(no subject)
Author:OneMillionandNine
Title: La Vie En Rose
Characters: S/U
Rating: Graphic Sexual Content
Beta: MaybeAmanda
Summary: 12 hours after the end of the reboot
His appearance at her door was not intentional. In fact, Spock had spent the majority of his shift calibrating sensors, filling out the forms accepting his appointment as First Officer of Enterprise, overlooking duty rosters, and in general organizing all the minutiae that fell under his jurisdiction, and not thinking of Lt. Uhura. In fact his thoughts had only strayed to her on average once every 23.8 minutes. It was only 3 times per hour had he wondered when he should approach the lieutenant, and how, and with which words. It would require at minimum three duty cycles before the ship was running at optimum efficiency. For the present time, he would have to settle for a decrease in unbridled chaos.
He had gone to his quarters after his shift, completely calm and settled, with the full and focused intent to meditate. 12.3 minutes later, he decided he would familiarize himself with the whereabouts of all the crew, beginning with the bridge crew. He found himself asking for the location of Lt. Uhura’s quarters, and failed to research any others after.
Spock did not intend to leave his quarters before the beginning of his next shift. He did not intend to find himself standing at Lt. Uhura’s door. Had he meant to be there, he would have prepared himself. He would have prepared a well-reasoned and insightful argument - or explanation, rather - of the things he said when last they had spoken, and why they were still true but no longer applicable, at least not applicable to himself. And while he knew all this was correct, he did not know how to explain it to Nyota while retaining his composure. At that moment, his composure seemed vital, indeed. So he simply stood there, awkwardly, at the juncture his feet had forced on him quite of their own accord.
Then the door slid open, revealing the Lieutenant in her bath robe. Six months ago Nyota had lost the belt, affixing the blame on her academy room mate, and so she was forced to hold it closed for modesty’s sake.
He fought hard to suppress the unnamed emotion that rose like a wave in his chest when Nyota pursed her lips and lifted her chin.
There was a rosy hue apparent under the melanocytes in the Lieutenant’s lips and nose. He speculated on the probable cause. In a ship so newly constructed it was possible that an unknown irritant had found its way into her quarters. He would have a maintenance crew look into the matter immediately. Or perhaps she had contracted a virus; if so, it was imperative that she see Dr. McCoy.
~~~~
"Lieutenant?" Spock nodded uneasily toward the open door and Nyota’s quarters.
Nyota moved to allow him in. She had been so excited to see him on the bridge when they left space dock but there were so many things that needed clarification. His presence on the ship, for instance. Not that she was complaining, but she still needed to know why he had returned. She needed some assurance he wasn’t going to be pulled away by yet another unforeseen circumstance. It was probably unreasonable of her but she didn’t care; she wanted reassurance.
The last time they were alone he made it clear that while he felt his true home was in Star Fleet with her, his duty to his people was paramount and could not be shirked. It was as though he felt he had no choice but to break both their hearts.
What had changed?
Spock’s devotion to duty was like an anchor he tied around his waist. It seemed unreasonably optimistic to imagine that he had found a way to let it go in just a few days.
"Commander," she answered him as he stepped inside.
"If there is an irritant in your quarters it would be prudent to contact maintenance for an immediate contamination check."
She frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Your facial mucosal membranes appear to be experiencing excessive vasocongestion, likely caused by an unintended irritant in your vicinity," he said. "Or perhaps you have contracted a virus. A visit to Dr. McCoy would seem to be in order."
"No, Spock," she said, passing up the chance to be sarcastic although she was sorely tempted. "There’s no irritant, no virus. I’ve been crying."
"I see." Spock seemed to flounder for a moment before he cleared his throat. "The duty roster needs extensive revision," he said, his hands folded in front of him.
Nyota squinted up at him, trying to imagine why he found it necessary to give her this particular bit of information when they both should be sleeping, when she could be crying, alone, in her quarters and he could be doing whatever he did when he was alone besides obsess over his job. Oh, she knew it was unfair as soon as she thought it. She knew what he did, he read poetry from antique books, the kind with pages, and he played the k’thyra, and he read, read, read like he was studying for his life.
Then, like a burst from a phaser, the realization hit her. Not only had Spock returned to Star Fleet, he had returned to her. And now he was standing in her quarters struggling to explain himself.
"I see," she said. She expected him to have some well-rehearsed exposition aimed more at his inner self-doubt than at her.
"The crew is adequate in their individual fields of endeavor, but efficiency has a great deal of room for improvement," he explained, clasping and re-clasping his hands.
"I see," she repeated.
"There is also a problem with vacuum pressure in the aft security lavatory."
"So, you woke me up to talk about the ship’s plumbing?"
"Ni’droi’ik nar-tor," he said.
Nyota translated automatically - I come seeking forgiveness.
Like many Vulcans, Spock spoke Terran Standard with computer perfect diction, but in his own language, his pronunciation was highly accented, betraying his city and his class as surely as any Terran native to Hong Kong or New York. It was terribly endearing.
Forgive him? That was the question, wasn’t it? Did she need to forgive him? Something in her suspected she had forgiven him the moment she saw him step through the turbo doors to the bridge.
"Spock," she said, holding in anger she hadn’t even realized she felt before, "it hurt me when you left."
"It was not my wish to go; it was, however, my obligation."
"Then what brought you back?"
Spock inhaled deeply before answering her. "That is - complicated."
"I’m listening," she said.
~~
Spock was at a loss. He had no idea how to begin explaining to Nyota the things he wished to convey. He tried to speak but all he could do was swallow.
