The minute he said the words, he knew he meant them. He knew that it was what he had to do. He had been exhausted for days now, his body and mind too tired to function properly. It seemed as though the entire world had forsaken him. Every day he was subject to a beating by Harewood, and more let downs from the Enterprise. No one could get him out of here, and from what he knew about his captor, he wasn't going to be let go without a fight. So it seemed to Pavel Chekov that there was only one more option - to simply give up.

Though he didn't really want to, he couldn't help but feel the need to finally stop. His life was literally out of his control, his entire being held in the grasp of one sadistic man. The only way to relinquish his hold was to finally refuse to comply. His spirits were downtrodden, his thoughts depressed and melodramatic. He was ready to let nature take its course. He never thought of himself as a hero, but now he was willing to be one. His life for the lives of thousands - it sounded like a fair trade to only thing that was causing him to doubt his reasoning was the look on Captain Kirk's face.

The man looked heartbroken, lost, confused-an expression Chekov had hardly even seen adorned on his face before. Even the last time Pavel had seen Kirk before his climb to the warp core, he had not been this broken. He had then been drawn and closed, determined and alert. Though he was facing dangers untold and hardships unnumbered then, he had managed to go through it while keeping a brave face. This is what Pavel himself was trying to do. He lifted his chin, meeting the eyes of his captain, hoping that they did not reveal the sorrow he was hiding inside. He was trying to keep it in, he was trying so hard... but he knew it wasn't good enough, on account of the tears still leaking from the faucets that had become his eyes.

"Keptin." He started again, voice hoarse and shaky. Pausing to let out a little cough to clear his throat, he was hyper aware of the hand on his shoulder, clammy hands sticking to his skin. He resisted the urge to shrug away, but instead made sure to keep eye contact with captain Kirk. "Zis is a very hard decision." He murmured slowly, trying to blink away the tears without looking like a sobbing child. "But zis is what any respectable Starfleet officer would do." As he said it, he seemed to straighten his back imperceptibly; the very thought of being recognized as a good soldier made him feel proud. "Zis is what we have to do. Khan cannot be unleashed upon ze world. His coordinates should stay a secret." he said, with all the finality he could muster.

"Pavel…" Kirk murmured, looking straight into the younger's eyes. The navigator resisted a very strong urge to cry out, resulting in a quiet whimper to die in his throat. Pavel could tell by the way Jim's face crumbled that he had picked up on the sound, but was choosing not to acknowledge it, for which he was grateful. "I just can't get rid of you, kid. I can't leave you here with him. He'll kill you…" The man trailed off, but Pavel didn't need him to continue-nor did he want him to, for that matter.

"I know, sir," he admitted, using a formality he knew the situation certainly didn't call for, but was hard to drop after so long. He jutted out his chin, pulling his lower lip in in a nervous habit. He bit down, hoping the slight pain would keep his tears at bay. He was trying his hardest to seem like a man. If there was one thing he wanted Captain Kirk to see him as before he died, he hoped that the Captain would no longer consider him a boy too young for the world. He had his heart set on finally being seen as someone who deserved to be on the bridge. At the thought of his place at the console, filled by a temporary ensign, his lip quivered. He wanted so badly to be back home, to be reunited with his crew - his family - once again. This decision was the hardest to make, and he knew that there was no going back. Sweeping his eyes are the screen, he attempted to memorize every inch of the Enterprise bridge. Wherever he went in the afterlife, he wanted to keep those images and pleasant thoughts to look back upon.

"This is what we must do." He insisted, nodding once as he stared into the Captain's equally blue eyes. He couldn't tell what the older man was thinking, what this conversation meant to him. He only knew how this was affecting himself. His mind was a blur, thoughts rushing about in random order. What was he supposed to think at a time like this? Half of him was full of remorse, memories passing in front of his eyes of things he had done wrong, including the sudden leap from the Enterprise into Harewood's open arms. The other half of his mind was trying its hardest to be selfless, to think of this as a martyrdom. He was searching inside of himself, trying to find some way to make this situation feel better in his heart. Yet all he could figure out clearly was one cohesive thought: I am not ready to die.

