fic: Fear of Flying Part IV (McCoy/Chapel, Star Trek XI)
Title: Fear of Flying : Part IV
Author: mad_teagirl
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Character/Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, allusions to Kirk/Chapel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the months that followed they never, exactly, talked about the night of his birthday. But there was a new and interesting warmness about the general feeling he got being around her in the clinic
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
Fear of Flying
Part IV
In the months that followed they never, exactly, talked about the night of his birthday. But there was a new and interesting warmness about the general feeling he got being around her in the clinic.
He had begun to let himself laugh a bit more easily around her. And every so often Christine would drop in a word or two with the slightest bit of Louisiana coming through just because it made him smile.
And he was a little less jealous of how she would hug Jim when he would come into the clinic. And he started to get used to lunch in his office, with Christine perched on his desk, and the way she hummed when she did paperwork, or how she always preferred to wear skirts even out of uniform.
Christine Chapel had become something of a fixed point for him in what he considered to be an otherwise chaotic life. And that realization had made him feel a strange flutter just behind his ribs around her, like maybe it was a little more complex of an emotion then simply liking her.
On the other hand, there was the rest of his life. That gave him less then warm feelings.
Jim was his best friend, but McCoy couldn’t even pretend he wasn’t completely good and put upon when Jim announced that he would be taking the Kobayashi Maru for the third time. The simple notion of the level of masochism that went along with that was nearly incomprehensible.
Oh, Jim passed, in an inconceivable display of smugness that left the technical department of Starfleet Academy in a near hysterical melt down as they tried to figure out how that cocky farm boy from Iowa could have beat something that their genius half Vulcan had conceived.
Then they announced that there would be a hearing; a trial with charges of cheating.
And McCoy found himself at his desk, face pressed into the steel expanse of it, wondering how his best friend could manage to be so smart and simultaneously so stupid. When Christine walked in he couldn’t even bother to raise his head and look at her, but he knew just from the sound that it was her footsteps.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with a mutual friend of ours whose name starts with ‘K’ and ends with ‘irk’ would it?” She asked after observing him in silence for a few minutes.
“The very same.” he replied without lifting his head from the desk. He heard the scrape of a chair being pulled near the desk and the sound of her settling into it.
“The Kobayashi Maru thing, right? I heard they’re actually having some sort of trial about it tomorrow, they think he cheated don’t they?” He finally lifted his head at that.
“Oh Chapel, we both know Jim cheated.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, regarding him with pursed lips.
“Okay, I have a plan.” She told him as she got to her feet and swung her purse up onto her shoulder. “Get up, we’re going out, I’m going to buy you a drink.” He snorted.
“And where are you going to find somewhere that is going to let you buy said drink?” She blinked.
“Any bar I want? I’m twenty one.” He frowned.
“What? Since when?” Christine shrugged.
“Couple of months ago. It wasn’t really a big deal, spent most of that day studying. Now get up, nothing is going to be solved by you sitting here by yourself, so you might as well come out with me. Come on.” She pulled lightly at his arm, and he sighed and followed her out.
**
He supposed he shouldn’t be irritated that he hadn’t known about her birthday, maybe it was only on account of the stink that was made over his being in such a sharp contrast to how she had hushed hers.
The bar wasn’t the type that McCoy would really have thought to go to on his own. It was a little too clean, too comfortable. But she bought them an entire bottle of Jack Daniels Classic from the bartender, and they sat next to each other in a booth in the corner, their knees pressed into each other’s as they took turns tipping liquor into each other’s shot glasses.
“Here’s to Jim Kirk, the boy wonder, and all the Hell he puts us through.” McCoy grumbled as he clanked his shot glass against Christine’s and knocked his own back. She made a sour face at him.
“We’re not going to talk about things that make you get all grumpy on me. Let’s talk about something that doesn’t make you grumpy. How about that pretty little girl of yours, how’s she doing?”
“Joanna? Perfect, as per usual. Not that I get to speak to her much, mostly just send letters. When Jocelyn left she got most of the custody rites, told the court I was a negligent father. Apparently, the fact that I‘m a doctor, and was busy putting people back together, and, you know, paying the bills, made me a bad parent.” Christine made an odd noise, some hybrid of a snort and a false laugh. “What?”
