Archive of Our Own ^beta

They could have used a transporter to get to the seaside resort in Maine where Jim Kirk will marry a lady called Georgia after three days of partying. That was what Pavel wanted, but Hikaru felt like driving. Now he's wishing he had just listened to Pavel, which is infuriating. After fifteen years of yes, dear he's finally beginning to fight Pavel on the petty things he used to just go along with, but it usually only gets him into situations like this, stuck in the car with complete silence between them for the last three hours after a fight over whether they should listen to music or a lecture on nanotubes that Pavel downloaded before they left San Francisco.

"It's in Russian," Hikaru said when Pavel began to play the file.

"So?"

"So I'm supposed to listen to some physicist ranting about nanotubes in a language I don't even speak for four hours?"

"The lecture is only an hour and a half long, and he's not ranting. Anyway, I offered to teach you Russian and you never had time."

"Sorry, I was too busy having a fucking job. How many new languages have you learned since we met?"

"Fine." Pavel went dark and silent the way he always does when he loses an argument and doesn't want to admit it. He tore the data file out of the car's audio player and threw it back into his bag. Hikaru put the radio on, hating the silence, and Pavel immediately reached over to flip it off.

"What the hell?" Hikaru said.

"I don't want to hear music right now. It's distracting."

"Distracting from what?"

"I'm trying to think. I've got a lot on my mind."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Hikaru muttered.

Pavel didn't bother to ask him what he meant. Hikaru knew what was on Pavel's mind. He was thinking about leaving Hikaru. Three years earlier, Hikaru had been offered a ship of his own, a chance to captain a Federation vessel. He turned it down so that he could stay with Pavel on the Enterprise. After the culmination of their last long-term voyage two weeks ago, Pavel received the same offer from the Federation. He accepted without hesitation.

The fight they had after that was the one that iced the landscape between them, but it had been growing progressively chillier for some time. They don't fight much, or at least they didn't before Pavel's announcement that he would be taking the Federation's offer, but there has been a distance between them that makes Hikaru feel as if he's lost a limb. He's always still trying to use it, forced to remember the heartbreak of losing it every time he does.

It begins to grow dark as they drive along the coast, up to the most northeastern part of the country. Hikaru's stomach is growling, but he doesn't ask Pavel if he wants to stop for food, because it will just be another excuse for Pavel to be contrary, and anyway, he doesn't want to be the first one to acknowledge the presence of the other, as if they're in a reverse staring contest. He grips the wheel tightly and resigns himself to spending the remainder of the drive replaying their fight about Pavel's promotion in his head.

"Why aren't you happy for me?" Pavel asked when Hikaru only stood there staring at him after Pavel's announcement that he would become a captain, his mouth hanging open in shock.

"Are you serious?" Hikaru asked.

"Hikaru, it doesn't mean we'll have to separate. I'll choose you as my pilot, of course."

"Oh, Jesus Christ -- well, thank you, Pavel, I really appreciate the fucking concession."

"What are you talking about? Why do you turn everything I do into some crime against you?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? You've just decided that I'm going to be your pilot, no discussion necessary? You didn't even ask me if I wanted to leave the Enterprise, Kirk, all our friends --"

"Oh, so that's what this is about? You'd rather serve under Kirk than me? I knew it, I knew it, you've never had any faith in me --"

"Are you crazy? It's not that simple! The Enterprise has been our home for fifteen years, and I gave up my promotion to stay there with you --"

"Ah, so that's why you're upset, because you want to blame your lack of ambition on me?"

The fight had devolved into curses and low blows after that, Hikaru accusing Pavel of turning into a cold-blooded, ladder-climbing megalomaniac and Pavel calling Hikaru a spineless son of a bitch before he switched to Russian, which Hikaru hates more than anything, even if it means he doesn't have to understand all the awful things Pavel is saying to him. It still hurts, thinking about that night, when the pressure that had been building between them finally exploded. Hikaru had gone to his sister's house, thinking he might sob on her shoulder, but instead he'd paced around her living room for hours, drinking gin and cursing Pavel, listing all of his sins over the past fifteen years. This gave him a temporary sort of relief, belittling Pavel out loud, but as soon as he passed out in his sister's guest bedroom the sobs he'd been anticipating came, and he was alone with them, burying his face in a pillow, his tears soaking the pillowcase thoroughly.

As usual, Hikaru is the one who gives in and breaks the silence. Pavel is unshakable when he's angry, completely stone-faced and able to go for days without speaking if it means that he wins. Hikaru always loved Pavel's competitive drive and his natural toughness, but in recent years those qualities seem to have completely eclipsed the quiet sweetness and red-cheeked humility that Hikaru loved, too.

"God, wife number six for Jim," he mutters, casting a sneaky glance at Pavel, who is leaning against the passenger-side door with his arms crossed over his chest, staring out the window like a petulant teenager who is embarrassed to be in the presence of a family member. "You think this is going to be it for Kirk, the one he'll stick with?"

Pavel scoffs. "Yeah, right," he says.

"I don't know, he sounded pretty excited about her when he called me to tell me about the wedding."

"And that is different from the way he reacted to first five how? Please, Hikaru, they've only been together for a month."

"Longevity is not the only way to measure a relationship."

"When we leave on our next mission he'll forget about her, just like the others."

"We?" Hikaru says before he can stop himself. He and Pavel haven't spoken about Pavel's promotion since the fight. There's been no talk about Hikaru staying on the Enterprise or joining Pavel on his ship. Hikaru can only interpret this to mean that, at this point, Pavel doesn't really care what he does.

"I didn't mean to say that," Pavel says, mumbling.

"You'll miss Kirk," Hikaru says, pretending to be cavalier. "I know you two are close."

"Not as close at the two of you, apparently."

"What the hell do you mean?" Hikaru asks, his already white-knuckled grip on the wheel tightening.

"Nothing," Pavel mumbles. Lately he's glommed on to the idea that Hikaru is infatuated with Jim, just to have an excuse to push Hikaru farther away. Hikaru almost likes the idea that Pavel thinks so. It's less painful than the thought of Pavel knowing that Hikaru is still so in love with him that it hurts to look at him, and that he always will be.

"This might be the last time you see the whole gang together," Hikaru says. The thought slices him from his skull to the base of his spine, the pain like an ice pick going through him.

"You'd think that after fifteen years someone would think to throw me a goodbye party," Pavel says. "Obviously not you, since it hasn't occurred to you."

"Oh, fuck!" Hikaru shouts, unable to take it anymore. He's always the one who loses his cool first. "Why don't you just say what you really want? You want a goodbye party for this fucking relationship. Well, I'm sick of it. If it's going to end, let's just fucking say so and be done with it. The goddamn goodbye party's been going on long enough."

Pavel says nothing, of course, just stares out the window. Hikaru curses him under his breath, the leather on the steering wheel squeaking under his grip. He pulls over at a roadside diner outside of Bangor without consulting Pavel, something he never would have dreamed of doing even a month ago. When he gets out of the car Pavel stays in his seat, his face still turned toward the window. So now he's on a hunger strike, too. Good, fine, Hikaru doesn't give a fuck. He slams into the diner and orders meatloaf just because he knows Pavel hates it.

He never thought things between he and Pavel would end like this. His biggest worry throughout the relationship was that one of them would be killed on an away mission. Back then, that was the only way he could envision them being separated. After all, they fell in love during a mission when they both almost died, which culminated in Hikaru rescuing Pavel and Spock from a holding cell in the basement of a smuggler's hideout, his left arm broken and the bottom half of his right ear ripped off after a confrontation with an alien hell beast the smugglers had unleashed on him before fighting him themselves. Hikaru had felt certain that he would die until he made it to the basement and found Pavel, beaten but alive, and well enough to fling himself against the bars of his holding cell and beam at Hikaru as he limped forward.

"I knew you would come, I knew it, I knew it," Pavel chanted, laughing madly as Hikaru braced himself against the bars of the cell, fumbling in his trouser pocket for the set of keys he'd stolen from one of the smugglers he'd killed. As he did, Pavel leaned forward and kissed him between the bars, eyes shut and mouth open, right in front of Spock. Hikaru felt as if one of the smugglers had snuck up behind him and fired a rocket launcher into his back. Pavel melted him to nothing with that kiss. He claimed him forever.

Now all Hikaru has to show for it is a tunnel of anger and sadness inside him, always expanding, hollowing him out little by little. He eats without tasting anything, sleeps without really resting, and fucks Pavel without feeling connected to him at all. Just about the only intimacy they haven't given up is their physical routine, both of them too enslaved to it to let hating each other get in the way. Hikaru has discovered that orgasms are completely different during grudge fucks, flat physical reactions that only last a few seconds, though this may have more to do with the fact that Pavel doesn't scream Hikaru's name when he comes anymore. Probably because he's imagining that Hikaru is someone else.

"Let's not let our shit get in the way of everybody's weekend, okay?" Hikaru says when they finally pull into the driveway of the hotel that is hosting Jim's wedding celebration. "Try to be civil in front of –"

"I'm not stupid, Hikaru," Pavel says. His voice sounds hoarse, and Hikaru wonders if he was crying while Hikaru was in the diner. But no, Pavel never cries. Even when his grandmother died he didn't shed a tear, just remained sullen and quiet for several days. Hikaru has only really seen him cry once, two years ago, and he doesn't even want to think about that nightmare.

They leave their hover car with a valet and head inside with their bags over their shoulders. The lobby is crowded with Kirk-affiliated guests who are checking in, and the first person they spot is Scotty, standing by the bar with his wife Maria and working on a glass full of dark, foamy beer.

"Scotty!" Pavel calls, bounding over to he and Maria as if he can't wait to be free of Hikaru's company. They embrace, and then Hikaru takes his turn to hug both of them. Maria is an engineer, too, and she and Scotty met while working together on the Enterprise. They've always reminded Hikaru of he and Pavel, great friends who had eight thousand animated conversations that lasted past midnight before they finally realized they were in love. It hurts, now, to remember the days when he and Pavel eschewed sleep in favor of whispering to each other in the dark. Now they can hardly get through a meal together without running out of things to say within the first five minutes. It always makes Hikaru feel panicky, as if he's on a first date, still desperate to be impressive, though now he's not worried about impressing Pavel so much as the couples at the tables around them, who must pity them, he thinks, when they tuck into their meals without a word.

"So what do you think?" Scotty asks when Pavel and Hikaru have ordered drinks for themselves. "Is this going to be the one he grows old with?"

Pavel and Scotty burst into laughter, but Hikaru isn't in a cynical mood. Why is it so hard to believe that Jim could finally find his true love after so many stops and starts?

"Are you alright, Hikaru?" Maria asks when Pavel and Scotty begin their usual argument about interdimensional politics.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Hikaru says, putting on a smile that aches. "It was just a long drive."

"Don't tell me you drove from San Francisco!"

"No, no, we transported to Boston first. We rented a car and drove up along the coast – I thought it would be – nice."

He actually thought that he and Pavel might bond during the long confinement in the rented hover car. The idea is laughable now. He looks across the bar and spots Jim, who is hugging the waist of a gorgeous redhead, both of them laughing at something a balding man is saying. Jim sees Hikaru watching him and waves. He looks a little bloated, but he always gets that way between missions. The girl seems sharper than most of Jim's exes, even from a distance. Hikaru is rooting for them; fuck the doubters.

"Hey, hey!" Jim says when he and his bride to be make their way over to Hikaru's group. "Here's my protégé,"he says, slapping Pavel's shoulder. "How does it feel to be a captain?"

"I am not a captain yet," Pavel says, smiling with the kind of smug satisfaction that turns Hikaru's stomach.

"Well, it's a matter of weeks. Listen! I want you all to meet my fiancée, Georgia Lombard." He presents her with a flourish and she laughs, pinching Jim's ear.

"This is Hikaru Sulu, my pilot," Jim says to Georgia, "And Pavel Chekov, my former navigator, I had a hell of a time finding his replacement."

"You've replaced me already?" Pavel says, and Hikaru knows him well enough to understand that his casual smile is fake.

"Yeah, you'll have to meet her, she's here somewhere – Bianca Leighton, she's amazing. But what will I do without you? Anyway, babe, this is Scotty – Montgomery Scott, I mean, head engineer, and our genius water systems engineer, Maria Scott."

"I've heard so much about all of you!" Georgia says as she shakes everyone's hands in turn. "It's so wonderful to finally meet you."

"And how did you and Jim meet?" Maria asks.

"That's a funny story, actually," Jim says with a laugh.

"I was stripping," Georgia says proudly. "And he came in with Dr. McCoy – they were both such gentlemen! Jim and I got to talking about our childhoods and such and one thing led to another." She wilts against Jim's shoulder and pinches his cheek. "And here we are!"

"Here we are!" Jim repeats, laughing a little nervously.

After a few drinks Hikaru is more than ready to head up to the room he and Pavel have reserved. To his surprise, Pavel follows rather than lingering at the bar to get smashed and continue talking with Scotty. They're silent in the elevator, both of them staring at the numbers on the display. When they reach the fourteenth floor they both start for the hallway at the same time, and then pause awkwardly. Hikaru walks ahead, grumbling under his breath. Even the simplest fucking things have become difficult.

The anonymity of the room is a comfort, and they take turns brushing their teeth, staying out of each other's way. Hikaru turns on the television and watches the news while Pavel reads something on his PADD. Hikaru imagines that he's reading messages from a lover who laments Pavel's last gasp of a vacation with his oppressive, dull, depressing old boyfriend. Hikaru turns off the television and Pavel puts his PADD away, telling the room's computer to shut down the lights.

Once they're protected by the darkness they gravitate together shyly, Pavel groping for Hikaru and Hikaru answering with desperate kisses. They roll onto each other, only grunting and breathing heavily, none of the exclamations they used to favor leaving their lips. Pavel would say, God, Hikaru, God, you feel so good, so good, and Hikaru would whisper, You're so tight, fuck, love you so much. Now they say nothing, though when Hikaru first pushes into Pavel it almost feels the same as it did that first time, a week after they escaped from the planet where Pavel had kissed Hikaru through the bars of his cell. They'd needed time to heal, and they were so impatient for it by the time they finally got the chance, Pavel frantic and gasping and Hikaru almost sobbing with relief as he sunk into him.

Hikaru comes with a strangled gasp, and Pavel follows, the come that splashes Hikaru's chest the only warmth Pavel has offered him in weeks. They fall together easily in the aftermath; cuddling has always been a part of sex and they haven't deprived themselves of it since their falling out. Hikaru shuts his eyes and wills himself to fall asleep like this, before he can fully remember reality, still calmed by the smell of Pavel's post-sex skin. Pavel strokes him, and it makes Hikaru's eyes water, which means he's already remembered.

"They never did get your ear quite right," Pavel says softly, pulling the reconstructed lobe of Hikaru's right ear between his thumb and forefinger. Hikaru grunts and rolls off of him.

"One of my many flaws," he says, turning onto his side, away from Pavel. Through the years, Pavel has become a real expert in everything that's wrong with Hikaru, always laughing as he remarks on Hikaru's faults, as if Hikaru is too pathetic to really be held responsible: Hikaru, you always speak before you think. Hikaru, you never finish a meal without spilling something on your shirt. Hikaru, you really rely too much on the auxiliary warp. And on and on and on.

Hikaru lies there for a long time, unable to sleep, listening to Pavel's breath and trying to interpret its patterns. He's been obsessed with Pavel for a long time, but it used to feel like something good, and it didn't keep him up at night with bone-shaking anxiety. When he finally falls asleep he dreams that he's waiting for Pavel on the altar, and in the dream Pavel never shows up. It's not an unfamiliar dream. Even when things were going well, Hikaru always had this fear, that Pavel would leave him looking like a fool. It used to be because he thought Pavel was much too good for him, and that Pavel would realize this in time. Now he just knows that it will happen; now he's just waiting.

*

Mornings are the hardest, when both of them are raw and tired, trying to find the energy to rouse themselves from the bed they share only perfunctorily. They used to roll together after the first warning from the alarm, sometimes for half-awake sex, and sometimes just clinging, petting each other awake. Now they lie on opposite sides of the bed until Pavel, always the first out of bed, groans and heads for the bathroom. Hikaru listens to him having a shower and wishes he could climb in with him, soap his back and kiss his wet curls, pretending like they do at night. But they never touch each other in daylight anymore.

When Pavel gets out, he walks back into the room, naked and rubbing his hair dry with a towel. He glances at Hikaru, who is staring at the itinerary for the weekend that Georgia handed out to all of the guests last night at the cocktail party, pretending that he's not watching Pavel out of the corner of his eye.

"What's that?" Pavel asks as he steps into his underwear.

"Our schedule. God, look at this. Beach volleyball? Really? What is this, a sorority rush?"

"Sounds fun to me," Pavel says. Of course.

