She doesn't die instantly.
Even that small mercy is denied to her, and to her watching lover – the one who has sent her to her death, to save a world.
"Do you know what you just did?" McCoy rants.
Jim, his eyes fixed on what is left of that very unusual woman he loved, does not, cannot, answer. So Spock does.
"He knows, Doctor."
The oblivious doctor only glares at him, and tries to push his way through the gathered crowd.
"Get out of my way! I am a doct-"
Spock grabs him before he can get more than a few steps in.
"We have to go."
"What the hell d'you mean, she is…I can still.."
"You can. That is the problem."
Even here, without any of his equipment, there are things the surgeon from the twenty third century can do. At the very least, keep the misguided 'First Aid' attempts by the crowd, doing more harm than good, at check.
"Don't move her, you idiots!" McCoy yells to the crowd. "If there's internal damage-"
Fortunately, no one listens, and the doctor cannot escape from the Vulcan's iron grip.
"Silent, doctor! That is an order. I would prefer not to incapacitate you."
Jim does not say a word, just numbly allows Spock to lead him along. For now the Vulcan is in command. McCoy stares at him, but does not argue. Perhaps it is Spock's tone, the freezing coldness that is as close to anger as he would ever let himself get. More likely it is the look on Jim's face – the lost, bewildered look that convinces McCoy that yes, Jim did know what he was doing, and it has nearly killed him.
"Spock, what…"
"I will explain later."
None of the crowd notices them leaving, and they are able to make their way to their lodgings undisturbed. By now Jim has begun to recover – at least, he no longer looks like he's about to faint. McCoy, to his credit, has the common sense not to say a word till the door is closed and locked behind them.
"Why doesn't the Guardian pull us back?" Jim demanded. His voice is shaky, choked with tears that he will not let himself shed. "Haven't we done what it asked? Didn't we set it right?"
"I believe our part is done, Captain. The delay is possibly because…Because Miss Keeler has not died yet. That should be the moment the timeline is fully restored."
"She's not dead yet." Kirk whispers. "Edith…Oh God."
Spock places a hand on the young human's shoulder, letting the worst of his grief and pain siphon off into him. He can't shield Jim from this pain, and knows better than to even try. But he can help. McCoy has stepped forward to join them too. The doctor is still bewildered, he has no clue what is happening, or why. But he knows that his friend needs all the help he can get right now.
"Jim…"
Kirk straightens up, shaking his head as if he would shake off the fog of pain upon him.
"Spock. Find out what happened to her. Where they took her. They must have taken her to a hospital. Is..Did she suffer? Did she see us.. Did she see me stopping Bones? Go find out."
"Captain, that will-"
"I have to know. I need to know just what I have done."
Spock tries to protest, but Jim silences him with a look.
"I need to know, Spock. It's a human thing – when we don't know exactly what happened, we have a tendency to imagine the worst. I would go myself, but I don't think I can…I..I guess that's a bit, maybe a lot, cowardly, but.."
"It is not."
Jim is trying to phrase it like an order, but a plea is what it is. Spock may have argued with an order, but he cannot argue with the pain in Jim's eyes.
It doesn't take much effort to find out where Miss Keeler has been taken to. One of the other inhabitants of the shelter, who was also part of the crowd that had gathered around the dying woman, told him readily enough.
Spock has an idea that many of these people find him intimidating, even threatening. The tall stranger with dark intense eyes that seemed to see too much. Or perhaps some hidden part of them sensed that he did not belong to their world, that he was an alien here even more than his companion was.
Several of them had higher than average ESP ratings, he had noticed. He could hear them – minds constantly sending out a shriek or a moan of bewildered pain, trying to drown their talent in alcohol and drugs because they could not live with it.
For him, that is the worst part of this unplanned sojourn to the past – not the indignity of menial labor, as it is for the captain, and not the cold of twentieth century North America, as Jim fears.
The so-called indignity doesn't bother him – it is simply something that must be done, and the very undemanding nature of the work is to their advantage as he can work on his calculations for the mnemonic circuits mentally at the same time.
The cold is a nuisance, but one that he can adjust his metabolism to handle. In the long term it could be a problem, but for the time, it is perfectly in control.
What hurts – yes, he has to admit it does hurt – is the minds. Here in the twentieth century, they will have no one to teach them to shut out the chaos of other minds, to shield themselves, to control and actually use them. They are helpless – suicide, addiction or madness the only paths open to most of them.
It is even worse because he knows what is coming. Their future is his past, and he knows well enough what the next few years would bring. They would be called away, to the battlefields or the hospitals, the worst places for an unshielded telepath to be in.
They will answer the summons too, all of them. Those with psi-potential are irresistibly drawn to causes, and this world war, unlike the one that preceded it, would have a cause worth fighting for.
Perhaps that is the reason ESP is noticeably rarer in the twenty third century than the twentieth. Perhaps they were an unmarked casualty of the world wars.
…..
The hospital where Edith Keeler has been taken to is…disturbing, even to Vulcan sensibilities. He is very relieved that the captain did not choose to come after her himself. Or Dr McCoy, for that matter. Even with his shields, the miasma of pain and hopelessness almost makes him wince and step back.
