Chapter Two

Uhura was enjoying her time among the Qimba collecting data. She had already decided, before beaming down, that even though she had been quite angry with Spock for assigning Vinting to her, she would not take out her anger on the security man. Instead, she spent the day trying to engage him in conversation during her various duties. He was very much a guard but warmed up at some point when a few of the children clustered around Uhura with bright, sweet smiles, inching ever closer, wanting to sneak a look at her equipment, especially her tri-corder.

Uhura saw why the Gerrin saw themselves as 'better' than the Qimba. Their counterparts lived in temporary dwellings that resembled something like tents, but for the most part their culture was a beautiful, intact, functioning system. Although they did not seem to enjoy their counterparts love for landscaping, their way of life was not at all bad as far as she was concerned. Their children were clean and well-cared for. They kept the older children engaged for half the day in one particular tent that she figured was a kind of school. And from what Uhura could gather from having the opportunity to speak with the adults among the Qimba as she catalogued their language, their ideals were quite noble.

Their tent-like structures, too, were very large, clean and quite livable. The floors of the living quarters were made of handmade thick rugs shorn from their livestock that looked a lot like sheep. And the walls of the tents on the inside were reinforced with thick rugs that hung and shielded everyone from the outside elements.

The men and women among the Qimba seemed to hold equal status, and their children were as children everywhere; carefree, loving and smiling at strangers. The adults, for their part, were a little standoffish at first. But when they saw that Uhura was there and truly eager to hear their language and find out their ways, they opened up quite nicely with her.

A particularly tall, proud young girl named Leemi took to following Uhura and Vinting around for most of that first day. At first Nyota assumed the girl was following them because she saw them as a threat. Then she realized that Leemi was giving Vinting 'eyes'. She saw the security man realized it as he blushed red. Instead of comfort from Uhura, though, he found her winking at him mischievously as she laughed.

One of the littlest children went to Uhura toward the end of the day when she was packing up her things. "Qarimi! Qarimi!" said the tiny voice. She couldn't have been more than three years of age.

At first Nyota had no idea what the child was asking for until Vinting pointed out, "My little sister used to do that when she wanted someone to pick her up."

Uhura realized then that the little ones' arms were up and extended outward with the fingers continually opening and closing toward her. She looked down into the big brown eyes and found herself melting. She picked the little girl up and was met by her squeal of delight.

Almost before she was done packing up to go back to the Enterpriese, the children were clustering around her again, so she sang them a little lullaby from her youth. Just as she was finishing her song, her communicator went off. Nyota opened it and was met by the cool tone of a very familiar voice. "Spock, here," came the crisp announcement.

"This is Lieutenant Uhura," she announced. "I'm almost done packing up my things for the day, Commander."

"The Captain wishes to know your status, Lieutenant."

The Captain, my eye she thought. "All is well and I'm on my way back to the ship now, sir."

"Spock out."

####

Her very professional tone toward him was noted. He knew she was still quite angry with him. He wished to do something to make things better between them. He had evaluated his stance carefully toward assigning Vinting to her before it was done, but he was ready to now consider that perhaps it was time to reevaluate. He had not, in his initial evaluation, considered the effect this would have on Nyota or their relationship. He had been missing a piece of the equation and knew it was now time he reconsidered the facts.

Waiting for her in the transporter room, he saw her very shapely form as Scotty finished the beam-up process. The minute they rematerialized, Vinting turned to Uhura and went to help her with her excess equipment. The two were laughing and talking about the children down on the surface and a young woman named Leemi. It did not matter to him what the subject matter happened to be, however. What Spock didn't care for was the way Uhura was smiling up at the security man. And Vinting seemed to quite enjoy the smile of the petite cinnamon skinned woman.

Spock found himself wishing to remove the smile from Vinting's face by force but his internal controls asserted themselves and reminded him that the young man had been Uhura's shipmate for quite sometime. He also knew that Nyota was not the sort of woman to be so fickle as to throw a man over simply because another had caught her eye. His internal controls also reminded him that it was better for Uhura to get along with her Landing Party partner. Perhaps, he considered, she had gotten past being angry with him about the situation. If that was so, he was willing to suppose he had imagined her overly professional tone on the communicator. Despite all of the thoughts in his mind, he still did not care for the way the two were smiling, laughing and talking to one another.

