Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5643103.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F
  Fandom:
      Star_Trek:_Alternate_Original_Series_(Movies)
  Relationship:
      Leonard_McCoy/Spock, Christine_Chapel/Nyota_Uhura
  Character:
      Leonard_McCoy, Spock, Gaila_(Star_Trek), Nyota_Uhura, Christine_Chapel,
      James_T._Kirk
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Boarding_School, Angst, vague_descriptions_of
      academics, this_is_not_how_college_works, mccoy_and_spock_as_teenage
      girls, Some_pining, a_lot_of_bitching, jim_kirk_is_an_ok_guy, Alternate
      Universe_-_Modern_Setting
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-01-05 Words: 15011
****** let the world spin madly on ******
by espressohno
Summary
     a fem spones au where Spock (Sepphora T'chn T'gai) and Bones (Eleanor
     McCoy) are assigned to be roommates during their senior year. and
     then the school (Mary F. Somerville Preparatory School - not a real
     school) introduces an academic competition.
     sabotage and mean looks and sarcasm ensue
     also in this au: Jim Kirk being a little shit and also a great
     friend, Spock being sleepy, Gaila being a ball of energy, and
     everyone being super gay
Notes
     written as a Christmas present for my lovely and my #1 nerd Celeste
     hope you guys like it! (also, let's maybe not talk about how I keep
     writing trashy boarding school aus)
Eleanor was standing in the sunlight of the quad. She was surrounded by anxious
freshmen and their families, all scrambling to get their schedules and room
assignments. The school itself was beautiful. Of all of the private schools she
had toured, it was the one with the most open space and a more coordinated set
of buildings. Even so, Eleanor preferred to see the campus when they were well
into autumn and she could walk around without being bothered by plucky
underclassmen. She was so caught up in thinking about the year ahead of her and
the color of leaves that she couldn’t hear someone sneaking behind her until
there were two hands over her eyes.
“If you’re not Christine Chapel I’m going to judo step you to the ground.”
“Guilty!” Christine sang. Eleanor turned to face her and they hugged each other
for what felt like forever. It was stupid and sappy, but after being with her
family for three months, she was finally home again.
“Let’s go get our schedules before the place is flooded.” Eleanor wordlessly
agreed. Christine linked their arms at the elbows and they walked to the table
marked “GRADE 12, A-M”.
While in line, Christine went on and on about her family’s trip to Japan,
comparing it to their previous trip to Taiwan, and once again complaining that
her parents for some reason refused to take them to Europe for once.
“I mean Japan was great, not as pretty as Korea, but great. Still, I’m tired of
the southeast. If I’m going to get any notoriety around here for being worldly,
I need to see some damn chateaus, you know what I mean?”
“Not really. My mom and I went to Paris for a couple weeks in July.”
“Again? You hate France.”
“That’s what I told her. But she loves the place and my dad got sick again so
she ‘needed a pick-me-up’ or something. I spent most of the trip reading old
surgery handbooks in an antique store across the street.”
“You’re a nerd.” They reached the front of the line and Christine looked up to
say  Chapel and McCoy.
“At least I don’t complain all the time about how my family keeps taking me all
over the world.”
“I do not--thank you, have a nice day--I do not complain  all the time .” They
walked away from the crowd, behind the dining hall and towards a hill that was
shaded by an oak tree, their established hang-out spot since freshman year.
Eleanor dropped her backpack on the grass and laid down, taking a deep breath.
Christine laid down next to her. The two of them watched the sky in silence for
a few minutes. Sunlight poured through gaps in the tree branches and the air
carried distant sounds of talking and laughter and goodbyes.
“So, other than Paris, how was your summer?” Christine asked, somehow making
the small talk question sound genuine and sincere.
“It was okay.” Eleanor closed her eyes, “I finally came out to my parents.”
“No shit. How’d they react?”
“I honestly don’t think they were listening. But they probably wouldn’t have
cared anyway.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
They didn’t talk for a while after that. Christine rolled onto her stomach and
started making tiny braids in Eleanor’s hair, something that she would normally
get yelled at for, but today it didn’t seem to matter. They had wordlessly
agreed to wait until the rest of their friends had arrived to find out their
room assignments. Secretly, Eleanor was hoping to be one of the lucky seniors
with a single dorm, but she would have been content rooming with one of the
handful of people she actually liked at this school.
The next to arrive of the aforementioned handful of tolerable people was Nyota
Uhura. It was her last day to be able to wear anything other than their blue-
and-gray uniform, so she had kept up the tradition of dressing in bright red.
Nyota was, arguably, one of the most beautiful people that Eleanor had seen in
her lifetime. She didn’t waste any time wandering around nostalgically and made
her way up the hill. She made a show of flopping onto the grass next to
Christine.
“I had to go to so many Model UN conferences.” Nyota huffed. Her family wasn’t
the travelling type. She saw most of the world through her extra-curriculars,
but even then the itinerary had little breathing room.
“She’s about to say something about how boys suck.” Eleanor said with one eye
open and Christine snickered.
“I’m so glad to be back.”
“Are you talking about boys up there?” A voice called from a couple yards away.
Everyone sat up to see Gaila walking towards them. Her red hair was a couple
inches longer and her already tanned skin was even darker, face covered in
freckles. “We went down to Puerto Rico again to visit my mother’s family. Guess
who was there on, of all fucking things, a boy scout trip.”
“Oh my god.” Christine probably knew just from Gaila’s tone of voice. She was
good at reading people like that. Eleanor sighed, positive that whatever Gaila
was about to say would probably harsh her finally-parent-less mellow.
“Gaila, I don’t want to hear about your sexual exploits with boy scouts in
Puerto Rico.” Eleanor whined.
“Jim Kirk.” Gaila choked on laughter, barely breathing enough to say more.
“He’s a boy scout!”
“Well I’ll be damned-”
“I didn’t hook up with him, don’t worry. He was too busy earning his merit
badge for flower collecting or something. He had a friend, though.”
“A boy scout friend? I’m seriously doubting you right now.” Gaila stuck her
tongue out at Eleanor. Luckily, the mention of Jim Kirk didn’t piss her off too
much. Jim usually only pissed her off in person, at every event Sommerville had
with its brother school, E.W. Roddenberry. As much as she tried to evade him on
those occasions, he was always waiting around the corner with a shit-eating
grin and another idiot plan to spike the punch.  
“No. Not a boy scout friend. Well yes. But no. His name was Gary or Mitchell or
something.”
“Those are two very different names.” Nyota chimed in.
“It was only a one time thing. I didn’t even get his number.”
“Heterosexuals make no sense to me.” Eleanor sat up and Gaila joined them in
the grass.
The four of them formed a circle and started opening their schedules. After a
few minutes Gaila and Nyota grinned at each other.
“I knew it! Fourth year in a row.”
“There’s no way this is a coincidence.”
“Maybe the school is just secretly racist.” Eleanor mumbled and stared down at
her room assignment, a part of her hoping she could intimidate the name into
being someone she knew.
“Well,  I  have a single room.” Christine’s face went from excited to concerned
when she saw Eleanor, “Wait, does that...please tell me you got one also.”
“Who is Sepphora?”
“Oh my god.” Nyota’s eyes widened.
“Wait, isn’t that…?” Gaila looked around, confused. Nyota nodded.
“She’s rooming with Spock.” Nyota barely got the sentence out before snorting
with laughter.
Christine put a consoling hand on Eleanor’s shoulder.
“I still don’t know who that is. Although I recognize the Star Trek reference.”
“She was in my English class freshman year. Once I asked if I could borrow a
pen and I actually thought she was going to kill me just for  thinking  I could
speak to her.” Nyota shuddered.
“I had to sit next to her in Physics. Didn’t say a word. But she got crazy good
grades.” Christine thought for a minute, “How have you never met her?”
“I think Spock is doing Engineering or something.” Nyota said, shrugging.
“She’s probably a total shut-in.” Gaila added.
Eleanor willed herself not to be pessimistic about this. She’d roomed with a
stranger before, and it was more of a cohabitation with the occasional small
talk. But based on what she was hearing, and the fact that her new roommate was
comparable enough to a Vulcan that people didn’t call her by her actual name,
the year would probably be off to a shitty start.
“Hey, I’m sure it won’t be that bad. You two will probably just end up hardly
seeing each other during the day and never speaking.”
“Great.”
As they compared schedules and felt relieved that at least all of them would
see each other at one point in the day, Eleanor couldn’t help but think about
this mystery roommate. The antisocial ones were usually on extreme ends of the
spectrum, conspicuously wealthy or there by a miracle combination of
scholarships and the waitlist.
Extremely rich Spock would probably be an asshole. On the other hand, though,
waitlist Spock would probably be self-deprecating or annoyingly poetic. She
told Christine her predictions during dinner and Christine said she was being
cynical.
“I’m always cynical.”
“Well I hate to let you down in your little pre-judgement game but I think
Spock comes from about the same financial standing as you and me.”
“My money was on waitlist.” Gaila pushed her empty plate to the side and
started eating the unwanted parts of everyone else’s meals. The dining hall was
loud with everyone reunited. Maybe it was just because Eleanor was in a good
mood, but even the dinner tasted a little better than usual, chicken and pasta
and grilled vegetables that might have been fresh.
“I’ve been thinking I might go gluten free.” Nyota said, giving up and dropping
her plate in front of Gaila.
“Good lord why.” Christine passed Gaila her plate also, her years of etiquette
training still evident in the way she wiped her face with her napkin and folded
her hands in her lap instead of on the table.
Nyota shrugged.
“You’re already thin, Ny, what do you have to gain by not letting yourself eat
pop tarts?”
“I already don’t eat pop tarts.” Nyota eyed Gaila suspiciously, “You’re the one
who eats pop tarts. Besides, I hear that it makes you more alert.”
“So does speed.” Eleanor mumbled.
“Or, consider this: replace gluten with speed. Double alertness.” Christine
quirked her blonde eyebrows. Nyota snorted.
The bell rang and everyone cleared the tables before sitting down again for the
principal’s welcome back speech.
The speech was long, as usual, lagging on with cookie-cutter statements about
how  this is our year, girls , and other attempts at encouragement. The
freshmen ate it up with sparkly eyes and open mouths. Eleanor yawned and
wondered if it would be uncouth to rest her head on the table and fall asleep,
and Christine whispered  don’t you dare. not again  in her ear before
applauding a particularly inspiring bit.
Eleanor was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, really, although
she couldn’t decide if she was mean enough to label Sepphora as the devil or
cowardly enough to consider her the deep blue sea. Either way, she didn’t want
to sit and listen to an hour of formalities for the fourth year in a row, but
at the same time it was wholly unappealing to face the fact that she’d be
rooming with a stranger,  an infamous stranger , starting tonight.
On the walk to the upperclassmen dorms she campaigned for someone to come back
to her room with her as a buffer, and only recieved a pat on the back and some
platitudes for her efforts.
“Just go in there like you belong there. Because you do. Because it’s your
room.” Gaila offered.
“Don’t be shy and befriend her as best you can.” Christine rubbed her tired
eyes, and Eleanor was almost bothered by the fact that she didn’t seem grateful
enough  of her single room. Almost.
“That’s not how social anxiety works, Christine.”
Christine sighed.
“A girl can dream.”
“Maybe just, try not to be as sassy as usual when you first meet her?” Uhura
chimed in. Christine nodded at that and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on
Eleanor, as if their advice would somehow collectively solve everything.
“This is where we leave you.” Christine said when they reached a fork in the
hallway. Somehow, as if having a roommate outside of her friend group wasn’t
enough, Eleanor also happened to be assigned to the left wing of the senior
floor, with everyone else in the right wing. After some half-hearted  you can
do it ’s and a bout of finger guns from Gaila the three of them were down the
hall and out of sight.
Eleanor paced in the hallway for a few minutes, stared at the ugly paisley
carpet from decades ago, and waited for a few more groups of students to pass
by before sucking it up and going to her room.
All of her luggage had been delivered that morning and, due to her
prioritization of spending the day with Nyota Gaila and Christine, it was still
sitting all packed up on the right side of the room. On the left, however, the
bed, desk, and built-in shelves were meticulously organized, no luggage in
sight, and a girl who Eleanor assumed was Sepphora sat on the edge of the bed,
typing on a macbook with such rigid posture that it must have been occupying
half of her concentration. Sepphora didn’t flinch or even look up when Eleanor
had opened the door, and she didn’t bother to introduce herself as Eleanor
proceeded to start unpacking her side of the room.
Which Eleanor was perfectly fine with, even if it was a little unsettling. She
unpacked clothes and bedsheets and books, trying and failing to be as neat as
her roommate. When it was all done she slid her trunk to the foot of the bed
and kicked her suitcase underneath. She sat on the same pinstriped bedding her
mother had bought her before freshman year, and felt the silence start to
become more and more awkward. She was about to reach for her computer and find
something to do when Sepphora spoke up.
“If the silence bothers you, we can engage in stereotypical new roommate small
talk.”
Her voice was deep and cold and bored, carrying just the right amount of
inflection every few words to avoid sounding monotone. Eleanor wasn’t entirely
put off yet. She risked a response.
“I’m Eleanor.”
“I know.”
Eleanor clenched her teeth at that, replaying Nyota’s advice about  not being
as sassy as usual  even though Sepphora was starting to deserve it already.
“I guess we don’t need any stereotypical roommate small talk, then.” She said,
trying to hold back the bitterness that started dripping from her words. It had
been a long day, a long journey to school, and a long afternoon of stressing
over her living conditions for the next year.
“No, I suppose we don’t.”
You suppose , Eleanor stopped herself from saying. Instead she said,
“Well is there anything I should know about you? Seeing as we’re stuck with
each other for the next ten months.”
Sepphora squinted at that, looking up from her laptop, and Eleanor finally got
a clear view of her face. She didn’t wear makeup, which wasn’t too unusual. Her
eyebrows were ridiculously well-kept, though, and Eleanor wondered if she
intentionally styled them to point up slightly at the ends. It only made her
look more like Mr. Spock, which couldn’t be helping with the name-calling
situation.
Eleanor concluded that, all in all, she was nice looking, but probably a mythic
bitch.
“Call me Spock to my face.” She said primly, before looking back to her
computer, “Since you’re going to call me Spock behind my back. Don’t call me
Sepphora.”
“Um, okay.” Eleanor was a little taken aback that she had  requested  to be
called by a snide nickname, but she let it go and started getting ready for
bed. Spock didn’t look up or try to make conversation for the rest of the
night. When she finally stopped typing and left to brush her teeth Eleanor
sleepily looked at the clock; it was almost two in the morning.
 
