A/N: Oh, wow! I was blown away by the amount of story alerts and favorites on the first chapter -- thank you! Anyway, here goes the second part.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Trek. Also, what's funny to me may not actually be funny.
Please let me know what you liked/didn't like/hated with a burning passion. It really helps me figure out the direction of a story. Thanks for reading!
II. Mirror, Mirror
In Which Jim is Grateful for Safe Sex Education
The first thing to seep into Jim's consciousness was the unnatural absence of beeping life-support sensors, the muted noises of a busy sickbay, and Bones cussing him out. Instead his ears were treated to the faint trill of whistling.
What the hell?
Forcing his eyes open, Jim took a moment to center himself. He was lying in bed -- not one of those scratchy medical cots, but an honest-to-god mattress with a headboard and springs and everything. His head throbbed. The pressure wasn't unbearable; of more immediate concern was the fact that his uniform was missing and he appeared to be wearing flannel.
Oh, right. The fucking cottage, the river, and that guy who looked like . . .
Jim propped himself up on his elbows, wincing as the motion jostled his abused cranium. Someone was still whistling cheerfully, albeit terribly off-key, and it took a surprisingly long time to pinpoint the source.
A floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace (and who used fireplaces anymore?) dominated the opposite wall, and pale orange light illuminated the sturdy figure standing in front of it. The man's face was turned from Jim -- he appeared to be absorbed in feeding logs to the flame -- but Jim stared at him anyway, drinking in what features he could.
Medium height; the compact stature of a once-athletic body that was way past its glory years; light, wavy hair washed through with grey . . . he could see just the edge of a Roman nose and a strong chin in profile, and Jim's breath came a little faster.
No way, no way. He's dead. You know damn well that he's dead. There's no way ---
He must have made some sort of involuntary sound, because the man instantly twisted around. The full impact of that face, the striking features rounded and softened with age, rendered Jim unable to stop gaping.
If the man was disturbed by the persistent eyeballing, he gave no indication of it. "Welcome back, young man," he said warmly. His voice was raspier than Jim had expected. "How's your head feeling?"
"Uh, okay, I guess."
"I wish I had painkillers on hand for you, but I'm afraid I don't even have aspirin tablets. I'll get you some water."
"I think I've had enough water, thanks."
The man smiled easily. "I suppose so."
Jim struggled to sit up; the man came forward to rearrange the pillows, and Jim got a closer look at his face. Laugh lines, fucking crazy sideburns, and hazel eyes.
Hazel eyes.
"Are you alright?"
Jim couldn't answer, too consumed by his own absurd disappointment. He knew what his father had looked like -- he'd seen the holos, even though his mother tried to ferret them away -- and George Kirk had definitely had blue eyes, the eyes that made everyone look at Jim and see his father instead.
"You might have gone down harder than I thought," the man said quietly, somehow managing to sound both amused and concerned. "Try not to die on me."
"I'll try," Jim snapped.
There was a slight pause, but the silence wasn't uncomfortable. Damn, this was so familiar, like they'd had this conversation a hundred times before -- but Jim'd never met him before today. He was sure of that.
"So," the man began, too casually, "I don't get many visitors out here. Just passing through?" His gaze was direct, evaluating, and Jim had the uneasy sensation that he was being interrogated. Very politely interrogated.
"You could say that. Where is 'here'?"
"To tell the truth, I haven't quite figured that out myself, Mister ---?"
"You can call me Jim," he offered, feeling generous. After all, the guy had probably saved his life by fishing him out of the water , although he never would have fallen in the first place if he hadn't been distracted.
The man stiffened, one hand still propped on the pillows. "Excuse me? Your name is Jim? Short for James?"
"Um, yeah."
"Christ, why does this keep happening?" the man mumbled under his breath. Then he chuckled, a breathless sound that didn't have a lot of humor in it. "May I ask who your mother is?"
Jim didn't think it would hurt anything to tell him -- let the guy have his jollies. "Winona Kirk."
A strangled gasp made Jim lean back against the headboard; the old man was glaring at him, and Jesus, was that some glare. It would have done Spock proud.
"I don't know if you think you're being funny, but I don't have time for amateur comedians," the man said coldly. "Who are you really?"
Jim matched his tone with studied insolence. "I told you my name is Jim. Captain James Tiberius Kirk. Listen, Pops, I don't have any reason to lie to you about who I am. And who the hell are you anyway?"
"James Tiberius Kirk."
"I already said that," Jim said, deliberately using his 'smart-ass' voice. "Is your hearing going or something?"
"My name is James Tiberius Kirk -- Admiral Kirk."
Jim laughed. "No offense, old man, but I think you're a little confused. We can't both be James T. Kirk. It's impossible."
Just like it's impossible for two Spocks to exist in the same place at the same time? a little voice in the back of his mind drawled.
"I take that back," Jim said numbly. "Maybe it is possible." He ran one hand through his hair, studying his counterpart with a dawning sense of awe. Admiral Kirk? Holy fuck, he was an admiral? Either he really made something of himself in the future, or Starfleet really lowered their standards. "I think we're both telling the truth."
