She's sure that there's something that's the right thing to say when she's been watching her former professor turned research advisor turned fake boyfriend turned boss sleep next to her and especially now that his eyes are fluttering open, but Nyota doesn't know what it is, so she just thumbs off her padd, plunging his bedroom into darkness, and tells him, "I'm sorry but I ate all your food."

"All of it?" he asks, his eyes closing again as he pushes his face into the pillow. The streetlights shining through his windows are not enough to completely penetrate the dimness of his bedroom, but she can see well enough, the scant light outlining him in grays and blacks instead of the blue glow of her padd. Something in her chest is aching, watching him so sleepy like that, half awake with his hair messy and his t-shirt rumpled, no matter that the last time she saw him he was on his way to grade that damn test.

"Your soup," she clarifies, tucking her padd into her lap and crossing her hands over it, pushing it down against the bedspread and sheet that she has spread across her legs.

"It is no matter," he says, his voice slightly rough and his eyes still closed and she wonders if he's too tired to articulate 'consequence'.

He looks tired. She wonders what time it is and how long he's been asleep. Not long enough by the way he's blinking up at her with those impossibly long eyelashes and something soft around the corner of his eyes and mouth that isn't there during the day.

It certainly isn't daytime now, no first break of dawn visible outside his window, which she had checked for after being unable to find a single clock in his apartment when she had woken some time ago, thirsty and hot from being under the blankets, unsure of how exactly they had come to cover her. She had pushed them back carefully, not wanting to wake him, and had padded into his living room for her glass of water, only to find it missing. Instead, she had found it perched on the nightstand when she had returned to his bedroom, set next to where she had been sleeping and in easy reach, though she had missed it in the darkness when she had first woken.

It's sitting there still, half empty now from the long drink she had taken as she stared down at him, uncertain as to whether to rejoin him or to dress and slip out into the night.

"Spock?" she whispers, pushing her padd deeper into her lap.

"Yes?"

She lets her fingers tighten over the edge of her padd and looks down at it as she says, "I'm sorry I said all of that earlier."

His eyes catch the glow of the streetlight outside of his window and she thinks for a moment that he's going to ask her to clarify, but he doesn't, his cheek still pressed to his pillow and his eyes closing again, briefly, before he looks up at her. "You have said as much."

"I was upset," she says, whispers it into the dark of his bedroom, unsure that she really wants to voice that, unsure in general of sitting there next to him, being there like this with the heavy quiet between them in the wake of the day that just happened, something still empty and hollow inside of her chest. "And I'm really sorry."

"Emotional turmoil is a common occurrence after the examination."

"That doesn't mean I should take it out on you."

She smooths his bedspread over her thighs, crossing her legs under it and feels the blankets pull and shift as he sits up a bit, pushing himself half upright.

"I believe you simply have the advantage of actually knowing the programmer. Many other cadets would be resoundingly jealous of your opportunity to inform me as to their true opinion of the simulation."

"You're afraid of getting accosted by angry cadets?" she asks, thinking of what Kirk might have said to him in the moments after the sim ended.

"Perhaps," he says, looking out across the room instead of at her, like he was.

She has no idea what time it is or how much he normally sleeps since she's pretty sure that Vulcans can go days without needing to rest, but when she looks at him, he seems tired, not only like he just woke up but slightly exhausted in the way he's holding himself, something that she never thought she would see from him, that very near slump against the pillows.

"I didn't mean to wake you up," she tells him and he shakes his head once, gently.

"Do not trouble yourself." His eyes trace over her and under his scrutiny she flattens out his bedspread again, running her hands over it until it's neat and even across her legs. "You are awake as well."

She shrugs, dipping her head forward, her hair sliding into her face.

"I was thinking about that test," she admits, since that's easier to get out than any acknowledgement that she had been watching him as he slept on his side, curled into the blankets, the way his lips were slightly parted and his chest rose and fell evenly, slowly.

She looks away, out into the dark shadows of his bedroom so that she doesn't end up staring at him again, the blankets pooled around his narrow waist or the way the shirt he's wearing hugs his chest. It's one of the gray ones she had found in his drawer and she thinks about how soft the fabric was between her fingers. It's warm now, probably, from his body heat.

"I did not think you would come here tonight," he says quietly, jarring her from her thoughts as they begin to slide back towards the sim, the image of him sleeping.

She runs her hand over his quilt again, rubbing her fingers against it as she remembers the complete silence after he had left, the napkin he had given her still fisted in her hand and damp, her neck tingling from the weight of his touch. They're not touching now, a careful distance between them, no matter how she can feel the way the mattress dips towards him, or how with each of his movements the blankets tug and shift.

"My clothes weren't done," she says, waving towards his 'fresher like that's possibly a sufficient reply to what he said, but she can't find anything else to say, neither an admission that she too didn't think she'd walk over here or an acknowledgement of his offer that has led to her being there in his bed, her eyes gummy with sleep and the hush between them in the dim light, their voices low in the darkness.

She watches the way his eyes track her gesture, his attention on her hand and then back on her face so that she stares back at him, just watches him as he looks at her.

She's still staring at him when his eyes drop to her lap and she presses her hands to her padd, spreads her palms over it, sure that she can feel the backs of her hands prick under the weight of his gaze.

