Chapter 1 - Field Trip

Always running, always bouncing even, Ensign Pavel Chekov took a moment to just let the purple waters of the vast, beautiful, uncharted planet lap up between his toes, as the mission data tablet hung down at his sides, lightly grasped by his slender fingers. Standing on a beach of fine black sand, his uniform boots were safely up on a rocky outcropping that remained uneroded on the slopes of the volcanic caldera. His over-active brain had conjectured that it must be made of tougher stuff than that which was turned to sand, but even the Enterprise's famed Russian wiz kid couldn't be distracted by scientific curiosity long enough to resist the call of the ocean.

The Enterprise was the first starship ever to chart this star system, to which previously only a numerical cartographic designation X37-410 had been applied. No one had ever thought that it would have been of much interest, until Chekov had a second look at the long-range sensor scans. The system had three red dwarf stars, cold by any comparison to the sorts of stars that usually had planets. It was thought that nothing alive could be found, without the life-giving heat of a young sun.

Chekov's curiosity at why a system relatively close to Federation space wouldn't have at least one science mission devoted to it turned into a week-long obsession as he analyzed the data on the area, when he found a wobble in the orbit of one of the system's gas giants, a wobble big enough to be caused by another planet. A terrestrial planet orbiting a gas giant wasn't so very unusual, but this one was incredibly close.

The lagoon whose sands his toes were currently wiggling in was bordered by a placid purple sea all around, but the tranquility belied the incredibly precarious position the planet it sat on occupied. While the gas giant produced enough heat to keep the planet warm in a cold system, it also generated substantial radiation belts that would be very dangerous to anything living. How a perfect ocean planet could exist teeming with life in the heart of one of those belts was what they had been sent to find out.

"Prevoskhodnyy," he murmured, finding his own language more comfortable when alone, though he doubted that the language had been used very often to talk about tropical climes like the one he found himself in. The salt water felt good on his feet, after being aboard the ship for several weeks.

"Lose your boots already, Mister Chekov?" a familiar voice asked, from behind.

"Nyet, keptin! Zey're over—," Chekov started, turning around to grin at his captain, but cut himself on when he saw Kirk's choice of "uniform." The Russian's near-eidetic memory quickly captured a snapshot of the blue-eyed commanding officer in just swimming trunks, which had a floral pattern that looked distinctly non-regulation. His voice caught in his throat when he found himself focusing for far too long on the rugged, masculine physique that Kirk had built up from years of brawling, bar-fighting, and general adventuring. Compared to his own lean body, he felt quite small, quite young, when comparing himself to the Enterprise's captain. "Over zere, sir," he finished, gesturing to where they were safely resting with his Starfleet-issue golden socks.

"Is this the Russian version of the bathing suit?" Kirk asked, with his trademark smirk. "Less fur than I imagined."

"Da, keptin!" Chekov said, with a laugh. "I did not have time to wrestle bear and take his skin for the full costume, sir," he added, his amusement at the image showing in his grey eyes. "Is this the landing party gear of your people?" he asked, nodding to the swimming trunks.

"Iowans? Nah, not enough flannel," Kirk said, idly slapping his hands on his own flat stomach, with sort of a drumming motion. In that instant, Chekov decided that he did not look much like a captain, but felt a confusing knot of emotions in his stomach as he watched the way Kirk's muscles moved, and knew that his grey eyes were probably lingering too long. Since the incident with Kahn and Kirk's lengthy hospital stay, the crew had all become noticeably closer. While Chekov had always been completely loyal to his captain in terms of his Starfleet duties, he found himself developing much more complex feelings for him, feelings of the sort that he'd never really dealt with. "I figured I'd take Lieutenant Chambers up to the north data collection site," he added, before Chekov could conceive of a reply.

"Aye—," the young ensign replied, watching as one of his shipmates came down from the shuttle landing site with a long metal container in each hand — the components for some of the equipment they would be using. "Did everyone bring bathing suit?" he asked, finding his nose wrinkling, complaint breaking through the bright tone of his voice. Chambers was possibly the leggiest blond on the entire ship, and she was wearing a two-piece suit that was a little revealing, even for one of Kirk's paramours. At once, Chekov cursed her for dressing like that around Kirk, and himself for not thinking of it himself.

"Nae! Not me!" Scotty's voice said, as he too came down from the shuttle, shaking his head. "With all due respect, your captainship, but it would only take us a few hours to do this, and we could just have set up a transmitter to beam back data… we didn't need to bring tents, and survival crap, and…," the engineer said, trailing off as he nodded to the female lieutenant's swimming attire.

"Live a little, Scotty. Besides, if we get bad results, we made need to change the set-up, and then we'd have to make a second trip. It's better just to wait through the night and see what we get. I left my comm on the shuttle, so if you need anything, come find us," Kirk said, waving his hand dismissively, and turning to leave in the general direction of North with the blond. "Actually… maybe don't come find us," he said, grinning. "Keep Mister Chekov out of trouble," he added, as they went down the beach.

