FIC: Like the Stars, Like Your Destiny (2/5)
Like the Stars, Like Your Destiny
Part 2 of 5
Title: Like the Stars, Like Your Destiny
Author: anodyna
Characters/Pairings: Nyota Uhura, Spock/Uhura, Gaila, Spock Prime & ensemble
Rating: R for sensuality and Vulcan poetry references
Warnings: Vulcan poetry references!
Summary: Nyota Uhura has always been drawn to things that resist her understanding. Finding out she's lived her entire life in an alternate reality is a mystery she's not sure she can solve. Sleeplessness and self-examination ensue.
The first time she sees him, he's standing outside the Hall of Science, deep in conversation with another instructor. Her eye is caught by the tall, slender figure and the way he stands, a little formally, with his hands clasped behind his back. He seems young to be an instructor, she thinks. Also rather handsome, in an intense, otherworldly way.
Gaila, who's been lying on her stomach in the grass making angry noises at her engineering problem set, looks up and catches Nyota in the act of staring. She follows the direction of Nyota's eyes. "Oh," she says. "Commander Spock. He's totally hot, right? I thought about signing up for his seminar on advanced Vulcan phonology, except I don't speak Vulcan. I'd let him teach me some, though. If you know what I mean."
"Unfortunately, I do." Nyota looks back over; the conversation has ended and Commander Spock is walking away, down the path toward the administration buildings.
Gaila gives Nyota a little smack on the knee to get her attention back. "Seriously, though. You should look into his classes. I hear he's a genius, and Vulcan is really close to Romulan. You could pick it up in a month and spend the rest of the semester sitting in the front row getting all squirmy over his uniform."
Nyota laughs in spite of herself. "Gaila, for the last time, I do not have a thing for the uniform!"
"I hear what you're saying, but your words mean nothing."
"Speaking of words that mean nothing, didn't you tell Yelena you'd have that problem set done in an hour?"
Gaila sighs and retrieves her PADD from the grass. "I did, curse her Cardassian ancestors. But I am serious, Nyota. Commander Spock doesn't teach that many language courses, and he's got research projects starting. If you take the initiative you could get in on the ground floor of something interesting. Resist the Vulcan hotness if you must, but don't forget about the opportunity."
Nyota can just see him still, a lone dark figure among a crowd of cadets in red, climbing the steps of the Faculty Office Building.
"You're probably right," she says, absently. Then a door opens, and he disappears from sight.
****
At the end of Fall term, Nyota receives an invitation to a Xenolinguistics Department tea hosted by Commander Spock. Only a few undergraduate students are invited, a distinction that's both flattering and terrifying.
"There's nothing to worry about," Gaila tells her, as Nyota brushes her hair and checks her uniform for the fourth time. "Just remember: Vulcans are touch-telepaths, so don't try to shake his hand; he's a vegetarian, so don't talk about meat; and he's a genius who you want to work with someday, so don't say anything stupid. Good luck!"
The small rooms of Commander Spock's quarters are already crowded when Nyota arrives. She's standing in in the foyer, looking for anyone she knows and wondering which way is the actual tea, when Commander Spock appears before her.
"Cadet Uhura," he greets her, with a slight bow.
He's taller up close, and his voice is softer than she expects, his inflections less austere. Also, he apparently knows her name. Nyota returns the bow. "Commander Spock. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for inviting me."
"The pleasure is mine. Since I began teaching in this department I have been told many times that you are a student I should meet. I believe we have several research interests in common."
It's a perfect opening, and Nyota leaps at it. "Yes, actually. I've recently become interested in developmental similarities between archaic dialects of Romulan and Vulcan. I haven't had a chance to review all the research yet, but I'm hoping to come up with something that could become my thesis." It comes out in a rush and she hopes she doesn't seem nervous.
He raises an eyebrow--a sign of interest, she hopes. "The topic seems worthy of examination. It has not been fully explored, making the possibility of original discoveries greater." He pauses, as if considering something. "Your research may be aided by additional study in Vulcan phonology. I will be teaching an advanced seminar in the spring. I hope you will consider taking it."
Nyota smiles, feeling a little warm. "I'm already registered."
"Then I look forward to having you." He looks like he might say more, but then the door opens and he glances up to check the new arrival. "Please excuse me; I must speak to the Admiral. It was a pleasure to meet you, Cadet Uhura." He bows once again, and is gone.
