In Love With All Your Sins
Disclaimer: I still don't own any of these characters, unfortunately.
Author's Note: Hey, I am so sorry for this ridiculous wait! Midterms week and family emergencies (:[) and an arid, stressful dry spell of creativity. But I'm back on the wagon and hopefully writing faster! I really appreciate everyone who reads and reviews and you guys are all great. I promise I am already more than halfway through the next chapter
PS This chapter is pure fluff in the beginning, so I'm sorry if they might be a little OOC but I promise they're going to polarize to normal soon enough. Except maybe Kirk, because I enjoy writing him as uncomfortably slipping into submission.
Chapter Four: Burn Your Life Down
Christine Chapel walked into the conference room a step ahead of Jim and was confronted by the Senior Officers of the U.S.S Enterprise. Jim had been kind enough to deal with her slow, dragging pace coming down here, but him not warning her that she would be pushed into a room of waiting officers made her want to punch his damn face in. She took a step backwards into his chest and ignored the warm feeling his hand on her shoulder induced throughout her body.
Jim gently led her into the room of his co-workers and saw the thinly veiled disdain she was directing towards him. He held back a grin as his hand slid to her back while he increased his pressure slightly to move her feet forward.
"Gentlemen, Uhura, Nurse Christine Chapel, our first awakened survivor, and the reason for this godforsaken call." Christine waved weakly, and smiled around the room slightly, when Jim saw Bones twitch in his chair. He'd seen that twitch before, but only when Joanna visited an outpost they were at and a little boy started to, what he called, "hit on her". Jim tried to make eye contact with him, but his eyes didn't once leave Chapel, lingering ever so slightly on her bandaged wrist.
Scotty got up to pull out a chair for her and she thanked him with a blushing smile and sat quickly. Jim took a seat a few chairs down from her, in between Spock and Bones, who were both otherwise occupied in directions that weren't him. Spock was staring intently at some small font in a foreign language on a PADD and it was decidedly the most boring thing that Kirk had ever experienced. Bones was still focusing down the row, and all Jim Kirk could do was sigh like a little, annoying, love-struck, pining boy and stare forward. Jim Kirk didn't sigh, it was just not something that occurred, however, it just happened, and Kirk decided to move past it and accept his fate like the little bitch he was becoming. Trying, and failing, to catch snippets of the conversation between Chapel and Chekov was fruitless so he began to drum his fingers on the table in front of him, and think to himself, of course about her, and how cute, and funny she was and how good her legs looked all the time, and how extremely whipped he sounded already. He sighed dramatically and heavily again and slumped in his chair, pouting.
"Captain, are you experiencing difficulties with your respiratory system?"
Kirk whipped his head to Spock's raised eyebrow and a bemused smile from Uhura.
"Uh- what?"
"Captain, you've sighed heavily twice, and your heaving breathe is both distracting and concerning, is there something blocking your lungs?" Uhura was fighting laughter and Spock's face, although appearing unchanged to an amateur, seemed to take on a kind of gleam of malevolence.
"I think he had a new conquest, Commander Spock."
"You do say, Lieutenant Uhura?"
There were reasons why Kirk hated Spock and Uhura as a couple, and he always remembered them at the least opportune times.
Jim glared at the two of them, want to deny that treatment of such a woman, but his masculinity had already taken too much today and to be emasculated by Spock and his girlfriend might make him vomit. In a manly manner of course. Or maybe he would go punch something. "She's…a nice piece right?" It didn't even convince him. Spock and Uhura's respective eyebrows shot up in such a manner that Jim began to worry that they did in fact practiced this in unison. Because he knew Spock wasn't getting any. At least his masculinity told him so.
"Shut up, both of you," Jim hissed out quickly. "Aren't we supposed to be calling Star Fleet?" Uhura rolled her eyes and turned to a panel on the wall to send out the transmission. Jim stared forward again, ignoring the blank stare of his Vulcan counterpart. Son of a bitch knew everything.
When they finally were faced with the Admirals, their blank faces sent a cold ice through his veins, and he quickly snuck a look down at Christine, who was staring intently at the table. Bones's attention had been turned to the screen, and he was glaring, unabashedly.
"Greetings Enterprise, I hope all is well." Jim nodded in response.
"Thank you, Sir. We're running pretty well, no sustained damage from the encounter and no injuries in our own crew."
"Very good, Captain. Christine Chapel, how're you holding up?"
"Nurse Chapel, sir. And I'm fine, more than anything I'm concerned about my crew and the remains of my ship."
