ACID

by

Diane Randle

“Hey, you awake?”  Sulu whispered.  Of course you could never whisper quietly enough not to be heard by the Enterprise’s Captain...so,
thank goodness he wasn’t on the bridge just now.

Chekov didn’t respond to him so Sulu tapped his left arm, “Hey.”

Chekov jumped, “Pardon?”

“Are you awake?”  Sulu whispered again, even though it seemed a bit futile now since Chekov had spoken aloud and caught the attention of
Spock already.  But, the Vulcan turned back to his work at the science station, obviously deciding that they were having a private discussion
and as much as he regretted the loss of focus on work, he understood humans seemed to need these diversions to stay fresh.

“Yes...no...”  He laughed a little and checked his board again, or ‘bored’ as he had come to think of it today...although, after last night,
boredom certainly held more than a small attraction.  It was just that today he was so tired that boring work - there was a time he couldn’t
imagine anything that occurred on the bridge of a starship as boring - made it doubly difficult for him to stay awake.

“I saw you last night.”  Sulu said quietly with a certain tone in his voice.

Chekov turned to look at him and was distressed to see a big grin on the helmsman’s face...great...on top of everything else Sulu knew about
him and Maria.  ‘That’s all I need.’ Chekov thought miserably, some ridiculous teasing. He was such an easy target, he wished they would all
move on to someone a little less obvious.

“Yes?”  Chekov said carefully.

“She’s quite uhm...voluptuous...isn’t she?”  Sulu had to admit he’d had more than a twinge of envy when his helm partner caught the eye of
Maria Seto, a civilian lab assistant for Dr. Bernard Skinner, currently transiting the Algoran Z System courtesy the Enterprise.  Sulu thought it
was quite a waste of starship energy when he heard they were transporting the physicist and his assistant but then he hadn’t actually seen
Maria then...

When she’d walked into the rec room the place stopped, literally.  She was curvy, boy was she curvy and she manipulated every curve in
some mysterious way when she moved, it wasn’t exactly walking...Sulu’s mind had run through a thesaurus of words to describe what she did
when she moved and decided that the word just didn’t exist.

Maria hesitated the briefest moment in the entrance to the rec room, obviously she was used to causing this kind of stir.  She moved across
the floor toward them and Sulu had an impression of black, wavy hair cascading down her back and falling down her face into her blue, (were
they blue or green?) eyes. Those eyes were, well, they weren’t huge, they were normal sized but what pulled you in was that when you looked
into them they were just so damned deep, speaking of unnamed, unimagined dimensions.    

The helmsman couldn’t remember ever having been so affected by a woman, or by anything for that matter.  As the room came to life around
him again he suddenly realized that this unbelievable creature was moving right toward him and his breath caught and he wasn’t sure if it was
going to start again and he worried about oxygen deprivation for a moment but then she just passed right on by him, so close he could feel
her heat and he watched as her bronze coloured hand reached out and settled on Pavel Chekov’s arm and her voice wrapped around him as
she spoke, “I may sit with you?”

“Hey, wake up!”  Chekov hissed at Sulu.  Sulu jumped now, embarrassed to be caught daydreaming.  “What do you mean, you saw me?”  
Chekov asked him again.

“I saw you later, near your quarters...with Maria...”  Sulu raised an eyebrow at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“You’re not going to say anything are you?”

Pavel turned away from him. “It’s rude.”

But, when Sulu mumbled, “Always the gentleman.” the Russian turned back to him, a flash of fire lighting his dark eyes.  “Sulu?”

“Yes?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Sulu stared at his friend,  shocked by the anger in the younger man’s face.  “Hey, I’m sorry, ok?  Really.”  Sulu, past being surprised and
through with his apology now asked with concern, “You okay?”

Chekov merely nodded and prayed that the next four hours of the shift would go by faster than the first eternal four.

~~~~~~~

When Lieutenant’s Sulu and Uhura walked into the mess in the morning and found Pavel Chekov already there they knew immediately that
something was up.
It wasn’t that he was never there before them, in fact he was usually there before them.  It was the fact that his brooding mood was a tangible
physical presence that permeated the entire room.

And, neither Lieutenant had seen him the night before but Sulu had related his altercation with the navigator on the bridge to the
communications officer.  Uhura had wanted to go looking for him but Sulu had reminded her that they had agreed amongst themselves, and
Scotty, too, that they had to stop treating Pavel Chekov like a little brother.

They knew it was grating on the excitable Russian’s nerves and they also knew that the time had long since passed when their protectiveness
was looked upon by Chekov with affection.  Oh, he had always complained about it, but both Lieutenants knew that Pavel Chekov, the only
child, had secretly liked having bossy, nosy ‘siblings’ for awhile.  But, now their relationship had changed, as it does with all families, and the
two older officers had resolved to begin treating him more as an equal.   

After all, the Ensign had been through quite a lot since signing aboard the Enterprise, he had more than proved himself many times over and
he was turning twenty-four in a couple of weeks.   It was just that, Uhura thought, it was really hard not to be big sister when he had a face on
him like the one he wore this morning.

The two officers hesitated, looked at each other and shrugged.  Should they go over or leave him alone?  Uhura looked annoyed, which
amused Sulu until she caught the look on his face.  He put on a suitably serious expression, but was still smiling inside because he knew it
was killing her not to rush over to find out what was troubling the navigator and, more importantly, what she could do about it.

Obviously, she couldn’t stand it anymore because she made a move toward the table.  Pavel didn’t look up as they approached.  Uhura
touched his arm and the Ensign flinched.  He drew in a breath and put his hand to his heart, looking up at them out of a face haggard with
exhaustion.  

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry I....you look terrible.”

Sulu sat down across from him, Chekov glanced at him and looked away.  “Are you sick?”  Sulu asked him.

“No, I’m...”  the words cracked with fatigue and trailed away as he stared down into his coffee cup.  He sighed, leaning on his elbows and
brought his clasped hands up to his forehead and closed his eyes as if willing the universe to go away.  

Since that didn’t work, he put his hands down, took a big breath and said, “I need your help.”

Sulu and Uhura tried to keep the shock out of their faces, but the Russian saw it  and where normally he would have given them one of his
sheepish smiles, he only acknowledged the unusual circumstance of asking them for help and continued, “I don’t know what to do.”

Uhura put an arm around his shoulder, she could feel him trembling ever so slightly, she looked across to Sulu before she whispered to
Chekov,  “What is it?”

Chekov buried his face in his hands again and muttered a muffled,   “I’ve made a....terrible...mistake....”

“What!” Sulu’s hyper nature couldn’t tolerate much more of this even when his outburst earned him one of Uhura’s most scathing looks.

Chekov pulled his hands down again, “I...oh, shit...”  He put his hand across his mouth like he was going to be sick.

“Jesus Christ, Pavel, you’re starting to scare us!”  Sulu didn’t care if Uhura got mad at him.

“Lad, what’s all the ruckus?  And before breakfast, too!”  They hadn’t seen the engineer approach and nobody answered Scotty now as the
good natured officer stood beside the table, they just waited for Pavel to continue his story.

“Obsession.” was the only word the Russian said, very, very softly.

“Maria?”  Sulu asked and when Pavel nodded, the helmsman repressed his grin when he asked, “You’re obsessed with Maria Seto?”

“No, stupid, other way around!”  Chekov snapped.

“Well, lad, lots of lasses have been that way about you!”  Scotty grinned, then when Pavel looked up at him, and the Scotsman saw the look in
his eye he merely said, “Oh.”  and sat down quietly.

Uhura, anger steeling her voice demanded that, “If you two gentlemen want to continue this I suggest you stop acting like high school boys.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Sorry, lass.  Sorry Mr. Chekov.”


Satisfied, Uhura turned her attention back to Pavel, “What happened, Ensign?”  she asked, an officer commanding an underling for an
answer.

Chekov looked at her gratefully, it would be easier to talk about it this way.  He straightened himself and reported to his superior officer.  “We
met three days ago.  We were intimate, once.  I didn’t mean for it to be once, I don’t like one night...well sometimes...oh, hell, doesn’t matter.  
From that one incident she has become...obsessed.”

“Give me specifics.”

“She said, this is first night, yes?  She says ‘You know, if you leave me, I’ll die.’”

Uhura considered this for a moment, “It wouldn’t pass for humour in my book but do you think she could have been joking?”

Chekov shook his head.  “She said, ‘If you try to leave me, I’ll kill you.”  Pavel could see by the looks on their faces that this distressed them
as much as it had him.  “ I uh...I didn’t know how to think, I thought,  maybe she is drunk? Or sick?  Physically, I mean.  I ask her, ‘Are you
alright?’  Was creepy, she smiles at me, ‘Is just beginning’, she say...no, she said, ‘THIS... this... is just beginning.’  I told her I was going to call
sickbay because I think she is needing assistance.  She decides to leave and stops before door,  ‘Just beginning’ she says again and her
voice was... “

Uhura put her hand on his arm and he gasped,  alarmed she asked, “Are you alright?”

“I forget!  I forget! I for...the, I lost em...”  He tripped over his Standard words, abandoned them altogether and launched into a torrent of
incomprehensible Russian.  

He jumped up and paced a few feet, “Ensign, sit down and start again!”  

He obeyed Uhura instantly, automatically.  She smiled at him, softening the impact of her words and waited for him to continue.

“I lost memory...that night, when she left, no... start again.  We got to my quarters at 2300 and I thought was two hours at most before she left,
but when she was gone I thought about calling sickbay and, or security, but I thought well, is too late and what should I tell anybody and I
looked at my clock and is 0600!  Is not possible!  So, next day I start getting back memories of...waking up in night and she is there and I am
really sick and I thought maybe a dream because I was upset.  So, I don’t think anymore about time being gone but, last night, I notice my
hand...”

He looked down at his hand and rubbed the prominent vein running across the top of it.  “I had mark here and was sore...now is gone.”

“Drugs?” Sulu whispered in shock.  He was starting to feel really terrible about the teasing he had tried to give his friend and he silently vowed
that in future he would not only reign in the part of himself that took particular delight in torturing the Ensign, he would apologize to him and
make it up to him, too.

“That’s it!  We’re going to security right now and you are going to sickbay to get checked out!”  Uhura started to stand, but Chekov stopped
her, “There’s more.”

“Go on.”

“Second day, she was not around, I thought, ok, is good, is over.  Last night, she is back and now I am remembering my hand and oh....”  he
grimaced and paled visibly.

“What, Pavel.”  Uhura said sternly.

He took in a shaky breath, staring at the table he frowned, and as the memory solidified, he squeezed his eyes shut and put his hand to his
mouth,  “Something was...oh.... shto etas nyatchit?”

“Pavel!”  Uhura grabbed his wrists and forced them down to the table.  She slid her hands down until she was grasping his shaking hands.

He opened his eyes, and swallowed,  he squeezed her hands.  He stared at her in horror and she felt terribly cold suddenly as he gasped,     
“Drilling...something was drilling...through the roof of my mouth.”

“Oh, my God.”  Sulu.

Pavel looked up then.  Maria stood above him.  Nobody had seen her enter the mess.  Nobody had noticed her get a coffee from the
replicator.  Nobody had heard her approach their table.  “Ma...” he managed to say before she flung the hot coffee directly into his face.

Pavel screamed and jerked his hands back so hard he pulled Uhura almost halfway across the table before their connection broke and he fell
to the floor.   
Uhura and Sulu dove around the table while Scotty grabbed Seto by the arms.  

She leaned back against the outraged Scott and said in a throaty whisper,   “You don’t need to hold me so tight Mr. Scott...that is, unless you
really want to.”  She licked her lips.  He snorted with disgust and pushed her roughly into a chair.
Sulu’s frantic, ‘“Call for help!”  drew the Scot’s attention away from the attacker as a crewman ran for the intercom.

“Bring me some water!”  Uhura shouted and Janice Lear ran to obey.

Chekov was on the floor writhing, his hands clasped over his face, his voice ragged as he screamed.  Scotty stuck a finger in Chekov’s full
coffee cup, it was stone cold.

Scotty knelt beside Pavel as Sulu pulled him into his lap and Uhura tried to help him pry Chekov’s hands away.  “Pav, hold still, pull your
hands down.” Sulu coaxed.  Between the two of them they managed to pull his hands away from his face long enough for the engineer to pour
the cold coffee on it.  

Lear arrived with water and handed it to Scott who poured it slowly on Chekov’s  face, “You’re okay, laddie, you’re okay.”  Pavel stopped
screaming but was moaning and clenching his teeth, his chest heaving as he struggled to regain control.   

“Okay,  Pav, it’s okay...”  Sulu tried to reassure him,  cursing the tremor running through his voice.

By the time Scott finished pouring the water,  another crewmember, one whose name he did not know but vowed to find out, arrived with a
table cloth soaked in cold water.  They lay it across Pavel’s face and his struggles quieted.  Sulu and Uhura let out a breath hoping they had
done the right thing.

“Such a pretty face it was.”

The icy voice fractured the silence with malevolence.

Sulu stood and made a move toward her but was stopped by Scott with a strong hand to the helmsman’s chest,   “Don’t.”

Seto smiled at Sulu who turned away, feeling a swell of rage rush through his blood.  He distracted himself by shouting across the room,  
“Hanson, did you call security?”  His question was answered by two guards and a Lieutenant in red shirts entering the mess on the run.

“What happened?”  Lt. Zhirovsky demanded.
“This...she threw hot coffee in Chekov’s face!”  Sulu spat out.

Lear spoke up then, “I heard her order it - ‘extra hot’ she said.”

“Oh, my God.”  Uhura stood and faced Maria, “Why?  How could you have done this to him?”

“This?  This is the fault of you. Nobody will hold hands with him.  He was unable even to use his hands to protect himself.  See the trouble you
have caused.”

“Get her away from us.”  Uhura said coldly.

Zhirovsky tore his eyes away from the bizarre conversation long enough to nod to his security team.  As they led their docile perpetrator away,
McCoy ran in with his Medteam in tow.

“What the hell took so long!”  Sulu exploded.

McCoy ignored him,  knelt beside Chekov and ran a tricorder over him, deciding to leave the cloth in place for the moment.  

The doctor’s face looked stricken suddenly, “Singh, get him on the sled now!”  He loaded a hypo with long practiced speed.  “Bleeker!  Call
Chapel, tell her we’re coming in with severe acid burns.”  He emptied the hypo into Chekov’s arm as Singh settled him on the gravsled.

“WHAT!”  Sulu and Uhura both blurted out as McCoy gestured at the coffee cup currently smoking and melting on the table.  McCoy didn’t
look back again but hurried on to sickbay with his patient.

In the stunned silence of the rec room Uhura whispered,  “Oh, no...” as the stinging of the tears in her eyes faintly echoed what Pavel Chekov
must have felt  

“I don’t understand.”  Sulu said numbly.  “I don’t understand.”

He looked to Scotty who said quietly, “Nor I.”

~~~~~~~~~~


“Sickbay to bridge.”

“Bones, wha...”

“Jim!  I need Spock down here now!  And, I need security to get Seto to tell them what the hell she threw on Chekov!  We haven’t been able to
identify it and it’s,  just get Spock down here now.  McCoy out.”

Uhura and Sulu locked eyes across the bridge as Spock entered the turbolift.  It had been two hours since the attack in the rec room.  There
had been only word that he was in surgery.

“I don’t understand.”  Kirk said from his command position.

He stood and walked over to the area in front of the viewscreen, then turned back to Sulu at the helm/navigation console.  “You’ve told me
everything?”

“Yes, sir.”   Sulu couldn’t help sounding a bit defensive.

“Of course, I’m sorry, Sulu.  I just can’t make it make any sense.  Uhura could you run one more check?”

“Of course, Captain.”  She repeated the procedure she had performed shortly after arriving on the bridge, bringing up the bio on Maria Lucia
Seto once more and once more....it made less sense the more they knew about her.

Born on Rigel IV to Terran parents, she had grown up on Rigel, thus her slightly unique speech pattern.  Her parents were both scientists,
mother an Ethnobiologist, father and Endocrinologist.  Maria had abilities, no doubt, but at this time in her life, at the age of twenty, she did
not wish to be bogged down in academia.   She was a qualified lab technician and a good one and for now that was enough to get her the
plum assignment with Dr. Skinner.

Skinner....Skinner could not believe his assistant had done such a thing.  He was adamant that they had the wrong person in custody, Kirk’s
crew had made a grievous error, now please let her go because she could not have done this.

But then....Skinner had paused in his entreaty outside the brig to stare at his assistant in astonishment.  “You did do it, didn’t you.”  And she
had smiled back at him and said softly, “I am going to kill him.”

Skinner turned to Kirk then, “Please, Captain, have your ship’s surgeon examine her, something has to be wrong, something has to be wrong.”

The Enterprise Captain had replied coldly, “I think he’s busy at the moment.”  

McCoy was busy for the next six hours as it turned out.   When he had done what he could, when Pavel Chekov had stabilized enough...
stabilized...on total life support.  McCoy had always thought that term, ‘total life support....LIFE support’ was a misnomer somehow because if
things actually did stabilize for that young man like this, well, that was no life.  It was just minimal bodily function.  

And...what the hell was he going to do about...he slumped over his desk and closed his eyes.  He hadn’t changed out of his surgical scrubs
and didn’t care about this lapse until a quiet knock at his door made him sit up and he heard a sharp gasp.

Uhura and Sulu stood mutely staring at the blood on his shirt.  Oh, hell.  Surgery on a state of the art starship was usually not so messy.  

“Sorry...I’m tired...I should go change..”  

“It’s okay.”

“Alright, come in.”  He said as he straightened up and they took the chairs on the other side of the desk.  He had already had this talk with his
Captain and the sadness in those hazel eyes lingered in his mind as he looked at the grim faces in front of him now.

“It’s bad.”  He said and let it hang there in the air for a bit, waited for it to settle, for the echo of it to die away a little.  And then he realized he
didn’t know what else to say.  Should he say he didn’t know what to do?  Should he tell them Spock was trying to figure out what was
happening to him?  Should he...ya, ya, he should.

“I don’t know what she threw on him but it wasn’t just acid.  It’s...solidified into a kind of sinew.   It’s...it’s working it’s way through his body and
attaching itself to his central nervous system. Spock is trying to figure out what’s going on.  Apparently, she’s not talking, but I guess you know
that.”

“I’ll make her fucking talk.”  Sulu said with venomous, dangerous quiet.

Uhura ignored him, reading the doctor’s face.  “What else?”

McCoy took a breath, “His eyes were destroyed, we...couldn’t save them..well, the truth is...his face is..his whole face...it’s been destroyed as
well...”

“Will he live?”  Sulu stared at the floor as he asked the question and didn’t look up until his question was met with a long silence.

‘Live?’  McCoy thought.  ‘Is that what you would call it?  Is that what HE would call it?’  That question was already plaguing Leonard McCoy but
he pushed it aside for now and concentrated on the people in front of him this very minute.  “He inhaled whatever it was and his lungs have
been severely damaged, we’re doing what we can but...we’re doing what we can for him.”

