A Pragmatic Theory of Truth - 8/25
Title: A Pragmatic Theory of Truth
Chapter: 8 of 25 ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7)
Word count: 2412 (~ 55,000 in total)
Authors: petbubble and leandralocke
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG - NC-17
Summary: One and a half years before the destruction of Vulcan, Spock meets an extraordinary young cadet during a lecture at Starfleet Academy. Their initial encounter is brief but intense, and affects both of them in ways they could never have imagined.
Authors' notes Thanks to blueeyed_secret for beta-reading.
This is our first multi-chapter Spock/Uhura fic, but it has been completed for a while. We are currently already working on follow-ups, so there's no need to worry that this might never be completed. We're just editing it chapter by chapter and having it beta-read now and should post a new chapter every few days.
The story is also online at Fanfiction.net
The corridors between the lecture rooms and labs were quiet when Spock made his way to leave the building at 21:27. He had finished grading a written exam for his 'Introduction to Phonology' class, and was satisfied with the result. The eighteen cadets had reached an average grade that lay 12.7 % above the combined average grades of the same seminar throughout the last ten years. Given the evident relevance of this introductory class for further course assessments, the chance to finish their studies successfully had risen by averagely 8.2 % for his class. Averagely. Unfortunately, two of the cadets had failed the test and would have to take a repeat exam in four weeks. Given their current performance, it was however likely that they would fail again. But even with a failure rate of 11.11%, Spock's performance as an instructor at Starfleet Academy had already exceeded expectations, even though, of course, by human standards.
He was mentally outlining the final part of tomorrow’s lecture on 'Computerized Analysis of Alien Phonology', when he rounded a corner and his eyes caught sight of a lit language lab, the sliding doors half-open. Curious who was still using the room, four hours and twenty-nine minutes after the seminar had ended, he crossed the distance to the entrance and looked inside.
Immediately he saw Nyota Uhura, still in her cadet uniform, sitting with her back towards the door. Her ankles were hooked and crossed under the chair and she had untied her long, dark hair which was pulled over one shoulder. One hand rested on her earpiece, and as she swung around in the chair, Spock could see that her eyes were closed and the fingertips of her free hand tapped out a rhythm on her temples. She was clearly listening to something and her face had an expression of puzzled concentration on it.
She had not noticed him, and for a moment Spock considered the option to just continue on his way and leave her to whatever she was working on. It probably was the most logical thing to do. On the other hand, however, he was intrigued by seeing her so deeply caught up in her studies while all her classmates had left the building long ago. It was logical to inquire and offer his help if it was needed.
“Cadet Uhura,” he said loud enough for her to hear, as he fully entered the room. “May I ask what you are still doing here at this hour?”
Her eyes flew open and she yelped slightly, turning her head so quickly that the earpiece fell onto the floor with a clatter and rolled slightly away from her. After staring at him for a second longer she quickly stood to attention, struggling slightly as her boots caught on the chair leg. Obviously shocked at him being there, she recovered quickly, smoothing down her uniform before answering him.
“Commander Spock. Sir. I was trying to finish the current assignment by cataloging the sound samples you had provided.” She looked concerned slightly and glanced at her PADD in confusion. “Is it really that late? I…I must have lost track of the time.”
Spock raised an eyebrow at her. Losing 'track of time' was a purely human phenomena that was strange to him, although he knew which psychological and chemical processes in the brain led to this effect. It was something else that made him tilt his head in slight surprise, however. “Cadet, the report on the assignment is only due in one week and three days. You did not need to finish it today.”
Chuckling slightly, she seemed to relax as she realized that there were to be no immediate repercussions for her staying in the lab so late.
“I tend to get them out of the way pretty quickly, so that I can concentrate on extra study. I’m surprised you haven’t been warned about it.” She smiled slightly as she spoke, and then realized her mistake. “I mean - Commander. Shit. I mean…sorry. Sir.” Her eyes had widened as she spoke, as though the words had been said without her permission. She looked uncomfortable and stared at the floor.
