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title. Love is Never Lost
rating. Teen
pairing. J. Kirk/L. McCoy, C. Pike/W. Kirk/G. Kirk
summary. The way George had quietly asked if he would be the godfather, if he would helped them raise him; if he would come home to stay.
warnings. Known character death (George Kirk), and mention of a stillbirth.
notes. Written for this prompt atst_xi_kink.
Love is Never Lost
[One] Jim Kirk was a lot like George was – sometimes brash, a little reckless, loyal to a fault – and Pike can't help the first time he sees Jim but to recall the last conversation he'd had with the man. All excitement and happiness, George had looked ready to jump out of his skin with joy over his child's impending birth, knowing that this time he and Winona would get a healthy baby.
He kept thinking about that conversation long after he left Jim at the bar, feet heavy as he made his way to his vehicle. The way George had quietly asked if he would be the godfather, if he would helped them raise him; if he would come home to stay. He could still remember Winona's voice ringing out from off-screen, bubbly, as she told him it was time to accept that they loved him.
His heart twisted at that recollection, missing her so much in that moment that his bones ached and unbidden, her address popped into Chris' head, a reminder that they weren't so far apart. But so much had changed since the last time he and Winona had seen each other: she was dating again, not for love but out of loneliness and the need for security, and he was newly promoted to Captain, his first five year mission set to begin in days.
Chris hadn't seen Jim then, only a few photos of the four-year-old; he hadn't been able to bear the idea of meeting the little boy and had left minutes before Jim had arrived home from pre-school. Winona had begged him to stay, just a little longer, but he'd known staying then meant staying forever and he couldn't do that.
So he'd left, closing off his heart for 18 years, until he was sitting across from Jim and his mind fluttered back to that damnable conversation, George's voice ringing in his ears as he drove away from the bar. He pushed the memory down after that, refusing to let it out again even when Jim showed up the next day and cockily declared that he would do in three years what everyone else had to accomplish in four.
Though he hadn't believed Jim's talk – three years was possible for only the most studious cadets who resolved to do nothing except study – the boy had proven each semester to be at the top of his class, excelling in every subject and extracurricular while managing to have a social life as well. It had been surprising to the Deans and Admirals, though Pike had only smirked when he heard the reports. He'd assumed Jim would be like George and indeed he was, right down to the youthful inhibitions. George may not have frequented as many beds as Jim, but he'd been a virile young man until he'd met Chris, met Winona.
And he realized, one afternoon the semester before Enterprise's launch, that history clearly had a way of repeating, because there was Jim wandering campus with his best friend, stealing touches and kissing McCoy when he thought no one was looking. There were Partner's Regs, of course, since Starfleet wasn't locked in the dark ages. The regs would protect their relationship, but Chris felt his heart swell when he saw the quiet way they interacted – as though they were telling the world this was theirs and theirs alone, no one else needed to know how or why they cared for each other.
He spent the entirety of that semester watching them from afar, heart warming as memories he'd pushed away in his grief surfaced. He remembered lunches in the hillside of the Riverside shipyard after commandeering a shuttle to watch the new ships being built and nights spent in their shared dorm room or, later, Winona's single, curled up together while some random movie played on a repeating loop until they were all asleep in a tangle of limbs. He'd even remembered their last night together – all three of them – with fondness for the first time since the Kelvin was destroyed.
The recollections kept him smiling the day of Jim's hearing, knowing what was coming via Archer, even though his heart broke at the idea that the boy could be dismissed from his track of study or from the Academy altogether. He hated to think of George's son, his brilliant damaged boy, without the guidance Starfleet offered and without the man who was sitting front row for Jim's reaming out.
Then Vulcan's distress call came and Nero and the Narada, and as he laid there, strapped to a makeshift torture table with a terrifying little insect latched on to his brainstem, the memories surfaced again. The hope filled his bones that Jim, like George, believed in leaving no man behind and would rescue him, though he knew that the reality might mean his life was forfeit, and he let his mind wander in the silence of the desolate room.
Winona's young face rolled over his eyelids and her playful laughter a soothing noise in his ears; he could swear it was George's hands, strong and broad, that stroked over his ankle at one point, but it was likely the cuff brushing against overstimulated skin.
