Title : Reflection Of A Man
Author : ‘Goji’ Rob Morris
Series : AOS
Type : Short character, sort-of Xover
Part : 1/1
Characters : K, U, Guest
Rating : PG
Summary : Trying to make better relations with two crewmembers he clashed with, newly invested Captain James T. Kirk gets a visit from someone not impressed with him at all, and with good advice for the cadet turned king.
Reflection Of A Man
by Rob Morris
USS ENTERPRISE, 2258
Kirk signed the docu-padd, and handed it off to Uhura. He looked at her, and spoke under his breath.
“How is he holding up?”
“Planning to replace him?”
“If I have to. But I don’t see it, right now, and I wasn’t aiming anything at him. My own mother and I are not as close as I’d like, but I can’t imagine losing her. Especially not the way Lady Amanda was taken.”
Her look became arch, and sharp.
“Yet you saw fit to taunt him on it. To use his grief to unseat him.”
He met her gaze, and did not flinch.
“Like Harry Truman for the A-Bomb. I regret only the necessity.”
“You don’t want to go there, Captain. I minored in Terran History, and that action has a lot of facets to be debated. Including racism.”
Kirk nodded.
“Racism can be a dismissal of another person, or it can be the artificial raising up of the other in one’s own mind. The devotion of the Japanese soldiers caused some American war-planners to start thinking of them as almost superhuman. It may have caused a mind-set that made use of a one-strike superweapon inevitable, maybe even inflating the casualty estimates that helped drive the decision.”
She looked slightly impressed.
“Okay. That is a more nuanced way of seeing things than I would have given you credit for. Though I still don’t know if I buy it. Or are you driving towards something?”
Kirk shrugged.
“We Humans tend to see Vulcans that way. Frankly when - Elder Selek - advised me to do that taunting, I thought it was pointless. I believed there simply was no way of getting under a Vulcan’s skin, or at least enough to cause that reaction. Bigger problem : Vulcans sometimes see Vulcans that way. So I ask again, how is he holding up?”
“He–he keeps bringing up private mourning time.”
Kirk felt bad for the lovely lady.
“If I were enough of a jerk to offer love advice, I’d say let him have that, but no add-ons. Don’t let him extend this any further than what he first cites as needed.”
“That sounds like good advice. In fact, I took it before you said a single word.”
“And....?”
She shook her head.
“I just can’t seem to get....”
She paused, and Kirk began to wonder if he hadn’t crossed the line yet again. Having only just made Captain, it was something he now wanted to reserve for those moments it was truly needed.
“Look, I’m sorry if this is just too personal. But I don’t need the three of us being at odds, and...what’s with you?”
Kirk waved his hand, straight in front of her face. He decided against anything more intrusive, though memories of their two brief, awkward encounters had him sorely tempted.
“Okay, dismissed, Lieutenant.”
She didn’t move.
“I do have that authority, last I checked. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
He began to get annoyed. He didn’t care for being ignored.
“Dismissed....Ensign. Dismissed, Crewman. Cadet? Plebe? Applicant?”
Maybe she was just that dazed, he thought. She was a woman in love with a man who, by Kirk’s estimation, was bound to make it difficult. So he gave in to intrusive behavior, albeit keeping it down to his forefinger tapping her forehead. Still, there was no response.
“At least slap me, or threaten charges!”
A new voice was heard, though it didn’t sound new to Kirk at all.
“You are self-absorbed, aren’t you? I thought Peter was bad, and he lost both parents when he was old enough to actually remember them. But you take the cake, kid!”
Kirk finally did look at someone other than Uhura, and saw that she was not alone in her endless pause. Chekov was not motor-mouthing about this strange phenomenon, and Sulu wasn’t moving to cut him off. No one was moving, save Kirk and the new visitor. Kirk looked over the red-clad intruder, who sat on the helm controls like he owned the place.
“Are you one of the Q?”
The visitor rolled his eyes.
