nyota uhura has a talented tongue (justuhura) wrote in paradisolog, @ 2016-09-15 19:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | ~james kirk (nottiberius), ~nyota uhura (justuhura) |
log: uhura & kirk
WHO: Nyota Uhura & Jim Kirk
WHERE: Beach
WHEN: Thursday afternoon
WHAT: Uhura's arrival
WARNINGS: None, it's pretty tame
STATUS: Complete
In the aftermath of everything, Nyota and Spock hadn't had a chance to really talk. It said a lot that he'd come to rescue her (even if she'd hardly needed anyone to save her) and when he'd showed up for Jim's birthday celebration, telling her he wanted to socialize with her, she'd been thrilled, but she wasn't completely sure what that meant for them as a couple. She knew he felt a duty to his race and she wasn't Vulcan. The reasons he'd given for ending their romantic relationship hadn't really changed much, as far as she knew. It was a conversation they needed to have, but she kept putting it off. It wasn't like her to let her fear drive her, but a part of her avoided having that talk because if nothing really had changed, there would be a finality to it that she wasn't ready for. Which is why it caught her by surprise when she found herself accepting Arva's invitation. Traveling to an island where she was expected to help populate that world hardly seemed like a way to settle things between her and Spock, but after what she'd just gone through with the rest of the crew, getting away for awhile seemed like an amazing idea. Maybe that was running away from her problems, but at the moment she didn't care. A change of scenery was exactly what she needed. The first thing that struck her when she arrived was that calling this place paradise hasn't been an exaggeration. She was sure she'd never seen anything so beautiful in her life. She stood there, just taking in the view for awhile before she started to explore. Even as she started walking toward what she hoped was the main camp, she kept looking around her and thinking maybe agreeing to this hadn't been so crazy after all. Jim was headed down to the beach to have a run. Yes, it was easy to laze about and not to much of anything (though he was, of course, contributing to helping the newcomers with their shelters, anything that was needed at the community center, those sort of things), but he didn't want to lose that level of physicality that he maintained as a Starfleet captain. He had begun recently taking some time out of his day to do some running along the beach. He made his way down the path, shirtless and shoeless (better that way for running in the heat and the sand). He was halfway down when he spotted someone coming toward him. Another moment and he was fairly certain he recognized the woman, though with the rumors he'd heard of people arriving looking like other people he didn't want to assume. Kirk rubbed the back of his neck and picked up his pace. "Lieutenant?" he greeted with only a slight hesitation in his tone. “Captain?” Uhura’s smile was almost as bright as the sun above them as she recognized the figure coming toward her. A moment later, she shook her head and started laughing, all surprise vanishing from her face. “I guess I should have expected to find you here,” she teased him lightly. She wasn't really surprised that he would have accepted the invitation to a place like this, but she was glad to see him. They'd come a long way since their first meeting and she now considered him her friend as well as her superior officer. Which was why she didn't hesitate at all in leaning forward and wrapping her arms around him in a warm hug. Kirk grinned when it became clear that it was really Uhura. "Well, what can I say. I'm predictable," he joked. The hug was a surprise, but a pleasant one. Especially because he assumed that she, like he did, knew what Arva's request and wish for this island was. Could he read into her familiarity with him like this? Should he? He decided not to. "What are you doing here?" he asked. He glanced past her and almost held back the next question but decided the hell with it. "Is Spock here?" he asked, excitement coloring his tone. “No, not that I know of,” she answered, a little of the warmth fading from her tone as she shrugged. Wouldn't that just be typical if he was, though. It would probably serve her right for trying to run away from that complicated mess. As for what she was doing there? “I needed a vacation,” she answered vaguely. “And an island paradise seemed like a good spot for one.” She paused to smirk at him. “I suppose I don't have to ask why you're here,” she teased. Jim sucked in a tight breath at Uhura's response. "All right," he drew out, noting to himself that he probably shouldn't bring up Spock again, and yet - "Did you two have a fight?" he blurted out. "What is that even like?" he asked, unintentionally drawing on a similar conversation he had yet to have with her in his future timeline. He shrugged. "I'm sure you're smart enough to figure it out," Jim bantered back. “I don't want to talk about it,” she answered quickly, ignoring the sense of deja vu at his question. It hadn't been a fight, exactly, but if the Captain hadn't heard the details through the ship’s rumor mill by now, she certainly didn't want to get into it. She smiled a little more easily when it came to joking around at him. “It wouldn't take a genius. I