Work Text:
Nyota hissed in irritation as the itching on her calf continued to grow more and more unbearable. She lifted her opposite foot and aggressively rubbed at the spot with the bottom of her shoe for what little relief that brought her. She tried to keep her eyes on her tricorder, but the awkward movement caused her balance to waver and she nearly dropped the device, her foot shooting back down to catch her before she toppled over. She sighed, glaring at the offending leg, and grimaced at the dusty marks her shoe left behind. It was a wonder that she hadn't ripped a hole in her pants yet with all her scratching, but she was sure it was inevitable that it would happen before the end of the mission.
"Don't tell me you've been drinking on the job," a familiar voice teased from behind her.
Looking over her shoulder, Nyota saw Jim Kirk approaching her with a friendly smile on his face. Her frustration with her irritated leg grew. If she wasn't so distracted by it she certainly would have heard Jim walking up before he was within arm's reach. She shook her head at herself and shot Jim a confused look. "What are you talking about?"
Jim gestured vaguely at her. "You've been stumbling around for the past half-hour. You nearly fell over just a moment ago. What's up?"
Nyota sighed, dejectedly accepting the embarrassment of being perceived. "Have you seen any giant mosquitoes on this planet?" She asked, grumpily. "Because I think I've been bitten by one. This thing itches like a mother." She lifted her leg and gestured at the affected area, which had once again become infuriatingly itchy after not being scratched in over ten seconds.
"Did you get bitten by something?" Jim asked, a concerned frown replacing his casual attitude. "Because if you did, you should have said something right away. Who knows what kind of effect the native fauna's bites could have on us aliens."
Nyota waved him off in an attempt to dissuade his concern. "No, no, nothing bit me. But I did feel a bit of a sting while walking through some tall grass a while ago."
Jim put his hands on his hips and gave her a dry look. "Okay, well in that case, you should have said something right away, who knows what kind of effect the native flora's bites could have on us aliens," he said pointedly.
"It didn't bite me. It was just some burrs, or something," she protested.
"Not the point. You know the protocols for exploring strange new worlds," he scolded, waving a knowing finger, much to Nyota's annoyance. "If you have any kind of reaction to anything you come into contact with, get it checked out right away."
Nyota puffed her cheeks out. Usually she was the one lecturing Jim about safety protocols, not the other way around.
"Have you looked at it?" Jim asked, dropping out of lecturing-captain-mode and back into concerned-friend-mode.
"No," Nyota said, before kneeling down and tugging up her pant leg to examine the site. Jim crouched down to get a better view, brow furrowing.
"Yeah, you need to go to medical," Jim said flatly upon seeing Nyota's calf.
"I just need five more minutes to finish my work," Nyota protested, quickly pulling her pant leg down again and rising to her feet. Jim opened his mouth to protest but she interrupted him before he could say anything. "It's just a rash, I'll be fine."
Jim looked at her like she had sprouted a second head. "Rashes aren't supposed to be yellow and leaky," gesturing with his hands for emphasis. "On the ship. Now."
"But-"
Jim stepped close to her, swiped her communicator off her belt, flipped it open and spoke into it while Nyota gaped at him and raised a palm upwards in a 'what the hell' motion. "One for beam up, Mr Scott," Jim said. "And make sure she goes straight to sickbay."
"Aye, Captain," Scotty's voice crackled over the small speaker. "One to beam up."
Jim dropped Nyota's communicator into her upturned palm and stepped back with a grin. "Say hi to Bones for me," he said as a particle beam encircled her. She had some choice words to say to him, but she was cut off as she was whisked off the face of the planet and onto the orbiting Enterprise.
Nyota had stomped out of the transporter room, but as she headed toward sickbay her footsteps softened and quickened as the burning itch ate at her leg, making a trip to sickbay sound like a pretty great idea, actually. Stepping through the doors of sickbay was a relief, and she cut to the chase. "Hey Doc, someone managed to get a rash from alien grass and for once, it wasn't Jim," she said, then stopped in her tracks when she realized that Doctor McCoy wasn't there. "Oh. Where's Doctor McCoy?" Nyota asked the nearby nurse, whose face was concealed by a computer monitor, the sound of a tapping keyboard betraying her presence.
