This is the end. Thank you to everyone who read or reviewed the last chapter. Also, thank you to everybody who has stuck through this story for the last three years. This is officially my longest Star Trek story at around 200,000 words. We have been through a lot together during the course of this story. You have survived two computer meltdowns and me being hit by a car in the middle of it. I would like to thank everybody who worked as a beta on this story including Teddy Bear and T'Purr who did a lot of it. I would also like to thank everybody who put the story on alert, added to your favorites, bookmark it, or left kudos.

Spoiler alert: This chapter contains some things derived from STID but it's mixed in with other things from my imagination and it should be difficult to tell what is a spoiler. This chapter also contains things derived from the TOS episode "Operation – Annihilation" but twisted to fit the new reality.

Chapter title comes from the song Closing Time by Semisonic

Epilogue: Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginnings End.

Jim wasn't sure what he was expecting for his final mission as a Starfleet captain, but he wasn't expecting it to involve killer parasites that made everyone go crazy, trying to find a way to not kill 1.2 million people, and watching his brother dying. (He would like to blame his brother's totally fucked up behavior at their mother's funeral on the parasites, but considering that most of Earth is still as sane as ever, he doubts his brother was already contaminated. There was nothing to blame for Sam being a prick except for Sam.)

The good news was they were able to save almost everybody on the colony, including his brother's brand new pregnant girlfriend (the bastard moved quickly, considering the divorce papers were not even signed yet because Sam had dropped off the radar three months earlier) without his husband doing something fucking reckless, like becoming a Vulcan Guinea pig for the greater good. (You would really think Spock would have gotten over sacrificing himself for the greater good after Jim died during that thing they do not talk about, but that was never going to happen).

Carol had the good sense to contact Other Spock and played the emotion card, although she referred to it as 'consulting with another scientist'. After reminding the old guy that Jim, Nyota, Sunk, and baby Amanda would be absolutely devastated if something happened to Spock, he confirmed their theory about using high intensity light and told them what portion of the spectrum to use to get rid of the killer parasites from outer space. Jim came up with the satellite idea on his own. Of course, it didn't save Sam (or his future niece or nephew because brand new girlfriend miscarried). Maybe he was a little pissed off at Other Spock for not warning him about this, but he had this sick feeling that if it was not killer space parasites that did Sam in, it probably would have been alcohol poisoning (or an STI). At least this type of death wasn't meaningless, or so Carol told him.

He also tried to remind himself that not everything was the same this time around. For example, Spock should have gone into 'fuck or die mode' a few weeks ago, but it hasn't happened yet. Akia and Christine, who are having way too much fun studying this, believe regular sex can delay or lessen Spock's Time. (Jim is just waiting for everything to fall apart because it's his life.) In light of that, he should just give the other Spock some slack, or at least that's what he's been told.

After doing his captain's log where he barely managed to not cry, he took on the very necessary duty of notifying the family. He started with Akia first, even though he felt absolutely horrible about it. Two months ago, Akia's not-a-boyfriend popped the question after having to jump through too many hoops to be JK's emergency contact for preschool. Actually, he said, "If we were married, this would be so much easier."

At the time, Akia did not think he was serious and therefore she responded with a sarcastic, "Give me a big enough ring and I may say yes." That's when the guy pulled out a vintage Tiffany's engagement ring with a rock big enough to be seen from space. Akia still isn't sure why she said yes, but she is happy, even if she was a little stressed out by the upcoming wedding. (Really, they should have known something was up when Sam didn't respond to her e-mail about the engagement.) She should be focusing on choosing flowers for her wedding, not her ex-husband's funeral. This was all his fault.

"I hated him so much in these last few months, with him trying to screw over wife number two during the divorce proceedings, but I didn't want him dead. I didn't even think to question why he stopped contacting us. I was just happy he wasn't bothering us anymore," she said with tears running down her cheek. Jim felt like crying too and in all honesty, the only thing stopping him was the fact that Spock was wrapped around him keeping him grounded in reality.

"I'm sorry, maybe if…" Jim started, but Spock put a finger to his lips.

