Disclaimer: who could blame me for wanting to steal this? It's not theft, really. I'm just... borrowing it. For my own devious purposes.

Epilogue

As evening fell, the door of Spock's apartment slid open and admitted one slender, dark figure.

"Spock?"

"I am here," said a quiet voice.

Uhura followed the sound of his voice around the corner to where he was sitting on the couch, his lute laid across his lap. "The strings require constant maintenance," he explained. He was wearing his Starfleet-issue pajamas, a simple black T-shirt and loose black pants of thin cotton.

She walked over at sat next to him. "It's beautiful," she said.

He nodded, staring at her face. "I thought," he said slowly, "that you might have returned home. To visit your family."

She smiled, shaking her head. "My mother won't hear of it, in my delicate stage of recovery." She smiled wryly.

His brows came together slightly. "How are you?"

"I had another treatment today. The scar's almost gone." She lifted her shirt a little to show him the faint pale line of the surgery scar. "The wonders of modern medicine, eh? It'll be completely gone by tomorrow."

Slowly, so as not to alarm her, Spock reached out a hand and traced the line of the scar. She shivered slightly at his touch. He drew back his hand, but she grabbed it. Her look was not one of desire, however, but concern. She laid the back of one cool hand on his forehead. "Are you feeling alright, Spock? You're burning up."

"Vulcan body temperature is generally higher than a human's," he said, evading her eyes.

Both her hands were on his face now. She gave a slight wry smile. "I believe I am familiar with your general body temperature, Mr. Spock. Are you hoarse?"

"I have a slight sore throat," he admitted. "And a headache." He reached up to catch her wrists and met her eyes. "But I believe it is apparent what illness I am suffering from."

A look of dawning realization came across her face. "You said Vulcans couldn't--"

"In retrospect," he said, "It seems highly unlikely that many Vulcans would have been exposed to the, ah... kissing disease."

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"It seemed both unnecessary and imprudent. I would not wish to cast aspersions on the nature of our relationship. I believe I should be sufficiently recovered by the end of the break to permit me to continue teaching classes."

"Oh Spock," she said, brushing his bangs and smoothing her cool hand across his forehead. "I'm sorry."

"I am not. Considering the events that have led to my illness, I believe that it is what a human would call 'a price well worth paying.'"

"Well we can blame James T Kirk for this," she said, her cool hands now resting on either side of his neck, her thumbs just brushing his jawline. "If he hadn't been such a skirt-chasing jackass with daddy issues and borderline alcoholism, I would have never gotten sick in the first place."

Spock cocked his head slightly. "Fascinating."

"What?"

He frowned slightly. "Had you not become ill, do you believe that our relationship would have progressed beyond that of student and teacher?"

"Why Spock, that sounds like second guessing. Is that entirely Vulcan?"

Spock sighed and said something that he did not generally admit aloud. "I believe the time may be coming for me to accept that I am not entirely Vulcan, no matter what my own aspirations may be." He frowned slightly, staring at the instrument still in his lap.

She took his lute and laid it gently aside. Taking his hands, she stood up. "Come on, Spock."

He allowed her to lead him through into his sleeping chambers. Releasing his hands, she stared at his bed. It was standard Starfleet issue, the double bed found in officer's apartments at the Academy.

"No pillows?" she said, disbelievingly. "No sheets? No blankets?" She turned back to him. "What do you do with that?"

"I sleep on it, Nyota," he said, confusion showing slightly in his eyes. "Is there another purpose?"

"Oh we have a long way to go, you and I." She looked back at the bare bed, frowning as if the bed were a particularly challenging equation to solve. "Eventually I hope it will have a very different purpose."

He followed her line of sight. It seemed perfectly acceptable to him. It was possessed of a molded headrest, as all Starfleet mattresses were. There was no need for pillows. And no matter what the San Fransisco weather decided to throw at them, he kept his quarters the temperature of a relatively cool Vulcan evening, which should have been comfortable for a human as well. No further insulation was required.

She gave a short huff. "Sit there," she said, pointing at the bed. He tone indicated that she found it thoroughly inadequate, though he was uncertain how.

He sat on the bed, and Uhura grabbed the chair from his desk. She set it up in front of his closet and stood on it in order to access the overhead storage.

"I could assist you."

"You are sick. You will stay right there."

Though she was now struggling to remove a large Starfleet-issue storage container, he knew better than to assist her. Sitting on the bed, he was uncomfortably aware of his own raised body temperature, which made the room feel colder by comparison.

"Nyota," he said as she successfully removed the container. "Would you still be comfortable if I were to raise the thermostat by several degrees?"

"You will do no such thing." She undid the clasps and surveyed the contents of the chest. "I knew they came standard with every room." She pulled out two large pillows. Striding over to the bed, she laid them at the head of the bed, fluffing them to her satisfaction. "Lie back," she said quietly as soon as she was done.

