fic: Fear of Flying Part I (McCoy/Chapel, Star Trek XI)
Title: Fear of Flying : Part I
Author: mad_teagirl
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Character/Pairing: McCoy/Chapel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: he couldn’t decipher whether she attracted him, or whether he wanted to choke the life out of her. Either way, he didn’t enjoy her scrutiny.
Author Notes: Begins Academy era and will eventually follow through to the end of the '09 movie. There is a teeniest bit of swearing and vague allusions to adult situations.
Beta: suchaprince
Disclaimer: I pretty much don't own anything here, except for my own wording ... and my casting choice for Reboot!Chapel *cough*ANNA PAQUIN*cough*
Fear of Flying
Leonard McCoy was never positive of the exact moment in which he stopped all together trusting women. He imagined it must have at least somewhat coincided with the divorce.
The divorce that had so regrettably defined him, on the brink of poverty after the settlement, pushing himself and his aviophobia into Starfleet academy. The inky darkness of space had somehow become less foreboding then his life on earth.
That woman, she’d taken everything. His money, his house, his child who was practically a stranger to him.
The little girl with his eyes and her mother’s long blond hair. He remembered that woman telling him that she was taking Joanna with her, and that was the end of it.
The damn court sided with her, and he remembered his lawyer apologizing and apologizing. But his eyes had been on his now ex-wife primly strolling from the court room, and the small hand clutched in her own larger one, a five year old Joanna looking over her shoulder. She looked hurt. Puzzled, as she reached her free hand back towards her father.
The scene played over and over in his head after the divorce. For a while drinking was the only way to banish the look of Joanna’s pleading, accusing, eyes.
***
The circumstances under which he first met Christine Chapel were less then flattering on her behalf. They allowed him to dismiss her as one of the many faceless women he had met under similar circumstances, that he had met on account of Jim Kirk.
His friendship with Jim had evolved into an odd pattern of care-taking, which generally consisted of him saving the younger man from himself. During the week this was easy enough, confined to Starfleet academy there was a limit of trouble for Jim to get into. Leonard only rarely had to drag his friend away from sketchy situations. Instances that involved things like having to rescue him from a jilted former lover in his rather long catalog, or one of the times Jim had slept with the sister of one of his fling’s and was found out. But these were rare instances.
Weekends, however, allowed Starfleet cadets freedom to roam throughout the city.
Jim Kirk made the most of these weekends. Often forcing Leonard to comb throughout San Francisco to find an overly inebriated Jim Kirk and drag him back to the Starfleet dormitories before things got too out of hand.
He had found himself on a chilly San Francisco Saturday night stomping down Mission Street after finding out that Jim had once again been thrown out of a bar, something about his inebriated conduct and starting a large bar fight.
McCoy found him a few blocks from the bar he had been exiled from. Tucked into a dark alley he had one of his many conquests pressed up against the brick wall. One of his hands pushing up the exposed expanse of her thigh, while the other was wrapped around the neck of a bottle of classic Jack Daniels. The dim lighting illuminated the traces of blood and scrapes on his face from the bar fight. None of this seeming to bother his current partner. Her hands were clutched in his hair and the back of his shirt, the darkness sensitive ink stamp that throbbed on the back of her right hand a subtly notification that the girl wasn’t old enough to drink. Despite this a thin trail of amber liquid trickled from the corner of her mouth while Kirk forcefully kissed her.
McCoy coughed, and the two pulled their faces from each other, twin looks of bleary questioning on their faces as they regarded him.
“Oh heeeey…” Jim said finally, a slow grin spreading across his face as he straightened himself up and away from the wall. The girl teetered forward slightly as the removal of Jim’s weight pinning her to wall caused her to have to balance on the ridiculously high heeled shoes she wore. Blond hair and big brown eyes, too much like a younger version of the woman he had foolishly married.
“This is, um, Ca…rrie?” Jim said with an inquisitive look at his partner. Too drunk to be offended by something that would cause most women to slap him across the face, the girl simply frowned at him. Wiping the small amount of Jack Daniel’s from her chin she said
“Christine” in a slight Louisiana accent.
