Epilogue Part One: The Trial

"McGivers!" Marla couldn't help it. "Visitor!" Her eyes rolled.

Isolation caused the guard's voice to echo. She had been in isolation for around a month, in prison for nearly three months. The system was dragging her trail along through muddy waters with news coverage on why exactly someone with her assorted family history was allowed to be introduced to such a dangerous individual like Khan. Marcus' name had been shredded during this.

Marla shifted uncomfortably on her cot trying to debate whether they had taken her blankets away because they thought she would attempt to kill herself or try to escape. She had been partially successful in knocking out the last prison guard with simply a pillow case. In her days captured, she had yet to encounter a visitor who didn't have an agenda. Her lawyer was hesitant in talking to her. He seemed almost uncertain of how to react around her. She decided to simply let him try to get her out of her situation.

"So did he provoke you?" He had asked in one of their first meetings. "Khan. Did Khan force you into –"

"No." Marla had her arms folded across her chest looking the bald man in the eye. A hand tussled against her hair now stretching down below her chin in waves.

"Well, um," He looked through his notes shifting them back and forth. "Miss McGivers we're going to have to find a defense for you."

"I'm not letting you say he forced me into anything. Besides aren't you supposed to come up with something. You are my lawyer."

"Yes, but," He rubbed his temples sighing. "You need to work with me here. They're looking over Khan's past. They're including the atrocities he faced. The torture his people faced before the Eugenic Wars." She had peered up at him from under her lashes. "Unfortunately you didn't face torturous circumstances, imprisonment yes, but you willingly hired Khan to kill Admiral Marcus. That's criminal solicitation and criminal conspiracy. Not mention the hundreds of people that died in San Francisco due to the Vengeance's crash."

Marla had sighed at that. In an effort to bring her humanity back she had been approached by a high standing Star Fleet officer. He had informed her that among the many dead in the crash of the Vengeance her brother and sister-in-law had been among them. Marla had waited the response out feeling a strange numbness fall on her at the realization. She was to never see David again. Years of differences and it ended with her, with her bringing death to him in some form. She wasn't sure how to react, so she calmly nodded and thanked the officer.

She wondered if everyone was thinking she was as cold as Khan when it came to death. They were wrong. The pair of them were cold when it came to these deaths simply because they held a purpose in their actions. David and Cassandra's deaths held purpose, but no merit. They weren't needed, they were accidents. She held herself wanting to cry that night, but instead her eyes squeezed tight trying to force tears that would never come. The sadness was felt, but she couldn't react with tears, those tears wouldn't bring back her brother or his wife. They simply wouldn't flow.

She remembered the last words her lawyer had spoken days before when a beeping signaled an authorized guest into isolation.

"The public is calling for your execution Marla and the possibility of it is high."

"Hello Doctor McGivers." Jim Kirk stated behind the glass of her cell.

"Isn't the time for referring to me in a professional manner over with, Captain?" Her eyebrow arched. Her legs swung on her cot. Her eyes were red from so many things. "Marla is a much more pleasant way to address the woman about to go on death row."

"I don't think that's going to happen M-"

"They're calling for it." She was on her feet, swaying her hips as she approached him. "Human betraying her kind for another race entirely." She made grand gestures toward the sky before looking at Kirk again, a deeply disturbed smile on her face. "Don't I deserve to die, Jim?"

"No," He seemed so sure. "You don't. You could save yourself Marla. You could –"

"I'm not lying, Captain." Marla refused keeping her expression sour and dead panned. "Everything I did was because I wanted to. Everything I did was for my reasons and my reasons alone."

"Revenge."

"Yes."

"Honor."

"Of course."

"Love?"

Marla stared at the captain clad in gray Starfleet apparel, hat on straight, but his posture read too cocky for words. He thought he knew her. It was a bit cute, but she felt her lips twitch. It was the wrong thing to do because his lips started into a smile. His eyes became easy and thoughtful. She didn't like the way he was pitying her. She was sure she would dislike the words that his mouth would produce.

