Chapter 3: Miscommunication
Spock pressed the buzzer, and waited for Nyota to ask him to come in.
"Who is it?" she called, and he cocked his head slightly to the side. Nyota never asked who it was...he was the only one to ever visit her quarters, as far as he knew...
"It is I." Spock replied.
"Oh- come in." she replied, and he heard her movements in the other room. He could not decipher the emotion in her tone with full certainty...but he thought that it may have been nervousness. Spock felt his shoulders sag a fraction of an inch. She was reluctant to see him...
He entered, and found her limping toward her bed from the bathroom, dressed only in what she called a 'kimono' made of red silk, although he was quite sure that Japanese kimonos were full-length...hers only just barely covered her intimate areas. She often wore it when she had been, for whatever reason, aroused all day and wished to give him what she termed 'easy access'...although he was sure that she now wore it because it was easier to put on, not for the purpose of seduction. He forced himself not to think of the small amount of skin it covered. He highly doubted she was willing to engage in sexual acts at the moment.
"Dr. McCoy stopped by a little bit ago to check up on me...and then the captain came, and Christine and Janice and...well, it seems like everyone on the Enterprise has been stopping by the last two days." Nyota said as she propped her ankle up on a small pillow, her back against the headboard. She looked up at him. "I was afraid it was someone else and I would have to get dressed again, and I only just got comfortable."
Spock did not understand why he was relieved by this...had he really thought, even for a moment, that Nyota may have been waiting for another man, dressed as she was? He felt ashamed...Nyota would not do such a thing. But then again...he had not been there for her when she needed him...
He hesitated before sitting on the bed next to her, his weight on the mattress making her leg rest against his. The fact that she did not move away was encouraging.
"Spock?" she asked. "You haven't said a word. What is it?"
She seemed concerned, and he brushed the illogical thoughts away, and focused on her. Although she was smiling at him, he noticed that the muscles at the corners of her lips seemed more strained than usual...she was forcing herself to smile, he realized. Even while her lips curved, her eyes did not sparkle as they once did when she looked at him.
"It is nothing worthy of your attention." he replied gently. He wondered, briefly, if he should reach out for her...but then he remembered how she had shrank from his touch the day before. It would be best for him to allow her to initiate physical contact, as he was unsure of what she needed at the moment. If only they were bonded...then he would know exactly what she wanted him to do...
But she had said she did not want to bond with him. Not right away...which meant she had doubts. If he knew what they were, he could address them, reassure her.
She was watching him, searching his face, his eyes. He knew she was trying to understand what he was thinking and feeling. He looked away, folding his hands in his lap. They did not say anything for several long moments. During that time, he stared at the cast on her ankle, wondering...how had she escaped? What was the extent of her mental damage? What had happened on that planet?
She had yet to complete her report...and Kirk had told her not to worry about it until it was time for her to return to her station. That was three weeks...three weeks without knowing what had happened to his beloved...and he certainly wasn't going to ask her to tell him. If she wanted him to know, he fully expected that she would tell him on her own without prompting. Besides...perhaps it was best that he did not find out until they were out of the Scorpius system, which would be another week...
"Bones seems to be onto us." Nyota said, breaking the silence. Her words did not ease the tension that had slowly been growing thicker between them. "He keeps dropping hints...trying to get me to admit to something."
"We may have been fairly obvious." Spock replied quietly, still not looking at her.
"He said you led the search party." She seemed to be trying to edge him into saying something, but he was not sure what.
"I did." was all he said. He heard the smallest of sighs escape her, and he finally looked over at her.
"Do you require anything, Nyota?" he asked. "The mess hall is still open."
"I've already had my dinner." Nyota replied with another tight smile. "Janice brought it to me. She and Christine are my unofficial nursemaids. They're taking good care of me."
Spock felt a twinge of pain at this. She knew he would have been her 'nursemaid' for her. He had promised her he would be there for her during her recovery period...he had every intention of keeping that promise.
"Is there anything else you may need?" he pressed. She shook her head.
"Not right now." she said. The silence hung heavily between them, like an ominous black cloud. Spock began to feel strangely uncomfortable...normally, he was much more relaxed around Nyota than anyone else. He sensed that she was waiting for him to say something...but what? He began to feel frustrated. He did not have sufficient knowledge of human needs to handle this situation. What did she require beyond his presence? Kirk had said just being there when she needed him was enough...but that did not seem to be true. He was there, but it seemed she needed more. What must he do? Hold her? But that couldn't be it...when he had tried to hold her before, she shied away from him. The only physical contact had been when she rested her head briefly on his shoulder and gave him a very short kiss on the lips.
There must be something he could say to alleviate the rising tension between them. But what was it? He could not find any words that she may find comforting. How do you comfort a woman who has suffered great physical and emotional pain? His mother had never been in such distress...or if she had, he had never witnessed his father's comforting techniques. That was it...he must contact his father as soon as he was able. He was unaccustomed to asking his father for advice on his personal life, but he felt that in this situation, it was required. His father had been married to his mother for almost thirty years...it was only logical to assume that he had experience with comforting human females.
