A/N: thank you very much for reading, reviewing, favoriting and subscribing! I appreciate all of your thoughts on my story. Kudos, criticism and commenting of any sort is highly encouraged, as reviews are love.
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Carol tossed and turned in the bed, searching for a sleep that eluded her despite the exhaustion of the day making her weary. She had slept like a log in bustling cities all over the Federation but was plagued by insomnia in this quiet house with a river murmuring soothingly outside her bedroom walls. It had to be the oppressive feel the structure. Some nights it was as if she were in a tomb entered alive by all the people who yearned to forget she existed. She could, of course, take sleeping aids but in order to do so, she would have to open up about her depression to the starbase doctor, who did her regular check-ups. A year ago she would have had not compulsion about it, however, her faith in the ethics of Starfleet personnel wasn't what it used to be and she didn't want the medic to report on her mental state to either her father or his Section 31 superiors.
"Lights 40%," she said at last, slipping out of the bed.
She ordered the shutters off the wide, plate window. Though the planet had no natural satellites and its long nights reminded her of the polar ones back on Earth in summer. It was never truly dark, instead the land was covered in a blue veil with the horizons tinged with the milky light of the alien sun. Sunken mood or not, the view outside was spectacular and she took a few minutes to bask in it. It was then that she noticed that the Augment city was better lit and much more animated than usual. It was probably a by-product of her dispiritedness, but the fact spurned a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Though nobody had said as much, she was aware that the balance between Khan's people and the Federation was fragile. Maybe something had happened to offset it completely. Or maybe the Klingons had gotten wind of the Federation secret weapons facility on the planet and attacked it. Concern morphing into full-blown anxiety, she pulled at her night-clothes and quickly changed into something she could go out in. She had no access to weapons, nor could she take her communicator off-base. The thought of just how complete her isolation was stung. Should she ever be in danger, all she had in her favor was her hand-to-hand combat training and screaming.
She tried to calm down by telling herself she was over-reacting and there were no obvious sounds of battle outside. In fact, as she strolled into the colony, all she could hear was what sounded more like a celebration than anything else, which could only mean two things: she could add her mind to the list of things she lost and it had been so long since she had been to a party, that she was beyond recognizing one. Apparently, her superhuman neighbors had not lost their zest for life, which made sense considering they had spent the past three hundred years trapped in cryogenic tubes.
The city was centered around a covered market that reminded her of a miniature version of the Bazaar of Tabriz, which she remembered from her readings on the Augments to have been a part of Khan's reign. Once upon a time. She wondered just how daunting he found the shift from ruling over a quarter of his home planet to struggling to build something in this brave new inhospitable world with a distrustful Starfleet constantly looking over his shoulder.
She felt like a creeper staring at the lively gathering inside from the doorway, but her feet remained rooted to the spot, refusing to carry out her decision to leave any minute now. A hand on her shoulder all but made her jump out of her skin. She whirled around on instinct and raised her left fist to defend herself. Quicker than she could see, long fingers wrapped themselves around her wrist stilling her movement. Khan took a step closer to her from the shadows and then released her arm. Carol breathed in deeply, wishing there were some way to will her heart to stop racing.
"Did we wake you up?" he asked in a low voice, a slight, sardonic smile playing on his lips, warning her that he knew the question was rhetorical. He made no reference to just scaring her out of her mind. She supposed it was only fair giving that he had caught her spying on his people.
"No, no," she said on one breath. "I just didn't know you had a celebration planned," she finished regaling him with a fake smile of her own.
He looked past her and at his friends inside, his expression suddenly more open. "We didn't know we had anything to celebrate until a few hours ago, when Joaquin and Ling's baby was born."
His entire demeanor softened as always when he was talking about his people, the intensity in his voice revealing such fondness and pride, that for a few instants she was blind with jealousy. Here he stood, this supposedly blood-thirsty warmonger of the past, demonstrating such simple devotion to his own, that she could never, not even at her most resentful, imagine him pawning off his only family to a criminal building weapons on a barely habitable planet. She had never in the entire past year felt more awful than upon realizing that Khan might be more human than her own father.
"Congratulations," she said in a subdued voice, looking anywhere but at him. "Would you please give them all the best for me?"
"Carol," he said, the use of her first name startling her into looking up at him. He was studying her with the same frown of concentration he employed when working on his torpedoes. "Are you alright?"
She didn't know what was worse: Khan's charity or the fact that she was desperate enough to accept it. She nodded, eyes fixed on his sculptured face illuminated by the soft light streaming from the building behind them. It wasn't that she hadn't noted before just how handsome he was or that there was something about his fierceness that made him magnetic enough even for her restrained senses to react, but his apparent indifference had caused her to be wary of the embarrassment of a brush-off, should she try to change things between them. None of that mattered tonight. Not with the prospect of her lonely, cold bed, while others celebrated new life right under her windows.
"Yes," she murmured. "I'm fine."