“Nothing” She said with a shake of her head. “Just, your ex-wife sounds an awful lot like my mother.” McCoy raised an eyebrow at that.
“Oh really?”
“Please, let’s not start talking about my mother.” She mumbled.
“So it’s all right that you know everything about me, and I don’t know a thing about you?”
Christine eyed him evenly, before nodding and knocking back her latest shot.
“How’s this: As long as it has nothing to do with my parents, you can ask me whatever you want?”
“Seems fair. I guess I should just ask what the Hell you’re doing here in Starfleet instead of ….”
“Mandeville? Well, I guess New Orleans, but I lived in Mandeville originally.” She poured herself another shot and downed it before continuing. “Short version is met a man, almost got married, didn’t work, found myself here.”
“Almost got married? When you were what, twelve?”
“Sixteen, actually.” She said deadpan, as McCoy all but choked on his drink
“SIXTEEN?”
“Well, I was engaged then, we were going to get married when I turned eighteen.”
“Why the devil would you even want to get married when you were sixteen?” She shrugged noncommittally at that.
“I don’t know, he was nice, I thought I loved him, I lacked strong male role models, he offered to pay for my medical school. You can take your pick.”
“So then…?”
“He left.” She said, punctuating by knocking back another shot. “Or something, dunno, he was just gone. And so were my chances of affording medical school. So I hawked my ring, partied and bought clothes for almost a month straight, and then enlisted in Starfleet. And that’s about it really.”
“Do you miss him?” McCoy asked, slightly dreading the answer.
“What’s that?”
“That guy you almost married, you ever miss him?” She laughed a little bit, raking her fingers through her loose blonde hair.
“Roger? God no, I guess I did a little at first, and then I spent a bit hating him, and now I don’t think about him much at all if I can help it.”
He could feel the alcohol really starting to work on him, he could no longer remember how many shots he’d had, or how long he had been staring fixedly at the hollow of Christine’s neck. He realized he had been thinking about how it would feel to leave deep purple bruises along that pretty white neck with his tongue and teeth. He shook his head, suppressing the overwhelming need to press her back into the booth and kiss her breathless, and was greeted with a slightly queasy sloshing feeling.
“What time is it?” He mumbled, realized he hadn’t worn a watch and attempted to drag Christine’s wrist towards him to read the time off hers. She gently slapped his hand away.
“Quarter to two.”
“Aw, Hell. I promised Jim I’d show up at the trial tomorrow morning.” McCoy groaned rubbing at his forehead. “Would you hate me if I asked you for a huge favor Chapel?”
She smiled at him and he momentarily lost his train of thought and had to fight the urge to spew cliché nonsense comparing her to daylight, or some drivel about how he could lose himself in her ridiculous chocolate eyes. But he regained his composure, after all, he was a Doctor, not a lovesick teenager, and cleared his throat. “Do you think you could handle the clinic by yourself in the morning? I mean, I hate to ask , but everything we get in there is pretty routine…”
“Of course, don’t worry about it. Jim could probably use a friend there tomorrow, I don’t imagine that they’re gonna be too easy on him.” McCoy cleared his throat, hoping to steer away from talking about Jim any further. There were times that, no matter how illogical he knew it was, he still felt twinges of jealousy low in his belly whenever she talked about Jim.
“We should get back to the academy.” He said, and half hoped she would protest. Say that it wasn’t too late, or even whine childishly about how they were having such a good time that it would be a shame to leave now. She didn’t, she just nodded.
But she did grab onto his arm as they left the bar, not in the way that people do to keep balance when they’ve had too much to drink. There was a familiarity to it, and she pulled in closer to him against the cold outside air. Her cheek pressed just below the joint of his shoulder, and she smelled incredible.
He had lived in San Francisco long enough to know that there wouldn’t be any more shuttles at this time of night.
“We’re going to have to walk…” He grumbled, eliciting a small giggle from her.
“Oh for goodness sake, it’s only half a mile away.” She said in an almost chiding tone of voice as she twined her fingers in his and dragged him in the direction of the academy.
