Come Hell or High Water

Chapter 5: Arms

Amber sighed as she stared into the mirror in her bathroom, running a brush through her hair to take out the knots, part of her night-time ritual. She set the brush down on the counter and took a good look at her reflection, putting a hand to her face. Her appearance hadn't changed, she didn't look any different, but she couldn't remember who she had been a matter of three months ago.

It felt as if years had passed. Everything was changed. She briefly wondered what would have happened to her if she had never died. Would she be graduating right now, smiling as she took her diploma? Would she be going off to college or starting a job? Would she be seeing somebody that was so sweet that he took her breath away?

She felt her heart clench painfully in her chest. It didn't matter what could have happened - she was stuck here now. Even though she had been welcomed with opened arms and found friends, felt needed by somebody, she still felt out of place. It happened every day, where she felt confused by this new world she had been forced into. Just yesterday she had been talking to Surok and couldn't even understand half of the conversation they had been having as it drifted to current events. She couldn't pretend to understand anything about dilithium crystals or starships, which seemed to be a source of interest for him. Even if she couldn't follow, she didn't feel that he was angry at her. If anything, it gave him a chance to explain to her, teach her something that was important to him. She had begun to differentiate between his subtle emotions and could see how he enjoyed being a mentor, something she imagined must have become natural for him as he tried to raise his Tyvik.

However, he was the only Vulcan who seemed to tolerate her. She had met a few of the others, but they had become irritated that she wasn't at what they thought was a "human level of understanding."

The only time she didn't feel out of place was with Chekov.

She couldn't explain why, but she felt at home with Pavel. They had spent dozens of hours in the Mess and in her room going over Russian vocabulary and grammer, but Amber knew this was only an excuse to spend time together. She still had her edition of Crime and Punishment on her nightstand, untouched since the night he had given it to her, but she didn't care to read it anymore. Chekov hadn't even mentioned it since he had given it to her. His lessons had become more than simply memorizing vocabulary and practising sentence structures. Far more.

Her last lesson had been earlier that evening in her room, a matter of hours ago. She smiled and held a hand to her cheek, feeling her face heat up at the memory.

Chekov lay next to her on his back, head turned to watch her translating the simple sentences on the PADD before her. She had her brow furrowed in concentration as she typed in her response. He smiled, watching her deep in thought. A piece of dark brown hair fell into her line of vision and he immediately found his hand reaching out to tuck it back behind her ear. She paused and turned to glance at him, shyly blushing before returning back to her work.

"Done," she said, proudly holding the PADD out to him. He raised an eyebrow at her - she had finished unusually quick compared to her history with his quizzes - and took it from her, holding it above his head as his eyes scanned the screen.

He chuckled to himself and sat up, circling three sentences out of the five. "These are wrong," he said, handing it back to her.

"What?" she shouted in disbelief. "But I was sure I got the third one right!"

"You did not conjugate the noun right," he said. He couldn't help but smile at her frustration.

She groaned and threw the PADD onto her pillow. "I give up. Your language is impossible!" she said, throwing her face down into the covers.

He laughed and ruffled her hair. "It is only hard because you do not practice."

She looked up at him in mock anger. "Practice? I do nothing but practice! All I ever do is learn Russian from you and coordinates from Hikaru and awkward alien phrases from Nyota and engineering schematics from Scotty -"

"And Vulcan from Surok," Chekov finished for her.

She scoffed. "I'm not very good at that either."

"Mr. Spock seems to think you are improving greatly."

"Mr. Spock is being nice."

"Vulcans are not 'nice,' they are honest."

"Spock is only half Vulcan. He can be nice," Amber replied, only weakly whining at this point.

Chekov reclined against his arm next to her smirked. "The more you practice, the better you will become. You use Vulcan much more than you do Russian, so it becomes easier for you."

She frowned. "It's not like there are a dozen people who speak Russian on the ship. Just you and Nyota, and she finds Romulan and Klingon more fascinating than any earth languages."

Chekov considered this for a moment, nodding to himself as a plan formed in his mind. "Then I will only speak to you in Russian from now on."

She shot up, searching his face with wide eyes. "What! You're kidding!"

He laughed. "You will learn faster if you are forced to speak."

She groaned and threw herself back onto the bed. "You're trying to torture me, aren't you?"

He checked the clock and stood, sighing. "It is getting late. I must return to the bridge."

Amber sat up and nodded, looking away solemnly. It was always hard to return to the quiet of her room after enjoying his company.

