#season1 episode 20 supernova part 2

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Part 3: To be near you

Pairing: Commander Tysess x Ophelia (OFC) Fandom: Star Trek Prodigy Words: 3.9K Warnings: SPOILERS for season 1 finale; discussion of death; blood and injuries Summary: A reminder that time is precious A/N: @bigblissandlove1 @akamitrani I believe I've read somewhere that you have not seen Prodigy, but I tagged you anyway, just to be sure. I also know that many people find it uncomfortable to read about animated characters, especially if children watch the show too. If you don't want to betagged in Prodigy stuff, just tell me.

Body Language Masterlist

Red alert.

The constant flashing of the red light hurt his eyes and the shrill wailing of the sirens made his ears ring.

It was over. They had survived it.

For a moment, Tysess allowed himself to close his eyes to take a breath and let the irony of it all sink in. The entirety of Starfleet had been saved, by a bunch of kids who weren't even Federation citizens.

At least, pretty much all of them.

And it was almost destroyed by you, whispered a voice in the back of his head, but he pushed it aside when Janeway addressed him.

"Any sign of the USS Protostar?" Tysess felt his antennae lower and turned to his console. "No, Admiral." Regretfully, he shook his head. "I've tracked their warp signature, but read," he hesitated slightly, the cruelty and harshness of the words not wanting to cross his lips "-no signs of life." Without hesitation, Janeway replied. "Send a search party."

Tysess felt as if he could not agree more. This crew had saved them. Granted, they had brought the ship here, but the massacre had hardly been their fault. But as first officer, he felt obliged to present her with the facts. "But, Admiral, the distance they crossed," he folded his arms behind his back and looked at the screen. "It would take months to scan that many star systems."

Janeway, however, was not swayed and straightened up, her eyes now on him. "That crew just saved Starfleet. If they're out there, I want to know." Tysess nodded and stepped behind her to order the lieutenant to send a message to Starfleet requesting permission for a search party.

All at once, one of the ensigns at the ops console spoke up. "Admiral, damage reports coming in." Janeway turned and settled into her seat. "Report." "Direct hits on decks five, seven and nine, the starboard nacelle is damaged and we have hull breaches on decks ten, thirteen and fourteen, as well as cargo bay three and the engine room, with four dead there, eight injured, five of them seriously."

She continued to enumerate the number of injured and dead, but Tysess heard little more, except the pulse in his ears, which accelerated many times over, within a few moments.

At the same time, however, he felt as if time had stopped. Hull breach in engineering. Four dead. Hull breach in engineering. Four dead. Hull breach in engineering. Four dead. Over and over again these words echoed through his head, followed by another thought. Ophelia was on duty. She could be among them. Ophelia was on duty. She could be among them. His head was too full to think and at the same time empty without any thought.

"Commander? Commander? Tysess!" He snapped out of his trance and stared at Janeway out of wide eyes, who looked at him anxiously. "I'm sorry Admiral, you were saying?" It took vast amounts of strength to force those words out and Janeway seemed to notice as she gestured for him to follow.

In the privacy of her office, she turned instantly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Are you all right, Tysess?" He straightened and jutted his chin. "Everything's fine. I apologise, for my lack of presence of mind."

Anyone else would have bought it. Janeway, however, knew him too well. "Nothing is fine. Something is bothering you. Talk to me, please!" Tysess expelled a shaky breath and looked to the floor before answering. " Engineering was hit and had a hull breach." "Yeah, I heard." He took a deep breath. "Ophelia was on shift." Silence. Then-

"You are relieved of duty, Commander." Tysess's head and eyes shot up and he could feel his antennae snap to attention. "Admiral, Starfleet regulations require that-" "I know what regulations require," Janeway interrupted him, crossing her arms behind her back. "However, I also know what it is like to fear for the life of the person you love."

"Admiral, it would be wrong-" "- if you had to continue working even though you are subject to such emotional anguish." Her gaze softened for a split second. "Tysess, you have been awake and on duty for the last twenty-two hours. And even though Andorians are physically superior to humans, even they must realise that at some point enough is enough. Go. That is an order."

He was silent for a few moments, words missing, before he bowed his head slightly. "Very well Admiral." He turned, but paused outside the door to glance behind. "Thank you, Admiral." A thin smile danced on her lips. "I wouldn't know what for. Now go!" This time Tysess didn't hesitate as he walked through the doors, across the bridge to the turbolift and stepped inside. "Deck fifteen."

While Tysess had never had reason to complain about the speed, the turbolift seemed agonisingly slow today. Each deck seemed to take longer to reach and every second he continued to spend in uncertainty about Ophelia's condition drove him mad.

Under other circumstances, he would have found this revelation most intriguing. Although he and Ophelia had known each other for some time, they had been in a romantic relationship together for barely two months.

