Star Trek: We Reach Our Apogee Slowly: Othersides 1, eventual Kirk/Spock, Spock/Uhura, R
Title: We Reach Our Apogee Slowly: Othersides 1
Author: kowaiyoukai
Rating: R
Pairing: eventual like whoa Kirk/Spock (STFU), Spock/Uhura (blame JJ, not me)
Warning(s): Angst, meta, language, attempts at witty banter, overly-important tone, intentionally confusing parts, potentially OOC everybody
Spoilers: Star Trek XI (2009) (a.k.a. Star Trek XI, Star Trek 2009, Star Trek Reboot, New Trek, and can we please just pick one name for this fandom people?!)
Word Count: 6,099 (for this part)
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry, mostly, but also a lot of other people/groups like Paramount, J.J. Abrams, and the various writers/directors. I'm not one of those people, sadly, because if I was I'd be filthy rich.
Beta Acknowledgment: None! I know there are errors, so please let me know if you see any! Thanks!
Summary: Every story has other sides.
A/N: So this is the first in a series of side stories I've got planned for Apogee. You can choose to read them or not. They're all from the other characters' perspectives, so Kirk and Spock don't appear as much in these, although they are discussed. There should be one Otherside after every five regular chapters, but that may change. This was written mainly because I kept getting comments on the side characters and I really wanted to show them more, but that takes away from the Kirk/Spock interaction and who wants that?! NOBODY. So this was the answer. Hope you like it! :D
EDIT: So I EPICFAIL and somehow managed to screw up the first paragraph in Scotty's second section. It's fixed now, though-an extra 50 words. *headdesk* I've also gone back and posted links to the next part at the end of each part, thanks to christycorr's obvious suggestion.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
People laughed at him. He knew it. He knew it, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. His accent was a part of him, yes, and it was something he never wanted to change. But it wasn't everything about him. It didn't include the hopes he had when he first joined Starfleet, the long nights of studying and days spent trying to excel despite his age, the heavy knowledge that aliens were more accepted than he was thanks to the one trait no one seemed able to look past. His accent was a part of him, like Kirk's grin, like Spock's logic, like McCoy's trademark exclamations, and it was both his most distinctive and destructive feature.
Still, Chekov knew once people got to know him, they began to ignore his awkward speech patterns. It was a learned skill, something acquired through time and sheer necessity, and eventually he knew people would stop looking at him oddly every time he opened his mouth. The short silences would eventually stop, the ones during which people mentally interpreted what he had just said. Even Spock was understood more than he was, and the First Officer only ever spoke in drawn out, antiquated terms.
Normally, it wouldn't have been such a problem. Chekov was generally able to get people to overlook his accent within days of meeting him. He was intelligent and had a lot to offer to any team he was placed in, and so every member of all of his classes had always been a quick study, determined to get all of the information they could from him during the mock practical exams, when every second counted and a misinterpreted reply could get them all mock-killed. But on the Enterprise, everything was different.
Kirk was a great Captain, might very well be the best Captain Chekov would ever have the pleasure of serving under, but he wasn't as strict as other commanding officers. It was an odd complaint, but if he had been more uptight, if he had followed the rules and regulations to the letter, then no one would dare be as relaxed as they were. But he wasn't, and so the crew was, and so people joked good-naturedly with him about his accent, pointing out when he said something hard to understand by repeating it in a badly-mimicked tone. He would laugh because that was the only possible reaction to this type of situation. Saying he didn't appreciate the jokes would label him as either a killjoy, too focused on work, or simply not able to take a joke. None of that was true, but he couldn't easily explain that there were certain jokes that got old, and that maybe the first twenty times he heard someone mocking his accent it had been all right, but that by the fiftieth time he was tired of it and after the hundredth time he wanted to strangle everyone who even mentioned it.
It had never been this way in Russia. But space was certainly different from Russia, and the Enterprise was different from every other ship in the fleet. Chekov would make do with the teasing for the time being, and if no one else noticed that it was bothering him, well, then he would learn to deal with it. The most important people were the ones he worked with on a daily basis, and none of them made cracks about his accent. The members on the bridge were all generally too involved in their work to worry about it, and after work they were all so tired that even sitting down and playing a game in one of the rec rooms was exhausting. So it was bearable, but only just, and Chekov often found himself wondering what he would be known for if he sounded exactly like everyone else.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It wasn't that he was particularly looking for it. In fact, Chekov thought he was going out of his way to try and avoid seeing it. But time and again, every day, the signs were there-so frequent and obvious that he was somewhat surprised no one else had ever said anything. Then again, maybe this was something that got easier as you got older. At seventeen, he still thought about sex a lot. A whole lot. Enough that his mind went to very vivid places when it was supposed to be in other places, work places, and it was near impossible to stop himself from thinking what was so clear to him and seemed invisible to everybody else.
Kirk and Spock were fucking. They had to be. It couldn't be just his mind. There was no way they would act this way, every day, all day long, if they weren't. All the signs were there. They made eyes. They bantered. They exchanged secret looks. They looked at each other when the other wasn't looking. They touched each other-small touches, hands brushing and arms pressed together and fingers grazing the other's neck or back-hundreds of ways and times each day. They trusted each other more than anyone else. They relied on each other's input to make both important and simple decisions. They were able to communicate entire ideas with simple gestures or nods. They hung out together in between shifts. They were usually found right next to each other. When anyone got one of them alone, that one would always, without fail, talk about the other one. Spock was friendlier to Kirk than to anyone else-he seemed willing to lower his guard with Kirk, whereas everyone else was met with a wall of stony Vulcan logic. Kirk was, impossible though it might seem, even more hyper with Spock than anyone else-he acted less like a Captain, even a lenient one, and more like a new recruit whose sole purpose was to find out the schedule of the cute upperclassman who had stood out at orientation.
Besides all of that, and any of that would have been enough but combined it was absolutely damning, Chekov knew that Kirk and Spock visited each other after work. In their quarters. When it was night. And they were alone. He had it on several reliable sources that they had been seen coming and going from each other's quarters on different occasions. Even at seventeen, Chekov knew there was only one reason two people who flirted with each other all day long would have for visiting each other alone at night. Or perhaps, because he was seventeen there was only one reason which stood out to him. Either way, he knew he wasn't imagining all of that. Even if no one else was picking up on it, Chekov was.
It was making him look crazy. That was really, incredibly unfortunate. He knew he seemed unbalanced, and he was quite sure Sulu was ready to ask McCoy to give him a standard once-over. But what was he supposed to do, just pretend like he couldn't see what was smacking him in the face every time he turned around? He was already pretending he didn't see so much. He hadn't said a word about that time two weeks ago when Kirk had leaned over Spock's work station to "check" on something, and Kirk had bent over much lower than he had needed to, and Spock had leaned forward to point a minor detail out, so that it had looked more or less like Spock was pressing Kirk down into the controls, one of his hands lingering over Kirk's hair and the other landing lightly on his back while his mouth was so close to Kirk's neck that there was no comfortable way to avoid skin-to-skin contact. And no one else had even batted an eyelid! It's not like they were hiding it, other people saw, but nobody got it! At first Chekov had thought he was either sex-starved or going insane, but now he came to the only conclusion he could.
