Chapter 14

The empty dining hall looked cavernous without the bustle of the dozens of groups of diners and servers. With nearly the entire crew enjoying shore leave on Earth, the sole serving station that was open offered a random variety of fresh items to "make it yourself". It made Sulu suspect, not for the first time, that there was a Starfleet regulation that said "if one person remains on the ship, you must offer them fresh food."

And the one person currently in the room was seated smack dab in the middle: which spoke to Sulu of how little she knew about shipboard etiquette. Anyone else on the ship would have made their sandwich and disappeared to – anywhere else on the ship. It would have allowed the kitchen crew to clean up and leave. At the very least, they would have sat in a corner so the rest of the tables would be in darkness and marked as "done" for the maintainers.

Sarah looked up from her book as Sulu sat down across from her and placed a palm-sized device on the table between them. She lowered the hand her chin had been resting on, squared her shoulders, and made a great show of surveying the dining hall: which was completely empty.

How adorable, thought Sulu with not a small note of sarcasm. "There's a ship-board rule about not letting people eat alone in the dining hall," he lied easily.

"That would account for the number of people who eat in the rec rooms instead of the dining hall." She methodically took a bite of her sandwich and turned her attention back to the book.

Yes, he thought with encouragement, because THAT is going to make me go away.

He sat there, staring at her and challenging her silence with his own. Two can play this game.

She continued to feign reading. With impeccable posture, her head floated above her long swan-like neck as she balanced her chin on her hand in a tilt that focused her eyes on the book. But her eyes weren't moving across the pages of the book. She was biding time: not reading.

Her arm glided down: long, elegant fingers flipping the page before returning to support her chin. Even while reading a book and eating a sandwich, every movement had a graceful refinement that reminded Sulu of a princess.

Chekov definitely has a 'type', he thought sourly. Barbie…Ballerina Barbie.

Her eyelids fluttered and she looked up at him without raising her head. The chocolate eyes pierced him for his hubris of staring at her.

Well, what did she expect? You asked for it, Barbie.

"Did you dance?" he asked suddenly. "When you were younger?"

Sarah's head snapped up and she glared at him. "I don't know what's more insulting: that you think I worked in clubs, or that you think I'm too old to do it now."

Startled, he moved to correct her that he was asking about ballet: but she cut him off abruptly.

"Let's just agree that you don't like me."

A princess….like one of the stepsisters in Cinderella, he thought brutally.

"To be fair, I don't like my own cousins. Why would I like Chekov's?" His eyes held hers without apology. "You know you can't just stay on the Enterprise forever."

For the first time, her pause seemed to be considering what he said. She pushed away the dark curl that fell across her face. "I was going to catch a ship leaving the planet this afternoon."

"So you don't ever set foot on Earth."

"That's the plan."

Sulu nodded acknowledgment, pressing his lips together in a fine line. Sarah had just spent 6 months hitchhiking around the galaxy – off the grid, hiding her identity, living by her wits alone – and slipping past her father's thugs. This woman was strong, and confident, and brilliant, and fearless – a warrior, Sulu thought. A Valkyrie.

She leaned back and balanced the book on the edge of the table, as if she was actually reading it. "Why aren't you on the planet?"

"Chekov's in jail. Papa's in jail." He shrugged then. His shrug encompassed everyone at Chekov's family home. They were all in St. Petersburg with Andrie. Only the cooks remained. They were working around the clock churning out hundreds of box meals: far more than needed by Andrie's crew alone.

"And making bread is EXHAUSTING," he added. He rubbed his biceps furiously. "Do you know how much bread you have to make for 40 people for 5 days? Forty RUSSIANS?"

"I didn't know Russians ate substantially more bread than other people."

"The amount of kneading required to make ONE loaf, multiplied by…" he continued, showing no awareness of the humor in her bright eyes. "I can hardly lift my arms," he complained. "I don't know why anyone makes bread by hand."

She turned a page without looking at it. "Have we just stumbled into a TED talk on bread-making?"

"Buy it pre-made," he advised. "And don't cook for Chekov's 'family'. That's the entire talk."

Leveling her eyes at him, she regarded him dimly. "Don't you have your own family?"

