RUSSIAN WINTER
"Home...you should go home..."
The chilly words echoed in his mind as he lay sprawled across the shattered bridge of the Starship. Air streamed out of the still uncontained hull breach. Even unconscious, he could not help but consider the dramatic effects the icy vacuum of space had on the human body.
He had seen it in person once: a clumsy fellow cadet during an Academy training mission. Starfleet Academy was not a place for the clumsy. This was not a particularly good time to dredge up that memory, he realized.
"I told you that you should go home."
Chekov's eyes fluttered open and he raised his gaze to the man towering over him. He was a great hulk of a man: truly a Russian bear. It intimidated most people who dealt with him, but not Pavel Chekov. Small in stature himself, he had learned early on not to judge a person by their size.
"Then this would mean I am not dead?"
A shadow of a smile traced over the face of the Admiral in charge of Starfleet Academy entrance exams. "I am inclined to grant you a temporary reprieve at this time, Pavel Andrievich.
Much as life itself had, Chekov thought ruefully. He climbed to a seated position and tucked his legs beneath him. Death preoccupied those around him these days, it seemed. It's icy fingers clung to him too in petty, idiotic regulations that kept him off the active duty list. He knew his approved participation in these Star Fleet Academy entrance exams was due in large part to both the influence and presence of his old Academy professor. For this much he was eternally grateful: at least it gave him something to do. The other officers who had volunteered to help with the test were in various stages of coming back to life.
"He failed, I suppose." Chekov sighed. It was unusual for this entrance exam to wreck the wholesale destruction one might expect from the Kobyashi Maru. The sudden, unexpected thought of the Command Academy test of character sent an unwelcome shiver down Chekov's spine.
He flung the shiver off with determination and turned his thoughts to the hapless applicant. Chekov had liked the bright, eager young man. He, himself, would have been devastated had he failed to achieve his young life's only goal. He hoped the boy had a dream other than Starfleet.
"We aren't training crewmen here, Pavel, they're going to be officers," the Admiral was answering him. "We can't teach them everything. They have to have the basic instinct to consider others..." His voice seized up then as he realized what he was saying and who he was saying it to. As the Admiral's words trailed off into the silence in the now clear room, others filtered into Chekov's head. "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few..."
The elder man drew his graying eyebrows closer together in a time-worn gesture that signaled his ability to get to the heart of a matter. "How is Jim doing?" Admiral Niedel asked finally, folding his beefy arms across his broad chest. "I sent a message, but I haven't been able to contact him personally."
Shrugging. Chekov lulled over the response to the question. Niedel was not a man to be answered flippantly.
"His best friend died," he said to the man who had become like an adopted Uncle to him during his own years at the Academy. "Spock chose his death and chose to make it mean something, though. That's more than anyone can hope for, is it not?
"And Kirk had the chance to say good-bye," Chekov added. "Work in deep space rarely affords us that luxury. The Admiral knows that. He's managing as well as can be expected, I suppose."
"And the rest of your shipmates?'
"Managing," the Commander repeated. "McCoy, however..." he hesitated and wondered how exactly the healer was doing. Why--and HOW--had the Doctor broken into Spock's sealed cabin? What of the reports of the man's strange behavior since then?
"Haunted," was how Chekov finally answered the question, feeling futile at not having a better answer to either the question or the Doctor's behavior. "Dr. McCoy seems haunted. He's home resting."
"Home...you should go home..."
The word spilled over into his own life and he raised his eyes to see the Admiral's gentle brown ones, two shades lighter than his own, studying him.
"And you Pasha?"
There it was then: the question that had been just outside their conversations all morning. The question that had allowed them to come here together when endless Star Fleet debriefings were unable to answer it.
Chekov answered the question with a biting, sarcastic one of his own. "So are you going to tell them my dark secrets, Richard?"
Pursing his lips, the great giant of a man eyed him coolly. "Should I, Pasha?"
"What do I care? There's nothing to tell." The Commander pulled his knees up against his chest then, wrapping his arms around their firm muscles.
