One
She had not made a fuss. She had not made anything. When Spock had told her of his choice and asked for her forgiveness she had told him that he was free to do as he wished and that she wished him well. Spock had told him that she had also, without any fuss, removed his access to her room, and never came to his again. All very quiet and dignified.
She was too quiet. In the first few months she had occasionally sung on the bridge, nice songs, sweet songs about all sorts of things. He had never known that she was such a good singer until she began, until she stopped. He missed her songs, but it wasn't as if he could order her to start singing again. He could order her to do a lot of things, but not that.
He tried to draw her out, heavens aplenty knew they all tried. She responded a bit to the others and that was encouraging, but not with Spock and certainly not with him. He'd teased her as he'd done in the academy days, trying to get a rise out of her, but she would not be riled. She was polite, she was courteous, sometimes she even smiled, but she was not herself. She was not Uhura. She was not Nyota.
It was upsetting Spock. He knew through that link mind thingamajig, he could never truly define what they had, whatever they had. Spock felt guilty, he'd been Uhura's friend before he'd been her lover and he could tell when she was unhappy, which was what was happening and how in this case. He wanted to do something but it seemed that Uhura wouldn't let him. She'd claimed to his First officer and to McCoy (and he felt a little bit of envy that she'd opened up to him, of all people) that she'd wanted to get through this in her own time. That was all well and good, but staying so unhappy wasn't doing her or anyone else any good. Perhaps it would be better if…
He didn't know how she'd heard the tentative suggestion that Spock had considered – perhaps it might have been better if he'd immediately shot it down but he hadn't, he'd looked thoughtful and maybe she'd seen that as well - but she had. The look she had given him when he'd come onto the bridge had made him want to run and hide behind something. It was anger but more than that…hell, Spock would have a better chance of defining all the roiling boiling things in that brown glare of hers. If she'd spoken to him at that moment, which she didn't do, nor would she ever do again to either of them unless she had to, she'd have said something like 'Just try it, just try to get rid of me, if I go I'll take some bit of you with me, count on that, you bastards.'
He'd fucked it all up, truly and completely. This was worse and nothing, nothing they could do would make Uhura come back out of this new ice queen now.
"Perhaps we should transfer her, Spock? It would be better for all of us."
And you didn't say no at once. You looked as if you were considering it. You looked as if you wanted it. That's how little I mean to you, that you can take another dream and throw it in the mud and stamp on it a couple of times and do all sorts of other things to it that don't exist but still hurt.
I'm not going to say a word. I'm not going to let you have that, none of you. I'll never say a word. I'll never say or do anything to let them have their way. But when I'm far away from the both of you and your telepathy and the bond I can't scream but I can think as loud as I can, Fuck you, James T. fucking Kirk, and fuck you oh Spock son of Sarek, fuck both of you, and all of you go fuck each other all you want, because I'm not going away just because you don't want me any more.