He was almost eager enough to contact Sarek to leave Nyota right then and there. But he knew that would upset her even more than she already was.
He looked over at Nyota, to see that she was staring off at the wall, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. He recognized this expression...she was trying to refrain from saying something.
"Nyota?" he asked, his voice barely audible. She looked at him, their eyes meeting.
"Yes, Spock?" she asked. He could hear agitation in her inflections.
"I..." how could he voice his feelings of inadequacy, of guilt? She was his lover, his beloved, his mate...and yet he did not know how to meet her needs. It saddened him greatly. She deserved so much more...he had thought so all along, right from the very beginning of their relationship.
"Well?" her tone softened, and her jaw unclenched...he hadn't even noticed that it was clenched. Her eyes also seemed more gentle.
"I...must report to the bridge in two hours and thirty-seven minutes. There is something of great importance I must attend to before that time." As he spoke, he moved to place his feet on the floor. He looked back at her, in time to see her brows draw together, and the corners of her lips turn down. Her jaw clenched again.
"You've only been here ten minutes...and you barely even said anything. Why did you come?" she asked. He heard the incredulity in her voice, her disbelief and confusion.
"I came to ascertain whether or not you required my assistance." Spock replied. "It appears that you do not. I am always available to your needs, Nyota. Do not hesitate to call me."
She nodded her head once, jerkily, and looked away as he stood to walk to the door. As he left, he could not repress the feeling that he had, somehow, made the situation worse...
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As soon as she thought he was far enough away that even his Vulcan ears could not hear her, Nyota let out a strangled cry of frustration. She grabbed the pillow that had been cushioning her ankle and threw it at the door, where it bounced off harmlessly and landed on the floor...which only meant that she would have to get up and go get it.
It hurt. It really did. He barely came to see her, and when he did, the visits were brief, and devoid of any sort of emotion- granted, that was just Spock, but he was even less emotional than usual. If she didn't know better, she would think he had undergone Kolinahr while she was on Scorpius Three.
She had spent the entire day working up the courage to tell Spock everything that had happened, everything that had gone through her head during her captivity, if he wanted to know. She had expected him to ask, she had expected him to want to know what had happened to her. She hadn't been ready the last time she saw him, but even then he seemed to show no interest in knowing. He hadn't asked this time either...even when she had tried to bring up the subject of the search party, which she had hoped to bring around to her story...she didn't think she had the courage to bring it up without some sort of prompting.
She was really starting to think he did not care. If he cared, wouldn't he have been with her non-stop the last twenty-four hours since she had been out of sickbay? He had given her an excuse for when she was still in medical...but what was his excuse now? She was also starting to think that he had not told her the whole truth...after all, she was well aware that Vulcans could tell half-truths. But if his reasoning wasn't the risk of being seen, what was it?
Yet, it would have been extremely unusual for Spock not to care. He had very obviously cared when the leader abducted her on the planet...she had never seen him so out of control. So why is it that now she was safe, he had withdrawn from her completely? He must care...so why didn't he show it? What was he hiding? He wasn't himself...the Spock she knew and loved would be with her now, not rushing off to complete 'urgent' business.
She sighed, and slid off the bed, swaying slightly as she regained her balance. She limped to the pillow and picked it up, tossing it back onto the bed. She sank back down onto the edge of the mattress, resting her elbows on her thighs.
Her frustration was receding, only to be replaced with sorrow. She had known all along that a relationship with Spock wouldn't be easy...but when they first became a couple, she had been so happy, it was easy to be optimistic about it. Only a month ago, Spock had very nearly abandoned her and Starfleet for a race of people who hardly cared about the half-breed in their midst. She had come so close to losing him then...and again on Scorpius Three. She had known it would be challenging...but had never expected it to be this complicated.
His logic she could deal with...but she didn't think logic was the issue at the moment. There was something else...but she couldn't quite seem to put her finger on what it was...
And his unemotional-ism was tolerable, because when he established empathic links through skin-to-skin contact, she could feel his emotions...she knew how much he loved her.
But there were times...and plenty of those moments were while she was in sickbay...when she wondered if Spock hadn't been right from the beginning...that she was better off with a human. Things with Spock were just so complicated, so stressful...it would be so much easier with a human. A human would have been there for her as soon as she beamed back aboard from the rain forest, and he would have known how to comfort her.
Spock, on the other hand...he hadn't even touched her. As soon as he came in the door, she had desired for him to hold her, to kiss her. Any contact would have soothed her. The day before, she had not been quite ready for it...she had still been upset with his staying away. But today she had craved it. She would admit that when he first announced himself, she had been nervous...but only because she intended to tell him everything that had happened. As soon as she saw him, she felt better.
