The Things We Carry
Uhura's POV
Outside, the light shifts into the blue glow of twilight as more snow blows softly by. Tomorrow: trade negotiations and scientific exchanges. Tonight, we have the gift of a quiet interlude before the storm of tomorrow's conference.
With a sudden gust of wind, the window darkens. Snow flows by sideways, and the storm shakes the small cabin. The blizzard makes me feel restless and a bit melancholy. As with anyone capable of life on a starship, I'm hardly claustrophobic, but I can imagine what it means to be snowbound. I take my cup of coffee and return to the sofa beside Spock, too restless to read.
"Do you think about Vulcan sometimes?" I murmur into my coffee. I regret the thoughtlessness of my musing, and bite my lip as if I could take my words back.
He glances sideways at me, with no expression, just checking to see if I'm serious.
Evidently he decides I'm not. He goes back to working on his PADD, no doubt preparing for tomorrow's conference.
I stretch my legs out and snuggle my toes beneath his thigh, and lean back into the arm of the sofa. Still reading, his hand absently drifts to the tops of my feet.
"Computer: increase ambient air temperature by three degrees Celsius." He says it also absently, not taking attention from his work.
I chuckle, and this time he raises an eyebrow as he glances at me.
"Don't you think I would have raised the temperature for you if I could have? It's already at its maximum setting." I eye the woodstove in the corner warily. "I suppose I could build a fire." Or maybe phaser the archaic thing for heat, if I could do it without burning the cabin down. I visualize it glowing red—
Seriously?
No.
He doesn't even look up.
Ah. Humor.
"It should not be a surprise that Kirk's selection of venue would prove both adventuresome and uncomfortable."
I smile, and roll the coffee cup between my hands to warm them, still restless. "Yep. Should have known."
"The Andorian delegates will find the temperature most satisfactory, however. I would, also, not put it past the Captain to have taken this factor into consideration."
I turn on the sofa, shifting my weight and tucking my feet beneath me, and snuggle into his shoulder.
"Aren't you cold?" I shudder as another blast of wind rattles the cabin.
Still without looking up from his PADD, Spock's arm encircles my shoulders, and he pulls me closer. "I am wearing my thermals as usual. Additionally, I am rather accustomed to constant cold."
I sip my coffee, enjoying this rare, relaxed physical closeness.
"You're actually starting to like him, aren't you."
Spock breathes out a half sigh and looks at me, then back at his PADD.
"He remains arrogant, impulsive, abrasive. But he is also perceptive, charismatic, insightful, and capable of strategic brilliance. He is…loyal."
"Hmm. In a word, 'fascinating'?" I tease.
"Labeling one's friend with a single word would be excessively objectifying. No, I would not apply such a term to Jim Kirk." He holds the screen of his PADD out for me to see. "This exchange of data regarding the Horsehead nebula's quasar is 'fascinating'."
I give my sweetie a warm smile.
I manage to turn my attention back to my coffee for a while, giving him space to enjoy his data. I think I could almost hear his mind hum if I listened closely enough.
"Hum? Like a computer?" He gives me a reproachful glance.
"You're not supposed to read my thoughts." I growl, but playfully.
"Need I remind you I am a touch telepath?" He gives me another sideways glance.
"And sometimes your thoughts are rather…loud."
I start to blush and I can't keep my thoughts from straying in rather frisky directions. "A big, powerful, well-ordered computer perhaps."
Hardly taking his eyes off his PADD he leans a bit and lightly kisses my temple. "Time enough later, Nyota." He says gently.
I watch the snow fall.
The evening light filling the window now glows a cold cobalt blue.
No less than Spock, I am a desert creature. But this weather is beautiful in its own way. I look up at him, wondering if he thinks it is beautiful, too, and he glances at the window with all the appreciation of a cat eyeing a bath.
The corners of his mouth twitch, barely perceptibly, the equivalent of a hearty chuckle from Spock.
"…colorful metaphor…" He murmurs.
I sip my coffee and try again. "If you could retrieve just one thing from Vulcan—"
He looks at me so abruptly that I gasp, startled. I don't see any change of expression but I feel a wave of anguish ripple through me.
"Thing, Spock! Thing." I know you'd bring your mother back if you could.
He turns away, but this time I know he's not really looking at his PADD.
"If such a Devil's Bargain could be made…"
I follow his thoughts—not telepathically, but intuitively: what damage would be done? What price paid?
He shakes his head a little.
"What price would it be? You? The Captain? The Enterprise? My father? Peace in the Alpha quadrant? What price would be high enough to equal? And I would trade none of these."
"Maybe you have it wrong."
He shakes his head.
"Clarify."
"Maybe the universe owes you, now, for what was taken from you."
He brushes my cheek with the back of his fingertips. "A fascinating theory. I will consider it, although I think it unlikely that the universe operates in this way. Nonetheless, if it does, it has already granted certain compensating generosities."
I smile, hoping my heart doesn't break.
"Flirt."
"Lover. And beloved."
"I'm not so sure later is a good idea." I sigh, wistfully.
"You are maintaining remarkable self-discipline." He puts down his PADD. "I had rather not expected your control to last this long. Nyota, you could simply have requested my attention. And gained it gladly, by the way."
"You were timing me!" I exclaim. Then curious, I add, "How long?"
"You exceeded the point at which I predicted your loss of patience by forty-seven minutes, fifteen point nine two three seconds. I will have to recalculate my baseline for your willfulness."
"Would you consider kissing me first?"
"It is necessary, in fact, for the recalibration of my data points."
Later, in more awkward positions—and wholly satisfied by a Vulcan male who excels in all he does-my mind runs away with me again.
