Chapter 18: I do
Leonard McCoy stepped next to Christopher Pike under a beautiful arch with roses and wondered how the guest list had gotten so long. There were about 200 humans and aliens. The smallest part was the family. Most of them were crewmembers, from brass or diplomats. Outside the Enterprise crew neither Jamie nor Leonard had really friends. But he saw a few faces from their Academy days.
Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Spock came to Leonard and positioned themselves at his side as the groomsmen. He didn't have only one best men and Jamie didn't only have one maid of honor. The senior crew would be with them. Christine Chapel, Leonard's sister Donna and Nyota Uhura walked down the aisle and stood on the side Jamie would stand during the ceremony. The men were wearing dress uniforms, the women dresses in different shades of lilac and berry.
Discreetly Scotty took out his communicator when it beeped. He grinned at the others and gave Keenser in the background the sign for the music and the beaming.
The alien engineer nodded to Joanna and the girl stepped into the aisle and started walking to the music. It was a song that Nyota and Sulu had chosen - "She" from Elvis Costello.
The guests turned around, Leonard and the wedding party in front looked at the little girl. They awwwwwed and ohhhhhed seeing how her dress resembled the captain's gold.
Leonard smiled and felt his heart beat faster in anticipation of Jamie.
Christopher Pike chuckled. "Look at that, maybe we'll get a Captain McCoy someday..."
Behind Joanna a swirl of golden light appeared and then she was there - with a bright smile and a bouquet of white and lilac roses Jamie walked down the aisle to the lines of the song.
She may be the reason I survive,
the why and wherefore I'm alive,
the one I'll care for through the rough in many years.
The smooth and light fabric of her long dress floated around her legs. She was practically glowing in full bridal bliss.
Leonard forgot to breathe for a moment. "Damn..." he whispered in awe and his eyes locked over the distance with hers. So many weddings, but this one was real.
"Breathe", the admiral said to him chuckling.
The doctor gave him a distracted nod and Joanna stepped next to Nyota. Jamie arrived a few moments later and he hold out one hand to her. She took it, giving her flowers to Nyota.
He smile turned into a grin. "Breathe."
"Can't..." He chuckled. "I didn't expect... wow..."
Jamie gave Sulu who was standing behind Leonard a thankful smile and a wink. The dress was really perfect.
"Well", Christopher Pike started. "We are here today to join Captain Jamie Tiberia Kirk and Doctor Leonard Horatio McCoy in matrimony. Most of you know, of course, that they are technically already married. But I think I speak for us all when I say that we ignore that for the time being and celebrate with them this day they chose to share with us. I'm honored that Jamie asked me to officiate the wedding. I got to know those two when they joined Starfleet about four and a half years ago. And let me tell you, they were and still are quite a hand full."
The guests laughed.
"But I think we all know that they are meant to be", he got serious again. "Jamie and Leonard have decided to speak their own vows." He nodded to Jamie.
Holding already one of Leonard's hand, Jamie also took the other one. "There are these beautiful lines from the 19th century many people assign to Shakespeare. They say what I feel, what is true and what I didn't want to admit to myself, let alone to anybody else." She smiled and held his gaze. "I love thee, I love but thee, with a love that shall not die till the sun grows cold and the stars are old... You are everything to me, Bones. Leonard. You put up with me, when I was at my worst and you watched me become the woman, the Starfleet captain, I am today. Many people say that I'm a legacy child and that I was meant to be what I am. But the truth is - I am what I am, because I have you. We laugh, we fight and we save each other. I am so incredibly thankful that I met you that day on the Academy shuttle. My mother told me a few weeks ago, that the relationships that last are born from friendship. She was never more right. I look forward to travel in space with you, have a family with you and grow old with you... I love you, Leonard."
He took a deep breath and needed a moment to find his voice and words again. "The day we met we were both at our lowest point. There were no masks, just us. Two people clinging to each other, trying to turn their lives around and somehow becoming friends... I never thought that I would develop such a friendship with a woman - with someone as stubborn and reckless as you."
The guests laughed. Jamie did, too.
