Chekov moved cautiously into the darkened room, trying to adjust his eyes quickly so that he didn’t trip over anything unexpected. He
stayed along the bulkhead where the shadows clung and absorbed his figure into their nothingness.
The lights were off in what had been turned into a makeshift practice studio for the members of the ballet company fit enough to work.
Their normal days could stretch into fifteen hours of grueling work. Finally, however, the dancers were gone for the night and the large,
empty room was dim and silent. The only illumination came from the starlight flowing through two wide viewscreens stretching along the
far bulkhead.
In the center of the dark room’s floor a lone figure danced, bathed by the silence around her. She danced with utter abandon, leaping
and spinning to strains of music that only she could hear. The tatters of her dress swirled around her legs as she moved, their ends
twisting and clinging with every graceful, powerful motion. Starlight caught the tatters and danced upward on their edges until the entire
dress seemed touched by fire.
He watched her from his perch, so mesmerized by her graceful movements that the breath crushed from his chest. You did not watch
Tatiana Demidova dance; you were absorbed by her overwhelming, hypnotically unaffected perfection. Every step was a stunning
display of technical virtuosity. Her seemingly effortless display of the nuts and bolts of the craft had a clear, correct, classical line for
anyone who knew how to see such things: such people who would thus know immediately where she had trained and still worked.
Given all that, what drew people to her performances was neither her crisp natural talent nor her brilliant technical skill. Crowds came
enmasse to see her because she danced with sheer, unadulterated joy: infusing a life-giving energy into her performances that had not
been seen since the days of Maria Pavlova. Such a dancer could sweep one into a blinding rush of primordial emotion only elusive,
true art produced.
As he watched her dance, he realized that in her recent performance tapes she had not been so completely vibrant.
She stilled after a moment and absently began doing dance exercises.
“Do people here know why we call you Malyenki?” she wondered aloud, her words drifting quietly out into the dark.
“Uhura thinks it’s because I’m short,” he remarked, knowing it would be futile to pretend he wasn’t there.
He could see her easy smile flash in the dark. “Yes, Little One,” she acknowledged with a teasing note in her voice. They both knew the
nickname had nothing to do with his size. It was his temperament ‘Malyenki’ referred to: the single-minded, fierce determination that
possessed him and the unwavering fortitude he had in carrying out his stubborn decisions.
“You are, truly, your father’s son,” she agreed, for that likeness was what the nickname referred to. “What is the English word?” she
puzzled aloud to herself as she strolled away. “Ah,” she concluded, stopping to turn her head and peer back at him with a sparkle in her
eyes. “Stalker.”
“I am not a stalker,” he retorted with indignation. Neither of them made any objection to labeling his father that, however. “It worked for
him,” he muttered. His mother claimed she only married the man because it was far simpler in the end than prosecuting him.
“Always there, somewhere, lingering about…” She smiled and made several leisurely pirouettes, stepped toward him, then did it again.
“Tatiana,” he intoned quietly. “I’d like to show you something.”
She gracefully lifted her leg, placed her ankle on his shoulder, and leaned into it. Their faces came so close to touching he could feel
the heat from her lips on his. Eyes seeking out his, she stared quietly into their dark, smoldering depths. Pavel never called her by her
real name. “Show me something?” she repeated thoughtfully. “I work with dozens of nearly naked men daily: I don’t think you have
anything new for me to see.”
He grinned despite himself. Grasping the elegant ankle lingering by his ear, he slowly ran his hand down the outside of her firm leg.
People didn’t think of dancers as athletes, but they were the best conditioned humans in existence. They should send ballet dancers
into space after Klingons, he thought with amusement at the image that appeared in his mind. His hand tumbled the tattered dress
down toward her waist. He felt less than honorable, but the delicious warmth that swept from his hand and into his body so distracted
him that he didn’t care.
“Tiana, you are a finely cut, polished diamond,” he whispered, surprised at the hoarseness that choked the words.
Bright blue eyes sparkled, regarding him with patient warmth. “Baryshnikov said that about Kirkland,” she commented.
He found his fingers tightening on her deliciously hard thigh. An impish grin flashed across his face. “Why come up with something new
when good material is already available?”
She laughed and slapped his cheek playfully. “Wicked boy.”
“Can we walk?” he asked.
Both of them had gone for a period without the ability to walk, and together they had fought to regain that basic skill. The simple art of
taking a walk had a treasured meaning for them lost on most people.
“Let me change,” she said, dropping her foot to the floor and moving to the other end of the room.
He paced thoughtfully in a small area, hands clasped loosely behind his back while he waited. Catching sight of her, he stopped where
he stood. She had peeled the dance costume away and was giving herself a sponge bath. Chekov felt his chest tighten and he edged
into a better position to watch her.
He didn’t know what he was enjoying more: watching her or the guilt that came with it. Being Russian was a curious existence, indeed,
he thought.
“Do you want a photo?”
“No, I’m fine.”
A bemused shine in her blue eyes, she slipped back into her coverall and boots, apparently unconcerned by his voyeurism.
“All set,” Tatiana informed Chekov as she rejoined him.
He interlaced his fingers with hers, led her out the door and walked her silently through the ship’s corridors. “You have body hair,” he
said bluntly after a moment.
“Yes: hell of a time to go into puberty. Of course, that’s nothing new for you.”
“Very funny.” The Security Chief chewed on his lip in obvious discomfort as color flushed into his cheeks. A very poor joke he often
repeated was that not enough delipitory existed for him to be a dancer.
“Tiana,” he continued in a sudden rush. “Ballet dancers don’t have body hair.”
A smile flowed over her pure features. She shrugged luxuriously as they walked. “Technically, it’s a matter of choice and I have long
costumes for this ballet.”
“And if the next has short costumes again?” he puzzled as her apparent strategy wandered through his mind. “And then the next one
long? Won’t it itch...?”
Tatiana laughed: a light, merry sound that bubbled on the air and trailed off down the corridor. “You’re so detail oriented. Don’t worry.”
“But, won’t it?” he persisted curiously.
She met his next question with silence, her eyes fixed on the deck as they walked along. “Malyenki,” she finally drew out quietly. “We
need to talk.”
He felt his hand grow cold. His mind had been possessed all day with the topic of his feelings and recent behavior towards her. He had
rehearsed this conversation a dozen times over, but never had he envisioned Tatiana being in control of it. It wasn’t surprising that she
was a step ahead of him, however.
