After their escape from the Gorn and after paying their respects to the lives lost, Pike had stated that there was little to do, but hobble back to the nearest starbase for repair and had suggested La'an go get some rest. She'd tried to argue, stating that they didn't actually know if they were out of danger or not.
"All the more reason for you to rest," Pike had parried. "You're no good to me dead on your feet, especially in a fight."
She'd relented simply because she knew she wasn't going to win.
When she'd reached her quarters, the moment she stepped through the doors it was as if all adrenaline immediately fled her body, leaving her knees feeling like jelly and her head vaguely dizzy. Crossing the room, she collapsed atop her bed and closed her eyes.
She tried to rest, to give her body what it was craving, but it seemed as soon as she faded out, flashing images of her past, of her brother, of blood, clawed their way through her mind and she was suddenly awake again, heart thundering and adrenaline rushing once more.
Spock had been right when he'd said that resurfacing hidden memories could be painful. She'd thought he'd meant just during the mind meld, but now she wondered if he meant afterwards as well. Once a dam was cracked, it was difficult to keep it from leaking.
Unable to fall back asleep (and perhaps a little afraid to), La'an retreated from her quarters. She wandered around with little cognitive thought as to where she was going or what she was doing, but then suddenly she found herself outside Sickbay. Just standing by the doors, knowing who was inside, helped dampen the tumbling flashes and noise in her head. She stepped through the doors.
The lights had been dimmed to make the atmosphere more restful and it was relatively quiet inside — beeping and some soft murmuring of patients or medical personnel, but little else.
La'an swept the room with her eyes until she spotted Una. It seemed the woman had been moved to a quieter, more secluded corner of Sickbay, closest to the far wall. She had the individual light of her biobed at a level just a bit higher than everyone else's and she had a PADD in hand. She seemed fully engrossed in whatever she was reading because she didn't look up when La'an approached.
"Shouldn't you be resting?" La'an asked lightly.
Una looked up from the PADD and raised an appraising eyebrow. Clearly she must have seen the younger woman's weariness despite how La'an tried to hide it because she retorted back, "Shouldn't you ?" She smiled half a beat later and held up the PADD. "Just catching up on what I missed while I was unconscious." She motioned to one of the two chairs at her bedside with her chin. "Have a seat."
As La'an sat in the chair closest to the head of Una's biobed, she glanced around, noting that no one else had chairs at their bedsides.
Una seemed to pick up on her thoughts because she gave a little shrug and said, "I had a few visitors."
"Unsurprising," La'an said.
"I suppose," Una acquiesced. "What is surprising is that it took you this long to come visit."
Giving her an unruffled look, La'an replied, "Because I knew you'd have a few visitors."
Una gave a little snort of a laugh and La'an allowed a small smirk to touch the corners of her lips. They both knew La'an was not one for gatherings.
La'an opened her mouth to ask how Una was feeling when she heard footfalls and then felt the presence of someone beside her. "Oh, good you're here," a familiar voice said and suddenly there was a white hand sensor being waved in front of her face.
La'an frowned and pulled her head away. "What are you— I'm fine."
Chapel glanced up from her readings and raised an eyebrow. "You're concussed."
That immediately roused Una's concern. "You have a concussion?"
"I'm fi—"
"Yes, she does," Chapel cut in, eyes back on the readings the sensor was providing. "And a small fracture to her sixth vertebrosternal rib."
"La'an," Una breathed out in a reproval.
"I'm fine ."
Chapel stopped scanning and gave La'an an exceedingly unimpressed look. "I told you to sit tight for a reason."
It took everything in La'an not to roll her eyes. "We were under attack. There wasn't time." That seemed to simultaneously annoy and mollify Chapel because she didn't argue further, just returned to scanning even though La'an was quite sure she'd already garnered all the information she could.
"How are you feeling? Headache? Dizziness? Nausea? Confusion? A sense of pressure in your head?"
La'an sighed internally, especially when she noted the vaguely amused look on Una's face.
"Hallucinations? Blurred vision? Tinnitus? Sensitivity to light or sound? Vomit—"
"Stop," La'an finally interrupted. "I already said I'm fine."
"Yes, three times." Chapel brought her blue eyes back up to meet La'an's brown. "I heard you."
"Then why—"
"Because I told you to sit tight and you didn't listen. You're lucky your brain isn't bleeding. Now please let me finish this scan."
La'an almost protested again, absolutely sure there was no reason for any further scanning, but then she caught Una's clear 'Be still' look. She clenched her jaw and stared straight forward, unflinching.
After a moment, Chapel nodded, seemingly satisfied. She lifted her gaze from the tricorder readings and made direct eye contact with La'an. "If I tell you to sit tight, will you listen now?"
