DISCLAIMER: I don't own Star Trek or any of the Characters below

Back Under the Microscope

Spock had never not wanted to go back to work. But after the freedom of Africa, and spending the last five days before spring semester with Nyota going back to the Academy felt like returning to a cage.

Maintaining professionalism was one thing, but even the idea of having to completely conceal his relationship with Nyota was tiring. And, of course he was not as excited about the subject of this semesters research. He still thought it would have been more logical to explore a system that needed portable subspace reception more urgently.

There were however, two people he was looking forward to seeing. And he had something interesting to show them -- with Nyota's permission of course.

"Cool," said Patrick.

"Sugoi, ne," agreed Toshi.

"The technology is fascinating," said Spock.

Nyota giggled. "But the acting is sooooooooo bad."

They were watching a scene of the drama in the Romulan sphere in Spock's lab.

"Not to mention the production values," said Patrick. "Did a piece of the backdrop just fall down?"

"I believe so..." replied Toshi.

"The technology is really advanced though..." Patrick said, "I've seen hovering, and I've seen holo light shows...but...there doesn't appear to be a real projector. The voice activation, and the ability to read touch in the light sphere..." His face wrinkled in a look of disgust. "Oh geesh...I don't even speak Romulan and I can just tell what that guy said was corny as hell."

"My mother-in-law watches similar dramas," sighed Toshi.

"Awww guys, it is corny, but that's what makes it fun!" said Nyota.

Patrick looked at Nyota. "Where did you say your brother got this again?"

"In a trash heap on an asteroid," replied Nyota.

"A trash heap?" said Toshi.

"I think the general quality of the drama can explain why it was relegated to disposal," said Spock.

"But the technology is so cool," said Patrick.

"Indeed," said Spock. "To us, it is advanced. But to the previous owners it may have been nothing unusual."

"Does it have some sort of production date?" asked Toshi.

"That's the weird thing..." said Nyota shaking her head.

Spock said, "Yes, they seem to have put in an erroneous date in the production notes -- this drama is dated as being produced twenty years in the future."

"Hmm," said Toshi.

"Weird," said Patrick.

"Nyota," said Toshi, "What asteroid belt did your brother say he got this from?"

"He didn't," Nyota replied.

"But it's Romulan, so it must have been somewhere on the edge of Romulan space..." said Toshi.

Patrick looked up at her, "Which probably means the belt that is in the neutral zone closest the Romulan empire...What exactly does your brother do again?"

Spock tilted his head and looked at Nyota. She looked Patrick directly in the eye, gave an enormous smile, lifted her eyebrows and batted her eyelashes. "He's a pirate!"

Spock looked at Patrick.

The other man put his hands on his hips and snorted in laughter. "Yeah, yeah. Very funny -- you know this assistant of yours has a lot of cheek, Spock."

She told the truth and made it look like a joke. Fascinating. Spock looked at Nyota admiringly for a moment. He turned to look back at the sphere and caught Toshi staring at him.

Patrick grumbled, "So either the production values are just really bad...or the geniuses in the future -- instead of sending us back something really useful like a cloaking device that maintains invisibility while allowing the firing of photon torpedoes...sent us a bad Romulan soap opera."

"Time traveling soaps would be more exciting, but I think we're seeing poor production values," sighed Toshi.

"Agreed," said Patrick. He lifted a special tricorder that he'd brought for this occasion. "Lets just scan it and see if the deterioration of the circuitry inside gives us an idea of how old it really is...if it has circuitry we can get a reading on."

The tricorder beeped. Nyota, Toshi, Spock and Patrick all crammed to look at the screen.

"Whoa...really weird..." said Patrick.

"That can't be right," said Nyota.

"Perhaps we need to run diagnostics on the tricorder?" asked Spock.

"One-hundred and five years old...Impossible," murmured Toshi. "To accurately date the sphere we'll obviously need to take it apart and study it."

Suddenly Nyota shouted in Romulan, "End now." The sphere flickered off, Nyota reached out and grabbed it protectively. "You can't take it apart, my brother gave it to me!"

"Awww...Cadet," said Patrick, "We'll put it back together again."

"If we can." added Toshi cheerfully.

Nyota's eyes got wide. "No!"

Patrick and Toshi shifted uncomfortably and Spock tensed. He had convinced Nyota to bring the sphere in to the Academy today, and invited Patrick and Toshi to have a look at it. Technically, because she had brought it onto the Academy grounds it could be confiscated at his or Patrick's discretion.

"Lieutenant Spock and I should really get back to our survey of the Sol System," said Nyota changing the subject fast. Taking the sphere she headed over to one of the consoles.

Patrick followed Nyota. "Can't you let us borrow it? It's in the interest of science."