So, he followed her with a sort of uncharacteristic compliance into the wet San Francisco morning. The heat of her fingers locked with his was a sharp contrast to the cold air. He would have been more irritable about the situation, questioned why he just followed her like he was her goddam golden retriever, but all he could think about was the way the street lamps glowed off her skin and her hair.
And then they were back to the academy, and he had found himself demanding that she let him walk her back to her dormitory. And she had grinned, straight out, at that, and let him take her up the steps and down the hall to just outside her quarters.
“I had a really good time you know.” She told him at her door, completely straight faced.
“Okay kid, there’s no reason to lie.” He said with a quirked eyebrow. Christine regarded him in silence for a moment, studying him, and then her arms were around his neck and her lips pressed against his in a quick, closed mouthed kiss that tasted all at once of her sugary lip gloss and of whiskey.
She had pulled away, keyed in her entry code and disappeared into her dorm by the time his brain even attempted to process what had just happened.
*
He would not deny that Jim Kirk was his best friend. The fact was that if Jim Kirk were not his best friend, McCoy wouldn’t have found himself sitting in the stadium hall with minimal sleep.
He hadn’t really expected the trial to be too much of an ordeal. He’d thought it would be an hour tops, followed by Jim getting an over glorified slap on the wrist and a “Now now young man, don’t you get up to these shenanigans again, you hear?”
What McCoy, nor anyone for that matter, had expected was what had actually occurred during Jim Kirk’s trial: the distress call from Vulcan, the announcement that they were officially members of Starfleet and that they were heading out to space. It had all happened like a whirlwind. And he had stood next to his best friend and listened as Kirk was told that he was forbidden to go on the mission.
He had known, perhaps even more then Jim had, that Kirk needed to be on board the Enterprise. He might be annoying at times, and cocky as all Hell, but Jim was also a genius and he knew his way around a spaceship as well as just about any of the seasoned Starfleet Captains.
He also knew there was a vindictive part of him that had thought that if he had to go up into the black terror of space, then Jim was damn well going up too.
So he had shot him full of a vaccine for Melvaran Mudfleas and dragged the sweating, whimpering, Jim Kirk aboard the shuttle bound for the Enterprise.
And hoped to God it wasn’t going to be a decision that he ended up regretting.
Author: mad_teagirl
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Character/Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, allusions to Kirk/Chapel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the months that followed they never, exactly, talked about the night of his birthday. But there was a new and interesting warmness about the general feeling he got being around her in the clinic
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
Fear of Flying
Part IV
In the months that followed they never, exactly, talked about the night of his birthday. But there was a new and interesting warmness about the general feeling he got being around her in the clinic.
He had begun to let himself laugh a bit more easily around her. And every so often Christine would drop in a word or two with the slightest bit of Louisiana coming through just because it made him smile.
And he was a little less jealous of how she would hug Jim when he would come into the clinic. And he started to get used to lunch in his office, with Christine perched on his desk, and the way she hummed when she did paperwork, or how she always preferred to wear skirts even out of uniform.
Christine Chapel had become something of a fixed point for him in what he considered to be an otherwise chaotic life. And that realization had made him feel a strange flutter just behind his ribs around her, like maybe it was a little more complex of an emotion then simply liking her.
On the other hand, there was the rest of his life. That gave him less then warm feelings.
Jim was his best friend, but McCoy couldn’t even pretend he wasn’t completely good and put upon when Jim announced that he would be taking the Kobayashi Maru for the third time. The simple notion of the level of masochism that went along with that was nearly incomprehensible.
Oh, Jim passed, in an inconceivable display of smugness that left the technical department of Starfleet Academy in a near hysterical melt down as they tried to figure out how that cocky farm boy from Iowa could have beat something that their genius half Vulcan had conceived.
Then they announced that there would be a hearing; a trial with charges of cheating.
And McCoy found himself at his desk, face pressed into the steel expanse of it, wondering how his best friend could manage to be so smart and simultaneously so stupid. When Christine walked in he couldn’t even bother to raise his head and look at her, but he knew just from the sound that it was her footsteps.
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with a mutual friend of ours whose name starts with ‘K’ and ends with ‘irk’ would it?” She asked after observing him in silence for a few minutes.
“The very same.” he replied without lifting his head from the desk. He heard the scrape of a chair being pulled near the desk and the sound of her settling into it.
