hear him through the shielding, but she could see his lips moving, soundless screams of Now! Now! Now! She could still see his hand on the clear glass as if he could reach through it and pull her to safety, his eyes wide with fear and helplessness while he silently screamed for someone to save her. Her heart pounded in her chest, but her breath came steady and even because despite his demands, she’d accepted her fate, not daring to hope that they could pull off the transport in time.

Tick-tick went the indicator.

Kat clenched her eyes shut. Her heart was pounding—fear-laced adrenaline. It’s just a memory, she told herself. Just a—

…tick-tick…

She turned, choosing to face her fate head-on just before everything disintegrated.

And then the room was bright again, whole, and she was doubled over against the support strut, trying to catch her breath and staring down far too many Christopher Pikes for comfort. Too many…

Different versions. Different universes. Different times.

Ripples.

The unintended consequences of living.

I was supposed to die with that torpedo. It was a thought she’d had before, born from a guilty conscience and a need to atone. But never once did she think that it was more than that—self-condemnation, a desire for expiation. Eventually, she’d forgiven herself, for what she’d been willing to do to end the war, and the morbid thought now only presented itself in her dreams.

But she’d been right.

She was supposed to have died, not just in her Chris’ past, but in all of them, every timeline of this universe. But somehow, she’d managed to break time and survive. She knew better than to question the possibility of it. Hell, that she was standing here was proof that it was possible. But how? And why? And what else had her survival changed? What else would be different now?

Three of the Pikes were looking at her with expressions of concern, but respected her demand for space and kept their distance. The one in green and the one in black didn’t seem to care, looking more impatient than anything. In fact, the one in green was staring at the door as though contemplating going exploring.

Damn it, she didn’t have time for this.

She needed to get them out of here. Get them out of here, get the data chip, send the transmission, explain everything to Chris—the real Chris—never mention this little soirée to anyone.

Concentrating on the problem at hand distracted her mind from what a future Chris had just told her—that she was supposed to be dead. Well, she wasn’t dead—not yet—and either way, she didn’t have time for this.

A deep breath.

In. And out.

Again.

Gradually, the fog of shock faded, her breathing eased, her heart rate evened out, and with one last deep breath, she straightened.

It was then that the soft whoosh of the doors interrupted the waiting silence.

“Kat?” Chris’ voice—her Chris’ voice—sounding from the entryway. Footsteps. “What’s going…on?”

At the sound of her name, Kat glanced to her right. Chris was standing stock-still right about where she herself had stood just minutes ago, though it seemed like hours. “Chris Pike,” she said, waving a hand to indicate the five other men, “meet the Chrises Pike.”

It was a testament to the oddities they encountered in space that Chris didn’t ask how they were there. Nor did he question their identities. “Normal” for Chris and the Enterprise was conscious AI’s, time crystals, time-traveling angels, wormholes to the future, prophesying comets, Illyrian ghosts, and inadvertent katra swaps. A few extra versions of himself? Just a regular Wednesday afternoon.

“Um, hi,” he said instead, though uncertainty laced the words.

Briefly, Chris glanced at her, then looked back to his uninvited guests, assessing the situation. Not taking his eyes off them, he moved, stepping around the support beam and coming to stand behind her left shoulder. It was a protective gesture as much as a supportive one; no doubt he’d seen the lingering shock on her face, the scattered chess pieces. He stood close enough that she could sense the wariness running through his body, muscles poised to react to the slightest threat.

“And what are you all doing here?” he asked with forced calm.

His presence was grounding. A weight was lifted from her chest, and she took what felt like her first full breath in hours, oxygen saturating her lungs. The sensation was heady, invigorating, clearing her mind of the last vestiges of the flashback. Memories packed away like out-of-season clothing.

“We appear to be the unanticipated consequences of bending time,” said the Pike in the old Starfleet uniform, cutting a glance at Future Chris.

“The monks sent me,” that Chris said by way of explanation. Her Chris tensed at that. “I’m here because that letter you are going to write is going to affect the future in the worst possible way.”

“Letter?” Chris’ brow furrowed in confusion. “What letter?”

“The letter. To Maat.”

“I’m not writing…” Chris glanced at Kat as if seeking reassurance that he was, in fact, not writing a letter, and then back to his future self.

But Future Chris appeared just as puzzled. “You mean you aren’t writing a letter telling him not to be there the day of the accident?”

“No. I mean, I thought about doing something, but…” Again, he looked to her, but instead of a plea for reassurance, this look was one of shared astonishment.

They’d already had this conversation right after they’d learned which outposts the Enterprise would be retrofitting and supplying. Saving Maat had been his first thought when she’d told him that the boy would be on Outpost 4 with his father. “The commander of Outpost 4,” Kat had said, sliding the PADD across the conference table, “is Hansen Al-Salah. He has a son.”