Kirk and Spock were either already an item or were going to be in the near future. If Chekov didn't fear Uhura's wrath so much he would have already asked selectively chosen people for their opinions on the matter. Specifically, McCoy. Chekov knew McCoy was Kirk's closest friend, and that meant he had inside information, and that meant McCoy would probably be the one Kirk went to with his romantic troubles. Chekov wasn't a gossip by any means, but he would easily give his right arm to see the look on McCoy's face when Kirk told him and to hear exactly what was said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was meant to work, he worked. That was how Sulu thought it should be. Sure, he was glad Captain Kirk ran a relaxed bridge. He hated working under ridiculous amounts of scrutiny and pressure. Still, he had noticed some people taking more freedoms than they should be. If the Captain noticed people shirking their responsibilities, Sulu was pretty sure he'd have to enforce stricter rules on everyone. Even with Captain Kirk, there were expectations.
Sulu had no problem doing his job. He loved piloting the Enterprise. She was a beautiful ship who ran smoothly, thanks in large part to Scotty's amazing ability to keep her running no matter what happened. Besides, piloting a starship was the dream job of anyone working in avionics. Now that starships were in limited supply due to Nero's attack, being allowed to pilot the Enterprise was even more of an honor and pleasure than it had been before. He was glad he was trusted enough to pilot her, even if he occasionally had some hiccups in getting her started. Also, he hadn't pointed this out to anyone, but if he had started her and warped right away with the rest of the fleet, they'd all be dead. So clearly he was doing something right.
Maneuvering a ship this large took more effort than it appeared to. There were several different critical points that propelled the ship forward, and depending on the speed and distance they were travelling, any combination of them could be used to yield varying results. Besides that, Sulu always had to keep in mind that the Enterprise had a limited fuel supply. If he used too many of the boosters at once, or if he pushed the engine harder than he needed to, more fuel would be consumed than was strictly necessary. If that occurred, they might end up stranded in the middle of space radioing for help or hoping for a ship to pass by with some extra fuel. Sulu always kept that in mind when he flew the ship, knowing that it was his responsibility to get safely everyone to their destination on time., but equally knowing that getting there a day or two early wouldn't mean much if he blew the engine or wasted fuel.
Also, he worked closely with Chekov, who navigated fairly well. He was still young and learning, but he showed distinct promise. Sulu had no problem helping him out when the situation called for it. He strongly thought developing good working relationships was key to enjoying his time on the bridge, and talking with Chekov in between the small tasks that popped up was fine with him. He only hoped the kid could learn to control himself a bit more. All of those outbursts were quite worrying.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It concerned Sulu that Spock hadn't known why the crew wasn't speaking to him on a more personal level. At least Chekov knew what his own problem was and was dealing with it the best way he knew how. Sulu was confident he would find some solution in time. But Spock had seemed fairly surprised by the topic once Sulu had brought it up. It was as if, for some mysterious reason, Spock hadn't noticed the crew's hesitation in dealing with him.
Of course that was ridiculous. Spock was distant, sure, but he wasn't unfeeling. He was well aware of the ship's crew and their actions. But his attitude made it hard to get to know him, even for people who worked with him every day. Sulu had decided to make a conscious effort to get to know Spock better once he realized the First Officer was having difficulty connecting with the crew. But unless Spock's attitude changed, or the attitude of the crew changed, he didn't see the situation solving itself any time soon.
Spock was an incredibly private person, which unfortunately meant that he didn't allow people to see who he truly was. Sulu had been on the bridge when Spock and the Captain had bantered or joked with each other, but Spock never behaved that way with anyone else. If Spock had even occasionally shown that side of himself to other people, they would start to open up to him. But that wasn't who Spock was, and Sulu thought Spock shouldn't have to change how he acted to please other people. That seemed wrong to him on many levels. There had to be another solution.
Sulu had hoped Captain Kirk would have some ideas. He was the closest person to Spock, after all, but Sulu thought the Captain had no idea what was going on. At first, Sulu hadn't understood, but then he had figured it out. It was easy to see that Spock had made a large impression on Captain Kirk. Sulu assumed that would usually happen after a strangulation attempt. It was kind of hard to ignore. Plus, they had become good friends since then. It was fairly obvious that the Captain was unable to see that people were uncomfortable around Spock because Captain Kirk was so comfortable around him that the idea of anyone else not liking Spock would probably be ludicrous to him. In fact, Sulu could imagine the Captain scoffing at the notion if it was brought to his attention. Perhaps that was Captain Kirk's major flaw-the inability to see events from other people's perspectives. As Captain, he always had to look out for the welfare of his crew, so Sulu assumed that took up most of his time and everything else was pushed aside. Still, it wouldn't do anyone any good if the Captain suddenly started considering everything from various angles like Spock usually did. They needed to rely on Captain Kirk to make quick decisions, and he certainly couldn't do that if he was debating how his actions would affect everyone involved.
So Sulu ended up realizing that, if Spock and the crew were going to get along, it would be because one of the two had changed. As things stood, there was no way the crew would ever feel comfortable around a man who had lost his mother, planet, and the majority of his race and yet acted calm and unemotional about it. Yet Spock relied on his distance to be able to work, and somehow Sulu thought that Spock's attempts at opening up might not be a good thing. A person being different wasn't always bad, and in Spock's case it certainly was good for everyone on the Enterprise. They all relied on Spock's logic and his intuitive ability to assess a situation and gather data quickly. Sulu hoped both Spock and the crew would see that, before the situation progressed to a point of no return.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Every single member of the crew was a damn idiot, and if McCoy had to deal with one more finger which had been stuck where it shouldn't have been (slammed in doors, wedged in wires, crammed between constrictive coils) or injury from not observing proper protocol in the gym (bruises from lack of padding, headaches and forehead cuts which had been obtained when not wearing a helmet, broken bone from an incorrect practice throw), he was going to kill every last one of them and blame it on a rare unknown lethal space disease in his short, yet tragic, report before requesting early retirement to a small resort planet to deal with his emotional trauma. It was important to have a plan for these kinds of things. Just in case.
When McCoy had imagined being a doctor, he had never imagined the sort of work that plagued him day in and day out. He had imagined scenarios where he was the only one who could save a dying man, or else where he discovered the cure to some infectious disease that was destroying a colony, or even where he was stranded on some desolate planet without supplies and he had somehow managed to find enough raw materials to care for the landing party's injuries until help arrived. He had never imagined the mundane. He had never daydreamed about listening to an engineer's excuses about why he had, for the fourth time, come up with no alternative other than to pull out the overheating piece of machinery using only his hands and not any one of the number of instruments readily available and at arm's reach at all times from his station. Never had he fantasized about explaining to a research scientist why using herself as a test subject for her latest experiment was a bad idea, regardless of how hard she argued about animal rights and necessary sacrifices for scientific advancement.
