Chekov allowed this one reaction. In fact, he would have been a fool not to expect it. "Peter, your cabin is more than large enough for two people. I’m just assigning you a temporary roommate."

Kirk looked at his captain with honest pleading. "But Captain. Willis O’Brien? You know how I feel about reporters. Hell, the time my Academy roommates were killed, I had reporters in my face, and it feels like they never left. One even made it into Tantalus!"

Chekov looked up at that. "How could they--no, I don’t want to know. Peter, Willis has suffered greatly since Demora’s passing. We all have, but he seems totally unprepared for this tragedy. You cared about Demora. He cared about Demora. For her, will you do this?"

It was dirty pool, and they both knew it. Peter would almost never refuse any request made by the remaining seven members of his uncle’s legendary crew. He would not ever refuse anything that paid homage to a family member like Demora Sulu. Kirk began to recite. "A free and unrestrained press serves a vital guardian function in our United Federation of Planets... A free and unrestrained..."

Still reciting as he left, he passed Uhura on her way in.

"So did he give in?"

Chekov smiled. "I’m convinced Willis is in good hands, the hands of someone who’s been there and back."

Uhura folded her arms. "Should I file the paperwork for Peter’s promotion to Lieutenant Commander?"

Chekov felt confused. "Why? What has he done to merit such a thing so soon?"

Uhura looked at the door, and then at her old friend. "He didn’t strangle you, just now. Now, that took willpower."

"Upenda Nyota Uhura! Mister O’Brien needs someone to talk to, besides Doctor Beals. Sadly, Peter is an expert by default on grief and its effects. I made the right decision." He saw that she was still unimpressed. "Err...but keep that paperwork on hand, in case we need to bribe him into letting me live."

She smiled, and he shrugged at some unspoken words. "Da. I hope I know what I’m doing, too."

*****

Peter entered his cabin. The nephew of the man who brought order to a lawless galaxy now saw an outcropping of chaos. Lying across his bed was the bushy haired reporter, dressed in the white jumpsuit and boots he always wore, luggage stacked on top of the other bed, holocams floating about.

"Hey, Roomie! Just how long have you been working on this thesis padd, anyway? Reads a bit thick, but you sure take on every possible theory."

His thesis padd, the work of decades, was being scrutinized by someone with no scientific background. Peter sat down and mumbled to himself, "If I call Doctor Van Gelder now, we can have the Neural Neutralizer set up in no..."

"Hey, Peter? Would you mind not mumbling? It’s rude."

Kirk got up, and started to walk out.

O’Brien gestured. "Hey, where you off to? I’ll tag along. Can I bring my holocams?"

Peter stared at Willis. "Bring anything you like. Bring your whole network. It doesn’t matter--because I won’t be there. I’m turning myself over to The Romulans!"

Peter found that the small reservoir of hot water he kept to finish off his shower had been used up. His hair would not ‘settle.’

"Why do you keep so little hot water on hand? I could barely get my head and face clean!"

O’Brien simply can’t be this clueless, Kirk thought. "Mister O’Brien, on any starship, water must be conserved. It’s a replenishable resource, but conservation is the order of the day. That’s why we use sonic showers as much as possible. I’ve now got to make a formal request to ships services to have my daily allotment increased. I don’t think they’ve gotten around to it yet."

O’Brien shrugged. "No, you don’t. Just do what I did in my old room. Bypass the allotment meter entirely. It’s really easy, and it’ll take Security months to find out."

Peter’s eyes went very, very wide. "Kirk to Ch’terr." 

O’Brien waved his hands. "Stop! You’re reading a potential response from Captain Chekov, right? So read it the way he would."

Peter put down the padd. "And just what way would that be, Mister O’Brien?"

"You know! ‘Vwell, Meester O’Brien, dot mission vas wery, wery difficult.’"

Again as before, Kirk stared at his assignment. "We in Starfleet have a word for what you just did, Mister O’Brien."

"Improv?"

"Insubordination."

"All right, Doc," he answered. "I’ll do it myself. Ensigns Anderson and Leech are working on a project in Stellar Cartography."

"Sorry, Peter. Sickbay out."

Peter smiled as he realized he’d not see his cabin for another eighteen hours. "I’ve always loved that woman."

Then a voice came from behind him. "We begin this segment here in at Science One, where the Enterprise gets vital information on absolutely everything under the stars. Manning this vital station is my own roommate, Lieutenant Peter Kirk. Note the growing resemblance to the lost legend that was his uncle. Peter, any words?"

Kirk unintentionally quoted his uncle. "Turn that damn thing off," he growled as he motioned to Ch’terr.

"Lieutenant Kirk, why are you here? This place saw your uncle’s death. Even the Vulcans aboard this ship report an odd sensation while here."

Peter opened his eyes. "My apologies, Commander. But I wanted to meditate, and this is the last place that Willis O’Brien would ever think to look for me."

Saavik shook her head. "You should not avoid Captain Chekov’s assignment for you, no matter how distasteful you may find it, Mister Kirk. It speaks poorly of you that you should even attempt..."