Chris had glanced up sharply, reaching for the PADD apprehensively. “Maat,” he breathed.

Kat nodded slowly in confirmation. “He lives on the outpost with his father.”

Chris looked down at the PADD opened to Maat’s file, but Kat knew he was seeing something entirely different.

“You want to tell him,” she said knowingly.

Chris glanced up, determination in his gaze. “I have to do something,” he said harshly.

“Why?”

“Why?” There was a bitter edge to the word, whetted with accusations.

“Yes, why. Are you trying to save him or ease your own pain and guilt?” He didn’t answer but looked back down at the PADD. For a moment, she let him, let him think through his motives. Then, “Chris, will you listen to me?”

She’d waited. Waited for the fire in his eyes to burn out, for the distance to fade. Waited for the tension around his mouth to ease. Waited for him to take a breath and firmly lodge himself in the present. Waited for him to look back up from the PADD. Only then did she say, “I know you believe that you experienced your fate that day, and I believe you. But even if you also witnessed Maat’s future, do you truly want to burden him with that knowledge? His father?”

Chris had put his head in his hand, regret pouring forth on a sigh. “No. You’re right.” After a moment he looked up, eyes watery. “Thank you.”

Then she’d risen and perched on the edge of the table next to him and laid her hand over his. He took her hand, his grip warm and firm. It was as much display of affection as they would allow on duty, but it was enough.

And then when Maat had barged into that meeting, giddy and awkward-limbed, stammering about wanting to meet Captain Pike, and Commander Al-Salah, embarrassed by the interruption, had explained his son’s model Enterprise and Chris being somewhat of a hero to Maat, Chris had surprised her.  She had thought that he might turn inward at the prospect of being a hero to the kid he believed destined to die in less than a decade, and he had for a moment, a look of abject sorrow crossing his face. But then he quickly shook himself out of it and smiled at Maat, asking him if he’d like a private tour of the real thing with the captain.

Maat’s jaw had just about hit the floor as he stared at Chris disbelievingly.

“That is,” Chris added, standing, “if your dad says it’s okay.”

Maat turned to his father. “Can I dad? Please!”

Commander Al-Salah had demurred, looking a little embarrassed at the thought of putting the captain of the Enterprise out. “I’m sure Captain Pike has better things to be doing.”

“You know,” said Chris with a wry smile, “I really don’t. Number One and Spock can answer any more of your questions, and Admiral Cornwell can address any other concerns you have, all of them far better than I.”

Beaten, Commander Al-Salah had relented with a wave of his hand. Maat had rushed to the door like a gangly foal, remembering himself at the last minute and slowing to a more dignified pace.

“Is it true that you can tell what warp you’re traveling at just by listening to the sound of the engine?” he asked Chris as they neared the door.

Chris chuckled at his enthusiasm. “It is. Would you like to learn how?” he asked, but the closing door had cut off the rest of their conversation.

“Thank you,” Commander Al-Salah had said to no one in particular. “He’s going to remember this for the rest of his life.”

Knowing what she knew, Kat hadn’t replied to that. But she fervently hoped that was a long, long time.

Future Chris huffed a humorless laugh, pulling her back into the present. “Unforeseen consequences,” he muttered to himself. Then to Chris, “The monks gave me something to show you.” He held out the box containing the time crystal.

Chris took it, opening the lid cautiously.

“It will show you the effects of changing your fate.”

To his credit, Chris didn’t balk at the sight of the crystal inside, no doubt a reminder of his experience on Boreth and the trauma he still carried. But he did draw in a sharp breath, staring intently at the time crystal for long moments before he snapped the lid closed and handed it back to his future self. “I know my fate.”

Kat let out a breath she had known she’d been holding.

Chris believed his fate to be inescapable, and while fear still overcame him at times, and feelings of shame and worthlessness still often put sorrow in his eyes, he had accepted it, found purpose and good in it. He would never not save those kids, no matter what it cost him. And she knew that consciously, warning Maat had always been about saving Maat, not himself.

But subconsciously… Had he wanted to change the future? Had a part of him hoped for it? Hoped that he could somehow, someway, remain the man he wanted to be? The man he believed worthy? Worthy of regard. Worthy of her.

Now, guilt twisted her stomach for having doubted him.

Future Chris took back the box, but he was staring at her curiously as he did so. It was a look that made her feel as though he were rifling through her secrets. And then he smiled, having found one he liked. “Unforeseen consequences, indeed,” he said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Chris growled, anger and irritation leaking through into the words as he took a step towards his future self.