He understood immediately; if possible he also finished one assignment at a time rather than working on various ones here and there. It was most logical to concentrate fully on one thing before proceeding on to the next. However, he had observed that most humans, especially younger ones, needed breaks, distraction and variation in their daily tasks in order to regain their strengths and then 'start fresh', as they called it.
“I appreciate your ambition, cadet,” he said honestly, as an attempt to make her feel more at ease. “It seems to be a rare quality among cadets your age.”
He watched as her lips twitched, the corners moving upwards slightly. “Definitely a rare quality, sir, and that’s probably the nicest way I’ve ever been called a nerd before.” Lifting her head to look at him, she started laughing, softly at first before getting louder; rich peals that she seemed unable to control. “Sorry, Commander Spock,” she said through the laughter. “I really shouldn’t find that funny. I have no idea why I do, I must still be recovering from you scaring me.” Looking startled as she said that, she wiped a hand across her eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to regain control.
He found the effect of her laughter on him surprisingly... stimulating, and he could not help but trying to think of more words and expressions that would offer a high probability for her to laugh or smile again. All he came up with was: “It was not my intention to scare you, cadet. I was merely not expecting anyone in the lab at this late hour.”
“Yeah, I kind of got carried away by these samples,” cadet Uhura replied, an embarrassed smile on her face. “The others left ages ago, but I was just interested in the accents on the phonemes in the last group of samples and I just wanted to get an understanding of what I was hearing before transcribing them.”
She sat in the chair as she spoke and picked up her PADD, forgetting her earlier discomfort as she scrolled down the screen. She took her hair in her hand, and twisting it slightly, tossed it over her shoulder before looking back up at him, a bright smile on her face. “And you didn’t scare me, Commander. I don’t think you have it in you to do that.” Although her face flushed slightly as she spoke, she no longer showed any physical signs of being uncomfortable in his presence.
“That is because it would be illogical to intentionally scare anybody,” he explained, his eyebrows twitching for a moment. “Unless I possessed the human ability for mischief.”
Her fingers paused momentarily on the screen as she appeared to process what he had just said. Tilting her head towards him, she raised her eyebrows before her laughter bubbled out again. Shoulders shaking as she laughed loudly, she struggled to catch her breath before replying.
“Commander Spock, I do believe you’ve just made a joke. If you're not trying to scare me, are you trying to intentionally distract me from my studies instead?”
If he was completely honest with himself and her he needed to affirm the question. However, and luckily enough, this had not been his initial and most prominent intention. So he wasn't lying when, tilting his head, he replied. “I had meant to ask you whether you needed any assistance. Since you have proven to be a very diligent student I believe it would not be inappropriate to offer my help.”
“Ahhh, in that case - yes please.” Serious again and looking back at her PADD, cadet Uhura tapped her lips with a finger as she concentrated on the data in front of her. Nodding to herself she looked up at him again, pointing at the screen with her index finger.
“These two phoneme samples - you use them as an example of two separate types sounding the same apart from the inflection. Except they don’t…” Pausing she touched her ear and then looked around in confusion. “Have you seen my earpiece?” she asked, before she noticed it on the floor between them. She put the PADD down and started to rise from her chair.
But Spock was moving more quickly. Standing behind her desk, he only had to bend down and pick the small item up from the floor. And only a second later he returned it to her extended hand. What he had not planned, however, were their fingertips touching in that very moment. A tingling sensation shot from his hand to his brain, heightening the sensitivity in his entire body, feeling her lively energy reach him, much stronger than he had expected from a mere finger link. And for another two seconds, or three - he was too distracted to tell - he could not shake off the momentary mental paralysis the link had caused.
Then he withdrew his hand, however, before he could distinguish any exact emotions, wondering whether the images that had stirred in his mind as well as the minuscule sensation of arousal he felt were transferred by her or just caused by the closeness. A natural effect of his own brain or a telepathic effect stronger than he had thought possible.