That was the problem with enlisting. These people were all geniuses in their fields. They all knew what they were doing, were damn good at it, and had beat out tons of other people to get their assignment. It meant they were all focused on their jobs all the time. And that meant they did stupid things constantly. They meant well, but they had never taken the easy way in their entire lives. They were all used to doing things immediately, themselves, and to keep trying until they succeeded. It was a great mindset for the military. McCoy got that. They needed people who were both experts in their fields and incredibly diligent if they were going to succeed during their missions in deep space. It wasn't like Jim would be able to easily replace anyone. It wasn't like there were hundreds of Paleontologists or Xenolinguists or Engineers who knew how to work with Starships just hanging around the galaxy, waiting to be picked up by the first ship who needed them. Their crew had been hand-picked. They were the best of the best.
Yet for all of that, McCoy couldn't figure out why not a one of them knew better than to stick their hands in trash compactors to grab whatever they had accidentally thrown out. McCoy was sure, if he asked anybody else, they would all say their crew was amazing. McCoy was the only one who got to see just how stupid they could all be. It would have been funny if it wasn't so annoying.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
For the three years McCoy had known Jim, the man had never been anything other than trouble. And he didn't even mean that in the usual, not-really-trouble-just-the-speaker-going-for-witty kind of way. Cheating on the Kobayashi Maru had only been the last in a long string of shattered rules Jim had left scattered in his wake. Of course, Jim didn't see it that way. McCoy had heard several times all about how an unbeatable test was unfair and reprogramming it was a humanitarian act designed to save tired and over-stressed students hours of pointless preparation. He had also heard about how passing out answers before an exam was simply a way of upping the overall GPA, which would improve both individual scores and the school's overall standing. Oh, and how could he forget that faking a call from the professor to the appropriate office to cancel class was actually a chance for the under-appreciated professor to take some much-needed rest?
The one thing McCoy could say was that, more than anyone else on campus, Jim had been able to quickly and competently get into and out of trouble with no lasting marks on his record. He was as intelligent as he was lazy, which made for an interesting combination of hours spent on detailed plans which ended in successful attempts to get out of doing work. McCoy had often pointed out to him that, if he would just put that level of intricate thought into his studies, he'd be top of the class without a problem. Jim had always rolled his eyes and indicated exactly what he thought about students who were top of their class through a series of ridiculous noises and gestures.
That was how Jim was. He had been born to lead because he couldn't follow anyone. He cut up other people's plans and put them together in a different way, adding his own ideas in the mix to create something entirely new. He was willing to listen to everyone, equally willing to mock them to their faces, and somehow able to do both simultaneously without offending anyone. His charm was too much to take sometimes, especially from McCoy's point of view. Watching Jim constantly slide his way out of consequences by flirting and grinning had grated on his nerves to the point where he could hardly stand seeing yet another girl get all excited over Jim talking to her.
Even that wasn't exactly true. McCoy had a grudging respect for anyone who could get his way that much of the time. And he did it in a friendly way that had other people thinking it was their idea. If it had been intentional, it would have been obnoxious, but McCoy had figured out that Jim didn't even realize he was doing it. People liked him. They wanted to help him. So they did what he wanted them to, and nobody was any wiser about the vicious cycle that only McCoy saw.
McCoy himself had done it on occasion, more than once, and he always cursed himself afterwards. He was meant to be immune to Jim's charms since they were friends and he knew better than to give in. But sometimes it happened, even when he was prepared and on guard against it. That was the reason Jim was going to be the best Captain in Starfleet-everyone loved him, even when they tried not to.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Making sure the Enterprise stayed working was a lot like trying to keep a concert running. There was the band, which was like the crew, and if everybody wasn't doing their jobs something went wrong. If even one person messed up, it affected everybody else, and then things went to hell. Then there was all of the other things nobody really thought of, which were so much more important than the band but which everybody took for granted. The band, Scotty couldn't control that. If the crew screwed up and he had to fix it, well, that was it. Nothing could be done about that. But everything else-the nuts and bolts of the concert, so to speak-that was all him. The lights that blinked and changed colors, the sounds and volume and speakers, the fog if things were really snazzy, the security to make sure everything kept working, and all the other small things that people either ignored or took for granted-the stage curtains, the floors, the chairs, the costumes, the stage design, the background images, ticket prices and sales, refreshments, merchandise, impromptu autograph sessions. It was all him.
Scotty was the manager of the Enterprise, no matter what the Captain thought. If everything went well, Kirk got the credit for it. If everything went badly, Scotty got the blame. Scotty, why isn't the transporter working? or Scotty, why does the lift skip every third floor? or Scotty, why is the communications system spewing out every planet in alphabetical order? Yeah, he got all of those complaints. It was never Hey, great job keeping the ship running, Scotty. Keep up the good work. No one ever came to him to say I haven't noticed any problems, so you must be doing your job right. Thanks for working your ass off all the time to make my life more comfortable. Nope. Nobody ever said that.
Not that he particularly minded. In a lot of ways, Scotty liked being the power behind the throne. It gave him a lot of access other people didn't have. If he wanted to get into the kitchens for a late night snack, all he had to do was say he was doing some work and they let him in and offered him food without him even having to ask for it. It was awesome. Being Chief Engineer was like having a free pass to every room in the ship. No one wanted to have to face the Captain to tell him they'd stopped Scotty from doing his job. Everyone knew his job was what allowed everyone else to do theirs. That was a lot of power, and he liked it.
Still. It would have been nice, occasionally, for someone to thank him or at least notice when the ship was running smoothly. That's how it worked at concerts, too. Everyone noticed and complained when something went wrong. When everything ran great, nobody said anything. But all that lack of attention was giving him time to work on his own projects, so he really couldn't complain too much. After all, if he could get the transporter to work the way he knew it could, they'd be able to beam from planet to planet without ever having to go to the ship in between. That would save time. And be so, so cool.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kirk and Spock were probably the greatest combination of Captain and First Officer Starfleet had ever produced. Scotty was sure of it. Kirk was sociable and funny, easy to talk to when he had a problem and able to think quickly in a tough situation. Spock was difficult even when he was in a good mood-which was actually impossible to differentiate from his bad moods. But that was what made them great-they balanced each other out so well that, between the two of them, every situation was dealt with before it could become a problem.
