Archive of Our Own

She can hold her breath for 10 minutes, and freedive better than anyone else in her family. She can engage shields with one hand and reroute energy capacitor reserves with another, while never losing her temper at Saru's endless chain of requests. She can love Keyla Detmer for three years, not-so-slyly peering across the bridge to her left, smiling though she knows Keyla doesn't reciprocate. She doesn't need her to feel the same way, but she does need her to feel loved.

Usually Keyla smiles back, if she's not too focused on her orders or too anxiously locked in a self-critique of what she should have done better. The flaws she mentally lists are invisible to the others: a sluggish reaction time on the warp drive launch, a clunky thruster adjustment mid-rotation, her nervous poker face each time they're hailed by a stranger. Joann knows she berates herself in silence, as if any other Starfleet pilot could maneuver an 18-deck Crossfield class with her effortless grace and power. 

"You did a great job," she whispers across the bridge, and sometimes Keyla grins like she believes her.

Pressure on Joann's chest is a familiar friend: the steady, crushing weight of the ocean above and below, surrounding her in its embrace until at last she has to surface and refill her lungs with sweet, briny air.

The pressure of jumping through time is not like the ocean. It is an impact of temporal displacement, a bombardment of the molecules that comprise her, back-breaking and abrupt. The Discovery slips through a wormhole— it is revolutionary, unprecedented, lethal— but Keyla got them through, just like she always does. 

That is the first thought Joann has as her eyes drift open, foggy with pain and the wrong, ghostly sensation of shifting into the future: Keyla did it.

Then: We lived. We jumped through time.

She heaves a sigh of relief, her heart racing again as she peels herself from where she slammed against her station, the bruises already forming on her jaw. She looks left, like always, her neck aching in protest, but Keyla is not in her chair. She hunches on the ground, rising to her knees with an uncharacteristic daze on her face. A trail of blood stains the clean chrome of her cybernetics. Keyla's head is bleeding, her face drawn in stupefied distress, and Joann is by her side at once.

It's a little forward, maybe, but she's galvanized and worried, and she wants to touch her because Keyla's a hero and she's so immensely capable, so she does. Keyla stares back at her, slowly blinking away her fog as sparks from their torn wiring pop and smoke behind her. Her fingertips tremble as she slowly touches her wound, as if she didn't realize it was there at all.

Joann can read her console faster than anyone on board, instantaneously gleaning terabytes of information about her ship and her crew and their trajectory, crunching data as well as most androids. But she can read Keyla Detmer's expressions even faster.

The tang of burning electronics wafts through the air, mingling with the relieved hollers of her bridge crew as they wake and recover. But Keyla stares blankly ahead, and Joann's heart, once leaping, now sinks. Keyla feels everything more deeply than the rest of them: the machinations of her thoughts are full of peaks and valleys and gut-wrenching gravity pulling her back into orbit too fast, the inertial acceleration of her mind a devastation to her body.

"You need to go to sickbay," Joann murmurs.

Keyla doesn't quite nod, wordlessly brushing past her as she bumps against her own malfunctioning console. She staggers, clawing at the side of it, rebalancing herself, and reels again at the bridge exit into the turbolift. Joann bolts after her, ignoring the protests of her aching muscles, and passes through the doors just before they slide closed.

"Let me help you."

"I'm fine," Keyla snaps, lurching against the dented panels in the lift. "Go back to your station. They need you now."

It's a typical not-an-order-order from the hunching Lieutenant who technically outranks a Lieutenant Junior Grade, but Keyla has never once given Joann an actual command, and her pale eyelashes flutter closed with no real heat behind them. She is turned away from her, orange hair covering her face in a poor attempt to hide her grimace and the wide, steadying spread of her palm against the wall.

You need me now. Joann bites her tongue, opting instead for something more palatable to Keyla's ego, "You're right, and if you let me help you get to sickbay, I can get back much more quickly."

"You're too stubborn," she sighs in defeat, her voice reedy and weak.

"And you're too proud," Joann smiles. "But I'll allow it today because you saved all our lives."

She loops Keyla's arm around her shoulder and gathers her trembling frame against her waist. She doesn't say a word when the doors slide open and they take the first step, and she bears all of Keyla's weight.

The cybernetic is functional, according to Dr. Culber.