Nyota spends the next hour politely mingling. She learns the details of several classmates' winter travel plans. She explains Romulan greeting customs to Commander Neely, who confides that he booked a trip to Romulus by mistake because it was next to Romania on the transporter schedule. She hears three different versions of the story of Admiral Archer's beagle, all mutually contradictory and equally impossible.
Between conversations she looks around--not intending to pry, but curious about the person who lives here. She gathers little details, like clues: Old-fashioned books mixed in with the data PADDs on the shelves, suggesting interests beyond cutting-edge academics. A soft, nubby blanket on the end of the sofa, implying what seems like an un-Vulcan appreciation for comfort. A terrarium containing moss and ferns, probably Terran. A small collection of orange stones in a bowl, definitely Vulcan. Nyota remembers their distinctive color well, from her days roaming the Federation planets in the holovid library.
She likes what she sees in his rooms. There's less of the dry Vulcan minimalism she expected, and more evidence of individual taste and personality. He's already becoming less forbidding to her, a feeling that increases with each little object--each sign of travels taken or interests similar to hers--that she notices as she wanders from room to room.
Nyota notices him, as well. It's difficult not to. More even than his Vulcan features, Commander Spock's physical presence sets him apart from everyone around him. Nyota finds her eye returning repeatedly to the tall, thin figure as he goes from group to group, listening politely to different conversations, occasionally adding a few words before moving on.
Up close, she sees things that escaped her when her only opportunity to observe him was from across a quad or dining hall. She realizes that what she took for a lack of expression in his face is actually more subtlety. His expressions are not open, but they're detectable in the small movements of his mouth and eyes, the occasional raised eyebrow, and the tones of his voice. Small quirks of his body language become more apparent when she sees them repeated: a tilt of his head while listening or thinking, a shift of his gaze to the middle distance when someone tells an inappropriate joke, the way his hands find each other behind his back when he stands still. All Gaila's teasing aside, there's something about him Nyota finds striking.
He interests her--but it's the wrong kind of interest. The kind that makes no sense for a girl to have toward someone so obviously, famously unavailable as a Vulcan.
A Vulcan Commander no less, she reminds herself. And future instructor, and possible mentor, and hopefully research collaborator, and who knows what after that. The list is sobering, but helpful. Nyota resolves not to look at him for a while, and for half an hour she applies herself with single-minded focus to Lieutenant Commander Suresh's very long story of how he personally prevented the USS Hood from being overrun by an Andorian snow-lizard infestation.
The party is winding down and Nyota is thinking about leaving when she finds herself momentarily alone, standing just inside the doorway of Commander Spock's study. Her eyes are drawn to his desk, with its interesting clutter of work in progress. There is a stack of student PADDs waiting to be graded, and next to that his own, blinking softly to indicate messages received. In another corner are several bound volumes with tooled leather covers--she guesses Vulcan, by the style of their decoration--in a neat pile, weighted by a small glass orb containing a tiny model of the Terran moon.
She's about to leave the room when her eye is caught by something on his desk, something so familiar and yet so strange that her hand goes out involuntarily to touch it. It's a book, an old-fashioned Terran book bound in brightly colored synthetic paper, now battered with age. From the cover, a familiar face smiles up at her--a young woman in the Starfleet uniform of an earlier time. It's a copy of Anouk Ashmai: Destiny in the Stars.
"Cadet Uhura." She hadn't heard him enter, and she looks up, startled. She quickly withdraws her hand, but it's too late. His eyes trace the path and he raises one eyebrow inquiringly. "Are you familiar with this book?"
Nyota tries to cover her flustered reaction and hopes she's a little bit successful. "Yes, I am. I read it when I was a girl. My copy was on a PADD, but it's the same story. I'm just--surprised to see it here."
Commander Spock nods. "Indeed. It is a gift for my mother. She was quite fond of these books as a young person and I believe the reminder will be pleasing to her."
Nyota puffs out a tiny laugh, almost more of relief than amusement. "That's thoughtful of you. I didn't realize Anouk Ashmai had a following on Vulcan."
"On the contrary. I believe it is quite some time since my mother has found anyone on Vulcan who shares her enthusiasm for these works." There is a brief pause and Nyota registers a flicker of--something--in his expression. "You may not be aware--my mother spent her girlhood on Earth. Her place of origin is Seattle, in the Northwest Pacific Region."
"Oh. I see." Nyota is careful to keep her surprise out of her voice. She does not wish to offend him and has no idea whether he considers this an unusual fact about himself.
"My mother indicates these books were quite popular among young females of her generation. I understand the series runs to over forty volumes."
