This prompt comes from the Spock_Uhura LJ community Valentine's Prompt Table. Specifically, #4 "tougher on the ones we love."
So many thanks to AtanaM and mhgood for betaing this little oneshot of mine and for believing in it. You guys are amazing, you really, really are.
Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. I hope you have a marvelous one.
As a Professor, he should evaluate his students on the same grading scale. An A for one translated transmission should have the same standards, no matter the student. If he is to deduct points for a student not quite grasping the nuance of a phrase, the exact aspiration in the sound of a letter, then he should do so, regardless of the identity of the student. They are, after all, the best the worlds have to offer. Starfleet is entrusting them to be able to be the voice of Starfleet, of the galaxy. They should be able to master languages, to strive for perfection in order to eliminate the possibility of there being a mistranslation, of the quaint Terran phrase, "lost in translation."
Yet he finds that he is more strict in his grading requirements with Cadet Uhura. He tells himself it is because she has the potential to be one of the most talented communications officers ever to graduate from Starfleet Academy. Her grasp of languages is unparalleled, her grasp of pitch and syntax indistinguishable from a native speaker in at least 80% of the languages she knows, and it would take a native speaker to distinguish the infinitesimal differences in the remaining 20%. Sometimes he wonders if she perhaps has Vulcan ancestors, because such aural superiority is not common in the DNA of her species. There have been only three such humans in recorded history as having anything approaching her talent, the last being half-Romulan and dying half a century prior to Cadet Uhura's birth. Cadet Uhura, Nyota, is not Vulcan, but human and female and from the Eastern region of the United States of Africa. To muse otherwise would be whimsical and thus unacceptable, no matter how pleasant he finds the thought.
He knows that it does not matter the order in which he evaluates his students' files. There is no reason, no rhyme in searching for Cadet Uhura, Nyota's, file first. He deducts points if she uses one acceptable word when another one would have given a much more detailed translation. He deducts points if her syntax is not quite right, if she uses the imperfect tense when the wording calls for the pluperfect, if her diction is off by the smallest of pauses. A half a point if she should have touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth instead of the back of her teeth, another half if he knows she does not grasp the meaning of what she is translating, if her translation rests on generalities instead of a much more literal translation.
He knows he is being unfair to her, that despite her talent, she is not Vulcan, or Romulan, and therefore should be held to the limits of her species, that he is holding her to a standard that she cannot possibly reach, that he himself would not be able to sustain. There are times, after all, when he must reference a grammatical text, sometimes even going to the library to find a paper book on the subject, unable to find an obvious, glaring defect but rather just the suspicion that something was "off." There have been instances where he has spent more than the required time on Cadet Uhura's translation because he is doing research, listening her voice repeatedly in his office, or his apartment, just to be certain that she is measuring up to the developments on the latest xenolinguistic theory.
He also knows, along with his injudiciousness, that despite the fact that she must know by now the sequence of events that will be awaiting her, she will smile at him when she walks into the classroom with her gaggle of friends. They will be talking to her, but for a small moment, precisely three seconds, he is certain she is not listening to them but looking at him, as if greeting him, albeit in silence. She will then sit down, take out her PADD from her bag, and poise her stylus over its monitor, all the while looking at him. He will then tell the class that he uploaded his evaluations of their work this morning. He will start the lecture, casting glances at her as she surreptitiously looks at her evaluation. Her face will fall, the disappointment clear and he thinks that her quiet sadness screams and disrupts him more than if she were to start crying loudly in the lecture hall.
After the lecture she will very quietly get up, she will stare straight ahead of her and not look at him. It is as if she is too proud to do so, as if she knows that he evaluates her work on a different scale than the others, and she cares not to dignify that with a response.
He has also noticed that she is getting better, that the endless tutoring sessions that she has demanded of him have led her to attaining more of a finesse in her translation skills. It is becoming much harder for him to find things in which to find fault, harder for him to find reason for her to meet him for practice sessions. The things he does find fault with are sometimes archaic and he would not try to stop her if she went to the disciplinary counsel to accuse him of bias. He wishes he could tell her that she is better than the others, that while Starfleet does not accept every applicant to its Academy, she is special, she has the ability to surpass all the others in her class and he refuses to allow her to meet the lower standards of her supposed peers. She is better than that, she will be the best.