He wouldn't claim to have much experience with romantic relationships, in fact he had only had two before, but the feelings had never been as strong before, not even after years of being together, as they were now for Ophelia after less than two months. All at once it hit him like a blow. He loved her.

He, Tysess, loved Ophelia Zubira, with all his being, as he had never loved anyone before.

For a few seconds he felt a warmth swell inside him as he realised this. Although they had both made it clear that they were romantically interested in each other and had done things that were common for couples, neither had so far uttered the word 'love'.

Abruptly, his joy fizzled out and horror, disbelief and dread began to grow within him. He loved Ophelia. Ophelia might have been dead.

He would have never been able to tell her how he felt. The fear, which he had been able to suppress for a few moments, returned stronger than ever and Tysess knew that any Andorian would have fled at the sight of his retracted antennae. They knew that every Andorian would not let the death of his mate stand.

The turbolift stopped and as soon as the gap was wide enough to let him through, Tysess slipped out into the corridor and walked with brisk steps towards engineering, which accelerated each time until he was running. He did not care that he was jogging, even sprinting. He didn't care about the astonished looks of the other crew members who had probably never seen him so out of control, however, Ophelia was the only thing that mattered at that moment, the only thing that lived in his head right now.

Only in passing did he notice the damage, which didn't even need a closer inspection to be seen. By now, as he rounded the last corner, his heart was pounding in his chest and the sight before him brought it to an instant halt. The security doors were closed. Engineering had been evacuated. Tysess slowly raised his hand as his nightmare scenario played out before his eyes. Ophelia, locked in the engineering, dying in agony.

He closed his eyes to put the images out of his mind when he heard his name and shot around. For a split second he had hoped, however the voice turned out to be that of an ensign who looked at him. "It's about Lieutenant Commander Zubira."

~**~

She's dead.

Ophelia pulled her legs closer to her body and buried her face in her arms folded over her knees to stifle her sobs as the same scene played over and over before her eyes. When the ships had started firing at each other, she had been in sickbay to repair one of the replicators.

The first hits had shaken the ship and Ophelia had been about to go to engineering to avoid the nurses and doctors, Noum was God knows where, when the next hit had hit the power supply for half the bio-beds. But as these had been needed and Ophelia didn't know what to do anyway, she had set to work and for the next twenty minutes had bitterly fought a battle against the power sources that kept failing before finally winning.

However, all the shaking and spraying of sparks had left her with some scrapes and minor burns, though nothing serious or life-threatening.

However, when Ophelia finally managed to get up to attend to her duties in other areas, the doors had slid aside and three lieutenants, led by Noum, who had apparently finally come down from the bridge, rushed frantically into the room shouting, carrying a person between them.

A person Ophelia knew very well and with whom she got on very well.

Commander Maira Baqri. Chief Engineer of the USS Dauntless, Ophelia's fire chief superior officer and a very good friend. She had been full of joy for life and every time that mischievous smile had appeared behind the yellow hijab, Ophelia knew that what was to come would either be the best experience of her life or a memory she would forever regret.

However, the strong woman, otherwise so full of life and bursting with energy, now lay on the biobed with severe burns and bleeding flesh wounds, while nurses and Noum, scurried around her as the Tellarite barked orders. "Maira." Her voice was only a soft whisper, however she could not bring herself to raise her voice as the lump in her throat knew to prevent it.

The next few minutes were nothing but a blur of movements, colours and shouts and the only thing burned into her memory forever was the long drawn out beeping and the soft cursing of Noum, which he only uttered when his medical skills were once unable to save his patients.

The memories brought tears to her eyes and for a moment she was tempted to wipe her face with her arm, but left it at that. Her arms, more than the rest of her body, were covered with small wounds and hurt a little, but she had refused to have them examined and treated. Noum had protested strongly, but he too had realised that it made more sense to look after more seriously wounded members.

Ophelia sniffled softly and wiped her eyes with her hands, which were also a little scuffed up, making it a little more painful, to wipe away the tears as her eyes fell on the PADD lying next to her on the sofa.

It was still open from this morning and the program to select holoprograms was still open. Ophelia had decided to introduce Tysess to her home in Colombia and had spent the morning searching for suitable and realistic programmes, only to find that none came close to the real thing.

Tysess.

Her sadness changed abruptly to pure fear and horror and a sob escaped her. Tysess had also been on duty, on the bridge, and so far Ophelia had heard nothing from there. That very morning, since Admiral Janeway had been declared unfit for duty, he had said goodbye to her as the highest ranking officer and promised her that they would be back on Earth soon. Now she wasn't even sure if he was still alive.

