"This ain't natural."
Jim leers at the female undergraduate students currently clustering around the pool table. "Oh, Bones. It's natural, all right." He sips his beer without taking his eyes off them.
"It's forty degrees wind chill outside. Why'd they come out without their pants? Or their shirts, for fuck's sake." As the father of a young daughter who is less than a decade away from becoming a teenager, McCoy has self-appointed as the protective, albeit ill tempered, uncle of the entire female population on campus. "Jim, quit staring at that gaggle. They could be your daughters."
"Not all of them." Lacking McCoy's approval, Jim winks conspiratorially at Spock, unfazed when the only answers he receives is withering look. "In fact, none of the them. I'll have you know that I was responsible in my teens. If you know what I mean. And, a bit of a late bloomer."
McCoy snorts and shoots him a disbelieving look.
"Statistically speaking, it is likely that at least one of them has been, currently is, or will be in one of your courses." And if so, Spock fervently hopes that they never show up for Jim's class clothed in that manner. Or for office hours, comes to think of. "Moreover, they do not appear to be of an age to be allowed into a bar."
"Jesus. I can't believe we're spending our Saturday night in a grad student bar." McCoy shakes his head with dejection. "What the hell went wrong?" He takes a swig of his Bourbon.
"I, for one, commend the newly minted Doctor Sulu's choice of a grad bar that is mostly full of very pretty undergrads as a party venue." Jim declares happily, leaning back on his stool. "Just relax, Bones. You're the MD in the house. If one of them gets a cold stroke, you get to do CPR on them."
McCoy's eyes narrow. "Why are you even here, Jim?"
McCoy and Spock, of course, were Hikaru's academic advisors until three days ago, and there was no diplomatic way for them to refuse to attend his graduation party, no matter the location. Jim decided to join them, quite predictably, either to spend time with his friends, or, and it is more likely, persuaded by the promise of alcohol.
"Can't blame me. The company's delightful." He grins, bringing his drink to his lips and going back to stare at the group of girls. They display, Spock notes, the uncanny ability of communicating with each other while simultaneously dedicating their complete attention to their phones. He is somewhat impressed.
He is about to take a sip of his beer when he feels a gentle tap on his shoulder. "Spock!"
It is her.
Standing only a few feet from him. Even though they are most definitely not his office. He thinks. No, he is certain.
She is wearing a blue dress, he hair braided at her nape in a complicated, incomprehensible way. Spock instantly discards his previously formulated hypothesis, that it is the dull environment of campus, and of the Computer Science department in particular, that makes her shine by contrast. She appears to be exceedingly, and inexplicably, delighted to see him.
"I didn't peg you for the type to hang out at The Shipyard," she says teasingly, around her inexplicably delighted smile.
She addles his brain. With her voice, and her eyes, and her graceful hand that was on his shoulder for an entirely appropriate amount of time. There is no other explanation for him needing several seconds to recall that the Shipyard is the name of the establishment they are currently sitting inside.
"I do not believe I am," he answers her, half-wishing that he had the ability to show that he is pleased to see her, too.
"We're all here under duress, Miss." Both McCoy and Jim have turned to look at them. McCoy's eyes, in particular, seem appraising. Of her. Of Spock's reaction to her. "It's the sad lot of academic advisors."
She looks confused for a moment, and then her eyes widen with understanding. "Oh, you're here for Hikaru's party, too! You must be Doctor McCoy. I'm Nyota."
They shake hands. Spock is reminded of the first time he met her, in his office, and wonders if McCoy will need a minute to regroup after touching her, too.
It seems unlikely.
"Have you met the infamous Doctor Kirk, Nyota?" McCoy asks.
Jim leans forward on the table and beams at her. "Of course. Nyota and I go waaay back."
She answers directly to McCoy, making a show of ignoring Jim. "We met exactly once, in Spock's office, for approximately five seconds." And then, turning to Jim. "And please, call me Miss Uhura." She finishes in a sweet tone, indifferent to Jim's faux-hurt expression.
McCoy snickers, and Spock feels his mouth threaten to curl.
Fierce. She is fierce.
"I like your student, Spock. Good head on her shoulder," the Doctor tells him while Jim and Nyota continue to mockingly glare at each other.
