11. The Pieces - Christine
Wow - When did this story manage to get so long? I initially started it to help me deal with the stress of my crazy medical exams (hence the first few chapters aren't my best) but unfortunately the characters seemed to be more complicated than a Jerry Springer show. Thanks for sticking with me (and with them!). The next chapter is a big one, so stay tuned. Someone asked me who I could imagine playing Christine in a movie. Maybe Elizabeth Mitchell? I'm intrigued to know what you think. Anyhow, let's see how Christine's faring in the aftermath of Roger. Thanks for reading.
A long time ago Christine had visited a Starfleet psychiatric ward as part of her rotations. There had been many patients, most of which had faded into a blur of signs and symptoms, but one she could never forget. Her name was Agnes. She was young – just twenty-two, and had been admitted to the ward after a suicide attempt. She had been pretty, with large brown eyes and freckles, but had become almost catatonic, spending hours staring out of the window, selectively mute. Nobody had known what had precipitated the attempt. For someone who was generally well liked and admired, no one knew her well enough to comment on her psyche. Most of the medical staff ignored her, frustrated by her lack of progress, but Christine had found her fascinating, and had spent many long hours with her in her own time - her company being better than going back to an empty room and dwelling on her missing fiancé. Although she never spoke, they began to make some progress. She began to acknowledge her presence with a nod, and smile occasionally. Perhaps she recognised the pain that she too carried. It wasn't until her final day on the ward that she made an effort to communicate. She picked up her PADD and typed on it. It was two words: 'The Pieces'. She recognised it as a response to the question she had asked her earlier – about why she didn't speak. She hadn't understood those words at the time. She did now. Agnes had felt that if she spoke those tenuous pieces she was holding onto, those pieces that were keeping her sane, would be lost and so would she. Christine knew now, because she felt that if she stayed on this ship, the same thing would happen to her.
Now she couldn't focus, couldn't stop and couldn't think. She was adrift. She had lost every piece but one. When she had killed Roger she had lost herself. Now, as she walked to sickbay, with the engine of the Enterprise rumbling under her feet, she was about to lose her final piece via the PADD in her hand. There was always a choice, but she didn't see how she could make anything but this one.
The sickbay was quiet. The nurses all turned to her when she entered, but no one tried to approach her. She supposed they saw that she wasn't coming back to work – that she was here with an aim. Temple gave her a small smile but looked worried. Well that was understandable. In approximately ten minutes she would be the acting head nurse of the Enterprise.
She knocked at his door, then entered. He was sitting at his desk, as always, frowning at a PADD, hair falling into his face and eyes tired. Something in her ached when she saw him. She had been in his arms. He had been so close.
"Chapel?" There was confusion in his eyes, but he looked happy to see her. For a moment she wondered if she could really do this. "I thought I told you to take the day off?"
"I came to give you this, doctor." She was proud of the calmness in her voice.
He frowned and accepted the PADD she handed him. "What is it?"
"My resignation."
"Your what?" His eyes widened, and for a second he thought he'd shout at her. Then he sighed. "Sit down Chapel." His lack of anger weakened her resolve. She had expected anger. Good grief, why couldn't he make this easy for her?
"You know it's necessary, doctor." She told him firmly as she sat down slowly.
"Don't tell me what I know." He folded his arms across his chest and looked at her searchingly. "Tell me why you want to leave."
"I'm not fit to practise anymore." Her voice wobbled slightly, but she pulled herself under control. She wouldn't cry in front of him again. She didn't have many tears left to cry. If he held her it would break her resolve.
He shrugged. "So you need time. No one expects you to come back to work right away."
"I can't come back to work at all."
"Damn it Chapel." He appeared to be struggling to keep his voice calm. "Listen, I know what happened hurt you, but this isn't going to help."
She dealt her highest card. "I made you a promise once that if I thought what I was feeling would interfere with my work I would tell you. This is me telling you."
He swallowed, then dropped his eyes to her PADD. "So you've made up your mind that you're going to leave?"
"Yes."
"And go where? And do what?"
"I don't know." She didn't need reminding that she had nothing and no one off this ship. She didn't know what she would do once she left it. Once marked as unfit for duty, the medical program would no longer take her. She would be adrift.
