“Mr. Chekov,” Kirk said in greeting when the man’s cabin door finally opened.
“Yes, Captain?” he asked formally, straightening.
Hazel eyes took in the chess board on the man’s desk and received a warm smile from Tatiana, who was seated behind it.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Chekov,” the Captain explained. “I wanted to talk to you for a moment. Do you have pressing business?”
The younger man hesitated, glancing back briefly at his wife. “No, Sir,” he replied. “If you’ll just allow me to get dressed.”
“Of course,” the Captain agreed amiably. Although Chekov was wearing his uniform, he had neither his jacket nor his boots on. Kirk
paced away from the door as the Security Chief disappeared back into the cabin.
He reappeared in the corridor several minutes later in full uniform. Kirk’s eyes caught sight of Sulu, now at the desk with Tatiana, in the
brief moment the door was open. The Captain felt both chastised and vaguely reassured by the sight. Chekov wasn’t even willing to
leave her alone momentarily.
The Security Chief’s overactive concern for his wife was entirely characteristic of the man’s ingrained chivalry. Kirk immediately
understood the duties of the two sailors that traveled with the ballet company: they were there to look after Tatiana. Kirk felt all too
human for having let his emotions make such a quick, erroneous judgement of a man that the Captain now understood he knew better
than he’d realized.
“Lieutenant,” Kirk said as they began strolling down the corridor. “While I was in the shower this morning, out of the blue, I suddenly
thought of Pierre LeClef. Isn’t that strange?”
“It would be for me,” Chekov commented. “I never much cared for redheads.”
The Captain shot him a glare, but his irritation vanished as he recognized the familiar humor in his Security Chief’s dark eyes which he
routinely used to avoid uncomfortable situations. The man clearly knew the point of their conversation already. “LeClef was
Valedictorian of your class at the Academy. I wonder what he’s up to now,” Kirk continued.
“Not much, I imagine,” observed Chekov. “He’s been dead almost a year now.”
Kirk stopped. He said nothing for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
“Silly virus,” the Security Chief explained, pausing as well. “The Klingons didn’t even have a fair shot at him. Space travel is not a safe
career choice.”
“No,” the Captain agreed soberly and began to stroll again. “I don’t think that it ever will be. Were the two of you close at the Academy?”
Chekov’s jaw shifted and he chewed on his lip before answering, a range of emotions playing over his face. Discussing personal
information was difficult for him, and his decision to trust Kirk was a visible one. “No, we weren’t close. I didn’t even know he existed until
the end of senior year. He--well I’ve been told he didn’t particularly care for me.
“We did meet after graduation,” he continued. “I didn’t sense the animosity that I’d been told about.”
Kirk paused yet again, turning to face the younger man with intrigued curiosity. He was always finding unique ways to earn the Captain’
s respect. Chekov, at the very least, was a man of extreme modesty and deep character. The Captain wondered why he ever
questioned the motives behind his unmentioned marriage. “You were always valedictorian at the Academy until the very end of senior
year,” Kirk drew out, the significance of his statement weighing in his tone.
“I recall being told that,” Chekov said with a shrug. “I had tutors because my family traveled, so I was not familiar with the academic
ranking system. Competing with others still seems at odds with the purpose of education to me.”
“You like to learn,” the Captain observed. In addition to Spock’s pet research projects, the Security Chief still was still always involved in
some sort of computer course work. “You weren’t Valedictorian at graduation,” Kirk added.
“No, Sir. I was second in my graduating class. LeClef scored better on senior finals than I did.”
Hazel eyes narrowed as Kirk studied the Security Chief. “Pavel,” Kirk intoned quietly. “You nearly failed an exam in a navigation course.”
“Did I?” Chekov asked simply as he began moving down the corridor again. “I don’t recall what happened.”
“You gave it to him,” the Captain said bluntly, strolling beside him. “You didn’t care about being valedictorian and you found out he did,
so you gave it to him. Navigation was the one course you knew so well that you could lower your grade without risking failure.”
The young man’s response was delayed by a determined increase in the pace of his strides. ““Maybe I just didn’t want to give a
speech,” he commented drolly. “With my accent no one would have understood me anyway,” he muttered thickly.
“That took character,” Kirk observed. “I chose you from your graduation class based on the unwavering strength of character that you
possess.” The Captain withheld a smile at the visible shift in the man’s features.
