Chapter Text
Captain Christopher Pike woke up to someone banging on his door. He was rolling out of bed and reaching for his equipment - his communicator, his phaser, his boots - before he realized that he wasn’t aboard his ship. There were no alarms blaring red alert. There was no piercing whistle proceeding one of his officers calling him to get his ass up to the bridge.
He was in his apartment, he realized, holding his communicator in one hand and his phaser in the other. It didn’t seem to matter how long he’d been planet-bound, the instincts developed out there in space stayed with him. He would hear the Starfleet whistle in his dreams for the rest of his life.
Christopher Pike looked at the communicator in his hand, paused where he’d already been lifting it to his mouth even half-asleep, reflexively about to tell Number One to report or come save his ass. Staying in contact and collaborating with his crew was everything when things inevitably went to shit. But no, Number One wasn’t even on Earth and Pike wasn’t on a ship. He was alone in his apartment on Earth and the dark out the window wasn’t the endless, starry expanse of that final frontier.
It was also, according to the communicator, four in the fucking morning.
Someone banged on his front door again. Loudly. Very loudly. Not just “I’m going to make your neighbours hate you” loudly, but “the ship is under attack” loudly. Insistent. Panicked.
Pike raised the communicator to his mouth. “House on standby.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the small blue light at the corner of the bedroom command panel turn yellow. He then put his communicator and phaser aside, pulled on a shirt, pulled on his boots, and took up his equipment again. He was ready in seconds - Starfleet-quick, ready to run to the bridge - but not before his guest banged on his front door again. Pike had to wonder why someone that insistent wasn’t also shouting their head off.
On silent feet, he went to the command panel. Pike noted that there were messages waiting for him. Several of them. But he first pulled up a view of the asshole banging on his apartment door.
It was Jim Kirk.
Pike stared at the screen, then rubbed his face. This fucking kid.
He sighed. “House off standby. Code 20090805.”
The command panel beeped in response, the status light shifting from yellow back to blue. Pike used the panel to switch on his apartment lights and, before Jim could slam his fist into the front door for a fourth time, unlocked the door and had it swing open for the kid. A glance at his inbox before he left the bedroom confirmed that several of his unread messages were from Cadet James Tiberius Kirk and all of them were marked as urgent.
Pike stepped out of the bedroom and crossed his arms, just as Jim stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind him. They stared at each other with the living room between them.
Pike’s best guess had been, before opening the door, that the kid had realized that the academic dishonesty hearing for his Kobayashi Maru hacking stunt was tomorrow, a little more than twenty-four hours from now, and was freaking out about it both far too late and far too early in the morning. But Pike’s best guess cracked as soon as he got his first good look at Jim Kirk.
The young man looked half-dead from a nightmare. Jim was pale, with bags under his eyes, bruising around his neck, and he had a windswept look about him like hell was on his heels.
Kirk’s reaction to the academic dishonesty hearing so far had been the devil-may-care flippancy that Pike had expected in response to his few “what the fuck did you do now, Jim” messages. Starfleet was more than reluctant to let go of a legacy cadet as brilliant and well-known as Jim Kirk and everyone knew it, including Jim, even if some of them disagreed with some of his personal life choices. The worst they were honestly likely to do was slap his wrist for his stunt.
“You better have a hell of a defense prepared,” Pike had written in one of his messages over Kirk’s latest Kobayashi Maru debacle, and Kirk’s quaking-in-his-boots response had been, “Sir, with the speech I have ready for their hearing, they’re going to be giving me a commendation for beating that test.”
Even if the kid had worked himself up into a panic for some reason, Pike had expected some “fake it ‘til you make it” bargaining, not… this. Whatever the hell this was.
“Jim, what happened,” Pike said.
He asked the question calmly. Like he hadn’t just rolled out of bed and like Jim hadn’t just pulled himself out of a gutter or something. Like a Starfleet captain demanding a report from the officer he wanted Jim to be someday.
Jim looked him dead in the eye and said, “Someone is going to destroy Vulcan.”
Even the best of captains would have needed a second to take in a statement like that. Pike allowed himself several. Pike also blinked, several times, but Jim’s face remained deathly serious, as he stood in the middle of the apartment living room with his chin held high.
“You don’t believe me yet, sir, but you’re going to,” Jim said firmly. Immovably. Unstoppably. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll swear this is true on anything you ask me, sir. I just need you to call Commander Spock and get him here immediately.”
