"Should old acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?"

Christmas had been noisy, as Christmas at her parents' house always was. It was filled with comings and goings, old fashioned party games, and far too much rich food. There had also been too many people – aunties, uncles, cousins, sisters, and all with their accompanying partners. This meant that Uhura (who was 'Nyo' when at home), shared her old bedroom with two other women. She didn't mind at all, why would she? Except that the only moments she felt truly alone, during the whole week she was there, were in the early hours of the morning. The steady breathing and pressing darkness of one AM promised her that everyone else was asleep and, in consciousness at least, she was alone. It was in these precious moments, before sleep eventually enveloped her into the strangeness of her dream land, that she allowed herself to remember.

The steady, warm pressure of his lips against hers. His body like steel, so straight and hard and immovable. The gentle hot flutter of his breath against her cheek. And the terrible cold that he left behind when he shifted away again, leaving her wanting more – longer, harder.

In many respects, it was a relief to return to the Academy. No one there would notice she was distracted because she was always distracted, her mind always at least three quarters on a research project or Klingon syntactical issue that had been raised in an earlier class. No one would think, as her mother had done, to ask what else was so good that it kept her mind away from her family.

Like many of the cadets, Uhura had elected to return a day early, on New Year's Eve. Gaila had been delighted to see her, and even helped her carry the stack of PADDs that would not fit in her suitcase. Everyone always got her books for Christmas, and she didn't have the heart to transfer them all onto her one large data PADD in front of everyone. She would recycle the unnecessary and bulky computer panels at school. The only one she had kept separate was the one that Spock had given her. Nine-thousand hours of vocal recordings was a little too much, even for the huge hard drive of her regular PADD. At least, if she also intended to keep all the other material that she needed on there.

Holding the door open so Uhura could pass into their room, Gaila asked, "You're coming out tonight, right?"

"I'll come out, but I'm not drinking," she replied, dumping the heavy suitcase on her bed. Their small room was exactly as she had left it, and it made her smile. It felt like home these days. Her home away from home.

"Famous last words," Gaila teased.

It was a custom in some regions of Earth to be self-effacing about one's appearance, no matter what the actualities of their physical attributes. Personally, Uhura didn't see the point. The fact she was slender and attractive did not detract from her intellect or determination – both of which were far more important in the grand scheme of things. But on the rare occasions that Uhura found that she did want to show off the athletic figure she had worked so hard to achieve, she knew exactly how to do it. A tight black skirt, a short silver shirt and some dangerously high heels later, and Uhura was perfecting the flick of her eyeliner in the mirror.

"We need to go, or the door charge is going to go up," Gaila nagged. It wasn't often she got the chance to hurry her fastidious room mate.

"You can't rush perfection," Uhura murmured, pouting her lips at the mirror. She switched her focus, looking instead at her green-skinned friend in the glassy surface. "Lucky for you, I'm not perfect. Come on, let's go."

After the quick wind that whipped through San Francisco Bay and around the quad of Starfleet Academy that cold December night, the hot press of the Academy bar was almost stifling. The air throbbed with heavy bass beats that hearkened to the 1960s and were all the retro rage. Her hips swayed easily, head nodding in time to the music, and she smiled as Gaila danced off into the darkness.

Flashing lights illuminated portions of the bar, lighting up groups of familiar and unfamiliar faces. She scanned the crowd, looking for one distinctive dark head, without really expecting to see him. Not exactly his scene, she told herself sternly. The room was made up of crowds of rowdy, drunk humans, all bent on getting intoxicated and pressing themselves up against one another. Kissing and pressing and no-doubt screwing, on the flimsy excuse of a day – which could really have been any day – which marked the passage of time on Earth.

"What can I get you?" a familiar voice shouted over the music. She turned, a smile already fixed on her face.

"A shot of Jack for me," she said, automatically taking a step backwards, out of Jim Kirk's personal space. She could hear him just fine above the music, thank you very much. "And a Black Hole for Gaila," she added pointedly.

"Oh, Gaila's here?" he said, half innocent half interested. Uhura couldn't think that Gaila's presence hadn't occurred to him. There was hardly a possibility Gaila would stay in and study when such a marvellous excuse to fornicate lay at her feet. He glanced around the crowd and smiled when he spotted her. "Well, that's great. You can both come and join us. Keep Bones company; his ex-wife's been driving him nuts."

