Pike kept them back after the briefing. Or rather, he kept La'an back, and by some subtle, wordless consensus Chapel stayed too, Pike's eyes flashing up at her communicating something La'an couldn't read, that meant she didn't quite join the conversation, but she didn't quite leave, hovering just outside the bubble between them. Pike smiled, and La'an felt the blanking rage descend. He was being personal, he was going to…

"Now you're officially back on staff, we've moved some people around. Your old quarters have become available, if you…"

This was Una's job. Anything like this was Una's job, and he was doing it because what? Because Spock couldn't? Because he hadn't replaced her with someone who could? Because he thought it would be charming to…

"I notice you haven't made use of the guest quarters?"

He framed it like a question, as if he didn't know she'd had somewhere else to be, that those rooms were soulless and dead, that Chapel had… had… "No." He was talking again as the world unfocussed, as the weight of distance threatened to press in around her, blanking sounds and shapes, blurring everything into dull flat white. La'an worked to focus on him, hear what he was saying, something about administrative arrangements, extra space, if you'd rather… He was looking up at Chapel, a nascent uncertainty at La'an's lack of response, I don't mean to… Funny. It had been funny last time. La'an remembered laughing until her stomach hurt. Until she couldn't breathe. Why wasn't it funny now?

"I just thought perhaps…"

"That would be a no, sir." Chapel was right beside her suddenly, and the conversation snapped back into frame.

"No, ok, that's…" Pike looked at La'an with an expression she couldn't decipher. Apologetic? Confused? Concern? Sympathy?

"No."

"No." His eyes flicked back to Chapel, an exchange happening between them La'an didn't get to share. "Then I'll have your quarters reassigned to you with immediate effect. Welcome back, lieutenant."

"You've already said that." La'an had been doing the job for days now, albeit sporadically. She had to get back to work.

Pike smiled. "I'm saying it again. It's good to have you back."

Was it? "Yes sir." She didn't think it was, particularly. Just a reminder of the thing he'd lost.

Chapel's hand ghosted her arm as they stood in the turbolift's humming silence. "Where have you gone?"

"Nowhere." She didn't mean to snap it, but she didn't know, exactly. She didn't want to know. She didn't want to be thinking. "I'm fine. I have work to do."

It should have been funny, but it wasn't, and she didn't have space left to try and work out why.

0 0 0

"Cleared you. Just like that."

"Just like that." Chapel grinned at Ortegas over her dinner, dipping flatbread into her steaming dal. "I told you, totally sane."

"That's what an actual psychiatrist said?"

"Counsellor." Chapel executed a small, flourishing bow despite her position, losing lentils onto the shining tabletop. La'an picked them off carefully. The food was good. You didn't waste good food. Chapel frowned.

"And this person actually met you. Like, had a conversation met you?"

"Starting to become offensive." Chapel muttered, but she wasn't upset. Her good humour since this morning had been practically bombproof.

Ortegas jabbed a fork in her general direction. "Hey, take it as a compliment, but I wouldn't put it past you to have made this Rilac up and forged the paperwork or something. What kind of a name is Artemis anyway? Who's to say this isn't one of your backwater friends from medical school?"

"Artemis was the ancient Greek goddess of the moon."

Ortegas frowned at La'an despairingly. "That is the part you're focussing on?"

"It's the interesting part." It was the part that didn't question Chapel's sanity.

"How about the part where half the quadrant owes Christine a favour, and the other half wishes they did? You're not interested in how she got cleared in one morning after she died?"

"Because she's fine." La'an wasn't supposed to be snapping. She stared at her bowl, the swirl of green and yellow pulses she knew she wanted to eat. You didn't waste good food. She pushed the dal away. "I have work to do."

"Thanks for that." She heard Chapel mutter as she bussed her tray. "First the captain, now you. She's back five days, and you're…"

"I'm just worried, ok?" Ortegas sighed. "Are you sure you're…"

"I have written proof."

She'd needed it. Not just to satisfy regulations, but because somewhere, since she'd…

She'd been worried she might not be. That under all the practised repression and seamless zest for life this might have been the final wrench to a steadily leaking bucket, a deluge just waiting to burst free. It had left her small and fragile, almost too afraid to move, to breathe, to be anything other than happy to be alive. Which she hadn't been, before. Not for a while now, certainly not on Cajitar IV. She'd been flat and tired, going through the motions. But Spock had thawed somewhat since the incident, and she'd had a few days to recover, and now someone reliable had told her she would be all right, and suddenly it was like the lights had come back on. She was smiling again, genuine, lighting the room out of nowhere, reaching for La'an because she could, not because she had to. Not because she was afraid. Because she was happy. It was real, and it was precious.

And all that mattered right now was keeping it that way.

