-Chapter Two-

They had yet to select a name for their new planet. The Federation had given it a generic name for its own records, but it was outside Federation space and had been uninhabited save for local wildlife. Anthea had chosen it carefully. It wasn't too far from inhabited systems to completely isolate them, but staying out of the Federation's way was important. With everything Starfleet had done to them-and what, admittedly, Khan had done to Starfleet-a wide gulf was the best choice.

Life on the small planet felt, at least to Anthea, somewhat like the summer camp her parents had sent her to when she was thirteen, the one where she'd met her long-time friend, Lindy Williams. They'd "roughed it", meaning they'd slept in tents and learned to make fires and spot poison ivy. But it hadn't been "real". And now, Lindy was back on Earth, married with a baby on the way, likely still oblivious to what Anthea had done and the real identity of the man she'd married.

Here, there was no escaping the primitive conditions to go back to the modern world. Granted, it wasn't as far removed for Khan's people, as they'd spent two and a half centuries in an artificial sleep. They'd come from a war-torn time, one with only rudimentary space flight. The seventy-two men and women who had survived their long, long journey on the SS Botany Bay, out of the original ninety, were remarkably adaptive to their situation. They'd devoured all the technical manuals Anthea had brought from Earth, had learned the use of the phasers and the plasma cutters, the PADDs and communicators, with remarkable speed.

Yves in particular was thrilled with the technological advances. Even though Anthea saw their little medbay as woefully underequipped, the Frenchman had informed her that it was beyond anything available on Earth when he'd been a practising physician. That was a scary thought to the young mother.

These people were all scarily intelligent and strong. They'd taken to the modern equipment in just a few days, and now seemed to wield the tools as if they'd grown up using them. They'd figured out which planets and animals were safe to eat, and which weren't. And they had, so far, raised ten cabins to live in. At the moment, they split themselves between the finished structures and the temporary shelters. Seventy-two were a lot of people to shelter. Yves slept aboard the Reliance, as Anthea and Nolan did, but the rest were fine with their current accomodations, as far as she could tell.

Kati flagged Anthea down as she left the ship, Nolan in tow. "Anthea! Look what I made for you."

She held out a belt that had been modified to add nylon webbing, turning it into a big leash. "For Nolan."

Anthea had to laugh. "Thank you," she said to her sister-in-law. "I love it."

The other woman, due to her affliction, was in charge of most domestic matters around the colony. Heaven knew Anthea didn't have much of a talent for it. She'd brought the makings and equipment for sewing clothing, but she was pretty much only good at sewing squares together. Even though she was technically a soldier, Kati had an interest in it, and thus was in charge of overseeing the small group that handled such things.

Kati took Nolan from Anthea and fastened the belt around the toddler's waist. Two nylon straps went over his little shoulders and attached at the front, and the length of webbing from the back was long enough that Anthea could loop it around her wrist.

"This is going to be very useful," Anthea told Kati. "Maybe now I can keep him from running around the construction areas."

"We do not mind him running around here, but he really seems to like the power tools."

"No, he just likes going where I tell him not to."

Nolan plopped his small, diaper-padded butt on the ground and tugged at the harness. "Mama! No!"

His mother rolled her eyes. "He only listens to Khan these days. Which isn't that different from the adults around here."

Kati shook her head. "The women like you. The men are . . ."

"Annoyed that a normal human woman saved their arses?"

"Essentially, yes. Give them time. They know how much you have done, but it is . . . not how we operated before."

Anthea glanced down at her son, as she said, "I'm aware of your previous operations. Nolan! Don't eat that!"

She bent and took the bug from her son's grubby fist. "I know you've a brain in there, sweetheart. Do try to use it. If it wiggles, it doesn't go in your mouth."

Nolan frowned, reaching for the insect as Anthea tossed it away. Kati watched him with a somewhat wistful expression on her narrow face.

"I know that look," Anthea said. "That's the 'I want a baby' look."

Kati hadn't mastered the blank expression her brother was so good at. ". . . I do. Someday. But with this-" She tapped her temple. "-I do not want to risk passing that on. Ironic, is it not? Sister to the great Khan, the most flawed."

"He's working on it," Anthea told her. "He is. It worries him that he can't figure out why his blood hasn't fixed it."

"Why my blood rejects his, even though half of it is shared? Yes. I have a theory about it, one I have not discussed with him. We share half our blood, yes, but what if I am . . . flawed because I am a failed attempt at a female version of Khan?"

"How so? You mean, your gender modified from a clone or something?"

"Not precisely. What if Mother knew what she had created with Khan, and attempted to reproduce rather than exactly clone?"

Anthea blinked grey eyes at her sister-in-law. "I'm still not following."

"What if he is not only my brother, but my father? Not in a taboo way, merely his genes. I have spoken with Yves about their experiments. Perhaps he cannot fix me because my blood already carries his genes and it does not know what to do?"

