McCoy, Kirk and Uhura were the lasts one to leave the bar from their small group. McCoy looked sober enough to walk straight, but Kirk had stumbled a few times when leaving. Uhura and McCoy helped Kirk to his room where he planned to stay for the night. When dumping him on his back on the bed she felt kind of sad that she couldn't say bye to Kirk the proper way. Hopefully this wasn't going to be the last time she would see him. The two left the room and proceeded through the halls.

"Thanks for helping me carry him to his room." McCoy said.

"Oh no problem. So when are you leaving for home?" She asked trying to lead to her plan.

"Well since I can't get my kid I guess…well hell I don't know. I guess I might as well get that apartment back in Georgia that I wanted to get, but I didn't plan to spend this time by myself."

"What if you didn't have to spend it by yourself?"

"What are you getting at?" He cocked his eyebrow.

"I need the biggest favor from you. Come with me back to Africa and pretend to be my fiancé."

"Excuse me, but what?"

"Come with me to Africa and convince my family that we are getting married."

"This is the most craziest thing I've ever heard from you. One, we are not getting married and two why would you do that to your family?"

"Because…please, I'm in this really bad situation and I need your help. My career and sanity is on the line. I will do anything for you in return."

"I don't think you can do anything for me."

"Oh come on, what kind of man denies a woman when she says she will do anything? I'll pay for the apartment, the first three two months in return." He sighed deeply.

"I can't let you do that. The place is 900 credit a month."

"I can pay it."

"What about me seeing my daughter?" He was not making this easy for her.

"You said that she won't be coming back for long time. By then my plan will work and you can go see her when we are done."

"What is your plan exactly?"

"You just come meet my family, we pretend to be a happy couple, we stay with them for awhile and then you leave to see your daughter, by then we will be going back to service and we can forget about the whole thing."

"What is the purpose of this?"

"I'm suppose to get married to this guy through an arranged slash almost forced marriage. If I marry him I will have to quit Starfleet because he won't let me live my life away from Africa. I know that I cannot marry him, if I am marrying some else. Please…you are the only one who can help." He was quiet for a moment, probably thinking a 100 reasons on why not to do it, he finally gave his answer.

"Alright, I'll do it, but you owe me big time missy." He grunted. She wrapped her arms around his waist for a hug

"You are the greatest! The shuttle leaves at noon tomorrow. At 9 we can have breakfast together."

"Whatever you say captain."

Before going to bed in the stations visitors center, she needed to call home before leaving. She had to tell her family that she was coming home and coming home with a guy. Taking in a deep breath she pressed the code for her home at the telecom monitors. Within a few a minutes the face of her older sister Nyah came on the screen. It had been such a long time since she had seen her sister that she almost didn't recognize her without her usual long hair. It was now a pixie cut hairstyle and dyed a light brown. Nyah's face lit up immediately.

"Ny! My baby sister, where have you've been?"

"I've been so busy, I miss you."

"Too busy not to call me?"

"Sorry, I've been out of contact with you all."

"Yeah! Everyone is losing their minds because you are engaged to someone else. Tau and his family are really upset. Papa is over here pulling his hair out. Ny, what is going on? This is not like you to go and get engaged to someone and not tell us."

"I know, I have to explain later. I just wanted to tell you that I'm at the Starfleet space station. I should reach Africa around three tomorrow. Plus I wanted to prepare you guys, but my fiancé is coming with me to meet you all."

"WHAT!" Nyah yelped. "Papa is going to murder him and you too!"

"That's why your going to tell mom that I am bringing him, so that she can calm him down."

"Ok I'll do it, but we have some talking to do when you get here."

"Fine I see you tomorrow, I love you."

"Love you too."

The morning seemed to come too quick. Quicker than she wanted it to. She tried to sleep, but frequent dreams disrupted her sleep. Looking at the clock on her dresser she saw that it was 8:15. She had enough time to grab a quick shower, pack up her things and meet McCoy for breakfast. She hopped in the shower, shaved her legs and dried her body. She got dressed in her grey skirt and white short sleeve blouse. Instead of wearing her usual boots she put on her black pump heels. After putting her things in her bag, she had checked to make sure wasn't leaving anything before leaving the room. She went down to the dinning hall where it was not crowded and easily spot McCoy sitting at a table. When she met up with him she was shocked that he looked slightly different than last night. He was cleaned shaved, hair neatly trimmed and looked refreshed. He wore a light green button down shirt and brown slacks.

