"Romancing her in the moonlight, kaka?" Upenda asked when Spock and Uhura returned to the house. She and her parents were sitting in the ground floor great room, lounging in chairs near the south-facing windows.
Before her sister's fiancé could answer, she found herself with armful of Nyota.
"Dada! When did you get here?" the armful demanded.
Upenda laughed as she extricated herself from her exuberant little sister.
"Down, Ennie! You'd think you hadn't seen me last night," she teased. "I got here nearly an hour ago while Spock was 'showing you around his mother's garden.'" She winked outrageously at the half-Vulcan.
Spock raised an eyebrow.
"I assure you, dada," he told her, "this evening I was simply sharing Amanda's Garden with Nyota." He glanced over to Benjamin and M'Umbha. "There will be time enough for other… activities after the ceremonies the day after tomorrow."
Upenda choked back a laugh as she met her mother's gleaming eyes and her father's satisfied smile.
"Gods, family!" she exclaimed upon realizing she was the only one hiding her amusement. "What on Earth have you done to poor Spock? Less than twenty-four hours in your company and already he's making suggestive jokes?"
"On the contrary, dada," the man in question said, taking a seat next to his fiancée's sister, "it was while in your presence that I learned the art of suggestive teasing."
She swatted him with a colorful cushion and the family settled down to enjoy one another's company.
________________________
Benjamin Uhura was feeling uncomfortable again. He wasn't sure he wanted to have the conversation he was about to begin with his son-in-law-to-be, but M'Umbha had been insistent, and, as Spock undoubtedly already knew, at times it was unwise to refuse a Wakufunzi woman.
The women had retired to Nyota's room to do whatever it was women did when preparing for a wedding. He could probably avoid having to say what his wife wanted him to say, asking the questions she wanted him to ask. But he was certain that if he chose that course, he would be spending the night sleeping on the couch in his home office. It was not quite as comfortable as the one he kept at work. He swallowed his apprehension as best he could and went for it.
"Mwana," he began, his voice almost steady, "I know something of Vulcan culture, and something of your experiences on your home planet."
Spock turned to him, a brow raised in curiosity, but did not speak.
Benjamin swallowed again.
"I realize that you are a grown man and have spent many years on Earth, where you have no doubt picked up some Terran habits," he said. "Please, mwana, interrupt me at any time if what I have to say is unnecessary." He was practically begging Spock to stop him and figured the young man was astute enough to be aware of this. "I'm sure your father has already had this conversation with you at some point, but my wife wanted to be certain that someone spoke to you on the matter. Apparently, that someone is to be me if Ambassador Sarek has not already done so."
He was pretty sure that there was a half-grin on the half-Vulcan's face, but as they were standing outside on the dark terrace and Spock had turned back to look over the grounds, he couldn't be entirely certain. Swallowing a third time, he pressed on.
"In less than two days, you will be a married man." Benjamin felt his face heat. "I know that while Vulcan society does not forbid it, it does not encourage it, so there is a chance that you might be… you might not have… you might be inexperienced in that area."
Spock turned to face him again. "Indeed, baba," he said, "I have no experience at all in being a husband."
Benjamin definitely detected a note of amusement in his voice. He sighed in relief at the younger man's teasing.
"Spock," he said, his voice completely assured this time, "Nyota's mother wants to make sure you can please her. In every way that a husband is supposed to please his wife. I am not the right person to speak to you about this, as I'm sure you realize. She is my baby. And while I also wish her to have a long and… happy marriage with you, I would really prefer not to— ."
The half-human placed a hand on Benjamin's shoulder, stopping him mid-speech.
"Do not concern yourself on the matter, baba," he said. "My mother initiated a similar conversation with me, if the timing you gave is correct, very soon after Nyota declared she would marry me some day. I assure you, she will be very happily married."
Benjamin decided not to think too much about the meaning behind Spock's words, and simply nodded.
Both men leaned forward to rest their forearms on the stone railing, and in nearly identical postures, continued to contemplate the night.
________________________
"How are you going to wear it for the ceremony?" M'Umbha asked her youngest child.
Uhura leaned back against her mother's generous bosom and sighed. She stared at their reflection in the vanity mirror. Her mother's hands were buried in her long thick hair, gently massaging.