"No," said Nyota.

For a moment Spock was worried that Patrick might try to pull rank. What came out of the Lieutenant Commander's mouth next made Spock realize just how little he understood human behavior.

"Pretty please with sugar on top?" said the Lieutenant-Commander clasping his hands in front of him.

Nyota blinked at Patrick. "No!"

"How is your survey of the Sol System going, Spock?" asked Toshi turning away from Nyota and Patrick.

"Well at the moment it isn't going," snapped Nyota as Patrick leaned over her and tried to snatch up the sphere from where it was sitting next to her. She grabbed it quickly and transferred it to a drawer beneath the console. Shutting the drawer with a bang she looked at him and hissed, "It's locked...don't even try it."

"Awww....Mom...." whined Patrick with a wink. Then he turned to Spock, "Yeah, how is it going? It is amazing that you found that transmission in the first place, Spock."

"Really, Spock, it is amazing you were able to uncover something so interesting out of all those archived recordings." added Toshi.

Spock saw Nyota's shoulders tighten and her brow furrow. Why did this keep happening? "In point of fact I did not discover the recording. Cadet Uhura discovered it -- from no more than a single, barely audible syllable. I would have missed it. I did miss it. She had me listen to the recording three times before I recognized it."

Nyota shot him a small smile, but her shoulders were still tight.

"Commander Sharpton said..." Toshi began.

"She often misspeaks on this matter," said Spock. "And I often correct her."

Patrick turned to Nyota, "Uhura, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Excellent find."

"It's okay, its happened before..." she said and shrugged, her shoulders remained tight, her brows still were furrowed.

Patrick gave her a gentle pat on the back, "No, its not okay. It sucks when someone else gets credit for your work."

Nyota turned her head and looked at Patrick. All the tension seemed to leave her shoulders and she smiled at him. Just a touch did more than words for her. And it hadn't been his touch. Spock stared. He understood this wasn't a pass on Patrick's part and he wasn't so primitive he thought Nyota saw it as anything more than friendly...at the same time he realized why his people discouraged touching between non-bonded pairs. He wanted to go over and knock the hand away...thankfully Patrick let it drop. But Patrick was still standing much too close.

"Yeah, it does suck. But I couldn't have found the entire recording without Lieutenant Spock...and its only with his big brain that I'll be able to see if it actually is more than a two hundred year old prank. It's actually why I became the Lieutenant's assistant."

"Ahhh...you have something you are passionate about...No wonder you managed to stand being his assistant for so long," said Toshi with a grin...Spock realized by now this was 'good natured ribbing'. He raised an eyebrow at Toshi.

Patrick looked at Spock, "I wish I had an assistant that was as passionate about her research as yours Spock. Care to share her?"

"No," said Spock flatly.

"Oh come on, Professor Matsumura, Lieutenant Spock's a good boss. He is always fair and gives credit where credit is due," said Nyota.

"And he's so warm and cuddly," said Patrick.

"My basal metabolic rate does assure that I am warm, Lieutenant Commander," replied Spock.

"Is that the line you use at bars?" asked Patrick.

Toshi laughed.

Nyota coughed and said, "Lieutenant Spock, would you like to come take a look at these transmissions that were received at the station near Venus? There is a lot of data for the last solar minimum there."

"Actually, I think Yuki would find a higher basal metabolic rate an attractive feature," said Toshi.

"Excuse me Patrick, I need to look over Cadet Uhura's shoulder," said Spock finally seeing a reason to make the other man move.

"Sure, I'll get out of your way here, Spock," said Patrick moving away from Nyota. "Yeah, Katie's feet are always ice cold at night and she's always stealing the damn covers." Patrick ambled over to Toshi and the two headed towards the door. "Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad pickup line. Ever use it Spock?"

Passing his fingers deliciously close to Nyota's on the console keypad Spock didn't even bother to look up. "No."

Toshi made a half laugh half coughing noise.

Patrick snorted. "Nah, of course you haven't. You don't notice girls. You probably haven't even noticed your assistant is a girl."

Spock and Nyota both looked up and froze. Spock could calculate the circumference of a circle in his head using a value of pi correct to the twenty third decimal point, but Patrick's comment was just so amazingly off the mark it filtered through his brain as slowly as oil spilled on sand.

Then it occurred to him...Patrick and Toshi were close associates he could let his guard down just a little. Looking back down at the console Spock said, "Is this accusation true, Cadet Uhura? Are you, in fact, female?"

From the corner of his eye he saw Nyota assuming the affected mannerisms of one of the Romulan actresses. Putting a hand to her chest and looked dramatically upwards she said, "Oh, Lieutenant Spock, I thought you'd never notice."

Patrick, Nyota and Toshi burst out laughing.

