Disclaimer: Characters contained within do not belong to me, but to Gene Roddenberry, Paramount Pictures, etc.

Author's Notes: I don't really have the words to express my gratitude for the incredible response to this story. I am just so glad you're all enjoying it. Thank you, again. And another special thanks to my beta, my collaborator, my fellow Spock fan, my friend, Lisa.

The Opposite of Logic

by Kristen Elizabeth

If Uhura had been asleep, the chime on her door might have been unwelcome. But sleep was escaping her, as it often did now that she was entering the seventh month of what seemed like the longest pregnancy in history.

Although she wasn't terribly big, she felt like a house. And it was only going to get worse. If she couldn't find a comfortable sleeping position now, she held very little hope for month nine.

She struggled to sit up. "Who is it?"

"Ensign Chekov." A moment passed. "I can enter?"

If his accent hadn't already won her over, his innocence would have. It was impossible not to smile around Chekov. And Uhura desperately needed to smile. "Come in."

He entered with his hands behind his back. "Please forgive me my interruption," he started. "I have no wish to be disturbing you."

"You're not," she assured him. "Is there something you need, Ensign?"

"You can call me Pavel." He smiled nervously. "It is what my mat calls me."

Apparently being the only pregnant woman on board had turned her into the ship's resident mother figure. "All right, Pavel." She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, no small feat in her current condition. "What can I do for you?"

"Many years ago in my country, it was bad luck to give a baby gift before the baby come. But we are modern people, da?"

"Yes," Uhura agreed.

Chekov hesitated before he revealed what he'd been holding behind his back, a well-worn, obviously well-loved stuffed bear. "I would like to give this to your baby. It will protect him, like it has always protected me."

It was probably her racing hormones, but hot tears welled up in a great wave. "I can't take this," Uhura said with honest regret. "It should go to your own children someday."

"At the Academy, roommates used to say that if I kept it, there would be no children for me."

She laughed without warning, the first genuine laugh she could remember emitting in weeks. "I'm sorry, Pavel," she apologized. "I wasn't laughing at you."

He looked down at the bear. "I have never known my father. My mat raised me alone. People told her she was bad mother...bad woman." A frown pulled at his smooth forehead. "But they were wrong. She was loving me more, I think, because it was only her."

"Yes, I'm sure she did." Uhura held out her hand for the bear. "Thank you for this. I'll treasure it."

Smiling once again, Chekov nodded. "It is my pleasure, Lieutenant."

"Pavel," she called to him before he left. "You can call me Uhura. If you want."

After two attempts at sounding out her name, he gave up. His accent had beat him for the moment. "I will be working on it." He opened the door. "You will be very good mother. I know this."

When he was gone, Uhura stood back up, rubbing her belly. The baby was moving, making occasional kicks and punches that made her wonder if she was gestating a future martial artist.

She crossed to the chest of drawers that held her clothes and personal items. From under a stack of shirts in her top drawer, she withdrew a small, glass-framed picture.

He didn't look particularly pleased to be posing for the portrait, which had been taken upon his graduation from the Academy, before he'd been asked to stay on as an instructor. His posture was perfect, but his expression was blank. She didn't mind. It was the only picture she had of him.

Uhura traced the line of his jaw with her finger as lovingly as if it was his real face. But it wasn't, and all she felt was cold glass.

Shoving the frame back into its place among her shirts, she laid the bear on top of it and slammed the drawer shut.

"I have never done this before." When Uhura drew back in the wake of his blurted admission, Spock immediately regretted his propensity for complete honesty. "That is abnormal, is it not?"

"Well..." As she thought this over, her hands remained around his neck, her painted nails lightly combing through his short black hair. "What makes you think I'm attracted to normality?"

Spock reached back and removed her hands so he could stand up from the bed. The remains of their candle-lit dinner were still on the table and her long-sleeved top was crumpled on the floor next to his uniform shirt. He paced past all of it, until he reached the window.

"Spock." Uhura followed, stopping just behind him. Together, they stared out at the lights of San Francisco across the bay. Before he could stop her, she slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her body against his back. "You do want this, don't you?"

