An Afternoon in Ordinary Time by snarkypants
When he awoke she was finally there. Close enough to touch, if he could have got out of his bed. She was sleeping, her head lolling against the back of the chair at what looked like a painful angle.
He lay there and looked at her. She was the best thing he'd seen in months.
She was not pretty or perky or pert. She was none of those words that sounds like bouncing and suggests button noses and charming giggles.
Nor was she beautiful; her face would not launch a thousand ships, and he'd never seen a vid star or fashion model that looked remotely like her.
To call her attractive would be to damn her with faint praise, and handsome suggested an inaccurate degree of masculinity.
Arresting… arresting was most accurate, but difficult to work into conversation, particularly for him, particularly with her.
She stirred restlessly, beginning to awaken from an uncomfortable sleep. He watched, waiting for the pleasant shock of her eyes opening, the flash of arctic blue surrounded by lush, dark lashes; he found that he was holding his breath.
"Good morning," she said; her rich voice was husky with sleep, and he smiled at her. "What?" she asked, an edge of suspicion in her voice.
"I was thinking how lovely you are."
She exhaled in a not-quite-laugh. "They're giving you the good painkillers, I see."
He shook his head, giving her what she called his 'stubborn look.' "Not that good."
"How are you feeling?" she asked, and he made a face. "This was your fourth surgery, yes?"
"You're as well-informed as ever."
She shrugged. "Phil cornered your doctor when he arrived."
"What did Phil think?"
"He's hopeful, and so is this McCoy. Phil says you got, and I quote, 'damned lucky'."
"I'd rather be lucky than good," he said.
"You're both. Fortunately." She stretched, raising her arms high over her head and twisting them in the way that always made him wince a little. Her long nose wrinkled and she sniffed at her armpits, recoiling. "I need a shower; we've been in meetings or on transports for the last 72 hours."
"Come here," he said, holding out his hand to her.
"I smell," she protested, but she came to him, perching one hip on the bed. He pulled her forward until she was sprawled on top of him. "Chris!"
"You smell good to me."
"You like the smell of decaying bacteria?"
"I like the smell of your decaying bacteria. Good memories." He snuffled at her underarm and she gave him a pro forma struggle, but she was holding back due to his invalid status.
She relaxed against him. "Am I crushing you?" she asked.
He snorted in derision and changed the subject. "Napoleon used to write Josephine, telling her he was on his way to see her and not to bathe."
"And look how well things ended for them. You smell of hospital," she said, taking an exaggerated sniff at his neck. "Who's been shaving you?"
"Beard inhibitor. Itches."
"Mmm. It's not doing the best job, either." She ran the back of her hand over his bristly cheek. "You're out of reg."
"You're glorious, One."
She kissed him. "I'm foul, and you're drenched in opiates."
"Doesn't make it any less true."
She shifted her weight so she was lying on her side facing him; she caressed his face and combed back his hair with her fingers. "I thought I'd lost you." Her voice was rough.
"It was a near thing."
"Don't ever do anything like that again."
"I was just trying to impress this girl in the Laurentian system."
"She sounds like a terrible influence," One said, kissing him again. His breath was sour with sleep and inactivity, but it was his breath, cooked in the furnace of his lungs, and therefore only slightly short of miraculous.
After a cursory knock at the door McCoy came in, not even blinking at the sight of two senior officers curled together in the bed; Phil must have briefed him.
"We've got test results, Captain," the doctor said; he wore a neutral expression.
"Do you want me to go?" One asked; she tried to push herself up, but he kept her in place with a hand on her hip.
"Hell, no." Pike looked up at McCoy. "You can discuss my case in front of the captain."
McCoy nodded. "It appears that we've succeeded in repairing most of the damage; the nerve grafts have taken and are responding even better than I'd hoped.
"Walking?" Pike asked.
"After therapy, definitely. Distance running would be a long shot, and I wouldn't recommend competitive ballroom dancing, but you should be able to get around just fine.
Pike exhaled. "I can live with that."
"Another 48 hours of rest, and then we're going to start you on a very aggressive course of PT," McCoy said.
"Excellent." Pike grinned at him, the charming, disarming grin that always seemed to get everyone on his side.
McCoy gave him a knowing look. "I can't overstate the importance of the therapy, Captain, and when I say 'aggressive,' I mean it. Between fatigue and discomfort you won't be a pleasant companion for a good long while," McCoy said, his gaze sweeping over to meet One's.
"With any luck you'll be off planet for that," Pike said, squeezing her hand.
"My thoughts exactly," she said dryly, squeezing back.
After McCoy left, Chris murmured to One, "Get up and lock the door, will you?"
"Why?" she asked, her brow arching.
"Just do it, Number One," he snapped.
She shot him a look that said clearer than any words that she was merely humoring him until it no longer suited her to do so; climbing out of the bed, she walked to the door, pressing the lock button on the command panel. "Aye, sir, door locked, sir." She returned to stand at parade rest at his bedside.
"Get back here." He patted the place in the bed she had vacated.
"Chris…"
"Do I need to repeat myself?"
"Are you sure you're ready?"
He sighed. "The only thing I'm sure of is that I want to touch you without being interrupted."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You won't."
She settled next to him, pressing her shapely backside against his groin. He pulled her close, his mouth next to her ear. "One… I can't… the plumbing isn't working quite yet. The doc says it'll come back after I've had more recovery time."
