A/N: I watched Star Trek Beyond and was left wanting. Mostly for S/U scenes and I'm SOOOOOO over emo, depressed ultra-pseudo Vulcan-y Spock. I want happy Spock, I want Spock bae to have everything his little err maybe giant green heart wants out of life and so in my post-movie gloom I started to write this the morning after I wrote it. Don't get me wrong guys there are some precious gems in that movie as far as character interactions and our poor fallen babyangel Anton ( RIP Yel-dawg) but I was left sooooooo confused as to what the hell Spock and Nyota are hence the damn fic that I drunkenly wrote ( and also most likely there will be typos...yeah). For Tessie39

The nights and mornings were the hardest to adjust to. Nyota's body lay stiff and frigid beneath the sheets, waiting in expectation of his firm, warm frame behind her. It's hard but not unbearable.

In the soft, quiet between sleep and the waking world, she still finds him in her mind, waiting to embrace her. It's not lush fullness of his physical form but the foggy haze where Spock lies nestled, cradles her just a firmly as his arms.

Neither wants to wake but the world is unjust to lovers and time stops for no one.

Cool, white light splashes onto her face and Nyota wakes up alone. As with every other day, she showers, unaware that Spock is doing the same in his quarters. They towel off in tandem, and as Nyota eats her breakfast, Spock meditates over his people and places he can no longer see.

They each get dressed in the Yorktown's grays, hers accented with red while his is piped with blue. Both walk to their front doors, Nyota's stride sure and steady as the Vulcan's long use to be. For anyone who's watching and for those who know him, there is a slightly limp Spock's developed as he heals.

McCoy says he's physically fine and that the problem with his gait is all in his head but no matter how hard he works to stop himself the stutter in his gait stays with him.

Their entryway doors slide open on their approach and they pause in the door. Spock looks down to his right and she up to her left where the other has always been. The empty space beside them mocks their expectations and beckons them to move on.

They turn their gaze back out towards their hallways and take a collective breath. As they leave their quarters and the lingering feel of their link behind, Spock and Nyota go through one more day where they don't exist.

They don't see each that often. Given their different divisions and housing assignments in Yorktown it's easy to see why but when they do cross paths, each encounter breathes life into the frustration both of them feel but don't know how to relieve.

Spock for his part acts as if he hasn't tried time and again to leave her while he attempts to 'purge' himself of the negativity that shackles him.

Noble as it seems on its face he has never truly let her go. There is no casual romance for Vulcans, the very concept of it goes against their nature. His affection for her is clear in the very way he looks at her as she speaks, speaks of her when she's not there and dreams of her on his nights alone.

Spock loves her, misses her terribly from what Jim and Bones tell her but letting him back in now is just too much for her to take. Despite his attempts to, he hasn't changed. She doesn't fault him for it, it wasn't her mother and planet that were destroyed, her guilt she was faced as she served above the enterprise as the Vulcans sought to restore their culture.

Spock wasn't healing with her and Nyota was hurting with him so they developed into complications.

That night as he delineated point by point of why he should leave Starfleet and go to New Vulcan, her mind became strangely dim. His words washed over her, largely unheard as she felt her chest burn and constrict at what she always feared would happen. He loved her, said as much as he started the personal presentation over his exodus but his love of her wasn't enough to make him stay. She wasn't enough, of that much she was sure, so at the mention of repopulation efforts Nyota stood up and excused herself before listening any further.

Maybe she should have listened but what really was there to say if he was leaving? Even with Spock here, he hadn't been truly there for a while now. She held onto the hope that he would be but now…

He refused the necklace, he came to save her, even made an effort to talk with her at the surprise party for Kirk but these things weren't enough, not after everything that happened.

She had kept the necklace, saved him in turn and spoke with him with polite fondness but she could no longer deny the pain he had caused her. As different as their people were, the challenges she had to navigate there paled in comparison to loving a broken man.

Nyota always wanted what was best for him but now in the interim of the Enterprise reconstruction, she was taking time to want what was best for her. For her being stationed at Yorktown was a jab on the restart button. Maybe with a little faith it could be a new beginning for whatever was left of their relationship as well.