“He doesn’t want to contaminate the timeline any further, but he told you about the Q?”
Kirk for some reason was really not liking this fellow.
“Elder Selek felt that they might gain an interest in us, given the alter–all right, who the hell are you?”
The visitor smiled.
“Elder Selek. Heh. He uses a name from one timeline alteration to set up shop in another. Brother, I love you.”
“You don’t look like his brother.”
The visitor shrugged, looking every bit as smug as Kirk himself had ever been accused of being. In fact, it looked a lot like this guy had practiced smug, and gotten it down perfect.
“Then, who do I look like?”
The intruder had the appearance of an older Human male, some weight that once wasn’t there now a part of him, hair that reminded Kirk of someone, somewhere, and in a uniform that he now saw had some version of the Starfleet insignia.
“Granpa Sam?”
“Granpa? GRANPA?! Oh, C’mon! Spock at least got asked if he were Sarek, but I get Granpa?”
Kirk finally put two and two together, though finding all four digits in this mess was something of a challenge.
“Are all of you coming over? Because if you are, we need to order more red potato salad.”
Captain, formerly Admiral, James T. Kirk got up and walked around.
“So this is The Enterprise. I like what you’ve done with the place. A little bright for my tastes, though. Kind of like a High School Science Teacher was transporter-merged with an architect. As to your question, well, maybe Scotty might show up, but then again, they put him in charge of rebuilding the Federation after—well, after a lot of stuff. Spock–you are a blabbermouth. There, I finally said it.”
New Captain James T. Kirk got up from his chair.
“Wait. Scotty’s alive in the late 24th Century?”
The visiting Kirk once again showed his mastery of snarky smugness.
“Tis’ the Scotch, laddie! Ye just have to brew it to the proper strength. Yeah, I know, that was horrible.”
*Please don’t let me turn out like that*, thought the new Captain.
“Why are you here?”
“Just passing through.”
“I asked you a question!”
“And I answered it.”
As the new Captain stalked around the deck, the older one rolled his eyes.
“And here I thought Punch-Em-Out Spock was the touchy one. Next you’ll be telling me...”
Both Kirks spoke in unison, one in spontaneous frustration, the other in infuriating anticipation.
“Release my ship and my crew, Mister, or I’ll see to it that you regret...cut that out! I mean it!”
The younger Kirk finally started to laugh.
“Am I that easy?”
“Frankly? Yes. But then again, I do have some small experience being us. By the time I sign off, I’ve been on the Bridge of this ship for just under three decades. And what a long strange trip it was.”
The younger Kirk caught part of his words.
“Sign off? As in...shuffle off?”
“You mean, did I finally dance with the Reaper by the pale moonlight? Sort of. Turns out, death, like life, is really, really, really, really...”
“Ok, I get it. Umm..just how many reallys in that really?”
“Really? By the time I got done, they’d be decommissioning the Enterprise-F. And that gets to why I’m here. I am just passing through, but I stopped here deliberately, to give you some advice.”
“On how to be a Captain?”
“I’m not that presumptive, though I will say watch out for distress calls, especially on a beam-down. She–that one never left me. No, I’m here about that very pretty lady standing next to you.”
“Uhura?”
The older Kirk nodded.
“Give her a break. She’s in a relationship with a man who’s apt to push her away, and not even realize he’s done it. Try to be more supportive. She’ll be that valuable to you, as an officer, and as a friend.”
“Hey. I was trying to help when you showed up.”
“No, you were trying to get into her pants—why is she wearing pants?”
“What should she be wearing, a hadaka apron?”
The older Kirk tried to recall the term, one both Sulus had taught to their Captains–well outside of mixed company. When he did, he felt a stirring.
“Damn. Now *there’s* an image to carry with you. Anyway, whatever your intent with her, it will be better served by backing off, helping the two of them where you can, and only moving in if and when Spock’s innate stubbornness can’t be overcome. You have your own Spock, so maybe he’s less so, or maybe more. But don’t even give with so much as ‘I’ll be there for you’, until you are damned certain she needs someone there.”
