[ Her muscles relax slightly when she feels his hand on her back, the warmth of his touch sinking in through the fabric of her shirt. His touch soothes her soul in a way she can't even begin to explain, and she doesn't want to acknowledge what that means.

Glancing over at him, she catches the last glimmer of that arched eyebrow, and so she has to explain. It's suddenly vitally important that he understands what sort of life shaped the other James Kirk. ] It was a wasteland. He said the clouds of ash wouldn't settle for a thousand years.

[ Even now, she has trouble grasping what it would be like to live in a galaxy like that. ] In his timeline, humanity had colonized a few planets, but... We didn't have allies. The Federation didn't exist, and we were losing a war with the Romulans.

[ She thinks of the way James and turned aside Spock's plea for help even after hearing how disastrous it would be for the Vulcans. The look on Spock's face... Jim doesn't need to know about that part. It might be ridiculous for her to feel protective of a man who no longer exists, especially given who that man was, but she doesn't want Jim to think badly of his other self. ]