Ch 3: Wedding Plans

Kirk and Uhura sat in her room wearing pajamas. Uhura wore a white spaghetti strap top and pink pajama bottoms, while Kirk wore a white sleeveless shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. In each of their hands were a spoon and a pint of ice cream, pistachio for Kirk and vanilla chocolate swirl for Uhura. They both sat cross-legged on her bed as they chatted.

This was not the first time the two had sat in Uhura's room in such a way. The weekly Saturday night ritual began a couple of months before Kirk and Spock had become engaged. Kirk had come to Uhura's room late one Saturday night for advice after a particularly bad fight and had caught her just before she had gone to bed. Seeing the tears streaming down his face, Uhura knew just what to do. She went to her refrigerator and pulled out her emergency stash of ice cream and made him sit down on her bed. After polishing off the ice cream, they stayed up for a few hours talking about how stupid men could be.

It tickled Uhura to hear Kirk openly bash men of the same things that he himself had been guilty of before he had gotten serious with Spock. It was even funnier to hear him apologize on behalf of his gender, stating that if the blood to their brain wasn't rerouted to their reproductive organs so often, maybe they wouldn't act like complete idiots all the time. In a million years, she never thought she would hear James Tiberius Kirk, once known as the notorious womanizer of Starfleet Academy, speak so poorly about men, but now that she had, she thought it was funny as shit.

It was after that fateful night that Kirk started coming to her room regularly every Saturday night. Of course, rumors about Kirk cheating on Spock with Uhura spread throughout the ship. Naturally Spock inquired as to the legitimacy of the rumors only to be told the honest truth. He was taken aback at the sudden kinship he shared with Uhura, but paid it no mind. Considering Uhura was Spock's ex-girlfriend and Kirk was his boyfriend, it made sense that they would get together and 'dish' about him.

On this particular night, Uhura was drilling Kirk about wedding plans. "Okay," she said, licking her spoon of the ice cream that still clung to it, "so, it's obvious that Bones is going to be your best man and Spock has chosen me as his maid of honor. Are you guys going to have anyone else in your wedding party?"

Kirk took a moment to finish his mouthful of pistachio ice cream before he answered. "Well, if I'm assuming correctly, I'm sure T'Maire will be asked to stand on Spock's side. If that's the case, I can always ask my brother to be on mine. Other than that though, that's it. Vulcan weddings don't have nearly as much of the pomp and circumstance as a human wedding, so there won't be worries about picking a venue or any of the junk. The reception on the other hand will be a little different. I figure we turn the recreation room into a giant reception hall and celebrate there."

Uhura nodded as she ate another scoop of ice cream. "Alright, sounds good. We've talked about your color scheme, which is going to be yellow and blue. So my next question is what do we serve for food?"

"Are you kidding?" Kirk said through another mouthful of ice cream. "Half of the party is vegetarian. All we gotta do is serve them a shit ton of Caesar salad and we're set."

Rolling her eyes, Uhura asked, "And what about the rest of your guests? The crew will be attending too, as well as your family. Caesar salad will work as an appetizer, but what about the main course?"

Kirk shrugged. "I dunno…just serve them some chicken and vegetables or something. That's fancy enough to suit their tastes I'm sure. It's all going to be made by a replicator anyway, so why sweat it you know?"

Uhura sighed. At times like this she was rudely reminded that even though he understood the plight of women everywhere, Kirk was still a macho lunkhead who didn't care much for fine details. Exasperated, she asked, "Have you at least picked a date for the wedding?" The blank look on Kirk's face answered her question. Stabbing her ice cream angrily with her spoon, she said, "How the hell do you not have a date planned for your wedding? You've been engaged for almost a year now! What have you been doing this whole time?"

"Spock," Kirk answered slyly. "And I'm sure he'd appreciate it if you referred to him as a 'who', not a 'what'."

His laugh was cut off by a pillow hitting him square in the face. Rubbing his face, he put his ice cream down and grabbed another pillow, smacking Uhura on top of her head with it. Putting her ice cream on her night stand, she stood on her bed and began attacking Kirk with her pillow. Kirk rose from the bed and did his best to combat her surprisingly strong hits.

The two laughed as they assaulted each other with the fluffy Starfleet regulation pillows, which started spewing feathers with each hit. Gaining the upper hand, Kirk beat Uhura into submission before dropping his pillow and tickling her. Gasping for air, she managed to scream, "Truce! TRUCE!" Both clutching their sides from the laughter that made their bodies ache, they both sat back down on the bed.

"You know," Uhura said after she finally caught her breath, "if someone told me four years ago that I'd have a pillow fight with you in my room after eating ice cream in my pajamas, I'd probably have had them report to sick bay for a full mental evaluation."

Kirk grinned at her and put an arm around her shoulders. "If someone told me four years ago I'd be making wedding plans with Spock's ex-girlfriend instead of having sex with her, I'd probably do the same thing."