"You love him don't you?" It was a question. She was glad for that. It meant Captain Kirk was still unsure of himself and of his own opinions. And unsure Captain could be persuaded and it appeared he wanted to help her wiggle free of her death sentence the people had placed on her head before the trail even ended. "But he seduced you, Marla. Khan . . ." Kirk paused looking down shaking his head. "Khan doesn't love you."

"You've spoken to him?" She wondered.

"No I –"

"Then how do you know those words are the truth?" Marla felt her posture stand tall. "How can you tell me a man you don't know and haven't spoken with does not harbor strong sentimental feelings for me? How?" He looked her in the eye ready for the response.

"He doesn't feel anything. He lies."

"I'm aware."

"Then how . . . " He shook his head unable to comprehend the emotions behind her face, her strength. "How do you stand for what you did? What you did for him? With him?"

"You've answered your question already." Marla took a step back. She swung her right handed open toward him. "Revenge." The left hand mimicked the right. "Honor." She nodded slowly. "Do you understand Captain? Do you understand how we used each other to get what we needed?" She smiled, slow and easy. "Now that is love."

The next time she saw James Kirk was three days before she was to take the stand. She had been staring at the ceiling imagining Kronos at war with the augments. Thirty Klingons had recently died at the hands of Khan's brutal army in hand to hand combat when she heard the words.

"He's been sentenced."

"He gets to sleep." She sat up on her bed seeing Kirk nearly identical to the one she had seen weeks before. "I heard."

"They aren't going to be easy on you." He insisted it greatly.

Kirk had files in his hands. It caused her to stand with curiosity. He really wasn't letting go of this saving her from the death of the people nonsense. She had heard that people were calling for her immediate death sentence. So many had died because of her and she was much easier to kill then the augment. People wanted their vengeance. A small part of her understood that, however most of her screamed to be free from the walls, to live in any sentence possible.

"How nice," Marla could see the name of the file. "You've been researching me."

"Your father was a very unique individual." The files was open as he glanced over the copies. His brow raised to gauge her reaction. The fact that her demeanor changed, set him off on a rant. Damn. "Very educated individual, but a bit," He tilted his hand from side to side. "Off. Wouldn't you say?" She didn't say anything. "Attempted to blow up the archives. Never found the weapon, but I guess you did or he gave it to you." She stared at Jim wide eyed taking eager steps until her hands were palming the glass.

"Don't. Do they - ?"

"I haven't told my theories. That's what it is, a theory. Beside Martin McGivers is quite old at this moment." She was glad to hear it. The way he talked about her father made it as though he was still alive. "He had an illness. Khan had his upbringing, the torture, and the fact that nothing humane can kill him."

"Why are you doing this, Jim?" Her voice seemed tired. He peered up. "After everything that's happened, everything we've done? You know everyone wants me dead, so why are you struggling so hard to keep me here? Keep my heart beating just to suffer through confinement?" She would rather have the confinement then death. Marla could wiggle her way free from confinement. There was no way to be free from death.

"You don't deserve it." He shut the file suddenly. "Marla, you don't deserve to be on that end of the spear. You just wanted to be free, from Marcus, from death, from everything."

"So by your logic," Marla let her lips play from frown to smile. "Once I saw Marcus die I should have turned on Khan and aligned with you. Right?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Is this really about that struggle I faced or is it because of how much I struggled? That I did everything I could to survive and you feel like dying at the hands of Starfleet w–"

"No one deserves to die." There he had said his true reason. Marla wondered why he kept trying to fight for her and her it was. "You've been a part of the death of hundreds, but killing you won't make a damned difference. You aren't going to do it again, not without your lover at the helm." Her fists clenched as he thought of Khan as the operator of their proceedings. She was just as much a leader as he was. Just as deadly, but she was a woman, according to Khan she was far worse. "There's no point in killing you, Marla. You'll be just another pointless death." He shook his head. "But I can't see why you aren't even trying. You tried so hard when you were sick, but now," He motioned toward her. "You're just here. Just existing, not giving any information or -"

"You're so unimaginative Captain." She felt a sadness quake within her. She was pitying his inability to see she had already planned out her escape too well. He couldn't see, but she remembered something she had heard. "Why don't you ask me the question you wanted to ask every time you see me? I know what happened to you. I know you suffered the same fate as I did."

