Members of the house of Surak are not meant to be musicians. Strictly speaking, they are not meant to be scientists, either. But this is at least a somewhat more justifiable form of rebellion than music, in Vulcan terms, and in his youth Spock excels at self-deception.

But it is the same thing, in the end. Because he says science and Starfleet to his father, but when he leaves Spock hesitates over his bags, knowing he cannot carry everything; knowing, too, that he does not have the luxury of tarrying. He is being forcibly evicted; he is fortunate to be able to claim any of his 'belongings' at all, and this is only a hard-won victory on his mother's part.

So he considers, and considers, and when he leaves, it is not with his antique telescope, or scales, or Vulcan meditation amulet; but he does take his tiny wooden ka'athyra, and no one seems surprised to see it go.

Terra is an alien world. Her people first expect him to be strange, and then, learning of his mixed heritage, expect him to try to fit in. But Spock does not understand his mother's kin. She, though unabashedly human, fits in on his homeworld because she is innately so nearly Vulcan in temperament. These loud, vibrant humans are unexpected.

Starfleet Academy is a thrumming hive of activity. While he waits to speak with an officer, a passing cadet bobs by, twisting his head strangely. He is moving to the beat coming from a tiny set of speakers in his ears.

The female officer calls Spock in.

The first week of orientation and class passes quickly. Spock socializes little with his classmates, focusing on orienting himself to Terran culture as his peers struggle to adjust to the Academy's course-load. He has little trouble with the supposedly grueling work, physical or academic, but Starfleet Academy really isn't prepared for Vulcans, he thinks charitably. They'll do better in the future.

(In his spare time he attends concerts, musicals, theater performances. San Francisco has a bustling night-life, though curfew is fairly strict for first-year cadets. But Spock has never had such unlimited control over his own time, outside Sarek's prying eyes, and this freedom is intoxicating.)

Spock's roommate is a human named Mark Stevens, who seems pleasant enough. He's fairly studious, which is a relief, and is also on the science track. He is egregious – upon learning Spock was Vulcan he made a random, somewhat unnecessary promise to 'cut back on the swearing, really, he could be fancy too' – but overall seems bearable enough.

It's the third week of class, late evening, and they're walking back to their room from Xenobiology. Spock is trying to explain how claws fell out of the Vulcan evolutionary line; Mark doesn't seem to buy his argument.

"I really, really don't see how claws can be selected against," Mark says. "I mean, your ancestors were cats. Cats that lived in trees. There was a shift in your planetary orbit. Then they lived in the desert. I get it. I get losing the fur, heat stroke, fine. But claws, man, where'd the claws go?"

"A somewhat simplistic summary, but..."

Something cold touches down on Spock's arm.

He pauses, then lets his sentence trail off. Mark, apparently also distracted, looks around. "Is that," the man begins.

Suddenly, with a muted rustle, a wave of cold washes over the Vulcan's skin. A static hum fills his ears; the world is blotted by a sea of shifting, grayish smears.

"Shit!" Mark yelps, forgetting his own promise about provocative language. "Where'd that come from? Quick, Spock - " Half-laughing, he rushes to crouch under the dubious cover of a sad aspen tree, fumbling for something in his bag.

Is this rain? Spock has seen rain before. Usually as quick, sporadic bursts of mist that drizzle out almost before reaching the parched ground. Sometimes in the form of distant rain that evaporates right back among the clouds, mocking the thirsty sand. And, every so often, there are the harsh, deadly desert storms, that sent out spears of lightning and cause devastating flash-floods.

But this is heavy and gentle, both. Soft, cool. It dances jubilantly over his skin, like a welcome.

Alien world, indeed.

"Here," Mark calls.

He's back, now holding a foreign device. A half-circle held up by a rod, designed clearly to repel rain. Water droplets patter off the cheap plastic with quick, staccato beats. The human tilts the rod in Spock's direction in clear invitation.

But Spock shakes his head. Lightning flashes in the distance, and a menacing, rolling boom of thunder follows closely after. Mark winces at the sound.

But Spock tilts his head back, soaking in the rain, and the sounds, and the music of a world he might one day be glad to call part of his heritage.

"Do you enjoy your work?"

"Sir?"

"It's a simple question."

It really, really isn't, Spock thinks. It is, at the very least, an ethnocentric question. He considers saying as much.

But Captain Pike doesn't seem like the sort of man to appreciate this sort of candor. Spock tilts his head. "I gain satisfaction from the proper completion of my duties."

"So you don't want anything more?"

"Sir?"

"If you're satisfied, that implies you're not unsatisfied. And if you're not unsatisfied, you don't want anything more. And if you don't want anything more, you're not ambitious." Pike leans forward. "And if you're not ambitious, kid? You're prone to be lazy."

Spock stares, and spends about fifteen seconds trying to formulate a polite response. When he can think of none, he gives up, and settles on saying quite frankly, "Sir, you are illogical."

