I am so so so sorry! I had every intention of having this out last week, but my fiance was up from Florida and we had a million wedding things to do. A million times over I apologize!

On another note, this is it! We are at the end! Talk about a rollercoaster of an adventure. Thank you to everyone who had reviewed, favorited, added to alter lists and just read for the hell of it. To each and everyone of you I dedicate this chapter. You're the reason I was able to finish it, and I hope you enjoy the last installment.

I'm going to take a bit of break until the next story (yes, I can hear you screaming there will be another) but it's T minus 5 months until my wedding so my attention must be allocated to that. Not to mention my three jobs, three film projects, and trying to put sleeping and eating into that. I will try to get something up before Christmas but if you don't see anything until after the new year, don't be too surprised.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy it! Until next time!

Chapter Twenty: Noble Maiden Fair

Charlie leaned against the rails of the balcony, staring up at the crescent moon and cacophony of stars shining their soft light on the slumbering city. She sighed as she wrapped her arms around herself to ward against the cool night air, her amber eyes moving from one bright point in the sky to the next. To an outsider, she just appeared to seek solace from their light, but if they looked closer they could see she was searching for something among the heavens. Although her eyes burned and exhaustion tugged at her bones, she couldn't sleep. The nightmares that had been gone for weeks reappeared that night when their icy fingers wormed into her unconscious brain. Waking up with a cold sweat and a pounding heart, Charlie had wanted to scream in frustration. She had been so close to freedom, to enjoying sleep-filled nights and finally feeling rested when she awoke. Now she wondered if she would watch another dawn break the horizon after weeks of ignoring the coming rays.

Earlier in the day, she had had a rather spirited discussion with Admiral Marcus, one that left her shaking and angry and no doubt the cause of her returning nightmares. Recalling the way his green eyes narrowed and his mouth frowned as he shot one accusation after another, she shivered more from the distrustful demeanor of Marcus than the night air. He wanted her. Not in a sexual or perverted way, but something she couldn't determine. His questions had ranged from her home life, her education, her family, history, but nothing that pinpointed what he wanted. His questions about her family had been the most telling, but with the wide range from which he asked, she didn't know why he cared.

She shook the mystery from her head with sigh, returning to her search of the sky when a light came on behind her and a man limped out in his dark blue robe.

"While I applaud your devotion to studying the stars, it's almost three in the morning and one of us has a test at 08:00," Pike said pointedly as he shuffled to her side.

She half smirked and rolled her eyes, but remained silent.

"The nightmares again?"

The smile slipped and her shoulders drooped as she glanced away. She nodded once and didn't protest when an arm wrapped around her shoulders, his body heat welcomed after the cold. "It's okay, you know," Pike whispered, bringing her into his side. "You're going to relapse, it happens to all of us. Just make sure you take two steps forward to make up for this one step back."

"It's hard, remembering what happened," she mumbled, clutching as the soft fabric as the images of lifeless bodies flashed behind her lids. "And I keep having these dreams of Jim or you dying. Am I horrible for that?" She turned to him, her eyes pleading for reassurance. She couldn't understand why their death was her nightmare when it had been Charlie who was subjected to the Klingon attack.

Pike frowned and pulled her closer, his tense body betraying the calm in his voice. "Do you try to stop it?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed as she snapped her head up, almost shoving the man away as she turned to stare out at the snoozing city. "But I either come in after it's already happened or I can't stop it. No matter what I do, I can't stop it." Her voice faded as the fear came back and she shivered from the power of it.

"Now you listen to me," he declared, pulling out his admiral voice that brokered no room for argument. "Nothing is going to happen. You're not going to lose Jim and you're certainly not going to lose me. No matter what happens one of us will always be there for you."

She shook her head, even the warm of his body next to hers didn't stop the cold from seeping into her core. "What if you're not?" she whispered. "What if something happens and you're gone? I don't know what I would do. When I was with the Klingons, I learned how much I need help in this world. I can't be alone in it."

"Something you're forgetting, Charlie. You're not alone in this. You have people here who love you, who will support you. You don't have to fix everything yourself."

She frowned and glanced back up at the twinkling stars, wishing she knew which one Jim orbited.

"I know," she sighed. "I've made so many friends here; more than I ever had at home. And the crew is closer to me than my own family was. It's that bond that scares me, Pike. I have so much more to lose if I fail."

