They hadn't spoken in private since that night on the Observation deck. It had been three weeks since that fortuitous night was spent in a conversation that needed to happen. In truth, both Uhura and Kirk knew that their first initial conversation was only a warm-up to many more needed and wanted conversations to come. Neither of them pushed the matter further. If they were going to form a friendship it would have to be organic. Forcing more conversation when there was nothing to say only led to awkward moments and steps backward. After the observation deck, neither Kirk nor Uhura wanted to regress.
She was just off of Beta shift and changed into a comfortable pair of yoga pants and a tank top in her own quarters. She and Spock may be lovers, but Nyota loved her own space and required massive amounts of personal time to recharge. Spock also required time to meditate and work and research. Most nights they would spend in his quarters, singing and playing or making love, or reading books; but when his unerring logic stopped making him quirky and started to make him unnerving, and when her illogical human emotionality stopped making her fascinating and started to make her seem absurd, they both knew it was time to spend some time doing the things that made then individuals. Spock and Nyota, though a couple, were anything but hopeless romantic dreamers. When they started their relationship they were individuals, and logic determines that one and one makes two.
Tonight was her fourth day of solitude and she wanted to be with Spock, and she could tell by his sideways glances and upturned eyebrows that he wanted to be with her as well. Destiny, however, intervened and caused the Delta Shift Captain to come down with Andorian Shingles. Spock naturally insisted that he take on both Alpha and Delta Shifts considering his Vulcan heritage and need for little sleep. Delta Shift was the graveyard shift, right before the morning shift, which is what the Command Bridge crew normally worked with exceptions at times. It seemed that there would be no visiting her lover tonight or for the next few nights. With thoughts on doing some analysis on an encrypted transmission she'd received earlier today from Trill air space, she folded her legs underneath her and curled into the nook of the couch resting her data PADD on the arm. She was just about to access transmission files when a message alert stopped her.
It was a message from Captain James T. Kirk wondering if she would like to join him for dinner and chess in his quarters. He also promised that he'd behave and would even let her beat him in chess.
Like he would need to, Nyota thought. She responded that she would be at his quarters within the hour and that he better be ready to lose. She rose from the couch, plugged her PADD into the charging unit, pulled on a pair of small slippers and exited her quarters.
It didn't take her long to make it to the Captain's quarters; she could count on one hand how many times she'd actually been inside. Spock always remarked on how uncharacteristically Spartan Jim's quarters were. Spock had said it appeared almost as if he'd taken none of the memories of his past life with him when he joined Starfleet. It was as if Jim Kirk of Iowa was a ghost that haunted the newly legend Captain James T. Kirk.
She rang the com on the door and it slid open without even so much as a sound. She entered and smelled the most delightful smells coming from his kitchen. She had a kitchenette, the Captain had a kitchen. She see didn't Kirk but she could hear him turning on water and banging pots and pans around. Finally she saw him; he was holding two plates of food and placing them on a nicely set dinner table. There were no candles, no roses, and no low-set lights. He wasn't dressed to seduce in black silk shirts that billowed romantically in the wind. He didn't even have wine. The plates were hard, blue plastic and piled high with pasta and meatballs. This was possibly the most platonic, unromantic setting she could even conjure from a private dinner with Jim in his rooms. She was unbelievably relieved and fantastically surprised.
She grabbed her heaping plate of pasta and dug in, standing instead of sitting. They stuffed their mouths full of pasta and sauce, not saying a word. Nyota choked back a bite of pasta and meatballs and started to speak.
"When I was growing up, my mother used to say that I put a curse on her kitchen because I would stand and eat with my plate in my hand. Spock doesn't care for it either, but his reasoning is not superstition like my mothers," she said and then took another bite of the pasta. It was extremely good and the meatballs were spicy. It reminded her of earth, of being able to walk on the sandy beaches of San Francisco the feel of sand between her toes. Home was so far away, a place that she could feel in her senses, in the warm memories that etched over her mind. She could paper the skies with her reminiscences and momentary want for tactile earth and still never want to step off the Enterprise. She would probably be removed kicking and screaming from this ship.