Nyota turned her head again, checking the position of her hair before swiping her finger under her eye to remove an errant smudge of eyeliner. As she rolled her lips to even her lipstick she glanced over to bright blue gem glowing dimly on her dressing. She hadn't the heart to put it back on, mostly because she saw the harm in doing so.

It was a gift, that much was certain but the rare, sentimental pendant had been far from free. It had been given after countless nights of worry, long weeks spent wondering if this would be the day the other shoe dropped and years loving a man who barely loved himself. It had been tiring and painful and she had to be honest the hardest challenge she ever faced.

What was facing the three madmen they had come to defeat when she couldn't save them from ending.

Casting her eyeing away from the heirloom, Nyota's hand retrieved her earrings and threaded them through her lobes. Judging her reflection once more, she turned on her heels and hit the bedroom light.

She didn't have to turn back to know the gem was still glowing behind her.

" Nyota."

She turned to find him walking up behind her, his gait still stilted from his injury just weeks earlier. She met his eyes and held them for a moment, savoring the warm familiarity as his gaze took her in.

It wouldn't have been something that she would have counted as a thing she would miss but then so much of their adult lives had been shared and spent together. After a while habits form, traditions develop and inside jokes were commonplace.

She smiled up at him and clutched her work bag against her chest in an unconscious effort to put space between the eager look he gives her and giddy flip her heart makes in recognition of it. " Spock. Good morning."

" Indeed." he agreed falling in alongside her. Guess they'll be walking together she thought as he came an inch too close for comfort. How was it that having him near her could feel so good but ache just as badly?

" Have you found your assignment aboard the Yorktown to your satisfaction, Lieutenant Commander?"

Nyota huffed as he placed an emphasis on her new rank. It was his small way of showing pride in the wake of her heavy commendations.

Kirk had been quite generous in recommending them but they weren't anything that he or any other person serving under him wouldn't have done in her place. Crew was family as much as it was a team. She wasn't under any illusions however that she was one of Jim's favorites. He was one of her favorites too.

" It's been pleasantly boring." she replied with a closed mouth grin. She resumed her path towards station headquarters and he slowly followed alongside her. The material of his uniform brushed her bare arm and she flinched before she could stop herself.

He noticed of course, but rather than question over her response as was his typical behavior, Spock diverted her attention to the suspended river floated off to their right. " I have noted a significant increase in traffic over the past two weeks of family members coming to pay their respects to their deceased loved ones."

" Yeah, I noticed too." she sighed, casting her eyes to the from the shuttles hovering below the water's surface to the bright right tulips lining the garden corridor. The terran flower looked so out of place this far from home.

" Are you planning to attend or participate in any of the ceremonies?" he asked lightly. The question and his tone catches her off guard and she watches him from the corner of her eye. " Sort of. I don't want to disturb the families but I wanted to take time to stop and remember them at the memorial they've temporarily erected at the base's nexus. Maybe sometime next week after some of the visitors thin out."

Spock's eyes darted from her face down to the textured aluminum ground beneath them, actively working to smooth his gait. His wound still must be hurting him, she thought glumly as he pushed his arm against his side. When would he ever take the time to sit down and properly heal anything?

" If it wouldn't be too much of an imposition I would enjoy accompanying you to Yorktown's city center to mourn our fallen comrades."

This time Nyota did look up at him and was met with the full power of his dark gaze. She swallowed audibly and felt her eyes flutter in an effort blink away her tears. Spock tilted his head to regard her reaction and came to stop in front of her. " Does my request offend you?"

Nyota shook her head, waving her hands back in forth in protest. " No, no, not at all. I'm just surprised. Starfleet already had its formal wake and procession for everyone. You feel the need to do more?"

He squared his shoulders and looked off past her as he answered. " In the past I have not seen the need to attend more functions than necessary. Each exchange in the social sphere leaves me mentally fatigued as I shield myself from unsolicited touches and unrefined manners. Not unlike our time with Khan and the lose of my planet and mother...I grieve with thee."

And for the first time since Kirk died, Spock teared up in front of her.

Next week came more quickly than she imagined it would, as she stands waiting on the edge of the city's center.

She saw him approaching before she heard his booted footsteps, tapping along the metal pavement. He dons Vulcan robes, black on black with his sigil and name embroidered along the lapel. In his hands Spock carried a small box and on his face he wore a mask of serene indifference. Nyota knew how to see through it, however, she doesn't do that too him, not right now. He is conducting himself as any Vulcan would and far be it from her to judge him as anything other than.

