Chekov moved cautiously into the darkened room, trying to adjust his eyes quickly so that he didn't trip over anything unexpected. He stayed along the bulkhead where the shadows clung and absorbed his figure into their nothingness.

The lights were off in what had been turned into a makeshift practice studio for the members of the ballet company fit enough to work. Their normal days could stretch into fifteen hours of grueling work. Finally, however, the dancers were gone for the night and the large, empty room was dim and silent. The only illumination came from the starlight flowing through two wide viewscreens stretching along the far bulkhead.

In the center of the dark room's floor a lone figure danced, bathed by the silence around her. She danced with utter abandon, leaping and spinning to strains of music that only she could hear. The tatters of her dress swirled around her legs as she moved, their ends twisting and clinging with every graceful, powerful motion. Starlight caught the tatters and danced upward on their edges until the entire dress seemed touched by fire.

He watched her from his perch, so mesmerized by her graceful movements that the breath crushed from his chest. You did not watch Tatiana Demidova dance; you were absorbed by her overwhelming, hypnotically unaffected perfection. Every step was a stunning display of technical virtuosity. Her seemingly effortless display of the nuts and bolts of the craft had a clear, correct, classical line for anyone who knew how to see such things: such people who would thus know immediately where she had trained and still worked.

Given all that, what drew people to her performances was neither her crisp natural talent nor her brilliant technical skill. Crowds came enmasse to see her because she danced with sheer, unadulterated joy: infusing a life-giving energy into her performances that had not been seen since the days of Maria Pavlova. Such a dancer could sweep one into a blinding rush of primordial emotion only elusive, true art produced.

As he watched her dance, he realized that in her recent performance tapes she had not been so completely vibrant.

She stilled after a moment and absently began doing dance exercises.

"Do people here know why we call you Malyenki?" she wondered aloud, her words drifting quietly out into the dark.

"Uhura thinks it's because I'm short," he remarked, knowing it would be futile to pretend he wasn't there.

He could see her easy smile flash in the dark. "Yes, Little One," she acknowledged with a teasing note in her voice. They both knew the nickname had nothing to do with his size. It was his temperament 'Malyenki' referred to: the single-minded, fierce determination that possessed him and the unwavering fortitude he had in carrying out his stubborn decisions.

"You are, truly, your father's son," she agreed, for that likeness was what the nickname referred to. "What is the English word?" she puzzled aloud to herself as she strolled away. "Ah," she concluded, stopping to turn her head and peer back at him with a sparkle in her eyes. "Stalker."

"I am not a stalker," he retorted with indignation. Neither of them made any objection to labeling his father that, however. "It worked for him," he muttered. His mother claimed she only married the man because it was far simpler in the end than prosecuting him.

"Always there, somewhere, lingering about…" She smiled and made several leisurely pirouettes, stepped toward him, then did it again.

"Tatiana," he intoned quietly. "I'd like to show you something."

She gracefully lifted her leg, placed her ankle on his shoulder, and leaned into it. Their faces came so close to touching he could feel the heat from her lips on his. Eyes seeking out his, she stared quietly into their dark, smoldering depths. Pavel never called her by her real name. "Show me something?" she repeated thoughtfully. "I work with dozens of nearly naked men daily: I don't think you have anything new for me to see."

He grinned despite himself. Grasping the elegant ankle lingering by his ear, he slowly ran his hand down the outside of her firm leg. People didn't think of dancers as athletes, but they were the best conditioned humans in existence. They should send ballet dancers into space after Klingons, he thought with amusement at the image that appeared in his mind. His hand tumbled the tattered dress down toward her waist. He felt less than honorable, but the delicious warmth that swept from his hand and into his body so distracted him that he didn't care.

"Tiana, you are a finely cut, polished diamond," he whispered, surprised at the hoarseness that choked the words.

Bright blue eyes sparkled, regarding him with patient warmth. "Baryshnikov said that about Kirkland," she commented.

He found his fingers tightening on her deliciously hard thigh. An impish grin flashed across his face. "Why come up with something new when good material is already available?"

She laughed and slapped his cheek playfully. "Wicked boy."

"Can we walk?" he asked.

Both of them had gone for a period without the ability to walk, and together they had fought to regain that basic skill. The simple art of taking a walk had a treasured meaning for them lost on most people.

"Let me change," she said, dropping her foot to the floor and moving to the other end of the room.

He paced thoughtfully in a small area, hands clasped loosely behind his back while he waited. Catching sight of her, he stopped where he stood. She had peeled the dance costume away and was giving herself a sponge bath. Chekov felt his chest tighten and he edged into a better position to watch her.