“That’s it? You came all this way to give me advice on my and their love life?”
“We’re talking about two of my dearest friends. You’re damn straight I came all this way for that. Ships come and go, kid. Friends, like them, like Gary, are the real assets.”
The younger Kirk asked a question.
“Gary? Gary Mitchell?”
“So you do know him.”
“Yeah. My first year roommate at the Academy. Fell for this little blond lab tech. Quit Starfleet to be with her. I think they have a kid already.”
The older Kirk chuckled.
“Buy the kid clothes. You don’t want to know want to know what he’ll do with a Tinkertoy set.”
“Gotcha. Okay. That’s why you’re here. So...how?”
The older Kirk seemed to struggle with his words.
“In the multiverse at large, almost all versions of James Kirk that resemble me, or I them, at some point enter a place where time really flies wild. Eventually, we leave it. Whatever our fates after that, in each case, we leave a reflection of us behind. This is usually in the very late part of this century.”
“But you also know things that only someone who lived in your Spock’s time would have had access to.”
“Another captain–a great man–ends up there, too, in that other place. Part of his memories stay with us, in addition to those of the handful of versions of us that lived after leaving that place. One found his new time overwhelming, and just asked to be let off somewhere, the way Zeph, err–like Robinson Crusoe. One gads about, helping out where he can. One version sees the other captain die, and takes his on command and crew in tribute and gratitude. There aren’t that many, even by eternity’s standards, but they are a part of me too.”
The new Captain Kirk nodded.
“So you are those reflections, passing through to, well, where exactly?”
“That one gets really complicated. Suffice it to say, the omniverse has a clearing-house for bad probabilities and grim intentions, what we might call Evil. Wherever wrongs are left unresolved, and vengeance unsated, those pathways lead to a kind of funnel universe. On the bright side, people aligned with what we’d call Good are, if you will, tapped on the shoulder and asked to serve to finish off that Evil once and for all. Its not a nice place, but the trick of it is, you’d assume upon seeing it that it was the same as most other worlds. A threat that is no threat at all in other places rises to be a power of satanic and eschatological proportions. I was able to come here because you are vastly unlikely to enter that same temporal anomaly. I think Nero’s interference may have altered its course away from known space.”
The younger Kirk clearly grasped the concepts his older counterpart was speaking of. Then again, the older one mused, how could he not?
“So its some kind of Armageddon universe, and you’re to be the Captain Kirk there.”
“Me? No. I am the accumulated reflections of James Kirk at a certain point in his career. I’m to be a great-uncle to the man there. My nature will mean that I may retain certain memories of who I was, and use them to help Jim–and his kids. They’ll need it. If you thought your stepfather was bad....there are parents there that make him look like Jonathan Kent.”
The older Kirk began to fade, and now the younger wished they had more time to talk.
“Thanks for stopping by, Jim. Good luck with the Anti-Whatever.”
“Just keep my advice about the lady. Find something, anything, you have in common, and build on it. Lover or friend, it will make all the difference. And no desk jobs. Leave that to Chris. Tell Spock : Always. Just always. He’ll understand. And I...I feel...oh my...”
The older Kirk vanished, and in his place was a portal, not passable, but visible. The younger Kirk could not fight the urge to peer through it.
“...through to him sometimes, I....Captain?”
Kirk was back, sitting in his chair. He was also shaking, and very pale.
“Uhura...over there. We have to talk.”
At a remove which offered some hope of privacy, he related most of his bizarre encounter to her. She shook her head.
“You want me to contact Elder Selek?”
“Yeah. Definitely. I almost wonder why he didn’t go to him, instead of me.”
“Maybe..you needed it more. Spock said that he was told that your counterpart didn’t ascend quite so quickly. That’s not a shot, but maybe it gave him some perspective.”
Uhura still saw Kirk was upset.
