= VI =

'I should have stayed in bed.' Mira thought as she finally came to, feeling very much like she had been run over by those old school trucks and then some. Or an entire star ship had landed on her, either way she felt like crap. Mira attempted to sit up but smacked her head on something, a plastic glass shield if she had to guess. Laying back down Mira looked up and saw exactly that.

She was in a medical containment biobed, preserved for those who were suffering from a contagious and deadly illness or for the people who had been exposed to something and statuses were still set to Unknown. Mira tried to recall what had happened but got nothing for a while. She looked around and saw the emergency button that was on the inside of the case and pressed it several times, still trying to think of how she ended up here and then slowly it started coming back.


A beep sounded and caused Mira to look down and then the warning chime for Mira's lab sounded through her communicator after a moment. Looking from it and then back to Khan, Mira ducked her head back down again. "I'm sorry" she said taking a step away from him. Mira wanted to continue their conversation to hash out whatever else was left and then let it be done with but she just didn't know what else to say after that sudden apology.

So she had decided she would deal with the problem at her lab first and continue with fixing them later on. She then walked around him, heading to the bathroom to clean herself up before she would dash back to her office. Mira cringed as she gave herself a once over. While she didn't wear much make up, she had taken to always wearing eye liner and well it wasn't that pretty of a sight to behold. Instead, her usual clean wings were now smudged and all over the place. Small little black marks marred a little bit of her cheeks but mostly just her temples.

Her usual pompadour hair style now thrown off and there was a red puffiness to her eyes. Sighing, Mira got to work and cursed herself for not buying her usual eye liner. She knew she should have just waited for it to be in stock but she had been in a hurry that day, her communicator going off every five minutes while she was in the store, Khan trying to get in contact with her it turned out.

Mira got to work fixing herself up quickly, not bothering to fix her hair all that much and simply pulled it into a pony tail but not before she pulled the clip from her hair and fixed her bangs so they hung naturally around her face… And with that done, Mira bolted out of the bathroom towards their quarters and down to her lab, she went to see what the problem was to start with. When she had gotten there though, Mira stopped before entering her lab. She looked through the glass wall to see if everything was in tact and it was. Nothing was out of place, everything was as it had been when she left it earlier that day. Now stepping into her lab, hearing the door hiss shut behind her, Mira really began to look around. She wanted to make sure that everything was in working condition. She rounded her lab, checking each item individually and finding nothing wrong with any of them. Mira did not understand why her warning chime went off. There was no fire, everything was locked up tight, there wasn't an intruder or if there had been she clearly couldn't tell. He or she had not touched a single thing and even her markers were in the exact same place as she had left them.

Sighing Mira started to examine each item again just in case she had missed something and even bent down to check underneath some of them, thinking maybe a lab rat had escaped and was hiding under some of her equipment but there was nothing.

Mira was about to leave and go to the CO's office and request to look at their security tapes but stopped when she saw her culture's case. It looked exactly the same. The door to it was latched shut, the machinery inside the case was in the same place as it had been, even the only culture she had set in there a day ago was still in the same spot or at least it appeared that way. Mira wasn't sure, she knew she always kept the labels facing forward in case someone wanted to come in and read what it was. It had just become a habit to always do that. She would even tell other Doctors and nurses to do that but this label wasn't facing forward. Mira had instantly thought of Khan, thinking maybe he would have done it, probably just to piss her off but she doubted he was that juvenile. Mira stepped closer checking what was up and finally she noticed the bubbling.

Eyes going wide, Mira tried to back away but because of everything she had done, checking everything over twice, it was too late. In the second she had noticed the compound, it was at it's max and thus it exploded. The force sent Mira flying back and into the wall, barely having the time to cover her face with her arms. Slivers of glass shards, some big and some small were protruding out of her skin. Mira lifted her head for a few moments hearing the facility alarm bells going off, eyes focused on her cultures case before she dropped her head back down roughly and her eyes fell shut.


Panicking as the memories came back one by one Mira looked around her, noticing absolutely no staff around her. She knew in situations like these the room was supposed to be jammed packed with doctors and nurses. She had been in situations like these but there was no one, not a single person had entered or left since she had awoken. Really panicking now, Mira started to bang on the plastic around her and pressing the button to call someone to help her every five second.