She stepped toward him.
Perhaps he did not need words. He raised his hand to her face but Nyota grasped his wrist.
"No, you don’t, Mister," she said crisply. "I want to understand not sympathize." Her expression softened. "I already sympathize."
Stiffly, Spock asked, "You recall the hypothesis that Nero and his ship came from the future?"
Nyota nodded. "Which appeared to be confirmed during the destruction of his ship in the wormhole produced by the red matter."
Spock nodded. "Indeed. On Earth, among the survivors of the destruction of my home world, I met a Vulcan who was able to corroborate the story. A Vulcan who also claimed to hail from the future."
~~
Well, Nyota thought, that's interesting. And suspicious. She raised an eyebrow. It hadn’t been intentional mimicry, but Spock blinked, seemingly caught off guard.
"I assure you the tale is even more fantastical than it would seem at first glance. It is also this person’s claim that he is from an alternative time stream, a time stream in which there was no vastly superior Romulan ship to attack the fleet or destroy Vulcan. A time stream in which George Kirk and every other crew member aboard the Kelvin lived."
"Did he have any evidence to back up his claims?"
Spock hesitated. "He also claimed to be me."
Both Nyota's brows rose at this. "What?"
"I am convinced that he and I are one and the same," he continued. "The ship, the one I used to destroy Nero’s ship, was equipped with biometric encrypted security clearance and would not allow any but myself to fly her. However the ship computer addressed me, not as Commander Spock but rather as Ambassador, a position the stranger claims to hold - "
"But all that could be explained in other ways," she interrupted.
"Trust me, please Nyota, to recognize myself," he said with surprising sharpness before he resumed his usual monotone. "But there is more to the story; it is the other Spock’s assertion that the reason Nero traveled back in time to seek vengeance was because he, himself, or rather I, failed in the attempt to save Romulus from a super nova."
She blinked at him, once. Twice. "Oh Spock," she said placing her hand on his cheek, "being unable to stop something is not the same as causing it."
"Is it not?"
She lifted her other hand to his other cheek, framing his face. "No, Spock, it isn’t."
~~
Her cools hands made him shudder but he continued to speak, as he knew he must.
"Every judgment I made as acting captain of the Enterprise was incorrect," he said. "I failed to captain this ship adequately, just as I failed to save my mother, just as I failed to prevent the destruction of my home world, just as my other self failed to contain the supernova in the alternate time stream."
Nyota’s thumb tenderly brushed his lower lip. She reminded him painfully of the Lady Amanda in her kindness and in her delicacy. Her love washed over him and the sensation was both agonizing and sublime.
Her hands, occupied with cupping his face, allowed her robe to fall open. The vision of her small high breasts burned itself into his retinas. Something foreign pricked behind his eyes as he struggled for self-possession.
~~~~
Spock’s eyes were shining and his fists, clenching and unclenching, and Nyota had no choice but to kiss him.
He broke away, visibly struggling to control himself. He looked at the ceiling, blinking the wetness out of his eyes, his body rigid, his jaw clenched. "It is unacceptable that I may some day fail you as well."
"Oh, Spock," she said, her hands still on either side of his face. She was trying to force him into make eye contact, even as her own eyes teared up again. "That’s a chance I’m going to have to take. Taking action means taking risks. It’s impossible to be alive and never make a mistake and all the logic and reason in the world won’t prevent that. There are too many variables and even you can’t control for them all. I make mistakes. I know I’ll let you down at some point, too."
He covered her hands with his own. "That is quite impossible."
Something in Spock’s demeanor hardened and his hands gripped her wrists. In one quick motion he pulled her hands away from his face and held them tight in his between their bodies.
"My mother is dead and never once did I tell her that I loved her. I knew the value she would place on the admission, and I knew the veracity of the statement, but still I failed to tell her," he said, his eyes blazing. "Much as I have failed to tell you that I love you. And I do love you, Nyota."
"I know, Spock, I’ve known for a long time."
"That is hardly adequate." He tilted his head to the side, brushing the tears away from her face as they fell, drop after drop.
"It’s enough for me," she said, sniffing her tears away. "I'm sure it was enough for your mother, too."
~~
Spock could bear no more. He hung his head and sighed deeply, wrestling to maintain composure.
Nyota reached up and circled her arms around his broad shoulders.
His hands grasped her waist.
She spoke gently in his ear. "Tell me what you need," she whispered.
"I require your mercy," he stammered, his own tongue betraying him.
"I don’t understand. Tell me what you need me to do."
He could feel the emotion rise in his throat and fought to tamp it down. "You are so kind, Nyota. My mother was also exceedingly kind," he said, his voice hoarse.
Nyota took his hand so casually and just as casually pressed it to her temple.
"Nyota," he said, warning her, "this emotion is very strong."
The corner of her mouth curled upward. "I can handle it."
"That may be," he replied. "It does not necessarily follow, however, that I wish to ‘handle’ it."
"Spock." She used the word as if his name was a question and an answer and a declaration and an imperative in and of itself.
"I doubt my ability to contain my emotions were our minds to join." He ran his hands through her hair. It was molecularly reorganized to fall through his hands like the finest of Ri’san flame cloth. He wondered distractedly what the process involved. It was an agreeable topic, Nyota’s hair, and one that avoided all pain, conflict, and discomfort. In all his life, Nyota alone had offered him freedom from turmoil. He wondered, for novelty’s sake, if she could be convinced to return her hair to its natural texture.
