I own nothing but my OC.

Previously:

"By God, I think we've—" McCoy exclaimed excitedly as he rushed into the room, only to stop short upon seeing the small armory they had amassed, courtesy of Dr. Singh. "—Holy hell, Jim! Is this a med bay or an armory? Where did you even find all of this?"

"We borrowed it all from Dr. Singh, actually." Kirk replied, smirking.

"Really?" McCoy said dubiously, raising an eyebrow, as he glanced between them and the timid man that was poking his head out of the lab, watching them at what he judged to be a safe distance from Khan.

"So, what were you saying before?" Kirk asked, trying to get them back on topic. "Something about a cure?"

[[Chapter 13: Don't Stop Believing]]

"Zombies? Really?" Kirk asked after hearing the entire explanation behind how they figured out their brilliant plan to cure the converted crew, raising an eyebrow. "How did you make such a random connection?"

"Um, ADD, remember? That's just how I roll." Prima reminded him, smiling wryly.

"I was amazed at how brilliantly simple her solution was, though." McCoy admitted. "While I was stuck on trying to solve the problem one way, she reached around and solved it from a completely different angle."

"Yes. Prima has always had a talent for creativity and making the most complicated issues seem simple." Khan agreed.

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." Prima replied sagely, shrugging. Khan furrowed his brow slightly and glanced at her.

"Did you just quote Dr. Seuss?" He asked.

"Yes, and I don't care what you say, that man's a genius." Prima responded defensively, crossing her arms.

"Dr. Seuss? You've read Dr. Seuss books?" McCoy asked Khan, surprised. Those books were ancient by this time, but they were still considered classic children's literature, and he had been forced to read The Cat in the Hat over and over again to his own daughter, to the point where he had started seeing that damn cat in his sleep. They were entertaining, nonsensical books, not something you would expect a cold killer and ex-dictator to have read in his down time.

"I used to read them to Prima when she was younger, after much begging and pleading." Khan confessed calmly.

"I don't remember begging." Prima quipped, frowning slightly.

"Wait, just how long have you two known each other?" Kirk asked. He knew her father had been in contact with Khan since before her birth, because he used Khan's blood to make the serum for her, but he found it hard to imagine Khan playing babysitter.

"I've known Prima since she was an infant." Khan stated matter-of-factly, raising an eyebrow at the question. Shouldn't that much have been obvious from their conversation?

"Yeah, he actually took pretty good care of me." Prima said, smiling warmly at the fond memories she had of her odd childhood. "Still does, when he's not too busy trying to take over the world." She added a bit snarkily, teasing him.

"Old habits die hard." Khan replied coolly, unfazed, apart from the slight, upwards twitch of the corners of his mouth.

"Wow… Didn't see that one coming." Kirk admitted, blinking. He and McCoy were stunned by this latest revelation. Maybe Khan wasn't as much of a kitten killer as they had originally assumed if he was capable of caring for and showing affection to a small child… From the sound of it, these two really had been through a lot together over the years. Perhaps this helped to explain Khan's continued favoritism towards her, despite how she had forced him to leave Earth 300 years ago…

"The device has been completed, Captain." Spock announced. "However, due to the fact that we plan on setting it off in the engineering section of the ship, there is a possibility some of the ship's functions may be affected."

"Such as?" Kirk asked. This wasn't going to screw up the core, was it? Because he definitely didn't want to have to do a repeat of his latest near death experience after having just been released from the hospital.

"Such as helm control and life support." Spock replied. The others tensed. So, the good news was that the ship wouldn't be completely dead in the water, but the bad news was they could all end up dying a slow death anyway in the worst case scenario.

"Damn it." McCoy cursed under his breath. Of course, something just had to go wrong. Things were never that easy.

"The actual systems or just the controls?" Khan asked.

"Most likely, it will only affect the controls in Engineering and the Auxiliary Control Room." Spock clarified. The rest of the ship should be fine.

