Chekov's cabin was still dim when Sulu stepped inside again. He hesitated, eyes falling on the boy's sleeping form. Even as a child he slept motionless on his back like a corpse.
Bunks on Navy ships have no headroom: you can't twist and turn. Service aboard them had permanently marked the man.
He strolled into the living area without fear he'd wake Dimitri. He slept like the dead too. The Navigator was sitting at the desk bent over a steaming glass of tea. Cheek resting on his hand, he made no sign of noticing his helm partner's entrance but seemed totally entranced with whatever was in the bottom of the glass.
Sulu stopped behind him and peered over his shoulder. There was nothing but dark, strong tea in the podistranka. A full cup, apparently only there for its visual appeal. Resting his hand on the man's shoulder, the Helmsman leaned closer to his ear. "Malyenki," he pressed quietly, so as not to startle him. "You have another forty-five minutes: go get some sleep. You can use my bed."
Chekov lowered his hand and twisted around to look at him. "Thanks, no. I'm fine."
"Did anyone ever tell you that lie poorly?"
"You. All the time."
"What are friends for?" Sulu observed, straightening.
"I assure you," the Navigator replied with a thick accent. "I will continue practicing."
"Good," the older man agreed, patting the man's shoulder. It was surprisingly muscular—something Chekov's small frame hid. His body, too, still bore the effects of working on a sailing ship. "The skill will come in handy. Go get some sleep," he repeated. "What's a few more minutes of baby-sitting a sleeping kid?"
When the man began shaking his head, Sulu squeezed the shoulder to shut him up. "I'm a senior officer: don't obligate me to make that an order, Ensign."
In a supreme example of military decorum, Chekov screwed up his face and stuck his tongue out at the senior officer in question.
"I'll put you on report!" the Helmsman declared in mock offense.
"Good," the younger man retorted, standing. "Send me to the brig: I can use the time off."
"You're incorrigible," Sulu snarled, whacking him on the back sharply as he passed to follow the 'order'.
"And you can join me in the brig for striking a fellow officer," the man sneered back over his shoulder.
"You want to be 'struck', just keep it up and I'll 'strike' you, alright," the older man muttered.
Chekov stopped at the door to the bathroom and leaned back to peer at Sulu through the room divider. He flashed a crooked, wild grin with a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. "And to think my family put up with me for seventeen years."
"Saints: all of them! And wake yourself up—I'm not an alarm clock!"
Sulu stared at the door after it closed. Waiting. Restlessly, his eyes roamed the living area after a moment. The Navigator would want the glass of tea disposed of, cleaned and put away. He was downright anal. Unfortunately, the fact was that Sulu was anything but. They'd come to an easy understanding early in their relationship: he didn't mess too much and Chekov didn't clean too much. The Helmsman wouldn't put the glass away 'right' and it would just annoy the other man. So he left it.
His eyes spotted the boy's boots where they had been moved to the deck in the corner, and the hat that was resting on the shelf above them. Scooping them both up—one in each hand—he strode into the bedroom and stopped at the edge of the bed. He eyed the bathroom door furtively. Normally, Chekov could drop right off to sleep, but he wondered how the young man could ever put himself to sleep in the chaos the Helmsman's cabin had become now that it was the repository for most of the Navigator's personal belongings. He supposed the fact that Chekov was even still in the cabin bode well. He just hoped the man wasn't cleaning.
Sulu rested the boots and hat on the bed and shook the child's shoulder. "Dimitri."
The boy blinked open wide brown eyes, awake instantly.
"C'mon, get up," he instructed. "We have to go see the Captain."
Sitting up, Dimitri immediately pulled on his boots and scrambled after Sulu into the living area. "You're Lieutenant Sulu?"
"Yes. Here," the Helmsman continued, randomly pulling a book off a nearby shelf and handing it to the boy. "Bring a book to keep you occupied." He moved to enter the corridor, but the child stayed rooted to where he stood.
"Dimitri," he coaxed.
The boy raised his eyes from the books spine and he offered it back. "My father hasn't written this book yet," he stated.
Sulu stared at it, the realization of how complicated the situation was settling on him. "Well, put it back," he advised. "Pick something else: quickly."
The boy did so and scampered over to the Helmsman, standing with the obedience of a soldier.
If he hadn't, perhaps Sulu wouldn't have hesitated. "You're in uniform," he commented, eyes moving over the boy. "Where's your hat?"
Twisting his head to the side, Dimitri stared up at the man with wide brown eyes in a cherub face. He blinked long lashes over the warm chocolate pools several times. "I'm not on a sailing ship or outside," he explained cheerfully. "I don't have to wear it."
The Helmsman stared at him silently. "I know who you are and I'm used to this," he advised the boy thinly when he spoke. Again, had the child not so obviously been trying to manipulate him, Sulu wouldn't have been so sure he was right about the matter.
"I know it's bad luck not to be wearing your cover. I don't know about exceptions, but I'm not taking the chance of you getting me into trouble. Get it."
