Disclaimer: These characters are not mine.

Tiny Warning: This chapter drifts closer to an M rating—nothing explicit, but you get the picture.

Speak No Evil

When she is angry, Nyota Uhura can be quietly furious, stubbornly argumentative, even physically assertive when necessary. She prides herself on maintaining her poise and persistence even when her ire is up; part of her Starfleet training has helped her funnel her first tendency to shout down an opponent into something more focused and effective.

Still, her friends and family have been known to call her pushy, bossy, direct to a fault. What they have never called her is passive aggressive.

Nyota hates passive aggressive behavior. She steers clear of people who employ it regularly—it feels manipulative and unfair, and she has always preferred her fights out in the open.

So she is surprised and dismayed to find herself being passive aggressive now. For the second time in two days Spock has sent her a message on her PADD, and both times she has ignored them. His computer connection will tell him that she has opened the messages. That she has not replied should tell him that she is too angry to respond.

She scrolls quickly down the other messages awaiting attention: an announcement that the Academy has polled the remaining students and has canceled the graduation ceremony after all; Starfleet will decide by the end of the week if the field commissions granted during the Battle of Vulcan will stand; a note from her mother asking if she won't reconsider and come home for a few days; and then, at the bottom of the list, a notice from the dorm council asking students to notify the office if any materials have not been picked up by the families of "non-returning cadets."

In a flash Nyota's anger washes out. She looks around the room at Gaila's clothes still strewn on her unmade bed, her lip glosses and pots of cheek glitter and hair ribbons crumpled in a happy mess as if waiting for her to waltz in and pick one up, grabbing Nyota's hand and demanding that she let her change her fingernail polish yet again.

She sits quietly cross-legged on her bed and then pulls the stylus from the side of the PADD and taps out a notice that she will take charge of packing up Gaila's things. And then while she is holding the stylus, she also rereads Spock's two messages.

"I will be home after 1600. Can you come by?"

That had been yesterday. Today's note is slightly different.

"I will be home after 1800. Will you please come by?"

Is she reading too much into that "please," into that change from the impersonal "can you" to the more conciliatory "will you"? Probably. She truly does not want to see him. The last time she had been in his apartment was when they had first returned to Earth, and they had parted so badly that she doesn't want to see him again—at least not there.

Twice in the week since they have gotten home she had caught a glimpse of him across the Academy grounds and was upset at how her heart had raced and how she had instinctively reached up a hand to catch his attention before remembering.

Even now as she balances the PADD on her knee and considers what to do, she thinks of the afternoon they had spent sitting facing each other on his sofa, his face anguished as he struggled to tell her what the Vulcan elders had asked, what he had replied, and his intention to join his father in the next few days to help settle the colony.

At first Nyota had tried to listen carefully, tried to offer understanding and even sympathy, until the afternoon stretched on and she finally began to hear what he was telling her—that he was leaving for good—this was not, as she had imagined at first, a temporary assistance he was offering, but a sea change in the course of his life...and he had made it without saying a word to her.

If she hadn't been so surprised, she would have felt betrayed. But even as she was starting to rearrange her own recognition of what this said about their relationship—not to mention any future they might have had—part of her was desperately thinking up a way to make it untrue, to convince him to stay, to keep the promise he had made when he thought he might die—"I will be back."

"You lied to me," she had said, and though they were sitting sideways on the sofa, knees pulled up and touching, she had suddenly felt their distance.

Spock made to stand up then and Nyota pulled on his arm to bring him back.

"Nyota—" he said, and she had leaned forward and put her hands on his shoulders.

"You don't want to go," she said, and Spock looked away. Still he did not try to rise and Nyota said, "You lied then because you didn't want to go, and you don't want to go now. Then why—"

"Nyota—" Spock said again, turning to pull her hands from his shoulders.

But she was too quick for him; she turned her palms up and slid her hands into his. He stopped moving and she felt the familiar flash of his mind as their fingers touched. His eyes closed and she could see his discomfort in her mind, and his overwhelming sadness, and there, underneath it all, his unwanted arousal as she leaned closer and pressed them backward along the length of the sofa.

