She didn't know where she was.
She had been warm and heavy. Foggy, like drifting up out of sedation, the hand sweeping her arm gentle and familiar. She'd felt safe.
With no idea where she was.
Chapel smiled at her, understanding softening her eyes as the sickening flood of panic yanked everything from comfortable oblivion straight into run, run, run. "You're ok. We're safe. It's just the ship. Everyone's here."
La'an tried to breathe, to relax back into the bed, feel the weight of the mattress, the press of Chapel's hand, to focus on the freckles that dusted the bridge of her nose, the tiny, line tattoos across her ear, and ignore the menace that lurked behind her, ancient and cold, darkness poised to strike. She hadn't known where she was. She'd lost hours of time, blind and deaf to anything that might have happened. Anything that might have come.
This was how you died.
She knew it wasn't real. Chapel's eyes told her it wasn't.
"You're ok."
But she wasn't. She couldn't be. Not until she had forced herself upwards, out of the blankets, and pressed her back against the wall. Scanned the room through stinging eyes, pupils blown too wide too fast in the bright morning light. There was nothing here. The door was closed. The ship was quiet. The communicators were dark. This was Chapel's room, with the artefacts and the scattered clothing, the makeup by the mirror. Her own small teapot by the sink. She'd gone to sleep here. There was nothing coming. There was nothing wrong.
Only the insurmountable echoes in her head.
She drew her knees up, gripping so her nails pressed into her shins, knowing the little points of pain would dull the inevitable shaking. Beside her, Chapel shifted upwards slowly, carefully, trying not to make it worse. As if anything could. As if anything could ever fix it. La'an tightened away from her. "You think you're mad? This is broken."
"It's not." Chapel pulled the cloak from between the blankets, making to wrap it around her. La'an flinched away.
"No."
"It'll help."
"No."
This was where normal people gave up. Chapel settled beside her, lifting the blankets up over her knees instead, smoothing her warm palm across La'an's whitened knuckles. "Not broken. Just too much too fast. That gets to be frightening."
Only it didn't. It was ridiculous. "There's nothing here."
"How much of you really believes that?"
La'an stared at the door, listening to the part of her that never slept, that insisted relentlessly that safe meant death and always would, and knew it was true. Knew it was true, even though rationally she knew it wasn't, that all it had done for decades now was hurt her. It had kept her alive, once. Had been her only ally for so long it felt like a friend, like without it she would be left drowning in something so deep and vast…
Only she wasn't, now. She'd found somewhere to stand. Somewhere she wouldn't go under, if she let it go. She took Chapel's hand. "Sleeping is how you die."
"But you didn't." Chapel settled the cloak across their knees, running her fingers over it until it sparked. "You're ok." She shifted so La'an could lean against her, warm and solid. "Can you listen, if I tell you something?"
La'an nodded, letting herself unclench just a little, feeling the hollow terror start to fade under Chapel's seductive calm.
"Children sleep deeper than adults. So deep they sleep through danger, so you had to adapt. But your brain is wired differently now. Anything like that will wake you up. Not instantly, it might take a few seconds, but here, on the ship, that's fine. That's enough. And if you end up somewhere it isn't, you'll still know how to sleep light. Your body won't forget. You can sleep like this when you're safe and still switch back, any time." Chapel reached up to trace along the left side of La'an's head. "It's right here, the part that stays awake. We all have it. Like birds, or cetaceans. Things that can't afford to stop. You won't lose it. And you'll feel better, if you let it switch off sometimes. Humans function better on proper sleep. Even you."
"I'm fine."
"You're perfect." Chapel's arm settled around her, and La'an let herself lean in, despite the utter absurdity of it, the total madness of the notion that she would ever let anyone do this. Because this was Chapel. She got to do anything. "You always will be."
"I'm supposed to be better." She'd been seeing Sanchez for months now. It wasn't having any effect.
"Better how?"
She didn't know. Just better somehow. Someone who saw things in perspective. Who could sleep without the world ending. Someone who was very much less La'an. She shook her head into the warmth of Chapel's neck. Chapel's fingers tangled through her hair, gentle and utterly disarming, as if they had somehow found an off switch to her nervous system.
"There isn't some version of you you're supposed to be. There's just you. You know that. You keep telling me."
"That's different."
"How?"
"People like you."
"They like you. You just don't notice."
La'an sighed. She did notice, sometimes. She just didn't care. Most people were morons. "I don't think that's what I mean."
"No. But I think it might help, if you let them."
She wanted to protest that, reflexively. Tell Chapel other people were idiots. That she didn't want to waste her time talking to them. Like she always did. But these days, it wasn't entirely true. "Maybe."
Chapel hummed, the sound tickling through La'an's skin before she pulled away. "Do you really want to do this? Alien planet? I can just…"
"No."
