HS Chapter 21

(_)(_)(_)

Enterprise

Pavel grinned as he performed the last few tasks necessary to end his shift on the bridge. A few feet away, Hikaru was doing the same. They'd left Earth today, heading back to the Klingon Empire. With the blessing of the Admiralty, no less. The incursion of the unknown ship had left everyone uneasy. What if it wasn't just the Klingons the unknown party meant to test?

While seven ships and almost an entire graduating class had been a not-insignificant blow to Starfleet, it was nowhere near the situation the Klingons faced, so the Admiralty had readily agreed to the Enterprise continuing to patrol Empire space to keep an eye out for further intrusions. There had even been a brief conference with both the ambassadors and the Chancellor which resulted in two more ships being given marching orders. They would, however, not arrive until after the Enterprise did. Both ships had recently returned from long-term cruises at the edges of Federation space and were in the midst of being upgraded, repaired, and resupplied, and their crews in the midst of much-needed shore leaves. They'd not be ready to head out for another couple days.

Kortel was still aboard, too. How Kirk had fast-talked the Admiralty into okaying that, Pavel didn't know. But Kortel was now officially a liaison for the future officer exchange program that would make it possible for trained Klingon crewmen to work on Starfleet ships with minimal (and preferably nonexistent) issues.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pavel watched as Kirk, Spock, and Uhura packed up and prepared to go off-shift as well. He couldn't quite figure out what the heck was going on with those three. Spock and Uhura had apparently been in a relationship. Had being the operative word, apparently, as they didn't seem to be anymore. Then again, they were both pretty private and self-contained people, so they just might not be inclined to public displays.

That didn't explain how or why Spock and Kirk were so at ease with each other, though. Especially given what had happened between them during the whole Narada mess. Of course, people had bonded in stranger circumstances, so again, who knew what the deal was there. Kirk and Uhura at least made a little sense. Pavel had heard through the campus grapevine that the two of them were friends of a sort. The whole thing was just confusing.

"Hey Pavel, don't forget we're going to work on your swordsmanship later." Hikaru said as he finished with his own tasks.

Pavel grinned. "Of course I will not forget." He said.

Pavel knew well enough how to defend himself - you couldn't *not*, in Starfleet. Everyone was taught at least the basics of how to shoot, throw a punch, and the best places to aim for. The basics, however, were nowhere near enough to go toe-to-toe with, for example, a Klingon and win without needing serious time in Sickbay when the fight was done. While Pavel was aware that Kirk was an accredited combat instructor, it had been a lot easier to approach Hikaru.

Pavel liked Kirk. He liked him a lot. But Kirk was captain. And while Kirk demonstrably had little to no care for the normal, standoffish relationship expected of a captain in relation to his crew, Pavel just couldn't make himself ask Kirk for training. It really didn't help that Pavel felt it'd be rude to cut into Kirk's tiny allotment of off-duty time.

Hikaru had, rather predictably, been enthused about teaching someone what was a dying skill on Earth. They'd been working at it a couple times a week since they'd been forced to retreat to Uhura's parent's house to avoid the press. Pavel wasn't far enough along that he'd felt comfortable carrying an actual sword while dealing with the Klingons thus far. He'd made strides, to be sure, but there was a big difference between being able to perform various movements and strikes in a training situation and successfully defending his life in a real fight. Especially against someone with a *lot* more experience with blades, as was the case with Klingons as a whole.

"Kortel will probably be there, fair warning." Hikaru said. "He found out through the grapevine that I was teaching somebody, and got curious."

Pavel shrugged. "I do not have a problem with him watching. I just do not want him teaching me. I would get confused." Because how Klingons did things when it came to fighting with a blade was different from how humans did things. Pavel knew he wasn't far enough in his training to be able to handle learning from two such wildly different styles.

"Don't worry about that. He didn't even offer. I've gotten the definite impression that actively teaching stuff like that is an in-the-family-only sort of thing for Klingons." Hikaru said. "I'd actually been half expecting him to be scandalized, to be honest."

