To make this work, I have to manipulate the timeline somewhat; I know that Kirk was captain of the Enterprise when Marcus woke Khan, but I tweaked it a bit. Just so everyone is aware.
It takes over a year of physical therapy and constant check-ins with a medical team before Danny is allowed to leave the hospital. She's allocated a stipend from the government, with which she uses to lease a small apartment in San Francisco.
When the earthquake happened, she'd been 18 years old; she aged in her coma until she was 23, when cryosleep developed enough to safely use on patients who could both afford it perhaps be helped when medical science advanced enough. Her brain had been healed and woken up. Later, they explain the burning, and the immeasurable pain she'd been in; her cells had actually stopped functioning while in cryosleep; in order to get them active again, they needed to suffer a shock to get them going again. The reaction is similar to a limb falling asleep, when blood flow returns again.
Because technically Danny wasn't dead, when her parents died, a portion of things had been left to her; the same with her sister, and several close friends; she had boxes of letters and videos to go through that they'd left to her. She's in the apartment only several days when someone comes to her, a representative from the government.
"Your education is obsolete; you have nothing to tether you to an occupation. What do you want to do?" The representative asks, and she asks to think about it.
Danny had been told during her therapy of the going on of the world. Aliens did exist, it turned out. She was given 'sensitivity' classes, and exposed to images slowly, so that when she was allowed outside she wouldn't be overwhelmed. The alien thing was a bit of a shocker, but in all honesty, not that surprising. The idea of different species wasn't all that surprising, once announced; waking up to learn that everyone you knew was gone, everything you cared about was changed and everything you'd learned was obsolete…that took longer to work through.
She walks San Francisco and people watches; she sketches what she sees, takes pictures in her head.
Mostly, though, what she draws are images of her family-she hasn't looked to see what became of them. She doesn't want to know yet. Danny draws pictures of her sister when she was a newborn, in her nest of blankets, the fine peach fuzz of her hair beginning to grow in, one chubby fist tucked under her chin. She draws her father, dozing ("I'm resting my eyes dammit!") on the couch, head bowed, mouth slightly parted as he snores, arms crossed. Her mother, on the floor with Pickles the Saint Bernard, smiling as bright as the morning.
When the representative comes back, she says that she wants to get away. She asks if she's allowed to join the Star FleetAcademy, if there's anyway she could be sponsored. She's given a happy medium; a minor secretarial job, to see if she can handle contact with other species until a decision can be reached.
Danny takes the job, happy to have an excuse to leave the apartment other than to wander.
Admiral Marcus makes her uncomfortable, but she soon gets used to it.
She files papers, makes appointments, the usual. She soon gets used to being ignored by her co workers, and another year goes by. Things happen; with a steady, rather generous, pay check coming in, she personalizes her apartment, and begins to get a somewhat normal life. She's confident that she'll be able to get into Star Fleet Academy, and so she studies; she reads during her lunch breaks, and when she gets home, memorizing the text.
Danny works there for a year when John Harrison arrives for the research department.
The first thing that flashes across her mind about the tall man is he is in pain. And then this is not a man to go up against. He is dangerous. John's pale eyes take note of her, memorize her, and she tries not to feel uncomfortable, even though she is beginning to get used to it.
Danny's Mom said, all through the nightmare that was high school, that Danica would grow into her appearance; that her long torso and wide hips would balance out, fill out. She was right; during her comatose years, she had of course, kept aging- the awkward, half state of adolescence was gone, melted off without her knowing. The IV diet was meant to keep her alive, and it did, but some of the extra fat in her body had disappeared. She certainly wasn't a knock out- but Danny knew she was aesthetically pleasing.
"Admiral Marcus asked me to retrieve some files from you?" She offers, stepping into his assigned lab; she almost trips under the weight of his gaze.
"Which ones?"
"I don't have a high enough security clearance to know the names or what they entail. I can only conclude classified, sir." Danny replies, and Harrison snorts; turning to walk to one of the long counters.
He reminds her of the Siberian tiger she'd seen when she was a little girl; it had been in an enclosure made to be identical to it's habitat. The tiger was snow white and Indian ink, with eyes just like Harrison's- people had gasped at it's beauty as it paced the cage (because that was what the enclosure was, and he knew it), but those eyes had never strayed from Danny. She had been 4 then, but this was marked in her memories as clearly as could be; the tiger had coiled in on itself and launched at her, a loud roar shaking the plexi-glass. It had had collided, and just before collapsing to the ground and the utter chaos, there had been stillness; everyone had stared at this wild animal, inches away from the small child unable to believe that this could happen (moments later, her mother sweeps her out of the zoo, in hysterics while Danny's father has words with the manager); Danny and the tiger lock eyes and she hears the ghost of a voice whisper, partly tinged with regret and partly matter-of-fact "I'm sorry, but it's in my nature." She didn't fear the death that came to her back then, and she didn't fault him for going after the easiest prey.
Harrison reminds her of that tiger; a beast with a collar in a cage, biding it's time to sink its teeth into weakness.