She laughed and put her arm around Kirk as well. "I'm definitely glad that you and I have put our differences behind us and become friends. I gotta ask though, why did you come to me to talk about wedding plans instead of McCoy? Sure, I'm a girl, so I think about these things anyway, but he's your best friend."

"Phhht, are you kidding me?" Kirk exclaimed. "The moment I'd ask him for help, he'd just say 'Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a wedding planner!'" Uhura laughed at the accuracy of Kirk's imitation of McCoy, which he had down even to the exact sound of his voice. "Besides, he's still carrying a torch for me. Asking him to help me plan a wedding with someone he doesn't really like would be a bit of a slap in the face, know what I mean?"

"Uh, hello? I'm Spock's ex-girlfriend. Don't you think coming to me for help planning your wedding is a bit of a faux pas too?"

Kirk shrugged. "Well, technically yeah. If you were still single, it'd be a pretty shitty move on my part. But if I'm correct, you and Scotty have a little bit of a thing going, so it's not so big of a deal." The blush that tinted Uhura's chocolate colored skin confirmed Kirk's suspicions. "By pursuing Scotty, you've made it clear that you've moved on. If I had even the slightest suspicion that you were still in love with Spock, I would never have even come here to ask for advice that one night."

"And then we'd never be where we are now," Uhura said with a smile. "Trust me. I prefer this to the alternative. I've never been one to focus on the things I can't have anyway. I bowed out gracefully after you and Spock became an item and I never looked back."

Kirk gave Uhura a look that quickly made her amend her statement. "Okay, so I didn't exactly bow out gracefully. I kinda made an ass of myself."

Another look from Kirk. Huffing, she said, "Alright! I was a flaming bitch who wanted to try and pull you and Spock apart! Jeez, I already told you I was sorry for that, what more do you want?!?"

Smirking, Kirk gave Uhura a friendly kiss on the forehead. "I just want to make sure you're being honest about it when you recount that 'special' time before we became friends."

Uhura rolled her eyes and pushed the laughing Kirk off of her. He reached over and reclaimed his almost empty carton of ice cream, happily resuming his consumption of the green pistachio flavored frozen dessert. Crossing her legs, Uhura grabbed her ice cream and brought a drippy scoop to her mouth. "Back to our conversation," she said. "I'll go ahead and give you more time to think of the more nit-picky details like wine choices and cake designs. Since I know there's no way you'll actually come up with these things on your own, I'll do some research and give you some options later. I gotta ask though, what are you planning for your honeymoon?"

Kirk's face lit up when Uhura asked this question. "Ah, now that I have an answer for! My grandfather owned a cabin in Montana that he had planned to pass down to my father when he was old enough. Since he kicked the bucket a lot sooner than expected, he bequeathed it to me. It's got a gorgeous view of the lake, and in the morning you get a great view of the sunrise. At night you can see every single star there is in the sky. Once Starfleet clears us for family leave, we'll spend some time there."

"If that's the case, why not wait until the end of our mission to get married? I mean, it's not like there's a huge rush. You've made that abundantly clear. That way, when the mission ends, you and Spock don't have to wait for approval from Starfleet to take family leave. You know how long Starfleet can take with requests like that."

Kirk nodded as he scraped the last of his ice cream from his now empty pint. "Yeah, they're bastards like that. It's not a bad idea though. I think it'd be a nice way to end the mission too, don't you think? After spending five years floating through the stars and exploring, the Captain and his First Officer get married in holy matrimony. The crowd roars and then goes home to their families."

He looked up and thought for a moment. Then he shook his head. "Nah, I don't think I wanna wait that long to get married. Gives Spock way too much time to back out if you know what I mean," he said, shooting a wink at Uhura.

Uhura smirked at Kirk's wink and chuckled. "If Spock were going to back out, he would have already done it," she said, replacing the top of her ice cream carton securely. She rose from her bed and took Kirk's empty carton as well, walking it to the trash chute. Turning, she continued, "I can see what you mean about the whole long engagement thing. Aside from the whole cold feet thing, there's the fact that you never know what could happen to us out here. The longer you wait, the more likely it is for something to happen either to you or to Spock. Better to plan the ceremony to be sooner rather than later."

Kirk rose from the bed, stretching and yawning loudly. "Yeah, you're right. I don't see us being engaged for more than another year at this rate. That's not too bad either though; Spock and I would be going on leave right around the mid-point of our mission. That'd give me plenty of time to choose someone as a proper replacement for us both until we return. I doubt you guys would do too much to get yourselves in trouble for two weeks or so."

"You'd think," Uhura said, flopping back on her bed. She yawned loudly and pulled the covers over her. "Well, I hate to kick you out, but I'm exhausted. Going to bed right after ice cream probably isn't the best idea, but I can't keep my eyes open another minute."