His dark eyes shot at her instantly, a dangerous gleam in them: but he fought back the immediate retort. She didn't understand yet: didn't understand traditional Russians.

"My aunt in San Fransico," he replied. "A couple cousins. But…I'm the obliged invitation to a wedding," he explained after a moment. "You have a legitimate reason to be there, but you're a stranger and everyone is counting the seconds until you to leave." He chuckled. "Not at all like your family – they actually want you around. Your father is actively searching for you."

She looked him dead in the eye. "That was mean, and rude, and you're a complete fucking asshole."

Slamming the book closed, she stood up. "What are you actually doing here? Did they send you to get me off the ship? Fine, I'm going."

His hand shot out and grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. She jerked it away instantly, but stayed there, glaring at him.

"I came to apologize."

"Really?" she asked. "And how's that going?"

He thrust his hand toward her chair. "Sit!"

She lowered herself with exaggerated luxury into the chair, pushed the tray and book aside, leaned back and folded her arms across her chest. She waited, her dark eyes gleaming and expectant.

Shifting, he leaned forward and balanced his arms on the table. He made several mute gestures with his hands.

She draped her right leg over her left: and waited.

"I've been an asshole," he finally said. "For…"

"Six years," she supplied helpfully.

"Yeah," he agreed…then sighed. "I honestly thought that I just didn't want to see him get hurt."

Her face softened and she let her hands fall into her lap. "I can't fault you for being protective of your 'little brother'."

Sulu shifted awkwardly. To be hurt, he reasoned, Chekov would have had to be invested emotionally in the relationship. It was always clear that he wasn't. She was a…coffee break: an hour that could have been replaced by the gym or a cold shower.

"I may have just been jealous."

Her dark eyes gleamed wickedly. "Of which one of us?"

"Not…." he began, then stopped and waved her insinuation away with a hand. "The college years are just a mess of socially awkward not-yet-finished-Humans trying to figure out how everything fits together…with intense sexual frustration repeatedly and randomly thrown in just when you think you're getting a handle on life.

"While the rest of us were struggling, Pavel…"

"Had a 'Get Out of Jail Free Card'," she finished with a sly smile.

"YES. It absolutely didn't seem fair."

Sarah studied him a moment. Uncrossing her legs, she leaned her arms on the table. "It really was poor planning for the universe to expect the important learning to happen in the teen years - when the hormones are conducting wildfire burns."

"You're probably the reason he graduated at the top of his class," he admitted begrudgingly. "None of his brain was…frustrated."

She pulled the book over in front of her, opened it, and dropped her eyes to the pages. "I haven't heard an apology yet."

"I apologize." He left it at that.

She scoffed and didn't look up from the book.

"Your relationship with Pavel has changed. I think we should do the same: start with a clean page. No more hostility."

She burst out laughing as she turned a page. "Oh, that is not happening."

"You really are an ASS!"

She glanced up at him out of the top of her eyes. "Aren't we all?" Dropping her eyes to the book again, she shook her head. "You can't change the very nature of our relationship. It's who we are."

Sulu inhaled deeply, slowly. "I'm betting we can." At the same time, he admired her clarity and the fortitude to say it aloud. It was ridiculous to even think they'd suddenly be friends.

She turned another page. "What does it matter to you anyway? We'll probably never see each other again."

Sweeping an invisible crumb off the table, Sulu resisted telling her that Chekov had requested it. "How would you like to get even with your father in the penultimate act of betrayal?" he asked instead.

She raised her head and leveled her eyes at him. "I know he thinks you're Pavel's biological brother. I'm not sleeping with you."

"God, NO!" Sulu snapped – too late to contain the obvious horror in his retort.

She chuckled for the first time in response.

When Sulu had warned her father to leave his "brother" alone, he'd never expected the man to take it literally. The idea that his mother would have fallen for the supposedly irresistible charm of a 15-year-old Andrie was ludicrous. "Your father's an idiot," he concluded out loud. That Maryia had succumbed to a 17-year-old stalker was unbelievable enough.

After seeming to weigh the thought, she shrugged agreement.

Sulu picked up the data reader from the table, turned it on, and started thumbing through the data stored on the tape it held.

