When he's on his fifth nurse-check of the night without the slightest indication of sleep coming, Len gives up the idea of resting. He stops trying to force his eyelids closed and he frowns up at the ceiling.

The sound of rusting beside his bed makes him want to sigh again. Instead he just turns his head towards the dark silhouette in the chair beside him.

"Is there something specific you're hoping for?"

Jim doesn't insult Len by pretending to be asleep. His eyes pop open - Len catches the glint of them in the never-total-darkness of sickbay.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean...I'm not dying, I'm not all that bad off." Except for the things that are bad off, but they're not worth thinking about right now. "But you keep coming around like you're waiting on something. I don't know what, but I've got a pretty good idea I'm not doing it yet."

Jim leans in, stiff from his awkward perch in that chair. He studies Len's face, unnervingly serious.

Len wants to look away from him, but he started this so he can't. "I get this feeling like I'm letting you down somehow, so whatever it is you gotta let me know because I'm drawing a blank."

There's a brief pause. "Maybe the chairs in these rooms are just really comfortable, you ever think about that?"

Len smiles faintly. "You forgetting how many times our positions have been reversed? I know better than anyone that these chairs could go down with iron maidens and Romulan Rope Binding as a potent form of slow torture."

Jim grins back. "Got me there. My ass hasn't been this numb since the time-"

"And that's where you can just stop, Jim. For God's sake."

Jim laughs, that wicked giggle of his that Len hasn't heard enough since the kid made Captain and decided he had to be a grown-up.

Len manages a chuckle of his own, but his eyes drift back to the ceiling and the room feels cold, and even though Jim's giggling in his ear he feels disconcertingly alone.

"So what is it?" he asks after a moment, his voice sounding much too grave. "What are you waiting on?"

"You to fall asleep," Jim answers easily.

Len's eyes drift to the side, to the empty space where the second bed has been removed from the room. He answers quietly, but honestly. "I haven't fallen asleep without his voice in my ear for a month now."

Jim shifts quietly in his chair. "You're gonna have to get used to it again, though, right?"

Len doesn't answer. That falls under the category of things not worthy to think about, much less answer aloud.

Pavel wants to be here talking him to sleep, Len knows that as strongly as he knows anything. Len won't have to get used to anything if they'll just let the kid come back here where he belongs.

And, okay, even as he thinks that Len knows, intellectually, how fucked up it is. Jim's right - he can't go through the rest of his life needing a big-eyed kid with a funny accent talking him to sleep every night. That's about ten different kinds of dysfunctional, and Len's got too many dysfunctions as it is.

But he learned a few things sitting in that cell. He learned that there are more important things than pride, that just because something might be altogether fucked up, if that something works, if it helps, than that's the only thing that matters.

"You gonna tell me what's going on with you two?" Jim asks suddenly.

Len looks over.

Jim leans in, close enough that the details of his expression can be seen clearly in the dim light. His brow is lined, his eyes are old. Too serious.

"I should have formally debriefed you by now. Both of you. I haven't, because I'm a sucker for my friends and I've gone through enough disastrous missions myself to know that waiting is better, if not smarter. But I'm going to have to do it sooner or later. The whole thing; you know the drill. Record an official log of the session, get every detail possible from you, submit it back to Starfleet for review."

Len's stomach churns just a little bit at the thought of talking about it. He's safe from it right now, but when Jim does corner him with the official Captain Kirk look on his face...that's going to be a bad day.

"So maybe you should let me know in advance some of the things we're gonna have to leave out of the official records."

Len blinks over at Jim. "Leave out?"

Jim sighs as if Len's missed some obvious clue. "About the kid, Bones. About whatever it is that happened between the two of you that makes him look at you the way he does. And makes you so fucking nervous when he's not around that you can't fall asleep."

Len opens his mouth, and he's so close to answering Jim with Pavel's words. So close to saying 'he loves me' and letting that be his easy answer.

But he hesitates.

It's too easy an answer. Jim...God bless the man, he's an amazing captain and a complicated soul, but he'll take those words to mean that Len and Pavel must've fucked, and that's the answer to everything.

That's not fair to Pavel, or Len, and it's so far from what happened that it would feel like a lie.

Jim sits back, and the moments tick by with no answer.