No one in the office talks to her, which is fine, but soon she notices that no one speaks to Harrison either, which doesn't seem to upset him.
Marcus always specifically assigns her to retrive files or messages from Harrison, and two visits later she realizes that there are cameras watching him; not just standard security cameras, but ones hidden. It puzzles her and she finds herself tapping something out in Morse code *you are being watched*
He responds, *I am aware*
"Would you like to go for coffee, Mr. Harrison?" She finds herself asking. "It's close to lunch, if you'd prefer that."
"I doubt that you would like to have a meal with me, Miss Gianano."
"There's a decent coffee shop down the street. It's even got a bookstore attached to it," Danny offers, somehow managing not to sound pathetic. John chuckles, but it seems sad. It reminds her even more of the tiger in the enclosure.
"A bookstore? An antique bookstore, you mean?" Danny feels her face heat. She forgets, all the time, that nearly everything is on screens now, not on paper, and people often look at her incredulously when she mentions actual books and it makes her so lonely she could cry.
"I don't see why not. I'll be finished in…15 minutes. I'll meet you by the entrance. Is that adequate?" Danny smiles at him and nods. It isn't a date, not at all; she doesn't like the people here in the building, all agendas and plotting and subterfuge. She's always been straightforward and nonpolitical, and things like that make her uncomfortable. She wants someone to talk to, and Harrison seems just as disinterested in it as she is.
Exactly 15 minutes later they're walking out the building together; him without his lab coat all in black, her in a long black skirt and pale cream and black blouse.
They sit in the coffee shop and drink their liquid caffeine (he just has tea, she has plain black coffee).
"Who's watching you in your lab?"
"It's best if you don't ask such a thing. It'll get you killed." John answers, sipping his tea. He looks across the table at this human woman; she's average, not an augment, fragile and transient, but she looks a thousand years old watching him, a sadness in her almost green eyes that doesn't seem to fit with the rest of her.
"I see." And she does, he can see that. "I'm sorry. I don't speak to people, outside of work. I know this is awkward."
"Why did you ask me to coffee?" John asks her. "We'll begin with that."
"You don't look…right, caged like that."
"Caged?"
"That lab is your cage, and since I'm not permitted to know the one with the key…I thought that you might enjoy a brief period of limited freedom, if you would forgive my metaphor." John actually smiles a bit at her, and Danny smiles back at him.
"Your metaphor is remarkably accurate, given my situation. I thank you for the opportunity to breathe, if you understand."
Danny laughs. "I do," she raises her cup, "cheers."
It's like this for months; Danny and John go out to lunch, and occasionally dinner together. They grow comfortable, or, Danny does. She wants to believe that John does as well because he stops calling her Miss Gianano, and calls her Danica, like she requested. They talk of nothing in particular; they speak of books, of music ("you're a poet, Danica," and she nods). It astounds her how much they seem to know about the same things; Danny doesn't tell him about where she comes from, but she wonders if he guesses.
One morning she's called into Marcus' office, and she struggles not to panic; something about him makes her nervous.
"So you've been getting close to Harrison in R&D?" He asks, after some preamble.
"We're friendly, that's all, Admiral Marcus. I know the regulations regarding workplace relationships." She assures, even though she thinks, privately, that isn't what he's driving at.
"I see, and how are you finding your adjustment? It's been some months since you came to work here, even though it's only temporary."
"I…it's much easier than I expected. I'll be honest, other species doesn't bother me; I just worry about being impolite, and I've been studying, so I don't offend anyone working here."
"Yes, I've noticed. You're very careful. And studying's good, great job. It's going to come in handy- you've been accepted into the Academy." A large smile splits her face, despite herself, and Marcus chuckles at her. "You've got your marching orders; you leave tomorrow morning."
She goes to John's apartment (he gave her his address a month previous, but she'd never made use of it) to tell her friend the news. He doesn't look very happy, but he makes an effort for her, for which she is grateful.
"Wait a moment, please," he tells her, and disappears into his room. A moment later and he's returned, and holds out a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. He holds it out to her, with the words "I meant it as a birthday, gift, but as you won't be here, it is better served to give it to you now."
It's a book; an old favorite she's been unable to locate, White Oleander, and it brings tears to her eyes.
"Thank you." Danny whispers, and she hugs John; he hugs her back, but they step away from one another after 10 seconds.
"Be safe, Danica Gianano."
"I can try, John."
They say good bye, and Danny goes to the Academy; packing up the things that she's been left (which she hasn't gone through), and boxing up the rest for storage (courtesy of the building's super, who rather likes her and often complains to Danny when he can corner her; she leaves him detailed instructions on which boxes go where).
In the end, she goes to Star Fleet Academy with an armful of books, a PADD, her boxes of things from her family (which she hasn't had the guts to open, still), and her textbooks. Uniforms are supplied by the Academy. She brings mainly underwear, socks, a pair of running shoes, a work out outfit, pajamas, and her information to access her accounts.
All in all, she has the least bags of anyone on the bus to the Academy.