think Dr. McCoy’s tribble could work that out. I'm almost afraid to ask how it's going.” Kirk took a step back and raised his hands in an 'I surrender' gesture. If she were here and Spock wasn't, then … well, Kirk decided he would be better off not thinking about Spock and Uhura's relationship when he could be thinking about his own. Potentially even his own with her. As though a light bulb had gone off, Jim licked his lips and cocked his head to the side to look at her with a new expression, perhaps one that she could read as a little bit anticipatory. "I can only say that I imagine it'll go even better now that you're here." It was probably smart of him not to push it. Uhura could be incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be and she tended to lose her temper easily. The combination wouldn’t lead to things going well for him if he decided to push her for a conversation she wasn’t ready to have, even if a part of her would have liked to confide in someone. Not for the first time since she’d been reassigned, she missed Christine. Long range communication with her just wasn’t the same as having one of her best friends close by. She refocused her attention on the friend in front of her instead of dwelling and laughed as his tone shifted a little bit. “You like to think that highly of yourself, don’t you?” she said, rolling her eyes. Truthfully, it wasn’t that she’d never been interested. Jim was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for and over the time they’d spent together on the Enterprise, she’d realized he had a lot of qualities she liked. She respected him a lot more now than she once had, but that didn’t mean she was going to admit that a part of her was tempted, especially when she wasn’t really sure what was going on with Spock. It was one thing to come here and hook up with other people, but Jim and Spock were close. They were friends as well as colleagues. She figured crossing any kind of line with him was a bad idea. Besides, she kind of enjoyed his attempts at wooing her, such as they were. It would be a shame to let him succeed too easily. "Well, I certainly haven't had any complaints," Jim pointed out. He punctuated it with a toothy grin then slung an arm over her shoulder. "Now, I was just about to go for a run, but I can give you the grand tour instead if you'd like. You can get set up in the community center for now until you've got a place of your own. I've been working on a shelter for myself and with Bones here, I'm sure we can give you a hand if you want it." He certainly wasn't going to assume that she needed or even wanted any help. "We picked a nice little spot away from everyone else to get to work and you're more than welcome to join us there." “Well, there's no accounting for some people's taste,” she shot back, not resisting the arm, at least. Truth be told, she was starting to feel a lot better than she had in days. Not that she had any intention of letting anything happen with Kirk, she told herself, but he was her friend, her family and had been since everything had happened with Nero. Having him here comforted her in a way she wouldn't easily admit. “I'd love a tour,” she added when he offered, although she planned to do some exploring on her own, too. “Dr. McCoy is here, too?” she asked when he mentioned him. She grinned at that - one more member of her extended family only made this place better. She nodded at his invitation. “Will there be enough space for all of us?” she asked, thinking the three of them could get crowded but still wanting to keep that familiarity close. He nudged her lightly, feeling more comfortable with her like this than the, more often, formality that being a senior crew on the Enterprise felt. Perhaps it was the sun and the sand that caused it, but it could also be that Jim had been on the island for a while and he was starting to lose that feeling of being a starship captain. Not that he was ever a rigid member of Starfleet to begin with. "Yeah, he came a few weeks after I got here. He's still settling in." As for her other question, he shrugged. "We can take our time and build enough space, and it depends on what you're looking for. Some people have shelters that are little more than lean-tos or hammocks strung between two trees." Uhura felt that same sense of comfort. It was going to take some time to get used to not thinking of him as her captain - it had been years for her, after all - but the setting helped a lot with that. There was something about being here that already made it easy to relax. She wasn't quite ready to think about the other part of the deal, but for the moment she was pretty happy with her new surroundings. “A hammock sounds nice,” she thought aloud. “I think I could handle sleeping in the beach, at least until the first good rain. Getting soaked doesn't sound like as much fun.” She thought about it for another moment and nodded her head decisively. “I'm in, as long as you let me help, too.” "Or snow again," he joked, but didn't elaborate. He tipped his head to look at her. "Well, I'm certainly not building anything for you without your help." But he smiled as he said it. They made their way down the trail until the under-construction community center came into few. "Here we go," Jim said. "This is the main camp. Welcome to a rudimentary paradise, Lieutenant." |