The ambassador's assurance in the back of her mind, buoying her confidence, Uhura took the new Minister of Communications, and the specialists he'd brought with him, on a tour of the building that would house the Ministry of Communications.

The day was full of inspecting equipment and offices and introducing students to their new teachers and colleagues. It all passed by swiftly she didn't have a chance to speak with her uncle alone until they received word that the shuttle had landed and the members of his team went to retrieve the supplies they would be using during their stay on the colony.

"Did she ask more of you than you could give, Estrella Pequeña?" he asked as soon as the last of his subordinates had left their presence on the promise that the lieutenant commander would be joining them shortly.

Uhura didn't pretend not to what Tabansi Wakufunzi was asking her.

"She offered me oblivion," she stated as simply as if she were remarking on Earth's blue skies. "I told her I would consider her offer, but I believe we both understood that I was refusing her."

She stood under Wakufunzi's intense regard for some moments before he spoke to her again.

"Are you happy with your choice?" he asked. "You could not have chosen otherwise — you are a true daughter of Wakufunzi, no matter whose name you carry — but are you happy that forgetting is out of your reach? If not, Little Star, there are other ways. I can speak to— "

She cut him off before he could finish.

"There was no choice," she said earnestly. "Not just because I am a Wakufunzi, but because he might not have a real choice. I don't know if he could live without me, Uncle Bansi. And I don't want to live without what I have with him."

Her eyes fell to the floor. She stared at the pinkish stone as she gathered her thoughts.

"I don't think I can explain it in a way you could understand," she said, looking back into the eyes she had inherited. "He needs me — what we are to each other — and I want it. More than anything else I've ever wanted. Can you accept that? Do you think less of me for it?"

She knew the moment he grasped what she was asking of him and the instant he made his decision.

"Nyota Wangari Uhura bint Wakufunzi," he said, clasping her in his long strong arms, "how can you imagine I might think less of you? I know the power of love, child. I understand need. No matter what you decide, I will stand beside you."

After parting with her uncle, Uhura returned to Ambassador Spock's home to change clothes in preparation for meeting with the High Council. The half-Vulcan was alone.

"If you have no objections, Spock and I wish to attend your audience," he said. "He will meet us at the Council Hall."

"Oh! Okay," she said, a tad uncertainly, as she headed to her bed chamber. "Uncle Tabansi is supervising the shuttle offload, but intends to meet there as well."

The ambassador nodded his assent and she was free to engage in a hurried sonic shower before donning yet another set of formal Vulcan robes.

________________________

Less than half an hour later, Spock and Uhura stood inside the foyer of the Council Hall. If he was as nervous as she was, Uhura could not detect it. She was glancing around for any sign of Commander Spock and Minister Wakufunzi when a Council attendant of indeterminate age approached.

"If it pleases you, I will take you to a place where you can wait until your companions arrive and the Council is ready for you," she told them.

The pair nodded their consent, and the Vulcan woman led them to a small antechamber just off the High Council's Tvi-shal t'Honaya.

________________________

"What would you have chosen, if T'Pau had given you the choice?" Uhura didn't look up from her hands as she asked her question. The two sat side by side, alone in the antechamber, still waiting, fifteen minutes later, for her uncle and the younger Spock to join them.

"She did," the ambassador told her. "T'Pau offer to help me forget, and like you and your k'diwa, I refused. I do not believe it would have had made a difference had I accepted. My link to Nyota Uhura has survived my death and my journey across space and time. I cannot imagine it would falter simply because I could not remember our time together."

She was silent for a long time as she contemplated his revelations. Only when she tired of staring at her fingers, searching for answers they could not hold, did she speak again.

"You refuse to forget her. You don't believe that even if you could — that you would be free of her," she said. "And yet you still intend to take a Vulcan wife. I don't understand. How can you do this? How can that work? How will you… ?" Unable to clearly form her query, she let her words trail off.

"I do not believe it will prove an impediment to my plans," he said, relieving her of the burden of asking her question. "I shall marry without bonding. I am an old man. My… Pon Farrs no long pose the danger they once did. Furthermore, as I do not anticipate traveling far from the colony planet in the future, I will have no need of a bond to alert my wife of my need."

