Carol had limited success working to backtrack and find out more of Harrison's past. It was careful and massively frustrating work. She still couldn't find his classified file, but she had managed to get a brief look at John's medical file. She'd assumed he'd been injured by a blow to the head or some kind of neurological disruptor weapon.

Apparently it was an accident in cryogenic revival. But cryogenics was rarely used these days, and when it was used it was almost error-free. Certainly free of mishaps causing brain-damage through oxygen deprivation! What had John been doing? Had he been revived by aliens or something?

Scenarios involving being revived by romulans or klingons bent on extracting information and having little care what happened to the human they'd caught flashed through her mind. Maybe she was being a bit over dramatic, but if anything like that had happened it was no wonder that John was having psychiatric problems.

If he was. Given that his name was likely not John Harrison, just who and what were they dealing with here?

She hadn't had time to do more than glance over the rest of the record. It was... short. Completely blank for anything before the past year, as if John had abruptly appeared, Athena-like, complete from that blasted cryotube. It didn't make any sense, since his service record stated that he'd been a Starfleet agent for two years by that point! Unless that was a lie. Given her father's cruel treatment of him, perhaps he was some sort of captive enemy? Someone who'd worked with Nero, even?

For Khan, days passed. Food was passed into his cell, but no one spoke to him, did anything to him, or gave him anything to do. The food also tasted odd, likely drugged. Khan stopped eating, but then they put it in the water. So much for that idea. He started eating again.

Khan wasn't quite sure what Marcus intended by this enforced inactivity. To make him aware how much he was in Marcus' power? Certainly. To convince him he was expendable and could be locked away permanently? Likely. Although if he were truly expendable Marcus would simply have had him killed. The man might mean to break him, but if he wanted to do that he'd be in for a disappointment.

Khan paced, made a half-dozen escape plans that all had problems with them, tried to meditate. He even sang a couple of times. He was bored, and he'd never dealt well with enforced mental and physical inactivity. Not that he'd really had the need before. There had always been people to fight, frighten, seduce or outwit, problems to solve, usually more things he needed to do than he really had time for. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

Time crawled by, and dark thoughts crept into the empty spaces. Joachim was an orphan now, and Khan had no idea where he was, or if he was even alive.

Once an emperor, now a prisoner, his own name seemed a mockery of all that he had once been. He had failed, and found himself boxed in with no way out. He should have stayed behind to die when the Botany left. That would at least have been an honorable end, and perhaps some new leader would have done better with this horrific situation. Someone with less baggage from the past.

When the thoughts came, Khan took to doing almost anything to distract himself, up to and including giving the camera in the corner the finger. He might also have punched a wall. But in the end, the thoughts always returned.

He moved less, lost in his own thoughts, and didn't pay much attention to his surroundings. It wasn't as if they changed, anyway, or as if what he did here mattered.

Then someone threw the door wide. Khan threw up his arm to protect his eyes, fumbling for his sunglasses. Finding them, he stood up and squinted at the figure silhouetted against the blinding light. Then he recognized Admiral Marcus' voice. "You're a mess," the Admiral said. "Go clean yourself up; I've got work for you to do."

How embarrassing. He realized suddenly that he hadn't had a proper shower or even a change of clothes since he'd been locked in. He must look and smell pretty bad.

And where had the dried blood on his right hand come from? He glanced at the wall and winced. Oh yes, that. He flexed his hand. Everything worked, but one of the bones in his middle finger had set less than straight and the finger was now slightly crooked.

Just under an hour later, a much tidier Khan met Admiral Marcus again. "You're going back to work," said the Admiral. "You'll be confined to your cell for off-hours, and will be accompanied at all times you are out of it by four guards. You'd better not cause trouble again, Harrison, not if you want your precious family to survive."

Khan nodded silently. He needed out of that cell if he was to do anything productive. The Admiral handed him his PADD. "Don't even think about hacking this one," Admiral Marcus said. "It has extra precautions even you won't be able to crack. And you're banned from the rest of the base's computers." Again Khan nodded.

