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“This is a state of grace
This is the worthwhile fight
Love is a ruthless game
Unless you play it good and right
These are the hands of fate
You're my Achilles heel
This is the golden age
of something good and right and real”
Taylor Swift, “State of Grace”
/
Thank the powers of the universe for Zora.
Without her, it would have been much more complicated to plan a wedding on short notice, but being the heart of Discovery as well as its brain, she knew what her crew needed even before they did. For Saru, who had been captain when she became self-aware and supported her development all the way, the young A.I. was prepared to pull out all the stops. She sent out invitations via intraship and subspace networks, replicated formal wear for anyone who asked and a buffet table with everyone’s dietary needs in mind, and turned an empty shuttle bay into a celebration hall with golden lights, cushioned chairs and classic Vulcan lyre music playing in the background.
T’Rina walked down the aisle between the rows of chairs in a silvery gray gown with a long skirt and flowing sleeves, rippling like water with every step. Laira Rillak carried her train, the President of the Federation taking on a supporting role with ungrudging elegance. Saru, in a crisp red dress uniform pinned with every medal he owned, stood at attention as they approached. Tilly stood beside him, keeping her hands behind her back so no one (except Michael) could see her fidgeting.
From a distance, the bride and groom might have appeared calm, but those guests sitting close enough could see the tentative smile that flickered across T’Rina’s face, as well as hear the awed and nervous click Saru let out at the sight of her.
She held out two fingers; so did he. Their hands met.
“Shipmates and guests, friends and family,” began Captain Burnham as officiator, her voice ringing out with warmth and dignity. “We are gathered here today to celebrate Saru and T’Rina as they commit to a new life together … ”
She held out her hands as if to embrace everyone in the room: Discovery’s crew of course, Charles Vance with his wife and daughter, and a group of solemn Ni’Vari who had arrived with T’Rina. Saru’s ward, Su’Kal, looked wide-eyed at the crowds he wasn’t used to; another Kelpien - friend, partner, caregiver? - sat beside him and whispered soothingly in his ear. The Culber-Stamets family all sat together, Hugh’s arm on the back of Paul’s chair, Adira recording everything for the absent Gray. Jett Reno scowled at anyone who caught her eye, determined not to be caught looking emotional. Even Cleveland Booker, slouching in the back row with his hands in his pockets, uncertain whether he belonged, lifted his head to listen.
“I don’t have a speech prepared, for which I’m sure all of you are grateful,” Burnham joked, to the confusion of the Ni’Vari and good-natured laughter from everyone else, “So I’m going to do what this ship is known for - skip ahead - and call on our witnesses. Who will represent Saru?”
“Me!” squeaked Tilly, raising her hand like a schoolchild, then immediately blushing at the loudness of her own voice.
Michael turned her amused grin into a reassuring smile just in time before turning in the other direction. “And who will represent T’Rina?”
“I will,” Rillak said regally.
“Do you have the bonding gifts?” asked Michael.
In a traditional Vulcan ceremony, with one or both halves of the couple in a state of pon farr, it would have been up to their relatives to stay clear-headed enough to handle the financial aspects of the union. The context had changed since then, but this part of the ceremony had not; it was the witnesses’ role to hand over the bride and groom’s gifts to each other.
Tilly anxiously patted her uniform pockets and sighed with relief as she fished out her gift. Rillak slipped hers out from the folds of her sleek navy blue skirt.
“You may now present them to the couple.”
There was a slightly awkward moment when, not having had time to rehearse, the two witnesses moved at the same time and almost bumped into each other, but Rillak stepped neatly out of the way in time, letting Tilly go first.
The bride bowed her head for the young teacher to put a necklace on her, like an officer receiving a medal. Saru had made the pendant himself: it was a flower from the same plant of which he had once given T’Rina a cutting, preserved in resin as clear as glass. It looked plain and old-fashioned next to the shimmering silk of her dress, but she cupped it in her hands as if there were no more precious jewel in the galaxy.
Saru, being taller, had to bend almost double to receive his necklace from Rillak. It was a Vulcan-style pyramid-shaped bonding pendant; unlike the heavy, flashy ones Michael remembered (which were now displayed in museums), this was a delicate thing that could be tucked under a collar. Turning it around, Saru found a button and - click - the sides of the pyramid unfurled into a flower, with a jewel in its center the same blue as his eyes.
“Look,” he whispered to his bride as they held their gifts between them. “We had the same idea.”
T’Rina looked up at him with her heart in her eyes. Michael had to blink and look away, so as not to be overwhelmed by the thought that Spock should see this. Her little brother should be here to see how far Vulcans and Romulans had grown together, to see them being governed by a woman as wise, loving and brave as Amanda had been … It was Amanda’s wisdom that Michael struggled to hold on to. If she were here, she would say that the time to grieve was later.
“Saru and T’Rina,” said Michael, taking a deep breath, “With these gifts, you hold each other’s future in your hands. Do you accept it?”
This would have been the last possible moment to call kal-i-fee, but the idea did not occur to anyone - least of all the bride and groom.
“We do,” they said.
“And we bear witness,” added Rillak, Tilly chiming in a beat behind.
“Now, since there are no clerics present, the couple have chosen to speak their own vows,” Michael went on. “Which one of you would like to go first?”
Saru clicked. T’Rina waved him forward.
The groom, however, did not speak his vows.
He sang them.
An even deeper hush fell over the assembly. The crew might not be surprised by the glory of their first officer’s singing voice, having heard it before at Airiam’s funeral, but they had never heard it like this. It was one thing to sing for sorrow and another to sing for joy; still another to realize how fine the line could be between them.