But that would be favoritism and against the rules. So he pushes her instead.
Thus, when he enters in the final grades for the semester, there is a part of him that is pleased to see that Cadet Uhura performed well-above her peers and most of the xenolinguistic staff at the Academy. He will, no doubt, help her finish her core studies a full two years early and he has already made some subtle inquries into having her as his research assistant.
He finds, however, that the next semester that she has not signed up for any of his classes, despite many of them being requisite classes for Advanced Xenolinguistic Studies. He is tempted, on numerous occasions, to instruct the computer to locate her, if only to be assured of her presence. He desists, of course. If she is not his student, then he has no need of knowledge of her whereabouts. Of what she is doing, whom she is spending her time with, is none of his business.
Often he finds himself slowly pacing in his office, listening to one of her longer translations and reprimanding himself for being too harsh with her. In attempting to help her achieve, to help her excel, he drove her away, and he would not fault her in finding a more balanced instructor or accusing him of abusing his position of power. He never voiced his intent to play the role of mentor, never told her of his appreciation for her talent and work ethic or his intent to reward such dedication by having her named as an asistant. Humans are not telepathic by nature, a fact his mother often scolded him with. "We need words, Spock," she had told him. It was not the Vulcan way, and he had not listened. In consequence he will not get the opportunity to hear her lovely voice or see her brief nod in greeting when she entered his class. He will not get the chance to spend hours with her, watching her face as she tries again and again to perfect her pronunciation. He deserves her rejection. He deserves her punishment, deserves every single second of torment. It is equitable retribution for all of his pushing, all of his demands of her. He has treated her the same way he has been treated his entire life.
He is a monster.
He, to use the words of his mother, pours himself into his work, though unlike the Edanti he cannot rearrange his molecular structure at will and thus cannot pour himself into anything, much less an abstract. Nevertheless, he finds that there is some truth to the Terran saying. He stays late in his office, only leaving when his body demands it and even then he pushes it to its limit. Meditation has become as frustrating and elusive as it was when he was a young child, and he has not achieved A're'minu in weeks. He finds no pleasure in food, nor research, nor in the company of the few he has come to call "friends" at the Academy. Numbers, order, once the touchstone that always brought him comfort and peace, has morphed into chaos, meaningless shapes flowing through his head.
Right now, he is trying to reprogram a computer.
He hears his door chime, alerting him that someone is entering. He is annoyed and does nothing to conceal his annoyance. He has had to take the entire computer apart and has found that the whole system to be illogical. Thus, he must put it together again, to redo an action because someone else did not do it correctly the first time. If he were in the habit of indulging in facial expressions, he would imagine he would be scowling right now.
He refuses to look up from the CPU of the computer, "Captain Pike, I have repeatedly declined your requests to accompany you to the bar this evening. I care not that it is 'Valentine's Day.' Since I have made my intentions abundantly clear, I must ask that you convey my condolences and attend the staff party without me."
"Do I look like Captain Pike to you?" a most un-masculine voice asks, somewhat sarcastically.
He looks up and wonders if perhaps his negligence of meditating this evening has finally caught up to him and he is hallucinating. Before him is Nyota in a short gold dress, her hair down, not in its severely banded style, but held back from her face with a wide, red ribbon and cascading freely down her back and over her shoulders. She is wearing more cosmetics than he is accustomed to seeing her wear, but the effect is pleasing and he does not censure her for it. Her earrings are gold as well, big, ornamental hearts with a red stone in the center that contrast with the black of her hair. The dress is so short—the hem of the skirt ending at an expanse of smooth brown thigh--and she is taller than he remembered. He has an eidetic memory—that cannot be right, she is wearing elevated shoes, then.
She steps closer to his desk and wobbles at bit, reaching out quickly to steady herself with one hand. He can smell the pungent scent of alcohol on her breath, something he normally finds repugnant but finds that he cannot focus right now, not when she is bending over and her neckline is gaping.