Spock tilted his head at his own daring. It felt good to hear Patrick, Toshi and of course Nyota laughing -- and to know they weren't laughing at him. He felt a little off balance...and at the same time he felt like he fit.

* * * * * *

The sensation of his first day back, of being off balance yet belonging is what Spock felt for the first few months of the new semester.

He was still disturbed by the illogical choice in his research assignment. Commander Sharpton assured him that other teams were looking at other systems on multiple occasions -- primarily because he pointed out to her on multiple occasions that her choice was illogical. It was un-Vulcan to nag...but in the pursuit of logic he decided it was justified.

The only good thing about mapping the Sol System was that it was going quickly. He hoped in the summer he could do something more interesting, like map the subspace signatures of the Klingon system.

He played 5D chess with Toshi and Patrick. The games were getting extremely personal and brutal. They dragged him into conversations about their respective Moms. But through them he actually got out and met other chess players, in particular a fifteen year old cadet by the name of Chekov who actually beat him regularly.

He was not completely comfortable with breaking Academy fraternization rules...but he was back to being extremely comfortable in his relationship with Nyota. January, February and March went by without too many incidents. With his mother's help he even managed to navigate Valentine's Day successfully. He gave Nyota an antique Vulcan scroll of a chapter from the T'Kai Lamana Ita. Nyota's gift to him was something he couldn't tell his mother about.

There were issues they didn't resolve. Spock had not been aware that Nyota had been in the habit of going dancing at least once a month with her roommate Gaila and other friends. He wasn't completely uncomfortable with it...

"I have absolutely no doubt in your integrity, Nyota," Spock said.

"Then what do you doubt?" She asked crossing her arms over her chest.

"The integrity of 99.999% of the human males in the room and 2% of the human females. We are not even officially bonded and I..."

"Spock, hate to break it to you, but being married would not deter a large percentage of the human male population."

Spock's eyebrows shot up. It was true he realized. What was the expression he had heard from Brian? 'Yeah, she's married, but what does that have to do with me?' There were definitely reasons his father had chosen to reside with his mother on Vulcan and not on Earth.

"...better get used to it now, Spock," Nyota said in response to his expression.

He took a deep breath.

"Then I will accompany you separately. I will be there and if something happens..."

"You will not do that! That is so completely stalkerish!"

"Must I remind you of what occurred in Nairobi?" asked Spock his face merely twenty centimeters from hers.

"This isn't Nairobi, this is a Star Fleet town. There is no Orion underworld here."

"You will be accompanying your Orion room mate who has no moral quandary with abandoning you without an escort."

"When she left with Brian, she didn't leave me alone, she left me with YOU."

Spock considered that evening, it was true his motives were correct, but he was Vulcan -- and look at what had happened in the months after wards? An innocent escort home could become something much more...

"This is not reassuring to me, Nyota."

In the end Nyota went dancing. Spock went to the Academy's twenty four hour gym and took out all of his frustrations on a defenseless punching bag.

He did get two concessions: she would keep her comm on her person at all times, and after wards she would come to his apartment and spend the night with him.

As a child of a Vulcan and a human he was well aware that ongoing disagreements were to be expected, if not inevitable. So although he didn't precisely like the argument, he understood it as a normal aspect of relationships...and their relationship in general as "normal". For her part, Nyota said she thought their relationship was more normal than you could ever expect a relationship between a half-Vulcan Lieutenant instructor and his human cadet assistant to be.

They watched holos together on his couch. They went out to lunch and tea and coffee breaks during the day, as allowed by their schedules and The Rules of course. They started leaving San Francisco on day trips or short overnights to spend time together without the pressure of being observed by Star Fleet. Spock started bending a little on his stance on public displays of affection. Well, it felt like bending to him. He would let his shoulder lean against hers, or let his fingers brush across the top of her hand.

One time he even allowed this to happen on the Academy grounds.

Nyota had just come from an interview for an assistantship for the long range sensor array, she hoped to work there starting in the summer -- after they'd properly ascertained her 'Romulan boyfriend' was indeed a neuvo-Piltdown man. She was very tense, he could tell even as he approached her from behind on the packed walkway.

Striding up to her he let his fingers graze the top of the hand not clutching her PADD. She spun her head around so quickly at his touch her pony tail nearly hit a passing Cadet. Seeing the tension leave her shoulders and the smile spread across her face made the breech in protocol worth it.

They fought together a little, ate together often, tried to be there for one another always -- Nyota even listened to him 'moan on' about the illogical choice of research assignments 'about a million times a day', granted, always with a smirk. They just did all the ordinary things together that 'any human couple' would do -- and a few things that Vulcan couples did too, obviously.

And like all couples got to know each other's private idiosyncrasies and secrets...