Year 1981

Several Augments winced as, with a strangled yell, the half-human Daniel Katzel tried to charge at Liam MacPherson. MacPherson was by no means the strongest Augment, but even he could not be hit with such a weak attack. And why the unnecessary yell?

Khan rolled his eyes to himself as – with a swift sidestep to avoid the incoming fist to his face – Liam caught Daniel's hand and jerked it back.

There was a sickening crunch, a sharp cry of pain, and Liam released Daniel, leaving the half-human to sink to his knees as he clutched his very broken arm.

"Poor form, Daniel." The scientist in charge of watching their training sessions, Dr. Kloy, noted. "Very sloppy execution – how can you ever expect to improve?"

Daniel didn't answer, keeping his brunette head lowered as he cradled his arm, while the scientist then turned to an impassive Liam.

"And you, Liam." He said in the same monotone voice all the scientists adopted when around the enhanced group. "What have we said about severe injuries?"

"He'll heal soon anyways." Liam dismissed, no hint of regret in his voice or in his cool hazel eyes. "Even though he's only half, he can still do that much."

"He is not 'half'." The scientist corrected calmly. "Genetically speaking, you are all on almost the same level."

"Certainly doesn't look like it." Another Augment, Vishwa Patil, muttered beside Khan, though her voice was so soft only the enhanced hearing of the Augments heard her.

There were a few snorts of agreement, while Khan just looked around boredly. He was tired of having to be subjected to watching the same scene again and again, day in and day out. Because Liam was right – even the half-humans, with their slower healing abilities than regular Augments, required less than less than six for most near-fatal injuries. So long as the injuries were set to heal correctly.

Even now, the medics were resetting Daniel's fractured bones as the young man – boy really – grit his teeth. He would be back to normal in less than three hours for all his simpering right now.

It was as the thought passed through his mind that Khan's eyes fell on her. Ashley Sanders.

The pretty (all Augments and human-turned-Augments were enhanced in every aspect, so of course their beauty was too, at least to some degree) redhead was staring, not at Daniel, but at Liam. A frown marred her expression, her green eyes filled with a thoughtfulness that made Khan pause.

It was slightly disdainful, just as Daniel's had been the first time he'd witnessed a fight between Rivera - the other, and the first successful half-human – and Vishwa. All the half-humans were like that it seemed; they thought the fights brutish. Daniel's disdain had soon disappeared after he'd done his first bout… against Otto.

Khan would have said he had no doubt the same would happen with the girl… if it weren't for the other look in her eyes.

It was some sort of carefully guarded scrutiny in this girl's eyes, and once again… a hint of that willpower Khan had witnessed that first day she'd arrived, barely two days ago.

And then, her eyes shifted, as though feeling a gaze on her, and green met blue once more.

Khan kept his gaze even and expressionless as he stared across the room at those green eyes that shifted once more as they gazed into his. And Khan lifted a brow in surprise at what he saw before they both broke their staring competition as the clock chimed and informed them of the end of the session.

'She is like an ember.' Khan thought briefly as he walked out ahead of the rest, leaving the redhead behind. 'Ready but waiting for the right moment to burn.'

"Teach me."

He raised a brow as he looked down at the younger girl who had suddenly appeared before him. She'd blocked his path down the deserted hallway from the bathroom to the dormitories, and Khan had to say he was impressed.

He always took the showers first, and no-one dared to approach until he returned to the dorm rooms. It was his privilege as the first Augment to be created, and one enforced by his own sheer power. Clearly, this girl had figured that out and had sought him out now for the very purpose of not being interrupted. Clever.

But he kept the thought to himself as he repeated scathingly: "Teach you?"

"Yes." She had the audacity to reply, and Khan could see in her steely gaze that she had no intention of backing down.

Unable to help himself, Khan smirked and – leaning forward to place his face close to hers – he almost purred: "Flattered as I am, I have no interest in little girls."

She frowned in confusion, until Khan's eyes flicked down from her face and pointedly to her body. The girl stiffened instantly, her face going red, and Khan had to fight back a laugh as she almost physically bristled in anger. Yes, she was too easy to read.

"That's not what I was asking, and we both know it." The redhead snapped, and Khan allowed his smirk to disappear as he leaned back and looked down at her with his trademark bored expression.

"Then what is it you are asking for?"

He knew, as she'd pointed out, exactly why she was here. But he wanted to see if she would have the guts to say it aloud.

"I want you to teach me how to fight."

Khan looked down impassively as this tiny slip of a girl stared right back at him, her green eyes unflinching.

"And why would I do that?"

He'd meant to sound scathing, but Khan couldn't quite keep the curiosity out of his voice. Did this girl not know who he was? Was she actually brave, or was she simply stupider than he'd given her credit for?

She shrugged as she stated: "Because you're bored."

Khan had to admit, he was impressed with this girl's courage, but he had another test for her to pass if she wanted him to even consider teaching her how to fight.

"I doubt teaching someone like you would be that much more entertaining." He said flatly, but she smiled. It was a wicked smile full of grim determination and displaying the same fire he'd briefly glimpsed earlier that very day.

Khan had to suppress his own appreciative smile as she replied: "It won't be 'entertaining' – I swear to at least that much. I want to learn properly, so you'd better not hold back. Because I won't."

Khan bit back a bark of laughter at that. It was like watching a kitten trying to play tiger, in his amused opinion. Well, at the very least he was intrigued. And she was right. He was bored – possibly bored enough to have his fun with this new child before he got bored of her too.

"You are aware who you are asking?" Khan checked, and she nodded.

