Necessarily there are lunches. This is to be expected, that one might eat with one's colleague when the need for sustenance intrudes upon the work in progress. It is also a custom across the known galaxy, to break bread with compatriots as a sign of common interest, specifically, common interest in survival, in preventing conflict, in continuing peacefully and productively as far as is possible.

And so Spock accompanies Cadet Uhura to the nearest canteen during the hour designated for eating lunch, on several occasions (four so far). He experiences the feeling of being looked at as they enter the room, not because of who he is, but because of who she is: her friends wave and call greetings. She grins and hails them in return with teasing remarks and exaggerated facial expressions meant to convey mockery and envy and scorn, but all at levels well within the spectrum of camaraderie shared between cadets and friends who have difficult lectures, coursework deadlines and complicated social lives.

Spock is swept up with her, joining her friends at their table, and after a moment during which they all recoil at his rank and alien nature, these young humans, he is accepted and he sits beside Uhura and watches as she banters with them, her full range of emotions in plain view now, not guarded as she is when alone in his office with him. She laughs and gestures with a bread stick and fends off the attentions of male cadets, usually without even having to make full eye contact.

One such is the cadet Kirk, who is always there, at the centre of these midday festivities, a fresh faced boy who treats Uhura with great disrespect. Spock is prepared to dislike him, but observes that he treats everyone with disrespect, including Spock – after a microsecond pause during which rank is discounted because of their shared table – and the man who is clearly his chosen friend, McCoy. Kirk is not basing his behaviour on a negative assessment of those around him; indeed, he is not basing it on any assessment at all. He merely treats everyone as his equal and ignores rank or gender considerations until they become pertinent to his own advantage.

Spock admits that this is in fact a logical approach to interaction. However it does not take into account proper protocol at Starfleet academy.

He points this out on his second lunch at their table, and Kirk splutters into his soda and says, "It's lunchtime and my sandwich outranks you right now, Commander Spock."

Everyone around the table freezes; Spock sees McCoy, a slightly older cadet with world-weary lines round his eyes, ready himself to take Kirk aside and explain the situation in words of one syllable.

But Spock follows a lunchtime impulse of his own and says, "I believe hunger can be considered a motivator superior to many social niceties," and Kirk clashes his glass into Spock's and grins, and Spock feels oddly pleased that his minor gambit in human idiom has been successful.

After this Spock waits with keen anticipation for Uhura to glance at the midday clock, and sits at the table with these friends of hers, watching them in fascination and enjoying the unfamiliar sensations of teasing and solidarity coursing between them, sounding echoes in his chest like sympathetic vibrations on a stringed instrument placed near a concert hall. He feels it physically, in his abdomen, like warmth, like yearning; and in proximity to them as he is, he feels it in his mind, too, fuzzy and incomplete, but providing some context for the complex emotions which fly about between these humans, even over a hasty sandwich and carbonated drink.

Uhura turns her eyes to him frequently, especially when Kirk is present, seeming to reassure herself that Spock is coping with the brash attentions of her classmates. He is. He has no way to confide this fact to her save to return her gaze steadily and calmly, attempting to convey that he is content to be here, and that eating in company in no way disturbs his general wellbeing.

For her part, she smiles at him, and frowns at people to budge up and make room for both of them on the bench, rather than have him sit apart from her at some other place around the table.