She saw him move to the door and pause before returning to the bed. She glanced up to ask what he wanted when he leaned down and placed a kiss to her cheek.

He left her with a quiet whisper of "Good night."

Amber smiled to herself and stood to turn the lights off before slipping under the soft covers of her bed. She wondered how she should greet Chekov the next morning without embarrassing herself before she found herself falling asleep.

Waking up to a heavy cough that forced its way through her sore throat, Amber sat up in bed and put a hand to her chest, taking deep, slow breaths. She groaned as she pulled the covers back and moved to sit on the edge of her bed, glancing at the clock. She briefly recognized that it was sometime after two in the morning before standing and making her way to the sink. Her legs were screaming in protest all the while.

She gazed at her reflection in the mirror and put a hand to her forehead. Either her hand or her face was burning, but she couldn't tell which. Her head was spinning too hard and fast for her to tell if that was even her forehead she was touching. She gripped at the sink to keep from falling over, but she still felt herself swerving around.

She found her way to the faucet and turned on the tap, pouring a small glass of water that she quickly used to douse the fire in her throat. She still felt herself burning up when her legs gave out below her and her head fell against the tile floor.

All she could feel was the throbbing in her head and the thumping of her heart. Everything seemed to hurt, but the cold floor helped a small bit. The more time passed that she spent on the tile cooled her down a little. She rapidly felt a chill coming on and tried to move into a ball to stay warm, but her body resisted.

The earth below her began to shift until she could tell that she wasn't on the ground anymore. She was so hot now, as if she was standing in a fire, her flesh burning more and more, growing warmer and warmer until she couldn't take it anymore. She was suddenly laying on something soft, and her forehead was cool, but her head was still spinning, her vertigo keeping her down and unable to move without incredible disorientation.

She didn't notice time passing. There was a beeping near her ear that threatened to force her headache to implode her skull.

"Amber, can you hear me?" someone was calling out to her. She wanted to push them away and sleep. Why couldn't they let her sleep? She felt like she hadn't sleep in days, she was so exhausted.

A hand gripping her own brought her back to a semblance of reality, where she could feel the air conditioning going through the room and smell the sinus-clearing scent of antiseptics. It was one of the only things that hadn't changed throughout the years that she had been comatose, that same smell that only a doctor's office possessed.

"Amber," a voice softly said. It was male and familiar. She felt her heart skip a beat. She should know this voice. It was so warm, so kind, so achingly trying to reach out to her that she longed to reply, desperately tried to move her throbbing arms to reach out for it.

"Please, wake up," he pleaded.

"Ensign, you're needed on the bridge," someone said faintly.

"I'm not leaving," the man replied resolutely.

"You want me to tell the captain you're disobeying his orders?"

He paused before saying, "I can't leave her." His voice was quiet and weak.

The visitor must have left, for his voice disappeared and Amber was left to focus on the memory of the man's voice and the touch of his hands as he had stroked her own. She registered that he visited often, sometimes stroking her face or her hair, or laying a soft kiss to her forehead. These moments caused her heart to take off like the wings of a hummingbird and she didn't know why.

She began to become aware of the day passing. When the man sat next to her bed, holding her hand, it was approximately midday. Other people often talked next to where she lay at this time, but he was a constant in the unintelligible hum of people. When he left, it was night. It grew quiet and still. When she heard the sound of tools clanging against each other, as if they were being moved, it was morning. An alarm went off every day at this time before it was abruptly quieted. The afternoon held her anticipation the most and sent her heart galloping away.

Her visitor often took to talking to her, rattling off endless conversations in a hope that she would return with a sentence or two. She wanted nothing more than to let him know that she could hear him, but her body refused to respond. "Captain Kirk keeps asking about you. He wanted me to tell you that you should be having 'sweet dreams of you and him'. I do not agree," he said, pausing. "Nurse Chapel says that she doubts you are having sweet dreams. Apparently Vulcan Influenza causes severe hallucinations in humans." She felt him circling his thumb on the back of her hand before laying a kiss to her palm.

"I wonder what you would say if you knew I was here," he trailed off one day. "I am probably overstepping many boundaries, but I...I just-" he stopped abruptly and sighed. There was one last kiss on her cheek before his presence was gone.

It was about midnight when she felt a spark to her fingertips. Her face twitched and she moved to pull away from it.

"Tyvik, no," she heard someone say lowly.

