Truth be told, the multiverse had seen the like before.

Almost, in fact, to the letter. One Harold, one Scotty, by chance in contact at the precise moment the storm should reach a crescendo. It was with a panic not unlike what the universe had seen before that Harold attempted to catch Scotty as he fell. Harold knew nothing but pain in the instant following.

It was a blinding, searing pain that penetrated each layer of his mind and burned bright across his skin, too. At once familiar and shockingly alien, he couldn't know that this was the loss of his mental connection to Hikaru Sulu.

The torture both belonged to him and did not. The link had been left behind months before by subconscious choice in a world where anything could be handwaved, even the security of one's own mind. This was what it should have been like to have Hikaru unceremoniously torn from his mind.

It was a tempest in a teacup that would blow itself out quickly, but not before he hit the floor on his knees, clutching and clawing at his own scalp.

Wait. Floor. Where the hell was he, to be on its floor--? Oh god, wake the hell up, Scotty's hurt and just open your stupid eyes-- Grey. Everything grey, and no Scotty in sight. Hands to the ground and he shot up off the floor, immediately scrambling for his phaser and finding none. Of course not. Of course f*cking not, he hadn't been downstairs.

That was probably for the better, as his first leaping instinct was to stun the hell out of the man who looked, even curled up and dazed on the floor, like Hikaru.

Harold didn't hesitate. Scotty was not here, Hikaru was, it was all f*cking wrong and even through the pain of his being torn wide open, Harold charged at him. Snarling, he snatched the man up by the front of his t-shirt, hauling him partway off the floor, and began ranting in his face.

"What the f*ck did you do, *sshole?!" Harold shook the man as he bellowed and the doppelganger could only stare, frozen likely from his own wave of pain. "Where'd you f*cking send him, 'Karu? Hmm? Why can't you just leave us alone?!" Harold shook him a second time, and it was then the other man snapped enough out of his stupor to recognize an attack. And the name.

A vicious cry split the air, and the man reared back and promptly decked Harold across the jaw, sending him skating on his *ss across the floor.

The impossible gray dust settled in swirls around them, and the pair stared at each other, panting. Reeling. Noting subtle features. There was a simultaneous dawn of realization.

It was the duplicate who spoke first, in a slow and emphatic tone that suggested what he said should be perfectly obvious and yet bore speaking anyway.

"So... not-Sulu, dude."

They stared. And stared some more. Harold had a pretty good idea of what he was staring at. What if we kept goin', on th' ship, aye? Except, it wasna us. Scotty's thought had repulsed him on so many levels. He had a good idea of what he was seeing now, and it turned his stomach.

The duplicate seemed to be clueless.

"This isn't f*cking natural," Harold insisted after a time, rubbing his jaw with his fingertips. Testing what should be a newly forming bruise, the ache of it blossoming somewhat in tandem with the ebb of the metaphysical pain leaving him. "Where are we? What the hell is going on?" That was muttered, mostly to himself and barely even questioning in tone. Resigned.

It comes in waves, one after another. He should be used to it by now.

"You--" Harold gestured, both hands out, fingers crooked and flexing. Frustrated. "You shouldn't f*cking exist."

The duplicate, who had spent the indeterminate time with his mouth hanging slightly open and trying to breathe, scowled at that. Eyebrows drawn, he snapped, flinging one hand out as he spoke. "Well, *sshole, I clearly do exist so just-- shut the hell up and calm down."

Harold shrank some at that, burying a hand in his own hair and beginning to tug. His reply was quieter, more a grumble. "Yeah, like you're such a f*cking help, sitting over there gaping like a damn goldfish."

That said, Harold went silent again. Internal panic manifesting in that jerking tug on his hair and a gentle rock of his body back and forth. Thinking. Ticking over. The duplicate stood and began pacing, clearly terrified in his own way, but far more guarded about it.

It was just a grey expanse, some dust-fog, and no apparent terrain. Essentially, nothingness, reaching on into forever. Where was Scotty? How the hell would he get out of here? Tick tick tick. Maybe the nexus had deposited them here. Maybe it was limbo. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was unreality, like the beach.

He held out a hand, and attempted a handwave. Nothing manifested.

Harold sighed, staring at his empty hand. He glanced back up at the other Harold, and curled his fingers back into a fist. "This isn't the beach. This is-- something else. What the hell do you know? Why am I sitting here staring at your unnatural *ss while my fiance is f*ck-knows-where?"

The twin stopped dead where he paced, a knuckled pressed to his chin. He flicked his gaze down at Harold without turning his head. "Beach-- what the-- okay. Be kind, rewind, dude. Did you just say-- fiance?"

Harold shook his head manically, tugging his hair again. "Yeah. Fiance. That's what I said. What-- did you get all my straightness, or something?"

