GESTATION
ONE
She forced herself to focus at the very nanosecond that the beaming cleared, sure that her upright military stance and her confidently purposeful expression still held, there for her new superiors, her new colleagues, to see and form their first impressions. First impressions are made in the first two minutes. Or maybe it was one minute. It was quick anyway. She stood to attention.
"Christine Chapel, reporting for duty. Permission to come aboard."
"Permission granted, Nurse Chapel. Good to see you. How are you - these transporters are no way to travel around, are they. Here, step down off those pads."
By the time the owner of the drawling, Southern voice and the piercing blue eyes had grasped her hand in a firm clasp and smiled a smile that made the blue eyes crinkle, Christine found that her carefully arranged facial expression and rigid posture had been relaxed into non existence. "I'm fine," she smiled back. "Ah…?"
"Leonard McCoy, Chief Medical Officer, at your service. I'll show you where your quarters are. No, we'll just transport your bags there. You're taking that one? Okay – you ready?" He was already gesturing for her to precede him out of the door, chivalry itself.
"Isn't the idea that I'll be at your service?" she asked, as they moved together side by side along the corridor towards the nearest turbo lift.
The reply he made to that could only have been described as "Hnmmph." One eyebrow shot upwards and then descended. "Don't you believe it, Miss Chapel. No-one ever listens to me here. You'll surely find that out."
She chuckled, feeling more at ease than she had at any time since leaving her shoebox of a room on Starbase Seven that morning to travel to the transporter ports. "It's Christine. And, somehow," she turned to him and smiled shyly, " I find that just a bit hard to believe."
"Hnmmph," was all he said in reply; but the blue eyes twinkled with an astonishing and powerful mix of welcoming friendliness and lasar-sharp perception and intelligence.
TWO
She'd heard of them all. The Enterprise was the flagship and a famous ship, with a famous crew. Even if they hadn't been quite so famous, and renowned, and dashing by association, she had of course done her research, following the most unexpected success of her application to join the crew. Leonard had had a hand in that, she suspected and later had confirmed – he hinted in his usual gruff and cynical way that he wasn't going to let go of the chance to have a scientist of her intellectual acumen and experience answer to him in his Sickbay. "Though why someone of your achievements wants to be a nurse…."
"Head Nurse," she interrupted, serenely.
"Hey, I didn't say you'd be…"
"Yes, you did." She smiled broadly at him. "Last section meeting."
"Well, I…"
"I've got my reasons." She layered this statement with an overacted air of mystery, turning the truth into a joke, for now. She guessed that Leonard McCoy, CMO on the Fleet flagship, was quite as capable as she of doing background research, but until it was out in the open, on her terms, she was making it clear that it was not up for general discussion. "When's my promotion?" She beamed again.
"When the Captain approves it. Which, young lady, he may not do if you continue this level of insubordination…"
She met his gaze head on, blue on blue. "Do you think he will?"
McCoy turned away, and strolled into the next room to check on the bioreadings of the latest security officer to take up enforced residence in Sickbay. "Well, I guess he might," he drawled over his shoulder.
Christine smiled to herself.
THREE
She had met the Captain, the legendary Captain Kirk, after she'd been on the Enterprise for four days. He had bounced into Sickbay, shaken her warmly by the hand, apologized for not having been able to make the time to see her before now, and treated her to a smile that could have felled her at ten paces, had she been in the market for being felled by smiles. She was already well acquainted with a smile almost as dangerous as that one, and she wasn't looking to add to her collection. But it reached all the way to the hazel eyes and further, and she felt warm and included.
