Team McChapel Entry for Round Four!
Title: Love Me...
Author/Artist: esme_green
Beta: janus_74
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Summary: McCoy and Chapel, in their respective doghouses.
Disclaimer: Star Trek is not my intellectual property. I receive no material profit from this work.
Word Count: 1987
********
"These away missions will be the death of me," groaned McCoy as he brushed past Chapel on his way to the CMO's office.
"Here are the latest inventories for your review," Chapel said, following him in.
"You did them yourself?" McCoy slumped back in his chair and put his hands over his eyes, clearly exhausted. "Good work. Just-" He waved dismissively. "Approve and send them. I trust you."
There, he thought. Alien diplomatic crisis averted, inventories sent, praise to subordinates registered. All it had taken was thirty hours without sleep.
"Yes, Doctor," Chapel clipped off, and McCoy seriously debated whether to open his eyes and see if she looked as pissed off as she sounded. Maybe she was just being professional.
He cracked an eyelid, just to check.
He should have gone with his instincts. She was fuming, though if you didn't know her, you'd think she just looked like a steely-eyed head nurse.
He blinked a couple times and checked again. No, she was still pissed. "Problem, Lieutenant?"
Now it was her turn to hesitate, but only for a moment. "I want to go on the next away mission."
He snorted. "Trust me, Chapel, you don't."
"I haven't been off the ship in months, Doctor," she persisted. "All I see are ship walls, day in, day out."
"And whatever fascinating diseases the captain manages to contract while he's planetside." McCoy straightened a little in his chair. "Believe me, you get the best end of this deal."
"Sir, I-" She stopped. "Permission to speak freely?"
"Granted," he said, wondering what she could possibly be about to say.
"You're hogging the away missions."
"I'm what?" he blurted, bolting upright.
"You are," she persisted. "Every time we have to beam down to an unknown planet, it's always you, the Captain, and Commander Spock. I'm not the only one who feels this way. None of the rest of us gets a chance. We're stuck up here in orbit, counting medical supplies until you deign to come back for treatment."
"You want to go tell your recruiter that Starfleet isn't as exciting as the posters made it out to be?"
"What I want," she snapped, "is the ability to expand my skill set. To confront unknown situations and use my *training* to deal with them."
"You want to get yourself killed," he corrected.
"I'm not going to get myself killed," she retorted.
She looked so pretty, standing there with her hands white-knuckle clenched around her inventory padd. Angry, but pretty.
And over-confident in the way only someone who hadn't been tested could be.
Damn. There was only one treatment for over-confidence. And Jim Kirk was the only one on whom the treatment hadn't worked.
"Fine," he said, slumping back again. "The next time an away mission needs a medic, you can go. Provided," he held a hand up to forestall her speech. "Provided that sending you instead of me doesn't cause any kind of diplomatic crisis."
She nodded once. "Thank you, Doctor."
"Don't thank me." Suddenly his exhaustion was crashing back and he covered his face with his hands again. "You'll come back feeling like I do now."
"Get some rest, sir," she said. "We have it handled here."
McCoy watched her stride out, and hoped he hadn't just made more trouble.
******
He had, but not in the way he'd expected.
"PUPPIES?" Chapel's normally modulated tone had escalated into a screech. "This is the away mission you're sending me on? The Boslic ambassador's favourite dog is having puppies?"
"We think they asked for me," McCoy offered weakly. "The universal translator is a little fuzzy on specifics, but Uhura managed to spin it that we're sending our Head Nurse to help."
Chapel gritted her teeth. "You are so sending me on the next away mission too."
"Understood," McCoy replied. It wasn't like this particular mission would make her forcibly aware of her own mortality.
"And while I'm gone, make sure you review the accident report and sign off on the supply order."
"Will do, Lieutenant," he said, past caring that his head nurse had started giving him orders.
******
Uhura and a burly young security ensign made up the rest of the landing party, and were already waiting for Chapel when she entered the transporter room.
"This was your idea?" Uhura sounded less than pleased. "Sending non-command personnel to lead away missions?"
"You get off this ship a lot more often than I do," Chapel said tightly.
"It's not as much fun as you think," said Uhura.
Chapel climbed up onto the transporter pad. "You spend four months staring at a sickbay scanner and then tell me you aren't desperate to risk your life for some excitement."
