The room was dark when he entered, as if she had simply disregarded the existence of light and opted for the natural dusk of space instead. All he saw was her shadow, an outline against the cool glass of the open window, its shutters pulled back and the void of space stretched out before her with flecks of stars burned arbitrarily into the unfathomable depth of black canvas.
"Uhura?" He asked, and the sound of his voice wrenched her from her solitude. "You…wanted to talk, da?"
She turned, and half her face was made blank by the infringing shadows. "Come and sit next to me, would you Chekov? I don't think this news will be easy to take on your feet."
He had figured as such, the way her voice had sounded even through the distortion of the communicator's innate static. Something defeated seemed to douse its usual fervor, the unheeded desire to be heard in that soft, yet determined voice of hers. Uhura was not one who so easily surrendered to anything; it was unnerving, hearing her that way.
Regardless of the unrest that stirred in him, he moved hesitantly forward. She did not rouse again from her pensive stupor until he had eased into the seat beside her, when she took his hand into hers and settled it over her stomach. It was oddly misshapen somehow, not the smooth, flat surface that Chekov had come to expect beneath that red uniform that seemed to flaunt too much and conceal too little. But it had vaguely occurred to Chekov that she had not been wearing the same 'detestable thing', as she so adoringly deemed it, for a long time.
"Do you feel that?" She asked, and her tone had hardened considerably as she spoke.
Chekov regarded her stomach carefully, his eyes trailing over the mysterious change blindly. Behind the curious eyes, a mind began to slowly whir, gears turning and overturning one thought over the other. But nothing came to surface amid the myriad of theories. "Nyet," he said, and tried to lure her gaze toward his. "What is it?"
"I'm pregnant," she explained indifferently, and she looked down at his pale hand, almost pearl-like as its warmth seeped through the thin cloth of her standard issue Starfleet uniform, two sizes bigger than her last. "It's yours."
Spasms of light began to pulsate before Chekov's vision, and his brain suddenly felt so detached, as if it had somehow separated itself entirely from his body. Nothing would move, not even that hand on her stomach – the one that had apparently been a culprit in what he guessed Uhura considered a crime. "How is this possible? I-I don't remember…this. At all."
"You don't remember because I never told you, Chekov," she replied, and he stared mournfully at a flash of silver trickling down her russet cheek. Her voice was barely a whisper. "I'm sorry."
He was about to ask how. How could such a thing happen? From what he knew, babies had to come from some place. They couldn't just…materialize or be transported into wombs as easily as a touch of a button, although the fondling of buttons had some part in the process. Chekov's mind flitted over the concept of such an impossibility…it was definitely something strange to think about.
But before he could form the words, Uhura had already seemed to sense them. Her eyes were dark and film-like as tears glazed over them, and Chekov could feel his heart begin to fissure and break apart in the vice hold of guilt; he witnessed the expression of complete uncertainty unveil on her face.
"It was a month and a half ago. We were on shore leave in Cardassia, remember?" She paused, as if seeking him in the dark. He found her and held her stationary, his hands entwining with hers like flesh-hued vines. "You were drinking with Mr. Scott, and he bet that you couldn't drink like a man. I guess you conquered him, Chekov…he was passed out on the table while you were still singing drunken ballads in Russian, lounging in that chair with a bottle of vodka tucked into your arm…" She hesitated, a bout of laughter rising in her throat as she recalled the incident. "You were…delirious with all that alcohol in your system, but you were still awake. Well, Sulu…he took Scotty with Ensign Franklin's help and I tended to you. I took you to bed as best as I could under the circumstances, but I suppose you were more successful in taking me into yours in the end…"
He suddenly felt cold as he detected the traces of resentment in her words, the shame beginning to constrict his lungs while the knitting web of guilt grew thicker; he could hardly breathe. "Uhura, please-"
"No, don't…do that," she warned, and he backed away, his hand still caught in her ferocious grip. "I should have known better. You weren't really there…but I was. I could have stopped all of this from happening. You are my friend, Chekov…and I took advantage of you."
He didn't say anything, but he knew he didn't need to. As he took her hand and gave a gentle squeeze of reassurance, she looked at him and the stark contours of worry that lined her face smoothed, though they did not disappear altogether.
"I just wanted to tell you that I'm keeping it, at least until its born. After that…I don't know. All I know is that I could never think of so easily removing a life from its preordained existence…" She trailed off, her eyes growing blank with contemplation for a moment. As they brightened once again, she averted her attention to him expectantly. "You understand that, don't you?"
"I would protest if you had wanted to kill it," he replied softly, watching as the melancholy tempests began to cloud the warm, lingering clarity of her gaze. He drew her into his arms, clutching her small figure to his chest.
And with a tentative thrill, he felt the swelling life within her stomach press itself against him.
AN: Short, but I liked the idea. For some reason, Chekov/Uhura is immensely appealing to me today.
Disclaimer - I don't own Star Trek. It belongs to Gene Roddenberry and JJ Abrams.