Logic dictates that he should disabuse McCoy of the notion that she is his student, but Spock finds himself not wishing to. Irrationally so. "It is high praise, from Doctor McCoy," he tells her.
She smiles again. "Oh, Hikaru has told me plenty about how praises from Doctor McCoy and Doctor Grayson are worth they weight in gold. Not that he was complaining," she adds hurriedly in the end, raising her hands in front of her chest and grinning mischievously. She is wearing two thin, silver bracelet that draw Spock's gaze to her slim wrist, the round tip of her ulna, her willowy arm, and clink against each other making a sound that he cannot possibly hear over the din of the bar, and yet manages to completely capture his attention.
"I bet," McCoy chuckles. "Are you and Hikaru in the same program?"
She shakes her head. "No, I'm in Linguistics. But I used to be Ben's roommate years ago." As she explains, she curls her hand on the back of Spock's stool. It makes no difference. He was not leaning on it, anyway. "Before he and Hikaru got married, and left me to fend for myself."
McCoy shakes his head with a smile. "Today's young men just ain't no gentlemen. Speaking of, Jim, where do you think you're going?" he barks.
Jim is already halfway towards to the bar, where the mostly-undressed girls are still lingering.
"To get another drink," he yells over his shoulder, a determined grin in place.
Spock and McCoy share a look that is part exasperation, part genuine worry that Jim might do something that will cost him tenure. "Oh, fine. I'll go this time, but we need to invest in a freaking leash," McCoy mutters, and he makes his way from the table.
When Spock was child, his language development was slightly delayed. Not dramatically so, but his mother, ever the educator, was alarmed enough that he was brought to several of the best specialists Sarek's money could give them access to. It was found that the delay was partially, if not completely, due to the fact that since a very young age he had been exposed to several different languages, and while Spock was playing with the meager selection of Lego in a corner of the Doctor's office, she had smiled at his mother and told her that her son would become a chatterbox in no time.
She had not been quite correct.
Regardless, what was noted was that Spock's numerical cognition was off the charts. For a fifteen-year-old. Spock was four at the time.
From that moment on, numbers had been his solace. His mother, ever the educator, had found a way to explain to him meanings, complex notions, and social concepts in mathematical terms. Spock does not remember when he learned to count, cannot recall not knowing numbers, but he has memories of voraciously inhaling algebra and trigonometry as other children at the Embassy refused to allow him to play tag with them, and he had mastered calculus by the time Sarek had moved the family back to Sweden.
It is odd, then, that he should find himself stupefied by the fact that after two people have departed from a group of four, he is now alone with her.
Puzzling, truly.
She follows McCoy with her eyes for a few seconds and when it appears that saving Jim from himself will be a moderately lengthy task, she nimbly takes his seat.
"So, what are you drinking?" Her voice shakes a little within her smile, and he wonders if she is perhaps nervous to be alone with him without a desk, seven different textbooks, and questions about computational algorithms between them.
It would not explain why she has decided to stay at the table. In his company.
The situation is most confusing.
"Beer," he answers. There is a moment of silence that stretches perhaps a little too long, just enough to remind him that a modicum of self-disclosure is considered polite during informal conversation. He finds that he does not mind. "Imported. From Sweden. Discovering that they keep this brand was a small consolation after first seeing the inside of this establishment."
He was not attempting to make her laugh, but is nevertheless pleased with the outcome.
"What's so special about Swedish beer?"
He pours a little in McCoy's now empty glass for her to try. She does, and looks at him with a frown. "It's beer."
He nods once, feeling his eyes crease with amusement. "Indeed."
"So…?"
"Objectively, it is not outstanding." Modicum of self-disclosure. "I believe that I have somewhat of an emotional attachment to the taste. It reminds me of my teenage years."
Her eyes widen. "Oh, is that where you're from? I did wonder."
He cocks his head, sincerely curious. In his experience, most people assume he is American.
She flushes. "Oh, it's just…" She waves a hand. "You don't have an accent, precisely, but… an inflection, I would say. The type of intonation you have when you talk, it tells me that you weren't raised in the States." She appears to be flustered. "It's just, I'm a bit of a phonology buff, and I notice these really small things that are just… minor, really."
"Fascinating." Her skills, and her intelligence, as well as the fact that she seems to feel the unnecessary desire to downplay them. "Where were you raised?" he asks, and it is not solely because he has been told that reciprocation is the main rule of polite conversation. Not at all.