"You know," Jim says suddenly, his voice low and easy, "in my egotistical moments, as rare as those are, I could list a million good things about myself. I can talk for so long about my own misunderstood brilliance that I could fill books."

Len doesn't snort, doesn't make a comment about how that wouldn't surprise anyone who's ever met Jim Kirk.

He can hear in Jim's voice that this is leading to something, and he waits for it to get there.

"But just because I'm capable of appreciating my own greatness doesn't mean I don't know my own faults. I know all the ways I fail, I just choose not to brag about those. But here's an example for you: I am a complete bastard as a friend."

Len looks over in surprise.

Jim smiles faintly, almost sheepish. "Seriously, Bones. I am the most self-centered shit you'll ever meet. I don't take no for an answer, I push my friends past all their comfort levels, I force them to do things they don't want to do. I get them into trouble, I abandon them on the slightest chance I might get laid. I'm obnoxious as a friend, and most people realize that fast and move on. Most people love the hell out of me just long enough to hate me, and I bring it on myself more often than not."

Len doesn't argue - there's a lot of truth in Jim's words, and most of this is things he's told Jim himself. But he has never for a moment thought of Jim as a bad friend.

"Every single person I've ever met," Jim goes on with that same little crooked smile, "has gotten sick of the way I am and taken off. Except for you."

Len swallows, studying Jim's face. "Jim," he says, his voice a croak, "you don't-"

"Shut up, Bones, Captain's talking." Jim sits back, stretching his arms over his head and staring out at the darkness thoughtfully. "See, I was used to being considered temporary before I met you. It wasn't some great tragedy - most people are damned boring after the first few months, so who cares? It was just an extended lesson from when I was a kid - that the only person I had to rely on was me, and that was that."

He shoots Len a grin. "You have any idea how much you freaked me out at the Academy? Every damned day, sending me messages bitching about your classes, talking shit about the other students, griping about space. Listening to me bitch about how I could've taught half the classes I had to take. You never went away, Bones."

He sighs, sitting back and shifting his spine as if to find some comfortable way to sit in that evil chair. "It hit me when you smuggled me onto this ship...I mean, I didn't realize it right then, but thinking about it later that's when it hit me. You had the easiest chance in the world to be done with me, but you broke rules and risked your own career to hang on to me. You're not going anywhere. I know..." He smiles, but it's unsteady looking. "I know that doesn't sound like much, but it is. It's everything. You're not going anywhere."

Len draws in a breath, feeling as unsteady as Jim's smile looks. He wants to fist his hands but the bandages won't let him move. He blinks his eyes and they feel hot and dry and after all he's been through he isn't sure why this is getting to him so damned much.

"So...look, you want to know why I'm hanging around here instead of playing Captain? What I'm waiting on? I'm waiting on you, Bones. You're the best friend I ever had, and I'm not leaving without you. And...all I'm asking is for you to be okay with that. Let me be your friend before I have to be the captain, okay? Fucking talk to me about what happened down there, before it has to be official."

"Jim." Len drags air through his lungs, looking away from Jim and his too-bright eyes. He can't put into words how much Jim has already done for him. Pavel was right there, Pavel saved him in a thousand different ways every single day, but above it all there was always Jim.

Above it all, comfort to Len, comfort to Pavel, was the knowledge that Captain Kirk never leaves a man behind, and Jim never abandons a friend, no matter how self-centered he claims to be. Every time his eyes went to the ceiling of that dark cell or the interrogation room he spent so much time in, Len saw right through it. He saw the Enterprise orbiting over his head, and Jim in the captain's chair on the bridge, not resting until he had his men back.

He opens his mouth to say that, any of it, whatever he can get out.

"I'm so fucking tired," is what comes out.

Jim leans in and lays a hand on his arm, and Len flinches but the fear doesn't come. He doesn't lose sight of where he is.

"You can sleep," Jim says finally, as if anything is that easy.

Len shakes his head, shutting his eyes tightly. "I can't."

Not without Pavel, not without that voice and the sound of his breathing and the warmth of his body.

He doesn't say that, because it feels so fucking ungrateful to follow Jim's words about friendship with the implication that Jim isn't enough for Len. He is. Nothing about their friendship is a one way street - he's the best friend Len's ever had as well.