It seemed less strange that this American of Russian descent would use his nickname than the fact that he somehow understood the younger man's Russian soul. It occurred to Chekov, not for the first time recently, that Russian's had a better grasp on this life than other Terrans did. The hours of debriefings he'd endured--more than anyone else involved in the fight against Khan--came back to him now. "I've been debriefed a dozen times over, been analyzed and reanalyzed, and had my brain scanned repeatedly by their machines. Have they found any significant changes?" he asked with frustration. "It is my experience they won't rest until they do."
It was true. If he gave them the answers they wanted, they would deem him permanently damaged goods and put him behind a desk where he'd be pitied for the rest of his career. The truth would only convince them he was in denial–and dangerous: even behind a desk.
Chekov shook his head and raised truly puzzled eyes to the Admiral. "Why should I be traumatized? The men and women of the Genesis Project were able to make the same choice Spock did. They chose their deaths: chose to give them meaning. Tragedy occurs when our deaths are too early and meaningless. What I saw happen on that station was a life affirming testament to the noble character that still exists in humans."
He saw queasiness pass over the man's ruddy face as he spoke of the events that had occurred at the Genesis Station. Knowingly, Chekov laughed out loud at the man's sheepish behavior. "Really, Richard," he scolded the Admiral. "I've been in deep space long enough...my God, the things I've inflicted upon myself alone..."
This time it was the Admiral who laughed rather dubiously. "Yes, I suppose I hadn't thought about that. You never have been the squeamish type."
"Are you going to tell them to put me back on the active duty list?" he demanded bluntly.
The Admiral stood silent, eyeing Chekov with an intensity that was painful. "Pavel," he asked finally, "What about the things you did at Khan's urging? Do they bother you?"
Shuddering visibly, the Admiral ended his attempt at a question and instead fell back on decorum: reaching out his hand. It was a not so subtle message that Commanders in Starfleet should not ever be found reclining on the floor. Chekov quietly accepted the help and straightened his uniform dutifully when he was solidly on his feet. His dark eyes met the Admiral's doe-skin colored ones.
"You mean what Ralph did?"
"Ralph?" The Admiral blinked in ignorance.
"Yes," Chekov nodded, shrugging easily. "Ralph. You've obviously never been on a first name basis with a Ceti Alpha Eel."
The brilliant, crooked smile that flashed over Chekov's features and lit up his eyes were so classic to his personality that it nearly made the Admiral melt with his own relieved smile. The Fleet had led him to believe that all but the most rudimentary elements of the young man who had exchanged lessons with him were gone. That Pavel would have chosen a name so foreign to him, however, indicated how far he had disassociated himself from the events they spoke of.
"Your life has been inundated with death lately, Pavel," was what the Admiral observed.
"In Russia we don't feel the same about life and death as you Europeans and Americans," Chekov explained. "If I stay off the duty list much longer, Richard, I'll go as mad as they claim I am!" he blurted out.
The Admiral's stare was icy. "You can't strong arm the fleet, Pavel. But," he interrupted Chekov's retort, "I'll talk to them about stalwart Russians." The man smiled kindly at him. "You're not ready yet, Pasha.
"Go," the Admiral said then, his thick fingers squeezing the Commander's shoulder. "Go home: it'll do you good."
--- ---
The icy wind drove through the city, oblivious to the discomfort it caused. It picked up and threw the dusting of snow from the ground into erratic patterns in the air. Snow flurries plummeted relentlessly downward through the force of the wind as if to taunt the city's residents.
"Damn White Flies," he muttered, observing with particularly bad Russian humor what a nuisance snow flurries were. He proceeded to swear: not just in Russian, but in every Slavic tongue he knew. Why didn't it snow already? It was January. It was cold enough. He pushed his hands deeper into his reindeer fur mittens and pulled up the collar of his great coat.
"Home...you should go home," his friends and shipmates on leave had urged. Yet, they had failed to identify that elusive home of which they spoke. He had wandered the Enterprise's hollow halls after his mentor's death and found no haven for himself there. Grounded on Earth by Starfleet, his family off-world on business: it just furthered the indecency of it all.