It was actually kind of like having another set of parents. Kirk was the nice mother who'd give in to his wheedling, and Spock was the stern father who could see through him every time. This was probably why Scotty found himself going to Kirk for things that he should have technically gone to Spock for. Certain forms and repairs didn't necessarily need to be filled out by the Captain, who often had so much work to do it was kind of wrong to give him more. But going to Spock for anything was like asking to be told how bad he'd been since the last time they'd seen each other. Scotty felt like Spock was going to ground him or take away his television privileges if he didn't get whatever was broken fixed before Spock had counted to ten.
Not to say that Spock was unreasonable. He was too reasonable, that was the problem. With Kirk, he could make some excuses about why something was taking longer or just say that he'd get around to it soon, and Kirk would tell him that was fine and that would be that. Nobody could pull that shit with Spock. Spock would ask why his repairs were taking longer than expected or when exactly soon was and why he wasn't working right now, and of course Scotty couldn't say that he'd slept late or had been experimenting or was bored or hungry or whatever it was that he'd been that had kept him from doing his work. And it didn't matter what he said to Spock, it never changed things, Scotty always felt like he'd just been punished even though all Spock ever did was look at him disapprovingly. It was awful.
Kirk was so much better. Scotty was so glad he'd been assigned to work with both the youngest and friendliest Captain in the fleet. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to work with lots of the other Captains who appeared to think their crew consisted of robots. Kirk was willing to let things slide, but he expected results, and he knew the difference between occasionally slacking off and really causing damage to how the ship was running. Plus, he was always in the mood to joke around or hang out with the crew. Scotty couldn't think of a single other Captain who did the same.
So, between the two of them, Kirk and Spock kept the Enterprise running better and kept the crew working more efficiently and happily than any other commanding team Scotty had worked under. Plus, they got along really well, which was obvious when anyone watched them interact. Scotty had been under commands where the Captain and the First Officer had disliked each other, and they had been horrible experiences for everyone. The Enterprise was lucky to have the crew it did, with Kirk and Spock being at the top of that list. Barring any unforeseen disasters or explosions or ridiculous and mysterious space-related hijinks, Scotty was planning on staying with the Enterprise for as long as he could.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Uhura believed in happily-ever-afters. She had been taught from an early age about them. She could remember, so clearly it felt as though she were re-living it, sitting in her bed at night with the covers pulled up to her chin, clutching onto them desperately as her mother read her story after story of women who were in distress and the brave men who saved them. There had been a few years when she imagined herself in those stories, but for some reason as she grew older the idea of waiting around to be saved grew less appealing to her. She knew most other girls were content to wait for their brave men to sweep them off their feet. But when Uhura thought of being swept off her feet, she thought of the sudden panic it must create. A sense of imbalance, and then falling so quickly and unexpectedly that all she would be able to do would be to hope someone would catch her. She might have been foolish as most children were, but even then she knew she did not want to rely on anyone else to catch her. She would catch herself when she was in distress.
It was that thought which drove her. Uhura knew she was strong and independent, a person who could hold her own against any problem. When life brought distress, she overcame it using her own abilities. It was a trait she prized, but one that left her overall undesirable to most men. It seemed that the vast majority of men had read the same stories she had, and they had all expected to play the part of the hero. They didn't want a heroine, or even a sidekick. They simply wanted someone to save.
That was why she was sick to death of men like James T. Kirk. Arrogant, brash, annoying, rude-those were the first words that came to mind. Kirk had the same qualities those knights in shining armor had, although now that she was older she could see how unattractive they truly were. Those qualities were what made him both an outstanding Captain and the worst possible romantic partner in all of history.
Those girls who lined up to get with men like Kirk? They were morons. They deserved whatever they got, which was most likely a life of being subjected to the whims of the men they idolized. She couldn't believe girls like that still existed, even in the twenty-third century. When would it change? In the end, what really mattered was that she wasn't one of them. She knew what she thought of the Kirks of the world. Her opinion wasn't going to change, no matter how much he tried to charm her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Spock was different from every man Uhura had ever met, and thank God for that. He valued people for their intelligence, not for their looks. Not that he was immune to attractive people, but rather that it simply didn't influence his opinion of a person. Uhura had plenty of people influenced by her looks both positively and negatively. She'd had people ignore her because they thought she was a stupid bimbo, because she was black, and because they were staring at her breasts instead of listening to what she was saying. She'd also had people buy her drinks, professors give her higher grades than she deserved when she flirted with them, and she'd always had a date when she wanted one. It was such a relief to be with someone who actually didn't care what she looked like as long as she could hold her own in a debate on foreign policy and the distinctions between what was morally right and what was enforced by Starfleet.
That was only one of the many ways Spock had stood out to her. Uhura remembered seeing him for the first time, as a guest speaker in her first Linguistics class when they were discussing the complexities of the Vulcan language. He had been intent on the lesson. She doubted he'd even noticed she was in the room. But that was how Spock acted when he was focused on something-everything else was pushed to the side so that he could give his complete attention on every task he performed. It made him an excellent First Officer.
It also made him a great potential boyfriend. She'd started seeing him around campus, giving lessons and teaching classes that she somehow was almost never in, though she'd tried pretty hard to figure out what he'd be teaching each semester using logic and maybe by convincing friends to hack into the Academy's database, but that was only the one time. Okay, fine. Two times. She still didn't feel bad about it, since the second time had landed her in Spock's Expert Sciences class. She hadn't technically needed that class for her major, but hey, knowledge was power and it made her look better to the administrators and it got her the opportunity to try and impress Spock three times a week. So she spoke up in class and studied her ass off and learned more about the equations involved in determining a spatial disturbance than she'd ever wanted to know. Spock had eventually noticed her thanks to her excellent grades, which was the last way she had thought a guy would ever notice her. It only made her like him that much more.
When she had convinced Spock to change her assignment to the Enterprise, Uhura had been jubilant. Spock hadn't wanted to appear to show favoritism, he'd said. Well, if that wasn't a sign she didn't know what was. Why would he think assigning her to the Enterprise was favoritism if he didn't secretly want to be with her? There was no other reason. No other logical reason, and that was what counted when dealing with Spock. So she'd taken her chance to give him comfort after the destruction of Vulcan and the death of his mother, which was more conniving than she'd wanted to be, but if she hadn't tried then she knew she'd never be able to do it.
Despite bad timing, she was glad she'd done it. They were together now, which was what she'd been hoping for since she'd first seen him more than four years ago. He had agreed to stay with her, to work things out, and she would continue to try her best. After all, there was nobody quite like Spock. It would be worth all of this stress if, after everything, she could convince him that they were perfect for each other. And she knew they were. She knew it. Once he was able to see past his grief, he could see their relationship for what it really was. All she had to do was be patient. For all the times she'd been disappointed before, for all the times she'd wished a guy had actually been interested in her and not just her body, she could be patient. She could prove to Spock that she was a good choice. She knew she could. Then they could have their happily-ever-after, and it was would be as perfect as she'd always hoped because it would be with someone who truly cared about who she was, not just how she appeared.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Part 6a
Feedback is awesomesauce. <3
Author: kowaiyoukai
Rating: R
Pairing: eventual like whoa Kirk/Spock (STFU), Spock/Uhura (blame JJ, not me)
Warning(s): Angst, meta, language, attempts at witty banter, overly-important tone, intentionally confusing parts, potentially OOC everybody
Spoilers: Star Trek XI (2009) (a.k.a. Star Trek XI, Star Trek 2009, Star Trek Reboot, New Trek, and can we please just pick one name for this fandom people?!)
