'Ten months. Ve only have ten more months, zen ve are back on Earth.'

Pavel and Ellen are sitting in a Rec Room, looking into space at the stars.

'It will be so good to see our families again. There will be someone new to introduce to them when we get back. They're both getting a new addition. And we've got something to bring back to Mom to placate her now as well.'

'You have already met my family. Zey consider you one of us already. I hardly call zat introducing, and vat do you-'

She laughs.

'And I thought that you understood me well. No, Pavel, I was talking about someone else.'

He looks at her quizzically. He's rather confused. Is this her payback for the impossible puzzle he gave her? Looking at the Stardate, he remembers that it has been exactly one year since the impossible task and his proposal. Perhaps this is her idea of payback. He notices her hand is resting lightly on her stomach.

'Vat? I don't understand! Vait-'

He remembers some of her odd behaviour lately. Eating strange foods, then usually throwing it up again. He thought that she'd just been going through a phase of illness or like of bizarre foods, which made her throw up. He didn't understand why anyone would eat stuff that made them ill. He'd made her go to Sickbay, but she'd said that nothing was wrong. She'd been tired lately too; he'd thought she was overworked. He remembers Lieutenant Uhura behaving like this, could it possibly be-

'Ellen, are you saying zat-'

She's laughing.

'Yes Pavel, I'm pregnant, about two months along.'

There is an absurd expression of joy on his face.

'I'm going to be a papa!'

He dances around, shouting, hugs her and kisses her fiercely.

'Calm down Pavel!'

She's still laughing.

He's so cheerful. He'll be a great father. If he's so happy now, then imagine when I tell him it's a boy. We'll name him for his grandfather.

In his excitement, he accidentally hits a button on the wall. The door bursts open, revealing Hikaru, Bones, Kirk, Scotty, Spock, Uhura and their little boy, who has only just started walking. It appears they were trying to listen through the door. Spock, as usual, maintaining his dignity, speaks first.

'I apologise for the disturbance, Lieutenants. I assure you that Lieutenant Uhura and I did not intend to overhear your private conversation, we were merely passing by. Our son has recently commenced a new stage of development; he spends much of his waking hours exercising his new abilities.'

Uhura catches on quickly.

'Yes, he was simply walking past, with us following behind, when he fell. We had to help him up, you know toddlers.'

Kirk, rather clumsily, adds his own excuse.

'Um, yeah. And I just happened to pass by and help them out!'

'Damn it, Jim! You're a Captain, not an actor! I was chasing you around, trying to give you your hypos! Wasn't my fault that you had to pick this damn Rec Room to slow down in front of!'

There are no hypos in his hand. Captain Kirk got his monthly contraceptive hypo yesterday.

'Aye. Don't mind me; I was just trying to fix the door! It's malfunctioning.'

They don't bother pointing out to Scotty they would have been able to hear him if he was fixing the door. And the door is obviously working perfectly fine.

'I was looking for my katana! I think I left it in here...'

Ellen laughs and rolls her eyes. She's been laughing a lot lately, Pavel vaguely wonders if it is to do with the hormones. Or perhaps there have simply been a lot of entertaining things happening.

'Hikaru, if you're looking for your katana, it's not here. Why would it be in the Rec Room?'

She doesn't point out that it's clipped to his belt as always. Pavel adds his own view to the conversation.

'You need to verk on your poker faces! You vould zink zat after so many years of poker nights you vould be better! I can teach you, poker faces vere inwented in Russia!'

Ellen glares at him. He's going to have to get used to the mood swings.

'Pavel, you don't have a good poker face either. And they were most certainly not invented in Russia. You're the one who was just dancing around the room a moment ago.'

There is silence. It is broken by Spock.

'Lieutenant, I would advise that you simply agree with Lieutenant Lee, for the purposes of self-preservation. I extend my congratulations to the two of you.'

Uhura steps forward, her son behind her, and embraces Ellen.

'Congratulations!'

To Pavel, she adds a few words of advice.

'Good luck. You're going to need it.'

He gulps.

Even the doctor adds his own congratulations of a sort.

'Damn it, we've got kids having kids. I didn't sign up for this! This is the 23rd century! Teen pregnancy is from the Dark Ages!'

Ellen chooses not to say that Doctor McCoy already knew, as she had gone to see him in Sickbay and he'd already given her his congratulations. He has a reputation to maintain after all.

'Doctor, we're turning 23 this year.'

'Yer still the wee lad and lass of this ship! Congratulations though! There'll be a wee wee lad or lass soon enough!'

'Congratulations! Nali's been saying that this was going to happen since the wedding. Well, I've been saying this day was going to come for ten years now! I called it first!'

Hikaru slaps Pavel on the back. Ellen makes a mental note to ask Hikaru and Nalinika to be the godparents.

Captain Kirk repeats the Helmsman's actions.

'Good work, Chekov. That was quick. Who would think that you'd have kids before me?'

He blushes redder than a tomato. So does Ellen.

'Captain, it is a statistical certainty that you would possess offspring by now had it not been for Doctor McCoy's vigilance.'

Spock is correct. If McCoy had not made sure the Captain got his monthly contraceptive hypo, there would be little Kirks running around by now. Spock's comment causes laughter from the little group of friends.

Ellen and Pavel look around the room, at their womanising Captain, the logical First Officer, the feisty Communications Officer, the sandwich-loving, scotch-drinking Chief Engineer, the grumpy Doctor and the fencing and botany loving Helmsman.

There are actually three families to break the news to. This is the first.

"Space... The final frontier...

These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.

Its continuing mission:

To explore strange new worlds...

To seek out new life; new civilisations...

To boldly go where no one has gone before!"

AN: It's a wrap! This is the very last chapter of the very last story of the Confessions of a Teenage Starfleet Cadet, A Tale of Two Ensigns and Diary of a Lieutenant To Be trilogy. I'm sorry, but there's not going to be any more. I'm sure this time!

But I do have other Star Trek stories in the works, and Ellen will make little cameo appearances in them, as it is now very hard to write Chekov without her. They've taken over my imagination!

Thanks to everyone for reading! An extra big thank you to All Cats Are Grey, angel's lil devil angel, curlycarly113, Phoenix Crystal, sheeponthemoon, socrgrl14, The Sentiness, Maudlin Mush, Reviewer, snatchthesnitch and stephiepoodle for reviewing/story alerting/favouriting! Thank you very much for all the support, I'm very glad and rather relieved that you all enjoyed the story!

This is TheGirlWhoRemembers, signing off!

Disclaimer: I'm an author, not the owner of Star Trek. Would I seriously be doing this if I owned it?