Len blinks his scratchy eyes over at Jim. "I just want to sleep. I'll tell you...everything, anything you want to know. As a friend. But right now I just..."

Jim flashes a smile, looking relieved in some strange way. His fingers tighten around Len's arm for a moment, a quick, gentle squeeze, and he stands up. "I'll go find the wayward Russian. Be okay by yourself for a couple of minutes?"

Len nods fast, gratitude closing his throat up. His eyes burn as Jim strides out of the room with purpose in his steps, and he wonders how the hell a man as smart as Jim Kirk could ever call himself anything but a good friend.


When they were three months into their five-year assignment, the Enterprise bridge crew got their first real lesson in Not Screwing With Pavel Chekov.

It's one memory that always makes Hikaru smile, and one that he dusts off and remembers every time he needs to remind himself that Pavel isn't the helpless child he so often appears to be.

The kid – and he was still The Kid back then to just about all of them – had been the butt of more than a few jokes. Some about his youth, or his brain. Most, on the bridge at least, about his accent. Starting with the first time he ever had to recite his authorization code twice because the computer didn't register his accent properly, and continuing every time he signed in at the start of shift, or made some shipwide announcement.

Hikaru wasn't innocent of it. He exchanged grins with Kirk, laughs with Nyota. He smirked Pavel's way. Every V the poor kid tried to pronounce, every elongated oo, every overly-guttural h.

Starfleet, the very heart of cultural acceptance and open-mindedness.

But hey, they had to tease The Kid over something. He was seventeen back then, for God's sake. He was this curly-headed little ragdoll and it was better he be teased over his accent than anything harmful.

Besides, he never did anything more than blush and smile and wave off their jokes. He didn't give any indication he was embarrassed. He was so rah-rah for Russia that it made him proud. At least Hikaru figured as much.

Then came that shift three months in.

Everyone knew from the start that there was a problem. When Hikaru got up to the bridge there were more people standing around than usual – the arrivals for the alpha shift were having a hard time signing in at their stations, and the overnight crew couldn't leave until they were formally relieved.

There was a lot of muttering going on, a lot of annoyed stabbing at buttons and shouting at the computers, but Hikaru cast it all a bemused look and headed for the helm.

The usual overnight pilot, Taggart, slid out of the pilot chair and cast Hikaru a greeting grin. "Good luck, Hikaru. Something's going haywire."

Hikaru sat down, fully confident his ship would give him no trouble. "Computer – begin alpha shift. Authorization code seven-eight-charlie-victor-nine."

"Authorization code not recognized."

Hikaru blinked at the console, ignoring Taggart's 'told you' over his shoulder. "Computer, acknowledge authorization code seven-eight-charlie-victor-nine."

"Authorization code not recognized."

"The hell." Hikaru scowled and looked around to see if this was the same problem keeping the night shift standing at every damned station on the bridge.

Well. Every station but one.

His eyes fell on Pavel Chekov, already signed in, the overnight navigator long gone. The kid was quietly running through displays, doing his standard shift change checks. He was paying no attention to the problems around him, seemingly not even the least bit curious about what had to be a major malfunction.

Strange, because almost every other morning it was the rest of the bridge that was signed on and working while it was Pavel who had to convince the computer to accept his code.

There wasn't a smirk on the kid's face, not a set to his slender shoulders that made him seem any different than normal.

Hikaru wondered.

He looked back at his console. The panel was blank after his unsuccessful sign-on, awaiting his spoken code.

Hikaru looked over at Chekov, so intently ignoring everyone. Happily signed on and prepping for his shift.

Hikaru cleared his throat, speaking quietly though he knew Chekov would hear him. "Computer. Acknowledge authorization code...sewen-eight-charlie-vi...wictor-nine."

"Code accepted. Beginning alpha shift."

Chekov shot Hikaru an innocent look – not like the innocent looks Kirk faked when he was trying to get away with something, but a look that honestly seemed innocent.

"Good morning, Mr. Sulu."

Hikaru stared at him until the slightest twitch at one side of Chekov's mouth gave him away.

"You sneaky little bastard!"

Chekov just smiled and went back to his duties.

