It felt like a week of everybody telling her what to do.
"I need the room on Friday night," Gaila told her, picking up a bra, frowning at it, dropping it on her bed. "The earliest group of first years arrive this week."
"Is this starting again already?" Nyota groaned. "Can't you wait until I at least have some homework to do in the library before you kick me out of our room?"
"Nope. Not an option. So sorry."
"Is this not slightly unfair? It's my room too."
"And," Gaila said, her tone practical, discarding another bra choice. "You are welcome to join us. Or even just watch. I'm getting worried about you."
"I," Nyota said crossing her arms, "am fine. And really, no thank you."
"Maybe you'll meet someone in Iowa," Gaila grinned.
"Hicks and farm animals. I'm good without them."
Gaila pulled out another bra, examining it closely. "You never know."
…
"I need you to work late tonight," Eneis told her. "I hope that's ok, Uhura, I'm so sorry for the short notice. I have a meeting down at HQ and this subroutine needs to be monitored by someone until it's complete."
"Of course, sir."
"You'll have the building to yourself, so make sure to lock up when you're finished."
"No one else will be here?" she asked. Spock almost always worked later than any of them, the light from his office spilling into the hall when she walked home each evening.
"We're all going to the meeting."
"Oh, ok." She tucked her hair back, feeling strangely lonely at the idea of the whole department being empty. "Thanks for letting me know, sir."
…
"You're going to have to change your schedule around for next semester," Uley told her. "We need you as a teaching assistant since we had a fourth year get sent to the Outer Rim on a research assignment and we need a replacement. You're the most qualified."
"Yes sir," she said, trying not to flinch under the stern gaze of her academic advisor, mentally removing Intermediate Conversational Andorian from her schedule for next term, which she had wanted to take. She wanted to be a teaching aide more, though, and this made the long nights in the library, the hours of writing papers and studying worth it.
…
"We're coming to visit you," Makena told her as soon as Nyota took her call.
"What? Do I get a say in this? This isn't the best time, I'm leaving for Iowa and the term's about to start."
"Yes," Gabe said, taking the chair beside Makena so Nyota could see him. "What works best for you? We miss you."
"No. We're coming next weekend."
"I have all these things to do, I have my research to finish, I have to choose my classes, get my texts-"
"Interstellar emergency, Nyota Uhura has to choose her classes. Let's shut down the planet so you get the peace and quiet you need to make such an important decision-"
"-It is important!"
"Nope. Doesn't matter. Kamau's ship is in the system and he's also coming. Mom and Dad too. Tell Spock."
"What?"
"Spock," Makena said slowly as if Nyota couldn't hear her. "Tall. Nerdy. Half Vulcan." She turned and put her hands over Gabe's ears. "Really hot." She removed her hands and Gabe valiantly didn't even glare at her. "I want to meet your roommate, too."
Nyota imagined a world in which Makena and Gaila were in the same room. "No. Absolutely not. The time space continuum will rupture."
"Yes. We're going out, too, so pick a good place, not your usual completely horrible choices. Girl's night."
"I can't come?" Gabe asked.
"You can hang out with Spock. Bring a calculator."
"This is going to be a disaster," Nyota sighed, rubbing her forehead with one hand.
…
"You're representing Starfleet while you're here, so be aware of that," Captain Pike told them, standing with his back to the Enterprise so all the cadets could stare at it.
It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.
And Spock was right. It was quite large.
It was disconcerting to see such a huge structure that would certainly look graceful at Spacedock sitting in the middle of cornfields, covered in scaffolding and crawling with workers.
"Wow," said the cadet next to her. He was enormous and rather burly – security, she guessed. He looked like he was reduced to a little boy as he stared at the ship, his mouth slightly open with wonder, an expression she was sure perfectly mirrored her own.
"And keep your eyes open when you talk to recruits today," Pike continued, snapping all their gazes away from the ship and back towards him. "You never know who you'll find around here."
…
"Thanks, but no thanks," she tried to tell the guy in the bar. She wanted her shot and to be left alone, not necessarily in that order.
