This would have been up last night, but stupid site was on the fritz, making my life miserable. Anyway, I decided to switch it up a little, and put this one (mostly) in Chekov's point of view. It was a little more challenging, but fun, so I might have a few more chapters like this. And there is a slight introduction to some of the other characters, which should be interesting, to say the least.
The fourth time he saw Natalia Flores, he wanted to yell at her.
He had known her for nearly two years now. He considered her one of his closest friends, and he had been under the impression that she held him in a similar position. Clearly, he was wrong, or he wouldn't be in the predicament he found himself now.
She had just turned sixteen, her own birthday just a month before his. Still underage, he reminded himself. Still jailbait, he growled in his mind, using a term he had picked up from Rachel. And yet there she was, sitting on a bench being wooed by Jim Kirk.
Something in Chekov began to boil as he watched Natalia run a hand through her hair, which she had let grow out since she had arrived in San Francisco. She was listening to Kirk talk with a smile on her face, her eyes sparkling with amusement. She shook her head, and Chekov could almost hear the sarcastic tone that accompanied that head shake.
He finally tore his eyes from the scene in front of him, taking a deep breath and continuing his walk to the library. He wasn't so much walking anymore as stomping, but he figured that he was allowed that bit of childish behavior. He was, after all, younger than her now. She had been sure to tell him that on her birthday. He had barely walked through the door when Rachel, the perfect sounding board, sensed his bad mood and came out of thin air to ask him about it.
"What's eating you, Pavel?" She asked, following him to the familiar corner where he did most of his work. She had a stack of books with her, all clearly related to one of her exobiology classes.
"Nothing is eating me." He gave her clear look of confusion. She shook her head, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, right." He smiled, remember a conversation from the previous day. "You mean what's bothering me. Right, I knew that." He dropped it there, and it wasn't until she coughed that he realized she wasn't going to let him off the hook. "Natalia is out there talking to James Kirk."
"Seriously?" Rachel's eyes sparkled. "That's great! He was going to ask her-" She was cut off by a growl of frustration and the bang on a fist on the table top.
"He shouldn't be asking her anything!" He exclaimed. "She is still a girl!! She is not suited to any of his needs" He grew more disgusted with every word he said.
"No, Pavel, he's not asking her something like that." She shook her head, trying to explain. "He's just asking if she will-"
"And you should not be encouraging this behavior!" He said, standing up. "You are supposed to be her friend, not throwing her to a dog!" With that, he continued his stomping, straight out the door. He automatically glanced at the bench, but found it empty. They have probably gone somewhere more private. He grumbled to himself, and at the thought he felt sick to his stomach. He stormed back to his dorm room, and refused to leave for the rest of the day.
***
The following morning, Natalia Flores wanted to see her friend Pavel. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be found. Natalia found Rachel at their usual breakfast table, but no one else. She approached, knowing she only had a few moments to chat before grabbing power bar and running off to the test center.
"Rachel, where Pavel?" She asked, sliding into a seat.
"I don't know." She shook her head, her nose stuck in a large volume that could have easily killed a person if used correctly. "Here, I grabbed you something." She handed her friend a power bar, and Natalia let out a squeal.
"Thanks Rach." She said, checking the clock at the front of the mess hall and jumping back up. "Hopefully I'll find him before the test."
"Oh yeah, good luck on that." Rachel said.
"It's not my test." Natalia reminded her.
"Well, tell Jim good luck then." Rachel shrugged. She was already absorbed in her text again.
"Sure thing." She said, running towards the door. She hummed to herself as she set a brisk pace towards the proper building, grinning at the sight of a knot of people waiting to be let in.
"You sure you want to do this again?" Natalia recognized Dr. McCoy from around campus, though she had never formally been introduced. She did know of his friendship with Kirk, and as such was not surprised to see him there.
"Hey, Whiz Kid." Jim smiled when he saw the girl coming towards him. She also noticed McCoy's expression change from disbelieve to scorn in a few seconds time.
"What's she doing here?" He asked. "I've got you to babysit, Jim, I don't need another."
"She's my navigator." Kirk smirked, putting an arm around Natalia. "She's one of the best on campus."
"Jim, this is a simulation." McCoy looked as though he was about to have an aneurysm, something he could probably treat on anyone but himself. "There's no need for a real navigator, since you won't actually be going anywhere."
"But why should she miss the fun?" Kirk asked.
"Oh yes, great fun." A new voice was added to the mix, and Natalia saw Cadet Uhura join the knot of people. "Kirk, why make more people suffer? You're just going to fail again."
"Hopefully just a little less miserably, this time." McCoy said, ever hopeful.
Suddenly, the door opened, and a technician poked his head out. "Kirk, I still can't believe you came back for seconds." He shook his head, holding open the door. "All right, get in here."
