Gosh, I am so sorry for the horrible delay. I was in an accident last year and I've only just started to get back on track with things. The story IS complete though, and I am going to be posting a chapter twice a week from now on. Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me! xx


Pavel Chekov had learnt more about life in the last three days than he had in his entire seventeen years of existence prior. Not just life, but loss, love and victory. Failure too. That, he thought in a moment of clarity, might be the reason why he found it impossible to sleep that night.

As a junior officer, he bunked in a room with three other Ensigns. One was in engineering, and Chekov hadn't seen him once since leaving space dock. He knew the man was alive – had seen his name on the roster Uhura had spent the last shift compiling - but not much more. The third bed had once been assigned to James T. Kirk, only to be rotated to an Ensign in the Stella cartography department – a cadet not on Uhura's list of survivors. It didn't take someone of Pavel's intellect to guess that Kirk would have had a place on The Enterprise under Pike's command, nor that the Brass wouldn't have filled the spot left open on the oversubscribed flagship once Kirk was grounded.

He'd have taken Kirk even at his most annoying and obnoxious, if only to rid the small room of the hollow silence.

Kirk was in sickbay though, recovering well from emergency surgery. Commander Spock had made the announcement to the crew more than ten hours after Kirk had been admitted. Chekov wasn't the only person on the bridge who had cheered at the news.

Maybe The Enterprise was cursed? Only a week out of dry dock and two of her three captains had needed major surgery. The third had watched his entire planet sucked into a black hole.

The guilt he had felt the day before was back, thick and niggling at his gut. As everyone was want to point out, Chekov was a genius and smart enough not to assign himself undue blame when things went to hell. Likewise, he was just as capable of self-assessment and knew exactly when he had messed up. Three days into his commission and he'd failed monumentally. Twice.

First with Commander Spock's mother. The less said about that the better.

And then with Kirk.

He'd known Kirk, Acting Captain or not, had been assigned a room with him. He'd also learned enough of Kirk's character to know that he wasn't presumptuous enough to take Pike's bed, even if he did look like he belonged in his chair. Chekov should have checked, should have questioned, and when the empty bed in their room remained so long after they had all left the bridge, he should have hunted Kirk down and made sure he had followed his own advice to rest.

Or at least informed Doctor McCoy.

Instead he'd stayed silent and so had the uncomfortable knowledge that he'd failed both his commanding officers within hours of each other.

Hence the reason he couldn't sleep.

Resolved not to just lay in bed uselessly, Chekov dressed in a clean uniform and peered out into the hallway, half expecting to find it as empty and silent as his room.

Instead it was bustling with life and activity as shifts overlapped and crew members moved about. They weren't quite as smooth and efficient as they would usually be, and there was an air of urgency to every movement, but instantly Chekov felt himself relax into the activity.

He let the ebb and flow drag him down the corridor and into a turbo lift. With no real destination in mind, he resolved to see where he ended up and then inquire if he could be of assistance.

Instead he found himself standing outside sickbay. The doors opened for him automatically and a harried looking nurse was on him in an instant.

"I've not seen you in here yet. Is there something they do to you Command Track Cadets that impedes your ability to seek medical assistance?"

Chekov blinked dumbly, momentarily struck mute by both the nurse's stern attitude and her short hemline. It wasn't until she started to wave a tricorder in his direction that he recovered his wits. "Nyet, I am not injured." He said, hands up in a gestured of innocence.

"The last person who said that to me was bleeding from his eardrums." She snapped, an intent focus on the medical device.

A weak chuckle from the other side of the room saved Chekov from having to stammer out further excuses. "Aw come on Christine, give the kid a break."

The sound of his captain's voice brought Chekov up short. He could feel the grin split his face and he hastily pushed past Christine to get a better look. Undeterred, she followed him with the tricorder.

"You're a fine one to talk, moron."

"That's Acting Captain Moron to you Nurse Chapel." Up close, Kirk looked awful. The bruises that had seemed so inconsequential when they were all fighting for their lives were black and ugly, marring Kirk's handsome features into something barely recognisable. There was even a slight sheen to his blue eyes that somehow robbed him of the vitality he excluded in waves.

