"Who would like to start?" Mbaruku prompted. His confidence in this less threatening approach now bolstered, he tried to look even more relaxed. "Nyota…? You start." What the pair revealed and did not choose to reveal would speak volumes. He hoped that—finally—he could find some relief for his curiosity and concerns.

Nyota and Commander Spock exchanged glances. He nodded to her, granting some kind of permission.

"Well, uh, I first met Spock in his advanced Vulcan class at the beginning of my second year. He had just returned from service aboard an exploration vessel with Captain Pike. Command posted him at the Academy until construction of the Enterprise was complete. I did not meet him one-on-one until a couple weeks later during office hours when I had to ask a question about an assignment. After that, during the first half of the year, we saw each other almost daily in class, sometimes outside of it if I needed help. As my coursework advanced, I consulted him more often. By the end of the year, we had a standing appointment on Thursdays to review my projects and my progress. Because we had to fit our appointments in between classes and activities, we started meeting for lunch hour at the Academy cafeteria or, when I had a few extra credits, at Verna's Vegetarian Café off campus.

"At the end of that year, Commander Raiyal—our department head—announced that she was accepting applications for teaching assistants for the next year. I applied. Because my grades were good and I specialized Vulcan-Romulan studies, she recommended me to Spock, and he agreed to take me on even earlier, starting with the summer session. We met each other three mornings a week to develop the first-semester lesson plans and course materials. With my new job, the Academy increased my stipend. Spock and I met at Verna's for lunch every Thursday after that. We both needed a break from the cafeteria—well, I did, at least."

Nothing too controversial during that first year, Mbaruku thought. He remembered Nyota mentioning how happy she had been to receive that assistant posting at that time.

"During this time, we became friends," Nyota continued. "We could not be close friends because of the Academy's student-instructor fraternization policies, though technically they did not apply because I was no longer Spock's student. But Spock was an officer and I was a cadet, so we kept our friendship at a professional level."

This also sounded reasonable to Mbaruku. Several of his current friendships were with people who had started as his students. As those students progressed through their graduate studies, these relationships developed into deeper friendships. Many of these people were now Mbaruku's colleagues.

Nyota shifted on the couch. "Well, that's where I thought we had kept it until I came home during summer leave two years ago… Mama, remember that day after Aisha's birthday party when you asked me if I was all right? You said I seemed depressed, but I had to keep telling you that I was OK?"

Faizah nodded. "Yes, I remember. I had wondered if you had ended a relationship I knew nothing about. You were acting as your sister does whenever she ends one."

Nyota shook her head. "You were right. I was depressed, but it was not about a relationship I had ended. I was depressed about a relationship I could never hope to start. After a week away from Spock, I realized that I missed him. Then I realized that I was attracted to him. I spent the rest of the month telling myself to stop it. It wasn't going to happen. I was a cadet; he was an officer. There were too many differences. I was being stupid. I had to get over it. It was pathetic!"

"You could never be 'pathetic,'" Faizah soothed sympathetically.

Nyota laughed. "Oh, yes, I could! I did more moping than sleeping in my room—I'm glad you didn't have to see that! I loved being home, but I couldn't wait to return to the Academy, and then I was just as scared to return! I kept telling myself that 'We mighty Starfleet cadets don't run from our fears. We deal with them!'" Nyota breathed out and rolled her eyes. "My stupid crush was not going to screw up my work or our friendship, and I refused to join the legions of other besotted, smitten, infatuated, lovesick schoolgirls pining after Spock."

After Nyota's humorous string of adjectives, Spock's eyebrows rose in question. So did Mbaruku's.

"Nyota?" Spock asked.

Nyota harrumphed at the clueless man next to her. "You can't tell me you didn't notice! There were at least eight members of the Spock Appreciation Society that I knew of, especially Cadet Meyerson. Didn't you see how she kept trying to get your attention? How many times did she 'forget' her project PADD in your office just so she'd have to come back and get it?"