Joann watches her in the physical therapy room, her rail-thin body jumping rope like a machine, rhythmic and precise and without skipping a beat. Her two-toned eyes are fixed on the wall, in concentration or absolute blankness, Joann cannot tell. She watches Keyla lie to Hugh, to their doctor and friend, though she's not sure she actively realizes it: it's not a cognizant choice to deceive him, and it's not working on a man as perceptive as Hugh Culber anyway.

Three years ago Keyla showed Joann her medical file in a moment of weakness. In stilted, embarrassed words, she explained all the ways her implant helped after the Battle of the Binary Stars.

Brain trauma, she scoffed. It affects my spatial awareness and balance. I can't process the feedback loop of pain or motion like I used to. It just stops, dead in the water. Pretty shitty thing for a Starfleet pilot to not be able to tell where her hands are, she laughed humorlessly. 

They never spoke about it again after Keyla explained, but Joann remembers everything, filing it away like a good Operations Officer should, readying it for repairs and improvements and so she would understand every facet of it when problems arose. And they would, because things sometimes break and her job, her favorite thing, is to make them function again.

Keyla keeps jumping rope, the incessant whirring sound like her very own counter-rotating rings: the solution to excess energy cavitation, the source of stability for more propulsion. She's trying to prove herself, Joann knows. If she can jump rope, her implant is working. She can feel the ground and the bend of her knees and the sweat on her back. That's what Keyla says when she says, "I'm fine."

And that's not at all what Dr. Culber was asking.

Joann served on the USS Ride at the Binaries. She watched from her Ops panel as the Shenzhou flew to its death, elegant and sharp and fearless in a way an old Walker class shouldn't be able to manage, a blade through the veil of space. The escape pods burst away, abandoning ship in a last ditch effort to save the crew, and all Lieutenant Junior Grade Owosekun could think was, I hope the pilot makes it. The universe needs more artists.

A month later she met Keyla, her newly assigned roommate and bridgemate on Discovery, surly and self-conscious of the implant framing her prosthetic eye. On the first night, when she thought no one was watching, Keyla stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, fingertips sadly grazing the metal scar on her face. Her eyes flickered in the reflection, and she caught her new roommate openly gazing at her. An angry blush crept across her pale cheeks.

Slick cybernetics, said Joann casually, turning back to her small closet.

Thanks, Keyla muttered in the tone Joann would come to label as sheepish. Could be worse, I guess.

Joann, careful not to look at her, offhandedly added, Yeah, for real. Yours is hardcore. Really works for you.

Thanks. I guess it is.

The pitch of her voice was higher the second time, less guarded, and Joann smiled into her tidy row of Federation blues, crisp on their hangers.

Joann Owosekun is a thorough woman.

She takes care of a lot of little tasks throughout the day, acting as a massive catch-all that suits her fine because it's always interesting: monitoring phaser energy reserves, tinkering with the dorsal saucer emitters, comm-linking when Ronald needs backup. She can auxiliary pilot too, not nearly as impressively as Keyla, and stepping into that role feels like stealing the canvas from a master: an insult and a waste of time. Joann would rather clean her paintbrushes, and simply watch her make something beautiful.

She likes being one of the two forward stations on Discovery, where she can shoot little glances at Keyla when someone else is talking and Keyla can roll her eyes or smirk or scowl, and they have their own secret language of knowing looks and unspoken words. At first it was rare for her to show anything but single-minded diligence for her work, as if she had something to prove, but now Keyla almost always plays back if Joann initiates. It makes her warm beneath the collar when she does, and she's just grateful no one else can see her face.

Joann's done her research, cataloguing in her mind the mental notes of import, small observations here and there that compile a bigger picture of Keyla Detmer when she thinks no one is watching.

Her hands lock up first, usually shaking, and a mask of terror grips her face. Her eyes dart around her console, as if violently remembering where she needs to place her fingertips, as if forcing her mechanosensory neurons to comply by sheer force of will. The implant fires all her synapses and she'll have a headache later when they retire to their bunk, but she'll say she's just tired and will promptly fall asleep.

Culber and Pollard both know she still struggles. Joann is inclined to agree with them when they say it's more psychosomatic than anything. That it's crippling anxiety paralyzing her, the fringe of a panic attack she's desperately trying to suppress. They say she hasn't truly experienced deadened nerves and a lack of proprioceptive feedback since her implant was installed after the Battle of Binaries. They say it's post-traumatic stress disorder.