“Is he in pain?”  Uhura’s voice was full of what she hoped Pavel wasn’t feeling.

McCoy shook his head, “He’s unconscious.  We’re going to try to keep him that way for now because....”

“Can we see him?”  Sulu asked, but already knew the answer.

McCoy shook his head, “He’s quarantined, and he’s been designated a level five bio...”  Hazard.  Biohazard.  Not a person anymore.  Not the
person they knew yesterday, the kid with the ready smile and the quick temper.  Not the irreverent prankster.  Not that kid that could play
gravball with deadly speed few could match but chose to play it for fun and companionship.  Not that serious young man with dark shadows
following him through the corridors of time.  Not that young officer getting ready to receive his Lieutenant’s stripe.  Not that guy that could
dance until one in the morning and still make his morning work-out and beat everybody to breakfast.  

Not that kid that had found a tired physician on the observation deck one night...a physician who had lost one too many patients...and sat with
him through until morning, asking his advice on one subject after another until Leonard McCoy had felt again a sense of his purpose in this
universe.  Not Pavel Andreievich Chekov.  

~~~

The ravaged body that was ‘Level 5 Biohazard - #242 - USS Enterprise’,  lay absolutely still on the sickbay bed. It was nearly invisible beneath
the bandages, the tubes, the wires and especially, the machinery that hummed incessantly in it’s job of keeping the body functioning at a level
that meant it could still be termed ‘alive’, even though it was so deathly still and quiet.

Even from five metres away though, through the containment field and beyond the sealed glass, Spock knew the body was not still.  A terrible
and bloody battle was being waged there, small universes were colliding there, life and death were colliding there.

The Vulcan science officer watched as McCoy and Chapel moved around the bed like ghosts in their environmental suits.

“Push his oxygen up to 12 liters per minute.”  The fatigue in McCoy’s voice was exacerbated by the suits filters and small comm system
speaker.

“His alveolar-arterial PO2 difference is down.”

“Good.  Let’s get another COHgb level on him.”  McCoy pulled aside the guaze covering the Ensign’s face, “Jesus Christ.”  he said quietly.  He
checked the readings on one of the six auxiliary monitors ringing the bed, “Well, at least there’s no decalcification of the bone.  It looks like it’s
stopped where it is.  I don’t think he absorbed enough for it to go systemic but lets keep monitoring his serum calcium levels every half hour.”

The doctor’s voice echoed in the quiet and seemed to hang in the air and fade away slowly.  He looked up at Chapel, she was staring down at
her patient.
“Christine...”

“He was....he was...”

McCoy put his gloved hand out and touched her shoulder, she saw the gesture more than felt it through the layers of protective fabric.  She
drew in a breath of sterile, filtered air and didn’t say what was on her mind then, instead she said, “I’ll do his right hand.”  and moved around
to the other side of the bed. letting the doctor’s hand slide off her shoulder.  She didn’t want to be touched.  

She hated treating patients through these bloody suits.  She wanted nothing more than to give him a hug, or at least let him feel the warmth of
her hand on his arm or his shoulder.  

She pulled aside the dressing on his hand.  The wounds here were much less severe, still second degree though. They would be very painful
if he were to regain consiousness....there it was again, that thought she didn’t articulate earlier....she looked across at the Enterprises CMO
hoping she hadn’t betrayed herself and, she wondered if he was thinking the same thing.

Neither of them spoke about what was happening to his spinal chord because neither of them understood what was going on there, that was
Spock’s area of concern.  The Vulcan was set up outside the room, studying the monitors there, watching the sinews wrapping around and
working their way through the navigators spinal chord.  They seemed to concentrate in the thoracic area, some of them anchoring to his rib
cage. The wire thin filaments had entered his body through his face.  

It was the Vulcan’s opinion that a path had been set for the filaments and after debriefing Uhura and Sulu, he was certain that the sinews had
used the puncture wound in the roof of the Ensign’s mouth as an entrance.  

What Spock didn’t understand was why Maria Seto had used coffee laced with what turned out to be hydrofluoric acid to introduce the
substance when from Spock’s examination of a piece of the filament extracted by McCoy, she could have introduced it to him as an injection
or even orally.  

The purpose of the substance was as yet unknown, it was not causing damage to the tissue it contacted and Spock’s examination showed it to
be a rather benign saline based compound with only one unidentifiable molecule.

It was that molecule that had been the focus of the Vulcan’s attention for the past seven hours.  He was slightly dismayed to find his attention
to the task at hand had been distracted four times in those hours.

It was difficult for Spock.  He did not have to touch someone in such distress to feel the hidden turmoil in the adjacent room, especially if it was
someone, some human, he had become accustomed to.  Pavel Chekov was such a human.  

Spock suddenly recalled a conversation he had had with the young officer one night, very late, in the astrophysics lab, about death, about
fending it off at all costs.  

The Russian’s maternal grandfather had passed away recently, at home in St. Petersburg where he wanted to be and not in the hospital
fighting it out till the bitter end, like some of his children had wanted.  Pavel’s mother Catherine Ivanova, his oldest child, had fought to get him
home and Pavel had agreed with her decision and been glad that he was able to make it home in time to say goodbye to Sergie Pavlovich.  

“I would not want to be kept alive only by machines.”  Pavel had said and he did not clarify or elaborate and Spock wondered at the
circumstances now.  Certainly, he would not wish to be kept alive through this if there were no hope of recovery?  And, what hope was there,
realistically?  Even McCoy, who never gave up, conceeded he was at a loss as to what to do.  Spock wondered if the doctor had checked the
Ensign’s records, his wishes in such a case would be clearly stated.  How long before a decision would be made to carry out what Spock knew
the young man’s instructions would be?

What were the alternatives?   First,  they had to keep him alive, they weren’t sure how to do that.  And, what were they keeping him alive for?  
What was happening inside him?  He may even constitute a danger to the rest of the ship.  If he died his body could not be sent home, it
would end up in a laboratory.  Spock understood from what he knew about Chekov’s family traditions how upsetting that would be for them.  

‘Well, then...’ the Vulcan decided, logically, there was no alternative,  ‘We must solve this problem.’

~~~~~

“Lt. Sulu, you know damn well you’re not supposed to be here.”  Lt. Suzanne Strevens was blonde and pretty and had a soft voice and could
beat the crap out of almost anybody on the ship, Sulu included.  She had several black belts, several meaning nine.  She was five feet three
and most crew asked who they would want watching their backs during a barroom brawl would answer loudly, “Strevens!”

But, she was also kind and sweet for a securtiy guard and, most importantly to Sulu, she was an old flame, well, not so old, less than a year
since and now he was asking her this favour and she was shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, Hikaru, I know what she did, I hope Pavel’s all right,  I like him, but I...”

“He’s not going to be allright Suze, he’s...his face was destroyed, his eyes...”  He stopped.

“Oh, God...”  She looked down at the top of her boots and then back up at him. A strange look, a little smile came over her face, “I was...
remember that fight we had?  You gave me hell for leaning too close to him when we were talking, for looking at him too intensely...”

Sulu remembered the fight, he had felt like an idiot, probably because he had behaved like one.  On the other hand, Pavel could be a
notorious flirt and Suzanne the same, the two of them together combined with the saki coursing through the helmsman’s blood that night had
provided more than enough fuel for Sulu’s insecurities.

“Oh, God, I knew he was hurt but...I’m sorry...those eyes....”  ‘Those eyes’ she had said to Sulu, she just couldn’t help it, she just loved to look
into them, it was nothing really, she wasn’t attracted to him...exactly, well, she was but not sexually...kind of... well, maybe she was but he was
being silly, she was with him.

She looked at him now and could see the rage in his quiet face.  “No way, Hikaru.  There is no way I can let you talk to her.  I’m sorry.”

“We have to find out what she did to him!  Did you try?”  He grabbed her shoulders.

She gently removed his hands from her shoulders, “Of course we tried!”

“Well, you need to do something else!  You need to...”  He threw his arms in the air.

“Pour boiling oil on her?  Pull her fingernails out? “

“If that’s what it takes!”

She had had enough, she took him by the shoulders and turned him toward the door, “Come on, you have to leave.”

“Goddammit, Suzie!” He planted himself.

“Now, Sulu.”

When he didn’t move, she said in her quietest most dangerous voice, “Now, Lt. Sulu.”

He said, “Shit!” under his breath, spun away from her and was gone, leaving Strevens the silence of the brig once more.  

She started back toward the cell area, she’d check on her charge one more time before Jackson came on shift.  She could see Maria on the
monitor but she liked to lay her eyes right on her guests.

Her guest was lying on the bunk on her side, her back to the door.  “Hey, Seto, you okay?”  It seemed strange to her to be asking after her
welfare after what Sulu had told her about Chekov’s condition. “Why don’t you tell us what you did to him.”

Strevens was surprised when the woman sat up and looked at her.  “Exactly what I did I can tell you now. This is ending.”

~~~~
0340 Hrs:  Uhura was surprised to find somebody else in the lounge at this time of the morning.  Even though there were, of course, always
crew about, the ship did maintain a day and night rotation and if you wanted quiet in the middle of the ‘night’ it could usually be found easily in
a rec room or lounge or mess.

She hesitated in the door, debating about returning to her quarters, when she realized who it was.  She moved through the dimly lit room until
she stood above the woman silouetted before the observation window.  “Can I refill that for you?” she asked quietly.

Chapel pushed the cup toward her and Uhura picked it up and carried it across to the coffee station.  She returned with the hot drinks, set
them down and sat across from her friend.  

They drank in silence for awhile, for as long as it took for one of them to want to say something.

“I hate starships.” Chapel looked out the window as she spoke.  “You know, I worked in emerg in Boston General for four years.  Never knew a
single person that came in our door.  Here, I know every goddamned person that comes through our doors.”  She took a drink of the coffee
and leaned back in the chair, looked at Uhura and smiled tiredly.  “You saved his life you know.  Pouring the water on him, it stopped it, it
would have continued on to attack the bone and then....”  

She looked away from Uhura again, the smile gone now, “I hope he doesn’t wake up.”  There.  She’d said it. What she’d been thinking all day.

The nurse looked to her friend again, thinking she might find shock or dismay or anger, instead, she found that face, so familiar, as it always
was, open, waiting, listening.  “It’s called liquefaction, what happened to his face, his eyes...I keep thinking of him waking up, blind, bandaged,
restrained, in the dark, nobody can touch him, he’ll hear humming and whirring, he won’t be able to talk....I hope he doesn’t wake up.”  She
reached for her coffee again, “Leonard drinks brandy until he goes to sleep, I drink coffee until I stay awake all night...I don’t know which is
better, maybe I should try his way.”  

She looked more closely at Uhura, “Did you want to say something?  Ask me something?”  Uhura shook her head and slowly realized that
Chapel didn’t want to talk anymore and she was being asked to leave.  She got up then and kissed her friend on the cheek, remembering too
late that the gesture might remind them both of Chekov’s exuberant kiss-on-both-cheeks greeting they both had gotten so used to.  She could
see in Chapels eyes the same thought and forgiveness for the slip and gratitude for her friendship.

Uhura slipped out of the room quietly and Chapel went back to staring at the stars.  “I hate starships.”  she said to the dark void beyond the
window.

~~~~  


Kirk shifted restlessly in the transporter room.  He had never met Dr. Karpov and so was glad when the doors to the room finally whisked open
and Uhura and Sulu entered.  They weren’t late, Kirk was early as he often was when he was anxious and he was very anxious about this man
coming aboard.

Uhura had informed him just seventeen hours earlier that Dr. Andre Illyich Karpov was aboard the research vessel U.S.S. Bluenose - he had
received word from home of Pavel Chekov’s injuries and was insisting on coming to the side of his stepson.  

Kirk had no reason to refuse him, he wouldn’t have dreamt of it, but he was sorry to be meeting the well known microbiologist under these
circumstances.  And, honestly, as Captain of the Enterprise he felt somewhat guilty at what had happened to his navigator. Intellecutally he
knew there was nothing he could have done to prevent the attack but emotionally it didn’t feel that way.

Kyle spoke up from behind the transporter console.  “They’re ready Captain.”

“Energize, Mr. Kyle.”

Kirk was surprised even before the man solidified, surprised at the size of the sillouette before him.  Dr. Andre Karpov was an imposing figure
and Kirk mentally kicked himself, Pavel was small but he had to remember that this man was not his biological father.

He could have been though, apart from his size, which was at least 6’ 4” Kirk figured.  He had Pavel’s dark colouring, and even wore his hair a
bit like the Russian navigator, except the doctor’s was longer and shaggier and at some points it was hard to tell where his neatly trimmed
black beard ended and hair began.

Karpov didn’t smile as he surveyed the transporter room - until he saw Uhura and Sulu, he nodded an acknowledgement to them.  Kirk
stepped forward and offered his hand - which was immediately swallowed by the very large hand accepting the greeting.

“Dr. Karpov, welcome to the Enterprise, I’m Captain Kirk, I am sorry, sir.  I wish the circumstances were different.”

“I want to see him now, Captain.”  The booming voice spoke with an accent even thicker than Pavel’s and rang with an air of authority that
broached no questioning.

“Of course.”  Kirk gestured and Karpov stepped down off the platform.   “Dr. McCoy would have been here but he...”

“I would prefer he stay with my son, than waste time on social niceties, Captain Kirk.”  With that Andre Karpov turned to Uhura and aborbed
her into a bear hug that left the Lieutenant’s existance in doubt.  When she reemerged she looked up at the giant man sadly, he touched the
side of her face affectionately and then kissed both cheeks.

“Nytosha, thank you for being here.”  He turned to Sulu, “Hikaru.”  Sulu stepped forward and accepted the traditional greeting and then his
slim frame was also lost to sight for a moment as the big man hugged him tightly.

He clapped Sulu manfully on the shoulder,  “Let’s go.”  

~~~~~

Andre Karpov put his hand on the cool glass separating him from his son and said quietly, “I will go in with him.”

“Dr. Karpov, you know as well, BETTER than I do, that that is not possible.”  Dr. McCoy explained....again.

“Of course it is, you will put me in quarantine with him.  Is simple.” Karpov looked down at McCoy and smiled, “Pavel Andreievich told me about
you, he trusts you, he thinks you are good physician.”  His smile widened, “Also large pain in ass.”

Even McCoy had to laugh at that one.  “We butt heads sometimes.”  He looked toward his patient, still kept unconscious by drugs, but
improving by the hour.  “He’s a tough kid.”

Andre looked away suddenly and McCoy was surprised when he realized this huge bear of a man had begun to weep quietly.  Before the
Enterprise doctor could move to comfort him, Andre began to speak.  “I know that you know what happened to him.  When Zukov broke his
arm.  Six years old and his father snapped his arm over his leg... like it was dry twig ”  

He turned to look at McCoy again, the brown eyes, so like Pavel’s, glittering with tears.  “He almost died. His arm - almost severed.  Have you
ever felt that spot, on his upper arm, the little dent there where the bone shattered, the place where it tore through all the muscles there and
the tendons and finally ripped through the skin?”  

McCoy swallowed and nodded, he had felt that spot and asked about it once during an examination, asked the young officer if it ever hurt him
as old breaks, especially bad ones, sometimes did.  Pavel had shook his head slowly and bit his lip and McCoy knew he was lying but let it go.

“My wife told me that  hospital kept her out of his room, he was under infectious control procedures because break infected and so she couldn’
t go inside the room with him and she begged them...she begged them, Dr. McCoy to please let her be there for him when he woke up and of
course, they couldn’t.  And so... he is six years old.  He is almost dead.  He is afraid.  And, he is waking up to strange and frightening beings
hovering over him and here he is again now, and here I am now, now I am begging you to please not let that happen to him again.”

McCoy opened his mouth to speak but Andre continued, “I accept whatever danger may be in that room. I will sign any paper, any release you
want.”  The danger in that room was as yet still unknown, although now they could find no trace of the sinewy substance that had worked it’s
way into his spinal chord and no trace of the strange molecule either.


“I am no danger to him, he is not infected, you tell me the wounds to his face are grafted and sealed now and so he is protected and now you
wear your suits to protect yourselves, not him.  I don’t need protection from him.  You know time is coming, you need to let him wake up.  Don’t
let him do it alone. Not again. Please.”



~~~

Lt. Suzanne Strevens sighed audibly when she saw who had just walked in the door.  She was not surprised, this was the fourth visit to the
brig by one of Pavel Chekov’s friends in three days.  Although Pavel Chekov and the woman standing before her hadn’t been together for
some time, Strevens knew they were more than civil to each other and it wasn’t unusual to see them together in a rec room or mess.

“Landon.”  she said by way of greeting.  The two didn’t exactly see eye to eye on most things, Strevens thought Landon fussy and snobbish -
Landon thought Strevens was always trying to prove to everyone how tough she was and found her boisterousness grating.

And, Martha Landon hated the way Strevens always said hello to her, well, never said hello to her actually - she always just said, “Landon.”  It
seemed to Martha that Suzanne would acknowledge her existence, barely, but that was all.  She had been annoyed when she had bitched
about it to Pavel that he had blown it off and said she was overreacting, that Strevens greeted everyone that way.  But, Landon knew she didn’
t greet Pavel that way, he was always greeted by a bright smile, by sparkling green eyes, by a hand on his arm, by a whispery ‘hello’, by...

“Was there something I could help you with?”  Strevens interrupted Landon’s reverie and her trip down jealousy lane.

“I uh...”  She blew her breath out and put her hands on her hips, “Fuck!”

Strevens stared at her for as long as it took her jaw to drop, then burst out laughing.  Landon chewed her lip and looked annoyed.  “I’m sorry.
I just never thought you ever let anything like that come out of your mouth.”

“Why not?”  Landon demanded defensively, loudly.

“I don’t know, I guess because...I don’t know, you just don’t look like the type.” Strevens shrugged.

“Oh, for Chrissakes!”  Landon bit off her reply when she saw Strevens grin widen at  her second outburst.  Landon sighed loudly then, “I don’t
know why I’m here, I just...I want...I wanted to talk to her.....no, that’s not right -  I want to beat the shit out of her.”  Her eyes suddenly lit by
rage, then glimmered with welling tears.  She sniffed and turned to leave, but was stopped by a tug on her sleeve.

“I just put some coffee on.”

Landon turned back to her, smiled faintly, hopefully, but Strevens shook her head, “I’m sorry, I can’t let you see her.”

“Has she said anything?”

Strevens shook her head again and pulled a chair away from the squad room table.

“She’s been playing games with us.  She told me she was going to talk a couple of days ago, that she could tell me everything because...she
puts things oddly, she said, ‘this is ending’ but then she just smiled at me and hasn’t said a word since.  Strange.”

Martha sat down, her shoulders slumped and she looked so forlorn that Strevens couldn’t help but feel genuine sympathy for her.

“What do you take?”  she asked Landon as she poured the coffee.

“Doesn’t matter.”  came the dull reply.  “His father is here you know.”  She said quietly as Strevens set the cup down in front of her.

“Is he?”  Strevens rolled her eyes slightly, no doubt he would be paying the brig a visit as well.