"Listen. I understand that you don't feel able to perform your duties, but hell, that's no reason to do something drastic."
"You don't understand. I need to be away from this ship."
"No you don't. You need to be around people that care about you." He met her eyes. "I refuse to accept your resignation. You're not in your right mind. It's too soon."
"If you don't, I'll take it to the captain. He will accept it."
"Damn it." His voice was growing louder as he grew frustrated. She was prepared for this part. "Chapel, you're allowing Korby to beat you."
"This has nothing to do with Roger." She wasn't sure if that was true or not.
"The hell it doesn't."
"I killed someone, doctor."
"In defence of your captain."
"I still did it. I should have done something – I should have stopped it earlier. And now he's dead." Roger Korby. The man she had loved more than anyone else, who had hurt her and broken her and left her now with blood on her hands.
"He was insane. Damn it, he wanted to enslave the human race Chapel."
She sighed, then shut her eyes. She couldn't forget that. Nor could she forget the look his eyes when she had shot him. What had she become? She felt such a mess she couldn't even begin to make sense of her feelings. But she couldn't let him go. "Doctor, I don't know who I am anymore."
"Well I know who you are." His voice had taken on an intensity she'd never heard before and she opened her eyes to meet his. "You are a damned good nurse. You're kind and understanding and everyone wants to be around you. You make people do their best. You've turned this sickbay upside down. You belong here, at my side." She was almost swayed by the thought that he might want her. But he hadn't. He didn't. She would leave, and in a month, she would be forgotten. She shook her head and he hit his fist hard on the table, making it shake. "Hell Chapel, I know you. You don't run away."
That stung. "Clearly you don't know me at all. I've spent my whole life running away."
He frowned at her. "Well now is a good time to stop. We're your family now – you said it yourself."
She sighed. "It's not about that." It was about her finding herself again.
"Damn it. You're allowing him to beat you."
"No I'm not. I'm trying to do what's best."
"What's best? How the hell can you think that this is what's best?"
"Because it is. I appreciate that this leaves you in a difficult position for a head nurse, but Temple can fill that post for a while and-."
"Damn the nurses, Chapel. This isn't what this is about." His eyes were hot on hers and she was forced to look down.
"Then please tell me what you think this is about." She was beginning to grow weary. Her emotions weren't stable enough to deal with this.
"This is about you punishing yourself because you blame yourself for Korby's death. Because he put you in an impossible position knowing full well that either choice that you'd make would break you. Because that was the sort of man he was."
"Don't talk about him like you knew him." She said harshly.
He lent closer to her. "So you have unresolved feelings. You don't understand him, or what he's done, and he died and you're angry because you have unanswered questions that you'll never find out the answers to now. I know Chapel. But this is what he wanted to do to you. Don't you see? He never wanted you to be a nurse – or a doctor. Don't throw that away now." He had a point. Roger had never wanted medicine for her – at least not of the practising type. But he had known her better than most. Perhaps he had seen the truth – that she wasn't fit for it – and in his own way was trying to protect her.
"I'll leave the ship when we reach Onus. I can catch a ship from there back to Earth."
McCoy sat back sharply. "Chapel – I'm asking you not to do this."
She stood and tried to give him a smile. She owed him that much. "I know we haven't always got along, doctor, but I just want to say that I've enjoyed working with you." After all they had been through. After all they had done together. "You'll manage fine without me. You'll forget I was ever here."
He stood up hard, knocking his chair back. "Hell, is that what you think?" He was hurt. She could see it in his eyes. For a second she wanted to reach out to him, to wipe that look from his face, to tell him that she was his and she wasn't going anywhere, but she was down the path of no return.
"Goodbye, Doctor McCoy."
"Christine… Please…" He was pleading, eyes vulnerable. She felt sick. If he reached out to her now she knew that she would never resist. It took everything she had to turn her back on him. But she had to. She wasn't sure that she really understood the reasons for it. With a deep breath and with tears in her eyes she walked out of the office, closing the door quietly behind her. The sound of smashing PADDs within his room followed her out of the sickbay.
