I really shouldn't be posting a new story because I already have like three in progress and one on haitus, but I am, so... Anyway, here goes my first Star Trek fanfic! :o) An au of the 2009 movie starting just after Jim and Scotty beam up to the Enterprise. My Generations fix-it :o)
A/N 11/17/16- So, slight summary change. I lost my original summary, and I just now remembered what I was going to do for the section on Spock lol. :o)
Chapter One: I Want to Meddle Like the Old Man I Am
Admiral James T. Kirk was highly annoyed. He was supposed to be dead. He was not supposed to be back in the goddamned artificial contentment of the goddamned Nexus. And now he sounded like Bones. Just great. He should be in the afterlife, or whatever happens after you die, with Bones, and maybe Spock if he wasn't still alive, and the rest of his crew. Not taking out his frustration out on a fake woodpile with a fake ax next to his fake cabin on this fake planet. The next stroke of the ax went halfway into the stump as Jim let out a yell of frustration.
Stupid wood. Stupid Nexus. Stupid him for getting himself stuck here in the first place. He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten back here after he died outside of it. Jim was well and truly stuck. Which was not acceptable. He didn't believe in no-win scenarios. Another thought struck him and he felt like banging his head on the wall of the cabin for not thinking of it sooner.
Maybe I can get myself out.
After all, Picard, the new captain of the Enterprise, had virtually wished himself out. There was absolutely no reason why Jim couldn't do the same. That left the problem of where do I wish myself to? Where indeed. It had been seventy eight years since he'd 'died' so Bones would be dead by now, along with the rest of his command crew, except perhaps Spock. There was always the chance that given the Vulcan life-span, his old friend was still alive. Now all he had to do was concentrated on Spock, and maybe... Admiral James Tiberius Kirk vanished from the Nexus for a second time.
Ambassador Spock gave a small sigh as he looked to the transporter pad where the younger versions of Jim Kirk and Montgomery Scott had just vanished. The sight of this new version of his old friend was both gratifying and saddening. That was not his Jim. Spock was stuck here. This universe where Vulcan was gone, and Jim had never known his father as a result of his failure of epic proportions.
To make matters all the worse, he was alone in this new timeline. He felt the absence of his friends all the more acutely now that he was in a place where they still existed, and yet were not they as Spock had known them. They were completely lost to him now, Dr. McCoy and J- A voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Well someone looks like their puppy's been run over." Came an all too familiar voice from behind the Ambassador. Spock turned, and for just a moment, pure shock flitted across his features. For standing there, looking just the same as when he'd left was-
"Jim." This was impossible, it defied all logic, and yet here he was.
"Hey Spock. Would you mind pinching me?"
"Pardon?" Asked Spock, raising an eyebrow.
"Pinch me," Jim repeated, "Otherwise I have no way of knowing if this is real or not. Where I've been, there is no pain, only artificial contentment. So, pinch me."
Spock, acting on autopilot, pinched him on the arm. Jim yelped, then grinned, punched the air and did a happy dance.
"Ha! Take that, you stupid Nexus! You've lost your hold on this old captain, and you're never getting me back!"
Spock, who was still attempting to get over his shock, put a hand on Jim's shoulder, halting his happy dance.
"Jim," he said, "I must admit that I am at somewhat of a loss as to how you are here. I see you, I am currently touching you, and yet... I do not understand how this can be possible."
Jim gave him a smile and put his own hand on Spock's other shoulder. "You have and always shall be my friend Spock. Just as I have and always shall be yours. I'm real, I promise you that, old friend."
"Jim," Spock said again, with emotion that surprised even him, and to Jim's obvious shock, Spock put his free hand on the admiral's unoccupied shoulder and drew him into a tight hug. Jim hesitantly hugged him back, and Spock could tell that he was somewhat disconcerted at the amount of emotion that Spock was currently displaying. His control was slipping, and they both were aware of that fact.
"My God Spock," Jim muttered, "how long have I been gone? What's happened since then?"
Spock pulled back, and held up his hand to his friend's face, silently asking for permission to initiate a meld. Jim nodded, and Spock's fingers found the meld points.
In the meld, Spock showed Jim what had occurred after his supposed death. As Jim had apparently hypothesized, the rest of his friends were all gone, and spock shoved down the highly illogical hope that any of them might turn up. It would not do to give Jim false hope.
Dr. McCoy had been lost around five years after Jim in a transporter accident due to an ion storm. When an alternate version of the doctor had failed to make an appearance, he was assumed to be deceased. Two years later, Uhura'd vanished during one of Mr. Scott's experiments, and he'd followed soon after, sucked into a black hole in a shuttle while trying to figure out how to get her back. This was also how the exact properties of red matter had been discovered. It was more than three decades after that, when Chekov was killed during a diplomatic mission gone sour. Sulu went peacefully in his sleep ten years later, leaving Spock to be the last of the command crew alive.