“The intricacies of time,” said the other Chris, either not hearing the danger in Chris’ tone or not caring. Kat suspected the latter. “I imagine my timeline looked very much like yours until it didn’t. You know what this is,”—he held up the box in indication—“so I know we both went down to the monastery on Boreth. You thought about warning Maat, so I imagine we both saw a pretty ugly vision of our future and accepted it in return for a crystal. How am I doing so far?”

“That’s…” Chris cleared his throat and tried again. “That sounds about right.”

“And then there was Control. Una.” Sweater Pike looked sharply toward Future Chris at the mention of Una, but the latter didn’t see it, continuing to list familiar events. “The Gorn, pirates, more Gorn. Until we both ended up here, at Outpost 4 where we both met a young Starfleet hopeful, destined to die in just a few years.

“Not believing there could be any harm in it, I wrote to him—I wrote to all of them. Told them not to be there that day, and it worked. But the consequences of that letter turned out to be far worse than I could have ever imagined. End-of-the-galaxy-as-you-know-it consequences. And I know that you would never put your fate above the fate of the galaxy. That’s how I convinced the monks to let me show you instead.

“But,” he continued with a self-deprecating smile before anyone could ask what those consequences might be, “turns out there’s one key difference between our paths. A difference that even the monks with all their arcane knowledge of time didn’t anticipate. One that had other unforeseen consequences.” A gesture to encompass the other four Pikes in the living room. “One that it seems caused universes to collide. And she’s standing right here.” His speech was punctuated by turning and staring at Kat head-on.

Chris stepped closer—an unconscious motion?—and turned to face her too.

“The torpedo,” she whispered. She could not have managed more if she’d tried. 

Horror warred with shock on Chris’ face, and he reached for her before catching himself and lowering his hand. Beseeching, he looked to his older self. “She…?”

The older Chris shook his head.

“But…” As though willing it not to be true, Chris looked at her, then back to Future Chris. Twin expressions of grief stared at one another, one mourning what had happened, the other what had been narrowly avoided.

“Time is…complicated,” said the elder Chris. “But the monks showed me something simple: every time we change the path—”

“No!”

Every Chris in the room looked at her, but she looked only at hers. “It doesn’t matter,” she said to him. “Does it?” The slight note of uncertainty in her voice ate at her, because it seemed like something she should know, whether he would one day try to change his fate.

But there were six Christopher Pikes in the room with her because one of them had done it. He’d changed his fate, altered the future, and something terrible happened because of it. Something terrible happened every time he changed his fate; she could see that in his eyes, haunted and guilt-ridden. It was why he’d come back to warn his younger self, to save him from that pain and guilt and that terrible future.

Would her Chris want the reminder? Would he need it? And would it even matter? What if she had altered this, too, by surviving? Would that terrible future now come to pass because of her regardless of what he did or didn’t do?

Too many questions, questions she couldn’t answer.

Her Chris opened and closed his mouth and then shook his head. “No,” he said. Then he looked to his older self and said again, “No,” firmer this time. “I know what my future holds.”

Future Chris smiled wryly. “It took Tenavik about fifty possible futures to teach me the importance of ours. But it seems you already know that.”

“Yeah, well…” Chris started, eyes flicking to Kat as if she were the answer. 

“Yeah,” his future self echoed.

They stared at one another for a moment, an entire conversation seeming to pass between them.

Kat looked from one to the other, trying to parse that simple statement. “What?”

The older Chris raised a brow at the younger, as though asking if he’d care to explain the punchline. 

The younger turned to her, hands flexing at his sides like he was nervous though his face remained neutral. “In a timeline where you died, I might have tried to change my fate, too.”

That… She didn’t know what to say to that.

 “Paths diverge,” said the older Chris, solemn now, “but I am the result of one that should never have been taken.” It was a warning as much as it was a statement of fact.

“Thank you,” Chris said.

“As touching as all this is...” Kat started at the voice of the Pike in black. In the wake of Chris’ confession, she’d managed to forget about the others. “…how about figuring out a way to send us back?”

“Oh yeah,” mused Future Chris quietly, as if he’d forgotten about them, too.

“He does have a point,” conceded the Pike in yellow. “We do seem to be here as the result of an accident. No offense,” he added quickly to Kat.

“None taken,” she replied, unoffended, and he looked at Future Chris and asked, “Unless of course, you have a warning for us as well?”

“Beware of Klingons bearing time crystals?” Future Chris suggested.

Present Chris winced.

“Too soon?” asked the elder.

The younger lifted a hand in a placating gesture. “Let’s just hope that’s different.” He looked at the other versions of himself. “I imagine there are many differences between our universes. We can’t all be destined for the same fate.”

