Star Trek XI Fic: Accidentally (Scotty/female!Chekov, 12+)
I wrote 90% of this fic about ... two and a half years ago. (Yeah. My backlog is that bad.) I haven't manned up and posted it yet. And I'm feeling crap about myself and my ability to write fic, so I'm throwing it out there.
Also, I've been trying to title it for twenty minutes, and this is the best of a bad lot. (I came so close to calling it 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go', but really, it's not cracky enough for that. :P ) Anyway, without further ado, have some long-overdue fic.
Title ~ Accidentally
Rating ~ 12+
Pairing ~ Scotty/female!Chekov
Summary ~ Polina Chekov is seventeen years old, the ship’s navigator and probably one of the top ten most intelligent people on board the Enterprise. She’s also pregnant.
Warnings ~ Genderswap AU in which Chekov has always been female. Underage Chekov if 17 is underage in your country. Pregnancy. UK spellings.
Notes ~ 12,642 words. Written for this st_xi_kink meme prompt.
Unbeta’d because I felt stupid asking my nice normal friends and/or nice normal Star Trek XI fans to beta a serious fic that ought to be a crackfest. Sorry. Please feel free to point out any mistakes.
Disclaimer ~ I make no claims to owning Star Trek.
Accidentally
Polina Chekov - for all the she might be a child prodigy, the ship’s navigator and probably one of the top ten most intelligent people on board the Enterprise - was only an Ensign, and as such she had to share a bathroom. It was a matter of space; there was only so much of it on each deck, and so there had to be some kind of compromise. She understood that and normally the situation didn’t bother her, but today - as she retched into the toilet bowl - she just wished that she had her own space. Any minute now, her neighbour was going to hear.
A moment later, just as she had predicted, there was a knock on the door that led to Ensign Gaila’s quarters. Chekov closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was someone fussing over her. It happened often enough when she was feeling perfectly well, thanks to her age, and being ill would only get her coddled even more.
“Are you OK in there, Polina?” Gaila asked from the other side of the door. She sounded genuinely concerned, and Chekov felt her resolve to handle this alone waver.
“I’m fine,” she croaked.
“You don’t sound fine,” Gaila told her briskly. “I hope you’re decent, ’cause I’m coming in there.”
Chekov opened her eyes and looked up as the bathroom door opened to reveal Gaila. Her red uniform shirt looked fresh and crisp, suggesting that she was on her way to a shift rather than returning from one. Chekov felt guilt squirm in her stomach; the pair of them were going to be late now and it was entirely her fault. Gaila crouched down beside her and placed a hand on her forehead, frowning.
“You don’t look so good,” she murmured. Her hand was cool and soothing against Chekov’s skin but she withdrew it quickly, apparently satisfied that she wasn’t running a temperature. “Were you drinking last night, or something?”
Chekov shook her head. Far from it, in fact; she had spent most of the evening curled up with Scotty, working on his latest pet theory with nothing stronger than hot chocolate to drink. She had been feeling tired, too, so she had come back unusually early, for once choosing to sleep in her own quarters so that Scotty could stay up without feeling guilty about keeping her awake.
“Eaten something that disagreed with you?” Gaila suggested. Chekov wracked her brains, but as far as she could remember she hadn’t eaten any differently than usual, and the Enterprise’s kitchens and replicators were hardly likely to give her food poisoning.
“I don’t think so,” she replied with a small shake of her head.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Gaila laughed. Chekov’s immediate reaction was a chuckle of amusement. She would have laughed harder if she had been feeling better. Then Gaila’s words actually sank in and the cogs started to turn inside her head, and the nausea - which had finally started to subside - returned with a vengeance.
She turned and grabbed the rim of the toilet, leaning over in case she actually did throw up. Gaila rubbed her back gently, murmuring something to her, but Chekov wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was trying to remember when she had had her last period. Normally, she didn’t pay any all that much attention as she wasn’t particularly regular when it came to her monthly cycle, but after a few minutes of careful thought she came to the conclusion it had definitely been more than four weeks ago.
“Oh, honey,” Gaila said, stroking Chekov’s curls back from her forehead and cheeks for her with one hand. “You’re not in a good way.”
No, probably not, Chekov thought. Her heart rate had begun to speed up as panic started to seep in. She and Scotty had been sleeping together for the past four months, since she was legal in both their home countries even if she was still underage by the Federation’s standards.
She realised, with a horrible sort of inevitability, that her last set of contraceptive shots - administered back home in Russia during her last bit of shore-leave before the mission started - would officially run out within the next month or so. Inside her head, the doctor’s words played over again: “These should last you for six months, but we can only guarantee that you won’t get pregnant for the next four months. You should get them renewed before then.”
Chekov gripped the rim of the toilet tighter, trying to disguise the shaking of her hands. Gaila shifted closer to her and placed an arm around her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze. She sniffed and tried to pull herself together, without much effect. She still felt sick, her increased breathing and heart-rate were making her feel dizzy, and she was probably pregnant.
“Shit,” she whispered.
***
Scotty was in the middle of fixing a glitch in one of the transporters, spotted during routine maintenance but too complex for the Ensign who had found it to unravel alone, when Chekov walked into the transporter bay. He looked up, surprised to see her until he realised that he had lost track of time and both their shifts had ended a good half hour before.
“Polina. What brings you down here?”
“Can I speak to you?” she asked, glancing meaningfully at Ensign Matthews. “Alone?”
“’Course you can,” Scotty replied, frowning at the request. Now that he looked at her closely, Chekov looked tired and pale, her shoulders hunched as if her whole body wanted to curl in on itself. He glanced at Matthews. “Don’t so much as touch that console until I get back.”
Normally, he wouldn’t give so harsh an order, especially to a competent engineer like Matthews, but the glitch had somehow wormed its way through most of the transporter’s core programming and even he was finding it difficult to untangle. He glanced at Chekov and momentarily thought about inviting her to help, but from the anxious look on her face he guessed that it wouldn’t be appreciated. He smiled at her as he walked across to the door, but she didn’t return it as she usually would.
They stepped out into the deserted corridor but apparently Chekov wasn’t satisfied by that level of privacy. She walked a short way along the corridor to an empty conference room and went inside, Scotty following close on her heels. He folded his arms as the doors slid closed behind him. “Why all the secrecy?”
Chekov took a deep breath that caught in her throat. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Her eyes were bright with moisture, as if she might be about to cry. Scotty stepped forwards and took hold of her shoulders, squeezing them gently. “Hey,” he murmured. “You can tell me, whatever it is.”
She refused to look at him, her eyes darting from side to side and up towards the ceiling to avoid his face. Now that he was touching her, he could feel that she was shaking slightly. He tried to pull her into a hug, but she brought her hands up to his chest to hold him off.
“No, Scotty, listen,” she said with a rapid shake of her head. He saw her visibly pull herself together: her back straightened, her chin came up and her shoulders rolled back before she met his gaze. When she spoke, her show of confidence was spoiled slightly by her voice breaking. “I think I might be pregnant.”
Scotty felt his heart seize in his chest. Stupidly, he asked, “What d’you mean?”
She couldn’t keep eye contact any longer; she ducked her head and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. “I mean pregnant, Scotty.”
“Are you - are you sure?” he said. He felt as if someone had punched in him the stomach, knocking all the wind out of him. His brain seemed unable to quite grasp the concept. “I thought you had shots …?”
“They aren’t totally fail-safe after four months. And no, I’m not absolutely sure,” Chekov said quietly. She let her hand drop to her side and looked up. When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible. “I don’t want to tell Doctor McCoy.”
For a moment, Scotty didn’t understand what she meant. Then realisation struck: Chekov was under the legal age of consent in the Federation. She shouldn’t even be sleeping with him, let alone pregnant with - he swallowed hard - his child. His rising panic must have shown on his face because Chekov let out a sob and clapped a hand over her mouth, the other fisting into the fabric of his shirt.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice muffled. It was a question Scotty couldn’t immediately answer, but he had to do something. He automatically took a step closer and wrapped both his arms around her slight frame, holding her gently. He could tell from the way her shoulders shook that she was trying not to cry, and was shocked by that alone. Chekov was brave and not prone to crying even at the worst of times; that she was almost reduced to tears by this was disconcerting, to say the least.
“You need to go to Sickbay and make sure, before we do anything,” he said, rubbing soothing circles on her back. Chekov pulled back a little so that she could look up into his face.
“But what about McCoy?” she said uncertainly, her worry showing in her expression. “He’ll shout. And he’ll know about us - you’ll get into trouble.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he replied, trying not to think about where the bridge might lead. “For now, let’s concentrate on whether or not you actually are - you know.”
“OK,” she replied with a decisive nod. She wiped furiously at her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself, then stepped back and released his shirt, smoothing the creases with her palm. “I will see Doctor McCoy.”
Scotty touched her cheek with his thumb. Part of him wanted to go with her and hold her hand, because he could see that she was both upset and afraid, but another part wholeheartedly didn’t want to be there when McCoy inevitably exploded. It was bad enough having his own internal monologue berating him for his stupidity, without McCoy joining in and throwing in a couple of Hyposprays of Retribution on top.
“You’re going to be OK,” he told Chekov firmly, knowing that, whatever happened to him, that much would be true. Even if she decided to keep the baby - if she was actually pregnant - she had the rest of the crew and her family in Russia to support her. They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.
