2265

Gaila grazed her front teeth over her lower lip and scanned the bar. Nyota was supposed to be here five minutes ago, but it was a Friday night and there was more traffic than usual. She sighed and took another sip of her strawberry margarita.

"Hey beautiful, mind if I sit here?"

She grimaced, put on a fake smile, and wheeled around on her barstool to find the sort of man who would be her type if she were just looking for a one night stand – moderately good-looking, great smile, scruffy, and slightly drunk.

Gaila wasn't here to shop for men though. Sure, she still had fun but her years of turning on the Orion charm just to get the attention of every guy in the room were over. She'd grown up. She'd grown wiser. And she'd grown accustomed to being respected more for her mind than her sex appeal.

"I'm actually saving this seat for someone," she explained, setting her purse in it.

"I don't see anyone," the man replied, his words slightly slurred from the alcohol.

"That's why I said I'm saving it," she replied flatly. "If you actually saw someone, you probably wouldn't ask to sit here, because someone would already be sitting here."

"Yeah, whatever," the guy mumbled, walking away.

She nursed her margarita and continued to scan the room. A pair of lovers came in, a man with messy dark hair and olive skin and a blonde woman with warm blue eyes. Gaila enjoyed people watching, and these people were interesting because their body language was all over the place.

They moved like they were old friends, but there was hesitation. Perhaps they'd just received long-awaited good news and it still hadn't sunk in yet? No, Gaila didn't think so. More likely they'd just recently decided to take a leap and become more than friends. She could tell from his constant smiles and open posture that he was a lot more certain of her than she was of him, but the woman was still quite interested in her partner.

They were speaking at a normal volume, but because of the hum of the kitchen behind her and the low din of chatter throughout the establishment, she couldn't hear their words. She wasn't about to give up her great seat at the back of the room in the shadows facing the door but near the emergency exit to eavesdrop.

She relished in people watching, but she wasn't going to spy on people for no good reason. She got enough of that in her professional life.

Two years ago, Gaila had left Starfleet. That was the official version, anyway. Her life had changed when two men approached her at Deep Space K-7 and presented an opportunity to put her personality and unique skillset to work. That was the day when she learned about Section 31, the covert detachment within Starfleet that did the things Starfleet could never openly do.

Gaila had made an attractive recruit – few people would suspect an Orion woman of working with Starfleet. In less than two years, she'd worked her way through the ranks to become third in command of her cell and was poised to snag the senior spot next year.

She had a rare talent for this kind of work. She had an incredible knack for intuition and deduction – her supervisor often referred to her as the "Green Sherlock Holmes." Orion pheromones also made a powerful ally during interrogations. Gaila had never laid a hand on anyone, nor had she ever been forced to make threats. Gaila got answers out of people simply by striking up a conversation and turning on the charm.

Section 31 didn't theoretically exist, though it was widely discussed as a conspiracy theory throughout Starfleet and the Federation bureaucracy. It was treated more as a joke than anything else. Low-level politicians who tried to claim it was real were mocked and the only people who would publish "proof" of the agency's existence were the less-than-reputable sources like the Daily Enquirer or Truth Vent.

Both of those news agencies were operated by Section 31. Gaila had even ghostwritten a couple of articles – she'd been slightly drunk the night she penned the harrowing account of an unidentified Tellarite man running from the Dragon Man of New Vulcan.

Unfortunately most of her work wasn't light-hearted or fun. She'd been captured and tortured by Romulans three months ago in a botched attempt to get a message through the Orion Syndicate to a man she was trying to recruit to assassinate the Praetor of the Romulan Star Empire. So much of her work walked a fine line of ethics and morality, and many days Gaila struggled to find meaning in the bad things she did. She wasn't a bad person, but sometimes she had to ask herself what a bad person would do, and then she had to do those things. It was hard.