"Are you saying that we should sit down before we curse this kitchen?" he asked, walking the small distance from the kitchen to the round table in a small nook. She followed suit and sat.
"Either my mother is the best cook on this side of Alpha Centauri or that superstition is unwarranted. We never wanted for delicious food," she smirked and took another bite, some of the sauce flying up and hitting her on her nose. Kirk chuckled as he watched Uhura wipe the pasta sauce from the tip of her perfect nose. And how did he notice that her nose was perfect? He wouldn't allow his thoughts to travel down that road. He was past the frat boy lust and catcalls that he used in previous encounters. What they'd shared with one another 3 weeks prior was something real. It was probably the most authentic moments of his life. Honesty and candid conversation were worth unfathomable amounts more than any of the sex he'd ever had. She hadn't given him her body or her heart, she'd bared her soul and he, in turn, wanted to bare his.
"Not that I ever used anything but the replicator until tonight," he wiped his mouth and stood from the table walking over to the chiller and pulling out one beer. He motioned to her asking her if she'd join him in imbibing and she nodded and slurped another noodle. He popped open the tops and sat down an ice cold beer in front of her. She grabbed the longneck and chugged, washing down the mixed flavors of acidic tomato and spicy beef and nutty pasta with a heavy, dark Guiness. This was planet earth at its finest: two human beings, enjoying being human with truly human inventions. It was simplistic in its beauty and the sentiments were not lost on either of the two parties.
"I didn't know you cooked. This is really good," she said, taking another swig from the Guiness.
"I can cook, but I'm no chef or anything like that. I can cook easy stuff, I had to learn when I was left at home and my mother went off planet. Me and my brother George would take turns cooking for Frank." he didn't look at her and he didn't sound like there was much more to discuss, but Uhura could tell there was something hiding between the thin lines that Jim Kirk draws so near. He wanted her to ask, he wanted her to pry, to feel sorry for his hard upbringing without a father and periodically without a mother. He wanted to suck her into his vague mentioning of people in his life in his past, the people that possibly damaged him more than he would ever care to admit. Uhura knew Kirk's past, she could see right through his cockiness right down to the marrow and well of insecurities. She could see where it all started. It was her gift, she was always capable of knowing intrinsically without direction or instruction how things were put together, how things fit. She could see patterns where others saw chaos. Kirk had pain, deep, unresolved pain. Who didn't? She shrugged inwardly and continued to eat.
Casual silence was something that she and Spock had not been able to share for months. It seemed as if she and Kirk had fallen into casual silence almost immediately. Kirk was just one of those men that you felt instantly comfortable around, and he admittedly, had a way with women. They stared at one another, bellies full, leaning back on the chair, beers in hand. This was comfortable.
"You know, it's been 3 weeks since the last time we saw talked privately," Uhura stated.
"You were counting down the days until you could be alone with me, Nyota? How will Spock react when he finds out I'm stealing his girlfriend…" Jim trailed off. She rolled her eyes.
"You said you'd behave," she took a swig.
"This is behaving."
"I'll agree. I walked in here expecting to be seduced," she smiled.
"And yet you still came, so the notion wasn't that unappealing" Kirk said, his eyes wandering around the room.
"I was hungry," she responded and lowered her eyes to the beer bottle in her hands.
"Indeed. Well, I can still try to seduce you if you want me to," Jim smiled mischievously.
"You should have thought of that before you put so much garlic in the spaghetti."
"Dammit! Foiled again!" They both shared a laugh. Jim stood, grabbed her plate and walked into his kitchen to drop the plates into the refresher. He pushed a button the refresher hummed to life. He turned around to see Uhura traipsing his quarters and gave himself a moment to admire the sight.
She always struck an impressive figure, whether she were in her Regulations or bumming in a pair of tight yoga pants and a shirt that belonged to her lover. Kirk liked the way she looked in his quarters, so casual, so beautiful. She was looking at the pictures on a small shelf in the corner. She was leaning back to examine the picture at the top, the one he knew was of his mother and father and brother when his mother was pregnant with him. She put her beer on the steel shelf, trading the contents of her hand for the picture that so intrigued her. He watched her study it closely.