"I don't know, Mama," she said. "It'll mostly be covered by the veil, so however we do it, it's will have look nice with that."
"Well, if you still plan to cut it off when you go back to the Enterprise," Upenda chimed in from where she lay sprawled on her little sister's bed, "you should do something spectacular with it now. You won't be covered in a veil the whole time."
M'Umbha's fingers stopped caressing her daughter's head and she began pulling strands through her fingers.
"I'm not convinced you should cut it all off when you return to your starship, binti," she told her daughter. "Perhaps just a little cut, leaving enough so that you can put it up into a bun so that it's out of your way when you need it to be… "
Upenda popped up into a sitting position. "Yeah!" she said, excitement washing through her voice. "That way, if you'll still have choices if you need them. And a bun will work nicely on those pesky away missions."
Uhura rolled her eyes. "Those 'pesky away missions' will probably be getting a lot more serious now that Command is convinced Kirk knows what he's doing. I don't think they'll be sending us out on many more milk runs this time around. They've already wasted five years because they thought the flagship's crew was too green to handle anything real." She grimaced at the memory of the boring assignments she'd and her colleagues had out up with.
Her sister got up from the bed and walked over to stand beside their mother.
"Well, talking about dangerous missions and how much you're looking forward to them isn't really putting me in a wedding kind of mood," she said. "I've got some ideas for that hair of yours. Let's play!"
The women all met eyes in the mirror. Three near-identical smiles spread across their faces as they got down to women's work.
Aunties and uncles and cousins and a whole host of other connections began arriving the next morning.
Benjamin and Spock did most of the greeting as the Uhura women were still worn out from their late-night hairdressing session. The men in the family had sensibly retired soon after their aborted "birds and the bees" discussion.
M'Umbha managed to stir herself to greet Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy with several hugs and kisses and many a "thank you" when the two arrived just before lunch.
Uhura watched with a not inconsiderable amount of trepidation as the three engaged in a rapid-fire semi-secret consultation after the welcoming was finished. She felt her heart sink lower and lower as McCoy gesticulated wildly and Kirk rubbed his hands together eagerly.
When the three turned speculative eyes on her, she smiled in spite of the nausea welling in her tummy.
________________________
"Len, are your crazy? The wedding is tomorrow!" Uhura frowned fiercely at her friend and clutched her gown to her chest. "I don't know how you convinced my mother that this was a good idea — she must be suffering from sleep deprivation or something — but I am not letting you change this dress!"
"Now don't go gettin' your panties in a twist, gorgeous," Bones groused without much bite as he reached for the dress. "Your mama loved it! You are gonna love it, too. I promise! It's the same greens as Spock's robes."
Uhura spun around out of his reach and straight into Kirk.
"C'mon," the captain cajoled, "it's gonna look great, Uhura. I promise. And when Spock sees how beautiful you look, all the Vulcan stoicism in the universe isn't going to keep his hands off you. Seriously, he'll probably grab you, throw you down and ha— ."
"Enough, Jim! That ain't helpin' things," the doctor snapped. "If I know that Vulcan, he probably can barely keep his hands to himself as it is. I know I wouldn't."
Uhura turned back to him, trying to hide a smile under her frown. Of course, she wasn't very successful.
"Oh, Bones," she said sweetly, "you really know how to make a girl feel special."
McCoy waggled his eyebrows and grinned lasciviously.
"That's what I'm here for darlin'," he said and held out a hand.
At that, Uhura couldn't hold back her mirth, and she erupted into peals of laughter. He shoulders shook and she came close to dropping the gown, but after her giggles faded into a wide grin, she aimed a considering look at her colleagues.
"All right, fine!" she said, at last, handing the dress to a smug-looking McCoy. "But if I have to walk down the aisle naked, you can be damned sure Spock will make you both pay."
"I promise you, beautiful," he said, "much as I think that sight of you in the buff would be worth a beat-down from that overgrown elf, nothing is gonna go wrong with this dress."
A/N: So sorry it's taken me so long to update this! I had so much written already when the old computer died, I didn't want to have to replace it with new content. But I've finally accepted that I'm not getting any of that back unless I pay for data retrieval and started writing new stuff again. (10/26 EDIT: Fixed a mistake in the timing.)
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.