"This thing is five fucking pages long," Hikaru says, flipping through it. "There's menus and everything."

"So what's for breakfast?"

Hikaru flips back to the first page. "Made to order crepes, served on the garden terrace," he reads. He glances up at Pavel, who smirks. "This is worse than the wedding on Vega."

"Oh, God!" Pavel laughs at the memory as he pulls on a t-shirt. "Those costumes we had to wear! I'm glad he didn't ask us to be ushers this time."

"What was that, his third marriage?"

"His fourth, I think," Pavel says. He goes over to the mirror to pat his damp hair into place. "I can hardly remember. I liked the first girl."

"Ugh, Becky?"

"She was nice!"

"I guess, but he only married her because she was pregnant. How many kids does Jim have now?"

"I don't know, ten? Hurry up and take your shower, I'm starving."

"You can go down without me, you know," Hikaru says.

"I know," Pavel says, his gaze dropping to the floor. "But – you said – that we should act – and usually we wouldn't –"

"Alright, alright," Hikaru says, feeling guilty. This is the worst part of the slow death of their relationship, the precious seconds when everything begins to feel normal, always interrupted by some stabbing little reminder that it's not. He hurries through his shower, remembering that Pavel never ate dinner. Hikaru should have gotten him something from the diner and tossed it into his lap. Sometimes it will suddenly seem as if everything that has gone wrong is his fault, and he'll have to reassure himself by listing Pavel's contributions to their problems in his head.

Down at breakfast, Hikaru is relieved to find that Uhura has arrived and cuts through the crowd around the buffet table to hug her.

"Thank God," he says. "I was afraid you wouldn't come."

"It's that bad, huh?" Uhura says, pulling back to grin at him knowingly.

"Worse than ever," Hikaru mutters. "I – thought it would be a good idea to drive up from Boston."

"Jesus, Sulu."

"I know, I know. I can't do anything right anymore."

Uhura makes a sympathetic noise and pats his face. Hikaru was her main confidante back when her relationship with Spock ended ten years ago, and when it began again, and ended again, and so on and so forth. Hikaru used to secretly feel a little smug about his stable and happy relationship with Pavel when listening to the details of Uhura's anguish, and he can't help but wonder if she doesn't feel a little vindicated now that his relationship has crumbled.

"Have a crepe," Uhura says, pushing a plate into Hikaru's hands. "You'll feel better. Look, they've even got chocolate chips."

Hikaru snorts and joins the crepe assembly line. Pavel strides over and picks up a plate of his own, greeting Uhura with a kiss on each cheek.

"I heard the good news," Uhura says. "Congratulations, Captain."

"I guess I don't have to ask who told you," Pavel says, glancing at Hikaru.

"Was it supposed to be a secret?" Uhura asks.

"No. I can just imagine the manner in which he delivered the news."

"I'm surprised they haven't offered you a ship, Nyota," Hikaru says, eager to change the subject.

"Who says they haven't?" Uhura says. "I'm not interested in that kind of work. I do have a personal life, and I mean to keep it. I know some people get their only joy from their work, but not me."

Hikaru and Pavel exchange a glance; she's talking about Spock, already. Hikaru turns from the buffet to scan the group that has gathered on the garden terrace, eating crepes and drinking mimosas. He finds Spock at the edge of the crowd, frowning sternly in the direction of the buffet. Hikaru waves, and Spock lifts a hand in greeting, but doesn't come forward.

"The Vulcan marriage experiment didn't last long," Uhura says, referring to Spock's ex-wife. "She probably couldn't put up with the silent treatment. His problem is not that he's a Vulcan, it's that he never has anything on his mind except the obvious, and he's logical enough not to bother expressing the obvious, so he never expresses anything."

"Uhura!" Jim says, coming up behind them to clap a hand on Uhura and Hikaru's shoulders. "Talking about Spock already?"

"For God's sake, Jim," Uhura hisses, glaring at him. "Keep your voice down."

"I'm only kidding!" Jim winks at her and Uhura groans, shoving him off and leaving the buffet with her crepe. Jim shrugs and grins and Hikaru and Pavel.

"You guys are on my team for volleyball, alright?" he says. "It's groom's side against bride's side."

"I don't really know the rules," Hikaru says.

"Well, considering that you're a brilliant astrophysicist, I doubt you'll have much trouble learning them."

When storm clouds roll in during the volleyball game, Hikaru is relieved, but he still has to play two sets before the rain actually starts. The bride's side, comprising mostly busty stripper friends of Georgia's, throughly wipes the floor with Jim's scientist friends. Hikaru has always considered himself athletic, but the sand slows him down more than he expected and he serves the ball into the net twice, not missing the annoyed scoffs from Pavel either time. Pavel's competitiveness has gotten totally out of hand, and he's in a horrible mood as everyone in the party jogs back to the hotel when the rain begins to come down.

“Maybe we would have won if McCoy hadn't had five mimosas with breakfast,” Pavel grumbles when he and Hikaru are back in their room, changing into dry clothes. “And you were playing too close to the net, you wouldn't listen to me.”

“You know why running was always your sport?” Hikaru says bitterly. “Because you could do it alone. You're not much of a team player.”

“I don't like relying on other people.”

“No kidding.”

“You think this is a bad thing?” Pavel asks with a scoff.

“I don't know,” Hikaru says, pulling off his wet socks. “Who cares what I think.”

“I thought we were going to be civil.”

“We are. I am. But why the fuck are you freaking out over a damn volleyball game? The things that are important to you, you know, they don't make sense to me anymore.”

“Why, because I dare to care about anything other than you? I was not brought up to invest all my happiness in one person. And thank God for that, or where would I be now?”

“Goddamn!” Hikaru shouts, throwing his balled up socks to the floor. “Can't we even be in the same room without going over this pointless shit again and again –”

“We can't when you are criticizing everything I do!”

“Me!”

“Why are we even bothering to pretend?” Pavel asks, throwing his arms out. “Why even share a room, why not tell our friends the truth? They'll know soon enough, when you leave on the Enterprise without me.”

“Oh, so you're still making decisions for me? Or have you just retracted the invitation to pilot your ship?”

“Why would you want to now?” Pavel asks, his voice breaking with frustration. He waves a hand through the air and begins cursing in Russian, sounding defeated. The thrill of winning the argument doesn't last long, and Hikaru's hands begin to shake with the need to pull Pavel to him and comfort him.

“Listen,” he says instead. “I'm sorry. You just make me crazy when you get so hung up on stuff like a goddamn game, it's –”

“Yes, but who cares what you think,” Pavel says, turning his back on Hikaru. “Right?”

Hikaru goes back down to the lobby without him, for the next item on the schedule – some kind of slide show of pictures of the happy couple, made by one of Georgia's bridesmaids. He's actually only looking for Uhura, hoping to avoid the festivities, but he can't find her and instead runs into Jim, who leads him over to the slide show viewing area and whispers in his ear throughout the entire thing.

“So what's the deal?” Jim asks. “Are you staying with us or going with Pavel? I need to know if I'm going to have to replace my pilot, too.”

“I don't want to talk about it right now,” Hikaru whispers back.

“What? Why not?”

“Just watch the damn slide show, Jim.”

“Listen, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to stay with him, but it would be weird, wouldn't it? He'd be your superior, and he's younger than you –”

“Jim, I'm serious, I don't want to talk about it.”

“Hey, is everything okay between you two? He doesn't seem as elfin and chipper as usual.”

“You know he hasn't been that way for awhile,” Hikaru says, giving Jim a look. Jim opens his mouth, then remembers and nods.

“Oh, yeah. God, is that still bothering him?”

“I don't know. He doesn't talk to me about it. But, I think so.”

“Damn. Well – maybe he could go visit or something.”

“I think that would only make it worse.”

“Well, once he's got his own ship he'll have too much on his mind to worry about that anymore. Listen, let's sneak away from this thing, I want you to meet our new navigator. Maybe she'll help convince you to stay with us.”

Jim introduces Hikaru to Lieutenant Bianca Leighton out on the covered patio, where she was sitting alone and drinking coffee before they joined her. She's a small, pretty woman with the sort of sharp, unblinking eyes that seem to suggest that there's no use trying to keep secrets from her. She's Canadian and has served as the navigator for the North Star for the past five years. She seems very young to Hikaru, and he remembers how incredibly young Pavel had seemed when they met. It's heartbreaking to think of it now, the way he would blush when superior officers spoke to him. Maybe Hikaru was selfish to want him to stay that way forever, quiet among the others and eager to please Hikaru when they were alone.

"I understand you've been in love with my predecessor for the past fifteen years," Bianca says, catching Hikaru off guard as he's sizing her up.

"What, it's not like it's a secret," Jim says when Hikaru gives him a look.

"I just hope you won't interpret that to mean that I'm unprofessional," Hikaru says to Bianca. "It wasn't something I planned on."

"It's not a problem," Bianca says. "My minor at the Academy was psychology. I think it's fascinating, the relationships that develop during long missions in space."

She gives Hikaru what could easily be mistaken for a flirtatious look. He wonders if Jim has slept with her yet. He looks away from them and sees Pavel headed toward them, snaking through empty tables covered with blue tablecloths.

"Are you alright?" Hikaru asks him when he arrives at the table. He looks bedraggled and tired. Pavel scowls at him.

"Yes," he says, as if the question is absurd.

"Here he is!" Jim says, shaking Pavel by the shoulder when he sits down beside him. "The man you're going to have to live up to, Ms. Leighton. He saved the lives of me and Hikaru the first day we all met."

"Only after you saved mine," Hikaru says to Jim.

"Which was made possible by you saving my ass first," Jim says to Hikaru with a smirk.

"There was a lot of life-saving that day," Pavel says to Bianca, and she laughs.

"It's kind of sad, then," Bianca says. "I feel like I'm breaking up a great team."

"It's not you who's breaking us up," Hikaru says. There's a heaviness in the air then, and he excuses himself from the table, feeling guilty. As he's headed back into the hotel, too preoccupied with his thoughts to watch where he's going, he almost crashes into Spock.

"Sorry, Commander," Hikaru mumbles, starting to move around him.

"Mr. Sulu," Spock says, stopping him. "Might I ask, have you seen Nyota this afternoon?"

"No, I think she went off to hide somewhere so she wouldn't have to play volleyball. You know how she is, she won't play a game unless she knows she can win."

"Yes – she is – like that. Thank you."

Hikaru watches Spock walk off, and when he's gone he glances through the windows on the French doors that lead out to the patio. Jim, Bianca and Pavel are having some sort of animated discussion, and suddenly Hikaru feels as if he's the one being replaced. He wonders if he would be able to leave the Enterprise even if he and Pavel were still getting along well. It would be hard, and Jim is right, the thought of Pavel as his superior is not something he relishes, though it's essentially been true for the past fifteen years. On board the Enterprise Hikaru has seniority over Pavel, even though their rank is now the same, and he's the one who's always been on top in bed, but Pavel has always been the real decision maker and Hikaru the willing follower. It's embarrassed him in the past, when Uhura or Jim have remarked on the way little Pavel has led Hikaru around by his prick for fifteen years, and that was part of the reason he went completely ballistic when Pavel announced that he and Hikaru would be leaving the Enterprise for a new ship where Pavel would officially have the final say in everything Hikaru did.

He spends most of the remainder of the day reading in bed and watching the constant rainfall at the window, expecting Pavel to show up. He never does, so Hikaru dresses for dinner, consulting the schedule. A barbecue on the beach was planned, but that's obviously off. He groans as the thought of seeing everyone again: Jim with his questions about the future, Uhura with her bitterness about Spock, that new navigator with her smug sense of humor about the situation that is ruining Hikaru's life, and Pavel, who looks at Hikaru as if to say that it would be polite if he just disappeared.

Hikaru considers it for a moment as he heads for the hotel room door. What if he just left without telling anyone? Pavel would be in a complete panic, hating himself for the cold way he's treated Hikaru for the past year and sobbing into his pillow. Or maybe not. Maybe he would just shrug it off. Hikaru never knows what to expect from him anymore.

When he gets downstairs he heads out to the patio, where the barbecue is going strong under the tent that's been set up. Hikaru has no appetite, but he does feel like drinking, so he sits down beside Dr. McCoy, who is slouching and miserable-looking, as he usually is at social functions.

"Hikaru," McCoy says, slinging an arm around him. "Let me ask you a question."

"Okay."

"How is it that someone as smart as fucking Jim Kirk is also so goddamn stupid?"

"I don't know," Hikaru says. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Are you joking? Look at this."

He gestures to Jim and Georgia, who are standing together by the grill, posing for a picture. McCoy scoffs as if the looks on their faces say it all and takes another swig of whatever he's drinking.

"Did he really meet her while she was stripping?" Hikaru asks.

"I don't want to talk about it," McCoy grumbles.

"Uh, okay. Have you seen Uhura?"

"Yeah, she was dragging Spock down to walk on the beach with her about an hour ago."

"In the rain?"

"She said something about proving a point."

"Goddammit. She's going to sleep with him and the whole thing will start over again."

"Leave 'em alone," McCoy says. "They're in love."

"They'll just end up breaking up again and –"

"So? There's more than one way to be in love with somebody. Speaking of that, where's your little friend?"

"Pavel? I don't know where he is – have you seen Bianca Leighton?" Hikaru feels panicked for a moment. What if she and Pavel are somewhere, together? Why is the thought of him even talking to her in private so disturbing?

"What, that teenager Jim hired to navigate in Chekov's place?"

"I don't think she's that young—"

"Is Chekov really leaving us? I can't believe it."

"Neither can I."

"But you'll go with him, won't you?"

"I don't know," Hikaru mutters, motioning to a passing waiter to bring him whatever McCoy is drinking.

"What do you mean you don't know? Of course you will."

"I don't like the idea of taking orders from him."

"I didn't like it at first, either," McCoy mutters. He drains his drink. "You get used to it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nothing." McCoy slaps Hikaru's shoulder and stands. "Listen, I can't take anymore wedding nonsense tonight. I'll be up in my room – if anyone needs me."

Hikaru is grateful for the drink that arrives soon after McCoy is gone. He looks around for Uhura but still can't find her anywhere, and wonders if she's having a tryst on the beach with Spock, in the rain, to prove something about passion or spontaneity to him, or maybe just because she's horny. Hikaru is afraid that he's destined to end up like Uhura, still hanging on to an old love years after the good times have ended, prolonging his suffering with the occasional physical reunion.

He finally spots Pavel across the room, chatting with Scotty and Maria, and the relief he experiences at the sight of him doesn't make any sense. He gets up and walks over to join them, finishing his drink as he goes. Telling himself that he's only doing it for appearances and not because he's drunk and lonely, he slides his arm around Pavel's shoulders when he gets there. Pavel stiffens a little, turning his face toward Hikaru without meeting his eyes.

"There he is!" Scotty says, gesturing to Hikaru. "I think Pavel here was worried that the new navigator had stolen more than his job for a moment," he says, laughing.

"Monty!" Maria says, poking him.

"Huh?" Hikaru looks at Pavel, who still won't meet his eyes.

"I did not think that," Pavel says irritably.

"He was asking if we'd seen you, and then if we'd seen the lady Leighton."

"I haven't seen her since I left you," Hikaru says to Pavel, too stunned to even be flattered.

"I did not think that," Pavel says again, scoffing. He squirms out from under Hikaru's arm, his face going red.

"Monty's only joking," Maria says to Hikaru. "Pavel was just telling us that after you left he and Jim this afternoon Bianca followed you back into the hotel – did she accost you? She's a bit strange."

"She'll fit right in on the Enterprise, then," Scotty says, chortling. He's obviously drunk, and this whole weekend is already turning into what Hikaru expected, a chance for everybody to drink too much and say things they'll regret.

"She didn't – I haven't seen her," Hikaru says, looking at Pavel again. His jaw is set tightly and he's staring straight ahead at nothing.

"See, you troublemaker," Maria says, jostling Scotty's arm. "Sorry boys, I'll clear him off."

Before she can, there's an exclamation at the back of the patio, and they all turn to see Christine Chapel walking out from the French doors with her husband, whose name Hikaru can never remember. They have their daughter with them, a little cherub-faced girl with short blond curls. Jim is making a big show of greeting the baby; he loves kids. Hikaru has seen an assortment of children running around the hotel since he arrived, always wondering as they streak past if they're part of the stable of maternally diverse kids who belong to Jim.

"Oh, look at Christine, she's glowing, probably pregnant again," Maria says, hanging on Scotty's arm. "How old is Katie now?"

"Almost three, I think," Hikaru says, glancing at Pavel, who is staring at Jim as he hoists the laughing baby into the air, Christine hovering nervously at his side, arms half-outstretched. Christine is a good friend of Uhura's and Hikaru always has to hear Uhura's complaints that she longs for the days when their conversations were about anything other than toilet training and sex after pregnancy.