"You should go home, it will do you good." The same words repeated again and again, dancing on his mind like the irritating White Flies on the biting wind around him. What good was this? What good to be trapped, condemned to land with the stars calling from the heavens just beyond?
He shrugged himself deeper into his great coat. This place had once felt like both his home and his future: back when the Earth had been so large it was a universe unto itself Star City had encompassed the dreams of his youth. Dreams had a way of dispersing the closer you got to them, however. Had he aged so quickly? he wondered desperately.
Star City was no longer his home nor his future. The work that Starfleet and civilian scientists did here was now cold and lifeless to him. How could it possibly begin to compare to the work he and Spock had done on countless late nights in the Enterprise's labs while out among the stars?
Spock--the memory of him settled warmly on Chekov's mind for a moment. It had been a hard to leave the Enterprise for Reliant, even with a command promotion in line for him. It had been hard to leave Spock and his "one more task". It had been hard to leave the bridge crew that had become his friends--still the finest bridge crew that had ever been assembled.
It was in their friendship that they convinced him to move on and take advantage of the opportunity to further his command career. They had reminded him that building a career had to come before friendships for a Starfleet Officer. Now he had lost both Terrell and Spock permanently to the universe's greater good, and with their loss had come a maddening halt to the career he was supposed to be building.
There were diversions galore in Star City and he remembered worming his way into the experiments and launches here in his spare time as a youth. It had always been, and still remained, the busiest spaceport on Earth. Only he could not help the scientists here now no matter how much he wanted to. Niedel had seen to that.
Chekov wondered how many other doors would be slammed in his face, how many more icy receptions he was destined to receive.
"Go home: it'll do you good." Again, he wondered where the elusive home of which they all spoke was.
"This is not your home."
Chekov spun in chilled in recognition of Spock's voice and met those eyes he knew so well. Dark and open, there was a fathomless patience in them that came across almost as warmth: almost. But, no, McCoy had blue eyes. Chekov blinked, stunned at who he had thought--for an instant--stood there.
"Doctor McCoy," was all he said. It made no sense that the harried man would be in Russia now. He had refused all of Chekov's earlier invitations to the Bridge crew for trips to his Motherland. They had been on landing parties together, but McCoy knew Chekov primarily as the strong-willed, well.. .pain in the ass patient that he was. How in God's name would he have known to look for Chekov here?
There was an eerie, familiar strangeness to the Doctor that made Chekov's skin crawl. He appeared stiff and formal, something the Russian could never say he'd been able to equate with the emotional American before.
"Is everything alright, Doctor?" Chekov was prompted to ask.
Hands behind his back, McCoy tilted his head in a peculiar way. "You are well," he stated.
"And this you came to Russia to tell me?" It hardly seemed reason for a house call. The Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer always worried about the crew under his care, however, and Chekov had a penchant fur ending up in sickbay. If the strangers in the Fleet were going to fret about his sanity, he granted that McCoy had even more so earned that right.
"How did you know that I would be here?"
The Doctor seemed suspicious of the question. "Balkynor, Khakastan is the birthplace of Terran space flight," he answered simply. "Sputnik was launched from here. Leonov and Gagarin walked these grounds."
"They did," Chekov agreed, startled that McCoy knew it. Americans, especially, tended to still have blinders regarding Earths's early space flight history. McCoy had also called the city by it's proper name, not Star City. The Commander's insides quieted as he remembered the only other non-Russian he had met that did so was Spock: he found it illogical to translate a city's name. Chekov stood awkwardly for a moment. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"Don't let them forget, Pavel. Make them understand."
Chekov stared at McCoy for a long moment. He realized he was awaiting further clarification and none was forthcoming. "Forget what?"
"No one..." the man fumbled mid sentence, blinking and staring at Chekov quizzically.
"Are you alright? Doctor?" McCoy suddenly looked as confused as Chekov himself was feeling. He seemed to age years before the Commander's eyes, taking on a haggard appearance.
"My God, it's cold here."
No doubt it was, Chekov thought, as McCoy was wearing synthetic fabrics no native would dream of in this climate. "Maybe you should go home and rest some more," he heard himself saying.
