1C13:11, Chapter 7, Prv27:6

[teaoli]

Title: 1C13:11 — Prv27:6
Characters: Spock, Amanda, Uhura, multiple OCs
A/N: Faithful are the wounds of a friend...
Warning: Starts off very K, but eventually flirts with M.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek, any Star Trek characters or any Star Trek concepts and I still don’t get paid for writing about any of those.

( Read Ru2:13 )
( Read Prv22:6 )
( Read Prv4:1-15 )
( Read Col3:21 )
( Read Prv13:5-7 )
( Read SoS8:8 )



Spock and Benjamin dropped their baskets at the foot of the olive tree and scanned the area around them. There wasn’t much that needed doing, Benjamin decided, but there should be enough time to begin saying what needed to be said.

Benjamin pointed out several errant branches that had escaped Spock’s careful grooming. Woody vines twined their way around and up the trunk of the single olive tree and spread across the garden walls. The flowers were closed at this time of morning, but their heavy, heady scent still lingered.

Evaluating their best plan of action, he ordered, “You pick and I will prune behind you. Your hands are much faster and more precise than mine.”

Spock quickly began relieving the branches of their fragrant burden. Benjamin pulled his shears from their case and began clipping. The leaves, which had been used in traditional Ethiopian medicine for centuries, could be separated later. The flowers would need to be processed within hours of being harvested.

When they had settled into a steady rhythm, Benjamin realized he should begin.

“At times it must seem to you as if my daughter is another person entirely,” he mused. “One minute she is serious and reasonable, the next she is silly and teasing. And then, seemingly without warning, she becomes angry and insolent.

“You may have found yourself wondering, ‘Where is Nyota? Who is this devil who has replaced her?’” he noted as Spock began picking blossom and flower buds from the escapees.

Benjamin smiled a little at his own phrasing. Spock, with his Vulcan tendency towards meticulosity, had likely wondered no such thing. He waited to see if Amanda Grayson’s son would rise to the bait.

The implied question was met with a long enough silence that he considered letting the poor boy off the hook. After all, the young officer was no more accustomed to a teasing Benjamin than he had been used to an often-out-of-sorts Nyota.

“I admit to a certain amount of curiosity, Dr. Uhura,” Spock conceded before the doctor could modify his query. He moved on to another branch, and Benjamin snipped off the bare one and placed it in his basket. “Upenda and Muta did not show particularly broad contrasts of disposition when they were Nyota’s age. I expected much of the same from her.

“However, Human Biology was a part of my studies both before and during my time at Starfleet Academy and I do have some familiarity with other human adolescents. I realize that the effects of the biological changes young humans experience at this time manifest themselves in a variety of ways.”

“And has that satisfied your curiosity?” Benjamin pretended to focus on his work so that Spock wouldn’t see his growing amusement. He took his shears to the twenty-eighth branch; the younger man had already stripped it of blooms. “Are you convinced that the answers to the changes in her demeanor lie completely in having an immature prefrontal cortex or perhaps in experiencing extreme hormonal fluctuations?”

“I do not doubt that those factors have at times influenced her conduct.”

“Influenced it, yes… but I do not believe they are entirely responsible.”

He paused until Spock turned, his hands still selecting flowers and buds for the harvest, to stare at him.

“Why did you choose to grow Jasminum abyssinicum here?” Benjamin asked, gesturing expansively to include all of Spock’s walled garden. He studied Spock to see if the abrupt change in subject discomfited the boy, and was convinced that it had, though no obvious sign of that showed. “It belongs in the montane forests of my home, not in these low deserts.”

“Your wife and daughters have often expressed a preference for this species over all other jasmines,” Spock replied. “Additionally, I was intrigued by the challenge of growing a plant not endemic to the area while maintaining the assets that have made it so attractive to the females of your family.”

It was a valid enough answer — in the ten years since Benjamin had granted him the space, Spock’s forest jasmine, native to mountainous highlands where Benjamin’s parents still lived, had produced many harvests prized by his wife and daughters; the oil Benjamin produced from the flowers had even inspired Nyota to create her own scent — but it was not the whole answer.

“You also wanted to see if you could make it thrive out of its element.”

It was not a question, but Spock seemed to take it as such.

“Yes.”

“And you know something of thriving outside of your element.” Benjamin returned to his pruning as he continued speaking. “That is something our Nyota must also learn.”

____________

Dr. Uhura’s stillroom was dark and cool, a dramatic contrast to Garissa’s bright heat. While the doctor pulled dark green glossy leaves from branches, Spock weighed blossoms and prepared them for the extraction unit.