“What…what?” cadet Uhura was sitting, her arm still stretched out, the small earpiece in her palm. She was still and her eyes were wide open, as if she’d been shot with a phaser on its lowest setting. She slowly licked her lips as she stared first at her hand, then up at him, then again at her hand.
“That was… I felt…wow.” She swallowed, then looked back up at him. Her eyes searching his face, she seemed uncertain how to continue. “What was that? Was that…normal? ”
“It was a mild telepathic link,” he replied, although the word 'mild' maybe wasn't fully correct. “And the sample size of my previous experiences is too small to determine whether its strength was according to norm or not,” he explained further. Normally, he did not let this happen easily, and the rare occasions when he had deliberately linked with a human had not been nearly as intense by only allowing their fingertips to touch.
She continued to stare at him as he spoke before looking at her fingers again, wriggling them slightly. “My fingertips still tingle - huh. Telepathic linking? So that was you…in my head? Oh no. That means you felt…” her cheeks flushed, a deep pink color that started in her cheeks and reached down her neck. She wrapped her fingers around the earpiece and avoided his gaze, shifting slightly in the chair.
Spock tilted his head as he looked at her, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. What had she meant to say? Was she under the impression he had caught a thought or emotion she had rather kept private? And was it the vague feeling of arousal he had just experienced? Had she not said a word, he would have thought it possible that it had been entirely his own, but now... And the mere idea of her being aroused - by him? - being attracted to him sent another wave of electrical neural impulses straight to his groin, creating a tingling sensation that he mostly managed to ignore.
The evening they had first met, he had noticed all the obvious human sighs for attraction, the flush on her cheeks, the suddenly less determined, even insecure body language, the glances from averted eyes. The sudden change in pheromones that he, with a much more accurate sense of smell than a human, could make out. He had felt it even without any telepathic link then. But ever since he had come back to Earth he had not observed that kind of reaction in her. If he had read her facial expressions correctly she had been surprised, even shocked, to see him again, and even though he, himself, didn't know the emotion of awkwardness and found it illogical, he had expected her to experience it to some degree. Yet she had always maintained her professional attitude towards him. At least in class, with averagely nineteen more cadets around.
Now they were alone.
The sudden urge to reach out, pull her into his arms and kiss her like he had done that night, became so strong, that his common sense was pushed into the back of his mind for two and a half seconds before he took a small step to the side and let his gaze focus on the screen instead of her.
“I was not in your head,” he explained. “In order to achieve a connection of that strength it would require a full mind meld. As a Vulcan, I am a touch-telepath, however, and it is possible to link on a rudimentary level by touching fingertips or temples. I can only sense the general direction of an emotion that way,” or at least it had been so in the past, “but since human emotions are not only more intense but also completely different than those of Vulcans it is nearly impossible to determine what precisely the human feels by maintaining the link for a time period as short as we just did.”
She appeared to relax slightly as he spoke, though it was difficult to tell whether this was from relief or disappointment.
“So, you didn’t…? There was no…?” She left the questions unasked as she returned her gaze to the screen. Slightly nodding to herself, she turned slightly in the chair, allowing Spock a better view of the sample group she was querying. The ear piece was still in her hand, and she was turning it over in her fingers, her thumb slowly stroking the cold metal. Realizing what she was doing, she stared at her hand for a second before coughing quietly. Placing the metal device in her ear, she turned to him and replayed the sample sounds, though she still avoided his eyes.
And for the next forty-two minutes until they left the phonology lab Spock, too, found it difficult to look into hers.
~ TBC ~
Chapter 9
A/N: First of thanks to all the readers who have also given us some input. We have now also revised Chapter 2 after it had been suggested that Spock should be more insistent with walking Nyota home. Go back and read the last bits of the chapter to see what we have changed (the whole part where she is getting dressed and ready to leave).