It took him a second to reply. "I have...desired you since the first moment I saw you."

With her cheek resting on his shoulder blade, she smiled. "Me, too."

"But I am an instructor," he reminded her. "And you are still a cadet."

"That wasn't your worry a second ago." Uhura turned her head to press a soft kiss against his skin. "You said that you've never done this."

Spock turned around to face her. "Vulcan sexuality is vastly different than your own."

"I know. I aced Xenobiology." Uhura lifted her slender shoulder. "But you're part Human. I was hoping I wouldn't have to wait seven years."

"I have never explored this particular facet of my humanity," Spock admitted. "I had not even truly considered experimenting with it. Until you."

Uhura blinked. "Is that what this would be? An experiment?"

"No!" He spoke with such force that her heart skipped a beat. "No, Nyota. If we were to do this, I would want to please you." Spock paused. "But I am not sure that I know how."

Her chest rose and fell as she reached behind her back and unhooked the strap of her bra. She let it fall on the floor and stood in front of him in only her short skirt.

His eyes on her body made her shiver with anticipation. Like a starving man, his stare devoured her from head to toe, memorizing her. With her heart beating hard and fast, she reached for him.

"I've never done this either," she said softly. "I've been waiting for the right man." Her smile was ever so slightly shy. "Maybe we've been waiting for each other."

"Nyota..."

She stopped him with a kiss that quickly grew intense. It was only when she felt the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed that she tore her lips away from his.

"Xenobiology also tells me that your heart..." She moved her hand down to his lean abdomen. "...is here."

Spock kissed her as he lowered her back onto the bed. "But I am an abnormality." He took her hand and placed it on the center of her chest, covering it with his own. "My heart is here."

It was a night Uhura would have loved.

The two moons of Degan V were full, hanging in the starry sky like giant paper laterns, one just slightly red, the other a soft yellow. The breeze was pleasantly cool and carried the scent of a hundred different flowers from T'Lan's garden.

T'Lan. As if she sensed her name in his thoughts, his wife entered their bedroom just then. He glanced up from the ancient book open on his lap, an Andorian translation of Vulcan mythology. Almost no original Vulcan texts had survived. Their history and culture were now recorded only in their memories and alien languages.

"Spock." She walked to him, her long robes brushing across the floor. Her hair was braided and coiled at the base of her slender neck, not a lock out of place. Without waiting for an invitation, as she usually did, she sat down in the chair next to his.

Out of respect, he marked his place and closed his book, giving her his attention.

"Are you...unhappy that we have not yet conceived a child?"

Her question surprised him. After a moment of thought, Spock replied, "There is an old Earth saying, 'what is meant to be, will be'."

T'Lan's eyebrow lifted. "I do not believe that fully answers my question."

Instead of replying, Spock turned the question around. "Are you unhappy about it, T'Lan?"

"I am curious," she told him. "Being that as a Vulcan female of-age, I am always fertile, the fact that we have not yet conceived despite weekly copulation is puzzling."

To disagree would have been a lie, yet to tell the truth and admit that he'd had the same thought, only it had been more of a relief than a cause of concern, would have also been unacceptable.

"I suggest," T'Lan went on, "that we should each undergo a physical examination, to ensure that we are capable of implantation and fertilization."

Implantation. Fertilization. That was what it came down to now. Two cells combining to create new cells.

With Uhura, there had been fire and passion, emotions he'd never even imagined. Every time their bodies had joined, he'd felt complete, like all the parts of his soul that he'd never been able to reconcile had only made sense when he was inside her.

It was from that kind of experience that children should be created. Two minds, hearts, and bodies coming together to create life.

Anything less clearly wasn't enough.

But Spock just inclined his head. "I will go to the medical center tomorrow." He hesitated. "Perhaps I should sleep downstairs tonight."

If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn he saw relief flash across T'Lan's face. Whatever it was, it was gone a second later as she coolly nodded. "Until we have an answer, that would be logical."

On other evenings, he'd bid his wife good-night with a very Human kiss to her forehead, something that had surprised her at first, but that she'd learned to tolerate.

But now he merely collected his book and started down the stairs.

To Be Continued