Spock/Uhura New Year's Present (Part 1): For Lurkch
Recipient: lurkch
Present Giver: spocklikescats
Story Name: "Slow Tease" *
Warnings: Sex! S/U all the way!
Rating: M
Pairings: Spock/Uhura, McCoy/Chapel, Kirk/Gaila
Thank you: Lantean Breeze, who organized the New Year’s Gift Exchange!
Disclaimer: I love Star Trek but I don’t make any money from it, or from these stories I insist on writing. As far as I know, nothing in this story is based on anyone’s work except my own, or of course, the creators of Star Trek, long may they continue!
Headcanon: (1) Christine Chapel is played by Christina Hendricks (“Joan Harris” of “Mad Men”). (2) Leonard McCoy is from Georgia (as is traditional, in homage to DeForest Kelly); in spite of a “new” bio from ST2009 saying he’s from Mississippi. While he may have attended “Ole Miss,” University of MS for pre-med, he is from Georgia! (3) McCoy married Joycelyn and their daughter, Joanna, lives with her. He met Chapel before he met Joy and started seeing her again once he separated from Joycelyn. 4) Gaila lives!
~/\~
COMMANDER SPOCK had arranged everything to his satisfaction. He and Lieutenant Uhura would dine at the small restaurant on the Starboard Observation Deck at 1930 hours. After a long period for conversation, they would then report to the Fitness suite to use the hot tub, an activity in which he took pleasure mostly for the bath’s heat.
Prolonged immersion in water held little appeal, but Nyota enjoyed it greatly, for reasons Spock did not find objectionable, so he took part. A relaxed partner was a contented partner, and that his ashayam be contented was a goal Spock found logical - and desirable - to fulfill.
A few weeks ago, they had trysted in the Jacuzzi, but were interrupted by others, forcing them to forgo an attempt at a potentially embarrassing (on Nyota’s part) activity. Spock did not embarrass easily, if at all. He simply completed his duties and performed scientific experiments with the highest proficiency and lived his life as he saw fit, and if others questioned Spock’s private decisions, he owed explanations only to Captain Kirk. Not to Dr. McCoy, no matter what the physician seemed to think.
LEONARD MCCOY sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He was finding it hard to get through today with so many patients suffering the indignities of Gnallifian intestinal worms. All of them begged him not to tell anyone else; all of them itched in places people shouldn’t scratch; inevitably they did scratch and new eggs would hatch and the itching and embarrassment and lamentations of the patients would annoy other patients and themselves, and McCoy was getting tired of it.
“I itch, Doc, and I can’t sleep. I think I’m bleeding down there.”
Ensign Mattox’s tenor whine bored through Sickbay. Mattox was from central Florida. Everybody assumed that he and McCoy would be friendly since both men were from the Southeast United States, but they were wrong. McCoy couldn’t stand Mattox, always running in to Sickbay every time he stubbed his damn toe or got a blister. Plus McCoy thought Mattox had a thing for Nurse Chapel.
“Quit whining, Mattox,” McCoy snapped. “I’ve treated little kids who were better patients than you.”
“Can’t you give me something so I could sleep?”
McCoy quickly filled a hypo and brought it over to the man’s bedside. “Nothing would please me more,” he said with a leer, “But the fact is, a shot of this stuff will make your throat hurt like hell when you wake up. Still want it?”
“If it’ll help me sleep, oh yeah.”
With any luck, his throat’ll be so sore when he comes to, that he won’t want to talk.
NURSE CHRISTINE CHAPEL was tired and feeling rather temperamental. The two often went together, but she always managed to hide her temper when patients were present. Yes; like McCoy, she took it out on … well, him, as he sometimes did her.
These moods never engendered serious disagreements between them, certainly not in front of other staff or patients, although occasionally McCoy’s raised voice could be heard from his office, followed by acute remarks from Chapel, who was quite good at sharpening a verbal arrow right before she aimed it at his ego, his grumpiness, or other deficiency. She was more of an observer and analyzer but occasionally he just “got on her last nerve,” as her Nana used to say.
The recent outbreak of Gnallifian intestinal worms was not only disgusting, but the patients complained a lot; their discomfort and mostly their inability to be on the job irritated them. (Starfleet had very few idlers in its ranks; such people were passed over for promotion and soon discharged.)
“Doctor, I dinna’ think I can take any more o’ this,” Engineer Scott said loudly. “D’ye not think a few shots o’ whisky might cure my ills? Surely it’d kill the wee basta- er, beasties.”
“Except for my office, alcohol is strictly off-limits in my Sickbay,” McCoy sounded reasonable enough, but Chapel could detect a little edge in his tone.
Scotty was miserable and irritable. “Then let me step inta’ yer office for a few minutes, ye glaikit lout!”
“Well you’d have to get some whisky first, wouldn’t you,” McCoy said nastily.
“Ye canna spare me some o’ that bourbon ye’re so fond of?”
“Well since you pronounced the taste -“ McCoy rendered a perfect Scots accent on the following words, “- absolute shite - I wouldn’t waste it on you, and besides, it won’t have any effect other than making the present generation of worms produce more eggs, in their twisted means of survival.” The doctor’s eyes bugged out in a scary glare and Scotty sighed.
“Ehh, the cure’s almost worse than the disease.”
“Well you shouldn’t have eaten food from a street vendor’s cart then, should you?” McCoy snapped. “I warned you people before you departed on shore leave, but would you listen to your Chief Medical Officer? No-o-o-o! You listened to the damned holo-guides!”
Scotty pointed to the decoction of Gnallifian herbs. He had to drink a deciliter every two hours. “I wish ta hell I hadn’t. I think ye made this stuff nasty and evil tasting on purpose.”
“Well if I did it’ll help teach you the lesson I failed to teach all y’all before, won’t it!”
Christine intervened. “Doctor, a moment please?”
“Yeah, what.”
She angled her head toward his office and preceded him in. Slowly. He loved walking behind her; he had told her so years ago at the university hospital in Berkeley and she never forgot it, even in professional circumstances - especially those in which McCoy needed distraction to get out of a mood. Chapel knew well that she had a lovely figure and a walk to match.
Once inside, she rounded on him, pursing her lips (in an attractive sort of way), crossing her arms under her very attractive bosom, and tilting her hips as she leaned on his desk. Disconcerting her opponents was only one of her skills and she deployed it extremely well. “What was that about, Doctor? You know it’s not part of your job to be nasty to your patients.”
“Yes. I do know,” he snapped. “I just hate having to listen to them.”
Chapel put her hands on her hips, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Well, snap out of it. The orderlies hate dealing with this stuff and I have to help them deal with it as much as I do the patients. What’s your problem?”
A pause.
“… Len, I’m asking you a question …”
McCoy had drifted back in time … to the University of California at Berkeley, his first year as a resident ….
~/\~
HE FIRST NOTICES HER striding - in a very womanly way - up the walkway to the hospital at UC Berkeley Medical Center. He’s never seen an “hourglass figure” before, but he’s seeing one now, and wow, what a figure it is. Rounded, womanly, big-hipped, small-waisted, gorgeously endowed … when she goes by and smiles at him, he thinks she has the face of an angel. An angel who knows exactly what he’s thinking, and is serene in spite of it.
Her porcelain complexion is radiant with good health and her lips are lovely; he can imagine kissing them softly, then deeply; her red hair is looped up in a practical yet lovely way, and he thinks of taking it out of its pins and letting it flow over his tired, tired hands. And her eyes - oh Lord - blue as a high winter sky on a clear day. Her mouth curves up in a secret, womanly smile as she passes him, and he almost turns to follow her and get her name, but he’s been awake for 21 hours sponging out and sealing wounds. In the late morning yesterday a massive shuttle accident brought dozens of patients with deep lacerations, punctures and internal injuries into the ER, where McCoy is doing a year as a Resident. He goes to his crappy little apartment, doffs his clothes, takes a shower, and sits on the bed, and before he knows it he’s flat out, comatose in sleep.
She’s a post-grad in Exobiology, he learns from the other students, and has the unlikely name of Chapel. “Unlikely” because the talk he hears from the guys and gay women is not exactly holy in nature. “The Red Fox” and “Double Delight” are only two of the many sobriquets laded on, and she sails by them all like a ship of state on a merciful mission to the masses, with that lovely, inscrutable smile.
They get to know each other in the hospital cafeteria and later begin haunting Berkeley cafés, discussing medical science, and McCoy notices that she is, for all her physical assets, demure. She is not “free and easy,” and he regrets that a little, but has come to care for her as a good friend. Sex, while a very attractive prospect, does not dominate his thoughts when they are together. What dominates his thoughts are, well, thoughts, to answer her challenges with, about what to ask her, about telling her why Dr. Rogers is so damned funny, about asking her if she might want to go to Savannah and visit his family, because Dad’s not doing so well - and Christine’s mere presence would cheer the old man up.
One night, after he’s had a terrible, blood-soaked, adrenaline-pumping night in the Emergency Room, under the supervision of the stupidest Attending in the hospital, he sees Christine sitting in the café next door to the bar he’s headed for.
“Len! You look like hell,” she says.
“Oh, God, you have no idea. I feel even worse. We lost three kids tonight.” He is so tired he is shaking, from adrenaline withdrawal, and low blood sugar; he hasn’t eaten in ten hours.
“Okay, you’re coming with me,” she says, and before they leave she has ordered a hot cocoa to go, and makes him drink it. It gives him just enough energy to get to her apartment, where she helps him to the sofa, kisses him on the forehead, and heads off to cook as he dozes.