***
 
Ignoring her roommate easily became a part of Eleanor’s everyday routine.
Eleanor always woke up early, because showering alone and undisturbed in the
hall’s communal bathroom was worth losing an hour of sleep. Sepphora--Spock--
slept like the dead as it turned out, so she could go through her whole morning
routine without waking her up, and she was out the door and walking to the
front of the breakfast line before Spock’s alarm even went off.
The only class they had together was their Independent Study science class.
Nyota was in the class too, so Eleanor had someone to talk to at least, and
although it looked like Spock didn’t have any friends she seemed to have no
problem looking occupied.
At the end of the day it was more awkward, since both of them had to, at one
point, return to their room. Spock seemed to have a habit of sitting on her
laptop until well past midnight. Eleanor’s body adjusted to sleeping through
the indefinite sound of keyboard clicking, but she wasn’t happy about it. The
two of them usually didn’t speak to each other unless to ask school related
questions. Once in awhile Eleanor would be at the tail end of a long and shitty
day and couldn’t stop herself from muttering about  that goddamn loud as hell
keyboard  to which Spock would always remind her that  earplugs can easily be
purchased in the campus school supply store or obtained from the nurse’s office
and then Eleanor huffed and turned towards the wall and pulled her pillow over
her head.
In October the Independent Study teacher threw a wrench in their already not-
so-peaceful cohabitation.
“This is not so much an assignment as it is a contest, but that being said, the
school neither condones nor approves of competitive sabotage.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. Over the years the Sommerville girls had acquired a
reputation for playing dirty in every academic, athletic, and artistic
competition. It was downright embarrassing, really.
“This year, as some of you may have heard, a handful of top universities have
decided to offer scholarships to graduates of our STEM programs. In order to be
eligible for these scholarships, though, students will have to complete an
extended essay in the field and topic of their choice.”
She continued going through the rules and requirements of the essay, but
Eleanor had already checked out to rack her brain for an essay topic. She
pulled out her notebook and started writing down whatever came to mind, a
collection of unfinished hypotheses and unasked medical questions from the last
three years. Nyota took one look at Eleanor’s hand practically flying off the
page and leaned over to whisper,
“Is it that much of a big deal?”
Eleanor didn’t look up from writing  forensic analysis - time of death based on
insect activity in and around the body  but it didn’t distract her from
responding.
“You may not have looked at this  handful of top universities , but it’s on the
library bulletin board and MIT and Johns Hopkins are a part of that handful.”
she whispered.
“Shit, this is a big deal.”
After their teacher passed out rubrics and retreated to her desk everyone went
to work. Laptops and notebooks were scattered over everyone’s desks and they
were writing and brainstorming as if the deadline was in twelve hours instead
of three months.
 Halfway through the class Eleanor got up to sharpen her pencil, instinctively
scanning her classmates and intentionally glancing back to the corner of the
room where Spock always sat. She assumed that Spock would be typing away at her
computer like always and probably churning out a full first draft by the end of
the class, but it was the opposite. Spock was sitting with her laptop closed
and her desk otherwise completely empty. Her eyebrows were furrowed in
deliberation and she was eerily still with her chin propped on her hand,
staring at nothing.
Eleanor smiled when she sat back down, because something about the sight of
Spock with  no  idea what to do felt like the beginning of a victory.
 
