Jordan woke to warmth. For a few quiet seconds, he didn’t move. He didn’t even open his eyes. He simply stayed where he was, tucked against Alfie beneath the covers, one arm draped across his waist and his face pressed against the side of Alfie’s neck. The room was still dim, touched only by the faint light beyond the viewport, and the bedroom around them seemed to hold its breath around their shared silence.
It took Jordan a moment to remember where they were. Alfie’s room. Not guest quarters. Not the Astra. Not the shared cadet barracks where someone was always snoring, talking in their sleep, or clattering around at the wrong hour. This was Alfie’s childhood bedroom aboard the USS Odyssey, the room he had grown up in, the room that still felt (and smelt) faintly like him even though so much of it had changed over the years.
Jordan liked that. He liked being here with him. He liked the idea of being folded into this part of Alfie’s life, into the quiet domestic corners that existed beneath all the Starfleet uniforms, squadron briefings and impossible missions. There was something painfully intimate about sleeping in the bedroom Alfie had grown up in, beneath the same ceiling he must have stared at as a boy, with the soft hum of the Odyssey around them like an old guardian. That said, he wondered if it was the same for Alfie when they used to stay in his old room on the Odyssey.
Before he could think anymore, Alfie was awake. Jordan knew that before Alfie said anything. He felt it in the tension of his body, in the way his breathing was too controlled, too careful, too unlike sleep. Jordan lifted his head slightly and looked at him.
“Morning,” Jordan murmured, his voice rough with sleep.
Alfie looked down at him. His hair was a mess, his face softer than usual, but his eyes carried the weight of the previous night. Still, when he saw Jordan properly awake, he smiled. “Morning.”
Jordan shifted closer, resting his chin lightly against Alfie’s chest. “You got up last night.”
Alfie’s hand moved slowly along Jordan’s back, warm and familiar beneath the sheet. “You noticed?”
“I notice when my fiancé escapes from bed,” Jordan replied. “Especially when I wake up, and you’re gone, and I’ve been left with the emotional devastation of a cold patch.”
That drew a quiet laugh from Alfie. A proper one. Small, but real. “I’m sorry for abandoning you to such hardship.”
“You should be.” Jordan studied him for a moment, the humour fading into something gentler. “Are you okay?”
Alfie didn’t answer straight away. Jordan felt the hesitation rather than saw it. The way his fingers paused against his back and the way his gaze drifted briefly toward the ceiling before returning. “I am now,” Alfie said eventually. “I spoke with Dad.”
Jordan’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “In the middle of the night?”
“Yeah.”
“That sounds serious.”
“It was.” Alfie paused, then his mouth twitched. “Until he mentioned that he and Mum heard us earlier.”
Jordan stared at him.
Alfie nodded slowly.
Jordan closed his eyes. “No.”
“Oh yes.”
“No, they didn’t.”
“They absolutely did.”
Jordan groaned and buried his face against Alfie’s shoulder. “I am never leaving this room again.”
“That may not help,” Alfie said. “Apparently, even guest quarters three decks away wouldn’t save us.”
Jordan lifted his head just enough to glare at him. “He said that?”
“Something like that.”
“Your father is evil.”
“He is highly amused.”
“Same thing.”
Alfie laughed again, and this time Jordan felt it through him. It loosened something in both of them. The dread was still there, somewhere beyond the bedroom walls, waiting with all its sharp edges, but for this brief moment it had been pushed back by embarrassment, warmth and the ridiculous cruelty of parents having excellent hearing.
Jordan brushed his fingers over Alfie’s side. “So your dad really helped?”
Alfie nodded, his expression becoming quieter again. “Yeah. He did.”
Jordan watched him carefully. “About Parker?”
Alfie’s gaze flicked to him.
Jordan didn’t look away. He had spent too much time already pretending he wasn’t thinking about Parker Hart. The nervous smile. The slight Klingon ridges. The way Parker had looked at him. The fact that somewhere, somehow, another version of Alfie had loved him enough to build a life with him. It still sat uncomfortably in Jordan’s chest.
Alfie’s hand found his beneath the covers, fingers threading through his. “About everything,” he said. “Parker. Preston. Future me. You.”
“Me?”
“Mostly you.”
Jordan tried to keep his expression light, but the answer caught him somewhere soft. “Good things, I hope.”
“Very good things.”
Jordan smiled faintly. “Excellent. I do like being spoken about favourably by my future in-laws.”