"Don't you want to have a baby, dear?" Maria asks, beaming at Scotty, and Hikaru is beginning to think that she's had quite a bit to drink herself.

"Absolutely," Scotty says. "If ya let me take you up to the room I can give it a try right now."

Maria squeals with laughter, and Hikaru looks back to Pavel, his eyes widened slightly to communicate his secret annoyance at the behavior of these two, but Pavel is walking away, winding impatiently through the crowd and back toward the hotel.

"Ah, where's he going in such a hurry?" Scotty asks.

"Probably just to the bathroom," Hikaru says, a long-buried ache at the pit of him stinging like a reopened wound. "I'll – I'll be right back."

By the time Hikaru makes it through the crowd Pavel has disappeared. Hikaru goes to the lobby elevators and calls for one, hoping Pavel has gone up to the room and not to wander in the rain. They're so rarely around children, and Hikaru can't remember the last time he saw a three-year-old, not since they had to leave Luka on Antearch.

Pavel found Luka when he was sent to a settlement planet that hadn't communicated with the Federation for weeks. He went with Lieutenant Vance, who didn't make it back. All but one person in the planet's modest settlement had been murdered by a gang of pirates who had parked there to loot and refuel around the time that the communications stopped. For reasons the Federation is still investigating, the pirates went insane upon landing and killed the entire community, then each other. The only survivor was a three-year-old who had been hidden in a supply closet, probably by his parents, and who had survived off of crackers and condensed milk until Pavel and Vance found him during their investigation. Vance ended up falling prey to the same madness that likely affected the pirates, and Pavel had to kill him to save himself and the boy, which both traumatized and bonded the two of them. By the time Pavel was beamed up to the Enterprise, the little boy was clinging to him, hiding his face in Pavel's shirt.

Some digging into the records of the settlement revealed that the boy was Luka Pearson, the only boy of his age on record in the colony. Though his parents were both killed, he had grandparents on Antearch, a planet in a neighboring system. He would be returned to them, but the Enterprise wouldn't be in a position to get him there for six months. In the meantime, the boy was surprisingly healthy, at least physically, just a little malnourished and underweight. Mentally, of course, he was profoundly scarred by what had happened, despite the fact that he'd been closed up in a closet during the attack. He didn't speak at all, and was skittish and very clingy. The only person he wanted to cling to, of course, was Pavel.

Hikaru warned Pavel about taking responsibility for Luka's care while he was on board the Enterprise. Pavel laughed it off, assuring Hikaru that he wouldn't get attached, but Hikaru could see that he already was. Whenever he was off shift, Pavel spent all of his time with Luka, reading to him and letting him play with toys that had been Pavel's as a boy, fragile things that Hikaru had never seen out of storage before Luka arrived. Hikaru wasn't sure why Pavel had brought his old toys with him on the mission, and he'd never realized before he saw Pavel with Luka how childlike and energetic Pavel had remained, so like he was when Hikaru had first met him. He'd hidden that part of himself away, wanting to be thought of as a capable, mature officer, but Hikaru loved seeing that side of Pavel, though his worry about what things would be like when Luka was gone grew and grew.

Pavel gingerly tried to encourage Luka to speak, to no avail, and brought him to dinner in the mess so that he would grow more accustomed to being around people. Luka was adorable and everyone on board was charmed by him, even McCoy, who has a daughter himself somewhere. Luka came out of his shell little by little, but mostly he preferred the company of Pavel, whose pant leg he always clung to if he wasn't already in Pavel's arms. Luka slept on a cot in Pavel and Hikaru's room, but he so often woke with nightmares that he usually ended up in bed between them, curled against Pavel's chest. He was wary of Hikaru at first, but once he saw that Pavel trusted him he began to smile for him, too, and Hikaru began to worry that it wasn't only Pavel whose heart would break when Luka was left in the care of his grandparents.

"What if we could adopt him?" Pavel asked one night when Luka had fallen asleep on Pavel's chest during a story, Hikaru in bed beside them and pretending to read from his PADD while he really listened to Pavel's reading of Ivanushka the Simpleton.

"Pavel," Hikaru said, the hopeful look on Pavel's face crushing him flat.

"Well, what if these grandparents are not fit to care for him? Their daughter was part of an impoverished colony, you know people only settle new planets like that if they are desperate to escape something."

"It's not up to us to judge whether they're fit or not," Hikaru says. "And I'm sure they are, the Federation has probably checked them out."

"Probably?" Pavel placed a protective hand on the back of Luka's head. "Maybe I could speak to the Keptin."

"What's Jim going to do? Pavel, please, I – I've grown to really care about him, too, but let's just try to enjoy our last month with him, okay?"

As Hikaru spoke he realized how cruel and terrible the situation really was. In a month, Luka would be gone forever. They would never again wake to his squeaky little yawns or feel as if they were the most important people in the universe when something they did succeeded in making him giggle.

"You don't know what he was like when I found him," Pavel said, whispering and stroking Luka's hair. "So scared, so alone – no one can take care of him better than us, no one can keep him as safe."

"That's not true, Pavel. We're always working, always being sent away on missions –"

"So he stays with McCoy's nurses during those times! He doesn't like them as much as us but they take very good care of him. And I know what it's like to be raised by grandparents, Hikaru."

"I know you do, but not all grandparents are like yours were."

Pavel's mother had drowned during a family trip to the beach when Pavel was very young, and his father drank himself to death several years later. He was brought up by his mother's parents, who were cold, retired academics who didn't allow him to have friends or do anything but study.

"Yes, they could be worse," Pavel said, hugging Luka, who whimpered in his sleep. "Hikaru, I – I can't let them take him."

"Pavel," Hikaru said, feeling exhausted and hopeless. He reached over to squeeze Pavel's arm. "You're going to have to."

Pavel pressed his face against the top of Luka's head and closed his eyes. Hikaru mistook this for resignation. Luka sighed in his sleep, clearly very comfortable and content while Pavel held him, and Hikaru spent the entire night lying awake and trying to come up with scenarios that would allow he and Pavel to keep Luka and raise him, take the time to show him that it was safe to start speaking again, and watch him grow up into a confident young man who had no memory of his awful past. He came up with nothing.

Luka seemed to sense Pavel's depression during the last few weeks before they reached his grandparents' home planet, and he would tug on Pavel's sleeve, smiling and trying to cheer him up. It was hard for Hikaru to watch, and hard for him to pull Luka out of his evening bath without thinking about the fact that soon he would never again have to clean Luka's toys out of the tub before he dropped him into Pavel's lap and returned for a shower. For the past six months he'd spent a good part of his free time driving toy trucks across the floor with Luka, both of them lying on their stomachs, and he'd waited and waited to get sick of it, to long for someone to take Luka off his hands so he could return to his normal life, but that day never came. It was fascinating to watch the way Luka played, the way his mind worked, grouping toys together according to some unspoken criteria, building structures with wooden blocks and arranging his little toy men inside as if they had some important business there. Luka's curiosity about the things Hikaru and Pavel did was fascinating, too; for some reason he loved to watch them peel oranges and would sometimes whine if they didn't peel three in a row for him. He was less interested in eating them, oddly.

When the Enterprise reached orbit above Antearch, the whole crew was grave and quiet. Everyone knew what losing Luka would be like for Pavel, or anyway, they thought they knew. Only Hikaru knew how truly attached Pavel and Luka had become, because he had come to feel the same way about Luka. There was no denying it, though nobody said it out loud: he felt like their son. He felt like someone they would be responsible for for the rest of their lives, a missing element that would complete the family they had become for each other. When Jim took a picture of the three of them before they boarded a shuttle bound for the planet's surface, none of them were smiling, not even Luka, who was clinging to Pavel's shirt with extra tenacity, sensing that something was very wrong.

On the shuttle, Pavel sat in the back with Luka, both of them silent, Luka huddled nervously in Pavel's tight embrace. Hikaru was alone up front, feeling as if he was the villain in this scenario, for piloting the shuttle to the planet's surface instead of off into space. The thought did cross his mind, though not seriously. Once they disembarked, finding Luka's grandparents' village to be the same sort of dusty, dim little settlement as the one Pavel had rescued Luka from, Pavel began talking seriously about the three of them disappearing into space together.

"Please, Hikaru," Pavel begged when they stood in the shadow of the community's wooden church, just a hundred feet or so from the house where Luka's grandparents were waiting. "I can't leave him here. I have a terrible feeling about this place." He was stroking Luka's back as he spoke, Luka's face hidden against Pavel's shirt just as it had been that first day.

"Pavel, there's nothing we can do," Hikaru said, barely able to get the words out. He had wracked his brain, and had even spoken to Jim secretly after dismissing the idea when Pavel mentioned it, but Jim had no power over the sort of interplanetary law that placed orphaned children with their relatives.

"I just can't, I can't," Pavel said, his voice a whispery shake. "Hikaru, please, you have to find us a ship here, we have to leave, the three of us, I don't care about our jobs –"

"Yes, you do, and you'd hate yourself for it forever if we left," Hikaru said. "Pavel, it would be kidnapping. They'd find us and take Luka from us anyway."

"They wouldn't! You are the best pilot and I'm the best navigator in the Federation, who could find us?"

"What kind of life would that be for Luka? On the run all the time, no education, no friends."

"Better than this, please, Hikaru, as long as he's with us he'd be fine." Pavel was dissolving into tears, and Luka lifted his head to stare up at him in confusion.

"Pavel, please, you're making this even harder than it already is," Hikaru said, beginning to lose his voice, too.

"Don't you want to stay with us?" Pavel asked Luka, stroking his face. "Just say so and we'll keep you, we'll find a way, but you have to tell me, you have to speak now, Luka, tell me and I'll make it so."

"Pavel, please –"

"Go ahead and tell me what you want, Luka, you want to stay with us, don't you? I know you do, oh God, oh God, I'll die, Hikaru, I'll die if we leave him here." He was sobbing against Luka's forehead now, scaring the already frightened baby further.

"Pabel?" Luka whispered then, tugging at the collar of Pavel's shirt. "Pabel?"

"You see, you see?" Pavel said, his eyes going completely wild. "He – did you hear that – what did you say?" he cooed at Luka, kissing his forehead. "You want to stay with us, zaichik, yes, don't you?"

"Pabel," Luka cried sadly, clutching at him.

"Goddammit, Pavel," Hikaru said, tears streaming down his face and dripping from his jaw. "Don't do this to me, please, God, don't you know this is hurting me, too?"

"Hikaru, you heard him, and what matters but what he wants, what's good for him?"

"The law matters, and we don't get to decide what's good for him! Look, Pavel, you're upsetting him, he's so confused, please, let's just get this over with."

"How can you say that, let's get this over with?" Pavel asked, sobbing. Luka was crying now, too, looking back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out what was happening.

"Please, just give him to me," Hikaru said, sucking back his tears in a deep breath. "You can't go to those people's door like this, just give him to me and I'll do it, I'll do it."

He felt like he was volunteering to have his head chopped off, but he would have done anything to end the excruciating pain that was growing sharper and sharper just underneath his heart, like a muscle pinch that would kill him.

"Hikaru, I can't, I can't," Pavel said, his voice so tight and small that the words were barely discernible.

"Please, Pavel, you're scaring him," Hikaru said, working an angle that he knew would be his only hope of prying Luka from Pavel's arms. He reached out and carefully eased him into his hands, Pavel letting go of him little by little, his choking sobs wracking his whole body. Hikaru hardly recognized him, and finally took Luka to keep him from crumbling to the ground along with Pavel.

"Huru?" Luka said, looking up at Hikaru, his wet brown eyes full distress.

"Shh," Hikaru said, kissing Luka's forehead. "I'll be back, stay here," he said to Pavel, trying to keep his ruined voice steady. Pavel didn't move or acknowledge this, just knelt there with his forehead pressed into the dirty sand of the planet's surface, sobbing so hard that Hikaru was surprised it hadn't caused an earthquake.

"Huru?" Luka said again, his voice high and panicked as Hikaru walked toward the center of town, trying to blink back his persisting tears. "Huru?" Luka pointed back toward the church. "Pabel?"

"He's okay," Hikaru said, though he knew Pavel wasn't, and probably never would be again. "He's okay, he's okay," he said anyway, kissing Luka 's forehead between the words. This calmed Luka momentarily, and Hikaru was stupidly proud, because the baby trusted him, he thought Hikaru's reassuring kisses meant that things really would be okay. He chewed his tongue until it bled to keep from screaming out a sob that would topple both of them to the ground.

He doesn't remember arriving at the door or knocking, but does remember suddenly finding himself standing in a dim foyer, a fat, short old woman and an old man with a dirty beard glaring at him as he stood holding Luka, who clung to him so hard, not even willing to look at the strangers who waited to receive him, his little face pressed to Hikaru's neck. His grandparents' two room house had no books that Hikaru could see, no data screen or toys, only mattresses on the floor and a stove instead of a replicator. In small colonies like that one there was often a community replicator, where residents waited in long lines for basic supplies. Hikaru told himself not to be a snob and assume the worst, even as blaring warning bells sounded in his head.

"He doesn't speak much," Hikaru said, knowing that his voice was compromised but unable to keep it steady. "Or – at all, really, I think because –"

"We'll have him speaking before too long," the man said. "What good's a deaf mute?"

"He – he can hear –"

"I'll have him, then," the old woman said, reaching for Luka. "We need to be getting on to church."

Hikaru has replayed this moment in his mind so many times. Why did he just let her take Luka like a sack of potatoes, why didn't he do something, why didn't he refuse? Luka whimpered in confusion at first, then started screaming, frantic and horrified, reaching for Hikaru, who didn't fight him back into his arms.

"Huru!" Luka shouted, sounding first shocked and then betrayed. "Huru? Huru? Huru!"

"I – he –" Hikaru tried to say, his eyes burning as Luka's grandparents stared at him, as expressionless as cattle until finally they both looked irritated at Hikaru's continued presence in their foyer.

"I think you should go," the woman said. "The sooner the better, so he gets used to us."

Luka was hysterical, losing his words and wailing at the top of his longs, still reaching for Hikaru though Hikaru could see, in the hopeless terror in his eyes, that he finally knew that Hikaru would not take him back. Hikaru doesn't remember leaving the house, just remembers leaning against the side of a neighboring building to throw up before he collapsed, crying in full body dry heaves.

By the time he reached Pavel he felt like a throbbing bruise of a person, as if he'd been beaten physically as well as emotionally. Pavel was lying against the wall of the church where Hikaru had left him, in the fetal position, knees tucked to his chest. He had cried himself out and was just moaning, a very low, pained little sound that made Hikaru feel like he would go out of his mind as he carried Pavel back to the shuttle.

When they got back to the Enterprise, a few concerned friends who had gathered in the transport room took one look and didn't come near them as Hikaru helped Pavel to their room. Pavel was filthy from lying in the dirt by the church, tear-streaked and ruined, and Hikaru had by then turned into a tin man, moving awkwardly and staring straight ahead without seeing anything. In their room, he helped Pavel out of his clothes and into the shower, washed and dried him and brought him to the bed. Pavel was blank by then, dead weight in his hands. Hikaru climbed into bed beside him and stroked him, almost glad to have Pavel's anguish to focus on so that he could ignore his own.

"It's okay," he whispered to Pavel, lying just as he had to Luka. "It's going to be okay." What he really wanted to say was, Come back, where are you, don't leave me alone with this. Pavel was silent and still, far away.

For the first week, Pavel clung to Hikaru like he wouldn't be able to breathe with him. Jim gave them the whole week off to 'rest,' and Pavel spent almost all of it in bed, wrapped so tightly around Hikaru that Hikaru felt like he was choking all the time. He had to force Pavel to eat, and barely had an appetite himself. They didn't talk about Luka or what had happened. They didn't say his name.

Little by little, Pavel separated himself from Hikaru. They returned to work. Pavel started speaking again, at first just in short, necessary sentences. A couple of months later, he and Hikaru had sex for the first time since they lost Luka, and when they were finished Pavel wouldn't let Hikaru pull out of him.

"Stay with me, please, stay," he said, his voice high and childlike, and Hikaru stayed inside Pavel until he'd fallen asleep. They repeated this routine for over a month, Pavel never wanting Hikaru to pull out, clutching at him desperately and begging in a weak little voice that Hikaru didn't recognize. It began to unnerve Hikaru, and Pavel must have sensed this, because finally, one day, he shoved Hikaru off of him when they were finished and rolled away.

"What's wrong?" Hikaru asked, kissing Pavel's shoulder.

"Nothing's wrong," Pavel said flatly, in a new unrecognizable voice. "I'm just tired."

That was when the coldness began. At first, Hikaru forgave every indifferent glance and snide remark, but eventually it seemed to be less about Pavel's grief over Luka and more about his actual disgust with Hikaru's every word and gesture. Pavel would come back from his shifts, drink a lot, and rant at Hikaru about something or other before passing out in their bed. They only had sex in the mornings, when Pavel would wake up hungover and grope for him.

