The Captain paced around the briefing room table slowly as everyone else filed out into the corridor. Chekov had already retaken his seat and was sitting dutifully silent with his hands folded in his lap. Hazel eyes glanced at him, but moved on quickly as the very sight of him was painful to Kirk.
They had discussed before what having a Russian Soul entailed. The ever-present, overpowering knowledge that one had done something wrong, deserved punishment, and deserved to suffer reached beyond the comprehension of most non-Russians. Perhaps, Kirk thought, because most never came to believe the age-old adage that no Terrans knew how to suffer like Russians.
The Captain could not imagine what it would be like to be living in the same timeframe as his boyhood self. He, too, had been precocious, but young Dimitri seemed always an energetic step ahead of the world. Chekov had accepted responsibility for him without hesitation. Despite his boundless charm and friendliness, the Navigator was fiercely private and very few people knew anything of substance about him. The boy's presence on board must have been fraught with torture for the man and Kirk paled at the memory of Dimitri's lunchtime performance--in an adorable little sailor uniform, no less.
The Captain considered that the Navigator had tried to deal with the child's presence as best he could for two days--studying Einstein and Goebel, and struggling with the consequences of the time glitch mentally on his own. Chekov was also faced with his grandfather's visit, a relationship Kirk saw as exceptionally stressful for good reason. Now at least two--possibly three--children confronted him as well: children he recognized somehow without hesitation. The young man was clearly suffering in ways incomprehensible to someone not enduring the situation themselves.
Kirk sat down on the edge of the table, pulling his thigh up to rest his forearm on it as he leaned toward the Navigator. He grinned, hazel eyes sparkling charmingly. "Chekov, did your Godfather really change your name to Pavel?" Although they were friendly toward each other, they were not friends per se. The Captain sensed that a tenuous, hazy line seemed to have been crossed and felt comfortable edging more into the young man's personal space. It clearly spoke to how Dimitri's visit had already affected the Navigator's life. Besides, if he was wrong Chekov was skilled at avoiding such unwanted questions.
The younger man glanced down at his hands and smiled a secretive, conspiratorial cock-eyed grin. "Sergie didn't do anything they hadn't agreed on," he answered without hesitation, without indication he minded the question. "It's bad luck to name a baby before birth, my mother thought the name was pretentious anyway, and when I was born…well, Pavel it was."
Somehow, Kirk considered, the man always seemed to leave something out of his stories--truth or fiction. "The Admiral doesn't still insist on calling you Dimitri?"
The Navigator chortled, raising warm brown eyes to his Captain. "Oh, yes, he does, but it was never out of respect for my father. It's the opposite. Andrieivich means son of Andrie and Pavel means 'little one': when I was born they decided I was just like my father." Chekov shrugged. "You see, either name acknowledges my father."
Kirk began, but stopped himself from inquiring further. Still, he felt himself gripped by the human need for gossip anyway. Chekov rewarded him with an easy smile and a warm laugh.
"It's control, Sir," he answered the Captain's unasked question. "My mother fought him about her life until she finally agreed to marry a fine Starfleet Officer he had chosen for her." He shrugged, a sly smile tugging at his lips as his dark eyes gleamed brilliantly. "It wasn't my father.
"Admiral Leonov cannot handle not being in control, Sir. He gets stubborn, and he gets ugly."
The Captain grinned. "I take it your mother's first marriage didn't last long?" he asked.
Chekov coughed, ducking his head to stare at the table. He coughed again. Kirk twisted his head curiously to peer at the young man and found that his wild, cock-eyed grin had completely overtaken his face. His body was trembling with laughter.
When he raised up his wide brown eyes to gaze at the Captain through his long, curled lashes, the older man realized Chekov had be trying to decide how much to share with him. "About two hours," was the Navigator's giggled response after he made that decision. "My father kidnapped her from the reception.
"The Admiral has not spoken to her since. In fact," the young man grinned, winking at Kirk. "I'm not sure my parents ever actually got married. I think she may still be legally married to Commodore..." he stopped suddenly at that, dropping into uncomfortable silence as he straightened stiffly.
