fic: Morning Finds You Still Warm And Breathing (Star Trek AOS)
Title: Morning Finds You Still Warm And Breathing
Fandom: Star Trek: AOS
Rating: adult (sex)
Pairing(s): Spock/Uhura
Notes: Written for where-no-woman's Uhura Is Awesome Fest. 3,000 words. Beta read by igrockspock (thank you!)
Summary: She can't say what she needs, but he gives it to her anyway. (Prompt: their first morning after.)
She goes to Spock’s quarters because her own are full of Gaila’s things, and she can’t face that right now. She spent twenty minutes holding a cherry-red satin pump and - she can’t. She runs there, through the misting rain, and arrives with her jacket open, her boots flecked with mud and broken grass blades, and her hair wind-blown.
Her numb fingers tremble as she presses the button on the panel beside his door, though she manages to keep her voice steady as she requests admittance.
He looks up from his desk as she enters and the door slides shut behind her, his expression inscrutable. He pushes the PADD away from him. It’s a small gesture, but he means a great deal: she has his whole focus. “Lieutenant,” he says. “What do you need?”
He has been her instructor and her commanding officer as well as her boyfriend. Give me something to do, she wants to say. Anything.
It took the crippled Enterprise seventeen days to crawl back to Federation space, and in all that time, she had barely a moment to herself. When she wasn’t needed on the bridge, she was crawling through Jeffries tubes, replacing damaged couplings or sealing leaks. She shared quarters with three other junior officers. There was always something to do, someone for whom she had to retain her composure.
Now she has nothing to do.
She could go home. Many of the Enterprise officers and crew chose to. Nyota has a backlog of messages from her family in Nairobi. She started reading them, but she only got about halfway through the first one - from her Nyanya, saying she and Babu were frying up some maandazi and thinking of her - and her throat closed up. She could be with them now, in their sunlit kitchen. Her grandparents. Or she could be with her sisters, Sanaa and Amira, sharing a blanket like they did when they were girls, listening to their college stories. Her parents would praise her assertiveness, commend her for remaining calm and keeping her wits during a crisis.
She can’t face them right now. They would want to fold her in their arms and take care of her, and she does not want to be taken care of. She wants something to do.
Spock says, “What do you need?” His voice is softer now, and his eyebrows lift ever so slightly.
She reads gentle concern in his expression. In the months since they started spending time together outside the lecture hall, she has become fairly adept at recognizing his shifting moods.
“I want,” she begins, but he didn’t ask her what she wants. He asked her what she needs. “I don’t know.” It is not any easy admission for her, though she makes it with a smile, dragging her fingers through her hair.
He rises and walks toward her. He has a panther’s sinuous grace. Nyota knows that not many people see it because he holds himself so rigidly correct at times, especially when he has a large audience. She admires both qualities.
“I don’t know,” she says again when he is standing before her, so close she can feel his body heat. They have not been this close since just before he and Kirk beamed over to the Narada to disable it and rescue Captain Pike. She’s missed him, but she’s been so busy, as has he.
He touches two fingers to her bottom lip and she can’t help but tilt her head back because she’s chilled after her run through the rain, and his skin is so warm. She can feel her throat working; her fingers twitch and curl at her thighs.
“Nyota.”
“I interrupted you.”
“Yes,” he says. His fingertips trace the line of her jaw up to where it meets her cheekbone. His thumb strokes the soft underside of her chin. “But it does not follow that the interruption is unwelcome.”
If she were to tilt her head to the left, only slightly, his fingertips would be at her meld points, and he would be able to see everything inside her. They have never done that, though when she asked, he attempted to describe what it’s like to sift through another intelligent being’s thoughts and feelings. He seemed unsurprised by the question, but pleased or at any rate satisfied with her attentiveness to his answer.
She tilts her head to the right, and his fingers end up in her hair, coming through it gently, then getting tangled in it, since it really is a mess. He tugs, and when his fingers don’t come free immediately, his lips quirk. It’s the closest she’s seen him come to smiling since the destruction of his home world and it sends shivers up her arms. He feels them, of course, and he places a warm, comforting hand on the side of her neck.