Spock's brow furrowed. "The repeated incidences of 'forgetfulness' were puzzling, and the cadet did have a propensity to engage in a higher degree of 'small talk' than the general cadet population."

Nyota rolled her eyes again. "She was flirting with you."

"I did not recognize that."

The commander's innocent expression rivaled that of a kitten's, Mbaruku mused.

Nyota briefly touched her boyfriend's forearm lightly. "I'm glad you didn't," she laughed. "Anyone else who saw it thought she was embarrassing herself because, whether you knew what she was doing or not, you obviously were not interested."

"No. I was not," he stated sternly. "That is certain."

Mbaruku noted how the commander now drew himself up, gathering a cape of Vulcan dignity around himself. The commander's disinterest in engaging in casual relationships with obviously willing women was oddly comforting, however. And, at least up to this point in the story, it sounded like the commander had done nothing to encourage romantic interest from Nyota.

Nyota took a deep breath before continuing. "I didn't want to be another Meyerson. I was going to do my job, and Spock would never know about my feelings if I could help it."

Mbaruku held up his hand. "What attracted you to the commander?"

Nyota became a little shy. "I enjoyed working with him. He was one of my best instructors. He was…I don't know…intriguing."

Mbaruku could not fault her for that. Commander Spock was enigmatic on many levels.

"How so?" Mbaruku asked, watching the commander's expression flicker briefly with discomfort upon Nyota's declaration before he returned to his mask of calm.

"He's the most intelligent person I've ever met, and I enjoyed talking to him. At first we talked mostly about coursework, language, and culture. Then our conversations started getting longer, and we could talk for hours about many things. Although he was teaching language courses, his specialty is the sciences, so he began advising me on my science coursework and projects, too. Then he started teaching me about Vulcan music after I found out that he plays the piano and ka'athyra—a ka'athyra is like a small harp, but with a modulator that changes the pitch. The more we talked, the more I learned about him. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know him better. Does that make sense?"

For someone with Nyota's natural curiosity, Mbaruku understood how the commander's unique background, musical talents, and impressive depth and breadth of knowledge could capture her attention. "It does," he acknowledged. "It does not explain your quote, unquote 'stupid crush' or the lovesickness, however. You can work with someone and find that person interesting without developing an emotional interest. Commander," he had to ask, just to be sure, "you did not encourage such an interest, did you?"

Spock looked slightly affronted. "No, Sir."

"How did it happen, then?"

"I don't know, Baba. Sometime before I came home on leave, I connected with him. The first time I saw him after I returned to the Academy, I knew I had fallen in love."

"How did you know that it was 'love'?"

Nyota looked directly at her father. "How did you know that you had fallen in love with Mama?" she challenged.

Mbaruku shrugged. "Point taken."

"That must have been very difficult," Faizah said. "What did you do?"

"I followed through on my decision that Spock was never going to find out. I had to keep it to myself, and keep that 'stiff upper lip,' as they say. It was hard, especially after we started working together again. I tried to keep my distance, keep everything business-like. I even tried to be cold and distant. Every time I tried, though, I knew it confused him—it's not like he had done anything to me. I felt so guilty."

Faizah's voice was sympathetic. "Did you ever ask her about it, Spock?"

"No," the Vulcan replied quietly, obviously out of his comfort zone.

"And he wouldn't ask," Nyota affirmed. "A Vulcan would never ask another person about his or her emotional state unless it had effects that couldn't be ignored, as in a medical situation, or a condition that creates a threat to others. Inquiries on that subject are an invasion of privacy, and they may compromise emotional control. That is why they are forbidden except in rare cases. And we didn't have the kind of relationship that would allow him to ask me anything that could clue him into what was bothering me.

"He knew something was going on, that I was upset. I could see that he knew, but we kept working together as we always had. It was getting to be impossible. I was afraid I was going to break one day."

Mbaruku had to admit to himself that Nyota had put up a valiant effort. "Then how did he find out? Did you suddenly tell him this?"