“You said you gazed into the portal. What exactly did you see?”
Kirk waved his hand around, trying to spit out what wanted to stay in his gut, and the back recesses of his brain.
“Imagine if WB Yeats, HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Traus of Andor all sat down and got high for about a week. Then imagine they mind-melded. Then imagine what they’d jointly see as they suffered withdrawal, while watching a documentary on the Book Of Revelations. What I saw had three snaking heads, a bifurcated tail, and looked like it was constructed in Hell itself.”
He could see that she too, had a vivid imagination.
“Well, I wish him and us well in that other place.”
He still looked shaken. Whatever her conflicts with the man, she clearly didn’t like seeing this, and so kept on, while adding a gentle quip.
“Maybe you’ll even have a better pick-up line, when we first meet there.”
He clearly appreciated the effort.
“He also said that you should be patient with Spock. The one he knew tended to push people away unconsciously. At least as a younger man.”
A look of pleased surprise came over Uhura’s face. Perhaps, Kirk thought, she had taken Spock’s distance as deliberate, and liked this ray of hope.
“Well, I hope I don’t see my counterpart. I have a definite thing about aging. Also, if everyone from that timeline is coming over, we’ll have to order more red potato salad.”
Kirk shook off his funk.
“Red Potato Salad?”
“Yeah. My favorite, but not his. Vulcans almost all prefer the mayonnaise kind, made with egg substitutes, of course.”
Kirk nodded.
“I have a temp-sealed stash from Ernie’s Deli on Lombard Street. Both types. Consider yourselves - both of you - invited to my cabin. And just to be sure, the invite only applies to both of you at the same time.”
“It’s a deal–provided I can get him. Meat substitutes only, though.”
“No problem. Ernie happens to be a Vulcan.”
They both laughed at that, and Kirk saw that perhaps some of the damage done had been repaired. She sat down to make contact with the other Spock, while the new Captain of the Enterprise found that, for some reason, he was measuring the size of his gut.
“Maybe not too much potato salad....”
Author : ‘Goji’ Rob Morris
Series : AOS
Type : Short character, sort-of Xover
Part : 1/1
Characters : K, U, Guest
Rating : PG
Summary : Trying to make better relations with two crewmembers he clashed with, newly invested Captain James T. Kirk gets a visit from someone not impressed with him at all, and with good advice for the cadet turned king.
Reflection Of A Man
by Rob Morris
USS ENTERPRISE, 2258
Kirk signed the docu-padd, and handed it off to Uhura. He looked at her, and spoke under his breath.
“How is he holding up?”
“Planning to replace him?”
“If I have to. But I don’t see it, right now, and I wasn’t aiming anything at him. My own mother and I are not as close as I’d like, but I can’t imagine losing her. Especially not the way Lady Amanda was taken.”
Her look became arch, and sharp.
“Yet you saw fit to taunt him on it. To use his grief to unseat him.”
He met her gaze, and did not flinch.
“Like Harry Truman for the A-Bomb. I regret only the necessity.”
“You don’t want to go there, Captain. I minored in Terran History, and that action has a lot of facets to be debated. Including racism.”
Kirk nodded.
“Racism can be a dismissal of another person, or it can be the artificial raising up of the other in one’s own mind. The devotion of the Japanese soldiers caused some American war-planners to start thinking of them as almost superhuman. It may have caused a mind-set that made use of a one-strike superweapon inevitable, maybe even inflating the casualty estimates that helped drive the decision.”
She looked slightly impressed.
“Okay. That is a more nuanced way of seeing things than I would have given you credit for. Though I still don’t know if I buy it. Or are you driving towards something?”
Kirk shrugged.
“We Humans tend to see Vulcans that way. Frankly when - Elder Selek - advised me to do that taunting, I thought it was pointless. I believed there simply was no way of getting under a Vulcan’s skin, or at least enough to cause that reaction. Bigger problem : Vulcans sometimes see Vulcans that way. So I ask again, how is he holding up?”