"You aren't safe," he commented, his eyes on the reader's screen. "You need to get ultimate revenge on your father: the kind of revenge that puts him in his place forever."

She dropped her eyes back to the book. "I'm not prepared to commit murder…yet."

"You have no job, no family, no home," he observed. "And you're not safe," he repeated. Locking the image on the data reader in place, he put it down and slid it across the table to her. "I can offer you all of that."

Hesitating as she was turning a page, she raised her brown eyes to study him.

He gestured at the reader.

Tentatively, she closed her book, pushed it aside, and picked up the reader. She tipped it and her eyes narrowed as looked at the screen and the photograph displayed there.

"The Russian Navy needs an IT expert to take over all its IT functions," he continued.

She straightened and leveled her eyes at him. "Go on."

"There are several huge problems with the job, though." He gestured at the reader again.

"What is this?"

"That's the official portrait of the Navy's 'First Family'. It hangs in the Admiralty and the Kremlin."

Brows furrowing, she shifted uncomfortably. "But…"

"I'm in it," he finished for her. "When Andrie makes you a member of his family, it's not just lip service. You really are part of the family.

"Whoever takes this job," he continued, "will become part of the family. They will live in the family home: with Andrie, Maryia, all the sailors. And they'll become part of the village 'family'. This is a kind of 'close' that's hard to imagine. It could take a bit to get used to," he explained. "They're always together. Everyone knows all your business."

She was staring at him: unblinking.

"You'll have an office at the house and at the Admiralty," he said: purposely switching the discussion to her and not a random person. "You'll be working for Andrie, wearing a Navy uniform, and be living with him as part of his family."

Sulu leaned in towards her, his eyes shining. "How do you think your father is going to react to that?"

He watched her as she put the reader down, her eyes falling back to the image there. Emotions washed in waves over her face and she tugged at her curls.

That IS adorable. She really is mesmerizing.

"The Russian Navy needs a computer expert," Sulu said again. "You are a computer expert. And whoever takes it is going to have to become part of the family. You already are part of the family…it's a no-brainer."

Sarah folded her arms across her chest again, eyes still on the photograph. "Who do I talk to about the job?" she asked quietly.

"Me. And you already have the job."

Glancing up at him sharply, he saw the anger of betrayal fill her eyes. "Since when do YOU talk to people about jobs for the Russian Navy?"

He smiled easily. "I got a raise."

She glowered at him suspiciously.

Sulu plowed ahead. "You're going to be starting from scratch. You'll need to set up a whole department – hire people to do HR, payroll….it's a monumental task."

Hope made its way back into her eyes. But they fell back on the reader and the photograph there, and she shifted: wavering.

"I can't take this job," she said suddenly. "If I'm working and living with them, his parents will eventually find out. There's no way around it."

"That you slept with your cousin?" Sulu chuckled. "Do you really think 'Sir Galahad' hasn't confessed his morally reprehensible and unforgivable sins to 'King Arthur'?"

The comparison made sense to Sulu. Andrie's strict moral code mirrored the Knights of the Round Table – honor, duty, courage, honesty, charity, chivalry – all in black and white. He knew this made him different than other people – but he couldn't fathom being any other way. If it was right, it was what Andrie was going to do – no matter the cost.

Andrie made no proclamation of this but his quiet example made others strive to emulate it. His son, however, magnified the man's morality into some super-Human pinnacle no one could have lived up to – but Chekov tried. It was why Sulu was able to use the "you're deceiving people" argument on him with such effectiveness.

"Pavel called his father the next morning." Her pained expression made his smile more brilliant. "Andrie laughed his ass off."

Sarah scowled at him but said nothing. Her eyes were both dubious and hopeful.

"You didn't grow up sitting next to each other at holiday meals," he expounded. "You were just '2 strangers that met in college'. Theoretically, you could not have discovered the shared DNA until the two sides of the same family showed up at the wedding. And Andrie doesn't like your father either," he added.

She considered him for another moment before she shifted, and her shoulders relaxed a bit.

"You think your father was unhappy with you sleeping with Andrie's son?" he pressed. He had no qualms about being relentless with this. He was right, after all. "How's he going to feel about you wearing a Russian Naval uniform and living in Andrie's house?"