***
 
“So,” Gaila flopped down onto the grass and crushed about a thousand dead
leaves in the process, “how’s the nerd competition going?”
“I’m surprised you’re not in it, seeing as your defining moment of junior year
was winning a writing contest with Harry Potter fanfiction.” Nyota replied.
“Hey! I changed the names, and it was an alternate universe. Practically an
original work.”
Gaila stuck her tongue out at Nyota and they both laughed. The two of them had
been assigned as roommates all four years and had developed the kind of
sisterhood people write sappy movies about. They were better at living together
than a married couple; Gaila always tolerated with Uhura’s long winded rants
and weird sleeping hours and Uhura not only read but edited Gaila’s writing,
whether it was an English essay or Potterotica. Eleanor was jealous of their
relationship more than ever, especially because Spock’s contest entry had her
spending long nights at her desk with  all of the lights on.
The second night it had happened she got up and turned off the lights, and
Spock had whipped her head around and gave Eleanor a look that nearly turned
her to stone. Normally Eleanor didn’t fall for shitty intimidation tactics like
glaring, but after the month and a half she’d been living with Spock the rumor
that she was a sociopath started to fit too well.
Instead of getting up to turn off the lights every five minutes, Eleanor
started to spend her nights trying to come up with an equally annoying way to
throw off Spock’s game.
She was lying down in the grass listening to Nyota talk about her essay topic,
feeling the weight of an entire week of sleep deprivation and Spock’s bitchface
and the cafeteria’s coffee machine out for repairs. She got so busy fantasizing
about spending the weekend sleeping in and working in the lab that she must
have been half asleep by the time Christine joined them under the tree.
“What’s wrong, Chris?” Nyota asked. Eleanor opened her eyes and saw a very
disgruntled looking Christine Chapel joining their circle. She took her jacket
off and laid it on the grass before sitting down on it.
“Someone in my Medical Terminology class just tried to throw off my essay.”
“No shit, what’d she do?” Gaila pushed herself up on her elbows.
“She  just happened  to trip over one of the computer cords. I lost over an
hour of work.”
“Why do you think she did it on purpose?” Eleanor asked. Christine didn’t seem
like a likely target; Eleanor couldn’t remember her ever making an enemy.
“Well…” Christine looked down at her lap, “I might have checked all of the
medical books out of the library last week.”
“You little minx.” Nyota gasped.
“This essay is stressing me out so much, I had to do  something.  Do you know
how many people are writing about topics similar to mine?” She sounded like she
was about to burnout from stress. Eleanor had never seen her have trouble with
academic pressure before. It would have been fascinating if she wasn’t so
concerned. Christine was rubbing her forehead, probably from a headache.
“Oh, honey.” Nyota scooted closer and pulled Christine against her chest.
Christine frowned and leaned into it, closing her eyes.
“I’m glad I don’t get into that sabotage shit. It’s never worth it.” Eleanor
mumbled. The three of them spent the rest of the evening carrying sixty three
books back to the library.
 
***
 
Eleanor was seconds away from tearing her desk apart. She searched through her
backpack and under her bed and in all of the dresser drawers and was about to
start  actually  panicking when she turned around and saw Spock awake in her
bed and staring at her.
“Are you looking for something, Eleanor?” Spock asked, and her voice was thick
with sleep but it still carried enough sass to indicate that she definitely
knew the answer to that question.
“Yes, Spock, don’t mind me, I’m just missing  the most important notebook in my
life right now .”
Spock sniffed and scrunched her face uncharacteristically, and Eleanor realized
that she’d never seen Spock wake up in the morning before.
“Your reaction to a lost notebook is very dramatic considering you could have
been recording all of your lab work virtually.”
“ Jesus fucking- ” Eleanor dragged a hand across her face before it hit her,
“you did this, didn’t you?”
“If you’re suggesting that I am responsible for the fact that you lost your lab
notebook, I feel I should remind you that you are being dramatic.”
She didn’t look like she planned on getting out of bed, probably since it was
at least a half hour before her alarm would go off. It just felt odd to Eleanor
that she was having a conversation with Spock while she was wrapped up in a
duvet with drooping eyelids and  bedhead .
“I don’t need this from you right now, okay?” Eleanor stepped closer to the
bed, feeling her face start to heat up. Spock watched her nonchalantly.
“If you want my advice,”
“I don’t.”
“If you want my advice,” Spock continued, “The time you’re spending
antagonizing me could be spent recreating the experiments that you had written
down.”
“You piece of  shit .” Eleanor stepped forward and grabbed her by the
shoulders, pulling her practically halfway out of bed. She was definitely
stronger than she gave herself credit for, but Spock didn’t seem to be fighting
back at all.
Clearly Spock had some issue with mornings, because at every other time of day
when Eleanor had to spend time with her she was a statue, all perfect posture
and cold stares, but after yanking her upright her body started to sink back
down slowly. She had sleepily wrapped an arm around Eleanor’s neck for leverage
when both of them froze. Spock’s eyes widened and Eleanor untangled them and
retreated to her side of the room.
She was almost done shoving everything into her backpack so she could run out
of their room and never return when Spock spoke up, still sitting in bed.
“Yesterday when you tried to argue with me in the laboratory, you left the room
quickly in an attempt to have the last word, and you left your lab notebook on
the table.”
Eleanor groaned loudly. Of course.
“Alright, first of all,” She threw her backpack over her shoulder and walked to
the door, “I was not  trying  to argue, that was a two-sided argument. Second,
it’s not even surprising to me that you would withhold that information from
me, and third, here’re some last words for you: you’re a bitch.”
Eleanor slammed the door shut and stormed off to the lab.
 
***
 
Before they knew it, it was nearly December, and the tension between Spock and
Eleanor was becoming entirely unbearable as their deadline approached.
Christine had established a rule that Eleanor wasn’t allowed to complain about
Spock for longer than five minutes because once she passed the first few
sentences about Spock’s  stupid hair  or her  god-awful study habits  or  that
bitchy face she makes every time she thinks she’s winning  Eleanor won’t stop
for hours.
Talking her friends’ ears off didn’t really matter at this point, though,
because it felt like she had spent more time in the lab than she had spent
anywhere else during that month.
Finally it was Friday evening, four hours after class got out, and she had
finished her lab writeup. It was the last of five experiments she planned to
use as evidence in her extended essay on the pattern of bone structure relative
to the exposure to different waves of the electromagnetic spectrum. Since the
school looked down upon using actual human bones, Eleanor had settled for
different animals that had a similar enough bone structure to humans so that
she could come to a conclusion about the impact of technology and radiation.
Overall she was pretty confident about her submission, to the point where she
didn’t care to ask what Spock was doing.
Something dumb and overly-detailed, probably.
Eleanor slipped everything into her backpack and left the lab, making her way
through the almost-empty hallways. On Friday nights everyone was either in
their rooms or sneaking off campus, and although Christine and Nyota had
convinced Eleanor to sneak out quite a bit during the past three years, she
liked being alone at the school. It brought her a sort of peace, to be able to
walk alone through this place that felt so much more like home than anywhere
else she’d lived.
Eleanor stopped to read one of the flyers on the wall about community service
opportunities. Suddenly she heard familiar and annoyingly robotic footsteps
approaching her. Not wanting Spock to throw off another one of her good moods
(which were relatively rare, these days), she decided to ignore it. Until the
absolute moment when she couldn’t.
“Eleanor.”
“What, Spock.” Eleanor turned around and crossed her arms over her chest. Spock
ever-so-slightly straightened her already perfect posture, lifting her chin a
little. It was an unspoken intimidation game that they had been playing nonstop
for the last six weeks, and since there was no clear winner, there was no clear
end to it.
“I know you have been intentionally disorganizing my desk every morning. I wish
for you to know that it does not deter me from achieving higher marks than
you.”
“If it’s not deterring you, then why are you confronting me about it?”
“This is not a confrontation. I am merely informing you of the fact that your
attempts to increase your academic standing over me are not working.”
“Wait hold on. Are you trying to gloat or something?”
“No.”
“Alright, so you tracked me down after hours, which is creepy by the way, just
to  inform  me that you’re making good grades. Don’t you think I already know?
I think you’re trying to gloat.”
Spock’s eye twitched slightly.
“Regardless of the fact that that would be awfully juvenile of you, it’s also
useless, because we have the exact same GPA.”
The air was full of unspoken  I hate you’s  and for some reason Eleanor
couldn’t stop thinking of bitchy things to say.
“And since we have the same grade point average, that would mean we
theoretically should be tied for valedictorian right now. But you probably know
that.”
Eleanor stepped closer. Spock was glaring back at her, motionless.
“And you also know that since it’s impossible to have two people ranked number
one, The system puts me first.  Alphabetically .”
“If you are attempting to draw an act of violence from me, it will not work.”
Spock finally said, voice tight.
“If I wanted to draw an act of violence out of you,  Sepphora , I would do
this.”
They were already close enough that Eleanor only had to lean forward slightly
to press their lips together. Spock was frozen, and it was practically like
kissing a wall.
Eleanor pulled back and smirked, confident in the fact that she had won
tonight. She walked away, leaving Spock standing in the middle of the hall.
About an hour later, she was still pleasantly alone in their room, checking
emails and trying not to think about the fact that Spock was the first person
she’d kissed in almost a year.  It wasn’t even a good kiss, why am I still
thinking about this.  She sighed. Once Spock came back they would probably
pretend it didn’t happen and the game would continue.
The door opened and Eleanor instinctively stood up. She turned around and Spock
was standing in the doorway, something like desperation written across her
face. They stared at each other for almost a minute before Spock slammed the
door behind her and practically ran towards Eleanor’s desk. Eleanor couldn’t
process what was happening fast enough to react and suddenly she felt a hands
on her face and something that was definitely not a wall kissing her like she
had never been kissed before. It took a couple seconds before her only thought
was  fuck it , and she pulled Spock’s body flush against hers. Spock responded
by pressing Eleanor against her desk, trying to regain some control. Eleanor’s
breath hitched as she was trapped between the desk and Spock, who was now
trailing kisses down her neck that were more teeth than tongue.
"Fuck." Eleanor breathed, her hands exploring as much of Spock as possible
because this was definitely going to be a one time thing. Spock hummed in
response, pausing to focus on the skin of Eleanor's collarbone. Spock's cold
hands travelled up her shirt, which she remembered being tucked in a minute
ago, and every light touch of her fingers sent shivers spiraling through
Eleanor's body.
"Fuck. What are we doing."
"You need to stop talking." Spock's voice was lower and she hardly lifted her
mouth as she talked. Eleanor figured it was best not to complain. She tangled
her fingers in that stupid perfect hair instead, pulling on it until Spock
moaned into her neck. A few minutes passed of Spock's mouth on her neck and
Eleanor's hands in Spock's hair.
"You're wearing the wrong bra size."
"Oh my god shut up and just take it off." Eleanor pulled her arms back so Spock
could slide her shirt off.
"You should be about a 32C, but this is a 34B."
"Seriously. What are you trying to accomplish by telling me this right now."
She went ahead and took her bra off herself, making a note to find out if Spock
was right sometime in the future.
"Now you. Come on." Eleanor started undoing the buttons on Spock's shirt,
catching a glimpse of black lace before Spock made an impatient noise and went
back to the making out. She moved lower this time, lips over her collarbone,
her hands running up her sides and over her breasts. Eleanor arched into it,
the pain of the desk against her back long forgotten by now.
"So uh. Are we going to get any further than this or what." Eleanor panted,
trying to regain some of the bitchiness she had earlier. It probably didn't
sound the least bit powerful so much as it sounded pleading. Spock didn't
respond, choosing instead to only focus on Eleanor's top half.
"Do I have to fuckin do everything..." Eleanor muttered into Spock's ear. She
grabbed one of her hands and practically shoved it under her skirt.  Maybe
this'll get the message across you piece of shit.
Spock traced circles over Eleanor's inner thighs agonizingly slowly. Eleanor
responded by pulling Spock's hair again, this time in a way that would probably
hurt if she didn't suspect that Spock was totally into it. With her mouth still
sucking at the base of Eleanor's neck, Spock finally slid two fingers into her
underwear and rubbed against her clit almost too hard. Eleanor breathed hard.
She remembered knocking papers off of her desk, holding onto the edges until
her knuckles were white as she got closer and closer to the edge. She could
hear Spock's breath hitch as she was hit with one of the best orgasms she'd had
in the last year. Eleanor's body tensed up and the entire world went away
except for her and Spock.
As she started to come back down, sweat beading on her forehead, Eleanor
remembered that Spock was still practically fully clothed.
"Now you." She mumbled, her head still floating in the afterglow, "Come on. I'm
a bitch but I'm not that much of a bitch."
"You should go to sleep."
Eleanor frowned. Spock pulled her upright and started moving towards the
direction of Eleanor's bed.
"No. This is not over until you have an orgasm." Eleanor felt sleepy and care-
free and satisfied. She willed herself to sound in charge, to convince Spock
into letting her reciprocate, but for some reason Spock continued to push her
into bed and stupidly, she stopped protesting.
 
