A/N: lol life and graduation has gotten in my way. Pretty sure this took a bit too long to get out, but it is a new chapter. I'm mostly trying to get past this setting up part, cause its boring and requires I constantly have a memory alpha wikia tab open. I'm going to do a big time skip soon, let me know if you want it now, or if I should do a few more chapters setting up how Chapel ends up in Opps before we get to Kitimoir. Comment or send me a PM. Also reviews feed the muse, who controls how often I write. (Hint Hint)

~Blue

A combination of mortification and anger propelled Christine right off the ship. She probably could have flown back to earth on her own steam, but the shuttle wasn't a bad idea. Her request for transfer had been granted almost immediately, probably a starfleet record. Then again, usually the captain and CMO weren't so eager to sign off on a transfer request. She didn't really care.

"Chapel reporting for duty, sir." Christine knocked on the slightly ajar office door of an old friend.

"Christine!" The admiral exclaimed with a big smile, pulling Christine into a very non regulation hug. He suddenly released her with a look of consternation "Since when are you back on earth? I thought you were CMO of the enterprise." He released her and waved her into the emergency ops director office, shutting the door.

"Richard, didn't you hear about the three musketeers coming back? There's no way I had a job after that." Christine sagged down in a chair, taking note of the spartan office space, regulation down to the starfleet and emergency ops requirement posters on the walls. Richard Cartwright sank down across the desk from her, sighing in sympathy.

"Anyway, I'm back on earth and I need a job, what have you got?" Christine said, shaking herself up. Determined to put on a brave face at least for a while.

"Well, I'm sure starfleet medical could use someone like you, and there are plenty of science billets," Cartwright hesitated "But I'd love to have you in emergency ops here."

"You know where I stand on that," Christine rolled her eyes, "I don't want to do the administrative stuff and people don't exactly throw retirement parties, it's the highest fatality rate in the fleet, isn't it? I may have screwed up a lot of shit back on the ship, but I'm not suicidal." She had been approached several times to join Opps, but she continued to resist. Cartwright was an old friend, someone she'd known from her childhood back in new england. He joined starfleet right out of school, she took another path.

Cartwright sighed "I've known you too long to bother arguing this with you. If you ever change your mind, let me know. Now, not to change the subject but what happened on that ship?"

"You're going to have to buy me a drink to get that story out of me." Christine said with a glint in her eye, the old joke remembered.

"Count on it." Cartwright responded with an answering smirk, standing up and opening the door. "There's a bar around the corner, Molly's, 1700?"

"Sounds good to me," Christine grinned, her first in a long while. "See you then."

Back on the enterprise, Spock sat in his quarters, attempting and failing to meditate. He was attempting to suppress emotions bubbling up in him. Spock kept coming back to that moment standing in front of Christine's Doctor Chapel's empty quarters. He hadn't experienced such rejection since, well T'Pring. With that thought, Spock gave up on meditation and resolved to put the dark haired doctor out of his mind for good.