Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hugh spent his days waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Waited for some cosmic force to show up and reclaim his life.

Being in Starfleet for most of his adult life, he was used to being in mortal danger and dealing with death. The difference was that this time, he was supposed to be dead.

He had died, his heart had stopped beating, he had been pronounced dead, buried, and grieved.

By some miracle, he'd received a second chance.

The only problem was that he didn’t deserve it. There were people out there who were better than him, who would do better with a second chance.

His conclusion was therefore that one of two things was true: one, he was brought back by some mistake, and he was just living on borrowed time until someone sooner or later realized their error. Two, there was some sort of purpose behind his revival, and he still had something to do. But how could he do something meaningful when there were days he could barely get out of bed?

There were bad days when he thought he should still be in the network, wished that Paul had never showed up and brought him back.

***

He remembered his life like looking through a window, as if it happened to someone else.

He also knew that some memories are missing, lost in the hours and days and weeks and months he spent in the network.

For instance, he remembered his first day at the Academy, and he was pretty sure he had a roommate, though he could recall neither a name, nor a face.

Of course, he could look up the official Starfleet records, but he was scared of either outcome. He didn’t want confirmation that there were gaps in his memory, or even worse, that he’d made it up entirely.

A roommate at the Academy seemed relatively unimportant, but there were other things he had trouble recalling.

While he remembered his uncle’s funeral, he wasn’t sure if it occured before or after his bisabuela’s.

He knew his first boyfriend had broken up with him the week before their graduation and his sisters had cheered him up with movies and popcorn.

There were a few months between the Academy and his first posting that were completely blank.

His and Paul’s first kiss was hazy, but their first meeting was in technicolor.

The worst thing was the uncertainty.

He could be missing hundreds, thousands of memories without knowing. He could ask Paul, and he knew he’d happily answer all of Hugh’s questions, but he couldn’t bear to give him any hope. The glimpse of their past in his blue eyes would be too much for him, and so he didn’t say anything.

But he was a trained doctor and counselor, so he wrote his questions down. He filled page after page with lines that all ended in a question mark.

Perhaps, one day he would get answers.

Chapter Text

At night, the memories came.

They swept Paul away like a hurricane and washed over him like a tsunami.

Often, he couldn’t tell past from present and reality from imagination.

He remembered cradling Hugh’s cold body to his chest as if it happened to someone else.

He remembered the hasty funeral and breaking down in their once shared quarters afterwards.

He remembered the day they first met with the knowledge that he was going to inevitably lose him.

He remembered finding Hugh in the mycelial network and that first hug, Hugh clutching him the way a drowning man clings to a lifeboat.

Some nights, he didn’t know if the last one was just a dream. A desperate attempt of Paul’s mind to cope with the loss of his partner.

Tonight, it was particularly bad.

He had spent the past three days in Engineering, finding excuses to stay there after his shift was long over. Tilly had to force him to eat something, and he didn’t remember the last time he got any sleep.

Eventually, Reno had ordered him to leave his post, claiming he was no use to anyone in this state.

Back in his quarters, he barely made it to the bed before passing out.

In his dream, Hugh died, and Paul had to watch.

The scene shifted, and they were at the border between the mycelial network and their own dimension. Paul stepped through, expecting Hugh to follow him.

When Hugh stretched his hand out, towards Paul, he lost his shape as soon as he left the network.

“I can’t come with you,” Hugh said, and Paul could tell that he was holding back tears.

Then the world flipped upside down as Discovery left the network and Hugh disintegrated into a billion pieces in front of Paul’s eyes.

With his heart racing in his chest and sweat lining his brow, Paul sat up straight in bed.

It took him a second to regain his surroundings. He was in his quarters, only half lived-in since Hugh moved out.

Hugh.

“Computer,” he said into the dark, “locate Doctor Culber."

“Doctor Culber is in his quarters on deck four,” the computer replied calmly.

It was just a dream. Hugh was alive and well and-

He tapped his communicator.

“Hugh?”

A beat of silence, then -

“Paul?”

Hugh’s voice was thick with sleep, and Paul cursed himself for waking him.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, “forget that I called. I’m fine, it’s-”

On the other end of the comm channel, Hugh sighed.

“Paul, you’re obviously not fine.”