“This is my last ballet,” she continued before Chekov could respond. “I’ve resigned my position at the Maryinsky.”
Chekov stopped dead in his tracks, taken by surprise at the completely unexpected words.
“Tatenka! You love to dance!”
Turning to face him, she nodded. “Yes, I love to dance, Malyenki: I always will.” Her smile became soft and sad. “The stress of
performing , however, is too much for me now.” She hesitated, so unlike her to admit such things. “It hurts,” she said quietly.
The silence became a great well within him, consuming his heart and mind until his soul itself began to weep. He could see in her eyes
the raw truth about how much pain she’d been in lately and understood why her recent performances seemed downright hollow.
“I’m not going to tell anyone how to live their lives—I’ve barely got control of my own,” he said mechanically. It was his father’s mantra
and it came back to haunt him now. How could Chekov burst out with the protest he wanted to, knowing her as well as he did?
Ballet was not an art in Russia: it was a religion. It was taught to every child in the first years of school—if not earlier--as a prerequisite
to all athletics and anyone with any talent was sent on to specialized classes. Nearly every parent in the country secretly hoped their
child would be one of the lucky few with natural enough gifts to be accepted at one of the old, traditional theatre boarding schools.
Tatiana’s father, a widower, had enrolled her at the Maryinsky Theatre’s school when she was five. He had died only a few years later
himself. It was hardly unusual for a student to be a ward of the Theatre where they studied. Except in Tatiana’s case, it had left her
open and vulnerable, with no idea how to protect herself or deal with the universe outside the world of ballet.
Ballet was unnatural and its dancers endured through bruised and broken toes; shredded tendons, ligaments and muscles; twisted
ankles; and cracked, broken and splintered bones. The good schools took care of their students and taught them to protect
themselves while teaching the craft itself. It had not always been so, however.
Laws and regulations protected dancers now, but until Pavel Chekov’s recent rage, they relied heavily on the trustworthiness of those
involved. Sometimes the evil in man’s hearts still found their way back to past horrors. The former Director of the Maryinsky had seen
the fire in Tatiana Demidova immediately and set out to make himself the owner of the finest ballerina in centuries—by selling his soul
and sacrificing her in the long run. She had been worked to exhaustion and kept working through serious injuries even as a child. Set
onto her toes at too young an age so that her splintering shins needed repeated shirring up by medical staff, a serious injury at age
twelve should have Tatiana’s career.
No sane person would have expected her to dance again when she finished rehab, but the Director had put her on the stage again
anyway. The Director used medical subterfuge to keep her small and trained her body to reject much of the sustenance she did take
in. She was physically on death’s doorstep when she had appeared at Pavel’s dorm room.
He cleared his throat. Dancer’s bodies burned out in their thirty’s if they were taken care of, long before if they were not taken care of:
and hers had been brutalized. Of course it made perfect since that she was exhausted and ready to retire at age twenty-two. It didn’t
have to have been that way.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out in a soft caress as hot tears spilled out of his wide eyes and onto his cheeks.
They stood there a long time and she serenely watched as the tears continued to stream silently down his face. He blinked several
times in shame. Not for crying, for Russian men were at ease with their emotions, but for the instant thoughts that had prompted the
tears. He cried not for her, but for his Motherland that had just lost a national treasure. Worse yet, he cried because of his own
unreasonable guilt for not having prevented this situation to begin with.
She knew him well enough to clearly recognize the tears as self-loathing. When she finally decided he’d indulged himself enough, she
reached up to gently wipe the tears away. “Who told you that you were put in this universe to make everyone else happy? You can’t
possibly be responsible for my childhood,” Tatiana commented, knowing from experience what he was thinking.
That stopped the tears instantly, for it hit too close to home. He had been hardwired by extensive travels in his childhood among an
unending variety of cultures to ease tense situations. No one taught him such a preposterous thing, but still, something inside him felt
duty bound to be funny and happy: to make everyone around him comfortable. Tatiana knew exactly how to shut down the over inflated
ego one necessary to support such an idea and a sheepish smile tugged at his lips. She always knew exactly how to mange his moods.
The smile faded and, brown eyes full of pain, he reached out and touched her soft cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “You so love to
dance, Tiana. It was your dream.”
“I had my dream,” she responded, turning her head to kiss his fingertips still lingering on her face. “Now, I have time for new dreams.”
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “May the Lord God Almighty grant you peace and happiness,” he murmured. It was obvious
her decision was a well-thought out one and if she had waited until now to mention it to him, she had certainly discussed it at length with
his parents.
“Do you want to teach?” he asked curiously.
“What I want...” she hesitated again. It was Pavel she was talking to, she had to remind herself. They knew each other better than was
usual for two people and they had easily confided things to each other usually left unsaid. “What I want now is a life.”
“A life?” Chekov repeated.
“Yes,” she insisted. “I want a normal life: it’s something I never had the luxury of, Malyenki.
“I want the chance to sleep late, go horseback riding, spend hours mushroom picking, or lounge all day in the banya.”
It was what they did together when he was as home on leave, Chekov thought. Even then, however, she still had to fit grueling private
dance practices in on her days off from the theatre. It occurred to him now how regimented and colorless her chosen career had made
her daily life.
Crystalline blue eyes sparkling, she smiled wickedly. “I want to gorge myself on chocolate, Malyenki.” Her smile softened then and she
added quietly: “I simply want the chance to be a woman finally.”
The words settled heavily on Chekov, who found himself painfully at a loss for words of his own in answer to such a preposterous
statement.
Her wide blue eyes warmed as she heard his argument despite his inability to voice it. “Pavel Andrieivich, you have taught me to love
our culture and appreciate the great value there is in the basic art of being a woman.
While modern humans may have thought a woman’s role in their primitive culture as demeaning or limiting, those who understood knew
quite the opposite was true. The Russian culture was secretly a matriarchal one at heart. The family, the household, the community, all
relied on a woman’s basic strength, skill and wisdom to direct it and keep it functioning.. The men of the community knew full well who
was really in control and all of their blustering to the contrary fooled no one but outsiders.
“I want to learn to run a household, Pavel,” Tatiana explained. “I want to learn from your mother how to sew, garden, cook...”
