Transition Period
Title: Transition Period
Disclaimer: I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. I shall do the world no injury for I have nothing in it.
Pairing: Chekov/girl!Sulu,
Rating: Teen, 13+
Type: One-shot, complete
Warnings: None, unless you're squicked by the word "penis"
Word Count: ~5500
Summary and Notes: Lt. Hikaru Sulu was always a girl, just not always on the outside. This is a story of transition, of moving from one state of being to the next. Thank you to the lovely poetheather for the beta, inspiration, and information. Archived at awfully_clever.
Hikaru snuck into his mother's bedroom and went straight to the closet. He found his favorite shoes of hers, the purple ones, and pulled a silky flowered shirt from its hanger, putting it on over his clothes. When Mrs. Sulu found him, waddling pregnant with one hand on her back, he was posing in front of the full-length mirror and wearing some of her costume jewelry as well. He'd always been very imaginative and she couldn't help but smile at the bright colors he'd picked and the way he posed like a chubby little runway model. "Aww, Hikaru, such a funny boy!" She shouted over her shoulder at her husband, who sat studying at the dining room table, "Sato, come see this!"
Mr. Sulu laughed at the sight of his son and ruffled Hikaru's hair, "Okay, yeah, Mitsuko, that's adorable. Did you get a picture?" She glared at him, both hands on her back now, her unspoken message clear. He held his hand's up, yielding. "Okay, okay, I'll get a picture."
The first time he did this it was downright adorable, but it soon became a nuisance. Mrs. Sulu's closet was always in disarray and, being eight and a half months pregnant, she could barely bend down to clean it up. By the time Kiko was born, Hikaru's crossdressing had become an obsession. "Maybe he just wants attention," Mr. Sulu stroked his little girl's hair. Hikaru had already gone to bed and Kiko had woken them both up for her 10:30 feeding. "I mean, with the new baby and all- I'm sure it's just a phase."
"You're probably right." Mrs. Sulu was beyond tired and she sighed as she straightened her shirt from feeding Kiko. "I need help, Sato. I can't do this on my own."
Mr. Sulu draped a towel over his shoulder and gently lifted Kiko from her mother's arms. He patted her back and paced, "What about your mom? I mean, we've got room. She can live here, help out with the kids, and she wouldn't have to live alone in that tiny apartment."
"You want my mother to move in?" She replied, with some disbelief.
"I want you to be happy and I want to take care of you. I'm graduating soon and I don't know where I'll be assigned after that. I know you need the help and I won't be here to-" Kiko spit up and made a small sound. Mr. Sulu cleaned her up and held her close to his chest, "I won't be here." He looked down at his brand new daughter, a little sad, but hoping they'd understand why he chose to serve.
A few months later, he graduated with the rank of Ensign and was assigned to various starbases within the solar system to pilot small craft. It wasn't the most glamorous of assignments, but he at least got to fly. Mrs. Sulu's mother moved in soon after his graduation, glad to help with the grandchildren, and in the second week of Ensign Sulu's first assignment, a three-month-long stint at one of the Mars colonies, she suggested, "He needs an outlet, Mitsuko. My good friend Dia Jing has a dojo not far from here. It will be good for him to learn how to focus all of that extra energy. I have Tai Chi on Thursdays, and I can take him with me."
"He's not too young?" Mrs. Sulu washed Kiko's delicate skin and patted a little powder where she'd begun to develop a diaper rash, "He's only four."
"He'll be five in a few weeks and that is the perfect age to start." countered Grandma.
"Alright." She closed Kiko's diaper and pulled a clean pair of pants on over the baby's tiny kicking legs, "Oh! Maybe we should sign Kiko up, too!"
Hikaru took to Tai Chi like a bird to the air, always happy to see his teacher. "Hikaru!" Grandma called to him from the door, "Hikaru, it's time to go!"
He ran down the stairs, dressed in his little white gi, but with the jacket open and the belt in his hand. He was frowning a little and said, "My name is Anna! I already told you, Grandma, but you keep forgetting."
"I am very sorry," She shooed him out the door, "but your name will be mud if you're late."
They made it to the dojo on time and when Grandma came to pick him up, Hikaru skipped out, grinning. It was good to see him happy, he'd been miserable for the past few months and nothing seemed to help. They thought it might be because Ensign Sulu was away for so long. Even deployments as short as three months were hard on the families left at home and Grandma knew this well. "Did you have a good class?"
"Uh-huh! She taught us how to be monkeys with very long tails. I'll show you!" He jumped around, making monkey sounds and waving his arms, but even though he was boisterous, he seemed grounded as well.
Grandma laughed and thanked her friend. Dia Jing smiled and said, "Always happy to. Little Mouse is very good student. I see her tomorrow?" Her Standard wasn't very good, but she was always patient and gentle with Hikaru.
"Absolutely," they bowed to each other, almost imperceptibly, "We'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye-bye, Niū Shŭ!" He waved goodbye to his sifu, ran back for a hug, and then skipped up the sidewalk to his Grandma.
He'd been particularly difficult about planning his birthday party and his mother had just about had it. "But Hikaru,"
"Anna." He crossed his arms and pouted.
His mother did not concede, "You only invited girls to your party. You don't want to play with the other boys?"
"I'm not a boy, Mommy! Boys are GROSS!"
They went ahead with the party anyway and everything seemed to be going as planned. They had a cake, ice cream, punch, balloons, party favors, and a half a dozen five and six year-old girls and their parents. All the guests had arrived and Mrs. Sulu and Grandma, busy with the party preparations, did not notice that Hikaru had disappeared. He threw open the door to his mother's room and stood tall and proud in one of Mrs. Sulu's floral satin blouses awkwardly tied with his gi belt so as to make it into a dress. He'd smeared lipstick over his face and a turquoise eye shadow over his eyes. He'd used so much powder that it had gotten into his hair, which was pulled back by one of Mrs. Sulu's wide headbands. "I'm ready for the party now!" All the guests smiled and laughed, saying how cute he was, but Mrs. Sulu's heart just broke. This was a problem.
She laughed it off at the time, cleaned him up, and let him wear one of her less feminine necklaces as a consolation. The next day, she made an appointment with a psychiatrist. One of the benefits of being a Starfleet wife and living near the headquarters was that they had access to the best in medical and psychiatric care. Dr. Frank Sengupta was among the best in child and developmental psychiatry for humans and he had a demeanor that made Mrs. Sulu feel at ease. "Hikaru is a bright little boy, Mrs. Sulu, you should be proud."
"I am proud. I just..." Her throat closed up and she felt that somehow, this was her fault.
"You're worried about him. I know the feeling." His office was more like a comfortable and well-lit sitting room than a doctor's office. He served her a tea that smelled of cinnamon in a china cup printed with roses and edged in gold. "I have four kids myself. The youngest is about Hikaru's age."