"Yes, I should," the Doctor agreed distantly. His blue eyes steadied themselves on the younger man's. "I should catch a shuttle back to the States while they're still running.
"Don't forget, Pavel."
"I won't," Chekov assured him. He watched, completely baffled, as McCoy's form disappeared into the steady stream of passer-byes.
"Only a Russian would purposely stand out in the cold."
Sulu beat his folded arms across his chest as he approached and Chekov turned to him with a scowl
"Sorry to be a bother," he replied tritely in return, irritated at the reminder that he was being followed: even if it was Sulu at the moment. Chekov felt no compulsion to accept responsibility for Starfleet's attempt to coddle him since his return from Genesis. He sighed after a moment, however, and forced himself to soften his eyes into warmth toward his friend. It was not easy for a newly promoted Captain to be the official babysitter of an officer not on the current duty list either. The younger man smiled in understanding of the man's edginess. "There are currently no postings, Captain. A ship will become available."
Sulu's dark eyes flared a moment. "After I've retired, no doubt..."
Chekov laughed aloud at Sulu's impatience, but scowled petulantly almost immediately. "At least you have the chance of an assignment. Hikaru."
The Captain eyed the younger man with a gentleness in his features. "They just want to be sure..." He hesitated before continuing. "It's standard procedure, friend."
What Chekov said then, Sulu knew better than to guess at the translation. The younger man glanced toward the shuttleport. "I'm beginning to wonder if they're worried about the right person," he continued. "McCoy was just here."
"In Star City? Are you insane? What on Earth would Doctor McCoy be doing here in Star City?" The jab hit a little too close to home. Sulu could get away with it, however, and he knew it. "I didn't think he even knows the place exists. What would he want?"
"He told me not to forget."
"Forget what?"
Chekov shrugged deeply. "I must have forgotten. I have no idea what he's talking about. He said I should 'make them understand."'
"What does he want us to understand?" Sulu asked, interpreting--as Chekov had--that McCoy was referring to their Enterprise shipmates.
Chekov stared into the darkening night a long moment, watching the snow flurries swirl about them in the wind as though they were all characters in a snow globe: frozen in time.
"Maybe what your non-Russian brains don't understand," he answered finally.
Sulu pulled his own great coat tighter about himself and eyed Chekov. He knew what the man was talking about because they'd had the same conversation late into more nights than he cared to remember. "We see the glass as half full and panic when anything occurs to empty it even more."
"Russians are much more sensible," his shipmate drawled in a deliberately thick accent. "When you know the glass is half empty, whatever empties it more is just inevitable. Anything that fills it is reason to celebrate. We don't examine every misfortune..."
"You just wallow in them," Sulu asserted.
Together they laughed, but it was an uneasy laugh. Chekov may have tended toward the melodramatic, but there were things in this universe that slipped the icy grip of anyone who might dramatize it.
Chekov turned his deep brown eyes on the young Captain's grief-worn features. Death was something other Terrans handled poorly, he thought. It always seemed to come as a surprise to them, as though it was an entirely new phenomenon no one else had encountered. How could he expect these people in Star Fleet to understand him and his reaction to Genesis then?
Sulu had cried again: Chekov could tell from the swelling about his eyes. Spock would not have wanted them to grieve like this. Chekov, as it was, could not find a reason to. Certainly he missed his mentor already: but it was his company he missed, not his presence. Death could not take away the lingering touch Spock had had on Chekov's life and the world around him.
"Spock had dusha," Chekov said of the man with whom he had spent long, late hours in the ship's science labs after duty. Yet another one of those Russian concepts that only a miserable translation could be found for, dusha was a mark of greatness death could not claim. It was the quality of a great soul that endured.
Sulu's eyes slid over to his friend's unusually stoic face and noted the iron grip his fists were balled into. The Captain shifted then, lowering his eyes to the windswept ground as he pulled his coat tighter.
"Where the hell is the snow?" Chekov said out loud, but that was not what he meant. Russians, passionate by nature, hated this limbo of taunting flurries in the biting cold. They embraced the winter like an old friend.
