"Wake up, John…"
His name is John Hamish Watson.
Never forget.
My name is Sherlock Holmes.
I would rather lose touch with my own identity if it meant keeping the memories of the man who I owe my very life to.
"Sher...Sher...lock?" John breathed.
It only took a single second of nothing but a whispered voice and bright blue taking hold of his to freeze Sherlock in his place, his trembling hands still against's John's warming face, speechless and shaken.
But the moment when the awoken Augment's voice was registered into Sherlock's system, he was suddenly jerked back as if the sound that rolled off John's tongue was enough to inflict a physical force against his superhuman body.
John.
John's voice.
His voice.
It was all too sudden for him.
After years - centuries - of silence and separation, after fighting, killing, and sacrificing to finally live this very day, Sherlock had not had the slightest clue in response. How could he? How could anyone possibly react to something once so accustomed to but then lost from memory and never thought to be revived again?
How could one's voice, one strained and feeble little whisper, strike a feared man motionless from the wave of relief, happiness, sadness, fear, and…
shock.
Realization came after the other. After regaining his control, Khan returned his attention towards the heaving Watson and pulled his eyebrows together in a perplexed expression as John's first words began repeating itself in his mind.
'Sher...lock.'
Sherlock?
With uncertainty and hesitation, Khan's let out a whisper as silent as John's.
"Who?"
He blinked rapidly, his breath peaking into hyperventilation as he held a stern look of worry evident in his darkening eyes. Large hands disappointingly slid down onto John's arms but still kept a grip on the man as if to never let go.
But as he waited for a response, John could only return the look of confusion as his body responded in fear from Khan's cold touch.
He reacted as if he was gazing into the face of a stranger.
"Who...who are you?"
John attempted to free himself from the hold that restrained him before he even allowed for an answer. His body soon moved from muscle shifts to violent thrashings.
Strength began to return to his system,
Instincts came back to him all too suddenly.
He began to panic.
"Who are you?! Where am I?!" John demanded as he wriggled himself from his place, but strong hands remained unmoving and Khan's face remained unfazed.
Frozen.
As if he had switched to his mind's own autopilot. For the first time in his Augment life, Khan had felt the true human emotion of loss. Everything else in the past were bred from the catalyst of anger. Raw emotion was overshadowed by vengeance.
But this time, there was no one to blame. No one to satisfy the need for revenge - all that was fulfilled. This time, there was only John and him.
But to John, there were only strangers.
As Khan snapped back into his existence, his face grew slacked and tired, like a soldier after having realized that all his fighting had been done for naught, but instead of finally separating himself from the man who knew nothing of him, his grip grew tighter against the skin of his arms, squeezing possessively, no longer cautious.
But by doing so, John's stare grew angered and cynical, leaving Khan's mind to disintegrate into dust from the chaos of this moment.
Outside the two, their audience watched as their murderous mad man broke down in front of their own eyes. Vulnerable. Weak.
The sight was baffling.
This was the man who had threatened the lives of thousands of people.
The man who had opened fire in a room full of esteemed Starfleet officers and had murdered Christopher Pike,
and the very person who had brought revenge unto Admiral Marcus, with his own blood-shed hands.
Khan was a murderer, a menace, but undoubtedly, a man.
It only took the slightest exposure of his own human nature.
But Kirk was confused. His understanding of the situation unfolding were as blurred as the two Augments before him.
"I don't understand," he spoke his mind and shattering the silence that had engulfed them. Jabbing a finger towards John, Kirk took quick strides forward as he locked eyes with his. Blue against blue. The same expression reflecting themselves in each other's face.
"You were part of his crew weren't you? You were inside one of the torpedoes - who exactly are you and what is going on!"
Khan remained unresponsive, but John, seemingly unchanged throughout the years, lost focus of his frightened state and was overcome by the sudden emotion of anger and irritance.
"I should be asking you the same question." Much to Kirk's surprise, the man awakened before him did not appear the way he looked. In his eyes, John, at first, posed no threat in any way. Compared to Khan, Jim hadn't thought of John as his equal.
Oh how his ignorance betrayed him.
As John's glare and hostile growl of response penetrated him, he knew now.
He was an Augment - a product of the same human hands that had created Pike and Marcus's murderer. Although weakened from the state of awakening, Kirk understood that they shouldn't underestimate him.
What he didn't know however, was the complexity of the strength John bore. Unknowing of his past, none except Khan comprehended his supremacy and fortitude.
John and Khan weren't equal as Augments, no.
John was greater.
Turning his head towards Khan, John transformed into someone Khan himself didn't recognize and it broke him.
"Let. Go."
His breath was lodged in his throat. This was not the John he knew.
Or maybe,
He was not the person John knew of.
