Well, that thing happened where I wrote a perfectly serviceable, wonderful end to this chapter and decided I didn't like it. Luckily, I didn't erase it, since that would be too mean, and it's on my tumblr. You can use the link "Things that Got the Axe" and it will be tagged and titled as '5 Times'. As a warning, it is still very similar to how this one ends … so you would totally be within your rights to wonder why I felt I had to change it, and you would also be within your rights to think that I'm just a touch neurotic. But, in the end, important writerly reasons prevail above all else, including doing the dishes and folding laundry as I work on this story.

…

She begins to dream of him.

She dreams of things they have done together, walking from a restaurant they frequent back towards the Academy, watching the campus gates come into view as they talk and she smiles and laughs.

She dreams of going on walks to museums, to the theater, to sports games, to the aquarium with him, which they have never done, and never even spoken of, and she's never even wanted to, so she knows how strange it is even as her mind supplies the blue light streaming across his face and hair as they stand in an empty exhibit, watching each other.

She dreams of his voice telling her things he has told her many times, and she dreams of his voice telling her things he has never told her, and she dreams of his voice telling her things she can't admit to when she wakes with a gasp.

She dreams of playing chess against him, and this time she's winning so she knows it's a dream. When she reaches for his king, he reaches for her hand and they reach for each other, sliding into a slow tangle of arms and legs, their mouths are hot and unrelenting.

…

"I heard Barrett asked you out for dinner," Gaila says, meticulously applying gold polish to her thumbnail. "Guess he didn't get the memo that you're suddenly, famously unavailable."

"Yes, he asked if he could buy me dinner."

"He's hot."

"Sure."

"I mean, he's like really hot."

"I guess."

"I haven't slept with him yet."

"I wasn't sure," Nyota says, carefully stacking padds on her desk. "I don't like to presume."

"But I think you knew that, because of the list."

"I do know all about your list."

"So that's probably not why you turned him down."

Nyota picks up the top padd and scrolls through her biolinguistics paper, noting a section she needs to research.

"I mean, he's smart, he's handsome, he gets good grades."

"So I've been told."

"I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact he asked if he could buy you dinner."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about."

"Because I would hate to think that you're so desperate for an excuse that you focused on his normalized, colloquial use of a modal auxiliary verb, when it's not even a grammatical error but instead a lexical difference."

"Did you look that up? I'm impressed."

"Nyota…"

"I have standards," she says quickly, picking up a text on Andorian subdialects. "Consider it the great difference between us."

"I'm sure you and I can't think of anyone who would ever ask if he could buy you dinner, when he wants to know if he may."

Nyota is silent, highlighting a relevant paragraph on idiolects.

"I certainly can't think of anyone who you see no less than, oh I don't know, multiple times a week. For dinner. At his place. That he cooks."

"Fewer, Gaila, not less. Standards."

"You said that already. And that paper your writing is supposed to be on Romulans, not Andorians."

"I know that."

"Sure."

"Shut up."

…

He does not try to touch her again, and she does not think about the warm, dry heat of his hand, or what washed over her when his fingers found hers.

It is not, though, that they never touch.

She gets bumped by someone's overstuffed bag in an overfull turbolift and steps into him as she regains her balance. He is a wall of heat and muscle and she can feel the hard plane of his chest against her shoulder. She drops her chin and stares at the small patch of floor she can see between the legs and feet of the other cadets and officers packed in along with them.

She is at a workspace in the lab and he is standing behind her, watching data from the long range sensor scroll across the screen, when an exuberant cadet must knock him, or step too close, because his hand falls on her shoulder for a brief, fleeting moment as he rights himself. She can feel his fingers through the fabric of her uniform and the heat lingers for a long moment after he stiffly apologizes and they watch the rows of numbers in a silence that stretches interminably.

She turns away from a console, intending to step back to point out a translation error and finds her arm brushing against his because she didn't think he was standing so close. It is not the only time it happens, and not the only time she misjudges what she thought was an appropriate, professional distance and instead finds their bodies inches apart.

Her face feels hot when such things happen, and she finds herself restless and fidgeting. She is aware of his culture and his desire for personal space, and is embarrassed that with all the time they spend together they occasionally still come into physical contact, no matter how assiduously she attempts not to.

She does not touch his shoulder when she laughs at one of his dry remarks, and she does not reach for his arm to catch his attention. Her hand has moved of its own accord more than once, but she makes sure to still it before she can find out what the fabric of his uniform feels like, or what he will do if her fingers brush over his when his words are soft and quiet in the dim light of his apartment late at night.

…

It's the first real fight that she and Gaila have.

She sits on her bed with her arms wrapped around her legs, listening, her cheeks flushed from her dream and the horrible embarrassing awkwardness of an Orion roommate who is privy to every explicit, erotic scenario Nyota's subconscious rings out of her.

"This is the third time this week. I can't sleep."

"Me either," she mutters into her knees.