"That's my mom and my dad. And my mom's not fat, she's pregnant with me. The lil' guy on my dad's knee is my brother, Sam," Kirk said as he walked toward her.
"You look like your father," she said, setting it down and picking her beer back up.
"So I've been told. Sam looks like mom. What's your family like?" he asked her.
"Not big at all. It's just me and my parents," she shrugged.
"Ah, only child, that makes sense," Kirk responded devilishly.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she responded.
"Only children tend to be assertive, perfectionist, highly intelligent. It's just another piece in the Nyota Uhura puzzle. What's your mom and dad like?"
"They're both educators, both professors. Instead of bedtime stories my father would read me different scientific facts. My mother is a linguist; in the morning before school I would have to choose a word from the dictionary and use it in a sentence three different ways and conjugations, it was her idea of a game. It may sound like a crazy upbringing, but we had fun," she smiled.
"The more I find out about you, the more I understand why you chose Spock," he said. She shook her head.
"I thought I'd already answered that question. When are you ever going to stop hitting on me?" she asked. He took her by her shoulders, stared her straight in her eyes and spoke.
"Uhura, you must understand this: I will always be hitting on you. Always," he smiled in that devilishly handsome way causing her to roll her eyes and laugh. He let her go slowly, picked his beer up from the metal book shelf and walked over to the set up the chess board.
"I don't think I want to play chess," she said, walking past the chess board and towards his sofa. She plopped down and then turned to look at him. She was proud to see that she'd confused him.
"Okay," Kirk said casually and walked over to sit next to her on the sofa, "what did you have in mind?"
"What do you and Spock do when he's over here?" she asked.
"We talk, we drink, play chess, watch porn, you know, guy things," Kirk responded.
"Ah yes, Spock likes Trill porn, it's the spots," she said with a notable smirk. Kirk closed his eyes when he laughed honestly, she noted.
"Truthfully," he said, clearing his throat, "we mostly talk about different ideas and strategies. Sometimes he brings you up, even without my prompting," Kirk added. He noticed that this small piece of information surprised Uhura and pleased her.
"He does?" she regarded him.
"Yes, he does. He'll ask me things about human women that no man really wants to ask his father. You're surprised?"
"Honestly, yes I am. He's been acting and saying strange things lately," she said, feeling her heart tighten.
"He works too much," Kirk said, walking back over to the chiller and returning to the couch with two more Guinness.
"He does, indeed. We were supposed to be together tonight," she said quietly, accepting the beer.
"You guys don't cohabitate?" Kirk asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because we require a lot of time to ourselves," she responded.
"Is that an only child thing?" Kirk asked. Uhura thought about it for a moment and then nodded in agreement. She'd never quite thought of both her and Spock's need for personal time as a product of their only child upbringing. If she mentioned this quirk of birth order to him, he'd probably regard it as illogical if he bothered to think about it at all. She had thought it strange that he was the only boyfriend she'd ever had who completely agreed with the sentiment.
"My personal time is quite important to me, growing up without siblings afforded for a lot of time to do whatever it was that I wished. Spock is the same way. It refreshes us and makes the relationship stronger."
"Does it make the sex better?" Kirk asked.
"Does a Vulcan have pointed ears?" the question was rhetorical. She smiled triumphantly.
"I should have asked if the sex was good in the first place," Kirk said flippantly.
"Vulcans have superior strength, higher stamina, and self-control, so logically the sex is spectacular," she was feeling heady from the beer, or was it from thinking about the last time she and Spock had made love; he'd used his strength to pick her up so that her back was to his front. She loved it when Spock used his strength in their lovemaking, it was always an aphrodisiac.
"Is he the best?" Jim asked low. Nyota stretched out on the sofa, popping her feet into Jim's lap and scrunching up. Jim took her feet in his hands and gentle started to stroke the perfect arch.
