Crucible: Kirk (12 page)

When Kirk had finally left Starbase 10's infirmary this morning, Bones had accompanied him here, to these guest quarters. Later, Spock had arrived with Commodore Stocker to discuss with him all that had happened during and after the
Enterprise
's battle with the Klingons. They hadn't stayed long, promising to return tomorrow after he'd gotten some rest. Spock had seemed oddly reticent to Kirk, but he simply ascribed that to all that his first officer and the rest of the crew had recently endured, perhaps an indication of posttraumatic stress. He imagined that even Vulcans—and particularly
half
-Vulcans—might not be immune to such disorders.

Kirk reached the computer terminal on the far side of his quarters and sat down before it. Of all that Spock and Stocker had revealed to him today, one thing continued to come back to him. He'd watched with them the visual recording made by the security team aboard the
Enterprise
shuttlecraft
Kepler,
and what it had showed deeply disturbed him. He knew that he had no real reason to view it again now, but he found that he couldn't stop himself.

He worked the terminal console, providing the computer with his security clearance and a request for the
Kepler
recording. After a moment, the display filled with a frozen split-screen image. On the left, an aerial view showed the Guardian of Forever, standing alone on a vast, broken plain. The irregular, coppery ring stood as he'd always seen it, a strange and inexplicable alien object of great power and potential. Fractured columns and other archeological artifacts littered the ground around it, but since he and the crew of the
Enterprise
had discovered the place three years ago, the landscape had changed, even if the Guardian had not. When he had first gone there, mounds and walls of rock had surrounded the time vortex, and in the distance, the ruins of a long-dead civilization had provided an eerie backdrop.

After the
Enterprise
's initial visit to the world of the Guardian, Starfleet had attempted to construct a research facility there. All such efforts, even those made on the other side of the planet, had failed, wrecked by violent seisms that had altered the landscape. Ruins had been buried, the ground had cracked open in places, rock formations had toppled. The Guardian itself had refused to confirm or deny any part in producing the earthquakes, but Starfleet had believed it responsible, unwilling to allow any construction on the planet's surface. As a result, the Einstein research station had been built in orbit.

On the right side of the computer display, the Klingon vessel
Gr'oth
hung frozen within the planet's atmosphere, the forward edges of its hull blazing red from the friction with the air. While Spock and Scotty and the rest of the crew had fought to fend off Klingon boarders in main engineering, and then had worked to repair the
Enterprise,
Korax had done this. Kirk raised his hand and touched a blinking green button on the computer panel. The recording began to play on the monitor.

Kirk watched as the Klingon battle cruiser dived toward the surface—toward the Guardian. Seconds passed, and the glowing sections of the
Gr'oth
's hull grew hotter still, shifting from red to white. Finally, the D7 warship appeared on the left side of the monitor, its body obstructing the view of the Guardian as the ship raced toward the alien object.

The
Gr'oth
crashed directly into the Guardian of Forever. The split-screen ended, replaced by a single view. The display dimmed as a brilliant fireball burst from the point of impact. A huge mushroom-shaped cloud rose at great speed, reaching high into the sky.

Kirk touched another control, and the recording skipped ahead to its end. He halted the image there and beheld an enormous crater carved out of the ground where once the Guardian of Forever had stood. Kirk saw no signs of either the
Gr'oth
or the Guardian, but clearly both had been vaporized by the great heat of the blast. Nothing could have survived the explosion.

For a long time, Kirk sat and stared at the devastation. When he and his crew had discovered the Guardian, he had been awed by its power and abilities and enraptured by the amazing possibilities it offered. But after chasing McCoy through it and back into time, the vortex had become a symbol of profound pain for him, a reminder that the best part of his life had come and gone and would never return.

Now, as he gazed at the image of the ruined landscape, at the place from which the Guardian of Forever had delivered to him the love of his life and then stripped her away from him, he felt terrible anguish. Somehow, it was as though he had lost Edith all over again.

1930

In the encompassing darkness carried in with the deep of night, Kirk could have lain awake and fixated on the burden of his responsibilities, could have intentionally eluded sleep in order to lament the unthinkable possibility that Spock had delivered to him four days ago. He could have done those things, just as he had in nights past, but he didn't. Instead, he found the will to drift above his fatigue and his concerns, concentrating now on the warmth of Edith's bare form lying against his own, on the relaxed cadence of her breathing, on the now-musky scent of her flesh. In these perfect moments, he shut out the rest of the universe.