Face clouding in defeat, Dimitri scowled at him with great drama before turning to obey. Sulu heard the mutter as the child seated his hat on his head in the other room.
"I know Russian," the Helmsman called out broadly. "And words like that should never come out of a face as pretty as yours."
The boy stepped into the archway between the rooms and stood motionless, fixing dark eyes on the man. "It won't always be this pretty," he observed somberly.
Sulu knew he was fishing for information. Damned skilled at it too. "I can't testify to that: you've seen him."
"So I wonder when I stopped using words like that."
The Helmsman gave in, smirking conspiratorially. "I'll let you know when it happens." He leaned over as the boy passed him into the corridor. "Never in public," he advised.
Eyes sparkling devilishly, Dimitri returned the smirk. "No," he agreed. "Can't spoil the innocent, wholesome thing."
"That would be a crime." The first female they passed in the corridor flashed the boy an adoring smile. As an afterthought, Sulu added: "Really, think of all the women you'd be disappointing."
The boy let out a whole-hearted giggle. Sulu glanced at him sharply, his face screwing up at the sound so incongruous to what he expected. But this wasn't his adult friend. This was, in hard fact, Chekov as a child. Sulu realized that when he got over his anger at the Navigator, the situation had endless possibilities. The Helmsman's own chuckle at the prospect brought a similarly startled look from Dimitri.
Possibilities were what confronted them as they stepped into the briefing room. Sulu froze, clutching the child's collar to stop him as his eyes fell on the Captain and his companions at the other end of the room. No wonder Chekov was testy: possibilities could be daunting.
"Is that my father?" Dimitri asked with quiet care, glancing from the opposite end of the room back to Sulu.
Hesitating before he answered, the Helmsman finally said "No," thinking it couldn't have any reasonable consequences. "Sit at this end of the table while I talk to the Captain," he instructed then. "Read your book."
Sulu strolled toward the Captain and the Security Guards, unable to take his eyes from the two crewmen they accompanied. Computer viewscreens were a pale comparison to three-D, real life, animated humans.
He saw the man's double-take as he approached. Seeing his reaction, the young woman followed his line of vision and blinked with startled recognition when she saw Sulu.
Well, he thought. I'm still alive.
"Captain."
"Mr. Sulu," the ship's Commanding Officer returned with what the Helmsman recognized as exaggerated cordiality. Sarcasm: Kirk was irritated with his companions. It wasn't a good sign. Kirk knew the Helmsman was up to speed on the situation from their private conversation over the intercom, so he moved onto introductions.
"I'd like to introduce you to our guest…" He stopped and fixed the man that stood there with a glare, jaw hardening. "Stowaways," he corrected dryly. "Nikolai Chekov and Katya Chekov."
Sulu extended a hand to the man, but he made no move to take it. Face sullen; his rigid arms were clenched across his chest and brilliant blue eyes bored through the Helmsman with cold, hard anger. Tatiana's eyes, he thought. The intruder was a pillar of immobile stone. After first glance, Nikolai could never be mistaken for the always warm, teddy-bear of a man that was Chekov's father. He may have looked like Andrie, but he was definitely heir to the Navigator's hot-tempered personality.
It was the young woman that took his hand, glancing at her brother with an apologetic shrug. "Unc…Mr. Sulu, it's a pleasure."
The Helmsman's smile warmed. Uncle Hikaru… "The pleasure's definitely mine, Katya Pavlova. You're the vision of your mother." He preferred blue eyes to Chekov's brown ones in the visage, but he was no genetic engineer.
"And you," he remarked, dropping her hand to regard Nikolai dismally. "Are just like your father."
The man's head jerked up, startled, and the anger in his eyes flared to rage. "I am nothing like my father," he retorted indignantly.
Sulu burst out laughing. "Oh, no," he agreed broadly. "No, you're not."
Amusement skittered across the Captain's face and through his hazel eyes in obvious agreement. He didn't voice it. "Mr. Sulu, you needed to tell us something regarding our situation?"
The Helmsman nodded. "Yes. You need to know that Chekov thinks he's dead."
Nikolai rolled his eyes, screwing up his mouth into a sneer. "By the grace of God."
Both Kirk and Sulu regarded him darkly. He responded to the scrutiny with an indignant straightening of his shoulders: an entirely familiar gesture to the Enterprise officers.
"I can't imagine the psychological pressure this is putting on him," the Captain acknowledged, turning his attention to Sulu. "We need to have McCoy…"
"No," the Helmsman corrected the assumption he realized he'd given Kirk. "I mean in their time frame," he said, indicating the two grown children. He shook his head before either could respond. "It's not important if he is or not and I'm not sure we should know. But Captain…"
Stopping, he thought of Chekov's carefully formed, substantial image of what history held in store for his family—whether he was in the picture or not. He considered the beautiful, fiery young woman the man leaped out of closets at and chased through the woods when they were supposed to be mushroom picking. "Captain," the Helmsman uttered. "I can't explain why, but I know Pavel Chekov and I can assure you that if he has any confirmation of how his life pans out…" he glanced at the young woman. "It would be disastrous and far-reaching, at the very least."