Chapter: 8 of 25 ( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7)
Word count: 2412 (~ 55,000 in total)
Authors: petbubble and leandralocke
Genre: Romance
Rating: PG - NC-17
Summary: One and a half years before the destruction of Vulcan, Spock meets an extraordinary young cadet during a lecture at Starfleet Academy. Their initial encounter is brief but intense, and affects both of them in ways they could never have imagined.
Authors' notes Thanks to blueeyed_secret for beta-reading.
This is our first multi-chapter Spock/Uhura fic, but it has been completed for a while. We are currently already working on follow-ups, so there's no need to worry that this might never be completed. We're just editing it chapter by chapter and having it beta-read now and should post a new chapter every few days.
The story is also online at Fanfiction.net
The corridors between the lecture rooms and labs were quiet when Spock made his way to leave the building at 21:27. He had finished grading a written exam for his 'Introduction to Phonology' class, and was satisfied with the result. The eighteen cadets had reached an average grade that lay 12.7 % above the combined average grades of the same seminar throughout the last ten years. Given the evident relevance of this introductory class for further course assessments, the chance to finish their studies successfully had risen by averagely 8.2 % for his class. Averagely. Unfortunately, two of the cadets had failed the test and would have to take a repeat exam in four weeks. Given their current performance, it was however likely that they would fail again. But even with a failure rate of 11.11%, Spock's performance as an instructor at Starfleet Academy had already exceeded expectations, even though, of course, by human standards.
He was mentally outlining the final part of tomorrow’s lecture on 'Computerized Analysis of Alien Phonology', when he rounded a corner and his eyes caught sight of a lit language lab, the sliding doors half-open. Curious who was still using the room, four hours and twenty-nine minutes after the seminar had ended, he crossed the distance to the entrance and looked inside.
Immediately he saw Nyota Uhura, still in her cadet uniform, sitting with her back towards the door. Her ankles were hooked and crossed under the chair and she had untied her long, dark hair which was pulled over one shoulder. One hand rested on her earpiece, and as she swung around in the chair, Spock could see that her eyes were closed and the fingertips of her free hand tapped out a rhythm on her temples. She was clearly listening to something and her face had an expression of puzzled concentration on it.
She had not noticed him, and for a moment Spock considered the option to just continue on his way and leave her to whatever she was working on. It probably was the most logical thing to do. On the other hand, however, he was intrigued by seeing her so deeply caught up in her studies while all her classmates had left the building long ago. It was logical to inquire and offer his help if it was needed.
“Cadet Uhura,” he said loud enough for her to hear, as he fully entered the room. “May I ask what you are still doing here at this hour?”
Her eyes flew open and she yelped slightly, turning her head so quickly that the earpiece fell onto the floor with a clatter and rolled slightly away from her. After staring at him for a second longer she quickly stood to attention, struggling slightly as her boots caught on the chair leg. Obviously shocked at him being there, she recovered quickly, smoothing down her uniform before answering him.
“Commander Spock. Sir. I was trying to finish the current assignment by cataloging the sound samples you had provided.” She looked concerned slightly and glanced at her PADD in confusion. “Is it really that late? I…I must have lost track of the time.”
Spock raised an eyebrow at her. Losing 'track of time' was a purely human phenomena that was strange to him, although he knew which psychological and chemical processes in the brain led to this effect. It was something else that made him tilt his head in slight surprise, however. “Cadet, the report on the assignment is only due in one week and three days. You did not need to finish it today.”
Chuckling slightly, she seemed to relax as she realized that there were to be no immediate repercussions for her staying in the lab so late.
“I tend to get them out of the way pretty quickly, so that I can concentrate on extra study. I’m surprised you haven’t been warned about it.” She smiled slightly as she spoke, and then realized her mistake. “I mean - Commander. Shit. I mean…sorry. Sir.” Her eyes had widened as she spoke, as though the words had been said without her permission. She looked uncomfortable and stared at the floor.
