A/N: first of all, I'm assuming that something like this has most likely been written before, many times by different authors (dunno because I haven't read much Star Trek fic yet), and I've decided that if this is horribly unoriginal, I'm actually ok with it :p (pretty sure I'm far from the only one who's ever wondered exactly how awesome mind-melding sex would be, just saying lol) It's set, I guess, prior to the 2009 movie - not much of a strict timeline is necessary here - and as it is my first Star Trek fic it is new territory for me, so hopefully it isn't completely terrible. I don't think it is. Review and let me know, and I'll send e-cookies back :D

Nyota had always known what she was getting into when it came to Spock. She had no delusions of what a relationship with a Vulcan, half-human or no, would be like. Even if she had been under such a foolish notion, Spock made every reason as to why a relationship between them would be illogical and ill-advised very clear, very early on, even before the first kiss. He wasn't wrong about any of it, of course, and the only thing that she found surprising about the situation was that they'd come together anyway, despite all of the reasons why they shouldn't have.

The cons were clear and stark beside the pros. The most glaringly obvious complication was that he was her teacher, she his student, and that added a level of taboo to just the thought of becoming involved that could have ended them before they began. It set a tone from the beginning of restraint and caution, and instead of easing as time went on, she noticed Spock becoming only more restrained and more cautious.

He held back physically because he was stronger than her and wouldn't dare risk hurting her. He held back emotionally for a multitude of reasons, some obvious and others not. The one thing that she did know she'd always have with him was full and complete honesty, and she knew how to use that to her advantage.

But there came a time when she felt them reaching a breaking point. She didn't want to use such a dramatic term, but Spock was so often immovable and utterly resolute, and just as it took a fair bit of drama for their relationship to begin, perhaps it would take another fair bit to make it grow and evolve.

They sat one night at dinner, in Spock's apartment, sitting across from one another and carrying on conversation as normally as they ever did. Nyota waited until she'd downed a full glass of wine and thus had a bit of extra courage before she brought up what she'd been intending to for some time.

"... but the problem with that theory is the simple and incontrovertible evidence of what occurs when -"

"Spock," Nyota interrupted, her eyes on her half-empty plate as she spoke. "I'm sorry, but we've gotta talk."

His perfectly neutral gaze upon her didn't waver. "What do you wish to discuss, Nyota?"

She took a deep breath and then released it through her nose. "You. Us. I think you know, deep down."

"Please explain."

She sighed and suddenly the chair she was in felt hard and uncomfortable, and the air too thin, but such was the case when you chose to discuss an uncomfortable but necessary matter. "I know that for you... holding back is in your nature. And I know that you've been apprehensive about this from day one. But I also wonder if you realize how hard it is for me to gauge your feelings sometimes."

"Feelings?" he repeated, his gaze a little less blank and more confused now.

"Obviously they're there," she said, "because you wouldn't be with me if they weren't. But I don't see them, or hear them, and honestly, that would be fine if I could just get a glimpse every once in awhile."

"Nyota," he began evenly, "I pointed out the disparities of our natures some time ago. I pointed out the very high likelihood of you finding yourself unsatisfied by me due to -"

"I know," she said with briefly closed eyes, "I know you did, trust me. But what I'm telling you, Spock, is that I understand the differences between us. I also understand that there is a way for you to give me what I'm asking for. A very simple way."

He didn't hesitate to quickly shake his head and say, "If you are implying what I believe -"

"You know exactly what I'm implying."

" - then I must remind you that it is not something to be taken lightly."

"I don't take anything about our relationship lightly," she bit back.

"You are becoming agitated."

"Why can't you just give me this?" she asked, an edge of desperation to her voice. "You don't have to say a word or do anything, just -"

"Nyota, what you ask for is something you cannot comprehend because you have not experienced it."

"So then let me experience it and decide for myself," she retorted. "Or do you not want me to because you really don't feel anything for me?"

"It is unwise to continue this discussion at this time, seeing as you have allowed your emotions to cause you to behave irrationally."

Nyota narrowed her eyes and tossed the napkin spread on her lap to the table, then stood up and said, "This isn't your nature getting in the way of us, Spock. This isn't some Vulcan-versus-human thing keeping us from connecting. You're what's in the way. You and your choices and your fear of actually letting someone in."