Alfie turned his head slightly, pressing a kiss to Jordan’s forehead. “He told me to focus on who I reach for.”
Jordan’s smile faded into something warmer. “And?”
Alfie looked at him, and the answer was so clear Jordan didn’t need him to say it.
Still, Alfie did. “You.”
Jordan’s chest tightened. He moved up enough to kiss him, slow and soft, not trying to start anything, not yet. Just a promise and an answer of his own.
When they parted, Alfie rested his forehead against his. “I’m going to grab a shower,” he said quietly.
Jordan hummed. “A tragic development.”
“You could come with me.”
Jordan’s eyes flicked open. Alfie was smirking now, much too pleased with himself.
“In your parents’ quarters?” Jordan asked.
“Our family quarters, technically.”
“In your parents’ quarters,” Jordan repeated firmly. “After what your dad said last night?”
Alfie’s smirk widened. “You worried?”
“I am respectful,” Jordan said, with dignity he absolutely did not feel. “Also traumatised.”
“Coward.”
“Responsible fiancé.”
“Boring.”
Jordan shoved him lightly. “Go shower. Alone. Give me five minutes to recover from the knowledge that your parents now know far too much about my talents.”
Alfie snorted as he pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed. “Your talents?”
“I said what I said.”
Alfie shook his head, still smiling, then collected a towel from the chair near the wardrobe. Jordan watched him cross the room with open appreciation, because he had eyes, and because Alfie, moving about half-dressed in the room he grew up in, was doing complicated things to Jordan’s already fragile self-control.
Alfie noticed. Of course he did. “Five minutes,” he said.
“Shower,” Jordan ordered, pointing toward the bathroom.
Alfie laughed and disappeared through the bedroom door, leaving Jordan alone with warm sheets, a ridiculous grin and far too much to think about. For a few minutes, Jordan stayed where he was. He stared up at the ceiling and let the quiet settle. The future was still there. Future Alfie. Future Parker. Preston. The damaged future Odyssey. The Kazon flotilla and the future Orion, all of whom had been destroyed. All of it waited beyond this bedroom, beyond the temporary safety of the bed and the smell of Alfie still clinging to the sheets. But Alfie had said ‘you’. Jordan held onto that.
Eventually, he dragged himself out of bed and found a pair of loose pyjama bottoms on the floor. They might have been his. They might have been Alfie’s. At this point, the distinction had become theoretical. He pulled them on, ran a hand through his curls and made his way out onto the landing.
The familiar layout of the McCallister-Reyas family quarters unfolded around him as he moved downstairs. He had been here enough times over the years to know the route without thinking, but it still felt different now. More significant. As if every step was quietly reminding him that he was not only visiting Alfie’s family anymore. He was becoming part of it.
At the bottom of the stairs, he found his future mother-in-law sitting at the dining table with a light breakfast in front of her and a PADD beside her plate. Captain Karyn Reyas looked up as he entered, and her expression changed immediately, softening into the sort of smile that had always made Jordan feel welcome even before he and Alfie had become serious.
“Morning, Jordan,” she said warmly.
Jordan straightened slightly, suddenly aware of his hair, his bare feet, and the fact that he was almost certainly wearing her son’s pyjama bottoms. “Morning, Captain.”
Her eyebrow rose.
He winced internally.
“Karyn,” she corrected gently.
“Right. Sorry. Morning, Karyn.”
“That’s better.” She gestured toward the replicator. “Hungry?”
“A bit,” Jordan admitted.
“Help yourself.”
He ordered a mug of tea and a small plate of toast, mostly because doing something with his hands gave him a moment to compose himself. When he turned back, Karyn was still watching him with that knowing softness that made him feel both comforted and mildly interrogated.
“How did you sleep?” she asked.
Jordan nearly dropped the toast. His brain, traitorous and dramatic, immediately replayed Alfie’s words from earlier. ‘Mum and Dad heard us.’
He felt heat climb his neck at warp speed. “Fine,” he said quickly. “I slept fine. Very normal sleeping. Quiet. Mostly.”
Karyn’s lips twitched.
Jordan wanted the deck to open and swallow him whole.
“I’m glad,” she said, with just enough innocence to be deadly.
He sat opposite her, placing his plate down with more care than necessary. “I hope Alfie’s going to be okay today.”
Karyn’s expression softened properly this time. “James told me they spoke last night.”
