Chapter 26

He's realized by now that it wasn't his touch or words that comforted Meira when the dreams came. It was his heartbeat. She would curl close to his chest and gradually relax as his heart pounded out a strong and steady rhythm next to her ear. She kept waking up screaming about people dying, and his heartbeat, a tangible sign of life, had lulled her back to sleep.

What had happened to her? She had had nightmares before in their room. He could always hear her heartbeat quicken, hear her kick out in her sleep, and the small the fear that permeated the air…but this was different. Never before had she screamed. She had felt the terror, yes, but she was silent. Perhaps it was the pathogens, or maybe it was the drugs. The injuries. The blood loss.

He puts his gift on her chest and she blinks awake slowly as it goes straight for her face.

"What…?" Her head jerks when its tongue meets her nose. "Why'm I getting attacked by a baby badger?" She asks him.

"It's not a badger," He smirks as he takes his seat beside her bed. "It's a dog—a puppy."

She nods and rolls over to face Khan, her arm wrapping around the wriggling ball of excited fur. "I'm keeping it." She yawns. "I'm going to train it to eat you so I can claim your half of the room."

Her eyes drift shut but open again the small pup wiggles free and once more attacks her face with its small, pink tongue. She laughs and brings her arms up to cover her face to protect herself from the puppy's ridiculously cute and relentless attacks of affection.

"It would seem that it is more intent on attacking you at the moment," Khan says and she squeaks with laughter then the small tongue finds her ear.

Amusement bubbles in Khan's chest at the sight of the One hundred ten pound woman trying to cringe away from the four pound puppy. She sticks her tongue out at Khan and then catches the pup in her hands, lifting it carefully over her. It yips and wags its tail before clawing at the air to get back at her again.

"What are you going name it?" Khan asks.

"Boy or girl?"

"Male."

"Amichai." The answer is quick, immediate.

"Amichai?" An odd name. "What does it mean?"

"It's Hebrew. It means 'my people live'." She shrugs, "I like the name."

"As do I." Khan's deep voice rumbles quietly.

That night, McCoy allows Meira to go back to her and Khan's shared quarters. She sets the pup on the ground and frowns as it runs wildly around the room like a squirrel on cocaine. It zip quickly sniff at Khan's dirty clothes that are in an neat pile on the floor and then runs to examine the door, the beds, the bathroom, and anywhere else it can think of.

"Would it be morally wrong to shoot it with a stun gun?" Meira asks for a while and Khan shrugs.

"It would depend on whether or not you wished it to live. Even a low setting would kill it." Khan says and Meira frowns.

"How did you even get it on board?" She asks, tilting her head.

"We had docked at a planet, giving us a few days of shore leave. I've found that no one truly cares what I buy and bring onboard so long as it's not deadly. The doctor examined it for foreign illnesses that could be transmitted to crew, and gave it a clean bill of health." He shrugs. "Kirk had no reason to say no. And I was showing interest in another living being making me seem less…dangerous."

"Sounds logical." She yawns and Khan orders the lights to turn off before lying down in his bed and staring up at the roof. He listens as her breathing evens out. When the nightmares come, he nudges her awake. Her arms wrap quickly around his neck and he hugs her back lightly.

"When I lived in India," he says softly. "Things were nice. My people and I helped to improve the conditions there. The previous rulers had allowed the people to starve and die from sickness." She rests her head against his chest. "We set up bakeries and breadlines. We gave more money to the farmers so that they could hire more people to tend to the crops and cattle, bringing up unemployment. We gave blankets and medicine to those who needed them and even brought in dozens of impoverished people into the palace as domestic workers—maids, cooks, or whatever else we might need. For a while, we had allowed ourselves to believe that we had finally found a sanctuary…a place away from all the chaos, and pain, and death that had soiled our lives before. For the first time in years, we could breathe easily."

"What happened?" She yawns dozily and Khan smiled sadly at the memory as he glanced down at her. There was no use in not telling her. She was so tired now, she wouldn't even remember the conversation had taken place. "A war. Many people from other areas did not particularly care for my kind. Several were ruthless warlords, driving their citizens into poverty. They had lumped us all together. In their minds, we were monsters. Abominations," he practically spit the word. Meira tenses in his arms and he takes a deep, calming breath.

"Rather than fighting," He continues, "I and several others chose to leave. We could have easily defeated the opposing armies, but it wouldn't be worth the bloodshed. Millions would have died needless deaths…and it was no longer our home anyway. Our sanctuary was no longer pure. So, we sought out a new place among the stars. I am still fighting for that dream."

"Hm," She hums.

"What are your nightmares about?" He asks and she shakes her head. The puppy crawls onto his leg and yawns widely. He tries to flick it off by moving his leg but it merely hops back on, digging its miniature claws through the fabric of his pants.

"Meira," his voice rumbles softly, pulling her back awake.

"Yeah?"

"You'll need to talk about it eventually."

"You don't," she accuses and he can almost feel her drifting off again.

"You wouldn't like what you heard."

"Neither would you." She says back and he sighs.

"I was created in a lab." He starts. "But I grew up in hell."

Originally, there had been nearly a thousand Augments in his facility, but their numbers had dropped drastically. Those who couldn't learn fast enough, weren't strong enough, savage enough were killed off, their organs donated to serve the humans. It was impossible to make attachments lest your friend be used as leverage against you. They had conducted vivisections of the children and bombarded their immune systems with viruses to keep them week.

They were regularly starved and beaten, especially the strongest ones…who, the humans claimed, needed to remember their place. They weren't humans—they weren't even considered animals. They were less than that. They were dirt. No. That's wrong. Dirt was nobler than they.

But everything, eventually, comes to an end. The human's cruelty bloomed into complacency and the children they tormented had grown and become stronger. In the end, they did what they were taught to do: show no mercy and take no prisoners. When every last scientist had been killed, Khan declared himself the ruler and no one dared to object. He had led them to freedom. By that time, they had stood three hundred strong. One hundred died from diseases. Another hundred from wars. Others were assassinated or had vanished all together.

He told Meira all of this but she didn't seem bothered. For a while, she was merely quiet…when she had finally spoken he was positive that he had misheard her, but that wasn't possible. Not with his enhanced senses. Not with superior hearing…but those words. They couldn't be true—they weren't!

"We didn't kill our scientists," she had said.

We didn't kill our scientists.

Had she also been experimented on? Beaten? Tortured? Did they rip her mind apart and try to break her down psychologically until she was nothing more than an obedient robot? Did they kill her friends? Did they ever make her bury her loved ones after forcing her to watch their murder? Did they cut her with their knives and inject her with their infections?

Were they more alike than he had thought?

Our scientists.

It couldn't be true. Could it? No. It couldn't. She tired—half awake. Not even that. She's already asleep. It's not possible she had kept up with the conversation, much less had the ability to feel empathy. Her sister going missing…it was nothing. She had angered the Star Fleet brass, and they retaliated. Simple as that.

And yet…that wasn't right. It didn't feel right. In his heart of hearts, he knew that he was wrong, even if he didn't want to believe it. Like him, she had been broken. Like him, she had watched her family suffer. She had rescued her loved ones only to watch them die or be kidnapped. Like him, she was fighting to get them back.

We didn't kill our scientists, she had said…and her implication was clear: they didn't kill their scientists; their scientists had killed them.