He obeyed her. The pillows were cool, and soft, and unexpectedly pleasant. Unfamiliar, yes, but the sensation was extremely... comfortable.

He looked over and saw Uhura approaching with two large pieces of fabric that he identified as a sheet and a comforter. She swept the covers over his prone form in one smooth motion and then proceeded to fiddle with the edges of the blanket, smoothing them and straightening them.

"Nyota?"

"Yes, Spock?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm tucking you in," she said firmly. "It is a human ritual observed when someone we care for is unwell, unhappy or simply tired." She smiled up at him. "It's supposed to make you feel more comfortable. Do you?"

Spock pondered the sensation of her hands carefully tugging and smoothing the blankets. The sheets were cold now, but he judged that his body heat would soon bring them to a more acceptable temperature. The pillows beneath his head were more supportive than the bare covered foam of the headrest, and the general sensation of being so enveloped was not as unpleasant as he might have thought it would be.

"I believe so," he answered at last, before raising his eyebrows at her. "But I would be just as comfortable without the excess of fabric and with the thermostat raised by a few degrees."

"I'm not gonna raise the thermostat, Spock." She finished her rearrangements of the sheets and comforter and stood back to admire her handiwork.

Fresh throbbing pain was pounding in Spock's temples. He closed them, attempting to force the pain to the back of his mind with his Vulcan willpower. Unexpectedly, he felt cool fingers bringing his hair back from his forehead. Opening his eyes, he saw Nyota staring at him, a tiny crinkle between her brows.

"You have a headache?" she asked. He nodded. Nyota leaned forward and kissed him gently on the forehead, and he closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her cool lips on his feverish skin. "There. Does your head still hurt?" she whispered.

Without opening his eyes, he replied, "I do not believe that kisses possess any qualities of pain relief."

"Don't tempt me," she warned. He opened his eyes and saw her smirking at him. "I still haven't tried getting you to kiss back yet."

His eyes flicked briefly away, though the rest of his face was immobile. He hoped (in vain) that Nyota's eyes were not sharp enough to catch the flicker of embarrassment in his eyes.

"Someday I'm gonna make you blush," she declared suddenly. "Just to see if it's green."

His eyes returned to her face, and his brows came together slightly for an instant. "I do not follow your reasoning, Nyota."

She sighed and wriggled into the bed, slipping behind him and positioning herself so his head was resting back on her chest. He tried to turn to look up at her, inquire what she was doing, but her hands were firmly on either side of his aching head now, forcing him to look forward. She placed her gentle, cool fingers on his temples and began massaging his head, her fingers working their way along his temples, tracing the line of his eyebrows and working through his scalp.

He closed his eyes, feeling the pressure gently rubbing away his pain. He hummed his satisfaction, and heard her laugh quietly behind him.

After a moment, she kissed the top of his head and whispered in his ear, so her lips just brushed the pointed tip. "I'll be right back."

"Mmhmmm," he murmured contentedly, leaning forward so she could slide out from behind him. He laid back on the pillows and allowed himself to bask in the momentary relief she had brought him.

He could hear her moving around through the rest of the apartment. She had started humming. He smiled a fractional Vulcan smile to himself as he recognized Mozart's wind serenade in C minor. Nacht-Musique.

He heard her return and moments later, the scent of warm plomeek made him open his eyes. She was standing beside him with a steaming bowl of soup.

"You did not need to do that," he said, sitting up.

"I wanted to."

"Thank you Nyota." He accepted the bowl. After staring at the plain broth for a moment, he suddenly looked back up at her. "Do you perhaps have some lemon basil?"

FIN

A/N: So, this is probably totally unnecessary, but just by way of a final explanation-- I don't generally write fanfiction, but I was deeply intrigued by the character of Spock, and, as an experiment, I decided to start writing something in his voice, just to see if I could.

Also-- I had been reading Star Trek Fanfiction, and I found that most of the Spock-Uhura stuff made my picky-canon buzzer go off. In AU-Trek, all the differences spring from the Narada's first contact with the Kelvin, yes? THEREFORE, Spock and Uhura's relationship must in some way spring from that event. In this story-- it's Kirk. Had Kirk grown up with a proper father figure, he would have been (slightly) less of a jackass, and wouldn't have tried to get Uhura drunk to find out her first name and she never would have gotten mono in the first place.

*quietly returns the Canon-Beast to it's cage*

Okie dokie. Now that that's done with, I'll just say this: writing all of the cute in this chapter almost made my head explode (in a good way) Please let me know if you liked reading it as much as I liked writing it... I honestly haven't decided yet whether want to try for a sequel.

Many thanks to all those who read and reviewed!