Word Count: 6,099 (for this part)
Disclaimer: Star Trek belongs to Gene Roddenberry, mostly, but also a lot of other people/groups like Paramount, J.J. Abrams, and the various writers/directors. I'm not one of those people, sadly, because if I was I'd be filthy rich.
Beta Acknowledgment: None! I know there are errors, so please let me know if you see any! Thanks!
Summary: Every story has other sides.
A/N: So this is the first in a series of side stories I've got planned for Apogee. You can choose to read them or not. They're all from the other characters' perspectives, so Kirk and Spock don't appear as much in these, although they are discussed. There should be one Otherside after every five regular chapters, but that may change. This was written mainly because I kept getting comments on the side characters and I really wanted to show them more, but that takes away from the Kirk/Spock interaction and who wants that?! NOBODY. So this was the answer. Hope you like it! :D
EDIT: So I EPICFAIL and somehow managed to screw up the first paragraph in Scotty's second section. It's fixed now, though-an extra 50 words. *headdesk* I've also gone back and posted links to the next part at the end of each part, thanks to christycorr's obvious suggestion.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
People laughed at him. He knew it. He knew it, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it. His accent was a part of him, yes, and it was something he never wanted to change. But it wasn't everything about him. It didn't include the hopes he had when he first joined Starfleet, the long nights of studying and days spent trying to excel despite his age, the heavy knowledge that aliens were more accepted than he was thanks to the one trait no one seemed able to look past. His accent was a part of him, like Kirk's grin, like Spock's logic, like McCoy's trademark exclamations, and it was both his most distinctive and destructive feature.
Still, Chekov knew once people got to know him, they began to ignore his awkward speech patterns. It was a learned skill, something acquired through time and sheer necessity, and eventually he knew people would stop looking at him oddly every time he opened his mouth. The short silences would eventually stop, the ones during which people mentally interpreted what he had just said. Even Spock was understood more than he was, and the First Officer only ever spoke in drawn out, antiquated terms.
Normally, it wouldn't have been such a problem. Chekov was generally able to get people to overlook his accent within days of meeting him. He was intelligent and had a lot to offer to any team he was placed in, and so every member of all of his classes had always been a quick study, determined to get all of the information they could from him during the mock practical exams, when every second counted and a misinterpreted reply could get them all mock-killed. But on the Enterprise, everything was different.
Kirk was a great Captain, might very well be the best Captain Chekov would ever have the pleasure of serving under, but he wasn't as strict as other commanding officers. It was an odd complaint, but if he had been more uptight, if he had followed the rules and regulations to the letter, then no one would dare be as relaxed as they were. But he wasn't, and so the crew was, and so people joked good-naturedly with him about his accent, pointing out when he said something hard to understand by repeating it in a badly-mimicked tone. He would laugh because that was the only possible reaction to this type of situation. Saying he didn't appreciate the jokes would label him as either a killjoy, too focused on work, or simply not able to take a joke. None of that was true, but he couldn't easily explain that there were certain jokes that got old, and that maybe the first twenty times he heard someone mocking his accent it had been all right, but that by the fiftieth time he was tired of it and after the hundredth time he wanted to strangle everyone who even mentioned it.
It had never been this way in Russia. But space was certainly different from Russia, and the Enterprise was different from every other ship in the fleet. Chekov would make do with the teasing for the time being, and if no one else noticed that it was bothering him, well, then he would learn to deal with it. The most important people were the ones he worked with on a daily basis, and none of them made cracks about his accent. The members on the bridge were all generally too involved in their work to worry about it, and after work they were all so tired that even sitting down and playing a game in one of the rec rooms was exhausting. So it was bearable, but only just, and Chekov often found himself wondering what he would be known for if he sounded exactly like everyone else.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It wasn't that he was particularly looking for it. In fact, Chekov thought he was going out of his way to try and avoid seeing it. But time and again, every day, the signs were there-so frequent and obvious that he was somewhat surprised no one else had ever said anything. Then again, maybe this was something that got easier as you got older. At seventeen, he still thought about sex a lot. A whole lot. Enough that his mind went to very vivid places when it was supposed to be in other places, work places, and it was near impossible to stop himself from thinking what was so clear to him and seemed invisible to everybody else.
Kirk and Spock were fucking. They had to be. It couldn't be just his mind. There was no way they would act this way, every day, all day long, if they weren't. All the signs were there. They made eyes. They bantered. They exchanged secret looks. They looked at each other when the other wasn't looking. They touched each other-small touches, hands brushing and arms pressed together and fingers grazing the other's neck or back-hundreds of ways and times each day. They trusted each other more than anyone else. They relied on each other's input to make both important and simple decisions. They were able to communicate entire ideas with simple gestures or nods. They hung out together in between shifts. They were usually found right next to each other. When anyone got one of them alone, that one would always, without fail, talk about the other one. Spock was friendlier to Kirk than to anyone else-he seemed willing to lower his guard with Kirk, whereas everyone else was met with a wall of stony Vulcan logic. Kirk was, impossible though it might seem, even more hyper with Spock than anyone else-he acted less like a Captain, even a lenient one, and more like a new recruit whose sole purpose was to find out the schedule of the cute upperclassman who had stood out at orientation.
Besides all of that, and any of that would have been enough but combined it was absolutely damning, Chekov knew that Kirk and Spock visited each other after work. In their quarters. When it was night. And they were alone. He had it on several reliable sources that they had been seen coming and going from each other's quarters on different occasions. Even at seventeen, Chekov knew there was only one reason two people who flirted with each other all day long would have for visiting each other alone at night. Or perhaps, because he was seventeen there was only one reason which stood out to him. Either way, he knew he wasn't imagining all of that. Even if no one else was picking up on it, Chekov was.
It was making him look crazy. That was really, incredibly unfortunate. He knew he seemed unbalanced, and he was quite sure Sulu was ready to ask McCoy to give him a standard once-over. But what was he supposed to do, just pretend like he couldn't see what was smacking him in the face every time he turned around? He was already pretending he didn't see so much. He hadn't said a word about that time two weeks ago when Kirk had leaned over Spock's work station to "check" on something, and Kirk had bent over much lower than he had needed to, and Spock had leaned forward to point a minor detail out, so that it had looked more or less like Spock was pressing Kirk down into the controls, one of his hands lingering over Kirk's hair and the other landing lightly on his back while his mouth was so close to Kirk's neck that there was no comfortable way to avoid skin-to-skin contact. And no one else had even batted an eyelid! It's not like they were hiding it, other people saw, but nobody got it! At first Chekov had thought he was either sex-starved or going insane, but now he came to the only conclusion he could.