"It was not your fault," Spock said firmly, keeping his fingers on Jim's lips.

"If Sam had taken Winona's offer for rehab, he would not have been on the colony to get infected. Even Spock's great uncle tried to convince him not to take the job there at the wedding from hell," Akia said, trying to make him feel better, or rather less guilty.

"Sneaky geriatric," Jim mumbled under his breath as Spock said a couple of choice Vulcan curse words in regards to Other Spock's inability to keep that damn promise of his to not interfere. Jim believes it's a universal constant that whenever his life or happiness is in danger, Spock (either one) doesn't really give a fuck about rules or promises.

"Don't keep second guessing yourself. I've lost patience before. You keep going over and over in your head what you could have done differently, but that doesn't change the fact that your patient died. Chances are you made the best decision you could have at the time with the information you had. Write your report and then let it go," Akia said with the wisdom of a woman who has been in this position before.

"I already did that before I decided to break the news to everyone. I still have to call ex-wife number two and the good sibling," he said, using his nicknames for Aurelan and Marisa.

He's gotten close to his unknown sister over the last few months, exchanging lots of e-mails about how to deal with your adopted child who was abused by his birth mother. Jim doesn't think Spock or he could have survive the last six months of parenting the 11-year-old boy without her help. Taking care of Sunk was very different then taking care of Amanda, mostly because his son was afraid that they would just disappear and he would end up back with that evil Vulcan woman that they don't speak about. Sunk practically goes into a panic attack every time he or Spock goes on an away mission. Fortunately, his sister has worked with abused children before and provided him and Spock with a lot of good advice.

His relationship with Aurelan was also improving, now that he doesn't think of her as the evil woman who screwed over his pseudo big sister. Aurelan sent him pictures of his baby niece, and he was helping her start her life over again. She was currently at a biotech firm outside of San Francisco. Jim didn't exactly want to break the news to her that she no longer had to worry about the divorce proceedings because Sam was dead. Jim doubted she would see it as a happy thing, even if it made things simpler. She would probably feel guilty because she did not become worried when Sam stopped contacting her.

"I'll take care of it. I have experience with this. I'll tell the boys as well," Akia offered.

"You don't have to. I should do it," Jim told her, dreading the conversations.

"I'll take care of it. You have captain things to do and I'm sure you need to pack. You are going to be back on Earth in less than a week. Hey, maybe the bad news will send Madison into labor," Akia said, almost hopeful. The girl was already six days late and driving everyone slowly crazy.

"You have a really twisted sense of humor," Jim said, shaking his head.

"I do not find such circumstances humorous," Spock remarked dryly.

"That's because the situation is not humorous," Jim said, giving his pseudo sister an angry look. "Although, just in case Sam's demise can induce labor, don't tell Nyota. Let's be honest, if anybody is going to go into labor, it's going to be her. " Nyota has had a rough pregnancy, despite doing an excellent job during her tenure as interim head of the linguistics department. So much so that the new dean was begging her to stay on.

First, she was cursed with continuous morning sickness throughout the entire pregnancy. She got sick on Dana three more times in the last six months and allegedly she threw up on a student. She also developed gestation diabetes. She also ended up going to the hospital three times, for what were fortunately just Braxton Hicks contractions. One of those times was triggered by her catching her mom holding hands with Spock's dad two months ago. Of course, the fact that the hand- holding happened at Nyota's father's funeral was perhaps the major contributing factor in what happened. They were all currently pretending it was a Vulcan version of a hug for their own personal sanity. Despite Nyota almost going into premature labor at the funeral, it was still better than what happened with his mother.

"I'm right there with you," Akia said with half a smile.

"It's just that her dad died two months ago and everything is so fresh," Jim said, trying to explain his decision.

"Nyota is a much stronger person than you think," Spock reminded him.

"Yes and she almost went into labor 10 weeks early at her dad's funeral," Jim said defensively.

"I guess we should do a memorial service or something like that for Sam. It's more for the living anyway," Akia said, most likely trying to change the subject of conversation. When something like that was the more pleasant alternative, you know things are really bad.