Nyota looked to Spock, offering an expression of encouragement. Mbaruku guessed that this next part of their story was about to reveal something very private to him.

"No. It happened while I was on a training exercise," Nyota continued. "I never told you about this, either, so please don't get upset. I wasn't seriously injured—"

"—Not seriously injured? Nyota!" Despite Nyota's request, Faizah became upset anyway. "You never said that you were ever injured at all."

"No, because I knew that you would worry too much. Most cadets are injured sometime during their time at the Academy." Nyota explained, though Faizah now looked her up and down, as if she could detect unmentioned injuries that had healed long ago. "It reminds us to focus on our task, and, believe me, once you've been injured because you didn't pay full attention to what you are doing, or because you were not thorough in checking out your equipment, you never make that mistake again. People who are repeatedly injured usually figure out that Starfleet is not for them."

"Was the commander with you on the training exercise?" Mbaruku asked, eager to get on with the story.

"No, Spock was back at the Academy teaching his classes, and my unit was out at Yosemite. Several of us were scaling a rock face. Cadet Jarrel didn't anchor his climbing gear properly, and it came loose. He fell past me, but his equipment fell on top of me, which knocked me in the head and made me lose my own grip. I fell about 50 meters before my safety harness caught me, after I had bounced against the cliff a few times."

At this point, Nyota looked up at the Vulcan. Mbaruku felt that here was the major turning point in Nyota's story.

"As I fell, when I didn't know whether my harness would function or not with Jarrel's gear caught in mine, I almost screamed out to Spock for help. He was the first one I thought of. I wanted him there. And, after I stopped falling, when I was dangling there waiting to be rescued, I wondered why my last thoughts before my imminent death were of him. I knew I was hopeless."

"How, then, did Spock find out how you felt?" Faizah asked.

"At the moment I fell, his mind heard me cry out for him."

Mbaruku sat up, stunned. What?

Faizah's eyes opened wide. "How was that possible?"

Nyota shook her head. "We don't know. We were not a bonded couple."

"Bonded couple?" Mbaruku was unfamiliar with what that meant.

Nyota looked at the Vulcan again, again seeking his silent permission. He nodded to her.

Nyota's face took on a deeper seriousness. "What I am about to tell you is very private and very personal to any Vulcan and would not normally be discussed. Spock is letting me tell you because he knows how important it is to me that you understand. No matter what, you cannot reveal what I tell you to anyone else. Can you promise us this?"

At this point, Mbaruku would have promised anything to find out what had happened between the two. He wondered what he would do if he learned something alarming. Could he fulfill a promise to keep such details secret?

"I will promise," Faizah answered, "but, Spock, I worry. Is this too personal for you? I do want to know more, and I want to understand. At the same time, I do not want Nyota to tell us anything you might regret later." She met his eyes sympathetically.

Alarms went off in Mbaruku's head. What was Faizah doing? Maybe she could live without knowing more, but he could not—especially after the part about minds and bonded couples and…what else would Nyota say?

One eyebrow rose, and the Vulcan's voice was almost warm as he answered Faizah. "Your consideration is most appreciated. However, this information is necessary."

"Thank you, Spock." Faizah moved her gaze to Mbaruku. "Mbaru?"

He decided to make his move before Faizah scuttled the opportunity. "I make my promise as well."

Nyota began. "There are many kinds of mental bonds between Vulcans. There are family links, links between very good friends, and betrothal and marriage bonds. Humans use touch to establish or promote their relationships; Vulcans use telepathic links in theirs. Typically establishing a Vulcan bond requires touch and formal protocols, or frequent contact between members of a family. But Spock and I had none of that. In all the time that I had known him, we had rarely touched each other, and even that was accidental. Everyone knows that you don't touch a touch-telepath. Vulcans, as touch-telepaths, avoid physical contact with others to avoid invading their privacy."

Nyota looked from parent to the other, as if to ensure that they understood so far. Mbaruku nodded his acknowledgment, as did Faizah.