“Reviewing my Academy record seems both belated and irrelevant at this time,” Chekov stated.
“Not to me,” Kirk observed. “Your strength of character is what kept you at the Academy when you should have been expelled.
Withholding another smile, Kirk knew the actual problem. The quick-witted, talented younger officer found it utterly abhorrent to be
recognized for something he had actually done. Chekov preferred to be an outgoing, funny and competent member of any group
around him. Any notice of his unique proficiencies took observational skills and made him uncomfortable. He actually preferred
criticism.
“The assessors have far too much time on their hands,” Chekov sneered.
Kirk smiled. No matter how old he grew, the man stayed hearteningly the same. The character assessments he spoke of usually came
largely from the Kobayashi Maru and similar tests: which the Security Chief successfully been excused from.
The Captain hesitated, then stopped as he watched Chekov increase the distance between them.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Pavel?”
This stopped the Security Chief in his tracks, but he didn’t turn. Finally, he spoke quietly, his accent thin. “I don’t know.” Silent for
another moment, he continued. “I’m sorry, Jim.”
Chekov pivoted then, soulful, dark eyes seeking his Captain’s. “I’m sorry, Jim. You never asked. You always assumed because I was so
much younger than you that I didn’t have any life events worth reporting.”
Quite the opposite was true, Kirk knew. Why he could still be surprised by anything in Chekov’s past was unexplainable. “You didn’t...
you don’t want anyone to know that you have anything of interest in your past,” he said, approaching the younger man’s stopped form.
He heard the Security Chief chuckle sardonically.
“How do you explain this to someone?” Chekov asked. “I’m not sure there are adequate words to make it reasonable after you thought
you knew me. I couldn’t just come out and say ‘I’m married’, now could I?”
“You managed to make the Academy understand,” Kirk observed as he leaned back against the bulkhead. “Frankly, with the Academy
rules being what they are, I wouldn’t have even gone back to face them. I would have just sent for my things to be shipped home.”
Sheepishly, the Security Chief averted his eyes. “I was taught to take responsibility for my actions and to be answerable for my choices.”
Too well, thought Kirk. The man was ridiculously hard on himself. “Your choice proved the wise one,” he observed aloud.
Hearing hesitating in the man’s voice, Kirk knew they had encroached the wall of privacy that kept Chekov comfortable. He didn’t press
it. “You’re a good friend,” was what he said, and he didn’t mean it flippantly. The Security Chief had a natural gift of making the people
around him feel important. He noticed them and made them a priority.
“So are you going to tell me about your marriage?” Kirk knew if the man left him with scant details from his personnel record than the
issue would linger between them like a rotting tooth. Personal conversations simply did not come up easily with Chekov.
“You obviously know it’s not really a marriage,” the Security Chief observed. “Tatiana and I became friends at the Chapman Clinic. After
we went our separate ways, the ballet Director abused her. She was a ward of the theatre: a child with no one to protect her. Tatiana
finally came to me for help when she was too ill to bear it anymore. I married her to remove her guardianship from the theatre. I was
able to move her in with my parents so that someone who cared about her could take care of her.”
“I know what your parents are like,” Kirk reflected. “They’ve practically adopted Sulu. Why didn’t you let them become her guardians,
like you claim they are? I’m sure they were willing.”
“Yes, they were,” Chekov agreed. “But there wasn’t time. To become the legal guardian of a minor you’re not related to involves
interviews, examinations, tests, investigations...it can take years.”
“A simple marriage ceremony takes only five minutes,” the Captain concluded.
The Security Chief looked mildly surprised. “No ceremony: we just signed a paper.”
Still, at fourteen, she must have had needed permission from her guardian...the government.”
“I didn’t give them a choice,” the man stated darkly.
“I still don’t understand,” Kirk continued curiously. “Why you didn’t wait until June, when you wouldn’t have risked your career.”
“She would have died.”
Kirk’s eyes widened in curiosity. “That was a judgement call.”
The Security Chief’s lips drew into a fine line. “Have you ever seen a death-camp victim?” he asked.
The Captain straightened and started to speak, but knew from Chekov’s somber tone that he wasn’t exaggerating. Besides, the court-
martial board had unconditionally endorsed cadet Chekov’s actions at the time.
“You gave up your career and well, quite frankly,” the Captain continued with a smirk, “pretty much any chance of dating in your home
town. The court-martial board assessed that as a better test of character than anything they’ve ever come up with.”
