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༄ chapter fifteen
-ˋˏ ELEVATION ˎˊ-
"WELL, if you wanted to say 'are you out of your fucking mind', why didn't you? I mean, he gave you permission to speak freely, and I'm sure he's heard more than his fair share of profanity over the years, especially teaching Cadets," Vera replied to Darcy casually, the two lounging side by side on the far end of the bridge, their backs against the walls as they sat on the stainless white floors.
Moments after her less-than-honorable fight with her father, Vera had originally planned to find salvation in an empty stairwell, cry until she was numb, and maybe go visit her fellow engineers to see how things were going, but she eventually dropped the first two tasks, punched a wall, and completed the third. Once Vera confirmed that her small crew was doing well and surviving in the freezing temperature of the coolant room, she wandered up to the bridge, finding herself in a rather lackluster environment without both Spock and Kirk around, and so settled for a boring conversation with her old friend and a game of noughts and crosses with Uhura from across the room.
Darcy shrugged, "I thought it would be a bit inappropriate to cuss at the Captain, of all people."
Vera rolled her eyes, looking up at Uhura's paper, which she held up from across the room. Taking a red pen, she crossed out Uhura's box before circling the one next to it, holding it up for her friend to mark down. She turned back to Darcy, an indignant look on her face as she corrected her, "He's not the actual Captain, Darce, he's just the acting Captain."
"What's the difference?" Darey said as she watched Vera mark down Uhura's cross before putting down her own nought, holding it up.
"The difference is that Spock will never be Captain, since Chris is the true Captain of the Enterprise, and always will be. It's obvious by the choices that he's made and the things that have happened under his control that Spock isn't nearly as qualified as Chris, and he should probably just go back to being a sarcastic, scientific piece of shit, since that's what he's best at," Vera replied matter-of-factly, not even thinking of what she was saying, or the little knot in her stomach when the conversation solely focused on the Vulcan First Officer.
"You're being rather harsh, don't you think? What has Spock done to you to make him hate you?" Darcy asked sweetly.
Vera paused, then shrugged, "He just...brings out a certain anger in me. He's annoying as hell, self-righteous, rude-" she cut herself off, staring at her paper helplessly. All she could remember when she talked badly about him was their misguided hug in the turbolift; how he smelled masculine but not overbearing, how he was cooling against her overheated skin, how the blue shirt of a science officer looked up close. It was nostalgic, in a way, and as much as she was embarrassed, that hug did more for her opinion of him than just sway him to being less annoying, in her eyes. It was more embarrassing how she thought of him after the fact, though she was loath to admit that, even to one of her her closest friends.
