Uhura did not know what to do with her hands. Should she hug him?
No. Definitely not. That was more than four types of weird.
Should she do more than nod?
Probably not. Who knew what sort of ideas of propriety Spock had picked up after years of living. She flashed briefly on a thought of her grandmother, prim and proper in her dotage, and kept her hands behind her back, posture alert and relaxed. "Ambassador," Nyota said as she inclined her head. She was painfully aware of Spock before her, and Spock standing on the other side of Kirk.
"Lieutenant Uhura." He stopped before her and he did not quite smile, but there was a light in his eyes and a slight quirk to his lips that she had never seen from Spock in a public setting. Clear affection, and it drew a grin from her, but then he was moving on to Doctor McCoy, and the expression was changing, but it was still the same message. She swallowed back any comments she had prepared, feeling slightly embarrassed that she had expected a conversation when there were others for him to greet, and stood straighter. When she looked, Kirk was smiling at her like he understood the feeling and she bit down on a laugh.
She watched the ambassador move through the others gathered with curiosity, wondering at those questions that she had revealed to her own Spock she didn't dare ask. This man knew her in ways she might not even know herself yet, knew how she might die, and more importantly, how she might live. Had she married him?
The moment she had the thought, she realized with a start that she had that answer already. She felt her stomach bottom out, more at having any knowledge than in reaction to a specific kind; her musings had not been meant to produce any conclusions and she had not been prepared for them. There was no knowing what exactly she had been to Spock in her other life. She would wager they had at least been what they were now. But he had not greeted her like a long-lost spouse; she knew that much, and she didn't like that she did. There would have been no embrace, of course, no verbal acknowledgment even, but would she not know? She knew Spock too well, and if anything, the ambassador seemed more expressive than her own.
Perhaps he was merely controlling his reactions so as not to give anything away of their futures? She would like to believe that, but watching him with the others quickly disproved that theory. He was subtle, as always, but there was a clear connection with each person he spoke with, in varying shades of familiarity. Even hers had possessed its own brand of rapport.
When the ambassador came to the end of the line, he turned back expectantly to Kirk, and again, the light in his eyes changed.
"I'll see you to your quarters," Jim said, stepping forward and waving a hand at them all. "Dismissed, everyone."
She watched them go, speaking lowly, the ambassador's aides trailing after them, and decided she was glad Kirk was escorting them rather than the yeoman that would be assigned to the Vulcan party. Spock deserved the personal touch. Her satisfaction with that warred with her unease.
She was worrying over nothing, she knew. Regardless of what she had been to this Spock, it didn't have to affect what she was with her own, and she was jumping to conclusions in any event. Sighing and gathering herself to return to shift, she turned to look at the Spock who remained.
He was watching the doorway as well, but as soon as he perceived her eyes on him, he turned and lifted a clearly amused eyebrow at her. She found herself grinning again, and turned to follow a grumbling McCoy back out into the corridors.
"Everything okay?"
The conversation along the corridors of the ship had been perfectly easy, even with the aides present, but something about their absence and the quiet of the room, the way the ambassador stopped in the center of it with an odd look on his face; it threw Jim off in a way few people could achieve.
Spock came to stand next to a comfortable looking living area with long, low seating in warm earth tones. "These quarters are more than acceptable, Captain," he said.
Jim winced. "Captain?" he asked with a small laugh, stopping by the door.
"Would you prefer I call you Jim?" Spock asked. A small, too understanding smile came over his face and Jim tried to take comfort in it rather than unease.
He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "You called me that in my head, and it makes me feel less weird." He wondered if the choice was some kind of instinct for Spock, being back on board the ship which had apparently been his home for years.
Spock's smile turned wistful. "I apologize again for such an intrusion on your mind. A meld should not have been attempted while I was in such an emotional state."
Jim shook his head and tried to clear that day out of his mind by clearing his throat. "So, we're expected in the Neutral Zone in three days." It was an obvious sidestep, but a necessary one, in his opinion. "The location is to be decided as soon as we hail the Romulan ship that will be waiting to either accompany us or kill us," he joked.
Spock tilted his head quizzically. "I had not realized that was a concern of yours."