Before she'd met the Captain, she had already been accepted and befriended by some of the names she'd found on her pre-posting research. She had thought that the Captain's Yeoman might have considered herself in a class of her own, but Janice Rand had made a point of making her way over to her in Rec Room 5, sliding into the seat opposite her and introducing herself. Thenceforth, Christine had felt comfortable enough to seek out Rand if she saw her eating or generally socializing, and thus she was helped to get to know some more of the people behind the names, those famous names. Checkov was young, unintelligible - that last probably intentionally - eager and funny; that last probably unintentionally. Charlene Masters was what her mother might have called a rather forward woman, and Christine loved her for it. Kyle charmed her with his accent, Riley annoyed her with his until she got to know him. Uhura daunted her with her beauty; Christine got the impression that Uhura was used to that having that effecton people, and when she made particular effort to befriend the new nurse, Christine was keenly aware that some were not so graciously invited in. Uhura of course was part of the Bridge crew, Alpha shift, as was Sulu, who was the one to volunteer to give her a tour of the ship. Thus it was that she met perhaps the most famous of the famous names, famous as much for his achievements as for his unique place as a Vulcan on a predominantly Human ship in a predominantly Human fleet. As she was conductedpast the science station, he unfurled himself to his full height, turned to face her, and positioned himself in a "stand-easy" military stance, his hands behind his back. "Miss Chapel," he said, a barely perceptible bow of the head suggesting royalty at the very least. It dawned on her as she followed Sulu off the Bridge that in fact no-one had actually mentioned her name.
"How did he know who I was," she asked Sulu, once in the privacy of the turbolift.
Sulu laughed. "Mr Spock knows everything," he replied. Christine had the feeling that, just for once, Sulu wasn't joking.
FOUR
In the quiet of her quarters, she would think about Roger. When she allowed herself to, she would think about the unthinkable, the vastness of space and the possibility of finding one person in there. But then she would remind herself that it was not just any old person, not just an ordinary Human, but the man who had revolutionized Federation immunological techniques and left his stamp on all subsequent Starfleet training and scientific and medical exploratory philosophies.. Such a person made waves, left impressions, impacted on his surroundings as no-one else she had ever known. If he was alive, she would find him. And he was alive. Of that she felt sure. So she would find him, and then…..
And then.
FIVE
Of course, she wasn't the only crewman daunted by the First Officer. Hell, even some of the Bridge crew quaked when he turned from his science station and looked, just looked at them – this from Uhura, who found it very funny to see knees jellified and who seemed to have no fear of him at all – let alone all the hundreds on the lower decks who knew him only by reputation and through his dreaded ghost walks, as his inspections were generally termed, through the bowels of the ship at frighteningly unpredictable intervals. She wasn't the only one. But she was angry with herself nonetheless. Why would she be worried? She could, and should, be worried if her work was lacking, substandard. However she knew that it was not; and yet, on the comparatively rare occasions when he walked into Sickbay when she was on duty, she found herself straightening her stance, checking that her work area was neat, orderly, that she was busy. Busy, for goodness sake! Why should she feel she had to justify herself to him? He was not her direct command officer. That was Leonard, who seemed to suffer no such constraints or anxieties in the presence of the Vulcan.
On the contrary. He abused, insulted, badmouthed, argued with Mr Spock at every single opportunity. She started by feeling horrified, and then embarrassed, and then confused; but more confusing still was Mr Spock's reactions to these extraordinary bouts of what sounded on first hearing like the worst combination of insubordination and racism.
He did not put McCoy on a charge. Mr Spock hit back. He insulted, he badmouthed, he argued.
She didn't understand it.
SIX
What was the music?
She returned her attention to the food dispenser and punched in her meal order, and then carried her tray over to the leisure end of the Rec room. She peered around the corner.
Mr Spock was seated with his back to her, and, without the irrefutable evidence of the ears and eyebrows combination, she found at first that she couldn't actually believe it was him; seated with his booted feet crossed at the ankles under his chair, a strange stringed instrument on his lap, his dark sleek head bent over the strings, playing music of such haunting beauty that it made her eyes well up and her lips part in breathless emotion.
This was not that First Officer who knew everything - the ghost walker, the uber-cool solution finder, the literally inhuman Command Officer. This was…. And could everyone else see it? She didn't think that they could all see it. Not the people she heard mention him on those times when they came to Sickbay and sat and grumbled.
Lieutenant Uhura left her seat at the other side of the room and strolled towards the food dispensers, passing Mr Spock as he sat and played his stringed instrument. As she passed him, she leant over and whispered something in his ear, and softly brushed her fingertips across his shoulder. He glanced briefly up at her, no flicker of response in his face, no pause in his music, and Uhura chuckled and passed on by.