McCoy sighed; he was not in the mood to be introduced to someone who neither he, nor Jim, would likely have any contact with again.
“Jim, come on, you’re drunk.” He said exasperatedly, reaching out to grab his friend’s arm. Jim leaned back, rolling his eyes.
“Umm… no.”
“Look, it’s five in the morning, you’re completely plastered, and I’m taking you back before you have a run in with the police. I’m sure Christine will understand.” He said with a forced, if not slightly condescending, smile directed at the drunk and under dressed girl.
Her eyes regarded him in a way that made him uncomfortable as he managed to pull Jim along behind him and back towards Starfleet Academy.
***
Already being a fully trained and licensed doctor meant having to do workshops for Starfleet medical students, and working alongside the medical instructors.
Two months after the incident on Mission street he found himself doing one such workshop for a group of would-be medical officers, one of which was the girl with long blond hair and brown doe eyes. At first he almost hadn’t recognized her. The pristine red uniform of Starfleet academy was a much different look then the almost indecent pink clubbing outfit he had first seen her in.
While he addressed the class he felt her eyes on him, watching him in a way that the other students didn’t. She watched him with a sort of curiosity, as if trying to figure out why he looked familiar.
McCoy, for his part, was determined to not pay her any more attention than any of the other cadets who were crowded around him as he explained the holographic anatomical model of an adult Aenar male to them.
At the end of the lecture she approached him with a small amount of timidity. Typing commands lightly into her clipboard, she cleared her throat to get his attention.
“Pardon me Doctor, but I had a few questions about the notes on the Aenarian respiratory system?” She asked. And he couldn’t help the smirk that crept across his face.
“Your accent is gone.” He told her. She blinked at him, uncomprehending.
“I’m sorry?”
“Last time I saw you, I seem to remember you having a bit of a southern accent.” She continued to look confused for a moment, before her eyes widened with a sort of horrified understanding.
“Oh God…. That only comes out when I’m drunk.” She bite her lip “You’ve seen me drunk … I thought I recognized you from somewhere. Look, I‘m sorry about that, I really don’t usually let myself get like that” McCoy let out a derisive snort.
“Just when you can get second hand whiskey off an older cadet?” She flushed. McCoy didn’t usually have to deal with Jim’s girls; he’d especially never expected to see this one again. This one whose appearance unsettled him so much, he had assumed when he’d last seen her that she’d just been a local girl, instead of a fellow attendee of the Starfleet Academy.
Rationally he knew that there wasn’t any good reason for him to be so hostile towards this girl. But he also wanted little to do with women, which included this one.
“Right … sorry for bothering you, sir.” She said, almost under her breath before turning to leave the room.
***
Another month or so found him watching her, beside Doctor Puri and two other senior medical officers, from behind a wall of two way glass.
She straightened up from administering a hypospray to the alien lying prone on the operating table before her. She smiled as the vital signs of her patient began to equalize, her happiness short lived as the signs began to pulse erratically.
“We’re losing him!” Another cadet hissed at her. Christine Chapel went positively white as she scrambled to sort through the collection of medications at her disposal.
“Christine! Do something!” The same cadet snapped.
“I’m AM doing something!” She snapped back as she hastily administered another hypospray. The erratic readings on the monitors stopped, and then all plummeted to the negative. She stared at them with an utterly horrified expression.
McCoy sighed heavily.
“Computer, end simulation” He said, walking into the holodeck. “Congratulations Miss Chapel, your patient is dead. Not generally the outcome we’re hoping for.” Color rose in her cheeks and she folded her arms.
“I can’t say that it was exactly what I was planning on, sir.”
“What the hell did you even give him?” She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, shifting lightly from foot to foot. He’d seen Joanna have similar mannerisms when she had been scolded for something.
“60 milligrams of Kazaprine…”
“And?”
“30 of Ananaphrine to calm the attack.” She said, almost a mumble.
“And you seriously thought that was a good idea?” He asked her, incredulously.
“Oh, it’s a sedative for Pete’s sake! He was having an attack.”
“Well, Miss Chapel, if you had even the vaguest notion of the Caldonian anatomical structure you would have known that the combination of those two drugs is basically toxic to them.” She met his eyes as he said that and he could see the muscles tensing in her jaw and neck before she spoke.
