The Seventeenth Mile

by OhMyGoshsickles

When Pavel is five he is orphaned. When he is eighteen he is found. The life of Pavel Andreievich Chekov, live in technicolor.

The Seventeenth Mile

PART ONE

SNOW THAW

When Pavel is five he is orphaned.

He only meets his father once before he dies. He'd still been on active duty on the USS Truman when Pavel had been born, and so the first time he meets his son, Pavel is two. Pavel's hazy memories of the three weeks Andrei Chekov spends with him are marked less by actual recollections of his father than they are by his mother's absence. Ilia Chekov is anxiously tactile on days she is well, and when Andrei returns she covets him. Pavel remembers her hand on his father's shoulder, her lips on his cheek. He does not remember his father's eyes, or his smile, or they way he cries the first time they meet- weeping when Pavel shies away from him like he is a stranger.

Pavel is five when they receive notice that Andrei Chekov had been fatally wounded on an away mission- had died due to a minor solar anomaly that had affected the ships transporter equipment and stopped medical from beaming him back up in time to save his life. The Truman's four-year mission was to conclude in three weeks. Pavel spends the day being coddled in his grandmother's lap. Unsure of why his mother is so quiet. Unsure of why she will not hold him. The next day Ilia takes a leap of faith with a bed sheet around her neck and leaves them with all of her possessions and 13 words programmed into a PADD.

I hope someday you can all forgive me. Please take care of Pavel.

In many ways Pavel's formative years are built around deaths- graveyard visits, memorials, men and women in engineering red talking softly to him about his parents. He lives alone with his grandmother for a few weeks until she admits to the rest of the family that she is too old to take care of him by herself. She tells them he is catatonic- crying often but speaking only to ask for his mother, "Where is mommy? When is mommy coming home?" There is a drawn out scuffle over who will take care of him; his grandparents on his father's side are too old, and his mother's sister already has three kids to care for. For a brief time, they talk with some horror about putting him up for adoption. The issue is not settled until Katreen, his father's younger sister, who had previously offered up no opinion on the subject, steps quite literally out of left field and insists that she is best equipped with the time and resources to properly care for his mental health, and will take him in.

The rest of the family doesn't know much about Katreen, but they do know this: A genius in her own right, she rarely comes to family gatherings, and discourages visitors, projecting a kind of emotional inaccessibility not uncommon in intellectuals. Still in her twenties and spouseless by choice, she lives alone in a house so deep in the Russian wilderness that in an earlier century it would have been considered completely inaccessible. They know that she's an epidemiologist, and that she works for the Institute of Intergalactic Health with some kind of think tank, but other than that, her personal life remains obfuscated by privacy. It becomes a topic of discussion at parties, some kind of familial folklore- the beautiful young ice queen in that castle of solitude. They know her as a glasses wearing traditionalist, a honey haired academic, and to everyone's surprise, the perfect candidate to raise Pavel.

He spends the first night at Katreen's home holed up in his new room, refusing to come out. He cries and sleeps and then wakes up to cry some more. Katreen leaves him alone until it's time for dinner, at which point she brings him a plate and leaves it on his bedside table. She stands for a while, observing him as he pulls the blanket over his head and turns away from her, longing for someone else- a different pair of eyes, of hands, of hair that carries the scent of fresh linen. Pavel listens as she walks away, only to hear her return a moment later.

"I'm sure you're thirsty from all that crying." She says in her low, sensible voice.

He tries to ignore her, but what she says is true, and so he emerges from his blanket cocoon and sits up, taking the glass from her and drinking without meeting her eyes. She places the plate of food on his lap when he's finished, trading him the glass of water for a fork without comment. She watches him until he takes the first bite, sits down on the side of his bed, and then, to his bewilderment, begins to hum. It's a simple tune, old and just barely audible over the sound of his fork scraping the plate, but it breaks Pavel down- makes him sob, exhausted. He is so small- so tired now, achy and wanting.

When he's done, when the song is over and his plate his empty, he closes his eyes, his voice cracking around the edges, "I want my mommy back."

"I know." Katreen says, and she says it so simply- so it's just that, just an admission of fact. No follow up, like, "But I'm your mother now." No empty promise, like, "But she's in a better place." She accepts it, acknowledges it, and in some ways this is when the two of them begin to work.

Their first breakthrough is two weeks into their new arrangement. Katreen accidentally leaves out a schematic of the migration of a Vulcan illness on the table and Pavel answers all the questions she had left for herself in the margins over breakfast. He's incredibly autonomous for a boy of five years old; he's first to rise in the mornings, and so he makes his own breakfast and finds his own source of entertainment. By the time Katreen gets up he's already moved on to something else, but she notices when she's making coffee- real coffee, she refuses to use replicators- and calls out to him from the porch, "Pavel, did you do this?"

He gives up on the hole he was digging in the snow and wanders back into the kitchen to see what she's talking about. "Yes. I thought you left it for me." He glances up at her, suddenly anxious. They still haven't set up any specific parameters of what he can and cannot do, and it seems that Katreen has no interest in doing so. "Did you?"

She looks over his work, reviewing it, before saying, "Yes," decidedly, and placing a slender hand on his head. "Good job."

Pavel glows; Katreen isn't a physically affectionate person, and the casual touch is a gift.

After that she gives him a puzzle to do everyday- sometimes leaving him to toil for hours, chipping away at clues until the final picture snaps together. He's always been a bright child, naturally curious, but living with Katreen helps him flourish. She is always happy to answer any question he has, or, if she doesn't know the answer, research with him until both of their curiosities are satisfied. The commute to the nearest school and Pavel's unwillingness to leave Katreen prevent him from attending an academy, and so she single handedly takes on the role of his would be professors- his mentors, his guides. She teaches him about The Grey Period- the time after initial contact where alien influence was the strongest- when the entire world was a mixing pot of new culture. She knew a girl when she was growing up who had an Andorian name, she tells him, just because her father had liked the sound of it. She tells him about the Vulcan peace treaties- their foreign medicine- their superior technology. For him, she paints the stars.

("People must have been happy that the Vulcans gave us so much." Pavel says, and Katreen shakes her head. "Not right away," She tells him, "There are always going to be those who are cruel to what they don't understand.")

He comes to love her with a silent fervor. He grows up padding soft footed in their quiet, clean house- reading real paper and ink books in their study and playing chess games by their fireplace- watching Katreen as she works and listening to her comforting hum whenever he's tired or sick- relishing the brush of her hand across the back of his neck whenever she's pleased with him. ("Laboratory conditions." His family scoffs. "He doesn't have any friends his age." But when asked to play with his older cousins Pavel wrinkles his nose and says, "They're loud, and I don't like their games.")

Katreen's job allows her to work from home most of the time, but when she does need to travel he goes with her. She works alongside four other researchers, and in time Pavel meets them all: T'Parr, a female Vulcan who observes him with a quiet interest, Mr. Palomino, a man with a pot belly and a wicked grin, Mr. Benjelloun, a stately Moroccan man who for the most part ignores him, and a young Korean man who insists he be called by his first name, Heesu, who seems enamored with Pavel and more so with Katreen.

Pavel especially likes when they travel because by the age of ten he finds himself losing interest in the house. He'd like to learn other things, things Katreen can't teach him, like about how starships stay up and how they work. She can tell him, and has told him, about the consequences of starships, and the ramifications of their existence, but she can't tell him how they tick. That's what he really wants to know- how the puzzle pieces stick together, and why.

On the day he decides that he's had enough he walks into their study and tells Katreen, leaving no room for argument, "I want to go to school."

She looks at him curiously, and asks in that factual way of hers, not patronizing or to check his resolve, just interested, "You've thought this through?"

He stares at her, and then takes a moment, considering. "No. I would like to think on it some more." She nods and returns to her work, and he wanders outside to look at the stars, ignoring the way the cold nips at his nose. It will snow soon, he thinks.

When he comes back inside Katreen is cooking dinner, so Pavel scrambles up to sit on the counter and asks, "Why did my father join Starfleet?"

She's standing with her back to him, but he can still see when she pauses for a moment and then goes back to chopping peppers, "He was very interested in traveling off world, even when we were children. He preferred mathematics, like you, and he liked to take things apart to see what made them work. He always wanted to join Starfleet, if only to bother our grandfather." She pauses again, as if remembering something, "You never met our grandfather- his father was a World War Three veteran. He was a bigot- against anything he considered alien- I do not believe you would have liked him."

Pavel nods, they've talked about World War Three, but it seems so far in the past- there's a disconnect, like it doesn't involve him. Anyway, that's not what he wants to know.

"And my mother?" He presses, and he feels something within him begin to tremble. It is the question he's wanted the answer to for years, a question he's afraid to ask, "Why didn't she love me enough to stay?"

Katreen stops what she's doing. She puts the knife down and turns, leaning up against the counter to regard him seriously. "I cannot say that I knew your mother well." She admits after a time. "After Andrei married, he and I… did not speak to each other so often." She's quiet for a moment, appears to be searching for words, and then she looks at him. "But you have to know something, Pavel. This is very important. You have to understand that your mother was sick. She loved you- but she was very sick, and she was very sad, and there was nothing that you could have done, or you could have said, that would have stopped her from doing what she did. Do you understand?" She reaches out and strokes his wrist, waiting for his nod, which he gives her. "Good. Be that as it may, I do not believe your mother did not love you, Pavel." Her dark eyes bury into his, an indeterminate color, halfway between green and brown. "I do not believe it is possible not to love you, and I will not pretend to know how she found it in herself to leave you, as I certainly could not."

Pavel wavers, the rock hard resolve he'd built to save himself from whatever answer he'd receive quivering, "I want to go to school." He tells her, wibbling a little, and she reaches out and puts her hand on his shoulder, fingers stroking the nape of his neck.

"Alright." She concedes.

And so he does.

---

He doesn't make friends in school, though he is the top of his class. His social skills are underdeveloped- he's used to being taken seriously, treated like an adult, and so he doesn't understand why the children laugh at him. Katreen's less than enforcing hand, and her lack of rules, mean that he's constantly punished for things he just forgets, like asking permission before leaving to go to the restroom, or raising his hand before asking questions. It doesn't help that the other children all speak flawless Standard, and that they think his accent is funny. Pavel's mother's Standard had been imperfect, accented and rarely used, and Katreen refuses to speak in anything other than Pre-Reformation Russian. She's told him that Standard is an ugly language, forged out of necessity, and that it is too procedural, too young, too lacking in depth in its quest for equality. Pavel believes that deep in her heart Katreen is a romantic, but he will never tell her so.

He does not write home. He does not tell Katreen that living in a dorm with boys who loathe him is one of the hardest things he's ever done. He does not tell her that he regrets testing into the higher-level classes, because it means that he's the youngest and therefore the smallest. He doesn't tell her that the older boys chase him back to his dorm after school, or that they shove him around in between classes. He does not tell her, and he does not want to, because a part of him- a small, scared part that he knows is irrational and yet he cannot smother- is afraid that if he does she will be too ashamed to take him back.

His teachers pity him. His mathematics professor forces one of her other top students to sit with him at lunch- a girl with bright eyes who wears neat, pleated dresses- and after three sessions of sitting in silence she turns to him in the middle of her meal and says, "You should try and fix your Standard, it makes you sound stupid." He decides he doesn't care about friends too much after that.

Instead, he imagines his time away. He likes to pretend that he's survived a war- that he's one of the only humans to do so- and that Terra has been ravaged, destroyed. People are looking for someone to lead them, and after Pavel does several very important, very impressive things (he always sort of glosses over this part.) they choose to rally behind him, because he is very smart, and people need someone very smart to look out for them - though this Pavel is taller and older and doesn't have a stupid accent. He spends all of his breaks planning out how he will divide the remaining population up so that everyone will be assigned a task that they will be best suited to, so that morale will stay high while maximizing production, and how they will only live in places best suited to support them. He likes this- this trade of fact for fiction; the easy linear thinking, the cause and effect. Numbers and ideas are dependable, people less so.

He writes a lot of it down, becomes better and better at it as he grows older, and he perplexes all of his Standard teachers, his weakest subject, with the way he aces all of his written assignments but consistently does poorly at his spoken ones. They all insist that he could get rid of his accent easily if he worked at it, but he's too wrapped up in his own devices to bother with it. Anyway, in some ways it is the only thing his mother has left him.