“Good God Almighty! Don’t let my mother teach you to cook!” Chekov exclaimed in mock horror.
She laughed merrily again. “Perhaps we can learn to cook together,” she suggested happily.
He shook his head vehemently. “The last time she tried to learn to cook we got food poisoning!”
Tatiana’s only answer was a continued smile, warm understanding shining in her eyes. She didn’t need to say anything.
She had the heart and temperament of a traditional woman, so it was no surprise how thoroughly Tatiana had taken to traditional
Russian culture. Tatiana’s strength and fiery soul gave her a natural, instinctive ability to handle such basic, overwhelming
responsibilities. She certainly knew exactly how to control Pavel Chekov.
He stepped closer to her then, slipping his arms around her and gathering her against him. Chekov stood holding her with a warm,
subtle swell of contentment. The physical reaction that he was prepared for did not happen: nor did it feel like he was holding his little
sister. The feeling that filled him was something completely different–something more profound.
Lord, she smelled like home.
Tatiana sighed softly as he nuzzled her face against his shoulder. “I promise I’ll still dance for you.”
Shaking his head, Chekov held her at arms length and waited until her gaze me his soulful brown eyes. “No. Promise me that you’ll still
dance for yourself.”
She smiled with affection and took his hand in hers again. “You wanted to show me something?”
“Yes, it’s right up here.”
Chekov led her up the corridor and into the darkened room that was their destination. He quickly caught her hand, preventing her from
reaching the light switch. “No lights,” he coaxed.
“Oh, my word,” she breathed as her eyes swept over the room. “This is your lounge, Malyenki!” Dropping his hand, she strolled
curiously into the midst of the spacious room.
Chekov smiled sheepishly. “I hardly think it could be considered my own personal lounge.”
Tatiana cast a winsome glance over her shoulder, eyes sparkling as she looked back at him. “Well, Captain Kirk refers to it as ‘Pavel’s
Lounge,’” she informed him brightly.
The Security Chief blinked, straightening. Very few people came to this viewing lounge that Chekov loved, but the fact that the Captain
had given it his name came as a surprise.
He watched Tatiana wander about the room. On the right, padded benches ran the length of the room. The lowest bench sat in the
middle of the room and row after row followed behind it, raising bleacher-style until they met the back wall. Some five feet in front of the
first bench ran a waist-high railing on the left of the room. Just a foot in front of the rail, the floor ended abruptly.
Therein lay the unique configuration of this observation lounge. The floor ended some six feet before the outside bulkhead: a window
that swept the entire expanse of the room. The view dropped down beneath the floor, giving occupants of the room the giddy feeling of
being suspended in space.
Chekov moved to the middle of the dim room and folded himself down onto the floor, leaning his back against the first bench. This was,
in fact, the only actual window on the entire ship. Chekov preferred it to the abundant adjustable view screens that the rest of the crew
favored. Kirk apparently knew that.
The Security Chief bent his knees up and patted the floor between them. “Come sit down,” he encouraged.
Turning, she regarded him with the amusement due any errant child. “You’re in uniform, Pavel Andrievich.”
“Come have a seat,” he repeated.
“It’s my understanding that officers in uniform don’t belong sprawled on the floor.”
“I’m not sprawled. Besides, I have it on good authority the security monitors are turned off in here at the moment,” the Security Chief
divulged. “No one will ever know.”
A wicked smile flashed over Tatiana’s face as she moved over and seated herself between his thighs. “You’re diabolical,” she insisted,
wrapping her arms around his muscular, upturned legs and settling back against him.
Clearing his throat quietly, Chekov subtly edged his hips backwards, away from the warm pressure of her body. It didn’t change
anything.
The firm touch of her back nestled against his chest sent an overpowering rush of heat through his entire being and gripped him with a
physical response that was intense. He closed his eyes and savored the feeling for a long moment. Moving hadn’t changed his body’s
eager reaction: he only hoped it hid it from her.
Chekov sighed happily and, opening his eyes, ran his hands down her firm arms. When their hands met on his shins, he pushed his
fingers into hers, entwining them in a contented and warm union. A subtle shudder echoed back into his body and Chekov wondered
which of them was trembling.
Reaching forward to clasp her hands had brought his chest up tight against her back and his face atop her shoulder. With a devilish
glint in his dark eyes, he pushed his face deep into the thick waves of her free-flowing, soft amber hair. Unmarried women in the
traditional parts of Russia usually twisted their hair into a single braid to prevent men from doing such things. Tatiana often wore a
braid across her crown, but Chekov rarely saw her long hair tied up unless she was working or sleeping.
“Sir, you take liberties,” she commented, glancing back to eye him darkly.
Color flushed into his cheeks and he pushed his face deeper into her hair with an outright giggle. He often took such liberties with his
‘sister’, he realized, and she’d never even commented on it before. His grin turned wild. Sulu was right, he thought.
Chekov turned his head then, brushing his cheek down the length of her hair as he breathed in deeply. “Tiana,” he ventured aloud.
“Why do you always smell like cherry blossoms?”
She scowled at him and looked away.
There was no doubt in his mind that’s what she smelled like. Pavel Chekov loved the smell of cherry blossoms. Beneath the cherry
trees his father and he had cuddled at night, the man teaching him the constellations and folk tales of his wild Motherland. They had
laid in the cherry orchards and chatted so long that many times they woke up the next morning still curled beneath the trees. Together,
his father and he had searched the cherry orchards in search of the elusive Firebird, and it was to the cherry orchards that Pavel had
snuck away with his first girlfriends.
Probably because of that, Pavel Chekov more than loved the smell of cherry blossoms and Tatiana was the only person that knew that.
“Tiana,” he whispered thickly, kissing her neck through her hair. “You know the smell of cherry blossoms…” he still hesitated when it
came to confessing it out loud to her again. “You know it turns me on. So why is it,” he persisted hoarsely, “that you always smell like
cherry blossoms?”
He watched carefully the silent play of emotion across her flower-petal soft cheek. Knowing it was the only response he was going to
get, Chekov bit back a smirk and pulled his hands back along her arms. He slipped them between his legs and wrapped them around
her. The hug caused such a physical ache in him there was no way that she was not aware of if. Tatiana made no acknowledgment of
it, so after a moment he shifted his hands, edging them upward impolitely.
