Anniversary Waltz, Chapter 8 - Rated R
Title: Anniversary Waltz (8/?)
Rating: R (mature)
Characters/Pairing: Kirk/Uhura
Disclaimer: Characters and canon belong to Paramount, Roddenberry, Abrams and many others but not me. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.
Summary: One year prior, the Enterprise had shipped out for its first mission under the official command of James T. Kirk and the young captain had deemed it a day worthy of recognition
Hours later she found him hunched forward in a chair, head dipped down to his chest, fisted hands dangling between his legs. The quiet hiss of the door signaled her entry into his quarters and he glanced up briefly before returning his attention to the carpet between his booted feet.
She hesitated before moving closer. He was bare-chested and as she crouched on the floor at his feet, she noted a blood-splattered gold tunic lying in a ruined heap in one corner of the room. She shivered once with relief that the blood was not his.
“I wanted to be here sooner.” She sat back on her heels and ducked her head in an attempt to catch his eye.
“No.” Unrelieved tension thickened his voice. “I need to know that my best people are at their stations during a crisis.”
“Jim.” She whispered his name and he finally dragged his gaze up to meet hers, his expression bleak. She pressed her hands against his knees and moved between them.
“What can I do?” Helpless in the face of the raw agony etched on his handsome features, she skimmed her fingers over his cheek in a gentle caress.
“I don’t know what happened,” he confessed hoarsely. “I missed some sign, some clue… I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out where I went wrong.” Confused misery dulled the normally vivid blue of his eyes.
She shifted closer. “I don’t think there was any way to know,” she murmured. “There was nothing in any of the briefs compiled by Starfleet; nothing in our own research to indicate this was even a possibility. When it became evident that the Enterprise was traveling to K’aranga, Delgado was so excited. She did such an exhaustive study of their culture that she had become an expert on them - and even she…
Emotion tightened her throat and her voice trailed off helplessly.
“Is that what I should tell her family? Oops? We didn’t know that your daughter’s unfortunate resemblance to a mythical goddess would get her killed? Or maybe I should just say that I’m sorry I accidentally gave permission for them to murder her?”
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you.” Exhaustion slurred his words.
“She was only twenty-two years old.” He stated it as if decades separated him from the ensign, instead of only a few short years.
“I know.” She rested her cheek against his thigh and closed her eyes. She knew the overall youth and inexperience of the ship’s crew was a pressing weight on its captain - especially when he was forced to order them into a dangerous situation. He worried over injuries caused to any member of his crew, mourned the loss of all life, but never more so than when a person’s life was cut short before they even had an opportunity to begin to shine.
“What were they thinking?”
She had to strain to hear the softly spoken words. Resting her chin on his knee, she tipped a questioning face up to his.
“Who?”
He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m barely a year out of the Academy. I should be a rookie officer under someone else’s command,” he whispered. “Not the captain of a constitution class vessel - let alone the fleet’s flagship!” His voice was thick with emotion as every one of his insecurities arose to mock him.
She rose to her knees, pressing a finger against his lips. “I want you to listen to me. There was no possible way you could have anticipated what happened down there. And a more experienced captain would have gone into the same circumstances every bit as blind.”
“But a seasoned officer with more diplomatic experience might have been able to diffuse the situation before…”
She thought of the dizzying speed at which everything had happened and slowly shook her head from side-to-side to refute his argument.
“I don’t know that even the most experienced admiral could have prevented this tragedy,” she insisted. “Everything happened so quickly. And without being provided the necessary intelligence beforehand, how could you hope to have an opportunity to change the outcome?”
He rolled his forehead against hers and breathed out a quietly defeated sigh.
“She was gone before I could get to her.” He closed his eyes against the memory of the stunned expression frozen on the young officer’s face. “And still I told her that I would make it my life’s mission to keep the K’arangans from joining Starfleet - even if I had to dismantle the Federation to do so.”
He barked out a bitterly self-mocking laugh. “Grand promises from a man who couldn’t even keep her safe.”
His lower lip trembled once and he pressed a tightly clenched fist against it.
“But despite what happened today, plans are going to continue to move forward to welcome them into the Federation aren’t they?”