"I'm here on a retrieval mission," Sulu said without acknowledging his friends ill-humor. "Jim's invited us all over," he said. "We have to get going, Pavel, or we're going to be late.
"And no sulking," he added. "The Admiral's been through enough."
---- ----
Nature was waiting, waiting for winter, the proverb went. Finally, it had come, Chekov thought, but Russian seasons do not blossom, they rush in like tides driven by hurricanes. So winter had swept in during the moonlit hours, burying the Arctic regions of the country in meters and meters of snow.
He listened to the noise of the sunlit city behind him, toiling on without hesitation because of the blizzard. It brought a renewed sense of well-being to the Starfleet Commander that the ever smooth functioning of St. Petersburg did not hesitate, did not falter, in spite of everything heaped upon her.
"General Winter" had defeated one after another of the country's invading enemies, but never its native peoples. He stared somberly out at the inexhaustible expanse of swollen white hills spread before him, a sense of loss and sorrow settling deep upon him. No, no one had been able to defeat this land's winter or its peoples–but at what cost?
He felt the souls of the people whose bodies had been used to fill this graveyard. More than five hundred thousand martyrs of Hitler's three year blockade lay here in mass graves and to their sacrifice the greatest monument was that their country continued to exist. The Russian soul was indefeatable.
He came her often to feel those souls, to feel the indelible bond he held with them. Russians actively sought the type of togetherness one felt on national holidays and church feast days–sobornost they called it. At the Piskarov Memorial Cemetery sobornost filled one's soul almost to the breaking point and Pavel was known to seek his connection to his history and his people here.
Today, however, Chekov's successful feeling of oneness with the revered martyrs that lay before him made him uneasy: actually made his skin crawl the more he thought about it. The thought of McCoy and what they had learned last night from Serek kept drifting unbidden into his mind.
There was originally no word for privacy in the Russian language, for the concept was a foreign one to his people. McCoy's situation went beyond comprehension to even a person with a communal soul, however.
He was sharing his mind with Spock's soul. Certainly no languages Chekov knew had apt words for that.
"Commander Chekov."
He turned to find Admiral Niedel standing there, his eyes sparkling merrily. He knew at once the news the man bore.
This lesson, like others, they had worked together on at the Academy. As a true Russian, Chekov communicated foremost with his deep brown, soulful eyes. Completely second nature to him, it nonetheless made such things as playing poker, not to mention diplomacy, difficult. He had to learn to control the body's most versatile communicator and Niedel, in turn, had learned to be a little more adept at using it.
A slight smile graced Chekov's face. "I'm back on the active duty list," he concluded correctly. Finally: yet this was not good timing. He eyed the senior officer with trepidation and wondered if it could possibly get any more complicated.
"Have I received a posting yet?" he asked. He wondered if he managed to hide the anxiety that inspired the question. What if he was to ship out immediately? What could he possibly do?
While he doubted that it showed, Niedel knew him well enough to suspect the hesitation he had. "Yes, you're on the active duty list, but no posting yet." He narrowed his eyes and studied Chekov curiously. "Why? Is there a problem? Do you need more time?"
"No," Chekov automatically lied and purposely didn't avert his eyes although he knew the lie was written there. It was too early for the truth about McCoy's condition to have run the gammit of the Starfleet gossip mill. He was not disposed to discuss it now with the Admiral. "It's just that I'm finally here when I can enjoy the winter," he said in explanation of his odd behavior and gestured at the snow in illustration. "No sleds or skating on deep space starships, you know."
Niedel remained silent, his eyes fixed on Chekov. He knew the younger man was lying, but in the end said nothing about it. "You come here often: do you find this place peaceful?" he asked.
"Peaceful?" Chekov burst out incredulously. "Peaceful !"
The Admiral looked around to see if the younger man's outburst had been heard. No one even glanced their way, however, as this was a place where outbursts were both unnoticed and expected.
"There are more than five hundred thousand people buried here," Chekov continued. "One and a half million people died altogether during the nine hundred day blockade. That's more people lost from this city alone than the United States lost during their Revolution, their Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and all three World Wars combined.