Jim appeared when Chris' mind began to replay those last glorious moments prior to the announcement that Winona was pregnant and effected a heroic rescue with Spock at his side and covering his back, as though they'd always trusted one another. McCoy took him from the transporter room to Medical Bay, issuing commands with some unease, and repeatedly asking assessing questions like his name and the stardate until Pike glared at him from the bio-bed.
“Goddamn fucking... Chapel! I need...” McCoy yelled over him before pressing a hypo to his neck without looking and everything went dark.
[Two] Enterprise limped into Spacedock several days later, two of the primary fleet's ships on either side to protect the crippled vessel – the resultant shockwave from the warp core's explosion had knocked out many of their secondary systems as well as phasers and power to one of the forward torpedo bays. Pike, however, knew nothing about that, having spent the entire return trip to Earth unconscious for his safety.
He was allowed to wake only once they were within sight of the Spacedock, immediately demanding a status report from Acting Captain Spock only to be told that the Acting Captain was Jim Kirk. He'd blamed the smile that graced his lips at that on concern and again ordered that he be given a status report by whomever was currently in charge.
When Jim appeared twenty minutes later, ragged around the edges, Chris felt a surge of pride though he was careful to not let that show; he looked like George had, after one particular three-day training exercise on Vulcan, with his sandy-blond hair mussed and his uniform smudged. Instead, he immediately started in on the young man, forcing him walk Pike through every action, decision, and event that had occurred in his absence.
Kirk had barely finished explaining his choice to use the impulse drive to return to Earth instead of waiting for Starfleet to retrieve them, when McCoy appeared at the bedside, crossed his arms, and remarked, “He needs to be resting and you should have been here the minute we were out of danger. Now, I let you tell Captain Pike everything up to our turning around for home – I want five minutes to make sure you don't have some broken bone or organ tear that I need to fix.”
“I don't have five minutes, Bones,” Jim responded with a sigh, one bruised hand running through his hair. “We'll be docked in half an hour and I've got to have everyone ready for disembarkation, the Bridge crew debriefed and get a report from Scotty, and I have to get in contact with Starfleet Medical to make sure they'll have a team standing by for when we hit the pad in Frisco for the Captain as well as our other injured. Somewhere in there I have to gather the Vulcan survivors and relay every ounce of information I can get from them to Command so they have an idea of how to proceed with accommodations and recolonization.”
“Jim,” McCoy started with one eyebrow peaked, “That's what a First Officer is for. To take some of the scutwork off the Captain's hands when the Captain is needed elsewhere.”
“And this qualifies as being needed elsewhere?” Jim pushed, not ready to give in and Pike clenched his teeth to keep from laughing at the image of George and Winona over him, arguing about health and duty and “Stay in that bed, Christopher. Before I tie you to it!”
“This qualifies as being ordered elsewhere because I'll detain you under the medical code for examination if I have to and no one would argue.”
“It's a good thing I love you, asshole,” Jim murmured, finally, and rubbed his eyes, “You think you can do something about my throat?”
McCoy slipped a hand around the man's arm, guiding him away from Pike's bed though the elder man couldn't help but watch. Winona had been the medical officer in their relationship, caught between two men hellbent on having commands of their own, and she'd been forced to treat too many of their wounds; seeing McCoy run the tricorder over Jim, seeing him wrap sterile bandages over fair skin with the gentleness borne of partner, brought back the longing for her hands, her eyes, her voice.
Jim leaned forward, pressing a kiss to McCoy's temple when the exhausted doctor settled into the loose embrace and let his head rest on the other's shoulder. He'd clearly pushed himself hard over the course of the mission, something else that brought Winona Kirk to the top of his mind.
“You should be sleeping,” he said, a small smile on his lips as he gazed down at the woman on the bed.
She had a PADD in front of her face and her crumpled Medical coat shoved under her head as a makeshift pillow. Her legs crossed at the ankle, one foot bopping along to unheard music, and Christopher had every urge to put his hand out to stop the frantic motion – it was, after all, part of how Winona kept herself awake.
“I wish, but until George is back on this ship, I'm staying in sickbay. It'll be easier than having the nurses comm me when he arrives,” she retorted without looking at him and scrolling down the missive. “Unless you want me to come to bed.”
“I always want you to to come to bed, sweetheart, but George is...”
When he trailed off, she felt compelled to finish for him, tossing out, “A trouble magnet? Incapable of staying out of danger? A moron when it comes to personal safety?”
Chris laughed. “I was going to say overly heroic, but those fit too.”