Tatiana lurched up to her feet and plunged toward the rail. Jaw set and knuckles brazenly white, she stood gripping the rail and staring
fiercely out at the stars. He followed her and grinned when he caught sight of her face. “Tatiana Demidova, I’ve never seen you blush
before!”
“You blush enough for both of us,” she replied tightly.
True, he thought, his grin turning shy. The thought of apologizing briefly crossed his mind, but he didn’t regret his actions. After having
thought over their relationship the entire day, he was relatively certain that she didn’t either.
Chekov edged closer to her and let his thigh brush against hers.
Crimson faced, she jerked away from him and glared back at the stars pointedly.
While he appreciated the entire package, she knew that he got a particular thrill out of a great set of legs. He grinned broadly, charmed
by the deeper blush he had caused.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” he asked in a soft whisper as he let one finger brush her hair away from her face and back over
her shoulder. Truth be told, he hadn’t realized it himself until he saw her on the planetoid. The awkward teenager he had known was
downright uncomfortable in her own skin and petrified of strangers that showed any interest in her. She had blossomed into a self-
assured young woman who handled the press and public with an amazing gentleness and sensibility. Her natural, regal grace and
charm made her appearance at formal balls a showplace for the Russian Federation.
Chekov had admired how she had grown as a person, but he had never noticed that the radiance of her pure character now shown in
an adults face. How he had remained so blissfully ignorant for so long was a mystery to him.
“My parent’s influence had been good for you,” he commented affectionately. It was not only true for their three children–Pavel, Tatiana
and Hikaru–but of everyone they touched.
She twisted around to face him then, staring at him incredulously. “Your parents?”
He stilled immediately, but could not find the horror he had obviously committed when he searched his mind. “Yes,” he repeated more
carefully. “My parents.”
She smiled tolerantly. “They’re wonderful, Pavel, but it was someone else who first let me know there was a whole person inside of me
that mattered regardless of any talent. Someone so devoted to me that he gave up his dreams to save my life.”
Chekov blinked, shifting in discomfort. “I didn’t give up anything and it wasn’t devotion, Tiana. You needed a medical doctor and
someone to look out for you,” he insisted.
Tatiana shook her head with a wry smile. “Yes, and I apparently needed lessons to ballroom and folk dance, to ride a horse and bike,
to drive an auto and troika, and to play and sing fold songs. Let us not forget the culture, literature, history and language lessons…or
the bodyguards.”
“They’re not bodyguards!” the Security Chief blurted out in protest, but it did nothing to hide the deep crimson color in his face. The
embarrassing list of his glaringly obvious behavior caught his breath in his chest, and she hadn’t even mentioned his steady stream of
lavish gifts. How could anyone not have known how he really felt about her all this time?
“They’re not body guards, they’re just escorts,” he alleged thickly, resting his hand on the rail and kneading it into a fist. “I don’t think
you should be…” wandering about alone, driving yourself, carting your own baggage..., was what he thought, but the mere words in his
mind horrified him. It couldn’t be worse: it couldn’t possibly be worse. He waited for her to slap him in self-righteous indignation. She
always knew his thoughts even before he did.
When she didn’t, he said: “I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t able to take care of yourself. I just thought you…”
“Shouldn’t have to,” she finished sedately, her eyes warm with toying affection. “You treat me like a princess, Malyenki.” She paused
and tapped her fingers absently on the rail. “Women like that feeling—even the ones who don’t admit it.” It was a daring thing to
confess to a man, but there had never been any boundaries between them.
Chekov studied her delicate features a moment in silence. He edged closer slowly and then leaned down: but as the warmth of her face
brushed his cheek, she turned back to stare at the stars.
His chest tightened with a flush of heat and he swallowed his disappointment with difficulty. He immediately moved closer again until his
chest was touching her arm. Slipping his hand across her back, Chekov leaned around the front of her.
She turned away, looking down demurely at the deck to her left.
“Tiana,” he said in frustration. “I’m trying to kiss you.”
“Yes,” she acknowledged flatly. “I’m inexperienced: not stupid.”
“You didn’t object on the planet.” When she didn’t reply, he continued huskily. “I need to be close to you, Tiana.”
She rolled her eyes with great drama. “Pavel Andrievich, what you need is a girlfriend. You haven’t had one since Sara a year ago.”
“I didn’t want a new girlfriend,” he admitted. His last breakup had been a particularly sound wake-up call, he thought. “I have never
made a more sensible decision: it gave me time to think about my life.”
“Yes, well we know how difficult it is for you to think, after all.”
Chekov sighed heavily. “Having a girlfriend here is too difficult. I’m tired of the effort it takes.”
Turning back to look at him, Tatiana’s bright blue eyes were sympathetic, not judgmental. “Romantic relationships are too much work?”
she repeated, intrigued.
He nodded slowly, his dark eyes somber. He’d never admitted his decision to anyone else. To anyone else it would have made him
sound...spoiled. “Either I have to pretend I’m from the same Earth culture as most Terrans are, or I have to try to teach them about my
culture.”
“Learning about each other is part of the charm of any relationship, Malyenki,” she reminded him kindly.
“It’s a waste of effort,” he explained miserably, a sour look on his face. “Even when they seem interested, it always turns out that they
think I’m joking: making it all up.”
“You’ve taught them well,” Tatiana replied evenly, her eyes steady on him. “You’ve perfected that funny person to keep the real you
hidden. Now, you can’t spend your life hiding who you are behind your sense of humor and then complain when they don’t take you
seriously.”
Nodding somberly again, he gave a weak shrug. “I’ve done it to myself,” he admitted. “But it’s too late now to do anything about it. What’
s the point of getting involved–investing all that time and energy–when they don’t have any real interest in me at all?”
“So,” Tatiana drew out, blue eyes warm with humor. “You’ve just given up on dating entirely?”
He chewed on his lip a moment, staring at his thumb as he rubbed an invisible spot on the railing. “Now entirely,” Chekov answered
quietly after a moment. “I just need to be with someone who understands: someone who’s like me.
“God help the universe if there’s someone else like you around.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said sullenly. She knew perfectly well what he meant: she always did. “I’ve reached the point in my life
where short-term relationships don’t appeal to me any longer. If I’m going to make that kind of effort, I want it to be for something long-
term. Girlfriends are a dime a dozen.”
“My word, that plentiful?” she asked with a smirk.
