Ad Astra :: Star Trek Fanfiction Archive ^{Beam me up, Scotty.}

Chapter Text

Don’t get attached, that was the most important piece of advice passing along to those working with the Department of Temporal Investigations. It was meant to apply to interactions with people from the past, different timelines, but Maya hadn’t realized that it might also apply to those from her own time until she passed Saavik in the halls of Starfleet command–strangely enough this version of Saavik was pregnant too. They weren’t lovers in this timeline, hadn’t met at all, and if another Maya even existed she would have died recently as a teenager in a sudden blaze of glory.

But Maya wasn’t here for Saavik, she was here for (now Captain) James Tiberius Kirk. They were to meet in a spare office, and Maya took the remaining time to review the files. It was no surprise that Kirk and company hadn’t discreetly slipped back in time to find a few whales, not with Kirk’s lengthy records with the DTI. No, his crew also had to contaminate the past with medical and engineering technology that would seem like magic to the people of 1986 and brought back a woman who lived in that year. In the end though, he did save the planet, so perhaps it was worthwhile.

Something felt wrong and out of place when Kirk entered the office. He was her father’s sworn enemy, until recently an admiral, and it felt like he was a child called in to speak to the principal…only Maya felt as though she was on the wrong side of the desk. When they last met, she was a prisoner, but this Kirk had no way of knowing.

“I’d like to begin without any hesitations.” Maya scanned the files once more as she spoke. “I’m sure you’ve had plenty of congratulations, my focus is on the unintended consequences.”

“Of course, Agent…?”

“McGivers.”

“McGivers?”

Kirk blinked. It had taken Maya years to take La’an’s advice to heart, about crafting her own legacy and redeeming her name from family burden, but her work took her places where introducing herself as Maya Noonien-Singh would raise too many questions. Of course she was sitting across from one of the few people who would have just as many questions about someone related to Marla McGivers.

“That’s right. I think you knew my mother.”

Kirk paused to think before he spoke, and the confused yet thoughtful look on his face made Maya regret saying anything at all. Now she owed him an explanation. “She must have been a teenager when you were born.:”

“No, definitely not.” She was breaking all manner of protocol by saying anything at all. “I’m sure another seemingly impossible explanation crossed your mind, that’s the one.”
Kirk opened his mouth as if to speak but instead considered all of this information a moment longer. Answers that only led to more questions, no doubt.

“I don’t understand. How?”

“I’m not from the same time as you. Not even the same reality, but I’ve said too much.”

“Right, of course. This meeting isn’t about you, it’s about what happened in 1986.”

Maya nodded. “Before we begin, there’s something I want to say.” Her heart raced, there words she had held in her heart for over a decade but never had the chance to share, but when the moment came her throat closed up. “We have met before, in a different reality. You did something very generous for me, but I never found out until it was too late to thank you.”

“Well, I’m glad to have helped, but what do you mean by ‘too late’?”

“Captain, you were clever enough to defeat my father in two different timelines…that I know of. I think you’re clever enough to understand what it means when it’s too late to tell a person something.”