intelligence | INBOX: DUPLICITY

[ She leans into the back of her seat as the pieces take form. He never intended to console her, and she was a fool to give him the benefit of the doubt. This isn't about her at all. He wants to occupy the space that Philippa and Spock have vacated. He only wants to vanquish her ghosts to make more room for himself. ]

It's not enough for you. [ Her voice takes a tone of bitter disbelief. ] You're all I have left here and it's still not enough.

[ On a throne of rich leather, lowly lit and draped in nostalgic veil of grief, he's nearly convinced of romance. But Lorca hears it for what it is: He's just what's left. Over and over, he has to prove himself to her; try and quantify his success and the scientist balks. That's what the truce with Philippa was at first. He admitted it fell by the wayside, by the end.

Was that a play too? She's the only one he asks himself that question around.

Not enough. ]

Scraps, Michael. [ The detached air with which he'd been discussing himself thins. He leans forward to set his glass down. ] Don't make it sound like a feast.

[ She makes a sound that might have been cynical laughter at inception but comes out as a bleak huff of air, like the breath was gut-punched out of her. When she speaks, it's with the dark tremble of scantly contained emotion. ]

I have chosen you consistently for one year, three months, and thirty days. I sleep in your bed. I spend more time in your company— [ This time, she does manage that ugly laugh, but her scorn is self-directed. ] —I enjoy your company more than anyone else's. These are scraps to you.

[ Lorca shakes his head in maligned amusement. What a precise argument. If she can't intellectualize their relationship, it's not within her control. And if she can control what she feels for him, it's hardly love. ]

Order of importance?

[ Frown lines etch themselves deeper into the corners of her mouth, the middle of her brow. He is many things but rarely petulant. Even in dogged pursuit, he is patient. But his timing has never been worse.

Why this, now? ]

What exactly are you hoping to accomplish here?

[ A good question he nonetheless resents being asked. The truce with Philippa curdled his ambition. The angle of placating Michael felt at many times like no angle — just existing, plain and simple. A state of being incompatible with Terran life, despite their complete dominance. Unpalatable without a frisson of mortal danger, Pippa's signature scent. ]

A shift in the stalemate. [ he decides. Grand is what she expects from him, and it's less pathetic than attempting to share grief with her. She's right: They aren't vulnerable with each other. It's distasteful to both of them. ] But that's something we'd both have to want.

[ That shift could veer in any direction. He hasn't considered that the stalemate may be the only state in which they can exist together.

She inhales deeply, gathering her frazzled energy into some semblance of composure. A long sip from her nearly forgotten wine glass stretches the tense silence. ]

You think it's only because of you that this is difficult for me. [ A slow, miserable shake of her head. ] Ask me what happened the last time I tried this.

[ Ankle-deep in Michael's trap here, he nonetheless doesn't believe she set it deliberately. She's a victim of it herself, though he won't go as far as to extend her sympathy. She doesn't toy with him deliberately, not like this.

So he'll bite. ]

What happened? [ A dry cant of his head, a rise of curiosity in his flat affect. ]

[ They can't go anywhere, in any direction, if neither is willing to budge. Inviting Lorca to ask about this is Michael realizing that she will have to make the first move this time. This impasse demands surrender, and she is the only one willing to fillet herself open and expose her soft insides. ]

I had never been in love before Ash. [ Her eyes want to cast down, to stare at her hands or the inside of her glass. She forces her gaze to remain trained on Lorca. ] I leaned on him most when we were over there. In your universe. I hoped that we would keep each other sane. [ A bitter flinch of a smile, there and gone. ] The Klingons wanted to infiltrate Discovery. It was a radical procedure, the first of its kind. Klingon bones shaved down to human size. The face and psyche of a Starfleet prisoner-of-war grafted on to a Klingon host.

[ She watches his face closely, waiting for any sign that her words have sunken in. ]

[ Hell of an opener. Lorca takes a long, measured breath. There's plenty here and now to stoke his displeasure. Tyler's misuse of the chance Lorca gave him will not be granted a seat at the table. From the brittle quality her expression takes on, it would be premature and uninformed.

He braces at the pivot to Klingons. Tyler's trauma rearing its head, he assumes wrongly. The turn she takes pleats his brow; the terminus threatens to fascinate and nonplus him. The mechanics of it have the potential to impress. But it's the emotion that she's trying to communicate. He feels it, intrinsically.

Righteousness, unadorned. Far from the light of Federation idealism.

He used her.

He used them both. ]

And when the Klingon woke up?

[ Michael shuts her eyes tightly. The movement flushes out a single tear, trailing quickly down her cheek. She would have vastly preferred not to revisit this memory, but it had become unavoidable. He can't grasp her reticence without proper context.

She wipes her tears away and opens her eyes again. ]

He tried to kill me. It was — [ The moment flashes aggressively before her eyes. She feels the hand around her neck as if it never left. Weeks ago, she forgave Lorca immediately when they woke together without the benefit of memory. ] — it left a mark. When we returned to my universe, the Klingon was excised. But I couldn't get past it.

[ She makes eye contact here, imploring Lorca to understand what she means. ] I never gave him a second chance.

[ A man with two faces. Lorca nods, laboring to put himself aside. He's spent a lifetime doing it, sublimating his pride to protect his inalienable self: His ambition. As dense as a black hole, as vast as galaxies and as intangible as the space between. He's only ever seen it reflected back at him in the gleam of Emperor's gilt, and in the teardrop on Michael's cheek.

He's known it all along. It occurs to him suddenly what it really means. ]

You're afraid.

[ Bemusement clings to the pinch of his nose. There's an undertone of disbelief to his voice, a question posed without a question mark. It's not her he's asking. ]

[ Michael Burnham has selectively chosen which lessons to keep from the culture, but this one she took directly to heart: Vulcans don't make the same mistake twice. Pair that with one thing undeniable of Gabriel Lorca: he has never met an opportunity he did not take to his advantage. Two truths, together incompatible, and yet here they are.

If she is afraid, it is only because he holds the unique power to make her afraid. Because she let him take that power for himself. Because she gave it away to him.

It's something she couldn't bring herself to do even for Ash, whom she still loved despite herself. The disbelief in Lorca's voice rings in her ears. He has only understood a fraction of her meaning. If she felt less for him, there would be less to fear. ]

You make it sound trivial. [ Her tone would be best accompanied by an eye roll, but she can't bring herself to make light of her own feelings, even cynically. ]

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