He understood immediately; if possible he also finished one assignment at a time rather than working on various ones here and there. It was most logical to concentrate fully on one thing before proceeding on to the next. However, he had observed that most humans, especially younger ones, needed breaks, distraction and variation in their daily tasks in order to regain their strengths and then 'start fresh', as they called it.
“I appreciate your ambition, cadet,” he said honestly, as an attempt to make her feel more at ease. “It seems to be a rare quality among cadets your age.”
He watched as her lips twitched, the corners moving upwards slightly. “Definitely a rare quality, sir, and that’s probably the nicest way I’ve ever been called a nerd before.” Lifting her head to look at him, she started laughing, softly at first before getting louder; rich peals that she seemed unable to control. “Sorry, Commander Spock,” she said through the laughter. “I really shouldn’t find that funny. I have no idea why I do, I must still be recovering from you scaring me.” Looking startled as she said that, she wiped a hand across her eyes and took several deep breaths, trying to regain control.
He found the effect of her laughter on him surprisingly... stimulating, and he could not help but trying to think of more words and expressions that would offer a high probability for her to laugh or smile again. All he came up with was: “It was not my intention to scare you, cadet. I was merely not expecting anyone in the lab at this late hour.”
“Yeah, I kind of got carried away by these samples,” cadet Uhura replied, an embarrassed smile on her face. “The others left ages ago, but I was just interested in the accents on the phonemes in the last group of samples and I just wanted to get an understanding of what I was hearing before transcribing them.”
She sat in the chair as she spoke and picked up her PADD, forgetting her earlier discomfort as she scrolled down the screen. She took her hair in her hand, and twisting it slightly, tossed it over her shoulder before looking back up at him, a bright smile on her face. “And you didn’t scare me, Commander. I don’t think you have it in you to do that.” Although her face flushed slightly as she spoke, she no longer showed any physical signs of being uncomfortable in his presence.
“That is because it would be illogical to intentionally scare anybody,” he explained, his eyebrows twitching for a moment. “Unless I possessed the human ability for mischief.”
Her fingers paused momentarily on the screen as she appeared to process what he had just said. Tilting her head towards him, she raised her eyebrows before her laughter bubbled out again. Shoulders shaking as she laughed loudly, she struggled to catch her breath before replying.
“Commander Spock, I do believe you’ve just made a joke. If you're not trying to scare me, are you trying to intentionally distract me from my studies instead?”
If he was completely honest with himself and her he needed to affirm the question. However, and luckily enough, this had not been his initial and most prominent intention. So he wasn't lying when, tilting his head, he replied. “I had meant to ask you whether you needed any assistance. Since you have proven to be a very diligent student I believe it would not be inappropriate to offer my help.”
“Ahhh, in that case - yes please.” Serious again and looking back at her PADD, cadet Uhura tapped her lips with a finger as she concentrated on the data in front of her. Nodding to herself she looked up at him again, pointing at the screen with her index finger.
“These two phoneme samples - you use them as an example of two separate types sounding the same apart from the inflection. Except they don’t…” Pausing she touched her ear and then looked around in confusion. “Have you seen my earpiece?” she asked, before she noticed it on the floor between them. She put the PADD down and started to rise from her chair.
But Spock was moving more quickly. Standing behind her desk, he only had to bend down and pick the small item up from the floor. And only a second later he returned it to her extended hand. What he had not planned, however, were their fingertips touching in that very moment. A tingling sensation shot from his hand to his brain, heightening the sensitivity in his entire body, feeling her lively energy reach him, much stronger than he had expected from a mere finger link. And for another two seconds, or three - he was too distracted to tell - he could not shake off the momentary mental paralysis the link had caused.
Then he withdrew his hand, however, before he could distinguish any exact emotions, wondering whether the images that had stirred in his mind as well as the minuscule sensation of arousal he felt were transferred by her or just caused by the closeness. A natural effect of his own brain or a telepathic effect stronger than he had thought possible.