Nyota nods, grateful to him for the smooth shift in topic. "Oh, it does. I'm pretty sure I read all of them. My aunt loved them too; she gave them to me when I wanted to improve my Standard."
"Interesting. I seem to recall the vocabulary employed by the author to be somewhat more...ornate than the Standard in common use. However as your Standard is perfectly correct and not at all ornate, perhaps I have remembered inaccurately."
Nyota laughs, feeling less awkward now. "'Ornate' is a good word for it. But I do think my Standard has recovered from the experience." Then, curious, she asks, "Did you actually read those books?"
"I attempted to. I confess that the plots did not seem realistic to me. Perhaps it was simply that the gulf between my own experience and that of the characters was too great. I conclude the author did not consider young Vulcan boys to be likely readers."
"No, I imagine not." The image of a Vulcan child of either gender attempting to enjoy Anouk Ashmai's romantic adventures is so absurd that Nyota can't help smiling.
"Your amusement is natural. My mother still finds the story amusing, even though it is many years in the past." Nyota detects the note of dry humor in his voice, and looks up to catch him almost-smiling--just a tiny movement at the corner of his mouth that in anyone else would be unnoticeable.
"My brother didn't like them, either," she says. "I think they're more of a girl thing."
He nods, as if Nyota has said something profound, but his eyes still show that almost imperceptible amusement. "In any case, when I speak to my mother next I will inform her that I have met someone here who is able to share her appreciation. If you do not object, of course."
"Of course. Please tell her, if you think she would like to know." Nyota pictures Commander Spock's mother receiving a message from her son about Anouk Ashmai. His human mother, she remembers to add--and how was that likely, or even possible? For all her pride in her powers of observation, she hadn't been prepared for that small revelation.
Nyota becomes aware that Commander Spock is standing silently, perhaps waiting for some signal from her. She realizes abruptly that she is one of the last guests, that the others are leaving. It's time to go. He seems to divine her intention before she moves, stepping back slightly to allow her to pass out of the room, then follows close behind her.
At the door he wishes her a good evening, and expresses the hope again that he will see her in class in the spring. Nyota thanks him again for inviting her, and tells him she is looking forward to it. They part with a polite bow.
That night Nyota has a dream about him. It's the first in a very long series.
****
Continue to Part 3
Part 2 of 5
Title: Like the Stars, Like Your Destiny
Author: anodyna
Characters/Pairings: Nyota Uhura, Spock/Uhura, Gaila, Spock Prime & ensemble
Rating: R for sensuality and Vulcan poetry references
Warnings: Vulcan poetry references!
Summary: Nyota Uhura has always been drawn to things that resist her understanding. Finding out she's lived her entire life in an alternate reality is a mystery she's not sure she can solve. Sleeplessness and self-examination ensue.
The first time she sees him, he's standing outside the Hall of Science, deep in conversation with another instructor. Her eye is caught by the tall, slender figure and the way he stands, a little formally, with his hands clasped behind his back. He seems young to be an instructor, she thinks. Also rather handsome, in an intense, otherworldly way.
Gaila, who's been lying on her stomach in the grass making angry noises at her engineering problem set, looks up and catches Nyota in the act of staring. She follows the direction of Nyota's eyes. "Oh," she says. "Commander Spock. He's totally hot, right? I thought about signing up for his seminar on advanced Vulcan phonology, except I don't speak Vulcan. I'd let him teach me some, though. If you know what I mean."
"Unfortunately, I do." Nyota looks back over; the conversation has ended and Commander Spock is walking away, down the path toward the administration buildings.
Gaila gives Nyota a little smack on the knee to get her attention back. "Seriously, though. You should look into his classes. I hear he's a genius, and Vulcan is really close to Romulan. You could pick it up in a month and spend the rest of the semester sitting in the front row getting all squirmy over his uniform."
Nyota laughs in spite of herself. "Gaila, for the last time, I do not have a thing for the uniform!"
"I hear what you're saying, but your words mean nothing."
"Speaking of words that mean nothing, didn't you tell Yelena you'd have that problem set done in an hour?"
Gaila sighs and retrieves her PADD from the grass. "I did, curse her Cardassian ancestors. But I am serious, Nyota. Commander Spock doesn't teach that many language courses, and he's got research projects starting. If you take the initiative you could get in on the ground floor of something interesting. Resist the Vulcan hotness if you must, but don't forget about the opportunity."
Nyota can just see him still, a lone dark figure among a crowd of cadets in red, climbing the steps of the Faculty Office Building.
