Right now

Spock watched Nyota Uhura walk towards the table where he sat waiting. The pale grey jumpsuit she wore was ill-fitting, the soft, low-heeled shoes clunky and unflattering. The expression on her beautiful face when she sat across from him was unwelcoming.

"Why are you here?" she asked, her dark eyes cool, but almost overflowing with suspicion.

"I wished to see how you fared, Nyota," he explained. "This is not what I wished for you when I made my report."

"I disobeyed a direct order," she told him, her face stern. "I am guilty. No one has disputed that. 'This'" she indicated the visiting room with a flick of her long, slender fingers, "is all that should have been expected, Commander."

He did not allow her to see how her forced formality struck him. It was not reasonable to expect a warmer response. Not under the current circumstances. Indeed, he would not have expected such a thing under any circumstances since his return to the Enterprise. She had, in fact, been more congenial towards him over the past two years three months and three days than many would say was warranted. Still, he had illogically hoped to find a more amiable Nyota Uhura sitting across from him.

"I was enquiring about your comfort, Lieutenant," he replied, and even his own use of her title discomfited him.

Her lips formed a sardonic smirk that did not match the weariness mixed with fear displayed by her eyes.

"Watch it. I'll be lucky if I leave here an ensign, Commander," she said, "if I'm not drummed out of the Fleet altogether. And that's if I ever get to leave here at all."

Spock only just stopped himself from wincing at the defeat that lay behind her falsely carefree pronouncement. He had not considered the breaking of her spirit to be one of the potential products of the court martial. It was not something he had ever thought possible.

"I calculate the likelihood of your eventual complete exoneration to be seventy-six point two percent," he stated simply. Inside, he was pleading desperately for the strong, fearless woman he loved to show herself.

"You're not perfect, Commander, and neither are your calculations," she replied. "And even if they were, that still leaves me with a twenty-three point eight percent chance of remaining in prison for the next twelve years. At the very least, I'll get a transfer, probably planet-side. Can't risk having a rogue like me out amongst the stars, you know?

"But, Spock?" He wondered if she realized she had reverted to a more personal address. Noting her eyes were unfocused in the manner of a human who was 'looking inward,' so to speak, he suspected she did not. "The stars are all I ever wanted. If they take those away from me too… "

He did not miss the "too" at the end of the sentence she did not complete. He understood that "too" referred not to anything that Starfleet Command had taken from her, but rather to the day they had ended their romantic relationship.

"At the culmination of our five-year mission, I will join my father's people on the colony planet my elder self has found for us," he had told her. "While I would prefer to continue our association until that time, I will understand if you do not find such an arrangement to be acceptable."

Of course, just as he had suspected, she had found his offer to continue on as lovers unacceptable. Her decision hadn't stopped either one of them loving the other. And somehow — perhaps because she was Nyota Uhura and had expected for many years to eventually become the mate of a Vulcan — she had somehow managed to set aside her disappointment and become his friend again.

She had remained sympathetic to him and his choices up until the moment she had disobeyed his direct order in an attempt to save the Enterprise. As a result of his decision to follow procedure and include her actions in his official report of the incident, she had been court-martialed. He did not know if she would ever support him again.

That her efforts in saving the ship, and possibly the Federation, had proven successful were to her benefit.

"The peoples of the Federation consider you a hero twice over, Nyota," he told her, letting a little of what he was feeling — a mix of despair, hope, love and fear — seep into his words. "Starfleet Command is aware of this, and that knowledge shall undoubtedly have an effect on your sentencing, if not in the determination of whether your actions were warranted. I cannot believe you would be incarcerated for more than three to five years even in a worst-case scenario."

The smirk made an appearance again, and Spock's desire for gaining her forgiveness plunged several down the ladder of hope.

"That would still be three to five years in prison, Commander," she said. "Granted, because the people do believe I'm a hero, it's a very nice prison." Her eyes hardened. "To answer your earlier question, they like me here, so I 'fare' quite well.

"Fortunately for you, at worst, in your words, it will be one to four years after you've left to go 'rebuild your race' before I leave my cozy little cell, and you won't have to think about what the time has meant for me."

The words had been said in a matter-of-fact manner; there was no trace of bitterness or anger in her flat, impassive tone. He knew that did not mean she did not feel both or either. She needed to know he was not as unaffected by the situation as she believed him to be.

"You are wrong, Nyota," he said. "Whenever you are released, whether you are convicted or cleared of all charges, I shall be waiting for you. Even if I must resign my commission to do so.

"I will not be joining the colony to take a Vulcan mate."

Author's Notes: This is going to be a short fic, comprised of very short chapters. I must give special thanks to TeaOli for encouraging me to play in her Once and Future (/s/5293456/1/Once_and_Future) sandbox. She has generously allowed me to re-imagine that world to suit my purposes.

Disclaimer: I do not own any Star Trek concepts or characters nor I am receiving compensation for using them in my stories.