"Do you think you are capable of not initiating a link during physical intimacy?" she asked, tilting her head just so.
She looked. . .sad. Had it not been illogical to hope, Spock would have hoped he was not the cause of her sorrow. "Certainly. Though I have never before had the necessity for such an action." He was strangely unprepared for Nyota’s visible surprise.
Instead of speaking, Nyota reached up and kissed him passionately, spontaneously.
He broke away. "My effort to maintain my mental shields tend to be undermined by unforeseen stimuli," he said, unsteadily. "Perhaps it would be preferable if I were to take the initiative."
Nyota laid herself back on her standard regulation bed, opening her robe like a flower spreading its petals.
The irony of the situation was not lost on Spock. He would make love to Nyota in the manner of a human male and it would require all his Vulcan discipline and training to do so. And yet the very notion of seeking out the sex act, of desiring sex for emotional comfort - and it was comfort that he sought - was in direct opposition to everything venerated by Vulcan culture. His desire for Nyota, his emotional need for her, was, from a Vulcan standpoint, profoundly deviant.
Yet he had been reared as a Vulcan. He saw the universe and himself through the eyes of a Vulcan, no matter his human compulsions. As a Vulcan, he had no wish to lay his unshielded pain bare to his own conscious mind, let alone the woman that he - that he loved. No, he would keep the curtain drawn that separated his emotion from his purposeful thoughts and actions and thereby spare both Nyota and himself.
The air was cold and the feeling not quite real as he pulled his uniform over his head. He could hear Nyota’s breath quicken as he removed the rest of his uniform.
The silence was loud as he stood before her, naked in body.
~~
It was strange to see Spock like this, naked, looming over her. Usually either she undressed him herself, or found him uncomfortably naked under twice the standard number of blankets.
Stranger still were the words that came uncertainly from his lips. "I love you, Nyota."
Her pulse raced at the declaration, but she couldn’t help feeling, as he knelt awkwardly between her legs, that she had never been so separate from him before.
Ever so hesitantly, he touched two fingers to her left breast, following the curve of her it until he reached her nipple.
Her back arched of its own accord.
~~
For reasons Spock could not explain, not even later, except to say in those days soon after her death his mother often came unbidden to his thoughts, his mind wandered back to a memory he did not know he possessed; a memory of his mother’s garden, when he had been quite small, before he had learned to walk unaided. The Earth flowers she grew there gave a heady perfume and his mother hummed the song she often hummed there among the roses. He sat on the hot ground on a soft blanket. She knelt down and lifted him in her arms. He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent and the scent of the roses and listened to her song and the strange beating of her heart in the center of her chest.
He hummed the song now.
"Do you know this piece of music?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him he hummed all he could recall. Nyota’s father being a musicologist, Nyota knew more Terran songs than anyone Spock was acquainted with, perhaps she could recognize it.
"It’s called La Vie En Rose," she said sounding puzzled.
"My mother sometimes sang it in her private garden, when I was quite young. It was in an Earth language I was unused to at the time, I assume it was an Earth language." Her nipple still between his thumb and forefinger, he asked, "Are you familiar with the words?"
"It’s hardly obscure," she said, sitting up a bit in apparent surprise.
"Will you sing it for me?"
"Now?"
"It would hardly be appropriate to request you break into song in the middle of the bridge. However, in one’s quarters during the act of intimacy-"
~~
How like Spock, to ask for so much and so little at the same time. He had lost so much - his mother, his home world - and yet he had left her. But then he had come back - back to her and back to Star Fleet.
She could give him this.
" Des yeux qui font baisser les miens," she sang automatically translating to standard in her mind. Eyes that make me lower mine.
Spock sighed and laid his head on her chest, rubbing his cheek against her breast.
"Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche," she sang. A laugh that loses itself on his mouth.
Spock opened his lips to allow as much as possible of her breast into his mouth. He sucked hard.
"Voila le portrait, sans retouche, de l’homme auquel j’appartiens," she sang, but there was a catch in her voice as her body responded. Behold the portrait without retouching of the man to whom I belong.
Spock’s hand moved up her thigh.
"Quand il me prend dans ses bras," she sang her voice growing softer. When he takes me in his arms.
Spock’s hand moved hesitantly between her legs, stopping to rest on her mons pubis. She used that word in her mind because she knew it was one that Spock would be comfortable with.
"Il me parle tout bas," she sang and desire shot through her spine like electricity. He speaks to me softly.
"Je vois la vie en rose," the words came out a whisper. I see life in pink.
Nyota could no longer control her body. Her hips ground in response to the stillness of his hand.
Spock’s gaze pored over her face as though there were words printed there and his lips never left her breast.
"Il me dit des mots d’amour," she sang, finding her voice again.
He utters words of love to me.
~~
Behind the walls in Spock’s mind, the emotions churned like a storm at the heart of the desert. Comfort he had not known since he was a very young child washed over him, accompanied by an ache like a driving wind at the center of his being. How could he feel so comforted and devastated at the same time?
He smelled Nyota’s growing arousal and his own body responded as conditioned. A Vulcan female would feel nothing but disdain for one so ruled. Perhaps such a female would compare him to an animal trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.
Nyota was nothing like a Vulcan female. True, she had astonishing self possession for a Human, but the humor with which she greeted life, the compassion, the sheer joy of living, of Nyota Upenda Uhura - these were quintessential Terran traits.
A fragment of an old Earth poem came to mind
“Filled full with life to the rose leaf tips
With splendid summer
And perfume and pride.”
On consideration, he did not mind that she was not Vulcan.