Jordan looked up. “He did?”
“He did.” She folded her hands loosely around her mug. “I think Alfie is going to be fine. Not untouched by this. None of you are. But fine.”
Jordan nodded, relief moving through him carefully, like it didn’t want to make too much noise. “He said his dad’s advice helped.”
“James has his uses,” Karyn said dryly.
Jordan smiled.
Then Karyn reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. The gesture was simple, maternal, and so full of affection that Jordan went still.
“He will do well today,” she said. “And part of that is because you will be beside him.”
Jordan swallowed. “I hope so.”
“I know so.”
He looked at her, surprised by the certainty.
Karyn’s smile became gentler. “Jordan, I have not seen Alfie this happy in a long time, not simply excited or distracted or wrapped up in the drama of first love, but truly happy. You make a difference to him. You steady him. You challenge him. You make him laugh when he is determined to be a grump.”
“He does make that easy,” Jordan said softly.
“He does,” Karyn agreed. “And you love him very much.”
Jordan nodded, unable to joke that away. “I do. I really do.”
“I know.” Karyn stood and moved around the table. “Come here.”
Jordan rose, and before he could fully prepare himself, she pulled him into a hug.
It was warm and firm, and Jordan found himself hugging her back with more emotion than he expected. He had been loved by Max and Tobias, fiercely and constantly. He knew what family felt like. Yet there was something about being embraced by Alfie’s mother, after everything, that made his throat tighten.
“Thank you,” Karyn said quietly, close to his ear.
Jordan blinked. “For what?”
“For being that person for him.”
Jordan’s face warmed all over again, though this time it had nothing to do with embarrassment. “I’m trying.”
“You’re doing better than trying.”
When she let him go, Jordan had to clear his throat before speaking. “Where is Commodore McCallister?”
Karyn’s eyebrow rose again.
Jordan caught himself. “James.”
Her smile returned. “If you are going to marry my son, then in the privacy of this home, you may call us Karyn and James. I promise the universe will not collapse and you won’t be kicked out of Starfleet.”
“I’ll try to remember.”
“Good.” She collected her PADD from the table. “James is already out. He’s having a meeting with Captain Cambil about our upcoming plans.”
Jordan nodded. “Right.”
“And I need to get moving as well.” Karyn stepped closer and gave him another quick hug, less emotional this time but no less affectionate. “We will see you and Alfie later on the bridge with the others.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said.
“For breakfast?”
“For everything.”
Karyn looked at him for a moment, then touched his cheek lightly in a gesture that felt achingly familiar, almost like something his own fathers would have done. “You are very welcome, Jordan.”
Then she left, moving toward the doors with the composed ease of a captain returning to duty.
Jordan stood in the quiet for a few seconds after she was gone, holding his mug and feeling oddly steadier than he had when he woke. A sound from upstairs made him look back. A moment later, Alfie appeared at the top of the stairs wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, his hair damp and slightly flattened from the sonic shower. He looked down toward the dining area, then at Jordan.
“Where are my parents?”
Jordan took a deliberately slow sip of tea. “Out.”
Alfie’s expression changed at once.
Jordan knew that look. “Oh no,” he said.
“Oh yes,” Alfie replied, already starting down the stairs.
“Alfie.”
“My parents are out.”
“I noticed.”
“And you,” Alfie said, reaching the bottom step, “are still not showered.”
Jordan placed his mug down with great care. “You make a compelling argument.”
“I thought so.”
Jordan stood so quickly that the chair scraped against the floor. “Fine. But this is your fault.”
“It usually is.”
Jordan bolted for the stairs, pulling at the waistband of the pyjama bottoms as he went. Alfie laughed and turned, moving quickly back up ahead of him.
“You are ridiculous,” Alfie called over his shoulder.
“You invited me!”
“You said no!”
“I was being respectful!”
“That didn’t last long.”
Jordan caught up with him near the top of the stairs, grabbed the edge of Alfie’s towel and yanked it free with a triumphant laugh.
“Jordan!”
“You were overdressed.”
Alfie spun around, laughing, and Jordan chased him down the short corridor toward the bathroom. They stumbled through the doorway together, breathless and grinning, the towel abandoned somewhere behind them. The bathroom doors slid shut.