She felt a tight pressure in her chest and wondered how many times in one day a heart could break. For here lay his greatest strength as well as his primary weakness. He had a unique ability to turn a near-desperate situation into victory by bending rules to suit his needs and finding answers in blurred shades of gray. But he also had a rigidly-held inner moral sense of what was right and what was wrong - a trait which many would not easily ascribe to him. His inability to see beyond his own clearly delineated lines of black and white oft-times prevented him from accepting the nuances of the bigger picture as defined by the Federation. And though she understood Starfleet’s insistence that he acquiesce to their priorities in these instances, she worried that such capitulation would eventually strip him of the very thing which set him apart from other officers.
“Yes, I believe so,” she agreed reluctantly. “They’ve invested a lot of time and -”
His shoulders slumped in defeat. “And it doesn’t hurt that K’aranga is rich in natural resources which can be exploited.”
She winced at the bitterness coating his words. Knowing that anything she said to the contrary would fall on deaf ears, she sought to offer words of comfort rather than of reason.
“I wish I had been there with you.”
Stark terror at the mere thought choked him. He clamped strong hands around her arms and hauled her close to his face. “I’m glad you weren’t there,” he growled. Barely leashed anger darkened his voice.
Her head reared back in startled reaction and he swore softly, easing his punishing grip with a whispered apology.
She felt a shudder ripple through him and surprise gave way to compassion. Wrapping her arms around him, she buried her face against his throat. She breathed in his scent, taking her own comfort in the steady rise and fall of his chest as she remembered the iron taste of fear in her mouth hours earlier when his strangled shouts of terror and rage had echoed over her comms link.
His arms crept around her, fingers tangling in her ponytail.
“I’m glad you weren’t there,” he repeated as he drew silken strands of her hair to his lips. He swallowed hard against a surge of emotion and she felt his Adam’s apple bob against her cheek. Lifting her head, she rubbed her knuckles over his bristled jaw.
“Jim.” His name was a whisper on her lips and she watched his gaze narrow on her face.
He moved then, his mouth crushing down on hers - hot, hard. Demanding. She gasped and he took advantage, his tongue pushing past the barrier of her teeth, invading the wet heat of her mouth.
She threaded her fingers into his thick hair and pressed her body to his, straining to be closer and then suddenly he was urging her to the floor.
Her startled gasp seemed to incite him further. His fingers tore the elastic band from her ponytail, his hands spearing into the heavy mass of her hair, holding her captive as his mouth mated hungrily with hers. She groaned, her hips instinctively arching toward his as he settled over her, crushing her between the weight of his body and the hard floor.
His need was like a living, breathing entity, and she felt a frisson of fear that it would consume her whole. Her breath caught in her throat at the suddenness of his ardor, while shock and little tendrils of excitement vied for supremacy within her.
She knew the very moment when the last fragile hold on his control snapped. Rough hands shoved at the skirt of her uniform. His need lashed out like a flame and her skin heated, flushed by the intensity of the onslaught of his desire. She raced to keep up with the rapid change in him from aching vulnerability to demanding lover.
Impatient fingers clawed at the simple white triangle of cotton covering her hips, rending the delicate fabric in his haste. She tore her mouth from his and arched her neck, drawing in much needed air.
“Please.” He panted the word against her throat. “I need - Please…”
She squirmed, wedging her hands between them and struggled to unhook the fastening of his trousers. Long, slim fingers dipped beneath the loosened fabric, caressing him, freeing him, and her name escaped his lips on a tortured breath.
Mad for her, need roaring like an inferno in his ears, he mindlessly sought physical solace in her. Hands clinging to his shoulders, she sucked in a breath as he plunged into her and released it on a surprised hiss as her body scrambled to adjust and accept the sudden invasion of his.
Compassionate tears sprang to her eyes, for the sound which escaped him when they were fully joined was not a cry of pleasure, but instead one of agonized relief. He buckled, his full weight coming down to rest on her.
One second ticked by after another. She stroked a hand over his back and felt a new tension coiling as the muscles beneath her fingers bunched. He shakily raised himself onto one elbow and gazed down on her with a look of mounting horror.