“With respect, doctor, there is little to nothing known about their anatomy. And what is, hasn’t been taught to any of us here. I couldn’t use knowledge I didn’t have. I did what I could with what I knew.”
Something in the way she looked at him sent a sharp tingling sensation up his spine. With her eyes locked on him like that he found it impossible to respond to what she’d said.
The girl unnerved him.
While most of the medical cadets generally gave McCoy a wide birth, she met his eyes with a sort of fierce intensity. It wasn’t just unsettling, it verged on obtuse.
Partially because he couldn’t decipher whether she attracted him, or whether he wanted to choke the life out of her. Either way, he didn’t enjoy her scrutiny.
He was the first to look away, mumbling a hurried. “Well maybe you should read your medical texts cadet, you’re all dismissed.”
The other medical students who had been participating in the simulation vacated the room quickly.
Christine Chapel, however, did not move. McCoy frowned.
“Do you need something Miss Chapel?”
“Excuse me, sir, but is there a reason why you hate me?”
“Pardon?”
“I wasn’t the only one participating in the simulation, sir, and I couldn’t help but notice that they didn’t receive nearly the scrutiny from you that I did. Which leads me to question what, exactly, I did.”
He took a step towards her, and she didn’t flinch. If anything there seemed to be an almost defiant tilt to her chin.
“Listen to me sweetheart.” He said under his breath, so low that he was sure she was the only one who could hear him. “I’m sure that back in Louisiana you were the belle of the ball,” She opened her mouth as if to say something, but he continued. “And I’m sure everyone fawned over you there and thought you were some sort of rare and unique snowflake. But this is Starfleet, darling. And what we need is a competent nurse, and not a girl who can write flowery essays. If you don’t think you can do that, then don’t even waste my time.”
Christine squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry to have given you that impression Doctor, but I am going to prove you wrong.” She said shortly, before turning on her heel and exiting the room.
McCoy huffed indignantly even as he heard Doctor Puri come to stand beside him.
“You do realize, McCoy, that Chapel’s the top of her class.”
“I know that.”
“Then why, pray tell, are you making her jump through hoops like a trained seal?”
McCoy shrugged, reaching a hand up to absently rub the back of his neck.
“Not sure, something about her just bothers me, is all.”
***
Another three months and McCoy was beginning to, albeit grudgingly, admit that Christine Chapel was ever bit as adept as she was said to be. She was skilled, and clever, and passed each new test he put to her with flying colors.
And yet she made him wary.
He’d had his fill of blond haired, Bambi-eyed trouble years back. So outside of academic situations McCoy made sure to generally avoid her.
She was the last person he wanted to see in that cramped bar on Valencia street.
He hadn’t even recognized her at first, dressed in a flimsy silver halter dress and knee high boots, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. She wriggled her way up to the bar, wedging herself between him and the highly inebriated Cardassian sitting on the bar stool to his left. He noticed the faint pulse of the stamp on the back of her hand as she waved to get the bartender’s attention.
“Two Denobulan Colas.” She told the bartender sweetly when he made his way over to her, indicating the back of her hand when he gave her a questioning look at her non-alcoholic choice.
“Why the Hell do you even bother coming to bars when you’re not old enough to drink?” McCoy grumbled over his scotch, causing her to startle slightly, and finally notice him. She pursed her lips as she squinted through the dim lighting of the bar before recognition dawned on her.
“Oh, Doctor McCoy, I didn’t expect to see you here.” She didn’t sound disappointed, in fact, she sounded almost pleased. He couldn’t decide why that bothered him, but it did.
“No really, what the Hell are you doing here?” He all but growled, taking another swig of his scotch, and she shifted so her back was against the bar and she could look him in the eyes. The exposed skin of her side pressed against his arm, and he felt it like an electric shock.
“The DJ’s good, I like dancing, and I’m not about to stay at Starfleet on a weekend night.” Christine pushed her hair back from her face and regarded him coolly, no doubt, taking in that he’d neglected to shave for almost a week. “And why are you drinking by yourself?”