Eventually the older boys get bored of him and find someone else to pester, but Pavel never stops imagining a better world for himself. When he is eleven he is king. When he is twelve he can stop death. It becomes clear to him that as long as he has his brain- has a kingdom of his own- he doesn't need friends, and if Katreen thinks that it's strange he never mentions anything but his studies when he returns home on holidays, she does not say so.

He doesn't realize he's lonely until he's thirteen, when who's dating who suddenly seems more crucial to his classmates then who's the biggest in the schoolyard. He watches couples enviously as they fumble through the motions, acting out romance like they're reciting lines from a movie they've only heard their parents talk about. He tries not to stare too long at the boys when they linger in the hallways between classes, all sweaty palms, bumping shoulders, and slobbery kisses, skittering away whenever a teacher heads in their direction.

It's at this point that he starts to regret not working to get rid of his accent when he was younger- no one wants talk to him, let alone look at him. He immerses himself in his schoolwork, and when that is not enough to distract him, joins the school's track team. To both his and his coach's surprise, he's pretty good at it. Privately, Pavel cites years of escaping his tormentors, but he does not say so. There is a joy he finds in running that he's never felt before, some kind of wild expanding in his chest that makes him want to howl- to sprint until his heart pounds and his atoms separate. He likes it because it does not make him feel lonely as much as it makes him feel big, bigger than himself, bigger than anything. Soon enough he can't tell if the aching in his joints is from exhaustion or the next of his sudden bout of growth spurts. In a matter of weeks Pavel goes from a tiny, delicate boy, to a gangly, clumsy-limbed teenager. He's honestly not sure which of the two he prefers.

It gains him a certain amount of attention. He's not popular with boys, unfortunately, but girls, mainly upperclassmen, seem interested in him. There's a group of eleventh years that, after once spotting him eating alone, take to bothering him during lunch break. One of them in particular likes to sit on the arm of his chair and pet his hair while he tries to ignore her, flushing wildly. Her name is Vika Tretiak, and Pavel gets the feeling that the rest of the girls wouldn't look twice at him if it weren't for her. She's beautiful, thin and lithe like a dancer, with a low, melodious voice and eyes that are as dark and sticky as licorice. When she speaks, she speaks so sweet and soft that he can taste the sugar oozing on his tongue. It's engaging, intoxicating. It's entirely calculated.

He watches her when she doesn't know he's looking. He can't believe that no one else has seen the intelligence behind her honey-eyed stare- has realized that the reason she talks so softly is because it forces the listener to lean closer to her, to appear naturally submissive. It's awing in some ways, how effortless she makes it look. Vika Tretiak is the one that could truly lead nations, not him.

Her interest in him appears to be casual until the day she catches him observing her. He looks out the window of his dorm and finds her standing alone in the snow, smoking in the schoolyard. Her head turns. She looks at him. He looks at her. It seems for a moment that some sort of understanding passes between them. 'I see you.' He thinks, his heart pounding suddenly. 'I know you.'

She smiles and drops the cigarette, crushing it under the heel of her boot. Without breaking eye contact, she lifts a slender finger to her lips.

'Shhhh.'

The next day she stops him as he's on his way back to his dorm, picking up his homework in between classes.

"Pasha," She says, because this is what she calls him, even though he's never given her permission to do so. "Do you want to go do something fun?"

For a moment he does not know how to answer, not only because he's having trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that she is standing in front of him, alone, asking to spend time with him, but also because he can't for the life of him imagine what "something fun" could mean.

"Euh." He says intelligently, and when she angles her face at him expectantly, follows that up with. "What do you mean?"

"You live on campus don't you? I don't. Let's go out into the city."

"I have class in ten minutes."

"Yes." She agrees.

He blinks at her. There's a challenge in the tilt of her chin. "Okay." He says.

They take the Metro. Vika ignores him in favor of whatever she's doing on her PADD while Pavel tries not to twitch uncomfortably. They ride for an entire hour and a half in silence, during which Pavel becomes increasingly confused as to where they're going- what her end game is. Eventually she speaks.

"I like you, Pasha."

He jumps a bit, and when he looks over at her, it's to find that she's put her PADD away and is looking back. "Oh?" He chirps nervously.

The corner of her mouth twitches upward. "Yes." She smirks, and it seems to him quite suddenly that the soft-eyed, crooning girl is gone. "You're a bit like me, I think, and I was wondering if you'd like to be my friend."

He sits up too quickly. Betrays just a bit too much. "Why?"

"Because I've noticed you looking, and you're the only one that looks."

"I-."

"You don't have to pretend you haven't been. I don't mind. You're the only one smart enough to know how to look." There's a glint in her eye, something sharp to touch. "None of the others even bother to see past their own noses."

There's something wrong about that, he thinks, but he smiles at her- nervously and against his better judgment- and she smiles back.

"So? Will you come out with me sometime? When I ask, will you come?"

"Oh, I-." He shrugs clumsily, "Yes. If you want."

Vika looks inordinately pleased. "Good." She stands, and Pavel stares up at her, confused. "This stop is mine. If you hurry you might still make it to track practice on time." And then she's up and gone, moving through the crowd and out the sliding doors.

Pavel blinks dumbly, looking out at the station in an attempt to figure out where they are before realizing with some shock that they've ridden the train in a complete loop. By the time he recovers enough to realize that he doesn't know which station to get off at, it's too late.

He ends up getting off two stops too early, and has to walk the rest of the way there.

Needless to say he's late to practice.

She's true to her word. Vika and her friends stop hassling him during lunch break, and so for a while Pavel thinks she's changed her mind, but then one day she shows up at his dorm room before class and beckons him to follow her with a flash of her teeth. She shows him where she lives- a huge, silent house nestled amongst other huge, silent houses, all located not too far away from school-grounds. From what Pavel can tell it mostly goes uninhabited.

("Where's your father?" He asks when she shows him his study, and her answering laugh sounds like a slap. "Out working. He's always working." "And your mother?" But she doesn't answer that question at all.)

After that she takes him out almost every other day. He knows he shouldn't go with her, that he's jeopardizing his grades, but he concedes every time, helpless against it. Sometimes they go out into the city, which is fine, but sometimes she takes him back to her room, which Pavel prefers. He spends days sprawled out on Vika's bed, doing his physics homework while she smokes cigarettes on her balcony. Sometimes he feels like there's a fundamental disconnect between them, like they aren't even speaking the same language, and yet he's never felt less alone. She still touches him casually, like she'd done in school before they'd really known each other- runs her fingers across his arm absentmindedly, skims her thumb across the slope of his shoulder blade. Sometimes she'll lay with him, singing under her breath and tracing the shell of his ear. He loves her a little, he thinks.

The anatomy of their relationship isn't complicated when it's broken down- and Pavel has always been so good at breaking things down. It's not too hard to figure out why she's chosen him to bring back to her empty house, let him lie on her dusty furniture. He had seen just a bit too much when he looked at her- had found some kind of kindred spirit. It's not hard to find loneliness when you know where to look for it. Pavel knows it's likely that she's just keeping him around to ensure his loyalty, to make sure he doesn't tell anyone else what he's seen, but he doesn't really mind. He thinks that he's the only one who's ever gotten so close to Vika- the only one who's ever caught a glimpse at the gaping cracks in her. Maybe she holds him close because he already knows how to destroy her. Maybe, he thinks, that's what friendship is.

There are stretches where Vika will whisk him away everyday, and then sometimes she'll disappear for a week or two before showing up again. These times are always the worst, because he's left to wonder if she has finally lost interest in him- if she'll ever return. In the meantime Pavel finds his body changing: he's growing into his gawky frame, his shoulders are broadening and filling out, and his voice is deepening (though it does not lose it's boyish husk, which Pavel finds frustrating.) In no time at all he is fifteen: Fifteen and nervous. Fifteen and desirable.

They fuck then, a few weeks after Pavel's birthday. She opens all the windows so snow drifts in and they have sex on her bed in that big silent house. The next day he'll only remember the evening in snippets: The look in her eyes when she whispers, "But don't you like me?" after he initially shies away- the tiny crescents her nails make in his shoulders - the way her mouth curves the first time he shudders nervously to orgasm. He'll remember the way her kisses bruise; She's so fucking angry- he doesn't know how he'd missed it before then- so angry with everyone in a way impossible to contextualize. Like salt, he'd tasted it on her tongue.

The next week she disappears. Rumors say that she's transferred schools, which seems reasonable enough. The group of girls she had called her friends all seem distraught, and a small, hard part of Pavel hates them for it. He is certain they do not feel her absence physically, as he does. He is certain they do not know the loss of her like an open wound. He chides himself for becoming too attached- he had known she would leave eventually, it was inevitable, but he had hoped desperately that they would be able to talk more before she did. Talk about her absent mother, her distant father, about how when she'd said, "But don't you like me?" he'd caught in her eye a glimpse of an ache so deep that he'd been forced to look away- forced to look away lest he'd start to see it everywhere, in everyone he'd ever meet- see it in himself when he looked in the mirror. They were not so different really- both siblings in abandonment- though for Vika it had returned as an underlying, righteous anger, and for Pavel a deep uncertainty. They'd both always been so desperate for devotion, had been pining for any chance of a certainty. And yet in the end it was just them, sitting and staring at each other, lonely and lost enough to pretend that they'd been riding the metro in circles for a reason.

He finds himself suddenly aimless. He'd lived day to day with a schedule built around Vika, and now that she's gone he has to reconstruct himself from the ground up. The abrupt lack of company makes his transition back into the outside world a violent one- it's like he'd been living in a bubble, watching from behind rose tinted glass, only to emerge and discover the world just as lonesome, the people in it just as distant. His time with Vika had provided him with a kind of companionship, something he'd never had before. The feeling of being more, of being a part of something, is hard to forget. It's a particularly addictive brew, friendship.

He begins to spend more time looking at the stars. He'd done it often as a child- had searched that great canopy of light for the stories Katreen spun him- tales of countless civilizations, just beyond his reach- but it had only been out of childish curiosity, never as a search for any sort of guidance. Now he escapes to the roof of his dorm whenever he can't sleep, charting the sky and wishing he knew all of the stars by name. He imagines a place for himself out there- somewhere where he is not only needed but also deeply and desperately wanted. Somewhere where his existence is important- a necessity- where he'll never have to feel lonely again. He wonders if his father ever felt like this when he was younger, if that's why he wanted to leave.

He continues to excel in all of his classes, and when the end of term rolls around and councilors start talking about careers, his teachers begin to ask him questions like, "What classes are you going to take next year? What are you going to do when you graduate? Are you going to a university? Has anyone contacted you? Do you have any internships lined up? What do you want to do for a job? You're such a smart boy, Pavel, you could do anything, what are you going to do?" Frankly, after sneaking out onto the roof for the twelfth time that month, the answer begins to seem rather obvious. He thinks of his father a lot then, of a man whose name and face he carries, but whom he barely remembers. Maybe, he thinks, this sort of thing is just in his blood.

He writes his entrance paper on black holes and escape velocity. He's been thinking a lot about the Schwarzschild Radius- about the point of no return. He writes about how- and this is really all theoretical, because no one's ever gone head to head with a black hole and lived to tell the tale- if it were possible to add a component to a ship that would allow it to safely eject the warp core, and if said ship were to fire that warp core into the center of the black hole, the responding backlash of radiation might be strong enough to close the singularity and propel them to safety. He feels like the paper makes a few very valid points, and the research is all there, but it doesn't stop him from shaking slightly when he clicks the submit button. His PADD goes blank for a moment and then the screen lights up with a notice.

Starfleet Academy has officially received your application.

Our admissions board will contact you in the Fall.

He knows that it's a long shot. He recognizes that at best they will most likely just encourage him to re-apply after he graduates next year, and yet he can't help but wish with a deep frenzied hope that they'll make an exception for him. It's not that he thinks he deserves it especially, though he is qualified, it's just that he can't stand the thought of staying where he is anymore. Can't stand the thought of living with all of these distant people and their endless winter for another year.