A moment later, the sonic shower came on, warm light spilling softly through the frosted glass. Jordan caught Alfie by the waist and pulled him close, their laughter fading into a kiss that tasted of morning, mischief and all the things they were still choosing despite the impossible future waiting for them. For now, the galaxy could wait.
The sonic shower helped—a little.
Parker stood beneath the warm pulse of the shower field and closed his eyes, letting the vibration hum across his skin and through the tension in his shoulders. It did not wash the past day away, not really, but it gave his body something simple to understand. Heat. Pressure. Breath. The steady rhythm of the unit cycling through its programme.
Everything else was still impossible.
He had arrived aboard the USS Odyssey as Cadet Parker Hart, temporarily reassigned from the USS Pythagoras under orders he barely understood. Less than two days later, he had been told that in another timeline, from another quantum reality, he was married to Alfie McCallister-Reyas, had a son with him, and had died during a war against the Borg. Not missing. Not transferred. Not retired. Dead. Assimilated on Qo’noS, according to Preston.
Parker opened his eyes and stared at the shower wall. Preston. His son. Except not his son. Not yet. Not here. Not in this reality. The thought still made his mind stumble whenever it tried to form properly. Preston had looked at him with such open familiarity, such deep affection, as if Parker was already meant to know what to do with that much love. As if somewhere inside him there should have been some hidden parental instinct ready to switch on, something wise and calm and fatherly.
There wasn’t.
There was only Parker, standing in a sonic shower aboard a ship far too large for comfort, trying not to panic because a young man from an alternate future had looked at him like he was home.
He turned the shower off and stood still for a moment as the warmth faded.
Then there was Alfie. Parker exhaled and stepped out, grabbing a towel from the wall rail. Alfie McCallister-Reyas was not what Parker had expected, which was ridiculous, because Parker had not known enough to expect anything. He had seen the official profile Captain Reyas had given him, had skimmed the biographical details, the academic records, the commendations, the family history that seemed impossibly tangled with half the squadron. He had seen the photograph too, which had been unhelpful in the extreme because Alfie was handsome.
Annoyingly, unfairly handsome. In person, it was worse. He had a way of looking at people as if he were trying to solve them, as if he had already worked out three possible outcomes and was deciding which one would hurt the least. His smile was rarer than Parker had expected, but when it arrived, it did something deeply inconvenient to Parker’s ability to think in complete sentences, which was a problem because Alfie was engaged. Very much engaged to Jordan Duncan-Court, who was also handsome in an entirely different, equally unfair way. Jordan had that easy confidence Parker had never quite known what to do with, the sort of presence that made rooms rearrange themselves around him. He looked at Alfie as if Alfie were the answer to a question no one else had heard. Parker could see it. He could see why they belonged together. That should have made everything simpler. It did not. Because somewhere, in another future, Alfie had loved him instead. Or not instead. Preston had made that clear. Parker had not replaced Jordan. He had rebuilt something broken. That phrase had lodged itself in Parker’s chest and refused to leave.
You rebuilt him.
He did not know what to do with that. He did not know what to do with any of it.
Parker dried himself off, then moved into the main room of his temporary quarters. They were still too large. The bed was too big. The small lounge area was too comfortable. The viewport made the stars look far too close. Back on the Pythagoras, his bunk had been one of several in a shared space, and privacy had been something negotiated rather than assumed. Here, he had an entire room to himself, and somehow that made everything louder.
He pulled on a clean pair of uniform trousers and fastened them, then reached for his undershirt. The door chime sounded, and Parker froze. His hand hovered over the shirt. For a second, he considered pretending he had not heard it, but then the chime sounded again.
“Brilliant,” he muttered. He grabbed the shirt, panicked, dropped it, bent to pick it up, nearly knocked his satchel off the chair, then gave up on dignity altogether.
“Come in!” he called, immediately regretting it.
The doors opened, and Commander Flemen stepped inside.
Parker’s soul left his body, briefly filed a complaint, and returned. Of course, it was him. Of course, Commander Flemen, walking dimples and unfair shoulders, would appear at the exact moment Parker was standing in the middle of his quarters without a uniform top on.
“Morning, Parker,” Flemen said warmly, stepping inside with his usual easy smile. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Parker stared at him. Say something. Anything. Preferably something that was not screaming. “Sir,” Parker managed.
Excellent. One word. Very professional. Academy honours all round.
Flemen’s smile gentled slightly as he took in Parker’s general state of panic. “I wanted to check in on you. We’re still a little while away from intercepting the future Odyssey, and I thought you might not want to sit here on your own with everything rattling around in your head.”
