That's a trope, right? There was meant to be a turbolift in this one, then things got kind of out of hand.
Command gives them half an hour to pack. It isn't unusual, given the circumstances. It isn't even unreasonable given they've had weeks to prepare for this moment. What it is though, Una realizes as the crew disburse, is nowhere near enough, because none of them is ready for this, and half an hour isn't going to get them there. Marie's duffel has been packed since yesterday, sat in the closet beside Una's, and so now, having delivered her parting instructions over internal comms before the engineering invaders arrive, we aren't done yet, wait after medical releases you, don't leave before I tell you to go, as if any of them need telling, they're left lingering on the bridge staring at Starbase One, its twinkling domes like a warped, unlikely memory. How can anything be that large? Una's never had agoraphobia, has never met anyone who does, but it doesn't take much to imagine what it might feel like right now. She thought she'd relish the idea of getting off this pocket death trap. She was wrong.
Part of that reluctance, she knows, has to do with Marie, the tension she's suppressing bleeding over into Una, and while it might have something to do with cubic footage, a great deal more with saying goodbye to the crew, fundamentally it's about something deeper. Something that's had her pinching her chest raw for days. Una can almost feel it, watching her fingers work. Knows that the pain isn't helping, that getting this behind them is the only thing that will. "You're going to start drawing blood."
Marie's eyes flick down, avoiding her, but her hand does drop, gripping onto the back of the captain's chair instead. "I hate this ship." She doesn't.
"It still feels like losing a friend." Marie nods, and Una watches her glance back out of the viewscreen, her hand twitching upwards automatically only to be consciously forced back down. Una covers it for her, holds there, waiting. Giving Marie time to find her words. She hasn't talked about this yet, and Una hasn't pushed her.
"They're going to want…" Marie stalls at the images Una can conjure in her mind. Medical has been clear on the decon procedures, the scans they'll require; they aren't taking any chances with people who've been through Gorn space, however well they can prove they weren't exposed. Marie hadn't complained as Idowu laid it all out for them, but Una hadn't needed to watch her colour drain to know exactly who she'd be calling next, as soon as the briefing let her go. "It's going to be fast, and you won't be alone." Marie's eyes snap up to her, somewhere lost between hope and confusion. "I might have called in a few favours." Just about every favour she has with Starfleet Medical, but there were some big ones, and they'd come through fast. No one is going to be enhancing their career today by probing the first human ever to have survived a Gorn infestation, however much of a scientific curiosity she might be. No one is going to be using Marie Batel as research.
Unfortunately, that means that the person who greets them in an otherwise empty medical bay is Christine Chapel, the first person ever to remove a Gorn infestation from a human chest, and Marie presses back hard at the sight of her, even having been braced for the impact. Una's never particularly glad to see Chapel either, but the fact remains that she's a known quantity, thorough and competent and fast, more capable of empathy than she generally lets on, and that she knows this case backwards. Will treat Marie like a patient rather than a specimen. Chapel's eyes fix on Una first, a moment of you and I are going to be talking later, because it would be too much to hope that five unannounced months off the radar would pass without consequences at all, but then she's conjuring her trademark smile, and Marie remembers how to function, and Una stands beside them through the initial screening without ever once being asked to move. Covers Marie's tightening hands as Chapel takes samples. Perches on the stool Chapel pushes towards her as the arch closes over Marie's rigid frame, watching as her entire focus turns inwards as she tries to keep herself still enough for scanning when all her body wants to do is run.
It holds so many echoes, from so many years ago that it almost doesn't feel real.
"I'll be just over there, if you need me."
It's proof that Chapel does have a bedside manner, sometimes. Marie's the kind of pale by now that's hard to watch, struggling for every inch of calm, every fading resource that will force her quiet on this bed. It's where most physicians will suggest sedation. Una thanks the stars that Chapel knows better than that by now. That all she's tactfully done is leave. "Not helping." Marie manages as Una moves into her eyeline, rests a hand on top of the flickering curve of steel. That one echoes too, and Una reminds herself that she is, really. That her presence may be making it harder to maintain the calm façade, but that it's the façade that's the enemy here, not the terror.
"There's a spot on top of the Palace of Fine Arts where you can sit and watch the sunrise. It's always empty, most people don't know you can climb up there. We can take a picnic, watch the galaxy fade, see the world wake up. It's sort of magical."
Marie's jaw tightens around something that flickers through her eyes as a smile. "I knew you'd be a romantic." That word tends to be a pejorative, but it isn't this time. It's genuine, even as Marie's legs begin to shudder in the arch's clinical embrace.
"You're safe here. There's nothing to find."
"I know."
"It's just a few minutes, and then…"
"I know. I'm fine. Just…" Only alerts are starting to flicker, whether from Marie's heart rate or the fact that the degree to which she's shaking is preventing the machine from getting an accurate reading Una can't tell, and the first alarm that sounds sends a flaring spike through every data point on the monitor, causing Chapel to materialise beside them to reach for an override that has the arch releasing, hissing, folding rapidly away. "I'm fine." Marie protests, the words unsteady and unreal.
"You're done." Chapel says calmly.
"It wasn't finished."
"You're done. I've got everything I need, the computer can clean up the rest. Sit tight, I'm going to run an analysis, and then I'll be back with some shots. Five minutes, ok? You're done, just take a breath."
