Chapter Text
The hypo made a dull thud when it landed on the floor. Christine’s eyes slid from her raised hand, now empty, to the fallen instrument. She blinked slowly, then knelt to retrieve it. As she stood, a warm weight settled on her shoulder accompanied by a familiar drawl: “Why don’t you call it a day, kid? You’re dead on your feet.”
She turned away from the patient she’d been preparing to inoculate, one of the many asymptomatic crewmen who probably hadn’t even been exposed to the Psi virus. Though the Enterprise’s chief medical officer looked just as exhausted as she felt, she knew better than to say as much. Nothing short of a debilitating injury or illness could stand in his way during a medical emergency. She admired his dedication—and she shared it. Tired or not, she had no intention of leaving this task unfinished.
“I’m all right, doctor,” she protested with a smile that felt more like a grimace.
Leonard McCoy narrowed his ice-blue eyes. “Consider that an order, nurse,” he said. But he squeezed her shoulder, adding in a lower voice: “You’re trembling. You need to eat something and get some shut-eye. We’re almost done here anyhow.”
Christine became aware of a slight tremor in her fingers as if the doctor had summoned it. It took the fight out of her instantly. She placed the hypo in McCoy’s other hand, gave him a wan but more genuine smile, and said, “Yes, sir.”
As she left Sickbay—wishing that she was petite rather than tall and statuesque so that she could slink out without attracting anyone’s attention—Christine tried to shrug off her sense of inadequacy. It was bad enough that she’d just been dismissed in the middle of a crisis. But that paled in comparison to the fact that she had personally exposed the first officer to the virus, endangering the ship and everyone aboard it as a result. Her cheeks warmed as she recalled the humiliating intimacy of her interaction with Spock—the heat of his hand in her own, of his face beneath her palms, of his entire body so close to hers—
Of the discomfort etched into the lines of his face. The alarm in his dark eyes. The way he’d attempted to step away from her.
Her head began to throb dully. Common sense and Spock’s precious logic dictated that she had no reason to feel guilty. She’d already been infected, and the virus had lowered her inhibitions—probably a biological adaptation by which it proliferated itself. That the object of her secret affection had then arrived in Sickbay looking for Dr. McCoy, and that said object happened to be both the ship’s Science officer and the second-in-command, was nothing but coincidence and bad luck.
Unfortunately, common sense and logic could neither soothe her wounded pride nor erase Spock’s memory of the previous twelve hours. If he never looked at her the same way again, who could blame him?
Christine stopped in the middle of the hallway. No, that was ridiculous. She and Spock were both professionals, and he was part Vulcan, for goodness’ sake! Her feelings for him and his new awareness of them didn’t change anything about their roles aboard the Enterprise. They could—would—must continue to work together despite today’s uncomfortable encounter.
Though she would’ve liked nothing better than to fall into bed and to lose herself in dreams for the next twelve hours, though her head and back and feet ached, Christine squared her shoulders with sudden determination and headed for the Turbolift.
✧
Bone tired.
Spock remembered his mother using that expression once, perhaps after she and Sarek had returned from some prolonged and delicate assignment. Like many Terran colloquialisms, it was neither literal nor logical—but he’d come to understand its meaning since joining Starfleet. He did indeed feel bone tired in the wake of the Psi 2000 incident. Dr. McCoy had formulated an antidote, and the senior officers of the Enterprise had averted catastrophe, defying the long odds against them. They had escaped the imploding planet and recorded a single casualty rather than four hundred and thirty of them.
They had not, however, escaped wholly unscathed.
Even now, hours after his inoculation, Spock felt vulnerable and weak. It didn’t matter that the ship was out of danger or that he was alone, settled securely in his own cabin. The virus had undermined all of his hard-won mental control, the work of a lifetime, leaving him exposed. He had wept—in front of his captain! Worse, he’d lashed out and had actually struck his captain and, in so doing, had infected him as well. With the crisis now averted, Spock finally let cold, nauseating shame of it all crash over him like a cresting wave. He lay in the hot shadows of his cabin, too overcome by exhaustion to either play his lyre or to meditate, yet too consumed with self-loathing to sleep.
I do love you. Just as you are.
He flexed his fingers. The memory of Christine Chapel’s confession in Sickbay—of her hands, gentle and cool, wrapped around his—did nothing to abate his shame. His inept response, more like that of a cornered animal than an intelligent and rational being, had little to do with her words and everything to do with his fruitless, failing battle for control against the virus raging through his bloodstream.