"No fucking way. Mom's funeral was enough to last me for a lifetime," Jim said with a shiver. Funerals are normally traumatic, case in point Nyota nearly going into premature labor at her father's service (okay, it was Braxton Hicks contractions, but still). However, his mother's funeral was its own level of absolute craziness, complete with his husband overdosing on magical mystery hot chocolate and Sam desecrating their mother's body. (Why did the prick have to die before things were better?)

"I don't want a repeat of that. We'll have a nice dinner, with a lot of good wine, and we'll all try to come up good stories about Sam."

"The 'lot of good wine' is what I'm worried about," Jim told Spock over their link.

"Do whatever you want, but I won't be there. I don't think it's possible for us to share happy stories about Sam. Although, he did give us enough information to figure out what the hell was going on before Carol decided to cheat - I mean consult a fellow scientist on New Vulcan who had prior experience with what killed Sam," he said, still surprised that she did that, although she did take her job of keeping him and Spock from doing stupid things very seriously. Apparently, she believed that Spock trying to play Super Vulcan as they tried to figure out how not to kill 1.2 million people qualified as doing something stupid.

"Why do I have a feeling this story is too classified for me to know?" Akia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"We will be bringing Sam's cremated remains with us when we arrive in 6.4 days." After that classic bit of Spock redirection, the call ended quickly.

Jim was also left to play the 'what if' game as he tried to pack up Sunk's bedroom, while the child was probably in one of the labs driving Spock's staff slightly crazy as they try to wrap up their experiments. The 11-year-old was just getting to the point where he felt comfortable exploring the ship on his own. Jim believed that was progress.

"There is no point in continuing to replay the events of the last few days in your mind. You made the best choice under the circumstances," Spock said as he tried to kiss Jim, but he just pulled away. As happy as he was that Spock was safely with him and not in pain anymore, he just didn't feel like making out. That was never a good sign for him.

"But we didn't Spock. When Sam stopped emailing his lawyer every other day three months ago, we should have known something wasn't quite right. I should have said something to Chris. We should have investigated this weird space insanity thing months ago, then maybe I wouldn't be bringing my brothers ashes back with me," Jim said, collapsing onto his son's bed.

"It is impossible to change the past," Spock said, sitting down beside him.

"Unless red matter is involved," Jim said sardonically, and Spock's response was just to hold him. This time he let it happen. "I'm sorry, it's just that everything is catching up with me. This was my final mission as a captain, and I couldn't even keep my own brother from dying and I couldn't keep you safe. Watching you in pain already had me halfway to being emotionally compromised, even if you tried to act like you were perfectly OK. I'm not sure I would have come up with the right solution if Carol and Chapel hadn't taken over and decided to manipulate Other You into telling us what the fuck to do."

Okay, maybe that wasn't true. Jim had already concluded that it had to be light. Carol's 'shortcut' just saved them the time of having to do a bunch of different experiments to figure out if it would actually work.

"You would have," Spock said, holding him tighter. "You did come up with the idea to use the satellites once my counterpart confirmed that light was necessary to destroy the organism in question."

"Maybe," Jim said quietly.

"You should call Nyota and see if you can speak to Amanda," Spock suggested, knowing that talking to his baby girl always cheered him up. She was currently on a kick to get him to name her new baby brother David, after one of her classmates that actually looked like he could be her half sibling (which added to the overall strangeness of the entire situation in Jim's personal opinion). He has not figured out how to tell her that there was no way in hell any kid of his in this dimension will have that first name. He came to that conclusion after Carol suggested it when she caught him and Spock pouring over baby name books. The universe may have a sick sense of humor, but he doesn't.

"I really don't want to tell our four year old daughter that her uncle died due to killer parasites because daddy was too incompetent to save him," Jim said with a sigh, and Spock just held onto him tighter.

"Then I suggest you stick to conversations about her imaginary friend Mr. Q and her new BFF David," Spock suggested without inflection. He was personally surprised that Spock hasn't mentioned how illogical imaginary friends are again. Of course, said imaginary friend turned up at about the time Nyota's dad died, so Jim saw this as a coping mechanism.