When he reached her Nyota turned and the pair marched their way to the bizarre wooded square. A tree from each fallen officer's and enlisted crew member's home planet, stood there in their place, in a multi sensory palette of color, smell, texture and sound.

Nyota placed her hand on the tall, spindly trunk of a longleaf pine, newly planted for Junior grade Lieutenant Sanders. She drew her hand away to examine the sticky smudges of sap that transferred over while Spock moved to the willow tree off to the left. They examine each specimen, recalling memories to the names written on the plates adfixed to the ground below.

Nyota made her way over to Spock as he lingered by a flowering tree in a soft blue shade of cerulean. With each artificial breeze produced by the hub, ovid petals gently drift over the surrounding garden, though the tree never seemed to lose its fullness.

It looked familiar to her, like the Vulcan trees she saw on her stay there but the color. Spock often spoke about how this would happen with organic matter when it was placed somewhere it wasn't intended to habitate. Perhaps the lighting here on the Yorktown has changed the color? She wondered if being rooted here had changed more than what they could see.

In her midst of her musing, Spock knelt down at its roots and examined its gray trunk. After a moment he came to a decision and started to dig in the soil below. Carefully Spock placed the box within the hole he created and slowly slid the dirt over top of it.

Nyota stooped down and sat on the back of her heels as she watched him stare after the latent item. As she waited the noisy clicks of the Trillian oak's leaves filled her ears in their silence. The low hum of the Andorian silk shrub soon joined in as it worked the water collected by its roots through its system. The Bolian plum tree blossoms perfumed the air in the awkward stench of gym clothes and magnolias.

These should be people here, she thought tearfully, they didn't deserve to die. Not even the man whose tree stood gracefully before them. He passed before their run in with Krall but his death was no less felt by those who came to know him.

A few minutes pass before Spock came to himself and blinked over at her. The longer he stared, the softer his focus became and Nyota felt the tenderness reflecting back within her own gaze.

He extended his hand out towards her and placed a small, covered picturePADD in her hand. Shifting on her feet, Nyota slid it open to find a crew, not unlike their own with faces that are far older than they are now. In the photo, the two of them are smiling, Spock off to the left and her to the right with Scotty's arm at her waist. His Scotsman's hair is darker and his body more robust but his cheery disposition is evident as he grins ear to ear at the camera.

" Scotty?" she asked aloud with a laughing smile and Spock bobbed his head to the side with a small smile of his own. " It would appear so. Perhaps Spock in that timeline was never taken note of by Uhura?"

Nyota scoffed and replaced the device back in his palm. Her fingers lingered over his in a motion she knew she shouldn't initiate but finds too compelling not to do. He inhaled sharply with a flare of his nostrils and withdrew her fingers with a mild smile. " If she was anything like me, Spock was always in the running."

She watched as his adam's apple bobbed against the high collar of his tunic and licked nervously at her lips. Spock's eyes never left hers as he pocketed the picturePADD and stood up stiffly above her. Nyota rose alongside him but gazed down at the ground, suddenly shy. She should not have touched him like that. She shouldn't have said such things while they were like...this.

" I believe the prime version of myself to be much more deserving of his Uhura's attention in comparison to myself. However, I am aiming to be worthy of it."

Quicker than Nyota can register, Spock hooked his fingers around hers and slid gently across the slender shape of them. The emotions conveyed within his grasp are too much to decipher but make her well up with mirrored feelings of her own.

All too soon he released her and tucked his hands back behind his back with a

However their current relationship could be defined, they were far from over.

In typical Vulcan fashion when Nyota said things were up in the air Spock did not infer the intended meaning.

" I do not understand how our association pertains to atmospheric composition?"

As much as she wanted to groan at his obtuse irritation, Nyota palmed her face and sighed into her hands. " You're right, Spock, that it doesn't relate. Speaking plainly, I...you hurt me. A lot."

Spock opened his mouth to challenge her when he noted the look on her face. He pursed his lips with a fretful look to his eyes but he nodded for Nyota to continue.

She gazed down at her chest and took a deep breath in. " I love you."

" You know my estimation of you to be the same." he quipped a hair to quickly to appear unaffected by her words. " It is for this very reason I wish to continue our acquaintance as it was before."

