"That. Was. Amazing"
"All lives end, all hearts are broken. Caring is not an advantage, Sher-"
"I will burn you. I will burn the heart out of you."
"We solve crimes, I blog about it, and he forgets his pants."
"I have been reliably informed that I don't have one."
"There are lives at stake, -lock! Actual human lives - just, just so I know, do you even care about that at all?"
"You reeled me in with a source of danger when we first met, I blame you."
"This is all my doing, Sher-" "I was so alone, and I oweyousomuch-" "Youlooksadwhenyouthinkhecan'tseeyou-" "Ijusthaveone-" "Youtreatmeasifi'mworthsaving-" "Mydearlittlebrother-" "Themosthuman,humanbeing-" "Don't make people into heroes, John. Heroes don'texist, and if they did, Iwouldn'tbeoneofthem-"
"One more miracle S-, for me-"
"But we both know that's not quite true..."
A sickening warmth forcefully entered dry lungs. Stiff, frozen bones cracked in unison as strong hands clasped around something hard and very cold.
His back ached as he desperately coughed out the foreign feeling that invaded his body,
The fire of life thawing slumber out of his system.
Soft voices kept echoing around him, leading him to the surface. One, in particular, was gruff and seemingly accomplished by the tone, but it faded away just as quick as it had entered.
With every push of his mind and the nudging of his muscles, the man swimming out of his sleep-state could now almost feel a growing warmth enter his fingertips.
But suddenly, something like burning embers collided against his frozen skin which made him reel back harshly, feeling his muscles thrash on its own by a matter of protection, but the burning only grew hotter.
Something in him refused to follow the light.
Something that tugged him further down back into the coldness; the darkness.
He began to calm as he finally felt the warm throbs of his heart pound inside his chest.
Slowly and carefully, heavy eyelids struggled to peer through thick lashes, black as the darkness itself. Within a second, a small shed of light was able to enter through that tiny crack and had touched the long neglected pupil, dilapidating them immediately into microscopic dots against a stunning blue.
Unfortunately, during that opportune moment, he was still blinded and simply couldn't reclaim the sight of where he was or who was with him. It burned far too much.
He hated it.
No.
He couldn't do it. Darkness was his solitude. The glowing fingertips of his subconscious mind, now drifting just below the surface was quickly pulled back down.
He didn't want to. He was afraid.
Somewhere in the blackest corner of his blurred memories, he began to recall a scene. A moment in his life in which was repeating right now.
Gasping breaths. Violent tremors. A sharp pain that shot through his head like a million bullets.
Crumbling. Awakening.
Remembering that memory, he began to push farther down away from that ghastly light.
But as he did, something else protested behind him, preventing him from going any further. Another voice. Someone more familiar, as if branded into his own brain, pushing him back up.
But stubbornness still stirred. He continued to sink further down, more desperately this time. The last time he gave into the light, his mind exploded.
Waking up was like hot water poured down on a glass made of ice. The more he ignored the insufferable heat, the quicker his barrier melted until it was too much.
Everything spilled over, and Khan's eyes flew open.
Silence.
Unbearable silence.
Then a whisper.
And an echo.
Eyes fluttered alarmingly as a blinding white invaded shadowed sight.
The first thing Khan had set his eyes on were the many faces surrounding him. Squinting his unfocused pupils, he saw a great deal of strangeness staring down at his own form.
Young, old, green, blue.
Smiling, frowning, amazed, and terrified. All directed on him.
One in particular, held an expression Khan despised the most. A flash of memory shot through his mind and he couldn't help but snarl.
A smile, wrinkly and old, upon a face that almost resembled the man in Khan's memory.
And for a tiny second, the awakening Augment almost tackled the grinning man and killed him on the spot.
Almost.
His eyes began to clear out of the fog and the blur had simply washed away. Focusing now, Khan can see that that man was just another stranger. Another face in the crowd.
As he felt more in control of his body and the coldness finally creeping away, strong arms began to grasp whatever he was lying on and pulled himself up. But what he felt that racked against his wrist and ankles took him by surprise.
Khan followed the length of his body and found himself strapped, chained, and barred into a slab of steel fixated with buttons that he knew would only put him in more danger. Looking up, that one haunting smile stretched much more.
Khan felt his temper rise. But before could even twitch, the man eased his way in closer to him.
"Admiral! Please not so close! We still don't know anything about this man!" Frantic whispers and warnings pleaded to reel him away back into safety, but were utterly ignored with a wave of a hand. "Admiral!"
'Admiral?' Khan was so taken aback that he almost released a humorous laugh. Instead, he settled for a sardonic grin. 'How many similarities must you two share before you end up the same as him.'
Khan scoffed, but realization struck fast and latched onto his mind like grabby hands. '...end up the same as him...but what did happen to him?' His smile vanished as quick as it came.
