When I wake up, he points out the building I was taken to when I first arrived, and says they'll remind me where I live. I nod, and I thank him, and I leave. His roommate pretends I'm not there.
--
I run into him again after that. Two days later, at the same bar. Apparently, it's a favorite of his.
He's up at the bar, talking with a group of cadets. His roommate sits next to him, downing drinks and poking holes in Jim's tales.
I sit at a back table and watch.
--
He does talk to me. That's the weird thing. His night proves to be unsuccessful, and his somewhat-more-sober roommate practically carries his ass out. Before that, though, he pauses at my table.
"In eight years, I'll have my own ship. I want you on it." His voice is surprisingly steady compared to his shitfaced expression and total lack of coordination.
"Doing what?"
He shrugs. "Doesn't matter."
"Okay."
They leave. I find a new bar. Another week passes. Eventually, I'm offered a job teaching history at the Academy, because, according to the Admiral with the weird hands, "you lived it".
Which, frankly, is bizarre. I think I have a clear understanding of the past five years, but before then, it's all a little fuzzy.
Still, it's something to do for the next eight years. Or, far more likely, the next sixty, seeing as I really doubt Jim will remember me or care in eight years, and there's no way he'd drag me on his ship to do nothing.
--
On my second day of teaching, my supervisor asks me to tell the class about what it was like growing up during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. That's when I realize I'm in a kind of alternate history.
It doesn't matter. A quick Google-equivalent later, and I'm up to speed enough to bullshit the rest.
--
I stay at the teaching post for a month. During that time, I learn three things: First, history professors, when given a living, breathing historical artifact, don't like it when said artifact tells them that most of their perceptions of the time period they specialize in are dead wrong. Second, kids in the twenty-third century are a thousand times smarter than kids in the twenty-first. And third, it's very easy to sneak onto a shuttle if you have a Starfleet cadet's uniform, but a lot harder to sneak onto a ship.