"We thought it might be stress from his father being deployed or the new baby," Mrs. Sulu took a sip and tried to collect her thoughts, "I just don't know what else to do."
"Well," He sat next to her with his own teacup, "we've run some tests, watched him play, talked to him, and did a level one brain scan. He's been a real trooper all day." Dr. Sengupta set his cup aside and leaned forward a bit. "Hikaru has what we call 'gender incongruence,' commonly referred to as 'gender dysphoria.' What that means is that the construction and biochemical makeup of Hikaru's brain matches more closely with that of girls his age than with that of boys. We're not sure why this happens, but needless to say, he feels like a girl even though his body doesn't match what his brain is telling him."
"I want to help him." She didn't mean to sound so desperate, but her baby boy needed help and she was at a loss.
"The best therapy we've found in these cases is to change the body to match the brain. The brain is a very delicate organ and there's so much we still don't understand about how it works, so to try to change the brain to match the body would be disastrous. I've read case studies where this has been attempted through conditioning and even neurosurgery and chemical means and it's..." He shook his head in horror and disbelief, "barbaric. The person that emerges from these so-called 'treatments' is nothing like original personality. I don't wish to frighten you, Mrs. Sulu, but Hikaru is an intelligent and delightful child and I don't want you to lose that."
"But he's so young," She couldn't process what the doctor was telling her, "maybe he'll grow out of it."
"I assure you, Mrs. Sulu that this is not something he's going to grow out of. It is not just a phase," He refilled her tea and made sure a box of tissues was close at hand, "but what I offer to Hikaru is hope. I'm not asking you to put him through surgery tomorrow- that kind of abrupt change would be traumatic. To start with, I suggest you let Hikaru live as a girl at home for a while before any decisions are made about a complete transition. Let him pick out some new clothes, fix his hair, call him 'Anna.'"
"He-" She'd started crying as what the doctor was saying began to sink in, her words truncated by sobs and disbelief.
Dr. Sengupta handed her a tissue and explained, "It was the first thing he said to me. The fact that he's picked a name already was very telling." He picked up a PADD from his desk and touched a few keys, "I'm sending you some information, including contact information for a group of families that are going through the same thing you are. It's encrypted, so you won't have to worry about privacy. The password is 'Pinocchio' with a capital 'P.' I want you to do what's best for Hikaru, but I can't make this decision for you. I can only give you as much information as possible and my recommendations based on the information I have. Think about it, discuss it with your husband, talk to Hikaru about it."
Sensing that their meeting was coming to a close, Mrs. Sulu wiped her eyes and tried to look like she hadn't been crying. "Thank you, Doctor."
"I'll see you in about two weeks- same time. You can set up the appointment with my secretary and you are free to contact me if you have any questions or problems."
---
Ensign Sulu was supposed to be incommunicado for another month or so because of the sensitive nature of his work. Mrs. Sulu was glad he wasn't given a five-year post and that he'd be home soon, but it still meant that she was left to make these kinds of decisions on her own. Grandma agreed that it was worth a try and if nothing improved in the next two weeks, there was no harm in letting him play dress-up at home. At least Mrs. Sulu's closet would be left alone, they rationalized. They found some second-hand clothes that they were able to exchange for some that Hikaru had grown out of or hated, some matching clips and headbands, and a pair of brown tennis-shoes with blue flowers. There was not a single dress in the bundle, but they had found two skirts with built-in shorts that he'd declared were "good for kicking."
One afternoon, while Hikaru played in his room, there came a knock at the door. Grandma answered to find her Tai Chi instructor and good friend. She bowed out of habit, but it was returned in kind. "Dee? Please come in."
Dia Jing looked around worriedly, "Why you not bring Little Mouse to see me, Aiko? She sick? I do Qi Gong - for free. Anything for Little Mouse."
"He's not sick he's just-" Grandma exhaled and looked to her daughter, wondering how to explain.
Mrs. Sulu greeted her and tried her best, "We took him to a doctor-"
"Why you take her to doctor if not sick?" Dia Jing continued looking around, but then her eyes crinkled into a smile, "Little Mouse!"
"Sifu!" Hikaru ran down the stairs excitedly, dressed in one of her "kicking skirts" and a matching purple shirt with tiny flowers in lavender printed on the fabric. "Did you come to my house for class today?"
She knelt down to speak to him, "No class today, but you come see me tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay!" Hikaru held out her skirt for Dia Jing to see, "Look, Sifu, this is my new kicking skirt. It's got shorts inside so you can't see my business when I'm kicking. I have another one that's brown and Mommy fixed my hair today." Hikaru pointed to the little purple bows that kept her hair out of her face.
"Very pretty, Niū Niū Shŭ." Hikaru grinned and gave her a big hug. "I go now. See you tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay. Bye-bye, Sifu!" Hikaru skipped back to her room as Dia Jing rose to her feet in a single fluid movement.
"Practice, Niū Shŭ!" Dia Jing laughed.
"You... knew?" Mrs. Sulu tried to process what had just happened, but without much luck. Dia Jing seemed to not understand, "I mean, you knew about Hikaru wanting to be a girl?"
"How you not know she girl? She a very good, very sharp girl - very happy." She bowed to both Mrs. Sulu and Grandma, "I go now. Glad she not sick. I see her tomorrow, okay?"
"Oh...'kay." They each returned the bow and waved goodbye as she made her exit. When the door shut, Mrs. Sulu exhaled a long sigh, "Alright then. I guess we can do this."
---
Ensign Sulu came home two weeks early on a short furlough while the dignitary he was transporting did whatever classified business he was meant to do at Starfleet Headquarters. He opened the door and set down his duffel, "Mitsuko!"
A head popped up from behind the couch with a yell, "DADDY!" Hikaru abandoned his book about swashbuckling heroes and ran to hug his father's leg.
"Hika- What are you wearing?" Realization slowly hit as he noticed the blue headband and the matching shirt with periwinkles and tulips printed on the front, "Mitsuko?!"
She ran in from the nursery and wrapped her arms around her husband, peppering him with kisses, "Sato! You're home early! I just put Kiko down for her nap and Mom is at the market. Oh, I missed you!"
"I missed you, too - both of you. Mitzi, can we talk?"
She put a hand on Hikaru's head, "Anna, why don't you take your book to your room and read, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy." He grabbed his book and ran upstairs.
Ensign Sulu mouthed "Anna?" so that Hikaru would not hear and waited until the door was shut. "Anna?!" He said it out loud this time. "Mitzi, what's going on?"
