Beloved followers! It's been such a crazy week, I nearly forgot about our favorite cadets this morning. However, I remembered at the last second. Here they are, and I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's a bit more of a filler, but there's some plot advancement.

Chapter Eleven: In which Karina and Chekov are actually friends (finally!), Juliet mildly scolds Jim, and Camille springs her meddling trap. Mwahahahahaha! (Sorry. I'm slightly sleep deprived and feeling a little crazy.)

I do not own Star Trek or any of its characters. I only own my plot and my OCs.

"Growing up with nuns? It was interesting," Karina said, raising an eyebrow. "What I don't see is what that has to do with simple English phrases."

"It was a question to fill the silence," Pavel explained, as though he were talking to a small child. Karina was getting used to that tone, but it never failed to grate at her. "That's what friends do…ask each other things about their past. At least, I assume so."

Karina gave him her "teacher look," as he'd christened it. He, in turn, gave her what she'd come to call his "puppy eyes."

"Oh, come on!" she pleaded. "Not the face! You know I can't resist the face!"

If anything, it grew more exaggerated. She groaned. "You fight dirty, Mr. Chekov, were you aware?"

He shrugged the jibe off and sat back in his chair. "What can I say? I have that effect on people. Unless it's my sister."

Karina made a mental note about that one, then relented. "Okay, the nuns. Uh…where do I begin? I guess they were kind enough to me…but they didn't really understand me. I was a different kid than they were used to dealing with."

"What, were you a problem child?" he asked.

She stared at him for a few minutes. "Do I seem like a problem child to you?"

His eyes widened, and he backpedaled so fast she had to bite back her laughter, knowing he'd probably think she was making fun of him. And one thing she knew about people from most other cultures – hurting their pride was a bad idea.

"Not really," he stammered. "Just wondering – I mean, what do you mean by different?"

Smiling, finding the whole thing rather cute, she said, "Well, for one thing, I guess I was a…semi-problem child. I mean, I caused some trouble, but it was relatively harmless. I was mischievous, but not devious. Most of the time, I just got scolded for having a big mouth."

"You talked a lot, then?" he asked.

"Yeah. Still do. You know that phrase I used last week?"

"The one about circle talking?"

"Talking circles around you, yeah. Well, I would do that, except it would be during my lessons. Bad idea, right? Especially when your nuns were permitted to use capital punishment. You have no idea."

Noticing how he seemed to avoid her eyes after that one, she frowned and continued. "Anyway, the point is, I wasn't exactly easy, but I wasn't the most difficult child they had. Weird thing was…most of the nuns were younger women who hadn't had experience with children prior to being sent to the abbey. They followed a formula. I was in the Reverend Mother's office one day before I left for Starfleet, and she had a list of good children and not-so-good ones. Seriously! It was like Santa Claus or something."

"And you didn't fit the formula?" Pavel filled in the blank for her, perceptive as always.

"Not in the slightest. I'd rather not fit any formula. That's something I've known from a young age," she said. "So when I saw that I didn't make either list… Let's just say I wasn't exactly torn up about it. Anything else you want to know?"

"How'd you learn so many languages?" he asked. "I mean, you don't just find a girl from Vermont whose only connection with the Russian language is her name who just happens to speak it fluently. So I'm curious."

Without pausing, she responded, "Out of spite."

He frowned. "Come again?"

Karina smiled, memories flooding back. "Well, I guess it started when I was about seven. These nuns were German Roman Catholics. So, they insisted their wards learn German and Latin, as well as take advanced English courses. But the problem was, they also insisted knowing any other languages was a waste of time. We needed German to converse with the bishop, and the priests for confession, and Latin to understand the sermons for mass, but as long as we stayed in the abbey, we didn't need to know anything else."

"You disagreed?" Pavel asked.

"Not necessarily," she said. "I agreed we didn't need to know any others. I just hated that they tried to stifle our learning." When he looked as though he didn't understand, she frowned, trying to think of how to explain it. "I have this, desire, I guess, to learn as much, know as much as possible. Other cultures fascinate me. I believe life is richer when you are well rounded. Knowledge gives me pleasure. Can you understand that?"

He shrugged. Karina sensed that she wasn't going to get anywhere with this, so she moved on. "That was my act of rebellion. They were trying to control me, and I wasn't going to be controlled for anything. I did other stuff to rebel, too," she laughed, remembering her antics. "I may or may not have made up horrible things for confession. I made the visiting priests drop their Bibles at least once per session."