Chekov looked as if she wanted to ask if he would be all right, but she said nothing. He took her face in her hands and brushed a kiss against her forehead. For a moment, they stood perfectly still, then she sighed and he lifted his head.
“I’d better go to Sickbay,” she said. Scotty nodded wordlessly. He held out his hand.
“I’ll walk you to the lift,” he offered. Chekov smiled weakly and slid her hand into his, giving his palm a squeeze.
They walked to the turbolift in silence, glad that the corridors were empty. When the lift arrived, Chekov reluctantly let go of his hand and stepped inside without speaking. She turned to face the doors and forced a feeble smile before they closed, hiding her from view.
Briefly, Scotty considered going back to work, but the thought of reprogramming the transporter no longer seemed appealing. It probably wasn’t the best idea, either. With his mind on other things - specifically Chekov, and the baby she might be carrying - he might miss something or make a mistake that could turn out to be fatal for the next person to use the machine.
He pressed the turbolift call button and pulled the communicator off his belt. While he was waiting for the lift to return, he flipped the device open and ordered his second in command to take charge of the repair. Scotty didn’t give her a reason his abandoning the job half finished, but although she sounded surprised and confused, she didn’t ask any questions; his shift had just ended, after all.
Scotty clipped the communicator back onto his belt as he stepped into the lift. He needed a drink. There was an open bottle of single malt Scotch sitting the bottom drawer of the desk in his quarters; that would do nicely. As the lift started to move, he leaned back against the wall and tried to compose himself. After all, nothing was definite; he might not have a reason to panic at all.
Something about the look in Chekov’s eyes when she had told him made him doubt that.
***
Sickbay was deserted but for the medical personnel. Chekov was glad of that; she didn’t want an audience. She had decided on the way that she wouldn’t tell McCoy her suspicions outright, but rather explain that she had been ill earlier on so that he would examine her. If she was indeed pregnant, the medical tricorder would display the information regardless of what it was actually scanning for. On the other hand, if she was suffering from nothing more than an upset stomach, she wouldn’t get Scotty into trouble for nothing.
She glanced around for Doctor McCoy, but couldn’t see him in Sickbay itself so she went across to his office and pressed the door chime. The doors opened a few seconds later to reveal McCoy.
“Chekov,” he said with a small smile. “What can I do for you?”
“I was wondering if you could take a look at me?” she replied, wrapping her arms around herself. She suddenly wished that Scotty was here with her, even though she knew that logically it would have been a bad idea for him to come.
McCoy stepped out of his office and gestured towards the nearest biobed. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I threw up this morning,” she told him as she hopped up onto the edge of the bed. “I thought I’d be OK once I got to the bridge, and I was for a while - it seemed to get better. Then towards the end of the shift I started feeling nauseous again.”
It wasn’t a lie, she told herself firmly; withholding part of the truth wasn’t the same as lying. McCoy nodded as he picked up a tricorder. “Any stomach pain?”
“No.”
“Eaten anything funny in the past twenty-four hours?” he asked gently. Chekov shook her head. “Did you manage to eat today?”
“Gaila replicated me some dry toast after I threw up, and it made me feel a bit better. I had lunch as usual,” she replied.
“OK, then, I don’t need to worry about you keeling over,” McCoy said with a rare reassuring smile. He lifted the tricorder and began to scan her body from the neck down. Chekov watched his face carefully, and after a few seconds he frowned. “Your oestrogen level is unusually high …”
His voice trailed off as the tricorder took another sweep across her stomach and she saw his eyes widen. She licked her lips and asked, “Is something wrong?”
McCoy looked up at her but said nothing. His expression was one of shock, topped off with a deepening frown, and Chekov felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She didn’t need to be told any more; his reaction had said it all. She was pregnant.
“I’m just going to run another test,” he said, pressing a couple of buttons on the tricorder. He scanned her one more time, then let out a deep sigh and tried to smooth the lines off his face. He didn’t quite succeed. “Have you been sexually active in the past few months?”
She swallowed hard; the way McCoy was looking at her made her feel as if she had somehow personally betrayed him, but there was no point lying about it. She nodded. McCoy looked away and she saw his jaw tighten.
“Dammit,” he growled to no one in particular. Chekov wrapped her arms around herself tightly and steeled herself. When he rounded on her she didn’t want to flinch. McCoy stared across Sickbay for another couple of seconds, then turned back to her. When he spoke, his voice was tight and the words sharp, but he was obviously trying not to lose his temper. “You’re pregnant, Polina.”
Chekov released the breath she had been holding in a rush. It was something of a relief to know for certain, even if she could feel anxieties crowding in on her. She mentally pulled herself together; she couldn’t - she wouldn’t go to pieces in front of McCoy. She lifted her chin and met his gaze squarely, telling herself that she would cope, that they would get through this.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked before she had a chance to speak. He ran his fingers through his hair and said a slightly lower tone, “What the hell was Scotty thinking?”
It wasn’t surprising that McCoy has guessed that Scotty was the father; it wasn’t as if their relationship was a secret, even if the sexual element of it had been until now. However, it made her angry that McCoy immediately jumped to the conclusion that Scotty had initiated the sex, which wasn’t true. If anything, she had seduced Scotty; he had wanted to wait until she was Federation-legal. She suddenly wished that she too had been willing to wait, but quickly swallowed the lump that had appeared in her throat. She couldn’t let McCoy imply that Scotty was an irresponsible idiot.
“Do not blame him for this!” she snapped. “Is not his fault. I had contraceptive shots before I left Russia, and they run out soon - I should have come to get them renewed last month.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” McCoy asked, frustration at her foolishness raising his voice.
“Because!” she yelled back with a wave of her hand. She could feel the nurses’ gazes on her back and resented them for eavesdropping even though she knew it had to be hard not to hear what was being said. “Because I forgot! And because I would have got this - you, shouting at me, telling me I am too young, that I should not let him touch me -”
“Yeah, but I would’ve give you the damned shots, Polina!” McCoy shouted. His voice quietened as he added, “Then you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Mess?” she breathed, incredulous that McCoy would say something like that. Yes, it was an accident - but ‘accident’ and ‘mess’ did not mean quite the same thing. “Being pregnant is a mess, to you?”
“It is when you’re seventeen!” McCoy said bluntly in a tone that told her that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Christ, Polina, you’re barely more than a child yourself - you’re not even legal yet, according to regulations! Besides that, Scotty’s more than twice your age! How the hell do you see this as anything other than a mess?”
Chekov realised that at some point her fingers had unconsciously balled into trembling fists. She was tired of being treated like a child. She was tired of hearing reasons why she and Scotty shouldn’t be together. She knew as well as anyone that their relationship was unconventional, but she was sick of people assuming that it was a bad idea because of that. Suddenly she wanted to get away from the clinical white and silver of Sickbay. She wanted to find Scotty.
“Can I go now, please?” she asked tightly, jumping down from the biobed and glaring at McCoy, daring him to try and make her stay. He glowered back for a moment, then stepped out of her way, leaving her a clear path to the door. She nodded to him, but when she tried to walk past, he grabbed her arm.
“I’m going to need you to come back for a full physical,” he said firmly. “I’m guessing you don’t know what you want to do yet, but if you want to talk to someone about your options, everybody in here is more than happy to fill you in.”
Chekov nodded mutely without looking away from the door. She didn’t want to talk to anyone in Medical; she wanted to talk to Scotty. McCoy released her arm with a sigh, and she hurried out of Sickbay without looking back.
***
Chekov made her way straight to Scotty’s quarters, still furious with McCoy for his negative reaction. By the time she arrived at his door, she had calmed down considerably, but could still feel her anger simmering away beneath the calm. She pressed the chime outside Scotty’s doors but didn’t wait for an answer before she keyed in the code to open them and stepped inside.
Scotty was sitting at his desk, but when she stepped in he lurched to his feet and walked across to her, catching hold of her shoulders. “Polina! What did they say?”
The scent of alcohol was heavy on his breath and Chekov couldn’t help but turn away, her face screwing up in disgust. She looked over at his desk and saw that there was a bottle of Scotch, almost half empty, and a glass within easy reach of the chair. Her heart clenched unpleasantly as she turned to face him.
“You got drunk?” she breathed. “I tell you I think I’m pregnant and you get drunk?”
“I’m not drunk, Polina,” Scotty replied with a frown. “I’ve only had a couple of glasses, and you know I can hold my drink -”
She pushed him off her, closing her eyes as the anger surged back. Obviously, like McCoy, Scotty didn’t like the situation. If he did, his immediate reaction wouldn’t be to crawl into a bottle. Traitorously, she thought that perhaps McCoy was right: perhaps this was a mess, after all. She forced herself to open her eyes.
“I am not talking to you until you are sober,” she told him sharply, then before he could answer she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room. She heard him rush to the door behind her, tripping over his own feet in his haste. He called her back, but she ignored him and quickened her pace, hurrying into the next turbolift. She pressed the button to close the doors before he had chance to come after her.
She took the turbolift up to the recreation deck, hoping to take her mind off everything. She walked toward the mess hall, fairly certain that Scotty wouldn’t find her there. He would probably try her quarters first, if he came looking for her at all - as part of her hoped that he would, even though she didn’t want to be found.
The mess hall was almost deserted so long after the end of Alpha Shift. Only a few tables were occupied, and most people had already finished eating. She grabbed herself a sandwich then scanned the room for a quiet table; as she did so, she realised that Sulu was sitting alone in the far corner and decided to see if he minded if she joined him.