"Oh, can I?" Uhura said in false excitement, her smile genuine this time. She spotted McCoy's sour expression at the other end of the bar. He really did look like he was having a rough time. "I'll go say 'hi'."

"You do that," Kirk muttered in her ear, brushing a little too close for comfort as she passed by.

Three hours, five shots of Jack, four dances with Gaila, two dances with Bones, and a 'thank you' to Kirk for the Mr Potato Head Christmas present later, and Uhura was feeling slightly giddy. She kept glancing about the room, much to her room mate's amusement, but was never satisfied. And each time she told herself it was stupid to expect him, her internal voice sounded a little more petulant.

At a quarter to midnight, she stood up.

"Hey, where are you going? You're going to miss the whole thing!" Bones slurred, smiling lasciviously as his head skewed towards her.

She smiled, giving him a gentle shove back into an upright position; but his head only over-balanced once more and rolled onto Kirk's shoulder. "I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She grinned at Gaila, who had a delicate red eyebrow raised in her direction, despite the attention Kirk was paying to her neck. "Besides, if I miss it, I'm sure there'll be another one next year."

Slipping between the press of bodies, Uhura burst into the cold night air. Looking up, she saw a sea of stars spread out through the black above. She smiled. She would see those stars soon. Two more years, and she'd be up there.

But for the time being, she was very much Earth-bound. And down here, it was cold. Wrapping her arms across her belly, chafing the skin on her forearms, she skipped across the quad. The wind whipped at her hair, making it fly in her face, and raised goose flesh on her bared skin. Pausing in front of the automatic door, waiting for the sensor to pick up her movement, she could still hear the music that pounded in the bar next to the bay. People had begun to spill outside, staggering and swaying towards the tall clock before the Academy building.

With a swish the doors opened, and Uhura jogged inside. The commanders' and professors' Halls were quiet. Empty, Uhura suspected. Almost entirely, but not quite. Turning right, she made for the stairs. He was only two floors up, there was no point in taking the elevator. What's more, jogging up the steps burned off some of her nervous energy. She was drunk (only a little) but what she had in mind still made everything in her tighten up. If she was going to do it, she'd need to build up some momentum, or the repressed straight-A student within her would walk her straight back to the bar and her friends.

Some of her friends, she mentally corrected. One of them was demonstrably absent.

She stood outside the familiar door, thumb pressed hard against the chime. He took a little longer to answer than normal – or was that her nervousness? Either way, she began to worry that he had gone out, had just been avoiding whatever bar she decided to be in.

The door slid open, and Spock stood before her in his black Starfleet uniform, hair perfectly flat and straight, face placid with only a flicker of surprise in his human eyes. A lazy smile spread across her face. "Can I come in?" she said, fighting hard to keep a slur out of her voice.

"I thought you would be out celebrating," he said, still standing cautiously in the doorway.

Uhura's stomach dropped. He didn't want her here. She looked down at the floor, hands twisting behind her back. "I was, but ... it was kind of dull. And I thought you might be alone and," she shrugged, risking a glance up at his stoic face, "I didn't like to think of you alone."

"An admirable sentiment, but misplaced," he said softly. "I enjoy my own company."

She nodded slowly, taking a step backwards. "I can go. It's not a problem."

Something played over his face. It might have been invisible to anyone else, but she had spent so long studying that implacable mask. His eyes glanced to the side, eyebrows drawing ever so slightly together, and the fingers of one hand twitching as though ... as though reaching for her. "You may stay," he said, standing to the side of the door. "If you wish."

Uhura smiled at him. "That would be nice. If you don't mind." She checked his face once more, for any small sign of regret or disappointment, but the features were perfectly still once more. So she passed him, entered the dark room. The only dim illumination in the room came from the window that looked down over the quad. Distantly, she heard the voices of the few revellers who had come out to see midnight struck out from the main Academy clock tower. "I'm sorry, were you sleeping?"

"Meditating," he corrected. "I do not often require sleep."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, pausing, at a loss as to whether to stay or leave. But he had closed the door now, and was stepping towards her.