"You people have no idea what sacrifice is," he continued less than charitably, the words gripping his heart. Sometimes sacrifices were just too great to bear, he thought.
"The Soviet Government had too few people to rebuild a devastated country," Niedel added kindly "And yet did it."
Leningrad is a sight to make angels weep... The journalist's famous words filtered through Chekov's mind. He nodded, although he was no longer thinking about the losses endured in this city during the Great Patriotic War, however.
"Some losses are not acceptable," Chekov observed aloud and he knew the man didn't understand what he was talking about. He wasn't Russian enough.
"Captain Sulu." The Admiral's voice interrupted his thoughts, alerting Chekov to his friend's approach from behind. "Congratulations on your promotion," he added
"Thank you, Sir," the new Captain replied as he stopped next to Chekov.
"I'll leave you two to your own devices," the Admiral continued. "This place is too depressing for me. I know," he said, waving a hand at Chekov to stop his comment. "I'm not Russian enough."
"Yes, Sir," Chekov agreed cordially as the Admiral departed. He pushed his gloved hands into his pockets and waited until the older man's form was well away from them.
"Are they going to give us a ship?" he asked.
"Kirk is finding out now, but you know the Fleet..." Sulu hesitated, his face contorting to a strange mixture of disgust and concern. That the well-being of both Speck and McCoy could be balanced in the hands of disinterested bureaucrats was beyond his ability to accept.
"Maybe rain, maybe snow," Chekov recited the proverb in a bitingly, sarcastic, sing-song voice.
"Maybe yes, maybe no," Sulu concluded with a sneer.
"You know they're not going to give us a ship," the Commander commented.
"Fortunately," Sulu added, "we both know Jim won't tolerate their indifference." He stopped and stood silently a minute staring at the graveyard. Admiral Kirk's actions would put them and all of their shipmates in the position of facing a difficult decision. The older man sighed and balled his hands a few times for warmth.
"Pavel, you just got put back on the active duty list," Sulu cautioned.
"And you just got promoted to Captain, Hikaru," Chekov pointed out in return. It didn't surprise him that Sulu knew he was active before he did. "The risk to your career is just as great. Besides," he shrugged, "They've been looking for proof that I'm insane: I might as well give it to them."
The older man set his jaw firmly. "Well, I'm going no matter what the damn Fleet says." He glanced up at the sky. "Probably end our careers," he observed after a moment.
"Mine's been ended before," Chekov remarked casually. "It's not so bad."
His friend shot a piercing look at him, but was met by a maddening smirk.
Sulu snorted in response. "I agree with Niedel," he alleged. "This place gives me the creeps. There are echos of suffering here."
"Life is echos of suffering, Hikaru," Chekov replied.
"You Russian's are all mind-numbingly philosophical, aren't you?" Sulu asked with irritation.
Chekov shrugged at the baited jest. "It is our nature."
Sulu shuddered then, growling low in his throat as he stamped his feet. He hated winter. Chekov had never been able to change his friend's mind no matter how many times he took Sulu to the winter amusement parks that abounded in Russia. Space-station raised Sulu simply hated winter.
Russians loved winter. They embraced it as it did wonderful things to their Motherland and gave them a whole set of new possibilities in their lives. It was just another expected season. The changes could renew their intense world.
As they believed death could, when it occurred.
It was rain that Chekov hated. Especially pouring rain in the dark: especially with wind. He knew water was the most powerful and most dangerous element on his homeworld. The ocean was its mother: the wind its soulmate.
He was reminded of that as the wind sliced across the exposed part of his neck.
Images of moonlit strolls with gentle breezes along soothing oceans were lost on him. He knew the beasts for what they were. Peaceful, calm water was merely gaining strength twofold for when it unleashed its mighty rage in nihilistic, inequitable fury.
The hills of white dimmed before him, his vision growing dark as his legs throbbed with the memory of hemp biting into them. The memory was so real: so NOW.
It always was.
