Torch at the Crossroads: Act IV

Few of Diana's adversaries had been quite as menacing or cruel as Circe. The goddess had been the lover of Ares himself and had been responsible for raising him from obliteration more than once. Over the years, they had fought both clandestinely and out in the open. The goddess of magic had given Circe the blessing of immortality, the power to manipulate the energy in the air around her, and countless other skills. Diana had nearly died facing her. She had always known that there was the possibility she was still alive. Somewhere.

But, she never expected to see her on the far reaches of space, taunting her and draped across the seat of power on the Enterprise as if she owned it.

Diana scowled. "I should have been more specific with my prayer to Athena when I banished you from earth."

Circe laughed, a low rumble. In one of the few times the League had run into her, Barry had said she put the "fatal" in femme-fatale. Men and women alike were enthralled by the low, sultry tones. "Oh, yes, I'd say so. If you had wanted me gone forever, I recommend banishing me to the opposite end of the galaxy next time. Not that you'll have the opportunity." She checked her nails, a magically immaculate manicure reminiscent of claws. "I'm sure you know that the gods don't care about any of us anymore. Or you've killed them all."

"I can assure you, if the gods are dead, Circe, I had nothing to do with it." Diana forced herself to remain calm, even with her heart pounding. The woman across from her may have seemed like an easy target, but she held incalculable power in her hands. The goddess Hecate had promised Circe to be the very avatar of her soul. It was probably why Ares had taken interest. "And since I do not see Ares here," Diana motioned around the room. "I have to assume that he is dead or has abandoned you. Neither of which are my doing."

Circe sat up abruptly, nearly flying out of the chair. "You get my husband's name out of your filthy mouth!"

"He was my brother, and he was a killer. I have every right to say his name." Diana took a step closer, even as she caught Kirk also advancing out of the corner of her eye.

"You traitorous bitch, you have no right - " The goddess began, her violet eyes flashing.

"Circe." It was Kirk who decided to break the tension, risking her wrath before Diana could warn him against it. "The only reason you're here is because I asked Diana to bring you here. If you turned my crew to stone, then I'm only going to ask once that you fix it." He clipped the last two words with the time kind of determination he had levied at Romulans and the protestors. "And while you're at it, you can get out of my chair."

The goddess laughed again, throwing her head back and kicking her feet with glee before she turned her full attention to the captain. "Oh, how amusing. What a cute little mortal you are. Do you honestly think you could make me do anything with that little toy in your hand? Would you anger the goddess of magic?"

Diana turned to face Jim, but he was still trained on Circe. There was no bluffing in his body language or tone. "I'm willing to take that chance," he replied.

"Oh, I'll bet you are… Captain." Circe purred, amused.

While Diana knew she could handle anything Circe threw at her (at least she hoped), she felt nothing but dread at the very notion that Jim was now in her crosshairs. For a brief moment, she wondered if Circe had been the one to scheme and set Jim Kirk before her. But, the way she ran her gaze over the captain told Diana one thing: Circe saw a new opportunity before her. Not one she had created herself.

She pivoted the conversation, hoping to keep Circe from scheming any further. "How do the Altheans fit into this? Did they know you would attack their new allies the moment we left?"

Sighing dramatically, the sorceress finally stood and relinquished the chair so that she could stand face to face with the Amazon. "Oh, of course not, Diana. You are the most ignorant goddess I have ever had the misfortune to know, are you aware of that?" Before she could reply, Circe waved her hand and kept going. "They have no idea I'm there. The fact that it felt like getting dropped onto Gorgon Island was… convenient, but not orchestrated. So, I kept quiet and nudged them to worship me through Etaceh." She laughed. "They already gave my patron power, but then I could divert it to me. Which made me stronger." Circe turned her attention back to Jim, sauntering over to him even as she spoke to Diana. "You know something about belief, don't you, Diana? I know you spent your time on Earth keeping your lineage a secret, but this one…" She pointed at Jim. "He knows. I can smell the fealty coming from him."

Jim furrowed his brow, but remained silent. The captain of the Enterprise didn't rise to bait so easily. Nor did he back down when his crew was at risk.