Chekov just nodded again. He had the irresistible urge to grab Tatiana and kiss her forcefully. It had been obvious she had enjoyed
kissing him before. Why did she always have to be such a pain in the ass? he wondered.
He carefully caressed her elegant back slowly, the silky feel of her thick hair sending a hot thrill through him as it brushed against the
back of his hand and tangled in his fingers. “Kiss me, Tiana,” he said huskily.
“You want to kiss me?”
“Yes,” he replied emphatically.
She screwed up her face, unimpressed. “Get in line.”
“Line?” he repeated indignantly. “But I’m your husband!”
“Husband?” she asked incredulously. “Now you have lost your mind!”
Stubbornly, Chekov leaned toward her again. “Kiss me,” he insisted.
She recoiled instantly, bright eyes incredulous. “Are you going to try to shove your tongue down my throat again?”
“I never...” he retorted indignantly, but stopped suddenly at her amazed look.
“Not stupid,” she reminded him lightly.
He bit his lip as his face colored again. “It wasn’t intentional,” he mumbled. “Besides, most people like it.”
“Hmph,” she growled, turning back to lean her arms on the rail as she gazed at the stars again. “You aren’t most people: you don’t
french kiss until you’re ready to make the relationship physical.” Tatiana glanced back at him, her eyes shining with amusement.
Chekov shifted uncomfortably. Heavens, does she know everything about me? he thought horridly.
“So, are we supposed to mark this reunion with a passionate fling?” she asked dryly without turning to him.
“What happens when you come home next–we go back to sharing a bed as brother and sister?”
That situation now seemed as bizarre as Chekov supposed it always should have.
“Or am I going to be the girl in your home port until you get bored with me?”
“I would never treat you like that!” he retorted indignantly.
“No. You wouldn’t treat anyone like that,” she observed, subdued.
Chekov stared at Tatiana as she gazed out at the stars, mesmerized by the fiery shine in her bright eyes. I need someone who
understands me... his own words came filtering back through his mind and he was disappointed at how pitifully they captured what he
had only come to understand himself.
He wondered how he could possibly make Tatiana understand something he had no words for. His gaze shifted to the stars. As was
often the case, he found his answers there. Gently, he turned her to face him. “Let me show you why I come here, Tiana.”
“I thought this was why you come to this lounge,” she said, indicating the starfield filling the window beside them.
Chekov shook his head. “No. Close your eyes.”
She eyed him dubiously.
“Go ahead, close them,” he insisted. “I won’t bite.”
“It’s not your bite I’m worried about.”
He scowled at her: as if anyone who made unwanted advances wouldn’t come away far worse for the wear.
She made a great show of sighing in resignation before she closed her eyes.
Chekov slipped his hand on top of hers resting on the rail, delighted with the tremor it sent rushing through him. He leaned close to her
ear and whispered: “Listen.”
Tatiana was silent a long moment. “I hear the ship’s engines,” she said eventually. “I can feel them through the deck, too.”
“No,” he instructed quietly. “Ignore the engines. Block them out and listen only to this room. Concentrate.”
“That would be easier if you weren’t breathing in my ear,” she observed curtly.
With a chastised grin, he straightened and watched her soft features as she tuned out the sounds of the ship.
She stretched her neck elegantly and opened her eyes slowly, wonder shining in them. “What is that sound?”
Chekov smiled shyly, his dark eyes brilliant. “That’s the sound of stardust,” he explained quietly.
Tatiana scowled incredulously at him. “Stardust has a sound?” she demanded. “How naive do you think I am?”
The Security Chief’s grin flashed across his features, becoming outright wild. “No, it’s true,” he insisted. “There are billions of particles
of stars floating everywhere in space and, as the ship speeds along, they stream along the hull.” He had long since learned to hear the
steady hissing sound so apparent in this room without concentrating. “That’s the sound of stardust.”
“So the hiss…is the sound of the stardust flowing over the ship as it moves?”
“Yes,” he agreed, and paused long enough to kiss the top of her head. Lord, she smelled good.
“When you travel in space, the sound of stardust is always there. It becomes so much a part of your life that you stop hearing it,
though. You forget how important stardust is.”
“It’s what we’re made of,” Tatiana observed, her eyes sweeping over the starfield they stood next to. “At the most basic level, we and
the stars are the same.”
“That’s why I like this lounge. It reminds me of my place in the universe: and of the basic things in my life.” He grasped the hand his still
rested on. “Tatiana, I don’t want a girlfriend. I want a wife,” he said, seeming to change the subject so quickly that she glanced sharply
at him.
“Another?” she asked lightheartedly, a trace of a smile playing on her lips. “Is that legal?”
He eyed her with a sheepish smile, but didn’t answer directly. “Sulu told me I should spend less time sulking and figure out what I
actually want.”
“Oh,” she drawled with a disappointed pout. “And you’re so good at sulking.”
Chekov’s gaze remained steady on her as he considered that she always knew how to handle him: when to engage in mind-boggling
philosophical discussions and when to just knock him upside the head so he’d stop taking himself so seriously. She could manipulate
his moods as easily as she hid treats in their Easter bread. She always understood…and that thought made his self-doubt fade
completely. She was toying with him.
“What I want is a family to go home to in Russia when I get leave,” he explained.
“You have a family: a very close family. You’ve even dragged Hikaru and I into your family.”
He shrugged amiably in agreement. He couldn’t deny it after all. In fact, the first thing Andrie had said to Sulu when they met was that
he wouldn’t have told Pavel he couldn’t have a cat had he known his son would start dragging stray people home instead.
Sulu was still known as ‘Kitten’ by all their Russian friends. Strangely enough, he didn’t seem to mind it.
“I mean I want a family of my own: a wife, hordes of children.”
She turned away from him again, sighing gently and brushing her hands absently along the rail. “Any wife of yours on Earth would
have to be able to put up with being alone most of the time. That puts a crimp in your ‘hordes of children’ plans.”
“Women have waited at home for men who follow the stars for as long as boats have been put into Earth’s oceans. Some journeys back
then were up to eight years long. We get leave at home more often than that,” he maintained.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But they got scrimshaw occasionally. What will you be carving pictures in?”
He withheld the smile that her taunt inspired. “That’s not the only problem,” he observed. “I’m not going to change who I am. I want my
children raised back home. My wife has to live with my parents and let them help raise the children. She has to become a part of my
family and community.”