“I’m glad, he needs to...he shouldn’t be by himself.”  She suddenly looked intently at the security guard and leaning forward, she hissed,
“Have you seen him!”

Strevens swallowed and shook her head.

Landon leaned back and focused on some infinite point on the table top, “You wouldn’t believe it was him.  You wouldn’t believe it.”

~~~~~

Andre couldn’t believe that the faceless being lying on the bed before him was his Pavel Andreievich. Some tiny part of Andre’s psyche held
out hope that a simple case of mistaken identity had occured, that Pavel was off somewhere and this unfortunate young man’s family had yet
to be informed of the terrible misfortune that had befallen him.

Andre held that hope right up until the time he took the hand lying on top of the bedspread.  The man’s knees weakened as his heart sank
slowly for when he took that hand he knew instantly and without a shred of doubt that it was indeed Pavel Andreievich...Pasha.  Andre Illyich
believed this young man to be his son, and he knew him as surely as any father knows his child.  They had both been lost in the world for
awhile, alone - it had taken them some time to finally find each other, but after they had, the bond that joined them was unshakeable.

“Oh, Pasha...oh, nyet, nyet....nyet.”  Andre could not tear his eyes away from what was left of his sons face.  He knelt beside the bed and
kissed the hand and then pressed it to his forehead and put his head down and prayed quietly in Russian.

McCoy hadn’t turned on the universal translator in the room yet and didn’t now - prayers were private matters, he thought, and he wouldn’t
turn the translator on until Andre was finished.

He had tried to prepare the man.  Pavel Andreievich Chekov’s ‘face’ resembled nothing but a pile of putty at this point.  They grafted skin
immediately, they used plas-skin as soon as his cells would take it, as soon as they finished irrigating the wound site and were sure the acid
had been flushed and stopped because they needed to protect him from infection, his biggest enemy.

The reconstruction would come later.  How, McCoy wasn’t sure - cloning perhaps.  Or a combination of cloning and reconstructive surgery.  
They would doubtless use cloning to replace his eyes.  Scotty had suggested the transporter imprint could possibly be used to do the whole
thing at once....somehow.  Spock and the engineer were investigating that possibility and the Enterprises CMO was conferring with specialists
in the Surgeon General’s office.  Their opinion was that they would have to remove what had temporarily been put in place and rebuild the
musculature first, then grafting and cloning of the eyes probably followed by a succession of surgeries to improve the aesthetics of his face.  

It was their opinion that he would never look a hundred percent normal - man’s medical miracles still couldn’t begin to approximate the
complexity of nature herself.  He would certainly never look like himself again.

Andre gripped the young man’s hand tightly - at least these wounds had already healed - he was grateful for that much, for being able to
touch him this way.  His face...his face....there was nothing but a flat tableau of bumpy beige colouring - no nose, the cartilage had been
eaten by the acid, there was only a small hole allowing an oxygen tube through.  No mouth really, his lips destroyed, his teeth had been bared
as on a skull but McCoy had managed to put extra tissue there to close the gap, now there was just a slit - how was he going to eat?  He
wouldn’t be able to talk, he had no facial muscles left, no mouth.  Well, these questions would all be answered one at a time, Andre thought.

He looked at the sunken craters where his eyes had been, not even eyelids now, just seamless shiny plas-skin and pieces of grafting.  

Andre felt overwhelmed again and his chest heaved with the effort not to break into sobs.  He had to be strong.  He had to be strong for
Pavel.  He had to be strong for Catherine Ivanova...she had begged him to come to Enterprise but he had promised her he would bring their
son home.  He had never lied to her before.

‘Alright, Andre Illyich’ he thought, ‘We’ve been through so much...we can get through this too.’  He put his hand on Pavel’s head, smoothing
his hair down, “We’ll get through.”  he said aloud.

He drew in a breath and then collected and drew himself up to his full imposing stature.  He looked toward the glass and nodded to McCoy,
already suited up and ready in the anteroom.

McCoy nodded and popped the seal on the room.  As he entered the room the sounds of Prokofiev’s Troika Overture played softly in the
background.  The music was Chapel’s idea and a good one the doctor had thought.

Andre smiled faintly at him, “Thank you for this.”

McCoy nodded at him and prepared to turn off the sedative drip that kept the Ensign in slumber.  He looked at Andre more closely and the
man nodded back, he was ready.  Andre knelt beside the bed again and took Pavel’s hand again.  McCoy had told him that once the sedative
was shut off Pavel would awake fairly quickly.

McCoy flipped the switch and the drip stopped and they waited.  Thirty-five seconds later Pavel moaned softly and moved his head slowly.  
Andre began speaking to him, in Russian, McCoy heard the translation through his suit speaker.

“Pasha...Pasha, it’s Papa...you’re okay, son....can you hear me.  Pasha, it’s Papa, it’s alright...it’s alright...”

McCoy watched as the young man’s breathing stopped for a second, then he dragged in a lung full of air, it still sounded gravelly and liquid
but his lungs had improved so far beyond McCoy’s expectations the Georgia doctor had stopped just barely short of calling it a miracle.   
Pavel stretched his legs and his arms, Andre held fast to his hand as the young man groaned again and his jaw moved slightly, he swallowed,
and made an odd noise, he was trying to talk.

“Ssshhh!  Pavel, it’s all right.  You can’t talk.  It’s Papa, I’m right here, I’m right here...do you know me?  Squeeze my hand if you know I’m
here.”

McCoy watched the fingers around Andre’s hand tighten until they turned white, Andre grinned, “Good!  Good and strong, yes!”  He smiled up
at McCoy then abruptly turned his attention back to his son when a sob erupted from the young man.  He hugged Pavel close, stroking his
head, “Sshh, it’s alright...it’s alright...don’t be afraid, you are going to be fine, do you hear me?  Do you understand me?  Squeeze my hand if
you know you are going to be fine, yes?”  Pavel responded to him, squeezed his hand again.  “That’s my boy.  You’re all right...you’re all
right.”

McCoy observed the scene before him, as always he was amazed at the power in the voice and the comforting touch of family and only
slightly disturbed by the promises the father made to the son - promises the doctor didn’t know if he could keep.


~~~~~

They were dreams.  Or visions.  Or memories.  He couldn’t know which.  They were a kind of reality that was there for him to feel and live and
remember.  They shimmered, they wavered, they rippled like water and buzzed and whined like grinding machinery and then they stopped
rattling around and froze and she was there.  

He saw her face,  so beautiful and she smiled and the blue/green eyes shifted and then there was such hatred there - why?  Why?  He saw
the jerk of her arm - saw the liquid flying toward him -  it chewed into him - no burning - chewing, consuming, eating, billions of little teeth
sawing through skin, through flesh, into bone...

“Aagh!”  His hands tried to sweep them off his face but he couldn’t reach his face!
He had to get them off!  He had to!

“PAVEL ANDREIVICH!”

He awoke instantly to that commanding voice.  He stopped struggling immediately, his chest clenched around another choked off scream.  
Strong hands held his wrists - he knew those hands - he knew the calluses on the index, third and fourth fingers - calluses grown over years
of wood carving.  

His heart hammered madly and he tried with all his might to focus on calming it, on damning up the adrenaline surging through his blood and
into his muscles that made him want to rip away from the arms holding him fast.  He knew those arms, had as a boy, first pulled away from the
comfort there, not trusting it, not trusting another ‘Andre’ and then gratefully accepted the love found there.  He knew these arms and he let
himself go now, and as his breath surged out of his body along with his fight he let those strong arms take his weight and his fear.  He knew
who was there and that made it alright.

“Hmmpa...”  What was wrong with his mouth?  He felt like he’d been at the dentist, it felt frozen, he, he couldn’t feel it.  He tried again, “Papa.”  
Clear and true.  Andre drew back in surprise, and glanced up at Chapel as she entered the room, the commotion summoning her.  She smiled
through her mask at Andre.

“Da, Pasha!  Da!”  He hugged his son tightly and felt the strength in the small body.  A strength this boy had had all his life.  A strength he
was going to have to call on once more.  

“Sch...schto?”  Pavel croaked out and Andre glanced at Chapel who reached down and squeezed his hand with her gloved hand.

“Pavel, it’s Christine, do you understand?”

“Kishteen who?”  Even though he couldn’t smile and his voice sounded rather like sandpaper scraping gravel, she heard the teasing there.  
She smiled at Andre and shook her head.

“Perhaps I should summon the Chief Medical Officer.”  she said with mock severity.

A small laugh emanated from her patient then, “I’ll be gu..d..”

“Does it hurt to talk?”  she asked him.

He shook his head slowly and pulled his hand out of hers before she felt it sliding through the glove.  The hand was stopped inches above his
face by Andre’s hand holding it firmly and slowly lowering it back to the bed as Pavel’s breathing accelerated.

“Ssshh...” Andre soothed, and began talking gently to his son in Russian as Christine listened through the tinny speaker in her suit.  “Pavel,
do you remember what happened?”  

The young man nodded and asked, “’urned?”

“Yes.”  Andre said firmly, “Pasha you know I’ve never lied to you, don’t you?”  Chekov nodded again.  “I am not lying to you now, when I tell
you that you will recover, you will be alright, do you understand?”

“Da.” quietly, trembling slightly.

“Alright, listen to me carefully, yes?” Andre waited for a response and continued when he got what he wanted.  “She threw  more than hot
coffee on you and your face sustained a serious injury, do you understand?”  Andre felt the hand gripping his tighten,  heard the sharp intake
of breath threaten to break into a sob,  “Sshh, it’s alright, Pasha, it’s alright, you are strong enough to cope with this, we are strong enough,
right?”  He squeezed the hand tighter, “Right?!”

“Da.” barely a whisper.

“Da.  Dr. McCoy tells me you are well on the way to healing and he is preparing to help you in your recovery right now, right this minute.  In a
moment I want you to touch your face, so you will understand and not be afraid.  It is always the unknown that frightens the most, Pavel,
remember?”  Andre waited, and finally after several seconds Pavel nodded slowly.  “Yes, you remember when your mother had her skating
accident, how scared you were until you saw her, even though she was hurt, it was better to know for sure wasn’t it?”  He waited again, the
affirmative came more quickly.  “I will tell you what you need to know and then your hands will tell you the rest and then you will know where we
are beginning from, fair, yes?”

Chekov drew in a breath and steadied himself, “Da.” stronger now.

“Da.  Here is where we are.  It was an acid, Pasha.”  Pavel’s whole body reacted to that and a small moan escaped him, “I know, I know....do
you want a moment?”

Pavel nodded and struggled to get his breathing under control again, “Kisteen?”

“I’m right here.”  she squeezed her hand.

“Goves?”

“The gloves are a precaution against infection Pavel.”

“Papa...”

“I didn’t want to be in envirosuit.”

Pavel squeezed his hand very hard and made a noise that might have been a sob, “Spa...see..a...”

Andre ran a hand through Chekov’s hair and rested his hand on the side of his son’s head, “You are welcome, little one.”  

“Why?  I can....I can’t....kai...”

“Cry?”  Andre asked.

Pavel nodded and Andre leaned forward and kissed his head and drew him closer.  “You are alright, yes?”

“Da.”

“Your eyes were destroyed, son.”  Andre held on as he felt Pavel react to that and this time there was no doubting the sound coming from
him, dry choking sobs that wracked his body for minutes never ending.  Andre rocked him like an infant, rocked him as he had so many
hundreds of times after every nightmare that replayed the horrors of living with his biological father.  That child’s screams still echoed in the
big man’s mind and he choked back his own emotions and drew himself together.

“Pavel Andreivich.....Pavel, Pavel are you listening to me?”

“Da...da...”

“They are getting new eyes ready for you now, yes?  Dr. McCoy is working on it right now and they will be ready in three days and you will
have your sight back then, you will have your eyes back, do you understand?”

Pavel nodded and lay back on pillow with exhaustion.  Andre looked to Christine who checked his readings.  “Pavel, do you want to rest
now?”  she asked quietly.

He shook his head and started to reach for his face.  Andre stopped him once more.  “Not yet, alright?  Not yet.  Take a moment.  Okay, there
we are...try to relax a little.  Always a race horse at the gate, eh?”  Andre paused and was gratified to hear a small laugh escape his son.  

Pavel took a deep breath and visibly relaxed every muscle in his body.  Andre continued, “You need to know where you are, where we are, at
the beginning, at the start of another journey.  We have taken quite a few together you and I, haven’t we?”

Pavel said very clearly, “Yes, we have.”

“Yes.  Always an adventure for us, life.  Would we have it any other way?”

Strongly, “Nyet.”

“Nyet.  Here we are again and once more we need to take the first step.  Let’s take it together, shall we?”  

He picked up Pavel’s hand and guided it to his face.  HIs own big hand rested over his son’s smaller hand as the fingertips touched that
unfamiliar surface for the first time.  

Pavel gasped and jerked his hand away.  Andre took his hand again and brought it to his face again, “It is only unknown Pavel Andreivich, it is
not unknowable.”

The fingertips touched the bumpy surface again.  Pavel was distressed to realize he could only feel his face with his fingers, it was though
they weren’t touching a part of his body at all.  Chapel spoke up then, “It will probably feel strange Pavel because your face is numb right now,
the nerve endings are being blocked by a neural inhibitor until we are farther along in your recovery.  I know it feels strange, it’....”  she
stopped when she realized she was on the verge of babbling, “It won’t be long before we start re...construction.”

She had tried to say the last word positively and cursed her hesitation.  She decided to just be quiet and let him discover what he needed to
know.

His hand traced it’s way around and he said a small, “Oh...” when they found the oxygen tube entering his face through, not a nose, but a
hole in his face.  

“Oxygen tube, Pavel.”

The fingers continued downward and he made another noise when he touched his teeth.  He put his tongue to his fingers and said “Uck!”

Chapel and Andre laughed at the same time, “I’m sorry, sweetie.”  Chapel said brightly, “I should have told you, you have some light ointment
on your hands still.”

“Yum...ee...”

He continued mapping the strange territory that had once been his face.  He stopped just below the place where his right eye should have
been.  Andre placed his hand on his shoulder.  Pavel continued and let his fingers rest there for a long moment and in his minds eye he was
looking at himself in the mirror, he was looking right into his own eyes like he did every morning, like his therapist had taught him to do when
he was a child.

Look into your eyes, don’t look away, look into your eyes and see the wonderful person there.  Look deep into your eyes and don’t look
away.  Look deep and see what everyone else sees, see the handsome young man there, see the good boy there.

“You have the most beautiful eyes!”  Girls, then women - they all said it.  “I love your eyes.”  “Your eyes are gorgeous.”  “I love looking into
your eyes.”  

Your eyes your eyes your eyes your eyes.....”Pavel?”

He suddenly wanted to be alone and he turned away from his father and pulled away from his nurse and curled up on his side and....wished
he could have closed his eyes.


~~~~

This fucking face!  How he hated it!  “You’re so cute.”  “You’re so good looking.”  “You’re so sexy.”  “Ooh baby, baby.”  

He hated it hated it hated it!!! His face, his face....HIS face.  His father’s face, Andre Zhuko’v’s face...it was his now and he didn’t want it and
he stared at it in the mirror and why did it have to be, why didn’t he look more like his mother, why in fucking hell did he have to look like HIM?  
Like Andre.

Andre...the giant...the monster of his days and nights until he was six...the monster under the bed after that, the monster of his dreams later
still.

Even here, even on Enterprise lightyears from the magnificent estate that had been his personal prison, lightyears and a decade and a half
away from that perilous time, even here it followed him into the night and again last night he had screamed in his sleep and terrified Martha by
lashing out at her when her hand had fallen over his face and in his dream it was HIS hand over his face, suffocating him again, hissing at him
to shut up shut up shut up, spitting on him, pushing him down so hard he thought he might shatter under that pressure.  What did he want?  
What did he want?  He heard them arguing in his mind, “not mine.”  he heard his father say, “Don’t be an idiot.”  his mother had spat back,
“The tests proved he’s yours!  I never cheated on you, never!”  And then that sound again, and he knew his mother had been hit again and
the rage blurred his vision as he peeked through the closet door and he wanted to kill that man and was afraid to and ashamed and he was
five years old.

He stared at himself now in the mirror.  “You look so handsome in your uniform.”  His mother had said to him.  How could she stand to look at
him?  He looked just like his father.  Exactly like him.  

“I hate this fucking face.  I wish it would go away.”  He said aloud to the hated reflection in the mirror.

Pavel gasped and awoke and...awake?  He thought he was awake but...he was dreaming about dreams or something and he didn’t know....

“Papa?”  he said aloud and was reassured to hear his voice but he could have been dreaming that too.

“I’m here, Pasha.  I’m here.”  The man sounded tired, Pavel thought, and felt guilty for what he was putting him through and then stopped
himself, knowing the man would be angry if he thought that.  He was always having to correct himself, he thought tiredly, and wondered if he
would have to do it for the rest of his life and cursed that goddamned Andre Zhukov for putting him through this.  

For putting him through so much that he got physically sick if he heard that man’s music and he heard it everywhere, in spaceports and bars
and shopping plaza’s and he would have to rush away and throw up somewhere and then return to his friends with some sheepish excuse
about eating something bad or drinking too much the night before.  He cursed that man for putting him through so much that he couldn’t sing
in his beloved Russian because in his native language he couldn’t make himself not sound like his father.  He cursed Andre Zhukov for putting
him through so much that he hated his very own face and wished it away and now....he had his wish....

~~~~

“Shit.”  Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise loved his job...except when he hated it.  Like now.  He switched the viewer off and the
message it bore went away.

That was it, then.  They had tried to get Maria Seto to talk about what she did, how she did it, why she did it and they had failed and now the
Attorney General’s Office wanted her to be sent to Earth to stand trial for assault not only for the incident where she threw the acid on him,
but also for the suspected assault that had taken place several nights earlier.  There was enough evidence that he’d been drugged to lay
charges against her.  And, so she was to be sent to Earth and Enterprise wouldn’t be allowed to hang about in the Algoran Z System any
longer - they had work to do - elsewhere.  For now, they were to head for Starbase 14.

Dr. Skinner had long since departed.  He had tried so hard with Seto.  Skinner had begged, had cajoled, had threatened and pleaded with her
to please, please tell him what she had done and why.  Why?  Why? Why?   She had merely stared back at him for a bit and then smiled
faintly and turned to the wall.  Tears welled in the old doctor’s eyes - he loved this girl like a daughter and he didn’t know who she was now.

Dr. Skinner had apologized profusely for what had happened and gripped Kirk’s arm in the transporter room and said quietly, “I’m praying for
him.”  Kirk felt sorry for the man, for such a brilliant scientist he presented such a picture of befuddlement and confusion regarding what his
assistant had done that Kirk wanted to put an arm around him and tell him it would all be okay.

But, the Captain didn’t think it would all be okay.  Not yet, anyway.  And not if they were going to have to send Seto to Earth.  Starfleet wanted
Pavel Chekov sent to Earth as well and suggested that it would save time and money if Seto and Chekov were sent back together aboard the
same ship.

