Last but one, my dears.

Cruise To The Edge

V Flying

It takes us more than a month to work up the courage to kiss.

We're quite happy with talking, actually, and holding hands whenever there are no nurses or doctors near, and knowing that we're not alone any more. He spends hours at my sickbed, whenever he doesn't have to go about his captainly duties, and now there's nothing we don't talk about. Well, except for the future maybe. But that's okay. It'll come anyway.

We do all the stupid newly enamoured romantically staring at each other, and smiling whenever we think about the other, and waiting impatiently to see the other again; even if a little (more like a lot) less noticeably than other couples.

Actually we're being as discreet as can be.

It's not exactly easy.

And totally worth it.

My dark and terrible secret suddenly isn't that terrible anymore. Or that dark. Or that secret, actually. Not any longer, now that he knows.

However, I trust him. With my life. So it's okay that he knows, really. After all I know about him, too.

Loving Jim is as easy as it gets. It's also as difficult.

While I'm never as happy as when I'm with him (and as unhappy as I'm without him) I'm having doubts and second thoughts every other moment. Of course, this is what I've been wishing for, what I've been dreaming of – it's almost too perfect to be true. However, I've been told that loving men is wrong, and that this preference makes me repulsive. After some time you can't help but believe it. I can't help but wonder if it is right what we're doing, no matter how good it feels.

Jim's okay with me doubting.

He's having those same doubts, too.

We spend a lot of time talking about that kind of stuff. About what we want to do, what we can do. What we mustn't do. What is okay to be done in public, and what isn't. What others can know. What we have to hide.

We never write messages about it, or talk via the communicator. We never act in any way even slightly unprofessional in any place that's got security cameras.

We only ever relax at my place, really.

Safety staff sees him come and go frequently, but they think nothing by it. He's just a friend. He's the person who saved my life. He's a fellow captain, and the one who'll get my ship in a few weeks' time. Why would he be anything or anyone else?

By now I'm out of hospital, but not out of the wheelchair.

It's okay, though.

Jim can live with it, and so can I. As long it's okay with him I'm ready to adjust. He'll be gone soon anyway, when the repairs of the Enterprise are done, and then I'll have more than enough time to stubbornly make myself undergo whatever therapy necessary to be able to walk again. Maybe I'll even surprise him when he comes back from his first mission as full captain of the Enterprise.

He spends as much time as possible at my apartment. We don't see each other often during the day, with him taking the exams still necessary so that he can officially be made captain, and me jumping headfirst into the work the chair has given me to do. I'm not a man for desk jobs, but I'm an admiral now, and that's really more than I could've hoped for, after the disaster with the slug.

Usually when he's at my place and it's not already deep into the night he's got to study, but that's fine with me. I like to think that I'm doing a good job testing him.

It's pretty incredibly perfect, actually.

He spends every night possible with me, and finally waking up next to someone feels damn good. Of course, it also takes a little time getting used to. Especially since I've got a lot of adjusting going on at the moment, with the long term effects of that damn Centaurian slug toxin.

Well. Jim's worth all of that. Twice, actually, and much more.

Then he has to leave for his first mission, the day after getting his medal and relieving me, going out to explore new worlds and everything – just what I'd wanted to do, as captain of the flagship. But that's okay, because it's him who's got her now. I want nothing but the best for him. And she is the best. Also, it kinda feels like I've given her to him. Like he owes it to me that he's got her now.

Letting him go is so much harder than I'd told myself it'd be.

I'm being rather pathetic, actually, and I even go to see him off, smiling a proud smile from my stupid chair.

Just like I should be.

An advisor seeing his advisee go out into the black, all grown up. Nobody sees what this really means to me, how happy and how sad it is making me at the same time.

The first night I don't sleep at all.

Like, not a second.

When I get up at half five, like I usually do (not that I have to, an admiral doesn't have that much work waiting to be done) I know that I've got to change something.

The first thing I do is contact the doctor stationed on Earth who's responsible for me. The next one in Pike-curing-rank after McCoy. He recommends a physiotherapist, and I immediately set up an excruciating schedule. I'm back to the work-so-much-that-I-can't-help-but-sleep solution.

I've got one day to mentally prepare myself for pain and desperation and hopelessness, they tell me. Because that's what it'll feel like.

Well.

That's fine by me.

… Or so I thought.

The warning was a fair one, as I soon have to admit.

My first session is the most bearable one, actually, because then I still think that I'll be doing better in no time. That illusion is quickly shattered. Actually it doesn't feel like it's getting any better at all. Now I know what they meant with depressing.

Thinking about Jim and how I want to surprise him keeps me going, though.

And finally I get a message that the Enterprise is heading back for Earth in order to check in with the admiralty, and give the crew some shore leave. They've done two exploratory missions and a diplomatic one in the last few months, and everyone is looking forward to seeing their family.

I'm told three days in advance, which gives me enough time to prepare some things. First of all, I cancel my sessions for the time of Jim's stay. Then I find out how long different important Starfleet people will need him, and make an according dinner reservation at that comfy Japanese place he likes so much, which is just around the corner. I know that he'll be way too tired to do anything when he's finally released. I also know that he'll be way too wired to sleep. So, dinner. It's a good compromise.

When the day comes (I've been counting the hours, I think, and definitely haven't slept enough) I don't go to pick him up, but wait for him to turn up at my apartment.

I'm a little scared, actually, that he's changed his mind and won't be coming.

Then the doorbell's chiming, though – later than I'd hoped, but earlier than I'd feared. I know post-mission-sessions with the admiralty only too well. It's a good thing that I'm not involved with those, I think.

And suddenly Jim comes rushing back into my life like he always does: bringing chaos upon my neat apartment.

I like it.

A huge grin lightens up his exhausted face when he sees me, and he barely gives me enough time to close the door before he drops his bag and throws his arms around my shoulders, hiding his face in my shoulder.

"I missed you," he murmurs, a little breathless.

Which might be because my hug is pretty tight.

He raises his head then, staring at me with those too-blue eyes of his. I want to kiss him, but I'm feeling almost shy, not really daring to. He takes the matter into his hands and kisses me like there's no tomorrow.

I haven't felt so good in months.

Only after we part does he realize that I'm not in my chair. "You're standing," he remarks, voice caught somewhere between surprise and amusement. "I should've expected it, I supposed."

Yes, he should.

After we have kissed again (and again and again) I make him change into comfortable clothes and take him to the restaurant. He whines that he'd rather sleep, but I know better.

When we arrive at the place I'm pretty exhausted, although it's only been a few hundred metres, and Jim's immediately changed into mother hen mode. He makes me sit down at our booked table, going to hang my jacket up along with his. When he returns the menu's waiting, and I've already ordered drinks for both of us. He slowly begins to relax then, and we enjoy our usual banter of who's going to order what.

In the end we take the same dishes we always do – a big serving of yakitori for him, and sweet-sour duck for me.

The informal dinner calms him down, and both of us indulge in finally spending time with each other again.

It's perfect.

We're the last customers to leave the restaurant, making for my apartment and falling asleep almost immediately. I snuggle up against him, sleeping better than I've slept in all the time he's been off and about in space.

Letting him leave again after barely two weeks of bliss is even harder than it was the first time.

I go straight back to letting myself be tortured, and hoping for any information on what the Enterprise and her crew are currently up to.

After a few months I get news.

Not only the ones I'd been hoping for, though:

Jim will be back within three days.

And I've been found out.