The nurse peered around her monitor at her. "He's not here at the moment. But I can help you. Something about a rash?"
"Uh... yeah," Nyota said distractedly, gaping at the nurse. She was young, probably around the same age as Nyota, but her hair was a striking, almost iridescent white, just long enough to tie back - though a few strands had made their escape, framing her pale face. Nyota wasn't sure if the woman's deep blue eyes were actually that large, or if it was just an effect of her large, gold rimmed glasses. Or perhaps it was the effect of her immaculate eyeliner. Regardless, this nurse had eyes that you could get lost in and never find your way out of.
The eyes turned concerned, and the nurse frowned. "Lieutenant? Are you okay?"
Realizing she had been staring, Nyota blinked, and rushed to save face. "Yes, sorry. It's just that I don't think I've run into you before." At least that was true. Nyota didn't have a habit of visiting sickbay and wouldn't have met all of the medical staff. She certainly would have remembered this one if she had met her before.
The nurse's face softened and she smiled at Nyota. "No, I suppose we haven't. I'm Nurse Chapel." She gestured to herself with the introduction.
Nyota smiled back at her. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm-"
"Lieutenant Uhura," Nurse Chapel interrupted with a coy smile. "I certainly know who you are."
Certainly? Nyota wondered briefly, raising her eyebrows. Nurse Chapel did not elaborate.
Nurse Chapel rose from her chair and stepped around her desk, gesturing for Nyota to follow her. "Grab a seat on a bio-bed and lets take a look at what's bothering you," she said, patting the nearest bio-bed. Nyota took a seat and pulled her affected calf to rest atop her opposite thigh, and wasted no time pulling her pant leg up to reveal the itching rash.
Nurse Chapel whistled as she took in the leaky, bubbling yellow lesion that covered most of Nyota's inner calf. "When did this start?" She asked, opening a drawer to retrieve a pair of blue surgical gloves.
"Uh," Nyota glanced at the clock briefly. "Maybe forty-five minutes ago? That's probably when I first noticed any signs of it. I think it's some sort of reaction to some grass I stepped through down planet-side."
Nurse Chapel's face formed a grimace, which was soon partially obscured as she donned a surgical mask. "Something like this shouldn't develop that quickly," she said, mostly to herself. There were two elastic snapping sounds as she donned her gloves. "Let me grab a tricorder, figure out what's happening here."
Nyota nodded. She couldn't help watching the nurse as she walked away from her. Nurse Chapel exhibited a practicality that Nyota admired. Good posture, a naturally graceful gait. Her appearance, from clothing to footwear to hairstyle and makeup were utilitarian, and she wore no jewellery. Nyota wondered how the nurse styled herself when she was off duty. Was her present style purely put on for her professional work environment? And if it was, was she aware of how well it suited her?
Returning with tricorder in hand, Nurse Chapel quickly got to work running an analysis on Nyota's strange rash. The more Nyota looked at it, the more it looked like a wound rather than a rash, and an infected one at that.
The tricorder chirped as it completed its analysis, and Nyota watched Nurse Chapel squint at the readings before nodding in agreement with them. "I knew it," she said under her breath.
"What is it?" Nyota asked, curious as to what intrigued the nurse so much.
"You've picked up a new type of flesh-eating bacteria," Nurse Chapel said bluntly. Noticing Nyota's look of wide-eyed horror, she quickly added, "Don't worry, I did my thesis on flesh-eating bacteria and fungi. You're in good hands." She offered a reassuring smile, and it looked so genuine that Nyota couldn't help but give a nervous smile in return, and relaxed a bit. "Let's get going before this causes any more damage," Nurse Chapel said, pulling open a drawer and selecting a couple of hypo-sprays from their stand in the bottom of the drawer.
"This is a local anaesthetic. You won't feel a thing after this," Nurse Chapel said, holding the hypo up to the light for a moment to examine it before releasing its contents into Nyota's leg, just above the wound.
"Wow," Nyota remarked, impressed with the speed at which the anaesthetic numbed her leg. The itching and irritation had ceased almost immediately, and when Nurse Chapel prodded at her with a gloved hand, Nyota didn't feel a thing.
Nurse Chapel smiled. "Modern medicine sure is something, isn't it?" Her tone wasn't mocking or condescending. "Why don't you lay back and get yourself comfortable, and I'll get to work patching you up?"