Kirk didn’t care what it saved - no way in hell was he going to send his navigator across thousands of light years with his assailant!  Of course,
technically he wouldn’t have been with her - he’d still be quarantined.  But, he didn’t care and he was going to talk to McCoy about their
options as soon as he was through with this bloody ‘paper’ work.

The Captain hated paper work more than anything else in the entire known universe, including brussel sprouts.   Of course it wasn’t exactly
done on paper anymore.  No matter, the name still stuck.  Administrative...crap.  With a little smirk  Kirk switched the viewer off, banishing the
hated forms and details of his job to the oblivion he thought they deserved most and leaned back in his desk chair just as the door to his
quarters chimed.  “Come in.”  

The door slid back to reveal a surprisingly fresh looking Leonard McCoy.  The doctor ambled into the room and betrayed his hidden tiredness
by flopping heavily into the chair across from Kirk.

He slumped in the chair and studied the floor and Kirk didn’t press him to speak, he knew him too well for that, the good doctor was a
Southerner and down there in the overheated South things still took their natural time and so the Captain waited for his CMO to tell him what
he came to tell him.

McCoy sighed and rubbed a hand across his eyes, then sat up straight, “I’m not sure what to do.”

“About what?”

“His eyes.”

“I thought you could clo...”

“I can.  I have.  I can implant, well, not tomorrow, but in a few days.”

McCoy didn’t continue and so Kirk waited again.  He actually enjoyed these lazy talks with the physician, if the subject matter had been less
critical, he might have enjoyed it very much, the way the conversation just unspooled of it’s own accord, like a meandering river winding it’s
way slowly under miles of weeping willows.  But, the matter was critical and the Captain found himself checking his impatience before long.

Just before he was about to open his mouth, the doctor spoke, “I don’t know if seeing is really what he needs right now.”

“I don’t understa...”

“You don’t understand because you haven’t seen him!”  The soft voice had turned harsh and accusatory and it stung Kirk.  McCoy could do
that to him like nobody else, ever.  The doctor’s eyes cut like phaser torches right through to Kirk’s bone marrow and he would have averted
his eyes were he a less competitive soul.

Instead, he held the doctor’s gaze as he said quietly, “I....I didn’t think he would know I was there, you told me he couldn’t have visitors, he’s in
isolation.”  McCoy didn’t answer him and Kirk knew what the doctor was waiting for.  The truth.  “I couldn’t.”

McCoy’s face softened, that was all he wanted, the truth.  Kirk hated him at that moment and all of those past moments when the doctor had
done that to him - in silence had pulled out of him what Jim Kirk didn’t wish to voice.

“Starfleet wants us to send him home.”

McCoy looked up at the Captain, “He doesn’t want to go.”

Kirk looked surprised at that. “I would have thought he’d want to go home.”

McCoy shook his head.  “He...well, first of all, we have to get him out of isolation.  If that’s possible and we’ve...Spock didn’t tell you?”

“Spock?”

“We had a set back.”  The Captain shook his head, and the doctor continued,  “Well, it just happened.”

“What happened?”

The doctor’s eyes pierced him once more and McCoy said softly, “The eyes we cloned from his tissue have matured - and they’re bright
blue/green.”

~~~~


Spock looked up from his temporary work station in sickbay and regarded his Captain and the Chief Medical Officer as they walked in briskly.  

“Spock.  What do you have?”  Kirk asked.

“Ensign Chekov’s dna has been altered.  I have been unable to locate the site of the disruption but certainly the conclusion can be drawn that
the unidentified molecule is responsible and that Ms. Seto introduced it.”

The Vulcan Science Officer paused in his report to his Captain and steepled his fingers, “I fail to understand why it should be necessary for it
to enter through a puncture wound in the mouth but that appears to be, as we surmised earlier, the path of introduction.  Perhaps the
combination of whatever drug she used earlier, when he reported being ill in the night, with the acid and the unidentified molecule is required
for whatever process Ms. Seto apparently hoped to precipitate.”

“What the hell is going on?”  Kirk paced the room briefly and then stopped abruptly at the window to Chekov’s isolation room.  His mouth fell
open and he didn’t realize he was staring until he felt someone staring back at him, he glanced to the corner of the room and caught the full
force of Andre Karpov’s intense attention just as McCoy cleared his throat.  Kirk blinked and turned away, feeling sick at heart.  No wonder
McCoy was questioning the wisdom of giving him his sight back at this time.

“Spock, do you have any theories about why she’s done this?  What is she trying to accomplish?”

“I am uncertain, Captain,  but I believe that whatever she is trying to do to Ensign Chekov, has already been done to her.”

“Explain?”

Spock reached out to the computer terminal and put in a couple of commands that brought forward a picture of Maria Seto.  A beautiful girl,
with a sparkling smile that brought forth deep dimples in her cheeks and striking black hair and even more striking bluer than blue eyes.

“I have conferred with Dr. Skinner and it is his opinion that Maria Seto’s physical appearance changed a few months ago.  He hadn’t noticed
at the time because the difference is negligible - there was before that time, no hint of the green colourations that appear in her eyes now.”  
He switched the photo and this newer, recent photo showed an abrupt change in her eyes, the irises were mottled with green, it was beautiful,
but it wasn’t there before.

“Dr. Skinner believes this happened four months ago, the time when he also noticed a change in Ms. Seto’s emotional state.  He claims she
was always a somewhat emotional woman, prone to periods of depression and called her a person of high sensitivities.  He described her as a
somewhat mercurial personality, but not mean and as a matter of course someone who would do what they must to avoid hurting another,
even at her own expense.  He states now that slowly she has become cruel.  He was hoping it was a temporary aberration but says she has
consistently, in the last month especially, acted in a...”  Spock picked up a small memo pad, and quoted the doctor’s words,  “...’deliberately
vicious and cruel manner not in keeping with my previous experience of her personality.’”

“Jim, let’s get her down here so I can examine her.”

Kirk waved a hand at the doctor, asking for a moment, “Where were they?” he asked Spock.

“They were here...”  Spock had the computer display a starmap of a system only vaguely familiar to Kirk.  “Re’Ahl 7...a small scientific outpost
studying the Pixa Radiation Belt.  He noted the change in her behavior there.  They were there for three months, he noted the change near
the end of their stay.  He thought perhaps she was bored or feeling claustrophobic.  The outpost is on an asteroid in that system and is
manned by a permanent rotating crew of fourteen.  They are on a six month rotation.  The station is small, the conditions certainly the type
that can lead humans to suffer emotional distress.”

“But that doesn’t explain the change in her appearance or the fact that what happened to her eyes apparently also happened to Chekov’s.”

“Correct.”

Kirk turned back to McCoy, “Okay, I’ll have security bring her down.”

“Wait a minute, Jim.  We have Chekov in isolation because we were concerned he might be harboring an alien agent of some kind - she
appears to be in the same situation, I think we should set her up in isolation as well.”

Kirk looked to Spock who nodded, “It would seem a wise precaution, Captain.”


~~~~

His dreams were of her.  His nightmares, too. She was light and he was drawn to her.  She was dark and he was repelled.  She felt familiar
and warm....like an old sweater.  She felt strange and cold...like the cold metal thing that had been in his mouth.

His body tried to protect itself and he curled up tight...too late...too late, it’s inside now, it’s everywhere, in every cell, in every living, breathing
part of me.  Too late...too late...it’s here.  And then the realization:

“I brought it here.”

~~~~

“I don’t want to leave him.”  Andre Karpov had whispered when McCoy asked him to come with him into Isolation 2.  But, the man had finally
acquiesced and left his sleeping son, at least he had settled down now, for awhile he had seemed to be having a bad dream.  Andre had tried
once to wake him but Pavel had calmed quickly and Andre let him sleep.

Karpov followed McCoy into the adjacent isolation room and then listened quietly when the doctor told him the problem that had arisen with
the cloned eyes.

“You cannot implant, then.  But, would it really matter?”  Karpov seemed to be thinking aloud to himself and he suddenly switched to Russian
for a few words as he tried to work something out.  Then, he looked up at the doctor apologetically and continued, “If he has already been
altered, what harm could implanting the eyes be?”

McCoy didn’t have an answer for that.  But he did have another question, “Dr. Karpov....”

“Please,  Dr. McCoy, you may call me Andre Illyich, or merely, Andre if that is easier.”

“Andre...Andre, I...can I call you ‘doctor’?”  The big man’s laughter boomed around the room and he nodded, and McCoy pressed on, “Doctor,
I don’t know if...first, I don’t know if these eyes are going to work, every test I’ve run says they should but who knows. And, no, I don’t know if
they will cause any harm....and....”

“And, you don’t know if he should be able to see?”

“Yes.”

Karpov considered what to say to the doctor and it was obvious to McCoy that he had already considered the question itself.  Andre drew in a
big lungful of air and shook his head, “You know...”  he shook his head again and sat in the only chair in the room.  “Damn it.  I don’t know
what to think, I need to think!”  Although he kept his rich baritone under control, the power of that voice, the command it held, the authority,
was very much in evidence, even at lowered volume.

“He is strong.  You wouldn’t believe how strong.”  Karpov studied McCoy for a moment, “I think if you did some reconstruction.  Give him a
nose, a mouth, eyebrows, even if his face is still...”

“I can’t even come close to giving him a normal looking face!”

“I understand that, I do.  But, if you could just give him...the basics and let him see, I know he will cope.  I know my son, Doctor McCoy.”

McCoy chewed his lip, already mentally running through what procedures he would attempt to build some semblance of a face for his patient.  
But,  “Andre...I don’t know what the altered dna is going to do, I don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

“I know...all I ask is this:  don’t let him fight this blind.”

“But...”

“Dr. McCoy, when he was child and was hurt by Zhukov he was defenseless because he was child and he didn’t understand what he was
fighting.  If you leave him blind you leave him again defenseless and again he is not knowing what he is dealing with.  Please do not do that to
him.  At least ask him what he wants.”

~~~~~

“You’re sure?”  McCoy asked again and Pavel Chekov sighed and almost said, ‘If I had eyes I’d be rolling them right now.’  

But, he didn’t, he let the sigh hang in the air.  He felt the doctors hand slide off his shoulder, felt the cold there suddenly and felt afraid.  
“Doctor McCoy?”

“Yes?”  He was still right beside him.

The words were barely  whispered, “How...bad...do I...?”

The warm hand clasped his shoulder once more.  “Son, you look like a million dollars to me because you look a million times better than the
corpse I thought you were going to be.”  The doctor squeezed his shoulder and while he could tell the young man appreciated the sentiment,
he knew it wasn’t what he needed.

“Pavel, you do not look like yourself, that’s for sure.  But, I don’t see any reason why, with reconstruction and time, you can’t look very similar
to the way you did.  Your bone structure is intact and that’s the foundation.  We can build on that.  Well, I mean the general ‘we’ as in the
medical profession.  I’ve been doing some research on reconstructive techniques and I’ll tell you...they’re much better than I thought and I’m
not just sayin’ that...you know me...I never just say anything.  I’m not going to bullshit you Chekov, you have a long road and it’s gonna be
tough - but everybody who knows you knows that you’re tougher than this.”

“I want to know what I will look like now, not after many surgeries.  If these eyes work, what will I see?”

“I don’t know.  And that’s the truth.  We’re going to do some reconstruction tomorrow during the implant and Dr. Calf Robe tells me she’s very
happy with your bone structure and believes she can do a lot with the first surgery.”

Dr. Mary Calf Robe, a Microsurgeon specializing in facial reconstruction happened to do her internship at a hospital called The Foothills
Medical Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,  where she met a nurse named Christine Chapel, on a work exchange from Boston General.

But, Dr. Calf Robe wasn’t on Earth at the moment.  In fact, hours ago she had been aboard the exclusive passenger liner ‘Hosan Ramzy’
sound asleep in the middle of a well earned and needed vacation when her comm very rudely buzzed her until she answered it with a
snapping , “What!”

“Mare’?”

“Chris?  What the hell...”  Dr. Calf Robe sat up and, sweeping her long black hair back from her face, activated the comm’s vid terminal.  
Christine Chapel grinned sheepishly at her.

Mary laughed, “What the hell...” she said again.

Christine’s smile vanished, “We need your help on Enterprise, Mary.”

“Enterprise?  What’s happened?”

Nine hours later Dr. Calf Robe yawned in the dim lighting of the shuttlecraft that was hurtling her toward Enterprise.  She studied the medical
charts on the terminal in front of her, downloaded from Enterprise.  

She was looking at the face of one Ensign Pavel Chekov when a hand touched her shoulder.  

“Coffee?”  Helen Underwood, the shuttle’s copilot handed the cup to Mary and then stretched her legs, “I don’t know how Sara does it, I can’t
sit in the cockpit that long....”  She glanced down at Pavel Chekov’s photo and raised her eyebrows, “Good looking guy.”

With that she patted the doctor on the shoulder and returned to the cockpit of the little ship.  Dr. Calf Robe answered her with an absent,
‘Ya...” before switching the image back to the devastated face she would begin rebuilding in a few hours.


She was on board Enterprise in twelve and a half hours,  in sickbay ten minutes later and had everyone there laughing until their sides hurt in
another ten.  Chapel had forgotten that about her.  

The woman should have been a stand-up comedienne, instead she was one of the finest physicians Chapel had ever worked with, she was a
doctor who was fulfilling her ultimate destiny when she was working, she had that in common with McCoy.  Chapel thought herself very lucky to
have worked with two such doctors in the course of her career.  They were a rare breed.

Dr. Calf Robe was small with the black hair, brown skin and eyes and flat nose and wide mouth of her people, the Blackfoot of Southern
Canada.  She was from a place that Chapel would never, ever forget the name of...’Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump’.  

A high windy cliff atop a vast plain where her people in ancient times ran buffalo over the edge in the autumn to prepare for the harsh winter
ahead.  They used every single part of the buffalo, Mary had explained, the hide for clothing and shelter, the meat for food, the teeth and the
bones for tools, the hooves for candles, the fat for heating oil,  the tendons for sewing...nothing ever went to waste.  

Dr. Mary Calf Robe brought her people’s economy and harmony with the natural world to her work and as she studied Pavel Chekov’s face
with her gloved hands she knew she would have to use every part left to fashion him a new one.  Nothing he had left could go to waste.  
Nothing would.

“How does 0700 sound, young man?”  She asked her new patient.
“Very early.”

Dr. Calf Robe laughed, “I like a man who can make me laugh!”

~~~

“It’s crazy!”  Sulu exploded.

Uhura sighed, she was getting very tired of this argument.  And, it wasn’t going to stop until this whole bloody situation was ended.

“It’s his choice.”  Uhura said quietly, although, in her heart she didn’t know if Pavel Chekov were making the right decision.  It was HIS
decision, she thought, and believed it should be respected.   

But Sulu couldn’t let it go, “It’s reckless!  He doesn’t know what will happen if those eyes are implanted!  Nobody does!  I can’t believe Dr.
McCoy is doing this!  I can’t believe the Captain is allowing it!  I can’t believe we’re all just going along with it like....”

“Sulu, for Chrissakes!”  Uhura glanced around the mess.  Of course everyone had heard that, they probably heard it in Alpha Centuri.  She
lowered her voice, “Why can’t you just respect...”

“It has nothing to do with respect!”  he hissed back at her, angry at the implication that he somehow didn’t respect Chekov’s wishes, or trust
him to make a smart decision.  “I’m...I’m...scared shitless by this!”  

He jumped up abruptly and marched across the floor to get a coffee.  Halfway there he turned around and stalked back, his fists were balled
up into tight little bundles of white knuckles at his side.  His jaw clenched, “Nyota, I’m just...”

He blew his breath out and sat down, deflated suddenly, all the fight went right out of him.  “I’m just really scared, not just about the physical
danger but....”  He looked at her and suddenly was struck by how beautiful she was.  He stared at her skin, so smooth and satiny, her smoky
eyes, the amazing planes of her cheekbones...

She leaned forward and caught his eye...he blinked himself out of his daydream, “I just don’t know what it’s going to do to him, to see himself...
like...that.”

They sat in silence for a moment.  Both had seen him, he hadn’t known they were there.  They didn’t want him to know.  They just asked
Christine to be sure and tell him they were thinking of him and missing him and would see him soon, anytime he wanted and she did and she
told him how worried they were and how they were checking in almost constantly and asking after him and did he need anything and could
they do anything.

But, inside he knew they had been there.  He had sensed them.  He had known exactly when they were there...he had sensed Sulu first, then
realized Uhura was with him.  It was confirmed when he heard a very slight hesitation come into Andre’s voice and a change in volume and he
knew that his father was looking toward the glass at something and then the volume increased and Pavel knew he had turned back and his
father spoke little more rapidly then.  

Pavel had known they were there.  Inside, he smiled to himself.  He knew they were worried about him.  He knew they were upset.  He
wondered how he would have been in their situation.  If Sulu or Uhura...oh, God...he couldn’t think of anything like this happening to Uhura!  
Not that face...no, no, no.  He was glad it was his face.  He didn’t want the damn thing anyway, but he wondered at the future, what would he
look like?  Could he order a face?  Who would he want to look like?  He almost laughed out loud when he thought of getting Sulu’s face, how
much confusion would that cause!  A funny joke, a very elaborate practical joke.  He had a reputation for them.  That would be the practical
joke to end all.

He felt them leave and he felt alone again.  Only of course he wasn’t, Andre was there and he was trying to convince him to go home.

He didn’t want to go home.  If his friends reacted this way what the hell would his mother do?  He couldn’t cope with that.  He couldn’t cope with
the intensity of her emotions.  She harbored so much guilt over his early years and the fact that she didn’t get them out before he was so
badly hurt, that she walked on egg shells around her son.  It drove him crazy.  It made him feel contemptuous of her and guilty for that and
resentful for the guilt and why did it have to be such a damned mess!

Still, he knew he held bitter feelings for her still...no, not now, he didn’t want to think about that now, it made him feel terrible...later....and then
he felt that cold again, the cold that had enveloped him when he lay in the creek with his arm dangling in the water and the blood running out
of it and he watched it, his blood, his life, flowing away and...NO!  No, no, no!

It was starting again, those dark thoughts that used to take him over...he turned this one away, too... he wanted sleep now and he hated
falling asleep like this, without any eyes to close.

~~~~
“Open your eyes, Pavel.”  Andre watched his son intently for more signs of consciousness.  Ten minutes earlier Pavel had made a little sound
and his fingers tightened around Andre’s hand but the movements had subsided and not returned.

Dr. Karpov tried to remind himself that this was normal, that his son wouldn’t just wake up and be aware and lucid in a matter of seconds.  His
body had been through an ordeal today and would wake slowly.

Andre relented and leaned back in the chair, he was exhausted and suddenly his hot tea looked terribly inviting.  He sipped it slowly, able to
savor the sweetness of it and still keep one eye on his son and one ear on the noises he imagined he could hear next door.

Maria Seto was there now.  Brought in this morning and quarantined like Pavel Andreievich.  He couldn’t really hear anything.  The rooms
were sealed and the curtain was drawn across the window between them.

The Attorney General’s office had brought some new charges against Seto under the ‘Genetics’ Codes’, three new charges that to Andre all
sounded the same.  She was charged with tampering with a sentient beings dna and the penalty would be severe if she were found guilty and
again the man wondered why she had done it.