"You're probably right," she says, absently. Then a door opens, and he disappears from sight.
****
At the end of Fall term, Nyota receives an invitation to a Xenolinguistics Department tea hosted by Commander Spock. Only a few undergraduate students are invited, a distinction that's both flattering and terrifying.
"There's nothing to worry about," Gaila tells her, as Nyota brushes her hair and checks her uniform for the fourth time. "Just remember: Vulcans are touch-telepaths, so don't try to shake his hand; he's a vegetarian, so don't talk about meat; and he's a genius who you want to work with someday, so don't say anything stupid. Good luck!"
The small rooms of Commander Spock's quarters are already crowded when Nyota arrives. She's standing in in the foyer, looking for anyone she knows and wondering which way is the actual tea, when Commander Spock appears before her.
"Cadet Uhura," he greets her, with a slight bow.
He's taller up close, and his voice is softer than she expects, his inflections less austere. Also, he apparently knows her name. Nyota returns the bow. "Commander Spock. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for inviting me."
"The pleasure is mine. Since I began teaching in this department I have been told many times that you are a student I should meet. I believe we have several research interests in common."
It's a perfect opening, and Nyota leaps at it. "Yes, actually. I've recently become interested in developmental similarities between archaic dialects of Romulan and Vulcan. I haven't had a chance to review all the research yet, but I'm hoping to come up with something that could become my thesis." It comes out in a rush and she hopes she doesn't seem nervous.
He raises an eyebrow--a sign of interest, she hopes. "The topic seems worthy of examination. It has not been fully explored, making the possibility of original discoveries greater." He pauses, as if considering something. "Your research may be aided by additional study in Vulcan phonology. I will be teaching an advanced seminar in the spring. I hope you will consider taking it."
Nyota smiles, feeling a little warm. "I'm already registered."
"Then I look forward to having you." He looks like he might say more, but then the door opens and he glances up to check the new arrival. "Please excuse me; I must speak to the Admiral. It was a pleasure to meet you, Cadet Uhura." He bows once again, and is gone.
Nyota spends the next hour politely mingling. She learns the details of several classmates' winter travel plans. She explains Romulan greeting customs to Commander Neely, who confides that he booked a trip to Romulus by mistake because it was next to Romania on the transporter schedule. She hears three different versions of the story of Admiral Archer's beagle, all mutually contradictory and equally impossible.
Between conversations she looks around--not intending to pry, but curious about the person who lives here. She gathers little details, like clues: Old-fashioned books mixed in with the data PADDs on the shelves, suggesting interests beyond cutting-edge academics. A soft, nubby blanket on the end of the sofa, implying what seems like an un-Vulcan appreciation for comfort. A terrarium containing moss and ferns, probably Terran. A small collection of orange stones in a bowl, definitely Vulcan. Nyota remembers their distinctive color well, from her days roaming the Federation planets in the holovid library.
She likes what she sees in his rooms. There's less of the dry Vulcan minimalism she expected, and more evidence of individual taste and personality. He's already becoming less forbidding to her, a feeling that increases with each little object--each sign of travels taken or interests similar to hers--that she notices as she wanders from room to room.
Nyota notices him, as well. It's difficult not to. More even than his Vulcan features, Commander Spock's physical presence sets him apart from everyone around him. Nyota finds her eye returning repeatedly to the tall, thin figure as he goes from group to group, listening politely to different conversations, occasionally adding a few words before moving on.
Up close, she sees things that escaped her when her only opportunity to observe him was from across a quad or dining hall. She realizes that what she took for a lack of expression in his face is actually more subtlety. His expressions are not open, but they're detectable in the small movements of his mouth and eyes, the occasional raised eyebrow, and the tones of his voice. Small quirks of his body language become more apparent when she sees them repeated: a tilt of his head while listening or thinking, a shift of his gaze to the middle distance when someone tells an inappropriate joke, the way his hands find each other behind his back when he stands still. All Gaila's teasing aside, there's something about him Nyota finds striking.
He interests her--but it's the wrong kind of interest. The kind that makes no sense for a girl to have toward someone so obviously, famously unavailable as a Vulcan.
A Vulcan Commander no less, she reminds herself. And future instructor, and possible mentor, and hopefully research collaborator, and who knows what after that. The list is sobering, but helpful. Nyota resolves not to look at him for a while, and for half an hour she applies herself with single-minded focus to Lieutenant Commander Suresh's very long story of how he personally prevented the USS Hood from being overrun by an Andorian snow-lizard infestation.