Eventually Pavel straightened up and threw himself into his work. He worked double shifts and volunteered for the most dangerous missions. Hikaru felt left behind, irrelevant. He wanted to talk about Luka and how much he was still hurting, but already it felt like all of that had happened a very long time ago and to someone else entirely. One afternoon, Hikaru was looking for a PADD battery when he found one of Luka's toys in the bottom drawer of Pavel's desk. It was a little plastic duck, one of his bath toys, its orange beak turned up in a cheerful smile. Hikaru kissed the stupid thing a thousand times, shuddering and pinching his eyes shut, before he tucked it back into the drawer. He never mentioned it to Pavel, knowing it would only embarrass him to know that Hikaru had found it.

*

When the elevator brings him up to the fourteenth floor, Hikaru almost doesn't want to get off, both afraid that he won't find Pavel in the room and afraid that he will. He unlocks the door and walks in, his heart sinking when he finds the room empty, but then he hears the shower running in the bathroom and hurries to bump the door open, so relieved that he feels ten pounds lighter.

"Hey," he calls, pushing his head through the bathroom door. "Pavel?"

"What?"

"You okay?"

"Why the fuck do you keep asking me that?" His voice is thick and more heavily accented than usual. He's upset, but Hikaru didn't need to hear him speak to know that.

"I'm not – Jesus – I just – you left the party."

"Scotty and Maria were acting stupid."

"Yeah, I know, I – did you eat anything?"

Silence, as if this is a truly difficult question. Finally he says, "No."

"Want me to order room service?"

"I don't know." A sniffle. He's definitely been crying. Hikaru wonders how many times Pavel has used the shower to hide his tears, and feels stupid for not knowing this before now.

"Do whatever you want," Pavel says.

Hikaru doesn't do what he wants, which is to climb into the shower, clothes and all, and wrap his arms around Pavel, whispering that it's going to be okay, really, that this time he means it. Instead he orders room service, nachos for himself and a steak for Pavel, plus a bottle of wine. He dresses down to his undershirt and boxers and stretches out on the bed, feeling briefly comfortable in his misery. At least Pavel is here, not off wandering somewhere, alone. The dark, hot love that Hikaru carries everywhere pours down through him like lava, and he can't wait for Pavel to walk out of the bathroom, to see proof that he's okay.

When Pavel comes out he's got his towel wrapped around his waist, as if suddenly there's reason for modesty. He gives Hikaru a sharp little look and bends down to fish some pajamas out of his suitcase. Hikaru feels overcome with forgiveness and apology after reliving the Luka incident on his way up to the room; he doesn't often let himself think about it. When Pavel drops listlessly onto the other side of the bed, wearing a Starfleet t-shirt and sweat pants that used to be Hikaru's, he has to stop himself from reaching for him.

"What do you want to watch?" Hikaru asks, offering the control for the data screen. Pavel shrugs, so Hikaru puts on a nature show about parrots. The room service arrives and they eat out of their laps, scooting together in the middle of the bed so that Pavel can have some of Hikaru's nachos. They dump the plates onto the bedside tables when they're finished and take turns swigging from the bottle of wine, not bothering with glasses. When it's gone they're both sleepy enough under the glow of the data screen to hold each other, Pavel stretched along Hikaru's side and Hikaru cradling Pavel against him, rubbing his fingers up under Pavel's shirt, over the goosebumps on his back.

"I don't like the new navigator," Hikaru says.

"Why not?" Pavel asks.

"I don't know. Something about her. She's off-putting."

Pavel sniffs out a little laugh and Hikaru bends to kiss the crown of his head. Masochistically, he imagines what it would be like if Luka were with them now. He would be five years old, snuggled between them and asking them questions about the parrots on the screen. He would have eaten some of Hikaru's nachos, picking off the jalapeños just like Pavel does. Hikaru would have ordered sodas instead of wine. They would all be laughing, smiling, happy. He squeezes Pavel to him, wondering if he's thinking the same thing.

"What's on the agenda for tomorrow?" Pavel asks.

"I don't know. Charades, karaoke? We could skip it, we could stay in bed."

Pavel sighs. "I'm so tired," he says, shutting his eyes against Hikaru's chest.

"I know," Hikaru says, and he knows, too, that this is their problem. They've worn each other out, on heartbreak and on happiness, too. They're finished, but here they are anyway, clinging to scraps. They've grown up together like this and now they don't know how else to live, because hanging on to what remains saps them of the energy to do anything else.

*

Hikaru falls asleep on his back with Pavel clutching at his side, and wakes himself up with a snore. He turns off the data screen, which is now showing a program about black holes, and extracts himself carefully from Pavel's arms. It's still raining outside; he can hear it against the window. He gathers their dirty plates and puts them out in the hall to be picked up, then walks back into the room to splash water on his face and check his PADD for the weather report. More storms are on the way.

"Where did you go?" Pavel asks from the bed, suddenly wide awake and glaring at Hikaru in the light from the bathroom, his eyes puffy.

"Huh? Nowhere, I just put our dinner plates outside."

"Put them outside?" Pavel says, as if this is insane.

"Uh, yeah." Hikaru raises his eyebrows. "That okay with you?"

"What are you doing with your PADD?" Pavel asks, his tone full of accusation.

"I'm checking the goddamn weather, alright?"

"At two in the morning? Fuck you, Hikaru. You think I'm so stupid."

"What the – God, what is wrong with you?"

Pavel just rolls away from him and pulls the blankets up to his shoulder, finished with the conversation. Hikaru scoffs, turns out the bathroom light and throws his PADD down on the beside table.

"Okay, you're right, Pavel," he says, pulling his t-shirt over his head and tossing it on the floor. "I was reading a PADD message from my boyfriend, who I just fucked out in the hallway during the two seconds I was gone."

Pavel doesn't dignify this with a response, doesn't even flinch. Hikaru flops down onto the other side of the bed, still grumbling under his breath, though actually he's weirdly pleased. Pavel actually thinks Hikaru is cheating on him? Is that really their problem? Of course not, but it makes Hikaru feel hopeful in a strange way, because even if Pavel doesn't trust him anymore, at least this means he still wants him enough to get upset about the idea that Hikaru might want someone else.

Hikaru sleeps more deeply than usual, dreaming in PADD messages. From Uhura: Hikaru, meet me in the lobby, important news re: Spock. From Jim: Where are you guys? Is everything okay? :( From McCoy: This is what love is really like. Get used to it. From Bianca Leighton: Meet me in my room. Bring condoms. From Pavel: How could you take my baby away from me? You stole him from me, Hikaru, you weren't strong enough to do anything else, now you've ruined all three of our lives.

When he wakes up, the room is gray with rain-soaked morning light and Pavel is gone. Hikaru fluctuates between rage and sorrow, lying alone in bed. He takes a long, hot shower and puts on clean clothes, glad that this is the last day before Jim's wedding and he'll be able to leave tomorrow after the ceremony. He's not sure where he'll go. Not back to the little apartment that he and Pavel are renting in San Francisco until they leave the planet again. He's still not sure if they'll be leaving together or separately. Both options seem impossible. Maybe he'll go to his sister's house, spend time with his nieces and nephews, maybe she'll set him up with one of her Japanese friends and he'll forget all of this ever happened. He'll go on working on the Enterprise and hell, maybe he'll even fuck Bianca. He and Pavel used to keep each other awake constructing elaborate theories about why they worked so well together, and all of them involved the fact that they shared a bed and knew each other's bodies like the first star charts they learned. Maybe that's all they ever shared, egotism and the ship, maybe they only fucked so that they'd be better at their jobs.

He's in a horrible mood at breakfast, and so is Uhura, who sits with him, neither of them speaking, Uhura sneezing and accumulating a pile of used tissues beside her plate of waffles. Around them, there are a few pockets of cheerfulness, but most people seem hungover and downtrodden, the relentless rain beginning to beat on their nerves.

"There's supposed to be another bad storm coming in," Hikaru says. "Not just rain, strong winds and bad lightening."

"So much for the beach wedding," Uhura says. "I guess they'll have to get married in the lobby."

"With bell boys pushing luggage trolleys over the aisle during the ceremony," Hikaru says with a smirk. Uhura grins wickedly.

"And a bunch of those 'Caution, Wet Floor' signs propped up everywhere, in lieu of flowers."

They dissolve into miserable laughter; he and Uhura are always closer when things are going wrong. He would never have survived the aftermath of losing Luka without her dry cynicism.

"Did you see Pavel at all this morning?" Hikaru asks. "He was gone when I woke up."

"No," Uhura says. She raises her eyebrows and Hikaru shakes his head, because he hasn't seen Spock, either.

After breakfast, there are indeed wedding-themed charades in the parlor. Uhura and Hikaru skip these, opting instead to transport into town and see a movie. It's an obscenely violent action flick, and they both absorb the loud, schizophrenic scenes without comment, eating out of a giant tub of popcorn. By the time they leave the theater the rain has tapered off, leaving behind a gray curtain of mist that makes them feel like they're stumbling along the streets of Atlantis.

"Why do I chose to be miserable?" Uhura asks when they've come to a stop in front of an old fashioned candy shop, both of them staring listlessly at the brightly colored treats in its front window.

"You don't," Hikaru says. "That's the problem. We can't chose who we love."

"That's bullshit."

"Then explain your situation."

"Oh, fine. Now I feel even more shiftless and demented."

"McCoy said something really odd to me yesterday."

"I'll alert the media. What else is new?"

"It was something about – Kirk." Hikaru squints at a row of blue and yellow lollipops, struggling to remember. "I don't know, he was drunk. It's still kind of bothering me, though. It was something to do with – serving under your younger friend, I guess. Only he was comparing the situation to mine, and –"

"You aren't really going to leave us, are you?" Uhura asks, squeezing Hikaru's arm. "I already hate the new navigator, and I can just imagine Kirk coming up with some other awful bimbo to pilot the ship in your place. Hell, he'd probably nudge them into a lesbian relationship for his enjoyment, using you and Pavel as a model."

"Why does everyone hate the new navigator?" Hikaru asks, avoiding the question. Then he remembers that he was the one who said he didn't like her last night, not Pavel.

Uhura makes a face. "She's sleazy," she says. "Something in her eyes. Like she thinks she's going seduce everyone she meets."

"You're only saying that because she's pretty."

"I'm not!" Uhura punches him and he winces. "Don't make me into one of those women! You know I'm not like that. I don't know what it is, but I don't trust her."

"So now what? You want me to talk Pavel into coming back to the Enterprise, too?"

"Of course I do."

"Well, it's not going to happen."

"You know what my best memory of you and Pavel is?" Uhura asks.

"I didn't know you had one."

"It was in the mess. The dumbest thing. They were serving tacos or whatever, and you were both moving through the line, him following you like always –"

"Him following me? No, it was always me—"

"Oh, shut up and listen. I know my own damn memory. He was following you through the line and you had forgotten to get yourself a spoonful of sour cream. Or maybe it was guacamole. Whatever, but you kind of looked back, and before you could even ask, Pavel put one on your plate. And I just remember the look on his face, like he was so happy to be taking care of you. It was embarrassing, how much he loved you, seeing it like that."

"Well. That was a long time ago."

"Not really. He's still in love with you, you know."

"How the hell do you know?"

"By the way he looks at you now. Like you're always tearing his heart out."

"Me!"

"Hikaru, your victim mentality is really getting old."

"Quit psychoanalyzing me, unless you want me to turn that shit on you. Last night, by the way, I was thinking about, you know. Luka."

"Oh, Luka." Uhura's face falls as if this was her tragedy, too. The whole ship had seemed to change when Luka left.

"Yeah. Him. I don't think Pavel is going to be good for anybody from now on, not after that. It just wrecked him, Uhura, you don't even know."

"Hmm." Uhura draws a heart in the fog on the candy shop window, frowning. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe he could still be good for you."

"Are you kidding? I'm the one who ripped Luka out of his hands. I've never – told anyone this, but he was frantic, ranting about how we should just fly off somewhere with Luka and never look back, steal him away and quit Starfleet."

"He wasn't serious."

"Yes, he was! You weren't there, you don't know –"

"Then don't tell me," Uhura says, narrowing her eyes at him. "Don't tell me if I won't understand. Tell him."

"Him? He doesn't listen to anything I say anymore, he thinks I'm cheating on him just because I check my PADD without his permission."

"Hikaru! Oh." Uhura puts her hand over her face. "See? Can't you see that means he still loves you?"

"Well – maybe – but what good does that do us?"

"Ugh." She turns away from the candy shop and starts walking back to the hotel. "For God's sake. I can't talk to you anymore."

Hikaru goes back to his room when they return to the hotel, annoyed with Uhura and with Pavel, too, because she defended him. Hikaru should have told her that he isn't allowed to talk about Luka, that Pavel would break in half if Hikaru even mentioned Luka's name, but he's too infuriated to try and explain. He gets into bed and tries to read, but he can't concentrate on the words on the page, instead reliving the long hell of his love for Pavel in his head: those first, unbelievable years, when he kept waiting for the catch, because everything was so easy, too sweet. Then the worrying years when he was sure that one of them would die, that they would pay a price for their happiness. There was a kind of security for awhile, when he began to believe that they were both capable enough to survive anything, and that there would be stories written about them after they died, the famous pilot and navigator who fell in love. Then Luka came and they felt both so complete and so doomed while they had him. Afterward, it's just ash and rock, a landscape of loss that he doesn't need to remember because they still haven't left it.

He goes down for dinner just to check and see if Pavel is around, not because he's hungry or because he wants to see anyone else. He tries as best as he can to put on a happy face for the people who greet him, all of them back to drinking and laughing as they were the night before, a videographer circling and asking for messages for the bride and groom. Hikaru is dancing away from the range of the videographer's spotlight when someone catches his arm, and he's washed with relief when he sees that it's Pavel.

"I need to talk to you," Pavel whispers, pulling him through the crowd.

"What's wrong?" Hikaru asks when they're alone on the dark patio, the rain beating harder against the tent overhead as the thunder rolls back in.

"Nothing is wrong," Pavel says, narrowing his eyes with annoyance. "Not with me, anyway."

"Well – what –"

"The Keptin spoke to me earlier. About something that happened today."

"Something to do with Starfleet, the Federation? What happened?"

"No, no, Hikaru. Something to do with the Keptin. And Dr. McCoy."

"Oh – shit."

"So you know?"

"Well, I don't – what did Kirk say?"

Pavel sighs. "He said that he and Dr. McCoy – were intimate. This afternoon."

"Intimate?"

"Sex, Hikaru!" Pavel frowns, and for maybe two seconds Hikaru thinks he'll die from how much he loves Pavel, that it will knock him over and he'll never get back up.

"Oh," Hikaru says, beginning to feel dizzy with confusion. "Oh. I need – a drink? Do you want something?"

"Are you upset?" Pavel asks, scowling. "To learn that the Keptin is in love with Dr. McCoy?"

"Upset? No. Surprised, yes. Or maybe not."

Pavel stares at him, as if searching his face for clues. Hikaru shrugs.

"Is the wedding off, then?" he asks.

"That is what the Keptin is trying to decide, what to do next." Pavel's face softens. "There seems to be no good solution to this."

"Yeah – well – where is he now?"

"I don't know." Pavel frowns. "Why?"

"Why? Because I'm just wondering if he and McCoy have ridden off into the sunset yet or not. Won't you have a drink with me?"

Pavel groans. "Fine," he says, still giving Hikaru a searching look that makes him nervous. "Get me a vodka tonic, please."

"Yes, sir."

"That's not funny, Hikaru."

They sit together in the corner of the dining room with their drinks, having old-fashioned muttered commentary about everyone in attendance: there's Jim, doesn't he look like a deer in the headlights? Where's Uhura going – where's Spock? Bianca looks like she's scheming – she's like an uncanny exchange person from one of those mirror dimensions, isn't she? Yes, yes, that's it exactly!

After a lot of drinks and giddy laughter, that old feeling returning, as if they're superior to everyone in some way that will only ever mean anything to the two of them, they head over to the karaoke stage and sing like drunken idiots, the way they used to on space stations when they were on young, when they had precious hours of shore leave that they spent mostly on sex and sometimes on embarrassing themselves with singing. They both like very old songs, which are the best for karaoke, and Pavel sings a Billy Idol song, "White Wedding," which gets everyone in the room cheering. Hikaru is so stupidly proud of him when he returns to their table that he pulls Pavel into his lap and kisses his cheeks, making Pavel bounce with laughter as he slumps against Hikaru's chest. Hikaru knows they're both drunk, but something feels different, clean and real again.