And then one day, just when he's begun to resign himself to the rejection letter he knows is coming in the mail, he gets a message on his PADD in the middle of class. It's an alert to report to the headmaster's office at his teacher's earliest convenience. Everyone else is still taking a test, but Pavel has long since finished, and so he looks up at his professor, who has presumably received a similar message on her own PADD. He watches her check to make sure he's submitted his test into the system, and then with a perfunctory nod, waves him out the door. He collects his materials quietly and exits, mind buzzing with curiosity. He can't imagine why the headmaster would summon him- he can't think of anything he's done wrong, unless of course they'd suddenly caught wind of all the times he had snuck off campus with Vika, though it seems unlikely to him that they'd bring it up so late after the fact. It occurs to him suddenly that something might have happened to Katreen, and the thought quickens his step; there had been a girl just last semester that had been pulled out of class only to learn that her mother had passed away quite suddenly.

With this thought in his mind, and an anxious tingle building up his spine, he's completely caught off guard when the headmaster's secretary leads him to a conference room and then abruptly opens the door.

Two people turn and stare at him- the headmaster, who Pavel had expected, and a brunette woman in a Commander's gray dress uniform. Startled, Pavel snaps her a sloppy salute, and the woman grins. The headmaster's secretary clears his throat pointedly, and Pavel realizes that he's still standing in the doorway, slightly out of breath, white knuckling the PADD in his hand. He steps forward and the secretary leaves, shutting the door behind him, just as the headmaster stands and says, "Chekov, this is Commander Brooks. She's here to speak with you."

Commander Brooks stands as well, extending her hand, and Pavel instantly becomes aware of the cold sweat still lingering on his palm. "You can just call me Jordan." She offers amiably, and Pavel resists the urge to wipe his hand on his pants before he shakes.

"Ah, then you may call me Pavel."

She smiles again, pulling out a chair across the table from where she had been sitting. "Please, Pavel, sit. Thank you for your help, Mr. Gagner, but I would like to speak with him alone."

After a moment of surprise the headmaster nods and makes for the door, throwing a curious glance back at Pavel. Pavel realizes with a sense of trepidation that he isn't the only one who doesn't know what's going on.

"I read your admission essay." Commander Brooks tells him, settling back into her chair, and for the second time that day Pavel startles.

"You have?"

"Oh yes," She says, a hint of mirth playing around her eyes, "It made big waves in Engineering. They all thought it was brilliant and wanted to talk to the author. When I told them it was written was a sixteen year old boy, well." She laughs. "I work on the admissions board, and as soon as I read your application I had to pass it around. We all read your work, and I have to say Pavel, we were very impressed. You are working at a level far beyond your age. The Engineering Department is all up in arms about running a study- they're already talking about altering the design of our newest flagship so that it will be equipped with the ability to eject it's warp core in case of emergency. " She laughs again at his dumbstruck expression. "You seem surprised."

"Oh. Yes." He stutters, blinking. "Well, of course I knew that there have not been many studies on the subject- and I know that the idea was unique- but I thought that- well- my theories- they are just theories!" His mind is buzzing- Oh, the thought of his own calculations altering the design of the Enterprise. He's been monitoring her progress ever since he'd first caught word that Starfleet was building a new starship. If only he could help, he thinks desperately, but he lacks the knowledge vital to be of any real assistance. All of his theories, taken from him like that. Lost in his turmoil as he is, he doesn't notice Commander Brooks watching him.

"Pavel," She says seriously, and he jolts back to attention. "What made you apply to Starfleet so early? Are you unhappy here?"

"Oh, I. No- is. I." He clears his throat, embarrassed. "I feel as if there is just so much I could learn at Starfleet. I just." He stares at her, desperate for her to understand. He wishes that they were speaking in Russian. "All my life, I've wanted to learn about starships. All my life, I've wanted to explore the universe. More than anything, I want these things. I don't know if I've always wanted to join Starfleet, but I feel as if it is the only place I should be. Am I saying these things clearly? ….Do you understand what I am saying?"

"Yes, I do." She considers him for a moment, and then says, "You know, we've actually been keeping tabs on you for awhile."

Again, he is surprised. "You have?"

"Of course, ever since you joined Mensa. We spoke with your aunt when you were younger about involving you in a program we were developing at the time to help sharp young minds like yours funnel directly into the Academy, but she seemed to intimate that you had no interest in going to school yet, did she never mention it?"

He shakes his head, mildly unsettled- it's unusual for Katreen to keep secrets, at least about things directly involving him- but Commander Brooks nods as if she's unsurprised. "Yes, I thought that might be the case. I would be unwilling too, if-." She cuts herself off, reaching up touch the Starfleet insignia on her chest, perhaps unintentionally. "I knew your father." She tells him suddenly- kindly. "I worked under him for a time, when I was serving on board the Truman. He was very funny- talked about your mother constantly. He was… a bright soul, I believe. Wickedly intelligent. I see a lot of you in him." She lowers her hand, meeting his eyes earnestly. "And between you and me, Pavel, Starfleet could use another Andrei Chekov."

He stares at her, sizing her up, almost too nervous to hope. "I'm not sure what you're saying."

The corner of her mouth curls. "Would you like to hear me say it?"

He presses his lips together. "Please."

"Well then," She places one hand over the other and leans against the table, eyes crinkling. "I should tell you that I came here today, Pavel, to let you know that Starfleet Academy is interested in inviting you to join us at the start of next semester. Of course, you'll have to finish your high school requirements first, but from the look of your application, I doubt that it will be too much of a problem for you."

Pavel nods tersely, and then says, too woodenly. "Well. I accept." Commander Brooks leans back in her seat and lets out a peal of laughter.

"Oh, good! Well, you'll actually have to get permission from your aunt first. Legally you're still a minor, so-."

"Katreen will not stop me if I tell her I want to go." He tells her, distracted. He's running numbers- how long will it take him to complete all of his graduation requirements if he doubles up his class schedule? If he triples?

She's grinning at him. "And you'll also need to take placement tests, physical evaluations- see if you're ready for such a big change at such a young age before we really finalize your admission. It's harder for us, because you're so young, but with your level of skill I don't think it will be a problem, do you?"

"No, no problems. I will do all of these things. When and where will these tests be given?"

Commander Brooks snaps open her comm, rising from her chair, "Give me a moment and I will get you a schedule."

By the end of the meeting he has both a schedule and Commander Brooks' personal number in case he has any further questions. He rushes back to his room so he can send Katreen a message, and after a tense half hour receives the reply, "If you desire to join Starfleet then I won't stop you. As always, you know what is best for you. I wish you luck and happiness, Pavel."

As blessings go, it's not a bad one.

He spends the next month awkwardly juggling schoolwork and the tests Starfleet continues to throw at him. He's poked and prodded, measured and examined, in more ways than he ever thought possible, and then left to drown in the chaos of finals week as the Admiralty deliberates. After four days of radio silence, he finally receives a message from the Commander herself containing nothing but the words, "Just got word of the decision. They'll be sending you your admission info in the next few days. It's official. You did it. You're in."

He lets out a whoop of joy and then promptly goes to run a victory lap around the track for the last time. When he gets back to his room, sweaty and triumphant, he packs all of his stuff away and goes home to further celebrate with a week of doing nothing but opposing Katreen in increasingly convoluted games of chess.

At the end of the month he moves to San Francisco. Starfleet Academy's campus is beautiful- all white marble and bright open spaces, built at the edge of the city and looking out at the bay. In all of the traveling he's done with Katreen, Pavel's never been in the ocean, never even learned how to swim, and he finds himself looking out at the water longingly throughout the entire guided tour he's given. Once he's checked in- taken a picture for his student ID, given a class schedule, and been measured for his uniform- the cadet who's been showing him around finally gives him some time to settle in, and so he commits the passcode to his door to memory and makes a beeline for the nearest public beach, just a mile or so off campus.

The ocean is louder than he ever thought it would be, the waves beating white noise against the sand, and he rolls his pant legs up to his knees as he goes, passing sunbathing students who eye him absently. He pauses when he reaches the shoreline, holding his shoes in his hands and hissing as the frigid water rolls over his toes, only hesitating a moment before he wades in deeper, his calves seizing against the chill in protest. A feeling grabs hold of him, as simple and desperate as running high. He want's to dive in the water and learn how to swim. He wants to go up in space in a starship and he want's to learn how they work. As he looks out at the ocean he sees everything he can do, everything he can learn, new and exciting and endless.

"This was a good idea." He says aloud.

The ocean roars back.

---

He has two weeks until next semester starts, which means he has plenty of time to fill. His age had guaranteed him on-campus housing, but he spends most of his time off campus anyway, exploring the city and jogging on the beach. He tries a different kind of food everyday, finally deciding that Orion cuisine, though rich, is his favorite, and buzzes through all of his pre-semester work whilst sprawling in the sand. By the third day he's red and peeling, and by the end of the week the amount of freckles on his shoulders have doubled.

His roommate arrives in the middle of the day, and so by the time Pavel returns for the night, salt sticky and windswept, he is already unpacked and lounging on one of the beds. He introduces himself as Samson Taunk, "Though you can call me Sam", and to Pavel's relief he seems blissfully okay with the fact that he's rooming with a sixteen year old. Sam's a handsome, dark-skinned science track student from Washington, and though he doesn't go out of his way to spend time with Pavel they somehow develop a strange domestic routine. Sam does his best to make sure Pavel doesn't overwork himself and Pavel does his best to make sure Sam doesn't make himself crazy tidying the place. "It was just me, my mom, and my four younger brothers back at home," Sam explains, "So I inherited the mom gene, you know?" Pavel isn't sure if he understands exactly, but he knows that he has to keep the room clean or else Sam will waste valuable time tidying up. Sometimes Pavel helps him with his homework and sometimes Sam buys Pavel coffee. They're not codependent, but they take care of each other. It is, Pavel thinks, maybe what having a brother would be like, and he decides that he likes it.

He spends the next semester having more fun in school than he's ever had before. Finally able to focus on what he likes without being bogged down with things like Standard class, Pavel quickly shoots to the top of most of his command track courses. After acing both his stellar cartography and advanced transporter theory classes, he begins to pursue a focus in Navigation with the enthusiastic support of his teachers. He likes the idea that he'll be working right on the bridge with the rest of a crew, rather than down on lower decks where he'll never get to see any action. Meanwhile, he spends a lot of his free time with Mr. Maalouf, who's one of the heads of the Engineering Department. He had helped design the Enterprise, and had specifically been one of the people who had found Pavel's warp core theory fascinating. With his help, Pavel rewrites and publishes his theory, naming it, with a bit of embarrassment, Chekov's Theory of Warp Core Recoil. The reactions from the scientific community are endlessly stimulating, and during lunch breaks he and Mr. Maalouf read over responses- sending emails and correcting information here and there when necessary. It's not a perfect system, Mr. Maalouf tells him one day, but that's what makes it interesting. Pavel loves it, and he thinks that if he weren't so set on manning a starship, he would not regret a single moment he spent working in a lab.

Not only does Pavel find that he has more people he enjoys conversing with, like Sam or Mr. Maalouf, he also finds that the dynamic in the classroom is radically different. Rather than annoyed at the fact that Pavel is so much younger than everyone else, most students seem interested by it, and want to talk to him. He befriends several cadets who are looking for extra help in their classes, and even grows close to his cartography professor, who mentions his skill to the Admiralty, and then goes on to recommend that he serve his first commission as the Head Navigator before he graduates. Suddenly Pavel is going to evaluations every other weekend so they can decide if he's fit to handle the stress of working on a ship at his age, and when break rolls around at the end of the year he has to stay in San Francisco so he can continue meeting with a psychologist. It's all very bizarre and a little bit terrifying, but Pavel doesn't really mind because he's so excited all the time- a ship, he'd be working on the bridge of a starship- and so when he's brought in front of the Admiralty for his final evaluation and asked if he, personally, believes he's ready he says, "Of course! Of course I am. Of course."

At the time he does not believe his words will count for anything, but halfway through the next semester they receive word that Vulcan is under attack and suddenly everything is tactical analysis and emergency protocol and Pavel's standing in the shuttle bay receiving his assignment and thinking, "This is happening. This is actually happening." And it is.

Sam jogs by him on his way to his own post but stops for a second to place a hand on his shoulder and grin.

"Pavel! Where've you been assigned?"