"Please someone!" she shouted, hoping someone would hear her and to her sudden relief someone came in through the door. Mira let out a sigh of happiness before she saw exactly who can come in and they certainly weren't a doctor. Khan walked over to her and gave her a once over. "The doctors and nurses were told to let you die." he had informed her and Mira's wide eyes just got wider, fear gripping her heart. Multiple emotions, of course, had passed through her as his words registered, along with many different thoughts and she had to wonder who would order that and why.

Then instantly Marcus's smug face came to her mind. He would let her die for not doing what she was told, as a punishment to her but mostly to her father. Marcus knew going after her was a drastic step but it had to be him. She had no qualms with anyone, and the good side to it all was her father, he loved her too much. She didn't want to imagine what he would feel if she was taken from him… if she died. She couldn't imagine the heartbreak; she didn't want to. "I don't want to die," she whispered scared for herself and for her father. Khan nodded his head as he looked around. "You will have to walk me through some of the steps, I haven't seen some of these devices before" he said as he backed away from her and started tapping on the control panel by the door.

He locked down the sickbay completely so no one could get in or out or stop him from helping her before releasing her from her containment. Mira sat up as soon as she was free and looked down at herself and looked away just as quickly. She was still in the clothes she had been in before. Mira quickly stood up, wanting to get the hell out of her clothes as fast as she could and nearly fell over, face first into the ground for her troubles but was saved by Khan. His arms wrapped around her waist. "I need to get out of these. They'll make me worse," she said but Khan didn't let go as he put her back onto the biobed. "You still have glass embedded into your skin." Khan told her causing Mira to look down at herself again and then flinch, instantly looking away.

"You'll need forceps and…" Mira started but Khan cut her off, already going to get the equipment he needed. "It's surprising how much of this is still the same, the procedures at least are the same from my time, the efficiency is better now than it was then though." Khan said as a way to shut her up and indicate he had done this sort of thing before, maybe not pulling glass from someone but close enough or maybe he had. Shrapnel came in all different shapes and sizes after all.

Returning quickly with what he needed, Khan nodded his head to the biobed, telling her silently she needed to lay down for this. Complying silently, Mira laid down but instantly shot up again when she saw the cutting laser in his hand. "I need to get your uniform off of you so I can gain better access to the glass and you seemed adamant to be out of it." Khan simply said not leaving any room for argument if Mira wanted the help or not. Laying back down and taking a painful breath in as Khan started to cut away at her uniform blues and black undershirt. After several mortifying minutes, Khan cleared his throat as a sign to tell her to rise so he may get rid of the destroyed garments completely, taking her boots with the rest of her clothing.

Wordlessly he disposed of it safely and walked back over to Mira, getting to work on the glass bits right away. Silence filled the air as Khan worked, Mira trying very hard not to flinch or cry as he worked but by God it was getting painful. Khan looked at her face for a moment and then to her neck but moved his eyes back up to meet hers. Khan was studying her and then returned his gaze back to his work. "I am curious, is this regulation or just something you prefer?" Khan asked Mira and then chuckled when he saw the blush spread over Mira's cheeks and body.

"Shut up" Mira muttered out. She had never been one for the regulation underwear, like it was great, comfortable and went with anything. However, she found the standard plain black to be boring and not really needed in her mind and thus had stuck to her more girly under clothes. Today was a pink and blue lace bra and matching panties to go along with it. "I won't lie, if you had tried to seduce me with this, I very much doubt I would have resisted for long, if at all" Khan laughed. Mira was about to yell at him but, when she moved her eyes to look at him and saw no humor behind his eyes, she figured it out. He was being kind, in his own way. Distracting her and making her angry, bringing about her annoyance; those were the best distractors. "That is so not helping." Mira said through clenched teeth as he pulled the biggest piece of glass thus far out of her.

