Several weeks later

...

"Hey you," she says from her desk, her hand paused on her padd at the sound of his footsteps, the tap of them down the otherwise quiet hallway and how they halt at the door to his office. "They already came to get most of your things, if you're looking for them."

"I was looking for you," Spock says from just inside the door and she turns to look at him standing there, the sight of him making her heart pick up that patter she's grown more used to than not these days.

It makes her smile and she directs it down at the filmplasts in front of her, trying to be glad that he wasn't in his office all afternoon, giving her a chance to finish grading without him being so close to her. "I'm nearly done."

"There is no rush," he says as he begins to sort through the few items remaining on his desk, the padd he was using for the end of semester faculty meeting earlier in the day, and one or two books that he wanted to bring back to his apartment rather than have transferred to his new office in Computer Sciences.

"You uploaded the grades?" he asks as she adds the stack of filmplasts to the corner of his desk, then straightens them before he can reach to do it.

"I did," she says, tapping them into an even neater stack. "Anything else?"

"No."

"So is that it?" she asks, looking over his bare desk, the bookshelf that used to have his padds on it, the room that seems so empty after all this time. It makes her sad, just like she knew it would, a little hollowed out and a lot hesitant to leave and she gives into the urge to linger there for another moment with him beside her, similarly unmoving except to look down at her. She returns his gaze with a soft smile. Next semester, someone else will be in here. Likely Irani, if the way she's been after Ho has been any indication, Spock's tales of the inner workings of office assignments leaving with Nyota willing to put money on the Lieutenant moving in before break is over. For now, though, it's still Spock's, and for a couple minutes more it's still theirs, still the first room she was ever alone with him in, where she sat just there in the chair that's in front of his desk, half sure she was crazy and half ready to blame the entire thing on Gaila.

She still blames Gaila, but Spock there next to her suitably makes up for it, even more so when she knocks her shoulder into his arm.

"We should get going," she says even though she's not sure that she really wants to, not when she could spend just one more moment here with him like this. It's the thought of telling Gaila that she dragged out her last afternoon of work that makes her shoulder her bag. And she will tell her, she thinks, send her a message that Gaila will read with a fruity drink in one hand who knows what in the other, her list for what she was going to do on Risa so long that Nyota had to give up keeping track of it.

"We should," he echoes and it might be an accident the way the back of his fingers brush against the back of hers, but it isn't, and it makes her smile all the way to the turbolift.

"You are finished with your semester," he says as the doors shut behind them, closing out the sight of the empty hallway. Everyone else is gone already, off on their vacations or celebrating the end of the term, leaving the building echoing with quiet.

"I am," she says as the lift starts. It hasn't really sunk in yet that finals are done and she's half sure that she'll remember something else that she needs to do, but finishing the grading for Advanced Morphology was the last item on her list and free time, no matter how odd it feels, is stretching out before her, unscheduled and unhurried. "It's too bad."

"You are nostalgic for your coursework already?" he asks and she can't help but think that he and Gaila have been spending entirely too much time together recently.

"No, I just had this really cute boss."

"Oh?"

"Huge crush on him," she says airily as the floors tick by. "Like you wouldn't believe."

"If you would like to describe the qualities you found most estimable, I assure you I would be amenable to listening."

"Too many to count," she says, and stands on her toes and presses a kiss to his cheek because it's vacation and she can and even though they're still on campus and she really shouldn't be doing that, she's still a little sad that no matter how much she's looked forward to the end of the term, they won't be going back to that office together again. "I won't get through them all before dinner."

It's cold outside, a hard, bitter crispness carried on the breeze that seems too chilly for the city and makes her pull her jacket tighter around herself and tuck her hands under her arms as they walk. The wind makes his nose a little green which makes her smile and makes her turn to him so that she can keep looking at it, which makes it easier to just take his hand in hers rather than continue to walk with her arms crossed around herself like that, his fingers cold when she tangles hers through them.

"I presume that is everything?" he asks when they are both unzipping their coats in his apartment and he's hanging up her bag.