Raising a hand, she brushed her hair back again – even though it wasn't in her face. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her do it. Well, thought Sulu mercilessly. There's a tell she's uneasy. She'll be easy slaughter at a poker game.

"Can I change my name to Chekov?" she asked evenly. Then, as if on command, her eyes lit up with a wicked gleam.

Sulu laughed. "I thought you didn't want to kill your father."

Then the most incongruous thing happened. She giggled.

A light, tripping sound at first, the giggle deepened as it spilled out all the stress she'd been carrying.

Maybe she's not entirely a monster.

"Mama is going to be happy to finally not be the only woman in the entire damn navy," he observed.

The giggle stopped and she frowned at him. She reached for the reader again. "Hik…."

"Koshka." When her frown deepened, he continued. "Koshka is my Russian name. Now that you're part of the family…"

She hesitated, confusion tracing over her face. "That's…not a Russian name."

"It's not," he agreed. "It's just a nickname Andrie gave me."

"But why?"

He just smiled knowingly and shrugged. There was so much she'd learn eventually.

She studied him for a long moment but Sulu only rewarded her with an insufferably pleased smile. Finally, she sighed and turned her attention to the picture on the reader and pointed to it.

"If Mariya is the only woman in the navy," she asked. "Who is this other woman in the photo: the one sitting between you and Pavel?"

"That's Tatiana: his sister. She's the orphan they took in after Pavel left for the Academy," he reminded her.

"The dancer," she acknowledged as she remembered the late-night rec room conversation. "Some of the pictures on his bedroom wall are of her," she added suddenly as the realization hit her.

Sulu chuckled. "They're all of her. Different ages," he elaborated at her confused look. "They've known each other since she was a child."

Her eyes shifted from the photo to Sulu and back again, confusion in their depths, but only said: "All these years and Pavel never mentioned having a 'sister'."

Sulu shrugged, his mouth twisting ruefully. "They fight constantly: worse than you and I ever did. He's ruthless."

She shook her head defiantly. "I cannot imagine Pavel…"

"Snakes," Sulu interrupted as he motioned for her to give him the data reader back. "For her last birthday he sent her a box of snakes."

She froze, her body growing still. "Did she ask for…?"

"A pet," he interrupted again as he thumbed through the device in his hands. "She wanted a pet. You know: a cat, a dog, a rabbit."

"And he gave her a BOX of SNAKES?!"

"He claimed it was 'a way to give her multiple pets at once'." He pushed the reader back at her. "She's not in the navy: she's a ballerina. That's a promotional photo the theater did a few weeks after her birthday."

An explosive laugh burst out of her reflexively and she quickly covered her mouth with a hand to stop it, but her eyes were shining brilliantly.

He grinned. "For some reason, he didn't put this one up on his wall."

Of course he didn't put it on the wall: it was proof that Tatiana had won this round. A box of snakes had not been met by a screaming, hysterical girl. Instead, it had prompted this…

"Well, she's not naked," Sarah argued.

"No," he agreed, still grinning. "She's wearing pointe shoes and…" he gestured towards the picture. "You know…the snake."

The photograph was, in fact, a stunning piece of art. Tatiana was doing a split while standing on pointe on one foot, her body arched back to the leg in the air…her entire form wrapped in a beautiful, very large, Burmese python.

"Amazing arabesque penché," she said: confirming for Sulu his suspicion that she'd been a dancer at some point in her life. "Is that one of the snakes he gave her?"

"No, Pavel gave her little Ball Pythons. That, right there," he continued. "Sums up their relationship. He gave her a box of snakes…she responded with that."

"I wouldn't share his bed in Russia tonight if I were you."

"Why would I be in his bed?" he asked, startled.

"I don't know: playing poker? watching a movie? I'm just saying…." She grinned wickedly as she offered the reader back to him. "That box of snakes are going to be in his bed."

Watching a movie? he thought immediately. I don't think she understands 'Historic District'. But he just agreed with her understanding of the relationship. "I told him when we find him strangled by a Ball Python we'll know why."

