Chapter 51

The snow was thigh-deep and Khan pulled himself slowly up the hill towards the small stone house on the rocky outcrop above the trees. He'd had to park his all-terrain vehicle at the bottom of the steep hill. Apparently "all-terrain" had a different definition in Alaska. Smoke was curling from the chimney of the house, which was a promising sign – the last few houses he'd visited had been completely abandoned.

It had been a month since he'd let Beth slip through his fingers after she'd escaped from Clay. Khan had traced the warp signature of her shuttle to Earth, to Anchorage where he'd set out to find her on land. His surroundings had grown more and more desolate in pace with his mood. In Alaska's wilderness there were no surveillance systems to monitor, no computer systems to hack, and all of Khan's tracking skills were useless in an environment where roads and pathways were covered with a fresh layer of ice and snow almost every day.

A few times he'd thought he was on the right track. Some towns he'd visited had stories of a woman who had come for a week, staying on the outskirts, avoiding contact with the locals, especially men, before moving on. He'd shown the people who had seen this woman a picture of Beth. Many were reluctant to confirm her identity, insisting they'd only seen her from a distance, but one man had been sure that Beth was the woman who had scared him off with a shotgun when he'd dropped by to introduce himself.

After a few weeks the trail went cold. The woman seemed to disappear from anyone's radar and Khan made his way to Beth's childhood home – a brick farmhouse on the McKinley River. For a moment he'd let himself hope that she had simply returned home, but the house had been empty, and it looked like it had been untouched since Beth had lived there with her mother.

As he'd travelled from room to room, he saw Beth everywhere. Photographs were on the walls and mantles, showing her at all ages up to her late teens, and Khan kept each one that he found. Her bedroom was a treasure trove of personal keepsakes, including home-made toys, a half-written diary, a music collection and countless brochures about Starfleet Academy.

Khan had spent the night in her room, sleeping on her small bed and thinking about her childhood and how it had helped mold her into the woman he loved. He'd tried to imagine where she would go, where she would feel safe. It would be a place similar to this – a remote farmstead – but closer to medical facilities, at least until the babies were born. She would want to take every precaution with the birth, but she would also want to take every precaution with her own safety. She would want female doctors and as few men around as possible.

And those assumptions had informed Khan's ongoing search. There were many female obstetricians in Alaska's large cities, but considerably fewer in rural towns, and in those small towns even fewer worked in well-equipped, modern hospitals. Khan had searched for signs of Beth in all of their records and followed up on every patient at the end of their first trimester.

Which had led him to this bleak hillside ten miles north-east of McGrath. It was starting to get dark when he reached the house. He could see that there were two other buildings behind the stone dwelling, and someone had trekked a path in the snow between the main house to those buildings quite recently. Khan approached the house quietly, peering in the front windows. They were shuttered, but he was able to see that lights were on in the front room.

Bracing himself for another disappointment, he knocked on the front door. There was no reply and he moved around to the rear of the small house. He saw the back door was ajar with a sliver of light spilling out over the steps. Khan climbed them slowly and pressed his fingers against the door, pushing it open. He felt the warmth of the room wash over him as he stepped inside.


Beth froze as she heard a noise behind her. She slowly set down the firewood she'd gathered into her arms and picked up the shotgun that was leaning against the wall. Looking over her shoulder she saw a shadow move on the other side of the doorway and she covered her mouth to cover the sound of her own gasp.

She went quickly to the door and hid behind it, raising the shotgun as a dark figure entered the room. They were dressed heavily, in many bulky layers, and over everything they wore a hooded fur coat.

"I have a gun," Beth said, her voice shaking but strong as she stepped out from behind the door. "Turn around and face me. Put your hands where I can see them. I promise I will not hesitate to shoot you."

The person slowly raised their hands out to their sides and slowly turned around. "Don't shoot me, Beth. It would be such a shame after all this time."

Beth stared in disbelief as the muzzle of her gun slowly lowered to the floor. She had long ago given up hope of this day ever coming. She opened her mouth but was barely able to form the word.

"Mom?"

The woman lowered the hood of her coat but made no other movement towards her daughter. "Hello, Beth." She looked almost the same as Beth remembered. The same honey-colored hair, though it had been lightened by a sprinkling of gray, the same hazel eyes, though they had hardened somewhat over the years.

"Mom, what… how…" Beth didn't know what to say to her mother. She had wanted to know for so long if her mother was even alive. Now that she had living proof of that, what else was there? "Why now?" she finally asked.

