A/N: Sorry this took so long. RL is what it is, and doesn't care if it gets in the way of a story. For those who haven't figured it out yet, Spock and Nyota are dressed in casual clothing to make it unlikely anyone will realize they are connected with Starfleet, and each other, in any significant way. I wasn't trying to be cryptic. I just forgot to explicitly mention it. I'm close to wrapping this up, so the chapters will appear more often and the pace will pick up.
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Chapter 12: Little Things Give You Away
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Our food decided to arrive at that moment. The alu paratha, basmati rice, palak paneer and mango lassi were for me. The chapattis, Kashmiri pullav, and Massala tea were for Nyofu. Spock was served paratha, mixed vegetable biryani, and mineral water.
"Commander Spock," my mother began in a patient, but firm, tone she usually reserved for wet-behind-the-ears undergrads that thought xenoanthropology was an easy three credits, "let me formally thank you for your help in getting me out of the mess I was in this afternoon."
Spock gravely nodded his head in acknowledgement of her thank you. "I was in a position where I could assist you in proving your innocence more expediently than waiting for someone from Starfleet to arrive at the terminal." Spock's tone conveyed his sense of rightness concerning his actions. "It was logical for me to do so, thereby keeping the situation from becoming more complicated."
An amused light went on in Nyofu's eyes. "Logical, you say?" Nyofu snickered. "No, Commander Spock. It was not logical for you to help me. You don't know me from Adam's housecat. It would have been far more logical, and practical, for you to have stayed out of it. When you arrived with my daughter, I assumed you were, at best, from the Vulcan Embassy or, at worst, another useless cadet." Nyofu began digging into her meal, ignoring the tiny wrinkle between Spock's eyebrows that meant he was taken aback. Mouth full of food, she seemed to sense that he was frozen in place by her words; she looked up from her food and pointed in his general direction with her fork. "We'll talk later, Commander. First, we eat."
Spock raised an eyebrow at my mother's tone, but didn't ask what she meant. He lowered his eyes, outwardly turned his attention towards his food, and inwardly turned his attention towards me.
"Nyota, why did your mother's tone seem to indicate that she believes I had an ulterior motive for assisting her earlier?"
I could feel that he was clearly unsure of how to respond to my mother, and was now expecting me to give him a clue. I gave the equivalent of a mental sigh and answered him. "Because Spock, according to her way of thinking, you do. She knows there's something between us. She knows."
"I agree with your assessment that she is aware that you and I are more than former instructor and student. However, she is mistaken if she believes that I assisted her with the expectation of gaining sexual favors from you. In determining whether I would be able to assist her, I theorized that I would make a more favorable impression to her if I were helpful. A potential son-in-law is expected to prove his worthiness to join a family. My willingness to assist her should provide evidence that I would be a worthy addition to your family. Was I mistaken in making such an assumption?"
"You're not wrong to try to help, Spock, but I'm not sure my mother is going to agree with your logic."
"Later, you two. Let's eat in silence the way Vulcans do, in honor of our guest, yes? We'll talk later," my mother repeated, giving the first indication that she'd been aware of our mental conversations.
So we ate our much desired food in silence, in honor of our Vulcan guest. And that was a good thing, since it gave me time to think.
I was still upset about Nyofu's earlier remarks about me, and I planned to let her know it, but it didn't… feel… like the right time to get into it with her about what she'd said, for lack of a better way to explain what was gnawing at me. Anyway, I was still too freaked out by the memory of the disaster that was my homecoming dinner. That was supposed to be my night, my moment to bask in everyone's attention, regardless of how much they disliked each other, my time to shine and show off. Instead, every bit of my hard won glory was usurped by everyone else. A 4.0 average just doesn't compete with finding out that your quiet librarian-type aunt is part of an alien foursome, or any other bit of dirty laundry that was aired. It left me feeling angry and ignored. And the rest of it…the pain at that table, the grown-up realization that no amount of talking it out would ever fix what was wrong with the Uhuras as a family. Even now, I could still see my mother in Khalil's arms, with her eyes going between catatonic and demonic. And every time one of her gazes landed on me, all I could do was wonder if I would react that way if someone tried to tear me and Spock apart the way my grandmother sabotaged my mother and Khalil. Would the idea of losing precious time with Spock reduce me to such an uninhibited display? I wasn't sure which thought frightened me more: the thought that I would fight like hell without thinking about how I looked, or who got hit in the crossfire if someone, or something, tried to take him away from me, or the thought that I would just let him go without a fight because I was afraid of how other people would take it, or how much the fight would take out of me?