Hikaru laughed, harder by the second as two minutes, then three, ticked by with people only getting more annoyed behind them.

And Hikaru was the only one who caught Chekov's soft, "computer – end simulation PAC-nine," when the captain showed up on the bridge.

He watched Chekov as the captain questioned why half his crew wasn't in their seats five minutes into the shift, and saw not a flicker of anything giving Chekov away at the random, annoyed answers.

Of course when they all tried to show Kirk the problem they were having, the computer recognized their codes at once.

He could hardly wait until the end of shift that day. He could barely stop himself from twitching out of his seat and grabbing Chekov before the kid could get away.

He dragged Chekov to the mess that night demanding to know how he'd altered the voice-recognition software of the Enterprise in such a specific way, and Chekov gave an answer so dense with engineering lingo that Hikaru only then began to realize that the talk was true and the kid was a certified genius.

He was also, apparently, not to be fucked with.

Taggert told enough people about Hikaru signing on and how he'd done it that it became common knowledge that angel-faced Pavel Chekov had been responsible. No one had to ask why, and after that day the open snickers and bad impersonations of The Kid shushed fast and eventually stopped entirely.

After that day Pavel wasn't The Kid anymore – not to Hikaru, at least. The hesitant friendship that had been building between them since the first days of the Narada mission roared into full bloom.

It helped that Hikaru could suddenly see Pavel's devious mind before he saw his age. It helped that Hikaru knew Pavel would fight his own battles in his own ways, rather than taking things lying down.

Hikaru was proud of him, really. He still hasn't told a soul that simulation PAC-nine is still embedded in the computer's memory, and that sometimes a particularly annoying or harsh crewmember will start having trouble making his commands go through.

It always makes him laugh, thinking of those confused voices behind his back, the blustering when Kirk arrived on bridge. The innocent, wide-eyed smile on Pavel's face as he listened to his tormentors vent their frustration that the computer didn't understand them.

It's funny – Hikaru saw Pavel off on his first away mission the way any best friend should, and he patted Pavel's shoulder and wished him luck and tried not to give him too many teasing warnings about the horrors of planetside duty.

He didn't bring up Pavel's strange obsession with Leonard McCoy, not even to say that if the guy can't see past his age and appreciate Pavel for who he is, it's McCoy's loss, not Pavel's. He didn't reassure Pavel – though he wanted to – that McCoy would come to know him better planetside, because Pavel has never had patience for dishonesty and Hikaru had no idea what was going to happen.

It's funny because as Hikaru saw his young friend off, waving from beside Scotty and Kirk as the transporters took them, Hikaru felt like a big brother or something. He felt confident that he did all he could for Pavel.

But he comes to realize in the first few days of the assignment, when his faithful and very-much-present best friend suddenly isn't around, that he saw Pavel off for his own sake, not for Pavel.

It's Hikaru who keeps asking Kirk if he thinks they're really safe on that planet, and if leaving them even with allies is really the right thing to do.

It's Hikaru who stays up too late at night worrying over Pavel being in such close contact with a man he admires. It's Hikaru who can't stop wondering what McCoy's learning about Pavel, if he's giving the kid a chance, if Pavel's going to return to the ship looking for a shoulder to cry on.

Hikaru thinks of Pavel like a kid he's taken under his wing, but when Pavel's gone Hikaru feels the loss like a hollowing-out of his own life. He feels the loss on the bridge, in the mess at meals, in the corridors in the mornings, in his quarters at night.

He misses Pavel's glowing eyes, his brilliant, quick-fire smiles. He misses his strangely hesitant but compulsive physicality, the way he touches Hikaru on the arm or shoulder as they walk or talk, and always seemed surprised to catch himself doing it.

But more than anything, he's darkly amused to realize during sign-on for alpha shift early one morning, as he distantly listens to Pavel's replacement sign in so easily with no delay or confusion or a single i'wictor wictor' /ito speak of...

More than anything else, he misses Pavel's voice.


Jim doesn't even get to finish his sentence.

He strolls into Hikaru Sulu's quarters, almost running into a red-faced and too-thin Pavel Chekov, and he manages to get out, "Hey, kid, got time to stop by sickbay and-" and the kid all but pushes past him and races out the door without a word in answer.