“My family expected me to become a practicing pediatrician,” Dr. Uhura said in deceptively idle tones. “I finished my medical schooling by the time I was thirteen — not terribly unusual in the Uhura family — but, of course, I was too young to practice. Since I was at loose ends, and had never taken the time to consider what I might do between then and turning eighteen, my mother began taking me along with her to legislative sessions.

“As you know, she’s an Uhura by birth as well as by marriage, but she wasn’t born into one of the doctoring lines as my father — her distant cousin — was, and never developed a love for the field. So, even though she met my father in medical school, it turned out the politics was her true calling. So, when I was thirteen, a physician without a license and without any inclination to pursue another course of study, she introduced me to her own world.

“I did not learn to love the political world that captivated her. But I did learn to love in that time.”

Spock wondered why the man was repeating stories he’d already heard many times throughout the years he’d been acquainted with the Uhura family. Normally a man of few words, Dr. Uhura rarely spoke without a deeper purpose. Spock remained silent and split his attention between preparing supercritical carbon dioxide for the extractor and listening to Benjamin Uhura’s story.

“There are always scores of Wakufunzis at any meeting of the African government,” the doctor continued. “Even when they do not take an active role in the proceedings, their presence is expected because they remind us who we once were, and of what we do not wish to lose.

“Abasi Wakufunzi brought his daughter with him that year. M’Umbha Wakufunzi was not finished with her schooling and she already had the next five years of her life planned out. Attending legislative sessions was just another part of her training. Changing the course of my life was merely incidental.

“At the time, I knew little of the Wakufunzis’ history and nothing of their complex lineage, though I suppose I would have been apprised of it before I was allowed to begin my career. Their secrets are nearly as much of the reason Uhuras become doctors as are our own. But I was not aware of this at the time.

“Then, I only knew that M’Umbha Wakufunzi was beautiful, and that she seemed to understand me in a way my own mother did not know me. Upon our first meeting, she greeted me in Gikuyu and asked me how I intended to spend my time until the government decided I was old enough to do my job. I had no answer for her, so she told me about her dreams of serving in the Diplomatic Corps.

“It was a somewhat unusual, though completely logical, choice for a Wakufunzi and I was immediately intrigued. By the end of that first day, I had resolved to return to school to study xenopsychiatry. I had no notion that M’Umbha would one day call herself an Uhura, but I knew I wanted to be wherever she was. To that end, I would need to be of use to the Corps.

“It was not a rational decision, Spock, but it was one I felt compelled to make. In spite of the hardships we both experienced in those early years, I have never regretted my choice.”

“Among my children, Nyota resembles me most in temperament. Although, being a daughter of Wakufunzi, she is fully capable of — and is sometimes prone to — talking the ears off an elephant, quiet contemplation is not foreign to her. She does not make decisions lightly. And once she has truly decided on a course, it is nearly impossible to move her from that path — no matter the personal consequences. Even when she does not understand why she feels she must do what she does.”

---

Nyota leaned back against her favorite umbrella thorn and gazed past her handsome best friend, up into the pink and purple evening sky. Behind her, the sun’s final spectacular show went unnoticed.

“I will be working up there one day, just like you,” she told Spock. Her eyes dropped to peer at him. “Maybe we will even be assigned to the same ship,” she added hopefully.

The half-Vulcan sat down beneath the tree, facing her. As usual, it was nearly impossible to read him. The gloaming certainly didn’t help matters. But she thought there was the tiniest gleam of amusement in those dark eyes when he tilted his head back to see the sky.

“There is always the possibility; such an outcome is improbable, however,” he said. He’d long ago stopped worrying about hurting her feelings. Nyota Uhura didn’t cry easily these days. “I will most likely continue to serve on science vessels, while your talents would be most useful on a starship exploring worlds we have not yet discovered. That is still your ambition, is it not?”

She smiled at his stuffy devotion to logic. Her Spock was always logical. But not tonight, she decided. Clambering to her knees, she stared up at him until he dropped his head and met her gaze.

“I need a favor,” she told him, too sure of herself to be the least bit nervous. “It is something very important.”

He hesitated just a bit — past favors had usually involved crazy (by his standards) adventures in the African countryside — but he’d almost always gone along with her schemes, if for no other reason than to keep her safe. She was sure he wouldn’t deny her this one, either.

“What is it this time, Nyota?” A near-smile touched his lips as he formed the question. “We have already visited the elephants and seen lions in the wild. Would you like to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro before you leave for San Francisco? Plunge over Victoria Falls in a barrel?”

