A/N: The opening line just begged to be spawned into something more interesting!

I only posted this yesterday (22-1-18), but there were some wrinkles that I didn't like, so I've done some neatening.

Half Nelson

Dr Spleenmeister

"Have Lorca brought to my ready room; I'm in the mood for some private interrogation."

She had spent hours in 'her' Shenzhou's ready room during her time serving under Philippa Georgiou, and as a consequence she had always felt it to be a little bolt hole from the occasional madness that was the antithesis of cabin fever, brought about by deep space travel. This Shenzhou's ready room however, set her teeth on edge; whether it was because the room belonged by rights to her darker counterpart, or because she had spent so much time in Lorca's compact ready room, where his unique standing desk forced its occupants to always be ready to move; or because the light here was just wrong, she wasn't sure. But as she sank into the room's only comfortable chair, she still could not relax.

The door chimed and slid open to admit her captain, suspended ungraciously between two Empire guards. She lounged in her chair, crossed her legs comfortably and gestured lazily for them to leave; they dumped Lorca onto the decking with a thud, where he made a show of groaning in pain. The door closed behind the departing guards and beeped its locked state for those nearby to hear.

Lorca's groans did not subside so the second the door was shut Burnham shot across the room and skidded to one knee beside him, whipping a tricorder from one of her hip holsters.

Scanning her companion she hissed through her teeth at the readings that were displayed and moved to retrieve a hypospray from a nearby drawer; he hadn't been faking the pain. Pressing the hypo to his neck she wished it contained more than pain relief; he couldn't continue in the agonisers for much longer without sustaining lasting damage to his central nervous system. She manoeuvred him into a position where she could wedge a supporting shoulder under his arm and helped him into the chair she had vacated seconds before.

Grunting his gratitude, his head fell back against the headrest and he finally forced his eyelids open to look at her as she knelt in front of him, her hands hovering over his knees in impotent distress.

Had his eyes always been so blue?

"Ash is dead."

Blurting the news to him somehow made it real, as if the act of her hand sending the mutated Klingon/Human to his icy, suffocating demise had been a dream up until now.

As she busied herself with releasing the shackles from around his wrists, her eyes welled with unshed tears and she missed the flash of victorious emotion that flickered across his face. Without saying a word he rubbed his wrists and leaned towards her; pushing deeper into her personal space than he ever had before, he slipped one hand under her chin and gently raised her eyes to his. Their gazes met and the fingers supporting her chin glided lightly over her jaw to curl gently into the sensitive hairs at the base of her skull; guiding her head up and towards his, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers.

Michael trembled, her grief finally safe to manifest while in the weird comfort of this peculiar man's embrace. His other hand, shaking slightly with the lingering effects of his torture, came up to nestle between her shoulder blades, and with the gentle encouragement she rose higher onto her knees, wrapped her arms around his ribcage and buried her face into his neck to sob silently and mourn her loss. The stink surrounding him following his ordeal didn't matter; the fact that they would return to captain and no-rank subordinate if everything panned out didn't matter; all that mattered was that right now she felt safe, here with him.

Fighting not to take advantage of their positions and her emotional state, Lorca forced himself to ignore the delicate female fragrance of her and not to give in to the impulse to press his bloodied face into her hair and seek some kind of comfort of his own; he'd been in the agoniser for so long that he feared it was starting to affect his mind, and he genuinely couldn't tell if it was affection or desperation that was fuelling his desire to draw close to her in this moment.

So he resisted.

The comm system chimed and Lorca yelped as Burnham wrenched him out of the chair by one arm, twisted it up his back and forced him onto his face on the deck. He grunted in discomfort as she barked at the intrusion, "This better be good!" She dug a knee into his spine for good measure and he cried out in pain as he felt something pop.

"Sorry for the intrusion, Captain, but the Emperor has summoned us to the Imperial Palace. At maximum warp we can rendezvous in six hours."

"Very good, make it so and see that I am NOT-" She pressed her thumb into the back of his already twisted wrist, bending tendons at unnatural angles and he howled, gasping for breath against the floor, "-interrupted again."

The answering voice held a dark smirk, "Understood, sir."

The comm channel closed and Michael immediately released her captain and dropped to her knees beside him, her hands fluttering over the wounds she had inflicted. "I'm so sorry, I had to make it sound convincing; are you alright?"

Lorca rolled over and lay on his back, panting against the throbbing in his arm, wrist and back, his eyes squeezed closed, "It's fine," he huffed a humourless laugh, "I'd probably have done the same if our roles were reversed."

She sat back on her heels. "I can easily justify keeping you here and out of the agoniser for the next few hours; from what I've read in 'my' files, the Michael Burnham in this universe is quite the sadistic bitch. I'll just have to tie you up and give you a couple of bruises to take back to the brig with you."

Despite the situation Lorca felt a pulse of wildly inappropriate heat at the suggestion of being tied up and smacked about by her, and at that moment he knew his brain hadn't been addled by the agoniser.

When she'd first appeared in his ready room in her baggy prison jumpsuit, her hair unkempt and her eyes tired, he knew that something bigger than them was at play in the universe. They'd been brought together for great things, that much he knew, he just didn't know yet the nature of those things. Were they supposed to lead or follow together? Spread peace or war together? Rule together? Lay together? He shivered at the latter, he would have to exercise some serious self control while they explored what their purpose was, as his attraction to her was definitely winning the struggle to establish itself in his mind and body.

She helped him to his feet and led him back to the chair, fetched him a drink of blissful water and flicked through the replicator menu for something he could eat that his battered and starved body wouldn't violently reject. As she moved he watched her with predatory interest; the uniforms on this ship were armoured yet provocative, unlike the practical, serviceable, unisex uniforms of the Starfleet of their own universe. He imagined they served the purpose of leaving nowhere that the wearer could conceal a weapon; the side effect being that they left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

While Lorca slowly ate the bland nutrient paste that she had produced from the replicator, Michael settled at her desk and called up the staff files for the ISS Shenzhou; there had to be someone here who would be willing to help them.

Lorca ate, drank, and tried desperately not to dwell on the undeniable magnetism he was feeling from the woman across the room.

He failed.