She doesn't need the doctors to tell her that, though she appreciates that they warn her at all, as if they know she will see the signs first, as if they know she loves Keyla, and maybe they do. They tell her so she knows what to do when Keyla wakes screaming at night, palm slammed against her prosthetic eye like she's trying to press it back in socket, every tendon and muscle in her wiry body strained to breaking.

Joann knows all these things already because she is a good officer and roommate and friend, and she is in love with Keyla Detmer.

She softly pads across their room, dragging her comforter behind her, and whispers, "Hey, Keyla, hey. It's all right. Can I get in?"

Sometimes Keyla won't say anything as if she doesn't trust her voice, but scoots to the far side against the wall, leaving room for Joann and her blanket. Sometimes she just hiccups and thickly mumbles, "Yeah." The rarest response, Joann's favorite, is when she doesn't hide her shell-shocked weeping, but stares up at her with puffy eyes and wet cheeks because both tear ducts still work, and she pulls her close in a desperate, clinging embrace. They lie together intertwined on those nights, and Joann strokes her hair where it fans across her shoulders until they fall asleep.

Their alarm always goes off too early on those mornings, and Keyla always pulls away first, muttering, "Sorry."

"It's all right."

They drag themselves out of bed and into the cold, sterile hallways to report to work, side-by-side but careful not to touch. Joann doesn't have the words to the fill the silence so she leaves it alone, and though her fingers ache to fix the problem, her patience always wins out. The awkwardness dissipates by breakfast like nothing has changed between them, and they take their positions at the helm.

Two peas in a pod, as Tilly says.

They're still bunkmates, though initially Saru had concerns about them living together and working together, fearful of a potential personality conflict that never happened. Keyla scowled at him once the first time he mentioned it, and Joann gently replied, "I think we'll be all right," and he never pressed the subject again.

Keyla's a good roommate. She's clean and quiet and spends most of her down time sleeping because she pushes herself too hard when she's awake, and her body knows its limits even if her mind refuses to acknowledge them. Sometimes, if Keyla stays awake long enough, they read together to unwind, side-by-side on one of their beds. She likes light, silly things that make her laugh, and Joann is certainly not above a good pun herself, though she prefers scientific history. She's tried to read interesting passages to Keyla but she drifts off to sleep, her head lolling to one shoulder.

Sometimes, on nights like tonight, she wakes with a start, disoriented to be anywhere but her own bed. There is something more violent in her today as she jolts away, her shoulders ruthlessly taut, chewing at her lips, flushed and unsettled. Her gaze dances around the room, latching onto shadows and starlight, tinged with paranoia. She is getting worse, and she knows it.

"Sorry," she rasps.

"It's all right," Joann says like she always says, a broken recording she's sure Keyla grows sick of hearing.

"I didn't, uh, know I was so tired," she flashes a cheap smile, the one that keeps prying eyes from worrying too much.

Joann has never found it particularly convincing. She gently replies, "Today was a lot."

Joann Owosekun is a perceptive woman, but it didn't take one to see the raw panic on Keyla's face this afternoon. The pilot with a grounded ship half-buried beneath parasitic ice, with thrusters that just don't have the power to break it, with no good escape route and shaking hands and wide, mismatched eyes. It was Michael Burnham who saved them, ever a miracle, arriving in the nick of time. But for Keyla, the fear of before far outweighs the relief of after.

She's going to dream about it, just like she dreams about the Klingons and the wormhole and Airiam. 

You could stay with me, she wants to say, but doesn't. She's certain Keyla doesn't reciprocate, that she isn't in an emotional place to tie herself to anyone, least of all her best friend who wants more from her than she probably should. Joann swallows thickly, disgusted with herself and the way her heart races at the notion. The part that bothers her most is the positive association she's developed with Keyla's nightmares because, at least on those nights, she allows Joann to sleep beside her.

But Keyla glowers and crawls into her own bed, a universe apart, and faces the reinforced steel wall. "Yeah," she softly says, voice muffled by her pillow. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," answers Joann, and she waits for Keyla's breathing to steady before she turns out her light.

The officer's dinner is a massacre and Saru shouldn't have invited her and Keyla at all.