Back up in their hotel room, around three o'clock in the morning, they undress each other on the way to the bed, stumbling and still laughing, neither of them able to stop kissing even to take a breath. It's frightening, how much he still wants Pavel, and how hungry Pavel becomes when Hikaru presses him to the mattress, both of them grinding against each other as if they as if they don't have the patience for anything more, still two awkward boys who can't believe how good this feels.

It's been so long since he's been inside Pavel like this, without feeling as if it's only a cease fire. Pavel moans Hikaru's name, and then the Russian phrases that he taught Hikaru long ago: you're so big, so hard, I'm so empty without you. The alcohol allows them both to last longer than usual, and Pavel is limp with pleasure by the time he finally comes onto Hikaru's stomach. Hikaru remembers what a real orgasm is like as he pumps his into Pavel: not just a release but a warmth that spreads through him and stays in his blood as Pavel deflates against him, whimpering and kissing his neck.

“Don't leave me, don't go,” Pavel mumbles deliriously against Hikaru's skin.

“I'm not going anywhere, you know I wouldn't leave you, Pavel, God, don't you know?”

“Don't go,” Pavel moans again, holding him closer. Hikaru has already pulled out, so that's not what he means. Hikaru doesn't move, just stays pressed against Pavel, nuzzling at him until he drops easily into sleep, Pavel still whispering Don't go, don't go in his ear, as if Hikaru often abandons him after sex. He doesn't dream, but wakes several times during the night, surprised to find Pavel still holding him tightly, his face buried against Hikaru's chest. Even when things were going well they would always move apart after some initial cuddling. Eventually, Hikaru can't get back to sleep, and he lies awake, petting Pavel's messy hair, thinking.

When Pavel finally wakes up he blinks at Hikaru in confusion that easily melts to a dopey smile. Hikaru continues petting him, one arm still locked around Pavel's side. He expected to feel ill after drinking so much during karaoke, but he feels amazingly clear-headed, so light and unburdened that he might as well be floating over the bed. He knows he can't get lost to this feeling and miss his chance to do something with it, to make it last.

“We need to talk,” he says to Pavel, who is staring at him as if he feels just as weightless as Hikaru. Pavel nods, the bright, unguarded light in his eyes persisting.

“Yes,” he says.

Thunder rumbles outside, and Hikaru squeezes Pavel closer. Pavel curls around Hikaru with a sigh, shutting his eyes again. The sky outside is almost black, though it's a little after nine o'clock in the morning. The rain starts coming down harder after another crack of thunder, directly overhead now.

“We need to talk about the thing we've been dancing around, the thing we've been avoiding,” Hikaru says. “It's killing us.”

“Yes,” Pavel says again, nodding. Hikaru has never felt so connected to him, as if the distance has finally only brought them closer. “My assignment as Captain. Hikaru –”

“No – Pavel – that's not what I'm talking about.”

“Then what?” Pavel asks, shifting to look up at Hikaru. He frowns as if he's waiting to hear Hikaru's confession about a real boyfriend.

“I'm talking about Luka,” Hikaru says, keeping his voice soft.

“That's not -” Pavel shakes his head and sits up, sliding out of Hikaru's arms. He stares straight ahead, at the dark data screen, his knees bent under the blankets. “What's that got to do with anything?”

“What's that got to – Pavel, don't – you know that's when things started to go all wrong for us, when we lost him.”

Pavel says nothing for a long time, and Hikaru lets him have his stretch of silence. He's tempted to touch Pavel's pale back, which is glowing in the flickering storm-light from the window, but he doesn't dare. Pavel is entering that other place where Hikaru has never followed, the land of the righteous sufferer.

“Don't talk to me as if you know anything about that,” Pavel says, his voice hard and small.

“What do you mean?” Hikaru asks, sitting up fast. “Don't you know that I was there, or did you forget? I was hurting, too, trying to keep from breaking you by ever mentioning his name –”

“God, Hikaru, don't, don't!” Pavel says, leaning forward to squeeze his curls into his hands as if he's only three years old himself, threatening to rip his hair out.

“What are you so afraid of?” Hikaru asks, his heart pounding. He's tired of walking on eggshells; Pavel is not a child. “Do you think it will happen again if you talk about it? Every time I even think about it happens all over again for me, Pavel. The way he called my name –”

“Your name?” Pavel shouts, with a viciousness that makes Hikaru start. Pavel scoffs, spitting with anger as he kicks the blankets away. “When did he ever say your name? And why would you care if he did? You were ready to be rid of him, you –”

“Fuck you, you know that's not true!” Hikaru shouts, everything good so quickly gone. This is the Pavel he hates, the sharp-eyed martyr with the selective memory. “He did say my name, you son of a bitch, and I did love him, just like you. I'm not some fucking lunkie who just does your bidding and doesn't feel anything. I took him to those people when you were too weak to do it yourself. Don't you know how hard that was? Have you ever even thought about it?”

“Hard?” Pavel shouts, stepping into underwear and then pants, already far away from the flimsy comfort of Hikaru's skin. “You expect me to believe it was hard for you? You pried him from me like you couldn't wait to get the whole thing over with – you even said so! You didn't even care about saying goodbye –”

“Saying goodbye? Ah, what would you know about that? You crumbled to the ground like an infant, it was me who had to be strong, I was the one who had to watch him go! I didn't have the luxury of falling apart, but that doesn't mean I didn't wish that I could!”

“I'm so sorry that I grieved in a way you disapproved of Hikaru,” Pavel says, glowering now. He pulls on a wrinkled shirt, already halfway out the door. “God, fuck you!” he shouts, kicking the wall. “I can't do this anymore, I can't keep feeling like I need you and then remembering that you hate me.”

“I hate you? You blame me for Luka, you blame me for everything!”

“So we hate each other, so what?” Pavel says, struggling into his shoes. “Why do you keep torturing me, why do you pretend that this can go on?”

“I won't anymore. Just go, if I'm making you so miserable. Just get the fuck away from me, if you really think I didn't love Luka, if you think I haven't suffered like you have – I do hate you for that, Pavel, I fucking hate you for thinking so!”

Pavel slams out of the room, one shoe on and one in his hand. Hikaru is still sitting naked in bed with the blankets pooled in his lap, his chest heaving under the weight of his words. Thunder claps overhead, making the windows shudder and the lamp on the bedside table rattle against the wood as if it's going to spring to life and flee the room in terror. Hikaru stares at the bedroom door for a long time, afraid to move. He wants this to be a nightmare, but he meant everything he said. Pavel has come to think of him as only a cock to bounce on and a flight component that plugs into the console like a robot. He doesn't think Hikaru feels anything, and beyond that, he doesn't care.

Eventually, Hikaru gets out of bed, cursing when he checks the digital clock on the bedside table. Jim's wedding ceremony is an hour. He has a PADD message that was sent out to all the guests, announcing that, due to the weather, the ceremony will now be held in conference room 5. Hikaru pictures Jim and Georgia exchanging vows under florescent lights, McCoy swaying drunkenly as he watches the man he loves get married again, just to continuing avoiding his real feelings. Jim is brave to the point of near insanity, except where any emotions that might embarrass him are concerned. As he stands under the pound of the hot water in the shower, Hikaru vows never to be that way again. He's going to stay on the Enterprise, and maybe someday he'll end up with someone who is mature enough to be honest with him instead of shutting down or getting defensive whenever things get hard. Of course, if Hikaru maintains a policy of honesty, he'll have to tell that person: I'm sorry, but you'll always be my second choice. I lost my heart to someone who didn't even think I had one.

He dresses lethargically, hating the rain, hating the hotel room, hating Jim for marrying someone he doesn't even love just to prove a point to McCoy, or maybe to disprove something to himself. Everyone has grown up so dysfunctional. Maybe he should transfer to another ship, just to get away from his memories of Pavel and the catching chaos of his friends' personal lives. Maybe he should retire and teach classes at the Academy, live in his sister's attic guest room, gain twenty pounds and embarrass himself on blind dates by bragging about the glory of years past. Why not? There's got to be more happiness in mediocrity than he's found in success.

Down in the lobby, a listless crowd is shuffling about with confusion, most of the wedding guests who are half-heartedly searching for the conference room where the ceremony will be held. Everyone looks a little shell-shocked and damp, and Hikaru tries not to search for Pavel, and tries not to worry when he can't find him. What if Pavel left? Why wouldn't he? Why should Hikaru want him to stay? There's nothing more to say about what happened. Hikaru had known that losing Luka would ruin them forever. He's not sure why he bothered fighting so hard to prolong the inevitable.

"How are you?" Hikaru asks McCoy when he finds him at the bar, not drinking, just sitting on a stool and staring into space.

"Same old, same old," McCoy mutters. "Ready to get back up there."

He means to space, where he and Jim exist in an effortless suspension of reality, Jim saving the day and McCoy patching him up when he returns. It's Earth that screws them up, the between-mission weeks and months. That's when Jim has always gotten married. When they get back to space, he remembers McCoy, forgets to pretend. Hikaru can't believe he never realized any of this before last night. Love had felt so easy for so long, and he once couldn't imagine two best friends who had fallen in love letting anything get in the way of their being together.

"Pavel won't be coming with us," Hikaru says, feeling dazed, not sure why he's talking about Pavel when Pavel is the last thing he even wants to think about.

"Us?" McCoy frowns. "You're staying on the Enterprise."

"Yeah. It's -- over, between me and Pavel. It's been over. I just want to move on."

McCoy turns to stare at him, frowning. "You're an idiot," he says. Hikaru laughs, waiting for McCoy to sigh and shrug and let him off the hook, but he just keeps staring at Hikaru as if he doesn't deserve to take his next breath.

"Why?" Hikaru asks. "Why am I the idiot? He's the one who -- oh, fuck it, you don't understand."

"I don't understand? I'm the one who had him on antidepressants for a month after you two lost that boy."

"We didn't lose him, we --"

"You know why he quit the damn things after a month?" McCoy asks, leaning in close, his eyes smoldering with an angry sincerity that makes Hikaru nervous.

"I shouldn't tell you this," McCoy says, glancing around the empty bar. "But I will, for his sake. He went off the antidepressants, against my advice as his physician, because he was afraid he'd lose you if he didn't. He chose to experience the full force of that misery because he thought he'd lose the good things he still had with you if he kept numbing himself up. I tried to convince him that it was too soon to try and do without meds, but he broke down and told me you were all he had left, and that he knew he was spooking you out, going vacant the way he did on the drugs. He was sobbing, begging me, saying that he'd die without you."

Hikaru looks down at the bar, scratching at the wood, humiliated and annoyed with McCoy for failing to mind his own business.

"He was hysterical," Hikaru says. "He didn't know what he wanted then and he doesn't know now. He hasn't treated me like anything he'd die without."

"You dumb bastard," McCoy says, sounding almost friendly now. He slides off the bar stool and slaps the bar with his hands. "Just don't tell me I didn't tell you so when you're up there without him and going out of your mind, begging me to put you on antidepressants so you can forget how to want him. So it ain't perfect. What the fuck is? Take what you can get and be grateful you got anyone." McCoy sniffs and looks away, toward the crowd that has begun to file down the hall, headed for the room where the ceremony will be held. "That's my philosophy, anyway."

"Yeah, well, maybe you don't know everything."

"Maybe not," McCoy says, his voice a hollow, beaten thing that makes Hikaru ashamed of himself. McCoy walks off, and Hikaru watches to see if he'll go to the ceremony or grow a pair and leave Jim to suffer through it alone. He turns down the hall with the rest of the crowd without hesitating.

The mood inside conference room 5 is somber, though the space has been decorated so that it looks fit for marriage vows and not just a 10 AM breakfast meeting. There are lanterns strung along the ceiling and a flower-draped archway set up along the back wall, facing ten rows of white chairs that are split around a petal-strewn aisle. Hikaru takes a seat near the back, scanning the room for Pavel. He can't find him, and McCoy's words echo through his head again: you were all he had left, he'd die without you. But Hikaru can't reconcile that with the Pavel he saw this morning, who so quickly went from needy and clutching to telling Hikaru he didn't have a soul, that he'd wanted Luka gone. Pavel can't really believe that. Hikaru remembers catching Pavel staring at he and Luka one night as Hikaru combed Luka's hair after his bath. Pavel had looked so happy, smiling in a dreamy, absent way, and Hikaru had thought it was because he knew in that moment that Hikaru loved Luka just as much as he did.

The wedding processional begins, awkward and with no music. There's whispered talk about a harp player whose plane couldn't land because of the weather.

"What was she doing on a plane?" someone asks. "Why not just transport?"

"Some people are still superstitious about that," someone else answers. "You know, about being reconstructed. Like maybe you're not totally the same person when they put you back together."

Uhura leans over Spock to whisper to Hikaru:

"Sounds like the kind of sentimental bullshit someone who plays the harp for a living would think."

She's in a good mood, smiling like she's getting away with something. Spock is silent, but he shifts a little in his seat, probably indicating some displeasure with Uhura and her judgmental attitude toward harp players. Hikaru feels delirious. He scans the room again and finds Pavel standing along the back wall, one of the lanterns glowing onto him like a halo. He looks demented, not angelic, heavy shadows under his eyes.

Hikaru stares at the makeshift altar, where a judge is standing beside Jim and McCoy. Jim is impossible to read, his face a mask of concentration like it is when he's barking orders on the bridge while they're under fire. McCoy is equally expressionless, his gaze directed at the opposite wall.

"This is stupid," Hikaru whispers, his hands beginning to shake. Spock looks at him.

"Are you referring to the human wedding custom, Lieutenant?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." He looks at Pavel again. He seems so young, alone at the back of the room, that hopeless look on his face. Hikaru remembers feeling triumphant about being the one who took Pavel's virginity; he was positively giddy about it for weeks afterward. He would sit across from him at the console, watching Pavel's cheeks go pink when he answered one of Jim's questions and think, he'll beg me to fuck him during our lunch break, and nobody but me will ever know how good it feels.

The bride enters wearing an off-the-shoulder dress, white, beaded, whatever. Hikaru can barely see straight, and it's beginning to feel like the air is draining from the room. He keeps catching himself thinking that this is Pavel's wedding that he's being forced to witness, that it's an elaborate trick that's being played on him by the whole crew. Pavel will be carried to the altar to marry someone else -- Georgia, Jim, McCoy, one of the busty bridesmaids: it doesn't matter. Hikaru has already lost him and wouldn't be able to object. Jim once asked the two of them why they never 'made it official,' and they didn't really have an answer.

"We're official enough as is, aren't we?" Hikaru asked Pavel that night in bed, afraid that question had bothered him. Pavel beamed up at him.

"Nobody gets married anymore unless they have something to prove," Pavel said. "We're already proven, time-tested."

Their biggest mistake had been in never doubting each other. That was what undid them. Hikaru would have been able to stand Pavel's coldness and angry accusations if he had suffered anxiety about the relationship before, if they had prepared to potentially fall apart.

The judge is doing a bare-bones ceremony, already asking if anyone has any objections to the marriage. Hikaru didn't think they did that anymore; did Jim request it specifically? There's a long silence, as if the judge is actually expecting to hear a frantic plea to stop the wedding. Hikaru glances at McCoy, but there's no sign of distress. He's completely resigned, probably just counting the days until he can be in space with Jim again. Hikaru wonders how long he can keep this up, before he and Jim explode like Hikaru and Pavel have. He actually starts to stand up, not sure if he's going to shout out an objection or just leave the room, but Spock is already standing, and Hikaru falls back to his seat, staring up at him.

"Excuse me, your honor, but I would like to place my objection on the record," Spock says.

"Oh, fuck!" Uhura says under her breath, sounding a little gleeful.

"Spock!" Jim shouts, scowling at him. "What are you doing?"

"Forgive me for interrupting, Captain, but I believe that you are aware, as I am, that you are pursuing an illogical course of action by marrying someone whom you do not love."

"What the hell!" Jim hisses as a chorus of shocked gasps sounds throughout the room. "Spock, sit down! Why are you doing this now?"

"I was unable to speak to you earlier due to a personal matter I had to attend to, but --"

"Jim, this is ridiculous," McCoy says suddenly, his voice loud and powerful, silencing the whispers that had begun to spread throughout the room. Jim turns to glower at McCoy, who doesn't back down.

"Whatever you're trying to prove to me, to yourself, don't drag this poor girl into it," McCoy says, gesturing to Georgia. She's watching the scene unfold rather stoically herself, as if it's a live action soap opera. Spock takes his seat again, and Uhura hooks her arm through his, beaming as if she's never been more proud of anyone.

"Goddammit, Bones, not everything I do is about you!" Jim shouts, and it's as good as an admission of love. There's a collective gasp and then silence as McCoy and Jim stand staring at each other, both of them breathing heavily, their shoulders squared as if they're trying to decide whether to kiss or start throwing punches. Georgia walks from the room with a huff, muttering under her breath about having had a feeling, and her bridesmaids hurry after her. Jim doesn't protest, his eyes still locked on McCoy's.