He is attracted to her. He has always been attracted to her. To deny what is a proven fact is illogical, so he does not try to any longer. He pushed her to excel not just because of her unparalleled abilities but because he found her wit and intellect enjoyable, her symmetrical features and healthy female form pleasing, and her company far more superior to that the all other students. When he is with her, he finds that he...wants. Things he has no right to want. Desires he has no right to have. He wishes to possess her, to keep her, and he cannot. It's not right, it's not logical, and--
"I believe I asked you a question, Commander," she says, interrupting his thoughts.
He straightens in his chair and looks up at her. Her eyes blink 4.3 times more rapidly than normal but she holds his gaze firmly.
"You are intoxicated, Cadet." Thinking her previous question is rhetorical, he states the obvious.
The rapid blinking slows down to one slightly prolonged blink.
"Yes, yes I am. But that is not the answer to my question, Commander."
"Cadet Uhura, perhaps--"
She steps closer to him and jabs her finger harshly on the desk in emphasis. "I am not that drunk, Commander, and it is a simple question."
Although he must differ on her perception of how intoxicated she is, he must mentally commend her for speaking so well while obviously imbibing a good quantity of liquor. His roommate while at the Academy tended to slur his words after a few alcoholic beverages and Spock found it most annoying.
"No," he says, deciding to, as humans say, "humor her," although he had yet to find levity in the situation. "You do not look like Captain Pike."
She smiles at him, "Good. I'm glad we cleared that up."
"Now," she says, straightening, "I came here to ask you a question."
He does not care right now for her questions, not when she is close enough to him that he is enveloped, intoxicated by her scent. Underneath the alcohol she smells of vanilla and cinnamon and some dark African spice, and underneath that some warm woodsy soap, and underneath still the pheromones that make her uniquely human...and female. He wants...again.
He focuses hard on the words coming out of her shapely mouth in an effort to maintain his control.
"...derstand it. Now, I work damn hard for my grades. I am smart. Did you know that Starfleet Academy was not the only place to court me? There were so many universities that wanted me to do research and to teach. There are probably departments right now that would give anything if I just even considered them."
He nods, trying hard and ultimately failing to not notice the wide right strap of her dress falling down, exposing one shoulder.
"I am certain this is true," he agrees. "Your intellect has never been in dispute, Cadet."
She nods in agreement, curtly. "Damn right. I am intelligent. But what I can't figure out is why I had to work ten times as hard for you than any other professor. I...mean...I mean....I like to be as challenged as the next cadet, I chose your classes because I knew you'd challenge me, that I would learn from you like I would no other. I expected you to be tough, to have to fight for my grades in your class, but what you did...what it did...it wasn't challenging. It was like you were trying deliber...deliberat...trying on purpose to make me trip up. To see me fail."
She leans forward again, jabbing her finger at him. "None of it was ever good enough. Nothing I ever did was good enough. Somehow, some way, you always found fault in my work, found fault in me. Why? Why would you take time to help me all those times? All that time we spent going over and over and over and over what was required. All those nights I spent, with you...going over and over. And I tried, I tried so hard. Not just to get it right. Hell, if it was just to get it right...but to please you....I wanted to please you, to show you I could. But it wasn't enough. Why wasn't it enough? What did I do wrong? Where did I fail?"
She leans closer to him and he can smell the alcohol much more strongly now, overtaking her perfume. "Or are you just as much of a human-hating hard-ass as they say you are?"
He gets up swiftly, unable to hear more of her questions, her accusations. The action causes her to fumble again and she grips the desk for support, before sitting down in the chair behind her, though the action is far from graceful.
Something in him snaps. It started wounding itself when he was a child, all of the misunderstandings and the assumptions about him. He remembers the Vulcan boys taunting him, his father's disapproval for every "emotional response" he had, the Vulcan Science Academy Panel assuming his "disadvantage." He remembers the stares from his fellow cadets, the awkward questions, the whispered rumors. He thinks to the cadets he teaches, the snide comments they make, the rumors they start. The way they think he does not hear, does not know, does not feel their contempt and fear.
