James T. Kirk stood in the middle of the great, empty plain, watching as first the images and then the mists within the Guardian of Forever faded. He had just viewed the life of his counterpart, whom he had transported out of the Enterprise-B’s main deflector control room and into the shuttlecraft Archimedes—where before that earlier Jim Kirk had materialized, Kirk had been pulled back here by the Guardian. Although he hadn’t known whether the time vortex would accede to his request, Kirk had actually asked to be returned here if he managed to prevent the converging temporal loop. Once he had beamed his alter ego out of the path of the energy ribbon, that had been the case.
Now, he stood before the mysterious portal, having just watched the last moments in the life of that other Kirk, confirming that he had aided Picard and had thereby saved the population of Veridian IV. Remarkably, everything had transpired more or less as he had planned just before he had left the nexus the second time. He had no idea whether any echo or other version of himself remained within that timeless other-space or not, since he had stopped himself from entering it in the first place. And he didn’t quite understand how he had essentially managed to replicate himself, since five billion years from now he would die on Veridian Three beneath the mass of a metal bridge.
He did know this: he stood here on a world before Earth’s sun had formed, all of his responsibilities satisfied. The converging temporal loop had been averted, the crew of the Enterprise-B had been rescued from the clutches of the energy ribbon, the people of Veridian IV had been saved, and he had avoided altering the timeline between 2293 and 2371. The universe believed him dead. Now, alone here with the Guardian, his thoughts turned to Edith.
When Kirk and Spock had traveled back in time to 1930, the only option they’d had in restoring history had been to stop McCoy from damaging it. In the years since, though, when he’d been unable to keep his memory from returning to Edith, Kirk had occasionally imagined taking some action not only to save the life of his beloved, but to allow him to then spend his life with her. He’d considered going back to the Guardian and somehow finding a way of bringing Edith safely forward, or of remaining in the past with her, without altering the timeline. Although he’d had a number of ideas on the subject, he’d never seriously considered attempting any of them.
But now, standing here with the Guardian of Forever before human beings had ever even evolved on Earth, before there had even been an Earth, he reconsidered. In many ways, he had all the time in the world. All the time in the universe, really.
“Guardian,” he said.