Pool Deck
Spock, she thinks, will not come to be with her on the pool deck. The air is cool and humid; and sound here is both oddly muted and unexpectedly reverberant.
But Nyota enjoys it.
She comes to the pool deck, and reads by the water's edge or in one of the lounge chairs that some wistful ship's designer has provided in the hopes that that will, somehow, fool the crew into believing they can feel the Sun and her heat.
Sometimes, the Captain or some of the others will join her here, and when they do, she walks to the edge with her hand holding her hair back out of her face.
Jim Kirk watches her walk, and wonders whether she has any idea how she looks: With bare feet, her walk is different, softer, more grounded; and as she pauses on the tile, she looks like a sculpture – a gentle study in opposing curves. Her body is slender but strong; and although her uniform leaves the majority of those long graceful limbs uncovered, it is startling to see so much of her skin. One arm is raised, and her hand twists her hair into an untidy knot on the crown of her head. Her back is almost bare, and a few loose dark tendrils escape her fingers and dangle from the nape of her neck nearly to her hips - inviting familiar fingers, he thinks, to trace their length.
He quickly dives into the water, and feels the cold rush over him. He swims a few strokes and turns to watch Uhura dive, too.
She comes up not very far from him, treading water. As she does, she tilts her head back so that her hair washes away from her face. Water streams from it, and it hangs in a thick, dark and heavy mass, plastered to her head, showing its shape. Small droplets cling to her eyelashes; she blinks a few times before turning to swim.
He swims the opposite direction.
He knows that when he turns, and breathes, he'll see her swimming toward him.