Christine carried her tray to a nearby table. She started her meal, wondering quite consciously why she could not get out of her mind the image and sound and feel of that scene – and Nyota Uhura trailing her fingers across the lean shoulder.
SEVEN
"You sure you should be doing this job?" her friend and boss Leonard Mccoy asked her again, as they sat in his office at the end of shift, sharing a coffee and a few moments of unwinding and friendly reflection. "Your qualifications…."
"Will keep." She took another sip of coffee. "I'm keeping up my reading. I'm presenting enough papers to keep my grade. It's…."
"Crazy," McCoy finished for her. "Chris, you could get promotion on another ship…."
"I want to stay on this ship! It's the best ship. It's what I want."
"But…"
"And you know why. Stop harping on it, Len. We've been here before. You know why I'm here."
He looked at her, that sharp look that incised its way down through all the layers as effectively as his laser scalpel. She met him glance for glance. She'd been working on it. She was quite good at it now.
"You think you'll find him?"
She finished her coffee and set the cup down in a manner intended to signify the end of the conversation. McCoy looked at her a moment more, and then nodded.
Well'" he drawled. "It's our gain."
"It sure is."
Her imitation of his carefully maintained accent was perfect. Her retention of the control of the conversation just as perfect.
EIGHT
McCoy had received one of his frequent summons to the Bridge, many of which were issued, she had realised by now, simply because the Captain wanted a chat. She was surprised when he called back over his shoulder that she should come too; she hastily closed her computer terminal and hurried out after him down the corridor. "Why?"
"You've had as much to do with working on this virus as I have. You may as well chip in. Bridge", this last to the turbolift. The doors had swished open before she had a chance to compose herself, so she decided not to bother to do it at all, and simply stepped out onto the Bridge, her gaze moving compulsively to the view screen as she did so.
There was something intrinsically impressive about knowing you were standing on the Bridge, the hub of that great ship of the stars. The part of the ship from whence came all the orders that directed the duties and lives of the entire crew. She felt vaguely little-girlish at the thrill, but had to acknowledge it nonetheless. It caused no harm – no-one turned to notice her, except Uhura, who smiled at her briefly before returning her attention to her Comm board. Christine slowly made her way down to the Captain's chair, where Len was already leaning casually against its back and filling Captain Kirk in on the success of the latest vaccine.
"Yeah, I think we've got it," he was drawling as she reached him. "Chris, you agree this is the one?"
"Ah, yes, Doctor," she said, swallowing a faint pang of nerves as she spoke. "We've had 92% success with it, and the other 8% were the seven who had secondary infections before they contracted the virus."
The Captain swiveled his chair slightly towards her, and treated her to one of his Smiles. It had to be capitalized, she reflected, as she smiled back. Nothing else would do it justice…"Well done, Nurse Chapel," he said.
Christine blinked in genuine surprise. "It wasn't…"
Captain Kirk interrupted with a wave of her hand. "McCoy's told me about the work you put in in analyzing the virus and developing the vaccine – he's said he wouldn't have got there nearly as fast without you, and, believe me Nurse Chapel," the Captain leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially, "Bones will always claim the credit when he can." The Smile again. She returned it as best she could, and aimed a glare at McCoy, who shot her a look of wounded innocence in return.
After which the two men slipped again into the easy banter and silence of their friendship, McCoy's right elbow propped against the back of the Command chair and Kirk alternating his glances between the screen and his friend. Christine stepped back to make sure she was out of their line of sight, and then just stood and looked around her, feeling less little-girlish following her unexpected and public commendation. Uhura, staring blankly ahead at nothing as she concentrated on the sounds coming in to her ear piece. Sulu, leaning back in his chair, right elbow propped on the arm of his chair, twiddling a stylus and looking frankly bored.
Mr Spock, of course, was also there.
He was seated at his science station, concentrating on the board in front of him, and his hands were moving at an astonishing pace over the controls, playing the board as a maestro would play a piano. He had long fingers, she saw. Long and tapering and slender, moving across the board with a grace that made her catch her breath. She watched his hands, was unable to do anything else, and was spellbound. Then, the beautiful hands paused in their work, and Mr Spock rose partly to his feet to lean over to his right, reaching above the console for some other input, some other switch. The black fabric of his uniform trousers stretched itself taut across the buttocks, defining the tight muscle, the long firm thigh - he returned to his seat. But, this time, he simply sat, still, at apparent rest, his right elbow resting on the edge of the console, his fingers curled loosely across his mouth, and the left hand lying loosely across the black-clad leg, the long fingers trailing down towards the inside of his thigh.
