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PS-El: Part II
At oh-eight-hundred in the morning following Lieutenant Pavel Chekov's well-intentioned abduction of a spatially and temporally-displaced teenager, Chekov is on his way to medbay to retrieve said teenager for an interview with Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, and Doctor McCoy.
His own interview had started nearly an hour and a half ago, very shortly after Kirk woke up and read Chekov's recently-submitted incident report. Chekov regrets flagging his report as urgent; perhaps he would have had time to catch a nap if he hadn't. Then again, how could he have fallen asleep with the very real threat of disciplinary action hanging over his head?
Fortunately, none of Chekov's superior officers had suggested a court-martial or stripping him of his rank. They weren't happy with him, by any means, but Kirk and McCoy had been relatively sympathetic, and Spock's main concern was Chekov's lack of communication with him or the captain. It was agreed that El was likely better off in the safety of their medbay than on the base; Starbase 17's commander, Chekov was told, is a notoriously unpleasant individual who prioritizes Federation interests, scientific or otherwise, over things like morals and ethics. That said, Chekov hadn't known anything about El when he brought her aboard, and they still only knew as much as Chapel's medical scans revealed. Captain Kirk and Spock hoped to determine what level of threat the girl posed, if any, by talking to her.
(McCoy thought Kirk and Spock were foolish for being so worried about a hungry seventeen year-old who clearly needed their help. Chekov is inclined to side with the doctor, but he realizes that he is somewhat biased.)
The Russian enters medbay. Chapel -- still on duty even though gamma shift ended hours ago -- looks up from her datapad. "Welcome back, lieutenant," she says, waving him in.
"I am still welcome?" Chekov means it as a joke, but it comes out a little too earnest to be convincing. "You have a double shift?"
"I asked M'Benga to trade shifts with me. I'd rather pull a double than explain all of this to someone else."
"You are an angel, Christine, thank you," the lieutenant replies, although he knows Chapel well enough to know that this is not strictly true. He looks towards where he left El. Hopefully she's awake... he will feel bad if he has to wake her up. "I need to borrow El, if she can be discharged. The captain would like to speak with her."
Chapel looks... relieved? "She's free to leave."
"Thank you." Chekov turns his full attention to their visitor from another time and place. "El? Would you come with me, please?"
His own interview had started nearly an hour and a half ago, very shortly after Kirk woke up and read Chekov's recently-submitted incident report. Chekov regrets flagging his report as urgent; perhaps he would have had time to catch a nap if he hadn't. Then again, how could he have fallen asleep with the very real threat of disciplinary action hanging over his head?
Fortunately, none of Chekov's superior officers had suggested a court-martial or stripping him of his rank. They weren't happy with him, by any means, but Kirk and McCoy had been relatively sympathetic, and Spock's main concern was Chekov's lack of communication with him or the captain. It was agreed that El was likely better off in the safety of their medbay than on the base; Starbase 17's commander, Chekov was told, is a notoriously unpleasant individual who prioritizes Federation interests, scientific or otherwise, over things like morals and ethics. That said, Chekov hadn't known anything about El when he brought her aboard, and they still only knew as much as Chapel's medical scans revealed. Captain Kirk and Spock hoped to determine what level of threat the girl posed, if any, by talking to her.
(McCoy thought Kirk and Spock were foolish for being so worried about a hungry seventeen year-old who clearly needed their help. Chekov is inclined to side with the doctor, but he realizes that he is somewhat biased.)
The Russian enters medbay. Chapel -- still on duty even though gamma shift ended hours ago -- looks up from her datapad. "Welcome back, lieutenant," she says, waving him in.
"I am still welcome?" Chekov means it as a joke, but it comes out a little too earnest to be convincing. "You have a double shift?"
"I asked M'Benga to trade shifts with me. I'd rather pull a double than explain all of this to someone else."
"You are an angel, Christine, thank you," the lieutenant replies, although he knows Chapel well enough to know that this is not strictly true. He looks towards where he left El. Hopefully she's awake... he will feel bad if he has to wake her up. "I need to borrow El, if she can be discharged. The captain would like to speak with her."
Chapel looks... relieved? "She's free to leave."
"Thank you." Chekov turns his full attention to their visitor from another time and place. "El? Would you come with me, please?"
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To her utter disgust and humiliation, tears well up in her eyes. She's teetering on the edge of hideous, wracking sobs -- which will probably be healthy for her, but that doesn't make her any more inclined to indulge.
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When El starts to cry in earnest, Chekov gets up just long enough to move a box of tissues (humanity has not yet invented a better tool to deal with tears and snot) within her reach. He sits back down and looks away, giving her some amount of privacy while still being present and fully available if she's able to ask for anything. It's not much, but without anything specific to go on, the best he can offer now is unhurried, nonjudgmental calm.
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When she's finally able to speak, she blows her nose and says: "You can kill me now. That'd be great."
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Chekov takes El's sniffly request as the joke that it (hopefully) is. "That would be an unkind thing to do to a guest. Certainly against Starfleet protocol."
He hesitates, momentarily torn between letting them joke their way back to something more comfortable and making a genuine attempt to make El feel less embarrassed about expressing completely understandable emotions. Humor is easy, but openness tends to be more valuable. "No one on this ship would think poorly of you for having a panic attack," he says, fairly confident that it's the truth. "Many of us have experienced them... sometimes even in situations that are considerably less frightening than being pulled into foreign universes."