"You're alive." the admiral hummed.
"I shouldn't be."
"Well aren't you right about that."
A surge of memories flowed streamingly in Khan's mind, but gentler this time. He placed a hand against his temple and waited for the pain to strike.
Nothing.
"What's the matter?" Marcus said in a grave tone, "What was so funny?"
Old dark eyes clashed with electric blue and Khan immediately leaped out of his position, but he faced obstacle as his restraints prevented him from moving any more than an arms length. The only reaction he received from the stoic admiral was the slight step of the foot back and an inclination of the head.
Khan remembered.
He was not alone.
99 other pods, a ship under fire, his brother, the admiral,
goodbyes.
'WHERE ARE THEY?!' Khan wanted to screech out, but his dry, unused throat only allowed a racking cough to escape his lips. He tried once more, but only ended up with sandpaper screams.
Admiral Marcus looked with distaste mixed with curiosity at the choking creature in front of him, and without even giving Khan a second to recover, a spitfire of questions began to roll out of his tongue.
"What's your name? What's your purpose? You're wearing a Starfleet insignia, is it true? Who are the others? How did you escape? Who saved you?"
The endless toll of squabbles that were thrown at him did nothing more than fuel the Augment's rage. With every word, Khan felt a tick gnawing in his already deranged head so it didn't take long for him to finally snap.
Fully revived muscles tensed with red heat and the measly poor excuse of a chain cracked and gave way as easy as hair under Augment strength. A slam of a great fist down the steel table in which he laid on caved as he used it to push himself off and in front of the Admiral. Using the other hand, Khan gathered up Marcus's shirt collar and pulled him close with a harsh tug. He snarled in anger and finally spat out the words he longed to say while ignoring the pain that streamed down his throat.
"WHERE ARE THEY?!"
Panicking spectators bellowed in distress for their admiral's safety behind the protection of glass walls while security scrambled inside ready to fire.
But something stopped them dead in their pursuit towards the enemy.
A single but powerful hand that simply waved them away. As if that wasn't confirmation enough, the other nudged a gun deeper into Khan's chest and looked him dead in the eyes.
Admiral Marcus stared without fear at the dangerous man and simply whispered. "Now I'll take it slow this time, starting off with one question at a time. What is your name?"
The gun pressed deeper as silence stretched longer, but Khan only lifted the Admiral higher and his hands gripped tighter. He didn't even give his critical action a second thought for he knew better.
"Shoot me right now 'Admiral', and we'll see who drops dead on the floor first." Khan's eyes gleamed, but Marcus's blazed.
And he smiled.
When he saw the confusion mark instantly in Khan's face, he knew that he was now the bigger man.
"Suppose I do shoot. Suppose you kill me. How then will you find the others? Threaten my men? No. Your frozen crew will be obliterated the moment my dead body hits the floor. So, what will it be?"
Alive. Everyone's alive. Khan unraveled his tight fingers and dropped the Marcus onto his feet the moment he uttered the predicament of his crew.
'They are your family now. Take care of them. Protect them with your every being,' a memory echoed. Taking another look at Marcus and his steel gaze, Khan knew that there was no compromise.
'Goodbye, Khan.' the voice rang again which caused the Augment to wince. Not in pain, but in memory.
The voice he knew all too well. A brother...
Khan's chest throbbed once more.
"Khan." he whispered lowly as Marcus tended to his crumpled shirt, clearly unaffected by his wrath. "My name is Khan."
The sudden confession didn't at all surprise the admiral. All he did was smirk and turned to stare at the guards and attendants left behind him. Although they nodded and gave sighs of relief, Marcus could feel the very fear that they had plastered on their faces. He had done it. He had finally taken control of the situation.
Everything was placed perfectly where he wanted them to be on his chessboard.
With his back facing the Augment, and arms folded behind him, Marcus stood with pride. "Khan. I have great expectations for you."
"What do you need me for?"
"Many things, I assure you. But you will have to obey every one of my commands. Everything I say will be law."
Khan bit his tongue to keep himself from snarling. No matter how much they looked or act alike, Khan had to admit that the admiral professor and this man were completely different. One was ignorant, while the other emitted an aura of intelligence that was safe to say, comparable to his.
And that was something Khan knew he had to tread lightly on.
"And my crew?" he spoke gravely. Fingers twitched with nervous anticipation.
Marcus began to walk out the door. He got what he needed. The attention of Khan. But the sadistic lump in his subconscious pulled him to play with the monster more. Just a tease.
"Don't worry," he breathed. "They'll be untouched, you have my word. All 72 of them."
Slip of the tongue.
An ignorant mistake.