He didn't know what he was enjoying more: watching her or the guilt that came with it. Being Russian was a curious existence, indeed, he thought.

"Do you want a photo?"

"No, I'm fine."

A bemused shine in her blue eyes, she slipped back into her coverall and boots, apparently unconcerned by his voyeurism.

"All set," Tatiana informed Chekov as she rejoined him.

He interlaced his fingers with hers, led her out the door and walked her silently through the ship's corridors. "You have body hair," he said bluntly after a moment.

"Yes: hell of a time to go into puberty. Of course, that's nothing new for you."

"Very funny." The Security Chief chewed on his lip in obvious discomfort as color flushed into his cheeks. A very poor joke he often repeated was that not enough delipitory existed for him to be a dancer.

"Tiana," he continued in a sudden rush. "Ballet dancers don't have body hair."

A smile flowed over her pure features. She shrugged luxuriously as they walked. "Technically, it's a matter of choice and I have long costumes for this ballet."

"And if the next has short costumes again?" he puzzled as her apparent strategy wandered through his mind. "And then the next one long? Won't it itch...?"

Tatiana laughed: a light, merry sound that bubbled on the air and trailed off down the corridor. "You're so detail oriented. Don't worry."

"But, won't it?" he persisted curiously.

She met his next question with silence, her eyes fixed on the deck as they walked along. "Malyenki," she finally drew out quietly. "We need to talk."

He felt his hand grow cold. His mind had been possessed all day with the topic of his feelings and recent behavior towards her. He had rehearsed this conversation a dozen times over, but never had he envisioned Tatiana being in control of it. It wasn't surprising that she was a step ahead of him, however.

"This is my last ballet," she continued before Chekov could respond. "I've resigned my position at the Maryinsky."

Chekov stopped dead in his tracks, taken by surprise at the completely unexpected words.

"Tatenka! You love to dance!"

Turning to face him, she nodded. "Yes, I love to dance, Malyenki: I always will." Her smile became soft and sad. "The stress of performing , however, is too much for me now." She hesitated, so unlike her to admit such things. "It hurts," she said quietly.

The silence became a great well within him, consuming his heart and mind until his soul itself began to weep. He could see in her eyes the raw truth about how much pain she'd been in lately and understood why her recent performances seemed downright hollow.

"I'm not going to tell anyone how to live their lives—I've barely got control of my own," he said mechanically. It was his father's mantra and it came back to haunt him now. How could Chekov burst out with the protest he wanted to, knowing her as well as he did?

Ballet was not an art in Russia: it was a religion. It was taught to every child in the first years of school—if not earlier--as a prerequisite to all athletics and anyone with any talent was sent on to specialized classes. Nearly every parent in the country secretly hoped their child would be one of the lucky few with natural enough gifts to be accepted at one of the old, traditional theatre boarding schools.

Tatiana's father, a widower, had enrolled her at the Maryinsky Theatre's school when she was five. He had died only a few years later himself. It was hardly unusual for a student to be a ward of the Theatre where they studied. Except in Tatiana's case, it had left her open and vulnerable, with no idea how to protect herself or deal with the universe outside the world of ballet.

Ballet was unnatural and its dancers endured through bruised and broken toes; shredded tendons, ligaments and muscles; twisted ankles; and cracked, broken and splintered bones. The good schools took care of their students and taught them to protect themselves while teaching the craft itself. It had not always been so, however.

Laws and regulations protected dancers now, but until Pavel Chekov's recent rage, they relied heavily on the trustworthiness of those involved. Sometimes the evil in man's hearts still found their way back to past horrors. The former Director of the Maryinsky had seen the fire in Tatiana Demidova immediately and set out to make himself the owner of the finest ballerina in centuries—by selling his soul and sacrificing her in the long run. She had been worked to exhaustion and kept working through serious injuries even as a child. Set onto her toes at too young an age so that her splintering shins needed repeated shirring up by medical staff, a serious injury at age twelve should have Tatiana's career.

No sane person would have expected her to dance again when she finished rehab, but the Director had put her on the stage again anyway. The Director used medical subterfuge to keep her small and trained her body to reject much of the sustenance she did take in. She was physically on death's doorstep when she had appeared at Pavel's dorm room.

He cleared his throat. Dancer's bodies burned out in their thirty's if they were taken care of, long before if they were not taken care of: and hers had been brutalized. Of course it made perfect since that she was exhausted and ready to retire at age twenty-two. It didn't have to have been that way.