They stand like that for a few moments, his hands framing her face, hers hanging uselessly, irresolutely by her sides. He’s too tall, too broad to see around, but she can hear the wind sighing past his window. The shadows around them are deepening, or maybe it’s just that her focus is narrowing. Either way, she thinks, it is going to rain. Hard.
Nyota breaks before the storm does. Rising to her toes, she tilts her face to his. Their lips meet, and then her hands are in his shirt, seizing folds of it so she can pull him down against her. His arms wrap around her, and he’s so warm, even through two layers of synthetic fabric. Her hands slide under his shirts, seeking that warmth, while her tongue pushes between his lips.
He responds with a growl, low in his throat. It’s a sound she’s never heard from him before, and it thrills her. He kisses her back fiercely and a greedy whine rises inside her. She wants more of him. He isn’t exactly holding back, but she can tell he’s in tight control of his body and she wants him to lose it, just fall apart the way she is going to if he keeps holding her and kissing her like this.
He understands. He has to. Their minds may not be melded, but he must feel the wild beat of her heart, the wet heat between her legs as she presses against him.
“Nyota.” His voice is low and rough against her lips.
“I need…” She licks her lips, lowering her eyes momentarily. She can’t get the rest of the words out. It isn’t lack of experience that prevents her, or shyness. She doesn’t know why she can’t say it: I need you. I need your body. I need it now.
Her hands are still under his shirts, stroking his chest. He shivers when she brushes a nipple.
“Nyota.” His tone, always so carefully modulated, cracks slightly on the last syllable, turning her name into a question. She answers him with another kiss. Flattening her palms against his chest, she gives him a gentle but insistent push and he takes a step backward, pulling her with him.
In his bedroom, she lets her hands slip out of his shirt. She shrugs out of her jacket and pulls her shirt over her head, letting both garments fall to the floor. It’s dark in here, so she feels rather than sees his intense gaze. He can obviously see her because he stops her when she reaches for the zipper on her skirt. Cupping her shoulders, he turns her around so that her back is to him. He strokes a hand up her back, from the dip above her buttocks to the nape of her neck. She can feel his breath stirring her hair. She closes her eyes.
Bending to press his lips to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, he explores her with his hands. He cups her breasts and her nipples harden against the heel of his palm. He strokes her belly and it’s like lying naked in a sunbeam. She arches against him, a low purr rumbling through her throat. His hand slips lower; her stomach jumps as his fingertips brush the waistband of her skirt, then slide under it.
“More,” she whispers. She wants to take his hand and push it lower. She wants those long fingers inside her.
He kisses her just below the ear. “It is your desire that we continue?”
If he were anyone else, she would think that he is teasing. But because he’s Spock, she knows his question is serious.
“Yes,” she says.
Still, he hesitates. At length he says, “That is my desire as well. However, as your research has no doubt revealed…”
She almost smiles at his wry tone. Of course she researched Vulcan sexuality when they began seeing each other outside the lecture hall. There is not much information available, but she found it. And of course he knows, without her ever having told him.
“I’m not concerned,” she says.
“I am. If I should hurt you inadvertently…”
“I’m not concerned,” she says again, more emphatically, as she turns in his arms. She can feel him through his pants and underwear, how hard he is for her. His hand, still inside her skirt, tightens on her hip. Reaching up, she cups his face. “And if I should hurt you inadvertently…”
His lips curve. “That seems unlikely.”
“Don’t underestimate me,” she says. “You never know.”
* * * *
There is pain. She’s slick and open by the time he enters her, but it’s been a while for her, he’s larger than any man she’s been with before, and the length of him burns. He tries to sooth her with his lips and hands, but she spoke truthfully when she told him that she was unconcerned. It doesn’t last long, anyway; she spreads her legs wider and angles her hips to meet his tentative thrusts, and within moments the pain is transmuted into pleasure.
It’s exciting, holding him this close, feeling him move within her. She slides one hand into his thick hair. Her fingers brush the tip of his ear and he groans against her skin. Delighted by his reaction, she skims her other hand down his back. His muscles are tense; he’s holding back, still afraid that he might hurt her. She kisses him hungrily and squeezes his buttocks, urging him on. Deeper, she thinks, digging her nails into his flesh. Harder. Wondering how much she can communicate by touch alone.
