Chapter Fourteen: Bed Ridden

She could hear her blood, rushing against her veins like an unsteady current. Marla's ears pulsed with the uneasiness she felt. Her mind tried to emerge from the drowning sounds of blood been streamed into her body. The pinch and tingle of the needle was the first real thing she felt. His nose wrinkled at the burning of pain.

"Do not try to move." His voice was almost another pain to her ears. Her vision blurred slightly at his dark clothed figure. He was a good distance from where she laid. It was a bed, a hospital bed. She could see the tubes inserted into the vein of her arm. "You need to rest."

"Not," Marla breathed out trying to recognize that her breathing was no longer rapid, but instead becoming increasingly steady. She was healing. He was saving her. "Our deal." Her head felt heavy as she collapsed against the pillow. Her eyes rolled a bit into the back of her head.

Her eyes closed as she swallowed. She was trying to think like a healthy person again. Being healthy meant reeling in the consequences of her actions. She had killed a man. She had killed a man she had spoken with, talked to. Granted Verma seemed to have a strange fascination with her that often verged on annoyance however repeatedly stabbing someone did something to a person. For Marla it made her realize that she was caught. Her fingers traced the spot where she had inserted the weapon. The spot wasn't sealed off as she thought it would.

"I fixed it." Her eyes opened to see the augment stood in a long coat that was fitted tight around him to cover any notion that he was wearing Starfleet garb. "The effort was valiant however the incision was not made with precision." She saw his head turn. The gleam his eyes took on was one Marla had not seen before. "It was made in anger." He seemed to be proud of her anger. He may have even smiled. No matter what he was feeling, false or not, she knew he meant to distract her from the actions they had both taken.

"Not our deal." Marla coughed. She tried to be bold in his presence however she still felt her body crumbled when she tried. She was healing, but not healed yet.

"I had no choice."

"There is always a choice." Marla squeezed her sheets. He started for her, but she held up her hand to stop him. "Don't." She concentrated hard on her next words before looking to him. He had stopped an arm's length from her. "I understand why you wrote those words. Why you were willing to save me. You needed someone on your side and I was dying, but I did not fulfill your end of the bargain. I did not save your people." She looked into his eyes with resolve. "I failed."

"A leader does not admit their faults, Lieutenant." The cold military commander was out in full force. "A leader takes on those faults with gratitude and continues on. If we are to work together, be equals, then you must learn to accept my decisions as I will learn to accept yours."

"You abandoned them." Marla looked to him. "And you took me."

"There was only enough time to take you. Verma must have been followed. Starfleet agents were at us in minutes. I couldn't save them. I had to abandon them as well as the ship I had taken, in order to get myself to safety." She thought he spoke as if he were trying to convince himself of his actions. "There was no time."

"Yet I'm here." She looked to the tubes pumping blood into her veins. "Yet I live."

"And you will live to see your deal fulfilled." She watched his hand reach for the needle in her arm. He smoothed his fingers against the tube. It hurt, but Marla just watched his face. "Marcus will die for killing my crew." Marla knew that's what she had wanted, but somehow she also knew it was not what Khan wanted. He needed it. He needed the vengeance as if he needed it to breath.

"In war," Marla swallowed seeing his hand retreat. He looked away from her trying to blink away what the young woman thought were tears. "Prisoners of war are just as important as the soldiers fighting. Marcus wouldn't throw them away simply to make his enemy angrier. They're more valuable alive. You know that." He looked to her. If he had been crying all evidence of it had disappeared. The cold commander was back.

"Because of who I am?" He tilted his head sideways with a callous smile plastered across his lips. Marla jetted her chin forward taking an inhale before speaking the words she had longed to say.

"Khan Noonien Singh." It was all the red head could say. It was those very words that made the man reach for her. His palm laid against her cheek with a gentle pat.

"How long?" It nearly sounded like one breathless word.

"Almost from the start." Marla smiled.

"Excellent." He removed her hand from her cheek. "Truly remarkable." His eyes glossed over her before looking to the equipment that was supply her with the cure for her ailments. "Still, you wish for the death of a man despite being healed of the reason you want him dead in the first place." Marla felt her heart sink slightly.

Of course he knew. Khan had been fishing through files for months now gaining intelligence on all the working of Starfleet. Surely he had seen her file, the file she had accidentally discovered nearly a year before.

"My mother is still dead." Her eyes closed as she swallowed after the words were spoken. "He still put us in harm's way. Forty two people are still dead. Many still suffer from his mistake."

She thought of Lucy in the hospital bed. She thought of her parents' tears the years they would be wasting in grief when they should be continuing to live. She had wasted some months feeling sorry for herself before she realized she could live. She had to live for her vengeance.

"Good." He pivoted his body towards her. "I'm glad." He took a step closer to her watching her face. Marla suspected the color was coming back to her face. She watched his lip quiver before he spoke again. "I can promise to give you the admiral's death if you continue to help me as I wish."

"I will." She found it strange that there was no hesitation in her voice.

Strange that she found it so easy to submit to this man, but she wasn't submitting to him. She didn't even want to do what he asked anymore. She needed to. If she didn't she would find herself imprisoned, but it wasn't even that. She needed to be strong and in control. She had spent years under the thumbs of others. She wanted to make the plans now. She needed to.

"It isn't just Marcus we need to do away with." The sound of we against Khan's lips was remarkable. Marla felt honored to be the other half of that we. "He needs to suffer the way I have."

"His crew needs to be taken from him. His people" Marla smirked as if to finish the thought of the augment. Khan looked to her straightening himself up. He looked down at her while Marla looked up to him. The noises of the machines carried on as their eyes met.

"Superior." The word sang from his lips. "Truly you are a superior woman."

"That's what I've kept telling them." Marla mused.

There was no grief anymore. Marla couldn't feel it for herself or for the ones who would end by the wishes of the two of them. She couldn't know it anymore. There was no time for grieving. There was only time to fulfill her end of the bargain, only time to be the best she could be for herself.

There was only the need to be better and survive.