"But you have more to gain just by playing," he pointed out. "The life of a Starfleet officer is never easy. It's full of turmoil, danger, and many lose their lives in service because they believe in the betterment of the Federation. You're going to lose people you know, and some you may love, but remember we're in this together. It's like you tell me: cor uny thingy."

She grinned and shook her head. "Cor unum, via una?"

He smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that. It's a hard life, what Jim and I chose, and I hope you decide to join us. But what we learn and achieve outweighs the dangers we face. Once you're up there, you'll see. Now, c'mon, let's go inside."

Pike turned to head back into the apartment. Charlie just stared at the sky lost in thought her mind billions of miles away.

"Charlie? Charlie . . . Charlie!"

Charlie snapped to attention, rubbing her burning eyes as she glanced at McCoy standing in the doorway of the hospital room with a scowl on his face and his hands on his hips.

"What?" she stuttered as a flash of guilt shot through her from McCoy's exasperated glare.

"I said, when was the last time you ate anything or slept more than two hours, Spitfire," he repeated.

"Recently," she mumbled with a sheepish glance at the scowling doctor. She peeked around at the stark white walls, the light streaming into the hospital room from the brilliant summer sun. It was midafternoon and her day had already been spent at Jim's side. She ran a hand down her tired face, trying to bring herself back to the present as the echoes of the past still rang in her ears.

"Yeah, alright, how recently?"

She clenched her teeth, annoyed by the barrage of questions as the doctor stepped towards her. "Well I ate a granola bar earlier."

"You haven't left the hospital room in two days," he accused.

"Not true! I had to get that granola bar."

"Charlie, I told you—"

"Yes, alright," she snapped rolling her eyes as she tried to temper her anger. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Her attention moved from the gruff man to the still sleeping captain as she added, "I understand you mean well, McCoy. I'm trying to take care of myself, but I worry that if I leave something might happen. He could relapse, or the blood could do something weird. I can't risk not being here for him."

"Weird how?"

"I don't know," she sighed, catching her lip between her teeth as she leaned against the back of the uncomfortable chair. The exhaustion of the wait crept up on her sooner and sooner each day they waited for the man to awaken. She tried to down play the seriousness of her worry with jokes and light banter, but with it being two weeks since Jim rescued the Enterprise, she was finding it harder to put on the façade for others. With a voice as quiet and still as a graveyard she mumbled, "I'm afraid it might be something Khan related."

"What? That Jim will become a raging superhuman with maniacal tendencies?"

She shrugged innocently, but it was something she had considered. When Jim woke up, would Khan's genetically engineered blood create another monster, or would his strength of character and stubbornness keep him as the same arrogant captain she fell in love with. Would he change for the worse or would he even remember what happened? All she knew was he had to wake up for any of that to happen. To know where he stood and what waited in his recovery.

McCoy scoffed at her admission, his eyes practically disappearing as he rolled them. "Please," he derided, shaking his head as he took in the hours' worth of readings and vitals.

"Well has that tribble changed any?" she tried.

"Other than multiply a million times and filling my office with cooing fluff balls?" he asked, dropping his arms. "Nope. Healthy as can be."

"So why hasn't Jim woken up yet?"

"Could be a million different reasons, Spitfire," McCoy sighed, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder as he contemplated the sleeping man. "I had to synthesize a serum from super blood that we know little to nothing about. Yes, it brought back his brain activity, but you didn't see the level of radiation in his system. I'm not going to be surprised if he doesn't wake for a month."

Charlie frowned as she crossed her arms. She didn't know how bad Jim had been before the blood transfer. He was dead, she didn't need to know more than that, but now she wondered if her choice for ignorance was the right one.

The door opened, and both the doctor and Charlie turned as Spock entered the room. He dipped his head in acknowledgement to each of them and removed his hat.

"How is he, Doctor?" he asked.

"Unchanged," McCoy answered, shooting Charlie a sympathetic glance as she shook her head.

McCoy had begun to adjust Jim's nutrition intake, noticing the amount was far lower than it should have been when one of the readings spiked. He frowned, trying to adjust his tricorder as the reading steadily increased. "What the—?"

Suddenly a loud blaring echoed around the room, the graphs showing Jim's heart rate, brain activity, and other vitals spiked. Then without a word or provocation, Jim's eyes snapped opened as he inhaled a giant gulp of air like waking from a nightmare. Charlie gasped as the wide panicked eyes searched the room before landing on herself and Doctor McCoy.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," McCoy admonished, winking at Charlie who had jumped up from her seat, her hands on his arms to stop the captain from panicking. "You were barely dead."

