The lights were dimmed in Chekov's cabin and Sulu was sitting motionless at the desk, hands folded in his lap, when the Navigator entered. The younger man stopped, his body tensing involuntarily. He rubbed the computer tape in his hand with his fingers like it was a worry stone. He instantly knew that it was far more than the lights that were dim in the room.
"Where is he?"
"Sleeping," the Helmsman said tightly.
Chekov clenched the tape then, purposely making it bite into his hand. "Was he much trouble?"
The older man stood slowly, without any change in his stony expression. "No," he bit out. "He was asleep when I got here."
At least Dimitri knew how to follow direct orders, the Navigator thought with relief. Although he knew that wasn't it. By nine, the Navy's four hour shifts had already been indelibly programmed into his body. Chekov still could sleep no more than four hours at a time. While he did so at night, his habit of prowling the ship the rest of the time Alpha crew were asleep kept the rumors of him being some sort of ghoul persistent.
The other two to three hours of rejuvenation his body required he caught during breaks and after his duty shifts. He could instantly put himself to sleep and wake at pre-set will. With a body efficient at signaling him when its basic systems were running down, he realized now that it was screaming at him of the need to sleep. He sighed wearily.
"Look," he said, addressing the immediate problem in a rush. "I'm sorry for sticking you with baby-sitting. Thanks for doing it."
Sulu said nothing in return: just stood, black eyes fixed on him, unblinking.
He knew the Chief Helmsman as well as any human could know another. Assigned as his mentor at the Academy, fate's twist had later seen him posted on the same ship as the older man. Their respective positions found them sharing a bathroom with adjoining cabins. Whether fate smiled upon them or was ill tempered in these arrangements was open to debate at any given moment.
Service in the military had made friends between the strangest combinations of fellows wherever there had ever been a service. While both men had a single minded enthusiasm and gusto in living, a boundless zeal in grasping each moment that passed, the similarity in their personalities ended there. The younger man's intense Russian soul filled him with enthusiastic, demonstrative emotions that he restrained with effort. He had a few, close friends and when something interested him he ground the very soul out of it. The older man, while American for countless generations, came from a family that still held to their Japanese heritage of quiet honor and restraint. The depth of a bow is how they expressed their feelings toward one another. He had countless friends and was known to skip from one hobby to another with breakneck speed.
While Chekov's native language had no word for privacy, Sulu's had no word for kiss.
Despite all this, they had found a self-declared brother in each other: perhaps the universe's declaration that the concept of ying and yang existed everywhere. So when there was something that didn't balance, they knew it immediately.
"What's the matter?" the Navigator asked bluntly.
"Let's just say it was an illuminating experience," Sulu sneered tonelessly into the dim room.
Chekov shook his head and gestured in futility. "I'm not telepathic," he complained irritably.
The Helmsman stared at him another moment, then jerked his head toward the desk where the boy's boots and hat sat. "Real leather boots," he commented.
"Uniform issue for every sailor," the Navigator acknowledged.
"These are custom made," Sulu persisted.
Chekov eyes darted over at the desk, the hair on the back of his neck prickling in instinctive warning. Realizing why, every cell in his body came to a still. "Well, they would have to be," he answered hollowly without looking away from the hat resting there. "It's not as though there are hundreds of cabin boys enlisted now, is it?"
"Strange point," Sulu observed dryly, cocking his head at the younger man self-righteously. "I thought the Admiral doesn't allow cabin boys in N.I.R.N."
The acronym for the New Imperial Russian Navy brought a sharp glance from Chekov, who knew the Commander in Chief of the Navy was disgruntled at the ever-growing use of it. The navy often attracted society's misfits who finally found a place in the tight-knit camaraderie of the ships' crews. Occasionally, it had even become a rehabilitation solution for Earth's courts. They were brilliant sailors, but they weren't necessarily the kind of men you wanted influencing the young. "No. The Admiral doesn't feel it's an appropriate place for children," he replied.
The Helmsman snatched the small hat off the desk then and shoved it toward his younger friend in a threatening gesture.
Chekov stared at the belyanska and his mind froze into a vast wasteland. Sulu had picked up quite a bit of spoken Russian from him: enough to get the man in trouble in just about any situation. His knowledge of the written language was almost non-existent, however. Only a handful of sight words—such as Chekov's name—did the Helmsman recognize.