She follows him to the kitchen, sorting through the groceries he left out for her, rubbing her hands together and trying to let the heat of his quarters seep into her and warm the chill the wind left her with. It's easier, really, to stand just behind him and tuck her hands into him, so she does, smiling where she's leaned against his back when he twitches as her fingers find his sides. "Did you get-"

"These?" he asks, picking up two packages and moving them to the front of the counter, in front of the spices he picked up and the ginger root that she had to describe to him twice before he could locate it, whispering in the stairwell of the library only yesterday as she spoke to him while finishing her last paper. It seems longer than just a few hours ago, the semester already sliding away behind her as she examines the plantains he got, half wanting to open the jar of coriander just to smell it. "Flours? Of course. I understand they are traditional among Terrans."

She snorts out a laugh before she can stop herself, pressing a dry kiss to his shoulder blade, the fabric of his uniform soft when she rests her cheek against it.

"Thank you," she says as seriously as she can without laughing again.

He pours her a glass of wine while she gets started, leaving it next to her and watching over her shoulder as she peels the plantains and begins to slice them, probably not as neat and even as he could do it, but it leaves them looking like how they did on her grandmother's cutting board, the wood of her counters old and worn, so different than the pristine shine of Spock's kitchen.

"Make yourself useful," she instructs when he keeps hovering there beside her and hands him the ginger and a grater. "Two teaspoons, please."

He goes back to watching when she kneads the chapati dough on his table, close enough that her elbow bumps against his stomach. She's sure that he's never seen even a speck of dust on the surface, let alone a light coating of flour and she would ask him to start chopping the onions or garlic, but finals were long and she didn't see him as much as she would have liked to and she decides that she rather likes having him there next to her.

"Are you going to be ok?" she asks as she sprinkles more flour onto the table.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"The chemical reaction is quite fascinating," he says, his eyes on her hands as the dough grows less lumpy and more elastic, a slight shine beginning to show when she folds it back into itself again.

"Is that what you were looking at," she says mildly.

He's still examining the dough when she leaves it on the table to rest, washing her hands off and peering back of her shoulder at him, stopping for a moment with her hands still held over the sink as he bends closer to it, the jacket he's still wearing pulling against his back.

She checks the pot bubbling on the stove, adjusts the heat, and recovers it before going over to her bag and pulling out a filmplast. He straightens when she brings it over to him and leans into her when she wraps her arm around his waist.

"What is this?" he asks as she holds it out in front of him until he takes it, his attention split between it and the fine dusting of flour that she left on the black of his uniform, that she brushes at lightly and mostly ineffectually.

"Sorry," she says, wiping her hand over his flat stomach again, the fabric of his uniform warm like it always is whenever she touches him.

"You do not sound it."

"I'm not. That's my class schedule for next semester," she tells him. It's starting to smell like dinner, the scent of the matoke wafting up from its pot and filling the air. She squeezes his waist and then slips her hand under his shirt to palm over his bare skin. "Though as that's printed along the top, I'm sure that it qualifies as an obvious-"

"You have made a significant oversight," he says, speaking over her but not without letting the corner of his mouth curl up. "You appear to have failed to sufficiently fill your week."

"I know."

"I believe that based upon this timetable, it is in fact possible for you to take an additional-"

"I've always liked a man with a good sense of humor," she says, grabbing it back from him. "Ho wants to meet after lunch on Fridays and there's no other classes available afterwards that don't conflict with her schedule, so…"

She shrugs, looking down at that blank spot on her schedule before squeezing his waist again and then crossing to her bag to slip the filmplast back into it. She has two weeks until she needs to get it out again, and her padd too, and she might just leave her schoolbag hanging right there for the entire duration of break and pick it up again on the first Monday morning of the new semester and simply not think about it again before then.

"I'm not saying that I looked up your teaching schedule or anything," she says as she closes her bag and walks back to the kitchen and the stove and her glass of wine, taking a sip from it and leaning back against the counter. "And I'm also not saying that I found out that you don't teach a Friday afternoon class, but I might have."

"Is that so?" he asks as he begins to wipe extra flour from the table, managing to do so without letting any sprinkle on the floor.

"You'll probably have meetings," she says and decides that the short distance from the stove to his table is really entirely too much, so she abandons it in favor of moving closer to him again, sliding her hands up his arms and feeling the muscles work as he keeps wiping the table. It doesn't take him long to leave the cloth laying there and instead turn around and let his hands come up to spread warmth over her back. She leans against them, letting him hold her up.