Then, Spock showed Jim Romulus being destroyed, Nero and his thirst for vengeance, the black hole, Spock coming through it just to find Nero waiting for him, and being stranded on Delta Vega. Vulcan's destruction, the overwhelming feelings of guilt and grief, finding a younger Jim about to get eaten and saving him. Being told that the younger versions of himself and Jim hating each other and being shocked, going to the outpost and giving a younger-Scott his equation for transwarp beaming years early. Watching the younger versions of Mr. Scott and Jim beaming away to save the world, and lastly Jim, his Jim, beaming at him and requesting to be pinched.
In return, Spock received from Jim everything that had happened to him. Finding himself chopping wood at the cabin and Jean Luc Picard finding him after what had been only minutes for Jim, but seventy eight years for the rest of the world. Leaving with the new captain of the Enterprise, helping to save the world again, getting crushed by the bridge and thinking that now at least he'll be joining his friends.
Finding himself back in the Nexus and being furious because hadn't he just gotten away from this artificial world? Remembering how Picard had gotten them both out and picturing Spock on the off chance that he'd still be among the living, the bolt of pure, unadulterated relief that shot through him when it worked.
I grieve with thee, was passed between them as the meld ended.
There was a moment of silence, then a grin broke out across Jim's face. This was the kind of grin that (not that he'd ever admit it) made Spock nervous, because it meant that his friend was up to something.
"You gave Scotty his equation for transwarp beaming?" he inquired a touch too gleefully, "And told me junior to take command of the Enterprise?"
"That is correct," Spock told his friend, and he would've gone on to explain his really very logical reasoning behind his decision making, but Jim resumed speaking.
"Well, now, it's my turn!" Jim pronounced all too cheerfully.
Spock raised an eyebrow. "I beg your pardon?" he asked.
"I want to go meddle like the old man I am. The time stream's all ready whacked up, so what could possibly go wrong?"
Spock opened his mouth to tell Jim what all could, exactly, go wrong, and in great detail, but Jim apparently guessed what he was about to say, and continued talking before a single word came out.
"If you get to do it, so do I," Jim persisted stubbornly, "I want to be back on my Silver Lady again, even if it's just for a little while, and I at least get to tell them to blast the Botany Bay when they find her."
Spock sighed internally, knowing that if he refused to accompany his stubborn friend, Jim would simply go anyway.
"Very well," he most definitely did not sigh, "Let us go 'meddle like old men."
Montgomery Scott had had a, let's just say, interesting day. There he was, minding his own business on that godforsaken outpost, on that godforsaken ice planet. Then came the highly irregular Vulcan guy from the future and the lad, who apparently needed to take command a starship. This is because, as he finds out, Vulcan was now a black hole, most of Starfleet's graduating class is dead, and apparently weird-Vulcan-guy-from-the-future knows him.
And also the equation for transwarp beaming that another version of Scotty apparently invented. And as if that wasn't enough, when he and the lad (Jim Kirk was his name) and he beamed aboard the Enterprise (one fine ship, she was) he ended up in a water tube and nearly died. Just brilliant. Then, Scotty got thrown into a batshit-crazy-but-also-ingenious plan to take down the batshit crazy Romulans from the future.
And now this. He's just successfully beamed away Jim and the Vulcan that he'd emotionally compromised, Commander Spock. Within a second of them disappearing, two new glimmers began to materialize on the pad. One materialized without a hitch, but the other kept flickering, and a third appeared flickering in and out. Finally the second and third disappeared completely, and left the first on the pad.
"Wha' the bloody hell, was tha'?" Scotty demanded of the elderly Vulcan who remained. "An, wha're you doin' here? Ah thought you were stayin' on Delta Vega?"
Uhura and McCoy both looked at him like he'd grown a third head. "You know this guy?"
"Aye, he's the one who gave me mah equation, ya know, fer transwarp- oh, sorry." Scotty cut himself off with an apologetic look to the Ambassador.
"It is quite all right, Mr. Scott," the Vulcan reassured him, "An old friend of mine turned up, and he wished to do further 'meddling'. However, he seems to have been misplaced, and I, too, am most interested as to how this has occurred."
Scotty cleared his thoat. "Righ'. Well, if Ah dinnae know better, which ah do, by the way, Ah'd say that the malfunction was the result of an ion storm, but-"
The Ambassador held up a hand. "Say no more, Mr. Scott," he interrupted looking contemplative, "I believe that I may have a theory as to what has transpired. I will look into it. However," the Vulcan glanced around, "I believe that you all need to get back to the bridge to be ready to assist your acting captain and your Mr. Spock. I believe that, given their absence, they are currently aboard the Narada?"
Scotty thought that there was something a bit off in something that he'd said, but he didn't have time to think about that now. The old Vulcan's words had galvanized the Doctor and the Lieutenant into action and they almost ran to the turbo lift. Deciding that if he had to explain, he most certainly wasn't doing it alone, Scotty grabbed the Ambassador's arm and dragged the Vulcan along with him.
