It was the next morning when Lance came round Molly's cabin/cell to bring her some food and let her use the bathroom.
As soon as he opened the door, the sour scent of vomit filled his nostrils. Khan's prisoner lay on the metal floor next to the sink, her hair sticking to her forehead. She was sleeping.
"Dammit", Lance uttered, put down the tray of food outside the cabin and stepped inside. He carefully lifted Molly off the floor. She only let out a little whimper. "You should have said something, Miss. I'll talk to the boss. Although I can't make any promise. Depends how valuable you are to him."
He looked down at her pale, sweaty face for a second. Then he hurried to get a bucket. Lance placed it next to her bed where she could see it before he headed out again, locking the door but leaving the tray behind.
He found Khan on the bridge.
"We have to talk", Lance announced and waved at his commanding officer to follow him outside.
Khan left the Captain's side to meet Lance in the narrow hallway.
"What?"
Khan wasn't in a very good mood this morning. He hadn't slept well, dreams of his brothers and the past years of torture haunting him.
"Your lady is seasick. Has puked her brains out last night."
"Are you sure it's not a trick?"
Lance looked at him impatiently.
"I am able to recognize the symptoms of sea sickness when I see them, Khan."
Khan looked down the stairs, thinking.
"She needs medication."
Still no response.
"Why bring her here when you just let her die?"
"Don't be over-dramatic", Khan snapped.
"Her condition mustn't be taken lightly, Khan. This is a problem."
"I am going down. I still think she is faking it."
"Dammit, man. She's just a woman, no damned MI6-agent."
Without a warning Khan rushed forward and slammed Lance against the metal wall. His eyes were burning with a cold, menacing fire when he looked at his crewman…his friend.
"I'm your commanding officer! You will address me accordingly! Is that understood?!"
"Yes, Sir."
Lance glared back at him.
After a second, Khan let go of him.
"This woman is the lover of my twin brother. She mustn't be trusted."
With that, Khan stormed off.
Lance looked after him as he rubbed his shoulder, his friend's grip having bruised his skin.
"It's getting worse", he muttered under his breath before he turned to talk to the Captain.
Khan smelled the same bitter odour as he entered Molly's cabin. She was still lying on the bed as he approached her. Towering over her, he looked down at her color-lacking face. Her lips were parted and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
Khan sat down on the bed and pressed index and middle finger against the vein on her exposed throat. Her skin was cool and her pulse way too slow. On an impulse, his hand drifted upwards and brushed the hair out of her forehead.
To his surprise, Molly groaned and leaned into his touch. His hand glided down to cup her cheek. He didn't do this on purpose. It just…happened.
"You should have told me that you need medication when you're at sea."
His voice was way softer than he had intended.
Her eyes wanted to open, but the lids only did as much as flutter.
"Your hand in my crotch distracted me…" she replied weakly.
Khan cleared his throat, taken by surprise with this comment.
"It was necessary."
Molly managed a snort.
"Yeah, right."
He pressed his lips together as he felt heat creep up his cheeks. This hadn't happened in a very long time.
He pulled his hand away.
"No…good…put it back", she whispered and surprised her captor once again.
Finally, her eyes opened and Khan and Molly looked at each other.
"Can I go home now?"
Khan clenched his jaw at her pleading tone. He stood up from her bed in one of his catlike movements and straightened his black shirt.
"I'll get you some medicine", he only said and hurried to leave her.
He met Lance outside her cabin. He already had the medication in his head.
Khan glared at him, but Lance only patted his shoulder.
"Knew you'd come 'round. She's not the enemy, Khan. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Lance wanted to pass him, but Khan gripped his wrist.
"She was exactly where she wanted to be", he snarled, looking at the slightly taller man.
"Don't underestimate her. She's dangerous."
Lance looked at him as if he's gotten mental.
Narrowing his eyes for a second, Khan let go of his wrist and left with long strides.
