AN: So, what, five months this time? I'm done with making promises, I only ever break them and then I feel terrible. But here you go. We're mostly over the angst for now, at least.

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After the adrenaline rush of the magnetic ion storm crisis, everybody was a little jittery the rest of the shift and the moment they left the bridge, they all erupted into frantic conversation, most of which was centered on Nyota. She was made a little uncomfortable by this. "It's not really true that I saved the ship," she pointed out, "Spock is exactly as capable of recognizing the anomalies as I am – more, really."

"Yes, but he wasn't monitoring the subspace, was he?" Kirk pointed out.

"Well, any communications officer would be monitoring that and they would have noticed the anomaly, and referred it to the science officer," she explained. She didn't have any problems with taking credit when she knew she deserved it, but this seemed a little excessive.

Surprisingly, it was Sulu who stepped in here. "I don't think you're right, Lieutenant, if you'll forgive me. I've served on a bridge before, and from what I've seen, communications officers very rarely do that. There never seemed to be much connection between science and communications to me. Perhaps if you didn't know the Commander so well, it wouldn't occur to you to consult the anomaly with him at all."

Nyota frowned. "That's certainly not that, but you might be right that if Spock didn't teach me SCPS -"

"Sorry, didn't teach you what?" Kirk jumped in.

"Subspace communication problem solving. It was an entire course about how to identify weird sounds on subspace, and maybe if I hadn't had him for that, it wouldn't have occurred to me to consult the anomaly with him. And I certainly wouldn't have been able to identify it myself."

"You seem unwilling to take any credit," Spock commented. "Every one of us owes a lot to our teachers, and yet it does not mean we deserve no honors ourselves. Another communications officer might have ignored the distortion, not realizing the significance. Or even if they recognized that such a big distortion meant something important, not identifying the problem exactly could have led to slower reaction on my part, and so on everybody else's part too. Given the situation, even seconds could have decided our fate – a small while later, and we would not have been able to pull away from the storm."

At this point, they reached the mess hall, and unusually, Mr. Scott was waiting for them there, at the bridge table. "What was that about, captain?" He asked.

"Uhura and Spock used their miraculous geekiness to warn us all against some pseudo-black hole that was threatening to swallow us."

Spock almost visibly flinched at this summing up, and said: "To make the Captain's explanation more precise, the magnetic ion storm constituted a gate to a parallel dimension, in which a domain wall was located."

"Domain wall! Well, I'll be...A damned pity one can't really go and explore it, isn't it, Commander?"

"God save us from crazy scientists," Leonard, who'd arrived a moment before, commented. "You will kill us all one day."

"Indeed," Spock noted. "such behavior certainly would achieve that. In this case, Lieutenant Uhura," Nyota shot him a look – they were off shift, he could be using her given name, "sent a warning to Starfleet about this phenomena, for all ships to avoid it. It is extremely dangerous."

"Well then," Kirk turned the attention back to himself, "to Uhura and Spock and their brilliance!" And everybody raised their glasses, even though they contained only water.

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Why are you made so uncomfortable by this? Spock asked in her mind once they were alone, and melded.

In response, she directed him to her feelings of frustration and incomprehension and commented: I was only doing my job.

But it always is like this. Every act of heroism is 'merely' the Starfleet member in question doing their job, till the very end.

Nyota considered this. He was probably right. Even the captain of USS Kelvin, her personal idealized type of Stafleet hero, was 'only' doing his job, protecting the ship till the very end. And Kirk and Spock, too, towards the end of the Nero crisis.

Yes, Spock agreed, seeing the direction her thoughts have taken.

I think I understand the Vulcan view of heroes better, in this light, Nyota commented. In some ways, we have all been trained and conditioned for this kind of responses for four years. That doesn't mean we won't fail, but it makes the proper kinds of reaction much easier to come by.

Which is precisely the point of the training, Spock added. Strange as this notion seems to be to most humans, in some ways even ethics can be trained.

A pity I didn't get some kind of training in the 'how to treat your boyfriend' department, too, Nyota thought bitterly, then immediately felt guilty for bringing this up again.

But that is precisely the point, Spock thought at her, with a chiding overtone she understood meant he disapproved of her flash of guilt – he'd told her many times she shouldn't be afraid to let her thoughts flow naturally. You didn't. You have been single for a long time, and in spite of the loneliness that brings, it also brings the room to act entirely in accordance with one's own wishes, without any regard necessary for anyone else's. You got the training, if you will, in the opposite direction. It is not simple to retrain oneself.

You have been alone even longer than me, Spock, and you don't seem to have this problem.

She could sense him mentally shaking is head. But what have you ever asked of me, Nyota?

The question confused her, and he sent a small and sad mental smile in response to that confusion. I am serious, he said then. You never required anything but that I occasionally express my affection in public. Meanwhile, I have burdened you with pon farr and my depression and despair, both in the mental bond and in my mind...

That's hardly your fault!

Nevertheless, it is what I have required of you to deal with, in one way or another. You do not know if I will not act even more selfishly than you did – Nyota tried not to attempt to suppress the pang of pain she felt at him stating it so blandly. She knew it was true, but it still hurt - yet she did want the meld to be full, and that meant no hiding. Additionally, hiding wasn't really possible. He would notice anyway, and he would also notice her attempt to conceal it, and it would upset him, she knew.

