Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Star Trek. Not even the new one.

This is the second to last chapter. What inspired me to write it more quickly than the others is because, to my surprise, it's sparked off two stories, Choices by Amaranth01 and Nyota chooses her destiny by Anon-ee-mouse: both alternate versions of chapter six. Give them a look, they're both brilliant!

However, I'm also surprised and rather taken aback at the reaction to that chapter. I realise it probably wasn't as good as it could have been, and I wouldn't have minded the feedback at all, but I honestly didn't think people had that much of a problem with it. It's rather strange to know that people have rather big peeves with this story and are talking about them but haven't told me what I might have gotten wrong. So please, if you don't like it, tell me so; I won't mind, constructive criticism is a good thing! This isn't a very good story and it gets worse as it goes on, it needs all the constructive critcism it can get!

Edit: Everyone, I deeply apologise for the above thing, I was rather stressed when I wrote it and was thinking about how everyone has more than one point, chapter six was really OOC now that I looked at it again. Also that I've sort of un-manned Spock, slightly. The trouble is, I don't quite know how to save Nyota. Saving a cheerleader is easy compared to this. :( xx

I watch him wake up in the chair that Chris put him in. He doesn't wake up like Spock, not quite. He's older. Perhaps he's more comfortable with who he is than Spock. He yawns a tiny bit. Spock never does that.

He pushes himself up. He looks around. He sees me.

We look at each other.

"Chris woke me up so that she could pull you off me. She said I was severely close to getting squashed."

"Vulcans do have a denser bone structure." Humour in his voice, a kindly old grandfather. Yeah, right.

"Yeah." I've been thinking about what to say to him. I think I've got it right. "Before I say anything else, let me say that you doing that mind meld was profoundly stupid, and the only reason I agreed to it was because I was probably high on drugs. If you ever try to do that again, do it when I'm in the right mind to say no."

The humour's gone now. "It was necessary. Words could not explain what I had to say."

"It was still stupid. What with the state we both were in, we could have scrambled our minds."

"There was a small chance of that." Spock ,admitting that he was wrong? Amazing! Let joy be unconfined!

She leans forward, elbows on her knees and chin on her clasped hands. "Look, Spock, it's not over. Just because I know why you did, it certainly doesn't mean I forgive you. It doesn't mean that I forgive those two, either. It's like I said, I hurt them, but not nearly as much as they hurt me. Can't you understand that? I loved Spock, and I know that he loved me, but in the end I wasn't enough. Kirk was more important to him. Or maybe you made him more important. Kirk!" I smash one hand down on the coverlet, just to me feel a bit better. "And then they presumed to know what was best for me. They were so arrogant. They couldn't let me be. They had to try to poke and pry, stick fingers into me and pull bits out that I wanted to keep in. So they've made me into this, and so have you.

"I need time, Spock. I need to be left alone. I don't need them, even if they need me to be happy with themselves. Is that healthy at all? Maybe one day I'll be okay with them, but certainly not yet. And…I don't think I'll ever really be okay with you. But that might change, with time. Do you understand that?"

He nods. "I understand, Ny-" He stops. He tilts his head. Does he have the right to call me that?

"That's good." He's so old, and so alone. I know what I know and I feel for him, though I wish I didn't. "Can you leave? I want to talk to Kirk. Then Spock. In private."

He walks in. He sits down. We look at each other.

"You wanted me to talk to you. All right, I'll talk. You're a completely selfish, self absorbed little prick who just can't leave things alone. You're obsessed with proving that you're right, even when it hurts other people. You always want to get your own way in absolutely everything. You're arrogant, conceited, disregarding. I hate you, Kirk. Not because you came together with Spock, although that hurt enough, but because of the way that you treated me. You couldn't stand that there was one girl who wasn't impressed by you, and you couldn't stand that there might be one person on this whole ship who didn't admire and praise your every decision."

I've got to get it all out. Every last drop. It's hard, though, because I've said this to spock, and now I'll have to say it to Spock again.

"You couldn't leave me be. Even when you had Spock that wasn't enough for you; you wanted me to be happy too, for the both of you or just happy in general. Or at least stop being unhappy so you didn't feel guilty about what you did. And when I couldn't do that, you tried to have me transferred. For my own benefit." I look full at him for the first time, let him know what I think of that. "You weren't doing it for me. You were doing it for you. Why couldn't you leave me be, Kirk? I wasn't bothering you, I wasn't doing anything. Why couldn't you let me be?"

I wait for him to answer.

