Okay, I got sick of waiting and this begged to be updated! Here's the wedding! Like it, hate it? Don't care otherwise? Talk to me, people, I crave feedback.

Nine

"What ye are about to witness comes down from the time of the beginning without change. This is the Cakuya heart. This is the Cakuya soul. This is our way." The priest's voice was calm and level, almost monotone. Before him knelt a man and a woman. The woman wore a white satin dress with a surplice neckline, the man a dress-uniform of white with green side-panels and the rank-stripes of Commander on the sleeves. At the proper time, they exchanged rings and the priest bound their hands together with a white ribbon. When all rituals had been attended to, all words spoken, the priest announced them to the small crowd of witnesses as man and wife. Hand in hand, the newly-wed couple got to their feet and shared their first traditional kiss as a married couple. At least four of the witnesses smiled. At the proper time during the reception, the newly-weds took their leave of their guests and departed together.

Jim stood on the balcony of the suite she now shared with her husband, watching the moons of New Vulcan rise above the mountains. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and took a deep, slow breath. The warm desert wind played with her dressing-robe, and the light, sleeveless nightgown she wore underneath. Behind her, the door-curtain was pulled aside. Jim smiled and closed her eyes, listening to the soft slap of bare feet on stone as her husband came up behind her.

"Jim?"

"You missed me."

"What are you doing out here?"

"Thinking, and wondering if I've disappointed Ambassador Sataya." She frowned a little, knowing she had disappointed him.

"Why? Because you didn't marry Spock?"

"Where he came from, we were married."

"He should have known better."

"You'd think, considering how different everything is here." She leaned back against Bones and wondered if she'd made the wrong choice marrying her best friend. Spock would always have a place in her heart, they all knew that, but…just not as her husband. That honor went to Bones, who had been there for her for the last three years no matter what shit life put her through.

"That's not all, is it?"

"No. I made Spock a promise, Bones. I can't marry him, but I told him that when his pon farr comes, I'll be there for him."

"You offered to get him through that? Brave girl. Think you can handle it?"

"Yeah." She turned and smiled up at Bones, "But don't worry, I'm all yours until then." Bones just chuckled, god how she loved that sound, and kissed her. He coaxed her back inside, where lamps provided much of the illumination in the room itself. In the back of her mind, Jim knew she would have to tell Bones her darkest and most closely-guarded secret. But not tonight, not on her wedding night. Tonight, she fully intended to enjoy herself.

Several hours later, Jim watched her husband sleep and had to smile. What had started as tragedy had become something wonderful. She was married to one of her best friends and the Grand Marshalls couldn't bitch about her being unmarried any longer. Unfortunately, she reflected, poor Spock was still fair game. She'd have to see what they could do to get the Grand Marshalls off his back, it was ridiculous the demands they made of the Heirs of the Three Houses.

Some part of Jim Kirk knew that Leonard McCoy would always be there for her, but she had to wonder if that would still be true if he knew the truth about who she really was. She kept trying to think of ways to tell him, and she came so close more than once, but never actually said those awful words to him in conversation.

As it happened, she didn't have to say anything. He found out on his own about four months after the wedding. In the time since their return from saving the Federation, Jim had done the impossible and landed herself the center chair of the USS Enterprise, and Leonard had followed his wife to serve as the ship's Chief Medical Officer. His first order of business was to compile all of the Captain's medical records into a single, concise, organized file.

Using his Level One Medical Clearance, he requested Jim's old records from Riverside Community Hospital and received them within the week. He ended up with three volumes and wondered what kept her in the hospital so long or so often. Sitting down with two hours blocked out, overrides on both doors, and the first of many cups of coffee, he flipped open the first volume and started reading. There was one problem, one that had him paying much closer attention and checking the RCH records against his own. James T. Kirk wasn't a mistake, she had been born to George and Winona Kirk, the second of two sons, on March 22nd, 2233. That was the problem! In 2251, the This had gotten fed up with the Nerohi Heir and turned him into a dog. Quite possibly the single most humiliating moment of his lifetime, if you didn't count the incident three years ago when a particularly malevolent This agent had turned the Heir into a woman, which explained the so-called "disappearance" of the Heir from Riverside, Iowa at roughly the same time Leonard had picked up a frightened hitchhiker running from her abusive stepfather. Leonard compared a picture of Jim Kirk prior to 2255 to one of the pictures he had of her. There was no mistaking the eyes, it was definitely Jim.

"Oh…my god. That's what happened to him?" Leonard wasn't mad at Jim for keeping this secret to herself, he couldn't blame her! She'd been trying to tell him something for a long time now, and he had a damn good idea what kind of hurt Jim was trying to save them both. He loved her for it, loved her more for trying to protect him from her awful secret. Leonard finished compiling the records and sealed everything from April 16th, 2255 back, marked it "Confidential: CMO Only". Everything from the last three years was open for scrutiny. With that fun out of the way, Leonard finished up some of the other paperwork that kept stacking up on his desk. Ah, well, all in a day's work. He only realized he'd forgotten to unlock the doors when the outer door was coded open with an override.

"Okay, who pissed you off this time?"

"Nobody. Sorry, I forgot to lift the overrides." He looked up at Jim, who let the door close behind her. She looked tired, not surprising.

"That's okay. What good are Captain's overrides if you can't use them?" Jim tried to smile and couldn't. He saw her flexing her left hand and pushed back from the desk, knowing what had kept her busy all this time.

"How many letters did you get done?"

"All of them." Jim shook her head, "Do you have any idea how much it hurts to write those letters?"

"Yeah, I do. Come 'ere." He hugged his wife, who never took deaths easy. Sometimes it was stupid accidents when something went wrong on the ship, sometimes it was on away missions and there was nothing you could do but bring them back and let them die somewhere safe and familiar. And sometimes, you encountered hostiles and you had to wait for things to settle down and the smoke to clear up before you could do a body-count. They'd lost twelve people, six to bed-rest in Sickbay as critical patients, and six to bury when they got home. Those six were in stasis. Jim had written letters to all twelve families, specifically the six whose loved ones would be coming home in boxes. Two Klingon warbirds had engaged the Enterprise, they wanted Captain Kirk for a bloodprice. But they'd sent the bastards running after destroying one warbird and crippling the other. It wasn't the first time, it wouldn't be the last, and Leonard dreaded the day someone managed to kidnap Jim for ransom. Some part of him wondered how badly Jim's enemies wanted her dead, how far they'd go to get her out of the way. Leonard drew her to the couch in his office and just held her. It was all he could do, she didn't ask for anything else.

After seeing to the families and funeral arrangements for the deceased crewmembers on Earth, Starfleet Command handed down new orders and the Enterprise set out again. Since this was their fourth encounter with hostiles in as many months, and that wasn't even counting the missions they went on, Admiral Pike bade the Council chose wisely just precisely where they sent the Enterprise. Nowhere near the Neutral Zone, if you please. It sounded awfully boring, but when orders came down that they got to chart spatial anomalies of the benign breed, basically counting dust particles for fun, the Captain wasn't the only one who heaved a sigh of relief. They needed something boring, to be quite honest.