Ice was slippery. Which shouldn't have been the surprise it was because along with being hard and cold and having a hexagonal crystalline structure, being slippery was one of ice's defining characteristics. But standing on the flat, slick, artificial sheet of the frozen stuff in the middle of Union Square wearing a pair of too-tight white leather skates, her ankles wobbling every time she tried to make any progress around the perimeter of the outdoor rink, Nyota Uhura was gaining a new appreciation for exactly how perilous ice could be.

She'd never been ice skating before. Never wanted to. Was opposed to the idea the second her date suggested it. But there she was anyway, only about 15 feet away from the opening in the waist-high wall that skirted the outside of the rink, surrounded by a slab of frozen water that glittered dangerously under the bright artificial lights that illuminated the skating area and about 200 other beings making their way around the ice in endless circles. All ages. Mostly human. But there were a number of Andorians, too. And Caitians, and Risians. Even a couple of Tellarites. All of them improbably more adept and graceful on the ice than she was.

And then there was the single Vulcan.

Although at the moment, he didn't look very Vulcan. With his glossy cap of black hair and distinctive, sharply-pointed ears were hidden under a close-knit, dark gray toque, along with the angled ends of his eyebrows, so he could have been human out there on the ice. His warm, dark eyes didn't give anything away, and his mouth, which had to be far more expressive than strict logic dictated, was curved into the barest hint of a smile. Add to that his not being in uniform, replaced for the evening with what might be the ugliest sweater she'd ever seen. For all she knew, the heavy, boxy thing was the height of fashion on his home planet.

"Nyota, your efforts will yield greater results if you let go of the railing."

One at a time, she pried her hands off of the metal handrail that rimmed the top of the rink wall and wiped them carefully against her thighs before turning towards the speaker, the architect of the misbegotten adventure she found herself entrenched in, intending to explain to him, the way she hadn't earlier, that she hadn't wanted to go skating.

That had been all his idea.

She would have been perfectly happy spending Christmas Eve sitting on the sidelines. Maybe drinking hot chocolate. Maybe watching him get just a little tipsy drinking hot chocolate. That was what she'd hoped they were going to do when they'd ended up at Union Square. But no. For some reason, Spock had been determined to get her out on the ice. Who even knew Vulcans could skate?

When he'd told her he'd already purchased tickets for one of the evening skating sessions, she hadn't been able to bring herself to say no, even though common sense had screamed at her to, and she'd found herself slipping out of her boots, tightening the laces on the rented skates, and stepping out onto the ice. She'd resolved to make the best of it and make it around the rink at least once, and she'd been doing fine. Better than fine, holding onto the railing so that she didn't feel like her feet were going to shoot out from under her without warning.

And she'd planned to tell him all that, but when she turned, the funny looking barb on the tip of one of her silver skate blades caught on the ice at the exact same time her shift in weight caused her other foot to slide forward. The only reason she didn't end up flat on her ass was the death grip she'd somehow managed to keep on the aforementioned railing when her foot had skidded out from under her.

"Do you require assistance?" Spock watched her with the same mild expression he'd had since they'd met at the transport center at Starfleet Headquarters and taken a bus into downtown San Francisco. Well, not quite the same. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards in the barest approximation of a smile, and there was that gleam in his eyes that he only got when he was teasing her.

Nyota was seriously rethinking the whole dating-but-not-really thing they'd fallen into after the seminar in advanced computational models for phonological analysis he'd led had ended just before Thanksgiving. That was something else she'd never thought she'd do. Date one of her teachers. Or former teacher. After all, the course had ended weeks before, and nothing had happened before that. Or at least nothing inappropriate between a commissioned officer and a cadet technically under his command.

It wasn't too late. Things weren't that far gone, she didn't think. They'd only gone out twice before. And only sort of. Once for coffee two weeks earlier when she'd stopped by his office he shared with three other graduate instructors to collect her final paper and a second time only a week later during finals when he'd found her trying to cobble together something for vaguely nutritious for dinner from the limited-program replicator tucked into the corner of the long-range sensor lab because she'd missed mess call. He'd taken her to the deserted faculty lounge two floors up, where the replicators w she ere fully programmed. She'd inhaled a bowl of maharagwe and coconut rice while he'd sipped tea. They'd talked for hours, the way they usually weren't able during his regular office hours, partly because at least one of his office mates was always there and partly because she was only one of a seemingly endless string of cadets vying for his attention. She never did get back to the lab that night.