He then turned his chair around. "Captain," he said.
"Dr McCoy, I'll need to return to the lab, if that's alright. I need to check on the cultures I left." Her voice was entirely even, entirely convincing. Mccoy nodded and resumed his conversation, as Christine made it to the turbolift doors and walked calmly in.
Only when the doors swished shut behind her could she take the breath she'd been needing to take since…..since she noticed that Mr Spock was a man with a very real body under the First Officer uniform.
"Sickbay," she said, unsteadily.
NINE
Orderlies pushed the gurney in through the doors even as they swished open, wasting not a moment to deliver Ensign Jamieson to the care of Dr McCoy and his Head Nurse. The two began work without words, ripping the torn discoloured uniform off, eyes darting without conscious thought between the scanners and the biofunction monitors,. The doctor snapped out commands and requests, knowing without having to check that the commands would be instantly followed, if not anticipated, and that life saving instrumentation would be placed in his hands almost as he thought their need. Neither spared the time to simply regard the horror of the crushed chest and rib cage. Neither noticed that Mr Spock was standing with them in Sickbay, not until an orderly nervously but assertively requested that he move out of the way. Neither, even then, turned to look at him.
"Dr, the readings are slipping!"
"10cc's of virocol!"
The hiss of the hypospray sounded; both stared fiercely at the readings as though willing them to rise.
They did not rise.
McCoy abandoned his instruments, and did what he had not had to attempt for many years – he massaged the heart by hand.
Christine could do nothing but watch him, her hand resting on Jamieson's filthy and sweatstained forehead. She watched him, she watched the readings, she knew at the same moment that he did that it was no use. Jamieson's brief life slipped away.
And Christine heard a sigh.
She glanced up in surprise. Mr Spock was standing at the foot of the couch. His tunic was covered with the same grey dust as poor dead Ensign Jamieson's lifeless skin. His tunic, his trousers, grey with dust, his hair for once dulled with dirt and untidiness, his hands – oh, his hands, ripped and bleeding. But, for the first instant, she only saw his eyes, and she saw the spasm of grief and of helplessness and of deep deep compassion.
Just for an instant, until the Vulcan First Officer returned.
"Mr Spock." She paused to clear her throat and swallow hard, to move on from that terrible moment when they had lost the man on the couch. She and Dr McCoy, whom she did not wish to look at right now. "Mr Spock. Your hands need attention. We need to look at you."
"I assure you, Nurse, that I am…"
"Over here, Spock, now!"
McCoy's voice might have been considered unnecessarily harsh, but everyone knew why. Spock, stone faced and upright, moved towards the next couch as ordered and sat down as the doctor's scanner sounded over him all the way. "Dr..."
"Can it."
Mr Spock lapsed into stoic silence, his face a mask once more.
But Christine had seen it.
She had. She had.
TEN
Dr McCoy must have seen something about the way she was sitting over the tape viewer, the astonishment, the concentration. "Chris?"
She frowned, shook her head slightly, and looked up at him interrogatively.
"What'ya looking at?" He peered over her shoulder at the viewer, and then hurumphed in surprise. "You're checking up on our walking computer?"
"I was 'checking up' on all the non-humans on board, Doctor," she replied, affronted dignity to the fore. "I've been trying to work through them as and when I can. I just didn't know…. Is that for real?"
"That he's half human?"
She nodded.
"It's for real. Not a whole lot of people know it though. He keeps that one close to his chest."
"Half human? But he seems so…."
The doctor's eyebrows did their usual dance. "Ain't that the truth," he drawled. "Coffee?" She nodded, and he wandered over to the dispenser in the next office.
"Which….?"
"Mother." He came back with two cups, set one down at her elbow, and then lowered himself into the chair across the table from her. "Father's full Vulcan. Spock's the first, though I don't think he's still the only. From what I've read, it was quite a feat of genetic engineering at that time."
