AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm on a roll guys! Thanks so much for reading. I really feel like I'm actually taking this story somewhere with this chapter, but I'd love to hear your feedback! Enjoy!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Madelyn scrubbed furiously at her skin, watching as streams of dirty suds weaved down her arms and legs. Her fingers tangled in her scalp, feeling grains that she'd missed the first time around. When she stepped out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a towel and stared at her reflection in the tiny mirror. A green bruise was starting to form on her right cheekbone where a Klingon had struck her with his armored hand. Her neck was already showing signs of bruising from the same attacker. Kronos had not done her any favors.
The com chimed beside her cabin door. She went over and held the button with her thumb. "Yes?"
"Captain Kirk needs you in five minutes on the bridge." It was Lieutenant Uhura.
Madelyn sighed. "Alright, I'll be there."
She hastily dried herself off, rubbing her hair with the towel, then pulled on the clothing she'd worn when she was drugged and taken to the Enterprise without her permission; a plain white shirt and form-fitting olive green trousers. She tugged on her old boots and quickly laced them up. By that time, Uhura had rang her com twice, so Madelyn was forced to hastily braid her hair on their way to the bridge.
Uhura nodded to the guards at the door of the bridge and they were allowed inside. Kirk and Spock rose from their respective chairs and nodded to Madelyn.
"I wish I'd been able to explain your situation more clearly to you, Ms. McGivers," said Kirk. "We had a time crunch."
Madelyn crossed her arms, hoping to make her frustration with her "situation" a little clearer. "I really just need someone to tell me why I was forced onto this ship without my permission." Then she added, "And it's Madelyn."
Kirk seemed a little too charmed that she wanted them to use her first name. Spock spoke up before the captain could come up with what she assumed would be a lame pick up line.
"Given the identity of your acquaintance, Madelyn, I should think that your situation would be clear enough already," said the Vulcan. "Were you not informed of his crimes prior to boarding the Enterprise?"
Madelyn scoffed at him. "What was I supposed to believe when armed men showed up at my doorstep expecting me to go with them? You have no idea what's happened to me over the past week."
Spock raised an eyebrow, but Kirk glanced down at his feet before he spoke. "Listen, I had my orders from on high to collect you. We have images that prove you've spent a lot of time with Harrison recently."
"Where did you get these images?" she pressed.
"Commander Owen Gallagher provided them, at the behest of the head of Starfleet, Admiral Alexander Marcus," said Spock.
Madelyn felt her cheeks grow hot. "That bastard," she hissed.
"You said he tried to kill you," Kirk pressed. "You meant Commander Gallagher?"
"Of course! It was John Harrison who kicked him out of my house!"
Kirk seemed dumbfounded and prepared to retort, but Madelyn just shook her head and held up a hand. "You know what, just forget it. What's done is done, and look where it's brought us." She directed her gaze at Spock. "I'm guessing you want me to talk to him now that you've got him."
Kirk nodded with a rueful look, but Spock took her gaze firmly. "That is why you were brought on board this ship. Failure to cooperate could lead to your own incrimination in—"
"I had nothing to do with the attacks!" she exclaimed, interrupting them for the second time. "And I had no idea John was involved with them!"
"How interesting, she refers to him by his first name. This would indicate they share an intimate connection," Spock noted to Kirk. Kirk ignored the Vulcan.
Madelyn bit her lip as Kirk explained what needed to be done in order to get information out of Harrison, information she knew wouldn't apply to her.
But an intimate connection? Madelyn was having a hard time placing that label onto her relationship with Harrison. In London he'd been kind, gentle, maybe a little too protective, but he'd never shown the propensity for violence he demonstrated so easily on Kronos. Altogether he'd taken out three Klingon vessels and countless warriors on the ground. He was incredibly stronger than he looked, and he'd barely said a word to her, as if he didn't know her. And to accept that he was responsible for not only the bombing in London that claimed possibly hundreds of lives, but for the attack on the Daystrom building in San Francisco, it made her stomach churn.
But ultimately, it was the way he'd looked at her, constantly, with those cold, unflinching blue eyes. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up just thinking about it.
"Madelyn, are you ready?" Spock was saying.
She blinked back to the present. Kirk had crossed his arms and was drumming his fingers on his bicep impatiently. She centered her gaze on him.
"It's not like you're giving me a choice."
She was escorted by two security officers, behind Kirk and Spock, down the long white corridors of the ship. She was their prisoner, in her mind at least, and she knew if she turned and tried to escape back down the corridor, they would pursue her and probably restrain her. But every step she took made her stomach clench and her palms sweat.
They stepped through two sets of locked and coded doors, and then they came into a larger room lit with harsh lights. Harrison stood behind a wide glass wall that offered him no privacy, his right arm protruding through a small hole within the glass allowing Doctor McCoy to take a blood sample. When Kirk approached the doctor, he nodded and glanced at Madelyn. "Has Bones had a look at your neck?" he asked.
Madelyn glanced at Harrison, who returned her look with coolness. She swallowed, stifling her reaction to the pain it caused, then shook her head. She opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it as Bones carefully inspected the bruises on her neck and cheek. He turned to Kirk after a moment. "She'll be fine. Just try to avoid anymore Klingons," Bones said to her.