"I'm fine without it," she tried again. Nobody introduces themselves that way, she wanted to tell him, saying it so that I can pick up your last name. I did completely reject you, she wanted to tell him, absolutely no need for you to try again. Coming over here isn't going to change my answer, no matter who you are, she wanted to tell him, looking down at the bar and hoping he could take a hint.
"It's nothing I can't handle," she tried to tell that same cadet from earlier – Henderoff? Hendorhof? – but he didn't listen.
It was amazing how she could be the entire focus of the conversation and have everything she said ignored, she thought before the first punch flew.
…
"I'm fine," she told the cadet when he asked if she was ok, catching up with her as she crossed the parking lot.
"That guy was a total ass."
You are a total ass, she thought.
"I'm really fine," she told him again. She didn't turn around, just kept walking towards the edge of the lot.
"I hope he didn't bother you."
You bothered me, she thought.
"I'm good," she told him. Her hands were shaking.
"I'm glad I was there to help you."
I didn't need help, she thought, I needed you to listen to me.
"I missed a call that I have to return," she told him, slipping her comm from her pocket and trying to hide how she fumbled with it.
He backed off as thumbed through it, thinking that she had probably missed a call at some point, one that she probably did need to return some time in the future.
She was staring blankly at the screen, watching how her hand was still shaking, still hearing the sickening sounds of punches, shattered glass, the rush of blood swelling and pounding through her when she heard steps behind her again.
"I'm fine," she snapped, spinning around. "Leave me alone. Please."
"Of course. I apologize." Spock looked stung, hurt almost, before he looked like nothing at all, smooth and calm and blank. "Excuse me."
"Wait," she heard herself call out, felt herself move towards him and he paused mid step, half turned away from her. "I-" she started, stopped, tried again. "I'm sorry."
"I did not intend to disturb or interrupt you."
"You're not."
"You are making a call." He nodded to her hand and she looked down, surprised to find her comm in a white knuckled grip.
"I'm not." She pushed her comm back in her pocket. She took a deep breath and then another. "I'm just…"
He looked at her, then around them at the emptiness of the lot, the cornfields, the dark sky arching above them, then back at her.
"Standing in a parking lot."
He said it like it was a fact, and like that fact was ok, like it was logical, an understandable course of action to pursue, rather than choosing to be with the other cadets gossiping and whispering where they stood near the bar.
"Precisely," she said, echoing his meticulous diction and his careful articulation that were such a relief after the slurred voices and shouts, the grunts of pain, the thick, wet, sounds of blows connecting with flesh.
The sudden lack of adrenaline, the way she felt it drain out of her, left her tired and cold and empty. She sank onto the low stone wall that ran the length of the lot, finding herself staring off at the sky, breathing out a long exhale that helped lower her shoulders, helped ease some of the tension out of her.
She thought about telling him to go away, thought that she wanted to be alone, wanted to maybe call Gaila or Makena but when she raised her hand it was to motion to him, to wave to the space beside her.
He came closer slowly, carefully, resting the padd he carried on his lap as he sat cautiously on the very edge of the wall next to her.
"Fine has variable definitions," he finally said and she blinked and looked away from where she had been staring at the way his long fingers curled around the edge of his padd.
"What?"
His hands were so clean, so unmarred by red blood and unbruised by repeated punches.
"You stated you were fine."
She looked up at him again, taking in his familiar profile, the way the light from the neon sign of the bar played over his face.
"I did?"
He was watching her and she could feel the weight of his full focus on her, like he couldn't have looked away if he tried. She felt him make a motion as if he was going to reach for her, or touch her, or something, but before she could react she was just watching his hands grip his padd tighter.
"Nyota?"
"How was your interview?" she asked turning from him, staring up at the stars, the shape of the Enterprise silhouetted against the dark sky.
"It has not yet occurred."
"Oh." She watched a shower of sparks fall from the starboard nacelle. They flickered out high above the ground and she imagined the welder up on the scaffolding, working through the night to attach deck panels that would someday protect the ship from the vacuum of space. She watched the Enterprise for a long time, listening to the crickets, the muffled music of the bar, the silence and calm of Spock next to her.
"Oh God, I'm sorry," she said suddenly, turning towards him to find him still looking at her. "Was it supposed to be right now? I'm so sorry."