"Aye, like he's the one I need to keep out of trouble!" Scotty retorted, turning to look at the navigator, who was finding himself a little more annoyed than the engineer by the situation. He stared at Kirk and Chambers for a moment, frowning at the idea of what they would probably do in the sand. His stomach twisted into another knot when he imagined what he'd want to do with Kirk in the sand, were he in Chambers' place.

It would start with playful wrestling in the surf; they would roll around in the ocean together, until grapples became embraces, and brushes became hard kisses. Kirk would pin him down to the sand; yes, he would be on top, protective and in charge like always, and then—

"—Are you listening to me, laddy?" Scotty's voice said, interrupting the rest of that thought. Chekov was grateful for the glass data tablet he was holding, as he surreptitiously lowered it to conceal the growing result of his thoughts in his pants, thoughts of mixed hero worship and puppy love.

"Yes, sir," Chekov said, nodding excitedly. He paused. "No, sir," he admitted, blush spreading across his alabaster cheeks. "Sorry. Isn't Chambers the ship's historian?"

"I think you'd be right on that one; no tellin' how he got that one past the Vulcan," Scott replied, looking at Chekov for a moment; the boy could feel the older man's question, but he willed the engineer not to ask why he was still stuck on Kirk's girlfriend of the day. "I was sayin' that we should get up the side of that volcano and get the central relay cluster installed; I'd rather not be doin' that in the heat of the day," the engineer said, referring to the approaching zenith of the planet's dominant sun.

Chekov had observed that Scott was perhaps even less a fan of away missions than Chekov generally was; they both preferred nice, climate controlled spaces like starships and Starfleet Academy. They both had very fair complexions, that he wagered would burn very easily. With that being said, even Chekov liked occasionally getting off of the ship; Scott would likely be happy never setting foot outside of his engine room.

In a lot of ways, Chekov was attracted to Scotty; he was intelligent, funny, and attractive, but the young Russian had never gotten those same feelings of adoration that he found himself feeling for Kirk, for Scott. While Scotty was not the sort of engineer to follow every rule, he was still a pretty conservative officer, not like their captain. Kirk was daring, reckless even, and absolutely confident in himself, and that's what drew Chekov to him.

"Aye, commander," the curly-haired ensign replied, happy to have a task, happy to have something to focus his overactive mind on other than imagining what being a notch in Kirk's bedpost would be like.

"And watch your step, when we get up there. The captain'd have my hide if his golden boy fell off a cliff or drowned or something," Scotty replied, shaking his head as he began walking back up to the shuttle.

"Golden boy?" Chekov repeated to himself, thoughts about work vanishing. He'd been given a lot of nicknames aboard the Enterprise; most of them related to his age and his prodigious intelligence, but that was a new one. He briefly considered that Scott meant it in the same way as most of the others — good at his job, but very young. That part of his brain quickly shut off, though, as he found himself re-imagining being with Kirk on the beach.

With sand all over them, Chekov would throw his lithe arms around Kirk's strong neck, and wrap his long legs around the captain's trim waist, as they kissed. They would stay on the beach all day, until he really was his golden boy, alabaster skin bronzed to match Kirk's. His favorite part of his new nick-name, though, was not about hue, but about possession; he got a tingly sensation in his heart when he thought about being his.

"Shit," Chekov muttered, to himself, finding himself very hard in his pants as he thought about that. "Shit," he repeated, as he willed it to go away, but this took several moments. The young man found many beings attractive, and knew that Kirk was much-desired by many people, but he had not seriously considered him in that way, until the start of their long mission.

Chekov had saved Kirk's life twice, directly. Once with the transporter, and once by grabbing his hand to stop him from plummeting to the bottom of the engineering hull; once was a feat of mental brilliance, and the other a feat of physical impossibility. Kirk, though, had saved Chekov many more times, and had even been willing to sacrifice his own life to save the lives of the Enterprise crew. Reckless confidence had been refined into heroism, and that amplified his confidence, his rugged good looks, and his charm work even better on Chekov, and he had found himself quietly falling for him ever since.

"He likes women," Chekov reminded himself, as he climbed the ridge. He was sure that he personally liked both, or possibly just men, but he'd never actually been in a position to test either theory, and was having a hard time conceiving of what it would even be like to be with Kirk (beyond the vivid idea of rolling around with him, being his plaything on the beach), but it was still very hard to stop himself from thinking about it. "Women prettier than me," he muttered, a pang of sadness hitting him right in the chest.

"Forgetting something, lad?" Scott asked, when he got up to the shuttle.