"Understandable, Nurse," the Admiral spoke with a sharp bitterness on his tongue. Clearly, being corrected was not something this man enjoyed. "The remains of the ship are currently being pulled down to earth, and we plan to excavate the entirety of it, and to try to pull out every possible thing. Dr. McCoy would probably know better than I the statuses of the remainders of your crew." Christine nodded and her brow furrowed. The man was too calm for her liking, like this was a simple, everyday procedure that was just nothing to anyone. There was a slow anger that was filling through her veins and she felt like she was falling under water as the seconds passed.
"Sir, what actions are we to take as to finding out the perpetrators?" Kirk became all business incredibly quickly when he saw Chapel's hesitance, knowing he needed to take over. He owed her as much, and knew that finding the bastards that did this to her crew was exactly what she needed to do.
As soon as he uttered those words, a tangible silence and tension spread through out the two rooms, and was particularly strong in the space between them. The Admirals all traded furtive looks, and Admiral Pike wouldn't look anywhere near the screen. His face was red with some emotion, and Jim knew this was miles from good.
"Because the evidence is so scarce and yet unknown, and because we really don't know what the cause or motives are…we have come to the decision that there will be no immediate course of action to address the situation."
And then the room exploded.
Christine sat rigidly in her dumb ass leather bound chair as she re-heard those words over and over again. 'No immediate course of action'. Kirk, McCoy, and even Commander Spock had all jumped into action when it was uttered, Kirk spewing the most violent nonsense of all of them. There had been hundreds of lives lost, and they weren't taking any action? Seriously? Christine's wide eyes rose to the screen of the frazzled, attempting-to-appease Admirals trying to reason with the yelling officers.
"We have no concrete evidence that this was a Klingon attack, or what their intentions were. No one on their Bridge could tell us-"
"Because they're all dead," Christine practically yelled. All eyes shot to her, some filled with incredulity and other with pity, but most wide with astonishment. She felt like she had just burst out from under the cold water pond that had been seeping into her senses. "They're dead, and you're ready to accept your losses and move on and reassign what's left to some flagships, so we fade away just like you hope this tragedy will. A memorial service isn't going to satisfy everyone. There are twenty-seven people that lost family. WE expect some level of respect and retribution; we all expect you to rip this attack apart," Christine found she was suddenly standing somehow, and her voice was much stronger than her heart felt. She felt Jim Kirk's hot gaze on her neck, vomit rising, and the promising career she had built for herself physically slipping through her fingers. But this was much more than her, so she was okay with it, regardless of the fact that the logic deep inside her brain was screaming inside her head to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down. She straightened a little fuller and met the Admirals' eyes with a fierce glare. The Board collectively and surprisingly gulped, ready to run away with their tails between their legs.
There was a quick shared glance between all of them, and one brave soul spoke first, "Well," He coughed and shuffled some papers in front of him. "I think the Science and Engineering can spend more time closely examining the situation when the remains of the ship arrive at Star Fleet, and we will continue to look at the activity in space surrounding the incident." Christine nodded approvingly, and shakily sat back down, suddenly exhausted and looked to Kirk, who looked as though he might cry.
"On a lighter note," Everyone sitting at the conference table looked wildly to the screen, not sure what idiot was attempting to turn what may have been the most terrifying conversation ever shared in one room into a small talk situation. "It has been noted that Doctor McCoy has requested a new Head Nurse. Now Nurse Chapel, we would be more than happy to extend the position to you, but we understand if you would like to take time off, out of space, but-,"
"Chris, please don't feel any shade of obligated, I'm perfectly fine without the help-," Bones quickly interjected.
"Dr. McCoy, before you continue your pleading, I'm more than capable and willing to serve as your Head Nurse, thank you very much," Christine reluctantly choked slightly on 'Head Nurse' as it felt strange that just under a week ago, she used to run another ship on another side of the galaxy. But Christine couldn't stop working, she knew the hole in her heart where her former crew members and old friends used to reside would completely encompass her and there was no way that she would ever survive that. Space was her home, and the Enterprise could serve her in this respect. Bones bristled at her professional interruption, indignant with her tone. She smiled cheekily at him and he visibly fought a grin.
"If that is what you wish, Nurse Chapel, you are hereby granted the position officially after a week's rest." Christine nodded mutely, knowing that she wouldn't fight the Admirals on this one, accepting that she very thinly got away with what she had said to them earlier. It was going to be a long ass week.
"Captain Kirk, when the rest of the patients come to consciousness, we will continue this debriefing, thank you for your time, and good luck Christine," The screen went dramatically black and Christine rolled her eyes. Always theatrics with this crowd.