“Not by myself, Jim’s around here somewhere.” McCoy said, scanning the room blearily for his friend, before giving up with a shrug. The look on her face was almost pitying, which was honestly the last thing he wanted. Christine Chapel’s pity. It took him a moment or so to realize that her drinks had been set down by her elbow. “Why are you still here anyway?”
“You do know that, barring one of us having some sort of fatal accident, we’re going to be around each other for at least a couple more years?” She said, and he nodded without actually meeting her eyes. “I have no idea what I’ve done that’s made you have such a grudge against me. To be honest, I’ve tried, really hard, to think of something, anything, that would warrant how much you dislike me. And I’ve got nothing.” She told him, making a vague gesture that caused the back of her hand to brush against him.
He shifted uncomfortably at the further contact with her. If she noticed, or was bothered, Christine gave no indication. “So I don’t know. Can’t we at least be civil to each other?”
McCoy swiveled towards her, feeling the alcohol in his blood stream reacting. He knew he was drunk, and he didn’t care. He leaned forward, his breath huffing out against her cheek.
“Look here, princess. I know your kind. Beautiful girls like you. You pull men in, and you’re all sweetness and light. And then it’s marriage, and kids, and divorce, and I end up in some tin can that’s likely to drop out of the sky at any minute, going off to enlist in GODDAM Starfleet because I now own NOTHING to my name and - what the HELL was I even talking about?”
He almost spluttered the ending. He hadn’t been aware that as he had punctuated his rant he had stood up and been moving closer and closer to Christine, until he had practically pinned her to the bar. The warmth of her skin radiated into him through his clothes and her soft scent washed over him. She smelled like night blooming Jasmine, and the wisteria that has grown rampant up the side of his old house in Georgia.
“Divorce. Trouble.” She said tilting her head to the side and looking up at him with a sly smile starting to spread across her lips. “You think I’m beautiful, Doctor?”
“OH for God’s sake.” He groaned, heavily sitting back onto his barstool. He was more drunk then he’d thought. That could be the only reason why he was flirting with a cadet ten years his junior. More specifically: her.
It wasn’t that he didn’t find her attractive. Drunken confession that it had been, he did, in fact, think she was beautiful. With her big cartoon eyes and kittenish mouth, that strangely adorable gap between her front teeth, down to her figure that was so exquisitely displayed by how little clothing she was wearing. Christine was still smiling at him as he attempted to gather his thoughts.
“Shouldn’t you be getting that drink to your friend or something?” He grumbled at last, and she made a dismissive gesture.
“Belina can wait a little bit, besides, she had three cadets all over her when I left her. I don’t imagine she’s missing me very much at the moment.” She said, sounding practically thoughtful as she downed close to half of her drink in one gulp. He found himself completely and helplessly fascinated by the movement of veins and muscles in her neck, coupled with the way the throbbing lights of the club played over her light skin.
He realized she was regarding him with an arched eyebrow and briefly wondered how long he had been staring at this girl, this unsettling girl, Christine Chapel. The interruption of Kirk practically materializing from the throng of people and pressing his way between McCoy and Christine made him more relieved then he cared to admit.
“Bones, why are you still sitting here? I thought I told you to come over and - hello beautiful, I’m sorry but don’t I know you?” Kirk seemed to almost forget his friend at the sight of the blond. Christine smiled in a way that made McCoy feel a pang low in his stomach.
“Hello Jim. We met about half a year ago, little bar on Mission street. You were already pretty drunk.” Jim made a slightly over the top gesture of hitting himself in the forehead before flashing her his most disarming grin.
“Christine, right?” She seemed practically to light up at his remembering her name.
McCoy found the entire exchange fairly nauseating. So he pushed his way unsteadily from his bar stool, Christine and Jim both looking inquisitively at him.
“Where are you going?” Jim asked, his eyebrow arching as he observed McCoy’s drunken stance.
“Back to my room, to throw up and then pass out. Hopefully in that order.” He grumbled and staggered from the bar.
***
The next morning when Jim stumbled bleary eyed and swearing into the infirmary begging McCoy for painkillers for the queen mother of headaches, he tried to ignore the fact that Jim all but reeked of Christine’s perfume.