But she'd done a lot of good, too. She couldn't forget about the good. Just last month she'd snuck across the Klingon border and averted a war by retrieving a lost space mine prototype that the Andorians had lost over 200 years ago. She'd saved countless Orion women from slave trafficking. She'd uncovered a terrorist plot to detonate a bomb at the Federation Council building. So much good.

But the universe wasn't just good and evil – morality was complex. She heard a distinct slurping sound and realized she'd come to the end of her fruity margarita. Shame. She always limited herself to one drink, because it just wouldn't do to get completely hammered and roam around in public with the kind of knowledge she carried around in her head.

She went back to watching her couple, turning her attention to them just in time to see a human man and a Roylan join them. She squinted and observed their interaction more carefully – they'd been expecting company, but they were still disappointed at the interruption.

"Let's git everybody a round o' drinks!" the blond man cried.

An odd accent. Scottish, she believed, though there were so many different human dialects that sometimes they could be difficult to tease apart. There was a flicker of movement in her periphery and when she identified the source, her heart skipped a beat and she instinctively sat back on her stool to slink further into the shadowy corner of the bar.

James Tiberius Kirk. He came in with a human woman, almost as blonde and beautiful as he was. Where she'd had her doubts about the other couple, the dynamics between Jim and this woman were undeniable: they were smitten with each other.

Gaila didn't really mind; she was happy for him. She'd loved him once but Nyota had been right about him at the Academy – back then he'd been a spoiled man-child. He'd been right about her too though: she used people to get what she wanted. It had been a rude awakening, but in the years since her falling out with James Kirk, she'd grown up a lot and learned many times over that some of the noblest people were capable of the worst cruelty. One of the gentlest, kindest people she'd ever met was a Suliban drug lord.

Everything came back to that same old problem she struggled with every day… moral complexity. Jim Kirk was a great friend and apparently a great Starfleet captain, but he was over confident and manipulated women. It didn't mean he was a bad person, it just meant he was flawed like everyone else.

She glanced at the clock above the door and scowled. It was 2219 hours and Nyota was now 19 minutes late. Traffic or not, surely that fastidious Vulcan boyfriend of hers would have insisted on punctuality.

"Hello, Gaila."

She jumped and swiveled around on the hard seat but she already knew who she would find standing just to her left. The accent was unmistakable.

"Pavel Chekov," she replied, unable to hide her grin. "You snuck up on me out of nowhere."

He was taller than when she'd seen him last and his face had filled out and even learned to sprout a patchy beard. He never lost the awkward boyish smile, but he was definitely a man now.

"You know my name," he replied, stuffing his hands in his pocket and shifting his weight on his feet.

"Yes, and I have a bone to pick with you about that," she scolded.

"What do you mean?"

"All those years you let me call you Pavlov. I only found out your name at graduation because you were the valedictorian. I looked like a real asshole and you never corrected me."

He chuckled to himself and briefly looked at the tips of his shoes. Vibrant color raced through his pale cheeks and Gaila smiled. Despite the blushing, it was obvious he wasn't the same bashful teenager who used to help her with her homework. What had he been up to all these years?

She started to analyze his clothing and posture for clues but quickly stopped. Why not just find out like normal people and strike up a conversation with him?

"Wanna have a seat?" she grinned, setting her foot on the chair across from her and pushing it outward.

"Can I buy you a drink?" he asked seriously.

She studied her empty margarita glass and held an internal debate. She could have one more drink, a light beer perhaps, and she could sip it slowly. "Are you trying to get me drunk, Pavel? What kind of girl do you think I am?"

He locked eyes with her and without hesitation answered, "Ze best kind."

It was Gaila's turn to blush. It had been years since a smooth talking man had gotten her flustered. What had Pavel Chekov learned about women since she'd seen him last? She was dying to know, but unfortunately, she was interrupted before she could find out.

"Gaila!"

Her eyes darted across the room to the door to see Nyota waving cheerfully in her direction. Now she decided to show up and of course, Mr. Dorky Bowl Haircut himself, Commander Spock, was right behind her, looking all kinds of unimpressed and awkward.