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. His eyes widened in surprise and he pulled back almost immediately, brief dismay flitting across his features. Her muscles coiled in a defensive posture, as she readied herself for the trap of rejection she had set up all on her own, when he reached for her and burying his hand into the hair at the back of her head, he firmly pulled her over for a kiss of his own initiation. It seemed he wasn't about to refuse company for the night when offered to him. His kiss was an attack, aggressive and rough to the point of violence. His teeth sank into her lower lip, before his tongue pushed into his mouth, too sure and dominant to be simply exploring. Blood roared into her ears, as his free arm grabbed her by the waist, pushing her flush against the firm warmth of his body. She shut her eyes, giving in, letting him control the kiss and take over her senses.
While her addled brain prepared to surrender to sensation, it occurred to her there was another reason to do this besides dulling loneliness: oblivion. She could lose herself in this and forget. She let out a small moan of regret, when he broke the kiss, then released her only to grab her left hand a split second later. "Come," he commanded, pulling her with him in the relative darkness of the night.
He took her to a nearby compound, the ownership or use of she didn't know. The interior was spartan, not that their place was lavish, either. They entered what looked like a cross between a vestibule and a hall and took the elevator five levels up. From there he lead her into a tiny bedroom and ordered the lights on. With the only window in the chamber covered, she experienced a moment of disorientation that made some of the fog in her mind dissipate. Not quite ready to return to sanity, she strode towards the bed and began to undress before she lost her nerve. He keyed a code on the panel by the door, not turning to face her.
"If you want to leave, tell me now," he said in a controlled voice.
Carol swallowed hard, fingers pausing on the clasp of her bra. "I don't want to leave."
# # #
Carol wondered what the protocol for the walk of shame was, upon waking up alone in a strange bed after consummating one's marriage a year or so after the overly and equally terse ceremony itself. At least, she had had a better night's rest than she had enjoyed in months, despite her sleep being interrupted several times by Khan's insistent caresses. Being with him was like being taken over by the eye of a storm, but she hadn't expected him to be considerate, too, and his gentleness disturbed her more than his brutality, because she knew herself to be worn out and disillusioned with the ideals of her world, which made her starved for the barest scraps of affection.
She had been right to fear the return of her senses the night before, because the light of day also brought panic and all of her old suspicions about those surrounding her. Aware that dwelling would solve nothing, she dragged herself out of bed, since she was also probably late for a her work, where nobody expected her to be on time. As she dressed, her realized how ridiculous she had been, pretending she could hold onto fragments of her Starfleet life, when the Starfleet itself didn't want to hold onto her. Maybe if she just embraced the enormity of what was happening to her, she could find some measure of solace. At this point, she would even settle for resignation.
Her investigation of her surrounding lead her to discover that the door was now unlocked and that the bedroom had to an en-suite bathroom, which she gladly used to shower and freshen up. The adjoining rotunda had floor to ceiling windows devoid of blinders and revealing a view of the central market that told her she was in the loft of a building she had never before had reason to set foot in: the political and meeting center of the Augments, where Khan spent most of his time outside the starbase in the veld. With him practically working two jobs between the two locations, it made sense he would have an apartment there as well.
She had never stopped to consider it properly, but what they had achieved here, even with the aid of technology provided by Section 31, was nothing short of remarkable. It made her wonder about Khan's claims, she had initially dismissed as refusal to assume responsibility, of his and his people's supposedly war crimes being vastly exaggerated by his enemies. She had no illusions about what had gone on during those barbaric times, but it wasn't such a stretch to accept that the Augments had no more blood on their hands than those they had met in battle. What she could also believe was they weren't shutting her out, because they despised regular humans. After all, they had no problem interacting and even forming relationships with those on the base. Perhaps, much like she kept an eye on them, lest they went off the rails, they were equally wary of the daughter of the head of Starfleet living in their midst.
"I took the liberty of announcing you wouldn't report for work today," he said from behind her, seemingly enjoying sneaking up soundlessly and startling her. "I hope I'm not overstepping."
When she turned to look at him, she saw he was dressed as if he had just come in from outside, wearing his gray cloak-like coat with raised collar that made him look every inch the warrior king of yore he was. He was regarding her somberly and she briefly wondered if he was as uncertain as she was about where they stood, before discarding the idea as silly. Khan was never not sure abut anything, much less about his glorified hostage neither he or her former colleagues would allow something as measly as her own communicator.
"Good morning," she said with fake cheer.
His expression relaxed a fraction, as his clear blue eyes seized her up. "Good morning," he replied seamless. "Do you want to have breakfast?"
She wasn't really hungry, but a shared meal might help break the ice so she agreed. She had planned to tell him later that she would go to the star-base that day, only to discover that he wanted her to stay in, because, with the Augments taking it easy after the night's fest, he intended to spend the day in bed with her. The promise of oblivion of before beckoned and she let herself be persuaded.
TBC