Hikaru's sitting on his stiff little sofa and doesn't move when Chekov runs out. He watches him go, his eyes worried, but when the door slides shut he stays where he is.

His eyes move to Jim. "He tried to get in earlier," he says, and Jim can hear his worry in how deep his voice rumbles from him. "M'Benga wouldn't let him see McCoy. You'd think the doc's still in danger of dying, as crazy as he got after that."

Jim fights a frown, thinking about Len, about his hoarse confession that he can't sleep. The tears in his eyes as he all but begged Jim's permission to bring Chekov back to him.

To a point Jim understands. Of course he does - he's been on a dozen away missions that went horribly wrong. He's been in a cell thinking death was coming, he's been kicked around by oversized aliens threatening his life. He knows what it's like to face down that kind of thing.

He knows how close it can make people, going through that kind of thing together.

But this is something different, and he isn't entirely comfortable with it. It's not healthy, what's happening with them. Bones needs to be healthy right now. As healthy as he can be.

Jim can't stop it as a list of injuries drones through his head in M'Benga's clipped bass voice. He can't help remembering the full scale of those injuries, the sheer length of time it took M'Benga to list them all.

"How do you want them?" M'Benga had asked, detached the way he always seems, but his voice trembling with exhaustion. "From head to foot or in order of severity?"

And it was a fucking list. His crushed fingers and shattered wrists were just the start. From head to foot wasn't a figure of speech - he had concussions, cracked cheekbone, cracked jaw, all the way down to missing toenails and flesh burned off the very soles of his feet.

Jim can't handle it. Hasn't found a way to even begin to process it yet.

His best friend, his CMO, his rock. The first and only stable thing in Jim's life, and Jim sent him into the hands of psychopaths and sailed his ship happily away. A month later - four ifucking/i weeks - he finally got back what's left. And he can't...

Well. Hell.

But that's not the point. The point is he's got Bones back now, he's got him safe and if not healthy at least drugged enough that he's not feeling any pain. But there's something lingering, something still wrong, and it's something that Jim can't fix.

It's apparently something that Jim's eighteen-year-old navigator has to fix.

Judging by the way Hikaru is sitting there, blank, staring after his long-gone helm partner, there's something broken in that navigator that Hikaru can't fix either.

Jim sighs, moving over to the chair and stretching out a hand to Hikaru.

Hikaru focuses on him, brow furrowing, but takes the offered hand and lets Jim pull him to his feet.

Jim meets his eyes, smiles faintly. "You remember a couple weeks back, when I told you I couldn't sleep so...you know. You fucked me into a coma."

The worry doesn't leave Hikaru's eyes, but he does manage a tilted smile. "Vaguely."

Bones is the most solid thing Jim's ever had, but Hikaru reached out as Jim dangled off an orbiting drill, and pulled him back onto solid footing. Jim's never been able to forget that. Hikaru was the only thing that anchored him when Len was gone.

Somehow a little of that remains, even though Hikaru's as unsteady with what's happening as Jim is.

Jim returns the smile. "And we said it was a one-time thing - or a three-time thing, in the end, I guess - and then we'd get our pals back and everything would go back to normal."

Hikaru nods, but the smile fades. "Normal feels pretty damned far away, doesn't it?"

Jim lets out a breath, unsurprised but relieved that Hikaru understands. "Yep."

"Come on." Hikaru nudges his arm. "Better make sure Pavel made it to sickbay."

Jim follows him through the door and down the hall, and even though their little chat is unresolved he feels comfortable walking beside his helmsman.

Hikaru has always maintained a certain amount of levelheadedness towards Jim. He hasn't gotten lost in the Captain Kirk Awe that half the crew succumbed to between their first impromptu mission and Jim's official promotion as captain.

Chekov has that awe. Hell, he's one of the worst for it, and his general all-around wide-eyed wonder and polite deference makes it seem that much worse.

Jim...he likes it when people admire him. He's an egotist. It's a flaw he's learned to accept in himself.

But he responds most to the people who don't have that awe. The ones who look right through him but respect him anyway. Bones has always done it. Spock works so amazingly well with him because he does the same thing. And Hikaru has always been more a friend than a junior officer because he's never taken Captain Kirk on reputation alone.

