There was a party. Because of course there was a party.

Starfleet knew, as had every organized fighting force before them, that stressed troops needed an outlet. If you didn't provide one they would improvise their own, and that had the propensity to result in situations which, while not technically prohibited, certainly didn't meet with the top brass's approval.

Which was why La'an had grit her teeth and gone to the infernal thing. The easiest place to hide tonight was right here.

Stay away and there would be comment. Advice on how socialising would be good for her, how unwinding was healthy, how practise made perfect. How, fundamentally, being La'an was not measuring up.

Not to mention the inevitable lecture on the importance of leading by example.

Stand here, on the other hand, with a brightly coloured drink and a glare that could kill at fifty paces, and people just steered clear. She'd opted for something blue and bubbly, with bits of fruit in it. It was cloying and lacked any actual punch, but it looked like it would pass the festiveness test. The scowl, thankfully, came naturally.

The bar was noisy and chaotic, full of people laughing, happy, toasting to a victory they hadn't actually won. Somehow cheating death while unconscious was being hailed simultaneously as an ordeal and an accomplishment. As if it hadn't been Chapel who had saved all their damn lives.

And Una, of course. Tempting as it was to disregard that part of the whole monstrous episode.

La'an skirted around the crowd, hugging the perimeter of the hall. From here she could keep an eye out for the first officer, because that conversation, well, never might be too soon for that one. She didn't like the augment thing, fraught as it was with all its historical connotations. The word made her skin crawl, made something dark and nasty open up inside her that never quite closed. But it was the lying that hurt. It had been strangely unmooring to look into eyes she thought she knew, and realise none of it had been real. Hitting her had helped. Somewhat. Surely something more civilised was supposed to come next? Right now though, she was at a loss as to what shape that might take. So, avoidance it was. At least the crowd would provide some cover.

There was a band playing up on stage and people were dancing, a disjointed mess of colour and movement. La'an sipped at the nasty drink and settled in a spot where she could pretend to watch them. Looking occupied was key to surviving these things, as was projecting a general air of mess with me and die. That was harder than usual, holding what was essentially a cocktail, but she certainly felt she meant it tonight. Judging by the several feet of free space that remained open around her the sentiment was readily apparent, even to the trimmed up, vacuous, intoxicated morons currently celebrating their lack of a demise. Well good on them. Perhaps some of them had some surviving brain cells after all.

"Lieutenant."

Scratch that.

"Kirk."

La'an spared the man a glance before returning her eyes to the crowd. She'd have no time for this idiot even on a good day. Tonight it was taking appreciable effort not to yank his head off by his ill-considered facial hair.

"It's crazy right? Miracle we survived that. I'm glad they decided to put us out, it was getting pretty wild in sickbay."

La'an held her tongue, hoping ignoring him would make him go away. What kind of soft-headed twit put antibody synthesis down to miracles? Surely he'd had some grounding in biology. It hadn't been a miracle. It had been Chapel.

"I heard you had a couple more adventures though, while we were all sleeping. Rumour is you did a real number on the nurse."

She hadn't. Even half out of her mind, that was a line La'an would not cross. Chapel hadn't been trained to fight. It had taken only a few seconds to twirl the approaching hypospray out of her grasp and sting her with her own sedatives. La'an had taken the time to make sure she didn't hit her head, that she could breathe. Which was more, she felt, than she was going to do for Kirk the next time he made some monumentally stupid decision to endanger his own life. She was glad, right now, she'd managed to keep him alive on the comet. It would have been far too quick and painless a death.

"And screwing with the warp core, well, that certainly took some balls. You'd think there would be better failsafes on that thing, considering it has the potential to melt the flesh right off our bones."

"Yes." Because on that point, at least, he was right. It was something she intended to bring up in her report. Alien pathogens from the great beyond were one thing. The security chief single-handedly being able to fatally irradiate the entire crew was quite another. Even for Starfleet, that was negligent.

"So, what are you drinking?"

La'an glanced down into the melting blue mess of fruit and syrup. "I have no idea."

Kirk laughed. It pissed her off.

"Why don't I get you something more reasonable?"

He took the glass without asking, with a smile that actually reached his eyes despite the fact she was glaring daggers at him.

"Don't move, I'll be right back."

The world spun a little. Was he mad enough to be hitting on her? Or was this just friendly, and La'an was too out of practise, too angry, too stiff and lacking to know the difference?

The air shifted behind her. Chapel.

She looked different, out of the uniform. Softer somehow, with her hair swept up into a fraying twist. La'an took the hand she was holding out almost automatically. It wasn't the dress, bottle green and shimmering under the dimmed lighting, or the glitter above her eyes that highlighted their startling, almost iridescent blue. It wasn't even the way the dancing had coloured her cheeks with just the slightest flush of pink. It was the fact that she didn't smile. That she wasn't asking, because asking implied La'an might refuse. That she was simply waiting. It made the whole thing entirely uncomplicated. La'an didn't dance, but it didn't matter. This was what they were doing.

The dance floor was busy without feeling crowded, and they slid easily into the spaces left by swaying couples. Chapel didn't let her lead, and so La'an didn't try to. She simply went where the movement took her, following the fingers that pressed, firm and gentle, behind her shoulder blade. It was easy. Chapel's hand was familiar, soft and warm and whole, the fabric of her dress contrastingly cool against her palm. She smelled of soap, and honeysuckle.

It was quiet. After a few turns the world just faded out, leaving a calm, steady silence into which La'an could finally, finally breathe. She closed her eyes and let it happen, let Chapel draw her slightly closer so she wouldn't drift, spin her through a space she couldn't see. It felt a little like floating, the warm air like treacle around her, her feet finding their own way as her thoughts slowed, settled. There was nothing to do. Nothing to fix. No decisions to take. She could be quiet here. It was…

Safe.

Chapel's grip tightened as she startled back, firm enough to keep her from backing into the crowd, gentle enough that she could pull away.

"You're all right. We're just dancing." She looked up, directing La'an's attention to the twinkling lights strung from the ceiling above them, the dancers all around. "Everyone's still here."

La'an stumbled, suddenly too aware of her feet, the people behind her, the noise.

Chapel brought them to a halt at the edge of the swirl. She smiled, her nose crinkling. "That didn't last." There was no rancour in her voice. She sounded, if anything, apologetic.

La'an blinked down at their shoes, at Chapel's soft black heels that extended her bare ankles, and tried to gather everything back together. Stop it spinning out.

"I can't –"

"You don't have to." Chapel waited until she looked back up, her face soft. "Really. This is fine."

La'an watched her for a second, trying to find the lie. There wasn't one. Up on stage someone started singing. The sound jangled through every one of her nerves.

"It's too loud."

Chapel squeezed the hand she shouldn't still be holding and tipped her head towards the exit. "Go. I'll handle him." Her smiling eyes indicated Kirk, whose moustache was bobbing towards them above two swirling tumblers.

"Sam! Come and dance."

"Oh, well, if you don't mind?"

La'an nodded her assent curtly, then accepted the tumblers from him so he could lead Chapel back out onto the floor. The crowd closed around them as La'an found a table to pass the drinks off on. It felt claustrophobic, loud and hot and airless, a trap poised to spring. The chaos pressed in around her as she made for the exit.

"La'an!"

Una was coming towards her, disapproval creasing her eyes. La'an didn't slow. She'd take the lecture tomorrow. Right now, she was getting out.