Pavel laughed at that. He'd not had as much interaction with the various Klingons they'd dealt with to really notice their attitudes as regarded training. That said, he was willing to take Hikaru's word as to their likely reaction. Hikaru had pretty much jumped into the deep end of that part of Klingon culture, so he'd have a much better idea than even Kirk would.

"Maybe he thinks we are related?" Pavel asked. "I mean, if their beliefs run along those lines, he wouldn't automatically assume anything else. I know we look pretty different, but to a nonhuman who maybe hasn't met all that many humans to be able to tell stuff like ethnic features?"

"Entirely possible." Hikaru admitted. "Goodness knows, we wouldn't know one Klingon from the next without a lot of exposure to them. And there's a chance that even if he does know we're not related by blood, he thinks we're family some other way."

Pavel nodded. Neither of them had the faintest idea if Klingons were ok with something like marrying again after a divorce (or even if divorce was a thing Klingons did) or the death of your marriage partner, or marrying someone who already had a kid (having had said kid outside of a marriage, or being a widow/er). Nor did they really know how orphans were dealt with, and all three of those were ways for two people who weren't related by blood to still be family.

Aside, of course, from the more traditional method of one of them being born to a daughter of the family and the other to a son. That would account for the different last names and appearances, even with Hikaru and Pavel having such wildly different appearances. Genetics being as quirky as they were, it was entirely possible for someone to take very strongly after one parent rather than being a mix of them both. Such a circumstance would explain why Pavel and Hikaru looked so different. Granted, such marked differences in appearance were rare, but they were still possible.

Right about then, the Beta shift crew arrived, and Pavel turned his attention to the handover, which mostly amounted to 'right, I'm all logged out, and nothing weird happened, have a good shift'. Of course, that wasn't always the case - hence the need for a verbal handover. That allowed for the crew going off shift to warn the crew going on-shift if a console was being twitchy, or if anomalous readings had been recorded. Anything along those lines that hadn't escalated to something the entire crew knew about because they'd spent the shift at battle stations or something like that. It also allowed them to document the rare, 'trivial' ongoing problem that repairs didn't fix. The Enterprise hadn't been commissioned long enough to develop those sorts of problems yet, though.

That done, Pavel and Hikaru piled into the turbolift to go change out of their uniforms and get some food before meeting up in the training room. Because their handovers were a lot simpler than Kirk, Spock, and Uhura's, they beat that triad off the bridge.

(_)(_)(_)

Hikaru had both been surprised and not by his growing friendship with Pavel. The kid had a heck of a sense of humor on him. It helped that Hikaru got a kick out of watching Pavel work the 'young, naive child' ploy like a seasoned pro. Seriously, the kid could go from competent, capable crewman to quivering, wide, dewey-eyed infant in three seconds flat. Worse, people actually fell for the act, which would never not be funny.

It had been especially hilarious when Pavel had turned that act on the press. In tandem with Kirk (who clearly had Pavel's number, at least in this regard) who played the part of outraged, protective captain twice before they'd retreated to Uhura's folks' place. A couple of the more rabid reporters had gotten no end of grief from the general public for making a 'hero' cry. Yes, Pavel had actually turned on the waterworks at one point. Kirk's rather overacted righteous fury in Pavel's defense had earned him more than a few brownie points with said public.

The rest of the Enterprise's command crew - except for Spock, of course - had laughed themselves sick over the whole thing. Even McCoy, who, of everyone else, was the most likely to be unamused by Kirk's antics. Hikaru still couldn't believe that so many people had actually bought what Pavel and Kirk had been selling, but their idiocy had given the group a much needed breather in order to make good their escape from all the attention.

Hikaru stopped off at his quarters long enough to grab a light dinner, take a shower and change out of his uniform and into exercise gear. One of the traditions regarding swordsmanship that Hikaru didn't keep to was wearing the appropriate gear. This was mostly due to the fact that he was never going to be wearing that stuff in a real fight so becoming used to their presence was a bad idea. He'd worn a little protective gear - a face and groin shield - when Pavel had first started learning, but Pavel had progressed to the point where those weren't necessary. Pavel's control was good enough now that while he didn't always hit what he was aiming for, he didn't go *that* far astray. Hikaru made sure that Pavel understood that face and groin shots were perfectly legal in a fight for his life, and would use them of course. What he was teaching Pavel had only a passing acquaintance with the carefully controlled and codified forms of swordplay that had become virtually all that remained of sword fighting past a certain point in Earth history.

