Carol felt no small amount of heart-break at the sight of her father: confinement had not been good to him. He had aged visibly, the lines on his face deepening and the hair at his temples had gone completely white. But he still held himself proudly, his back a firm, straight line, the setting of his mouth stern. His eyes lit up at the sight of her and he smiled, crossing the room in a few quick strides to put his arms around her and hug her tightly. Carol rested her head on his chest, the elation at seeing her parent again soaring and momentarily appeasing her frayed nerves. He held her for a long time, before taking a step back, his hands still on her shoulders. He looked her over with great concern, but his expression was still soft and familiar.
"You don't look so well. Are you sick?"
She shook her head. "I'm fine, Dad," she insisted, even as he gave her a skeptical once-over. Carol wasn't ready to tell him about her child, unsure of his reaction, at least not until she found out why he had asked for her. "And how are you?"
He gave her a wry smile. "Enjoying the time off." His attempt at humor fell flat, the crease between his eyebrows only sinking further. "Come on, let's sit down, before you keel over," he added.
Carol didn't take the bait, merely allowing him to lead her back to her armchair. They sat opposite from each other with a small coffee table between them. The atmosphere remained charged. Her previous anxiety spiked again and she self-consciously placed a protective hand on her stomach. Looking at him now was like looking a stranger: the father who had betrayed her personally and the admiral who had betrayed Starfleet and their ideals, but at the same time still her parent, the man who had taught her those very ideals and in front of whom she still felt like a little girl seeking approval.
"I missed you, Carol," he said earnestly.
"I missed you, too, Dad... but that's not why you wanted to see me for the fist time in a year, is it?"
He grimaced sightly and leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs as he did. His expression became cold and distant. "Like I said, I've had a lot of time on my hands lately so as I've been thinking, it occurred to me that I never said I'm sorry for sending you to Ceti Alpha V, to... that man, to begin with. I don't have to tell you how bad the war was going and how desperately we needed an advantage, any advantage, but that doesn't justify what I did to you of all people. And I am sorry, Carol. Everything that happened to you these past years is on me."
She reached and squeezed his hand. "It's alright, Dad, I forgive you, but I'm not the only one you should apologize to."
Her father gripped her had, retaining it. "What did he do to you, Carol? Whatever it is, you can be helped. It's not too late. You can still come home."
"Home? What home, Dad? You're in prison and in the eyes of Starfleet I'll always be that traitor's daughter connected to an augment dictator through some dubious agreement. But that's not why I left, nor am I with Khan to exact some twisted revenge on you. I meant what I said: I do forgive you. As for Khan, I'm with him, because I choose to."
Throughout her tirade, he regarded her impassively, while still holding her hand, only at the end, when she mentioned her choice to be with Khan, he suddenly looked affronted, as if her words had been a personal insult. She reminded herself of her ultimate goal in having this conversation and the importance of not letting herself get railed up, especially with the way her hormones were running amok due to the pregnancy.
"Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Carol?"
"No, Dad, I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I know you'll never accept that I'm not coming back. Even if my relationship with Khan were to break down, I'd still be staying on Ceti Alpha V. I can make a difference there, one that matters to me, and nobody, not even you could make me feel ashamed of it."
"Then I'm sorry, Carol, but you're leaving me no choice: I'll tell Chris what he wants to know about my bio-weaponry initiative, but one bit of information at a time, and I'll speak only to you and to you alone. In exchange, you'll stay here on Earth and get help for whatever Khan did to you."
Carol pried her hand from his hold, her palm itching to slap him again, even as she still felt guilty for the last time she had hit in an outburst of fury. "You really mean that, don't you?" she mumbled stunned at his presumption. She paused waiting for him to nod his confirmation. "You really think you're the only one who's right and the rest of us are all in the wrong! Is this how you manage to sleep at night? By repeating to yourself over and over again that you did it all for the greater good and that the augments aren't really people? That the only way I could feel something for Khan was because he tricked me into it?"
Although her outrage was genuine, her father had unknowingly struck a chord. She wasn't about to tell him something so intimate and delicate, but Khan had indeed tried to manipulate her, not into loving him, but merely into siding him and as an afterthought vengeance against her father. But the crucial difference between the two was that when the chips had been down, Khan had given her an honest choice of coming with him. Carol would have not even considered it, any other way. To her horror, she comprehended that she would have preferred that her father's motivation had resided in something pettier and more selfish like power hunger or wanting to control her life. That was somehow less terrifying than the idea that he had twice plotted genocide, because he was a fanatic who singled out a group of sentient beings as disposable simply because of their DNA. She stood, the grim realization making her stomach churn and bile rise in her throat, and drew herself to full height in order to tower over his still seated form. There was a funny ringing in her ears as she moved.
The keen eyes of a stranger looked up at her beseechingly. "Carol, I can help you and whether they understand it or not, I can help Starfleet, too. Those bugs I had made would allow the Federation to negotiate with the Klingons from a position of power. They could be altered to keep the Romulans at bay, should they come out of isolation again. In fact, they could be used as a deterrent against any potentially hostile alien race we encounter. The galaxy isn't a warm and cozy place just waiting for us to explore it and come back home with samples and knowledge about comets to collect medals at the end of five-year missions. It's dangerous and ridden with expansionist empires, crime syndicates and pirates. Starfleet is living a pipe dream. They might not want to need me or Section 31, but that doesn't mean they don't."