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"It just took me by surprise," she says... then adds, with unwanted vulnerability -- "Is there somewhere else we can go?"
She's willing to confide in him, somewhat to her surprise, but it's not in her nature to just dump information on people. If he asks questions, though, she'll give him genuine answers.
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"There is, yes." He stands and heads for the door, leaving the room's windows shuttered. The door wooshes open to reveal the hall, now back to a state of relative emptiness. Chekov leads El back to the turbolift and down to floor five, officers' quarters.
"You will have a room to yourself for the duration of your stay," he tells her, not mentioning that the room she'll have is, in fact, assigned to him. Single rooms are fairly uncommon on Constitution-class starships; it's the simplest way to secure some privacy for El without shuffling too many people around. Chekov comes to a halt at a door and nods to El. "I have already programmed it to respond to you. No one will be able to open the door without an emergency override key."
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"Did I kick someone out of their room?" she asks. "Or do you just have a lot of single rooms here?" She feels like she's seen too many people aboard the ship for everyone to have their own room, unless the ship had some magic like the Scholomance.
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The small room is very clearly meant to house two people. One side is dominated by a twin-sized bunk bed; the lower bunk is neatly made with soft gray sheets and a downy blue blanket, and the top is occupied by tidy metal boxes instead of a cot. There's a narrow couch, a modest desk, a comm unit, a personal replication and recycling unit, and a large screen set into one wall. A corner is devoted to a tiny closet, and a door slides open to reveal the smallest bathroom -- equipped with nothing but sonic devices to save both space and water -- that a human could possibly be expected to use. There are no windows, but the design of the space gives it an impression of openness. The only hints as to the room's previous ownership are a few old-fashioned paper books with Cyrillic letters on the spine and a scrolling holopic, all neatly arranged on the desk. If El looks at the holopic, she might see an image or two with Chekov in them.
"Think of it as cozy rather than small," Chekov advises, picking up the holopic. He really ought to have spent more time clearing out his room. "It's private, anyway. Privacy is valuable on a starship."
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"If your crew's so small, why exactly am I kicking you out of your room?" she asks, her voice sounding deadly (though really she's just peeved). She likes Chekov, and she doesn't like the idea of taking his space from him. Surely they could find space for her that would be less inconvenient -- maybe a security officer who could use a roommate and do double duty as keeping an eye on her as a potential threat. That would make much more sense than kicking someone who's been nothing but nice out of his space.
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"All crew quarters are occupied by at least one person," he sighs, "and I have a good friend who has already given me permission to stay with him. I volunteered, this isn't a hardship."
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"You're not going to get a cwtch by making a martyr of yourself," she snaps. "Did you even give anyone a chance to offer a different solution or did you just immediately grab the answer most inconvenient for you?"
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There's an element of truth to it. Chekov is always eager to prove himself and take on the biggest burden that anyone will give him. He has, on more than one occasion, failed to take actions that would make his life easier because he constantly feels a need to do more, be more, tolerate more than anyone else. Doctor McCoy has called him out on it, as have Nyota and Hikaru. He always laughs it off as an innately Russian tendency -- Russians do have a certain aptitude for suffering -- but it still always hurts.
In El's case, it comes too abruptly (and after too many hours awake) to be dismissed with a joke. Chekov is quick to try to hide the hurt behind cold, Spock-like formality. "Of the proposed solutions, this was deemed the most reasonable by my superiors. If you wish, I will give you the captain's frequency and you can tell him that the arrangement is not satisfactory."
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"Look, I'm sorry," she grounds out after lowering her hands. "I'll take the room. I just hate causing trouble for people, especially when they've been nice to me." After a beat, she adds dryly: "I know I'm not always great at showing that."
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"It's fine. I would also be uncomfortable in your situation, I think." Granted, he would likely be more polite about it, but El is young and seems to be naturally confrontational. "It really is no trouble. The friend who has graciously agreed to let me stay with him has much nicer quarters than I do."
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But before Chekov can say that sharing quarters with Sulu probably doesn't count as having a slumber party, the chime of his comm unit cuts him off. He shoots El an apologetic look before answering. "Go for Chekov."
"Chekov, hey." Unsurprisingly, it's Captain Kirk's voice. "Two quick questions."
"Yes, sir?"
"Okay, one: theoretically, would you be able to beam yourself from one place to another -- say, from a starbase to the ship -- without anyone on the receiving end?"
"Theoretically, yes, but--"
"Great, good. So question two, totally unrelated: does the energy signature of a successful transport look like the signature from, you know... some kind of rift in spacetime after it closes?"
"Similar enough," Chekov answers hesitantly, "but if someone who is familiar with spacetime anomalies compares--"
"Similar is good enough, thanks," Kirk's voice interrupts again. "Spock's gonna make a few revisions to that report you filed this morning and send it back for your signature, alright? Just sign off on it and trust me."
The comm goes dead before Chekov gets out a final yes sir. He sighs and returns the unit to his pocket. "I will enjoy my slumber party much more than I'll like whatever the captain is doing right now."