"Nairobi, Kenya. Until I was about ten. Then we moved here. So you see, I definitely have a bit of an inflection, too." Her smiles broadens suddenly. "It's funny, I come from one of the hottest places on earth, and you from one of the coldest."
It is not funny, per se. However, with for once Spock does not feel the need to cling to the technicalities of semantics.
"True. However, I spent the first eight years of my life in Tunisia. It was much warmer than Sweden." He sees her eyes become wider still. "My father was the ambassador to Tunisia," he adds, anticipating her next question.
Absentmindedly, she swirls the remaining liquid in McCoy's glass. "Wow. Moving back to Sweden must have been a bit of shock for you. The temperature, if nothing else."
It was. Spock was cold for months, years after leaving Tunisia. Still is. "I did miss the desert."
She stares at him, suddenly animated. "So did I. When we first got here, I was convinced that my skin was never going to be dry again, and had the hardest time figuring out what time of the day it was because the colors and the lines and shadows were all wrong. And at night I just couldn't fall asleep, because there was no noise of the wind lifting—"
The sand.
Spock knows. He remembers longing for the heat rising in the distance, for the impression of shimmering waves, and for the humidity to be sucked out of his system. He knows precisely what she was going to say, and so he should not care that Jim and McCoy are back at their table and have interrupted her.
"Check this out, I got three phone numbers." Jim is waving what looks like a used napkin beneath Spock's nose. Entirely too close for him to be able to read anything.
"I trust that you have no intention of making use them."
McCoy waves his hand. "Don't worry, in a couple of drinks he'll be hammered and I'll confiscate that."
Nyota slips out of her stool. "Here's your seat, Doctor McCoy. I kept it warm for you." She turns to Spock. Her smile is soft. "I'm gonna go back to my friends. It was nice seeing you."
Reciprocation and respect of turn taking are among the most important rules of polite conversation. "Likewise," he replies.
Cotton. There is cotton inside his head.
He does not watch her walk away, nor he wishes she had not. Instead, when Jim places another beer next to Spock's empty one, the sound of the glass hitting the wooden table deaf and flat, Spock thanks him with a nod and takes a sip. They keep a companionable silence for a few moments, broken by Jim.
"She's hot."
She is the most aesthetically pleasing thing Spock has ever laid eyes on. Still, he wishes Jim would refrain from talking about her.
"She seems smart," McCoy says cautiously, studying Spock with artful indifference. Spock swallows another mouthful of his beer, and says nothing.
...
The following week, she comes again during office hours, now thankfully deserted, armed with questions, and thank you so much for your times, and a Danish, telling him with mirth in her eyes that it is as close as Swedish pastry as she was able to procure.
By the week after that, he is leaving his door fully open.
Christopher walks by his office and gives him the thumbs-up.
...
"So, how will I know precisely how to connect the different elements of my models?"
"It will have to be hypothesis driven. Your assumptions will be based on other neurolinguistic work that has found that discrete neural systems communicate in unique ways. Everything will be translated into mathematical formulas." If he is reading her correctly, which of course he might not be, the fact that she is biting he lower lip indicates alarm. Perhaps uncertainty. Spock takes a wild guess at the reason and continues, "I will, of course, help you at this stage."
He must have guessed incorrectly, because she does not appear to be relieved.
"Is something the matter?"
"I just…" She is looking at the cactus on his windowsill. A present from JoAnna, according to McCoy, who explained that she insisted on buying it for Spock when they were shopping at the farmer's market. She said it reminded her of you. Don't even ask. She had me get a purple spatula for Jim. "I feel like I'm relying on your for this too much. Like it's not really my project anymore. I definitely could not do this without you."
Ah. "True. However, you also could not do this without a computer, or pen and paper, or electricity." She has lost interest in the plant and is now looking at him again. "My work is but another tool at your disposal. Without your research hypotheses, and your ability to interpret them, there would be no study."
She smiles.
...
"Demora, let him go… Sorry, Spock. She's in her exploration stage. Your lap is clearly the new frontier."
Spock finds that he does not mind. He has spent decades perfecting techniques to inconspicuously inch away from people when they attempt to touch him, to project a demeanor that is polite while simultaneously discouraging from approach, yet Demora's weight on his leg, her small hands on his chest, or even the bony knee stabbing into his abs, are not wholly unpleasant. For now.
