After the debriefing, Scotty dismissed himself from the conference room, no doubt eager to return to the engineering deck. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy sat in silence around the table, all three of them staring at the comm from which Uhura’s voice had sounded not one point two-two minutes previously as she’d given an update from Starfleet about Commissioner Hedford’s replacement.

“They didn’t seem too upset, Jim,” McCoy noted, leaning back in his chair with his arms folded at his chest.

“To be upset about Commissioner Hedford’s cure is illogical,” Spock said, interlinking his fingers atop the table.

“Yes, quite,” Kirk mumbled, looking between the doctor and the science officer. “Then again, we didn’t exactly go into detail about the cure.”

“Starfleet wouldn’t have understood; it’s enough to know she’s alive, well, and happy,” McCoy said.

Quiet settled upon the three men once more, and then McCoy chuckled.

Spock looked up and saw Kirk with a half-smile on his face. “What’s so funny, Bones?”

“I just…it’s something, isn’t it? Differentiated sex as universal….even a cloud can love…”

“She had to become human to understand the emotion,” Spock reminded him with a frown.

McCoy snorted. “Right, because we humans have such a firm grasp on the feeling ourselves!”

“More than Vulcans, no doubt,” Spock said with a raised eyebrow, anticipating the retort from McCoy.

McCoy raised his own eyebrow and smirked, shaking his head. “Maybe I thought so before, Spock, but now…I’m not so sure.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t make me say it again,” McCoy grumbled, his face contorting into a glower.

“Gentlemen,” Kirk sighed, shaking his head at them.

Spock looked down at his fingers and rubbed them idly. McCoy began rocking in his seat, starting at the ceiling. Kirk continued to stare at the comm.

“Uhura wasn’t too thrilled about searching planet by planet, was she?” Kirk asked on a light laugh.

“It is not the most efficient way to conduct such a search, Captain,” Spock pointed out.

McCoy laughed out loud. “Scotty feared what she would do with that stylus, he says, she gripped it so hard! Standing too close for his liking, wasn’t she?!”

“I also seem to recall her asking us to use another shuttlecraft,” Spock mused. “It is almost as if she hates the Galileo. Most illogical.”

“Well, she almost lost us once in that contraption; I don’t necessarily blame her distaste for it,” McCoy muttered.

“Yes, she did sound on the verge of tears when I finally responded to her hails,” Kirk said absently. “That bothered me more than I care to admit.”

“Uhura crying?” McCoy asked, his mirth dissipating completely.

“Yes. She does it so rarely; you know something’s wrong when it gets to that point.”

“She cares for us, Jim,” McCoy said. “Our own personal Companion!”

“Really, Doctor?” Spock asked, employing the lower register of his voice.

McCoy sat up and braced his hands on the table, leaning forward. “Really, Spock!”

Kirk shot to his feet quickly. “Bones! I’m still feeling a little…woozy from the Companion’s attack. I think I need to be checked out…”

Eventually, McCoy ended the standoff, dropping his gaze to the table briefly, then nodded his head toward the door. Kirk gave Spock a half smile and left, McCoy staring down Spock as he followed the captain.

Spock sat there for exactly five minutes before leaving as well. He did not go to the bridge, the mess hall, the science labs, or his quarters.

But to hers.

His eyebrows rose when the door immediately opened before he even buzzed for entrance, but he walked inside anyway. He did not see Uhura, yet her padd was on the coffee table, stylus strewn upon it, and the lute was on its stand by the sofa. Surmising she was in the bathroom, Spock sat on the sofa and picked up the lute.

It was very small, about the size he’d used when he’d been fourteen years old. His fingers were too big for the strings, yet that didn’t stop him from strumming a free tune upon the instrument.

Though he had closed his eyes, he knew immediately when she entered. The energy became calming…soothing, and her tropical, citrusy scent teased his nose. He’d thought it nonsensical for McCoy to liken Uhura to the Companion; but considering how completely her essence seemed to surround him, Spock was forced to amend his initial assessment.

Uhura didn’t speak as she came closer, so Spock kept his eyes closed and continued playing. He felt her walk behind the couch; and her hands, slightly damp and chilly to the touch, stroked the sides of his neck to the meter he played.

He took a deep breath through his nose, yet exhaled from his mouth when Uhura’s lips grazed the area just above his temple. The music seemed to swell around them, especially when her mouth began a descent to his neck. She licked a prominent vein there, and it was all Spock could do to keep the melody alive.

While her mouth was busy, her hands slid down his shoulders to his elbows, then back up again. She was unmindful of the meter this time, so he changed his tempo to match hers. She smiled against his neck and he huffed out a breath, almost strumming too hard on the strings.

“Careful, Spock,” she whispered against the curve of his jaw.