Hopefully, this hospital is not an example of the average 1930s hospital. After all, if he remembered the terran history of this time right, the equipment and efficiency of hospitals (and other institutions) varied widely according to the region and according to the economic class which depended on them. Edith Keeler was not a rich woman, and this is certainly not what would be called 'a good area' of the city.
He is out of place here too, of course, but the staff have no time to notice. The patients and their companions are too pre occupied by their own plight to spare any attention towards a stranger.
Nurse Hartfield almost brushed past the man without answering, but he didn't look like one of those lowlifes she usually had to be on the guard against.
"What do you want?"
"I am looking for a patient who was brought here approximately thirty five minutes ago. One Miss Edith Keeler, victim of an automobile accident."
Hartfield took a second look at the guy. You didn't meet many here who talked like that.
"Approximately thirty five minutes ago. Good approximation."
He doesn't reply, just looks back with calm, steady eyes. that is another unusual thing – you don't get that calm look here, either, unless the patient in question is drugged out of their skulls. This guy doesn't seem to be on anything.
An undercover cop, maybe? He did have that aura of authority about him, the attitude of a man who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed. Undercover cop, she decided, then amended, undercover military cop. May be one of those fancy FBI or CIA or something. That Keeler woman must be a bigger deal than she seemed..
"Madam, if you could direct me to Miss Keeler's room…"
"She's in ward three. That's where the goners are put – the ones who haven't got a chance anyhow. No point wasting time on them. If she's a witness or something, you better hurry up. That girl won't last more than an hour."
"Is she conscious?"
"Oh, we got her hooked up on morphine, but not too much. Not enough to knock her out – if we give her that much she'd be dead." Hartfield shrugs. "She's dead anyway."
He is not sure how effective morphine is as a painkiller, but Edith Keeler is certainly conscious and coherent as he looks into the ward. She catches sight of him. There is recognition in her eyes, and she makes an attempt to say something. Ask for someone, perhaps?
There are almost no attendants in this ward, forget doctors. As the nurse said, the limited resources of the hospital have to be directed towards those who could be saved. These people are left alone to die. Even if the young woman was a complete stranger, Vulcan custom dictates that no one should be left to face death alone. He moves silently to her side.
"Miss Keeler."
Her body is broken, torn apart, but her face and eyes remain untouched. Even through the glaze of painkillers, she is fully able to recognize him.
"Jim…" her voice is so weak that a human ear could not have caught it. "Why…Why did he.."
He realizes that, as usual, Jim has guessed right. She did see what happened, and she knows that the man she loved killed her as surely as if he were the one driving that truck.
"He had no choice, Miss Keeler."
There's no chair for visitors. He kneels at her bedside so that he doesn't tower over her.
"No..choice? Why? Were you…Was he…Was he paid to…kill.."
That possibility gives her more pain than her fatal wounds.
"No." He hesitates only a moment before making the decision. "Miss Keeler, you have little time left. I can give you the answers you want, but we donot have time to do it in the conventional manner.. There is a method I can use-"
"If..If you can explain..explain this…do it anyway you please."
"Do you give me permission?"
"Yes…"
Skin contact is essential for a Vulcan mindmeld. Skin contact at meld points on the face is preferable, but not essential. It would make this easier, but it could well attract unwanted attention here. Holding Edith Keeler's hand, however, would simply look like the normal gesture of a deathbed vigil.
…
"When you said we did not belong in this city, you were more right than you knew."
The pain is fading away. Not the way the morphine made it fade, but as if she is moving away from it, leaving it, and the drugged confusion, behind. Edith's eyes widen as she finds herself standing in the middle of a strange oval room. One lined with machinery and windows…No, screens… Outside, millions of points of light decorated a velvety darkness.
"This is where we belong, Miss Keeler."
Her gaze travelled over the room, taking in the metallic grey of the walls, the red-gold-blue of the…uniforms? Were they uniforms of some sort? There was an aura of cheery, brisk efficiency about the place. There was no trace of military discipline without its accompanying rigidness. Young men and women, all at work at machines she couldn't begin to understand. Then she froze as she caught sight of the man in the central chair.
"This is why I call him captain."
Jim is dressed in a gold uniform, with golden braids proclaiming his rank. The lost, longing look that had filled his eyes so often in the time she knew him has vanished. Here, calmly surveying the others – his people, they are his people, she knows that without needing to be told – he has a smiling, contented look, the look of one who is in the place for which he has been designed. This is where he belongs.
"Jim…"
She tries to step forward, call out to him, but he seems unaware of her., as does everyone else in this strange, brightly lit yet mysterious world.
"He cannot hear you, Miss Keeler. This is merely a memory."
Spock is standing at her side. Turning, she finally catches a glimpse of him without a hat on, and stares.
"You are…aliens?"
"I am. The captain – Jim – is human."
She looks at the strange man before her, taking in the sharp outlines of his face and figure which would be devilish if not for the eyes, and the gentle touch of his mind upon hers. He is dressed in a blue uniform – there is gold braid on his uniform too, but only two stripes. He moves to a vacant console. She follows, baffled.
