taxonomites | xxvi [ visual ].

Kirk stood outside the doors to the severed bridge of the ship he hadn't seen in over a year. There used to be a hallway here - to the right, sickbay and to the left, the transporter room. Both were gone, sent home along with the people they'd accompanied. Sickbay had vanished months ago with Doctor McCoy, but the transporter room was a more recent disappearance, gone with Uhura. Both she and Spock were now absent from Taxon.

Part of him was glad they were gone. No-one deserved to be here. Better they be home, leading the lives they were supposed to than here in sometimes apocalyptic hamsterland. The other part was angry and jealous; felt abandoned and alone. Irrational, he realized, but hey, he was only human.

He took a step towards the doors and they parted obediently, granting him access to the Enterprise's remaining piece. Once on the bridge, he lifted the tablet he'd known was on all along into view so he could look at the screen directly. For once, he'd actually turned it on himself and wasn't just the tablet glitch that plagued Taxon's residents.

"To those of you who knew them, Commander Spock and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura have been sent home."

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Max blinks at this information, clearly a little stunned.

"Does she...know your great-great granddaughter?"

That sort of question catches him off guard and for a long moment, all the captain does is stare at her. His...great-great-granddaughter? He had kids? Oh God. It was possible, but he doesn't really see himself as the Dad type. (And who knows if David Marcus will even exist in his version of the timeline, let alone survive.)

"...didn't really say."

Max gives him a similarly confused and bewildered expression back, only she's wondering why she's being looked at like that. She doesn't know whether or not he'll have kids in the future, but it would sort of explain how someone from a century forward in time would know his name.

"Just wondered how she knew you if you were from different times."

Kirk quickly shoves his pondering on the subject of any possible offspring aside, something to be fretted over another day.

"Uh, yeah," he answers. "Kind of obvious. I'm something of uh... Well, you could say my name's in the history books where she's from."

A low class, Romulan miner had known who he was. Name, ship and reputation. A century later and the lowest on the farthest outskirts of the quadrant knew who he was.