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Special thanks to Beta Notes from the Classroom. Check out her suspenseful "The Betrayal" in my faves if you haven't already.

Chapter 2

Nyota stared down at the boy. He and his sister were well dressed, but their hair was slightly disheveled. The boy had an angry green bruise upon his cheek. He did not look at her; he looked directly at the captain, unflinching.

"Well, what is he saying, Uhura?" Kirk said.

Nyota put her hand to her mouth. She couldn't bring herself to speak. She had not cried when Vulcan disintegrated, not when Spock had walked away from her in the turbolift without a backward glance, not when he left her at the transporter pad, and not when the strange vessel he piloted into the Narada exploded like a small nova.

She was going to cry now. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Spock spoke for her.

"He says that we must return to the Vulcan system," Spock said. Nyota looked up. Spock and the Vulcan team he'd assembled to help him repair the life support system on deck 9 were standing behind the children. Spock wasn't looking at her; he was looking at the boy. The other Vulcans looked at the ground.

Tilting his head Spock said, " His parents put him and his sister in the two seater near-range shuttle, but they promised they would follow in their hover within minutes. His mother affirmed that she could modify it for extra atmospheric travel. Vulcans do not lie; therefore, their parents must be there, waiting."

There was no way a hover could be modified for extra atmospheric travel. Vulcans did not lie - unless there was some un-equivocal greater good that could be served by doing so. Like ensuring the compliance of your children when you knowingly went to your death.

...Or trying to maintain the morale of someone you loved when you went on a suicide mission.

Nyota saw the nurse biting her lip.

Kirk wiped his hand down his face and then kneeled down to eye level of the boy. "We're kinda stuck here for now. But I'm sure Federation rescue ships are already there - and as soon as our warp coils are replaced we'll go there, too. In the meantime, I need you to go back to sickbay. It's logical to stay healthy until we get there, right?"

Pulling herself together, Nyota made the translation. The Vulcan boy stood motionless for a moment, and then pulling his sister by the wrist, he headed towards the sick bay doors.

"You too, Uhura," Kirk said, putting his hand under her elbow again.

Spock's eyes followed the motion in a way that was almost predatory. Nyota's mouth went a little dry at the show of emotion. For a moment she'd thought she was invisible to him, but he did still see her.

"You are injured?" he said, putting his hands behind his back.

Nyota held up the wrist of her injured arm, "It was only a scrape."

Eying the wound on her arm, Spock pulled back his head slightly. Nyota blinked; it wasn't that bad was it?

"I concur with the Captain. You must go to sick bay," said Spock.

Nyota gently detached her elbow from Kirk's hand. "I'll make it by myself," she said.

Nodding to her, Spock stepped out of her way to let her slip past him. She thought she felt his eyes on her, but glancing back as she stepped through the bay doors she saw him down the hall, tilting his head in Kirk's direction.

x x x x

Flexing the arm with the dermaskin repair on it, Nyota entered her quarters. Not because she wanted to be there, because Dr. McCoy had ordered her to go to her quarters and get some rest, and she'd obeyed as though she were in a trance.

Now she looked at the space she'd only glanced at as they left Earth. There was a small door that led to a toilet, another that led to the sonic shower, and a sink in the main room itself opposite the door. On either side of her was a desk that folded into a bed, with a storage unit above each. On one desk lay Nyota's standard issue duffel; on the other lay a duffel that said it belonged to Cadet Anne Park. Between Anne's bed and her storage unit there were small portholes to the stars.

Nyota had never seen Anne. They had missed each other in those first early moments. Nyota wondered when her phantom roommate would materialize.

It was an hour after Nyota had patched up the auxiliary coupling to the subspace array. A Starfleet relief vessel team had taken over the main functions of the Enterprise and allowed her crew to take a much-needed rest.

Nyota stared at Anne's lonely duffel. She was exhausted and wired, empty, and almost surprised to be in her quarters. Why had she given in to McCoy's suggestion so easily?