“Oh,” he breathed. “God, no. No-no-no-no-no,” he chanted, his head jerking from side-to-side. He tried to pull away but, quickly interpreting the anguish written on his face, she raised her legs, curling them around his hips and locked her ankles to thwart his withdrawal.
“Jim, no.” Her hands framed his face, refusing to allow him to turn away from her. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said in the face of his anxiety. “But you’re wrong,”
“You didn’t hurt me.” She forced herself not to overreact to his growing panic. Her expression was calm, her voice soothing. “You did not hurt me,” she repeated.
“I was too rough.” Misery thickened his voice. “I didn’t think… didn’t ask.” He had been consumed by a primal need to mate with her. To lose himself in her.
“I wasn’t thinking of you,” he choked. “Of what you wanted - or even if you wanted... I’m sor- so sorry. Please forgive me.” He tried again to pull away but she tightened the silken vise of her hands and legs and refused to release him.
“What I wanted was to give you comfort. And to take comfort from you.” She curled one hand behind his neck and pressed gently. Obeying her silent command, he lowered his head to her shoulder, tentatively sinking into her insistent embrace, though his muscles remained knotted with unrelieved tension.
“You have enough burdens to carry.” She turned her face into his hair and pressed a kiss against the top of his head. “Don’t take on responsibility for things you didn’t do - or things you had no control over.”
He knew she was speaking not only of what had just transpired between them, but of the tragedy which had taken place earlier that day. Her advice was sound, but he had no idea of how to go about doing as she suggested.
Once upon a time, he could have done so with ease. The man Pike had almost literally scraped from the floor of a bar had been one comfortable with shirking responsibility and hiding behind alcohol, women and a series of dead-end jobs.
His inability to resist the older man’s challenge had been coupled with a desire to erase the scorn he had seen on the face of the beautiful young cadet he had met earlier that evening. And so he had set out to prove Pike right and Uhura wrong. He had remade himself and his reward for doing so was the Enterprise.
But with reward came responsibility. He now held the fates and lives of hundreds of people in the palm of his hand. And though many would - and did - consider his judgment rash and impulsive, in reality he felt heavily the weight of command.
She tightened her arms around him and brushed her lips against his once, then drew him into a deep kiss. Buried inside her, he was still hot and hard and she tilted her hips in silent invitation that they finish what he had started, but the mood had been shattered. He shifted his weight and she reluctantly allowed him to disengage. Flopping onto his back, he threw one arm over his eyes and heaved out a shuddering sigh.
She sat up and tugged down the hem of her skirt. Crouching beside him, she reached for both his hands.
“Come with me.” She stood and reluctantly, he rose to his feet.
She led him into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He obeyed her wordless instructions to strip out of the remainder of his disheveled clothing and joined her in the cramped stall. She wound her hair up in a quick and messy knot on the top of her head and maneuvered them so his height shielded her from the direct spray while allowing the hot water to pour over him, relieving some of the tightness coiling his muscles into tense knots.
She poured a generous amount of liquid soap into her hands and slicked them over his chest and down his arms. Humming softly, her touch was gentle, meant to comfort, not arouse; a ritual bath intended to cleanse - body, mind and spirit.
His upper body swayed drunkenly back and forth as she lifted her hands to his head, massaging thick lather into his hair. Greedy for her touch, he stood docilely as she kneaded the tightly corded tendons at the base of his scalp and she felt a lessening of her own tension as she noted the easing of the furrow between his brows and the deep grooves etched on either side of his mouth for the first time that evening.
His hand, heavy and warm, settled over the back of her neck; the other curved possessively on her hip. She curled her arms around him and nestled her cheek against his chest. Twined together, billowing clouds of steam rising around them, they drew comfort from the quiet of the shared moment.
x x x x x x
He lurched unsteadily across the room and collapsed facedown onto the mattress in an exhausted heap. Dimly aware when she joined him a moment later, he made a heroic effort to shift onto his side to face her. Her fingers toyed with the light scattering of golden hair sprinkled over his chest and she stared at him from across the short expanse which separated them.
Aware of her concerned gaze, he graced her with a weary smile, watching as she stifled a yawn in the pillow beneath her cheek. He smiled again when she blinked rapidly in a futile effort to keep her eyes open.