"Come see your baby and we'll talk about it, okay?" She knew Kiko would soften him and she hoped to prevent the all-out fight she sensed was coming. "I took him to a Starfleet psychiatrist, Dr. Sengupta," she explained as they walked to the nursery, "and he explained that what's going on with Hikaru is called 'gender incongruence.'" The door creaked a little when it opened, but Kiko did not wake. Ensign Sulu's shoulders relaxed upon seeing his daughter sleeping and Mrs. Sulu quieted her voice to a whisper, "It means that his brain matches more closely with a little girl's brain than with a little boy's brain. He said the best thing to do is to help him become a little girl on the outside."
"Oh, Mitzi," He held Kiko's little hand, careful not to wake her, "she's gotten so big. Look at her - she's so... wow." Kiko's mouth moved as though she were sucking and a little fist stretched out and relaxed. "Hey, baby, Daddy's home." He left the side of her crib with some reluctance and they moved to the mango-colored couch to discuss Hikaru. "Mitzi - I don't think this is such a good idea. He's probably just going to grow out of this and I don't think we should be-"
"Mom and I got him a few things to wear at home and that's it. It's not like he goes out like that and besides-" They kept their voices down, but the argument was no less intense.
"I don't think we need to encourage this." interrupted Mr. Sulu.
"Besides, he's been so much happier since and-"
Ensign Sulu shook his head, "No. This needs to stop. We're getting rid of the girl clothes and we're not going to call him 'Anna.' I want my little boy back."
"This is not about what you want," Mrs. Sulu's face grew stern, "This is about what's right for Hikaru."
"And I say that what's right for him is to be the little boy I know he is." Ensign Sulu shook his head, "This stops today."
In the days that followed, all hell broke loose in the Sulu home. Hikaru had screaming fits, threw all of his boy clothes out his bedroom window, and cried when he had to leave the dojo. He was miserable. Everyone was miserable.
They met with the psychiatrist on the third day of Ensign Sulu's leave. "I was afraid something like this might happen." Dr. Sengupta sighed, "Ensign Sulu, like I told your wife, this is not something that can be fixed with any kind of talk therapy or conditioning and it's not a failure in your parenting at all. Gender incongruence is a documented disorder under the diagnostic codes of the Federation Medical Association and is found in almost every sentient species with a discernable gender. It's more common in Andorians, less so in Vulcans, but it's there."
"Doctor Sengupta," Though he wore no insignia, the doctor bore the rank of Commander, "Sir, I don't understand how we can know he's not just going to grow out of this."
"We have over two hundred and fifty years of research on the brains of transgendered individuals," he touched a button, took a stylus from his desk as glass panel descended from the ceiling. With a few touches, he brought up a series of brain scans, "Here is Hikaru's brain. It's healthy, you can tell he was relaxed when we did the scan, and there are no evident issues in the levels of serotonin and melatonin. All things considered, it's a normal and healthy brain." He brought up two more, "These are the brains of two children about Hikaru's age - they're similar in many respects, but when we look at those areas of the brain associated with gender identity, you can see what I'm talking about."
He touched something else and each image rotated and opened up, "This is referred to as the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, BSTc. As you can see," He lit up different areas with the stylus, "The patterns of innervation, the numbers of somatostatin-expressing neurons, the arrangement of the neurons, are all more closely matched with the brain on the left," he set the stylus aside, "which is a human female brain. This is concordant with Hikaru's behavior and matches the official diagnosis guidelines. He's a classic case - practically textbook." Ensign Sulu nodded, "These things are unrelated to hormone levels or genotype and cannot be changed without severe damage to Hikaru's personality. I encourage you to review the information I sent to your wife and to talk to other parents of transgendered children. You have seen for yourself, Ensign, that when Hikaru was allowed to live as a girl, her stress level was reduced and when that was taken away, his distress increased."
Ensign Sulu looked into his wife's pleading eyes, glanced at the images still suspended on the glass panel, and gave up. He stood a little straighter, wondering if he should salute when Sengupta extended his hand. "Thank you, Doctor." Though the doctor was a slight man, his grip was firm, "I just want him to be happy. I just want our family back."
"I understand; I'm a father myself. I'll see you in two weeks, you can set up the appointment with my secretary. I look forward to seeing Hikaru again."
"My next assignment begins in ten days, sir."
"Ten days it is, then."
They recovered the girl's clothes Hikaru had been wearing before, Mrs. Sulu had asked the clerk to set them aside, and Ensign Sulu insisted on buying him new things as well, including underwear with little blue and green flowers and socks edged in lace. The difference was radical and immediate. Hikaru's temper tantrums ceased, he was happy, and they felt like an almost normal family again. At the end of the ten days, both parents agreed to proceed with transition.
Grandma had convinced her to retain the name Hikaru. "Do you know what your name means?"
Hikaru shook her head as her Grandma continued, "It means 'radiance.' When your mother found out she was pregnant with you, it was like there was a new light in our family. We were all so happy. It is a girl's name too, you know."
"Really?!" she grinned, her eyes wide.
"Oh, yes. I went to school with a girl named Hikaru." Grandma played with Hikaru's hair, now almost long enough for pigtails, "You are still like a ray of light, little one, and it has nothing to do with what you look like on the outside."
"Okay, but will you still call me 'Anna?'"
"Yes." She cuddled little Hikaru close and when it was time to allow her to wear her girl's clothes in public, they enrolled Hikaru Anna Sulu in the Starfleet Academy Campus Elementary School and she made exceptional marks in almost every area of study.
Ensign Sulu's next deployment was for six months this time, but he was allowed to call home and watch both of his little girls growing up. When he came home, he took Hikaru to see all the different shuttles and aircraft he flew and even let her sit on his lap and work some of the controls. She fell in love with flying and he fell in love with his eldest child all over again. Eventually, it came time for Hikaru's surgery and more intensive therapies and though it was exhausting and Ensign Sulu could not be there for most of it, she was able to spend her sixth birthday as a real girl.
"When we are finished today and her body has had time to recover and integrate the new information," Dr. Sengupta explained, "she will be female to all but the most thorough medical scans. She will go through puberty like any other normal girl, have a menstrual cycle, and she will even be able to bear children." Hikaru lay on the child-sized biobed, watching the lights that blinked over her head in time with her heart and her breath. "Are you ready?" Hikaru nodded and Ensign and Mrs. Sulu waved to her as a nurse directed them to the waiting room.
An hour and a half later, Hikaru opened her eyes, feeling heavy and groggy, "Am I really a girl now?"
Mrs. Sulu cried, "Yeah, sweetie, you are."
---
Sixteen years later, Cadet Sulu buckled herself in next to a skinny kid when they were deployed on an emergency mission to Vulcan. "Are you nerwous?"
"Hunh?" He had a thick accent, but she thought it was kinda cute.
"Nervwous. Are you nervwous? It is our first mission." He had curly blonde hair and big green eyes and while she felt prepared for the mission, as ready as she could be, she found that every intelligent thing she'd ever had to say suddenly exited her brain as though airlocked into space.
"Uh, yeah, a little."