"It's a lot of outside. Whole planet. It really doesn't get much…"
"Stop. I told you, I don't need an out."
"I'm not saying that. I'm saying this is a lot. If it's too much right now…"
"It's fine. Really." La'an took a breath, tracing her own fingers carefully over the cloak for a second, letting its strange, familiar magic soften the flagging tendrils of fear. "I think, maybe, better means this."
"Ok."
"Just…" She reached forward blindly, glad when warm fingers tangled through hers. "No flaming cocktails, ok?"
Chapel smiled. "We can beam back up, any time. The ship's always here."
Which was a salient point, actually. Before they left, she had better make sure it would be.
/
"Run it again."
"Ma'am?"
La'an grit her teeth. How was it, suddenly, that it had become necessary for her to repeat herself? She motioned Hassan aside in his chair so she could bend over the security console herself, inputting broader frequencies, wider margins, extending every available parameter to maximum as she subjected the planet and its environs to the type of analysis that would make individual microbes blush.
"I want an actual scan of this system. Not the standard 'let's beam down and see'. That gets people killed. We're sending all sorts down there today. People who think they're taking shore leave. We can't afford…"
A throat cleared beside her in a pretence at subtlety so false it grated all the way along her nerves. "I thought I rostered you out. I specifically remember…"
It really wasn't worth even looking up. "I need five minutes." The screens were showing so much nothing. So far. Once the sensors recalibrated the entire picture could change. She just needed…
Una's hip settled against the edge of the station. "What are you looking for?"
Anything. Everything. Because somehow, against all attempts at common sense, the universe managed to throw stuff at them even the scientists had given up trying to explain. As if it was some cruel, cosmic joke. As if Starfleet's shiny warp fields were an interstellar magnet for chaos, and the top brass were sending them out here like a glorified lightning rod.
She adjusted a few dials, watching readings that might have indicated an anomaly resolve into EM static. Una shifted towards her.
"La'an…"
"Paranoia spores. Sex pollen. Hostile telepathic aliens." The last one cut too close to home. She could tell by the way Una's posture stiffened that she shouldn't have said it. Una's eyes tightened too, indicating hurt, or embarrassment perhaps at having the incident referenced so publicly. La'an never could keep her voice down when it mattered. But Una was the one asking.
"The planet has already been scanned. Nothing like that…"
"The planet's always been scanned. Something always happens."
Una's lips tightened, arms crossing as she studied La'an. "Have you considered why that bothers you, suddenly?"
La'an stared at her. It always mattered. She always ran these scans. The fact that Chapel was beaming down there today offered no greater incentive than if it had been Kirk, or Uhura, or Krastev from engineering. These were her people, she was responsible for them. The only difference here was that ordinarily she would have been on duty, and none of this would have been anybody's business.
"Who do you think I am?"
Una hardened entirely as she pulled herself back upright. "Someone I rostered out less than 48 hours ago."
"So because I asked for time off you're kicking me off the bridge?"
Una frowned. "No one's…"
"Lieutenant."
La'an looked up into a face that held nothing at all as if she was stepping out of a blizzard. Spock held out a PADD.
"I have reviewed the Vulcan's survey of this and the surrounding systems, as well as data from a scout ship that passed through this sector several months ago. I took the liberty this morning of running your usual scans, as well as several others that seemed appropriate for this circumstance. In as far as our instruments are able to determine, neither the planet nor its system hold any quantifiable threat."
It wasn't just the face, but the voice too; modulated and even, providing facts that remained entirely uncomplicated by emotion. "Thank you." She glanced back at Una. "I'll be out of your way."
She didn't read the data. She didn't need to. If Spock said he'd checked then he'd checked. Instead, she used the quiet of the unoccupied turbolift to close her eyes for a moment and imagine a world in which every conversation with Una didn't somehow start and end as an argument. Somehow, it felt farther away than a planet that didn't sprout fangs.
/
Chapel was packing… something. La'an stood by the table and watched, trying to recalibrate herself into someone who wasn't itching to have her finger hovering over the phaser controls.
"Why towels?"
"Because we might want to go swimming."
"It's cold."
Chapel shrugged. "I used to swim in the Pacific in August. Nothing's that cold."
La'an doubted that. This planet's albedo was particularly high, even the equatorial regions had currents that descended straight from the poles. "It's cold." She found a large flask in one of Chapel's cabinets while the mysterious process went on behind her. If they were going to be courting hypothermia, the least she could do was make tea.
/
No one mentioned the sidearm.
Chief Kyle had turned to watch her as she pulled it out of the locker, but more, she suspected, out of distraction than judgement. The man had just about the most boring job on the ship most days.
"Report says there's nothing down there."
"It's general leave. There will be ensigns."
"Ah. Show no mercy."
