Warnings, disclaimers and thanks enumerated in Part One.
Part Eight of Thirteen: Breakfast Meeting at Gaila's
Find a balance between your couple-time and your you-time.
"Can I have a hallelujah?" Gaila asked as I entered her quarters.
"A what?"
"A hallelujah? It's used to express praise or joy." She gazed evenly at me. "Are you sure you're a linguistic genius?"
"Southern is not a language," I said.
"Hallelujah isn't Southern – though they do seem to use it a lot in the books I'm reading. And Southern is a language - The Doctor said it was his native tongue," she countered, jumping to her feet and bounding to the table. "What'd you bring me for breakfast?"
"Fake eggs, fake strawberries, fake bread," I said, being very sure to emphasize the word fake. "And real tea."
"You're still mad?" she asked as she sat.
"You could've warned me, Lala. I thought you'd really hurt yourself."
She rolled her eyes. "You're not good at acting, Ny. If I'd told you what I was going to do you would've been jumpy the whole day. No. It worked out just fine. More than fine."
"Yes, it looks like it did," I acknowledged as I sat myself. "Doctor McCoy couldn't take his eyes off you. "
Behold the power of The Steps.
And a t-shirt two sizes too small.
And truly tiny shorts.
She grinned around her fork.
"He's not going to be happy when he finds out you're faking."
"Len knows I was faking," she said, shoveling food in her mouth.
"Len? When did you start calling him Len?"
"Since he came over about thirty minutes after you and Topher left," she said around a sip of tea.
"Came over where?"
"Here."
"Here, here? To your quarters here? You were alone with him." I took a deep and tremulous breath. "Why did you want a hallelujah? Why did he use the word tongue in conversation with you? Gaila, why did you have sex with him?"
"What? I didn't have sex with him!" She looked truly hurt – but I knew her. She could be a good little actress when she wanted to be.
Unlike me, obviously.
"Gaila, I thought you were serious about following Doctor Flenderson and doing this right; about establishing a foundation upon which to build a real and lasting relationship."
"I am! Len and I didn't have sex, Nyota. I swear."
"On your shoes?"
"All of them."
"And your hair products?"
"Even the ones I liberated from the hotel on Risa."
Those are are her favorite hair products - she loves them more than she loves anything else in the galaxy.
I sucked in a deep breath. Gaila and Leonard McCoy had been in her quarters together and they hadn't had sex.
It was an actual miracle.
"Wow."
"I know! Aren't you proud of me?"
"Immensely."
I speared some eggs and chewed them slowly. "Is he a good kisser?"
She shrugged.
"He's not?" I squeaked.
Oh this was bad. This was very, very bad.
Leonard McCoy was a bad kisser.
Poor Gaila.
"I'm sorry," I said.
My boyfriend is a better kisser than your boyfriend.
She frowned spectacularly – almost like she was reading my thoughts. "No, Nyota," she drew my name out to eight syllables, "that's not what I meant. I don't know what kind of kisser he is. We didn't kiss."
My mouth dropped open; half-chewed eggs hit my plate; "Ewwww!" Gaila shrieked.
I slammed my mouth shut, swallowed, and said, "Let me get this straight: Spock and I engaged in bondage yesterday while you and Leonard McCoy were alone in your room not kissing?"
"You didn't chicken out!" she exclaimed, clapping happily. "Was it awesome? Did Spock ravish you all night? Did you restrain him after he was done with you? Did his hair move? How much did he quiver? Is he walking funny today? Do you want the handcuffs next?"
I held up my hand - just like Spock had when I was babbling – and said, "Answer the question, Lieutenant."
"My questions are much more interesting," she said, plopping her elbows on the table and cradling her chin in her palms.
"I asked mine first."
"The rule of 'I asked first' stinks," she said.
"I didn't write it, I just enforce it."
"Fine. There wasn't any kissing," she acknowledged. "There was Step Threeing, but no osculating, smooching, snogging or...do you want me to keep going? I know about fifty words for kissing."
