Disclaimer: yeah, because if I owned Star Trek, this is how I'd use it. Not mine; it all belongs to some big wigs from Hollywood. And possibly J.J. Abrams.
Rating: PG-13 of the strong kind
Warnings: for violence
Timeline: Star Trek: Into Darkness AU
Pairing: Khan/Carol Marcus
A/N: sequel to The Arrangement now with more literary references.

Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter.

William Shakespeare, King Lear)

# # #

Carol placed a kiss to the shoulder of the man laying next to her. "I missed you," she murmured.

Khan chuckled softly. "I could tell."

She had been away for five days, exploring the southern continent with Otto and Idir. The trip had been immensely satisfying, as they had found several minerals of value on the galactic market in the Southcap Mountains, which opened splendid prospects for future mining. Khan had already quired her about alien races proficient in that area the members of which might be looking for a new home, in hopes of a deal for settlement once the Federation starbase was gone. Good news never failed to put him in an intimate mood or maybe, hopefully, that had been just her return. As if to confirm her thoughts, he rolled her over, pinning her to the bed with his weight, the intent in his eyes unmistakable.

"You're going to break me in half one day," he joked, tangling her hands into his hair.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked only half-serious.

She stretched her neck to kiss him briefly. "No, I don't want you to ever stop."

The look on his face as he bent over her again was entirely too somber and his eyes soft, devoid of the ferocity she had come to associate with him. His kiss was gentle, savoring. Neither had pretended that they weren't making love or that their time together didn't mean something in a while. Carol recalled his prediction that their relationship would end in tragedy. That was the only thing she now sought to forget in the comfort of his embrace. Closing her eyes, she kissed back with matching tenderness.

# # #

It was the third year of the Federation's war with the Klingon Empire and over two years after the USS Enterprise had found the SS Botany Bay adrift in space and awoke Khan to the 23rd century. Carol Marcus had spent these past two years on the raising Augment colony on the fifth planet, the only one class M, of the Ceti Alpha system, tied to their leader by an initially political marriage becoming more and more real with each passing day. She had started her life there as a prized hostage, an assurance of the good will of the head of Starfleet, her own father, in exchange for desperately needed weapons and tactics supplied by Khan himself.

But lately there had been more than just the cold winds descending from the planet's unforgiving mountains blowing over its vast surface. The Section 31 personnel stationed on the local starbase began to whisper about peace talks in the ever dragging war with the Klingons. In the shadow of those concerns, the colony grew and thrived, new members were born and others were to be added, as some members of the starbase staff formed more than just one for now secret relationships with the Augments who were still single. Better yet, under its coarse exterior, Ceti Alpha V hid unexpected geological and even botanical treasures.

Carol car glided through the Augment city with Khan at the wheel. She was going to the starbase, but he had to make a stop in the colony to untangle a few issues there. When he halted the flying vehicle by the superhumans' central administrative building and made to leave, she put a hand on his forearm and he leaned back without prompting to meet her for a goodbye kiss. They smiled at each other and he stroked her left cheek with the back of his hand.

"I'll see you later," she said as he got out and she climbed onto his seat.

She restarted the car with one last look through the window at him. On her way she passed by Ling walking hand in hand with her son, Joachim. Carol grinned and waved. Aware that she still had time, she stopped the car and opened the window to chat with them. Joachim, the first child born on the new colony, was already one year old.

Life here was nothing she had ever imagined in either her dreams or nightmares, but it was still a far cry from her many fears on her first night on Ceti Alpha V. It had been three weeks after her and Khan's wedding ceremony at the Section 31 London division. The whole affair had had the air of a treaty signing, which she supposed was an apt description for it. Khan had not even looked at her through the entire proceeding, had repeated his would-be vows in a cool, neutral voice and signed when and where directed. He had also expressed no interest in kissing her at the end, an unexpected reprieve in her contemplation of all that she was about to lose.

She had not seen him afterwards until her arrival to the planet that was to belong to the Augments. Today's colony had not existed then; even the starbase had been in its inception. The Augments themselves had been sleeping in the cargo crates of the Botany Bay and that had been where she had spent her first night with them, cuddled in a thermal sleeping bag, surrounded by people who were staring at her as if she were something they wanted to crush under their boots. She had been unable to fall asleep for hours, her terror and uncertainty amplified by the relentless howl of the violent wind rocking the metal carcass around her.

She had woken up to the voices of the Augments making projections about the locations of the new colony. For the longest time she had been ignored, until Khan himself had passed her some rations to eat, the look on his face one of cold resentment. Her thanks had only drawn a snort of derision from him. Even if she hadn't known then the true extent of what her father had subjected him to, she had understood from that to await no clemency from him. She had spent the next days huddled miserably in the antiquated ship watching out for the moment, when he turned on her and tortured her within an inch of her life.

She had felt like a prisoner of a war that had never been fought, though nobody restricted her movements. She was free to wonder the wild mountain valley, where the Augments had speedily started to build a home. It had been mostly likely during those excursions that she had caught a nasty cold that had only caused Khan's contempt to mount, as if she had somehow been guilty for the attack of one of the vicious viruses residing on the planet surface. He had unceremoniously dumped her at the arbase med bay, imperiously demanding that the doctor fixed her.

As soon as the doctor did, she had braved the unyielding veld to return to her keeper. The deal called for her to be Khan's hostage. She would hold up her end of the bargain and not skate the responsibility in the illusory haven of the starbase. Much, much later, during a quiet evening of playing go, Khan admitted to her that he had used every spare minute of those first days remembering her father's threats to his family and the medical experiments performed on him under the admiral's orders and plotting his revenge against her. He also confessed that her timely return after her illness had made an impression on him, unwanted as it had been.

It was the most she had ever heard from him about the beginnings of their interaction, as those memories seemed to be ones neither cared to revisit often.

# # #

Thelev, the Andorian starbase commander, had never overcome his open dislike of the Augments. He was rude and abrasive to Khan, too, which Carol wasn't sure whether this qualified as a death wish or just plain lack of self-preservation. Some of his underlings thought him prejudiced against genetically-engineered beings or even against humans in general, since he treated them equally harshly, but Carol suspected the explanation lay in simple misanthropy. Whatever the case she was always on her guard around him and careful to keep the developments in her relationship with Khan away from his scrutiny.

She wasn't any more eager to face him on the morning after her return from the southern continent, but she had no way around it so when she ran into him in a deserted starbase corridor. So she gave him a tight smile and greeted him with professional politeness. She hadn't noticed the medical dispenser in his hand, as he seemed to just pass her by without a word, but she felt the pinch in the side of her neck and the numbness spread through her limbs instantly. She was aware she was falling to the floor, even as alarm bells rang loudly in her head. She opened her mouth to scream for help, but her tongue felt unnaturally swollen and no sound came out.

It was sheer desperation that send enough adrenaline racing through her system for her to move her hand to pat her one of her pants pockets for her Starfleet Academy class ring. Nobody would question why the once brilliant cadet and later loyal officer never parted with it. Her fingers made it inside the pocket just as her bones resounded with impact with the floor. She scratched at the engraving on the ring, while she tried to use her diminishing force to move her body enough for her fumbling to be mistaken for a seizure.

The last thing she saw before she passed out was the Andorian's increasingly blurry face as he bent over her.

TBC