The Enterprise darted across space at maximum impulse, almost as if she, herself, were desperate to reach the haven of the asteroid belt. Sulu winced every time they were hit.

"Shields are holding Sir, but not for very long!" Chekov shouted at him.

Kirk mind raced back to when he had taken a tour of the Zezian fleet. He remembered the ships not being particularly innovative - they had a tendency to mass produce them to cut costs. He suddenly remembered a weakness in their starboard side - a tiny design flaw that would allow an enemy to disable an engine. With an engine taken out, in the impending asteroid field, the warship would lose maneuverability. It was impossible to hit unless you knew exactly where it was.

"Chekov - move!" Kirk shouted. He leapt into Chekov's seat and a fired two quick shots. "Get to the transporter room and get a lock on Lena and Carol! I want them outta there the second they're done!"

"Direct hit, Captain!" Sulu shouted.

"Spock - we need to get deep into this asteroid field and get them to wreck their ship following us. There's a larger asteroid in the belt, can figure out a way to use it to pull them in?"

Spock immediately started calculating the force of the mild gravitational pull the large asteroid was creating and feeding Sulu coordinates. They could not dodge the warship forever but they could give them one hell of a chase.

The warship fired again, crippling one of the Enterprises engines.

"Sheilds at 2% Captain!" Sulu gasped. The ship rocked, and crashed into an asteroid.

"Life support failing!" Uhura said.

Suddenly the warship stopped its pursuit, and Carol reappeared on the bridge, with Veelia's con-sol, covered in black blood. She looked up at Kirk, but before she could speak he received a hail from the Zezian ship. His heart stopped...Lena was dead...the Captain was calling to gloat.

"Hi Jim", a cocky voice called out. It was Lena, lounging in the Captain's chair!

"Lena! What happened?"

She smiled, but Carol answered, "The door to the bridge was unguarded... We slipped right in. Then we fought them off… they weren't expecting so bold a move. Lena was able to seal the bridge and I disabled the weapons and shields." She was glowing from the fight.

"So Jim", Lena said through the hail screen, "Do you accept my surrender?"

"Since when do you surrender?" he bantered. Suddenly the Virosa fleet dropped out of warp and began firing on the Warship!

"Dammit! Uhura let the know Lena is in control of the ship!"

"No Jim! They need to take it down while they can…I can't hold the bridge forever… Can you bring me back?"

"Chekov?!"

"She needs to geet off zee bridge, Sir! Our transporter technoloyie is not capable of penetrated ze defenses. Ze Zezians have a defleyctor to pwevent enimeies from twansporting someone from ze bridge!"

Kirk stared at Lena through the hail, "Can you get off the bridge?"

She quickly looked at the scanner, "There are 10 Zezians in the hall sealing off the exit… I won't be able to get them all from this angle, and if they get on the bridge, they'll take the ship back!"

"Fuck the ship! Can you get out?"

She looked up at him, wide eyed and shook her head, "I don't think so…" Suddenly a blast from a Virosa ship hit the warship, and the com screen went dark.

Kirk gasped, trying to figure out what to do. He turned to see Spock handing him a phaser and a com. "Are you not going after her?" he asked.

Kirk could only nod and sprinted down to the transporter room. Veelia's con-sol was dead, and he couldn't risk bring it back aboard. Chekov looked at him in surprise.

"Get me outside the bridge door", Kirk said to him. Chekov nodded and sent him off.

Lena sat on the bridge, watching as her fleet attacked the Zezian vessel. This would be a tremendous loss for the Zezians. But instead of enjoying the moment like she would have a few weeks ago, all she felt was fear…and heartbreak. She had just promised Jim she would try to live, she had just started to feel like herself again, but this was the end. Maybe it was better this way…she didn't want to part with him again.

Suddenly she heard a phaser outside her door.

Kirk was in disbelief on just how terrible Zezian were at combat. No wonder they were terrified of Lena. Then he remembered his own crew was still tied up in the mess hall. He would REALLY have to do something about them. He surprised the group guarding the bridge door. He took out six before they saw him, and when the others turned around to attack, they were immediately shot down my Lena, who had apparently heard the noise.