"What the… Geez, Spock! You got us all worked up over nothing." Prima exclaimed, letting out a sigh of relief.

"It is too soon to relax, Miss Dempsey." Spock replied, frowning slightly. "If you will recall, control of the ship has been completely rerouted through those sections . If we were to activate this device with the ship in this condition, we may not be able to reroute control of these systems back to the bridge. The result will be a complete and total failure of whatever systems were affected by the electromagnetic pulse."

"But isn't there a way to reroute control to the bridge beforehand?" Prima asked, furrowing her brow.

"Not officially, but I may be able to do something about that." Khan said.

"Ah, you're going to hack and/or hot-wire the ship, aren't you?" Prima asked, smiling knowingly as she correctly guessed his plan. This was starting to feel like a Mission Impossible episode, only in space… with cyborg zombies.

"Is that possible?" Kirk asked, intrigued. If they could take control from the bridge again, then maybe they could turn the ship around before they reached the neutral zone.

"It shouldn't be." Spock interjected, furrowing his brow slightly, in confusion.

"Perhaps not, for the common man, but you gentlemen seem to be forgetting something. I am not your common man. I may be new to this century, but I have had to go over all of the plans and designs for every single ship in the fleet, until I knew them like the back of my hand, before I could even begin building the Vengeance. I know exactly what makes this ship tick, down to the last fiber optic cable. I can get you in, and I am most likely the only one who can." Khan stated absolutely, exuding an unquestionable aura of unshakable confidence in himself.

Set faces to stunned. It wasn't just egotism talking. They all knew full and well what a man like Khan was capable of.

"... Annnd that's as humble as he gets." Prima quipped, amused by the two yeomen's particularly gob-smacked expressions.

"Ahem. Well, anyway…" Kirk said a bit awkwardly, clearing his throat, as he tried to get the ball rolling again. "If Khan can at least get us back control of life support, helm control, and communications, then we'll have a fighting chance. And that gives me an idea…" He added, smirking, as a plan began to form in his head.

—∞—

"Hey." Prima said softly, sidling up next to Khan, while everyone else finished redistributing the weapons and going over the plan. There was one point in particular that Spock felt compelled to argue against, and he and Kirk were engaged in a hushed but heated discussion about it.

"Yes?" Khan asked, wondering what was bothering her. She clearly had something on her mind as well.

"So, I was wondering… you're not planning on taking advantage of this situation and trying anything unscrupulous are you?" Prima asked quietly, genuinely concerned. She knew Khan was taking the butchering of their family and crew just as serious as she was, but at the moment she wasn't quite sure what he was thinking. She was worried he might try to betray the others again once he no longer required their assistance with taking down Dahl.

"Hmph. You grew attached to them awfully fast. This must be a new record for you, Prima." Khan replied a touch sardonically, keeping his voice low as he leaned down to whisper in her ear. "I confess, the thought had crossed my mind, but you need not be concerned for your new 'friends'. I won't do anything to risk the lives of our remaining family members whilst they still remain in the clutches of Starfleet." He hadn't meant to sound so harsh, but he couldn't resist sticking a little barb in there. Khan didn't want to admit it, but he was jealous to see his Prima getting along so well with the salacious Mr. Kirk in such a short amount of time. He knew, logically, that he had no reason to feel threatened by this development, since his own bond with Prima was far deeper, but he still didn't like it.

Prima suppressed the sudden urge to shiver at the feeling of his warm breath on her neck, brought on by his close proximity. She steeled her nerves before looking up into those powerful glasz eyes.

"It's not just them I'm worried about, Khan." She said seriously. "I don't want anything to happen to you. I know you're practically invincible, but you're still mortal, just like the rest of us. And I realize you're probably still sore at Starfleet because of what Admiral Marcus did to you—what he did to all of us—but please, I'm begging you… Do not try to start war with them." She pleaded earnestly. "I admit, I don't know much about this future world, but based on what I've seen and learned so far, I can take a fair guess as to what will happen if you do, and we cannot afford to pick a fight with the entire planet and whatever allies they may have off world. I know it's a lot to ask, but can you please, please try to forgive them?"