"That . . . is an interesting theory, one I suggest you bring up with him as soon as possible."

It probably should have bothered Anthea more that she was married to a man who was responsible-directly or indirectly-for the deaths of thousands. She knew, though, that Khan had not intended for the people in San Francisco to die. The ship he had been piloting had been crashing anyway, and he had attempted to direct it elsewhere. Granted, "elsewhere" had been Starfleet Headquarters, but he headn't meant for it to land in the bay and then plow into the city. There was only so much he could do to control the ship, which had weighed hundreds of thousands of tons. With its guidance systems malfunctioning, and its thrusters dead, there had been no stopping the USS Vengeance once it was sucked in by Earth's gravity.

Once he'd been able to stop deceiving her, Khan had opened up about his indentured servitude to Starfleet, or as he'd put it, his slavery to Admiral Marcus. He had admitted that he'd started a relationship with her largely because he was lonely, he was attracted to her, and she was useful. He'd fallen in love with her along the way, and realised that dragged her into his mess had been selfish and dangerous.

Then, all at once, his careful plans had been shot to hell and he'd had to run. Marcus had come after him, had threatened Anthea, and he'd felt he had no alternative but to take out the head of Starfleet.

He'd done so, but it had separated him from his wife, and from his child.

She'd been angry with him for so long, but now that they were reunited, and she knew what had happened in the time he'd been gone, she found she couldn't hold on to that emotion, not when she had so many other things to cling to.

Lying with Khan in their cabin, she watched him in silence, comparing the man before her with the man she'd thought she'd married. John Harrison had never been real. He'd been created by Alexander Marcus to hide who Khan really was. He hadn't been counting on his pet engineer to fall in love with anyone, and neither had Khan.

"Sometimes," she told him now, "I still wonder what was you and what was this persona you made up. Sometimes it's difficult to reconcile you with John Harrison."

"The things I told you in private, just between the two of us, was always me," he murmured. "As much of me as I could give you at the time. You've always been so open with me, and there was only so much I could say without endangering you. But I tried to tell you the truth, when I could. And if I could not, I tried to make it as close to the truth as I could manage."

"I still feel sometimes as if I don't know you."

"You have no idea how much I regret that," he replied softly. "Before I really knew you, it was easy to lie. But as I came to love you, my sweet Thea, it was such a burden. I wanted so much to tell you what Marcus was doing to me, why I had to keep you secret and to myself. And at the time, if I had told you who I really was, how I had come to be here and what I had done in my former life, would you have believed me? Would you have trusted me?"

Anthea shrugged. "It's impossible to say now. But I've trusted you always, even when common sense and the whole of Starfleet said not to."

"I am aware," Khan whispered. "And I have no idea how I can ever repay that love and trust."

Their bed wasn't very large, barely big enough for the two of them to squeeze on, sometimes with Nolan wiggling his little body between them. Their son had taken immediately to Khan, adoring him with every fibre of his small being.

This was one of those nights. Anthea lay between Khan and the wall, on her side. Her husband faced her, and Nolan sprawled on his back, limbs loose in sleep.

She picked up one of Nolan's small hands, letting his fingers curve around hers. "I've been thinking," she said slowly.

"About what?"

Anthea ran the pad of her thumb over the velvety-soft skin on the back of Nolan's chubby hand. "I want at least one more child," she said quietly. "I don't want him to grow up alone as I did."

"Having a sibling is good, yes," Khan murmured. "I would like another child, as well."

"My thought was, he's over a year old now. If we wait much longer, he'll technically be too old to play with a sibling, because I don't want him to possibly hurt a brother or sister, not knowing his own strength and not being old enough to know he has to be careful. If he's inherited your full strength or not, he's still really strong for a baby."

Her husband nodded. "I understand completely."

He reached over and caught a lock of her hair between his fingers. "The last time we had this discussion, we decided it wasn't time."

"And then I ended up pregnant within weeks," she reminded him.

"Yes. I was hesitant to bring a child into that mess. It happened anyway and I missed it."

Anthea turned her head a little, into his hand, as he laid it against her cheek. "What do you think? Should we try?"

One corner of his mouth lifted. "I have no objections. I want to see you heavy with my child, to be there for his or her birth."

Between them, Nolan grunted a little and rolled to his side, reaching out in sleep to grasp a handful of Khan's shirt in his small fist. His mother hugged him to her, pressing her mouth against the top of his head.

"I adore him," she whispered. "But I do want another one."

"Then let us have another one."

"Chances are good I might already be pregnant," she said. "What with there being no birth control around here."

"Is that why you brought this up now?"

"Not really. It was just something I was thinking about today."

Khan sat up, carefully lifting Nolan in his arms. "Let me put Nolan to bed, and we will . . . discuss this further."