“It’s okay.” He traced a fingertip over the arch of her eyebrow. “Go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”
An unladylike snort escaped her and the brow beneath his finger winged up with comic swiftness in response to the obviousness of his statement.
“Yeah, yeah.” His lips quirked in wry reaction and his eyes narrowed with mock fierceness. Her answering grin was ruined by the second, even wider yawn which escaped her.
“Go to sleep,” he repeated. “That’s an order.”
The lightness of the moment helped ease the anxiety which had kept her knotted up for most of the day. Her hand slipped from his chest and came to rest on his bare hip.
“Aye, Captain,” she murmured as heavy lids fluttered closed.
Weary beyond measure, but unable to shut off the thoughts darting about in his head like fireflies on a hot summer’s night, he winnowed his fingers through her hair, his gaze fixed on her lovely face as she slid more deeply into sleep. Twining an ebony lock around his finger, he winced as an image of dark hair spilling over blood splattered green robes flashed into his mind and felt a surge of crippling relief that this woman had been safely aboard the Enterprise.
Shifting closer, he pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I love you,” he murmured against her brow. “I know you’d rather I didn’t, but I do. And I need to say it out loud, just once. Even if you aren’t awake to hear it.”
She sighed and shifted onto her other side, away from him, and he told himself not to read anything into it. He ordered the light off and tugged the sheets over them. Curling his body protectively around hers, he slid into a troubled sleep.
x x x x x
He can’t hold back a smile as the eager K’arangan women lead her up the stone steps to the platform beneath the statue of their god. A garland of native flowers is ceremonially draped around her neck, another crowns her hair which falls in a glorious raven curtain to her shoulders.
A sudden rush of excitement pulses through the crowd and an uneasy feeling skitters along his spine as the crowd shifts toward the stairs. He lifts a hand to the back of his neck as a ghostly tickle of dread makes the hairs stand on end. He takes an instinctive step toward her but the crowd surges forward again.
He can’t quite put a finger on it, but unease quickly turns into anxiety. He pushes into the crowd, vaguely aware of the startled reaction of the security team as they follow. He notes the sluggishness of her movements, at distinct odds with the normal gracefulness of her gait as the priest reaches for her hands and leads her up the final step.
She is docile as she is lifted onto the stone table at the base of the statute and horror slicks his skin with sweat when he realizes that the table is, in reality, an altar. His voice is hoarse as he screams for them to stop. He gestures desperately for security to draw their phasers but the crowd is deep and the air is throbbing with excitation and they cannot get close enough.
She turns her head toward him, dark eyes dulled by whatever drug they have fed her but nonetheless alive with terror. Her expression pleads with him to help her. To save her. To do something.
He breaks through the crowd. Sunlight glints off the blade as it is held aloft and he is blinded for a split second before it plunges into her heart.
Her beautiful features contort in surprise and agony and he watches in despair as the light in her eyes slowly dims and blinks out.
The delirium of the crowd rolls over him like a wave and he is driven to his knees as her name is torn from his throat on a wild cry of grief.
“NYOTA!”
He came awake with a start. Lurching upright, his head whipped toward the woman lying peacefully at his side. Cringing, he gingerly pressed his ear to her chest, relief surging through him as he listened to each beat of her heart and he took solace in the steady rise and fall of her chest.
Sitting up, he scrubbed rough hands over his face. Bile rising in his throat, he staggered into the bathroom and lost the contents of his stomach. Cupping his hands under the running faucet, he scooped cool water over his face and rinsed away the vile taste, though the bitter remnants of the nightmare remained.
Shaky legs carried him back to the bed. He sank to the floor, shivering as the sweat coating his skin slowly dried and kept watch over her for the rest of the night.
TBC
A/N: I don’t know that this note is even necessary. But lest there be any confusion… my intent in the scene above was to portray that the moment between them was less about a desire to make love and more about the strength of his need to seek solace and lose himself for a few minutes in their physical joining and her surprise at his urgency. It is his heightened state of emotions that leads to his overanxious reaction that he had taken without asking, or possibly hurt her as a result and nothing more.
I have written and re-written; edited and re-edited the scene in question in an effort to convey my intentions clearly. I hope it plays out in the written word the way it did in my head so that you, the readers, are not as confused as our poor Jim was.
