mimi kuwapa moyo wangu

A One-Shot by Ellipsis the Great

Summary: 'I give my heart.' Nobody, not even people in the 'inner circle' (which is to say, the Alpha Bridge Crew), knows when or how it happened except for Uhura and McCoy—now Mr. and Mrs. Uhura-McCoy—and neither of them are talking. For a prompt at the st_xi_kink_meme that asked for Uhura in a button-up shirt of McCoy's (and nothing else).

DISCLAIMER: Star Trek and everything affiliated with it belongs to JJ Abrams and all those other people who own it. All I own is the plot…

Rated: M

Nobody, not even people in the 'inner circle' (which is to say, the Alpha Bridge Crew), knows when or how it happened except for Uhura and McCoy—now Mr. and Mrs. Uhura-McCoy—and neither of them are talking.

All anyone knows is that one day, a year into the mission (a year after Uhura and Spock broke up, too, because Spock had been convinced right up until the last minute when he chose differently that he was going to go to Vulcan, and once things on the Enterprise had finally gotten settled it just didn't feel right to date, anymore), McCoy and Uhura are spotted in the Mess together. It isn't all that unusual, actually, because the members of the Alpha Bridge Crew eat together a lot.

Except that it kind of is unusual, because Uhura has this coy smile on her face, and McCoy's voice is lower than usual, his accent thicker, a faint flush on his cheeks as he smiles awkwardly back at her. And then, when they have shore leave a few days later, the two of them are spotted by Kirk and Spock (who totally aren't spying, by the way) in a cozy little café, heads close together and tinkles of laughter ringing out every few minutes.

At the end of the date (?), McCoy pulls her chair out and takes her hand in his to help her up, which earns him a quirked eyebrow and a comment that makes him snort and say something scathing in reply (at least, they assume it was scathing until Uhura throws her head back and laughs). Then, a defiant look in his eye, he bows and brings her hand up to brush gently against his lips, and even though they are sure she doesn't want to, Uhura actually blushes.

Anyhow, a few months after that the two officially come out and tell people they're dating. And one day, after a particularly harrowing shift that ends with McCoy on the Bridge making up some impressive new curses as he jabs Kirk in the neck with one last hypospray, Uhura stands up, goes down on one knee, and pulls a ring out of thin air (it totally had to be out of thin air, because there are no functional pockets on Starfleet uniforms, and where the hell else could she have hidden it?).

"Marry me, Leonard?" She smiles up at McCoy, who sputters for a moment before letting out this awkward little snuffling laugh and nodding.

Then he kneels down in front of her and pulls a ring out of the medical pouch that never leaves his hip. "Miss Nyota?"

And she shakes her head and pushes him flat on his ass, rolling her eyes.

(GAILA, WHO IS THE MOUTH-BREATHER HIDING UNDER YOUR PAGEBREAK?)

McCoy has talked to Uhura before, sure, but never often or for long. But the day the Enterprise officially embarks on its first five year mission (with Kirk as its captain), he finds her in the Officer's Lounge. No one else is there—most of them are either in the Mess Hall celebrating or in their rooms or Sick Bay recovering from said celebrations. But he can't stand big parties or the stupid people who hurt themselves at them, so he'd turned sickbay over to M'Benga and Chapel at the end of his shift with more terseness than was strictly necessary (even from him) and come to the Officer's Lounge to get dinner.

Uhura is sitting at the table nearest the windows, staring down at a mug of tea or coffee or some other hot drink with a strange, blank expression on her face.

McCoy purses his lips; there's a slump in her shoulders that gives away the sorrow she is feeling even if her face doesn't, and he hates seeing women sad. (He doesn't like seeing men or beings with no identifiable gender sad, either, but he was mostly raised by his mother so it always hits him harder when he sees a sad woman.) So he goes to the replicator and orders himself some food—the closest thing to sweet tea, chicken and dumplings, fried okra, and biscuits that it'll make because he misses Earth, specifically Georgia—and sits down across from her unceremoniously.