The black ribbon around the hat's brim had the name of the ship the boy served on emblazoned on it in gold, as was customary. Sulu knew the word well.
"So, what?" the Navigator asked thinly, unable to come up with anything better. "It's not like they keep me informed of personnel changes." In fact, they did. He knew whenever anything changed aboard his old ship, but he wasn't admitting that now. He was just grateful the boy's name wasn't written inside the hat. He remembered specifically the very day he got his first hat with his name in it: it had immediately made him feel grown up. No longer could everyone automatically know which hat was his just by the size.
The sailors had told him it just meant he was getting a fat head.
Chekov kneaded the computer tape in his left hand again. It was getting damp with his sweat. "Hikaru," he spat out with irritation. "I don't know what your problem is exactly, but I've had a really bad day and I've got to go back to another briefing: so it only promises to get worse. I'm not in the mood for this. I'm sorry for sticking you with Dimitri and I'll get Uhura or Chapel to take over if you want me to."
"Well, don't expect me to feel sorry for you," Sulu spat out, throwing the hat back on the desk and knocking the boots over. "I have not one bit of sympathy for your problems. Why don't you just go sulk and wallow in your misery: it's what you're best at, after all, isn't it?"
The vileness dripping off the Helmsman's tone hit the younger man in the chest as though he'd been pounded by the man's fist. "Listen," he bit out with a gesture of defense. "I don't know what your problem is, but if you want a fight, fine: just not now. We can have the all-time blow out fight of the century tomorrow morning: just not now. Before breakfast, after breakfast: your pick. Topic: your pick. Just not now!"
"Oh, fine," Sulu sneered, curling up his lip. "That's the way you are: you always have to be in control. Everything has to be your way. You're such a spoiled brat!"
Chekov blinked hard, swallowing, but the older man stopped as he turned to move away. They stood in silence a long moment.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean that," the Helmsman said quietly.
That he was spoiled Chekov was the first to admit, but calling the Russian a brat was igniting an emotional button of epic proportions. Sulu knew that: and Chekov knew his friend wouldn't purposely attack him on such a basic level.
"Why are you so upset, Hikaru?" he asked, and then repeated: "What has you so upset?"
The older man made no movement for a long while. Finally, he drew a tremulous breath and turned, sauntering over to face Chekov directly. He stared at him hard before speaking.
"You want the Japanese version?" he asked, his tone as hard as his dark eyes. With two fingers, he jabbed the Navigator's chest repeatedly as he spoke. "YOU dishonored our friendship."
"What?" The younger man knocked Sulu's hand away and nursed the sore spot on his chest. "What are you talking about?"
"Do you need the Russian version?"
"Apparently so," Chekov blurted out indignantly.
Sulu lapsed into silence again, staring motionlessly at the other man. Chekov saw turmoil in not only the dark eyes that faced him but in the subtle changes in the face he knew so well. The Russian couldn't spend eight hours nearly every day sitting next to someone without learning every nuance of their countenance.
Every relationship involved some amount of compromise, of jostling to meet somewhere in the middle where both were comfortable. This was a testament of their friendship. The passionately emotional Russian held in check his need to be wildly demonstrative with his closest friend: especially on the ship. With difficulty, he restrained from expressing his feelings as any sane Russian man would. Chekov didn't hug Sulu, didn't kiss him on the cheeks, didn't even talk about how he felt–except in Russia where it was downright expected.
As for the restrained Japanese-American...well, he put up with Chekov's emotional Russian culture when necessary. To actually move any closer to expressing how he felt took more effort than was reasonable to expect of anyone.
"You hurt me," Sulu said, his voice hoarse with difficultly. "You hurt me."
The younger man shook his head vigorously, complete ignorance and concern shining in his eyes. "What on Earth did I do?"
Sulu brushed his hand through his hair before answering with at sigh. "You know even in a perfect family like yours there are secrets," was what he drew out tonelessly, cryptically.
"You're out of your mind," Chekov said indignantly.
"Secrets," the Helmsman insisted, strolling away now. "Even in your family. At least one, anyway. Do you know what I was worried about the first time you brought me home?"
"Yes: that I was going to make a pass at you."
Sulu hesitated, turning back to eye the Navigator. "Well, yes," he agreed. The topic hadn't come up and he'd honestly had more than a few suspicions of the man's motives for the invitation.