Rating: R (mature)
Characters/Pairing: Kirk/Uhura
Disclaimer: Characters and canon belong to Paramount, Roddenberry, Abrams and many others but not me. All rights reserved. No copyright infringement intended and no profit is made by the author.
Summary: One year prior, the Enterprise had shipped out for its first mission under the official command of James T. Kirk and the young captain had deemed it a day worthy of recognition
Hours later she found him hunched forward in a chair, head dipped down to his chest, fisted hands dangling between his legs. The quiet hiss of the door signaled her entry into his quarters and he glanced up briefly before returning his attention to the carpet between his booted feet.
She hesitated before moving closer. He was bare-chested and as she crouched on the floor at his feet, she noted a blood-splattered gold tunic lying in a ruined heap in one corner of the room. She shivered once with relief that the blood was not his.
“I wanted to be here sooner.” She sat back on her heels and ducked her head in an attempt to catch his eye.
“No.” Unrelieved tension thickened his voice. “I need to know that my best people are at their stations during a crisis.”
“Jim.” She whispered his name and he finally dragged his gaze up to meet hers, his expression bleak. She pressed her hands against his knees and moved between them.
“What can I do?” Helpless in the face of the raw agony etched on his handsome features, she skimmed her fingers over his cheek in a gentle caress.
“I don’t know what happened,” he confessed hoarsely. “I missed some sign, some clue… I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out where I went wrong.” Confused misery dulled the normally vivid blue of his eyes.
She shifted closer. “I don’t think there was any way to know,” she murmured. “There was nothing in any of the briefs compiled by Starfleet; nothing in our own research to indicate this was even a possibility. When it became evident that the Enterprise was traveling to K’aranga, Delgado was so excited. She did such an exhaustive study of their culture that she had become an expert on them - and even she…
Emotion tightened her throat and her voice trailed off helplessly.
“Is that what I should tell her family? Oops? We didn’t know that your daughter’s unfortunate resemblance to a mythical goddess would get her killed? Or maybe I should just say that I’m sorry I accidentally gave permission for them to murder her?”
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take it out on you.” Exhaustion slurred his words.
“She was only twenty-two years old.” He stated it as if decades separated him from the ensign, instead of only a few short years.
“I know.” She rested her cheek against his thigh and closed her eyes. She knew the overall youth and inexperience of the ship’s crew was a pressing weight on its captain - especially when he was forced to order them into a dangerous situation. He worried over injuries caused to any member of his crew, mourned the loss of all life, but never more so than when a person’s life was cut short before they even had an opportunity to begin to shine.
“What were they thinking?”
She had to strain to hear the softly spoken words. Resting her chin on his knee, she tipped a questioning face up to his.
“Who?”
He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’m barely a year out of the Academy. I should be a rookie officer under someone else’s command,” he whispered. “Not the captain of a constitution class vessel - let alone the fleet’s flagship!” His voice was thick with emotion as every one of his insecurities arose to mock him.
She rose to her knees, pressing a finger against his lips. “I want you to listen to me. There was no possible way you could have anticipated what happened down there. And a more experienced captain would have gone into the same circumstances every bit as blind.”
“But a seasoned officer with more diplomatic experience might have been able to diffuse the situation before…”
She thought of the dizzying speed at which everything had happened and slowly shook her head from side-to-side to refute his argument.
“I don’t know that even the most experienced admiral could have prevented this tragedy,” she insisted. “Everything happened so quickly. And without being provided the necessary intelligence beforehand, how could you hope to have an opportunity to change the outcome?”
He rolled his forehead against hers and breathed out a quietly defeated sigh.
“She was gone before I could get to her.” He closed his eyes against the memory of the stunned expression frozen on the young officer’s face. “And still I told her that I would make it my life’s mission to keep the K’arangans from joining Starfleet - even if I had to dismantle the Federation to do so.”
He barked out a bitterly self-mocking laugh. “Grand promises from a man who couldn’t even keep her safe.”
His lower lip trembled once and he pressed a tightly clenched fist against it.
“But despite what happened today, plans are going to continue to move forward to welcome them into the Federation aren’t they?”