"Oh, moi botinki!" Chekov replied, dashing back down to the beach to get them, kicking up sand as he went back down the shallow embankment. He snatched them and then returned to the shuttle, with blush that had much more to do with embarrassment than exertion. Scott and a pair of engineers were already getting all the equipment together for their hike. The skinny Ensign dashed into the shuttle to retrieve a towel from his duffel bag, before wiping his feet of sand and salt water, and carefully re-encasing them in boots.

As he laced his boots, he looked at his own arms and legs and thought about Kirk again. While he had very tight muscles and a very fast metabolism, Kirk had him beat on bulk and raw strength, by far. He imagined what it would be like to hold on to his biceps, as they—

"Chekov!" Scott complained, from the foot of the shuttle ramp.

"Coming!" Chekov replied, as he jammed himself into his boots, and then exited. He blushed as he tried to adjust his growing bulge, while bending over to sling an equipment pack over his shoulder, and then to pick up another case.

"Not many people on a starship would think to look at a spacial anomaly from the ground. Very imaginative, lad," Scott remarked, as he settled his own pack. "Alright, let's go so we can get back," he said, looking at the team, and then leading the way towards the interior of the island. Chekov couldn't help but smile at having his idea praised, though he guessed that such a solution would eventually have been found, even if he weren't around.

"Let's just hope it works, yes?" the young Russian remarked, as he adjusted his pack.

"You're the math prodigy; I'm sure it will work, kid," one of the other ensigns said, flashing him a very bright smile. Chekov took a moment to study him; he certainly did not enjoy being called 'kid' by someone, who was at most three or four years older than himself.

Annoyance briefly gave way to an examination of the engineer's physique, made easy by the jumpsuits they were both wearing: Ensign Peterson was taller than either him or Kirk, and appeared to have an even more muscular form, the kind of body you'd be more likely to associate with a security officer than an engineer. Chekov liked the view, but he also didn't find himself getting the same butterflies he had from observing Kirk's shirtless chest, probably because the deferred annoyance had returned.

"There is an old Russian saying: the proof is in the pudding," Chekov retorted. For about ten minutes, they walked on gradually-sloping ground, and the terrain began to become less sandy and more rocky. Eventually, it was clear that they were at the base of a volcanic mountain. "We climb?" he said, when they got to the beginning of a much steeper area of rock.

"Oh, aye. We climb," Scott replied, with a definite sigh. "How I wish we could use the transporter for this. Damn radiation," he grumbled, as they started their long assent.

As Chekov climbed the volcano at the center of the island, Kirk was walking down the beach with a beautiful woman. Though she was indeed a historian, Kirk had managed to get her assigned to the landing party. After a steamy session in the ship's library, he wanted to try something a little more tropical. They chatted as they walked, but he wasn't really interested in what she was talking about; something about an obscure period in Andorian history that he knew nothing about. Apart from Earth's history and classics, he didn't know very much about that sort of thing. It wasn't that he wouldn't have liked to listen to her, but he found her voice to be incredibly dull, and her stories to be rambling and sometimes incoherent to the point that he doubted her credentials.

Lieutenant Chamber's academic credentials, however, were not what drew him to her. In some respects, they were quite similar; both had reputations for being quite… accomplished in the field of romance, with many, many previous partners, and few hang-ups about trying to actually box things like that into a relationship. He didn't think it would last, as it never lasted for him, but she was at least fun to mess around with under Spock's nose, who explicitly disapproved of the Captain sleeping his way through the prettiest members of his science department.

The sensation of warm, black sand on his feet was nice as they walked, but he found his mind drifting to someone other than the well-endowed woman walking next to him. A smile came to his face as Pavel Chekov entered his mind, with his apparent aversion to showing any skin at all on the beach. While Kirk generally found himself more attracted to women, he'd long since noticed Chekov's charms. Who wouldn't notice those adorable curls, immaculate alabaster skin, and perfect rear end, if it was sitting just a few meters in front of him on the bridge all day? As nice as it was to have eye candy at the navigation console, he had sworn himself never to act on that initial, physical attraction to the young man.

Even though he was really not that much older than Chekov, he was the captain and he'd always felt that it would be somehow taking advantage to even suggest something romantic, in a way that sleeping with people in other departments never registered with him. More importantly, he just couldn't imagine someone as sweet and as innocent as his navigator ending up with a man like James T. Kirk, a man who had slept with over 130 women in his short life. In fact, he wanted to make sure that never happened; whether it was fraternal or simply captainly, he felt an intense draw to protect the young man from harm, even if that meant keeping his hands to himself.

That, however, had begun to become a more difficult promise to live by. After Kahn's attack, Chekov had visited the hospital nearly every day, with the rest of the crew. He never actually came alone, often with Sulu, and sometimes with Uhurua or Scotty, but it had given them the chance to get to know each other. As captain, he knew how brilliant the young Russian was, and everyone knew how sweet he was, but it was in the young man's ridiculous stories about Russian innovations and his naive take on the world that really endeared him to him. More than that, though: Chekov made him laugh and made him think, whereas Chambers never did.