"Jim!" she cried. He reached out and grabbed her hand, and they started to run from the bridge, away from the deflector.

"Wait! We have to guard the bridge!"

Kirk scowled; he aimed four shots into the bridge: helm, weapons, com and the Captain's chair, for good measure.

"Or we could just do that", Lena conceded.

"Chekov!" he yelled into his com. "Get us out of here! NOW!"

"Captain! I cannot get a lock! Ze ship is being destroyed all around you!"

"Shit!"

"Jim, Jim wait!" Lena started tugging him in another direction, "The ship has escape pods down on the-"

"6th level!" he finished her sentence.

The dashed down the hallway. They saw no one...the Zezians were desperately trying to regain control of their ship, but to no avail. Jim could smell gases in the air; life support was clearly off-line. Without warning there was an explosion at the end of the hall and a cloud of fire racing towards them. Lena pulled Jim quickly into a squat and covered them with her wings. She bit into his shoulder, hard.

"Your wings are fire-proof?" he asked her - was there ANYTHING she couldn't do?

"No!" she squeaked. He looked to see she had a pained expression on her face. She withdrew her wings and he saw that the feathers she had exposed to the flames were badly burnt, but that the skin underneath them was mostly protected. "Looks like my flying days on hold over for a few months…"

"Are you OK?"

"Yes...I'll be fine...let's just get out of here!"

They continued onward as the ship disintegrated around them. Finally they made it to the escape pods, only to encounter a large group of panicked Zezians. One of them saw Jim and Lena, and immediately drew his weapon to shoot.

Jim acted on instinct, and threw his body in front of Lena.

"Ahh!" He felt a deep stinging in his bicep; looking down he saw that he had blood running down his uniform sleeves.

"Jim!" Lena pulled him to the side, and quickly opened an escape pod door. Without hesitation they jumped inside, and ejected.

Jim jumped into the cockpit, to try and stabilize it, but the Warship suddenly exploded jettisoning them out into the asteroid field. The force of the blast hurled them outward. Jim grabbed control of the thrusters and managed to keep them from hitting anything, but he could do nothing to slow their momentum. Further and further they flew! Barely missing asteroid by what seemed like inches, when, finally they slowed. They were pulled into the motion of the belt.

Lena hailed her fleet, "This is the Queen! I am with Captain Kirk… we are trapped in the asteroid belt...can you beam us out?"

"Negative, Queen Lena", a disembodied voice called out. "The metal in the asteroids make it impossible to lock onto your signal. You must get out of the field."

"OK...Jim, maximum impulse…how long do you think?"

"10 minutes", he said doing a quick calculation in his head.

"We will rendezvous with you in 10 minutes - Lena out."

Lena breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe...he was safe.. the Enterprise was safe… and the ship that had threatened to destroy her home-world was obliterated. She felt an overwhelming pang of guilt. There had been 1000 Zezians on that ship….most of them lower caste. Her war was with the elite, but until their own people rebelled against them, there was nothing she could do. She tried not to think about it, but sometimes their screams from the dreadful night she freed the Winged Daughters on Ya-Mo still haunted her. She took a deep breath - the escape pod cabin smelled like burnt feathers and blood. She turned to look at Jim, and realized he was still bleeding profusely from his arm.

"Here, let me", she said gently. Lena moved to straddle his lap - he was still seated in the cock-pit. He silently allowed her to inspect his arm. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

"I'm OK", he said, not answering her question.

She smiled sadly and pulled his gold shirt over his head. He had been wearing a black t-shirt underneath it, but it gave her better access to his arm. "We need to stop the bleeding", she said, not looking at him.

Lena pulled a knife from her wings and sliced off the clean sleeve of this uniform shirt and started to tie it around his arm.

"You know...if we're gonna keep hanging out, I think I'm going to have to invest in more uniforms," he said.

Lena laughed, reminded of the time she had sent him back to the Enterprise totally naked. She had never bothered to send the uniform back.

"Yeah...Sorry about that by the way…."

"No you're not."

"I am!"

He gave her a knowing smile, "Sure".