A burst of laughter sent her falling back on her heels. She loved it when he teased her! His behavior was such a far cry from that of the stiff-faced boy she’d first met twelve years ago.

“Of course not, Spocky!” In her exuberance, she unconsciously reverted to the old nickname. Hearing it float through the evening air brought her back to her senses, though. Giggles controlled, she started again. “Of course, not, Spock. I climbed Kilimanjaro back in October — well, I climbed a lot of it, anyway; and one is supposed to go over Niagara Falls on a barrel.” He already knew these things — she understood that — but he was so rarely playful, she felt obligated to participate in his banter.

Spock feigned surprise and confusion. She nearly giggled again at his effort to mimic the human expressions.

“What, then,” he began, “could you possibly need of me? You have already accomplished much that the average African woman will never even attempt. What can I save you from this time? Do you fear falling into another wadi?”

Suddenly, all the nervousness that she hadn’t been feeling before hit her in the stomach. A deep, steadying breath didn’t steady her at all. She was too unsettled even to point out that if had not been for his Risian girlfriend, she, her pack and her sleeping bag might never have landed in the seasonal desert pool.

Spock raised an eyebrow as the silence stretched, and Nyota decided to get done with it all at once.

“Me,” she told him, slipping into Federation Standard. Some things were too difficult to convey in Vulcan. “I need you to save me from myself — from the giant, goofy nerd that I’ve been the past two years.”

The surprise and confusion were real this time.

“Your height and weight are still somewhat below—”

She cut him off with raised hand.

“I may still be short and skinny, Spock, but I’m growing up!... for real this time. In two months I’ll be on my own at the Academy.”

“You’ll hardly be on your own,” he said, also in Standard. It was difficult to see in the rapidly darkening garden, but she was pretty sure he was aiming his version of a mocking grin her way. Equally certain that he, at least, could see her, she glared.

“You know what I mean!”
____________

Unfortunately, he knew exactly what she meant. He’d had a similar experience when he’d left Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy after rejecting the Ministers at the VSA. The human term “fish out of water” did not fully cover his adaptation period, and he’d been nearly three years older than Nyota was now.

For the first time since he’d known her, Spock considered the negative affect he might have had on her life. A Vulcan had been her main source of socialization outside of her family and his own human relatives. At school, she was friendly, but did not have friends. She took the idea of friendship as seriously as a Vulcan might and besides himself, he knew of no others she had granted the title.

Once she arrived at Starfleet Academy, she would have no one to insulate her from the rest of the world. She would need to learn to “fit in.” And he would not be there to assist her.

“My ship leaves next month,” he told her, “but I will ask some of my colleagues to watch over you when you arrive on campus.”

That earned him another glare.

“I don’t need babysitters anymore. I told you, I’m growing up!”

Spock sighed, truly confused now.

“Nyota, you know that your uncle is more often away from his home in San Francisco than in residence, so he cannot provide you with the guidance you most likely expected to have. I, too, will be unavailable to make sure that you feel you have at least one friend in Starfleet. You do not wish for me to ask my acquaintances to befriend you. What would you like for me to do?”
____________

She took another deep breath, and this time felt her self-assurance rushing back. Spock cared for her. He was her best friend. And it really was such a small favor…

“Kiss me,” she breathed. Then, before the confidence went back into hiding, she went on in a rush. “I’ve never had a real one… well none since … you know. And that one didn’t really count.”

“No!” Spock jumped to his feet and about half a kilometer away before she’d even finished speaking. Well, not really, but it sure felt like half a kilometer. He was far enough from her that she was out of range of the comforting body heat that had lulled her to sleep so often when she was a little girl.

He stared at her through the darkness. She decided she would have felt better if he’d turned his back in consternation. That unwavering gaze, usually so pleasing in the past — a sign that someone was actually paying attention — was unnerving now.

She felt her face heat with delayed embarrassment. There was only one solution to embarrassing moments, she’d learned. It was time to go on the offensive.

“Why not?” she demanded, leaping to her own feet. Not quite as gracefully as Spock had, she knew, but she was satisfied with not falling over. “Am I ugly?”

“Your face will probably be considerably aesthetically pleasing, one day. You bear a strong resemblance to your mother and your sister.”

“Does my breath stink? Do I stink?”

Finally closing his eyes, Spock clasped his hands behind his back. Probably to keep from shaking me, she figured.

“Both you and your breath are pleasingly aromatic,” he sighed.