La'an opened her mouth, but before she could reply, Una cut in with a, "Yes, she will." The declaration was marked with a pointed look that had La'an deflate slightly. She settled back a little more firmly into the chair, threading her fingers together and dropping her clasped hands into her lap.
"Good, I'll be back in a minute with something to help you feel better."
"I'm fine," La'an called after the retreating woman, but Chapel just waved her off.
La'an blew an irritated breath out through her nose, then looked back at Una. The 'Why?' question must have been all over her face because Una pointed her gaze at the back of the woman in white puttering about on the far side of the room. "She hasn't stopped since this whole thing started and she kept a level head the entire time."
"So?"
"Sooo, now that the danger has passed, let's just… let her have a moment, let her process her internalized panic… even if that means allowing her mother hen you for a few minutes."
La'an blew out another breath, this one a little less harsh. "Fine," she sighed. "But only because she helped keep you alive."
She supposed she understood to a degree. Now that they had outwitted the threat (at least for now), everyone was coming down from the adrenaline of the ordeal and that manifested differently for every person.
As she considered, a silence fell that was interrupted a few moments later by Una's quiet voice asking, "What did you see?"
Blinking, La'an returned her attention to the older woman. "Sorry?"
"When she mentioned hallucinations, you paled and got stiff…er than usual," a tiny smirk flitted over her lips, then disappeared as her expression grew somber again, "And then you stared across the room… like you were seeing something."
La'an felt her heart rate suddenly spike and her eyes darted back to the spot her brother had been, the sudden tightness in her chest dissipating only slightly when she saw nothing there. Her body still thrummed with that "edge of the abyss" feeling, just waiting to drop, waiting for—
There was a light pressure to her arm and she started, sucking in a sharp breath through her nose. She realized half a second later that it had only been Una touching her, bringing her back from her spiral.
Una's blue eyes shone with concern. "Your hands are shaking," she whispered.
La'an looked down. It wasn't much, a slight tremor, but of course Una would notice. She stared at them for a beat before clenching her entwined fingers even more tightly together. The tension only made them tremble more.
One of Una's hands appeared within La'an's field of vision and she placed it atop the younger woman's shaking, interlocked hands. "La'an," she addressed softly, drawing chestnut eyes upward. "What did you see?" she asked again.
La'an swallowed and chewed at the inside of her bottom lip. "Who," she corrected a beat later.
"Who did you see?"
"My brother," La'an whispered. She felt her hands begin to shake even more at the admission and in turn, Una's hand tightened with grounding pressure.
"After the initial attack, the explosion, when I woke up, I… he…" She pinched her lips together in a tight line. She didn't talk about these things. Not about hallucinations of her dead brother exactly, but about anything personal. That which she had shared over the years had been gently coaxed, patiently waited for, or (on occasion) persistently needled out of her by Una and Una only.
From the terrified child sitting in the corner of the room stuttering out fear-saturated whispers to explain why she needed every single light in the room on, to the teenager refusing an emergency appendectomy because she didn't want to be sedated, to the cadet triggered into a panic attack by the clicking sounds of bats while on a spelunking trip during winter break from the Academy — Una had been there through it all. She was the one person La'an felt she could truly trust and yet it still took so very much to speak of her insecurities, fears, and sadness.
"You saw your brother," Una gently prompted.
La'an gave a singular nod then averted her eyes, staring off into the middle distance to avoid really looking at anything. "He… guided me to a memory I'd—" Forgotten? Buried? "—I'd lost."
"Is that how you figured out how to use their communication lights against them?"
La'an nodded, bringing her attention back from nothing to Una. "Yes, I—" She stopped short and frowned in confusion.
Una easily interpreted the look on La'an's face because she smirked and said, "News travels fast on a starship, didn't you know? I was told about what you did as soon as I woke up."
Blowing out a puff of amused concession, La'an shook her head and stared at the floor. "He saved us," she said after a few moments of silence, her voice soft. "He saved me . Again."
She didn't have to look at Una to know her eyes were radiating warmth. There was a slight brush of the older woman's thumb across La'an's knuckles. A gesture of comfort, a lending of strength.
"But?" Una asked because they could both feel the word hanging in the air.
La'an swallowed. "But I thought when they were gone, when the danger was gone…" She clenched her jaw, feeling the tightness of approaching tears in her throat, and she shook her head again.
"You thought he would go as well…" Una filled in.
"But he hasn't," La'an whispered.
"Why not?"
Breathing in a shaky breath, La'an once again returned her attention to Una, meeting her soft, solicitous gaze. "Same as always," she said, allowing the older woman to glimpse the haunting sorrow and fear she usually barricaded away. Her voice shook just slightly. "Because the danger is never really gone."
