Reversed Judgement

Posted on Sun Nov 8, 2020 @ 10:27pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson & Lieutenant JG Camille Lévesque PhD

1,422 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: The Binary Suns
Location: Nicole & Camille's Quarters
Timeline: After returning to the ship

Nicole had avoided going to Sickbay just yet until she'd had a chance to calm down and change into some hemoglobin-free clothing. She also avoided a route near the bridge to avoid scrutiny from certain parties.

She pressed her thumb on the plate and breathed a sigh of relief as she entered her quarters. Her fangs had retracted finally, but her eyes were still red, the blood was still rushing in her ears and her heart was still pounding. *Serves them right for shooting me,* she thought.

She walked into their bedroom and had begun stripping off her soiled uniform when she heard the outer doors to her quarters open. "Bollocks," she said under her breath. She sprinted quickly and locked the bedroom door just as she heard someone hit the panel.

The day had been busy for all involved. Camille had only just been relieved from her bridge shift, though from what she could gather, she had gotten off easy compared to the various boarding parties.

She was nonetheless glad to be off duty. Her uniform jacket was off within seconds of entering her and Nicole’s quarters. She was surprised to see the door to their bedroom closed, and more so when the panel to open it didn’t work.

“Computer, door override, authorization Lévesque-four-two-Xi.”

"Damnit, Cami," Nicole groused as the doors opened. She turned and faced the door, her commando suit still covering her. "I need a minute, I'm...having issues with my suit."

“Why? What’s wrong?” Camille stepped closer. “Come on, let me help.”

"Promise you won't overreact," Nicole said.

“I promise.”

"Get my black bag," Nicole said.

Needing the black bag was never a good sign, Camille thought. She picked it up and set it on the bed in front of Nicole.

Nicole opened it. "Laser scalpel," she said, then a moment later pulled one out. She handed it to Camille and took a breath, turning around, showing the fused, partially melted weave of the suit on her back. "I can't get it unsealed. I need you to cut it off me."

“Wait, what?” Camille looked at Nicole with wide eyes. “I can’t do that.”

"It's that or I try to do it myself," Nicole said. "But I need this thing off me. Please, Cami. I promise you won't hurt me."

The science officer took a deep breath. “Okay. Turn around.” She activated the laser and, as slowly and as carefully as she could, she began to cut the metallic fabric open.

What lay underneath wasn’t as bloody or gory as Camille had feared. She expected that the sort of damage that would fuse the suit would utterly destroy the flesh underneath. Still, it was no pretty sight. Parts of Nicole’s back were badly burned. The suit had partially melted to some of it, and Camille could see Nicole wince as she separated suit from skin.

Nicole hissed in discomfort as the scalpel cut past the suit and sometimes into her, but she felt the wounds close up. As Camille peeled the protective suit away, her skin repaired, and she breathed a sigh of relief, wanting to itch herself silly. When the suit was finally off, Nicole reached back to her newly healed skin, pulled off the singed remains of her bra and collapsed forward onto their bed.

She sighed with relief, rolling over and kicking the remainder of the suit off, slipping out of her socks and curling up on her side. "I want to sleep for a year," she groaned.

“Your back,” Camille said, standing at the edge of the bed still, laser scalpel in her hand. “It’s already looking better.” Concern for Nicole was already fading, replaced by curiosity. “Can I get you something to help it along? What makes the wounds close so quickly? Have the various healing factors been studied? Does it still hurt? Do you feel the wounds close?”

Nicole curled up more, but that only made her newly healed skin itch more. She sat up and scratched and finally held up a hand. "Ohhhh-kay...tick...let's do one at a time."

She scooted back and sat against the bulkhead behind the bed. "One, there's nothing you can get me, but thank you. Two, what makes them heal is the natural regenerative ability that makes the ha'kiv-katau so damn hard to kill. Three, Amber has done limited research on it. I don't like being 'studied.' Four, no just itches like mad, but that's fading. Five, yes."

“Oh,” Camille said quietly. “Pardon. I didn’t mean to make you feel studied.”

"You didn't, Amber did," Nicole sighed. "And, unfortunately, I already took in all I needed to heal down on Earth."

“Took in?” Camille started to ask, but then she didn’t press further. “Ah. I understand. Want to talk about it?” She set the laser scalpel down on the end table and sat on the bed.

"To be honest, mon chere," Nicole said, "I'm not sure how much there is to discuss. I was shot. If it was anyone else, they'd probably have been killed from the burns if not the phaser blast itself. Instead, I left six bodies on the floor of that facility." Her voice was unusually calm and steady. She felt herself somewhat surprised by that, but didn't question it. "I didn't want to. I tried not to. I felt the first shot hit me in the back, I saw the Captain looking at me and I fell forward..." her voice caught in her throat, but she swallowed. "And all I could think about was how much I was looking forward to having dinner with you when I got back. How I wanted to hold you again, and how I wanted to just come home to you so you wouldn't worry."

Her eyes were wet, but she suddenly growled in the back of her throat, and they turned red. "And then they shot me again. And I got angry. And I decided I was going home, and that's all there was to it. They could have stopped chasing me, stopped shooting at me. I took only what lives were necessary to preserve mine." She took a deep breath as she felt her hackles start to rise and blinked a few times, her eyes going back to their usual icy blue.

"I'm done crying over other people's misfortune," she said. "And I'm done feeling guilty for it." Despite her brave words, she bit her lip and looked up. "I just hope you don't think me callous for not mourning."

“Of course I don’t think that,” Camille answered. “They could have stopped. They could have chosen loyalty to the Federation and not been part of this coup. You were sent into a combat mission against people willing to kill you. I’d be angry if you didn’t use all available resources to survive, not to mention meet our objectives."

"Well, thankfully I stopped shy of blowing up the planet," Nicole said, trying to muster up some humor. She reached out and held Camille's hand. "I'm glad you understand, and I'm trying to come around and see things that way, too." She took a deep breath. "I have to finish with patients tomorrow, finish my reports on the wounded and see to the transfer of the VIPs and any other critically injured to McKinley base, but the day after, once that's done, I say we take a day to ourselves. No work, no responsibilities. How's that sound?"

“I love it,” Camille replied. “Let me check the calendar and see what we can do on our day off. There must be something fun happening in-system.” She let go of Nicole’s hand and took off her glasses and set them on her end table. Then she continued removing her uniform and getting ready for bed. “I have so much to do tomorrow too. We gathered a lot of telemetry on that Borg Cube as we traveled through transwarp. Every time a Starfleet ship goes through a corridor like that, we get closer to transwarp technology of our own.” Uniform off and a light nightgown on, she flopped into bed next to Nicole.

Nicole smiled and slipped under the covers, happy to finally be home. She snuggled up and sighed gratefully as Camille scratched the hard-to-reach places on her back for her, then turned and pulled Camille to her, holding her tight and letting sleep take them.

END

 

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