Chapter Fifteen: In which we have a slightly angry Russian, in which said Russian and Karina are, once again, adorable cupcakes, and Camille and Jim plot.

Jim: Well, I wouldn't call it plotting...

browneyedgirl29: You're not telling Bones about it because he would flip. That's called plotting, James.

Camille: She's got a point. Anyway, browneyedgirl29 owns nothing except her OCs! Enjoy! Review! PLEASE review! She loves those! Do the reviewing thing.

Karina: Cam, they get the point.

Bones: Wait, what are we not telling me?

"Wait, what?" Karina asked, looking over the top of her reading glasses at her friend. Pavel had been in a rather sour mood ever since she'd gotten back yesterday, and she'd briefly wondered what was up before deciding to get back to business. "I'm not sure I heard you correctly."

"I said," he muttered as he gripped the paper in his hands, crinkling the places where he gripped too hard, "I have some complaints about the Standard language."

Karina frowned. "Okay, maybe I did hear you correctly." It seemed really out of character. What was he talking about, complaints? He'd been so compliant this entire time and he was complaining now, when they were where most people got to in two years of learning?

Normally, Karina would have just shrugged it off as odd behavior, or maybe man-hormones, but today she was in a rather bad mood as well. The nuns had yielded no positive information anymore when she went straight to them rather than talking over the phone, but had rather staunchly even refused her entry to the abbey. When she'd demanded to see Reverend Mother, it had been a grim, taciturn woman who came to the door and told her that it was for her own good that they refused to tell her anything. Of course, Camille had opened her big mouth and started hurling insults at the sisters. That led to General Osbourne hauling both girls back to the car and lecturing his daughter on how rude she'd been and how she'd embarrassed him and Karina both. None of it had been pleasant.

So if Karina had a chance to vent that frustration a little bit, she would.

"What do you mean, you have complaints? It's a language, Pavel, not a flipping customer service booth!" she growled. He seemed a little shocked by her short response, but nevertheless responded in kind.

"It makes no sense whatsoever," he grumbled.

"Well, maybe you could tell me what's been on your mind the past few months when you were picking it up at a completely indecent rate, then?" she demanded.

"Think about it, Karina!" he exploded. "You have three spellings of 'there,' three spellings of 'two,' and that 'i before e' rule never applies!"

"If you're tired of this, by all means, you can go ahead and walk out. I don't need you to get on the Enterprise! I'll get there on my own!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Karina clapped a hand to her mouth, realizing how unfeeling she'd sounded. "I'm sorry," she said. "I – I didn't mean that."

But the damage was done. A glare worthy of one of Dante's circles of hell was etched on his face. Karina shrank back. This wasn't the Pavel she knew. What had she done to bring this out? Forcing herself to look beyond the pure anger in his eyes, which was not easy, she saw what was truly there, what the anger was masking: Hurt. And, for that matter, fear.

She didn't know what he was afraid of, but she imagined it had nothing to do with her. Because nothing in his expression said that he was afraid of her, although she knew the hurt had been caused by her.

Unfortunately, so was the anger, and it was a scary thing to be subject to.

"Pavel," she stammered, "I swear, I didn't mean – "

"I think you did," he said, his voice trembling with a mix of emotions. "Do you want to do this on your own? Fine. Evidently it's all about Karina right now."

He pushed out of his chair in one fluid movement and was across the room and to the door before she could blink. Rising just as quickly, and whirling, she called, "Come on! Don't run away from me now!"

Apparently she'd used the wrong choice of words. He paused in the doorway, his shoulders tense. Then, uttering a cry of frustration, he actually started running, quite literally. Karina sank back down into the chair and buried her head in her hands.

Once again, her careless tendency to speak without thought had gotten her nowhere.

Maybe it wasn't that running helped him think. Maybe it was that running helped him to purge himself of the tendency to overthink things. Either way, Chekov was mindlessly running around the track, again. And he was extremely grateful that no one but he and Sulu used this track, because he was pretty sure the sight of a cadet running around in full uniform was probably ridiculous.

Not that he particularly cared what people thought of him at the moment, but when he finally tired of running away from his problems – as Karina had so deftly put it – he probably would. Appearances were a big thing where he came from, and it was kind of hard to kill that particular insecurity after nearly sixteen years of it.

When he thought about it, if he could when losing himself to the feel of the ground pounding under his feet, that wasn't exactly what Karina had said. She hadn't said he was running away from his "problems," per se, just that he was running away from her. At the moment, he wasn't so sure they were different.

Not that Karina was a problem. Far from it, when she wasn't being venomous, she was one of his best friends, the first person who'd desired to pull him out of his shell here at Starfleet, but she would be a liability in certain situations. Such as if his past finally caught up with him. There was a reason he'd kept a low profile up until this year, a reason practically no one had even know Pavel Chekov existed.

He didn't want his decisions to hurt her.