The other team carefully moved the equipment up the side of the volcano, as Chekov monitored their position with a tricorder. After about two hours of climbing, they had everything in position. It wasn't complicated to assemble the sensor pallet, as they'd broken it down into just three distinct parts. It whirred to life, waiting for input from the subsidiary stations that the rest of the landing party was installing across the island.

It really was an ingenious plan, even for Chekov. Instead of risking the Enterprise on a tedious scanning mission in the radiation belt, the spectrometers and radiation equipment would be pointed up at the planet's atmosphere, and left to collect data for a few weeks, while they moved on to another system. He couldn't help but grin, as he looked out over the island, and the surrounding amethyst seas.

"Kirk to Scott," came suddenly from Scotty's communicator, shaking Chekov out of his reverie. He was quite proud of himself for avoiding thinking about the captain for almost three hours, but really he couldn't complain when his thoughts again came back to Kirk's body, and imagining what it must look like after a few hours on the beach, in the sun.

"Scott here."

"Chambers and I set up the subsidiary station, and are back at the shuttle. What's your status?""Primary station is online, captain. We're beginning our descent," Scott replied.

"Good. Kirk out," the captain said, before the call ended.

"Confirmed, commander. Ze captain's station is broadcasting. All towers are online, and ready," Chekov said, with a bright smile. "Also, I zink I have found an easier way down the wolcano," he added, holding up his tricorder.

"By all means, then, lead away. I could do with a nap," Scott replied.

"Aye, commander," Chekov said, before leading the way. It was easier with their packs empty, but it was still slow going until they got to the young Russian's shortcut. "I believe zis is ze result of a collapse of a lava enscarpment," he explained, pointing out a ramp of loose rocks that was piled against a sheer cliff; it was clear that the black volcanic glass had fractured in some sort of violent calamity, but it looked stable enough for the moment.

"Looks safe enough," Scotty consented, as he too looked at his tricorder readings. "Be careful, though. This rock is loose, and it's still pretty steep…," he said, but Chekov was already on the way down. Being someone that could barely stand to be still, it was nice to be able to go at something closer to his normal pace. For quite a while, the team managed to navigate their way down the loose slopes, until their navigator forgot to look at his tricorder.

As the terrain got steeper, so too did Chekov's pace get swifter. It was quite exhilirating to run down the mountain, needing the speed to keep balanced, but it became significantly less enjoyable when he missed a step, and went sailing over a sheer face, landing on his back on the next landing.

"Chekov!" Scott shouted, as the team made their way to him. "What in the bloody hell were you thinking?!" he shouted, a look of shock on his face as he looked down at him; the Russian could tell that he'd fallen at least 4 or 5 meters, and his back was screaming in pain. "Don't move. We'll be down in a minute, laddy," Scott added.

Chekov did not attempt to protest, but took a moment to collect himself. He sat up unsteadily, relieved to feel nothing broken, but when he reached up to touch his face, he a rush of panic hit him. Instead of dry skin, his fingers were wet with blood. "Shit," Ensign Peterson muttered, skidding to a halt and kneeling down to look at him. "Does it hurt?"

"Back, yes. Face, not yet," Chekov replied. "Now," he added, after only a few seconds, when the searing pain of having been cut by volcanic glass hit him. "Not a good idea, my plan," he added, wiping blood off of his face with the yellow fabric of his cuff.

Scott reached into his bag and retrieved a handkerchief. "Hold this over it, until we can get you back down to the medkit in the shuttle," he said, looking him over. "I thought I told you to be careful."

"Zank you," Chekov said, before standing up. Another jolt of pain resounded through his back, but it wasn't so bad that he couldn't walk. "Wery, wery stupid," he added. "Please do not tell Keptin Kirk?"

"He's gonna notice that huge gash on your face."

"Let's hope he is not looking at me, zen," Chekov responded. "Shall we try again?"

When the team that went up the mountain managed to get back to the shuttle, the rest of landing party had already set up the tents in a circle around a fire pit made of volcanic stones. Kirk was in the middle, directing traffic, and Scott was most surprised to see that he had his full uniform back on. He also noticed that Lieutenant Chambers seemed to be sulking in the shuttle, looking over her data tablet with occasional looks of disdain; maybe their date hadn't gone so very well?

"Ah, Mister Scott!" Kirk said, grinning as he walked over. "How do you like our set-up?" he asked. Scott began to answer, but was swiftly interrupted. "What happened to Chekov?" he asked, in a tone of very real concern as he walked over to the curly-haired Russian.

"Oh, just a little scrape," Scott said, trying to sound dismissive; Chekov gave him a grateful look as Kirk got closer.

"Uh huh. This is just a scrape, and he's the Czar of All the Russias," Kirk retorted, taking the handkerchief from him, and looking into his grey eyes for a moment for the truth.