“Spock,” Pike repeated.
“Yes, sir. You look like you could use a cup of coffee. Where’s your replicator? I’ll get the coffee. You call Spock right now and tell him to get here.”
Pike followed Jim into the apartment’s kitchen. He hadn’t known that Jim Kirk and Spock knew each other outside of the most recent Kobayashi Maru debacle. He thought that at least one of them would have probably mentioned meeting, having decided some time ago that they would probably get along like a house on fire. He hadn’t yet decided whether “house on fire” meant in a good way or a bad one. The Kobayashi Maru was tilting it more towards the latter.
Jim started going through the kitchen cabinets and Pike could see there was no getting rid of him. There were probably worse ways for Jim and Spock to meet face-to-face for the first time, Pike mused, though he couldn’t think of any off the top of his head.
“Far right cabinet on the first shelf,” Pike said finally, walking over to the kitchen command panel to send a message to Commander Spock. “Put those extra engineering courses to work and see if you can’t get that coffee machine chugging along too. The replicator never gets it right.”
“Got it, sir,” Jim said, smoothly reaching for it.
Pike had the annoyed thought that this was probably going to be the best cup of coffee he’d had in his life. That was how it went with Jim Kirk, he thought, as he watched the kid deftly inspect his antique coffee machine. He noticed, while watching the kid move around his kitchen, that bruising around Jim’s neck looked like someone had choked him. Pike recognized that sort of handprint when he saw it. Someone had gotten a hand around Jim Kirk’s throat with the sort of force that could easily kill a man.
He looked back to the message he was going to send Spock: a simple request that the commander come to his apartment immediately regarding… regarding….
Pike erased “regarding” and ended the sentence there.
He was a Starfleet captain. He could end sentences where he liked and send emergency messages that woke people up at four in the fucking morning. Spock could deal with the curiosity long enough to make it here. Especially since Pike didn’t know what this was about besides, potentially, the destruction of the commander’s home planet, and he wasn’t about to put “The Destruction of Vulcan” as the subject line of an emergency message.
He sent the message.
Looking up, he saw that Jim had somehow unearthed the instruction manual for his coffee machine, several mugs, his good whiskey, and a multi-tool set to screwdriver. Jim had the instruction manual open in hand and, as Pike watched, cracked open the top of the coffee machine to inspect the insides.
The kitchen command panel then pinged softly.
Looking down again, Pike saw a message from Spock. Spock was now was on his way and had estimated an arrival time down to the second. Pike promptly set a timer on the command panel to thirty seconds less than that, because Spock was sure to be annoyingly prompt.
Pike had been young once too, but he didn’t remember being young like this.
With a sigh, Pike left the kitchen command panel and sat down on a stool at the island.
“Talk to me,” he said.
Jim looked up and quickly scanned the room, like he thought Spock might have beamed in somehow. “You don’t want to wait for Spock, sir?”
“Jim, you just told me that Vulcan is going to be destroyed. I can’t imagine why the hell you of all people would have that information. If you don’t start talking and start making sense, you’re going to be in trouble for a lot more than academic dishonesty,” Pike said flatly. “You’re using up the last scrap of indulgence I have for you bringing Spock here, so use it. Or else we’re going to be talking, the three of us, about your last Kobayashi Maru and whether or not you’re fit to be an officer of Starfleet at all, much less a captain someday.”
Jim accepted this with only a brief flash of pain, before he said with inappropriate good humour,. “I think that sort of non-transparent interference is against Starfleet’s academic dishonesty policies, sir, after a hearing has been set.”
“Kirk,” Pike said warningly.
“Right,” Jim said, and put down the multi-tool. “Sir, what do you know about time travel?”
Pike stared at the kid who looked like he’d been spat out of hell.
“I think the more important question here is what you know about it,” PIke said finally.
“Well-spotted, sir. I’ll start at the beginning: so, 129 years in the future, in the year 2387, an impending supernova threatened to destroy the home system of the Romulan Empire - and, potentially, several surrounding systems as well.”
Pike already didn’t like Jim speaking about the future in the past tense.
“Go on,” he said.