What frustrated him and made him run even harder than before in the hope of venting that frustration was that his decisions hadn't even been bad ones. He'd done what was best for him, something he'd never been allowed to do in his life, or at least since his mother had died. And he barely remembered the time before that. He'd been a toddler at the time. Who would have thought that in this century, women still experienced complications in childbirth?

Jarred out of his thoughts by the fact that his lungs were suddenly burning, Chekov skidded to a stop, bent over double, and sucked in as much oxygen as humanly possible. Checking the clock on the side of the arena, he frowned. How had half an hour passed since he'd been in here? That couldn't be good for him. But once again, at the moment, he wasn't really thinking about that.

Another sight caught his attention, and he sighed in resignation when he saw that Karina was sitting off to the side, just kind of watching him. He started walking back around the track, knowing that he'd have to talk to her sooner or later anyway.

Even from this distance, he could see the regret on her face. Also, there was a definite amount of tear tracks on her face. It occurred to him he had never seen Karina cry before. Somehow, intuitively, he knew that of the pair of them, she was probably the crier. She just seemed like she normally pushed negative emotions to the side, because he'd only ever seen her happy. Since she'd dispensed with the professional façade, anyway. But maybe the overarching positivity was just a façade, too.

He also sensed that of the pair of them, he was the grudge holder. A bad habit, but something he'd picked up growing up in Russia. One of the few things his father had seen fit to teach him for that matter: to never forgive and never forget.

Karina, on the other hand, was looking like a lost puppy who just needed a little bit of sunshine right then. He didn't think he was great at the sunshine category, but he'd try.

Chekov didn't know what he'd expected, that she'd be falling on her knees and begging forgiveness, even though he'd started the matter. Actually, that was exactly what he'd expected. But all she did was look up at him, try to smile through her regret, and say, "Privyet."

He knew her well enough to know she was inwardly wincing at the inadequacy of her greeting. They'd just exploded at each other for no apparent reason, and all she could say was "Hi?"

However, he chose to respond tactfully. "Privyet."

He sat down next to her, and they both just stared straight ahead for a few moments. Karina finally broke the silence by saying, "So, Sulu told me I might find you here."

Chekov frowned at her. "How did you know to ask Sulu about that?"

She shrugged. "I happened to run into him. I was looking a little down, he's not an idiot. He asked what was up, I told him I thought I might have been an idiot. He's a good listener. Unfortunately, he's also really good at agreeing with you when you say you've behaved like an idiot. He doesn't sugarcoat a lot."

"Didn't strike me as the type," Chekov admitted. He figured Karina was strategically trying to lead up to what was actually going on. He wasn't going to tell her the truth, of course, even though he'd have expected nothing less from her. Some secrets were better left buried. So he decided to strike first.

"So, what was actually going on back there?" he asked. "You know, besides defending the English language?"

Karina gave a short, humorless laugh, shaking her head in annoyance at herself. "I don't know why I actually defended it. I agree. It's completely stupid. Why are there so many different spellings of one flipping word, right?"

"Different meanings," he responded without thinking. She gave him a look.

"Okay, good. I was beginning to get scared you were just acting like it came easy to you. Of course, I didn't believe it for a second. I just was under the impression you liked a challenge."

He shrugged. "Not quite sure about that one. You know I prefer to do things I'm good at."

"Do I?" she asked. "I still don't know all that much about you, you know."

Sadly, we need to keep it that way, he thought, then gestured around the track. "Well, for starters, I have a tendency to 'run away' from my problems."

She winced. "So that was why you reacted that way to my wording. Had I known…"

"But you didn't. It's okay, really," he said.

They lapsed into another silence. He wondered if she was going to address the elephant in the room, because he certainly wasn't. She began to speak, and he tensed. But it wasn't about the cause of what had gone down back there. It was something much more preferable.

"So, how fast are you?"

He sighed in relief and smiled, looking around the track. "Pretty fast," he replied. "Sulu thought I should run in the Starfleet marathon or something."

Karina's already big brown eyes widened, and she nodded emphatically. "You should! Why don't you?"

"Because, in case you haven't noticed, I don't like to draw attention to myself, Karina," he quipped, and she smiled.

"Now that I did know, though I'm still not sure why," she said. "Your choice, as always, but I still think you should."

"Why, exactly?"

Karina leveled a gaze at him that wouldn't let him go. Chekov temporarily lost the ability to breathe, then shook himself. Why was it that she had this effect on him? He couldn't figure it out! It was like he was caught in a whirlwind every time she was around. Her constant talk contrasted his quietness. She was the master of randomness, going from one place to another, sometimes making him feel left behind. But in her rare moments of seriousness, it was as though he'd just been spinning and suddenly stopped, feeling dizzy.

