Gigi Sinclair

There was nothing traditional about Trip's wedding. He wasn't marrying the blonde cheerleader or the girl-next-door he'd thought he would. He wasn't having the big church wedding his sister Sarah had received, with the choir and the two hundred guests and the chicken-or-beef country club reception dinner and the honeymoon in Hawaii. But it was exactly what he wanted.

Trip had surprised everyone, including his lover, when he'd popped the question. The two of them had been living together for eight months, since they'd come back from the Expanse, and, while Trip could have kept on like that, he wanted to take the next step. Corny as it seemed—and at the time, saying it out loud, it had seemed fairly corny—he wanted to show the world his commitment to a relationship he'd never thought he'd have.

Trip wanted a wedding, and he wanted it to be memorable. They had beaten the odds by surviving the Expanse; Trip only had to look at Malcolm's still-empty eyes and still-obvious pain to know how easy it would have been for their affair to be cut short. Not only that, but they felt the same way about each other. In the hell of the Expanse, Trip had fallen in love, and the fact that his love was reciprocated was a miracle for which Trip would always be grateful. He wanted to show it.

They weren't a traditional couple, but Trip decided to do at least one traditional thing and gathered everything he needed to ensure his marriage was a success, at least according to one superstition.

Something old. Trip slipped the three tiny rivets into his pocket. It had been easy for him, a media star, the hero engineer of "Enterprise", to get private access to the Zephram Cochran section of the Starfleet archives, and just as easy for him to slip three rivets, original components of the original warp ship, into his pocket.

With any luck, he'd get them back to the archives before anyone even noticed they were missing. If he wasn't lucky, then he'd say he "borrowed" them to do research. He doubted anyone would complain too loudly. They were just rivets, after all, pretty insignificant to everyone except the most dedicated archivist and to Trip, who had gotten to know the love of his life due to the results of Zephram Cochran's work.

Something new. That was easier. Trip's spouse-to-be had called wedding rings "entirely unnecessary," but he didn't care. He'd bought them anyway, good quality ones of pure latinum, with matching manufactured black diamonds in the middle. That was one good thing about the Expanse. They'd earned a lot of money and had very little to spend it on until they got back.

Something borrowed. Trip's mother, who'd harboured dreams of the big church wedding and the country club reception for her only son, had been less than overwhelmed with joy when he'd announced his intention to marry like this. She'd been even less excited to hear that the prospect of grandchildren was remote, and, if it ever happened, was several years away at least, but this was Mama. She may have been unhappy with Trip's choice, but she never would have interfered with him making it.

She'd even, when Trip asked, lent him the tie Daddy had worn to their wedding forty-three years earlier. Trip could imagine the eyerolling that would occur when Trip shared this at the wedding, but the tie still looked pretty damn good with the blue striped shirt and white seersucker suit.

Something blue. Well, there was the shirt, but Trip wanted more than that. Planning this, he'd remembered the early days of the "Enterprise" mission, when the entire crew had been in and out of the blue-lit decontamination chamber like it was a sauna. That was when he'd first become aware of his lover's body as something desirable, as opposed to simply the body of a sometimes irritating, sometimes sympathetic co-worker.

That was why Trip had talked to Starfleet and had managed to get them both a two-week vacation to the Bahamas. Neither of them had ever been and, Trip thought, it was what they needed. Some time away from Starfleet and mandatory counselling sessions and never-ending interviews and interest from everyone from the leaders of governments to schoolchildren.

Tucking the small promotional picture of white sand beaches and bright blue ocean into his pocket, Trip straightened his suit, tied his shoes, and went downstairs.

T'Pol was waiting in the kitchen, sipping tea she must have made while she was waiting.

"Hi." Trip leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. For this special occasion, she was wearing a Starfleet uniform, complete with her commander's pips. Trip thought she'd been ripped off, personally, but as T'Pol herself said, there had never been a Vulcan in Starfleet. They couldn't expect that she would be given a captaincy immediately.

"Good morning, Trip." She looked up at him with that expression that wasn't quite a smile, but that was the nearest damn thing anyone ever got out of her. Trip got it considerably more frequently than most. "Are you ready?"

Trip grinned. "Couldn't be readier."

San Francisco City Hall was a busy place, especially at eleven o'clock on a weekday morning. Trip admired the way T'Pol breezed past the staring eyes, right up to the front desk where she said, "We have an appointment for a wedding."

The woman at the desk looked at her console. "Anteroom C," she determined. "Just down the hall to your right."

Trip hadn't felt nervous at all, until he followed T'Pol down the proscribed hall to Anteroom C. His heart picked up, his hands felt clammy, and there was a knot of nervous excitement in his stomach. T'Pol glanced over her shoulder at him.

"Are you all right, Trip?"

Trip smiled. "Fine." Right. He just hoped he didn't faint. That wasn't the kind of wedding memory he needed.

Malcolm and Jon were already there when Trip and T'Pol arrived, waiting in the seats reserved for the two required witnesses. "We're a bit early," Malcolm apologized immediately.

"We just really didn't want to be late," Jon agreed.

Trip smiled at them. "No problem."

They waited, Malcolm telling slightly awkward-sounding jokes about wedding nights and matrimony Trip would rather not have heard, until the door opened and Justice Franklin came in. She was a short woman, blonde and not particularly young. She looked at all four of them, then down at the PADD in her hand.

"Who's the lucky couple?"

Trip shot one last nervous smile at T'Pol, and stepped forward. "We are."

Trip took Jon's equally clammy hand in his, squeezed once, and took their place in front of the Justice.

***

"You know, I think I could stay here." Trip rolled over on his towel to face Jon, who was gazing thoughtfully into the ocean.

"What, permanently?"

"Why not?"

"We have jobs." Trip was head of the newly re-organized Warp Research Centre, while Jon was a paper-pushing, hand-shaking, recruit-encouraging commodore.

"I'm getting old. I could retire."

Trip smiled at him, his heart so full he thought that if he tried to express how he felt, he'd come off sounding like an idiot, so he decided not to try. Instead, he said, "In a few years." Anything could happen in a few years.

"I love you," Jon said, for what had to be the fiftieth time in the last three days.

"You keep saying that and I'm going to start thinking you're having an affair."

"Yeah, power really is a great aphrodisiac," Jone joked. "My office equipment can't keep its eyes off me."

Trip smiled, just appreciating everything they had. They were alive, in relatively good physical and mental health, with successful careers and families who, if they weren't exactly jumping for joy, had at least accepted them. As he leaned over to kiss his new husband, Trip thought of all the people—his coworkers, his friends, his sister—who'd never had this chance.

"Ever wonder," Trip said, as he drew away, "Why we got this and so many people didn't?"

"Just lucky, I guess," Jon agreed, pulling him close.

Trip felt more grateful than lucky. And, as Trip had finally realized, if he wanted to show that gratitude, he had to stop feeling guilty for being alive and just get back to living.

A surprised grunt escaped Jon as Trip rolled on top of him. "You know," Trip continued, conversationally, "You never carried me over the threshold."

"I figured there were better ways to ruin my back."

Trip grinned. "Care to demonstrate?"

From now on, Trip determined, he was going to enjoy life as thoroughly and as frequently as possible. It was what Jon wanted, it was what he himself wanted and, Trip knew, it was what Lizzie would have wanted.

She'd always thought traditionalism was greatly overrated, although, as Trip felt Jon's wedding band knock gently against his, there were times when it wasn't so bad.