He quickly locks the screen of his computer before she can type a string of nonsense on line four hundred and sixty three of his C++ script.
Although, who knows, that might finally make it work.
"It is no matter." Ben received an emergency call from work, and Sulu got saddled with babysitting duty shortly before their scheduled meeting. Hence Demora, currently settled in his lap, playing with the magnetic desk toy Christine gave him a few weeks ago.
I got this for you.
Why?
She had shrugged. On a whim. Your office needs livening up.
Whims are so far beyond Spock that he had not even attempted to understand, wondering why Christine should care about an office in which she cannot have spent longer than a cumulative three minutes.
Sulu is outlining his plan to revise the third chapter of his dissertation into a publishable manuscript when Demora raises her small, pointed face and tells Spock something. It is a question, if he parsed the intonation correctly, but not in a language Spock understands.
"She asked if it's magic." Hikaru provides the translation with a smile.
"It is a magnet. Its attractive properties are a product of the movement of electrons."
Sulu hides his smile into the palm of his hand. Demora does not. She beams at Spock and says, in English, "Magic!"
...
"No."
He is taken aback. Not by the fact that she would object, but by the determination in her tone. "No?"
"This switch, right here," she is pointing at the relevant region of the code, "would not be possible in a real-life neural network. It's just not…" She looks at his ceiling for inspiration. "Biological. You know?"
He does not. "Adding this connection would make the system over thirty percent more efficient."
She raises her eyebrows. "Yes, but would it make the model a good representation of the phenomenon of interest? I mean, isn't this one of the criticisms that is constantly leveraged against modeling, that so many parameters are included that the danger of overfitting is too high?"
He looks at her silently for what he knows to be an impolite amount of time.
"Indeed."
Her smile is so blinding, he has little hope to measure the latum nostrum.
She deletes the four relevant lines of code as if they were personally offensive to her, and then moves to the following chunk.
Fierce. She is fierce.
...
"He wanted to challenge his grade for the AI paper. So that night I pulled it up and went through it again and the following day I looked the student in the eye and told him twice, twice, that re-gradings have a fifty-fifty chance of ending up in lower scores. If you know what I mean." At the beginning of the conversation, the rate of Gary's speech was comparable to every other conversation they had in past. Spock is surprised to notice that as he progresses in his account, the number of words uttered per minute is getting higher. By the seconds. "Which it did, of course, because at this point I was pissed and I actually marked him down for grammar. Now it turns out that his mother is friends with one of the Deans or something." Distressed. Gary appears to be distressed. More than Spock has seen him before. "So he sent me this half-threatening email, and I'm not sure…"
Most people would be able to deduce what Gary is not sure of without him having to continue the sentence; and yet they would not be able to solve a definite integral just by looking at it. And here is Spock, the flip side of all of them.
A few years ago, Spock was asked to be a participant in a neuroscience study on the relationship between mathematical and social cognition in neurotypical individuals. They used an MRI to scan his brain, and had him take similar tests to the ones he had to go through as a young child, when all he had wanted was to play Lego or go run outside, between the jasmine bushes.
As he waits for Gary to elaborate, he idly wonders what they found in the twists and folds brain.
"Should I just mark the paper back up to the original grade?"
Ah. "No." Spock has little use for bullies. "Have him come to my office hours. It is not a request."
Gary smiles, slowly.
...
He hands her back the USB stick. It is pink, 'Peace, Love and Linguistics' typed in a white font on the larger side. The initial plan was to just email her the relevant papers, but several questions later he found himself copying several semesters worth of slides, far exceeding the 35 MB email attachment limit.
"Thank you." She zips it in the smallest pocked of her backpack. "I'll work on this over the weekend. I'll be spending it cat-sitting in a very large, very old, very creaky house. And Friday will be Halloween and all. Something not too exciting will be good to read."
"You will have to to procure additional material, then."
He surprises himself by saying it mostly to make her laugh. Spock is not so deep in his field that he believes algorithms to be enthusing.
She does not disappoint. She never disappoints.
He is, of course, unaffected.
"What about you? Any plans for Halloween?"