"What's the current stardate?" the admiral inquired in a way which implied that he still thought Jim was full of shit.
"2261.34."
The admiral blinked once. "Oh," he said weakly. "That . . . that doesn't make much sense, actually."
"Why? What date is it here?"
"I thought it was around 2293."
"229 . . ." Jim trailed off. "So somehow you're thirty-two years ahead of time . . . Wait. Oh, fuck. I know what happened."
Honestly, what was with all these future-selves appearing in the past? Or in the alternate past, if one was to get technical about it. This guy was old Spock's Captain, the one he'd seen in the meld on Delta Vega. This was James T. Kirk, from a different universe, maybe, but still him. There was no use denying it, or telling himself it was insane -- he felt the truth of it.
"Okay, bear with me," Jim said, spreading his hands wide in a non-threatening gesture. "I'm gonna sound like a crazy man for a minute, but to the best of my knowledge, I'm telling the honest-to-god truth."
The admiral nodded, looking skeptical but much calmer than Jim thought he ever would if their situations were reversed. Sitting down on the edge of the mattress, he straightened Jim's covers fussily and wrapped himself in a blanket in the manner of a man steeling himself for something mind-blowing.
"Um, I'm James Tiberius Kirk, like I said, but I'm a James Kirk from a different -- dimension? Timeline? I'm not sure what to call it yet, but you get the idea. Anyway, somehow our two dimensions seem to have intersected at this point. I don't know why."
"Different dimensions?" the admiral said.
Jim knew what he was asking. "It sounds nuts, I know, but I've seen this happen before -- I met someone else from your timeline. See, this Romulan sort of tried to destroy the universe a few years ago, but he was from your time, not ours. He broke through a time-warp vortex and ended up in our universe. We almost didn't stop him. It's how I got the Enterprise, actually."
"You're in command of the Enterprise? How old are you?"
Jim tried not to scowl. "Twenty-eight, thanks. And how old are you?"
The admiral laughed a little. "Point taken. My apologies -- and I'm sixty, I think."
"You think?"
"Well, I seem to be in an alternate dimension right now, so you'll forgive me if I'm not up with the current time-flow." He frowned. "And why would this Romulan end up in a time-warp vortex at all?"
"One of Romulus's suns was going into supernova, and it ended up destroying the planet, and there was a black hole, and Nero and his ship just kind of . . . fell through it and into our universe."
"Romulus was destroyed?"
Jim studied the other man warily, but the admiral's astonishment appeared to be genuine. "Did that not happen in your time? It should have." God, could there be a third dimension out there, and this really wasn't Ambassador Spock's Jim, but some other Jim? His head hurt just thinking about it.
There was a furrow forming in the admiral's brow. "When did this happen?"
Jim struggled to remember what the ambassador had told him about the incident. "Stardate 2371?"
Hazel eyes flew open, widening incredulously. "Are you sure?" he said urgently.
"Yeah."
The admiral looked stunned. "My God. I had no idea . . .It's so . . . the time is so . . .dear heaven. . . ."
Jim cleared his throat. "I suppose it's a bit of a shock." He glanced around, soaking in the comfortable, lived-in feel of the bedroom. "You look like you've spent some time here. It's nice and everything, but I have to get back to my ship soon, so . . . you wouldn't happen to know how to leave, would you?"
"I'm afraid not," the admiral said ruefully, pulling the quilt tight around his shoulders. "I should know -- I guess I've been here long enough."
"How long?"
"Seventy-eight years," was the soft, resigned answer.
Jim felt the first icy tendrils of fear stirring in his gut. Shoving himself up from the bed, he paced over to the window and let his head drop against the frame.
In the natural order of things, he should have already been back in Sickbay, getting yelled at by Bones after Spock had rescued him from whatever-the-hell-it-was that had it in for him that particular day. It was a routine, a necessary act in the farce that was his life, and everyone knew their parts and played them with the ease of repeated practice. Only now some asshole had rewritten the script without telling him. He was stuck this time, really stuck, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do. And to make things even weirder, he was trapped forever in purgatory with himself. It was hard to judge whether that particular twist of irony was the universe's way of indulging narcissism or whether it was just punishment for being the cockiest bastard in the galaxy.
From the expression on the admiral's face, Jim figured that the same thing must have occurred to him.
"How could you -- I mean, seventy-eight years, that's crazy."
The admiral shrugged. "As far as I knew until today, I'd only been here a few months at most. It's only when you mentioned the stardates that I realized . . . I probably would never have known otherwise."
Jim took a second to process this. "So time passes at a different rate here?"
"Perhaps. Or perhaps the surroundings are manipulated to make it seem so." There was a trace of bitterness in the man's voice. "Some paradise. Entire universes could collapse and you wouldn't know it -- wouldn't know that you should be dead yourself. Forced to stay young while the people you love grow old."
