Just Another Lunch

Uhura unhurriedly finished the last of her salad, while Jim picked uneasily at his own. He was still feeling faintly queasy, even anxious; he hoped it wouldn't last – or get worse.

When Uhura rose, Jim started to stand, too; but she waved him back to his seat.

Had it already been three minutes?

She walked away, carrying her lunch things; and it was clear that - now that the moment of… whatever… was at hand - she was no longer amused. Disposing of the dirty dishes, she went over to the service units, and keyed in an order. She waited. After half-a-minute, she came back with the tray, and a new bowl. She stood there beside him, a second; and when he looked up questioningly, she frowned a little, and awkwardly offered him the tray. "Here," she muttered.

Jim reluctantly pushed his own lunch tray away - taking, in its stead, the one Uhura was holding.

She shifted his discarded dishes to the next table over, and sat, again, opposite. (Her lack of enthusiasm wasn't helping.)

He eyed the food she had brought him, uncertainly. He had never seen anything quite like it. As far as James T. Kirk was concerned, new stuff was fine, in the midst of an adventure; in the familiar environs of his ship, however, he tended to gravitate to his usual comforts. He tried to steal a surreptitious sniff of the bowl's contents; but even at this short distance, the stuff didn't have much of an odor. It kinda just smelled… warm. "What is it?"

"You'll see," she said, propping her elbows on the table. She cupped her chin in her palms, watching his face.

"Uhura…" he began, his tone warning.

"Try it," she countered. She reached across and picked up the spoon, holding it out so that he had to take it, or risk being viewed henceforth as a petulant child. She unbent a little: "It's perfectly safe."

He met her eyes, and she nodded.

Grasping the spoon like a weapon, he hesitantly took a bite. It may have been perfectly safe, but it was also perfectly disgusting. The color was wrong, the texture was wrong, the flavor was wrong. It was all the more wrong because it was vaguely familiar – but vastly, hugely wrong.

His second mouthful proved conclusively how very, very wrong it was: Too gummy, too gritty, too bitter, too bland. It was both too gloppy, and too thin. Too rubbery, too salty. Too stringy. And way too…

She was watching him.

He promptly lifted another spoonful to his lips. Ugh. Better not to sniff.

He ate it.

Maybe it was something from her culture? A delicacy, perhaps?

The aftertaste was cloyingly sweet. It clung to his tongue, growing sweeter still. He thought of rinsing his mouth – wanted to, desperately - but she was watching.

He poked at one of the lumps with his spoon. He discovered that that really didn't help, either.

He ate another bite, trying hard not to let her see how truly disgusting it was.

It was vaguely familiar.

He ate yet another bite, and tried to figure out why it should be familiar. Not right – that was for damned sure. But familiar. Familiar-ish.

Chewing a lump of… something… he looked across the table at Uhura. He wondered whether she could follow what he was thinking. She was still watching him, and when their eyes met, she smiled – or tried, anyway: It was evident that she was determined to hold back her welling tears. He swallowed abruptly, and reached out one hand to touch the one she had left on the table.

"Hey," he said, and he was aware that his own voice was suddenly the tiniest bit tremulous. She had looked away when he touched her. "Are you okay? What's…?" She was frowning at the bowl she had brought him. Startled, he glanced down. He realized he had dropped the spoon when he noticed her expression; it had plopped into the bowl, splashing the contents a bit, before sinking slowly to the bottom. Still, that didn't warrant a frown.

He tried to catch her eye, but she had turned her chin. She wasn't facing him. "Uhura, what's wrong?"

"That," she murmured, gesturing toward the bowl in front of him, "That, right there, is what it means, at this moment, to be Vulcan." Her last words were almost a sigh, spoken on a long exhale: "There's nothing… nothing we can do to make it better."

He knew he was staring - Her words didn't make sense, but they were compelling: She looked heartbreakingly vulnerable.

She lifted her eyes to his, for a second, and blinked.

"Chicken soup," she said.

He couldn't have heard right. "Excuse me?"

She indicated the bowl, quietly. "It's chicken soup."

"The hell it is."

She didn't move.

Observing her closely, it occurred to him that, without defensive anger to sustain her - or a need to show she was strong - she was wrung-out, bone-weary.

No.

She was wrong.

It was just plain wrong.

She wasn't looking at him.

He looked at the bowl. He thought of that first bite: Very wrong.

"I know how much you like it, chicken soup." Her voice sounded tired; even her eyes looked drained. "You eat it – What, at least once a week? Or more, depending. I've seen you."

She shrugged, and shifted those melting brown eyes to the wall comm – He followed her glance, just for a second.

"I asked Spock to program the galley computer to make 'chicken soup' without using anything native to Earth. I didn't tell him why. Most of the ingredients are Nenerian: We figured that Human and Nenerian sensibilities are different in about the same way that Vulcan and Human ones are – It's the closest we could get, with the crew of this ship. If there wasn't a Nenerian counterpart, then the command was to select the next closest thing - as long as it wasn't from Earth."

Jim looked at the bowl. He was not going to think about this too much. He wasn't.

No.

Not.

He took refuge in irritation. "I am assuming - There is a point to this?" The irritation wasn't very convincing, really.

She shrugged – an empty, half-hearted gesture.

She seemed to realize then, how much she was revealing: There followed a moment when she seemed to gather herself. She slowly turned her head - with a movement disturbingly reminiscent of Spock's - and gazed at him with eyes enormous and liquid. "You know there is, Jim. And you know what it is." Her words were deliberate, even, precise…

Restrained. "But because you asked, I will spell it out for you.