“The Kobayashi Maru thing, right? I heard they’re actually having some sort of trial about it tomorrow, they think he cheated don’t they?” He finally lifted his head at that.
“Oh Chapel, we both know Jim cheated.” She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, regarding him with pursed lips.
“Okay, I have a plan.” She told him as she got to her feet and swung her purse up onto her shoulder. “Get up, we’re going out, I’m going to buy you a drink.” He snorted.
“And where are you going to find somewhere that is going to let you buy said drink?” She blinked.
“Any bar I want? I’m twenty one.” He frowned.
“What? Since when?” Christine shrugged.
“Couple of months ago. It wasn’t really a big deal, spent most of that day studying. Now get up, nothing is going to be solved by you sitting here by yourself, so you might as well come out with me. Come on.” She pulled lightly at his arm, and he sighed and followed her out.
**
He supposed he shouldn’t be irritated that he hadn’t known about her birthday, maybe it was only on account of the stink that was made over his being in such a sharp contrast to how she had hushed hers.
The bar wasn’t the type that McCoy would really have thought to go to on his own. It was a little too clean, too comfortable. But she bought them an entire bottle of Jack Daniels Classic from the bartender, and they sat next to each other in a booth in the corner, their knees pressed into each other’s as they took turns tipping liquor into each other’s shot glasses.
“Here’s to Jim Kirk, the boy wonder, and all the Hell he puts us through.” McCoy grumbled as he clanked his shot glass against Christine’s and knocked his own back. She made a sour face at him.
“We’re not going to talk about things that make you get all grumpy on me. Let’s talk about something that doesn’t make you grumpy. How about that pretty little girl of yours, how’s she doing?”
“Joanna? Perfect, as per usual. Not that I get to speak to her much, mostly just send letters. When Jocelyn left she got most of the custody rites, told the court I was a negligent father. Apparently, the fact that I‘m a doctor, and was busy putting people back together, and, you know, paying the bills, made me a bad parent.” Christine made an odd noise, some hybrid of a snort and a false laugh. “What?”
“Nothing” She said with a shake of her head. “Just, your ex-wife sounds an awful lot like my mother.” McCoy raised an eyebrow at that.
“Oh really?”
“Please, let’s not start talking about my mother.” She mumbled.
“So it’s all right that you know everything about me, and I don’t know a thing about you?”
Christine eyed him evenly, before nodding and knocking back her latest shot.
“How’s this: As long as it has nothing to do with my parents, you can ask me whatever you want?”
“Seems fair. I guess I should just ask what the Hell you’re doing here in Starfleet instead of ….”
“Mandeville? Well, I guess New Orleans, but I lived in Mandeville originally.” She poured herself another shot and downed it before continuing. “Short version is met a man, almost got married, didn’t work, found myself here.”
“Almost got married? When you were what, twelve?”
“Sixteen, actually.” She said deadpan, as McCoy all but choked on his drink
“SIXTEEN?”
“Well, I was engaged then, we were going to get married when I turned eighteen.”
“Why the devil would you even want to get married when you were sixteen?” She shrugged noncommittally at that.
“I don’t know, he was nice, I thought I loved him, I lacked strong male role models, he offered to pay for my medical school. You can take your pick.”
“So then…?”
“He left.” She said, punctuating by knocking back another shot. “Or something, dunno, he was just gone. And so were my chances of affording medical school. So I hawked my ring, partied and bought clothes for almost a month straight, and then enlisted in Starfleet. And that’s about it really.”
“Do you miss him?” McCoy asked, slightly dreading the answer.
“What’s that?”
“That guy you almost married, you ever miss him?” She laughed a little bit, raking her fingers through her loose blonde hair.
“Roger? God no, I guess I did a little at first, and then I spent a bit hating him, and now I don’t think about him much at all if I can help it.”
He could feel the alcohol really starting to work on him, he could no longer remember how many shots he’d had, or how long he had been staring fixedly at the hollow of Christine’s neck. He realized he had been thinking about how it would feel to leave deep purple bruises along that pretty white neck with his tongue and teeth. He shook his head, suppressing the overwhelming need to press her back into the booth and kiss her breathless, and was greeted with a slightly queasy sloshing feeling.
