Return to Part Two
Chekov had brought her flowers.
Sulu and Noel DelMonde liked to mock the Russian’s habit of presenting his lady friends with cards and flowers at what they saw as superfluous occasions. Del did a killer impression of the supposed text of one genre of notes that went something along the lines of “T’ank you for the vonderful von night stand! Hope to have more sex vith you again soon! Yours, wery, wery sincerely, Pavel Andre’ich.”
Part of what made the bit so side-splitting was that it was just that bizarre to listen to someone with a thick regional accent switch gears and do an amazingly spot-on imitation of someone else’s equally heavy dialect. It was as weirdly comic as watching Santa Claus decide to dress up as the Easter Bunny.
Daffy didn’t know what Sulu was yucking it up about. The helmsman was himself a die-hard romantic and obsessive horticulturalist who'd gifted plenty of flora to paramours. Worse yet, Sulu gave plants. Yes, they were gorgeous, rare, stunning beauties. They could also be a bit rowdy. The chemist personally knew of several such gifts returned after recipients discovered their lovely tokens of affection were actually high-maintenance, surprisingly mischievous life-forms.
Chekov, though, was Old World and old school. He didn’t make it hard for you to figure out what his flowers were or what they meant.
This sweetly beautiful arrangement communicated quite clearly that it was directed specifically towards her. It was a mixture of lilac-colored irises (incorporating her favorite colors of purple and green) and daffodils (in honor of her nickname.) So, this was not a generic sentiment.
Sulu and Del were wrong about something else. Chekov didn't scatter flowers like confetti. He only brought them when words wouldn't be enough to express what he needed to say. Which meant he had something difficult to tell her.
"Dafshka." He rose from where he'd been perched at her desk, his compact frame unfolding with that nervous energy she'd come to recognize as anxiety.
"I'm sorry I kept you waiting." She set down her datapad on the far table, the motion deliberate, careful. Not looking at him yet. "I was working." She didn't mention where or on what.
He crossed to her and tenderly stroked her cheek. “I want to apologize for what I said earlier. It was thoughtless.”
She nodded, but didn’t meet his eyes. She bent to examine the bouquet. “These are beautiful. Thank you.”
He turned her carefully towards him, taking both hands in his. “I have thought about what you said about the rings and now I can see why you might have been upset… so I apologize.”
“Okay,” she acquiesced with a weak smile.
“So we can forget about them, yes?” He brought hands to his lips and gave them a hopeful kiss.
"Oh, really?" The chemist's smile evaporated as heat flared in her chest. "Should we?"
The navigator released her hands and stepped back, reading the danger. "Daphne..."
"You're sorry that you didn't want to pay attention to how I felt right away." Her voice came out sharp, cutting. "But now that you've had time to think about it, you're happy for both of us to just forget about it altogether, huh?"
Chekov held up a finger of protest. “That is not what I am saying…”
Gollub planted her hands on her hips, feet shoulder-width apart—a fighting stance. "So what are you saying?"
The navigator drew a short breath through his nose, exasperation pulling his shoulders back. "I have explained about the rings. They were inexpensive samples, gifts from my uncle. I gave them to people I cared about at the time. What else do you wish for me to say?"
"People you cared about? Is that what I am? Just another person you 'care about' until someone more interesting comes along?" The bitterness in her voice surprised even her.
"You are being unfair, Daphne." His brown eyes looked wounded. "You know how I feel about you."
"Do I?" She heard the echo of David Maxwell in her own words—the man who'd kept her at arm's length while taking everything she offered. "Because from where I'm standing, I look an awful lot like Martha Landon or Tamara Sloan or any of the others. Just another name on Pavel Chekov's list of conquests."
The Russian’s cheeks went red. "Conquests? Is your opinion of me really so low?"
"I don't know what to think!" Her voice cracked and rose. "You give these beautiful, meaningful rings to all these other women, but when I get upset about it, suddenly they're just worthless trinkets and I'm being materialistic. You can't have it both ways!"
"They are worthless! They were computer-replicated silver with no gemstones, no real value. I gave them away because my uncle gave me a box of seven and I thought—" He stopped, raking one hand through his dark hair, leaving it disheveled. "I thought people might enjoy having something pretty. That is all."
