I just rewatched the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow". And oh by golly do I have a ton of headcanons and ideas regarding what happened in the Other-Jim's timeline, as well as how that affects La'an when she gets back to her own timeline. And since you obviously want to know about all of my thoughts on this, I will share them.🙂
This is gonna be a long one, lads and lasses. So buckle your seatbelts.
Also, Spoilers for season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds below the cut.
All ideas I'm about to talk about stem from the fact that I am convinced that the first thing to convince Jim to help La'an get her timeline back, was the fact that in her timeline, Sam was still alive. He would risk his entire universe, just to know that his brother was still there. (Just to be 100% clear, I do have eyes and can see that he and La'an developed feelings for each other. Obviously. I'm just talking about before that happened. The look on his face when she said that she knew Sam. Getting his brother back was a first priority, I think.)
There are two main ideas that I have. I'll start with the first one I came up with:
George Samuel Kirk, and James Tiberius Kirk were both born on the SS Iowa. Three years apart.
Growing up during an intergalactic war wasn't easy, and at some point, they made a pact to keep each other safe. No matter what.
Sam learned at a young age how to do whatever it took to keep himself and his brother safe. Even if that meant killing someone.
Sam joined the fight first. He was a soldier and a protecter. And that's what Jim thinks of first when he thinks of his brother.
Sam dies in some sort of suicide mission in order to save the Enterprise. To save his brother.
When La'an and Jim first meet, it's been a minimum of five years since that day. Maybe more.
At some point, Jim asks La'an about what his brother is like in her timeline, which leads to them comparing and contrasting about Sam Kirk, and learning that the two were very VERY different.
The Sam that Jim knew would never shave his face because "The Romulans aren't going to leave us alone for a minute because we need a shave." And he barely if ever would even trim the hair on his face. (La'an laughs at the thought of her timeline's Sam with a shaggy beard.)
Jim's Sam knew how to shoot to kill. He would run first into the fight, just to make sure that everyone made it out alive. And La'an almost wishes she could've met that Sam.
When Jim mentions that he always thought of his brother as a peacemaker and a pacifist that never had the chance to learn what peace was, La'an is glad to be able to tell him that in her timeline, Sam isn't a fighter. He doesn't know how to aim to kill, and would rather run than fight. And Jim smiles at hearing that.
When they think that maybe Jim can come to La'an's timeline, he stops to himself and thinks about seeing Sam again.
It wouldn't be his Sam.
It wouldn't be the same Sam that taught him how to play chess so that he wouldn't hear the sounds of war outside the window.
It wouldn't be the same Sam that would smack him on the back of the head when he ran into a firefight, only to do the same thing almost immediately after.
It wouldn't be the same Sam who wished for a time where he didn't have to fight to keep them safe.
It wouldn't be the same Sam that he watched die.
But for all their differences, the two Sams were very much alike.
Both enjoyed studying biological sciences. (That was one thing that made Jim's Sam so deadly.)
Both Sams had the same Kirk stubbornness, which meant they would never back down.
They both had an annoying habit of saying the wrong things at the worst possible times.
Most importantly, both Sams loved their "idiot" younger brothers.
La'an found all of the differences amusing, and I think she probably wondered just how different the Jim in her own timeline was, from the man that was sitting next to her. The man that she was starting to fall for.
And when things went wrong, his last words were, "Tell Sam I said 'hi'." Even at the end, he thought about his brother.
And La'an went home, alone.
She was told that she wasn't allowed to discuss what happened with anybody. Ever.
She probably avoided Sam for a while. Because even though she never met the Other Sam, she didn't have to.
Sam and Jim look just enough alike for it to be painful. They have the same look in their eyes. Even though Sam's are dark and Jim's are hazel, the light in them is the same.
They also talk in the same way. La'an didn't know that until she got back, but Sam and Jim both use their hands in the same way when they talk. And the way that they shrug with one shoulder, the way they move their mouths when they're thinking. The little things add up.
So La'an just avoids Sam like the plague.
Until eventually, when she's had time to properly process everything that happened. (Sometime post "Subspace Rhapsody" I think would be best.)
She finally catches Sam alone in a turbolift.
She doesn't look at him, and he thinks that he must have done something wrong.
And she just says three words. "Jim says 'hi'."
She fulfills her friend's dying wish. And then she doesn't say anything else, and just gets off as soon as the doors open back up.
Sam knows that something else is going on for two reasons:
One, he just spoke to Jim less than five minutes before.
And two, his Big Brother Instincts were blaring red alert. She was a little sister that needed help.
I don't know if he acted on the Big Brother Instincts or not, but that can be left open to interpretation.
The other concept that I have, follows the same as the first one for the first few bullet points, with one major big change: Other Timeline Sam was closer in additude to Main Timeline Sam.
Instead of being a fighter, Sam was always the one that would hide from the fight. This is partly what prompted Jim to be the one to fight in the war.
Despite his own self-proclaimed cowardice, Sam worked hard to try and protect his brother. Which is what led to his untimely demise.
Instead of dying in a suicide mission to protect the Enterprise, it was something more like a Romulan got on board and was trying to get to Jim
So Sam did what any big brother would in that moment. He kept his baby brother safe.
Claiming to be Jim (or something. Details aren't specific right now.) Sam ends up dying. He managed to kill the intruder too.
Jim doesn't get to his brother in time. By the time he gets there, Sam's dead. And that moment shapes him.
It's still around five years after that, that La'an and Jim meet.
They still end up comparing Sams, but this time, they're surprised by how much alike the two are.
The biggest difference that the two can find is that Jim's Sam was clean shaven.
Jim this time is more hopeful about seeing his brother again. He's sure that there are tons of differences between the two that they don't know about. (La'an and Sam aren't exactly close.)
But what matters to him is that the two Sams are similar enough.
When Jim dies, this time, La'an avoids Sam even harder. She can't bear to look at the man that Other Timeline Jim wanted to see so badly.
The similarities between the brothers are too much. It makes her angry, just as much as it makes her sad. So she avoids Sam.
She walks out of the room as soon as he walks in.
She doesn't even look at the turbolift if she can hear him talking.
Sam's starting to think that he's done something to make her mad at him. It's not like they ever talked much before, but now? Something definitely happened.
In this version of events, she avoids talking to Sam for way longer than she did in the other one. Even after she sorta comes to terms with everything that happened.
It takes some sort of outside intervention to get them talking. (Idk what though. An away mission or something like that maybe? It's not like anyone is shoving them in a room together or anything like that. Aside from the two of them, I don't think anyone else really notices or cares all that much.)
When she does finally say her three words to him, it's a little more angry. They got into a fight because Sam made a comment that his brother doesn't care that much about him. (Don't ask me why that would even come up. It just does. Go with it.)
She yells at him, telling him what Jim's last words were.
She doesn't want to even look at him. Because looking at the Sam that Other Timeline Jim would have been so excited to see hurts, especially when that same Sam is claiming that his brother wouldn't care if anything happens to him.
Maybe it all spills out. Well, not all of it. But some of the big parts. The part where a different version of Sam's brother died in her arms.
The part where the last thing he said was to tell Sam he said hi.
The part where Other Timeline Jim missed his big brother so much that he was willing to destroy the entire life that he knew just to see him again.
By the end of that, she's sobbing. And so is he, really.
Sam apologizes for saying what he did. He didn't know how it would hurt her. (He still doesn't quite believe everything she said. But he really didn't mean to upset her.)
La'an doesn't respond to him, and just walks away.
She doesn't avoid him as much after that.
