Uhura sat at the desktop in her room transferring her pictures from Altair, just the thought of it making her grin. She allowed herself fuzzy slippers and her academy sweats since she'd been decked out the night before. Kirk gave them the day off to reorient themselves to standard time. When they left the planet, it was well into the middle of the night, but back on the ship, all the clocks and lights were set to early morning. It made jet lag seem like child's play.
The computer prompted her to label the photos once they'd all been imported. She had no intention of flipping through all of them at the moment, but there were a couple that required her immediate attention. She isolated the one of Spock that she'd taken in the pavilion. He was starting directly into the camera, no expression on his face whatsoever. The butterfly sat on his head, proudly displaying its wings in profile, exuding the same dignity. She included the picture he'd taken of her, which made her snicker. She was looking at the bug on her finger, just a bit crossed eyed. Its wings were open, like it was waiting to embrace her.
As soon as the images were safely in their own folder, she locked it with a passcode. It was silly and sentimental, creating a digital album dedicated to the two of them, but it was also optimistic, so she did it anyway.
Once all the technical stuff had been taken care of, she went to the pool. The area was done in blue and white. The light glittered off the water, casting long dancing shadows on all the surfaces. There were some junior officers from the beta shift frolicking in the shallow end. A number of them were from her team and tried to salute her, but she waved them off casually, not wanting to spoil their fun.
She stripped off her cover up and pretended she didn't see the open mouth stares. Being off duty meant that she didn't have to wear the standard issue swim suit, so she opted for the one she'd brought from home, a white bandage-style monokini.
The water was perfectly warm, so she dipped all the way in, omitting a swim cap since she'd be washing her hair later anyway. For a while, she just waded, relishing the feeling of buoyancy and fluidity that one only gets when in the pool. Then she took a few slow laps, letting her body get used to motions.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted one of her ensigns, a girl from decryption, quiet, contemplative, and very particular about her work—always clocked in exactly on time. She was 20, a prodigy who had helped to develop code two before she was rewarded with a field assignment. She was outpacing also Uhura, which was unacceptable, so she increased her speed and was pleased when the ensign followed suit. It didn't take long until they were racing, silently agreeing on a competition.
Nyota moved with a furious rhythm and efficiency. She broke the surface as soon as her fingertips touched the tile only to find the girl already waiting for her.
She laughed brightly, shaking the water from her face and pushing her hair back. "Wow, Ensign Moon! That's impressive."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Oh, I'm not one of those female officers who likes to be called sir. Ma'am or Lieutenant, even Ms. Uhura does me just fine."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You were pretty fast."
"I was an athlete back in school, emphasis on the was," her chuckle was interrupted by a pointed wheeze. "Communications chair will do that to you. I used to be able to do a triathlon."
"No offense, but you look like you're still plenty fit, Ma'am"
"I'm not about to take offense to that, Moon. How about another go?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
They went on for a while until they both agreed to call it quits. They moved to the adjacent hot tub to have a more relaxed conversation. Moon was the kind of person who only needed to be drawn out a little before they blossomed. She was still nervous about being out so far, but was enjoying her work. Uhura remembered those days and tried to put her at ease by recalling her earliest missions, before she ever got to see the bridge. They used to keep her down in the lab running code or recalibrating sensors and she would get nauseous every time the ship lurched.
On her first away mission— manning the universal translator on the planet Kolii—she had been kidnapped by an alien chancellor who thought she looked enough like her late daughter that she should be able to keep her.
"Did you really look like the daughter?"
"For individuals of two completely different species, we did look similar. But her daughter had two tiny cranial ridges just below her hairline on the right side—barely noticeable. The Chancellor was going to send me to a surgeon to get implants. And in a freakier coincidence, her daughter's name meant star in their language like mine does in my native Swahili."
"So how did you get out of it? Did Captain Komack come and save you?"
"No. Starfleet and the Federation were afraid to make any moves. Kolii has massive dilitium deposits. Komack was negotiating a trade agreement and my…adoption… was one of her terms. Basically, I had to convince her to let me go and still give us the crystals."
"How'd you manage that?"
