Title: A Woman Scorned or When the Thunder Rolls

Author: shakeahand55

Character: Christine Chapel

Summary: But she knew she couldn't do that, she knew she shouldn't even be thinking about harming him in anyway, she took her Pledge, she was a Nurse, she was better then that, she was Christine Marie Chapel. Inspired in part by Garth Brooks song The Thunder Rolls.

Rated: T

Word Count: 2,901

Disclaimer: I don't own them, this is all for fun.

She sat on the couch in the living room, holding his picture close to her body, shaking from the cold San Francisco wind that seemed to seep through the thin cotton nightgown and straight into her bones.

Despite the teeth chattering cold, she just sat there, holding his picture in the darkness like it was her last life line.

She curled in on herself and pulled the blanket around herself to cover her frozen legs. She watched the rain that fell from the dark sky from her window, which had a great view of Starfleet Academy and the Golden Gate Bridge.

She watched as lightening struck and lit up the sky with an eerie white light, which cast shadows on her face and on the walls around her.

She sat there silently as the thunder roared, booming loud in the dark sky. She couldn't take it, just sitting wondering like a fool.

She got up off the couch and started to pace back and forth by the phone on the coffee table in front of her, she fingers twisting and turning the ring on her finger.

She didn't know whether to pick up the phone and call him at work or try one of his friends and see if he was with them at a bar or something.

She paced constantly between the window, the phone and the kitchen, she knew it was foolish but she couldn't help it, she didn't know how long she paced.

She couldn't sleep, not after the things she found in his sock drawer a few hours before, a pair of earrings and a lipstick stain on the collar of one of his shirts that she knew didn't belong to her, heck she hadn't ever even seen the shirt before, among other things.

That evidence flashed in her mind as she pushed down her anger, she had had her doubts for a while now but him being late again tonight, she knew it was true.

She was about to go back into the kitchen again to fix her cup of coffee when she finally saw the car that held her lover pull into the driveway, the headlights illuminating the living room.

She is glad he's back and he's alright, I mean he is her fiancé [but maybe not anymore] and even if he is cheating on her, lying to her and betraying her, that doesn't mean she wants him to get hurt in this stormy weather.

She wraps her arms around herself, opens the front door and sighs before stepping out onto the covered porch, pulling the door slightly closed behind her.

"Where the hell were you?" she asks as she eyes his crooked tie, and his wet form from the rain as he walks up the steps to join her on the porch.

She could smell it in the air around him as he stepped closer, as if to either embrace her or move her aside to get into the warm house.

She knew it, it was something different and it wasn't the rain or flowers. The pungent smell was not from her, this she knew for sure. She didn't wear perfume.

He just looked at her as if she had just said hello, she noticed he looked tired but relaxed and calm, not worried at all.

"Not to night baby, I'm tired. Let's talk in the morning before work" he said running a pale hand over his face and sighing, he looked like all he wanted to do was get dry and get some sleep.

She uncrosses her arms from over her chest, her anger started to surface, she wasn't going to let him stall tonight, she wanted answers and she was going to get them.

"NO DAMN IT! You tell me where you were, and you tell me now!" he got mad at her yelling at him like that and tried to side step around her to get into the house, but she wouldn't budge.

After a couple of tense minutes of staring into each others livid eyes, he gave up and just shoved her to the side with a hard, violent push.

She stumbled back a couple steps almost fell to the ground, but keeps her balance if not to just show him she wouldn't be backing down so easily.

She fixed him with an icy stare as she followed him inside the house and then to the kitchen for her cup of coffee and watched as he made himself one as well.

She easily spots the horrid red lipstick on his neck, just above his collar which is half hiding a hickey that she knows she didn't give him. Even though the rain had done a good job at washing the majority of the lipstick away, she could still see it's mark on his skin.

Staring at his back like she was doing, she was sure he could feel her eyes burning into him and as she glanced to the side of his neck, it had clicked in her mind.

She knew who's lipstick and perfume she could see and smell on her fiancé's body, no she smiled sadly her ex-fiancé.

"You forgot about the lipstick she left on your neck, darling" she said softly "and the hickey. I know it's not one of mine" she skilfully set down her mug on the counter behind her without taking her eyes off him.

She knew what she would have done to him if she hadn't graduated and was now a full fledged Nurse, if she hadn't cited the Nightengale Pledge during her pinning ceremony, if she wasn't 3 months into 'the start of her career' at Starfleet Academy and it's Hospital.

She would have grabbed the phaser she was learning how to use [READ: Being forced to learn how to use it by the Academy, as all students needed to have at least basic Phaser knowledge] and she would have stunned him into the next century, or she might have even set it to kill, because lord knows she was that pissed right now.

But she knew she couldn't do that, she knew she shouldn't even be thinking about harming him in anyway, she took her Pledge, she was a Nurse, she was better then that, she was Christine Marie Chapel.

She was also a woman scorned.

She exhaled slowly, he turned around to face her, a puddle of water at his feet as the water ran down his body, she was sure he sighed as he looked her right in the eyes.

"Christine, honey it's late, your tied, I'm tired…let's just go to bed and we can talk in the morning before I go to work" she was sure if she was a cartoon like in the holovids her nieces liked to watch when they were younger, smoke would have started to come out of her ears or her head would have exploded.

"No!" she said, her voice calm and even, her tone almost normal "no we're not just going to bed so we can talk before you go to work in the morning, you leave here at some god-awful hour and I never get a chance to see you in the morning before I leave, and hell if your home when I get home from work!" she knew she wouldn't stop till she was done now.

