INBOX: DUPLICITY

[intelligence]

Network ID: @Burnham

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[cryptofascist]

[ 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. ]

[intelligence]

[ 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. ]