Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His grandfather had been appalled to learn he had never considered giving it a try.

“Seventeen and not so much even thought about it?” Absalom Grayson shook his head sadly. “Son, half-Vulcan or not, it’s time and past. Fortunately, I happen to know just the place to get you set up right!”

Spock hid his disappointment as Grandfather conspired with the proprietress. She was an aesthetically pleasing woman — Risan if the insigne on her forehead was an accurate indicator — who looked over and smiled at him encouragingly. Certain he would not be interested in anything she had to offer, Spock turned away to observe his surroundings.

The place was probably considered gaudy even by many human standards.

Spotlessly clean clear glass bracketed between sweeping curves of gleaming chrome dominated the room. Customers sat on round chrome and red vinyl stools lining the three-meter long counter which separated the two cases displaying the establishments products.

In contrast to the flat pink and cream-colored vertical stripes of the wallpaper, the floor tiles — alternating squares in black and white laid out in a diamond pattern — shone dully. White-painted booths with red imitation leather seats had been built into the outer wall, offering patrons seated there unobstructed views through the high broad plate windows.

The center of the shop was littered with smaller tables — their chrome-lined tops made from some sort of laminate a shade or two off from the that of the banquet seats (not that humans would readily perceive the difference) — surrounded by fancifully-shaped, but otherwise apparently functional chairs constructed of red plastic and more chrome.

Spock turned back to the second of the two large L-shaped display cases holding several rows of large sunken pots teeming with colorful contents. The pots were surprisingly tempting.

“Those are more agreeable than these.” The words were spoken in badly accented and overly inflected, but grammatically flawless Vulcan. They were accompanied by a small brown hand gesturing to the short end of the L. The hand, and the skinny arm to which it was attached, belonged to a young human(?) child — most likely female, if Spock were to judge by the clothing, hairstyle and facial structure — who was staring up at him through large, dark eyes.

The girl — closer perusal left him certain the child was both human and female — was not smiling, encouragingly or otherwise.

“Because of the cream,” she said gravely, now using equally accented Standard. “It can give you a stomach ache if you’re not used to dairy. The ones on the end are dairy free.”

He half raised a brow at her presumption, but then, having considered the logic of her assumption (that is, if she had sufficient knowledge of Vulcan dietary habits to reach her conclusion based on evidence rather than conjecture), he nodded and moved closer to the shorter arm of the L he’d been studying.

A pot, this one much smaller than the others, filled with a deep red concoction captured his attention. As he leaned over the glass to look more closely, light footsteps approached from behind.

“That one is flavored with hirat,” the young girl informed him once he glanced down and over to his right. “Many humans do not find it palatable, but it’s one of my favorites.”

Hirat was, in fact, one of Spock’s most favored foods, but he doubted a shop selling frozen confections on Earth could possibly procure decent specimens of the fruit. “Indeed,” was all he said, however.

“They only use Earth hirat,” said the little girl, wrinkling her nose and indicating the small pot, “so it’s not as good as what you’d get at home, but it’s not that bad either. And on Vulcan you probably can’t get anything like this at all.”

She tilted her head as if Spock had been an equal. Apart from “indeed,” Spock found he wasn’t sure what he might say to her. Before he came to a decision, however, the matter was taken out of his hands.

“Nyota Wangari Uhura!” The little girl flinched and both she and he turned to find a harried-looking woman staring at them. “Come here and stop bothering that young man.”

Spock watched the girl hurry away before going to rejoin his grandfather.

“I will have two scoops of the hirat sorbet,” he told the Risan woman.

Chapter Text

Spock reached the door before she stopped him. He focused on keeping a green flush from suffusing his pale cheeks under her intent stare.

“About what just happened…” she started to say.

Spock wanted to look away; the censure — or worse, pity — he was sure to find in her expression was unwelcome. The irony his all too human compulsion was not lost on him, and he forced himself to meet her steady gaze. Whatever she was thinking or feeling was a mystery to him.

She is more adept at controlling her body language than I am, he realized.

His disappointment in his failure increased by one thousand five hundred percent. No matter that for a Deltan living and working among humans that talent was as necessary, in its way, as it was for a Vulcan.

After twenty-three seconds of silence, he wondered if she was angry with him, but couldn’t muster the bravery to look up again.

“This happens more often than you think,” she finally told him. “I promise you’ll have a chance to try again. I believe in second chances. For the truly exceptional, third and fourth chances. There’s no need to worry, Spock. Next time, make sure you’re worth it.”
He kept his features carefully neutral, and his voice evenly modulated as he spoke.

