Okay, so here's where things will start to shift, I'm thinking. Before the chapters were coming with at least a few months between them, but starting with either the next one the one after, they will have mere hours between them, as that will start the events of the movie. Also, the chapter titles will start to shift as well, as the emotions involved shift. But anyway, here's the last 'normal' chapter, and then things get really intense.
The sixth time he saw Natalia Flores, he wanted to touch her.
The holiday season was fast approaching, meaning the students of Starfleet Academy had been scattered back to their homes for the month of December. For Rachel that meant the family farm in the middle of Kentucky. Natalia was back at her family's home in Barcelona, and Chekov was back in his beloved Russia, amid one of the snowiest winters in years.
While Chekov would never admit to such a thing, there were certain aspects of Russia he wasn't as fond of. As he thought of his friends and their much warmer and drier homes, he was suddenly jealous. He had adjusted to San Francisco's relative warmth, and was now constantly cold. Even his roommate, a hearty Canadian named Tom, was at least ten degrees warmer than him right now. Against his better judgment, he would check the weather every so often to see how his friends were fairing, and always turned off the PADD with a look of disgust. They didn't have feet of snow to deal with.
He had managed two weeks without word from Natalia. He had heard from Rachel, but his best friend still evaded him. He was beginning to worry when one morning his mother came to him, the home video communicator in hand.
"Someone wishes to speak to you." She said, a sly smile on her face. He looked up from his book and took the device from her, wondering who would elicit that reaction from his usually stoic mother. He caught a glimpse of a familiar mane of dark hair as the person ducked out of the screen for a moment, yelling something in a language Chekov didn't know.
"Natalia?" He asked, a smile already forming on his lips.
"Pavel!" She returned to the screen for a moment, her eyes sparkling. There was a far-off crash, and she rolled her eyes. "Hold on. My cousins are here." She set the communicator down and all he could see was blank screen. A few moments later there was another crash, and then a clatter of voices yelling at the same time. He picked out Natalia's, though he didn't know what she was saying.
"Just keep him over there!" She said, coming back into the frame. She smiled sheepishly, letting her hair fall over her face. "Marco thinks he's an alien." She explained, shrugging as though it were nothing to worry about. "He wants to suck out my brain."
"Really?" Chekov raised an eyebrow, pretty sure that this was not typical behavior. Natalia nodded.
"He's four, though, so he's allowed to be a psycho." She shrugged again, smiling gently. "I think his mother can keep him in line for the next few minutes, though. She turned away, looking off-screen. "Oh, good. She showed him the cranberries that still need to be strung." She turned back to the screen, only to be pelted with small red spheres. Chekov started to laugh as Natalia closed her eyes, counting to ten in an effort to control her anger. "Rubina, will come get him please?"
"If you hadn't told him you wanted to be alone, he wouldn't be bothering you so much." A woman of about twenty came into the screen, scooping up a small, dark-haired boy in her arms. The woman, Rubina, must have been Natalia's sister. The two looked at each other with the same eyes, both exasperated. The boy struggled, reaching towards Natalia. She picked up one of the cranberries and flicked it into his hair, and stuck his tongue out at her. Rubina's eyes looked to the communicator, and Chekov had the odd feeling that he was being assessed by those familiar dark eyes. "We'll leave you alone now." The older woman said, turning her gaze to her little sister and smirking. Natalia muttered something in Spanish, which made her sister laugh as she lugged the boy out of the shot.
"I'm sorry." Natalia turned her eyes to the screen, smiling in an embarrassed way. "I thought I had made it clear that I didn't want them around, but they don't always listen to me."
"It's nothing." He shrugged, silently pleased that he had witnessed the exchange. Sometimes he felt as though he didn't know his friend as well as he thought, and any glimpse into her other life was appreciated. "I'm just happy to see you."
"It feels like forever, doesn't it?" She agreed. "We only left California two weeks ago. Rachel said she got a hold of you. I'm sorry I didn't call earlier; we've just been so busy. There is a family down the street that just had a fire, and they lost everything. We've been running around trying to get everything back to normal for them, which isn't as easy as you would think. The younger kids have been here most of the time, playing with my nieces and nephews. It's not bad, but they are just so loud!" She continued to tell him about the efforts of the neighborhood to fix the house and refill it before Christmas Day. He listened, the sound of her voice soothing some fear he hadn't realized he had. She went on for at least ten minutes, when she stopped mid-sentence, her eyes suddenly troubled.
"What's wrong?" He asked, tilting his head and instinctively reaching out, before he realized he couldn't actually touch her.
"I've been talking this whole time." She said, and she was blushing. Chekov was surprised, though he found the rise of color in her cheeks pretty. "I haven't seen you in weeks, and then when I finally get you I talk the whole time."