"Head Navigator of the Enterprise." Pavel says, and he can't help the ridiculous swell of pride in his chest as he does so. "I'm working with Helmsmen McKenna."

"Ooh, better be careful around McKenna, I hear he's a grouch. Make sure you make a good impression. Head Navigator though, way to go." He smiles, and holds his hand up for a high-five. "I'm on the Farragut, see you when we get back?"

Pavel high-fives him, feeling a little silly, "Good luck."

"You too, dude." And with that he's hurrying away, off to his assigned shuttle.

Pavel sits ramrod straight the entire shuttle ride up, craning his neck so he can peer out the window. He's been in space before- once, when he'd visited a nearby space station- and he's glad to discover that the experience has not become any less enthralling since the first time he did it. By the time the shuttle's docked he's practically vibrating from excitement- physically restraining himself from sprinting ahead of everyone else as they all rush to their stations.

The turbolift to the bridge can't go fast enough, and when the doors finally open he can't help himself- walking briskly as he passes the captain on his way to the navigator's station and sitting down in the chair. His chair. He's seen this control panel countless times in all sorts of tests and simulations, but today it's so much better because today it's real. The screen boots up at the touch of his palm and it's so exciting he almost doesn't notice the person slipping into the Helmsmen's seat beside him. He does a double take.

He's younger than Pavel thought he would be- he had assumed it would be someone a bit greyer around the ears, but it looks to him like McKenna can't be older than 23 at most. Mindful of the warning he'd been given, Pavel clears his throat and salutes, trying to enunciate around his accent so as not to annoy his new helmsmen, "It is very nice to meet you Ensign McKenna. My name is Ensign Pavel Andreievich Chekov, and I will be working as your Navigator."

A look of strangled embarrassment flits over McKenna's face, which automatically strikes Pavel as a strange reaction for someone reportedly ill tempered. "Oh, no. I'm not-. Helmsmen McKenna is sick with lungworm. I'm filling in for him. I'm Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu." He sticks his hand out for a handshake, and then promptly turns away as soon as Pavel gives him one.

Pavel stares at him a second more before swiveling his chair back toward his station and wiping his palms on his pants, feeling as if he must have messed that introduction up somewhere. He types his identification number into his control pad, suddenly vastly uncomfortable, and draws up the mission file so he can re-read it, mostly just so he appears occupied. After a moment Sulu says offhandedly, "We'll be okay."

Pavel glances at him. "What?"

He dials something up on his computer, almost pulling off distracted. "I just thought, this is probably your first time out, so I'd just let you know. Everything will be okay."

Pavel sits back in his chair- a tad insulted, and then leans forward to fuss with his controls. He's just as competent as anyone else on this ship, he want's to say, and he's not some scared child. He's worked hard for this position, and he's confident in his ability to perform in it. After a moment of irritably prepping the computer to receive the proper coordinates he looks up and frowns out at space, just beyond the view screen, endless and foreign. A jolt of anxiety crackles down his spine. This isn't just scholarly speculation anymore- he is responsible for the people on this ship, just as the people on this ship are responsible for him.

He looks to his left, where Sulu is manning his station with steady, capable hands. He gives Pavel a quick, reassuring smile when he catches his eye, and then turns back to his work. Behind him, Captain Pike is conferring with Commander Spock, who keeps his voice low, and their communications officer, who nods attentively. Everyone on the bridge is laser focused, and Pavel is surprised by the sudden sense of rightness that he feels- like he's been looking for a place to fit his entire life and he's finally slotted in- like, yes, these people can be trusted. He glances at Sulu again.

"Okay." Pavel agrees silently. "We'll be okay."

---

It goes like this:

Seven starships destroyed; Exposed wiring and blue, bloated bodies.

Revenge.

A battle; A victor.

Screaming.

They lose Vulcan.

Screaming.

They save Earth.

Screaming.

Panic.

Silence.

---

The fallout is brutal. Pavel sits uselessly at his post until his gamma shift replacement staggers in and relieves him with a strangled, "I'm sorry, my son was on Vulcan, I was trying to comm him- sorry." The rising flush in her face makes his chest ache, and so he tentatively puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes. She closes her eyes, anguish cracking along the corners of her mouth, and when she opens them again he can see her wavering on the edge of composure. "You've been on the bridge too long, Ensign," She says, clasping his arm thankfully and sitting down in his chair. "Go get some rest."

He nods, hesitating a moment before retreating to the turbolift. The rest of the alpha shift officers had left hours ago, either to be patched up in the med bay or back to their quarters. No one else had noticed that the beta shift navigator had never shown up, and so Pavel had continued to watch over the Enterprise as she limped back home, unable to be of any help but unwilling to leave the bridge.

The turbolift's doors open with a hiss. To tell him to get some rest is redundant- they all need rest. No one he passes on the way to the medical bay will look him in the eye. He walks by a pair of officers murmuring to each other, watches as one of them laughs too loudly and then flinches, eyes darting guiltily, as if someone's going to report him. They're all hysterical, exhausted, damaged. They've saved the world; most of their friends are dead.

Pavel wants to check on the Vulcan survivors they've picked up, and last he'd heard they were still being checked over by Doctor McCoy. He needs some sort of assurance that he's done his job properly; that, aside from Ambassador Grayson, they'd all beamed up alive and whole.

And that's the thing that he just doesn't understand, the thing that has haunted him these past hours- because he can recite the principles of transporter theory backwards and forwards, he can ace every test the academy throws at him, he can calculate the warp and velocity needed to beam up a rapidly moving object in his head, and yet when it had truly mattered, when it was a matter of life and death, he had been unable to preform properly. And he just- he cannot figure out why- because he hadn't lost his head, he'd kept calm, like he was taught, and he hadn't calculated wrong, no, no, he'd run the number's over and over, and they were correct- but something had gone wrong. What was it?

His throat's gone tight, ridiculous tears rising hot under his eyelids, and suddenly he cannot take a single step, casting his arm out so he can brace himself against the wall. And Commander Spock- oh god, the woman Pavel had killed, it was his mother. The look on his face, he had never seen anything like it on a Vulcan- how will he ever look at Commander Spock again? With that face in his mind- so broken, his own mother. What will Katreen think when they kick him out of Starfleet? When he has to go back to his old home? He has failed at his duties, murdered a woman- murdered Commander Spock's mother- how can they take him back? And his brain- his last safe space- it has failed him. The last thing he knew he could trust. His last refuge. It has failed. He's a failure. He's– He's- He's having trouble catching his breath.

"Hey, Ensign, are you okay?"

It's too much. It's all too much. Like nuclear fusion, he's cracking under the pressure. Melting down. He can't get enough air in his lungs. His throat has swollen closed, like he's one of those bodies floating past the view screen. He wonders if anyone else knows that their hearts were still beating when they saw them- ten seconds in space until all of the gas in their body expanded, longer until their brain started to asphyxiate. Convulsing- going blind- it would take a full minute and a half until their blood started to boil- he knows, he's read all about it. No chance to save themselves. No chance to say goodbye. And they couldn't even scream, couldn't even call out, couldn't even try…

"Ensign Chekov?" Someone places a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, are you alright?" Pavel isn't sure if his legs give way or if he's pulled down but either way he suddenly finds himself on his knees, Lieutenant Sulu crouching in front of him, mouth taut with worry. "Chekov, wait no, uh, Pavel, right?"

Pavel isn't sure if he nods or not. He can hear himself wheezing, but he can't seem to relax enough to get his breathing back in control. It sounds like the screech of someone slamming on a break, or the high-pitched wail of a ship-wide evacuation alert, the cry of the klaxon- emergency, emergency. Sulu grips his arms, holding him down like an anchor. "Okay, Pavel," He tries to smile casually, though he's clearly anxious. He has a line of new, pink skin where the gash in his face had been, complimented by the mottled bruising along his cheekbones. "I need you to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, can you do that for me? Deep breaths. That's right. Are you doing it?"

The space of several gasps pass before Pavel can speak. "Trying, sir." He chokes. The sound of it is terrifying, like he's dying. He thinks for a moment that he might be. He can't stop the tears that leak out when he closes his eyes.

"Pavel, Pavel, keep your eyes open, look me in the eyes, okay?" Pavel does. Lieutenant Sulu's eyes are dark- darker now with worry. Not shiny with relief the way they were when he reappeared on the transporter pad, or bright with irritation like when Commander Spock had corrected him at the initial takeoff. "Good, keep doing that. Listen. I- I can't pretend I know exactly what's freaking you out, but I can guess, and- just. All those people we lost, I know it's awful, but they knew what they were getting into when they signed up for Starfleet, and you can't feel guilty, because it could just have easily been us out there, okay? We did our best. We did everything we could do…." It's awful, because he's not even truly crying for them. He's crying for what he's done. Oh, awful, he's awful… "Pavel, hey, look at me. Oh! Oh, wait," Pavel opens his eyes again when he feels Sulu moving his hands to his chest. "Try to breathe with me okay? Feel me breathing? Focus on that." I can't, Pavel want's to say, but once he latches on to the rhythm of it it's not so hard.

"Good," Sulu says with adamant relief, and then, a few moments later, in a lower, calmer voice, "Okay, good job. You- you know you saved my life today. I've been meaning to say so." He laughs, a small thing, but Pavel can feel it stutter under his fingertips. "Haven't really gotten the chance to thank you for it yet. I would have died- thought I was, uh, going to die, for a moment there. I heard a voice, when I was falling, and I thought- well. I don't know what I thought. But it was you. I could hear you talking through the comm. And when I landed on the transporter pad, I looked up and I saw you grinning at me, and I swear I've never been happier to see anyone. …That probably that sounds stupid. But thanks. I mean it, okay?"

Pavel's just catching his breath, and so can't reply, but even if he could he doesn't know what he would say. After a few minutes his whining gasps finally return to silent breaths. Sulu lets go of his shoulders and falls back on his butt. "I am… really glad that worked." He says, and then barks out an exhausted laugh. "Lucky for you I took a first aid course. Well, lucky for me, really." He looks at Pavel like he wants to smile, but the muscles in his face won't fully cooperate. His hands are shaking, but he acts as if Pavel can't see. "You okay?"

"Yes." Pavel says, mortified. He can only imagine what he looks like. "I am very sorry Lieutenant Sulu-."

"Just call me Hikaru." He interrupts. "Off the bridge, Hikaru's fine. And don't be sorry. You really don't need to be sorry."

"…Yes. Hikaru," Pavel tries again, watching as the lines in Hikaru's face go smooth. "Thank you."

"Don't sweat it." Hikaru says, and he does smile this time, tentatively, before he rises to his feet. "Now come on, let's get you to the med bay."

"I don't need-."

"Don't worry, I won't sick McCoy on you. Just get you something to help you sleep. You look like you probably need it." He extends his hand, and Pavel stares at it dumbly for a moment before he realizes what it means and gives him his own. Hikaru pulls Pavel off the ground and then throws an arm around his shoulder, steering him forward gently, like he's afraid he'll shatter. "Come on."

He keeps his arm there for the entire walk to the med bay, a warm and steady weight, not removing it even when a bleary eyed nurse stops them in the receiving room to ask them what they need, watching Pavel expectantly.

"This Ensign is having some trouble sleeping." Hikaru says, "Could we get something for that?"

The nurse nods, disappearing into the back room briefly before returning with a flat, square container, a bit bigger than a thumbnail, that she pops open. It's filled with thin blue sheets of slightly waxy, paper-like material, and when she removes one to show Pavel, he see's that they're translucent. "These are dissolvable." She tells him, curt and professional. "Take one and put it on your tongue. They taste like mint. They're fast acting though, so don't take it till you're about to get in bed." She slips the sheet back into the container, clicks it closed, and hands it to Pavel before giving Hikaru a dark look. "And you, Lieutenant Sulu? I thought I heard Dr. McCoy say you should get some rest."

He shows her his palms peaceably before backing away. "I'm going." Once out of the room he eyes Pavel conspiratorially and says, "She scares me- her and McCoy. Your quarters on Level 6? Do you know what room you're in?"

Pavel nods.

"I'll walk with you then." Once the doors of the turbolift have closed behind them Hikaru says, nodding at the item in Pavel's hand, "You should probably take one of those now, actually. I knew Christine at the academy, she has the tendency to exaggerate."