Christine pretended that she hadn't noticed the blue eyes fixed on her, as she kept her own blue eyes on the viewer, scanning the closely-written details. "So why does he keep it so quiet? You'd never guess he wasn't full Vulcan."
McCoy took a sip of his coffee, and pursed his lips around the liquid. "Don't know, Chris," he replied eventually. "Guess he'd like us all to believe he is full Vulcan." He paused again, and this time she looked up at him. And this time, he was all serious. "But he can't deny the fact. He is half Human. And, one day, that Human in there is going to knock at the door and ask to come out and play." There went those eyebrows again.
"And you're going to be ready for that, aren't you, Doctor?" Her emphasis on the final word conveyed her sudden and full understanding of just why her commanding officer spent so much time needling the First Officer.
He grinned at her; not an entirely pleasant expression. "You betcha," he said, as he drained his coffee cup.
ELEVEN
"Chris! Come sit over here!"
She turned her head in the direction of the shout, smiled, and made her way over to the table where sat Sulu, he who had shouted, Uhura, Riley, Jamieson from Security and Charlene from Engineering; she moved up to make room for the Head Nurse who put down her tray and slid into her place next to Riley. She dug into her lasagna and, after a few minutes of dulling the edge of her hunger, she began to tune in to the conversation around the table whilst still casting a curious eye around the rest of the rec room. It was partly plain nosiness, she would have been happy to admit to anyone who asked her, and of course no-one did, as there was nothing untoward about looking around people-watching. It was partly research; as a newcomer and also as a medic, she was very aware of the complexity of the community she'd come in to, and Christine needed to feel on top of it, as far as one person could be on top of such an isolated cluster of dynamics. It was partly that the discussion at her table on the likely winner of the next poker night simply didn't do it for her. She saw Captain Kirk and Mr Spock sitting opposite each other at another table and she watched, sideways on, out of the corner of her eye, between mouthfuls of lasagna.
Why was it so fascinating, to see how the upper echelons functioned off duty, at leisure; at dinner? Why was it in any way interesting to note that the Captain was halfway through a steak with salad, and that Mr Spock was eating something that looked like soup so probably was? And did she need to feel ashamed of herself for being interested?
She told herself that she did not, and continued to observe. They were too far away and the conversation in the rec room was too loud for her to hear them. Kirk was speaking and his face seemed serious but his manner was animated, energetic; he waved his fork to emphasise a point, and then leaned forward towards Mr Spock and nodded vigorously, as if to encourage the other's agreement. The Vulcan, by contrast, divided his attention neatly between his soup and his Captain, saying little and offering next to nothing by way of encouraging facial expressions, nods or, heaven forbid, smiles. Yet Kirk kept talking and clearly felt comfortable with the way the conversation and the dinner was going. Christine reflected, as she tried not to stare, that she would find it near impossible to maintain such a lively conversation with someone who's responses resembled those of a slab of permaconcrete.
Kirk paused, and the tilt of his head suggested to their unseen watcher that he was inviting some kind of reply. Spock said something, a few words only, though she did notice one eyebrow move slightly. He seemed to do that quite a lot. Kirk got going again, Christine tackled the last edge of the lasagna, Kirk finally stopped talking and dug into a large mouthful of his steak. As he did so, Spock leaned forward very slightly and spoke.
Kirk's explosive snort of laughter ejected morsels of steak onto the table in front of him. The Captain clapped his hand over his mouth, but Christine could see that he was continuing to giggle and choke behind the hand, followed by a braying in-breath.
Mr Spock meanwhile took another spoonful of soup, and regarded his Captain steadily. Then one eyebrow rose; and Kirk dissolved yet again into noisy and food-filled giggles. Christine realised that at this point she was not the only one looking at the Captain's table. Uhura tutted. "Will you look at him. Like an overgrown schoolkid sometimes."
Christine turned to her, leaning around Jamieson to speak to her. "Nyota, he's acting like that cos… cos it looks like Mr Spock told a joke!"
Uhura nodded back at her, and seemed to be waiting for the rest of the sentence.
"Is that….? Isn't that…..? Does he do that?"
"Sure he does."
"Just doesn't usually call it one," Sulu added.
