A/N: I'm sure I heard re-boot McCoy call for Nurse Chapel during the first attack on the Enterprise, so, for the purpose of this short fic, I assume she is there. This has very mildly implied sexual situations, and mild language. It is a bit crack! As wonderful authors hopefuladdict, ejectingthecore and TalesFromTheSpockSide keep telling us, the young crew of the Enterprise are having nookie all over the ship, and someone is not happy. This was inspired by the story Indebted by hopefuladdict.


CSI Chapel

Starship Captain James T. Kirk was reminded, during a normal weekly meeting, that the acceptance of this, the acme of positions, did not ensure a life full of glamour and adventure. His operations staff briefing was going well up until the final report. The Chief Bos'n, a broad man, square of jaw and shoulder, whose five-o'clock shadow began at about eleven in the morning, was in charge of the cleaning staff, and in no mood to be trifled with. He huffed, gruff and impatient. "Deck four cleaning team are not happy. Rec Room Six has been used for sexual purposes. They say it shouldn't be their job to get that type of stain out, and I agree." He looked grim, blunt fingers tapping furiously on his thick knee; clearly this was not what he had signed up for either. "All the crew had fair an' proper warning about this kind of behaviour; they're like bloody tribbles!"

Scotty let out a guffaw and the Quartermaster swung rapidly in his chair, facing him and others, who had begun to giggle, "An' you can all shut it! It's no joke to me! And the last time was in Engineering!" He jabbed an accusatory finger towards Scotty, as if the sexual acrobatics of crew members were under the Chief Engineer's control.

The Captain gave a small smile, raising both palms to face the commotion, "All right gentlemen, ladies. Chief Bos'n, I'll make sure this, uh, incident...is investigated." As nobody else had anything to report, the Captain dismissed the meeting. Once alone, he activated the comm and asked for sickbay.

"McCoy here."

"Bones! Remember the threat we made about the 'Al fresco sex scenario'?

"Of course I do, you weren't serious about that though, were ya?" Bones laughed heartily.

"Serious as the grave. There's been a breach of regulations in Rec Room Six. I want you to take it to the next level."

McCoy began blustering, "Jim, I can't do that! Good God man, it's unethical."

"They were all given fair warning of what the consequences would be, ergo, I think we have the right."

"Well, it's your ship, as long as you handle those consequences. Baby-sitting these damned kids for their shenanigans, that's not what I signed up for. Do they not know what a bed is for?"

"Come on Bones, it'll be sneaky fun! You'll enjoy it, firing a warning shot across these youngsters' bows! Remember when sex in weird places was exciting!"

"That's not even funny coming from a Captain who just got his long pants, and sex in weird places was never exciting for me. Too many Goddam germs."

"Come on, do it for your old pal Jim."

"Yes, Captain."

Bones was sitting, sighing and sulking all at the same time when Nurse Chapel came in to his office with some patient padds for him to read. He motioned for her to sit.

"Do you remember the threat we made about the 'Al fresco sex scenario'?"

Chapel smiled. "Ha! Yes, bet that put a stop to those activities!"

"It sure did not, and Jim wants us to take it to the next level. There has been a repeat incident, in Rec Room Six this time."

"What? No! Surely we can't do that; it's an invasion of privacy! Although...technically a Rec room is a public space," Christine began to laugh, "isn't it?"


Me and my big, fat mouth. Why did I allow myself to be talked into this by making that crack about it being a public space. Stupid, stupid, stupid! So this is what I did a doctorate in Xenobiology and a nursing degree for, creeping about this ship at the dead of artificial night.

At the behest of the Chief Bos'n, Rec Room Six was closed for 'replicator maintenance,' a ruse to allow Christine unencumbered access to the space. She pressed her hand to the door-opening mechanism and requested a medical override. Once inside the room she unclipped from her belt a flashlight, a tricorder, a small electronic device the size of a communicator and a plastic case of swabs. She laid them all on a table.

"Computer, turn off lights in ten seconds."