Just a few minutes ago, Edith had reached away from him to switch off the lamp on the nightstand. Then she'd rolled back over to him, and he'd enfolded her in his embrace. He held her now, his arms encircling her as though they'd been designed specifically for that purpose.

In the twenty-five days since he and Spock had arrived in Earth's past, Kirk had attempted to resist the feelings that had begun to develop within him from the first instant that Edith Keeler had walked into his life. It made no sense for him to fall in love with a woman with whom he could have no possible future. Whether or not her death would be required in order to preserve the timeline, as Spock had suggested might be the case, Kirk intended to right the flow of history, after which he and his first officer would return to their own time in the twenty-third century. At that point, Edith would necessarily be gone from his life forever.

But even though he had tried to keep a rein on his emotions, he'd failed completely. With a rapidity he almost couldn't believe, he had fallen for Edith, and day by day, even hour by hour, his love for her had grown deeper and deeper. He found her beauty, both within and without, singular. From virtually the moment he'd first seen Edith, descending the wooden stairs into the basement of the 21st Street Mission, he had been taken with her—with her dark hair and eyes, her delicate features and pearlescent skin, her quiet confidence and certain, almost regal bearing.

When the two of them had met, Kirk could not possibly have known how similarly they viewed life. But in a world beset by wars, by disease, by poverty and starvation, Edith somehow possessed the soul to gaze up at the stars and see the same things that Kirk did: a better tomorrow, an advanced humanity, hope, wonder. Edith perceived a positive future she did not simply long for, but one she worked to bring about as best she could. Where Kirk traveled the galaxy seeking out new knowledge, encountering new species, mediating disputes, keeping the peace, Edith fed the poor, with food for their bodies and a great vision for their minds.

You see the same things that I do,
Edith had said earlier, and he did. He always had, from far back in his life. When he'd been a boy, his family had sometimes taken walks at night out on the farm in Iowa. Sometimes his mother had gone, sometimes his brother, but most often it had been just Kirk and his father. They'd gazed together at the stars and seen the future—Jim's future, mankind's, the universe's.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Edith said, her words quiet and soft in the darkness.

“I was just thinking about my father,” he said, the ease with which he spoke surprising him. While his parents had greatly influenced his life, always fostering and supporting his dreams of space exploration, he almost never spoke of them to anybody. His mother's death from disease when Kirk had been just nine years old had left him heartbroken and traumatized, and the day just two years later, when he'd found his father's lifeless body out in the fields one summer afternoon, had hardened him. Afterward, he had more or less sealed off that part of his life, not only not speaking of his parents after that, but pushing away any recollections of them.

“What about your father?” Edith asked. Kirk could hear in her voice a thirst for information about himself, just as he too yearned to learn more about her. He also discovered that, with Edith by his side, he did not feel the need to turn away from his childhood memories, nor to avoid talking about his parents.

“I was thinking about the nights when I was a boy that I used to walk with my father out into fields and look up at the stars,” he said.

“Were you raised on a farm?” Edith asked. He could feel her adjust the position of her head on his shoulder as she raised her face toward his in the darkened room.

“I was,” Kirk said. “In Iowa.” He knew that he shouldn't reveal too much about himself, but he could not see how Edith knowing the place of his birth would cause any disruption.

“In England, I grew up on a farm too,” Edith said, her tone conveying her pleasure at this additional point of commonality between them. “After my mother died,” she went on, quieter, “my father just couldn't maintain the land anymore, and we lost it.” A few nights ago, Edith had spoken of the close relationship she'd had with her father, particularly after her mother had passed away. After years of living a difficult life, her father had at last chosen to make a new start for himself and for his daughter, and he'd believed that relocating to America would allow them the best chance to do that. That had been eight years ago, and he'd died only days after he and Edith had arrived in their new country.

“My father died when I was eleven,” Kirk said. “I found him out in our north field, working the corn. It was a strong sun that day, and it turned out that he had a weak heart…” He thought to say more, but he'd never before said aloud the words he just had, and whatever would have come next caught in his throat. Tears welled in his eyes, and for just a second, he felt grateful that the lightless room concealed his weakness.