She felt a tight pressure in her chest and wondered how many times in one day a heart could break. For here lay his greatest strength as well as his primary weakness. He had a unique ability to turn a near-desperate situation into victory by bending rules to suit his needs and finding answers in blurred shades of gray. But he also had a rigidly-held inner moral sense of what was right and what was wrong - a trait which many would not easily ascribe to him. His inability to see beyond his own clearly delineated lines of black and white oft-times prevented him from accepting the nuances of the bigger picture as defined by the Federation. And though she understood Starfleet’s insistence that he acquiesce to their priorities in these instances, she worried that such capitulation would eventually strip him of the very thing which set him apart from other officers.
“Yes, I believe so,” she agreed reluctantly. “They’ve invested a lot of time and -”
His shoulders slumped in defeat. “And it doesn’t hurt that K’aranga is rich in natural resources which can be exploited.”
She winced at the bitterness coating his words. Knowing that anything she said to the contrary would fall on deaf ears, she sought to offer words of comfort rather than of reason.
“I wish I had been there with you.”
Stark terror at the mere thought choked him. He clamped strong hands around her arms and hauled her close to his face. “I’m glad you weren’t there,” he growled. Barely leashed anger darkened his voice.
Her head reared back in startled reaction and he swore softly, easing his punishing grip with a whispered apology.
She felt a shudder ripple through him and surprise gave way to compassion. Wrapping her arms around him, she buried her face against his throat. She breathed in his scent, taking her own comfort in the steady rise and fall of his chest as she remembered the iron taste of fear in her mouth hours earlier when his strangled shouts of terror and rage had echoed over her comms link.
His arms crept around her, fingers tangling in her ponytail.
“I’m glad you weren’t there,” he repeated as he drew silken strands of her hair to his lips. He swallowed hard against a surge of emotion and she felt his Adam’s apple bob against her cheek. Lifting her head, she rubbed her knuckles over his bristled jaw.
“Jim.” His name was a whisper on her lips and she watched his gaze narrow on her face.
He moved then, his mouth crushing down on hers - hot, hard. Demanding. She gasped and he took advantage, his tongue pushing past the barrier of her teeth, invading the wet heat of her mouth.
She threaded her fingers into his thick hair and pressed her body to his, straining to be closer and then suddenly he was urging her to the floor.
Her startled gasp seemed to incite him further. His fingers tore the elastic band from her ponytail, his hands spearing into the heavy mass of her hair, holding her captive as his mouth mated hungrily with hers. She groaned, her hips instinctively arching toward his as he settled over her, crushing her between the weight of his body and the hard floor.
His need was like a living, breathing entity, and she felt a frisson of fear that it would consume her whole. Her breath caught in her throat at the suddenness of his ardor, while shock and little tendrils of excitement vied for supremacy within her.
She knew the very moment when the last fragile hold on his control snapped. Rough hands shoved at the skirt of her uniform. His need lashed out like a flame and her skin heated, flushed by the intensity of the onslaught of his desire. She raced to keep up with the rapid change in him from aching vulnerability to demanding lover.
Impatient fingers clawed at the simple white triangle of cotton covering her hips, rending the delicate fabric in his haste. She tore her mouth from his and arched her neck, drawing in much needed air.
“Please.” He panted the word against her throat. “I need - Please…”
She squirmed, wedging her hands between them and struggled to unhook the fastening of his trousers. Long, slim fingers dipped beneath the loosened fabric, caressing him, freeing him, and her name escaped his lips on a tortured breath.
Mad for her, need roaring like an inferno in his ears, he mindlessly sought physical solace in her. Hands clinging to his shoulders, she sucked in a breath as he plunged into her and released it on a surprised hiss as her body scrambled to adjust and accept the sudden invasion of his.
Compassionate tears sprang to her eyes, for the sound which escaped him when they were fully joined was not a cry of pleasure, but instead one of agonized relief. He buckled, his full weight coming down to rest on her.
One second ticked by after another. She stroked a hand over his back and felt a new tension coiling as the muscles beneath her fingers bunched. He shakily raised himself onto one elbow and gazed down on her with a look of mounting horror.
“Oh,” he breathed. “God, no. No-no-no-no-no,” he chanted, his head jerking from side-to-side. He tried to pull away but, quickly interpreting the anguish written on his face, she raised her legs, curling them around his hips and locked her ankles to thwart his withdrawal.