"Des mots de tous les jours," Nyota sang sweetly. Everyday words.
Spock translated the language he had not known as child. Language he had learned in order to better study Terran philosophy and poetry. Now it revealed his mother to him, even as it revealed himself. The emotion that raged behind his well-disciplined facade threatened to breach the defenses.
"Et ca me fait quelque chose," Nyota sang. And it does something to me.
"Tham pehkau," he whispered, her breast brushing his cheek. Don’t stop. He did not know why he spoke to her in his native tongue, but it would make no difference; she would understand. She would understand fully, even when he did not.
"Il est entre dans mon coeur, une part de bonheur," she sang, her voice growing stronger. A share of happiness has entered my heart.
"Dont je connais la cause." I know its cause.
He lifted his head and watched, simply listening.
"C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie," she continued, as he had requested. It’s him for me, me for him, in this life.
Slowly, in order to keep disruption of her song to a minimum, Spock moved the position of his hand between her legs, opening her sex like the pages of a book. What mysteries were written there?
"Il me l’a dit l’a juré pour la vie," she sang and there was only the slightest hitch in her voice. He told me so, swore it for life.
Spock could feel the pull, the desire to meld, rise like a tide. Every synapse in his brain cried out for merging but unlike Nyota, he was not human, not fully. He could control himself, even as he traced the topology of her pleasure with his fingertips. Even as his own desire pressed in on him claustrophobically.
"Et dès que je l’aperçois," she sang raggedly. And as soon as I see him.
The sweat formed hundreds of tiny droplets on her breasts and Spock’s pulse roared in his ears. He was mesmerized by her song and her sex and he trembled as he slowly slid two fingers inside her.
"Alors je sens en moi mon coeur qui bat," she sang quietly. I feel my heart beating inside me.
Something, some emotion, rose in his throat once more. And he lay still listening to Nyota and to the bittersweet passion that threatened to engulf him. "Continue," he whispered.
"Des nuits d’amour à plus finir," She sang. Nights of love, never ending.
"Finish the song, " he said all attention now on the sound of her voice.
"Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place," she sang. Much happiness takes its place.
Spock closed his eyes and the song encircled him.
"Des ennuis, des chagrins s’effacent," the words went. Annoyances and troubles disappear.
"Heureux, heureux à en mourir ." Happy, so happy I could die.
Logically, happiness and death did not equate with one another but Human sensibilities were often irrational. Had his mother been happy? Was that why she had sung this song in her garden? He honestly did not know. More pertinent to his present situation, was Nyota happy? If she was not currently happy, could he, through his behavior, induce happiness in her?
He opened his eyes. He was uncertain what his next course of action should be.
Nyota, though, shifted her hips beneath his in such a way as to suggest she was suffering no such bewilderment. His body, at least, was in agreement with her.
Balancing himself on one elbow, he traced the edge of her rounded ears with two fingers. Then her lips. Then fighting self-consciousness that threatened to paralyze him, Spock pressed his sexual organ into Nyota’s soft, cool, wet opening. The channel was sweet and clingy and it seemed to squeeze not just his sex but his very mind.
Her small body, her less dense bone and muscle mass, her inherent softness, these things pressed themselves on his awareness, both a warning and a seduction. Even the slightest touch was more difficult to gauge accurately when their minds were not linked.
He withdrew, almost completely, but Nyota grasped him by the hips and pulled him back to her.
The pleasure was like falling from a great height.
Her small, smooth, soft body was the opposite of his own in every way and there was the wonder of it. The separateness of their minds threw the difference between them into sharp relief. The awkwardness accentuated the pleasure in a way that was quite unlike past unions, when minds as well as bodies were joined.
Spock trembled with the rolling motion of her sex. In that moment, his senses were full of her. Her scent filled his nostrils like perfume. He took her lower lip into his mouth and the taste of her flooded his tongue. Her gentle moans echoed in his ears. Every square inch of his skin burned with pleasure at her touch. Her body purified his own, burning away all pain, fear, and doubt.
Without conscious choice, his mind reached out to hers and every emotion he had been holding back pushed over the wall like a cresting wave.
The serenity had been a sham, merely the calm before the storm. Her sadness at his absence had been badly underestimated. As had his own.
Something deep inside him had been set free. And it howled.
The world he had lost, he had loved it like the beating of his own heart, and hated it like a spurned lover. And now it was gone, and in its place less than nothing, a black hole. The pain was searing.
As was the pleasure. The howling beast at the center of his soul clung to Nyota. Here he would erect temples and libraries, here he would learn, here he would worship, here he would rest. This woman, this Earth woman, he would make his home. His thoughts reached out, pleading for her …Love… of course she had loved him for so long so long …Acceptance … as you are, Spock, exactly as you are …Comfort…the waves of wordless emotion washed over him like a return to the womb…Forgiveness?
Here her sorrow unfurled like a scroll pieced together from tears. The guilt you feel comes from yourself. Only you can satisfy it.
How? he pleaded with her. How is such a thing possible?
Her love and sorrow fell on him like dew but it was no answer. He ached for her to repair this thing inside of him but she had no answer. How could she not have an answer?
Only you
I? How can that be?
Tossed by the same tempest their bodies battered against one another. The seed he sprayed inside her was infertile but his tears were prolific. They laid together in silence for some time.
"I’m sorry, Spock," she said. Her gentle fingers mussed his hair as he listened, keeping careful track of the opening and closing of the ventricles in her heart. "Love isn’t an answer; it’s a question."