The six Pikes looked at each other as if searching for confirmation amongst themselves.

“Is it that bad?” asked the Pike in the old uniform.

“It’s…” Chris hesitated, then finished, “It depends on your point of view.”

The other Pike nodded, understanding in his eyes.

The Pike with the eyepatch thrust his chin at Kat. “I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

“Me neither,” said his twin.

It was then that she realized in the midst of all the surprises and revelations, she’d never actually given them her full name. “There’s no Katrina Cornwell, where you’re from?”

The one in yellow shrugged. “Not that I know of.” The one in black just looked as though she were wasting his time.

“Well. I don’t know whether I should feel relieved or insulted,” she remarked lightly.

“I know you.” It was the Terran, looking at her with an inscrutable expression, arms crossed over his chest. “You are…different here. Yet the same.”

He didn’t elaborate that point and Kat wasn’t sure she wanted him to. Instead, she looked at the fourth Pike who shook his head and said nothing.

“Well,” she said again, inanely. “I guess that means things are different,” she added to her Chris.

Future Chris cleared his throat and held out the box containing the time crystal, opening it. “Your ticket home, gentlemen.” He raised a brow. “Unless of course you’d rather stay and swap stories?”

Inwardly, Kat winced at the thought. “Let’s not. We don’t know how that information can affect the timelines.” Why couldn’t people just stay in their proper universes?  “Next thing you know, we’re going to have a Temporal Prime Directive,” she muttered under her breath, but Future Chris, at least, heard her. He glanced at her and smiled, but it was a fox’s smile.

And then it was gone, and he was looking at the other four Chrises who were staring at the time crystal in his hand as if it were an alien life form. And, she supposed, it was in a way.

He set the box with the crystal down on the counter and stepped back. “You have to touch it,” he added when no one moved.

“That’s it?” asked the one in the old Starfleet uniform.

“That’s it.”

Still, no one moved.

“It won’t do anything except send you back to your own time,” he explained. “Unless of course you intend to alter the future. If that’s the case, it will show you the effects of changing it.”

It was the Pike in the old Starfleet uniform who stepped forward first, hesitantly. Expression full of uncertainty, he reached out, fingers hovering over the crystal. But before he touched it, he looked at Chris. “Your fate. Is it worth it?”

This time Chris didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Pike nodded once, laid his fingers to the crystal, and vanished. The others gasped. Only her Chris and his future self had no reaction.

One by one the others came forward and touched the crystal, the one with the eyepatch first, then the Terran, vanishing as if they had never been there.

“It’s been fun,” said the one in yellow, “but let’s not do it again, yeah?”

The other two remaining Pikes chuckled softly. “Deal,” said her Chris. The one in yellow smiled and touched the crystal.

And then it was just Kat and two versions of Chris.

“I suppose it’s my turn,” said the elder. There was a hint of reluctance in his tone, as though he didn’t want to go. “Can I have a moment with her?”

Chris looked at her, silently asking what she wanted. She nodded and with a lingering glance at his counterpart, he retreated to the kitchen. Kat watched him go and then she and his older self moved to the other side of the living room.

He looked so lost and forlorn standing before her as he readied to leave. So lonely. She could see it now that she was looking for it. It wasn’t just time that had etched itself on his face, but a profound weariness, an unending sadness. He looked like a man who continued to lose everything, and he was so tired of fighting a losing battle. What terrible future was he living in?

She hoped he had someone in his time—Una, Spock—someone who was there for him, someone he could lean on.

“Kat,” he said quietly. “That day…”

“It’s okay,” she started, knowing what he was going to say.

“No, please. Let me say this. I walked away.” His words were rough, pitted with emotion. “In the briefing room, it should have been me, but she wouldn’t let me. I walked away and I’ve regretted it every day since. I—” He stopped, a sob cut short, eyes clenched shut as he breathed deep in an attempt to control it.

“Hey, shhh.” Kat stepped closer, reached up, and laid her hand against his cheek. So similar, yet so different. She couldn’t help but marvel at the shape of him in her hand, the feel of his skin beneath her fingertips; so similar, so different. Just a little rougher than she was used to.

After a moment, he opened his eyes, watching her through the tears that had gathered there, lachrymose and penitent. Slowly, she went up onto her toes to press the lightest of kisses to the corner of his mouth. “She forgives you,” she whispered, knowing it was true.

She had closed that door with a full and resolute heart, knowing that come what may, he would live. He would live, and in that moment, that was the only thing that had mattered. It had been the same for his Kat, she knew. Paths might diverge as he’d said, but in any timeline, this she knew: she would always choose him.

“She forgives you,” she whispered again. He didn’t need to be forgiven, but he needed forgiveness.