“Jim, no.” Her hands framed his face, refusing to allow him to turn away from her. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said in the face of his anxiety. “But you’re wrong,”
“You didn’t hurt me.” She forced herself not to overreact to his growing panic. Her expression was calm, her voice soothing. “You did not hurt me,” she repeated.
“I was too rough.” Misery thickened his voice. “I didn’t think… didn’t ask.” He had been consumed by a primal need to mate with her. To lose himself in her.
“I wasn’t thinking of you,” he choked. “Of what you wanted - or even if you wanted... I’m sor- so sorry. Please forgive me.” He tried again to pull away but she tightened the silken vise of her hands and legs and refused to release him.
“What I wanted was to give you comfort. And to take comfort from you.” She curled one hand behind his neck and pressed gently. Obeying her silent command, he lowered his head to her shoulder, tentatively sinking into her insistent embrace, though his muscles remained knotted with unrelieved tension.
“You have enough burdens to carry.” She turned her face into his hair and pressed a kiss against the top of his head. “Don’t take on responsibility for things you didn’t do - or things you had no control over.”
He knew she was speaking not only of what had just transpired between them, but of the tragedy which had taken place earlier that day. Her advice was sound, but he had no idea of how to go about doing as she suggested.
Once upon a time, he could have done so with ease. The man Pike had almost literally scraped from the floor of a bar had been one comfortable with shirking responsibility and hiding behind alcohol, women and a series of dead-end jobs.
His inability to resist the older man’s challenge had been coupled with a desire to erase the scorn he had seen on the face of the beautiful young cadet he had met earlier that evening. And so he had set out to prove Pike right and Uhura wrong. He had remade himself and his reward for doing so was the Enterprise.
But with reward came responsibility. He now held the fates and lives of hundreds of people in the palm of his hand. And though many would - and did - consider his judgment rash and impulsive, in reality he felt heavily the weight of command.
She tightened her arms around him and brushed her lips against his once, then drew him into a deep kiss. Buried inside her, he was still hot and hard and she tilted her hips in silent invitation that they finish what he had started, but the mood had been shattered. He shifted his weight and she reluctantly allowed him to disengage. Flopping onto his back, he threw one arm over his eyes and heaved out a shuddering sigh.
She sat up and tugged down the hem of her skirt. Crouching beside him, she reached for both his hands.
“Come with me.” She stood and reluctantly, he rose to his feet.
She led him into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He obeyed her wordless instructions to strip out of the remainder of his disheveled clothing and joined her in the cramped stall. She wound her hair up in a quick and messy knot on the top of her head and maneuvered them so his height shielded her from the direct spray while allowing the hot water to pour over him, relieving some of the tightness coiling his muscles into tense knots.
She poured a generous amount of liquid soap into her hands and slicked them over his chest and down his arms. Humming softly, her touch was gentle, meant to comfort, not arouse; a ritual bath intended to cleanse - body, mind and spirit.
His upper body swayed drunkenly back and forth as she lifted her hands to his head, massaging thick lather into his hair. Greedy for her touch, he stood docilely as she kneaded the tightly corded tendons at the base of his scalp and she felt a lessening of her own tension as she noted the easing of the furrow between his brows and the deep grooves etched on either side of his mouth for the first time that evening.
His hand, heavy and warm, settled over the back of her neck; the other curved possessively on her hip. She curled her arms around him and nestled her cheek against his chest. Twined together, billowing clouds of steam rising around them, they drew comfort from the quiet of the shared moment.
x x x x x x
He lurched unsteadily across the room and collapsed facedown onto the mattress in an exhausted heap. Dimly aware when she joined him a moment later, he made a heroic effort to shift onto his side to face her. Her fingers toyed with the light scattering of golden hair sprinkled over his chest and she stared at him from across the short expanse which separated them.
Aware of her concerned gaze, he graced her with a weary smile, watching as she stifled a yawn in the pillow beneath her cheek. He smiled again when she blinked rapidly in a futile effort to keep her eyes open.
“It’s okay.” He traced a fingertip over the arch of her eyebrow. “Go to sleep. It’s been a long day.”