"Morning, don't you look quite handsome today." Her tone was flirty. The compliment made him grin.

"Always have to look presentable in front of a lady and her parents." He stood up immediately from his seat, went to hers and pulled it out for her to sit. She sat in the seat then he took his. She was never used to treatment like that from a man.

"Thank you Leonard."

"Might I say you look nice this morning as well."

"Ok why are you extra nice to me this morning?"

"Maybe its my southern mannerisms."

"Aren't I ever nice?"

"You have your days." She said jokingly. The waiter came to their table and took their orders. She ordered veggie omelet while he ordered a tall stack of pan cakes. The waiter left to the kitchen to ready the orders." We need to get acquainted if we want to get this plan to go well."

"Alright…uh where do we start?"

" What do you know about me? Just curious." She bit her lip.

"You are 27 years old born in Africa. You are allergic to any kind of shell fish and nuts, you are very intelligent from our last IQ test and you like to sing."

"From your doctor notes I assume?"

"That's what I get for being your doctor and plus I watched you sing in the chorale club back in the academy."

"Good job that you know more about my body than most people. Let's see what I know about you…" She thought for a moment, but she couldn't come up with anything. All the times that they had talked back on the Enterprise she couldn't remember any of their discussions. "The only thing I know is you're a doctor, divorced and have a daughter."

"That's pretty much it. I am 37 years old born in Atlanta, Georgia. My daughter is 13 years old, I married Satan himself, I went to Mississippi University for college to study medicine, joined Starfleet when I was about 28 and then became CMO of the Enterprise."

"Ok. That's a start. Any hobbies?"

"If I had anytime for anything I would say hiking. I like the outdoors, I'm kind of a camping guy."

"What about your family?"

"What about them? Nothing special there. Two people fell in love and created me." He rushed his sentence so fast that it took her a moment to process what he had said. Obviously he didn't want to talk about his parents.

"Well then I will just tell you about mine. Let me give you the run down of who my family is. Njeri is my mother's name. She's really kind, understanding and loving. I think she may be the easiest person to get along with. Nyah is my older sisters name. She's really nosy and might ask you personal questions, but don't take anything she says personal. Also she is married with two kids. Malik Jr. is the oldest brother of my sister and me. He is really quiet at times, but if you talk to him about business then you will never leave the conversation. He is also married, but with six kids."

"Six kids!" He said in disbelief. "Your family likes having kids I see."

"Its more of a competition than anything. Its surprising that my parents stopped after me. Let me tell you about my father he's the important one. My papa is Malik senior. First off, my dad is going to hate you."

"Well that makes me nervous."

"Sorry, he's not really happy that I am 'engaged'. He's a very hard person to get along with sometimes, stubborn, but I think you can crack him open."

"Hope he won't have a phaser pointing to my head when I walk through the door. I'm a dad, I know how dad's work."

"He won't. I told my family that you were coming, so that will give time for my mom to calm him down. Just stick with me and everything should be fine."

The two went to the departure terminal for their shuttle. When entering the shuttle, they had picked seats toward the back, away from the crowed areas. Placing their luggage under their seats, Nyota had noticed that McCoy seem shaky or really hesitant about something when they sat down. Placing a hand on his shoulder, he looked at her.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just don't like these things. I always don't feel safe in a flying, compressed metal tube in space."

"Don't worry these things are safe. If you can handle a starship, you can handle anything.

"Don't pander to me kid, one tiny crack in the hull and we're dead."

"I think you are putting too much thought in it. We've almost been sucked into a black hole for pete's sake and survived." She said assuring that they had been in worst situations. The shuttle's pilot signaled its passengers that they were preparing for lift off. Shortly after the shuttle pushed itself from the ground and moved through the station's take off area. The sudden altitude change caused the shuttle to jerk causing McCoy to grip the arms of his chair. Nyota jumped when his sweaty palms held onto her hand in a tight grip. After the short burst was over his breathing became more relaxed. "Uh Leonard…my hand." She said softly. He looked down to see his large hand crushing hers. He quickly moved his hand away

"Sorry about that."

A/N: Hope that you like it so far. Actually the idea for this story came from something I lived through. I dated a guy who his parents were going to do the arranged marriage thing to him. We dated secretly, so there are some truths to this story. In the long run when we broke he was forced to marry a girl from his country. You are going to have to stay turned to see Nyota's outcome.