"Yeah, I hear ya," Kirk said, walking toward the door. "I'm gonna head to my room and hit the hay too. G'night, Uhura."

Mid-yawn, Uhura gave a sleepy "G'night," before turning her room lights off. Kirk walked out of the room and wandered down the hall, ignoring the looks he received for walking around in his pajamas. You would think after doing this every Saturday night for over a year, people would be used to seeing it by now, he thought to himself. The amusing thing was the looks weren't because they were surprised to see him in pajamas, but because it was their chance to admire the captain's physique. The thin cotton shirt clung closely to his torso, showing the muscular form beneath it easily. He couldn't help but smirk as a yeoman stared at him with an open mouth and lowered eyes as he passed her. He may only have eyes for Spock now, but that didn't mean he didn't like being checked out.

Kirk reached his room and was just about to face plant onto his bed when he saw his telecom flashing. Thinking it might be Spock, he rushed over to the telecom and accepted the transmission. To his surprise, it was a recorded message from his mother. He pressed 'play' and sat back, smiling at his mother's face.

Hey Jim! I hope everything is going well with your mission. I know it hasn't been that long since my last transmission, but I have exciting news! Remember how I said George and Aurelan were trying to have a girl? Well it finally happened! Aurelan's pregnant and it's a girl! I don't know when you're planning to have your wedding, but it looks like you may have your flower girl if you need one! Do Vulcan weddings have flower girls?

Well, I better run dear. I'm sure you're very busy doing Captain-y stuff and all, so I don't want to keep you. Oh, before you get married, do make sure I get to meet Mr. Spock. I'd love to meet the man who finally got my son to settle down! I'll make sure he gets to try my famous blueberry cobbler! Keep in touch, honey. I love you!

The transmission ended far sooner than Kirk wanted it to. He loved seeing his mother's face and hearing her voice. He had expected to miss her when he went on his mission, but not nearly as much as he found himself missing her as of late. They hadn't always gotten along so well; it wasn't until Kirk decided to join Starfleet that their relationship improved. Even though they still butted heads about his step-father, the tension between them had lessened greatly when Kirk's life finally took a direction. He knew it made her especially proud that he was following in his father's footsteps, something she had always secretly hoped.

So, I'm finally going to have a niece, he thought to himself with a smile. I bet she'll be a looker just like her mother. Her brothers are going to drive her insane trying to keep the guys away from her. Hopefully no one like me chases after her.

He chuckled to himself and stood up. The clock on his desk read 02:19 AM. It was way later than he needed to be awake, but it wasn't an unusual bedtime for a Saturday night. There were some nights where he and Uhura would be up so late, they'd only get an hour or two of sleep before having to report to their posts. At least this time they'd get a few hours of sleep before having to wake up for duty.

Kirk sighed at the empty bed. Normally when he came to his room after spending time with Uhura, Spock would be curled up in his sheet, sleeping soundly. When he lowered himself into the bed, the coldness of the sheets made him cringe. Tonight sleep would take a little longer to come to him. He thought about reaching out with his mind to see if Spock was asleep, but something told him that he was.

Just as he thought this, he heard Spock's voice in his head. Jim? Are you still awake?

Kirk's face lit up, a reaction he made sure to convey to Spock through their link. Yes, I'm still awake. I was just thinking about how cold the bed is without you in it. I'm lying in bed right now, how about you? I figured by now you'd be asleep.

Normally, yes. However, I am finding it hard for me to fall asleep without you by my side. Also, I am sharing a room with T'Maire, who unfortunately snores quite loudly while she sleeps.

Kirk laughed at the thought of the girly T'Maire snoring. I can see where that would keep you up then. Guess I'll tell you now instead of when you come back: I just received a transmission from my mom. George and Aurelan are expecting their first daughter to be born in the next few months.

Congratulations. It looks like you will finally have the niece you have been wanting. Do you plan to spoil her?

Heh, who knows? I may not have to, I'm sure Aurelan is going to shower her with love the moment she's born.

I will never understand why humans focus on the obtaining of children of both genders, particularly those that are the same gender as them.

Smiling through his link as well as physically, Kirk responded: Maybe you and I can think that through together. I'm a little too tired to think about it now though. I'm going to try and get some sleep before my shift starts. You should try and get some sleep too.

You are right. I will let you sleep. We will be returning sometime tomorrow, likely in the afternoon. I look forward to seeing you again.

And I you. Have a safe trip back Spock. Good night.

Good night, my t'hy'la.

With a grin on his face, Kirk turned off his lights, lowered his head on his pillow, and closed his eyes. Though their conversation had ended, he could still feel Spock's presence. He may not have had Spock's warm body next to him, but feeling him in his mind was comforting enough to soothe him to sleep. Once he fell asleep, Spock pulled back into his own mind and fell asleep as well.