No more.
He takes a step forward and looms over her, his tone even and controlled, yet still making the fury beneath it. "Did it ever occur to you, Cadet, that from the moment you answered a query in my class that I understood your intelligence? That I pushed you so hard because I never beheld talent of your level in one of your species? That I spent all those evenings with you so that we could develop your gift? That I have always wanted the best for you, for you to excel in everything you endeavored to accomplish? As for my supposed hatred of humans, they have not shown me any more kindness than Vulcans have, but surely you did not mistake my effort to mentor you for hatred? Surely you were not oblivious of my regard for you?"
He paused and when she did not answer but merely stared at him, wide-eyed, with her mouth open, he found it filled him with illogical fury. Everything in him screamed for him to be silent, to walk away, yet he found he could not.
"Did you not understand—you do please me, Nyota. Everything about you pleases me, always. I would have been accused of favoritism had I treated you as I wished. I admit, it was selfish, but I found your company...pleasurable and since tutoring you was the only way I could indulge--"
He is unable to finish because her lips are suddenly pressing hard against his, and, when he opens his mouth in shock, he feels the soft wetness of her tongue and the cool press of her hands against the sides of his face. His control is weak, weak enough that he does not push her away. He has enough human instinct in him to wrap his arms around her, pulling her body close to his. She is suddenly kissing everywhere she can reach and her mouth is everywhere and nowhere at once and as he chases her lips with his, he deducts he must be doing something correctly because she starts moaning into his mouth. The sound brings up something primal in him and he breaks the kiss to bury his face into the crook of her neck.
"I didn't know," she whispers, "not until this moment. I thought you hated me."
He shakes his head, running his teeth along the skin of her shoulder. "Hatred is the fear of that which one does not understand. It is illogical that I would feel such an emotion towards you...even if I did not regard you as I do."
Her arms tighten around his neck and he can feel her smile.
"I think that is the nicest thing Valentine's Day I've ever had," she murmurs into his skin and he revels in the feeling of her lips against his neck. His mind wonders what it would feel like to feel her teeth against it, how much of a mark she would leave.
Eventually, they walk out of his office. After all, soon someone would notice that even the Vulcan was in his office for too long with a student and start to ask questions. They start walking across the campus towards the dormitories and he finds himself for the second time that night at a loss. His knowledge of human mating rituals is limited to what he has overheard from other males during his own cadet years and what little he has allowed his mother to tell him. He wishes now he had listened to her more because though they have professed an attraction towards one another both verbally and physically, he does not sense that taking Nyota to his apartment for copulation is the correct stance to take. He desires her greatly and senses that she feels the same for him, yet he feels the overwhelming desire to demonstrate to her that he wants her not only for her body but her mind as well.
He walks her back to her dorm and when they reach the door to her dormitory he remembers his mother telling him that his father used to court her by requesting her company during a meal. He and Nyota have dined together many times during their tutoring sessions, but he has never asked her formally for her company during a meal. He finds he does not have the words and he panics, suddenly fearful that she will scorn his hesitance and leave him, unwilling to see him again.
"Nyota," he begins. "Would you be amiable—are you adverse to—is your schedule--"
She smiles as clear and bright as the stars. "Yes Spock, I would love to go on a date with you."
He releases a breath he did not realize he was holding. "Perhaps dinner?"
She nods, "I would like that."
He knows he cannot kiss her as Terrans do; there are still cadets walking around the campus, enjoying the holiday of Valentine's Day. He desires to, wishes that the social mores of the Academy did not contradict his wish to kiss Nyota, so he instead finds a compromise. He offers her two of his fingers in the Vulcan tradition of kissing. She looks at him for a moment, confused, before realizing his intent and laying her fingers against his.
"And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss," she whispers, smiling.
He recognizes Shakespeare; his mother was particularly fond of the ancient Terran playwright.
She lifts her fingers from his. "Thank you, Spock. Good night, and Happy Valentine's Day."
He inclines his head. "And to you, Nyota."