“What…what?” cadet Uhura was sitting, her arm still stretched out, the small earpiece in her palm. She was still and her eyes were wide open, as if she’d been shot with a phaser on its lowest setting. She slowly licked her lips as she stared first at her hand, then up at him, then again at her hand.
“That was… I felt…wow.” She swallowed, then looked back up at him. Her eyes searching his face, she seemed uncertain how to continue. “What was that? Was that…normal? ”
“It was a mild telepathic link,” he replied, although the word 'mild' maybe wasn't fully correct. “And the sample size of my previous experiences is too small to determine whether its strength was according to norm or not,” he explained further. Normally, he did not let this happen easily, and the rare occasions when he had deliberately linked with a human had not been nearly as intense by only allowing their fingertips to touch.
She continued to stare at him as he spoke before looking at her fingers again, wriggling them slightly. “My fingertips still tingle - huh. Telepathic linking? So that was you…in my head? Oh no. That means you felt…” her cheeks flushed, a deep pink color that started in her cheeks and reached down her neck. She wrapped her fingers around the earpiece and avoided his gaze, shifting slightly in the chair.
Spock tilted his head as he looked at her, his brow furrowing ever so slightly. What had she meant to say? Was she under the impression he had caught a thought or emotion she had rather kept private? And was it the vague feeling of arousal he had just experienced? Had she not said a word, he would have thought it possible that it had been entirely his own, but now... And the mere idea of her being aroused - by him? - being attracted to him sent another wave of electrical neural impulses straight to his groin, creating a tingling sensation that he mostly managed to ignore.
The evening they had first met, he had noticed all the obvious human sighs for attraction, the flush on her cheeks, the suddenly less determined, even insecure body language, the glances from averted eyes. The sudden change in pheromones that he, with a much more accurate sense of smell than a human, could make out. He had felt it even without any telepathic link then. But ever since he had come back to Earth he had not observed that kind of reaction in her. If he had read her facial expressions correctly she had been surprised, even shocked, to see him again, and even though he, himself, didn't know the emotion of awkwardness and found it illogical, he had expected her to experience it to some degree. Yet she had always maintained her professional attitude towards him. At least in class, with averagely nineteen more cadets around.
Now they were alone.
The sudden urge to reach out, pull her into his arms and kiss her like he had done that night, became so strong, that his common sense was pushed into the back of his mind for two and a half seconds before he took a small step to the side and let his gaze focus on the screen instead of her.
“I was not in your head,” he explained. “In order to achieve a connection of that strength it would require a full mind meld. As a Vulcan, I am a touch-telepath, however, and it is possible to link on a rudimentary level by touching fingertips or temples. I can only sense the general direction of an emotion that way,” or at least it had been so in the past, “but since human emotions are not only more intense but also completely different than those of Vulcans it is nearly impossible to determine what precisely the human feels by maintaining the link for a time period as short as we just did.”
She appeared to relax slightly as he spoke, though it was difficult to tell whether this was from relief or disappointment.
“So, you didn’t…? There was no…?” She left the questions unasked as she returned her gaze to the screen. Slightly nodding to herself, she turned slightly in the chair, allowing Spock a better view of the sample group she was querying. The ear piece was still in her hand, and she was turning it over in her fingers, her thumb slowly stroking the cold metal. Realizing what she was doing, she stared at her hand for a second before coughing quietly. Placing the metal device in her ear, she turned to him and replayed the sample sounds, though she still avoided his eyes.
And for the next forty-two minutes until they left the phonology lab Spock, too, found it difficult to look into hers.
~ TBC ~
Chapter 9
A/N: First of thanks to all the readers who have also given us some input. We have now also revised Chapter 2 after it had been suggested that Spock should be more insistent with walking Nyota home. Go back and read the last bits of the chapter to see what we have changed (the whole part where she is getting dressed and ready to leave).