Amino Acids
Fandom: Star Trek XI
Pairing: Kirk/Spock, Gen
Series: Belief in Angels
Summary: The brain contains receptors for the neurohormone oxytocin, which is now thought to be a major factor in the chemical structure of behaviors like love, trust, and pair-bonding.
"It's just… Is it really okay to need someone that much?"
She's holding a cup of coffee-slightly burned, a little too bitter, even with three doses of creamer, the damned replicators-and leaning against the bulkhead. She isn't talking to anyone in particular. Basically, she expects McCoy to show up, take her coffee, dunk some liquor in it and tell her to get out already. Her shift ended ten minutes ago, and she's cluttering up his sickbay.
It's probably a bad sign that she can anticipate this, that she knows him this well. (And no, she isn't just standing around hoping for some of McCoy's booze-his is the best on the ship, but that's hardly the point.)
McCoy doesn't show up, but Chapel's there.
"Hey, Beauvoir," she says, and Aella hands her the coffee because she's pulling double shift and she looks like she needs it. It isn't that they're really good friends or anything. They had drinks, a couple of times, in the Academy, and they both have to put up with McCoy and the Captain's idiocy. That's the kind of thing that Aella considers bonding, even though they rarely talk outside sickbay. Then again, Chapel's, like, married. To Uhura, and not literally-yet, anyway-but still.
Anyway, Aella figures it's some kind of divine providence that Chapel's around, because Aella just doesn't get it and maybe Chapel will.
The room Spock's in is technically private, but it isn't like she can't see. And it's crazy and scary and fucked up, the look Kirk's got on his face right now, fingers tracing patterns into Spock's hand.
"So is it? Okay, I mean. To need someone that much." It's an honest question. Because she's single, so maybe she doesn't get it, maybe there's something she's missing. But she wonders how it's possible to care that much.
Chapel doesn't say anything, just makes a face, a little, at the taste of Aella's coffee. Which she's still drinking, but Aella can't really fault her for that. She looks dead on her feet.
"I mean… Why…?" She doesn't know how to finish her question. "Spock took fucking torture for him. He almost died." A pause, and Chapel hands her back the coffee for another sip-still too bitter, dammit, she's talking to Brewer in Engineering about those replicators.
"You're asking, is it weird?"
Suddenly, Aella feels kind of callous. Maybe the answer should be obvious. Probably. But just because she's a girl doesn't mean she's supposed to have empathy and sentimentalism built in. It's just… The concept of love like that feels a little too far for her to reach.
She isn't sure if she wants to, is why she's asking.
"I don't know, maybe. Madeline would say it's something biological."
Chapel shrugs. "Maybe it is."
"Does that bother you?"
"Sometimes. But just because love is probably just a long chain of amino acids doesn't make it less real."
"I suppose." Maybe that's it. Maybe there's this specific chain, this certain order of chemical compounds in the brain. Maybe that's how it works. And maybe Aella just doesn't have that; her hormones haven't given that signal to her brain yet.
She's a nurse. This is what comforts her, when she needs it.
It takes Aella a moment to realize that Chapel's started speaking again. "-But them? With them, I just don't know."
"Nurse Chapel!"
It's McCoy, voice tense, strained. Chapel grins at her, takes another swig of the coffee.
"Duty calls. See you on alpha shift."
"Yeah, sure." God, that woman doesn't know how to stop. She's gone as quickly as she came, petite form squeezing through a crowded sickbay toward McCoy's voice. Aella is more than a little in awe.
When Chapel's out of sight, Aella drains the lukewarm coffee with only a slight grimace and tells herself she really needs to get out of sickbay and relax. Like she even knows the meaning of R & R, these days. Still, some sleep before alpha shift would probably be good. And who knows, maybe she'll comm. Madeline and see if she wants to hit the mess for-what is it now? Lunch, dinner? Regardless. Madeline's nice to talk to. No nonsense. Maybe Aella will ask her that stuff about biology.
Speaking of…
Aella can't help it. She sneaks a look back into Spock's room. Kirk looks like he's been up for weeks (when was the last time she saw the Captain outside sickbay?), and he's holding on to Spock's hand like he's gonna come apart if he lets go. It's beautiful, really. But it's scary.
She's pretty sure anything Chapel has to say on the subject is probably bullshit. She doesn't think you're supposed to need someone enough to take torture for them and not even care.
She'll have to ask Madeline if it's possible that some people are just born without self-preservation instincts, and if so, what does that mean for them all?