"You reviewed your assessment," he says and he probably doesn't need her to nod since what he said doesn't sound like a question, not after all this time, how well he's come to know her that that's exactly what she was doing, had woken up in the middle of the night and had been unable to not open it and read what was written, but she does anyway, pressing her lips together and rubbing her thumb over the edge of her padd.

"I did."

He sits up further, arranging the blankets neatly over his lap as he does so, so that they're perfectly folded, nearly creased with his precision.

"Are you-" he starts, his hand passing over the sheets one more time. "Are you well?"

"Not, uh…" She runs her hand back through her hair, gripping a handful of it at the base of her neck as she stares down at her padd. "Not the best comments I've ever received."

She lets her hand tighten, then makes herself release her fingers, carding her hair forward over her shoulder so that even if she were to raise her gaze from her blank, dark padd she couldn't see him next to her. "The worst, actually. By a lot. I didn't… I wasn't sure if…"

She has to stop and work her tongue into her cheek, focusing on stopping the tremble that threatens at the corner of her mouth.

"You were not certain of what, precisely?" he asks when she doesn't continue, just sits there staring into the dark, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

"Just that it was so bad and-" She draws in a breath, tries to will it to not shake, but it does anyway. "What to- What I'm going to do? About it? Cause it's not-" Salvageable. Manageable. Practical or realistic to try to wrestle marks so bad, so utterly hopeless into something more acceptable, not when the scores from today - yesterday, she thinks, probably yesterday by now - so thoroughly dragged down the rest of her average.

"I do not understand," he says and she shakes her head, feeling some of her hair slip from over her shoulder to hang down her back again.

She raises her hand to scrub at her eyes with her thumb and forefinger, squinting against the pressure. "How do I - what am I supposed to do?" she asks, tapping her other hand against the padd, her nails rhythmic and fast against it. "You know what it- what they, you - what it has for comments. And I-"

He waits while she gathers herself, silent and unmoving next to her. She's sure that if she dropped her hand she would find him watching her, but she doesn't, just keeps pushing at her eyes and forcing her breath to be calm and even, like how his was when he was sleeping.

"I want to know what happens now," she finally gets out, pressing the words out carefully so that they're measured and steady, so that her voice doesn't shake on them. "What to do about doing better than this. To practice, or…"

She lets herself trail off, unsure of what exactly she's asking and it's hard to breathe again, the overly warm air of his apartment drying out her mouth every time she tries.

"To study?" he finally prompts when she doesn't continue. "To better prepare yourself?"

"Yes."

"The simulations themselves are intended to develop your skills."

"No," she says, shaking her head quickly. "How can I make sure that I do better? Next time, later this year and next year."

"By undergoing additional simulations you will-"

"-No," she says again. "Before I take any more."

He pauses for a second, then says, "There is no training available for training simulations."

"But what am I-" She picks at the sheet, plucking at it between her thumb and first two fingers, rubbing the fabric back and forth as she shakes her head again, unable to draw words out of herself, not past the tightness that's sitting in her chest. She just looks at him, everything in her feeling leaden and aching and jumpy all at once, so that all she can do is continue shaking her head at him, her lips pressed tightly together, powerless to explain.

"When you take the Kobayashi Maru again-"

"-Again?" She drops her hand to stare at him, blinking against the darkness of his bedroom like that will bring him into sharper focus, will push away the shadows falling across him and help her better hear what he just said. "God, Spock, no."

"You performed well enough that I anticipate many command track cadets will ask you to serve on their bridge crew."

"No," she says again, louder, speaks the word into the quiet of his bedroom so that it cuts through the darkness.

"Nyota-"

"-Did you read this?" she asks, tapping at her padd again and his eyes shift to her hand, then up to her and there's a long moment, a pause that hangs in the air before he nods.

"You are aware that I did."

He didn't write her assessment, she doesn't think. Nowhere in the list of comments of things she did wrong, things she should have known to do better, actions she could have taken and didn't were signs of how he uses words, the particular way he strings them together. But he was there, sitting next to or near whoever did type it up and she tightens her fingers on her padd, pushes it farther into her lap like she can tuck it away beneath the blankets.

"Nyota," he says slowly, carefully, her name drawn out with none of his customary efficiency in his voice. "It is perhaps not necessarily apparent to you, but I can assure you that you did well."

"I didn't."

"It is a difficult test. You performed exemplary for a third year student who has not had ample experience with simulations."

"Difficult? It was terrible, Spock, it was-" She can't find a word. Awful. Horrible in a way that she hadn't known was coming. Unexpected and surprising, both in how quickly everything had fallen apart around them and how poorly they had done on it.

Not even poorly, she thinks as she drags her legs up under the covers so that she can wrap her arms around them, her padd pressing into her stomach uncomfortably, digging into her ribs. So abysmal that they hadn't passed a single part of it.

She hears the sheets whisper again and feels the bed shift as he adjusts himself.

"Nyota," he says and she shakes her head hard, the vacant, cavernous feeling in her quickly filling with heat, with a sickening pounding twist. She holds herself tighter, her hands aching with the tenseness of her fingers wrapped around her own wrists as she tries to push away the the small itch of hurt left lingering in her chest left over from the afternoon and evening, the quiet burn that races and jumps inside of her.

She thinks he bends forward to catch her eye, but she doesn't turn to check.

