You woke, groggy and slow, in your bed and yawned, a bit dazed by a strange dream you'd just escaped from but couldn't quite seem to remember. You only knew it had been strange, as the strands of its memory faded fast.
Chekov had recovered fantastically over two weeks of close watching, on your part, yet neither he nor the Captain could recall the events of the M5 planet they were rendered unconscious on.
You slipped out of your bed and leisurely clothed yourself in your uniform before you walked with a spring in your step down the halls towards Engineering; thoughts of Chekhov flitted about in your mind, causing a dumb but unavoidable grin to spread on your face.
"'Ello, Lassie," Scotty greeted once you made your way to your station, beside him; actually, your station was anywhere he was; he just so happened to be lying on his back, fixing some equipment at the moment.
"(Y/N), I need you to cut the two red wires on the left there, and then the second blue wire to the right, next to the cooler there," Mr. Scott instructed, handing you a pair of scissors after you slipped on your rubber gloves. You smiled in thanks and set to do as you were told.
"So, how's the young Ensign?" the scotsman began conversing, although he was fully concentrating on his own work, he was only trying to be polite; you noticed that he was only ever really polite to you.
"Gud," you replied, carefully cutting the first red wire. "I meaned 'good'," you corrected yourself, embarrassed.
"Uh, 'meant'..." You were losing focus and your work as you became flustered.
"Steady, (Y/N)." Scotty set a hand on your arm when he saw that you were about to cut the wrong wire. "I knew what you meant."
You cut the correct wire, blushing in your embarrassment.
"'Twas more adorable the first time you said it…" Scotty mumbled to himself, making you giggle.
The next few hours of engineering flew by quickly and Scotty, finding no further work for you, dismissed you to the Medical Bay to volunteer there, seeing as how you were proficient in both nursing and engineering.
You walked into the Medical Bay and, upon finding that the blue shirt Bones usually reserved for you when you volunteered was gone, you timidly changed into one of doctor McCoy's blue shirts and set off to find him.
"...'im two cc's of anesthetics." Bones' voice flowed into your sensitive ears and you found him talking to a nurse who busily nodded and then walked off to do as the doctor prescribed.
"Bones," you started, acquiring his attention easily. "I here to help-I mean, 'I'm' here to help," you corrected yourself.
"Is that my shirt?" Bones asked, a smile tickling the corner of his mouth.
"Y-yes, I couldn't find my," you said. "I mean 'mine'."
"I knew what you meant," McCoy chuckled.
He saw that the sleeves were too long for your arms and the whole article of clothing looked as if a blanket had been draped across your body.
Bones leaned down and began to roll your sleeves up and tie the excess fabric in a knot at one corner of the shirt until it fit you better. "There ya go," he said quietly, lingering for a moment before he forced himself to stand and guide you to the patients he had for you to work with.
After a couple hours more of working, Bones sent you to the bridge to collect blood samples from the crew for tests.
You walked with the same dumb grin as earlier that morning; you were looking forward to seeing Chekov.
The doors to the bridge slid open and you made your way through the science deck, acquiring blood samples from Mr. Spock as well as Ms. Uhura.
The Captain winked at you before you took his blood and you smiled good-naturedly at him. Finally you made your way to Pavel, who grinned when he looked up and saw you.
"Heello," he said quietly, rolling up his sleeve to give your needle easier access to his veins. You blushed and took a blood sample; the two of you were aware that most of the crew was not-so-secretly watching you interact.
You quickly snuck a hug with your ensign and in the midst of the embrace, you accidentally stuck him in the head with the needle. Chekov cried out and shuddered. You were confused, the needle had barely scratched him.
"I...I'm sorry!" you apologized, setting a hand on his shoulder. He didn't stop shaking and his eyes were closed shut.
You pulled out your communicator and called Bones.
"Mm?" he grunted.
You explained the situation as best you could, remembering to stay calm and make sure you told the doctor every detail. The crew around looked worried, and Captain Kirk was standing beside you, anxiously looking at the trembling Russian. "What's going on?" Kirk asked.
"I mey have hit nerve," you said, no longer caring about getting your words straight.
"N-No, I reemember now!" he groaned. Bones came running onto the bridge and made his way to Chekov.
"I reemember what heppened!" he repeated.
