Pavel and Kirk met at 0830 like agreed, in Kirk's quarters. Pavel had let himself in as instructed and had accidently walked in on Kirk dressing. He'd only seen him pulling on the lower of the two uniform shirts, so had a wonderful view of Kirk's mighty fine torso, before Kirk saw him.
"Pavel," he greeted, "As you can see Bones just released me," he paused to pull on his yellow command t-shirt, "You been there long? I didn't hear the door."
"Not long Jim," Pavel smiled, "I only saw you pulling your tops on."
"'Twas a nice view, I assume," Kirk laughed.
"A pleasant one," Pavel replied, "Shall ve go and meet wisitors?"
"Yeah," Kirk answered as they headed out.
Spock knocked on Pavlusha's door at 0830 on the dot.
"You can come in Spock," Pavlusha called from inside.
Spock entered the code and walked in. He found her pulling on her socks and boots, noticing primarily that her socks didn't match. Well, didn't match in the common sense. They had the same pattern but were in different colours.
"Miss Chekov, are you aware that those socks are not a matching pair?" Spock enquired.
"Yes," Pavlusha replied, "My socks newer match. Oh and you may vant to call me Pavlusha or Lush if we are to appear as lowers.
"Affirmative Lush," Spock responded, "Shall we head to our rendezvous with the others?"
"Sounds like a good idea," Pavlusha agreed, she grabbed Spock's hand as they walked out. The action shocked Spock at first but then he remembered it was a human show of affection so he welcomed the hand holding.
0900 hours. The Bakaarians had just beamed aboard.
"Hello," The main one greeted, "I am Jake, leader of the Bakaarians, this is my wife Jayde," he gestured to the woman next to him, then gesturing to the other beings as he spoke he continued, "This is my First Officer Daniel with his husband Luke, and Second Officer Emily with her wife Amey." The six Bakaarians waved.
"I am Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the USS Enterprise. You may call me Jim. This is my First Officer, Commander Spock. We have also brought our mates to keep with your religion, they happen to be my two Second Officers, Pavel Andreievich Chekov and Pavlusha Andreeva Chekov," He pointed each of them out, "Pavel is my boyfriend and Pavlusha is Spock's girlfriend. If you'd like to follow me I'll show you to the conference room," He finished talking to the Bakaarians, then to Spock, Pavel and Pavlusha, "You three head up to the bridge."
Bakaarians have an unusual appearance. They have ridged noses like Bajorans and pointed ears like Vulcans. The females all had their hair either twisted into a tight bun or tied into a high pony tail with curly hair (due to the bun) flowing down their backs. The males also had a choice of two hairstyles, either short and curly (like Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes) or short with a side parting and then like a wave across their head (like Captain America in the new films. I don't really know how to describe it).
On the bridge Spock was in the Captain's chair, he was acting Captain since Kirk wasn't on the bridge, Pavel was in the navigation chair and Pavlusha was at Spock's science station. Much like Pavel's secondary subject was engineering, so much so he is second in command there, Pavlusha's is science and she is second under Spock.
It was a quiet day on the bridge and Spock was thinking back over the past couple of days. He recalled remnants of a conversation between the two Chekovs in Russian referring to a Commander and a Captain as well as a comment from Pavlusha referring to him as Commander. As he pieced it all together he messaged Pavlusha from his padd to hers.
"You and Pavel speak in code," he sent. (All of Spock's messages will be in bold.)
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," she replied. She was worried which code he'd solved. (All of Pavlusha's will be in italics.)
You don't use people's names when you speak about them in Russian.
Oh that one. Yeah, you worked it out.
Why?
You should know why you worked it out.
Not why I worked it out. Why do you speak in code?
Oh! So people who don't understand us don't know who we're talking about. I would ask how you knew but it's logical that Commander would refer to you and Captain to Jim.
I knew because you called me Commander at lunch yesterday.
I forgot about that. You must promise not to tell anyone. Don't even tell Pavel that you know.
I promise not to tell anyone Lush.
Danke. It is greatly appreciated. (Thanks)
"Ensign Pavlusha I did not know you spoke the German language," Spock commented aloud, spinning the Captain's chair around to face her.
"I speak many Earth languages, Commander," she smiled in reply.
"So you would understand wie spät ist es?," Spock questioned. (What time is it?)
"Ja," Pavlusha answered, "Es ist halb zwölf." (Yes. It is half to twelve.)
"I only know numbers and part numbers in German," Sulu chipped in, Uhura and he had started listening, "But didn't you just say half twelve?"
"I did, in a fashion. In german zey say half to not half past. I said half to twelve so half past eleven," Pavlusha responded.
"I see. Good to know," Sulu answered, then added, "日本語を知っていますか？" (Do you know Japanese?)
" ‚µ B十分にあることを理解し、挨拶すると、" Pavlusha replied. (A little. Enough to understand that and say hello.)
"How many Earth languages do you know?" Uhura enquired, making sure to take not of the list.
"Fluently in Standard English, Russian, German, Latin and Signing. And little in Japanese, Spanish, French and Italian," She answered.
"Wow, that's quite a collection," Uhura smiled, "How come you didn't study in xenolinguistics?"
"Although I vas good at languages I vas better at science and navigation," Pavlusha was happy they were interested, others rarely were.
"What country is signing from? I haven't heard of it," Spock enquired, he was always willing to expand his knowledge.
"It's not from a country. It vas a language of hand movements used to communicate viz deaf people," Pavlusha explained.