They'd talked about doing something more…planned, less spur-of-the-moment once the new semester started and the risk of possible accusations of unfair bias in grading was lessened, but then she'd gotten that excited call from her little sister, Makena. She'd told her in that screeching, half-hysterical, nearly-incomprehensible way that all 13-year-olds seemed to instinctively master that she'd been invited to participate in a week-long training camp for young athletes put on by the Federation Judo Union on Risa and how they were going to see their grandparents, since her mother's parents had retired to the tourist spot a few years earlier.

Once Makena gushed her way to exhaustion, her mother had broken the news that the week-long camp coincided with the Academy's winter break. It was a huge opportunity for her little sister, who'd been studying the martial art since almost before she could stand up on her own. Given the popularity of Risa as a holiday destination and the short time frame, it was no small miracle the family had been able to book a flight at all. They'd only been able to find something was because they'd been willing to pull both Makena and Kamau, Nyota's 10-year-old brother, out of school a week early.

Nyota hadn't been so lucky. In the week before the end of finals period, she'd tried everything she could think of to find a way to Risa, but the Starfleet transport office hadn't been able to arrange anything for her. Commercial flights were full. She hadn't even been able to get on a standby list. She couldn't afford to charter something, and she might have even seriously considered her roommate, Gaila's, suggestion of hitching a ride on an Orion trader, except she wasn't crazy. When she'd run into Spock outside the transport center, she'd run out of options.

She hadn't planned to tell him anything. He'd had a travel bag looped over his shoulder, large enough to hold clothes and personal effects for a couple of days, and was on his way up to the orbital shipyard to inspect the mock-ups of the astrophysics and biochemistry labs on the fleet's new flagship, Enterprise. He'd recently accepted the position of Science Officer, something he'd told her at their impromptu dunner just a few nights earlier, and he was working on bringing himself up to speed on the ship's construction. Delay would have been unwelcome, she could tell.

Except that she'd been upset. Skirting the edge of hysteria, really. Her failed attempts to make travel plans had seriously eaten into her study time, and she'd still had her Elementary Temporal Mechanics final the next morning and a paper due in her Natural Language Processing Resource Creation that she should have already finished two days after that. He'd been the last person she'd wanted to see her like that, and she'd been so relieved and happy to see him after spending the entire day and part of the one before running into obstacle after obstacle just trying to find a way to spend Christmas with her family, she'd nearly thrown her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his chest so she could breathe in that earthy, smoky, almost astringent scent of incense that always seemed to cling to him before she thought better of it. So, in the interest of time, she'd told him everything, from how amazing it was that her little sister was so good at something she'd been offered a spot to train with the best athletes in the quadrant even if it meant not seeing her family for Christmas for the third year in a row, to her roommate not even going to be there because she was spending winter break in Rio De Janeiro with the other members of the intergalactic student union.

He'd listened in that careful, focused way that could make a person feel like either the most important person in the world or the least, depending on how they interpreted the nearly non-existent changes in his facial expression. And then he'd been quiet for a long minute before nodding curtly and telling her he would also be on campus over break and that he'd contact her when he returned to Earth. The prospect of spending time with him outside of the confines of Academy had been enough to distract her from her disappointment over missing seeing her family, at least until he'd brought her to Union Square.

Which was how she'd ended up making her ill-fated attempt at ice skating.

"I'm fine." The words were short and terse, forced out through gritted teeth, all of her concentration on getting her feet back under her so she could resume her slow, stilted journey around the rink's perimeter. "And if you're going to tell me how 'fine' is too vague a term to convey useful information about my current physical and emotional state? Don't."

"The truth of that statement is not dependent upon your willingness to hear it," Spock replied softly, his voice disinterested even as he trailed behind her.