The security ensign grunted in agreement.
"Fine." Uhura took position on the transporter pad beside her. The familiar shimmery whine of the beam started. "But if anything goes wrong, this is your fault."
******
"This is your fault!" yelled Chapel ten minutes later as she dodged a giant paw swipe and ducked behind a pile of rocks. "You said it was a dog!"
"The translator doesn't cope well with Boslic semantics," Uhura yelled back over the anguished roar of an alien mammal in labour. "I got furry, adorable, four-legged pet!"
"Oh, it's adorable all right." Chapel ducked sharply. "Damn it!"
"It's like having McCoy right here beside me."
"Listen, you-" The furred behemoth fell back again, roaring in pain, and Chapel took those precious few seconds to pull out her medical tricorder and start scanning.
The animal was easily two metres tall at the shoulder and five hundred kilograms of muscle. It was, in Uhura's defense, furred and four-legged, but definitely irate. The Boslic ambassador had cooed that it was a first pregnancy, so no doubt the animal was scared and confused.
Which didn't excuse the ambassador showing them into the rocky enclosure, and then yelping and scurrying off like, well, a whipped puppy, when said beloved pet voiced its displeasure.
The scan revealed a standard mammalian anatomy and biochemistry. The animal would likely deliver her litter normally if left alone, but Chapel couldn't take the chance.
Damn trading agreements.
"Can you sedate it?" Uhura asked.
Chapel shook her head. "I don't know what effect that would have, on the mother or the pups."
She studied the scan for another moment, noting a pair of nerve clusters near the back of the animal's head. "Damn it," she said again, standing up and stepping away from her protective cover.
"What are you doing?" Uhura was looking at her as if she were crazy.
"I'm going to scratch behind its ears," Chapel said, and darted forward before she gave herself a chance to think.
The next paw swipe was clumsy, she realized as she dodged past. The animal simply didn't know what was happening, and was reacting out of fear. Swiftly she stepped inside its guard and put her hands on the giant head, her hands quickly finding the sensitive mounds on either side.
The animal roared again, but stilled and didn't buck away from her touch. And then it started to whine. Loudly, and at a frequency that buzzed Chapel's ears, but it was better than trying to evade the giant paws of doom.
Catching the security ensign's eye, she beckoned him forward with a sharp nod.
"Just rest your hands lightly here and here," Christine told him as he approached hesitantly. "She likes that."
"Yes, lieutenant," he replied, shooting only the faintest you're-crazy-and-I'm-about-to-be-eaten-by-a-giant-alien-monster look at her.
Fortunately, he was good at following instructions, and with the animal calmer, Christine could finish her scan. "Oh!" She glanced up at the ensign. "Press very gently on the nerve mounds you're touching. It should release some natural endorphins."
The man swallowed visibly, but complied.
The whining stopped.
"Good job, ensign," Chapel said, studying her scan. "Try it again, a little more firmly."
The animal rumbled, completely relaxed, then abruptly toppled over, its massive head slumping to the side, almost knocking the ensign off his feet as he scrambled to get out of the way. It nuzzled him and at Chapel's nod, he put his hands back on the animal's nerve mounds. It rumbled again.
Uhura approached cautiously. "What was that?"
Chapel frowned at her readout. "The closest analogy would be an orgasm."
To his credit, the ensign almost completely stifled his squawk of shock.
"Every girl deserves one," Uhura agreed blandly.
With the animal calmed, it was much easier to finish the in-depth scan of its physiology. "You want the good news, or the bad news?"
"Surprise me," said Uhura.
"There are four pups," said Chapel. "Can you ask the ambassador for something to put them in when they're delivered?"
"Sure," said Uhura, eyeing the mother's bulk. "How big are they going to be?"
Chapel checked the scan and did a few quick calculations. "About…thirty kilos each?"
"Thirty kilos!" Petite Uhura was barely forty-five kilos herself.
"That's the bad news," Chapel said. "So it better be something sturdy."
It was three hours of hard work, and she had to pull Uhura away from soothing the ambassador to help, so they were both covered with unidentifiable alien bodily fluids by the time the four pups were delivered, wriggling and squalling, and presented to their mother.
"You can let go now, ensign," Chapel said tiredly, as the mother began to lick at her pups.
