Disclaimer: Not really my characters. Not even really my story line. I apologize if I confuse any readers--this and the next three chapters were originally published as individual stories. Since they're starting to fit together rather nicely, I decided to put them all into one big story. (So in other words, if you've read the first three, you can skip right to the fourth chapter, which is new.)


Green Thing

Damn.

She had never wanted to be anything other than what she was. Driven some people said. Cocky, said others. Egocentric. Brain, bitch, tease...she'd been called all of these and more. Names didn't bother her, because she didn't bother to define herself any of these ways. She had just always known what she wanted to do and where she was meant to go and had let nothing stand in her way.

Damn.

Attraction? If any would have asked (which, of course, they did not), she'd have said admiration. For his brilliance certainly. Commander Spock had become a full professor at an impossibly young age. His classes were complex, and insightful, and for someone like Uhura, who appreciated intellectual analysis for its own sake, fascinating. Each week he made his students tease apart what they thought they knew, and then brought them back to some common denominator. Nothing he said was ever wasted. Everything connected to some greater purpose, even if they as students could not yet see it. His mind was vast, but carefully cataloged. She relished the challenge his classes posed because there was not much that challenged her. He was, of course, one of the most despised professors in Starfleet.

She envied his cool equanimity. It was something she sought to cultivate in herself, but found difficult to master. He could not have failed to realize that students mocked him behind his back, and sometimes to his face, though if such insubordination bothered him, it did not show. She suspected that it did not. Even his peers treated him politely, respectfully, but there was a certain careful distance between them. She observed and tried to learn.

But she didn't have the magic ability to create such well delineated boundaries. She camouflaged her sentiments with sarcasm and a smile, maintaining distance without seeming to. That she could drink men three times her size under the table was a useful skill. She was good at jokes and banter, and could always be counted on for a laugh or a debate. She knew how to make people like her. But more often than not, she was the first to slip out because she took more pleasure in an extra hour or two of reading than the company. Study was a far more valuable use of her time.

She had used him. He had gotten her this position on Enterprise. She'd felt guilty about that. When she had discovered she'd been assigned to Farragut, disappointment had been acrid and stale in her throat. Second class officer on a second class ship. She was not pleased. Uhura had approached Commander Spock because she'd spent a great deal of time in the past three years scrutinizing every member of the Academy to assess their individual strengths…or lack thereof. Of all of the members of Starfleet, only Spock was dispassionate enough to set protocol aside if common sense dictated a better course of action. She had merely suggested to the commander that her skills would be more constructively utilized elsewhere. Specifically, she had argued, on Enterprise, the newest and most sophisticated ship in the fleet.

She had told herself that because her initial posting had been remanded by Commander Spock it was not favoritism. Merely that he had recognized it to be the most reasonable distribution of talent, given the circumstances. Had this opportunity been granted by anyone but Spock, she would have declined lest it appeared anything else.

Damn.

What had happened, what had happened. Maybe it was from a misplaced sense of solidarity. They were both, in their own ways, outsiders—and comfortable being so. She was certain that he felt his sense of duty no less keenly than she did herself. They both desired to be the best not because they had delusions of power, but because anything less would be only half an effort and a waste of time. All these things, for her, had added up to attraction. Or, as she had been telling herself, infatuation. Transference.

She was profoundly embarrassed by her forwardness. Or was it a weakness, this… reckless abandonment of her principles? Never never never had she behaved like this. But never had she felt the need to reach another person so strongly.

This mission had gone so horribly wrong in such an amazingly short time. She could not imagine. The loss of the captain. The loss of the fleet. The loss of a planet. The loss of a parent. The loss of home. His reaction to that had been…nothing particularly extraordinary. Indeed, probably only she had noted the very slight change in inflection. The way his words came from stiffened jaws. What she felt was different.

When Kirk had burst in like that. God knows how he'd found his way back. Initially she had been furious. Any grudging respect she'd been willing to grant him--for finagling a post on Enterprise, or from correctly interpreting an attack from an alien species that had been so grossly misread by the highest ranking members of Starfleet, or even from remembering her translation of an intercepted communication--evaporated within seconds of his reappearance. Insensitive idiot. Great, blundering, arrogant fool.