He always looks at Jim with that half-bemused expression in his eyes. The one that says that no matter how incredible Jim might be, he'd be spattered on rocks and then sucked into a man-made black hole if it wasn't for Hikaru.

For all that Jim's got a reputation as a man-whore, he's had thoughts on and off about Hikaru since they fought side by side on that drill. He's attracted to the steadiness in him.

Bones is steady that way, but they became friends too soon, and any attraction Jim had was subverted from the start because it wasn't worth losing the friendship.

The only other crewmember he's ever thought he could actually get serious about is Spock. But Spock doesn't have Hikaru's amiable, easy-going nature. Spock is constantly tense, high strung, so worried about succumbing to his human side that he's walking a tight-rope every moment of the day. Spock needs a steady and supportive mate, and Jim ain't that. Jim needs a steadying hand himself, he can't be the support for someone else.

Breaking down and sleeping with Hikaru was a mistake. But it was the best mistake he could have made.

Hikaru gets them to sickbay while Jim's still crawling around in his own head. He barely registers the swish of the sickbay doors, the distant greeting of the night-shift nurse.

He does come back to himself as they approach the room they've stashed Bones in. He comes back to the present hard as Hikaru pushes the door open into the dim stillness of the room.

Bones is asleep already.

It should be a relief. It is. Jim's relieved. There's no fear etched in Bones' face anymore, no stress. He's calm in sleep.

It's everything Jim wanted to see.

Chekov has jammed his way into the bed beside him. Bones is pressed up against him, back to chest, and Chekov's hand strokes through his hair as he murmurs quietly in his ear.

Jim and Hikaru stand there, unnoticed.

Hikaru glances at Jim, no relief in his own face. "He won't eat," he says quietly. "Pavel. I can't make him eat, and I have no fucking idea why."

Jim returns his baleful stare. "You've got to report to Chapel tomorrow, right? About the kid's progress? Tell her. Maybe they'll stick him back in here for a while, but...Bones can't sleep without him. Maybe it'd be best for both of them."

Hikaru raises an eyebrow. "Forgive me if I can't see the bright side of finding out that the psychological damage to my best friend requires ongoing medical care."

Jim shrugs. "It's been less than two weeks since they got back. Normal's still kind of far away from here, you know?"

Hikaru sighs, looking back at the bed.

Bones sleeps on, and Pavel either hasn't noticed them or they rate so unimportant compared to the man sleeping beside him that he can't be bothered to look their way.

Hikaru moves in, arm brushing against Jim's. He nudges his hand over until his knuckles skim Jim's. "So for now there seems to be a new normal."

Jim glances over, a little hopeful sparkle of heat in his stomach. He smiles faintly. "Well. We can make that work, can't we?"


When the door opens, Len rouses himself from a neck-crackingly uncomfortable drowse. Right away when he sees the displeased looking Maalox, he thinks thatta boy, Jim.

The Maalox - neither of the oversized grey-tinged shits are the Speaker, and the Speaker's the only one they've been even remotely introduced to - move into the little stone room and look down at Len and Chekov.

Len figures Jim's involved somewhere - it's been all night without contact, and Jim doesn't need more than one night to pull a Constitution-class starship around and jet in to rescue his wayward crew.

But...something about the speculative way the aliens are regarding them makes his nerves chime in, pessimistic as nerves always are.

Len sits up. By his side Chekov sits, back to the wall, unmoving. He isn't even pretending to be able to sleep - his eyes are wide open, as scared as they were the night before, only now they're rimmed with the red of the sleep-deprived.

One of the Maalox takes in the kid, nods his chin towards him and clacks out a few words in their rhythmless language.

Len pushes to his feet before he can even think. His body groans in complaint, spine twisted from an uncomfortable nap on a stone floor, but he ignores it.

"You guys want something?" he asks, his voice steady, if not overly aggressive. He isn't about to steer himself into some diplomatic incident if these guys really are just here to sight-see or something.

They exchange looks and the larger of the two peers back at Len like he's trying to figure out what's under his skin.

Len returns his stare, his fists clenching at his sides.

This isn't Jim's doing. These guys aren't scared of anything, and they're sure as hell taking their sweet time.

So this isn't rescue, it isn't an ending. It's something else.