0 0 0

Augment.

Monster.

The capacity for actions.

Ketoul gave a good speech, but she didn't know La'an. Hadn't known her as an infant, as a toddler, as a child, seen her parents and her brother, seen how different wasn't subtle, wasn't tuning, wasn't nice. There had always been something wrong with her, even then. Augment, monster, those were words. La'an had facts. And then after… teeth and nails, and fists, later. They would have locked her up, because nothing helped. Not until they'd stopped trying. Left her alone. She was safer alone. And then she'd found somewhere… someone…

She'd never been brave enough. Never could stand the torture without complaint, without dragging her whole world down with her. And it would happen this time too. All of it would happen again. She knew how to stop it, she just had to be brave. And this time she would be better at it, because this time she had something to lose.

0 0 0

The dress was where she'd left it, folded at the bottom of a packing case. La'an ran the shimmering fabric between her fingers while Chapel chattered behind her, moving the ornaments that came with these quarters into their familiar positions, stacking cups by the teapot, something about microbes, discoveries a sector away, Uhura's promotion.

"I need you to leave."

Chapel turned and studied her, leaning back against the cabinets. "Ok." But she didn't move. Instead she took a breath, fingers curling around the edge of the counter. "Are we going to talk about this?"

"No." She looked small suddenly, fragile, but unbroken. "I just need you to leave."

"Ok."

Chapel folded the tea towel she'd had over her shoulder, and then she left, without a fuss, and La'an packed the dress back under a nest of packing cases and pushed it to the furthest corner of the wardrobe she could reach, where she would never have to look at it again.

0 0 0

It hadn't been La'an. It should have been a relief. But it wasn't.

La'an should have called Sanchez, but she hadn't. Instead she'd sat on Chapel's sofa and stared at the blank screen. The mess of artefacts. The oleander had smelled of apricots. Chapel had kept it watered, kept it lit, had made security retrieve it from Una's room so she could keep it alive. She'd handed it back before the party, and La'an had watched Una smile, really smile. "Thank you." And Chapel had nodded, had touched her arm and said "Talk to someone. Next time, if it gets that bad, that's a warning sign. You talk to someone, ok?" Una had made the face that said she wouldn't be taking the offer, would deny any vulnerability, would turn the whole thing back on Chapel instead, but La'an hadn't stayed to see the trick. Had simply turned around and left. And she'd sat here, in the silence, with the lights too bright, until the door had hissed.

Chapel had dimmed the glare down. Had made tea, properly, stepping out of her heels, her hair still up. Had sat on the coffee table to watch La'an drink it. It smelled of jasmine.

"You knew."

Chapel shrugged uncomfortably. "I thought… It seemed likely."

"Right." Una had made a choice. It was what people did with their lives. It was nobody's business. And she was back now, anyway. It didn't matter.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" She hadn't lied about it. She'd hidden things. So did everyone.

Chapel watched her for a second, quiet but whole. "Are we going to talk about this?"

"No."

"La'an…"

"I need to go home."

"Ok." Chapel nodded, her gaze dropping away. She went to fish the orb out from between her pillows, the hunters that guarded the world. "You should take this."

"That's not mine."

Chapel stared at her blankly, but La'an put her cup down. She wouldn't take it. She didn't want it. "Keep it. You like it."

She might as well have said 'we're done.' Chapel's face told her she probably had.

She went home, where it was quiet, and managed not to think about anything at all.

0 0 0

"Have you had an argument?"

"No." La'an answered the question without looking up from her PADD. They had work to do here, nominally. They weren't having a conversation. Una was quiet for a moment, letting her own PADD drop.

"Have we?"

They hadn't been close enough to argue for years. Ever, probably. And just when La'an had thought that maybe…

"No." You had to be talking to argue, and talking was the one thing Una never did. It was just as well. There was nothing to talk about. La'an signed the personnel transfers and pushed the PADD away. "We're done here." She left the way Una had left her, without a word. Without a backwards glance. It should probably have felt bad.

But it didn't.

0 0 0

Uhura had taken to sitting with her in the mess hall. Not asking, just sitting. She didn't talk, she just ate. Read her PADD. Glared pointed daggers at Chapel across the hall.

"You don't need to do that."

"Yes, I do."

La'an frowned at the spot where Chapel was smiling at Spock, tentative but genuine as he almost smiled back. She was happy. She was safe here. "Leave her alone."

Uhura snorted, derisive and open about it. "No ma'am."

There was something behind that that she wasn't saying, an obvious message La'an just couldn't catch, but it didn't matter. It never had. There was work to do because there was always work to do, so La'an got on and did it, and let the silence stretch.

It wasn't pleasant. It wasn't anything. And everyone survived.