Her anger turned to mortification on the acting Spock's behalf as the derision began. Prodding him. Provoking him. Bizarre behavior, even for Kirk. It had happened so quickly, but also with excruciating slowness. She had seen the change come over Spock; something primal rising from an unimagined depth. And something about his eyes. Hollow, resigned. She saw it coming, and an aching horror lodged itself in her chest. Kirk couldn't see it. At least she didn't think he could or he would have stopped. Spock snapped like a piece of steel under immense tension. This reaction would have been wholly reasonable for any other person. But Spock wasn't another person which was why it scared her so much.

He had surrendered his post with a kind of cold solemnity. It was inane. In any other circumstance Spock's behavior would have been, if not precisely rational at least excusable, and Kirk's insolence would not have been tolerated. But Kirk was captain and Spock was not. It was all wrong. She wanted to protest, to scream to argue. But her tongue stuck to the top of her mouth. She had used Spock to get herself where she was. Kirk had used Spock against himself to get where he was. Were they all such vultures?

Watching it unfold. Inexplicably she had recognized the echo of those things in her own life that she had sought to bury without definition. An awareness of being alone. A barely remembered of loss of something large and indefinable. A sense of change in the order of things that had once been known. Sudden and unfathomable anxiety for the future. These things were part of her, and now, she knew, they were part of him too.

Xenolinguistics. Interspecies communication. How to communicate this sudden… recognition in a way that was useful?

Leaving her post and following him off the bridge. Jamming the lift to afford some measure of privacy. Were these actions useful? He had turned at the unexpected interruption. He looked smaller, shrunken inward. More human, somehow, though of course that was not a fair comparison. Anthropomorphism was inexcusable. Words escaped her. All she could do was murmur, "I'm sorry. I am so sorry." over and over. But these words were small. They were not enough. And then, unexpectedly she had reached for him, drawing him close, drawing her face to his. Trying to tell him, to show him…

How had this been useful?

She was not really surprised when he did not respond. How could she expect otherwise? Had she really wanted him to? She started to pull away then, humiliated, when at the last moment, she felt him lean into her. Comfort? Curiosity? Desire? Something else? It made her catch her breath. His arms tightened around her and, for an instant, he buried his face in her shoulder. She nearly stumbled as her center of balance shifted. The sensation of something green and new announced its presence in her belly.

The moment was over. She took a step back, miserable, uncomfortable, but it was too late. The air between them had changed. The light was more vivid. She couldn't tell if he was surprised. He merely regarded her, expression inscrutable. She was a superb linguist, but she was not as good at reading the space between words. "What do you need?" she had asked. "Tell me what you need." She surprised herself in that moment by wanting to know more fiercely than anything else she had ever desired.

It mattered. Why? Why did it matter so much, she wondered. Was it selfish? Was she afraid the deliberate, brilliant professor she'd admired so much would be destroyed? Was it her place, her responsibility to keep him from falling? Was it hubris that made her think she could?

His eyes were fixed on her face, and he was silent. She stood, waiting. "I need," he said slowly, as if from a great distance, "for everyone...to keep performing admirably."

It was the right answer. It was what she wanted to hear and what she would do. Dimly she wondered if he said it to reassure himself or to give her something to focus on.

Very gently, she reached up and touched his cheek and nodded. She was here because of him. She owed him that much. He did not pull away. The elevator doors opened and they parted.

When things settled down they

Damn.

There was no "they." Whatever "this" was, it was not appropriate. Professor and cadet. Commander and lieutenant. Superior and subordinate. Inappropriate on so many levels. She would ask for a transfer when this mission was over.

She turned her focus back to the console in front of her, realizing that she'd been functioning on autopilot, cursing her inattentiveness. She scanned down the screen, checking to make sure she had missed nothing, meticulous even during distraction. She was uncomfortably aware that she would have to continue to function—admirably--with this "THIS" between them, regardless of whatever "this" was or was not. Damn. She was talking to herself in circles. STOP.

Kobayashi Maru. What was it he had said about the necessity of fear? Was fear the strange green thing in the pit of her stomach that would not go away? Could she take the lesson he'd tried to teach Kirk and use it for herself? She looked up at the captain's chair.

She'd damn well have to.