Author: mad_teagirl
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Character/Pairing: McCoy/Chapel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: he couldn’t decipher whether she attracted him, or whether he wanted to choke the life out of her. Either way, he didn’t enjoy her scrutiny.
Author Notes: Begins Academy era and will eventually follow through to the end of the '09 movie. There is a teeniest bit of swearing and vague allusions to adult situations.
Beta: suchaprince
Disclaimer: I pretty much don't own anything here, except for my own wording ... and my casting choice for Reboot!Chapel *cough*ANNA PAQUIN*cough*
Fear of Flying
Leonard McCoy was never positive of the exact moment in which he stopped all together trusting women. He imagined it must have at least somewhat coincided with the divorce.
The divorce that had so regrettably defined him, on the brink of poverty after the settlement, pushing himself and his aviophobia into Starfleet academy. The inky darkness of space had somehow become less foreboding then his life on earth.
That woman, she’d taken everything. His money, his house, his child who was practically a stranger to him.
The little girl with his eyes and her mother’s long blond hair. He remembered that woman telling him that she was taking Joanna with her, and that was the end of it.
The damn court sided with her, and he remembered his lawyer apologizing and apologizing. But his eyes had been on his now ex-wife primly strolling from the court room, and the small hand clutched in her own larger one, a five year old Joanna looking over her shoulder. She looked hurt. Puzzled, as she reached her free hand back towards her father.
The scene played over and over in his head after the divorce. For a while drinking was the only way to banish the look of Joanna’s pleading, accusing, eyes.
***
The circumstances under which he first met Christine Chapel were less then flattering on her behalf. They allowed him to dismiss her as one of the many faceless women he had met under similar circumstances, that he had met on account of Jim Kirk.
His friendship with Jim had evolved into an odd pattern of care-taking, which generally consisted of him saving the younger man from himself. During the week this was easy enough, confined to Starfleet academy there was a limit of trouble for Jim to get into. Leonard only rarely had to drag his friend away from sketchy situations. Instances that involved things like having to rescue him from a jilted former lover in his rather long catalog, or one of the times Jim had slept with the sister of one of his fling’s and was found out. But these were rare instances.
Weekends, however, allowed Starfleet cadets freedom to roam throughout the city.
Jim Kirk made the most of these weekends. Often forcing Leonard to comb throughout San Francisco to find an overly inebriated Jim Kirk and drag him back to the Starfleet dormitories before things got too out of hand.
He had found himself on a chilly San Francisco Saturday night stomping down Mission Street after finding out that Jim had once again been thrown out of a bar, something about his inebriated conduct and starting a large bar fight.
McCoy found him a few blocks from the bar he had been exiled from. Tucked into a dark alley he had one of his many conquests pressed up against the brick wall. One of his hands pushing up the exposed expanse of her thigh, while the other was wrapped around the neck of a bottle of classic Jack Daniels. The dim lighting illuminated the traces of blood and scrapes on his face from the bar fight. None of this seeming to bother his current partner. Her hands were clutched in his hair and the back of his shirt, the darkness sensitive ink stamp that throbbed on the back of her right hand a subtly notification that the girl wasn’t old enough to drink. Despite this a thin trail of amber liquid trickled from the corner of her mouth while Kirk forcefully kissed her.
McCoy coughed, and the two pulled their faces from each other, twin looks of bleary questioning on their faces as they regarded him.
“Oh heeeey…” Jim said finally, a slow grin spreading across his face as he straightened himself up and away from the wall. The girl teetered forward slightly as the removal of Jim’s weight pinning her to wall caused her to have to balance on the ridiculously high heeled shoes she wore. Blond hair and big brown eyes, too much like a younger version of the woman he had foolishly married.
“This is, um, Ca…rrie?” Jim said with an inquisitive look at his partner. Too drunk to be offended by something that would cause most women to slap him across the face, the girl simply frowned at him. Wiping the small amount of Jack Daniel’s from her chin she said
“Christine” in a slight Louisiana accent.
McCoy sighed; he was not in the mood to be introduced to someone who neither he, nor Jim, would likely have any contact with again.