The Captain straightened himself, chuckling with a smirk at Chekov's wickedly amused thought. One of the few things well known about the Navigator was that his parents had been contentedly married for eons. Unusual enough, the idea that they may have been simply having a torrid affair instead was ridiculously whimsical. Kirk decided that his Navigator probably was just like his father: after all, he could certainly picture Chekov kidnapping a bride from her own wedding.
"The Admiral is the only one that calls you Dimitri, I take it?"
The young man shrugged, smiling sheepishly as color flushed into his face. "No," he admitted. "I'm afraid not. Back home they call me Dimitri when they think I'm getting a little too full of myself. Russian peasants are good at making sure no one gets uppity."
Kirk smiled, making note of the practice for future reference. "Can I ask you something?" he continued thoughtfully. "I don't think I've ever met anyone who enjoys music as much as you. You're at every sing-along, every performance, every practice with Uhura as she stages the variety shows: you are certainly the only person in existence that enjoys Kevin Riley's singing."
Chekov grinned cheerfully with abandon. "He sings with such enthusiasm, Sir."
"Yes, off-key," Kirk professed with a grin as well. "Uhura marveled that Dimitri has perfect pitch and we all saw he's quite the talented performer. And yet, given all that--you never join in: not even in the sing-alongs in the rec rooms. Why not?"
The Navigator pulled his hands onto the table and studied the nails a long minute, brushing his thumbs along the top of them and poking at their lengths. "Puberty," he finally muttered.
Kirk shoulders dropped slightly in sympathy. "Yes, I've heard that some of the finest male sopranos went flat when their voices changed."
"Choirs used to emasculate boys to preserve their voices in the 17th and 18th centuries."
Kirk winced involuntarily, but the younger man continued without seeming to notice.
"I was never a soprano anyway," Chekov muttered again. "I was an alto as a child."
Silently, the Captain watched as the Navigator continued to examine his hands. He had moved from inspecting his nails and was now scrutinizing his fingers and the rest of his hands. It occurred to Kirk that this was something the young man did when bored at the Navigation Console.
A Captain of a constitution class ship came to know the work habits of his helm team perhaps better than any other of his crew: they were in his full view whenever he was in the command chair. Chekov's ability to become quickly bored had only inspired his creativity. Kirk once thought him to be the fastest navigator in existence and had instead humorously found the man spent great deals of time pre-plotting possible courses. The way to Planet Disney could always be found readily available on Chekov's shifts.
Spock gave him minor projects to work on between navigation duties. Not so strange to the Captain now, Chekov had been caught by the Science Officer silently playing the piano on the console as well. He also spent time inspecting his hands leisurely, as Kirk watched him do now.
Pressured by something inside to stay busy, to always be doing something, McCoy was always concerned about the amount of sleep the young man managed to get. He had a high metabolism and the Russian Navy had trained him not to sleep more than four hours at a time. James Kirk could not imagine trying to keep track of an even higher-energy eight year old of this description.
Despite purposefully having spent little time with Dimitri, the Captain realized he had come to know Chekov better because of him.
"Sulu's right," Kirk commented. "You're a horrible liar."
Chekov glanced up sharply at his commanding officer, swallowing hard as he straightened. Guilt traced over his face.
"Mr. Chekov, look me in the eye and say 'I don't sing any longer because my voice went flat when it changed.'"
The Navigator glanced away, his face coloring. "I knew Dimitri would destroy my life," he muttered.
"So why don't you sing?"
"I just don't sing in public," Chekov answered, turning back to meet Kirk's gaze. "I like seeing other people enjoy themselves. Besides, I have a lot of enthusiasm."
"Ah," the Captain smiled. "The 'Hell's afraid I'll take over' syndrome." At the Navigator's frown, he chuckled. "It means you're a ham."
The sparkle in the young man's eyes told Kirk he knew what had been meant all along. Chekov had a feigned ignorance at times that boggled the mind.