"You have a lot of potential that I don't think you realize," she told him. "Nor do a lot of other people. And I know this because I'm the same way. We're kids, Pavel. Kids in a world run by adults. I mean, that's how it is outside of Starfleet, too, but especially here in Starfleet, people are automatically going to underestimate us. So we need to prove ourselves worthy of their estimation. You get what I'm saying?"

He got it all too well. "You still don't know how fast I am, though," he said, a sly grin creeping onto his face. "How will you know if I could prove myself by running the marathon if you don't even know my ability?"

She hopped up off of the bench. "Race me," she said, lining up in front of the starting line.

Taken completely aback, he stared at her. "Now? Here?" he asked, gesturing at her uniform in a feeble bid for sensibility. "Are you absolutely sure about this?"

She looked down at herself and back up at him, petulant. "Really, Pavel, you think I can't run in a skirt? How do you think I did it all those times I rammed into you? Come on!"

When he hesitated, she gave him an attempt at puppy eyes. "It'll be fun," she said.

Sighing in resignation, he got up and joined her. "Crazy Americanka," he muttered. "Don't blame me if you end up getting left behind. Okay, on the count of three… THREE!"

Getting the last laugh was an immensely satisfying feeling, and one that was normally afforded to her. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly get to utilize his quick wit, what with the low profile act and everything. But he wasn't completely incapable of outsmarting her. He was a certified genius, after all. And this time, he didn't mind irritating her. Leaving her in his dust was really what she should have expected.

She ran after him, not anywhere close to catching up, and yelled in mock anger, "You cheated! Pavel Andreievich Chekov, you totally cheated! Get back here, you little Russian punk!"

So he had a nickname too, now. And for the moment, any thought of the message he'd received the other day, or the unfounded argument they'd had, was forgotten.

"Jim, we need to talk," Camille said, striding into the room and taking a seat on his desk.

Jim, who had been sound asleep, sat up in bed, a pillow falling off of his bed in his haste to rise. Frowning sleepily, he said, "Lights." Camille blinked, temporarily blinded. "Cam, you do know it's the middle of the night, right? I happen to need a lot of sleep to look as good as I do."

"So you must be having a rough couple of nights, right?" she jabbed. "I need your help."

He swung his legs off of the bed, revealing that he slept less than fully clothed. Fortunately, he was decent enough to wear underwear. Camille threw a hand up in front of her eyes. "Jim! I did not need that image!"

"You do wonders for a guy's self-esteem, did you know?" he growled. "So before you insult me again, remind me why I should help you?"

"It'll be fun," she said. Jim leaned forward.

"I'm listening."

"Put on some freaking pants, man!"

"Sure, Bones," he said.

Camille groaned. "Why does everyone think I sound like Bones?"

"Maybe because you do," Jim shot back. "Anyway, spill."

"Pants first."

He stood, raising his hands in surrender, and then walked to his dresser. Pulling out a pair of jeans, he slipped them on and then turned to her. "Satisfied?"

"More than," she replied.

"Shall I put on a shirt as well, or are you okay with…all this?" he asked, gesturing to his well-muscled abdomen.

Shaking her head, thinking she might as well give him at least one self-confidence boost, she said, "Nope. We're all good there. So, what I need your help with… I'm bored. That's literally all it is. I'm just bored."

"The master of fun is at your service! So, what do you want to do? Prank Bones? Make Bones think we're dating and watch him squirm? Prank Kari?"

"Why is everything at someone else's expense? Although all of those do sound entertaining," she mused. "But you and I both know you could never pull a prank on Kari. She has you wrapped around her finger."

"And she'd follow me to the end of the earth, so it's completely balanced," Jim retorted. "It's all about balance and consistency, Cam. The secret to friendship with Jim Kirk."

"Actually, I was thinking: How do you feel about taking Kari out for her first drink after the New Year? Maybe as a celebration thereof?" Camille asked.

Jim mused. "She's underage…not that that's ever bugged me. I could go about getting her a fake ID, if need be. Or we could always take her to a bar that's lax on security."

Camille shook her head. "Those always have more bar fights, more guys getting grabby. I won't take her there. For one thing, you'll defend her to the death, for another, Bones will defend me to the death. Except he'll get more worked up over stupid things, things I can handle."

Jim smirked, and she glared at him. "Shut up!"

"I didn't say anything!"

"Whatever," she muttered. "So let's get back to more immediate matters. Pranking Bones sounded fun."

Jim's smirk lingered. He knew too well where this was going.

"I think, you just miss the action we had last year," he said. "I mean, that was pretty much a constant someone-was-in-mortal-danger thing. So you don't want more fun in your life. You want more adventure."

"How do you recommend I get that, Jim?" she demanded. "Fun seems like a more immediate solution." A normal person would have felt disconcerted by the devilish grin on Jim's face, but not Camille. To her, it spoke of the promise of a good time that might involve a little bit of danger. Well, hallelujah for that! She was in!

"I know a guy," he said, and she knew she was automatically ready for whatever he had to throw at her.