He stuck out his hand, "Ensign Chekov, Pavel Andreievich. I am to be the navigator."
"No way! Are you serious?!" She shook his hand a little more exuberantly than she'd intended, "Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu."
"You do not believe me?" He rubbed his hand and glanced at her breasts with no subtlety whatsoever.
She forgave him that and was frankly glad he'd noticed she had them, convinced that nobody was interested in a quiet, nerdy girl like her, "No, it's not that. It's just that I'm the pilot. McKenna got lungworms, so they assigned me instead. We're going to be working together."
"Ah!" he smiled and, feeling a bit like a lovestruck idiot, she smiled back, "It is pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Sulu."
"You can call me Anna," she made a nervous little laugh, "Y'know, when we're off-duty. It's my middle name. I go by 'Anna.' My, uh, friends call me 'Anna.'" She swallowed hard to keep herself from babbling.
"Then you must call me Pavel- off-duty, of course." His ears started to turn red and she couldn't help but smile.
"Of course."
They had a very long and very bad day after that. Nerves made her forget to disengage the external inertial dampeners and embarrass herself in front of the entire bridge crew and the boy she was trying to impress, but she stopped lamenting the fiery death of her love life when some guy who was not even in full uniform stormed onto the bridge and started arguing with the Captain. She forgot about the mistake entirely when they came out of warp into a debris field that had once been some of the finest ships in the fleet. The guy, she learned, was Jim Kirk and later, as they fell toward certain death after the stupidest mission she'd ever volunteered for, she was pretty sure he'd grabbed her ass. She thought about smacking him, but the ground was coming up fast. Instead, she sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and, to her surprise, crashed into the transporter pad.
"Yo mayo!" The boy jumped in triumph and Hikaru's heart, still pounding from adrenaline, leapt into her throat.
She wanted to kiss him, but there was no time. "Thanks," was all she could manage before she had to shuck the AV suit and return to her station. When the day was done, they'd lost Vulcan, but saved Earth and while she was still high from the mission, she forgot her nerves and gave him the thank-you she'd wanted to give him before. She attacked Pavel with kisses and found that their lips and tongues were well-matched.
"You are welcome!"
She laughed, "Uh, do you think... maybe we could go out? I think I'd like to go out with you. If, y'know, you wanted."
"Go out where?"
"I don't know," she kissed his cheek, now pink like a cherry blossom about to bloom, "but I think I'd like to be more than just your partner at the helm. I think I'd like to be your girlfriend. If that's okay? I mean, I don't think it's against regs or anything, but-"
He grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet, "Okay, we can do that."
Pavel pounced, wrapping his arms around her. "Oh!" It was the best hug ever and it was from a boy. A boy she liked. She felt like a giddy sixteen-year-old on her first date again and when the hug was over, she sighed. "So, do you like Pizza? I know a place-"
"Pizza was invented in Russia!" he asserted, "Very few people know this-" They babbled at each other all the way to the restaurant and it was the beginning of something beautiful.
---
They were still dating three months later when it was time for their quarterly physicals, so they went together before their shift. Dr. McCoy scanned Pavel first, looked in his throat, shined a light in his eyes, and was done. He scanned Hikaru next, stopped midway through and raised an eyebrow. "Hunh."
He adjusted a setting and scanned again, frowned, nodded, and then proceeded with the physical without another word. "Lieutenant?"
"Yeah, Doc?"
He showed her the tricorder readings and pointed something out, "Can you confirm this? I want to make sure I'm reading this right."
She looked and then nodded, "Yeah, that's correct."
"Alright," McCoy put the scanner back in its slot on the tricorder, "you're both free to go."
As they walked down the hall toward their post, Pavel looked worried, "Anna, are you-?" He patted his stomach and raised his eyebrows.
"What?"
"Are you, you know, in the family way?" He whispered the last part, concerned that someone might hear.
"'In the family way?!' Who says that? No, I'm not pregnant, if that's what you mean." She shook her head, "You've been taking your birth control, right? I mean, you should be shooting blanks."
"Da. I am set to 'stun.' I am too young to be a papa, whatever my mother says. I was only concerned because..." The worried look returned to his adorable face, "He scanned your stomach twice. Doctor McCoy never scans twice unless something is wrong."
"I'm just-" she sighed, "I'm just built a little different than most girls, that's all."
"Is this something I should be concerned about? I worry about you Annushka." stated Pavel.
She pulled him aside into an alcove where there were fewer people that might hear what she had to say to her boyfriend, "Promise me you're not going to freak out."
"I promise."
"I wasn't always a girl." Pavel blinked his eyes as he processed, but it didn't seem to sink in. "I was born 'Hikaru Walter Sulu'-"
"Who names a little girl 'Walter?' and what does changing your name have to do with your stomach?"
"Oh my God, Pavel, tell me you are not actually this dense." She put her hand to her forehead and sighed again, "I was a boy when I was born. I had a little penis and everything. When I was five, I had a series of surgeries and gene therapy treatments so that I could become a girl."
"They just..." he made a chopping motion with his hand, "whacked it off?"
"Well, no, they kind of turn it inside-out, actually-" Pavel's eyes scanned back and forth, not really looking at anything, like he was looking for the solution to an equation with some of the variables missing, "Listen, please don't be weird about this."
He shook his head and waved her off, "We have to get to our stations. We are going to be late."
He didn't talk to her or make eyes at her as usual. He just held his mouth shut tight and did the job that was in front of him. She did the same, deciding that she'd try to talk to him about it after shift. Their relief arrived on time and she and Pavel had the most awkward turbolift ride in the history of things that moved people up and down.
"Pavel? Are we... okay?" she finally managed to ask in a small and worried voice a few seconds before the door opened.
"Does this mean I am gay?" Pavel asked abruptly.
"Uh... no, because I'm a girl."
"Hmm. Good, because that is fine for the Keptin, but it is not how I am. And you are, eh," Pavel tapped his head, trying to think of the right words, "fully functional?"
"In every way," she assured him.
He crossed his arms, his brow crinkled into his most serious face. She would have thought it adorable if it weren't for the fact that they might be on the verge of breaking up, "So you can have babies?"
"Pavel! We've only been dating for three months!"
"I am only curious!"
"Okay, fine." She blew her bangs out of her eyes, "Yes, I can have babies - not that I want any right now."
"Then we are fine." His face relaxed and the tension in his jaw released. He nodded once and then began to walk toward the mess hall.
She stood there agape, "That's - that's it?!"
"Da. That is it. We can fight more if you wish, but I am hungry."
"You're not mad?" He shook his head. "Holy cow, that was way easier than I thought." She took his hand and kissed his cheek and he smiled just as nicely as when they first met. A smile crossed her lips and she knew she was in love, "So, what are we having for dinner?"
"Meatloaf."
"Again?!"
Disclaimer: I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts; wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies any thing. I shall do the world no injury for I have nothing in it.