And, then he thought of her and the change in her eyes and he wondered what had happened to her and he knew Kirk was working on that,
had been in contact with that asteroid station Andre could never remember the name of.  

And, he knew Kirk was trying to get Enterprise out there and he thought the Captain would succeed.  James Kirk had a reputation for being
able to tapdance around certain regs and rules and red tape like nobody else in the Fleet.  Andre knew Pavel admired that about him but
Andre himself had always had to bite his tongue when Pavel enthusiastically relayed another example of Kirk’s slippery prowess.  Andre didn’t
always approve of the Enterprise Captain and an ironic smile touched his lips as he thought how much he was depending on the Captain’s
slipperiness now.

He had a very strong feeling that the answer was out there on that mining station, not just for Pavel, but, for Maria too.  Andre felt a twinge of
sadness as he recalled a conversation he’d had with McCoy two days earlier.

The Enterprise’s CMO had contacted Maria Seto’s parents and found them disinterested in the life of their daughter.  She no longer existed
for them and hadn’t for quite some time.

Well, they had that in common, anyway, Andre thought.  Pavel and Maria.  Pavel, of course, had always had his mother but their relationship
was strained.  And, his father, well, he had nothing to do with the man after he was six.  So, they would have felt a common bond with parental
estrangement.

Of course, Pavel had Andre and Andre considered himself his father, but knew that he wasn’t and somewhere inside him Pavel would always
feel it.  Even if it was just a tiny little flicker, the tiniest flutter, it was there.

Andre looked up as Dr. Calf Robe entered the sealed room in an envirosuit.  She smiled at him, she had a wonderful smile, crinkling up the
corners of her eyes, which sparkled brightly when she smiled.

She patted Andre’s shoulder and hovered over her patient.  She laid a gloved hand on his head.  “Hello, Pavel.”

“...lo...”  came a quiet response.

Andre was startled, he could have sworn Pavel was still asleep.

“He’s not really awake, we’re using a new anesthetic, it’s gentler in many ways then the old stuff but it’s a slower return to consciousness.  He’
s in the first stage, he’ll respond to very, very simple things like a hello.  But, he won’t know what day it is or where he is yet.  There’s no point
in pushing him.”  She looked down at Pavel again and stroked his head and said sympathetically, “He’s had a big day.”

Andre looked down at her handiwork.  A face.  His son had a face again. It wasn’t even swollen.  Just red, like a bad sunburn or a windburn.  A
face.

He had a nose, a mouth, eyes.  They didn’t look like his, but, they were closer than Andre would have thought possible with an initial surgery.  
He could, perhaps, have been a cousin of Pavel Andreievich’s.  

The nose was a bit smaller than his own, built from cartilage grown in the lab overnight.  His mouth a little less wide, the lips thinner and not
perfectly shaped yet, a bit uneven.  He even had eyebrows again and flesh on his cheekbones and chin.  The skin covering his face was a bit
too smooth now and gave his face the appearance of a mask.  But, Dr. Calf Robe said texturing would come in a subsequent surgery and
once the redness was gone his skin wouldn’t look so smooth and shiney.

He didn’t have eyelashes yet but he had eyes that Andre was hoping would open soon.  He pushed any concerns he had about those eyes
and their strange colouring aside for the moment, he was sure they had done the right thing.  He was sure Pavel had made the right decision.

McCoy had already attempted to clone a second set of eyes, they bore the same colouring as the first.  They could have tried artificial eyes
but his patient would have to go home for that and he didn’t want to.   

Pavel Chekov had assured his father that he had a very strong intuition that it would be all right to implant these eyes.  He didn’t tell his father
that he knew, in his bones, that the changes that affected the eyes had already taken place inside him.  

It felt like too much adrenaline in his blood, it felt like too much coffee, it felt like the muscle aches that come with the flu.  Whatever it was, it
was inside him and the thought kept coming to him: “I brought it here.”

The thought came when he was waking, when he was falling asleep, it came in his dreams, easily.  In his wakefulness he could turn it away,
but in those other times, it came again and again and again, ‘I brought it here.’

‘I brou...i...eerre...”

Andre grasped his son’s hand, “Pasha, can you hear me?”

Dr. Calf Robe grasped his other hand as Pavel moaned softly.  “Pavel, it’s Dr. Calf Robe, squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”  She reached
up and buzzed McCoys’ office to let him know Chekov was coming round as she felt the young mans’ fingers squeezing her hand.

Seconds later the Enterprises’ CMO was coming through the doorway in his envirosuit.  Chapel stood watching from the observation glass
outside the room with Spock.

McCoy glanced at the readings overhead and was very pleased to see optimal values across the board.  He looked down as Chekov
suddenly opened his eyes and gasped.

Dr. Calf Robe frowned at McCoy, they weren’t supposed to wake suddenly with this new drug.  McCoy shrugged back at her.

“Pasha, it’s okay...okay...”  Andre assured him, all the while feeling quite disconcerted to see such strange eyes looking back at him.  Strange
eyes and a new face but still it was Pavel, no question.

Pavel Chekov looked at the faces about him.  He grinned, his same lopsided grin and a little thrill went through those watching him as they
recognized that expression.  Then he grimaced.

“Smarts a bit like a sunburn, doesn’t it.”  Dr. Calf Robe said.

“Ya...”  He grinned again and laughed a little when he was rewarded with another sting, “...feels....good....”

There was silence in the room for a long moment.  Pavel closed his eyes again for a moment and nobody said anything.  Finally, the patient
opened his eyes again.

“Well?”

“Well what?”  McCoy responded with a trace of irritation.  Chekov relaxed, if McCoy were talking to him like that he knew he was okay.  When
the Ships’ Surgeon was overly solicitous was the time to get nervous.

Pavel’s voice was a bit haughty as he asked, “Aren’t you going to ask me if I can see?”

“We didn’t want to overwhelm you.”  Calf Robe explained.  “Can you see?”

“Yes, but....”

“But, what?”

He studied the surgeon who had rebuilt his face and then looked at the surgeon who had given him eyes again.  He smiled and this time it
didn’t hurt at all.  “I...can see...colours around you...”  He looked at Calf Robe again, “You’re green and purple, it’s shooting from you, like a
sun’s corona.”  He turned his blue/green gaze to McCoy, “You’re almost all green, very bright....”

Pavel Andreievich looked to the man he believed had saved his life many times over and his new eyes glittered, “Papa...you are so bright
purple it hurts my eyes...”

Pavel made a move to sit up and ignored the noises of protest coming from those around him.  “I feel strong.  I need to get up, I’ve been down
too long.”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed while Andre steadied his shoulders.  Pavel closed his eyes again for a moment and breathed
deeply.

“Okay?”  McCoy asked.

Pavel nodded and opened his eyes again, looking toward the glass seal of the room.  He looked at Chapels’ face as she smiled back at him.  
“Kishteen...”  he said teasingly and Chapel sighed inside, afraid she might just have been tagged with a nickname for life, “...you are violet...
warm....”  He looked deeply into her blue eyes and through the glass Christine Chapel felt a connection as strong as any she had ever felt in
her life.  The intensity of it made her sway a little and Spock studied her reaction, ready to catch her should she fall.

“Chris, you okay?”  Mary asked.

Christine nodded, “Fine.....I don’t know... what that....was....”

“Pavel?”  Mary asked.

“I don’t know, either, but it was...strong....”  He looked away from Chapel, embarrassed,  then and focused on Spock and laughed out loud.

“Mr. Spock! You are unequivocally, unambiguously, and without question, completely yellow!”

Spock seemed to rock up on his heels slightly, obviously satisfied with the unconfused nature of his....”Auras?”  Dr. Calf Robe said suddenly.

Pavel was getting to his feet now.  Again, mumbled protests followed his movements and again he waved them off, “I’m fine, I feel really good
and I....”  He swayed suddenly....”Nyet...” he said quietly as he was pushed gently back to a sitting position by Andre and McCoy.

McCoy glanced up at the readings, his heart rate and respiration were up but everything else was fine.  “What is it?”

Chekov looked at his arms, his legs, “It’s black, like a black outline, all around me, black...I’m surrounded by black....”

Before anyone could react he got up, rushed to the window between the two quarantine units and flung the curtain aside.

Maria Seto stood right at the glass, staring back at him with her blue/green eyes.  “....and so is she....”


~~~~

He wanted to be alone.  He wanted privacy.  They all left him then.

He had stared at the young woman who did this to him and she had stared back but there was no hostility between them.  Instead, there was....
recognition.

Chapel had gone into Seto’s room and turned her away from the window and then paused to look at Pavel before she closed the curtain.  
And, just as quickly, she averted her gaze, feeling the beginning of that burst of energy she’d felt before and she thought about how she
could hardly wait to shuck her uniform, throw on her sweats, put her feet up and let out her breath.  

Pavel turned away from the closed curtain and looked to the glass that separated his room from the quarantine’s anteroom.  The glass had
been darkened.  He was alone.

It was time.

He thought about how to do this.  He decided he would touch it first.  He sat down in the chair beside the bed and raised a shaking hand to his
face.  

When his fingertips touched his face he felt a flood of relief.  He could feel it, not just through his fingers, but through his face.  It wasn’t numb
anymore, it was actually a bit sore, more like a windburn, then sunburn, he thought.

His fingers explored and found strange bumps and little dips and...his fingers traced his lips and...they didn’t feel right at all, they felt like the
rest of his face and he wondered briefly what it would feel like to kiss someone with them, would he feel much, would he...Chapels’ face
flashed through his mind, her eyes...her mouth...her lips...his lips...on her mouth....on her breast....he dropped his hands and opened his
eyes.  

What the hell was going on?

He could feel his heart racing again and his hand trembled as he raised it to his face again, hoping to ignore these odd reactions he was
having to the nurse.

He hardly knew her...he certainly never thought, well, he thought she was pretty and kind, she was always nice to him, but he always thought
she was kind of....bland.  And, well, older.

He mentally slapped himself for being cruel....she had shown him nothing but concern...Christ, he had practically lived in the sickbay since
coming to the ship!

Why did this shit keep happening to him, all the time, everything always seemed...”I brought it here.”

‘Shut up!”  ‘ he screamed in his mind.

He stood up and paced a few feet.   He did feel good.  He felt very strong physically.  Mentally, emotionally?  Well, that would come, with time.

Right now...’Focus!’ he admonished himself.

He sat down again and began exploring his face again and then abruptly stopped, ‘To hell with it!’

He got up and strode into the bathroom and there he was in the mirror and it wasn’t him, it wasn’t him at all.

“Bozhe moi!” he said quietly as the tears flowed out of his new eyes and down the......the... ugly face of the stranger in the mirror.

~~~

The U.S.S. Enterprise was on her way to Re’Ahl 7, it would take over nine days to get there at Warp 5 and the crew were enjoying a nice
boring ride out to the asteroid.

Chapel leaned back in her chair and stared out at the stars from Rec Room 2 when Landon left.  The Yeoman had been quizzing her on
Chekov’s recovery, the nurse was tired and anyway, patient records were confidential so she just said that he was fine, progressing.  Chapel
had been a bit short with her and was surprised at the level of irritability Landon had managed to cause in her.

“Do you think he’ll be okay?”  Landon had asked.

“I’m not a fortune teller, Yeoman.”  Chapel had snapped back at her.  The Yeoman blinked back at the nurse, excused herself and left quickly.

‘Good’ Chapel thought.  She barely knew Martha Landon but for some reason the girl was just annoying the hell out of her today.  Her voice
seemed haughty, well, snotty was the word that came into Chapel’s mind.  And, she moved around like a goddamned ballerina and what the
hell was that!  Silly little cow.

‘Christine!’ she yelled to herself.  ‘What the hell is wrong with me, she was just asking.’

Landon should ask, she and Chekov used to be...’What the hell is this?’ she thought as a rage of jealousy rushed through her blood.  ‘What
is this!’

She took a breath and picked up her coffee cup again.

Nobody had seen Pavel Chekov, he refused to see anybody, he was just tired he said, but Chapel knew it was a lie.  She knew he was upset
about his appearance, although he kidded around with the medical staff and teased and joked.  

Well, he had a right to be upset.  She gripped the cup tighter as her heart ached so hard for him she felt dizzy for a moment.  ‘What is going
on here?’  This was more than a nurses empathy, this was more than a friends concern.

She never had been his friend, exactly.  Well, no, not exactly, they didn’t socialize.  But, they did tease back and forth whenever he came in to
sickbay but some patients were like that, it was how they relieved their stress at being sick or hurt and it was actually a good healing force in
itself.

‘Maybe I should tell Leonard about this.’  She became frightened suddenly as she wondered if ‘something’ had gotten through the envirosuit
and she realized that she didn’t want to go back in that room because something was going on here.

Seto was the only other patient in the sickbay and the thought of looking after her had become intolerable suddenly.  Chapel wanted to kill
her.  Damn it!

Why couldn’t she shut off her brain tonight?    She just wanted to relax.  She decided to go back to her quarters and then sighed as she
realized three people were approaching her from across the room.  Uhura, Sulu and Scotty.  Shit.

She stood quickly and walked toward them.  Uhura smiled at her.

“Christine, we were just coming to....”

“I’m sorry, Nyota, I have to go.  I’ll talk to you later.”  With that Christine swiftly maneuvered around her confounded crewmates.  

She could feel their eyes on her back all the way across the room and so when she escaped into the corridor and the doors slid shut behind
her she felt an enormous relief.  

Her dark quarters beckoned.  A book.  A glass of brandy.  Sleep.  Not necessarily in that order.  She grinned to herself as she made her way
down the corridor, that was usually Leonard’s modus operandi, hers was normally coffee.  But, tonight, the wired restlessness of a caffeine
buzz was not what she needed.  She already felt like she’d had thirty cups of her favorite medium roast.  No.  Now, she needed calm.  She
needed peace.  Peace and quiet.

CRASH!

“Shit!”  

Chapel turned.  The ‘ballerina’ had just dropped a tape case on the floor and the alphabetized, categorized tapes were scattered at her feet,
well within kicking range.  Landon sent several flying with a well placed boot.  “Fucking hell!”

Chapel started to laugh.  Landon’s head jerked up and her cobalt eyes seared into her.  A flare of anger lit the nurses blood and she
stomped over to the stupid little goose and when she got close enough she wound up and hauled off and slapped her across the face as hard
as she could.

Landon staggered back but didn’t fall.  She regained her balance and then slowly touched her face and looked up at Chapel but couldn’t
focus on her.  Her head was split by white light that bleached her vision.  Her ears were buzzing but she was still able to hear the hatred in the
nurses voice.

“You’ll never fuck him again.  Understand?”

The shadow that was the nurse disappeared into the haze that dominated Landon’s field of vision.  She suddenly felt like throwing up.  
Instead, she went to the wall comm and called security.

~~~~

Godammit!  Who was coming in?  He told them he wanted to be alone for now.  Didn’t they get it?  He told them.  Andre had been put into
quarantine 3 for now - he couldn’t hang about out in the ship in an envirosuit forever.  Soon, they would run out of quarantine units.

So, who was this?  He wasn’t due any meds.  

He grumpily pulled the blanket higher over his shoulders and turned away, rolling over to his other side.  Then he felt her hand on his
shoulder.  It was warm, it slid under his black tee-shirt, flesh on flesh...he sat up with a start and found himself staring into Chapel’s sleepy
blue eyes.

“What the...”  he stared at her.  No envirosuit.  “What the fuck are you doing!  You can’t be in here like...”  

Her mouth crushed his, shutting him up.  Christine swayed as the room disappeared, the ship disappeared, the world collapsed on itself until
there was just him and the heat where their mouths met.  She opened her mouth to his and their tongues meshed and she tasted the
sweetness inside his mouth and hungrily sought out more as she leaned into him.  

His arms slid around her and he pulled her down even as he felt himself plummeting down some internal height and he rolled over her and
melted against her warm, warm body and she made a little noise and it drove him wild and the flickers of protest his mind fired died like little
sparks falling onto a lava field.

~~~~~~~~~

“Stop laughing!”  McCoy exploded.  But, Chapel and Chekov just kept laughing, giggling like naughty school kids caught fooling around in the
bushes.  McCoy turned back toward them, he wanted to whirl on them but he was slow and awkward in his envirosuit and his annoyance
hitched up a notch.

Well, at least they had decided to cover themselves up a bit, Pavel had given Chapel his robe, her uniform was in shreds, her hair was all
over, her lips were swollen and she was still flushed and McCoy conjured up, easily, rage at his nurse to sweep away the embarrassing
thoughts he was having about her.

The doctor thought about speaking, he thought about screaming, he wanted to think about anything other than what he had seen when he
walked into the unit, alarmed when his patient didn’t answer his comm.  

He could have checked the monitor, but he didn’t, he just jumped into his suit and rushed, as much as one could in one of these ridiculous
puffy suits, into the unit and....Christ!  He thought he might have a stroke....

Somebody was in the bed with his patient and they were, as his grandfather would say, going at it like a couple of rabbits and that was bad
enough, some stupid girl in here with him, in the bloody quarantine unit.  There were a couple of wide-eyed young things on the ship that he
knew followed the Ensign around with puppy dog eyes.  

But then the couple in the bed finished,  and he stood there like an idiot and then he decided to turn the lights up and he marched over to the
bed and opened his mouth to scream at the airhead and the blonde underneath his patient turned her head and it was his freakin’,  
goddamned Head Nurse!

The very one Security was looking for...well, at least he had found her and not those red shirts.  And then there was a commotion out in the
quarantine anteroom and it was Andre, suited up and comming him and telling him Security was here and he wanted to see his son and the
two on the bed started laughing and McCoy wanted to slap both of them but instead he asked them to stop laughing but they couldn’t seem to
do that and Andre was comming him again.

“Dr. McCoy?”  The Russian’s voice came through the little speaker in McCoy’s suit, “Is Pavel alright?”  McCoy rolled his eyes...oh, brother!

“Yes, he’s fine, Doctor.  He’s....he’s”  Oh, to hell with it.  He would have to find out anyway.  McCoy turned the opak off on the window to the
anteroom and saw Andre Karpov’s jaw drop.

Pavel, his messy hair hanging in his eyes,  grinned through the glass at him,  as he pulled his tee-shirt back down over his head, “Hi, Pops.”  
and then he burst out laughing, harder than ever and Chapel doubled over with another fit of the giggles and Pavel managed to choke out, “I
saw that, in American movie...’hi, Pops’....”

“KNOCK IT OFF!”  

Everything came to a screeching halt, the laughter, movement, maybe the stars themselves, at the Captain’s command.  Pavel swallowed.

He looked out at his Captain and the Captain looked back at him and Chekov saw the slightest tremor in Kirk’s jaw as he saw his navigator’s
face for the first time.

Their eyes locked, Pavel Chekov’s new blue/green eyes full of apology, the Captain’s hazel demanding answers, explanations.  Kirk put his
hands on his hips.

“Nurse Chapel.  Security is looking for you.”