"I decided that my infatuation with Spock was futile and too distracting, and I intended to resign my assistant position once we returned to the Academy," Nyota continued. "But when I got back, Spock met our unit at the transportation terminal. He told the cadet captain that he 'required' my presence and asked for my release for the rest of the day. The cadet captain had no reason not to grant Spock's request, so Spock and I went to his office.

"When we were alone, Spock confronted me and told me about strong sensations that he had felt from my mind. They had seized him while he was teaching a class. It was like an assault. He nearly passed out, which, of course, concerned him. He wanted to know what my psi rating was, demanded to know why I had done that to him." Nyota's voice began to crescendo as she continued. "That's when I reached the end of my frustration and blew up at him. I told him that I had nothing to do with that. Just for his information, I had simply been falling to my death at the time and, sorry to say, could not control my impulses. I had no idea that I could reach him that way. He was the telepath. Maybe he should supply the explanation because I sure would love to know how that had happened!"

After reliving that intense moment, Nyota breathed out, calmed herself, and resumed more quietly. "And then he just looked at me, and I knew that the attraction was not one-sided anymore, that maybe it had never been. At that moment, everything changed. He realized that my dying thoughts were of him and that something had linked us."

Mbaruku exchanged an expression of surprise with his wife across the table. What a shock it must have been for the younger couple at that moment. He returned his attention to Nyota.

"If we were going to figure it out, we had to be honest. I confessed what I had been feeling and how much I had tried to fight it. But then I started thinking about all the time we spent together discussing my coursework or working on our projects. I realized that during the last few months, he had looked forward to our work sessions as much as I had, and I pointed that out to him. We had wanted to be together, and our work had been the means for being together. We had acknowledged our friendship before. So I asked him, point-blank, had we become more than that? After thinking about it, he realized that he had been having similar issues for as long as I had, and he said so."

At this point, the commander's façade broke. No longer making eye contact with either Mbaruku or Faizah, he stared at a point across the room, embarrassed. Commander Spock had fallen for his daughter as much as Nyota had fallen for him. Was it love on his part? In deference to Vulcan privacy, Mbaruku could not ask. At the very least, he surmised that the Vulcan had been pulled into an attraction that he could not control. Mbaruku wondered how difficult revealing this information had been. To his credit, the Vulcan had not restricted Nyota from revealing it, which increased Mbaruku's respect for the younger's character. He was being truthful.

Nyota seemed to recognize how much this admission had cost her beloved, so she continued more carefully. "We talked through our concerns, about what we could do to end it. Spock even considered transferring to another assignment. We spent the next two weeks talking about it, looking at possibilities. The problem was, now that we knew about our relationship, neither of us wanted to end it. And we came to the conclusion that, even without touch, our mind link resulted because we were uniquely matched to each other. Spock said that a link that originated as ours had was rare and might be difficult to dissolve. So, 'logically'…" Nyota sighed. "Logically, instead of expending more energy fighting this relationship, it might be better to continue with it to see if it would last."

Why, Mbaruku thought to himself, did this sound like the ultimate pick-up line: "A love like ours is so rare, we cannot let it go"?

"Commander," he began, "is it truly a 'rare ' situation?"

The Vulcan seemed to sense his skepticism. "It is," he replied tightly, still looking slightly embarrassed. "To actively form a link without the consent of both parties is immoral. As neither Nyota nor I did so, it is a singular development."

"Perhaps," Mbaruku shot back, worry chipping away at his own façade of calm, "but did you consider the ramifications to your careers—for Nyota's career—when you decided to continue?"

"Baba…," Nyota frowned.

"Mbaru…." Faizah's Glare of Death shot across the low table in warning.

Mbaruku, however, still had to get his biggest concerns out there. "And what about the fraternization policies? What would you have done if you had been discovered?"

"Sir, Nyota's best interests were and remain my greatest concern."