"Do you mind? I'm trying to focus."

"You are displeased. Perhaps this activity was a poor choice on my part. If you wish to stop—"

"No," she snapped, almost too quickly. When he'd first suggested actually skating, her first instinct had been to say no, but there'd been something in his eyes, something unquantifiable, and she'd found herself agreeing, almost without thinking, even as her heart started to thud against her ribs and her stomach sank. And she was determined because he'd obviously planned this, wanted to do this with her, and as much as she wasn't exactly enjoying herself, she refused to just give up. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and pushed off again. "I knew what I was getting into. I could have said no, and I didn't, so I'm going to make it around this stupid block of ice at least once."

"Tenacity is one your many admirable qualities, but it is unnecessary —"

"Do you mind? I'm trying to concentrate on not tripping over myself."

Spock fell quiet, although he continued to follow her, and Nyota reapplied herself to staying upright while still making forward progress. The scrape of her skate blades on the ice was halting and uneven, the metal catching and stuttering against the frozen surface every few steps. Nothing like the smooth whisper of Spock's. One long, gliding swish for every four of her uncertain shuffles.

When he didn't speak again, she glanced back. His back was straight and his hands were clasped behind him, as comfortable as if he were standing in the front of a lecture room. The only sign of his concern was the way he watched her, his brows drawn together, a faint crease between them marring his usually implacable expression. She almost reassured him that she really was fine, but then the claw at the front of her skate blade snagged in a hole in the ice and she had to refocus in front of her when she stumbled.

She didn't see Spock move towards her, but his hand was suddenly there, grasping her elbow, steadying her just enough to keep her from pitching forward. That slight support calmed the churning fear in her stomach, although it did nothing to slow the furious beat of her heart or ease the tightness in her chest that was making it hard to breathe.

"Thank you," she said when she found her voice, the barest whisper. She closed her eyes and tightened her grip on the railing. Tried to take long, deep breaths.

Spock didn't let her go until she was steady on her feet. Didn't let go even after that. Not right away. "If you would prefer—"

"It's okay. I'm okay. I can do this."

"I have no doubt." His words were nearly obscured by the soft slide of metal against ice, and when she opened her eyes, he'd glided around to face her. His hands were outstretched, palms upwards, beckoning. "But when one is uncertain how to proceed to accomplish one's goals, is it not reasonable to accept help when it is offered?"

Nyota's gaze flitted down to his hands and up again to his face, searching for some clue as to what he was thinking. The heaviness in her stomach started to ease and turned into the smallest flutter. In all the time they'd spent together over the past few months, in class, in the phonetics lab, the few minutes stolen in his office, and when the near constant interruptions had driven them out, a secluded corner of the library, surrounded by dust and old books that no one used anymore, they'd never touched. Not even after the seminar was over, long after it became clear her massive school-girl's crush wasn't just one-sided.

She'd known the second he'd walked into class — from the unsteady flutter in her belly, from how she hadn't been able to stop staring at his long, slender fingers as they danced over the his PADD calling up the first set of discussion notes on the transparent display screen that dominated one side of the room, from the way it was suddenly too hot for her to breathe — that she shouldn't be there. That she should have packed up her bag and left right then. Dropped the class after the first meeting. Never signed up for it in the first place. But then he'd spoken, and the next seventy-five minutes had vanished as she'd soaked in the measured, even tones of his voice.

So, she'd stayed. Not just because she had the most embarrassing crush on her Vulcan seminar leader. If that had been the only thing to keep her there, she would have dropped the course. She didn't need that kind of distraction, but her adviser had been right. Both the subject matter and the instructor had challenged her in a way that most of her lower division xenolinguistics classes hadn't come close to approaching.