"Not always," he says and it makes her smile again.

"Good," she says, smoothing her hands over his uniform and tipping her face up to be kissed, wondering as he bends down to her if this will ever be commonplace or if it will always feel like it does now, too absolutely and utterly perfect to be anything close to real.

While the pot continues to simmer and she shows Spock how to roll out the dough into the appropriately sized discs, she showers and dresses in the clothes she grabbed that morning from what she hadn't packed yet, her suitcase left gaping open on her bed as she had gotten ready for her final day of the term. She leaves her uniform in Spock's hamper, happy to let it wait for her until classes start again, a day that she doesn't have to bother to think about right now, not when it seems far enough away to not even begin to matter, to have no bearing on the evening or dinner or standing there barefoot in his bedroom with the scent of food floating in the room. Though she can't help but wish that she had thought to bring other shoes than her boots, frowning down at her feet and wiggling her toes against the floor before deciding that she doesn't really need them in the first place, since they're hardly going out tonight. Tomorrow, she can pack whatever sandals and heels she wants, nothing that resembles plain black boots in the slightest, choosing both from her own closet and Gaila's as well, her belongings more or less shoved in there as she had left in a swirl of half packed luggage, engineering texts, and a promise that Nyota really doesn't need her to keep that she'd bring back a souvenir.

The kitchen is nearly entirely clean when she gets back and she gives him a grin, tucking her hair back behind her ears and nudging him away from where he's putting away dishes.

"This is going to be messy," she tells him as she begins transferring the rolled out dough to the kitchen, pouring oil into a pan and setting it over the stove. "Messier," she qualifies. "Go change, you're not going to be able to bear to watch."

When she's done frying each piece, she leaves them out to cool and wipes flour and spattered oil from his counter before he can, leaving him dabbing at a spot of flour that's dusted over the sleeve of the black sweater he put on. She leans back against the counter with her wine glass, once again full, curled in her hand, watching him clean every speck off.

"I like those pants," she tells him, mostly wanting to find out how they feel on him rather than just staring at how they fit, but dinner's nearly ready and she's not entirely sure that if she were to reach out and snag the waist of them that she'd get herself to stop.

"Thank you."

"Did you have to reorganize your whole closet?" she asks, taking a sip from her glass and then giving it to him when he holds his hand out for it. He makes the same expression he always does when he tries one of her drinks, like it's not bad enough to actually say anything, but that he clearly doesn't understand the appeal. She takes it back from him and sips at it again, smiling at him over the rim, feeling that bubble of happiness rise up in her like it so often does now. "Were your uniforms shocked that you how have twice as many civilian clothes? Or is it three times as many? I'm glad we weren't in Mojave any longer that weekend, you would have had to do laundry."

"It would be accurate to posit that you would have compelled us to leave before that could occur, due mostly to the likelihood that any long spent there would have increased the chances of suffering side effects by not having access to your padd. Are you entirely sure you will be able to tolerate the recess between semesters?"

"Well," she says and sets her glass on the counter, walking towards him and grabbing him by the hips, unable to convince herself to keep her hands off of him for any longer, not when she can press him back against the sink and let his hands on her waist pull her into him. The fabric of his pants is softer than she might have expected and she'll ask to make sure that he packs them, some other time when his lips aren't already tugging at hers, making it hard to think. Tonight, later, maybe, or tomorrow morning, since she's sure that he hasn't started to set clothes aside yet, not with the hunt for groceries she sent him on yesterday, the work he had to finish to be able to take time off, and the realization that he didn't actually have enough civilian clothes to be gone from work for more than a couple days. "Maybe if I have a suitable distraction."

"I would not be opposed," he says as he kisses her again.

She drags his hips even closer and lets her eyes fall shut, lets out a sigh against his cheek as he keeps kissing her like that, again and again, his nose brushing against hers as he changes angles, his hands firm and solid on her sides, her back. She's gives into the urge to let her fingers creep up under under his shirt, and is fingering the dip of his spine and letting him bite at her bottom lip when there's a knock at the door.