Of course, a third party then entered talking. "Hey, Pete. I’ve been looking all over for you. I meant to ask your opinion. Just how unethical was your cousin David Marcus’ use of protomatter, and what kind of sentence would he have faced, had he lived? Think about it, then get back to me."

He left, and Saavik raised an eyebrow--almost to the roof. "Mister Kirk?"

"Mister Saavik?"

"May I join you? I, too, feel the sudden need to catch up on my own meditation."

Peter warily looked up from his meal. "Ensign Gatchmeinz?"

She blushed, just a bit. "Yes. I’m...soooo sorry, about last night. He was just so lonely, so hurt by Demora’s death. I felt he needed me to be with him. I just didn’t know Willis even had a roommate, and climbing into the wrong bed like that—"

Peter winced. He had only seen Calita Iberez shortly after the flood of funerals in December. Having a young woman in his bed awoke some feelings he had been trying to fight down, til he found his rhythm aboard this new Enterprise.

"It’s all right, Ensign. No harm done."

"Thank you, sir. By the way...what are you doing tonight?"

"Mister Kirk, you are an hour late! Tell me why I shouldn’t assign you some extra shifts? Tell me why I shouldn’t bounce you off bridge rotation? Tell me...why do you look angrier at me...than I do at you?"

Peter Kirk grimly held up a display, with its connections well severed. It was an alarm chronometer. "He disabled it because it makes a loud, obnoxious sound that wakes him up."

Chekov pointed to the rear of the bridge. "My office, Lieutenant."

*

Chekov simply said the words as they entered his office. "Permission to speak freely granted in this room, Lieutenant, unless I tell you otherwise. I owe you that much."

Peter did not yell. Nor did he hold back, though. "Sir, we have discussed everything except Demora. He’s even been with another woman..."

Chekov chuckled. "Da. I heard about that. That must have been..."

The captain briefly became an ensign again as Peter Kirk’s scowl took on frighteningly familiar dimensions. "Sir, I want him out of my cabin. Yours was a worthy plan, but it has failed. Whatever Mister O’Brien has not talked with in his sessions with Doctor Beals, he’s also not talking over with me. I’ve had it. Unless you remove him from my cabin, I’m requesting a transfer off this starship."

Captain Chekov nodded. "Give him two more days, Lieutenant. If, after that time, you still want him out, then I’ll move him into that VIP suite again. Who knows? Maybe I never should’ve moved him out of there. But I was trying to avoid putting him off the ship."

Peter nodded. "I am sorry, sir. I haven’t tried as hard as I could, but even with that, he’s been—"

"I know, Peter. I know."

*

Kirk left, feeling despite everything, that he had failed Chekov. But one last straw awaited the new assistant science officer. When he walked back into his quarters later, he thought that Willis O’Brien couldn’t make him any angrier. He couldn’t be any more wrong.

"What...are...you...doing?" Peter said between clenched teeth.

What Willis O’Brien was doing was quite apparent. Peter’s personal correspondence padd, an engraved gift from his late friend Princess Teresa, had wires running out of it, leading to what some called a slicer box. Willis O’Brien was breaking into the heart of Peter Kirk.

It was a heart Peter grabbed back. "You just crossed your last line, Mister! It was only the love and affection I felt for Demora that enabled me to take it this long. But now you’ve gone and pushed me too far. But that’s what you reporters do, right?"

O’Brien then indeed pushed a surprised Kirk away, and grabbed the padd back again. "I have more right to this than you. She was my girlfriend, Kirk, not yours! No matter what you think; she wasn’t going to go back to you. Now I am going to see what she wrote you. I have the right—"

As he rose, Kirk was close to O’Brien. Too close, O’Brien reasoned, to put any power into a return punch. But Peter’s chosen style in fact required little distance for a blow to strike hard. Willis and his nose now learned this, as he went sprawling.

"I have a right, too. A right hook. Now calm down. You seem to be laboring under a big misconception. Demora and I were..."

Had Peter’s stomach muscles been a lot less well developed, O’Brien’s angry blow might have really hurt him. Had Willis’ stomach muscles not been much less well developed, Peter’s blow might not have had him doubled over in pain, gasping for air.

"That was your last warning. Demora Sulu was not my girlfriend. I thought of her as a dear friend who I was trying to help avoid making the mistakes..."

When a still-furious O’Brien made a lunge for Kirk’s throat, the quick hands of his target blocked them both. His patience wholly exhausted, Kirk then seized his attacker by the collar, and held an open tensed palm inches from his nose.

"You don’t seem too terribly bright. So let me make this simple. If you touch me again, I...will...kill...you!"

O’Brien seemed to get the message, and so Peter let him go. Kirk then did something obviously surprising to the INS reporter. "Here’s the padd, and all my recent correspondence with Demora. You could have just asked."

Willis O’Brien had such a look of defiant anger on his face, Peter felt that he was looking into a mirror of himself, eight years gone. It was not an image he treasured or desired to see again.