He growls again and bites at her lips. She bites back.
He arches over her, slamming into her, pushing her up the narrow bed. She digs her heels into his thighs, imagining the greenish bruises she’ll find there later. She doesn’t want to hurt him anymore than he wants to hurt her, and yet…
It feels so good to cry out in surprise, in exultation as he quickens his pace. To toss her head back, letting her hair scatter around her. To be just wrecked by him, after holding herself together for so long. To feel him coming apart inside her.
He reaches his climax before she does, and it’s like being caught in a riptide. She’s dragged under, gasping, clawing for purchase. Fever-hot, slick with sweat, he keeps pounding into her until something breaks inside her and she shudders from her scalp to the tips of her toes. The sweat dripping off him sizzles as it hits her, and she luxuriates in herself, in him, in the deluge of feeling.
* * * *
She falls asleep in his arms and doesn’t wake until morning, when the rain tapers off and the dawn fills the room with soft gray light. She’s stiff and sore, and her first yawn becomes a wince as she unbends her legs. But his body, lying flush with hers, is warm and wonderful; the scent of him - rich, faintly spicy - is soothing. Being held by him now is like being wrapped in a warm blanket. So snug. So right.
“Did you sleep?” she asks, turning her head and looking up at him.
“I meditated.” He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Is there anything that you require at this moment? I must point out that, at the present time, my accommodations contain little in terms of nourishment.” His voice rumbles softly, without a trace of hoarseness. Her own throat is raw.
“Some water would be lovely,” she says.
The moment he rolls away from her, she feels cold. Wrapping his blanket around her shoulders, she sits up and waits for him to return with the water.
He isn’t long. The cup he brings her is made of clay and covered with markings that she doesn’t recognize. While she studies the markings between sips of cool water, he retrieves a long black robe from his closet.
“The cup was given to me by an acquaintance,” he says, as he knots the sash around his waist and goes to sit beside her on the bed, “six-point-four years ago.”
She runs her index finger along the markings. “This language isn’t Federation.”
“Your assessment is correct. If you wish to study it further, you may keep it. In fact, it would … please me if you did.”
She doesn’t miss his hesitation. Setting the cup aside, she slides closer to him. “What is it?” she asks gently. Then, in Vulcan, “What troubles you?”
He looks away. “I am conflicted,” he replies in his native tongue.
“About what we did?”
“That is part of it.”
He is silent for several leaden heartbeats.
She licks her lips and touches his shoulder. “You can tell me. Please.”
He looks at her again, canting his head as if in consideration. At length he says, “I said that your interruption was not unwelcome. Indeed, it was a momentary distraction from the unpleasant task to which I had assigned myself.” At her questioning frown, he elaborates. “As Captain of the Enterprise, I committed gross violations of protocol. My conduct was inexcusable. I intend to submit myself for disciplinary action. I was dictating my report when you interrupted.”
“But…” She sinks back on her heels as memories of those frantic hours come back to her. “You’re talking about Kirk.”
“Primarily. Marooning Cadet Kirk on Delta Vega was a violation of security protocol forty-nine point-zero-nine. Assaulting him-”
“But he provoked you. Deliberately.”
“That does not excuse my actions.”
His assertion doesn’t surprise her, and in her heart she doesn’t disagree with him. Remembering the brutality with which he slammed Kirk into the console, she closes her eyes and sighs. “Maybe not. But you witnessed the destruction of your home world, and the death of your mother.” Even though they aren’t touching anymore, she feels him tense up. “The circumstances were extraordinary.”
“Regardless of the circumstances, as a Starfleet officer and a Vulcan, I should have resisted the provocation.”
“And the fact that you helped save the Earth is irrelevant?”
“Not irrelevant.” She opens her eyes in time to see his eyebrows quirk. “Merely non-mitigating, at least in my case.”
“You hold yourself to a higher standard than the rest of us?” She immediately regrets the acerbity of her remark.