With a sigh and a shake of his head Lance stepped into Molly's cabin to take care of her pitiful state.
It took two days for Molly to feel like herself again. The urge to kill herself gone and the vomiting having stopped, she could think again. All her hope was focused on Sherlock. He had the tanker's name. Surely it would be easy for him to find it with Mycroft's help.
Yeah, she would be fine.
Sherlock would make sure of it.
She just had to do as he had said, be a good, quite hostage. Certainly, this was manageable.
Piece of cake.
...Were the walls coming closer?
God, being a hostage was utterly boring. She was totally left to herself. Five days passed without anything happening, if you didn't count Lance showing up to bring her to the loo. And really, you couldn't count it.
Even though he didn't seem a bad fellow, he wasn't what one called talkative. He barely spoke, never answered any of her questions. Just guided her to the loo, stood guard in front of the door as she took care of business and brought her back to her cell.
It definitely was a cell. There were still traces of the vomit-smell in her cold white cabin, the mattress was way too soft to for her taste and to top it all off, she didn't even have a bloody bull's-eye to tell if it was night or day.
This sucked. All of it.
Yes, sure, she was a hostage and all, but she was an ordinary person without any skills that would be any danger to anyone (yeah, all right, she could do some damage with a scalpel but where should she get one on a oil tanker, for heaven's sake?) and she just didn't deserve to be treated like this!
So, after a week and three days of staring at the white ceiling and reading her book three times, she had had enough.
"No", she said as Lance showed up for their little fun wee-routine and crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"Listen, I realize I am no guest on this ship of yours, but I still came here voluntarily and have been co-operating from the beginning. But being locked up in this smelling cabin without so much as a window is unacceptable! So I ask, no, I demand a more appropriate room! I'll go mental in here!"
Lance just looked at her, his face being neutral.
"Do you have to go to the loo or not?" he asked a second later.
"No, dammit! Now go and get me Khan! I'll talk to him myself if you don't have the guts to do so!"
Lance furrowed his brows at this.
"Listen, Miss Hooper..."
"It's Doctor Hooper for you!" Molly interrupted him angrily.
"Whatever", he waved her off, "you would be well advised to direct your requests at me instead of the Commander."
Molly only rolled her eyes.
"I don't care about your stupid chain of authority. I just want to get out of here and if you can't do this for me, then I have to talk to the man in charge. Now get me Khan!"
She might have yelled the last bit.
The tall, well-built man in front of her just crossed his arms in front of his chest and raised an eyebrow at her. Suddenly, the cabin looked smaller and Molly had to focus not to take a step backwards.
Stay strong. No sign of weakness now.
To her surprise, Lance sighed and let his arms drop a few moments later.
"Fine, I'll ask him. Wait here...oh, right, you can't go anywhere else."
"This is so not funny", Molly retorted dryly.
"Yes, it is", Lance grinned at her over his shoulder, his white teeth showing. He looked a lot less dangerous with this rather boyish smile.
When the heavy metal door fell close again, Molly puffed out some air. Her legs felt wobbly and she dropped down onto her bed. She had to wait for almost two hours before the door opened again with a metallic screech.
It was Lance. Molly tried to ignore the disappointment fluttering in her belly.
"I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to here first?"
"Does the good news involve me getting off this bloody ship?"
"No."
"This is the only thing I would consider good news", Molly said coolly.
Lance let out a chuckle.
"You're quite the ray of sunshine, aren't you? I was able to persuade the big boss to let you go on deck for an hour each day. You will stay here, but it will be cleaned which will do something against this smell, hopefully. His gracious Highness also allowed that you borrow some books from him to pass the time."
Molly couldn't help but giggle, which she hastily tried to turned into a cough.
Lance smiled, anyway.
"Follow me."
Molly's heart beat faster as she followed Lance through the corridors up and out of the tanker's belly. Her eyes drifted from side to side, searching for the familiar tall figure and face. But he was nowhere to be seen.