She jumps a little and looks up (and Oh, God, she's got tears in her eyes), hurriedly looking back down at her drink.

"Doctor." She murmurs.

"Lieutenant." He says, peppering and salting his chicken and dumplings with abandon.

"I'm not crying." She says after a long silence has stretched between them.

He blinks at her, mouth full of a bite of biscuit, then chews and swallows and wipes his mouth before saying, "I don't much mind either way, Miss Uhura," which is a lie, of course. "I just didn't feel like putting up with those idiots in the Mess that Jim has the tenacity to call a mature, competent crew."

She emits a soft snort that turns into a laugh. "They're just having a little fun."

"Oh, sure, but who has to deal with their sorry asses when the fun's over? Me, that's who. Goddammit, I'm a doctor, not a babysitter. I don't have time for—" He cuts himself off when she laughs again, louder this time. He has to press his lips together to keep from smiling.

"You are too much." She says.

He grunts and returns to his food. He doesn't look at her again until she stands a few moments later, smiling at him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Thanks." She says.

He gives her a tiny half-smile that probably looks more like a grimace, covering her hand with his. "A young lady like you shouldn't cry, okay?"

"Okay." She says.

As if suddenly realizing what's going on, he clears his throat and looks away, pulling his hand from hers. "Have a nice night, now, Lieutenant."

"Alright, Doctor." She turns to put her dishes away.

"You can call me Leonard." He mutters gruffly, not looking up. "When we're off-duty, I mean."

"And you can call me Nyota." She says.

"G'night, Miss Nyota."

Another giggle. "Goodnight, Leonard."

(GAILA, WHO IS THE MOUTH-BREATHER HIDING UNDER YOUR PAGEBREAK?)

It's strange to see McCoy—who is undoubtedly an old-fashioned gentleman right down to his roots—and Uhura—who is most definitely a new-fashioned gal right down to hers—get along. There are concessions on both sides (McCoy wants her to take on his last name, and she wants to keep hers, and in the end they both hyphenate theirs…with hers in front because Uhura-McCoy is way catchier than McCoy-Uhura), and fights (because she doesn't want her father to 'give her away' like some piece of property, and he just isn't sure about riding some god-forsaken elephant to their honeymoon spot instead of taking a good old-fashioned car), but eventually things work out.

After not much debate (because McCoy's already had a big, overstated wedding (and look how that ended) and Uhura just isn't the type for it), they settle for a small ceremony with just their family and fellow crewmembers plus Admiral Pike—which, okay, makes it not-so-small, but considering they're the first of the Enterprise crew to get married it could have been much bigger. McCoy actually thanks Spock for scaring off the paparazzi and (what the hell?) fans.

Uhura wears traditional Swahili robes; McCoy wears a tux. Jim officiates with the biggest shit-eating grin they have ever seen on him (and they've seen some pretty big ones over the course of the past few years). Spock is Uhura's maid of honor (his eyebrow twitches whenever someone calls him that), and Chapel is McCoy's best man (which makes her giggle). Chekov is the ring-bearer (a title and job that he takes wery seriously, in spite of the jabs about his age and boyish looks), and Joanna is the flower girl. Sulu stands guard at the entrance as Uhura gives herself away, and Scotty spikes the drinks at the reception, where the bride and groom smash cake in each other's faces and everyone gets a little too giggly and a little too hands-y and "Goddammit, Jim, I will kill you."

In the end, a good time is had by all.

(And they ride an elephant to the honeymoon.)

(GAILA, WHO IS THE MOUTH-BREATHER HIDING UNDER YOUR PAGEBREAK?)

"Afternoon, Lieutenant." McCoy says as he finally makes his way to her bio-bed. It's a case of another Away Mission Gone Wrong, and he's been pulling arrows out of people and treating all sorts of completely nonsensical wounds ("How in the hell did you get part of a spear stuck in your ass, Jim?") for nearly an hour, now. She's the only member of the party left to treat, and the one with the least serious wounds.

