Chapter Twelve: In which Jim finally calls his mother, Karina does some interrogating and finds out just how much Chekov loves Russia, and we have more cryptic side plots!

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Jim held the PADD in his hand, staring at it. He knew the number. Why was it so hard for him to put it in? Everything in his brain was screaming at him that it wasn't worth it. He'd never made an effort to keep in touch with his mom in the years previous, unless they were both back in Riverside. Why start now?

Yet he knew the others were right. Juliet, Cam, Kari. Bones, especially. She hadn't exactly had an easy life, his mother. The woman deserved more than a son who never contacted her.

He thought about his father, about Karina and her parents. He and Karina were living proof that one's parents didn't stay around forever, and could be taken when you least expected it. He'd never gotten to know his father, he didn't intend to make the mistake of repeating that habit with his mother.

Tapping in the number, he put it on speaker. Surprisingly, her voice on the other end didn't exactly strike guilt into him, but rather relief that could only stem from an innate knowledge that he'd done the right thing here.

"James Tiberius, I thought we agreed on every week. It has been two months since I last heard from you, young man! Where has my call been?"

A smile spread over his face, one that was characteristic of a conversation with one's mom. And in that instant, he knew something: You never outgrew needing your mother. That was something that was evident in his young friend without mother or father.

Speaking of…

"Well, you know, Mom…life of a cadet. Plus, I've been helping Kari with some stuff. Researching things."

A snort sounded from the other end. "You? Actually doing homework on something? Miraculous. So, tell me about this."

"Eh. It might bore you," he teased, knowing full well her response.

"Jim, don't you pull that 'boring' stunt on me," she growled. "I'm an old woman. Nothing bores me anymore except everyday life. Now what are you helping that girl with? I miss you and your friends, Jim. I know I only met them once, but I'd like to hear how they're doing, too."

"Maybe I'll have Kari call you sometime," he suggested. "I think she'll enjoy that."

"I'd enjoy it, too," she said. "But what I'd enjoy even more is knowing what you've been researching for her. Spill the details, young man!"

So Jim laid it all out for his mother, telling her everything about Karina, her parents, and his scheme to make Bones jealous so he'd ask Camille out faster. By the end of that one, Winona Kirk was in stitches. They hung up, Jim promising he'd give her a call in a week. He should feel fulfilled, he knew. But he realized that he'd told her all about those around him, but nothing about himself. Compared to romantic antics and questionable pasts, his getting an Andorian to take him back to her room seemed rather unimportant.

Not that he would discuss that with his mother in the first place.

October slipped into November, and Karina was starting to think about what she was doing for Thanksgiving. Jim had invited her and Bones to Iowa with him, and Camille was going back to New York. She knew she'd be welcome either place, and was torn. She'd love to see Cam's family again, but she'd missed Jim's mom, too. The woman had called her out of the blue the other day, and it had made her week, but almost made things so much more difficult to decide.

Thinking she might as well get another's opinion on this, someone completely neutral, she asked Pavel at their next lesson, "So, I guess you didn't do Thanksgiving in Russia, did you?"

"Considering that it's an American holiday, I'd say that's a pretty accurate guess," he muttered, for once more focused on the assignment in front of him than dragging information about her life from her. Karina frowned. He knew so much about her by now, but she hadn't learned a single thing about him, other than what she could tell just from knowing him.

"Well, now that you're in America, do you do anything while everyone else is gone?" she probed, and he looked up at her, an eyebrow raised in a way that reminded her remarkably of a certain Vulcan xenolinguistics instructor.

"I don't see what that has to do with complex Standard phrases," he said, a grin slowly creeping across his face and giving away the serious façade.

Reaching across the desk and shoving his shoulder playfully, she rolled her eyes. "Ha. You're hilarious, aren't you? Turning my words back on me. Seriously, though."

He shrugged. "Not really. I didn't last year, I probably won't this year. It's just not that big of a deal to me, I guess."

Karina mimicked the eyebrow raise. Pavel may be able to see right through her, but that went both ways, and it wasn't because she was good at the reading people thing, either. He tried concealing what he was actually thinking, but most of the time it was written all over his face. For some odd reason, she admired that, though she imagined he considered it a curse. How she could admire the ability to be unreadable in Camille and the ability to be completely transparent in Pavel was a mystery to her, but so it was.

And right now, he was totally trying to put up a tough face for her. Karina pushed the papers in front of her to the side, then took the one in front of him and set it on top of the pile. Forcing him to look her in the eye – a remarkable feat for either of them, one of the things they'd discovered was that they were both awful at eye contact for longer periods of time – she said, "You know what I think? I think it bugs you a lot more than you think it does."