"Command acknowledged," answered the computer in that voice Christine always found eerily like her own. The few seconds allowed her to grab the small ultraviolet flashlight and switch it on. A methodical scan of the room followed, the light sweeping over walls and surfaces, and finally, the carpet. Bingo! Just what she was looking for. Beneath one of the tables was a distinct stain of biological origin. By the faint UV light she took a swab from the case, knelt on the floor, and rubbed the soft synthetic tip of the plastic stick firmly over the secretive stain. She was glad to be wearing uniform trousers; the rec room carpet had probably seen a lot of activity.

Mission accomplished, she instructed the computer to switch on the lights, and switched off the UV. Moving over to the table, she slotted the swab-tip into an invagination on the small electronic device, and in turn clipped the device's connector into a slot on the base of her Tricorder. Instructions popped up on the screen; new device detected - swab analyser. What would you like to do?

Begin analysing material

or

Input further instructions

Christine began a primary DNA analysis, and after just a few seconds the device reported back:

Two individual samples

One female, human

One male, - …

She almost dropped the equipment. The male was not human, but that was not the surprise, it was the identity of the male that was shocking. Christine gazed at the revelation in horror. That she knew the identity of the male was in absolutely no doubt, there was only one of him on the ship, in fact she knew him to be unique in all of Starfleet. A dull sinking in the pit of her stomach caused her to conclude this was wrong, a gross invasion of privacy, and how on earth was the Captain going to broach such a delicate subject with this particular participant? The thought of him engaging in clandestine sex in a rec room was mind boggling; she could barely comprehend it. The nurse could easily match the DNA to the crew, and Medical had been asked (dispiritingly) to identify 'all or any parties' by the Captain. With a sigh, she entered a heavy-hearted voice command: "match female DNA to Enterprise crew listing." She watched the DNA query's progress-bar on the screen, unable to draw breath. 87%…89%…91%…93%…95%…97%…

"HALT IDENTIFICATION!" She breathed a sigh of relief. "Undo last two commands, delete files."

Last two commands undone. All files and commands for this session deleted.

The Chief Nurse rose, a calm but raging avenger. Striding to the room's trash disintegrator she commanded it to open, ripped the swab roughly from the DNA analyser module and threw it into the bin.

"Disintegrate."

She left the room, her ire reaching an incendiary level. With her boot-heels ringing sharply on the deck-plating, her face glowing with righteous rage and her commanding height at full-stretch, all who saw her turned away. They avoided being caught in her medusan glare, lest they be turned to stone. Christine marched in the direction of her quarters, needing to have a very, very hard think.


McCoy heard the ominous echo of the Head Nurse's yard-long stomp well before her enraged entrance. Taking a deep draught of coffee he braced himself; there was no time to escape, and no place to hide. At last, there she was, the strength of her mood quivering the antique laboratory glass on his shelves.

"This is shit of the highest order. What gives the Captain the right?" If James Kirk were a beetle on a transcript of his crew's conversations, he would surely wonder why his rank was so often italicised.

McCoy was cowed, and he was supposed to be the boss. "Hmm ... Did'ja find anything?"

"Damned right I did, but I disintegrated it." The nurse's nostrils flared in challenge.

The Doctor admired Christine's stance. She was fierce, and profoundly scary. "Eh, OK, sit. Tell me, what can we do?" His contrition knocked the wind out of the nurse's sails, somewhat.

"Why don't we say that the cleaning fluids and steri-lights the cleaners use have made the DNA unviable?"

A pause for thought, "So you know I don't agree with Jim either?"

"Yes, I figured."

"OK, the ship is very busy, folks have important stuff to worry about, so that could work. If it's queried I'll shout Starfleet regs on beings' rights all the way up to the top deck."

Christine beamed, "Thanks Doc."

"So, you know who they are?"

"Only one, I disintegrated the sample after the primary DNA scan."

The CMO's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You said you knew who one party was. A primary DNA scan won't tell you that."

"One was of a species we only have one of on the Ship, the other was a human female."

"So, spill?"

"I'm only doing this because I think the party involved should get a quiet and kindly warning. If this was known about, there would be ridicule, and it could be detrimental."

