Disclaimer: If I owned Star Trek, I'd buy a better computer, that's for sure. But considering that I am stuck with the crummy one I have now, I am not the owner of Star Trek. Bah.
A/N: Sorry, I meant to update this story a little earlier due to my sudden spark of inspiration returning, but was unable to due to my internet connection being out all day, so…Yeah. But the good news is that I was able to get much more writing done without musing on other things, so…Hoorah? So, please expect updated to be much more frequent than what they have been.
If it is of any comfort to anyone, I've finally a vague idea of where I want this story to go, and hopefully I will finish this fan fiction with the help of my wonderful reviews and readers; if I do finish it, I might break down and cry, because I've been writing for nearly eight years now but never had the gall to finish anything. And trust me, with that sort of weight on my shoulders, a milestone such as finishing this story would be absolutely tremendous.
By the way, the person who I envision playing Christine is Kristen Bell. Oh yeah. From Heroes…with Zachary Quinto. What? She's perfect. And short, which is another plus, heh. And they just look good together, gosh darn it. I'd have a heart attack if I heard she got the part for the sequel.
"Well thanks for that, McCoy!" bellowed Christine as they entered the privacy of the sickbay minutes later.
"What? I thought you'd like that, Chapel," answered the doctor with indifference as the automatic door shut beyond them. He turned off his computer for the night and watched Christine, whose back was faced towards him. She was obviously not too happy about the promotion.
She turned around swiftly to face him, her face red with anger and frustration. "You made me look like some sort of idiot up there, like I would take any job that would get me closest to the captain's chair!"
"Well, damnit Chapel, if I'd known you'd be this wound up over it, I'da never mentioned it in the first place."
"Mentioned it? You practically bullied me into it! How the hell would I have been able to say no to something like that, in front of everyone?"
"Loosen up, Chapel, it's only temporary," McCoy took a step towards her and reached out to her arm, as if to calm her down. "Look, I'm sorry--"
She quickly stepped backwards and put her hands up to level with her shoulders, as if to slap him away. She was definitely not in the mood to be touched at the moment. "Don't even think you can apologize your way out of this one," Christine answered furiously, turning off her computer with a loud bang when her fist pressed the shutdown button much harder than anticipated. She then made her way quickly out of the sickbay and to the nearest lift, much too furious to walk the long halls to her room on her own.
Spock entered his quarters and immediately sat himself at his computer after adjusting the temperature, increasing by fifteen degrees -- the damned engineers always changed the settings whenever they docked at a Starbase. The heat reminded him of his home planet, Vulcan, of the environment he was used to. As soon as it turned on, words flashed across the screen - Starfleet captain takes leave due to fathering fellow officer's child; first Vulcan graduate appointed captain.
He had not expected the news to reach the Federation press as quick as it did, but was not wholeheartedly surprised -- something as scandalous as this was bound to make headlines fast.
The new captain leaned back in his chair, contemplating the unfortunate situation. He recalled how happy Nyota appeared with Jim, a sort of happiness that he had never sensed from her before. Spock supposed it was only a matter of time before something like this would happen, something reckless that the two Humans would contrive, leaving Spock alone, without one of his best friends and the first person he thought he was in love with.
He wished them well.
After all, what else could he do? It was not in his place to interfere, to dictate their actions. Being Human had its imperfections, and he would know -- he was half-Human, after all.
A sudden, painful feeling suddenly erupted at the pit of Spock's stomach, as if something had assaulted him. He had sworn never to think of the source of his partial humanity, his mother…not after what happened.
He turned to her, realizing that the ground was going to disappear underneath their feet. But, he could not reach out to her -- he was frozen. Frozen in time, in space…frozen with fear? Fear. Such a human emotion, how dare he even think it? It was because of fear -- of his imperfection -- that he could not save his mother, the one person in his life that he knew he loved.
Love and fear mingled in such an imaginable way that day; he had not seen his mother since his leaving Vulcan a little over five years before, a troubled youth, and the day of their reunion was ended with her falling into a deep ravine, never to be seen again.
He remembered staring out of a window, breathless, watching his planet be sucked into a black hole, into oblivion.
Nothingness. His mother, along with nearly six billion members of the Vulcan race, were diminished, destroyed. It was as if she had never existed, except in the confines of his own extensive, but futile, memory.
It was all his fault that she was never coming back.
He slammed his fiercely clenched fist on the desk, nearly knocking it over. His usually calm and indifferent demeanor had quickly disappeared, being replaced with a rash and distressful one.