Something must have shown on Chekov's face, because Kirk sighed then summoned up a smile that, while a shadow of its usual brilliance, had enough of his patented charisma to settle Chekov's nerves.

The beeping tricorder gave him the all clear. Nurse Chapel huffed and turned her attention to the captain. "Alright then Captain Moron, how are you feeling? Do you need another antiemetic?"

If he could have moved, Kirk would have flinched clean off the biobed. As he was flat on his back and not twitching so much as a finger, he settled for pouting at her instead. "I swear Bones' bedside manner is rubbing off on you."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't meant as one." Kirk muttered before turning his attention back to Chekov, who was slowly edging himself away from the irate nurse. "You wanna take a seat Mr Chekov? I'm getting vertigo just looking at you. No, that isn't me saying I want more drugs!" He hastily supplied when Chapel reached towards him with a hypospray. She shrugged and then grinned – a truly terrifying expression – before making her way to the back of the ward.

Chekov scrambled to take the seat close to the bed and eyed the retreating nurse warily. "She is…" He struggled to find the words to describe her. Between Chapel and McCoy, he was certain he didn't ever want to have to seek medical help while onboard.

"She's exhausted." Kirk looked sympathetic. "She's normally pretty chilled. Compared with Bones, anyway. He's a grumpy bastard even on a good day."

"Doctor McCoy is…" Chekov looked around, suddenly nervous and half expecting to be pounced on by the terrifying doctor.

"Asleep, I hope." Kirk said. "I know all doctors train their bodies to go for long periods without rest, but I swear to god he's a nightmare after thirty-six hours."

Kirk had yet to move an inch, and Chekov had to ask. "Are you alright, Captain?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, I'm good, why'd you ask?" Kirk followed his gaze around sickbay and laughed. The action made him wince. "Oh right. Well I'm on the mend. I'll be up and antagonising you all in no time."

"That is good news, sir."

"How about you, Chekov. It's the middle of Gamma shift. Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

There was no way for Kirk to know what time of day it was, not from flat on his back in sickbay. Chekov was impressed.

"I…" He lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

"Can't sleep, huh? Yeah, I know the feeling." Kirk flashed him a self depreciating grin then laughed again. "Look, can you grab me a pillow or something?"

He had to be feeling decidedly vulnerable like that, flat on his back, only a sheet pulled up to his shoulders. Chekov had been studiously looking at his face, and not the rings of bruises around his throat.

He scrabbled to retrieve a pillow, then hesitated. "Are you allowed?"

"Yeah, Bones won't come after you, I promise." Kirk shifted, color leaching from his face as Chekov helped prop him up with the pillow. As soon as he was settled his whole body seemed to go limp and he sighed blissfully. "Shit, that's better. Ok, so spill."

"Spill, sir?"

"Don't pull a Spock on me." Kirk said with an expression not unlike Chapel's. "You obviously can't sleep and you're clearly not firing on all cylinders if you're wandering around in sickbay."

"Maybe I was coming to see how you were doing, sir?"

Kirk didn't look like he believed him. He obviously didn't know about the standing orders Spock had been forced impose to ensure Kirk was allowed enough peace and quiet to recover. Orders that Chekov was doing a poor job of obeying.

"Right." Kirk said. "Well, okay then. Since you're fine and dandy and all, you can fill me in on everything I've missed."

He didn't think Kirk was all that interested in ship's gossip – despite being at the centre of it all – and so anything Chekov had to say would probably be classed as 'work'. He crossed his arms and tried to look stern, failing miserably. This was a man who had stared down a deranged Romulan without so much as a flinch. This was the man who'd provoked Spock into a fight. Intimidation was probably not going to be Chekov's best tactic.

"I should leave you to rest, yes?" He said.

Kirk snorted then rolled his eyes. "Come on man, you're supposed to be this wunderkind genius and that's the best you can do?"

"Commander Spock said you should rest."

"I'm totally resting." Kirk said earnestly. "Laying down and everything."

"Doctor McCoy would not like it."

