DISCLAIMER: I Don't Own Star Trek. And I'm not making any money from this.
If you look back at the timeline, you'll see we're not near where they get in trouble yet...they need to grow up and get to know each other a little bit first.
Flashes of Light
It was a change in their professional relationship that finally offered Spock the opportunity to change their personal relationship.
Spock and Cadet Uhura were in the lab calibrating equipment for the next phase of research. They had translated enough subspace signatures of known sentient languages to move on to Phase II of his project, the practical application. He needed to develop equations to strip natural occurring subspace noise (the solar gossip as Uhura called it) from sentient chatter.
To do this he needed to work backwards. He goal was to take sentient subspace signals and generate in simulation mode what that pure signal would look like without the interference of natural noise. Then he planned to take live radio signals that would be affected by this sentient subspace message and create a map of all the subspace signals natural and sentient in origin. Where there was overlap he planned to strip out the data, and use the remainder to generate his equations.
The morning on the tenth day after the Cadet's return the two of them were sitting in front of a 3D monitor. Spock touched the console and suddenly blue dots of light sprung up before them.
It had come to his attention that Uhura had to be re-evaluated for fluency every semester in order to avoid taking her prerequisite language courses, and she had admitted to him that in humans disuse of a language, even a native language, could lead to a decline in proficiency. So they had begun speaking xenolanguages around the lab. It was a mental game that Spock found quite stimulating. He also found he could easily justify it as Uhura would be monitoring all of the subspace signals they would be using in simulation--he needed her skills to be sharp.
It was for this reason that he began his explanation of the hologram in the harsh guttural tongue of Klingon, "These blue dots represent the simulation of a pure signal of an Andorian newscast sent to Lixing 5 on a day without any significant solar activity."
He touched the console again and a sea of green dots emerged before them and the blue disappeared, in place of the blue was now bright white light.
He continued, "Where you see the green and white, that is what we get when we generate a map of subspace signals from radio frequencies. The green are the natural occurring signals, the white illuminates where the green and blue have overlapped and delineates the sentient signal. Notice there is no more blue in this hologram. If there was we would know that the live signals did not correspond to the simulated signals and we had failed in our experiment."
Sliding over in his chair he quickly touched another console. Another hologram of blue shot up. He touched another button and the hologram turned to green and yellow again, but here the green dots were so thick they looked like pure green light. "This is a hologram of a signal received during a solar flare. Notice the density of the natural signals. You see the blue dots again have completely disappeared here as well."
"This visual display of the data is worthy of awe," Uhura commented.
Spock considered her choice of words. She was saying the display of data was beautiful, but the Klingon equivalent of 'beautiful' pertained only to members of the opposite sex and weaponry. Her choice of 'worthy of awe' fitted the context of their discussion perfectly. He nodded his head. "Acknowledged." The Klingon word was harsh, but he noted had connotations of both "Thank you" and "I agree".
"I have a question that does not pertain directly to the current objective."
"Proceed."
"I was not aware that Vulcans would want or require visual representations of mathematical information. Or that they would conceive of such abstractions as worthy of awe."
He considered the question, it was off topic, but insightful. He choose to respond, "Vulcans do not need the visual representation, but it is often faster, even for us, to quickly understand data that has been rendered visually." He continued, "Effective visual representations increases comprehension and efficiency, that alone is worthy of awe."
"Acknowledged. That is a fascinating insight into Vulcan culture." She continued, "A short observation that does not pertain to the current objective."
"Very well."
"The delicacy of our discussion does not fit this tongue. It sounds as though we are engaged in verbal combat." She said knitting her eyebrows together a bit in her effort to form the harsh words.
"True."
At that moment Commander Sharpton, Lieutenant-Commander O'Hara and Professor Xelium walked in. Uhura and Spock stood up at attention.
"Ah, I see we have interrupted a lovers quarrel," Xelium said dryly.
Spock raised an eyebrow and shot back equally dryly, "Today we are speaking Klingon."
This earned Spock a glare from Xelium he could not comprehend. O'Hara seemed to be stifling a laugh. One side of Commander Sharpton's lips tweaked upwards.
Xelium turned and continued as though Spock wasn't even in the room, "You know he'll have half the audience asleep before he even steps onto the podium." He nodded once to Doris and O'Hara and then left the room.