"I have no fondness for watching cadets undergo that experience," he says so quietly, so softly that if she weren't right next to him she wouldn't hear him, the words would be lost to a greater distance than is between them now.

She raises one hand to wipe the heel of her palm across her cheekbone, bends to press her face to the top of her knees, spots of dampness left on his quilt when she straightens again.

"I didn't do well," she says softly, unable to raise her voice to say it louder so that it comes out half choked, the words cut off and hushed.

"You did."

"No, I didn't. I tried, but I-"

"-Only accepting perfection will inexorably lead to continued disappointment and leave you unable to recognize your improvement over time."

"But-"

"Nyota, you performed admirably. If you cannot appreciate that, it will not dissuade me from doing so in your stead."

That ache is still there, still pushing at her and she swallows, the motion catching in her throat.

"The grade-"

"-The assessment is designed to simulate situations you will certainly face as an officer. Loss of life, egregious injury, and complete failure to carry out mission parameters are all too common once you earn your commission, and occur more regularly than anyone wishes to acknowledge."

She stares at him, then looks away towards his dresser, the insignia he leaves there glinting through the darkness.

"Stop interrupting me," she mutters, scrubbing her hands over her face again, her head threatening to begin to pound. "Talk about failure to improve."

"I apologize," he says and she feels him reach across the space between them, his fingers a light brush down her arm before their gone again, the trace of the warmth of his touch still lingering.

He lets her sit there for a long time, long enough that her shoulders begin to hurt with the way she's sitting, wrapped up in herself, and long enough that the dampness on the fabric over her knees is gone before he speaks again, his voice so gentle that it makes her throat ache.

"You are an excellent academic, a skill that is essential to a communications officer in the fleet and to carrying out the exploration and scientific research at the heart of Starfleet's mission, and in these types of practical situations, you will also excel. I find it unlikely that your talents and aptitude will not extend themselves to these simulations, given time to develop such skills."

"What if I don't?" she asks, hating how her voice breaks over the words, hating the crack and the tremble and how hard it is to draw in air afterwards, how it both rushes into her lungs and catches all at once, leaving her breathless and aching, down deep inside where the warmth of his quarters, the comfort of his bed and blankets and pillows don't reach.

"Nyota, that is improbable to a degree to which it should not trouble you. It is illogical to worry that you will not improve in this field when you have done so in so many others," he says softly.

"But the only way to do so is to keep taking them," she says, hearing the hollowness in her own words.

She thinks he might touch her again, or is imagining it, the feeling of his fingers on her skin etched in her mind now.

"Yes."

"If I ask again will the answer be different?" she asks, tugging her knees in a little tighter as she looks over at him.

"If it is any consolation, every cadet is in the same position."

She thinks of McCoy and the pressure he puts on himself to learn about each new species as they come through the hospital, the hours he spends bent over textbooks, his desk ringed with the marks of mugs of coffee and a half finished plate of food next to him, and Sulu who she only just met but who has that same intensity about him, that drive that she sees in everyone at the Academy, the push to be the best and the mad scramble to do so with how difficult that is.

"Even Kirk?" she asks, knowing how hard he, more than nearly anyone she's met, exerts himself. And, somehow, seems to have the strain and pressure of the Academy bring out the best in him.

"He was responsible for you and your crewmates during the simulation, so it would not be inappropriate to suppose that he, in fact, is judged perhaps more harshly."

"Huh. That makes me feel a little bit better," she says, glancing over at Spock again, wondering if he can hear the joke in her voice. He can, she thinks, and he doesn't ask for an explanation like he used to.

"It is illogical to take pleasure in another's misfortune."

"Shadenfreude is an ancient human custom," she says. "And as someone once told me, cultural traditions are not illogical."

She feels him looking at her and when she rests her cheek on her knees so that she can look back, his brows are drawn together, his eyes tracing over her.

"You remember that," he says and she presses her cheek down to her knees, nods.

"Stating the obvious is, however, illogical," she says. "See how much I've learned?"

"As I said, you typically excel at that which you apply yourself."

She nods, hearing his words and trying to internalize them, trying to make them true in the place down deep inside of herself that still aches, still feels numb and raw.

She drops her forehead onto her knees and tightens her arms around her legs, pulling them further into herself, the edge of the padd digging into the bottom of her ribs in a way that hurts. She sits like that for a moment staring down at her own lap, the padd, the blankets bunched over her hips and the rumpled cloth of the shirt she pulled on before she looks at it closer, at his graduation year printed on the front, and then sits up just enough to raise her head and peer at him. "You were a cadet."

She nods down at her shirt as if for proof and when she looks up again he's followed her gaze, which makes her suddenly, viscerally aware of the fact that she didn't put her bra back on.

"So you took it, then," she says, readjusting her grip on her wrists. "The Kobayashi Maru."

He's quiet for a moment and she curls her toes into his bed as she watches him, that spot between his brows creasing before his expression smooths out again.

"I did. And over the course of my time at the Academy, I can tell you that many of my reviews centered on a perceived lack of inclination to bond with my classmates."

"Perceived?" she asks, and one of his eyebrows twitches, the closest she thinks he'll come to rolling his eyes, like the very human gesture is trapped in there somewhere, subsumed under everything he won't allow himself and she watches it with some detachment, sure enough of him to know what she's seeing but still feeling too hollow and empty to echo anything in his expression.