Kirk and Spock were either already an item or were going to be in the near future. If Chekov didn't fear Uhura's wrath so much he would have already asked selectively chosen people for their opinions on the matter. Specifically, McCoy. Chekov knew McCoy was Kirk's closest friend, and that meant he had inside information, and that meant McCoy would probably be the one Kirk went to with his romantic troubles. Chekov wasn't a gossip by any means, but he would easily give his right arm to see the look on McCoy's face when Kirk told him and to hear exactly what was said.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he was meant to work, he worked. That was how Sulu thought it should be. Sure, he was glad Captain Kirk ran a relaxed bridge. He hated working under ridiculous amounts of scrutiny and pressure. Still, he had noticed some people taking more freedoms than they should be. If the Captain noticed people shirking their responsibilities, Sulu was pretty sure he'd have to enforce stricter rules on everyone. Even with Captain Kirk, there were expectations.
Sulu had no problem doing his job. He loved piloting the Enterprise. She was a beautiful ship who ran smoothly, thanks in large part to Scotty's amazing ability to keep her running no matter what happened. Besides, piloting a starship was the dream job of anyone working in avionics. Now that starships were in limited supply due to Nero's attack, being allowed to pilot the Enterprise was even more of an honor and pleasure than it had been before. He was glad he was trusted enough to pilot her, even if he occasionally had some hiccups in getting her started. Also, he hadn't pointed this out to anyone, but if he had started her and warped right away with the rest of the fleet, they'd all be dead. So clearly he was doing something right.
Maneuvering a ship this large took more effort than it appeared to. There were several different critical points that propelled the ship forward, and depending on the speed and distance they were travelling, any combination of them could be used to yield varying results. Besides that, Sulu always had to keep in mind that the Enterprise had a limited fuel supply. If he used too many of the boosters at once, or if he pushed the engine harder than he needed to, more fuel would be consumed than was strictly necessary. If that occurred, they might end up stranded in the middle of space radioing for help or hoping for a ship to pass by with some extra fuel. Sulu always kept that in mind when he flew the ship, knowing that it was his responsibility to get safely everyone to their destination on time., but equally knowing that getting there a day or two early wouldn't mean much if he blew the engine or wasted fuel.
Also, he worked closely with Chekov, who navigated fairly well. He was still young and learning, but he showed distinct promise. Sulu had no problem helping him out when the situation called for it. He strongly thought developing good working relationships was key to enjoying his time on the bridge, and talking with Chekov in between the small tasks that popped up was fine with him. He only hoped the kid could learn to control himself a bit more. All of those outbursts were quite worrying.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It concerned Sulu that Spock hadn't known why the crew wasn't speaking to him on a more personal level. At least Chekov knew what his own problem was and was dealing with it the best way he knew how. Sulu was confident he would find some solution in time. But Spock had seemed fairly surprised by the topic once Sulu had brought it up. It was as if, for some mysterious reason, Spock hadn't noticed the crew's hesitation in dealing with him.
Of course that was ridiculous. Spock was distant, sure, but he wasn't unfeeling. He was well aware of the ship's crew and their actions. But his attitude made it hard to get to know him, even for people who worked with him every day. Sulu had decided to make a conscious effort to get to know Spock better once he realized the First Officer was having difficulty connecting with the crew. But unless Spock's attitude changed, or the attitude of the crew changed, he didn't see the situation solving itself any time soon.
Spock was an incredibly private person, which unfortunately meant that he didn't allow people to see who he truly was. Sulu had been on the bridge when Spock and the Captain had bantered or joked with each other, but Spock never behaved that way with anyone else. If Spock had even occasionally shown that side of himself to other people, they would start to open up to him. But that wasn't who Spock was, and Sulu thought Spock shouldn't have to change how he acted to please other people. That seemed wrong to him on many levels. There had to be another solution.
Sulu had hoped Captain Kirk would have some ideas. He was the closest person to Spock, after all, but Sulu thought the Captain had no idea what was going on. At first, Sulu hadn't understood, but then he had figured it out. It was easy to see that Spock had made a large impression on Captain Kirk. Sulu assumed that would usually happen after a strangulation attempt. It was kind of hard to ignore. Plus, they had become good friends since then. It was fairly obvious that the Captain was unable to see that people were uncomfortable around Spock because Captain Kirk was so comfortable around him that the idea of anyone else not liking Spock would probably be ludicrous to him. In fact, Sulu could imagine the Captain scoffing at the notion if it was brought to his attention. Perhaps that was Captain Kirk's major flaw-the inability to see events from other people's perspectives. As Captain, he always had to look out for the welfare of his crew, so Sulu assumed that took up most of his time and everything else was pushed aside. Still, it wouldn't do anyone any good if the Captain suddenly started considering everything from various angles like Spock usually did. They needed to rely on Captain Kirk to make quick decisions, and he certainly couldn't do that if he was debating how his actions would affect everyone involved.
So Sulu ended up realizing that, if Spock and the crew were going to get along, it would be because one of the two had changed. As things stood, there was no way the crew would ever feel comfortable around a man who had lost his mother, planet, and the majority of his race and yet acted calm and unemotional about it. Yet Spock relied on his distance to be able to work, and somehow Sulu thought that Spock's attempts at opening up might not be a good thing. A person being different wasn't always bad, and in Spock's case it certainly was good for everyone on the Enterprise. They all relied on Spock's logic and his intuitive ability to assess a situation and gather data quickly. Sulu hoped both Spock and the crew would see that, before the situation progressed to a point of no return.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Every single member of the crew was a damn idiot, and if McCoy had to deal with one more finger which had been stuck where it shouldn't have been (slammed in doors, wedged in wires, crammed between constrictive coils) or injury from not observing proper protocol in the gym (bruises from lack of padding, headaches and forehead cuts which had been obtained when not wearing a helmet, broken bone from an incorrect practice throw), he was going to kill every last one of them and blame it on a rare unknown lethal space disease in his short, yet tragic, report before requesting early retirement to a small resort planet to deal with his emotional trauma. It was important to have a plan for these kinds of things. Just in case.
When McCoy had imagined being a doctor, he had never imagined the sort of work that plagued him day in and day out. He had imagined scenarios where he was the only one who could save a dying man, or else where he discovered the cure to some infectious disease that was destroying a colony, or even where he was stranded on some desolate planet without supplies and he had somehow managed to find enough raw materials to care for the landing party's injuries until help arrived. He had never imagined the mundane. He had never daydreamed about listening to an engineer's excuses about why he had, for the fourth time, come up with no alternative other than to pull out the overheating piece of machinery using only his hands and not any one of the number of instruments readily available and at arm's reach at all times from his station. Never had he fantasized about explaining to a research scientist why using herself as a test subject for her latest experiment was a bad idea, regardless of how hard she argued about animal rights and necessary sacrifices for scientific advancement.