"Good afternoon, Doctor." She says, and moves obligingly when he pushes her hand away from the compress on her side. "It stopped bleeding almost before we were beamed up."

He grunts and rubs his rubber gloved hands together, which creeps her out for a moment before he touches her and she realizes he was just warming them. She tries to look at what he's doing for a moment, but then she looks up at his face and she can't look away. It's only a minor wound—a glancing, but slightly deep cut compliments of an arrow grazing her side—but there's a look of concentration on his face that makes it seem like he's performing some sort of life-saving surgery instead of just doing something she could likely have done herself (and would have, if not for the fact that no one on board has dared to try and treat themselves since a particularly passionate lecture he gave to the captain two weeks into their five-year mission and broadcast over the entirety of the ship so that "none of you imbecilic fools get any stupid ideas!").

"It looks good." He says when he finishes. "This was the only arrow wound you received?"

She nods. "The rest are just little cuts and bruises from running in the forest."

"Hm." He says, more to acknowledge that she spoke than anything else as he runs a tricorder over her. "Well, the scan comes up clean, and it doesn't seem like any of the arrows were poisoned." He scowls—he's notoriously paranoid about these sorts of things, tricorder or no. "But if you feel feverish over the next few days or notice anything strange, you come straight here."

"Of course, sir." She says.

He glances up at her so that their eyes meet. "Don't you 'Of course, sir,' me, young lady. You and the rest of this damned ship seem to be under the mistaken impression that you're all invincible." He jabs a finger at her. "Let me assure you, missy: you're just as fallible and mortal as the rest of us, and it's my job to make sure that mortality lasts as long as possible. So the minute you feel even slightly under the weather, you are to report immediately and directly to me. Am I perfectly understood, Lieutenant?"

She grabs his hand, which makes him jump and blink at her. "I understand, Doctor. And I promise I won't dally at all if I notice something's amiss."

He blinks again—she's pretty sure he's blushing just a little—then scowls again and pulls his hand away. "You see that you do. And take the rest of the day off; doctor's orders. I don't want to see you or any of the other idiots from that away team back on duty for the next twenty-four hours, and you can bet your pretty little hide I'll track you down and drag you back here if I do."

She nods and gets up out of the bed, going up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Thanks, Doc."

He is still sputtering when the door closes behind her.

And if she maybe goes back on shift an hour early, it's just because she was in the middle of an important project before the mission that took her to sick bay, and it definitely has nothing to do with her desire to see if he'll actually track her down.

He does, and she has to bite her bottom lip throughout his entire fifteen minute lecture to keep herself from giggling, which nearly starts him in on another lecture when he notices her mouth is bleeding.

(GAILA, WHO IS THE MOUTH-BREATHER HIDING UNDER YOUR PAGEBREAK?)

"Honey, I'm h—owww!" Leonard rubs his chest and scowls down at the slipper that had attacked him. Then, jaw setting, he looks at her, ready to start up a good-natured fight over her slipper-attack versus his chauvinistic phrasing, but stops short at the sight that greets his eyes.

She smirks when she sees the expression on his face, shifting just so, and the shirt she's wearing (her favorite of his button-up dress shirts; a shimmery not-quite-Starfleet-Medical-blue shirt) slips down her legs so that he can almost see the curve of her ass. Then she stands—one foot clad in the slipper that matches the one at Leonard's feet—and stalks towards him, flicking her hair away from her front so that it all flows in soft curls down her back.

"Karibu nyumbani, mchumba." She whispers when she reaches him, reaching up to put her hands on his chest.

"We playin' some sorta game, darlin'?" He asks, voice hushed, hands hovering near her hips but not quite sure enough of what's going on to actually touch her.