Jim slid his arm around her waist, and looked into her eyes. He still loved her, God how he still loved her.

"I wanted to thank you too…" she said. "For coming back…I mean I didn't want you to, but ...I couldn't have done this without you...and …I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy to see you again."

Jim reached up and brushed the hair out of her beautiful face. "You did promise not to lie to me anymore…"

He pulled her closer and kissed her. She responded immediately, her body folding into his, collapsing the distance between them; he could feel her skin flush against his lips, as she urgently deepened their kiss, wrapping her arms around him. Suddenly she pulled away.

"What?" he breathed.

"We can't - I can't; Jim… we need to stop!" She could feel his body pressed against hers, and the beginnings of his erection forming beneath her.

"Why?" he asked. "Why stop? Lena…"

"Because! I am known to be betrothed!"

Jim pulled back, so she was on this again…

"Known to be betrothed?"

"Yes."

"So you are betrothed?"

"I...am known to be...yes!" Dammit, why had she promised not to lie to him!

"You keep saying 'known to be'."

"Well I am!"

"You know I've never really been a fan of semantics."

"It's not…"

Jim glared at her, "Don't lie to me…"

Lena bit her lip. "Then I will say nothing…" she whispered.

"Finally", he said and started to kiss her again. She ceased her protests… she couldn't fight anymore. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lost herself in how good it felt to be in his arms again. She let her fingers trail down his chest, and slip underneath his shirt. He noticed and quickly pulled it over his head for her, and pulled her face back to his own. Lena could feel him hardening beneath her, and her own body begin to respond. She broke their kiss again.

"What?" he said, annoyed now.

"We just shouldn't…"

"You want to", he almost accused her.

"I am known-"

"But you're not!"

Lena froze.

"You're not betrothed", he continued. "You can't be…by the laws of your own people."

"I...I...why do you say that?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"Because, from what I've heard, it's a two part thing...You might have said some vows you obviously didn't mean but Bay-Lou doesn't have this." Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out her pendant... his pendant, now.

She hadn't seen it in a year. She had forgotten how pretty it was. Though temporarily speechless, she recovered and swiftly said, "How do you know you don't have the fake one?"

Jim laughed - count on Lena to break betrothal law and make a fake sacred pendant.

"What's so funny?"

"You are", he said, "This is the real one."

"How would you know?" she rolled her eyes.

"Because I feel like I'm holding you when I touch it. Like you're right here", he put his hand on his heart. "I know it's real...because I know you love me just as much as I …"

She put her hand to his lips, "Please don't say it…I know...I know you do - I just... I can't have it ringing in my ears for the rest of my life."

"You don't seem to like playing by your own rules…" he smiled, reminding her of the emotional out-pouring she has sent to his entire ship. She flushed, slightly.

"No one else knows...no one. No one else has ever seen it, or will, so no one would be able to spot a fake. I'm sorry...I never thought I would see you again...I just...It was crazy and impulsive, but…you are the only person I would ever want to have it."

"It's OK", he tightened his grip around her, and kissed her lips softly. She moaned a little when he broke it and started trailing kisses down the scar across her face, over her jaw bone and down her neck, evoking feelings she thought herself to be done with long ago.

"How much longer until we rendezvous?" she asked.

"About eight minutes", he answered, still kissing her neck.

Eight more minutes….then they would go back to reality. War, death, and their final goodbyes. She closed her eyes, and decided. She reached over and flicked the impulse down to its slowest speed. "How about now?" she asked.

Jim was surprised, "OK now it's more like 80."

It was still not enough time, but "80 is better", she said.

She pushed her lips back on his, no longer gentle, but desperate, passionate - she nibbled she bottom of his lip, and felt him grin. He moved his hands up her body, over her breasts and to the clasp that held up the top of her flight suit behind her neck. She wiggled out of his hands, and put a little more space between them. She started undo his pant button, while nibbling on his ear. "I need you", she said, "I need you in me."