He may not usually present as an apparition, but her brother was always in the back of La'an's mind. Always with her, never free.
In the silence that followed, as they both contemplated La'an's words, there was a soft thud and a mild curse muttered from across the room. When they looked, they spotted Chapel picking up a few scattered items off of the ground while surreptitiously casting quick glances over at the two of them.
La'an had noticed the woman loitering in the background during their entire conversation, very clearly avoiding them. She had no doubt Una had noticed as well. She hadn't been eavesdropping, the nurse had kept a respectful distance while they had spoken, but it was clear she was ready to interrupt.
Una met La'an's gaze and raised an eyebrow, a gentle smirk settling across her lips. She waited, seemingly to check if La'an was ready enough to interact with the other woman. She wasn't really — processing the entire Gorn event wasn't something that would happen overnight. She knew though that if she needed someone to help her process it, Una would be there. La'an inhaled a quiet breath then offered Una a subtle nod.
Una paused for just a beat, studying La'an's face before she pulled her hand away from La'an's and called over to Chapel. "Oh, Nurse Chapel, won't you join us?"
Chapel picked up a few items and sauntered over. "I come bearing gifts… kind of." She held up some cooling packs.
La'an felt slightly off put by the fact that while Chapel likely hadn't heard any of their conversation, she had still seen some of it, she had seen La'an with her walls down. It was ridiculous, she knew, but she just felt a desire to reclaim some of the rigid, pragmatic, no nonsense attitude she was known for, so instead of just hearing the nurse out, she raised an unimpressed eyebrow and said, "All that time for a cooling pack?"
" Two cooling packs," Chapel replied, unperturbed, "and medical supplies can be elusive if they wish to be, just like I can… when needed."
"Thank you," Una said and La'an wasn't sure if it was for the cooling packs or for giving them space. Both, she decided a moment later.
Chapel smiled at Una then turned her attention to La'an. "Stand up, arms up."
La'an glanced, unamused, at Una, but the older woman just raised a very clear 'Indulge her,' eyebrow. Gritting her teeth to avoid saying something catty, she rose out of the seat and lifted her arms just enough to give Chapel access to her ribs. She pushed down the angry spike of pain that flared at the movement.
Chapel made quick work of placing the cooling pack and securing it with a wrap before she took a step back and nodded in satisfaction at her handiwork. "Until systems are back up, this'll have to do." She held out the second pack. "For your head. I'd offer you an analgesic for the pain, but somehow I feel that might be wasted effort."
La'an took the second pack, but didn't raise it to the throbbing lump on the back of her head where skull had met bulkhead in the explosion. For some reason (and that reason could very well have been the somewhat self-satisfied expression on Chapel's face…), she was suddenly and irrationally nettled by the fact that the cool against her ribs did actually make her feel just a bit better and the cattiness she had bit back before all of a sudden rose up. "Actually…" La'an said slowly.
Chapel perked up, clearly surprised at La'an's apparent change in M.O. "Really?"
"No," La'an replied, both tone and expression dry.
Chapel squinted her eyes at La'an. "You can sit back down," she said.
La'an did so for lack of anything better to do.
"Speaking of sitting," Una cut in, smooth like a mother stepping up to return harmony to her sniping children, "When's the last time you sat down, Chapel?"
The nurse tugged her earlobe in thought. "Uhhh, does falling over when we got hit by enemy fire count?" she asked.
"No, no it does not."
Chapel nodded. "Theeen it has been a while."
"Sit down, Chapel."
"Yes, Commander." No hesitation, no arguments about needing to keep an eye on her patients, absolutely nothing. Like she had just been waiting for the order, she practically collapsed into the chair next to La'an as a soft sigh of clear relief escaped her lips.
La'an did have to admit that Chapel looked exhausted. Hair disheveled (in a non-purposeful way), the pristine white of her jumpsuit was no longer unblemished, there was a slump to her shoulders, and her smiles didn't quite reach her eyes.
Una rested her head back against the bed and stared at the ceiling, Chapel's exhaustion seemingly rubbing off on her. She took a few deep breaths and then said, "Today was too eventful."
"Mmm, yes," Chapel agreed, slipping even further down into the chair.
Una rocked her head to the side to look at the nurse. "Good work though. You really stepped up, saved a lot of lives."
"That's why they hired me," Chapel chimed. The fact that she only smiled and didn't absolutely preen spoke volumes on just how tired the woman must have been.
Cattiness suddenly fading, La'an now felt a strange sense of obligation to help this woman feel even just a little bit better, so she offered, "Not for your disguises?" She was aiming for cheeky, but it came out more wry.