Pairing: Chekov/girl!Sulu,
Rating: Teen, 13+
Type: One-shot, complete
Warnings: None, unless you're squicked by the word "penis"
Word Count: ~5500
Summary and Notes: Lt. Hikaru Sulu was always a girl, just not always on the outside. This is a story of transition, of moving from one state of being to the next. Thank you to the lovely poetheather for the beta, inspiration, and information. Archived at awfully_clever.
Hikaru snuck into his mother's bedroom and went straight to the closet. He found his favorite shoes of hers, the purple ones, and pulled a silky flowered shirt from its hanger, putting it on over his clothes. When Mrs. Sulu found him, waddling pregnant with one hand on her back, he was posing in front of the full-length mirror and wearing some of her costume jewelry as well. He'd always been very imaginative and she couldn't help but smile at the bright colors he'd picked and the way he posed like a chubby little runway model. "Aww, Hikaru, such a funny boy!" She shouted over her shoulder at her husband, who sat studying at the dining room table, "Sato, come see this!"
Mr. Sulu laughed at the sight of his son and ruffled Hikaru's hair, "Okay, yeah, Mitsuko, that's adorable. Did you get a picture?" She glared at him, both hands on her back now, her unspoken message clear. He held his hand's up, yielding. "Okay, okay, I'll get a picture."
The first time he did this it was downright adorable, but it soon became a nuisance. Mrs. Sulu's closet was always in disarray and, being eight and a half months pregnant, she could barely bend down to clean it up. By the time Kiko was born, Hikaru's crossdressing had become an obsession. "Maybe he just wants attention," Mr. Sulu stroked his little girl's hair. Hikaru had already gone to bed and Kiko had woken them both up for her 10:30 feeding. "I mean, with the new baby and all- I'm sure it's just a phase."
"You're probably right." Mrs. Sulu was beyond tired and she sighed as she straightened her shirt from feeding Kiko. "I need help, Sato. I can't do this on my own."
Mr. Sulu draped a towel over his shoulder and gently lifted Kiko from her mother's arms. He patted her back and paced, "What about your mom? I mean, we've got room. She can live here, help out with the kids, and she wouldn't have to live alone in that tiny apartment."
"You want my mother to move in?" She replied, with some disbelief.
"I want you to be happy and I want to take care of you. I'm graduating soon and I don't know where I'll be assigned after that. I know you need the help and I won't be here to-" Kiko spit up and made a small sound. Mr. Sulu cleaned her up and held her close to his chest, "I won't be here." He looked down at his brand new daughter, a little sad, but hoping they'd understand why he chose to serve.
A few months later, he graduated with the rank of Ensign and was assigned to various starbases within the solar system to pilot small craft. It wasn't the most glamorous of assignments, but he at least got to fly. Mrs. Sulu's mother moved in soon after his graduation, glad to help with the grandchildren, and in the second week of Ensign Sulu's first assignment, a three-month-long stint at one of the Mars colonies, she suggested, "He needs an outlet, Mitsuko. My good friend Dia Jing has a dojo not far from here. It will be good for him to learn how to focus all of that extra energy. I have Tai Chi on Thursdays, and I can take him with me."
"He's not too young?" Mrs. Sulu washed Kiko's delicate skin and patted a little powder where she'd begun to develop a diaper rash, "He's only four."
"He'll be five in a few weeks and that is the perfect age to start." countered Grandma.
"Alright." She closed Kiko's diaper and pulled a clean pair of pants on over the baby's tiny kicking legs, "Oh! Maybe we should sign Kiko up, too!"
Hikaru took to Tai Chi like a bird to the air, always happy to see his teacher. "Hikaru!" Grandma called to him from the door, "Hikaru, it's time to go!"
He ran down the stairs, dressed in his little white gi, but with the jacket open and the belt in his hand. He was frowning a little and said, "My name is Anna! I already told you, Grandma, but you keep forgetting."
"I am very sorry," She shooed him out the door, "but your name will be mud if you're late."
They made it to the dojo on time and when Grandma came to pick him up, Hikaru skipped out, grinning. It was good to see him happy, he'd been miserable for the past few months and nothing seemed to help. They thought it might be because Ensign Sulu was away for so long. Even deployments as short as three months were hard on the families left at home and Grandma knew this well. "Did you have a good class?"
"Uh-huh! She taught us how to be monkeys with very long tails. I'll show you!" He jumped around, making monkey sounds and waving his arms, but even though he was boisterous, he seemed grounded as well.
Grandma laughed and thanked her friend. Dia Jing smiled and said, "Always happy to. Little Mouse is very good student. I see her tomorrow?" Her Standard wasn't very good, but she was always patient and gentle with Hikaru.
"Absolutely," they bowed to each other, almost imperceptibly, "We'll see you tomorrow."
"Bye-bye, Niū Shŭ!" He waved goodbye to his sifu, ran back for a hug, and then skipped up the sidewalk to his Grandma.
He'd been particularly difficult about planning his birthday party and his mother had just about had it. "But Hikaru,"
"Anna." He crossed his arms and pouted.
His mother did not concede, "You only invited girls to your party. You don't want to play with the other boys?"
"I'm not a boy, Mommy! Boys are GROSS!"
They went ahead with the party anyway and everything seemed to be going as planned. They had a cake, ice cream, punch, balloons, party favors, and a half a dozen five and six year-old girls and their parents. All the guests had arrived and Mrs. Sulu and Grandma, busy with the party preparations, did not notice that Hikaru had disappeared. He threw open the door to his mother's room and stood tall and proud in one of Mrs. Sulu's floral satin blouses awkwardly tied with his gi belt so as to make it into a dress. He'd smeared lipstick over his face and a turquoise eye shadow over his eyes. He'd used so much powder that it had gotten into his hair, which was pulled back by one of Mrs. Sulu's wide headbands. "I'm ready for the party now!" All the guests smiled and laughed, saying how cute he was, but Mrs. Sulu's heart just broke. This was a problem.
She laughed it off at the time, cleaned him up, and let him wear one of her less feminine necklaces as a consolation. The next day, she made an appointment with a psychiatrist. One of the benefits of being a Starfleet wife and living near the headquarters was that they had access to the best in medical and psychiatric care. Dr. Frank Sengupta was among the best in child and developmental psychiatry for humans and he had a demeanor that made Mrs. Sulu feel at ease. "Hikaru is a bright little boy, Mrs. Sulu, you should be proud."
"I am proud. I just..." Her throat closed up and she felt that somehow, this was her fault.
"You're worried about him. I know the feeling." His office was more like a comfortable and well-lit sitting room than a doctor's office. He served her a tea that smelled of cinnamon in a china cup printed with roses and edged in gold. "I have four kids myself. The youngest is about Hikaru's age."