Title: La Vie En Rose
Characters: S/U
Rating: Graphic Sexual Content
Beta: MaybeAmanda
Summary: 12 hours after the end of the reboot
His appearance at her door was not intentional. In fact, Spock had spent the majority of his shift calibrating sensors, filling out the forms accepting his appointment as First Officer of Enterprise, overlooking duty rosters, and in general organizing all the minutiae that fell under his jurisdiction, and not thinking of Lt. Uhura. In fact his thoughts had only strayed to her on average once every 23.8 minutes. It was only 3 times per hour had he wondered when he should approach the lieutenant, and how, and with which words. It would require at minimum three duty cycles before the ship was running at optimum efficiency. For the present time, he would have to settle for a decrease in unbridled chaos.
He had gone to his quarters after his shift, completely calm and settled, with the full and focused intent to meditate. 12.3 minutes later, he decided he would familiarize himself with the whereabouts of all the crew, beginning with the bridge crew. He found himself asking for the location of Lt. Uhura’s quarters, and failed to research any others after.
Spock did not intend to leave his quarters before the beginning of his next shift. He did not intend to find himself standing at Lt. Uhura’s door. Had he meant to be there, he would have prepared himself. He would have prepared a well-reasoned and insightful argument - or explanation, rather - of the things he said when last they had spoken, and why they were still true but no longer applicable, at least not applicable to himself. And while he knew all this was correct, he did not know how to explain it to Nyota while retaining his composure. At that moment, his composure seemed vital, indeed. So he simply stood there, awkwardly, at the juncture his feet had forced on him quite of their own accord.
Then the door slid open, revealing the Lieutenant in her bath robe. Six months ago Nyota had lost the belt, affixing the blame on her academy room mate, and so she was forced to hold it closed for modesty’s sake.
He fought hard to suppress the unnamed emotion that rose like a wave in his chest when Nyota pursed her lips and lifted her chin.
There was a rosy hue apparent under the melanocytes in the Lieutenant’s lips and nose. He speculated on the probable cause. In a ship so newly constructed it was possible that an unknown irritant had found its way into her quarters. He would have a maintenance crew look into the matter immediately. Or perhaps she had contracted a virus; if so, it was imperative that she see Dr. McCoy.
~~~~
"Lieutenant?" Spock nodded uneasily toward the open door and Nyota’s quarters.
Nyota moved to allow him in. She had been so excited to see him on the bridge when they left space dock but there were so many things that needed clarification. His presence on the ship, for instance. Not that she was complaining, but she still needed to know why he had returned. She needed some assurance he wasn’t going to be pulled away by yet another unforeseen circumstance. It was probably unreasonable of her but she didn’t care; she wanted reassurance.
The last time they were alone he made it clear that while he felt his true home was in Star Fleet with her, his duty to his people was paramount and could not be shirked. It was as though he felt he had no choice but to break both their hearts.
What had changed?
Spock’s devotion to duty was like an anchor he tied around his waist. It seemed unreasonably optimistic to imagine that he had found a way to let it go in just a few days.
"Commander," she answered him as he stepped inside.
"If there is an irritant in your quarters it would be prudent to contact maintenance for an immediate contamination check."
She frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"Your facial mucosal membranes appear to be experiencing excessive vasocongestion, likely caused by an unintended irritant in your vicinity," he said. "Or perhaps you have contracted a virus. A visit to Dr. McCoy would seem to be in order."
"No, Spock," she said, passing up the chance to be sarcastic although she was sorely tempted. "There’s no irritant, no virus. I’ve been crying."
"I see." Spock seemed to flounder for a moment before he cleared his throat. "The duty roster needs extensive revision," he said, his hands folded in front of him.
Nyota squinted up at him, trying to imagine why he found it necessary to give her this particular bit of information when they both should be sleeping, when she could be crying, alone, in her quarters and he could be doing whatever he did when he was alone besides obsess over his job. Oh, she knew it was unfair as soon as she thought it. She knew what he did, he read poetry from antique books, the kind with pages, and he played the k’thyra, and he read, read, read like he was studying for his life.
Then, like a burst from a phaser, the realization hit her. Not only had Spock returned to Star Fleet, he had returned to her. And now he was standing in her quarters struggling to explain himself.
"I see," she said. She expected him to have some well-rehearsed exposition aimed more at his inner self-doubt than at her.
"The crew is adequate in their individual fields of endeavor, but efficiency has a great deal of room for improvement," he explained, clasping and re-clasping his hands.
"I see," she repeated.
"There is also a problem with vacuum pressure in the aft security lavatory."
"So, you woke me up to talk about the ship’s plumbing?"
"Ni’droi’ik nar-tor," he said.
Nyota translated automatically - I come seeking forgiveness.
Like many Vulcans, Spock spoke Terran Standard with computer perfect diction, but in his own language, his pronunciation was highly accented, betraying his city and his class as surely as any Terran native to Hong Kong or New York. It was terribly endearing.
Forgive him? That was the question, wasn’t it? Did she need to forgive him? Something in her suspected she had forgiven him the moment she saw him step through the turbo doors to the bridge.
"Spock," she said, holding in anger she hadn’t even realized she felt before, "it hurt me when you left."
"It was not my wish to go; it was, however, my obligation."
"Then what brought you back?"
Spock inhaled deeply before answering her. "That is - complicated."
"I’m listening," she said.
~~
Spock was at a loss. He had no idea how to begin explaining to Nyota the things he wished to convey. He tried to speak but all he could do was swallow.
She stepped toward him.