She runs her fingers through her hair where his hands were tangled in it as he readjusts his sweater, tugging it back down and smoothing it over his stomach before he goes to answer the door and she takes the last moment they have alone to let herself examine the view she has of his pants as he walks away from her.

"Smells amazing," Puri announces without bothering to say hello, tossing his jacket on Spock's coat rack and hanging up Stoyer's far more carefully.

"Hi, how were finals?" Stoyer asks, crossing to the kitchen and folding Nyota into a hug. "You survived, it seems."

"Not too bad," Nyota answers as Puri hugs her too, much harder and nearly threatening to lift her off the ground.

"We brought a chocolate cake with chocolate icing," he says, his arm still slung over her shoulders as he points to a covered plate he left on the counter.

"It is not," Stoyer corrects. "It's a pie. Or it's supposed to be. It turns out Puri can't make pies, so it's a bit of a disaster."

"A delicious disaster," he says and lets go of Nyota only to pick up the bottle of wine, examine the label, and then start opening and closing cupboards, one right after the next. "Thanks for offering me a glass of wine, Spock, don't mind if I do."

"Nice place," Stoyer says, looking around herself. "Thanks for having us over."

"It is the same layout as your faculty quarters," Spocks says as he pulls a wineglass from one of the only shelves Puri hasn't looked in yet and Nyota tries to decide if imagining this moment left her at all prepared for the reality of living it out, Stoyer and Puri in the rooms that she and Spock spend so much time in alone, the apartment suddenly full of noise in a way that it nearly never is. It's nice, she decides, curling her toes into the floor. Perfect, maybe, she thinks as Puri fills up his glass and Stoyer goes to examine Spock's ka'athyra and Spock's eyes meet hers, making her smile like it always does whenever he looks at her like that.

"What's this?" Puri asks, following Stoyer. He sets his wineglass on the coffee table and picks up the small book there, the actual, paper copy of the journal with her paper in it that Spock had surprised her with only the other week. He had called it an early present for the illogical tradition of giving material gifts at Terran holidays, and when she had taken it from him, the bright burst of his happiness that had shot through her fingers had said everything she had heard beneath his words. Puri flips it open and pulls out their bookmark, stuck between the pages like it was when Spock had given it to her and she had covered her mouth like she could have possibly kept her delighted laugh from escaping through her fingers. "I don't get it. Uhura, N. 2256. Trends in Sociolinguistic something or other, Journal of your field that has an unnecessarily long title. Why'd you write that on a postcard?"

"That does not belong to you," Spock says, reaching for it even as Puri pulls it away.

"I'm reading this," he says, paging through the first half of her paper. "It's good. All about how humans shouldn't have so many off the wall phrases."

"I am pleased to know that, as ever, you find yourself amusing."

"I'm a riot," he says as he sinks onto the couch and turns back to the beginning, his eyes moving over the introduction that she had written months ago, back when the weather was warmer and the days were long. Now, evening has edged into Spock's apartment and Nyota flips on a lamp as she walks back into the kitchen.

"So," Stoyer says, following her. "I heard a rumor that someone is meeting someone else's parents."

"I heard that too," Puri calls from the couch.

"Maybe," Nyota says, tucking her hair back and smiling into the pot as she slowly stirs it. Spock must have said something, then, because she's been in the library for what felt like weeks even though the calendar told her it was only days, the final push of the semester seeming to drag out longer and longer the more she wanted it to be over. "This is ready."

"I'm starving," Puri says and abandons the journal on the couch, dropping the postcard on top of it as he crosses to the table. Spock picks them both up and replaces the postcard where it goes, marking the start of her paper, and sets them both on his desk where they keep it, next to the framed hologram that always sits there.

"You just had a rib eye, dear," Stoyer says, setting out the plates that Nyota has handed to her.

"I wasn't sure that Spock wouldn't force us to have an entire dinner of salad," he whispers to Nyota, grabbing her glass along with his own and bringing both them and the bottle of wine to the table.

"He made couscous last week," she whispers back as Spock pretends to not listen to them.

"Progress. And Spock, I would give you sage and timely advice about charming Terran families," Puri says as Stoyer sets the pot on the table and Nyota places the chapati next to it. "But Arlene's mother still gets this very particular look whenever I'm around. I'm assuming it's one of love and familial devotion, but something tells me it's more along the lines of indigestion."