That was the problem with enlisting. These people were all geniuses in their fields. They all knew what they were doing, were damn good at it, and had beat out tons of other people to get their assignment. It meant they were all focused on their jobs all the time. And that meant they did stupid things constantly. They meant well, but they had never taken the easy way in their entire lives. They were all used to doing things immediately, themselves, and to keep trying until they succeeded. It was a great mindset for the military. McCoy got that. They needed people who were both experts in their fields and incredibly diligent if they were going to succeed during their missions in deep space. It wasn't like Jim would be able to easily replace anyone. It wasn't like there were hundreds of Paleontologists or Xenolinguists or Engineers who knew how to work with Starships just hanging around the galaxy, waiting to be picked up by the first ship who needed them. Their crew had been hand-picked. They were the best of the best.
Yet for all of that, McCoy couldn't figure out why not a one of them knew better than to stick their hands in trash compactors to grab whatever they had accidentally thrown out. McCoy was sure, if he asked anybody else, they would all say their crew was amazing. McCoy was the only one who got to see just how stupid they could all be. It would have been funny if it wasn't so annoying.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
For the three years McCoy had known Jim, the man had never been anything other than trouble. And he didn't even mean that in the usual, not-really-trouble-just-the-speaker-going-for-witty kind of way. Cheating on the Kobayashi Maru had only been the last in a long string of shattered rules Jim had left scattered in his wake. Of course, Jim didn't see it that way. McCoy had heard several times all about how an unbeatable test was unfair and reprogramming it was a humanitarian act designed to save tired and over-stressed students hours of pointless preparation. He had also heard about how passing out answers before an exam was simply a way of upping the overall GPA, which would improve both individual scores and the school's overall standing. Oh, and how could he forget that faking a call from the professor to the appropriate office to cancel class was actually a chance for the under-appreciated professor to take some much-needed rest?
The one thing McCoy could say was that, more than anyone else on campus, Jim had been able to quickly and competently get into and out of trouble with no lasting marks on his record. He was as intelligent as he was lazy, which made for an interesting combination of hours spent on detailed plans which ended in successful attempts to get out of doing work. McCoy had often pointed out to him that, if he would just put that level of intricate thought into his studies, he'd be top of the class without a problem. Jim had always rolled his eyes and indicated exactly what he thought about students who were top of their class through a series of ridiculous noises and gestures.
That was how Jim was. He had been born to lead because he couldn't follow anyone. He cut up other people's plans and put them together in a different way, adding his own ideas in the mix to create something entirely new. He was willing to listen to everyone, equally willing to mock them to their faces, and somehow able to do both simultaneously without offending anyone. His charm was too much to take sometimes, especially from McCoy's point of view. Watching Jim constantly slide his way out of consequences by flirting and grinning had grated on his nerves to the point where he could hardly stand seeing yet another girl get all excited over Jim talking to her.
Even that wasn't exactly true. McCoy had a grudging respect for anyone who could get his way that much of the time. And he did it in a friendly way that had other people thinking it was their idea. If it had been intentional, it would have been obnoxious, but McCoy had figured out that Jim didn't even realize he was doing it. People liked him. They wanted to help him. So they did what he wanted them to, and nobody was any wiser about the vicious cycle that only McCoy saw.
McCoy himself had done it on occasion, more than once, and he always cursed himself afterwards. He was meant to be immune to Jim's charms since they were friends and he knew better than to give in. But sometimes it happened, even when he was prepared and on guard against it. That was the reason Jim was going to be the best Captain in Starfleet-everyone loved him, even when they tried not to.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Making sure the Enterprise stayed working was a lot like trying to keep a concert running. There was the band, which was like the crew, and if everybody wasn't doing their jobs something went wrong. If even one person messed up, it affected everybody else, and then things went to hell. Then there was all of the other things nobody really thought of, which were so much more important than the band but which everybody took for granted. The band, Scotty couldn't control that. If the crew screwed up and he had to fix it, well, that was it. Nothing could be done about that. But everything else-the nuts and bolts of the concert, so to speak-that was all him. The lights that blinked and changed colors, the sounds and volume and speakers, the fog if things were really snazzy, the security to make sure everything kept working, and all the other small things that people either ignored or took for granted-the stage curtains, the floors, the chairs, the costumes, the stage design, the background images, ticket prices and sales, refreshments, merchandise, impromptu autograph sessions. It was all him.
Scotty was the manager of the Enterprise, no matter what the Captain thought. If everything went well, Kirk got the credit for it. If everything went badly, Scotty got the blame. Scotty, why isn't the transporter working? or Scotty, why does the lift skip every third floor? or Scotty, why is the communications system spewing out every planet in alphabetical order? Yeah, he got all of those complaints. It was never Hey, great job keeping the ship running, Scotty. Keep up the good work. No one ever came to him to say I haven't noticed any problems, so you must be doing your job right. Thanks for working your ass off all the time to make my life more comfortable. Nope. Nobody ever said that.
Not that he particularly minded. In a lot of ways, Scotty liked being the power behind the throne. It gave him a lot of access other people didn't have. If he wanted to get into the kitchens for a late night snack, all he had to do was say he was doing some work and they let him in and offered him food without him even having to ask for it. It was awesome. Being Chief Engineer was like having a free pass to every room in the ship. No one wanted to have to face the Captain to tell him they'd stopped Scotty from doing his job. Everyone knew his job was what allowed everyone else to do theirs. That was a lot of power, and he liked it.
Still. It would have been nice, occasionally, for someone to thank him or at least notice when the ship was running smoothly. That's how it worked at concerts, too. Everyone noticed and complained when something went wrong. When everything ran great, nobody said anything. But all that lack of attention was giving him time to work on his own projects, so he really couldn't complain too much. After all, if he could get the transporter to work the way he knew it could, they'd be able to beam from planet to planet without ever having to go to the ship in between. That would save time. And be so, so cool.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Kirk and Spock were probably the greatest combination of Captain and First Officer Starfleet had ever produced. Scotty was sure of it. Kirk was sociable and funny, easy to talk to when he had a problem and able to think quickly in a tough situation. Spock was difficult even when he was in a good mood-which was actually impossible to differentiate from his bad moods. But that was what made them great-they balanced each other out so well that, between the two of them, every situation was dealt with before it could become a problem.
