"You're buying junk now?" Bones rolled his eyes and pointed at the dusty chunk of rock his best friend had carted back to their temporary living quarters.

"It's not junk." Jim Kirk looked down at the odd tablet he'd found in the small curio shop just off base. "It's an artifact from before the Eugenics Wars. It was found in ruined portion of London. It's unusual because of the runes."

"Give the thing to Spock or Uhura." Bones smirked. "They might understand it."

Jim glared at him and gathered the stone to his chest. Bones managed not to chuckle at his truculent expression. It was best not to piss off the Captain especially if you were forced to live with him while awaiting new orders.

"I'm not stupid." Jim glared at him and hefted his stone up higher against his chest. "I don't need Spock or Nyota to figure this out."

"Sure you don't, Jim." Bones shook his head. "You're a Captain, Jim, not a linguist."

"I may not be a linguist, but I can read. A stone doesn't talk." Jim stood up and left the room with his precious slab of useless granite.

"Thank our stars for that." Bones chuckled as he sipped his Saurian brandy. "If he thought the stone was talking to him, we'd be in real trouble."

Jim Kirk pushed his research notes around on his desk and frowned. He'd tried several different approaches to translating the runes on the stone, but none of them had worked. He was certain the stone was a piece of bluestone from Wales. The tricorders had told him that before they'd burned out. He didn't look at the seven fried scanners. He'd given up on that line of inquiry.

He considered going to Spock. The Vulcan was brilliant and would probably recognize the runic language instantly. Involving him was the smart thing to do, but the very notion of letting him near the stone was repellent.

"Bones is right." Jim pushed back from his desk. "There is something wrong with me. I'm obsessing over a rock."

He stood up and looked around the room. There were actual notes written on paper he'd replicated taped to the walls. His main screen had a map of prewar London on display. He'd been looking for any buildings made with this stonek, but he'd found nothing.

There were those stones in Wiltshire, but Stonehenge was a long way from the city street. He'd searched for any mention of similar stones but come up empty. He pushed his fingers through his hair and let out his breath slowly.

Every failure he'd had over the last few years, every stupid mistake, played through his mind. He didn't enjoy the periods between missions. He needed the myriad issues that arose while he was on ship to keep him from slipping down the what if rabbit hole.

He knew that hindsight was perfect. He didn't need Bones to tell him that. He knew he wasn't the fastest, strongest, or smartest person in any room. He didn't need Spock to tell him that. He knew he wasn't perfect. He didn't need Uhura to tell him that.

He'd always believed he had something special to offer. He'd been brash and determined. He'd been a fool.

He was just a man with a legendary father. He rushed in when others examined situations carefully. His life was a mess. He needed his ship. He needed the endless minutiae of his job to distract him from his failings and from the foreign blood coursing through his veins.

Kirk paced back to the stone. He'd gone to the stupid shop with some woman he'd met in the park. She was blonde and bland, but she might have occupied his attention for a time if he hadn't found this stupid rock.

He'd seen it there, covered in dust. The card explaining its provenance had captured his imagination. This stupid rock was a relic of a time before he'd failed, of a time before Khan and his kind had battled for supremacy. He'd wanted it as a symbol. He'd never intended to analyze the thing. Bones' snide comments had fired him up in a way nothing else could have.

He lifted the rock and held it close to his chest. It was odd that he found the rock comforting. It was a hunk of stone with some nonsense carved into it.

"Keep your secrets." He rested his chin on the top of the rock. "You're a door with no key like that story Mom used to tell me. Most doors used to have keys, but every so often a man would come across a door with no key and no lock. He had to know the magic word, but it wasn't 'open sesame' or 'abracadabra'. It wasn't even 'please'. It was a weird word, like a Hawaiian greeting with legs. 'Alohamora'."

He felt something tingle along his spine and shoot down his arms. He grimaced as blue light shot from his hand and soaked into the rock. He stood up and set the thing down on his desk.

The whole thing began to glow and a strange scent filled the air. He rubbed at his nose and blinked. The stone appeared to be melting. He looked around the room in a panic, but the only thing melting was the stone. He took a deep breath and relaxed. It wasn't some hallucinogenic burning through his system.

The odd silvery liquid that was formerly rock coalesced into the form of a tall, angular blond man. Jim blinked and rubbed at his eyes. The figure seemed to be almost solid.

"Hello." The figure spoke with an English accent. "I imagine you're somewhat panicked. The work that went into this was rather delicate and mostly lost to time. I had speeches and explanations planned, but I imagine Hermione will be able to explain most of it. In a minute you'll find that you know how to find her. The vaporized memory will settle into your mind. This pensieve and the keystone will help her catch up. Tell her I was wrong. Tell her I should have turned my back on tradition." The figure appeared to take a deep breath. "Salazar, this is hard. I know she'll watch this. I know she'll grimace at the sight of me." The figure fisted his hands and then released his grip. "Hermione, I did my best to give you lot a chance. There is so much I want to say, but it feels wrong to burden you with my feelings. I loved you. I still do. I chose safety and my family. I did what I thought was best. I know it was the wrong choice. Regrets have defined my life. Be well and be happy."

The man disappeared, and Jim blinked. He felt an odd pressure in his head. He rubbed the space between his eyes as the sensation became painful. Bright flashes of a brunette woman laughing flared in his memory and caught his attention before they faded.

He took a deep breath and realized he knew how to find her. He knew how to save her. He stepped next to the odd stone bowl and plucked up the blue key stone. It wasn't tiny, but it would fit in his travel bag with a week's worth of clothes well enough.

"I'm crazy." Jim looked down at the stone in his hands. "This might be Khan's blood. What if none of this is real?"

He set the stone down and took two steps back from it. He could hear her laughter and see her smiling face, but he didn't know her. He'd never met her.

"Hermione." He licked his lips nervously. "I guess I'd better have Bones come along. What if you're hurt?"

Bones frowned as Jim paced around the shuttle cabin. He glanced at Spock and saw the Vulcan's eyebrows raise ever so slightly. Watching Jim come apart at the seems wasn't supposed to be part of their leave.

"If we can't resolve this, I will gave to file a report with Starfleet Medical." Bones fussed with his bag. "They might ground him."

"That is a possibility." Spock never took his eyes off Jim. "Our captain often acts rashly, but he does not do so without a reason. We must see this through to understand what is driving him. Worrying about the outcome may be premature."

"So, you think we're going to England to find some woman that Jim knows but has never met?" Bones felt the urge to pace himself. "Why did I think bringing you along was a good idea?"

"It was unusually logical behavior for you." Spock glanced at him. "Perhaps you are both altered in some way."

Bones bit back the comment that sprang to mind. There was a slim chance Spock might be more useful than he was irritating. He glanced at the Vulcan.

"A damn slim chance." Bones grumbled and turned his gaze back to his troubled friend. "A damn slim chance indeed."

Author's Note

I was innocently working on a different story when James Tiberius Kirk started poking around in my brain. I tried to make him fit into my other Star Trek crossover, but he was having none of it. My muse seems to have a crush on him at the moment, so here we are.

Hope you enjoy it.

-Anna