Diana wanted nothing more than to rip her away from him, but until she could understand the breadth of her power, it was foolish to react that way. What was worse: her words made sense. That was what she had felt before she summoned Circe. Jim was giving her faith… as a goddess. He probably hadn't even recognized what he'd done. She'd never known what that boost in power could feel like. Was this worship the drug my father drowned himself in until Ares stole it away?

"He's not the one you want. You clearly came here for me." Diana reminded the woman, hoping to steer her away from Jim. "So, now you're here and you've cursed all of these people with Medusa's gaze. Why?"

"At first, I was just going to do it until it stopped amusing me." Circe purred. "But, when I realized you had actually grown to like these mortals, I knew it would hurt you." She shrugged, glancing down at her nails again. "I have to give them credit. That doctor nearly ruined all my fun. I had to turn him early on, or he would have found a way to counteract the curse. The Altheans were right about one thing: pharmakeia." She dragged the word out in disdain.

"Medicine is simply potion-making, which means it's magic. Just as they believe. He was onto a solution." Diana finished the thought, momentarily relieved that McCoy had been so close. Her heart sank when she realized it had been too late. "Doctor McCoy is a very talented doctor. He was more than a match for you. Now…" Diana took a step closer to press the issue. "What will it take for you to restore them?"

With a graceful, slow pivot, Circe faced Diana. Her next words were deliberate, measured, and taunting. "A snap of my fingers."

"Great, then I'd appreciate it if you get snapping." Kirk quipped.

"Oh, I'm sure you would," Circe cooed. "And to be honest, if you didn't have Diana onboard, I probably would have just let you all go once my fun was over. But, things have changed." Circe quirked an eyebrow and faced Jim. "You've changed things, Captain."

"Me." Jim repeated, careful to hide his confusion.

By the gods, she knows. The thought crossed her mind before she could shove it down. She was sure the fear flickered across her features as well.

Circe peered deep into those blue eyes, smiling. "Oh, yes. Captain." The way she kept speaking the title and not the name was an intentional jab. She was testing Diana. She wanted to know how far they could leave the resemblance unspoken.

"How…" Diana trailed off, but it was too late. The question had been asked, and Circe would choose to divulge or would torture her enemy with the information.

"Ares trusted me with his resurrection, Princess. You don't think in a hundred years he wouldn't tell me about the precious mortal that brought you to him? I have seen what Ares has seen, as was his gift to me upon his return." Circe knew everything that Ares had learned of Diana while he was Sir Patrick Morgan. No wonder she had always seemed to know how to strike at the Amazon's heart in their battles. "I only wish I'd thought of this sooner."

"He is not your concern, and he is not who you think he is." Diana said, firmly. She pulled her sword from its scabbard, leveling it on her. "And I am tired of your games. You will release the crew of the Enterprise and you will leave Althea."

"I will do neither!" Circe laughed. "Tell me, who did this? Is he a gollum? Or perhaps you used Gorgon's blood. Did you raise him with unholy magic yourself?" The witch turned her full attention to Kirk and began to circle him.

Jim held his phaser tighter, but to his credit, didn't risk firing on her. Instead, he turned his attention to Diana. "Diana, what is she talking about?"

"Jim, please, I will explain later - "

Circe whirled on them both. She had moved to in front of the viewport, as if a great stage to perform had been presented to her. "He doesn't know!" The goddess howled with laughter, chilling Diana from head to toe. "You haven't told him? Oh, this is too rich. And here I was just going to kill him so that you'd have to watch. Just like I watched you kill Ares, trapped on my island, all those years ago in Man's first World War. But, now? That would be all too easy. And I don't think it would make you suffer, not the way I want you to."

"I'm starting to think this wasn't such a good idea," Jim spared a glance over at Diana, concern written on his features, then he turned back to Circe. "You're crazy."

"Sticks and stones, Captain, sticks and stones." Circe purred. Diana felt the magnetic charge in the air as Circe's fingers began to weave intricate shapes at her sides. "I can think of no revenge more sweet than to give you that which the Fates have seen to lock away."

Diana took a step forward, ready to strike. "Circe, don't you dare - "

The ancient dialect of Circe's spell struck Diana's senses so hard her ears rang and her bones ached. The words were old, older than Themyscira, but somehow, she understood them.

Circe's hand rose up, outstretched at Jim Kirk. In a moment, he was pulled off his feet and into her violet, magical grip. Her hand tightened on his neck as her other hand raised high in the air.