“Oh.”  Chapel swallowed then, too.  She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to keep the swell of hatred for Landon at bay.  She wasn’t sorry
for hitting the girl and her attraction to Chekov was so overpowering she didn’t even question her own odd behavior.  

“Why did you hit Yeoman Landon?”

Pavel turned to her in surprise.  “You hit, Martha?”  he said quietly, and then, was surprised at the little thrill that went through him when his
brain connected all the pieces with lightening speed....she’s jealous of her.....and somewhere in the recesses of his mind something said....
this is wrong.....but it flickered weakly against the onslaught of lust he felt for the nurse again.

“Isn’t anybody going to ask how she is?”  The Captain asked darkly.

Pavel and Christine merely looked back at him, apparently disinterested in the answer to that question.

“Pavel Andreivich!”  Andre was appalled at his son’s behavior.  He unleashed a torrent of Russian at his son and McCoy didn’t have the
translator on in his suit and wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what the Russian Bear boomed in the direction of his son.

His son seemed oblivious to the palpable wall of fury coming at him from his father.  He sighed as though bored.  The Captain of the
Enterprise stepped forward.

“Well, Nurse Chapel?  Why did you hit Landon?”

Chapel, sitting beside Pavel on the bed, leaned against him, her hand rested on the black trousers, on his thigh.  “She was going to steal the
last of my Halloween candy.”  

Her hand squeezed, Pavel closed his eyes and whispered, “Christine, don’t....”

McCoy reached forward and yanked Chapel off the bed, a little roughly perhaps, but not as roughly as he would have liked.  He kicked the
chair at the bedside across to the other side of the room and shoved her into it.  

“Well!”  he loomed over his Nurse.  She took a breath and her eyes fluttered as she attempted to collect herself.  “Do you want to tell me now
why you breached quarantine?  Why you violated your professional ethics?  Why you risked yourself by...”

“He’s...like a narcotic, Leonard...oh, there’s something I have to tell you....”  She squeezed her eyes shut, what was it?  “Leonard!”  Her eyes
snapped open, “You didn’t see his face, did you?”

McCoy grimaced, “No, I was spared that, thank you!”

“You don’t understand...it changed...it....the patient monitors!”  She jumped up and activated the station inside the quarantine unit, searching
back through the last several minutes of surveillance.

“Oh, somebody shoot me now.’  McCoy complained.

Chapel stopped the recorder and started playback, the audio flooded the unit with their moans, she quickly turned the volume off, feeling a
blush rise in her cheeks,  and then studied the screen again.  Her eyes widened and then she grinned,  “Oh, my.....”  She took a breath and
then,  “Look!  There it is!”  She froze the image.

“Aw, Christine...”  McCoy literally whined and she grabbed him by the shoulder and drew him to the monitor and he looked down and, “Oh, my
God!”  He leaned toward the screen, studying the image there intently, “Oh, my God!”

“What is it!”  Andre demanded at exactly the same moment the Enterprise Captain did.

“It’s...his face....his face changed back to....to normal when he was....when they were....”

“Fucking.”  Pavel said bluntly.

“Pavel Andreivich!”  Andre admonished angrily.

“Screwing?  Bonking? Boffing?  Making the....”

“Enough!”  Andre commanded.

“What you like me to say?  We were like rutting....I’m sorry, Christine, I just never felt anything like....oh.....oh, my God....”

“What?”  Kirk demanded.

“It was like that with Maria.  Like....not just sex, it was.....I couldn’t....I....I....I can’t explain....”  He looked at Christine and grinned at her, she
stared back at him and nodded.

“It was...like....I don’t know what......”  she shrugged.

McCoy rolled his eyes again, “Whatever!  What are we going to do with you?  Where are we going to put you now?”

“Here!”  Chapel and Chekov both blurted out at once.  

McCoy attempted to cross his arms...goddamned suits!  “I don’t think so, Nurse!”

“Why not?  You only have one quarantine unit empty and you might need it.  I’m already...infected....”

“What makes you think you’re ‘infected’?”  McCoy asked with a rush of concern for her.

“I can feel it, Leonard, like adrenaline or caffeine.”

Pavel nodded, “Yes!  That’s what it feels like!”  He looked at Chapel with regret then and whispered quietly, “I’m sorry.”  

But, she shook her head at him, “It wasn’t your fault, it’ll be alright, don’t worry.”  And she sounded like Nurse Chapel again but her banging
heart told her that was just a tenuous hold at best.

“What about his face?”  Andre asked quietly.  

“We should do it again, see if it changes again.”  Chapel said quietly, and felt the heat rising in her, she looked across to Pavel and felt drawn
to him like a lost soul in the Arctic would be drawn to a roaring campfire.  

He looked to her and swallowed, felt pulled to her again....why don’t all these damned people go away!  He rubbed a hand through his hair
and studied the floor, trying to ignore the desire that threatened to overwhelm him again and then he noticed....

“Bozhe moi!”  He splayed his hands out in front of him, the black was gone, the black outline was gone.  He looked up at the others, he couldn’
t see the colours around them anymore.  He felt a pang of loss.

“What’s wrong?”  McCoy asked, begrudgingly, he was so angry with the Ensign he had trouble conjuring up any concern for him at the
moment, certain that the horny little brat had taken advantage of his favorite nurse.  Somewhere inside him, the doctor registered concern at
that uncharacteristically harsh judgment. ‘Where is this coming from? That’s not what happened here....”

“I can’t see the colours anymore.”  

McCoy flapped his arms once, “I don’t know what the hell is going on here!  People throwing acid with strange molecules in it on people,
nurses hitting yeomen, nurses and patients...faces changing....but it’s two o’clock in the goddamned morning in the civilized world and I’m
going to bed!  And, you two!”  He pointed a finger at Chapel first and then at Chekov,  “I don’t care if you want to go at it all night but you’re
not keeping me up any longer!”  

With that the doctor stomped, as best he could in this #$%$#@!! suit, out of the unit, shucked the envirosuit in it’s disposal in seconds, and
then blew past Andre, past the Captain, past the security goons milling in the sickbay proper and he didn’t stop until he was in his favorite
wingback armchair with his glass of brandy and his feet propped up and he let out his breath, “What a night!”

~~~~~~
The Captain informed Security that their investigation could wait till morning.  And, then he bid Andre good night and went to check on Landon.

She was in sickbay, not  fifty feet from Chapel and Chekov, but he didn’t tell her that Chapel was in with Chekov.   The Yeoman was furious
enough because Dr. M’Benga had confined her to Quarantine Unit 4.  She thought it ridiculous and she swore she was going to get that
bloody nurse!  

She snapped at the Captain that she was tired and she flicked off the lights inside the unit and flicked on the opak on the window and Kirk
stood in the dark and wondered if the whole crew were going slowly mad.  What the hell was the matter with these stupid women!  Why were
they always after Chekov?  He didn’t get it.  All he knew was that it pissed him off.

~~~~~

Andre stared at his son.  Pavel looked at his father and said, “Goodnight, Pops.” and turned on the opak and the window blackened and
Andre stared at the blank wall and wondered what the hell had gotten into that kid!  And, then he remembered the sounds of the kid’s moans
and the nurses panting that had filled the unit when the playback was activated and he thought, well, he’s not a kid anymore.  Just a spoiled
brat!

~~~~~~~

Pavel turned back to Christine and it hit him again....even harder than the first time and they threw themselves at each other.


~~~~~

McCoy slumped over his desk, leaning on his elbows, staring at the monitor. Mercifully he couldn’t hear the sounds of this performance....or
the next one....or the next one...

‘They’re trying to kill me.’ he thought, ‘That’s what this is...they’re trying to kill me.’  he winced at the torrid images on the screen.  It was hard
to ignore, difficult to focus on what he was supposed to be looking at....Pavel’s face....it changed again and this time, the first time, it stayed
normal for almost half an hour, while they slept....and then it shifted, slowly, it took about five minutes, while he slept.

And, then, the second time they did it,  his face stayed normal for over an hour and then slowly shifted back and this time, it took a little
longer, about six minutes.

And then he woke up again, and....‘Horny little shit’,  McCoy thought and thought that  ‘Youth is wasted on the young!’  And he tried to ignore
Chapel’s attacks on Chekov...he didn’t want to think about her like that, like a....slut....

McCoy sat up with a start.  He hated that word.  And, if it applied to anybody it applied to that little Russian bastard that couldn’t keep it in his
pants!  Not his Christine, damn it!

“Oh, oh.”  McCoy said aloud.

“Oh, oh, what?”  Dr. Calf Robe stood in the doorway to his office.  She glanced at the monitor he was trying to cover up.  “Oh...kind of early
for that kind of viewing, isn’t it?”  She chuckled, “I saw it earlier, watched it over breakfast, they were certainly.....busy....wouldn’t have
expected Chris to be so.... uh, never mind.”  

She chewed her lip absently for a second, “I just checked on him, he’s sound asleep.”  McCoy muttered something under his breath, “What
was that?”  Mary asked, sitting in the chair on the other side of his desk.  When the doctor didn’t answer her she put it down to morning
grumpies and continued, “He said it doesn’t hurt when his face changes, but he can feel it, like tingling, he said it’s like having champagne
bubbles popping on his face.”  

The Enterprise CMO apparently didn’t feel the need to comment to that either.  No matter. She forged ahead, “I was going to ask him if he’s
normally this....vigorous....but he fell asleep before I could.”

The doctor didn’t look up at her, he scowled at some imaginary annoyance on his desktop.  She frowned at him, “You’re his physician,
Leonard, is this normal for him?  Six times in one night?  Or was it seven?”

“Six!  It was six!  It was disgusting!  I hope it kills him!”

Dr. Calf Robe’s jaw dropped as she stared at the enraged physician ranting in front of her.  When he finally finished his tirade, her only
answer was, “Oh, oh.”

~~~~~~

She watched him while he slept, waiting for signs of wakefulness.  God!  I can’t get enough of him!  

He said something in his sleep and moved closer to her, his face buried itself into her neck and his arm slid across her abdomen and his thigh
was against hers and she prayed to God to give her strength not to jump his damned bones again....I’m going to kill him!  

She rested her cheek on the top of his head, smelling his hair and then she shook him gently, “Pavel....Pavel.....”  

He groaned and managed to slur out a “Da?”  

She didn’t want to have sex with him again.  Lie.  She didn’t want that right now.  Lie.  Okay, but she wanted to talk to him before they...if
they.....when they....

She got out of the bed, sliding away from him and he moved toward the empty space she left and his hand searched and his head sought out
that warm neck  for a moment and then he stilled.

She thought getting dressed might be a start.  She took off his robe, reluctantly, it smelled like him...it smelled like them.  She paused and
took a breath, trying to collect herself.  

Scientist.  She was a scientist.  Not some Bohemian....her mind wandered away suddenly to a poor flat above a Parisian bakery and she saw
them there, her in this robe, him all in black, and they would just make love all night and sleep all day and....she felt an icicle stab her heart.  

Stop.  This is not making love.  This is primal, animal, physical need.  But....underneath there was something else....more than physical need,
although God knew that was...she wanted to stop thinking about God.  She thought of herself sitting in church when she was eight, with her
little white gloves and her lilac suit.  How grown up she had felt in that outfit.

Well, that put a pail of water on her!  She finished putting on the top and slacks that Mary had thoughtfully brought by for her and then she
decided to try and act like a nurse for awhile....even if she no longer owned white gloves or a lilac suit.

She pulled the chair up beside the bed and looked at him for a moment before she shook him.  She had to remind herself, this was Pavel
Chekov, Ensign Chekov, the kid she’d given shots to, the guy who was always breaking something or falling off something or getting beat up
or zapped by shorting equipment or.... Christ!....he’d been in sickbay more in his first two years on board then most crew were their entire
careers.

‘Shit magnets’,  Mary called patients like him.  Accident prone.  Maybe a starship wasn’t the most prudent place for such a person to seek
employment.

She studied his face and wondered at the process that allowed it to shift during sex.....why?  Something to do with states of consciousness?  
Maybe it would change if he sneezed, too.  Or, had a seizure.  

She looked at his face again....not his face....it didn’t look like him, he only looked like him when he was.....well, she needed to think of
something else.  She knew he was unhappy about his appearance, she wondered how she would have reacted to losing her face.  Losing
face.  Hmmm.......there were forces at work here not understood at the moment.  There were events taking place for some reason or other
that she couldn’t fathom....yet.  

But, she was a Scientist.  And, a Scientists whole reason for being was to learn to fathom the unfathomable.  She reached over and shook him
until he opened his eyes, the blue/green ones, and she could see his momentary confusion.  He didn’t quite know where he was for a
second....or who he was with, and then she saw awareness and memory come into his new eyes and he smiled at her and reached out his
hand and caressed her cheek.

She took his hand and put it back down on the bed and he felt himself go a little cold inside.  He sat up and ran a hand through his hair, trying
to smooth it into some semblance of order and she realized she had made him feel defensive and she took his hand.

“Do you want some breakfast?”  she asked quietly.

He looked at her, his tired eyes a bit wide and then said, “You mean....food?”

She started to laugh and he grinned,  “Food would be good, and tea....I’d kill for tea,  I feel a bit dehy....drated....”  his grin turned decidedly
sheepish.

She started to get up but his hand on her shoulder stopped her and she turned to the robe she had hung up and pulled it down and turned to
give it to him and saw the shared surprise at how she knew what he wanted.  He took it from her and wrapped it around himself.

“We need another chair in here.”  he said absently and then sat on the bed.  He looked down at his hands for a moment and an image of
them on her body flashed in his mind and he winced.  

She leaned forward and put a hand on his.  “What is it?”

He looked up at her then, “I’m... sorry.... if I was........rough.....or.....”  he looked away, obviously embarrassed and then looked back quickly,
concern and regret mingling.

She reached forward and moved aside the robes collar, uncovering the bruised bite mark she had left on his shoulder.  “Ditto.”  she said as
she let her fingers linger over the blue mottled skin.

He shook his head, not understanding and she said, “It means...same thing....I could say the same thing....I’m sorry.....”  her fingers moved
slowly over the spot and she found herself staring at it, for how long she wasn’t sure, until he said, pleading, “Christine.....”

She glanced at him, he was biting his lip, she snatched her hand away and marched quickly across to the replicator.  She concentrated
fiercely on coaxing a couple of cups of decent tea out of it.

He said softly, “So strong, it is.”

She didn’t turn around, “Yes....”

“Perhaps.....”

“I can’t leave!  I can’t!”  She spun on him, her eyes wide and terrified as if he had just suggested that she step out of an airlock unprotected,
where her lungs would burst, where she would die, imploding.

‘Bozhe moi!  Like Maria....she’s like.....” the replicator bleeped out the completion of it’s assigned task and Pavel jumped up suddenly, backing
toward the window of the unit.

Chapel stepped toward him, forgetting the tea, “You won’t make me leave, will you?”

“I....I don’t want......I........”  He was being ripped into a million pieces.  He couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving - ‘I’ll die without her, I’ll die, I’ll
die!’ -  and he was terrified that she was as obsessed as he and that she was as obsessed as Maria and now he was the same way and she
had just made hot tea in the replicator and....he took another step backward as she stepped forward.

She jerked to a stop, “Oh, no!  Oh, my God!  Oh, Pavel....no!”  Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes teared, suddenly realizing the terror
in him.  “Oh, no...I would never....I could never, ever, hurt you, not ever, never, if you want me to go, I’ll go, I can’t bear it if I’m hurting you by
being here - I’d rather die myself, I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying anymore and I.....”

She turned and went back to the replicator, punched in a command and the teas disappeared.  She turned back to him and with dread asked,
“Do you want me to go?”

His head was spinning, he closed his eyes and his balance failed him and he started to fall.  But, before he hit the floor, he was in her arms.  
And then they were in each other’s arms......again.....and briefly she wondered what was happening in the that place that was called ‘the rest
of the universe’....

~~~~~~~

Maria Seto sat weeping in the corner of Quarantine Unit 2.  She couldn’t ignore what was happening to him....she felt it.....she felt them.....

~~~~~~~~

Andre Karpov watched a hockey game between the Moscow Dynamo and the Toronto Maple Leafs in Quarantine Unit 3.  He ignored the
terminal in the corner with the waiting message from his wife.

~~~~~~~~


Dr. Leonard McCoy looked at numbers.  He looked at graphs.  He looked at charts.  He did not look at the monitor on the corner of his desk.  
He ignored it.

~~~~~~~~

Yeoman Martha Landon raged at Dr. M’Benga to let her the hell out of this goddamned prison and where the hell was that bitch nurse
anyway, why wasn’t she in here fluffing pillows and serving tea, damn it!  Dr. M’Benga ignored her.  He knew where the bitch nurse was, he
was watching her right now on the little monitor and he couldn’t believe his eyes.

~~~~~~~

He turned his face to kiss her, just to kiss her,  just because,  and he couldn’t believe his eyes.  “You....your....”  

She looked at him, frowning as her breath slowed down....’What?”

“Your hair....is brown.....”  

She pushed at him and he got off her and she jumped off the bed and ran into the bathroom and he heard, “Oh, my God.”  come from the
little room and then she walked back in with a puzzled look on her face and she didn’t notice him looking at her.  And then she did.  

And then she realized she didn’t have any clothes on and for a second she was going to be embarrassed and then she started to smile and
she shook her head and he said, “What is it?”

“I was....I was about to be embarrassed because I’m standing in front of you naked.”

He smiled then too and his brown eyes glittered at her as he said, “You’re very beautiful.”  She felt a blush rise and she looked away from him
and then she cleared her throat and looked at the damned patient monitoring system.

He followed her gaze and got up and went to the control panel for the little surveillance system and he popped the cover and then he looked
into the camera, said, “Fuck off.”  and pulled some critical pieces out of it.

He walked up to her with a big grin on his face and held out his closed fist, she held out an open hand and he dropped the pieces from the
camera into them, “Now you can be naked all day.”  The comm system chirped and Andre’s voice filled the little room with a demand to be let
in.  “Perhaps not.”  he said regretfully.

“A little chilly anyway.”  she responded as she dressed.  

She could feel his eyes on her and was about to get annoyed when he said,  “Your hair is beautiful.... your natural colour?”  She nodded at
him and found herself watching him dress, watched his black pants slide over...stop it!  

She turned away from him and went to the replicator and told it to give her two hearty breakfasts that she knew McCoy would pitch a fit over.  
But,  “I don’t think it would do to have the Enterprise’s Chief Nurse allow a patient to starve to death...or herself either.”  

She brought the trays over to the little card table that they had set up in the room and sat down to breakfast as the comm buzzed with an
especially impatient sound.  Pavel rolled his eyes....’HIS eyes’, Christine thought, wondering how long his face would stay this time....

She watched Pavel answer his father’s comm and then return to his breakfast.  He raised his coffee to her, “Nozdrovia.”

“Cheers.”  she said and touched her cup to his own.

“Bozhe Moi!” Andre Karpov’s voice boomed out.  “Pavel Andreivich!”  The man stared at the face of his son.  He began babbling in Russian,
questions tumbling over themselves, how long did it stay, did it hurt when it changed, what was the matter with him, what the hell were they
doing in here...having a goddamned tea party?

