Spock avoided the gazes of passers by as he walked briskly along the pathway leading to his department building. He was quite aware of the fact that he was considered a bit of a novelty on campus. While most humans had heard of Vulcan's, quite a few had yet to actually see one. The incessant staring and whispered comments had bothered him at first, but they had become so common place, he hardly noticed them now. He looked ahead at nothing in particular, his thoughts deeply buried in the lecture he had just prepared.
The morning air was crisp, and tasted salty. There was a gentle but constant breeze that rolled in off the bay, and Spock watched as it carried a stray wrapper across the pristine lawn.
Just then, a motion from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Two young cadets where throwing a data padd back and forth to each other as if it were a discus.
In the middle of the two men, a tall, thin female cadet attempted to thwart their throws, and retrieve the air born object. Spock recognized her almost at once as Cadet Uhura." As the wind shifted it carried their voices across the lawn.
"Give it back, Mason. I don't have time for this." Nyota yelled at the freakishly tall one waving the data padd above his head.
"Nope." He grinned impishly, before hurling the padd across the lawn, way above Nyota's head to his friend.
"I need to turn that in." Nyota's voice was getting to the point of exasperation. Spock quickened his pace, mentally calculating the probability of the padd being missed, and smashed upon the cement.
"Mason!" Nyota yelled.
"Gavin, go deep!" The one Spock assumed to be Mason yelled, just before he hurled the object with all his might across the lawn. It arched into the air, causing a nice air borne spin to the thin object. Fortunately for Mason, a few girls had stopped to watch his impressive throw. Unfortunately, the one called Gavin, did not heed the advice to, go long, and the padd passed him by forty feet, crashing onto the cement behind him.
"Damn it Mason!" Nyota yelled. She took off toward the padd. Gavin had already reached, and was bending down over it.
Spock continued walking briskly in their direction. He saw Cadet Uhura reach the padd, and fall to her knees in front of it. Mason strode casually toward her. Spock watched as she pressed her hand up to her forehead as her shoulders slumped in. Mason reached her and put his hand on her shoulder. Spock felt a strange pulse surge through him at the sight of it. He was relived when he saw Nyota slap his hand away.
"Get away from me Mason." Spock was within ear shot now.
"Ny, seriously I'm so sorry, we were just joking around." His voice came out as a mock-whine.
"Go!" Nyota said forcefully as she looked up at him.
"Common Man, we're going to be late to class." Gavin slapped him on the shoulder. Mason shrugged and followed. Looking back every so often at Nyota.
Spock was close enough now, and he could see the shattered screen of the padd. Nyota was still on her knees in front of it. Spock could see a glitter to her eye, from tears welling there. He almost stopped and turned back towards the building. He hated human emotion displays that involved crying. However, something within him pulled him forward despite his growing discomfort with the situation. He watched her flawless jaw clench and un-clench. He stopped a few feet away.
"Cadet Uhura." He saw her shoulders tense at his voice. He suddenly regretted not going in the building. She took a deep breath, and turned to look up at him. He was suddenly struck by the sad look on her face. She looked as though she was in physical pain. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." She said hopelessly. Why do humans do that? Spock wondered to himself. Clearly she was anything but fine. She looked back at the padd, as if prolonged starring would some how mend it. Spock suddenly found himself feeling increasingly more uncomfortable. He was at a loss for words, as he was not accustomed to the usual human comforting protocol. He felt his heart rate increase slightly. The silence between them started to drag on, making that uncomfortable ball in the pit of his stomach start to unfurl. Never before had he felt the need to fill silence with worthless chatter, but now he was desperate for something…anything to say. So he blurted out the first thing he could think of that pertained to the situation,
"Your padd is broken." As soon as he said it, he wished he would have just endured the silence, or at least just walked away. She turned slowly, and looked up at him again.
"Yup." Her agitated tone was unmistakable. Spock longed for the confines of his office. The silence stretched on again as she looked down at it once more, reaching out to pick it up. She brushed off the glass shards with the back of her hand, and they dropped to the ground with a tinkling sound. Once again Spock was plagued by that odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. He stood there letting it grow refusing to say anything more. However, it suddenly got the best of him and before he could stop himself he questioned,
"Friends of yours?" He cringed inwardly. He never spoke without thinking first. What a rare morning this was turning out to be. Nyota shot him a sideways glance and then went back to examining her padd.