Midway through my last bite of food, I noticed that my mother was staring at me again. There must have been something on my face, some little trace of anger, pain, or fear from my stroll down awful Memory Lane because my mother lessened the intensity of her gaze just a little bit. It became more thoughtful, rather than expectant. It was kind of like the difference between a vulture gazing pitilessly at you as it waited for you to weaken and die, and a crow gazing speculatively at you as it wondered how it was going to get that tasty-looking nugget it watched you stash in your pocket. Nyofu flicked a quick glance across the table at Spock, meeting his eyes for all of five seconds. Neither one flinched. I don't know what she saw there: whether she saw something she was looking for, or if she saw something she didn't like. Hell, how the hell would I know what she saw? The biggest thing I was learning tonight was that I didn't know my own mother as well as I thought I did.
All my life, Nyofu's behavior had always seemed easy to categorize: right or wrong, antisocial or mainstream, violent or tolerant, demanding or nonchalant. But tonight, waiting for me to talk, instead of insisting that I talk… It was like I was dealing with a different woman. Or maybe I was just seeing her for myself for the first time, instead of seeing her through my grandmother's eyes. I looked at my mother as deeply as she'd looked at me earlier. Slowly, it dawned on me. In the midst of all the psychic carnage on going around the dinner table the last time I'd seen her, the last vestiges of the Nyofu Uhura I knew had died, consumed by the reality of the depths of her mother's betrayal. Nyofu Kiteme had taken her place.
That's what was different. From the time I'd met him, Khalil had said that my mother was capable of making rational decisions and changing her behavior when the old patterns no longer suited the situation. I was seeing that now. It was frightening to realize that someone knew my mother better than I did, that there was a translation of "Nyofuese" that I wasn't familiar with. It felt alien in a way that being with other sentient beings from all over Federation space for the first time during freshman year hadn't. I truly had no idea who this woman was. Wasn't there some rule somewhere that stated that your parents couldn't change after you left home, couldn't ever be someone other than who you knew them to be?
I thought about the game plan Spock had helped me come up with. Could I still stand up to my mother that way if Nyofu didn't play her usual role?
I watched warily as Nyofu started making a survey of our surroundings, her head turning in a very owlish way at the neck. On an ordinary day, I would have guessed she was considering the public nature of the space we were sitting in, the locations of exits, and possibly the amount of damage that could occur within the restaurant. Now, I wasn't sure what she was up to. Survey completed, my mother's face and body settled into an expression and a posture that she used so often she should have applied for a patent on it, one that announced that she was about to say whatever was on her mind without regard for anyone else's presence. At least that was familiar. So I grasped that thread, and readied myself to reply to whatever she said in a tone that would be just as scathing hers.
Nyofu turned her attention towards the man I loved. Her non-threatening, 'I'm-not-going-to-fuck-with-you-this-time,' tone didn't quite gel with the expression on her face as she began addressing him. Whatever she was about to do was costing her something.
"I hope your meal was satisfactory, Commander?" Nyofu was staring at Spock, with a small smile on her face. It was not a stare of challenge, exactly, but it was still a stare. Just like with my grandmother, for Nyofu, staring was a form of combat. I was pretty sure my mother had been actively studying Spock as we ate, trying to figure out exactly which approach would give her the best advantage. She had tested him earlier, probably forming hypotheses about him. Now, it seemed like she was about to put her hypotheses to more specific tests. As far as I could tell, what she wanted most was to make him leave. If that was the case, then she would do whatever it took to accomplish her goal, even if that meant completely insulting him. She knew Vulcans had emotions, knew a lot about their pre-Surakian culture. But just because Nyofu knew something, it didn't mean she would heed any warnings such information suggested.
"It was, Ms. Kiteme."
"And you, Nyota? Where did you go just now?"
A question: asked calmly and addressed to me. I couldn't see a legitimate reason not to answer my mother. Shakily, I answered her. "I was remembering the last time we sat down to dinner together." My voice was empty, honest. That seemed the best way to go when dealing with a stranger.
"I was thinking about it, too, Nyota, me too." Nyofu sighed as she shook her head negatively. Regrets? Regrets that she hadn't lunged across the table and broken her mother's neck? Or that she hadn't demanded I tell her who my lover was in front of everyone? "That night has had lasting repercussions, just like so many other miserable nights in my life. But, at least this time, pleasant things will come out of being at the center of a maelstrom. That's what I need to talk to you about. But first, let me do one of the things I came here to do, lest the men be proven right about me not being able to stop looking backwards as I walk forward."