"Can you just go over there and have sex with him?"

"No."

"Can I go over there and have sex with him?"

"No!"

"Can I go over there and tell him you want to have sex with him?"

"I really don't want to do that. I just want to forget this entire thing."

"Denial is not just a waterway that forms a delta on the Mediterranean Sea."

"River, Gaila, in Egypt."

"Stop."

"I'm sorry," she says, still speaking to her knees. "I know you don't like it when I do that."

"No, I'm serious. You need to do something about this."

"I don't know what to do."

"You're going to start admitting you think he's the hottest thing since… whatever, you probably have an idiotic, incomprehensible Terran idiom for it."

"Best thing since sliced bread?"

"I'm leaving. I'm leaving here and having sex with the first person I find, and so help me if it's Jim Kirk, you brought this on yourself."

…

It is not that she doesn't find him attractive, because he is of course intensely handsome. It is that she is completely capable of separating any physical interest from their friendship. What she does notice is… logical.

She likes the way his hand holds his stylus not because she often remembers the warm weight of it on her own, because she certainly doesn't think about that, but because he's showing her how to draw a complicated Vulcan character, since he knows how and she doesn't and that seems to be reason enough.

She likes how tall he is because they bumped into each other in the library, again, and among old, paper copies of books, he lifted one down for her that she couldn't reach.

She likes the way his uniform hugs his chest and shoulders because she's seen him in sweaters and button down shirts, and once an old t-shirt that said Starfleet Academy Mathletes, and she guesses not many people sit around with him over the weekend and play chess and do work and enjoy a shared silence.

She likes his dark eyes because sometimes she thinks he's almost laughing, sometimes he smiles a little with them, a bright gleam that doesn't show up in the classroom or office, and sometimes he seems almost lonely, looking down for a long moment, like he's only a few years older than her and lives away from his family on a foreign planet, someone who isn't her professor, or a commissioned officer, or her boss, but someone she spends time with because they both enjoy each other's company.

She likes his mouth because he has perfect pronunciation and annunciation and everything else she could ask for from a fellow linguist. She likes when he says her name, even though she tells herself not to like something like that, and she likes what they talk about, and sometimes she imagines liking other things about it, things she could like and studiously doesn't contemplate.

…

It's as if the soft brush of his mind against hers when he held her hand knocked something loose in her subconscious and she often wakes sweaty and aroused, dragging a pillow over her burning face.

She dreams of his hands pulling her shirt off, sliding her bra strap down her shoulder, stroking her breasts, her stomach, between her legs and inside her.

She dreams of his mouth on hers, on her neck, on her ear, tracing down her skin as he eases her legs apart and kneels before her.

She dreams of him pushing inside her, her legs wrapped around his waist, his hand gripping her thigh and pulling it over his shoulder.

She dreams of him moving over her, under her, behind her, until Gaila throws a shoe at her, and then another one, until Nyota decides 0436 is late enough to sleep and goes to the library, leaving her roommate in a huffy, annoyed pile of blankets.

…

She is not ignorant to the gossip about the two of them. She is not immune to it either, but its utterly unfounded and baseless nature helps inure her to her induction into the rumor mill.

As nothing is going on between them, there's really nothing to talk about. She does not particularly care for the speculation about them, but also does not let it explicitly bother her. He is either oblivious or capable of not caring, since he just blinks and walks away when Professor Faye, gesturing to her sitting with burning cheeks at a console, asks him how he got so lucky.

Three cadets and a Lieutenant inform her that he's good looking, even if 'good-looking' is not the specific wording they use, and that she is also fortunate, even if they don't actually employ that term or phrasing.

Since there's nothing to talk about, they don't talk about it. There are plenty of other topics that interest them more than idle speculation about the time they spend together, and she sees no reason to focus on it if he too so diligently avoids the topic.

…

She dreams of him being rough, spreading her legs open and grinding into her.

She dreams of him being gentle, running his fingers from her ankle up to her thigh, his mouth teasing over her breasts, her stomach, until she squirms.

She dreams of an insatiable frenzy that goes on for hours, their bodies wet with sweat and the sheets twisted and torn and damp.

She dreams of utter satisfaction, his fingers trailing across her back as they catch their breath and her toes dragging up his leg.

She dreams and dreams until Gaila throws another shoe, a pillow, a hairbrush, Nyota's comm, and threatens to throw her padd with her biolinguistics paper on it.

…

It is not that she doesn't like him, because of course she does.

He is respectful, polite, and inherently decent and good in a way that makes her trust him more than most others in her life. She has never met anyone who sticks to his morals as much as he does, who will not back down from what he thinks is right and just.

He's funny, in his own way, and she likes his dry humor and sharp wit. He seems quite adept at making her laugh, and sometimes she thinks that he tries to do so with more frequency than he once did.

