（ jim listens attentively as bones brings him up to speed, interjecting with questions if he's curious but otherwise just riding it out. it's a lot, even for someone to whom the term a lot is a singularly high threshold. he's no stranger to anything from the unusual to the impossible, and he won't deny that the word singularity makes him twitch, idly smoothing the roughspun fabric at the crease of his shoulder in old memories.

that explains the robes. so like a uniform, but certainly not one he'd expected to find the man in — he'd been here, had enough time to integrate. and he'd done it alone. he doesn't have a problem being on his own here — but the idea of a single member of his crew being in that predicament makes something hook in behind his ribcage and ache. he reaches out unselfconsciously, a touch to bones' bicep, fingers curled in tight in reassurance before his hand falls away. ）

Okay. All right （ he scrubs that same hand across his face. he's got his boots on the ground, time to step up. ） — let me see if I've got this right. You were here before, left, and now you're back? Recently. Any memories of the interim? Because I guarantee, you never left the Enterprise — which could mean a temporal disturbance of some sort.