"I didn't know what to do," Vinting said with mock drama while laughing as he helped Uhura haul the large bag down the transporter room steps. "She was standing there waiting for something and I felt terrible about it!"

"What, you didn't like her, Vinting?" joked Nyota.

"She's about the same age as my baby sister!" he laughed. "And I stress the word 'baby' in front of the word 'sister'."

She laughed at his words, but some part of her could detect that Spock was not only standing there, but he was watching silently, jealousy brewing. She turned to look at the commander. "We're finished with our duties for today, sir," she announced formally.

"It looks like you need a wee bit of help," Scotty said to her from behind Mr. Spock.

"It's okay, I got it, sir," said Vinting as he moved the equipment to the side of the transporter room and close to the door. He then turned to Uhura, serious then. "You think we should just leave it here for now?" he asked. "Maybe you'll need it again tomorrow?"

"I don't think so," said Uhura. "I have all of the information I wanted to collect and I won't need to bring it back down there tomorrow since it's just going to be a whole lot of talking."

He puffed up his chest once again in a joking gesture. "Don't you worry about it, little lady, Mr. Scott and I will put it away."

Uhura looked over at Scotty with an 'are you sure?' expression on her face as she pointed one long fingernail at the big bag of equipment.

"Don't worry yourself, lass. Vinting and I can take care of it," the engineer assured her. "I've done my bit of hauling over the years. And I can certainly do it for my favorite communications officer," he said with a smile.

The trio laughed as Uhura said, "Thanks, fellas."

Spock, inexplicably annoyed at both males by that point, said, "You will report to my quarters to give me an analyses of your day, lieutenant," he said. "And by all means, bring your tri-corder. I am interested in what you happened to do for the entire day."

She caught his true meaning and kept her lips shut. What a jealous man! What she had to say to him was about to get said in the privacy of his quarters. And when she was done with him those Vulcan ears would be ringing!

####

They entered his quarters and the door closed behind them. Both would ordinarily have fallen into one another's arms, but Spock sensed Uhura's building anger, and Nyota had several bones to pick with Spock.

"Look here, mister!" she said as she suddenly turned and looked up into his serious face. "If you even think you can stand there and have the nerve become jealous after you're the one who assigned the security man to me, you have got some nerve on you!"

"You looked as if you quite enjoyed Vinting's company. I supposed from your behavior toward him you must have gotten past my decision to assign him to you."

"Oh, no, I haven't! I just figured why punish Vinting when I'm pissed off at you!"

He had to give his Nyota credit. Any other put into her situation might most likely have been cold and sniping toward Vinting the entire day if he were there against their will. But his Nyota had risen above that and treated Vinting as nicely as possible. And then the jealousy struck anew. She had done more than treat him as nicely as possible. She had smiled at him, repeatedly, joked with him, became quite familiar with him as a person. In his opinion his Nyota that treated Vinting too well!

"Is the reason you decided to behave that way toward Vinting because you wished to elicit a reaction from me? Did you, at all, behave this nicely toward him the entire day or was it only recently when you realized I would be awaiting your presence in the transporter room?" He knew from the look on her face that he had gone a little too far.

That was it for Uhura. "You know what? I'm leaving right now. When you're thinking straight, come back and we can talk about this again."

Before she could leave, though, he was standing in front of her, blocking her path to the door. "You will not leave my presence until you are no longer angry with me, Nyota."

"Oh so is that an order, sir?" she asked.

"No, I do not speak to you as a superior officer. I speak to you as the one who wishes to become yours fully. And it is unwise to speak harsh words with one another then part ways. Do you not see the logic of that?"

She heard the word 'logic' and really wanted to slap him across the face. "Yes, it is logical. But at least I'm supposed to have a choice! Which you seem to be having trouble giving me, choices!"

He was taken aback. "Are you asserting that I have become a controlling male?"

"Um, yes!" she said as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet.