"You're assuming he's not my first," Uhura threw out; surprised at how deftly Jim worked the sensitive arches in her foot. This was usually a very intimate practice between lovers, but between the two of them it seemed a comfortable touch between friends. When you were in a relationship with a Vulcan you had to get used to not being as physical as you would with a human. Spock had never given her a foot massage and she'd forgotten how much she really missed being around human men. Jim Kirk was proving himself quite useful at the moment.
"I know he's not your first, just like you aren't his," her eyes shot open.
"You and he are quite candid with each other I see," she said.
"We are."
"Well, the next time you talk, can you teach him how to give a foot massage," she eased back down to her position, slightly amused by the visual of Kirk giving Spock a foot massage. It was silent for a moment as Kirk continued to ease the tension from Uhura's toes. Generally, a foot massage would lead to sex. In this case, Jim had no such expectations, he was just happy to have her in his company.
"Do you two ever argue?" Jim asked, clearing the silence that had settled around them. She sat up on her elbows and regarded him with an upturned eyebrow and pursed lips.
"We're a couple, of course we argue. We argue more than you would ever think. We did just the other day when he was acting strangely," she said.
"I can't imagine Spock ever getting angry at you," Kirk responded.
"We get angry at one another, though Spock will never admit that he gets angry. He always has to have the last word and it bothers me to no end. Lately we've been arguing about him returning to New Vulcan and completing the Ritual of Kolinahr. You can imagine my stance on the matter," Uhura sat up, carefully taking her feet from Kirk's lap and folding under her body. Kirk looked at her surprised.
"He wants to purge all emotion?" Kirk asked. He felt Uhura pull away emotionally even though she didn't move one muscle. Something shifted in the dynamic of the room; the conversation was no longer light and fun, it was about to become real.
"He feels inadequate as a Vulcan sometimes, as if mourning has a time limitation. He doesn't say that he misses Amanda or that he feels as if he were a failure for not saving her; he simply says things about leaving the Enterprise," she was saying these words with measured, deep breaths, wringing her hands and biting her bottom lip trying not to cry. She swore to herself that she wouldn't talk about this to Jim, this was personal and between she and Spock. But this was something that ate her up inside. Not since that fleeting moment in the turbolift had he allowed himself to transfer the dump of anger and grief that plagued him about his mother.
"Leaving? He's only been here a year," Kirk said, looking at her. She wasn't even crying she just had a look of complete numbness on her face.
"I hate feeling this way. I hate talking to him about it. We've argued so much about it that I'm almost to the point where I don't care if he does leave," she looked up at Jim with hardened eyes; he'd never seen this look before. She wasn't broken, she was hurt and apathetically grieving, which was so much worse than crying. She dropped her head in her hands and exhaled. Kirk put a hand on her back, feeling her warmth through the thin shirt she wore, feeling her shuddering breath. Uhura broke, and rolled her head into his chest and down to his lap. He could feel the warm wetness of her tears through his pants and could feel the air quaking in and out of her heaving chest. She sobbed for almost five minutes and then she lifted her head.
"Don't cry, beautiful," Kirk said, wiping her heavy tears with his hand. She looked at him with a weary smile that instantly turned to an anguished frown and more tears fell from her face.
"Spock and I aren't bonded, if he wants to leave he can. I just thought that maybe I would have been something to him. Something more than his logic can account for. You should hear him, Jim. Sometimes he sounds so illogical in his logic, as it flows around and around in an infinite loop. I don't understand how he can deign to be so selfish, or is it me that's selfish?"
"No, you couldn't be selfish if you wanted to, Nyota," she looked up at Kirk and smiled.
"I could be. But I can't be petty. But every fiber of my being would shut down if it weren't for him. Sometimes I think that he is the air that I breathe and that I am his. Then I remember that he doesn't feel romantic love, he only seeks companionship and right now I am an inadequate companion for many reasons, survival of the species being priority #1. Now, he feels the need to be more Vulcan to act more Vulcan to embrace his Vulcan culture to the hilt because there is so little left. He feels at times that his human culture died on Vulcan as his mother plummeted to her death. He doesn't realize how human it is to hold onto something so thickly because you fear losing it," she is now clutching her heart and speaking through harsh breaths and swallows. She is hyperventilating, so upset, so clearly falling apart. She reaches for Jim and he scoops her into his arms and holds again, letting her sob away this round of the pain.
