"It couldn't have been that bad, Chris? That was over a week ago."
The soft touch on Christine's upper arm made her stop beating her forehead against the table surface and stare into the worried chocolate eyes of Uhura with grim certainty. "Oh, it was, Ny. Every bit as bad as you could imagine." She shuddered. "You should have seen me. Simpering like a schoolgirl, without a single brain cell in my -" she made a self-deprecating face, colour staining her cheeks; it rushed through her like a tsunami and could rival the warp engines for heat - "pretty little head. Revolting."
"You're being terribly hard on yourself, woman," Ny said, lovely face creased by a frown. "Could be you're overstating it?"
"Oh I wish." Chapel leaned in and whispered, "I grabbed his hands -" she nodded when Uhura's expression flickered into appalled realisation - "and told him I loved him." Christine cringed some more. "Wasn't content to leave it there. Oh no, had to babble on about how I saw all his emotions, and his real feelings, and how we must hurt him with our emotional crap." She shook her head. "There was no way I came over as a professional and intelligent woman after that, and get this, Ny, I was actually prancing about with a bottle of scent."
The comms officer pursed her lips and blew out a little breath of... sympathy? Irritation? Horror? Chapel hadn't a clue at the moment and slumped further into her seat. If she thought about it for much longer she'd turn into the biggest ball of embarrassment ever existed and disappear under the weight of her own gravity, a black hole of writhing shame. Ugh.
"Mr. Spock doesn't look as though he's been affected by your admission," Nyota said, a pitch Chapel recognised as empathy in her voice. "The bridge is same as always."
"Well," Chapel mumbled, head back on her forearm, "he wouldn't, would he? Change, I mean." Annoyed with herself and her self-pity, she sat up straight and eyed her friend, who pushed a cup of hot chocolate towards her. Chapel grasped it like a piece of flotsam, and took a careful sip of the hot liquid. "It's not as though he needs to address this or anything. My problem and all that."
A minute slant of Uhura's head signalled agreement; she took a sip of her own drink before adding, "True on all counts." She raised a brow when Chapel snorted in response and ran a finger round the rim of the mug to remove the foam, then licked it off. "And it's not as if you work with him too much, either. He's not in sickbay that often."
"Hah." The scornful noise erupted before Chapel could stop it. "More often than you think, given our beloved Captain's inclination to get whacked by every alien in the known galaxy." She rolled her eyes, and elicited a twisted smirk from her friend. "That man is a catastrophe waiting to happen, not to mention he keeps the entire clothing industry going on its own. How many shirts must he get through?"
"Seems he keeps falling on sharp stuff," Uhura commented, dry as dust.
"Seems like," Chapel agreed, caught sight of her particular nemesis strolling through the door of the rec room and embarrassment took a firm grip to send her crashing into emotional oblivion. Except when had Spock ever strolled? Anywhere? It wasn't in his nature. He entered any room with a crisp awareness she'd never seen exhibited by anyone else; he arrived with all the preternatural awareness of a cat. "Damn," she muttered, and kicked Ny under the table, which caused the chocolate to slop.
"What the..." Uhura sputtered and shook the hot liquid from her scalded fingers, spraying them both with fine drops of viscous brown. Her eyes widened when she realised their topic of conversation had turned up. "Damn, girl, talk of the devil."
The First Officer's laser gaze travelled around the room, coming to rest on both of them. Just for a moment, Christine thought she saw him hesitate, but that wasn't in his nature, much, either. "Just what I need."
"No moment like the present,"
"Thanks for that vote of confidence, friend." Unable to quite take the bitter note out of her voice, Chapel glared at Uhura over the rim of her mug and hunkered down. "Remind me to throw you to the wolves sometime."
The Comms officer trained her amused regard on Chapel for a moment and blinked with all the innocence of a predator. "This is too good to miss, sweetie."
"Bi-yotch. Remind me why I like you, again." Chapel took a slug of beverage and wished she hadn't as it scalded her tongue and the inside of her cheeks. Eyes watering, she set the cup down and waved her hand in front of her mouth. "Hot... hot..." she croaked, appalled to see the Vulcan made his way over to their table.
"Miss Chapel, Lieutenant."