Len swallows and faces the both of them, ignoring Chekov even when he hears the shifting behind him that means the kid's getting to his feet.

These guys want their precious Empress to be healthy, right? Len can handle getting pushed around a little, threatened. He's the doctor here, after all. He's the one who made the call, who said no to wasting his time trying to save one terminal patient while hundreds who can be saved die around him.

He's ready for this. Sure, even on a danger-magnet like Jim Kirk's ship this isn't the kind of situation a Starfleet officer is supposed to find himself in. But just because Len's a doctor doesn't mean he's not also a soldier.

He folds his arms over his chest, sticking his chin out. Not to pick a fight, but not letting himself get overlooked. Especially not if getting overlooked means their eyes go to an innocent little boy genius like Chekov.

"Well?" he barks out when the two hulks don't move.

The smaller of the two jumps a little at the sharp word. The bigger one just turns to him more fully, and obviously has his decision made for him.

Len doesn't fight when the approach, he doesn't turn back when Chekov makes a small, scared little sound behind him. He lets them grab either arm, but when they steer him towards the door he walks out between them on his own power.


She is supposedly a good woman. A good nurse. Len's favorite from a small but distinguished list of nurses he has worked with in his career.

But if she doesn't get to the point, Pavel is going to get out of his chair and walk out the door and leave her soft words and intent, thoughtful eyes behind.

"Yes," he says, clipped and impatient as she asks the same question for the fifth time. "I would be more at ease if you let me see Len first. I don't see why that should come as any surprise to anyone."

"Doctor McCoy is in no danger," Chapel says. She's got a low voice for a woman, one of those voices that can be almost gravelly. It is, supposedly, sexy on a woman. Pavel's never understood that, nor any of the hundred other things that are supposedly sexy on women.

"You have been given updates of his recovery, haven't you? You're aware that his life is in no danger. And I know for a fact that you saw him hours ago, as he slept. So tell me why you're driving yourself to distraction about his welfare now."

Pavel stares at her, annoyed. "I'm fairly confident that you're aware of what he has gone through. Why are you not distracted with worry about his welfare?"

"I'm a nurse, Mr. Chekov," Chapel answers evenly. "When I see a hopeful prognosis for a healthy adult patient, I allow myself to set worry aside."

Pavel shakes his head, looking back towards the door out of her small office. "Then you don't understand a single thing, and I doubt any answer I can give would satisfy you."

"You think Leonard isn't safe here?"

Pavel rolls his eyes and sits back, staring at her.

She quirks up a single eyebrow, and it's odd how much this throaty blonde woman can remind Pavel of Spock.

"You must not have much faith in our abilities. Then again, you refuse to believe that we can manage something as basic as feeding him, surely you doubt we can actually heal him."

Pavel snorts, trying for the sort of contempt Len can manage so easily, but it sounds weak to his own ears. First Hikaru, now Chapel, harping on his not being hungry as if it means a thousand grim, horrible things. As if it anything but a normal physiological reaction.

He debates sitting there in silence and letting her ramble on with her shallow observations, but he needs to get out of this office and check on Len. So he speaks.

"Nurse Chapel, I really don't need to talk about my behavior. I've probably read as many books about mental and physical reaction to unpleasant events as you have. There isn't a thing you can tell me that I don't already know."

"A genius like you? I'm sure there isn't."

He scowls at her, but she regards him calmly and there doesn't seem to be any contempt in her voice. Not open contempt, anyway.

Still, he sits up a little straighter and schools his expression. "I am not such a child that I'm not able to apply what I know to my own situation. Yes, I am fixated on Len. Yes, I am troubled about his recovery, and its importance is in my mind greater than my own recovery. I'm sure that's a common pathology in situations like ours, yes?"

She stirs after a pause, when she understands he's waiting on her answer.

"Yes," she says calmly. "And no doubt you can tell me all about the psychology of torture, of the men who wrote the theories, the tests that validated them, the exceptions to the rules. But I can tell you something that no one else has been able to, Mr. Chekov."

Pavel would be amused if this woman didn't stand between him and Len. "And what is that, Nurse Chapel?"

"I can tell you why you're not eating."

He lets out a sigh that's almost a growl. "I'm not hungry."