He hears her moving around in her tiny kitchen. He drops off deeply for a few minutes but it’s just enough.
The sofa cushion moves slightly as she sits, waking him. She hands him a plate loaded with scrambled eggs, soft, the way he likes them, cheese grits, vegetarian bacon - soy protein miraculously textured and flavored, soul satisfying - and raisin toast. “Here’s some orange juice. No coffee for you,” she says. “Eat.”
And he does, rapidly - he’s starving - he slows down at last, enough to take a long look at her. She is sipping roobios tea, bare feet up on the coffee table. Even her feet are lovely.
“Hey,” he says, in a low voice, a tentative advance.
She puts down her tea and turns to him, her slight smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Hey, yourself.”
He holds up the plate. “Thanks for this ...”
Their eyes meet for a long moment and her pupils enlarge. He almost stammers, but gets the words out, still in his low voice, thank God. “This may not be … Christine, I just wanna tell you, I think you are the brightest, kindest, most beautiful woman, inside and out, I’ve ever met. And that includes my momma.”
After a moment, he amends, “That’s only because she’s not as beautiful on the outside, of course.”
He watches her for a suspended minute, and her hand floats up to stroke his cheek. She kisses him softly on his mouth. “Come to bed,” she says.
It is the sweetest night of his life so far.
So they’re good friends and very happy lovers for about a month and McCoy is about to tell her how much his parents enjoyed meeting Christine on their quick visit to Savannah last week, and how it cheered Daddy up … but …
“Len, I have something to tell you,” she says one morning over an early breakfast at the diner near campus. His stomach drops. Is she gonna say she’s not interested in him anymore as anything but a friend? That they have to get married or she’s gonna move on?
“You’ve heard about the plague on Niobe Six.”
“’Course,” he says.
“I’m going out there.”
“What the hell …? You’re an exobiologist, not a doctor!”
She tilts her head and looks at him. “An exobiologist will be quite useful, actually. You would be too.” She smiles a little. “Even though you’re still a Resident. Come with me.”
He is about to say ‘yes’ … then a thought intrudes, the worried sound of Momma’s voice last week when she spoke of Daddy, how she didn’t think there was much time left … “How long would it be?”
“Probably four months at least. A year maybe.”
“I would like to,” he says, taking her hands in his. “I really would, but Daddy’s taken a turn for the worse - I’m going home this weekend to be with him - Momma and my sisters’re worried. I can’t go off-planet now - it’s out of the question.”
Christine’s eyes are solemn.
“The mission crew can’t replace me now. I wish I’d known … I could’ve stayed to see you through.” He tightens his hands around hers and they gaze at each other for a long time, treasuring what they’ve had.
“Damn,” they say at the same time. That night is a long, bittersweet goodbye. There are tears, on both parts. Neither knows if they’ll ever be able to be together again.
~/\~
CHAPEL STIRRED, catching his attention. Waving her hand in fact, by her face. “… a question …” she was saying.
And the question is, why did I marry Joycelyn instead of waiting for this lady? ‘Cause I got into what I thought was a casual relationship, and Joy purposely got pregnant, Daddy insisted I be responsible … well, I got Joanna out of it at least, and she’s the light of my life, but …
So at last my divorce was final - Christine and I were meeting at Riverside to catch the shuttle to Starfleet Academy - but she couldn’t make it to my hotel there, or even the morning flight, because her damn ship was delayed en route. ‘Course I did the sensible thing and got drunk before I reported for transport. She’d’ve reassured me I was right to join Starfleet. I wouldn’t have been such an idiot if she’d been with me.
And I wouldn’t still be so lonesome if we’d managed to connect.
Except for a few weeks when she’d been on assignment at Academy Medical working with him, Chapel was on away missions more often than she was around. She and McCoy’d had a couple of really fine weekends, but … they hadn’t managed to re-form their previous relationship. Well, that was what happened with dual-career couples, wasn’t it.
Chapel’s mission to Niobe Six had morphed her love of medical science into a desire for a more “hands-on” profession. Nursing. A PhD, she’d gotten advanced nursing certifications in various specialty areas, and she’d been bossing doctors around ever since. She’d gotten promoted to Lieutenant Commander and Captain Pike asked her to be Chief Nurse on the Enterprise.
So here we are like two pissed-off peas in a pod.
“Doctor McCoy,” she said in her precise tone, and he blinked, and looked at her, and got irritated with himself. For fantasizing about a time past, a personal relationship that was on the edge of awkward now, and the present lack of a certain intimacy between him and Christine.
“I’m just tired, you don’t have to yell at me.”
She drew close to him, fixed him with her blue, blue eyes and said, very quietly, “I was not yelling. It’s my job to look after patients, Doctor. As it is yours, and that job is about giving care - in both senses of the word. It’s my Sickbay as much as it is yours and if you upset the patients, it takes them longer to get better. Since you know that, I don’t feel it’s ordinarily necessary to explain it to you.”
McCoy leaned against the wall. He knew his own body language pretty well, Chapel thought; he knew she liked his height and lankiness and ease in his body. She appreciated it now, but did not let it distract her.
“They ignore what I say and then I have to put up with their whining,” he told her. “It’s worse than annoying. It’s disrespectful in the first place, and wearisome in the second.”
“Hmm … let’s see. Crewmen and officers often disregard the recommendations of medical staff, don’t they? Mr. Scott, for example. Sometimes he drinks a bit too much. And I know another officer who drinks a little too much and no matter what, when I bring it up to him, he gets snippy and denies it.” She forestalled McCoy’s imminent protest with her next words, “and I’ve been recommending this same officer take a few days’ leave, or do some recreational activities on board. So far he hasn’t listened. At all.”
“Dammit, Christine, I can’t take time off now!” He waved his hand, indicating Sickbay and all the sufferers within.
“This infection is perfectly routine, Doctor, and the herbal decoction will help it … pass … in time. Plenty of our staff are able to deal with it. So I suggest you clear out for a few hours - a shift, even - exercise, work off your frustration and the alcohol you will inevitably drink, then take a bubble bath or get a massage. You’ve been here over fourteen hours. You need to make yourself scarce,” she said in her most businesslike tone. “I mean it.”
“Jesus! You’ve got your nerve, don’t you!” he exploded.
She shifted her hips and stared levelly at him. “Yes. Because I know I’m right, and so do you.”
She walked over to him, and pointed to the passageway door. He caught a whiff of her soft perfume, she saw; his nostrils flared slightly and he very nearly closed his eyes. “You need a break. Take one.”
She didn’t have to say it twice. McCoy was irascible to most people, but it didn’t work on Chapel, and he didn’t like being grumpy to her, because he was still in love with her.
His shoulders relaxed.
“Okay, okay.” He shoved away from the wall. “And in a couple of hours, you’ll be here far too long yourself, so I hereby order you to report to the Gym and/or Jacuzzi. Got it?”
She smiled. And when she smiled, he smiled; she positively melted him with it and she knew it. And he didn’t mind that she knew it. Because he needed her to tell him the truth and be his friend.
“Got it,” she said.
JAMES T. KIRK, captain of the USS Enterprise, put his head back and let out a long whoosh of air through his lips. The chair at his Ready Room desk was quite comfortable, and he ruffled his hair with both hands to keep from getting drowsy. Always a problem for him in boring Academy lectures, drowsiness threatened during certain captainly duties, too.
I cannot say enough how much I hate paperwork. Especially when it concerns disciplining crewmembers.
Screw it, I’m the captain. I can assign a “punishment” that fits the crime. So … Ensign Han pranked his roommate Jenks before area inspection by putting chocolate pudding in Jenks’s bed. I think Han can miss his next 24 hours of shore leave to make every ensign’s bed ready for inspection. A few inspections. And should the beds fail to pass a LT Hendorff -style inspection? Han gets to do it all over again next shore leave.
Whoa, I’m being positively … harsh. I was quite the merry prankster at the Academy myself. Okay, the first eight hours of leave then. No, six. Kirk initialed the order and laid his CO Padd on the desk.
I could always assign Han to do some of this crap for my signature … but he’s a redshirt. I’m not really bad at paperwork … especially anything to do with engine specs or operations. But the rest … it goes okay when I focus, but administrative and personnel paperwork is so … dull, dull, dull.
Sure, Spock could do it, but he might think I asked him to do it because I’m too young to be in charge … I’m a “cheater” … Because I don’t want to face up to all my responsibilities.
Another sigh. Kirk got up and stretched, unkinking his neck and shoulder muscles, then went to stand by the viewport in the small Ready Room.
What an incredible privilege it is, to have charge of such a beautiful, capable ship - and her dedicated crew.
Not always so sure I’m up to it … no matter how much I wanted it, it was really unfair of Starfleet to promote me over Spock after the … annihilation of Vulcan. It was embarrassing getting command of the Enterprise plus a medal. Just the medal and assignment as Spock’s First Officer would have been fine, thanks.
And there was my mortifying introduction to Spock - his bringing me up on charges of cheating - okay, I did cheat, but the Kobayashi Maru is a ridiculous “test” - the “no-win scenario” is bullshit, people win once in a whil e, especially if they come up with a nov el solution …
Mine was about as novel as it gets. Beat the computer program! Way to go, Jim. What a great example of my skills ...! Talk about embarrassing.
Well, deception is a necessary skill for a starship commander. I love this ship, and her crew, but I hate having made such a bad impression on everybody as a cadet - Spock included.
Most of all, I hate the way I used Gaila. Unsportsmanlike, and ungentlemanly.