They stood together at the window. He looked down at the people, gathered, swaying, shouting and singing. "I really didn't mean to disturb you," she said softly. Only one half of his inscrutable face was visible, the other half left in shadow. She studied the smooth sweep of his eyebrows, the curve of his lips, the high definition of his jaw line. Gaila called the expression stern, but Uhura now thought he looked serene. There was solace in his calm expression.

"Just because I am interrupted, it does not follow that the interruption is unpleasant."

Such small, comforting phrases were rare from Spock, and Uhura basked in them.

Through the thick plate glass, the first chime of midnight rang out across the quad. They both glanced out at the people, who hugged and shouted, "Happy New Year," a few couples kissing as others started up the chorus of Auld Lang Syne.

Uhura turned to face Spock, only a half a step bringing her close enough to brush her body against his. Tilting her head back, she was grateful for the three inch heels that brought her very nearly to his eye level. A small smile playing over her glossy lips, she leant in and murmured, "Happy New Year, Spock," against his lips, before joining their bodies in a kiss.

The first time they kissed, she had been taken by surprise, had barely been given a chance to enjoy the feel of his closeness, the texture of his skin, before it was taken away again. This time Uhura was determined to get all she needed before he could start thinking sense and pull away from her.

If she had expected to feel a surprised tensing of his facial muscles, she was sorely disappointed. Whatever his hidden feelings were within, he remained perfectly still, not a twitch or a blink or a sigh. All the better, Uhura thought, as she twisted her lips against his, revelling in the rough sensation of very, very slight stubble against her chin. Her hands came up to his shoulders, for purchase as much as anything. He was so solid against her, so immovable, and yet when his lips finally reacted to her he was so tender. Hot and wet and such a beautiful slide of skin against skin. Uhura could not help the murmur that escaped her throat, nor the way she tilted her head and flicked out her tongue to taste his skin.

She heard him swallow, and it was enough. It was a reaction. And it thrilled her.

Her fingers brushed the nape of his neck, silky skin melting into silky hair, and all so warm as though it were sun-kissed. She couldn't taste anything distinctive, though a breath skidded across her skin at the contact, and his mouth opened to say something. She took the opportunity and slid her tongue against his, the slick slide shooting sparks of lust through her system. "Spock," she murmured against his lips, pulling back to drop dry kisses across his face. There were so many things she wanted to tell him but, even in her somewhat drunken state, everything that ran through her head sounded clichéd and romantic.

Whatever this was, whatever she wanted from Spock, it was not convention and it was not romance.

She sighed her frustration against Spock's jaw, her nose nuzzling against his pointed ear, which may or may not have been tinged green.

His hands on her hips, his grip firm but gentle. Uhura couldn't help the sinking feeling that she was about to regret her actions. "Nyota," he whispered, and another thrill skittered along her spine at the rough texture of his voice. "This is unwise."

She smiled against his neck, her arms sliding around his shoulders to hug him. It might have been a platonic embrace, if it were not for the wet press of her lips against his neck. "I know," she whispered back, pressing the length of her body against his. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head slightly, fingers tightening around her slim hips, before pushing her gently away. "Unwise is not unwelcome." His face was entirely in shadow now, and Uhura took a step back to give him some space. "But we would be very foolish to continue any further. I suspect you know this."

However grudgingly, she nodded. "I know," she said. She took three breaths, glancing around the dark room. Try as she might, she could not think of a gracious way to excuse herself.

"Your friends will be looking for you," Spock offered softly. He still had one hand on her hip.

Silently, she thanked him. "Yes." She took his hand, squeezed it once, and turned back to the door. Silently, he followed her, pressing the door panel so that the grey portal slid open.

"Happy New Year, Nyota," he said softly, and leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to her cheek – one that anybody who happened to pass, would assume was simply a tipsy exchange of platonic affection. Although Uhura tried half-heartedly to turn her head, to capture his lips once more, he evaded her. She took two steps back, looking sadly at the Vulcan man who had been her private instructor. "I will expect you at eighteen-hundred hours on Wednesday," he said, his voice back to it's usual, even tone. "As normal."

Heart thudding in her chest, Uhura swallowed. "As normal," she repeated, before turning to walk down the hallway.