Perhaps he did not need words. He raised his hand to her face but Nyota grasped his wrist.
"No, you don’t, Mister," she said crisply. "I want to understand not sympathize." Her expression softened. "I already sympathize."
Stiffly, Spock asked, "You recall the hypothesis that Nero and his ship came from the future?"
Nyota nodded. "Which appeared to be confirmed during the destruction of his ship in the wormhole produced by the red matter."
Spock nodded. "Indeed. On Earth, among the survivors of the destruction of my home world, I met a Vulcan who was able to corroborate the story. A Vulcan who also claimed to hail from the future."
~~
Well, Nyota thought, that's interesting. And suspicious. She raised an eyebrow. It hadn’t been intentional mimicry, but Spock blinked, seemingly caught off guard.
"I assure you the tale is even more fantastical than it would seem at first glance. It is also this person’s claim that he is from an alternative time stream, a time stream in which there was no vastly superior Romulan ship to attack the fleet or destroy Vulcan. A time stream in which George Kirk and every other crew member aboard the Kelvin lived."
"Did he have any evidence to back up his claims?"
Spock hesitated. "He also claimed to be me."
Both Nyota's brows rose at this. "What?"
"I am convinced that he and I are one and the same," he continued. "The ship, the one I used to destroy Nero’s ship, was equipped with biometric encrypted security clearance and would not allow any but myself to fly her. However the ship computer addressed me, not as Commander Spock but rather as Ambassador, a position the stranger claims to hold - "
"But all that could be explained in other ways," she interrupted.
"Trust me, please Nyota, to recognize myself," he said with surprising sharpness before he resumed his usual monotone. "But there is more to the story; it is the other Spock’s assertion that the reason Nero traveled back in time to seek vengeance was because he, himself, or rather I, failed in the attempt to save Romulus from a super nova."
She blinked at him, once. Twice. "Oh Spock," she said placing her hand on his cheek, "being unable to stop something is not the same as causing it."
"Is it not?"
She lifted her other hand to his other cheek, framing his face. "No, Spock, it isn’t."
~~
Her cools hands made him shudder but he continued to speak, as he knew he must.
"Every judgment I made as acting captain of the Enterprise was incorrect," he said. "I failed to captain this ship adequately, just as I failed to save my mother, just as I failed to prevent the destruction of my home world, just as my other self failed to contain the supernova in the alternate time stream."
Nyota’s thumb tenderly brushed his lower lip. She reminded him painfully of the Lady Amanda in her kindness and in her delicacy. Her love washed over him and the sensation was both agonizing and sublime.
Her hands, occupied with cupping his face, allowed her robe to fall open. The vision of her small high breasts burned itself into his retinas. Something foreign pricked behind his eyes as he struggled for self-possession.
~~~~
Spock’s eyes were shining and his fists, clenching and unclenching, and Nyota had no choice but to kiss him.
He broke away, visibly struggling to control himself. He looked at the ceiling, blinking the wetness out of his eyes, his body rigid, his jaw clenched. "It is unacceptable that I may some day fail you as well."
"Oh, Spock," she said, her hands still on either side of his face. She was trying to force him into make eye contact, even as her own eyes teared up again. "That’s a chance I’m going to have to take. Taking action means taking risks. It’s impossible to be alive and never make a mistake and all the logic and reason in the world won’t prevent that. There are too many variables and even you can’t control for them all. I make mistakes. I know I’ll let you down at some point, too."
He covered her hands with his own. "That is quite impossible."
Something in Spock’s demeanor hardened and his hands gripped her wrists. In one quick motion he pulled her hands away from his face and held them tight in his between their bodies.
"My mother is dead and never once did I tell her that I loved her. I knew the value she would place on the admission, and I knew the veracity of the statement, but still I failed to tell her," he said, his eyes blazing. "Much as I have failed to tell you that I love you. And I do love you, Nyota."
"I know, Spock, I’ve known for a long time."
"That is hardly adequate." He tilted his head to the side, brushing the tears away from her face as they fell, drop after drop.
"It’s enough for me," she said, sniffing her tears away. "I'm sure it was enough for your mother, too."
~~
Spock could bear no more. He hung his head and sighed deeply, wrestling to maintain composure.
Nyota reached up and circled her arms around his broad shoulders.
His hands grasped her waist.
She spoke gently in his ear. "Tell me what you need," she whispered.
"I require your mercy," he stammered, his own tongue betraying him.
"I don’t understand. Tell me what you need me to do."
He could feel the emotion rise in his throat and fought to tamp it down. "You are so kind, Nyota. My mother was also exceedingly kind," he said, his voice hoarse.
Nyota took his hand so casually and just as casually pressed it to her temple.
"Nyota," he said, warning her, "this emotion is very strong."
The corner of her mouth curled upward. "I can handle it."
"That may be," he replied. "It does not necessarily follow, however, that I wish to ‘handle’ it."
"Spock." She used the word as if his name was a question and an answer and a declaration and an imperative in and of itself.
"I doubt my ability to contain my emotions were our minds to join." He ran his hands through her hair. It was molecularly reorganized to fall through his hands like the finest of Ri’san flame cloth. He wondered distractedly what the process involved. It was an agreeable topic, Nyota’s hair, and one that avoided all pain, conflict, and discomfort. In all his life, Nyota alone had offered him freedom from turmoil. He wondered, for novelty’s sake, if she could be convinced to return her hair to its natural texture.
"Do you think you are capable of not initiating a link during physical intimacy?" she asked, tilting her head just so.