"Well, we don't have to—" she began, trying to wriggle free, but he held her more tightly.
"That's not what I meant." He sighed again, pulling a long, silky curl forward, under her chin, wrapping it around his finger. "I've been in medical consultations and debriefings just about every waking minute since the Narada. I want some time where I'm not a commander, not a prisoner of war, not a patient, just a guy who's getting you off."
She swallowed. "I see. No pressure, then."
"Consider it therapy." He waggled his fingers. "Gotta make sure the fine motor control still works after all their tinkering."
She relaxed in his arms. "If you think it will be therapeutic," she said in her most logical voice.
"Baby, you have no idea." He kissed the side of her neck, her ear, her temple. His hand slid down, over her ribs, to the hollow of her waist and the waistband of her trousers, pausing long enough that she knew he was waiting for permission. She covered his hand with hers and opened the fastening of her trousers with her other hand.
He went slowly, his large knuckles tenting the fabric. She shivered as his fingertips slipped down over her belly toward her pubic mound, caressing her over her underwear. He smiled to himself, picturing practical workaday knickers.
His heart rate increased; despite a temporary weakness of the flesh his spirit was more than willing. The waistband of her underwear was easily breached, and he raked his fingers through her fleecy pubic hair. She sighed, covering his hand with hers. She was not fully aroused yet, but with the way he was touching her it wouldn't be long.
There: she was growing slick under his fingers, her flesh plump and warm as he pressed and stroked and circled. She was making tiny noises in her throat, spreading her thighs, giving him easier access. He murmured in her ear, keeping up a litany of everything he had thought of doing with her or to her since their last time together, never mind that the entire galaxy had changed since then.
Her entire body was taut and vibrating in his arms. She was on the edge, if only he could—
"Oh, Chris," she said, her voice strangled. "I don't—I don't know if I can—"
"It's OK," he panted in her ear. "It's OK." He had a window of time before the edge became a plateau, before she would start to thrash with frustration, before she would want to start swinging her fists. "You don't have to—"
"Yes, I do," she said from between gritted teeth.
"Just relax," he said.
She gasped out a laugh; "Does anyone really relax when someone says that?"
"Relax, dammit," he snapped, and she laughed again.
He ground the heel of his hand against her pubis, even as he continued caressing her with his fingertips. She whined deep in her throat and then she went completely still, sucking in deep, gasping breaths, one after another before she went limp in his arms, panting.
He exhaled, releasing the breath he hadn't realized he was holding in sympathy.
He withdrew his hand, trailing a bead of moisture up her belly, and she rolled, luxuriant, in his arms.
It was late afternoon, time for another hypospray: a painkiller and sleeping aid. One administered the prepared dose with her accustomed economy of motion and sentiment.
"Better?" she asked as he relaxed into the suffusing warmth of the drugs. He nodded, and for a few minutes they lay together silently.
"I told him about you," he said out of nowhere; his voice was slurred, dreamy.
"Him, who?" she asked.
"Nero."
"Oh?"
"He asked if I had a woman, if I would kill to avenge you."
"What did you tell him?"
"That you wouldn't require my vengeance, and that I'd like to be a fly on the wall when you demonstrated as much." He could feel her face moving into a smile, even though her head was on his shoulder.
"That's sweet," she said, and there was only a tiny bit of irony in her voice.
"I wasn't capable of being sweet; I told him what I knew."
"Your confidence in me is only slightly overblown," she said, patting his chest.
"I gave you up, One. I told him about Yorktown and her defenses and where you were. I told him what you look like. He said he was going to find you and…" His voice trailed off, his mouth pinched.
She raised her head, looking closely at him; his pupils were contracted to pinpoints. "But he didn't. Because of your actions they stopped him."
"Kirk stopped him."
"Your fingerprints are all over it, Chris. You recruited Kirk. You deployed the divers. You listened. You learned from history."
He shook his head, slowly. "I told him everything. Everything. The defenses, the codes, our relationship, everything."
"That must have made for one hell of a debriefing."
"It's not funny, One."
"I know."
He sighed. "They're making me an admiral. I'll end up commanding some godforsaken corner of the Bumfuck Quadrant, and they'll have swept me neatly under the rug."
"You were injured in the line of duty; if they wanted to be rid of you you'd be discharged."
"I'm an embarrassment."
"You're wounded and exhausted. You need rest."
He blinked solemnly at her. "Will you be here when I wake up?"
"You have to ask?" she said, and her voice cracked. She cleared her throat. "Of course I'll be here."
Despite the reflection of the nighttime lights against low-hanging clouds, the sky outside the window was dark when One woke up.
She had slept so soundly in Chris' arms that she hadn't noticed the chill in the room or the unfamiliar surroundings. After limping along on the barest minimum of sleep since the destruction of Vulcan, all of her fatigue and sorrow and relief had caught up to her with a vengeance.
Someone had covered the two of them with a blanket. Given that Chris was sleeping with his hand up her shirt, she was grateful for their benefactor's discretion and consideration.
Chris was breathing stertorously into the back of her neck; under ordinary circumstances she would have nudged him to his other side with a gentle but judiciously applied elbow, but these circumstances were anything but ordinary.
Her sibyl's face softened briefly with affection. The man was anything but ordinary.