She hadn't left Medical Bay that night, bound by her status as a doctor to remain until after the brutalized away team had returned, and returned only the next morning when George was released to quarters to recover. It had been the first time that they'd managed, all three of them, to secure a day off at the same time, crawling into bed together without the concern of who needed to sleep where so they could easily head off to shift when needed. That had also been the last time Pike had felt welcome in their arrangement, George deciding thereafter that he needed to marry Winona before it was too late.
Wedding plans had taken over both their off-duty lives for a while, never asking Chris so much as a question about flowers. He was expected, without being asked, to be George's best man and he played the part with honor, sending them off onto a honeymoon alone after the reception, staying behind and returning to his post the next morning.
After that, their relationship was never the same and Chris knew they'd both felt it, confused because they'd thought he'd understood the whys and what-fors. And he had, he'd simply missed the feeling of belonging he'd had with them, nestled against Winona at the start of the night and waking with George curled around his back in the morning, but with the sanctity of marriage vows binding them together, he'd no longer believed himself an equal part and he quickly pulled away from them.
He'd asked for a new posting, telling them about his reassignment the day he was to board the shuttle and tried to push the Kelvin out of his daily thoughts. He'd stubbornly refused to answer the messages Winona sent each morning, until they started coming two or three times a day. Forced to reconnect under the auspices of an impending birth, he'd still found it draining to talk to his former lovers – until Winona sent him the transmission, tears streaking down her face, that George Samuel Kirk was brought into the world via cesarean section, stillborn.
Chris had immediately put in for leave, jumped the first flight to Starfleet Medical in San Francisco where she and George had gone when she'd started feeling uneasy about the baby, and ran from the shuttle pad to the hospital like he were the baby's father.
“Captain?” McCoy's voice pushed into his thoughts, scrubbing away the still-painful memory of losing his godson.
Pike answered, “Just... thinking about old times.”
[Three] Starfleet Medical was the same now as it had always been with clean white walls, glass, and steel. Nurses' stations were gathering points for the men and women who treated the wounded and kept the secrets blurted out from the haze of medications; they directed, consoled, and celebrated with the loved ones of those in their charge, and were stern disciplinarians when needed.
They were everything the doctors couldn't be, worked into the ground by an organization that stood at the heart of the Federation, though Pike was still incredibly grateful for the care McCoy had personally given him on board the Enterprise and in his spare moments at Medical. He knew how hard it had to be, having to begin the preparations of a CMO for a five-year mission from which there would be few chances to return home unless the ship was critically damaged, and yet he still came, like clockwork, every afternoon to check on his progress.
Of course, McCoy didn't actually know he was the CMO, wouldn't know until friday, when he would be released and Jim's elevation to Captain could take place – the Admiralty had been dead-set against doing so without Pike there. He'd rolled his eyes at Barnett when he was told, but accepted that age had made them all a little nostalgic and they wanted to offer him one last memory of standing before his crew, young as they were, with all eyes on him.
Commencement had been a week earlier, the entire Junior class pushed to finish out classes in record time, before being handed a diploma and told they had two weeks worth of leave to enjoy before their fleet assignments were dispensed. Too many people were retiring or not re-upping their time in the service, and though it was not a popular decision among the leadership, there was no other course of action: they needed people to replace others, age and experience not withstanding.
“I think I need to revise my opinion. Of you and George, I mean,” Winona's voice cut through his internal monologue like a phaser blast.
Time had been good to her, the signs of her age subtle with a wrinkle here, an age line there, a few strands of white hair that barely stood out; a pale blue dress floated over the curves he could still remember against standard-issue white sheets. She wore no heeled shoes, having always sworn them to be the source of back and ankle problems in women, just a pair of flats, though she still towered over his bed.
She reached for his chart without breaking eye contact and looked away only when the PADD lit up, her hand wrapped around the device while a lock of rich blonde hair fell over her forehead.
In an instant, he was transported back to the Kelvin, to his first away mission, and the aftermath; Winona had stood over him then, too, dressed in a one-piece uniform (that everyone had always decried as a hindrance in an emergency) with her computer unit in hand and lips pursed against whatever rant she'd likely been preparing. He could almost feel the heavy weight of the blanket that George had thrown over him before leaving for his shift.
He was drawn back to the present by the clearing of a throat, a pair of blue eyes locked with his and she told him, “You'll live. Which is good, because beating an injured man goes against most of my principles.”