“What time is it?” He mumbled, realized he hadn’t worn a watch and attempted to drag Christine’s wrist towards him to read the time off hers. She gently slapped his hand away.
“Quarter to two.”
“Aw, Hell. I promised Jim I’d show up at the trial tomorrow morning.” McCoy groaned rubbing at his forehead. “Would you hate me if I asked you for a huge favor Chapel?”
She smiled at him and he momentarily lost his train of thought and had to fight the urge to spew cliché nonsense comparing her to daylight, or some drivel about how he could lose himself in her ridiculous chocolate eyes. But he regained his composure, after all, he was a Doctor, not a lovesick teenager, and cleared his throat. “Do you think you could handle the clinic by yourself in the morning? I mean, I hate to ask , but everything we get in there is pretty routine…”
“Of course, don’t worry about it. Jim could probably use a friend there tomorrow, I don’t imagine that they’re gonna be too easy on him.” McCoy cleared his throat, hoping to steer away from talking about Jim any further. There were times that, no matter how illogical he knew it was, he still felt twinges of jealousy low in his belly whenever she talked about Jim.
“We should get back to the academy.” He said, and half hoped she would protest. Say that it wasn’t too late, or even whine childishly about how they were having such a good time that it would be a shame to leave now. She didn’t, she just nodded.
But she did grab onto his arm as they left the bar, not in the way that people do to keep balance when they’ve had too much to drink. There was a familiarity to it, and she pulled in closer to him against the cold outside air. Her cheek pressed just below the joint of his shoulder, and she smelled incredible.
He had lived in San Francisco long enough to know that there wouldn’t be any more shuttles at this time of night.
“We’re going to have to walk…” He grumbled, eliciting a small giggle from her.
“Oh for goodness sake, it’s only half a mile away.” She said in an almost chiding tone of voice as she twined her fingers in his and dragged him in the direction of the academy.
So, he followed her with a sort of uncharacteristic compliance into the wet San Francisco morning. The heat of her fingers locked with his was a sharp contrast to the cold air. He would have been more irritable about the situation, questioned why he just followed her like he was her goddam golden retriever, but all he could think about was the way the street lamps glowed off her skin and her hair.
And then they were back to the academy, and he had found himself demanding that she let him walk her back to her dormitory. And she had grinned, straight out, at that, and let him take her up the steps and down the hall to just outside her quarters.
“I had a really good time you know.” She told him at her door, completely straight faced.
“Okay kid, there’s no reason to lie.” He said with a quirked eyebrow. Christine regarded him in silence for a moment, studying him, and then her arms were around his neck and her lips pressed against his in a quick, closed mouthed kiss that tasted all at once of her sugary lip gloss and of whiskey.
She had pulled away, keyed in her entry code and disappeared into her dorm by the time his brain even attempted to process what had just happened.
*
He would not deny that Jim Kirk was his best friend. The fact was that if Jim Kirk were not his best friend, McCoy wouldn’t have found himself sitting in the stadium hall with minimal sleep.
He hadn’t really expected the trial to be too much of an ordeal. He’d thought it would be an hour tops, followed by Jim getting an over glorified slap on the wrist and a “Now now young man, don’t you get up to these shenanigans again, you hear?”
What McCoy, nor anyone for that matter, had expected was what had actually occurred during Jim Kirk’s trial: the distress call from Vulcan, the announcement that they were officially members of Starfleet and that they were heading out to space. It had all happened like a whirlwind. And he had stood next to his best friend and listened as Kirk was told that he was forbidden to go on the mission.
He had known, perhaps even more then Jim had, that Kirk needed to be on board the Enterprise. He might be annoying at times, and cocky as all Hell, but Jim was also a genius and he knew his way around a spaceship as well as just about any of the seasoned Starfleet Captains.
He also knew there was a vindictive part of him that had thought that if he had to go up into the black terror of space, then Jim was damn well going up too.
So he had shot him full of a vaccine for Melvaran Mudfleas and dragged the sweating, whimpering, Jim Kirk aboard the shuttle bound for the Enterprise.
And hoped to God it wasn’t going to be a decision that he ended up regretting.