"I seek to bring forth that which the Fates have woven. I summon the Thread of this vessel!" Jim seized up in her grip, eyes wide with shock and an assault of magical energy. Circe snarled, invoking the last of the spell. "See the Tapestry that was your life, James Kirk."

Circe's hand, glowing brightly with magical energy Diana had seen all too many times, came up to Jim's face and covered his eyes. She forced the dark energy into his mind as if it was nothing. "Time for you to remember." She hissed in English as the energy swelled. She hurled Jim across the bridge, watching him land with a decisive thud against one of the consoles.

Diana whirled, the cold fear quickly extinguished by righteous fury. "What have you done to him?!" She shouted, leaping over the helm console and swinging her sword.

A blade of pure magical light met Diana's blow. Circe laughed, all too eager to torture the Amazon. "Reincarnation is a funny thing, isn't it, Diana? The same atoms, the same thread the Fates have woven, all the pieces were right there, but he couldn't see them. Locked away for eternity on his next turn at the spinning wheel, and I just picked a lock forged by Hephaestus himself."

Diana's eyes widened as her enemy confirmed exactly what she had feared and hoped for.

Was it true?

"The only problem is," Circe cooed. "You can't have two lives in the same body. You're going to watch it rip him apart."

Diana screamed and kicked off of the viewport, decking the goddess in the jaw and sending her careening across the bridge.

His ears were ringing. He felt hot all over. The core… ship… safe… I'm scared, Spock… teach me how not to be...

The air was thin. Couldn't breathe. Radiation. No, the altitude. Deep breaths, steady hand on the trigger.

Better to die saving lives… No more screaming children. No more mothers without their sons. Than to live with taking them.

Wait. He wasn't dying.

The ringing in his ears was from whatever psychic attack had just hit him, not an explosion behind him. The texture under his hands was the smooth floor of the Enterprise's command deck, not the wood wrapped in leather from the steering column of a German built airplane.

Why would he even know what that felt like?

He heard Diana grunt and yell something to his right. A battle cry. Something brightly colored streaked above him before crashing into a Science console with a shower of sparks and ozone. The sound of bullets pinging against something metal nearby. Jim shook his head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears. He reached up to grab the Navigator's console and pull himself up off the floor. He gripped the rail of the ladder and pulled himself over the wall of the trench, Diana charging through the No Man's Land some 50 feet ahead of him. No. No that was wrong. Diana was ahead of him, fighting Circe in close combat on the back platform, shoving the witch into Uhura's comms console.

A wave of nausea hit Jim and he clung to the nav console. His eyes were watering from the pressure in his head. Circe had started speaking in the ancient tongue she had used before, when she touched Jim and sent his brain into a spiral of the impossible. Diana countered by covering Circe's mouth. It stopped the spell, but also earned her a vicious bite.

Diana pedaled back, holding her bleeding hand. Jim reached for his pistol… no… his phaser. It felt at once comfortable and completely alien in his hand. He tried not to think about it too much, but even his muscle memory was in conflict. Thankfully, a trigger is a trigger the universe around, and he fired a shot at Circe.

"My hair!" Circe had pulled herself off the console, the shot grazing her head, "You shot my hair! You son of a…"

Jim ducked as another blast of ozone and light came at him. He could feel the impact into the brick wall...NO! The nav console. Diana launched herself at Circe once more, stopping a second attack. He peeked over the top of the half melted console to see the two goddesses locked in battle. I have never been more in love… and out of my depth...

One of the witch's blasts caught Diana square in the chest at close range, and Diana flew across the bridge and into the main view screen, leaving a long crack in the glass. He needed to get to that plane, but he couldn't do it without seeing her. He'd help her up, tell her how he felt. He wished they had more time.

No. None of that made any sense. This wasn't the tarmac of a German weapons facility. He'd never even been to Germany.

"Diana…" Circe tsked. "Diana, Diana, Diana. You can't beat me. You have none of your little Super Friends. No room to even swing your sword, let alone that lasso." She sounded less confident than Jim could tell she meant to. "I have had two hundred years to plan this, and thanks to those simpletons on that planet, I'm stronger than I've ever been. I don't even have to create portals. I simply think…" Circe suddenly vanished, then appeared on the far side of the bridge, near the spot Jim affectionately considered Diana's. "And I am there."