Chapel seemed to appreciate it regardless because her smile did widen as she replied, "Nope, more so to keep stubborn commanders alive. And somehow I sense it'll be stubborn lieutenants, too." She gave them both pointed looks. "You've both proven excellent examples as to why most medical personnel don't take much stock in 'I'm fine' ."
La'an felt a sudden stab of guilt tighten her chest and heat her cheeks. She averted her eyes to stare at the middle nothing again. Not only had Una been injured pulling her to safety when she'd allowed past trauma to freeze her in place, but then she had seen the blood and knew Una well enough to know that she was lying when she'd said she was fine, but she had left anyway instead of dragging Una into Sickbay herself.
"Thank you," La'an said after a moment, sincere, "for helping keep this one alive." She nodded in Una's direction, but didn't actually look at the older woman. She didn't think she could handle seeing the emotion that was no doubt in Una's expressive blue eyes. She'd always found emotions hard to manage as it was, but sentimentality specifically aimed at her was especially difficult.
Chapel seemed to recognize the struggle because instead of drawing attention to the emotions around her, she immediately offered a light, nonchalant brush-off of, "Doctor M'Benga did most of the work."
Una's tone was light as well when she replied, "Give yourself some credit, Chapel. Without your very colorful description, I might be dying of septic shock right now."
"Septic shock?" La'an questioned, looking back up and frowning.
"Long story," Una said before she was suddenly hit by a yawn. "A story I will tell you tomorrow."
Chapel nodded in agreement and stood up. "Yeah, it's probably wise that you both get some rest while things are quiet. Never know when shit might hit the fan again." When both La'an and Una raised an eyebrow at her, she quickly added, "And, ya know, resting will help you heal… as well."
Una just blinked at the nurse for a moment before saying, "You're proving to be a real ray of sunshine, Chapel."
Chapel scrunched her nose and gave an awkward nod. "Most definitely top of my class in bedside manner."
"Yes, most definitely," Una agreed drily.
La'an stood up as well and tapped the bed next to Una's hand, not quite touching, but enough that Una could feel the vibrations. "I'll check in later, Chief."
Una offered a tired smile. "You better."
As La'an stepped past Chapel and began moving away, she felt the nurse fall in step behind her. She stopped at the doors, turned toward the blonde woman, and just stared, waiting for an explanation.
Chapel wetted her bottom lip with a quick pass of her tongue then said, "Thank you… for not listening earlier. I suppose." She glanced upward as if she wasn't quite sure that the words were coming out of her mouth as she meant them to. When she looked back at La'an and saw the continued black stare, the nurse elaborated, "You not sitting tight like I told you to. I guess you kind of saved us by not listening. So, thank you."
Not entirely sure what to say (mostly, honestly, because she still hadn't processed the whole event and was reticent to take credit for what had been a shipwide effort), La'an just offered a stiff nod.
"But!" Chapel pointed a finger at La'an. "Next time I'm serious, understand? I'd really hate to have to chase you down and hogtie you."
La'an nearly scoffed at the notion of Chapel trying to hogtie her, but then she noticed that there was a seriousness in the blonde's expression. "...You say that like you've done it before."
"It was a really weird three days like a year ago." Chapel shook her head, looking for all the universe like she was trying to shake away the memories. "Lotta oiled-up nakedness. Lotta off-key karaoke, too. It was… rough." Her top lip curled upward slightly in distaste, eyes far away for a few moments before she finally snapped back to the present and cleared her throat. "So when I say I've had a lot of practice, I mean it. Too much practice. Please let me leave that practice in the past."
With that description, La'an wasn't going to argue. "Understood." She watched as Chapel immediately and visibly relaxed.
"Thank you."
She turned to exit when Chapel piped up one more time. "Oh, and engineering is feeling optimistic about when they'll have things up and running again, or at least when they'll have Sickbay up and running. They said a couple hours, so when they do or at least in the morning, will you come back so I can do more to help than a cooling pack?"
La'an immediately wanted to deny her —she was fine— but there was a soft, genuine earnestness to Chapel's face that made her falter and then the woman followed up a gently beseeching, "Please?"
Sighing silently, La'an offered, "I will be back to see the commander."
Seemingly taking that as confirmation, Chapel smiled and nodded. "That'll work."
END
Author's Note: I don't know about y'all, but I'm struggling with if her name is meant to be spelled La'an or La'An. All the Paramount+ stuff, like their instagram or even their closed captions/subtitles has her name spelled La'An, but literally everything else I've seen it's just La'an. I used the "Find and replace" feature as I was writing like 4 times before I settled on just having it how all other authors are doing it! Thoughts?
Also, thanks for reading!