She looked. . .sad. Had it not been illogical to hope, Spock would have hoped he was not the cause of her sorrow. "Certainly. Though I have never before had the necessity for such an action." He was strangely unprepared for Nyota’s visible surprise.
Instead of speaking, Nyota reached up and kissed him passionately, spontaneously.
He broke away. "My effort to maintain my mental shields tend to be undermined by unforeseen stimuli," he said, unsteadily. "Perhaps it would be preferable if I were to take the initiative."
Nyota laid herself back on her standard regulation bed, opening her robe like a flower spreading its petals.
The irony of the situation was not lost on Spock. He would make love to Nyota in the manner of a human male and it would require all his Vulcan discipline and training to do so. And yet the very notion of seeking out the sex act, of desiring sex for emotional comfort - and it was comfort that he sought - was in direct opposition to everything venerated by Vulcan culture. His desire for Nyota, his emotional need for her, was, from a Vulcan standpoint, profoundly deviant.
Yet he had been reared as a Vulcan. He saw the universe and himself through the eyes of a Vulcan, no matter his human compulsions. As a Vulcan, he had no wish to lay his unshielded pain bare to his own conscious mind, let alone the woman that he - that he loved. No, he would keep the curtain drawn that separated his emotion from his purposeful thoughts and actions and thereby spare both Nyota and himself.
The air was cold and the feeling not quite real as he pulled his uniform over his head. He could hear Nyota’s breath quicken as he removed the rest of his uniform.
The silence was loud as he stood before her, naked in body.
~~
It was strange to see Spock like this, naked, looming over her. Usually either she undressed him herself, or found him uncomfortably naked under twice the standard number of blankets.
Stranger still were the words that came uncertainly from his lips. "I love you, Nyota."
Her pulse raced at the declaration, but she couldn’t help feeling, as he knelt awkwardly between her legs, that she had never been so separate from him before.
Ever so hesitantly, he touched two fingers to her left breast, following the curve of her it until he reached her nipple.
Her back arched of its own accord.
~~
For reasons Spock could not explain, not even later, except to say in those days soon after her death his mother often came unbidden to his thoughts, his mind wandered back to a memory he did not know he possessed; a memory of his mother’s garden, when he had been quite small, before he had learned to walk unaided. The Earth flowers she grew there gave a heady perfume and his mother hummed the song she often hummed there among the roses. He sat on the hot ground on a soft blanket. She knelt down and lifted him in her arms. He closed his eyes and inhaled her scent and the scent of the roses and listened to her song and the strange beating of her heart in the center of her chest.
He hummed the song now.
"Do you know this piece of music?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him he hummed all he could recall. Nyota’s father being a musicologist, Nyota knew more Terran songs than anyone Spock was acquainted with, perhaps she could recognize it.
"It’s called La Vie En Rose," she said sounding puzzled.
"My mother sometimes sang it in her private garden, when I was quite young. It was in an Earth language I was unused to at the time, I assume it was an Earth language." Her nipple still between his thumb and forefinger, he asked, "Are you familiar with the words?"
"It’s hardly obscure," she said, sitting up a bit in apparent surprise.
"Will you sing it for me?"
"Now?"
"It would hardly be appropriate to request you break into song in the middle of the bridge. However, in one’s quarters during the act of intimacy-"
~~
How like Spock, to ask for so much and so little at the same time. He had lost so much - his mother, his home world - and yet he had left her. But then he had come back - back to her and back to Star Fleet.
She could give him this.
" Des yeux qui font baisser les miens," she sang automatically translating to standard in her mind. Eyes that make me lower mine.
Spock sighed and laid his head on her chest, rubbing his cheek against her breast.
"Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche," she sang. A laugh that loses itself on his mouth.
Spock opened his lips to allow as much as possible of her breast into his mouth. He sucked hard.
"Voila le portrait, sans retouche, de l’homme auquel j’appartiens," she sang, but there was a catch in her voice as her body responded. Behold the portrait without retouching of the man to whom I belong.
Spock’s hand moved up her thigh.
"Quand il me prend dans ses bras," she sang her voice growing softer. When he takes me in his arms.
Spock’s hand moved hesitantly between her legs, stopping to rest on her mons pubis. She used that word in her mind because she knew it was one that Spock would be comfortable with.
"Il me parle tout bas," she sang and desire shot through her spine like electricity. He speaks to me softly.
"Je vois la vie en rose," the words came out a whisper. I see life in pink.
Nyota could no longer control her body. Her hips ground in response to the stillness of his hand.
Spock’s gaze pored over her face as though there were words printed there and his lips never left her breast.
"Il me dit des mots d’amour," she sang, finding her voice again.
He utters words of love to me.
~~
Behind the walls in Spock’s mind, the emotions churned like a storm at the heart of the desert. Comfort he had not known since he was a very young child washed over him, accompanied by an ache like a driving wind at the center of his being. How could he feel so comforted and devastated at the same time?
He smelled Nyota’s growing arousal and his own body responded as conditioned. A Vulcan female would feel nothing but disdain for one so ruled. Perhaps such a female would compare him to an animal trained to salivate at the sound of a bell.
Nyota was nothing like a Vulcan female. True, she had astonishing self possession for a Human, but the humor with which she greeted life, the compassion, the sheer joy of living, of Nyota Upenda Uhura - these were quintessential Terran traits.
A fragment of an old Earth poem came to mind
“Filled full with life to the rose leaf tips
With splendid summer
And perfume and pride.”
On consideration, he did not mind that she was not Vulcan.