"I believed it was. If you do not like the subject matter, then you decide what we shall discuss or would you prefer we remain in silence?" Khan offered. It hadn't taken long for Mira to think of something she else wanted to talk about. Instantly in fact. "Tell me about your Second and Third officers." Mira asked, though it sounded more like a demand. Khan paused his work for only a fraction of a second before continuing "No." he said firmly, tension now rolling off of him and so Mira adjusted. "Okay… tell me something about back then?" A question to her words, she wasn't sure of herself. When Khan hadn't answered right away, Mira began to think of something else to ask and came up with several different things.

"It was a world at war" He began, pulling Mira from her thoughts. "I ruled more then a quarter of the globe and, while I may not have been favoured, I wasn't the cruelest ruler it had seen." Khan went on to say and it instantly brought a memory back to Mira, his picture. "The best of tyrants." she muttered under her breath. Khan, in Khan like fashion, heard her. "I was the best. I was better than all of them and they condemned me a war criminal." Anger rolled off Khan now but he was still careful with his actions as not to hurt her more then she already was. "I don't want to know about that." Mira said sounding unsure, not of herself this time though. No, she was unsure of how Khan would react to her comment, even to her it sounded like she didn't care but that was the opposite of it. She would love to sit down and let him regal her with tales of his past but right now, she wanted to know more about him. Khan the man, not Khan, the Augment Emperor.

"Then what do you wish to know?" Khan words screaming with bitterness. Mira thought for a moment of what she wanted answered first and finally she came up with the answer she wanted to know most. "What were you like when you were a boy?" Khan stopped what he was doing and simply stared at Mira for a while, hands held still in mid air. Honestly, if Mira didn't know better, she would have thought he was a statue. After a few heart beats Khan started to move again. Something passing behind his eyes; the same look she had seen when she was on the floor of their quarters and he was deciding something.

"I was…" Khan started sounding unsure of where to start at but then he seemed to of found himself as a small smile spread across his lips. "I was an unruly child; I can't count a time when I wasn't in some sort of trouble. It seemed to only get worse when I met Abel. The trouble we would cause.

"We would have Nicole screaming at us for days and nights, constantly having to get us out of whatever chaos we had made." Khan spoke with a small smile on his lips, looking lost and happy in his old memories. The picture came to Mira's mind again and so she asked. "Was that who was in the picture with you? The woman with the black hair and the male with blonde hair?" This seemed to pull Khan from his thoughts but he didn't answer her. He just continued to work. "I mellowed out as I got older." Khan went on, ignoring Mira's question but she took that as a yes because he had not denied it either.

Mira followed his lead, trying to keep away from the all too touchy subjects. It seemed talking about him was fine but diverting to anyone else was a big No No and so Mira had to joke. "You mean when you started getting laid right?" Khan's smile grew and Mira had to roll her eyes, she had been joking but apparently it had been the truth. "Of course, do I want to know how much of a heart breaker you were?" Mira inquired with a small jest and Khan simply shrugged. "I never broke anyone's heart. They knew what I was like, what I wanted, and they accepted that." With that comment, Mira simply raised her eyebrows. "Yeah… cause superior beings so never get jealous." Mira commented dryly and this caused Khan to give her a smug smirk.

"I suppose if I were to be honest, I broke quite a few and I did not solely sleep with Augmented women. I slept with normal humans as well, so long as they met my standards. Back then, that wasn't hard to do. I didn't hate humans as much then." Khan spoke the last part bitterly and Mira was a little thankful of the opening of subject change. She knew it was stupid to blush at his comment about sleeping with normal humans, her heart slightly racing but it seemed she couldn't help herself.

"Why didn't you hate humans back then? Or at least as much? I mean weren't they horrible to you?" Mira asked. It was a question she was dreading. It wasn't the hate she wanted to know about… no it was what they had done to him while he was younger. Khan simply shrugged at her question. "After my birth, I was simply left alone until I was four years old. It was the same for every child in the facility I was raised in. I guess they just simply wanted to observe us. When I turned four. the testing began and they were merciless. Pushing me, pushing everyone to their breaking points but the time between tests was far and they gave us whatever we wanted whenever we wanted it, so we wanted for nothing. I suppose as a means to keep us compliant.