The ensign moved fast for a man who'd had to hold his arms in one place for hours. "Ow," he groaned, and Chapel gave him a quick shot to ease the lactic acid buildup in his muscles.
The ambassador's thanks were effusive and politely accepted, and as the transporter carried them away, Chapel reminded herself that they'd purchased some leverage and goodwill for future trading agreements.
******
She was still trying to focus on the big picture when she emerged from her shower an hour later and put on a fresh uniform. Boslic ambassador happy. Boslic trade negotiations on track. Boslic supply routes secured.
And, she told herself as she entered Sickbay, there was a new Boslic mammal to catalogue-
"You masturbated the ambassador's dog in order to deliver its pups?" McCoy asked, a little too loudly.
Fortunately, Sickbay was deserted. "First of all," she snapped, her patience gone. "It wasn't a dog. It was a five hundred kilo cross between a bear and a dragon. And it wasn't happy."
McCoy strode towards her, concerned. "It attacked you?"
"It tried." She brushed away his attempt to scan her and handed him the padd with her report. "I'm fine. I couldn't give it a sedative, so I improvised."
"Nerve clusters." McCoy nodded as he scrolled through what she'd written. "Interesting."
"Think of it like getting your ears scratched," said Chapel. "Except much better."
"I like having my ears scratched," McCoy agreed absently, still reading.
"Most men do," she replied.
McCoy's head shot up as he flushed. "I'm still in trouble, aren't I?"
"I asked for the opportunity to explore strange new worlds, and you sent me to coddle an over-excitable pet lover."
"You're saying you were bored?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I'm saying it was routine," she said irritably.
"I doubt your security detail would agree with that assessment."
"He took instructions well and he's good with his hands," said Chapel. "We had no problems at all."
"At least you're consistent," McCoy observed.
Her brow creased in confusion.
He moved in, a slow grin starting. "About what you like," he clarified.
Christine blushed. She couldn't help herself.
McCoy slipped an arm around her waist. "That's been me since the moment you came on board," he teased softly.
"You are going to send me on the next away mission," she told him, fighting the flush of pleasure on her cheeks. "And it will have absolutely nothing to do with alien amniotic slime."
"Sweetheart," he murmured, drawing her close. "The slime comes with the job."
END
Author/Artist: esme_green
Beta: janus_74
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Summary: McCoy and Chapel, in their respective doghouses.
Disclaimer: Star Trek is not my intellectual property. I receive no material profit from this work.
Word Count: 1987
********
"These away missions will be the death of me," groaned McCoy as he brushed past Chapel on his way to the CMO's office.
"Here are the latest inventories for your review," Chapel said, following him in.
"You did them yourself?" McCoy slumped back in his chair and put his hands over his eyes, clearly exhausted. "Good work. Just-" He waved dismissively. "Approve and send them. I trust you."
There, he thought. Alien diplomatic crisis averted, inventories sent, praise to subordinates registered. All it had taken was thirty hours without sleep.
"Yes, Doctor," Chapel clipped off, and McCoy seriously debated whether to open his eyes and see if she looked as pissed off as she sounded. Maybe she was just being professional.
He cracked an eyelid, just to check.
He should have gone with his instincts. She was fuming, though if you didn't know her, you'd think she just looked like a steely-eyed head nurse.
He blinked a couple times and checked again. No, she was still pissed. "Problem, Lieutenant?"
Now it was her turn to hesitate, but only for a moment. "I want to go on the next away mission."
He snorted. "Trust me, Chapel, you don't."
"I haven't been off the ship in months, Doctor," she persisted. "All I see are ship walls, day in, day out."
"And whatever fascinating diseases the captain manages to contract while he's planetside." McCoy straightened a little in his chair. "Believe me, you get the best end of this deal."
"Sir, I-" She stopped. "Permission to speak freely?"
"Granted," he said, wondering what she could possibly be about to say.
"You're hogging the away missions."
"I'm what?" he blurted, bolting upright.
"You are," she persisted. "Every time we have to beam down to an unknown planet, it's always you, the Captain, and Commander Spock. I'm not the only one who feels this way. None of the rest of us gets a chance. We're stuck up here in orbit, counting medical supplies until you deign to come back for treatment."
"You want to go tell your recruiter that Starfleet isn't as exciting as the posters made it out to be?"
"What I want," she snapped, "is the ability to expand my skill set. To confront unknown situations and use my *training* to deal with them."