He followed Admiral Marcus dutifully back to the Vengeance. And his former team.

Carol was a bit surprised when she'd heard John was to be rejoining the team. That was going to be interesting. None of them had even been allowed to see him over the past week. Not that anyone other than her wanted to.

The mood on the team wasn't exactly in his favor. Al didn't want him to come back at all, protesting loudly that they didn't need him that badly. Maria, only recently out of her neck brace, curtly informed him it wasn't his choice and the man would be under guard and medicated to prevent any problems reoccurring.

Harrison arrived with Admiral Marcus just before 10 am. He somehow managed to look even more ghostly pale than before. Despite his known deadliness, he looked almost vulnerable. Instead of Connor, he had two guards. Carol was surprised to recognize one of them as one of her old classmates from the Academy. She hadn't seen Darren Smithson in ages. They'd have to catch up some time.

John was wearing a sort of thick coppery necklace - it looked a bit like those choker necklaces some teenage girls liked to wear a couple of years ago. Weird.

John stood at parade rest, expressionless and looking straight ahead as far as she could tell given his sunglasses.

"Commander Harrison will be guarded to prevent him becoming a threat in the event of a recurrence," said Admiral Marcus. "He's also on medication."

Carol wondered why her father was telling them this now, with Harrison present, when they already knew. After a few pleasantries, her father left, leaving John standing silent between his guards.

"Well, aren't you going to apologize?" demanded Al.

John turned slightly to look at him. "Sorry," said John slowly. "I not..."

"You don't what?" said Al, still glaring.

John shook his head but didn't speak.

Al took a step towards him, glaring.

"Al..." Maria began.

"John," said Carol, "can you remember the words?"

John shook his head.

"If you're sorry for hurting us and others, nod your head."

John nodded. "Sorry," he repeated.

Slowly, Al relaxed. "Suppose it isn't your fault if you didn't know what you were doing. What did you think was happening?"

John shook his head. "Family" was all he said.

"You said something about my father holding your family hostage," said Carol.

John tensed suddenly, and Carol took a step back, wondering if he was going to attack them or flee. "Be still," said Darren, grabbing John's shoulder. John stood very still.

"You sure you're well enough to be here?" asked Temujin. "You don't look so good."

"Why don't you get to work?" said the other guard. "He does better if he isn't reminded of his delusions." John nodded.

"In that case," said Maria, "let's get to work." Carol found herself volunteered to catch John up on what they had been doing in his absence. Not as much as should have been, to be honest. She'd been distracted, and Maria had been injured. There had been a big hole in the team without John, and none of them had really been functioning at their best.

As for functioning, John really wasn't doing well. She couldn't see what his eyes were doing, but he seemed really spaced out, and she wasn't getting much in the way of verbal answers, drawing out half his responses on his PADD. It was like he'd regressed to the early days in terms of language. What did her father think he was doing, making the man work when he was in this state! Was the man blind as well as heartless?

Or was John some sort of captive enemy, being forced to work for Starfleet? It would explain a lot. If so, Admiral Marcus' treatment of him was in contravention of half a dozen treaties on the treatment of enemy combatants. Of course, this was Section 31, where regular laws had a tendency to stretch to breaking point and sometimes beyond. Screw that.

"John, what is with the necklace?" Carol asked.

"Collar?" said John, touching the necklace. "Yes... control."

"It's just a precaution, Carol," said Darren.

"I see. I didn't think it looked like your fashion sense, John."

John raised his eyebrows. "Collar?... no." He gave a wry smile that she suspected didn't reach his eyes.

"Now we've managed to get the torpedoes slotted into the correct cradles on the Vengeance, but you need to tell me more about the details of how they work," said Carol, patting the side of the nearest torpedo. "And why these access ports are so big. You could fit a person in there with room to spare."

She wondered why John tensed. Darren did too, for that matter. What had she stumbled on this time? It felt like walking through a minefield blindfolded.

As she watched John walk away between his guards at the end of the day, Carol found herself inwardly cursing the day she'd agreed to work in Section 31.