Kirk knew Uhura had warned Gaila about him back then; Gaila told him so, with the amusement of a woman who knows better. After all, Uhura didn’t know about the special connection they shared. But she’d been justifiably dubious of Kirk. As a communicator, Uhura perceived a lot about people, and she’d been right about him. Regrettably.
… Gaila …
Gaila had not spoken to Kirk in the months since; on the Enterprise’s return to Earth after Nero, she’d been assigned to the flagship, as were many of the hundred or so survivors of Nero’s attack on the Starfleet ships at Vulcan.
Kirk was incredibly glad Gaila was alive, but so ashamed of asking her to open that virus e-mail on the day of his “solution” to the Kobayashi Maru scenario that he could hardly face her, except in very brief commanding officer-type interactions. He’d never even tried to apologize, he was so mortified at himself.
What the hell can I do, if I give her extra leave days or something it’s going to look bad for both of us professionally … it’d be insulting to her anyway, it’d look like a pay-off or an inadequate, grandiose apology.
Dumbass. You could always apologize. It’s high time you did. Just walk up to her and say, “For the next few minutes I am not your CO. I am the guy you dated at the Academy. And I want to apologize …” If she slaps you, plainly say, “I’m sorry,” and leave.
Who knows how she’ll react, but I, at least, need to be an officer and a gentleman. Huh. I can just hear Bones: “Finally the scapegrace boy is growin’ up.”
He watched the stars, and remembered long conversations with Gaila, as they lay on their backs by the Golden Gate. How she loved the stars. They shared that love - from the time Jim had been a kid, he had looked to them for escape from his miserable Earth-bound existence.
To Gaila they symbolized freedom because she hadn’t seen them from the time she’d been old enough to have sex until she escaped the slavers. After her escape she had been a consultant to Starfleet, helping them learn about Orion slaver syndicates, customs and civilization. In gratitude, Starfleet assigned her tutors. She had soon come to Starfleet Academy and discovered her engineering genius ….
What an amazing, stubborn, admirable woman. I should never have screwed her over like that. At least Spock didn’t include her when he denounced me. He knew it was all my doing.
And so did Captain Pike. I disappointed him for the first time that day.
I owe it to him, too. To be the best man I can be.
SPOCK HAD A CONTINGENCY PLAN. He was Vulcan. He always had a contingency plan. Nyota’s … desire seemed to center around the Jacuzzi in the Fitness Suite, so he decided that was the place to start after dinner. It seemed to amuse her on their previous visit, in the sight of McCoy, to trail her fingers up Spock’s thigh. To which he had, quite naturally, responded, being unprepared. It had surprised McCoy when Spock left the Jacuzzi with no bathing suit in evidence. McCoy was unacquainted with certain details of Spock’s outward appearance. (The CMO had, of course, examined him to establish a baseline - using modern technology, which did not reveal unnecessary information, only anomalies.) Being in superior condition, Spock had no inhibitions in that regard.
The Vulcan also had a talent for stealth which few humans shared, and he intended to use it this evening, in service of Nyota’s fantasy.
GAILA SLAPPED JIM KIRK in the face. Hard. Her beautiful face was tight with anger, and she hissed as she smacked him. Hissed! That was something he didn’t know, that Orion women hissed. It sounded threatening. Damn!
He had worn civilian clothes so his uniform and rank wouldn’t be a factor as he apologized, but he had - he thought - put the odds slightly in his favor by wearing the “polar blue” sweater she’d given him at the Academy “because it matches your eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” Kirk said again. He started to leave, but Gaila grabbed his wrist.
“You wait,” she commanded. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her. “Uhura said I should slap your face, that you’d remember it because it was physical. That you deserved it for what you did. And I agree, you did. The Academy Board didn’t punish me, thanks be. Only you, because they knew it was your fault. But you, you … you played me for a - a sucker. A sap,” she finished. “I heard that in an old holo, and it fits.”
Blushing, Jim lowered his eyes contritely. Gaila was genuinely a nice person, and he had always liked her. “It was my fault, and I’m really very sorry I did that to you.”
She reached up a hand and cupped his chin briefly. “You can apologize to me all night,” she said in a strange tone.
Jim waited. Sarcasm was next. You can apologize to me all night and it won’t make any difference, was what he expected. There was a long pause.
“… What,” Gaila said.
He blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Did I say it wrong?”
“I … I don’t know. Did you?”
“Okay,” she said, a finger to one of her curls, winding it around her fingertip, “I saw this couple last week on shore leave, and he had done something wrong, and his girlfriend was angry with him, and he said he was sorry and he kissed her to make up, and she said, ‘You can apologize to me all night.’” She paused. She had no idea how charming her naïveté was. “I guess I did get it wrong … or you did.”
“Umm … I did … yeah.” Kirk sensed a light ahead in his path.
Gaila put her face up to be kissed.
Jim looked around. They were alone in the passageway. He kissed her.
“Don’t you ever play me for a sap again,” she said quietly, and kissed him back.
NYOTA UHURA took off her uniform. It had been a long day. The current crop of Academy graduates assigned to the Enterprise - admittedly, only three Communications specialists were among them - seemed, well, not as dedicated as she was. Bending over to remove her boots, she heard a beloved voice behind her. “But you are exceptional, Nyota.” Heat was at her behind. Spock had silently come up right behind her. Though clothed, he was slightly aroused.
“Mmm,” she said, relaxing and straightening up to lean back on him, moving the crown of her head under his chin so he could smell her hair.
His warm hands slipped around her ribs from behind and his hands slipped up under her bra, cupping her breasts, then kneaded her nipples with gentle fingertips. Her pelvic muscles tightened with desire and she heard a raspy whisper in her ear. “You mentioned you might like a surprise, ashayam. Will this evening be suitable?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“We will need to be suitably prepared and dressed for the occasion.”
“I’m ready.”
“No … not yet,” he told her. He took off her bra and turned her around. He was not clothed above the waist, and her breasts rubbed on his chest hair. Their eyes met and held; his looked big and black. He leaned down to kiss her throat, and nuzzled her collarbones, and further down. She smelled the usual delightful spicy scent from his hair and bussed the top of his head, stroking his cheek as he tongued the tips of her breasts. Her knees were about to buckle, so she raised up his head to kiss his mouth. Standing, he responded quite passionately, the tip of his tongue exciting her own, his hands falling to her rear, pushing her panties down, and she felt one of his hands at her front, two fingers moving to part her pubic hair.
“Mmm,” she said again. His support enabled her to move her trembling legs apart so he could have better access. Her panties were around her thighs, but so what, they stretched. She smiled into his mouth, pushing her pubis against his hand; his fingers, inside her, moved out, and he took the hint, massaging her clit; fingers, thumb, gentle, firm, quick, then …
He broke the kiss. She unfastened his trousers and slipped them down. “A bit fast,” she murmured, “but I like it.” She took his not-quite-erect lok in her hand and aimed it gently down to a mutually pleasing position. She tipped her pelvis up, down, up, down, the soft skin and firmness of him massaging her …
His hands were under her rear, lifting her onto him; she rode his hips, ankles locking behind her, and he took her over to the bed, disengaging and laying her on her back. She frowned in puzzlement, but went with it. A surprise … he brought a small bottle from the floor at the foot of the bed, put some in his mouth, and descended, parting her legs with his hands, to lick her sex, a delicious warmth descending from his mouth … it tingled and it felt wonderful.
He pulled her toward the foot of the bed, angled her up, and slipped his lok into her center and out, in and out, making a little rumble of satisfaction. Her hands covered his on her bent knees, and sighing, she ran her fingers up to the hair on his arms and back to his hands as he moved in her.
Then he pulled out. And stepped away.
“Hey!” she protested.
He tilted his head, his eyes in contented slits, and opened the closet. “We will dress now, and begin our evening.”
“Spock, that is not fair! You’re being a tease!” she said with frustration. She moved her hand to her mound … to forestall her imminent action, he took it up, kissing her fingers. Despite stopping her in the moment, he looked as if he might enjoy watching her pleasure herself at some time in the future, she noted.
“Nyota. Be patient.”
Ohhh…, she thought. He brought some clothes to her, but instead of underwear, there was what looked like a white swimsuit, with gold buttons down each side and a modest front. The back was deeply scooped. The long-sleeved dress was dark teal and except for a satin collar and cuffs, sheer on top, with a long, side-split skirt.
It fell nearly to her ankles, nipped and crossed at the waist, and fastened with one gold button.
She put on the suit and Spock buttoned the sides for her. She noticed his fingers were not quite steady. The dress, made of a silky material, slipped on easily. She looked at her reflection in the viewport. “It’s lovely, mpenzi.”
Spock, in a navy blue, high-necked silk tunic and matching slim-cut trousers and the low, sueded boots he usually wore off duty, stood behind her, putting his arms around her and kissing the nape of her neck. “As are you, my Nyota.”
JIM ORDERED a picnic for two on the Forward Observation Deck, the compartment of it that was right at the bow. He liked it here, the sensation of movement toward something; in warped space the stars appeared to gather in a mass ahead of the ship. He sensed Gaila would enjoy it. He was pretty sure he remembered the foods she liked, too.
She came into the compartment dressed in … a cloak, for some reason he couldn’t quite figure out.
“Jim,” she said, coming closer, “I really missed our friendship, and being with you. I knew I had to let you squirm for a while, but you didn’t say anything to me for so long, I didn’t know how you felt. I wasn’t sure you were even sorry about what you did, or if you were happy I got assigned here after surviving Nero, because all you said to me was ‘Welcome aboard, Lieutenant.’ You did kind of smile at me like you were relieved I was alive. But you looked away so quickly.”
