Author's Note: I've been a fan of Star Trek for a while now. I saw the new movies first and now I've been slowly going through the original series. What I really enjoy is the relationship between all the characters. It's really well developed and their banter is so great! I am a shipper at heart though and Spock/Uhura is my OTP. This is set somewhere during the five-year mission and pre-Star Trek Beyond, but there are some mild spoilers for Star Trek Beyond. Please enjoy this story!
"People meant to be together will always take detours through pain, misunderstanding and pride, but some how they always drift back to the one thing that makes them feel alive."
― Shannon L. Alder
Nyota Uhura considers her work to be a blessing in a disguise.
Translating Vulcan texts or decoding Klingon isn't easy, but it gives her mind a respite from the swirling thoughts and difficult emotions that seem to consume her now. She can lose herself for hours in a text, trying to capture every nuance of a word, every bit of syntax of a sentence and then convert it to whatever language she's chosen. She's spent hours, long past when she should've gone to bed, reading and then re-reading texts before translating. It calms her, soothes her in some way. In her Academy days, language had been her comfort and her cure for homesickness, but now, she can't help but feel that not even her work can give her peace entirely.
Nyota, I must inform you that I desire a change in our relationship.
During her shifts, it's harder to tune out his words echoing in her brain. She prides herself on being a complete professional and it's simpler to let her body go through the motions and focus on whatever task Kirk has assigned her. Open a frequency there, press a few buttons here. It's simple, really. It's easy to drown out his voice and to banish the memory. She can handle being in the same room as him. She can even speak to him if she needs to and of course, she will never let her personal feelings impede her work and hinder her crewmates.
Nyota, I have a duty to fulfill. New Vulcan requires me to do this. To not do so would be illogical.
"Don't think about it," She whispers softly, under her breath as she navigates the corridors back to her room, "Just relax."
If she really thinks about it, the moments when she doesn't have any work to focus on are the worst. Her heart feels like it has shattered into a million pieces within her. It pounds and aches some moments, only to skip a beat a few moments later. She finds herself crying for no apparent reason and wakes up with her eyes puffy and red. She knows, of course, that her body is grieving, acknowledging the emotional blow she has suffered. It's inconvenient, but necessary she knows. The sooner she gets done wallowing over Spock, the sooner she can do her work in peace.
Her room; however, offers her no solace. Up until a week ago, Spock had been sharing it with her, filling her solitude with soft words exchanged under the cover of darkness and grounding her in the moment. Now that their relationship is over, he's gone and she found the room cold and empty. She shivers as she enters her room, the door shutting behind her. She should get some sleep—she'd volunteered to take Beta shift, but Kirk ordered her to get some rest; he must've been noticing that she isn't exactly her usual happy self—but Spock's voice is still ringing in her ears.
She settles for translating Klingon documents instead.
"Uhura?"
She quickens her pace, doing her best to outrun her captain lest he figure out what has occurred. She trusts Kirk with her life, but the less he knows about her personal life, the better. He would try to fix things, but she can't allow herself to hope for a solution. Once Spock made up his mind, he stuck to it. Nothing she had said that night had changed things—her captain's words wouldn't help sway him either.
"Nyota, hey, hold on!"
She stops quickly, around a corridor, out of sight of most of the crew. Her captain appears shortly after her, a smirk on his lips, and his voice is a bit breathless.
"Yes, Captain?"
"I've been chasing you around this whole ship." Kirk grouses, "Why are you running?"
"I'm not running—" She lies quietly.
Kirk rolls his eyes, "Right. You want to talk about it?"
She shakes her head, "I'm fine, Captain."
"Liar."
"Kirk." She sighs softly, pinching the bridge of her nose as the pressure builds behind her temples. How can she even begin to explain to her friend what she has been going through? That her boyfriend has decided to end their relationship and go to New Vulcan to make little Vulcan babies and why, because they had told him to do so? Just thinking about it stresses her out. There's nothing Kirk can do. It's better not to involve him.
"Nyota?" He places a warm hand on her shoulder and she forces herself to meet her captain's gaze and plaster a smile on her lips.
"Don't worry, Kirk."
Give her a few more days and she'll be fine.
She's not fine.
Three days later, she awakes with a pounding headache. Her lungs are locked into place and the more she tries to pull in a breath, the more she's unable to breathe without coughing. These coughs rack her lungs, stealing her breath, making it so the lack of oxygen makes her unsteady on her feet. Her room spins around her and she forces herself to sit on her bed and take a few steadying breaths until the dizziness passes. Finally, after a small eternity, she stands back up. After waiting a few moments to confirm that the room isn't spinning once more, she gets ready for her shift.
