Matters of the Heart V (Hearts in Pieces)
Title: Matters of the Heart
Rating: NC-17 for later chapters
Summary: Sometimes the journey of two hearts is one steeped in joy, pain and sorrow, and if we're lucky, we are better because of it. A series of one-shots covery a number of years. AU
Disclaimer: Star Trek and all associated characters are not mine.
V: Hearts in Pieces - In which sacrifices are made and promises broken.
2258
Late summer, four months after the destruction of Vulcan, Enterprise is still under repairs.
Silence hung heavy around them, chasing the last echoes of his damning words. He wished he could take them back, but that would defeat his purpose. He looked at her and felt something jagged twist in his gut. In all the time Spock had known Nyota Uhura, she had never been this expressionless. She was warm and vibrant, never cold, at least not towards him.
In the humid summer heat of his bedroom, she sat across from him, naked except for his sheets tucked under her arms. A faint sheen of sweat lingered over her deceptively delicate frame. A dark bruise was already forming at her shoulder where he had bitten her, and he knew there would be imprints of his fingers on her hips and thighs. Still as a statue, she seemed carved of stone. He wanted desperately to touch her, to reassure himself that she was real.
Slowly, monstrously slow, she turned her head to face him. “Did you think you could fuck me into easily accepting your decision?”
The icy venom in her words coupled with her stillness unnerved him. “Sexual congress was not my intent tonight.”
Nyota’s right hand flashed forward, and her palm connected to his cheek, snapping his head back. He supposed; he deserved that, after what transpired earlier. He had specifically asked her to visit his quarters with the objective of breaking his awful news to her, nothing more. Yet, as she stepped through the door, dressed in blood-green silk, her face radiant, he had felt powerless. His logic shut down, while something deeper and older took over. It demanded he meld with her, touch her, mark her, make her cry out his name.
Spock had taken her against his living room wall. He was in her before she could fully gasp his name. In his bedroom, he had been gentler, revelling in her sounds of pleasure. After the third time, he let up, pushing that desperate unnamed emotion back where it belonged. Even if he wanted to continue, she did not. She was tired and needed a break. Seven point thirteen minutes later, he told her his news.
Nyota stared at the hand she used to hit him and spoke, “I had made my peace, Spock. I accepted that you would join your people in the rebuilding effort, and that I could not go with you. I accepted the end of our relationship, secretly hoping we would once again find each other. Then you told me, we would serve together as couple. You made me open my heart to the possibility. And now you tell me this?”
“I regret that circumstance has forced me to reconsider my choices.”
She twisted her body to better face him. The sheets fell to her narrow waist, exposing his hungry gaze to her nakedness. She did not miss his reaction. A hard, sharp smile curled her lips. “You’re going to her and yet it is me you want. Why Spock? She is no longer your betrothed.”
“The bond can be reinstated. It is something T’Pring and I agreed to do.”
“Oh. You both agreed. Where was I during all these important decisions?”
“There is a shortage of males among the survivors. Even after contacting our colony worlds, the imbalance continues. Some have even suggested multiple females per male or the encouragement of interspecies bonding. Neither is favourable to the High Command.”
“I want you to feel something,” she said, taking his right hand into hers. She splayed his fingers and pressed his palm above her left breast. “Feel that Spock? That is my heart breaking into a million tiny pieces. This is what you’ve caused.”
Her heartbeat under his fingers felt like a frantic captive bird. It was as if her physical heart would indeed crack and shatter. Spock dropped his mental shields and felt her every pain. It pierced him, penetrated and mingled with his own hurt. He shook with the effort to maintain his calm. He glanced into her eyes and read her feelings of betrayal. “I am so sorry, Nyota” he whispered.
Slowly, beneath all the pain she radiated, he sensed a building anger. Black and terrible, it fought for dominance, and then battered at his psyche. He had not known she was capable of such rage. In a ragged voice, he implored, “Forgive me.”
“You’ve made your choice, Spock.” She dashed his hand from her body. “It is time you live with it.”
With utmost efficiency, she climbed out of his bed, pulled on her dress and left him alone. He gathered the bedding around his body, cocooning himself in her floral spiked scent. For the first time since childhood, he willingly welcomed the emotion of sorrow.
The next day, he submitted his resignation paperwork and packed his bags. By the time he boarded the ship that would take him to his new home, Spock had buried his Human side. He was as Vulcan as he would ever be.
***
She sat in the far corner of the crowded bar nursing a glass of beer. James Kirk, Jim to most people, spotted her among the looming shadows. Anger and pain etched across her lovely features. She had been mostly pleasant to him since the return to Earth four months ago. A development he happily accepted. In all that time, she had seemed fine.
“Uhura?” he called, as he neared her table.