He was truly shocked. He walked away from her and sat on his bunk, thought of what she had just told him. He went through his track record with her and realized that, yes, he had on many occasions obstructed his Nyota and tried every way to force her into doing things his way. "Fascinating," he found himself murmuring.

She noticed how he'd become slightly different, as if he were truly thinking of something. She went to where he was sitting to see the expression on his face. "Spock?" she whispered.

He turned to her. Even despite her anger with him, she was still concerned with how he was doing. His innards were rocked with emotion for the woman looking down at him with concern. "You are correct, Nyota. I must endeavor to control myself better when it comes to you."

She hadn't expected him to say that so quickly. "Spock, what's made you so…jealous. So-"

"I remembered what you said…about 'him'."

She realized that that was the beginning of all their drama. A week before she made the mistake of telling Spock of her experience in the mirror universe with his counterpart. Though next to nothing had happened between them, he seemed to be consumed with jealousy toward the man. To make things even worse, she had been, back then, free to pursue whatever it was she'd wished with his counterpart…though she hadn't. "Does it bother you that much, Spock?" she asked gently as she still kept her distance.

He would never admit to being 'bothered' by anything, but he did find himself asking, "Did you find him compelling because of who he was? Or because of the differences between us?"

Nyota thought to herself, it was like telling a man you found his twin disgustingly sexy. "Spock," she said as she sat down next to him on his bunk. "He thought I was his Uhura. He only kissed me twice. I tried to play along and even then, he knew something was wrong." She found herself about to laugh, but held it back. "He assumed I was angry with him over something."

"And the differences between us?" he asked, not wishing to know anymore about any physical contact or the inner workings of the mind of a man that had caught Nyota's attention, even his alternate self.

"Spock, something tells me that though I was afraid of that man, in a way you are more like him on the inside than you would probably like to admit."

He was startled by her accuracy in assessing who he truly was. And the two had yet to touch minds! Looking at her, he was filled with some emotion that he could not give a name to. He wanted her very much at that moment, but knew that that was not the time to allow it to overtake him. "You are correct, Nyota. Underneath my control and logic I am little more than what my ancestors were. Savage, brutal, jealous of every male within ten meters of you."

She saw the emotion sparkling in his eyes, though it didn't show on his face. "I understand why you assigned Vinting to me. That doesn't mean I'm still not pissed off at you about it, but I understand."

"I will endeavor, in future, to behave more as your commander in all things pertaining to our duty aboard this ship," he promised.

She inched closer to him. "And I'll try to be as understanding as possible about-"

His mouth was on hers, then, stopping her words. "Nyota," he said between kisses. "You have been more than understanding. I will try my utmost to be worthy of you."

Her heart turned over as she eagerly lifted herself and sat on his lap. "You are, Spock!" she said as she began to kiss him again.

His instincts were attempting to take over then. They were saying lock her mind to yours, make her yours now, do not hesitate! He immediately stopped kissing her.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He could barely control his breathing. "It happened again."

She swallowed back her fear. It had been happening every time the two of them became too emotional while touching one another for the past month. "Maybe you and I should just bond now and-"

"No! You wished very much for us to meet one another's families, first, at the least. And I concur."

She stood up and walked away from him. "We can keep trying to wait, but sooner or later my libido is going to win out and so is yours."

He found himself seeing a challenge in those words and wanted to rise to it. His instincts had been attempting to take over repeatedly with him concerning her. "This is terribly improper," he found himself murmuring. "I am failing to control myself in connection with you on every level."

She saw his distress and couldn't stand it. "I'm so sorry, Spock."

He pulled her back to sit on his lap again. "There is no reason for you to be sorry, Nyota," he said as his eyes searched hers.

It shook her sometimes, the way he looked into her eyes as if she were some new discovery he was eager to explore. "We'll be at Earth in about two weeks and you can meet my family then. And your family-"

"They have returned to the embassy on Earth. My father is in talks at this moment as a mediator between two races whom wished to meet there and treat it as neutral ground."

"So then I get to see your parents again?" she asked. "Except this time as your-"

He nodded. "Yes, as mine."

"Are you certain of that?" she teased.

"Do not test me, Nyota," he said as he nipped lightly at her chin and then found himself kissing her again.