A/N: side-effects of this fanfic include desire to watch and discuss Star Trek. Proceed with caution! :)
# # #
Jim slipped quietly in the medbay intent on finding out whether the bar was opened yet. Fortunately, it was and the first patrons were already there, Scotty, Uhura and Bones sitting around the doctor's desk out back, glasses of Saurian brandy in front of them. The doctor was the only one who made eye contact. Uhura and Scotty were staring at their drinks as though they contained the answers to all the secrets of the universe. Uhura looked particularly stricken and Jim knew why. In the months since Carol had been assigned to the Enterprise, she and the communications officer had become quite good friends.
"Where's Spock?" the captain asked, grabbing the empty tumbler Bones had undoubtedly put out especially for him and filling it with a generous serving of alcohol. "I know he doesn't drink, but we can always replicate some chocolate for him."
It was Uhura who answered. "Plausible deniability. He doesn't want to have to lie about Scotty's brewery or Bones' stash."
Jim gulped on his drink before sitting down with them. "Bones' stash? You're the one who's brought Romulan ale on board."
"He thinks it's yours and I'm covering for you," Uhura said looking directly at him.
Scotty choked on his sip of brandy. "Wait, he actually believes that?"
Uhura shrugged. "Which is more likely: that I sneaked contraband alcohol aboard the flagship or that Jim did?"
Bones chuckled, giving Jim a pointed look, before both he and Scotty raised their glasses in a mock toast to the captain, who only snorted. Their familiar banter lacked its usual good-humored heat. The circumstances were too dire for that. Jim finished his first drink then poured himself a second.
"What did she say?" Uhura finally asked, voice dry and gravely.
They looked at him then, each and every one of them, Scotty with hope in his eyes, Bones with resignation, Uhura with trepidation.
"She insists she did it," Jim muttered in the oppressive silence of Bones' tiny office at the back of the medbay. "All the evidence supports it. But I can't believe that the woman who stood on the bridge of the Enterprise and told her father and head of Starfleet that if he wants to destroy a ship full of innocent people, he'd have to do it with her on board, would kill seventy-three people in cold blood."
Scotty reached for Uhura's flask of Romulan ale. "I wasn't on our silver lady, when Marcus fired on the Enterprise, but I was on the bridge of the Vengeance, when he killed her father." He paused, the sound of the glistening blue liquid as it gurgled from the bottle the only one in the room. "He crushed his head right in front of her. I'll never forget her scream, the look on her face... . I don't condone what she did, but I understand why she snapped."
"And snapped she did," Bones commented in a low voice that made his Georgian drawl all the more pronounced. "She can wave her right to confidentiality and have her medical records unsealed. I'll testify on her behalf and so will M'Benga. She'll get lenience."
"I'll tell ya one thing," Scotty mumbled. "That's not the only reason they'll go easy on her. Nobody will mourn that bastard. He got what was comin' to him."
Jim slammed his glass down on the table. "She didn't do it." He stabbed his finger to Scotty. "She's not capable of it!"
"Jim," Uhura started, tears trembling at the corners of her eyes. "Neither of us knows for certain what we would have done in her shoes." She looked away, swallowing hard, her expression haunted. "You said it yourself: our first instinct is to seek revenge when those we love are taken from us. You almost killed Khan yourself once. And so did Spock... and before I found out we needed his blood to revive you, I didn't spare a single thought to stopping him."
Jim grabbed for the Romulan ale himself. "She didn't do it," he repeated quietly. "Maybe... maybe she would've killed Khan, but all of them?" He mixed a hefty portion of the strong spirits with the rest of his brandy. It wasn't wise, but nobody was stopping him and he most certainly wasn't stopping himself from getting absolutely plastered so he could silence at the least the voice of one of his warring instincts.
"But Jim," Bones interjected. "If she didn't kill them, then what the hell happened?"
# # #
Thirty-six hours earlier
Normally Carol was good at compartmentalizing, but as she stared at the USS Enterprise and the brand new USS Reliant on the Xindi ship's narrow view-screen, the recent rapid succession of events gave her more than a bit of whiplash. Truth be told, she was rattled. The fresh spike of adrenaline washed away the warmth of the intimacy she and Khan had just shared. It had gone far beyond the physical. She had almost thought she had caught a glimpse of vulnerability in his face after the first time they had kissed and it had ignited a spark of tenderness within her. In that instant it had become about more than a few fleeting moments of comfort. This formidable man opening himself to her in that way tugged at strings of her heart she did not want accessible to Khan Noonien Singh of all people. It occurred to her that their connection, whether real or a byproduct of the strain of the past few weeks, was one of pain, their mutual troubled past both standing between them and biding them together.
"They are here."
His haunted words shifted her focus back to him and the present.
"The Reliant and the Enterprise? Yes, I can see that," she said, watching the two ships drift past the asteroid field, to which they had no reason to pay attention, and into the Talosian system. The latter had five planets orbiting its binary stars and only the forth of them was off limits to Starfleet.
"No," Khan contradicted, looking at her with burning eyes. "My family... they are really here. Whatever excuse Section 31 used to lure the Reliant and the Enterprise into this system, they wouldn't have done it, if my crew wasn't here. They knew I would come for them."
She nodded, as she picked up his train of thought. "Stealing seventy-two cryopods from Section 31, which may or may not be able to report it, is one thing. Doing it in full view of two starships makes a world of a difference." She glanced around her. "Assuming that we can pull it off. I had a year-long course on Jonathan Archer's mission to the Xindi and this kind of Insectoid ships never stood a chance even against the Enterprise NX-01. There is no way we can make it past this century's Federation ships."
