For all McCoy's bluster, Uhura noted keenly that his father seemed no more ill at ease than he had been just laying in his bed undisturbed. Whatever pained him was doing the real damage, not their presence.

When she lost her father, Uhura had tried to ease the pain of loss with a hundred different, tiny rationales. He died doing what he loved. He was in a better place. And at least, she told herself, at least it hadn't been drawn out and slow, painful to him and those that loved him. At least the cut was fast and sure. (Sure as one can ever be with deep space disappearances. Sure that, whatever the truth of it was, he wasn't coming back.) Still, despite all that, all those little reasonable digs at the big hurt, she would have given anything to spend some time with her father now, even knowing what was coming.

And here McCoy was, ignoring his father's words and turning his hurt on them. If she hadn't thought the resulting explosion would have only upset the old man, Uhura would have stepped forward and said something more, to the senior McCoy, but instead she took half a step back at the touch of Jim. "A pleasure meeting you, sir," she said with a smile before turning and leaving to join Spock in the hallway.