He stared at her as she walked away, slamming his door behind her.

She saw Spock but did not speak to him once for the next seven days. She was prepared to give him nothing but silence for as long as it took to get the message across, and she knew how long of an engagement that may prove to be, but she was stubborn and ready to prove just how stubborn she really was.

And that was only a small part of why she was so shocked when she walked into her room at the end of a long day to find her teacher standing in front of her bed, his hands clasped behind his back, apparently waiting patiently for her arrival. She stopped dead in her tracks, her hands falling from her left ear as she gave up the thought of removing her earrings as he turned to face her. She swallowed before putting on a brave, unaffected face and clearing her throat.

"This is unexpected."

"On the contrary," Spock said, "I believe my presence here to be highly expected. You have ignored all of my attempts to contact you within the last week."

She shrugged and went back to taking out her earrings, walking past him towards the bathroom as she said, "I thought some time apart might be a good idea."

His hand suddenly seizing her forearm made her steps cease immediately. She met his gaze and suppressed a shudder when she saw the intensity burning within his dark eyes.

"Your point has been made, Nyota. Now hear what I have to say."

His grip on her arm gave way, and slowly she nodded. "My roommate -"

"Do not worry about potential interruptions," Spock quickly assured her. "Are you prepared to listen to me?"

"Yes," she sighed.

"I have spent the last seven days considering what you told me at dinner. I find your request to be naive at best and ill-informed on your part, and -"

"If you came here to refuse again then let me save you the trouble," she quickly interrupted, moving to walk past him again.

This time he grabbed both of her arms and invaded her personal space to boot, catching her off guard as his nose brushed hers for a split second. "I am not done speaking. I am going to have to ask you to remain silent until I am finished. Can you do that, Nyota?"

She nodded sullenly. He quirked an eyebrow and continued. "I find your request to be naive and ill-informed. However, with that being said... since you have given me no other choice, my only logical option if I wish to retain your companionship is to give in to your demands."

Nyota's lips parted slightly as she found herself genuinely shocked by Spock's words. "I... really?"

The corner of his lips quirked, as if he was fighting off a smirk. "Yes."

"... Naive and ill-informed?" she repeated. "You act like this is some taboo thing when it hasn't been for years and years -"

"Indeed, but what you must understand is that as a human, this will not be easy for you. Especially not the first time."

She rolled her eyes a bit and said, "That's also what you said the first time we slept together. I handled that like a trooper, didn't I?"

"Nyota, you are well aware of the nature of Vulcans and the fact that we have learned to vigorously control our emotions due to the potentially dangerous power of them. Our emotions run deeper and are considerably more powerful than those of your kind."

"I'm a big girl, Spock," she replied.

Spock replied by tilting his head a little bit, and bringing one of his hands to her cheek. "You are ready for this?"

"I have been for a lot longer than you've noticed, Commander," she said, looking down at his black Starfleet uniform as she purred the last word.

One of his brows raised just slightly at the use of his title. Then his fingers parted against her face and Nyota sucked in a deep breath, bracing herself for what was to come. But the unimaginable sensation of two minds becoming one didn't come, and instead the hand moved swiftly to the back of her neck as Spock kissed her hungrily.

It could have been a letdown but it wasn't, especially after a week of separation and the lack of this after becoming so accustomed to his touch. His hands moved to her hips and pulled her close as their kiss deepened, his tongue tasting hers as he spun her around towards the bed and placed her down upon the edge of it.

She was still in her own uniform, her skirt riding up her hips as soon as she hit the bed underneath him, their lips not breaking contact as he covered her with his weight and kissed her until she was breathless. Her head hit the mattress when his mouth moved to her neck and she winced, not from his kiss but from the top of her high ponytail smashing down against her head. The hand that wasn't in Spock's hair reached back to pull her own hair free but struggled, and Spock noticed this, jerking his head up to figure out what in the world she was doing before grabbing her ponytail himself and yanking it free in a cascade of black hair over her shoulders.

"Thanks," she grinned before pulling him back down to her lips, and a struggle to rid the other of their clothes commenced in a blur of hands and ragged kisses. He was pulling her skirt down when she kissed a line from his mouth to his ear and then murmured, "Don't forget about my other 'demand'."

"Refresh my memory, Nyota," he breathed against her jaw.