"I know what your doing! I know who your with and I know you're lying to me again!" her voice started to rise and she watched as if all his traces of tiredness had been wiped clean, he stood up straighter and seemed to be paying more attention to her now.

"How long?" she asked, her voice breaking slightly "how long what?" he asked "how long have you been…it's Andrea isn't it? Your with Andrea your assistant…your with her when you should be with me" she seemed to almost really take it in just this moment.

She watched his face, she could read him like a book and knew what he was thinking some times and this time she was sure she did, she was sure he was trying to think of what to tell her.

She shook her head "no, you know what, don't tell me how long" she forced back her tears, she turned and stalked out of the kitchen heading to the bedroom leaving him alone in the kitchen.

She knew it, this was it she couldn't take anymore, he'd been doing this to her a lot, and even without him really saying anything, the evidence was all there.

She's just stupid that it took her this long to put the pieces together, the one thing she knew for sure was that he'd been cheating on her for a last 4 months, but she knew it was longer then that, more like years.

If she could have slammed the door when she walked into the bedroom she would have, as she moved towards the closet and pulled out a duffel bag and she quickly got dressed as she started to throw clothes into it.

She made sure her ID and everything she would need was in her purse, made sure her earrings were in her ears and then in anger picked up one of her heels and threw it right at the mirror hanging above the dresser that she had shared with him for 5 years.

She watched happily as it shattered before she slung the bag over her shoulder and moved from the bedroom, she had all she needed in her bag and purse and if she needed anything she'd come back for it later.

She grabbed her coat and put on her rain coat and her Hospital ID and pass key and put them in her purse then quickly headed down the hall.

When she made it back out into the front room he was standing by the couch and turned to look at her, shock written all over his face, he was still wet she noticed.

"Where are you going Christine?" he asked, she shook her head "I'm leaving Roger…" she said as she almost tore the ring off her finger, forcing the tears away and the sob from her voice.

"I'm done with you, with your lying, cheating…I'm done" she threw the ring towards him as she opened the door and put up her hood and started to walk away from the house, from her now ex-fiancé.

She wasn't sure where she was going as her legs carried her away from the house, down the hills and the winding streets to the nearest transport pick up. She stood there in the rain, her hair stringy and laying limp on her wet head and watched and waited for a transport would stop and pick her up.

She wasn't sure how long she had been waiting when one stopped and she got in, the driver smiled at her and asked her where to, she froze as she had no clue where she was going to go.

But she remembered her friend said his roommate was at home for the next 2 weeks, she smiled "Starfleet Academy please" she said nodding to him as she moved to the back after handing him 3 credits from her pocket.

"Sure thing miss…isn't it late for you to be out on a night like this?" he asked her, her being the only person other then him in the shuttle at the moment.

"Yes it is" she said softly "it's very late…way to late…I should have left sooner" she said to herself forgetting the driver[or would that be pilot] was there.

She doesn't know if he asked her any more questions as she looked out the window as they made there way over the Golden Gate Bridge and away from him, away from her passed life, her passed heart-break.

She was going to start anew, she would go see a lawyer tomorrow and start the ball rolling and get everything seen to by a professional in case Roger tried something, she'd be ready for it.

'There goes 5 years of your life Christine…but cheer up, you'll be warm and dry soon and in a bed and then you can talk about what a jerk he is…and what a idiot you are' she said to herself as she slumped down in her seat.

She jumped in shock when she heard a voice 'the driver' she told herself speak up and tell her they were at her destination and to be careful and have a good night.

She said thank you and good night as she walked out into the downpour again pulling her hood over her head for what little good it was doing her.

She had a lot of time to think as she made her lone trek across the campus to the 1st cadets dorm about how she was alright with this at the moment. But she knew when she actually had time to let it all sink in she would become a mad woman and total wreck.

She smiles sadly, in her whole life she's only had 2 boyfriends and one fling with a girl she knew back home in New Orleans that started with a drunk one night stand that turned into a drinking binge for 4 nights worth of sex and booze before it ended and she moved to Seattle to start Nursing school where she met Roger.

She's been cheated on, jilted…scorned and lied to, for the first time in her life and she was going to end it before he left her, she would bitch about it and move on to bigger and better things without him holding her down.

She would work more hours in the hospital, make more friends, maybe even find a new boyfriend and get a placement on a Starship.

She smiled sadly as she walked through the quiet halls, leaving puddles in her wake as she made her way to her friends room.

Knocking on the door as she hoped he was there and sighing in relief as the door opened and boy was it a sight to behold.

"Chris! What are you doing here, it's almost 4am!" she shook her head "I'm a jilted and scorned woman Lenored…and I need a place to stay until I can get a room on campus" he just started at her before nodding and moving aside to let her in.

"So Roger finally got caught?" he watched holding back a laugh as her head whipped around at almost warp speed to face him, flinging droplets all over.

"You…what…are you saying you knew?" she asked him as he shook his head "no I didn't know but I put it together, all the times you told me about him either being really late or not coming home at all and you finding things and you said you found a lipstick stain on his collar…Jocelyn was cheatin' on me to darlin' I knew the signs" he said to her helping her out of her wet coat and taking it into the bathroom to dry.

"It hurts like a bitch don't it?" she nodded sadly as she opened her duffle bag and pulled out something she could sleep in for the night.

"But he better what out…a angry woman is worse then a ship full of angry Klingons" he said as she nodded and smiled, wiping away the tears that finally fell as she walked into the bathroom.