An unladylike snort escaped her and the brow beneath his finger winged up with comic swiftness in response to the obviousness of his statement.
“Yeah, yeah.” His lips quirked in wry reaction and his eyes narrowed with mock fierceness. Her answering grin was ruined by the second, even wider yawn which escaped her.
“Go to sleep,” he repeated. “That’s an order.”
The lightness of the moment helped ease the anxiety which had kept her knotted up for most of the day. Her hand slipped from his chest and came to rest on his bare hip.
“Aye, Captain,” she murmured as heavy lids fluttered closed.
Weary beyond measure, but unable to shut off the thoughts darting about in his head like fireflies on a hot summer’s night, he winnowed his fingers through her hair, his gaze fixed on her lovely face as she slid more deeply into sleep. Twining an ebony lock around his finger, he winced as an image of dark hair spilling over blood splattered green robes flashed into his mind and felt a surge of crippling relief that this woman had been safely aboard the Enterprise.
Shifting closer, he pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I love you,” he murmured against her brow. “I know you’d rather I didn’t, but I do. And I need to say it out loud, just once. Even if you aren’t awake to hear it.”
She sighed and shifted onto her other side, away from him, and he told himself not to read anything into it. He ordered the light off and tugged the sheets over them. Curling his body protectively around hers, he slid into a troubled sleep.
x x x x x
He can’t hold back a smile as the eager K’arangan women lead her up the stone steps to the platform beneath the statue of their god. A garland of native flowers is ceremonially draped around her neck, another crowns her hair which falls in a glorious raven curtain to her shoulders.
A sudden rush of excitement pulses through the crowd and an uneasy feeling skitters along his spine as the crowd shifts toward the stairs. He lifts a hand to the back of his neck as a ghostly tickle of dread makes the hairs stand on end. He takes an instinctive step toward her but the crowd surges forward again.
He can’t quite put a finger on it, but unease quickly turns into anxiety. He pushes into the crowd, vaguely aware of the startled reaction of the security team as they follow. He notes the sluggishness of her movements, at distinct odds with the normal gracefulness of her gait as the priest reaches for her hands and leads her up the final step.
She is docile as she is lifted onto the stone table at the base of the statute and horror slicks his skin with sweat when he realizes that the table is, in reality, an altar. His voice is hoarse as he screams for them to stop. He gestures desperately for security to draw their phasers but the crowd is deep and the air is throbbing with excitation and they cannot get close enough.
She turns her head toward him, dark eyes dulled by whatever drug they have fed her but nonetheless alive with terror. Her expression pleads with him to help her. To save her. To do something.
He breaks through the crowd. Sunlight glints off the blade as it is held aloft and he is blinded for a split second before it plunges into her heart.
Her beautiful features contort in surprise and agony and he watches in despair as the light in her eyes slowly dims and blinks out.
The delirium of the crowd rolls over him like a wave and he is driven to his knees as her name is torn from his throat on a wild cry of grief.
“NYOTA!”
He came awake with a start. Lurching upright, his head whipped toward the woman lying peacefully at his side. Cringing, he gingerly pressed his ear to her chest, relief surging through him as he listened to each beat of her heart and he took solace in the steady rise and fall of her chest.
Sitting up, he scrubbed rough hands over his face. Bile rising in his throat, he staggered into the bathroom and lost the contents of his stomach. Cupping his hands under the running faucet, he scooped cool water over his face and rinsed away the vile taste, though the bitter remnants of the nightmare remained.
Shaky legs carried him back to the bed. He sank to the floor, shivering as the sweat coating his skin slowly dried and kept watch over her for the rest of the night.
TBC
A/N: I don’t know that this note is even necessary. But lest there be any confusion… my intent in the scene above was to portray that the moment between them was less about a desire to make love and more about the strength of his need to seek solace and lose himself for a few minutes in their physical joining and her surprise at his urgency. It is his heightened state of emotions that leads to his overanxious reaction that he had taken without asking, or possibly hurt her as a result and nothing more.
I have written and re-written; edited and re-edited the scene in question in an effort to convey my intentions clearly. I hope it plays out in the written word the way it did in my head so that you, the readers, are not as confused as our poor Jim was.