"Mostly dead, Doc," Charlie corrected, her own heart beating wildly with a smile tugging at her lips. He was staring at her, seeing her for the first time in weeks. If he had asked it of her in that moment, she could have flown from the sheer joy that he was awake. "I think the term is mostly dead, and I swear to god, if you ever scare me like that again, I will bring you back to life so I can kill you myself."

"Hey!" McCoy growled. "No threatening my patient when he just woke up!"

Jim grinned as his bright eyes shined. "Bones, it's okay," he placated, his voice a little rough as Charlie sat on the edge of his bed. "I deserve it. What happened?"

"You do what you always do," Charlie answered with a wet smile, tears of happiness clouding her vision. "Turn death into a fighting chance to live."

"It was the transfusion that really took its toll," McCoy added. "You were out cold for two weeks."

"Transfusion?"

"Your cells were heavily irradiated," the doctor explained. "We had no choice."

Jim glanced between Charlie and McCoy, his brows low over his eyes as he tried to understand the last few weeks. "Khan?"

She sobered as she nodded once in affirmation.

"Once we caught him, I synthesized a serum from his super blood," McCoy clarified. "Tell me, are you feeling uh . . . homicidal, power-mad, despotic?"

"Len!" Charlie barked, glaring at the physician.

"No more than usual," Jim smirked as his eyes traveled between the pair. "How'd you catch him?"

"I didn't."

Both McCoy and Charlie glanced over their shoulders at the silent man lurking in the back. Spock stepped forward, his hat tucked under his arm, having just come from other meeting with the top leaders regarding the ship and her captain.

"You saved my life," Jim stated, warmth in his gaze as he regarded his First Officer.

"Charlie, Uhura, and I had something to do with it, you know," McCoy grumbled.

"You saved my life, Captain," Spock answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And the lives of many oth—"

"Spock," Jim interrupted. "Just . . . thank you."

He paused a moment, and if she focused hard enough, Charlie swore there was a smile on the Vulcan's lips. "You are welcome, Jim."

The captain's grin widened as his attention moved from one person to the next. Charlie knew he didn't understand yet what they went through, the pain and turmoil when they thought he was dead. But he did know how grateful they all were to him. He had saved them and in return, they brought him back from his own sacrifice.

What awaited them in the next few weeks, only time could tell, but as Jim chatted with Spock and McCoy, she ran her eyes up and down his frame, unable to believe the animated man in front of her had walked through Death's opened door. The pallor that had been prominent was gone, replaced by rose tuned skin as the lines of worry around his eyes eased to ones of happiness. Jim was back in her life, and as his cerulean gaze matched her amber one, the spark of fire that raced in her veins returned like a phoenix from the ashes. One look sent her blood on fire, and when his pupils dilated and his fist clenched next to her hands, she knew his had as well.

Spock left soon after, letting the captain know that repairs had begun on his ship and that the First Officer and Chief Engineer were hard at work. McCoy too left soon after with the excuse that he needed to go prepare a battery of tests now that Jim was finally awake. He stressed there were long roads of recovery ahead, but McCoy's eyes betrayed his relief as they glimmered with the happiness they all shared. Jim was alive.

The door hissed shut behind the doctor, leaving Charlie and Jim alone. For a few moments, they could only stare at each other. Charlie's voice caught in her throat and she had to pinch herself to verify she hadn't been dreaming.

"Hey," he said with a hint of guilt in his gaze after the tenseness grew and became palpable.

"Hey yourself," she answered, reaching forward to take his large hand in her small one, her finger wrapping around tightly.

"So you helped Spock?"

"You bet your ass I did," she asserted. "I couldn't—I couldn't let you go if there was a chance to save you. You know how stubborn I can be."

"Boy do I," he smirked squeezing back. "Did you give Spock any grief?"

"What do you mean by grief?" she played off innocently.

Jim raised a brow as he shifted. "Ignoring orders, taking charge, and over all being the genius strategist you are and making sure we know it too."

"That may ring a bell," she grinned. "But he did threaten me with the space version of walking the plank and I took that threat seriously."

Jim laughed. "Pushed him that far? Well, I've been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt. It wasn't a very good T-shirt."

"Heard it was a very, uh, cold T-shirt," Charlie grinned cheekily.

"I don't think there's a work in our language to describe how cold it was," he said with a pronounced shiver.

Charlie laughed, gripping his warm hand in her own, her eyes softening the longer she stared at him. He was awake and alive and everything was right in the world.