He stopped playing the lute altogether when her teeth closed around the tip of his left ear, throwing the instrument onto the cushion beside him right before whirling around and smashing his lips against hers. He swallowed her moan and picked her up as he stood from the couch. Uhura squealed and wrapped her arms tight around his neck.

“I will not drop you,” he murmured against her lips.

“I know,” she replied softly, nuzzling his nose with hers. “I was just unprepared.”

Nodding, he kissed her again, lifting her clear over the couch so he could cradle her like a babe in his arms. After a few moments, Uhura broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his.

“I would’ve made Scotty tear the galaxy apart looking for you,” she whispered.

“And we would have had the utmost trust in being found,” Spock replied, not bothering to mention Mr. Scott outranked her. Uhura had an uncanny knack for employing persuasion.

“Told you I hated that damn shuttlecraft,” Uhura said with a watery chuckle.

Spock didn’t comment on the illogic of that sentiment, instead smoothing a hand along her hair. Uhura’s fingers danced around his ears and he sucked in a sharp breath.

“Spock?”

“Yes, khio’ri-kam,” he replied, unconsciously tilting his ear towards her ministrations.

“I think I’m ready for the final exam now…”

Spock immediately hardened. The past few weeks had been full of “pop quizzes”, with one, the other, or both, retreating from the overwhelming intimacy that would spring up between them. He could admit it was more he pulling away than she. Each time, it took more and more effort to keep his mental shields, knowing he would completely bombard her should she experience the full brunt of his desire for her. It consumed him daily, which was why he’d been meditating more and more, yet to little avail. And if he hadn’t just gone through it, Spock would’ve suspected blood fever again.

Nevertheless, Spock pulled his ear out of reach and looked into her eyes. “Nyota, I do not think I will be able to control myself if we consummate our relationship tonight.”

“I don’t care,” Uhura whispered, and he saw the beginnings of tears in her eyes. “Tomorrow isn’t promised, and I want to feel you inside of me right now. No more delay.”

He placed his hand on her cheek, his fore and middle fingers so enticingly close to her left contact point. “All of me inside of you?”

“All of you, ashayam.”

Beloved.

Spock let out a rare shaky breath at that. His fingers brushed against her contact points, but he didn’t establish a link just yet. “Lights to twenty-five percent.” He wanted it dark, but not too dark that he couldn’t see her or she couldn’t see him. As her quarters dimmed, his eyes adjusted to the diminishing illumination while he carried her to the sleeping alcove. He reverently placed her atop the bed and kissed her lips lightly as he knelt beside her.

He pulled back minutely. “May I touch you now?”

Uhura nodded, her fingers lightly caressing him behind his ears. “Oh, please, Spock, everywhere…”

Though the call of her mind almost overpowered him, Spock began a tactile exploration of her body. She appeared the very definition of nubile and lush, with so many curves Spock irrationally thought he’d never be able to discover them all. He contented himself to touch her through the robe, the chill from her lack of body heat, comparatively speaking, and the silky material covering her form provided the appropriate level of sensuality he currently desired. His fingers remained on the benign aspects of her figure—hair, arms, stomach, outer thighs—but Uhura moaned and undulated as if his caresses were upon the far more provocative.

So there was no longer a reason to avoid those areas.

Spock started with the center of her clavicle, his right forefinger and middle finger blazing a path down her sternum to where the robe met in a v. Spock teased the lapels of her attire as he watched her chest bloom and retract from her deepened breathing. Eyes invariably drawn to her breasts, Spock’s mouth went slightly dry as her nipples tightened underneath the fabric. Unwittingly, the boast Uhura’s mirror counterpart made flitted through his mind, and Spock almost groaned.

Uhura most certainly had an impressive chest.

His fingers remained atop the robe as he moved them from the valley between her breasts to the tip of the left mound. Uhura sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes widened slightly as the nipple grew even tighter. He circled it slowly, feeling the ridges of her areola through the silk, before curling his fingers around the nipple and tugging.

“Mmm…”

That sound did nothing to make his erection go away; in fact, he desired to hear it again. He tugged once more, harder this time, and Uhura’s responding moan was even louder.

“Yes…” he replied, bending his head toward the nipple. He wondered how loudly she would moan if he did—

“Spock!”

“Fascinating,” he murmured, the nipple caught fast between his teeth as his tongue laved it slowly. Her thighs clasped his knees together uncomfortably, but the sensation of silk and the hardness of her nipple mitigated that discomfort.

Her hands dug into his scalp and she pressed him tighter against him, something Spock approved of mightily. He allowed his other hand to fully cup her other breast, and he couldn’t help but meet Uhura’s thrusting hips with his own.

Wanting to feel her bare flesh now, Spock used his nose to push aside the robe, revealing the nipple he’d been sucking. It was dark and hard like a black Terellian diamond; but unlike a Terellian diamond, he could not deny the urge to suckle upon it once more.