"You want to get yourself killed," he corrected.
"I'm not going to get myself killed," she retorted.
She looked so pretty, standing there with her hands white-knuckle clenched around her inventory padd. Angry, but pretty.
And over-confident in the way only someone who hadn't been tested could be.
Damn. There was only one treatment for over-confidence. And Jim Kirk was the only one on whom the treatment hadn't worked.
"Fine," he said, slumping back again. "The next time an away mission needs a medic, you can go. Provided," he held a hand up to forestall her speech. "Provided that sending you instead of me doesn't cause any kind of diplomatic crisis."
She nodded once. "Thank you, Doctor."
"Don't thank me." Suddenly his exhaustion was crashing back and he covered his face with his hands again. "You'll come back feeling like I do now."
"Get some rest, sir," she said. "We have it handled here."
McCoy watched her stride out, and hoped he hadn't just made more trouble.
******
He had, but not in the way he'd expected.
"PUPPIES?" Chapel's normally modulated tone had escalated into a screech. "This is the away mission you're sending me on? The Boslic ambassador's favourite dog is having puppies?"
"We think they asked for me," McCoy offered weakly. "The universal translator is a little fuzzy on specifics, but Uhura managed to spin it that we're sending our Head Nurse to help."
Chapel gritted her teeth. "You are so sending me on the next away mission too."
"Understood," McCoy replied. It wasn't like this particular mission would make her forcibly aware of her own mortality.
"And while I'm gone, make sure you review the accident report and sign off on the supply order."
"Will do, Lieutenant," he said, past caring that his head nurse had started giving him orders.
******
Uhura and a burly young security ensign made up the rest of the landing party, and were already waiting for Chapel when she entered the transporter room.
"This was your idea?" Uhura sounded less than pleased. "Sending non-command personnel to lead away missions?"
"You get off this ship a lot more often than I do," Chapel said tightly.
"It's not as much fun as you think," said Uhura.
Chapel climbed up onto the transporter pad. "You spend four months staring at a sickbay scanner and then tell me you aren't desperate to risk your life for some excitement."
The security ensign grunted in agreement.
"Fine." Uhura took position on the transporter pad beside her. The familiar shimmery whine of the beam started. "But if anything goes wrong, this is your fault."
******
"This is your fault!" yelled Chapel ten minutes later as she dodged a giant paw swipe and ducked behind a pile of rocks. "You said it was a dog!"
"The translator doesn't cope well with Boslic semantics," Uhura yelled back over the anguished roar of an alien mammal in labour. "I got furry, adorable, four-legged pet!"
"Oh, it's adorable all right." Chapel ducked sharply. "Damn it!"
"It's like having McCoy right here beside me."
"Listen, you-" The furred behemoth fell back again, roaring in pain, and Chapel took those precious few seconds to pull out her medical tricorder and start scanning.
The animal was easily two metres tall at the shoulder and five hundred kilograms of muscle. It was, in Uhura's defense, furred and four-legged, but definitely irate. The Boslic ambassador had cooed that it was a first pregnancy, so no doubt the animal was scared and confused.
Which didn't excuse the ambassador showing them into the rocky enclosure, and then yelping and scurrying off like, well, a whipped puppy, when said beloved pet voiced its displeasure.
The scan revealed a standard mammalian anatomy and biochemistry. The animal would likely deliver her litter normally if left alone, but Chapel couldn't take the chance.
Damn trading agreements.
"Can you sedate it?" Uhura asked.
Chapel shook her head. "I don't know what effect that would have, on the mother or the pups."
She studied the scan for another moment, noting a pair of nerve clusters near the back of the animal's head. "Damn it," she said again, standing up and stepping away from her protective cover.
"What are you doing?" Uhura was looking at her as if she were crazy.
"I'm going to scratch behind its ears," Chapel said, and darted forward before she gave herself a chance to think.
The next paw swipe was clumsy, she realized as she dodged past. The animal simply didn't know what was happening, and was reacting out of fear. Swiftly she stepped inside its guard and put her hands on the giant head, her hands quickly finding the sensitive mounds on either side.
The animal roared again, but stilled and didn't buck away from her touch. And then it started to whine. Loudly, and at a frequency that buzzed Chapel's ears, but it was better than trying to evade the giant paws of doom.