"Me, forgive them?" Khan scoffed, pulling away slightly. "They are the ones who should be begging for my forgiveness." He retorted bitterly.

"Yes, they should. But you misunderstand." Prima replied calmly. "Forgiveness doesn't excuse their behavior. Forgiveness prevents their behavior from destroying your heart. Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. When you hate something, you chain yourself to it. Just look at what happened when you tried to take revenge on Marcus, and then on Kirk and Spock when you thought they killed our crew. I know what happened. Every horrifying detail. You've always been a vicious and relentless warrior on the battlefield, Khan, but you were never this cruel, not like that…" She said sadly, recalling the painful account of how he had killed Marcus so brutally in front of his own daughter, not to mention all of those innocent people who died when he crashed the Vengeance in an attempted kamikaze attack on Starfleet Headquarters.

Khan stared at her, suddenly feeling as though the ground had dropped out from beneath his feet. He didn't like that look in her eyes. It was a pained expression that he had never seen before.

"Does this mean you… hate… me, now?" He asked hesitantly, finding himself full of trepidation. He didn't know what she would do if she did, and he dreaded the very thought of it.

"No. I don't think I could ever hate you." She replied carefully, to his immense relief, but her next words hit him hard. "I'm just disappointed you turned into everything you said you'd never be. What you've done is just as bad as what Marcus did to you and what Dahl is doing to us now. They may have been nothing to you, but the people in that archive you blew up, the Daystrom room you attacked, and those who died when you crashed the Vengeance were all somebody else's important family and loved ones. To the people they left behind, their lose is no less painful or potent than losing Athena and the others is to us. Knowing all of this, do you still think your actions completely justified? Because that wasn't justice, Khan. That was cold, hard revenge, and revenge is a very vicious cycle. After all, that's how you met Kirk and the others, isn't it? You killed his mentor, a man who was like a father to him, so he came after you, bent on his own quest for revenge, but, fortunately, he decided not to take it. And you cannot imagine how grateful I am for that, because if he had given in and fired those torpedoes as ordered, I would have lost you and everyone else still left that I care about. Do you have any idea what that would have done to me?" She whispered urgently, grabbing hold of Khan, as if afraid he would disappear. "Do us all a favor and be more selective in your battles. Sometimes peace is better than being right."

"What would you have me do? Just give up and act as though nothing ever happened?" Khan asked, frowning. He wasn't sure who he was more upset with at the moment. Prima, for her lecture, or himself for having earned it. He had never meant to hurt and upset her like this. He never thought she would find out, seeing as Marcus had him convinced that she had perished long ago when her cryotube supposedly malfunctioned while they were adrift in space. Had he known she was still alive…

"Giving up doesn't always mean you're weak. Sometimes it means you are strong enough to let go." Prima continued with righteous determination. "Don't give up what you want the most for what you want right now. It is my conviction that nothing enduring can be built on violence. It will be difficult, and it will take time, but if we want to succeed in building a new world for our dysfunctional family, then we have to show the other humans that we are capable of coexisting peacefully with them, that we're more than just the pack of violent, bloodthirsty savages that the history books say we are. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr., 'we must live together as brothers or perish together as fools'."

"Ever the optimist, aren't you? Do you seriously believe we can trust them?" Khan asked grimly, furrowing his brow. "They are still just as treacherous as when we left Earth 300 years ago. Just look at what Marcus and Dahl have done to us!" He hissed angrily.

"They're only two people, Khan." Prima said calmly. "You must not lose faith in humanity because of them. Humanity is like an ocean; just because a few drops in the ocean are dirty, doesn't mean the rest of the ocean is dirty. They've changed, I can feel it. They're not perfect, but neither are we, and they are honestly trying. I know it's asking a lot, but please, give them one, last chance to prove themselves."

