'So then we are agreed, that the best option is to set a course directly for the Neruda system and make use of their invitation to refuel and resupply on the Downie satellite.'

Kirk looked around at his senior most officers during what he liked to think of as a 'staff meeting' time; the crew rarely liked to give up their personal time during the fifteen-to-twenty-three hundred hours shift for doing things that they could do in the morning or even during a quick and simple ship-wide broadcast, but then Kirk had other reasons for calling this meeting and his gaze briefly landed on those pointy-eared reasons before traveling to the pointy-eared reasons' girlfriend who was making a subtly obvious point of avoiding looking at him.

'Captain, are you sure it is vise do so?' Chekov asked, actually raising his hand and making Kirk remember just how young he was. 'I think it vould be much better if we used vhat little fuel remains to reach Asimov instead and then-'

'Nay, laddie, we've enough to get us to Downie,' Scotty reassured him, rubbing the back of his neck, 'as long as we di'nah run hotter than Warp Three, we can make it to Downie.'

'Aye, sir,' Chekov replied with a respectful little bob of his curly-topped head.

'As well, all crew will be allotted a full seventy-two hours leave. If you take seventy two and five minutes, you better hope whomever you meet up with likes you shacking up there permanently,' Kirk went on, catching the way Uhura's jaw muscles twitched.

'Your communicators will signal warnings to you when it is time to reconvene at the appropriate shuttle bay. Failure to do so is considered a dereliction of duty,' Spock reminded them all, then stole a fleeting glance at Uhura when she gave a little snort. 'Is everything all right, Lieutenant?'

'Just fine, Commander,' she replied in a coolly professional tone whose undertones were so snotty Kirk was certain only an idiot would miss it. 'Any other rules we aren't allowed to break during our personal fun time?'

'Well there are several regulations concerning the-'

'Oh forget it, Uhura, for him rules are fun,' Bones neatly cut across Spock's words with an impatient wave of the hand, then rose from his chair. 'If we are all done here, I've got some viral samples that need attention if I wanna get them into the incubation stage so I don't lose three months worth of research.'

'Dismissed,' Kirk told them, then tacked on like he was just remembering it, 'Oh, Lieutenant Uhura? If you don't mind waiting a moment, I was hoping to discuss that report you turned in regarding your diplomatic meetings from your away team mission on Barilko.'

He saw her eyes flash as the rest of the command staff passed her and waited until the doors had closed to sit back down. She primly crossed her legs and took out her tablet from her file bag with such precision it bordered on the scary; the sound of her bag hitting the floor with a dull thud felt more like a nuclear bomb going off. Kirk wasn't a patient man by nature but he'd had more than his share of pissed-off females to handle - in this arena, he considered himself a superior expert.

'Did you find anything unsatisfactory in my report?'

'Absolutely not,' he replied, rising to move down the table of the conference room and sit directly in front of her. 'Talk to me. What's going on?'

'What makes you think something is going on?'

'Because I'm fairly certain you'd rather have been tearing your green-blooded boyfriend to shreds in the holodeck's dojo program as opposed to being in this meeting tonight,' Kirk told her. 'I could all but see you wanting to leap across the table at him, so talk to me and tell me what's going on?'

To Kirk's utter shock, Uhura didn't laugh derisively or even sigh in frustration - she blushed as ruby-red as her on-duty uniform and picked at her fingernails. 'You're damn right I wanna leap on him, but I…I don't think that's very appropriate to tell my captain.'

'Then don't think of me as your captain. Think of me as the guy who you saw get an ass-kicking by Engineering Officer Cupcake six years ago. Don't forget, I wasn't Spock's biggest fan at first either.'

'He tried to get you expelled because you broke his precious test by cheating.'

'Never proven,' Kirk reminded her on a wink, and got a laugh out of her that helped break the waves of tension rising from his friend. 'Seriously, what's going on.'

'It's… it's personal,' Uhura admitted, her cheeks deepening their colour.

'Something to do with sex?' Kirk inferred, and when he saw her face nearly turn fuchsia, he knew he'd hit his mark. 'What, did he say someone else's name in bed or something?'

'No.'

'You bust him with some Vulcan porn?'

Uhura merely tilted her head to the side, and Kirk let out a gusty sigh. 'Then what happened?'

'Nothing!' she snapped out.

'What do you mean nothing…happened,' he said, the picture coming more clearly into focus. 'But..you guys have been together a long time, you can't be telling me that you two haven't-'

'Of course we have, Jim,' Uhura replied in annoyed tone. 'But lately, it's been like…like it's part of his checklist of daily routine. Dress self, check. Bang with girlfriend, check. Run engineering diagnostics, check.'