My mother reached down into her bag, and brought out the small case she'd stuffed into it earlier at the airport. "Commander, in all honesty, I was about to ask you to leave so I could talk to my daughter in private. But now that I think about it, I think it's very appropriate that you're here right now. Listen well, and understand. I am about to free you from a shitload of guilt concerning your favorite student."
"'A shitload of guilt'? Ms. Kiteme, I fail to see how my assisting you in a moment of crisis is in any way related to any supposed feelings of guilt about my professional relationship with your daughter."
My mother raised her right index finger and waved it from side to side at him. "I'm a trained observer, Commander Spock. Your assistance in this instance was only logical if doing so gained you something, or kept something in balance, shall we say? What did you gain, Commander? What was kept in balance?"
My mother's words proved that I was right about her thoughts on Spock's assistance. He kept silent as she continued, staring intently at her with a look that was quickly losing its polite blankness.
"Your silent, but constant, attentiveness to every move Nyota made caused me to pay more attention to your body language, which your people do have, if a person knows what to look for, and I do. I applaud you on your emotional control, but I've had more years at ruffling Vulcan feathers than you've had at controlling whatever mixed-breed emotions you have. I've been ass deep in varying degrees of human-Klingon emotions for as long as I can remember, and that's a hell of a mix, but Vulcan-human emotions? Now that's a mix I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And folks say I'm bipolar."
Spock continued to stare at my mother. It was natural for him to stare, natural for him to focus all of his attention intently on one thing. His tendency to stare at people caused predictable responses in others. They confused his interest in analyzing a situation with hostile intent and/or disapproval and became angry at him. They confused his concentration on the face and eyes with sexual desire and got flustered. Some people got paranoid. Me, I usually got chills down my spine when he focused all of his attention on something I said or did. Just knowing that he was truly considering the merit of my argument or suggestion in the way that only he did... It never failed to do something major for me… except for right then. Since it was beyond clear to both of us that my mother knew Spock was my hidden boyfriend, whatever was said now would set the stage for discussions with my side of the family on our plans to get married. And instead of feeling all mushy and excited on a multitude of levels, I was feeling downright confused as I kept feeling all of my levels of emotion congeal into one roiling mass in the pit of my stomach.
I had absolutely no idea what to tell him. I had told Spock I needed his help, his support, his protection even, from whatever my mother was likely to throw at me. He'd come to this meeting loaded for what my memories suggested. But now, everything looked different. I supposed I could view the situation as Kobayashi Maru: the Communications Edition. Certainly how I handled this situation would shed some light on how I was likely to handle tense situations between the Federation and new civilizations, where accurate and insightful communication between the parties could spell a new alliance, or the letting loose of the dogs of war, yes? If that was the case, then Spock and I were both so very, very fucked. If I had explained my family to Spock from the beginning, he'd know by now the right way to approach my mother. He was the son of an Ambassador, for goodness sake. He was used to special protocols for approaching people. Hell, if I shared everything with him from the beginning, I'd have some idea of what to suggest to him now based on how much I'd told him before, and how he'd reacted to it.
Like I said, we were fucked.
With deliberate slowness, Nyofu opened the case and pulled out the pendant that had gotten her detained. My mother held the pendant up to the light over our heads in the restaurant, and the three of us watched as it glittered. Looking directly at Spock, she began to explain.
"Dr. Twombly was right, you know. This shouldn't be here. But not for the reasons he thinks. On another world, a pendant like this would be a symbol that a female had reached an age where she could choose a mate." Nyofu continued with her story.
"Koreth, the actual owner of this pendant, once had a daughter he intended to give this to. But the damned Virus took her before it could be contained, and she never reached the proper age. Then, when he mated again, he produced a son, no daughters. And his son, Keth, also only produced a son, Khalil."
Nyofu turned her eyes away from Spock and focused completely on me, holding out the jinaq to me as if it were an offering. "This should go to Khalil's first-born daughter. The men of the Kiteme family talked and agreed that this pendant shouldn't wait until Khalil produces a child of his own. He asked that it go to you, Nyota. You are the daughter of his heart. He would have adopted you at birth, but thanks to my mother, that adoption didn't occur until you were fourteen. It is now yours. In the eyes of the Kiteme family, in my eyes, you are old enough to be considered an adult, and old enough to choose a mate."
