Learning to Fly

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek 2009 – sadly.

A/N: Another short-ish one shot about the loveable Hikaru Sulu. (Who in my opinion just doesn't get enough love…)

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In all honesty, Hikaru Sulu had never wanted to 'fly' a star ship, especially as one as big as The Enterprise. His aspirations and passions had always been with things like, botany and fencing. Real stuff, that you could monitor and control. Something you could trust…

Still, when it came down to it, and he delved deep into his "honesty banks" – he really did like it. The thrill, the excitement, the adventure. That was what it was all about! Although, if he said this to anybody other than Chekov and Scotty (whom he connected with on a mutual level, when it came to 'loving their job') they would simply smirk (in Captain Kirk's case), scowl (in Dr McCoy's case), or …raise one eyebrow (points for guessing who this was…)

During the whole 'Nero' incident, there were times in which he had begun to doubt just why he liked the job of helmsman so much. Like when: Captain Pike was taken hostage, when Commander Spock saw his home planet crumble in front of his very eyes, when The Enterprise had nearly found herself being sucked into a black hole. He had come to realise, that it was moments such as these that really tested you, that really defined your strength of character and just how far you could be pushed. It seemed surreal (to his naïve way of thinking,) and yet, it was also the, slightly terrifying, truth of it all.

However, truths and shocking reality aside (or alternate reality), whichever way you looked at it, he felt that he had made a firm set of friends aboard The Enterprise. The Captain, who was forever making jokes and had a happy-go-lucky attitude, which lightened up everybody's perspective of a mission, when the going got tough. Dr McCoy, with his dry sense of humour (the 'I'm a doctor, not a ____' line, would in Sulu's mind, never get old.) and ironical fear of flying. Spock, whose unfailing logic and sense of duty remained a rock, in which many members of The Enterprise held onto, when things looked grim.

…and then there was Chekov. Not your average seventeen year old, by any stretch of the imagination, but he was the best friend that he, Hikaru Sulu, had ever had the good fortune of meeting. His enthusiasm and vivacity for such small, trivial things, reminded Sulu of just how lucky he was to actually be serving on this ship. The playful banter between the two of them, never failed to amuse and they had become quite the pair aboard the bridge; so aptly nicknamed by Kirk – The Techno Geeks, (much to the annoyance of him and Chekov, although he never let on…)

Still, whenever the going did get tough, he simply remembered an old proverb he had often been told as a child: Bad and good are intertwined like rope. There cannot be one, without the other.

That was always the trick. Somewhere, there had to be balance. Like the balance between the amount of soil and sunshine needed to make a plant grow, the feel of an epee in your hand before you struck the winning blow.

Like learning to fly…