“When it comes to emotional restraint, I do. But that is the way of my father’s people. I refuse to make excuses for myself. And though you rebuke me, I believe that you are one of the few humans of my acquaintance capable of understanding.”
“Because I’m cold and aloof?” Gaila called her that once, during their first month as roommates, before they learned how to get along. Something flutters in Nyota’s chest, the suggestion of tears, which she suppresses firmly.
“On the contrary,” says Spock. He turns slightly at the waist, and touches his hand to her cheek. Despite herself, she leans into the caress. “Those are not the words I would use to describe you,” he continues in a softer tone as he strokes her. “It presents me with some difficulty, however. I must do my duty. There is no question of that. In all likelihood, there will be a disciplinary hearing, which may result in my discharge. That would be regrettable, in part because I believe firmly in the tenets of Starfleet and wish to continue my service. And in part because I have no desire to be separated from you.”
She hears the words, spoken in that carefully modulated tone. At first, they make little impression. She just sits there on his bed, wrapped in his thin blanket, staring mutely into his beautiful dark eyes.
Then she remembers how she ran here, the fire in her lungs, and the wind blowing her hair behind her. She remembers how cold she was until he cupped her face in his warm hands. She couldn’t tell him what she needed, couldn’t even admit it to herself. But it isn’t weakness, she thinks, to need another person. It isn’t a concession to convention, doesn’t imply that something within her is somehow lacking.
Leaning forward, letting the blanket fall away, she wraps her arms around him and pulls him close against her. His exhalation is almost a sigh.
“I understand,” she says in his language. “I admire you for what you are doing. I won’t try to stop you. But don’t think for one second,” she continues, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and holding him tightly, “that I’m going to just let you go. I’m going to fight for you.” She suspects that Kirk will help her if she asks him. One hurdle at a time, she tells herself, and almost laughs because the voice in her head sounds a lot like her high school running coach.
Before Spock can question her incongruous ripple of amusement, she says, “I need you.” And because it feels so surprisingly good, she says it again. “I need you.” She raises her head and his lips meet hers, almost as if he had been waiting for them.
10/3/10
Fandom: Star Trek: AOS
Rating: adult (sex)
Pairing(s): Spock/Uhura
Notes: Written for where-no-woman's Uhura Is Awesome Fest. 3,000 words. Beta read by igrockspock (thank you!)
Summary: She can't say what she needs, but he gives it to her anyway. (Prompt: their first morning after.)
She goes to Spock’s quarters because her own are full of Gaila’s things, and she can’t face that right now. She spent twenty minutes holding a cherry-red satin pump and - she can’t. She runs there, through the misting rain, and arrives with her jacket open, her boots flecked with mud and broken grass blades, and her hair wind-blown.
Her numb fingers tremble as she presses the button on the panel beside his door, though she manages to keep her voice steady as she requests admittance.
He looks up from his desk as she enters and the door slides shut behind her, his expression inscrutable. He pushes the PADD away from him. It’s a small gesture, but he means a great deal: she has his whole focus. “Lieutenant,” he says. “What do you need?”
He has been her instructor and her commanding officer as well as her boyfriend. Give me something to do, she wants to say. Anything.
It took the crippled Enterprise seventeen days to crawl back to Federation space, and in all that time, she had barely a moment to herself. When she wasn’t needed on the bridge, she was crawling through Jeffries tubes, replacing damaged couplings or sealing leaks. She shared quarters with three other junior officers. There was always something to do, someone for whom she had to retain her composure.
Now she has nothing to do.
She could go home. Many of the Enterprise officers and crew chose to. Nyota has a backlog of messages from her family in Nairobi. She started reading them, but she only got about halfway through the first one - from her Nyanya, saying she and Babu were frying up some maandazi and thinking of her - and her throat closed up. She could be with them now, in their sunlit kitchen. Her grandparents. Or she could be with her sisters, Sanaa and Amira, sharing a blanket like they did when they were girls, listening to their college stories. Her parents would praise her assertiveness, commend her for remaining calm and keeping her wits during a crisis.
