Jessie and Steve came down to the Transporter Room five minutes after McCoy and Spock left. Allison and Michael were standing behind the transport console, talking to Scotty, while Lia was reading something on a padd.
"You!" Jessie growled as soon as she saw Allison.
Allison looked up. "Nice to see you, too."
Jessie didn't know whether to hug her or punch her. "How could you do that to us?"
Allison played innocent. "Do what?"
"You know darn well what I mean."
Allison stepped away from the transporter console. "Let's just say I was helping my long-lost family." Then she grinned and lightly punched her half-Klingon friend in the arm. "And fixing a continuity error."
Now Jessie was hopelessly lost. "Say what?"
"Don't worry about it," Michael said. "We didn't really do much. Even though what we did was necessary."
Scotty just stared as the strange banter went back and forth. He didn't have a clue what they were talking about. He knew that they were from the twenty-first century, and that they knew almost everything about the twnety-third century (specifically, the Enterprise and its senior crew), but he didn't have the slightest idea what they were discussing.
"Spock admitted to helping you out," Steve said. "How'd you ever convince him?"
Allison's smile faded somewhat. "Accidental revelation during a mind-meld session. Sorry about that. But hey, at least I didn't botch the time line or anything."
"Oh, is THAT all you're concerned about?" Jessie asked sarcastically.
"Mainly. Plus the fact that it wouldn't be very good if Jim died. He's fairly important to the time line you know." Allison winked.
"Heck, yeah," Michael said. "That's the biggest understatement of TWO centuries!"
~~~~~~~
Spock and McCoy beamed up a while later with a somewhat confused Kirk in tow. The asteroid diverted, the crisis over, Spock was ordered to his quarters on medical orders and Kirk was practically dragged down to Sickbay. McCoy was going to look him over and make sure he hadn't been too badly hurt by the stones that the Indians had thrown, since Kirk naturally wouldn't admit to any pain or injury anyway.
Allison stood by the door of the examination room as McCoy finished fixing a rather large bruise on Kirk's shoulder. McCoy kept up a steady stream of gripes and curses, while Kirk mostly ignored him.
"There ya go, Jim," McCoy said, handing Kirk a new uniform. "Now just change into that, and you'll be back the way you were two months ago."
"Thanks, Bones." Kirk shrugged into the gold shirt, having changed his trousers earlier. As he pulled the shirt over his head, he noticed Allison. "Just dropping in to see me, ensign?"
"Something like that, Captain." She walked forward a little, her green-gray eyes unreadable. She held a padd in one hand. She held it out to him. McCoy watched in curiosity as Kirk took it and read the highlighted entry. Slowly, he looked up at her.
"Are you sure about this?"
"Affirmative."
McCoy watched them closely. With both in the same type of uniform, it was actually easy to see the similarities between the two. Same shade of hair, same hair style, same height...both had odd, color-changing eyes that reflected their moods...
Allison gave Kirk a hesitant half-smile. "I suppose you can call me 'Aunt Allison' now?"
For once, Kirk's gift of the blarney abandoned him, leaving him completely speechless.
~~~~~~~
The next day found Allison back up on the bridge at Navigations, for the first time in two months. Hikaru Sulu was a bit relieved to see that she was all right, having heard she had left the ship for so long. Chekov gave her a similar welcome, gladly giving over Nav to her and going back to Security.
The other two ensigns got similar reactions from the people in their departments. Spock greeted Lia, and May practically hugged Lia to death and then yelled at her a bit for leaving the ship without warning. Michael went back to Main Engineering and found Lieutenant Kyle and several other redshirt friends of his, and they exchanged stories of what had happened to them until Scotty came back and started them in on another surprise drill.
Midway through beta shift, Kirk came to Allison with a data card. He didn't say anything, just left the card with her and gave her a mysterious smile before leaving the room. Curious, she put the card into a padd and activated it.
In accordance to her actions on Planet Miram III, Ensign Allison L. Danks is hereby promoted to Lieutenant...
~~~~~~~
"So...Lieutenant, ja?"
Lia, Michael, and Allison were all in the Rec Room during delta shift, playing cards with Chekov. All three time travelers had a new stripe on their sleeves, which drew quite a bit of attention from some of the other junior officers.
"Yep." Allison tossed in a few poker chips. "I'll see your five."
Chekov turned over his cards. A pair of fives.
Allison grinned and showed her cards. A pair of sixes. She swept up the poker chips with a flourish and pulled them toward her end of the table. "Anyone care for another round?"
Chekov groaned. "Nyet. You alvays vin."
Allison's innocent grin got wider. "Ain't it the point? Besides, I could always order you to play another hand."
Chekov groaned. "Don't remind me. Besides, I do not vish to anger de Kyptin's Great-Aunt." The last part was said with a wink.
Allison raised an eyebrow. "It's said that the only thing that travels faster than light is gossip."
"So you're not de Kyptin's Great-Aunt?"
"No, I'm his great-great-great-great-great-aunt." She grinned again. "It's pretty complicated, but the short version is that Jim is my older brother's great-great-great-great-great-grandson. After World War Three, my family relocated to Iowa and set up a farm in Riverside. A few centuries later..." She shrugged and made a there-you-have-it motion with one hand. "Behold a starship captain. Directly down the line from son to son, and so on. Except that it was Jim's mother who is in my family line instead of his father."
"Bozhe moi! That is, in your century's idiom, freaky."
"You said it," Lia said, shuffling the cards. "I almost had a heart attack when I first heard the rumors. I mean, come on! It seems impossible that someone like her could be related to so famous a man. And let's not go into a matter of ages..."
Allison raised an eyebrow. "What? The fact that he's seventeen years older than me, but I'm well over two hundred years older than he is?"
Michael mimed his head exploding. "Let's not think about such paradoxes, shall we?"
"Agreed."
Right then, the comm unit whistled. "Bridge to Rec Room," Uhura's voice came through the speaker. "Message for Lieutenant Danks."
All three poker players looked over at Allison. She shrugged and hit the switch. "Lieutenant Danks here."
"The Captain wishes to inform you that the Enterprise is headed for Earth at Warp 5, ETA two hours. He wants you to be ready on the Hangar Deck when we arrive."
"Acknowledged. Danks out."
"Never rains but it pours, eh?" Lia asked Allison.
"Vita brevis. Make the most of it," Allison replied. Chekov gave her an odd look.
"You know Latin?"
"A little bit."
"You DO know that Latin has been extinct for nearly three centuries..."
"Yes, but tempus fugit! One century can seem as short as ten years."
"That is true."
"Plus the fact that I've made a hobby of learning languages. Vulcan, Romulan, Spanish, French, Latin...I know enough of most of them to hold a decent conversation." Allison's eyes shone in amusement. "Of course, my entire Russian vocabulary consists of about four words...but I'm sure you'll help me fix that, right?"
Chekov immediately perked up, his Russian pride showing through clearly. "Of course! After all, Russia was the first country to have a language at all. We Russians inwented all the great literary works in history, including the idea of spaceships. It all started back in Siberia, during the Ice Age..."