"Did you just say BFF?" Jim said, making his husband's trademark eyebrow raise. "Have you been getting into the chocolate?"

"Maybe," Spock said, entwining their fingers together in a kiss.

"Okay, I will call Amanda to talk about her latest adventures with Mr. Q. Seriously, how did she come up with that name for her imaginary friend?" Jim asked his husband, shaking his head. Amanda's imagination was so weird sometimes.

"I am uncertain." Jim's response was to kiss him. Fortunately, they remembered that they were in their son's room before they did anything really really inappropriate.

"We're going to have cupcakes for the next month," Nyota said as she glared at the half of a box now sitting on her desk from her baby shower/going away party. Today was her last day of work before she went on forced maternity leave. Akia and her husband wanted her to stop working a month ago, but Nyota did not feel like going stir crazy in the interim. Surprisingly enough she actually liked her job, but that was probably because she could tell herself it was just temporary. She was the hit of the linguistics department, much to her surprise. They even wanted her to stay on permanently. Maybe in another dimension she would be satisfied with a land based assignment with her children and husband, but that's not her. She still craves the thrill of discovering new worlds and languages. She wants to be there on the front lines of discovery. She now knows that someday she will be too old for it, even if Chris and Jim's former step-dad have been doing everything in their power to get rid of the forced retirement age, or at least make it something reasonable. Maybe then, she can think about being head of the linguistics department (because there's no way in hell she will ever be an admiral) and giving her husband his dream assignment of being safely away from the disease infested darkness of space.

She was forced to sit through a baby shower that was held by the husband of Jim's former stepfather (and she was really pissed at Leonard for ditching her at the baby shower. She knows that was not a real emergency). Nyota wondered if Winona asked the man to do this on her deathbed, because he just had too much blackmail material on Jim for it to be a coincidence. The baby pictures were priceless. She received copies of everything, including something highly embarrassing involving Jim and a flagpole.

She also got a giant cupcake cake in the shape of Enterprise that said 'congratulations on becoming a captain.' Of course, she personally feels that Dana not being there was the best present of all. Publicly, the guy was on an extended vacation. According to campus gossip, he was on an extended leave of absence pending an investigation into various allegations of misconduct that range from everything from the misappropriation of funds to misuse of command.

Of course, they ordered way too much food for the party and now everything was in her office. Amanda was currently eating her third cup cake. Her daughter was going to be so sugar stoned that she was half-tempted to send her to her grandfather's for the night. Amanda absolutely hated being away from her two daddies, but she was really glad that she gets to spend quality time with grandpa Sarek and her favorite sort-of-cousins.

Surprisingly enough, Amanda and T'Mandy were no longer fighting all the time. Although that may be because they have teamed up against Baby Sonnick. The two year old did not have a chance against his sister and niece. Nyota has a picture of the two girls dressing the little boy in pretty princess regalia.

It also could have something to do with the fact that the two girls are at the same school and despite their 18 months age difference, they have the same tutor for their enrichment sessions. They are both doing pretty well in 'regular' school, although both she and Sarek believe it helps that they are not the only Vulcan children at the school. Actually, Amanda is not even the only multi-species kid at the school. It was a lot more common now than when Spock was growing up. Amanda managed to make lots of friends at her spoiled rich kid school for gifted kids, including one kid who looks so much like Jim that she would suggest a paternity test if it wasn't for the fact that she knew for sure that the only person Jim was sleeping with at that time was Spock. The fact that his name was David just added to the weirdness of it.

Amanda still missed her daddies and big brother. She was able to call Enterprise at least once a week because the Admiralty love her and have no problem whatsoever with her making very expensive calls to her two dads. Three days ago, they spent the entire call talking about Amanda's imaginary friend Mr. Q and how according to him, she's supposed to have a brother named David. Nyota believed that the four year old has had too many conversations with her Uncle Other Spock (yes, Amanda actually called him that) when the Vulcan was under the influence of something chocolate. (Nyota did not mention anything about Sam because she's not supposed to know, even though Carol told her everything in an e-mail and there's not much Leonard will not tell her.)