" And see, that's where I have a problem." she said, furrowing her brow. " I want to be with you. I want you so bad that it hurts but we can't go back and live in the past."

His eyes fluttered for a moment before blinking down to his boots, half hidden beneath his desk. He had paged her comm for the talk in his office and feeling that it would be a constructive use of their break. Now it seemed that would not be the case. " I see."

She shook her head slowly and exhaled through nose. " No...you don't. Trying to recapture the past is what got us where we are now. We can't go back to that unjaded freshness we first had when we first started dating. So much has happened and things have changed, we've changed…"

Nyota ran her fore and middle finger back and forth from the bridge of her nose to the edge of her cheekbone. " With everything that's happened, we have to move forward by pushing beyond them if we're going to make it."

" Are you asking me to forget-"

" No, no, no. No." she said furiously shaking her head. She rubbed her face again and rolled her lips across the tip of her tongue. " I wouldn't ask anyone to forget something as traumatic as the things you've been through. What I'm asking for Spock, is for you to be live on happily in spite of the pain. You've been just existing, you've been lost."

She swiped at her nose to get rid it of the wetness threatening to spill from her nostrils and sniffed for good measure. " There was a long time where you were there but not truly present with me. It was hard to see you hurting so bad and feel so helpless in doing anything about it...for a while I was scared to think that the best case scenario was you, was just dumping me. It was either that or you leaving me for another Vulcan or...just...not wanting to... "

She stumbled over her words and sniffed again with a bite to her bottom lip. It was hard to put into words what she had felt over the years without being overwhelmed in finally gave it voice. Even more inundating was the face Spock gave her as he actually listened to her. He wasn't trying to argue away her concern or invalidate her emotions, he was trying to understand her. It was finally clear to see he wanted them and it was felt so good that it burned at her. " God, I'm sorry I just…"

Nyota rose to her feet, making as if to leave. Spock stood with her and came to stand at her back. She was boxed in, the a chair on either side, a desk in front with the Vulcan to her back. She turned to face him with her eyes averted but he tentatively took her hands and pulled her closer. She fell against him with a huff and stiffened as he embraced her. If she relaxed he would have her all over again but she need to know that he was committed. " Spock. Please."

His hot arms tightened around her as he pressed her closer and rustled her hair with a deep sigh. " I need you."

Nyota shut her eyes tightly and shook her head against his chest, further mussing her hair as she fought her tears. Why did he go and say that? " Spock-"

" I am sorry for making you feel unwanted and unnecessary." he said softly. He sounded no better than she did, his deep voice wavering as he continued on with his cheek pressed against the crown of her head. " I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth, Nyota."

A sob tore out from her lips as she clawed at the front of his jacket. Spock huffed lightly as he dipped his head and caught her mouth with his and from there she was lost. The dim awareness she had of Spock in the back of her mind rekindled in a flash of longing that threatened to paralyze her.

Spock broke the kiss and caught her by the waist as her knees gave out, holding her steady as he nuzzled his face alongside hers with his forehead butted against hers. His face was screwed up as if he were in pain, breathing in ragged huffs across her face before he cupped her face and reclaimed her lips. Nyota melted into his hands and sighed at the familiar plane of his mouth, wrapping her arms around him as if he risked disappearing.

For what may have been minutes they kissed each other with everything that was left to be said. Spock tilted his head and leaned closer while Nyota countered his movements as she kissed him back. The hunger in the bond between them beat at them to be filled and neither wasted any time with seeking to appease it.

By the time they part Nyota mouth felt pleasantly numb and thoroughly plumbed. Spock stood panting above her, meeting her eyes with a slow, feline blink. She ran her tongue over the top of her lip and felt his breath breeze over the sensitive flesh. She closed her eyes and hugged him once more, shifting to alleviate the stiffness in her legs. " What are we doing?"

Spock's hands shifted along her face to come and rest on her shoulder. Resting his head again on top of hers he exhaled silently with a slightest tilt to his lips. " Healing."

A/N: I guess their could be more but honestly with Between two suns and crown jewels Idk and because of alcohol kind don't wanna. If you think there she be another chapter lemme know and I dabble in it some more. Thank you for reading and I hope that you like it, like I honestly, sincerely do y'all.