She's disassociating constantly, slipping in and out of her own awareness, locking on to the visuals that haunt her: Stamets' blood on the deck, the cracked light on her backup display, the sheen of her implant reflecting in the mirror. Joann tried to warn them. Part of her job is failure analysis and preventative maintenance. She can see the stress fractures and shield gaps; she knows how to repair weak spots on Discovery and keep them from shattering with all the care she'd give an old friend, her best friend.

She told Culber about her concerns directly, and his reassurances did nothing but raise a wall of defensiveness and tension that expanded during their meal, until at last Keyla broke like Joann predicted she would. She staggered out of Saru's office after her outburst, leaving all eyes on Joann in her wake as if they expected her to apologize, which she absolutely would not.

There is nothing wrong with Keyla except that she is hurting, and they are asking far too much from her. They are not giving her the time she needs to heal. Except for Tilly, who feels too much for her own good, empathetic and drawn thin with sorrow. 

Tilly follows Joann's rigid stride through the doors, breathing, "Owo—"

"I've got her," says Joann.

She appreciates that Tilly doesn't argue or chide, but immediately sighs in relief because she knows it's true. Her concerned footsteps grow still in the corridor, and Joann barely hears her answer, "I know you do."

"I'm fine."

If Joann was anyone else she might believe Keyla because her tone is steady and she sounds more annoyed than anything. But she knows the tightness around her eyes and the cruel flex of her back muscles and the shallow sniffle of her tough, impassive façade. The room is pitched in darkness and her body is ramrod straight on her bed: fully clothed, arms crossed, eyes boring a hole into the deck above theirs. It aches in her heart how bright, outgoing Keyla is isolating, withering away because she allows herself no time to process, and no mercy for weakness.

Joann Owosekun sits on the mattress beside her, and unlaces her own boots in silence. She's not going to argue or pry, and Keyla's eyes go wide when she watches her work, as if she expected a fight or loneliness or something else other than her friend undressing before her, as chaste as it is. Joann sets her shoes on the floor, then turns and does the same for Keyla: unlacing her gently until she's in her soft wool socks, and both of their Starfleet badges rest on her bedside table. She tugs at the comforter and sheets, pulling them up from beneath her shifting weight so they can both slide in. Keyla startles once, but offers no resistance.

Joann slips her arm over her waist and closes her eyes, tethering her to something warm and stable, ignoring the hot flush of her own cheeks and the way her brows furrow against the pillow. She knows Keyla would never ask for her presence because she's a pilot and she's Keyla, like those two facts mean she's supposed to be above trauma or better than comfort. They don't do this sort of thing anyway, not without a nightmare first, the unpleasant prerequisite to all their physical contact, barring the minor brushes here and there at lunch or on the bridge or while training.

It takes the span of several seconds for Keyla's hands to reach out to her in response— as if they don't quite know where to go; they can't quite feel the feedback that tells them they're safe— but the moment they land on the navy field of her uniform, they twist around the jacket in anguish, drawing her body closer to Joann until at last she shatters in her embrace.

Keyla quivers, her face warped in agony as she buries her head against Joann's collar, sobbing into the fabric until it's drenched with salty tears. Her body is racked with haggard weeping, chesty and deep, and Joann rubs her back and smooths her hair that smells like ginseng shampoo, and she kisses her once on the forehead, lips brushing the cool metal of her implant and the feverish warmth of her skin.

"I'm so sorry," Keyla chokes out. "I'm so— I'm such a fucking mess."

She feels a pain in her ribcage, the furious thrumming of her heart as it sings of injustice: that a woman as powerful and capable as Keyla Detmer could feel inadequate, burdened and reduced by all the wounds she's survived and all the weight she's carried. 

"No," Joann finds the strength to speak, reckless and frayed, and the words tumble from her mouth. "You are wonderful and good, and I am so incredibly proud of you, Keyla. You've saved us all so many times, and it's your turn to rest. You're allowed to not be okay, and I'm here for you whenever you want me," she heaves a shaky exhale, "even when you don't need me."

Joann swallows thickly, deliberating exactly how much of their friendship she's ruined when Keyla's head snaps up sharply and she blurts, "No, I—" Her eyes are puffy and red, and her lips still tremble from unfallen tears. "It's not— I'm scared that I'm going to scare you, and you'll leave."