“Jim, come on, you’re drunk.” He said exasperatedly, reaching out to grab his friend’s arm. Jim leaned back, rolling his eyes.
“Umm… no.”
“Look, it’s five in the morning, you’re completely plastered, and I’m taking you back before you have a run in with the police. I’m sure Christine will understand.” He said with a forced, if not slightly condescending, smile directed at the drunk and under dressed girl.
Her eyes regarded him in a way that made him uncomfortable as he managed to pull Jim along behind him and back towards Starfleet Academy.
***
Already being a fully trained and licensed doctor meant having to do workshops for Starfleet medical students, and working alongside the medical instructors.
Two months after the incident on Mission street he found himself doing one such workshop for a group of would-be medical officers, one of which was the girl with long blond hair and brown doe eyes. At first he almost hadn’t recognized her. The pristine red uniform of Starfleet academy was a much different look then the almost indecent pink clubbing outfit he had first seen her in.
While he addressed the class he felt her eyes on him, watching him in a way that the other students didn’t. She watched him with a sort of curiosity, as if trying to figure out why he looked familiar.
McCoy, for his part, was determined to not pay her any more attention than any of the other cadets who were crowded around him as he explained the holographic anatomical model of an adult Aenar male to them.
At the end of the lecture she approached him with a small amount of timidity. Typing commands lightly into her clipboard, she cleared her throat to get his attention.
“Pardon me Doctor, but I had a few questions about the notes on the Aenarian respiratory system?” She asked. And he couldn’t help the smirk that crept across his face.
“Your accent is gone.” He told her. She blinked at him, uncomprehending.
“I’m sorry?”
“Last time I saw you, I seem to remember you having a bit of a southern accent.” She continued to look confused for a moment, before her eyes widened with a sort of horrified understanding.
“Oh God…. That only comes out when I’m drunk.” She bite her lip “You’ve seen me drunk … I thought I recognized you from somewhere. Look, I‘m sorry about that, I really don’t usually let myself get like that” McCoy let out a derisive snort.
“Just when you can get second hand whiskey off an older cadet?” She flushed. McCoy didn’t usually have to deal with Jim’s girls; he’d especially never expected to see this one again. This one whose appearance unsettled him so much, he had assumed when he’d last seen her that she’d just been a local girl, instead of a fellow attendee of the Starfleet Academy.
Rationally he knew that there wasn’t any good reason for him to be so hostile towards this girl. But he also wanted little to do with women, which included this one.
“Right … sorry for bothering you, sir.” She said, almost under her breath before turning to leave the room.
***
Another month or so found him watching her, beside Doctor Puri and two other senior medical officers, from behind a wall of two way glass.
She straightened up from administering a hypospray to the alien lying prone on the operating table before her. She smiled as the vital signs of her patient began to equalize, her happiness short lived as the signs began to pulse erratically.
“We’re losing him!” Another cadet hissed at her. Christine Chapel went positively white as she scrambled to sort through the collection of medications at her disposal.
“Christine! Do something!” The same cadet snapped.
“I’m AM doing something!” She snapped back as she hastily administered another hypospray. The erratic readings on the monitors stopped, and then all plummeted to the negative. She stared at them with an utterly horrified expression.
McCoy sighed heavily.
“Computer, end simulation” He said, walking into the holodeck. “Congratulations Miss Chapel, your patient is dead. Not generally the outcome we’re hoping for.” Color rose in her cheeks and she folded her arms.
“I can’t say that it was exactly what I was planning on, sir.”
“What the hell did you even give him?” She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, shifting lightly from foot to foot. He’d seen Joanna have similar mannerisms when she had been scolded for something.
“60 milligrams of Kazaprine…”
“And?”
“30 of Ananaphrine to calm the attack.” She said, almost a mumble.
“And you seriously thought that was a good idea?” He asked her, incredulously.
“Oh, it’s a sedative for Pete’s sake! He was having an attack.”
“Well, Miss Chapel, if you had even the vaguest notion of the Caldonian anatomical structure you would have known that the combination of those two drugs is basically toxic to them.” She met his eyes as he said that and he could see the muscles tensing in her jaw and neck before she spoke.