He moved to stand by her - her voice sounded a bit tearful.
“I was so ashamed about using you like that,” he said. “I couldn’t even imagine how to tell you I was sorry.” He raised his hand to her face and gently wiped away a tear. “I couldn’t face you.”
“So why did you apologize today?”
“I missed you too, Gaila, and I still felt really bad. Then I thought about how you might feel. So I finally manned up.”
There was a long silence as she slipped her arms around him.
“I’m glad you did.” She reached up a hand to pet his unruly hair, which she had always loved. “I want to give you a gift,” she said. “… Music!”
For a moment he was puzzled, but she gave him a playful little shove, and he sat down on the floor obediently.
Traditional Orion music skirled through the air. Gaila shucked her cloak. Her beautiful silvery dance costume consisted of a shimmering low-cut bra and diaphanous skirt whose top slanted right to left from just below her waist to her left hip, baring her left leg from hip to toe. Jim appreciated her beauty, her red hair shining in the low lights above, her pretty blue eyes accenting her green skin; her rounded breasts, her slender, fit limbs, curved waist and softly muscled belly.
Then she began to dance.
Kirk was stunned by her beauty and her talent. She brought the music to life with sinuous and lovely movements. This was an honor, and a real treat. He nodded respectfully and watched his friend with delight. His girlfriend, maybe even.
THE STARBOARD DINING ROOM was dark, lit only by small lanterns on each linen-covered table. Uhura looked around; oddly, no one else was present. Spock escorted her to a table right by the viewport where appetizers were already set out, some on ice.
Instead of sitting across from her, Spock sat at ninety degrees to her. “May I?” he said, picking up a small broccoli floret, dipping it in pesto, and holding it in front of her mouth. Smiling at him, she took it in and chewed happily, but decorously. The broccoli was perfect, chilled and crisp. He dipped a piece of crusty, flavorful bread in pesto with pepper and parmesan added, offered it to her, and she ate it while he poured a robust red wine. He gave her the glass and raised one of his own, and toasted her: “To my Nyota, the loveliest woman I have ever encountered.”
She blushed. This was new, the feeding and the toasting, and she had to admit, though it was uncharacteristic of him, it was very romantic, and she was really enjoying it. “I love you, habibu,” she whispered, touching her glass to his. There was a pleasant ting of crystal. They drank the small carafe of wine and nibbled appetizers, and reminisced about their first meeting in Spock’s linguistics class. And about their first “collision” - Spock’s expression was warm as he recalled his reaction to her intellect and confidence, so unusual in a fourth/class cadet. Such reminiscing was also a bit uncharacteristic, but what he told her increased her feelings of warmth and regard.
“The first time I ever thought of you in any but a professional way was the day I saw you on the deck, getting into the whirlpool.”
Her eyes widened and she laughed a little. “Ahh, sexual attraction.”
He shook his head solemnly. “Not merely. A desire to know more about you than your excellent performance as a student of language and interspecies communication. A desire to hold you … and protect you, even though I knew you to be fiercely independent.” He continued, “you wore a white Academy-issue swimsuit and looked more beautiful than I had ever seen you.”
“My hair was getting frizzy and that suit … really!”
He raised his eyebrows with a quelling “teacher” look and went on, “and as you mounted the stairs to the whirlpool, I imagined touching your bare legs. When you began talking - and laughing - with Dr. McCoy I thought you would be unapproachable, and left. I had never … felt … disappointed in that way.”
She took a moment to absorb the thought of Spock - in an Academy public space - fantasizing about her, and that he had felt disappointment.
“Do you know, when you turned away, I felt sad too? I thought we could never be together because you were so strict about regulations. You used to gig cadets who were thirty seconds late to class! And assign extra watches, if they were late submitting papers. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when you invited me to be your Teaching Assistant.”
“You have never given me reason to find fault,” he said, “In any way, at any time.”
“After a while as your TA …” she smiled gently, “I began to think my fantasies might just come true.”
His eyes, as he studied her, almost twinkled; his left eye narrowed slightly - a prelude to the smile at the corner of his mouth.
Dinner was delicious, pasta in virgin olive oil with rosemary, toasted pine nuts and gorgonzola cheese, with a sprightly white wine. Vulcan or no, Spock had excellent taste; Uhura always thought this was a result of his being a diplomat’s son. And of observation and study ….
Inwardly she grinned, then shrugged. I am the beneficiary, after all.
MCCOY SANK INTO the hot tub with a groan of happiness. He had punched the hell out of the speed bag, worked up a good sweat, done some yoga stretches, taken a sonic shower, and slouched over here with a bottle of wine and two glasses, just in case Christine followed his advice and showed up. “Oh, Lord …, thank you Mr. Jacuzzi,” he said aloud.
No one was in this part of the Fitness Suite. One third of the crew was in Sickbay or on bed rest in their quarters, one third was on duty, and one third was, presumably, sleeping.
He poured himself a glass of wine, one Christine had always liked, from the Sonoma Valley in Northern California. Deep red. Wasn’t bourbon or whisky but it tasted ju-u-st fine.
He leaned his head back on the ledge around the top of the tub, and the bubbles and the heat informed his body that it was good to be alive, alive and without Gnallifian intestinal worms.
He raised his glass, raised his head, and toasted Christine in absentia. “Thank you for giving me an ass-kickin’ to get me down here.”
McCoy took another generous sip, put the glass aside, and sank into the hot water up to his neck. This ancient method of relaxation had not faded with time, thank God.
The lights dimmed. He blinked, and looked up. They continued dimming until the overhead was a deep sapphire blue. Then the “stars” came out, and they looked just like the stars at home. Was that the sound of surf? And night birds, cuck-cucking? And a scent of salty air? For a second he nearly panicked, fearing hallucinations, then he remembered the environmental design in every relaxation space on the ship -whew - the swimming pool, the hot tub, several of the Observation Deck spaces, the small “amphitheatre” and the formal Dining Room - had the capacity to deepen the color of the overhead to the evening hue of your home planet, and was programmed to reproduce the stars over your favorite place. It would simulate sunlight too. Sounds and scents, according to the time of day requested, were in the program too. All you had to do was enter your name.
“Hey, Christine,” he called out, Southern-fashion.
“Hey yourself,” she answered, strolling to the hot tub. She wore just the right kind of bathing suit: with her figure, a lot of display below was not necessary. She looked fantastic in an emerald suit with a low neckline. It didn’t match the sky, or her eyes. But it looked real nice with her pale skin and red hair.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” McCoy said, straightening up so he could reach the wine.
“And I was going to say, you look a little less ‘sore’ than when you left Sickbay.”
“Damn straight.” He grinned at her, taking up the bottle of wine and the empty glass, raising them in inquiry.
She grinned, sinking slowly into the water with a sigh. “Damn straight, Len,” she agreed. He poured. They toasted each other, and sipped wine, and chatted about whatever crossed their minds, relaxing together for the first time since reporting aboard the Enterprise.
Christine remembered his first words to her when she reported to Sickbay. “What are you doing here?”
She was beginning to think the same words, but in a very different way, and she had a very different answer, too.
“OW, OW, OW!” Gaila said, trying to stand up. “Nharts!” (An Orion curse? Jim supposed it might be. She never cursed in Standard, though.) Gaila was bent over, her face scrunched up with pain. Kirk stood to pick her up. She felt perfect in his arms, except she was holding her left leg rigid. He brought her over to the bench under the viewport, laying her across his lap.
“Where does it hurt?”
“My leg, my lower left leg and foot. Owwww!”
He was supporting her back with his left arm, gently exploring her left calf with his other hand. “Wow, you’ve got a hellacious knot in your muscle. And your foot feels stiff in the arch. How’d you do that?”
“Dancing, you fool,” she snapped, and immediately said, “Sorry. I did a few moves I didn’t warm up for. Darn it!”
“Do you want me to try and massage it?”
She bit her lip and nodded. He rubbed and flexed her foot first. It began to relax, but couldn’t rotate fully because of the cramp in her calf. He stroked her calf muscles in large circles, then smaller circles, then gently massaged her leg and the muscle began to unkink, but after fifteen minutes or so, it remained stiff, and Gaila was still wincing.
“How about we go to Sickbay,” he suggested.
Her eyes got big. “No! They’re all miserable down there. I visited Charlene Masters today, and she whined the whole time. Charlene has never whined! That disease is awful - and gross. I got all the details, yecch. She went on about it for a quarter of an hour. So did Scotty - nobody can complain like he can. They are so annoyed being stuck there. They just want to get back to work. Everybody down there does, and they have to drink this horrible smelly green concoction.”
“Well, it’s the only way to get rid of the worms,” Kirk pointed out.
“Oh my goodness, Jim, it was just a chorus of misery, her and Scotty, Sulu and Chekov and Hannity and Gupta. I couldn’t stand any more. And the smell! Ugh.”
“The whole Sickbay doesn’t smell like that, you know.”
“I know, but I don’t want them to see me and start complaining to me again. You know I can’t not listen. I’m too sympathetic. Normally. What stupids they were, ignoring Dr. McCoy’s warning about the street vendors! So no, I don’t want to go there, I really don’t. Can’t somebody come here and help me?”
“No, I don’t think so … Bones doesn’t believe in house calls, except in real emergencies.”
She made a face, acknowledging this truth.
Jim’s expression brightened and Gaila gazed hopefully into his eyes.
“We’ll go to the gym, the hot tub might help.”
She half closed her eyes and smiled. “It might! Let’s go.”
* Part of a larger story. Details will be provided at event's end.