He breathed out, a heavy exhalation of guilt, and nodded, eyes closed. His head lowered, forehead pressed to hers. Her hand moved to the back of his neck, the soft brush of his hair against her fingers as familiar as the warmth of his skin beneath hers. He even smelled the same, wood and leather and spice. It was heady. Though her head knew that he wasn’t the same man she knew, wasn’t her Chris, her heart had no such compunctions. For what was time when if she closed her eyes, pressed her face into his neck and breathed him in, he could be hers?

Time meant nothing.

They stood there a moment more, breathing, adjusting to the weight of things remembered and things forgiven. Eventually, Chris reached up and gently removed her hand, stepping back.

“Thank you. I’ve missed you—” A wince. “Sorry. Her.”

“She loved you,” she told him. “In her way.” She didn’t want to add to the weight of his guilt, but it was something she thought he should know, that his feelings weren’t wasted all those years, that they were returned—she just hadn’t realized it yet. Perhaps the knowledge would help him to believe that his Katrina had never blamed him for walking away and leaving her, that it was what she’d wanted.

He nodded.

Slowly, Kat let her hand fall from his loosened grasp, fingers sliding, tangling, his touch so familiar her body was unwilling to let him go, holding on by her fingertips until at last his hand fell away. And then they simply stood before each other once more.

Future Chris tilted his head towards the kitchen, indicating the Chris who stood there. “His future…”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kat said adamantly. Then she huffed a morbid laugh. “Not even time itself could pull me away.”

Future Chris chuffed, a smile tugging at his lips. “That’s… Damn.” He chuckled. “I’m glad,” he said, sobering. And then he was looking at her intently. “You know, we never got to say goodbye. Before.”

No, they hadn’t. They hadn’t had time.

Kat closed the step of distance between them and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Goodbye, Chris.”

“Goodbye, Kat.”

Then he turned and walked to the counter. With a last look at his counterpart, he touched the crystal and faded away.

And then she was alone with Chris, her Chris, his counterpart gone along with the crystal as if he had never been there.

But he had been there. He had been solid and real and alive, and she’d touched him, felt his pain and grief.

And love.

She’d felt that too, and even with him gone, she could still feel it all with aching clarity.

He had been hers, and he wasn’t.

It was too much. Learning she was supposed to have died, meeting a Chris who had loved her and lived without her, seeing what her Chris could have become—it was all too much. The threads of time had tangled with the strands of emotion in a knot too complicated for her heart to unravel. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

She didn’t want to forget him. Not just his dire warning about Chris’ fate, but him. The man. That Chris deserved to be remembered. Cherished. Loved.

He had been hers and she had been his, and yet they weren’t. His Katrina had died, and her Chris was still here.

He was still here.

Kat released a shuddering breath and looked at him. He watched her from where he stood in the kitchen, his hand on the knives no one had bothered to put away yet.

How much had he overheard?

His expression was cautious, hesitant, like he feared her reaction to this experience and hoped he was wrong.

That makes two of us.

She didn’t know what to think, what to feel. She was supposed to be dead, a future Chris had changed his fate, her survival had torn apart the fabric of space time, she should be dead, universes had collided because she wasn’t, Chris had changed his fate, something horrible would happen if he did, but he didn’t want to, but something would happen if he did, and she was supposed to be dead, but she wasn’t, and—

Fuck.

She needed a drink.

Maybe that would still her racing thoughts, quell the anxiety rolling in her stomach.

Wordless, she spun and strode to the bar cart. Removing the stopper from the first decanter she reached for, she didn’t bother to measure the pour before she raised the glass and threw back the drink in one go. But the alcohol didn’t burn away that feeling in her stomach so she poured another and drank that one just as fast.

“Are you okay?” Chris asked tentatively.

“Nope,” she replied and poured a third drink. It wasn’t until she registered the nutty, smoky finish of the whiskey that she recognized what she had poured.

“I still have that bottle…There’s one shot left.”

She let go of the decanter and picked up the tumbler, but this one she didn’t drink, instead spinning the glass in her fingers.

“Talk to me.” He’d come closer; she could hear it.

“I dream about that torpedo,” she said to the wall. “And when I do, it’s like… It’s like it’s speaking to me. Somehow, I know that I’m going to die there.” Finally, she did look at him. His expression was tortured. “It’s not every day that you learn that your dreams were supposed to have come true.” She raised the glass to her lips, but was stopped before she could take a sip.

“Don’t say that!” His outburst was unexpected;  it wasn’t often that Chris raised his voice in her presence, much less at her, and immediately, he winced in regret. “Please,” he added, his voice softer but still pained, and opened his eyes to look at her again. “Please don’t say that.” Then more vehemently, “You were not supposed to die.”