The significance of this information immediately flashed through Kirk's hazel eyes. He glanced sharply at Nikolai. "Do you understand this?"
"Yes," he snarled indignantly. "If he knows he's been around to torment us, we won't be born to be tormented. There's a thought," he rasped.
"Kolya!" the girl rebuffed. "It's not just about us: we warned you going into this."
"We?" Kirk asked, eyes narrowing as he took a careful pace toward her. "Who is 'we'?"
"Enough," Nikolai growled low in his throat. "We've said enough, Katya."
"You haven't even begun, mister," the Captain charged with a snarl, swinging on him ferociously. "You've invaded my ship, endangered the lives of my crew, and exposed the future of the galaxy to infinite peril. You haven't even begun to explain," he repeated.
"Well, now, I wish I'd met you before," Nikolai sneered disrespectfully.
"You're making it worse," the woman insisted to her brother.
"How could it possibly be worse?" the man alleged, jerking away. He jammed his shoulder into the bulkhead on the edge of the viewscreen, crushed his arms across his chest, and glared out at the stars with his back thrust toward the others in the room. Even turned from them, the complete darkness that seized his face was repellent.
"Oh, no," Sulu interjected immediately. "I don't put up with this sulking bullshit from him and I sure as hell am not going to put up with it from you. I'll knock it right out of your stupid, stubborn little head if I have to."
The man turned his head slowly and leveled his brilliant blue eyes on the Helmsman. For the first time the hard rage in them was gone. There was, instead, the subtle wonder of blatant recognition there.
Sulu shuddered. "And if you don't think I will, just try me."
Nikolai made no immediate response, and then just turned back to staring out the viewscreen sullenly. He muttered to himself ill humouredly.
"It's like being in a tin of small fish," Sulu supplied the translation to the Captain after a moment's thought. "The stars aren't even real."
An amused smile of affection skirted over Katya's gentle lips. "'Living in a sardine can'," she corrected respectfully.
"You aren't used to space travel," Kirk concluded, harsh eyes on the stranger.
He silently ground his shoulder harder into the bulkhead.
"I'm not sure how much of that information you should have," the young woman observed, a great deal of deference in her tone.
"I'll decide that," the Captain replied, turning his attention back to her. It was already abundantly clear to him that she was the more rational of the two. With a solid grasp of the intricacies of the situation, Katya had a command about her that told him she was in charge despite obviously being many years younger than her brother.
"How old are you?" he asked, smiling with a warm sparkle in the depths of his hazel eyes.
"Seventeen."
"So that would make you a fourth level classman in the Academy," he noted.
She didn't respond, but he detected a subtle shift in the color of her eyes that told the Captain he was right. "How did a Starfleet Academy freshman get hold of a ship with advanced cloaking capabilities?" he pressed. "Who did you leave on that ship?"
Her face calmed and long lashes fluttered over unreadable brown eyes several times in silence. Of course Chekov was still alive: she'd learned that from him.
Sulu was staring at Nikolai while the Captain spoke. The young man's stony countenance had dissolved him out of the conversation—purposefully, the Helmsman knew. His shoulder was still jammed against the bulkhead but Sulu could tell that his supposedly downcast eyes were not so. The intruder's gaze was clearly fixed solidly on the boy at the end of the conference table.
"Sir," Sulu said, shifting his dark eyes to Kirk. "I should get Dimitri out of here before Chekov shows up."
The Captain nodded approval, glancing from the boy to McCoy as he entered. "Log your hours baby-sitting with the First Officer."
"Yes, Sir," he acknowledged, turning on his heel to retrieve the boy. "Dimitri," he bid as he passed the child.
Hesitating when the boy made no response, the Helmsman repeated the summons with more force. "Dimitri."
The boy glanced up sharply from the book on the table before him and Sulu realized with some surprise that he'd actually been reading the thing. Hard copy books kept Chekov in another world when he was with them. That the child hadn't been eavesdropping actually caused Sulu some concern, however.
"Are you alright?" he asked quietly, bending over the boy.
Dimitri nodded and he gave the man a knowing, gentle smile. "I wasn't meant to know everything before I turned nine."
Sulu chuckled and straightened. "C'mon, let's go find something to do."
"I'm supposed to clean the decks," he confided as he scampered after the Helmsman.
The man drew up short. "What?"
"I marked them with my shoes tap-dancing."
"The bastard," Sulu muttered. "We have maintenance. I'll have them take care of it."
"Watch it," Dimitri cautioned light-heartedly as he followed him out into the corridor. "Spoil me and you won't be able to live with me later."
"What makes you think I can now? Besides," the Helmsman added, flashing him a conspiratorial smile. "What if you're not supposed to know how to clean a starship's decks yet?"
"I see why I like you."