Catching the security ensign's eye, she beckoned him forward with a sharp nod.
"Just rest your hands lightly here and here," Christine told him as he approached hesitantly. "She likes that."
"Yes, lieutenant," he replied, shooting only the faintest you're-crazy-and-I'm-about-to-be-eaten-by-a-giant-alien-monster look at her.
Fortunately, he was good at following instructions, and with the animal calmer, Christine could finish her scan. "Oh!" She glanced up at the ensign. "Press very gently on the nerve mounds you're touching. It should release some natural endorphins."
The man swallowed visibly, but complied.
The whining stopped.
"Good job, ensign," Chapel said, studying her scan. "Try it again, a little more firmly."
The animal rumbled, completely relaxed, then abruptly toppled over, its massive head slumping to the side, almost knocking the ensign off his feet as he scrambled to get out of the way. It nuzzled him and at Chapel's nod, he put his hands back on the animal's nerve mounds. It rumbled again.
Uhura approached cautiously. "What was that?"
Chapel frowned at her readout. "The closest analogy would be an orgasm."
To his credit, the ensign almost completely stifled his squawk of shock.
"Every girl deserves one," Uhura agreed blandly.
With the animal calmed, it was much easier to finish the in-depth scan of its physiology. "You want the good news, or the bad news?"
"Surprise me," said Uhura.
"There are four pups," said Chapel. "Can you ask the ambassador for something to put them in when they're delivered?"
"Sure," said Uhura, eyeing the mother's bulk. "How big are they going to be?"
Chapel checked the scan and did a few quick calculations. "About…thirty kilos each?"
"Thirty kilos!" Petite Uhura was barely forty-five kilos herself.
"That's the bad news," Chapel said. "So it better be something sturdy."
It was three hours of hard work, and she had to pull Uhura away from soothing the ambassador to help, so they were both covered with unidentifiable alien bodily fluids by the time the four pups were delivered, wriggling and squalling, and presented to their mother.
"You can let go now, ensign," Chapel said tiredly, as the mother began to lick at her pups.
The ensign moved fast for a man who'd had to hold his arms in one place for hours. "Ow," he groaned, and Chapel gave him a quick shot to ease the lactic acid buildup in his muscles.
The ambassador's thanks were effusive and politely accepted, and as the transporter carried them away, Chapel reminded herself that they'd purchased some leverage and goodwill for future trading agreements.
******
She was still trying to focus on the big picture when she emerged from her shower an hour later and put on a fresh uniform. Boslic ambassador happy. Boslic trade negotiations on track. Boslic supply routes secured.
And, she told herself as she entered Sickbay, there was a new Boslic mammal to catalogue-
"You masturbated the ambassador's dog in order to deliver its pups?" McCoy asked, a little too loudly.
Fortunately, Sickbay was deserted. "First of all," she snapped, her patience gone. "It wasn't a dog. It was a five hundred kilo cross between a bear and a dragon. And it wasn't happy."
McCoy strode towards her, concerned. "It attacked you?"
"It tried." She brushed away his attempt to scan her and handed him the padd with her report. "I'm fine. I couldn't give it a sedative, so I improvised."
"Nerve clusters." McCoy nodded as he scrolled through what she'd written. "Interesting."
"Think of it like getting your ears scratched," said Chapel. "Except much better."
"I like having my ears scratched," McCoy agreed absently, still reading.
"Most men do," she replied.
McCoy's head shot up as he flushed. "I'm still in trouble, aren't I?"
"I asked for the opportunity to explore strange new worlds, and you sent me to coddle an over-excitable pet lover."
"You're saying you were bored?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I'm saying it was routine," she said irritably.
"I doubt your security detail would agree with that assessment."
"He took instructions well and he's good with his hands," said Chapel. "We had no problems at all."
"At least you're consistent," McCoy observed.
Her brow creased in confusion.
He moved in, a slow grin starting. "About what you like," he clarified.
Christine blushed. She couldn't help herself.
McCoy slipped an arm around her waist. "That's been me since the moment you came on board," he teased softly.
"You are going to send me on the next away mission," she told him, fighting the flush of pleasure on her cheeks. "And it will have absolutely nothing to do with alien amniotic slime."
"Sweetheart," he murmured, drawing her close. "The slime comes with the job."
END