She groaned and moved her hand, joyous to find that the soreness had receded from her limbs, to cover her eyes as she blinked them open, grateful to find blackness rather than bright hospital lights. For some reason, she felt as if she had just taken a very refreshing nap.

She moved to sit up when a hand landed on her shoulder, keeping her from getting out of bed fully. She turned and found Surok watching her with a blank face, as always.

"Surok," she said. There was a heavy weight on her legs and she looked down to find Tyvik holding his hand out for her.

She smiled and met his fingertips, feeling his relief. He had been worried about her when she didn't come back to play with him as if it was his fault. There was regret that his anger at leaving the deck prematurely might have caused her to stay away.

"Oh, it's not your fault Tyvik," Amber said, reaching over to hold him. He gratefully let her take him into his arms. "We can't always control when we get sick."

"I must apologize," Surok said, standing with his hands clasped behind his back at her bedside. She turned to him in confusion. "It was prolonged exposure to my brother and myself that caused your illness."

"That's ridiculous," Amber said. "People get sick - it's not anyone's fault."

"You were infected with a strain of a Vulcan virus equivalent to the human Influenza that you would have only received from us," he paused, but opened his mouth to say more. "Again, I apologize."

Amber smiled and took his hand, ignoring his response to pull away. "It's not your fault. Besides, I'm fine. No harm done," she finished with a smile.

Surok didn't seem to know how to react. He stared at her, searching for answers in her eyes. She didn't deny him his curiosity. She let go of his hand and moved to brush the hair out of Tyvik's eyes, who was fast asleep on her chest.

"I will tell Dr. McCoy that you are awake," Surok said softly, glancing one more time at his brother in her arms before leaving.

Once he was gone, Amber shifted her pillows so that she could lean against the bed at an elevated angle, allowing Tyvik to rest more comfortably. It was only minutes later when McCoy entered with Surok and a flustered Chekov behind him. She wondered why he was there. It had to be late. Was he waiting for her? This thought caused an uncomfortable but welcoming warmth to spread through her body.

McCoy smiled and walked up to her, scanning her with his instruments. "Glad to see you're awake. How are you feeling?" he asked.

"A lot better than before," she said. Surok took Tyvik from her arms to allow the doctor to examine her thoroughly without interference.

Amber caught Chekov's eyes and smiled. Instantly relief flooded his face and he stepped forward, unashamedly taking her hand gratefully. "I am glad you are well," he said softly.

She smiled. "You and me both."

The grin on his lips made his face glow. "You had me very worried. I did not expect to find you on your bathroom floor."

"Is that how I got here?"

He nodded. "You did not come down for breakfast, and I was worried. You almost gave me a heart attack, seeing you unconscious."

She laughed. "My hero," she teased him.

He laughed with her for a moment before they both grew subdued, watching McCoy run tests to make sure that she was well and had truly recovered from her unexpected illness.

Amber noticed that her hand was unusually warm. She glanced down at her hands and found Chekov fingers still intertwined with her own. She blushed, but didn't draw his attention to it. She loved the feel of his hand, the warmth of his skin, the steady motion of his thumb rubbing circles on the back of her palm. She wondered if he noticed it, or if the gesture was simply a habit. Either way, she wasn't eager to let him go and didn't draw his attention to it.

McCoy pulled up a chair next to her - giving Chekov an annoyed glance - and gave her a sympathetic smile. "I hate to tell you this -"

"Oh hell no!" Amber said, scrambling to the other side of the bed which forced her to release Chekov. "I know that look - you want to poke me with more of your gadgets!"

"It's necessary. If I don't give you the vaccination you could relapse, and that might kill you," he said, standing and pulling a hypo out of his drawer.

She tried to move far from the edge of the bed, but Chekov sat on the bed next to her and wrapped an arm around her waist, keeping her from moving very far - though that had more to do with how warm she felt rather than an restrictions on her movement. As McCoy approached her, Chekov clenched her hand and gave her a smile. She was so distracted with trying to keep the blood from rushing to her face that she didn't feel the quick prick in her arm.

Chekov laughed at the pout on her face once she realized how he had distracted her, unable to resist kissing her forehead.

"You are too cute."

Though she still felt sore and congested, Amber couldn't remember ever being happier. Chekov sat next to her all morning, filling her in on all that she had missed, talking to her for hours on end with a smile on his face. She loved to hear the sound of his voice coupled with his accent, especially when he rambled on about a topic he was interested in.