No response from him. She pressed on. "I think when everyone else has someone to go home to, you feel a little lonely, don't you? I'm no idiot. Overseas air travel isn't exactly cheap. You can't just hop a shuttle back to Russia, can you? So here you stay. Even then, I'm not sure, but I don't think you want to go back, do you?"

"I wouldn't mind going back," he started, but she held up a hand, stopping him before he could continue.

"Yeah, I know you love Russia itself. That much I have gleaned. What I don't know is why you don't want to go back to your family. We've spent so much time talking about me, that I know next to nothing about you. I mean, you don't have to tell me the deep, dirty stuff yet," she added, seeing the guarded look rise in his eyes again. It dropped with his next sentence.

"You think I have a deep, dirty past?" he asked, and she gave a small laugh.

"I admit, it does sound a little ridiculous, even to me. But there's got to be something behind that wall you've got built up. I'm supposed to be the impenetrable one here, remember?" She figured a little teasing wouldn't hurt.

Throwing his hands up in the air in mock exasperation, he said, "I thought we were past that!"

"We are," she reassured him. "What I do know about you is that you're a pretty good guy, in spite of what you're running from. Also, you're a really good friend, even for such a short time. You have no idea how good it felt to have someone just ask me about me and let me bare my soul to them, Pavel. No idea. So now I get to do the same for you."

The look of stark terror in his eyes suggested that he did, in fact, have no idea how good it felt. He looked as though he would rather die.

"It's only fair," she told him. "I won't ask you anything I think will make you uncomfortable and if I step over a line, you can refuse to answer. There. That make you feel better?"

He nodded. "Okay. I'm ready."

She couldn't help but grin. He still looked genuinely terrified of what she was going to ask him.

"Let's start with basics. Full name?"

"Pavel Andreievich Chekov."

"Okay," she said, pretending to take note. "That answers your father's name, as well. I was going to ask that later. Favorite color?"

"Ehhhh…green."

"Birthday?"

"September 19th."

"Is this really so bad?" she asked, grinning even bigger than before. He shrugged, gesturing for her to go on.

"Best friend's name, from back in Russia?"

"Dimitri Spasonov."

"This one is probably going to be hard: Favorite thing about the mother country."

Pavel looked at her as though she'd asked him to pick his least favorite child and offer it up as a human sacrifice. "What are you trying to do to me here?"

"Take as long as you need. I've got all day. No plans at all."

After a brief moment, he finally groaned and put his head down on the table. "I can't do it. It's tearing my brain apart as we speak."

"Okay, maybe that's a bit unfair. Let's go on to a new one…I just realized I actually have no clue how old you are."

"Just turned seventeen."

Karina finally relented. "I think that's a decent start. I've got the basics down, right? Anything else I should know? Off the top of your head?"

He shrugged. "Not that I can think of."

She grinned mischievously. "Okay, cool. Now, how about those complex Standard phrases? Stop distracting me, Pavel! Gosh!"

To his credit, he handled her teasing rather well. Returning the grin, he returned to the paper in front of him. "Crazy Americanka," he muttered under his breath. Amused at her new nickname but not opposed to it, Karina elected to ignore it. She'd let him think she didn't know what he called her on a regular basis.

"You're sure this is a good idea?" the slightly built, tan man sporting a full beard asked of his companion, who was just clicking his communicator off. "It's been almost two years, why not just let this go and get on with your life?"

The other, not quite as lean but also not quite all the way to muscle-bound, shook his head. "And what would I have people say of me then? That I've gone soft? No, this must be done."

"I'm just saying – "

"And have you gone soft, my friend?" the taller man, his voice full of barely concealed venom, asked. "What would you do in my shoes? You have cause to contemplate that, you know. If the theory of the domino effect is correct, you may well find yourself in this same situation, and then what will you do with your half of the business?"

The other snorted, almost entertained by his friend's choice of words. "Business," he spat. "Never did understand your use of that term, even in closed quarters. No, I have not gone soft here. You were there eleven years ago, or has your memory faded that much?"

"Then you are with me in this, Vladimir?"

Vladimir paused, then heaved a sigh. "I suppose so. Though I don't doubt that you on your own could do the job just as well. Less suspicion will be raised with just one of us than with the pair of us together."

His friend shook his head. "No, this is not just a matter of retrieving a prodigal, Vlad. This is nothing less than tying up some loose ends. That establishment has been a thorn in our side for more than twenty years, and the minor setback of eleven years ago changes nothing. Memories fade quickly in this new age. No one will remember our faces, much less our names. We were careful enough last time. This time, we will be even more so."

"Meaning?" Vladimir asked, though he had a decent feeling he knew.

"I will not rest until the Starfleet Academy has been reduced to a hole in the ground. Only then can we have truly won."