“Hello, Hikaru,” she said as she stopped beside his table. He looked up from the PADD he had been reading and grinned at her.
“Polina, hey! Take a seat,” he said, gesturing at the chairs opposite. She sat down and put her sandwich on the table, glancing at the PADD.
“I’m not interrupting?”
“No, not at all - I was just reading over the Science department’s notes on the botanical samples we picked up on the last mission,” he said, spinning the PADD around so that she could see the screen.
Chekov smiled as her friend launched into an enthusiastic explanation of their findings. Her friend’s interest in botany had at first both amused and surprised her, because Sulu didn’t seem like a man with green fingers at first glance and she had always found the study of plants a slightly dull branch of science. She much preferred engineering and physics. However, when Sulu started talking plant biology, he spoke in such a way that they became interesting even to her, and so listening to him was a welcome and genuinely interesting distraction.
“Anyway,” Sulu said eventually, when he had finished his lengthy explanation and Chekov had finished her sandwich. “Enough about botany - what about you? Did you go and see McCoy?”
It had taken less than five minutes for someone to ask her what the matter was when she appeared late on the bridge, pale and sickly. The Captain had offered to let her go to Sickbay and get checked out, but she had refused, promising that she would go after her shift. She had wanted to speak to Scotty before she went near Sickbay.
“Yes,” she said quietly, trying not to remember the encounter in detail. Sulu was her best friend and he had known from the beginning the full extent of her relationship with Scotty; she could tell him. She shifted her chair a little further around the table and glanced over her shoulder, checking that she would not be overheard. “Will you keep a secret for me, Hikaru?”
He frowned, obviously concerned, and leaned across so that he could hear her better. “What’s the matter? What did he say?”
Chekov steeled herself; she knew that Sulu would be sympathetic and understanding, but it was still difficult. “I’m pregnant.”
Sulu’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t help but giggle at his reaction, even though his face remained serious. He placed one of his hands on top of hers.
“Polina, that’s - does Scotty know?” Her expression must have soured involuntarily, because Sulu squeezed her hand and asked softly, “What did he say?”
“He was nice about it,” she admitted, because it was the truth: he had been supportive and realistic, even though he was obviously as freaked out as she was. “But then I went to talk to him just before I came here, and he’d been drinking …”
Sulu raised his eyebrows. “Drinking?”
Chekov shrugged. Now that she stopped and thought about it, with the red haze of anger no longer clouding her vision, her assumption that Scotty was drunk seemed unfair. They had only been apart for a little over half an hour. It was probably true that he had only had a couple of glasses - to steady his rattled nerves, she supposed - and she knew that even on an empty stomach that wasn’t enough to make him more than a little tipsy. Plus, she knew that the Scotch tended to lace his breath after just the one glass, so being able to smell it on him didn’t automatically mean he was inebriated.
“I thought he’d gone away and got drunk because of what I told him,” she admitted, feeling slightly guilty now. She shook her head with a sigh. “I don’t think he was actually drunk, I just assumed … I was upset anyway, because of McCoy - I wasn’t thinking straight. I overreacted.”
Sulu moved his chair across until it was right beside hers and put an arm around her shoulders. “He shouldn’t have upset you at all, even accidentally. Especially not now.”
He sounded angry with Scotty. She sighed; thanks to her, everyone was going to be angry with Scotty. Sulu squeezed her shoulders.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” he asked tentatively a few minutes later.
Chekov closed her eyes and shook her head. In truth, she didn’t know. The pregnancy was an accident, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to terminate it; she knew that if she did, what ifs and maybes would plague her for the rest of her life. Then again, the Enterprise was on a five-year mission to explore new and sometimes hostile worlds, and it was hardly the place to raise a child when they could be attacked at any moment.
“I don’t know,” she said eventually. “I need to talk to Scotty about it.”
“You know that whatever you decide, we’ll all be here for you,” Sulu reminded her, rubbing her arm gently. She let her head drop onto his shoulder.
“I know you will,” she whispered. It was comforting to know that her friends would be there for her, but she knew that Scotty wasn’t included in Sulu’s ‘we’ and the thought worried her. If Scotty wasn’t prepared to stand by her, she wasn’t sure she would be able to go through with any decision - right or wrong.
***
Scotty returned to his quarters an hour or so later. He had been to Chekov’s room twice - at the beginning and the end of his search - and scoured the recreation deck, the observation desk and the gym, but couldn’t find any trace of her. He had decided to give up rather than start knocking on her friends’ doors; he had a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate it. He sat down on his bed and stared at the bottle of Scotch on his desk, for once not even remotely tempted to pour himself a glass. It was, after all, the reason why Chekov was avoiding him. He sighed and let his head drop into his hands. He didn’t even know if she really was carrying a child; from her reaction, he guessed that McCoy’s test was positive, but she hadn’t stayed long enough to tell him for certain.
The door chime sounded and he looked up, hardly daring to hope that Chekov had come back to speak to him. “Come in!”
It wasn’t Chekov, it was Sulu. It didn’t take Scotty long to realise with a sinking feeling that Chekov had probably told Sulu everything; they were good friends, after all.
“Scotty,” Sulu said curtly. A slight frown furrowed his brow, but otherwise his face was expressionless; however, his jaw was set and there was a look in his eyes that told Scotty that he was annoyed.
“Sulu,” he replied as he got to his feet. He licked his dry lips and tried not to look too worried. “What brings you all the way down here?”
“I talked to Polina earlier,” Sulu told him as he walked towards him. “She told me everything. She was very upset, thanks to you.”
Scotty resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Sometimes, he really hated that the average stereotype for a Scottish male included the adjective ‘drunken’. Instead, he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I’d had a drink, yes - but I wasn’t drowning my sorrows, or anything like that. I was steadying my nerves. And I was barely tipsy. I did try to explain - I didn’t mean to hurt her. I’ve been searching all over so I could apologise.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Sulu said. He moved a little closer, almost crowding into Scotty’s personal space. “So you’re going to stay with her?”
“Of course I am!” Scotty replied indignantly. “What d’you take me for? Why on Earth would I leave her?” Sulu shrugged, obviously not convinced. Scotty glared at him and folded his arms. “I am not planning on leaving Polina unless she wants me to.”
“Good,” Sulu said firmly. His dark eyes glittered dangerously in the fluorescent lighting. “Listen, I don’t like to make threats, but Polina’s like a kid sister to me and I won’t stand by and let people hurt her. That includes you. If I hear you’ve been upsetting her, especially now …”
He let his threat trail off unfinished and gave Scotty an extremely pointed look. Scotty remembered that Sulu enjoyed fencing and spent hours of his free time in the gym, practicing both his swordsmanship and his sparring skills. Underneath his Command uniform, he had his share of muscles. He could probably do a fair bit of damage to a person if he put his mind to it, Scotty thought, and swallowed hard.
It was both unfair and hurtful to assume that he was going to hurt Chekov, but Scotty could see where he was coming from. He obviously wanted to protect her; everyone on the Enterprise did. They had been so concerned for her wellbeing when their relationship had started that several people had advised her not to be with him, stating that the age difference alone would make their relationship a short-lived disaster.
Scotty wondered why they all assumed that he felt any differently. He wanted her kept safe from emotional and physical harm more than the lot of them put together.
After a moment he said curtly, “Understood, Lieutenant.”
“Good,” Sulu said with a small nod. He turned to go, but paused before he opened his door. “Polina and I are going to watch a movie in my quarters, but she’ll be heading back to her room in a couple of hours, if you still want to apologise.”
“Thanks,” Scotty said, surprised but pleased that Sulu had told him where she would be. “I’ll do that.”
“Don’t tell her I came to see you,” Sulu said as he opened the door. “I’m supposed to be getting non-replicated popcorn, not talking to you.”
With a final nod in Scotty’s direction, he stepped out into the corridor and walked out of sight. Scotty sat back down on the bed and heaved a deep sigh. He should have been expecting this, really, but it was still a surprise coming from Sulu, who was normally a pleasant and amiable young man.
He kicked off his boots and swung his feet up onto the bed, settling back against the pillows. At least, once he was finished threatening Scotty, he had told him where she would be. All he had to do was wait.
***
Chekov had just finished cleaning her teeth when someone pressed the chime on her door. She paused, wiping her mouth on the hand towel beside the sink, and considered pretending that she was already asleep. She felt exhausted and had dozed off on Sulu’s shoulder more than once over the course of the movie. However, it might be something urgent, and if she was needed on the Bridge she would never forgive herself for not answering the call. She sighed and went back into her room before shouting, “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
Scotty’s voice. Her breath caught; she had thought until now that she had forgiven him, but a fresh wave of hurt washed over her at the sound of his voice.
“Polina, please, I - I need to talk to you.”
She went over to the door without speaking and opened it, then stood in the doorway. She didn’t invite him in. “What?”
“I wanted to apologise for earlier,” he said quietly. “I’ll understand if you’re still angry.”
“I know you weren’t drunk,” she murmured before he could go any further. He looked genuinely sorry, as if he felt terrible for upsetting her, and she suddenly realised that she couldn’t stay angry with him. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I just thought -”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, lass,” Scotty said softly.
His easy forgiveness of her irrational behaviour brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed hard and stepped back from the door, making a beckoning gesture for him to follow her inside. She didn’t like the idea of being on her own any more. She sat down on the edge of her bed and patted the mattress beside her. He took a seat next to her and for a while they simply looked at one another.