"...But Mr. Spock disagreed. He does not think that there is a likely chance that the Klingon's would follow us..."

She didn't understand one word, but she loved how his face lit up when she appeared interested. When he laughed, she laughed.

He paused and chuckled nervously. "I am sorry. I am probably boring you," he said, looking away with a small blush on his face.

Amber shook her head and patted his hand with a smile. "Not at all. I enjoy talking to you," she paused. "It's not like there's much else for me to do."

He smiled. "That is good." His voice trailed off as if usually did when they ended a certain conversation. When that silence fell, Amber just wanted it to go away. It felt awkward, unnatural, as if there was something that needed to be said between them. After all this time, ease of words hadn't found them yet. She felt like she was in the thralls of a childhood crush, constantly worried about the tiniest gestures and expressions, always obsessing over every word that she said to him.

"Though," she continued. "I am glad that you haven't kept up your threat to confuse me with Russian."

He laughed. "Threat? It was not a threat. I was trying to help you learn."

She scoffed. "Yeah, right. You just want to prove how much smarter you are than me."

"I would never! It is simply a matter of education and -"

She put a finger to his lips and giggled. "I'm joking," she said with a grin.

His face was bright red as he watched her pull her hand away in a daze.

They both grew quiet and the awkward silence followed. This time, however, Amber welcomed it. Chekov played with her hand again, running his fingers over its back or her palm, simply feeling her skin against her own. A low fire ignited in her, yearning for more. He had created a spark in her that desired to be with him, to talk to him, to hold and touch him. Unused to these feelings, she didn't know how to channel them or how to ease them to make them bearable, but she supposed that taking the plunge and finding out how he felt was better than playing this waiting game, where they took turns finding how far they could push the boundaries of friendship.

She cleared her throat. "I was wondering if you would help me with something," she asked, determined to avoid his eyes. She studied everything in the ward but him, knowing that her resolve would crumble to pieces if she was met with the force of his beautiful irises.

"Anything," he replied, a smile in his voice. God, everything he did made her nerves shake erratically. She hoped that her hands weren't shaking in his own.

"You see, I kind of have this...hypothesis, and I don't know how to set up the...experiment," she said.

"Experiment?" His eyes popped with excitement. "I thought you hated science."

"I do, but the curiosity is going to kill me," she laughed. A small amount of tension was released as they fell into an easy banter, but her heart was still fluttering like it had wings.

"Absolutely," he agreed. "I would love to help. What's your hypothesis?"

She was silent a moment before idly answering, "I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think that Russian guys are the best kissers."

Chekov froze. His face heated as a blush welled up from his dropping stomach that consumed his being. Was she really suggesting what he thought, what he had only dreamed of?

"But I've never had the chance to prove it, seeing as I've never dated a Russian guy," Amber concluded.

Chekov swallowed. "And how could I help?" he stuttered, his voice airy and shaky.

She turned to face him and gave him a look that he had a hard time looking away from. He adored it when she tilted her head like that, when her eyes glistened like that, when her lips pouted like that. It made his body shake with a strange need to hold her, to touch her.

He found his body moving on its own, taking commands some mind other than his own. His hands moved to rest against her face, holding her gaze with an intensity that they were both unused to and had them both shaking at the realization of what it could mean. With one finger he lifted her chin enough to let his lips brush against hers as gently as he could.

It was like being hit with a lightning bolt, the shock that went through him. His lips jumped away, but he couldn't stay, not with her sweet breath panting against his face. He found her lips again, longer this time, and the shock moved like slow molten rock throughout his body, changing the very foundations of his being.

He pulled away and she whimpered, forcing him to capture her lips in a deep kiss. He sifted his fingers through her hair, marvelling at how soft it was. He could run his hand all the way down her back before running out of hair, but he was just as satisfied to press her tighter against him. Her fingers held on at the base of his neck as she opened her mouth to his assault.

His body was screaming for oxygen, but he couldn't find the will to part from her, not when she was so close, so small, so warm, and she tasted so good.

"Mr. Chekov, it's a good thing I found you. I need-"

They sprung apart from each other as if they were burning, staring at each other and Kirk, standing in the doorway, repeatedly in paranoia. How much had he seen?

Jim didn't say anything as he entered the awkward silence. He did notice, however, how red Amber's lips were, how swollen they were, how dazed her expression was.

"What's going on here?"

Title Reference: "Arms" by Christina Perri