A few hours later her buzzer rang. She wasn't surprised. She had been expecting it.
"Come in, captain." She opened the door, taking in his rueful smile.
"Glad to see I'm so predictable, Christine."
He sauntered in and eyed her packed bags with a frown. "I suppose you've come to try and convince me not to leave." She murmured.
He gave her a smile. "Actually no." She glanced at him in surprise, and he grinned at her expression. "Oh, that's what Bones would like me to be doing, but I'm not going to,"
"Why?"
He sat down. "Because you're stubborn, and I know full well I can't change your mind."
"Thank you." She told him sincerely, allowing herself to relax slightly. She had been expecting another onslaught. She sat down beside him.
"You should be. I might have to find a new CMO too."
She looked at him. "He threatened to leave?"
"He threatened a lot of things. You know what he's like when he's angry."
"He'll get over it." She assured him.
He shook his head. "Actually, Christine, I don't think he will."
"Why? I'm easily replaced."
He laughed. "Is that what you think? Don't tell me you think you're just a head nurse to him?"
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. His actions had been more than just her CMO recently. They had been of someone who cared. Just not as much as she wanted him to. "I don't know. He thinks of me as a friend?"
Jim gave her a look of disbelief. "Something like that." He shook his head. "This is more complicated than I thought." He sighed. "Bones doesn't make 'friends' easily. He's taking it personally that you're leaving."
"This isn't about him."
"You know that, I know that, but he doesn't. After his wife, he doesn't do well when people he cares about leave him." She felt her heart ache. She should have understood that. And now she probably wouldn't see that smile of his again.
"I'm hardly his wife." She pointed out.
"Well obviously, but you've spent all day every day with him for the last six months. I don't think anyone has been able to put up with him for so long. I'm fairly sure that your replacement won't be able to."
"He's not that bad, Jim."
"That's not what the nurses said. Although he has softened a bit – I'll put that down to age. And you."
She shook her head. "If you want, I'll leave a PADD for your new head nurse giving her some pointers."
"That sounds like a good plan. Although I don't think that anything can really prepare someone for Leonard McCoy." She smiled slightly. That was true. Nothing could have prepared her for his anger or his attitude or his half-smile. She supposed that she had managed well enough. McCoy was hardly a monster, after all.
Jim was watching her carefully. "Are you upset with me for leaving?" She asked him.
He gave her that little-boy smile. "Well, I'll admit I'm loath to let you go. But I do understand. I remember when I killed my first man. His face haunted my dreams for weeks, even though it had been self-defence. For you it must be a whole lot worse." It was.
"How did you cope with it?"
"Bones sat me down and told me that my feelings were normal, and he would be more concerned if I felt nothing. It helped. So did several bottles of his whiskey."
She nodded. Well that sounded like him. "You should apologise to him for me. I know he was trying to help me too."
"I'm not sure he'll listen but I'll try. So what are you going to do now?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll join a research project somewhere."
"I thought you wanted to be a doctor."
"Well there's no chance of that now." It made her ache inside almost as much as the idea that she was hurting McCoy.
"That's a shame. I think you'd be a good one." He smiled. "But if you're needing somewhere to stay on Earth, I'm sure my mother would love to see you."
"Thank you, I'll keep that in mind."
He took her hands and his face became serious. "You know, I owe you an apology for Exo. I shouldn't have put you in that position."
"I put myself in that position." He frowned at her. She knew he was going to protest, to say something about him being the captain, but it didn't matter now. "To me you'll always be the little brother I never had, Jim. I wasn't going to allow anything hurt you." She understood why she had been there. It was as much her own fault as his. And the decision of whether or not to shoot hadn't been as easy as it should have been for her.
"And you'll always be the beautiful and elusive older woman I could never have." He grinned and she smiled her return gently.
"I'm glad you've decided on the 'never have' part. How long until we reach Onus?"
"Another three days." So long. Well at least she had time to say her goodbyes. "I'll arrange your decommission for then, but promise me that you'll think it through and make sure it's what you really want. I know you have many reasons to leave this ship, but make sure they're worth what you're paying for them."