"Do you need a glass?" Nyota asks, realizing as Stoyer sits that that there isn't a wineglass in front of her place setting already.

Stoyer gives a small shakes of her head and it's not until she adds, "No, but thank you," that Nyota realizes the gesture is not directed at Puri.

"Are you sure?" she asks, already halfway turning back to the kitchen to get one.

"Absolutely," Puri says, his smile wide and something in his voice that makes Nyota turn back towards the table and makes Spock pause where he's starting to spoon matoke onto Stoyer's plate.

"What-" Nyota starts as Stoyer gives Puri a hard look and he shrugs, still smiling entirely too broadly, his eyes dancing as Stoyer shakes her head again.

"I am sworn to secrecy," Puri says. "I am not saying anything. Arlene will kill me."

"I will not," Stoyer says and she's smiling too, just a little.

"Her hoard of assistants will find me in my sleep," Puri says. "Also, we haven't gotten a hold of her folks yet, so there's that, too."

"I have one assistant, as ever," Stoyer says as Puri leans over and kisses her temple. It looks like they're holding hands under the table and Nyota takes a step back towards the table and then another one, her hands finding the back of her chair and holding onto it. Spock is still frozen with his hand on the spoon and the other holding Stoyer's plate, though his eyes come up to meet Nyota's.

"You know nothing," Puri tells both of them. "I barely know anything. I'm still surprised I was allowed to find out before the future maternal grandparents do."

"It's a girl," Stoyer says as she takes the spoon from Spock and keeps dishing dinner onto her plate. He lets her slip the plate away from him too, settling back in his chair and Nyota thinks she should also be sitting down, or at least something doing other than just staring at the two of them, both of them still smiling wider than she's ever seen. "I'm due in June. Hopefully after the semester wraps up."

"That new building they're putting up behind the gym?" Puri asks as he hands Stoyer his plate. "Arlene just got the Academy to approve it as a nursery."

"I did not, it's a new dorm."

"The entire incoming class is going to be babysitting. It's a required course now," Puri says. He takes his plate back and sets it in front of him, examining his food. When he looks up, his eyes and antenna travel between Nyota and Spock. "You two should say something."

"That's incredible," Nyota gets out.

"Congratulations," Spock says and to Nyota's surprise, he reaches out and touches his fingers to the back of Stoyer's hand where it's resting next to her fork.

"Thank you," Stoyer says, giving him a soft smile. Nyota sits down slowly and Stoyer gives her a smile too, one that Nyota returns as Stoyer begins digging into her dinner.

"This," Puri says, waving a plantain around on his fork, Spock's eyes leaving Stoyer to track the motion like it's about to fly off and leave some mark on his otherwise pristine apartment, "Is not as exciting as Spock going home with you. Tomorrow, right? Are you ready for this, Spock? Did you, you know, prepare? Cause you know not to mention that time that we-"

"-I am aware." He's been telling her for weeks now that he's not nervous, that she needn't bother asking, and she's taken to letting him think that rather than pressing the topic, not pointing out how often it arises or the questions he'll bring up out of the blue, when she's buried in her work and his mind is obviously preoccupied.

"You don't know what I was going to say." Puri points the plantain at Spock. "Eat anything they serve you."

"Eat what I serve you," Nyota says, watching as Spock picks at his plate before trying a bite, his forehead slightly too furrowed.

"It is good," he says and takes a larger forkful and then, as she watches, another one.

"Are you staying there for the whole break?" Stoyer asks. "This is delicious, Uhura."

"Thank you," Nyota says, even though it doesn't taste quite the same as when her grandfather makes it. "And no, only for a couple days."

"Logical," Puri declares before taking a huge bite. "Get in and get the hell out of dodge. I knew you two were smart."

"You're not coming back to work, I hope," Stoyer says.

"We are going to visit India," Spock says and when he reaches past her for the plate of chapati, his arm leaves a wash of warmth against hers. "Until the beginning of the new semester."