“Ambassador Spock - our Spock, you know how long Vulcans live, sir - promised to save Romulus. The Vulcans created a special ship - their fastest - and stocked it with with this thing called ‘red matter’, which I think is an artificial substance developed to form singularities upon ignition. Unfortunately, the star went supernova before Spock could get there and Romulus was destroyed. Spock launched the red matter to prevent further damage.”
“I thought this was about Vulcan,” Pike said.
“It is, sir, I’m getting there. See, Spock was then confronted by a surviving Romulan mining vessel, the Narada, captained by a Romulan named Nero, who in his grief wanted revenge against Spock for failing to save his planet. Both ships got captured by the resultant black hole, creating a disturbance in the space-time continuum. The Narada went through first. It ended up in the year 2233, appearing out of a ‘lightning storm’ near Klingon space.”
The last sentence of this strange story hit Pike like a phaser blast. Especially when Kirk snapped the top back onto the coffee machine and looked at him with those piercing eyes of his, a grimly determined expression on his face. He didn’t say it, but Pike heard it.
“The Kelvin,” Pike said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You expect me to believe, Kirk, that that was a mining ship?”
“From nearly 150 years in the future, yes, sir. I don’t know what the exact political situation of the time was, but I think it’d be a safe bet to say that the Romulan Empire believed it a worthwhile investment to create ships that could protect the valuable resources they mined. You know how much effort, sir, goes into protecting the operations that supply the Federation with the materials to maintain Starfleet.”
Pike did know, which stopped him short of continuing to disbelieve Jim Kirk on principle. Many of Pike’s missions over the years had centered around bringing planets into the Federation for their natural resources or technological developments. More missions still had involved the ferrying or escort of valuable resources or researchers.
A mining ship from the future. It was disturbingly plausible.
Even the time travel.
Pike looked at Jim Kirk again, who still looked disturbingly earnest. Pike had no idea how Jim had come into or come up with this story, but he wanted to hear the rest of it.
“Where does Vulcan come into this?”
“Nero was determined to take revenge on Spock for failing to save Romulus,” Jim explained, clearly enthused to be believed. “So he waited for Spock’s ship to exit here in the past. But what appeared seconds to Spock was 25 years to Nero and the Narada.”
Pike did the math. “That’s… now.”
“Yes, sir. The day before I retook the Kobayashi Maru, Cadet Uhura - have you met her, sir? You should. She’s incredible. Anyway, Cadet Uhura decoded a Klingon transmission about 47 battle cruisers destroyed near a prison planet. The distress call identified the attackers as Romulan, sir. And during my hearing, the Federation is going to get a distress call from Vulcan, citing seismic disturbances and another ‘lightning storm’ in space.”
“Speak it plain, Kirk. Now.”
“I think it’s safe to assume that Nero is shortly going to have Ambassador Spock, his ship, and the red matter, and that he’s headed towards Vulcan intending to destroy it. Sir, I know all this because I lived it before. I saw Nero destroy Vulcan. I met Ambassador Spock. The Enterprise barely managed to stop Nero from destroying Earth too. I woke up several days in the past and I’ve got no idea what’s going on, but I’m not about to let Vulcan be destroyed again.”
Pike stared at the young man in front of him, trying to understand this.
“So, there’s… two kinds of time travel going on here.”
Jim nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“One which brought this Nero and the Narada and an older Spock here…”
“Yes, sir.”
“...and one which brought… you here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pike straightened in his seat. “Should I expect to see another James Tiberius Kirk running around?” he asked, a serious question, with what little remained of his good humor. “Because I don’t think the universe is ready for there to be two of you.”
“I checked, sir, but there’s only me,” Jim said, very seriously. “I’ve retraced all my steps from today as well as I can remember, but it’s like… if there was another me, I think I’ve replaced him. I almost wondered if I’d been caught in some advanced simulation - you know, sir, like that mystery drama show that used to be really popular? ‘Holo’?”
Pike rubbed his hand down his face. Unfortunately, he did. “Yes.”
“God, that finale was really stupid, wasn’t it?” Jim said sympathetically. “Anyway, I thought there was a chance it was something like that - I had to cover all my bases - but I still have all the injuries I got from fighting with the crew of the Narada.” He tugged down the collar of his shirt to show off those bruises, which looked even worse with a clear front-view.
“...Has your doctor friend had a look at those?”