'I thought out here most women would treat bad sex as better than none, given that we're on a five year mission.' Kirk paused a moment, then shuddered. 'And please don't say Spock and banging in the same sentence. The idea of him in bed with anyone's enough to give me nightmares.'

'We rarely do it in bed these days,' she replied without thinking, 'it's always somewhere else, usually the shower. But it's not like it's just us fucking or something, he does the little things too, the kind that matter.'

'Like what?'

'If I'm getting ready for my shift on the bridge, he'll use his replicator rations to make me breakfast, or if I'm working, he'll send me an article he thinks I will enjoy reading. Sometimes he will ask me to accompany him to the holodeck and we'll listen to classical music in a program that replicates the Old Hollywood Bowl. Those are the usual date night things for us, and we're still doing those despite his recent rash of weirdness.'

'Well, sounds like he is trying.' Kirk frowned, lost his battle to hide the cheeky grin. 'You guys do anything else on the holodeck?'

Uhura felt the synapses fire in her brain, sprang up from her seat as her face nearly went nuclear with embarrassment. 'Oh forget it, forget I mentioned it, forget I said anything about…anything.'

'Nyota.' Kirk said her name just the once, which had her sitting once more. 'I'm not trying to mock, and if I did, I'm sorry. I'm just curious as to why you'd put up with it.'

'It's not bad sex, it's just become routine lately, like he's going through the motions to distract himself from something he doesn't wanna talk about.' She hesitated only a moment. 'And the last time was nearly a month ago.'

'A month? That's all?'

'When you're used to twice a day, three or four days a week for six years, a month feels like an eternity.'

'I'm surprised you haven't burst into flames yet.' Kirk let it slip out before he could stop himself, making Uhura flare her nostrils at him; clearly the half-Vulcan had more prurient interests in him than Kirk had thought if he was keeping the home fires roaring that hot. 'If things have gotten that bad, why not explore your options a little? You're an intelligent beautiful woman who could have her pick of men-'

'And I love him,' she finished, making Kirk nod.

'For reasons I can never figure out, you certainly do, and from everything I can tell he loves you too.'

'Yeah?'

The single word, infused with fragile hope, said oodles more than any litany of salacious details ever could have to Kirk. 'Yeah, he does,' he reassured her. 'Spock is more human than he realizes.'

'Still wish he could be more red-blooded than green-blooded some days.'

'Why don't you let me talk to him, see if I can give him a few subtle nudges?'

'Subtle?' Now Uhura laughed. 'Have you met him? He doesn't do subtle. Hell, I had to strip to my panties in his office at the Academy to get him to realize I wanted to sleep with him.'

'Bet that was an interesting morning after,' Kirk murmured, then shook his head. 'On second thought, I'm not sure how to help you without embarrassing the crap out of my first officer.'

'I'm not asking for help, I guess…I guess I just needed to vent to a man.'

'Which you can always do with me.'

'I considering talking to Doctor McCoy, approaching it like a medical problem.'

Kirk's face was a mask of amused horror. 'Are you nuts? Bones would do a space-walk naked for the chance to lord something over Spock's head, we both know that.'

Uhura laughed once more. 'They are best frenemies, aren't they?'

'Yeah, they really are.' He pursed his lips, then gave her a saucy grin. 'I've noticed that he tries a little too hard to stay focused when you are wearing that perfume you save for fancy dress-up gigs.'

'He says it clouds his mind.'

'Pretty sure that's Vulcan guy speak for, you're turning me on at a really inconvenient time.'

'How do you know that's what he-'

The doors of the conference room suddenly wooshed open; panic was alive and screaming in both officers' brains when they saw Spock looking very disconcerted and out of sorts.

'Forgive my intrusion into your discussion but I have something of an urgent matter to discuss with the Captain, Lieutenant.'

'Of course.'

Spock noticed the way her tone had changed from the meeting; rather than hostility, he was met with something like forgiveness in Uhura's eyes. The Vulcan side told him that she'd required a private discussion with a trusted friend and her expression indicated a satisfactory outcome; the human side of him was annoyed that her it was Kirk and not himself that the lieutenant had clearly chosen to confide in about whatever it was that had been troubling her of recent days.

He waited until she was passing by him, caught her elbow and pressed his lips to her temple. 'Will you wait for me in my quarters? I found myself missing your presence there the previous two nights,' he asked her quietly.

'Yes, I'll meet you there when you're done.' Because she didn't have the ice in her heart enough to be a total bitch, Uhura turned and lightly kissed his cheek. 'Don't be long.'

Spock lifted his hand, stroked his fingertip over the place where the feel of her lips lingered on his cheek, then cleared his throat. 'Captain.'

'Mister Spock. What can I help you with?'