"I went a little too fast down ze mountain, keptin," Chekov admitted, after only a half second of eye contact, and quickly moved his gaze down to his boots. "I underestimated ze terrain," he added. "I was leading, and I take full responsibility," he added, as if he had committed some seriously grave crime.

"It really wasn't that major, captain. He's just being hard on himself," Scott said, patting Chekov on the shoulder.

"Let's get you patched up, Mister Chekov," Kirk said, looking between his navigator and engineer, apparently deciding to drop the subject. Scott was somewhat surprised by what happened next. Instead of calling one of the scientists over, who definitely had medical training, he retrieved the medkit himself and sat the young Russian down on a packing crate.

The brown-haired captain retrieved a vial of an antiseptic, applying some to the young man's cut, and quickly apologizing for the pain that it caused. He had, apparently, been paying attention all the times that McCoy had patched him up after his various adventures. Scott attempted to busy himself with helping to set up another tent, but couldn't help but glance over at them out of curiosity.

Kirk made quite certain that the wound was clean, before applying a bandage carefully to Chekov's face, with a lot more finesse and tenderness than the engineer had ever seen from the gruff ship's surgeon. He didn't know exactly what to read into it, but for five minutes he saw a captain completely focused on his navigator, and nothing else in the whole universe.

A few hours later, the entire away team was at the campsite, alongside their landed shuttle. It looked an awful lot like normal camping trip, except for the beeping and blinking pieces of equipment laid out next to the shuttle. No one had attempted to seriously debate him on his decision to spend the night, but the Enterprise was only two hours away by shuttle; they could have eaten in the mess, instead of suffering through ready-prepared meals, and slept in their own beds, instead of in Starfleet-issue sleeping bags, but Captain Kirk always got what he wanted.

"You know, marshmallow is Russian inwention," Chekov declared, from his position on a supply crate next to Kirk, as he brandished his blackened candy on a stick to the rest of the away team. "It was fawored food of czars for many centuries, long before it was discovered by the West."

"Actually, it's an Egyptian invention, from about three-thousand years before there was ever a Russia," the leggy Lieutenant Chambers said from across the circle, while the rest of the team laughed at Chekov's story, confirming herself as the Ship's Historian. Chekov glared, in a way that was very unusual for his normal, bubbly self. He could see her through the licking tongues of fire, and imagined her as quite the demonic figure in that instant.

"Lies fabricated by anti-Russian conspirators," Chekov declared, with a slight huff of disdain, before eating his marshmallow.

"No, really-," Chambers started, but Kirk held up his hand.

"I like his version better," Kirk said, putting his arm around the young Russian's shoulders for a half-second, half-hug. "This little genius just saved the Enterprise a heck of a lot of trouble mapping this system; he's entitled to a little creative anachronism," the captain declared, releasing the hug and grabbing another marshmallow.

"Da," Chekov replied, trying to sound pleased with himself. That wasn't particularly difficult, either, as a wave of happiness washed over him, both from being validated and from that short physical contact. What really made him smile, though, was getting in an argument with the Captain's girlfriend-of-the-moment and winning.

"I'll give marshmallows to the Russians, lad, but fire… fire's a Scottish invention!" Commander Scott said, earning the laughs of the entire team. "Oh, and whiskey."

As the evening wore on, the fire sunk low in their makeshift firepit. While most of the team had decided to go to bed, James Kirk was still awake, chatting with his navigator, Pavel Chekov. Lieutenant Chambers had long since gone to her own tent, steering a wide berth around Kirk, after he pissed her off by expecting her to actually help him set up the relay tower, and he had to say he preferred the Russian's company.

Kirk doubted seriously that the navigator ever really slept as it got later and later; he was always so animated, so energetic about everything that happened around him. At first, it'd been a little annoying, but the longer they served together, the more endearing Kirk found his refreshing enthusiasm. As tired as he was, he'd resolved to stay up as long as Chekov, to try to find out a little more about him.

More importantly than just being enthusiastic, Chekov often found a way of making Kirk smile. As they chatted, though, Kirk realized that the two of them had only rarely had one-on-one interactions. They'd met a few times at the academy, but on the Enterprise, Sulu was more often Chekov's go-to companion for off-duty time, and apart from that he'd noticed that Chekov had spent most of his time alone. In the last year, the senior staff had gotten closer, but he'd never really had that many one-on-one interactions with the younger man.

"So, second-youngest cadet… youngest Human cadet in the history of Starfleet. Chief Navigator of the Federation flagship at 17… You must be pretty cut-throat Mister Chekov," Kirk teased, reclining a little with his hands behind him on the edge of the crate.

"Nyet, sir!" Chekov replied immediately, his eyes growing much wider than they already were, before he looked away bashfully. "I am just… good at doing homework," he said, with a nod.