Often when they had made love in the past, Nyota had imagined herself walking along a precipice—one too fearful to look over, yet beckoning for all that...and then when the cliff was steepest and the way down too far to imagine, Spock would brush his fingers across her psi points and she would feel herself both in his mind and in her own body, and the intensity would carry them both to a climax. Not a mind meld—for Spock kept his own thoughts carefully focused on the moment and never intruded into Nyota's private ideas—but a communion that has become essential to their sense of themselves as a couple.

On the sofa Nyota heard Spock's breathing becoming ragged and she felt an unreasoning joy that he was reacting to her, pulling her to him—though roughly and with a sense of urgency that she should have read for what it was—grief disguised as lovemaking, sorrow drowned by sensation.

They did not undress. Instead, they reached for each other under rucked up shirts, slid aside Nyota's skirt and unbuttoned and unzipped their pants and jackets without ever rising from the sofa. Without realizing how, Nyota found herself rolled over suddenly, Spock's face inches from her own.

Nor did they kiss. Instead, Spock looked at Nyota's face steadily with an expression she had never seen, moving back slightly when she tried to crane up to kiss him.

She felt herself responding to his movements, rough as they were, and she closed her eyes to concentrate. Here was the familiar crescendo, the rising of sensation that meant she would topple over the precipice soon—and she reached up to gather Spock's hands to bring them to her face. To her surprise he pressed her wrists backward with his own to the sofa, her elbows bent, their hands untouching.

She had not had a human lover in several years and had forgotten what it was to make love mind-blind—touching only a body and staying locked inside one's own thoughts and feelings. How lonely it was! Why hadn't she realized this before now?

She was confused and hurt—and then he did kiss her, hard and suddenly—and despite her disappointment, she felt her body betray her as she tottered up to the familiar cliff, looked over, and fell.

Later they lay tangled in each other's arms on the sofa, and finally Nyota realized what he had tried to tell her all afternoon. She had lost him.

They lay there quietly talking until the sun had gone down. It had been a useless conversation—"Why didn't you tell me you were thinking of leaving Starfleet?" had sounded petulant, even to her, and Spock's reply had been both blamelessly logical and amazingly hurtful: "To what purpose, Nyota? I could not ask you to give up what you have worked for."

The sun had completely set and a wet breeze was blowing in from the Pacific when they had finally parted. They said little at the end—and Nyota had gone back to the dark dorm room cluttered with evidence of another lost relationship and had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

So now he has sent her two messages, and she has to decide if seeing him again will hurt more than not seeing him again. She holds the stylus over the PADD and finally taps out, "Yes."

X X X X X X X X

The second time she presses the door chime, Nyota realizes that Spock is not home. She glances at the chronometer on her arm and tamps down her annoyance. She is a few minutes early. The breeze this evening is damp—not unusual for San Francisco—and she wishes she had remembered to bring a heavier sweater. For a moment she considers leaving, but before she can stop it, her hand darts out and punches in the key code to the apartment building. When she hears the electric snap of the bolt being pulled back, she shoves the outside door with her shoulder and goes inside.

Spock's apartment is the first one on the left, and in a few short steps she is at his front door. Through a louvered window inset in the door, she can tell that a light is on inside. In another moment she has keyed in the code and pushed open the door.

Although she is certain no one is home, she calls out anyway. Along one wall she notices several unsealed boxes, though she is surprised that so much is still left to be packed. The furniture doesn't appear to have been moved—perhaps he has sold it to the incoming tenants.

The comfortable familiarity of the apartment makes her chest hurt—she notices that Spock has not packed up his hologram pictures or his computer equipment. She had not considered before that he will probably need to leave behind most of the things he owns. His was already a stripped down life. That his new life will be even more spartan brings Nyota an unexpected pang.

She has drifted into the kitchen and is lifting up the top on a clay tagine bubbling on the cooker when the door chime startles her. Not Spock, then. A neighbor? In all the time she has spent in this apartment, she has rarely seen Spock's neighbors—so that seems unlikely. The new tenants?

When she swings open the door she has an eerie moment of deja vu. Sarek stands there, obviously chilled, his cheeks rough from the cold.

