"When, exactly, did you inform my mother of your intention to be my intended?" Spock asked.
He walked through the Amanda Garden, as Benjamin had named it, hands tucked behind his back. Early evening had brought little relief from the day's heat, and the warm air was heavy with the mingled fragrances of many varieties of roses. His eyes followed Uhura as she stopped to examine each variety of rose they passed.
"Oh, you know, a while ago," she said, bending to breath in the heady scent of a particularly large bloom in shades of lavender and cream. "Mm," she murmured. "It's almost like honey suckle."
"Seven years ago, you were just beginning to see me as a friend rather than an instructor, Nyota," he said, raising an eyebrow.
She turned to him, smiling.
"More like seven point four, actually," she said, stepping closer. "It was the summer after my second year at the Academy. And we were already very good friends, whether you realized it or not."
He reached out and placed a hand on each of her shoulders, pulling her closer still.
"I certainly considered you a friend," he said. "One of my… dearest companions, even. I was not certain of your feelings, however. You continued to call me 'Lieutenant,' on occasion, for the next four months."
She grinned into his chest. A small giggle burbled out of her.
"You'd been 'Lieutenant Spock' to me for the past two years. It was a very sudden adjustment to think of you as just my Spock."
He wrapped his arms more fully around, trapping her arms at her sides, and squeezed.
"I was 'yours' already, then?" he asked. Amusement colored his voice.
"Of course you were, k'diwa," she replied matter-of-factly. "You were always mine, whether I realized it or not."
Spock refrained from replying to her most illogical statement.
___________________
"Oh Spock," whispered Uhura, "it's beautiful. And it smells divine."
She buried her face in a cluster of orange and brown flowers.
"They smell like you, Nyota," Spock murmured. "I described your scent to Mother and she attempted to replicate it in Nyota beta. While she was unable to achieve a satisfactory flower diameter, the fragrance is all that she hoped it would be."
Uhura straighten and looked up at him. The growing darkness couldn't hide the wonder in her eyes.
"It's… I-I'm so touched that she did for me, Spock," she said. "I mean, I knew she loved me. I knew that. But this is amazing. It must have taken so much time. And we only knew each other for… ."
Spock touched her face as her words trailed off.
"We are capable of doing what is amazing when we endeavor to please the ones we love," he told her. "Were you not the one who taught me that?"
A/N: Serious computer injury will be keeping me from posting from home for at least the next week. These short updates are just what I had on my work machine.
Warning: I will repost the (very) extended (about three or four times as long) version of this chapter once (if) I can access it again, so you might want to hold off on reviewing. (Maybe the title will tell you what the full chapter looks like.)
If you just can't wait to tell me how awesome of awful I am, I welcome PMs.
Obviously, I missed my Sunday deadline. Oops. Hope you're enjoying anyway.
Usual disclaimer: I don't own the characters, most of the chapter titles are songs or song lyrics I also don't own, etc., etc.