Chapter 4: Suddenly married

So, the men had talked the woman into talking to the woman. But it was better this way Nyota Uhura thought while standing in front of the captain's ready room and waiting until she was called in. In her hands she had a PADD with some research.

"Yes?" Jamie Kirk asked, when her Chief of Communications entered. The captain was sitting at her desk and noticed immediately that something was off with Uhura. "Everything alright?"

The Lieutenant sighed. "That depends..."

The captain gestured her to sit down.

"It's about Carah 3", Uhura said and laid the PADD on the desk.

"That mission was ten months ago."

"Which is exactly the problem", Uhura replied.

Jamie frowned in confusion.

"We need to talk about yours and Doctor McCoy's accidental wedding on Carah."

Jamie rolled her eyes. Again that topic. But regarding how new her - oh, wow - engagement was and that they didn't have the chance to talk about the details, she didn't want to make it public yet. So she decided to say what she would have said, if her conversation with Leonard McCoy wouldn't have happened and if she still would be in the same mood as earlier. "I don't want to hear the word wedding or marriage anymore today. It's unbelievable. How do we always get into situations like that?"

"Maybe some aliens sense how close you are?" Uhura suggested. "Aside from the purely accidental weddings, I mean. I hope, you do realize that you and Doctor McCoy have a much closer relationship than some real couples?"

Jamie just stared at her. She felt kind of caught.

"So, the thing is", Uhura went on, "I remembered today that you did never file that 13-13b for Carah."

"What? Of course I did", Jamie replied automatically. "We signed it and..."

Uhura just looked at her and saw the proverbial penny drop.

"Oh..." Jamie's mind started to race. She replayed her earlier conversation with Leonard McCoy, thought of her feelings for him... and what Uhura just said.

The Lieutenant nodded. "We were right here in your ready room. You told me, you had prepared everything, then that emergency call from Indri came in, you threw the PADD in the shelf and we went to the bridge. And we both forgot." Her gaze wandered to said shelf where a forgotten PADD was lying deeply buried under some other stuff.

"Okay, not good, but what's the big deal?"Jamie gestured. "No annulment then, but not legal either." She was actually amused now, but didn't let it show and played cool.

"Well..." Uhura sighed. "Remember that Carah joined the Federation last month? You surely read it in one of the reports."

Now Jamie froze and her eyes grew wide.

"I thought I better tell you..."

Despite - or was it rather because? - her earlier conversation with Leonard McCoy and its outcome, the captain blushed. "I'm married to Bones?"

Uhura kept her expression serious and neutral, but it wasn't easy for her to suppress a smirk. "Yes."

Jamie remained silent. A thousand thoughts swirled through her mind. She just got engaged completely out of the blue, but that was suddenly void, because she already was married to the man without knowing it. What now? She wondered what he would say. Did that make things easier - or even crazier?

Uhura waited and didn't know what that non-reaction and silence meant. Her guess was: Shock. Slowly she rose. "I better leave now." She pointed at the PADD on the desk. "I did some research on the matter. Something like this didn't really happen before, but there are related... uh, incidents. And if you want, I could contact Starfleet Legal and let them look into the case?"

Jamie blinked and looked at Uhura. Her thoughts were slowly getting back to reality. "Thank you. I'll let you know."

Uhura nodded and left the room.

Jamie exhaled sharply. Married. The word echoed in her mind again. She was actually married. And suddenly she started laughing. The tension fell off.

"Unbelievable..." she whispered. She was shocked, but felt from minute to minute happier.

This changed everything - and yet didn't. She knew that her crazy idea from earlier was right and she was actually kind of glad that the part with "I do" was already behind them. Although she realized that she actually wouldn't have minded to do that whole wedding thing a tenth and final and deliberate and planned time.

Somewhere in between these thoughts Jamie remembered that her - oh, boy - husband didn't know yet. So she set out for Medbay.

While walking two questions again reigned in her mind on this weird but wonderful day: Why does crazy stuff keep happening to us? And do other Starfleet ships also have to put up with such weird things?