It was actually kind of like having another set of parents. Kirk was the nice mother who'd give in to his wheedling, and Spock was the stern father who could see through him every time. This was probably why Scotty found himself going to Kirk for things that he should have technically gone to Spock for. Certain forms and repairs didn't necessarily need to be filled out by the Captain, who often had so much work to do it was kind of wrong to give him more. But going to Spock for anything was like asking to be told how bad he'd been since the last time they'd seen each other. Scotty felt like Spock was going to ground him or take away his television privileges if he didn't get whatever was broken fixed before Spock had counted to ten.
Not to say that Spock was unreasonable. He was too reasonable, that was the problem. With Kirk, he could make some excuses about why something was taking longer or just say that he'd get around to it soon, and Kirk would tell him that was fine and that would be that. Nobody could pull that shit with Spock. Spock would ask why his repairs were taking longer than expected or when exactly soon was and why he wasn't working right now, and of course Scotty couldn't say that he'd slept late or had been experimenting or was bored or hungry or whatever it was that he'd been that had kept him from doing his work. And it didn't matter what he said to Spock, it never changed things, Scotty always felt like he'd just been punished even though all Spock ever did was look at him disapprovingly. It was awful.
Kirk was so much better. Scotty was so glad he'd been assigned to work with both the youngest and friendliest Captain in the fleet. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to work with lots of the other Captains who appeared to think their crew consisted of robots. Kirk was willing to let things slide, but he expected results, and he knew the difference between occasionally slacking off and really causing damage to how the ship was running. Plus, he was always in the mood to joke around or hang out with the crew. Scotty couldn't think of a single other Captain who did the same.
So, between the two of them, Kirk and Spock kept the Enterprise running better and kept the crew working more efficiently and happily than any other commanding team Scotty had worked under. Plus, they got along really well, which was obvious when anyone watched them interact. Scotty had been under commands where the Captain and the First Officer had disliked each other, and they had been horrible experiences for everyone. The Enterprise was lucky to have the crew it did, with Kirk and Spock being at the top of that list. Barring any unforeseen disasters or explosions or ridiculous and mysterious space-related hijinks, Scotty was planning on staying with the Enterprise for as long as he could.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Uhura believed in happily-ever-afters. She had been taught from an early age about them. She could remember, so clearly it felt as though she were re-living it, sitting in her bed at night with the covers pulled up to her chin, clutching onto them desperately as her mother read her story after story of women who were in distress and the brave men who saved them. There had been a few years when she imagined herself in those stories, but for some reason as she grew older the idea of waiting around to be saved grew less appealing to her. She knew most other girls were content to wait for their brave men to sweep them off their feet. But when Uhura thought of being swept off her feet, she thought of the sudden panic it must create. A sense of imbalance, and then falling so quickly and unexpectedly that all she would be able to do would be to hope someone would catch her. She might have been foolish as most children were, but even then she knew she did not want to rely on anyone else to catch her. She would catch herself when she was in distress.
It was that thought which drove her. Uhura knew she was strong and independent, a person who could hold her own against any problem. When life brought distress, she overcame it using her own abilities. It was a trait she prized, but one that left her overall undesirable to most men. It seemed that the vast majority of men had read the same stories she had, and they had all expected to play the part of the hero. They didn't want a heroine, or even a sidekick. They simply wanted someone to save.
That was why she was sick to death of men like James T. Kirk. Arrogant, brash, annoying, rude-those were the first words that came to mind. Kirk had the same qualities those knights in shining armor had, although now that she was older she could see how unattractive they truly were. Those qualities were what made him both an outstanding Captain and the worst possible romantic partner in all of history.
Those girls who lined up to get with men like Kirk? They were morons. They deserved whatever they got, which was most likely a life of being subjected to the whims of the men they idolized. She couldn't believe girls like that still existed, even in the twenty-third century. When would it change? In the end, what really mattered was that she wasn't one of them. She knew what she thought of the Kirks of the world. Her opinion wasn't going to change, no matter how much he tried to charm her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Spock was different from every man Uhura had ever met, and thank God for that. He valued people for their intelligence, not for their looks. Not that he was immune to attractive people, but rather that it simply didn't influence his opinion of a person. Uhura had plenty of people influenced by her looks both positively and negatively. She'd had people ignore her because they thought she was a stupid bimbo, because she was black, and because they were staring at her breasts instead of listening to what she was saying. She'd also had people buy her drinks, professors give her higher grades than she deserved when she flirted with them, and she'd always had a date when she wanted one. It was such a relief to be with someone who actually didn't care what she looked like as long as she could hold her own in a debate on foreign policy and the distinctions between what was morally right and what was enforced by Starfleet.
That was only one of the many ways Spock had stood out to her. Uhura remembered seeing him for the first time, as a guest speaker in her first Linguistics class when they were discussing the complexities of the Vulcan language. He had been intent on the lesson. She doubted he'd even noticed she was in the room. But that was how Spock acted when he was focused on something-everything else was pushed to the side so that he could give his complete attention on every task he performed. It made him an excellent First Officer.
It also made him a great potential boyfriend. She'd started seeing him around campus, giving lessons and teaching classes that she somehow was almost never in, though she'd tried pretty hard to figure out what he'd be teaching each semester using logic and maybe by convincing friends to hack into the Academy's database, but that was only the one time. Okay, fine. Two times. She still didn't feel bad about it, since the second time had landed her in Spock's Expert Sciences class. She hadn't technically needed that class for her major, but hey, knowledge was power and it made her look better to the administrators and it got her the opportunity to try and impress Spock three times a week. So she spoke up in class and studied her ass off and learned more about the equations involved in determining a spatial disturbance than she'd ever wanted to know. Spock had eventually noticed her thanks to her excellent grades, which was the last way she had thought a guy would ever notice her. It only made her like him that much more.
When she had convinced Spock to change her assignment to the Enterprise, Uhura had been jubilant. Spock hadn't wanted to appear to show favoritism, he'd said. Well, if that wasn't a sign she didn't know what was. Why would he think assigning her to the Enterprise was favoritism if he didn't secretly want to be with her? There was no other reason. No other logical reason, and that was what counted when dealing with Spock. So she'd taken her chance to give him comfort after the destruction of Vulcan and the death of his mother, which was more conniving than she'd wanted to be, but if she hadn't tried then she knew she'd never be able to do it.
Despite bad timing, she was glad she'd done it. They were together now, which was what she'd been hoping for since she'd first seen him more than four years ago. He had agreed to stay with her, to work things out, and she would continue to try her best. After all, there was nobody quite like Spock. It would be worth all of this stress if, after everything, she could convince him that they were perfect for each other. And she knew they were. She knew it. Once he was able to see past his grief, he could see their relationship for what it really was. All she had to do was be patient. For all the times she'd been disappointed before, for all the times she'd wished a guy had actually been interested in her and not just her body, she could be patient. She could prove to Spock that she was a good choice. She knew she could. Then they could have their happily-ever-after, and it was would be as perfect as she'd always hoped because it would be with someone who truly cared about who she was, not just how she appeared.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Part 6a
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