Hikaru fairly bounced into the training room, the long case that held his practice sword under one arm. Pavel had his own swords - both a practice sword (which meant it was a touch heavier than his actual sword and the blade was dull) and an actual sword to fight with. Hikaru had gotten them for Pavel just before they'd left Earth for their first assignment aboard the repaired Enterprise. Pavel's sword was a saber. It was identical in all respects to Hikaru's fold-out sword, and had been made by the same person that made Hikaru's.

Kortel had beaten Hikaru there, and was lurking near where Hikaru and Pavel usually practiced. He wasn't the only one either. Much to Hikaru's delight and amusement, he and Pavel seemed to be sparking a ship-wide interest in sword fighting. There were usually two or three people at the minimum lurking about watching them practice, and as many as a dozen or so. Thus far no one else had asked to be taught, but Hikaru had a feeling it was only a matter of time, especially with them hanging out with Klingons for the foreseeable future.

Pavel arrived about two minutes later, quite literally bouncing and with a wide, toothy grin on his face. He waved to Kortel, but then turned his attention to Hikaru.

"This time, I will win." Pavel claimed.

Hikaru laughed. Pavel said that every time. Thus far, he couldn't actually manage it if Hikaru didn't deliberately mess up. Which he did from time to time - he knew well enough that constantly getting defeated would eventually bother even the most dedicated student. Not only that, but you didn't really learn much when you just repeatedly got beat into the ground. "You will try." He told Pavel, which he told Pavel every time, though he changed up the wording and/or tone each time.

(_)(_)(_)

As Nyota spoke with her beta shift replacement, she watched Jim and Spock out of the corner of her eye. It was worth watching the pair of them. Both for the entertainment factor and to hopefully spot an explosion before one happened. Not that she expected one, but with those two, there was no predicting when they'd come to loggerheads in spectacular fashion.

She'd known from the very beginning that she and Spock would not stand the test of time. She was good enough at reading people to have figured that out. That they'd be good together but not quite what each of them needed for the *real* long haul. It hadn't stopped her from pursuing him though, because while she knew they'd not last, she'd also figured they'd have a good run while it lasted.

That said, she'd thought she'd have more than a year and a bit with him. There was a part of her that was petty enough to hate Nero for bringing their relationship to a premature end. Another part of her was oddly grateful, because they were simply drifting away from each other. They were still friends and likely always to be so, rather than not being able to stand the sight of each other or some such nonsense if they'd fallen apart at a later time, and more acrimoniously. The both of them were far too heart-sore from their grief and pain to bring more misery on themselves by fighting.

All that said, she would never in a million years have guessed that Jim, of all people, was bidding fair to take her place. Not that he or Spock realized that. Yet. But Nyota recognized the signs. They'd been circling each other in an ever-shrinking orbit since that aborted inquiry what felt like half a lifetime ago.

Part of her wanted to be a pissy, vicious bitch about being supplanted before she and Spock had even mutually declared their relationship over. The rest of her shouted that petty corner down. She and Spock both knew they were done. They were just both too heart-sore already to say the actual words and give themselves more grief. Not that they'd parted because they hated each other or anything

Nyota simply didn't have it in her to drag Spock out of the mire he had got dumped in, emotionally speaking. She felt for him, she truly did - it had to be godawful, to deal with the pain Spock had to be dealing with. But she was having a hard enough time taking care of herself and dealing with her own grief over losing more than three fourths of her graduating class, many of whom had been somewhere between 'passing acquaintances' and 'friends'. Much as she wanted to, giving Spock the help he doubtlessly needed was beyond her right now.