"You know, we do have 80 minutes", he said with a smile. He reached over to the zipper on her hip. Flight suit pants we taken off from the side - hip to ankle on the right. She had pulled his penis and was stroking it, "I need you now…." she whispered in his ear. He pulled her flight suit pants to the side, and slipped his fingers past her underwear and inside her. He heard her gasp in delight and kissed her again. She pulled his hands away, and looked into his eyes, "Now.." she said again, quite seriously.

"Don't you wa-" Before Jim could finish his sentence he was inside her. She moaned and they started to move together. She felt just like he remembered, better even - hot and tight. She kept whispering his name in his ear. He slipped his hand up her back and stroked her spine between the bases of her wings - she loved that. She loved having her breasts played with too. He made to remove her top, when she stopped him.

"What…"

"Don't", she said; he was still inside her.

"I want to take your clothes off."

She smiled, "You don't have to…"

"Yes, I do, actually", he said. "I haven't seen your body in a year - and I am really REALLY into your body."

"Jim…"

"What? I HAVE seen you naked before. I couldn't get you to keep your clothes on if I tried…"

"It's…" she looked sad all of a sudden, "I don't want you to see what this last year has done to me…"

Jim remembered his conversation with Veelia - how she said that Bay-Lou was not attracted to Lena. Clearly he was crazy, but Veelia had almost sort of agreed with him.

"I need to…" he said gently. She looked away as he peeled down her top, his anger at the Zezians, and himself, multiplying with each inch. Her once perfect skin was covered in half healed bruises and scars; her beautiful curves replaced with hard muscle. He knew now for sure what he had suspected upon seeing her in her tank top- she wasn't eating enough. Constant stress, battles...war - it was all evident. While he had been zipping around, going to adventures, watching Casablanca over and over again feeling sorry for himself, she had been fighting for her life, and the lives of everyone around her. He never did know what she saw in him...and he didn't know now. He pulled her closer and planted kisses along the scar on her collar bone.

He turned her face to look back at him, "You're incredible… you know that right?"

"Now you sound like Suria", she said, blushing.

He kissed her again, and slid his hands over her body...careful not to press too hard on any of her bruises, pulling her against him. He started moving beneath her, and felt her skin flush.

"I remember what you like" he said knowingly. She just laughed and blushed… kissing him happily.

"You do", she admitted.

"Take the rest of your clothes off", he said.

"Jim…"

"You're crazy if you think a few bumps are gonna change anything…I want you naked...now…"

"OK", she breathed, against his lips. She was done resisting, done thinking...She was here with him now...alone. Lena was so sick of trying to forget him; she was tired of telling herself she was being irrational. As a Winged Daughter, Princess, and then Queen, her whole life had been determined for her...this was her one wild card… her one choice. She wanted him.

Moving off of him she removed the remainder of her flight suit and underwear while he removed his uniform pants and boxers. She settled back into his lap, and let his penis slip into her once more. She felt heat course through her body as he moved with her, running his hands over her breasts, and ducking down to put his mouth on her nipples. He remembered everything...it was like they had been together only yesterday. She ran her hands through his hair, and down his arms, losing control. Suddenly a wave of exhaustion hit her -he slowed...this was hitting him too.

"Fuck...what's happening?" he asked.

"The stimulant is wearing off", she said. "I do not know. We may not be able to…"

"I'll be fine", he said, regaining his momentum.

She smiled...she had forgotten how much he loved sex. Suddenly an idea came to her-Avar would be upset, but….

Lena reached into her wings and pulled something out. "Wait Jim, stop."

He didn't , "We've already been through this, you're not betrothed to Bay-Lou", he grunted.

She forced him to slow - she was still stronger than he was… He was slightly out of breathe from fighting the stimulant. "You know", he said, "Maybe we should have done half impulse...80 minutes was kind of ambitious…"

Lena laughed out loud, "Yeah… I think both of us have a habit of being a little over zealous."

He kissed her nose, "Nah".

"You know… I DO have one more round of Avar's stimulant…" She held it up, "Although, I'm pretty sure this isn't what it's supposed to be used for…"

Jim raised his eyebrows with a smirk, "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"That we should take performance enhancers to fuck in this escape pod for 80 solid minutes or until it wears off and we collapse from exhaustion? Yes."

"Marry me", he said and pushed the dosage into his neck.