IV.

"It can be argued that a human is the sum of his experiences." Sisko, DS9

"Checkmate!" Pavel Checkov crowed, knocking over Sulu's king with his bishop. It had been a long campaign to get his friend's king alone, cornered on the side of the board, but even through his strategizing, Checkov could sense that Sulu wasn't really paying attention to the game.

He swept the pieces into an old, carved chess board, nothing like the three-dimensional, four-tiered holographic chess games played by his shipmates. When Sulu had first invited Checkov to play a game at ten-forward, he had brought his own ancient chess set, and spent the night compromising with Sulu over rules until they had created a makeshift game, perfect for the two of them.

After he had carefully placed the last piece in its appropriate spot inside the board, Checkov snapped the game closed and looked at Sulu intently. "Vhat's wrong, Hikaru? Are jou ill?" He tilted his head slightly, observing his friend's flushed face, his bright eyes.

A strange virus picked up on the stranger planet of Bajor had made its way quickly through the ship during the past weeks, crippling its victims severely. Checkov, who often was in sick bay, for various reasons, knew that two people had died for the illness and three others were in comas from the results of it. McCoy had issued a vaccination, but he warned that if crew members already had the virus and weren't displaying the symptoms outright the inoculation wouldn't be effective.

Worried, Checkov placed his hand on Sulu's and was hurt but unsurprised to feel it jerk out from under him, Sulu's breaths coming in short, quick gasps. He remembered McCoy drilling him over and over about the symptoms, because, according to the doctor, it affected kids more. Checkov smiled, and nodded, hearing the implication behind the words Be careful, kid. Well, at least someone cared about him.

"Hikaru, I beliewe jou are ill wiv zee fewer from Bajor. Ve should go to sickbay." Checkov touched Sulu's hand, going over the list of symptoms in his head, checking a few off with just a look, a glance.

"No." Sulu again jerked away, his head moving like a frightened, cornered animal before he closed his eyes and drew in a deep, steadying breath. "Wow." When he opened his eyes, they were clearer, more focused. "Sorry, Pasha. I'm just feeling really…claustrophobic."

"Claustrophobic?" Checkov repeated, running the unfamiliar word over his tongue, trying to place a definition to it.

"I need some space." Sulu stood, his hands fluttering at his side. "Will you spar with me, Pasha? I just need to clear my head."

Checkov knew that Sulu was sick, that he should get him down to sick bay, but he couldn't very well manhandle his friend – his best friend – and if he didn't go down to spar with Sulu, the Asian would find someone else, someone who didn't know he was sick, who wouldn't be prepared when the other symptoms set in. "Okay, Hikaru. Ve go to spar, ja?"

Sulu had taught him some basics, going slowly, patiently. He was a good teacher – he used to teach children back in the States after classes at the compound. But that night, when they got down to the training room, empty during the graveyard shift, Sulu was fighting with a fire Checkov hadn't seen.

The small, slight teen wasn't very good at kendo, or fencing, or martial arts, but Sulu, like every good teacher, had made him believe he had the ability to improve, had been teaching him slowly, steadily, keeping his fights on a plane where Checkov could keep up.

Checkov had never seen his friend perform at his highest level, a deadly level, outside of away missions, where Sulu was all business. He was used to gentle reminders, to praise and laughter and teasing, used to the practice to dissolve into wrestling, where they were equals, into a debate, where Checkov was superior, into a draw, where they both went up to the mess, starving and flushed and happy.

He wasn't used to cold, calculating fury in Sulu's gaze as he looked at Checkov over his bo staff, the newest weapon he was teaching Checkov to fight with. The teen had thought that the long, straight piece of wood would be an excellent thing to learn, because most planets they went to where negotiations disbanded into violence (and with Kirk, they always led to violence) he could usually find a similar thing to fight with.

But with the first hit, Checkov knew this was different. Not only did the blow sting, it left a welt and bruise on Checkov's upper arm. "Hikaru! Remember, I am not as good as jou – Hikaru!" But the next blow landed before Checkov even put up his own bo in defense.