Parker nodded. Still topless. Still holding his uniform shirt in one hand. Still not putting it on. Why was he not putting it on? His brain, apparently, had decided to abandon ship and leave his body in command.
“That’s very kind of you, sir,” he said, and to his horror, his voice came out a little too high. He cleared his throat. “I mean, thank you. I appreciate it.”
Flemen stepped a little farther in, though he kept a respectful distance. That should have helped. It did not. Parker had noticed Flemen the moment he had beamed aboard the Odyssey. Noticed was probably too mild a word. He had been emotionally ambushed by the man’s smile, then betrayed by the dimples. Since then, Parker had tried very hard to be normal about him. He had failed privately, repeatedly. Flemen had the sort of presence that made people feel safe and mildly interrogated by charm at the same time. His command-red uniform suited him far too well, and his voice had this relaxed, warm quality that made Parker want to both answer every question honestly and walk into a wall.
“I also thought breakfast might help,” Flemen continued. “Nothing too formal. Just something in the Auditorium or the Barn before the day turns into whatever it’s going to turn into.”
Breakfast. With Commander Flemen. Parker’s brain produced several responses at once, most of them unusable. “That would be good,” he said eventually. “Food is… sensible.”
Flemen’s eyebrows lifted with amusement. “It often is.”
Parker nodded too many times. “Yes. Absolutely. Very sensible.”
For a moment, silence settled between them. Flemen’s gaze flicked briefly down, then back up with polite speed. Not lingering. Not inappropriate. Just noticing what Parker had somehow still not dealt with.
“You know,” Flemen said, his tone careful but lightly teasing, “you’re still standing there without a shirt on.”
Parker looked down as if this was news. “Oh,” he said. Oh? Was that all he had?
Flemen’s mouth twitched, and he had the decency not to laugh outright. “No rush. Though I admit, I was going to ask whether you work out and whether or not you fancied coming to the gym with me or going swimming perhaps?”
Parker’s face went hot so fast he was amazed the room’s environmental controls did not register it. “I, um,” Parker stammered, finally dragging the undershirt over his head and somehow getting briefly trapped in it. He fought his way through, emerging flushed, mortified and with his hair even worse than before. “I do. A bit. I mean, we have physical training requirements, obviously, and I run, and sometimes sparring, and the Pythagoras has a decent gym, not as big as this ship’s, obviously, because this ship is enormous, absurdly enormous, actually, and I’d love to come to the gym with you or go swimming, and now I realise I’m talking too much.”
Flemen smiled properly now, dimples appearing with devastating precision. “A little.”
Parker grabbed his uniform jacket and pulled it on with more force than necessary. “Sorry, sir.”
“No need to apologise,” Flemen said. “You’ve had a lot thrown at you. If a little nervous rambling is the worst of it, I’d say you’re doing rather well.”
Parker fastened the jacket, tugged it straight, then realised he had fastened one side slightly wrong and quickly fixed it. “I don’t feel like I’m doing well.”
“That’s usually how people feel when they are doing better than expected.”
Parker looked at him, caught again by the sincerity beneath the humour. There it was. That was the problem with Flemen. He did not simply tease. He noticed. He made space for people without making a performance of it. He had the sort of kindness that felt casual until it landed somewhere important.
Parker swallowed. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up back on the Pythagoras and Captain Zobrella will tell me I had a very vivid nightmare.”
“Sadly,” Flemen said, “this is one of those rare occasions where reality is being far less considerate.”
“No kidding.”
Flemen gestured toward the door. “Come on. Breakfast first. Existential crisis after.”
Parker hesitated, glancing around the room, then at the PADD on the table that still contained Alfie’s biography. He had read parts of it twice. Some sections three times. Not because he meant to. Because he kept trying to understand how a stranger could feel so important before they had even had a chance to become anything.
Flemen noticed the glance. Of course he did. “You don’t have to have solved all of this before breakfast,” he said.
Parker gave a quiet, nervous laugh. “That obvious?”
“A little,” Flemen said. “But I’ve served with McCallisters long enough to know they have a habit of making people feel like they need to make galaxy-changing decisions before they’ve eaten.”
Parker smiled despite himself. “Is Alfie like that?”
Flemen paused at the doorway, considering the question with affection. “Alfie is very much his parents’ son. Brilliant, stubborn, brave, occasionally dramatic, and currently dealing with far more than any cadet should be expected to carry.”