"Alright," Nyota agreed, adjusting herself so she was lying on her back on the bio-bed. The movement made the lack of feeling in her leg seem especially strange.
Nurse Chapel tapped at the bio-bed's simple controls, tilting half of the bed upwards so that Nyota's head and torso were propped up. "How's that?" She asked, looking up at Nyota.
"It's perfect," Nyota said, once again dazed as she found herself pulled into the nurse's eyes again. She escaped only when Nurse Chapel turned her attention, and gaze, to Nyota's wound.
Nyota was only more impressed with the anaesthetic's effectiveness as she watched Nurse Chapel scrape, lazer, prod, and cauterize the wound, all without her feeling a thing. She was even more impressed with the nurse's attention to detail and methodical approach to the treatment. By the time her wound was blasted with a dermal re-generator and dressed in gauze, Nyota was confident that none of the flesh-eating microbes could have escaped Nurse Chapel's keen eye.
Satisfied with her handiwork, Nurse Chapel beamed up at Nyota. "There you are, all patched up. I suggest taking it easy until the anaesthetic wears off, and keep the bandages on for at least the next twenty-four hours. Any concerns and you come right back, okay?"
"Thank you, Nurse Chapel," Nyota said with a nod and a smile. She swung her legs over the side of the bio-bed and stood up, wobbling slightly as her lack of feeling in one leg impaired her balance. Nurse Chapel took her arm by the elbow to steady her, and Nyota hoped the nurse couldn't detect her suddenly elevated heart-rate.
Nurse Chapel helped Nyota to the door, steadying her as she adjusted her balance to account for her leg. When she released her and bid her farewell, Nyota tripped over her own feet out the door, barely managing to catch herself before careening face-first into a wall.
"You okay?" The nurse asked, grimacing sympathetically.
Nyota nodded, hoping the flush rising to her face wasn't intense enough to be visible. "Just getting my sea legs, I guess," she said with a laugh that she hoped didn't sound too nervous. She wasn't about to admit that she tripped because she was too distracted by a pretty face to concentrate on walking. "I'm fine now, I just need to watch my feet is all," she said, waving a hand dismissively when Nurse Chapel continued to give her a look of uncertainty.
"Alright," the nurse conceded. "But take it easy until it wears off, okay? I don't want to see you in here for any head injuries."
"Copy that," Nyota said, sending off an exaggerated salute. As the door closed, isolating her in the corridor, she smacked a palm to her face and groaned. She was supposed to be a professional for Stars' sake, and here she was acting like a complete idiot over a pretty nurse. She sighed and walked carefully to the turbo-lift, heading for the bridge. Getting some work done would help her clear her head.
"Ow! Shit, that hurts," Nyota hissed, her ratchet dropping to the catwalk with a noisy clatter as she instinctively gripped the stinging palm of her hand, not that the pressure did anything to stifle the pain. "Ouch..." She held her breath, gritted her teeth, and screwed up her face. Somehow that helped.
"You okay?" Scotty's head poked out from around a corner. "What did you do?"
Nyota sucked in a deep breath and exhaled steadily, trying to compose herself enough to speak. She waved her burnt hand back and forth, the rushing air cooling the burn and bringing a small amount of relief. "I touched this thing," she choked out, gesturing sharply with her chin towards a rather conspicuous pipe near where she was working. As she gestured, she noticed the large, bright letters emblazoned on it, warning her that it was very hot. "Yeah, that was stupid of me, wasn't it?"
Scotty walked over, wincing as he examined her injury which was already starting to blister. "You'd better get that taken care of right away. Want me to walk you to sickbay?"
Nyota shook her head. "Thanks, but I can manage."
"Alright, if you're sure," Scotty said, concern still etched on his face.
"Yeah," Nyota said, distracted by the pain in her hand. "I'll get going."
Her walk to sickbay was thankfully short. She found that waving her hand back and forth was the best way to relieve at least some of the pain, but the crew she passed in the hall gave her odd looks for it. The sickbay doors hissed open for her, and she walked in expecting Doctor McCoy to immediately start poking at her and scolding her for being an idiot. Instead, she looked up to see Nurse Chapel raising her eyebrows behind her gold rimmed glasses.