It was then that Khan felt his existence betray him, and he was suddenly lost inside his own reverie. Growing weary, restraining hands that were held against him fell down like crumbling steel bars. John was free and Khan was powerless against him. It was enough to rekindle the fear in Kirk and his company. Everyone's hands shifted towards their belts with their focus aimed on their guns.
They shouldn't forget that they had now awoken another being capable of destruction; another threat. Spock gave a look of displeasure towards his Captain.
"Where are they?" John spoke gently but with aggravation as he stepped down from the examining table. "The rest of them, where are they?"
"They're safe," Bones answered from behind, almost immediately as if for reassurance. "They're still asleep but they're safe. We only woke you to get him to surrender."
John swiveled back to Khan, still motionless and fixated on the same spot on the table where he had held John.
No words were spoken; no contact shared.
"Don't you two recognize each other?"Uhura stepped forward despite Kirk's attempt to keep them behind him. Surprised by her own actions, she felt a twinge of sympathy for the forgotten Khan. "I- I don't understand…"
"Their memory betrays them, Uhura. It's best not to provoke them any further." Spock cautioned. But moving closer to Kirk, he whispered his thoughts.
"What now, Captain? If Khan is not satisfied, who knows what mischief he'll bring once more. Worse than ever, you've unleashed another hazard that may repeat what Khan had done."
"It was a necessity, Spock-"
"I know it is! And now we're rewarded with the consequence. What are we going to do?"
But Kirk was confounded. This wasn't the outcome he had expected and being Kirk, he rarely devised a different strategy if situations led to the dilemma they were facing now.
He shrugged and stuttered at his uncertainty. "I don't know, have them reconcile?"
The rest of the company shook their heads in chagrin and watched as John continued to stare at the solemn Khan, still deep in his thoughts, hoping that a spark or flicker of recollection can save them now.
But John, without a sliver of recognition, turned away from him.
He sighed. "I don't know where I am and I don't know who you are but most importantly I need to know." He swept the entire look with his eyes that suddenly fell into a look of desperation.
Eyes that had caught Khan's even for the slightest moment.
"I need to know where Sherlock Holmes is."
And like a finger clamped down on the trigger, Khan's mind went ablaze with bitter envy and he didn't know why.
His head whipped towards John's presence, not moving an inch but directing his very attention to him with spite.
His head spun in a plethora of madness and it came all too suddenly like a repetition of the past.
Emotions coming back to destroy him once more.
SherlockHolmesSherlockHolmesSherlockHolmes.
Something was there. Something was buried deep inside that bore that name. But what? and WHY?
Who was he to his John Watson?
Holmes and Watson
Sherlock and John.
With his hands slamming hard down on the steel table, his action left marks on the solid surface and had punctured a ragged hole in the room's dour presence. Hands suddenly lifted themselves from their belts and raised their guns against the two as a defensive reaction but Khan only cared for the one person who can give him the answers he needed.
'It's you.
It's always you, John Watson. You keep me right.'
Khan's eyes scrunched up in pain from thought and his heart raced nervously from the torture of being forgotten.
Grey eyes clashed with blue as the stare down grew more intense with every second that ticked by. He hated not knowing, and so he demanded.
"Who is Sherlock Holmes?"
A/N " In the Journal of Neuroscience, shows that recalling a memory more often makes that memory less accurate, and that every time you take a memory off the shelf in your brain, you put it back just a tiny bit different. In research that should surprise no one, our brains are constantly betraying us, transforming our memories every time we think about them"(geekosystem). So what if in this case, you take a memory of a person you care deeply about and store them in the dark for 300 years? Alright, a little bit of explanation:
In John's case, Sherlock Holmes is his best friend and during their growth as Augments, the very person he cared and protected for. However, remember that Sherlock basically had two personalities: Sherlock and Khan. John knew the distinction between the two but nonetheless, there were two people, so waking up from centuries of sleep, memories are fuddled with and mistakes can occur. So in short, John still has the memory of Sherlock and lost the memory of Khan but when he awoke, saw Sherlock as Khan. Sherlock to him was a messy-haired bastard with bright eyes and unbelievable ignorance. What he saw was a man who had gone through hell and blood-shed with eyes dulled to the color grey.
Sherlock/Khan doesn't have this predicament because John had always been John. Not Harrison, but John. But hey, he's a victim of memory malfunction as well. He doesn't even have memory of himself! Hmm what a very troublesome predicament indeed...
;)
Bear with me with the short chapters, school work had taken up my weekend time and I usually get small sections of a chapter done a day =_= But don't fret! It's going to be impossible for me to abandon this story because...hmm is it safe to say this story is slowly wrapping up?
Reviews are helpful and welcomed! :3