"No." No plans. The last time he was outside at night for Halloween was three years ago, when Jim forcibly collected him from his apartment with the pretense of a chess tournament, and then dragged downtown him to a club, where Spock proceeded to apprehensively guess the age of each girl Jim danced with. McCoy had berated Spock for months for his gullibility. Spock tries to thinks of it as a learning opportunity, although of course it was nothing but an unforgivable tactical mistake.
"Not the costume type, uh?"
He has not worn a costume since he was seven, when attendance to the Halloween party held at the American Embassy in Tunis has been mandatory. He had been a Mobius strip. His mother's idea, after he had categorically refused to go as an alien, an astronaut, or an elf.
He shakes his head. "I do not believe I am, no."
"So, what about…" She was smiling, symmetrical, medium latum nostrum, but the parabola breaks immediately as she bites into her bottom lip. "You don't have kids, then? To bring, um, trick of treating?"
He is momentarily confused. Not that she would ask, but that she would not know this about him, after they have spent so much time together. Although the entirety of this time, with the sole exception of a few minutes in the second-worst bar Spock has ever entered, was spent in this very office, discussing research topics. How could he expect her to know?
Irrational. Utterly illogical.
"No," he answers carefully, and then adds for no discernible reason, "I am not married."
Being married is not a prerequisite for having children. A man could have twenty children and zero wives, or twenty wives, albeit not legally, and zero children. Therefore, his statement is unrelated to her question.
Irrational. Utterly illogical.
She does not appear to mind, he thinks. If he reads her smile correctly. She does seem to be flushing, however, which has him doubt his conclusions.
"Well, do you have a cat? Because I'm about to, for a whole weekend, and have zero experience."
Spock does not either, although he has vague memories of his mother's hamster. Of the way it seemed to like being petted by Spock, and seeds, and sleeping during the day. "Do you have any experience with pets in general?"
"Mm-mm." She shakes her head, a mix of humor and worry in her eyes. "I have always wanted to have one, though." Her eyes widen as she recalls something. "And I do have plant."
He does not laugh. He will not laugh. "I am not sure that qualifies."
"Hey. It's an avocado plant. Grown from the seed. It required a lot of care, I'll have you know."
"I am sure it did." He will not laugh. But a corner of his mouth might be inching up.
"His name is Tolkien."
"His?"
"Or hers. It changes. Based on the time of the day."
"I see. A hermaphroditic plant. Tolkien?"
"Did you know he was a linguist?"
He shakes his head. Somehow, he must have misplaced any awareness of the corner of his mouth. Probably somewhere between the twinkle in her eyes. "I did not."
"Surprisingly little known fact, if you ask me." Nyota turns and notices that someone is standing at his door. It is one of his undergraduate students, if Spock is correct. How he did not notice her before, even though she is well within his field of view, should be object of careful investigation.
"I'm all done with Doctor Grayson, you can come it." She efficiently gathers her backpack, and then her laptop, which sports a sticker in the upper left corner that says 'I want to be a schwa…It's never stressed.' A smile still plays on her lips. She thanks him and wishes him a good Halloween before walking out of the office.
"Good luck with the cat."
He hears her laughter and her footsteps as she walks down the hallway.
When she is gone, and his brain has returned to baseline, he remembers that he does not believe in luck.
...
Christine: Still want to meet tonight?
Spock:It will not be possible.
Christine: Deadline?
Spock: A seminar presentation to complete.
Christine: When's that?
Spock: Tomorrow at 9 AM.
Christine: Ah, damn. Want to move it to Friday night?
Spock: Yes.
Christine: My place?
Spock: I would prefer mine.
Christine: Will be there at 9PM.
Christine: Good luck with your talk
...
He rotated his computer monitor when it became clear that in order to follow her reasoning he will need some form of visual aid. As it turns out, it is her finger pointing at the relevant parts of the assembly transcript.
He infinitely appreciates that she hovers but never jabs at the screen. That some people do it aggravates him to no end, and Jim has been ruthlessly making use of the knowledge for the past few years.
"You see, it's in the words and their relative positions. He was asked 'Are you in full support of the Graduate Student Union and of the legislation that guarantees them bargaining power', and he answered, 'I'd support the legislation and the Union.' He has shifted from present tense to the conditional mood, shuffled the order of Union and Legislation to place the Union as far away from the first person pronoun as possible, and dropped all the qualifiers to boot. Language can reveal a lot about people's positions, even implicitly." She shakes her head with disapproval.