Nyota stalked closer to him, planting her hands on her small hips when she was a quarter of a meter away. Encouraged when he didn’t step back, she glared up at him.

“Then what’s wrong with me?”

“You are fifteen years old, Nyota,” he said as if the answer was obvious.

“Ye-e-e-s,” she agreed, drawing the word out, “like I said, I’m growing up.”
____________

Nyota Uhura was not usually stupid, but Spock couldn’t tell if she was being deliberately obtuse, or if she truly did not understand what he was telling her. She stepped even closer to him and the aroma of forest jasmine mixed with spearmint and peppermint — a pleasant blending of the oils produced by his grandfather and her father — suffused the area immediately around them.

Pleasingly aromatic, he repeated to himself.

“I am twenty-four,” he said aloud.

“I realize that.”

“You are a child and I am an adult.”

Her eyebrows drew together and he had his answer. She truly hadn’t known.

“I. Am. Not. A. Child!” She stamped her foot to punctuate her declaration.

He looked pointedly at the ground between them.

“My ancestors were married when they were years younger than I am now. Some women were mothers by the time they were twelve!”

“My ancestors were savages who killed each other at the slightest provocation,” he calmly retorted. “Would it be wise for me to revert to their practices?”

Her shoulders slumped and, defeated, she stared at her feet.

“But you know what Jamie Namalenga said after I… I kissed him,” she said almost too quietly for him to hear. “And no one has even tried to kiss me since.”

“You are several years younger than the other students at the university.” He knew from his own years among humans that his words would not be much comfort, but he did not know what else to say.

“Maybe when we get married… ” she began. The old joke was reassuring and this time he decided not to naysay her.

“Perhaps then I might kiss you,” he said. “But then again, as my work in Starfleet necessitates an ability to communicate verbally, perhaps it would be wiser if I did not.”

---

Two days before he was due to report to the Marja Sklodowska Spock made his way off-campus and to the small home of the Starfleet officer he trusted most.

He did not consider his mission to be illogical, in spite of the potential consequences of its successful completion. If it ultimately led to a desirable result, he had convinced himself, then whatever small conflict it might incite would be worthwhile. Besides, he did not believe Nyota would remain angry with him for very long — even if she did discover what he was about to do.

After ringing the old-fashioned door-bell, he waited patiently for the front door to open.

His decision had been made hours before, so instead of debating the wisdom of the task before him, he spent the eleven point two seconds he stood alone on the top stair going over the additional supplies he wanted to add to the belongings he’d already decided to take with him on the two-year mission.

Amanda Grayson had made several suggestions which he had not taken the time to consider, let alone dismiss.

Perhaps, he thought, the holos of Mother and Grandfather would be acceptable. I will not take the pictures taken during my time with the Uhura family. He would not wish for his crewmates to see the smiles and laughter Dr. M’Umbha had occasionally been able to elicit from during the early years.

And then, the door opened, and he immediately focused on the man standing before him.

“Captain Pike,” he said, “I have a favor to ask of you.”
____________

Pike eyed Spock speculatively.

“That’s a risky move, son,” he cautioned. “Defying the wishes of a teenage girl? Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“You have said the same about adult women, numerous times. If I were to interpret your perception of the matter based solely on your advice, I might be excused for assuming that you believe human men and women are locked in an ongoing battle in which men have little hope of victory.”

“Can’t fault you for being right,” Pike said, but smiled to show he was teasing. He hoped the Vulcan got that. “Seriously, though, Spock, teen-aged girls can be dangerous when they think they’ve been crossed. And if this Nyota is anywhere near as smart as her parents are said to be, you can probably forget hiding this from her.”

“Nyota does not have a suspicious nature.”

“A couple of months here will change that,” quipped Pike. Then, relenting, he said, “Alright, look. I’ll have a chat with a friend of mine in Xenolinguistics. Ask him to keep an eye on her. He’s mentored a few first-years and seems to actually enjoy it. In fact, he’s got a kid around her age, so he might just be perfect.”

“You know Commander Bakari well, then?”

Pike wasn’t surprised that Spock knew exactly who he’d been referring to. And he wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out the young officer had been leading up to making the same recommendation, himself.

“Faran and I were at the Academy together,” he told Spock. “He’s a good guy.”

“Very well, then,” said Spock. “Thank you, Captain.”

---

Leaving the place that had been home all of her life turned out to be considerably different from heading off to Graysons’ Farms for a couple of weeks, or even from traveling to Betazed for a month or six weeks at a time. The day she packed her last bag it occurred to Nyota, for the first time, that for as long as her tenure in Starfleet lasted, she’d be spending more time away from the compound in Garissa than she would spend walking its grounds or sleeping in her small room on the second floor.