Chekov rolled his eyes. “They were a bit over dramatic.”
Hazel eyes gleaming, Kirk’s smile turned wry. “Something you’d be a good judge of, I imagine.”
He received a glare in return.
The Captain stood up away from the wall, his eyes still shining as he studied the younger man. “So, you actually do think of her as your
sister? No more? I mean, there‘s never been anything more between you?”
Kirk noticed the brief hesitation before the younger man’s face drew into a dramatic, albeit charming, pout. “Sulu says she is ‘the girl
next door’.”
Kirk stilled, eyeing Chekov cautiously as he mulled over the thought. The Security Chief’s attitude toward Tatiana, and his actions,
began to coalesce in the Captain’s mind. “The girl next door?” he repeated.
Chekov’s pout faded as he regarded his Captain patiently. “Yes. It’s an American Urban Legend. You don’t know it? Of course,” he
concluded, a tiny, warm smile creeping into his dark eyes as his accent grew thicker. “In this case, ‘next door’ is a bedroom, not a
house.”
“I know the legend,” Kirk answered blandly. The play of emotions on the Security Chief’s face as he spoke held his attention. It was
clear to the Captain that the man’s knowledge of ‘the girl next door’ legend was blissfully incomplete. Sulu had apparently failed to
mention that one day the boy realizes the girl had grown up.
The way Chekov was naturally attuned to people created a natural diplomacy in the younger man, and he recognized instantly the
imperfection in his commander’s behavior. His eyes narrowed. “This is not accurate?” he asked suspiciously.
Kirk could already see the retribution against Sulu being plotted in the man’s dark eyes. To be taken in by a scheming friend would be
humiliating for Chekov, although it was not something anyone would put past Sulu.
“No,” the Captain assured him. “Everyone knows about the girl next door: it’s accurate,” the Captain assured him. He flashed Chekov a
warm, bright smile then for good measure. Accurate, he was thinking, although somewhat incomplete.
Chekov and Tatiana’s childish tormenting of each other made sense to Kirk now: it was teenage foreplay. It was apparent that Sulu
understood this...and that Chekov did not.
Kirk found that he was grinning like a hyena, his hazel eyes wild with delight.
Chekov’s eyes were narrow and regarding the Captain suspiciously. His mind made the immediate, erroneous connection between Kirk’
s original question and delighted grin.
“Jim,” he warned tonelessly. “There are three rules for dating that all men know. One: you don’t date your relatives. Two: you don’t date
the relatives of your friends, and three: you don’t go near the relatives of dangerous men.” He stopped for a minute and fixed Kirk with
a deadly look.
“Take your pick.”
* * *
Chekov had never actually entertained the notion of marriage in even a passing moment. Now that he thought about it, he found that
odd. It should have crossed his mind occasionally. He was an only child and the sole way his family’s heritage and culture would be
passed on was through him. He had grown up in a traditional culture where things like that still mattered.
Of course, technically, he was married. Chekov chewed on his lip as he thought about his marriage to Tatiana. Being ‘married’ had its
advantages. He had also grown up in a culture where marriage and family were the backbone of the community: a requirement for
society to work. A person did not take their place as an adult member of the community until they got married.
Only Pavel Chekov had cheated this requirement. He was married technically, so he could vote in Village Council meetings, stand
judgment in trials, and–even better–no one bothered him about finding a wife. In fact, the Security Chief pondered, he was happy that it
generally kept the young women away from him at home as well. When he was home on leave he wasn’t interested in pursuing romantic
interests. He could find romance while in space. While home he had precious little time to be with his family, his friends, and most
especially, Tatiana.
Their relationship at first was dubious at best. He had been in pain, scared, and alone in a foreign world of strange adults and invasive
medicine when he had met her. The sound of her young voice--with a Russian accent no less--had touched him with a thrill of hope he
hadn’t dared to feel since he'd been sent to the clinic. And he had tortured her for it.
He lurched out at her from around corners, behind doors, and inside closets. Hygiene products turned out to be adhesives or dyes.
The creative changes he made to her food selections would have won awards anywhere else. Then, she suddenly fought back with a
vehemence that gave the self-assured young man a sense of competition like he’d never had before.
Just when the virtual war against each other threatened to tear the fabric of the clinic’s care for the other patients apart, however, the
novelty of that particular game wore off. They had settled into blissfully playing every other game they could come up with together.