"We thought it might be stress from his father being deployed or the new baby," Mrs. Sulu took a sip and tried to collect her thoughts, "I just don't know what else to do."
"Well," He sat next to her with his own teacup, "we've run some tests, watched him play, talked to him, and did a level one brain scan. He's been a real trooper all day." Dr. Sengupta set his cup aside and leaned forward a bit. "Hikaru has what we call 'gender incongruence,' commonly referred to as 'gender dysphoria.' What that means is that the construction and biochemical makeup of Hikaru's brain matches more closely with that of girls his age than with that of boys. We're not sure why this happens, but needless to say, he feels like a girl even though his body doesn't match what his brain is telling him."
"I want to help him." She didn't mean to sound so desperate, but her baby boy needed help and she was at a loss.
"The best therapy we've found in these cases is to change the body to match the brain. The brain is a very delicate organ and there's so much we still don't understand about how it works, so to try to change the brain to match the body would be disastrous. I've read case studies where this has been attempted through conditioning and even neurosurgery and chemical means and it's..." He shook his head in horror and disbelief, "barbaric. The person that emerges from these so-called 'treatments' is nothing like original personality. I don't wish to frighten you, Mrs. Sulu, but Hikaru is an intelligent and delightful child and I don't want you to lose that."
"But he's so young," She couldn't process what the doctor was telling her, "maybe he'll grow out of it."
"I assure you, Mrs. Sulu that this is not something he's going to grow out of. It is not just a phase," He refilled her tea and made sure a box of tissues was close at hand, "but what I offer to Hikaru is hope. I'm not asking you to put him through surgery tomorrow- that kind of abrupt change would be traumatic. To start with, I suggest you let Hikaru live as a girl at home for a while before any decisions are made about a complete transition. Let him pick out some new clothes, fix his hair, call him 'Anna.'"
"He-" She'd started crying as what the doctor was saying began to sink in, her words truncated by sobs and disbelief.
Dr. Sengupta handed her a tissue and explained, "It was the first thing he said to me. The fact that he's picked a name already was very telling." He picked up a PADD from his desk and touched a few keys, "I'm sending you some information, including contact information for a group of families that are going through the same thing you are. It's encrypted, so you won't have to worry about privacy. The password is 'Pinocchio' with a capital 'P.' I want you to do what's best for Hikaru, but I can't make this decision for you. I can only give you as much information as possible and my recommendations based on the information I have. Think about it, discuss it with your husband, talk to Hikaru about it."
Sensing that their meeting was coming to a close, Mrs. Sulu wiped her eyes and tried to look like she hadn't been crying. "Thank you, Doctor."
"I'll see you in about two weeks- same time. You can set up the appointment with my secretary and you are free to contact me if you have any questions or problems."
---
Ensign Sulu was supposed to be incommunicado for another month or so because of the sensitive nature of his work. Mrs. Sulu was glad he wasn't given a five-year post and that he'd be home soon, but it still meant that she was left to make these kinds of decisions on her own. Grandma agreed that it was worth a try and if nothing improved in the next two weeks, there was no harm in letting him play dress-up at home. At least Mrs. Sulu's closet would be left alone, they rationalized. They found some second-hand clothes that they were able to exchange for some that Hikaru had grown out of or hated, some matching clips and headbands, and a pair of brown tennis-shoes with blue flowers. There was not a single dress in the bundle, but they had found two skirts with built-in shorts that he'd declared were "good for kicking."
One afternoon, while Hikaru played in his room, there came a knock at the door. Grandma answered to find her Tai Chi instructor and good friend. She bowed out of habit, but it was returned in kind. "Dee? Please come in."
Dia Jing looked around worriedly, "Why you not bring Little Mouse to see me, Aiko? She sick? I do Qi Gong - for free. Anything for Little Mouse."
"He's not sick he's just-" Grandma exhaled and looked to her daughter, wondering how to explain.
Mrs. Sulu greeted her and tried her best, "We took him to a doctor-"
"Why you take her to doctor if not sick?" Dia Jing continued looking around, but then her eyes crinkled into a smile, "Little Mouse!"
"Sifu!" Hikaru ran down the stairs excitedly, dressed in one of her "kicking skirts" and a matching purple shirt with tiny flowers in lavender printed on the fabric. "Did you come to my house for class today?"
She knelt down to speak to him, "No class today, but you come see me tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay!" Hikaru held out her skirt for Dia Jing to see, "Look, Sifu, this is my new kicking skirt. It's got shorts inside so you can't see my business when I'm kicking. I have another one that's brown and Mommy fixed my hair today." Hikaru pointed to the little purple bows that kept her hair out of her face.
"Very pretty, Niū Niū Shŭ." Hikaru grinned and gave her a big hug. "I go now. See you tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay. Bye-bye, Sifu!" Hikaru skipped back to her room as Dia Jing rose to her feet in a single fluid movement.
"Practice, Niū Shŭ!" Dia Jing laughed.
"You... knew?" Mrs. Sulu tried to process what had just happened, but without much luck. Dia Jing seemed to not understand, "I mean, you knew about Hikaru wanting to be a girl?"
"How you not know she girl? She a very good, very sharp girl - very happy." She bowed to both Mrs. Sulu and Grandma, "I go now. Glad she not sick. I see her tomorrow, okay?"
"Oh...'kay." They each returned the bow and waved goodbye as she made her exit. When the door shut, Mrs. Sulu exhaled a long sigh, "Alright then. I guess we can do this."
---
Ensign Sulu came home two weeks early on a short furlough while the dignitary he was transporting did whatever classified business he was meant to do at Starfleet Headquarters. He opened the door and set down his duffel, "Mitsuko!"
A head popped up from behind the couch with a yell, "DADDY!" Hikaru abandoned his book about swashbuckling heroes and ran to hug his father's leg.
"Hika- What are you wearing?" Realization slowly hit as he noticed the blue headband and the matching shirt with periwinkles and tulips printed on the front, "Mitsuko?!"
She ran in from the nursery and wrapped her arms around her husband, peppering him with kisses, "Sato! You're home early! I just put Kiko down for her nap and Mom is at the market. Oh, I missed you!"
"I missed you, too - both of you. Mitzi, can we talk?"
She put a hand on Hikaru's head, "Anna, why don't you take your book to your room and read, okay?"
"Okay, Mommy." He grabbed his book and ran upstairs.
Ensign Sulu mouthed "Anna?" so that Hikaru would not hear and waited until the door was shut. "Anna?!" He said it out loud this time. "Mitzi, what's going on?"