The party is winding down and Nyota is thinking about leaving when she finds herself momentarily alone, standing just inside the doorway of Commander Spock's study. Her eyes are drawn to his desk, with its interesting clutter of work in progress. There is a stack of student PADDs waiting to be graded, and next to that his own, blinking softly to indicate messages received. In another corner are several bound volumes with tooled leather covers--she guesses Vulcan, by the style of their decoration--in a neat pile, weighted by a small glass orb containing a tiny model of the Terran moon.
She's about to leave the room when her eye is caught by something on his desk, something so familiar and yet so strange that her hand goes out involuntarily to touch it. It's a book, an old-fashioned Terran book bound in brightly colored synthetic paper, now battered with age. From the cover, a familiar face smiles up at her--a young woman in the Starfleet uniform of an earlier time. It's a copy of Anouk Ashmai: Destiny in the Stars.
"Cadet Uhura." She hadn't heard him enter, and she looks up, startled. She quickly withdraws her hand, but it's too late. His eyes trace the path and he raises one eyebrow inquiringly. "Are you familiar with this book?"
Nyota tries to cover her flustered reaction and hopes she's a little bit successful. "Yes, I am. I read it when I was a girl. My copy was on a PADD, but it's the same story. I'm just--surprised to see it here."
Commander Spock nods. "Indeed. It is a gift for my mother. She was quite fond of these books as a young person and I believe the reminder will be pleasing to her."
Nyota puffs out a tiny laugh, almost more of relief than amusement. "That's thoughtful of you. I didn't realize Anouk Ashmai had a following on Vulcan."
"On the contrary. I believe it is quite some time since my mother has found anyone on Vulcan who shares her enthusiasm for these works." There is a brief pause and Nyota registers a flicker of--something--in his expression. "You may not be aware--my mother spent her girlhood on Earth. Her place of origin is Seattle, in the Northwest Pacific Region."
"Oh. I see." Nyota is careful to keep her surprise out of her voice. She does not wish to offend him and has no idea whether he considers this an unusual fact about himself.
"My mother indicates these books were quite popular among young females of her generation. I understand the series runs to over forty volumes."
Nyota nods, grateful to him for the smooth shift in topic. "Oh, it does. I'm pretty sure I read all of them. My aunt loved them too; she gave them to me when I wanted to improve my Standard."
"Interesting. I seem to recall the vocabulary employed by the author to be somewhat more...ornate than the Standard in common use. However as your Standard is perfectly correct and not at all ornate, perhaps I have remembered inaccurately."
Nyota laughs, feeling less awkward now. "'Ornate' is a good word for it. But I do think my Standard has recovered from the experience." Then, curious, she asks, "Did you actually read those books?"
"I attempted to. I confess that the plots did not seem realistic to me. Perhaps it was simply that the gulf between my own experience and that of the characters was too great. I conclude the author did not consider young Vulcan boys to be likely readers."
"No, I imagine not." The image of a Vulcan child of either gender attempting to enjoy Anouk Ashmai's romantic adventures is so absurd that Nyota can't help smiling.
"Your amusement is natural. My mother still finds the story amusing, even though it is many years in the past." Nyota detects the note of dry humor in his voice, and looks up to catch him almost-smiling--just a tiny movement at the corner of his mouth that in anyone else would be unnoticeable.
"My brother didn't like them, either," she says. "I think they're more of a girl thing."
He nods, as if Nyota has said something profound, but his eyes still show that almost imperceptible amusement. "In any case, when I speak to my mother next I will inform her that I have met someone here who is able to share her appreciation. If you do not object, of course."
"Of course. Please tell her, if you think she would like to know." Nyota pictures Commander Spock's mother receiving a message from her son about Anouk Ashmai. His human mother, she remembers to add--and how was that likely, or even possible? For all her pride in her powers of observation, she hadn't been prepared for that small revelation.
Nyota becomes aware that Commander Spock is standing silently, perhaps waiting for some signal from her. She realizes abruptly that she is one of the last guests, that the others are leaving. It's time to go. He seems to divine her intention before she moves, stepping back slightly to allow her to pass out of the room, then follows close behind her.
At the door he wishes her a good evening, and expresses the hope again that he will see her in class in the spring. Nyota thanks him again for inviting her, and tells him she is looking forward to it. They part with a polite bow.
That night Nyota has a dream about him. It's the first in a very long series.
****
Continue to Part 3