There's a small huff – Number One, blowing air through her nose. Pike's eyes widen quickly. He glances at his First Officer swiftly, narrows his eyes, then looks back at Lieutenant Spock. "Did you just make my First Officer laugh, Lieutenant?" he demands.

"No, Sir," Spock says honestly.

Pike purses his lips, staring hard to Spock.

Then he breaks out in a grin.

"I like you," he says. He slams a hand on the science panel. "Don't disappoint me, and we'll get along just fine."

He winks, straightens, brushes off his pants. Then saunters casually away.

Spock stares after the man. Looks up at Number One.

She nods at him, very solemnly, and follows the Captain.

Captain Pike, Spock finds to his surprise, is generally a straight-laced Captain; he is still trying to decipher the circumstances of their first meeting. But in any case he is somehow one of the captain's favorites, which he supposes is good, if probably immoral in some way.

"But see, you have passion," Pike says one day, speaking as he only does when they're alone. " - And don't give me that look," he adds, though Spock has not changed his expression at all, "You do, just, for... for something else. I don't know what."

The captain contemplates this a moment.

"But I want to find out," he adds. " - I bet that would be something to see."

On Talos IV Spock touches a pair of blue flowers that quiver and hum under a song of their own making. At his touch, they bend and fold, trilling a soft sweet song only his Vulcan ears can hear. It almost, almost makes him smile...

"Surely you can just play a little accompaniment, Mister Spock?"

Spock regrets telling Miss Uhura about his skill with the Vulcan harp. Admittedly a talented singer in her own right, she is now determined to get him playing in public. While Spock has no doubts about his own skill – he took second in the All-Vulcan Music Competition before departing for the Academy* - he dislikes attention, which such a spectacle would surely bring.

However, Uhura does have a lovely voice. It's very distracting.

And Commucations Officers are trained to be convincing negotiators, which is how Spock agrees to not only perform with Uhura, but to instruct her on the harp, as well.

Jim Kirk is a vibrant, vivacious man. It's hard not to admire the way everything becomes a backdrop to his presence. He becomes the centerpiece of every room, the star of every stage. He has an odd rhythm of speech, punctuating words at strange times. But he's passionate, and sincere, and so vividly, vitally real that this becomes merely one more part of the whole. The music of the man, along with his brisk steps and quiet silences and soft sighs.

Sometimes, in the bustle of the halls, he turns and grins when Spock approaches. "You walk like a cat, science officer. Do we ever seem clumsy to you?"

And Spock always says, "Never, Sir."

The year is 1930. For the purpose of his work in accessing the tricorder's memory, Spock will have to take apart the primitive radio Jim has attained for him. But the process of stripping wires and re-situating them is long and tedious; certainly it does not require any higher thinking. It occurs to Spock that, while he works, the radio is still whole, and not yet destroyed; and it may, for the moment, be put toward its intended use.

In the 1930s, radios were conduits of news, music, culture – it would, he reasons, be a sociological crime to not turn on the radio. What student of history would not appreciate the change to listen, with untempered ears, to the living past?

So he touches a dial – just touches one, and that is all. He does not fiddle, does not search, because time is still of the essence and is a scientist, a Vulcan, and he has a job. And an important one.

So he works.

(And he listens.)

"...Rendition of "It's Only a Paper Moon," sung by the lovely Ella Fitzgerald..." a male voice is saying.

A patient, persistent rhythm with soft instrumentation comes through the scratchy speakers, and a soft, smooth female voice starts to sing.

"It is only a paper moon,

Sailing over a cardboard sea,

But it wouldn't be make believe

If you believed in me.

Yes it's only a canvas sky

Hanging over a muslin tree,

But it wouldn't be make believe

If you believed in me..."

They call it the city on the edge of forever, the city that never sleeps. There is no New York on the Terra Spock knows – the Eugenics Wars took care of that. Such a brilliant city, historians mourn, could only die with an equally brilliant flare.

Normally, Spock would call such a sentiment overly romantic. Perhaps he would still call it that. But Jim has always been a romantic, and as a romantic is, once enamored, fiercely faithful. He loves New York, and Spock, by association – so he decides – must at least be respectful of the place.

When they become low on funds and therefore cannot work on the tricorder any further, they pause one Thurday evening to walk around the city. Spock disapproves of this course of action – they are not lodging the safest part of New York, after all – but Jim laughs at his concern.

"Give people a little credit, Spock," he says. "If New York is producing people like Edith, it can't be that bad, can it?"

Spock finds it hard to argue this logic.

On one of the streets they pass a man with a tiny silver trumpet. He plays quickly, skillfully, fluttering his fingers over shining keys. Spock can see his throat quivering even from a distance.

"Shame we don't have anything," Jim murmurs.

Spock looks down. One person tosses a penny in the man's trumpet-case, which lays at his feet. It's almost empty.

"He plays for money?"

"He tries."

"It does not seem profitable."

"Maybe he enjoys it. Or maybe it's all he has." Jim tugs at his own ragged clothing. "Hard times for honest men, Spock.