The ship’s head nurse was intelligent and accomplished, to say nothing of her striking good looks. His biology didn’t blind Spock to those qualities, regardless of the ill-informed ideas many humans regarding Vulcans. But there were numerous factors that had prevented his professional admiration from taking deeper root: his position as first officer, the often-unforgiving standards to which he held himself—and one other, an impediment he couldn’t quite escape no matter how resolutely he ignored it or how many hundreds and thousands of light-years he put between them.
And yet in hindsight, neither could he deny the allure of Christine’s declaration. Hers were words he’d long secretly dreamed of hearing: that she not only loved him (flattering as that was), but that she saw him as himself, as Spock, something unique and whole rather than fractured and inadequate. He had devoted his entire youth to becoming a perfect Vulcan, an impossible goal. When it finally became clear to him that he had an Achilles’ heel—his human ancestry, as insurmountable as it was inherent—that guaranteed his failure, Spock left his homeworld behind to seek a place among the stars.
Many humans, in contrast (his Starfleet colleagues sometimes among them), perceived only his alien half. They saw what they expected in him, and if their shortsightedness disappointed Spock, it also gave him a strange kind of fulfillment. No human ever questioned his authenticity; they accepted him as a Vulcan in a way his own people never had.
So to hear Christine Chapel recognize his struggle and the innate duality of his nature had been a balm to his soul. He had been able to feel the sincerity in her words through their joined hands. And for all that, the only response he could offer her as the virus tore through decades’ worth of mental discipline was a paltry I’m sorry. He was sorry. What must she think of him now?
Spock’s door chimed. A low, almost feral sound involuntarily escaped him—he wanted to slip into the relative oblivion of sleep, not to deal with an emergency or play a game of chess with Jim. For a moment, his shattered brain resisted the idea of rising from the bed and greeting whomever stood outside. But his sense of duty propelled him to his feet.
“Come,” he barked, fatigue giving his voice a sharp edge.
He stopped short half a meter from the now-open door. There, as if his thoughts had summoned her, stood Nurse Chapel.
✧
Christine had second-guessed her decision multiple times on the way to Spock’s cabin. It was foolish and confrontational to force them both into what was sure to be an uncomfortable conversation so soon after the scene she’d made earlier. Besides, he could very well be asleep by now. She was, she realized, actually hoping that was the case until she heard him speak. The harshness of his command only put her even more on edge, and she straightened her back as the door opened with a soft whoosh.
She caught her breath at the sight of him. He had discarded his uniform top, which left him wearing a plain black regulation undershirt. Its close-fitting fabric threw the lean lines of his body into sharp relief. His eyes, pools of molten chocolate, had gone uncharacteristically wide. Despite the weariness evident in his imperfect posture and the lines of his face, she’d never seen him look more attractive. Now wasn’t the time to get sidetracked by her feelings, however.
She swallowed hard. “Hello, Mr. Spock. I apologize; this is a bit unusual. But I just wanted to—address what happened today. Between us.”
“Miss Chapel,” he began.
Christine lifted her hand and shook her head. She hadn’t lost her nerve or changed her mind; Spock hadn’t been asleep. She wanted to say what she had come to say so that both of them could turn the page on this harrowing day. “I understand that my conduct was unbecoming of an officer and that…that what I said to you was inappropriate.”
But apparently Spock refused to make this easy—for either of them. His deep voice cut across hers, softer now but gravelly: “It’s illogical to take such responsibility for what you did while under the influence of an alien virus. Did you threaten the captain and I with a sword on the Bridge?”
Though she was a little annoyed by the interruption, Christine had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. She’d heard plenty of outlandish stories by now, some of them alarming, others merely amusing. Sulu’s impersonation of a daring swashbuckler had definitely been the latter.
“Or perhaps you’d recommend a court-martial for Mr. Riley?” He quirked one angled brow.
“Of course not. Singing lessons, maybe, but—please…please let me finish. It was inappropriate, virus or no virus, because we were both on duty and the ship was on red alert. That said…” She took a shaky breath, then let it out slowly. “I meant every word.”
While she spoke, Spock had approached the open doorway. Now they stood only inches apart. Neither of them broke eye contact. Christine suddenly wished that, if she’d been destined to confess her feelings for him, she could have done so here, like this, and of her own free will. She was tempted to close her eyes and imagine that alternate reality, even to pretend she was living it. Ever practical, she carried on instead. Daydreams and fantasies were meant for the privacy of her quarters.
“But I want to assure you that the way I feel about you will not affect my ability to work with you effectively. I’m a professional, Mr. Spock. I worked hard to be assigned to the Enterprise. I have no intention of transferring now that I’m here.”
