This is a disclaimer.

(ten)

Uhura doesn't like Jim. This is a well-documented fact, tried and tested and proven beyond any doubt.

True, she's serving on the Enterprise, but that's because of ambition and Spock, or Spock and ambition, or possibly just Spock, but now that there isn't any hanky-panky going on there anymore it might just be ambition after all. Jim's not fool enough to ask after the exact reasons, though. It's safer for him if he stays out of her way and tries not to flirt with her too much.

(As a matter of fact, the not-flirting thing is going extremely well. He made a decision when they gave him his girl that he wouldn't... get involved... with anyone on his crew, and when Jim makes a decision, he sticks to it, so he doesn't even fake flirt with Uhura anymore, let alone flirt for real with anyone else on board.)

Taking all this into account, then, it's a bit of a shock to him when she shows up at his front door two days after The Ambassador's visit. Jim's fitting his new coffee table together, thinking he'd start small and move up to the big stuff, like the wardrobe and the bed and the dining room table, and he can't remember why he thought having one that size with all those chairs was a good idea for a guy who lives alone and isn't about to change that, but apparently he had a reason to when he signed the sales contract, because there they all are, waiting for him, and when the door chimes he yells "Come on in!" in a distracted way, half-expecting The Ambassador again, but it's Uhura instead.

"Whoa," she says, staring round. "That's a lot of cardboard."

"Apparently they're not allowed to beam inanimate objects into people's new living rooms," Jim says blankly. "Um. Uhura. Has anyone died? Is the Enterprise still in one piece?"

He thinks she blushes, but there's no way to tell for sure, because this is Uhura and she doesn't do stuff like that, so it's probably just a figment of Jim's imagination.

"No and yes," she says. "It's. Personal."

"Forget it," Jim says.

She blinks. "What?"

"Forget it," he repeats. "I don't care what's going on with you and Spock, I'm not approving your transfer. Or his. You're the best, and I want the best, and I'll have you assigned to different shifts from now on if it's that bad even though I can't imagine that it is, but I'm not loosing either of you."

Uhura actually laughs, and Jim's reminded of the bar in Iowa and the split second when he thought hell yeah she likes me right before he got the crap beaten out of him. "Captain," she says, and then, "Jim. It's not that. I promise. It's not work related at all."

Jim boggles. What other reason could Uhura possibly have to want to interact with him? Come to his apartment, even?

She's biting on her bottom lip, only sign of nervousness, and then she blurts it out. "My apartment's uninhabitable. Water damage or something, it's the whole block. And I can't go to my mother's, because my sister's getting married in two weeks, and if there's one thing I don't have the patience to do after dealing with that idiot landlord and the workmen and everything else, it's stand around like a doll and be fitted for a bridesmaid's dress."

Jim is still boggling. "So you come here? So you come here. Sulu is in New York, and Chekov's in Moscow, and Bones is down in Georgia with Jo, and no one knows where Scotty is although there's a good choice he hasn't left the ship yet and heading to Spock's would be too awkward."

"Actually, I thought of you first," Uhura says.

Jim wants to pinch himself, but that would be silly. And kinda melodramatic. "Well. You can. Help with the furniture?"

"I did bring a sixpack, just in case," she tells him, grinning a little.

So furniture it is; nuts and bolts and screws and instructions that are totally useless and a waste of precious paper, and when Uhura asks him about the sheer number of those damn chairs, Jim feels an immediate and irrational need to justify the illogical buying of excess furniture.

"Well, Bones doesn't have a place out here," he says. "And I've been spending Christmas at his house, with him and Jo, for years, so it's past time to return the favour. And Sulu's coming for the weekend right before we leave again. And one day I'm going to convince Mrs Chekov to let the kid stay with me for shore leave and live a little. And there's Spock, of course, and –"

"In short," Uhura says, "the chairs are for us?"

It's so blindingly obvious that Jim can't make out why he was having so much trouble remembering it earlier on. He reaches past her and grabs two beers to try and hide the twist of – something in his chest that she can surely see.

By midnight, they've set up a couch, two armchairs, a coffee table, a bookshelf, and six dining room table chairs. There's the table itself left, along with a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and three more bookshelves, because it turns out that most of Jim's possessions are either books or weird little knickknacks he's picked up on alien planets and wants to display, even though Uhura says they'll be hellish to dust.

There's a deckchair on Jim's balcony that's wide and comfortable and gets all the best late afternoon sunlight, and they share it, barefoot and platonic, which is a new one for Jim when with a pretty girl, ever so slightly drunk. The bottle of whiskey sits on the floor at Jim's side. He's lying down, head tilted back to look at the stars, while Uhura is sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, looking out at the city.

"What do you see up there?" she asks him softly.

"Home," he says. "You?"

"Up there? Life. New and bright and bold and different. Waiting for me. Down here? Home."

"I don't see much of anything down here."

"I've noticed that about you."

Silence for a while then. Jim pours them more booze, bottle clanking on the rim of their glasses, the sound of it obnoxiously loud in the night.

"Uhura?" he says. "Thanks for helping me with the furniture."

She takes a drink and turns to him. "It's Nyota."

"I knew that."

"But not because I told you."

"So we're good now?"

"It's not that I hated you," she says. "I hated the way you acted. Like – like you weren't worth me giving you the time of day, and you knew it, and didn't care."

"For a while," Jim says, "I wasn't."

"But you are, Jim. You always were."

"That's sweet of you to say, Nyota."

"Damn you, Jim," Uhura says, and she sounds frighteningly like McCoy, now. "Don't do that. It's not fair on yourself."

Jim knocks back the rest of his whiskey and sighs. "So I've been told," he murmurs, looking back up at the stars. Nyota lays a hand on his knee and keeps it there for a long time, and Jim slides into sleep like that, warmed by the whiskey and her touch and the slow, private, delicious revelation that's building in his chest.