"It's really one of the most linguistically diverse areas left on Earth, since even with the adaptation of Standard, the region continued to hold onto the heritage of- Sorry." She clears her throat and takes another bite of her dinner, catching Puri's all too amused smile at how quickly she was talking. "It's… exciting."

Spock touches her hand lightly, a sparkling prickle left over the back of her fingers. "Do not apologize."

"Are you trying to learn all of them?" Puri asks.

"Going to," Nyota says with a smile, her hand finding Spock's knee under the table before she picks up her fork again.

"I've never been," Stoyer says as she takes the plate of chapati from Spock. "Any big plans?"

"We're going to go see Everest and go to the beach," she says, suddenly realizing she's not sure if Spock swims or not. She'll find out, though, and he didn't protest when she had told him that she wanted to spend a significant amount of their vacation laying in the sun and doing nothing. They can build structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing and very logical sandcastles, maybe, and try to entirely forget about the Academy and Starfleet and the semester waiting for them halfway around the world.

"And?" Stoyer prompts.

"Eat," Nyota adds and shrugs because beyond reserving shuttle tickets and letting her parents know how long to expect them for, they haven't really made plans. "A lot."

"No extensive fieldwork opportunities?" Puri asks, dishing himself more matoke from the pot and putting more on Stoyer's plate, too, filling in what she's already eaten. "Where's the part when you two discover an ancient language and rewrite Earth's linguistic history in an afternoon?"

"It may be wise to dedicate more than a single afternoon."

"A day or two," she says lightly, putting her fork down again so that she can touch Spock's forearm with the back of her knuckles. "So we don't have to rush."

"Well, speaking of traveling," Stoyer says, "Though not of beaches - careful, Uhura, I might just join you, it sounds fantastic - we want to ask you two something and you don't have to say yes and you don't have to answer right now."

"You do have to say yes," Puri corrects. "Though we'll give you until dessert to let us know how completely excited you both are. Mostly you, Spock."

It's hard to take her hand from his arm so she doesn't bother, and it's even better when he takes her hand in his and pulls it into his lap, his thumb moving gently over hers and his eyes flicking to meet hers and then back to Puri, who's smiling again, and Stoyer who's spearing another plantain with her fork.

"We're going to Andor right before the beginning of the fall semester. With a newborn," Stoyer says, briefly closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "It's going to be great. And if you want, you two should come."

"That's…" Nyota starts, looking over at Spock, feeling his fingers tighten on hers even though he hasn't otherwise reacted, his eyes still moving between the two of them, until his attention finally settles on Stoyer.

"We won't even make you babysit," Stoyer quickly adds. "Please come, I need all the help I can get. There are hot springs and I'm going to insist that there are vegetables, and Spock, Puri's family loves you and wants to see you again, they ask about you all the time."

"That could be fun," Nyota says, squeezing Spock's hand in return and enjoying that tickle that spreads over her skin. She tries to imagine if he'll want to, really, and if she does, if she can even picture that far into the future with any clarity, when she hasn't even begun to think of much else other than getting through the coming semester. And their vacation, having Spock entirely to herself for two weeks, which makes her squeeze his hand again.

"Isn't that your anniversary?" Puri asks as he refills his wineglass and Nyota pauses with her own halfway to her mouth, her hand still tucked into Spock's as she exchanges a look with him. "Over the summer sometime? You're supposed to do something for those, Spock."

"I am aware," Spock says evenly and Nyota tries to hide her smile in her glass, works her thumb against his and wants to laugh or lean over and say something to Spock quietly, privately, though what it would be she's not sure. Something to draw out the twitch at the corner of his mouth, probably, something about how Stoyer hasn't looked up from her plate and Puri is still talking as she and Spock sit there, their hands twined together and his eyes flicking towards hers again.

"I can give you pointers," Puri offers.

"That will not be necessary," Spock says smoothly.

"Think about it," Stoyer tells them both. "It would be wonderful if you came."

As Nyota brushes her teeth that night, she stares into the mirror and listens to the faint sounds of Spock putting away the last of the dishes. She had left him rinsing the silverware and with the glasses to put on the top shelf, up where she still can't reach. A while ago, he had taken to leaving a glass for her down where he keeps the bowls, and she's more than once threatened to reorganize his entire kitchen without real intention to ever do so.

