Okay, this one was so much fun to write. Chekov's just so damn cute. (shamlessly plugging: please read my story Damn Cute if you haven't already!) Just a note, the last segment was highly influenced by Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs. It's an amazing memior by an amazing author about his father. (He also wrote Running with Scissors, Dry, Magical Thinking, and several other amazing books.) I gave Chekov a happier ending, but it was still influenced by Augusten.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for this super cool Snape shirt that I'm wearing tonight for the HPHalfbloodprince premiere!
Ensign Pavel Andreyevich Chekov
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
-William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
Everyone calls him Ensign.
"Nice work, Cadet," Pike intoned, glancing over the mathematical equations and theories from the paper Chekov just turned in.
"Zank you, sir," he answered, bobbing his head up and down respectfully.
"You know," the captain said slowly, looking up to meet Chekov's eyes, "you should consider applying for cartographer. There are plenty of positions still open."
Weeks later, Chekov receives the message that he has been chosen to be a cartographer. Not just a cartographer, but an ensign cartographer on the Bridge. Not just an ensign cartographer on the Bridge, but an ensign cartographer on the Bridge of the Enterprise.
He's seventeen. He should be getting ready for the prom, not packing up for space.
As far as he knows, no one else has ever received this sort of honor. For months, he introduces himself as Ensign Pavel Andreyevich Chekov with an obvious note of pride. If anyone else finds that pompous or annoying, he does not care in the slightest. He's not about to let this accomplishment disappear.
Kirk calls him Whiz Kid.
"So yes, I guess you could say that I am wery talented." Chekov nodded modestly as the pretty blonde girl from Engineering gave a bubbly giggle.
"Oh, Chekov, I can't believe you saved the Captain and Sulu so quickly! You just raced through the halls to get to the controls?"
"Yes, yes. Zey were wery fortunate, no?"
She gave another giggle and nodded energetically so that her hair danced around her shoulders. One slim hand had grabbed hold in his arm in excitement as he told her about Kirk and Sulu almost falling to their deaths on Vulcan.
"Hey there, Whiz Kid!"
Chekov groaned internally as he turned to see the Captain strutting down the hallway. The pretty blonde gave an excited wave which he returned with a wink.
"Whiz Kid?" she questioned, looking back at Chekov.
"Oh yeah, it's his nickname on the Bridge!" Kirk explained, cutting in before Chekov could deny anything.
The girl's eyes widened and her mouth dropped in a silent "aw."
"That's so cute!" she exclaimed. Her hand moved from his arm to tousle his curls. It was then that Chekov knew he would not be getting a date.
Damn, Chekov thought to himself. He watched the blonde walk off with Kirk as he took over regaling her with tales of bravery and action. Unsurprisingly, none of them involved a young Russian whiz kid.
Uhura calls him lapochka.
"Knock, knock."
Chekov looked up to see Uhura standing in the open doorway to his quarters. He took a moment to appreciate how she had let her hair down from its ponytail to fall in waves around her face.
"Uhura, come in," he greeted as he indicated to the monitor in front of him. "I em only finishing a letter from my sister, Keesa."
"A letter?" she questioned with interest, taking a seat on his bed. "Not a transmission?"
In the day and era, it was uncommon for letters to be written. It took up precious time when so many other important things needed to be finished. Also, if transmission existed, why do something more time-consuming and difficult? Speaking into a video was much faster and time-efficient.
Chekov could see the bemusement on her features and chuckled before explaining.
"She is five and learning how to write. Maman thought eet vould be good practice."
"Your sister is five?" Uhura seemed to perk up on the bed. Her inquisitive smile encouraged him to elaborate.
"Da," he nodded, "she is the youngest. Vova is fourteen, Faina is elewen, Liubov is eight, Glafira is six, and Keesa is ze last one." He ticked off each sister on one of his long fingers, looking up at the ceiling as though going through a long list of memorized items.
"Oh, wow," she finally responded. Chekov looked over to see her pretty mouth parted slightly in surprise and her eyebrows dangerously close to her hairline.
"Eet is not so bad," he reassured her. "Eet is nice to haf so many people to care for and haf them care for you." He stared at the typed message in front of him, no longer comprehending the words. "I miss them."
He hadn't meant to say that last bit. He hadn't even realized just how much he missed them until he finally said those words aloud. Giving a tiny cough to recompose himself, he wondered if Uhura had heard him. Surely his softly uttered words would make him appear to her like a small child.
Her hand extended from the bed to gently stroke his curls and he abruptly stood from his chair.
"Vould you like to see ze letter?" he asked to change the subject, gesturing to the newly vacated seat. "See if you can translate eet. I vant to know how your Russian is coming along."
She nodded, and they switched positions so that she could read the letter and he could watch her silently from his bed. He smiled to himself as he watched her face glow with amusement at Keesa's commentary on what she and her imaginary friend, Captain Kirk, had eaten for breakfast that morning. Occasionally, she would ask Chekov for assistance and he would have to explain that Keesa had just misspelled a word or had used the wrong tense.
After a few minutes with a delighted smile still plastered across her face, she pushed away from the table to face Chekov.
"Your sister sounds adorable."
Chekov nodded, his heart swelling with pride for Keesa. He would never admit it, but he missed her the most of all his sisters. She was the one who contacted him the most, who loved to listen to his stories about his life aboard the Enterprise. Her imaginary friends consisted of the people Chekov told her about in his transmissions. Captain Kirk was her favorite, but something about Spock's pointy ears greatly intrigued her.
"What does lapochka mean?" Uhura asked, breaking Chekov from his thoughts. She pointed to the screen at the word in question.