Joann sucks the oxygen between her teeth with a hiss, blinking in shock at this confession of connection, however tentative it might be. She cannot speak; she is lost in Keyla's eyes and the weight of her body atop her, and the way she fits perfectly there like a puzzle piece falling into place.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," Keyla's voice softens, timorous and faint, and she blushes, "but I know that want you, and need you, and I know where I am with you."

Her throat constricts in a vice, and she can't say anything for a moment, so she wraps Keyla in an enveloping hug, squeezing her closer against her chest and breathing hard into her bright hair. She finally manages, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here and always will be."

Keyla inhales shakily, nodding against her as she clings. She cries again, more softly, more faltering, as if trying to catch her breath in the catharsis. The room eventually grows quiet and they sink together, still tangled and uniformed, into a heavy sleep.

Late in the night Keyla has a nightmare and jerks awake, staring down at Joann as she pants, her hair a curtain around them both, but she doesn't scream. She rolls to one side and pulls Joann over her like a blanket, curling into a tight ball around her hand, nestling against the body that crescents behind her. Her breathing steadies, and this time Joann can feel it against her chest. It wells in her heavily until she wants to cry because Keyla is asking for her, even if it's with her hands, not her words. That means even more, coming from a pilot, because that's how she speaks; that's how she makes beautiful art.

They fall asleep together again and when she wakes in the morning, Keyla doesn't apologize.

Buster Keaton glows on the holo as the buttery scent of popcorn drifts through the air in the common room, and Joann is happier than she's been in months because everyone is grinning, Keyla is grinning, and it's real this time.

She marvels at the way her mouth curves into a happy smile, and she loves the slope of her arms when she hugs Stamets in a wordless, heartfelt reconciliation. Her eyes glitter with mirth— the shining, cocky joy that used to permeate her whole being— as she looks down at Joann, who saved her a seat in the Discovery's makeshift theater.

Maybe it's forward, but Keyla touches her hair and Joann is giddy with the exhilaration of it, so she wraps her arm around her waist and pulls her closer. They share a bag of popcorn and laugh at the pratfalls, and it feels a little strange because Keyla is on her right side now, not her left, and she's leagues closer than she normally allows. Their shoulders bump together and Joann is blushing because she can feel two-toned eyes on the side of her face each time she giggles, admiring her in the periphery, and she isn't used to being watched, or familiar with the heat of Keyla's amused exhales by her ear. 

Joann Owosekun is a patient woman, but Keyla Detmer is not.

Even though it's the middle of the movie and the villainous butler is poisoning drinks to the mortal peril of all the partygoers, and they are surrounded by all their crewmates and friends, Keyla rests her hand on Joann's thigh and tilts her head down to catch her attention, clearly soaking up the tiny gasp of surprise that fills her ears when she asks, "Can I kiss you?"

Joann has waited so long to kiss her, so many years and stolen glances and laughing conversations; so many nights in her bed, smoothing her hair and holding her so tightly that the nightmares have no room to breathe. She gazes at sharp, smooth cheekbones, and soft pink lips that are always slightly chapped because Keyla won't use chapstick or moisturizer unless Joann forces her to, but the only words she can manage are, "I think that would be all right."

So when Keyla takes Joann's face into both of her hands and gently presses their lips together, it feels like they're spiraling up and out of orbit, intense and capable and fierce like everything Keyla does. Her thumb softly brushes Joann's cheek and heat ripples through her body, and Keyla shifts her head for more because she has never known when to stop, and Joann loves that about her.

Someone clears their throat behind them— she's pretty sure it's Reno, the scoundrel— and they pull apart, breathless and flushed and keenly aware of the fact that everyone around them is pointedly facing forward, trying not to gawk, except for Tilly who openly stares back with a massive, goofy smile on her face.

Keyla snorts and ignores them because she's an ace pilot who always expects an audience, and instead she leans into Joann and takes her hand again, murmuring loudly enough for only her to hear, "Just all right?"

Joann is blushing hard and smiling harder, but she's not half as embarrassed as she should be. Too many good things overpower her: Keyla's head rests against her own, her palm warm on her wrist, lips still tingling with the pressure of her kiss. She pulls Keyla's fingertips up to her neck where her pulse so tellingly marches double-time, but she wants her to feel it, she needs her to feel it: the heat and reassuring feedback from her body. 

"You did a great job," Joann whispers.

And this time Keyla blushes a little bit, pressing closer into her, but she smiles and doesn't look away when she says, "I just like to hear you say it."