“He–he keeps bringing up private mourning time.”
Kirk felt bad for the lovely lady.
“If I were enough of a jerk to offer love advice, I’d say let him have that, but no add-ons. Don’t let him extend this any further than what he first cites as needed.”
“That sounds like good advice. In fact, I took it before you said a single word.”
“And....?”
She shook her head.
“I just can’t seem to get....”
She paused, and Kirk began to wonder if he hadn’t crossed the line yet again. Having only just made Captain, it was something he now wanted to reserve for those moments it was truly needed.
“Look, I’m sorry if this is just too personal. But I don’t need the three of us being at odds, and...what’s with you?”
Kirk waved his hand, straight in front of her face. He decided against anything more intrusive, though memories of their two brief, awkward encounters had him sorely tempted.
“Okay, dismissed, Lieutenant.”
She didn’t move.
“I do have that authority, last I checked. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”
He began to get annoyed. He didn’t care for being ignored.
“Dismissed....Ensign. Dismissed, Crewman. Cadet? Plebe? Applicant?”
Maybe she was just that dazed, he thought. She was a woman in love with a man who, by Kirk’s estimation, was bound to make it difficult. So he gave in to intrusive behavior, albeit keeping it down to his forefinger tapping her forehead. Still, there was no response.
“At least slap me, or threaten charges!”
A new voice was heard, though it didn’t sound new to Kirk at all.
“You are self-absorbed, aren’t you? I thought Peter was bad, and he lost both parents when he was old enough to actually remember them. But you take the cake, kid!”
Kirk finally did look at someone other than Uhura, and saw that she was not alone in her endless pause. Chekov was not motor-mouthing about this strange phenomenon, and Sulu wasn’t moving to cut him off. No one was moving, save Kirk and the new visitor. Kirk looked over the red-clad intruder, who sat on the helm controls like he owned the place.
“Are you one of the Q?”
The visitor rolled his eyes.
“He doesn’t want to contaminate the timeline any further, but he told you about the Q?”
Kirk for some reason was really not liking this fellow.
“Elder Selek felt that they might gain an interest in us, given the alter–all right, who the hell are you?”
The visitor smiled.
“Elder Selek. Heh. He uses a name from one timeline alteration to set up shop in another. Brother, I love you.”
“You don’t look like his brother.”
The visitor shrugged, looking every bit as smug as Kirk himself had ever been accused of being. In fact, it looked a lot like this guy had practiced smug, and gotten it down perfect.
“Then, who do I look like?”
The intruder had the appearance of an older Human male, some weight that once wasn’t there now a part of him, hair that reminded Kirk of someone, somewhere, and in a uniform that he now saw had some version of the Starfleet insignia.
“Granpa Sam?”
“Granpa? GRANPA?! Oh, C’mon! Spock at least got asked if he were Sarek, but I get Granpa?”
Kirk finally put two and two together, though finding all four digits in this mess was something of a challenge.
“Are all of you coming over? Because if you are, we need to order more red potato salad.”
Captain, formerly Admiral, James T. Kirk got up and walked around.
“So this is The Enterprise. I like what you’ve done with the place. A little bright for my tastes, though. Kind of like a High School Science Teacher was transporter-merged with an architect. As to your question, well, maybe Scotty might show up, but then again, they put him in charge of rebuilding the Federation after—well, after a lot of stuff. Spock–you are a blabbermouth. There, I finally said it.”
New Captain James T. Kirk got up from his chair.
“Wait. Scotty’s alive in the late 24th Century?”
The visiting Kirk once again showed his mastery of snarky smugness.
“Tis’ the Scotch, laddie! Ye just have to brew it to the proper strength. Yeah, I know, that was horrible.”
*Please don’t let me turn out like that*, thought the new Captain.
“Why are you here?”
“Just passing through.”
“I asked you a question!”
“And I answered it.”
As the new Captain stalked around the deck, the older one rolled his eyes.