Jim on the other hand, seemed to have made it his life mission to keep Spock from falling apart. And he was doing it in his usual inimitable fashion. Being the irrepressible, impulsive, obstinate ass that he was, he was either completely unaware of how shockingly rude he was by Vulcan terms, or totally aware of it and doing it on purpose to shock Spock into some semblance of normalcy. Nyota had no idea which it was. She honestly didn't care, either. The point was that it worked. Every time Spock showed so much as a hint of retreating into himself, Jim was there, verbally annoying him and trampling all over a Vulcan's sense of personal space. Basically doing everything humanly possible to annoy Spock into reacting and thus drag himself out of his shell.

Literally half the crew had bets going regarding those two by this point as a result. The bets varied from when Spock would snap (again) and kick Jim's ass, to when the two had - or would - started fucking. Watching the two of them during a bridge shift was entertaining as hell, even when Nyota knew that the pair of them barely saw themselves as friends yet. Maybe especially because of that.

She could see the signs - the writing on the wall. And unlike she and Spock ... well, those two? They'd endure. Not without innumerable explosive arguments, of course - they were both of them too passionate and hot-blooded (despite Vulcans supposedly being anything but) for anything else - but they'd endure.

It was going to be the them getting there at all that would be interesting as hell. Nyota knew Vulcans didn't judge when it came to chosen partners, and Jim was the sort that couldn't possibly care less what other people did in their bedrooms, but she had no idea how either of them felt regarding relations with those of the same sex for themselves. And the stars alone knew that Jim had trust issues. Nyota didn't know the cause - well, not all the causes, anyway - and those causes she knew she'd figured out without Jim actually telling her because hello, trust issues.

Spock, while he was doing better with interaction and relationships of any description after a year with her to help him figure things out, was still stiff and awkward and unpracticed in recognizing when an attachment (whether it was friendship or something else) was forming between himself and someone else. Plus there was the whole 'I deliberately mashed your berserk button' and 'I tried to choke you to death' issues the two of them would have to deal with at some point.

So yeah, that was not going to be a smooth get-together *at all*. Though in her happier moments, Nyota entertained herself with contemplating Jim's reaction when he realized the *entire crew* had bets on him and his First Officer and their relationship status, as they doubtlessly would by that point, and that the book had been opened before they'd gotten back to Earth after destroying the Narada. Heck, if it hadn't been for the circumstances at hand, Nyota was willing to bet the book would have been opened within an hour of the incident on the bridge. Not the first one. The second one, when they stalked onto the bridge like a pair of hunting cats, so in synch with each other it boggled the mind.

Nyota finished dealing with the shift change shortly after Chekov and Sulu left, and made good her escape. As had become something of a habit, she headed for Sickbay. Leonard hadn't been shy about recruiting her as his eyes on the bridge, wanting to at least *try* to keep Jim out of trouble if they could. They were both pretty sure that Jim knew they were tag-teaming him as best they could. Not that it would mean much when the shit inevitably hit the fan again. Jim was entirely too prone to running off with no regard to rules, regulations, common sense, or even self-preservation. Still, they had to try, and at the very least they'd be able to effect literal damage control faster if Leonard knew that shit was hitting the fan.

(_)(_)(_)

Jim was rather glad to see the back of Earth. About the only good part of being there had been seeing Pike. Jim had headed to Pike's first thing - and then spent the better part of the day on the floor, laughing his ass off at Pike's tales of life on the Board. Part of the hilarity had, yes, been finding out that some of the Admirals were having conniptions. The rest of it, though, had more to do with *how* Pike told the tale.

Pike could and did pretend to be a stone-faced humorless drone to the cadets at the Academy. Jim had found out, after the two of them had stopped yelling at each other, that Pike was actually quite a hoot. He had a fairly dry sense of humor, a fine sense of irony and the ridiculous - and was a fair mimic. Which meant that he was not above lampooning his fellow Admirals with deadly accuracy. It was damn near as good as watching a holo of the meetings or being there, to be honest. He also wasn't above warning Jim. Mostly about Komack.

"That one is going to do something exceedingly stupid and rash sooner or later." Pike had told him. "Probably sooner. He has a real hate-on for you."

