Sorry for the long delay guys! It's been a madhouse over here. I never thought I'd say this but I can't wait for school to start up again and everything to die down on this end-there's just so much to do!

In other news, thank you once again for all the comments, favourites, and follows. You guys really are so supportive and I can't thank you enough.

Disclaimer: NOOOOooooOOOOO


The nurses are supremely unhelpful when they get to the hospital – damn twenty-third century and they act like they've got sticks shoved up their ass, Scotty mutters – and so the three of them are forced to sit outside the swinging doors in the waiting room. Cynthia is the only one able to keep still; Chekov and Scotty both pace. Scotty rants and raves about the system and how unjustified this waiting is, but Chekov paces and stalks the hallways in silence, hands laced tightly behind his back. Cynthia watches him as he deliberately measures his steps up and down the narrow, long hallway, curls damp with cold sweat and rain.

"He'll be okay, right?" she asks Scotty at some point.

"Sulu'll be fine. He's gotten into worse scrapes with Jim Kirk."

"Not Sulu. Pavel." Cynthia nods with her chin at Chekov, who's exhausted himself from all the nervous walking and is currently asleep on a chair.

"I don't know," Scotty says honestly. He leaves it at that. Cynthia doesn't dare ask further.

Finally, six hours into waiting, a nurse comes out into the room. "Pavel Chekov?"

Chekov is awake in an instant, eyes alert and legs jerking to attention. "That's me," he says, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. "Is Hikaru-"

"Come with me, Mr. Chekov, please," the nurse says quietly, and Scotty feels his stomach clench with nerves.

Chekov looks back at him. "Only if they get to come with me," he says. Scotty wonders if he really is that calm as he sounds.

"Only family members or emergency contacts are allowed-"

"Please," Chekov begs, and there's still a hint of the seventeen year old within him that screams how vulnerable he is. "They're my family."

She hesitates, but finally relents, stepping backwards and holding the doors a little bit wider. "Very well, Mr. Chekov. Please come with me."

Their footsteps lead them down clinically white hallways, echoing off shiny tiles and coming back with haunting echoes of this is how people die. Scotty shudders, remembering how he used to hate the clinical white of the Enterprise, and how the noisy, chaotic nature of the engineering room had always been more of his domain. Kirk had found this out one day when he'd come to visit Scotty:

"Why don't you ever stay up on the bridge?" he'd wanted to know, biting into an apple as he perched on a railing.

Scotty had snorted. "Be up there where I feel like I'm in a hospital? No, thank you, sir. I like it down here in the heart of the ship."

"You don't like it because it… feels like a hospital?"

"Too clean, sir. I like everything to be the way God intended for it to be – dirty and functional." Then Scotty had noticed Kirk swinging his legs on the railing. "Oy! Get off! It's not for climbing!"

The next time he'd gone up to the bridge (at Kirk's insistence), the white of the ship had been replaced with a sleeker silver. Still clinical, but an improvement nonetheless. Scotty smiles wistfully. Kirk had always known instinctively what his crew needed. It was a skill he wished he'd possessed.

It was a skill that would probably have helped with Chekov. Scotty watches from the back as Chekov follows the nurse, fists lightly curled and half-shoved into his jacket pockets – Scotty is willing to bet that if he gave Chekov a napkin now, it would be shredded into tiny little pieces by the time they got to their destination. The kid is no doubt terrified, and Scotty wishes he could say the right things to make him feel better.

But before he can say anything, the nurse delivers them into a larger waiting room, where a big man is waiting by another set of doors. "Mr. Chekov," he greets, rising to his feet in one fluid motion. He notices Cynthia and Scotty and bows slightly to them, skin rippling under the glaring lights. "Mr. Scott, I presume. And your name, ma'am?"

"Cynthia Riley, sir."

"Delighted," the man says. "I am Admiral En'Faiz of the Federation Board. Would you please come with me?"

"Is he okay?" Scotty blurts. He sees Chekov shoot him a grateful look.