“You need not fear the woods while I am here,
For I will be the nightbloom on your trail.
I need not fear the sea while you are near,
For you will be the star by which I sail.
We need not fear the cold while we may share
A pot of tea, a blanket and a fire
And no, you need not fear how much I care:
To please you, dearest, is my first desire.
We need not fear to grow old side by side,
Too weak to wander and too slow to sail,
For newer boats will come in with the tide
And younger hooves will walk along our trail.
Let darkness fall - I bear it no ill will.
In life or death, your grace will guide me still.”
Michael had to swallow, and she was not the only one. Tilly patted her pockets again, this time looking for a handkerchief; when she found one, she gave it to Rillak, whose eye makeup had become smudged. In the audience, Su’Kal perched on the edge of his seat, mouthing the words; that song must be a classic on Kaminar. Dr. Culber had one arm around his husband and the other around their child. Detmer was running a soothing hand down Owosekun’s back. Reno had picked a medal (the Hiawatha’s insignia?) off her uniform and was turning it around and around. Even some of the Vulcan Purists among the Ni’Vari group had clasped their hands into meditative positions, visible signs of the effort it took to maintain their emotional control.
As for T’Rina, she was blushing like a young girl, and it was impossible to tell whether her hazel eyes or his blue ones shone brighter.
“That was, er, an old wedding song from my village,” said Saru, ducking his head, suddenly shy as he remembered how many people were watching. “Truth be told, I … I had no idea what to say.”
“Oh, Saru, neither have I,” said T’Rina in a small voice, all her stateswoman’s eloquence deserting her. “But if I could show you … May I?”
She raised her hand in the mind-meld position.
He leaned into her touch and closed his eyes.
The Ni'Vari lowered their heads in unison, to pay their respects and avoid intruding on a sacred moment. Michael did the same; some things deserved to be private.
When the couple broke the meld, both were trembling. He caught her by the elbows to steady her and leaned his forehead against hers.
“By the power vested in me by Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets,” said Michael, feeling slightly unsteady herself but resolved not to show it, “I now pronounce you partners for life.”
She took her padd, already open to show the marriage certificate, out of her pocket. Even as Saru and T’Rina added their thumbprints to legalize the document, Zora was already turning up the lights and music.
“Philippa would be proud,” Michael whispered to Saru, under cover of the opening chords of a waltz number. His eyes widened; he closed her hands warmly over the padd as he handed it back to her. “And you - take care of my Number One,” she added to T’Rina, “Won’t you?”
“We will take care of each other,” said Saru.
“Fear not,” T’Rina added, in the High Vulcan of Michael’s childhood. “Sister.”
And Michael knew without a doubt that T’Rina meant it: from now on, no matter that they were leaving, Saru’s wife would belong to this crew as surely as Saru himself did.
“Everybody rise for the bride and groom!”
And just like that, the event swung over from sacrament to party.
The programmable matter chairs were disappearing as people stood up from them. A screen along one side of the room flickered away to reveal a loaded buffet table. DOTs began buzzing back and forth, carrying trays of drinks and canapes. Michael watched as T’Rina looped up the train of her silvery gown, attached the end to a bracelet she wore, and walked out with Saru onto what was rapidly becoming a dance floor.
The empty space soon filled up with other couples. Culber bowed gallantly to Stamets, who scoffed but accepted. A dark-eyed young officer held out a hand to Tilly, who blushed as red as her hair and squeaked out a yes. Bryce tried his luck with a Purist, who froze him with a look; Rhys clapped his friend consolingly on the back. Detmer whirled Owosekun around, her flying braids something of a navigational hazard; evidently piloting was easier at the helm than on the dancefloor. Rillak and her partner, a Cardassian as sharply dressed as she was, moved so subtly that you couldn’t tell who was leading. Reno, ignoring the music altogether, knocked back a shot glass of some electric blue drink and was about to reach for another, only stopped by Dr. Pollard’s firm hand and firmer glare. Even Adira, watching all the couples with the tragic eyes of a teenager suffering their first breakup, was approached by the kindly Admiral Vance. Thanks to the memory of Senna Tal, they were soon chatting like old friends.
The waltz was neither a Ni’Vari nor Kelpien tradition, but it was the couple’s favorite. It made a perfect excuse to hold each other publicly in ways that Vulcans would consider risqué: his right hand on her back, his left entwined with her right. Watching the way they moved together, Michael wondered whether this was what that Kelpien wedding song had meant by grace - not just physical ease of movement, but the ability to lead without force and follow without breaking. To Saru, the concept of balance was sacred. No wonder he’d chosen someone who embodied it so well.
“Hey.”
She spun around. Trust Book to appear just when she needed him the most, even when she wouldn’t admit it. He leaned against the wall, looking unfairly handsome in the Kweijani costume Zora must have replicated for him; the gold stars embroidered on earth-brown fabric echoed the markings that glowed on his face whenever he used his empathy. He smiled.
“Hi.”
“Remember that party on Donatu Four?” he said. “You still owe me a dance.”
He did that a lot lately, using their past as a shorthand between them, as if the more they grew apart, the more he felt the need to remind her of everything they’d shared. They couldn’t go on like this and they both knew it; his theft of the isolytic weapon was still between them. They couldn’t get past it, but neither could she bear to let him go.
“Well then,” she challenged, holding out her hands, “What better time to collect?”
He reeled her in and swept her onto the floor.
Their relationship might be balanced on a knife edge, but that didn’t mean it had to fall. Now, more than ever, she prayed for grace to guide them on their way.