"Mimi nataka wewe." She says, standing up on her tiptoes and kissing him, hands cradling his jaw. Then, just as his arms begin to go around her to pull her closer, she pulls away with a final nip at his bottom lip. A mischievous smile tugs at the edges of her lips as she unbuttons the top four buttons of the shirt so that it's only hanging on by two lower-middle buttons.

"Y'know, I'm a doctor, not a translator." He grumps half-heartedly.

"Mm, I know." She grabs his hands and puts them on her thighs underneath the shirt, then says again, "I want you."

"You got me, darlin'." He says, grip tightening just a little before, with no further warning, he picks her up and kisses her again.

Her legs immediately wrap around his waist, one arm curling around his neck while her other hand tangles in his hair. Between kisses she says, "I know," and then, "Mimi nataka wewe ndani yangu, Simba-moyo."

This time he just moans, because as much as he bitches when she starts talking in another language, he still thinks it's the most erotic sound on Earth—the oftentimes musical pitch of her voice as it twists around the foreign words, like a song that he can't understand but nonetheless can discern the meaning of. He carries her over to the couch, setting her down gently but forced to follow right after because her legs and arms aren't letting go of him. His lips leave a trail of kisses along her jaw as she continues to gasp out a litany of words, jumping at odd intervals from her native Swahili to Vulcan to Korean to any other number of languages.

He unbuttons the last two buttons of his shirt (the one she's wearing) with some difficulty, but merely pushes it to the side instead of trying to remove it from her.

"What's the occasion, darlin'?" He moves lower, nose pressing into the downy hairs that surround her most private place. "I didn't forget our anniversary."

It's a statement, not a question. She has marveled at his ability to remember important dates for as long as she's known him—even Spock forgot her birthday once, too caught up in an (admittedly important) experiment to remember. It (along with other amazingly thoughtful things he does) makes her wonder what on Earth his first wife had to complain about.

But almost before she asks herself the question, she knows the answer. He's more in love with being a doctor than anything else, he gets worked up over the oddest things (their first big argument is over whether or not she should use the word 'fuck,' because he considers it the only curse word that should never pass a person's lips; she hadn't realized until then that she had never heard him use it during even the worst of his tirades), he's temperamental, and he mother-hens the entire ship to the point of absurdity.

But then, she loves languages more than she loves him, and she's well aware that she's got a snappy temper of her own.

Also, she secretly thinks it's kind of sweet when he busts in on her and the rest of the communications staff while they're busy working on a big project and fusses until they stop long enough to eat. (She knows he does it for other departments, too, but she's got it on good authority that he doesn't do it near as often as he does for communications.)

"Can't a wife greet her husband when he gets home from work?" She asks, arching up into his mouth.

A snort of air that makes her gasp even though it was obviously unintentional. "Maybe a normal wife."

"Are you calling me abnormal?" She asks.

"Beautifully, wonderfully, and unabashedly abnormal." He says in between swipes of his tongue.

She moans and sits up, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him up into a kiss. She drags him back down with her, untwisting one hand from the fabric of his shirt so that she can reach down and undo his pants.

"Okay," She pants against his mouth, "so maybe it's a special occasion and I feel like celebrating."

"Uhuh." He tries to push his pants all the way off, but she wraps her legs around him again and grasps his dick in one hand, leading it to her opening and throwing her head back when he takes the hint and thrusts in. "C-care to share?"

She waits until they're as close to each other as any two people can get, then takes his face in her hands again and touches their foreheads together so that their eyes are forced to meet. Their mouths are almost touching as she whispers, "We're going to have a baby."

His breath stutters once, and then he darts his head forward and kisses her again. He pulls his lower half part of the way out of hers, then pushes back in again, and again, and again, then reaches down and presses his thumb against her clit until she is a wrecked mass of nerves and heat. And then his voice rumbles, deep and throaty in her ear, "Come for me, darlin'," and she breaks apart with a short scream, whiting out for a moment before coming back into herself just in time to feel him shudder against her in the throes of his own orgasm.