"That's all?" A sharp-edged laugh escaped her throat. "You don't get it. Those rings represent something. They represent you thinking about those women, choosing to give them something, marking them as important enough to remember. And now you're telling me they meant nothing?"
"I did not say the rings had no meaning, I said they were not valuable—"
"To you! They weren't valuable to you!" She was pacing now, three steps to the wall, pivot, three steps back, her hands slicing the air with each point. "But clearly they were valuable to the women who received them, or Anouk Janssen wouldn't still have hers. Alina Ciobanu would probably stab someone rather than give hers back—"
"You asked Ensign Ciobanu to give hers back?" The Russian’s voice dropped to something dangerous, quiet and cold. "And Anouk?"
Daffy froze mid-step. "I was investigating—"
"Investigating what, exactly? My friends and romantic history? Keeping tabs on every woman to whom I have ever spoken?" As he moved closer, closing the distance she'd created, she could see genuine anger coloring his features. "Daphne, this is unacceptable. Humiliating. How would you feel if I suddenly began to investigate you?"
An absurd image flashed through her mind: Pavel in a tiny fur-trimmed Russian Sherlock Holmes costume, complete with deerstalker cap and magnifying glass. The mixture of adorable and terrifying made her want to laugh and cry simultaneously. She shook her head sharply to clear the vision before meeting his eyes again.
"Look, I know how this story started out, but there's more to it now. I know there is," she insisted. "Admiral Brezhnova, the Haven trader, your uncle—none of that is about your romantic history. There's something else going on, something you either don't know about or won't tell me about."
He stared at her—all Siberian ice —for a full sixty seconds. When he finally spoke, his tone was dangerously stern. "You are mixing in affairs that are none of your business."
“So that’s it?” she retorted defiantly. “You think you can just put your little boot down and stop me?”
The Russian's eyes narrowed to slits. Then, very deliberately, he crossed to her desk, scooped up the bouquet, and headed for the door. Water droplets from the stems left a trail of dark spots on the carpet.
"If we are no longer dating," he said, his voice as biting as Arctic wind, "then there is no point, is there?"
The door whispered shut behind him. Daffy found herself standing alone amidst a scattering of fallen petals of irises and daffodils.
“Good news! “
Daffy Gollub swiped at her swollen eyes and attempted something resembling a brave face for the viewscreen. "I need some good news..."
Uhura's image on the monitor frowned, her dark eyes scanning Daffy's face with concern. "You look like it. Honey, what happened?"
The chemist gave a rueful laugh and gestured vaguely at the door where her boyfriend had disappeared twenty minutes earlier. "I think we broke up..."
“Oh..”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
The Communications Officer shrugged, her comm station visible in the background, lights blinking their usual rhythm. "Well, it's a Tuesday..." A joking reference to the couple's near-weekly breakups that crew members claimed you could set a chronometer by.
“He broke up with me.”
"Oh… that's a glitch in the pattern..." Uhura's expression shifted immediately, humor draining into seriousness. "But you're not sure? What did he say?"
The chemist tried to keep her voice steady, but her breath shuddered in her chest. "That if we weren't dating anymore there would be no point to my investigation."
"...Or to my good news." The Communications Officer's lips pressed together thoughtfully. "Which is that I was able to get in touch with Max Rostov. I can put a call through to him at 06:00... if you still want to do that?"
"Yes." No hesitation. Immediate.
Uhura raised one skeptical eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
The chemist retrieved her datapad containing her investigation notes from across the cabin. She gave her eyes a defiant swipe with the back of her hand. "Was Max able to tell you anything else?"
"The name of the Haven who placed the commission was Barilon. Jer may have some information for you on him... if you still want to...?"
Gollub tried to stay professional, focused on the screen, but her lower lip betrayed her with a tremble. "Chekov is saying that I'm putting my nose into other people's business where it doesn't belong."
"You are, sugar." Her friend's voice was gentle but honest.
"And that investigating a trail that carves a hot path through his love life is humiliating to him."
The Communications Officer sighed, her shoulders dropping slightly. "It is."
Gollub scrubbed at her red-rimmed eyes again. "And that I would never put up with anything like this in a billion years."
Uhura gave a half-laugh, shaking her head at the obvious truth. "Not for half a scalding second even if all our lives depended on it."