He took the reader from her. "I'll tell the transporter room where to beam you down when you're ready. It's a station at the border: you can't transport into the Historic District. I'll have someone there to meet you and they'll take you to the house. I can't guarantee whether it will be a sailor with an antique automobile or a villager in a cart with horses," he added, "But they're all family."

"Where will you be?"

"In the city with Pavel. But everyone in that house is your family. They'll be happy to show you around. Pick out an empty bedroom on the 2nd floor and get yourself settled."

Sulu wasn't concerned about throwing her into an unknown environment with strangers. She is fierce and unafraid.

"After the trial, we'll send men to get the rest of your stuff from your father's house," he told her, knowing she'd run with only a backpack of possessions.

"So he'll know where I am."

"For all the good it will do him. He'll have to get through all the sailors and all the villagers," Sulu said. "No privacy means total safety." He hesitated a moment, his words prompting a sudden thought. "Just don't take the room next to mine. We'll kill each other if we have to share a bathroom."

"For the 3 days you're there every two years?"

"Yes," he started…then sighed heavily. "You'll have to take the room next to mine. The other side is the family apartments. Tiana is next to Pavel. Past that is the piano, offices: and you don't want a room by the parents."

She shook her head, brow furrowing in confusion. "I don't understand...families?"

"Yes. Did you think the Navy ships were a collection of old single men? Some of the sailors are married. They have apartments in the house - kids." He smiled sardonically. "Keeps the 'grandparent need' at bay."

The lines deepened on her forehead. "Apartments? In the...house….?"

"Ah," Sulu saw her confusion. He looked around the room, checking that they were still alone. He leaned in conspiratorially. "The 'house'…is a palace," he said. "I didn't say that, and never repeat it. We just call it a house.

"Technically" he continued, "it's a 'manor house'. It was built for the lord who owned the land and the serfs."

Her confusion didn't lessen. "I'm sorry. Owned? The peasants were slaves?"

"Yes. The serfs were slaves until Tsar Alexander II freed them – years before he convinced Lincoln to do the same in the US. Did you not learn this is school? Why do I know more Russian history than you?"

"You know more of the Russian language than I do," she pointed out.

That was fair. He didn't know why it surprised him. Her father had eradicated Russian history and culture as unnecessary to the point he even named his children random English names.

She needs a Russian nickname, he thought. How do you say 'Amazon' in Russian?

Sarah was shaking her head. "Why? Why would they fight to continue being slaves? The Historic Districts make NO sense," she spat out.

"They're not," he reassured her. "The Historic Districts are…1870s, 80s: after they were freed."

She was hesitant, but slowly relaxed. She brushed her hair back over her shoulder in an elegant sweep of her arm. "So, this is real?"

He nodded. "You need a job, family, and home: we've got a job, family and home."

Sulu wondered what he should warn her about: and decided to let her discover it all on her own. He'd had to. Then a wicked smile flashed over his face. "As long as you're okay with musicals."

"Musicals?"

"You know: films, Broadway."

"What has that…."

He grinned wider and shrugged luxuriously. "It's what they do: the sailors, Andrie…the family. When they're bored or stressed: they sing. When they're really bored – they dance." He gestured in the air. "They're always bored. You need to be okay living in a Broadway musical."

She screwed up her face at him "Very funny."

"Oh, I'm serious. The first time I went there I had to endure an entire rendition of 'Consider Yourself' from 'Oliver'."

"I…"

"Really," he said with a deep nod.

Sarah giggled. Sulu fought it, but a wide shit-eating grin split his face. They both began laughing.

When the laughter drifted off, she reached across the table and took his hands in hers.

"Su….Koshka," she corrected. "Thank you."

"Pazhalusta," he replied in Russian, then smiled. "Matay," he declared with sudden inspiration. "Matay is your name," he continued in response to her confused look.

"What's that mean in Russian?"

"It's not Russian. It's Kartveli. You're Kartveli."

The hairs on the back of his neck raised in response to her deepening confusion. She was part of Chekov's family, and it suddenly angered Sulu that her father didn't pass on any hint of a national identity to his children. In one generation he'd accomplished what the Russian government had attempted for centuries. The pride he heard in the lectures of how they'd triumphed wasn't part of her makeup.