"We talked and got to know each other—it's not like I was going anywhere. She had a lot of regrets and she opened up to me. She told me that she'd been controlling, that every detail of her child's life was always planned down to the minute. The daughter, Uè, wanted to go on an expedition to the Koliian Rainforest, but she forbade her because she thought it was too dangerous. But then Uè died in a hover car accident on her way to a charity brunch."
"How tragic."
"Absolutely. So I told her that the best way to honor her daughter's adventurous spirt was to let me go and explore in her place—on a larger scale. And she was willing to support that exploration by supplying us with the crystals."
"And she let you go?"
"She did, but I check in with her every once in a while."
"That's kind of sweet…I guess…"
"She moved on from her grief. She's thinking much more rationally now, and she's really a very loving woman. I do care for her."
"So a terrifying mission turned into a lifelong friendship?"
"Don't they all," she quipped. "Ensign there is only one thing you need to have to survive in the communications department. Do you know what it is?"
"Uh, determination?"
"Yes…but no."
"Precision?"
The senior officer shook her head. "Hoshi Sato's autobiography. I'm going to send it to you and you're going to read it. You can consider that an order."
"Yes, ma'am!"
Later, she settled in for the evening with a novel and a glass of wine. She'd considered going to Spock's room, but she decided against it after a little reflection. Uhura knew that she was an all-in kind of person. That quality of wholeheartedness had proved too much for some of her past love interests and Spock was Vulcan. Trying to go full speed ahead with him might actually throw the whole thing into reverse. So she wasn't going to push him or hang off him like a bad garment. She would give him space and maybe then whatever they were building wouldn't blow up in her face.
She was deep into her book when her bell chimed. "Who is it?"
"Spock."
"Enter."
He was in one of his casual Vulcan outfits, a linen wrap tunic and loose fitting pants. She loved to see him in those clothes because he always seemed to be more himself when he wore them.
She scooted to one side of the bed and patted the other, setting her PADD down on the nightstand. He moved almost silently and came to sit on the bed, his knee grazing hers. "What brings you here, Commander?"
"I was unaware that I needed a specific reason to seek your company."
"You don't. You never will."
"I confess that I was expecting to see you earlier in the day."
"Well, I uh…didn't want to crowd you."
"I fail to see how one small female could ever constitute a crowd."
She smiled, laying her hand over his, feeling that instantaneous hum. "I mean…"
"I think I know what you mean."
"I don't want to be clingy. You see how affectionate I am with my friends…I can be worse. And your culture doesn't allow for such displays. Besides…A few kisses…I don't really know where that leaves us…I didn't want to assume."
"It leaves us here." He leaned forward and kissed her expertly, like he'd been doing it his entire life and not just since the night before. She tried to hold onto her wits but he was making it impossible. All her thoughts were liquefying and sloshing around. She was dazed when he pulled away and looked down at her with his deep, sparkling brown eyes.
"Okay," she said once she finally found her voice. "So I guess we're on the same page now."
"Indeed. In fact, it would be illogical for you to regress into shyness now, Nyota."
"Wouldn't it though?" She shifted, bringing her head to lie in his lap. He froze for a second, looking stunned. "Is this okay?"
"Yes, quite." He relaxed, allowing one hand to rest on her head, the other on her hip.
"Tell me something," she prompted.
"That is a vague request. Please specify."
"I don't know, just anything. A Vulcan bedtime story—if you have them."
"Parables." He corrected. "Occasionally, when a child is still learning control, a parent will relate a parable that emphasizes the need to employ logic or to suppress emotion."
"Really?"
"This surprises you? That Vulcans educate their children through story-telling?"
"I just can't imagine you getting tucked in and your father telling you a story."
"You mistake this practice with its human equivalent. I am privy to both and they are very dissimilar. There is no "tucking in," and it does not necessarily take place before the child goes to sleep—but it is usually the most opportune time since the parent can be assured of the child's undivided attention. Humans tell fairy tales, many of which have no readily discernible moral."
"Are you telling me that you didn't get the point of Jack and the Bean Stalk?"
"I understood it, but I found that it left much to be desired."
"Were you this much of a literary critic when you were little?"
"Yes."
She chuckled softly, a sound that he should probably have found distasteful, but it was much too soothing to be so.
"What else—what else about your childhood?"