She can’t face them right now. They would want to fold her in their arms and take care of her, and she does not want to be taken care of. She wants something to do.
Spock says, “What do you need?” His voice is softer now, and his eyebrows lift ever so slightly.
She reads gentle concern in his expression. In the months since they started spending time together outside the lecture hall, she has become fairly adept at recognizing his shifting moods.
“I want,” she begins, but he didn’t ask her what she wants. He asked her what she needs. “I don’t know.” It is not any easy admission for her, though she makes it with a smile, dragging her fingers through her hair.
He rises and walks toward her. He has a panther’s sinuous grace. Nyota knows that not many people see it because he holds himself so rigidly correct at times, especially when he has a large audience. She admires both qualities.
“I don’t know,” she says again when he is standing before her, so close she can feel his body heat. They have not been this close since just before he and Kirk beamed over to the Narada to disable it and rescue Captain Pike. She’s missed him, but she’s been so busy, as has he.
He touches two fingers to her bottom lip and she can’t help but tilt her head back because she’s chilled after her run through the rain, and his skin is so warm. She can feel her throat working; her fingers twitch and curl at her thighs.
“Nyota.”
“I interrupted you.”
“Yes,” he says. His fingertips trace the line of her jaw up to where it meets her cheekbone. His thumb strokes the soft underside of her chin. “But it does not follow that the interruption is unwelcome.”
If she were to tilt her head to the left, only slightly, his fingertips would be at her meld points, and he would be able to see everything inside her. They have never done that, though when she asked, he attempted to describe what it’s like to sift through another intelligent being’s thoughts and feelings. He seemed unsurprised by the question, but pleased or at any rate satisfied with her attentiveness to his answer.
She tilts her head to the right, and his fingers end up in her hair, coming through it gently, then getting tangled in it, since it really is a mess. He tugs, and when his fingers don’t come free immediately, his lips quirk. It’s the closest she’s seen him come to smiling since the destruction of his home world and it sends shivers up her arms. He feels them, of course, and he places a warm, comforting hand on the side of her neck.
They stand like that for a few moments, his hands framing her face, hers hanging uselessly, irresolutely by her sides. He’s too tall, too broad to see around, but she can hear the wind sighing past his window. The shadows around them are deepening, or maybe it’s just that her focus is narrowing. Either way, she thinks, it is going to rain. Hard.
Nyota breaks before the storm does. Rising to her toes, she tilts her face to his. Their lips meet, and then her hands are in his shirt, seizing folds of it so she can pull him down against her. His arms wrap around her, and he’s so warm, even through two layers of synthetic fabric. Her hands slide under his shirts, seeking that warmth, while her tongue pushes between his lips.
He responds with a growl, low in his throat. It’s a sound she’s never heard from him before, and it thrills her. He kisses her back fiercely and a greedy whine rises inside her. She wants more of him. He isn’t exactly holding back, but she can tell he’s in tight control of his body and she wants him to lose it, just fall apart the way she is going to if he keeps holding her and kissing her like this.
He understands. He has to. Their minds may not be melded, but he must feel the wild beat of her heart, the wet heat between her legs as she presses against him.
“Nyota.” His voice is low and rough against her lips.
“I need…” She licks her lips, lowering her eyes momentarily. She can’t get the rest of the words out. It isn’t lack of experience that prevents her, or shyness. She doesn’t know why she can’t say it: I need you. I need your body. I need it now.
Her hands are still under his shirts, stroking his chest. He shivers when she brushes a nipple.
“Nyota.” His tone, always so carefully modulated, cracks slightly on the last syllable, turning her name into a question. She answers him with another kiss. Flattening her palms against his chest, she gives him a gentle but insistent push and he takes a step backward, pulling her with him.
In his bedroom, she lets her hands slip out of his shirt. She shrugs out of her jacket and pulls her shirt over her head, letting both garments fall to the floor. It’s dark in here, so she feels rather than sees his intense gaze. He can obviously see her because he stops her when she reaches for the zipper on her skirt. Cupping her shoulders, he turns her around so that her back is to him. He strokes a hand up her back, from the dip above her buttocks to the nape of her neck. She can feel his breath stirring her hair. She closes her eyes.