"I'm sorry." The words came out in a soft caress as hot tears spilled out of his wide eyes and onto his cheeks.

They stood there a long time and she serenely watched as the tears continued to stream silently down his face. He blinked several times in shame. Not for crying, for Russian men were at ease with their emotions, but for the instant thoughts that had prompted the tears. He cried not for her, but for his Motherland that had just lost a national treasure. Worse yet, he cried because of his own unreasonable guilt for not having prevented this situation to begin with.

She knew him well enough to clearly recognize the tears as self-loathing. When she finally decided he'd indulged himself enough, she reached up to gently wipe the tears away. "Who told you that you were put in this universe to make everyone else happy? You can't possibly be responsible for my childhood," Tatiana commented, knowing from experience what he was thinking.

That stopped the tears instantly, for it hit too close to home. He had been hardwired by extensive travels in his childhood among an unending variety of cultures to ease tense situations. No one taught him such a preposterous thing, but still, something inside him felt duty bound to be funny and happy: to make everyone around him comfortable. Tatiana knew exactly how to shut down the over inflated ego one necessary to support such an idea and a sheepish smile tugged at his lips. She always knew exactly how to mange his moods.

The smile faded and, brown eyes full of pain, he reached out and touched her soft cheek. "I'm sorry," he said again. "You so love to dance, Tiana. It was your dream."

"I had my dream," she responded, turning her head to kiss his fingertips still lingering on her face. "Now, I have time for new dreams."

He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "May the Lord God Almighty grant you peace and happiness," he murmured. It was obvious her decision was a well-thought out one and if she had waited until now to mention it to him, she had certainly discussed it at length with his parents.

"Do you want to teach?" he asked curiously.

"What I want..." she hesitated again. It was Pavel she was talking to, she had to remind herself. They knew each other better than was usual for two people and they had easily confided things to each other usually left unsaid. "What I want now is a life."

"A life?" Chekov repeated.

"Yes," she insisted. "I want a normal life: it's something I never had the luxury of, Malyenki.

"I want the chance to sleep late, go horseback riding, spend hours mushroom picking, or lounge all day in the banya."

It was what they did together when he was as home on leave, Chekov thought. Even then, however, she still had to fit grueling private dance practices in on her days off from the theatre. It occurred to him now how regimented and colorless her chosen career had made her daily life.

Crystalline blue eyes sparkling, she smiled wickedly. "I want to gorge myself on chocolate, Malyenki." Her smile softened then and she added quietly: "I simply want the chance to be a woman finally."

The words settled heavily on Chekov, who found himself painfully at a loss for words of his own in answer to such a preposterous statement.

Her wide blue eyes warmed as she heard his argument despite his inability to voice it. "Pavel Andrieivich, you have taught me to love our culture and appreciate the great value there is in the basic art of being a woman.

While modern humans may have thought a woman's role in their primitive culture as demeaning or limiting, those who understood knew quite the opposite was true. The Russian culture was secretly a matriarchal one at heart. The family, the household, the community, all relied on a woman's basic strength, skill and wisdom to direct it and keep it functioning.. The men of the community knew full well who was really in control and all of their blustering to the contrary fooled no one but outsiders.

"I want to learn to run a household, Pavel," Tatiana explained. "I want to learn from your mother how to sew, garden, cook..."

"Good God Almighty! Don't let my mother teach you to cook!" Chekov exclaimed in mock horror.

She laughed merrily again. "Perhaps we can learn to cook together," she suggested happily.

He shook his head vehemently. "The last time she tried to learn to cook we got food poisoning!"

Tatiana's only answer was a continued smile, warm understanding shining in her eyes. She didn't need to say anything.

She had the heart and temperament of a traditional woman, so it was no surprise how thoroughly Tatiana had taken to traditional Russian culture. Tatiana's strength and fiery soul gave her a natural, instinctive ability to handle such basic, overwhelming responsibilities. She certainly knew exactly how to control Pavel Chekov.

He stepped closer to her then, slipping his arms around her and gathering her against him. Chekov stood holding her with a warm, subtle swell of contentment. The physical reaction that he was prepared for did not happen: nor did it feel like he was holding his little sister. The feeling that filled him was something completely different–something more profound.

Lord, she smelled like home.

Tatiana sighed softly as he nuzzled her face against his shoulder. "I promise I'll still dance for you."

Shaking his head, Chekov held her at arms length and waited until her gaze me his soulful brown eyes. "No. Promise me that you'll still dance for yourself."

She smiled with affection and took his hand in hers again. "You wanted to show me something?"

"Yes, it's right up here."