"That you are," Kirk replied, with a nod; he had first-hand experience with that, in several ways. Many of Chekov's pieces of advice had found their way into his "patch" that allowed him to win the Kobayashi Maru scenario, and his mathematical brilliance had saved him from falling to death on Vulcan, and then got them past Nero's defenses. "But what's the real story? How'd you do it?"

"Surely this was in my file, sir," Chekov replied, with a modest tinge of blush. His tone was quiet, and his grey eyes were looking down at his feet as he spoke. Contrary to Kirk, the Ensign never liked to talk about himself or his accomplishments, which only made Kirk want to press him more.

"I haven't read your file. Well, not the pre-service part," Kirk said. "I'd like to learn that sort of stuff on my own."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Want to take a walk?" he offered, gesturing towards the sea, knowing that the ensign might not want his colleagues to overhear him talk about himself, if they were still awake. Chekov nodded, and so they began to stroll down through the dunes and to the beach. The gas giant was big and bright in the sky, behind the sea wreathed in stars. "So, what's your story?" he asked, after a few minutes of just listening to the sounds of the ocean.

"Well… I lived wiz my babushka in St. Petersburg until I was 14, and then I joined Starfleet," Chekov replied, softly. He was toying with the stick that he'd been using to toast marshmallows. "I'm… good wiz numbers, and computers, and so zey placed me in ze navigation program… and zen I met you," he continued, looking at Kirk, as if the story was complete. The blond-haired captain was taken aback at that last statement; of the four things he was going to say about himself, Chekov was going to count knowing him as one?

"Your babushka?"

"My grandmozer," Chekov translated, the pink on his cheeks just visible; Kirk thought that sometimes the younger man didn't realize when he'd switched back to his native language. His English was fine, when he was really trying, but off-duty it was more of a milieus of English and Russian.

"What happened to your parents?" Kirk asked, quietly.

"My mozer died… my dad wasn't wery interested in me," Chekov replied; Kirk could see tears welling up in the corners of his slate-colored eyes, and so reached over to squeeze his shoulder.

"You probably know my dad was killed on the Kelvin, but my mom was also away a lot, so I was with my step-dad most of the time… It's tough," the captain said, feeling compelled to reassure him. Whenever he looked at Chekov, he saw many things. He saw a genius rivaling even Spock's brilliance. He saw a young, ambitious but very modest officer. He also saw a vulnerable, innocent young man, who wasn't even out of his teenage years yet. Primarily, though, and as much as he tried to avoid thinking about it, he saw a beautiful, curly-haired boy that didn't know he had bedroom eyes. All of these things made him feel very protective of him, in a way that he wasn't about his other crew members. "We don't have to talk about it, I was just curious," he added.

"Da. I know, keptin," Chekov replied, giving him a small smile, as Kirk removed his hand. "I lowe… love my grandmozer wery much; she was wery nice to me," the young Russian said, causing his captain to grin at the way he was negotiating his English consonants. Some people got frustrated with his accent, but Kirk loved the way it sounded. "I did not like school in St. Petersburg. People were not wery nice to me," he added.

"Why not?"

"I was small. And too fast at math."

"They bullied you because you were smart? That's messed up," Kirk responded. "Was it better at the Academy?"

"Da. For the most part. Is much better now on Enterprise."

"It better be all the way better," Kirk responded, in a dark tone.

"It is nice not to be… scared, yes," Chekov agreed. "You should not worry, keptin, I can take care of myself," he added, trying to sound dismissive. Kirk grinned in response, looking back over to the fire.

"I'm sure you can, Mister Chekov. It's my job to take care of you, though. You're the only golden Russian wizkid I've got," the captain said. He couldn't see the young man's skin, anymore, as the fire got lower, but he was sure that he'd made the ensign blush. "Speaking of that, you scared the crap out of me when you came back to camp all bloody," he added, reaching over to tug emphatically at the bloody corner of Chekov's uniform sleeve.

"A… minor misstep."

"Yeah, right. Don't scare me like that."

"Me?! Keptin, I have had to stop you from… plummeting to death on two separate occasions. Zat is scaring me," Chekov replied, stopping in his tracks to energetically defend himself. He paused, and his tone got more somber. "And zen… the warp reactor. Do not be lecturing me about scaring anyone, Mister Keptin," the navigator said, poking him in the chest with his index finger.

"Mister Keptin?" Kirk said, matching Chekov's inflection with delight at Chekov's sudden fire and adorable malapropism. They'd never really talked about those two instances of Chekov's life-saving prowess, or Kirk's sacrifice in engineering, and Kirk wasn't eager to have that conversation.

"Do not be changing subject," Chekov said; there was just enough light to see his eyes, and they were quite insistent. "What would Enterprise do without her you? I was Chief Engineer. Should have been me," he said, in a more resolute, serious tone than Kirk had ever heard from him.