Doris turned to Spock. "Lieutenant Spock, you're presenting at the Subspace Physics Symposium Starfleet is hosting two weeks from now. Commander Choi had to cancel. Your recent paper has been so well received that you were selected to replace him. Some people have hurt feelings...and not just Xelium. Don't let me down. O'Hara fill him in on the details." And then she was gone too.
Spock looked at O'Hara, and asked with a straight face, "What did Professor Xelium mean when he said that half the audience would fall asleep?"
Uhura looked down at her feet. O'Hara scratched the back of his neck, and flushed a bit before responding, "Most humans have a preconceived notion of Vulcans presentations as...dry. There may be some who have a certain Pavlovian response to seeing a Vulcan step up to the podium..."
Spock didn't even blink. "What are the technical specifics of the presentation?"
After O'Hara supplied Spock with all the technical information the Lieutenant-Commander very gently asked the Vulcan, "I know you probably can't show any passion for your subject matter in your presentation, but I guess there isn't any chance you could...lighten it up a bit?"
Spock only raised an eyebrow.
As soon as he left Spock said in a short clipped tone without looking at the Cadet, "The numbers should speak for themselves. I do not understand this human desire to interject feeling into something that has nothing to do with emotion. Nor do I understand the need for constant entertainment."
"May I offer an obervation Lieutenant?"
"By all means, Cadet," he responded, still looking out the door O'Hara had just exited.
Uhura was still standing at attention, her gaze was fixed on a point on the wall straight ahead. She took a deep breath and began slowly, "I've actually thought the respect for feeling in matters of logic as evolutionary. Humans are not telepathic like Vulcans. I know that you aren't telepathically bound to all your fellow Vulcans, but you are to some, correct? Friends? Spouses? Parents maybe? Your literature isn't entirely clear. With your closest associates you don't need to show feeling to let them know they are important, or that something is important, your telepathic connections make it possible for them just to know."
"Maybe you've lost the need to communicate feelings verbally for anything because the most important people in your lives don't need to be told. I know, I know, you gave up the outward displays of emotion voluntarily due to the teachings of Surak. But maybe it is Vulcan biology of telepathy that allowed this philosophy to take root. Or maybe it is Vulcan biology that caused Surak's philosophies to take root."
"Cadet, I fail to see how questioning the central ethos of my people has anything to with this discussion," he said it calmly and cooly, but her statements were very nearly blasphemy.
Up until now her voice had been cool detached, and studied professional. Now she turned her head to look him directly in the eyes, her jaw clenched, and the next words came out almost a whisper, "That is because I'm not finished yet."
She was furious, even Spock could see it. He found it oddly fascinating. Of course if she had not reached the crux of her argument he needed to hear her out.
"Proceed, then," he replied.
"Maybe human's don't follow Surak's teachings because ultimately we can't. We have to over communicate our internal emotional landscapes, not just to those closest to us, but to everyone.
"And to be receptive to the emotions of others we've developed empathy, to the point where in the course of ordinary personal interactions we can't shut it off. If a speaker shows no feeling our natural, empathetic reaction is to believe they have no feelings for the subject matter. And if the speaker has no emotion for their subject matter our natural biological reaction is to deduce the subject is not important to us."
Uhura had almost, not quite shouted these last few lines. But then she composed herself again and said in a softer more controlled voice, "You may think it inferior, and it may or may not be. But that doesn't change the fact that it just is."
Her eyes were boring into his. He didn't flinch. What she had just proposed was unorthodox, but it was internally consistent, it was novel, and she'd managed to turn emotions into something almost logical. Yes, there were reasons he felt the way he did about her.
And he suddenly realized she was also, in a very intellectual way, touching on a very personal subject. She let Vulcans be Vulcans even if it hurt a bit, she was telling him to let humans be humans, with all their irrationalities.
He couldn't quite bring himself to acknowledge this subtext out loud. Instead he said, "Cadet, your analysis fails to consider we accepted the teachings of Surak because we had to. But you pose some interesting, if not easily proven, hypothesis."
He suddenly could not stand to see her standing at attention. He moved back to the chair he was sitting on earlier, and said, "Please, sit down." She obliged him.
He said softly almost tiredly, "You know I cannot give an impassioned presentation, even if I wished to do so."
All the anger washed out of her face, "I know."