***
Eleanor woke up the next morning to an empty room. She tried to think of a
reason Spock would have left before her, and then she remembered. It all hit
her at once--the kiss in the hallway, the sudden one-sided desk sex, Spock’s
lace bra--and she hoped it had been some weird stress dream. Having a stress
induced sex dream about Spock wouldn’t have been ideal either, seeing as it
meant she was somehow sexually attracted to  Spock,  but it was at least better
than actually having had sex with her.
She pulled back her duvet, and just as she feared, shirt and bra were both
gone. She sat up and pressed a hand to her neck; there were definitely bruises.
Never in her life did Eleanor think she would regret good sex. She picked up
her clothes, discarded earlier because apparently she had been in a hurry to
get naked with Spock of all fucking people. She had to take a second to subdue
some nausea before going into her dresser.
The drawer was empty. Eleanor opened another one, also empty. She looked
through the entire dresser.
Spock had taken her clothes.
Eleanor searched her side of the room for whatever else could be missing, but
her backpack was still there with everything in it, her laptop was still
plugged in at her desk, nothing had been taken in an attempt to fuck with her
essay. The only things Spock took were her clean clothes and her makeup.
 
Oh.
 
Suddenly she understood why Spock’s little prank was so weird. All of the
students submitting an essay had to interview with the head of the science
department today. That was Spock’s sabotage.
She must have come up with it pretty quickly, after Eleanor had kissed her in
the hallway. Spock then proceeded to come back to the room and initiate sex,
giving her an opportunity to cover Eleanor’s neck with a tacky collection of
hickeys. She could’ve stopped there, except the orgasm put Eleanor to sleep in
minutes.
And then Spock took her clothes and her makeup bag, and wherever she must have
put them, it meant Eleanor would be showing up to an interview with the head of
the science department as if it were a pit stop on her post-hookup stumble
home. Eleanor wanted to scream.
It was actually a pretty brilliant trick.
She hastily put her clothes from last night back on and grabbed her backpack
before all but sprinting to Christine’s room.
Christine must have been asleep because it took about ten knocks on the door
for her to open up, dressed in pajamas and yawning. She gave Eleanor a once-
over, and seconds after noticing the wrinkled clothes and the hickey-stained
neck she gasped and yanked her inside.
“What the  fuck , Ellen?”
It was more of a this-is-not-how-I-raised-you look than she’d ever gotten from
her own mother.
“I’ll explain later, I promise, but this is code red, Christine. I’ve been
played.” Eleanor was talking a mile a minute, trying to get the words necessary
out so Christine would help her and she could avoid her stress manifesting in
either a panic attack or a homicide.
“No, you know what,” Christine rubbed her eyes, “I don’t even want to know the
details right now, It’s too early. Just tell me why you’re here.”
“She took all of my clothes and my makeup, and I have an interview with the
science department in an hour and a half.”
“Okay. So clothes, concealer,” she squinted at Eleanor, “dry shampoo.”
Eleanor nodded. She still couldn’t believe what was going on.
Christine’s clothes fit well enough. She was a little bigger, her uniform shirt
a little looser around the bust and longer in the arms, but it was better than
the alternative. Eleanor pulled one of Christine’s school sweaters over it and
the outfit was passable.
The two of them spent the next half hour sitting on the floor with Christine
mixing concealer and bronzer and foundation and trying to even out the coloring
on Eleanor’s neck.
“Not that I’m terribly surprised, but why the hell did you have sex with
Spock?”
“Honestly that’s probably the last thing I want to talk about right now.”
Eleanor sighed. Christine continued layering concealer on her neck. Her fingers
pressed into the bruises and they ached, bringing the memory of the night
before back in unsettling clarity. Eleanor had been really into it. Like,
really  into it.
“Wait.”
“What?” Christine’s hands paused.
“What do you mean you’re not terribly surprised?”
“Um…”
Eleanor was about to glare at Christine in her peripheral vision when there was
another knock on the door, much less urgent.
“It’s open.” Christine called.
Nyota walked in, looking perfect as usual and, unlike Eleanor, like she was on
her way to a successful interview. She was startled by the sight of the two of
them sitting on the floor with Christine’s hands over Eleanor’s neck.
“What’s going on in here?” She sat down on the bed.
“Spock got Eleanor to have sex with her and it turned out to be another one of
their little sabotage games.” Christine explained, adopting the disappointed
mother tone once again.
Nyota blinked at Eleanor before she burst out into laughter.
“It’s not fuckin’ funny.” Eleanor griped. Christine shushed her and tilted her
head to the side to get behind her shirt collar. Nyota took heaving breaths
that kept dissolving into more fits of giggling. Finally she was back to
normal, only snorting a little bit the next time she looked at Eleanor and
understood the neck makeup situation.
“Nyota, since you’re here, can you help me explain why Eleanor and Spock having
sex was not a surprise?”
“Uh.” Nyota played with the hem of her skirt, “Because Spock is probably
extremely sexually repressed and Ellen gets horny when she’s challenged?”
“I do  not- ”
“Oh hush.” Christine tutted. She did one last inspection of Eleanor’s neck and
fixed her hair before standing up. “We need to go get breakfast anyway. Nyota
can tell us her full psychoanalysis then.”
“And  you  can tell us all the details of your hookup. Just wait until Gaila
hears about this-”
“There is no way in hell I am telling Gaila.” Eleanor stood up, her legs and
back starting to ache.
Fifteen minutes later she was glaring at her black coffee and trying not to
touch her face and neck while Gaila cycled through about a hundred different
reactions in her seat across the table. Nyota was still giggling into her
breakfast and Christine watched the three of them in amusement.
“I… can’t, oh my god, I can’t believe this.”
“I just can’t believe Spock willingly touched another human being, even if it
was fake.” Christine said.
“Was it fake though?” Gaila asked, raising an eyebrow at Eleanor.
“She’s not a good enough actress to fake an orgasm. Spock would’ve seen right
through it.” Nyota took a sip of her orange juice.
“Will you two  stop? ”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Nyota laughed.
“One more question though, and then we won’t talk about it anymore.”
Eleanor squinted at Gaila before muttering  fine  and hiding her face behind a
coffee mug. Gaila grinned and she started to regret allowing whatever question
she was about to ask.
“Tell me about Spock’s O face.”
Nyota choked and had to slap a hand over her mouth to avoid spitting juice on
the table. Christine’s face lit up.
“Oh my god, actually though. I can’t even imagine it.” Christine leaned closer
and propped her chin up on her hands. Eleanor’s face turned bright red.
“She… didn’t.”
“She didn’t… she didn’t what? She didn’t come?” Gaila asked.
“Eleanor!” Christine batted her on the arm, “You didn’t reciprocate?”
“I couldn’t! She didn’t let me!” Eleanor blurted out. Nyota shook her head and
picked up her fork again.
“You should have known you were being played right then.”
“Okay, Nyota, why don’t you try and be such a great mystery solver when your
head’s full of oxytocin?”
“I’m just saying.” Nyota held her hands up in defense.
Eleanor pushed her food to the side and laid her head on the table. Christine
patted her hair in consolation.
 