He puts his forehead in the crook of her neck—she can feel him panting, struggling to hold himself up—and says, "Say it again."

"I'm pregnant, Leonard." She grabs his hand and puts it on her lower stomach. "We're going to have a baby."

Another shuddery breath, and she realizes with a start that she can feel tears smearing against her throat. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"You don't have to thank me, stupid." She says, even though she can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, too.

"Yes I do." He says, pushing himself up so he can look her in the eye again. In his eyes she can see sincerity and joy and, most of all, love. "You're amazing, Miss Nyota."

"I'm not the first woman to ever get pregnant, you know, Doctor." She laughs. "Not even the first to get pregnant with your baby."

"But you're the first to get pregnant with our baby." He says, and then kisses her again before she can respond (she doesn't know how she would or could have responded to such a statement, anyhow). He starts peppering her face with kisses again. "You're amazing. You're so goddamned amazing."

She gets the feeling that this is going to be one of those things she'll have to let him indulge in; one of those things that she can understand in the periphery but will never quite get nonetheless. Either way, his happiness is contagious, and her smile a mile wide as he worships her with his mouth, pulling her fallen necklace up so that the harp charm rests just over her heart and kissing it, and moving lower to all but make out with her stomach, which makes her giggle because she's terribly ticklish and now his five o'clock shadow is making itself known even through the beard suppressant he puts on every morning.

"I guess you expect me to greet you at the door in one of your dress shirts, now?" He asks, and she laughs so hard at the thought that she actually snorts.

(GAILA, WHO IS THE MOUTH-BREATHER HIDING UNDER YOUR PAGEBREAK?)

"Good morning, Leonard." Uhura says as she steps up onto the beaming pad and straightens her skirt.

"Miss Nyota." McCoy joins her, arms crossed over his chest as he scowls at Scotty like that'll keep the transporter from malfunctioning (again). "Lookin' forward to shore leave?"

"Mhm." She nods, and then, "Energize," and they disappear and reappear in the middle of a huge, bazaar-esque market. "You?"

A shrug. "I…have to go shopping." He says, pulling a face.

"Oh?" She asks, trying not to laugh at his expression.

"My daughter's birthday is coming up." When he speaks about her, the expression on his face softens and he stands up straighter. "She's turning eight next month." And then his shoulders slump. "It'll be the first birthday I've ever missed."

"Oh." She says again. "I…didn't know you have a daughter."

"Only good thing that came out of my marriage." He says, pulling a holo out of his back pocket and showing it to her. "Her name's Joanna."

"She's beautiful." She says.

"She looks like her mother." He wrinkles his nose a little.

"She definitely has your eyes." She assures him.

"And according to the ex, my attitude." He says as he tucks the holo away. "Bless her heart."

She laughs and pats his shoulder. "Well, if she does take that much after you, I'm sure she'll grow up to be a lovely young lady."

"Don't try to be cute, Miss Nyota." He scoffs.

"I am completely serious." She says, holding one hand over her heart and the other in the air in an imitation of the twentieth and twenty-first century American Boy/Girl Scouts. "Promise."

He rolls his eyes.

"What're you going to get her?" She asks.

"I have no idea." He says, deflating again. "What in tarnation do eight-year-old girls want, nowadays?"

"Well…I'm not eight, anymore, but I am a girl." She says. "I could help you look for something, if you don't mind a little company."

"You'd be doin' a mighty big favor for a mighty desperate man, Miss Nyota." He says.

She shrugs. "I wanted to do a little shopping, anyhow. Besides, I have a cousin who's around that age, so I know a little about the current trends and fads going on, right now." She casts a cursory glance at the nearby stalls. "I'm sure we can find something your daughter will like."

"Thank you kindly, ma'am." He says, and she gets the feeling he would be tipping his hat to her if he had one on.

"No need to thank me." She says, and for all that such things usually bother her, when he offers her his arm she can't bring herself to feel anything but flattered.