"I love what you are, Jamie, what you do and how you refuse to believe in the impossible. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are." He gently squeezed her hands. "You're one hell of a woman. You're the one. My best friend and my true love. I never want to let you go... When we met I said I had nothing left but my bones. You gave me the nickname Bones and it was a symbol of my past. But, slowly, that changed. You were and still are the only one allowed to call me that. And now that name means that everything I am belongs to you. I am yours and always will be."
Jamie and Leonard were so mesmerized by each other they barely noticed how moved the guests were by their vows. Eleonora was on her third tissue and Winona had a hard time holding back tears, but still somehow managed.
"Damn..." Chris Pike whispered and blinked strongly. "Now you two are almost making me cry." He laughed and the audience did too. "So... Marriage. The final frontier", he started and earned the first chuckles from the Starfleet officers. "You embark now on your lifelong mission to explore strange new worlds and boldly go, side by side, where no one has gone before... Jamie Tiberia Kirk, do you take Leonard Horatio McCoy to be your lawfully wedded husband?"
Jamie smiled and the words came perfectly naturally from her lips. "I do."
"Leonard Horatio McCoy, do you take Jamie Tiberia Kirk to be your lawfully wedded wife?"
"I do." He smiled, almost grinned.
The admiral's eyes wandered to the audience. "I won't ask if anyone has something against the union of those two, because it would be already too late anyway and, more importantly, because I would simply overrule everyone who'd try to object."
The guests laughed and applauded.
Pike took the rings he had carried himself out of his pocket. Two simple platin wedding bands. He handed the bigger one to Jamie.
She slid it on her husband's finger. "With this ring I thee wed. This ring has no end or beginning, it signifies the continuation of true love."
Leonard put the smaller ring on Jamie's right ring finger and spoke the same words. "With this ring I the wed. This ring has no end or beginning, it signifies the continuation of true love."
"By the power vested in my by Starfleet I now pronounce you husband and wife. Jamie, you may kiss your husband", Chris Pike told Jamie.
And before Leonard had the chance to protest that this traditional term should be the other way around, Jamie had already slid her arms around his neck and was kissing him under more applause, cheering and some whistles.
The reception was kind of crazy. Many presents, handshakes, embraces, laughter, food... Nyota was singing. Scotty, too, and not bad at all at it. The children were fascinated by the alien Starfleet officers or ambassadors. Keenser was their favorite and had actually fun keeping them occupied.
"Hello again, everyone", Nyota greeted the guests, when the children were off playing with Keenser. "We have a little something for you all. Most of you can see today how great Jamie and Leonard are together. They are really meant to be. We are proud to call her our Captain and that he's always there to stitch us up." She chuckled and the guests did too. "We want to show you how they met each other, how their unique friendship grew into love and what led to this wedding. So, with courtesy of the Enterprise's Chief of Security and approval of the brass we have here a few clips for you. But beware, they may not be entirely G-rated. "She winked. "Also, this stuff is partially classified. So, you are herby sworn to secrecy."
Uhura nodded to Scotty and he started what they'd prepared. In the golden swirl of beaming a huge view screen appeared and showed the Riverside shipyard with a younger Jamie Kirk stopping on a motorcycle in front of a shuttle.
Jamie and Leonard looked at each other in awe. "Oh my God..." she whispered in disbelief and wondered how they'd pulled it off to get footage from that day. And what else they might have.
"Four years? I'll do it in three." The younger Jamie Kirk smirked
at Captain Christopher Pike and boarded the Academy shuttle.
The scene changed and showed the argument between Leonard and a female Starfleet officer in the same shuttle.
"You need a doctor", the woman in grey said.
"I told you people, I don't need a doctor, damn it, I am a doctor!"
"You need to get back to your seat."
"I had one. In the bathroom with no windows."
"You need to get back to your seat now."
"I suffer from aviaphobia. It means fear of dying on something that flies."
"Sir, for your own safety, sit down, or else I shall make you sit down!"
Leonard nodded. "Fine."
"Thank you", she said and left.
He took the seat next to Jamie Kirk. It was the moment they met the first time.
"I may throw up on you", he told her in a grumpy voice.
Jamie looked at him in surprise. "I think those things are pretty save."
