Showdown Wedding

"I can't believe this day is finally here!" Jan gushed. "I'm marrying the Romulan of my dreams!"

Her friends all looked at her in her lace and silk gown and smiled. "You look so ethereal, Jan!" Rosemary complimented her.

"Thank you!" Jan smiled happily. "Okay," she turned and looked at them. "Rosemary, I'm sorry, but Bochra really wanted Vreenak in his wedding, so I paired him up with you."

Rosemary wanted to kill her cousin, but it was her day and she sighed and nodded. "I can do this for you for one day," she sighed.

"And Bea, you're going to walk with Bochra's friend, Letant."

"Oh, really?" asked Bea as she looked around. "Which one is he?"

"The one with impeccable taste," said Letant himself as he walked up and took Bea's arm.

She found herself slightly speechless. "Oh wow."

"Yes, I have effect at times," he said.

Jan smiled at Lina. "You can walk with Rekar."

Lina frowned as she looked across the room at him. He smiled at her and she mostly smiled in return. "I think he scares me or something," she whispered to the other girls.

Everyone took their places and walked down the aisle, one by one. Lina began the line and walked down with Rekar. She could see Taurik giving her Romulan partner some serious death glares. She wondered what had gotten into Taurik lately and just shook her head.

The next one down was Bea with Letant. Bea found herself thinking Letant was kind of handsome, but then she saw the stink-eye Solok was giving him and wondered what his problem was. Probably high off of Swiss Miss dust as I live and breathe… You're not supposed to smoke that, Mr. High and Mighty!

Rosemary walked down the aisle on the arm of Vreenak. The two of them were mysteriously silent with one another.

Little Stevie walked up the aisle holding, of all things, Captain Wentworth in his jar. He had promised not to drop the fish and the little boy was walking so very carefully and slowly with him. He truly was a menace, but he loved Captain Wentworth.

The ceremony went off without a hitch. It was afterward that the fish fry hit the fan.

##

They had the reception immediately afterward outside. Everyone was sitting at their respective tables. Certain groups of people were giving one another 'looks', here and there. One broken up couple in particular started that party right. They were in a low-voice snippy argument that became louder and louder.

"Well you said you couldn't feel such an inferior emotion as love!" Rosemary shouted at him.

"I did not say that! I SAID I couldn't feel such an emotion for a woman whose heart belonged to someone else!" he said.

"Who else does my heart belong to, you silly man!" she demanded.

"Your Captain Wentworth!" he shouted.

Solok stood, then and asked, "Yes, who is this Captain Wentworth? Is he here? I demand he step forward!"

"Y'all done lost your minds," Lina muttered as she sipped on a pina colada.

"Do you deny that he exists?" Vreenak shouted at Rosemary.

"Heck, yes, he exists, he's just not who you think he is!" Rosemary shouted back at him.

"Oh so you'll claim you don't love him now!" Vreenak demanded to know.

Bea wanted to shrink down in her chair as Solok stepped to the front of the room and said to her and Rosemary, "How can two beautiful intelligent women allow one male to trap you in his harem?"

"Yes, this Captain Wentworth, where is he?" demanded Vreenak. "I want satisfaction right now! We will engage in a duel like none other!"

Jan was sitting there, red in the face, trying not to laugh really hard. Bochra stood. "Um, I think there's been a serious misunderstanding here."

"What do you know of this Wentworth person, Bochra?" Vreenak demanded to know.

"Yes, tell us this instant!" Solok said.

Bochra pointed at the fish sitting between him and Jan. "That's Wentworth."

Both Vreenak and Solok refused to believe that was the infamous Captain Wentworth. They turned and looked at the little boy, Stevie. "Young man," said Solok sternly, "come here this instant."

Stevie, used to being in trouble, walked slowly to Captain Solok. "Yes?" He just wanted to know what he had done now! He had walked slowly to the front of the wedding like they asked him and hadn't dropped Captain Wentworth even once!

"Who is Captain Wentworth?" asked Solok.

Stevie pointed at the fishbowl. "He's right there!"

Both men looked at him as if he were crazy. "When you declared that I was not liked by Captain Wentworth-" Vreenak began.

Stevie laughed. "When you came to the door, he ran into the fish house and didn't come back out! So he doesn't like you!"

They looked at the bowl and Captain Wentworth in fact had run into his little fishy house and wouldn't come back out.