Ophelia tried to reassure herself by telling herself that she hadn't seen him in sickbay, but it didn't really help. After all, patients could still have been brought in, or his body could be lying cold and lifeless on the floor in a corridor.

Cold sweat of fear spread over her body and she jumped up. She didn't care if she had to tear the whole ship apart, but she would find Tysess.

Alive.

Ophelia didn't even bother to put on her shoes and ran over to the door on her socks, opened it by pressing a button on the panel next to it, and cried out softly.

Standing in front of her, breathless and filthy, sweaty with a small scrape on his cheekbone but otherwise unharmed, was Tysess, who had raised his arm to open her door with the code she had given him. For a split second they stared at each other in shock before realisation set in.

"Oh God!" Ophelia sobbed out, wrapping her arms around Tysess, who had rushed over to her in an instant and was holding her tightly against him, his arms wrapped around her waist, body pressed tightly against body, nose buried in her hair. "You're alive, oh God you're alive," Ophelia sobbed softly and felt them stagger into their quarters, the doors closing behind them.

She sobbed into his shoulder, which didn't seem to bother the Andorian as he continued to run his hands up and down her back and through her hair.

"I thought you were dead," he murmured and she could hear his voice almost breaking with tears. "When they said that engineering had been hit, I thought-" His voice broke off and Ophelia sobbed out again, pressing herself tighter against him. "I was so scared. The possibility of losing you too, after-"

Her voice broke off and her crying intensified before Tysess led her to the sofa so they could drop down, still pressed close together. Tears of sadness, anger, fear and relief streamed down her face onto his uniform top, yet he didn't care and just pulled her closer, pressing kisses to her forehead and just being there while Ophelia cried the sorrow of the last few hours from her soul.

"Maira is dead," she choked out after a while. "They brought her in and...and...there was blood everywhere and I...I couldn't do anything...I...I just stood there and wa...watched her die..." Another volley of sobs shook through her and Tysess pressed his forehead against hers. "It's not your fault." His voice was strained and Ophelia felt more than saw his antennae, which had dug into her hair earlier, twitch. "If anyone is to blame, it is me."

Through tears, she looked up at him in confusion. "Tysess, of what..." "It was I who gave the order to take the call. The call that ultimately subdued the entire ship and nearly sent it to its doom. I am the one to blame for the death, of every single crew member. I-"

His voice trailed off and with shock Ophelia watched as silent tears rolled down the usually composed Commander's cheeks. "It's my fault...mine alone...Please...forgive me... I'm sorry..." He broke off and sobbed quietly, making it Ophelia's job now to pull him close and, even with a tear-stained face, gently run her hands through his hair, careful not to touch his antennae.

"It's not your fault, Motema nangai. Anyone would have done the same in your place. You are not to blame."

Tysess shook his head silently before looking up. "I would never have forgiven myself if anything had happened to you. If you had died, I would have..." He did not finish his sentence, yet he did not have to. Ophelia knew what he meant and pulled him close again. "It's okay.... It'll be alright, Tysess."

"No," he pulled her to him so that she was almost sitting on his lap. "I would never have forgiven myself if you had died without me being able to tell you how much you mean to me, how much I cherish you and praise your presence."

Still with tears in her eyes, she looked up at him and smiled slightly. "You don't have to." For the first time in fifteen minutes, he broke away from her, only to frame her face with his hands. "Yes, I do have to. Because just the thought that one of us could die without you knowing how much I love you... It breaks my heart."

Ophelia's breath caught and for a moment all sadness and fear were forgotten. "You mean it? That you love me?" With a calf-eyed smile he looked down at her and rested his forehead against hers. "How could I not? You are wonderful, kind, beautiful, intelligent, funny, and so much more than I ever hoped or dared to dream. In all my life I have never loved a person so much and it scares me."

Ophelia laughed a tearful laugh and put her hands to his cheeks. "Then let us be afraid together, mi amor. Let us fear this love together."

His eyes widened. "You too?" She smiled and felt tears well up in her eyes again. "Like crazy." For the first time he smiled a wide, if too equally gentle, smile and leaned down slightly to kiss her. It was a long, intimate kiss, which told of the pain, fear and sorrow of the past hours, however, it was what they needed.

When they broke away, admittedly a little out of breath, they leaned their foreheads against each other for a few moments and could each feel the other's breath on their face.

"Will it always be like this now?" Ophelia's voice was low and barely audible, though she knew Tysess had heard her. He always heard her. "Will we only spend our time in service worrying about each other? Having to worry about the other getting hurt? Or even worse?"

He sighed slowly and moved away from her face just enough so they could look into each other's eyes. "Yes. But at the same time it means that in any situation we know that there is at least one person on this ship worth fighting on for. When we come back, wounded and injured there will be someone to tend to our little aches and pains. And even if one day, though I hope not, we have to hand over the other's coffin to the family, we can live with the certainty of savouring every moment. Because that's what I intend to do. To savour every moment with you" He looked up. "Are you in?"