Bending to press his lips to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, he explores her with his hands. He cups her breasts and her nipples harden against the heel of his palm. He strokes her belly and it’s like lying naked in a sunbeam. She arches against him, a low purr rumbling through her throat. His hand slips lower; her stomach jumps as his fingertips brush the waistband of her skirt, then slide under it.
“More,” she whispers. She wants to take his hand and push it lower. She wants those long fingers inside her.
He kisses her just below the ear. “It is your desire that we continue?”
If he were anyone else, she would think that he is teasing. But because he’s Spock, she knows his question is serious.
“Yes,” she says.
Still, he hesitates. At length he says, “That is my desire as well. However, as your research has no doubt revealed…”
She almost smiles at his wry tone. Of course she researched Vulcan sexuality when they began seeing each other outside the lecture hall. There is not much information available, but she found it. And of course he knows, without her ever having told him.
“I’m not concerned,” she says.
“I am. If I should hurt you inadvertently…”
“I’m not concerned,” she says again, more emphatically, as she turns in his arms. She can feel him through his pants and underwear, how hard he is for her. His hand, still inside her skirt, tightens on her hip. Reaching up, she cups his face. “And if I should hurt you inadvertently…”
His lips curve. “That seems unlikely.”
“Don’t underestimate me,” she says. “You never know.”
* * * *
There is pain. She’s slick and open by the time he enters her, but it’s been a while for her, he’s larger than any man she’s been with before, and the length of him burns. He tries to sooth her with his lips and hands, but she spoke truthfully when she told him that she was unconcerned. It doesn’t last long, anyway; she spreads her legs wider and angles her hips to meet his tentative thrusts, and within moments the pain is transmuted into pleasure.
It’s exciting, holding him this close, feeling him move within her. She slides one hand into his thick hair. Her fingers brush the tip of his ear and he groans against her skin. Delighted by his reaction, she skims her other hand down his back. His muscles are tense; he’s holding back, still afraid that he might hurt her. She kisses him hungrily and squeezes his buttocks, urging him on. Deeper, she thinks, digging her nails into his flesh. Harder. Wondering how much she can communicate by touch alone.
He growls again and bites at her lips. She bites back.
He arches over her, slamming into her, pushing her up the narrow bed. She digs her heels into his thighs, imagining the greenish bruises she’ll find there later. She doesn’t want to hurt him anymore than he wants to hurt her, and yet…
It feels so good to cry out in surprise, in exultation as he quickens his pace. To toss her head back, letting her hair scatter around her. To be just wrecked by him, after holding herself together for so long. To feel him coming apart inside her.
He reaches his climax before she does, and it’s like being caught in a riptide. She’s dragged under, gasping, clawing for purchase. Fever-hot, slick with sweat, he keeps pounding into her until something breaks inside her and she shudders from her scalp to the tips of her toes. The sweat dripping off him sizzles as it hits her, and she luxuriates in herself, in him, in the deluge of feeling.
* * * *
She falls asleep in his arms and doesn’t wake until morning, when the rain tapers off and the dawn fills the room with soft gray light. She’s stiff and sore, and her first yawn becomes a wince as she unbends her legs. But his body, lying flush with hers, is warm and wonderful; the scent of him - rich, faintly spicy - is soothing. Being held by him now is like being wrapped in a warm blanket. So snug. So right.
“Did you sleep?” she asks, turning her head and looking up at him.
“I meditated.” He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Is there anything that you require at this moment? I must point out that, at the present time, my accommodations contain little in terms of nourishment.” His voice rumbles softly, without a trace of hoarseness. Her own throat is raw.
“Some water would be lovely,” she says.
The moment he rolls away from her, she feels cold. Wrapping his blanket around her shoulders, she sits up and waits for him to return with the water.
He isn’t long. The cup he brings her is made of clay and covered with markings that she doesn’t recognize. While she studies the markings between sips of cool water, he retrieves a long black robe from his closet.
“The cup was given to me by an acquaintance,” he says, as he knots the sash around his waist and goes to sit beside her on the bed, “six-point-four years ago.”