The man turned his head now to face Harold, mouth opening and closing once or twice. His finger extended from its curl at his chin, standing straight up against his lips. "You're-- marrying him. So what-- are you, ghost of weddings future or something? If you're here to teach me that life is worth living or some sh*t, don't bother, I'm way ahead of you on that."

"Ah, no," Harold replied with a sarcastic little smile that bordered on a grimace. "Thinking you might be ghost of awkwardness past, though."

"Hey, f*ck you, man," the counterpart spat, pointing.

Harold shrank and muttered an apology. They both crossed their arms and looked away.

Somehow it was harder to be self-deprecating when yourself was someone else.

It would be a long time before either of them spoke again.

"What beach?"

Harold's response was a whip-crack. "My beach. You don't remember it? And why the f*ck is there a big brown stain on your jeans?"

"It's coffee. I was an idiot and dumped it in Scotty's lap. No, I don't remember it, what the f*ck are you talking about?"

"Dude, you're me, I'm you--" Harold gestured jerkily, hands flexing closed and then flying open again. "--it was our beach, where we went when we weren't on that damn ship, until-- ugh. What'd you dump coffee in his lap for?!"

"You think I meant to--" The counterpart shut his eyes and abandoned the sentence. He took a breath, dropping his hands, fingers splayed out. "There's an easier way to do this sh*t."

Harold nearly puked when the other man reached up and slipped the earpiece from his ear.

Harold's soul screamed out when he felt the familiar buzz of another mind linking with his. It darned the raw tear left where Hikaru had been; tidy threads stitched together, almost perfect, though they remained repulsive and ugly for the repair.

He slammed up his defensive wall, whimpering and yanking hard on his own hair. The other must have felt the metaphysical slap, as he flinched and snapped back as if struck.

Neither man moved for a long, silent moment.

"No."

Harold barely registered that the word had been snarled from his own mouth. The counterpart stared, open-mouthed, horror and guilt written across his features. He sobbed, once.

It had been too late. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know, I didn't even know it would work, I didn't-- The shrill litany came through Harold's mind loud and clear, and the thoughts were most emphatically not his own.

They were too close. Threads of the same person, not just shared DNA but a shared soul that had parted ways by only a few months; Harold's visualized wall could only dampen it, he could not keep him out, and the other man hadn't the first clue about how to stop short of it.

Not natural. It's done. Not f*cking natural. Just leave it. Get out. Just f*cking stay.

Harold gritted his teeth and glared at the man who was him, but not. The urge to throw the man out flared overwhelmingly, and Harold fought it down. He could do serious damage. Harold had always known exactly what he could have done to Hikaru Sulu had he been pushed too far, and had he been a cold, cruel man. Either of them could have destroyed the other. They could have locked each other inside their own nightmares and sealed the other there.

Both men knew this. Neither of them dare pull back now; there was something here that was fragile, something that breenging back or forward could mangle.

The other Harold trembled, chest aching with remorse and his mind bursting with a tumble of apologetic words he didn't give voice or real form. Harold knew all this to be the case; he could feel it as easily as his own sickening horror.

He closed his eyes, and after a time felt the other man settle in front of him on the floor. The counterpart reached out and placed his hands at the back of Harold's head, and drew their foreheads together.

Harold whimpered, sobbing out.

He didn't know how long he cried, a soul-deep outpouring of pain and trauma and fear. The passage of time in this place was wrong; neither could hold onto it. Which one of them was shushing at that point was lost to the connection.

When he could feel himself breathe again, Harold sent a thought across the ether. Here.

The counterpart sucked in a sharp breath as the cascade of memory trickled in. The overwhelming sensation would be love, streaked and marred with desperation and need to be wanted, approved of, accepted. Harold sent through a bonfire, and the ocean, and faces that the counterpart might recognize but tinged with family and-- something else. Joy and pain and woven through it all he would find a dark-eyed man tucked away in a hammock under a pier.

How--?

I don't know. It wasn't real. But it was ours. We made it real.

Harold wound out memories; what he'd been. What he collected himself to become, as he began to realize how very much in love he was with Scotty. The joy and fear in the complete brain-breaking stumble toward a relationship, a foundation, and love.

A kiss. A tug. A hammock, and then a bed, and--

They both blushed, and the counterpart's eyes snapped open.

The Harold who had no middle name blinked. A smile stole across his face, even through the grief and guilt and the shared pain. They'd stopped short of anything graphic, just for-- well, they decided to call it mystery's sake, for the younger version. But one other thing had slipped through in the cascade.

Ryan. Yeah. It works.

Harold felt the counterpart press in once again, forehead to forehead, nose to nose. They breathed in tandem, one attempting to stabilize his own mind and the presence in it, the other assimilating another life, another world, and the beginnings of what would be a marriage.