Still, she'd tried to keep as much distance between them as possible, purely out of a sense of self-preservation if nothing else. He was her instructor and he was Vulcan. And then there was the rumor that Christopher Pike had short-listed the Lt. Commander for a senior assignment on the Enterprise, the fleet's new flagship, when it launched in 18 months. She hadn't wanted to complicate her class or her life or her chances to be assigned to that ship. But in a course with only nine other students where a third of the grade was based on classroom discussion, it had been impossible. Not to mention she hadn't really been able to keep quiet when a first form cadet, who really had no business being in that course in the first place despite being on track to graduate in the summer, kept arguing for unrestricted generalizations for system searches in automated learning. And then there was the ever-growing collection of cadets lined up for his office hours. So many she'd never been able to see him during his posted availability for questions about their readings, her marks on practical assignments, or issues that had cropped up in her research so that at least once a week, she'd ended up shadowing him after class, usually eating into whatever time he might have set aside for his own work, until he'd started setting aside regular time to meet with her.

His being a graduate student technically made them peers, but not only had he been her instructor for most of the semester, he was a commissioned officer. Even if she'd been the kind of person who went around just touching people, someone more like Gaila, her Orion roommate, who'd rarely met a being she wasn't interesting in knowing better, those two things by themselves would have been enough to chill any impulses she might have had in that direction.

And he was Vulcan, too. Or half-Vulcan which she hadn't known at the start of the semester. Which meant certain things, like touching, were to be avoided. For a species with such a long and intertwined history with humanity, more than a century before first contact was officially made in 2063 if the stories were to be believed, there were still such a startlingly large number of unknowns when it came to the daily workings of Vulcan society. And the things that were considered common knowledge among her friends back home in Nairobi, the cool demeanor, the calculating nature, the stoic and taciturn disposition, the telepathy, had been cobbled together from a collection of subjective historical accounts, news vids, sensationalist space operas and novels. Third-hand accounts of a friend whose father's best friend's sister's wife worked with a Vulcan.

But hearsay and speculation aside, everything Nyota had learned Spock's species since she'd been at the Academy had confirmed that touching, even unintentionally, was unwelcome. After the initial surprise of finding the instructor of her phonology seminar was not only Vulcan but also seemed to be close to her own age and temporarily made her mind go blank and her heart beat a little harder whenever she first heard his soft, steady voice, a little faster whenever their eyes met and held, she'd been especially careful not to touch him. Scrupulous in avoiding even the accidental bumps and grazes that were almost inevitable when working closely with someone.

And now he was inviting her to do just that.

Nyota forced her fingers to let go of the railing and slipped her hand into his. She teetered at the slight shift in weight and nearly pulled away again, but Spock tightened his hold and kept her from tipping backwards. Still, her chest constricted, forcibly pushing the air out of her lungs, leaving her breathless and a little dizzy. Knowing if she waited until she was certain she had control over her feet again that she'd just stay there, caught between the sure safety of the railing and the prospect of something less certain but far more desirable if she were only willing take the risk, she grabbed for him before she had time to reconsider.

His hands were large and nearly engulfed hers, and his skin was smooth and warm. Expected, given his heritage and his work. The unyielding strength was expected, too. But there was something else. A roughness in the skin of his fingertips that rasped against her palms and a resolute gentleness in the way he gripped her hands, like he'd gauged the exact pressure needed to hold her steady and was determined to use only that and nothing more.

But other than the warmth and strength and care, they were just hands. Nothing mystical or mysterious. Her her pulse maintained it's frantic pace, but the nervous flutter in her belly told her it was only partly due to her still-echoing fear at abandoning the relative safety of the wall. Nyota didn't know whether or not she'd even realize if there was something…more he was getting from her. His thumbs smoothed over the backs of her knuckles, and he gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. She watched the way his fingers moved over hers with an unshakable fascination, so much that she nearly didn't hear him speak.

And then the ice moved. Which was impossible. Nyota realized with a start that it wasn't the ice moving at all. It was her, pulled along by Spock as he propelled himself backwards, her hands firmly clasped in his. Nyota jerked upright, more out of surprise and instinct than any desire to pull away from him, but his grip tightened just enough to keep her from slipping away.

"I think there's something wrong with my skates," she muttered, her eyes glued to her toes, just visible beneath where their hands were intertwined.

"The boots are sound and properly laced, and the blades are sufficiently sharp so as to provide optimum purchase." His wry tone was enough to pull her gaze away from her feet to find him looking down at her with soft eyes. His mouth was drawn into a firm line, although Nyota suspected he was attempting to keep it from relaxing into something that might have been a smile. "Keeping your weight distributed over the forefoot and bending your knees will provide greater stability."

