Chapter Text
The day of the execution dawns bright and beautiful, and Nyota thinks sullenly that public executions are the worst thing she’s ever heard of. The drummer drums neatly and the official clears his throat and begins to read.
“James Kirk, be it known that you have been charged, tried and convicted, for your willful commission of crimes against the state. Said crimes being numerous in quantity and sinister
in nature, the most aggrieves of which to be cited herewith. Piracy, smuggling, impersonating a person of the Orion Navy, falsifying the Prime Directive, sailing under false colors, arson, kidnapping, looting, poaching, pilfering, depravity, degradation, and general lawlessness.”
“This is wrong,” Nyota whispers.
“It is logical that he be held accountable for his crimes,” Stonn says, but he sounds uneasy.
Nyota spots movement in the crowd and then T’Pring appears before them. Nyota notes that she’s finally wearing pants, and also that she looks very good in them.
“Governor Uhura, Commodore Stonn….Nyota. I apologize for the inevitable disruption, but I just wanted to tell you something I should have said every day since you rescued me from the wreckage of my ship. I cherish you, Nyota. Taluhk nash-veh k’dular.”
“I--” Nyota starts, unsure where she’s going with that, aware of her fiance beside her. T’Pring nods neatly and then turns around, her cape flaring, and shoulders her way back into the crowd. Nyota realizes several things at once.
“I’m so hot,” she says. “I can’t breathe!”
She falls backwards in a faint, and both Stonn and her father kneel beside her, her father touching her and Stonn clearly afraid to.
Nyota hears several sounds--the drumroll stops, hinges squeak, and T’Pring yells. She sits straight back up again, opening her eyes, and sees Kirk with the noose around his neck, the trapdoor released, and a sword under his feet, keeping him alive. T’Pring races up the steps of the gallows platform, sword in hand, and she manages to trick the executioner into cutting Kirk’s rope, and the man falls down below, landing safely on the ground. Stonn and his men move, and Nyota scrambles to her feet, running to join the fray.
When she finds the center of it all, they’re up on the parapet that Nyota had fallen off of, Kirk and T’Pring pushed up to the sea, cornered by the fall on one side, and Stonn’s men on the other.
“I thought there might be some manner of escape attempt,” Stonn says cooly. “But I didn’t think it would be from you, T’Pring.”
“On our return to Yorktown I pardoned you, and this is how you repay me?” Nyota’s father asks. “By throwing your lot in with him? He is a pirate!”
“And a good man,” T’Pring says, standing up straighter. “If all I have achieved here is that
the hangman will earn two pairs of boots instead of one...so be it. My conscience will be clear.”
“You forget your place,” Stonn says.
“It’s right here,” T’Pring says, and Nyota shoulders her way between the soldiers, standing next to T’Pring.
“As is mine,” she says, and she links their fingers together. Stonn watches the movement, his face flushing at the implications.
“Lower your weapons!” Nyota’s father commands. “Put them down!” Stonn nods, and the soldiers around them follow the order. “So this is where your heart truly lies? With a messenger? A woman?”
“She’s not just a messenger,” Nyota declares, looking T’Pring in the face. “She’s a pirate.”
“And that is lovely, and quite romantic,” Kirk cuts in, popping his head between the women. “But I really must be going.” He backs up and stands on the parapet wall, waving. “Friends, enemies, and Stonn--this is the day you will always remember as the day you almost killed Captain James T. Kirk.”
And with that, he turns and does a neat dive off the side of the wall. Nyota runs up to see him--he’s surfaced, and he’s grinning up at them, waving madly.
“Dramatic, is he not?” T’Pring asks, and Nyota grins at her.
“Yeah,” she says, and then she thinks, that’s my captain, and squeezes T’Pring’s fingers. “Ready?”
“Ready,” T’Pring says, nodding, and they jump off the wall after him together.
When Nyota surfaces, she hears someone yell “Sail ho!” and turns up to look. Sailing into view is a familiar ship, and Nyota laughs a salty, watery laugh, and swims after Kirk, arm over arm, T’Pring right behind her.
-----
McCoy pulls them up into the ship, and Spock grabs Kirk by the face, bringing him into a deep kiss.
“Do not do that again,” he growls, and Kirk grins. From behind him, Rand puts his coat over his shoulders, and along the other side Scotty offers Nyota a pair of pants, which she takes, grinning. Everyone watches as Kirk saunteers up to the wheel, running his hands along it. Spock stands beside him, on his right, and McCoy stands on his left.
It looks right, Nyota thinks.
“The Enterprise is yours, Captain,” Spock says, and Kirk closes his eyes for a moment to bask, and then looks up with a fierce grin.
“On deck, you dogs! Hands to braces-- let go and haul to run free!” The crew scrambles to obey, and Nyota turns and takes T’Pring’s face in her hands, gives her a long and human kiss, and then throws her pants over her shoulder.
“Come on,” she says, and they go to obey their new captain’s commands.
“And now,” Kirk says softly, opening his compass and watching it spin to somewhere besides the man on his right for the first time in eight years. “Bring me that horizon.”
And the Enterprise sails on.