"I can't believe you're awake," she whispered. "It seemed like you would."

"It doesn't feel like two weeks," he sighed frowning, his eyes unfocused as he disappeared within.

"It feels longer for me," she mumbled, her eyes dropping to their joined hands, hands that now gripped each other's.

Jim reached out and with a finger lifted her chin. "Did you even go home?"

She shrugged, shifting in her chair. "Once or twice. I couldn't . . . that is I didn't want to leave and have something happen. I wanted to be here when you woke up."

He squeezed her hand as the guilt came back, his browns wrinkling as a muscle twitched in his clenched jaw. "I'm sorry this happened. I didn't want—"

"Jim, it's fine," she interrupted, her heart rate increasing. "So, I met with Admiral Barnett while you were, uh, out," she added, directing the topic away. "I've been accepted into the Academy."

"Academy?" Jim gasped, sitting up further with a wince as he adjusted himself. "Starfleet?"

She smiled as she nodded. "Command School."

"Charlie that's, that's amazing!" Jim exclaimed, his grip on her hand mirroring on painful. Although he appeared surprised, there was something that glimmered in his gaze, something she couldn't identify.

"It's come as a bit of a shock to me. Barnett pretty much said if I didn't enlist I was going to be drafted."

Jim laughed as he shook his head. "Pike said something similar to me once too."

They both sobered at the mention of their deceased mentor, each replying their last moments with the man and each full of heartache.

"You know what kept me going?" Jim finally said after minutes of silence.

Charlie snapped her gaze to his, swallowing the lump rising in her throat. "Jim, we don't have to talk about—"

"I want to," he interrupted, his voice hard and firm although he softened the longer he stared at her. He almost looked as if he was battling himself against something only he knew. "You know what kept me going? What made hit the core over and over until it realigned?"

Charlie paused, seeing his conviction. "The crew? The ship?"

"And you," Jim added to Charlie's astonishment. "All I could think about was that if I didn't succeed, if I didn't get the ship back to power you would die. I had to protect my crew, but I needed to protect you, Charlie. Without you, this ship is just an empty hull to me."

"I don't know what to say," she said after a pause, his admission so far from the Captain Kirk she knew about who was more in love with his ship than any woman. But if there was one thing she learned, the universe she was in was unlike any she had ever known.

"Marry me."

She blinked, staring at Jim as if he had grown a second head. In fact, she was pretty sure he had.

"What?" she gasped, jumping up from her chair.

Jim seemed equally as stunned, as if the thought hadn't even crossed his mind before he spoke it aloud. But if there was one thing Jim did, it was run with conviction. "You heard me. Marry me. Then you can come back to the ship and I wouldn't have to—"

"No."

It was his turn to look shocked. "Wait, what?"

"Jim, I love you," Charlie began, shoving her irrational fear aside. "Never forget that I love you more than anything else in this universe, but you just went through a traumatic event, and while I understand dying puts things in perspective, you're not thinking straight. We're just kids, we barely know each other. We haven't even been together for a year."

"Weren't you the one that loves those ancient princess things."

Charlie rolled her eyes. Of all the things to throw in her face, he had to pull that one out of the hat. "Yes, I do love my Disney princesses, but they're just stories. This is real life. And while I don't think we're anywhere close to ending ours, we're not to that chapter yet."

"You're right, you're right," he placated, falling back against his pillow as he closed his eyes in defeat. "I don't know what I was thinking."

"You were thinking you don't want to lose me," she smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed as she took his hand. His eyes snapped open as he squeezed in response, the feeling sending a welcome jolt up her arm. "Death has a way of changing us. You're not going to lose me just like I know you won't leave me again, but give it some time. I would love nothing more than to marry you, Jim Kirk. But not right now. Right now, you need to heal, to get your ship sorted out and your crew back to full capacity. There'll be time enough for talks of marriage later. Much, much later."

"Think you can handle me, even when I'm an idiot?"

"Pretty sure I do that already," she teased.

"Hey!" he rebuked, his eyes narrowing but a grin pulling at his lips. "I just survived a near death experience, show a little love."

She softened as she scooted down to lay next to him, her head resting on his chest as she absorbed the pounding of his very much alive heart. His arms wrapped around her, and while she could feel the diminished strength in his limbs, it was still comforting.

"I love you, Jim Kirk," she mumbled into his shirt. "I love you more than my universe or yours. Please don't ever leave me like that again."

There was a pause as the arms squeezed harder and she felt lips brush across the top of her head. "I promise."