"It is conceivable that such assessments had a certain amount of truth."

"Conceivable," she repeats slowly. "Probable, perhaps?"

"It has been some time since I reviewed my Academy evaluations, I would not want to rush to either confirm nor deny such an assertion without doing so."

"You have a perfect memory," she reminds him.

"Which is what my instructors informed me of when I failed to show sufficient, timely improvement."

She passes her tongue over her lips, sure that he knows that he didn't answer what she was really asking.

"How was it when you first took it?" she asks, watching him take a breath and let it out again, aware that this might be beyond the bounds of what he'll share, not if he didn't offer the information up.

"Unpleasant," he says after a long moment and she thinks of him sorting through different descriptors, different choices of what word he might use.

"Is that an understatement?" she asks him.

"Indeed." His head tips to the side and she watches him get that slight distance in his eyes as he thinks, before he seems to come to some decision as he turns to her. "It was perhaps ill-advised that I took it, and I nearly did not as it was not a graduation requirement as it is now."

"Didn't go well?" she asks, something less than a guess since she's certain she can hear everything behind his words.

"It was not as I had expected." He nods towards her, then looks up at her, his eyes searching over her face. "As you perhaps may understand."

"Perhaps," she echoes, adjusting her grip on her wrists.

He's quiet again and she thinks that the subject has been dropped, that the silence in his room is thick enough to blanket the conversation, when he says, "It would not be incorrect to conclude that the test was unremarkable as I did not find much of the Academy an enjoyable experience, and so too was that simulation."

"I thought you liked your career," she says, unsure of how he couldn't, not with how it's turned out for him, the opportunities he's gotten and the accomplishments he's achieved in such a short time.

"Lately it has been much improved," he says and looks up, right at her, his eyes dark and soft and so brown, even in the dim light

She stares over at him, her cheek pressed to the top of her knees, feeling something deep in her chest, something fluttery and quick, something that makes her restless and want to shift and adjust herself, except that his bedroom is dark and quiet, so she only slides her foot over far enough to nudge his leg.

"I'm sorry you didn't like it here," she says, finds the words somewhere under the sudden racing of her thoughts. They still, instantly, in the moment her toes touch him, aware that she touched skin, aware that it means that he's wearing shorts, then, or boxers. Not those pants he has. It makes her very conscious of her own bare legs, her arms around them over the bedspread, and the sheet brushing against her skin, how close to each other they are, even with those inches between them.

"As I am certain you have concluded, the Academy is not intended to be pleasant," he says, his voice cutting into her thoughts.

"Still," she says and finds herself nudging him again, the jumble of her thoughts resolving into the fact that she dislikes the thought that he spent four years here unhappy. Enduring an unpleasant experience, whatever he wants to call it.

His hand falls to the top of her foot, squeezing it through the blankets, the warmth radiating through the fabric to her skin. She looks down at his fingers, the way they're curled over the suggestion of her foot under his bedspread and sheet.

"Is that why you spent the whole time playing the piano?" she asks and looks up in time to see his eyebrow quirk, just slightly, just barely there but she still catches the motion.

"That is an exaggeration."

"Most of your time?"

"Not most."

"A significant proportion?"

"Define significant."

"Five eighths. Twenty seven sixty fifths."

"Inaccurate, both."

"Well I guess you had to leave some time for traveling the globe and getting speeding tickets while you were at it."

"I believe I have already made clear that incident did not occur while I was at the Academy."

"Hmm, but it did occur."

"I have not said as much."

"You don't have to," she says, flexing her toes under his hand.

His thumb runs back and forth, slow and steady and even through the layers of fabric she imagines that she can feel the warmth of his hand against her foot, sure that it's seeping through to her skin.

"You will do well, Nyota," he says softly and she lets out a breath, not wanting to talk about it but wanting to hear his words, more than she thought she did now that he's said them. Listening to him say that helps to ease a tightness in her chest that feels old and well worn, formed a long time ago and which runs deep in her.

"I don't know," she says, shifting slightly, releasing her wrists to spread her hands on her shins, but not moving her foot away from his touch. "Maybe."

"You are a third year cadet with a publishable paper, top marks in your classes, and have an advantage over your classmates of having already completed an advanced training simulation."

She winces, all too aware of the padd that's pressing into her stomach, and even more aware of how little she wants to tell him the words sitting at the back of her throat and how certain that she's going to voice them anyway. "I haven't submitted it."

"Pardon?"

"My paper. I haven't sent it anywhere."

"You have not?"

"That's what I said."

There's a pause and she knows he's looking at her, doesn't have to turn to check.

"I see," he finally says and then immediately asks, "Why?"

She bends forward, running her hands back through her hair, over and over again, combing it back from her face, twisting it around her hand before letting it fall loose again as she shrugs.

"Because?" he asks and a laugh escapes her, a soft huff of air that startles her with how it rises out of her.

"I guess."

"That is illogical."

"I know." She ducks her head slightly, feeling her hair slide forward around her shoulders.

"Are you intending to submit it?"

"Yes," she says, wrapping her arms around her legs again, even though sitting like that is making her back and shoulders ache.

"May I ask when?"

"Any second now," she says, mutters it into her knees, wondering how long it's going to take him to point out that the submission deadlines are fast approaching.