Although he was less reticent than other Vulcans when speaking about their most private of times, she could tell, he was still not entirely comfortable saying the word aloud — even with her, in spite of having told her that her counterpart had helped him through it in the past.

"Do you believe there are any Vulcan women who would agree to that?" she wanted to know. "Can you do that? Is there even such a thing as an unbonded Vulcan marriage?"

Now she looked up to find his intense eyes, his kind intense eyes on her.

"Vulcans must change, Nyota," he said in a voice far more gentle than she was accustomed to hearing from a Vulcan mouth. "My father and I have met some resistance to the idea, yes, but we have found that many more of our people are open to adapting our way of life. They believe, as Sarek and I believe, modification is necessary to our survival."

Uhura sighed, thinking she might cry if she had to hear "Vulcans must change" one time more. It wasn't that she didn't agree — on the contrary, she believed in the sentiment wholeheartedly — but...

"But what does that mean for me and Spock?" She hated the hint of a whine she knew was in her voice. She was stronger than this. Too strong to be felled by a missed chance at love.

________________________

"It does not have to mean anything for you and Spock," the ambassador told her. She didn't think she imagined the regret in his tone. "Or, it could mean everything."

Spock released a sigh of his own.

"It could mean that he decides to follow my lead and enter a new kind of marriage with a Vulcan woman, purely to provide for the proliferation of the species. That, of course, might require that you put yourself at his disposal during his times of need. I know this is something that you find unacceptable at the moment, but when faced with the possibly of the plak tow taking his life, you might feel differently.

"It could also mean that he will come to accept that his place is with you and that in the new order of our world your relationship would be tolerated, if not embraced, because our people will be forced to recognize the his need for you."

She stared at him, all the awareness that had been dawning as he spoke coalescing to worry in her eyes.

"It sounds as if… what you said… Spock, it's as if you mean I will — I'll never be free of him, will I?" she managed finally, feeling like her heart was breaking all over again. "You think, no matter what happens, even I can live without him, he can't survive without me."

"This is true," he said sadly. "T'Pau also believes it to be so, Nyota. She is a great strategist — in both her incarnation in my universe and this one. She knows what it means to be a true daughter of Wakufunzi. And in both realities, her calculations faltered because she failed to properly evaluate one variable: Spock.

"My failure to take on the part she set for me, then and now, resulted in the alteration of what she had planned for you and for Vulcan. For that — for the role I have played in each of our worlds, I am sorry."

Her cool fingers brushed against his wrist. The touch allowed him to feel her

affection

compassion

need to protect him

anger.

"None of this is you fault, Spock," she said, her quiet voice fervently adamant. "Not what Nero did, not what T'Pau wants to do, and definitely not whatever happens with me and Spock. You can't even really blame yourself for what happened between you and your Nyota.

"You can't blame yourself for trying to follow the right path when you were effectively blinded. T'Pau may have had good intentions, but her methods were manipulative at best and cruel, whether or not that was her intent. Her 'calculations faltered' because she failed to ensure all of the components were prepared to act as they were needed to act. Any of your supposed 'failures' to fall in with her plans can be laid at her failure to inform you that your were a player in her game."

Spock opened his mouth but closed it again without speaking. Moments later, the door to the antechamber opened and the same Vulcan woman who had escorted them there led Commander Spock and Lt. Commander Wakufunzi into to the small room.

The commander's eyes immediately fell on Uhura's fingers resting on the back of Spock's hand. They flicked up to study first her face, and then his elder counterpart's. Spock willed the younger man not to misread the contact.

Tabansi Wakufunzi was watching the man at his side closely. His eyes drifted over to meet the ambassador's before locking stares with his niece. She smiled at her uncle and at her k'diwa. Her eyes, Spock could see, dared either man to challenge her.

The newcomers turned as one to thank their guide, who, Vulcan-like, assured them their appreciation was unnecessary.

Uhura withdrew her hand and rose from her seat to greet them.

"Ambassador Sarek asked me to inform you that the High Council will call for you in ten minutes," the escort told the little group before exiting.

Then the young half-Vulcan and his love were lost to rest of them again.

Ambassador Spock glanced at Tabansi Wakufunzi's resigned face and felt relief wash over him.

A/N: More to come tomorrow, I hope.

Disclaimer: Still don't own 'em.