It's good advice, but it isn't going to happen. Una settles carefully against the bed to watch Marie push off it, pace hard across the small space until there's as much distance between them as the cubicle will afford. More than the Centaur has ever allowed them. It isn't personal. It isn't even conscious. It's just that everything inside her is still saying run, and being told it's over has done nothing to change that. It's something that never passes, really. Only fades. "She saved my life once, last year, after the Gorn attack. The first one. We didn't know who our enemy was yet, we were boarding colonists, they shot out the transport tubes. I ended up with shrapnel so deep…" Una passes her hand over the area, remembering the sharp, hot grip of pain. "Chapel was the one who dug it out. Our systems were down by then, no regenerators. Apparently she knows needle and thread stitching." Blind, presumably, given the blood loss. "It took weeks for it to heal. But it healed. I probably owe her my life."
It's a conclusion Una tries to avoid drawing, but it's true. And an effective distraction. Marie's eyes focus, watching her feel the memory, and then she's coming to press a hand over Una's stomach, trying to stopper the invisible wound, and some of the fight leaves her as she stands there, surrenders, lets herself be wrapped loosely into a hug. "There's nothing wrong with being afraid." Una tells her quietly.
"They don't get to win."
Which is exactly what La'an says, if you tell her she can stop being brave, because clearly there's something about these creatures that no one else can fully understand. Something about the sheer, unshakeable body horror of them that necessitates an inexhaustible vigilance, a ceaseless, protective drive for just one more moment, one last terrified unencumbered breath; a constant race away from that ultimate violation. La'an has never stopped running. But then, La'an was a child, survival baked into her in a way nothing will ever erase. Marie was already a person, with a history and a future. Marie already knows how to live. All she needs is a way to remember, to pull her back into what's now. "We're going to go and watch the sunrise. You're going to see the mist curl over the bay, and hear the world wake up, and see the universe all around us, and they're never going to win. You're always going to be you."
Marie uncoils to wrap her arms around Una, to draw breath as if she has something to say, only they're interrupted by Chapel brandishing a loaded hypospray and a multicoloured handful of vials.
"Scan's good. You're clear. Officially. Just a couple of boosters, then you're done."
Marie doesn't move except to loosen one arm outwards, relaxing her shoulder to minimise the sting. "Can I see it?"
"Of course. Any time. I can send it to you. It's just lungs, and veins, and sinew and muscles, one hundred percent human anatomy in there, down to the lining of the aorta they put holes in. It's a beautiful reconstruction, you can hardly see the repair." Of all the… Una tries to suppress her immediate frustration, catches the way Chapel's chin tips towards her, unsubtle but without inflection as she switches out the vials, "You're doing that wrong."
"She's doing it fine." Marie says evenly, voice muffled against Una's shoulder.
Chapel's grin trips at that, genuine and impossibly grating. "There's a technique to hugging. I'll send you instructions."
"This woman's kept me alive for five months, Chapel. You send her instructions I'm getting you demoted."
"She's a civilian." Una manages as Chapel's smile deepens and she's unceremoniously patted on the back.
"Trust me, only thing that kept her from spacing me on the Enterprise."
And there's a truth to that, if not much of one, and Una's in no position to bristle no matter how deeply she wants to, because she owes Chapel, in too many ways. And she's right, Una really could use instructions. On everything.
"You need to talk to La'an." Is all Chapel says about any of it as Una lies captive, not half an hour later, under the scanner.
"I know."
"I won't say anything, but I won't lie to her. You need to tell her you're back. Today."
La'an already knows they're back. This mission may have been classified, but there's still no possible way that she doesn't. Una takes the point though, because those two things are really not the same. "How angry is she going to be?" She asks despite herself, and Chapel doesn't dignify that with an answer, her face telling Una more than enough. Leaving only a delayed-delivery text message had been the coward's option, and she shouldn't have taken it. Only it's too late for shouldn't by now.
"Increase pressure as far as you can without hampering breathing. Hold for ten seconds. Slow release." Chapel says, her eyes on the data. It takes Una a second to catch up, to realise that these are the promised instructions. Threatened. Whichever of those applies best. "Works every time." And then Chapel's signing paperwork, pressing drugs into her arm, and it's over, and Chapel's failing to demonstrate the technique she just outlined as she's flashing Una into an unexpected hug, "thank you for not dying out there." gone before Una can process it, an embarrassment neither of them is going to forget. That some alien part of Una isn't able to convince herself she wants to. The Centaur has done strange things to her.
Marie studies her, rising to scrutinise her face as she emerges into the corridor before pulling her into a proper hug, one that lasts until Una feels steadier, until the strange imbalance starts to pass. "Let's go home." Somehow Una knows what she means by that, understands it better as they step out into the lobby to find the crew clustered and waiting, Kavorkian and Ashcroft already arguing over loudspeaker with the invading engineering team. Or what sounds like arguing. With Kavorkian it's always hard to tell. Albano's crying even before Marie gathers them into a huddle, raises her voice with the familiar lift of command. "You are my crew. That doesn't end because this mission is over. It doesn't end because you take another posting. It doesn't matter, wherever you end up, if you call me I will be there. If you need me I will fight for you. It has been an honour serving with you, every one of you helped us make it out alive, so you are my people, forever, and what we just lived through is ours. Nothing can take it away from us. We are the first crew of the Centaur, and all of us made it home."
Marie reaches for her as she's swallowed in the resultant crush of bodies, pulls her closer until she's folded into the scrum, and it's strange to realise as arms wrap around her that these people know her, better than anyone has in decades. Know her and accept her and have looked after her for five endless fleeting months. That they're more than a crew she's seen battle with, that they're family, that she's going to miss them. And she holds on to Marie's hand like a lifeline, a known constant through this sudden chaos, because whatever happens next here, at least she won't be missing them alone.