"Maybe I am in a mirror universe," I mumbled in shock.
"Mirror universe, pwah! There's no such thing."
"There's no other explanation," I said.
"Some of us were able to get all the way through Step Three without sticking our tongues down the throat of our intended paramour," she said smugly.
"I didn't stick my tongue down Spock's throat!"
"That's your story," she said. "I wonder if The Commander would tell a different tale."
"He wouldn't," I protested. "He would tell the same tale. There is no other tale to tell – that is the tale."
She nodded. "Of course it is."
Orions.
I truly give up.
She ate; I ate.
My head spun in circles.
Gaila and McCoy hadn't kissed. She hadn't kissed him. He hadn't kissed her.
Nope. It just sounded wrong, no matter how you put the words together.
"We just talked," she said quietly. "About him, his divorce, the South, books. It was nice."
"He talked about his divorce?"
She nodded.
"Doctor Flenderson would be so proud."
"I know!"
"He was vulnerable, open and sensitive with you and you really didn't kiss him," I said again.
It sounded more and more wrong.
"I wanted to," she said finally. "A great deal."
And the universe shifted back towards its axis.
"But?"
"But I have you and Kelly in my head telling me to take it slow – to not mess it up - and his lips have freaking magnets in them and I knew, just knew, if I got too close the magnets were going to pull me in and I was going to be enjoying myself all over him before I got through Steps Four and Five."
She glared at me, "You and Kelly doc-blocked me. You've invaded my brain and are doc-blocking me left and right."
"It's for your own good," I said.
"I know," she sighed. "And it's worth it."
"It is."
"Okay," she said brightly. "You, The Commander, restraints. Go!"
"It was fine," I mumbled.
The mind-blowing, life-altering, universe-shattering kind of fine.
"Fine?" she demanded. "Fine? Are you sure you did it right? Oh, I knew I should've showed you the instructional video."
I choked on my tea.
"Only fine?" she said again, looking so disappointed I took pity on her.
"More than fine," I said, smiling a little. "Great. We had a good time. A very good time."
She clasped at her heart in relief. "Oh thank Oekon. You scared me. So, what do you want to borrow next? Feathers? Andorian yetlet-flavored love gel?"
"Yetlet," I pointed out, "tastes like three-day old coffee."
"Cherry-flavored then."
I shook my head.
"That's it? That was the spiciness? Three days of love poems followed by one night of exquisite pleasure then it's back to discussions of the latest boring linguistics article followed by a peck on the cheek, a handshake and sleeping fully clothed?"
"That's not what our life is like," I protested.
Ninety-five percent of the time.
And linguistics articles are not boring!
"Borrow the feathers," she prompted.
"I don't need them," I said, smugly drinking my tea.
"You have your own?" she said, a knowing smile spreading across her face. "I knew you couldn't really be as repressed as you've pretended to be all these years."
"Lala," I sighed. "I don't own feathers – it's just that…guess what Spock has hanging in his closet."
"An Argelian belly dancer's outfit?"
"His instructor's uniform."
That'll shut her up.
She sucked in a deep breath and, just like that, she was in a lust fugue.
"The licorice uniform," she sighed. "Those endless legs in the licorice uniform."
"Hey! They're my endless legs!"
"Those purposeful hips, that amazing chest in the licorice uniform; The Commander's arms straining against the material of the sleeves."
"My hips, my chest, my arms!"
"Oh, and when he bends over!"
"McCoy, Lala, remember him?"
Her eyes snapped into focus and she rolled her head around. "Sorry. Got a little distracted there for a minute."
I raised my eyebrows at her.
"Anyway," she gave me a calculating gaze, "Let me guess. You have your cadet's uniform with you."
"Of course. You know I never throw anything out."
"Don't I know it," she grumbled. "But for once, your bad habits may be a good thing."
I wiggled my eyebrows at her.
"Len should've been an instructor. Do you know what I'd do to him if he was wearing an instructor's uniform?"
"I have a vague idea," I preened.
"You're so lucky," she said.
Don't I know it.