***
 
The interview went fine. Eleanor practiced smiling in the mirror for the ten
minutes leading up to it. She tried to smooth her hair down and sweeten her
accent and she walked into the department head’s office like there was no place
she’d rather be. The woman was all smiles and asked questions that sounded like
they’d been repeated so much they lost meaning. Eleanor talked about her goals
of going to medical school and her interest in stem cell research and before
she knew it she was being thanked for her time and led out of the room.
She took long breaths on the walk back to her dorm, trying to rid her psyche of
the terrible morning she’d had. The cold air seeped through her clothes and was
starting to bite when she hurried into the lobby.
Eleanor was ready to take a long shower and lay in bed until dinner time. She
opened the door to her room and sighed in relief that it was empty. If
everything was still missing she could pull something out of her laundry
hamper, or just steal from Spock’s dresser. She sat down on her bed and pushed
off her shoes with her toes when something on her desk caught her eye.
It was her makeup bag. Spock didn’t try to put it back where it was before but,
after further inspection, it still had everything in it. She turned and walked
to her dresser. All of her clothes were back inside, folded neatly and
organized by color. She groaned and slammed the drawer shut. Spock was a
goddamned ninja if she’d ever seen one.
She was in the middle of  reorganizing  her drawers like they were before when
the door opened and Spock quietly stepped inside. Eleanor didn’t want to turn
to look at her. From the sound of it, she was acting like nothing had happened,
setting her bag down at her desk and booting up her computer. Eleanor pulled
out blue jeans and two sweaters and clean underwear to change into and grabbed
her toiletry bag. She glanced at Spock on her way to the door. Spock was
standing at her desk as her computer turned on, and Eleanor stared at her hair,
long and dark and falling straight down her back. There was no way she wasn’t
straightening it every morning.
“Nice trick.” Eleanor said. Spock turned around slowly.
She walked towards Eleanor, very obviously staring at her neck. Eleanor was
about to ask her what the hell her problem was when Spock suddenly smiled. It
was only a subtle curve of her lips but at the same time it might have been the
most terrifying thing Eleanor had ever seen.
Spock raised her index finger to her mouth and licked it, and Eleanor was
frozen as she reached forward and dragged her fingertip down her neck, wiping
away a line of the makeup.
“Nice trick.”
Eleanor’s hands clenched into fists and Spock walked back to her desk. As good
as it would feel to punch Spock in the kidney, she tried to cling on to
whatever self control she still had in her and left the room.
 
***
 
Everyone submitted their essays on the last day of the semester. In the time
between the interview and the turn-in date Eleanor had forced herself to play
nice. Part of it was because she considered herself morally above the pulling
pranks, but mostly she just didn’t want to know what else Spock was capable of
. They hadn’t spoken to each other at all, returning to their previous routine
of avoiding each other. Eleanor was actually starting to look forward to going
home for Christmas.
Gaila knocked on Eleanor’s door when Eleanor had just barely woken up. She
padded across the cold floor and opened the door up to a burst of red-haired,
Puerto Rican energy. Gaila was wearing a reindeer pin on her uniform, the final
act of holiday rebellion after continuously getting busted for trying to wear
Christmas sweaters to class.
“Hey, uh, good morning.” Eleanor rubbed her eyes, “Not that I’m not happy to
see you, but what are you doing here?”
“Nyota’s stressing out about turning in her essay and I need a break from all
that negative energy. So I’m here!” Gaila pushed her way inside. Eleanor stood
at the open door for a minute before she finally gave in to her fate. Gaila
flopped onto her bed, and the springs creaked loud enough that Eleanor saw
Spock shift on the other side of the room.
“So, Eleanor.”
“Yes?” Eleanor started getting dressed, ignoring the fact that she probably had
two people watching.
“Tell me you’re coming to the winter dance. It’s gonna be wild this year, and,”
she rolled over onto her stomach, “the boys are gonna be there again.”
“None of the things you said appeal to me.”
“Come onnnn, you know you’re going to come anyway. And  I  know you’ve been
dreaming about the buffet table since they switched caterers last year.”
Eleanor sighed. Gaila was right, and her weakness for fancy bite-sized food was
also getting extremely out of hand. They both turned when they heard Spock sit
up in her bed.
“Spock! Good morning!” Gaila smiled. Eleanor could see on her face that she was
still not over the fact that the two of them had hooked up.
“Hello Gaila.” Spock pushed her hair out of her face. Even in the winter she
always slept in black leggings and a camisole. The thin straps were hanging
around her shoulders and Eleanor tried not to look at her skin, pale and smooth
and annoyingly distracting.
“Do you two know each other?” Eleanor asked. She pulled on Christine’s sweater
over hers and Spock squinted at the action as if Eleanor' fashion choices
personally offended her.
“No.” Spock said.
“Is your family doing anything fun for Christmas? I already know Eleanor’s
going to spend the break doing nothing like always.”
“Hanukkah is already over.” Spock got out of bed slowly, another installment of
her struggle with mornings. Eleanor made herself turn around when she started
getting dressed.
“That’s a shame you weren’t with your family.” Gaila said, still happily
lounging on Eleanor’s bed and somehow not even slightly afraid of Spock.
“I don’t consider it a shame.”
Once Spock was finished getting dressed she started packing up her bag,
slipping her essay, printed out and almost half an inch thick, into a file
folder.
“Do you want one?” She looked at Eleanor. Eleanor raised an eyebrow.
“One what?”
“A folder. Your essay will appear more professional if all of the pages are
intact.”
Like I’m gonna lose one of the pages  Eleanor grumbled. Spock held out an empty
folder for her anyway and she walked over to grab it.
“Thanks.”
Spock nodded. Eleanor tried to figure out why the fuck Spock would be helping
her now, right before the very end, and if it was possible for a folder to be
part of some intricate plan for ruining Eleanor’s life. Gaila gave her a
confused look and she shrugged.
She would have brought it up over breakfast but Gaila was right about negative
energy. Nyota was silent the whole time, looking like she was mentally counting
down the seconds to the end of the world. Christine was pretending to be calm,
but she was stabbing her scrambled eggs like there was no tomorrow, and Eleanor
wondered why she wasn’t stressing out. She was so worried that she wasn’t
stressing enough that she started to stress about not being stressed.
Gaila looked around the table and gave up.
“Okay I was dreading my art final but now it really doesn’t seem so bad. I’ll
meet you guys at the dance.”
“I’m not going.” Eleanor whined.
“Yes you are.”
She winked and waved goodbye and left Eleanor with two human sized balls of
angst.
 
