Disclaimer: All hail ParaBorg, cause they own them and I don't. For the background of Yeoman Janice Rand, I have, ahem, appropriated Vonda McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure…without permission, though hopefully without offense. All creative content (c) 2009 by Aliset

This story was prompted by a sighting of Extremely!Sexist!Spock in "The Enemy Within," where he implies that Yeoman Rand had asked for/encouraged her attempted rape. Those who own a copy of the episode may wish to refer to it.

Summary: From "The Enemy Within." Spock learns the power of words, among other things. Told from Uhura's viewpoint in the first and last sections, and Spock's in the second section.

Rating: PG, TOS

Intermission 5: Sticks and Stones

"The impostor did have several…interesting characteristics, wouldn't you agree, Yeoman?"

The words fall like stones in my cabin. Janice is setting on the bed, recounting her ordeal at the hands of the impostor. It doesn't help that she, like many other women on board, has a crush on Jim Kirk. Nor does it help that his alter ego, the wolf Kirk, tried to rape her. But the final blow came with Spock's words, and now she sits, sobbing on my bed.

Janice is little more than a child herself. After surviving a series of disasters, a fortunate miscalculation of her actual age allowed her to enter Starfleet. Though by all rights she should be in her early twenties, she's actually only eighteen. She's too young for what happened, too young to blow off Spock's words as anything more than an insensitive error on his part. And she's far too young to realize that nothing she did caused the attempted rape.

Finally, her sobs quiet. "I…I kept wondering if I'd encouraged him. I mean, he is the captain after all…" Her words trail off, and I hear what she doesn't say. She's in love with Jim, the first man who ever treated her as an equal, and the way he came to her must surely be the cruelest blow of all.

"Janice," I say. "It wasn't your fault. None of this was your fault." It's hard to say the words, to speak of the captain as if he were an animal. But that is the face the wolf-Kirk showed Janice, and although Jim offered to stand for court-martial, I don't know if the image of the wolf-Kirk, leering and savage, will ever completely leave her mind.

The lights have dimmed slightly, in deference to the lateness of the hour. "Do you want me to stay with you?"

Janice shakes her head, looking much younger than her actual age. "I'll be fine, Nyota." She smiles at me slightly through her tears. "And thank you."

I nod, respecting her choice. As I walk down the hallway, I know that I have to talk to Spock about this. I have to make him see the effects of his words.

-----////----

The next chance I have to talk to him comes during our weekly harp lesson. He has been teaching me to play the ka'athera for some time now. Tonight, we are supposed to work our way through the end of the first movement, but a phrase in one of the measures stops me repeatedly. It's not the notes that are difficult, but the meter, and I watch as Spock puts his own harp down to show me how to play the notes in the correct rhythm by using an alternate technique which can make the rhythm smoother.

I often wonder just how strong a telepath he is. He stops four inches away from my hands to look at me curiously. "Is something bothering you, Nyota?"

Yes, I want to say. I want to ask him how someone who is half-human can ask the question he asked Janice, implying that she had encouraged the rape attempt. I know that neither the captain nor the doctor know what he said to her; Janice decided not to include it in her report of the incident. And I seriously doubt she mentioned it in her mandatory counseling after the incident. So in all likelihood, unless I talk to him about this, the probability is that no one will.

I look at him, Vulcan-serious and not, for all his logical demeanor, completely insensitive. I place the ka'athera back on its stand. "I need to speak with you about something that happened when Captain Kirk's alter ego…escaped."

He tilts his head a little in a gesture that always reminds me of an alert bird. "Specify."

Ah, there it is, the tone of Vulcan logic and impassivity. I need to get past that, I need to find some way to make him understand how he made her feel. "Janice Rand's attempted assault."

One eyebrow lifts. "I understand that she has declined to file charges against the captain."

I shake my head. "That's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to a comment you made to Yeoman Rand."

I don't need to explain any further; his understanding is clear in the set of his shoulders as he looks at me. "I see. You believe I acted improperly."

I nod. "Yes, but there's more to it than that." I look at him; clearly he is uncomfortable discussing any aspect of the incident. I don't particularly blame him; it was hard on all of us to see that side of the captain.

He raises one eyebrow at me, and I am suddenly at a loss for words. But though words have failed me, the necessity of action has not. In the twentieth century, they called this "sensitivity training," but all I can think now is, gods, I hope he'll forgive me for this.