Another year, she thinks, of needing to stretch if she wants a second glass. Another year and a couple months after that and she will have graduated and gotten her commission and received her first posting, and his assignment to the Academy will be behind him, and these rooms will be as empty as his office is, left like an artifact of their past, traded for the promise of white corridors and displays backlit in blue and, as he comes up behind her as she rinses out her mouth, that steady, solid warmth that always rises up in her whenever he's near.

"We should go to Andor," she tells him as they push the blankets back on the bed and crawl beneath them. She scoots close to him and he lifts the sheet in invitation so that she can curl into his side and lay her head on his chest, her hand finding the place where his heart beats in his side.

"You would like to?"

"Maybe," she says. "If you do."

"I may." He pulls the blanket back up to his waist, settling it over her as well. She picks lightly at his shirt, rubbing the fabric in her fingers and feeling his eyes on her, so that she's not surprised when she looks up at him and finds him watching her hand. His eyes move to her face and she shifts so that she can better see him, propping herself up on her arm, her head resting in her palm.

"Andor is pretty near Vulcan," she says, which he knows, which might be why he doesn't react, but probably isn't.

"I had intended to inform you of that fact," he says and she's so surprised that her hand stills where she's been exploring the shape of his ribs beneath his shirt.

"You were?"

"And that there are other sights of interest in the near vicinity. You speak Circinian. Omicron Circini II is not far."

"What are you suggesting?" she asks, sitting up even further, laying her hand over his stomach and shifting so that she can sit beside him, her legs crossed and her knee bumping against his hip. It messes up the blankets that he just finished arranging and she's tired from finals and a long day and the wine that Puri kept pouring her, but she doesn't get to spend every night like this, hours stretching unplanned before them and no schedule to keep. It's precious to her, really, these times that they have together, too few and too far between, never quite enough to satisfy her so that she's always left waiting for more of him, nearly entirely sure that she might never get her fill. It makes her keep her hand on him and blink back the heavy drag of the late hour in favor of having him laying there next to her, staring up at her from his pillow.

"I am simply remarking on the relative positions of M-class planets in the Alpha Quadrant." He adjusts the blankets again, smoothing them where they've fallen rumpled next to her thigh, and then finding her knee with his hand like he did at dinner, like he does often now, more time than not whenever they sit together on his couch, or manage to find time to share a meal, his hand falling there and staying, spreading warmth straight through her in a way that she hopes never stops. "And," he says, his fingers circling her knee, "Due to Puri's obviously successful relationship, it would be illogical to not take his advice."

"Can I tell him you said that?"

"No."

"Can you believe they're having a baby?"

"No," he says and then corrects himself, shaking his head lightly and saying, "Yes."

"I can't either." She takes her bottom lip in her teeth, trying to picture it, Puri and Stoyer as parents of a tiny infant. It's easier to picture than she might have imagined and she's not the only one with a bursting excitement over the prospect, since whether or not Spock will ever say anything about it, she can feel his delight spreading thick and sweet where his fingers rest on her skin.

She smiles and leans down enough to kiss him once, quickly, hardly what she really wants to do with her hand on his stomach and him staring up at her like that, his eyes slowly opening again, but she can't help but point out, "Are you going to tell him when our anniversary actually is?"

"No."

"Is it because you don't actually know?"

"Perhaps," he says and she has to smile because she doesn't either, would be completely unable to pick a single day and might not even want to, not when she would have to choose one above all the rest.

She smooths her hand up to his breastbone and back down again. "Good."

"You do not want me to inform him?"

"I like that it's just ours. All of that," she says and would explain further, would detail to him what she means, but he nods and she scratches her fingers lightly across his stomach and nods too and leans down to kiss him again.

When she sits up again, there's a slight spark in his eyes, one that makes her smile at him, or maybe she was doing that anyway. She often feels like she's never stopped, not really, a joy constantly sitting in her that she has to push down during classes and meetings so that she doesn't just sit there and stare into some distance, a happiness that started a long time ago, longer than she's sure that she really knows.

"It would, however," he starts, and takes his hand from her knee to lightly touch her knuckles, "Be logical to account for the fact that he will will certainly remind me many times between now and the summer and it would be similarly rational to have an idea of what I am planning as soon as possible."

