Dr. M'Benga treated the landing party. Chapel got up when they arrived, ready to help, but he waved her off.
"I've got this, you keep working."
She wasn't actually doing anything urgent anymore, but she turned back to her PADD anyway. He'd let her run down the alien scientist after all, and he'd been sat around in spacedock longer than Chapel, treating nothing more exciting than scrapes and bruises. She could tell it was taking all his bedside manner not to smile as he unwrapped the bandage from around what looked like a projectile wound. You certainly didn't see those every day.
Number One had propped herself up on the neighbouring biobed and was unstrapping an old fashioned medical boot. This planet really hadn't been ready for first contact. Chapel watched her talk to La'an, who was managing to hold an unnervingly convincing smile under her alien disguise, only the tightness in her posture giving her away. Chapel flinched inwardly as Una squeezed the lieutenant's arm, pulling her eyes away from La'an's clenching fist and fixing them on the unravelling mystery of Spock's DNA instead. You knew where you were with genes.
"Can you fix this?"
M'Benga had finally moved on to examine Number One's foot, which had brought La'an striding over to where Chapel was clearly failing to look busy.
"That depends. Is the mission over? Because I'm not doing that again if it turns out you have to go back down there."
"It wears off anyway."
Chapel frowned, scrutinising La'an's face more closely. La'an shook her head irritably.
"Not me, Spock. Right in the middle of the hallway. There was no way anyone was missing that, we had to knock everyone out."
"You seem to be making a habit of that." Chapel glanced over at the two alien scientists still under sedation across the room. La'an turned to look, hands locked behind her back in a grip that had left fingertip bruises on Chapel's arms not two hours ago.
"I didn't think Vulcans screamed." Her tone stayed entirely conversational. Somehow that made it worse.
Everyone screams. Chapel pressed her palms into the table, imagining the tickle of cool damp moss against her skin. Professional. This was where she had to be professional. She refreshed her smile in time for La'an to turn back.
"Your alteration is stable. It should last several days."
"Should?"
"It isn't an exact science. But that won't happen to you. Look." Chapel pulled up La'an's readings. "Perfect transformation."
"I can't read that."
"Bonded pairs turn yellow, instabilities go red. You're good."
La'an stared at the scrolling data in silence. Chapel watched her arm twitch, her posture tighten further to hold it still. She'd had broken capillaries all across her face. She should have screamed. Everyone screamed. Chapel blinked, but she could still see it.
Hang professional.
"You're making it worse."
"What?"
"The pain. It isn't the transformation. Reversing that won't fix it. You remember I told you about echoes? You're making them worse. Just…"
But what was she going to do? Tell La'an to relax? To go have a hot bath and a nap? She was wound so tight it would probably kill her.
"Put your hands on the table."
"I…" La'an looked up at her, eyes wide, suddenly transparent in a way that made something in Chapel unclench. So she was human.
"Trust me. Right here. Just…" Chapel pushed the PADD aside and put her own hands down, fingers splayed. "It'll help. Really." La'an didn't move. Chapel slid her hands a little closer. "Just like this."
La'an took a breath, and then slowly, trembling hands emerged from behind her back. She pressed them down hard, fingertips whitening against the metal.
"That's not…" Chapel balled her fists to demonstrate. "It's a feedback loop. The tighter you hold, the worse it gets. Once you let go…" She flattened her hands back down, close to La'an's. "Try it."
Nothing. La'an met Chapel's gaze and shook her head minutely as behind her Dr. M'Benga laughed along to something Number One was saying. Right. Of course.
"Sit here." She offered La'an her chair and moved around the table until she was between her and the sickbay's other occupants, blocking her from view.
"Now, like this."
La'an's fists slowly unclenched, and a tremor swept through her tight frame.
"This doesn't work."
"It is working." Chapel reached out to press La'an's retreating hands back onto the table, keeping her touch light. "You know when you get pins and needles? People think it's blood flow returning to the limb, waking it up, but really it's because you've blocked a nerve. All the signals have backed up, so when you free it they all come through at once, like fireworks. This is like that. Your nervous system was overloaded. It's going to misfire. You need to let it."
"I can't just…"
Chapel smiled. "Sure you can. This part's easy." She indicated the crew behind her with a tip of her head. "They'll be busy over there for a while, the captain's breaking general order one. You're at a loose end. Also," she leant in conspiratorially, "if you don't I have the power to sign you off." She wrinkled her nose in an expression she'd been reliably informed was entirely irresistible.
It was low, and she'd be the first to admit it. Unprofessional. But it did work.
La'an glared at her, then closed her eyes, tremors emerging as her body gradually relaxed.
"Good." Chapel reached for her PADD and swiped it back to the readout of Spock's modelled results. "We're just two people studying DNA. See how the covalent bonds here aren't holding? The phosphate groups aren't uniform enough."
La'an glared down at the PADD, unseeing, as Chapel scrolled through the myriad instabilities on the screen. At least some of them could be resolved with resequencing. She poked at the image, moving base pairs around.
"Why did you go out there?"
"Where?"
"Into the forest."
"Damn." Chapel watched the model unravel into nucleotide soup while she considered the question. It had been a strange thing to do, at six, to spend her days all alone, soaking wet or scraped and dusty, far from anywhere. "It was quiet. I had a nice home, a nice life, but everything was always so loud. That was the place that wasn't. No one ever came there." It wasn't a great explanation. She shrugged at La'an apologetically. "I don't really know."
La'an was quiet for a while. "You think too fast." She said finally.
Chapel frowned and watched La'an ball her fists loosely, then splay her fingers out against the tabletop.
"It was like that."
La'an's hands were still. The tremors had stopped. The forest had been quiet.
"You might be right." Chapel looked around at the gleaming bulkheads. There were no forests on a starship. "There are other things that do that. Every culture has some." She shrugged again. "Girl needs a hobby."
"Apart from messing with the building blocks of life."
"That's work."
"Right."
"La'an!" Number One was testing out her freshly regenerated leg by pacing across the ward towards them. "Looks like we're done here. Why don't we find our guests some quarters?" She stopped, taking in La'an's still alien features, and turned to Chapel. "I thought you would have…"
Chapel straightened. "Not until the mission's over ma'am. The technique is still new, we don't want to have to use it more than necessary."
"I see. Nurse Chapel, is it?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Good work on this. They're very convincing."
"Thank you. Some of it still needs some work."
Una rolled her eyes. "Doesn't it always." She gestured at La'an. "Can I have her back?"
"Absolutely."
Chapel held her best smile as she watched them leave, and thought of a glimpse of sky though tall trees. It didn't stop her skin from crawling.