"What would you do, Jim?" Uhura asked, finally quieting and getting her voice. Her face is so close to his that he can feel her breath on his lips. Her eyes are swollen; her face is red and full from the heated blood rushing into her face and the saline tears.
"If I had to choose between the love of you and duty to my planet, I would find a way to get both.
"I refuse to be Spock's mistress as he sires a child and bonds with another Vulcan female. I deserve everything from him because we love each other. I have so many wants in this relationship that I don't get. I want to be a Vulcan so that Spock doesn't have to feel alienated even more by his people. I want Spock to be infertile because of this hybrid status. I want Spock to bond with me, I want Spock to just fucking emote the sadness and the guilt that is pounding in his heart every night for 4 months making him scream from a nightmare so hellish that I had to sing and rock him back to sleep. He babbles when he's confused, like a baby, switching his languages from Standard to Vulcan, trying to figure out the subconscious pictures he sees when he shuts his eyes. And what's more, I can't help him," she standing now, her eyes are wild with anger and Jim can see that she's seething, her arms straight down her sides, her fists held tight at the midpoint of her hips. She's all willowy, brown limbs and silken black hair and svelte angles that Kirk can't help but think that she looks absolutely frightening when she is angry.
"He says that he is plagued by a decision made. This is the decision he made, to do what he felt was right as spoken to by his older self. I thought about what you said the other day, Jim. But my mind started to wander over the placement of Ambassador Spock. He changed all of our lives and then, in an attempt to salve his soul from failure, he tries to place everything right. What if Spock was really supposed to go back to Vulcan, forsaking the Enterprise and embracing his Vulcan culture?" Her eyes are wide as she turns to look at him, waiting for an answer. Kirk is quiet as he approaches her, opening his arms and embracing her quietly. She buries her head into his chest and she can feel him shudder.
"You know you don't believe that," he says so low it is almost a whisper. He wonders if Spock has seen Nyota cry in this way. It is heart wrenching to feel all of her emotions so naked and present before him, even Spock would have to break apart when seeing something so painful. Kirk starts to tear and can't stop the small wet drop that escapes one of his eyes. He clears his throat and she pulls back, her deep brown eyes catching his blue ones.
"I just want him to be happy, to let me ease his pain. If he can't cry I'll cry for him, if he can't laugh I'll laugh for him, because I love him just that much," she leans her head back on Kirk's chest and they stand in the middle of his quarters for long, long minutes, just holding one another and letting her cry. When he feels her sobs and shudders start to ebb, he pulls back and kisses her forehead. He wipes the residual tears from her face and leaves her for only a minute to retrieve a wet towel for her swollen face. She's sitting on the sofa where had been staring at the wall before her deep in thought. He offers her the cloth and she takes it, the dampness finally calming her. When she finally removes the towel from her face her eyes are softer and a look of normalcy returns to her face.
"I'm sorry, I've been holding that in for a while," she giggled. Kirk smiled and then started laughing, which started Uhura laughing as well. They both laughed so hard that tears were forming in Kirk's squinted eyes and Uhura started to cough. She leaned towards him and took his hands in hers.
"Thank you. I like our talks, they help me vent all of my frustrations with him," Uhura said and Kirk smiled.
"Well, one day I'm going to need to vent to you,I just hope that you'll be there," he said, leaning back on the sofa not releasing her hand. She curled up against him and leaned her head on his shoulder and felt her eyes start to close.
"Where else would I be?" she allowed from her lips before she surrendered to sleep. Kirk felt her body relax against his shoulder and the soft breaths from her cadenced breathing against his arm. He shook his head, moved slightly and placed a pillow underneath her head. He watched her body spread the rest of the expanse of the sofa and then he covered her with a heavy blanket, moving in her sleep only slightly just to achieve comfort.
"Right here," Kirk thought out loud, "you'll be right here."