A slanted brow arched upwards, dark orbs assessing the situation, a faint shine in them that Chapel dared hope might be amusement. Not that she was keen on being the butt of the joke, exactly. "Commander," she whispered, and he gave her a grave nod.
"Mr. Spock -" Uhura said, flicking a sideways glance to Christine, and nudged her back under the table with her toe - "Would you care to join us?"
He surveyed the table and the mess on it, the brown stains. "Perhaps not," he said, and added, "this time."
An uncomfortable silence fell, spreading thick as a layer of concrete round her feet. If she had luck on her side, which seemed as probable as a chicken with teeth, he'd take the hint and scuttle off to wherever he was going.
"Can we help you, sir?" Uhura asked, at length, the strain manifestly too much, honed knives in her gaze aimed at Chapel. As if she could help being struck dumb?
"I came to remind Miss Chapel her assistance is required in the science laboratory at 07:45 tomorrow, Lieutenant." He cocked his head in a questioning manner. "Given the late hour, I thought you may have forgotten, nurse."
Needled, Chapel gave him a hard stare for a second before she realised, without a single doubt, he'd given her the simplest and most professional way to gain some face from an awkward situation. An utter professional, he'd taken the sheer awkwardness of their current situation and, no doubt, her idiotic declaration to decide the best way forward was to not allow it to affect their work relationship. For that, Chapel thanked every heathen god and goddess of a thousand different worlds the Vulcan valued honourable behaviour. It made her love him more. How could she do anything otherwise?
"I had not forgotten, sir," she said, annoyed by the husky tone of her voice and by the quizzical glance he levelled at her. Christ on a stick, did he think she'd try seductive now? She coughed, hoping to clear the build up of fluid collecting round her tonsils and speak with clarity. "There are three experiments that will require further adjustment and the addition of nutrients tomorrow I checked them earlier when I came off shift."
"I see. Then I shall leave you to your beverage and bid you good night."
Both women trained a look on the tall First Officer as he made his way over to where the McCoy and Kirk sat, pulling up a chair to join them. The three men had an indefinable quality between them – a bond that went further than mere words or camaraderie. Not for the first time, Chapel stamped down a twinge of envy, aware nothing would ever come between that. Not women, not work, not time; it would never diminish, even if death took one of them. She suppressed a sigh and Ny shrugged again, a tiny indictment of her feelings about the reality of the situation.
"That's the true love story," Uhura murmured, tilting her cup towards the trio and Chapel nodded agreement. "Enterprise's little triangle of bromance. All the rest of us are just dressing to the main act."
"Ain't that the truth," Christine said and turned her attention back to her mug. The liquid had cooled enough to take a decent swallow and it tasted good going down, her ravaged tissues soothed by the contact. "Was thinking exactly the same thing, Ny, exactly." Grinning, Uhura settled back in her chair and winked at Chapel, who narrowed her eyes in speculation. "Spit it out, woman, or there will be retribution."
"Oh...?" A wicked gleam had entered those very expressive eyes, and the Comm's officer mouth widened into a grin. "I'm thinking though, that we could still have a lot of fun."
"With those three?"
"No one else, sugah," she drawled and touched her cup against Christine's in a toast. "Once we got you back on track, I think we can rustle up a whole pile of 'fun' to have."
Inside, Chapel cringed at the thought of what they could get up to. "Like what?"
"Widening our First Officer's experience of human customs for one..." She trailed off, left it wide open, but Christine could see any number of possibilities.
"So, your advice is suck it up sista and throw a few curve balls?
"Hallelujah, she's got it."
"Has anyone ever told you you're a wicked woman Nyota Uhura," Christine said, allowing amusement to lace her words. She shook her head in despair. "I'd hoped for help for this, not the chance to dig a bigger hole."
"Well," Uhura opined, and patted Chapel's hand, "sometimes them's the breaks we get and for all our dear First Officer protests, he's not immune to a good pair of legs or a pretty face, both of which you've got, as well as a decent brain under all that blonde thatch."
Chapel stifled a groan and lay her head back in her forearm. Marvellous. The fire licked at her as she leapt from the frying pan and landed smack in the middle. This discussion had seemed like such a good idea in the initial stages but now, in the cold light of this particular day, she wondered quite what she'd set herself up for?