For a few seconds she just looked at him, contemplating his face. Elongated shape with a pointed chin, sky-blue skin, eyelids dabbed with purple paint and pale lilac-grey eyes that looked at her with such love as she was not used to from people outside her family. Ophelia smiled softly. "Yes."

~**~

The next day, Ophelia and Tysess stood side by side in the shuttle hangar and looked at the coffins lined up in front of them. The previous evening, after some time, Tysess had broken away from her to fetch the first aid kit from her bathroom and, as promised, had dressed her wounds.

The rest of the evening consisted of lying in each other's arms and letting out the grief and fear in the form of tears, so that now there were no tears left to shed.

During the memorial service, Tysess held Ophelia's hand tightly in his and only let it go once during the whole two hours of listening to speeches, when Ophelia gave her speech for Maira.

She was nervous and grieving, however, she brought out the words she wanted to get rid of in a way that was worthy of Maira. In the end, she turned to Maira's coffin, only temporarily, as her faith demanded to be buried without a coffin, and gently placed a sunflower wreath on it, which she had woven herself that morning.

They were Maira's favourite flowers and she had loved it when Ophelia had made her a wreath out of them.

Like a queen's crown.

"May you find your peace, dear friend," was all she could whisper before she fled back to Tysess, who held her in his arms. Discretion no longer interested him, nor did some of the astonished looks they received.

At the end, Janeway stepped forward and gave her farewell speech, which brought tears to Ophelia's eyes again and Tysess pulled her closer. Together, after Janeway stepped aside, they watched as the coffins were carefully placed in transporters and then flown out into space to be delivered to the families of the deceased.

Gradually the gathering dispersed until only a few were left. Noum stepped briefly towards Ophelia, who was still standing there nestled against Tysess, and spoke briefly to her before he too took his leave.

"Do you want to go?" Tysess's voice was calm and composed, grounding Ophelia somewhat, at least enough for her to nod. Before they finally left, however, Ophelia was held back by the call of her name. She turned and saw Admiral Janeway coming towards her. Ophelia gave Tysess an assuring look, whereupon he let go of her and stepped back a little, but remained just within earshot.

"Admiral." "Lieutenant Commander Zubira. I wanted to offer my condolences once again. I understand you and Commander Baqri were close." Ophelia felt another lump forming in her throat. "Very close, ma'am." Janeway sighed slightly. "If it were up to me, I would like to postpone the whole thing and give you time to grieve, however, regulations require that I do so as soon as possible." "Admiral?"

Janeway raised her hand, silencing Ophelia before standing up at attention, prompting Ophelia to do the same.

"Lieutenant Commander Ophelia Celeste Zubira. You have served Starfleet for several years now and have proven yourself to be a trustworthy, responsible and talented officer. We have suffered many losses, including our Chief Engineer, who will be sorely missed by us all. Nevertheless, I cannot leave this post vacant." Janeway reached into the pocket of her uniform and pulled out a gold pin, causing Ophelia's eyes to widen.

"I am aware that the circumstances are not ideal and under others this would have been done in the presence of the other bridge officers, however that is almost impossible at the moment. Yet, I have a feeling that the most important ones are here."

Janeway's gaze flew to Tysess who was looking at Ophelia proudly and full of love at the same time. "Lieutenant Commander Zubira. It is my honour and my greatest pleasure to hereby promote you to the rank of Commander and Chief Engineer of the USS Dauntless. Do you accept the promotion?"

Ophelia's breath stopped as she looked wide-eyed at the gold pin in the Admiral's palm. She was torn. For one thing, this had always been her biggest tram. Being Chief Engineer had been the reason for her to join Starfleet and if that meant getting promoted, she wouldn't fight it.

On the other hand, it felt wrong somehow, like she was trying to replace Maira.

Her gaze flew to Tysess, who looked at her encouragingly, as if to say 'Whatever you want, I've got your back' and had to smile. No, she would never be able to replace Maira. Nor did she want to. However, she could uphold the reputation of her best friend and ensure that the ship she had loved so much could be in the best condition possible.

"I would be honoured, Admiral." Janeway smiled at her and took the blank Lieutenant Commander pin from Ophelia's collar, but paused and held the new, gold one out to Tysess then.

"Commander, would you care to do the honours?" For a moment Tysess looked surprised, but quickly stepped towards her and took the pin in his hand. His eyes fell on Ophelia and that one look said more about his feelings than words ever could.

"It is my privilege to promote you to Commander." Gently, he pinned the pin to her collar, smoothed out her uniform and took a step back, pride flashing in his eyes. "You deserve it."

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@indignantlemur