Chapter Twenty Seven

As soon as Scotty hears sobbing again he's worried and comes straight into Chekov's room. Sulu left half an hour ago but the pain is still fresh and burning into Pavel like a fire of pure longing and sadness. Scotty asks what happened and Pavel tries to explain but can't find the words.

"I told him I loved him!" He blurts out and Scotty's eyes widen a little at the sudden outburst. "I love him, Scotty," he says quietly. "I love him so much and he just doesn't-" Pavel can't finish the sentence. Scotty understands and just holds him, letting the Russian cry into his shoulder. He passes him a few tissues and Pavel takes them, wiping his eyes and trying to brush some curls away. He's forgotten to get his hair cut since the Romulan incident and it's starting to grow a little out of control, but he kinda likes it that way. Scotty pats his back gently and Pavel finally tells him everything that happened.

McCoy is irritable when Sulu starts complaining to him. Jo has gone back to her mother and it could be as long as a month before he sees her again. Sulu doesn't hide the fact he's pissed at the doctor, but McCoy simply doesn't care. He's still adamant that Sulu should wait until Pavel's more mature and in a better state of mind. Sulu starts arguing he would be in a good state of mind if it weren't for McCoy's pestering. McCoy continues to ignore him.

Time seems to drag on slowly for Pavel. Scotty pushes him into going back to class but it hardly makes anything better. Everything just passes slowly and painfully. He keeps seeing Sulu around the campus and it makes his stomach lurch every time. He does everything to avoid him and Sulu just doesn't have the energy to try and talk to Pavel.

Surprisingly, Pavel's marks go up due to his almost obsessive studying. He keeps telling himself Starfleet and his dream of navigating again is all he has. He wants to be a great officer and studying is just something he's good at. All his revision is printed neatly on cards and when exams come around again he aces every one of them and even gets 100% in one of them. He nearly cries when he sees the mark and Scotty slaps him on the back happily and they go out for the night to celebrate. Scotty shows him a retro arcade and they play a game of laser tag and despite how terrible Pavel's aim is, he still has a really good time and manages to forget everything that has been eating away at him. On their walk home, they walk past a bar and Pavel can see a group of Sulu's friends. He looks closer and sees Sulu amongst them and instantly increases his pace towards the dorm. He's getting sick of just avoiding him, but it's all he feels he can do.

Both Scotty and the doctor urge Pavel to try and find a hobby to get his mind off things. Pavel doesn't really want to, he's passionate about his work as Starfleet officer, reading and that's about it (with the exception of Hikaru Sulu.) They try to get him to sign up for clubs but nothing really takes his interest and the Russian argues that he's too busy studying.

As Pavel's walking back from class another cadet accidentally knocks into him, making them both fall to the ground. The cadet only looks a little older than Pavel and starts helping him gather his things off the ground.

"Hey are you Pavel Chekov?" the guys asks, studying the Russian.

"Um, yes. Sorry, have we met?"

"No," he says, passing Pavel the last of his pens and pencils. "I'm Argos, I heard you're good with mathematics? I'm looking for someone to start a club with me."

Pavel's mouth opens a little bit. "I'm sorry but I really don't think I'm interested in starting any clubs. Did Dr McCoy or Montgomery Scott put you up to the by any chance?"

"Dr McCoy said you were good at mathematics, maybe you could at least hear me out?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not interested." Pavel starts walking away and Argos runs to catch up with him and stands in front of him.

"I think you'll really like it. Please?"

Pavel sighs and looks at the man in front of him. He's tan and has thick black hair and slightly slanted eyes, almost Asian but not entirely. He hates saying no.

"Fine."

Argos drags him into the library and passes Pavel a small cube. It's covered in brightly coloured squares and Pavel frowns at it.

"Seen one of these before?"

"Is it a Redbrick Cube or something?"

"Rubik's Cube," Argos corrects. "You turns the sides and try and get all the colours on each side to match."

Argos turns around and shuffles through a few books. "Now, it's kinda hard when you start off, but there's an algorithm to learn how to solve them. Once you can solve them without problems, you go for speed. I want to start a speed solving club and I think once I teach you the basics you can-"

Argos stares blankly at Pavel as he turns around.

The cube is in front of Pavel where it was before, solved.

"How did you?"

Pavel shrugs.

"Keep that cube, I'll replicate another one. I wanna get you to solve it in under 15 seconds. So you in or?"

Pavel looks at the cube again. "Okay."

Within a few days, Pavel gets his time down to just over 10 seconds. He wants to learn to blind solve it and he thinks he could even try and break a record for it. Argos recruits a few more people and once a week Pavel teaches them how to solve the cube. He gets quite obsessive over the puzzle and spends a ridiculous amount of time on it. He doesn't know whether he enjoys speed solving for the mental challenge or for the fact it makes him forget Sulu for long periods of time in a row.