Kirk had finished showing the Bakaarians to their room and decided to grab a bite to eat before heading to the bridge. He knew Spock could handle everything anyway. Pike had chosen him as Captain first before Spock got emotionally compromised.
Whilst he was eating, a rather untasty replicated sandwich, he understood Scotty's problem now, he began to think. He thought about Pavel and their fake relationship. He also thought of Pavel's keycode. KRIKT. Despite the fact he was quite intelligent he couldn't figure out why that code reminded him of something, or what that something was.
He decided that since there was only ten minutes before shift change he'd just leave it and ask Spock about it at lunch. They'd all meet here anyway.
Spock and Pavlusha walked in together, without Pavel.
"Hey," Kirk greeted, "Where's Pav? Everything okay with him? And with my ship?"
"Your ship is fine Jim, do not worry," Spock assured him, then to Pavlusha, "Wo ist dein Bruder?" (Where is your brother?)
"Artz," she replied. (Doctor)
"Entschuldigen Sie mich. Ich spreche kein Deutsch," Kirk interrupted. (Excuse me. I don't speak German.)
"You just did pretty good job," Pavlusha smirked, "Pavel has gone to see Doctor. He said he hopes to join us soon."
"Why couldn't you have said that at first?" Jim asked.
"Intrigue," Pavlusha answered.
"What?"
"I vas intrigued about you. I vas doing experiment to find answer. Your answer vas satisfactory, just so you know."
"Fascinating," Spock said, "She acts so Vulcan yet so human simultaneously."
"Right, well. Since you two Vulcan lovebirds are making me feel terrible lonely, I'm heading to find Pavel," Kirk informed them, standing to leave.
He didn't get to leave as at that moment Pavel entered. Pavel saw Kirk standing and waved before grabbing a drink and heading over.
"Are you okay?" Kirk asked.
Pavel looked at Pavlusha confused.
"врач," she responded. (Doctor.)
"Oh yeah totally fine," He told Kirk, then to Pavlusha, "ÏПочему ты сказал капитан я пошел на прием к врачу? Он спросит, что случилось."(Why did you tell the Captain I went to see the Doctor? He'll ask what was wrong.)
"извините," Pavlusha replied, "Я не думал об этом." (Sorry. I didn't think of that.)
During this Russian exchange Spock had started talking to Kirk.
"Did you know Miss. Chekov, Lush, is a linguistics expert?" Spock enquired.
"No. She's a superb navigator, an awesome scientist and a linguistics expert," Kirk exclaimed, "What can't she do?"
"Svim." Was all Pavel said.
"I'm sorry Pav, I missed that," Kirk smiled.
"Svim. Pavlusha can't swim standard front crawl," Pavel expanded.
"I thought all Cadets were required to know how to swim front crawl, back crawl and breaststroke," Spock remarked.
"They are," Kirk replied, "But I can't do breaststroke to well, they regard brains more than a skill that can be taught."
"Zey did try to teach it me. I just can't do the legs. I can swim ze other strokes. It's not as big of deal as Pav makes it," Pavlusha explained, "I can swim trudgen at front crawl speed."
"Trudgen?" Spock questioned. He was unfamiliar with the stroke.
"Yeah. It's mixture of front crawl and breaststroke. You do front crawl arms and breaststroke legs," Pavlusha informed them, "It's old stroke, mostly not used nowadays but exceptions can be made. Zis is in my record."
The rest of lunch was spent with them sharing facts about them selves.
They found out that Kirk can drink two litres of Coke, a sugary Earth drink they informed Spock, in thirty seconds, through a straw. And that he is a lot shorter that he appears because he wears female wedge boots to increase his height.
Pavel was a junior Olympian gymnast and he won gold for Russia aged eight. But he doesn't like mint and gets more hyperactive than usual after eating ice-cream.
Spock wasn't really expected to join in but he did any way, he is half-human remember. They found out that Spock, when he was younger, once painted his palm blue and hand-printed the Vulcan salute all over his room as his Father would not let him have paper to try the human activity. Also that he liked the smell of toast. Not just in an oh-that's-a-nice-smell sense, in a proper oh-my-gosh-that's-the-best-smell-ever sense. He also told them a never-to-be-repeated secret. His first name is Timothy. It was chosen by his Mother and was the name of a twenty-first century television character she liked.
Pavlusha shocked them most. She revealed that her eyes change colour depending on her mood, so no eye colour is listed in her records, just N/A. Kirk made a note to check that out later. And that her Vulcan tendencies came from an Aunt who lived with them.
"She vas Mozer's sister," Pavel explained, "A full Vulcan living with four humans, ve taught her our cultures and she taught Pavlusha hers."
"She didn't teach Pavel because he vas to busy shopping, alvays finding himself new shoes," Pavlusha smiled.
"Hey! I bought you shoes too," He defended.
"You loved shoe shopping?" Kirk questioned.
"And you have a full Vulcan Aunt although you're fully human?" Spock added.
"Yes and yes," Pavel answered, "Our Aunt vas adopted."
"Timothy McGee," Pavlusha whispered.
Spock turned to her almost as quickly a she'd said it, "What was that Pavlusha?"
"Timothy McGee," She repeated.
There wasn't many times Spock's face showed emotion with his face and recently they'd all been caused by Pavlusha. This was no exception. He looked shocked. He sat perfectly still, mouth slightly open, eyes staring.
Pavlusha knew she'd said something wrong. She stood, excused herself and left the mess hall.