"Despite my unusual dual heritage, my upbringing was typical for a Vulcan male. Shortly after my kahs-wan, I was bonded to T'pring—Kah-ka—"
"I'm already lost, Sugar. Khas-wan?"
She looked horrified as he explained his trek into the Vulcan forge. She'd watched at least three documentaries about the region and therefore had a grasp of how unforgiving it could be. The heat was extreme, even on a notoriously sweltering planet. The wild animals were vicious and the violent sand fires came on suddenly. She had trouble believing that his people sent their children there. But she seemed impressed as he told the story, regardless of the fact that he was not recounting the details with any flourish.
"At seven? That's extraordinary," she exclaimed.
"On the contrary, it is quite ordinary. All boys are required to undergo the ordeal and most survive."
"Most?!"
"Most."
"Not all?"
"Unfortunately."
She sighed exaggeratedly, like she herself had just been subject to some test of fitness. "So what's Kah-ka mean?"
"Literally it means the bond. More specifically, the marriage choice made by one's parents and the link established with that one."
"And that's gone now?"
"Indeed."
"So what else?"
"Unless you wish for me to expound on the instruction I received in meditation and control, there is little else."
"I don't know if I'm up for that tonight."
"I suspected as much." She laced their fingers where his hand rested on her hip. "I did have a pet," he added, deciding she might consider that to be an interesting fact.
"Oh? A cat or a dog?"
His face softened into one of his almost smiles. "Vulcans do not keep dogs or cats. I had a sehlat."
"Which is?"
"It is essentially a saber tooth bear. Mine was named I-Chaya."
"Your mother let you keep a saber tooth bear in the house?"
"No. I-Chaya was there before my mother. He belonged to my father first."
"Do you have pictures?"
He motioned for her to hand him the PADD on the nightstand and she did so before returning to her original positon. He logged into his cloud based storage service and accessed the pictures his mother had uploaded long ago. He'd never shown these to anyone and he never intended to, and yet all she had to do was ask.
She let out a squeal of delight as he surrendered the device to her. It was a picture of him, less than a year old, in infant sized robes, sleeping curled against I-Chaya, his massive paw drawing the baby in. "Look at you," she cooed in a way that made him vaguely uncomfortable. She swiped to the next one. There he was older, just over a year, still knowing nothing of control. He was grinning at the animal as it yawned at him, his mouth open enough to swallow him whole.
There had to be hundreds of images of just the two of them. Most of them mundane but beautiful. His mother had filled the album with candids, realizing that all the posed ones would look the same. She had a talent for snapping the shot at just the right second and getting his ever fleeting expressions. She caught him scolding the animal for tearing open a bag of food. Captured them on the sofa, the sehlat stretched across the cushions, forcing a preteen Spock to use him as a makeshift desk. Showed them in silhouette, against the fiery Vulcan sky, him touching his pet's head affectionately.
The last photo in the feed was of I-Chaya alone, lying on Spock's bedroom floor. Uhura looked up at him, wordlessly asking permission to open the attached caption. He dropped his head in consent and she triggered the message.
COME HOME SOON. I-CHAYA MISSES YOU!
"This was attached to a communique from my mother. It is the last picture taken of I-Chaya. He died while I was at the academy."
"Oh, Spock," she whispered, rolling into an upright position. "I'm so, so sorry."
"It was many years ago." His eyes flickered down for just a second and he looked as close to saddened as she'd ever seen him.
She cupped his face with both hands and brought their foreheads together. "Tushah nash-veh k'du."
He nodded slowly, letting himself sigh. And she kissed him with as much sincerity as she could.
A/N: This took longer than my usual updates and that's mostly college is demanding lol. Your reviews have been super kind and I thank everyone. Now that I kept the flirtationship going for 9 chapters I get to have fun showing what I think an actual relationship between these two would be like when mixed with friends and duty. I hope this update resonates in one way or another, but I'm open to feedback if you don't feel like it does.Regarding the death of I-Chaya: Prior to the TAS episode Yesteryear, he did not die saving Spock during the kahs-wan. At this point in the story, the timeline had yet to altered so this is what I imagine happened originally.
Translation: Tushah nash-veh k'du: I grieve with thee.
TBC.