"I could say it was because I didn't want you to be unhappy, but that'd just be bullshit in your eyes, wouldn't it?" He shifts. "I'm a screwup. I'm scared of what I have to do, who's ready to see me fall. I needed a friend, and Spock was there. And then he was there a little bit more. And there's you. I've seen a lot of sad people in my life, Uhura, and I've grown into the type of guy who wants to save everyone. Even if it's really stupid and I shouldn't do it and everyone'll be hating me for it afterwards, I'll still do it. I'll still try to save someone. Even if it means making them leave the place that they're so unhappy in. And I've been so angry at myself, because I kept trying but I just couldn't save you."

"You didn't need to save me."

"Maybe I didn't. Maybe someone else did. I didn't know, so I took the chance."

"Subtlety is not your strong point."

"Four years and you've finally got that?" He snorts, sobers. "Well, that's my weak ass excuse. I know how bad it is. You still hate me. I'll go now. Spock really wants to see you."

"Wait." He turns. This is the big one. "Look, Kirk. I said to old Spock that I don't know if I'll ever like him. The same goes for you. After what you've done, I don't know if we'll ever be friends, or I'll ever want to be. But you have to allow it to happen. You can't just grab onto me and say 'Friends forever!' because it doesn't work like that. Not after what you did.

"But I'm not going to leave, Kirk, because this is my ship and if you're the captain of it, that's just my bad luck for now, but I'm going to make it better. Because I want to be here. I've made friends, even if you're not one of them. I'm making myself a career. I'm making myself back up again. And I don't need your help for that, Kirk. What I need is fucking space. Do you see?

He nearly smiles, remembers. "I see."

I let him get to the door before I say it. "Kirk. You don't need to worry about me at your back. And don't worry whenever we come to some world that doesn't like you, or some admiral who wants to take the ship away, or someone who gives me a better offer. I will never, ever betray you. I will never work to the least of my ability just to spite you, as I'm sure you're noticed I've been doing since this mess started. If we're in a fight, I won't abandon you because of what you did. If you were captured I wouldn't write you off, and if I had a chance to rescue you I'd do my best to get you back."

He looks at me, uncertain. "Why."

Because Spock loves you. Because I loved Spock. because that's what I have to do."

"Work it out for yourself, Kirk."

He comes in. He sits down. He looks at me.

"Nyota."

"Oh, Spock."

"A daughter. We…you…we would have had a daughter."

It's still hard, even if I've been awake a bit and what happened is not so close. It's still hard to think of what came out of me as a baby. Was it even alive? Oh god, I hope not. Just the thought of feeling nothing but dark and pain – all right, I do feel something now. I feel sad. At last, I feel sad. She's gone. It was a girl, or what would become a girl, and she's gone.

"Oh, Nyota."

"What's…" I can't call what came out 'it'. Her. It would have been a her. Her. "What's happened to her?"

He looks at her as he can't tell what she's saying, and then seems to remember. "The ambassador has made arrangements. She will be taken to Vulcan. Sarek will receive her remains, and deal with them as is fitting for his first grandchild."

It wasn't a child! It was a mess! But it would have been a child.

"Her death is upon my head."

"Don't be stupid, Spock, it doesn't suit you."

His eyes are wide and darker, darker than ever. "If I had not left-"

"Oh, shut up!" I've never, never shouted at him before. Never! "Don't you dare think I blame you for this, you bastard! Do you think I'd lay her death at your feet? God, you really don't know me at all, do you?" He flinches, flinches away from me. "Spock, this wasn't your fault! McCoy says she probably wouldn't have lived in any case. It was just bad luck. It wasn't anything that you did."

He's crying now. Not as a human cries but as a Vulcan does. Vulcans do cry. His eyes are wet.

"Our daughter." He would have called her some form of Amanda. I know he would have.

We sit together.

Our baby.

He's calmer now, He still is in my presence. Can't imagine why.

"Has Spock told you what I told him?"

"Yes. Yes, he did."

"What do you have to say to that?"

"I…I do not have the words. This is all emotion. I was never good at it."

"Oh, you were."

It's always been worse, with him. Kirk I never liked much, but he…how could he? And with Kirk?

"I can't forgive you, Spock." he looks at me as I'm sure he looked at his mother when he was little, when she said something that was illogical and yet true. "I just can't." Just like I can't ask him if he would have come back if our baby wasn't gone, or how he thought it was acceptable to do this to me.

"Will you ever?"

I want to say yes. I want, I want so badly, because he was my friend and I loved him and now he's…I cannot tell a lie. Not to him.

"I don't know, Spock. I really don't know.

He nods. "That is a better option than never."

He gets up to leave, in his turn. At the door, he turns. "I…ventured to inscribe a name in the funerary urn, when I commissioned it." That arrogant…but she was his daughter too. "I…T'Amanda."

Oh god, what's Sarek going to think when he gets the urn?

"That's a good name. Pretty."

"She was beautiful. She still is." I don't even know which one he's talking about any more. He leaves.

And I'm saved.