"Fuck, Jim, I was gonna let you go through with it," McCoy says, shaking his head slowly. "But if even goddamn Spock can see something wrong here --"

"I don't know what you want from me!" Jim says, ripping off his bow tie and throwing it at McCoy's feet; someone snickers. Hikaru turns to look at Pavel, and he's riveted, standing and staring at the scene on the altar, his mouth hanging open and his fists clenched at his sides.

"This is ridiculous," Jim says. "Bones. Bones! You're my best friend."

"That's what you've been fucking holding against me all this time?" McCoy stares at Jim, shaking with anger. "You know what? Fuck this whole circus." McCoy walks from the room then, and Jim chews his lip, watching him go. Everyone turns back to Jim to see what he'll do. Hikaru's heart is pounding; he's never been so empathetically embarrassed for anyone. But Jim doesn't look embarrassed. He doesn't even look as if he realizes that there's anyone else in the room.

"Bones?" he calls meekly, and then he hurries out after McCoy.

As soon as they're gone, the room explodes into a cacophony of excited conversation. Uhura is giddy, squeezing Spock's arm as she asks Hikaru what does he think, what will happen now? Hikaru turns to look for Pavel, but he's already left. People are streaming out of the room as if they're hoping to catch the resolution of this drama out in the hallway. Hikaru uses a side door to avoid the crowd, giving Uhura an excuse about needing some air and telling she and Spock that he'll meet up with them later to find out what happened.

Hikaru walks away from the hotel, the rain still coming down but not very heavily now. The sky is gray and irritable, grumbling as the storm moves away from the coast. He walks down to the beach to stare at the rollicking ocean, but the crash of the rain-bloated waves only looks pointless and over the top, like the scene inside that he just escaped. He walks back toward the hotel and through its seemingly endless gardens, little alcoves of flowers closed into manicured hedges. He hears someone crying, and for a moment he idiotically thinks that it's him, but the water on his face is only rain. He realizes it's probably poor Georgia and walks ahead to find her. Maybe he can explain the Jim and McCoy thing, offer her a little comfort. He turns a corner and sees that it's not a jilted bride but a man who is sitting on a stone bench that's surrounded by purplish roses, crying with his head in his hands while the rain drips from the ends of his hair. It's Pavel.

He's crying so hard that Hikaru is surprised he hasn't made himself sick from it, his whole body wrenching with every sob. Hikaru walks toward him, his shoes sinking into the soggy grass, and when Pavel looks up he doesn't seem surprised, as if he knew that Hikaru would come. Pavel shakes his head, his face pinched up, unrecognizably sad.

"What am I going to do?" he says when Hikaru kneels down in front of him. "What am I going to do? I haven't got anything, anything."

"Pavel, it'll be okay," Hikaru says with a sigh. He squeezes Pavel's knee, feeling surprisingly separate from whatever he's going through, which is both a relief and incredibly painful in a completely different way. "You're gonna make a great captain, and you're only thirty-two, it'll take time but you'll forget all of this."

Pavel dissolves into sobs again, sucking in harsh breaths that sound painful. Hikaru sits beside him on the bench and puts an arm around him, both of them soaked through, heavy with rain water like the trees whose branches are leaning over the hedge into the gardens, pulled down toward the earth.

"It'll be okay," Hikaru says again, pushing Pavel's wet hair off his face.

"Stop saying that." Pavel doesn't pull away or lean closer. Hikaru feels like they're meeting in a dream, like everything that was ever actually at stake is already over.

"Sorry," Hikaru says. "Sometimes I don't know what else to say. I know I was never very good at comforting you."

Pavel curses in Russian, gritting his teeth.

"You don't know anything about me," he says.

"Maybe not," Hikaru says, hating that this feels true now.

"I gave it up," Pavel says, looking Hikaru in the eye, his jaw still tight, lip curling.

"What?"

"The offer from the Federation. My own ship. I gave it up."

"What -- when?"

Pavel scoffs, shutting his eyes against the rain. "The morning after I told you," he says. He's shaking, and Hikaru pulls him in closer.

"You reacted so badly, like you hated me, and then in the morning you still hadn't come home." Pavel wipes his face, which is useless, water flowing from his wet hair into his eyes. "I panicked, I called the Admiral, I told him no thank you, that I discussed it with my family and decided it would be best if I did not accept a ship of my own. Then you came back, and I was going to tell you what I'd done so that you wouldn't hate me anymore, but it was too late, and you were so cruel, you looked at me like -- like -- like you didn't love me anymore--"

"Pavel--"

"So I didn't tell you, I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of finding out that I'd scrambled to try and keep you."

Hikaru doesn't know what to say. He feels like he's confronting Pavel's ghost after having murdered him. He takes off his jacket and drapes it over both of their heads, pulling Pavel to him to kiss his face.

"Oh, don't, don't," Pavel says. He winces against Hikaru's kisses but doesn't pull away. "Don't pretend now, I'm so tired of your pretending."

"I'm not pretending anything. Pavel --"

"I know you hate me for the way I was after Luka. I thought it was because you didn't understand, because you didn't feel as awful as I did, as hopeless, but maybe you're just better, stronger --"

"I'm not, Pavel, please, I could never hate you."

"You said --"

"I know what I said. I was angry. You were dismissing the most painful thing that's ever happened to me as if it hadn't meant anything to me at all."

"Oh, who cares, who cares?" Pavel sobs, shaking his head under the tent of Hikaru's soggy coat. "It's done, it's over, even if we try to be kind to each other now. And I have nothing, the Keptin has replaced me with that woman, I gave up the ship I didn't even want -- you know I only convinced myself to want it because I had to want something other than Luka, because I know I'll never get him back."

Pavel loses his words then, dissolving back into gasps and sobs as Hikaru holds him, feeling as if they're both drowning, as if it's raining everywhere, in every country, on every planet, and it will never stop.

"Let's go inside," he says. "It's so cold out here."

"You came and found me," Pavel says, lifting his face to Hikaru's. He hiccups up a sob, trembling hard in Hikaru's arms. "I didn't think you would."

"I feel like all I've done all weekend is look for you, wait for you, hope I'll see you across a crowded room. I don't want to lose you." His voice breaks there, unexpectedly. "I'm so sorry -- the way I acted when you told me you were going to be a captain -- you know it's only my insecurity --"

"No, I was prideful, I did it to hurt you, to prove to you that I was stronger than you in some important way, when really I was so weak, weaker even than you thought I was."

"I've never thought you were weak. Pavel, what we went through, Luka --"

"Oh, Hikaru, I still have dreams about him, all the time, I'm looking for him --"

"Me too, I know --"

"And then I wake up and you're there, and I don't know what'd I do if you weren't."

Hikaru takes Pavel's face in his hands and gives him a deep, slippery kiss, both of them shaking with the pure terror of not knowing what will happen next. He pulls back and rests his forehead against Pavel's, and they sit like that for awhile, eyes locked, breathing hard.

"I don't ever want to wake up without you," Hikaru says. The words feel lame and inadequate, his stomach aching with the thought of all the pain he's caused Pavel in the past two weeks.

"But what can we do?" Pavel asks, sniffling. "He's gone -- I thought I would remember how to be happy without him, and sometimes it feels like I could, but it still hurts so much."

"I know," Hikaru says. "Something will remind me -- like Chapel's daughter, the way she laughed -- and suddenly it's like it all happened yesterday."

"If only I knew he was happy," Pavel says, closing his eyes. "But I can't bear to find out. I'm such an incredible coward, Hikaru."

"Stop talking like that, you're not. C'mon, let's go inside before we get sick."

They walk back into the hotel, where most of the wedding crowd has dispersed. There's no sign of Jim or McCoy, but they spot Georgia at the front desk, wearing sweats and being petted by her bridesmaids as she checks out. Hikaru and Pavel get a few looks on the elevator, both of them dripping and shivering, and the relief of finally being alone in their room is so cozy and familiar that Hikaru tries to fight it, not wanting routine to masquerade as progress like it has so many times.

They undress without speaking, awkward now that they've left the confessional atmosphere of the rain-soaked garden. Hikaru climbs into the shower and Pavel steps in with him, the heat of the water making them both groan happily. Hikaru takes Pavel into his arms and just holds him there for awhile, stroking Pavel's shoulder with one hand and squeezing his waist with the other.

"I wanted to get into the shower with you so many times this weekend," Hikaru says. "For so long, I never would have thought twice about that kind of thing, and now—"

"I wanted you in there with me, too," Pavel says, kissing Hikaru's neck. "Hikaru, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Hikaru says. "But I'm not letting you go. If Jim won't give you your job back, I'll stay here with you."

"Hikaru –"

"I will. You accused me of investing all of my happiness in one person, and it's true, I've done that, and I don't give a damn. You're my happiness, you're all that matters."

Pavel moans with either sorrow or contentment, maybe both. They take turns soaping each other up, kissing in timid pecks and languid licks, ignoring their erections, because they've been relying too much on their physical connection and they need to try for something more, for the thing they had before they'd even touched. Still, they can't entirely separate any connection from their need to have each other close, and when they're through with the shower they move to the bed, dressing in boxer shorts and t-shirts before huddling under the blankets together.

"Will you hate me for keeping you from being a captain?" Hikaru asks.

"How could I?" Pavel says. "You turned down your promotion to stay with me."

"Yeah, but I didn't really want to be a captain. I already had everything I wanted."

"I – that was the difference, then. I was missing one thing I wanted, and I wanted to fill that space Luka left with something else, but I knew I couldn't, I knew. It was a relief, in a way, to give it up. Maybe someday the chance will come again, but right now it's not what I really want, not if I'm honest."

"You know – not all of our problems have to do with losing Luka. There are other things –"

"I know – I know. I've kept myself away from you. I was humiliated by what happened. You warned me, and I left myself open to it, and I got burned the way you told me I would. I hated you for being right, I thought you were always rolling your eyes at me –"

"Pavel –"

"I know, and I knew that you weren't, really, but I was so determined to be miserable, once I got a taste of it it was addictive, giving up on everything, seeing the world as if was out to destroy me."

"Maybe you should ask McCoy for some antidepressants."

"No, no." Pavel lifts his face to look at Hikaru bashfully. "I couldn't – get hard, when I was on those things."

"Well – maybe a different, uh, brand –"

"I hated them anyway. It was a fog. If I want to try uselessly to forget why I'm unhappy I can always drink myself to death like my father did. No, I don't have a chemical imbalance, I don't have a disease. I have a bad thing that happened, and I'll always have it, no matter how many pills I take."

Hikaru strokes Pavel's cheek, leaning back and trying to see him objectively, as a complete and separate person and not just the other half of himself. Pavel who watched his mother drown while his father fought in vain against the ocean, trying to save her, and then watched his father die a little at a time, until finally he passed out and didn't wake up again. Pavel who was raised by grandparents who pushed their grief for their dead daughter away by never mentioning her name, and who told him that the only worthwhile thing in the world was the pursuit of immortality through accomplishment. Pavel who was picked on at school and who considered Hikaru his first real friend, something he only owned up to years after they'd been sharing a bed. Pavel who had his first kiss between the bars of a prison cell in a smuggler's hideout, and who lost his virginity to Hikaru on the Enterprise, and who told Hikaru he loved him directly afterward, looking mortified, as if he hadn't meant to say it out loud.

"Remember the first time you kissed me?" Hikaru asks, the blankets and Pavel's warm body finally beginning to make him feel as if he's not a human icicle.

"Of course I remember."

"That's how it's been, all over again. Me and you straining toward each other, this thing between us."

"God, that day!" Pavel says. "The sight of you coming down those stairs. I couldn't believe it was real, but then again I could, because it was you, and we saved each other, it was just what we did. And your poor ear!" He touches it carefully, as if it's still sore, fifteen years later.

"My mutant ear."

"I love your ear. This little crease where the real skin meets the lab grown stuff? I love that."

"You're a weirdo," Hikaru says with a grin, kissing the bridge of Pavel's nose. "But my ear appreciates the sentiment."

They fall asleep with the tips of their noses pressed together like children, arms tucked against their chests, hands curled under their chins. Hikaru feels wrecked and weather-stripped, but also hopeful, though he's not sure what to hope for now. He doesn't simply want things to go back to the way they were. He and Pavel have changed, they've grown up, and they need more from each other now than they did when they could smile at each other from across a room and know without a doubt that only death could separate them. In a half-asleep daze he allows himself to wonder if they should adopt a child, but any child they took in would only feel like a substitute for Luka. That little toy duck would still live in Pavel's bottom drawer, and Hikaru would still have to pretend not to know about it.

*

When Hikaru wakes up to a knock on the door he's not sure if he and Pavel have been asleep for an hour or several days. He feels disoriented, which is not unusual when he's home on Earth. He's more capable up in space, and he misses it while he's grounded, though he misses Earth, too, when he's away. Sometimes a spell of disorientation is a welcome relief.

He opens the door to find Jim standing there, still wearing his tuxedo, though the shirt's been unbuttoned and the pants and jacket are rumpled, as if he took a long nap himself before coming to Hikaru and Pavel's room. He gives Hikaru a crooked grin, as if he's not sure whether he should reveal his happiness or not.

"How're you holding up?" Jim asks.

"Me?" Hikaru says, laughing at the absurdity of the question, though of course it's actually not absurd at all. "How about you?"

"Oh, okay." Jim reaches up to pick at some chipping paint on the door frame. It's the only time Hikaru has ever seen him behave as if he's nervous. "Bones says I only did all this to have an excuse to party with you guys before our next mission."

"He's a smart guy."

"Yeah. I don't know. I don't always know what I'm doing, down here."

"I think that's true of a lot of us, sir."

"I don't have a great track record on Earth," Jim says, still picking at the paint. "Mostly it just reminds me of what a loser I was before Pike kicked my ass into gear."

"Why are you telling me this?" Hikaru asks, and Jim laughs. "I mean, rather than, say, Bones."

"I've told him. We've talked. Talked to my kids. They're relieved not to have any more potential siblings, I think. Unless of course Bones gets space pregnant."

Hikaru snorts. "That would be a sign of the apocalypse, I think."

"It could happen! It's not as uncommon as you think!" Jim actually sounds weirdly hopeful.

"Well." Hikaru shrugs. "I'm glad it all worked out. Did Uhura ask you to come check on us?"

"No, no." Jim scratches his head, grins. "Us? Pavel is in there?"

"Yeah. I guess Bones told you. We were -- whatever. We're working on it."

"He and I were talking about it," Jim says with a nod. "I guess I'd never really realized how much that whole -- thing got to Pavel. I should have, I should have known."

"It's okay," Hikaru says tightly, not ready to talk about this with anyone other than Pavel. "There was nothing anybody could do."

"Yeah, but, after Bones and I were talking about it, and about how you guys might be, you know, breaking up --"

"Jim --"

"I put in a call to find out how the little guy's doing."

Hikaru steps out into the hall, though he's barefoot and only wearing boxers under his t-shirt. He shuts the door very quietly.

"It's not a good time," he whispers. "He's -- we're just now starting to really -- deal with this, together --"

"Yeah, but listen!" Jim says cheerfully, as if he's about to tell Hikaru that Luka's won the lottery twice since they left him. "I checked on him just so I could tell Pavel he was okay, you know, reassure him, and it turns out he's living in an orphanage run by the church in that town where you two dropped him off."

"What?" Hikaru hears his voice like an echo, like he's watching a holovid of events that have already occurred.

"His grandfather died in an accident at work just a few months after we left Antearch," Jim says, still speaking blithely, as if he hasn't yet reached the good part. "Then last year the grandmother had a stroke, and she survived but she's in a home, she can't even take care of herself, so the boy --"

"Luka. This is Luka Pearson we're talking about?"

"Yeah, of course! So he's living in a little church orphanage, and I was thinking, you know, maybe you and Pavel could adopt him! If you still want to. I remember you came to me and asked right before --"

"Jim, are you sure about this?" Hikaru asks, his terrified hope trembling under every word.

"Sure I'm sure! It's all public record, you can look it up. After I spoke to the records guy on Antearch, I told Bones what the guy told me, and he said I should come here and tell you right away. I said, 'Bones, it's two in the morning,' and he said, 'trust me, they'll want to know.'"

"I -- I have to tell Pavel --"

"Yeah, tell him! And tell him he's welcome to navigate for the Enterprise if he's really giving up the chance for his own ship."

"You knew?" Hikaru is going to fall over, or wake up from this dream, but he's felt this way so many times in the presence of Jim and his crew. It's just that they're usually in space when the fantastic and unbelievable is happening, not in a damp hotel in Maine.

"Yeah, the Admiral let me know. I didn't want to press Pavel about it before he was ready to tell me, and I had to hire someone else in case he didn't come back, but obviously he gets first priority, he's the best there is. He will want to come back, won't he? He hasn't changed his mind about becoming a captain?"