"Sorry to disappoint you," Chekov said easily.
"Very funny," the older man rasped. "The entire village threw a huge party when we got home," he added.
"It's the tradition whenever anyone who left returns."
"You drank a lot," Sulu commented.
"You have noticed that I'm Russian?" the Navigator asked, wide eyes innocent.
At that moment another voice interrupted their conversation. Chekov frowned and eyed the bedroom. The chill that began to creep through him again took his breath.
The Helmsman seemed self-satisfied for some reason. "I didn't know if your family knew that you talk in your sleep when you've had too much to drink," he explained.
"Now why would that be a secret? And why would it worry you?"
It didn't happen often. He actually hated getting drunk. Kirk thought he hated the feeling of being out of control, but it was the day after he actually despised. He had no patience for being sick. He controlled his true drunkenness with a ferocity and Sulu knew Chekov's high tolerance for alcohol wasn't the only way he maintained control in rec room parties. The secretive man realized early the advantages to always drinking a clear, odorless liquid: humans couldn't tell if a glass actually had vodka in it—or water.
The boy's voice came out of the bedroom again, sleep-muttered words that edged into the base of Chekov's skull. He took careful steps toward his friend.
"Exactly how much did you give him to drink?" Sulu asked.
Between Kirk and Sulu, the pizza and beer was entirely a bad idea, the Navigator considered belatedly. "Not enough to worry about," he replied. Chekov wished that even he agreed with himself.
Sulu regarded him darkly. "Do you realize that while living with you at the Academy I did research on people who talk in their sleep?"
Chekov straightened indignantly at the personal intrusion. "You did research on me?"
"Yes," the Helmsman answered without apology. "There are actually two different types of sleep talkers."
"Oh, really," came the droll reply.
Sulu folded his arms across his chest with superiority and resettled his back against the room divider. "Yes," he said again. "People who are asleep either talk gibberish, or in their native language.
"You don't talk gibberish," the Helmsman commented.
"Fascinating," the Navigator sighed, regarding the man dimly.
The boy's voice interrupted them again. It was impossible to ignore and Chekov turned his head robotically to stare at Dimitri's motionless legs, the only thing visible from where they stood.
"Not gibberish," he heard Sulu say from somewhere in the distance. "The brain's higher language functions are shut down when you sleep, so it doesn't translate."
And Dimitri spoke again.
Chekov's wide eyes darkened and his breath began coming hard and fast: rushing through him with a flood of adrenaline and heat.
"Family secrets," Sulu reminded his younger friend with tightly controlled anger and outright gloating. "Did you actually think that I wouldn't recognize a little Russian cabin boy from your ship who wants to join Starfleet and who happens to talk in his sleep when he drinks?"
Sulu stopped, glaring at Chekov. "Who talks in his sleep, but not in Russian?"
Chekov's feet and legs were stone: cemented into the deck no matter how desperately he willed them to move.
Dimitri spoke again and his familiar voice jarred the Navigator's body loose. He rushed past the older man, through the bedroom, and into the safety of their shared bathroom. The lights sprang up automatically, which irritated him to no end.
Sitting down on the only seat available, he let his head fall and clenched his hands between his knees. He made no effort to chase away the chill or control his racing pulse. He knew his solitude would be short-lived.
When he came in, Sulu stood in the doorway without speaking for a moment. "That's not how that seat was meant to be used," he commented finally.
"Even I don't make jokes that bad," the Navigator rasped without looking up.
"Oh, I think that could be debated," the older man replied as he moved into the room. He folded himself down on the floor directly opposite his younger friend, fixing his position so little effort was needed to make eye contact with the man's downcast gaze.
"Malyenki," Sulu intoned. "You picked up so many languages traveling as a child, you should be glad you didn't end up with Chinese as the language you think in."
"I don't know any of the Chinese language tree," he replied soberly. "What I do know are mostly Slavic dialects."
The Helmsman eyed him. It was like Chekov to minimize his talents. "That language isn't Slavic, Pasha. It's from the Basque language tree."
Chekov blinked and made the first effort to raise wide, soulful eyes to the other man. "How would you know that?" he asked.
He received a shrug as his reply. "Your father told me."
The Navigator's eyes darkened. "I don't want to talk about it," he bit out.
Sulu nodded in understanding.