"I have to give Sulu a place to get away from my singing in the shower," he quipped. "Besides," he added quietly. "I never liked performing."
Kirk's soft chuckle was more of a sigh this time and he scratched absently at his knee. His lips were pursed when he raised hazel eyes back to meet Chekov's wide brown ones. Contacting new races, fighting old enemies, facing space anomalies: Starfleet Academy spent mind-numbing hours training its command candidates to deal with these eventualities. They certainly taught their cadets the rigors of documentation, as well, the Captain thought grimly.
The most intricate of diplomatic skills were only skimmed over however, Kirk considered. Oh, yes, they taught them personnel courses and supervision courses and a myriad of psychology theories that seemed oppressive and useless at the time. Nothing in actuality could prepare a commander for the skills needed to tread the fine line between Captain and fellow human being with each unique individual he was responsible for. It was different for each of them.
"Pavel," he intoned evenly, "You well know that you're a very promising young officer, but you have to remember the ability to command relies on many factors. You are facing a great deal of stress and adversity with everything bearing down on you at the moment. Your relationship with your Grandfather alone..."
"Captain," the man said pleasantly. "You're basing your information on my relationship with him fourteen years ago."
"Yes, well," Kirk nodded. "He is here now, however, and this...incarnation of him...disagrees openly and loudly with your opinion of your father," the Captain maintained earnestly. "I know how you feel about your father and it's clearly going to be difficult for you to control yourself. I don't know how you did it throughout the briefing." In fact, he was impressed by the Ensign's composure during the briefing. Despite guarding his privacy, nearly everyone knew that Chekov's father held hero status to him. A notion common among human boys, the Navigator had somehow made it through the war of adolescence that created men with that opinion still intact.
"The Chekov temper," Kirk reminded him.
"Leonov temper," the young man corrected quickly. "My father doesn't have a temper."
The Captain had obviously assumed otherwise. Having met Mikhail Leonov, however, he could now see that Chekov's hot temper may well come from his mother's side of the family.
"I assure you, Sir, that you need not worry about my behavior, Captain. I will continue to conduct myself with the discipline and decorum expected of a Starfleet officer," he maintained. "My father is an utterly peaceful man and to defend his honor with any type of violence would violate who he is," the Navigator explained patiently. "He would be mortified."
Still, the Captain could hear in the tone of his voice that part of the Navigator's words were somewhat to convince himself. "You've said your father works for the government," he commented after a moment, intrigued. "The Admiral said…"
"He's addled?" the Navigator asked with a knowing smile. "He doesn't grasp the vision that's my father's work."
Chuckling, the Captain winced with embarrassment. "He said your father rewrites fairy tales," the older man confessed.
Chekov nodded with a slight shrug. "Not quite. He's a cultural anthropologist--a historian."
Why does that come as a surprise? Kirk wondered.
"He's actually a folklorist by specialty," the Ensign was continuing. "Among other things he collects, preserves and teaches folk culture. That includes folk songs, folk dances and..."
"Fairy tales," Kirk concluded in understanding. "I can see how a career officer might not understand how such work could be valuable to someone in deep space."
Something sparked in the depths of the Ensign's dark eyes and he smirked cryptically. "You'd be surprised, Sir."
"I explore deep space, Ensign: nothing surprises me." The Captain slapped his thigh lightly and said knowingly: "I am gaining a deeper respect for your ability to refocus people," he said when he realized how far off topic they had wandered.
Chekov raised his deep brown eyes to meet the hazel ones regarding him without much charity. The Navigator outright squirmed to take a more upright position in the chair.
"I was saying that successful commander has to have a great many different skills," the Captain repeated. "You are undergoing an enormous amount of stress and it only promises to get worse.
"You won't make it anywhere near to a command unless you make an active effort now to change the way you conduct your daily life," Kirk said.
Chekov didn't say anything, didn't move. He just stared up at his Captain with his wide, unblinking brown eyes in unnerving rapt attention.