"He tells jokes?" Christine was having a difficult time coming to terms with that one.
"Well, no, he doesn't ever sit down and, well, tell a joke." Uhura frowned slightly at the effort of explaining something she knew so well but which was so elusive of definition. "He…"
"He's just got one mean sense of humour," said Riley. "And you don't want to get on the wrong side of that."
"Oh, Kevin, don't be ridiculous," Uhura chided. "It's not mean. It's….well, I guess it's clever. That's your problem with it, isn't it Kevin?"
They all laughed, and then Charlene said she had to get back and Christine said she was leaving too, and the group broke up, returning their trays and moving towards the doors. Christine made her way up to the labs and resumed her work; she was fully aware over the course of her evening that the image of Mr Spock quite deliberately leaning forward and saying something to make the Captain laugh was staying with her and recurring at odd moments, and she wondered why that should linger so.
TWELVE
A sense of humour?
That didn't fit.
In the privacy of her quarters, she decided to do some research, into Vulcans, into Vulcan the planet, into lifestyles, customs, societies. She knew nothing about them. Not next to nothing, but nothing at all, and that was not good. With that kind of ignorance came professional mistakes at worst and unintentional narrow mindedness at best.
Should she have been surprised that Mr Spock had told a joke? No-one else around that table was. Was it just him, or were all Vulcans such masters of subtle wit? She showered, she changed into her robe, she gathered a glass of light wine and a small dish of cycled mixed nuts and settled down to her computer station. And embarked on her reading.
A glance at the time showed her that she only had five point five hours until she was due on duty again. She had been reading for over four hours. Her eyes were tired, her neck was stiff –
She was confused, at the gaps in the information, at the – alienness? - of the society.
Three paces behind the men?
No way.
THIRTEEN
"Dr McCoy! Len!"
"Chris? Are you okay?" Then the doctor saw the radiance in her face, and relaxed. "You are okay. What's happened? You've won the sweep on where the hooch is stored this week?"
Christine flapped a hand in a happy dismissal of the silly suggestion, an ear to ear grin illuminating her face. "Len, there's been news!"
"Of…..?" McCoy's eyebrows rose in enquiry.
"Roger!"
"Ro…..? What? Where from?"
"Star Base 12. There's a team there who've been trying to track him since he lost contact. I've been keeping tabs on them. They've had word!"
"And?" McCoy found her excitement contagious, especially as he knew he'd never seen her look like this. So….alive.
"They're on a planet called Exo 111. It looked bad when they were forced to land, the planet's been uninhabitable since their sun started dying, but the Starbase have traced a message, an emergency beacon. They've found underground caverns, they've found protection. Len, he's alive!" At which point, the Head Nurse threw her arms around the Chief Medical Officer and hugged him so fiercely it forced a grunt from him.
"Hey, lady, careful of an old man!" But he hugged back, his own grin widening. "Chris, that's… incredible news!"
"I know. It is. And the team will contact Starfleet and request a ship go out there. Len, it might be us! We're near. Well, kind of near. It might be us!" She hugged him again, and this time he was ready. When he felt her wipe her face he pulled back from her, and saw the tears tracking down her face. "Oh, Len, I'm so happy. I can't believe it!"
He reached behind him and pulled a wipe out of the dispenser and handed it to her for her to wipe her eyes. She did, then blew her nose, sniffed vigorously, and beamed again. "I'm going back to my quarters. I want to tape home. I just wanted you to know."
"Well, I'm glad you did. You go ahead. And…." He paused, searching for an appropriate remark in such unique circumstances, "…congratulations!"
"Thanks. I'll see you in two hours." She stepped back, and round Andrew Foulds, one of the ensigns assigned to the research labs. She beamed at him, and neither she nor McCoy could miss the glow, the cloud of adoration emanating from him, as he stepped round her and wafted backwards out into the lab next door. Chapel and McCoy regarded each other. She shrugged.
"He's mad about you, Chris."
"Yeah, I know."
"Has he asked you on a date yet?"
"Well, yes. Twice. But…"
"Chris, he's a nice guy. Why not…..you've been on your own since you joined this ship, and it certainly isn't for want of people trying."