Well, aren't I a cheery ball of sunshine in my golden years. "I guess so." He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants. "So how do we get out of this place?"
The admiral just gave him a look. "Do you think I'd still be here if I knew that?"
Jim winced. Okay, not his brightest moment, but in his defense he'd been unconscious barely an hour ago. Bones's caustic voice popped unbidden into his mind: Dammit, Jim, if you get one more goddamned concussion, I'm gonna staple your brain to the inside of your skull.
"You don't have a stapler, do you?" he blurted out.
The admiral stared at him for a moment, and then chuckled. "You sure did hit your head, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe you should come lay down for awhile."
When Jim didn't move, the admiral grinned. "I don't have a stapler, so you're safe; I'm not sure where I'd get one anyway -- those things are antiques."
Jim walked over to the fireplace instead, testing the strength in his legs. Staring at the orange and gold flame, an odd question popped into his mind. "Hey, um, Kirk, when I first woke up, why did you ask who my mother was?"
The admiral's round face took on a ruddy overtone. "Well, the physical similarities are quite striking, and what you called me before. . ."
"You thought I was your son? If that was the case, wouldn't you have, y'know, known about me beforehand?"
"You'd be surprised."
Jim rocked back on his heels. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you implying that in another universe there are bunch of little illegitimate Kirks running around?" He didn't know whether to be impressed or freaked out by the thought.
The older man sighed, a long-suffering sound that reminded Jim oddly of Chris Pike. "Just one, actually."
"Just . . . I seriously have an illegitimate kid? Man, I was just messing with you . . ."
"Seriously. It was a bit of a surprise for me too."
"A surprise, huh? Didn't Mom give you the 'no glove, no love' speech?"
The admiral's eyes narrowed, and Jim suddenly decided that maybe he should build up the fire. Moving quickly to the safety of the opposite wall, he took his time picking out the perfect logs from the bin and didn't come back until that dangerous glint had left his counterpart's eyes.
"So if you have a kid, are there any grandkids in the future?" The notion was strangely appealing to Jim -- Grandpa Tiberius had been an awesome old coot, and at that age a guy could do any random eccentric shit and blame it on senility.
"I'd rather not dwell on it," the admiral said quietly.
Jim felt an explicable tug of grief in his own chest and took a few hurried steps back, wondering where that sensation had come from. "Oh. I'm sorry."
"No harm done. It's just difficult to talk about."
"Did something . . . ?"
"David's dead." The admiral was gazing down at his shoes, his back curled with tension. "He died before I really had a chance to get to know him."
"That's completely fucked up," Jim murmured sympathetically, that weird little pinch of sorrow fluttering up inside him again, before a horrible thought struck him. "Wait, if the timeline's -- what if I have a kid and don't know it? Oh, my God, I'm a father!"
The admiral's no-nonsense voice cut through the beginnings of a serious panic attack. "Not unless you've slept with a woman named Carol Marcus."
"Carol Marcus? Are you fucking serious? You slept with Carol?"
"She does exist in this timeline then."
"Yes, but no way did I sleep with her! Ugh, she's like . . . she's like my little sister." Jim shivered a little. "She was our neighbor's daughter -- I've known her all my life, and I'm not into incest. And I always use sperm inhibitors before doing it."
"Well, congratulations, you're not a father," the admiral said briskly, poking at the logs to encourage the fire.
Jim sagged down into the mattress with a gusting breath of sheer relief. Thank you, Mom, for that humiliating safe sex lecture. Getting slowly to his feet, the admiral folded the quilt and tucked it at the foot of the bed. "I'll let you get some rest while I make something to eat."
"I'm not tired." It was an automatic response, honed to perfection after years of being confined to bedrest by Bones, but once he said it, Jim was uneasily aware of how childish it sounded.
His other self seemed amused. "I'm believe you aren't -- but the two of us always feel better for the rest in the end. Trust me, I know."
"But . . ." There were still so many unanswered questions. He had no idea what this place was, or why it was here, or why he was here, or why his other self was here, or where the Enterprise was, or whether anyone was still looking for him, or ---- goddammit.
"Just sleep for a bit. I can heat up some soup; it's about the only thing I can cook."
Nothing to do but give in with good grace. "Sure. Can you make --?"
"--Syrucuisan snapbean soup?" the admiral finished for him. "Of course."
Jim stared at him. "That is so creepy."
"So perhaps our preferences are the same, even across time," the older man mused. "We can compare notes later. For now, try to give your brain a chance to heal." With that, he left the room, closing the door gently behind him.
Jim waited until the steady footsteps died away before he slipped out from beneath the covers and wandered over to the window. It was twilight, and the sparsely-wooded hills around the cabin looked exactly the same.
He shivered, pressing his nose against the glass as he strained to see up into the sky, irrationally hoping for a glimpse of his ship. The crew were up there somewhere, looking for him, and they'd find him; they always did.
He tried not to think about the fact that apparently, in another universe. they hadn't.