Whispers
Lieutenant Uhura, Chief Communications Officer on Starfleet's flagship, the USS Enterprise, knows that she's led a charmed life. In many ways, she has been the beneficiary of Chance's more benevolent aspect: Luck, or Good Fortune.
She is lucky to hold the position she does.
A chance interest in the Romulan tongue led her to master all three of its primary dialects when learning one or none would have been sufficient to her training as an Academy cadet. Her proficiency in a language she'd never been encouraged — nor discouraged — to learn is what made the Enterprise's former captain temporarily assign her to the bridge of that ship.
A chance mention — to her completely disinterested former roommate — of an intercepted Klingon distress call overheard (by chance) by the ship's current captain brought her to the attention of Captain Pike in the first place.
That she was on the ship at all was pure chance. She knew she was taking a risk when she pressed her lover — who also happened to be the flagship's First Officer — to assign her to the ship she felt she deserved. He could have just as easily have refused her, despite the logic of her argument.
She knows that she's lucky to be on the Enterprise rather than floating through the cosmos, a collection of atoms that once made up the being called Nyota Uhura, killed while serving on the USS Farragut.
She realizes that her corroboration of the destroyed Klingon squadron helped set in motion the series of events which led to her lover and the man who is now her captain to save what was left of the Federation. She is still devastated when she thinks of the loss of Spock's mother and homeworld, but knows that, on the whole, they were fortunate. Nero's irrational need for revenge could have brought about far more destruction.
Still, she hasn't felt lucky since, a quarter of the way through their third day on Mondovi VII, she realized, for the first time perhaps, that not even Spock had used up his lifetime quota of arbitrary tragedy.
.
.
She is not, and never was, a fan of the Bard of Avon. She abhors the characterization and treatment of women in his plays and doesn't subscribe to the notion that he was the Elizabethan equivalent of a feminist.
So, more than two days went by before she could lay a finger on what was amiss with the men who'd beamed down to Mondovi with her. When Spock's eyes began tracking her whenever she was in the company of McCoy, she dismissed it as concern about the mission. Kirk's self-satisfied smile was harder to distinguish from his usual expression. She found the doctor's casual flirtation was equally unexceptional.
Until she overheard the captain's murmured, "Careful, Commander. Jealousy is a bitch. If you know she's giving it to someone else, and you don't really give a shit, then you're golden. It's when you're not sure, but you love her anyway — that's when it gets you."
At first, the whispered words brought nothing beyond confusion and an unfocused anger — directed at Spock for possibly doubting her devotion, or perhaps at Kirk for implying that was the case, she wasn't sure who — but soon enough, she remembered the reluctantly read words of an angry soldier, passed over for a coveted lieutenancy:
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
.
.
During the nights she spends alone in the quarters she had all but abandoned before the mission on Mondovi VII, Nyota Uhura doesn't bask in the warmth of Good Fortune's smile.
She doesn't feel lucky when dreams carry back their terrible offering: the rage written across Spock's face when he came for her. When whispers and half-rumors overcame logic and trust. She wonders about Chance when she remembers being afraid, for the first time, of her lover's inhuman strength and passion.
Often she wakes shaking, then forces herself to relive the accidental mind touch — Spock's fingers slipping across her meld points while his other hand closed around her throat. Calling out — her mind to his in that instant of contact — had been instinctual. She still doesn't know why he let himself be pulled deeper into her essence. Perhaps Chance was proving it had not completely abandoned her, although her throat bore hand-shaped bruises until one of McCoy's staff repaired the damage.
Uhura always halts the memory before Spock's face crumples in devastation and fear and shame. She never purposely recalls the way his body was wracked with the sobs he wouldn't accent with actual tears. Neither does she allow herself to hear his broken voice declaring his remorse. She tries to forget that he did not ask for her forgiveness.
In the beginning, she protested, fought him. "That.. creature tried to make all of you believe, but you saw the truth in time. " He knew better, of course. Just as she did. Only the chance brush of his hand had saved them.
She trusted his logic to change his mind.
"Is there offense where none was intended? Is there a crime where there was no will?"
She coaxed and cajoled — even tried tempting him. Eventually, pleading and begging lost the tarnish of shame.
But even now he believes in the monster Cinzio created and refuses to see himself through her more generous eyes.
Hope manifests itself as patience and has become her only comfort. Whenever she wakes, she reminds the mirror that Nyota Uhura is a lucky woman. Fate — temperamental Chance's reflection — believes in her, although she does not believe in any of its faces.
She cannot escape the consequences of Spock's fear, but she continues to smile, as if her world is whole. She pretends even when Kirk or McCoy comes to her quarters. "All right, Uhura?" or "Just checkin' on you, sug" is met with lies.
She doesn't sing while she waits for him, and she doesn't notice others noticing.
A/N: "Silence," the second chapter of this story, was originally written for a Ship Wars prompt "Ain't No Sunshine."
Disclaimer: I don't own any Star Trek characters or concepts. Nor do I hold the rights to William Shakespeare's body of work.