Diana groaned as she pulled herself up. Jim was between them. He had to help her. He looked around for anything that could help and his eyes landed on a large sheet of paneling that had come off the side of the now half-melted nav console. He reached over to grab it, thinking that if anything it would make a handy shield.

A shield.

Without thinking about it too much, Jim moved around to the front of the console, by his command chair, He looked over at Diana where she stood by the viewscreen and held the paneling in front of him. "Diana, SHIELD!"

He hadn't thought of it. He didn't need to. They'd done this move before. He'd seen Antiope do it on the beach on Themyscira, during the German attack. He'd gambled that Diana would know the move in the battle of Veld, when that sniper was picking people off from the church tower and Charlie had given into his shell shock.

She stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment, then bolted forward. He helped push her up and watched her soar over his head and towards Circe. The boost helped her clear the railing of the highest part of the bridge with ease. A boot connected with Circe's jaw so hard that blood spurted from her mouth. She was staggered enough that Diana could grab her by her clothing and shove her into the wall.

Jim blinked as his head throbbed again. The moment of clarity passed and he groaned, dropping the paneling and clutching his head. He couldn't breathe. Why couldn't he breathe? The water was rising, he was going under. He couldn't move. He was stuck, looking up at the surface of the water. No, no, that was on the shuttle. He had been on a shuttle, not a biplane. It was all too much.

He gripped idly at the command chair, pulling himself up even as his head pounded. Even though the pain and confusion, he turned to face the two goddesses, watching Circe. "What the hell did you do to me?" He ground out, the words dragged out of him as if he'd been compelled by the lasso.

Circe laughed, bloodied and beaten from a fight he couldn't really remember over the sounds of explosions and shotgun blasts. No, he was on the bridge. He had to focus on that.

"Why are you doing this? Why would you do this to him?" Diana demanded, holding her firmly against the wall.

Circe looked back at Jim. His stomach went cold at the way she seemed to look through him. "I want you to see what it's like to come so close, to wish for the man you love to return to you. To think he will be with you forever." She turned back to Diana. "Only for him to be taken away."

Suddenly, Circe was gone. It was like he had blinked and she'd vanished from Diana's grip. All they could hear was her voice, echoing around them.

"When you think I've finally left you alone, Diana… I will come for him. I will take any hope you have, for either of them. And that time, you will watch as I bleed hope from you. Drop by drop."

Silence, save for the consoles sparking and the pounding of his head.

Jim glanced up at Diana as she slowly made her way back down towards him. He had so many questions. Nothing made sense. As she came closer to him, he could feel his fingers itching to take her face in his hands, to comfort her pained expression.

You stopped me from killing Ares!

He flinched at the memory. No, she'd never said that to him. She said that to…

Jim squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore how easily the serial number came to him. "Diana… who the hell is Steve Trevor?"

She seemed thunderstruck. He'd never seen that kind of shock before. Except in the trench, as he told her he couldn't help her… Wait, no. "Jim, I - "

He shook his head, cutting her off as another memory took hold. "Captain Steve Trevor, Pilot, American Expeditionary Forces, Serial Number 8141921. Assigned British Intelligence - Why do I know that? Why were you interrogating him? Me? I mean, him." He put a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes as he tried to clear his mind. "I don't understand, what did she do to me?"

"Captain?" The voice came from somewhere across the bridge. Sulu. His thoughts zeroed in on the present.

Jim turned, then scrambled over to help his pilot up from the jumpseat he'd put him in a few hours before. "Mister Sulu… I am glad to see you." He hugged him, thankful to see flesh and blood instead of the granite. Judging from Sulu's firm grasp, he was just as relieved.

"Jim?" Spock. He released Sulu and rushed over to help Spock up with a lopsided grin. For a moment, the genuine relief at seeing his crew returned to him was enough. "What has transpired? Did we return to Althea?"

"No," Diana spoke for the both of them. Unfortunately, hearing her voice only made the memories in his head start to vie for attention. "I summoned the goddess Circe here. It was a trap to reach me. Presumably, she has released all of you because she sees fit to… extend her game."

"Magic, Spock." Jim shrugged, the breathless tone in his voice from the nausea he was barely containing. "Pretty sure it was magic."

Spock's quirk of his eyebrow was a relief, a return to normalcy for the moment. "Many primitive cultures refer to science beyond their understanding as magic."