“With respect, doctor, there is little to nothing known about their anatomy. And what is, hasn’t been taught to any of us here. I couldn’t use knowledge I didn’t have. I did what I could with what I knew.”
Something in the way she looked at him sent a sharp tingling sensation up his spine. With her eyes locked on him like that he found it impossible to respond to what she’d said.
The girl unnerved him.
While most of the medical cadets generally gave McCoy a wide birth, she met his eyes with a sort of fierce intensity. It wasn’t just unsettling, it verged on obtuse.
Partially because he couldn’t decipher whether she attracted him, or whether he wanted to choke the life out of her. Either way, he didn’t enjoy her scrutiny.
He was the first to look away, mumbling a hurried. “Well maybe you should read your medical texts cadet, you’re all dismissed.”
The other medical students who had been participating in the simulation vacated the room quickly.
Christine Chapel, however, did not move. McCoy frowned.
“Do you need something Miss Chapel?”
“Excuse me, sir, but is there a reason why you hate me?”
“Pardon?”
“I wasn’t the only one participating in the simulation, sir, and I couldn’t help but notice that they didn’t receive nearly the scrutiny from you that I did. Which leads me to question what, exactly, I did.”
He took a step towards her, and she didn’t flinch. If anything there seemed to be an almost defiant tilt to her chin.
“Listen to me sweetheart.” He said under his breath, so low that he was sure she was the only one who could hear him. “I’m sure that back in Louisiana you were the belle of the ball,” She opened her mouth as if to say something, but he continued. “And I’m sure everyone fawned over you there and thought you were some sort of rare and unique snowflake. But this is Starfleet, darling. And what we need is a competent nurse, and not a girl who can write flowery essays. If you don’t think you can do that, then don’t even waste my time.”
Christine squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry to have given you that impression Doctor, but I am going to prove you wrong.” She said shortly, before turning on her heel and exiting the room.
McCoy huffed indignantly even as he heard Doctor Puri come to stand beside him.
“You do realize, McCoy, that Chapel’s the top of her class.”
“I know that.”
“Then why, pray tell, are you making her jump through hoops like a trained seal?”
McCoy shrugged, reaching a hand up to absently rub the back of his neck.
“Not sure, something about her just bothers me, is all.”
***
Another three months and McCoy was beginning to, albeit grudgingly, admit that Christine Chapel was ever bit as adept as she was said to be. She was skilled, and clever, and passed each new test he put to her with flying colors.
And yet she made him wary.
He’d had his fill of blond haired, Bambi-eyed trouble years back. So outside of academic situations McCoy made sure to generally avoid her.
She was the last person he wanted to see in that cramped bar on Valencia street.
He hadn’t even recognized her at first, dressed in a flimsy silver halter dress and knee high boots, her hair falling loose around her shoulders. She wriggled her way up to the bar, wedging herself between him and the highly inebriated Cardassian sitting on the bar stool to his left. He noticed the faint pulse of the stamp on the back of her hand as she waved to get the bartender’s attention.
“Two Denobulan Colas.” She told the bartender sweetly when he made his way over to her, indicating the back of her hand when he gave her a questioning look at her non-alcoholic choice.
“Why the Hell do you even bother coming to bars when you’re not old enough to drink?” McCoy grumbled over his scotch, causing her to startle slightly, and finally notice him. She pursed her lips as she squinted through the dim lighting of the bar before recognition dawned on her.
“Oh, Doctor McCoy, I didn’t expect to see you here.” She didn’t sound disappointed, in fact, she sounded almost pleased. He couldn’t decide why that bothered him, but it did.
“No really, what the Hell are you doing here?” He all but growled, taking another swig of his scotch, and she shifted so her back was against the bar and she could look him in the eyes. The exposed skin of her side pressed against his arm, and he felt it like an electric shock.
“The DJ’s good, I like dancing, and I’m not about to stay at Starfleet on a weekend night.” Christine pushed her hair back from her face and regarded him coolly, no doubt, taking in that he’d neglected to shave for almost a week. “And why are you drinking by yourself?”