"We are in your mind, aren't we?"
"Yes. These are my memories. This is the future – the future that was and now, would be again."
There are no words in the conversation that follows, only ideas that flow directly from one mind to the other. As he promised, Spock explains their mission, the calamity that brought them to a world centuries behind them. Finally, Edith steps back, her eyes wide at the implications of what she just heard.
"So…If I had lived…If McCoy – Dr McCoy – had saved me.."
"You had the right idea" Spock's calm voice assures her. "But at the wrong time."
"Jim. Heavens…That explains the way he looked.."
She looks back at Jim's figure in the Command chair. She turns slowly, looking at this world, Jim's world.
"We are out among the stars. The stars. You… You come from somewhere out there.. All these people.."
There are almost as many women as men on the..what's the proper term…Bridge. The command center. A Japanese man sits before a panel blazing with lights.
"Lieutenant Sulu, our Senior Helmsman."
The boy next to him says something – she doesn't understand the meaning of the words, ETA and parsecs, but she catches the Russian accent.
"Ensign Pavel Chekov. Navigator."
A beautiful black woman murmurs something into the console before her.
"Lieutenant Uhura. Chief Communications Officer."
She watches them all, drinking in the sight.
"We…We won, at last. It took centuries, but we won. All of us."
"Yes."
He looks at her like someone taking his little sister on a museum tour.
"Would you like to see what Earth looks like in the twenty third century?"
She begins to nod, but some internal clock tells her that time is running out.
"No. Can you show me your world? Your home planet?"
"Vulcan."
In the blink of an eye, the Bridge and it's people vanish. Edith finds herself standing on the sands of a world never imagined in her time. Spock is at her side. Her guide.
Behind them, the land is desert, painted in harsh shades— red and gold and shades of ochre, with here and there some greenery poking up. Beyond it she can see black, jagged mountain ranges reaching for the sky. A sky that is orange red, and blazing with a fiery light of a different star. Before them, though…
"The city of ShiKahr" Spock says. "My hometown."
The place looks like a neat, orderly oasis in the midst of the desert. There's a wide band of vegetation, a park, forming a boundary between the city and the desert. The plants aren't all green. There are shades of purple, of dark red, of amber. The gates of the city tower over them beyond the greenbelt.
"No sentries."
"There are automated defenses. There has to be – the desert contains a great many predatory species. If any wander down here, they are captured automatically in the forcefields, to be released farther out into the desert later."
The buildings, the ones that she could see had a strange mixture of utilitarianism and sheer beauty. Geometric, regular buildings. None of the dirt or even the hustle and bustle of the city she knows. The cities of her time. This one is a logical city designed for relentlessly logical inhabitants. An alien world, alluring in its alienness and its beauty.
Then she finds herself standing in the courtyard of one of those mansions, a human woman seated near a pond, reading something. Beside her a man who looks a great deal like Spock stands, silently watching the garden around him.
"My parents."
"Your…She is.."
"I am half human."
Another facet of the strange future. The woman looks up and says something to her husband, he replies. The words aren't clear, but her radiant smile, and the look in his eyes that answer her leave little room for doubt how these two beings born of different worlds feel about each other.
"So many worlds" she whispers, her voice hushed in awe.
The vista changes, melting and re forming into the image of a different world. This one has fields and fields of violet grain spreading out before, and beings which walk on two feet but are covered with a silvery coat of fur wander among them.
"La'Rassia. One of the neighboring planets."
The images change, again and again, as worlds unfold before her. Worlds which Jim and Spock have seen, have set foot on, in more than one instance, saved. Finally, they are back on the Bridge. Aboard USS Enterprise. She turns towards Spock, her eyes shining with tears of awe and delight.
"Tell him. When you go back tell him. If I had known this back home, back in my time, that I would have doomed this, doomed this all, I would have thrown myself under that truck. Tell him no one's life is worth this world. Worlds."
"I will."
She feels a change beginning, and intuition warns her what it is. Spock, looking at her, nods calmly.
"Yes. It is time."
She tries to smile back bravely but can't stop herself from asking one question more.
"Spock… Have you…In the future… has anyone found what comes after?"
She expects no answer, but there is one. He looks at her with that intent, X-ray gaze of his as he speaks.
"There are differences of opinion, and there are terrans – humans – who decry the idea of Afterlife. But my people have found proof – proof that certain cultural barriers prevent us from sharing wholly with other, non telepathic races - that death is merely the cessation of existence for the body, and not for the..Essence. The Katra, the Soul. It is not destroyed. I don't know what exactly comes after death, but I know that it is not oblivion."
She keeps her eyes on Jim as she fades, as he gently breaks the link between their minds.
Melding with a dying mind is disturbing. It takes him a few moments to orient himself. He catches a glimpse of Edith Keeler's face, wearing a delighted smile at the moment of death, something which those who would come to attend to her body would remark on. Then the world whirls around him as the Guardian reaches out across time and space.
….
"Let's get the hell out of here." Jim says.
As he reaches for the communicator, he looks at Spock, his eyes asking a question. Spock nods. They will talk later, he will explain later, back aboard the Enterprise. Back in their own world.