Molly shot up from her bed with a cry. She panted in the dark for several moments. A trickle of sweat ran down her temple. Her dreams had been filled with screaming and pain, the feeling of being ripped apart and blood, so much blood. Her vision swam with it.

"Lights," she wheezed.

An instant later, lights flickered, waned and then illuminated her cell (at least she had come to think of it as a prison cell in the last several days). She rubbed her face. She went to throw her blanket off her body but her fingers sifted through dust instead. When she looked down, she found she was naked and lying in a pile of ash as if she had crawled into a fire pit.

Then she heard thumping on the entry panel to her room. It tried to slide open but made a godawful squeal, jerked and became stuck part way up. She heard a baritone voice curse and she panicked. She jumped off the bed and smelled something burning. When she looked down, the floor appeared to be melting beneath her feet.

"What the hell-?"

Yet, as odd as that was, she was still more concerned with the captain of this particular ship seeing her naked. She whirled around but could not find anything in which to cover herself. To her horror, a pair of hands grabbed the bottom of the door and forced it upwards. She plastered herself against the wall and covered herself as best as she could with her hands. Khan ducked under the door and then threw up his hands as if he'd encountered an inferno.

"Fffff . . . hell!"

She blinked at him. He appeared wavy as if he were a distant mirage. He reached a hand towards her and then drew it back with a hiss. Blisters marred the flesh on his knuckles.

"Computer, shower, full stream!" He commanded gruffly. "Water temperature fifteen degrees centigrade."

A panel slid up to Molly's left. Her small cubicle shower sputtered to life. Khan waved emphatically at the minute space.

"Get in before you burn a hole through the side of my ship!"

Molly inched sideways, confused yet mortified, and then ducked under the punishing spray. A plume of steam immediately rose up from her skin even though the water felt like ice. In fact, she thought she heard the sound of sizzling akin to water boiling off from a pan. Several seconds later, Khan appeared with a device she had previously learned was a, 'tricorder'.

"Damn, but you are hot," he mumbled outside the shower as he scanned it up and down. "What happened? What did you do? We were two degrees from a hull breach."

She could not answer any of his questions. She felt a tad feverish but that was all.

"I-I do not know. . . I had a bad dream."

She wanted to cry. It had been three days from when she had awakened and she had really not learned much more about her situation. Her passing of the time had consisted of ingesting small, bland meals slid under the door, watching stars streak by the on-demand window and sleeping on a narrow cot. A hand reached into the shower suddenly. She smacked it away. Khan growled and snatched her wrist. He yanked her towards him.

"Wh-What gives you the right to manhandle me?" She spit through the water pouring over her head and down her body.

He urged her just forward out of the direct stream. A bit of cool air combined with water dripping from her nipples caused them to tighten. Goose bumps sprang up all over the front of her body. The soot from the scorched blankets washed away down the drain. She must have cooled considerably because he could tolerate her proximity again.

"I bought you. I own you. You are mine," his voice menaced.

Molly's stomach flip-flopped. She resented the fact that while she hated this man, she additionally found herself bizarrely attracted to him in a way that was primal and raw. Somehow, being owned by him didn't elicit the kind of repulsion it should have.

"Stop," he muttered and raised his tricorder again, "your temperature is spiking again."

The device blared a repetitive warning from where he held it just in front of her breasts. He frowned down at it temporarily then raised his speculative gaze. A crease formed between his brows while he studied her face.

"You are aroused?" He murmured. "By what? By me?"

Molly wanted to die. She cast her eyes to the basin and tried to draw back but the pressure of his grip on her arm increased.

"It . . . it is just an involuntary response to the sh-shower and being n-naked," she mumbled.

"Mm hmm," he returned, "computer, shower off."

The spray at her back cut off. She felt the tap of the tricorder under her chin and was compelled to look up at him.

"You humans and your latent anxieties," his voice did things to her, even full of derision, "why the emotional turmoil over such an admission? It is not as if your reaction is uncommon. I have not yet met a female member of any species who does not wish to copulate with me."

She glowered at him as her skin flared. "Why, you arrogant prick- ow!"

Khan threw aside his tricorder and jabbed her with something that felt like a needle in the side of her thigh. As if she was suddenly swamped, a tide swept over her body and her temperature rapidly decreased. She peered down at a small cylinder in his hand.