"Come see your baby and we'll talk about it, okay?" She knew Kiko would soften him and she hoped to prevent the all-out fight she sensed was coming. "I took him to a Starfleet psychiatrist, Dr. Sengupta," she explained as they walked to the nursery, "and he explained that what's going on with Hikaru is called 'gender incongruence.'" The door creaked a little when it opened, but Kiko did not wake. Ensign Sulu's shoulders relaxed upon seeing his daughter sleeping and Mrs. Sulu quieted her voice to a whisper, "It means that his brain matches more closely with a little girl's brain than with a little boy's brain. He said the best thing to do is to help him become a little girl on the outside."
"Oh, Mitzi," He held Kiko's little hand, careful not to wake her, "she's gotten so big. Look at her - she's so... wow." Kiko's mouth moved as though she were sucking and a little fist stretched out and relaxed. "Hey, baby, Daddy's home." He left the side of her crib with some reluctance and they moved to the mango-colored couch to discuss Hikaru. "Mitzi - I don't think this is such a good idea. He's probably just going to grow out of this and I don't think we should be-"
"Mom and I got him a few things to wear at home and that's it. It's not like he goes out like that and besides-" They kept their voices down, but the argument was no less intense.
"I don't think we need to encourage this." interrupted Mr. Sulu.
"Besides, he's been so much happier since and-"
Ensign Sulu shook his head, "No. This needs to stop. We're getting rid of the girl clothes and we're not going to call him 'Anna.' I want my little boy back."
"This is not about what you want," Mrs. Sulu's face grew stern, "This is about what's right for Hikaru."
"And I say that what's right for him is to be the little boy I know he is." Ensign Sulu shook his head, "This stops today."
In the days that followed, all hell broke loose in the Sulu home. Hikaru had screaming fits, threw all of his boy clothes out his bedroom window, and cried when he had to leave the dojo. He was miserable. Everyone was miserable.
They met with the psychiatrist on the third day of Ensign Sulu's leave. "I was afraid something like this might happen." Dr. Sengupta sighed, "Ensign Sulu, like I told your wife, this is not something that can be fixed with any kind of talk therapy or conditioning and it's not a failure in your parenting at all. Gender incongruence is a documented disorder under the diagnostic codes of the Federation Medical Association and is found in almost every sentient species with a discernable gender. It's more common in Andorians, less so in Vulcans, but it's there."
"Doctor Sengupta," Though he wore no insignia, the doctor bore the rank of Commander, "Sir, I don't understand how we can know he's not just going to grow out of this."
"We have over two hundred and fifty years of research on the brains of transgendered individuals," he touched a button, took a stylus from his desk as glass panel descended from the ceiling. With a few touches, he brought up a series of brain scans, "Here is Hikaru's brain. It's healthy, you can tell he was relaxed when we did the scan, and there are no evident issues in the levels of serotonin and melatonin. All things considered, it's a normal and healthy brain." He brought up two more, "These are the brains of two children about Hikaru's age - they're similar in many respects, but when we look at those areas of the brain associated with gender identity, you can see what I'm talking about."
He touched something else and each image rotated and opened up, "This is referred to as the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, BSTc. As you can see," He lit up different areas with the stylus, "The patterns of innervation, the numbers of somatostatin-expressing neurons, the arrangement of the neurons, are all more closely matched with the brain on the left," he set the stylus aside, "which is a human female brain. This is concordant with Hikaru's behavior and matches the official diagnosis guidelines. He's a classic case - practically textbook." Ensign Sulu nodded, "These things are unrelated to hormone levels or genotype and cannot be changed without severe damage to Hikaru's personality. I encourage you to review the information I sent to your wife and to talk to other parents of transgendered children. You have seen for yourself, Ensign, that when Hikaru was allowed to live as a girl, her stress level was reduced and when that was taken away, his distress increased."
Ensign Sulu looked into his wife's pleading eyes, glanced at the images still suspended on the glass panel, and gave up. He stood a little straighter, wondering if he should salute when Sengupta extended his hand. "Thank you, Doctor." Though the doctor was a slight man, his grip was firm, "I just want him to be happy. I just want our family back."
"I understand; I'm a father myself. I'll see you in two weeks, you can set up the appointment with my secretary. I look forward to seeing Hikaru again."
"My next assignment begins in ten days, sir."
"Ten days it is, then."
They recovered the girl's clothes Hikaru had been wearing before, Mrs. Sulu had asked the clerk to set them aside, and Ensign Sulu insisted on buying him new things as well, including underwear with little blue and green flowers and socks edged in lace. The difference was radical and immediate. Hikaru's temper tantrums ceased, he was happy, and they felt like an almost normal family again. At the end of the ten days, both parents agreed to proceed with transition.
Grandma had convinced her to retain the name Hikaru. "Do you know what your name means?"
Hikaru shook her head as her Grandma continued, "It means 'radiance.' When your mother found out she was pregnant with you, it was like there was a new light in our family. We were all so happy. It is a girl's name too, you know."
"Really?!" she grinned, her eyes wide.
"Oh, yes. I went to school with a girl named Hikaru." Grandma played with Hikaru's hair, now almost long enough for pigtails, "You are still like a ray of light, little one, and it has nothing to do with what you look like on the outside."
"Okay, but will you still call me 'Anna?'"
"Yes." She cuddled little Hikaru close and when it was time to allow her to wear her girl's clothes in public, they enrolled Hikaru Anna Sulu in the Starfleet Academy Campus Elementary School and she made exceptional marks in almost every area of study.
Ensign Sulu's next deployment was for six months this time, but he was allowed to call home and watch both of his little girls growing up. When he came home, he took Hikaru to see all the different shuttles and aircraft he flew and even let her sit on his lap and work some of the controls. She fell in love with flying and he fell in love with his eldest child all over again. Eventually, it came time for Hikaru's surgery and more intensive therapies and though it was exhausting and Ensign Sulu could not be there for most of it, she was able to spend her sixth birthday as a real girl.
"When we are finished today and her body has had time to recover and integrate the new information," Dr. Sengupta explained, "she will be female to all but the most thorough medical scans. She will go through puberty like any other normal girl, have a menstrual cycle, and she will even be able to bear children." Hikaru lay on the child-sized biobed, watching the lights that blinked over her head in time with her heart and her breath. "Are you ready?" Hikaru nodded and Ensign and Mrs. Sulu waved to her as a nurse directed them to the waiting room.
An hour and a half later, Hikaru opened her eyes, feeling heavy and groggy, "Am I really a girl now?"
Mrs. Sulu cried, "Yeah, sweetie, you are."
---
Sixteen years later, Cadet Sulu buckled herself in next to a skinny kid when they were deployed on an emergency mission to Vulcan. "Are you nerwous?"
"Hunh?" He had a thick accent, but she thought it was kinda cute.
"Nervwous. Are you nervwous? It is our first mission." He had curly blonde hair and big green eyes and while she felt prepared for the mission, as ready as she could be, she found that every intelligent thing she'd ever had to say suddenly exited her brain as though airlocked into space.
"Uh, yeah, a little."
