For the second time that night, Lt. Nyota Uhura's fingers skidded across the ka'athyra strings, sounding several discordant notes as they failed to find purchase.

Sighing, she moved her hand back into position even before her tutor ordered her to do so. She started her song from the beginning. This time, she made it almost to the end before she slipped up, her mind on the half-Vulcan sitting at her side, rather than on the music she was supposed to be playing.

"Argh!" she exclaimed, then took several deep breaths before beginning again.

"Perhaps you need a break, Lieutenant," Spock suggested, fearfully (she imagined) eyeing the death grip she had on his instrument.

"I'm sorry," she said, loosening her hold. "I just can't seem to get it together for some reason."

Cocking his head to the side, Spock appeared to consider her and her ineptitude for a moment.

"It has been six months and eighteen days since I last asked you to perform this particular piece," he pointed out eventually. "Perhaps if we were to return to our original method of instruction, you would find it easier to re-familiarize yourself with the song."

Turning word into action, he rose from his seat and slid his chair over until it was positioned directly behind her stool. Before she could issue a protest, his arms were around her and his fingers were moving hers into their proper positions.

"Try again," he ordered, not lifting his hands from hers, but easing the pressure so that his fingers would merely ghost against her as she moved them over the strings.

Knowing the exercise would be futile, Uhura complied anyway. Damn his sexy hide, she thought as she stroked her fingertips against the strings.

It shouldn't have been so difficult. The song was one she knew well, and had, in fact mastered during her first month of Vulcan lyre lessons. There had been a time when she could have played it while listening intently to space chatter and simultaneously carrying on a conversation with Yeoman Rand during a lull on the bridge. This was not an exaggeration. She'd actually done it once during a particularly boring mission when Captain Kirk had relaxed bridge protocol to just to keep everyone — everyone but his first officer, that is — from going out of their skulls. And that day, without missing a note, she'd picked up on an odd transmission that had resulted in a decidedly less boring mission.

But tonight, sitting in the peace and quiet Spock's quarters as she had every Wednesday night for the last year and a quarter, she couldn't get her fingers to slide over the right damned strings.

She blamed it on Gados.

If they had never taken shore leave on that blasted planet, she wouldn't be in her current predicament. If Spock hadn't decided to break habit and actually take a break and leave the ship for a change, none of this would be happening. It was all Gados's fault.

If the M-class planet hadn't had such a gloriously warm climate whose heat reminded the science officer of his desert homeworld, she was certain she'd be beyond stumbling over a warm-up song she knew backwards and forwards, and on to learning the new piece she'd been begging him to teach her for the last three months.

But five weeks ago they'd stopped at Gados, and by now what she had seen there had set up camp in her mind.

She hadn't meant to follow him deep into the woods, far away from the beaches everyone else was sticking to.

She hadn't meant to hide amongst the trees and watch as Spock had gathered interesting (to him, anyway) samples of the local flora for later study.

She had truly intended to announce herself when she realized that he was stripping off his uniform in preparation for diving into the pool (who knew Vulcans swam?), fed by a bubbling creek, deep in the woods of Gados, far away from the beaches where the rest of the crew were taking their ease. It had all just happened so quickly!

"You are distracted tonight, Ms. Uhura," Commander Spock told his starship colleague and Vulcan lyre protégée. "That is the fourth mistake you have made during this lesson. You are usually more attentive with your fingering."

As if she needed reminding!

It took conscious effort to keep Uhura from shivering at the word "fingering," but somehow she managed.

Sure, like many women, she had taken one look at the handsome, mysterious Mr. Spock and been instantly attracted. Unlike many women, she had taken the time to get to know him, to learn from him — and she didn't just mean the ka'athyra! — and, in short order the attraction had been replaced by a genuine affection and an admiration of his extraordinary mind.

Yes, she reflected, she was a little bit in love with him, too. But her name wasn't Christine Chapel and she wasn't about to pine over any male — not even the delectable Commander Spock.

Acknowledging that fact had dimmed the flames of her desire a little.

Until Gados.

Since that day by the pool that was fed by a tinkling brook, she hadn't been able to shake this other… thing.

Since he was a touch telepath who, by virtue of having a human mother, also possessed considerable empathic tendencies, she had no doubt he was aware not only of her discomfort, but of the reason behind it. Confirming what he already knew, she decided, couldn't be any worse than pretending the problem didn't exist.

"Sometimes, Mr. Spock, I wish you would just throw caution to the winds, toss that harp away and fuck me senseless," she tried, bracing herself for whatever his reaction might be.

Not entirely to her surprise, he took the bait, albeit in a very Spock-like manner.

"The ka'athyra is a very valuable instrument, Ms. Uhura," he observed after only the minutest of pauses. "To 'toss it away' would mean disregarding the many hours of careful workmanship that went into creating it."

She didn't bother stopping the sigh from escaping her lips.

"I was only teasing, Mr. Spock," she lied, feeling a tad defeated at having failed to discomfit him. "Never mind."

She thought she could hear his eyebrow shooting up.

"Lying does not become you, Lieutenant," he said, guiding her fingers back into place. "Now, let us begin again."


A/N: Based on my final dream of 2009, but undoubtedly also inspired by a story called Hidden Agenda by LuvnTrek at lj (though, I'm pretty sure Ms. Luvn would never let Uhura have the potty mouth I've given her) and the scene from The Man Trap where Uhura asks Spock "Why don't you tell me I'm an attractive young woman, or ask me if I've ever been in love?".

Two more chapters to go. Song included in the lj version.

Disclaimer: I own nothing Star Trek or Star Trekish.