"I don't mind." He said quickly. "I haven't got much to say. Nothing has really happened to me." She raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "I am being honest. We have been snowed in for several days now. My brothers have been shoveling us out, but they get bored quickly and start snow ball fights instead." She was listening; her head tilted slightly, her eyes a bit wider than normal. He continued talking about his family, something he mentioned rarely at the Academy. She smiled slightly, laughing at the appropriate times and nodding when asked even a rhetorical question. It was a nice conversation, one that could have easily taken place in the library or on the grounds of the Academy.
They came to a lull in the chatter, one that neither felt the need to fill. Chekov gazed at the screen for a moment, getting lost in the picture. Even though he had never been to her home, it was as he had pictured it. The sun was coming in from a window nearby, lighting her up. It reminded him of the warmer days when they would study outside, lying in the grass.
"I miss you." He said suddenly, not sure why he had let those words slip out of his mouth. She looked up, her eyes wide, several emotions swirling beneath them.
"I miss you, too." She said softly, the delicious pink returning to her face. "That's why I didn't want to call, actually." She admitted, suddenly unable to look at him. "I knew I would miss you even more once we hung up."
"My mother wanted me to call you." He said, his tone somewhat guilty. He remembered the sly look with which she handed him the communicator. "She said that I talked about you too much. She is convinced you are my only friend at school."
"So are we!!" A voice suddenly yelled, and the tender moment was broken as Natalia stood up, an angry glint in her eyes.
"Elena, Rubina, get the hell out of here before I throw you out!" She yelled, setting the communicator down and charging out of the screen. There were more crashing noises, and a male voice broke through the clatter, speaking in a commanding tone. Even through the language barrier, Chekov knew he was the patriarch, and was currently displeased with the violence in the house. There was uproar as he came to some sort of decision, and Chekov couldn't identify Natalia's voice from the rest. The man barked something, than addressed Natalia. As she spoke swiftly in her mother tongue, Chekov realized that he couldn't hear her because she hadn't spoken. She was currently using the same tone she used when addressing superiors at Star Fleet. There was more outrage as the man spoke again, but Natalia was suddenly back, her expression calmed.
"I'm sorry." She said, sliding into her seat. "My sisters like to make fun of me. They think they can do whatever they want because they are older. Well, Rubina is older. Elena is a year younger than me. But Papa doesn't like when they act like children. He threatens to send them to Star Fleet with me when they misbehave."
"You were sent to Star Fleet?" Chekov asked. Natalia shook her head.
"I wanted to go." She admitted. "My sisters think I am crazy, though. They would die if they had to go." She laughed slightly, and added in a softer tone. "If Star Fleet would take them. So, what were we talking about before?" She bit her lip gently in thought, and when she remembered, her expression changed, and he thought he saw her blush again. "Oh, right."
"You know, there are only three weeks left in holiday leave." He said, noticing the dip in her mood. "We will see each other soon."
"Yes." She nodded, though not thoroughly convinced. Were he physically able, he would have grabbed her hand, running his thumb in circled along the back of her palm, their fingers intertwined. Even now, his hand was tingling at the thought.
"I should go now." She said suddenly, her eyes refusing to meet his. "We've still got lots to do here."
"Yes, me too." He said, though it was a lie. He hadn't been doing anything beforehand, and he wasn't going to anything once he hung up.
"Bye." She said softly, and terminated the link. He blinked at the blank screen, feeling very empty.
"Goodbye." He said, before turning off the communicator.
***
Three days later, Chekov got a call from Rachel while he was showering. She left him a message, explaining that her family has allowed her to invite some of her friends to the farm for the last week of their leave. It would be easier to get to California from there, and she was personally offended that neither he nor Natalia had ever seen a farm before.
The remaining two weeks passed painfully slow. Even the traveling was too slow for Chekov, and when he finally arrived on the farm (which was far less impressive than Rachel had made him believe), he was practically running to the door. He was let in by a tall man with the same blue eyes that Rachel had, and after quick introductions he was brought into a room filled with blonde people. He blinked a few times, finally able to spot Rachel from the three look-alikes that turned out to be her aunts. And next to her, her dark hair contrasting strongly against all the blonde, was Natalia, rolling her eyes and telling off one of Rachel's younger brothers. Even though he didn't say anything, she looked up suddenly, her head automatically turning to the doorway where he stood.
"Pavel." Her tone was soft, almost in wonder at his appearance. She smiled, and flew across the room, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. He returned the gesture, holding her tight against his chest and burying his face into her thick mane of hair. The two remained like that for some time, finally breaking apart and into a loud chatter as they recapped the last two weeks. They sat down on a sofa together, their hands entwined as they caught up.
Rachel elbowed her brother, pointing to the pair. "I told you they liked each other." She said, and her brother nodded, handing over the twenty bucks he now owed her.