"No, Pavel. I could have never sent anyone up in that reactor. Especially not you," Kirk replied, calmly.

"Why especially not me? I could have done it. I'm faster zan you," Chekov pressed, growing bolder.

"Yeah, I bet you could have done it. That's not the point, though. I've gotta protect my crew. And especially you because you've got the brightest future of any of us. You're a freakin' genius at 18. You'll probably make Admiral by the time your my age," Kirk said, a lie by omission, an omission of the fact that his attraction, as much as he refused to act on it, made him a little irrational with respect to command decisions involving the sweet Russian.

"Oh. Zat is… nice of you to say, keptin," Chekov replied. "Vewy nice," he added. "It really was terrifying, zough. Absolutely terrifying, when we thought you were… gone."

Smiling at Chekov, he looked up at the stars, and then sat down in the sand. He patted the area next to him, and the young man quickly joined him. He looked up again, just examining the stars for a moment before speaking again. "'I have loved the stars too much to be fearful of the night,'" he recited.

"I know zat. It is from 'The Old Astronomer to his Pupil.' Is wery beautiful," Chekov said, looking at him with incredible surprise. Kirk was used to that reaction; few people believed that he had the capacity to read at all, let alone read poetry.

"Something changed in me when I saw Pike die," Kirk said, slowly. He didn't like talking about it, but he wanted to make Chekov understand why it had to be Kirk that went up inside the reactor. "I would do anything for my crew, even die, and not be afraid, because I know it's what he would have done, and that's that. I knew it would work out, because I have the best crew in the whole fleet, my own team of super stars," he concluded, reaching over to give Chekov's shoulder another squeeze.

"You know zat ze feeling is totally mutual, right, keptin?"

"Jim, Pavel. Call me Jim. And, yes, I do," Kirk said.

"I do not zink I can do zat, sir, but I will try," Chekov responded, grinning at him, and then turning his gaze up towards the stars.

"Where's Sol?"

"What time is it?" Chekov asked, in response.

"0030 hours, ship time," Kirk said, sliding his wrist chronometer down out of his uniform sleeve.

"Zen, it's really more like 0355 for zis planet, so… based on ze position of the gas giant, zere, next to zat cluster of five stars!" Chekov said, making faces that indicated he was doing some pretty complicated math, math Kirk would never have been able to do without the ship's computer.

"Really? How do you do zat?" Kirk said, blushing when he realized that he was immitating him again. "That," he corrected.

"I do not know, keptin. It just… happens. I've always been good at math," Chekov replied.

They looked up at the tiny speck that the navigator knew to be Earth's sun, for a moment. "It looks so tiny," Kirk commented. "I'm glad we have you to help us find our way back," he added, before wondering if it sounded a little too sappy. "What else can we see from here?"

"Zat big blue one is Sirius; we are quite close to it, sir," Chekov said, starting his tour. For almost an hour, they sat in the sand, as Chekov pointed out interesting stars, while they traded stories about their service and lives before Starfleet. After a while, it became impossible for the young Russian to avoid yawning.

"Sounds like someone's getting sleepy."

"Yes, kept-Jim, but I am enjoying staying up so late," the ensign responded. Kirk couldn't help but chuckle, but he restrained himself from making a bedtime joke.

"I've enjoyed this, too, Pavel. We should do this more often," Kirk responded, with absolute sincerity, much to the ensign's apparent delight. He really wanted something even more personal than just spending an evening looking up at the stars, and getting to know him better had only made that feeling worse; when he looked at the young man's pale skin lit up by starlight, amazed at the wonders of the galaxy, it only enhanced his resolve to resist hitting on him. After so many failed romances, he didn't want to risk souring his wizkid on love forever; he could hardly protect him, if he broke his heart, as he was apt to do.

"I will attempt to find more mystery planets, zen," Chekov promised.

"Good. Let's head back," Kirk replied, standing up. He offered a hand down to Chekov, and then pulled the young man to his feet, amazed both by the strength of the Russian's grip (which had surprised him as they dangled from the catwalk in Engineering) and by his relative lightness.

When they got back to camp, the fire had gone out completely, with only embers smoldering in the sand. All of the tents were dark and zipped up, leaving only the one that they'd set up for him.

"Let's hit the hay. Looks like you're bunkin' with me," Kirk said, grabbing a bedroll from the foot of the shuttle ramp and crawling into the tent. He turned on the small light inside it, and began spreading out his bedding. Chekov followed after a moment, and did the same.

"I did not bring pizhama," the ensign noted. "Pajamas, I think," he translated, before Kirk could ask.

"Pajamas? What are you, eight? Just strip to your skivvies and go to sleep. It's like 30 degrees," Kirk said, before really thinking about that. "And that wasn't an order. Because it'd be weird to order my 19 year-old navigator to strip," he added, with a bit of a chuckle.