It ends up not taking them very long to find Joanna's present—a fancy hairpiece that is traditional for the planet they're on but still aesthetically pleasing to humans (Uhura assures him that it'll make Joanna feel like the princess he refers to her as)—but McCoy is lavish in his thanks, anyhow. He offers to buy her something, which makes her frown at him, but before she can open her mouth to turn him down he apologizes for offending her (in all honesty, she hadn't realized he was so good at picking up on people's emotions given how often he rants at and insults people) and asks if maybe he can just carry her bags for her, instead?

That makes her laugh, but she agrees that it would be fair 'payment,' even though she doesn't need any. It's easy to see that he's going to do something to thank her, whether she wants him to or not, and she has to admit that she would be the same if their roles were reversed. (Plus, he is surprisingly pleasant company.) So she indulges him.

And when a necklace with a tiny harp charm shows up on her console one day—the necklace she had admired but not bought at the bazaar—she storms to sickbay, punches his shoulder, and insists that he put it on her.

The ridiculous (sweet, adorable) jerk.

(GAILA, WHO IS THE MOUTH-BREATHER HIDING UNDER YOUR PAGEBREAK?)

Of course, McCoy is a man of his word even when she thinks he's joking. She comes home from the last day she's allowed to be on duty—her ankles are swollen, her stomach is huge, she had to deal with the entire crew (and she does mean the entire crew; including Spock, of all people, and Kirk, for Christ's sake) mothering her throughout the entire shift, and to top it all off it was a tremendously boring shift, which wasn't at all what she wanted her last day to be like even if everyone insisted it was probably for the best—to find him bare-ass naked except for an old dress shirt of hers that he's trying stuff his big, muscly arms into.

"What are you doing?" She asks, putting a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter (it doesn't help much).

He stiffens, not having noticed her until just then, and gives her the sheepish, rarely-seen smile that makes her fall deeper in love with him every time she sees it. "Um. Karibu nyumbani, mchumba." His accent mangles it a little (kuh-REE-boo en-yuhm-BAN-ee em-CHUM-buh), and he looks utterly absurd with his arms forced back by the tightness of her shirt, his face flushed, his breath coming out slightly faster from the exertion he's obviously put into getting the shirt on.

Even so, she can't help the smile that takes over her mouth as she steps forward and puts her arms around him, resting her head against his shoulder. "'M home, darlin'." She says with a passable imitation of his accent that makes him chuckle.

With some difficulty, he pulls the shirt off so that he can put his arms around her. As big as she feels nowadays, his arms still wrap around her easily, holding her with a gentleness that never fails to make her feel cherished in a way she never imagined she could be.

"Love you, Miss Nyota." He whispers in her ear.

"Una moyo wangu, Simba-moyo."

The End

A/N: My friend aproposnothing over lj's birthday was January 29th, so I asked her to send me some unfilled prompts of hers. She did, and this one was preceded by 'if you think you can manage het,' which OF COURSE I took as a challenge, so this is the one I wrote. XDD (Although I might fill some of the others, too, because they're also fun prompts!) But, eheh, I actually haven't written het (as the main pairing of a story, at least) since high school (4-5 years ago), and I've NEVER written het smut, so that's what I'm blaming for my somehow turning an OBVIOUSLY porn-driven request into a pairing exploration. Lol

Swahili translations (which anyone who actually speaks it is more than welcome to correct!):

Karibu nyumbani, mchumba – Welcome home, sweetheart

Mimi nataka wewe (ndani yangu) – I want you (inside me)

Simba-moyo – Lion-heart

Una moyo wangu – You have my heart

Other Notes:

My parents' first big fight actually WAS over my mother's use of the word 'fuck.' It seriously is the only cuss word that makes my dad flip a shit.

A man I used to go to church with still called his wife Miss Dot even though they'd been married for over fifty years; I've always thought it was really sweet, and it seemed like something McCoy might do.

Hope you guys enjoy it!

-EtheG