He had to be honest with himself: he was terrified at the thought of dying. Or, not as much the thought of dying itself as much as how it would come about. Harewood was already visibly furious with him for his little act of twisting orders around earlier, and now he was about to be given permission to make good on the threat that had been hanging over Pavel's head for days. It was sure to be painful, with agony that was likely to be drawn-out, meant to make him pay. To make them all pay, a small revenge against the starship Enterprise. Chekov could only hope that Harewood wouldn't do it in the view of the full crew. To put the people he loved through something even more awful than they were already going through the was the last thing he wanted for them. He didn't want them to the see the truth of the matter-that he was afraid to die. He didn't want to leave them yet, but he could see no other way out. He would rather be erased from the planet than going down in history as the man who was the sole cause of Harewood accessing the coordinates to unlock the most deadly supervillain in the universe. And, given the circumstances, it was the fact that he knew he had to accept.

"You're crazy, Pavel...I thought you were supposed to be smart." Kirk choked out, making a better effort to mask his own tears than the prodigy was. He was the captain; though he was emotionally attached to every member aboard his ship, he could not show this kind of weakness to Harewood. His eyes, though glistening, seemed to be bright with energy. He was hiding whatever he was feeling about all of this.

"I am sorry, Keptin. But it is my fault. If I had not believed I could handle negotiations I would still be with you….you would not have to make zis decision if I had not been so stupid. I was wrong to be angry with you and Mister Spock, you were only telling the truth about me. My decisions were juvenile and childish. I have to pay what I have done, Keptin. Please understand," He felt as though he was almost begging for Kirk to leave him, and no matter how strange it seemed, he knew that was exactly what he was doing. Never would he have thought there would come a day when he would want someone to abandon him, to leave him as alone as he had been abandoned when he was young. But it seemed life had come full circle, and once his family left him, it would be the end. It seemed only fitting that he should go through it alone, but that in no way meant that he had to like it.

"Yes, Captain, the child is right. You must understand," Harewood sneered, a hint of pleasure in his voice that hadn't been there previously. Chekov's breath caught as it dawned on him-he had just revealed to Thomas his greatest weakness, the underlying reason for his capture in the first place. He wanted to curse himself, punish himself in some way...although he supposed one of the worst punishments he could receive was about to come. "You must understand what it would mean for you should you refuse me. The losses on your part would be great. Of course, I will take care of your precious navigator first, but it will by no means stop there. I have the weapons here that Khan left behind, each and every one of them pointed directly at your ship this very moment. Rest assured, I would have no problem firing them once Pavel is gone, and I doubt your shields could withstand the power my weapons possess, especially since I happen to have much better aim. So think carefully, Captain Kirk. This choice can only be made once. I would hate to see such a pretty little ship like yours damaged so greatly, but I'm afraid it's out of my hands."

Pavel had never heard a larger lie in his entire life. To begin with, the planet was not armed heavily. That the ship's scanners had made certain of before they began their orbit in preparation to sending an investigative crew down. Next, the fact that Harewood would admit that this was out of his hands was baffling. Of course it was in his control, entirely so. One wrong move on either side, and a Starfleet officer was bound to be put in the line of fire. Harewood was playing God, and loving every moment of it. Their lives were in his hands, technically. He had the bargaining tools to win from any situation. Blood would be shed, whether or not he got those coordinates. Though Pavel wished there was some strategy to find himself a way out of his mess, he knew it was his duty to sacrifice himself. He could have laughed over the waste. Here he was, Starfleet boy genius, forced into giving up his life because there was no equation or philosophy for figuring your way out of a hostage situation. He couldn't put it into numbers, couldn't pull up some sort of clever analogy to trick his way into a win.

"You drive a hard bargain." Kirk narrowed his eyes, fury shining brightly in his expression. This was basically a bad deal all around. Jim Kirk had been quoted at the academy, insisting that he did not believe in no-win situations. Though that was still true, that didn't mean that he wasn't stumped every once in awhile. Every crew member was valuable to him, and he couldn't imagine entering the bridge again without his prize Russian whiz kid navigator. He knew Pavel was willing to sacrifice himself, probably thinking that it was what Kirk would do in this situation, but the kid was still young-much too young to give up a life with his entire future ahead of him.