It turns out she was not exaggerating. By the time the turbolift doors open Pavel feels like the floor is bucking underneath him, and he keeps falling asleep in between blinks. He doesn't remember the walk to his door but he sees himself enter the passcode, and he doesn't remember thanking Hikaru, but he hears Hikaru say, "No problem. Goodnight."

He thinks he kicks his shoes off but he's not sure, and then he's in his bed, a bed he's never slept in before, and he's dreaming about falling, falling, falling, falling through the sky. There's someone's arm around him but he hits the ground before he can see whose it is.

Someone must cover his last shift, because the next time he wakes up it's to a ship wide announcement that they've docked.

He gets out of bed and goes to face a world that's changed.

According to Starfleet regulations, following their involvement in a major incident an officer must be granted a minimum of two weeks of leave to recuperate and receive any medical and or psychological attention they need. Unfortunately, after Nero's attack "involvement in a major incident" covers about half of Starfleet. In a matter of hours it is decided by the Admiralty that survivors in need of severe medical attention will receive immediate medical leave, while the others will have to tough it out until it is decided they can afford to let them go.

Pavel falls into the second group. He picks his way through the weeping cadets and chattering press in the shuttle bay to shiver in his room, and then spends the next ten minutes refreshing the continuously updating list of survivors. He can't find his roommates name. Three of Pavel's shirts are lying on the floor.

He tells himself that in the next five minutes he will change back into his cadet uniform. In the next five minutes he will go report to a commanding officer to see where he can help. In the next five minutes he will cope. And the five after that. And the five after that.

Five minutes pass. He sits in the dark.

It turns out that it's good that he takes a moment for himself, because when he finally reports for duty reality hits him like a punch to the gut. One forth of the teaching staff and two thirds of the graduating class are dead, and there are three more months in the semester. Top scoring juniors have been fast tracked into their senior year in order to start filling in the gaps, but there are not enough professors to teach both underclassmen and these new junior-senior hybrids. The surviving members of the graduating class will be given their diplomas early, and then used as glorified TA's until replacements can be hired.

The commander giving them their assignments, a woman with bloodshot eyes, lingers a moment when she reaches Pavel. She gives him a brief speech about how the Admiralty have reflected upon his actions regarding the Nerada incident and decided that, despite his age, he possesses the maturity to continue acting in the position of a senior cadet. He has been assigned to teach Beginners Astrophysics, a lower level course, in replacement of Professor Jeong, who's been reassigned to new classes. "I know that you're young," She says, "but they must trust you for a reason. Can you do this, cadet?"

If her eyes betrayed any more desperation he would think she might be pleading with him, and so he says, "Yes, Commander."

What he doesn't have the heart to say is that Beginners Astrophysics is one of the first classes he'd tested out of, and so he has no idea what the students should be learning. He tries to consult Professor Jeong for help, but the man is almost impossible to find, and when he does finally find him only has time to say, "You're my replacement? …Listen, I'm sorry, I'd really love to help, but I have three new classes to prepare for. All of my old teaching materials are still in the classroom, and the syllabus is online, help yourself to them." Before he runs a hand through his already messy hair and hurries off.

Pavel passes many other cadets on his way to Jeong's classroom, all rushing somewhere, and he can't help but notice that they all wear the same blanched, tight-lipped expression. He thinks that, should he look in a mirror, he'd find that he's wearing a matching one. He gathers all of the materials that Jeong had left on his computer- several textbooks, a syllabus, a year long tentative lesson plan, a book of prewritten test questions, some sundry notes that look like they'll be useful- and forwards them all to his PADD. He recognizes several cadets he's had class with before on his way back to his room, but none of them stop to talk to him, or even look at him long enough to smile. He collapses onto his bed as soon as he's walked through the door and leafs through the syllabus, trying to find a starting point. He feels frustratingly fragile, like a rubber band stretched close to breaking. He looks down and for a moment the screen appears too big for his hands.

He takes a moment to pull up the freshly updated list of survivors, looking for Sam's name.

He never finds it.

The next two weeks are, though Pavel is loath to admit it, hell. The students are all aware and understanding of the extenuating circumstances surrounding the situation, but few are actually willing to be taught by a seventeen year old. They find him hard to understand, and sometimes he catches a wave of fraught muttering whenever he mispronounces or spends too long searching for a word. In some ways it is like being a child again, and Pavel begins to dread the days he's forced to lecture.

Class time itself is actually the least stressful thing he does. Sometimes he stays up until the early hours of the morning drafting new lessons, preparing coursework, and grading papers. Pavel knows Astrophysics backwards and forwards- just gets it somehow on a basic, fundamental level- easy as breathing. It's why he was chosen to be the Head Navigator of Starfleet's flagship despite his age, and also why he finds himself getting irrationally irritated when his students don't understand something he considers basic knowledge. The syllabus he'd received isn't good with specifics, and so Pavel will mention something in class, receive blank stares, and then be forced to deviate from the lesson plan in order to teach something completely different. He doesn't know if it's this hard for all of the other acting teachers, or if he's just doing something wrong, and he doesn't know whom to ask. He doesn't want to sound like he's complaining, especially after being given the opportunity to be treated like an older student, and he doesn't want anyone to think he isn't up for hard work, so he continues to reteach and revise, opening up the classroom for study groups and private sessions even when he starts to feel as if he has been gargling sand. Even after it begins to hurt to look in his peripheral vision, and he has trouble concentrating on anything for a long amount of time.

When he isn't working, he's sleeping. He's exhausted nearly all the time, and no matter how much he sleeps he doesn't feel rested. He finds himself catching naps in spare moments between classes, or lying down for a moment and waking up some fifteen hours later. It begins to feel like he's in a losing race against himself, rushing to get his work done before he loses consciousness, and then waking up again to repeat the process.

Maybe on some level he realizes that he's falling apart. Someone asks him how he's doing in passing and he finds himself involuntarily drawing up words like 'crumbling' and 'disintegrating'. He knows that going for a run would probably make him feel better, but honestly he just can't see the point in it. Most of the time he just can't see the point in much of anything.

With all that he's doing, he barely has time for himself. And yet, he has too much time for himself. He doesn't like the quiet moments. He doesn't feel safe in his own head anymore. When he's alone, or in the dark, he feels as if someone is tearing him apart at the seams. When he lies in bed he can feel the rising pressure in his head as his hemispheres detach, catch the creaking as his sternum splinters down the middle. He dreams in brief starts and bursts. Whenever he closes his eyes he finds himself staring down a controlpad- lines of numbers stretched before him, as incomprehensible as another language. As incomprehensible as loving touch. During the rare times he cannot sleep he listens for the skeletons under his bed, the answering silence just as loud as the neon text behind his eyelids, big and bold, size 24 font: YOU KILLED HER.

The fact is that he just doesn't know how to live with that.

He probably would have continued to struggle indefinitely if he hadn't happen to pass by the infirmary one day and be physically dragged in by a sentinel nurse. All survivors of the Nerada Incident technically have to report to mandatory, bi-monthly checkups, but Pavel has been too busy to show up, and from what he can see, so is everyone else. The nurse had presumably been given orders to send in any cadet who looked like they needed a break, because when he grabs Pavel he gives him one look before sighing and passing him off to a young redheaded nurse who has her tricorder out before he can even process what's happening.

"S'alright, sweetheart." She says, her hand on his shoulder holding him still with more force than she looks like she should possess. "Just a checkup."

He's just begun to insist that he needs to get to class when a familiar scowl passes by the doorway. It's Dr. McCoy poking his head through the door, and when he sees who the patient is, he says, "Oh, I'll take this one, McKibben."

She glowers at him, "It's your dinner break."

He rolls his eyes, "I'll break afterwards. I know him- saved Jim's ass." He nods at Pavel approvingly, and Pavel attempts a smile in return.

Nurse McKibben grumbles, but collects her tricorder and leaves, McCoy filling the place that she vacates with a huff. "Hop up." He instructs, gesturing to the exam table, and Pavel does, hating the way his feet dangle off the edge. "How're you doing, kid?"

"Fine, sir." Pavel rasps, and McCoy gives him a dark look before reaching into his pocket and fishing out his tricorder, which beeps angrily.

"Fine my ass." He detaches the scanner and swipes it over Pavel, glowering at the readout in his hands. "Well, you're not too bad sick, it's just a cold. The problem is that you're exhausted. You should see your vitals." He waves the scanner over him once more before snapping it back into place and turning around to rummage through a cabinet, removing a small bottle and then holding it up for Pavel's benefit. "This is for the swelling in your throat- one drop on your tongue morning and night as needed. Other than that, you've just earned yourself two weeks of doctor recommended leave. Congratulations."

Pavel takes the bottle from McCoy numbly, panic rising in his chest. There's no way he'll be able to catch up after missing two weeks; it's just not possible. "But who will teach my classes?" He demands desperately.

"Who will teach your-?" McCoy's eyes bug out of his head and Pavel leans away from him reflexively. He puts a hand to his temple, swearing so creatively that Pavel thinks he might not even be speaking in Standard anymore. "I don't know who will teach your classes." He says eventually, each word pointed. "The Admiralty will just have to figure that out. Hell, maybe they'll spring for someone who's even- I don't know- old enough to vote. Starfleet." He says the name like it's a curse-word. After another moment of grumbling he looks up at where Pavel's slouching miserably and his face softens incrementally. "Come on kid, it ain't so bad. Don't you have any parents to visit? I'm sure they'll be mighty glad to see you."

"No." Pavel sighs, frowning at the bottle in his hands with a vague sense of betrayal.

When he looks up again McCoy's expression is positively sappy, "Now look here-" He starts to say, but is interrupted when Nurse McKibben walks into the room.

"Dr. McCoy," She says mildly, "Mr. Kirk is bleeding all over the carpet and he's asking for you."

"Damn it, Jim." McCoy snarls, rising from his chair. "Why is he-?" But then Jim Kirk is poking his head out from behind McKibben, blood dripping from his clearly broken nose.

"Hi, Bones." He says nasally, and McCoy positively growls.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Kirk smiles widely, revealing bloodstained teeth. "A cadet accidentally broke my nose when I was teaching Combat 101. It was sort of awesome actually; she's a natural. She got real torn up about it though- I thought she was gonna cry, the poor thing." He peers over McKibben's shoulder. "Hey, Mr. Chekov, how are you?"

"Good, Captain." Pavel says, sitting up straighter, and it earns him a wry chuckle.

"I'd hold on to that title- they haven't even decided if they're gonna let me back on the ship yet. You think they'd give me the damn thing as a reward at this point- you should see how they've been making me work." He grins at Pavel. "You've had it easier, I hope."

"Hardly! You wouldn't be believe it Jim, he-!" McCoy starts, working back into a tizzy, but then pauses, looking back at Pavel as if he's suddenly remembered that he still has a patient to deal with. "Right. Jim, you can wait one goddamn minute. Nurse McKibben, please take him to Room 8, and feel free to break his nose a bit more on the way. Maybe it'll teach him to be a little less goddamn careless."

Kirk gives Pavel a wink and a sloppy salute as a way of goodbye and then turns down the hallway. McKibben nods and starts to follow, but not before she turns back to McCoy and says serenely, "Starting to regret not taking your break, Leonard?"

"You shut the fuck up, McKibben."

"Yes, Doctor."

He turns back to Pavel, hands slapping against his thighs. "Now you, I'm writing you up for two weeks of leave as soon as I'm done here, effectively immediately. Don't even go to class today, just go to your room and pack your bags. I want you gone by tomorrow morning at the latest, and I will send someone to haul your ass to the transport station if necessary, don't think I won't."

"Yes, sir." Pavel says weakly.

"Don't call me sir, it's weird as hell. It's yes, Doctor."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Good." McCoy squints at him. "Now then, is there anything you want to talk about? Anything… bothering you? I may not be able to help directly, but I can refer you to-"

"No, Doctor." Pavel interrupts, and McCoy looks a bit wry- a bit resigned.

"Well, alright, if you're sure," He opens the door. "Then, get. And take care of yourself for Christ's sake. I don't want to have this conversation with you again. Don't forget your medicine."

"Yes Doctor. Thank you, Doctor."