"Not at all. The Neanderthal is my roommate's boyfriend for the week, and the squatty one is his inane lacky, who thinks that simply because my roommate finds his friend attractive, that naturally, I should be enraptured at his asinine and unwanted advances. As if by right of proximity he somehow has a required entitlement to bore me with his crude and inept social commentary. " She finished, letting out a long breath, and was caught by surprise to see Spock's eyebrows distinctively raised. She was certain this was the first real expression she had ever seen cross his face. Despite her slight shock, she was surprised further, as he held out his hand to help her up. She just eyed it for a moment, as if the gesture was foreign to her. Finally she placed her delicate hand on top of his palm. His touch was warm, and his palms slightly clammy, as he wrapped his long fingers over her hand and gently pulled her up. He broke the contact immediately once her footing was stable. She brushed off her knees, and stood up straight.
"Thank you." She managed a small smile. Spock simply nodded, his face having returned to its usually stoic appearance. Just then the clock tower on the campus lawn chimed signaling the start of the next hour. Its ringing caused Nyota to check her own watch. It was a redundant gesture in Spock's opinion. "Could I be anymore screwed?" She breathed bitterly. Spock was still trying to understand the humanoid concept of rhetorical questions, however he surmised that this qualified as one.
"Are you late for class?" Spock assumed.
"No, I was on my way to turn in an essay." She held up her broken padd, "This essay."
"I see. Do you have a back up…"
"Nope." She cut him off. She looked back down at the busted padd.
"That was poor planning." Spock said plainly. She shot him an icy glance.
"Well, Professor Spock, as always, nice to see you, now if you'll excuse me, I have a half hour to write a poor version of the six page paper I just lost." She spun on her heels, not waiting for a reply.
"Nyota." He called our after her. She stopped. She was unaware that he knew her first name. "Maybe I can help?" She turned slowly around and placed a hand on her hip, eyeing him curiously.
"Walk with me." He said curtly and turned back towards the building. She had to nearly jog to match pace with his long strides.
"Help how?" She asked anxiously.
"I will merely explain to your professor what I saw and request that they give you an extension. Granted, it will be entirely up to the professors discretion, but it would be better than turning in a rushed, and poorly put together paper." He suddenly felt her hand on his arm and he stopped dead as the sensation of it pulsed through him like a sub-atomic particle wave.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked cautiously, looking up at him with what he just realized to be the deepest most inviting brown eyes. That same annoying pulse beat through him. He dropped his eyes from hers. He pondered for a moment, but could not come up with a logical explanation, so he countered with another question,
"Do you not want me to?" Nyota dropped her hand to her side and stood back on her heels looking at him. He was still refusing her gaze, looking towards the steps of the building. She thought for a moment and shrugged,
"I guess it's worth a shot." Spock was affronted by her lack of confidence in his solution, but never the less continued on towards the building. "I'm not keeping you from class am I?" Nyota asked.
"No." Spock replied as they reached the steps, and thus ended their, chit chat. A few girls standing outside the door watched the pair approach. One leaned over to another and whispered, rousing a giggle out of her companion. Nyota clenched her jaw, and looked straight ahead. After her conversation with Gaila the night before, she felt unnecessarily awkward in this particular professor's presence. She hated that girls had that power over each other. What always started as a simple suggestion ignited an unending inner dialogue. Nyota had spent the better part of the night before lying awake in bed replaying her conversation with Professor Spock. She had reasserted and then second-guessed nearly a hundred times her statement of platonic interest in him. Finally she resolutely came to the conclusion that her only attraction in him, was merely in a professional and academic aptitude. That resolute conclusion, however helped little in explaining why she felt so awkward walking into the Linguistics building with him. Rationally, she should be feeling nothing at all.
They entered the elevator together, and Nyota's heart suddenly raced as he leaned near to her to push the floor button. That shouldn't happen, she thought to herself as she took in a deep breath to calm herself.
As the door to the elevator opened, Spock turned to Nyota,
"What Professor?"
"Oh…Robinson." She said taking a step off the elevator.
The blood drained from Spock's face.
To be cont.