Nyota Uhura was confused. She'd never seen a transporter behave in such a way before, and the Vulcan that had materialized was even more mysterious. He looked like an older version of Spock. In fact, if Nyota hadn't just met Sarek, she would've assumed that the elderly Vulcan was Spock's father.
Added onto that, was the fact that he had apparently given Mr. Scott the equation for transwarp beaming. That, along with Scott's surprised words, meant that he'd been on Delta Vega. What had this Vulcan been doing there in the first place? Nyota was also very curious as to how, exactly, one's friends randomly 'turned up' on ice planets and managed to convince a Vulcan to come with them to 'meddle'. She knew first hand just how stubborn they could be.
Nyota exited the turbo lift onto the bridge, and hurried to her station, ready to receive the word that Kirk and Spock were ready to be beamed out. At the same time, she kept an eye on what was happening. Scott had somehow managed to manhandle the Vulcan elder on to the bridge (Nyota suspected that the Vulcan'd let him) and Dr. McCoy was now staring at him with his arms crossed.
"So," the Doctor said, "You're the one who got Jim back on this ship from the ice planet the hobgoblin stranded him on?"
Nyota could swear that the elder's eyes had begun to twinkle the moment that McCoy said the word, hobgoblin. Strange.
"That is correct, Doctor," he said, "and while I do have a story to tell, I believe that it might be better told after I am able to locate my wayward friend. If I am correct in my theory, than-"
What ever he was going to say, Nyota never found out, because at that moment, from inside the Vulcan's parka, came the soft found of someone singing.
The elder's eyebrow rose and his eyes seemed to twinkle all the more, as he took out what looked like an antique radio out of his pocket. The voice was singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat witch, had the whole situation been any less baffling would have made Nyota laugh. She was jerked out of her musing when the Vulcan spoke into the radio.
"Have you lost your Vulcan mind," he said in a complete monotone.
McCoy's eyebrow shot up and he looked at Nyota. She shrugged. She had no idea why any Vulcan would say such a thing. Not to mention that she distinctly recalled the Doctor saying exactly the same thing, albeit with much more inflection, to Spock, after he'd marooned Kirk.
"That would be illogical," a grumpy voice snapped back, happily, if such a thing were possible. More bewildered looks all around.
"Doctor," Vulcan said, his eyes still twinkling, "I am...pleased... that my hypothesis regarding the transporter mishap appeares to be correct. Is-"
The 'Doctor' interrupted him. "Ya, he's here with me. We landed on some wacko ship with these crazy Romulans with tattoos, so we had to barricade ourselves in someone's quarters. The doors are clear for some reason. I dunno why, but-"
"Doctor," the elder interrupted calmly, though he did look faintly alarmed. This, Nyota could understand. It sounded like this Doctor guy, and the other person with him were aboard the Narada.
"Right, sorry," grumble the Doctor, then he shouted, "Hey, get over here, I've got the hobgoblin on the line!"
Both of Dr. McCoy's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, and Nyota blinked in surprise. Puzzle pieces were beginning to arrange themselves in her mind. The way that the phrases these two men used (the first baffling interaction, Nyota realized must have been some sort of password system) so greatly mirrored that of Doctor McCoy and Spock. And what Spock himself had said about Nero, and the possibility that he came from the- but no. That was impossible. Wasn't it?
What was said next gave Nyota her answer.
"What are you doing?" asked the Doctor. There was the very faint sound of a door sliding open, shutting, and locking. "Just where do you think that you're going?" he demanded, and Nyota realized that he was talking to whoever was on the Narada with him.
The Vulcan elder looked vaguely concerned. There was an inaudible response and the Doctor exploded.
"What?! No! Have you lost your goddamned mind?! JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK, GET YOUR ENTERPRISE LOVIN ASS BACK IN HERE RIGHT NOW! THIS IS NOT THE DAMN TIME FOR YOUR GODDAMN HEROICS, YOU MORON, YOU ARE NOT A STARSHIP CAPTAIN ANY MORE! YOU'RE TOO OLD FOR THIS, YOU'RE GONNA GET YOURSELF KILLED! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?! JIM! Goddammit." The last but was muttered, and he proceeded to his continue his rant but muttering it.
Nyota occasionally picked up tidbits like: that idiot, ...get himself killed, and :...believe he locked me in here, damnit.
The bridge had gone dead silent, everyone staring at the elderly Vulcan, and the radio in his hand. Dr. McCoy was the one to break the silence.
"What in the the blue blazes is going on here?!"
Nyota thought that summed up her thoughts rather nicely.
I hope that y'alls like it so far. Next chpt. should be coming soon hopefully. Sorry not sorry for the kind of cliffy... Reviews are greatly appreciated. Both constructive criticism and questions welcome. Happy reading!
-Crazyreader out.