'"I wondered why you kept sending the skates the guy behind the counter gave me back."

"I wished to ensure your first experience was not unpleasant. Proper equipment guards against injury and enhances performance and satisfaction."

As he spoke, a linked line of skaters whipped past them. The entire train was pulled by a boy in his teens skating quickly backwards without any concern where he was headed. His hands were locked around the wrist of a girl about the same age, and two other girls and another boy were lined up behind her like the cars of a maglev train. Nyota wasn't able to see what happened once they zoomed by, but there was a muffled shriek of laughter followed quickly by the sounds of metal scraping against ice and bodies colliding. Spock glanced back over his shoulder, firmed his grasp on her hands, and maneuvered them both around the tangled knot of giggling teenagers laying in an ungainly heap in the middle of their path.

The group laughed and struggled to rise as Spock guided her around them, and Nyota craned her neck to watch two of the girls clutch at one another as they teetered to their feet and then almost immediately tripped and tumbled back to the ice with the rest of their friends, squealing. She was so engrossed, she forgot to pay attention to what her own feet were doing and stumbled when she hit a stray chunk of ice that must have been kicked up by another skater. Her stomach lurched. Tried to jump up and lodge itself up next to her heart, between her lungs. Spock slowed and then stopped their momentum as she righted herself again and her breath caught up to her.

"Perhaps you should give greater attention to those hazards still in your path than those already encountered." His tone was sober, but his eyes crinkled at the corners and his lips finally relaxed into their natural upward curve.

"Very funny." Her gaze darted up to his face and then drifted again down to their joined hands. His skin seemed so pale next to hers. Even paler in the thin December twilight than the too bright lights of the classroom or the phonetics lab. "I thought skating backwards was against the rules."

"It is."

"Then why are you doing it?"

Her question seemed to baffle him for a moment. His brow creased into what might have been a frown if it had been reflected in the rest of his features. "You were finding the experience unpleasant."

"That's it? You were worried I wasn't enjoying myself?"

Strangely, he didn't deny it, instead telling her, "As I proposed this activity. It is my responsibility to take steps to ensure it is agreeable. I calculated the risk of disobedience to that particular rule to be minimal in terms of injury and inconvenience to others."

Nyota smiled. "I thought worry was illogical."

"You are correct. Worry about what one cannot influence is illogical. And worry where action can be taken is also illogical."

"Well, thank you anyway. And I'm a lot steadier now than when we started. I'm sure I can make it the rest of the way around by myself in…how much time do we have left?"

"Fifty-seven minutes."

"Plenty of time. I won't even hold on to the railing."

Spock studied her intently. Nyota wasn't sure what he was looking for, but she straightened her spine and tried to look more confident than she felt. The close collision and her near fall soon after had shaken her, no matter that the kids involved not only weren't hurt but seemed to think the whole thing was hilarious. Spock's wordless scrutiny continued for what felt like forever but was probably only a few seconds, and she was about to reassure him again when his chin jerked downward, curt and perfunctory, and he let her hands slide slowly out of his. "Acceptable."

She flexed her fingers, already missing the warmth of his hands around hers, and used the loss of that heat to distract herself from the way her pulse accelerated again now that she was alone in the middle of the ice without any external support. "Okay, here we go." She willed her feet to move, but nothing happened. Well, nothing except that her throat was suddenly tight and dry, making it hard to swallow.

"Nyota?" He lifted one eyebrow until it disappeared under the edge of his hat and peered at her out of the side of his eye the way she'd only seen from him in class when someone said or did something he found particularly confounding. She'd only been on the receiving end of that particular look once before when, in a fit of frustration over rewriting an already complex line of code to tabulate specific syllable boundaries, she'd suggested that maybe writing everything down by hand would be simpler. At the time, only a week into the semester, she'd been mortified. She hadn't meant to voice her frustration out loud, and the hot flush that had spread over her cheeks and down to her chest had taken all afternoon to fade.

