When Pike dies, Jim's world quietly crumbles. He'd thought this life would be a good one, even though things had started to go a little pear-shaped recently. It didn't matter, though; he didn't need to command a starship to be happy (he has hundreds of lives that prove it).

Jim knows better than anyone that death's not as hard as it appears. It's a world of pain, until poof!, suddenly, you're gone. Pike wasn't in agony, not for very long (but he will be, when Jim finds him.)

It's easy to hate a name, even easier to hate an idea of a man, but when Jim sees a picture of the man claiming to be John Harrison, his heart stutters in his chest. He and Khan have always, in every universe, had a unique relationship. They have despised each other with the hot passion of a scorched and dying Alpha Ceti V and have loved each other with an equal fervor. (And yet he still cannot define him; Khan defies categorization.) But for all of their history (which exists only in Jim's mind), Kirk cannot pardon this universe's Khan of his sins. (And so, like so many other times, he will hunt Khan down and kill him. It should be simple by now. He ignores the pang in his chest.)

It is easier, much easier than it should be, to take Khan into custody. Of course, Jim gets a couple of good punches in there (for Pike's death and for Spock's death and for the deaths of thousands of others and for lovely words that bleed in the night), but Khan takes them without resistance. His surrender is too fast, and although it could be part of some elaborate plot, Jim has a sinking suspicion about what those torpedoes really are (because Khan without his crew is like a star without planets – brilliant and bright, but completely, utterly alone). If he's right, he'll have to apologize to Scotty when this is all done.

He is right, as it turns out. The tears Khan sheds as he explains are achingly real, and Jim has to fight back tears of his own. He's known these frozen people in different universes and understands better than most the bonds of devotion that exist between all of them. Admiral Marcus' actions have cut deeply into Khan, Jim can see that much. It's painful, more painful that he could have anticipated, and he briefly wishes that he had fired those torpedoes at Khan so that this all could have disappeared in a conflagration of rocket fuel and frozen augments (because now he is forced to remember it all, and if he has to kill Khan later, he's not sure if he could manage it).

Under his breath, a small curse slips between his lips. Neither Bones and Spock react; they've long become accustomed to his multilingual swears.

But Khan's head shoots up, and his eyes lock onto Jim's. "Say that again," he demands.

Jim blinks. "Hrot'a?" he asks, confused, and then he realizes what he's just said. It belongs to a language that he and Khan had invented in several universes. It had been surprisingly the same between each universe with only slight variations, so Jim tends to slip into it occasionally. It's never been invented in this universe though, of course, so Khan should think nothing of it.

"You remember," Khan breathes instead, and Jim's brain stutters to a halt in shock. For the first time in years, the voices are silent.