After her initial surprise, Nyota is dismayed to be awash in anger. Surely he can leave them alone for one evening? She swallows instead and says, "Ambassador, come in. I'm not sure where Spock is."

Sarek steps through the door without dropping his gaze and Nyota feels as she did the first time he had visited Spock's cabin on the Enterprise, discomfited and unable to read him.

"Spock had to stop at the realtor's office," he says, his black eyes still boring into Nyota's. "He asked me to have you wait."

Nyota takes in a breath and is about to reply when Sarek adds, "If you will."

Why is he here, she wonders, as she leads him to the sofa and parks herself on one end. She hopes Spock comes soon and she can get whatever it is she has left here—for she has decided that that must be the reason for his summons, that in his packing he has set aside clothes she has left by habit, or, now that she realizes how little he is taking, perhaps he wants her to have some of the things they shared—his teapot, for instance, or the holograms of them in their private moments.

Sarek does not sit but stands with one wrist held in his other hand behind his back—Nyota feels a flicker of annoyance that he is so imperturbable, even standing, apparently unruffled by the events of the past two weeks or the challenges of the future. Even though she knows she is being rude, she stares at his expression and wonders what he thinks about when he looks at her.

He had been so cold on the Enterprise—had he known then that Spock was leaving Starfleet? How foolish she must have seemed to him—a young woman without a clue, someone walking blindly into the future.

That is unfair, she thinks, and she lowers her eyes. If she has learned anything lately, it is that no one can guess the future.

"Ambassador—"

"Lieutenant—"

They speak at the same time and then stop. Nyota gestures to the sofa and adds, "Would you care to sit down?" but Sarek does not seem to have heard her. He takes a step closer and peers down at her, expressionless, distant, though Nyota senses something she cannot name. When he speaks, his voice is the same it always is—self-assured and direct, but she thinks she hears an undercurrent of something new. She frowns as she tries to listen more carefully.

"Lieutenant," he says again, "I want to say that—"

And then he pauses, and Nyota's frown deepens.

"More precisely," he starts again, "I need to tell you that your kindness to my son has not gone unnoticed."

Nyota is silent, and Sarek seems to be at a loss for words.

"Yes?" she prompts.

Abruptly, Sarek sits down. Again Nyota feels that odd sensation that signals something underlying his words.

"Expressive communication has never been my strength," Sarek says, and Nyota waits for him to continue. "If my wife were here, she would be able to tell you—as I am trying to tell you—that I am glad that you have cared for Spock."

At this she nods, and even as she does, she thinks how unusual it is to hear a Vulcan comment on the obvious. This must be a measure of his difficulty with expressive communication, as he called it. Before he takes his son away, he is asking for her blessing—he cannot simply be acknowledging what he knows to be true.

She nods and says, "I will always care for Spock."

And there, as she looks up, she sees a definite change in Sarek's expression. His eyebrows rise slightly, and the angle of his head dips—he is feeling surprise?

Nyota Uhura can be many things when she is angry, and at that moment she is so angry that she does not censor what she says.

"Are you surprised that a mere human can love your son, can continue to love your son, even when we cannot be together? Are Vulcans so empty of feelings that you cannot imagine what it is to be loved, really and truly loved, even when loving someone means that you have to let that person go?"

At once she is abashed—and she puts her hands to her mouth, to stifle herself, to signal her shock at what she has said to this man who has lost so much.

Sarek unclasps his hands from behind his back and says, "No, Lieutenant, we are not that empty. And I do know something about the love of mere humans. And about letting someone go."

Before she can speak, he rises and turns towards the door and there is Spock, standing in the open doorway.

"Father—" he says, but Sarek touches him on the arm and steps beyond him into the hall. The distant clang as the outside door shuts makes Nyota jump, and she looks up at Spock with genuine remorse.

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone for leaving such helpful reviews! Let me know your thoughts—I don't have Vulcan telepathy! Sarek's take on this conversation is up next.

Thanks to StarTrekFanWriter for all her help, both editorial and technical! If you are a Sarek/Amanda fan, catch up with her chaptered fic The Native.