Making her way down the long corridor to the turbolift leaves her winded. By the time she makes it on the bridge, she's barely remaining upright. Still, she forces herself to be composed and make her way over to her station.
"Lieutenant?" Spock's voice drifts over to her, his eyes locked on her gaze, as if he's searching them for something.
"Mr. Spock." She greets quietly, keeping herself busy by checking over her workstation.
If her ex-boyfriend knows anything is amiss, he doesn't inform her. Then again, Spock is never one to voice his concerns, and really, she shouldn't even care what he thinks about now. Their relationship is over. Spock made his choice and now, she needs to move on.
Kirk appears on the bridge a few moments afterward and comes to sit in his chair.
"How's our ship doing, Mr. Spock?" Kirk questions, gesturing to the ship.
"Very well, Captain. All systems are operating at normal capacity." Spock replies dutifully.
"And are we on course, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk inquires.
"Yes sir."
"Perfect." Kirk leans back in the chair, his eyes drifting over each crew at their station. The silence is broken by a few beeps and chirps of the equipment and Uhura tries her best to remain focused on the machines, even as she feels a cough building up. She clears her throat softly, trying to prevent a cough from happening. She does this two or three times before Kirk asks, "Lieutenant? You okay?"
"Fine, Captain." She says swiftly.
"Okay." Kirk mutters. He looks like he wants to press the issue but she gets an incoming message from a nearby ship and soon the whole shift passes by as the Enterprise is drawn into helping the ship safely back to their target location.
By the time the shift ends, she feels better, but if her knees buckle a bit as she gets up from her chair, no one seems to notice.
"Lieutenant Uhura." Spock's voice is cold and calculated. It's so different from the Spock that she grew to love; the one who would whisper her name like it was a prayer to the highest deity. He would kiss her and she knew exactly how much he cared for her as soon as his lips touched hers. She never needed love poems or declarations—all she needed was him.
But now, he's gone and all she's left with are the painful memories.
"Spock." She greets quietly, meeting his gaze and forcing herself to keep it.
"You appear to be ill." He states frankly.
"I'm not." She protests.
"I've noticed that you seem to take longer on your work." He's trying to get a rise out of her, trying to make sure that she's back to normal. If she argues with him, everything will be as it was before.
"I will increase my pace." She answers. She waits a moment for him to add anything else, but when he does not, she begins to move past him.
"Nyota." He grabs her hand within his and it burns as it summons up all the images that she had locked away deep in the recesses of her mind, all the tender moments that they had shared together. His hand grips hers, "If you are unwell, you must see Dr. McCoy."
"I'm fine—"
"No," He insists, more sharply and with more emotion than he gave her when he ended their relationship, "You are not."
She wants to protest, wants to scream. She wants revenge for her heart being broken. In this moment, she wants to slap him, to kiss him, to beg him to make everything go back to the way it was. If she could go back to that fateful day in the Academy when she first met him, if she could stop herself from falling for him, would she?
"Nyota?" Is it just a trick of the light do his eyes actually look concerned? Does he still care for her, even now? He wanted to end things, didn't he? Right now, he is just twisting the knife in deeper into her heart.
There are so many things she wants to say, but the room starts to spin. Her knees buckle and Spock is saying something, but she can't hear him anymore. The room darkens and then, before she can think of anything else, she feels herself falling.
Then, there's just darkness.
"Nyota?" Dr. McCoy stands hovers over her, a hypo in his hand. "You with me?"
She opens her mouth to try and speak, but all that comes out is a cough. It rattles her lungs and she can taste blood on her lips. Her head aches and the lights in the sickbay burn her eyes.
"Just take it easy. You're pretty sick."
She wants to know what happened, why she's here, but she's so exhausted. It's like her bones are lead and she can barely move her head, let alone open her mouth to form words.
"Sick?" She finally mentions to get out and Dr. McCoy nods.
"Not sure what it is yet, but it's a nasty infection." He places a hand on her cheeks and smiles at her. "Hang in there, I'll get you sorted out." He injects her with some more medicine and she barely feels the sting of the needle.
She has no doubts he will, but she's scared nonetheless. Her body has turned against her and lying in the uncomfortable sickbay bed, she feels so cold and alone. She wants someone to hold her hand, to assure her that she will be okay. She wants—
"Spock." She whispers, her eyes falling shut as the drowsiness of the medicine carries her back to the darkness.
"Well, how bad is she Bones?" Kirk snaps and it surprises her to hear her captain so angry and serious. Jim is usually cracking jokes, always smiling and laughing.