La'an straightened, face hard, marking the way that made his matching deadpan twitch slightly.
"There's no such thing. Energise."
She caught the moment he broke into a grin as the transporter room dematerialised around them, and stared at the empty space as it reformed into a stand of scraggly trees. She really was going soft. And maybe, if she could let it, that might result in friends.
The thought was almost enough to distract her from the planet they had landed on.
Almost.
She kept her hand on the phaser as she scanned the blameless horizon, shrubs and sand over patchy grass, white clouds in a blue sky, the occasional wheeling bird. The place was quiet, bar the wind in the distance, the crewmembers disbursing over the dunes carrying packs and climbing gear. There were cliffs here somewhere, down by the beach. Chapel sighed as La'an turned full circle, entirely at ease in this foreign landscape, face tilted up into the sunshine.
"You even got the gravity right."
She was so pretty. La'an found the pointless vigilance dropping as she watched her loosely gathered hair catch in the breeze. So pretty, and suddenly softened in a way La'an realised she hadn't seen in months now. Hadn't even really seen back then, because she'd been too busy just trying to breathe, to function, to have a conversation that didn't snap. Because impossibly, back then, she hadn't really known her. But now, under the warmth of a real star, her feet on real ground, breathing air that smelled of salt and ozone and life, the subtle tension that had suffused her so completely you could hardly see it was unwinding, leaving a calm that must have been achingly vital to miss. That might finally let her heal, if she could keep it.
"It's .9 G. Might make it easier for you to keep up."
Chapel's eyes were suddenly sharp with life. "Really?"
She was running before La'an could react, but she'd been ready this time. Set since the moment Chapel had picked this place, since the moment Ortegas had declared it the ideal spot for a bonfire and run her finger along the wide, sloping beach on the satellite image. She'd even worn the right shoes. She sped up just enough to push Chapel out of her comfort zone as they passed chattering crew, people setting out picnics, lounging on the sand, shrieking as they toed into the freezing water.
It wasn't long before even the scattered crowd thinned and it was just the beach ahead of them, dunes and flotsam, rising cliffs looming far in the distance. La'an slowed a few paces so she could drop back and lift the pack off Chapel's shoulder.
"I'm fine."
"And I'm genetically engineered to be better at this. Don't pretend you don't know."
Chapel grinned, finally handing it off. "Freak of nature."
It was the first time anyone had ever phrased it as an endearment. La'an sped up again and held the pace, just to see how long Chapel would hold out. It was longer than it should have been.
"Ok, uncle, you win, slow down!"
She pulled back until they were comfortably side by side, settling into a rhythm they could sustain for miles. "Up to the cliffs?"
"Yes."
The sand was firm and slightly springy underfoot, dimpling occasionally with rising water. Overhead, unfamiliar birds called into a breeze that was just warm enough to be comfortable as it filtered the rays of a mild yellow sun. Everything was wide and fresh and quiet, empty save for the alien wildlife and Chapel, running beside her, finally free of the weight that had dogged her for days. It was one of the few moments La'an could ever remember wanting to last forever.
Eventually though, they simply ran out of beach, slowing as sand turned to rocks and shingle as the cliffs came closer. Chapel brought them to a halt in front of a large boulder, hand warm on La'an's arm, and pressed her gently back against the stone to kiss her, soft and brief and breathless, entirely in the moment, as if for once she hadn't thought long enough to hesitate.
"That's not why we came here."
"No, but it had to happen, just once. Just so it doesn't rattle around in my head."
It was sweet, and utterly charming. A little unmooring too, to be so palpably loved by someone who didn't care who she was. Who smiled at her, always, whatever was happening. Who was so beautifully easy to understand, if you bothered to look past the cellophane of her misdirection.
Chapel was rattled by whatever was happening between them. It didn't fit any of her moulds. She didn't have relationships that didn't revolve around sex. Mostly, La'an suspected, because the way she looked meant people didn't give her the option, but also, realistically, because sex provided a certain distance.
Distance was resolutely not where this was going. It never had been. And yet, despite how much that seemed to frighten her, Chapel was so very clearly all the way in. It was oddly grounding, to be wanted like that. To be able to be exactly what someone needed of her, without any real effort at all. The combination was a little heady, like floating without the background fear of an away. She smiled, touching Chapel's flyaway hair back from her face.
"Tell me you've changed your mind about the swimming."
Chapel flashed a grin that was pure, unfiltered endorphins while she lifted the pack off La'an's shoulder. "Last one in has to carry this back."
La'an shook her head, watching Chapel strip while she tied her ponytail carefully up into a bun, and tried to think warm thoughts as her eyes strayed out towards the ocean. It looked deceptively inviting. That was how the enemy always got you.
This one, she was more than happy to let Chapel win.