She nodded mutely. Was it? She had been so sure this morning that this was the right thing to do, but the price was seeming higher and higher now. But how could she stay? How could she look herself in the mirror everyday and call herself a nurse after what she had done?
"Thank you for coming, Jim."
"Don't mention it. I'll see you again in a few days." He stood up. "And Christine, trust me, you don't want to leave it like this with Bones."
"Like what?"
"Unresolved." He gave her a look with meaning and she frowned in incomprehension. What exactly did they have to resolve? The fact he thought she was making a mistake by leaving? Or the fact only a day ago she had been desperate for him to kiss her and she wasn't entirely sure why? That her feelings for him were certainly more than for a CMO? That the idea of leaving him was the only thing making her hesitate?
"Ok." She wasn't sure what else to say. She wasn't sure she was strong enough to face him again.
"Bye." He smiled at her with a knowing look. She wondered if he knew the reason she was having second thoughts.
"Good bye." She watched him leave, and felt herself clinging on to her last piece all the tighter.
She was half-asleep. She hadn't slept properly since Exo, as her mind replayed the images over and over. The bodies of her friends on the Yamato. Sitting alone at her mother's funeral. The piles of bodies of men and children in the caves. The feelings of helplessness as she left behind so many during Narada. The moment she had found out Roger was missing and so was Andrea. The hanging bodies she had found in the caves. His remorseless face as she had throw herself into his arms, only to find that he hadn't wanted her. His eyes as he had calmly explained that she had been a mistake, then when he had told her it was all a test. The shock on his face when she had shot him. Around and around and around until it overwhelmed her, as years of emotion tore their way to the surface. She didn't have the strength to suppress it anymore.
When she was thrown from her bed, hitting the wall of her quarters hard, it took her a moment to realise what had happened. Then the walls flashed red and the thoughts were pushed from her mind. She was thrown again, this time against the door as metalwork screamed and the lights flickered off. She pulled herself to her feet, and hesitated for only a second. She pulled on her uniform, tied up her hair, and ran for the door.
The emergency lights were on outside. She ran up the corridor, but another hit threw her the rest of the way down it and into the wall. Screaming and the sound of sucking air told her that the hull had been breached. She crawled her way over to a woman whose hold on some wiring was all that was keeping her from the force field and empty space. She pulled her back into the ship, anchoring herself onto a steel beam. The woman was bleeding down her leg – something must have pierced it. She looked dazed and didn't try and speak – she wouldn't have heard her anyway over all the noise. She pulled her arm over her shoulder and continued to the sickbay.
The screams were growing louder, and the wreckage was increasing the further they went. The sickbay's corridor must have suffered a direct hit. She felt her stomach tighten. The doors of the sickbay were partially obstructed, and she had to sit the woman down so that she could clear them. She slid in alone and for a moment all she could see was smoke and bodies and wreckage.
"Shout in nurses." She cried automatically, and heard responding voices from across the span of the room. Her mental register told her there were a few missing. And she couldn't see McCoy anywhere.
"Nurse Chapel." She heard a voice shout out to her from her left and she stepped through the wreckage. Temple's head and arms were bleeding and Kier's head was in her lap, unconscious.
"She hit her head hard. I can't rouse her." Temple's voice was trembling and she began to cough in the smoke. A figure appeared at her side.
"Christine?" Zuvolt's face was blackened, but he still held a scanner in his shaking hands.
"Doctor, where's McCoy?"
"I don't know. He was over there when we were hit." He pointed to the collapsed ceiling in the corner. Her heart stopped, then restarted at doubled pace.
"Ok, keep an eye on Kier – we need her stable to move her. Temple, I need you up – get those extractor fans on before we asphyxiate."
"Yes Nurse." Zuvolt was already swapping places with Temple, hands moving gently over Kier's body, face set and determined.
"Ogiri, Hylara?" She shouted out to the vague figures moving towards her. "Clear that door. Ffoyd – find Doctor Seams and prepare the room across the corridor for casualties – we can't stay in here. The rest of you start moving patients, and pick up what equipment you can. Campbell, you're with me."
"Yes Nurse." They moved quickly and Campbell followed her as she picked her way across the debris. Several tables had collapsed or overturned and she couldn't see him under the wreckage.