"You have something in mind?" she asks, smoothing her hand over his stomach again and then again after that.

"I had intended to ask you regardless," he says, his stomach twitching under her touch. "I fully anticipate you may already have looked at courses you wish to take over the summer, but my parents have been requesting that I return home before the Enterprise departs and I had thought that I might be persuaded to, if you were there. Andor is not far, as you are aware, and it would be an opportunity to-"

"Yes."

He blinks. "That was simpler to convince you of than I had anticipated."

She laces her fingers through his and tugs at his hand. "What was your fully thought out and very logically persuasive argument going to be?"

He answers immediately and without hesitation, very nearly smiling. "That while such a trip would foreclose an opportunity for course work, it might provide one for you to gather a significant amount of linguistic data, and that now that you have completed one paper, doing so again will likely be quite a bit easier and take less time, leaving you able to complete it while enjoying a vacation as well."

"Really," she says slowly, maybe surprised that he had taken the time to figure all that out, or maybe just needing the moment to let it sink in, the idea of it, something she might not have thought she wanted until she heard him say it, now growing brighter the longer she thinks about it.

"If you were in need of an advisor, I would be willing to offer my services."

"Is that so?" she asks, her mind ticking over the idea as his other hand covers theirs where they're linked on his chest, her hand trapped between his body and the warmth of his palm.

"And that perhaps if you will accompany me traveling for our anniversary this year, then you can then be responsible for arranging the following year," he says which pulls her thoughts from school and work to settle on him instead, the quiet way he said that and how he's holding her hand like that.

With her other one, she brushes his hair back, staring down at him, sure that someday her mind will catch up with everything about this, about him, will make sense of it all and she won't be constantly left dazed by the enormity of it all, but for now she just gives into enjoying it, letting the warmth of his words surge through her and leave her slightly amazed in their wake. "I'm really in charge of our second anniversary?"

"That is what I suggested, yes."

She leans over him and kisses his cheek. "And you'll do the third?"

"Yes," he says, a ghost of a smile playing over his mouth. She kisses that too until he softly kisses her back.

"And I'll do the fourth?"

"Your abilities to detect patterns are exemplary," he says, pressing his head back into the pillow enough to be able to look up at her.

She tugs at his fingers, letting their linked hands rest between them.

"What happens after our fourth anniversary?"

"I suppose that we will have a fifth."

"And then?" she asks, touching her lips to his mouth, his chin, his cheek, smiling when he does, pushing her nose next to his and kissing him again lightly.

"A sixth."

"And then?" she asks, letting her mouth linger against his, their lips brushing and his breath on her face.

"And then I will be forced to recommend you repeat your mathematics training if you are unable to deduce what comes a year after a sixth anniversary."

"I love you more than you can possibly know," she whispers, moving back enough to be able to stare down at him.

"Truly?" he asks and she smiles, still leaning over him, already picturing how she's about to kiss him again. She can see the rest of their evening too, and the next few days they have together and the weeks after that, the months and years even, unfurling out in front of them in a way that is nearly too much to imagine. It makes her ache with the thought of it, makes a laugh threaten to bubble up with everything she can't begin to contain. She cups his cheek in her hand, his eyes a soft, clear brown as he watches her and she bends down to him, filled with the thought that they're here now at the beginning of it all, just on the precipice of everything that hangs there, stretching out entirely too bright and golden and waiting for them.

…

The End

Thank you, thank you to everyone: albinofrog for proofreading, Sam for being the recipient of long winded emails, all the cheerleading here, cheerleading on tumblr, all of your wonderful questions and comments that created an experience around this story that was truly and absolutely exceptional. I often feel that we all started this together 41 chapters ago and that this story grew to what it is as a result of the love you all had for it, the engagement it spurred, and the care with which it was read. I'm sad for it to be at an end, happy that it's now out in the world to be enjoyed in its entirety, and proud of what it became over the months it took to create, a final product that is better for every comment, kudos, favorite, and message in my inbox. Thank you all so, so much for the experience that this was, and I hope this story continues to be as loved into the future as it has been since I took a deep breath and posted chapter 1, wondering if anyone would come join me on this long and winding ride.