She raised her eyes to his, and he saw that they were swollen and red. He frowned and sat across from her. The woman never cracked, so it was a bit of a shock to see her this way.
“Go away, Kirk,” she responded.
She took a sip of her beer and looked beyond him to the dancing crowd. Kirk did not tolerate easy dismissal. “No.”
“What is it with you men?” Exasperation clear in her voice, she continued, “You’re always demanding, taking, and not caring who gets hurt.”
Understanding dawned. He should have guessed. “What has the pointy-eared bastard done?”
“Pointy-eared bastard, I like it.” She laughed mirthlessly and took a gulp of her beer this time.
“It really does describe him.”
He adjusted the chair across from her and slid onto it. A waiter came to their table and he ordered a beer for himself. Uhura ordered herself another. They sat quietly, watching the other bar patrons until the waiter brought their order.
Toying with his glass, he enquired, “Do you...auh...that is, do you want to talk about it?” Smooth going there, Jim. He could kick himself.
“Not really.”
“You know, Uhura, we’re not all bad.”
“Right,” she retorted and laughed again, in what was quickly becoming an ugly sound. “Aren’t you the guy who worked his way through much of the Academy’s female cadets?”
Kirk stared down into his beer. She did have a point, although it was somewhat exaggerated. “I never lied about my intensions. My partners knew what to expect.”
“James, I think you have a problem. What exactly are hoping to gain from your conquests?”
Unconsciously mimicking Spock’s raised eyebrow manoeuvre, he leaned back in his chair and gave her his undivided attention. She was good. He almost missed her swinging the conversation away from herself. “Nice try, Uhura. I know I have a laundry list of issues, but we’re not discussing them. We’re discussing you and why you’re sitting in a dark corner drinking alone.”
“We’re not having a discussion, James.” She slammed her glass on to the table for emphasis. “I asked you to leave.”
Kirk watched her and wondered what the Vulcan could have done to get her into this mood. He did not know Commander Spock, hell until recently he hadn’t much like what he had seen. However, he had melded with the other Spock, the one who travelled back in time and helped to alter his destiny. He gleaned enough to know Spock would do what duty dictated. “He left you, didn’t he?”
Uhura’s fingers tightened around her glass and her eyes glittered in anger. “Shut up, James.”
Kirk shut up. He was close to having beer in his face. Besides, her response gave him his answer. The Vulcan had ended the relationship. Drinking in Uhura’s features, he shook his head in amazement. It must have taken an act of will from Spock to accomplish such a feat. Onboard the Narada, he had witnessed the depths of the Commander’s feelings for her.
Some hours and many more drinks later, Kirk practically propped Uhura up as she keyed open the door of the temporary quarters assigned to her after graduation last month. Once inside, he helped her to the ugly lime-green sofa, located centre left of the studio dwelling.
Pulling out of his grasp and turning around to him, Uhura sighed. “Why are you being so kind, pretty boy?”
Pretty boy? “I like you, and you’re my friend.”
“Really?”
He was stretching the truth. Trust Uhura to point it out even while intoxicated. “Okay, we’re sorta friends.”
She fidgeted a bit then looked him in the eye. “Is that all?” Her fingers landed on his left knee and began a slow deliberated caress that did things to him that no simple caress should. He inhaled deeply to dispel the sensual image forming in his mind.
“You are drunk and hurting, Uhura,” Kirk replied, and was happy at how normal his voice sounded.
She snatched her hand away and scooted to the very end of the sofa. The hurt look in her suddenly sober brown eyes tore at him. “I guess you don’t want me either.”
Kirk laughed in disbelief. How could she think that he did not want her? He spent three years suppressing his want of her. He buried it deeply, and after discovering what she shared with the Vulcan, he was more than willing to purge it. He reached for her and grabbed the hand that she had rested on his knee and placed it at the juncture of his thighs. “You feel that Uhura?” he demanded, voice thick with emotion. “That’s how much I want you. But not like this, if anything ever happens between us, I want you sober and alert to everything we do.”
She pulled away from him, stood on shaky legs and went to stand at the window. He followed her and together they looked at the San Francisco landscape twinkling in the distance.
“You’re a brilliant and desirable woman. Any man should be lucky to have you.”
She turned towards him with the large eyes he had noticed the first night they met in that crowed Iowa bar. “Damn right, buddy.”
He gave her a lopsided grin and wondered at the distance he had travelled in the three years since they met. The old him would have taken what she offered, whatever the consequences. He would never admit it to her, but she was partially responsible for the change in him. It was something he would never forget.
*********************
A/N: This is actually the first one-shot that was written, and it was going to be posted as the second in the series. However, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go AU, so I wrote another piece instead. Your comments are much appreciated.
Part VI - Paper Hearts