Shining Star: A Pavel Chekov Fanfiction

Fourteen

Cadet Chekov is sixteen years old when he finally figures out where he belongs.

The past year has been amazing, to say the least. He's learned so much! It was one thing to major in astronomy at Moscow State, but another thing entirely to be surrounded by people from all over the galaxy who all have the same passion for space and space exploration as he does. He's on track to graduate within this year—going through the Academy in two years is an unheard-of feat. And this time he can actually take pride in this accomplishment, because he hasn't sacrificed having fun or a social life to get it. For the first time, he has friends. Real friends. Friends with whom his relationships last more than five minutes. And it's not just Hikaru, either.

One day, when he's sitting outside on a bench doing his Subspace Cartography assignment, he realizes he's been doing his work the wrong way for the past half an hour and lets out a curse in Russian. He sometimes reverts to Russian when cursing or talking himself through problems—he likes it because it's pretty strenuous trying to keep his brain in "English mode" all day, and besides, it's not like anyone will understand him.

Or so he thinks, until he hears a female voice behind him tut disapprovingly and say, "Language." In Russian.

He turns and sees a girl with medium-dark skin, dangly red earrings, and long dark hair tied up in a ponytail. She leans against a nearby tree trunk and smiles. "I didn't expect you to have such a dirty mouth."

He swallows. "Um...you speak Russian?"

"I study xenolinguistics," she says. "I speak a lot of languages. Your Russian curses can't evade me." She takes a seat on the bench next to him. "So what exactly was it that caused that outburst?"

He shows her his Padd. "I just made a mistake and didn't realize it until later."

"Everybody makes mistakes," she says.

"Well, does everybody make mistakes and then do the rest of their work with that mistake as their reference point for half an hour before they realize anything is wrong?"

"Probably."

He smiles up at her.

"I'm Uhura, by the way," she says.

"Uhura." He tries it out. "Is that your first name or your last name? Or your only name?"

"Last name."

"All right then, I'm Chekov."

"Pleased to meet you, Chekov." She holds out her hand, and he shakes it.

From then on, they spend Mondays and Thursdays studying together on that same bench, sometimes speaking only in Russian, sometimes in English, sometimes in a mix of both. Chekov gets the feeling Uhura finds him cute—of course she does, he's a tiny teenager with big turquoise eyes and curls covering his head who takes his studies super-seriously—but she doesn't treat him like a little boy, at least, which he appreciates. She's studying to be a communications officer, not a navigator like Chekov, so the two of them don't have many classes together. But they have some, and that's good enough.

He's starting to realize why he was so mad at the James Watson guy from Moscow State. It had seemed irrational at the time—he hated that treatment, but couldn't articulate why. Now he sees. James Watson just asked him for the answers, whereas he and Uhura work together to find the answers. Sometimes he'll start a sentence and Uhura will finish it, or vice versa. Sometimes they'll quiz each other. Sometimes they'll compare notes. James Watson did none of that. Uhura treats him as an equal; James Watson treated him as a tool. And he loves how it feels not to be treated like Rosalind Franklin anymore.