"You're Khan." She said calmly as she met his gaze unflinchingly, and Khan raised a brow once more. It was clear from her tone she knew exactly who he was, not just his name… and somehow, she'd also known he'd agree to what he was certain none of the other Augments would.

"How were you certain I'd teach you?" He asked, genuinely curious.

And for the first time, she gave him genuine smile. It caught Khan off-guard, and he actually blinked, almost missing her words as she answered him as frankly as he'd asked his question.

"Because you looked at me and saw me, when none of the others did."

Year 2259

John Harrison was sitting on the cot in his cell when Jim and Spock came striding into the Enterprise holding deck.

"Why was there a person in that torpedo?" Jim demanded as he came to a stop before the thick glass window before Khan's cell, staring at the man dressed in the standard Starfleet-issued black sweater and slacks.

"There are people in all those torpedoes, Captain." Harrison replied coolly, his cold blue eyes boring right back into Jim's. "I put them there."

Jim and Spock exchanged looks, before Jim looked back at Harrison and demanded in a low voice: "Who the hell are you?"

Harrison finally lowered his eyes slightly as he answered flatly: "A remnant of the time long past. Genetically engineered to be superior so as to lead others to peace in a world at war. But we were condemned as criminals, forced into exile."

Jim frowned, his curiosity piqued at that, but remained silent as Harrison continued: "For centuries we slept."

He suddenly turned his head to look at Spock as he went on darkly: "Hoping when we woke, things would be different. But as a result of the destruction of Vulcan, your Starfleet began to aggressively search distant quadrants of space. My ship was found adrift, I alone was revived."

His jaw had clenched as he spoke, his anger rising back into his eyes, but Jim had another pressing issue on his mind as he questioned sharply: "I looked up John Harrison. Until a year ago he didn't exist."

He was testing Harrison, though Harrison wouldn't know it as he had yet to know the advantage Jim had on him; Jim wanted to know why exactly this man claimed to have been one of the frozen crew alongside Asha, even one of the genetically enhanced that she claimed she was, and yet the young woman clearly didn't know his name.

To Jim's surprise, Harrison replied almost instantly, the words exploding from him angrily: "John Harrison was fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause."

The man had stood up, and he advanced on Jim from the other side of the glass with a predatory prowl that proved more than anything he'd said that he really was not a normal human, as he snarled: "A smoke screen to conceal my true identity."

He stopped, his icy blue eyes boring into Jim's and his fury clearly boiling just underneath as he said distinctly: "My name. Is. Khan."

Jim stiffened instantly, exchanging looks with Spock. Harrison – or rather, Khan – frowned at their strange reaction, but before he could question it Jim asked slowly, his tone skeptical: "Why would a Starfleet Admiral ask a 300 year old frozen man for help?"

"Because, I am better." Khan replied, and Jim raised his brows as he asked: "At what?"

"Everything." Khan answered, his eyes and tone going deadly. "Alexander Marcus needed to respond to an uncivilized threat in a civilized time. And for that he needed a warrior's mind, my mind, to design weapons and warships."

"You are suggesting," Spock said in a voice thick with skepticism, "the Admiral violated every regulation he vowed to uphold, simply because he wanted to exploit your intellect?"

"He wanted to exploit my savagery." Khan corrected as he turned to face the Vulcan, his head swiveling around in a smooth angle that once again marked him as different – as deadly. "Intellect alone is useless in a fight, Mr. Spock. You… you cannot even break a rule, how would you be expected to break bone?"

He gave Spock a contemptuous look, while Spock stiffened at Khan's words, his implications… his cold delivery of what he obviously thought to be bald facts.

Khan then turned around as he continued flatly: "Marcus used me to design weapons. To help him realize his vision of militarized Starfleet. He sent you to use those weapons," he looked at Jim, "to fire my torpedoes on an unsuspecting planet."

Jim paused, weighing Khan's words, before glancing back up as Khan went on: "And then he purposely crippled your ship in enemy space, leading to one inevitable outcome…The Klingons would come searching whomever was responsible, and you have no chance of escape."

Jim's jaw locked as Khan finished coldly: "Marcus…would finally have the war he talked about, the war he always wanted."

"No." Jim refuted, shaking his head angrily. "No. I watched you open fire in a room full of unarmed Starfleet officers. You killed them in cold blood!"

"Marcus took my crew from me!" Khan snarled, his eyes going deadly once more but Spock frowned as he caught a rather strange note in the man's voice. An almost… desperate note.

Jim didn't catch it as he shouted at Khan furiously: "You are a murderer!"

"He took what was MOST important to me!" Khan shouted back, glaring down at Jim, his eyes wild with anger and – to Jim's surprise – despair.

Jim paused, while Khan hissed: "He used my crew to control me. I tried to smuggle them to safety by concealing in them in the very weapons I had designed. But I was discovered; I had no choice but to escape alone."

He turned away abruptly, as he continued in an agonized tone: "And when I did, I had every reason to suspect that Marcus had killed every, single one of the people I hold most dear."

Khan took a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly to stop the tears that had gathered there as he remembered them: Asha, Kati, Otto, and all the others. His crew, his family, and his…

A single tear dropped down his face.

Khan opened his eyes once more, as he hissed: "So, I responded in kind."

Turning once more back to the other two men, he refocused on Jim as he stated quietly but firmly: "My crew… is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

The two men stared at each other, Khan's gaze expectant while Jim matched the other man's look with a contemplative one of his own.

*A/N Thank you to all my readers for showing such support so early on. And I don't usually respond to reviews on my actual story, but to Guest, thank you so much as well for reviewing every week! And again, all of you are amazing!