Instead, she interrupted him: I doubt you ever acted selfishly in your life, Spock. No reason to expect you'd start now.

I would ask you to wait with those judgments till our relationship is of a longer duration, perhaps till we are bonded.

Ahh, that reminds me, and Nyota's thoughts took on a much pleasanter overtone, the shore leave...

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"Captain," Spock said the next day after shift, "I would like to request shore leave for myself at the next opportunity."

"I expect that means Nyota will want one too?"

Spock looked steadily over the captain's head. "Yes, captain."

"Very well then, consider it arranged. Count it as a favour, Spock, since technically you going down means I can't – even though I think I'll probably go and look there at least for a while..."

Spock blinked. "Captain, if you intend to go down to the shore leave planet, then I will have to remain here, of course."

The Captain seemed surprised. "Really? You'd do that?"

"Naturally."

"Uhura would kill you," the Captain pointed out.

Spock only looked at him. "I assure you Lieutenant Uhura takes duty as seriously as I do."

The Captain chuckled. "You know that you might actually be right? A scary thought. In that case, she'd just kill me if she discovered I spoiled you break together, so I guess I'd better stay on board." He paused, and then muttered, "or wait till you leave to make my departure."

"I feel I ought to inform you," Spock noted, "that Vulcans have very good hearing, Captain."

"Oh, I'm perfectly aware of that. I just want to keep you on your toes. A vague suspicion that I might leave the ship later would not be enough to keep you here, would it?"

Spock hesitated.

"Ha! I knew even you had a little humanity in you – metaphorically speaking, that is, I am aware of who your mother was." The Captain suddenly grew serious. "Sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."

"It is quite all right, Captain," Spock said calmly. "Mentions in passing have no power to deepen my grief." Hardly anything could. It was too deep already.

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Since his personal situation was now improved, Spock didn't need to meditate so much any more and that meant he found time for some free-time activities too. One of them was reading the Head Engineer's articles, and he was pleasantly surprised. That did not happen to him often, certainly not when it came to scientific journals, most of which were unfortunately rather uninspired. If something, Lieutenant Commander Scott's article suffered from an overabundance of inspiration. But that would only hold true if Spock wanted to find something to criticize at any cost. Yes, the method left a little to be desired – it could certainly do with a little more polishing – but the conclusions were convincing and absolutely fascinating. And that was written before he had the equations from Spock's older self...

And so, after one shift shortly before shore leave, Spock headed to Engineering to talk to the prodigy once more.

"Lieutenant Commander Scott?" He interrupted a rather heated discussion with two ensigns. It appeared to be about the proper way to tend to the warp core – as an aside, Spock noted that the Lieutenant Commander was certainly right and that he was pleasantly surprised again, this time by the engineer's diligence. All data until now had indicated rather the opposite character trait, but Spock supposed that perhaps exceptions were made for the warp core. It was often like this with humans, he knew, that they would take care only of those things that particularly mattered to them.

"Yes, Commander?" The engineer immediately turned to him.

"May I occupy your time for an unspecified period?"

"Oh, sure. Come to my office again."

Once they were seated, Spock started: "I have read the articles of yours you have directed me to, and I have to say I am very impressed. Your approach is distinctly creative while remaining well reasoned."

"Thank you, Commander! That is high praise, coming from you." There appeared to be slight red coloring in Lieutenant Commander's cheeks, but Spock could not say whether it was a result of the previous heated discussion or whether it was a recent development.

"I wanted to ask when you intend to publish an article based on the equations my alternate self communicated to you," Spock continued.

The head engineer frowned. "I wasn't planning on it."

"I beg your pardon?" Spock was astonished. "Why?"

"Well, seems a little unfair, doesn't it?" the Lieutenant Commander shrugged. "I didn't actually do the work on it...I thought your alternate self might want to do it."

Spock's eyebrow went up. "That would certainly be even more unfair, since he has no connection to their discovery. I understand that taking on the merits of your self from an alternate reality is extremely dubious as well, but you should take into account that those equations were invented by you in the other world and there is no particular reason to expect someone else would come up with them in this one around the same time, since your genius seems to be exceptional." Lieutenant Commander Scott opened his mouth, but then he closed it again, and so Spock continued: "You can no longer discover them here, because you already know them, and yet our civilization should have the opportunity to benefit from them. I certainly believe they deserve an article, and soon."

"Are you certain your alternate self wouldn't mind?" The Head of Engineering asked dubiously.

"If it will put your mind to rest, I will ask him the next time I speak with him, but I am ninety-nine point three per cent certain, yes," Spock confirmed.

The Lieutenant Commander seemed to be considering the matter. "Well, I suppose I could start working on it here and then publish it after we return from our mission..."

Spock inclined his head. "I believe that would be ideal, yes."

"Commander," the engineer hesitated, "would you consider proofreading the article for me afterwards? I know it's not your field, but it would do me a great service."

"It would be my honor."

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AN: Writing Sulu makes my head hurt. I just can't do it. He probably won't be in the story much, sorry about that – I originally intended for more of him, but I just can't get him right.