Present Giver: spocklikescats
Story Name: "Slow Tease" *
Warnings: Sex! S/U all the way!
Rating: M
Pairings: Spock/Uhura, McCoy/Chapel, Kirk/Gaila
Thank you: Lantean Breeze, who organized the New Year’s Gift Exchange!
Disclaimer: I love Star Trek but I don’t make any money from it, or from these stories I insist on writing. As far as I know, nothing in this story is based on anyone’s work except my own, or of course, the creators of Star Trek, long may they continue!
Headcanon: (1) Christine Chapel is played by Christina Hendricks (“Joan Harris” of “Mad Men”). (2) Leonard McCoy is from Georgia (as is traditional, in homage to DeForest Kelly); in spite of a “new” bio from ST2009 saying he’s from Mississippi. While he may have attended “Ole Miss,” University of MS for pre-med, he is from Georgia! (3) McCoy married Joycelyn and their daughter, Joanna, lives with her. He met Chapel before he met Joy and started seeing her again once he separated from Joycelyn. 4) Gaila lives!
~/\~
COMMANDER SPOCK had arranged everything to his satisfaction. He and Lieutenant Uhura would dine at the small restaurant on the Starboard Observation Deck at 1930 hours. After a long period for conversation, they would then report to the Fitness suite to use the hot tub, an activity in which he took pleasure mostly for the bath’s heat.
Prolonged immersion in water held little appeal, but Nyota enjoyed it greatly, for reasons Spock did not find objectionable, so he took part. A relaxed partner was a contented partner, and that his ashayam be contented was a goal Spock found logical - and desirable - to fulfill.
A few weeks ago, they had trysted in the Jacuzzi, but were interrupted by others, forcing them to forgo an attempt at a potentially embarrassing (on Nyota’s part) activity. Spock did not embarrass easily, if at all. He simply completed his duties and performed scientific experiments with the highest proficiency and lived his life as he saw fit, and if others questioned Spock’s private decisions, he owed explanations only to Captain Kirk. Not to Dr. McCoy, no matter what the physician seemed to think.
LEONARD MCCOY sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He was finding it hard to get through today with so many patients suffering the indignities of Gnallifian intestinal worms. All of them begged him not to tell anyone else; all of them itched in places people shouldn’t scratch; inevitably they did scratch and new eggs would hatch and the itching and embarrassment and lamentations of the patients would annoy other patients and themselves, and McCoy was getting tired of it.
“I itch, Doc, and I can’t sleep. I think I’m bleeding down there.”
Ensign Mattox’s tenor whine bored through Sickbay. Mattox was from central Florida. Everybody assumed that he and McCoy would be friendly since both men were from the Southeast United States, but they were wrong. McCoy couldn’t stand Mattox, always running in to Sickbay every time he stubbed his damn toe or got a blister. Plus McCoy thought Mattox had a thing for Nurse Chapel.
“Quit whining, Mattox,” McCoy snapped. “I’ve treated little kids who were better patients than you.”
“Can’t you give me something so I could sleep?”
McCoy quickly filled a hypo and brought it over to the man’s bedside. “Nothing would please me more,” he said with a leer, “But the fact is, a shot of this stuff will make your throat hurt like hell when you wake up. Still want it?”
“If it’ll help me sleep, oh yeah.”
With any luck, his throat’ll be so sore when he comes to, that he won’t want to talk.
NURSE CHRISTINE CHAPEL was tired and feeling rather temperamental. The two often went together, but she always managed to hide her temper when patients were present. Yes; like McCoy, she took it out on … well, him, as he sometimes did her.
These moods never engendered serious disagreements between them, certainly not in front of other staff or patients, although occasionally McCoy’s raised voice could be heard from his office, followed by acute remarks from Chapel, who was quite good at sharpening a verbal arrow right before she aimed it at his ego, his grumpiness, or other deficiency. She was more of an observer and analyzer but occasionally he just “got on her last nerve,” as her Nana used to say.
The recent outbreak of Gnallifian intestinal worms was not only disgusting, but the patients complained a lot; their discomfort and mostly their inability to be on the job irritated them. (Starfleet had very few idlers in its ranks; such people were passed over for promotion and soon discharged.)
“Doctor, I dinna’ think I can take any more o’ this,” Engineer Scott said loudly. “D’ye not think a few shots o’ whisky might cure my ills? Surely it’d kill the wee basta- er, beasties.”
“Except for my office, alcohol is strictly off-limits in my Sickbay,” McCoy sounded reasonable enough, but Chapel could detect a little edge in his tone.
Scotty was miserable and irritable. “Then let me step inta’ yer office for a few minutes, ye glaikit lout!”
“Well you’d have to get some whisky first, wouldn’t you,” McCoy said nastily.
“Ye canna spare me some o’ that bourbon ye’re so fond of?”
“Well since you pronounced the taste -“ McCoy rendered a perfect Scots accent on the following words, “- absolute shite - I wouldn’t waste it on you, and besides, it won’t have any effect other than making the present generation of worms produce more eggs, in their twisted means of survival.” The doctor’s eyes bugged out in a scary glare and Scotty sighed.
“Ehh, the cure’s almost worse than the disease.”
“Well you shouldn’t have eaten food from a street vendor’s cart then, should you?” McCoy snapped. “I warned you people before you departed on shore leave, but would you listen to your Chief Medical Officer? No-o-o-o! You listened to the damned holo-guides!”
Scotty pointed to the decoction of Gnallifian herbs. He had to drink a deciliter every two hours. “I wish ta hell I hadn’t. I think ye made this stuff nasty and evil tasting on purpose.”
“Well if I did it’ll help teach you the lesson I failed to teach all y’all before, won’t it!”
Christine intervened. “Doctor, a moment please?”
“Yeah, what.”
She angled her head toward his office and preceded him in. Slowly. He loved walking behind her; he had told her so years ago at the university hospital in Berkeley and she never forgot it, even in professional circumstances - especially those in which McCoy needed distraction to get out of a mood. Chapel knew well that she had a lovely figure and a walk to match.
Once inside, she rounded on him, pursing her lips (in an attractive sort of way), crossing her arms under her very attractive bosom, and tilting her hips as she leaned on his desk. Disconcerting her opponents was only one of her skills and she deployed it extremely well. “What was that about, Doctor? You know it’s not part of your job to be nasty to your patients.”
“Yes. I do know,” he snapped. “I just hate having to listen to them.”
Chapel put her hands on her hips, raised an eyebrow, and said, “Well, snap out of it. The orderlies hate dealing with this stuff and I have to help them deal with it as much as I do the patients. What’s your problem?”
A pause.
“… Len, I’m asking you a question …”
McCoy had drifted back in time … to the University of California at Berkeley, his first year as a resident ….
~/\~
HE FIRST NOTICES HER striding - in a very womanly way - up the walkway to the hospital at UC Berkeley Medical Center. He’s never seen an “hourglass figure” before, but he’s seeing one now, and wow, what a figure it is. Rounded, womanly, big-hipped, small-waisted, gorgeously endowed … when she goes by and smiles at him, he thinks she has the face of an angel. An angel who knows exactly what he’s thinking, and is serene in spite of it.
Her porcelain complexion is radiant with good health and her lips are lovely; he can imagine kissing them softly, then deeply; her red hair is looped up in a practical yet lovely way, and he thinks of taking it out of its pins and letting it flow over his tired, tired hands. And her eyes - oh Lord - blue as a high winter sky on a clear day. Her mouth curves up in a secret, womanly smile as she passes him, and he almost turns to follow her and get her name, but he’s been awake for 21 hours sponging out and sealing wounds. In the late morning yesterday a massive shuttle accident brought dozens of patients with deep lacerations, punctures and internal injuries into the ER, where McCoy is doing a year as a Resident. He goes to his crappy little apartment, doffs his clothes, takes a shower, and sits on the bed, and before he knows it he’s flat out, comatose in sleep.
She’s a post-grad in Exobiology, he learns from the other students, and has the unlikely name of Chapel. “Unlikely” because the talk he hears from the guys and gay women is not exactly holy in nature. “The Red Fox” and “Double Delight” are only two of the many sobriquets laded on, and she sails by them all like a ship of state on a merciful mission to the masses, with that lovely, inscrutable smile.
They get to know each other in the hospital cafeteria and later begin haunting Berkeley cafés, discussing medical science, and McCoy notices that she is, for all her physical assets, demure. She is not “free and easy,” and he regrets that a little, but has come to care for her as a good friend. Sex, while a very attractive prospect, does not dominate his thoughts when they are together. What dominates his thoughts are, well, thoughts, to answer her challenges with, about what to ask her, about telling her why Dr. Rogers is so damned funny, about asking her if she might want to go to Savannah and visit his family, because Dad’s not doing so well - and Christine’s mere presence would cheer the old man up.
One night, after he’s had a terrible, blood-soaked, adrenaline-pumping night in the Emergency Room, under the supervision of the stupidest Attending in the hospital, he sees Christine sitting in the café next door to the bar he’s headed for.
“Len! You look like hell,” she says.
“Oh, God, you have no idea. I feel even worse. We lost three kids tonight.” He is so tired he is shaking, from adrenaline withdrawal, and low blood sugar; he hasn’t eaten in ten hours.
“Okay, you’re coming with me,” she says, and before they leave she has ordered a hot cocoa to go, and makes him drink it. It gives him just enough energy to get to her apartment, where she helps him to the sofa, kisses him on the forehead, and heads off to cook as he dozes.
He hears her moving around in her tiny kitchen. He drops off deeply for a few minutes but it’s just enough.
