Before this chapter gets started, I just wanted to thank you guys. I'm blown away by all of the positive response this story has gotten. More so than any of my other stories. Em and I really enjoy this story, and we're so happy that you do, too.
"I'm so excited for the response this story has gotten. Katie and I are so extremely thankful for all the amazing feedback we've gotten. Thank you everyone!" ~TheWooze19
When Wendy went to visit Leo later that day, the Augment was sitting on her bunk, back slumped against the wall, one foot on the bunk next to her with her arm on her knee. She was staring blankly into space and her lunch tray lay untouched next to her.
"Leo?" Wendy asked, testing the waters. She got no response, so she continued. "I still need to do the check up. . . ."
"Could you do something for me, Wendy?" Leo asked, not moving.
"If it will make all this better," Wendy gestured around the room. "I can't promise anything, but I'll try my best."
"If my fate is to live in a cryogenics pod for the rest of eternity, I just want to see him again."
"Who?" Wendy asked, although she already knew the answer. Leo finally turned to look at her.
"Khan. I want to see him again. Awake."
"I . . . that's not possible. I'm sorry."
"Please Wendy," Leo begged. "If these are my last three months alive-"
"They aren't your last three months alive," Wendy replied soothingly.
"They might as well be. If I'm just going straight back into the cryogenics pod. . . ."
"What did you think was going to happen?" Wendy asked somewhat sarcastically.
Leo sighed. "I don't know. I figured I'd go back in for a while. Until we stood trial or you sent us off to a new planet. I didn't think it was going to be forever."
"New planet?"
"That's where we were headed almost three hundred years ago. We'd lost the Eugenics Wars. Lost our right to exist on the planet, let alone have someplace to call our own. So we set out for space; to find a new place to call home."
"A whole new planet?"
"If we stayed on earth, we faced trial as war criminals."
Wendy stared at the woman behind the glass, mouth hanging open. She couldn't imagine Leo doing anything that would have branded her as a war criminal. She was considered one of the strongest advocates for pacifism in her day. On the other hand, she had fallen in with Khan and his crew. Her curiosity got the better of her.
"What did you do?" she asked, her voice hushed.
"Fell in with the wrong lot, I suppose," Leo replied. "Fell in love with the wrong man."
"You really want to see him again, don't you?"
"I'm on a spaceship floating in the middle of who-knows-where. The days here are completely artificial and I'm stuck in a cell that seems to be getting smaller everyday. None of this is familiar to me. None of it. The ship, the cell, the clothes, the food, even the air smells different. I'm familiar with absolutely nothing, Wendy. Do you know what that feels like? How unsettling that is? All I'm asking for is one thing that's familiar. Just one."
"But Khan?" Wendy questioned. "I don't think they'd ever agree to that. Maybe another friend."
Leo looked Wendy dead in the eye. "If it were your last days alive, wouldn't you want to spend them with the man you loved?"
Wendy let out a defeated sigh. Leo was right, she was a hopeless romantic at heart. And she knew that Leo's depression had steadily gotten worse since the day she was confined to the brig. She wanted very badly to do something for the woman who she now considered a friend. There had to be a way; some sort of compromise between Leo and Starfleet Command. But before she could convince Command, she'd have to convince Kirk.
Khan entered the bedroom and watched the woman hunched over the desk across the room. Her long blonde hair fell in a fishtail braid down her back. Maps and reports were strewn all over the surface of the desk, and some had fallen onto the floor. The red pen she held between her fingers drummed a rapid beat on the surface of the map she was currently staring blankly at.
"I just heard from Andrews," he said in a low voice, not wanting to startle her.
Leo sighed. "Just drop it on the desk."
Khan did as she asked, stopping to look at the map that was on the top of the pile.
"How does it look?" He asked, still speaking softly. She was the only one he used that tone with. To everyone else, it was his usual, cold, authoritative tone that gave the orders. The one that held underneath it a deep conviction and passion for his people. His family. But Leo . . . well, Leo was different; she was special. Always had been and always would be.
Leo just shook her head in response. Khan gently brushed her braid over her shoulder and started massaging the base of her skull, trying to relieve the tension headache he was sure she had. Leo reached over and picked up the report he had just brought her. It came from one of Khan's lieutenants stationed in Asia. It didn't look good, but Khan already knew that. He wanted to know if Leo could fix it.
"I don't want to do this," she said finally.
That wasn't the answer Khan was looking for, but it wasn't the first time she'd said it, either. He'd been hearing that answer from her with increasing regularity over the past few months. He was running out of things to say to convince her otherwise.
"You're our best strategist," he said evenly. "It's what you were always meant to do."
"Khan, I've spent my entire adult life trying not to be what those people created me to be!"
"I know," he said as he pulled a chair over so he could sit next to her. "But our people need you. They're counting on you to find a way out of this. To help us win."
Leo stared blankly at the desk, her eyes unfocused. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper, "I'm not sure there is a way out of this."
"You'll find it," he said confidently. He took the pen from her hand and placed it on the desk. Then he took her hands, pulled her out of the chair, and lead her towards the door. "But for now, you need to eat. Stephan tells me you haven't been eating."
"I've been eating. . . ." Leo pouted
"Are you even aware of how long you've been at that desk today?"
"Um. . . ."
"Exactly."
Later that evening, Khan lay in bed and watched her sleep. It was fitful and restless. Leo hadn't been sleeping well since the war started. It only got worse once Khan convinced her to be his main strategist.
The leader of the Augments frowned. Khan felt terrible for pushing her back into this life. He knew how much Leo hated having a part in the war. She had abandoned her values for him. She'd gone right back to what the scientists had created her to do. It frightened her how easily she went back to being a soldier, carrying a gun and following orders. But he needed her skills to help them win the war. Their people needed her, and right now, that's what mattered.
Wendy spent the next couple of days doing research. She read anything she thought could possibly help them convince Command to bring Khan out of cryo sleep. Eventually, she found what she was looking for. She ran to tell Leo almost immediately, taking her tablet with her.
"I found it!" she exclaimed as she rushed up to Leo's cell.
"Found what?" the Augment asked.
Wendy looked over her shoulder to make sure the guard on duty wasn't listening in.
"A way to force Starfleet Command into letting Khan out of cryo sleep," she said in a low voice. Leo walked up to the glass until she was almost touching it.
"To force them?" she asked, her voice just as quiet.
Wendy nodded. "If we argue that returning you to cryo sleep indefinitely is essentially killing you, then, you're afforded certain rights."
"Like?"
"Well, as a prisoner facing execution," Wendy read from the tablet. "Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets are legally bound to fulfill any and all last requests as submitted by the prisoner."
"I'm impressed," Leo admitted. "You figured it out faster than most of our top strategists. But will it work?"
"The argument isn't airtight. Yet. I'm working on that."
Leo nodded. "We need to present our case soon. The closer we get to the date of 'execution', the more likely they are to dig in their heels."
"Alright. Give me a couple of days. I should have it figured out by then."
Leo smiled. "Thank you so much, Wendy. You're a true friend."
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