She wanted to find Spock. No. Needed to find him. No matter how quickly he'd recovered his composure after the fateful fight with Kirk on the bridge, he was not composed. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach, through the bond between them that wasn't a true bond, a swirling mass of anger, despair, grief, shame and failure.

Nodding to herself, she turned to leave the small space. Just as she reached the door it chimed. Pressing the admittance button, she found herself face to face with Spock. Not saying a word, just moving out of his way, she let him in and then closed the door.

Spock looked at Anne's duffel.

"I don't know when she'll be back," said Nyota, "but we're alone for now."

"She will not be back," said Spock. "She died. Did you not see her name on the list of casualties?"

Nyota stared at the duffel of her phantom roommate...who was now really a phantom. She put her hand to her face. The universe seemed to be collapsing in on itself, into a denser and denser mass of despair.

He tilted his head. "You did not know her. You did not think to look for her name; it was meaningless to you."

Feeling a slight rush of cold, Nyota said, "And you remember all the names." Whether he wanted to or not.

Without responding, Spock opened the storage unit above Anne's bed. He picked up Anne's duffel and gently, almost reverently, put it in. Closing the compartment with fluid motions he said, "Her family will want her personal effects."

Bringing his hands down behind his back he turned and stared at her.

Closing the space between them she wrapped him in her arms and laid her head on his shoulder. His arms went around her waist immediately. At another time his hands would have gone to her temples or to her fingertips to transmit all that he was feeling. They didn't now.

"Nyota," he said. "If it is not an imposition, may I stay here for a while?"

He was being so polite, so formal. They hadn't mapped out the rules of what their relationship would be aboard a starship - true, on the transporter pad he'd broken every rule they might have made, but then he thought he was dying.

Pulling back, Nyota gazed up at him. Now that he was alive, he was uncertain how to proceed.

"Of course," she said.

"Perhaps we should sit down," Spock said.

Nyota looked at her desk. "I know it folds out but I'm not sure how..."

Dropping his hands quickly and pulling away, Spock went to the desk her duffel rested on. Lifting the duffel to the side and going to the far end of the desk he said, "Allow me. It is the same design as what I had on the Farragut."

His motions were fluid and certain again, and Nyota realized he was anxious to do something - anything, that he could do, to control whatever tiny little part of the universe he could control.

"Thank you," she said, carefully, staying out of his way.

When the bed was open, handily already made, Spock sat down at the edge of it, upright and rigid, his hands clasped in front of him. She sat down next to him and put her hands on the fabric on his wrists. He seemed so fearful of empathic contact she was afraid to touch his skin.

Placing a hand awkwardly on her clothed shoulder, he squeezed gently, in what she took to be a gesture of thanks. For not touching his skin, for allowing him to stay in her quarters, for just being there, she did not know.

"My quarters are currently occupied by my father and the Vulcan elders from the Katric Arc," Spock said softly. "They are in meditation now, but they have been discussing the best ways to go about rebuilding our race."

Our race. But they were only half his race...

"They are already discussing creating a new home world," Spock said.

"There are Vulcan colonies throughout the Federation," Nyota said. "I'm sure one of them would be a good starting place."

Spock shook his head. "They feel none is adequate for the task of absorbing 10,000 or more refuges. Nor do they believe any are similar enough to Vulcan. There is a belief that the climate of Vulcan is essential to the maintenance of the Vulcan cultural identity. They believe it is best to start...anew." Taking a deep breath he said, "Nor do they want to risk inciting hostilities between the colonies. A few valuable artifacts were saved when we beamed off Vulcan. Entrusting them to one colony or another would be...politically inconvenient."

Nyota sighed, "That is illogical."

Kissing her head, he said, "Yes."

He rested his head on top of hers for a moment, and then he said, "My father believes that my skills and connections with Starfleet would be useful in establishing a new colony."

Pulling away he said, "He has asked that I consider joining him in this task."

She felt her heart stopping and her body going cold.

Spock turned to meet her eyes. "Nyota, I do not know what to do."

A/N:

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