"If I knew that don't you think I would tell you?" Dr. McCoy, as usual when it comes to dealing with Jim, is frustrated, voice strained and words biting.
"Well, then what caused it? She's running a fever, coughing up blood? You're telling me that you can't treat her?"
"That's not what I'm saying!" Bones hisses, "Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker! I need to run more tests—"
She wants to stay awake, to try and listen and help narrow done what's happened to her. But she's exhausted and before she can say anything, she's falling back into unconsciousness.
Ashayam.
The first time he called her that, she'd blushed. They'd been dating for only a few months and up until this point, she'd been sure that the affection had been mostly one-sided. When he grabbed her hands and whispered it to her—Ashayam, Nyota—she'd nearly fallen over in shock. Before this moment, he had trouble just calling her by her first name. Now, he'd just called her his beloved.
In that moment, standing outside the linguistic lab where they both worked, that was when she knew that she loved him.
"Nyota?"
When she opens her eyes once more, Spock is standing above her, his brow furrowed and his hand on her cheek. His skin is cool and feels good against the fire that seems to be raging in her head.
"Spock?" Her throat is parched and immediately, Spock hands her a small glass of water. The cool liquid soothes her throbbing throat and soon, she's downed the whole cup. "Y'kay?" She manages to ask him.
"Me?" He echoes, almost incredulously. "Nyota, you've been in the sickbay with the Kamaraazite flu for the past week."
She knew of that flu—an extremely nasty virus that could cause internal hemorrhaging, fever and broken ribs from the sheer force of coughing alone—but she hadn't realized that she'd been exposed to it. Maybe on their last shore leave she'd come across someone ill?
"What are you doing here?" That's the one thing that confuses her really. She and Spock are over—he'd made that pretty clear—and yet, he's here, by her bedside.
"I grew . . ." Spock pauses, carefully measuring his words, "Concerned."
"Concerned." She'd laugh if she could.
"Dr. McCoy and the others still believe that we are still engaged in our relationship."
"Ah," She murmurs, "So this is just to keep up appearances?"
"No," He interjects quickly as his hand moves from her face and grabs her own clammy one, "I . . . it was illogical to come here, but I needed to make sure that your treatment was progressing."
In Spock speak that means he'd been worried about her.
She should tell him to go. After all, they were no longer a couple. She didn't need anyone at her bedside to keep her company. She shouldn't want him to be with her, but she misses him. Is it so wrong to want him to keep holding her hand?
In the future, she'll blame it on the medicine making her drowsy, but for now she just squeezes his hand and says, "I missed you too."
She falls asleep to him whispering words in Vulcan to her.
When she recovers a week later, McCoy discharges her on the condition that she returns to the sickbay before her shift every day that week to make sure the treatment really had run its course.
"I promise," She assures him with a smile, "I really do feel better."
Dr. McCoy just shrugs, "Yeah, well, you gave us all quite a scare. Spock especially."
Her ears perk up at that, "Really?"
"Damn Vulcan barged in here, demanding to see you, second guessing every damn treatment choice I made." McCoy runs a hand through his hair and sighs, "Never seen him so worried like that."
"Worried?" She chuckles softly. "That would be illogical."
McCoy grows quiet, his expression sobering, "He really does love you. Anyone could see. He stayed with you as much as he could and when Kirk finally kicked him off the bridge he just came right back down."
She plasters a tight grin on her lips and replies, "He's great, isn't he?"
"I guess." McCoy laughs.
But inside her heart is still breaking.
"Lieutenant Uhura."
"Spock."
They both stand awkwardly in the turbolift.
"I heard that you—"
"I am pleased to you see that you—"
They both stop, their words tumbling over each other, syllables crashing.
"You first." She insists.
Spock takes a deep breath, grounding himself in the moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is once again cold and calculated, "While I am pleased to see that you have recovered fully, I want to state that my actions were highly inappropriate and completely illogical. I do not wish to give the impression that our relationship—"
"I get it." She interrupts sharply, "It didn't mean anything. You and I are just . . . shipmates."
Spock hesitates before replying, "Yes."
Nyota takes a deep breath in, "Okay. That's fine."
It's not but what else can she do?
When the turbolift opens and they both appear on the bridge and get back to work, she tells herself that this is for the best. The pain will dull as times passes. She'll meet someone else one day, someone who will be able to love her fully.
At least, that's what she has to tell herself today.
Author's Note: Please forgive me if anyone seems out of character. This is my first time writing for this fandom and I really am trying my best. I hope to write more Spock/Uhura fanfics soon (with hopefully happier endings!). Please review if you have a moment. Thanks!