“Not by myself, Jim’s around here somewhere.” McCoy said, scanning the room blearily for his friend, before giving up with a shrug. The look on her face was almost pitying, which was honestly the last thing he wanted. Christine Chapel’s pity. It took him a moment or so to realize that her drinks had been set down by her elbow. “Why are you still here anyway?”
“You do know that, barring one of us having some sort of fatal accident, we’re going to be around each other for at least a couple more years?” She said, and he nodded without actually meeting her eyes. “I have no idea what I’ve done that’s made you have such a grudge against me. To be honest, I’ve tried, really hard, to think of something, anything, that would warrant how much you dislike me. And I’ve got nothing.” She told him, making a vague gesture that caused the back of her hand to brush against him.
He shifted uncomfortably at the further contact with her. If she noticed, or was bothered, Christine gave no indication. “So I don’t know. Can’t we at least be civil to each other?”
McCoy swiveled towards her, feeling the alcohol in his blood stream reacting. He knew he was drunk, and he didn’t care. He leaned forward, his breath huffing out against her cheek.
“Look here, princess. I know your kind. Beautiful girls like you. You pull men in, and you’re all sweetness and light. And then it’s marriage, and kids, and divorce, and I end up in some tin can that’s likely to drop out of the sky at any minute, going off to enlist in GODDAM Starfleet because I now own NOTHING to my name and - what the HELL was I even talking about?”
He almost spluttered the ending. He hadn’t been aware that as he had punctuated his rant he had stood up and been moving closer and closer to Christine, until he had practically pinned her to the bar. The warmth of her skin radiated into him through his clothes and her soft scent washed over him. She smelled like night blooming Jasmine, and the wisteria that has grown rampant up the side of his old house in Georgia.
“Divorce. Trouble.” She said tilting her head to the side and looking up at him with a sly smile starting to spread across her lips. “You think I’m beautiful, Doctor?”
“OH for God’s sake.” He groaned, heavily sitting back onto his barstool. He was more drunk then he’d thought. That could be the only reason why he was flirting with a cadet ten years his junior. More specifically: her.
It wasn’t that he didn’t find her attractive. Drunken confession that it had been, he did, in fact, think she was beautiful. With her big cartoon eyes and kittenish mouth, that strangely adorable gap between her front teeth, down to her figure that was so exquisitely displayed by how little clothing she was wearing. Christine was still smiling at him as he attempted to gather his thoughts.
“Shouldn’t you be getting that drink to your friend or something?” He grumbled at last, and she made a dismissive gesture.
“Belina can wait a little bit, besides, she had three cadets all over her when I left her. I don’t imagine she’s missing me very much at the moment.” She said, sounding practically thoughtful as she downed close to half of her drink in one gulp. He found himself completely and helplessly fascinated by the movement of veins and muscles in her neck, coupled with the way the throbbing lights of the club played over her light skin.
He realized she was regarding him with an arched eyebrow and briefly wondered how long he had been staring at this girl, this unsettling girl, Christine Chapel. The interruption of Kirk practically materializing from the throng of people and pressing his way between McCoy and Christine made him more relieved then he cared to admit.
“Bones, why are you still sitting here? I thought I told you to come over and - hello beautiful, I’m sorry but don’t I know you?” Kirk seemed to almost forget his friend at the sight of the blond. Christine smiled in a way that made McCoy feel a pang low in his stomach.
“Hello Jim. We met about half a year ago, little bar on Mission street. You were already pretty drunk.” Jim made a slightly over the top gesture of hitting himself in the forehead before flashing her his most disarming grin.
“Christine, right?” She seemed practically to light up at his remembering her name.
McCoy found the entire exchange fairly nauseating. So he pushed his way unsteadily from his bar stool, Christine and Jim both looking inquisitively at him.
“Where are you going?” Jim asked, his eyebrow arching as he observed McCoy’s drunken stance.
“Back to my room, to throw up and then pass out. Hopefully in that order.” He grumbled and staggered from the bar.
***
The next morning when Jim stumbled bleary eyed and swearing into the infirmary begging McCoy for painkillers for the queen mother of headaches, he tried to ignore the fact that Jim all but reeked of Christine’s perfume.