I knew he was ill. Checkov kept thinking, as blows rained down on him from his best friend. He was conscious for another twenty seconds, twenty seconds of pleading with Sulu to please, stop hurting him, before he passed out in the big arena in the belly of the Enterprise.

Three minutes later, Hikaru blinked, the mist in front of his eyes leaving as if he'd just woken from a dream. He expected to see his quarters, sparingly decorated, Checkov staring at him over a chessboard, waiting for him to make his next move. He wasn't prepared for the gym, the metallic odor of blood, Checkov dying on the floor.

Adrenaline, Bones had explained to Sulu more than once in the days after the event, was one of the only chemicals that still eluded humans. It was the reason Kirk survived his first days on the Enterprise, ninety-six hours in all, no sleep. It was the reason the smell of battle invigorated young men. It was the reason Sulu could bend down and pick up Checkov, who was nearly the same size as him, in his arms, and get him to Sick Bay in under a minute.

Sulu never knew Bones to sleep. He was there, looking over his other patients suffering from Bajorin fever, glancing back and forth at his chart, head in one massive hand. When the doors slid open with a hiss at midnight, he looked up, stood up, grabbed Checkov out of Sulu's arms.

"What happened?" Bones snarled, laying Checkov onto a nearby table and jamming a button to run the scanner directly above it. "Sulu! Look at me! Who did this?"

But Sulu was looking at Checkov, who had a ripped shirt, revealing welts and bruises covering his entire torso, a broken nose, swollen fingers. Only Bones' rough hand on his shoulder, his low, hard voice, was able to jerk Sulu away from the bloody vision of his friend. "Who, Sulu?"

He felt hot again, and he wobbled slightly, but he still forced the words out, because Bones needed to know and the captain needed to know and at this point he didn't care what they did to him, he just wanted to make sure, make quite sure that Checkov would be okay. "M-me. I hurt Pasha."

And then he passed out on the floor, his body seizing, assaulted by the Bajorin fever it'd been fighting all night.

He awoke hours later to Bones standing over him, eyebrows drawn together. Sulu groaned out one word, "Checkov?"

"He'll live. He's better off than some of the others."

Sulu rolled onto his side, hiding the tears from the old doctor. When the attacks started, no one attributed it to the fever, to the strange planet they had just left. The Enterprise had stood still, shocked when friend turned on friend, beating the living daylights out of those who they had laughed with not hours before. It was only when Bones examined the third attacker that he found the man raging with fever that not only destroyed his immune system but caused a sudden, sharp personality change as well.

Of course, by then, three of the victims of the attacks were in comas. Two of the victims of the illness were dead.

The rough hand was on his shoulder again, and Sulu tried to ignore it, unwilling to face the accusing eyes while he was still beating himself up. "You should see the kid, Sulu. It'd help both of you."

So Sulu staggered to his feet, wavering, wobbling as he crossed the med floor, gripping tight to an IV stand that was pumping him full of antibiotics and morphine, because sometimes twentieth century medicine did work best. He was trying not to remember Checkov's voice, growing higher with every word, No! Jou are hurting me, Hikaru! Stop! Please, stop…

Checkov may not have been in a coma, but he was bruised, bandaged, injured. "Oh, Pasha." Sulu knew, in his mind, that he could not have helped himself, that it was the damn virus, but in his heart, he also knew that hitting, hurting his Pasha was the worst thing he had ever, ever done.

He gently sat at the foot of Checkov's bed, which stirred the teen enough to make him open one slit of an eye, the best he could do. "Hikaru." And just the way he said the name, a breath, like even the mention of Sulu was a comfort to Checkov, made Sulu's heart break all over again.

Sulu sometimes envied Vulcans for their ability to mind-meld. No words were enough to convey the depth of Sulu's grief, his sorrow, his guilt at hurting his best friend. Still, he murmured I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, so many times it became a mantra, a promise. And, when he was finished, no one, not him or Checkov or even Bones making his rounds, were surprised when he ended up on his side, locked in an embrace with his Pasha once again.

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