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Chapter 6
T'Spock was just about to lock up her lab when Professor Matsumura poked his head in.
"I seem to have lost my stylus," he said. "I think that I left it in here. May I have a look?"
T'Spock consulted her inner clock; she had 2 minutes and 37 seconds before Cadet Uhura would expect her outside. She stifled her internal irritation - she didn't like cutting it so close. But Professor Matsumura's request was innocuous.
"Be my guest," she said.
The diminutive, gray-haired man made his way into the lab. "Will you be joining us at Commander Sharpton's tonight?" he said, poking his head under the subspace simulator array.
"Yes," said T'Spock.
"Oh, that is good to hear," he said straightening stiffly. "We missed you at her last gathering. Your assistant came - he's practically a member of this department. But you did not." His head disappeared under the three-dimensional array generator.
"In fact I was going to meet the Cadet now. He is going to help me pick out an appropriate gift to take," T'Spock said, hoping Matsumura would get the hint.
Toshi straightened again. "Omiyage, always good to bring..." he said looking at the floor. He scratched behind an ear and said quietly, "I think you are perhaps very fond of the cadet."
T'Spock straightened. Of everyone in the department, Matsumura was the human she was most comfortable with. He had spent time on Vulcan, even purportedly had Vulcan friends - though she wasn't sure if this was meant in the human or Vulcan sense of the word. Vulcans took friendship much more seriously than humans did.
Matsumura never touched her fingers, occasionally practiced his Vulcan with her, and seemed to be highly aware of Vulcan cultural taboos. So hearing him say she was "fond of the cadet" was like being struck. It was an egregious insult. He was accusing her of letting her feelings show.
Worse yet, the word fond was fraught with meanings. T'Spock's mind jumped immediately to the most insulting, overindulgent.
T'Spock bristled. "We are colleagues. We share common interests, and there is considerable overlap in our fields of expertise. Occasionally we indulge in conversation that is mutually beneficial to both our vocational trajectories outside of the laboratory."
She swallowed. Their conversation when she got news of I'Chala's death was hardly professional. However...
"I have never let that our acquaintanceship outside of the laboratory interfere with judgment in the laboratory," T'Spock said. And it was true. "Mr. Uhura is held to the strictest professional standards, and he always continues to surpass them."
Meeting her eyes, Toshi said softly, "Of course. I do not doubt that."
Looking down again, he patted the back of his pants. "Ah, wait. Here it is." Pulling a stylus out of the back pocket he said, "I will see you later tonight." He bowed slightly without meeting her gaze and then left the room.
T'Spock felt heat drain from her face. Had she been visibly flushing? She took a breath, willing her heart to slow in her side. Other meanings of the word fond came to mind. Unreasonable feeling...
She blinked. Feeling. What were her feelings precisely towards Mr. Uhura? She was very comfortable with him, as he seemed to be with her. He was one of the few humans who joked with her. He certainly had no trouble telling her when he thought she was wrong. She enjoyed the time they spent together outside of the lab, obviously. What other reason was there to seek out someone's company?
Their conversations were intellectually stimulating, and...
...and even when they weren't, she still enjoyed being with him. He didn't embarrass her by talking loudly and drawing attention, he didn't touch her even accidentally, and although he seemed to pick up on her moods, he didn't press her to divulge personal information. Which meant that sometimes she did, despite herself, like I'Chala...it had been nice to be with someone that day after work.
To avoid the truth about oneself was the worst kind of lie, as Sarek would say. She needed to face the facts. She was fond of Mr. Uhura, but fondness didn't necessarily imply an affection that was unreasonable.
She went to the window in her lab and gazed down to the grounds below. Uhura was already there. His hands were clasped behind his back. He turned towards the building, a slight, mysterious smile on his face, and then turned away again towards the setting sun. The orange light of setting Sol was turning his skin a deep burnished copper around the edges like it had that morning in the cantina.
T'Spock swallowed. If she was fond of him, what of it? Nothing need logically come of that.
It was true; she found him, as her mother would say, "Easy on the eyes." Sometimes in his presence she felt the rise of the hormone cascade that came before the sensations of physical desire, but Vulcan disciplines gave her the ability to quell such biological reactions.
And so what? Biology wasn't destiny. They could remain close without falling into a torrid, illicit affair as humans were so fond of. Why, Mr. Uhura had not in any way demonstrated that he would be interested in such a thing. And she doubted he ever would. He was very committed to his career, and she respected him all the more for it.
Or maybe he just didn't find her attractive.
She shivered and put her hands behind her back. The damp and the cold here were still offputting after so many years. Turning away from the window, she shook her head.
Whether he found her attractive did not matter, one way or another.
With quick, determined steps she went to the door of the lab, locked up, and headed down the stairs.
If Toshi had noticed her attachment to Uhura, perhaps others had as well. Her jaw tightened. She was not breaking any rules with Uhura. If humans assumed that she was 'overindulgent' or 'unreasonable,' hen they were wrong, and she could prove it with her word. There was no logical reason to end a relationship that was mutually enriching, whatever humans might think.
