Being back on Earth was stranger than Nyota had expected. After all the alien planets she'd explored, there was something comforting about having her native soil beneath her feet. At the same time, it wasn't quite home in the way she'd thought of it while she was in the black.
Whoever said you can't go home again was right, she decided - only in her case, it wasn't that home had changed so much as it was that she herself had changed. She was far more mature and capable than she had been when she'd left on Starfleet's first five-year exploratory mission.
It was that maturity that kept her seated through a day-long debriefing concerning recommendations for future postings for her junior staff without jumping for every distraction - including the message from Jim that lit up her communicator about 1545.
Her debriefing concluded at 1600, and the moment she exited the conference room, Nyota checked Jim's message.
You know a bar called Calliope's?
I'm sure I can find it, she replied.
It was a few minutes before another message arrived. Stuck in debriefing until 1630 at least. See you there after?
Her breath caught momentarily. There was nothing suggestive in his words, but she could anticipate the meaning behind them. Quickly, Nyota looked up the location of Calliope's, saw that it was far enough from the Admiralty campus that it was unlikely they'd run into anyone they knew there, and calculated the travel time before entering her response. Sure, see you there 1700 or so.
His reply came back immediately. It's a date.
Nyota smiled to herself, then put away her communicator and started for the doors. She'd have enough time to shower and change out of her uniform if she hurried.
Calliope's turned out to be a retro-throwback bar, mixing styles from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries with a deranged abandon that struck Nyota as entirely appropriate for San Francisco. It was also, she mused, very Jim Kirk, in a way that anyone who only knew him through Starfleet's public relations efforts would have difficulty believing.
She'd arrived a little after 1700 - San Francisco had a reputation for nightmarish traffic dating back almost to the city's founding and even modern technology couldn't improve it- and now scanned the room for familiar dirty-blond hair and bright blue eyes.
When she didn't find him, she turned for the bar and the bartender - a middle-aged human male - gestured her toward an empty stool. She was perusing the cocktail list when a voice spoke to her right.
"Her drink's on me."
It was a distorted echo of the words Jim had spoken when they met, but it wasn't Jim speaking them. She glanced to her right, took in the scruffy but too-clean appearance of the man next to her, and had to bite back a laugh at his lecherous expression. Even Jim hadn't leered like that.
"Her drink's on her," she told the man. "Thanks, but no thanks." She turned back to the bartender, who looked like he was trying to keep from laughing - or maybe punching the other man, Nyota wasn't sure. "And I'll have a whisky sour."
"What?" The man to her right affected a stunned expression. "A complete turn-down before you even know my name?"
"Uh-huh." Nyota refused to look at him, instead watching the bartender as he mixed her drink. "Not interested."
"Is this guy bothering you?"
The new voice came from her left, and she knew this one. She gave Jim an unbelieving stare, which he met with a somewhat sheepish grin.
"Fully aware of the irony of the situation, thanks," he told her, and she had to chuckle. Then he was looking past her to the man on her right. "I'd let her alone, unless I wanted a solid right hook."
The man eyed Jim dubiously. Like Nyota, he'd opted for civilian clothes - a dark leather jacket over a white T-shirt and dark trousers. The man snorted, obviously underestimating Jim's capability. "From you?"
"From her," Jim replied and turned to the bartender. "You still have popcorn, right?"
Nyota caught his arm and glared at him. "I can handle this."
Jim's eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. "Why do you think I asked for popcorn?" Then he added, more seriously, "You shouldn't have to."
Almost against her will, Nyota found herself smiling at him. "Thanks."
"You didn't say you were meeting someone," the other man groused.
"She shouldn't have to," the bartender snapped and placed her drink in front of her. "This one's on the house, ma'am."
He fixed the other man with a glare that rivaled any she'd ever seen Spock or Jim or McCoy use.
"Sorry," the man muttered, and moved away.
"Sorry," the bartender echoed. "The clientele here is usually more polite."
"It's not a problem," Nyota assured him.
"Sorry I'm late," Jim said. "The debriefing ran over a bit. Admiral Barnett had a conniption fit over the incident on Beta XII-A."
"That's at least a reasonable incident to have a conniption fit over," Nyota allowed, taking a sip of her drink and smiling at the bartender. "It's very good, thank you."
"You're very welcome," he replied, then fixed a steady blue gaze on Jim. "She's too good for you, you know."