The chemist suddenly held up a finger. “There was that one time that I had to confess a lot of shitty shit for a mission!” she countered triumphantly.
The Communications Officer blinked in surprise. “Because Chekov asked you to?”
“No,” Gollub admitted grudgingly. “Because Evil Twin Del was blackmailing the hell out of me.”
“Oh, I remember that…” Uhura blew out a long breath and shook her head. “The longer I’m on this ship, the harder it is to come up with a hypothetical more extreme than some of the crazy shit we’ve been through…”
“Tru dat,” her friend confirmed with a sigh.
“My guess, though, is that Chekov tried his best to treat your whole confession as a kind of very odd mission briefing and asked no follow-up questions, because…”
"Because I would have killed him. Yeah, okay, I get it…." Gollub dried her eyes with determination. "So this is it. I'm going to talk to Uncle Max. Get my answers. Then case closed. Investigation over."
The Communications Officer lifted a dubious eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
The simple question shattered her resolve. "No..." The sob broke through, and tears spilled down her cheeks. All her doubts crashed over her like a wave.
“Oh, Daffy…”
"I can't quit now. I feel like I'm so close." Her voice was thick with tears and frustration.
Uhura leaned closer to her own screen, as if proximity could bridge the distance between her station and her friend’s quarters. "Have you thought more about what I asked you? About why you're doing this?"
"I just..." Daffy began, then dissolved again, her face crumpling. "I don't know. I just know I can't let this go."
"Even if it tears your relationship apart?"
"Maybe if it tears apart that easily," the chemist shot back, finding anger beneath the grief, "it's not worth saving."
"Girl." The Communications Officer laughed, genuine and affectionate. "I don't exactly think you can use the 'tears easily' standard on this particular relationship. It's got more battle scars than the whole front line of the Klingon offensive fleet."
"There is that." A ghost of a smile flickered across Daffy's face.
"Before when we talked about this," Uhura said, her voice softening, "you mentioned your mother. I don't think I've ever heard you talk about her before."
"Not a lot of good memories… Not from the end." Gollub's voice dropped to something small, hollow. "We just watched her get sicker and sicker, and my father just... withdrew. He couldn't handle it. So he left me to handle it, even though I was just a kid. And after she died, he stayed… out of reach. Like he was afraid if he loved me too much, he'd lose me too."
The communications officer let the silence stretch, giving her friend space to breathe through the pain.
"I learned early that love is temporary," the chemist continued, bitterness coating each word. "That people leave. That even when they stay physically, they can leave emotionally. So yes, maybe that's what I'm looking for... proof. Maybe I do need tangible evidence that someone isn't going to vanish on me." She lifted her tear-streaked face to the viewscreen, her eyes pleading. "Is that such a terrible thing?"
"No." Her friend's voice was full of compassion, warm as an embrace. "As long as you realize that finding out about these rings isn't necessarily going to change any of those feelings for you."
Gollub drew in a deep, shuddering breath, wiped away fresh tears with both hands this time, and nodded. "Yeah."
"Okay, kid." The Communications Officer gave her an encouraging smile. "You talk to Jer and Uncle Max. I'll talk to Chekov. And then case closed. Okay?"
"Yeah." The chemist nodded and returned the smile, though somewhere in the back of her mind she could hear the Fates laughing at her words. "Then case closed."
The doorbell chimed, and Daffy's stomach dropped like she'd hit zero-g without warning. She sat cross-legged on her bunk, still in her rumpled off-duty clothes, datapad balanced on her knee. Jeremy Paget's notes about Luk Barilion, the Haven who had commissioned the rings, swam before her eyes—she'd read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a word. Her boots lay where she'd kicked them off hours ago, one upright, one on its side.
Her fingers flew to her hair, frantically tucking loose strands back into the updo that had mostly surrendered to gravity. The mirror across the cramped cabin reflected what she feared: red-rimmed eyes, blotchy cheeks. Uhura had promised to talk to Chekov, but surely that was too soon for results. The Russian needed at least another day to cool off, didn't he?
Unless he was coming back for round two.
"Come!" The word came out shakier than she intended.
The door slid open with its familiar whoosh.