"What Bones doesn't know can't hurt him. Please, Chekov, I'm going crazy here. Can you at least tell me Scotty hasn't blown anything up?" Drugged blue eyes looked up at him earnestly.

Miserably, Chekov tried to resist. "I don't think…"

"Don't make me pull rank on you." Earnestness morphed into amusement. "Actually wait, this is probably the first and last time I'll get to do that." The words were said without the slightest hint of bitterness and Kirk's smile was as wide and beguiling as ever despite the pull at lips that were split open in three places.

"The Commander will be very angry." Chekov said quietly. As would McCoy, and Chekov was not as bull-headed or carefree as Kirk. He didn't take the slightest bit of satisfaction in angering people.

"How come Spock is scarier than I am?" The pout was back, making Kirk look pitiful and not the least bit intimidating.

"He did try to kill you, sir." Chekov pointed out, wondering if Kirk had forgotten. He had a head injury, by all accounts.

"I insulted his mother less than a handful of hours after she was murdered." Kirk said seriously. "I'd say it was a justified reaction." Chekov couldn't help it. He flinched, and Kirk drugged to the eyeballs and confined to a bed, read him like an open book. "Is that what's bugging you?"

There was something quietly seductive about Jim Kirk, something that had nothing to do with his somewhat legendary reputation in the bedroom. Chekov felt like he could tell the captain anything, everything. And that he should.

"I lost her." The words were whispered, but in the empty stillness of sickbay, Kirk would have had no trouble hearing them.

"You didn't lose her, Chekov. It wasn't your fault."

"I caught you." And since he'd done it once, he should have been able to repeat the process.

Kirk nodded. "You did. I never thanked you for that, did I?" He hadn't, but then there had been more pressing concerns at the time. "Well thank you. Look," He tried to sit up and though his face pulled into a grimace he shrugged off Chekov's attempts to help him. "You beamed a half dozen people from an unstable environment all at the same time. You did that, you saved their lives, Spock's included."

"If I'd been faster…" If he'd run the calculations more quickly, added more variables, he might have predicted...

"And if Sulu and I had blown that drill quicker, then Vulcan would never have been destroyed in the first place." Kirk cut him off gently. "We did everything we could to stop it, but it wasn't enough. That doesn't make it our fault."

"No, indeed it does not."

Spock's quiet, serious voice was so unexpected that Chekov knocked his chair over in his haste to stand. "Commander Spock, I, we…"

Spock had changed into fresh blues and stood silhouetted in the entrance to sickbay, his hands resting at the small of his back.

"You believe that I hold you in some way responsible for the death of my mother." Spock surmised, making it clear he had heard enough of their conversation to know exactly why Chekov was here in the one place they had all been banned from visiting.

When he said the words out loud, Chekov couldn't help but shrink back. He was surprised when Kirk's knuckles brushed against his side in a silent gesture of support.

Taking Chekov's silence as an affirmative answer, Spock moved closer. "You are incorrect. The blame rests with Nero and his crew. You performed your duties admirably and it is only thanks to this that both myself and Captain Kirk are alive today."

"That's Spock talk for 'you rock'." Kirk whispered loudly. "I think."

Spock said nothing. That in itself was telling, Chekov supposed.

"Still, I really am very, very sorry." Chekov said, his heart behind every word. He couldn't imagine how Spock was still functioning.

Spock inclined his head.

Chekov took that as a sign to make his leave. He turned to Kirk and said, "I'm glad to see you feeling better, Captain. The Bridge is very quiet without you."

"Yeah well, just make sure you and Sulu don't scratch this girl up any more. Pike's gonna be pissed with me enough as it is."

"Technically it was I whom he ordered to ensure The Enterprise remained undamaged." Spock took Chekov's place besides Kirk's bed.

As he left, the soft conversation followed him.

"Good point. You think he'll remember that?"

"I can endeavour to remind him, should you wish, sir."

The two officers were lost to their own world and it was entirely possible that hell had just frozen over.

Suddenly feeling overcome with exhaustion, Chekov returned to his room and crashed out on the bed closest to the door. Kirk wasn't going to need it.