Despite her daughter missing her two dads very much, Nyota has enjoyed this mother/daughter time. She has enjoyed this time of just being a family with her, Amanda, and Leonard. Of course, she didn't enjoy it when Amanda was trying to eat cupcake number four. Her back hurt too much for her to be dealing with this today.

"No more sugar for you," she said, pulling the cupcake out of her hand and placing it back with the others on the desk.

"But Mr. Q says that cupcakes cannot last a month, so that means I need to eat them all now." Nyota just rolled her eyes. For the last two months, Amanda has been using her friend to justify a lot of things, including flooding the bathroom. Really, she was too pregnant to deal with this sort of thing.

"Yes, but Mr. Q is not real," she said for the 20th time.

"Yes, he is," Amanda argued back, giving her the Jim Kirk puppy dog eyes.

"There's no point in arguing that," she heard a voice that she hasn't heard in person in six months say from behind her as he grabbed one of the Enterprise cupcakes. Of course, Jim was back early. Then she heard Amanda screaming 'Daddy!' as she ran to Jim, causing him to drop his cupcake. Unfortunately, it fell on Amanda, and now she was covered in blue butter cream cupcake.

"I missed you too baby. Although, I think I'll hug you after you're no longer covered in cupcake," Jim said, right before he and Spock started to argue about who had cleanup duty. She's pretty sure Spock only agreed to do it because Jim promised a blow job without words. She knows from personal experience you can pretty much get Spock to agree to anything if you promise oral sex.

"What are you doing here?" Nyota asked, hugging him. It was a little difficult with her big baby belly. Actually, it was a little difficult because all Jim wanted to do was pat her baby belly. Although, Jim actually had a right to do so, unlike everyone else who keeps patting her stomach, but it's still a little annoying.

"I came by to turn over the keys to the ship and say hello to the little ones. Daddy missed you guys so much," Jim said jokingly as he actually started kissing her stomach.

"I meant why are you here three days early. We had a party planned," Nyota said in slight annoyance.

"That wasn't going to be a party, that was Sam's sort of wake. That's not going to happen. The next funeral I will attend will be my own. You already know about that?" Jim asked. "No one was supposed to tell you."

"Carol tells me everything, especially when it involves you being stupid. It's how we're building our future captain and first officer bond," she told him with sarcasm.

"Since we surprised you, she must not tell you everything. Scotty may have done something that may or may not have been legal and we got here three days early. It's okay because I needed to testify in person against that admiral that shall not be named. That's why I didn't get here in time for the baby shower. Sorry," Jim said apologetically as he kept a hand protectively on her stomach.

"I thought that was our nickname for Carol's father," she said, referring to the man that tried to kill all of them.

"Admiral Chicken Dick has done something so bad that he gets that name now," Jim remarked, grabbing another one of the cupcakes.

"Unless he used Enterprise to start a war, I don't think anybody can outdo Carol's father," Nyota mumbled under her breath. Jim's response was to frown.

"What did he do?" she prompted.

"You remember that mission about a year ago where you had to get Spock and me out of jail?" Jim asked.

"You need to be more specific. I had to save you and Spock more times than I care to remember." Poor Carol has had a really interesting six months." According to Carol's emails, she has had to rescue the guys at least twice (all while unsuccessfully trying to convince Christine not to hate Nyota anymore).

"We have not been that bad," Jim said defensively. Nyota's response was to just glare at him.

"I'm talking about the incident where we got thrown into jail for inappropriate touching on the planet of the homophobic," Jim said, just as her back started to hurt again. She blamed it on having to stand too much during the baby shower that her husband refused to go to. Her back had been hurting all day.

"The truth is we may have ended up dead if it wasn't for your quick thinking. Apparently, that was what Dana was hoping for," Jim stated before explaining everything to her. The scary thing was, according to what the investigation uncovered, that was only one of six attempts to get Spock killed. Jim was not even his actual target, but rather collateral damage. Spock was the one he blamed for his son's death.

"Fuck," was the only thing she said, and that was partially because of the sharp pain in her back.

"Are you okay?" Jim asked as he started rubbing her back. Again, it didn't help.

