InsaneJournal

As soon as he’d woken up, he’d headed to the kitchen and started on breakfast. While the pantry was still limited, he’d made the most of it, lending his skills to make pancakes as well as eggs and some pastries. It wasn’t quite the setup he was used to - the lack of fresh ingredients or a replicator provided a challenge for improvisation. Chris had lost track of how many pancakes they’d made. Everything felt a bit more normal and manageable now that he could go back to cooking - which was both a way for him to take care of the people around him and a way for him to get out excess energy and frustration. Without the 12 to 14 hour workload of running a ship, there was quite a bit of downtime.

After breakfast was done - and dishes washed - Pike was making his way back to the dorms, gold shirt pushed up to his elbows and a bit of flour on his cheek. He spotted a young blond woman he didn’t recall seeing before.

Chris made his way over to her, spotting the familiar paper airplane in her hands. “Hey there? Just get here? I bet you have ques-”

The words died on his lips when he saw the metal delta on her chest. “Starfleet?” he asked quietly.

"Dear, Friend."

Given the message she had just listened to on the device she found, Christine felt more anxious as she read the message on the paper that flew into the back of her head. She was sure the letter wasn't intended to be ominous and even mentions the voice mail, everything about this moment was enough to make her skin crawl.

This was not what she needed right now. Trapped? No, Christine didn't accept that at all, she couldn't. The Enterprise will find her, she didn't care what dimension she was in, she knew that the crew would do everything in their power. Plus, she might not be the only one trapped. It was odd to not be on the ship, but surely she wouldn't be the only passenger on board. If that was true, as she was sought out personally by the kidnappers? She couldn't come up with a reason why that would be.

Get ahold of herself, Chapel. She took a couple of deep breaths, she needed to focus and figure out what to do next. Upon hearing movement and a voice, her body tensed and she turned quickly. Only to immediately relax and a smile of pure relief spread quickly over her face. "Captain, I-" She paused for a second. What was with his expression, and why did he ask her if she was Starfleet, as if he didn't know. "Captain Pike?" She questioned.

Chris was about to say ‘the one and only’ but having a different Spock here made him reconsider that statement. “Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise. At least, that’s what it says on my record.” It seemed the young woman recognized him. Chris wracked his brain, not being able to place her or the uniform. He didn’t think she was from the discovery. Were there new people in medical that he hadn’t met? He tended to leave the medical roster to his CMO, so it was entirely possible she was a new addition.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to forgive me. Have we met? I’m struggling to put a name with a face right now, but it’s been a hell of a week.”

"Uh," Out of all the things that Christine was trying to prepare herself for, having the Captain not recognize her hadn't been one of them. Maybe it should have been? Either way, it gave Christine a very uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. He didn't seem injured in any way but she'd have to do a more intense scan if he'd even let her.

"Sir, I'm not sure what's happening here. You obviously know who you are, you know the Enterprise, but you don't recognize me?" Her eyes narrowed in confusion and concern. "I'm Nurse Christine Chapel, I work under Doctor M'Benga." She moved back and forth like she was giving off a show of introduction. "Remember? I make the disguises?" She asked with a chuckle, referencing their first introduction with Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh had so eloquently put the work Christine was doing, simplifying it to 'making disguises.'

Christine stiffened once more and sighed out. "No? Not ringing a bell, huh?"

There seemed to be some disconnect. She - Christine - recognized him, that was clear, but seemed confused he didn’t recognize her. Was this yet another alternate universe? Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, his brain supplied.

Chris gave her a reassuring smile - the same one people got during their first introduction to their Captain on the Enterprise. The one Una sometimes called “the poster boy smile.”

“I’m familiar with Dr. M’Benga, he took over for Boyce as my CMO. But I’m sorry, Nurse Chapel, your name isn’t ringing a bell. Did you join the Enterprise recently? There are sometimes temporal displacements - people pulled from different points in time. Can I ask what the most recent mission the Enterprise was on? Or the stardate if you remember?”

This was fine.

Absolutely no reason for Christine to freak out. Okay, so inter-dimensional kidnapping, Christine was no expert, but theoretically what Captain Pike had said about time displacements, well, she would only say it was a theory but it seems the evidence was standing right in front of her.