Of the four hundred and thirty-two beings currently aboard the USS Enterprise, Yeoman Martha Landon ranked somewhere in Daffy's bottom five for "people she wanted to see right now." (The other four were owed either money or overdue reports.) Yet there she stood in the doorway, backlit by the corridor's harsh fluorescent glow, looking like she'd stepped out of a holovid.
Whereas Daffy felt like roadkill in her wrinkled tunic, Martha looked ready for a recruitment poster. Her impossibly long blonde hair—the kind that probably flowed in slow motion—was swept up in an elegant twist that had probably taken thirty seconds and somehow looked effortless. She'd changed out of her uniform into a fitted blue velveteen tunic that brought out her eyes, paired with slate grey leggings. In her hands: two crystal tumblers and a bottle of Saurian brandy, its amber contents catching the light.
Daffy knew if she were a guy, her tongue would have unrolled like a red carpet.
"Jesus Christ," she groaned instead. "What are you doing here?"
The yeoman stepped inside without waiting for permission, the door hissing shut behind her. She set the bottle and glasses on Daffy's desk with deliberate care, moving aside a stack of datapads to make room. "I heard you were making inquiries about the rings." Her voice was matter-of-fact, business-like. "I thought we should talk."
"Did Chekov send you?" Gollub crossed her arms, hating the defensive edge in her voice, hating even more that she couldn't hide it.
"Pavel doesn't know I'm here." Martha poured two generous measures, the brandy glugging into the glasses. The sharp, sweet smell filled the small cabin. "And before you ask—Uhura didn't send me either. I came because I wanted to."
"Why?" Daffy accepted the offered glass but held it like a weapon. "To gloat?"
Martha's crystalline blue eyes—of course they were crystalline, because apparently she came from a factory that only produced perfect features—studied Daffy with an expression that looked uncomfortably like pity. "To help, actually." She took a sip from her own glass. "Though if you'd rather throw me out, I'll understand."
Every atom in Daffy's body screamed at her to do exactly that. To tell Martha to take her perfect hair and her perfect posture and her perfect history with Pavel and go to hell. She'd already told Uhura she was wrapping up this investigation after talking to Max Rostov—that would be the perfect excuse to end this conversation before it started.
But something in Landon's expression stopped her. A flicker of sadness maybe, or recognition. Something that suggested this wasn't the victory lap Daffy had expected.
"Fine." Gollub gestured with her glass toward the room's only chair. "You want to talk? Talk."
Martha settled into the desk chair, cradling her glass with both hands. The brandy caught the light, turning her fingers amber. "I know you think I'm here to defend my territory or something. But I'm not. My relationship with Pavel ended a long time ago, and it ended for good reasons."
The chemist painted on her most saccharine smile. "Because you're so mature and evolved, I assume?"
"Because we wanted different things." The yeoman's tone stayed level, infuriatingly reasonable. "He needed someone who could match his intensity, his seriousness. Someone who would challenge him." She paused, swirling the brandy. "I wanted someone who wouldn't continually try to protect me from the universe. We cared about each other deeply, but we weren't right for each other long-term."
Daffy stared into her glass, watching the liquid shift. "Then why keep the ring?"
"Because it represents a time in my life when I was figuring out who I was. Pavel was part of that journey." Martha leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "The ring isn't about him, Daffy. It's about me. About who I was becoming when he gave it to me."
"How great for you," Gollub muttered.
"Is it?" Landon's voice sharpened slightly. "Would it be better if I threw it away to make you feel less threatened? Would that actually change anything about your relationship with Pavel?"
As had been true in her interviews with Chekov’s other ladies, this disputation hit harder than the chemist expected. She took a drink, welcoming the burn down her throat, the way it made her eyes water for a different reason.
"You want to know what Pavel told me when we broke up?" Martha didn't wait for an answer. "He said he'd never met anyone who made him work so hard to be understood. That I challenged every assumption he had about how relationships should work. That I made him think about what he really wanted, not just what he thought he should want."
"Mazel tov." Daffy's voice dripped acid. "He found someone who challenged him. Lucky you."
"He was talking about his next relationship. He was talking about you."
The words hang in the air between them. Daffy felt her chest tighten.
"Pavel and I broke up because we'd gone as far as we could go together," Martha said quietly. "But that doesn't make what we had meaningless. And it doesn't make the ring worthless." She paused. "Just like his past relationships don't make yours meaningless."