"Give me one reason." Khan said, his frown deepening, as he found himself being swayed by her ardent pleas.

"Enhanced or not, we are all human, and I've always believed that our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world, as in being able to remake ourselves. We like to think we're better, but the truth is we're just as fallible as they are, because we've inherited all of the same faults as members of the same race. In fact, I think some of them were even amplified in us alongside with our good qualities." She explained, smiling a little wanly. "So, I have to believe that they can overcome their flaws, because if not, then I might start to lose faith that we can overcome our own, and I refuse to let that happen. I feel like giving up on them would be like giving up on ourselves…" Khan stared down at her with a carefully guarded expression as he considered her words, but before he could reply, they were very rudely reminded that they were not alone.

"Ahem. You two ready to go?" Kirk cut in, bringing them back to the real world. Everyone else was locked and loaded.

"Uh, yeah... let me just grab my hooks." Prima said tentatively as she spun around and picked them up off of the table behind them, wondering how long he had been standing there and how much he had overheard. "Okay, all set." She announced cheerfully, as if the captain hadn't just interrupted a deep discussion between herself and Khan about the fate of all mankind. "Let's blow this popsicle stand."

—∞—

Somewhere in Northern India:
The Chrysalis Project, [exact location top-secret]
Early evening of March 26, 1986

Prima and Khan laughed giddily as they leaned back against the door of Dr. Kaur's apartment, high on life, having just returned from enjoying the Holi Day's festivities. They were covered in an array of colored powders from head to toe, drenched in them. They had managed to clean their feet and dry themselves off enough not to leave behind a trail of colorful tracks, but they were still a mess and quite a sight to behold. It was exhilarating. Khan had never felt so alive.

"I was wondering when you would return." An all too familiar voice spoke, causing the two truants to freeze and their blood to run cold. "You had me worried, Khan. I almost sent the guards out after you." Dr. Kaur told him as she turned on the light, illuminating the dark room. She had obviously anticipated their arrival. Khan cast a glance at the kitchen counter, where they had carelessly left Prima's plans for their escape lying out. She knew.

"I see you have returned early, Mother." Khan replied calmly, keeping his expression carefully neutral. She shouldn't have been back until the next day, after the end of the convention. Prima very wisely decided to keep her mouth shut while she gauged the situation. One wrong move, and Dr. Kaur's terrible temper could flare up, bringing the full weight of the woman's wrath down upon them.

"Did you enjoy yourself at the Holi festival?" Dr. Kaur asked Khan coolly, keeping her sharp eyes trained directly on Prima, as she crossed the room, stalking towards them. She knew exactly whose idea this little misadventure had been. She knew exactly who to blame.

SLAP!

"Mother!" Khan yelled sternly, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists angrily, when the woman hit Prima with a harsh backhanded slap across the face. The force of the blow was enough to form an angry red mark on the young girl's cheek and leave behind a deep scratch from the ring on the older woman's finger, drawing blood. To her credit, Prima didn't cry or try to hide behind Khan. She didn't even let herself flinch. She just continued to stare back defiantly at the seething woman before her.

"How dare you!! What were you thinking!?" Dr. Kaur shouted at Prima, ignoring Khan's outburst. "Do you have any idea what you've done!? I don't care what happens to you, but Khan—!?"

"?" Prima said, wondering why the doctor had stopped mid-rant and why she and Khan were both suddenly staring at her with wide eyes. She couldn't see what they could, that her cut had stopped bleeding and had already completely healed itself. Just like an augment.

"Prima… your cut…" Khan said, shocked. He could not believe his eyes. It couldn't be. Prima was supposed to be a normal human child—She was Dr. Dempsey's daughter.

