"Ah..." Kirk laughed and shook his head. Where would he even start?

Where else? He had his reasons for concealing this information from his crew, but he couldn't figure out much of a point to pretend otherwise with Scott, assuming the man really did know everything already. "It's the name the nurses call me. I wouldn't have twice about it, except that about—" He paused, quickly doing the math in his head. "—twelve days ago, there was this... mass brainwashing. A bunch of people made to think they were who our dog tags say we are. I was one of them."

He'd hardly spoken of this since then. A health check-up with Bones, a short conversation with Spock, then an entry in his captain's log and Kirk had closed the book on the whole episode. It had been easy to believe he'd mostly forgotten about this nonsense, but talking brought it all back.

"Bill's story was that he was named after the actor, I think. Huge fan. A 'Trekkie', I guess you'd call it. I still remember some of what he remembers." Kirk tapped the side of his head, then smiled wryly at Scott. "I wasn't lying when I said no one told me. I just thought it was... a joke."