Farewell

"Jim?" Selece called, sitting beside the Captain at the window in the observation deck.

"Selece." Jim nodded at her in recognition.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, seeing through the window the big spacial station where Enterprise was attached to, and below to it the blue, green and brown picture that Earth was forming while floating lazily in the space.

"Thinking, reminiscing." He said, hugging his knees closer to his chest while watching the Earth below them.

"About what?"

"How the time flies." And it did and now Selece understood why the Captain was there, looking at the spacial station where everything started.

The Enterprise's five years mission finally ended and the ship will go under a massive inspection for repairs to be launched again in some months in another five years mission. Seeing that the first one was a big success, the Starfleet decided to repeat the dose and Jim would, again, boldly go to places where no man has gone before.

But he would go without her.

"I'll miss you, terribly." Jim turned to look at Selece's eyes. "It won't be the same without you." And the woman gave to her best friend a sad smile and a pat on his hand. "Without Bones." He sighed, turning again to look at the station and the Earth.

"I know, and we will miss you too."

The decision was hard, Leonard and Selece talked for hours about it when the order came from the high command weeks before the end of the mission, saying that the Enterprise was to come back to Earth to be fixed where needed to be fixed and fly again for another five years across the space.

The problem was that Selece and Leonard couldn't go to the space now. They had a baby, little Jimmy, named after his godfather, and in the last five years the Enterprise went through so many adventures, dangerous adventures, that they knew it wasn't a place to raise a child. And Jim Kirk was aware of it, he agreed with them, but it doesn't mean it didn't hurt less to leave one third of their trio behind.

"You'll always be the Aramis to my Porthos and Bones' Athos." Selece laughed.

Jim started to call them The Three Musketeers when they finished the Academy, saying that Selece was smart like Aramis, while Leonard was grumpy like Athos and him adventurous like Porthos. And he was right and now they wouldn't fight together against the big bad universe anymore.

"You still have Spock and the others." Obviously. Besides some few officers, half of the Enterprise's crew decided to follow Jim again to deep space. Including his First Officer. Spock would never leave his beloved husband behind, not when he knew how Jim would miss his best friends.

"I know." Jim sighed again and hided his face on the crook of Selece's neck when she hugged him.

"You'll always be my baby, Jim. My family." Something wet Selece's skin and she didn't have to see Jim's face to know that he was crying.

"I know." He said with a rough voice.

"Jim..." She called him, raising his head from her shoulder and putting her hands on his cheeks. "This is not a goodbye, is only a farewell." Selece smiled, drying his tears with her thumbs and Jim smiled back.

He moved, indicating that he wanted to get up and she moved too, getting on her feet and giving a hand to Jim to help him up.

"Well, Lieutenant... No, Lieutenant Commander." He said her new post with a smile and with a salute he kept going. "It was a honor to serve with you." Selece smiled back and also saluted him.

"No, Captain, the honor was all mine." They looked at each other for some minutes in silence, smiling a friendly smile until Selece lowered her arm and turned on her heels to leave the deck.

"Selece." Jim called when she was already passing through the threshold and she looked over her shoulder to him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome Jim."

"Farewell Commander."

"See you soon, Captain."

And while he watched her leave, Jim thought how much he would miss her and Bones, but also thought that now he had a reason to come back. Finally he had a family to wait for him on Earth. On home.

The End