"Pavel, do you think the stories your father tells about your childhood are true?" the Helmsman asked after a moment.
"I'm sorry," the younger man snarled. "I didn't realize this had been declared 'annoy Chekov day'." Although the way the day had been going, he should have suspected.
"I think the stories are true," Sulu continued easily, ignoring his friend's sarcasm.
Chekov straightened then, screwing up his face in distaste as he leaned his back against the wall. "Hikaru, you know my father has a talent for spinning yarns: and I'm his favorite topic."
The older man nodded somberly. "He does have an eloquence for words," he agreed fondly. A smile skittered over Sulu's face and his dark eyes sparkled. "My favorite is how he used to talk to you every night while your mother was pregnant and sleeping. I can picture him laying there, chatting away for hours."
"It's no wonder I got used to no sleep," the Navigator muttered, but his eyes drifted away from his friend's. He still kept with him tapes of his father's fairy tales so he could hear the familiar stories–and the man's voice.
Sulu smiled softly, knowing exactly what the younger man was thinking. "You've always had a special bond with your father, Malyenki," he commented with emotion.
"His doing, not mine."
Eyes widening, the Helmsman eyed his friend with amusement. Why the Navigator felt he could lie to Sulu and get away with it was always beyond his understanding. "Your mother says you were born early because you couldn't wait to meet him," he said after a moment.
"It was the only way I figured I could shut him up," Chekov snarled in response.
Sulu laughed aloud, even though he already knew the response he was going to get. He had purposely set up a well-known joke in the Chekov family. "Pavel, when you're with your father the two of you are in your own world. It's like you share the same soul."
Chekov fixed on him, dark eyes unreadable. He scowled. "Good Lord, he's gotten to you, too."
The Helmsman ignored him. Instead, he observed: "You're not jealous of my relationship with your father because you've got the kind of bond with him nothing can ever touch."
The Navigator didn't answer. Sulu cocked his head and eyed him. "You both have an Old Soul," he stated.
Chekov froze. Wide eyes met the older mans: dark and depthless with an openness that was raw. He blinked, but the ancient darkness in the eyes didn't change. There was little else that cold have proven Sulu's point. "McCoy was right," the Navigator said in perfect, unaccented English. "You're spending too much time with Russians."
"Your eyes: it's deep in your eyes, Malyenki," was Sulu's calm reply, ignoring him again. "You've learned to hide it, but it's there. Something old, older than you—as old as history itself."
The Navigator glanced away uncomfortably, breaking contact with even his closest friend. He shook his head and chewed on his lip dismally. How often he thought he'd escaped the babbling of Russia's Old Ritualists. "Go away."
"Listen," Sulu persisted, shaking his head and gesturing fitfully. "I haven't figured out the whole 'everyone has a soul that goes to heaven or hell' thing, but I do know the Russian's are right when they say certain individuals are born with Old Souls: souls that intrinsically carry the emotional memory of their people. You can see it in their eyes.
"Both you and your father have Old Souls, Pavel. You don't just know about the 900 day blockade of Leningrad or the battle of Stalingrad, you can remember what it was like to be there: you FEEL it.
"It's not an original concept: the Russian's just perfected it," the Helmsman asserted. "Cultural anthropologists elsewhere call it ancestral memory. It's supposed to be why even the most apathetic Americans have a nearly violent reaction to the concept of freedom: their country's foundation is in their cells."
"That's it. You're not going home with me anymore," Chekov snarled thickly. "And you're not writing to my father anymore."
Sulu laughed out loud despite himself. Chekov was dutifully responsible about keeping in touch with people. The Helmsman was not nearly so. When he had lapsed some months past he'd received a package from Andrie Chekov. It contained paper and pens, with a note saying Sulu had obviously ran out.
A thunderous, gentle admonition: it was typically Andrie Chekov.
The Navigator was desperately fighting back a grin.
"Look," Sulu blurted out. "When you and your father are together, Pavel, you don't speak Russian."
Chekov stopped grinning. "Wha...?"
The Helmsman shot up a finger, wagging it at the younger man to stop his instantaneous response. "I've stayed at your house. Whether you're sitting out under the stars together, lying in the oven...even stopping in his office for a book: if you're alone, you don't speak Russian to each other. You slip out of it instantly, unknowingly.