Finally, Scotty spoke. “I take it you are, then?”
Chekov nodded. Scotty reached around her and pulled her against his side, rubbing her arm gently. She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled closer. With her ear pressed against his chest, she could hear Scotty’s heartbeat. He kissed the top of her head.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked after a short while. “I can see you were going to get to bed …”
Chekov raised her head and looked at him. She realised abruptly that of all the people she had told so far, Scotty was the only person who hadn’t asked her what she was going to do. He hadn’t asked anything of her, other than the facts. She suddenly felt immensely grateful that he was here.
“Please, will you stay?”
He stroked across her cheek with his thumb and smiled. “If you want.”
She nodded, giving him a small smile. He smiled back, then got up and disappeared into the bathroom to clean his teeth with the spare toothbrush he had at some point left in her room. She climbed into the bed and waited. When he returned, he stripped down to his underwear and got in beside her, trapping her between himself and the wall, then pulled the covers over them both.
“Lights off,” he murmured as she snuggled closer, burying her face in his chest. He stroked her hair in the darkness. “Goodnight, lass.”
Chekov looked up, fingers trailing up his chest and neck until they found his face by touch. Scotty took the hint and leaned down blindly to kiss her, finding her lips on the second try. His fingers wound into her curls as he pressed feather-light kisses against her mouth, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. When he finally pulled back, she was breathless and more than reassured that he was going nowhere.
Reluctantly, she drew her arms back and squirmed until she was comfortable, pressed against his chest with one arm draped over his torso. She kissed the skin next to her mouth and murmured, “Goodnight, Scotty.”
***
They were both scheduled for Alpha Shift the next day, so there wasn’t really any time to talk the next morning. It didn’t help that Chekov was still suffering from morning sickness and had to dash into the bathroom almost as soon as she got up. When the nausea finally subsided a little, she just had time to brush her teeth, throw on her uniform and eat a slice of dry toast - Scotty fussing over her the whole time - before they had to go their separate ways.
Thankfully, it was a quiet day: there were no attacks, no new planets and no emergencies, so Chekov found herself with plenty of time to think. She thought of Scotty down in Engineering, where there was always something that needed fixing or modifying or testing, and wondered if he had time to think about the two possibilities before them.
They could get rid of it. That was what everyone would expect, she supposed; they were the ship’s odd couple as it was, without adding a baby into the mix. It would certainly be easier, both on them and on the rest of the crew. Besides, she didn’t feel old enough to be a mother; even thinking of herself as one sent an unpleasant jolt through her body.
Then she began to imagine the child they might have: her curls and Scotty’s smile, his laugh and her eyes. Dark hair and pale skin; probably on the short side when he or she grew up; and potentially either slender or stocky, depending on which of them the child took after. He or she would be highly intelligent, obviously, and probably as quick to laugh as either parent, too.
Her hand drifted to her stomach in an unconscious gesture of protection. She realised what she was doing and looked down. There was no outward sign yet, but she could picture what the bump would be like. She felt her throat tighten and knew: she couldn’t face an abortion. She couldn’t get rid of that little cluster of cells that held both Scotty’s DNA and her own.
It was a terrifying realisation.
She spent the rest of her shift steadfastly ignoring the glances Sulu kept shooting in her direction. She wanted to snap at him to stop acting like she was made of china, but stopped herself. He was only trying to look out for her and make sure that nothing was wrong.
She distracted herself from it by imagining what the rest of the Bridge crew probably thought. Her close friendship with Sulu had already led several crewmembers, including Kirk, to believe that Sulu had a massive crush on her, and was simply waiting for her to realise that he was the better man. It was a total fabrication, and one which all parties found hilarious, but Sulu’s sideways glances were probably cementing the idea in Kirk’s head. She smiled to herself; a fresh rumour about her friend’s unrequited affections for her would be all over the ship by midnight.
Finally, the Beta Shift Bridge crew started to filter in to take over and Chekov sighed with relief. Aside from the tiredness that gnawed at her, she was itching to go and talk to Scotty. Now they would have a chance to discuss things. She hurried down to engineering and found Scotty waiting for her outside the turbolift.
“Hello,” he said, smiling and holding out his hand. “I had a feeling you’d be coming down.”
She took his hand and let him lead her back to his office. The room seemed small and cramped, full as it was of broken bits of machinery waiting to be repaired or dismantled for parts. There were blueprints for parts of the Enterprise and for Scotty’s own hypothetical inventions strewn across ever flat surface, their corners pinned down by empty mugs and stacks of data PADDs. Hidden in the rest of the clutter were little mock-ups and machines that one or both of them had cobbled together in their spare time.
Scotty went around his desk and sat down; Chekov followed and perched on his knee, wrapping her arms around his neck. He smelled of engine oil and metal and his fingers were grimy, probably leaving streaks of grey where they drew patterns across back of her uniform, but she didn’t care. She leaned heavily against him and let her eyes droop half-closed. “I’m tired.”
“My poor lass,” Scotty murmured, turning his head so that he could kiss her briefly. His other hand was rubbing up and down her thigh, pausing at her knee and the junction of her hip, and the touch was both intimate and comforting.
“I’ve been thinking,” she told him softly, “About - the baby.”
“Yeah?” he croaked, then hastily cleared his throat. She looked up at him, frowning slightly, and he waved a hand at her. “Go on.”
She swallowed hard. If Scotty disagreed with her decision, she might have to raise the child on her own. She didn’t want to think about that possibility. She mentally pulled herself together and said, “I don’t want to get rid of it.”
Scotty closed his eyes and let out a sigh, pulling her close. She leaned into his embrace, tightening her arms around his neck as his fingers gently carded through her hair.
“Polina, you have no idea how relieved I am to hear that,” he said after a moment of silence. Her face split instinctively into a grin of relief and she gave him a squeeze as he continued, “I kept telling myself all day that if you decided you didn’t want it, I’d be OK with that. I mean, you’re only - you have your whole life ahead of you. But -”
She pulled back so that she could look him in the eyes. “I thought about it,” she said. “But then I started wondering what our baby might be like, and I couldn’t … I don’t even want to think about an abortion.”
Scotty kissed her cheek and murmured, “I know, me neither. It’s OK. No one’s going to make you do anything like that - least of all me.”
Chekov smiled and said, “Then we are going to be parents.”
Scotty nodded, and she allowed herself a moment of excitement. They were going to have a child; they were going to start a family. She was scared, but she wasn’t alone, not even in worrying about the future. Behind his smile she could see that Scotty was as apprehensive as she was, and somehow knowing that gave her comfort.
“Assuming that no one strings me up for corrupting your innocence,” Scotty said after a while, “Do you think the Captain will let us stay on board with the baby once it’s born?”
Chekov sighed, her excitement ebbing as practicalities muscled in. “I don’t know. The Enterprise is hardly a playground …” She shook her head. “We will have to talk to him. See what he says.”
“He won’t want to loose the best navigator in the fleet,” Scotty told her, and when she blushed and punched him on the shoulder he laughed and continued, “Hey, I’m not just stroking your ego, here - it’s true. You’re good at your job.”
“So are you,” she replied, still embarrassed by the praise. She knew that she was good, but she could hardly believe she was the best when there were older and more experienced men and women in Starfleet who had to be far more competent.
Scotty sighed and leant his head against the backrest. “OK, so we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re both indispensable to the smooth running of the Enterprise. That leaves us in a bit of a hole, doesn’t it, if Kirk doesn’t want a baby on board?”
“Like you said yesterday - we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” she replied. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Anyway, I think we have bigger things to worry about right now. Like convincing him that you didn’t ‘corrupt my innocence’, as you put it.”
“From what I remember, there wasn’t much innocence left to corrupt,” he teased affectionately. She giggled into his neck
“You are very bad man,” she told him. Scotty chuckled and gave her a squeeze.
“Seriously, though, you’re right,” he said when their laughter had died away. “Do you think he’ll bend the rules for us?”
Chekov opened her eyes and looked up at him incredulously. “This is the Captain we’re talking about. He lives to bend rules,” she said, and a smile turned the corners of Scotty’s mouth upwards a little. “Anyway, he’ll probably sympathise - I bet he lost his virginity when he was younger than I am now.”
Her words made Scotty laugh out loud. She smiled at the sound of his laughter and snuggled closer. Scotty stroked her back. “OK, point taken. Do you think he’ll be able to call McCoy off the warpath?”
“Probably,” she said with a shrug. She glanced at the monitor on Scotty’s desk to check the time. “Do you think I should go and see him now?”
Scotty looked at the time. “You’d have to hurry if you want to catch him before he goes for something to eat.”
“Do you want to come with me?” she asked as she reluctantly got up from his knee. He tilted his head on one side, thinking, then shook his head.
“It’s probably better if you speak to him on your own, first,” he said. “I can get to the captain’s quarters in a couple of minutes, if he wants to speak to me.”
“OK,” she said softly. She didn’t really want to face someone else on her own, but she could see the logic behind Scotty’s words: if he came with her, it would be far too easy for someone - be it Kirk, McCoy, or another member of the crew - to accuse him of manipulating her into saying whatever he wanted. Scotty stood up and hugged her tightly, kissing her temple.
“I’m sure he’ll understand,” he murmured.
“I will make him understand,” she replied sharply, suddenly feeling determined. She was fed up with being treated like a child; if she was capable of passing the Starfleet exams and old enough to serve the Federation as a navigator, surely she ought to be treated as an adult in all areas of her life. They would just have to realise that.
