A series of vignettes about Spock's & Uhura's mornings together at the academy.
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8. Hello
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It could be classified as a test, Spock thought. It would be an investigation into the state of his interpersonal skills. He did not know, upon retrospection, whether the idea of a test or the idea of her as the subject of such a test had come first. It was puzzling.
It was highly likely it would be an ordeal.
He'd woken to his quarters in their usual state, and he wandered their confines in the growing light, quiet with a glass of hot tea in his hands. He thought about a lecture he had prepared, about the carpet under his toes, about the status of his stash of tea. He gazed out his window, meditating in a light and what should be easy manner, attempting to make his mind blank and open. He was not successful. He washed, shaved, dressed as usual, efficiently but with great care, his clothing and face appropriately smooth and his boots clean and polished. If he were not so painfully self-aware, he would have distracted himself by pretending it was a typical morning, by pretending he was not going to force himself to do something awkward, as if he needed to feel more awkward. It was by no means required in any way. Why he was making himself do this, he could not explain. Perhaps it was the frequency with which he ran into Cadet Uhura. The chances were not great, and yet he had, on numerous occasions during the first few weeks of class, seen her. She had seen him as well, and this gave him an opening to practice being normal and say hello.
Since he was an especially observant person, he could call to mind her gait, her dynamic way of approaching anything inanimate or living. Since they had crossed paths so frequently, and because her eyes were vital and bright with an aesthetically pleasing shape that inclined in parallel with her curving Human eyebrows, he could also recall those mentally. He seemed to recall long eyelashes brushing her rich skin, so different from his own. Upon thinking about her eyelashes and skin, he noted it seemed an excessively detailed recollection. He cleared his throat before entering the classroom.
He entered from the back, as he sometimes did. It was not his preferred way of accessing the auditorium, as the view it afforded intensified his discomfort at teaching. However, he did not want to approach Cadet Uhura from the front of the classroom. He was already, since he could not hide from himself and had to admit it, nervous. He wished to say hello, not approach her from below as a supplicant.
She was not there.
He froze, having not considered that a variable might be out of order. She was a highly independent individual, and it made sense that she might deviate from her routine to do something she simply felt like doing. He was sure she did not wake in the morning and work so deliberately and with such difficulty to prepare for her day. She was free to drink her coffee with friends, rather than consume it here, alone and early for class with only his dead silence for company.
He stood, rigid, unable to move past his surprise at her absence. It messed up everything. While he stood that way, the air pressure behind him changed, a door opened, a breeze moved past him. Cadet Uhura walked three steps beyond him before she turned gracefully on one heel and smiled. Her teeth were white and square and appropriately sized so that her smile had an overall warming effect. However, a second after she flashed him with it she retracted it, corrected herself and stood at attention.
"Good morning, Commander." Her eyelashes did what he remembered them doing. But her voice was not as he remembered. Up close it was smoother, and illogically both more nasal and fresher than he recalled. He would have to adjust his mental image of her.
He nodded. "Good morning, Cadet." His own voice seemed overly deep.
He was motionless, having accomplished some part of his goal, and then he realized she was motionless too, waiting for him to release her. He was her superior officer, technically in control of this situation. He gestured with his hand that they should both proceed into the classroom. She nodded and smiled again, smaller this time, before turning and descending the stairs. He descended behind her.
Her hair swung, without restraint.
*