"Maybe," she snapped, overcome by the surreal sensation of truly seeing him as he was for the first time. "But that's not my problem. I'm no longer an officer so I have no duty towards Starfleet any more than I have one to you. You're no longer my only family. I have a husband... and I will soon have a baby, too. My first responsibility is to her and even as we speak, I'm failing her, putting her at risk so I could cater to your whims and discuss means versus ends with someone who thinks he can't possibly be mistaken. It's over, Dad. So let me see if I can put it in a language you'll understand: if you don't give me that location, I will go to the press and give them the entire sordid tale of a former head of Starfleet who sold his own daughter to Khan Noonien Singh in exchange for weapons, complete with the story of a secret paragraph in the Starfleet Charter, one that predates even the Federation. That will give you the occasion you covet to explain yourself to its alien members. Maybe you'll enlighten them on your definition of right and wrong, because it certainly escape me."
He methodically got to his feet, eying her implacably. "You can't... ."
"Why not? Because Section 31 might come after me, if I expose them. No, they won't, because they know what will happen to them if they do. And you don't get to blackmail me, because if you do, I'll dig Starfleet so deep into a public relations scandal, that it will take it decades and new legislation to crawl its way out of it." She took a step closer to him. "I know you, Father. No matter what deluded views you might hold, you'll always be an officer and no court martial could ever truly strip you of the uniform. Now, in Khan's words, shall we begin?"
# # #
Carol lay in bed in her reserve at King Edward Memorial Hospital, staring at the cerulean skies of Western Australia. She had fainted shortly after her meeting with her father, but other than a minor dehydration, she was fine and thankfully, so was her daughter. McCoy had come down from Starfleet Medical for a second opinion, given that he was the only person in the universe to have experience with her condition, and had advised that they kept her overnight for observation. Now that the adrenaline of her confrontation with her Dad had worn off, she felt drained, hollowed out on the inside. She knew she had done the right thing: the threat of the biological weapons he had ordered to be manufactured in defiance of everything Starfleet stood for could not be allowed to continue, a ticking bomb suspended in the immensity of space. Nor could she let him dictate what to do with her life and indirectly with her baby's future. It was bad enough that she had kept the pregnancy from Khan and already endangered both hers and her daughter's health to come to Earth. She was not a hand-string puppet her father could manipulate as he saw fit and she would not let him hold any populace hostage, if she could prevent it.
Though she did not regret her backing him into a corner to get him to tell the truth, she was fully aware that this was the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. Betrayal had been written in every line of his face, as she had said the words. Betrayal and pain. He had no responded to her attempt to say good-bye, looking deflated, as though he had not for one second expected her to threaten him with the good of Starfleet. Since she had been getting increasingly dizzy and concerned for her own daughter, Carol had been forced to seek immediate medical assistance. Her father had also no commented on his grand-child and Carol had to wonder if by carrying Khan's baby, she had become tainted by association in his view, gone beyond redemption. The thought stung, the hurt taking deep roots within her heart, but she could not dwell on it: not now and not any time soon. Despite everything, he was still her father, she still loved him and missed their former excellent relationship.
She had meant what she had told her father: her baby had become her utmost priority, especially as her daughter would not have it easy. She was a unique hybrid bearing an unlikely combination of human and augment genes and would grow up under challenging circumstances, on a colony that still fought to survive sometimes quite literally in the harsh environment of Ceti Alpha V. Carol also had to factor the fact that she and Khan were fundamentally different people still struggling to reach even ground in their marriage, while sharing divergent understandings of love and means to express it. But even now, as she felt unbearably alone on her own home planet, strapped to the Federation's most advanced medical technology. Surrounded by every comfort, she longed to be in Khan's arms. For the first time in their complicated relationship, his reckless and violent love for her provided reassurance instead of worrying her. She knew beyond any doubt that he would do anything to protect their daughter and their family and the thought was soothing.
# # #
Christopher walked into the visitors lounges attached to the Pregnancy Center at King Edward Memorial Hospital to find Kati standing by the window staring outside. She seemed calmer than when they had been let know that Carol had fainted just as she had been about to leave the penal colony, where Alexander Marcus was held, but that was mostly because she was now quiet instead of proffering threats to the physical integrity of the former admiral. Christ could not help but empathize with at least some of her anger. His once mentor had had the gal to put Starfleet over a barrel solely so he could basically hold his daughter hostage on Earth. The disappointment was so bitter, it almost eclipsed all of Alexander's previous betrayals and was made worse by the guilt Chris felt in unknowingly aiding in the attempt and putting Carol's life and that of her unborn baby at risk as a result.
"Was it worth it?" Kati asked softly, her voice tainted by sadness.
He lowered the hand he had raised to rest on her shoulder. The information Carol had managed to wring out of Marcus would have to be verified, while they proceeded with great care as if not to make a bad situation worse, before starting on the arduous task of getting rid of biological weapons and placing the the intelligence Starfleet would recover on it under lock and key. Even then, it would not be over. Trials of the scientists involved in these illegal activities would follow, further blemishes on the record of the fleet. But the most terrible thing of all was that for generations, officers in his position would have to live in fear that knowledge of these pathogens Marcus had so unwittingly created would get out and potentially fall into the wrong hands. It was a legacy of shame that would bestow a great burden onto the future.
So he didn't reply to Kati's question, because truth be told, he didn't have an answer himself.
TBC