"What cut…?" Prima asked, confused, as she raised her hands to her face. Her eyes widened when she felt the blood but no cut, instantly realizing what was wrong. Beneath the smears of color still left on her face, Prima paled as her own eyes widened in horror at her fatal mistake, and her eyes darted between Khan and Dr. Kaur, like a caged animal cornered by two dangerous predators. How could she have allowed herself to be exposed to them!? Khan was one thing, but his mother… Dr. Kaur was the worst—who knows what she would do to Prima and her father now that the cat was out of the bag!?

"Ha!" Dr. Kaur laughed abruptly, startling the children. They both stared at her in shock as she continued on in a fit of maniacal laughter. "Ahahaha! I see, yes… this certainly explains a lot of the questions I had about some of your past behavior, but it also raises many even more questions in their stead." She said, reaching into her pocket. She discreetly pressed the button for the portable and silent emergency alarm that all the staff carried to summon security should any of the augments start to get out of hand. "I do not know how they managed to pull it off, let alone hide your true nature for so long, but it is obvious now that your 'parents' have stolen from Chrysalis. Unfortunately, your dear mother has already passed away, but rest assured, you and your father shall be dealt with accordingly." She told Prima ominously, her dark eyes glittered with a sort of twisted amusement at the look of horror that began to dawn in Prima's eyes just as security burst into the apartment. "Seize the girl." Kaur commanded them. "I want her properly contained. We don't know what other abilities she's been hiding."

"Khan!" Prima yelled, reaching for him, as four of the muscular guards grabbed her. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but please—Don't let her hurt my dad!" She cried desperately as they forcefully dragged her away, even though she was barely offering them any resistance. She knew causing too much trouble would only make things worse for herself and her father. She was pretty sure she could take it, but her father was only human. She was scared for him. The door to the apartment shut behind Prima and the guards, leaving Khan and his mother in silence.

"What are you going to do with her?" Khan asked, keeping his eyes on the door.

"That remains to be seen. Naturally, we'll have to run some tests on her in order to determine the extent to which she had been enhanced. She and her father will each be questioned about the method he used to create her… We may have to get a bit rough with them if they refuse to cooperate." Dr. Kaur replied, casting a surreptitious glance at him, her finest creation. She hoped Khan wouldn't attempt to do anything foolish, since he seemed to have formed an odd attachment to that strange child, but his expression was carefully guarded, devoid of any emotion.

"I see." Khan said simply, completely stoic.

Dr. Kaur stared at him for a moment longer before apparently deciding she was satisfied with his lack of empathy for Prima. The moment she was gone, he quickly turned on his heel and headed for his mother's room. She always kept the door locked, to remind him it was off-limits, but that made no difference to Khan. He had to get to the phone inside. Being the head of the project granted his mother certain privileges, such as being granted possession of the only landline capable of contacting the outside world within the compound. Khan very deftly pulled the pins from the knuckles of the door hinges and carefully grabbed the edges of the wooden door, slowly sliding it out of the frame at a slight angle, until the door's bolt was clear out of the lock. He then set the door aside, leaning it against the wall, and entered the forbidden room. He didn't know what was going on, and he wanted answers, before they hurt Prima to get them. Khan picked up the brochure for the hotel where they were holding the convention that was conveniently lying next to the phone and dialed the number.

"Yes, hello. I would like to speak to Dr. Jack Dempsey." Khan told the receptionist when she picked up. "Tell him it's urgent. It's about his daughter."