Part II
.
Also, I've been trying to title it for twenty minutes, and this is the best of a bad lot. (I came so close to calling it 'Should I Stay Or Should I Go', but really, it's not cracky enough for that. :P ) Anyway, without further ado, have some long-overdue fic.
Title ~ Accidentally
Rating ~ 12+
Pairing ~ Scotty/female!Chekov
Summary ~ Polina Chekov is seventeen years old, the ship’s navigator and probably one of the top ten most intelligent people on board the Enterprise. She’s also pregnant.
Warnings ~ Genderswap AU in which Chekov has always been female. Underage Chekov if 17 is underage in your country. Pregnancy. UK spellings.
Notes ~ 12,642 words. Written for this st_xi_kink meme prompt.
Unbeta’d because I felt stupid asking my nice normal friends and/or nice normal Star Trek XI fans to beta a serious fic that ought to be a crackfest. Sorry. Please feel free to point out any mistakes.
Disclaimer ~ I make no claims to owning Star Trek.
Accidentally
Polina Chekov - for all the she might be a child prodigy, the ship’s navigator and probably one of the top ten most intelligent people on board the Enterprise - was only an Ensign, and as such she had to share a bathroom. It was a matter of space; there was only so much of it on each deck, and so there had to be some kind of compromise. She understood that and normally the situation didn’t bother her, but today - as she retched into the toilet bowl - she just wished that she had her own space. Any minute now, her neighbour was going to hear.
A moment later, just as she had predicted, there was a knock on the door that led to Ensign Gaila’s quarters. Chekov closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was someone fussing over her. It happened often enough when she was feeling perfectly well, thanks to her age, and being ill would only get her coddled even more.
“Are you OK in there, Polina?” Gaila asked from the other side of the door. She sounded genuinely concerned, and Chekov felt her resolve to handle this alone waver.
“I’m fine,” she croaked.
“You don’t sound fine,” Gaila told her briskly. “I hope you’re decent, ’cause I’m coming in there.”
Chekov opened her eyes and looked up as the bathroom door opened to reveal Gaila. Her red uniform shirt looked fresh and crisp, suggesting that she was on her way to a shift rather than returning from one. Chekov felt guilt squirm in her stomach; the pair of them were going to be late now and it was entirely her fault. Gaila crouched down beside her and placed a hand on her forehead, frowning.
“You don’t look so good,” she murmured. Her hand was cool and soothing against Chekov’s skin but she withdrew it quickly, apparently satisfied that she wasn’t running a temperature. “Were you drinking last night, or something?”
Chekov shook her head. Far from it, in fact; she had spent most of the evening curled up with Scotty, working on his latest pet theory with nothing stronger than hot chocolate to drink. She had been feeling tired, too, so she had come back unusually early, for once choosing to sleep in her own quarters so that Scotty could stay up without feeling guilty about keeping her awake.
“Eaten something that disagreed with you?” Gaila suggested. Chekov wracked her brains, but as far as she could remember she hadn’t eaten any differently than usual, and the Enterprise’s kitchens and replicators were hardly likely to give her food poisoning.
“I don’t think so,” she replied with a small shake of her head.
“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Gaila laughed. Chekov’s immediate reaction was a chuckle of amusement. She would have laughed harder if she had been feeling better. Then Gaila’s words actually sank in and the cogs started to turn inside her head, and the nausea - which had finally started to subside - returned with a vengeance.
She turned and grabbed the rim of the toilet, leaning over in case she actually did throw up. Gaila rubbed her back gently, murmuring something to her, but Chekov wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was trying to remember when she had had her last period. Normally, she didn’t pay any all that much attention as she wasn’t particularly regular when it came to her monthly cycle, but after a few minutes of careful thought she came to the conclusion it had definitely been more than four weeks ago.
“Oh, honey,” Gaila said, stroking Chekov’s curls back from her forehead and cheeks for her with one hand. “You’re not in a good way.”
No, probably not, Chekov thought. Her heart rate had begun to speed up as panic started to seep in. She and Scotty had been sleeping together for the past four months, since she was legal in both their home countries even if she was still underage by the Federation’s standards.
She realised, with a horrible sort of inevitability, that her last set of contraceptive shots - administered back home in Russia during her last bit of shore-leave before the mission started - would officially run out within the next month or so. Inside her head, the doctor’s words played over again: “These should last you for six months, but we can only guarantee that you won’t get pregnant for the next four months. You should get them renewed before then.”
Chekov gripped the rim of the toilet tighter, trying to disguise the shaking of her hands. Gaila shifted closer to her and placed an arm around her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze. She sniffed and tried to pull herself together, without much effect. She still felt sick, her increased breathing and heart-rate were making her feel dizzy, and she was probably pregnant.
“Shit,” she whispered.
***
Scotty was in the middle of fixing a glitch in one of the transporters, spotted during routine maintenance but too complex for the Ensign who had found it to unravel alone, when Chekov walked into the transporter bay. He looked up, surprised to see her until he realised that he had lost track of time and both their shifts had ended a good half hour before.
“Polina. What brings you down here?”
“Can I speak to you?” she asked, glancing meaningfully at Ensign Matthews. “Alone?”
“’Course you can,” Scotty replied, frowning at the request. Now that he looked at her closely, Chekov looked tired and pale, her shoulders hunched as if her whole body wanted to curl in on itself. He glanced at Matthews. “Don’t so much as touch that console until I get back.”
Normally, he wouldn’t give so harsh an order, especially to a competent engineer like Matthews, but the glitch had somehow wormed its way through most of the transporter’s core programming and even he was finding it difficult to untangle. He glanced at Chekov and momentarily thought about inviting her to help, but from the anxious look on her face he guessed that it wouldn’t be appreciated. He smiled at her as he walked across to the door, but she didn’t return it as she usually would.
They stepped out into the deserted corridor but apparently Chekov wasn’t satisfied by that level of privacy. She walked a short way along the corridor to an empty conference room and went inside, Scotty following close on her heels. He folded his arms as the doors slid closed behind him. “Why all the secrecy?”
Chekov took a deep breath that caught in her throat. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Her eyes were bright with moisture, as if she might be about to cry. Scotty stepped forwards and took hold of her shoulders, squeezing them gently. “Hey,” he murmured. “You can tell me, whatever it is.”
She refused to look at him, her eyes darting from side to side and up towards the ceiling to avoid his face. Now that he was touching her, he could feel that she was shaking slightly. He tried to pull her into a hug, but she brought her hands up to his chest to hold him off.
“No, Scotty, listen,” she said with a rapid shake of her head. He saw her visibly pull herself together: her back straightened, her chin came up and her shoulders rolled back before she met his gaze. When she spoke, her show of confidence was spoiled slightly by her voice breaking. “I think I might be pregnant.”
Scotty felt his heart seize in his chest. Stupidly, he asked, “What d’you mean?”
She couldn’t keep eye contact any longer; she ducked her head and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. “I mean pregnant, Scotty.”
“Are you - are you sure?” he said. He felt as if someone had punched in him the stomach, knocking all the wind out of him. His brain seemed unable to quite grasp the concept. “I thought you had shots …?”
“They aren’t totally fail-safe after four months. And no, I’m not absolutely sure,” Chekov said quietly. She let her hand drop to her side and looked up. When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible. “I don’t want to tell Doctor McCoy.”
For a moment, Scotty didn’t understand what she meant. Then realisation struck: Chekov was under the legal age of consent in the Federation. She shouldn’t even be sleeping with him, let alone pregnant with - he swallowed hard - his child. His rising panic must have shown on his face because Chekov let out a sob and clapped a hand over her mouth, the other fisting into the fabric of his shirt.
“What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice muffled. It was a question Scotty couldn’t immediately answer, but he had to do something. He automatically took a step closer and wrapped both his arms around her slight frame, holding her gently. He could tell from the way her shoulders shook that she was trying not to cry, and was shocked by that alone. Chekov was brave and not prone to crying even at the worst of times; that she was almost reduced to tears by this was disconcerting, to say the least.
“You need to go to Sickbay and make sure, before we do anything,” he said, rubbing soothing circles on her back. Chekov pulled back a little so that she could look up into his face.
“But what about McCoy?” she said uncertainly, her worry showing in her expression. “He’ll shout. And he’ll know about us - you’ll get into trouble.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he replied, trying not to think about where the bridge might lead. “For now, let’s concentrate on whether or not you actually are - you know.”
“OK,” she replied with a decisive nod. She wiped furiously at her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself, then stepped back and released his shirt, smoothing the creases with her palm. “I will see Doctor McCoy.”
Scotty touched her cheek with his thumb. Part of him wanted to go with her and hold her hand, because he could see that she was both upset and afraid, but another part wholeheartedly didn’t want to be there when McCoy inevitably exploded. It was bad enough having his own internal monologue berating him for his stupidity, without McCoy joining in and throwing in a couple of Hyposprays of Retribution on top.
“You’re going to be OK,” he told Chekov firmly, knowing that, whatever happened to him, that much would be true. Even if she decided to keep the baby - if she was actually pregnant - she had the rest of the crew and her family in Russia to support her. They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.
Chekov looked as if she wanted to ask if he would be all right, but she said nothing. He took her face in her hands and brushed a kiss against her forehead. For a moment, they stood perfectly still, then she sighed and he lifted his head.
