Chapter Seven
It was just a nightmare.
Logically, Khan was very much aware of this fact but somehow he was unable to stop the cold terror racing down his spine and the bitter hatred clouding his mind as he stared into the dead eyes of his tormentor.
Marcus stared back at him, eyes expressionless even as his lips stretched into a dark grin.
"Can you feel pain, Khan?"
He remained silent, turning his head away from that haunting gaze. Thick iron bands, coated in adamantium bound him to a steel dissection table making it impossible for him to do much else.
"Can you?" The man repeated, his voice full of malignant curiosity as he circled his prone form.
Khan stayed silent, mentally steeling himself for what was to come. Marcus never visited him just to ask questions, there was always some sort of pain involved.
The admiral slowed to a stop and gestured for two of his scientists to step forward. Then he donned a surgical mask and a pair of rubber gloves and chuckled lowly.
"Since you won't cooperate, let's fin out on our own."
A sharp, razor edge instrument came to life somewhere near his thigh with a loud whirring sound and Khan forced himself not to tremble in fear as the man picked it up and lowered it to the bare skin of his abdomen. For a moment he felt nothing but a slight stinging sensation where the tool cut into his skin, however as the instrument continued to cut into his skin the stinging escalated into a searing white hot agony that left him blinded and he couldn't help himself.
He screamed.
Khan- no Sherlock let out a choked gasp as he bolted awake in his room, quicksilver eyes wide as they darted around the room. He hadn't dreamed of his time in Marcus' captivity since being taken aboard the Enterprise, or rather since meeting the ships captain and although he was well aware of the implications of such a thing he chose to ignore it.
Taking a deep, calming breath he forced himself to relax, forcing his mind to the present when it tried to drift to James Kirk. What was it about the blond he found so captivating? Why did he even care? Kirk was in the future, he was here in the past surrounded by ghosts and figments of a past life he wasn't even sure he fit anymore. For the past three hundred years and even fifteen years before that, Khan was all he'd known. The thirty one years before the war, before the Fall, he'd been Sherlock Holmes but he was jaded and different from then. Broken and pieced together to fit a different mold entirely. It begged the question of who was he?
Was he Khan Noonien Singh, the war criminal falsely accused of crimes he had been ordered to commit?
Was he John Harrison, the alias Marcus had so graciously bestowed upon him so that he could serve as a weapon and quartermaster hidden in an organization of peace?
Or was he Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective so oblivious to the evil of humanity and the world around him, despite chasing the scum of mankind daily?
Who was he?
Sherlock frowned deeply at his own thoughts. He was none of those things...and yet he was all of them.
He was Khan Noonien Singh, the ruler that had led mankind to the end of the Eugenic's war. The super soldier they condemned because of their fear of his intellect and his power.
He was John Harrison, the Starfleet commander of Section 31 that was also and international terrorist because if his vendetta against the man who awakened him.
And, he was Sherlock Holmes, although he was no longer innocent in the ways of the world. He was no longer oblivious to the stupidity and prejudice of mankind, no longer unaware of just how cruel humans could be. After Baskerville and Marcus, he could no longer afford such ignorance.
Shoving the thoughts away, the consulting detective slid from his bed and began to dress, silver-and-sky eyes gleaming.
It was entirely too early to be thinking such thoughts, especially when he could be using the time to solve the cold cases Lestrade had given him to help him reestablish his reputation.
**TREKLOCK _KHIRK_TREKLOCK**
Lestrade frowned deeply as he observed the three men lying in his guest bedroom.
One was a tall slender blonde that was around 6'2 or 6'3 with messy honey gold hair and lightly tanned skin that was currently slicked with cold sweat and pale under the soft tan.
The next one was a bit strange. He was the same height as his blonde counterpart but his raven black hair fell in a neat bowl cut over his sharply shaped eyebrows and pointed ears.
The last man was scowling in his sleep and had messy brown hair cropped short, and a neat shadow of his beard, his lean muscles very visible under his skin tight clothing.
He'd lain the blond on the bed, having noticed that he seemed to be the worst off out of his guest. On the floor he'd laid the pointy-eared guy and the other guy on his thickest blankets on the floor since they seemed fine enough, just unconscious. Two days had passed since he'd found the trio on his doorstep and none of them had so much as stirred, although he did noticed that the blond on the bed was slowly gaining some color back in his cheeks.
The pointy eared man stirred on the blanket and Lestrade raised an eyebrow at him, watching as his eyes fluttered open to reveal calm dark chocolate orbs.
They moved around the room, slightly bewildered before landing on the DI in the doorway. Their owner sat up stiffly but kept his gaze where it had landed.
"Who are you?" He rumbled but the other brunette awakened with a groan before Lestrade could respond.
"Jim, we're never drinkin' again." He complained and his companion raised an eyebrow.
"I do not believe this a result of you and the Captain's intoxication, ."
McCoy sent him a disgruntled look, then turned his gaze to the sleeping blonde, ignoring Lestrade's presence completely.
"Jim?" He called, moving to his friend's side.
A soft pained moan left the unconscious blond.
"Khan." He whispered and both of his companions scowled.
"Excuse me." Lestrade interrupted. "Who are you?"
"I am Commander Spock, First Officer of the Enterprise."
" , Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise and the blond is our Captain, James Kirk."
"The Enterprise?" Lestrade questioned, raising an eyebrow as the doctor waved a strange instrument over Kirk's prone frame.
"A Starfleet ship built by the Federation in the year 2253."
"What?! What the hell are you on about. There is no 2253. It 2013, mate."
Both men paled, and McCoy let out a loud curse.
"You mean to tell us we're in the past."
"That's not all, Dr." Spock interjected and McCoy glared at him.
"What now?!"
"We are in the time before Khan."
McCoy stared at him then looked at his captain then at Lestrade, who sighed.
"This is Sherlock's fault somehow, I'm sure of it." He muttered before looking at his guests,
"Wait here. I'm gonna get in contact with a...friend of mine and see if he can make new identities for you guys. If you really are from the future you won't exist here."
"Thank you." Spock replied nodding and the DI shook his head and left the room. He was getting entirely too old for this shit... and he still had to call Mycroft.
TBC...