"Yeah, I kinda noticed." Jim said. Komack hadn't been shy about not wanting Jim at the Academy. Which had, predictably, kicked Jim's 'I don't give a fuck' gene into high gear. "Thanks for the warning, though."

The less said about the later meeting with the Admiralty, where he'd been 'asked' to answer for his deviations from protocol and the regs regarding the negotiations with the Klingons, the better. So yeah, he was glad to see the back of Earth. The Admirals could still vid him and yell at him, but weren't likely to do so because there was no knowing, for them, if the ship was in the middle of something important and distracting the captain would result in tragedy.

Jim yanked his thoughts back to the present as he handed over command to his beta-shift replacement. Well, command of the bridge anyway. Sort of. That got ... complicated. While everyone, even Spock (at least for the Chief Science Officer part of his job) had replacements who took complete control of those jobs during the other shifts - there wasn't really any such thing as a replacement Captain or First Officer. So while both he and Spock could and did go off-shift, they were basically always on duty. The person in the center seat during Beta and Gamma shifts was basically there to yell for the Captain or First Officer if the shit hit the fan past a certain point.

By the time he and Spock finished handing over command (ish), the rest of the Alpha bridge crew had left. Jim was ... well, more worried than ever about Spock and Uhura. As far as he knew, the two of them hadn't spent time together alone since ... well, since Vulcan got blown to atoms. He wasn't about to stick his nose into the situation, of course - that way lay a shitload of trouble and pain - for him. That said, he couldn't help but worry. Spock was ... rather understandably not in a good place right now, even if he wasn't copping to it, or even showing it all that much. Having melded with Spock's older counterpart, Jim knew damn well that Spock had to be in sorry shape internally. Honestly, most of them weren't doing too terribly much better, including Uhura.

The point was that nobody was in a place where another loss would be taken well, even if this one was loss of a relationship, rather than someone's death. The only good news was that thus far, there hadn't been any drama between the two of them - or at least, none that had been seen. Gossip being what it was on a ship, such an event would have been ship-wide fodder within minutes of being observed or overheard.

"So, Spock. Got any plans for the evening?" Jim asked. He'd taken to trying to keep Spock distracted most evenings after it'd become obvious to him that Spock and Uhura were ... well, having difficulties.

"I must check in briefly with my subordinates in the Science department, as they are having difficulties with a project, but that should not take longer than an hour." Spock said.

Jim nodded. "Chess after dinner, then?" He offered.

Playing against Spock was challenging - and entertaining as hell. Spock got so *put out* about how illogically Jim played the game sometimes. And was determined to figure out Jim's style of playing. This despite the fact that Jim demonstrably *didn't* have a particular style.

Spock nodded. "That would be acceptable, yes."

And really, some part of Jim wanted to be worried about how much he looked forward to and wanted to spend time with Spock. How he tended to find excuses to do so. Not to mention his willingness to trust Spock and respect his opinion. He'd never been like that with anyone - not even Bones, and Bones was basically his best friend.

He'd learned young never to depend on anyone for anything, especially not a good opinion of himself. So there was a corner of his mind going 'what the hell?' at him every now and again. Most of the rest of him ... couldn't seem to be bothered.

Jim had a feeling that part of it was the fact that, for all Spock was half Vulcan and had been raised as one, the two of them were scarily similar in a lot of respects personality and temperament wise. Spock just hid it, while Jim let it all hang out and frequently smacked people upside the head with it. Spock, under that Vulcan mask, was a snarky, sarcastic son of a bitch who took no shit from anyone. Even, if rumors were true, from the gods-be-damned Vulcan Council. There'd been a rumor floating around the Academy that Spock had gotten read the riot act Vulcan style for preferring Starfleet Academy to the Vulcan Academy, and promptly told the Vulcan Academy folks where to shove their opinions. Jim hadn't put any credence in the rumor before having met Spock. Now, though, he was willing to believe it.

That was the sort of person Jim could like, respect, and make friends with - witness Bones, also a snarky, sarcastic son of a bitch who took no shit, and Uhura.