His embarrassment gone, Commander Spock's dark eyes flashed. The young man remained carefully seated as he regarded Mbaruku. Now that the commander was talking in longer sentences, Mbaruku was inexplicably grateful that there was a table between them, though it would do no good if the younger ever decided to go after him physically. Still, this low barrier added a measure of psychological comfort.

"Baba, please…," Nyota cajoled. "Listen. We looked at everything before we decided on remaining together, and it was the direction that met our best interests. I would not have been able to concentrate on my studies if he had gone away. Even with our new relationship, I was still gaining valuable experience working as his assistant, just as I was before. Spock was getting the help he needed for his classes. And, to tell you the truth, he was probably harder on me professionally. Knowing me better, he found out that my limits were higher than he had expected. So he pushed."

Nyota smiled a little and looked at Spock out of the corner of her eye. "People actually thought I was crazy staying on as his assistant."

The commander's eyes went skyward. "I heard," he remarked drily. "On numerous occasions."

Nyota and Faizah broke out laughing.

Mbaruku tilted his own head. Faizah's observations on the Vulcan's unexpected sense of humor were spot-on.

"And if anybody had found out," Nyota added, "then they would have had to prove that our relationship directly affected my grades or standing at the Academy. My grades were no longer an issue because Spock was not grading me, and my placement as his assistant was a result of Commander Raiyal's suggestion, not Spock's. There is also leeway allowed for inherent biological conditions. If our bond had come into question, then we could have used that as justification. A Vulcan healer could have confirmed what had happened. It's not something that either Spock or I could have controlled or expected. There are no 'mind link suppressants' that a Vulcan can take, not like the pheromone suppressants available to Deltans or Orions."

Mbaruku had to agree that his daughter and the commander had thought through their situation. "Besides the four of us, who else knows of your relationship?"

"Sarek. Some of our crewmates know, but they don't know much, and they have kept quiet about it. There isn't much to talk about when we don't tell them anything, and so far nobody's asked," Nyota answered. "You and Sarek are the only ones who know our history."

Yes, Mbaruku remembered, Ambassador Sarek had been aboard the ship during the battle with Nero. Perhaps his daughter and Sarek's son had informed him during the journey back to Earth after the Narada's destruction. Mbaruku briefly wondered if the ambassador shared some of his concerns. He had one more question. "What are your intentions now?"

Commander Spock closed his eyes, then opened them slowly, looking across the room again. Nyota touched his forearm lightly, and he relaxed slightly.

"Baba, our intentions are to continue building the relationship we have while exploring possibilities for the future. I am happy with that, it works for Spock. We're taking it slowly. We need to adjust to our new jobs and circumstances.…" Nyota looked again to the younger man. "Too much has happened recently. We can't make long-term decisions right now," she stated quietly. "But we will remain together."

This time she laid her hand onto one of the Vulcan's and closed her eyes, silently communicating with him. The fire that had been behind the Vulcan's eyes diminished as they concentrated elsewhere, looking beyond the objects in the room, perhaps focusing on the memories of a planet being sucked into nothingness. Though subtle, it was painful to see.

This conversation was at an end. Faizah got up to leave the young pair alone and beckoned to Mbaruku to do the same.

Mbaruku now had the answers to his most pressing questions, and he needed time to consider them. Although he wanted to know more, any desire that the father-warrior had to interrogate the younger man further was gone.

Author's Note May 27, 2011: Now the Uhuras know how it began, but Mbaruku still does not know the young alien who captured Nyota's heart. How will the two get to know one another...? :-)

Prayers, thoughts, and major mojo go out to the people of tornado-ravaged areas throughout the United States. We've lost over 500 people to these storms. May the rest of tornado season be less violent. (My husband and I dodged two tornadoes last weekend. We can do with less excitement, thank you very much!)

Again, a big thanks to T'Soy, who again earned my undying gratitude, this time for helping me avoid writing a major inconsistency into the "Insights" universe. What would I do without you?

And thank you, Readers, for sticking with this story and offering your own observations. I value them greatly, and they truly help me write a better story.