The guests chuckled and awwwwwed at the scene that was unfolding on the screen. Jamie took her husband's hand.
"Don't pander to me, kid", he started ranting and rambling. "One tiny crack in
the hull and our blood boils in thirteen seconds. Solar flare might crop up, cook us in our seats.
And wait till you're sitting pretty with a case of Andorian shingles. See if you're still so relaxed when your eyeballs are bleeding. Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence."
She just looked at him, a little amused. "Well, I hate
to break this to you, but Starfleet operates in space."
Leonard sighed. " Yeah, well, I got nowhere else to go. The ex-wife took
the whole damn planet in the divorce. All I got left is my bones."
He took a sip from his flask and offered it to Jamie.
"Jamie Kirk." She also drank.
"McCoy. Leonard McCoy."
The next clips were from the Academy and showed them interacting with each other, Leonard lecturing Jamie about repeating the Kobayashi Maru test the third time and then there it was. Jamie in the command chair, Leonard at one of the stations.
"Our ship's being hit. Shields at 60 percent", Leonard informed.
"I understand", Jamie gave back and had suddenly an apple in her right hand.
"Well, should we, don't know, fire back?"
"No." She took a bite.
"Of course not." He rolled his eyes.
The Starfleet officers laughed. The scene went on and the Jamie on the screen gloated about the successful rescue in the simulation with younger Leonard actually smiling at her behavior while she gave the instructor a smug grin.
"Well, of course our captain-to-be had much to learn after she did that number on the Kobayashi Maru test", Nyota narrated at a mute clip of the hearing with Jamie facing Spock.
"I don't believe in no-win-scenarios", Jamie's voice from that day sounded.
The video morphed into the hangar where Jamie was about to being left behind and Leonard decided to take her with him.
"Damn it," Leonard sighed, turned around and took Jamie with him. "Come with me."
The scene changed to a lab.
"What are you doing?" Jamie asked Leonard.
"I'm doing you a favor. I couldn't just leave you there, looking all pathetic." He prepared a hypo. "Take a seat. I'm gonna give you a vaccine against viral infection from Melvaran mud fleas."
Jamie hissed when he stabbed her with the hypo. "What for?"
"To give you the symptoms."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're gonna start to lose vision in your left eye."
"Yeah, I already have.
"Oh and you're gonna get a really bad headache and flop sweat."
"You call this a favor?"
"Yeah, you owe me one."
The guests laughed and watched how Leonard made sure that he could take Jamie on board the Enterprise.
"Medical code states the treatment and transport of a patient is to be determined at
the discretion of his attending physician. Which is me. So I'm taking Miss Kirk on board.
Or would you like to explain to Captain Pike why the Enterprise warped into a crisis
without one of its senior medical officers?"
"Well", Nyota said. "And so it began. The rest is history. Leonard became CMO in the midst of battle, Jamie got field promoted to first officer, made orbital jumps and fought Romulans, got shortly marooned on Delta Vega, brought Scotty with her to the Enterprise, took command when Spock was emotionally compromised, rescued Christopher Pike from the enemy ship and, well, together we saved Earth. But we couldn't have done it without her. And Leonard save many lives that day in medbay."
The next part of the video showed Jamie's promotion to captain and her getting command of the Enterprise. With a very proud Leonard McCoy in the audience. Then the pictures shifted again...
Jamie Kirk in a golden command dress entered the bridge of the
Enterprise and patted Leonard on the shoulder. "Bones! Buckle up."
"The adventures in space began", Nyota said. "Yeah, space. Which Leonard hated." She smiled at the couple. "But he'd follow her everywhere."
The guests awwwwwwwd again.
The video went on, and showed, narrated by Nyota, pictures from the first mission with the accidental wedding... then some bickering between Jamie and Leonard when she returned injured from a mission... he carrying her bridal style to Medbay... or that one time she was stubborn and he had to throw her over one shoulder and haul her to Medbay...
Then there were more pictures from their following annulled alien weddings with funny clothes and much bickering about what had been who's fault.
The guests couldn't stop laughing.
And finally the latest incident - wedding number nine. The return of the away team in the transporter room and Leonard shoving the gift basket at some ensign before leaving the room.
