A/N: I'm appealing to my inner (and outer...) nerd by writing these. Exploring the beginning of Spock/Uhura has been intriguing to me ever since I saw the ST:2009 movie, which was seriously amazing. These will just be a series - maybe chronological, maybe not - of how these two began their relationship. Hope you like the start; sorry there's not more action, but it really doesn't seem practical, what with two people like Spock and Nyota, to have them being all, "OmG i luv u!!!11!" in the first 1000 words of a story. Sorry folks, real people don't develop that way, and so neither will my characters. That said, I hope you enjoy this.
At the age of nineteen, Nyota Uhura thought she had experienced nothing.
Every day was the same: attend school; work; go home and bicker with that incessantly chatty and annoying roommate of hers, Gaila; study, complete homework; eat, sleep, repeat. It was boring.
She did love being in StarFleet, though. The classes were challenging and rigorous, the curriculum sufficiently difficult enough to keep a girl like her - determined, work-oriented, and very smart - educationally sated. But afterwards, when the other cadets would stumble out of the lecture hall, half-asleep and grumbling, she would always feel this kind of chasm between herself and them. They weren't like her; they didn't seem to enjoy the learning like she did, and they spent much more time with friends and at clubs. Sitting predictably in the front row during one of her classes, she snorted as she thought this. If Gaila was any indication, many of the other cadets were much more concerned with... other things. Gaila's whole life was seemingly centered around her looks, partying, men, and most importantly: sex.
And to think that before I enrolled in StarFleet I thought it was only men who were horny a hundred percent of the time, she mused sardonically, chewing on the end of a pen. The students in her class had already adapted to her strange habits- really, pens? It was such an ancient one, too. Plastic and with a cheap cap, the pen was irritable and moody and only wrote, apparently, when it deigned to. It was very inefficient compared to the PADDs that everyone else used. Still, for Cadet Uhura, pen and paper (she had to ship it all the way from Norway!) brought her back to, as corny as it sounded, a simpler time.
Born in the Africa of a very different time, even though it was only twenty years ago, she had not been raised with technological advances equal to the rest of the world's at the time. The people still lived in brick homes, drove cars, talked on cell phones, and yes, used pen and paper to write. She estimated that life in Africa at the time of her birth and upbringing was more or less equivalent to the United States around the early 21st century.
"Cadet Uhura," came a voice, quite suddenly snapping her out of her apparent reverie, "Are you... feeling ill?" Oh damn, it was him. That pointy-eared, obnoxious, idiot fucking Vulcan bastard! He was the worst. She understood that he was not human, and couldn't understand about human needs, but geez. The amount of homework he gave was taxing, even for the super-student Uhura thought herself. And not only did the Commander assign a large amount of homework, he assigned a large amount of hard work. Just yesterday she had been at the library for three hours, and hadn't even gotten a third of the way through with this week's homework!
Cringing with embarrassment, she felt her face flame as she jerked her head up to meet his gaze. Her half-Vulcan professor was staring down at her, an eyebrow characteristically flicked upwards in askance. Tall, lean, but somehow muscular, Spock exuded an air of supreme confidence. She supposed that his being more intelligent than anyone she knew including (she had grudgingly admitted) herself, coupled with his stoic Vulcan ways made him -somehow- a target of several female cadets. Even Uhura could admit that, while he might've been a bastard... damn, he was fine.
I did not just think that about Commander Spock!
"No," she managed after a prolonged pause that did not help her case. He continued to scrutinize her, to her intense discomfort, before seemingly deciding that she wasn't lying, and nodding.
"If you are having trouble with the lesson, Cadet, I will be available after class," the Commander informed her coolly.
Uhura was furious. She was the top student in the class! Of course she wasn't having difficulty understanding the lesson. How typical of that absolute jerk to completely disregard her, to write her off as... as.. someone like Gaila, for crying out loud!
She didn't vocalize any of these thoughts to Spock, of course. She merely acquiesced with a small, "Yes, Commander," and sank back down in her chair. When he turned to go, she dearly wanted to stick her tongue out at his retreating back, but the instinct was stamped down by her propriety.
She really hated that Spock, though.
End A/N: Yep. That's the beginning. She hates him. It makes sense, yeah? I mean, he can be pretty weird if one doesn't know him like the audience does, so why shouldn't Nyota hate him? Anyways, please review. It really really makes my day. And gives me an incentive to write. Worth it?