I Do Again
The bride wore an off the shoulder silver gown with no sleeves, and leg slits that were so far up so as to nearly be obscene. She was a silver Calafan, and had intricate calloo – silvery scrollwork – on all four extremities. She was beaming, holding a huge cascading bouquet of white, silver, and pink flowers, tied with blue and copper-colored ribbons which trailed down on either side.
The groom had been stuffed into the largest midnight blue tuxedo that could be replicated at Bruce Ishikawa's dad's tailor shop on Tandar Prime. The groom's scaly wrists were slightly visible. His hair, such as it was, was slicked back. He, too, was beaming, matching boutonniere in one lapel.
The audience, mostly composed of their coworkers, included a currently teetotalling admiral named Carmen Calavicci, Senior Temporal Agent Richard Daniels, his fiancée, the plucked from 1969 Milena Chelenska, part-Klingon Dr. Boris Yarin, and others. Even Bruce Ishikawa was there – he was married to the maid of honor, Deirdre Katzman Ishikawa, who worked under the groom and was wearing a frothy peach-colored chiffon gown with a gold-colored head band that seemed to make her face even more moon-shaped.
The best man, gangly and itchy and uncomfortable, twitchy and blinking a lot more than necessary, was pulling at his tux with its peach bow tie and tapped his feet as he concentrated on his sole task – not to drop the rings.
The officiant changed shape a few times, alternating between the look of the current Calafan High Priestess and sometimes like the best man's mother, who was a Wiccan. At least she was that week.
The officiant spoke. "Eighty-three percent of all surveyed believe this is the time to exchange metallic adornments and make meaningful statements. The remainder are concerned about the health benefits of the cake as it has been unrefrigerated for several minutes." The audience, as one, briefly turned to look at the wedding cake, on a rustic table at the back.
"Don't worry, Branch, it's vegan!" yelled time traveler Thomas Grant from the audience.
"The seventeen percent which were concerned report a nearly four out of five scale satisfaction rate with that response. Would you like to take a survey?" the officiant asked the happy couple.
"Maybe later," said the bride, Yilta. "All I wanna say is," she had a Lafa V accent, which made her sound Irish. She turned to face the groom. "I could never be happier." She stole a glance at the shapeshifting officiant, who had briefly settled on the look of the admiral's own boss, a perpetually nervous man named Bryce Unger, who in reality was sitting near the back and eying the punch bowl next to the multilayered cake. "And I don't wanna take no survey." She smiled sweetly at the groom. "And you?"
The huge groom, who was part-Gorn and weighed about a quarter of a metric ton, elbowed the best man, Levi Cavendish. "Rings, Levi."
"Oh, um, yeah." He dropped them twice, and Deirdre ended up giving her small peach-colored bouquet to Yilta to hold as she got on her hands and knees to look for the gold. Oblivious, he stood there for a second until she pulled on his trouser leg. "Oh, yeah."
Otra, a human-Wittannen hybrid, was sitting in front, in a killer red dress with slits that almost rivaled Yilta's. "Levi!" she hissed. "Help Deirdre!" Otra's flower-like chavecoi swayed and then helpfully pointed toward one of the missing rings.
After a minute or so of looking, they found both rings and straightened back up. The rings and Deirdre's bouquet were returned to their rightful owners. The groom, Kevin O'Connor, gazed at his bride. His smile turned to ashes for a moment, remembering.
Otra, a few feet away, could feel his memory and had the tiniest of visions, of a slight, pale antennae-sporting woman who wore a pink and white-striped gown and was in the exact same ceremony with the exact same groom, years before. Then the vision of that woman, Jhasi Tantharis O'Connor, shrunk and faded to a wisp and then blew away, as evanescent as the morning mist.
Kevin wiped at an eye. "It was; it was s'pposed to be forever. That's my family's motto: forever. And then, well, you know the details of her illness. Ever'body does, I s'ppose." He looked at Yilta, who was taller and stronger and more filled out than Jhasi – also called Josie – ever had been. "But you don't wanna hear that today."
"I will listen to ya any day, talkin' 'bout anything, Kevin."
He smiled for a second. "When, when you came into my life, Yilta, I, uh, I didn't want to hear it. I thought forever meant I would just go to my grave alone. But, see," he motioned slightly and this time Deirdre took the bride's bouquet and then the couple joined hands, "you taught me something really important." He paused as the entire audience paid rapt attention. "You taught me that forever can be with more than one person. So I guess," he slipped the ring on her finger and she did the same in return for him, "this is Forever, 2.0."
"One hundred percent of all voters declare you husband and wife, by the power vested by the United Federation of Planets. A kiss is customary."