She laughed without looking at him. “You forgot the most important thing, Pavel Andrieivich.” Tatiana cast him a wry, sidelong look.
“This ideal mate of yours is going to have to be able to put up with you.”
“I’m not a man who’s always easy to live with,” he agreed with a sheepish look. “I’m moody, I’m spoiled, I’m...”
“Pig-headed. You sulk, are given to fits of guilt-ridden recrimination...”
“I didn’t need your help!” he interrupted indignantly.
“You are also loyal, devoted, kind, intelligent,” she observed soothingly.
“Fine qualities in a dog,” he muttered unhappily.
Tatiana turned toward him then, a toying glint in her blue eyes. “So, are you planning a life-long futile search for this perfect mate, or
are you just going to skip right to contacting genetic engineers?”
Chekov fell silent then, studying the woman that had been an integral part of his life for nine years. Pale, soft skin betrayed her gentle
nature and inner wisdom. They knew where they fit in each other’s lives, had every movement of their dance together woven into their
very souls. He listened to the sound of stardust beside them as he stared at her, reminded that people are so rarely aware of what they
have. Tatiana Demidova was the sound of stardust in his soul. She’d been there, a constant, for as long as he recalled: and he needed
her there.
“Tatiana, I love you.”
“I know.”
“No,” he said quietly and swallowed with difficultly. “I mean I am in love with you.”
“Yes,” she replied simply, blue eyes warm. “I know.”
He pulled himself up to his full height and eyed her incredulously. “And exactly how do you know this?”
“Oh, please,” Tatiana drawled. “Everybody knows it. You’ve been in love with me for years, Pavel. Your father says you’re the densest
man in the universe.”
“Dense!? My father wouldn’t say such a thing about me.”
“He does,” she insisted. “Malyenki, for such a brilliant person, you are wholly, utterly, completely, plumb dense.”
“So why hasn’t anyone told me about how dense I am?” he demanded.
“Oh, they wanted to,” she shrugged light-heartedly. “Especially Sulu: but I wouldn’t let them.”
“And why not?” he asked indignantly, fighting to keep the self-righteous sulk off his face.
She sighed heavily. “Pavel, you’re a man that has to figure things out for yourself.”
Damn it, Chekov thought, clenching his teeth. Did she always have to be right?
He forced himself not to be indignant then. “I want you to marry me.”
She straightened at that, brilliant blue eyes widening. “We are married, Pavel.”
“No, I mean really marry me.”
“Now why would I want to put up with you really, for God knows how long?”
He stared at her in silence. “It might not be that long,” he observed after a moment. “I work in space: I could die tomorrow.”
“There’s a perk to hope for,” she commented easily.
A myriad of thoughts drifted through his mind, unbidden. “Tiana,” he asked curiously. “Are you even interested in men?”
“I’m not gay,” she stated stiffly, pulling her eyes away to stare meaninglessly at the benches in the dim.
“Than why don’t you date?”
Jamming her arms across her chest, Tatiana eyed him dubiously. “And who would I date, Pavel? Thanks to you I am never alone,
except with members of the family. On these dates I would be accompanied by your father or by your bodyguards?” she asked.
Chekov felt his insides go cold. “My...? They’re not bodyguards!”
She rolled her eyes melodramatically.
“I’m sorry,” he said with desperation in his voice. “I never meant for it to be like that.”
Her gaze grew hard, accusatory. “Oh, please: yes, you did.”
“I didn’t!” he exclaimed in horror.
“Pavel,” she drew out tolerantly, “The men you assigned me were not there to carry my luggage. They were a moat designed to keep
all other men away until you were ready.”
“They most certainly were not! You’re insane!” he blurted out, dark eyes wild.
“Fine. Then who would you have had me date?” Tatiana asked patiently. “Volya? He’s your good friend: would it have been alright if I
slept with Volya?”
He blinked. Hard. “Volya is gay.”
“Okay, how about Grigori?” she continued on. “He’s cute and his butt is almost as nice as yours. He doesn’t have a hairy chest,
though,” she mused.
“Grigori is old enough to be your father,” Chekov observed dismally. She was right, he realized. There was no one that he would have
ever thought good enough for her. Had he unknowingly plotted to keep them away?
“I’m sorry,” he conceded, chagrined. “Why didn’t you say something?” Oh, hell, he was glad she had not. He was glad they had left her
alone.
Tatiana let her arms fall by her side and sighed softly. “You are dense, Malyenki. It doesn’t matter that I’m theoretically available.
Everyone knows how you feel about me and I am treated like an untouchable member of royalty. You’re not the kind of man another
man wants to muscle in on, you know.”
Chekov shifted uncomfortably, trying not to remember the not so veiled threat he’d made to Kirk.
“Frankly, it was a relief,” she added, sly grin dancing on her lips. “I didn’t want them.”
He studied her, calculating. “You like my chest better than Grigori’s?” he ventured finally.
“I didn’t say I liked it better,” Tatiana replied carefully. “I said it was hairier.”
“You...like...hairy men?”
“I didn’t say that,” she repeated. “Besides, it’s not like you have a hairy back.”
Scowling, he eyed her for another minute. That always seemed to matter to women. Women in rural Russia didn’t allow men to take the
kind of liberties with them that Chekov had been lately...that he’d always taken. At least not without a fight. In hindsight, Chekov knew
that Sulu and his family had good reason to suspect what they did. A knowing smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Why didn’t you
want them?” he persisted.
“Because I wanted you, dammit!” she spat out fiercely, punching him soundly in the chest.
He grinned happily in triumph and nursed the bruise she’d given him. “Tatiana Demidova, how long have you been in love with me?”
She sulked noticeably, shaking her head as her eyes shifted back to the stars. “Since your first leave home from the Enterprise. When
you come home in your uniform... you didn’t look like my big brother anymore.”
Chekov’s smile faltered, the light in his eyes becoming alarmed. Memory after memory flashed through his mind in horrid, gruesome,
detail. “Since...? Tiana, that was...”
“Years ago,” she concluded dismally, turning back to eye him like he was an idiot. “Years ago.”
“All those years and you never told me?” he demanded, suddenly feeling outraged and downright violated. “How could you not tell me?”