Suddenly, everything was more cherished than she’d ever considered it to be before, and she wanted to rush around Baba’s gardens, engraving the sight of each flower and tree and shrub into her mind’s eye. She wanted to catalog every brown rock and every patch of red soil so that she could travel home whenever the loneliness pressed down on her. She wanted to dip her toes into all seven — even Spock and Lady Amanda had their own — precious pools that graced the gardens set aside as personal spaces for members of the household.

When she set out, her intention had been to save for last her own sacred patch of land, with its small pound teeming with fish and dwarf frogs, and the umbrella thorn whose sturdy trunk had always proved the perfect back when she needed to sit and think. Instead, she found herself avoiding Spock’s space — with its exotic plants, contained within brick walls that no one else used to enclose their gardens — until the last possible moment.

By the time she’d thought as much as she could think, and the day was fading into the night.

As she stepped through the opening between the walls, part of her felt like a trespasser; a larger, stronger part of who she was felt welcomed.

The jasmine flowers were just beginning to open. Their heady aroma wrapped around her like a soft blanket, almost instantly calming the anxiety that had plagued her throughout the day.

She drifted over to the olive tree, a lone specimen of the Olivière cultivar that Spock had claimed when her father offered to plot out a garden for the Vulcan pre-teen.

At first, the family — and even Lady Amanda — had wondered what had induced Spock to choose a spot so far from the rest of the family plots. But after he’d built the walls and filled the garden with non-native plants that each had meaning for some Uhura or Grayson — there was even a young Vesuvian there now — it became clear that he’d intended the place to serve as a gift to the people who cared for him.

Jasmine lianas were entwined with the branches of the taller-than-average olive tree. The sweet scent grew stronger as she approached. Then, when she was less than half a meter away, a disembodied voice addressed her.

“Nyota Uhura. Please proceed to the alcove in the northwestern wall,” it said. “Nyota Uhura. Please proceed to the alcove in the northwestern wall.”

She dashed across the garden, looping around roses planted for Lady Amanda and Romanesco broccoli she suspected were there for her own benefit, dodging the rosemary Baba was so fond of and leaping over the chocolate daisies Muta like to pick on his occasional visits home.

The garden was only fifteen meters wide and she reached the northwestern wall almost before the programmed phrase had finished repeating itself. She stood staring into the deep impression Spock had built into the brick work. The lip of pocket’s arch hung down low enough to provide adequate protection from the region’s infrequent rains without obscuring any items kept there.

Usually, Spock stored a firepot and meditation incense in the alcove. He had offered her free rein in using them, even though Betazed meditation was significantly different from the Vulcan method. She’d often used them, anyway.

Now, though, the incense and pot were gone. In their place sat something approximately the size of a shoebox and a tightly-rolled scroll of real paper.

Her heart leaped. Hardly anyone bothered using real paper anymore. And certainly not the fancy kind she could see — even in the gathering dark — comprised the scroll.

Carefully, she reached in and removed both box and scroll. She could see then that the firepot had been hidden by the box. Removing the protective screen, she lit the unscented oil inside and set it back in the alcove. Without the screen in place, there was sufficient light for reading.

Settling her back against the wall, she placed the box in her lap and unwrapped the scroll.

Spock had written in a beautiful curving Vulcan script. Letters the color of mahogany seemed to almost dance down the gold-tinged paper.

Ne’shau Nyota,

I did not wish to leave you with the impression that I did not understand the difficulty of what you are about to undertake. Although you are not leaving your planet, you are leaving behind the world you know best, and I will not be there to guide you through the new one. You are entering the world of your adulthood, and the road there can be difficult.

Kaiidth, Nyota, but you may still have a hand in shaping your new world.

While I cannot offer you my physical presence to ease the transition, it is my hope that subspace communications, infrequent though they may be, will offer you some comfort over the next two years.

Until you can once again sit beside me and tell me of your troubles and triumphs, I hope that my small gift will serve as a reminder of your home, and of the times when I have been of some assistance.

Spock

Carefully, Nyota peeled the plain brown protective wrapping away from the little box in her lap. She removed the top and the wooden sides fell flat in a neat array.

Her breath caught as she stared down at what she found inside.

The replica of her “thinking tree” was perfect in almost every detail. Her mind drifted back to that evening, two months before, when she had pleaded with him to help her.

This, she decided, running a finger along the knotted trunk, is almost better than a kiss.

---

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