“And here I thought Punch-Em-Out Spock was the touchy one. Next you’ll be telling me...”
Both Kirks spoke in unison, one in spontaneous frustration, the other in infuriating anticipation.
“Release my ship and my crew, Mister, or I’ll see to it that you regret...cut that out! I mean it!”
The younger Kirk finally started to laugh.
“Am I that easy?”
“Frankly? Yes. But then again, I do have some small experience being us. By the time I sign off, I’ve been on the Bridge of this ship for just under three decades. And what a long strange trip it was.”
The younger Kirk caught part of his words.
“Sign off? As in...shuffle off?”
“You mean, did I finally dance with the Reaper by the pale moonlight? Sort of. Turns out, death, like life, is really, really, really, really...”
“Ok, I get it. Umm..just how many reallys in that really?”
“Really? By the time I got done, they’d be decommissioning the Enterprise-F. And that gets to why I’m here. I am just passing through, but I stopped here deliberately, to give you some advice.”
“On how to be a Captain?”
“I’m not that presumptive, though I will say watch out for distress calls, especially on a beam-down. She–that one never left me. No, I’m here about that very pretty lady standing next to you.”
“Uhura?”
The older Kirk nodded.
“Give her a break. She’s in a relationship with a man who’s apt to push her away, and not even realize he’s done it. Try to be more supportive. She’ll be that valuable to you, as an officer, and as a friend.”
“Hey. I was trying to help when you showed up.”
“No, you were trying to get into her pants—why is she wearing pants?”
“What should she be wearing, a hadaka apron?”
The older Kirk tried to recall the term, one both Sulus had taught to their Captains–well outside of mixed company. When he did, he felt a stirring.
“Damn. Now *there’s* an image to carry with you. Anyway, whatever your intent with her, it will be better served by backing off, helping the two of them where you can, and only moving in if and when Spock’s innate stubbornness can’t be overcome. You have your own Spock, so maybe he’s less so, or maybe more. But don’t even give with so much as ‘I’ll be there for you’, until you are damned certain she needs someone there.”
“That’s it? You came all this way to give me advice on my and their love life?”
“We’re talking about two of my dearest friends. You’re damn straight I came all this way for that. Ships come and go, kid. Friends, like them, like Gary, are the real assets.”
The younger Kirk asked a question.
“Gary? Gary Mitchell?”
“So you do know him.”
“Yeah. My first year roommate at the Academy. Fell for this little blond lab tech. Quit Starfleet to be with her. I think they have a kid already.”
The older Kirk chuckled.
“Buy the kid clothes. You don’t want to know want to know what he’ll do with a Tinkertoy set.”
“Gotcha. Okay. That’s why you’re here. So...how?”
The older Kirk seemed to struggle with his words.
“In the multiverse at large, almost all versions of James Kirk that resemble me, or I them, at some point enter a place where time really flies wild. Eventually, we leave it. Whatever our fates after that, in each case, we leave a reflection of us behind. This is usually in the very late part of this century.”
“But you also know things that only someone who lived in your Spock’s time would have had access to.”
“Another captain–a great man–ends up there, too, in that other place. Part of his memories stay with us, in addition to those of the handful of versions of us that lived after leaving that place. One found his new time overwhelming, and just asked to be let off somewhere, the way Zeph, err–like Robinson Crusoe. One gads about, helping out where he can. One version sees the other captain die, and takes his on command and crew in tribute and gratitude. There aren’t that many, even by eternity’s standards, but they are a part of me too.”
The new Captain Kirk nodded.
“So you are those reflections, passing through to, well, where exactly?”
“That one gets really complicated. Suffice it to say, the omniverse has a clearing-house for bad probabilities and grim intentions, what we might call Evil. Wherever wrongs are left unresolved, and vengeance unsated, those pathways lead to a kind of funnel universe. On the bright side, people aligned with what we’d call Good are, if you will, tapped on the shoulder and asked to serve to finish off that Evil once and for all. Its not a nice place, but the trick of it is, you’d assume upon seeing it that it was the same as most other worlds. A threat that is no threat at all in other places rises to be a power of satanic and eschatological proportions. I was able to come here because you are vastly unlikely to enter that same temporal anomaly. I think Nero’s interference may have altered its course away from known space.”