Kat lowered her arm and set the glass down on the bar cart. “The monks never saw me. In any version of this timeline. My survival literally broke time, caused universes to collide. I think that’s confirmation enough.”

“I don’t care,” he said, coming closer. There was a desperate edge to his voice, a staunch refusal to hear any other possibilities. As if even speaking them would cause her to vanish before his eyes. “I don’t care,” he repeated and took her hands in his. “Maybe you’re in the one I took. Maybe that’s why they couldn’t see you in the future, because I took that crystal, that future, and gave it to Burnham.”

He was grasping at straws and she suspected that he knew it. But she could also tell that he needed to believe what he was saying, the thought of her dying too painful to even consider.

So she said nothing and let him believe it.

Instead, she leaned into him, forehead against his chest, felt his arms wrap around her, and shuddered. “I can’t help but wonder what else I’ve changed.”

There was a moment of silence before he said, “It doesn’t matter.” She raised her head at that, and he pulled back slightly, holding her at arm’s length. “My fate will come, for good or ill, and I can’t escape it. But my future…I meant what I said earlier: I know what my future holds.” His hand rose, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, held her cheek in his palm. “You. You’re my future.”

Her smile quavered, her vision blurred, over-filled with love. She wanted to tell him that he was her future too, but the words lodged in her throat, and by the time she swallowed the knot of emotions and blinked away the tears, Chris had turned pensive. There was a solemnity to his expression now, something grave and serious.

“Kat, I…” His thumb stroked her cheek, soft and light, and his hand fell away. “Today I got a glimpse of what my future might have been without you and in case, I don’t tell you this enough: thank you.” Unsure what he meant, Kat frowned up at him. “You are…” A pause, a clearing of his throat before he went on. “You are an incredible woman and I love you for that alone. But you’re more than that. You give me hope. You make me believe that my future holds more than just a cage, and just…thank you.”

Words were not enough. She couldn’t seem to form sentence that wasn’t completely inadequate in the face of his declaration; everything felt trite in comparison. Instead, she reached up to hold his face in her hands, blinking away the excess moisture in her eyes so that she could see him clearly. The skin beneath her palms and his hair brushing between her fingers were nearly the exact texture of his future self’s, only a little softer, a little less worn by time. She could feel his heart beat in his neck, strong and steady; feel the warmth of his skin, alive and whole; feel his breath stir the air between them, mingling with hers. With the slightest of tugs, she pulled his head down, meeting him halfway in a kiss that stole her breath, and she willingly gave it. Her breath, her heart, her very self; she poured everything she couldn’t say into that kiss, willing him to understand.

He did. His arms came around her, hands spread out on her back, holding her close, and everything she gave to him, he gave right back: his breath, his heart, his self—she breathed him in, let him fill her, complete her.

Eventually she had to pull back, she had to breathe. But she didn’t let him go. Instead she looked up at him intently, his somewhat dazed expression. “I love you, Christopher Pike, and nothing will change that. Not time, not fate, and certainly not some god damn time cryst—”

He cut her off with another kiss, one that stole not only her breath but her will to breathe entirely. To do anything but hold him, press herself as close as possible, and kiss him back. It was harder than the first, more urgent, the gentle give and take of self turned to a rushing torrent, uncontainable. His hand on the back of her head held her in place, but she would not have let him go if the ship had come under attack.

He kissed her until she clung to him, fingers grasping at his neck, curling into the fabric of his shirt; until she whimpered against his lips, needing more or needing to stop—she wasn’t sure which it was. And when he finally pulled away, it was all she could do to gasp, knees weak, half supported by his arm around around her waist.

He was looking down at her with that curious expression of his, the one filled with astonishment for something only he understood. What it was he didn’t share but kept his secrets and his revelations.

And then he smiled, a happy smile that was pure joy and love. A smile that lit up his eyes like a clear sun-brightened sky and put dimples in his cheeks. A smile she couldn’t help but return, and for that moment, she forgot about dire warnings from the future, about fates escaped and impending, about fast approaching ships. For that moment, it was just him. Them. The present.

Still smiling, he stepped back, hands sliding down her arms until he took her hands in his, pulling her further into the living room. “Come here. Dance with me?”

Kat bit her lip, considering even as she followed him. Though she’d been able to forget for a moment, the Cayuga was still coming. She needed to send that transmission, and more importantly, she needed to warn him about what was going to happen when Batel and the Cayuga arrived. Would he believe that she’d only just found out herself? He’d still been with Maat when she’d received the comm from Command. And then she’d come straight here, only to be waylaid by a pack of Christopher Pikes.