***
 
Turning in her essay after the three months she spent on it somehow felt less
satisfying than Eleanor expected. She didn’t put it in the folder Spock gave
her, because even though she couldn’t think of a reason an empty folder would
be another trick, she couldn’t think of a reason Spock would just spontaneously
be nice to her either. Eleanor was never good at trusting people anyway; she
went to the school store and bought another folder before turning it in to the
department office.
She made sure to do it after her last exam, so that she could feel the
combination of everything she’d done that semester being finished at once, but
the reality of having turned in the essay that might be the difference between
getting accepted at Johns Hopkins and getting waitlisted didn’t kick in until
about an hour later.
Eleanor paced around her room, nervously chewing at her nails as if there was
anything left that she could do. She started thinking about whether or not her
concluding paragraph could have been rephrased and then she remembered that
there was a party going on.
If anything, the winter dance would give her something else to complain about
instead of the long list of unknowns that had collected after turning in her
essay. Plus, if she didn’t go, Gaila would never let her hear the end of it.
She dug through her dresser for something nice and ended up putting on a black
sweater dress over the tights she was already wearing. She stood in front of
the mirror and it vaguely looked like she was on her way to a funeral, which
only made her start wanting to go to the dance even more. She dug out a pair of
flats and went to Gaila’s room.
Gaila’s face lit up when she answered the door, dressed in something green and
poofy.
“You’re coming! Nyota, she’s coming!”
Nyota was sitting at her desk putting makeup on, wearing a tight red dress that
was only a few details away from what she’d worn to last year’s winter dance.
She gave a halfhearted  yay , too focused on lining her eyes to look up.
Eleanor sat down on Nyota’s bed and watched her put on eyeliner while Gaila
finished getting dressed.
“You look like you’re going to a funeral.” Nyota said. Eleanor smiled.
“Is that a problem?”
“I guess not.”
“We’ve already submitted our college applications  and  you guys turned in your
extended essays, so we could say it’s a funeral for the death of caring about
high school.” Gaila bent over to slip on a pair of high heels that looked tall
and sharp enough to kill a man.
Nyota snorted, hand still steadily drawing a perfect cat eye.
“Like I’ll ever be able to stop caring.”
Christine showed up a few minutes later, and then the four of them hung out in
Gaila and Nyota’s room until about a half hour after the dance was supposed to
start. Nobody went to school dances to have fun anyway; they were only going so
they could look hot and eat appetizers. It wouldn’t be a bad end to the
semester.
They had cleared the tables out of the dining hall and replaced them with a
buffet and a dance floor and a gross amount of blue and white streamers. The
dance floor was full of underclassmen pretending to have a good time and
flirting with all of the gross teenage boys that had been bussed in from
Roddenberry. Eleanor scanned the perimeter for an empty space against the wall
where they could spend most of the party loitering. Nyota and Gaila went to get
them all punch while Christine joined Eleanor in her loitering plan.
“Looks like it might not be as lame as last year.” Christine said, leaning
close to Eleanor’s ear so that they could hear each other. Blue had always been
Christine’s color, which was how she managed to get away with wearing the same
light blue dress for every school formal occasion. It was still in great shape,
velvet and drapey and only a little tighter than it had been the first time she
wore it, which only made the dress all the more flattering.  
Eleanor suddenly felt a little out of place in her thick black dress.
“Don’t worry, ladies, the punch is not alcoholic.” Gaila called, passing out
plastic cups full of something red and artificially flavored.
“Not yet.” Eleanor muttered, and Christine laughed like sunshine and took a
cup.
They stood in a circle and swayed to the music, picking up the conversations
they were having earlier at the dorms, until finally Gaila gave in and dragged
them all to the dance floor. Even though it was stuffy and crowded with
freshmen dancing to trashy pop music they still joined in. Before she knew it
Eleanor was dancing too. They held hands and spun in circles and went through a
number of awful dance moves, and ultimately, it wasn’t a terrible time.
Everyone was smiling and laughing when Eleanor slipped away to find the
bathroom.
She was sweating and her cheeks were flushed from dancing, but otherwise her
reflection in the mirror wasn’t that bad. Eleanor wiped her face and neck with
a paper towel, but in doing so she also accidentally wiped the makeup off of
the fading bruises on her neck.
Ever since the interview Eleanor had covered the hickeys with makeup every
morning, and even though both her and Spock refused to talk about it, she
caught Spock glancing more than once at her neck, covered or uncovered. It was
almost as if Spock needed confirmation of what she’d done. Eleanor responded by
pretending they weren’t there.
She stared at herself for a little while, messing with her hair. Eventually she
gave up on the tangles and tied her hair into a bun. A few strands of hair
started to fall loose when she started walking but Eleanor figured it probably
looked fine.
Seconds after walking out of the bathroom she bumped into someone, mumbled
sorry  and was heading back towards the dining hall when they spoke up.
“Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Eleanor McCoy?”
Eleanor suppressed a groan and turned around to face Jim Kirk. He was wearing a
dark blue suit this year, with no necktie but a red flower in the front pocket.
She looked at the flower and back up at Jim, who was grinning like seeing
Eleanor was the most amusing thing he’d ever experienced.
The story of their relationship only went back to freshman year. The two of
them were opponents at Eleanor’s first (and last) debate tournament, and it had
gotten her so heated she was dismissed by the moderator. Jim won by forfeit,
and found Eleanor pouting in the hallway to offer her a cup of over-sweetened
coffee.
In hindsight, he must have meant it as a peace offering, but Eleanor assumed he
was trying to gloat. She was mean to him then, and continued to be mean every
time she saw him, but he kept coming back for some messed up reason. Eleanor
saw him mostly as a nuisance and occasionally as a tolerable nuisance.
“I wish my eyes were deceiving me right now.” Eleanor griped. Jim smirked at
her, resting his hands on his hips.
“Always the charmer.” He said, and Eleanor sighed, exasperated.
“I’m not the one with a goddamn dahlia in my suit pocket.”
Jim cocked his head to the side, still smiling like the cheeky piece of shit he
was.
“I know you meant that as an accusation but you lost your malice when you
correctly identified the flower as a dahlia.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes.
After a minute of the two of them watching each other, Eleanor half glaring and
Jim clearly looking for something annoying to talk about, by some coincidence,
Spock showed up. She was in a black turtleneck shirtdress that was eerily close
to what Eleanor was wearing. The main difference between the two of them was
the fact that Spock had actually put a lot of effort into braiding and pinning
her hair up. Once she was finished giving Spock an unintentional once-over
Eleanor realized that the two people she wanted to see the least were now right
in front of her.
It got even weirder, because Jim was talking to Spock like he  knew  her.
“Wait, do you two know each other?”
Jim turned away from Spock to look at Eleanor, clearly confused.
“Do  you  two know each other?
“Eleanor and I are roommates.” Spock said. She didn’t look at Eleanor, which
was weird, seeing as the only exchanges they’d had in the past three weeks
comprised of Spock giving her weird looks. Eleanor brushed it off and went back
to the more pressing issue of how the fuck Jim and Spock knew each other.
“Oh my god, Spock, why didn’t you tell me? This is incredible. You two are
like, polar opposites.” Jim was looking back and forth between the two of them
in excitement.
“Yeah,  we know .” Eleanor muttered, “More importantly, since when are you two
friends?”
“I don’t understand why this is so confusing to you, Eleanor, seeing as you
have been pointedly  not  interested in my friends.” Spock finally looked at
her and her face was uncharacteristically hostile. Eleanor almost stepped back.
“I’m confused,  Spock , because  you don’t have any friends .”
Jim’s eyes widened and he breathed out in a low whistle, awkwardly trying to
place himself between them.
“Sepphora and I go way back.” Jim propped his elbow up on Spock’s shoulder but
it didn’t distract from the staring contest that had broken out. Both of them
had gone from annoyed with Jim to visibly seething at each other in a manner of
seconds. And now Eleanor was even more upset because  out of all people why
does this asshole get to call her by her real name.
“We’re both from Scarsdale. We met in Hebrew School, right Seph?” Jim chuckled,
trying to get Spock to give up before somebody punched somebody else to the
ground. Spock slowly blinked and nodded in confirmation.
“That’s correct.” She said, but Eleanor could hear in her voice that Jim’s
attempt at calming her down was not working.
“Her parents want us to get married.” Jim said with a fake dreaminess to his
voice. He smiled suggestively at Spock and her mouth twitched. Eleanor couldn’t
believe that this was actually real.
“They do not.” Spock argued.
“Oh but they do. I went home two weekends ago and you wouldn’t  believe  who
showed up at my door to take me out to dinner.”
“They did  not .”
Jim grinned even wider. Spock did what Eleanor had learned was her equivalent
of a facepalm, closing her eyes and pressing her fingertips to her forehead.
Eleanor forgot how pissed off she was with Spock for a minute because Jim and
Spock being childhood friends was actually hilarious and a little poetically
just.
“She was my first kiss, did you know that Eleanor?” He raised an eyebrow and
Spock exhaled softly.
“It was on the cheek and a result of my mother’s coercion. Not a kiss.”
“There was tongue.”
“There was  not .”
Eleanor was staring at the two of them in disbelief when her actual friends
showed up.
“We’ve been looking for you!” Christine hooked arms with Eleanor, Gaila and
Nyota trailing behind. They were all breathless from dancing and Gaila was
missing her heels.
“Also, it tastes like there is definitely something in the punch.” Nyota said,
holding up an empty plastic cup. She extended a full one to Eleanor and Eleanor
shook her head no.
“Aha!” Jim pumped a fist in the air. “Oh, by the way, Gaila, Gary keeps asking
about you.”
“Gary!” Gaila smacked her palm against her forehead, “His name was Gary, guys.”
“I’m guessing you don’t want me to give him your number, then.”
“Yeah, maybe not.”
“Although,” Jim stepped away from leaning on Spock, offering his hand to Gaila,
“I do know some boys you would definitely be interested in meeting.”
“Well lead the way, my good sir.” Gaila picked up the punch that Nyota was
still holding and took Jim’s hand. “And this better be a nicer selection than
last year.”
“Don’t worry. I can guarantee that one of them is a great kisser.”
Jim winked at Eleanor and the two of them walked away. Eleanor watched them go,
trying to figure out how Jim Kirk managed to weave his way into people’s lives
everywhere he went. Spock was still there for some reason and Christine made
some small talk with her before, unsurprisingly, making an excuse to go back
into the dining hall. Nyota latched onto her and Eleanor was about to follow
them both when Spock spoke up.
“You did not use the folder I gave you.”
Eleanor turned around.
“What?”
Spock blinked at her.
“The folder. I gave it to you for your essay, and this afternoon I saw it on
your desk.”
“Oh, right. Yeah I didn’t use it.”
“Why not?”
“Did you expect me to trust you after all the other shit you’ve done?”
“It was a  folder .” Spock seemed like she was genuinely upset that Eleanor
hadn’t accepted her little peace offering. It was as if she wasn’t aware that
Eleanor had a handful of very valid reasons to be suspicious of her. Eleanor
shrugged.
“Well sorry if I hurt your feelings, Spock, but I didn’t want to take any
chances.”
“My feelings are not hurt.” Spock raised her chin in the air, “I was simply
unaware of your capacity to be petty.”
Eleanor was just about ready to storm off, but she didn’t want to spend the
entire break tossing and turning over unsaid comebacks.
“Petty? You want to talk about being  petty ?” She had to cross her arms over
her chest to avoid shaking with anger, anger that had been building up and
simmering inside of her ever since she met Spock. Spock didn’t say anything,
silently waiting for the oncoming storm.
“I’m not the one who uses  sex  to manipulate people. What, do you think you’re
a character in Gossip Girl or something?  You don’t even see me as a threat to
your academics. I know you don’t.”
Spock opened her mouth to say something but Eleanor cut her off.
“Which means you were being terrible just for the sake of being terrible. Even
from the first day we met. You had no reason to be an ass; you just were.”
Suddenly it came to her, like finding a light switch in the dark and cluttered
room that was her and Spock’s relationship. “And I think I know why.”
Eleanor smiled at her and the redness started to return to Spock’s ears.
“I think that  you  think that nobody could ever want to be in any sort of
relationship with you. Maybe you had some bad experiences in the past or
something but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know what to expect
from people who hate you. You probably can’t even imagine someone  actually
liking you, can you?” She spat out, feeling like a weight was being lifted off
of her shoulders.
“That is not true.” Spock whispered.
“What is true, then? Because I find it pretty fuckin’ hard to believe that you
somehow get off on making enemies.” Eleanor took a step closer and Spock
stepped back, almost far enough to hit the wall.
“Please leave me alone.”
“Alright, fine.” Eleanor turned to go holding up her hands in surrender, “As
you were, Spock.”
Spock didn’t respond and Eleanor left her standing outside of the restroom. The
more she thought about it, scanning the crowd for Christine and Nyota, the more
she started to wonder if she’d actually managed to hurt Spock’s feelings.
She pushed the thought away once she’d found her friends and tried not to let
it bother her for the rest of the night.
 
