UNPREDICTABLE
by SpockLikesCats
Disclaimer: No profit herefrom to the author. Main characters and environs belong to Paramount/CBS. Original characters © SpockLikesCats. Any similarity of this story to any other is strictly coincidental and unintentional.
LT Nyota Uhura woke to see Spock, sitting at the edge of her bed with a cup of chamomile tea. "I sweetened it a little," he said quietly.
She had a little trouble focusing at first, then remembered she'd had a blow to the head and that, after fussing over her and checking her out for cerebral contusion and concussion, McCoy had recommended bed rest with supervision. Thus, rather than at his station on the Bridge, Spock was here in their quarters, his eyes speaking concern.
"Would you like a sip?" He proffered the cup, and at her nod, tucked one hand under her back and raised her so she could drink. She started with a sip, then gulped the rest. It was warm and the honey in it soothed her raw throat. Spock set the cup aside and folded her up into his arms; she rested her head in the curve of his shoulder. Tears began seeping from her eyes and she began to shiver.
"I'm so tired," she said.
He raised her face, kissed her, and lay her gently down, tucking the bedcovers over her. "Would you like more tea?"
She nodded. She remembered her Masa, caring for her in the same gentle, practical way when she was little. Those fevers and brief childhood ills were soothed away with honeyed tea and mashed fruit and books. She remembered those books now more than any others of her youth.
She lay there thinking of Masa and Baba; Mombasa, her mother's home, and the dry deserts north where Baba was born. Her extended family, her dear cousins, and her own treasured little sister Upenda.
She thought of comforting things.
The beach at Mombasa, the ocean's soft roar as it came to land. The humid weather with the occasional clear night when the sky was like black velvet. Damp sand cradling her as she used to lie looking up in the dark at the stars, winking promises of the future.
The dry sands in the North where she could see many thousands more. The calls, roars, and coughs of animals, and birdsongs in the day and the different ones at night.
Remembered Vulcan, her one brief visit during her third year cadet cruise. Its landscape was more intensely colored than Kenya, deeper oranges, browns, every hue of red and rust; even the sky was reddish gold. And the people, so subdued, so polite, eyes speaking what their tongues would not, their occasional glints of malice but more often, humor and compassion. She had learned to "read" Vulcans from watching Spock, and how she wished they could have been visiting Vulcan together. But Spock was serving as Captain Pike's first officer on actual Starfleet missions during Uhura's cadet summers. Nyota and Spock sometimes managed to steal a short leave together, but that year there had been none. Urgent business near the Romulan Neutral Zone, she recalled. But she remembered Spock's well-concealed delight when she described her perceptions of his planet and his people, his eyes, saying now you understand.
Yes, there were many worthy things in life. There were. How precious life seemed, in every moment now.
Spock brought more tea. He had added more honey, having heard the rasp in her voice. She sipped this cupful, and each time allowed the hot tea to sit at the back of her tongue before she swallowed.
I love you so much, she thought, as he took the cup away, and came back.
His mouth curled a little at the corner in his version of a smile. I know.
But at these thoughts, this normality, tears came to her eyes again.
"Right after we beamed up – with Cheung's body still between us –! Ensign Hwang said, 'Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.'"
She had turned and snapped at Hwang, "You're on restriction for the next week, Mister. I'll let the captain know. Since you seem unable to communicate with any civility." At his stammered apologies, she said, "I'll also recommend LT Hendorff get you some sensitivity training. Being in Security doesn't mean you get to act in a manner unbecoming an officer."
Spock said now, "It is common in Humans to indulge in 'dark humor' at such times, Nyota. You know that."
"It was disgusting! Cheung was abrasive sometimes, but he didn't deserve that, not right then, not after he'd -" she gulped, and gusted in a sob, and Spock held her for some minutes as she shook hard with a storm of weeping.
Cheung had miscommunicated in their farewells, and the J!Hdabbi had not taken it well. They were a violent race, and the warrior attendant to the queen had punctuated Cheung's remark with a ny-thrada tusk, expertly thrown, that penetrated the center of Cheung's body. Already caught in the transporter beam, Uhura, in her shock, could do nothing but try to calculate for the captain the current odds of making a treaty with the J!Hdabbi for dilithium mining rights, and her fear for Cheung.
When they had materialized onboard Enterprise, Hwang made his own culturally insensitive remark and Uhura held her temper under mighty restraint. What she wanted to do – lift Hwang by the shirt collar and jam him against the wall – and what she did do were different, thank the Source. These were the qualities that made a good officer, Pike had once explained to her in Sickbay, after Nero – the ability to think one thing and do another, more appropriate thing.
Uhura paged Medical, "Urgent." Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hwang roll his eyes as if to say, "Give it up, he's dead," and if Uhura's glare had been twin phaser beams, Hwang would have been the dead one.
"It takes time to learn such skills," Spock told her as he stroked her heaving back. "Ensigns still need training when they come out of the Academy. Remarks such as his emerge from a different part of the brain."
Uhura pulled back and glared for a moment, wondering if there was a section she'd missed in NeuroLinguistics, "The Asshat Lobe." Reconsidered. Nodded, and snuggled back in to Spock's shoulder.
"I should have anticipated it," she murmured drowsily. "I should have told him not to say anything. I should have …"
Spock kissed her forehead, locked eyes with her, and after a moment she lowered her eyelids in acknowledgement.
He was correct; she had done everything she could to prepare for the mission – learned the necessary fighting styles to impress the J!Hdabbi – rehearsed combat with Cheung, researched everything they had in the computers about the new race, and still this had happened. They acquitted themselves decently in the ceremonial battles; the Queen seemed amenable to further talks. Cheung's final gesture had been unrehearsed but made out of goodwill.
"We're explorers," Kirk said when he met her in Medical, his blue eyes serious, concerned and nurturing all at one glance. "You did the best you knew how. And I know that's damned good."
"We work in a high-risk business, Uhura," McCoy said as he checked her over. His face was blurry through her tears, but she managed to hold herself together. "I have good news though. Cheung didn't die; he's critical, but I may be able to save him. Chapel's getting him ready for surgery right now."
He gave Nyota a shot of calmant, and sent her to her quarters.
"'New Life and New Civilizations,'" Spock quoted, looking steadily into her eyes. "And some of them, despite any amount of preparation, caution, and sagacity on our part, are unpredictable."