"Help me with this." She ordered, and Campbell immediately began to turn the tables over with her. She saw his face first. His eyes were shut and she almost panicked. Some sort of well-practised professionalism reminded her that she needed to act rationally.
"He's trapped under the beam." Campbell told her. She saw that it had fallen across his chest. Together they lifted it away and she knelt at his side as Campbell worked on clearing the rest of his body.
His chest was rising and she could have cried in relief. "Doctor McCoy? Can you hear me?" His pulse was strong but he made no response. "Campbell, I need you to find me a scanner." The nurse disappeared, and she patted down his body, looking for other injuries. His arms were the worst – he had certainly fractured his right humerus in several places, and his left wrist was obviously out of place. However, other than that he seemed fine. She simply wasn't sure how hard he'd hit his head. "McCoy, you need to open your eyes right now. Now, Doctor."
He groaned, but his eyes obediently flicked open slowly. "Chapel? What the hell?" His eyes darted around the room, before focusing on her. She helped him slowly sit up, wincing. She wanted to hug him but was fairly sure she'd hurt him if she did. "What happened?"
"There was a direct hit to sickbay. We're moving everyone down the corridor." She told him, trying to keep her voice calm. "You've come off quite well, considering." He was lucky to be alive. Thank goodness he was alright. "But you've hurt your arms. Can you feel it?"
"Of course I can damn well feel it. Who the hell is firing at us?" She shrugged and he frowned. "Help me up Chapel."
"Not until I check there's no internal injury."
He scowled at her. "Other than a few broken ribs, I'm fine."
Campbell handed her a scanner. "You're in no position to argue."
"Oh, so now you decide you want to be a nurse after all?" He muttered.
She began to scan him, ignoring his bristled comments. Right now she had more important things to be worrying about. "Campbell, see if you can find the doctor some painkillers please."
"I don't need any damned painkillers. How many others are injured?" His eyes were worried as he watched Campbell scout through the wreckage.
"I don't know. Kier's hit her head hard – she's still unconscious, but she's the worst in here. However, from what I saw outside, the casualty count will be high. We'll have to make the best of the space down the corridor." She glanced at her scanner. "Right, you've got six broken ribs, so try not to breathe too deeply. No other internal injuries."
"As I said. Now help me up, damnit."
She obediently helped him to his feet. He swore colourfully as his ribs and arms moved in ways they didn't appreciate, but never cried out. She could feel him trembling as he leant on her heavily shoulder, breathing shallowly and quickly. He looked down at her and for just a moment she appreciated his closeness and the fact he was very much alive as she wrapped an arm around his waist to steady him. Thank goodness he was all right.
"Nurse Chapel?" Temple shouted to her from the door.
"Over here."
"Come quickly. They've just brought Commander Spock. He's bad."
"Oh hell."
They moved quickly over the wreckage and out across the corridor. People were sitting against the wall as far as she could see. Doctor Zuvolt was already triaging several of the more seriously injured with the help of Ffoyd outside. Screams and groans followed them as the other nurses ran for medical supplies.
"It's a damned warzone." McCoy muttered, but didn't pause as the moved into the room they usually used as an overflow for sickbay.
Spock was already lying on the table, chest bare and bloody. Seams was hovering over him, attaching neural stimulators, and feeling down the Vulcan's chest.
"He's been stabbed, McCoy. The knife's still in. No response to stimulants. We're going to need to put an airway in."
"Chapel?" McCoy nodded to her and she began to scan him.
"It's punctured a lung and torn his pericardium. There's cardiac tamponade. His heart is failing."
"Damn-." He was cut off as another blast threw them to the ground. Seams had strapped Spock to the trolley and bolted it to the ground, but smacked his head hard against it, and lay unconscious, head bleeding. McCoy had fallen onto outstretched hands, and when she managed to pull herself up she saw that the bone had now pierced his skin in several places.
"Hell." He muttered, face grey. "Seams?"
She was already turning the man over, and scanning. "I don't know." The readings were garbled. She wasn't sure if she hadn't hit her head too.
"Help me up."