En'Faiz pauses for what seems like an unreasonably long time. "Physically, yes," he says at last. "Captain Sulu's vitals are expected to go back to normal in a few weeks."

"But…" Cynthia prompts.

En'Faiz darts a glance behind him. "But it appears that he has retreated mentally," he says, his voice dropping to a whisper. "He was barely alive when we retrieved him from the Choshans, and although we have brought him back, it appears that they may have left more scars than we thought."

"Mentally?" Scotty repeats incredulously. "Retreated mentally? How the bloody hell-"

"The Choshans are psychics, Mr. Scott," En'Faiz says, finally letting them through the doors. "And Captain Sulu was a prisoner of war for a month. No doubt they tortured him for information."

"And… did they get it?" Chekov asks, his voice quiet.

"As far as we are aware, they did not, Mr. Chekov."

"So they tortured him…" Chekov says, looking through the window. "And they didn't get anything?"

"That is correct."

"He went through hell and back," Chekov says softly, more to himself than to anyone. "No wonder he won't wake up."

Scotty briefly wonders if Chekov is talking about Sulu or himself, but is distracted by the admiral's clearing of his throat. "There is one other matter that I feel must be brought to your attention, Mr. Chekov."

Chekov doesn't face the admiral. He just waits, still watching Sulu's chest rise in shallow breaths.

En'Faiz pulls up a screen. "We were able to compile a list of eyewitness reports and pull records from Captain Sulu's ship."

"Great," Chekov says listlessly.

If the admiral is perturbed by the lack of decorum, he doesn't show it. "Eyewitnesses report that the ship was damaged – the Choshans deliberately targeted the rear left sector of the ship."

Rear left – Scotty knows what that is. "The escape pods?"

"Indeed. It appears that the Choshans were intent on destroying all Starfleet ships as a symbol of their defiance." En'Faiz pulls up another list. "Yet there is a long list of survivors from the Enterprise."

"Why are you telling me this?" Chekov asks.

"Because Captain Sulu offered himself up as a sacrifice," En'Faiz says simply. "He offered himself in the hopes that the Choshans would take him and leave his crew alone."

Chekov doesn't know if he should laugh or cry. Such a Jim Kirk move.

"But the pods," Scotty says, still puzzled. "They were damaged, and the reports show that the ships were brutally destroyed. How are there so many survivors still?"

"A very fair point, Mr. Scott." En'Faiz pulls up more numbers. "As it turns out, before he voluntarily left the ship, Captain Sulu ordered an evacuation of all members via transporter."

This gets Chekov's attention. "He beamed them off?"

"A savvy move, Mr. Chekov." En'Faiz shuts his screen off. "He was able to beam them several sectors away, to a neutral planet that they were able to hail Starfleet ships from. The transporter appeared to be calibrated in such a way that they beamed faster than ever, resulting in all of the lives of the ship being saved. Now, I wonder where he got that equation?"

"From me," Chekov says. "He got that from me… the day the Enterprise blew up."

"It appears so," the admiral says, a hint of a smile on his face. "People owe you their lives, Mr. Chekov. Starfleet thanks you."

Chekov's breath catches, but Chekov turns away from them before Scotty can ask any more questions. "Can I see Hikaru now?" he asks.

"Of course, Mr. Chekov."

The door closes behind Chekov, and the three of them gather by the window to see him settle beside a sleeping Sulu. "He'll be okay, right?" Scotty asks Cynthia.

She gives him a tremulous smile. "I think so. He's a strong kid."

"He cares very much for Captain Sulu," En'Faiz notes.

"They're best friends." Scotty rubs his neck. "Worked together on the Enterprise, went to college together, worked on the bridge as navigator and helmsman – they're inseparable, really."

"I figured as much." En'Faiz watches the two of them inside. "It must be difficult for him in this time."

"Incredibly difficult," Scotty agreed. "But for Hikaru's sake – and for Pavel's – I hope he's strong enough for both of them."


DON'T JINX HIM, SCOTTY!

Much love,
ohlookrandom