***
 
Eleanor’s father was still sick when she came home to Brookhaven for winter
break. Her mother was more or less thrilled to see her, though, and Eleanor was
so ready to be distracted from her essay and her last conversation with Spock
that she didn’t mind spending most of her break being taken out to go shopping
and to fancy restaurants and to visit her mother’s friends.
She enjoyed stepping outside into the humid Georgia winter, going the entire
three weeks without having to unpack the heavy coats and sweaters she wore at
school. The week after Christmas the two of them drove downtown to Atlanta and
spent a day there. Eleanor’s mom took a surprising number of pictures while
they were shopping and touring Georgia Tech for the tenth time, and especially
when, on some odd surge of holiday spirit, Eleanor decided to go ice skating.
The two of them were never big on mother-daughter bonding. When she was younger
Eleanor always spent more time with her father, which led to a few years of
unspoken resentment that her mother was seemingly getting over now. Eleanor
didn’t like to think about it, but their newfound harmony with each other was
probably there because both of them knew they’d be on their own pretty soon.
In all honesty Eleanor was relieved to see her mother trying. Even though she
sat opposite of her admittedly very gay daughter at a Georgia Tech Starbucks
and talked about how college will be a great place for her to find a man, she
was trying her best.
Jim called Eleanor’s home phone after she got back that night. Caller ID showed
the caller as George Kirk and Eleanor almost let it go to voicemail. On the
likelihood that it was actually Jim’s dad calling and the subject of the call
was either Jim being arrested or Mr. and Mrs. Kirk calling for advice on
transferring Jim to a new school (to which she would suggest that there’s a
fantastic boarding school out in Iowa) she finally picked up.
“You’ve reached the McCoys.” She said with a layer of fake pep.
“Mission accomplished.” Jim’s idiot voice was still the same over the phone and
Eleanor rolled her eyes.
“How did you get this number?”
“Did you know Sepphora has all of your information?”
“Yeah, it’s a roommate thing. The school expects roommates to be responsible
for one another during breaks. I have all her shit, too.”
“Well, it’s not like she asked me to call you or anything, because she didn’t.
But also she’s been weirdly moody and she keeps bringing you up in
conversations and I wanna know what the heck you did to her.”
“I can’t imagine Spock doing either of those things.”
“Do you always call her Spock?”
“She asked me to.”
Jim exhaled loudly.
“I have  so  many questions about what goes on between you two.”
Eleanor wasn’t sure how she wanted to react, but she was in a good mood
tonight, so she humored him, sitting down on the kitchen floor.
“You can ask three questions and then I’m hanging up.”
“Someone’s feeling generous. I think I like post-Christmas Eleanor. Or Ellen?
Your friends call you Ellen, can  I  call you Ellen?”
“Don’t push it.”
“Okay. Question one: what the heck did you do to Sepphora?”
“I told her the truth, that she was petty and mean to me for no reason and that
I think it’s because she considers herself unloveable.”
“That’s harsh.”
“It was more eloquently put than that.” Eleanor held the phone between her ear
and her shoulder and scooted over to the refrigerator, pulling out the last of
the eggnog. She took an irresponsibly large sip.
“She’s a lot more sensitive than you think, you know. The stoicism, it’s… kind
of an act sometimes.”
“I treated her like the person she wants me to see her as.”
“Well I could say something about that but, question two: did you two always
hate each other or was this some sort of development after you got to know one
another?”
“Spock was a jerk the first night we met. I was fine with us ignoring each
other, and then she started trying to fuck with my extended essay. And I’m not
exaggerating here.  She  started it.”
“Yikes.”
Eleanor grunted in agreement and drank more eggnog.
“You know, I don’t think I want to know the details of that one.” Jim said,
“Alright last question. I gotta think about this one.”
“Take your time, it’s not like I have other things I could be doing.”
“You sure know how to make a guy feel special, Eleanor.”
Eleanor sighed and Jim laughed. She decided that she didn’t hate Jim Kirk, not
completely.
“This is fun. This is like one of those sci-fi shows where you’re cursed by
some alien to tell the truth all the time. Okay, question number three-”
“I always tell the truth. I don’t need a damn  alien -”
“Question number three: you and Seph totally hooked up or something, didn’t
you?”
She could hear the goddamn smirk through the phone.
“I’m hanging up.”
“I KNEW IT!  I knew it .”
“Bye Jim.”
Eleanor hung up the phone and stood up to put it back on the counter. She
carried the half-empty bottle of eggnog upstairs to her bedroom, leaving a
trail of clothes to her bed until finally flopping down on top of it. She
grabbed her laptop off the floor and, in true American holiday fashion, watched
HGTV and drank eggnog in her underwear until after midnight.
The rest of the winter break went by in a similar fashion: friendly outings
with her mother, reading and rereading the same books at her father’s bedside,
calling her friends, and staying up late eating poorly and watching shitty TV.
She boarded the plane for Vermont feeling relaxed and more or less excited to
hear back from Johns Hopkins and get the semester over with.
And then, just after takeoff, Eleanor realized that the “winner” of the
extended essay assignment was going to be announced in less than a week. She
wondered if it was unethical to bribe the man sitting next to her into buying
her alcohol.
 
***
 
Eleanor was laying on her bed staring at the ceiling when Spock showed up. She
was wearing a giant blue coat and her nose was pink from the cold. Eleanor
didn’t know what to say.
“Hi.” Spock spoke and closed the door with the same gentleness.
“Hi.” Eleanor replied. She sat up on her elbows and watched as Spock lifted her
suitcase onto the bed and started taking her layers off. Spock must have had
some change of heart over the break, or maybe she lost a bet with Jim, but once
she was down to her uniform she sat on her bed and tried to start a
conversation.
“How was your break, Eleanor?”
She promised herself that she would only be bitchy if Spoke provoked it, but
she squinted at that on instinct.
“Are you asking because you want to know or because you’re trying to be nice?”
“Both.” She answered, “Although I still would prefer an honest answer.”
Eleanor wanted to sigh, but she didn’t. She tried to smile a little bit.
“It was nice. I ate a lot. I miss the weather down there.”
“Is it warm?” Spock sounded almost like she was interested. Or maybe Eleanor
just didn’t know the difference.
“Well not  warm  warm, not like it is in the spring or fall, but a hell of a
lot warmer than up here.”
Spock nodded.
“How was Scarsdale? I mean, other than the fact that you had to see Jim Kirk.”
If it were anyone else Eleanor felt like she might have gotten a laugh out of
that, or even a smile, or the subtle, Spock equivalent of a smile, but she had
started to suspect that Jim and Spock were actually really close.
“Jim and Scarsdale were both acceptable.”
“Acceptable.” Eleanor breathed out a laugh, “I’m not trying to insult you,
honestly, I just want to know. Why do you always talk like that?”
“I speak so that I cannot be misunderstood.” Spock said, as if it were obvious.
“You’ve never tried being more conversational?”
“I have. It felt… awkward.”
Eleanor laughed, trying to imagine her saying something extreme like  swaggy
or  motherfucker . She made a note to ask Jim about that later, because it was
pretty likely that he was there for the event of Spock trying to talk like a
teenager.
Spock was still sitting on her bed next to an unpacked suitcase. She looked at
Eleanor like she wanted her to keep talking, leaning slightly to give her her
full attention. Eleanor couldn’t help but wonder what had changed, that Spock
was suddenly trying so hard to be friends. She’d go along with it so long as
there wasn’t some gross heart-to-heart in the near future. Or in the far
future. Or at all.
“You and Jim are really close, aren’t you?”
Spock nodded.
“I would say I don’t believe it but I’m starting to think my perception of Jim
might be a little off.”
“Jim is… annoying, but his other qualities make that tolerable.”
“Is he your only friend?” Right after it came out Eleanor realized that that
question was not okay. It was subtle, but Spock’s entire face changed to
something more defensive, pulling in on herself while she thought of how to
answer.
“I’m sorry.” Eleanor said, trying to push their conversation back into
comfortable territory, “The thing I said about you having no friends was really
shitty, you don’t… you don’t have to answer that.”
Eleanor looked down and focused on a section of the floor between them, where
one length of wood met the next. She accepted the likelihood that their
conversation was probably over.
“Yes.” Spock finally answered, and Eleanor looked up. Spock’s face was still
tight with discomfort but she kept talking. “Jim is my only friend.”
Neither of them looked at each other or said anything for a few seconds.
Eleanor sighed and wanted to punch herself for the words that were about to
come out of her mouth.
“Do you want to be friends?”
Spock’s eyes widened a fraction. She opened her mouth to say something and then
closed it again, standing up and unzipping her suitcase. Eleanor watched her
unpack neatly folded clothes and place them in drawers with an instinctive
gracefulness. She closed the last drawer slowly when she was done.
“Although I have spent the last two and a half months attempting to convince
myself otherwise, I find that I am very attracted to you.” She said, staring at
the top of her dresser. Eleanor’s heart raced and her body froze up. She
watched Spock in disbelief.
The air in the room became heavy, almost impossible to breathe, because they
both knew that this wasn’t new information. It was easy last semester to
pretend that the tension between them came from the competition, from the
sabotage and the fighting and not because they wanted each other. Eleanor let
herself believe that Spock made her nervous because she made her angry; Spock
was probably doing the same.
Eleanor tried to think of the best thing, or  anything , to say. Spock finally
looked at her and her face seemed to mirror what Eleanor was thinking.
Both of them quickly turned away when they heard a knock on the door. Eleanor
stood up.
“That’s… probably Christine. I’m gonna go down for dinner.”
Spock nodded.
“Do you want to come with?”
“No. Thank you.”
 