Jim didn't know where to put his hands, so he clasped them behind his back and rocked on his feet. "The Admiralty knows my concerns. They've been noted." If he wound up feeling he wasn't being taken seriously on that front, he would have his own Spock contact them. They would listen to him. Until then, he'd be giving them the benefit of the doubt; they weren't a bad lot, on the whole. Just bureaucrats.
"Ah." Spock said no more.
"Well, we're expected to take as long as we need, of course, so no rush-"
"Jim?" Spock interrupted quietly.
Jim stopped. "Yes?"
"This information - will it not be included in the brief tomorrow, with the rest of the delegates?"
"Uh, yeah." Jim decided that the vase next to the door was absolutely stunning, and examined it for a moment in earnest fascination, before deciding he was being stupid. He lifted his eyes to Spock's on purpose.
"Yet you have deemed it necessary to tell me this information now." The smile was back.
Jim coughed. "Because I'd rather be here than offering to give tours of my ship to people who probably just want to tell me how poorly they think I'm doing." He winced at the flare of a headache at the base of his skull, and remembered he still hadn't eaten.
"I am certain that is not the case."
Jim managed a chuckle. "I just meant the Tellerites."
Spock nodded with what Jim suspected was faux sobriety. "Ah, yes," he agreed. "Then perhaps," He took a step back toward Jim, hands moving to clasp amid the long sleeves of his robe, "I could offer my company in recompense once you have completed your duties. If that would be agreeable to you, of course."
Jim felt the grin he had been near unable to keep off his face in the transporter room pulling at his lips again. "Something tells me you've used this reward system before."
"Among others, Captain," Spock said without missing a beat and the smile froze on Jim's face. To his credit, he was pretty sure he recovered quickly enough for it to perhaps go unnoticed, but he had been around the block enough times to know flirting when he heard it. What his mind couldn't process, he instantly blamed on Spock's Vulcan naïveté.
"Uh," he said, and by now the expression on Spock's face had changed back to one closer to that he had worn upon entering the room, the moment gone and replaced by something far more distant, and unnerving in an entirely different way. It neared pity, on Jim's end. "The other... my you... he plays a mean game of chess."
Spock's mouth flickered, but his gaze was on his surroundings again now. "You will find me meaner," he said, almost like a warning, and it got Jim laughing again.
"I'll take my chances," he said.
"As always."
The uncommonly familiar moment was almost back and Jim backed out of it with a small smile, nodding. "It's a date then," he said. "Uh... a deal." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "So I'm gonna go do this job I understand they pay me for. You're good here?"
Spock inclined his head toward him. "Of course."
Jim nodded again in farewell and then made for the door, suddenly and uncommonly eager for the structure of protocol.
"So then you are well aware I captained a previous incarnation of your ship, Captain."
Kirk turned from giving a firm nod to Ambassador Gull's aide - who had just given up after having all arguments returned in volley - to find Ambassador April smiling at him. "Oh, yes," he said. "I read up on the history of the Enterprise, and I knew I had come across your name."
"Yes, but my ship was not as beautiful as this. It's gleaming and shining and part of me is jealous. The part that doesn't mind the black of space for years on end. But I'm old, and have grown comfortable with my wife and her cooking."
"He says you can't replicate my meatloaf," Sarah joined her husband and took his arm graciously, "but he's so set in his ways, he wouldn't really be able to tell the difference as long as I served the other on the same plate."
Kirk smiled wildly; something about an old couple made him grin like a little boy, wistful of what he could have seen had his father been present, but hadn't had. "Are you guys having fun?"
"This is the least stuffy affair we've been to in a while," Ambassador April said with a raised flute of probably replicated champagne, and tiny replicated bubbles. "Although, if Ambassador Gull tries to corner me one more time, the arguments are going to become real."
Kirk laughed out loud at that, and nodded. "I'm sure." He looked over and dress blues caught his eye, and a slightly bent, dark head.
Spock. His Spock. The Vulcan had stopped to speak with a trio of people, most directly to Storen, one of his counterpart's own delegation, but when he had finished whatever he was saying, his eyes drew up, unerringly met Kirk's and held. Jim swallowed.
He kind of hated when Spock did that.
Clearing his throat, he looked back to Ambassador April and his wife, who were watching him kind of strangely. Had he gone too long without speaking? Doctor April looked downright amused with him. He grinned stupidly at her and opened his mouth to say something appropriately inane.
"Captain."