“Pavel,” she marveled aloud. “You were twenty-one and had an adventurous new career in space. You were off...romancing your way
through the galaxy,” Tatiana concluded, amusement sparkling deep in her blue eyes as she tortured him with his own words again. “We’
ve always been best friends and I didn’t want to lose that.”
“Bullshit,” Chekov retorted immediately. Even as he said it, he shifted uncomfortably. It was the same thought that had terrified him all
week. “What gives you the right to make that decision for me? Since when have you simply made decisions for us and held me to
them?” he demanded hotly.
“Oh, please, Pavel,” she drawled. “Since always.”
“You weren’t ready for more and we are so important to each other that if I told you...if something had happened... you would have
been obliged by your own conscience to be loyal to me and... Idiot, don’t you realize you would have left the Fleet to ensure your own
good behavior?
“I couldn’t let you do that,” Tatiana added bluntly.
He didn’t know why he even bothered to consider the larger questions in life. She always seemed at least several steps ahead of him in
finding his answers. Tatiana just knew him too well, as if his soul was far clearer to her than it was to him.
“Marry me,” Chekov repeated.
“No.”
He froze, eyes narrowing slightly as he eyed her. “What?”
“Nyet,” she retorted.
Chekov straightened indignantly. “No?” he asked breathlessly, his voice cracking. “No? Tiana, I thought you understood. We’re close
friends. We know each other. We understand each other. We love each other. We’re in love with each other.
“Tiana, this is different than anything I’ve ever felt before. This is...real. You have been a part of my soul for as long as I can remember.
We’ve never had to be physically living with each other for that to be true, but if you leave my life my soul will never recover and I will be
alone forever. Forever,” he emphasized huskily.
Liquid blue eyes stared up at him, unwavering as his brown ones held them, desperate for an answer. She let out a tremulous sigh and
patted his chest softly, thoughtfully, with both hands. “Pavel Andrievich, you don’t mean we should just start living as husband and wife.
I know you: you want a traditional Russian wedding, all three days of it. What do you expect me to do: go home and wait around, hoping
that you’ll eventually make it back to Earth alive at least one more time?
“You’ve always said space was, is, and always will be, the most dangerous occupation available. I know clearly every time I see you
walk away that it could be the last time I see you. If I went home to prepare for our wedding and our family then you never returned…”
She raised swirling pools of cloudy sapphire to him then. “I would wilt away and die, Pavel. The wasting, rotting bloom of youth and love
never realized,” she observed. “I’m not about to consign myself to being the pitiful heroine os some old Russian novel.”
Chekov numbly reached his hand out and grasped the rail as a chill swept through his body and gripped the deepest part of its cells.
“You want me to resign?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tatiana chuckled as she shook her head. “This is your dream. It is who you are. I am more than content to be an
officer’s wife waiting at home.
“Besides,” she added. “What do you think the people back home would do to me if I saddled them with you full time again? I can’t
imagine how the ship’s crew has put up with you this long,” she commented drolly.
He tried to digest the myriad of confusion quickly. “What do you want?”
“I want a husband.”
“Than marry me,” Chekov insisted, becoming perplexed..
Her snicker was not even close to the response he’d hoped for. “I told you that I’m ready to start a family. I don’t want to wait for you to
wander home. I want children now.”
He flashed her a wicked grin, eyes sparkling devilishly as they raked her form quickly. “I’m willing, but these lounge doors don’t lock...
Oww!!”
With great melodrama, the Security Chief nursed the cheek the woman had slapped. “You give me no respect.”
“Oh, go respect yourself,” she muttered.
The toying grin never left his face. She was so able to wrap him around her little finger…and he was now able to appreciate the fact
that he loved letting her do it. “I want you to marry me,” he repeated yet again. “There’s no one in the universe that knows me like you
do. There’s no one who can keep me in line like you can.” He added a sheepish look for good measure.
“And because of this you want me to be stuck with you forever?”
“Well, who else would put up with me?” he spat out defensively.
“No one sane,” Tatiana replied. “I don’t want to wait to get married.”
Chekov stood holding her gaze in silence a long moment. He felt...dense. “Captain Kirk can marry us,” he said, knowing full well that’s
what she was suggesting. If she wasn’t such a pain in the ass she would have just said so. “People who would not be comfortable at a
traditional Russian ceremony could attend.”
“Spock?” she mused curiously. Of course she knew that he was specifically referring to Spock. The man would have wanted to attend
the wedding out of principal, but the Security Chief could not picture a Vulcan at a ceremony in which the Best Man was thought to have
completely failed in his duties if anyone made it to the church sober.
A withheld smile played across her lips, but her brilliant blue eyes gave away her thoughts. “Or are you talking about Sulu? The poor
man has been praying for years that you won’t get married in Russia.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll do the traditional Russian ceremony afterward–the next leave I get at home.”
Scowling at him, she asked: “Exactly how many times are we going to get married?”
He shrugged simplistically. “Is there a limit? It would be cruel not to let Sulu live up to his responsibilities. A ceremony here, now: with
this you’re satisfied?”
Tatiana eyed him suspiciously. “He does know the Godfather can fill in and do anything the best man doesn’t want to do, doesn’t he?”
Chekov coughed reflexively and shifted his gaze to the stars.
“Pavel Andrievich!”
“Oh, it won’t kill him.
She cast her eyes down then with a gentle sigh, letting her fingers trail down until she pushed them into the top of his belt. “Malyenki, I
told you: it’s not just a husband I want.”
Chekov could feel the tremor go through her body as she turned her eyes back up to him. “Pavel...” She hesitated, pressing her lips
together as her fingers gripped his belt fiercely. “Pavel, I want children now. I’m ready now.”
He shook his head slowly then, chocolate brown eyes narrowing as he studied her. “Now?”
“Now.”
Chekov mulled her words over in his mind as he watched her eyes for some betrayal of what she was actually saying. “Right now?
Tatiana smiled softly, her fingers tracing the Starfleet belt buckle as she gazed at his face. “I’m not willing to chance being a widow
without any piece of you to hold onto.”
“You want me to send you home pregnant?” he asked incredulously.
She smiled at him triumphantly in answer. “What, you’re not up to the task?
Chekov tried to speak. Several times. He shook his head as though to sort out his thoughts. The truth was, he could not move beyond
the embarrassingly primordial thrill of her outright demand to bear his child.