The sofa cushion moves slightly as she sits, waking him. She hands him a plate loaded with scrambled eggs, soft, the way he likes them, cheese grits, vegetarian bacon - soy protein miraculously textured and flavored, soul satisfying - and raisin toast. “Here’s some orange juice. No coffee for you,” she says. “Eat.”
And he does, rapidly - he’s starving - he slows down at last, enough to take a long look at her. She is sipping roobios tea, bare feet up on the coffee table. Even her feet are lovely.
“Hey,” he says, in a low voice, a tentative advance.
She puts down her tea and turns to him, her slight smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Hey, yourself.”
He holds up the plate. “Thanks for this ...”
Their eyes meet for a long moment and her pupils enlarge. He almost stammers, but gets the words out, still in his low voice, thank God. “This may not be … Christine, I just wanna tell you, I think you are the brightest, kindest, most beautiful woman, inside and out, I’ve ever met. And that includes my momma.”
After a moment, he amends, “That’s only because she’s not as beautiful on the outside, of course.”
He watches her for a suspended minute, and her hand floats up to stroke his cheek. She kisses him softly on his mouth. “Come to bed,” she says.
It is the sweetest night of his life so far.
So they’re good friends and very happy lovers for about a month and McCoy is about to tell her how much his parents enjoyed meeting Christine on their quick visit to Savannah last week, and how it cheered Daddy up … but …
“Len, I have something to tell you,” she says one morning over an early breakfast at the diner near campus. His stomach drops. Is she gonna say she’s not interested in him anymore as anything but a friend? That they have to get married or she’s gonna move on?
“You’ve heard about the plague on Niobe Six.”
“’Course,” he says.
“I’m going out there.”
“What the hell …? You’re an exobiologist, not a doctor!”
She tilts her head and looks at him. “An exobiologist will be quite useful, actually. You would be too.” She smiles a little. “Even though you’re still a Resident. Come with me.”
He is about to say ‘yes’ … then a thought intrudes, the worried sound of Momma’s voice last week when she spoke of Daddy, how she didn’t think there was much time left … “How long would it be?”
“Probably four months at least. A year maybe.”
“I would like to,” he says, taking her hands in his. “I really would, but Daddy’s taken a turn for the worse - I’m going home this weekend to be with him - Momma and my sisters’re worried. I can’t go off-planet now - it’s out of the question.”
Christine’s eyes are solemn.
“The mission crew can’t replace me now. I wish I’d known … I could’ve stayed to see you through.” He tightens his hands around hers and they gaze at each other for a long time, treasuring what they’ve had.
“Damn,” they say at the same time. That night is a long, bittersweet goodbye. There are tears, on both parts. Neither knows if they’ll ever be able to be together again.
~/\~
CHAPEL STIRRED, catching his attention. Waving her hand in fact, by her face. “… a question …” she was saying.
And the question is, why did I marry Joycelyn instead of waiting for this lady? ‘Cause I got into what I thought was a casual relationship, and Joy purposely got pregnant, Daddy insisted I be responsible … well, I got Joanna out of it at least, and she’s the light of my life, but …
So at last my divorce was final - Christine and I were meeting at Riverside to catch the shuttle to Starfleet Academy - but she couldn’t make it to my hotel there, or even the morning flight, because her damn ship was delayed en route. ‘Course I did the sensible thing and got drunk before I reported for transport. She’d’ve reassured me I was right to join Starfleet. I wouldn’t have been such an idiot if she’d been with me.
And I wouldn’t still be so lonesome if we’d managed to connect.
Except for a few weeks when she’d been on assignment at Academy Medical working with him, Chapel was on away missions more often than she was around. She and McCoy’d had a couple of really fine weekends, but … they hadn’t managed to re-form their previous relationship. Well, that was what happened with dual-career couples, wasn’t it.
Chapel’s mission to Niobe Six had morphed her love of medical science into a desire for a more “hands-on” profession. Nursing. A PhD, she’d gotten advanced nursing certifications in various specialty areas, and she’d been bossing doctors around ever since. She’d gotten promoted to Lieutenant Commander and Captain Pike asked her to be Chief Nurse on the Enterprise.
So here we are like two pissed-off peas in a pod.
“Doctor McCoy,” she said in her precise tone, and he blinked, and looked at her, and got irritated with himself. For fantasizing about a time past, a personal relationship that was on the edge of awkward now, and the present lack of a certain intimacy between him and Christine.
“I’m just tired, you don’t have to yell at me.”
She drew close to him, fixed him with her blue, blue eyes and said, very quietly, “I was not yelling. It’s my job to look after patients, Doctor. As it is yours, and that job is about giving care - in both senses of the word. It’s my Sickbay as much as it is yours and if you upset the patients, it takes them longer to get better. Since you know that, I don’t feel it’s ordinarily necessary to explain it to you.”
McCoy leaned against the wall. He knew his own body language pretty well, Chapel thought; he knew she liked his height and lankiness and ease in his body. She appreciated it now, but did not let it distract her.
“They ignore what I say and then I have to put up with their whining,” he told her. “It’s worse than annoying. It’s disrespectful in the first place, and wearisome in the second.”
“Hmm … let’s see. Crewmen and officers often disregard the recommendations of medical staff, don’t they? Mr. Scott, for example. Sometimes he drinks a bit too much. And I know another officer who drinks a little too much and no matter what, when I bring it up to him, he gets snippy and denies it.” She forestalled McCoy’s imminent protest with her next words, “and I’ve been recommending this same officer take a few days’ leave, or do some recreational activities on board. So far he hasn’t listened. At all.”
“Dammit, Christine, I can’t take time off now!” He waved his hand, indicating Sickbay and all the sufferers within.
“This infection is perfectly routine, Doctor, and the herbal decoction will help it … pass … in time. Plenty of our staff are able to deal with it. So I suggest you clear out for a few hours - a shift, even - exercise, work off your frustration and the alcohol you will inevitably drink, then take a bubble bath or get a massage. You’ve been here over fourteen hours. You need to make yourself scarce,” she said in her most businesslike tone. “I mean it.”
“Jesus! You’ve got your nerve, don’t you!” he exploded.
She shifted her hips and stared levelly at him. “Yes. Because I know I’m right, and so do you.”
She walked over to him, and pointed to the passageway door. He caught a whiff of her soft perfume, she saw; his nostrils flared slightly and he very nearly closed his eyes. “You need a break. Take one.”
She didn’t have to say it twice. McCoy was irascible to most people, but it didn’t work on Chapel, and he didn’t like being grumpy to her, because he was still in love with her.
His shoulders relaxed.
“Okay, okay.” He shoved away from the wall. “And in a couple of hours, you’ll be here far too long yourself, so I hereby order you to report to the Gym and/or Jacuzzi. Got it?”
She smiled. And when she smiled, he smiled; she positively melted him with it and she knew it. And he didn’t mind that she knew it. Because he needed her to tell him the truth and be his friend.
“Got it,” she said.
JAMES T. KIRK, captain of the USS Enterprise, put his head back and let out a long whoosh of air through his lips. The chair at his Ready Room desk was quite comfortable, and he ruffled his hair with both hands to keep from getting drowsy. Always a problem for him in boring Academy lectures, drowsiness threatened during certain captainly duties, too.
I cannot say enough how much I hate paperwork. Especially when it concerns disciplining crewmembers.
Screw it, I’m the captain. I can assign a “punishment” that fits the crime. So … Ensign Han pranked his roommate Jenks before area inspection by putting chocolate pudding in Jenks’s bed. I think Han can miss his next 24 hours of shore leave to make every ensign’s bed ready for inspection. A few inspections. And should the beds fail to pass a LT Hendorff -style inspection? Han gets to do it all over again next shore leave.
Whoa, I’m being positively … harsh. I was quite the merry prankster at the Academy myself. Okay, the first eight hours of leave then. No, six. Kirk initialed the order and laid his CO Padd on the desk.
I could always assign Han to do some of this crap for my signature … but he’s a redshirt. I’m not really bad at paperwork … especially anything to do with engine specs or operations. But the rest … it goes okay when I focus, but administrative and personnel paperwork is so … dull, dull, dull.
Sure, Spock could do it, but he might think I asked him to do it because I’m too young to be in charge … I’m a “cheater” … Because I don’t want to face up to all my responsibilities.
Another sigh. Kirk got up and stretched, unkinking his neck and shoulder muscles, then went to stand by the viewport in the small Ready Room.
What an incredible privilege it is, to have charge of such a beautiful, capable ship - and her dedicated crew.
Not always so sure I’m up to it … no matter how much I wanted it, it was really unfair of Starfleet to promote me over Spock after the … annihilation of Vulcan. It was embarrassing getting command of the Enterprise plus a medal. Just the medal and assignment as Spock’s First Officer would have been fine, thanks.
And there was my mortifying introduction to Spock - his bringing me up on charges of cheating - okay, I did cheat, but the Kobayashi Maru is a ridiculous “test” - the “no-win scenario” is bullshit, people win once in a whil e, especially if they come up with a nov el solution …
Mine was about as novel as it gets. Beat the computer program! Way to go, Jim. What a great example of my skills ...! Talk about embarrassing.
Well, deception is a necessary skill for a starship commander. I love this ship, and her crew, but I hate having made such a bad impression on everybody as a cadet - Spock included.
Most of all, I hate the way I used Gaila. Unsportsmanlike, and ungentlemanly.