Jim stiffened, but did not jump. The Aprils' eyes traveled to his side, but he didn't bother to look. He swirled the champagne in his own glass. "Ambassador, Doctor, you remember my first officer, Mister Spock." Who totally misread creepy eye contact as pleas for help. He took a sip.
"Yes, hello," Sarah said for both of them, and thankfully, Jim noted, did not reach out her hand. "We were properly introduced, but didn't have a chance to speak."
"Doctor." Jim felt Spock bow his head at both of them. "Ambassador. I am familiar and impressed with both of your careers in Starfleet and abroad. I am certain Doctor McCoy would relish the opportunity to, as you say, 'pick your brain', Doctor."
Sarah looked delighted by this. "I wouldn't mind returning the favor," she said, and tugged at her husband's arm. "And since the captain has already picked yours, I'm sure he'd excuse us."
Jim smiled at her. "Of course. We'll have plenty of opportunities to speak, this trip."
"If we have anything to say about it." Ambassador April reached out and gave Kirk's hand a firm shake before he allowed his wife to pull him along.
Jim stood still once they had gone, unsure what to do. Being around either Spock felt strange after his conversation with the elder this afternoon. "Well," he eventually said. "Hi."
When he looked, Spock seemed perplexed by an unnecessary greeting. "Hello," he returned though.
He gestured toward where the couple had ventured off to. "I was fine, you know."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "I was not under the impression you were not."
"Mm," Jim said around his next sip. He swallowed it down. "Just enjoy my company, huh?"
Spock's mouth moved, but his expression ultimately remained. "Occasionally."
Jim laughed and finished off his glass, staring down at the few droplets in the bottom.
"Storen tells me the Vulcan ambassador is occupied after the dinner this evening," Spock said, and though it was said with no specific tone, Jim still froze. "With you."
Jim set his glass on the tray of a passing yeoman. "That a problem?" he asked, not a challenge, but a question. As he had told Spock before, if it was, he would see to avoiding these things.
"Indeed not," Spock said. "Merely curious."
It was a strange word to use, probably more with the meaning of "interesting" than "odd," since there was no reason to think Jim wouldn't treat the ambassador like a friend, and it almost made him laugh again. It delighted him a little too much, making Spock nervous. He went to kid with Spock that it was an in-depth examination of the growth of his chess skills, purely for science, and then stopped himself, smile fading and suddenly missing the glass he had given up.
"Shit, Spock, I'm sorry, I didn't think about what night tonight was." And Uhura had probably made other plans already, because she was awesome like that about Chess Night, and he was an idiot, and it would be so awkward to invite Spock to join him and the ambassador, but should he?
"Tonight?"
Jim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It really irked him when Spock was deliberately obtuse. "Our standing chess game."
"Captain, are you suggesting that I am somehow slighted because you have chosen to play chess with my counterpart tonight?"
Jim worked over the words in his mind, trying to pick them apart and find some iota of direction to latch onto, but came up empty. "Yes?" he ventured.
"Then you are mistaken. I accounted for the long hours the delegate dinner would take, and surmised that you would rather retire than try to continue our appointment." Spock didn't look offended, but then, he rarely did.
"Oh... well then." Jim resisted the urge to scratch the back of his head, feeling like he had totally misjudged the situation, and the adrenaline began to recede. "Great. I'll see you on the bridge, oh five thirty."
"Captain." Spock bowed and turned on his heel to leave. He engaged in small talk with various delegates and crew members, all the while contemplating what Jim had done. He had been honest when he said he had not felt slighted. "Slighted" was not the word he would use to describe his current state of mind.
He felt... unsettled. Disappointed because he rather looked forward to their appointment, and to find he had been cast aside for...
Cast aside for himself, really. Which proved it a perfectly ridiculous matter to dwell upon. No doubt it even explained away Jim's forgetfulness, which was creating the majority of his discontent. Therefore there was nothing left to consider but his own plans for the evening now.
Meditation or distraction would be in order. "Distraction" of course meaning "diversion", in the sense of activities to entertain, not to pull one's thoughts away from other matters on which they should be.
He would seek out Nyota then, explain the situation to her, and then ascertain whether or not she was available. And if she endeavored to give him any unwanted and unneeded sympathy regarding the issue, he would simply allow her to believe that her presence would constitute the Human concept of "catharsis." Even if that was entirely not the case. She would take pleasure in that.