Harold could reach out and touch in the mind of his twin the same near-paralytic fear, identical fascination and spark of hope that had been the seeds of his own journey.

How? The counterpart's question came now tinged with wonder, joy, disblief.

You were always worthwhile. A line, unashamedly stolen. Find out the rest for yourself.

Harold didn't know if his twin's nod was real or within their minds. An amused little reply came through the ether. Dude, what's the use in meeting your future self if you can't get the cheat codes to life?

He sent an affectionate sort of shove down the link, and grinned, eyes still closed.

Several breaths later, and there was an answering Here.

Harold felt his memories brushed over, a particular point being sought. ...and there it was; swiftly the cascade turned, and he was being shown-- out of order--

Himself on the bridge. The bridge, but not just on it, working it. Yeoman Lee. He-- was on the bridge, in his own right, his own man, not just hiding in the back and trying not to get in the way. Scotty taught me this.

A more sobering image, and he whimpered at the realization. He saw the records from his own time. Harold had gone missing. The hurt and guilt from that bounced between them, and they both cringed.

Breathe.

--and then-- They were missing. Of course they were. That's why-- Ayel-- And now Harold had some idea of the point in time from which his twin must have been taken. Harold sent back through an understanding; the memories lined up, completing one another. They got out. I promise, man, they got out.

Relief, shared. Breathe. A moment when there was nothing but breathing and the gray expanse around them.

And down came the link a flood of Scotty, not all in order. Taking Harold in hand, snapping him from his panic and making sure he knew how to be a bloody Yeoman in the first place. The simultaneous awe and fear of seeing the man curled in the back seat of a Buick Riveria, sleeping. Harold felt himself daring to ask questions, to push and delve in ways he hadn't trusted himself to before. He saw Scotty stretched over the hood of the same Buick, half-naked and wet, washing her.

He felt the dawning realization of that in his counterpart, and he chuckled aloud. Took you long enough, Harold Lee.

Yeah, yeah. Well. Check this out. The tone of the thought was at once proud and abashed.

It must have been the final moments, as it was the clearest image. A grin pulled at Harold's lips. That explains the stain. Chattering, drinking coffee, a moment's bravery--

A kiss. Two breaths hitched in tandem, so fresh and amazing was the memory. And then two simultaneous mental facepalms, as he felt the coffee tumble out of his hand and shock them both.

From that he felt a tumble of his own words, each one more embarrassing than the last, but-- hope. Hope, and then terror, Scotty in pain and--

Two sets of eyes snapped open. That seemed too familiar to the both of them. Something dawned, neither could place it, but it pulled at them and pushed them together too and it had to be answered.

Neither knew why it occurred, but it landed on both of them at the same instant. Letmein--?

Harold Lee whimpered once; one breath. Two. He allowed his paper-thin wall to descend.

It came in waves.

Realization, knowledge, understanding. Harold Lee had never known... this. The divide fell, and neither was washed away. They melded together, differences at once amplified and absent. For an eternity of an instant, one being again.

They made a third. There was another not-place, another not-time that they could only know when they were he. It washed over him. He could see.

Harold could see himself in a friendly, familiar embrace with Ensign Scott, the other man giggling happily and passing back a spliff. He could see a door; two figures slumped on either side of it, speaking angrily with one another through the divide. There was a man with his name - or perhaps Harold had his name instead - a firm, reassuring presence. There were bagpipes, and a flute, soft notes played in tandem. There was a man who never smiled and insisted on calling him Lee. There was a priest, and a drunkard, and fractured Scotts. He could see rocket ship sheets like he'd slept on as a child, incongruous with the fact that Scotty was curled there with him.

There was more; things he should never have understood but had come to love anyway. Purple lacquer peeling away from silver metal, and a gold wedding band laid aside in a pink jewelry box. He saw a multicolored feather whipped by a storm over the sea. He knew a sunny yellow ribbon wound through a strand of dark hair, the smell of salt air passing through it. He felt at once caught between the three images and bolstered by them. He knew them, found himself inexorably linked to them, but he was never meant to. Some mistake of the universe.

There were others, more fleeting. A shift of pale green, some grief attached to it that he couldn't place. And a quiet, graceful image marked by the briefest hint of a tune, something far away, as though it had gone missing some time before. There was an older one; a star gone nova, but long ago, just vestiges of light remaining.

In that moment he could see the reality of what he was. Each of those fleeting images made instantly clear; he knew who and where he had been when he'd collected each of them. Lived each of them, in some form or another.

He knew his nature. He knew, in fact, everything he could have been had the coin fallen on the other side. He knew that he might have died that day in the weather station. He could look across time and space and see every possible permutation of Harold Lee; infinite possibilities, men born with siblings, or to different parents, or in another place or time. The ones given middle names, those who had lived out a life in their own time. Twins with no expectations placed upon them, those who had failed utterly to meet them, and those that had lived up to them in their entirety. Some had even fallen in love with Kumar. The ones left to rot in that prison hell. Some never sent there in the first place. Some that hadn't survived to live out a life at all.