"You want to know what he was like, Before?

"I'm not sure you need to know that – Beyond, really, 'as much like now, as he can make himself be'…

"But here is a data point for you: He used to like a dish called Plomik Soup about as much as you do Chicken. 'Plomik' means 'vegetable' - so I guess I always thought of it as the Vulcan equivalent of Minestrone, or something."

She shook aside the Earth-food comparison with a turn of her chin. "Anyway, every single thing that used to go into that soup – every last ingredient, mind, for the classic home-made version - is now extinct."

She was silent for a time - and still, like a coiled spring; but when she spoke again, her bitter words came at warp speed, propelled by a violent mix of emotion: "Maybe you can think about that, the next time you have your beloved chicken soup."

She suddenly stood, and Jim recognized in her action the move-or-else motion of a person about to come out of her skin. He quickly caught her, before she could run; and held her fast. Her hand was trembling slightly, and he thought that - given the wide range of emotions she could express at this moment - anger really would probably be the easiest.

Still holding her hand, he cautiously steered her back to her chair; and waited while she sank back into it. She lifted her chin and glared at the wall opposite, blinking back angry tears. Her hand twitched involuntarily; then she grimaced, and met his eyes.

A corner of her mouth twisted up. "Sorry," she said.

"No," he replied. "Oh, no." He gently lowered their still-linked hands to the table, covering them both lightly with his other palm - keeping them in contact, keeping alive their fragile connection.

He could feel her drawn-bow tension begin to unwind; only then did he lift his hand.

He suspected he knew what the answer would be, but he had to ask: "Is there anything I can do to help?"

He wondered whether he imagined the slight sideways shake of her head… Her fingers tightened for an instant (which he interpreted as a hug) then softly slipped from his.

"So, here's the thing…"she said, slowly.

"He trusts me."

Just for a second, her eyes slid to his. "I don't feel right talking about him, okay?"

He nodded. She was talking, and he was not about to interrupt. She took in a lungful of air – glanced over toward the wall comm – and, closing her eyes, let it slowly out.

"But I also think you need to be able to understand." The same slow slide.

He hesitated, then nodded again.

She drummed her fingertips on the table for a moment; then folded her hands together - as though borrowing a little equanimity.

"Okay, then. This isn't easy for me… You understand that, right?"

He smiled, a bit, encouragingly. Then he smiled again, and this time there was a tiny touch of humor: "Yep. I think I got that."

She averted her eyes from his smiling expression, and nodded. There was a brief pause. Then, in a rush: "He has to keep on."

The first words out, she was steadier, now: "He has to fulfill his purpose. He has to be what he is." Her eyes flicked quickly to his face, to see if he was following – to see if she was saying enough.

He nodded, and thought this felt strangely familiar.

"What Spock is – what he needs to be – is Vulcan. With all that that entails…"

A pause.

"It isn't easy."

Her voice had dropped a little; and she steadied herself with a blink, and a breath. She turned her chin away a little.

"With almost everything else of his homeworld gone, that's the one thing he can do – the one thing he has to do - for his people, his family, himself. If he doesn't, then one more thing from that planet dies.

"That," she said, "is how he keeps working: It's the only Vulcan thing to do."

Ah.

"And that's how he keeps breathing. By accepting what is…

"If he stops, then he betrays everything that he has ever believed."

She had lifted her eyes, again, to his. Their gaze held for a long time; until, at last, she smiled – though faintly – into the expectant face of their Captain. He had to smile, himself, seeing it: She was breathing, too.

One of her eyebrows quirked unconsciously, and he almost laughed.

"Well, Spock's not gonna do that," he boldly asserted.

No, he wasn't. And so many things, now, made sense.

She pursed her lips. "No," she said, and – light as it sounded - Jim heard a mixture of things in her voice. "He's not." She shook her head.

They sat in silence a moment, and Jim studied her face. A corner of her mouth lifted wryly, and he was distracted from his contemplation. "We both know that that wouldn't be very Vulcan, at all."

After another minute, she smiled again – a real smile: One extending to her eyes. "Speaking of which…" She tapped the tray in front of him, and started to rise - Jim was right with her, standing and grabbing the tray. She gathered up the other one, and together they carried them over to the disposal unit.

Walking toward the doorway, she seemed much lighter; she moved easily, with her usual dancer's grace.

Jim was glad she had decided to trust him: He had the distinct impression that she had really needed someone to trust - a friend who could share even a portion of that unutterable weight.

(His heart ached, a little, to think of her with such a lonely burden.)

Before they reached the exit, he stopped her, with a touch. The glance she gave him was simply curious – not wary, at all. "Thanks," he said simply.

She nodded, and started to move again, but he halted her once more, just for a moment: "For what it's worth, Uhura, I haven't heard a word you've said."

Her expression was unreadable. "Then I hope I haven't wasted my breath, Captain."

He shook his head. "No," he mused, "I don't think so."

"Good," she said.

He was the one who started to go, then; and she was the one stopping him, by gently grasping his arm: "Jim."

He turned to look her full in the face. Her air was lighter, yes, but her eyes were still serious. "There really isn't anything you can do. Honestly. You'd just make it harder… Even mentioning - well, anything - would be an invasion of his privacy."

He started to respond, when her fingers tightened just a bit, on his bicep – It was her version of the little shake of the elbow he sometimes did, himself. "Just accept, okay? Be accepting."

Soberly, he nodded. He would try – and that was the best he could promise to do.

They left the Officers' Mess in complete understanding - headed for the comfort of the same same-old, and their respective places on the Bridge.