"Da," Chekov agreed, simply. He turned around when Kirk began pulling his shirt off.

"Shy?"

"Da."

"Well, you shouldn't be," Kirk said, immediately kicking himself for saying something like that, as he reached up to turn off the light, pulling off his uniform pants and then laying down on top of the Starfleet-issue sleeping bag. It was much too hot to crawl into it. "Better?" he asked, referring to the darkness.

"Da. Zank-you, keptin," Chekov replied, before there was rustling of clothes. Kirk could see him silhouetted against the thin wall of the tent, but averted his eyes for both their sakes. He wanted to look, but knew that it wouldn't be a good idea to tempt himself. "Spokoynoy nochi."

"Good night, Pavel."

It took Chekov almost an hour to fall asleep next to Kirk, after their conversation. Being around the handsome captain always made him feel nervous, but it was still nice to get to have a private conversation with him. He kept focusing on the way the captain had touched his shoulder, when he was about to try, even though he knew he shouldn't. Thinking about that, he fell into a light slumber, and then finally into a sound sleep.

In the middle of the night, Chekov was burning up, and felt constricted. He woke up blearily, squirming until he realized why he couldn't roll over; he was being hugged tightly from behind. He stopped trying to move immediately, not wanting it to stop, and wondering what was going on. The skinny Russian was about to say something, when he heard a noise coming from Kirk; it wasn't a snore, but it was the sort of noise that meant he was asleep. He felt one of the captain's hands on his abs and the other on his chest, but they weren't moving.

"He thinks I'm Chambers," Chekov thought, freezing up for a moment. He'd never been in that sort of situation, never been in any sort of romantic pairing, and he didn't know what to do at first. Eventually, instincts took over, and he nuzzled himself back up against his captain, pushing himself into the embrace. In his sleep Kirk squeezed him tighter, and buried his face further into the Russian's curly locks. The younger man attempted to surpress a gasp of surprise and pleasure, but failed completely. He'd never been held like that before, and he immediately loved it, even if he suspected it was just a more friendly equivalent of sleep walking. Whatever it was, he'd certainly take it. "Please don't wake up and hate me," Chekov murmured.

Kirk did wake up in the morning, but he certainly didn't hate the slender ensign. Quite the contrary. Finding himself meshed incredibly comfortably with the young man, he felt both a strong tinge of guilt, and a definite desire to stay exactly where he was. From that vantage point, his decision not to hit on his navigator didn't seem like such a sound plan; it certainly felt nice, so what could the harm be, really? He couldn't help himself from planting a peck of a kiss behind Chekov's ear, on the soft skin of his neck, before quickly extricating himself from the embrace. Still asleep, Chekov's limbs were tangled with his own, and it was quite difficult to get up without waking him. He dressed in a flash and got out of the tent.

No one else was awake yet, and he went over to sit on the shuttle's engine nacelle for a moment. "Fuck. I promised I wouldn't do that. I can't even trust myself in my sleep," he muttered to himself, wishing that his attraction for such an innocent creature wasn't directly incompatible with his tendencies towards not being there in the morning.

After about half an hour worrying that Chekov might have realized that he was being spooned, Scotty emerged from his tent with a data tablet, reading over the readings from the sensors. "Looks like Chekov's idea worked, sir! This data's pretty impressive," he said, handing it to him.

"Great, Scotty. Let's get packed up and go over it on the ship," he said, taking the tablet for a moment, realizing that he didn't understand it, and then handing it back. He stood up, and used his fingers to whistle for the crew's attention, a trick he had learned from Captain Pike.

It took them about half an hour to get everything packed up, once the team was awake. They would leave the scientific equipment behind to collect data for a few months, mostly to save the trip back up the mountain. After avoiding him successfully for all of the packing, Kirk found himself sitting at the helm of the shuttle, next to Chekov at the co-pilot's station.

"Good job, Chekov, with this sensor set-up. I'm proud of you," Kirk said, with a genuine smile, as the engines powered up.

"Zank you for ze opportunity, sir," Chekov replied, modestly, as the shuttle took off, leaving that perfect ocean world behind, and beginning the journey back to Enterprise.

Chekov found himself thinking about Kirk constantly, when they boarded the ship. Thankfully, he was allowed to retreat to his navigation lab to prepare a report for Mister Spock, and not sit on the bridge so close to Kirk. He'd never even considered the possibility that Kirk might reciprocate his puppy love, but the night before had given him new hope. It wasn't the spooning; he was smart enough to know that many people rolled around in their sleep, and it was probably just accidental contact, it was the conversation they'd had under the stars, and the way Kirk had been so attentive to his cut.

The young Ensign wanted to spend more time with him, like that. He wanted to have what Uhura and Spock had, but he had no idea how to get it. That, he resolved, was something that he would change. The only problem was figuring out which of his shipmates to ask for help.