But when he hadn't said a word, when he didn't meet her gaze or make any attempt at all to show that he cared, she had grown angry.
She had always accepted his decisions, no matter how much they hurt her...that was the promise she had made to him, and she had kept it. But when was he going to meet her half-way? When would he embrace more of his human side to accommodate her? It was not fair to her that he seemed to be in complete charge of what happened in their relationship. He made the decisions. And he rarely consulted her before making them. And he couldn't even make an attempt to comfort her when she needed it? Would it really be such an effort, such an indignity to be human for a few short minutes?
She had accepted that until now. She thought back to when he made his half-hearted proposal to her the night before...why had he never asked her to bond with him before that? He had once mentioned making her his lifelong mate, but he had never mentioned it again, never made even the slightest attempt at moving that idea forward. Before, she would have immediately agreed to bonding with him, but now...she couldn't agree to it when she still had so many doubts, so many unanswered questions, and so much hurt still filling her.
Nyota layed back on the bed and squeezed her eyes shut...what was happening to them? Was she giving up? Was she just so tired of not understanding him, and of him not understanding her needs? She had thought she understood him...but she didn't. Not really.
She couldn't help but feel that the incident on Scorpius Three had only fleshed out these complications sooner than would have happened otherwise...the miscommunications had always been there, but never to such a serious degree. Perhaps it was even a good thing that this had happened now instead of later...it presented her with the cold, hard facts of their relationship that needed to be addressed. The problem was...the miscommunications would always be there.
Could she give him up when he had been the anchor for her sanity while she was tortured? When all she had thought about was him?
She didn't know...but she supposed that soon she would find out.
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"Father." Spock bowed his head respectfully as Sarek appeared on the viewscreen.
"Spock." Sarek replied. His black eyes bore into Spock's chocolate-brown ones- his mother's eyes.
"I have something of importance to discuss with you. I seek your wisdom." Spock said.
"I am willing to listen. What troubles you, my son?"
The last time Sarek had asked that, it had been Amanda they were discussing. This time, it was another human woman of great importance to Spock...
"There has been...an incident. I believe it is partially my doing." Spock replied quietly.
Sarek tilted his head ever so slightly- a habit Spock had picked up from him.
"Unless it was intentional, I cannot find a logical reason for why it would be your fault." Sarek said. "What has happened, Spock?"
Spock told him everything that he knew of what happened...including his lack of control, which he was extremely ashamed to admit...especially to Sarek, he whom he had striven to prove himself to all his life. He finished by telling him of his predicament with Nyota.
"I find myself unable to find a solution." Spock admitted. "I am not knowledgeable about such situations. I am unsure as to what she requires of me."
Sarek had listened in utter silence, watching his son with an unreadable expression. When Spock fell silent, he cocked his head again.
"Has it not occurred to you, Spock, that you should simply ask her?"
"Ask her?" Spock asked, also tilting his head. "I have. She did not require for me to bring her sustenance, or-"
"I do not mean what she needs you to do for her in terms of physical comforts. I was referring to asking her what she requires from you emotionally."
Spock was silent. He rarely spoke of emotions to Nyota...
"I see you have not." Sarek said when Spock did not respond. "Spock...Ms. Uhura is not Vulcan. She has no telepathic abilities. You must communicate with her verbally. And communication is very important, Spock...for human and Vulcan relationships alike. The only difference is that Vulcans can communicate without words. If you bonded with Ms. Uhura, you would have this also...however, you are not bonded. Your only option is to revert to human techniques, as I was required to do for your mother before our marriage."
"What if what she requires of me is...too human?" Spock asked.
"Spock, you are half-human. You are not wholly Vulcan, and you never shall be. Even I, in regards to your mother, was forced to do some very human things to make her happy. Kissing, for one thing...this is not a Vulcan activity, yet I believe humans set great store by it. You must do what you must to keep Ms. Uhura contented...which is what she asks of you. You are in a relationship with a human...you cannot use Vulcan methods to deal with it, or with her.
"You must discuss the issues in your relationship with her to resolve them. And when she is in pain, as it seems she is now...you must discuss your emotions with her. An empathic link is not enough in this situation. You must tell her how you feel, and ask what she needs from you as her mate."
Spock could hardly believe what his father was telling him...his father, a full-blooded Vulcan and follower of Surak...was telling him to discuss his emotions and act upon them to comfort Nyota. This was not logical. Well...perhaps, in a way, it was...
"Thank you, Father. You have advised me well." Spock said.
When the connection was terminated, Spock sat in silence with his hands folded before him, his pointer fingers pressed against his lips...
What his father said was true...and yet, at the same time, he was unsure that he should do as suggested. The problem remained that Nyota was not ready to hear the truth. He was not ready for her hear it. Perhaps his father's method could wait three more weeks...surely his and Nyota's issues could wait until then.
A/N: Sigh. Poor, clueless Spock...who else wants to hit him over the head right now? I do!