“I am not worried,” he stated, taking comfort in the familiarity of a formal cadence. “Worry is a human emotion. Clearly, I lack sufficient fluency in human behavior; otherwise, my performance would not have been so deficient.”

Her smile, indulgent and warm, was disarming — and completely unexpected.

“Clearly,” she parroted, “you are more fluent than you realize. Your response just now was classic human male denial.” She raised a hand to forestall him even as he opened his mouth to protest her assessment. “Yes, yes! I know that particular trait is not limited to males, human or other. But it is endemic to adolescent human boys. I think it fits our circumstances.”
Deciding she was at least partially correct, he gave a short nod and said, “I would appreciated another opportunity and will endeavor not to disappoint you again.”

“Just get a little practice before your next attempt. Perhaps your mother’s parents know of someone—”

“Of course, sir,” he said. “Grandfather and I met an ideal candidate, once. I will contact her as soon as we are finished here.” His raised brow requested permission to leave.

Smiling again, she reached around to pull open the door for him.

“I’m looking forward to your next try,” she said.

Twenty minutes later, Spock sat before the communications console, calling a home in the United States of Africa.

“Good evening, Doctor Uhura,” he greeted the human male who appeared on the screen. “Has Nyota returned from school yet?”

“She has,” the xenopsychiatrist said, sounding both intrigued and cautious.

Quickly, Spock recounted his failure to console a lost human child during a simulation.

“I didn’t know how to proceed.”

“There's a first for everything,” Benjamin Uhura mused. “Even for the son of Vulcan's ambassador to Earth to fail a lesson in Interspecies Ethics. With our help, next time you will succeed.”

Chapter Text

“S’chn T’gai Spohk.”

Her voice, deeper, and yet more sensual than any other he’d heard in a humanoid female, turned his name into a caress. Spock felt his temperature rise; perspiration, an inheritance from his human mother, broke out over his skin.

She continued to watch him, her eyes never leaving his face, although she left off trying to hold his gaze. Then she smiled.

His heart rate increased fifteen percent. He struggled to regulate his respiration.

“My name is Fiyell.”

Fiyell smiled like she did.

Almost without forethought, he reached towards the hand she offered.

“Enterprise Ethics” were entirely subjective and frequently in compliance with neither the Starfleet Code of Conduct nor the United Federation of Planets Concordance of 2197.

Hence, they were quite often not, it could go without saying, in accord with fundamental Vulcan mores.

Though it had taken a great deal of effort (on the parts of Lieutenant Uhura, Doctor McCoy and, occasionally, Captain Kirk, as well as his own), Spock had been resigned to the idea for two point two years by the time they entered orbit around the planet hosting the 2261 Talks.

That, he later decided, was how he would explain the incident should his future children ever enquire, as their future mother assured him they would.

“I cannot gauge the nature of Fiyell’s infirmity without employing a particularly… private act with her,” he’d admitted to the female who had first welcomed them. “Based on what little knowledge I have of Halanans, and of their similarities and differences to Vulcans, I believe that taking such action might result in the formation of a permanent connection between us. Because my race is nearly extinct, that is a risk I may not take.”

Under normal circumstances, Spock was confident in his ability to process multiple pieces of information at once. At the moment, he found it nearly impossible to sort out only three facts:

He could not assist — or even attempt to assess — the beautiful Halanan without engaging in the deepest intimacy a Vulcan would ever experience.

The High Council had left it up to a third party to inform him he’d been deemed unsuitable for breeding purposes.

And if none of those their hosts had brought to their asteroid could help, Fiyell would die. And New Halana would not prosper.

In one breath he’d been offered a freedom he hadn’t dared hope for; in the next, he’d learned freedom was an illusion.

She watched Spock struggle with the choices he’d been given. No one else would notice, she realized. At least, no one among the non-telepaths. But she noticed. And she even though she was nearly psi-null, she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Eyes sliding around the hall, searching desperately for something, anything that might prove to be a solution to his — and, to be perfectly honest, her own — dilemma — she felt her heart begin to unclench when she spied McCoy scribbling furiously on a PADD, oblivious to the drama playing out on stage. The satisfied quirk of his lips as he rested his stylus clenched her decision.

“My most generous hosts,” she said gravely, and offered a slight bow, “please forgive my interruption.” She glanced behind her, and then across the room before stepping forward again.

“Before Commander Spock takes irrevocable action, which will cause him to go back on renege on an obligation, and which could affect your honored guest even more adversely than her current circumstances, perhaps you would be willing to first consider the remaining alternatives?”

The moment they were alone, she threw herself onto his sofa. Eyes closed, sighed heavily and beckoned him to join her.