"Don't hold back your mind or your body," she said, and he slowly raised his head to look down upon her.

"I am three times as strong as the average male human and you are a woman," he said as evenly as he could through his labored breaths. "The odds of my becoming carried away and accidentally hurting you are approximately -"

She rolled her eyes and hooked her legs around his to leverage her way on top of him. Once he was on his back, she remarked, "We really need to work on your dirty talk."

Then she kissed him again and rocked her hips down against his, earning the smallest hum of pleasure from his throat, and hurriedly he removed the few remaining barriers between them. When it was done he sat up, pulling her into his lap and looking into her eyes just before he shifted her by one more inch and pushed inside of her.

It was difficult but they both kept their eyes opened and locked on one another as they slowly began to move. His eyes flickered down to her lips only when she bit down on her lower one as his hand cupped a breast, his thumb running over the nipple as she started to move more wantonly, wanting him more and harder the longer the minutes became. His hand that wasn't helping to guide her hips rose to brush her long hair behind her shoulders as she let her head fall back, holding on to his shoulders by the tips of her painted black nails, and carefully he watched and waited for the right moment.

It came a very short time later, and gently he placed his hand on her cheek to pull her close to him.

"Nyota," he half-whispered, resting his forehead against hers, "open your eyes."

She did as he told her, and as their eyes met, he positioned his fingers on her face to bring their minds together. Her eyes widened slightly a she realized what was about to happen, but Spock knew it was not an expression of fear - anxiety, perhaps, but a pleasant kind. The sort one felt when they were finally about to unwrap a gift that they had been forbidden from touching for what would surely seem like an eternity.

Nyota kept her eyes locked on to his until she watched them close. She did the same, his fingers pressed down, and she gasped as she was lost to the most alien, strange, disorienting, wonderful thing she'd ever experienced.

So much went by in a blinding, dizzying flash, far too much for her to grasp or understand, but just as she thought she might fall and be lost forever, there was something anchoring her and pulling her in, a gravitational pull that she couldn't resist. There was warmth there, and then there was a rush of thoughts and memories that hit her like a freight train.

She saw so much - a desert planet, a scarfed woman's pale face and kind brown eyes, and a stern and severe-looking man who bore a great resemblance to Spock. She also saw green grass, blue sky, Starfleet - so much in so little time, all in all less than a second, but then the thoughts became focused and slowed down as they centered upon a new face - hers.

She saw herself on the day of her first class from Spock that she'd ever attended, smiling and only a little nervous. Then she saw herself a little while later, also in class, focusing deeply on what was being taught as she absently let down her hair from a ponytail. It was then that Nyota felt a brief but potent burst of curiosity that was not hers, and she realized what this was - it was, of course, Spock's memories of her, as well as the accompanying emotions that he was so good at keeping safely under the surface.

As the memories changed so did the emotions - curiosity became intrigue and intrigue became affection, which in turn became apprehension and fear. But it was here that she found an interesting conflict - as she watched the memory of their first kiss, stolen in secret in Spock's own classroom, she felt a distinct parallel to that fear and intrinsic urge to cling to the black and white rigidity of rules and regulations. While Spock's logic had deemed them an unfit and unwise couple the moment their lips touched, his human side had disagreed wholeheartedly, immensely enjoying breaking the rules and having his brightest student like that in his classroom, and had indeed only been disappointed that things did not go further. She was caught between the warring sides of him, the admittedly dominant Vulcan one and the shockingly lustful human one - Spock didn't hold back and even allowed her to see the fantasies he'd allowed his mind to create in those early days.

She wouldn't have been shocked to see such thoughts in any other man's head, but this was Spock - cool, controlled, logical Spock, who had evidently spent far longer than he'd care to admit imagining his student underneath him and on top of him in and on a staggeringly scandalous amount of locations, and before Nyota could fully process it all, again it all changed.

She watched as the memories became shared ones, times they spent together, and where she had struggled under a wave of lust a moment ago, this time, it was affection that flooded her senses. She felt everything he felt, saw everything he saw, and suddenly understood what he'd meant by this overwhelming her when the full weight of his emotions were unleashed upon her.

He didn't merely love her. He loved her with a passion so deep and terrifying that it scared even Spock with its blinding and utterly unexpected intensity. She watched the memories reflect that, watched him retreat further into himself and his cold logic as his love for her became more and more consuming. It mixed with lust and a fierce protectiveness, a veritable storm cloud swirling with emotions so deep she was sure they could have shook the very heavens above.