McCoy wrinkles his nose. "Oh, don't be obnoxious." He says, though Pavel hadn't meant to be. "Shoo."

As per instructions Pavel does not teach that day, though he does run by the classroom to program a note of apology up into the door saying that classes will be canceled until further notice. When he gets back to his room he accesses his computer with the intent to send the Admiralty a notice about finding a momentary replacement, only to receive two messages: one from McCoy- a copy of his official report regarding Pavel's leave headed with a vaguely threatening subject line- and the other from the Admiralty themselves, informing him that a replacement has been found for him, wishing him good health, and stating in no uncertain terms that they trust he will feel fit to return to his duties in two weeks.

Finding himself momentarily useless, he gets up and packs his luggage, remembering halfway through that he should inform Katreen of his imminent arrival. He realizes that he doesn't even know if she's at home, or if she's off traveling for work- it's been so long since they've properly talked.

He lies down on his bed with the intent to compose a message to her, but the instant his head hits the pillow he's out like a light, not conscious long enough to even give it a header.

Twelve hours of fraught sleep later he awakes to someone rapping on his door, and rises, blinking blearily, to open it. A cadet's standing there, wearing medical training whites and a bemused expression. "Uh, are you Pavel Chekov?"

Pavel attempts to rub the sleep from his eyes, "Yes. Is something wrong?"

"Dr. McCoy told me to see if you were here?"

It takes Pavel a moment of scrubbing a hand through his hair to understand. "Please tell Dr. McCoy I was about to be leaving." He says, and makes to close the door, but the cadet doesn't move.

"Uh…" He says uncertainly. "He said to walk with you to the transport station if you were."

Pavel stares at him. "That is okay. I am going right now."

"Yeah… but. McCoy told me to walk with you."

"Yes… but you do not have to."

"But what will I say?"

Pavel shrugs, "Lie to him?"

The cadet looks at him like he's just said that he plans on marinating himself and doing the hula in front of an Orion Bog Beast. "Are you crazy? Have you met McCoy? I plan on being a CMO, and I plan on doing it with all of my limbs attached!"

Pavel sighs so deeply he can feel it rattle around in his ribcage. "Please wait here a moment." He tells the cadet, shutting the door. He then quickly discovers that he'd fallen asleep in the middle of packing. He rushes around and shoves his things in a bag, collecting scattered teaching materials with the hope that he can use the break to catch up on work, finally emerging from his room red faced and a little winded five minutes later.

The cadet walks him to the transport station, which is conveniently located just outside Academy grounds and is usually bustling with students trying to return home. Thankfully it's early morning, and not a weekend, so the line in front of the transporter pad is very small. He thanks the cadet, who hands him his bag and thanks him in return. "Maybe we'll even end up on the same ship one day."

Pavel smiles at him faintly. He wonders if they'll ever let him back on a ship at all. "Yes, that would be nice."

In no time at all he's at the front of the line, giving the man running the pad the proper coordinates. ("I could always do his job." He thinks, but the thought is too depressing to dwell on.) The man ticks down with his fingers the seconds before he energizes, and then Pavel's standing on a pad in a receiving bay, an entire ocean crossed in moments.

Despite this, he still has to take a bullet train, a bus, and a taxi to get to Katreen's home, and so by the time he arrives at her doorstep his stomach is rumbling and he has developed a pounding headache. He knocks three times, but she doesn't answer, and it isn't until then that he realizes he never sent her the message telling her he would be coming.

Trying not to feel too disheartened, he lays down his bag and then stoops to riffle through it, searching for the spare key he had mistakenly packed away. It is because of this that he doesn't hear the car when it pulls up- doesn't notice Katreen until he hears the door slam. When he does look up he's too distracted by the fact that T'Parr, the Vulcan woman Katreen works with, is exiting from the passenger side with a bag of groceries in her arms to see his aunt's expression. If he had he might have seen the way her face fractured when she caught sight of him, or noticed the desperate way her lips part before she says, "Pavel?"

He pockets the key he's just retrieved in favor of walking to them, managing a weak smile in greeting. Katreen's feet stutter once before she reaches for him, crossing the lawn and embracing him, a fine tremor running through her. "Why didn't you call?" She demands, and Pavel is so surprised by both her words and her actions that he can't find his voice to speak. "When I heard about the Nerada, and then you never contacted me-. Does Starfleet keep you so busy you couldn't find time to tell me you were alive?" Her voice hitches slightly, dropping down to a murmur. "I'm sorry," She strokes the hair along his nape, and Pavel can feel himself crumbling, weeks of stress and exhaustion finally catching up with him as his grim resolve to remain strong melts like butter in the face of Katreen's open affection. "I'd thought that you'd died. Not again, Pavel."

It's the sound of her voice that gets him in the end- the familiar rasp of his native language spoken soft and low in his ear burying its way under his armor. "I'm sorry." He says, sagging against her. Too tired. Too tired to stand. "I should have- I'm so- I'm sorry."

Katreen hums a low, comforting note, and the accompanying wave of nostalgia is so strong that Pavel wants to close his eyes and never open them again. When he finally gains the energy to raise his head from her shoulder, he meets T'Parr's eyes, attempting a smile as he disentangles himself. "I'm sorry. Hello, T'Parr."

She doesn't smile in return, but she does appear somehow less impassive. "You have grown much since I've last seen you, Pavel. I am gratified that I find you in good health."

He inclines his head slightly. This too, is familiar. "It's nice to see you again." He glances at the bag of food in her hand. "Have you been working with Katreen?"

"I have." T'Parr says, dark eyes flickering briefly to where Katreen is opening the front door. "She provided me with a place to stay while a planet suited to sustain Vulcans was found. Fortunately I have not had to impose for an undue amount of time. A new planet has been found, and I will leave tomorrow to assist the survivors."

Pavel finds himself suddenly sobered, mind full of crumbling red dirt. "Of course." He says, "I'm happy we could help you." And then, remembering a Vulcan custom Katreen had once taught him, "I grieve with thee."

"Thank you." T'Parr says, regarding him for a moment and then following Katreen back into the house. Pavel picks up his bag and heads inside as well.

"I'm sorry I've missed your stay." He tells her, trailing behind as she walks to the kitchen. "I'm sure a lot has changed since the last time we met."

"Do not be sorry," She says, and he thinks that there might be a note of laughter in her voice, but he's not sure. "I've only purchased enough food for two."

Katreen comes in a moment later to explain that it is Vulcan tradition for a guest to make food for their hosts, and T'Parr mentions that it would be rational for him to rest before dinner, seeing as he has just traveled a long way. He thinks that this may just be their version of shooing him away, and so he retreats to his room to unpack. It looks exactly the same, which makes Pavel smile until he remembers that Katreen had thought he was dead. He wonders if she mourned- if she had sat on his bed and cursed Starfleet for taking her family away from her a second time, or if she had stood in silence and refused to believe lightening could strike twice. He hates it, hates the very thought of it, and tries to console himself with the fact that at least she hadn't been alone- at least she'd had T'Parr, though he doesn't know what kind of comfort a Vulcan can give.

He lies in bed and buries himself in musty blankets, staring at his ceiling until Katreen informs him that dinner is ready, at which point he forces himself to his feet again. Dinner turns out to be a Vulcan dish- some kind of vegetarian soup that Pavel finds odd but strangely filling, and thankfully plays its part in getting rid of the bulk of his headache. T'Parr isn't one for small talk, and neither is Katreen, so the meal passes in relative silence. Pavel doesn't really mind- he finds that he has missed the easy serenity of this house more than he'd previously realized. By the time dinner is over and he's helping clean up he feels like maybe his thoughts have begun to decompress- like the buzzing behind his eyes is quieting to a dull roar.

He sits with Katreen for a while- does his best to explain what had happened after the Nerada Incident and his reason for returning home in the first place, but finds himself unwilling to go into specifics. T'Parr sits unobtrusively in the background, and she in no way indicates that she wants him to leave- rather, the opposite, as she will sometimes ask him for a clarification or addition to his story- but eventually he begins to feel guilty about keeping them from working, especially as it is their last night together, and so he returns to bed despite the early hour.

He awakes with a jolt, by the count of his chronometer, three hours later. He turns onto his side and tries to fall back under, but finds himself suddenly more lucid than he's been in weeks. He searches for whatever he had been dreaming about but the more he thinks about it the faster it leaves him- tendrils of thought pulling away as soon as he reaches out. He lies there for an hour more, blinking away waking nightmares and fruitlessly trying to trick his body into sleep, before he rolls out of bed and pads into the study, hunting for something convoluted enough to distract him from his own toxic thoughts.

To his surprise there is still light leaking out from the crack under the study's door, though he does not hear anything when he presses his ear to it. After a moment he decides that Katreen has probably left a fire burning, which, while uncharacteristic, is possible if she had gone to bed distracted. He opens the door to find that yes, the fire is still burning, but also that T'Parr is sitting cross-legged in front of it, arms folded in front of her.

"Oh!" He breathes, and then regrets it immediately when she turns to look at him. He'd forgotten about Vulcan hearing. He makes a mental note to never whisper anything he'd want kept a secret around Commander Spock before he remembers that he might not even get the opportunity to see Commander Spock again. He tries to pretend the thought of him isn't a low blow to the gut. "I'm sorry." He falters, half ducking back out of the room.

"Do not let my presence drive you away if you wish to enter." T'Parr says. "I was merely meditating, you did not disturb me."

He backpedals awkwardly, stepping across the threshold. "Sorry, I'll only be a minute." He heads toward a shelf, glancing at the fireplace. "Um, Katreen went to bed?"

"Affirmative. I asked she leave the fire for my benefit. Vulcan meditation is usually done by candlelight, but I am unused to the chill and was interested in it- it is an unusual fixture."

"Katreen likes traditional things." Pavel explains, and then pauses as he realizes something, his hand on the spine of a book. "I'm sorry, is better if I speak in Standard?" He asks, doing so. "Your Russian is very good but I can if it is easier."

To his great relief she does not comment on his accent. "I would prefer to speak in Russian. I have improved since we last met but require practice in order to facilitate communication with Katreen."

He nods, and is about to bid her goodnight when he turns to catch the way she's watching him. She is very pretty; something he'd never noticed when he was younger, with high cheekbones and large, dark eyes. The Vulcan women Pavel had seen aboard the Enterprise had had their hair done up in elaborate braids, but T'Parr seems to have chosen something more practical- knotting it in a simple bun atop her head. It seems almost a human thing to do, and it strikes Pavel for the first time that it would be strange for a Vulcan to choose a solitary life on Terra. He wonders at that- wonders what would drive someone to a misfit profession.

"You have grown since we last met, but you are still a child." She says, the fire burning low behind her. "It requires many years of training for Vulcan children to harness control over their emotions, and there are some who find the task especially tumultuous. Though it is different for humans, after so much time living here I have come to believe that the two are not so dissimilar. It is apparent to me that your mind is troubled, and I believe I may be of help to you. Will you sit with me?"

He blinks at her, a hairsbreadth away from turning her down and returning to his room. There is no reason for him to say yes to her. They are friendly to one another, and he respects her, but he certainly doesn't owe her any sort of answer. Why then, is he so tempted to sit with her and tell her everything? Maybe, like anyone with a heavy enough burden, he is just looking for the right place to set it down. Slowly, almost against his will, he nods and moves to sit across from her, setting his book down on Katreen's desk. After a time it becomes obvious that she's waiting for him to speak. "I- I'm not sure what to say." He admits.

"You are troubled." She repeats, leveling her gaze at him. "Speak your mind."

"It's… not that easy." He laughs shakily, and then frowns when T'Parr's expression doesn't change. "It's complicated."

"Elucidate."

"Well- no, no, there's not actually that much to say. I'm just tired. I'm under a lot of stress. I have a lot of new duties at the Academy, and. I. I- do you…" He picks at a thread in the carpet. "Do you know of a Vulcan named Spock?"

"Are you speaking of S'chn T'gai Spock?"

Pavel looks up at her, surprised. "Yes. You know him?"

"He is well known amongst Vulcans, yes, though I know him beyond this." Pavel thinks he almost sees a smile playing around the corner of her lips. "I knew his mother best. My father was one of the doctors employed to Sarek when he and Amanda Greyson first attempted to make a child. I spoke to Amanda infrequently, but she was the first I knew of Earth."