"Wh-What was that?"

His chin lifted. "A suppressive agent. You are infected, for lack of a better word, Molly Hooper from Earth, and heightened emotions appear to aggrivate the source of your infection. You were a medical doctor during your time there, am I correct?"

"Yes."

"So you are familiar with the science of DNA and its overriding RNA?"

"Y-Yes," her teeth chattered.

Khan's brow furrowed as his eyes flicked down her body. Then, he released her and marched to the wall.

"Computer, towel."

A disembodied, electronic voice replied. "This room's replicator is offline due to heat damage. The nearest working replicator is located on level two in the commons. Would you like me to have a towel reproduced there?"

Khan cursed. "No."

In a flourish, he removed his tunic and threw it in her direction. She quickly pulled the black garment over her head. Thankfully, it hung just past her bum. She swallowed as she appraised Khan's hulking, bare chest. He was ridiculously fit. She could see the differentiation of every muscle in his shoulders with creases between each mass of corded flesh. She completely forgot that he was about to explain something very important. She was captivated by the sight and heady, male scent of him while being enveloped in his shirt.

Once again, his features took on a frown. His chest heaved up and down with each breath as his focus constricted. He seemed to be working something out about her appearance, but what, she could not say. He folded his arms and widened his stance as if steeling himself against a confrontation.

"The Vulcans, a race of uniquely intelligent beings, found a way to produce a highly unstable form of matter they call red matter. When ignited, it collapses at an exponential rate into a singularity which has proven to have the ability to transport people and objects through time. However, the Vulcan home world was destroyed several years back and later during a battle, what was thought was the last of the red matter was also destroyed. However, I have been searching the ends of the universe in hopes that someone was in possession of this substance. Then, recently I found and followed a weak signature that led to you. By all metrics, you should have been obliterated by this material but somehow it has substituted itself in your RNA and began to replicate."

Molly drew in a quivering breath. "Replicate? It is alive then?"

His lips poked out a moment, then his head went sideways.

"No, no, but you are right in your thinking. It is behaving as if it were alive. I did some experimentation on your hair but the red matter rapidly decays when separated from your particular chemistry. While you were in stasis, I also tried to extract some directly from your blood stream but I nearly ignited the sample right then and there," Khan exhaled a frustrated sigh. "I drained half my anti-matter stores to neutralize the threat."

Molly's skin prickled. He had experimented on her? The stuff in her blood had nearly exploded? She felt very cold all of a sudden. Her whole form began to shake.

"Why . . . why aren't I dead?" She whispered.

His nose wrinkled. "I do not know and I definitely do not appreciate not knowing. Suffice to say, it seems to . . . like you, but it's still not stable. You are a walking time-bomb."

She rubbed her arms. She was freezing, actually.

"What did you give me?"

He looked away a moment. His lip curled. She would say he appeared guilty but she did not think a man of such cold indifference to her predicament could feel that way.

"I injected you with a solution of anti-matter which by all means, should also kill you, but the red matter . . . is . . . protective? It reacts by sacrificing itself to counteract the anti-matter and then kind of goes to sleep for a time. I was dosing you every three days but I will increase it to daily. I can't have you destroying my ship."

"Oh."

Molly thought she might faint. Her limbs were beginning to go numb from the drop in her core temperature. What he said made perfect sense and no sense at all and she was too tired to question anything further. Her shaking had increased beyond her control.

"C-Can . . . can I have a blanket?" Her voice was small. "I am very c-c-cold."

Khan crossed the room just as she started to collapse. He scooped her up into his arms and cradled her against his chest. He stiffened when she pressed her cheek to his pectorals and spread her fingers over his torso but she was desperate for warmth and his skin was like an infrared lamp. She snuggled closer with clacking teeth. She did not care in that moment if he was the devil himself (even though she suspected he might just be).

"I do not understand your existence, pathetic little human," he muttered as much to himself as anything as he carried her towards the exit, "how can you be so weak yet so strong at the same time?"

She closed her eyes and struggled to respond. "Perhaps, perhaps, it is that I have had practice with . . . overbearing monsters . . . such as . . . yourself."

Molly thought she heard a snort of laughter but decided she must be mistaken as she slipped into unconsciousness.