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There are an infinite number of alternate realities out there. Hikaru Sulu knows that.

In one, in many of them probably, Vulcan was never destroyed. No Nero, no Nerada, no Kelvin incident.

Sometimes Hikaru wonders if in those other realities he’s still the helmsman of the Enterprise. If among all the women and men around him he still found his way to Ben. And to their daughter.

Here in the reality shaped by the Kelvin incident, Ben’s sister names her newborn daughter after her and Ben’s grandmother, Demora.

And when the Nerada resurfaces and wipes away most of Starfleet, little three years old Demora is left an orphan and it’s Ben who takes her in.

And Hikaru, who’s a Starfleet officer and has a career to pursue, is not ready yet, not ready at all.

But Ben is the love of his life, he knows that much, and Hikaru can’t bear the thought of being without him.

What a fine example of Starfleet officer he makes, Hikaru thinks. His boyfriend just lost his sister and Hikaru is letting his own fear and self-centeredness get the best of him.

In the end the math is simple, like calculating take-off velocity: Ben is his, which means that Demora is too now and he’d better get used to it.

So Hikaru pools his credits, goes out in the streets of San Francisco and buys rings.

Metal, unadorned.

Steady and true, like his feelings for Ben.

The day after, he gets on one knee and asks Ben for the privilege of taking care of him and little Demora.

He does get used to being a father. Gradually, without even noticing. Just like he gets used to being a husband.

It is, he finds out, a bit like flying. A brief moment of blind panic before the launch, followed by the surprising ease of something that comes almost like second nature to him.

Before he knows it, before he even knows how, Hikaru’s gone away for his five-year mission.

In deep space, the loneliness is so thick it’s like a physical thing.

It’s not so hard when he’s on shift, when he has duties to perform.

But in his off hours, it's another matter.

He finds himself lying on the single bed inside his cabin on the Enterprise, staring up at the empty ceiling, tossing and turning and failing to fall asleep.

One night, Hikaru closes his eyes and imagines cuddling up to Ben’s warmth, imagines falling asleep to the sound of his husband’s regular breathing.

He half dreams, half remembers a scared Demora waking up in the middle of the night and sneaking in bed with them. He hauled her up between them, closing his arms around the both of them, nose buried in Demora’s hair, forehead pressed against Ben’s wide shoulders.

Hikaru tells Demora that nothing can hurt her now. The bad guys who took her mother, the mother she’s already starting to forget, are gone. Hikaru took care of that.

“You can sleep,” he whispers into her hair, “I’ll protect you from the monsters.”

When he wakes up, his arms are empty.

One day, Hikaru realizes that he’s reached the point where he has spent more time apart from his family than with them.

Almost three years.

Silently, he counts the days until their scheduled stop at Yorktown.

Some nights, he sets the subspace messages he received to play on loop until he’s no longer hearing the content of the message as much as focusing on the warmth of his husband’s voice, on the laughter coloring his daughter’s words, the fear and pain of a few years ago seemingly already forgotten.

More often than not, the familiar noises manage to lull him into sleep.

Those are good days.

Other times, he imagines Ben at work, the strong, wide hands Hikaru loves so much making things grow out of mineral solutions and alien seeds and recycled air. He imagines the hydroponics cultures flourishing in smatterings of deep color, able to sustain the entire personnel populating a Federation starbase.

Sometimes, when he thinks of Ben’s hands, they’re not buried into rich soil, but closed around him, caressing him, holding him, the memory so vivid Hikaru can almost believe it real.

But it’s just that, a memory, and it leaves him with a bitter taste in his mouth and the wild desire to smash his own hands against something. Just so that the fresh pain would allow him a brief respite from the ache around his heart.

Those are the days in which he wonders how much longer he can go on like this.

He feels torn in two, suffocated almost. Like a bird tied to a leash, able to fly for the space of a few wingbeats only to come to an abrupt halt as the string around his foot tightens.

It’s like Ben’s ability to make things grow has somehow expanded to encompass Hikaru too: after having eagerly left his home city of San Francisco for the wide space, Hikaru finds he has grown very real roots, roots located halfway across the galaxy from where the rest of him lives.

A few months after Demora’s eighth birthday, the Enterprise finally reaches Yorktown.

Hikaru bends to hug his daughter and lift her up in his arms. She’s heavier than he remembers, taller than what he gathered from the subspace messages too.

When he kisses his husband, when he makes love to him, it’s nothing like his memories either. It’s not sweet and slow and reverent. It’s a breathless, almost furious affair.

It’s Ben, pushing into him with almost violent desperation, hands clinging to his sides, leaving bruising kisses on his mouth, on his neck, on his shoulders.

It’s Hikaru, wrapping his legs around Ben’s vaist in turn, holding his husband in his arm and refusing to let go even after their frenzied coupling is done.

Missed you, he thinks, his nose buried into the crook of Ben’s neck. Missed you.

Hikaru is back. And then the morning after, he’s gone away again, leaving on another rescue mission that turns into an unmitigated disaster, much like the time Vulcan was destroyed.

The Enterprise crew makes it back to Yorktown, though. Just in time to stop the bad guys.

After all, Hikaru has a promise to keep.

Afterward, Demora gives him a picture, a carefully hand-drawn one.

“Is that-” Hikaru stares at the drawing in confusion until he realizes what he's looking at.

“That’s you on the ship, Daddy, making the monsters go away,” Demora says, face scrunched up into an adorable ‘duh’ expression. And, yes, now Hikaru can see it too.

The Franklin looks like a lopsided dragon, he thinks, breathing yellow fire all over Krall’s swarm ships.

Hikaru smiles and places a thank-you kiss on his daughter’s hair.

“Thank you, Princess. It's beautiful.”

His daughter smiles back a bright smile.

A dragon, Hikaru thinks, struck by sudden realization.

Maybe I’m not a trapped bird after all, he thinks. Maybe I’m a dragon.

Because Ben and Demora are my treasure. And I will burn anyone who tries to take them away from me.

Hikaru wasn’t there for his daughter’s first steps. Hell, with the exception of the couple of years before he left for his five-year mission, he hasn’t been there for most of her life, really.

He imagines Hikaru Sulu is an absent father in plenty of other realities, too focused on his career, on his duties. Too proud, too scared.

He imagines his daughter’s resentment, the disappointed look in Ben’s face.

But, in this reality, here and now, it doesn’t matter.

Because he’s Demora’s hero. And he will always be.