"I killed her." He hears himself say.

T'Parr, who had been watching the fire as she spoke, snaps her eyes back to him. She blinks. "Please clarify."

"I killed her." And he wonders if maybe all the creaking in his bones has been holding back a flood, because when the dam breaks it pulls him under.

To know Pavel at all is to know that he has lost. Lost both parents before he'd lost the first of his baby teeth. Lost them before they'd even died: his father to the stars and his mother to the pull of a dark room, to unmedicated silence.

Depression is a needy child and Ilia had not had the strength to raise two. It had suckled from her teat while Pavel's grandmother bottle-fed him in the next room. It had held her while Pavel tried to squeeze into bed between them. Every kiss he'd scrounged from her had tasted like sour milk.

And then she had left him. Given up everything for the relief at the end of a rope. She'd really loved him too- he'd known it for sure, felt it when she held him to her, grasping so tight his ribs would creak. No one could have loved him more. No one could have loved him like she did.

Yet, it had been so easy for her to leave. She, who had wanted him most. That was the thing he could not forget. If she had done it than surely anyone could- surely everyone would, given the chance. If she had done it, then there were none who would not, none he could depend on. No one but himself.

He'd tried to harden his heart, and when he found he couldn't numb himself to the world's indifference, he built himself a fortress of logic and reason; blocked out those who could hurt him, had facts and numbers for friends and lovers. Knowledge was dependable, and his brain, kept in top shape, even more so. He did not need companionship. If he could do well for himself, could find a job doing something he would enjoy somewhere he would be useful, well, that would be enough.

And then Amanda Grayson. And then her. She had felled him in a single swoop, ripped open his breastplate so the crows could pick at his innards. Made wrong all he knew true about himself. When Pavel had lost her, he'd lost everything.

"I can't trust myself." He tells T'Parr. "I can't trust myself anymore, and I was the only one I had left."

She says nothing, and he looks away. He can feel heat rising in his face, humiliated tears picking at his eyes. He chokes on a breath. There's a touch on his sleeve- T'Parr's thin fingers, pressing just where his shirt meets his wrist, feather light. It breaks him. It's too much. Pavel cries and cries and cries.

After a time he exhausts himself, and then there is silence. He keeps his eyes closed. He doesn't want to see T'Parr's expression. He is ashamed. More than anything, when his last quivers have subsided, he is ashamed. T'Parr is the first to speak.

"I require clarification. How did Amanda Grayson die?"

Pavel shudders in a breath. He shudders in a breath and then tells her everything.

He tells her how he had run, with perfect certainty, to snatch Lieutenant Sulu and the Captain from the air. How Ambassador Grayson had slipped from him so quietly, like a raindrop from a spider's web. How he'd watched her life signs spike and then fizzle, gone so quickly that Commander Spock was still reaching for her when he rematerialized. He illustrates for her the destruction of her home planet- broken rock one minute and then gone, simply gone.

She watches him passively through it all. Waiting patiently for him to finish, and then when he finally does, she says, "You did your best."

"You can't know that." Pavel tells her, and he is surprised by how angry he sounds. "You can't know that, you weren't even there."

"No," T'Parr concedes, "But I know that it is true. From your recollection I can see that there was nothing more that you could have done." She blinks calmly. "Besides, Katreen would not have raised a son who wouldn't try his best."

Her son. She fractures him. "You can't just… wipe it all away. I killed her."

"I do not believe you did. Was there more you could have done to save Ambassador Grayson's life, you would have done it. Her death was caused by elements far from your control. You are not at fault."

"But-."

"Pavel." She interrupts, and he jolts in surprise. "You must believe me. Vulcans cannot lie."

He stares at her. She stares back.

"It's hard." He whispers. "It's so hard to just let that go."

"You do not have to do it alone." She tells him, and then she does the impossible. She reaches out and takes his hand.

It is an unthinkable action, coming from a Vulcan; it is a symbol of unknowable tenderness. Beyond her pulse, he feels her mind moving swiftly, like water under a moat. He is aware that Vulcans are touch telepaths, but she has not initiated a mind meld, and so he knows what he feels next does not come from her.

Katreen had held his hand like this, when he was sick, or when he was tired. When he was fussy, or upset, she had held him. So softly, her hand feather light, but she had been there. Katreen, wrapping him in a blanket, reading to him from a book, she had been there. When he had needed someone, wanted someone, she had been there. Always in the background, she had taken care of him, nurtured him silently. Loving him unconditionally, she had always been there.

"There are those who care for you." T'Parr is saying. "There are those who have made it their quest to ensure your happiness. There have always been those whom you could depend upon, Pavel."

He weeps then. For a boy who had feared abandonment so much he had been blind to those who loved him. For years of loneliness - of fear that he would not be enough, could not keep himself afloat on his own. For proof that that was true. He weeps for the impossible hand holding his, for acceptance where there should have been disgust. For love in the face of failure.

Blessedly, T'Parr holds on to him for as long as he needs, shields strong against his barrage of emotion. When he finally pulls his hand away, she is still watching him, but her gaze seems somehow kind. As if through their previous connection Pavel had gained some kind of insight on her psyche. "Thank you." He says earnestly, and he thinks she almost smiles.

"Thanks is unnecessary, I am merely pleased to have been of assistance."

Pavel rubs his eyes, exhales roughly, still shaken. "I- I think I'm going to go back to bed now."

She nods as he rises, and he makes for the door, giving up on the idea of reading. Once again, he is exhausted, but it is a new kind of exhaustion. He feels clean, stripped anew.

"Pavel," T'Parr says, stopping him just before he reaches the doorway, and he pauses, looking back at her. "There is no shame in seeking help from those who can provide it."

He regards her for a second, and then nods, resolute. "Yes. Goodnight."

Behind her, embers spark. "Goodnight."

Pavel goes back to his room and sleeps. He sleeps better than he has in months.

---

Thankfully, he still wakes up in time to see T'Parr off. He tumbles out of bed when he sees the time, brushing his teeth and running a hand through his hair as he hurries down the hall. He's just about to round the corner to the foyer when he hears Katreen say, in a strange, down-feathered voice he's never heard her use before, "Would it be absurd to ask that you not forget me?"

And then, T'Parr answers, in a voice just as soft, "I find that humans are often absurd."

He peeks around the corner just in time to catch them press the tips of their fingers together, T'Parr sliding her thumb across Katreen's knuckles. (Which seems to Pavel like an odd, nonsensical gesture.) Katreen's eyes shutter closed, but T'Parr's remain open, watching her with such a delicate tenderness that Pavel feels compelled to look away, bewildered and for some reason, embarrassed.

He hesitates in the hallway a second more, wondering if he's interrupted something private. After a moment of indecision he tiptoes back to his room and then walks down the hall again, louder now, so that T'Parr might hear his footsteps. When he arrives in the foyer for the second time, they are standing farther apart, and they both turn to look at him when he arrives. T'Parr has a glint in her eye, and Pavel thinks she probably knows he saw them.

"I wanted to say goodbye before you left," He explains, joining Katreen where she stands at the open door. There is a waiting taxi in their driveway, presumably there to ferry T'Parr on her journey to New Vulcan. "And thank you one last time… for what you said last night."

Katreen's eyes flicker to him curiously for a moment, but T'Parr does nothing but nod. "As I said before, thanks are unnecessary." And then, "But as it is my last time on Terra for the perceivable future, I will instead say, you are very welcome."

Pavel frowns, "You're not coming back?"

Her eyes dart briefly to Katreen's, barely long enough to be noticeable. "My duty is to my people now. It is imperative that I help rebuild our species. It is only logical."

"Oh." Pavel says, and then, when his aunt is silent, "Well, I guess this is goodbye then."

"Indeed it is." T'Parr affirms, and then holds up a ta'al. "Peace and long life, Pavel." She turns incrementally, "Katreen."

"Peace and long life," Katreen echoes, and T'Parr nods, bending to pick up her bag, and then making for the taxi. Pavel thinks she looks back once, just before the car melts into the line of trees surrounding the clearing, but he isn't sure. He never will be.

Katreen makes no move to shut the door, so Pavel does it, reaching out and closing it before the snow drifts in. His aunt is silent, thoughtful, her eyes unreadable. He takes her hand, and she snaps out of it, looking at him in mild surprise. It strikes him suddenly how much older she looks now, age accumulating in the lines around her eyes. She had been so, so young when she first took him in- only twenty-three, much closer to his current age than not. She was too young to have taken him on alone.

"I want to show you some of the work I've been doing at the Academy." He tells her, and her calico eyes go soft behind her glasses.

"Of course. I'd love to see it."

He spends the next two weeks decompressing. He finally finalizes a syllabus for his classes, and finishes grading all of the assignments he had fallen behind on. When he is tired, he sleeps, and when he does not want to work, he reads in their library as Katreen works silently beside him. He spends some time re-exploring the woods surrounding their house, visiting all of his childhood haunts: the brook he had fallen into when he was eight, the fort he had build out of twigs and stone, now inhabited by a family of startled foxes. He feels a bit healthier somehow, not cured, but… better.

He is genuinely saddened when it comes time for him to leave again. He has grown a new appreciation for this house and it's inhabitants, and when his taxi arrives he pulls Katreen in for a hug. "I'll keep in touch this time." He promises her, and she smiles.

"We both know that isn't true, but I appreciate the sentiment."

He laughs, "You need to have more faith in me!"

She shakes her head. "You know I have all faith in you. I've always had."

He leans in to kiss her cheek, "I know." He says, and then with one last hug, heads for his waiting taxi. When the car pulls away, he makes sure to wave until he cannot see her anymore. He is heading back to San Francisco- back to the real world.

It is not exactly easier, though Pavel had not believed it would be. However, he now knows better than to do nothing about it, so as soon as he gets a free moment he follows up on T'Parr's unspoken advise and heads over to the student infirmary, asking for Doctor McCoy. He has to wait a bit, and when McCoy does finally arrive the only sort of acknowledgment he receives is a scowl.

"Oh good, you again." He says with a sigh. "I'm guessing you forgot to take your medicine? You know, I'm here for a god damn reason, and if you don't actually listen to my advise, then-."

"No!" Pavel interrupts, and he gets an eyebrow raised at him. "Uhm, is not about that. I came here because, you-. Last time you asked if I needed to talk to someone, and, I think- I think maybe I do."

"Oh!" McCoy says loudly, "Well then why didn't you just say so in the first place? Here, come into room three, I can help you out with that…"

The therapist that McCoy recommends is a woman named Dr. Poblete. She wears a lot of tweed skirts and speaks perfect Pre-Reformation Russian, something that Pavel endlessly appreciates, as it allows him to communicate with her easier. When Pavel asks where she learned, she tells him her parents used to work in a Russian restaurant, and so she grew up hearing the owners speak it. He isn't sure if that's entirely true, but he decides immediately that he likes her. He especially likes the beauty mark underneath her left eye, and the slightly crooked tooth that she's never bothered to fix. Dr. Poblete, when she sees him looking at them, tells him that it's because she is there to help, not be ogled. It makes him grin, and a fast friendship is struck up between them.

Their sessions are slow going. Pavel comes in on Wednesday afternoons, his only free days, and they talk for an hour and half each time. It takes him till the third session to work up the courage to ask if he is the only Nerada survivor who she is treating, and she surprises him by responding that he is actually the twenty-third. "The idea that going to a therapist means that there's something wrong with you is an old misconception." She tells him, "A lot of people nowadays get help, and there would be more if that old stigma wasn't lingering around. Asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of." He's forced to admit that she isn't the first person to tell him so, and she shakes her head incredulously. "Pavel, you are incredibly strong just by coming here. Recognizing that you needed to talk to someone about what you're feeling is something people even twice your age can't do."

She encourages him to start running again, and then brings it up session after session when he admits he has not followed her advice. "It is important for you to do things that you love," She insists. "You have to remind your brain what that feels like."

He simply cannot find the motivation for it. And then one morning he wakes up at five AM with a kind of restlessness in his bones that he can't wait out. He gets up and grades some papers, hoping that it will help, but after a fruitless half an hour he gives up and digs through his closet to find his old running shoes. He tells himself that he'll just go for a quick walk around campus, but without really meaning to he heads out into the city, jogging for twenty minutes or so until he realizes just how out of shape he is and is forced to head back. The next time Dr. Poblete sees him she nods approvingly without him even mentioning it and does not bring it up again.