“Spock…” Uhura sighed, her hand sliding from his head to his back. “I want to feel you.”

He closed his teeth around her nipple before releasing it and looking into her eyes. “Very well.”

Uhura undid his pants while he pulled off his tunic and undershirt. Normally, he would hang his clothing so he could aerate them for the next shift; but since he wasn’t in his room, he settled for folding his clothes neatly and setting them in a chair next to Uhura’s bed. When he turned back to her, there was humor in her eyes.

“Yes, Nyota?”

Uhura laughed. “So much for not being able to control yourself—I think you’re the first lover I’ve ever had who took time to fold his clothes before we got down to business!”

Spock arched an eyebrow and folded his arms at his chest, uncaring he was stark naked, hard, and sitting on his knees between her bared thighs. “I will be able to find my clothes more efficiently this way.”

She snorted. “Hit it and split, Spock? I didn’t know you were that kind of guy…”

Although he was not familiar with the phrase, he deduced its meaning and frowned. “You imply I would leave you after climax?”

Uhura shrugged and arched an eyebrow of her own. “Climax isn’t a guarantee.”

“I have never not allowed a woman to achieve her pleasure, Nyota.”

At that, she looked down at his penis. “Oh, damn…”

He grinned then, his hands sliding up from her knees and along her smooth outer thighs until he grasped her hips. Though he was completely nude, she still wore her robe, although her left breast was enticingly exposed to his gaze. Bending forward, he untied the belt of her robe with his teeth, his breath catching when she arched up her body and removed cloth from her form.

Her skin was burnt umber, earthy, just as she was. So unapologetically human, yet so inhumanely beautiful at times. He did not just mean physically, but her intellect and her personality as well. As flawed as she could be—exhibiting bratty behavior sometimes and vanity during others—she was one of the rare people he had ever met in his life who upended him and anchored him at the same time.

He suddenly felt like the Companion…not able to understand this being, yet inexplicably drawn to it, protective of it, nonetheless.

“Spock?”

He met her eyes and saw caution in hers. “I am sorry, Nyota, but you…” He took a deep breath and shook his head, bending forward to kiss her. She returned it, not pressing him to continue his thought.

“You make me yearn for the illogical, Nyota,” Spock finally said against her lips. “Completely antithetical to the Vulcan way; and while it disconcerts me, it does not debilitate me.”

She laughed lightly and stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. “Karibu penzi, Spock!”

“Welcome to love?” he asked with a soft smile, touching her nose with his.

She smiled as well, but it wasn’t as bright as before. “Well, at least for me…although you cannot convince me Vulcans cannot love.”

“I cannot?”

“No,” Uhura said, brushing her damp center against his crotch. “T’Pring was willing to have you die to get her man, after all.”

Spock frowned. “You think I would have lost?”

“No, but it was a possibility, one I’m still pissed off about, actually,” Uhura said in a menacing tone.

“Every day is a possibility for my death,” he reminded her.

She frowned more. “Don’t remind me, Spock!”

Sensing her distress, he touched his fingers to her contact points and entered her mind. Hers immediately reached out and clung to him. Thoughts and feelings zoomed around for a few moments until they settled like stardust. He let her experience what he had while being marooned on the planetoid—his confusion of Cochrane’s rejection of the cloud’s behavior; his uncomfortable understanding of Commissioner Hedford’s relationship with love; his distress upon Kirk’s words that two unlike entities could never be truly together.

“But your parents are, right?” Uhura asked quietly.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“And the Companion and Cochrane found a solution, didn’t they?”

Sighing, he kissed her lips lightly. “They did.”

“So stop finding all of the logical ways this cannot work and entertain the logical…or illogical ways it can,” Uhura suggested.

Instead of answering, his mind showed the loss of his control during his infection of the Psi 2000 polywater, then pon farr, wincing when a particularly violent episode appeared in both their minds. He was afraid to look at Uhura when the scenes dissipated, and inhaled deeply when she kissed his contact points.

“All this time, Spock?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“I did not know this myself,” he replied, a bit disconcerted at what his mind had revealed. He had assumed one thing, and now he knew it had been much deeper.

“You were apologizing to Christine…your mother…me…”

“I knew you were attracted to me,” Spock murmured, moving his face to the crook of her neck. “And you treated me like a friend, even when I did not respond in kind. I did not understand it, but at some point, I accepted it.”

“Janice said I was one of the few people who got you to smile,” Uhura whispered.

His lips danced along her jaw line. “Even Jim has some trouble, but with you…”

He felt her smile. “And then you almost snapped Sulu’s head off that time—”

“He had a sword, Nyota. He was unstable.”

“‘Take d’Artagnan here to sickbay!’” Uhura mimicked Spock, then giggled, sliding her fingers through his hair.