"What language did your father talk to you in on those nights before you were born?" he asked suddenly. "What language did your father speak in his home as a child?"
The younger man leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and studying the Helmsman as he considered the question. His father was not born in the State of Russia: he was not ethnically Russian. "Georgian. He's Georgian: they would have spoke Georgian at home even after they moved into Russia," he concluded out loud with a note of surprise in his voice. He found it odd that the idea had never occurred to him.
"Pavel, it's not a secret. It's just that the family accepts it like it's...twinspeak. It's your own private language. No one else in the house speaks Georgian: not even your mother. The Georgian language is part of your fundamental connection to him.
"The point," Sulu contended, "Is that you're not thinking in Georgian when you sleep." He stretched out his legs before him in a show of great luxury and he grinned broadly. "Malyenki, you're still talking to your father at night."
The Navigator sat motionless, staring at his older friend with eyes so brilliant they were mesmerizing. He chewed on his lower lip with innocent charm. "The central government spent centuries trying to eradicate every language but Russian," he mused out loud with a flourishing gesture. "The Georgians were particularly fierce in their resistence. It makes sense I'd identify with them: I can be a little stubborn"
"Really, I hadn't noticed," Sulu observed with an affectionate smirk. His dark eyes held his friends in silence. "Pavel, why didn't you tell me? For two days you've been going through this alone. I could have helped: what do you think friends are for?"
Chekov stared at the Helmsman, unresponsive. Of course he was right, but the option hadn't even occurred to him the younger man.
"I thought we were past this," the older man finally said. "You don't have to keep ME out. Do you understand that's what hurts?"
The Navigator kneaded the tape that was still in his hand. It was true. In the culture that had come down to them, traditional Russians were taught to be inherently distrustful of others and, more than most, Pavel's life had reinforced this. In his family's travels he'd found people often acted the way they did only to ingratiate themselves with the adults around him. Instinctively, he had learned to study people with an innate skill and carefully guarded how close he allowed them to come.
"Malyenki," the Helmsman observed quietly. "I thought you trusted me."
Chekov pulled his shoulders up in a miserable shrug. "I'm sorry, Koshka. I couldn't get past the thought of telling the Captain and getting rid of them."
The Helmsman screwed up his face, narrowing his eyes and glaring at his friend. It was bad enough Andrie had given him the nickname, but his friend knew better to drag it back aboard the ship. "I swear, if Uhura ever hears you call me that, I'll kill you. Slowly."
The younger man pouted, eyes of liquid chocolate gazing up at the Helmsman through long lashes.
Sulu glanced away, shifting his jaw fiercely. After a moment he glanced back darkly. "You're not eight and I'm not female. Don't make me strangle you."
A brilliant, crooked grin flashed across the younger man's face. He shrugged. "It's always worth a shot."
Shifting his legs, the older man shook his head. "This must be difficult. Your grandfather doesn't seem to like you much."
Chekov's smile faded, but didn't disappear. The brown eyes saddened genuinely. "He does. He loves me. Only when I was young..." he hesitated. Sulu saw a calculation filtering subtly in the depths of the man's dark eyes. He was used to it by now and it no longer annoyed him. In fact, it amused him. He waited to be determined as trustworthy once again.
"I remind him of my father," the Navigator explained. "Dedushka feels like he has already had one person he loves stolen away by him: he's afraid to take the chance of losing another. He knows I'm going to end up working for Andrie Chekov."
Sulu chuckled. "He may love you, but he obviously doesn't know you."
"I don't make it easy."
"It's part of your charm," the Helmsman observed. It didn't come as a surprise that Chekov hadn't thought of reaching out to anyone but the Captain for help. His stubborn independence was something the young Russian would be battling his entire career. Truth be told, Sulu knew the Navigator hadn't even begun to understand how his strong-minded determination and wariness of others squirreled its way through his everyday life. Chekov routinely avoided advances from women, but he invariably broke up with the passive women he dated from boredom. He would never be content romantically until he found someone that would challenge both his wit and fiery stubborn streak.
Why his mind had wandered onto such a strange road baffled Sulu. "You need a babysitter while you figure out how to send Dimitri back?" he asked.
Chekov nodded, but his eyes were furtive.
"What else is going on?" the Helmsman asked knowingly.
