"Carol!" Nyota's voice practically reverberated around the quarters. There was a long pause before shuffling was heard from the bathroom and the blonde girl peered out the door.
"Yes?" Carol inquired almost too sweetly.
"Would you mind explaining exactly why my phaser is in pieces?" Nyota gestured at the neat pile of gun parts lined up by height along the desk.
Carol shrugged, giving nothing away, and slowly made her way to perching on the edge of the desk. She fumbled around with a piece that Nyota guessed may have once been the handle, "You mean to tell me that a senior officer can't put her own phaser back together?" Of course, Nyota probably could but it seemed like a tedious act to her, and would likely take Spock or Carol checking over it before she would even consider firing it again. Carol set the part back on the desk softly, "Or would you like to tell me why you went on that stupidly dangerous mission and got yourself imprisoned with the boys once again?"
The natural lightness in Carol's voice made it seem joking by Nyota immediately saw past the façade to the tightening of Carol's lips and eyes. She sighed and plopped down into the desk chair, automatically beginning to shove pieces of the poor phaser back together to keep her hands busy.
"Taking my phaser apart is supposed to keep me from missions?" She inquired rhetorically, "There are more of these on board you know?" She looked up at Carol who was now glaring at her lap and could have sworn that she heard a faint mumble of 'Not for long'. Nyota stopped pushing pieces together for a minute and set them down on her lap.
"Carol, when you beamed down to disarm that bomb so we could bust Spock out of a rogue Orion prison why did you do it?"
The scowling girl looked up almost in a sheepish manner, "It's my job."
"Exactly!" Nyota exclaimed, "And you care about your crewmembers and care what happens to them." She moved quickly to stand in front of Carol, taking her hands in her own, "Let's face it, those boys are absolutely lost without us… and we'd be lost if we didn't have to hurry and save them every three missions. Neither of us are going to be completely safe all the time, and we'll both be furious at the other when we get hurt. But we are damn good at our jobs and you're not exactly a specialist in weapons because you like to sit on your butt and do paperwork," She squeezed Carol's hands tightly, "We'll be fine."
Carol smiled widely up at Nyota before nodding towards the shoddily stuck together phaser, "You have the power source in backwards."
Nyota barked out laughter and surged forward to press her lips to Carol's.
Carol wiggled around on the desk which left the other girl planting kisses on every other inch of her exposed face, "No, I'm serious. If you try to fire like that you will cause the chamber to overload which makes the—mmph." Carol laughed against Nyota's lips before kissing back enthusiastically.
Nyota was right, they would be just fine.