“Yes. Well, Bones from my time did. I dodged this Bones, because he’d go berserk on me if he saw these, sir. Speaking of good ol’ Doctor McCoy, I borrowed his tricorder, and confirmed that I have the vaccine for Melvaran mud fleas in my system still. Bones gave me that on the day of my hearing. Long story. You don’t want to hear why.”
“I believe that,” Pike agreed. “You don’t have any idea how this happened to you?”
“I didn’t run headfirst into any black holes that I noticed,” Jim said, finally putting down the instruction manual and putting on that much-needed cup of coffee. “I was on the Enterprise, headed back to Earth, with you and Spock and Bones and everyone. But you don’t remember anything and Bones doesn’t remember anything. It’s just me. One minute I’m on the bridge of the Enterprise, talking about transferring Vulcan survivors and injured crew members to another ship, and then the next minute… I’m here again.”
“And determined to save Vulcan.”
“I didn’t do this on purpose, but while I’m here, the time-space continuum can kiss my ass, sir,” Jim agreed. “I checked for the transmission Uhura decoded and sent it to you. It’s the exact same, sir: 47 Klingon warbirds destroyed by a single, massive Romulan ship. I will swear on anything you ask of me, sir, that I’m telling the truth.”
Pike looked at the kitchen command panel, where several urgent messages from Cadet James Tiberius Kirk were still unread, and where a certain timer was soon to go off. He looked back at Jim - beaten, bruised, earnest, desperate Jim Kirk, who’d come to him for help after facing down the impossible - and sighed. God help him, he almost believed this kid. Part of him couldn’t help but believe in Jim Kirk despite everything. If this was true, there were billions of lives on the line here, and Pike wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he risked not investigating.
“You’ve got my attention, Kirk,” Pike said, getting to his feet. He went over to the kitchen command panel and disabled the timer before it went off, then went to the apartment controls and hit the command to open the front door. “Now let’s see what Spock makes of us.”
Jim straightened like someone had put a phaser to his back as the front door swung open.
It gave Pike some satisfaction to see Spock standing there with a hand raised to knock on the door. Spock didn’t look surprised, of course, but it was satisfying anyway. Spock lowered his hand and stepped into the apartment. He clearly noted Jim Kirk’s presence - Pike knew Spock probably had a file on the kid now, in preparation for the academic dishonesty hearing - but the commander was too professional to say anything on it as a greeting.
“Captain, you sent for me,” Spock said.
“I did. Thank you for coming so quickly, Spock, despite it being four in the morning.”
Pike sent a look at Jim as he said this, but Jim didn’t look ashamed, too busy looking at Spock like the man was the most important person on the planet. Jim Kirk watched Spock with a curious regard. With a respect that Pike would have said, three years ago upon first meeting him, James Tiberius Kirk might have been incapable of showing anyone.
“The interests of Starfleet are hardly limited to one particular time-zone on one particular planet, captain,” Spock answered, looking insultingly put-together despite the hour. It might as well have been four in the afternoon to him. “However, to alleviate any concerns you might feel, I will remind you that Vulcans require less sleep than humans to sufficiently function.”
“Yes, you keep saying that,” Pike replied. “Now, come on in and meet Jim Kirk.”
Spock came to the kitchen island and, with a tap at the command panel, Pike closed the front door behind him. A person had to be familiar with Vulcans to tell, but it was clear to Pike that Spock did not have the same regard for the cadet standing in Pike’s kitchen.
“Your reputation precedes you, Cadet Kirk,” Spock said.
Which was extremely polite, given some of Jim Kirk’s unfortunate reputation. Some Vulcans of Pike’s unfortunate acquaintance had chosen to make all their supposedly “neutral” statements insultingly critical. Spock was comparably diplomatic.
“It has since the day I was born,” Jim answered, with his usual casual disregard for his infamy, and raised his hand in a surprisingly practiced version of what was colloquially known as ‘the Vulcan salute’. “Hello, Spock. It’s nice to meet you again. Properly, this time.”
Spock inclined his head, then looked at Pike. “Captain, if this is in regards to Cadet Kirk’s academic dishonesty hearing, I must remind you that it is against Starfleet policy to-”
“It’s not about that,” Pike interrupted.
Spock paused. Pike couldn’t imagine how many possibilities were being turned over in that formidable Vulcan brain of his, but it was clear he was stumped. Personally, Pike was stumped over how he was going to break time travel and the potential destruction of Vulcan to the commander, especially when all he had was the convincing yet incredible word of a rather infamous cadet.