****

Her hand brushes my collar. For an instant, I cannot fathom what she is doing. Nyota is one of the few people besides Jim to even attempt to touch me, but the way she is touching me is not like those other times. This touch is strangely intimate, not at all like the brushing of her hands against mine when we repair cracked circuit boards, or the touch of her hands under mine during one of our harp lessons.

I fight the urge to flinch away from that strangely invasive touch. One cool human hand rests against the back of my neck. "What's the matter?" she asks softly, and the tone is one I have never heard her use. It is rough with an emotion that none has used to me, but I have heard it from the mouths of human couples. Desire, and lust, barely restrained.

I tighten my shields against the insistency of her touch, even as my mind argues for the very implausibility of this situation. Nyota Uhura, one of my first human friends, behaving in such a fashion? I try to regain some control over the situation. "Lieutenant, perhaps we should continue this lesson at another time." The sense of dull panic rises sharp in my throat.

"Oh, come on. You know you want me to."

I pull back and stare at her. "I know no such thing."

One of her hands brushes lightly against one of the meld points on my face in a manner that is far more suggestive than she perhaps realizes. It falls under the category of things protected under Privacy, but this touch is the beginning of foreplay among Vulcans. How she knows of it, I have no idea, but I do not desire such contact with her. But I do not know if I can stop her without causing some serious physical damage. I try once again to reason with her. "Nyota, I do not desire this contact. Please leave before I call security."

She laughs lightly, a sound that is nothing like her usual laugh. The sound of a hunter, capturing the prey. "And who do you think they would believe? I'm in *your* cabin, at *your* request. And you outrank me."

Were I human, I suspect I would now be shaking. The rules against non-fraternization between individuals in the same chain of command have ended many careers in the years I have been in Starfleet, and I realize that the situation as it stands would be looked at askance. If she decided to file charges of sexual assault, something that she is clearly threatening, my career would be over. And I have no other place to go; Vulcan is no home for me, if indeed it ever was.

Nyota steps behind me and begins massaging my shoulders. "You're so tense, you can't wait, can you?" I close my eyes against a renewed feeling of panic; I do not want to experience her emotions so directly, but it is becoming impossible to block them. When one of her hands moves to unseal the fastening of my shirt, I bolt straight up and grab her hands in a grip I know must be bruising her. The anger makes my vision green, and I am appalled to realize that I no longer care whether I hurt her or not. She is my friend, why can she not realize that I do not want her like this? "Stop. I do not want you like this."

She sits down heavily in the chair I have vacated. "Now, do you see?"

***

As I watch, his coloring fades from its usual pale green color. He looks as though he were about to be ill. Small wonder. Spock, my friend, who I have just assaulted. I rub my wrists; I will have some nasty bruising there come morning, but it's nothing the uniform sleeves won't hide.

"That's how you made Janice feel. Like she was being assaulted all over again." Right now I want nothing more than to run away to my cabin and wash the residue of what I have done to him off my hands, but I have to make sure he understands.

The eyes opposite mine are dark with emotion, emotions he is profoundly ill-equipped to deal with. "You might have just said so."

I shake my head. "Would you have understood, if I had? Some things, you have to experience to understand why you need to empathize."

Spock makes a valiant attempt to return his voice to its normal impassivity. "I see. And it is your contention that I lacked empathy in my conversation with Yeoman Rand."

I nod. "You are second-in-command of a ship where the majority of personnel are human. From a human perspective, then, you did not handle the situation in a manner which was appropriate. She had narrowly escaped being raped by a man she trusted, and you implied that she had actively encouraged the assault."

"I was in error," he says simply. "I am unused to dealing with such incidents, and I did not choose my words carefully." He walks over to the cabin door, the Vulcan mask firmly in place. "I will apologize to Yeoman Rand immediately, of course. " The face is blank, but the message in his eyes is clear: he understands, and does not blame me for the understanding.

The next day, Janice comes into my cabin for our weekly poker game. She's still pretty shaken up, but there's a new lightness in her eyes. "Spock came and apologized to me today."

I continue shuffling the cards. "Oh, really? What did he have to say?"

Janice smiles a little, a girl barely on the edge of adulthood. "Just that he now understands how much his words must have hurt me, and that he did not mean to imply anything." Her face grows serious. "I wonder why he apologized. From what I've heard of Mr Spock, he never apologizes for anything."

I begin dealing the cards. "Maybe he apologized because it was the logical thing to do. Aces high, deuces wild…"

The end.