Pavel didn’t answer his father but looked at him harshly, “You are in the presence of someone who doesn’t speak our language, Papa.  Don’t
be so rude.”  he admonished.

Andre suddenly lunged for his son and Chris Chapel watched in shock as the big man dragged Pavel out of his chair and slammed him into
the glass wall.

“Don’t you dare to speak to me in such impudent tones, you little...”  Andre was cut off by a scream from his son that startled him so badly he
not only stopped  shouting, he relaxed his grip on the front of Pavel’s tee-shirt and Pavel took the opportunity to push with all the violence of
his sudden rage against Andre.

He knocked Andre back a few paces and then was screaming at him in Standard, “DON’T TOUCH ME!  EVER!  EVER! DO YOU
UNDERSTAND, YOU FUCKING, FUCKING GODDAMNED FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

And then there were tears of rage and betrayal streaming down his face and he couldn’t stop his body as it set at the task of tearing this
fucking room apart, this goddamned place where this man he had trusted not to hurt him had just turned into another bloody giant with too
much strength and he couldn’t stand it and it blinded him to Chris Chapel pleading for him to stop and Andre was trying to get his arms
around him but NO!

Christine screamed at Andre to let him go, seeing the white hot rage explode when Andre tried to bring him under control.  Pavel smashed
everything in his path and Chapel worked her way round to the med cabinet in the corner and backed up to it and her hand worked quickly
tapping the code numbers into it and she reached in for the hypo and dialed it with practiced dexterity and quietly moved along the wall
watching to see if his rage would calm, surely it would spend itself but instead, to her horror he had gotten hold of a jagged piece of metal off
one of the chairs he had splintered against the wall and he savagely began slashing at his face with it.

She rushed in at that moment and Andre saw her and he reached for Pavel’s hands and grabbed his wrists and Pavel screamed such a
horrible murderous sound it went right through Chapel’s bone marrow and she brought the hypo up and shoved it home and he went down
immediately, his wildly pumping heart shot the sedative through his system with deadly swiftness.

“Get Dr. McCoy.”  she hissed to Andre, who wondered why nobody was already in here and then, on his rush to the comm, he glimpsed the
open panel on the surveillance system.

Christine Chapel leaned over Pavel as he rolled onto his side and curled up, his breath coming in great sobbing gulps - he should have been
almost unconscious and she began to worry that she had made a mistake, she didn’t know, nobody knew exactly what had happened to him
and she feared the drug she had chosen was going to react badly with whatever Seto had done to him.

But, then, his breathing slowed and his eyes closed slowly and then she noticed how badly his face was bleeding and she pressed her hand
against the wound and then all the adrenaline let go of her own body and she slumped against him and started to cry.

Andre walked back over and said, “They’re coming.”  and she looked up at him and he involuntarily backed up a step, there was such hatred
in her eyes.

“Get out.”

He opened his mouth to reply and she said, with deadly quiet, “Get out now.”

And he started to obey but before he did, he looked down at Pavel....Pasha...”Schto...”  and remembering his son’s exhortation he switched to
Standard, in case he could hear him, “What have I done?  Pasha....I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please forgive me, please, please....sorry....I....”  he
started to weep and Chapel glared at him again and he finally turned away and found himself facing McCoy coming through the sealed
doorway.

The doctor looked at the wreck that was the room, “What the hell happened!  Christine are you okay?”

“I’m not the one lying on the floor bleeding out of my face, Leonard!”

“Oh, he’s always in here with something, he’ll be fine.”

She looked up at him in shock, the shock of recognition for she heard in his voice the same contempt for Pavel that she had in her when she
punched out Landon.

Nurse Bleeker’s voice sounded over the comm, “Dr. McCoy do you need any help in there?”  

Chapel shouted, “Fred, get Dr. M’Benga and Dr. Calf Robe down here, Dr. McCoy’s been infected and is quarantined!”  There was no answer
for a second, “Fred!”

“Yes, Nurse Chapel!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing there Missy!”  the indignant physician demanded.

“Both of you - get out!”

“Now, Christine, you hold on just one little old....”

“Get out.”

“Chris, you can’t handle this by yoursel....”

“NOW!”

“And what the hell happened to your hair?”

“OOOUUUT!”

They both moved to obey and as they finally made it out the door she turned her attention back to Pavel.  His face was still his....and still
bleeding, “Shit.”  

She hoped she could handle it herself, she was sure she could, she didn’t want anyone else in here because she was almost sure they would
be infected or whatever the hell was happening to her and Leonard and Andre....her blood boiled over as she thought of the big man tossing
his smaller stepson around like a toy.  Calm.  She had to calm herself.  

The nurse called up her professional persona and set about repairing the cuts to his face.

~~~~~

Still six days out from Re’Ahl 7 and apparently everyone in sickbay was going mad.

Kirk sat in his quarters staring at the wall while he reviewed the events of the last two days.  Chekov and Chapel.  Christ!  Spock hadn’t seen
those tapes. The Captain decided the Vulcan officer could be spared the less than elegant human contortions the navigator and the nurse....
oh, brother...’The Navigator and The Nurse’...it sounded like some fantasy game couples might devise to spice things up.  Kirk pushed that
problem aside and set his mind to the next.

Seto was on some kind of hunger strike, refusing food or water and she had had to be sedated and fed intravenously.

And then there was McCoy’s reaction to Pavel’s injuries...oh, wait, first there was his nurse clocking a yeoman....and then the nurse jumping
the navigator....and then the doctor being so pissed at the navigator that he appeared completely disinterested in his injuries...and Andre
attacking Pavel and Pavel....well, Kirk thought Pavel was justified in going berserk there.  

‘That son of a bitch!’ was Kirk’s reaction when he heard of the man’s attack on his stepson.  He was furious and then he remembered a
curious reaction he’d had a day or so earlier when he realized how ticked off he was when he thought of all these women fighting over Chekov.

And, the Captain had worried about himself, about the chances of his having been infected by some agent....and then, he had been
thoroughly embarrassed when he realized it was merely a less than attractive manifestation of his own hyper competitiveness.  

Kirk sighed and wondered what to tell the bridge crew.  Uhura and Sulu were asking what was going on.  Nobody allowed in sickbay,
everybody was being sent to the auxiliary sickbay.  

They were wondering about Chekov, how was he?  ‘If they only knew!’ Kirk thought.

They were asking about Chapel, where had she gone?   ‘Not to England to visit the Queen!’ Kirk thought and he wondered if he should let
them in on what was happening, maybe they could help him figure this mess out.

Well, they weren’t scientists.  But, they did know Chekov.  He didn’t know how well they knew Chapel. And he had Spock working on it, and
Spock had his Science Department working on it, they had seen all the tapes, so why shouldn’t Uhura and Sulu know?  

But, then, if he were in Chekov’s....shoes....he wouldn’t want his coworkers seeing...or would he?  ‘Knock it off!’  Ya, Kirk admitted, he
probably would, shameless slob that he was.  He had a reputation.  And, he felt decidedly over rated after viewing the antics of his navigator.

Their questions were persistent to the point of annoyance.  Quarantine, he finally said, they are all quarantined and sickbay is off limits to all
but essential personnel until further notice.

He told his Information Officer to circulate a message to that effect.  And then he addressed his command crew and said he expected them
not to waste their time speculating further.  End of story.  

~~~~~

“What’s the story?  I mean, what the hell is going on down there?”  Sulu ranted.

Uhura shrugged, she was tired of speculating and the Captain was right, it was a waste of time and energy.  But, she did puzzle over Landon’s
confinement....had she snuck into Pavel’s room?  How could she have been infected....if that was the word.

She sighed and sipped her tea, gazing out at the stars, it had been a long boring shift.  It reminded her of some of the long trips she took with
her family when she was a child....all day she had wanted nothing more than to say, “Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?”

She looked up at Sulu, remembering he was there and feeling guilty for wandering into her own reverie, but then she saw a foxy look light his
eyes.  “Strevens!”  he said watching as the security guard entered the mess.

He jumped up and left the table without a backward glance to Uhura until he was halfway across the room, at which time he turned toward her
and winked.

His confidence was only a little deflated by her immediate, “Get lost, Sulu.”  

She viciously sliced her bagel in half and looked across the table at his unwanted presence.  She pointed her bagel knife at him, “Goodbye.”

He opened his mouth to speak and felt something at his shoulder.  He looked up.  He looked WAY up....Jackson Wright glowered down at
him.  Jackson Wright, Suzanne Strevens’s current flame.  Sulu swallowed and smiled his best smile and stood and patted Wright’s shoulder.  
“Hey, Jackson, how’s the air up there?”

Wright made a noise that might have been a growl, Sulu wasn’t sure because he was already half way back to Uhura’s table by then.

“Is it worth getting killed over?”  she grinned at him.

“Oh, shut-up.”  he muttered miserably and then, when he caught the force of her glare, “Sorry.”

“Really, Sulu, you are going to drive yourself crazy.  We’ll just have to wait it out.”

“We’ll see.”  
~~~~~

“I’m only letting you see this because the Science Department has informed me it has not been able to come to any conclusions.”  Kirk stated
flatly.

Uhura, Sulu and Scotty sat quietly around the conference table, waiting expectantly.  

They had been briefed on Andre’s behavior, and had not believed it.  They had been briefed on Chapel’s assault on Landon and the belief
that something terribly wrong was happening was reinforced again.  They read of McCoy’s reaction to Pavel’s injuries after his out of control
rage in the quarantine unit and it was certainly not the doctor they knew.

Kirk cleared his throat.  “There is one aspect of this...problem....we didn’t cover in the printed material.”  He stopped, ‘For Chrissakes!  This is
ridiculous!  What do I have to be embarrassed about!  Wait till they get a load of that tape!’

He cleared his throat,  “Nurse Chapel’s attack on Yeoman Landon was the first indication there was trouble.  After the assault she went to the
sickbay and...uh....she uh....oh, to hell with it!”  

He reached over and turned the monitor on and saw three sets of eyebrows rise as the image of the nurse walking into the unit with no
protective gear appeared on the terminal.

“There’s no audio.”  Scotty said suddenly and made a move to remedy the situation when he froze.  “Oh, Sweet Jesus!”

They were the last words uttered in the briefing room that morning.  

~~~~~~

Pavel Chekov was weeping and he was inconsolable.  Christine Chapel tried to soothe him but he sobbed and sobbed and she wanted to kill
Andre Karpov.

“Do you want me to leave you alone?”  she finally asked quietly, sitting beside the bed rubbing his back as he lay curled up under the
blankets.  She saw his head shake, ‘No’ and she asked, “Do you want me to stop talking?”  And she saw his head nod, ‘Yes’ and she said,
“Do you want me to hold you?”  And he turned toward her and it was still his own face the tears washed down and she climbed into bed with
him and she put her arms around him and he wept until he fell asleep.



~~~~~~~~~~

Andre Karpov couldn’t seem to stop crying.  How could he?  How could he have done that?  What would he tell Catherine?  How could Pavel
forgive him...oh, god...Pasha....no, no, it couldn’t end like this.....it couldn’t...  Another wracking sob shook his body.

All this blubbering  was really starting to annoy McCoy and so he turned away from the man and concentrated on picking at the lunch tray
Bleeker had brought in for him.

He wished his head would clear, he knew his thoughts were....messed up.  He wanted nothing more than to be with Christine and the only
thing in the way was that little shit Russi....there it was again...he knew that was wrong...he knew he didn’t really feel that way, not really, he
was worried about Pavel, about the new wound to his face, about whether Chris could cope with it, the little shit bastard was probably on her
again...damn it!  

He looked across to Andre and thought, ‘You’re so big, you should have killed him when you had the chance.  Useless.’

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uhura thought it strange that Sulu’s first question to Kirk after viewing the tapes was, “Does Security know?”  Kirk said that no, they didn’t, and
Uhura wondered about it until they walked into the mess and Sulu waltzed over to Strevens and mocked in a sing-song voice, “I know
something you don’t know.”

She shook her head, ‘Men!’  and images of the tape she had just seen flashed in her mind and oh, my God!  She didn’t know if she would be
able to look either one of them in the eye again.  And...she had harbored some little thoughts about Mr. Russian Brown Eyed Navigator’....oh,
my god!  Maybe I’ve ‘got it’ - The Russian Flu!

She laughed out loud with relief when she admitted to herself it wasn’t the first time she’d thought of him like that...it was just those idle
thoughts you have about everybody you know, well, almost everybody....and boy, did she know a lot more about him now!  

Sulu looked at her, she grinned at him and he grinned back, “Can you believe it?”  he asked.  

“Not quite.”  she admitted.  “Christine...oh, she’s going to be upset when she realizes we’ve seen....she’s pretty reserved.”

Sulu burst out laughing, “Reserved!”  he shouted.

Uhura shushed him and he looked around as he lowered his voice, “The only thing reserved about her might be a hotel room!”

“Sulu!”  and then she defended her friend, “So she has sexual urges.  She’s supposed to.”

“And Pav...more info than I wanted, thanks!”  Sulu whispered.  He waited for agreement from Uhura but she was obviously somewhere far
away and wherever she was, something was amusing the hell out of her.  “Hey!”

She blinked, “Yes.”  she said.

“Yes, what?”

“What?”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’m starving.”  She got up and headed to the replicator, thinking, ‘And food is a bloody poor substitute!’

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapel was relieved when Chekov fell asleep and alarmed when he awoke an hour later and began to weep again.

And, still his face was his, how many hours now?  What had happened here?

He turned away from her and she was so weary she had to work very hard to muster up the energy to try to console him again.  But, then he
started to talk, his back still to her and she snuggled against his back and it occurred to her that in spite of the close contact, she wasn’t
sexually aroused, for the first time in forty-eight or so hours.

And her mind would have wandered to it’s deliberations about this new state of affairs if he hadn’t said, “How could I?”

“What?”

He coughed and she sat up to take a look at him and he turned to look at her and the pain in his eyes was excruciating.  He whispered “How
could I have done that?  Oh, God....”  he lay back down and buried his face in the pillow.

She leaned over him, stroking his hair, “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t answer her, she shook him, “Pavel, please talk to me.”

But, he just gritted his teeth and cried harder, mashing his face into the pillow so hard Chapel winced at what it might do to the repairs she
had made.  “Pavel, please.”  She tried a new tack, “You owe me.”

He reached behind him and pushed her away and she felt a cold stab at her heart as she got out of the bed, cursing herself for trying
something so base and stupid as guilt.  She stood watching him for a moment and he looked so cold and alone there in his anguish she
couldn’t stand to look at him anymore.

She turned away and looked miserably around the sparse room.  One hard chair was all that beckoned.

~~~~~~~~

Because Sulu and Uhura had seen the tapes they were allowed into sickbay and allowed to interview the...participants.

Chekov and Chapel flatly refused to see anyone and when the med staff had tried to install another surveillance system, Chapel had thrown
them out.

So, Sulu and Uhura tried to talk to Seto.  She was no longer under sedation.  She had been quite docile the last ten hours or so.  And,
cooperative.  And, surprisingly, she talked to Sulu and Uhura.   She talked and talked and talked.

She didn’t need to throw the acid on him, she said.  She did it just because she wanted to wreck his face.  She didn’t know why.

She didn’t need to drug him the night they had sex.  She did it because she wanted to make somebody completely powerless to her.  She didn’
t know why.

She was told she would be attracted to people like her, people who insisted on carrying emotional baggage far longer than necessary.  They
would be the ones she could use.  She didn’t know why.

She was given the solution she put in the coffee by a guy on Re’Ahl 7 who said it would bind anyone to her by altering and aligning their dna
with hers.  She didn’t know how.

She could feel when he was having sex with the nurse.  She didn’t know why.

She didn’t want to kill him anymore.  She didn’t know why.  

She knew he was too ‘good’ to be affected for long and his face shift would be permanent soon because the ‘stuff’ the guy on Re’Ahl gave her
would allow him to shift.  She didn’t know how.

She knew his face shifted when he had sex.  She knew why.  It was because he was more ‘himself’ during sex then he was at any other time,
all masks were gone.

The others, McCoy, Landon, Chapel, Karpov hadn’t been infected, they’d been affected, their emotional needs had intertwined and meshed
and conflicted with his according to their relationships with him and each other and themselves.  

Everything was magnified, anything that was there before was amplified - Andre’s tiny resentments of Pavel, Christine and Pavel’s attraction to
each other, McCoy’s jealousy of Chapel - all of it turned up a notch.

That’s what that stuff did.  It was an amplifier.

It had amplified her own feelings of rage at her victimization.  It had amplified her wish to hold power over another.  Amplified.  She thought
that was a good way to put it.  She thought that was pretty smart of her.  She smiled a smug smile at them.

She didn’t feel bad about any of it.  She didn’t know why.

And then she started to cry.  And, she didn’t stop for a very long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Christine woke when she felt a hand shaking her shoulder.  He was leaning over her, “Come lie down on the bed, don’t sleep here.”  He
helped her up out of the mean little chair...she was so stiff....and started walking her toward the bed, but she stopped him.

“Are you all right?”  

He ignored her and pulled aside the blanket and she crawled into the bed, warm from him and he pulled the blanket up and she looked at his
face...still his face but now so exhausted, so haggard, and she reached out and laid the back of her hand against his cheek.

And, then she slid over in the bed and held open the covers and he crawled in beside her gratefully, because he really didn’t want to be alone
tonight.  And, they put their arms around each other and they were warm and in a strange sort of peaceful place.

“I am afraid of what I did.”  he said at last.  She didn’t answer, she sought out his hand and took it in hers and squeezed it.  “My father was....
you’ve read my medical file?”  She nodded.  “You have an advantage over me.”  She couldn’t argue that point.  “I think I have figured out why
this happened to me, but do not know why it happened to you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Nyota Uhura would not have thought it possible that she could feel sorry for Maria Seto after she had seen her hurt Pavel Chekov so badly in
the rec room that day.  She didn’t think she would ever forget the horror of seeing that coffee cup smoking on the table and realizing that that
was happening to Pavel’s face at that moment.  

But, there it was.  She did feel sorry for the girl.  She and Sulu had just finished briefing their Captain and together the three of them had put
together the pieces of the story and Maria Seto was perhaps the saddest person in the whole sorry tale.