He typed at a control panel, pulling the Xindi vessel's specs on the screen. "This ship utilizes a method of propulsion that still is faster than your warp engines. We can outrun them and drop out of the subspace vortex the phase deflector pulse generates in orbit of Talos IV, where neither the Enterprise or the Reliant can follow us."
"The energy signature of nuclear batteries on 20th century cryogenic tubes is very faint. We'll still have to get close to Talos III to scan for it. In the time it will take the sensors to detect something so specific and then for the transporter to bring them aboard, the Reliant will have us in its revolutionary tractor beam."
His jaw set, something indomitable finding permanent residence in the hard lines of his face. "I am not leaving them there."
"I'm not suggesting you are." She waved her hand over the schematics of the deflector pulse. "Starfleet is still largely unfamiliar with the Xindi energy portal technology so if you blow up the Denobulan ship just as you open one to get away, the explosion will seem large enough to have destroyed the Insectoid one."
He drew his lower lip into his mouth, his expression growing thoughtful. "Too convenient of an accident."
"Not if they find me in an escape pod nearby and I tell them I killed you all in retaliation for my father's death."
"That might work with Starfleet, but what are you going to tell Cartwright? Because we both know he will find a way to come and ask you."
"The same," she replied unflappably. "I'll say I kidnapped you so you could lead me to your people and then I got rid of all of you in one blow."
Their gazes met and held. A brief flash of uncertainty crossed his face. "You could come with us."
She shook her head in denial. "Even if we managed to get away, I couldn't just disappear and leave my mother to spend the rest of her life wondering what happened to me."
His gaze did not stray from her for one second. His lips parted slightly, but no words slipped out. It was a solid strategy and he knew it. Probably even his best option at present. If both Starfleet and Section 31 thought he and his crew were dead, nobody would ever go searching for them. It was as good of a safety guarantee as they would ever get. And it was being handed to him on a silver platter. He didn't even have to ask, let alone lie, manipulate or barter to get it. She wondered why she was doing it herself. Being court-martialed for mass murder was light years away from being tried for deserting her post. But at least, she would be closing the cursed circle her father had opened when he had found the Botany Bay. In this century or any other, what did it matter who fired first and which side had endured most losses? Khan would never be allowed to stand trial and within Federation borders, he and his fellow augments were too much of both a danger and a temptation to have around.
His gaze softened and he crossed the short space separating them in a few, rapid strides only to grasp her by the upper-arms and pull her against him. He kissed her then like he had never kissed her before, with none of the careful gentleness of their earlier interlude, but with a violent passion that spoke of secret longing and desperation, of being found and of saying good-bye. Her legs felt cut at the knee and she sagged into the compact support of his body, kissing back and pouring her own conflicting and conflicted feelings for him in the frenzied meeting of lips and tongues and clashing teeth.
His hands slid up her arms and towards her throat, the fingers of the right one deftly and quickly pulling at the material of her blouse, revealing a patch of skin at the juncture of neck and shoulder. He broke the kiss and moved his mouth lower, puffs of hot, wet air caressing her as he did, until sharp pain erupted from somewhere right at the base of her neck. She cried out more in surprise than anything else, her hands anchoring themselves in his shirt. He had bitten her. She knew why he had done it. It was a memento, a parting gesture of sorts. He lifted his head, dark, wayward locks of hair falling over his forehead, her own blood painting his lips crimson. He looked wild, eyes like the Helix Nebula ablaze, a myriad of emotions swirling on his pale face, each one of them so intense that a human brain could not have hoped to withstand their assault.
She reached and brushed the hair from his eyes, pressing another kiss onto his mouth, not minding that she was tasting her own blood in the process. He responded in a more tempered manner, delicacy filtering back into his touch, as his hands petted her back through the cotton of her blouse. He held her like she was precious and his kiss was now gentle, savoring.
"I forgive you," she murmured, as they broke apart to catch their breaths.
He looked utterly wrecked by her words. She had never seen him like this before, so completely devastated, as though that simple statement had been a blow unlike any other. He seemed about to cry, his eyes wet, but no tears fell. His lips twisted, his lower one trembling. The bite mark where her neck and shoulder met was throbbing, a brand on her skin. His face, locked in torment, filled her vision. His knuckles stroked the side of her face, sending a shiver traveling down her spine. Carol let the moment drag for a while longer then snatched his wrist to stall him. Their time was up. It was over.
# # #
Though she had for all intents and purposes killed seventy-three people in the full view of the Starfleet ships, Jim Kirk had not put her into the brig, merely confined her to the quarters she had held as an officer on the Enterprise. The young captain also refused to believe her confession. Though his faith in her moved her, Carol could never tell him the truth. Nor could she use it to strike at the heart of Section 31. Perhaps the Federation needed them, perhaps it didn't. Maybe if she managed to dismantle Section 31, something else, something even worse, would sprout in its place. Or maybe just maybe human nature and that of their many alien allies was too flawed to subsist without some measure of corruption.
She sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed and rested her temple against the cold bulkhead. Outside the metallic boundaries of the ship the galaxy spun on its giant spiral lit by the stars. She wondered how far Khan had managed to get. She pressed her fingers into the imprint of his teeth at the juncture of neck and shoulder, stoking the ache. She would have to be careful to exercise her right to refuse a medical examination, until the wound would scar, something which would not happen, if a dermal regenerator interfered. Besides, it would raise too many questions. Her lips tingled with the phantom memory of his kisses.
TBC