"I'm fine. It was a long day involving weird 21st century baby shower games and lots of cupcakes. We played pin the diaper on the admiral," Nyota said as she walked over to her nice couch.

"I don't want to know," Jim said with a fake shiver.

"Did they grill you about what happened on the Deneva colony?" Nyota asked, because she knew Jim was going to avoid this for as long as he could. That was what he did.

"Surprisingly enough, no. They usually don't question how emotionally compromised you were when your husband was under attack from killer parasites and you watched your brother die in front of you when you successfully keep 1.2 million people from dying and prevent an outbreak of killer parasites from taking over," Jim said with a sigh.

"You're upset because Spock got hurt and you couldn't save Sam," Nyota said, knowing him too well.

"Does it make me a horrible person that I was more worried about Spock then my dead brother?" Jim asked her in all honesty.

"No, it doesn't," she told him, squeezing his hand.

"I think I'm getting out right on time. Carol saved the day more than I did." She could literally hear defeat and exhaustion in his voice.

"She said it was a team effort. Besides, you have trained both of us well. We are now masters at the Jim Kirk 'take a third option' style of being a good captain. Jim, there is a reason why other captains are poaching your staff. You saved over one million people with your satellite idea. You're good."

"Carol told you that?"

"She tells me all the best stuff," Nyota told Jim with half a smile.

"Did she also tell you I'm miserable because I didn't save Sam?" Jim asked.

"Actually, that was Spock. We e-mail each other a lot. He thinks that you're really upset because you and Sam left everything in such a bad place."

"Pretty much. I really tried and now I'm going to remember my final mission as a captain for the one person I couldn't save and the relationship I could not fix," Jim said morosely.

"You can't save someone that doesn't want to be saved. This was just one mission where you still managed to save over a million people. You had an amazing nine years and maybe this won't be your final adventure. If I screw up bad enough, they may just give you the keys back," she said, purposely not mentioning Pike's name. She didn't want to mention anything that reminded either of them of that which they do not speak of.

"That's not going to happen. First, I trained you well. Second, you are good at learning from others' mistakes, mostly mine. Remember, getting caught violating the Prime Directive is bad." She just rolled her eyes at his wording, even if the pain was starting to get worse and happening more often. "Also, I'm pretty sure you will not have any exes on board who will sell you out to the Admiralty for revenge purposes."

"Probably… FUCK!" she hissed out in pain.

"What's wrong? Did you just have a contraction?" Jim asked, slightly panicking just as Spock walked back into the room with a now clean Amanda. She was also literally bouncing. Really, she should have never given her cupcakes.

"I'm fine," she said, moving around on the couch, but it really didn't help the pain go away. Nothing helped the pain go away.

"The term 'fine' has various levels of meaning. Considering that your amniotic membrane just ruptured, I doubt that you are 'fine' under any definition of the term." That was when she looked down the see that she was now very wet.

"Couldn't you just say that her water broke?" Jim asked as he grabbed his communicator to call Akia and possibly her husband.

"I do not understand the meaning of that statement."

Because he had the highest pain tolerance, it was decided that Spock would hold Nyota's hand during labor. Considering that he felt all of her emotions and she managed to actually break a finger, Spock wondered if this was the best course. During the 14.3 hours of labor, Nyota has threatened him, James and Dr. McCoy with castration 35 times. On 14 occasions, she mentioned that having a caesarean was easier even if you go into early labor due to an incident with Klingons (that they also do not discuss).

Her labor was made more difficult by the fact that Akia was unable to deliver the twins because Madison went into labor 3 hours before Nyota did. They were still waiting on word regarding the birth of Jim's first great niece. Because of this, Nyota's local gynecologist was performing the delivery as Dr. Mccoy critiqued everything that the woman did. At least three times during labor, Dr. Williams mumbled that doctors make the worst patients. That resulted in Dr. McCoy being kicked out of the room until it was time to cut the umbilical cord of the first baby. (James was removed from the delivery room early on for trying to text message sister-in-law during the delivery process.)