"Keptin. Please," Pavel pleaded softly once again, hearing the desperation in his own voice. He was trying to almost stall the other man, to give someone else on the bridge time to talk him out of it, preferably Spock. The Vulcan had prevented Kirk from handing over the coordinates earlier, now all he needed to do was cast the idea from his mind entirely. Chekov knew it would not be an easy task, given the captain's fierce sense of loyalty, but he knew that Spock would be the only one who could do it, the only one who could get Kirk to see logic. It would not emotionally compromise the first officer to leave him behind, because he hated Pavel to begin with, had hated him ever since the destruction of Vulcan. Although he had never been particularly upfront about it, the boy knew this had to be the case. It was his fault Spock's mother had not made it, because it had been he who wasn't able to beam her up in time. Spock was right to hate him for that, and of course he must have seen Pavel's situation as the opportune time to make him pay for it.

Kirk was facing a large moral dilemma. In his heart of hearts, he knew that he could never steer his ship - or command Hikaru to, for that matter - and leave Chekov alone with a madman. If he didn't give Harewood the coordinates, the man would just find a way to get it himself, through torturing Starfleet members or other devious acts. War could start at any second, and it was going to be messy. If Harewood got those coordinates... Kirk began to think of the outcome. What if he gave him the coordinates to the planet that Khan was stranded on with his crew? Could he possibly get a head start on the man, beat him to the planet before any harm could be done? He let his mind wander to what admiral Pike would have told him to do. Of course, he would have told him it was a bad way to go about doing things. Yet could he condemn him for wanting to save his ensign - and, possibly... the world? He knew that even though Pike wouldn't approve, he wouldn't tell Kirk to leave a crew member behind, at the same time. With that thought in mind, and no devisable plans in existence, he stood from his chair.

"I'll give you the coordinates." He said, ignoring the shock reflected upon the bridge crew's faces. He couldn't drag it out any longer-it wasn't fair to Pavel, or to anyone else. "In return for the cessation of hostilities against our ship, and the release of our navigator, Pavel Andreivich Chekov," he began, his voice solemn as he spoke in official Starfleet terms. As per Starfleet regulations, the conversations he held with Harewood were constantly being recorded. Of course, with the block on communications, he couldn't trasmit them to the admiral. However, he did have hopes that when he sent them off to Starfleet, they would at least approve of his professionalism, if not his strategies.

"Sounds like a deal." Harewood hissed, leaning forward with a greedy look in his eyes. Jerking his head over towards Pavel, he let his gaze fall on the boy's anguished face. His mouth was screwed into a frown, nose scrunched and eyes glistening with frustration. "You might want to take this down, boy." He snarled, patting the kid's shoulder so roughly that he visibly shook with the force of it.

Glowering up at his so-called superior, the boy worked his slender fingers over the console, and Harewood turned his excited gaze towards the captain of the Enterprise. Before the man even had the numbers he was looking for, he was overly proud of himself. Jim could see it in his eyes, the success he thought that he had. Thinking about his plans to later capture the enemy was all that kept him from finding a way to reach through the screen and wipe that smug look off of Harewood's face.

"You had better copy it down to the number, ensign." Harewood instructed, glancing at Chekov's screen with a smirk. "I have a wonderful memory thanks to my Vulcan heritage. However, I would appreciate a written copy of my sucess." He grinned up at the camera, with a gaze that turned Kirk's soul cold. Suddenly he was feeling that this was a terrible idea, but he refused to back down. His heart was full of dread, the idea that he just might not win this one sinking down on him like a weight. He was standing on the top of a fence, trying to stay up, one breath away from falling towards one side or the other.

"Come on, captain, we haven't got all day." The man drawled, glancing at the Starfleet regulated watch he had strapped to his wrist. A sudden surge of anger made Kirk want to rip that thing straight off of his arm. Who was he - who had bombed an entire archives building, killing and injuring enough Starfleet officers to make it a mass homicide - to wear anything issued from his old company? It was almost sacrilegious; it made Kirk hate the man in front of him even more than he already did.

"In fact, we've really only got a few minutes left in our hour, actually." Harewood voiced, so matter of fact that he almost thought of Spock after hearing it. The man was so logical, so robotic in his ways that he could hardly believe he wasn't full Vulcan. He knew that a man like Spock wouldn't torture a man just for information that he did not have.