"I do." Jim smiled at Nyota, and there was more in that simple expression than she remembered seeing from him before. Her breath caught, and she had to take another sip of her drink to cover her embarrassment.
Fortunately, Jim looked away, back to the bartender. "Truth is, she's only borrowing me for a while."
"Borrowing?" the man's eyebrows shot up. "For what?"
Opportunities to tease Jim came along so rarely that Nyota couldn't let this one pass. Before he could answer, she smiled as sweetly as she knew how. "Stud service."
The bartender spluttered and, to her surprise, Jim flushed a deep red.
"That'll teach me to put off necessary introductions," he muttered.
"Introductions?" Nyota repeated, frowning. She'd expected a quip in return, or maybe if she were truly lucky, a momentary stumble from Jim, not this sudden awkwardness.
"I'm Tiberius Kirk," the bartender said. "You can call me Ty."
"Pleased to meet you," Nyota responded automatically. Then what he'd said registered. "Tiberius … Kirk?"
"Paternal grandfather," Jim said. "Ty, this is Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, chief communications officer, and my bond-brother's wife."
"That's not an explanation," the bartender - Ty - said.
"It kind of is," Jim countered. "Spock's sterile, and they want kids. I'm donating the genetic material. And on that note, why don't we head upstairs for dinner?"
Nyota took the excuse and picked up her glass with a "Lovely to meet you," that she couldn't quite meet Ty's gaze for.
Jim turned back to his grandfather. "Just send up two of today's special, will you?"
Ty nodded, and then Jim was escorting her to a staircase partly hidden behind a partition covered in classic movie posters. Nyota climbed the stairs, acutely aware of his presence behind her.
With his hand at the small of her back, Jim gestured her toward a table in the corner, somewhat secluded from the other tables but with a view over the rooftops to the bay.
"Beautiful view," Nyota murmured as she sat down. Jim sat across from her, and she met his gaze apologetically. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."
"It'll take more than that to embarrass me," Jim teased. "Just caught me off guard, that's all."
Nyota wasn't certain she believed him, but she let that go for now. "I wasn't expecting dinner."
Jim looked genuinely puzzled. "Why not?"
Despite their being in a secluded corner, the nearest other diners a couple of meters away, Nyota lowered her voice before answering. "You know this is a sure thing. You don't have to go to all this trouble."
"First, it's no trouble - it's a pleasure. Second, and more importantly, the more relaxed you are, the greater the chance of success."
"What," Nyota teased, "you're not taking the chance for repeated encounters?"
"I didn't think you'd want more than necessary."
"Depends how much of your reputation is earned, doesn't it?" Nyota shot back, and Jim laughed - actually laughed with genuine humor. She didn't remember the last time she'd heard him laugh like that, and suddenly all her nerves melted away.
"Why'd you choose your grandfather's place for dinner?"
"That's easy," Jim answered. "Nobody'll bother us here - and the guy downstairs doesn't count, because you're a beautiful woman and people will approach you sometimes. Including me, if you recall."
"Oh, I've tried to forget," she assured him, fighting to keep her expression neutral. His grin told her she didn't succeed, so she changed the subject. "Tell me about your grandfather?"
Jim rested his palm against the apartment scanner, then stood aside to let Nyota enter first. She looked around, her expression curious.
"I didn't know you have an apartment in San Francisco."
"I don't." Jim grinned at her surprise. "It belongs to a friend of Ty's - whose trip off-planet just happened to coincide with Enterprise's return. I offered to stay here while he's gone, keep an eye on the place."
"That it's nowhere close to 'Fleet headquarters is just a bonus."
"More that it's the reason I offered in the first place," Jim told her. "Less chance of anyone starting any gossip we don't need."
Nyota tilted her head to one side. "Are you protecting me, or yourself?"
"All three of us. Not that we can't handle it, just that it's nobody's business but ours exactly how I'm donating genetic material." Jim glanced away, suddenly nervous in a way he hadn't been since puberty. "Speaking of …"
"Yes?"
"Last chance to tell me to stop by Medical." The words were as clinical as any he could've said, but the rasp in his voice belied his own preference in the matter. He waited for her response, trying to keep his expression open to whatever she might say.
"Are you afraid I'll find out that reputation isn't deserved?" There was humor in her eyes, and Jim couldn't help laughing.
He took her hand and tugged her close. "Of all the things to be afraid of in this, that's not one of them."
"Prove it." She reached her mouth up and he met her halfway.