"Like what, if I may ask?"

"Oh, you know… murder and cannibalism."

He looked incredulous. "And they fell for that?"

"I don't truly believe so. I think my lack of respect for their holy profession merely shocked them," she said. "I also dropped German cuss words around the nuns just for fun. But after one too many spankings, I just settled for simple phrases in other languages. And they had no idea what they were hearing. Did you know that hearing the words, 'Privyet, comrades,' can cause a woman to hyperventilate? That one was fun."

Suddenly a thought occurred to her. "Um, sorry. Do references to communism offend you or anything?"

Pavel stared her down for a few minutes until she was almost uncomfortable. "Karina. How long ago was the Russian Revolution? Two hundred years? I think we're over it by now."

She snorted. "Well, not the Americans."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all. I've talked a lot. In circles around you, like I said earlier. So let's talk about you, how about? I've told you about the abbey, tell me about Russia. You said you had a sister? Tell me about her."

The mention of his sister brought a smile to his face, a contagious one.

"Her name's Anastasia. We call her Pteechka, though."

Karina smiled. The term meant "little bird." She imagined the girl to possess the personality of a sparrow, and, if she was anything like Karina, perhaps the attention span of one.

"You remind me a lot of her, actually," he continued, and she logged that away. Attention span of a sparrow, without question.

"How old is she?" Karina asked.

"Fourteen," he said. "She was twelve when I left."

"Haven't you gone back since?" Karina asked. Suddenly she felt a wall go up. That was different, being on the opposite side of the wall in this friendship. Pavel suddenly became very interested in the paper in front of him.

"How do you pronounce this one again?" he asked, awkwardly trying to get back to the situation at hand. Karina opened her mouth to pry once more, but she managed to control her tongue for once, realizing if she pushed, the wall would only resist her prodding.

So though she knew very well he knew how to pronounce it, she said, "Exhausted. It's like tired, only multiplied by infinity."

"Got it," he said. They passed the rest of the lesson in relative quiet, and when she headed back to hers and Camille's room, her mind was spinning at its locomotive speed. What was it about that question that had put the wall up on her normally very open friend?

Then again, now that she thought about it, he wasn't exactly the most open of people. She thought of Camille, who told you exactly what was on her mind without any sugarcoating, but even she'd had her secrets. For weeks Karina hadn't known of the woman's lung condition, and that was something potentially life-threatening.

What secrets were hidden behind that wall she'd just seen? Whatever Pavel Chekov was hiding, Karina was going to get to the bottom of it eventually. Her parents temporarily forgotten, Karina smirked to herself. She had a new mystery to uncover.

Juliet paused at the corner, spotting something that was not a common phenomenon. Jim Kirk was sitting at a café table, completely alone, with a cup of black in front of him, looking completely and utterly despondent.

She turned to Sulu, whom she was walking with. "Give me one second," she said. Walking up to Jim, she sat down in front of him, crossing her arms on the table. "Call your mother," she said simply. Jim stared at her, dumbfounded.

"How did you – ?"

"Cam."

"Remind me never to tell her anything again."

Jim shook his head. "I know I should," he said. "But what do I say? Hi, Mom. I'm alive. No attacks. Yeah, I learn how to disable a torpedo today. She's seen it all. Done it all. And left me behind on Earth while she did so."

"Well, what if you have a kid someday, Jim?" Juliet asked. "What will you do? Ditch a promising career with Starfleet until he's eighteen?"

Jim paused. "I honestly don't know," he said. Looking up at her, he asked, "Would you?"

She shrugged. "Never thought about it, but I don't think so. Maybe I relate to your mom. Who knows? Anyway, call her. I do know she wants to hear from you."

And with that, she waltzed back over to Sulu, leaving Jim alone once more with that tidbit of information.

"So," Camille asked, as soon as Karina walked in the room. "How'd the lessons go?"

In typical form, Karina nodded, barely looking up from the paper she was frowning at. No wonder the kid had problems looking where she was going. "Good."

"You getting a lot done?" Camille continued casually.

"I think so. We're getting farther than I expected to by this point in time," Karina said, blissfully unaware of Camille's schemes.

Grinning, the older girl said, "Mm-hmm. And Pavel seems to be getting it quickly enough?"

Karina nodded again. "Yeah, actually. He's a natural at this. I've been thinking about suggesting he switch to communications from navigation, but something tells me I won't get anywhere with – " She paused, and then her jaw dropped. Slowly turning to look at Camille, she asked, "How the heck did you find out?"