Pavel and Tatiana played every day far into the night: talking, laughing, tormenting until they collapsed spent and exhausted, more
often than not without a voice left to speak with. He supposed now that he missed her more when they were together than not. Her
presence made him aware of something missing--of some fundamental lack that seemed all too oppressing to him when she was near.
Having her nearby, and yet not with him, was even worse. He was beginning to realize that this was a new game altogether.
At that thought, Chekov thrust his cheek onto his fist and petulantly studied the board in front of him for his next move.
“Ten minutes.”
He blinked and looked up at Sulu, who sat across the desk from him. The Helmsman was bravely trying to give keep him occupied after
he had been ejected–and banned–from the ballet company’s practice. “What?” Chekov asked, confused.
“Ten minutes,” Sulu repeated, a smile playing on his lips as his dark eyes regarded his friend. “It’s taken you ten minutes of staring to
realize you lost again. Pavel, you’ve just lost eight games of checkers in a row.”
“Checkers?” he asked, straightening with a scowl. “Well, that explains it. I thought we were playing draughts.”
“Same game,” Sulu commented knowingly as he moved to reset the board. “So why are you sulking?”
“I am not sulking,” the man retorted.
Grinning, the Helmsman shrugged. “Sorry. What are you thinking about?” he asked.
The Security Chief stared at the board between them, his eyes distant. Absently, he moved one of his pieces and let his fingers linger
on its surface. “Hikaru,” Chekov asked quietly. “When the men talk in the rec room…is it true?”
“Oh, hardly ever,” the older man chuckled with a wry grin. “What topic in particular?” He shooed Chekov’s hand off the board and
moved his own piece.
Wide brown eyes met Sulu’s. “What it’s like to be a sixteen-year old boy.”
Sulu burst out laughing, his dark eyes sparkling. “Ah, that blessed period of raging hormones and independent physical activity. ‘The
best time of your life’,” he concluded. “Now, if teenage boys believed that age-old line, none of us would hang around to grow into men,
would we?”
“So it’s true then?”
“You remember,” the Helmsman insisted with a curious grin. The younger man fully enjoyed the half-drunken revelry that was known to
spring up late at night in any given rec room, but Chekov rarely added his own stories. He was too private for that, Sulu knew.
“No, I don’t,” Chekov answered tonelessly. He waited for Sulu’s to meet his gaze before he continued. “I was never a sixteen-year old
boy.”
Dark eyes steady on his friend’s, Sulu leaned forward after a moment. “Well, now there’s a neat trick.”
“I spent that year in the Chapman Clinic,” the Security Chief said soberly.
Silently, Sulu jumped two men. He fingered the pieces he removed in his fingertips for a long moment. “Malyenki,” he intoned quietly. “I
know how hard it was for you to relearn to walk: but that doesn’t just erase the time from your life. That horrible year is part of who you
are.
“Besides,” he added carefully. “That was almost ten years ago.”
The Security Chief studied the board in silence, his fingers touching the pieces tentatively.
“Pavel,” Sulu ventured, somewhat relieved that the man hadn’t reacted with the violent outburst he’d expected. “I’m pretty sure there
are rules, even in draughts, against making your own men kings.”
The younger man seemed to come back to the present and offered a cryptic smile. “There are things about my stay at the clinic that I
never told you, Hikaru,” he said. There were so many things only Tatiana knew about him, he thought: so many things they had shared
and gone through that could never be explained adequately to anyone else.
Sighing slightly, Sulu moved a piece. “Even best friends don’t know everything about each other, Malyenki: they don’t have to. Friends
just understand each other.”
Chekov moved one of his own men. “Hikaru, do you remember when you cut your arm this spring?” the Security Chief asked suddenly
in an apparent change of subject.
Sulu jumped two more of Chekov’s men and growled low in his throat. “That type of pain is hard to forget. It wasn’t even that bad a cut
but I severed a nerve.”
“Yes,” the younger man agreed as he moved a checker. “The human nervous system is electrical. Doctors can repair the damage, but
the body still has to take the time to remake the wiring connections on its own, if it even can. Until it does, a severed nerve is like an
exposed, open circuit.”
The Helmsman shuddered dramatically and nodded, moving another piece on the board. “I remember. Every time anything touched my
arm it was like being electrocuted. It was unbearable.”