It did not come as a surprise, that she is vice-president of the Graduate Student Senate.
"Do you believe that if he is elected he will convince the Board to vote for a reduction of the Union's powers, then?
She looks at him and shrugs. "He all but said it."
Spock stares at her, impressed.
...
"You have fantastic taste in wine."
Spock does not. He has, however, basic observational skills and the ability to learn through trial and error. As he has dinner at Christopher and Vina's on average once a month, he has learned what types of wine are a safe bet to please his hostess.
Red, mainly Sangiovese, or Merlot. Never Moscato, or she will unleash on him her harshest punishment, which is pretending to forget about the wine and not serve it with dinner.
Christopher just looks at him while Vina heads to kitchen with the bottle.
"How are you doing, Spock?"
"Acceptable."
"Are you? Good. I'm not. I can't believe you actually have the courage to show up in my house after agreeing to interview at Caltech."
He did wonder why this month's invitation had come so soon. "I have no intention of transferring to Caltech. I simply want to take a look at their new facilities." Christopher has been Spock's mentor for years, and Spock's friend for only a slightly shorter amount of time. Which is why he knows that for it to successfully come across to Spock, he must convey that he is not fooled by employing a non-indifferent amount of body language. He crosses his arms, inclines his head, and raises his eyebrows skeptically, for good measure. "And, should Caltech make an offer, perhaps demand full fellowships for two of my incoming graduate students included in the retention package," Spock adds.
"You bank robber," Christopher mutters, heading in the direction Vina disappeared.
Spock follows, ready for battle.
They negotiate intermittently for the following hour, only interrupted by Vina's fruitless attempts to swerve their exchanges to something not money related, like the upcoming local elections, or the new parking ramp they tore down half a park to build, or the unusually cold weather. She does not succeed until halfway though their meal.
"Nyota tells me the collaboration with her is going exceptionally well."
Christopher glances up from his salad and throws Spock a glance, half-amused, half-apologetic. Spock looks back at him levelly, chewing his salad. Vina is oblivious to the interaction, as she has been to the similar dozens that have occurred in the previous years, whenever the matter of one of her advisee has arisen.
Spock swallows a slice of yellow pepper. "It is."
"Good. Great. She's one of my best students. Brilliant, really. Had to fight to get her to come here, with her tests scores and her background. Very linguistically minded." When she says very, the e sound stretches jarringly in Spock's ear. "But I know she can be a little intense. You know? Very driven. Obsessed, sometimes."
Spock lets the tip of his fork rest at the bottom of his salad bowl, speared through a tomato.
Impossible, to continue eating during this conversation.
"She's not taking up too much of your time, is she? Because I can tell her to ease up a bit."
No. "No." Spock never repeats himself unless asked to. "No, she is not."
Vina smiles and inclines her head. "Good."
The o sound stretches jarringly in Spock's ear.
"One fellowship, and one ridiculously low-workload teaching assistantship. The python lab should have an opening."
"Unacceptable, Christopher."
"Damn you."
...
"How can you collaborate with people in so many different disciplines? I mean, Internal Medicine, Neuroimaging, Biology…"
Shortly after sitting down she has caught sight of a pile a books arranged on his desk, to be returned to the library at his earliest opportunity, and has spent thirty-six seconds reading the titles, some out loud, and marveling at the variety.
He could have used those thirty-six seconds to complete the last sentence of his email to Jim and send it. No need for careful re-reading for that, since Jim himself has long foregone the use of capitalizations and habitually signs himself 'theKirk' even for department-wide emails. The time would have sufficed.
Instead, he opted for looking at her looking at his books.
"All these fields are much closer to my original training than Linguistics is," he points out, not unkindly.
She smile. Asymmetric. "Point taken. Still, I think it's impressive, that you can keep that amount of information in your head."
He knows people think so. And yet he does not understand. It is just notions. Just observational knowledge. There for him to pluck, abstract, manipulate, and translate into numbers. "I find it remarkable that you are able to deduce geographical provenance and attitudes purely based on speech patterns and syntax."
The smile slowly becomes symmetric, the latum nostrum of short length.
"It's good that we're collaborating, then."
He nods. "Agreed."