“Most?” He asked with the corner of his mouth quirked.
“Family members are exempt from a couple of beliefs,” she retorted, dryly, “Even if they haven't come home in twenty years. And don't use the second husband bullshit as an excuse – we met, married, and were divorced in under two years.” She sighed, adding, “I've missed you,” before setting the PADD back and taking one of his hands in her own.
A moment of silence, filled with promise and hope, grew between them until he could take it no longer and Chris told her, “I missed you, too.”
title. Love is Never Lost
rating. Teen
pairing. J. Kirk/L. McCoy, C. Pike/W. Kirk/G. Kirk
summary. The way George had quietly asked if he would be the godfather, if he would helped them raise him; if he would come home to stay.
warnings. Known character death (George Kirk), and mention of a stillbirth.
notes. Written for this prompt at
st_xi_kink.[One]
He kept thinking about that conversation long after he left Jim at the bar, feet heavy as he made his way to his vehicle. The way George had quietly asked if he would be the godfather, if he would helped them raise him; if he would come home to stay. He could still remember Winona's voice ringing out from off-screen, bubbly, as she told him it was time to accept that they loved him.
His heart twisted at that recollection, missing her so much in that moment that his bones ached and unbidden, her address popped into Chris' head, a reminder that they weren't so far apart. But so much had changed since the last time he and Winona had seen each other: she was dating again, not for love but out of loneliness and the need for security, and he was newly promoted to Captain, his first five year mission set to begin in days.
Chris hadn't seen Jim then, only a few photos of the four-year-old; he hadn't been able to bear the idea of meeting the little boy and had left minutes before Jim had arrived home from pre-school. Winona had begged him to stay, just a little longer, but he'd known staying then meant staying forever and he couldn't do that.
So he'd left, closing off his heart for 18 years, until he was sitting across from Jim and his mind fluttered back to that damnable conversation, George's voice ringing in his ears as he drove away from the bar. He pushed the memory down after that, refusing to let it out again even when Jim showed up the next day and cockily declared that he would do in three years what everyone else had to accomplish in four.
Though he hadn't believed Jim's talk – three years was possible for only the most studious cadets who resolved to do nothing except study – the boy had proven each semester to be at the top of his class, excelling in every subject and extracurricular while managing to have a social life as well. It had been surprising to the Deans and Admirals, though Pike had only smirked when he heard the reports. He'd assumed Jim would be like George and indeed he was, right down to the youthful inhibitions. George may not have frequented as many beds as Jim, but he'd been a virile young man until he'd met Chris, met Winona.
And he realized, one afternoon the semester before Enterprise's launch, that history clearly had a way of repeating, because there was Jim wandering campus with his best friend, stealing touches and kissing McCoy when he thought no one was looking. There were Partner's Regs, of course, since Starfleet wasn't locked in the dark ages. The regs would protect their relationship, but Chris felt his heart swell when he saw the quiet way they interacted – as though they were telling the world this was theirs and theirs alone, no one else needed to know how or why they cared for each other.
He spent the entirety of that semester watching them from afar, heart warming as memories he'd pushed away in his grief surfaced. He remembered lunches in the hillside of the Riverside shipyard after commandeering a shuttle to watch the new ships being built and nights spent in their shared dorm room or, later, Winona's single, curled up together while some random movie played on a repeating loop until they were all asleep in a tangle of limbs. He'd even remembered their last night together – all three of them – with fondness for the first time since the Kelvin was destroyed.
The recollections kept him smiling the day of Jim's hearing, knowing what was coming via Archer, even though his heart broke at the idea that the boy could be dismissed from his track of study or from the Academy altogether. He hated to think of George's son, his brilliant damaged boy, without the guidance Starfleet offered and without the man who was sitting front row for Jim's reaming out.
Then Vulcan's distress call came and Nero and the Narada, and as he laid there, strapped to a makeshift torture table with a terrifying little insect latched on to his brainstem, the memories surfaced again. The hope filled his bones that Jim, like George, believed in leaving no man behind and would rescue him, though he knew that the reality might mean his life was forfeit, and he let his mind wander in the silence of the desolate room.
Winona's young face rolled over his eyelids and her playful laughter a soothing noise in his ears; he could swear it was George's hands, strong and broad, that stroked over his ankle at one point, but it was likely the cuff brushing against overstimulated skin.