They were horrible as you said but they gifted me with my abilities. I am better because of them." Khan spoke as he was drifting through his thoughts. "How did you get out?" Mira asked, her own personal goals now driving her questions. And while she did want to know more about it and was learning a little, it wasn't as much as she would have liked. "They let us out. At 16, we were allowed to leave the facility. Although we did have to go back before nightfall and we were monitored of course. It was a mistake on their part. We wanted more because of it and soon we had exactly what we wanted." Khan voice going low as a bitterness entered his tone. After a moment of silence Khan pulled a particularly wide piece of glass from her stomach area. "You are lucky, none of these hit anything major. Clearly a novice was hired to dispose of you." Khan said more to himself then anything but Mira gave him a questioning look. "How do you know it wasn't just an accident?".


After watching Mira leave, Khan had retreated to his room so he may think in peace, not sure about the recent events and his constant back tracking and second guessing. It had become annoying and frustrating. He was pulled from his thoughts as an alarm went off overhead. He remembered enough from the labs in his time as they were much like the ones now. Something had gotten loose and the facility was being locked down.

Khan had, of course, waited for most of the chaos to die down, which had resulted in a three-hour delay before he said fuck it and exited his room. He ignored all of it, the people and alarms and went to check out what had caused this annoying disruption. Soon Khan found himself close to his lab and Doctor Sullivan's. Khan had been correct to wait the three hours, avoiding much of the hell caused by the alarms. He hadn't foreseen the Doctor's lab being the cause of it all. Khan looked upon it and frowned to himself. The glass that allowed him to check up on the doctor was now fractured and he could barely see inside now because of it. Ignoring the protests of men in protective gear, Khan strolled right into her lab and began to look around. Easily spotting the main point of the blast and where the doctor had landed, Khan continued looking around making sure not to miss anything and finally crouched down picking up a piece of glass that was discoloured.

Tilting his head, he could tell a few things just by looking at it. It was blood based, fast acting and more then likely one-hundred percent lethal. Getting up quickly, Khan made his way to the facility's sickbay but not before pocketing the glass. Oddly wanting to see if in fact the doctor was the one who had been hurt hurt as he had hoped it might have been… though as he may have hated her he didn't want her to die. Coming up with the idea to use her, manipulate her and once he was done destroy her. He didn't want all that planning or his ideas to go to waste. When Khan got there, however, he heard the tail end of a conversation with Marcus and one of the doctors.

"No one steps foot into that lab, got it? I don't care who she is. No one helps her" and then the connection was lost. Khan was curious what she had done to incur his wrath but then felt stupid for the thought. She was failing in her orders to seduce him and gain his trust. Khan thought for a moment and then smiled, he could still use Mira and piss off Marcus in the process by simply saving her life. Quickly, Khan changed his expression and pretended to be furious as he walked right on through, ignoring all of the doctors and nurses as he went. After punching in a stolen security code, he entered the emergency room but hesitated for a mere second. She was awake and looking as healthy as she had been when she left save for the new cuts and glass sticking out of her.


Khan explained, a very summarized version of what had happened, hiding truths from her like he always had and her none the wiser about it. As he talked, Khan had finished with the last of the glass and disposed of it safely before returning to her and began imputing a command to scan her. Mira, noticing this, tried to stop him. She grabbed his hand or at least tried to. Mira looked up as she was starting to see double.

"I can do the scan… you don't need to. I don't…shit." Mira said as she started to feel dizzy all of a sudden and Khan put his hand to her forehead. "Your symptoms seem to be taking their time. A sedative should slow it down some more. You are most likely making it work faster." Khan said, walking over to the cabinet and grabbed the lowest dose he could find. "It might make it worse." Mira muttered. She may only be suffering two symptoms right now but damn did they suck. She didn't want to know what the other symptoms might be. She, however, figured it was all aiming to one place; Death's Door. Khan began to tap away on the control panel again and started up the entire body scan as he prepared the hypospray.

Once it was ready, Khan turned her arm over and placed the hypospray on the antecubital of her arm. "Please… don't look at it… the scan. Don't." was all Mira said before he injected her. With that small injection Mira was out and the machines were going off.