2252
Carol Marcus is a freshman at Starfleet Academy, and knows no one. Sat alone at a table in the dormitory, she is consulting her class schedule on her pad, when she hears footsteps and male voices heading in her direction. She looks up and sees them: Two young men, cadets like herself, talking and laughing. They see her.
"Hi!" The small word just bursts out of her mouth, totally spontaneous. A bright and friendly smile from her, and they smile back.
"Hello," one of them, the one with with lighter coloured hair, replies. "Are you...new around here?"
"Just arrived. I don't really know anyone. I'm Carol, by the way. Carol Marcus. Pleased to meet you."
The one who replied reaches out, takes her outstretched hand in his, shakes it firmly. Strongly. "Jim Kirk. Pleased to meet you, Carol." There's a sparkle in his eyes as he talks, a very confident and alluring sparkle.
"C'mon, Jimmy boy!" his companion interjects. "Ruth'll be waiting for you, and you don't want to disappoint her!"
"OK, Gary," Jim reaponds. As they walk away though, he glances back and says "See you around, Carol."
Over the next few years, they continue bumping into one another sporadically, exchanging pleasantries. She joins him and his friends for breakfast or lunch sometimes. He cheats on the Kobayashi Maru test, and is nearly expelled. She finds it both disappointing and exciting somehow.
OOOOOOOO
2258
It is Carol's first day of assignment as captain's yeoman on the USS Alexander when she sees Jim Kirk again for the first time in nearly four years. He is standing on the bridge when she reports to the captain, and their eyes meet. She gives a knowing smile and, to her pleasure, he returns it.
"Yeoman?" The captain abruptly breaks in on her thoughts, returning her to the real reason she's here. "Is something the matter? You seem...distracted."
She clears her throat before replying. "No, sir. Sorry."
The first chance she gets, she drops by Jim's quarters. "So, you're first officer now," she says, sitting on his bed. "Congratulations. I expect you'll have your very own command before long." She pauses before adding "I heard about what happened last year on the Farragut, at Tycho IV. It sounded awful."
Jim, standing nearby, lowers his eyes as he remembers. "I hesitated," he says. "And because of my mistake, people died...including Captain Garrovick. It makes me wonder if I deserve to be here at all."
Carol does not speak as she rises from the bed, walks over to him and gently clasps his hand in hers. No words are spoken between them; none are needed as their lips meet and convey the longing both of them feel.
OOOOOOOO
2260
Carol's thoughts refuse to let her sleep. She lies in bed next to the sleeping form of Jim, going over and over in her mind the events of earlier. The attack by the raiders on the Alexander; the explosion that killed two crewmen and flung Jim against a bulkhead; seeing him comatose in sickbay as the doctor treated on him. This isn't the first time he's been in such deadly danger, that's for sure. Other times will no doubt come.
Her thoughts shift to the child in her womb, the existence of which she only discovered days ago. And she wonders: Is this the life I want my child to be part of? Jim could've died today; some of us did. Jim will want our offspring to follow him...Can I let that happen? Follow him into such a dangerous life?
He doesn't know what they have created together when she suddenly resigns her Starfleet commission the next day, telling him that she can no longer be with him. He only knows that she is not part of his life anymore. Their son is born eight months later. Carol names him David. It will be some years before Jim discovers that he is a father, and some years more for David to discover who his father is.
OOOOOOOO
2285
It isn't fair.
This is what Carol thinks as she sits at home and watches Jim on the news channel, smiling and waving at a cheering crowd as he leaves the Federation Council, having been exonerated by the President. She watches and thinks: You bastard. How dare you smile, how dare you rejoice, after what I've lost...what we've lost.
Looking back, she considers that she first started vaguely feeling this way after Khan Noonien Singh viciously murdered her friends at Regula One. She never got to see their bodies, give them a proper farewell; they were utterly destroyed when Khan set off the Genesis Device. Not really Jim's doing...but Khan had only been able to do that because, all those years ago, Jim had chosen to wake up that insane monster and then not lock him securely away, even though Jim knew how dangerous he was. He knew! But no, he just left Khan to his own devices on a planet, where anyone could find him and give him his freedom. Because of that decision, too many people were now dead. That was when the resentment started growing within her, though she stifled it.
She sees Spock on the screen. Spock, who died, but lived again on the Genesis Planet. Jim's old friend, for whom he stole the Enterprise and went back to Genesis to bring home. But David, her son...Jim did not save him from the Klingons who killed him on the planet. As with her friends, she never got to see David's body; it was left to burn up with the rest of the planet, as Jim beamed safely away with Spock. He should have beamed David's body up too, so he could have a proper funeral. Instead, he just abandoned his son to the fire...
And now he not only has Spock back, but he and his crew get a new ship, a new Enterprise! Back to coasting through the galaxy, having fun adventures, and he's glad. Never mind that his son is gone forever, so long as he's still the big-shot space hero. "Damn you..." she sobs, fully welcoming the hate she now feels for a man she once loved.
Jim tries to contact her occasionally. She has nothing to say to him.
OOOOOOOO
2293
James T. Kirk, the legendary hero, has gone missing on the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B, and is presumed dead. He who cheated death so many times will cheat no more, it seems. People sometimes ask Carol Marcus how she feels now that he is gone. Alone in her life, Carol says nothing.
All is done...