Parker nodded, the smile fading into something more thoughtful.
“And you?” Flemen asked.
“Me?”
“You’re carrying a fair bit too.”
Parker looked down briefly. “I don’t really know what I’m carrying yet.”
Flemen’s expression softened. “Then don’t try to name it all at once.”
That helped a little. Parker took a breath and moved toward the door. As he passed Flemen, he caught the faint scent of whatever cologne or aftershave the commander wore, something clean and warm and unfairly distracting. He nearly walked into the doorframe. Flemen pretended not to notice, which somehow made Parker like him more.
“Ready?” Flemen asked.
Parker straightened, or tried to. “Ready, sir.”
“Craigen is fine when we’re off duty.”
Parker’s brain tripped over that and fell down a flight of imaginary stairs. “Craigen,” he repeated, trying very hard not to sound thrilled by the privilege.
Flemen smiled. “There you go.”
Parker followed him into the corridor, still flustered, still terrified, still very much overwhelmed by everything the universe had decided to throw at him, but not alone and for the moment, that was enough.
The turbolift doors opened just as William reached them.
Athena stood inside, one shoulder resting against the side wall, arms folded loosely across her chest. She had that look on her face, the one that suggested she had been thinking too much and had already decided the universe was being deeply unreasonable. Her dark hair had been pulled back neatly, her uniform jacket fastened with the sort of precision that made Will immediately feel underdressed by comparison, even though he was fully in uniform.
“Will,” she greeted, lifting her chin slightly.
“Athena,” he replied, stepping in beside her.
The doors closed with a soft hiss, sealing them into the small, moving pocket of silence. The lift began its smooth descent through the Odyssey, its usual hum somehow louder than it should have been.
Athena glanced sideways at him. “Where are Jordan and Alfie?”
William shrugged. “Still in bed, I think.”
Athena arched an eyebrow.
“Sleeping,” he added quickly, then frowned at himself. “Probably.”
“That sounded convincing.”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
Despite everything, Athena’s mouth twitched. “You heading for breakfast?”
“That was the plan,” Will said, leaning back against the opposite wall. “I decided if the universe is going to keep throwing future versions of ourselves at us, I should face it with toast.”
“Sensible,” Athena said. “Cowardly, perhaps, but sensible.”
“Breakfast is not cowardice. Breakfast is strategy.”
“I’ll remember that for the report.”
The lift continued downward, passing deck after deck with quiet efficiency. For a few seconds, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t hostile, exactly. They had known one another too long for that. It was something worse. It was awkward. The kind of awkward that stood between two people wearing a large sign saying: Apparently, in another reality, we get married.
William shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Athena noticed. Of course she did. She always noticed. That was one of the reasons she was terrifying. Finally, he let out a breath.
“So… are we going to talk about it?”
Athena kept her eyes fixed on the turbolift doors. “About what?”
“You know what.”
She sighed through her nose, a quiet, controlled sound that did nothing to hide the fact that she had absolutely been thinking about it too. “The part where, apparently, in another future, you and I get married?”
“Yeah,” William said. “That bit.”
Athena turned her head towards him, and for once, there was no sharp remark waiting behind her eyes. Only relief. “I was hoping one of us would mention it before it became the giant targ in the turbolift.”
William let his shoulders drop. “Good. Because I’ve been finding it deeply weird.”
“So have I,” Athena admitted. “Not horrifying. Just strange.” She paused, searching for the right word. “Like being handed a photograph of a life you never posed for.”
Will blinked. “That was actually poetic.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late. I’m telling Beatrice.”
“Do that, and I’ll deny it.”
He smiled faintly, but the humour eased quickly into something more honest. “For the record, I’ve never thought of you that way.”
Athena looked at him with immediate, visible relief. “Good.”
“Good?” Will repeated.
“Yes, good,” she said, unfolding her arms at last. “Because I haven’t thought of you that way either. I like you, Will. I really do. But you’re one of my brother’s friends. You’re family-adjacent chaos, not husband material.”
William placed a hand to his chest. “That was devastatingly specific.”
“It was meant to be reassuring.”
“It somehow was,” he admitted. “Although I may need time to recover from ‘family-adjacent chaos.’”
“It suits you.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
Athena relaxed a little, leaning back against the turbolift wall again. The tension hadn’t vanished completely, but it had loosened, unfastening one awkward button at a time.