The younger Kirk clearly grasped the concepts his older counterpart was speaking of. Then again, the older one mused, how could he not?
“So its some kind of Armageddon universe, and you’re to be the Captain Kirk there.”
“Me? No. I am the accumulated reflections of James Kirk at a certain point in his career. I’m to be a great-uncle to the man there. My nature will mean that I may retain certain memories of who I was, and use them to help Jim–and his kids. They’ll need it. If you thought your stepfather was bad....there are parents there that make him look like Jonathan Kent.”
The older Kirk began to fade, and now the younger wished they had more time to talk.
“Thanks for stopping by, Jim. Good luck with the Anti-Whatever.”
“Just keep my advice about the lady. Find something, anything, you have in common, and build on it. Lover or friend, it will make all the difference. And no desk jobs. Leave that to Chris. Tell Spock : Always. Just always. He’ll understand. And I...I feel...oh my...”
The older Kirk vanished, and in his place was a portal, not passable, but visible. The younger Kirk could not fight the urge to peer through it.
“...through to him sometimes, I....Captain?”
Kirk was back, sitting in his chair. He was also shaking, and very pale.
“Uhura...over there. We have to talk.”
At a remove which offered some hope of privacy, he related most of his bizarre encounter to her. She shook her head.
“You want me to contact Elder Selek?”
“Yeah. Definitely. I almost wonder why he didn’t go to him, instead of me.”
“Maybe..you needed it more. Spock said that he was told that your counterpart didn’t ascend quite so quickly. That’s not a shot, but maybe it gave him some perspective.”
Uhura still saw Kirk was upset.
“You said you gazed into the portal. What exactly did you see?”
Kirk waved his hand around, trying to spit out what wanted to stay in his gut, and the back recesses of his brain.
“Imagine if WB Yeats, HP Lovecraft, Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Traus of Andor all sat down and got high for about a week. Then imagine they mind-melded. Then imagine what they’d jointly see as they suffered withdrawal, while watching a documentary on the Book Of Revelations. What I saw had three snaking heads, a bifurcated tail, and looked like it was constructed in Hell itself.”
He could see that she too, had a vivid imagination.
“Well, I wish him and us well in that other place.”
He still looked shaken. Whatever her conflicts with the man, she clearly didn’t like seeing this, and so kept on, while adding a gentle quip.
“Maybe you’ll even have a better pick-up line, when we first meet there.”
He clearly appreciated the effort.
“He also said that you should be patient with Spock. The one he knew tended to push people away unconsciously. At least as a younger man.”
A look of pleased surprise came over Uhura’s face. Perhaps, Kirk thought, she had taken Spock’s distance as deliberate, and liked this ray of hope.
“Well, I hope I don’t see my counterpart. I have a definite thing about aging. Also, if everyone from that timeline is coming over, we’ll have to order more red potato salad.”
Kirk shook off his funk.
“Red Potato Salad?”
“Yeah. My favorite, but not his. Vulcans almost all prefer the mayonnaise kind, made with egg substitutes, of course.”
Kirk nodded.
“I have a temp-sealed stash from Ernie’s Deli on Lombard Street. Both types. Consider yourselves - both of you - invited to my cabin. And just to be sure, the invite only applies to both of you at the same time.”
“It’s a deal–provided I can get him. Meat substitutes only, though.”
“No problem. Ernie happens to be a Vulcan.”
They both laughed at that, and Kirk saw that perhaps some of the damage done had been repaired. She sat down to make contact with the other Spock, while the new Captain of the Enterprise found that, for some reason, he was measuring the size of his gut.
“Maybe not too much potato salad....”