“I’m-” terrified? Lonely? Not sleeping because of the nightmares? Taking it out on everyone else?

None of the answers seemed right, so he didn’t say anything.

“Alright,” Hugh said, “I’ll be there in three minutes.”

The comm channel went silent, and Paul was uncertain about everything.

***

Hugh had thought he knew nightmares. More than a couple of times, Paul had woken him from a bad dream where he’d relived a patient’s death over and over again.

The mycelial network, however - it was as if a part of Hugh’s mind was still trapped there.

Nearly every night, he was wandering through the seemingly endless planes. Sometimes, Discovery came to rescue him, only to leave again before he reached the ship, other nights he awoke in his dream and discovered that he was still in the network.

He woke up sweaty and breathless, fighting off the vivid images his mind had conjured up.

More than once, he’d fetched his medical tricorder and scanned himself, just to make sure he was still alive. It only sometimes helped soothe him, and he scarcely fell asleep again. If he had nothing else to do, he’d show up at the medbay hours before his shift, annoying Tracy to no end.

“Hugh,” she frequently told him, “you need to get a proper night’s sleep.”

He fended her off, claiming he was fine.

He wasn’t sure, but after telling it so often, the lie rolled off his tongue easily.

Tonight, he revisited the time Paul saved him from the network, except if he passed the border between the dimensions, his body disintegrated.

The last image was Paul, his pale skin tinted light blue by the spores floating around him.

He woke from a sharp sound, his comm signal.

“Hugh?” Paul’s voice came through when Hugh opened the channel.

By some instinct, Hugh tensed.

“Paul?” Is everything alright?

“Sorry,” Paul hurried to say, “forget that I called. I’m fine, it’s-”

Hugh sighed. He might not know himself and how he fitted into this world, but he still knew Paul.

“Paul, you’re obviously not fine.”

“I’m-” Paul started, but trailed off again. Hugh wondered what he was thinking about.

Then, Hugh made a choice. He pushed the covers of his bed back and said, “Alright, I’ll be there in three minutes.”

Before Paul had a chance to object, he closed the comm channel.

***

At this time of night, Discovery was mostly deserted. The Gamma shift was awake, but everyone else was in their quarters. On the short walk to their quarters - no, Paul’s, he reminded himself - he didn’t encounter anyone else.

The door slid open easily.

Paul was perched on the edge of the bed. Hugh hesitated briefly.

“Can we sit on the couch?”

Paul nodded and got up. They settled on opposite side of the couch. Hugh noticed that Paul was tugging his sleeves over his hands, something he only did when he was anxious.

“You had a nightmare,” Hugh said, straight to the point.

Paul nodded hesitantly.

“And it’s not the first time?”

Another nod, then silence.

“I’m sorry,” Paul said, “for waking you. I shouldn’t bother you anymore. I’m not the one who died and was resurrected. I shouldn’t-”

Hugh reached out and intertwined Paul’s fingers with his own.

“Stop it. You’re allowed to struggle, too.”

Paul looked at him, and there was something achingly familiar in his gaze. For a split second, it was like it used to be, Before Hugh died. But the air around them shifted and with it came the reminder that they were in the After and everything was different.

Hugh retracted his hand as if he’d been burned.

“Tell me if you have nightmares again,” he said to break the silence, “I can give you something so you can sleep.”

Back to professional.

The look on Paul’s face was something akin to hurt and disappointment, but Hugh forced himself to get up from the couch.

He took a final look at the quarters that used to be theirs instead of Paul’s and told him, “Good night.”

“Good night,” Paul said, but his voice was hollow.

The corridor outside was deserted, and Hugh was glad for it. He used one hand to steady himself against the wall when violent sobs shook his body.

Chapter Text

The last shuttle to the Enterprise sat in the middle of the shuttle bay.

Hugh was supposed to board it, but he couldn’t will his feet to move. He stood there, clutching his bag, struggling with a choice he’d never wanted to make.

The Discovery had been his home, and though the memories were stained with the war, and his own death, it remained the place where he’d worked, and lived, and laughed, and cried, and loved.

It was the first place he’d lived with Paul.

After being long distance for nearly a decade and making rushed trips across the galaxy for a few glorious days at a time and having to calculate the time difference during every call, it had been a relief to be on the same ship for once, despite the general circumstances.