But he didn't feel weak, he realized. He felt…free. Free to reveal to Edith—to
share
with her—his deepest wounds, his greatest fears, his most desperate hopes and desires. He would be utterly vulnerable to her, and yet he found that he trusted her so completely that he had not the slightest doubt that she would never betray his faith in her. He knew that, for all her days, she would love and nurture and even protect him.

A tear spilled from his eye and down the side of his face. Kirk didn't know how she knew, but Edith reached up and gently traced one finger along his cheek. “It's all right, Jim,” she said. “I understand.”

He knew that she did understand—what he felt for his lost parents, what he saw when he peered up at the stars, what he wanted and worked to make happen for the human race. Edith understood that and more, much more. “I get through my days by not thinking about it,” Kirk admitted, “but I miss my mom and dad.”

“I know,” Edith said, placing her hand lightly against the side of his face. “But they would want you to go on. They would be proud of you for doing so.” The words could have sounded like a hopeful fantasy or even a sort of appeasement, but delivered by Edith, they rang true.

Kirk reached up and took Edith's hand in his own, squeezing it in a wordless display of the emotion he felt for her. She squeezed back, then pushed up from bed. Before he knew what she was doing, her lips brushed tenderly against his own.

Tonight, after he had walked her home from the mission, she had invited him here, into her one-room apartment. They had swept easily, naturally into each other's arms, their movements sure and effortless, like those of longtime dance partners. Their lovemaking had developed at its own pace, by turns languorous and slow, then fevered and full of energy. She could not have been more right for him, nor he for her.

In the darkness, Edith lowered herself back to his side, back into arms. She again rested her head on his shoulder. After a moment, she said, “Do you have any sisters or brothers?”

“I do,” Kirk said. “I have an older brother, Sam. He and his wife have also given me three nephews.”

“That's wonderful,” Edith said, and Kirk perceived in the assessment the sense that she had no family of her own left to her.

“They're good boys,” Kirk said, though Sam's two older sons had both reached their twenties. “I haven't seen my brother and his family in almost two years.” He could hear the wistfulness in his own voice. It had been just before Kirk had taken command of the
Enterprise
that Sam and Aurelan had brought their family on a surprise visit to see him off on his first captaincy. He had been deeply touched by their gesture, and he realized now how much he missed them all—especially Sam. “I'd love for you to meet them,” he said without thinking.

“I'd like that too,” Edith said.

For a moment, Kirk cursed himself for his foolishness, but he could not maintain his anger. Even though he knew that Edith would never meet Sam, that she would never be more a part of his life than she was right now, his sentiment remained true: he
would
love for her to meet his brother. In fact, he wanted to share all of his life with her.

Edith raised herself up again, this time onto her elbows, her hands resting on Kirk's chest. “Where is your brother?” she asked. “What does he do?”

“He's a scientist,” Kirk said with the exuberant pride of a younger brother. “He's—”
On Deneva,
Kirk thought, but he knew he could not say that. “—out of the country doing research right now,” he finished, prevaricating but not actually lying. He didn't think that he
could
lie to Edith.

“Well, when he gets back,” Edith said, “I'll have to ask him about you…perhaps about what you were like as a boy.”

“Whatever he tells you, don't believe it,” Kirk joked, despite the impossibility of such a meeting ever occurring. “They'll just be the musings of a man jealous of his younger brother.”

“Oh, I see,” Edith said. “And what reason does Sam have to be jealous of you?”

Kirk felt the smile on his lips fade as he stared up into the darkness where he knew Edith's face to be. “For one thing, because I have you.” He knew that this relationship with Edith would end, that it
must
end, and yet in this isolated time with her, none of that mattered. “The entire universe should envy me because I have you in my life.” Even though his time with her would end up measured merely in days, he still believed that.

“You are very sweet, Mister Kirk,” Edith whispered. Again, he felt her lips touch his. They kissed slowly, passionately.

When at last their lips parted, Kirk said, “I love you.”

“And I love you,” Edith responded.

Kirk's heart had never been so full, and even though he knew that it never would be again, right now, he didn't care. If he could freeze time, preserve this moment in amber, he would, but he ignored the fact that he couldn't. He threw himself wholly into this instant, opened himself up to experience every trace of emotion within him.

“Edith,” he said, loving even the sound of her name. He pulled her down on top of him, and once more, they moved together in the darkness of her room. He wished the night would last forever.