"Oi, the doctor's in a very bad mood", the Scotty commented, pointing back at the corridor.
"They got hitched again", a security ensign said while walking past them.
"That's like the eighth time", Scotty said laughing.
"Ninth", Nyota muttered.
"You're counting?" Scotty replied.
Nyota explained the white alert, although by now almost everyone knew about it. "The next part is with courtesy of Admiral Christopher Pike. And we're absolutely not sorry to show this, Jamie." She grinned and the screen split in two parts, one showing Pike, the other Jamie. It was the com conversation from about three weeks ago.
Jamie Kirk-McCoy already blushed, because she knew how that clip would end.
"Damn, now I owe Boyce a bottle of Champaign", Pike said.
Jamie laughed. "What was the bet?"
"If you'd ask me to do perform the ceremony when you get married or if you'd just run off to Risa."
"And there I thought you knew me better than he does."
"In my defense - we made that particular bet right after the one about you
getting married at all . And that was a few weeks after you started the Academy.
I didn't account for McCoy being the man that could actually tame Jamie Kirk."
He winked at her. "Or there being a man at all who could haul you into marriage.
Or you actually wanting a marriage."
Jamie gave him a mockingly annoyed look. "Tamed? Either you're trying to
tease me or we really need to have a talk." But she smiled again."See you in two weeks, Chris."
Pike nodded. "By the way - you've got a hickey, Mrs. McCoy ."
He chuckled, when he saw her reaction and cut the connection.
The audience chuckled, laughed and applauded.
"Oh my God," Jamie just managed to get out. "Why did we have this wedding?"
Leonard laughed, too.
"And now we get to the really fluffy and romantic part..." Nyota announced when the clip changed to the mess hall of the Enterprise.
The screen showed the overview as well as the captain's special white alert message. Surprise. Jamie grabbing Leonard and kissing him in front of everyone. Applauding and encouraging calls.
You just couldn't wait, could you? I wanted to kiss you like that." Leonard laughed.
"You still can." She grinned and winked. "Haven't yet gotten that ring you promised."
He took it out of his pocket."Our timing and the order of this whole relationship and
wedding thing is a little messed up. So, my... wife doesn't have an engagement ring,
let alone a wedding band. We need to change that. Darlin', today you get the engagement
ring, the other one will follow on Earth."
With "Awww" and "Ohhh" from all around Leonard took Jamie's left
hand and slid it onto her ring finger.
Leonard smiled at her, kissed her hand wearing the ring, then pulled Jamie
into his arms again and kissed her.
With many hearts swirling now over the big screen the video ended and the guests clapped cheerfully.
"Okay, now that we've embarrassed those two a little, we want to see they dance!" Scotty called and switched on some music with a waltz rhythm.
Leonard led Jamie to the dancefloor, but got only to hold her for one dance. Chris Pike soon took over and after dances with some other admirals, Spock, Chekov and Sulu, she was gone.
It took Leonard a while to realize that his wife wasn't on the dance floor anymore. He looked around, but also saw her nowhere at the tables. Letting his gaze wander around further his eyes met Nyota's.
"Lost something?" she teased.
"My wife, apparently."
She grinned and he frowned in confusion.
"Nyota..."
Spock came to the table and sat down. He noticed the stare Leonard gave Nyota. "Is everything alright?"
"You tell me", Leonard demanded from Nyota. "Where is my wife?"
"Ah, I see", Spock said. "I believe you will have to search for her, Leonard. She has been kidnapped."
Leonard's eyes grew wide. First in shock, then in realization. He rolled his eyes. "Sulu and Chekov kidnapped the bride?"
Nyota grinned. "Find her and you'll win the wedding night."
Author's note: I have to admit that a few lines from Leonards vows aren't mine. In "Buffy" Spike gives Buffy a long declaration of love. These words are from that: "I love what you are, what you do, how you try. I've seen your kindness and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand with perfect clarity exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one."
And the quote Jamie uses is often said to be Shakespeare, but it's from Bayard Taylor's Bedouin Song, a few centuries after Shakespera. Inititally, I wanted her to quote Shakespeare, but I liked thoses lines.