“I’d better go to Sickbay,” she said. Scotty nodded wordlessly. He held out his hand.
“I’ll walk you to the lift,” he offered. Chekov smiled weakly and slid her hand into his, giving his palm a squeeze.
They walked to the turbolift in silence, glad that the corridors were empty. When the lift arrived, Chekov reluctantly let go of his hand and stepped inside without speaking. She turned to face the doors and forced a feeble smile before they closed, hiding her from view.
Briefly, Scotty considered going back to work, but the thought of reprogramming the transporter no longer seemed appealing. It probably wasn’t the best idea, either. With his mind on other things - specifically Chekov, and the baby she might be carrying - he might miss something or make a mistake that could turn out to be fatal for the next person to use the machine.
He pressed the turbolift call button and pulled the communicator off his belt. While he was waiting for the lift to return, he flipped the device open and ordered his second in command to take charge of the repair. Scotty didn’t give her a reason his abandoning the job half finished, but although she sounded surprised and confused, she didn’t ask any questions; his shift had just ended, after all.
Scotty clipped the communicator back onto his belt as he stepped into the lift. He needed a drink. There was an open bottle of single malt Scotch sitting the bottom drawer of the desk in his quarters; that would do nicely. As the lift started to move, he leaned back against the wall and tried to compose himself. After all, nothing was definite; he might not have a reason to panic at all.
Something about the look in Chekov’s eyes when she had told him made him doubt that.
***
Sickbay was deserted but for the medical personnel. Chekov was glad of that; she didn’t want an audience. She had decided on the way that she wouldn’t tell McCoy her suspicions outright, but rather explain that she had been ill earlier on so that he would examine her. If she was indeed pregnant, the medical tricorder would display the information regardless of what it was actually scanning for. On the other hand, if she was suffering from nothing more than an upset stomach, she wouldn’t get Scotty into trouble for nothing.
She glanced around for Doctor McCoy, but couldn’t see him in Sickbay itself so she went across to his office and pressed the door chime. The doors opened a few seconds later to reveal McCoy.
“Chekov,” he said with a small smile. “What can I do for you?”
“I was wondering if you could take a look at me?” she replied, wrapping her arms around herself. She suddenly wished that Scotty was here with her, even though she knew that logically it would have been a bad idea for him to come.
McCoy stepped out of his office and gestured towards the nearest biobed. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I threw up this morning,” she told him as she hopped up onto the edge of the bed. “I thought I’d be OK once I got to the bridge, and I was for a while - it seemed to get better. Then towards the end of the shift I started feeling nauseous again.”
It wasn’t a lie, she told herself firmly; withholding part of the truth wasn’t the same as lying. McCoy nodded as he picked up a tricorder. “Any stomach pain?”
“No.”
“Eaten anything funny in the past twenty-four hours?” he asked gently. Chekov shook her head. “Did you manage to eat today?”
“Gaila replicated me some dry toast after I threw up, and it made me feel a bit better. I had lunch as usual,” she replied.
“OK, then, I don’t need to worry about you keeling over,” McCoy said with a rare reassuring smile. He lifted the tricorder and began to scan her body from the neck down. Chekov watched his face carefully, and after a few seconds he frowned. “Your oestrogen level is unusually high …”
His voice trailed off as the tricorder took another sweep across her stomach and she saw his eyes widen. She licked her lips and asked, “Is something wrong?”
McCoy looked up at her but said nothing. His expression was one of shock, topped off with a deepening frown, and Chekov felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. She didn’t need to be told any more; his reaction had said it all. She was pregnant.
“I’m just going to run another test,” he said, pressing a couple of buttons on the tricorder. He scanned her one more time, then let out a deep sigh and tried to smooth the lines off his face. He didn’t quite succeed. “Have you been sexually active in the past few months?”
She swallowed hard; the way McCoy was looking at her made her feel as if she had somehow personally betrayed him, but there was no point lying about it. She nodded. McCoy looked away and she saw his jaw tighten.
“Dammit,” he growled to no one in particular. Chekov wrapped her arms around herself tightly and steeled herself. When he rounded on her she didn’t want to flinch. McCoy stared across Sickbay for another couple of seconds, then turned back to her. When he spoke, his voice was tight and the words sharp, but he was obviously trying not to lose his temper. “You’re pregnant, Polina.”
Chekov released the breath she had been holding in a rush. It was something of a relief to know for certain, even if she could feel anxieties crowding in on her. She mentally pulled herself together; she couldn’t - she wouldn’t go to pieces in front of McCoy. She lifted her chin and met his gaze squarely, telling herself that she would cope, that they would get through this.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked before she had a chance to speak. He ran his fingers through his hair and said a slightly lower tone, “What the hell was Scotty thinking?”
It wasn’t surprising that McCoy has guessed that Scotty was the father; it wasn’t as if their relationship was a secret, even if the sexual element of it had been until now. However, it made her angry that McCoy immediately jumped to the conclusion that Scotty had initiated the sex, which wasn’t true. If anything, she had seduced Scotty; he had wanted to wait until she was Federation-legal. She suddenly wished that she too had been willing to wait, but quickly swallowed the lump that had appeared in her throat. She couldn’t let McCoy imply that Scotty was an irresponsible idiot.
“Do not blame him for this!” she snapped. “Is not his fault. I had contraceptive shots before I left Russia, and they run out soon - I should have come to get them renewed last month.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” McCoy asked, frustration at her foolishness raising his voice.
“Because!” she yelled back with a wave of her hand. She could feel the nurses’ gazes on her back and resented them for eavesdropping even though she knew it had to be hard not to hear what was being said. “Because I forgot! And because I would have got this - you, shouting at me, telling me I am too young, that I should not let him touch me -”
“Yeah, but I would’ve give you the damned shots, Polina!” McCoy shouted. His voice quietened as he added, “Then you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Mess?” she breathed, incredulous that McCoy would say something like that. Yes, it was an accident - but ‘accident’ and ‘mess’ did not mean quite the same thing. “Being pregnant is a mess, to you?”
“It is when you’re seventeen!” McCoy said bluntly in a tone that told her that he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Christ, Polina, you’re barely more than a child yourself - you’re not even legal yet, according to regulations! Besides that, Scotty’s more than twice your age! How the hell do you see this as anything other than a mess?”
Chekov realised that at some point her fingers had unconsciously balled into trembling fists. She was tired of being treated like a child. She was tired of hearing reasons why she and Scotty shouldn’t be together. She knew as well as anyone that their relationship was unconventional, but she was sick of people assuming that it was a bad idea because of that. Suddenly she wanted to get away from the clinical white and silver of Sickbay. She wanted to find Scotty.
“Can I go now, please?” she asked tightly, jumping down from the biobed and glaring at McCoy, daring him to try and make her stay. He glowered back for a moment, then stepped out of her way, leaving her a clear path to the door. She nodded to him, but when she tried to walk past, he grabbed her arm.
“I’m going to need you to come back for a full physical,” he said firmly. “I’m guessing you don’t know what you want to do yet, but if you want to talk to someone about your options, everybody in here is more than happy to fill you in.”
Chekov nodded mutely without looking away from the door. She didn’t want to talk to anyone in Medical; she wanted to talk to Scotty. McCoy released her arm with a sigh, and she hurried out of Sickbay without looking back.
***
Chekov made her way straight to Scotty’s quarters, still furious with McCoy for his negative reaction. By the time she arrived at his door, she had calmed down considerably, but could still feel her anger simmering away beneath the calm. She pressed the chime outside Scotty’s doors but didn’t wait for an answer before she keyed in the code to open them and stepped inside.
Scotty was sitting at his desk, but when she stepped in he lurched to his feet and walked across to her, catching hold of her shoulders. “Polina! What did they say?”
The scent of alcohol was heavy on his breath and Chekov couldn’t help but turn away, her face screwing up in disgust. She looked over at his desk and saw that there was a bottle of Scotch, almost half empty, and a glass within easy reach of the chair. Her heart clenched unpleasantly as she turned to face him.
“You got drunk?” she breathed. “I tell you I think I’m pregnant and you get drunk?”
“I’m not drunk, Polina,” Scotty replied with a frown. “I’ve only had a couple of glasses, and you know I can hold my drink -”
She pushed him off her, closing her eyes as the anger surged back. Obviously, like McCoy, Scotty didn’t like the situation. If he did, his immediate reaction wouldn’t be to crawl into a bottle. Traitorously, she thought that perhaps McCoy was right: perhaps this was a mess, after all. She forced herself to open her eyes.
“I am not talking to you until you are sober,” she told him sharply, then before he could answer she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room. She heard him rush to the door behind her, tripping over his own feet in his haste. He called her back, but she ignored him and quickened her pace, hurrying into the next turbolift. She pressed the button to close the doors before he had chance to come after her.
She took the turbolift up to the recreation deck, hoping to take her mind off everything. She walked toward the mess hall, fairly certain that Scotty wouldn’t find her there. He would probably try her quarters first, if he came looking for her at all - as part of her hoped that he would, even though she didn’t want to be found.
The mess hall was almost deserted so long after the end of Alpha Shift. Only a few tables were occupied, and most people had already finished eating. She grabbed herself a sandwich then scanned the room for a quiet table; as she did so, she realised that Sulu was sitting alone in the far corner and decided to see if he minded if she joined him.
“Hello, Hikaru,” she said as she stopped beside his table. He looked up from the PADD he had been reading and grinned at her.