Uhura had been amazed when she’d seen the photo’s of her parents, her father was dark haired, brown eyed, handsome....and.....


~~~~~~~


“Why do you think it happened to you?”  Chapel asked.

“Maria said something to me, the first night, she says, ‘We’re the same.’ and then she tells me about her father and how he abused her when
she was young...sexually abused her, and it was terrible and I felt badly for her but I remember thinking , ‘I am not like her.  I don’t live in past
anymore.’”  his voice dropped to a barely audible whisper, “But, I do.”

He stopped and she felt him trembling and she held him a little tighter, and she felt him convulse slightly as a sob erupted from him, “Christine,
I am so scared!”

She pulled away from him and moved up in the bed and took him into her arms and rocked him, “It’s okay, it’s okay....”  and she let him cry
again until he stopped just a few minutes later.

He sat up beside her and said, “Christ, I am so sick of this, all of it, all of the crying and the ra...rage....I am scared I.....I......”  She waited for
him to continue on his own, not moving, barely daring to breathe while he collected himself.

He looked at her and said, very clearly, “If I thought I would turn out like my father, I would kill myself today.”  He stopped and let that sink in
and she accepted it.  “My temper scares me and what happened with Andre....I just lost it!”

She resisted the urge to hug him again - she felt it was starting to perpetuate his self-image of himself as a victim - instead she looked him in
the eye and said, “You did nothing yesterday that anyone in your circumstance wouldn’t have done, Pavel.  Yes, I have read your medical
file.  I know what your biological father did to you.  I know how difficult it was for you to trust Andre Karpov.  And this, having accepted and
loved him all these years only to have him attack you, that would have been shattering in itself.  But, you have been terribly assaulted by a
woman you were intimate with, you’ve been in pain, afraid, cooped up in quarantine, attacked by your Nurse....” she paused, waiting to see if
maybe that would get a smile from him, nothing;  Too soon for levity, she forged on, “Pavel, your reaction was not out of bounds. It was not.”

He looked to her and she smiled at him, “It was not.”

“You are sure?”

“I am completely sure.”

~~~~~~~~

“I assure you, Captain.  I have no idea what you are talking about.  Steven Bishop could not have provided Ms. Seto with any ‘stuff’ as she
calls it.  I don’t believe she is being forthright with you, Captain.  Steven Bishop did not have the technical knowledge, nor the inclination, nor
the ambition to be some kind of drug pusher.”  The Commander of Re-Ahl 7 sniffed at Kirk’s tense image on the viewscreen.

“Commander, would you mind explaining why you are using the past tense to describe Mr. Bishop?”

“Because Mr. Bishop made himself past tense, yesterday.  He has committed suicide, Captain.”

Kirk sighed to himself.  Well...shit....now what?

~~~~~~~~~~

“What happens now?”  She asked him as he looked down at his hands.

“I don’t know...”  he got up and moved across the room and found himself...face to face....with himself.

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall....”  he said, and smiled weakly at his reflection.  

Chapel got up and moved to stand behind him, she rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Do you still hate it?”

Their eyes met in the mirror. “How did....”

Her eyes dropped away from his gaze and she went to the replicator, “Do you want some tea?”  He nodded, waiting for her to begin speaking
again as she puttered, obviously she needed to distract herself while she said what she needed.

“After the incident with your heart I was...curious...about your background.  I mean, I knew before because I’d read your chart before but when
you had to face all those demons again....well, I was just curious.  I knew a little about your father, his music wasn’t my taste, I certainly knew
who he was.”  She retrieved the tea from the beeping replicator and walked back to him with it.

She handed him the hot cup and sat down in the hard little chair.  He watched while she stared into the cup for a moment.  She muttered
under her breath and he asked, “What?  What is it?”

“This is so...weird, I guess, or....oh....”  she took a sip of tea, then looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear.  “I watched your father sing on
some concert tapes....”

“And?”

Her gaze flickered and then fell to the floor again as she whispered, “He was very....charismatic.....”.

Pavel studied her for awhile and then a feeling of dread started to come over him, “Oh, God....”  he muttered and felt the room sway around
him.

“Pavel, it’s not....I was...he was very sexy and attractive and you have, you look a great deal like him....”

“Oh, God...”  He put the tea cup down before he dropped it and wished he could run from the room.

“No!  You don’t understand!  It wasn’t him I was attracted to at all! I finally realized it was....I was attracted to him while I watched the tapes
because HE reminded me of YOU....not the other way around!”  The words rushed out her mouth now, “I always thought you were...handsome
and sweet and oh, God, I’m going to completely embarrass myself but I thought you were someone who would never hurt or humiliate or
ridicule, you seemed so gentle and vulnerable under all that joking and smart assed attitude!  And, then, then when you sang for Landon’s
birthday you were, I thought you were so....oh, God, I’m just making an ass of myself but I need you to understand that it wasn’t your father, it
was you, but, until a few days ago it was just a....you know it wasn’t serious!  It was just, oh, shit!  It was just the way you think about people
sometimes.  I like the way you laugh, I like the way you talk, your smile....it doesn’t mean anything....I...do...do you.....”
He was frowning at the floor chewing his lip and she finally pleaded, simply, “Pavel?”

A heartbreaking sound it was, he looked up quickly, to reassure her.  “I understand.  I do.  I understand.  I think.  Is very confusing, all of this....
I’m not understanding some...some of it....”  He sighed.

And, then he grinned slightly, “I forgot what was point of this conversation.”

“Your face.”

“Oh.”  He stared at nothing for a moment.  “Oh, yes.”  He caught his reflection in the mirror again and flinched.  

She crossed to him and put her arm around his shoulder.  “What is it?”

“It’s his....it was only in my memory when I was child and I watched every year as it became more....his....his face.....when I was...I had such a
good life, you know, I lived in palace, I thought all people lived like that, in marble palaces and had people, friends everyday there, nannies
and Aunts and Uncles and people that were just there and I didn’t know why but they gave me candy and kisses and hugs and I was happy
and then one day I remember....the first time I remember it distinctly....it came....the monster...that’s what I called him after awhile, the
monster....one day the monster was coming and I thought, why don’t we run away?  Everybody was scared....all these big people and they are
scared and saying, “Oh, be careful what you say, oh, get that ready he doesn’t like those flowers in the Great Hall and oh, no, the carpets
haven’t been cleaned and they are all afraid!  And I’m thinking ‘Let’s run away!’...but we don’t....we wait....we wait all day for the monster to
come home and he comes home....he comes home....”

He stopped, not looking at anything in the room but looking back, back, back...”The monster came home....he always came home....we were
always there waiting for him....Mamasha....why don’t we leave?  Let’s get the car and go!  You can drive!  You can even fly!  We can go!  We
don’t need to sit here and wait...we wait....and then...one day....we go....and I am in a room and there are different monsters there and they
were so big and here I am again waiting for monsters to come and I can’t go anywhere....”  

He closed his eyes and winced, “When...when I...we....”  He opened his eyes again, shiney with checked tears, “When I was 14, I was very
angry...and Andre tried to help me but I was too....hmm...I couldn’t trust him I.... I would a little, but.... then I just...I couldn’t for...very long...
anyway, I was in trouble, all the time, skipping school, drinking, fighting, I didn’t....I didn’t want to live anymore, it was too hard...it hurt too
much....it wasn’t worth it and then Andre and I had fight, argument and I hit him and it was first time I had...such rage....I couldn’t stop hitting
him and he just held me off, easily, and I ran out and I ran down to the creek in the park near our house....was autumn, cold, wet, the mud
around the banks of the creek was frozen and I ran right into the creek without thinking and then I fell on my knees and I....I saw Andre, my
real father, behind me in the reflection of the water and I was terrified, instantly!  Terrified as if I had just met a rabid wolf in the woods...the
kind of terror you feel when you are about to die and I jumped up and turned around and nobody was there and I turned back to the water
and...it was me....it was me I saw....and then I knew....for certain...that I was becoming him....becoming him.....and I couldn’t....live....with
that............so...I .....I laid down beside the creek...and I took my knife out of my pocket....and I cut my wrists...under the water, it was freezing,
it hurt but only for awhile and I laid with my arms in the creek and watched the blood flowing out of my wrists and it made a red line in the water
and I saw it going ...going....gone....leaving me... my life was flowing out and it was so interesting to watch it strung out in the water ...and
then.... I heard him, Andre....this Andre... and he was screaming, “Nyet!  Nyet!”  and he picked me up and I saw his face and....he was lifting
me out of the water and he was so strong, it was like I was nothing and for a second I was afraid because he was so strong but then I realized,
his strength was going to save me because he started running with me and it was the first time I trusted somebody that big and strong...really
trusted him, I was totally helpless but I felt safe..... and saved.....and just before I passed out I realized that I did want to live...because I....I
wanted to feel that again, that trust.....that love....”

Chapel didn’t say anything when he stopped and just as she wondered if he would continue, he did, “This....face...”  he turned to look at
himself in the mirror, “I saw it dead, in a coffin, people weeping all around for a dead monster....this face, I wanted it to go away, I wished for it
and then....Maria made it go away, didn’t she?”

He looked at Chapel and she realized he wanted an answer and so she nodded and when he continued to stare at her, she said, “Yes, she
did...why do you think that happened?”

“I brought it here.”

“It?”

“Maria ...her and her....acid..... I brought it here, called it with my....bitterness and my .... I brought it here, her here.... I wished to, Sulu would
say, ‘lose face’, I don’t know for sure what he means by that, exactly, but it seems right.  Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know, Pavel.  I believe we bring to us what we project.  But...I think that’s a long debate for another time....I’m worried about you, about
how you feel about what’s happened...it looks to me like your face is going to stay normal now, it hasn’t shifted in many hours and I’m
wondering how you feel about that.”

He looked at the mirror and suddenly a big lopsided grin split his face,  “Oh, my God!  It’s me!  It’s not him, is it?”

“Never was him, to any of us.”

“It’s me.”  He said again with wonder in his voice.  “It’s just me.”  He smiled into the mirror and his eyes caught hers and she smiled back, “Just
me....and you...”

He turned toward her and wondered at her part in this equation,   “You’ve read my medical file, you know all about me, but I know nothing
about you....except that...”  He hesitated, not wishing to draw something from her she might be unwilling to give, but then, after what they had
been through these last few days he thought his sudden attack of manners both late and misplaced,  and so he said, gently,   “You always
seemed a little sad to me.”  His eyes met hers again and she felt embarrassed when she felt them sting a bit with tears.  His heart ached to
see her so and he put a hand to her face.

“Pavel, I don’t know if I want to talk about....”  She moved to sit on the bed and he went and sat down beside her.  He didn’t push her, just let
her take her time.  

“I....uh....how do I say this?”  she fidgeted and he put his hand on hers to stop it.

“It’s a little late for us to be embarrassed with each other, yes?”  He bumped his shoulder into hers in a gesture of innocent camaraderie.

She smiled a little then....well, yes, it certainly was!

“Pavel, I’ve never....I’ve never...let myself....I’ve never been able to climax in front of a man before....”

If he was surprised he kept it to himself and she wondered if he was embarrassed for her or just embarrassed or not embarrassed at all.

“Why?”  he asked simply.

“I couldn’t...let myself....”  She stopped and stared at the floor, oh brother!  She felt his hand brush aside the hair that had fallen into her eyes.

“But, when we....”

“I know, I think....this sex was, for me I....I don’t want to put it this way, it was like I was using you to do what I needed to do, what I couldn’t do
before and it was, I don’t know, Pavel, I mean I couldn’t control the urge and I don’t know if it was just some induced frenzy that I won’t ever
repeat, or.....well, I think...it’s obvious to me that it has to do with trust....I was humiliated by my first serious boyfriend....”  she bit her lip and he
took her hand and squeezed it, “I won’t go into the details...it just made me.....not trust any man enough to.....”

She looked up at him then, “Trust.”

He nodded at her and grinned, “Trust.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?”  she said.

He nodded again and raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it and she laughed and opened her hand against the side of his face,  “Do you
know that right now, even though we’re touching, I don’t have the urge to....”

He paused, then looked surprised at his own lack of interest, “Oh.”

“I don’t know what that means either.”

“I know what it means for me.”  He grinned at her, “I’m tired!”

She laughed and he did too and then she saw something in his eyes and she had to ask,  “There’s something else isn’t there....besides the
violence. “  She hesitated, “Pavel, your father didn’t....”

“No...no, he didn’t.”  He stopped talking again and started fidgeting himself until her hand covered his and stopped it.  “My father was so
violent with me and with my mother and I know...she never told me but I know.....’  his face twitched with a remembered pain and he
swallowed,  “I know he raped her.....” he put his hand up to his mouth, it was shaking badly....”...it scares me....how rough I was with you....”

“Oh, Pavel, you’re not rough....it’s ....it’s not too rough, it’s very passionate but it’s not too rough, it’s....you have to trust yourself....you’re who
you are and you just have to trust that you’re not going to be anybody but you.”

They looked at each other for a long moment and both knew that the desperate hours were over finally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Andre Karpov didn’t believe he had ever been as desperate in his life and then the door to the quarantine unit was opening and it wasn’t a
doctor and it wasn’t a nurse.  It was Pavel Andreivich.

“Pasha!”  Andre jumped up and would have rushed to his son if he could have been sure of his reception.  “What are you?  Are you....uhm.....
cured?”

Pavel Chekov nodded.  “Mr. Spock tells me that there is no sign of the dna shift left.  Apparently the drug Maria used was of Orion origins.  He’
s traced it’s use and in their culture it’s used as an aphrodisiac....it has a different effect on humans...apparently....but....”

“But, you are fine, yes?  You are all right?  You are back to....”

“Normal?”

“Yes...”  Andre waited breathlessly for the answer, please, please, let everything just get back to normal now!!

Pavel looked at the floor and he took Andre’s hopes down to the ground with the expression on his face.  What was wrong, now?  Pavel
hesitated before he looked back up, “Well, I am not normal, apparently....I am....back to myself.”

A grin that Andre Karpov had missed desperately cracked open the dark skies and he swept that boy up into a bear hug that was not in the
least bit restrained and Pavel Chekov let the big man pick him up like a doll and joyously surrendered his heart and soul.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leonard McCoy felt a sudden rush of panic when he thought of the fact that he hadn’t seen Pavel Chekov’s facial lacerations for himself, and
Dr. M’Benga hadn’t briefed him today on the patients inhabiting the sickbay and how the hell could he hope to run an efficient infirmary if he
wasn’t kept up to date on his patients!  And then Dr. Calf Robe walked in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Martha Landon wondered for the seven hundred and sixtieth time how she had ended up in this sickbay with this load of loonies when it was
so obvious that nothing was wrong with her. And then they let her out.  Apparently the seven hundred and sixtieth time was the charm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Captain Kirk and First Officer Spock played chess in Rec Room 3 and discussed the message from Admiral Komack received this morning
regarding the Orion drug and it’s possible implications if it were to suddenly to end up in the population at large.  The ‘stuff’ as it had come to
be called, could seriously impede, impair and destroy almost any organization it might be introduced to.

The Orions were apparently hugely amused by the silly little humans and their inability to metabolize such a pleasant and mild diversion.  

Starfleet was not amused.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dr. Mary Calf Robe packed her bags happily, vacation was once again just a shuttlecraft ride away and now she’d be enjoying some
company, some fine Southern Gentlemen company....well, not too gentlemanly, she hoped!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maria glanced up when the door to her unit opened and froze.  It was him.  The one.  The one she had come after.  The one she had
seduced.  The one she had drugged.  The one she had hurt.  The one she had almost destroyed.

And, he was smiling at her and his face held such compassion for her that she found herself crying again all over.

And then, he was hugging her and she wept against his chest and let herself lean against him and let him take the weight of her despair and
he did and it eased and lifted, a little, and it felt so good she wanted it to last forever, he felt so strong and she surrendered to his strength
and let herself be and was surprised that she could.

And then, she talked with him, spoke with him for many hours, quietly and without discomfort.

How could this be?

She wasn’t sure what had happened to him.  She only knew she hoped the same would happen for her one day.  And she spoke her hope out
loud to him.

And he said, “It will....if you trust.”


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ensign Pavel Chekov laughed at Sulu’s terrible joke.  He had the worst jokes in the universe and he told them so badly, and with such
enthusiasm, that they were always the funniest he ever heard.

He relaxed in his quarters with his friends and the trauma of the last few weeks almost faded away....almost....

“What’s this?”  Uhura asked suddenly, reaching under his bed and picking up a small ring.

Pavel took it from her, “Oh, thank you!  I have been looking everywhere for that!”

“Whose is it?”  Well, Uhura was never one to dance around a question.

“My Mother’s...”  Pavel studied the little opal ring in his hand, “Andre brought it to me, when I was in the sickbay, something to....comfort
me....”  God, he was a terrible liar.

“Chris has an opal like that.”  Uhura stated.

:”Like this?”  he tried to stifle a yawn.

“Very much like that.”

“Oh... I like opals.”  

He sat down in the chair beside his desk and Uhura’s amusement turned to concern,  “You okay, sugar?”  She rested the back of her hand on
his forehead as though checking for fever.  “You look really tired.”

“I am tired.”  he admitted.  He had only been out of sickbay three days and....

“Sulu, I think that’s our cue.”  As the helmsman stood up, Uhura opened her arms to Chekov and he hugged her.  She squeezed him tight and
an image flashed through her mind that she quickly banished and replaced with the joy she felt at seeing him here, in his quarters, whole and
healthy.  She pulled back, “It’s good to have you back, honey.  See you on the bridge tomorrow.”  She kissed his cheek and he replied with
three kisses to hers.  “I’m honoured.”  she said, understanding the cultural significance.

Sulu looked as though he wished at that moment to flee the room.  Damn Russians and their always hugging and kissing and hugging and
kissing, hello, goodbye, it’s Tuesday, lunch is ready, any excuse, and then he looked at the navigator and thought about having him back and
he hugged him so tight and he kissed the surprised Russian himself and Pavel burst out laughing and, “Why don’t you two stay for another
drink.”  

But, Uhura was firm.  “No, hon, it’s 2200.  You need your rest for tomorrow.”

And, with that, she hauled Sulu out of the room and the door swished shut and he was alone....and it was so quiet and he got himself ready
for bed, he was so very tired, and he crawled into bed and lay in the dark thinking for a bit.

He thought about Maria and her tears and her ‘I’m sorry’ and how his heart broke for her.  

He thought about Andre and his tears and his ‘I’m sorry’ and how his heart broke for him.  

He thought about Dr. McCoy and his, “How are you, son?”

He thought about Mr. Scott and his, “How are ye, lad?”

He thought about Martha and her, “You okay, Pasha?”

And, as he took her ring off the nightstand and held it in his hand, he thought about Christine and yesterday and how she had come to his
quarters to see him, to check on him....as a friend.  

And, they had talked, so easily,  about everything, about it all and how they didn’t really feel it was a true experience, being as it were,
induced in them by influences beyond their control.  But, mostly, both had felt it wasn’t finished, it wasn’t complete...yet.

He looked very deeply into her blue eyes then with his brown eyes,  looked into her soul and he said quietly, “I would like very much to make
love to you, Christine.”

And she felt a tingle run from her head to her toes and she opened her arms to him and he came to her and took her face in his hands so
softly and his lips touched hers, barely, and then moved to her eyes and brushed them and his lips felt like warm silk and her heart turned to
liquid as she slid her arms around him...

And later, they would see each other across the Rec Room and smile a little smile and revel in their secret knowledge of each other and know
that a deep and abiding bond had been sealed between them for life and they would always watch over each other...always and without
judgment and without attachment and without jealousy...and they would think back to the last time, the last time in his quarters when they were
themselves with each other and he was unafraid to explore his passion and she was unafraid to explore her vulnerability and they had lay in
each others arms and he said, touching her face gently, “You are very beautiful.”

And she reached up and touched his face and said, “So are you.”