Tatiana didn’t say anything until it was obvious he wasn’t going to. “Besides, Malyenki, if you want a horde of children we’re going to
have to plan our time together accordingly.”
Eyes sparkling devilishly, he grinned. “Tiana, I love you and want children with you...more than anything. You know, however, that I can’
t promise you anything. Basic biology has the final say in the matter. It’s not up to me if the timing isn’t right.” Not that he wasn’t willing to
make a valiant effort, he thought. He felt the heat in his cheeks betray the thought and she gave him a toying, condescending smile.
“Malyenki, you’re thinking with a nineteenth century mind in a twenty-third century world. Dr. McCoy can arrange for the timing to be
right.”
He blinked, staring at her in surprise. “Dr. McCoy could…” he stopped. “When could the Doctor do this?”
Releasing his belt, she folded her hands calmly in front of her and regarded him with wide, sedate eyes. Blue eyes met brown ones in a
steady stare. “It’s already done.”
Something clutched fiercely at his heart as the impact of what she had been saying hit him with sudden, full force. It was not that she
wanted to bear his children, not even that she wanted to give him children immediately. What struck him was that for years she had
patiently been waiting for him to be ready for this moment, planning each precise detail and probably every word.
Tentatively, he reached up a hand and brushed stray hairs off her face. He did not answer her directly, but knew she’d understand.
“Tatiana Demidova,” he confessed, “I’ve been keeping a secret from you.”
For the first time, Chekov saw uncertainty in her blue eyes. He chewed on his lip as he fished in his pocket, but couldn’t hide the
sheepish look in his eyes. When he extended his hand out to her, two small round circles lay in his upturned palm.
Tatiana stepped back reflexively. “Pavel Andrieivich!,” she exclaimed in shock. “The shopkeeper said he sold those rings!”
“He did.” He shrugged apologetically, trying to look his most boyishly innocent. “He did sell them. To me.”
“But why?” she asked, perplexed. “Why would you... You never told me.”
No, he hadn’t. He had secreted the wedding set away despite the sorrow it had caused her. It wasn’t his intention to hide them when he
bought them. They had found them tucked away in the shop and time and again they had returned to admire them. It had become one
of their favorite games to weave stories of the couple the antique rings had been made for. Sometimes blissfully happy, romantic tales;
sometimes melodramatic and tragic: the stories were always rich and colorful in past lives. As time went on, their visits to the shop
became frightening tentative as they faced the increased probability every time he went home that the rings would be gone
In a moment of sheer panic, he had snuck back and bought them on one trip. He couldn’t bear for rings that held the stories to go to
someone else, to be taken from them. Fully intending to share the victory with her, for some reason he’d brought them back to the
Enterprise and hid them away instead. Knowing they were in his safe always gave him great pleasure without him even needing to take
the four rings out to gaze at them.
He knew the reason now. Somewhere deep inside he had always felt the unique, beautiful rings were destined to be used by he and
Tatiana for the purpose they were originally made.
Chekov picked up the smaller of the rings, his throat tightening as he did so. It was exquisite Russian blackened neillo with a scattering
of diamond chips surrounding a piece of Baltic amber. He gently slipped it onto her right ring finger.
She flattened her hand and stared at the engagement ring. “Does this mean you’re going to do what I want?”
“When haven’t I?” he asked with mock resignation.
Even before his answer, she was guiding the matching ring onto his own right hand. “Most Terran men don’t wear engagement rings,”
she observed, fingering the black and gold band where it came to lay on his right hand.
“I’m not most Terran men, I’m a Russian man and we do wear engagement rings. They also wear their wedding rings on their left hand
and make the sign of the cross backwards. Just because they’re wrong, doesn’t me I should be.”
“What about the other rings?” Tatiana asked, referring to the two wedding rings that completed the set.
He knew why she asked. “Let’s wait for the church ceremony before we use them. The Captain’s quite used to ceremonies without
rings.”
“Will you be able to locate Captain Kirk to arrange this?”
“The Security Chief can always find the Captain,” Chekov commented absently. Smouldering brown eyes studied the woman’s flawless
face, delicate lips and brilliant eyes. He swallowed carefully and let the warmth flow through his body, nursing it until it grew in intensity
and swelled out to his very fingertips.
Moving closer to her, he slipped his arm around her back and pulled her against him. He leaned down and brushed his lips against her
cheek. “If we have a son, I want to name him Andrie.”
He could feel her body trembling but she only said: “Even spoiled people don’t get everything they want. If we name our son Andrie,
your father’s head will explode.”
“Fine then,” he agreed, a guttural laugh filling his throat that told her she had played into his hands. “We’ll call our daughter Andrea.”
“You’re a wicked, spoiled brat, Pavel Andrievich!!”
“You knew that. At least tell him that’s what we intend,” Chekov laughed demonically again. Using his hand against her back, he
pressed the length of his body hard against her. It sent a wild, delicious rush through his very cells. When she glanced away demurely
he only took advantage of it to nuzzle his lips into the warm flesh behind her ear. He was too distracted to notice the glint in her
sparkling eyes.
“I want to name our daughter Ninel,” she commented softly.
He jerked his head up, snapping his neck as he did so. Wide-eyed and stunned, he repeated: “Ninel?!”
Tatiana shrugged. “It was a very popular name for girls at one time in Russia.”
“At one time,” he stammered incredulously and stepped backward. “I am NOT naming any of my daughters after Vladimir Lenin!”
She giggled merrily and he instantly glared at her. “You did that on purpose.”
Deliberately stepping forward, Chekov went to reach for her again, but she stopped him with a hand against his chest. She gently took
his right hand, placed it against the back of her left shoulder blade and laid her left hand on his right shoulder.. She then clasped his
left hand with her right and raised it to shoulder height.
Subtle lines furrowing across his forehead, Chekov eyed the position of their bodies. She had placed them in a perfect dance frame.
“You want to waltz...now?!” he asked in disbelief.
Tatiana smiled dreamily, blue eyes shining as she caressed his shoulder affectionately. “You know what Fred Astaire said: ‘The best
romantic scenes don’t end in a kiss.”
“I’m a good dancer,” he admitted. Leaning down, he caught her soft, moist lips with his in a brief, tentative touch. “But Fred Astaire,” he
declared as he wrapped her arms around her and pulled their bodies tight against each other again. “Was an idiot.”
His lips found hers finally in a touch that was not in the least tentative.