—∞—

Dr. Kaur frowned as she examined the results of the various tests they had already finished performing on Primavera Dempsey. Initially, she had assumed the Dempseys had simply stolen one of the spliced augment embryos and altered the records without her noticing somehow, but it would appear things were not quite that simple. According to her DNA profile, she really was the biological daughter of Jack and Francesca Dempsey, but somehow the girl's genetic information had come to form in a similar structure to the other augments who were based on Khan, nearly identical, but still slightly inferior. Khan was not the first augment they had ever created at Chrysalis, but thanks to an unforeseeable but fortuitous mutation that was somehow brought on by the process the scientists used to clone the eggs of donors in order to allow them to create a greater variety of offspring from one donor, in combination with his father's genes, he had been the first augment to ever exhibit such godlike regenerative properties, which only served to enhance the other enhancements they had purposefully engineered him to have. Even though she and the other scientists had managed to figure out how to duplicate the process to create more special augments like him, none of the following children had ever displayed the same power and aptitude as him. They had come close with Kati, but even she was considered inferior in Kaur's eyes compared to her Khan. Kaur grit her teeth angrily as she stared at Prima's data. The girl was by no means perfect, but she was closer to being like Khan and Kati than Kaur would like to admit. Whatever her parents had done to that insufferable child, it had worked. But how the hell had a mere pediatrician and a child psychologist managed to create such a superior child on their own!?

"How is she?" Khan asked rather casually as he entered the lab, halting the woman's internal rant. Dr. Kaur took a moment to collect herself before she turned to face her perfect son. He had showered and changed into clean clothes, restored to his full dignity and grace without those absurd colors smeared all over his person. Those cold eyes of his bored into hers. He was so like his late father…

"She has a surprisingly high IQ and EQ, considering how she usually behaves. And she's almost as enhanced as Kati, physically at least." She replied, furrowing her brow, before turning back to her work. She had hoped Khan would lose interest in Prima once he realized the girl had been tricking him, and how inferior she must really be if she could blend in so easily with normal humans. She was a bad influence and completely beneath him.

Khan frowned. That wasn't what he had meant, and she knew it. Khan raised an eyebrow as a rather disgruntled looking security guard stomped into the lab to deliver his report on Prima's current status. It was Bharat Tamboli, the chief of security.

"She won't talk." He reported with a sort of grudging admiration. Prima was tough for a little girl, and while he found it frustrating that he couldn't get the information his boss wanted to hear because of it, she had begun to earn the man's respect by enduring his interrogation better than adults who were about three times the petite girl's size.

"Then you are authorized to use force." Dr. Kaur stated coldly without even batting an eyelash. The burly man frowned suspected augment or not, the prospect of beating on a little girl did not sit well with him.

"But—" He started to object, but he found himself silenced by an icy glare from the doctor. Fortunately, he was saved when Khan proposed an alternative.

"If I may, Mother, I would like to offer my assistance." The young man ventured cautiously. "I find it curious that she was able to hide her true nature from me for so long. I want to know how and why. She believes we are 'friends'. I can use this to make her talk." He suggested pragmatically. Dr. Kaur narrowed her eyes slightly, clearly suspicious of this sudden change of heart, but she seemed pleased, none the less.

"Very well." She assented, granting him permission to do as he saw fit.

—∞—

The Chrysalis Detention Center,
Cell block B

Prima glanced up from her spot on the floor when she heard the door to her cell clank open. Her eyes widened slightly in surprise when she saw who it was, and great big smile of relief blossomed upon her face.

"Khan!" She exclaimed happily, obviously very glad to see him.

Unlike himself, she had not yet been given the opportunity to clean herself, and she was still soaked with color. He took the smaller hand reaching out to him in his own. It was cold. If she didn't change out of those wet clothes, she would get a… Khan's train of thought stopped there as he forced himself to remember what he had just learned. She wouldn't catch a cold from something as minor as this. She wasn't a normal human. She was enhanced, like himself.

"Khan…?" Prima said, concerned, when she noticed the serious expression on his face. "Khan, I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you, but I promised my dad I would keep it a secret, because he was afraid they would take me away… but I'm still me. The time we spent together wasn't a lie." She said urgently, staring up at him imploringly. Her soft, hazel eyes were silently begging him to believe her.

"I know." He said softly, pulling her into a comforting embrace, so that he could whisper in her ear without the guards overhearing him. "Your father is safe. I spoke to him, and he told me everything. You don't have to worry. I understand, and I am going to protect you." He gently reassured her, combing a hand through her tangled, curly hair. "Just play along for now. When the time is right, we will escape, together."