"Yup, and consider it beyond my understanding." Jim nodded. "So…. magic."

"Engineerin' to the Bridge! Is there anyone there?" Scotty's brogue burst through the fog in Jim's brain for a moment long enough for him to smile.

"Scotty! We're all here. How are all of you?"

"Confused, but everyone's wakin' up. What happened?"

"A goddess cursed us and then uncursed us." Jim replied. He knew it sounded crazy, but he didn't care. Why? Did he believe it?

Steven. Son. Don't tell me ye believe this rubbish. Charlie. He'd said not to believe any of it, but then Chief…

I believe it's true.

He was on the tarmac, watching the fireburst rage on. Ares. He'd been so wrong to doubt Diana. No, that wasn't him. It was blurring together again.

Jim pulled away from the others to grip at the command chair, trying to catch his breath.

"Captain, are you hurt?" Spock asked behind him.

He shook his head, trying to settle his stomach with a sharp inhalation through his nose. "I don't know."

"You should go to Sickbay." Diana said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. His heart pounded nearly out of his chest at the touch. He'd been wishing he could kiss her since she'd pulled him out of the water. They were dancing. And it was snowing. No, it was the blue light of the gardens. Was that him? Or - or was it all just because -

"Yeah…" Jim pulled away abruptly, heart clenching painfully. The memories were wrong, they weren't his. "Sickbay. I need to see Bones." He stumbled up to the turbolift, Diana quickly rushing to his side.

"Let me go with you - "

"No." He held a hand up to her. "No, we are not done. But… you're…" He didn't know how else to say it. "You're making it worse." Jim tried to ignore the raw hurt on her face as the doors slid closed. He slid down to the ground, hands at his head as he tried to shove away the images and places that felt wrong.

Who the hell was Steve Trevor?

She was making it worse. Diana felt like she'd been hit harder from that statement than by almost anything Circe had said. Almost. Because, there was no way to escape the truth.

The witch had pulled at the threads of Fate. Science had not just coincidentally crafted a man who looked just like Steve Trevor. He was Steve Trevor. The same thread of Fate, and Circe had tapped into it, forcing the knowledge of an entire past life into Jim's mind.

Such things should be impossible. They were unnatural. The gods did not make humans to withstand living two full lives. What would it do to him? How could he cope?

She tried not to think about how she had seen Steve in his eyes. When he'd mimicked the same battle maneuver that Antiope had taught all Amazons, she'd seen something that had been crystal clear at that moment. Now, she couldn't place what it was. But, she'd seen Steve. Not Jim.

Diana knew that selfishly, she could have been happy to know that Steve's memories were with him, that there was a chance to see Steve. Steve's spirit wasn't in the watch because it had moved on to its next life. And she hadn't sensed it until she had grown closer to him. Jim was meant to be his next thread in the great tapestry. Those similarities were meant to be there.

But, knowing what it might do to Jim terrified her. For the first time since she had met James Kirk, she suddenly felt it: Where he had taken place in her heart, now a great void from the fear of losing him. Not Steve. Jim. If he was lost to her… because of her past…

Diana spent a few minutes on the bridge to collect herself, but found it was impossible to focus. She had to know if he would be all right. She had to know what - precisely - he knew.

By the time she reached Sickbay, Jim was nowhere in sight. Neither was Doctor McCoy. She didn't expect him to still be at his lab desk, but she had hoped he would have already been running diagnostics on him.

The doors shut behind her and she caught the sound of raised voices from Leonard's office.

"When the hell were you planning to tell me this?!"

"I wasn't, Jim! She was gonna do it herself. You think I wanted to keep it from you?"

"No, of course not! But, you should've said something! I have a right to know!"

"I found out twenty damn minutes before Harper was turned to stone! It's not like either of us had the time!"

Diana winced as she heard every word of the argument behind the closed door. McCoy had reached a fever pitch, clearly exasperated. She didn't know how the argument had started, but she had a fairly good idea. Before they could continue, she made her way over and rang the door chime a few times.

After a moment, the door opened to her. McCoy had his hand on his console, presumably because he'd been the one to let her in.

Jim shook his head, glaring at his friend with his hands propped on his hips. He opened his mouth as if to say something to Bones, then thought better of it. Instead, he glanced back her way and finally just nodded. "Diana." He sounded distant. Was that from the jumble of memories or because of her?