The first few days had been pure bliss, waking up next to each other and eating together when their shifts aligned.

Though Paul had gotten caught up in his work , and they’d had more than one argument, it had been better than anything his own mind could’ve ever come up with.

It had all come crashing down when he’d died and come back, and neither of them were the same people who’s boarded the ship just months ago. Hugh had struggled to feel any connection to his old life, and Paul had been changed by the tardigrade DNA and the grief of losing Hugh.

Neither of them were responsible, but Hugh had to blame someone for his situation, and Paul had been within reach and overly eager to help him, so Hugh had lashed out at him. The counselor in him knew it was misplaced anger, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Now, in the shuttle hangar and faced with the choice of whether to give up his life in the 23rd century or Paul, who had also been his life at some point.

Paul had tried to let him go, and Hugh had tried to find any connection again, and even if the future was uncertain, Hugh knew he couldn’t leave Discovery with so many loose threads.

Besides, they needed a CMO. Tracy couldn't be working around the clock, and half of the nurses were staying behind.

He entered the shuttle and waved to the pilot.

“I'm staying,” Hugh says.

The pilot nods. “Good luck, doctor. You’ll need it.”

When Hugh steps into the bustling corridor behind the shuttle bay, he feels lighter than he has in months.

Chapter Text

When Paul appeared in the doorway of sickbay, bloody, barely conscious and steadied on both sides by Tilly and Nilsson, Hugh’s heart dropped in his chest.

Tracy arrived first and assured Tilly that she would be much more useful on the bridge. With a whispered sorry to Paul, Tilly left.

Hugh forced himself to remain calm, to assess Paul’s injuries as if he were any other patient.

But he wasn’t any other patient.

As much as had happened in the meantime, Paul still loved Hugh, and while Hugh might not love Paul back yet, he could learn to love him again, if Paul was willing to wait for him.

He wasn’t the same Hugh Culber who had died, and he wasn’t the Hugh Culber who had made it out of the network again.

In the months since, he’d had to rethink everything he’d thought he knew; every tiny detail about his life. He had to find himself again, and some parts had inevitably gotten lost along the way. But his mind was always adjusting to changes, filling out the empty spaces with new things.

It was comforting, in a way, and terrifying in another.

He would never be the person he used to be, would never do things the same way, feel the same things. But he could learn to be himself again. A different, new version of himself, but still undeniably himself.

Paul was put down on a biobed, and Hugh stepped closer.

“I can take over,” he said to Tracy, “you have other patients.”

She gave him a concerned look, and he nodded.

“I can handle it,” he assured her.

With a curt nod, she disappeared to take care of someone else.

Paul was even paler than usual, which was distorting on its own, but there was a piece of metal sticking out of his chest, right where his heart was. It took everything in Hugh not to lose his cool.

Too many things crashed into him at once, the fact that Discovery was about to jump into an unknown future, the knowledge that he was never going to see his family again, and the very vivid image of Paul bleeding out right in front of him.

“Paul,” he said, because his head had rolled back and Hugh wasn’t sure he was awake, but he knew that Paul reacted to his voice. It used to calm him and tether him to reality after a nightmare after Justin’s death. Hugh didn’t know if it still worked, but he had to try.

“Paul,” he said again, “it’s me.”

A muscle in Paul’s face twitched, and there was some hope left in Hugh’s chest. He wasn’t dead, yet.

Paul cracked one eye open.

“Hi,” Hugh said, relieved.

“Hugh?”

“Hi,” he breathed. Paul looked so fragile, yet so familiar. They’d spent months apart, but their fates were still beautifully intertwined.

“I thought I could make my home on the Enterprise,” Hugh said, because he could tell Paul was drifting away again, “and i realized that, uh-”

This was it.

The cliff he had to jump from. For the second time in his life, although this time it felt like he was flying.

“You’re my home. So I came back. Sorry it took me so long to see it.” Paul blinked, and Hugh didn’t know if he understood what he was saying or if he was too far gone.

He turned and retrieved a medical scanner.

“I’m your family.”

They could relearn familiar patterns and create new ones where old ones weren’t adequate anymore.

“Wherever we go from here, we go together.”

A promise worth keeping.

Hugh looked up and saw the wormhole opening up around them, taking them into an unknown future.

“We’re on our way, Paul,” he said, “we’re on our way.”