Spock huffed out a droll breath. “I am pleased you find that amusing.”

“You have a wicked sense of humor, Spock,” Uhura told him, then bit his ear. “And, apparently, a wicked temper!”

Spock huffed again. “Nyota—”

“Destroyed a computer because the sound of my voice made you mad?”

The pure feminine power in her tone made Spock rise up on one forearm directly above her while his free hand slid down her body to the scalding damp heat between her thighs. His mouth hovered against hers. “It was either that or taking you right against the communications console on the bridge.”

Uhura groaned and brought her lips to his, her fingernails digging into his scalp. “I would have let you.”

His responding grin was borderline feral. “I know.”

Spock licked the column of her neck and grasped her hips. The head of his penis brushed against the fingers he had buried inside of her.

Do it! her mind cried.

So he did.

It was as if a photon torpedo of sensations had hit him the moment he joined his body with Uhura, and somehow he found a sliver of control to prevent him from collapsing heavily atop her. Her legs and arms wound unforgivingly around him and she released shuddering breath after shuddering breath.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked worryingly, everything too jumbled to ascertain anything.

“Oh, no, baby, it’s just…wow!”

“Wow?”

“I think this was a bad idea—”

He started to pull back immediately. “I am sorry—”

“No!” She smoothed her hands over his ears and brought their noses together. “Just…you’ve effectively ruined me for anyone else.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Hyperbole, Nyota?”

She laughed. “Fine, you’ve sent the ‘Spock Level’ barometer extraordinarily high!”

Smiling, he took her bottom lip between his teeth and began to thrust. Everything in his universe shrunk to the place where they were joined. For someone so cool, he was surprised the essence of her was so blazingly hot, and decided that was yet another contradiction unique to the human female.

Normally silent during the few times he had copulated with another, Spock couldn’t keep from groaning, moaning, and whispering his pleasure into the room. Uhura was not shy revealing how he made her feel—both between the link, physically with her grip around him and his length, or her mouth.

Which was filthy.

The vague thought she stayed around McCoy too much drifted away once he realized he got harder and hotter at her pleas for him to “fuck her.” And when he’d bend his lips to her ear, thrust quite powerfully into her, and ask, “was that hard enough?”, she’d groan long and loud, nearly pulling his hair from his scalp.

Soon she stopped demanding anything, the pleasure building so all she could do, barely, was breathe as her orgasm hurtled through her. Spock continued on, though, his body going faster and harder to help her find release. When she did, Spock knew he’d never seen something so exquisite in his entire life—not even a star going nova whenever he did long-range scans with his viewer. Seconds later, he joined her, the speed and heat of his ejaculate shooting unerringly into her womb.

This time he did collapse atop her, gently, his cheek above the rapid and erratic beating of her heart. Their minds soothed each other from the turbulence of their climax until a warm buzz settled between them. His hand stroked her body idly, eventually falling in between her thighs where the tightly curled hairs covering her mound were soaked with their combined juices.

Uhura flinched. She felt swollen. “I can soothe the area should you desire it, Nyota.”

“Mmm, later,” she whispered.

“As you wish,” Spock replied, removing his hand and licking their secretions from his fingers curiously.

Uhura shuddered and groaned. “Shit, that’s hot. I’m not ready to go again yet, though,” she mumbled.

“Can you ascertain when that will be?” he asked, his body already anticipating the next time.

Uhura gave a tired laugh, grazing her inner thigh against his thickening penis. “That eager, are we? I guess that means I passed…”

“The probability of you failing this ‘exam’ had been less than one percent,” Spock said seriously.

Running the backs of her fingers along his hair, Uhura asked, “Well, did I do enough for top marks?”

He kissed the curve of her left breast. “Ninety-ninth percentile.”

“Ninety-nine!” Uhura exclaimed, aghast. “That is unacceptable!”

Raising his eyebrows, he moved up and pressed his forehead to hers. “The likelihood you will ever reach one hundred is quite improbable, but I welcome any and all attempts to do so.”

She pouted. “Don’t I get a curve? A for effort? Something?”

Shaking his head, Spock cupped her cheek and pressed a tender thumb to her poked-out lips. “Nyota, it is not always important to be perfect. In fact, I posit the strive for perfection is often more rewarding than reaching it.”

Her eyes widened, and then she smiled slowly. “And this…coming from a Vulcan…”

“I thought the supposition logical in this case,” he said with a shrug.

Her smile blossoming further, she kissed him sweetly. “Fine. Just so you know, you were a measly ‘ninety-ninth percentile’ for me too.”

Spock let out a breath that from a full human would be considered a chuckle. “I hope that is enough for you for now.”

Still kissing him, Uhura guided his length inside her. “Ashayam, more than enough, but we can always strive to do better…”