(_)(_)(_)

Spock glowered at the chess board later that evening, mentally reviewing each of Jim's previous moves and trying (without success, it had to be said) to divine some pattern to Jim's choices in hopes of defeating him this time.

They were very evenly matched. Who was ahead in the percentage of games won could and did change in the space of a single night, only for the other to regain supremacy the next. Spock had been rather shocked at Jim's skill with the game as compared to himself.

Spock was, after all, the more intelligent of the pair of them. While it was by a far slimmer margin than existed between Spock and other Humans, there was still a measurable gap. With that and logic on his side, he ought to win the preponderance of their games. And there was every likelihood that if it had been anyone other than Jim, Spock would indeed enjoy that higher percentage of games won.

But it was Jim, and as Spock had begun to realize, Jim's mind did not work like the majority of Human minds. While Jim knew and used a wide range of chess gambits, he almost never used them in the circumstances where they were meant to be used. And he was equally prone to making moves that had nothing to do with any chess gambit Spock had ever heard of. It made for an extremely illogical and completely unpredictable style of play that fascinated and challenged Spock and, as the Human saying went, drove him up a wall.

It did not help that Jim seemed to revel in attempting to distract Spock by other means. Jim spent the larger portion of their evenings playing chess grinning in a way that Spock had come to recognize had little to do with good humor and more to do with challenge, albeit in this case a playful one. At least according to Nyota, who had been the one who helped him identify a wider range of Human facial expressions. Jim also talked a lot, and usually pursued subjects he hoped would either shock Spock or get Spock thinking about things other than the game before him. Such verbal gambits had even succeeded, though not every time.

In his own turn, Spock had discovered that being especially pedantic and obdurate when it came to logic tended to wind Jim up to the point of incoherency, when such 'logic' was used on the right subjects. That incoherency came with a resultant drop in Jim's performance on the chessboard as he was too distracted to pay attention.

As a result, the discussions that accompanied their chess matches were frequently as challenging and unpredictable as the chess playing itself. Spock was fairly sure that Jim had looked things up to talk about on a few occasions, and Spock had been forced to resort to the computer archives after a match twice. Once had been when Jim had brought up an especially esoteric subject that was not among Spock's usual interests. The second time, Spock had been fairly sure Jim was telling a bald-faced lie, but had not had the proof to hand.

Thus far, while their discussions had gotten rather energetic - at least on Jim's behalf - there had been none of the acrimony that had marked their first meeting and all but the final minutes of the Narada's defeat. Spock was perhaps less surprised than he might otherwise have been that they seemed to mesh so well. His elder self's comments on the potential for friendship between them had forewarned Spock at least a little, as had the two week return to Earth.

Spock even suspected that Jim was aware that he was being especially pedantic and obdurate much of the time when they played. Interestingly, whether or not Jim was aware, he seemed to relish the challenge of budging Spock from his stance on whatever subject he was being pedantic and obdurate about rather than becoming angry or annoyed.

Finding no pattern, Spock eyed the layout of the pieces and began the challenging task of deciding which was the most logical move to make, in the face of Jim's highly illogical playing style. There were several potential openings on the board that either of them could take advantage of. Unfortunately, all such places were but a move, two at most, from being overtaken by both sides. This made them rather dangerous places to put a piece.

And if there was any consistent fact about Jim's playing, it was that he favored bold, near-suicidal moves. So the question became which space would Jim be likeliest to go for, and which of his own pieces would be the best to get into range of that space, without weakening his own defenses unduly?

Or, perchance, was he being too logical? Might he not get further by doing something Jim could not predict? Spock eyed the board again. There were pieces of his near enough the empty areas to be of use in defending them already. Mayhap adding another was not the best move. Then Spock spotted a possibility in a corner of the middle level. If he brought one of his pawns to that spot, it would be in a position to threaten more powerful pieces. If Jim ignored the move, Spock might be able to take at least one piece before the pawn was captured. If Jim acted on the move, Spock would lose the pawn, but it might leave him an opening elsewhere. It was not the most logical move to make, either.

Spock moved the pawn.