As the number ghosted by Khan's ears, panic and fire mixed as a dangerous combination. Before the guards could do anything and before Marcus could even hear the sounds of broken, rattled chains, Khan had closed the gap between them and had the admiral pinned against the glass walls. Cracks splinted behind the body forming what looked like broken wings.
Guns were raised but did not fire. The look on Marcus's still fearless eyes told his men enough.
"Yes?" the admiral managed to choke out. Khan's emotions blazed like hell fire and his hands now took hold of the admiral's fragile neck and squeezed.
"You said 72. 72-THERE WERE A HUNDRED OF US!"
"K-kha-"
Khan gave the man another blow against the glass, spreading the skeletal wings into a larger, broken form and dropped the heaving Marcus on the ground.
"EXPLAIN!"
Admiral Marcus had no chance but to utter an explanation under the Augment's glower. He needed his cooperation.
"Don't jump to conclusions, we did find a hundred of you-"
"SO WHERE-"
"LET ME EXPLAIN!" Marcus heaved. Khan's stubbornness was beginning to affect him as well. "100 were found, but 28 pods were malfunctioned. They were all dead before we had the chance to even save one of them. It was a cryopod failure-there was nothing we could do."
The admiral watched as Khan's expression went from enraged to pure sadness, then back to an intensified glare as they met eyes.
Little did he know that a storm was brewing in the deepest parts of Khan's mind. Faces emerged and faded, voices murmured, then silence.
But one, in particular, stayed.
Sand colored hair. Eyes of bluish green. A face marked with experiences worth a lifetime. Bravery. Loyalty.
'...as if I'm worth saving...'
"Take me to see them." Khan demanded harshly. "I want to see for myself." A fear chilled down his spine as the thought of not seeing that face among the other surviving 72 haunted him already. He needed to know.
"I'm not letting you see them unti-" Marcus started but was cut off once again with a blow to the face. Despite all the torment,a quivering hand was still raised to fend off his anxious guards. 'Not yet.'
"NOW."
Marcus thought it thoroughly while wiping the stream of blood from his nose. Khan wouldn't kill him if he held the lives of his precious crew in his hands. He was certainly unafraid to bash and clobber the admiral, that was evidence enough, but not kill.
Marcus had immunity over the brooding man's wrath.
What he needed was trust, though. Certainly these frozen people were nothing more than of great importance to the Khan, so proving to him that they were unharmed was a safe enough gamble. No matter how much he wanted to kill the bastard with his own hands.
The admiral coughed up a splatter of blood onto the floor before standing up and facing Khan once again.
"Fine."
Darkened faces surrounded them. A cold chill nested inside the room; cold like death.
Admiral Marcus's bravado always dissipates the moment he steps into this grave chamber. He feels weak; inferior. He hated it.
All he did was stand as Khan frantically searched row by row, checking each sleeping face with the utmost carefulness. Marcus watched the disheveled man as he growled with growing hatred.
"What exactly are you looking for-"
"SHUT UP!"
Marcus tsked. This one was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen.
But Khan had his reasons. Reasons that scrambled the very nerves and fibers of his every being. 28 were dead.
He could be one of them.
'No,' he shoook his head of the thought. 'He's alive. He has to be.'
By the third row of cryopods, he came face to face with a certain grey haired inspector,frozen and stiff in his spot. He gave a sigh of relief and a curt nod. 'Lestr...Tobias...' Khan struggled for a name, but found two instead. 'No matter, he thought. 'As long as he's alive.'
But he couldn't rejoice now.
Not yet.
Row after row, pod after pod, none held the person who Khan held most dear.
His blogger,
His doctor,
His...
Gasping for breath, Khan found himself facing what he feared the most: The very last row, and more different faces. They seemed to stare at him; mocking him.
Khan took a frightful step slowly in front of the 72nd pod. He stared at his feet, shaking visibly with tears forcing itself out of his eyes. Khan was afraid.
Starting from the bottom, slowly and hesitantly, his gaze made way to the top where he might see who was the very last survivor.
That was when his heart beat slowed down to a crawl.
When red stained eyes finally reached the final face, the barricaded tears came streaming down Khan's cheek and curved against the pulled corners of his lips.
Khan gave a final flustered smile as he laid a hand against the freezing glass and kept it there for a long while. He was safe. He was here. And even after death, Sherlock never forgot...
"John..."
A/N To those still wondering what Mycroft's and Eugene's fate were, I'm going to pull a Moffat on you guys. Everything you need to know about them can be revealed in the previous chapter, just really really subtly, so get deducing!
A much needed heads up! As another school year draws near, updates will be more sporadic and maybe even a bit longer depending on how busy I am T^T Nevertheless, I will still continue to finish this fic even if I end up old and withered away! Reviews are helpful and welcomed! (and so very much loved =w=) :3