"Of course you are. And I've watched you eat." She smiles, and it's small and sad and it makes him suddenly nervous. "But you won't eat unless Len is with you and you can be sure he is fed first."

Pavel's chest clenches. He looks away from her and her sympathetic eyes. "You focus on food as if it means something," he complains, quiet.

"Doesn't it? I'm fairly sure that it means everything."

"That's ridiculous."

"Oh? Then I'll explain the thought behind my guess, and you can tell me where I went wrong to come up with something so ridiculous."

"Why am I even in here talking to you?" Pavel asks, scowling at his lap. "You're no counselor."

"I'm the closest to a proxy we have when our resident psychologist is unavailable."

"He's available," Pavel retorts, feeling sick to his stomach. "You just won't let me see him."

"You were in the same cell as Leonard during your time on that planet," she goes on, stepping on his last words. "You had your small share of bruises, superficial sprains, that sort of thing. Trifles, really. Symbolic, but not the injuries a real victim would suffer."

He looks up then, his breathing uneven. He tries to glare at her, but can't manage control of his own facial expression.

She looks back, impassive as ever. "It's Leonard who took the punishment. It's Leonard that they hurt, time and time again, day after day. And when they were done with him they left him at your healthy, unharmed feet."

"Stop it."

"And you couldn't stop it. Maybe you tried, maybe that's why they swatted you aside and gave you those little injuries. Maybe you didn't try. Maybe you were glad it wasn't you."

Pavel stands up. It's an automatic reaction, his feet simply act and his body follows the cue. He feels unsteady on his feet.

"You have no idea what-"

"In the end they were stronger. They were the captors, they had the control, and they went after Leonard whether you tried to stop them or not. In the end, Mr. Chekov, there was nothing you could possibly do. The only thing you could offer Leonard in his suffering was every single scrap of food those aliens brought you."

The words are cold, splashing over him like water, but Pavel only feels panicked for a moment. For just the briefest second, between an inhaled breath and a rush of exhaled air, he can feel his own trapped guilt, he can hear the distant screams, the thuds and snaps and hoarse shouts, the grunts of the guards. Hour after hour, day after day.

For a moment he is back there.

But then, just as quickly, he isn't. He blinks and releases that trapped gasp from his lungs, and he raises his eyes and looks at the nurse.

"Not the only thing," he says, and his voice is trembling but he doesn't pay it any mind. "I could keep him off the cold floor, and hold him when he slept, and speak to him to fill the silence. And I did that, too. I fed him everything they brought us until he stopped being able to eat, and by then I had no idea what hunger was, so when they brought us food it sat there and rotted."

He looks at her, at her calm eyes starting to show strain around the corners. He swallows to steady his voice and unclog his throat.

"I know all this. I know it better than you, better than Hikaru and Kirk, even better than Len himself. There is nothing you can tell me about what I've done that I don't tell myself. You are trying to show me that I feel guilty? Are you insane that you think I've somehow overlooked my own guilt?"

He moves in, up to the side of the desk that sits between them. He meets her eyes. "Do you think it is an epiphany? Do you think there is some kind of magic in the act of diagnosis? There isn't. I understand that I am guilty. I know that Len isn't dying, and of course I don't think that you or anyone on this ship would neglect him or let him starve. But knowing that changes inothing./i"

Pavel feels his own words losing their already tenuous grasp on control, and he stops fighting it. He shakes his head, his eyes burning, and turns to the door.

"I am going to check on Len because until I do I can barely breathe. Point to the causes all you want, it doesn't make the need go away." He moves to the door, alert to any sound. But she doesn't move and doesn't protest.

He ends up hesitating, blinking blurring eyes out through the glass of the door towards the shut door and quiet room where Len is waiting, needing him.

"I know I'm unfit for duty like this," he says to the glass, his voice thick and struggling. "But I can't make it stop. Can you tell me how to do that?"

She doesn't answer.

He pushes through the door.

As he approaches Len's door, blind to anything else happening in the sickbay around him, it occurs to him that he left something out just then. He didn't tell her that seeing Len, feeding him, talking to him, might be born from guilt but it's still the greatest feeling in the world.

Maybe it's guilt - of course it's guilt - but it's real.