He doesn't, though, and she keeps sitting there, folded in on herself, the padd jutting into her ribs, staring across his bedroom and willing the topic to slide away, for him to drop it so that she doesn't have to acknowledge that jump that's lodged in her stomach, the way it twists around whenever she thinks about her paper.

"You are not prone to procrastination," he finally says and she doesn't answer, just tightens her hold on her legs. "Have you decided that it requires further revisions?"

She shakes her head instead of answering and in the silence she hears the blankets rustle, feels the bed shift slightly.

"Would you like to again discuss where to send it? We did not have the opportunity to finish our previous conversation."

"No, I'll do it." She leans forward enough to press her forehead to her knees, so that her back stretches in a way that is nearly too much. She forces her shoulders into a shrug. "I just need to decide on a journal and send it in. I can get it done tomorrow."

Or the next day. Or over the weekend, except that she's pretty sure that it needs to be done by next week, not that she's checked the deadline recently and she might be remembering the date wrong. Maybe it's already passed so that she doesn't have to turn it in at all, doesn't have to send it out into the ether and wait days or weeks or months for a response, however long it takes the editors to decide if what she wrote was good enough.

"It is on your padd?" he asks and she shakes her head at the one in her lap.

"My other one."

She looks up when she feels the mattress move, when a rush of cooler air hits her from Spock lifting the blankets and slipping out from in between them.

Boxers, she sees, as she readjusts the sheets around herself.

"What is your preference for a journal?" he asks when he brings her padd back, a data chip held in his other hand.

"You went through my stuff," she says instead of answering as he folds the blankets back again and gets beneath them.

"As you yourself so recently said, it is illogical to state the obvious."

"Doesn't that then become illogical to say?"

"You routinely place your padd in your bag last. It was on top," he says and she thinks about pointing out that he didn't answer her, but he's flicking on her padd and it's too distracting to see him holding it. She peers over at it, moving as much as she can without letting go of her grip on her legs, staring at how odd it is to see her personal padd in his hands, the one that she uses constantly, a dozen times or more a day and carries with her nearly everywhere she goes, now braced in his palm with his long fingers spread over the back.

He looks over her, then down at her shirt again. "Furthermore, I do not believe that you are in a position to object to procuring other's possessions."

She finds his leg again with her foot, pushes at it, his skin warm against hers. She thinks he's going to shift away but he doesn't, just glances down at the lump of her foot under his blankets and then back at her padd, the data chip still held in his fingers.

"Would you like me to retrieve the slides now?" he offers and she pulls her foot back slightly, nods.

She can't quite get over him holding her padd, when not even Gaila touches it. It looks small in his hands and she can tell the way she has it set up is unfamiliar to him because his movements look slightly uncoordinated, like he has to search around for how to do something that comes so easily to him on his own padd.

"Here," he says, and she follows where he's pointing in some settings menu she's never accessed.

"How do you know all of this?" she asks, then doesn't wait for an answer, leaning over slightly, towards him, to look at the list of files he's pulled up.

"That's all of them?" she asks but doesn't need to because she can see that there they are, along with dozens of other files she's written or used or accessed in the last few weeks. "How far back does this go?"

"Do you not routinely reconfigure your padd to better manage the storage and improve its processing speed?"

"I routinely ignore Gaila when she tells me to do something that sounds very similar."

"Then this would then contain the entirety of the files you have worked with."

"Huh," she says, leaning into him slightly, shifting a bit closer so that she can see better, not quite brushing against him but close enough that she can feel the heat of his body next to hers, the near suggestion of touch.

"That's them," she says, pointing at a group of files from back in the beginning of the term, but he's already seen them, has already scrolled that far up and is opening them and flicking through them, there among everything else she was working on when the semester started.

Along with every single one of the messages she started to write him while he was gone and never ended up sending.

"No, don't," she says and reaches out to grab the padd from him, but he's such a fast reader that she's all too certain that he's read them before she even realized they were on the screen, can tell he did by the way he lets the padd slip from his hands and the way his eyes darted over to her, too quick and too focused for him to not be trying to suss out the meaning behind her abbreviated, abruptly halted letters to him. "Don't look at those."

"My apologies."

"No, it's fine, just-" She folds it against her chest, hugs it to herself, the padd clicking against the one she's already holding, both of them crammed together in the space between her body and her legs. "Sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"It's a little-" She tries to get out a smile, a small laugh, but can't.

"It is what?" he asks when she doesn't uncurl herself, doesn't hand the padd back and doesn't lift it from where it's pressed to her chest.

"Embarrassing," she makes herself say, makes herself drag the word out of herself just so that he'll stop looking at her like that with his head tipped to the side, like if he just stares hard enough and long enough the answer to why she won't let him look at messages he just read, ones she started and never sent, will become apparent to him.

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

"Were you ever intending to send those to me?"

"No."

"May I ask why not?"

"Are you ever going to give me that postcard?"

"I remain unclear as to what to write."

"Yeah, well," she says, looking down at the padd she's clutching. "Welcome to the club."

He's quiet which only makes her all together too ready for his next words, waiting for them, imagining all the different directions the conversation could go, where it might wend and wind from here, all the possibilities that might include.

Her throat feels dry and she wants her water, but won't reach for it, so she just tries to swallow as best she can.

"There is an official organization?" he asks and she feels the tension break, feels it snap in half and release in a breathy sound that escapes her, one that might just be a laugh.