Approaching the glass doors of the building, she saw that Jim Kirk and his frequent companion Dr. Leonard McCoy had joined Uhura. As she stepped out into open air her eyes met McCoy's just as Kirk said, "Lieutenant Hot Stuff."
T'Spock's eyes narrowed.
"That's disrespectful," said Uhura. Her heart thumped a little faster in her side and she felt the beginnings of one of those unwelcome hormone cascades.
Putting her hands behind her back she stifled the irksome chemicals blooming in her brain. "I could have you written up on sexual harassment charges for that," she said.
x x x x
For perhaps the first time since the night in Iowa, T'Spock was not completely comfortable in Uhura's company. The revelation that she had feelings for him was disquieting enough.
But apparently she had blundered and embarrassed Uhura in some way. She held a bottle of wine in her hand, not reading the label.
"...I'm just saying," he said, "that mentioning buying alcohol, without describing the exact context, is perhaps not the best idea."
"Why?" she asked, turning the bottle around in her hand. They were at the back of the shop and the bottles around her were dusty. She suppressed the urge to sneeze.
"Because...it could be taken out of context...and you and me buying an inebriating substance..."
"I am not inebriated by alcohol," T'Spock said.
Uhura took a long breath. "Isn't chocolate an inebriating substance for you?"
"Yes," said T'Spock meeting his gaze. "But I hardly see how that question is relevant -"
Uhura lifted a hand as he sometimes did that when he was talking. "If two Vulcans were to be overheard discussing their intentions to shop for chocolate..." As he spoke his hand moved in the air.
Following it with her eyes, T'Spock said, "Vulcans would never discuss something of that nature in public. Becoming inebriated is illogical, leading to fallacies in logic and breakdowns in control."
"Exactly," said Uhura. "Now you see what humans might think."
"But humans do not find it illogical to drink together, or discuss drinking together in public."
Not meeting her eyes, Uhura moved down the aisle and said, "Let's head over to the champagne section."
T'Spock fell into step beside him. "In fact," T'Spock said, "when we finished with our translation of..." She looked about quickly; the shop was mostly empty. Only a few patrons wandered the aisles. In the far corner the clerk was watching a holo playing above the register. "...Captain Kalanel's transmission yesterday morning at 9 a.m., Lieutenant Commander O'Hara offered Commander Sharpton, Professor Matsumura, you and myself some of his secret stash."
Stopping in front of a shelf of French champagnes, Uhura took a deep breath. "Are you teasing me? Sometimes I can't tell."
"No," said T'Spock straightening.
"Okay, that was different because it was a group setting. An offer overheard between you and me...might be taken the wrong way," Uhura said.
T'Spock's eyes narrowed. She knew the expression, "the wrong way." It usually involved some misunderstanding of a sexual intent. Which made no sense in this instance.
T'Spock tilted her head. "I have overheard O'Hara offering Commander Sharpton a drink in public on numerous occasions."
Uhura closed his eyes. "That's different."
"Why?" T'Spock asked. The taboo she had broken was exceedingly complicated; no wonder she'd blundered. She wasn't feeling so bad now.
Licking his lips Uhura said, "Because Commander Sharpton is..."
"O'Hara's commanding officer and female, our situation exactly."
"No," Uhura said meeting her eyes. "It's not." He picked up a bottle from the rack. "This will do. Nice and dry, you'll like it, too."
Taking the bottle without glancing at it, T'Spock said, "By every metric I can measure, besides the fact that you are a cadet, perhaps, and I am Vulcan, our situation is completely the same as O'Hara's and Sharpton's. "
"But it's different," Uhura said heading towards the register. "For one, Patrick is married...for another, Doris, Commander Sharpton, is...matronly...and you are..."
"And I am?" T'Spock said, willing her face not to flush and suddenly very worried about what Uhura would say.
"...not," he finished.
"I see," said T'Spock not sure if she did. Was this a compliment?
Uhura stopped and met her eyes. He was 3.5 centimeters closer than he normally stood. "You are not matronly, at all. You are..."
T'Spock could smell coffee on his breath and could see the hints of a three o'clock shadow on his face; in her side her heart began to beat wildly. She wanted to reach up and touch his chin...or to bite it. He suddenly looked so...delicious.
From across the room the holo volume began to increase.
"...and so the rumors have been confirmed. Josef Friedman's daughter, Rachel Friedman, sole heir to his billion credit fortune is engaged..."
T'Spock blinked and looked at the holo, grateful for an excuse to look away and reclaim her control.
"I know her," she said.
"...to Tilem last-name-as-usual-unpronouncable, one of the Vulcan researchers Mr. Friedman employs at HoloSuite..."
On the screen Rachel's familiar face flashed, half German, half Ethopian, her skinthe color of cafe au lait, her hair a mass of glossy black waves pulled back from her face. She was smiling ear to ear, leaning her head against someone equally familiar. His well-proportioned perfectly symmetrical features set in light olive skin were not smiling - but of course that meant nothing. His head was tilted towards Rachel's, which meant everything.
Despite herself T'Spock's mouth dropped open ever so slightly.
"You know her?" she heard Uhura ask.
"I know both of them," T'Spock said, a chill inexplicably coming over her. "I thought quite well."
A/N:
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