AN: This is my new project! You don't need any knowledge of Confessions of a Teenage Starfleet Cadet, A Tale of Two Ensigns or Diary of a Lieutenant To Be to understand. There will be occasional references, but I'll warn you at the beginning of the chapter.
Atychiphobia
Fear of Failure
Pavel Andreievich Chekov has atychiphobia. He cannot stand failure. He avoids it like the plague. But he'd never failed. Never. Not in his seventeen years. Not through four years at Starfleet Academy, not through his entire life. There is the Kobayashi Maru, but everyone fails that. It doesn't count. But he fears it all the same. It's irrational.
He should have known it was too good to last. At some point, everyone, even Russian child geniuses, must fail. You cannot only succeed. It just doesn't work like that. The first time he fails is during the Narada Incident. Vulcan was being swallowed by a black hole; he was beaming Commander Spock, his family and the Vulcan High Council.
He fails. He fails to save Commander Spock's mother. The first time he fails, someone, someone important to his superior officer, dies. It is as if the universe has decided that he has to pay for never failing before, so the first time he fails, he fails terribly. It only serves to magnify his fear. He avoids failure even more after that. He vows to never fail again.
Then Commander Spock comes to his quarters one night to speak with him. Lieutenant Uhura had told him that Pavel believed that he had failed, and that he, Spock, blamed him for the death of his mother.
'Ensign, I do not blame you for the death of my mother. Probability -wise, you should not have been able to beam any of us. You succeeded in beaming a significant majority and lost only one signal. That is to be commended. It is illogical for me to blame you, just as it is also illogical for you to fear failure.'
It is inevitable that he will fail again. He will endeavour not to. But next time he does, he's not so scared of it.