Vreenak looked terribly embarrassed as he stared down at Rosemary. His eyes had gone all soft and sentimental. "My dear. I've done the unforgivable. I hurt you because I was under the misassumption that your heart belonged to another. Forgive me?"

She stood and jumped into his arms. "Yes, I forgive you!"

And then Vreenak went one better. "Marry me, Rosemary! Be my wife!"

"Yes, yes, I'll marry you, you tall drink of Romulan ale!"

Letant gave Bea the most suggestive look, then. "I see marrying human females has become quite the trend?"

Bea almost giggled. But then she saw Solok running toward them with a section of the wedding cake. "Solok!" she shouted as he assaulted Letant over the head with it.

She found herself shocked and horrified as the two men were in a physical altercation… over her, of all people! "Guys, this isn't dignified! You have to stop this!" she was saying.

Lina stood and said, "I got this!" as she went into her purse. She had anticipated something awful like this happening, though Solok being the one involved had not been in her mind. The petite girl pulled out a Godiva chocolate with almonds. Both men stopped in their tracks.

"Ahhh!" she said with a grin. She walked up to Letant, broke the chocolate bar in half and tossed it to him. "Go eat that."

Letant walked off eagerly, munching on the half a chocolate bar. When Solok went to follow, Lina said to him, "If you ever cared for my cousin you better go and apologize for the spectacle you put on today and for being a total jerkface to her for the past three years!"

Solok seemed pulled out of his chocolate spell as he looked down at Lina, fully chastened. "She will never speak to me again."

"How are you going to know if you don't try?" she asked him. "I like you, man. I want you to be family. Now swallow your pride, get over there and say something!"

Solok sighed and turned, squared his back and walked as if he were entering a den of lions. Lina stood off to the side and watched as she heard him saying, "Please, forgive all that I have done, Cade—Bea. I wish very much for you to speak with me this evening, at length."

Bea looked like she was thinking about it. She bit her lower lip and sighed. "You are not allowed to be mean to me or talk down to me ever again, do you understand?"

"Most assuredly."

"Because then you're out the door!" she lay down the law.

"Yes, my lady, I understand fully."

She stood with a smile on her face. "Now come over here and finger-kiss me."

"At once," he declared and then rushed to her side.

Lina grinned. "My work here is done," she said as she went to go and get herself a refill of her virgin Pina Colada. Taurik was standing behind the tiki bar with a determined look on his face. "Lina," he said, "you will attend at once!"

She put her hand on her hip and asked him, "What are you talking about?"

And he was backing her up into a corner then. Lina realized that not a soul was around. Uh-oh. "You will not be in the company of the Bajoran again, is that understood?" he asked.

Her eyes widened. "What is wrong with you?" she asked, still not getting it.

"You belong to me," he declared. "And it is clear you are what he wants!"

She was shocked. "Taurik? Do you have a fever or something?"

"No, it is not that time." It hit her then what he was trying to tell her. But he spelled it out for her loud and clear. "I enact the rite of koon-ut-so-lik! We shall bond immediately and then conceive our first child as soon as we graduate next year!"

"Oh, snap!" Lina found herself shouting. "So you think you're going TELL ME instead of ask?" She began walking way.

Taurik caught up to her, grabbed her and put a kiss on her like she didn't believe. "Does that convince you?" he asked.

"Yeah, um, I'll marry you," she said dizzily.

Three years later

"Solok, honey, it's time for the twins to get out of the pool!" Bea said as she read a romance novel. Her stomach was huge since she was pregnant with babies number three and four.

Lina walked by, grumbling. "I feel like I'm the size of a bus. My butt is probably the same size as my stomach!"

"That's how Taurik likes you!" Bea teased.

Taurik looked over at his very pregnant wife and halfway grinned.

"We're here!" shouted Vreenak as Rosemary walked in with their one year old in her arms.

"Jan's right behind me!" said Rosemary.

Jan walked in with a red-headed pointy eared boy in one arm and a pointy eared newborn baby in a sling hanging off her other side. "Come on, Bochy!"

Bochra walked in with toddler triplets in a stroller.

"I'm pregnant again!" Jan announced.

"Woo!" Bea shouted.

"You ladies are crazy," Lina said as she huffed down into a chair and Taurik rushed over to rub her shoulders and back.

"Crazy in love!" Vreenak smiled at Rosemary.

Solok sat up, alert. "Someone has a chocolate bar in their bag."