“The accident severed the nerves in my leg, that’s why I couldn’t walk,” Chekov observed quietly, his somber eyes seemingly
mesmerized by the board before him.
Sulu stilled, dark eyes staring at his friend as the implications of his words settled on him. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I never realized
what you really went through.”
Shrugging, Chekov made a broad gesture of dismissal and pushed a circular piece forward. “Long time ago,” he agreed without looking
up. “The pain was…” He stopped then, his dead, dark and averted eyes bringing a heavy silence between the men. Sulu’s eyes rested
on him knowingly and waited.
“Hikaru,” Chekov said heavily. “Dr. Bob invented a drug cocktail to deaden the nerves while they healed. It basically deadened all my
nerves. I couldn’t feel anything,” the younger man observed with another shrug, finally looking up at his friend.
“You must have had to be careful not to get hurt,” Sulu marveled, but then stopped. He realized that he hadn’t understood what his
friend was saying. Frowning in thought, the Helmsman eyed him. “ You mean you couldn’t feel...anything?”
“Chemical castration,” was Chekov’s explanation. “Of course,” he added with a sly grin, “It didn’t affect my interest: which, happily, the
nurses appeared completely unaware of.”
“Pavel Andrievich!” Sulu burst out, leaning over the board with a grin. “You used your medical innocence to prey on those
unsuspecting angels of mercy!”
Whatever reaction he was expecting, Sulu was rewarded with an outright giggle.
The Helmsman tapped the board in thought. “That explains,” he mused aloud, “Why nothing ever happened between you and Tatiana
at the clinic: nothing could, and it set a precedent.”
The younger man scowled again in indignation. “She was only twelve at the time!”
Sulu’s dark eyes held his friend’s gaze in a solid challenge. “She’s not twelve anymore, Malyenki.”
The Security Chief squirmed visibly, his face flushing with color as he lapsed into silence.
His best friend watched the change curiously, a sense of victory beginning to churn within him and he understood for the first time that
it really had a taste. It was a good taste. “Why are you suddenly telling me about the drugs now?” he asked suspiciously.
Chekov pushed at the checker pieces randomly. Sulu was the one person in Starfleet that he felt close enough with to talk about
practically anything. “Hikaru,” he drew out without raising his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me about the girl next door?”
The older man stilled and cleared his throat. “I remember telling you about the girl next door,” he commented absently.
Crossing his arms, Chekov rested them on the desk and leaned forward. “Yes, you told me: like the poet told everyone about the riders
that alerted Boston to the British invasion.”
Sulu’s jaw hardened. This was what Chekov’s life had been before Starfleet—what his parents life was. As folklorists, they collected
tales and legends, flushed them out, added the history, and made them count. Despite his numorous manipulations of history for the
sake of humor, it mattered to Chekov that people knew that Paul Revere had not made the longest ride that important night in America.
It was surprising that it actually took this long for him to look up the ‘Girl Next Door’ legend.
“Do you stop the story before Hanzel and Gretel escape from the witch?” the Security Chief demanded in irritation.
Taking a deep breath, the Helmsman stretched out his back. “Of course not, but it’s a matter of relativity. What difference does it make
that the love of friends turns romantic in that legend? It’s not as though it relates to anything.” Hesitating significantly, he fought back a
wry smirk and fixed his eyes on his friend, a knowing glint shining in the dark depths of his eyes. “Does it?”
The Security Chief’s fingers curled into fists slowly. “I don’t remember when Tatiana wasn’t part of my life. She’s always there, always
present in my mind, judging what I do like a second conscience. I know it’s idiotic, but sometimes I say or do things just because I know
that she would knock me upside the head for it.”
“She’s your best friend,” Sulu observed quietly. Although the younger man generally reserved the term for the Helmsman, it was only
because his relationship with Tatiana was so far beyond the confines of an ordinary friendship. An ingrained link connected their souls.
Chekov nodded deeply in agreement. “I suppose she is my best friend. I didn’t realize how important she was in my life until…Hikaru,
when I thought she was gone, that I may never see her again: I went dead inside. When I finally saw her alive, unhurt,” he rushed on
breathlessly. “I just lost my mind.
“Never have I felt anything like it before in my entire life. I didn’t ever want to let go, to stop…”
“Good God Almighty!” Sulu burst out with a gleeful grin. “You kissed her! You actually kissed Tatiana!”