The Navigator didn't respond immediately. Sulu was, in fact, as close as he hoped a brother could have been and he allowed himself to be grateful the man was part of his everyday life. He understood his younger friend on a basic level.
"I'm dead," Chekov finally said.
Sulu stared at him. "Really," he pronounced. "I must say you're quite animated for a corpse."
"I mean I'm going to die," the Navigator responded with irritation, twisting the tape in his fingers furiously.
"Pavel, we're all going to die."
"Soon."
The Helmsman wanted to say he was ready to help the morose Russian on his way, but resisted. He sighed instead. "And what portents this doom today?"
Chekov held up the computer tape. "I may have chose a career in space, but I am quite rooted in my traditional culture: an obsolete person even."
Sulu raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. The Enterprise's Chief Navigator was by far the most conservative man he'd ever met. Chekov's idealistic, noble nature often struck the Helmsman as appropriate for one of King Arthur's knights. "No!"
"I'm an only child: an only son," the younger man asserted. "Viktor Chekov has no sons either and it's still important to me that my family endures. Do you understand that, Hikaru? I wanted to work in space but I don't want a wife here. I want a family in Russia where my parents can help raise grandchildren in my culture: as our people always have."
"And you can pop in every year or two to furnish more kids," Sulu quipped lightheartedly. What he thought was that the younger man spent far too much time considering the larger questions in life.
"I'm serious," the Navigator retorted, petulant like anyone being dismissed as a child. "I knew the risk I was taking going to space, so before I took my first posting I made sure that it would be possible for my family to continue even if something happened to me."
The Helmsman scowled at him. Suddenly, a wild grin flashed across his face and he burst out laughing. "Pavel Andrievich, are you telling me there's a clinic back on Earth hoarding countless potential Chekovs? I'm surprised your father hasn't taken advantage of the option already!"
"My parents don't know," the younger man answered, his face coloring slightly. "I suppose it's another family secret."
"Well, then how…"
"Sergei and Tatiana know."
"Just your Godfather and your parent's ward?"
"Yes."
Sulu shook his head, gesturing in confusing. "Isn't planning for your death…I don't know: bad luck? Traditional Russians don't even plan for the eventual birth of child when the woman's pregnant."
Chekov's face grayed in silent agreement, but said nothing. He held out the tape. "We have other time travelers aboard. Go get a viewer."
Climbing to his feet, the Helmsman took the tape and disappeared into his cabin. He reappeared a moment later, viewer in hand with the tape in it.
"Good God," he said, hesitating at the door.
The Navigator chewed on his lip and took the time to examine his fingernails. "When we talked about it we always joked that Tatiana could bear dozens of my children after I was gone.
"I didn't think it would actually be her," he remarked soberly.
Sulu glanced up sharply from eyeing the small viewscreen. There was not arguing with the Navigator: it was abundantly clear what combination of genes had produced the people imaged there. Tatiana had obviously been the mother to Chekov offspring. In distracted mind wanderings, the Helmsman had always thought the two would produce striking children together. Not in the way Chekov was describing, however. It was almost impossible to the Helmsman that the younger man still didn't consider more rational alternatives.
"Tatiana is the best candidate," was the ridiculous thing he said aloud. He continued the thought. "She's a good person and already lives with your parents, so they could raise the children together. Isn't that what you would want?"
Chekov eyed him tentatively. "I suppose…" he drew out.
Lowering the viewer, Sulu stared at him a moment. "Pavel," he decided to venture. "Did it occur to you that your death is not the only reason Tatiana may have mothered your children? I mean, there are less—medical—ways for that to happen."
The Navigator lurched to his feet, his face immediately brilliant crimson with horror. "That–that..." he stammered, eyes wild. "That's disgusting! She's my SISTER!"
Sulu scowled at him. "She's not really your sister any more than I'm really your brother."
"Yes," Chekov retorted, swinging around to leave. "And she's on the top of the list of people I want to sleep with—right up there with you and my mother!"
Alarm flashed across the Helmsman's face. "I hope you meant that sarcastically!"
The younger man stopped before the door and flashed his eyes back at his friend. "Why would you even have to say something like that?"
"You're just encouraging people," Sulu said tightly.
Chekov looked around the room significantly. "There's no one here," he pointed out. "Small minds have to occupy themselves with small things, Hikaru. The nature of our relationship is hardly the most interesting rumor roaming the ship. Don't let it bother you."