She obediently pulled him to his feet. He cried out this time. She could see blood seeping through his uniform.
"Doctor!"
"Not now, Chapel. We need to get that knife out of Spock."
"But your hands."
"You'll have to do it." He told her matter-of-factly.
She felt sick as adrenaline pumped through her veins. "Me? I can't do it. I don't know enough Vulcan anatomy." She protested.
"Chapel, you're the only other one here who knows any Vulcan anatomy. If you don't do it he'll die."
"But-."
"Hylara, get a surgical tray prepped ASAP." He ordered the nurse. "And get Chapel some gloves."
"Yes, doctor."
"McCoy, I can't. I'm not ready for this." She was no surgeon. She couldn't do this.
"No one's ready for this, Chapel, but you're perfectly capable. You need to be my hands."
"But…"
"Hell woman. Stop arguing and get on with it." His shout focused her and with a mind clearer than it had been for days she began to examine the knife in Spock's chest. It was embedded deeply. Her scanner told her that the Vulcan's normally rapid heartbeat was slowing quickly.
"I'm going to have to pull it out. He's in cardiogenic shock - there's no time for damage control. I'll deal with the bleed afterwards." She told him, trying to remember everything he'd taught her. "Hylara, get the suction ready."
She secured her hand tightly around the knife and glanced at the doctor. "I'm right here, Chapel. Do it." He murmured.
She took a deep breath and pulled the knife out in a swift movement. Hylara caught it as green blood began to spurt everywhere. She thrust her fingers into the passage left by the knife to no avail.
"I can't find the tear – there's too much blood."
"Then open him up before he bleeds to death. You're going to have to cleave his sternum." She nodded and incised his skin, then used the saw to cut through his sternum. The sight that met her eyes was so different from normal human anatomy that it momentarily threw her.
"What? I don't know-."
"Focus, Chapel." McCoy replied sharply. She shut her eyes for a second and focused on the Vulcan visuals she had been studying. Then she opened them and began to move tissues out of the way. Blood filled his thorax, but she found the pericardium and felt the tear and assessed it depth.
"It's pierced his heart too." She plugged the hole with her finger and felt his heart rate immediately improve. "Hand me the autosuture Hylara." She sutured the hole. "His heart rate is increasing but he's lost a lot of blood. I'm going to need some fluids."
"Fine – Hylara, go and get Spock's blood from the bank. Now get that lung reinflated Chapel before he becomes hypoxic." McCoy advised her. "Give him some analgesia too – we don't want his blood pressure too high."
She closed him up, repairing the severed blood vessels and healing the broken bones. Then she gave him a hypospray and began to insert a chest drain.
"Good girl." McCoy praised her. "His chest is expanding equally again – his lung is up. Double check the breath sounds."
She wiped her hands and listened to his chest. "They're bilateral." She scanned him. "His sats are improving. I think he's out of danger." Her knees almost buckled when she realised what she had just done. "Oh hell."
"Easy now." He murmured, giving her a smile.
She returned it, the butterflies waking from their hibernation. She'd done it. She'd actually done it. "I can't believe I just did that."
"Of course you did." He met her eyes and smile on his face faded quickly. He looked away. Of course. She was leaving.
"Doctor, I…" She began.
"There's plenty of people that need your help, Chapel."
"Let me have a look at you."
"I'm fine. Has Seams come around?"
She looked down at the older doctor. Hylara was kneeling at his side. "He's beginning to respond." She told them.
"Good. Let's put him on a bed." Together they lifted him onto a trolley and tied him down to protect him from any future blasts.
She turned around and saw that McCoy had gone. She heard his voice echoing down the corridor as he attempted to bring some order in his roundabout way. Good grief - would that man never stop? It was hardly like he could do anything with his injuries. She followed him quickly, grabbing her scanner and the hypospray, and calling to Hylara to keep an eye on the patients in the room.
Other people's injuries called out to her, and she never made it to McCoy as her attention was drawn to those with greater needs. She repaired broken bones and scorched skin, took away pain as best she could and directed the other nurses. Two hours later an engineering team began work on the broken sickbay, and the patient numbers had halved. She finally saw McCoy leaning against the wall of the temporary sickbay, face ashen and eyes shut. He'd strapped up his own arms, she guessed – since none of her nurses would have done that bad a job – and blood was still seeping through. She approached him and gave him a hypospray before he could protest.
