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Nyota walked through the corridors at a brisk pace. She was on duty, but was allowed a break from her bridge duties to get some work done on the communications deck, and she had no intention of dallying.
Or at least, she didn't have any intention of dallying until she unexpectedly encountered Christine while rounding a corner on the way to the comm lab.
"Hey!" Nyota called out, a bright smile breaking out on her face. Her mood instantly lifted.
Christine, who was walking with her head buried in a PADD, jumped in surprise and looked at her like a deer looks at oncoming headlights. But only for a moment. Her blues eyes quickly softened in recognition as Nyota trotted up to her.
"Fancy seeing you down here," Nyota commented, waving a hand vaguely to indicate that "down here" referred to the communications deck.
Christine shrugged, pushing her gold rimmed glasses up her face. "House call," she explained. "One of the Engineers gave himself a bit of a shock working on the electricals."
Nyota grimaced. "Is he okay?"
"Right as rain," Christine assured her. "Anyways, I doubt he'll be forgetting to flip the breakers before trying to rewire anything in the future."
"Well, he put you right in my path, so I guess he's done us a favour," Nyota said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
"What do you mean?"
Nyota nodded her head towards a Jefferies tube access door.
Christine bit her lip as blood rushed to her face. She checked the time on her PADD. "I only have a couple minutes before anyone notices I'm taking too long to get back to sickbay," she said, sounding torn.
"A couple minutes is all we need," Nyota said slyly. Christine let her take her by the hand and lead her to the access door.
Nyota was back on the bridge, having finished her work on the communications deck. She was humming contentedly as she made her way through some paperwork. It was a slow day on the bridge, and it seemed everyone was catching up on other work while minding their stations. It was very... boring.
The silence on the bridge was broken when Jim made a sudden, choked sound. Nyota turned to give him a quizzical look, and found that he was staring at her. He quickly turned his attention back to his PADD after their eyes met, and Nyota swore the tips of his ears were redder than usual. Strange. She looked to her other crew-mates, but they were all engrossed in their own things, apparently not having noticed anything out of the ordinary. Slowly, Nyota swivelled her chair back to face her station, and returned to the dull task of filling out her requisition forms.
After a while, she heard Jim clear his throat and tap at the comm panel on his chair. He spoke quietly, presumably out of consideration for everyone else on the dead-quiet bridge, but Nyota couldn't help but notice the reluctance in his voice.
"Kirk to sickbay," he said. "Could Nurse Chapel report to the bridge?"
Nyota frowned into her PADD, wondering what Jim wanted Christine up here for. She spent the next few minutes staring at her forms without reading them, trying to puzzle it out. But it seemed that she would get her answer when Christine stepped out of the turbo-lift and Jim summoned both of them to his ready room.
Nyota met Christine's eyes in confusion, but from Christine's expression, she had no more idea what this was about than Nyota did. Hesitantly, they followed Jim into his ready room.
"Grab a seat," Jim said, gesturing vaguely at the conference table as he plopped himself down into a chair. He looked tired. Or like he was tasked with something he really didn't want to do.
Nyota and Christine sat down across the table from him, exchanging another look of uncertainty with each other. "Did something happen?" Nyota asked, worried. She felt like whatever this was, it was bad news.
"Hm?" Jim looked up at her, seeing her concern. "Oh. No. Nothing like that," he said. "Nothing to worry about."
Nyota relaxed a bit. "Alright. Then what do you want to see us for?"
Jim hesitated. This seemed awkward for him for some reason. "So uh... You two are a thing now?" He asked, with no preamble.
Christine ducked her head as her face reddened, and Nyota felt her own face heat. She immediately jumped to their defence. "Captain, there's nothing in the regulations that prohibits-"
"Just asking as a friend," Jim said quickly, raising his palms. "Don't worry. You guys are definitely in the clear when it comes to regulations."
Nyota narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "If you're asking as a friend, wouldn't this be a better conversation for when we're off duty?"
Jim floundered for a second. "It's a slow news day," he tried. When Nyota's look of suspicion intensified, he added, "I was bored out of my mind!" He didn't sound very convincing.
After a long glare of scrutiny, Nyota answered his question. "Fine. Yeah, we're 'a thing.' What about it?"
"Nothing," Jim said. "Congrats."
There was a long, very awkward silence, until finally, Jim took a deep breath, visibly steeling himself for what was next.
"Alright, there is a work-related reason I called you two in here," he admitted. "I received a report from security earlier today that was... interesting."
Christine and Nyota once again exchanged confused looks. "What does security want with us?" Christine asked.
"Well," Jim started, his reluctance becoming obvious. "Okay, as your friend, this is funny. As your captain this is really awkward."
"Just tell us," Nyota said flatly, tiring of his dancing around the subject.
Jim grimaced, picking up his PADD and tapping at it briefly before putting it back down, spinning it one hundred and eighty degrees, and sliding it across the table to them. "The security chief has asked me to remind you that after our little stowaway incident two weeks ago, a system of motion detecting surveillance cameras were installed in all the Jefferies tubes."
For a moment, neither Nyota nor Christine understood. Then the dread set in and they looked down at the report. The page Jim had shown them was a list of specific dates and times beginning two weeks prior. Familiar dates. Including one from just a few hours ago. At the bottom of the page were a couple of still frames, presumably from the surveillance cameras. Both stills, each from a different location and date, clearly showed Nyota and Christine standing together in the cramped space, kissing.
Christine groaned and slumped limply back in her chair, letting herself slide out of her chair and onto the floor under the table, while Nyota pushed the tablet away and let her forehead thump to the tabletop.
"Yeaaaah..." Jim said with a grimace. "I'm happy for you guys but security is getting uncomfortable with having to review compromising footage of their crew-mates, so I'm gonna have to ask that you stop making out in the Jefferies tubes."
Christine was still out of sight below the table, and Nyota let out a groan of mortification, which was muffled by the table.
"Sorry," Jim said, wincing. After a long few moments, when neither Christine or Nyota spoke or moved, Jim got up from the table slowly and backed himself towards the exit. "Alright, well, I'm going to go back to work," he said awkwardly as he made his escape. "You two can return to duty whenever your're done with... whatever this is."