"His blood," The words he probably longed to say. "What are the side effects?"

Marla stepped closer finding the closeness nearly too much to bare despite the thick wall between them. She looked into his eyes, a similar blue to Khan's. It panged her knowing she'd have to face several more days without him, though it all depended on the jury how quickly she would act.

"The satisfaction of being alive."

It was all he needed to hear.

"Jim's been here, right?"

Marla looked up. She wondered who had let Carol Marcus slick in her gray formal uniform into her prison cell block. It was a dangerous thing to do considering she was moments away from standing before a jury to be sentenced.

"He's been talking about saving you."

"Why do I get the feeling you're jealous?" Marla rolled onto her belly from the cot she had unable to truly look at the blonde. Her visitors were getting quite ridiculous. "What do you care? I'm about to be sentenced in a few hours anyway. The captain won't be coming to see me anymore."

"I just don't understand why he bothers trying to save you." She closed her eyes hoping she'd leave soon. "Clearly you're no damsel in distress." At least someone understood that. "You're just as much a monster as Khan. Even worse. You work at it." Marla blinked hearing the words escape Carol's lips. She wasn't wrong, no, not at all, in fact the words made the young woman a bit proud. "It must hurt you that he gets to be at rest while you will be burdened with a permanent rest or a very long unrest."

"Why are you here Carol?" She nearly shouted the words. Marla sat up on her cot rubbing her eyes. "If it's to annoy me, you've done enough, run on home to your captain." She paused trying to see how Carol would react. She didn't. The blonde looked done readying herself. She really did have a purpose coming here. The words before had been a facade. Marla hated the run arounds Jim and Carol seemed to love to torment her with.

"I'm here to apologize Marla." Her eyes looked up at her, wide and uncertain. Oh God tearful. "For what my father did. For what he did to you and your family."

"Carol," She started toward the wall. The woman held up her hand backing up as if not even wanting to look at Marla.

"Don't, alright, just," Carol shook her head looking down. "Just don't. I need to get this out before it's too late." Too late. Marla had been putting off what the next few hours would mean to her life. Everything would be too late soon, whether death or eternity alone awaited her. She didn't plan on either lasting, her plans for escape were already laid out and in play. "I saw his notes." Good Lord the sick man kept notes. "What he said about you, the things he hoped for," She held her throat. "It sickens me." She shook her head. "Please know that if the worse happens to you, if you do get sentenced to death that I will do everything I can to –"

"Don't" Marla warned. Her forehead was to the glass.

"Keep."

"Stop." Her hand banged slowly against it.

"Your."

"No." She smacked it harder with an open hand.

"Memory."

"Don't." Marla's closed fist smacked into it repeatedly.

"Alive."

Tears. She didn't want to die. She knew it could come back with a bitter sweet sentence, jail for life, but she knew that people were angry. Consequences were burning into her. She didn't want to die. Marla had so much more to accomplice in this world. She needed to see the augments, all of them work their warrior brains and body against the world. She needed to fight beside Khan. She needed to tear into those they deemed unworthy. She needed it all. She needed him again, against her, in her, all around her. She needed the fight, the passion. Marla needed to be able to mother his child, to raise it, love it, teach it. She couldn't do that if she was dead. She couldn't do that with a needle in her arm.

Marla McGivers had to survive.

Her eyes were heavy with phantom tears in the court room.

Marla looked down at the history book she was allowed to keep as company. Pirates in the sixteenth century gave her only slight comfort.

Few people were there. Most weren't allowed. Her life was threatened so many times.

"We find the defendant . . ."

She had to remind herself it didn't matter what the verdict was. It really didn't. She'd go to him either way. Marla would be with Khan soon enough.

She wanted to believe in herself, she truly did, but things could go wrong so badly.

Marla would never be perfect like the augments, the best laid plans spiraled out of control the fastest.

Author's Note: I haven't given up on this, not when it's so very close to the end. One more to go after this . . . Marla's sentence, making it to Khan (or not making it there). Sequel and prequels have outlines with new characters being introduced. The next part will give slight clues as to where this is all headed.