"You're back," she commented with a tinge of surprise in her tone. Nyota grimaced, and not just from her burn. It had only been a week since her last sickbay visit, which had to some kind of record for her. She was not usually prone to injury.
"Yeah," Nyota said, voice strained. "Burnt my hand down in engineering," she explained.
Nurse Chapel's eyes filled with sympathy, and she took Nyota by the arm to guide her over to the sink along the wall. "That sure looks like it smarts," she said, catching a glimpse of Nyota's blistering, bubbling palm. She turned on the sink, testing the temperature of the water to make sure it was cool, then took Nyota's wrist and guided her burnt hand under the stream of water.
"Oh," Nyota breathed as her pain all but disappeared under the cold water. The tension she didn't know she was holding in her shoulders, neck, and face melted away. And suddenly, the soft touch of Nurse Chapel's long, slender fingers around her wrist became the most prominent sensation.
Nurse Chapel turned her attention from Nyota's burn to frown at her in concern. "Are you feeling okay?" She asked. "You're heart rate is rather high."
Nyota stared at the nurse's hand around her wrist, in the perfect spot to feel her pulse, and felt decidedly mortified. She felt her face and neck heat in embarrassment, and hoped Nurse Chapel wouldn't detect the slight change of colour in her cheeks. "Must be the adrenaline," she managed, proud of herself for keeping her voice even. Her heart may be pounding at a pretty woman's touch, and she may be blushing like a school girl, but at least she hadn't turned into a stuttering mess.
After a few minutes of running cold water over her burn, Nurse Chapel shut off the sink and lead Nyota to a bio-bed, gesturing for her to sit while she gathered her supplies. Any embarrassment Nyota still felt was put on the back-burner as the pain in her palm returned at the exposure to relatively warm air. She grimaced at the large, angry red blister in the middle of her palm, that she assumed would prevent her from closing her hand. She didn't test the theory, deciding that doing so would probably hurt.
Positioning a cart with a tray of instruments and medical supplies next to the bio-bed, Nurse Chapel rolled a stool over, raising its height before sitting down. Nyota held her injured hand out for her, palm up, which the nurse rested in her gloved hand. She got to work quickly, applying a spray-on topical agent that numbed the site, giving Nyota some much appreciated relief before she drained the giant blister on Nyota's hand, blasting it with a dermal re-generator, applying a thick coat of burn cream, and wrapping the whole hand with gauze.
"There," Nurse Chapel said when she was finished. "Should heal up in a couple of days. I'll give you a topical to apply twice a day and some extra gauze. You can stop wrapping it once it stops peeling and draining."
Nyota smiled weakly at her. "Thanks," she said. "I appreciate you treating me for such a dumb mistake."
Nurse Chapel laughed, the sound making Nyota's heart skip a beat. "Don't worry, it's my job to patch people up after their dumb mistakes. And you are far from the worst offender." Nurse Chapel's eyes sparkled as she aimed a conspiratorial smirk at her. Nyota couldn't help but grin back.
They stayed there for a long moment, eyes locked on each other and silly grins blazing. It was about to become embarrassing and awkward any moment now, and even more so when someone finally looked away, but luckily they were saved by chirp of the comm system. "Scotty to sickbay, how's Lieutenant Uhura faring?" Scotty's voice buzzed through the speaker, drawing Nyota's and Nurse Chapel's gazes simultaneously. The nurse popped up out of her seat and floated over to the comm panel, keying it to reply.
"She's doing just fine, Mr Scott," Nurse Chapel said in her pleasant chipper tone. "Just finished patching her up. She'll be fully healed in just a few days."
"Glad to hear it," Scotty answered, sounding relieved. "Thanks for the update, Christine."
Their conversation continued, but Nyota heard none of it. Christine. Her nurse had a name, and a lovely one that suited her impeccably at that. She whispered the name under her breath, feeling how it rolled over her tongue. It tasted like warm tea on a sharp winter's day. She stared dreamily at Christine, who was still speaking to Scotty over the comm and had her back turned to her, so Nyota could stare as much as she wanted without being noticed. She once again admired her iridescent hair, her confident but natural posture, her animated way of speaking that she used when her hands weren't busy with tri-corders and hypos.