Christine looked at him, her head on one side and an indulgent smile on her face. At any other time his comment would have irritated the hell out of her, but at the moment nothing could burst her bubble, not even McCoy's clumsy matchmaking. "Len. Why would I?' She turned to go, and grinned joyfully back at him. "I'm engaged to Roger."
FOURTEEN
She could feel his warm breath nuzzling her neck. If she turned her head just a tiny bit her cheek lay alongside his; she drew back a fraction to kiss his face. She heard the tiniest of sighs, and then his hand came up, fingertips touched her face, tilted her chin up, and his lips covered hers. His tongue urged her lips apart; they opened willingly, tongues danced together as she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. She drew him even closer, stroked her hand through the thick silk black hair and ran one finger along the edge of a beautifully pointed ear. He shifted position, raised himself up slightly so that he was propped on one elbow, his deep kiss and his caressing hand and his lean hard-muscled body pushing her down, down, into the bed. She slid her own hand down his long smooth back and over the taut buttocks, and then further down, drawing his thigh up and over her own body. He moved with her willingly, and she slid the hand down between his legs and caressed his hot, hard shaft. His breath caught; he broke the kiss and his lips nuzzled down to her throat, where his teeth grazed and nipped at her skin. She heard a whimper, her own. Her hand tightened around him.
With the slightest of gasps, he lifted his mouth from her throat, moved her hand from his body, and raised himself slightly from her so that he could look down into her face. Even in the low light she could see that he was smiling one of his non-smiles; his cheek was so slightly dimpled and she smiled back. She lifted her head towards him to kiss him again and in an instant the kiss was as deep as before, as if he had not broken it. She felt his hand slidinghard, pressing, down across her stomach, down, between her legs, long strong fingers sinking inside her, deep down to the knuckles, moving, thrusting hard until there was almost pain, yes pain but good and she pushed up against his hand and clutched at his back. She tore her lips from his as she felt the pleasure build, build, too quickly, tried to prolong it but couldn't and she gave in to a keening wail of ecstasy…
Christine started awake with a gasp. Her eyes gazed wide into the darkness of her cabin, her muscles petrified in shock, unmoving, immovable – she stared up towards her ceiling.
She felt moisture between her legs.
What had woken her? The orgasm? Or her own cry of delight?
She lay and listened to her own loud breathing in the dark, noting as it slowed, stilled, quietened, the sweat cooling on her skin. Still she could not move.
Why? Why that dream?
Why him?
Why? She didn't think of him like that. She didn't.
She had never had a dream like that.
She didn't think of him like that. She didn't want him.
She didn't dream of him.
She was engaged to Roger.
FIFTEEN
She retrieved the scanner left in the office next door and turned and paced quickly back, and almost collided with Mr Spock who was moving into the room at the same time. "Mr Spock!"
She stared at him, wide eyed. She knew she was gawping at him as though he was the last person she would have expected to see there. In sickbay. Adjoining the bio Labs, of which he was line officer. "Ah, Mr…. I'm sorry…"
"Miss Chapel?"
He did not seem in any hurry to move past her as she stood stupidly and blocked the door. Her eyes were riveted to the space between his black upswept brows, smooth, real olive skin. He stood placidly and regarded her calmly. "Are you alright, Miss Chapel?" His voice was calm and bland and without urgency.
She took a sharp breath. "I'm fine, Mr Spock." She managed an intonation to the words which clearly queried why he should be asking such a silly question. "If I could…." She gestured past him.
He gave her that imperiously regal inclination of the head, and moved aside for her, and she swept past him, briskly. She was fiercely aware that he had paused to watch her passing, before he moved into the next room.
It was the first time she had seen him since the dream. She had the strong impression that he had been in his own way amused by her behaviour in the doorway. That he had in his own way been making fun of her. Such a thing would never have occurred to her before, would not occur to most people, she knew that. But she also knew now that he did have a sense of humour, that he did joke. She'd seen it.
Christine trusted her own instincts; had done since she was very young. If she thought that that was what he had done then that was what he had done. And that was a big worry, because she had to fight the feeling that he could see right into her head, and that he could see the dream.
Christine knew that she had to learn to see Mr Spock without seeing the dream. She had to learn to see him as she had done before the dream. She had to un-know the dream. The dream that had, she knew, oh she knew, told her the truth about what she felt about Mr Spock.
