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Nyota Uhura was many things.
She was a Lieutenant in Starfleet Command. She was a xenolinguist with fluency in more languages than any other cadet of her year or the previous two. She was an assistant in the programming of the Kobayashi Maru test. She was a loving daughter and a sister. She was a native speaker of Swahili, born in the eastern part of the United States of Africa. She was a runner, tasting the dust in the air and feeling the heat of the ground long before she thought to look to the skies.
Her assignment to the Starship Enterprise, regardless of the circumstances of its beginning, was widely regarded as well earned. She was an accomplished singer. She was bright, loyal, had a cool head for combat and a keen knowledge of strategy, and an excellent judge of character. She was a good friend.
She knew these things about herself. They were a part of her, a list of things that she kept in her thoughts and close to her heart. It was not vanity. It was a reminder. A reminder to not let herself slip, not to let herself fail, to prove her worth at every moment. To live up to everything she could be proud of herself for.
It was one and a half weeks after… events, with any hearings or consequences postponed until such time as Captain Kirk was healed. Dr McCoy had assured the crew that Kirk was likely to make a full recovery, as a result of the serum developed from Khan’s blood. Spock had spent a great deal of his time away, dealing with issues of some sort and assisting Dr. McCoy.
Uhura, was assisting in piecing together the necessary footage from what onboard recording devices had survived on Admiral Marcus’ ship, and on the Enterprise herself.
She had sifted through a great many hours worth of footage, but a few moments in particular that stood out for her. The footage that she had just viewed had taken place on her ship, near the end, when Kirk was succumbing to radiation poisoning. Spock was… also present in the footage.
There were other things she knew about herself. She was precise.
She sits back in her chair, tapping the screen, forcing it to replay the segment she had just watched. It plays to the end, and Nyota plays it again. She watches her Captain die five times that day, because she is nothing if she is not precise and thorough.
She tells herself it is for this reason, that she watched five times as the person she loved tore himself apart as thoroughly as he was capable of, over her captain and her friend.
One, twice, thrice, a fourth, a fifth, Kirk’s admission of emulating Spock in his sacrificial actions, the mutual confession of having done ‘what you would have done’.
Five times Kirk telling Spock that he’s scared, asking Spock how he chooses not to feel, Spock being unable to give a good answer. Being unable to give a good answer because, in that moment, he was feeling.
Five times Spock’s failure to contain his emotions over the death of James Tiberius Kirk, in a way he never quite had for his own death.
Five times for Kirk trying to confess why he had risked everything to save Spock in the volcano, for Spock crying over him, suggesting that it was “because you are my friend.”
All of these things she carefully measured, analyzed, and considered, five times. To be thorough.
All of these things, plus the sad little huff of a sigh when Spock said ‘friend’, the fall of Kirk’s expression, two hands pressed against glass. The very last thing she watched five times, and had been present for one. The broken scream of “KHAN!” echoes in her ears when the record finishes for the fifth time.
She tells the computer to pause, and sits back in her chair. She breathes, wiping her eyes very carefully and methodically. She nods sharply, lets the breath flow back out, and is thankful of the relative privacy of the recordings room she is in.
Then she stands, says to herself, “enough,” and leaves the room.
Because Nyota Uhura was many things.
But she was not a fool.