The ropes bit into his legs and ankles, stripping the flesh off them in tortuous inches as the water repeatedly hauled at him. Its form set his missing flesh on fire with every touch.
His fingers were digging gullies into Yuri's forearms. Almost three inches of human flesh were imbedded under the nails, if he could judge by how much damage Yuri's fingers had done on his own arms. He would not let go, however. He would never let go.
The water whipped itself into the wind, so it drove in horizontal white sheets between Yuri and he. His friend's green eyes were still visible and he hung onto that through the lashing of the waves, through the driving wind. The endless torment was beginning to anger him. He was so tired: physically exhausted at the perpetual torture.
Exhaustion had overtaken Yuri as well. It was in his face: in the way he had stopped trying to improve his impossible situation. The fear had left his friend's bright gaze and Pavel watched as Death overtook a pair of human eyes.
"PAVEL ANDRIEVICH!"
He started, blinking hard at Sulu on this frozen ground.
"My God, where were you?" Sulu demanded, his dark eyes staring intently at his friend. "Are you alright?"
Chekov slowed his breathing and nodded. His forearms were burning, as if the scars hidden by time and his uniform were reopened. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets.
The Captain's dark eyes searched his. "Yuri," he said knowingly. "Pavel, you're not still blaming yourself for his death after all these years?"
Chekov shook his head. "Hikaru, I never blamed myself for Yuri's death." He actually felt the doubt in his friend's presence.
"Yuri let go," he said. His voice was strangely steady as he said it. It was the first time he'd said it aloud. Sulu was now the only person he'd ever told. It had always been his alone: a carefully guarded secret which had given him comfort through the years. He told Sulu so.
The older man gave him an odd look. "You find that comforting?"
"I couldn't save him," Chekov explained. "Yuri knew that."
"And you would never have given up trying," the Captain observed. Chekov was too tenacious, too loyal.
His friend nodded somberly. "It was a choice between him or both of us dying. He chose to die. He saved my life."
Sulu considered that the Fleet had been worried about the wrong man. Even without his Russian soul, Chekov had come to grips with death far earlier than most people. "Yuri was the first man to die in the new Russian Navy, wasn't he?"
Chekov made an incongruous noise. "He was seventeen."
"Age has nothing to do with being a man."
A dark glance of warning stopped Sulu from finishing his thought out loud. Chekov was fourteen at the time and had pulled several men to safety that night. None of them had gone back to help Yuri. The current Starfleet Commander had become the youngest person ever awarded the St. George's Cross: his country's Congressional Medal of Honor. It was a fact which mortified him. He was sure the scars he bore didn't merit recognition: certainally not the recognition of the heros of his Motherland. Or of the heros he'd come to know in the Fleet. Even at Chekov's present age, mentioning it guaranteed a sulk beyond the bounds of the wildest imagination.
Sulu sometimes wondered if Chekov was the only person for whom the Kobyashi Maru was waved by the Command School at the Academy.
The Commander stared at the cemetery: gentle hills spread out in incomprehensible lengths, one after another, their presence filling his vision. The great mounds of white were littered with flowers, scattered like confetti: tossed by the countless visitors that came here. Mother Russia stood silent watch in bronze opposite the Starfleet Officers.
"I still look for him at night," he said quietly. "As if, perhaps, if I look hard enough, I can find him somewhere in the darkness.
"And I'll be strong enough to save him this time."
The oppressive failure that was etched into Chekov's features came as no surprise to Sulu. The Captain squat down and used a bare hand to brush the snow from the bronze plaque they stood before. He traced the letters etched there gingerly with his fingertips. He didn't read Cyrillic, but he knew what it said.
"No One Is Forgotten. Nothing Is Forgotten."
Standing again, Sulu clasped his friend's shoulder. "You'll never find Yuri," he said. He paused, allowing Chekov to finish his thought.
"No," the younger man agreed. His huge, soulful eyes sought out the Captain's. "But we can find Spock."
"Yes," Sulu grinned in agreement. "We can find Spock."
Chekov dropped something into the water as Sulu piloted their shuttle over the trade current in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sulu never asked him what it was.