He stuck out his hand, "Ensign Chekov, Pavel Andreievich. I am to be the navigator."
"No way! Are you serious?!" She shook his hand a little more exuberantly than she'd intended, "Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu."
"You do not believe me?" He rubbed his hand and glanced at her breasts with no subtlety whatsoever.
She forgave him that and was frankly glad he'd noticed she had them, convinced that nobody was interested in a quiet, nerdy girl like her, "No, it's not that. It's just that I'm the pilot. McKenna got lungworms, so they assigned me instead. We're going to be working together."
"Ah!" he smiled and, feeling a bit like a lovestruck idiot, she smiled back, "It is pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Sulu."
"You can call me Anna," she made a nervous little laugh, "Y'know, when we're off-duty. It's my middle name. I go by 'Anna.' My, uh, friends call me 'Anna.'" She swallowed hard to keep herself from babbling.
"Then you must call me Pavel- off-duty, of course." His ears started to turn red and she couldn't help but smile.
"Of course."
They had a very long and very bad day after that. Nerves made her forget to disengage the external inertial dampeners and embarrass herself in front of the entire bridge crew and the boy she was trying to impress, but she stopped lamenting the fiery death of her love life when some guy who was not even in full uniform stormed onto the bridge and started arguing with the Captain. She forgot about the mistake entirely when they came out of warp into a debris field that had once been some of the finest ships in the fleet. The guy, she learned, was Jim Kirk and later, as they fell toward certain death after the stupidest mission she'd ever volunteered for, she was pretty sure he'd grabbed her ass. She thought about smacking him, but the ground was coming up fast. Instead, she sucked in a breath, closed her eyes, and, to her surprise, crashed into the transporter pad.
"Yo mayo!" The boy jumped in triumph and Hikaru's heart, still pounding from adrenaline, leapt into her throat.
She wanted to kiss him, but there was no time. "Thanks," was all she could manage before she had to shuck the AV suit and return to her station. When the day was done, they'd lost Vulcan, but saved Earth and while she was still high from the mission, she forgot her nerves and gave him the thank-you she'd wanted to give him before. She attacked Pavel with kisses and found that their lips and tongues were well-matched.
"You are welcome!"
She laughed, "Uh, do you think... maybe we could go out? I think I'd like to go out with you. If, y'know, you wanted."
"Go out where?"
"I don't know," she kissed his cheek, now pink like a cherry blossom about to bloom, "but I think I'd like to be more than just your partner at the helm. I think I'd like to be your girlfriend. If that's okay? I mean, I don't think it's against regs or anything, but-"
He grinned and bounced on the balls of his feet, "Okay, we can do that."
Pavel pounced, wrapping his arms around her. "Oh!" It was the best hug ever and it was from a boy. A boy she liked. She felt like a giddy sixteen-year-old on her first date again and when the hug was over, she sighed. "So, do you like Pizza? I know a place-"
"Pizza was invented in Russia!" he asserted, "Very few people know this-" They babbled at each other all the way to the restaurant and it was the beginning of something beautiful.
---
They were still dating three months later when it was time for their quarterly physicals, so they went together before their shift. Dr. McCoy scanned Pavel first, looked in his throat, shined a light in his eyes, and was done. He scanned Hikaru next, stopped midway through and raised an eyebrow. "Hunh."
He adjusted a setting and scanned again, frowned, nodded, and then proceeded with the physical without another word. "Lieutenant?"
"Yeah, Doc?"
He showed her the tricorder readings and pointed something out, "Can you confirm this? I want to make sure I'm reading this right."
She looked and then nodded, "Yeah, that's correct."
"Alright," McCoy put the scanner back in its slot on the tricorder, "you're both free to go."
As they walked down the hall toward their post, Pavel looked worried, "Anna, are you-?" He patted his stomach and raised his eyebrows.
"What?"
"Are you, you know, in the family way?" He whispered the last part, concerned that someone might hear.
"'In the family way?!' Who says that? No, I'm not pregnant, if that's what you mean." She shook her head, "You've been taking your birth control, right? I mean, you should be shooting blanks."
"Da. I am set to 'stun.' I am too young to be a papa, whatever my mother says. I was only concerned because..." The worried look returned to his adorable face, "He scanned your stomach twice. Doctor McCoy never scans twice unless something is wrong."
"I'm just-" she sighed, "I'm just built a little different than most girls, that's all."
"Is this something I should be concerned about? I worry about you Annushka." stated Pavel.
She pulled him aside into an alcove where there were fewer people that might hear what she had to say to her boyfriend, "Promise me you're not going to freak out."
"I promise."
"I wasn't always a girl." Pavel blinked his eyes as he processed, but it didn't seem to sink in. "I was born 'Hikaru Walter Sulu'-"
"Who names a little girl 'Walter?' and what does changing your name have to do with your stomach?"
"Oh my God, Pavel, tell me you are not actually this dense." She put her hand to her forehead and sighed again, "I was a boy when I was born. I had a little penis and everything. When I was five, I had a series of surgeries and gene therapy treatments so that I could become a girl."
"They just..." he made a chopping motion with his hand, "whacked it off?"
"Well, no, they kind of turn it inside-out, actually-" Pavel's eyes scanned back and forth, not really looking at anything, like he was looking for the solution to an equation with some of the variables missing, "Listen, please don't be weird about this."
He shook his head and waved her off, "We have to get to our stations. We are going to be late."
He didn't talk to her or make eyes at her as usual. He just held his mouth shut tight and did the job that was in front of him. She did the same, deciding that she'd try to talk to him about it after shift. Their relief arrived on time and she and Pavel had the most awkward turbolift ride in the history of things that moved people up and down.
"Pavel? Are we... okay?" she finally managed to ask in a small and worried voice a few seconds before the door opened.
"Does this mean I am gay?" Pavel asked abruptly.
"Uh... no, because I'm a girl."
"Hmm. Good, because that is fine for the Keptin, but it is not how I am. And you are, eh," Pavel tapped his head, trying to think of the right words, "fully functional?"
"In every way," she assured him.
He crossed his arms, his brow crinkled into his most serious face. She would have thought it adorable if it weren't for the fact that they might be on the verge of breaking up, "So you can have babies?"
"Pavel! We've only been dating for three months!"
"I am only curious!"
"Okay, fine." She blew her bangs out of her eyes, "Yes, I can have babies - not that I want any right now."
"Then we are fine." His face relaxed and the tension in his jaw released. He nodded once and then began to walk toward the mess hall.
She stood there agape, "That's - that's it?!"
"Da. That is it. We can fight more if you wish, but I am hungry."
"You're not mad?" He shook his head. "Holy cow, that was way easier than I thought." She took his hand and kissed his cheek and he smiled just as nicely as when they first met. A smile crossed her lips and she knew she was in love, "So, what are we having for dinner?"
"Meatloaf."
"Again?!"