Kirk knew Uhura had warned Gaila about him back then; Gaila told him so, with the amusement of a woman who knows better. After all, Uhura didn’t know about the special connection they shared. But she’d been justifiably dubious of Kirk. As a communicator, Uhura perceived a lot about people, and she’d been right about him. Regrettably.
… Gaila …
Gaila had not spoken to Kirk in the months since; on the Enterprise’s return to Earth after Nero, she’d been assigned to the flagship, as were many of the hundred or so survivors of Nero’s attack on the Starfleet ships at Vulcan.
Kirk was incredibly glad Gaila was alive, but so ashamed of asking her to open that virus e-mail on the day of his “solution” to the Kobayashi Maru scenario that he could hardly face her, except in very brief commanding officer-type interactions. He’d never even tried to apologize, he was so mortified at himself.
What the hell can I do, if I give her extra leave days or something it’s going to look bad for both of us professionally … it’d be insulting to her anyway, it’d look like a pay-off or an inadequate, grandiose apology.
Dumbass. You could always apologize. It’s high time you did. Just walk up to her and say, “For the next few minutes I am not your CO. I am the guy you dated at the Academy. And I want to apologize …” If she slaps you, plainly say, “I’m sorry,” and leave.
Who knows how she’ll react, but I, at least, need to be an officer and a gentleman. Huh. I can just hear Bones: “Finally the scapegrace boy is growin’ up.”
He watched the stars, and remembered long conversations with Gaila, as they lay on their backs by the Golden Gate. How she loved the stars. They shared that love - from the time Jim had been a kid, he had looked to them for escape from his miserable Earth-bound existence.
To Gaila they symbolized freedom because she hadn’t seen them from the time she’d been old enough to have sex until she escaped the slavers. After her escape she had been a consultant to Starfleet, helping them learn about Orion slaver syndicates, customs and civilization. In gratitude, Starfleet assigned her tutors. She had soon come to Starfleet Academy and discovered her engineering genius ….
What an amazing, stubborn, admirable woman. I should never have screwed her over like that. At least Spock didn’t include her when he denounced me. He knew it was all my doing.
And so did Captain Pike. I disappointed him for the first time that day.
I owe it to him, too. To be the best man I can be.
SPOCK HAD A CONTINGENCY PLAN. He was Vulcan. He always had a contingency plan. Nyota’s … desire seemed to center around the Jacuzzi in the Fitness Suite, so he decided that was the place to start after dinner. It seemed to amuse her on their previous visit, in the sight of McCoy, to trail her fingers up Spock’s thigh. To which he had, quite naturally, responded, being unprepared. It had surprised McCoy when Spock left the Jacuzzi with no bathing suit in evidence. McCoy was unacquainted with certain details of Spock’s outward appearance. (The CMO had, of course, examined him to establish a baseline - using modern technology, which did not reveal unnecessary information, only anomalies.) Being in superior condition, Spock had no inhibitions in that regard.
The Vulcan also had a talent for stealth which few humans shared, and he intended to use it this evening, in service of Nyota’s fantasy.
GAILA SLAPPED JIM KIRK in the face. Hard. Her beautiful face was tight with anger, and she hissed as she smacked him. Hissed! That was something he didn’t know, that Orion women hissed. It sounded threatening. Damn!
He had worn civilian clothes so his uniform and rank wouldn’t be a factor as he apologized, but he had - he thought - put the odds slightly in his favor by wearing the “polar blue” sweater she’d given him at the Academy “because it matches your eyes.”
“I’m sorry,” Kirk said again. He started to leave, but Gaila grabbed his wrist.
“You wait,” she commanded. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her. “Uhura said I should slap your face, that you’d remember it because it was physical. That you deserved it for what you did. And I agree, you did. The Academy Board didn’t punish me, thanks be. Only you, because they knew it was your fault. But you, you … you played me for a - a sucker. A sap,” she finished. “I heard that in an old holo, and it fits.”
Blushing, Jim lowered his eyes contritely. Gaila was genuinely a nice person, and he had always liked her. “It was my fault, and I’m really very sorry I did that to you.”
She reached up a hand and cupped his chin briefly. “You can apologize to me all night,” she said in a strange tone.
Jim waited. Sarcasm was next. You can apologize to me all night and it won’t make any difference, was what he expected. There was a long pause.
“… What,” Gaila said.
He blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Did I say it wrong?”
“I … I don’t know. Did you?”
“Okay,” she said, a finger to one of her curls, winding it around her fingertip, “I saw this couple last week on shore leave, and he had done something wrong, and his girlfriend was angry with him, and he said he was sorry and he kissed her to make up, and she said, ‘You can apologize to me all night.’” She paused. She had no idea how charming her naïveté was. “I guess I did get it wrong … or you did.”
“Umm … I did … yeah.” Kirk sensed a light ahead in his path.
Gaila put her face up to be kissed.
Jim looked around. They were alone in the passageway. He kissed her.
“Don’t you ever play me for a sap again,” she said quietly, and kissed him back.
NYOTA UHURA took off her uniform. It had been a long day. The current crop of Academy graduates assigned to the Enterprise - admittedly, only three Communications specialists were among them - seemed, well, not as dedicated as she was. Bending over to remove her boots, she heard a beloved voice behind her. “But you are exceptional, Nyota.” Heat was at her behind. Spock had silently come up right behind her. Though clothed, he was slightly aroused.
“Mmm,” she said, relaxing and straightening up to lean back on him, moving the crown of her head under his chin so he could smell her hair.
His warm hands slipped around her ribs from behind and his hands slipped up under her bra, cupping her breasts, then kneaded her nipples with gentle fingertips. Her pelvic muscles tightened with desire and she heard a raspy whisper in her ear. “You mentioned you might like a surprise, ashayam. Will this evening be suitable?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“We will need to be suitably prepared and dressed for the occasion.”
“I’m ready.”
“No … not yet,” he told her. He took off her bra and turned her around. He was not clothed above the waist, and her breasts rubbed on his chest hair. Their eyes met and held; his looked big and black. He leaned down to kiss her throat, and nuzzled her collarbones, and further down. She smelled the usual delightful spicy scent from his hair and bussed the top of his head, stroking his cheek as he tongued the tips of her breasts. Her knees were about to buckle, so she raised up his head to kiss his mouth. Standing, he responded quite passionately, the tip of his tongue exciting her own, his hands falling to her rear, pushing her panties down, and she felt one of his hands at her front, two fingers moving to part her pubic hair.
“Mmm,” she said again. His support enabled her to move her trembling legs apart so he could have better access. Her panties were around her thighs, but so what, they stretched. She smiled into his mouth, pushing her pubis against his hand; his fingers, inside her, moved out, and he took the hint, massaging her clit; fingers, thumb, gentle, firm, quick, then …
He broke the kiss. She unfastened his trousers and slipped them down. “A bit fast,” she murmured, “but I like it.” She took his not-quite-erect lok in her hand and aimed it gently down to a mutually pleasing position. She tipped her pelvis up, down, up, down, the soft skin and firmness of him massaging her …
His hands were under her rear, lifting her onto him; she rode his hips, ankles locking behind her, and he took her over to the bed, disengaging and laying her on her back. She frowned in puzzlement, but went with it. A surprise … he brought a small bottle from the floor at the foot of the bed, put some in his mouth, and descended, parting her legs with his hands, to lick her sex, a delicious warmth descending from his mouth … it tingled and it felt wonderful.
He pulled her toward the foot of the bed, angled her up, and slipped his lok into her center and out, in and out, making a little rumble of satisfaction. Her hands covered his on her bent knees, and sighing, she ran her fingers up to the hair on his arms and back to his hands as he moved in her.
Then he pulled out. And stepped away.
“Hey!” she protested.
He tilted his head, his eyes in contented slits, and opened the closet. “We will dress now, and begin our evening.”
“Spock, that is not fair! You’re being a tease!” she said with frustration. She moved her hand to her mound … to forestall her imminent action, he took it up, kissing her fingers. Despite stopping her in the moment, he looked as if he might enjoy watching her pleasure herself at some time in the future, she noted.
“Nyota. Be patient.”
Ohhh…, she thought. He brought some clothes to her, but instead of underwear, there was what looked like a white swimsuit, with gold buttons down each side and a modest front. The back was deeply scooped. The long-sleeved dress was dark teal and except for a satin collar and cuffs, sheer on top, with a long, side-split skirt.
It fell nearly to her ankles, nipped and crossed at the waist, and fastened with one gold button.
She put on the suit and Spock buttoned the sides for her. She noticed his fingers were not quite steady. The dress, made of a silky material, slipped on easily. She looked at her reflection in the viewport. “It’s lovely, mpenzi.”
Spock, in a navy blue, high-necked silk tunic and matching slim-cut trousers and the low, sueded boots he usually wore off duty, stood behind her, putting his arms around her and kissing the nape of her neck. “As are you, my Nyota.”
JIM ORDERED a picnic for two on the Forward Observation Deck, the compartment of it that was right at the bow. He liked it here, the sensation of movement toward something; in warped space the stars appeared to gather in a mass ahead of the ship. He sensed Gaila would enjoy it. He was pretty sure he remembered the foods she liked, too.
She came into the compartment dressed in … a cloak, for some reason he couldn’t quite figure out.
“Jim,” she said, coming closer, “I really missed our friendship, and being with you. I knew I had to let you squirm for a while, but you didn’t say anything to me for so long, I didn’t know how you felt. I wasn’t sure you were even sorry about what you did, or if you were happy I got assigned here after surviving Nero, because all you said to me was ‘Welcome aboard, Lieutenant.’ You did kind of smile at me like you were relieved I was alive. But you looked away so quickly.”