She felt the confusion and fear that he'd felt for the last week, the panic of having to give her up in any way, even if for both of their sakes and as was surely the wisest course of action. So lost she was in this that she could not have noticed Spock invading her own thoughts and memories, nothing hidden from one another, everything bare and open. She felt his fear of rejection, his fear that she would be overwhelmed by the depths of his emotions and run away in terror, as well as the pulsing, throbbing, amazing pleasure that his body was lost in at the present time...

She felt it too, in her own body, the same pleasure that was so incredibly close to reaching its peak. It felt otherworldly and yet perfectly physical at the same time, like it was happening in her body all the same but merely that she was experiencing it on a whole other level of consciousness. She was connected to Spock in every way that one could be connected to another, and it was overwhelming and too much - it was the single most indescribably transcendent thing she could imagine her human self having the capacity to experience.

And suddenly, as quickly as it had begun, the mind meld ended with Spock's fingers leaving her face as they both returned to the present with moans spilling from their lips. He was crushing her to him with his eyes clenched shut and body shaking against hers with tremors of pleasure, and she was just as far gone as he, rushing back into the present with a climax so intense that it was a wonder how her heart managed to keep beating through it.

It could have been another eternity before the waves finally ended, she'd never know and he was too far gone for once to analyze so much as a molecule of anything. All Nyota would ever know was that when she opened her eyes and Spock did the same, they could do nothing but stare at one another for one long, perfect moment where they were not Vulcan and Human, student and teacher, or any of the other things that could become obstacles or complications in their relationship. They were merely two people who had just defied the very foundation of all logic and opened themselves up to one another completely and irrevocably, creating a bond that would cause unthinkable pain if it were ever to be severed.

It had been stupid, in hindsight, for either of them to ever open themselves up to such a potentially disastrous thing, she could see that now. He'd been right to rebuff her earlier requests for this, right to shelter her as well as himself from this unbelievably intimate act.

She blinked. Or maybe it was just the lingering influence of Spock's mind in her own saying that. Yeah, that was probably it.

He was still trembling as he held her close against him. She placed shaky hands on either side of his face and dropped her forehead against his, still reeling inside from the force of the bond. She felt as if all the oxygen in the room had gone, and though her body had been satisfied beautifully by him and her mind even more so, she had to close her eyes and brace herself as the lingering effects wore off.

At some point, Spock laid her down and rested her within the crook of his arm. Cuddling had never been a thing he he thought to do - it was one of those things that she'd had to teach him the mechanics of, the how and the why of a woman's desire to be held by a man after he made love to her - but his hold was the least awkward it had ever been to date. When she opened her eyes and met his, still panting through her swollen lips, she found his eyes full of wonder and affection.

"Has... has your curiosity been satisfied?" he asked her in a small voice. "Have you found the answers to your questions of my feelings regarding yourself?"

She was still utterly speechless. She shook her head for a moment and said, "I had no idea... no idea that you felt... any of that. I'm... speechless."

To her surprise, his mouth curved upwards at the left corner in a small smile. "The woman who can speak over three hundred languages in all of their various dialects... speechless."

What was there to say in a moment like this? What words possibly existed in any language that could express the half of what they'd just experienced together?

Nyota leaned forward and brushed her lips against Spock's cheek before bringing her lips to his ear. In his own native tongue, she murmured, "Thank you for trusting me."

It really was an amazing feat, she had to admit. For someone like Spock to open himself up to her as wholly and completely as he had, with nothing hidden and everything bare - it was a level of trust that was rare to see between two people on any world, let alone between a Vulcan and a human on Earth.

He brushed her hair behind her ear and then traced her cheek and jaw with his fingers. "Thank you for accepting me."

Trust and acceptance, minds and hearts, logic and love - right then, in that moment, it all made perfect sense. As space and time intertwined and made equal amounts of sense and nonsense, sometimes it made room for the occasional miracle. For a brilliant and ambitious woman from Kenya and an even more brilliant, rigorously disciplined man from Vulcan to find each other and achieve what they just had in the midst of a universe of chaos that could have easily kept them apart, Nyota had to admit that the stars had been damn good to her.