Christine.
Finding reasons to drop in on sickbay to see Christine without being embarrassingly obvious about it was difficult, to say the least. There were only so many times she could claim to have a headache before it became suspicious, so she had to find other excuses. And when excuses presented themselves, she was overly eager to jump on them.
"Jim, you have an incoming call from your mother," Nyota said, referring to her monitor as it bleeped at her.
Jim nodded in acknowledgement, hunched over a PADD. "Give me a minute, I just need to get this requisition form to Bones for him to sign."
"I'll take it to him!" Nyota blurted, leaping to her feet and snatching the PADD from Jim's hands before he could say a word.
"I could have just... sent it electronically," Jim said dejectedly, mostly to himself, as Nyota was already headed off to the turbo-lift with a strange spring in her step. He was starting to wonder what was going on with her.
Doctor McCoy frowned at Nyota when she delivered the PADD to him in sickbay. "He could have just sent this electronically," he grumbled, signing off on the PADD before handing it back. He eyed Nyota suspiciously as she made a detour on her way out to stop by Nurse Chapel. He eyed his head nurse even more suspiciously when she practically dropped everything to give Nyota her full attention for what seemed to be a social visit.
They didn't notice him watching with squinted eyes and a frown, apparently too engrossed in each other. Nurse Chapel had lit up when Nyota went over to talk to her. Doctor McCoy didn't even know that they knew each other, since it wasn't often that Nyota did anything to warrant a visit to sickbay. Although... she had been visiting an inordinate number of times as of late. Small injuries, headaches... now a totally unnecessary delivery... Something was definitely up with her. And as he saw Nurse Chapel's face as she watched Nyota walk away, he decided that something was definitely up with her too.
Nyota was in the ready room, sitting across the desk from Jim. He had a massive backlog of files to sort through and organize, and Nyota had offered assistance. She wouldn't have said anything if she had known they were going to be physical files. There were stacks of disorganized papers covering the desk, a tower of cardboard boxes full of even more paperwork on the floor in the corner, and an open filing cabinet dragged over to be within arm's reach of both of them. They had been working at filling the cabinet all morning, and so far it was sparsely populated.
Stretching her back after leaning over the filing cabinet to put away her latest chunk of papers, she groaned. "This is going to take forever. Couldn't you assign some ensigns to do this?"
Jim looked up from his stack of papers, blinking hard a few times as his vision adjusted to seeing things further away than a foot from his face. "Believe me, I've thought about it more than once," he said, shrugging dejectedly. "But there's some high-clearance stuff in here, I just can't let anyone go reading through it. So I guess we're stuck with the job."
Nyota sighed as she reached for another sheaf of papers. As she touched them, she suddenly jerked her hand back with a wince. "Ow!" She hissed, giving her hand a few shakes before surveying the damage. A short, paper-thin cut had appeared on the pad of her middle finger, visible only because it was beginning to turn red with the blood welling slowly through it. "Ugh. Paper cut," she grumbled, losing what little patience she had with their project. "Why do we even have paper records? It's the twenty-third century for Stars' sake! We are on a spaceship!"
Jim winced sympathetically, then opened a drawer of his desk and started rummaging around. "I think I have a band-aid in here somewhere."
Nyota sighed and stood. "No, don't worry about it," she said, her mood lightening suddenly. "I'll just go down to sickbay."
Jim's brow furrowed in confusion as she practically skipped out of the ready room.
Nyota walked into sickbay, marvelling at how much a tiny cut could hurt. She looked around eagerly for Christine, but there wasn't a single soul in sickbay, aside from herself. "Hello?" She called out. "Nurse Chapel?"
"She's got the day off, what do you need?" Doctor McCoy answered, emerging from his office and giving her a look of suspicion.
"Oh," Nyota said, feeling derailed and frankly, disappointed. "Uh, I got a paper cut," she said lamely, suddenly aware of how ridiculous it was to go all the way down to sickbay for something so small. Clearly, Doctor McCoy thought the same.
"Really," he said, flatly, walking over to her. "You know, if I didn't know any better I'd say that Jim's been a bad influence on you. If I didn't know any better." He gave her an accusatory look.