“Instead of lying, you should have let me handle it,” she admonished gently. He knew she wasn’t truly displeased with him, if the small hands and long, slender fingers caressing his scalp were fair indicators. “You can’t regret what you were unable to prevent.”

“Regret is a wasteful emotion,” he reminded her, and leaned back into her touch, granting her better access. “Even were it not, I would not regret the result of my actions.

“Though I had another solution in mind — one which, incidentally, you also offered — in this instance, dissembling provided a concrete benefit, one that outweighs any philosophical desirability of granting our questioners the full truth. Deciding to prevaricate would have been logical; however—”

Nyota was adamant in asserting her culpability. “I wasn’t about to let you end up accidentally married to someone else if you didn’t have to marry a Vulcan — no matter how tempted you were, so I lied. You backed me up. That means you lied, too. You’d never done that before and I never intended for it to happen because of me.”

“You didn’t lie, ashal-veh,” he said. “And in supporting your implication, I merely anticipated the truth. I did promise to offer myself to you should my father’s people reject my… contribution to the rebuilding efforts. Even if I’d never informed you of that obligation, it still existed.”

Nyota smiled, shaking her head.

“You lied, Spock,” she insisted. “We both did. I hope you can live with that.”

He gave her one of this rare full smiles. From the way his cheeks muscles stretched, he suspected it was very nearly a grin.

“If by that you mean can I accept living with you, then you should know I believe both our actions worthy of commendation.”

Chapter Text

At first, Spock was bewildered. Though clearly pleased when he’d fallen in step beside her, everything from the unnecessary talk about banal topics and the way her eyes darted around the corridors as they walked to her rapid breathing and flushed skin indicated nervousness or apprehension. It made no sense to him. This was what she wanted.

Starbase 6 offered a choice of booths or rooms for the purpose. Despite the additional credits it cost, Spock chose a room because he wanted Nyota to be physically comfortable. If not for her needs, he would considered a booth satisfactory as well as more economical.

The doors closed quietly behind them, temporarily sealing them in the unfamiliar chamber and away from others before he understood; she hadn’t expected him to come.

“I told you I was not unwilling.”

“I know, but...” She took a deep breath and when she spoke again, her face was neutral. “You don’t have to do this.”

Although the words were spoken firmly and with neither hesitation nor with any hint of loss in the tone, the look that flashed ever so briefly across her face was one he recognized all too well. From others, Nyota could easily hide her disappointment behind wide smiles and bright eyes or a calm countenance when called for. Modulating facial expression was integral to her position and had been part of her training. But Spock knew, without conceit, that the careful study he’d made of his betrothed — long before they’d reached so formal a state — had succeeded in making him aware where others were not.

“Really, beloved. It’s not necessary. Not yet, anyway. I don’t mind waiting until—”

“Your concern is appreciated, but unnecessary,” he told her.

“It’s not the Vulcan way.”

“It is the way of humans.”

“Not really. Not for all humans, anyway.”

“My father did this for my mother,” he pointed out. “She once told me he was pleased to have done so because it pleased her. I know it is also what you would prefer.”

He stepped closer, not halting until he saw her eyes widen and her pupils dilate. The ragged hitch in her breath encouraged him to continue speaking.

“Although my kun-ut so’lik came after you promised yourself to me, you are no less my future wife than if I’d asked before you answered.”

She gave him a small smile as he mentioned their odd path betrothal, saying, “Some would claim I was the one who made the proposal.”

“Doctor McCoy and the captain would be wrong.”

Her smile grew, and he spoke again.

“By the laws of my father’s people, there is little difference between ko-kugalsu and adun’a. We lack only the ceremony. But as there is no Vulcan, I have no property there to make yours. Therefore, the ritual is not needed at this juncture.”

Watching her closely, he reached out a hand. Satisfied that she took it in hers, he pulled her close, using the other to caress her cheek.

“As among your own people, the choice to proceed lies solely with you, I await only your permission,” he murmured. “I know you would be pleased should I take such action. Will you deny me my right and duty to please you, Nyota?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Spock was unconcerned. This was an emotional moment for the woman he wanted to marry.

“No,” she eventually said in a voice roughened by her tears. “I will not deny you, ashayam.”

Stepping around her, Spock walked to the comm-mod and sat. He didn’t count the seconds it took him to enter the relevant data or measure the time it took for the connection to complete. He was content that after a brief interval, another man’s familiar face appeared on the screen.

“M’Umbha,” Benjamin Uhura said before Spock could speak, “I think you will want to join me for this.”

Spock waited for his future mother-in-law to appear before he requested their daughter’s hand in marriage.