Jim merely glowered at him, his expression matching that of the ensign's, not wanting to give the man satisfaction in answering him. If there was one person who hated Harewood as much as the captain - if not even more - it had to be Chekov. Judging from the bruises and wounds already inflicted upon him, he had every right to. After all, the criminal had taken advantage of his weaknesses, exploited him against his own family-that wasn't something you could just forgive, even for someone as accepting as Pavel was.

"Alright, Harewood, you've made your point." He almost rolled his eyes, the contempt in his voice obvious. "We've only got a limited amount of time to beam our ensign back, as well. Believe me when I say I understand the time crunch." He narrowed his electric blue eyes, glaring holes into Harewood's. "Now which comes first, my officer or your coordinates?"

Even as he asked the question, he knew the answer. Harewood wasn't an imbecile enough to trust his enemy. Though Kirk would have been true to his word, down to the letter, he had to extend some sort of courtesy to this man - even if he didn't deserve it. After all, nothing would get done if they didn't trust each other enough to get to the negotiations.

"From what I have observed, you are not an idiot, Captain Kirk." Harewood mocked, the right side of his mouth lifting into a lopsided grin. "Neither am I. We handle this on my terms, and mine alone. I receive my coordinates, and then we go on our merry way."

"Yes, you receive the coordinates and send Pavel back. Then we part and never have the displeasure of seeing each other again." Kirk added, arms firmly folding against his chest. He simply wanted the whole affair to be over - the sooner he gave up the coordinates and consequently lost his position as captain, the sooner they could have Pavel with them again and the sooner they could stop Harewood from reawakening their worst nightmare. It had been a taxing few days, and all Kirk wanted to do was drop into a deep sleep for at least a week. But he couldn't rest yet, and Thomas was the reason why. It was time for the beginning of the end, and Kirk was ready.

"Precisely. You seem to be catching on, Captain," Harewood smiled, a glint in his eyes as he leaned in, impossibly close. He was literally on the edge of his seat, just waiting for his prize. He was self-satisfied, pretending to be constantly three steps ahead of the game, that Kirk wondered if perhaps his plan would fall through. Could Harewood possibly be thinking that far into the future? He was acting so conceited, his ego inflated to an impossible size, that Kirk was only a slight bit reluctant in convincing himself that this man could never see it coming, not when he was so busy rejoicing.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Kirk took a glance around the bridge before opening his mouth to speak. Spock looked astounded, and Bones seemed to be trying his hardest not to stop him. Hikaru Sulu actually seemed rather excited, as was to be expected with the imminent return of his best friend. It was enough to convince Kirk to turn back to the screen, grip the armrests of his chair, and spit out the numbers. Harewood couldn't keep Pavel away from the family he had aboard the crew, and nothing would stop Kirk from getting him back. "Twenty four, sixty, eighteen, thirty two." He forced the words through clenched teeth, watching Harewood's change in expression as he was reminded again of his win, his cheeky smile growing impossibly larger.

"Why thank you, Captain Kirk." He sounded like a gracious party host accepting a welcomed gift. It made Kirk's skin crawl to hear his saccharin tone, much too gentle for a man of his stature.

Ignoring Harewood, the captain whipped around in his chair to face his first officer, hoping the fear in his eyes wasn't too noticable. "Mister Spock, please alert Scotty of the transportation of ensign Chekov." The shaking tone of his voice was full of emotion. He couldn't keep it all at bay anymore. He was ecstatic, practically vibrating with happiness at the thought of receiving his crewmember back aboard the ship. At the same time, he was just waiting for the moment that he had to alert Starfleet, and return to the helm to go racing after the man who had ruined their lives in a matter of days.

"That won't be necessary, Captain." Jim shook himself out of his confused state of mind in time to look towards the screen, where a firm hand was clamped upon his ensign's shoulder. He was ready to leanp from his seat and snarl something about a deal when Harewood hauled the boy from his chair to stand next to him, shoulders slumped and spirit already crushed.

"We had a deal, you bastard." A roar filled his ears as anger took hold of him. If they had been talking in person, he would have had his hands around that man's throat already, or had him up against a wall, one bone or another broken. He could hear nothing but Harewood's soft chuckle of pleasure, could feel nothing but intense frustration, as their time began to slowly run out.

Authors' Note:

The Mean Girls x Star Trek parody will be posted soon as a side story on my (Val's) account. I hope you enjoy our update. We're already working on the next chapter, so keep your eyes peeled. More adventures are to come...