She gave the doctor a cool look, a reaction, she realized, to Harrison's fixated gaze from over his shoulder. He was making her so nervous. Bones nodded to Kirk and Spock, and left them there with Harrison.
Madelyn wanted to sink into the floor, but was saved when Kirk planted himself in Harrison's face. Were it not for the thick glass between them, the two men would have been breathing down each other's throats. Spock remained close by but appeared to prefer some distance between him and the prisoner.
Snagging a moment in which Harrison's attention was devoted to Kirk, Madelyn observed him uneasily. He'd been allowed to clean himself up. His hair was slicked back off of his face like he preferred to wear it and he was dressed in a standard Starfleet uniform, all black. She found this ironically appropriate. His expression was cold and calculating. His eyes carried a menacing intelligence that seemed to dwarf Kirk's attempt at an air of authority.
Whether it was because she was staring at him so closely or because he could smell the tension that was surely leaking out of her pores, Harrison's scrutiny fell on her again. Madelyn pulled her hands behind her back just so she could wipe her sweaty palms on her shirt without him seeing. She swallowed again, blinking back tears at the discomfort it caused her, but she half wondered if she was distraught with the strange front Harrison had adopted. Although he was speaking to Kirk, he kept his eyes fixed on her over the captain's shoulder. His gaze was protected in a shield of hardness, no longer gleaming with interest in her, no longer keen and soft, nothing like the way he'd looked at her before.
She desperately hoped Kirk realized where Harrison's attention truly lay. She knew the captain was going to force her to talk to him. She knew Kirk thought she could get information out of him. She watched Harrison lift his chin slightly as Kirk broached the subject of the torpedoes. She could feel his piercing gaze taking every piece of her apart.
Something had changed.
"There are men and women in all those torpedoes, Captain," said Harrison. "I put them there."
Now Madelyn was paying attention. The idea of putting people into torpedoes made no sense. Kirk clearly felt the same way. He hesitated long enough to betray his incredulity and Harrison smirked.
"Who the hell are you?" Kirk shot at him.
This was the question Harrison seemed to be waiting for. His gaze flitted from Madelyn as he turned and paced across his cell, his hands folded behind his back. She breathed easier and dropped her hands to her sides.
"A remnant of a time long past. Genetically engineered to be superior so as to lead others to peace in a world at war." He turned and strode back towards the glass. "But my people were condemned as criminals, forced into exile. For centuries we slept, hoping when we woke again 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 hard exterior broke for a split second in which Madelyn was watching him closely, and for that split second, she didn't fear him. But just as quickly as his mask disappeared, a new, harder one replaced it.
Kirk shook his head. "I looked up John Harrison. Until a year ago he didn't exist."
Madelyn glanced at the captain. Why had no one given her this information? On edge for Harrison's response, she looked back at him and froze. He'd seen the confusion written all over her face. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he regarded Kirk with his words.
"John Harrison was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause, a smokescreen to conceal my true identity." His stony gaze shifted and fixated on Madelyn. "My name is Khan."
There was a moment of silence. Kirk shifted his weight, not breaking eye contact with the man who was now calling himself Khan. Madelyn glanced at Spock, who stood at her shoulder, but he showed no response. The name rang a bell in her mind, some remnant of a quick history lesson in grade school perhaps. She couldn't bring herself to consider it further.
Finally Kirk broke the silence. "Why would a Starfleet admiral ask a three hundred year old frozen man for help?"
"Because," said Khan slowly, "I am better."
Kirk shrugged. "At what?"
Khan's face seemed to shed an invisible mantle of discretion. "Everything."
The room fell silent again. Kirk was agitated; Madelyn could see the tension in his neck, the way his fists clenched and unclenched, and so could Khan. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. Madelyn wondered if he thought he'd gotten under Kirk's skin and claimed control of the room. In a moment of daring, she caught his gaze, and held it. This time it was Khan who looked away.
"What is she doing here?" he asked calmly, staring Kirk dead in the eye. The change in subject made Madelyn's heart sink.
"Do you know her?" Kirk replied.
Madelyn clenched her jaw and glared at Kirk. He already knew the answer to that question. Clearly he wanted to somehow implicate her with Khan's actions.
Khan's eyes flitted back to her, unreadable. "Yes, I know her."
"Did she play any part in your attacks?" Kirk pressed.
Madelyn held her breath, waiting for him to lie, to make it easier on himself, to give Kirk an excuse to slam her into cuffs and have her join him in that cell.
"No, she did not."
She let out her breath, relieved, but confused. The tension in the room slowly abated. Kirk seemed to relax as well, but only a little. He nodded to the security officers waiting by the door. "Take her back to her room. We'll finish this later."
Madelyn backed away from the glass a few steps as the two officers flanked her. She felt as though Khan was looking right through her. His gaze was so indifferent, unfeeling, but even as she mustered the courage to send him a soft look of confusion, he returned his attention to Kirk and Spock. A pacifying wave flooded her mind as she turned her back and was escorted from the room.
John Harrison was dead.
