Title: Damage.

Author: Linstock

Characters: Spock/Uhura.

Rating: G

Type: ST 09, angst in spades.

Warning: Loss

Summary: As Nyota packs away Gaila's belongings she reflects on all she has lost.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Star Trek or the characters or profit in from this writing.

AN: This fic had a double prompt. Firstly it is part of SpockLikeCats and my Drabble Challenge In addition I had in the back of my mind a prompt from some time ago where Gerriv wrote "I would love to read a story with your take on what happened after Spock told Nyota that he was going to New Vulcan and leaving the Enterprise and her." So this angst fest is partly Gerriv's fault.

In my "head canon", after the destruction of Vulcan, Spock tells Nyota that he is going with the Vulcans to establish a new colony. I think he would tell her as soon as he decided this himself. This fic is set after Spock tells Nyota but before his encounter in the hanger with his other self.

=/\=

Lt. Nyota Uhura had achieved every goal she'd set herself; she'd graduated with a commission and distinguished herself on her first active duty, securing a field promotion. Just this morning she had received notification of the appointment to the Enterprise command crew….in her short career she'd achieved more than even she'd dreamed possible.

Yet now, as she catches sight of her face in the mirror, she hardly knows herself.

The loss of countless lives and the heart-rending deaths of so many friends is explanation enough for her red-rimmed eyes and the sorrow etched in her features. But there's another reason for the aching emptiness lodged in her chest.

The madman Nero wanted to crush Spock, and even as he had failed … he'd succeeded. She is just collateral damage like a million million others.

Her Spock is an honest man. As soon as he'd decided his future lay with the resettlement of New Vulcan he had informed her. They'd said their final words of farewell. They had no future, just a brief blazing past. That was when she'd felt the hollowness settle deep in her chest. Now she wonders if it would ever go.

=/\=

Nyota stands in the room she'd shared with Gaila, who'd loved anything shiny, sparkling or mirrored. Gaila's exuberant, joyful personality was everywhere, sparkling in the ornaments hanging from the ceiling, glittering in the spangled objects on every surface, reflected in dozens of tiny fancifully shaped mirrors. How many times over the past three years had Gaila burst into the room thrilled to have found another "sparkly" to add to her collection? How she'd loved to lie in the dark and shine her hand light around watching the flashes of brilliance flare and skitter around the walls.

Nyota picks up Galia's small figurine of Tilita, the Orion deity of knowledge and success. Once Gaila had explained how ancient Orions believed Tilita demanded payment when she bestowed her blessings. Hadn't humanity learned there were multiple universes, some parallel, some diverging? Was the payment for this knowledge a million lives? What about her own successes? Was the payment Tilita demanded from Nyota the loss of love?

Carefully Nyota replaces the figurine.

Everywhere Nyota looks she sees reflections of herself. A hundred … a thousand … a myriad fractured, distorted selves.

=/\=

Nyota goes to a stack of plas-crates in the corner of the room and places one on Gaila's bed. Mechanically she reaches up and unhooks a large sparkling crystal. She doesn't look at the reflections glimmering in its facets. She wraps it in tissue, smothering its brilliance and places it gently in the stark empty box. Piece by piece she packs away all that remains of Gaila of Orion.

Suddenly rage flares thought her and in her mind Nyota storms and howls at Spock. Fool! Bind fool! How can you simply turn away? Does love mean so little to you? Do I?

She trembles with the intensity of the storm inside. She wants to lash out, to hurt, to smash and scream.

The anger feels sharp and powerful, and she holds it close to ward off the ocean of sadness waiting to flood her. She leans in and lets anger carry her.

She flings opened the wardrobe door and the flash and sparkle of Gaila dresses bring sudden tears to her eyes.

A green sequined dress lies crumpled on the closet floor. Nyota kneels. In the glittering sequins Nyota sees a flash; a vision… another Nyota, viciously angry, who draws a dagger and stalks toward another Spock. He's fast but she's faster. She wipes green blood off the blade and turns and stalks away.

A sob rises in Nyota's throat. No! Never! Kneeling on the floor, the dress like a pool of glittering emerald blood around her, she weeps for her Spock's wounds, the ones no one can see.

=/\=

Later, as she prepares for bed, Nyota gazes at her face in the mirror. It is reflected in the mirror hanging on the wall opposite, both images reflected back and forth to infinity. The window overlooking the black night time quadrangle reflects a faint image of the mirrored reflection, the framed photograph on the table, the monitor of the comm unit, all reflect her distorted image….so many versions of herself.

Nyota remembers something Spock said once about multiple universes: "everything that could happen has happened".

How many myriad Nyotas lived in those multiple universes? How many versions of pain are possible?

One thing Nyota knows, in a million worlds there is not one reality where Nyota Uhura walks away from Spock easily with no regrets and quickly forgets her intense but brief academy affair.

=/\=

But maybe, in one of these worlds, Cadet Nyota Uhura was a student of Commander Spock and he became her mentor and, over time, even a friend but nothing more. Maybe she teased him a little, as good friends do, and he calmly tolerated this because he respected her. Might that Nyota might sometimes wonder... "What if?"… then shake her head at the foolishness of what she was thinking? That Nyota would have a full life, rich with other loves. She would explore the stars, heart whole and free. Oh God, how she envied that Nyota the peace of not knowing what she missed.

=/\=

In this reality Nyota Uhura watches as tears run down her face, before turning briskly and wiping them away.

She's reached a decision.

Like most of the survivors of the Battle of Vulcan she had gone home after her return. Her brief visit home had been stilted and uncomfortable. She was not welcome in her father's house after he remarried. Her stepmother's questions about when she was leaving started the day she arrived and she'd returned to the academy the next week. Starfleet is her home.

She crosses to the communication terminal and enters request to be included in the team undertaking the initial testing after the Enterprise's fast-tracked refit. She will live on board as space dock has no spare rooms; that is of no consequence.

Two days later she is on board the USS Enterprise. Every surface in her quarters gleams, revealing distorted reflections. As she moves around, hanging her uniforms, and settling her few personal belongings into place every action is echoed in ripples of light and shadow.

This room will be her home for the next five years; this will be her solitary bed. Nyota sits, alone.

This is the only reality she has, there will be no more tears for what might have been, she is a survivor, an officer, an explorer and she will find her own way into this unknown.