There is a easy way to do that

The pike we saw in TOS was Pike from mirror universe in a similar to Lorca from Discovery.

Our Pike is still finding his way back, discovers that Mirror Pike had an accident and ended up with the Talosians. When Pike gets there to confront Mirror Pike he learns from the Talosians that they were aware he was not the real Pike and trapped him there

Pike undecided what to do next heads back to earth to meet with Star Fleet Command but in the way there is approached by Section 31 to them, starting a new journey for Pike as a leader in Section 31 doing amazing covert missions until...Agent Daniels recruits him on his old age to the Temporal Gaurd....

Surely the author is trolling right? No one can possibly this detached from what star trek is, and why it's been successful for 60 years where all these other series and movie franchises get so messy everyone stops caring about them I'm already disappointed enough about Kelvin timeline and the fact that there will be a 4th one, don't make it worse