"It was all part of a plan, right? Chekov never wanted me on board to begin with. Must have killed all of you that one of the Enterprise family would deign to sleep with a heathen reporter. So what do they do? Call in her old flame, the heir apparent himself, to lure her back to the fold. Then when she...after, you add insult to injury by having me live with my competition. Cute. Very cute. You all must think you’re very clever."

Kirk was now at anger levels he thought impossible in his post-reform state. "Read the damned correspondence, O’Brien. Or so help me, I’ll call Security Chief Ch’terr and have you dragged off on so many charges, every last centicredit of Brad Bashaw’s money won’t drag you out of the pit I’ll personally dig for you."

O’Brien took the padd, and again evoked painful memories of a Peter Kirk now thankfully passed. "Sure. Why not? What’s a little knife-twisting between two now permanently ex-boyfriends? Neither of us can have her now."

Thinking to at least embarrass a perceived rival with intimate details, Willis spoke out loud as he read the mail. "...be so good to have you on board, Peter. Someone I can talk to and trust, and get advice from that doesn’t involve orders or warnings is just what I need right now. I’ve missed you so much."

O’Brien seemed calmer, at least a bit, as he kept reading. "...about you and Doctor Iberez. But with her friend and patient gone, maybe Starfleet is for her, and she should just ace the Academy. Until you hook up with her again, I have some friends on board I showed your picture to. I mean, I think you look alright, but they were positively pornographic when they let me know their opinions. They better not tire you out, though. I heard tell you’re good at racquetball. My dad and your uncle used to go at it during Captain Kirk’s first two tours of duty aboard the original Enterprise."

O’Brien’s voice was now breaking. "...but just give him a chance, Peter. The way he told off Ambassador Spock reminded me so much of the day you came to my rescue at the Academy. I know you don’t like reporters. I can understand why. But if you care about me, and I know you do, accept him. I feel about seeing him every night the way I felt about getting your letters during that rough final year at the Academy. With one I love in one hand and one who always seems to know the right thing to say to me in the other, I feel I’ll go far on this new starship Enterprise.

"‘Til then, ‘Cousin.’ Demora."

O’Brien just shook his head. "This is the kind of letter I used to get from my little sister. I...I didn’t know. I thought that she and you...I mean, she just gushed on and on, and I got jealous. She really thought highly of you, Peter."

"Read on, Willis. She talks more about you. And talks, and talks, and talks..."

They both briefly smiled, and O’Brien nodded. "She’s good for that, isn’t she? I mean, get her started on any given subject, and she will..."

The smile faded as his use of the wrong tense came back at him. "No. She never will. Not ever again. I worried about you taking her away from me, if she were still here. Because--because..."

Peter tried an answer. "Because getting angry over that possibility was easier than handling the fact that for Demora, there are no more possibilities. They died with her."

O’Brien’s face showed that he would rather have been beaten to a pulp than hear those words. "Peter, people just don’t get erased like that. Not people you know. No Klingons. No Romulans or Orions. Just a parasite, going about its business."

Without an ounce of humor or irony or any leavening element, Kirk spoke hateful words not directed in anger at his guest. "Willis, welcome to my world."

Peter drank some milk, and nodded at his captain. "Willis and I are getting along fine, sir. With your approval, I’m going to do a full interview with him about my experiences with the media."

"I’m more than a little surprised to hear that. Usually he is overly protective of the media, so much so that he doesn’t take criticism of it very well. Perhaps this whole experience has changed him." Chekov smiled. "I heard him call you Peter, you call him Willis. Heh. Would you consider taking him in for another week, to continue this progress?"

Kirk looked Chekov straight in the eye. "Not even if Jim himself were to ask me."

Chekov waved a padd. "I’ve reassigned him to the same VIP quarters he had earlier...with security protocols built into the water management system this time."

Now, Peter looked at his captain. "Sir, I’ve heard it said that as a young ensign, you felt in terrific awe of Captain Kirk."

"That is hardly a state secret, Lieutenant."

Chekov never saw the trap close. "Captain, the roles are now fully reversed, between our two families, and within our one. For I hold you in that same aspect as you held Jim."

Without another word, he departed, smiling and nodding at Commanders Uhura and Ch’terr as they entered the galley. Uhura sat down next to her captain while Ch’terr pulled a perch up to the table and sat beside the executive officer, his beak tilted in the Skorrian version of a smirk. "Sir, I’ve prepared a report on Jeet Kune-Do. Apparently, students of it like our Mister Kirk can do amazing things to a target. I was half-expecting to find you...incapacitated." The Skorr warbled in laughter.

Uhura’s smirk was obvious. "You take a lot of chances, Mister."

Chekov smiled. The first real replacement member of his crew seemed to be someone who could help him build that trusted outer circle. His own seventh. His own--Pavel Chekov, and maybe a bit more, considering their shared pasts. Unlike James Kirk, Pavel would need more than just his ‘big three’ to see them through an era where a last name no longer ensured that death would be cheated. For in this young man, once shackled before him in disgrace, Captain Chekov had found someone as reliable as the Latin translation of his name implied.

"Penda, some chances are less chancy than others. And sometimes...it is simply destiny."