"I take it Leonard told you what he and I spoke about." She said, hoping to pull the blame away from the doctor. "I asked him to keep it to himself until I could speak to you about… about Steve. Please don't be angry with him."

Jim shook his head again, taking a deep breath. "This is… not a good time, Diana. I told you - "

"I know what you told me, but I have to know that you're all right. Circe did this to you because she wanted to hurt me." She could tell he was angry. His shoulders were tense, his expression was… haunted. Had that been because of her? It hadn't occurred to Diana until she saw his face again what it was that Steve had that Jim lacked. No, it was the other way around.

Steve had been a man without hope, without child-like wonder when she met him. Those were the two qualities that had endeared her to Jim Kirk more than any other.

Jim's eyes no longer held that. He seemed worn, tired. A man who had fought a war. The war. She had taken that hope from him...

"I should never have come with you." She blurted out without thinking. She felt her heart aching for him. "I've done this to you, and now I don't know how to help you. If I had stayed on Themyscira, she never would have taken interest in you and you would have been fine - "

"Diana, I'm not - " Jim paused (or was that one of Steve's mannerisms?), holding a hand up to silence her as he reconsidered what he wanted to say. "I don't blame you for Circe. That's on her. She did it because she wanted to, it's not like you could have known what she would do." For a moment, she felt relieved. But, then he added, "But, you knew that I looked like Steve Trevor." His tone suggested that he was beginning to accept the possibility, and he didn't appreciate the surprise.

She swallowed. "Yes, I did."

"And you've known since the moment you pulled me out of the shuttle. Like you pulled me- him out of the plane."

Diana pursed her lips, her gaze drifting to the console beside her. "The resemblance and the similarity of those events was not lost on me."

"And that's why Menalippe didn't like me. She knew, too. She was there. On the beach." Jim took a step closer and lowered his head until he could catch her eye. "When the Germans attacked." She couldn't tell if he was reigning in his temper for her benefit or for McCoy's, but she had an inclination it wasn't for her.

"Yes." It took more of her resolve than she wanted to admit to keep eye contact with him. "And for a moment, I thought you might be him. But, the moment I met you, I knew you were your own person."

He frowned. "That's not entirely true. You told Bones you were worried I could have been a tool for your enemies."

Diana closed her eyes, recalling her early time on the Enterprise. "Jim, please believe me when I tell you that I haven't felt that way for some time. Not since you helped me with Vanessa. Maybe before then, I'm not quite sure. But, you have to understand. Steve died in 1918. His family line died with him, and I had been away from earth for two centuries. I had no idea what had truly happened. It is why I went to Doctor McCoy in the first place." She motioned to the doctor, who threw his hands up, not keen to get into it. "I wanted to believe that you were Jim Kirk and that the resemblances to Steve were just a scientific accident."

"Fine, fine…" He rubbed his face with his hands, then stepped past her to leave McCoy's office. She tried not to bristle at the fact that for a man who had wanted to keep incredibly close to her, now he couldn't seem to run away fast enough. That was not Steve. This was no different than him retreating from the mess hall or from her in the gardens. Definitely Jim Kirk.

Diana followed him into the main sickbay, silently grateful that McCoy didn't follow.

This conversation had been long overdue. Between them. "I had every intention of telling you after this was over -"

"Oh, you did? That's good, because that conversation's only a few months overdue." He snapped, his back to her. He didn't want to look at her. Or maybe couldn't. "Did you ever see me as anything but a replacement for him?"

"That's not what happened!" She protested. But, even she knew that she was lying. It turned to ash in her mouth. There had been moments where it had been easy to fall into that trap. She didn't know where her affection for Jim began and her longing for Steve ended… Diana forced herself to press forward with the real truth she could offer. "I made every effort to get to know you, Jim. And the more time passed, the more I wanted to tell you. When you found your watch - "

"It's not my watch!" Jim burst out suddenly, turning to face her. "That's not my watch, that's his watch! Just like these are his memories, and I can't - " He stopped himself, clearly distraught that he'd yelled at her. His hands went to his head again before he finally had fistfuls of his hair. "You have no idea how this feels. How could you?" He breathed, clearly struggling to make sense of it. "I have memories that are for you. I shouldn't know how it felt to dance with you in the snow, how it felt to sleep by you on a boat somewhere in the Mediterranean. Those belong to Steve. I'm not him. I'm Jim. I remember my family, and this is like... " Jim finally ran out of steam, his hands finding the biobed near him to brace on and abuse instead of his scalp. "It's like nothing I've ever experienced." She could hear Steve's hopelessness. It's like the world is gonna end… "Like a waking nightmare where I was someone else, but it all feels so real and I know it's not me."