“I suppose I can see why future Alfie would rely on us,” she said after a moment. “If things became that bad.”
William nodded, more serious now. “We are probably the calm ones.”
Athena gave him a sideways look. “Out of our lot on the Astra?”
“Exactly. It’s a low bar, I know, but we clear it with dignity.”
“With dignity?”
“With occasional dignity.”
“That’s more accurate.”
He gave a faint smile. “Alfie is only calmer because of Jordan.”
“And Jordan is only calmer because of Alfie,” Athena added.
“Which is ridiculous,” William said. “Because individually they are both emotional disasters.”
“Together they somehow average out into one functional person.”
“Barely.”
Athena laughed softly at that, though the sound faded faster than either of them wanted. The events of the past few days had a habit of creeping back in whenever they were not actively holding the door shut.
William looked at the deck indicator. “They do love the drama, though.”
“They live for it,” Athena said. “They pretend they don’t, but they absolutely do.”
Will’s expression became more subdued. “I still blame them both for Scott leaving the Astra so soon.”
Athena didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze lowered slightly, not with guilt exactly, but with memory. The Astra, the Nacene technology, the humiliating revelations none of them had asked for, and Scott Florrick leaving before any of the wounds had properly scabbed over. Eventually, she nodded. “Same.”
William rubbed the back of his neck. “If my brother had kept it in his pants and Alfie hadn’t turned every emotional crisis into a full training exercise catastrophe, Scott would probably still be with us.”
Athena snorted. “That is harsh.”
“That is accurate.”
“Also accurate,” she conceded, though her tone was gentler than the words. “Scott deserved better than how all of that ended.”
“He did,” Will said quietly. “They all made a mess of it, but he was the one who left us without saying a single word.”
For a moment, the turbolift felt smaller, then William let out a breath and forced a lighter tone back into place. “I love Alfie like a brother, and I’m happy he and Jordan are engaged. I really am. I just hope their future doesn’t involve any more romantic explosions.”
Athena stared ahead as the turbolift indicator dropped another deck. “That may be optimistic.”
William glanced at her. “You saw it too?”
“The way Alfie looked at Parker yesterday?” Athena asked.
Will grimaced. “Yep.”
“I saw it,” she said. “And Parker is cute.”
“Not helping.”
“I’m being objective.”
“You sound like Jordan when he’s about to make a bad decision.”
Athena’s lips curved into a small, wicked smile. “I’m not saying Alfie is going to do anything stupid.”
“That sentence always comes before someone does something stupid.”
“I’m saying,” Athena continued, ignoring him, “that Parker is clearly sweet, intelligent, overwhelmed and attractive enough to make this entire situation more complicated than it already was.”
William groaned softly. “Fantastic. The future has given us a handsome emotional grenade.”
“That is one way of putting it.”
The turbolift began to slow, the hum of its descent easing beneath their feet.
William tilted his head, considering something with far too much seriousness. “Maybe we should encourage Alfie and Jordan to bring Parker in as a throuple. Avoid future heartbreak. Very efficient.”
Athena stared at him for half a second, and then she burst out laughing. It wasn’t restrained. It wasn’t polite. It was bright, sudden and badly needed, filling the lift just as the doors opened. “That,” she said, stepping out with him, “might be the most sensible ridiculous idea you’ve ever had.”
“I have layers.”
“You have problems.”
“Also layers.”
Athena shook her head, still smiling as they started down the corridor towards the Auditorium. “Do you want to join me for breakfast?”
William held up a finger. “As friends.”
Athena stopped and turned to him with an expression so serious it was clearly dangerous. “Will, you have met my mother, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then do you honestly think Captain Corella Banfield, daughter of Lynkarisa of the House of Lorkoth, would let you try anything else?”
William considered that for less than a second. “Absolutely not. I value my limbs.”
“Good.”
They continued towards the Auditorium together, shoulder to shoulder, the future no less strange than it had been when they stepped into the turbolift. Their alternate selves were still out there somewhere in the shadow of the damaged future Odyssey, married in a life neither of them understood. Alfie was still preparing to face a version of himself who had crossed lines none of them wanted to imagine. Jordan was still tangled in the centre of it all, as usual. But for now, Will and Athena could walk to breakfast as themselves. As friends. Calm ones, apparently and somehow, for the moment, that was enough.
