Standing in the bedroom doorway, Kirk gazed around, wanting to ensure that he’d left everything the way he’d found it, save for the few items he would take with him. He then returned to the den to confirm that he’d deactivated the computer terminal. Finally, he left the apartment and rode a turbolift back down to the lobby.

Out on the street, he headed for the nearest public transporter. Until next Wednesday, he would need to hide himself away. Fortunately, he knew just the place to do that.

TWELVE

2293/2284

The old place didn’t have a retina scanner, but Kirk’s handprint opened the front door. He stepped into the living room, the air within stale and close. He had a caretaker, Joe Semple, who came out from Lost River a couple of times a year to open up the house and check for any problems that the weather or simple age might have caused, but Joe probably hadn’t been out here since the spring.

By the time Kirk had arrived here, dusk had fallen on the Idaho hills. In the fading light of the day, he reached to the wall inside the door and tapped the control pad there. The overhead panels came on, revealing a roomful of Halloween ghosts: the sofa, the easy chairs, the end tables, all mere shapes beneath the white sheets that covered them. The mantel above the fireplace sat bare, as did the shelves he’d built on either side of it, as did the walls themselves. Where once the sentimental trinkets of his life-and later, of Antonia’s-had enlivened this place, now only emptiness remained.

How appropriate, Kirk thought, struck by the lonely path his life had taken. Why did I leave the nexus? I could’ve fixed this. I could’ve fixed all of it.

But of course, he couldn’t have, not really. The nexus had been filled with joys, but imagined joys. What he had to do now, he had to do in the real universe.

Kirk closed the door behind him, then pulled the strap of the carryall from his shoulder and dropped the bag onto the floor. It landed with a soft thump, and he thought that he might just want to follow it down. Fatigue had washed over him, and he realized that he had no idea when last he’d slept.

Kirk decided to walk through the rest of the house. He ducked his head into the office he’d once set up off the living room, and which Antonia had then made her own once she’d moved in. Everything with which she had filled the room had gone now, leaving most of the space empty. Only the com/comm unit he’d had installed there now remained, draped like the rest of the furniture with a white sheet. Kirk padded over to it and gingerly gathered the covering from atop it, not wanting to stir up all the dust that had accumulated during the past months. After setting the balled sheet down on the floor, he tapped at the console’s controls. It blinked to life with a chirp, confirming that he would be able to use it to record the message he needed for next week, for the Enterprise-B launch. He deactivated it, then continued on through the rest of the house.

Moving through the kitchen, down the short hall, past the refresher, and into the bedroom, Kirk saw only more signs of disuse. At one time he had loved this place back when he’d spent a couple of summers here as a boy. It had been here that his uncle had taught him how to ride horses, and just being away from home had made those trips seem like adventures. In the years since the property had passed to him, though, he had neglected it. His long duty aboard the Enterprise had certainly prevented him from visiting more than occasionally, but even when he’d been stationed on Earth as chief of Starfleet Operations, he hadn’t come here much. Even during that first time he’d stepped away from the space service, when he’d actually come here to live, he hadn’t really taken care of the place until he’d met Antonia.

And now look at it, he thought as he gazed at the unused furniture hidden beneath yet more sheets. As tired as he felt, he couldn’t bring himself to lie down on the bed. He imagined it would seem like a betrayal of sorts to treat this place like home.

Too many regrets, he told himself. As little as he’d used this place over the years, he’d still been unable to divest himself of it. Kirk had rarely seen his nephews, owing both to his time on the Enterprise and their being scattered throughout the quadrant, so he supposed that holding on to his uncle’s old house had provided a familial touchstone for him, however infrequently he’d visited it. Just knowing it was there, waiting for him, had probably helped him in ways of which he hadn’t even been aware.

Kirk paced back through the house to the living room. He thought about checking outside for some wood, but then thought better of it, deciding that he didn’t have the energy to build a fire. Instead, he carefully pulled the sheet from the sofa and sat down.

As he did, his hand struck something. Kirk looked down and saw a hardcover book on the cushion beside him. He picked it up, the scent of its age reaching him, a smell he recalled from childhood; his mother had so loved books. Kirk examined the small, thin volume, bound in gilded leather. Its cover contained an ornate design, but no title. He turned it so that he could see its spine, and when he saw the words there, he read them aloud: “The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet.” His voice echoed slightly in the room, evoking the peculiar impression that no words had ever been spoken here before.

But of course many had.

Too many, Kirk thought.

He shook his head. He didn’t remember leaving the book here, though clearly he must have on his last trip out to the house, before the nexus, before the Enterprise-B, before everything. It had been a gift from Antonia, on the second anniversary of their first date, just half a year or so before she would last speak to him. She must’ve suspected when she’d given this to me, Kirk thought. A tragedy in the offing.

He opened the cover of the book. On the front endpaper, he saw words flowing across the page in Antonia’s delicate hand. Dear Jim, she had written, Even though I don’t care much for the story, I know how much you love old books. This is just to show how much I love old Jim Kirk. Always, Antonia.

“‘Always,’” Kirk said. She’d been wrong about that, and wrong about the tragedy too. Kirk had been the forlorn Romeo, but Antonia had not been his Juliet.

And I knew that, Kirk rebuked himself. I knew it all along. He had done so much good in his life, but he would never forgive himself for what he had done to Antonia.

For a fleeting moment, Kirk considered contacting her now, telling her how sorry he felt for how badly he’d hurt her. He knew that he couldn’t do that for fear of changing the timeline, for fear of disrupting his plans to prevent the temporal loop, but even if he could speak with her, he understood that it would do no good. Kirk craved absolution, but he also knew that he did not deserve it.

Kirk leafed through the book until he reached the first page of the play. He began to read, but before long, his eyelids fluttered closed. His head lolled back on the sofa and he drifted to sleep.

Unfortunately for him, his slumber did not lack for dreams.

As Jim Kirk slid the pan of Ktarian eggs onto the low heat of the cooking surface, he felt the chill of the morning air. Thinking that he should start a fire, he dashed around the island and out of the kitchen. In the living room, he peered down beside the hearth at the log basket there, which sat empty. He then went over to the front door, opened it, and looked out at several stacks of wood, some of it cut, some not.

Kirk paced outside to his right and up the curved stone stairs to the front clearing. There, he reached down for a few pieces of firewood, but as he did so, his gaze came to rest on the axe that he’d left sticking in the stump. Suddenly feeling the need for some physical activity, he went over to the pile of unhewn tree segments, grabbed one, and set it down beside the axe. He pulled the tool free, then swung it up and around, bringing the blade down squarely into the short length of tree trunk, which divided neatly in two, each piece falling to the ground. He bent, picked up one of the pieces, and placed it back in position to be split.