Natalia followed behind Uhura, and the older woman looked at her curiously. "You haven't done this before, have you?" She asked, and Natalia shook her head. The woman chuckled quietly. "It's easy. Just pay attention to your screen. All your lines are there, and you don't even need to work. The tech crew will do everything. They are testing Kirk, not us."
"How did you know I was nervous?" She asked as the entered the small bridge set.
"You were sweating bullets." Uhura said. She took her seat at the communications center, giving the young girl one last smile. Natalia returned the gesture, taking her seat at the captain's right. As she sat down, the screen whirled to life in front of her. Text appeared, and Natalia had to smother her laughter as she read.
"Welcome Cadet to the Kobayashi Maru simulation. Today you will be playing the part of the navigator. We ask that you take this simulation seriously, as the outcome does not affect you but the person in the captain's chair." Natalia turned to see Kirk lounging in the command chair, one leg up over the arm and his head lolling over the back. "You lines will appear in blue text today. Please pay attention to the prompter and do not adlib any additional lines that could help or harm your captain."
As the official script popped up, the screens at the front of the ship lit up and showed nothing but the blackness of space with tiny pinpricks for distant stars.
"Are you ready, Cadet Kirk?" A mysterious voice asked over an intercom.
"Of course." He said, raising his head slightly.
On the other side of the console, McCoy rolled his eyes and groaned. He looked up at Natalia, and seemed to form an alliance with her in that moment. "Twenty bucks says he gets us all killed in ten minutes."
"I won't bet against that." She mumbled, and McCoy chuckled appreciatively.
***
Lunch time came, and Chekov's initial anger had grown to full on fury. He stormed into the mess hall, determined to find Natalia, who he hadn't seen all morning, and demand to know why she was running around with playboy Kirk. He spotted her, sitting at a new table with Rachel, Kirk, and some others that Chekov didn't recognize. Despite the fact that he knew he was about to make a massive fool of himself, he stormed ahead, not even halfway across the hall before Natalia looked up and saw him. She smiled at first, then observed his own expression, and became troubled.
"Pavel?" She stood and crossed what little space was left. "What happened to you? You've got that same look you get when someone says something terrible about Russia."
"Where were you all morning?" He hissed. "Why were you not in any classes? What, you think because you have some new boyfriend that you can just shirk your duties?"
"Boyfriend?" She raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"You are not going to play stupid with me." Chekov ordinarily would have been excited that he had properly used American slang, but he barely noticed this time.
"Let's go outside." She said, gripping him by the shoulder and steering him towards the door. He protested, but had switched to Russian in his anger, and his best curses went unheeded. "There's no need to act like toddler throwing a temper tantrum." She said, her voice snapping into a bitter tone. They broke out into the weak autumn sunlight, and she sat him down on the stone steps. "Now, explain to me in English who this new boyfriend supposedly is and why you are so spitting mad at me."
"You didn't tell me that you were interested in Kirk." Chekov was still mad, but seemed to relax under her watchful and slightly worried gaze.
"Kirk?" She asked, clearly taken by surprise. "He's the reason behind all this?" When Chekov didn't answer, she implied her own. "I'll take that as a yes."
"He was…wooing you on that bench the other day." He had been reduced to a sulk, though his temper flared as she let out a bright laugh.
"He wasn't wooing me the way you think he was." She said, sitting down on the step below him and taking his hand. He looked up, meeting her gaze. "He was doing the Kobayashi Maru simulation again, and he wanted me in there to play his navigator. There was nothing…romantic about it, Pavel. He just needed another person to be in the room, and he knew I had wanted to see the sim. It was kind of him, but it didn't mean any more than that."
"It…didn't?" He asked. She shook her head, her dark eyes wide and innocent. "But when you were outside, you were playing with your hair and smiling at him."
"I do that with people I feel comfortable with." She explained. "I do that with Rachel and you all the time. He's just a friend, I promise." She reached up, taking his face in her hand as he prepared to look away. "You're one of my best friends now. I wouldn't do something like that behind your back. I don't want or need to be sneaky with you."
He felt his skin grow warm under her touch. "So you don't think of him…like that?"
"Of course not." She scoffed, moving her hand from his cheek to his hair, capturing a few of his curls between her fingers. "He's not exactly my type, you know. He's too full of himself."
"What is your type?" He asked, a glimmer of hope returning to his eyes.
"I don't know." She shrugged. "I'm only sixteen. How should I know that yet?" She smiled as he closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling of her hand in his hair. "Come on." She said finally, standing up. "We're missing lunch, and I'm starving."
As they reentered the mess hall, this time as friends, Chekov wondered why he didn't yell at her. He could have, outside where no one would pay much attention to them. Then he sat down across from her, and was treated to her smile, and he remembered the way her hand felt against his skin. That was why he didn't yell at her. She was too beautiful for that.