"Damn it Chapel. You're meant to get my consent first." He muttered.
"I assumed you were in pain and acted accordingly. Now let me heal your arms."
"No."
"Shall I get Doctor Seams in here to do it?" Seams was notorious for his dated methods of putting broken bones into traction. He often caused more damage than the original wound, and since he hadn't been conscious for long, his coordination would be even worse than normal.
"Damn it, Chapel." He held out his arms and she began to unwrap them. The fractures were nasty but simple.
"You know doctor, you should have let me do this hours ago." She told him, as she pulled his arm downwards hard and pushed the bones into place. He gasped and leant heavily against the wall, sweat beading his face.
"Damn you."
"How many did we lose?" She asked as she then healed the bone and the overlying skin.
"Three I've seen. They were dead when they got here. They'll be others who never made it. Oh HELL." He shouted as she moved his humerus into place. She winced in sympathy and set it quickly.
"Considering the force of the blasts, we were lucky not to have lost more." She commented.
"Lucky? Lucky would have been not being hit in the first place. Damn Romulans."
"How did you know this was Romulan?" She asked as she began to feel down his ribs. She probably could have used a scanner for the same purpose, but she needed to be close to him in case he tried to disappear again.
He gasped as she hit a break. "The knife in Spock's chest had Romulan all over it. We've been carrying a Romulan ambassador for the last few days."
"Really?" She hadn't known that – but then she'd been in her room pretty much since they'd left Exo. "Why would an ambassador want to stab Spock?"
"Hell, I don't know." He swore as she pressed another rib. "Do you have to be so damned violent?"
"This would be easier if you took off your top and I could see." She pointed out.
"Like hell it would. Just heal them."
He was still refusing to look at her. Not even a glance. He was still angry, and it was because she was leaving. She realised suddenly that she hadn't thought about Roger once in the last two hours. She felt a stab of guilt, then something else – relief. In the last two hours, without thinking, she had done things she hadn't thought herself capable of anymore. She treated patients. She had operated on a Vulcan. Roger had said she wasn't fit for it, that she wasn't able, but look what she had done. And McCoy hadn't doubted in her ability for even a second, despite the fact she had told him she wasn't fit for it. Right then he'd known her better than she knew herself. Why was she leaving the one person who believed in and trusted her? What was she doing this for? Good grief, she was a fool.
"You know doctor, the sickbay is a mess. I imagine your office isn't much better."
"Probably not."
"You'll have lost a lot of PADDs."
"What the hell does it matter to you what I've lost, Chapel?" He retorted wearily.
"My resignation will probably be among them."She finished healing his ribs but didn't remove her hand.
"Then you'll need to write another one."
"No, I don't think I will."
He looked at her then, eyes wary. "Why's that?"
She made her decision. For better or worse, they needed one another. "Because you were right. I belong here. At your side."
He swallowed. "So you're staying?"
"Yes, I'm staying." She smiled at him. "I don't dare leave you to terrorise the nurses again."
Without a word he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. She smiled into his chest. Her heart still ached and she was still in pieces but right now she had a stronger grip on herself than ever. He had given her a reason to hold herself together. He was her last piece.
He finally released her, and she noticed that several nurses had come in and were staring at them in mute shock. She supposed McCoy wasn't known for his affection – especially towards her. She blushed, but McCoy apparently hadn't noticed, or didn't care. She found that she didn't particularly mind either.
"You know what you have to do, Chapel?" He murmured, eyes intent on hers.
She nodded. "Yes."
"Good. Hold the fort." He strode out past the other nurses. She knew he was on the way to the bridge.
She busied herself giving the nurses assignments and treating the last of the patients. Six hours later she finally returned to her quarters and sat down at her desk. She was staying. She was under no false pretentions as to why. And she knew what she had to do.
"Computer, open folder 2879. Password Andrea."
The images flashed before her. Roger. Pictures of the man she had once loved.
"Computer, delete file." With a beep, she let Roger go.