A/N: if you read it, please tell me what you think, whether good or bad.

The breakfast the next day was one of the most tense affairs he had been a part of and that was saying something. Carol came down shortly after he did. She was deadly pale, her eyes blood-shot and shadowed. Otherwise she looked impeccable, dressed in the long, dark violet robe-like outfit of the day before, her hair combed to perfection. She suffered through their Standard-speaking waitress enthusiastic endorsement of warm fish juice, before they politely declined the offer and asked for whatever food they had on the menu, which included and was limited to something called Larish pie and dried fish. The latter was extremely salty, but the pie was a considerable improvement over the odd stew from dinner.

They ate in stony silence for a few unbearably long minutes, until she dropped the piece of pie she was nibbling on her plate and looked up at him with bleary, uncertain eyes. "About last night," she began.

Khan tensed and opened his mouth to explain himself or maybe apologize again, but she shook her head no. He said nothing then and sat back in his chair, waiting.

"I wanted to," she murmured hurriedly. Some of his disbelief might have shown on his face, because she rushed to add: "I did! But I can't. No matter what happened before that, at the end of the day, you're still the man who killed my father and crashed the largest ship in Starfleet history into downtown San Francisco. Here is where I draw my line."

"I understand," he said firmly, meeting her eyes and nodding to convey that the message had been received.

She licked her lips nervously and nodded as well. "I'll go see if they don't have some more of that tea from yesterday."

She staggered away in a hurry, leaving him to mull over this new equilibrium between them. Strategically thinking, this new development put him at a disadvantage. He had a weakness where she was concerned and hence lacked the objectivity to gauge just how much of that weakness was a shared one. But any calculations, no matter how necessary or logical, were swept away by the warmth blooming in the left side of his chest, just under his ribs. It evoked the sense memory of having her pressed against his body. Contact. He hadn't touched anyone without violent intent since he had hugged his family members goodbye, before watching them go into their cryotubes. There was relief mixed in the warmth and the combination was overpowering, threatening the grip he had on his emotions.

He applied himself to the task of finishing his pie, masking his inner turmoil with the mundane gestures. The food tasted ashen in his mouth, as unwanted images bombarded his mind. In the bright light of day his desire was no longer sexual or perhaps it had never been. Not entirely. The longing ate like acid at the warmth of being wanted back, opening a cavernous hole within himself that felt almost physical. It was as though he only now became aware of how long it had truly been since he had spoken with someone without pretense and threats, since he had experienced even the illusion of safety, since he had lain eyes on his family without the terror of seeing them dead the next day. He had never before been separated from them. They had grown up together, revolted against their makers together, conquered a quarter of a planet together, gone to war and gone to space together. But now he had spent the three years since awakening to a strange and hostile world without them and he had thought he had lost them twice over.

The absence burnt, almost as much as the loneliness, an unshakable ache that grew every day and that sometimes lapsed into bitterness and last night had bled into the insane gesture of seeking out Carol Marcus of all people. Nobody in the universe had more reasons than her to hate him and to no one was he more indebted. He had no right to wish for more, but during the weeks of them working together against the unyielding force of cosmos, the loneliness and the anguish over his crew still being in the hands of the enemy had if not diminished then definitely become easier to bear. It had felt as though for the first time in three years he had a companion. It was perhaps an illusion, a potentially dangerous one, but she had seemed as isolated as him, like they were in this together.

He realized with a start that he was clutching the fork with enough force to bend the metal so he forced his fingers to relax. Carol's return with the tea nearly startled him. She looked at him from the corners of her eyes, a slight frown marring her face. He gave her no explanation, merely took his own steaming mug from her with a brief thanks. Once seated, Carol stared into her cup as though it contained the secrets of the world. She took one cautious sip before speaking again.

"We have been stranded on that ship for weeks, under a lot of stress and depending on each other to survive. Regardless of our past, it's not out of the realm of possibility that we both needed an outlet... a way to release the accumulating tension, once the worst of it was over."

It sounded rehearsed, as if she had been preparing this speech for a while, and he wondered if she was attempting to convince him or herself. "An outlet? Carol, tell yourself whatever you need, but you don't have to persuade me. I know what I want."

She slammed her mug down on the table, a few blotches of red liquid spilling over the rim. Some of the aliens at the nearby tables turned their heads in their direction and Carol waited for the commotion to die down, before talking again. It gave Khan just enough time to realize how cold his last words had sounded.