"Des mots de tous les jours," Nyota sang sweetly. Everyday words.
Spock translated the language he had not known as child. Language he had learned in order to better study Terran philosophy and poetry. Now it revealed his mother to him, even as it revealed himself. The emotion that raged behind his well-disciplined facade threatened to breach the defenses.
"Et ca me fait quelque chose," Nyota sang. And it does something to me.
"Tham pehkau," he whispered, her breast brushing his cheek. Don’t stop. He did not know why he spoke to her in his native tongue, but it would make no difference; she would understand. She would understand fully, even when he did not.
"Il est entre dans mon coeur, une part de bonheur," she sang, her voice growing stronger. A share of happiness has entered my heart.
"Dont je connais la cause." I know its cause.
He lifted his head and watched, simply listening.
"C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie," she continued, as he had requested. It’s him for me, me for him, in this life.
Slowly, in order to keep disruption of her song to a minimum, Spock moved the position of his hand between her legs, opening her sex like the pages of a book. What mysteries were written there?
"Il me l’a dit l’a juré pour la vie," she sang and there was only the slightest hitch in her voice. He told me so, swore it for life.
Spock could feel the pull, the desire to meld, rise like a tide. Every synapse in his brain cried out for merging but unlike Nyota, he was not human, not fully. He could control himself, even as he traced the topology of her pleasure with his fingertips. Even as his own desire pressed in on him claustrophobically.
"Et dès que je l’aperçois," she sang raggedly. And as soon as I see him.
The sweat formed hundreds of tiny droplets on her breasts and Spock’s pulse roared in his ears. He was mesmerized by her song and her sex and he trembled as he slowly slid two fingers inside her.
"Alors je sens en moi mon coeur qui bat," she sang quietly. I feel my heart beating inside me.
Something, some emotion, rose in his throat once more. And he lay still listening to Nyota and to the bittersweet passion that threatened to engulf him. "Continue," he whispered.
"Des nuits d’amour à plus finir," She sang. Nights of love, never ending.
"Finish the song, " he said all attention now on the sound of her voice.
"Un grand bonheur qui prend sa place," she sang. Much happiness takes its place.
Spock closed his eyes and the song encircled him.
"Des ennuis, des chagrins s’effacent," the words went. Annoyances and troubles disappear.
"Heureux, heureux à en mourir ." Happy, so happy I could die.
Logically, happiness and death did not equate with one another but Human sensibilities were often irrational. Had his mother been happy? Was that why she had sung this song in her garden? He honestly did not know. More pertinent to his present situation, was Nyota happy? If she was not currently happy, could he, through his behavior, induce happiness in her?
He opened his eyes. He was uncertain what his next course of action should be.
Nyota, though, shifted her hips beneath his in such a way as to suggest she was suffering no such bewilderment. His body, at least, was in agreement with her.
Balancing himself on one elbow, he traced the edge of her rounded ears with two fingers. Then her lips. Then fighting self-consciousness that threatened to paralyze him, Spock pressed his sexual organ into Nyota’s soft, cool, wet opening. The channel was sweet and clingy and it seemed to squeeze not just his sex but his very mind.
Her small body, her less dense bone and muscle mass, her inherent softness, these things pressed themselves on his awareness, both a warning and a seduction. Even the slightest touch was more difficult to gauge accurately when their minds were not linked.
He withdrew, almost completely, but Nyota grasped him by the hips and pulled him back to her.
The pleasure was like falling from a great height.
Her small, smooth, soft body was the opposite of his own in every way and there was the wonder of it. The separateness of their minds threw the difference between them into sharp relief. The awkwardness accentuated the pleasure in a way that was quite unlike past unions, when minds as well as bodies were joined.
Spock trembled with the rolling motion of her sex. In that moment, his senses were full of her. Her scent filled his nostrils like perfume. He took her lower lip into his mouth and the taste of her flooded his tongue. Her gentle moans echoed in his ears. Every square inch of his skin burned with pleasure at her touch. Her body purified his own, burning away all pain, fear, and doubt.
Without conscious choice, his mind reached out to hers and every emotion he had been holding back pushed over the wall like a cresting wave.
The serenity had been a sham, merely the calm before the storm. Her sadness at his absence had been badly underestimated. As had his own.
Something deep inside him had been set free. And it howled.
The world he had lost, he had loved it like the beating of his own heart, and hated it like a spurned lover. And now it was gone, and in its place less than nothing, a black hole. The pain was searing.
As was the pleasure. The howling beast at the center of his soul clung to Nyota. Here he would erect temples and libraries, here he would learn, here he would worship, here he would rest. This woman, this Earth woman, he would make his home. His thoughts reached out, pleading for her …Love… of course she had loved him for so long so long …Acceptance … as you are, Spock, exactly as you are …Comfort…the waves of wordless emotion washed over him like a return to the womb…Forgiveness?
Here her sorrow unfurled like a scroll pieced together from tears. The guilt you feel comes from yourself. Only you can satisfy it.
How? he pleaded with her. How is such a thing possible?
Her love and sorrow fell on him like dew but it was no answer. He ached for her to repair this thing inside of him but she had no answer. How could she not have an answer?
Only you
I? How can that be?
Tossed by the same tempest their bodies battered against one another. The seed he sprayed inside her was infertile but his tears were prolific. They laid together in silence for some time.
"I’m sorry, Spock," she said. Her gentle fingers mussed his hair as he listened, keeping careful track of the opening and closing of the ventricles in her heart. "Love isn’t an answer; it’s a question."