"Kartveli," he drew out with exaggerated patience. "Is 'Georgian' in the Georgian language. Matay was a Georgian woman."

He left it there for her to research. Something she's going to have to get used to doing. It's the perfect Georgian name for her. "Well look at us," he commented. "Getting along and everything."

"I wouldn't get used to it," she advised: but her eyes shone.

Sulu sat staring at her fingers entwined in his. Long, elegant fingers of a ballerina – of course. He pulled his hands back.

She tilted her head and eyed him expectantly.

"Look," he blurted suddenly. "This is the first big thing I've done…." He rolled his fingers into a tight ball. "I need you to NOT mess this up. You can't be dating the sailors….not the ones in the house. Not any of them," he corrected suddenly. The words were spilling out in free-form madness.

She leaned her chin on her hand and watched him, amusement tripping over her features as he continued babbling.

"Technically, you're not in the chain of command, but you'll still have power over them in your position."

"And the articles of the navy: is there a clause against fraternization?"

Sulu chortled. "I doubt it. The clause would be 'don't mess with the Admiral's wife'."

She straightened, her hand dropping flat on the table. "You weren't kidding. I really am only the second woman in the navy."

"You are," he confirmed. "So you see the potential problem."

"Oh, I definitely see a problem."

Sulu's insides suddenly stilled and a chill shuddered down his spine. His mind raced over the conversation for the mistake he'd made. It was obvious. Sulu knew – with a clarity he admitted he didn't have yesterday – that she'd be a formative obstacle to any of the sailors that tried to flirt. Her relationship with Pavel had been a tool – not a character fault. She was fierce and independent, and he had no doubt there wasn't going to be a problem.

But it had to be said.

"There's a reason there are no women on the ships."

Sarah leaned forward, the gleam in her eyes becoming hard, intense. "And that is?"

"It's bad luck?" the question was whether she'd accept that as an answer. It was the standard answer.

Her eyes narrowed at him…threatening.

"Human nature," he replied. "You put women in the mix and the… 'brotherly camaraderie' that's required to work the ship is out the window. There'd be jealousies, romantic fights between couples… not to mention the TOTAL lack of privacy."

Her brow furrowed deeply and she leaned in closer to him. After a furtive glance around the dining room, she whispered to him. "You can tell me: what century have you time traveled here from?" She drummed her fingers on the table and glanced around the room again. "More importantly: when are you going back?"

Sarah sat back then, her eyes hard and her body stiff.

He crossed his arms hard against his chest in response. "We can debate all the lofty ideals and philosophies of how we're above this – but it's Human nature."

"Starships have a mixed crew," she reminded him.

"Starships are huge, with hundreds of people. There's plenty of space, plenty of privacy. The sailing ships are…smaller than this room."

"So a couple of women couldn't just be on the ship and do their jobs without – accidently – falling into the arms of a man?"

"After 6 months crammed into a tiny room with 20 naked men? NO."

She picked up her fork and began digging the end of it into the table. "Are there gay men aboard the ships?"

"Of course there are."

"And have they signed a celibacy pledge? Or do homosexuals magically not have jealousies and romantic spats?"

"They don't date," he bit back to her. "It's….they just don't."

Even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. It seemed that they didn't…it would create messy situations. But, at the same time, he also knew there was a gay couple living in one of the family apartments – and they hadn't joined the Navy as a couple, of that he was sure. And they certainly still traveled in the cramped ship with all the other men.

"What about lesbians? Can lesbians sign aboard? Because THEY won't be bothered sleeping with 20 naked men." Her eyes suddenly went wild. "Or do men on the high seas turn into rabid animals, completely unable to control themselves in the presence of a female body?"

Sulu jammed a finger into his temple. "This is above my pay grade," he muttered. "My raise wasn't that much."

Eyes still narrowed at him, she slid the book off the table. She stood, dragged her tray onto the book in her hand. "I'm just going to forget we had this conversation," she told him pointedly. "I'm certain that a LOT of it was illegal."

As she strode away, Sulu pushed his finger harder into his temple.

He was certain she was not going to forget the conversation.

What have I done?!

Pavel is going to kill me.