"It seems as though pain triggered Ensign Chekov's suppressed memories. Perhaps the same method would work on the Captain." The calculating and logical voice of Spock pushed into the conversation. Bones quickly, seeing as how Kirk was attempting to escape, pulled the syringe out of your hand and scraped mercilessly across his forehead, careful not to make the injury too deep. Doctor McCoy looked very pleased indeed with himself.
"Aaaaug! Bones!" Kirk exclaimed, his hand flying to the cut in his forehead before he began to tumble backwards as if he were suddenly dizzy. Bones made sure he didn't fall over and Kirk, after a moment, began to babble "I-I think I remember too...".
"Fascinating," Spock commented quietly.
"What do you remember?" you asked slowly, letting out a sigh of relief when Pavel stopped shuddering.
"I reemember steam...end then there was a veery loud noise...end…"
"Klingons." Captain Kirk finished Chekov's sentence.
"Mr. Sulu, set us in course back to the M5 planet, in exactly the same place we beamed down before," Kirk ordered, turning back to face Spock and Bones.
"Yes, sir." Sulu's voice rung from behind as he did as he was told.
"Spock, and Uhura will come with me again and Bones-"
"Take (Y/N) with you," Bones interrupted. You stared at him, wide-eyed.
"Eet's not safe!" Chekov protested.
"Yeah, well, she can hear now, and she's a capable Nurse and Engineer," McCoy argued.
"You prepared to come?" Kirk asked you.
You thought as hard as you could in the short amount of time you had to decide. You looked at Pavel then nodded back at the Captain.
"Yes, sir."
Lights swirled around you, and for a moment, you couldn't see. You felt Chekov reach out and touch your arm, and your vision cleared. You had all been beamed down to the planet only after an hour of preparation. You no longer wore your Enterprise uniform, and neither did anyone else, because the Captain did not wish to start a war with the Klingons if one could be avoided.
"Are yoo okey?" Pavel asked, looking at you worriedly when you put a hand to your head.
"Yeah," you replied, smiling. This was exciting, but slightly terrifying at the same time.
"Let's go," Kirk said and began to walk north.
The team walked for hours in apparently the same direction they had before they had lost contact. Every hour, Mr. Sulu made sure their comm's still worked.
You walked, hand-in-hand with Chekov, at first hesitant, thinking it wouldn't be professional, until Kirk said "no, it's fine. It's cute."
Blue trees dotted the horizon and all of you walked through a valley of long purple-hued grass that hid anyone walking through it from others, except for creatures and things that could fly. At first the sounds all around you overwhelmed you; you couldn't remember ever hearing anything like it. What you could only guess were birds cawed and called overhead and a sort of buzzing entered your hyperactive ears. You could hear, what you had been told, the sound of water far off from where you were walking, and most of all you could hear and feel the wind rustling through the grass. You shed a few tears at the beauty of it all. You were hearing nature, a feat that you could only dream about in the past.
The bugs were strange but comfortably docile, as they did not bite or become any sort of annoyance whatsoever. Spock argued with Kirk, when he wasn't talking logic, among other things, with Uhura, and you and Chekov talked of the family and life that Pavel had left in Russia when he became the youngest Ensign in Starfleet history. You loved to listen to his voice, that adorable accent making you blush, and the enthusiasm in his tone enthralling you.
Finally, night fell and the team set up camp. Uhura set up the ten-person-tent, that was deceivingly small on the outside, and everyone gathered inside. There were separations in the tent, enough for ten people, of course, but Kirk had taken advantage of your gullibility and told you "since Spock and Uhura are sharing a room, and I'm sleeping alone, you'll have to room with Chekov, I guess…" and, thinking that since he was the Captain and that he would not lie to you-in other words, because of your complete lack of knowledge of his personality-you believed him wholeheartedly and did as he said.
Pavel jumped when you entered his portion of the tent but made no protest and made no move to send you away.
You grinned at him and laid next to him, setting your head on his stomach to listen to the interesting noises of his digestive tract-whether it truly was interesting or not, you didn't know, for you weren't actually paying attention to it-and slowly you began to drift to sleep, feeling the covers being pulled over your body and his and a rumbling from his chest as he began to hum a lullaby that lulled you to the darkness behind your tired eyelids.