"I -- I don't know -- I have to go --"

"Oh, sure, go tell him the good news. I'm gonna go back to bed."

Hikaru walks back into the pitch dark of the little hallway that leads into the hotel room. The door closes behind him, and he hears the elevator ding out in the hall as it arrives to take Jim back to McCoy. For a few seconds he just stands still and breathes, trying to let what Jim said reach him. This might not mean anything, he tells himself hastily. Luka might be traumatized, lost forever. He might hate us for leaving him. They might not let us adopt anybody, considering what we do for a living.

"Hikaru?" Pavel's voice is small and tired from the center of the room, and as Hikaru's eyes adjust to the light from the half-covered window he sees Pavel sitting up in bed, waiting for him.

"Jim came -- he was -- he said--"

"What's wrong?" Pavel reaches for Hikaru and Hikaru drops onto to the bed and crawls gratefully into his arms, unable to get his heart to stop racing or to get any words past his rapid breath.

"I dreamed that Jim told you something about Luka," Pavel says, stroking Hikaru's hair. "Or maybe, in the dream, he was holding him, and he just handed him over, and I thought, this is so like Jim, he'll get us all in big trouble, but I didn't really care, because Luka was there, and he hadn't even aged, and he reached for me like he still knew me."

"Pavel --"

"I feel like all of this has been a dream. That wedding! Spock objecting, I still can't believe that happened. The way you came to me in that garden. I don't even know what day it is. I don't belong to a ship anymore and it doesn't even matter."

"Pavel, let's go see him," Hikaru says, lifting his head.

"Who? Jim?"

"No -- Luka. Let's go to Antearch. We've got time before the Enterprise leaves Earth again --"

"Hikaru, no, it would only upset him, it wouldn't accomplish anything."

"So what? Where has it gotten us since we lost him, trying not to upset each other with what we're really feeling? And so what if it didn't accomplish anything? Not everything has to. And maybe -- maybe it would."

"What, what good could it possibly do any of us?" Pavel asks, his whimsical expression dropping into anguish.

"That was -- you didn't dream, or maybe you heard, while you were sleeping -- Jim did come here to tell us about Luka. He said --"

"Hikaru, no, I don't want to know!" Pavel says, covering his ears and pinching his eyes shut, shaking his head. Hikaru reaches up and takes Pavel's wrists, gently pulling his hands from his ears. Pavel lets him do it, and meets his eyes cautiously, wincing.

"You wouldn't tell me if it was something horrible, would you?" Pavel asks.

"I -- I don't know what it is yet. But Luka's grandfather died, and his grandmother had a stroke --"

"Oh, Hikaru, please --"

"And he's in an orphanage on Antearch, and I think we should go see him. Goddammit, Pavel, stop shaking." He hugs Pavel to him, rubbing his back while Pavel shudders against him, making soft little noises that sound like the beginnings of words but getting nothing substantial off his tongue.

"Don't be afraid to hope," Hikaru says, though he's afraid to do so himself, so much that his teeth are chattering.

"That's not what I'm afraid of," Pavel finally says, still clutching at Hikaru as if he's hiding from some shadowy thing in the room that wants to hurt him.

"Then what?"

"I'm afraid to see him. I'm afraid of the idea of even looking at him again. I don't know why. Maybe I've gone crazy."

"You're just scared that it'll happen all over again," Hikaru says. He leans down to kiss the back of Pavel's neck, which is warm enough to comfort him.

"No, I'm afraid that it won't," Pavel says. "That he won't be able to love us again. That we lost our only chance."

Hikaru sighs. He guides Pavel back up to the pillows and lies down beside him. He knows that neither of them will sleep, and that's the only thing he knows anymore.

*

After leaving Maine, Hikaru and Pavel slip into a kind of stasis, as if they're living their lives inside one of the sleep chambers astronauts used for long distance travel before the warp drive was invented. They don't have sex, they don't argue, and they have to remind each other to eat. They talk only about their plans to go to Antearch. They don't even talk about Luka, usually, as if they're going to Antearch for a holiday before their work begins again. Pavel has already accepted Jim's offer to return to the Enterprise, but the scheduled departure for the space station where the Enterprise is docked seems as if it's only a distant possibility, decades away, though they'll actually be leaving in only a month.

The actual voyage to Antearch is only two days long. There is no direct shuttle available from Earth, so once they reach the system they have to stop at almost every dusty little planet, people mostly departing, few climbing aboard at each station. By the second day Hikaru and Pavel are among only a dozen or so passengers remaining as the shuttle makes it way out to the farther reaches of the system, headed for Antearch. They rarely leave their room, and inside the room there isn't much to do except lie in the small double bed and stare at the window on space, thinking too much about the past and trying to divine the future.

"I feel so far away from everything," Pavel says when they're six hours from landing on Antearch.

"Even from me?" Hikaru asks. He's lying behind Pavel on the bed, holding him against his chest. He does feel far away from Pavel now; whatever happens next, they're going to have to find a way to go through it together. So far they've reverted to the routine of the past two years: silence, fears and thoughts that they keep from each other, and desperate clinging once they reach the bed, touching each other to break the tension.

"Not from you," Pavel says, pulling Hikaru's arm more tightly around him. Hikaru isn't sure if he's being honest. He wonders if they should have sex; he wants to. He lets his hand trail down to the elastic hem of Pavel's sweatpants and strokes his stomach until he shudders and laughs a little.

"Stop," Pavel says.

"Okay," Hikaru says, dropping his hand down lower and tickling his fingers over the soft bulge of Pavel's cock instead.

"How can you think about that?" Pavel asks, but his shoulders go soft against Hikaru's chest as he relaxes into his touch, his hips twitching forward.

"I want you to feel close to something," Hikaru whispers in his ear, aware that he's being cheap and corny, but he does need this, even if it's an imperfect way to connect. Pavel moans a little, and Hikaru begins to go hard against the crack of his ass. His breath comes faster, and Pavel squirms in the best way, as if he wants more and less at the same time .

"Maybe if we talked during sex," Hikaru says, thinking out loud. Pavel laughs, his eyes fluttering shut.

"Talk about what?"

"I don't know. Tell me what you're feeling." Hikaru reaches into Pavel's pants and takes hold of his half-hard cock, drawing a gasp out of him as he strokes his thumb across the tip.

"Good, Hikaru, it feels good," Pavel says, his eyes still shut as he arches into Hikaru's touch.

"I mean beyond that," Hikaru says, his voice already raspy and deep. He can't decide if he wants to pull Pavel's pants off or grind against him, and trying to do both at the same time isn't working.

"Beyond that," Pavel moans. "Beyond that there's nothing, not when, ahhh, not when your hands are on me."

"What about my mouth?" Hikaru whispers in Pavel's ear, giving up on sexual healing and settling for what feels right. Pavel whimpers in response, wriggling in Hikaru's grip in an effort to get closer to Hikaru's hand and then his cock, which is hard enough to throb, digging between Pavel's ass cheeks when he presses back against it needfully.

"Yes, your mouth, your mouth," Pavel babbles. Hikaru climbs onto him, and Pavel sighs into Hikaru's mouth as they press completely together.

It's the best sex Hikaru has had in years, and he's too far gone on it to even think that the timing is strange. Pavel moans and pleads like he's never needed anything more than this and will worship Hikaru forever for giving it to him. Almost as soon as they're done they begin again, fucking harder than they ever have, filthy things streaming from their mouths until the air around them is crackling as if the bed is about to burst into flames.

"You like being fucked raw, don't you?" Hikaru growls out when he's on his knees behind Pavel, holding his hips and slamming into him, Pavel already open and wet from the last time Hikaru filled him with come.

"Da, da," Pavel cries, and then there's more Russian that Hikaru can't understand. He gives Pavel's ass a slap, and the yelp that follows almost sends Hikaru over the edge.

"Say it in English," Hikaru demands. Pavel shudders; this is only time that Pavel allows Hikaru to tell him what to do.

"I said," Pavel pants. "Fuck me until your come leaks down my legs, I -- I -- hahh, yeah."

Pavel loses both of his languages after that, dissolving into moans that he tries to bury into the pillow. Hikaru tells him he's being too loud, just for the excuse to slap his ass again.

"Do you want everyone on board to know how much you like taking my cock up your ass?" he leans down to whisper in Pavel's ear, and Pavel comes with a groan, going limp in Hikaru's grip. Hikaru gives up the fight and lets his own orgasm go as Pavel spasms around him. When they're finished they lie together in silent astonishment, waiting for a complaining knock on the door or against the wall.

"That was our first time on a spacecraft other than the Enterprise," Pavel says sleepily as Hikaru pushes matted curls from his forehead. "Unless you count space stations."

Hikaru grins. "I hadn't even thought of that," he says. "How many planets do you reckon we've done it on?"

"Forty-one," Pavel answers easily.

"What!"

"It's true. I counted them all up once when I was bored on alpha shift."

"No way! There's no way it's that many."

"It's not so many over fifteen years," Pavel says. Hikaru laughs and pulls Pavel against him, moaning with contentment. They go quiet again as the endorphins fade and the anxiety about their destination returns.

"We're gonna be alright," Hikaru says.

"Quit saying that."

"But I mean it this time."

They take turns in the uncomfortably narrow sonic shower and then dress. Hikaru feels guilty already for having indulged in the kind of loud, reckless sex they used to have every night, but he feels closer to Pavel, too, because he knows he's thinking the same thing. They nap thinly and then just lie there, holding hands, kissing each other's knuckles.

"What if he doesn't recognize us?" Pavel asks as the shuttle enters Antearch's atmosphere. Hikaru just shakes his head. He doesn't want to promise Pavel that Luka will, and can't begin to think about what things will be like if he doesn't.

Antearch is just like Hikaru remembered it: a desert landscape where the air feels flat and lifeless, even when the wind blows. They walk from the station into the town, toward the church where Pavel broke down the last time they were here. That's where they've made arrangements with the local pastor, who runs the orphanage. They've been promised nothing but a chance to visit with Luka, but the pastor did mention that adoptive families are hard to come by on small planets like Antearch, and he acknowledged the fact that Pavel and Hikaru had cared for Luka after the death of Luka's parents.

"It's quite a story," he says when Hikaru and Pavel meet him inside the empty chapel. It's an eerie but beautiful room with high ceilings and stained windows that soften the harsh light of the desert planet. There aren't many places like it left outside of tourist attractions on Earth and bleak, recently settled planets like Antearch.

"I tell little Luka all the time that his life is a miracle that can never be taken for granted," the pastor says. His name is Edgar and he's a thin, middle-aged man who is dressed in normal street clothes, pants and a shirt buttoned up to his neck. Hikaru was expecting robes, for some reason. He was never much of a religious history student.

"It was so unfortunate, what happened to Mr. and Mrs. Archer," Edgar says. "Luka came all the way here only to become an orphan again. I bring him around to visit Mrs. Archer in the home sometimes, to cheer her up, but I think she frightens him a little now. Her face was paralyzed after the stroke and she doesn't have much in the way of expressions anymore."

Edgar prattles on for awhile, talking about the town, mining tragedies like the one that befell Luka's grandfather, and he throws in some nonsense about God as well. Hikaru has never heard anyone talk about God as if He's still around. He feels dumbly envious of Edgar, who seems so peaceful he borders on vacant. Beside him, Pavel is white-faced and sweaty, and Hikaru wishes the pastor would get the hell on with it.

"Well, he's just through there, in the nursery room," Edgar says, gesturing to a door on the back wall, behind the altar. "You're free to go and visit with him, I'm sure he'll be glad to see you. He's a very well-behaved, sweet-natured boy, but he has a kind of -- loneliness about him that worries me. I'll be back in the rectory if you need me. Since you two are decorated Federation heroes I'll trust you not to snatch him while my back is turned."

Edgar laughs at his own joke, and Hikaru smiles nervously, thinking about how close he and Pavel actually came to considering doing just that, once.

They walk back toward the door Edgar indicated, and Edgar heads off through another door on the left wall. Hikaru reaches for the handle, his hand shaking, and Pavel leans against the wall beside the door, shaking his head.

"I can't," he says, his voice flat and barely audible, as if someone has stepped on it. "I can't go in there."

"Pavel, don't --"

"I'm sure now, he must hate me for leaving him here."

"He won't, children aren't like that, they don't hold grudges."

"They do!" Pavel says. "I did. I hated my father for letting my mother drown, for not being strong enough to save her. I wasn't shy about expressing it, either. I think that's really why he killed himself, I drove him to it."

"Pavel, you're talking crazy, for God's sake --"

"You go, please," Pavel says. He grabs Hikaru's arms and looks up into his face with naked desperation. "You go and find out if he even wants to see me. I'll be here if he wants me and I won't make him suffer me if he doesn't."

Hikaru groans. It's hot inside the chapel and he's begun to sweat, too, feeling feverish.

"Fine," he says. "You wait here. I'll go say hello and then come out to get you."

"Only if he wants me to."

"Yeah, of course. You know you're going to have to let go of me if you want me to go in there without you."

Pavel does, and flattens his back against the wall beside the door, his chest heaving, unseeing eyes pointed toward the door of the church. Hikaru wonders if he's thinking about running away. He's just as terrified as Pavel about seeing Luka, finding out how he's changed and what he remembers. Hikaru should have asked Edgar if Luka speaks now. He's not sure if he hopes that he does or would be relieved to learn that he still doesn't.

He takes a deep breath and opens the door, hurrying inside as if to shield Pavel from the contents of the room. His vision tunnels for a moment, and all he can see is blinding light from a high window, which isn't stained with warm colors like the ones out in the chapel. The room is small and cheerful in a forced sort of way, toys strewn about and a row of brightly colored chairs against the far wall. There's a little boy sitting in one of them, swinging his legs and hugging something white and fluffy to his chest -- a stuffed toy sheep with little black legs that protrude stiffly from its cotton ball body. Hikaru recognizes him immediately; Luka looks different, older, but his timid brown eyes haven't changed at all.

Hikaru walks across the room, biting his lips, feeling as if he's approaching a god-figure who will judge him and sort him into either heaven or hell. He tells himself to stop being ridiculous and kneels down before Luka, trembling all over. Luka stares at him, hugging the sheep more tightly against his chest. Hikaru's mouth falls open, but none of the words he prepared for this moment are available.

"Hi, Huru," Luka says softly. He looks nervous himself, as if he wondered if Pavel and Hikaru would remember him.

"Hi," Hikaru says, swallowing back the urge to cry. It would only frighten Luka, who seems as if he needs comforting, though also as if he's not sure he wants Hikaru much closer than he already is.

"You're talking now?" Hikaru says.

"Yeah."

Hikaru nods, not sure how to continue. Every word out of his mouth seems wrong. He remembers feeling this way when Pavel first brought Luka to stay with them, as if the boy was a time bomb who could be set off by the slightest misstep.

"Listen," Hikaru says, swallowing another heavy lump in his throat. "I'm so sorry we had to leave you here. I'm so sorry about your grandparents. About them dying, I mean. Uh, your grandfather, that is, and your grandmother – with the stroke –" Hikaru curses himself. "Sorry -- I mean -- did they -- they treated you well, yeah? Your grandparents?"

"Grandpa showed me how to touch a fire on a candle with your finger without getting hurt, but he wouldn't let me try it," Luka says in a rush. He pulls the sheep's little black head up to his chin when he's finished, as if he's embarrassed.

"Well," Hikaru says. "That's good."

"Grandma stopped talking," Luka says. "She was sad, and then she just fell over. Now she's dead, too, but Edgar says we should keep her company."

Hikaru sighs and moves to sit in one of the chairs beside Luka, who watches him curiously, his shoulders relaxing a little.

"What does it feel like to die?" Luka asks.

"I don't know. I've never -- died."

"Edgar says you go to heaven. Mostly. Or hell."

"Well --"

"Is this heaven?" Luka asks. He sets his sheep down in his lap and pets it. "It looks like every normal day."

"It's not heaven," Hikaru says with a laugh. "Why would you think that?"

"I asked Edgar one time if I would see you and Pabel again in heaven and he said yes, everyone I loved would be there, if they were good. But only you came. So maybe Pabel did something bad?"

He looks up at Hikaru as if he's expecting a serious answer, and of course he is, because he's a kid, and for him it's a very serious question.

"Pavel is here," Hikaru says. "But it's not heaven. I don't think." Suddenly he's not sure. He feels weirdly calm, well past anything like happiness or even hope. It's as if he doesn't need those things anymore, as if he's found something better, a resolution that won't be shaken.

"Pabel?" Luka says, sitting up straighter. "Pabel is here? Where?"

"Yep. He's right outside. Do you want to go see him?"

"Yeah," Luka says, beaming. He tucks the sheep under one arm and reaches for Hikaru with the other. It's been so long since Hikaru was around a child that for a moment he doesn't realize that Luka is waiting to be picked up and carried.