"Yes." His brow furrowed, his head tipping to the side. "However I do not believe I understand the correlation of your statement with Captain Pike's delay."
She didn't answer for a long moment, dropping her gaze from his, searching for words.
"There was a fight," she said finally, quietly, watching her hands fiddle with the hem of her skirt.
He was silent for a long moment.
"May I ask what precipitated the altercation?"
She didn't answer, didn't look up at him, just ran her fingers over the red fabric, studying the weave of the fabric, the small stitches along the hem.
She felt him shift slightly, watched his hands grip his padd again, tighter this time, his pale skin whitening along his knuckles.
"Were you injured?"
Just my pride, she wanted to say. Just the confidence that I can learn any language known to the Federation and then some and still have the agency to have a voice, she wanted to tell him. Just my assurance that I'm going to be judged on merit and the quality of my work and not as a pretty, indefensible woman, she wanted him to know because she thought that of anyone he understood that, had left Vulcan to be known for the work he could do and not who he was.
She shook her head, smoothed down her skirt, then did it again, rubbing her fingers along a stubborn wrinkle in the fabric.
He waited beside her as she took another deep breath.
"I don't think I'd ever actually seen a fist fight before," she finally told him and speaking the words aloud loosened something in side of her, made it all a bit better, her thoughts a bit less chaotic. "It's one thing to see them in holovids and another to be right next to it." And it's another thing to be the cause, she thought about telling him but didn't.
"I believe I remember you being quite proficient at fending off your brother during physical disputes."
"Pillows," she qualified. "He used to hit me with that pillow on our couch."
"I remember," he said softly and she knew that he did, of course he did, but it was nice to hear him say it out loud, the memory of her parents home, those afternoons as children anchoring her, calming her, focusing her.
"I guess I'll take a hand to hand combat course," she said into the quiet of the night. She didn't want to, not really, not if it meant dropping something else, but she wanted a plan, a way to deal with how she had felt standing pressed back against the bar, men only feet from her hitting each other. "It'd be useful, anyway, if I decide to pursue bridge officer operations," she told him and herself.
"A logical course of action." He paused and she disliked the silence, already turning towards him, thinking of something to say, when he spoke again. "May I ask what other courses you have been considering for the semester?"
"Intermediate Subspace Physics," she said. She hated those courses, hated being bad at something, anything. "Xenoneurolinguistics, maybe. Or maybe the seminar on Comparative Cultural Competencies. I have to figure out how my schedule will work since I was asked to be an aide for Advanced Morphology."
"Ah." He looked out at the Enterprise, the line of his back straightening, and she watched him for a long moment before he spoke again. "That would be for my class, I believe."
"Oh."
"Professor Eneis is teaching both the beginning and intermediate classes, so I have been asked to teach the advanced sections."
"Oh."
"I am not teaching Interspecies Ethics again," he said, sounding a lot like he was rambling. "But instead will be working on programming a simulation for command track cadets."
"Oh." She dragged the toe of her boot along the gravel of the parking lot, listening to how the small rocks scrapped against one another. "So I'd be working for you, not for Eneis."
He tipped his head to the side, still staring at the Enterprise.
"Affirmative."
She picked at her nails for a moment. It was a strange thought, to work for him, to spend that much time with him each week, a bizarre circumstance she couldn't quite get her mind around. She tried to imagine it, tried to envision what it would be like, but she couldn't, not with the fog of her thoughts so wrapped up in what had happened in the bar, not with the way she kept drawing a blank when she thought about sharing his office, not Eneis'. It was too difficult to reconcile that thought with his presence beside her here in Iowa of all places, with everything else between them, with the fact she had just gotten used to him as a professor and would now have to adjust to him being her boss.
She turned towards him, thinking to ask him if it was ok with him, if maybe it wasn't the best idea, if maybe one of them should say something to Uley, and stopped herself. He could turn it down, if he wanted to, but she was not going to give up such a great posting, not based on a personal relationship that had no role in getting her the assignment in the first place.
He didn't seem like he was about to tell her that he wouldn't hire her, though, not that she thought he would, not if she was really the best for the job. Instead, she thought that he looked like he really, really wanted her to say something.
"That's alright," she said, finding the words were true. "It'll be fun."