“Polina, hey! Take a seat,” he said, gesturing at the chairs opposite. She sat down and put her sandwich on the table, glancing at the PADD.
“I’m not interrupting?”
“No, not at all - I was just reading over the Science department’s notes on the botanical samples we picked up on the last mission,” he said, spinning the PADD around so that she could see the screen.
Chekov smiled as her friend launched into an enthusiastic explanation of their findings. Her friend’s interest in botany had at first both amused and surprised her, because Sulu didn’t seem like a man with green fingers at first glance and she had always found the study of plants a slightly dull branch of science. She much preferred engineering and physics. However, when Sulu started talking plant biology, he spoke in such a way that they became interesting even to her, and so listening to him was a welcome and genuinely interesting distraction.
“Anyway,” Sulu said eventually, when he had finished his lengthy explanation and Chekov had finished her sandwich. “Enough about botany - what about you? Did you go and see McCoy?”
It had taken less than five minutes for someone to ask her what the matter was when she appeared late on the bridge, pale and sickly. The Captain had offered to let her go to Sickbay and get checked out, but she had refused, promising that she would go after her shift. She had wanted to speak to Scotty before she went near Sickbay.
“Yes,” she said quietly, trying not to remember the encounter in detail. Sulu was her best friend and he had known from the beginning the full extent of her relationship with Scotty; she could tell him. She shifted her chair a little further around the table and glanced over her shoulder, checking that she would not be overheard. “Will you keep a secret for me, Hikaru?”
He frowned, obviously concerned, and leaned across so that he could hear her better. “What’s the matter? What did he say?”
Chekov steeled herself; she knew that Sulu would be sympathetic and understanding, but it was still difficult. “I’m pregnant.”
Sulu’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t help but giggle at his reaction, even though his face remained serious. He placed one of his hands on top of hers.
“Polina, that’s - does Scotty know?” Her expression must have soured involuntarily, because Sulu squeezed her hand and asked softly, “What did he say?”
“He was nice about it,” she admitted, because it was the truth: he had been supportive and realistic, even though he was obviously as freaked out as she was. “But then I went to talk to him just before I came here, and he’d been drinking …”
Sulu raised his eyebrows. “Drinking?”
Chekov shrugged. Now that she stopped and thought about it, with the red haze of anger no longer clouding her vision, her assumption that Scotty was drunk seemed unfair. They had only been apart for a little over half an hour. It was probably true that he had only had a couple of glasses - to steady his rattled nerves, she supposed - and she knew that even on an empty stomach that wasn’t enough to make him more than a little tipsy. Plus, she knew that the Scotch tended to lace his breath after just the one glass, so being able to smell it on him didn’t automatically mean he was inebriated.
“I thought he’d gone away and got drunk because of what I told him,” she admitted, feeling slightly guilty now. She shook her head with a sigh. “I don’t think he was actually drunk, I just assumed … I was upset anyway, because of McCoy - I wasn’t thinking straight. I overreacted.”
Sulu moved his chair across until it was right beside hers and put an arm around her shoulders. “He shouldn’t have upset you at all, even accidentally. Especially not now.”
He sounded angry with Scotty. She sighed; thanks to her, everyone was going to be angry with Scotty. Sulu squeezed her shoulders.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” he asked tentatively a few minutes later.
Chekov closed her eyes and shook her head. In truth, she didn’t know. The pregnancy was an accident, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to terminate it; she knew that if she did, what ifs and maybes would plague her for the rest of her life. Then again, the Enterprise was on a five-year mission to explore new and sometimes hostile worlds, and it was hardly the place to raise a child when they could be attacked at any moment.
“I don’t know,” she said eventually. “I need to talk to Scotty about it.”
“You know that whatever you decide, we’ll all be here for you,” Sulu reminded her, rubbing her arm gently. She let her head drop onto his shoulder.
“I know you will,” she whispered. It was comforting to know that her friends would be there for her, but she knew that Scotty wasn’t included in Sulu’s ‘we’ and the thought worried her. If Scotty wasn’t prepared to stand by her, she wasn’t sure she would be able to go through with any decision - right or wrong.
***
Scotty returned to his quarters an hour or so later. He had been to Chekov’s room twice - at the beginning and the end of his search - and scoured the recreation deck, the observation desk and the gym, but couldn’t find any trace of her. He had decided to give up rather than start knocking on her friends’ doors; he had a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate it. He sat down on his bed and stared at the bottle of Scotch on his desk, for once not even remotely tempted to pour himself a glass. It was, after all, the reason why Chekov was avoiding him. He sighed and let his head drop into his hands. He didn’t even know if she really was carrying a child; from her reaction, he guessed that McCoy’s test was positive, but she hadn’t stayed long enough to tell him for certain.
The door chime sounded and he looked up, hardly daring to hope that Chekov had come back to speak to him. “Come in!”
It wasn’t Chekov, it was Sulu. It didn’t take Scotty long to realise with a sinking feeling that Chekov had probably told Sulu everything; they were good friends, after all.
“Scotty,” Sulu said curtly. A slight frown furrowed his brow, but otherwise his face was expressionless; however, his jaw was set and there was a look in his eyes that told Scotty that he was annoyed.
“Sulu,” he replied as he got to his feet. He licked his dry lips and tried not to look too worried. “What brings you all the way down here?”
“I talked to Polina earlier,” Sulu told him as he walked towards him. “She told me everything. She was very upset, thanks to you.”
Scotty resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Sometimes, he really hated that the average stereotype for a Scottish male included the adjective ‘drunken’. Instead, he held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, I’d had a drink, yes - but I wasn’t drowning my sorrows, or anything like that. I was steadying my nerves. And I was barely tipsy. I did try to explain - I didn’t mean to hurt her. I’ve been searching all over so I could apologise.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Sulu said. He moved a little closer, almost crowding into Scotty’s personal space. “So you’re going to stay with her?”
“Of course I am!” Scotty replied indignantly. “What d’you take me for? Why on Earth would I leave her?” Sulu shrugged, obviously not convinced. Scotty glared at him and folded his arms. “I am not planning on leaving Polina unless she wants me to.”
“Good,” Sulu said firmly. His dark eyes glittered dangerously in the fluorescent lighting. “Listen, I don’t like to make threats, but Polina’s like a kid sister to me and I won’t stand by and let people hurt her. That includes you. If I hear you’ve been upsetting her, especially now …”
He let his threat trail off unfinished and gave Scotty an extremely pointed look. Scotty remembered that Sulu enjoyed fencing and spent hours of his free time in the gym, practicing both his swordsmanship and his sparring skills. Underneath his Command uniform, he had his share of muscles. He could probably do a fair bit of damage to a person if he put his mind to it, Scotty thought, and swallowed hard.
It was both unfair and hurtful to assume that he was going to hurt Chekov, but Scotty could see where he was coming from. He obviously wanted to protect her; everyone on the Enterprise did. They had been so concerned for her wellbeing when their relationship had started that several people had advised her not to be with him, stating that the age difference alone would make their relationship a short-lived disaster.
Scotty wondered why they all assumed that he felt any differently. He wanted her kept safe from emotional and physical harm more than the lot of them put together.
After a moment he said curtly, “Understood, Lieutenant.”
“Good,” Sulu said with a small nod. He turned to go, but paused before he opened his door. “Polina and I are going to watch a movie in my quarters, but she’ll be heading back to her room in a couple of hours, if you still want to apologise.”
“Thanks,” Scotty said, surprised but pleased that Sulu had told him where she would be. “I’ll do that.”
“Don’t tell her I came to see you,” Sulu said as he opened the door. “I’m supposed to be getting non-replicated popcorn, not talking to you.”
With a final nod in Scotty’s direction, he stepped out into the corridor and walked out of sight. Scotty sat back down on the bed and heaved a deep sigh. He should have been expecting this, really, but it was still a surprise coming from Sulu, who was normally a pleasant and amiable young man.
He kicked off his boots and swung his feet up onto the bed, settling back against the pillows. At least, once he was finished threatening Scotty, he had told him where she would be. All he had to do was wait.
***
Chekov had just finished cleaning her teeth when someone pressed the chime on her door. She paused, wiping her mouth on the hand towel beside the sink, and considered pretending that she was already asleep. She felt exhausted and had dozed off on Sulu’s shoulder more than once over the course of the movie. However, it might be something urgent, and if she was needed on the Bridge she would never forgive herself for not answering the call. She sighed and went back into her room before shouting, “Who is it?”
“It’s me.”
Scotty’s voice. Her breath caught; she had thought until now that she had forgiven him, but a fresh wave of hurt washed over her at the sound of his voice.
“Polina, please, I - I need to talk to you.”
She went over to the door without speaking and opened it, then stood in the doorway. She didn’t invite him in. “What?”
“I wanted to apologise for earlier,” he said quietly. “I’ll understand if you’re still angry.”
“I know you weren’t drunk,” she murmured before he could go any further. He looked genuinely sorry, as if he felt terrible for upsetting her, and she suddenly realised that she couldn’t stay angry with him. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I just thought -”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, lass,” Scotty said softly.
His easy forgiveness of her irrational behaviour brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed hard and stepped back from the door, making a beckoning gesture for him to follow her inside. She didn’t like the idea of being on her own any more. She sat down on the edge of her bed and patted the mattress beside her. He took a seat next to her and for a while they simply looked at one another.
Finally, Scotty spoke. “I take it you are, then?”