"Someone has been following me," her mother said, looking out the door of the storage shed towards the main house. "He isn't… well I don't know him. I managed to lose him two weeks ago but he went to our old place and now he's picked up on your trail. I've been following him and he's here now, in your house."

"What do you mean? Who's picked up on my trail? Why?"

Beth's mother reached out a hand to Beth. "There's no time to explain, we have to leave now before he comes back here."

"Leave to go where? Who is he?"

"I told you, I don't know him. I haven't seen this one before."

"This one?" Beth asked. "There have been others?"

Her mother hesitated. "There has been one man looking for me for over thirty years. Sometimes he sends other men in his place, but it's always him."

"Over thirty years? Who is he?"

Again her mother hesitated. "That's my business, Beth," she said cautiously. "Now come with me, I have a car hidden down in the trees."

"It is my business, Mom," Beth said, and realized she was raising her voice. "You said the man is in my house. I want to know why he's here before I go and shoot him."

"Beth, you can't engage this man."

"Then tell me what he wants."

"Beth," her mother pleaded. "You have to trust me."

Beth shook her head. "I haven't seen you in over ten years. I don't even know you, let alone trust you. Tell me who sent this man."

Her mother kept looking anxiously back at the house. "Alright," she finally said. "He was sent by your father. I left him when I found out I was pregnant. Let's just say he didn't want to let me go."

"My father?" Beth asked. Her mother had never talked of her father, always avoided questions about him.

"There, I told you, now please, we have to get out of here."

"But you left him because of me? Why?"

"I didn't leave him just because I was pregnant, but knowing you were on the way – it gave me the strength I needed. Just like we have to go now."

"You can go if you like," Beth said, and she opened her coat, turning sideways to show the beginnings of her pregnant belly. "But I'm not you. I'm not going to start running."

"Oh Beth," her mother whispered, but it was not a happy whisper. She looked crestfallen. "What have you done?"

"Nothing I regret," Beth said, turning her back on her mother and starting towards the house.

"Beth, don't." She felt her mother grab at her coat. "Beth, don't go in alone. Let me go first." The woman smiled sadly. "I suppose I should have done this years ago."

Beth nodded and then followed her mother through the snow. Her back door was open and Beth strained her ears to hear if there was someone moving around inside. She watched her mother climb the stairs and peer inside the kitchen. After a moment the woman moved forward, waving Beth inside.

She felt like a stranger in her own home, looking at everything differently, wondering what had been touched. Suddenly her mother froze at the next doorway, which led into the small sitting room. She raised her hand to signal Beth to wait, and then stepped over the threshold.

The sound of the gun firing in her small house was painful to Beth's ears. She saw her mother prepare to fire a second time and then heard the intruder speak. Even with her ears ringing she could not mistake the voice.

"Mrs. Walker, let me explain."

"Mom!" Beth shouted, running at the woman as she fired a second time. The bullet went wide as she collapsed on top of her mother. She wrestled the gun from her mother's hands and then turned to the man who'd been shot.

"Khan!"

He was leaning against the wall, his hand raised to his shoulder. Beth saw blood seeping through his fingers, but the blood was just proof – proof that he was alive.

He smiled at her weakly, pushing himself off the wall. She ran to him. "Khan," she said, more quietly, wrapping her arms around him, leaning into him as he put an arm around her. The arm of the shoulder that had been shot stayed by his side.

"Beth," he said softly, breathing it into her hair.

"Beth, step away from him."

She felt Khan's body stiffen as she held him. It hurt her to let him go but she had to in order to face her mother. "Mom, he wasn't looking for you. He was looking for me."

Her mother pulled a small pistol from her coat pocket. "All the more reason to kill him."

"You're not going to kill him. I love him, and he loves me." She felt Khan put a hand on her shoulder, either to support her or support himself. It frightened her that he could be weak when she felt so suddenly invincible.

"That won't stop him hurting you," her mother said. "Because he will hurt you, and he'll hurt your daughters." Tears filled her mother's eyes as she raised the pistol. "I'm doing this for your own good. Now, step aside."

Beth shook her head, beginning to understand her mother's pain, but it did not stop her raising the shotgun to point it at her mother's chest. "I'm sorry, Mom, but he's mine, and I'm not going to let you hurt him."


Wrapped up this chapter in a hurry to give folks some badly-needed closure :) More to come.