Something shifted in him. Maybe the stiffness of his shoulders eased or maybe he just wasn't leaning quite as far away from her.
"I do not believe that is the descriptor many cadets would chose to employ when faced with the prospect of working for me."
She felt a small smile tug at her mouth. No, she thought, of everything most cadets, at least most of the female ones, wanted to do to him, working for him was not one of them.
"Interesting," she corrected. "Challenging?"
"Arduous," he supplied and she found herself smiling, just a little.
They lapsed back into silence as she thought again about working for him, thought about all the hours she had shared with Eneis that she would now share with Spock. She tried to care, tried to summon some emotion about it but she couldn't. She was too tired, too drained and could only stare at the stars, the ship, the light on his padd blinking steadily in the dark, next to where his hands rested.
The noise from the bar cut out suddenly, patrons spilling into the night air, the cadets milling around outside looking like they were growing bored, getting ready to head to their bunks for the night.
"My sister's coming to visit," she told him because she didn't want to walk back with them, didn't want to answer their questions or deal with their curiosity, didn't want to leave behind the cool night air, the stars that were so much closer here than at the Academy, the quiet and calm she finally felt as she sat there next to Spock.
"You do not appear to be overly enthusiastic."
"I am. My roommate's thrilled," she added, as if Gaila's eagerness to meet her family could make up for her own lack thereof. "It's just… you know Makena. She can be exhausting."
"I have not seen your sister in many years," he said and she nearly laughed. Ever the diplomat's son, she thought.
"I'm sure you've been enjoying the peace and quiet." She smiled slightly at the memory of Makena and Spock's many disastrous interactions.
"I have, indeed, had a respite from your sister's…" he trailed off as if searching for the correct word. There was probably no word in Vulcan to accurately describe her sister, Nyota thought.
"Zeal?" she guessed.
"Avidity," he said and she felt her smile grow.
"You got that right." She paused, picked at her thumbnail again, thinking she really shouldn't be having dinner with her future boss but couldn't possibly not invite him to it, couldn't answer to him or her family if she ducked out of doing so. "She wanted to know if you wanted to come to dinner. My parents and brother will be there too. And maybe my roommate. I'm not sure… You don't have to come, of course, especially if it's… you know, with me working for you, now."
"Of course."
The crickets were quite loud, she thought, almost rivaling the chatter of workers and locals walking to their hovercars.
"I do not believe that precludes a dinner with your family," Spock finally said.
"Yeah." She ran her fingers along the hem of her skirt again. "Probably not."
They watched the lot slowly empty, the cadets wander back towards their assigned quarters.
Dew settled around them and she pulled her jacket on, her arm nearly brushing against his as she shifted.
"Sorry," she said quickly and he nodded.
The last cars left and lights started blinking off around the Enterprise's compound.
"I should go back," she said eventually but made no move to leave.
Instead, she watched the stars, silently naming constellations. She watched the Enterprise, the workers crawling over the structure, their small shapes illuminated by the huge lights that lit the whole shipyard. She watched Spock for a long moment, how he seemed so familiar and so different, so much older now as an adult, as an officer in his uniform, about to be the person she was working for, not the little boy she had climbed rocks with.
She watched a figure finally emerge from the bar, glance around the lot and start walking towards them. She felt Spock straighten next to her, felt him tense slightly, the calm, relaxed atmosphere around them abruptly evaporating.
"Are you nervous?" she asked, looking at him closely. "Are you ok?"
"I am fine," he said too quickly.
"Fine has-"
He cut her off with a glare and she burst out laughing, the sound breaking through the calm, peaceful night air.
"Good luck," she whispered to him when Pike was just far enough away to not hear her, grinning when he obviously wrestled with wanting to react to such an illogical statement and wanting to greet the captain properly. "You'll do great."
"Too late for you, Mr. Spock?" Pike asked, giving her a once over and apparently deciding she appeared fine.
"No, sir," Spock answered, his tone suddenly crisp, professional, so different than it had been when it was just the two of them. "Cadet," he said, nodding at her as he stepped away to follow the captain.
She watched him go and when she looked back down, her hand had drifted to where he had been sitting, the rock warm under her fingers.