"Why did you do it to begin with?" she hissed at him leaning forward as she spoke. "Was it a form of protracted revenge against my father?"

"No, absolutely not! Last night had nothing to do with anyone else but you and me," he said in a low, determined tone of voice. "Is it so hard to believe that I could like you?" He let his gaze rove over her face, taking in its beauty, unblemished by the sleepless night. "That I respect you? That I want you?"

She swallowed audibly and looked away from him and out the window by which they were seated. He took a few gulps of his tea waiting for her to reply, but it soon became clear that she wouldn't. Or maybe she could not.

There was something else gnawing at him. "Carol, if I hadn't stopped last night, what would have happened?"

A muscle jumped in her jaw and she wiped her head in his direction dizzyingly fast. Her eyes were dry but burning as though with fever. She looked down at the food spread on the table and then at him again. "I think we both know the answer to that."

His fists clenched and he felt an unfamiliar stab of self-doubt, as the urge to inflict violence rose within him. His gut clenched, fury a searing blaze as it lit up every nerve in his body. She stared at his furled hands before reaching over in an attempt to grasp at them, but he drew back, straightening himself up and as far away from her as possible in their current location. Her touch was a scarlet letter he did not want on his skin.

"If it is an instrument of self-harm you want, I can provide one that is far less intimate, as I'm certain you remember."

She looked as if he had just slapped her, anger infusing the hurt in her glare. "After everything you've done for your family, you of all people should understand... ." Her lower lip was trembling and he could not tell if it was from anguish or rage. "What kind of person feels this way about...? Just for one night I didn't want the choice, the moral responsibility... . I... I should have... . I don't know anymore. Everything is wrong."

"And how do you imagine it would have been the morning after?"

She drummed her fingers against the scratched metallic surface beneath them. "I didn't care. I didn't want to think... of anything."

"Didn't you?" he drawled. "Weren't you perhaps in some dark corner of your mind you refuse to acknowledge trying to punish yourself for your attraction to me? Your heart was racing, Carol. Was it because you were afraid I was going to hurt you?"

She sucked in a shuddery breath. "You've already hurt me," she dully.

He inclined his head in her direction. "True, but despite that ,you should know that I would never force you or otherwise coerce you into sleeping with me." He stood up. "As far as I am concerned, last night was an isolated incident, a lapse in judgment on the part of us both. It won't be repeated."

He turned on a heel without waiting for her response and walked out at a brisk pace.

# # #

Carol was on the bridge of the Denobulan ship, nursing a cup of replicated coffee that had gone cold. The repairs were completed. After Khan had failed to return to the inn, she had left and gone to check upon their vessel. The Cardassian engineer had finished by then and had been all too eager to explain his work, peppering his monologue with nervous inquiries about her hooded companion. The patch-up was crude by comparison with what they could have gotten within Federation borders, but the ship was fully functional again, which was what mattered.

She had given the Cardassian the promised medical supplies and he had been all too glad to disappear from her sight immediately. That had been two hours ago. Khan had yet to turn up. She wasn't worried, though, not for him, anyway. The colony was another matter entirely. As she waited, her mind kept turning in agonized circles. She felt depleted, the night before and the morning following having drained her all of her energy. Snatches of conflicting memories pushed at her boundaries. The careful way in which he had held her the night before, like she was precious, stood in painful contrast with his breaking her leg to get to her father. She remembered acutely the sensation of his hand running up and down her back, the feathery kisses pressed into her neck, the concern in his eyes when she had given the Orion female that lock of hair, the wounded look on his face upon realizing she wasn't responding to his caresses and the burning hatred in his gaze as he had pressed his fingers into her father's skull.

She had expected something different, when he had reached for her back in her room at the inn. Brutality and for him to push her into the bed and take what he wanted without any consideration for her. The tears had come flowing the instant she had realized she yearned to put her arms around him and lose herself in the strength of his embrace. His words at breakfast had made a dent in her rationalizing of what had gone between them. Had she indeed intended to use him as means of punishing herself or was the truth even worse than she cared to admit? Physical attraction could be justified by the simple, objective fact that Khan was handsome. He also projected an intense and confident kind of charisma that rendered him magnetic.

But that wasn't what disturbed her now. That made sense, that was all only a matter of pheromones. For a few insane seconds last night, all she had wanted had been a human touch and comfort. And she had it specifically from him.

TBC