"He gave away seven rings," the chemist replied, hating how small her voice sounds. "Seven. I'm number eight, or nine, or however many came after. How am I supposed to believe I'm special when there's a whole collection of women who came before me?"
Martha set down her glass and regarded Daffy with those too-perceptive eyes. "Do you know why I wanted to talk to you? Why I came here tonight?"
"To tell me I'm being meshuga about all this?"
"Because I've been watching you for months, and I've seen something I recognize." The yeoman’s voice was gentle. "You're terrified. Not of Pavel leaving you — of Pavel actually staying. Of him seeing all of you, every difficult, complicated, brilliant part of you, and choosing to stay anyway."
Gollub could feel her eyes burning. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I?" Martha stood and moved to sit on the edge of Daffy's bunk. "I left Pavel because I got scared he was going to try to change me into someone safer, someone more suitable for a Russian officer with traditional parents. But he never tried to change me. I changed myself, preemptively, because I was afraid." She touched Daffy's arm lightly. "You're doing the same thing. You're so busy proving he doesn't really love you — look at all these other women, look at these rings — that you're not giving him a chance to prove he does."
"That's not—" Daffy started, then stopped. The protest died in her throat.
Was it true? Was she sabotaging herself?
"The rings are just silver," Martha said firmly. "Inexpensive computer replications of true metal, like Pavel said. But you're making them symbols of something bigger because it's easier to fight about jewelry than to admit you're scared."
Daffy swiped at her eyes angrily, smearing whatever remained of her makeup. "Even if that's true—and I'm not saying it is—there's still something strange about this whole situation. A Haven trader commissioning an expensive ring for a Starfleet admiral? That's not nothing."
She stood, moving back toward the desk, her hand trailing along the edge of Daffy's bunk. "I'm not going to give you my ring, Daffy. It's mine." She paused, fingertips on the brandy bottle. "However... maybe I do know something that might help your investigation."
Gollub looked up sharply. "What?"
"A few months ago, Pavel and I ran into each other in the rec room. We were catching up, being friendly—it was nice, actually. Civil." Martha picked up her glass again, turning it in her hands. "I was wearing my ring. When he saw it, he said something about how he wished he'd asked his Uncle Max more questions when he gave them to him."
"Questions about what?"
"About why Max seemed so troubled when he handed over the box. Pavel said his uncle kept saying things like 'such a waste' and 'I hope she's all right' and 'such beautiful work, but for what?'" Martha's gaze went distant, remembering. "At the time, Pavel thought Max was just sad about the canceled commission. But looking back, he wondered if maybe Max knew more about what was going on than he let on."
"Did Pavel try to contact his uncle?"
"I don't know. He seemed... distracted when he talked about it. Almost worried." Martha's eyes refocused on Daffy. "Like there was something he wasn't saying."
"Hmmm…” Daffy frowned. “He didn’t say anything to me.”
“You didn’t have any connection to the rings then,” the yeoman reminded the chemist. She raised her glass in a small toast. "But you do now."
"Yeah." The chemist chewed her lower lip. "I've shoved my nose right into the middle of whatever this is."
"Whatever's going on with these rings might actually be important. I don't know." Martha headed for the door, which slid open at her approach. She paused in the threshold, light from the corridor spilling in around her silhouette. "What I do know is this — Pavel cares about you enough to be genuinely upset right now. I've never seen him like this about anyone." She added, voice dropping lower, "Not even me. And I think you care about him the same way, even if you're too scared to admit it."
"Martha." Daffy called out before the other woman could step through. She sighed, the sound scraping out of her. "Look... thanks for the info."
Martha turned back, a sad but genuine smile touching her lips. "Before you kick me out, then, let me give you one last piece of advice." She leaned against the doorframe. "Get your own ring, Daffy. Not one of the seven. Something that's just yours and Pavel's. That's what will matter in the end."
The door slid shut behind her with a soft hiss. D
affy let out a long, ragged breath and drained her glass in one burning gulp. The brandy hit her stomach like fire.
"Another mouthful of choking on that perfection and I would've plotzed," she complained to the empty room, to the walls that had witnessed everything, to the boots still lying where she'd kicked them off. She set down the empty glass. "But when she's right, she's right."