At 6:42 AM planet time, Aimee Winona Uhura-Kirk was born at a weight of 3.1 kilograms and with what Dr. McCoy of referred to as "the cutest little Vulcan ears ever" (Carol successfully convinced him that the child did not need his last name as well, especially in light of the fact that he already had Amanda as his heir). He never felt more relief in his life when he heard her scream for the first time. 10 minutes later, his son was born at 3.3 kilograms. He really did look like a mixture of the three of them with Nyota's eyes, Jim's nose, and Spock's ears.

Up until today, Spock could count on one hand the times that he has cried in his life. The first time happened when he was a very young child. The second time was related to his mother's death and happened in a very private location. The third time involved James death. The fourth time was at their wedding. The last time was when he held Amanda for the first time after nearly losing her. When he held his son and daughter in his arms, he cried once more.

"Babies make everybody emotional," James said as Spock walked out to him holding a child in each arm. He quickly kissed Spock on the cheek before grabbing their son.

"They're so adorable, you can't help but cry. Aimee is even doing that adorable nose scrunch thing that Nyota does when she's sleepy. Actually, her big brother is doing it too," James said as he became instantly enthralled by both babies.

"Technically Aimee was born first," Spock corrected.

"I guess that means our little boy and me get to be the babies of the family together. We need a name badly, baby boy Uhura-Kirk is going to lose its appeal after a while," James said thoughtfully after a moment.

After several months of deliberation, they had not been able to come up with a boy's name. They were able to decide that the names David, Leonard, George, or Sam were not to be used along with any name that resembled traditional Vulcan names. Of course Spock wondered, in light of what had happened recently, if James would be willing to take one of those names off the list.

"In light of recent events, if you would like to reverse your stance regarding the name Samuel or Sam, I would be willing to allow our son to be named that," he told James matter of factly.

"No, besides Landon is already doing that. Samantha Damien Kirk was born at 4:53 this morning, which means she has to share her birthday with her Cousins." Spock was slightly surprised by Landon's choice, but Spock knew that he loved his father despite their problematic relationship. (He also knew that Landon had great affection for his step- grandfather.)

"What about James?" Spock suggested, because he wanted their son to carry on his love's name.

"I don't want to name our son after me. Does the world really need a Jim junior?" James asked flippantly.

"That's a valid argument. I'm not always that happy about the original," Dr. McCoy said, walking out of the delivery room. "Nyota wants her babies back in there. The evil gynecologist said you could come back in."

"Thanks ever so much," Jim said sarcastically as they walked back into the delivery room. Spock handed Aimee back to an exhausted Nyota a few moments later.

"Have you decided on a name yet for our baby boy?" Nyota asked with a yawn.

"We've added James to the names that we're not using," Jim said sarcastically.

"We could use it as a middle name. He is my son too and I would like to name him after the person I love the most," Spock said forcefully.

"Okay, for saying that you get a blow job later," James said, giving Spock a quick kiss on the lips.

"Not in front of the babies," Nyota hissed.

"Sorry," James said sheepishly. "I just want our child's name to mean something. I'm willing to go with James as a middle name."

"We should name him after your father," Nyota suggested with another yawn.

"I believe I told you about three months ago that I refused to name my child after a man who cheated on my mother, despite the fact that he saved my life. Your father would be a better option. Spock's father would be a better option." That last part was mumbled under Jim's breath.

"As much as my father would find such a gesture pleasurable, I do not wish to name a child after my father," Spock said swiftly.

"My father made me promise that none of my children would be named after him. Besides, I wasn't talking about George Kirk, I was talking about your real father figure, Admiral Pike. He has always been there for you no matter what. Then there is the fact that him almost dying lead to you doing something utterly stupid," Nyota said with some irritation.

"Don't forget all the shit that you put him through over the last 12 years. The man saved your career more times than I care to remember. The man even got your ass out of jail more than once. If anyone deserves to have your first born son named after him, it is Christopher Pike," Leonard added.

"What do you think?" Jim said, turning to Spock.

"Christopher James is a suitable name for our child, especially because I know that you will refer to him by some ridiculous nickname." Spock was sure his husband will be referring to their son by C.J. or Chris by the end of the week.

"Okay, show of hands?" James said after a second.