It becomes routine. He likes heading out just when the sun is beginning to rise- when the morning fog is still pulled over the city like a heavy blanket. He likes to watch the sleepy commuters head to their jobs, headlights hanging onto the mist like their glow is something tangible. He likes the way his bones jitter in the cold, muscles gone long unused pulling and stretching. The joy he finds in running is rekindled, and he feels himself growing stronger everyday.

Despite this, he's still reluctant when Dr. Poblete hands him the flier. It's for Starfleet's annual marathon run, and this year half the money raised will be donated to the families who've lost relatives in the Nerada attack. Embarrassed, Pavel tries to hand the flier back, but he is rebuffed. "I'm not in proper shape, I don't think I can run a marathon. I can't even make it eight miles right now." He explains. "I can't do it."

Dr. Poblete raises a thin eyebrow at him. "We already know that you can take Starfleet at a sprint, let's see if you're in it for the long haul."

And so he begins training. He maps out the route that they will be running through the city- a winding trail through the streets of San Francisco that starts and ends at the Academy- and tries to go a little farther every day. The marathon is in two months, at the end of the semester, and Pavel isn't even sure if that's long enough to train for something so big. Honestly, he's not really sure what he's doing, and when he asks Dr. Poblete why she's so insistent that he runs the marathon, she folds her hands in front of her and says, "It's not the marathon that's important. What's important is that you try to do something you're afraid of."

"You think I'm afraid to run a marathon?"

She shakes her head. "I think you're afraid you'll fail yourself again."

She has a point. Dr. Poblete has started scheduling him for private training simulations, and he is too afraid to even show up to the first two, claiming he's teaching a class at the time. In the next six, he panics halfway through, and the bridge takes a critical hit when he cannot respond quickly enough to his Helmsman's commands, freezing in fear as soon as the lives of the crew depend on him. It's draining, and after his eighth attempt, where he breaks down in the middle of the exercise and slumps over the control pad, sobbing as his Helmsmen's voice turns robotic and the program powers down, Dr. Poblete take him out to lunch in the city and asks him, "What is it exactly that scares you about being in command again?"

Pavel sighs, picking apart his sandwich. "It's just the pressure. I realize that I'm responsible for all of their lives, and I just-. I'm afraid what I did before… will happen again."

"And do you think this fear in yourself is founded?"

He gives up and pushes his food away. "Well, my prior mistakes ended someone's life, so I'm going to say yes." He says shortly, and then looks up at her, guilty. "I'm sorry. I don't know. I used to have confidence in what I was doing, and now…" He makes a vague motion with his hands.

She nods, waving away his apology, "The problem is that before, you told yourself you had to be perfect, and now you've realized that you're not. The fact is, Pavel, that you've made mistakes, and there is every likelihood that you will continue to make mistakes- you may even hurt people in the process. What you have to do is learn to accept those mistakes, and work past them." She smiles at him, "We're only human after all. This is how we grow."

Like everything, it's easier said than done, but he does make an attempt. He tries not to panic when he fails the next training simulation, and after his thirteenth try he finally completes the mission successfully, jumping up and flashing a thumbs up at the one-way glass, where he knows Dr. Poblete is watching. It's supposed to be sound proof, but he swears he hears her laugh.

It's not perfect, but it's a start. He's given a new series of tests, and after a time he does indeed manage to complete them all. After he successfully beams up both a Captain and his XO from an enemy ship while under fire, just after witnessing the death of his Helmsmen, Dr. Poblete powers down the simulation for the last time and informs him that he has officially finished all of her examinations.

It's good that he has too, because the semester is almost over, and the Starfleet Academy marathon is looming on the horizon. At their last session, Dr. Poblete asks him if he feels ready for it.

"I think I am," He says, "But, I also think that if it turns out I'm not, I'll still be okay."

She smiles at him. "You know, you've made terrific progress this semester. Are you still thinking about accepting a commission?"

"Yes." He says immediately, and she raises her eyebrows. "I mean," He backtracks, "Yes, I know that that's still what I want. I know that it will be hard for me, even with all of those exercises we did, but… I don't want to give up everything I've worked for. I've decided that for sure." He eyes her, "If I was commissioned… would you sign off on it?"

She laughs, eyes glittering mischievously, "That depends, will I see you at the marathon next week?"

He promises her she will, and she ends their last session with a firm handshake, wishing him the best. "And don't be afraid to come back to talk to me if you decide you need it." She tells him, and he nods.

He goes off to finish grading his student's finals with a nervous thrumming in his gut.

Back in his room, his running shoes are burning a hole in his closet.

---

The day of the marathon dawns bright and cold. Pavel wakes up at five in the morning in order to get some breakfast down and do some light jogging. He's been obsessively reading marathon tips for the last two months, and so he feels psychologically prepared at least. Physically, he is less so. The marathon is twenty-six miles, and the farthest he's been able to get so far is twenty. He tells himself that it's alright if he doesn't finish, as long as he knows he's tried his best. On some level, he even believes it.

The race starts at seven, and a crowd starts to gather around the starting line about thirty minutes beforehand. Pavel picks up his number and looks around to see if he can spot anyone he knows. He thinks he might catch a glimpse of Lieutenant Uhura briefly, but if it is her, she disappears into the crowd before he can say anything. He downs two cups of water from the table that has been set up for the runners, and then tries to loosen up with some stretching. He feels nervous. And then he feels a little ridiculous for feeling nervous.

In no time at all they start herding the runners into the corrals. Pavel ends up in the third, where everyone seems pretty serious about winning. A few people are stretching, but not many are talking to each other, and Pavel begins to feel more and more twitchy until a young blond woman asks him if he'll hold her thermal while she re-ties her hair.

"Thanks," She says as he takes it, "Is this your first race?"

He bounces on the balls of his feet, "Yes, is obvious?"

"Nah," She grins, reaching up to fix her ponytail. "Just making small talk. It's my first." She takes the jacket back from him. "Thanks, think you're gonna make it to the end?"

"Ah," He throws his hands up, restless with nervous energy. "Who can say?"

She laughs, tipping her head back. "Yeah, same. I'm barely prepared. Well, I'll be rooting for you." The other runners start to shuffle, pressing up to the starting line. "Looks like we're off then, good luck!" She slaps him on the shoulder and then jogs away, and Pavel finds himself smiling at her retreating back. Around him, the people who've come to watch start to cheer, and Pavel flexes his hands one last time, taking his position.

The gates open and he starts to run.

The first hour is not so bad. He forces himself to take a few sips of water from every table he passes, and whenever his watch beeps he sucks an energy gel from its packet. He even manages to catch up to the first group, wedging himself firmly in the middle of the pack. This much, he's done before.

People start dropping out after the seventeenth mile, but Pavel stays strong. He watches them as they embrace their friends, high five spectators, bend double. He thinks about how it would be so easy for him to give up now, throw it all away. Now that fatigue is settling in, it certainly is tempting. There are only eight miles left, but they are such long, long miles. It would be so effortless just to stop trying- Give up on this crazy dream. Pack his bags. Go home.

And then a flash of yellow catches his eyes. The girl he had talked to at the beginning of the race is ahead of him, face flushed, ponytail swinging. Her eyes are narrow, focused. She is struggling, but she keeps running.

His mother had been a runner too. Pavel's grandmother had told him that. On holidays they'd trade secrets like children trading candy, and though the rest of his family never spoke of Ilia, his grandmother liked to tell him stories. She told him that that was how his mother and father had met; she was racing, he was not. He had caught sight of her just as she passed the finish line and was smitten. She was so radiant, so strong when she was well.

His grandmother had called them Bad Days, those days she could not bear to leave the bed. The days she grew drained just holding him as he lay with her. "Mommy's just tired, baby." She told him when his grandmother came to lift him from her chest. "We'll play tomorrow."

(There were very rarely tomorrows.)

Was Ilia Chekov a weak woman because she had left him? He didn't know. How could he resent her when she had so much to shed? She'd had too much to care for as well as shoulder all that weight. Too much grief inside her mouth to go on like that. Could Pavel begrudge her for stepping out early? Pulling the curtain back so she could slip aside? It was tempting. He knew how tempting it was.

But not anymore. Not with air in his lungs and adrenaline in his veins. Not with the ten o'clock sun beating on his back. To keep moving is a struggle, but it is a sign that he is making progress- learning, living. His lungs are burning and it is beautiful. His mother had stopped running a long time ago. It is his time to run for her.

By the time he hits the twentieth mile, he starts to worry that he won't be able to finish. Somehow runner's high carries him through it. The next three miles are a blur, but as soon as he finishes them he is struck with the mind-blowing realization that he's really going to make it. He thinks, "I'm almost there, I've almost finished, keep going," and then he gets fixated on it, chanting the words in time to the beat of his shoes against the pavement.

He is at the front of the leading pack by the last mile. He sees the Academy grounds and completely loses it. He is sprinting. They are all sprinting.

The drumbeat of their stampede is the wave that carries him over the finish line.

The sun is bright.

Spectators are cheering.

Pavel raises his hands over his head and nearly falls over.

"Oh my god!" The woman with the ponytail is yelling, barreling into him. "Holy shit! You just got first!"

The next ten minutes are a blur. Volunteers are swarming the runners, handing them sports drinks. Pavel's hands are shaking, and he accidently drops the first cup he's given but the student who handed it to him just laughs and gives him another. A group of medics buzz through the crowd, making sure they're all getting properly hydrated. Pavel thinks he sees McCoy for a moment but then he's swallowed by the next group of runners and is gone. He definitely sees Dr. Poblete, who yells his name and gives him a thumb up over a sea of heads. A man grabs him by the arm and shouts his time at him. When Pavel doesn't react he yells, "You know you were the first to cross the finish line, kid?" Before Pavel can even respond he's whisked away by someone else, a pair of reporters who ask him a series of questions he doesn't even know if he answers.

He thinks they ask him why he decided to run.

He thinks he says he did it for his mother.

Half an hour later he finds himself slumped in a chair by the medical tent. He legs feel gelatinous, too weak to hold him. One of the medics had given him another energy drink about ten minutes back, and he's nursing it in his hand, eyes closed. He's too exhausted to contextualize what just happened, but he feels it burning somewhere in him- bright and fierce. A win.

"So what's this I hear about you getting first place?"

Pavel jolts, opening his eyes. Jim Kirk is standing above him, beaming and drenched in sweat. He still has his number stuck to his chest, and Dr. McCoy is hovering in the foreground behind him in medical whites, confirming Pavel's suspicion from earlier.

"Oh! Ah, yes. I did. Do that." Pavel says haltingly, and Kirk laughs.

"Man, that's awesome!"

"Ah no, well, it-." Pavel tries to shrug it off, but he can't help but grin. "It. It is, a little."

"Damn straight." Kirk agrees fervently, meandering half a step closer. "So." He says, and the corner of his mouth crooks up wickedly. "This is probably the least exciting news you've gotten all day, considering, but I've just received news that they want me to captain the Enterprise."

All of the hairs on Pavel's neck simultaneously stand up. His pulse is pounding like he's just finished another marathon. "Oh?" He probes lightly, mouth dry.

"Yeah, and I was kinda…" Kirk sticks his hands in his pockets, too casual. "Well, I was kinda wondering if you wanted to join me as Head Navigator again?"

"Yes." Pavel says, surging upwards on his numb legs. He wants to say it in every language he knows. He wants to scream it from the top of his lungs. Yes, a thousand times yes. Yes. His knees go a little wobbly, and he pitches forward, but Kirk grabs his shoulders to steady him.

"Yeah? You mean it?" He demands, eyes sparkling.

Pavel is just about to explain just how much he means it when McCoy snaps, "Of course he means it, Jim, don't be ridiculous. And sit back down, Mr. Chekov! Children, both of you."

Jim helps ease him back into the chair, unfazed by McCoy's glower. He clasps Pavel's shoulder, beaming. "You're in this for sure right? I can count on you?"

Pavel nods.

Far above him, the stars are waiting.

END OF PART ONE