She stopped, prompting him to do the same, but didn’t let go of his hands.  “Chris, I need to—”

“Just for a minute. Please?”

His tone wasn’t pleading but something crossed his face, a faint shadow of need, and Kat was reminded that she wasn’t the only one who’d learned that she was supposed to have died.

Her second protest wasn’t a protest at all. “There’s no music.”

“Computer, play Melissa Carper.” The computer chirped and then the first notes of an old song filtered through the speakers, jazzy, piano keys and quiet drums. Chris released her hands and then held out his left, palm up. “May I have this dance?” Kat smiled and placed her hand in his, her other on his shoulder.

“I’m makin’ memories…” crooned the singer, a slight twang in her voice. Country jazz. Or would that be jazzy country? Fitting either way.

“I want to fix this moment in my mind,” Chris said, leading her in an easy waltz. She needed to tell him about the Cayuga, but he was looking at her profoundly and she couldn’t bring herself to ruin this moment for him. Another minute would hardly make a difference after the hour she’d already lost. So she let him hold her and lead her around the room, let him twirl her beneath his arm and fix the moment in his mind.

The song came to an end, the final notes played out on a piano, a crescendo of drums, and Chris slowed them to a stop, lowering their arms. He was looking at her with that curious expression again, intent and grave.  

“Kat. I—”

“Bridge to Captain Pike.”

Chris winced at Uhura’s interruption coming from the comm. “Damn.” But duty had him going to answer. “Pike here.”

“We’re being hailed by Starfleet Command. Captain Batel is beaming onboard. They’d like you and Commander Chin-Riley to meet her in the transporter room.”

Chris looked at Kat, silently asking for an explanation. But the comm was still active, so Kat kept her expression neutral and shook her head slightly. Damn it! She’d hoped to explain everything before Batel beamed over, but now there truly was no time.

“Thank you, Cadet,” said Chris. “Tell Una I’ll meet her there. Pike out. Any idea what this is about?”

Kat didn’t answer right away. She didn’t want to say yes without explaining, and she wouldn’t lie to him. But now was not the time to explain this; she would need more than the minutes it would take to get to the transporter room.

But her hesitation was answer enough for him. Curiosity turned to concern. “Kat?”

“I can’t explain now,” was all she said.

He looked from her to the comm, then to the knives on the counter, and finally back to her. She could practically see the questions running through his mind: what was going on? Why couldn’t she tell him? When had she learned? Why had she been in his quarters to begin with?

For a moment, he looked as though he was going to ask for more, eyeing her warily. Then he nodded, accepting her answer only because he didn’t know what was about to happen. If he did, she knew he never would never have allowed her out of his cabin without the whole story.

“I’ll come with you,” she told him as he spared a moment to put away the knives, and once more, he nodded and gestured that she should lead the way.

Una was already in the transporter room when they arrived, and just as the doors closed behind them, Captain Marie Batel materialized on the transporter pad, along with two security officers. Kat didn’t know Batel well, but her record was spotless. She had been a lawyer before she’d made the switch to command, and by all accounts, was a good officer on the fast-track to the admiralty.

“Captain Batel,” Chris greeted warmly. Perhaps he didn’t notice the phasers the security guards wore on their belts. “I didn’t think we’d be seeing each other so soon.” The Enterprise and the Cayuga were to have met in the middle of the Neutral Zone if all had gone according to plan.

“I know, Captain,” Batel returned. “And for the record, I’m sorry about this.” She turned and nodded to the officer on her right. On cue, the two security guards stepped down off the pad and took position on either side of Una. Captain Batel had spared her the indignity of handcuffs, but each of the guards still grasped one of Una’s arms, a physical reminder that she was no longer a free citizen.

Una glanced down contemptuously at the hand encircling her left arm and then faced forward, stoic.

Alarmed, Chris looked from the officers in red, to Kat, and then to Captain Batel. “What the hell is going on?”

“Under Starfleet code of conduct 587.63, I am arresting Commander Una Chin-Riley for violations of our anti-genetic modification directive. She’s an Illyrian, Chris.”

Chris took another step towards Batel. “I don’t care what she is.” His voice was low, threatening. “She’s my fr—”

“I don’t like it either,” Batel said, unaffected, “but I have orders.”

By then the guards were escorting Una towards the transporter pad. They should have waited. Maybe they had thought that Captain Pike would be glad to be rid of an augment from among his ranks, expecting him to turn on his first officer once he learned what she was. Maybe they had underestimated the strength of his devotion to his people, not expecting him to object further than verbal dissent. Or perhaps they had simply assumed that he would maintain a standard of decorum despite any protests.