He is intelligent in a way that she thinks must be rare even among Vulcans, and she knows he thinks she's smart as well, something she holds close to herself and remembers when the Academy seems too overwhelming and difficult. She spends more time with him than anyone else except maybe Gaila, and it's easy, and she has fun, which is something strange to think about in conjunction with him. She can't think of anything else to tell him about herself, and then does anyway, and he listens attentively, with that way he has where he leans forward and watches her as if his entire focus is on her words.

It is just that she doesn't like him.

He's an officer, even though that doesn't really matter. He's her boss, and that matters more, at least to her. He's her friend, and that matters more than anything.

She can't imagine dating him, she thinks, as they reheat leftovers at his apartment and he tells her about a lecture he's giving on comparative neurolinguistics. It'd be strange, she thinks, as they eat together and she tells him about her classes that day.

She doesn't like him. She's sure. She thinks she's sure. She thinks she's pretty sure that she's sure.

She's absolutely sure she's not telling Gaila any of this, she thinks, and smiles slightly, and he does that thing where he doesn't really smile back, but catches her eye with a soft expression as he washes her plate and asks how her grandfather and the rest of her family are coping.

She doesn't think about him like that, and doesn't want to put her head on his shoulder, and doesn't want his arms around her, and doesn't want him to touch her hand again until the ache goes away.

When takes a small step closer, as he does lately, and asks how she's doing, she tells him because she can't imagine anyone she'd rather talk about it with.

…

She dreams of him pressed against her, sweat drying on their skin as they whisper to each other, their legs tangled and their hands laced together.

She dreams of waking in his bed and moving towards him, their bodies finding each other in the dim morning light and the slow roll of their hips as they move under the sheets.

She dreams of resting next to him against the pillows, him sliding the padd from her hands and flicking it off as his mouth covers hers and his hands leave trails of heat that distract her from whatever she was working on.

She wakes from that dream as Gaila comes back into their room and finds she has fallen asleep over her Romulan Morphology assignment. She quickly buries herself in it again as Gaila rolls her eyes.

…

"He and I are really good friends."

"Indisputable."

"It'd be… weird."

"Irrefutably."

"And a really bad idea."

"Undeniably."

"And probably wouldn't work."

"Indubitably."

"And I don't think he thinks about me like that."

"Debatable."

"No, he really doesn't."

"Inconclusive."

"I mean, I would know."

"Disputable."

"Did you get a thesaurus?"

"It's yours."

"Give it back, please."

"Consummate no on that. I happen to like finding new ways to tell you you're obtuse, dense, oblivious, unobservant, absurd, senseless, inane, vapid, puerile-"

"-That's not really a synonym-"

"-Thick, dimwitted, cretinous-"

"-That actually means-"

"-Ignorant, slow, dim-witted, senseless-"

"-You said that one-"

"-Senseless. Again. Insane, ridiculous, irrational, erroneous, invalid, spurious-"

"-Good word-"

"-Sophistic-"

"-Wow-"

"-Casuist, fallacious-"

"-Gaila, this is really awesome, but-"

"Illogical."

"Exactly. It's not helpful."

"Apparently."

…

"I bet he was fuzzy," she says, watching him take her last knight.

"I-Chaya was quite vicious."

"Not mutually exclusive," she says with a smile as she moves her queen. Her smile quickly turns into a yawn that she tries to hide and can't.

"Nyota?" he says, because he calls her that, sometimes. It was a mistake, she thinks, to tell him he could, because she cannot unhear how he says her name.

She looks up to see his dark eyes staring at her.

"You are tired. You should return to your dorm and sleep," he says and she shakes her head.

She's fine. She really doesn't want to go to sleep. She really just wants him to stop watching her like that.

She's fine. She's sure.

He beats her quickly, in two more turns, which makes her smile again, watching him as he gracefully rises from his chair. She helps him put away the chess set, glancing down at her feet before she can look at how his shirt stretches across the long line of his back as he reaches to place it on its shelf.

She doesn't think about him in anyway other than as her friend, so she doesn't contemplate letting her fingers brush his as he holds out her coat and padd, and she doesn't linger on the memory of his warm hand on hers. She is relieved she doesn't think about things like raising her hand to his face and pressing her mouth to his, and doesn't think about the way his cheek would feel under her fingers, and doesn't think about how his hair is probably really soft and nice. If she did think things like that, or did do something like that, she might also notice how he doesn't back away from her immediately once she has her coat, or how he's standing close enough she can feel the heat from his body and hear the way they are both breathing faster than normal.

Because she doesn't think of things like that, and doesn't notice the way he is looking at her, she is fine when he eventually takes a step back and opens the door. She is able to give him a small smile as she leaves, and she is able to not think about why she feels something like disappointment, or even regret, as she walks home, her mind retracing a moment that could have been something entirely different but instead just echoes, hollow, like her foot steps across the empty quad.

...

More to come! I'm just, uh, not done with it and, um, haven't really started it. Much. Shan't be long, though!