“I must express confusion then, captain, over what emergency would call myself and Cadet Kirk to your apartment at an hour commonly reserved for rest,” Spock said.
“It’s difficult to know where to get started,” Pike said.
“Personally, sir, I recommend just starting. There’s no good point to start.”
“Thank you, Kirk,” Pike said. “Now shut up until further notice.”
“Yes, sir.”
Spock watched this exchange blankly, before focusing on Pike once more.
“Spock, to your knowledge, has the star of the home system of the Romulan Empire shown any signs of going supernova within the next 200 years?”
“The astronomers of the Vulcan Science Academy have observed instability within the star that could potentially threaten Romulus and all other planets within the system within 10,000 years, but the Romulan Empire has, to public knowledge, disregarded the warnings as a Federation plot to undermine the seat of their power,” Spock answered. “If the threat has recently accelerated to the point of an impending supernova, I have not been made aware.”
So, Jim’s story was scientifically possible, at least in regards to the Romulan supernova.
“Thank you, Spock,” Pike said, feeling a weight settle on his shoulders whether he liked it or not. Jim could have known that, but… there was still no good, obvious reason for Jim to cook up a story like this. There was nothing in it for him to lie. Pike would give him the boot personally if this was a lie.
“Is there an impending threat to Romulus, captain?” Spock asked.
“Not for 120 years,” Pike murmured.
“129,” Jim said.
Pike gave Jim Kirk his best “unimpressed commanding officer” look. Jim mimed zipping his lip and throwing away the key. It was mildly amusing and gratifying, though Pike knew it wouldn’t shut the damn kid up for long.
“Spock, to your knowledge, does there exist a substance capable of creating singularities? Natural or artificial?” Pike asked.
Spock’s eyebrows actually went up at that. Briefly.
“No, captain. I have never heard of such a substance: found, created, or theorized.”
Pike nodded, glad to hear the Vulcans weren’t already cooking up this damn “red matter”, at least to Spock’s knowledge. One ship of that stuff potentially being out there was already nearly too much for Pike to handle. Something like that made Earth’s long and violent history of “mutually assured destruction” look like a fucking joke. The Federation’s enemies would do anything for a weapon like that and, if Kirk was telling the truth, one of them almost had it.
He tried to think of what else he could independently confirm with Spock.
“Have there been any sightings of a strange, hostile ship, unexplained disappearances, or unexplained communication failures in or near Vulcan space?” Jim asked.
Spock looked at Jim blankly, then turned the look on Pike, who sighed.
“Answer the cadet’s question, please,” Pike said.
“Communication with a Federation observatory near the edges of Vulcan space failed yesterday at 2243 hours,” Spock answered. “An investigation team was dispatched immediately and as of 0317 this morning reported that the space station had been completely destroyed. Local Federation planets have already been made aware of the security breach and a temporary observational setup is under construction. A message concerning the incident should be in your inbox now, captain.”
Shit, Pike thought.
Space really never waited for anyone to get some sleep in.
“Part of that station’s job would have been to keep track of passing warp particles, wouldn’t it?” Jim asked rhetorically, with new energy. “Sir, I’d bet you anything the Narada destroyed that observatory to prevent Vulcan from getting any advance warning they were coming.”
“I’m not taking that bet,” Pike replied.
Spock looked between them, then asked, “Captain, who or what is ‘the Narada’?”
Now, of all times, Jim looked to Pike to answer.
“The Narada is, according to Cadet Kirk here, the Romulan ship that destroyed the U.S.S. Kelvin and now means to destroy Vulcan,” Pike said, because there really was no good place to start. “They’re from 129 years in the future. Kirk here is from next week.”
Spock looked between them again, then said, “Captain, as a Vulcan, the purpose of human practical jokes often eludes me. I do not find the destruction of my home planet an appropriate subject for such social rituals-”
“It’s not a joke, Spock.”
“That’s tasteless by anyone’s standards,” Kirk agreed solemnly.
The unimpressed look Spock turned on Jim Kirk would have sent a lesser man running. However, one of the most common and perhaps truest things said about Cadet Jim Kirk was that he was “a lot”. Under Spock’s Vulcan disapproval, despite very much looking like he’d lost a fight with an angry Romulan, Jim Kirk only stood up straighter. Jim was sticking to his guns here.
Pike had to give him credit for that.