"Working on it." Her voice was a raspy creak, and she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Keep my weight over the balls of my feet. Bend my knees. What else?"

"Stand with your weight on both feet."

"Okay."

"Shift your weight to your right foot and angle your left foot outwards at a forty-five degree angle."

"Really?" Nyota asked with a smirk, glancing over at him. "Forty-five degrees?"

"Approximately." Spock's mild tone gave no hint as to his sincerity, but that teasing glint was back in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth curled upwards.

Nyota adjusted her position as directed. "What next?"

"Use your left foot to propel yourself forward, then bring it back under you next to your right and repeat the sequence alternating your feet."

"You're not going to tell me exactly how much force to use?"

"I leave that to your discretion. Although, having witnessed your previous efforts, I suggest you proceed with all due caution and keep your movements small."

Casting her eyes skyward, Nyota smiled and shook her head. Spock's subtle, wry humor had thrown her when she'd first encountered it, and she'd told herself he couldn't possibly be making jokes. He was Vulcan, after all. But as she'd spent more time with him, she'd come to realize there was very little about him that was dull and staid. In fact, she suspected he looked for ways he could tease her.

Nyota took another breath and held it. Ordered her heart to stop trying to burst out from behind her ribcage. Dragged her palms down the fronts o.f her thighs. They'd gone clammy in the short time she'd been standing in the middle of the ice without Spock steadying her. Slowly, she exhaled, steeled herself, and pushed off, but her ankle buckled over the narrow blade and she stumbled back onto two feet.

Her arms flailed as she struggled to keep from tumbling to the ice, and she found Spock's outstretched hand with hers more by chance than anything, locking her fingers around his and using his seeming inexhaustible strength and patience to regain her equilibrium. "Try again," he instructed once she was solidly on her feet again, this time, not letting go of her hand.

Nyota nodded, swallowed hard, and took a short, halting step, more walking than skating. And then another. And another. By the time she'd gone five feet, she was able to glide a little. She'd made better time when she'd been clinging to the wall, but she was moving under her own momentum, and she wasn't falling.

Spock skated alongside her, easily keeping pace. He still kept hold of her hand, not that she blamed him given her demonstrated tendency to trip over nothing. Even though her slow progress meant he'd had to adjust his own speed to match hers, he still moved smoothly and confidently over the ice, and she beamed up at him, her smile so wide it made her cheeks burn. "How do you know how to skate, anyway?"

The question had plagued her most of the afternoon, but she'd been so preoccupied by her dread at the thought of all that ice, she hadn't asked. Spock's expression shifted almost imperceptibly, and if she hadn't already spent far too much time over the past months studying him, parsing the smallest change in his warm, expressive eyes, she would have missed it. But before he could answer, the pick at the front of her skate blade caught on the ice, a sharp, grinding scrape that raised the hair along the back of her neck and sent shivers down her spine. She only wobbled a little, but she switched her focus to the ice in front of her, to the careful, stiff movements of her own feet, and she almost didn't hear when he spoke.

"You are aware that my mother is human."

Nyota nodded, and when she didn't respond, her attention split between waiting for him to speak and working out how to negotiate the upcoming corner without tripping or falling, Spock continued.

"My mother's sister and her family reside in a rural portion of Washington state. Each year in December, I would accompany her there for an extended visit. Spending the holidays." He paused, and while Nyota didn't dare take her eyes off of the ice in front of her, she could see him look down at her in the corner of her vision, his brows drawing together. "There is a pond that freezes in the winter."

"You're kidding."

"I assure you, I am not."

Out of everything he might have told her, she hadn't come close to imagining that would be his answer. She gaped up at him, not caring how her mouth was hanging open and didn't notice how her feet slowed and then stopped mid-way through the turn so that she ended up completing the change in direction using what little momentum she'd managed to build and,when that dwindled, pulled her along by Spock, his fingers still warm and strong around hers. "You learned how to skate on a frozen pond in Washington."

"Have I been unclear?"

