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La’an retches the meager contents of her stomach, grateful that her hair is pulled back in her braids and even more grateful she was able to get to a trash bin instead of vomiting on the console.
She can feel the stares of the rest of the bridge boring into the back of her head and though she knows it’s with concern, she can’t help but feel their judgment.
She stands, taking a deep breath as she straightens her back though her stomach lurches at the sudden change of posture.
“Captain,” she says. “May I be dismissed to check in with medical?”
Pike’s eyes are filled with worry. “Yes. You’re dismissed.”
She nods her head curtly and turns on her heel, gulping back the bile that pushes up her throat.
La’an can see the alarm in Christine’s expression as she enters. La’an isn’t one to come to medical unless it’s mandated check-ins.
“La’an,” Christine says, stepping towards her with trepidation. “Are you alright?”
“Just an upset stomach,” La’an says.
“What kind of upset?”
“Vomiting in the bridge kind of upset.”
Christine’s brows shoot up. “Alright. Follow me.”
Christine gets La’an settled in one of the beds, doing the routine check up on her vitals, asking questions about what she’s eaten, inquiring about any other symptoms she may have.
“I’ve been feeling sore,” La’an tells her. “Tired.”
Though, she wonders how much of it is psychosomatic, remembering the ache of injuries from a world that no longer exists and the debilitating grief every time she thinks of Jim.
Christine frowns at La’an’s words. “Just to be safe, I’m just going to do a quick scan,” she says. “I know I checked you when you came back from your last mission, but I just want to make sure that there’s nothing I might’ve missed or that had been imperceptible before.”
“Of course,” La’an says.
A pit grows in her stomach. There’s another mission that she can’t disclose to the nurse, something that definitely could’ve caused destabilization in her system.
Though she was instructed on what not to disclose about her travel, she wasn’t given much more context of the why of it, let alone the technology that sent her there and back.
There’s the familiar soft whir of the equipment and Christine’s breath hitches.
“What?” La’an says. “What is it?”
“I think this would be best discussed in private,” Christine says, only bringing more questions than answers, but if Christine deems this something that isn’t privy to the scarcely populated medbay, she knows it must be something dire.
La’an lets her be guided to a secluded room, Christine closing the door softly behind them, brows knitted together.
Christine reaches to take La’an’s hands but stops herself before she does.
“Just tell me,” La’an says.
Christine lets out a shaky breath, knowing well that La’an doesn’t tolerate dawdling.
“La’an,” Christine says. “You’re pregnant.”
It feels as though the air in her lungs has vanished like she’s been thrown out of the Enterprise into the vacuum of space. Her ears ring so loud that she can barely hear the muffled sound of Christine’s consoling voice. If she weren’t already sitting, she’s not sure she wouldn’t have just collapsed to her knees.
It takes her a long few moments, but she finally pulls herself back to the present. She knows there are tears shedding in her eyes and she can’t help as they trickle down her cheeks.
“Do you know…” Christine stops herself.
“I do,” La’an says. “There’s no question who the father is.”
“And is that… good?”
“He’s dead,” La’an says, wiping at the seemingly never ending tears with her sleeve.
“Oh, La’an. I’m so sorry.”
“You didn’t know him,” La’an says. “No one did. Him and I… the time we had together was short. I was off on a mission when I met him. He died saving my life.”
Christine knows there’s more than what La’an is saying and La’an can tell she’s flipping through every recent mission in her mind trying to figure out which one could’ve given La’an the opportunity to even feel so strongly about someone.
“Do you want to keep it?”
“Yes,” La’an says, the words harsh and immediate. It hits her as she says it that she has already made up her mind. She never considered herself capable of being a mother, never envisioned that in any future she imagined for herself, but she knows she would never be able to bear losing the last connection she has with the man that had captured her heart just as fast as he broke it.
“I don’t know how to do this,” La’an admits, her voice barely audible.
“You’re not alone,” Christine says.
“It feels like I am,” La’an whispers. “He should be here. He should be here and not…”
“Tell me about him?”
La’an feels a sad smile grow on her lips. “He was… infuriating. Clever but pigheaded and arrogant. Stubborn to a fault but also so understanding. He saw me in a way I’d never been seen before. He saw me for who I am without any pretense of what I am or should be. He was gentle. He was kind. And now he’s…”
“I’m sorry, La’an.”
“You didn’t kill him,” La’an says, lips twisting sardonically. She puts a hand to her stomach. “I don’t know how it’s possible. To be… with his…”
“Contraceptives aren’t foolproof.”
La’an can’t tell her that the man had been erased in a timeline that never should have been. That this baby shouldn’t exist if that man doesn’t either.
“He shouldn’t have been able to make me pregnant. Not here. Not now.” She lets Christine make her assumptions. “I wish I could call it a miracle but it feels like a curse. I’ll never get to move on from him. I’ll never get to leave him behind.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
What she wants is for him to be here, not his double that’s married to another woman and who is not the man she fell in love with. The man who gave her momentary closure, showing her that her James was gone, only now to rip open her heart again now knowing that he will never be father to their child.
But it’s not his child, is it?
“No,” La’an says. “What if… what if it doesn’t survive? Just like him? I don’t know if I’ll survive it.”
“Let’s not jump to worst case scenarios. Let’s just focus on keeping you and your baby healthy.”
La’an nods before standing quickly. “I should get back—” She stops, steadying herself as another lurch of nausea hits her.
“La’an, hey don’t pass out on me,” Christine says. “Don’t… don’t push yourself more than you can give. Everyone will understand—”
“What I need is to get back to work.”
“Alright,” Christine says. “Just remember that you’re not the only one you’re taking care of now.”
La’an hears her crystal clear. Knows that she throws herself into her work to an obsessive point, one that has brought herself into harmful burnout many times in the past and that she can’t afford to do that now that she’s pregnant.
She’s pregnant.
She doesn’t know what comes next. She doesn’t know how to be a mother. She doesn’t know how she’ll ever stop loving her child’s father.
But she knows that right now, she can get back to work, just for a moment. Before they all find out and everything has to change for good.