SIXTEEN
No-one knew how she felt; she was satisfied that that was truly the case. No-one knew how she felt. He didn't know how she felt. After that stuttering start in the doorway to No 2 bio lab, she made sure that it was all locked down and water tight.
She had even worked closely alongside him, with no mishaps. On one occasion he had even specifically requested that she assist him, in view of her bio-research background. "You are the biologist, not I," he had intoned, and had then proceeded to organise and instruct her in a manner which entirely belied that statement; yet throughout the experiments and subsequent analysis of results he had given every impression that he respected and in his own way needed her input. She had felt useful and valued.
Only in her most private of moments did she even begin to dare to debate whether she had felt that way when working with Roger. Useful. Or valued. Respected.
She did not understand how these impulses had overtaken her and she did not allow them to surface above the inner core of her being. She could work with Mr Spock, she could pass him in Sickbay or in the rec room or in briefings, and she was entirely confident that she remained professional.
She never let her gaze linger on his hands. She never watched the sweep and style of those hands, their agile sinews and fine bones, their slender perfection. She never let her breath catch in contemplation of the long, strong lean fingers. She did no more than note the shimmer of the lab lights on the shining silk of his ebony hair. She stood next to him at a bench, measuring the minute quantities of solvents into the cylinders, and ignored the outline of the muscles where his tunic stretched across the broad shoulders as he stooped over the computer read-outs, did not so much as glance at the clean, hard lines under the black revealing uniform trousers where the taut buttocks gave way to long, firm-muscled legs.
And it was a matter of irrelevance that when he was absorbed in his work his face relaxed into repose and lost its self-conscious sternness, rendering his appearance younger, more vulnerable. It mattered not to her that the corner of his mouth seemed to turn up so slightly, almost into a smile. She never noticed the dark lashes laying along the high cheekbones, nor the full lower lip, nor the deep lines etched on either side of his nose down to the chiseled chin. She accepted his quiet courtesies, his extraordinarily old-world good manners, as her due.
Yet, sometimes, in the deep of the night, in her own bed, at her most fragile and searingly honest moments, then she would hold and grasp each one of those images in her mind and her heart and, in longing and lonely desire, her hands would be his until her stifled gasps became her own.
SEVENTEEN
Christine arrived for her morning shift, and made straight for intensive care to check on Iris Anselmi. She wasn't worried, she knew she would have been alerted had there been a deterioration during the night, but sensors were not programmed to contact her in the event of a patient becoming upset, or hopeless, or despairing of the pain ever going away. That's what you needed humans for.
Iris was still asleep, and seemed fine. Christine checked on the monitors, and unnecessarily straightened a coverlet, and then moved across the room into the open ward.
Leonard McCoy was fussing around.
Christine always wondered how he managed to so effectively display his feelings in every move or gesture that he made. Right now he was calibrating the diagnostic sensors in a manner which said as clearly as though he had shouted it, "I'd rather be doing anything other than this."
"What's up?" Christine had long ago learned that beating around the bush was not only ineffective but also unpopular. Beating around the bush was not the CMO's style.
"Ah, Chris. Good. Can you carry on with this? I've got reading to do about them."
Christine took over the task. "Them?" was the obvious query.
"Oh, this danged group of scientists. We've got to pick'em up and take them on somewhere, I don't know where. They'll need to be scanned and checked the moment they get on board so we need to be ready. Don't know how many of 'em there are…." He wandered just as crossly into his office and clicked on the terminal.
"Well, that's ok. We can do that. We always do that. What's the problem?"
"Oh, there isn't one, really. I just wish someone up there had warned me about it before today. I hate a rush." McCoy plonked himself onto his chair and huffed at the screen.
"Oh, okay. I'm sure it'll be fine. We're full staffed today, aren't we."
"Yeah, we are. I just…" He trailed off again, disconsolately, and Christine smiled to herself as she finished checking one group of sensors and went on to the next.
"Where are we getting them from," she called through as she worked.
"Ah…it's, ah….." McCoy input a command and waited for the answer, which popped up almost immediately. "Some planet called Psi 2000," he replied.
END