"No." Nyota scrambled to catch him but nearly lost her footing when the barb at the front of her skate caught on the ice again, and Spock slowed, nearly reaching out with his other hand to steady her. "Maybe," she said once they'd resumed their circuit. "What made you decide to try skating on it?"

"It was my uncle's suggestion. His oldest daughter and I are the same age, and he taught us both when we were five Terran years of age. I had initially attempted to only observe, but my mother…encouraged my active participation."

Nyota chewed on her lower lip to keep from grinning, but she couldn't quite keep her amusement out of her voice. "Encouraged?"

"Vehemently," said Spock, glancing at her sideways, his face so carefully composed, that if he'd been human, he would have been laughing along with her. "I found it an intriguing practical application of a number of fundamental laws of physics and mechanics."

"Like friction."

"Precisely. Friction, momentum, kinetic and potential energy, inertia, torque. Also what on Earth is known as Newton's third law."

"Wow. You learned to skate on a pond."

"Yes."

"A frozen pond."

She looked up at Spock in time to see the vertical crease between his brows that had made regular appearances in class when he seemed to be frustrated disappear. "Further repetition will not alter the veracity of that statement."

Nyota had been about to tease him again, but what he'd told her finally began to become real, and the harder she tried not to thin, the more her brain picked. Even turning her attention back to the ice, trying to lengthen her strokes and propel herself forward with more confidence wasn't enough to keep her mind from turning over every possible scenario she could think of when it came to skating out in the middle of a frozen body of water. It finally stopped churning on one particular thought. One she couldn't just dismiss. "You weren't at all concerned about the ice cracking underneath you?"

Spock must have heard something in her tone because he slowed enough in his pace that she overshot him, although he was back alongside her after only two long, quick strides. ""I was not. My uncle would not allow us on the ice until he had verified it was sufficiently formed to support all our weight."

"I still wouldn't have done it."

"I had already reached that conclusion."

"That obvious?"

"Given your trepidation, your acquiescence to this activity was unexpected."

She pressed her lips together and dropped her head, hoping it looked like she was focusing on the ice in front of her and not avoiding looking at him. Now that she'd been out on the ice with him, now that she was feeling, if not exactly comfortable, at least not so panicky she could barely move her feet, she felt almost silly about her earlier anxiety. "I read this book when I was ten. Little Women?"

"I am familiar with it."

"There was this part where the youngest sister is skating on a lake or a river —"

"A river," Spock supplied.

Nyota nodded, smiling, her gaze still focused steadfastly in front of her. Of course he would know. "A river. And the ice breaks, and she falls into the water and nearly drowns."

"I see."

"The part of Kenya I'm from, our lakes and rivers don't freeze. I mean, we have indoor ice rinks, but something about the possibility that the surface beneath you, that you thought was strong and solid, could just snap and fall away. That's always stuck with me. Gaila got me to come here our first year. I never made it onto the ice. I never even got skates. I was so close to hyperventilating, she got me a hot chocolate and left me on one of the benches while she careened around the rink."

"And yet when I expressed a desire to skate, you said yes." His hand gently turned in hers so that he could entwine their fingers. The way her hand fit into his, so perfectly, like it had been made for her, set her whole body humming, a tingling heat that radiated from that single point of contact deep down into her core. "Had I appreciated," he said when after a long minute, she hadn't spoken, "your true level of apprehension, I would not have —"

"It's okay," she broke in, shaking her head and squeezing his fingers. "That's why I joined Starfleet, right? To learn. To explore and do things I've never done before. To challenge my preconceptions and fears. And besides. You're here." Nyota didn't finish the thought. That with him there, she'd felt secure, like nothing bad could happen. But from the tightness around his eyes, the cant of his head, he was clearly puzzled by her reasoning, and she changed the subject.

"So if you have family only an hour away, why aren't you spending your break with them?"

Spock blinked. His lips parted and then clamped shut, and his forehead creased. "My presence over the break period is required on campus," he finally said, his voice carefully neutral.

"Oh."