"No," she says, reaching back to twist her hair around her hand. "Yes. No."

"Are you uncertain?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she says softly, dropping her hair and he nods and she nods and she finally releases her legs, gets herself to sit cross-legged, makes herself put the other padd on the bedside table next to her water, and carefully copy his slides to his data chip and then hand it to him, dropping it into his palm from a careful distance.

She quickly closes the menu he had pulled up, unable to look at those files any more, except that they're still there, still on her padd, a remnant of when he was gone, across the solar system and beyond the edge of it and she was sitting in her room, toying with her stylus and staring at her comm, stonily silent and still no matter how long she watched it.

And now he's there beside her, holding the data chip she just handed him, under the same blankets that she is, awake in the middle of the night with her, sharing the soft quiet and darkness of his bedroom.

"You didn't call me. When you were gone. And so I wasn't sure if I should even-" She taps her fingers on her padd and looks away from him. "So I didn't send them."

It seems to take him a while to get out words and when she does, she still doesn't look over at him "That is spurious reasoning, at best."

"Yeah, well," she says, tucking her hair behind her ears, adjusting the padd in her lap. "I also thought it was a good idea to let Kirk drag me into that sim, so I probably shouldn't be looked to as a font of excellent judgement."

She think he'll say something about that, or maybe that he'll let it slide, not that he'll drop his voice and tell her quietly, gently, "I was unaware that you wished for me to contact you."

"No, it's fine, it's not…" She presses her lips together, tucks her hair back again. "It's not anything."

"I see."

She nods down at her lap, a few strands of hair falling forward and she thinks of pushing them back again, but doesn't, just picks at a wrinkle in the quilt.

"You called me all the time over the summer," she hears herself say, unsure of where exactly those words came from.

"That is untrue."

"No, you did. Like that night," she says and watches that spot between his eyebrows crease. "When your parents were here."

"I called you because my mother had taken the liberty of inviting you to dinner during your summer recess, after you had spent a weekend away."

A weekend and another night, he doesn't say but she hears it anyway.

"Yeah, cause you probably knew there was an eighty percent chance I'd get to see baby pictures of you," she mutters, feeling her mouth twist on what might be a smile, the echo of that night rising in her, warm and thick.

"More probable than that," he says and it sounds like it might be a joke, an opportunity to smile broader if she wants to, lean into him and nudge his arm with her own.

"Your paper," he says gently when she doesn't move, doesn't react beyond thinking about his parents being there, in just the next room from where she and he are now, all of them sitting around the table as his father asked her question after question and they ate the dinner that his mother cooked for them.

"Now?" she asks.

"Unless you do not wish to," he says and she hears the out he's giving her, the chance to set her padd on the bedside table and ignore the whole thing, to tell him that she'll do it tomorrow, the next day, the day after that and she either will or she won't, but he won't push it, probably won't ask about it again if she doesn't bring it up. Her paper can be left as something she did over the summer, never submitted even though she knows how crazy that is, how completely and utterly illogical it would be to do all that work and not take the final step to complete it.

"What if it doesn't get published?" she asks, her voice something nearly less than a whisper.

"That is your concern?"

She just lifts her shoulders, picking at the edge of her padd with her nails, staring at the way the blankets fall over her knees, the folds and valleys in them, shadowed in the dark.

"Improbable," he states. "Though if you would prefer, you could submit to a less competitive journal in order to increase the likelihood that it is accepted. However, I do not believe that you would find being published in a second tier journal satisfactory."

"Maybe," she says and doesn't stop tapping her nails against the padd and doesn't look up, so that she's still staring at the padd in her lap when his hand covers the side, tilting it towards him so that he can bring up the list of journals she's had saved for weeks now, their submission requirements and upload instructions neatly categorized and right there, waiting for her to do something about it.

He pulls up the Journal of Xenolinguistics Research and then stops, his hand still braced on the padd, the padd still tilted towards him, and her padd still lit, the blue light shining up at her.

"I guess it doesn't make any sense to you," she says, staring down at the padd until her eyes don't focus on it anymore. "Not submitting it right away."

"You are uncertain as to the outcome," he says calmly in that even voice of his, like she wasn't sure whether to bring a jacket or not when going out when there's a chance of rain in the forecast, or what dish to order for dinner when she's not sure what she wants to eat, not the way in which she has delayed sending her paper off to nameless, faceless editors. It ends up sounding rational in his voice, somehow sensible and understandable when he says it and she presses her lips together tight, nods jerkily, quickly, her eyes still trained on the padd. "Not being able to predict an outcome is, however, not reason enough to not pursue it."

She picks at the padd again, her nail flicking against the edge of it.

"Is that what you think?" she asks, turning to look up at him only to find him watching her.

"Yes."

She nods again, slower this time.

"And you think this journal is best?"

"It is your choice."

She lets out a slow breath, her shoulders falling slightly, the motion causing her arm to brush up against his and she leaves it there, her shoulder pressing into his.

"You think it'll work out?" she asks.

"I do."

She pauses for just a moment before accessing the file with her finished paper and transmitting it.

"There," she says into the silence that follows, feeling the word carry out the hard knot that settled into her stomach back in the beginning of the semester, the beginning of the summer maybe, everything that was wrapped up in her paper flowing out of her and leaving her a little loose, untethered in a way that is nearly foreign. "Just a couple weeks until I hear?"