She felt a lump in her throat and tried to swallow it down to no avail. Her heart felt like someone had twisted it until it bled. "I… I want to help you, but I don't know how." She finally said, at a loss. This was magic far beyond her control.

Jim dug his nails into the biobed's leather padding before he managed to ask her, "Can you fix it?"

She furrowed her brow, confused. "Fix… how?"

He turned to face her. "Take them out of my head. They're not mine, I shouldn't have them." When she paused to consider the request, her expression must have shown the disgust and sorrow that she felt at the very idea. He moved closer to her, slipping his hands to her face as Steve had done all those years ago. "Please, Diana, I shouldn't…" He swallowed, tortured. Even as he asked for her to undo the magic, he pulled her closer, drawing every emotion that she had felt for both of those men to the surface. "You have no idea how hard it is to remember how you smell, how you taste…" She shuddered, overwhelmed by a sense of need from him that sent a shudder through her. "I have no right to those things. You haven't given them to me, they belong to him." When she found herself unable to answer him, he pressed his forehead to hers, holding her close and begging. "Please, Diana. Please, I'm going to go out of my mind."

It took everything in her to quell the conflicting swell of emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Jim was suffering, pleading. Yet… She reached up, slowly taking his hands in hers and gently guiding them away from her face. "I can't," She whispered, at a loss.

"What?" He searched her face for the answers, as if that could cool the raging fire that was his mind. "What do you mean you can't?"

"Jim… I seek the truth. I am a goddess of truth." She gently squeezed his hands before she carefully guided them back to his sides and let go. "I cannot take back the truth. Once it is known… it's absolute. I'm sorry. That's not something I can do. You are… you were Steve Trevor. You were never meant to know. The gods do not intend for humans to know that much of their past lives, but… now you do."

As the realization finally came to him that this was not a problem she could solve, he took a few steps back, straightening. For the first time in the last hour, he resembled the captain of the Enterprise. Any affection or hope had disappeared for the moment. He looked… heartbroken.

"I see." He said. The sense of loss that came with the sudden distance felt like a physical ache. He wasn't just walking away, she could feel him withdrawing emotionally. When did I let him get so close?

"Jim, please, in time, maybe you can - "

"When we get back to the Yorktown, you are getting the hell off my ship." He finally said, his tone lethal in its professional, distant way.

Her heart sank. The damage had been done. "You don't mean that -"

"You're the goddess of truth, so I guess you know better than me what I want, right?" He snapped as he turned to go. "It's not like you asked my opinion before."

"We can figure this out. I will find a way - "

"If there's no magical solution, then we need to find a scientific one. It nearly worked with the curse, it can work here." Jim spoke over her feeble attempt to comfort him, then stepped past her. He paused at the office. "Bones, we're on our own for this one. Let me know when you've figured out how to…" He faltered. Diana couldn't read his expression to tell why. "How to fix this. I'm going back to the bridge."

"Like hell you are!" Bones shouted, but before Diana realized he intended to stop Jim, the Captain was gone. McCoy came running out of his office only to find a very shaken Diana still staring at the door. "Diana… hell. Darlin', how are you holding up?"

She glanced over at him, blinking away her momentary stupor. "I'm… I'll be fine, Doctor. I'm worried about Jim."

"So am I." Bones murmured in a way that suggested he had more than just an argument with the captain. "I ran some tests before he figured out I knew about your friend."

"And?"

He sighed. "He told me what that crazy lady said before disappearing… and she's right." Bones walked over and handed her his medical padd with Jim's open file. "Somehow, he has two completely different neural patterns in his brain right now. I don't know how long until he starts showing other symptoms, but we have two weeks, and that's being optimistic, before the lethal seizures start. If we can't find a way to fix it…"

Diana's hands shook with rage and fear, helpless to save Jim from the truth.

"He'll die."