"I was actually supposed to be meeting an old friend of mine from the Academy," she explained with a heavy sigh.

"Am I not an old friend?" he winked, twisting in his chair to acknowledge Nyota who was working her way through the crowded bar toward their table.

"Oh my God, Gaila, how have you been?" Nyota exclaimed.

"Busy," she laughed. "You?"

"Ugh, same!" Nyota sighed. "It's so great to be back."

They released one another from their prolonged embrace. Gaila caught Spock's eye and nodded deferentially. "How are you, Commander?"

"I am in good health," he remarked simply, nodding as he spoke.

Gaila looked back and forth between them, both shocked and not shocked at the fact that they were still together. When she'd first found out her roommate was dating Professor Spock all those years ago, she'd chalked it up to a bizarre crush, some weird boring fetish. How wrong she'd been.

Nyota was clearly happy with Spock and Gaila was happy for her. Of course, it was much easier to be happy for Nyota and feel some goodwill toward Spock now that Gaila was no longer his student and failing his classes.

"We have a group forming over there," Nyota said, pointing to the table with the people Gaila had been watching. "Do you want to come join us?"

She considered Jim, who was in the middle of regaling the group with a fantastic story that apparently required him to swing his arms around wildly, much to the delight of his audience. It would be strange talking to him after all this time, considering the last time she'd spoken to him had been during their confrontation in the hallway after she'd been accused of hacking the Kobayashi Maru simulator.

Nyota looked over her shoulder and Jim and frowned. "I completely forgot; I'm sorry. We can-"

"It's actually fine," Gaila interrupted. "Really. The stuff with Jim was years ago. Let's go."

She was soon introduced to a dozen people from Enterprise. The couple she'd been observing turned out to be the chief medical officer and the head nurse, Leonard and Christine, and upon closer inspection, they were definitely a couple, even if they didn't realize it yet. The man with the Scottish accent was conveniently called "Scotty" and his Roylan companion was Keenser. She met Charlene and M'Ress and Hikaru. The blonde woman who was clearly enamored with Jim turned out to be Carol, and as always, Jim was Jim.

He fell silent when she arrived at the table with Pavel, Spock, and Nyota. In an awkward twist of fate, she ended up sitting on his left and for a long time, they engaged in a tense, silent détente as she listened to marvelous stories of the crew's adventures over the past five years.

When Carol excused herself to buy everyone a round of drinks, Jim finally leaned over and whispered, "It's good to see you again, Gaila."

"You too," she replied softly.

"Somehow I don't believe you," he chuckled.

"You should. You look good. You look happy."

"Look, I did a lot of things I'm not really proud of back-"

"I know what you're going to say," she interrupted him. "I got over it a long time ago. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of too."

He furrowed his brow and nodded. He cleared his throat and asked, "So what have you been up to?"

"I left Starfleet two years ago and got a job at a café. It's a quiet life but I really enjoy the pace of it."

It wasn't the most interesting cover story, but it was reliable and never invited too many questions. And there really was a café on the ground floor of her apartment complex and she'd even made a deal with the manager to clear tables on slow evenings a couple nights a month when she was at home, just in case anyone looked into her situation too closely.

"But what about you?" she continued, folding her hands on the table and grinning. "What are your plans, now that this five year mission is done?"

He started telling her all about his future assignment to teach at Starfleet Academy and Gaila smiled inwardly. Most people loved to talk about themselves and Jim Kirk was no exception.

Gaila enjoyed several more hours of great conversation. She caught up with Nyota, joked with Christine about dating doctors, played a slight of hand game with Keenser, and sang a Scottish ballad with the Enterprise's chief engineer. The one person she didn't get to talk to was Pavel, who had been forced to take a seat at the opposite end of the table.

When Leonard and Christine excused themselves for the evening, the others began to follow suit. Charlene and M'Ress left together, then Spock and Nyota agreed to share a cab with Jim and Carol and soon, it was just her and Pavel watching Scotty and Keenser drunkenly lob darts at the wall.