"Two, maybe three at most."

She turns over her next few weeks in her mind, the idea of midterms approaching and all that entails now mixing with the thought of waiting for a message in her inbox.

"Guess it's good that I'm busy then," she says, slowly turning her padd off. His hand pulls away when she does but she doesn't move her shoulder from his.

"A benefit, to be sure." He doesn't move away either and she joins him in staring out across his room, dim again with the screen of the padd darkened. "Your schedule is overly demanding in the coming weeks?"

She nods, then shrugs, the edge of his sleeve tickling her arm. "Though not more so than usual."

"Your classes are still enjoyable?"

She turns slightly to glance up at him. "Yes. Thank you for asking."

"Of course."

She shoots another look up at him, then bounces her shoulder into his. "And everything's better now since I got this new boss."

"Is that so?"

"It is."

"And that the test is over."

"I would predict as much."

"And also ever since-" She pauses, feeling the heat from his body next to hers, staring at the folds of the blankets across their waists, the shape of their legs beneath the the bedspread. "It was," she pauses, grimacing, feeling her mouth twist slightly. "It's been a really bad semester."

She listens to the breath he draws in and then lets out again. "It would be illogical to offer an apology, though I do admit to an understanding of the impetus to do so."

She pushes her hair back, giving him a small smile. "Thanks."

"The term is yet not over. It will, perhaps, improve," he points out and she feels a small flare of hope flicker in her chest at the thought.

"I'd like that," she says softly, letting herself sink towards him, edging slightly nearer to his warmth. "How has yours been?"

"Perhaps a more difficult transition back from the Enterprise than I anticipated." He runs his fingers over the blankets, his hand pale in the darkness of his bedroom against the gray of his bedspread as he smooths out an uneven fold. "It has been better recently."

"Good," she says, watching his hand continue to move over the fabric, those long fingers of his picking it up and adjusting it here and there.

"Better still when your paper is published," he says, his hand falling still.

That makes her smile, makes her turn and grin at him. "I sure hope so."

"If it is not published on your first attempt, it will certainly be accepted elsewhere." He's so close to her that when he turns to look at her, he's right there, his face nearly difficult to focus on. "Regardless, the opinions of editors should not and does not detract or diminish the quality of your work."

"You're just saying that to be nice," she says, nudging her shoulder into his, feeling her elbow brush against his own, skin on skin.

"I am not. That would be illogical," he says and she swears that he smiles, that the corner of his mouth lifts and she stares at him, taking in the sight, something blossoming in her chest, something small and fragile and tender and warm, not full blown and not substantial, but there.

"Spock," she says and she leans into him, her arm and shoulder pressed to his, their legs nearly touching beneath the blankets. "Thank you."

When he nods, she can feel it, the motion traveling through to her own body and she hopes - she knows, really - that he can hear everything she's saying.

She watches the way his lips part and his chest rises on a breath, the way he looks away from her for a moment before he meets her eyes again.

"However involuntary, I have caused you pain as a result of the simulation and for that I apologize," he says in a deep, low voice that rumbles through him and into her where their bodies touch.

Warmth blooms in her chest at his words, fills her and spreads through her body, a greater and deeper echo of before, and she rubs the back of her knuckles over his hand, runs her fingers over his wrist, light and quick.

"It," she says, curling her fingers around to touch the thin skin on the inside of his forearm, "Is of no consequence."

When she looks up from the sight of her fingers on him, the way he turns his palm over so that she can trace over it, soft enough that she can barely feel the familiar prickle that spreads across her hand, he's looking at her, closer than he was before, and she feels an edge of friction that arcs and snaps between them in the weight of his gaze on her. She feels her heart slow, or maybe feels it pick up its pace, her focus caught on him so that she's half unaware of her body. Everything except how he's looking at her feels far away, so that he's taking up the entirety of her attention, her mind blank and buzzing.

She watches him look at her mouth, then meet her eyes again, a question in his gaze, and watches him swallow, the line of his throat working. She doesn't close her eyes until he's kissed her, his lips pressing gently, softly to her own, warm against hers and light.

When he pulls back it's just a moment later and she feels herself follow him for a second, trying to maintain the touch of his lips on hers. She can't, though, doesn't lean forward more, and opens her eyes to find him watching her, his eyes so soft in the dim light.

"Come here," she says, shoving her padd off of her lap so that she can better lean towards him, touching her fingers to his cheek, drawing him back to her to kiss again, firmer this time so that she can tug at his bottom lip with her own, let her fingers slide back into his hair and hold him there, their mouths playing slowly over each others, unhurried and leisurely until they break their kiss, both of their breaths coming quick and light.

The idea of his touch is familiar enough now to anticipate, the low burn of want that he stokes in her with those precise movements, the careful, thought out intention behind where his hands touch, how firm his fingers press, how lightly they skate over her skin. The reality of it is even better than the expectation, immediate and right there after so long, his mouth finding her neck and the way he grips her waist, half turned towards her, half leaning over her so that it's easy enough to sink back into his bed, his pillows, let his body follow hers down.

"Acceptable?" he asks, his legs tangled with hers, his breath on her mouth and she nods until she can't anymore because his mouth is under her jaw, hot and wet and slow, so slow as he kisses her skin.