Kirk smiled slightly, trying to ease the building tension. He wished he were as apt at the skill as his Navigator was. "You've made close friends with Sulu since you arrived, and have other friends of varying levels, which I'm glad to see. You keep yourself exceptionally busy, but you haven't seemed to develop even one activity that I can see which is a relief valve for your stress. Command is fraught with stress and you have to develop inherent ways to channel it--to let go of the pent up energy that stress inflicts on the human body.
"You won't survive a career in Starfleet pushing yourself the way you do. Not all your activities have to be meaningful or competitive, Pavel. Go to the gym for a good workout, join in our poker game: something. Anything."
"Am I failing to meet Starfleet physical requirements, Sir?" the Navigator asked with genuine concern.
"No, no," Kirk replied instantly. The last thing he wanted was for the man to be worried of non-existent failures. It was true that Chekov didn't work out, but he did swim and the few times Kirk had run across him at the pool he had been surprised to see that the young man's uniform concealed a body that was both firm and well-defined. The Captain didn't know how he accomplished it, but the Navigator definitely had a trained athlete's body. As with all written Starfleet regulations, Chekov apparently saw to it that he was well qualified for the physical requirements.
"But you are ordering me to begin working out, Sir?" Chekov asked stiffly.
Heavens, no, the Captain thought. The enthusiasm the young man would surely embrace his task with would make him eligible for body-sculpting competitions. Kirk sighed. "I'm not ordering anything, I'm just giving advice. The gym is one of my solutions, you'll have to find your own. You are going to have to find ways to deal with stress," he repeated earnestly. "Or you're going to burn out: and no one here wants to see that happen."
"Yes, Sir," he said stiffly again. "Thank you, Sir."
Kirk stood up, trying not to let the flare of anger he suddenly felt actually register. Chekov's brown eyes remained impassive and respectful and his expected silence never wavered. Dimitri had changed the man's life, because the Captain now wondered what exactly the ever-polite Navigator was actually thinking. It was something that never would have occurred to him before the Admiral's visit.
He clasped his hands behind his back. Military decorum never failing him, Chekov stood as soon as his Captain did and fixed his gaze at a distant point as expected.
"On a final note, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said tightly when he found his rational voice. "No commander can personally keep track of all aspects of his ship, no matter how skilled they are. That's why the officers that serve under them are so important: they are the commander's eyes and ears."
"Yes, Sir," Chekov commented flatly when the Captain paused. The expected and pat response only irritated Kirk, however.
He intentionally pushed the irritation aside before he spoke again. "I brushed you aside when you came to me with your concerns. I was wrong," Kirk stated bluntly. "And I apologize. A commander should always make time for his officers."
The Navigator stood frozen, mute: his glassy brown eyes locked on some vague point in the distance. The Captain nearly smiled, knowing the young man's silence meant that he agreed with Kirk's assessment. To say so aloud would reflect poorly on his Captain, however, and that was not something that was in Chekov's nature.
Kirk himself had been trying to understand the action so uncharacteristic of the person he knew he was. Did he thrust Chekov away because he couldn't do the same to the Russian Admiral? Worse--could it have been because the Navigator was the most junior of the command team: would Kirk have done the same to Spock or Scotty at that point in time?
Internal guilt at this unacceptable possibility had delayed the Captain's effort to remedy his actions, and he knew it. His Chief Navigator's youth may have made him impulsive, but his intense mind and commitment to duty was well focused.
"A person who attains a command brings to that position all their failings as well as all their gifts. Do you understand that?" Kirk asked, leaning in so he could catch Chekov's gaze.
"Yes, Sir."
"Good," the Captain acknowledged. "Than you understand they may get tired, sick, or just distracted. An officer doesn't have the privilege of noticing their commander's mood when it comes to ship's business."
He took a deliberate step forward then, physically standing so close to the young man that he could feel the young man's breath on his neck. Russian personal space hovered at only six inches, but as an American, Kirk's zone of comfort settled at nearly a meter and it was a significance he saw was not lost on Chekov.
"Ensign, if you ever let information that may be important to this ship escape my notice again--for whatever reason," the Captain said tightly, "I'll court-martial you."