It wasn't really an answer. Not that she knew everything that was happening on campus during the brief winter recess, and far from every cadet and faculty or staff member at the Academy celebrated Christmas, but most at least took advantage of the downtime to return home, visit family, or at least leave campus. Still, headquarters was just across the bay from where the Academy sat on Baker Point, and Starfleet didn't shut down just because the Academy, for all intents and purposes, did. For all she knew, Spock had an endless string of meetings, planning sessions, and whatever other commitments filled the days of commissioned officers scheduled between then and when the new semester started in January now that he was the new flagship's chief Science Officer. And he was still a student himself, at least until the end of the academic year, and had his own studies and projects on top of prepping for the three classes he'd be teaching the following semester.

It was a situation with which Nyota could well identify given that she hadn't seen her own family in nine months between school and her summer assignment covering leaves at the Columbia Mills sensor array on Mars. And if she did the ship rotation she planned starting the following June, it was probably going to be years before she saw her family at Christmas again. Maybe it was different for Vulcans with their telepathy and complicated family structure. Maybe he didn't need to be with them to…be with them, even if they were human. Or maybe he was as isolated from them as she was from her family.

"Is that why we're here? Because this is something you'd do with your family over the holidays?"

She looked up at Spock, waiting for him to respond, but he was staring at the entrance to the skating area just ahead of them where a jam up of skaters entering and leaving the ice was causing general chaos. A good thing, too, because a giggling Andorian toddler shot out from the middle of the crowd and scampered directly in front of them, closely pursued by her mother who wasn't having any luck catching the little girl as she skipped and twirled across the ice on chubby, bright blue legs that were a thousand times more steady than Nyota's felt. Spock skidded to a stop, turned and stretched his free arm out across her shoulders, pulling her up short. The sudden lack of momentum rocked her back onto her heels and would have sent her skates out from under her again if not for his support, and she grabbed onto the arm he still held across the front of her body.

"I think maybe you should teach me to stop next," she gasped. When the little girl dashed out into their path, her earlier fear roared back to life and clutched at her stomach. But having made a full circuit around the rink, she found it was easier to calm and tuck away, and the thought of staying out there with him wasn't nearly as intimidating as it had been only an hour before. "Do we have time left?"

"Thirty-five minutes," he said. The corners of his mouth tugged upwards in what might have been a smile. "You are certain?"

"Absolutely."

"It is not necessary. You have attained your stated goal, and I am willing to concede to your wishes."

"I want to." Her tone was firm and sure, and she knew the moment she said it that it was true. "I think I can even make it without leaning on you the entire time."

Something dark and unfamiliar flashed in his eyes but was gone before she could name it. "As you wish."

His hand fell away from where it cupped her shoulder and his fingers slid through hers. The last lingering brush of his roughened fingertips left her skin tingling and sent a prickle of heat racing down her spine. She pressed her palm against her thigh. Flexed her fingers into the fabric of her thick leggings just below the hem of her skirt to keep from reaching for him again. After all, he'd only been making sure she didn't fall, right?

Spock stood solidly on the ice a few feet away from her, well out of the flow of skaters still milling around the rink entrance, his back straight, his expression a model of calm restraint. Nyota sighed. Whatever she'd seen in his eyes had passed.

All right, then. She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Okay. Keep my weight off my heels. Bend my knees. Don't look down. Push off with my foot at an angle, but not with too much force." As she took her first unassisted two-footed glide towards Spock, a burst of laughter escaped her lips and rang above the noise of the other skaters around them. Her ankles hardly wobbled at all.

Maharagwe - Kidney beans in a coconut curry soup. Best when eaten with a starch like rice or ugali.

Just a little Christmas fic that is woefully late. Because I'm not a speedy writer. But according to the Gregorian calendar, Christmas isn't until Thursday, so that counts, right? This is only three chapters, and I'm hoping to get them up by the end of the month.

I've played a little fast and loose with the weather patterns in the Pacific Northwest, but I needed a frozen pond, and Amanda is rumored to be from Seattle, so I wanted to keep things in Washington. This story is actually a little nostalgia-fueled visit to my home turf, since it gets expensive traveling down to see the fam for every holiday, and once I set the first chapter in Union Square, well, their standing on the sidelines just watching didn't last long. Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and a new year that is full of wonder and promise. Thanks for reading!