Then she stepped on deck and the fresh sea breeze hit her and Molly forgot all about him.
She closed her eyes and inhaled the salty air as deep into her lungs as she could.
The cold wind tore at her hair and cradled her face in the most refreshing way.
Molly felt at least three years younger.
It was surprisingly sunny and she shielded her eyes to take a look around the long deck, which mainly consisted of massive baby blue and red pipes and a narrow pathway across the full length of the deck, branching off into several sections to reach the pipes if necessary.
"Darn, this is big."
"Yup", Lance commented. "You're not gonna jump overboard, are you?"
"Of course not."
"Fine. Go ahead then. You have an hour. I'll meet you here" he said and with a nod he swung the door close and she was left to herself.
Taking another deep breath, Molly brushed her long hair out of her face. She liked how the wind played with her strands, so she didn't put it up in a bun.
Molly walked down the narrow path, looking at the sea that was surrounding them. The blue of the water and the sky as far as she could see.
Beautiful.
Sixteen feet above deck, on the bridge, Khan was standing by the windows, his arms crossed in front of his chest, and looked down at the small figure walking across deck. He watched how she held her face into the sun while the wind danced with her hazelnut strands.
His jaw clenched as he felt an unwelcome feeling spread in his gut.
It took him longer than usual to notice the man entering the bridge.
"You left her alone?" he asked his second in command who stepped up next to him.
"We're on the bloody ocean, Khan. What's she going to do? Swim back to England? She's just taking a walk after a week being stuck below deck. Don't you remember how it's been for us to be locked away, not feeling the sunlight on our skin for months?"
Khan balled his hands into fist.
Of course he remembered it. In fact, he did what he could to ensure that something like this would never happen to any of the 74 people in his team. Even if this inclined killing his brother...or both of them.
They had betrayed him.
They weren't his family any longer.
Not even Sherlock. His twin. The one he had trusted most in this life before said brother had sold him out to Mycroft's men.
The only people he considered family now were the people who had suffered with him throughout so many years of tiresome and painful genetic re-programming.
He had abandoned his God given name and had taken up a name more fitting his new abilities.
Khan Noonien Singh.
A name people will only so much as hush in terror in the very near future.
Especially his brothers!
His hostage stretching her arms and legs stopped Khan's train of thought and his eyes fixed on her once more.
Molly Hooper.
The key to his brother's downfall.
All Khan had to do was wait for the right time.
And then, when the world was at it's feet as well as Mycroft and Sherlock, he would enjoy his begging for her safety, He would enjoy the agony on his brother's face when he killed her in front of his eyes, tossing the lifeless body to the side before he finished him off, as well.
He would save Mycroft for last.
Play with him.
Give him one more demonstration of the power he had forced upon him, listen to his screams before he would silence him forever...
"I know that look."
Khan's cold blue-green eyes drifted to the side, glancing at his first officer.
"You plan to kill her, don't you?"
Khan looked back at Molly, who was still walking around on deck.
"It's been decided ever since she had admitted who she is."
"So she has to die because she fooled around with your brother?"
Khan watched how Molly bent over the railing to look down at the sea, her hair being blown around her head.
"She is more than that. Sherlock loves her. And he had sworn himself to never love somebody. She is his heart."
Lance and Khan watched the clueless woman silently for a while.
"I don't like this, Khan", Lance finally admitted.
"Discovering your conscience now, Lance?"
The black man only snorted and Khan glanced at him.
"You like her, then", he said and grinned sarcastically.
Lance turned his head to look at Khan.
"No, I think you like her."
Khan stiffened.
His eyes glanced at Lance, who put a hand on his shoulder before he turned to leave.
Khan was left to his own devices.
His eyes wandered back to the doe-eyes woman, Lance's words echoing inside his head.
What a ridiculous thought!
...And yet he was unable to take his eyes off of her...
