It was Valentine's Day.

Jim suddenly realized that he HAD to do something for Marissa. She'd given birth to their daughter just eight days before, and he had to show her some token of his appreciation, affection and, well, whatever.

Jim had had a miserable childhood. His dad had died, famously or epically—however it should be described, as he heroically went down with the ship, the Kelvin at the hands of Nero—on the day of his birth, only a few moments after he took his first breath. His mom was desolated by the death of George, and sought refuge from the memories created by life aboard a starship by going home to her parents in Iowa. But that didn't work. So she left her two young sons with her parents, and went back into the black. When the grandparents died, Winona Kirk married a local boy, Frank Miller, who turned out to be an alcoholic child-abuser. Then she returned to StarFleet. With their mom gone, Jim and his older brother Sam suffered untold punishment, torture and ill-treatment at Frank's whims. Sam finally ran away at age sixteen, but Jim stuck it out until he was literally rescued by Captain Christopher Pike after a barroom brawl, and was challenged to join StarFleet and "do better" than his dad had done. He did both.

So Jim had no idea what to do to show his sweetie, his partner, the mother of his daughter that he wanted her for his Valentine.

As he strode through the corridors of the Enterprise, he noticed various crewmembers carrying something red or pink or lacy. Much of what he saw was in red heart-shaped boxes, and he assumed this was candy, remembering things like that back in grade school. Or people coming out of the botany lab with flowers wrapped in ribbon or arranged in vases. Or couples walking along with a red paper cut-out clutched in one or the other's hand.

He knew Marissa loved chocolate and flowers, but he wanted to do something really special for her. Just then he passed the Stellar Cartography department, and a photon torpedo went off in his head. Blasting through the sliding doors, Jim entered without knocking or asking permission. (Actually, he was within his purview as Captain to enter any area of the ship, but Jim usually extended the courtesy of asking permission before disturbing his crewmembers.)

The Stellar Cartography personnel were within the Science Department, and were adjunct to the library, so all the scientists here knew Marissa, a xenohistorian stationed in the library as well. The various blue-shirts all perked up when they recognized their visitor, and greeted him with salutes or smiles, depending on their familiarity. Comander Marie Roose, the library director was in the Stell. Cart. room at the moment, and was most effusive, "Captain! Welcome! How are your girls doing today?"

"They are both beautiful! And doing fine! Abby slept for four hours straight last night! Her longest stretch so far! " filling the air with exclamation points as he proudly described his new-born daughter's latest accomplishment.

"Ah, Captain. What a joy. But did you go check on her just to be sure she was OK? Those four hours had to be an awfully long time for you."

"Nope. Since she was born, that's the longest stretch we've had to sleep, and I will admit, we slept. "

"Well, congratulations, sir. I hope she repeats that pattern and adds to her sleep time from now on."

"Me too! She's a very good baby, or so I'm told by those who know more about babies. And before you say it, that trait had to have come from Marissa, not me."

"Not a word, sir. But, what can we do for you today?"

"I want to find something different but special for Marissa for Valentine's Day, since it's our first one together and we just had Abby. I thought as I passed the . door about naming a star or a nebula for her. Are we able to do that from here?"

"Certainly, sir. Let me call Lt. Hays who knows which ones are available."

Within a few minutes, Lt Hays had called up a 3-D map of the region of the galaxy holding the most likely candidates of unnamed stars or nebulae. All had been catalogued for hundreds of years, first within the records accessed by StarFleet by various terrans, from Hipparchus in ancient Greece , Ptolemy's Almagest, the Messier catalogue, and the NGC begun in the 1980's when Terrans first observed the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope. StarFleet generally followed this last guide, although constant updates and additions were made. But few of the stars were actually named, and pilots referred to objects by their NGC designation if no other name was listed.

"Here, sir. There is a gorgeous nebula over here in the Perseus Arm of the galaxy, known from Earth as the Rosette Nebula, and catalogued as NGC2237. It has never had any other name applied to it, or at least nothing Federation Members have recorded. It's famous because from Earth it looks like a rose and old images were used on Valentine's Day. And, amazingly enough, no one has ever claimed it to name it!"

"You're kidding, right? No one has ever named it besides NGC whatever or that Rosette name?"

"We have no record of it, sir."

"Well, record this. NGC2237 has been designated The Marissa Rosette Nebula, Stardate 2259.12.

"Yes, Sir. I wish I had thought of this first for my girlfriend."

"There appear to be quite a few nebulae, stars and pulsars unnamed still. Get busy and find one for your girl. That's an order, Lieutenant!"

"Yes, Sir, Captain! And here are your documents showing this nebula has now got a name. Congratulations, Sir!"

Commander Roose sauntered into the Stell. Cart. Room just then, and eyed the document Jim was carrying. "Sir, as nice as that is, your lady needs some candy and flowers. Any woman who is nursing an eight-day old baby and still working on agreements with the Cloralans plus the research with Aja Killian needs candy and flowers. And you just about have time before Alpha shift ends to beat the others to the commissary. If you run."

This nebula is visible on the NASA website. I'm sure you fanfic dot net savvy readers know that real URL's won't post on here—does anyone know why?—but go to that website, using dot gov as the suffix, and type in apod in the search box. If you're searching today, Monday, February 14, 2011, you'll see the Rosette Nebula. If it's not that date, click on the link, then at the bottom of the page click on search, and type in Rosette Nebula in the search box. It's pretty and someone should claim it!