"I don't see how it can't bother you!" Sulu retorted.
The Navigator let his liquid brown eyes regard the older man until he actually squirmed under the scrutiny. "You know full well that if my parents hadn't taught me to ignore what people say about me I'd be impossible to live with."
"As if you're not now."
"You are a catch," Chekov said, flashing a wry grin back at his friend. "Besides, the same people that have me in your bed also claim I'm a priest."
"Orthodox priests have to be married," Sulu observed.
"Yes, well, let's not ruin their fun with facts. I'll let you know when I'm leaving again," he added, but then hesitated. "You going to be around to talk tonight?" he ventured. It bothered him that he didn't remember the Captain or the Enterprise.
His friend nodded. "We have a Monopoly game to finish, if I recall."
"Capitalist pig."
Sulu grinned as the man disappeared into his own cabin again. He turned as Uhura came into the room from his cabin door behind his back.
She gave him a sly smile. "No one doing anything interesting in here? Darn: bad timing," she added, folding her arms across her chest and leaning on the door jam. "Do you want to join me for dinner?"
"Sorry, I've got to baby-sit Dimitri."
She gave it a few minutes, then eyed the Helmsman and the empty room. "Why are you just standing in here?"
He turned and looked at her quizzically. "Am I a catch, Nytoya?"
Cocking her head, the Communications Officer fell to examining him—up and down—with great care.
"Oh, stop it!"
She let out a light-hearted laugh. "What is this about, Hikaru?"
"I just want to know how someone who is such an astute judge of human nature can be altogether stupid at the same time!" he proclaimed.
An easy smile flashed across her soft features. "Chekov?"
"Stupid," Sulu insisted. "His father claims he's the stupidest person ever born," he added.
Her eyes widened. "I've always thought our Chief Navigator quite bright."
Sulu shook his head, screwing up his face. "Do you ever remember Chekov talking about his parent's ward, Tatiana?"
She beamed. "The phrase 'pain-in-the-ass-pest' comes to mind. The girl seems to rejoice in annoying him when he's home."
"Humph," Sulu replied, and flashed her a shrewd look. "Believe me, he does as much 'tormenting' as she does."
Uhura straightened, hearing the cryptical tone behind the words with an immediate understanding of its sinister meaning. Alarm flashed across her sable face. "Do you mean to tell me…," she gasped, flustered. "Oh, Hikaru, Pavel Chekov would never… For heaven's sake, doesn't she sleep in his bed!"
"Of course he wouldn't…" he began in reply, but hesitated as he recognized the peculiar reprehension on the woman's face. "Nytoya," he ventured, fighting the smile tugging at his mouth. "You've heard Chekov talk about her: how old do you think Tatiana is?"
She considered the question before answering. "I don't know—twelve, I suppose."
He grinned broadly, chuckling: mostly to himself.
"Fourteen?" she corrected her estimation.
The man burst out in a whole-hearted laugh then. "Nytoya," he said. "Tatiana is twenty."
Uhura's mouth dropped open. "But he talks about her like she's just a little girl: no more than a child!"
Sulu shrugged, smirking like a child himself. "She was when they met and Chekov hasn't seemed to notice she's grown up over the years. I told you he was stupid."
"And they sleep in the same bed?" she continued in amazement. She gave him a ludicrous stare. "Does she realize that he's no child?"
He rolled his eyes away furtively, but chortled so hard the laugh shook his body. "Let's just say I don't think it's not a platonic situation on both their parts."
"Good heavens!" She joined his laughter. "This has the makings of a good novel, love."
The Helmsman shook his head, considering the information Chekov had recently been faced with and his ever-continuing blindness to what was obvious to anyone that had ever seen Pavel and Tatiana together.
"I'm just not sure he'll ever realize she's grown up," he commented with frustration. Or how he actually feels about her.
Uhura smirked at him affectionately. "Love, all men are more than a bit blind and stupid regarding affairs of the heart. It's simple really: hasn't it ever occurred to you how our little hothead would react if he saw some other man treating her like a grown woman, especially if she was ignoring him at the same time? You know…say another man who's close to him?"
The Helmsman stopped laughing. "I couldn't!"
She shrugged. "I mean just an act. Sounds like she'd be willing to play along: grateful even."
"He'd kill me!" he retorted in horror.