Either way, they should have waited because Chris was still standing in their direct path, and when they passed too close, he seized the opportunity they presented to him, stepping out and blocking the path of the nearest guard, grabbing hold of his wrist with both hands and twisting it at an angle that made the other man’s entire body go numb. The security guard released Una and nearly fell to his knees with a grunt of pain, held there by Chris’ unyielding grip.

The unexpected flash of movement caused both Batel and Una to freeze. Batel was closest but rendered too shocked by Chris’ behavior to react in time, staring in horror at the scene that played out before her. Una, also surprised by Chris’ reaction, though far less appalled than her arresting officer, made as if to say something, but the second she spent questioning what she was seeing meant she was too slow to stop it. On the other side of Una, the second security guard was the last to react, his hand going to his phaser a beat too late.

“Captain Pike!” Kat’s words cracked across the room like a whip before Chris could do anything more, instantly stilling everyone, then drawing every eye in the room. Every one except Chris’. His entire focus was on the officer under his hold. It was a simple but effective hold, one that would keep the man at his mercy until he’d incapacitated him or moved onto his next target. She could see the hard line of his mouth and the tension in his jaw, the way his chest heaved with every breath and the way his arms flexed beneath his shirt, wanting to act, wanting to continue the fight, but held as captive by her authority as the man he held immobile with his hands.

Come on, Chris. Please.

Finally, still holding the security guard in a wrist-lock, he looked at her, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring. Chris didn’t get angry—truly angry—very often, less that he would actually allow himself to show it. He’d told her about Talos, about what he’d had to do to survive there, but still, it had been hard to imagine him like that even after Una had described it to her.

She saw that rage now, white-hot and primitive, and as unstoppable as a wildfire. Indomitable fury. It would have been terrifying, to have all that anger focused on her if she didn’t know him the way she did. But she did know him, and she knew that he didn’t actually want to hurt these men who were only doing their jobs. If he did, the man currently under his control would be nursing a broken bone or worse, and the second would be unconscious, stunned by a shot from the phaser at the first’s hip. (She really would have to speak to Batel about proper security protocol.) Chris only wanted to save his friend from an injustice; his anger was for the law, not the people carrying it out.

But she also knew that the moment stood on a knife’s edge. If the second guard came at him, one wrong word from Batel, any movement Chris saw as threatening, and the fragile control she currently had on him would snap. He would break that man’s wrist, stun the second, and then he would be the one under arrest.

Damn it. She really did wish she’d taken the time to explain.

“Stand down.” Her voice was calm but her words were hard, steel-laced authority. When he didn’t immediately respond, she added a harsh, “That’s an order.”

With an exaggerated movement, he released the security guard, paying the man no attention as he continued to glare at her with something akin to betrayal in his eyes. Finally, once the guard had taken potion on the transporter pad, he turned, looking up at Captain Batel. “This isn’t over.”

“Energize,” the other captain ordered.

He watched, radiating fury and helplessness as Una dematerialized. When the last shimmering glow of the transporter had faded, he turned to Kat, pinning her with his icy gaze. The look in his eyes caused her to suck in a breath. There was anger, yes, but it was the hurt that nearly broke her. He stared at her a moment, letting her feel the weight of his incrimination, and then, wordless, he turned and strode out of the room.

Kat spared a single second to silently curse the situation. If only she’d had time to explain. Then she was hurrying after him before the doors had fully closed.

“Chris, wait!” she called after him.

But he didn’t wait, didn’t slow down, and continued to stalk down the corridor with predatory strides.

“Chris! Slow down!” His long legs ate up the distance and she had to jog to catch up.

“You knew!” he snarled, not stopping.

She didn’t bother denying it, but nor did she try to explain. He wouldn’t hear any explanation she gave right now.

Finally, she caught up, grabbed his arm, and tugged. “Chris. Stop!”

He whirled around, looming in his anger. “You knew!”

Kat held her ground, chin raised. “Yes.”

A growl of frustration rumbled in his throat; his fists clenched at his sides, eyes flashing a warning, like lightening on the plains. For a brief moment, she thought he would demand answers, hurl accusations, but all he said was, “We need to find out who turned her in. Someone had to have told Command.” Then he turned, no doubt intending to go do just that.

She grabbed for him, seizing whatever she could hold on to, which happened to be his wrist, and hauled him into the closest room, a lab of some kind, but she didn’t look around longer than it took to determine that the room was empty. Then it was her turn to round on him.

“Nobody turned Una in.”

That surprised him. “What? How do you—?”

“She turned herself in.”

Chris balked, rearing back in alarm, his mouth opening and closing incredulously several times. “Why would she do that?”

Kat took a deep, preparatory breath and said, “Because I told her to.”