"You're actually going to have this vote on this? I'm too tired for you to be weird," Nyota said, actually yawning.

The vote was unanimous for Christopher James. Admiral Pike was deeply touched by the gesture and actually cried. Sarek was only marginally upset that they chose to not use traditional Vulcan names, although he understood that they wanted to honor Jim's mother and the man James saw as a father. Of course, he was quickly distracted by Amanda and T'Mandy getting in a fight over who would hold the babies first.

When the twins arrived home the next day, Spock was very thankful that he needed less sleep. Nyota and Leonard were staying in the guest house on the properties so they could be close to the twins. However, he and James felt it was best to let her sleep after 14.3 hours of labor. When the twins started crying, James went to the nursery and Spock went to the kitchen to prepare bottles because he knew both children would be hungry. Unlike Amanda, neither child was allergic to synthetic formula, so they were using it to supplement the breast milk. Spock arrived in the nursery to see James talking to Christopher. Surprisingly, Aimee was still asleep despite her brother's crying. Although, Spock is sure that will not last very long.

"Your daddy Spock should be back soon with your bottle, although I'm not sure if he's bringing the good stuff. We will have to visit your mommy Nyota in the morning. When you get older, we are going to have so much fun explaining how you have two dads and a mommy Nyota along with a bonus step dad. Let's just say it involved a diplomatic gift and the fact that for some reason, everybody just assumed that Mommy and Daddy were both having sex with Daddy Spock, which was a little truer than we would like to admit."

"Do not say things of such a vulgar nature to our son," Spock said as he gave James one of the bottles. Of course, at that moment Aimee started to cry. Spock quickly picked up the screaming child. Through their parental link, he could tell that she was hungry and wanted her diaper changed. He quickly brought her over to the changing table.

"I think it's best that they both get used to our weird family. It will prevent all the strange questions that we're getting from Amanda and Sunk now," James said as he handed Spock a diaper.

"Our family is not weird; it just does not meet the traditional definition of family," Spock said as he unbuttoned their daughter's undershirt.

"I'm cool with that," Jim said as he gave Spock a quick kiss. Spock wholeheartedly agreed with his husband.

The end (or maybe it is just another beginning).

Again, thank you to everybody who has stuck with this story for the last three years.

Originally, I was going to end this story with Nyota taking over Enterprise, but because I decided to do a follow-up story with these character's I decided that was no longer necessary.

The working title for the follow-up story is Reflections.

Summary (will contain spoilers for STID): Jim assumed that his luck finally ran out with his latest attempt to keep his crew from dying. Therefore, Jim is completely shocked that he is waking up at all. He's even more shocked that he's waking up nearly nine years in the future in a slightly alternate reality where the only thing that does not surprise Jim is that he is married to Spock. The fact that he doesn't find that surprising has him worried the most.

Summary two: It turns out Amanda Kirk's imaginary friend is not so imaginary after all and he decided to completely fuck with everyone's life by playing trans-dimensional matchmaker. Admiral Kirk has no choice but to convince his younger alternate self that not only can he do monogamy, but that he is already in love with his first officer and needs to fight for him (or at least convince his Nyota that polyandry is a good thing).

There's also another possibility of a short story between this and my post STID crossover. I'm interested in doing Spock's first adult Pon Far in this universe as a separate story which will take place about six weeks after the end of this story. Let's just say the trio finds out the hard way why Spock's first adult Time was delayed because, as the saying goes, 'no good deed goes unpunished'.

However, we all know I don't like writing explicit material. Every time I try to write something extremely dirty, I get too uncomfortable to continue. I blame it on the fact that I have to talk dirty to my computer to write something explicit and it just feels wrong. I am willing to give it a try if I can find someone who is willing to help write the more explicit stuff. Please let me know if anybody is willing to collaborate.

In the meantime, I'm working on Take a Third Option and The Truth About Love (I'm not getting a lot of reviews for this story so I would really like to know if anybody's actually interested.) Also, look for the sequel to Dear Spock/Beautiful tentatively titled Dear James/Fucking Perfect in July (maybe sooner, if I get encouragement).