Chekov made a growl low in his throat, the sound echoing with the hollowness of guilt. “Yes, I kissed her. I didn’t intend to, but it
just…happened...somehow. Now, my body has a mind of its own. I can’t seem to think of anything else!”
Sulu leaned forward, resting his cheek on his hand, dark eyes wild. “Are your thoughts…I mean, do they only involve kissing her?” he
asked eagerly.
“Stop that!” Chekov roared.
The Helmsman grinned. “I can’t help it. This is like the news of the century--soap opera style. Wait till your father finds out his son is
incestuous!”
“Don’t you even think of telling him!” the younger man ordered in horror.
A snicker met his words. “Oh, like he doesn’t find out everything anyway. One look at the guilt in those big Russian eyes of yours…” He
straightened, dropping his hand and laughing out loud as the emotion he spoke of swept over the younger man’s features. “Pavel
Andrievich!”
Chekov sank into a deep pout of over powering self-recrimination. “Hikaru,” he said hoarsely, consumed by the need to confess his
soul’s evil secrets. “The things I’ve been doing. Unspeakable things. Slow dancing...brushing her hair...” he exclaimed in a rush of guilt-
ridden horror.
Sulu smirked. By his cultural standards, Chekov had just admitted to molesting Tatiana. “Malyenki,” he drawled. “That’s what men do
when they’re pursuing a woman.”
“I am not pursuing…!” the Security Chief retorted, but his body betrayed him as deep color washed into his cheeks.
The older man’s blistering laughter interrupted him.
Chekov wilted, overcome with self-recrimination. “What do I do?” he pleaded desperately, shoving his fists against his temples as
though the action could regain control of his spinning mind and out of control body.
Standing, Sulu tapped his fingers on the desktop before he turned to move away. “You’re in love with her. Do what men in love do.”
“She’s my sister!” the Security Chief protested in horror.
Sulu hesitated at the end of the desk, and without turning, he observed quietly: “She is no more your sister than I am your brother.”
“If I tell her, she’ll hit me!”
The Helmsman smiled. “It won’t be the first time.”
“What if she doesn’t…What if she does and then…I can’t lose her, Hikaru,” the young man said plaintively. “I can’t risk destroying what
we have. I need her.”
Sighing, Sulu turned and gazed at his friend with the condescending affection of an older brother. “Malyenki, change is the very nature
of life. You don’t have the same relationship with Tatiana that you did while you were in the clinic, any more than we have the same
relationship we did while we were at the Academy.
“The relationship between the two of you is going to change even if you do nothing. The decision is going to be made whether you
choose to have any input into it or not. You have the opportunity now to decide what direction that change is going to take.
Chekov dropped his hands and shook his head fiercely. “I can’t risk not having her there when I go home.”
“You can’t stop change, Pavel,” Sulu repeated. “What makes you think she’s going to stay with your parents forever, anyway?”
“What do you mean by that? Where would she go?” Chekov demanded hotly.
The Helmsman shrugged. “She’s an adult, has a good job, friends, a life of her own...eventually I suppose that she’ll move into her
husband’s home.”
The Security Chief’s face went pale.
Sulu smirked. “Odds are that she’s going to marry someone, Malyenki. You can just hope that her husband doesn’t mind her spending
all her time with you when you go home on leave. If that’s alright, do nothing.” He stopped then, never having seen a human face as
ghost-white as Chekov’s had become.
“Stop sulking,” the older man advised. “And decide what you want.”
The younger man chewed on his lip, silently beginning to pile the checkers with great methodical care. “What if she doesn’t feel the
same way?” he mused aloud, almost to himself. “What if I drive her away?”
The Security Chief could feel Sulu hesitate behind him as he moved to leave. “Did she kiss you back?” the Helmsman asked.
“I don’t know,” Chekov muttered.
“Yes, you do. She let you brush her hair. Tatiana’s not an idiot, she knew what you were doing. Talk to her,” he urged.
Chekov shifted uncomfortably.
Sulu moved toward his own cabin, but hesitated again when he reached the bathroom door. He turned back to eye his friend. “Pavel
Andrievich,” he observed soberly. “I have a sister and the last time I took a bath with her, I was three.”
Chekov’s head snapped up, his eyes widening in horror. “I never…! Who told you such a thing?!”
The older man merely grinned.
“We play war games with my boats!” the Security Chief spat out, his hands trembling as the Helmsman disappeared.
“You could wear swim suits,” came the droll comment before the door slid shut between them.