Heat rises liquid in her, deep in her belly, as he edges her shirt up and folds the fabric back, his hands splayed over her hips, her waist, warm on her stomach as they slide higher, pushing the cloth up and up until she raises her arms and lets him skim it off over her head. Warm air brushes against her bare skin, and his touch is warmer still, kisses pressed to her collarbone and his fingers searching over the dip of her waist, the sensitive skin of her ribs, down over her hip and thigh and back up again so that she raises her leg to press into the contact.

His eyes meet hers from where his mouth is pressed between her breasts, one hand tangled in the band of her panties, pulling at it until she raises her hips for him. He's not looking at her anymore, then, moving down her body, his hands gently pushing her legs apart and she presses her head back into the pillows, stares open mouthed at the ceiling at the first touch of his mouth on her.

It's light at first, makes her squirm closer, shift against the sheets and his grip on her thighs until his hands tighten and his tongue presses harder and she squeezes her eyes shut, her focus narrowed to the movement of his mouth and the heat skating through her belly.

She doesn't know what to do with her hands, doesn't want to grab at his hair but needs to grip something, to have something in her hands to anchor herself so she fists her fingers into the pillow beneath her head. She turns into her own arm to let out a shuddery breath, a sound caught on it that is cut off and needy as his slow, careful touch gives way to a faster rhythm, firmer and more solid.

She looks at him, once, pries her eyes open to find him watching her, and the sight is enough to make her want to close her eyes again, too much and too real with the wet sounds of his mouth, how she can see and feel when his hands dig into her thighs, but she doesn't, just forces her fingers to open and scratches her nails over his shoulder, grips the back of his neck.

She's still watching him when he shifts slightly, drops one hand and she feels his fingers slide into her, the motion making her hips rise into him, makes her dig her nails into his skin and hold him there against her, pleasure twisting and hot, pulsing and building and she feels it tighten until it breaks, coursing and rolling through her, a sound drawn out of the back of her throat and her eyes slamming shut.

He pulls back the moment it becomes too much, squeezes her leg and presses his lips to the inside of her thigh, his breath hot on her skin. She watches him, unfocused and slightly blurry, wipe his mouth on his shoulder in an altogether human gesture.

It's quiet at he looks at her, her harsh breathing still filling the room, a quiet rustle of blankets as he eases her legs down, her muscles stiff and half aching in a way that is altogether good, a deep near burn that echoes the pleasure still pulsing through her. His hands slide up the outside of her hips and his thumbs press into the dip of her hipbones, firm enough that it makes her shift against the bed.

"You should-" She pulls in a breath as she looks down at his hands on her. "You should take your clothes off."

"Is that so?"

"Pretty sure that's what I said," she tells him.

He slides his hand up to her breast and she just watches for a moment, his long fingers on her, cupping her and playing over her nipple. He flicks his fingertip across it and she wets her lips, his eyes following the motion.

"Do you want-" she starts, then her knee bumps against him and she doesn't bother finishing that question, just reaches towards his nightstand. She helps him tug his shirt over his head, the condom wrapper crinkling in her palm, and waits while he slips his boxers off so that she's left to stare at his narrow frame above her, his skin smooth and pale in the darkness.

"Like this?" she asks and he stares down at her until she's about to repeat the question.

She doesn't have to because he nods once, quickly, and then she's fumbling with the packet gracelessly, unrolling the condom over him and spreading her hands on his lower back, his skin fever hot under her palms. She likes how his muscles flex as he presses into her, his movements slow at first and then stronger as she grips her fingers into him, wraps her legs around his waist and presses her mouth to his shoulder, his neck, wherever she can reach as his breaths come faster.

She never really looked before and now, even though his bedroom is lit in gray shadows, she's lost in the sight of him, the ways his shoulders flex, the tightening of the crease between his brows as he moves, how he looks down at her, his gaze soft and then becoming distant, slightly far away until his eyes close. His dark head bows forward as he comes, a hitching, cut off breath the only sound he makes as his body tenses, and she scrapes her nails down his back, scratches her fingers through his hair and holds him against her, his skin sticky against her own, everything overheated and the air humid in the space between their bodies.

"No, don't," she requests, doesn't and won't loosen her arm laying across his shoulders when he goes to move away, his hand reaching between them for the condom as he finally pulls out of her. She can't keep him there, not really, not if he decides to get up and she watches the way he looks at her, the bathroom, the condom, uncertainty creasing the corners of his eyes, just slightly. She's unsure, too, of his skin still pressed to hers, the way she's clutching at him, but she's certain, completely and utterly in a way that makes her heart hammer, that if he stands and moves away from her, they won't get back to this spot, that the only way to be like this is to stay right there, unmoving and still.

His body slackens under her hands, finally, and she leans up to kiss him, to card her fingers through his hair and keep him there against her, heavy and warm and good like that, a solid pressure against her that makes her curl her leg over his, rake her toes down his calf and push her nose into his cheek when they break their kiss.

She's pretty sure that the condom ends up on the floor but she doesn't check, her face pressed into his neck and a sigh breathed over his skin when his arms come around her, pulling her into his body.

His fingers find hers, twine together, and she falls asleep like that, too warm and pressed up against him on the edge of the bed with not enough room, her dreams a swirl of hot sand and a hotter sun.