"And?"

Hands twisting, she looked at McCoy with a pleading expression, "Will you speak to him? I don't think the Captain should."

"I'll see."

Christine exhaled, looked up at the doctor, and steeled herself for the inevitable explosion.

A prolonged inhalation; "It was Keenser."

Black coffee spattered the front of Christine's uniform, and she jerked her chair back on its rollers. "WHAAAT?" bawled the doctor, his face immediately purple.

"Doctor! Come on! OK, it's unusual. God, I was so surprised I almost dropped my analyser but you've got to admit, that little guy, he's got nowhere else to go. He sleeps in Engineering; that's not right, is it?"

The poor man put his head in his hands, shaking it from side to side. At first he said nothing, just groaned. "Give me ten minutes, will you Christine? Good work. I dumped it on you , at least you did the right and moral thing." He leaned back in his seat to look at his head nurse. "Chapel, you are a damned scary woman!"

Later, Christine came back to the doctor's office, pointedly smoothing the front of her fresh, clean uniform shirt. She cocked her head in silent query.

"Right, right, hell, uhh, I've thought about this every such way, and I decided I just have to go for it, be straightforward, no pussy footin' around - pardon the pun."

Christine glowered.

"Ahh, sorry."

McCoy pushed the comm button. "Engineering? Commander Scott please."

"Scott here."

"Scotty, Keenser's been caught with his overalls down in Rec Room Six; tell him not to do it again."

"Whaat? The dirty wee perv. Who caught him?" Scotty sounded furious.

"No, nobody, no, nothing like that, there was a girl involved, and before you ask, we don't know who she was. They were alone."

"Eh? Horny little fu-… Ach I meant, ah'll hae a man-tae-man talk with him Doctor. I'll be tactful, honest." Now that he knew his diminutive assistant had been assisted, and not engaged in public solitary stimulation, Scotty suddenly sounded like quite the proud dad. Christine imagined him slapping Keenser on the back, and giving him a cigar.

"You do that Commander, and Scotty?"

"Aye?"

"I think it's high time Keenser got his own quarters, don't you?"

"Aye, probably," Scotty sighed, "I'll see to it with the Chief Bos'n."

"Do me a favour Scotty, please don't tell him the reason; this is in strict medical confidence."

"Right Doc, instructions received and understood."

"McCoy out."

Christine stood, walked round the Doctor's desk, and squeezed his shoulder affectionately. "Thanks Len, for not making a drama out of it, and will you promise me one last thing?"

"Um, maybe..."

"Please, please don't go up there swabbing the rec room deck to find out who the girl was."

"OK. I won't. You're the boss."

"I'm not, actually."

"Ha! I think you are!"

Christine smiled and left the office. As soon as she was out of sight, she punched the air joyfully, and did a twisty little victory-dance.

Hell yeah…oh yeah…oh yeah…oh yeah.

I totally am the boss.


The following day Christine was on her way to engineering with a medi-kit to treat a clumsy ensign with minor spark-burns. She purposefully drifted by Keenser's work space, and halted briefly.

"Did it work out? Scotty is not an easy man to fool," she whispered, head lowered, pretending to be fascinated by the components on his bench.

Keenser grinned from ear-to-ear and nodded enthusiastically, carefully staring at his tools and not at Christine. Glancing side-to-side for observers, he gave a hidden, behind-the-back, affectionate tug to the hem of her shirt, bouncing on his toes and looking furtively at her to show his eye-beads, bright and twinkling. The nurse winked at her co-conspirator. Surreptitiously bringing her hand to her face, she curved her fingers into the palm, exhaled on her nails and pretended to polish them on her uniformed shoulder. Moving on towards the main engineering area, Christine glimpsed back to see Keenser give her a bashful little wave goodbye, followed by a discreet low-level thumbs-up.

So, Keenser got his own quarters at last, and if the reason behind it ever got out, he would probably be a hero.

And the identity of the actual culprit? Well, that was known only to three people: one male half-Vulcan, one female Human, and one nurse Christine Chapel.