Chekov nodded. Scotty reached around her and pulled her against his side, rubbing her arm gently. She wrapped her arms around him and snuggled closer. With her ear pressed against his chest, she could hear Scotty’s heartbeat. He kissed the top of her head.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked after a short while. “I can see you were going to get to bed …”
Chekov raised her head and looked at him. She realised abruptly that of all the people she had told so far, Scotty was the only person who hadn’t asked her what she was going to do. He hadn’t asked anything of her, other than the facts. She suddenly felt immensely grateful that he was here.
“Please, will you stay?”
He stroked across her cheek with his thumb and smiled. “If you want.”
She nodded, giving him a small smile. He smiled back, then got up and disappeared into the bathroom to clean his teeth with the spare toothbrush he had at some point left in her room. She climbed into the bed and waited. When he returned, he stripped down to his underwear and got in beside her, trapping her between himself and the wall, then pulled the covers over them both.
“Lights off,” he murmured as she snuggled closer, burying her face in his chest. He stroked her hair in the darkness. “Goodnight, lass.”
Chekov looked up, fingers trailing up his chest and neck until they found his face by touch. Scotty took the hint and leaned down blindly to kiss her, finding her lips on the second try. His fingers wound into her curls as he pressed feather-light kisses against her mouth, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. When he finally pulled back, she was breathless and more than reassured that he was going nowhere.
Reluctantly, she drew her arms back and squirmed until she was comfortable, pressed against his chest with one arm draped over his torso. She kissed the skin next to her mouth and murmured, “Goodnight, Scotty.”
***
They were both scheduled for Alpha Shift the next day, so there wasn’t really any time to talk the next morning. It didn’t help that Chekov was still suffering from morning sickness and had to dash into the bathroom almost as soon as she got up. When the nausea finally subsided a little, she just had time to brush her teeth, throw on her uniform and eat a slice of dry toast - Scotty fussing over her the whole time - before they had to go their separate ways.
Thankfully, it was a quiet day: there were no attacks, no new planets and no emergencies, so Chekov found herself with plenty of time to think. She thought of Scotty down in Engineering, where there was always something that needed fixing or modifying or testing, and wondered if he had time to think about the two possibilities before them.
They could get rid of it. That was what everyone would expect, she supposed; they were the ship’s odd couple as it was, without adding a baby into the mix. It would certainly be easier, both on them and on the rest of the crew. Besides, she didn’t feel old enough to be a mother; even thinking of herself as one sent an unpleasant jolt through her body.
Then she began to imagine the child they might have: her curls and Scotty’s smile, his laugh and her eyes. Dark hair and pale skin; probably on the short side when he or she grew up; and potentially either slender or stocky, depending on which of them the child took after. He or she would be highly intelligent, obviously, and probably as quick to laugh as either parent, too.
Her hand drifted to her stomach in an unconscious gesture of protection. She realised what she was doing and looked down. There was no outward sign yet, but she could picture what the bump would be like. She felt her throat tighten and knew: she couldn’t face an abortion. She couldn’t get rid of that little cluster of cells that held both Scotty’s DNA and her own.
It was a terrifying realisation.
She spent the rest of her shift steadfastly ignoring the glances Sulu kept shooting in her direction. She wanted to snap at him to stop acting like she was made of china, but stopped herself. He was only trying to look out for her and make sure that nothing was wrong.
She distracted herself from it by imagining what the rest of the Bridge crew probably thought. Her close friendship with Sulu had already led several crewmembers, including Kirk, to believe that Sulu had a massive crush on her, and was simply waiting for her to realise that he was the better man. It was a total fabrication, and one which all parties found hilarious, but Sulu’s sideways glances were probably cementing the idea in Kirk’s head. She smiled to herself; a fresh rumour about her friend’s unrequited affections for her would be all over the ship by midnight.
Finally, the Beta Shift Bridge crew started to filter in to take over and Chekov sighed with relief. Aside from the tiredness that gnawed at her, she was itching to go and talk to Scotty. Now they would have a chance to discuss things. She hurried down to engineering and found Scotty waiting for her outside the turbolift.
“Hello,” he said, smiling and holding out his hand. “I had a feeling you’d be coming down.”
She took his hand and let him lead her back to his office. The room seemed small and cramped, full as it was of broken bits of machinery waiting to be repaired or dismantled for parts. There were blueprints for parts of the Enterprise and for Scotty’s own hypothetical inventions strewn across ever flat surface, their corners pinned down by empty mugs and stacks of data PADDs. Hidden in the rest of the clutter were little mock-ups and machines that one or both of them had cobbled together in their spare time.
Scotty went around his desk and sat down; Chekov followed and perched on his knee, wrapping her arms around his neck. He smelled of engine oil and metal and his fingers were grimy, probably leaving streaks of grey where they drew patterns across back of her uniform, but she didn’t care. She leaned heavily against him and let her eyes droop half-closed. “I’m tired.”
“My poor lass,” Scotty murmured, turning his head so that he could kiss her briefly. His other hand was rubbing up and down her thigh, pausing at her knee and the junction of her hip, and the touch was both intimate and comforting.
“I’ve been thinking,” she told him softly, “About - the baby.”
“Yeah?” he croaked, then hastily cleared his throat. She looked up at him, frowning slightly, and he waved a hand at her. “Go on.”
She swallowed hard. If Scotty disagreed with her decision, she might have to raise the child on her own. She didn’t want to think about that possibility. She mentally pulled herself together and said, “I don’t want to get rid of it.”
Scotty closed his eyes and let out a sigh, pulling her close. She leaned into his embrace, tightening her arms around his neck as his fingers gently carded through her hair.
“Polina, you have no idea how relieved I am to hear that,” he said after a moment of silence. Her face split instinctively into a grin of relief and she gave him a squeeze as he continued, “I kept telling myself all day that if you decided you didn’t want it, I’d be OK with that. I mean, you’re only - you have your whole life ahead of you. But -”
She pulled back so that she could look him in the eyes. “I thought about it,” she said. “But then I started wondering what our baby might be like, and I couldn’t … I don’t even want to think about an abortion.”
Scotty kissed her cheek and murmured, “I know, me neither. It’s OK. No one’s going to make you do anything like that - least of all me.”
Chekov smiled and said, “Then we are going to be parents.”
Scotty nodded, and she allowed herself a moment of excitement. They were going to have a child; they were going to start a family. She was scared, but she wasn’t alone, not even in worrying about the future. Behind his smile she could see that Scotty was as apprehensive as she was, and somehow knowing that gave her comfort.
“Assuming that no one strings me up for corrupting your innocence,” Scotty said after a while, “Do you think the Captain will let us stay on board with the baby once it’s born?”
Chekov sighed, her excitement ebbing as practicalities muscled in. “I don’t know. The Enterprise is hardly a playground …” She shook her head. “We will have to talk to him. See what he says.”
“He won’t want to loose the best navigator in the fleet,” Scotty told her, and when she blushed and punched him on the shoulder he laughed and continued, “Hey, I’m not just stroking your ego, here - it’s true. You’re good at your job.”
“So are you,” she replied, still embarrassed by the praise. She knew that she was good, but she could hardly believe she was the best when there were older and more experienced men and women in Starfleet who had to be far more competent.
Scotty sighed and leant his head against the backrest. “OK, so we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re both indispensable to the smooth running of the Enterprise. That leaves us in a bit of a hole, doesn’t it, if Kirk doesn’t want a baby on board?”
“Like you said yesterday - we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” she replied. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Anyway, I think we have bigger things to worry about right now. Like convincing him that you didn’t ‘corrupt my innocence’, as you put it.”
“From what I remember, there wasn’t much innocence left to corrupt,” he teased affectionately. She giggled into his neck
“You are very bad man,” she told him. Scotty chuckled and gave her a squeeze.
“Seriously, though, you’re right,” he said when their laughter had died away. “Do you think he’ll bend the rules for us?”
Chekov opened her eyes and looked up at him incredulously. “This is the Captain we’re talking about. He lives to bend rules,” she said, and a smile turned the corners of Scotty’s mouth upwards a little. “Anyway, he’ll probably sympathise - I bet he lost his virginity when he was younger than I am now.”
Her words made Scotty laugh out loud. She smiled at the sound of his laughter and snuggled closer. Scotty stroked her back. “OK, point taken. Do you think he’ll be able to call McCoy off the warpath?”
“Probably,” she said with a shrug. She glanced at the monitor on Scotty’s desk to check the time. “Do you think I should go and see him now?”
Scotty looked at the time. “You’d have to hurry if you want to catch him before he goes for something to eat.”
“Do you want to come with me?” she asked as she reluctantly got up from his knee. He tilted his head on one side, thinking, then shook his head.
“It’s probably better if you speak to him on your own, first,” he said. “I can get to the captain’s quarters in a couple of minutes, if he wants to speak to me.”
“OK,” she said softly. She didn’t really want to face someone else on her own, but she could see the logic behind Scotty’s words: if he came with her, it would be far too easy for someone - be it Kirk, McCoy, or another member of the crew - to accuse him of manipulating her into saying whatever he wanted. Scotty stood up and hugged her tightly, kissing her temple.
“I’m sure he’ll understand,” he murmured.
“I will make him understand,” she replied sharply, suddenly feeling determined. She was fed up with being treated like a child; if she was capable of passing the Starfleet exams and old enough to serve the Federation as a navigator, surely she ought to be treated as an adult in all areas of her life. They would just have to realise that.
Part II
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