He could see the endless spectrum of ways his life could have gone, and the ways it might not have at all. And he could see a kaleidoscope of ways to have fallen in love with Scotty, the pair of them flying apart and coming back together again and again across the multiverse.

Harold Lee was at once tiny, one grain of sand in a desert world, and unique in all the multiverse.

It burned. Like staring into the sun. He whimpered with two voices that were one.

Build a wall. The familiar thought echoed itself, as though spoken at several pitches at once.

And he-- they did. Brick by brick, side by side, one man becoming two again. Carefully dividing thoughts, experiences, souls. Pulling them back behind their walls.

Slowly, carefully it was built. No unceremonious rip, accidental or purposefully inflicted. Nothing taken, or stolen or lost.

And then they were two.

Two sets of eyes opened, and they sat back. Staring. Breathing.

The buzz in his mind ebbed away, but his brother held his gaze.

You're gone.

The thought bounced back. As it should have been.

"You're gone," a rasped whisper, and Harold bit his lip.

"No. I'm over here."

A long pause, and Harold sucked in an unsteady breath. "Aye."

His brother chuckled quietly. "Sounds weird when you say that."

"...you get used to that."

Heartbeats passed.

"I don't--"

"--want you to go."

Blinking. Staring. Neither was shocked by the half-shared sentence.

"I was you. And then I was your outlet." Harold swallowed, cringing. The expanse of what he saw rested dormant in his mind, now, but that scrap of truth had remained clutched in his fingers. "I was-- everything that-- hurt you, your big ball of desperation and panic. I-- paid for that, I-- laid myself out for it."

"Dude-- I didn't... know. But. That means-- I never got to own that part of me, you know? Should have. Didn't. I will." The twin turned his fingers over in the air, watching them. "But. I guess you had further to come, and went further than I did, you know? I'm sorry. That you were, you know." A brief look up, and then back at his fingers. He turned his hand over, and then reached out to take Harold's, giving his palm a slow fingertip examination. "But-- I'd give so much to-- have earned what you've got."

"It's not-- your fault. You didn't create me. I just-- was." Harold shut his eyes, the gentle contact to his palm strange, but not unpleasant. "It wasn't that. Sorry. I just. You're... part of me."

The twin flicked his eyes up from Harold's palm, regarding him for a moment. A brief nod. "Yeah." Then, he shifted, coming to seat himself beside of Harold. Leaning against him, shoulder to shoulder. "But I'm not gone. I'm over here."

They supported each other, there in the no-place. They breathed.

And, for a time, they fell asleep.

The crossroads of nowhere and nothing, and Scotty got there on his own. Some part defiance. Some part determination. Some large part of simply refusing to quit, not when there was so much at stake. Still breathing. It didn't bloody matter if he always had, or if he was a reflection of a man who always had.

Neither of them were broken, and he held onto that.

He left behind the older Scotty; where he went, only he could go, and he remembered more as he went on and he fought through the vertigo, the sensation of being stretched across infinity and back, clung to his core. A blonde woman, except sometimes she had blue hair. She had a bottle of something. He loved her, and he was scared, all at once.

Anger, betrayal; Coraline. He knew why he was angry at her. But it didn't seem as important as it had before. Not in light of this.

Harold, holding him on rocketship sheets, both of them exhausted and happy and glowing contentment.

Harold, head on his lap, in the back of the Riviera. Harold, sitting across from him on the bed with a cup of coffee. Their wedding rings, hanging on their Christmas tree. The tree of them.

He remembered it all, and all of it was him, across the beach and the ship and a thousand other things as well. And he was born of the storm, and he knew now too that he was a part of the storm, or at least what was left of it. He was stretched across it all -- Rhy'Din, the Enterprise, somewhere else -- and he was impossibly small and lost and felt that too.

Never and always.

Harold.

He couldn't make the storm go away, but he could do something. He was born of the storm, and that meant that he could influence its path just as certainly as he could his own. And he grabbed hold of Harold Lee, on that bed in those quarters, on the floor in their room, and held on for a long moment. He was terrified. He was terrified and he didn't want to let go. He helped build this. This was them. Across two universes, this was them, and he didn't want to let go.

But he was a part of this storm. And if he didn't, they would all go with him. He could save something of himself. But even more importantly, he could save Harold.

"I love you," he whispered.

And then he let go.

One by one, in a heartbeat and in an eternity, it all flew apart. The cadet he had been on the ship, flung through time with the Harold that might still become his. And his own Harold, sent to fly back to their room. The storm contracted, then, back down to his own skull, and he was whole, and he was a tempest, and then he was nothing at all.

Never and always.

And silence.