He moved to stand by her - her voice sounded a bit tearful.
“I was so ashamed about using you like that,” he said. “I couldn’t even imagine how to tell you I was sorry.” He raised his hand to her face and gently wiped away a tear. “I couldn’t face you.”
“So why did you apologize today?”
“I missed you too, Gaila, and I still felt really bad. Then I thought about how you might feel. So I finally manned up.”
There was a long silence as she slipped her arms around him.
“I’m glad you did.” She reached up a hand to pet his unruly hair, which she had always loved. “I want to give you a gift,” she said. “… Music!”
For a moment he was puzzled, but she gave him a playful little shove, and he sat down on the floor obediently.
Traditional Orion music skirled through the air. Gaila shucked her cloak. Her beautiful silvery dance costume consisted of a shimmering low-cut bra and diaphanous skirt whose top slanted right to left from just below her waist to her left hip, baring her left leg from hip to toe. Jim appreciated her beauty, her red hair shining in the low lights above, her pretty blue eyes accenting her green skin; her rounded breasts, her slender, fit limbs, curved waist and softly muscled belly.
Then she began to dance.
Kirk was stunned by her beauty and her talent. She brought the music to life with sinuous and lovely movements. This was an honor, and a real treat. He nodded respectfully and watched his friend with delight. His girlfriend, maybe even.
THE STARBOARD DINING ROOM was dark, lit only by small lanterns on each linen-covered table. Uhura looked around; oddly, no one else was present. Spock escorted her to a table right by the viewport where appetizers were already set out, some on ice.
Instead of sitting across from her, Spock sat at ninety degrees to her. “May I?” he said, picking up a small broccoli floret, dipping it in pesto, and holding it in front of her mouth. Smiling at him, she took it in and chewed happily, but decorously. The broccoli was perfect, chilled and crisp. He dipped a piece of crusty, flavorful bread in pesto with pepper and parmesan added, offered it to her, and she ate it while he poured a robust red wine. He gave her the glass and raised one of his own, and toasted her: “To my Nyota, the loveliest woman I have ever encountered.”
She blushed. This was new, the feeding and the toasting, and she had to admit, though it was uncharacteristic of him, it was very romantic, and she was really enjoying it. “I love you, habibu,” she whispered, touching her glass to his. There was a pleasant ting of crystal. They drank the small carafe of wine and nibbled appetizers, and reminisced about their first meeting in Spock’s linguistics class. And about their first “collision” - Spock’s expression was warm as he recalled his reaction to her intellect and confidence, so unusual in a fourth/class cadet. Such reminiscing was also a bit uncharacteristic, but what he told her increased her feelings of warmth and regard.
“The first time I ever thought of you in any but a professional way was the day I saw you on the deck, getting into the whirlpool.”
Her eyes widened and she laughed a little. “Ahh, sexual attraction.”
He shook his head solemnly. “Not merely. A desire to know more about you than your excellent performance as a student of language and interspecies communication. A desire to hold you … and protect you, even though I knew you to be fiercely independent.” He continued, “you wore a white Academy-issue swimsuit and looked more beautiful than I had ever seen you.”
“My hair was getting frizzy and that suit … really!”
He raised his eyebrows with a quelling “teacher” look and went on, “and as you mounted the stairs to the whirlpool, I imagined touching your bare legs. When you began talking - and laughing - with Dr. McCoy I thought you would be unapproachable, and left. I had never … felt … disappointed in that way.”
She took a moment to absorb the thought of Spock - in an Academy public space - fantasizing about her, and that he had felt disappointment.
“Do you know, when you turned away, I felt sad too? I thought we could never be together because you were so strict about regulations. You used to gig cadets who were thirty seconds late to class! And assign extra watches, if they were late submitting papers. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when you invited me to be your Teaching Assistant.”
“You have never given me reason to find fault,” he said, “In any way, at any time.”
“After a while as your TA …” she smiled gently, “I began to think my fantasies might just come true.”
His eyes, as he studied her, almost twinkled; his left eye narrowed slightly - a prelude to the smile at the corner of his mouth.
Dinner was delicious, pasta in virgin olive oil with rosemary, toasted pine nuts and gorgonzola cheese, with a sprightly white wine. Vulcan or no, Spock had excellent taste; Uhura always thought this was a result of his being a diplomat’s son. And of observation and study ….
Inwardly she grinned, then shrugged. I am the beneficiary, after all.
MCCOY SANK INTO the hot tub with a groan of happiness. He had punched the hell out of the speed bag, worked up a good sweat, done some yoga stretches, taken a sonic shower, and slouched over here with a bottle of wine and two glasses, just in case Christine followed his advice and showed up. “Oh, Lord …, thank you Mr. Jacuzzi,” he said aloud.
No one was in this part of the Fitness Suite. One third of the crew was in Sickbay or on bed rest in their quarters, one third was on duty, and one third was, presumably, sleeping.
He poured himself a glass of wine, one Christine had always liked, from the Sonoma Valley in Northern California. Deep red. Wasn’t bourbon or whisky but it tasted ju-u-st fine.
He leaned his head back on the ledge around the top of the tub, and the bubbles and the heat informed his body that it was good to be alive, alive and without Gnallifian intestinal worms.
He raised his glass, raised his head, and toasted Christine in absentia. “Thank you for giving me an ass-kickin’ to get me down here.”
McCoy took another generous sip, put the glass aside, and sank into the hot water up to his neck. This ancient method of relaxation had not faded with time, thank God.
The lights dimmed. He blinked, and looked up. They continued dimming until the overhead was a deep sapphire blue. Then the “stars” came out, and they looked just like the stars at home. Was that the sound of surf? And night birds, cuck-cucking? And a scent of salty air? For a second he nearly panicked, fearing hallucinations, then he remembered the environmental design in every relaxation space on the ship -whew - the swimming pool, the hot tub, several of the Observation Deck spaces, the small “amphitheatre” and the formal Dining Room - had the capacity to deepen the color of the overhead to the evening hue of your home planet, and was programmed to reproduce the stars over your favorite place. It would simulate sunlight too. Sounds and scents, according to the time of day requested, were in the program too. All you had to do was enter your name.
“Hey, Christine,” he called out, Southern-fashion.
“Hey yourself,” she answered, strolling to the hot tub. She wore just the right kind of bathing suit: with her figure, a lot of display below was not necessary. She looked fantastic in an emerald suit with a low neckline. It didn’t match the sky, or her eyes. But it looked real nice with her pale skin and red hair.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” McCoy said, straightening up so he could reach the wine.
“And I was going to say, you look a little less ‘sore’ than when you left Sickbay.”
“Damn straight.” He grinned at her, taking up the bottle of wine and the empty glass, raising them in inquiry.
She grinned, sinking slowly into the water with a sigh. “Damn straight, Len,” she agreed. He poured. They toasted each other, and sipped wine, and chatted about whatever crossed their minds, relaxing together for the first time since reporting aboard the Enterprise.
Christine remembered his first words to her when she reported to Sickbay. “What are you doing here?”
She was beginning to think the same words, but in a very different way, and she had a very different answer, too.
“OW, OW, OW!” Gaila said, trying to stand up. “Nharts!” (An Orion curse? Jim supposed it might be. She never cursed in Standard, though.) Gaila was bent over, her face scrunched up with pain. Kirk stood to pick her up. She felt perfect in his arms, except she was holding her left leg rigid. He brought her over to the bench under the viewport, laying her across his lap.
“Where does it hurt?”
“My leg, my lower left leg and foot. Owwww!”
He was supporting her back with his left arm, gently exploring her left calf with his other hand. “Wow, you’ve got a hellacious knot in your muscle. And your foot feels stiff in the arch. How’d you do that?”
“Dancing, you fool,” she snapped, and immediately said, “Sorry. I did a few moves I didn’t warm up for. Darn it!”
“Do you want me to try and massage it?”
She bit her lip and nodded. He rubbed and flexed her foot first. It began to relax, but couldn’t rotate fully because of the cramp in her calf. He stroked her calf muscles in large circles, then smaller circles, then gently massaged her leg and the muscle began to unkink, but after fifteen minutes or so, it remained stiff, and Gaila was still wincing.
“How about we go to Sickbay,” he suggested.
Her eyes got big. “No! They’re all miserable down there. I visited Charlene Masters today, and she whined the whole time. Charlene has never whined! That disease is awful - and gross. I got all the details, yecch. She went on about it for a quarter of an hour. So did Scotty - nobody can complain like he can. They are so annoyed being stuck there. They just want to get back to work. Everybody down there does, and they have to drink this horrible smelly green concoction.”
“Well, it’s the only way to get rid of the worms,” Kirk pointed out.
“Oh my goodness, Jim, it was just a chorus of misery, her and Scotty, Sulu and Chekov and Hannity and Gupta. I couldn’t stand any more. And the smell! Ugh.”
“The whole Sickbay doesn’t smell like that, you know.”
“I know, but I don’t want them to see me and start complaining to me again. You know I can’t not listen. I’m too sympathetic. Normally. What stupids they were, ignoring Dr. McCoy’s warning about the street vendors! So no, I don’t want to go there, I really don’t. Can’t somebody come here and help me?”
“No, I don’t think so … Bones doesn’t believe in house calls, except in real emergencies.”
She made a face, acknowledging this truth.
Jim’s expression brightened and Gaila gazed hopefully into his eyes.
“We’ll go to the gym, the hot tub might help.”
She half closed her eyes and smiled. “It might! Let’s go.”
* Part of a larger story. Details will be provided at event's end.