"How can you just not think about it?" I whisper into the darkness. "Can you really compartmentalize it like that?"
He rolls onto his side and I can just make out the glint of blue light reflecting in his dark eyes.
"This troubles you."
"Yes."
We fall silent and I know he is studying me still.
It is one thing to love, and I know he loves me wildly, with a loss of restraint that baffles him. But trust? If anything, that is even harder for him, and that speaks of broken places that I probably can't and probably shouldn't even try to fix.
"My great-grandfather's journals." He speaks very softly.
"What?"
I'd completely forgotten about my earlier question.
"One thing. If I could have one thing back from Vulcan."
"Oh."
The silence falls again, dark and cold and cobalt blue.
"He kept handwritten journals of his studies of earth. Well before, and after, first contact." He slowly breathes out. "Of course, they were scanned and the file placed in the Vulcan archives and Memory Alpha. But the originals were in my father's study. Unredacted."
I break into a grin. "You'd sneak in there and read them."
"Yes."
"And your father didn't approve?"
"My great-grandfather was quite candid in his opinions."
"As is to be expected of a Vulcan of your family's stature. Descendants of Surak and all that," I tease.
"Some of his opinions were scandalous. Lascivious. Like the Captain, he was a true explorer, with few personal boundaries."
I gasp, and then can't help but giggle at the implication.
"I see. They also documented the family weakness for earth-women?"
"I cannot dispute the preponderance of evidence in the journals and our lives."
His fingertips lightly trace the contours of my face.
We fall silent again.
"The journals were bound in red parchment and always on the corner of my father's desk."
"So the pornographic parts could be handy," I tease.
"Nyota!" He protests in a whisper, genuinely scandalized.
"Okay. I apologize." And shift my tone. "Honey…the journals were priceless. I understand that."
"Objects. Of no value at all compared to the lives lost."
When he says it, it isn't a platitude. It falls heavy and real in the darkness, and Shi'Kahr swims before my eyes bright and alive again.
He pulls me more tightly into his arms, spooning. "I can't stop thinking about it, Nyota," he whispers. "I can't compartmentalize it away. It is always there. Or perhaps it's the absence that is always there in the background like…" I know, in his search for words, he is really trying hard to help me understand, "…like a roughly erased recording on an endless loop."
I feel him press his face into my hair and I clasp the arms encircling me.
If I am some little comfort, I think, I am grateful.
He whispers into my hair, barely audibly, "Sometimes…"
But he falls silent so long that I think perhaps he's fallen asleep. Then he shivers a little and takes a deeper breath.
"Sometimes I think I cannot bear it. And yet, I must."
In the morning I am awakened by soft pattering sounds: feet on a wooden floor, the luxurious drizzle of a water shower, the little whine of a sonic toothbrush. I snuggle deeper into the warm bedding, and cringe at the soft tap of ceramic on the nightstand beside me. Through squinted eyes I watch steam rise from a cup of freshly replicated coffee. I know it will be perfect, the kitchen's replicator re-programmed to exacting specifications down to the molecular modification of the relevant bioflavonoids.
All I manage is a groan of protest, but I admire the view as he passes, pulling on his uniform.
He notices I'm awake and gives me a brisk nod of approval, but does not break the peaceful silence with words. I like that about Vulcans, about Spock.
Spock stands in front of the mirror combing and re-combing his hair, turning his head to check for glossy perfection. Without even turning he traps my hands before I can make a mess of his handiwork.
"Oh, come on!" I protest.
He pulls me into an embrace without letting go. I'm not quite sure how he does it; perhaps some quirk of flexible Vulcan rotator cuffs.
"We need to work on your stealth techniques," he says, but his eyes search mine for signs he said too much last night.
"I can't help it if I'm clumsy when I wake up!"
"You can. Eventually I will manage to teach you how."
"Okay." I yawn and lean into him. He sets the comb down and proceeds to run his hands from my cheeks, down along my sides to rest on the curve of my hips that he seems to find particularly fascinating. (I have seen doodles where he has tried to calculate the precise mathematical description of it.) For a moment his expression is wistful.
"What?"
He leans his forehead to mine and I know.
I'll miss you, too, today.
I catch the twinkle in his eyes. "I will miss you more." He teases, launching a familiar game between us.
"I'll miss you inexorably, like gravity."
"I will miss you radically, like quantum field fluxuations."
"I'll miss you intensely, like a compressed subspace transmission data packet."
He nods approvingly. "Of course, Communications Specialist Level Seven. I shall miss you to the subatomic level."
"I will miss you to…to…" I eye the coffee and give up. "…the unified field. Okay? Now get out of here before you're late. Why, oh why, must engineers be such early birds?"
He bends to kiss me, pulling me a little roughly to him, his hands exploring those favored curves again.
He lets go, and for a moment we hold eye contact before he turns back to the mirror. He checks his hair with a dramatic little sigh.
"It's perfect." I scold.
He turns and looks down at me, his expression softening.
"Yes. It is."
In a blur of efficiency, he pulls on his all-weather coat and is gone and I sink back down on the edge of the bed with my own sigh. I pick up the coffee cup, and the coffee it contains is perfect: timed, no doubt, to cool to a precisely drinkable temperature at the predicted time of his departure.
I see he's set out a bath towel for me, too. I break into a silly grin at his restrained attempts to pamper and protect me: so very Vulcan…and so very nice.
His mother was famous—or perhaps infamous—for saying she considered herself a very fortunate earth-woman.
I sip my perfect coffee as I watch the blue of night lift and brighten into morning.
Well. I second the motion.
I am loved by the bravest soul I know.