Nyota pursed her lips, breaking eye contact to look at a spot on the floor instead. "I don't know what you're talking about," she mumbled.
"Sure you don't," Doctor McCoy said, in a tone that said he was getting some enjoyment out of embarrassing her. Asshole. "Your 'stupid injury' record had been spotless until a couple weeks ago. And now you're in here for something as inconsequential as a paper cut!"
"It itches!" Nyota protested, throwing her hands up. "Are you going to help me or not?"
Doctor McCoy scoffed, but he had a grin on his face. "Yeah, yeah. I'll fix your little boo-boo. Just know that you aren't being as inconspicuous as you think you are."
Nyota woke in a confused haze. She couldn't feel her fingers or toes, and while she could hear, it sounded as if she had cotton stuffed in her ears. All she could hear was faint muffled sounds. She felt like she might have been in a sensory deprivation chamber, but surely if she was, she would have remembered entering it. Slowly, she opened her eyes, and was instantly assaulted by the bright white of the world around her.
"Where am I?" She asked herself under her breath, barely audible. "Am I dead?" She couldn't move, couldn't feel anything, hear anything but indiscernible muffled sounds, all she could see was a bright field of white. She wracked her foggy brain for any memory of what happened to her, and vaguely remembered minding her own business on an away mission when the ground fell away beneath her.
She must have died in that sinkhole, but she didn't understand how that could be if her consciousness was still here, contemplating it all. She hadn't believed in the afterlife while she was alive, and she remained skeptical even now.
Then something changed, a shape emerged in front of her, blocking some of the bright light. At first it was just a blurry grey shape, but eventually it started to come into focus. Nyota realized that it was a face. A woman's face, pale and beautiful, with eyes like the sea and iridescent white hair. Her lips moved, but Nyota couldn't hear the words, only the sonorous quality of her voice. Nyota just stared up at her in awe. "An angel," she whispered, as her skepticism about the afterlife faded away with the angel's image.
When she woke up again, she was much more coherent. She could hear the beeps of monitors around her, footsteps as the walked past, hushed voices outside her room. When she opened her eyes she could see the white ceiling of sickbay, the lights thankfully dimmed. She moved her fingers and toes, and found she could feel all of her extremities. She heard a shuffle to her right, and she slowly turned her head in that direction.
Christine sat in the chair at Nyota's bedside, one leg crossed over the other, the light from her PADD reflecting in her glasses. For a blissful moment, the nurse didn't notice that her patient had woken up, and Nyota could watch her as she was when she thought nobody was looking. Her eyes flitted back and forth across her screen, and she reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, seeming not to notice as it immediately fell back into its original place. Then, her eyes flicked up and met Nyota's.
"Oh, you're awake," she said with a smile, her eyes taking on a sparkling quality. "How are you feeling?" She asked, setting her PADD aside and leaning forward in her chair.
"Like I fell into a sinkhole, I guess," Nyota said coarsely, her mouth uncomfortably dry.
Christine reached over to adjust the height of Nyota's bio-bed, so she was sitting more upright, then passed her a glass of water from her bedside, helping Nyota tip it up for her to drink.
"Thanks," Nyota said, voice clearer, and suddenly feeling much more comfortable.
"You were out for a while there," Christine said. "But you're healing well. There shouldn't be any lasting effects."
Nyota nodded, glad for it but feeling too tired to speak much.
Christine looked down at her hands, thinking for a moment before looking back up at Nyota with a wry grin. "You know, you've been in sickbay a lot lately. I've been starting to think you've been having accidents just to come see me."
Nyota felt her face heat. Apparently she wasn't too exhausted to feel entirely mortified. Her brain raced for something to say, but Christine beat her to it.
"I do exist outside of sickbay, you know," she said. "How about from now on we meet in the rec rooms or the mess halls instead? Save you some injury?"
Nyota smiled shyly at her. "That would be nice," she agreed.
Christine beamed. "When you're well enough to get out of here, let's go to the observation deck. I'll bring snacks. I know a great synthesizer recipe for curly fries."
It was Nyota's turn to be coy. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
Christine looked radiant. "Maybe," she said slyly. "Do you want it to be?" She asked, already knowing the answer.
Nyota pretended to think on it, putting on a serious thinking face before breaking into a wide grin. "You had me at curly fries."