The man taps his foot, swinging it around, and his notes fade out, lowering into something sad and melancholy. The shrill, swinging, emotional style of this era is -

"Fascinating."

Back on the Enterprise, alone in his quarters, Spock contemplates Edith Keeler's death under the quiet, habitual hum of the ship's engines. Now, she is dead, as she would be dead even had Jim not stopped Dr. McCoy. But she would be dead after a full life, after bringing peace and happiness to many (and devastation and slavery and unintended horror to many more).

It is a grievous thing, for such potential to be lost; he contemplates that light, lost, by necessity; and he contemplates bright, shining New York, the ageless city, dead and immortal only in memory.

Quietly, contemplatively, he turns on his computer, and selects a file. He leans back, and it begins to play:

"It's a Barnum and Bailey world,

Just as phony as it can be

But it wouldn't be make believe

If you believed in me.**"

The hum of the science console has a very specific, very set frequency. The keys, too, are all unique. Spock's ears can detect the most minute differences in tone. Sometimes – when he is not in a rush, when there is no reason not to do so – he takes a circuitous route to accomplish his work, just to hear pleasant combinations of sounds.

Then a brief scuffle with a marauding vessel requires the Enterprise to stop by Starbase 8. Starfleet uses the occasion to give the Enteprise a few other, 'minor' changes. Among other things, the science console is upgraded.

Spock waits two weeks, until he's working on a Delta shift rotation with mostly unfamiliar officers, and then deliberately causes a spark on his console. He affects 'repairs'. No one questions him.

Nyota, with her sensitive, sensitive ears, is the only one to eye him suspiciously the next morning.

"This isn't music," Jim gripes.

The alien ambassador turns, beaming at them across the table. Jim feigns a wide, pained smile in return. When the ambassador looks away the smile falls again. "I think my ears are bleeding," Jim stresses.

Spock checks. "They are not."

"That was rhetorical."

"I see."

"This isn't music."

Uhura smiles a little by his side, daintily sipping from a glass. "Well, at least it has rhythm. I've heard worse."

"Where?"

McCoy's shoulders start to shake.

Uhura's smile suddenly takes on all the aspects of a shark. "Do you really want me to answer that, Captain?"

Sometimes, Jim likes to hum. He hums poorly, and off-key. Uhura winces a little when he does this on the bridge, like it hurts her sensitive ears. Maybe it does. But she smiles, too. Because Jim does this only when he is in a truly, sincerely good mood, sparking with energy. Humming is usually accompanied by banter and quick flitting around the bridge, and even the sort of random visits to other sections of the ship that make his crew so happy.

It's not a pleasant sound, the humming. But Spock can't say he really minds.

"Uhura told me you play some sort of Vulcan lyre with her," Jim says, barging into Spock's quarters almost aggressively one day.

"Yes."

"Scotty told me, too. And Bones. And Ensign Jones."

Spock waits.

Jim throws up his hands. "How am I the only one who didn't know about this?"

Spock is honestly puzzled. "I am unsure."

The captain shakes a hand at him in a rude gesture.

"But do you play?" Jim asks.

"Yes."

"Do you play well?"

Spock looks at him.

" - Maybe that was a silly question," Jim says, with a little, pleased grin.

"I am considered proficient," Spock responds belatedly, not wanting to seem arrogant.

(Jim snorts like he isn't buying it).

"Proficient, as in, you won't hurt my ears, or - " Jim nags.

Spock doesn't know why he says this. He hasn't even told this to Nyota, but - "I have a standing invitation to join the Shikaar Symphony," he says dryly.

The Shikaar Symphony is Vulcan's most famous orchestra.

Jim stares at him. "...So proficient," he says at last.

"Yes."

There is music in the stars, some musicians say. Spock thinks this is romantic, too. "Music is supposed to be romantic," Nyota says, but Spock isn't so sure. When he insists that his appreciation for music is logical, though, Nyota laughs in his face. And not a little laugh, or a chuckle, but the kind of laugh that involves bending over and wheezing, leaving her unable to speak for a full minute. She refuses to explain why, but exclaims again and again, "Spock, never in my life!"

Jim, many years later, will gain the courage to ask why Spock joined Starfleet in the first place. When Spock's answer is 'music', he seems appalled, then determined. "It's not too late, you know. You can switch careers."

Spock is politely baffled. "Why would I do that?"

"To be a musician! To live your dream!"

"...I believe you misunderstood."

Because what does an appreciation for music have to do with a career? "Starfleet has more than satisfied any musical inclinations I may have," he assures. " - I have had the musical skill myself from the beginning. All I needed – all I have ever needed – was the freedom to explore it."

*Mentioned in a deleted scene from "Elaan of Troyius."

**...So technically "It's Only a Paper Moon" was written in 1933 and Ella Fitgerald's singing career began in 1934. It's fanfic, we'll call this an AU, shhh... (hides)