Jim appeared when Chris' mind began to replay those last glorious moments prior to the announcement that Winona was pregnant and effected a heroic rescue with Spock at his side and covering his back, as though they'd always trusted one another. McCoy took him from the transporter room to Medical Bay, issuing commands with some unease, and repeatedly asking assessing questions like his name and the stardate until Pike glared at him from the bio-bed.
“Goddamn fucking... Chapel! I need...” McCoy yelled over him before pressing a hypo to his neck without looking and everything went dark.
He was allowed to wake only once they were within sight of the Spacedock, immediately demanding a status report from Acting Captain Spock only to be told that the Acting Captain was Jim Kirk. He'd blamed the smile that graced his lips at that on concern and again ordered that he be given a status report by whomever was currently in charge.
When Jim appeared twenty minutes later, ragged around the edges, Chris felt a surge of pride though he was careful to not let that show; he looked like George had, after one particular three-day training exercise on Vulcan, with his sandy-blond hair mussed and his uniform smudged. Instead, he immediately started in on the young man, forcing him walk Pike through every action, decision, and event that had occurred in his absence.
Kirk had barely finished explaining his choice to use the impulse drive to return to Earth instead of waiting for Starfleet to retrieve them, when McCoy appeared at the bedside, crossed his arms, and remarked, “He needs to be resting and you should have been here the minute we were out of danger. Now, I let you tell Captain Pike everything up to our turning around for home – I want five minutes to make sure you don't have some broken bone or organ tear that I need to fix.”
“I don't have five minutes, Bones,” Jim responded with a sigh, one bruised hand running through his hair. “We'll be docked in half an hour and I've got to have everyone ready for disembarkation, the Bridge crew debriefed and get a report from Scotty, and I have to get in contact with Starfleet Medical to make sure they'll have a team standing by for when we hit the pad in Frisco for the Captain as well as our other injured. Somewhere in there I have to gather the Vulcan survivors and relay every ounce of information I can get from them to Command so they have an idea of how to proceed with accommodations and recolonization.”
“Jim,” McCoy started with one eyebrow peaked, “That's what a First Officer is for. To take some of the scutwork off the Captain's hands when the Captain is needed elsewhere.”
“And this qualifies as being needed elsewhere?” Jim pushed, not ready to give in and Pike clenched his teeth to keep from laughing at the image of George and Winona over him, arguing about health and duty and “Stay in that bed, Christopher. Before I tie you to it!”
“This qualifies as being ordered elsewhere because I'll detain you under the medical code for examination if I have to and no one would argue.”
“It's a good thing I love you, asshole,” Jim murmured, finally, and rubbed his eyes, “You think you can do something about my throat?”
McCoy slipped a hand around the man's arm, guiding him away from Pike's bed though the elder man couldn't help but watch. Winona had been the medical officer in their relationship, caught between two men hellbent on having commands of their own, and she'd been forced to treat too many of their wounds; seeing McCoy run the tricorder over Jim, seeing him wrap sterile bandages over fair skin with the gentleness borne of partner, brought back the longing for her hands, her eyes, her voice.
Jim leaned forward, pressing a kiss to McCoy's temple when the exhausted doctor settled into the loose embrace and let his head rest on the other's shoulder. He'd clearly pushed himself hard over the course of the mission, something else that brought Winona Kirk to the top of his mind.
“You should be sleeping,” he said, a small smile on his lips as he gazed down at the woman on the bed.
She had a PADD in front of her face and her crumpled Medical coat shoved under her head as a makeshift pillow. Her legs crossed at the ankle, one foot bopping along to unheard music, and Christopher had every urge to put his hand out to stop the frantic motion – it was, after all, part of how Winona kept herself awake.
“I wish, but until George is back on this ship, I'm staying in sickbay. It'll be easier than having the nurses comm me when he arrives,” she retorted without looking at him and scrolling down the missive. “Unless you want me to come to bed.”
“I always want you to to come to bed, sweetheart, but George is...”
When he trailed off, she felt compelled to finish for him, tossing out, “A trouble magnet? Incapable of staying out of danger? A moron when it comes to personal safety?”
Chris laughed. “I was going to say overly heroic, but those fit too.”
