[ James hands her the drink without asking, casually pressing it into La’an’s fingers, and then takes the first fortifying swig of his own. He’s been stewing on this particular subject ever since the subspace anomaly, and although he hadn’t especially planned or rehearsed what he was going to say, he’d resigned himself to just winging it. Improv has usually worked out in his favour. Although it had let him down with La’an’s actual confession; he’d simply been too caught off-guard to know how to respond before they were both summoned away. There weren’t any convenient social etiquette guides on how to address I had a connection with an alternate timeline version of you, but he’s gone now.

But he’s been thinking about it. And he and Carol are the very definition of on-again off-again, and this year, they’ve spent most of it off. He’s been a girl-in-every-port kinda guy in his younger years. But he’s getting older, ostensibly more responsible with his officer’s commission, and so maybe it’s time to reconsider and see if he, too, could learn to change. To put down roots. Make connections, even when they’re bizarre and probably breaking some temporal rules. ]

A mulligan, a do-over, a blank slate. Have you ever golfed? My dad’s big on golfing. Anyway, my point being—

[ Cocktail in one hand, open palm in the other, he reaches out to offer an oddly formal handshake. A hello, although there’s a cheeky dimpled smile in the corner of his mouth at the conceit as he continues: ]

Hi, I’m James Kirk, first officer of the USS Farragut.