"Would you like to get out of here?" she asked, offering him a warm smile.

"And go where?"

"My apartment is just two blocks from here."

His right eyebrow flicked upward but Gaila didn't flinch. Taking a guy back to her apartment didn't mean she was going to sleep with him, but it had been a long time since she'd had any fun, and Pavel was handsome, and… she stopped herself. He deserved better than a quick fling. So did she. But unfortunately, the nature of her work didn't leave a whole lot of room for romance. Having people she cared about was dangerous, even.

"I can make some coffee," she added. "In case you were thinking I was talking about something else."

"Zat sounds fine," he grinned.

They left the bar and set out on foot toward her apartment, a small dive on the corner of 79th street above the Cactus Café. It was a quiet stroll at first, until Pavel broke the silence.

"You told me once zat ze galaxy was full of beautiful women who deserved me more than you did. You told me to go find them."

She laughed. "I don't remember, but that sounds like something I would have said."

A low rumble of thunder rang through the night air. It looked like it was going to rain again.

"Well, I haven't been all over ze galaxy, but I also haven't found anyone fitting zat description. Only you."

She grimaced. "Pavel, do you think I used you back at the Academy?"

"Yes," he replied. "But I didn't mind back then. I was young and stupid."

"You might have been young but I don't think you were ever stupid," she retorted. "And I didn't mind either, back then. But I mind now."

Fat raindrops began to slap the warm pavement, sending little spirals of steam up from the ground. She could see her apartment building up ahead and lengthened her stride. It was pouring by the time they made it to the downstairs front entry, and as Gaila fumbled in her bag for her access card, he asked, "Why did you invite me to your apartment tonight?"

She froze and chewed her bottom lip before replying, "I've been lonely for a long time. I have a lot of friends, but I'm really lonely."

He nodded. They were both getting drenched and his tight blond curls were beginning to stick to his forehead.

"Why did you agree to come?" she added.

"For the same reason," he confessed. "I am captivated by you, Gaila. I always have been."

She took a half step toward him and studied his dark blue eyes. "I don't want to hurt you," she sighed.

"Thank you?" he laughed.

"No, I mean, I'm not in the mood for a casual fling and don't have time for relationships right now. My life is very… complicated."

"I understand," he muttered.

"No, you really don't."

"Why don't you explain it to me over ze coffee you promised me?"

She scowled and cocked her head. She really didn't want to get hurt, but more importantly, she didn't want to hurt him. Against her better judgment, they were soon riding the turbolift to her fourth floor apartment in silence. When they entered the apartment, she activated the lights and studied his face.

She wasn't exactly sure how they ended up kissing, or who started undressing who first, but soon there was a trail of clothing leading to her bed. Half an hour later, they were both out of breath and snuggled under her light blue comforter. It felt so good to be so close to another person, but she felt so guilty, feeling like she could never deserve someone half as good as Pavel Chekov.

He brushed a thick strand of her red hair out of her face and whispered, "You are lovely, Gaila."

"Don't say that," she replied, closing her eyes and chewing the tip of her tongue.

"You are."

"I've done a lot of ugly things," she replied, her voice faltering.

"We all have."

"Not like me."

"Whatever you think it is, it's not zat bad."

"You don't even know me," she snapped.

"I know you better zan you think."

"But you don't," she whispered bitterly.

"I do," he insisted. "Gaila, who do you think recommended you two years ago?"

She blinked several times, unable to take her eyes off of him. Pavel Chekov was in Section 31? "No. I don't believe it."

"It's ze truth. I told you I know what it's like to have a lot of friends and be lonely. I don't want to be lonely anymore."

She felt his hand wrap around hers and felt her heart surge in her chest. He leaned forward and kissed her and for the first time in a very long time, she felt hopeful and free. Getting involved with another Section 31 agent was stupid and tantamount to career suicide, if not possibly literal suicide, but for some strange reason, Gaila didn't care.

What a tangled, messy web life had turned out to be.