"Oh, eet is a nickname," he told her, without even looking at the screen.
"It's cute."
"Eh," he shrugged.
Uhura looked at him for a moment before glancing back at the screen and shut off the message. He watched at her slender body moved fluidly as she rose from his chair to face him.
"Well, lapochka," she started with a mischievous grin, "I came to see if you wanted to get some dessert with me and Monty." She continued to smile trickily, her eyes searching his face to try to gauge his reaction.
"You're not going to start calling me lapochka, are you?" He stared precariously, slowly standing up from his bed to bring himself eye to eye with the beautiful, grinning monster.
"Does it bother you?" Her face dropped the smile in favor for a mock-innocent look. She blinked her almond eyes at him, her mouth puckered slightly.
"Da," he nodded, feeling the corners of his mouth perk up, knowing his response meant nothing to her. She would do as she pleased.
"Then of course I am," she answered with rapid fire. The evil grin fully blossomed on her face and her eyes seemed to dance with glee. "Lapochka."
The overly annunciated word permeated the air as she darted out of his room with him close behind her. Chekov rolled his eyes at her, but secretly enjoyed her new joke, loving the attention she gave him.
Sulu calls him Pasha.
Graveyard shift should have meant boredom. Drawn out hours. Darkly lit rooms. Loneliness. Heavy eyelids. Thick silence.
But they had a bad reputation, were defined incorrectly. For Chekov, the graveyard shift was preferred. To him, it meant comfortable stillness. Soft silence. Calm. Atmospheric lights in the Bridge. A wide eyed sense of wakefulness experienced at no other time of day.
A major contribution to that was the company in the room. Most graveyard shifts are spent alone. But Captain Kirk, who seemed incapable of ever being by himself, insisted that graveyard shifts be managed in pairs.
Chekov often found himself paired with Sulu.
An easy friendship formed between the two of them. They never spoke much, kept concentrated on their work. Occasionally, they would share small talk, but never needed conversation to ease themselves into each other's company.
Conversations consisted of short words and phrases, small sign language that Chekov did not cognitively understand. Lopsided smiles. Quirked eyebrows. What did they mean? But his mind and body worked faster than his social etiquette, and somehow, together, they always managed to answer Sulu's grins.
Chekov could not pinpoint the day when they ceased to be Chekov and Sulu. The nicknames snuck up stealthily on him like the familiar sign language they had developed. Now they were Pasha and Karu. But only during the graveyard shift. That was their time.
The nights normally blended insignificantly in Chekov's mind. Space had plenty of times to be highly entertaining, but three in the morning lacked the glimmer that three in the afternoon provided. The nights wore on, smeared together in a messy stroke.
But one night was slightly different.
Uhura had the shift before his began, and he arrived a few minutes early. He was surprised to see Sulu already sat at his post and Uhura stood by hers, signing off the last few programs running on her screens.
He tried to speak with her, but she could only smile sweetly and apologize. She was meeting Spock. He was expecting her. She was already running late. She had to go. Sorry.
Shoulders slumped, he moved to his leather seat in front of the large window. The night wore on.
Sulu recorded coordinates. Chekov ran equations. The hours pressed on slowly for once. Chekov glanced over to his friend, wondering why the sign language was abandoned for the night.
An hour into graveyard shift, Sulu spoke.
"Why Uhura?"
The fact that Sulu literally spoke, not just wordlessly gestured with his eyebrows or hands was enough to make Chekov stare openly. Sulu continued to glare at his screens, his voice at an even and slightly cold tone. It was atypical. To say the least.
"I don't know." Inexplicably, his reasons escaped him.
Sulu finally turned to meet Chekov's eyes. Had they always been that shade of brown? Dim lights. Soft silence. Heavy eyelids. The precipice of loneliness. Or was that the precipice of something more?
"You can do better, Pasha."
His father calls him Pavel.
He had few fond memories of his father from his childhood. Not that his father had ever been a terrible man, he had only lived on the periphery of Chekov's memory. His days were spent working long hours to provide for the family and weekends were spent on repairs around the house.
With more and more sisters born into the family, his father seemed further away. When he grew older, their conversations diminished into simple reprimands across the dinner table.
"Do not run in the halls, Pavel. You could knock something over."
"Help your mother with the laundry. She can't be expected to do everything herself."
"Pavel, help Vova with her math homework. You were blessed with brains. They mean nothing if you don't share them."
When he left for Starfleet, there were hugs and promises that he would update them at least once a week on his progresses from his mother. His sisters cried, especially Glafira and Liubov. They had been the youngest, aside from Keesa who was too tiny to understand. He gave them teary kisses and tickled their little-girl bellies despite their indignant squeals of "Lapochka! Stop it!"
His father was less emotional, though he did offer to drive him to the shuttle that would take him to the Academy. Chekov stood outside the shuttle, his bags already taken into cargo.
Father and son shook hands as he gave his last commands.
"Study hard."
Their hands fell back to their sides and Chekov made his way onto the shuttle. Before he disappeared from the doorframe, his father yelled out to him. He turned to see the older man smile gently.
"Take care, Pavel."
Since I did not mention it in the previous chapter, lapochka is a Russian term of endearment that means dear or darling. When directly translated, it means little paw. All of his sisters' names came from babynamesdotcom and are translated:
Vova - famous rule
Faina - shining
Liubov - love
Glafira - smooth
Keesa - kitten (Isn't that just adorable?)
Pavel and Pasha both mean small. ...Poor Chekov, he never had a chance.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed it. Please review! Sulu's chapter will be posted next, probably in a few days. And if anyone has any suggestions for nicknames for Scotty, I'd love to hear them. I need one or two more for him.