Spock realized he needed to quickly revert his mind, and he knew hours of meditating would not assist him.
He tried to think of anything that would keep him from thinking of his losses…His father, the new Vulcan society being constructed by his alternate self…his new science officer? He resigned himself to the thought and decided that now would be an appropriate time to do his research, to validate that she was a proper choice for such a distinguished position.
Spock logged on to the Starfleet database and typed in her surname, Chapel, into the search engine. A couple of names, some of which he figured were members of her own family due to the resemblances, came up before hers. After a moment of scanning the list of results, he found a name, which he figured was hers, because the small summary underneath the link matched her description.
He clicked on the name and her profile came up. He read through it, making sure to make note of her strong points.
Born twenty-four years ago, Christine Emilia Chapel was an accomplished person of her years, to say in the least. She was practically born into Starfleet, with her father being an Ambassador on Andorian bases, and her mother an astrophysicist who was recently let go from her senior position at a Starfleet research center in Boston. She had one sibling, a younger sister, who was currently attending a civilian university. She had entered Starfleet at the age of eighteen, just after high school, and spent a year at the Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, studying astrophysics, before transferring on the eve of her sophomore year to medical school, where she spent five years of study.
At the end of the profile was an animated holograph dated about seven months ago, around the same time of the Nero situation, of her looking over lab reports with a pair of nauseatingly giant glasses perched at the end of her nose. She looked tired, with a human child, probably around three or four years of age, perched on her lap, animated as can be. They both had the same light blonde hair, nearly platinum, but the small child had energetic hazel eyes, while the older human had fatigued dark blue eyes that looked like they were much to heavy to keep open.
The profile said nothing about her being married or having a life partner of any kind, but since that was personal information that was irrelevant to Starfleet, he suspected it was left unnoted. He took another glance at the lively child, wondering how she was going to fair without her mother; this was a five-year mission, after all, and much of the little girl's childhood would be over with by the time she returned from the journey.
Suddenly, his thoughts turned to Kirk -- would he stay with Nyota, or would she raise the child on her own, or would she even find an alternative? Popular human methods of giving the child away including adoption, especially for those whose lives were preoccupied. Many parents who were involved with Starfleet had given up their children for adoption, so it was not relatively uncommon and would not be ultimately surprising if she turned it. But, Nyota seemed like the type who would not forget the child she had to give away, and Kirk was not one to let go of things easily either. Spock supposed the time will come when they would make their decision regarding the child, but now was much too soon to deliberate on the matter.
But he turned his thoughts back to his new second-in-command and after mere minutes of reading her résumé, he concluded that she was a proper replacement for himself, at least until the captain's return in approximately nine months' time.
Suddenly, he heard loud footsteps, obviously due to intense emotionality, walking down the same corridor that his quarters were located on. He had heard the source for a few moments now, just having departed from a lift, that, judging from the length of time in motion, had just come from the sickbay. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the hallway and who was drawing nearer and nearer with every second passing. The person was small in stature and was female, judging by the rhythm of the footsteps, and was young, probably in their early twenties.
He slowly approached his door so that his mind's eye could get a better description. A livid Christine Chapel walked past his door with a look of absolute fury upon her face, her eyebrows furrowing together, as if she was concentrating on something, with her fists clenched fiercely to her side, as if to keep her from lashing out at anyone whom she would cross paths with.
He suddenly wondered what was on her mind that caused her such outward rage.
Christine finally made it back to her room, having abandoned the lift after she judged it much too slow for her taste; she had forgotten that the one nearest the sickbay was still in the process of repairs and did not possess the high speed of the other elevators.
She slammed the door behind her, but it closed gracefully, lacking in the ferocity that she wanted.
She cursed McCoy and his big mouth, wishing she could just go back and time to decline the position of science officer and second-in-command. What kind of maniac would put her in charge of an entire department on a starship? She had just graduated from medical school, for God's sake, not someone who had spent four years training to be a bridge officer.
She fell on top of her bed and ran her hands over her face, exhausted with misery, feeling a headache beginning to form. Tomorrow was going to be her first day on the bridge, and she was sure that it was bound to be a disaster.
A/N: More action next chapter, I think? Ooh yeah. Maybe. We'll see. *wink* Reviews are what make the world go round. Just a little hint for ya.
By the way, if you want to listen to a highly addicting song that is so Spock/Christine (except for the vague mentions of pole dancing, lol) , go look up "Right Round" by Flo Rida. It's very catchy, haha.
Ok, I'm gonna take McCoy's advice from the previous chapter and quit my blabbering.