Camille laughed and sat back on her bed. "Oh, I have my ways, sweetheart. So tell me. Why did you consider that such important information to keep from me, huh? Afraid I would try to push something on you?"

Karina groaned and fell down, face into pillow. "Please don't, Cam. This is a really great friendship. That's all I want it to be. Why would I want to ruin something this great, complicate it? Can't you understand that?"

Camille smiled. "Relax, Kari. I've started to see where you're coming from with the 'no boys' thing. Men do make life more complicated, don't they?"

"Uh-huh. Especially," Karina smiled slyly at this one, "cowboys, right?"

Camille emitted a sound of fake disgust. "Hey, you're not allowed to turn around and pull that same stunt on me after you just asked me to not do so on you. You have my word that I will not try to plant any ideas in your head. If you want to just be friends, don't let me stand in your way."

She turned toward the bathroom, then turned back, a thought occurring to her. "However, I do insist on permission for one thing."

"Oh, dear," Karina muttered, flipping the pillow over onto her face.

Camille sat down on her bedside and removed the pillow. "I'm serious here. I need you to listen to this. It's important, young lady."

Karina nailed her with a withering gaze, then finally threw her hands up in surrender. "Proceed," she muttered. "But be quick about it."

"If I ever see you, with anyone, and you obviously have feelings for that person but won't admit them out loud, I get permission to call you on it. Deal?"

Camille was more than a little shocked when, rather than nodding her consent to a good idea, Karina merely scoffed at her.

"Okay, aren't we being a little hypocritical there? I'm sure a certain doctor would love to hear of someone's feelings for him."

Camille conceded the point. "Okay. Unless I know you have a good reason. And I won't do it right away. I'll only do it if I think you're causing yourself more harm than good. And if this person has the potential to be really good for you. I give you permission to do the same to me. Okay?"

Karina nodded. "Sounds fair to me."

"Great!" Camille said, flopping back on the bed, leaning on her elbows so she could look back up at the other girl. "Now, go ahead. Say what you need to say."

"Why are you torturing poor Bones?" Karina exclaimed. "Haven't you kept him in suspense long enough?"

Camille shrugged. "Maybe. But it is rather fun to watch him squirm sometimes, don't you think? Did you know he totally thinks I like Jim?" She let out a derisive laugh and fell flat on her back. "As if."

Karina, her protective side rankled, asked, "What's wrong with Jim?"

Camille rose up again. She mused. "You know, one day Jim's going to make some woman very happy. Of that I'm certain. But I also know that she isn't going to be me, and she's only going to be happy once he does some serious growing up. Like growing a pair and calling his mom every once in a while."

Karina, though agreeing, wasn't quite ready to drop the point. "You think Jim will ever actually settle down?"

"When he does, it'll likely be with some alien or other. Definitely saw him sneaking into one of the Andorian cadets' rooms last night."

"His latest conquest," Karina muttered. She flipped around so she was lying side by side with Camille. The two girls stared up at the ceiling. Karina pushed a button on the bed post, a unique invention that they'd only recently discovered, even after living in the room for more than a year. The metal ceiling morphed to reveal the starry sky above. Of course, it was only a simulation, but it mirrored exactly what the sky would have looked like were they actually outside – and without all the smog.

Contemplating their future traveling through those stars, Karina asked, "Do you ever wonder if our job just maybe doesn't lend itself to relationships? Serious ones, anyway?"

Camille shrugged. "I don't know. I certainly hope so. But hey," she said, reaching over and taking Karina's hand, "it does present some pretty great friendships, from my experience."

Karina smirked. "Even if it does take us a while to let them in, right?"

Camille raised her head, staring at her friend. "Wait, what?"

"Never mind," Karina muttered, smiling and closing her eyes.

Bones would come in later to find the pair of them sleeping, Karina's head resting on Camille's shoulder. He'd be hoping to catch Camille on her own, but couldn't help smiling just a little at the display. That was one of the many things he appreciated about Camille, was how protective she looked, how innately Karina seemed to trust her.

No, maybe now wasn't the best time to tell Camille what he'd been itching to for ages. No, it was probably for the best. After all, there was no way she could feel the same spark he did every time she walked through the clinic door, right?

Shaking his head at his own foolishness, but still smiling, Bones grabbed a throw blanket off of Camille's bed and laid it over the girls. He grabbed Camille's card off of her desk chair where it hung, locked the door, said, "Lights off," and slipped quietly out of the room, the door sliding shut behind him.