She runs her index finger along the markings. “This language isn’t Federation.”
“Your assessment is correct. If you wish to study it further, you may keep it. In fact, it would … please me if you did.”
She doesn’t miss his hesitation. Setting the cup aside, she slides closer to him. “What is it?” she asks gently. Then, in Vulcan, “What troubles you?”
He looks away. “I am conflicted,” he replies in his native tongue.
“About what we did?”
“That is part of it.”
He is silent for several leaden heartbeats.
She licks her lips and touches his shoulder. “You can tell me. Please.”
He looks at her again, canting his head as if in consideration. At length he says, “I said that your interruption was not unwelcome. Indeed, it was a momentary distraction from the unpleasant task to which I had assigned myself.” At her questioning frown, he elaborates. “As Captain of the Enterprise, I committed gross violations of protocol. My conduct was inexcusable. I intend to submit myself for disciplinary action. I was dictating my report when you interrupted.”
“But…” She sinks back on her heels as memories of those frantic hours come back to her. “You’re talking about Kirk.”
“Primarily. Marooning Cadet Kirk on Delta Vega was a violation of security protocol forty-nine point-zero-nine. Assaulting him-”
“But he provoked you. Deliberately.”
“That does not excuse my actions.”
His assertion doesn’t surprise her, and in her heart she doesn’t disagree with him. Remembering the brutality with which he slammed Kirk into the console, she closes her eyes and sighs. “Maybe not. But you witnessed the destruction of your home world, and the death of your mother.” Even though they aren’t touching anymore, she feels him tense up. “The circumstances were extraordinary.”
“Regardless of the circumstances, as a Starfleet officer and a Vulcan, I should have resisted the provocation.”
“And the fact that you helped save the Earth is irrelevant?”
“Not irrelevant.” She opens her eyes in time to see his eyebrows quirk. “Merely non-mitigating, at least in my case.”
“You hold yourself to a higher standard than the rest of us?” She immediately regrets the acerbity of her remark.
“When it comes to emotional restraint, I do. But that is the way of my father’s people. I refuse to make excuses for myself. And though you rebuke me, I believe that you are one of the few humans of my acquaintance capable of understanding.”
“Because I’m cold and aloof?” Gaila called her that once, during their first month as roommates, before they learned how to get along. Something flutters in Nyota’s chest, the suggestion of tears, which she suppresses firmly.
“On the contrary,” says Spock. He turns slightly at the waist, and touches his hand to her cheek. Despite herself, she leans into the caress. “Those are not the words I would use to describe you,” he continues in a softer tone as he strokes her. “It presents me with some difficulty, however. I must do my duty. There is no question of that. In all likelihood, there will be a disciplinary hearing, which may result in my discharge. That would be regrettable, in part because I believe firmly in the tenets of Starfleet and wish to continue my service. And in part because I have no desire to be separated from you.”
She hears the words, spoken in that carefully modulated tone. At first, they make little impression. She just sits there on his bed, wrapped in his thin blanket, staring mutely into his beautiful dark eyes.
Then she remembers how she ran here, the fire in her lungs, and the wind blowing her hair behind her. She remembers how cold she was until he cupped her face in his warm hands. She couldn’t tell him what she needed, couldn’t even admit it to herself. But it isn’t weakness, she thinks, to need another person. It isn’t a concession to convention, doesn’t imply that something within her is somehow lacking.
Leaning forward, letting the blanket fall away, she wraps her arms around him and pulls him close against her. His exhalation is almost a sigh.
“I understand,” she says in his language. “I admire you for what you are doing. I won’t try to stop you. But don’t think for one second,” she continues, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and holding him tightly, “that I’m going to just let you go. I’m going to fight for you.” She suspects that Kirk will help her if she asks him. One hurdle at a time, she tells herself, and almost laughs because the voice in her head sounds a lot like her high school running coach.
Before Spock can question her incongruous ripple of amusement, she says, “I need you.” And because it feels so surprisingly good, she says it again. “I need you.” She raises her head and his lips meet hers, almost as if he had been waiting for them.
10/3/10