Great.

"I did," she cleared her throat. "Join Enterprise, recently that is. I'm on a civilian exchange, with the Stanford Morehouse Epigenetic Project." Though she had given long thoughts about the process of actually joining Starfleet and hopefully take a more permanent position on the Enterprise. "As for the stardate, it's 1457.9. We were at a Federation outpost in the Neutral Zone." Delivering supplies from what she was told, but she hadn't been involved.

Ah, well that explained it. At least it wasn’t that far in his future.

“Well, that explains it,” Pike said with an easy smile. “That’s more than a year in the future for me.” Chris wasn’t well acquainted with the Stanford project she was referring to, but it sounded like it could be up M’Benga’s alley. The neutral zone, well that was certainly deep space and somewhere he hadn’t been in awhile. He wondered how it was fairing after the Klingon War. It was a rough life being that far out.

“Well, Christine - can I call you Christine? Feel free to call me Chris - no need to stand on ceremony here. Are you hungry? You just missed breakfast, but I can whip up something if you’re hungry?”

Weird, this was all extremely weird.

He was a year behind? The Enterprise had been through so much, even in the short time since her first arrival. Christine wasn't even sure if she would be able to properly catch him up, that is if he even wanted to know in the first place. There was so much she wouldn't have information on, after all, she spends most of her time in sick bay.

"Yeah, Christine's fine." She stared at him for a moment, calling him Chris wouldn't be completely unusual, it just felt odd, but she supposed he had a point. They were definitely out of their realm and from the sound of it, as far from Starfleet as one could get. "Okay, Chris it is." Christine sighed. "Totally weird but I can roll with it."

After folding the note and putting it back into her pocket, her stomach tightened as if on cue. "Actually, I could use something to eat, but is it just you here? Is it just us from the Enterprise?" She had a million more questions, especially about this place, but best to take things slow.

Chris grinned at her. “If it’s too weird, feel free to stick with Captain or Pike. Old habits can be hard to break. But also, feels a little weird to be called Captain without a ship. Or much of Starfleet here.”

He turned back towards the kitchen and started leading her in that direction. “Food first, and I’ll explain what I can and answer any questions you have. There’s also Spock, but he’s from a different universe and in the future, so he doesn’t look like the Spock I know. There’s also Dr. Orlin Dax, he’s a trill and CMO in Starfleet, but quite a bit in the future. We think he and I are from the same timeline, but it’s hard to tell.”

Chris paused to give her a look. “I know all this has to be confusing. How are you doing with all of it?”

“Whichever you’re comfortable with,” she laughed. It did make sense, if there was no ship, was there a reason to stand on ceremony? Then again that in itself felt wrong. Christine may have only been on an exchange, but Enterprise still felt like home to her, she couldn’t imagine how this would feel for someone as accustomed to it as Chris. “Chris works just fine with me, but I can’t promise I won’t slip in a Captain every now and then.”

As they walked and he talked, she almost tripped forward. “I’m sorry, Spock is here but he’s not the Spock we know?” Sure, okay, that wasn’t odd at all. “I’m familiar with Spock, we’ve gotten to know each other since I’ve been on the Enterprise.” A little bit of an understatement, but Chris didn’t need to know the details. Christine had enough problems trying to forget them.

As they stopped, Christine looked around and offered a shrug. “Honestly? I’m not sure. Different universes, future, I know it all makes sense but I didn’t think I would dive head first into it, you know? Not to mention the whole thing of being stuck here? It’s hard to process that the Enterprise won’t come for us.”

Chris chuckled. “I’m truly fine with either. But if Starfleet brass shows up, probably best to call me sir or captain in front of them,” he smirked.

He took a deep breath. “He doesn’t look like the Spock I know - and the one I’m assuming you know. He’s still half Vulcan, same parentage, but older and slightly different experiences than my Spock. I don’t know if he’ll know you or not. He knows a different version of me.”

No need to tell Christine that he was dead in Spock’s world.