"Here we go," Hikaru says, lifting Luka into his arms, the willingness with which Luka clings to him making him want to sob with relief. "He's gonna be so happy to see you," Hikaru says as he carries Luka across the room. He's going to lose it, he's going to cry all over everyone, but if he can just make it through the door first, at least Pavel won't hear and think that something is wrong.

Hikaru opens the door and steps out with Luka in his arms, trying to get his lips to stop shaking long enough to manage a smile. Pavel is leaning against the wall, looking stricken, but when his eyes fall on Luka he barks out a laugh of unrestrained relief, not needing a single word from Hikaru before he reaches out and pulls Luka into his arms.

"Pabel!" Luka says happily, hugging his neck while Pavel cries in silent shakes, his face pressed to Luka's temple as he hugs him and rocks him in his arms.

"I knew you would come," Luka says, grinning at Hikaru over Pavel's shoulder. Hikaru's cheeks are wet, but he doesn't feel as if he's crying, just overflowing.

"I'm so sorry," Pavel says, kissing Luka's forehead. "So sorry we left you, my zaichik, poor baby, we wanted you back every day." He switches to Russian then, and Luka giggles as Pavel showers him with Russian endearments, as if he understands them. Hikaru puts his arms around both of them, steadying Pavel's rocking.

"Do you want to come back with us?" Pavel asks, sniffling. Hikaru wipes Pavel's face for him, and then Luka mimics the gesture, hurrying to help dry Pavel's cheeks.

"Okay," Luka says, and Hikaru laughs, then Pavel, and finally Luka does, too, though Hikaru thinks he probably doesn't understand how funny it is, how easy and yet precious everything suddenly feels.

"Well!" someone says from across the chapel, and they all turn to see Edgar standing on the other side of the altar, smiling at them as they hold onto each other.

"You three look like you've been family all your lives," Edgar says as he crosses the altar, walking toward them. "What do you think, Luka?" Edgar asks. "Do you really want to live in space?"

"No," Luka says firmly, his grip on Pavel tightening. "I want to go with Pabel and Huru."

This time, when they all laugh, Luka doesn't join them, distressed by his confusion until Pavel explains that they live in space, most of the time.

"Okay," Luka says timidly, tucking his head in under Pavel's chin. Hikaru is still not sure he understands exactly what's happening, but he's sure that Luka won't let go of Pavel again without a fight.

*

Twelve years later, Hikaru and Pavel are back at Starfleet Academy, Hikaru tacking up a poster of the Intergalactic Table of Elements while Pavel puts Luka's sweat socks in a bureau drawer, lining them up neatly with a look of worrying concentration on his face. Luka is ignoring both of them, sitting on the bed and reading messages on his PADD.

"You'd better turn that off during class," Pavel says. He throws a sock at Luka when he gives no indication of hearing this, and Luka curses, batting it to the ground.

"Stop!" he shouts. "It's from Katie. Just let me write this." His fingers are tapping frantically on the mini-keyboard, his brow furrowed as if he's composing a symphony. Hikaru smirks, recognizing that look, the same one Pavel had when he was arranging the socks: anxious, obsessive, and very unintentionally adorable.

"That girl!" Pavel says, picking up the sock he threw. "We just left the Enterprise yesterday. Can't she leave you alone for five minutes? You'd better not let her melodrama get in the way of your studies –"

"Her melodrama?" Luka glares at Pavel. "She's my girlfriend and she misses me."

Luka has been in love with Katie Chapel for most of his life; when he first joined the all-ages educational cohort with the other children of Enterprise crew members he was almost immediately protective of Katie, the youngest in the group, who was often picked on by the other children, victimized for her weepy blond softness. Pavel used to think Luka's sense of chivalry was adorable, until Luka and Katie both proved to be early bloomers and were caught in a compromising position by Katie's mother when Katie was fourteen and Luka fifteen. Pavel and Christine Chapel got into a vicious fight over who was to blame, and the teenage romance was a favorite topic of gossip among the adult crew members for months. Luka and Katie of course participated in the hysteria, considering themselves Romeo and Juliet-like figures and thwarting Pavel and Christine's attempts to keep them apart. When Hikaru tried to calm Pavel down by telling him that he'd lost his own virginity at fifteen Pavel turned on him in a completely irrational jealous rage, which was actually rather touching when Hikaru reflected on it later.

"Dad, that's so corny," Luka says, making a face at the Intergalactic Table of Elements. "Everybody who goes here has those memorized already. Me included."

"Hey, shut up," Hikaru says, ticking his chin. "I had this very poster on the wall in my dorm when I went here."

"Oh." Luka smiles at the poster. "That's kind of cool. I didn't realize it was, like, vintage."

"Here's something vintage from me, too," Pavel says. He digs into one of the bags they brought from the Enterprise and pulls out a little Russian to English dictionary. "I know you speak both, but maybe you can help teach your roommate, and anyway, it was my most cherished possession when I studied here, I never went anywhere without it."

"Thanks, Pop," Luka says, grinning at Pavel, who pulls him down for a kiss on the forehead. Luka is taller than both of them by almost half a foot, gangly and skinny and handsome enough to make poor Katie Chapel a hated figure among the other girls on the Enterprise.

"And look what else I did not forget!" Pavel says cheerfully, leaning down to pull something from the box. Luka groans when Pavel presents him with his worn little stuffed sheep, whose fluff has gotten matted and grayish over the years.

"You brought Jesus?" Luka says. He named the sheep when he was living at the church orphanage, a product of some confusion about the term 'lamb of God.' "What am I going to do with him?"

"What! tsk!" Pavel pushes Jesus into Luka's hands. "You were going to leave him alone on the ship? I know you still sleep with him every night, don't pretend."

"Only out of stupid habit," Luka mutters, holding Jesus against his stomach. "I can't do that when I have a roommate. He'll think I'm insane."

"Maybe your roommate has a friend like Jesus, too, huh?"

"Pop." Luka raises his eyebrows. "You sound a little nuts. Are you okay?"

Hikaru and Luka have both been worried about Pavel's reaction to Luka's going off to college. Pavel and Luka have been fighting daily since Luka turned fourteen, screaming at each other in Russian while Hikaru reads his PADD and waters his plants, but they're incredibly close, double-kissing each other's cheeks to say hello or goodbye even they're furious with each other. Hikaru is the one who Luka confides in and whose advice he more often takes, but it's Pavel who mops Luka's forehead when he's sick and whose judgments never fail to send Luka into a defensive fury, because Pavel's opinions on everything from Luka's girlfriend to the color of his sweaters secretly mean so much to him.

"I'm fine!" Pavel says, scowling at Luka and then Hikaru, as if they're mad to be concerned. "Take Jesus or don't, it doesn't matter to me."

"I'll keep him here – for good luck," Luka says, setting Jesus on top of a bookshelf, where he looks so out of place and hopeless that Hikaru almost tears up.

"Let's get something to eat," he says, fighting his emotions away. "Me and Pop have to be at the station by nine to catch our shuttle."

"Damn, that early?" Luka mutters, and Hikaru can feel Pavel's frenzied desire to shout, We don't have to go, we can retire right now, we'll buy a house in San Francisco and you can have dinner with us every night! He glances over at Pavel, imagining that he can see him straining not to offer.

They walk across campus to try and find an Italian restaurant Hikaru loved when he attended the Academy, only to discover that it's been transformed into an Indian restaurant. They eat there anyway, and the restaurant is crowded with similar family meals, parents sitting with their soon to be freshman. The atmosphere in the restaurant is thick with a combination of sorrow and excitement, and Hikaru wants to take a thousand pictures of Luka as he and Pavel sit across from him, both of them pretending to listen while he laments his separation from Katie. He still looks so young, even with fuzzy stubble growing on his chin, too young to be turned loose in the real world.

"Dad, you'll have to reassure her that I haven't met anybody else at school, 'cause she's worried about that," Luka says to Hikaru, who was once 'Daddy,' now 'Dad,' whereas Pavel went from 'Papa' to 'Pop' around the time Luka insisted that they call him 'Luke,' a failed experiment. Sometimes he still calls Hikaru 'Huru,' usually when he's very upset or very happy. For some reason, he's always 'Huru' in writing, on birthday cards and PADD messages.

"What if you do meet someone else?" Pavel asks.

"Yeah, are we supposed to lie to her?" Hikaru asks, smirking. Luka glowers at them.

"I won't!" he says. "I love her. God! Why do you guys think that's impossible or something? Anyway, she'll be with me next year, I can wait."

Pavel scoffs. "You've never been around a diverse group of intelligent women," he says. "Don't be so closed-minded."

"Katie is intelligent!"

"You had such a limited selection on board the ship," Pavel says. "Having a less incestuous pool of candidates will be good for you, you can expand your horizons. You shouldn't limit yourself based on your teenage experiences!"

Hikaru bites down on a laugh, struggling not to point out Pavel's hypocrisy.

"Why do you hate her?" Luka shouts, in Russian; this question is so oft-repeated that Hikaru is able to translate.

"Keep your voice down!" Pavel hisses, in English. "You know I don't hate the poor girl, she's very sweet, but I think you sell yourself short."

Luka answers in Russian, sounding vicious; Hikaru has a theory that he says all of the most unforgivable things in Pavel's language so that Hikaru can remain blissfully ignorant of his darker side, the parent who always naively thinks the best of him. Hikaru and Luka almost never fight, unless Hikaru takes Pavel's side in an argument.

"Hey, hey," Hikaru says, holding up his fork. "Calm down. No fighting. It's our last night together for awhile."

"Yeah," Luka says, giving Pavel a look.

"Just giving you some things to keep in mind," Pavel says lightly, digging into his dinner. "Who did you get for your Intro to Astrophysics course?"

"I tested out of Intro," Luka says, giving Pavel an impish grin. Pavel beams and sits up straighter, congratulating him in Russian.

"You didn't tell me!" Pavel says.

"I didn't want to brag," Luka says. Hikaru snorts, and Luka throws a balled-up napkin at him.

They spend the rest of the meal discussing which subject Luka will major in, which is a relatively civil discussion, and when it gets a little heated Hikaru steers the conversation to a safer topic.

"Remember when Luka knocked over that Wexler's orchid that I had on my desk?" Hikaru asks. Luka smirks and Pavel laughs. "He tried to tape it back together, thought I wouldn't notice." They all know the story, of course.

"I was only seven!" Luka says. "And I thought you'd disown me. You loved that damn flower."

"No, the best was when he told me that Uhura had bad breath, right in front of her, not realizing she spoke Russian, too," Pavel says.

"Relations between those two were never really repaired," Hikaru says, nodding.

"Even her son can't stand me," Luka says, grinning.

"Well, he's got Vulcan blood, so there's no telling – he may have been secretly in love with you all this time, for all you know," Hikaru says.

"Uh, I doubt it. He once told me that he thought I was destined for a career as a maintenance technician."

"What!" Pavel's fork clatters to his plate. He looks as if he's planning to give Uhura an earful about her son's manners when he returns to the Enterprise.

The dinner goes by too fast, and soon they're back at the dorm room, Pavel finding excuses to linger, arranging books and hanging shirts. Hikaru and Luka exchange a look.

"We should head for the station," Hikaru says as Pavel is jotting down titles of physics books that Luka should check out of the library as soon as possible.

"I know," Pavel says. He looks over the list and then hands it to Luka. "Don't forget why you're here," he says.

"I won't," Luka says. "You're the one trying to fix me up on dates with diverse young women, Pop."

Pavel grins and mutters something in Russian; Hikaru only catches zaichik, 'bunny,' which Pavel reserves for moments when he and Luka both have their guard down. He hugs Luka hard, rocking him a little and making Hikaru think of that day in the church. He still dreams about that chapel, the way the light streamed in so softly, the quiet and the dust in the air. He'll always think of that place when he hears the word 'heaven.'

"Dad," Luka says, putting his arms around Hikaru when Pavel has finally released him. "I'll give you updates when I've joined the fencing club."

"Try not to humiliate anyone too badly on the first day," Hikaru says. "I made that mistake, and they never invited me to their parties."

"Fuck their parties, I'd rather kick their asses," Luka says, and Hikaru laughs, then realizes that he's rocking Luka, too, and holding on too long.

"Don't forget to see the dentist in October," Pavel says as he and Hikaru are backing slowly out the door.

"I'm sure you'll remind me about five hundred times before then, Pop, but okay."

Luka looks so small and vulnerable in the center of the dorm room, like Jesus does on top of the bookshelf. Hikaru fights the urge to run back into the room and close him into his arms. He glances at Pavel, expecting to see his lip shaking, eyes watering, but he's just staring at Luka as if he's proud to know that he'll be okay without them, now.

"You're waiting for me to fall apart," Pavel says when they're in the backseat of a taxi, on their way to the transport station, which will take them to the shuttle, which will take them to yet another transport station, a Federation-operated facility where they can beam directly to the Enterprise after clearing security.

"I'm not," Hikaru says, lying. "I'm waiting for me to break down. That was – hard. For me."

"He'll be fine," Pavel says, staring out his window. "He's smart. And he won't marry that Chapel girl, you watch, he'll meet someone much more impressive in less than a month."

Hikaru groans, tired of the Katie debate. He misses Luka already, and feels as if he should take up the Katie defense cause in his place, but his heart's not in it. Katie is sweet and very pretty, but she's got the emotional maturity of a tribble.

The transport process is tiring, with multiple checkpoints and ident-scans, and once they're finally back on board the Enterprise they both head directly for their bed. Hikaru brushes his teeth three times to get the taste of Indian food out of his mouth, and Pavel takes a shower, muttering about the alpha shift. He's not fooling Hikaru, of course, but Hikaru gives him a few minutes of privacy before undressing and climbing into the shower behind him. Pavel has his elbows pressed to the shower wall, his head resting between his arms as he sobs.

"Hey, hey," Hikaru says, taking hold of him. Pavel gives him a sour look but then crumbles easily, falling against Hikaru's chest to cry and be petted.

"It's stupid," Pavel says, his voice wet with tears. "It's not the same, but it feels so wrong, leaving him anywhere."

"I know," Hikaru says. "But everything's going to be alright. You know it will. He'll love it there, he'll do great, and someday he'll come back to steal my job, or yours – or Jim's."

Pavel laughs and wraps his arms around Hikaru's back.

"I can't believe how fast the time went," he says.

"I know. And I still can't believe you brought him his sheep."

"Was that bad of me?" Pavel asks, lifting his face. He looks so concerned, as if this one gesture might actually ruin his relationship with Luka. Pavel is just as secretly fixated on Luka's judgments and opinions as Luka is on his.

"No," Hikaru says. He kisses Pavel's forehead. "I think he was glad that you did, he just didn't want you to know."

"Oh." Pavel smiles, sniffling. "Well, good. I hated the thought of him sleeping without that sheep."

"Just don't mention it to Katie, she'll fly into a jealous rage."

They stay up late, even though they're both on the early shift, staring listlessly at the data screen. It's too quiet without Luka, too still. Hikaru wants him back already, to roll his eyes at Hikaru's ever-growing plant collection and tell Pavel that he's crazy in Russian.

"You know what my grandmother told me before she died?" Pavel asks. His voice is scratchy from crying and exhaustion, and Hikaru feels like he used to when he thought about taking Pavel's virginity, so glad that he'll always be the only who knows him this way.

"What?" he asks, smoothing Pavel's curls down. They're getting frizzier, starting to go gray.

"She said, 'don't have children! You'll never accomplish anything with that sort of distraction.' She was just mad at my mother for dying, she didn't really mean it. It's funny, though, because I consider Luka my only real accomplishment."

"As someone whose life you've saved multiple times, I might take offense at that. But I know what you mean."

"I know you do," Pavel says, reaching back to wrap an arm around Hikaru. He falls asleep first, and Hikaru is proud of him for making it through their first night without Luka mostly intact. He already wants to check his PADD for messages from Luka, but he makes himself wait. He sets the alarm and tucks himself around Pavel, who sighs in his sleep. Hikaru thinks about all the nights when Luka woke with nightmares and crawled into bed to sleep between them. He thinks about the first night he spent in bed beside Pavel, before they'd even kissed, when they fell asleep talking, mid-sentence, and he thinks about every night he's spent in leaky tents on hostile alien planets, far from his family. It's dumb and perfect, that he and Pavel have had sex on forty-eight different planets, fought the enemies of the Federation to the death and explored uncharted worlds, but this is where they've found all the greatest joys of their lives: huddled in bed, heads on the same pillow. Hikaru once thought it was a destructive behavior, the way he and Pavel had wordlessly gravitated toward each other beneath the blankets after fighting viciously during the day. Now he can only be grateful that they were never strong enough to break themselves of the habit. It might not be what's kept them together, but it's proof enough of the reason they never gave each other up.