She hadn't left Medical Bay that night, bound by her status as a doctor to remain until after the brutalized away team had returned, and returned only the next morning when George was released to quarters to recover. It had been the first time that they'd managed, all three of them, to secure a day off at the same time, crawling into bed together without the concern of who needed to sleep where so they could easily head off to shift when needed. That had also been the last time Pike had felt welcome in their arrangement, George deciding thereafter that he needed to marry Winona before it was too late.
Wedding plans had taken over both their off-duty lives for a while, never asking Chris so much as a question about flowers. He was expected, without being asked, to be George's best man and he played the part with honor, sending them off onto a honeymoon alone after the reception, staying behind and returning to his post the next morning.
After that, their relationship was never the same and Chris knew they'd both felt it, confused because they'd thought he'd understood the whys and what-fors. And he had, he'd simply missed the feeling of belonging he'd had with them, nestled against Winona at the start of the night and waking with George curled around his back in the morning, but with the sanctity of marriage vows binding them together, he'd no longer believed himself an equal part and he quickly pulled away from them.
He'd asked for a new posting, telling them about his reassignment the day he was to board the shuttle and tried to push the Kelvin out of his daily thoughts. He'd stubbornly refused to answer the messages Winona sent each morning, until they started coming two or three times a day. Forced to reconnect under the auspices of an impending birth, he'd still found it draining to talk to his former lovers – until Winona sent him the transmission, tears streaking down her face, that George Samuel Kirk was brought into the world via cesarean section, stillborn.
Chris had immediately put in for leave, jumped the first flight to Starfleet Medical in San Francisco where she and George had gone when she'd started feeling uneasy about the baby, and ran from the shuttle pad to the hospital like he were the baby's father.
“Captain?” McCoy's voice pushed into his thoughts, scrubbing away the still-painful memory of losing his godson.
Pike answered, “Just... thinking about old times.”
They were everything the doctors couldn't be, worked into the ground by an organization that stood at the heart of the Federation, though Pike was still incredibly grateful for the care McCoy had personally given him on board the Enterprise and in his spare moments at Medical. He knew how hard it had to be, having to begin the preparations of a CMO for a five-year mission from which there would be few chances to return home unless the ship was critically damaged, and yet he still came, like clockwork, every afternoon to check on his progress.
Of course, McCoy didn't actually know he was the CMO, wouldn't know until friday, when he would be released and Jim's elevation to Captain could take place – the Admiralty had been dead-set against doing so without Pike there. He'd rolled his eyes at Barnett when he was told, but accepted that age had made them all a little nostalgic and they wanted to offer him one last memory of standing before his crew, young as they were, with all eyes on him.
Commencement had been a week earlier, the entire Junior class pushed to finish out classes in record time, before being handed a diploma and told they had two weeks worth of leave to enjoy before their fleet assignments were dispensed. Too many people were retiring or not re-upping their time in the service, and though it was not a popular decision among the leadership, there was no other course of action: they needed people to replace others, age and experience not withstanding.
“I think I need to revise my opinion. Of you and George, I mean,” Winona's voice cut through his internal monologue like a phaser blast.
Time had been good to her, the signs of her age subtle with a wrinkle here, an age line there, a few strands of white hair that barely stood out; a pale blue dress floated over the curves he could still remember against standard-issue white sheets. She wore no heeled shoes, having always sworn them to be the source of back and ankle problems in women, just a pair of flats, though she still towered over his bed.
She reached for his chart without breaking eye contact and looked away only when the PADD lit up, her hand wrapped around the device while a lock of rich blonde hair fell over her forehead.
In an instant, he was transported back to the Kelvin, to his first away mission, and the aftermath; Winona had stood over him then, too, dressed in a one-piece uniform (that everyone had always decried as a hindrance in an emergency) with her computer unit in hand and lips pursed against whatever rant she'd likely been preparing. He could almost feel the heavy weight of the blanket that George had thrown over him before leaving for his shift.
He was drawn back to the present by the clearing of a throat, a pair of blue eyes locked with his and she told him, “You'll live. Which is good, because beating an injured man goes against most of my principles.”
“Most?” He asked with the corner of his mouth quirked.
“Family members are exempt from a couple of beliefs,” she retorted, dryly, “Even if they haven't come home in twenty years. And don't use the second husband bullshit as an excuse – we met, married, and were divorced in under two years.” She sighed, adding, “I've missed you,” before setting the PADD back and taking one of his hands in her own.
A moment of silence, filled with promise and hope, grew between them until he could take it no longer and Chris told her, “I missed you, too.”