***
 
On their first day back, the principal gave her usual Welcome Back to the Best
School Ever speech. Eleanor tuned it out, taking slow, tired sips of coffee and
occasionally glancing at Spock, who was sitting a few tables away. Christine
tapped her on the shoulder and she looked up.
“What is it?” Eleanor whispered.
“You might want to listen to this.” Christine pointed to the front of the
dining hall. The principal was still standing there, although now a woman who
Eleanor recognized as the head of the Science Department was standing behind
her. They must have been making a special announcement for all of the students
who turned in essays before the break.
“...as your teachers mentioned at the beginning of the assignment,” she said,
her voice losing its usual announcement-cheeriness, “pranks, bullying,
cheating, forgery, and other forms of sabotage are  not  going to be tolerated.
Many of our faculty members have heard rumors of these things going on among
students, and actions will be taken.”
“Shit.” Christine muttered under her breath. The principal continued.
“We ask that any students who witnessed, or carried out, these practices,
report it to the science department before we recognize the scholarship
recipient on Friday. If you confess to having committed an act of academic
sabotage on another student your essay will receive no recognition, but if
another student reports you and you do not come forward in the next few days,
you  will  be suspended. Is that clear, ladies?”
The dining hall echoed with murmurs of agreement and then the principal stepped
down and everything went back to normal. Eleanor felt her face heat up.
“Should I say something?”
“Yes.” Nyota tried to keep her voice down from across the table, “You should
most  definitely  tell them that Spock kept trying to screw you over.”
“Maybe don’t mention the time Spock actually literally screwed you over,
though.”
Eleanor shot Gaila a look and Gaila twitched her eyebrows up. Christine
intervened.
“It’s up to you. But, out of all the shit that went on between you and Spock,
you were mostly at the receiving end. If you tell them everything they probably
won’t take our essay out of consideration.”
“You’ve got nothing to lose.” Nyota shrugged.
Except Eleanor did have something to lose, because even though she hadn’t told
her friends yet, her relationship with Spock still felt like it was hanging
precariously between two opposites. They were inches away from being enemies
again and inches away from something that could qualify as lovers. She sat at
the table, unable to finish her breakfast as her stomach started trying itself
in knots.
Breakfast got out and Eleanor unintentionally watched for which people turned
to go to the school building and which of them nervously headed for the
offices, or, more specifically, to the science department office. She figured
that she could always report Spock later if she wanted to, that she would let
herself think about it for at least a day.
And then Eleanor caught a glimpse of the back of Spock’s head, walking towards
the office faster than usual. Before she could think about it Eleanor was
pushing through the crowd to chase after her.
Spock could probably hear her trying to catch up, but she pretended not to
notice. Eleanor tried calling after her and Spock sped up.
She caught a glimpse of a supply closet on the right and, in a swift, stupid,
and very careless change in plans, Eleanor grabbed Spock by the arm and dragged
her inside, shutting them both in.
“Don’t do it.” Eleanor said, voice loud in the tiny closet. She couldn’t see
Spock in the dark but she could hear her moving her arm around, could feel
warmth coming off of her body as they stood less than a foot away. A few
seconds later Spock flipped the light switch and they were staring at each
other as if it was a surprise that they were both in there together.
“You were going to turn yourself in. Don’t do it.” Eleanor clumsily wiped the
sweat from her forehead.
“I am guilty.” Spock said calmly, “Logically, you should be encouraging me to
confess.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t care, okay, I’m over it.”
“The way I treated you last semester was unforgivable, Eleanor.”
That was an apology. Spock was apologizing to her.
“I don’t care. Just don’t turn yourself in, okay? I wasn’t going to tell them
anything.”
Spock cocked her head to the side.
“Why not?”
“Because…” Eleanor fidgeted impatiently. She wanted Spock to  get  it without
having to tell her because if she kept talking she was going to do something
stupid like cry or try to hold Spock’s hand.
“I just… I just don’t think it matters, alright? I don’t want you to be
disqualified over meaningless shit, okay, it doesn’t matter.”
“Meaningless?” Spock asked, her voice too quiet.
“That’s not what I meant. Jesus christ, Spock.”
“You said that-”
“I know what I said, I just meant that…” Eleanor sighed.
Spock’s face was entirely unreadable and yet, looking into her dark eyes made
Eleanor pretty certain that kissing her was an appropriate response. She
reached forward and tucked Spock’s hair behind her ears, held her face in her
hands and moved slow enough that Spock could stop it all if she wanted.
They had only kissed twice before. The first time it was a joke and the second
was desperate and harsh and Eleanor realized that she had no idea how Spock
liked to be kissed. She pressed their lips together tentatively, learning the
shape of Spock’s mouth, ghosting her thumbs over the curve of her cheekbones.
Spock sighed gently and wrapped her arms around Eleanor’s waist.
Eleanor pulled back.
“That’s what I meant, Spock.”
Spock closed the gap between them and kissed her again, not quite desperate but
eager enough. She pulled Eleanor closer and Eleanor couldn’t help smiling into
the kiss, running her fingers through Spock’s hair until she hummed in
contentment. They pulled apart again and Spock paused.
“Eleanor.”
“Yeah?”
“If it’s possible for you to make the transition, I would prefer if you called
me Sepphora.”
Eleanor laughed, letting her hands settle on Spock’s--Sepphora’s--shoulders.
“I knew you didn’t like being called Spock. I fuckin' knew it.”
“You are, on occasion, more perceptive than you appear to be.” Spock said
flatly.
“I’ll take it.” Eleanor said, and kissed her again. 
 
***
 
Rather than interrupt breakfast or try to herd all of the seniors into one
room, the head of the science department announced the winner of the
scholarship over the PA system Friday afternoon. Eleanor was in Spanish class
when it happened, sitting next to Christine and trying to remember what the
hell a reflexive verb was, when the intercom came on. Christine grabbed
Eleanor’s hand under the desk, and even though she’d been pretty calm about it
all week, Eleanor held on tightly. The entire class stared at the speaker on
the ceiling, including the ones who hadn’t submitted essays.
“We would like to congratulate every student who wrote and submitted an
extended essay. All entries were unique, thoughtful, and impressive, and
reading them made us proud to have such bright students.”
Eleanor suppressed a groan.
“However, after careful consideration, and even after many reports of
misconduct came to light, there was one essay that really stood out to us and
to the universities we partnered with. So, without further ado…”
Christine was whispering  please please please  under her breath and Eleanor
almost wanted to join in.
“The Science Department of Mary F. Sommerville would like to extend both
academic recognition and future college scholarships to Nyota Uhura, for her
essay on The Science of Institutionalized Learning, which stands as both an
excellent analysis of how young people respond to standardized education, as
well as a sound argument for why psychology deserves more respect in in the
world of science, technology, engineering, and math. Congratulations, Nyota!”
Applause echoed in the room and through the walls. Eleanor could see
disappointment and jealousy on a lot of her classmates’ faces but she could
only feel excited. Christine kept saying  oh my god  and they both grinned at
each other as if they had won, and neither of them could calm down enough to
get any work done for the rest of the class.
They ran out to the quad to find Nyota after school got out. She was sitting
with Gaila under the tree, eyes still wet from crying and sparkling in the
daylight. Christine sprinted past Eleanor and scooped Nyota up into a hug,
laughing cheerfully and kissing her again and again. Eleanor started.
“Wait, are you two together?”
Everyone froze, Christine and Nyota still holding each other and Gaila staring
at Eleanor in disbelief.
“You didn’t know?” Gaila asked. Eleanor shrugged.
“Christine and I are together.” Nyota laughed. Christine lifted her off the
ground and spun them around in circles, the two of them happier than they’d
been in a long time. Eleanor smiled as it all started to make sense. They
always had a way of looking at each other, like they had a secret that nobody
else knew. Eleanor had previously wondered why they  weren’t  dating. It was so
uncommon to find someone to really connect with, someone who, in a room full of
people, will only be looking at you.
Eleanor suddenly realized. She cleared her throat awkwardly and Christine
looked up from whatever cute shit she was doing with Nyota.
“Hey, um, I’m gonna go find Sepphora.”
“Okay.” Christine said. None of them had commented on the fact that Eleanor
stopped calling her Spock a few days earlier. Christine probably knew that she
would tell them all what was going on eventually, and until then it only
mattered that Eleanor was doing okay and not feeling homicidal.
She started walking down the hill towards the dorms.
“Go find her and come back!” Gaila called after her.
“Yeah.” Nyota said, “Tell her we want her here. With us.”
Eleanor smiled and did just that.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!