✧
Spock’s esteem for Christine Chapel had increased tenfold in the last five minutes. Her self-possession stood in stark contrast to the turmoil raging within him. Her voice was steady and calm, her eyes as clear as a cloudless Terran sky. She was a woman to be reckoned with, he mused, as well as respected.
“I have no reason to think otherwise, Miss Chapel,” he said.
“Thank you.” She paused. He was pondering whether he could now articulate anything more suitable than his earlier apology when she spoke again. “And in any case, how I feel is—irrelevant.” Her voice hitched on the final word, and she dropped her gaze abruptly to the floor.
Before Spock could decide how to respond without giving offense or jeopardizing their fragile new understanding, Christine elaborated.
“I’m engaged. In fact, I joined Starfleet to find him. Roger. My fiancé.”
The words fell from her lips like stones, each one heavy and distinct, as she stared intently at his feet. Spots of color had crept into the high bones of her cheeks. He wondered at the strange juxtaposition of her forlorn expression and slow, careful monotone and what she was saying: that she had changed career paths, altered the very course of her life, for the sake of her missing partner. He supposed that she hadn’t considered the possibility of falling in love with someone else before she learned whether Roger lived or died.
But unless her obligation to him was somehow compulsory, why should she have? Were such arrangements as commonplace on Earth as they were on Vulcan, and if so, would she have gone to such lengths to recover her future husband?
The irony wasn’t lost on Spock: kind and compassionate, Christine Chapel not only saw him for who he truly was but loved him, too—yet she was as burdened with her commitment to another man as he was with his to a Vulcan woman who despised him. He yearned, in that instant, to simply discard the tattered remnants of his control and to laugh; to weep again; to pull her into his arms and allow the door to slide shut behind them, cutting off them off from the rest of the universe for a single night.
He should tell her about his own betrothal, he knew. It was the fair, honest thing to do. But—
✧
“…but I believe there’s a chance that he’s alive somewhere. Or at least evidence that he’s—not,” Christine concluded. She had repeated these words so often that they’d become rote and dispassionate, the catechism that saw her through the innumerable sleepless nights in nursing school, the persistent questions from her concerned friends, and her perennial moments of self-doubt.
When she finally lifted her eyes to meet Spock’s again, she found them inscrutable. The corners of his mouth had turned down. Little wonder. At least she was confident, whatever his opinion of her now was, that they could continue to work alongside each other without complications. Still, talking to Spock about Roger Korby, the man for whom she’d sacrificed everything but who seemed to belong to another life, another world, had left the taste of bile in her mouth. She swayed on her feet slightly, having depleted the last dregs of her stamina at last.
Because since meeting Spock, Christine had discovered that she had never loved Roger, not in the way you ought to love the person you agreed to marry. Not the way she loved Spock. Yet her love for the former was a cause as hopeless as her quest to find the latter.
“So you see,” she murmured in a brusque tone that she paired with the barest hint of a smile, “there’s no reason to let any of that interfere with our work in the future. Um…thank you. For hearing me out. Goodnight, Mr. Spock.”
As she began to turn away, Spock’s long fingers closed loosely around her wrist. She almost gasped—the heat of his skin seemed to burn against hers in the cool air of the hall (normal Vulcan body temperature was significantly higher than that of humans, she recalled), but she also simply hadn’t expected him to touch her.
“Miss Chapel…Christine—your devotion is admirable.” He spoke so quietly that she strained to hear him. “He’s a fortunate man.”
The air remained strangely charged, as if they stood beside the warp core, even after he released her and folded his hands behind his back. Christine’s vision was blurred by unexpected tears. She blinked fiercely until his face came back into sharper focus. Whatever she’d expected Spock to say—a comment about the odds against finding one man lost in the galaxy, maybe, as if she hadn’t heard them a hundred times—it wasn’t this.
“Thank you, Spock. I…” There was nothing else to be said. Not tonight. Neither of them had enough energy left. Either she could take advantage of the electricity between them and undermine everything she’d just told him about professionalism and Roger by seizing the undershirt that clung to his chest like a second skin and kissing him, or she could collapse onto her own bed.
“Goodnight,” she repeated. Spock was her echo.
He gazed out into the hall for several minutes after she disappeared. When he stepped back into the darkness of his cabin, he would reach for his lyre at last, while Christine would spend a long time standing in a hot shower to loosen her tense muscles. Both of their tired minds would return to lingering thoughts each other, and when sleep finally found them, those thoughts would become dreams.