“Is there where I tell you that the Enterprise tends to find trouble and interesting adventure? I suppose there’s no guarantee that it won’t come. But I’ve been here four weeks so far.

"You got it." Christine laughed. Even if he didn't know her, at least not yet anyway, he still seemed like the same Pike she had met on the Enterprise, which of course he was, but how strange it must be to meet people from your future. They didn't get to visit often before, just at the dinner and breakfast that he would often host. A lot of people on the Enterprise had many wonderful things to say about him, which Christine agreed with, but at least this served as a better chance of getting to know each other better.

"Hard to imagine but I think having any version of Spock around would be a good thing." Biased thoughts aside, Spock was brilliant and if she had to pick a handful of people to be stuck with, Christine was glad one of them was Spock. "There could be another version of me from his universe, boy that's a thought? I can barely handle myself sometimes," she joked.

Christine laughed, the tension slowly going away, but at least a friendly face was a good distraction from her current situation. "Oh, believe me, sir, I'm very familiar with the trouble adventures the Enterprise gets us into." Not all of them good, of course, but she didn't need to bother Chris with that, not yet anyway.

Chris led her into the kitchen, gesturing for her to have a seat at the counter as he grabbed a bowl and some staples so he could make pancake batter. “Just pancakes? We probably have some sausage if you want.”

He added a dash of vanilla to the pancake batter and set it aside as he warmed up the pan. “Spock’s brain is an asset, no matter what universe he’s from. Although we’re both doing the dance of how much to reveal to the other. Apparently he was close with the me there. But I was an Admiral.”

Chris shuddered a bit. He was in no rush to get promoted to a desk. “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, as the Vulcans say. There’s probably infinite variations of us out there.”

There was a laugh when Christine mentioned the Enterprise. “Yeah, Starfleet engineers seem to think I purposely damage her just to get refits. As if I’d intentionally even scratch her up.”

“Pancakes will be fine, I don’t want you to go through the trouble.” Christine was sure that he wouldn’t mind, but now that her alertness was wearing off, other emotions started peaking through, and she wasn’t sure how much she would be able to eat. The panic and realization was slowly starting to set in, they really were trapped.

“Hm,” she thought. “Yeah, probably not a great idea to reveal too much, what if we were sent back and kept this knowledge? Not that there would be much we could do about it, but I don’t know, there’s probably a line there somewhere.” Not that Christine had any experience in that regard, but since it was likely there was another Christine running around, this one wasn’t sure if she would want to know.

Christine laughed. “Of course not, I think it’s just our luck, however you want to look at it. Speaking of, guess you should probably give me the information on this place. It helps to know what I’ve gotten myself into.” That and hopefully it would distract her until she was able to find her room and take a moment to process.

Once the pan was hot enough, Pike spooned some batter onto it. “It’s no trouble, really.”

“From what people have said, they don’t think that happens, but it’s hard to tell. And General Order One doesn’t really apply here. Still not trying to spill any Starfleet secrets, but it is fascinating to learn what’s different between our two worlds.”

Chris flipped the pancakes and leaned against the counter to look at her. “The campus - is somewhat constant. Usually, every other week is here - what you see, with a void surrounding campus. You can walk for hours and not get anywhere. And the sky is an illusion. The other weeks, well, who knows where we’ll be. Since I’ve been here, it’s been 1940s Los Angeles and a zombie world. And one of the weeks that was supposed to be ‘normal’ was a weird fairy world. Folks show up and leave without any rhyme or reason.”

Christine grinned. “You got it, I am pretty good at keeping secrets.” Not that she would ever spill anything about Starfleet, she might not be official, but she was still their guest and working under their rule and protocols. Christine had the utmost respect for Captain Pike and the Enterprise, and she felt a sense of loyalty to them.

She nearly choked on her own breath. “Zombies, really?” Christine had seen some scary things in her time, and theoretically, something akin to zombies could be possible, not quite in the way that films had portrayed them, but something similar. “That’s, wow, looks like I just might have my hands full here.” Christine was preparing herself, of course. This might be a new world, but she was still a Nurse, she still had a duty to people and that didn’t change just because the location did.

“I guess there’s a lot to catch me up on.”