The house seemed so empty without her, it might as well be abandoned. Khan had never wanted anything material for himself. He had once had a palace, but it meant nothing, both a requirement and a symbol of power and prestige. Now he had a small fleet, a whole solar system and means to take over technology beyond his time's wildest dreams, but none of that compared to the fact that his family was finally safe and that he had someone who turned a simple dwelling into a home. Carol's presence was everywhere around him, her perfume embedded in textile, her personal touches everywhere in the décor, her mark upon the colony's system and in every question about her from his friends.
Khan knew Carol was not leaving him. She was too honest of a person, not to tell him something like that face to face. But whatever she was keeping from him made her sound frayed, whenever they spoke, and was terrible enough for Kati to refuse to obey a direct order from him for the first time ever. Kati's refusal had been calm and polite and taken him aback to such an extent, that he had to ponder upon the appropriate response, once his old friend returned to the colony. He had half a mind to take the Vengeance to Earth and find out what was happening, but the danger that would pose to Menkar stayed his hand. He struggled with it every day, but he had to put his duty to his family over the call of his heart and the sharp niggling of concern gnawing at him.
The days ticked by in a blur, the memory of Carol floating beneath the surface of his mind, as he permuted and calculated, trying to gauge what his wife could be hiding from him from the few cryptic messages they had exchanged and her behavior during the last weeks they had been together. He mulled over the possibility that she was a prisoner of Starfleet, but if that had been true, Kati would have given him one of their alarm code-words. Besides, it was an open secret among them that Kati was in a relationship with a Starfleet admiral and she would have never made a connection with a man she could not trust. Also, though there was no love lost between him and the Federation, he recognized that their philosophy made a certain amount of sense and that honor, compassion and kindness could be found in abundance in the ranks of Starfleet. He should know better than anyone, since he had used that against them a few times. Only that no system was free of corruption and people often did the unthinkable under pressure.
That did not, however, ease the deep-seated hatred he felt for Carol's father. Only the awareness of the grief he would have caused her dulled the regret of his not killing him, when he had had the chance. It was paradoxical that Carol would not be in this unfortunate position, if he had. But the crux of the matter was that if he had, she would have never forgiven him.
# # #
The torrent storm swiped through the valley occupied by the colony, rising thick clouds of dust from the surrounding mountains. Cold rain drops mixed in with the wind, rapping against the sturdy walls of the buildings. All the windows were stuttered and the children were holed inside, but a few of his people still milled about, wrapped in thick cloaks. They were no longer strangers to the ravages of the local weather and had since learnt to work around them so life went on as usual. Khan himself stood on the terrace atop the assembly house watching over the city and its inhabitants, his thoughts swirling waves that mingled and coalesced against the barrier between emotion and reason.
He heard Zuleika's hurried steps behind him and whirled around to face her. She was uncommonly agitated.
"We have an incoming signal from the edge of the nebula." She paused to draw breath. "It's Carol's personal subspace frequency."
# # #
Carol was not used to be in anything but peak physical condition so the journey aboard the Yorkshire had been particular a kind of nightmare. She was going through what someone with sea sickness might experience during a maritime voyage. She was queasy and dizzy all the way and slept for unusually long hours. Never before had she been more grateful for Kati's friendship and unfaltering support. Of great help had been Captain Rodriguez as well. He had never shown any sign of unduly prejudice or wariness and had done everything in his power to make her stay as comfortable as possible. Doctor Heller, the CMO, had been equally professional, though there was only so much she could do, considering that she was working in the dark.
Captain Rodriguez had invited the both of them to share a meal with him and his superior officers on several occasions, called Kati "Madam" much to her amusement and posed her a few diplomatic questions about how she found their century. The ship's mission to the Pleiades was purely scientific so all of it was a matter of public record and both the captain and his first officer gladly shared the details with her, which made her nostalgic about her now abandoned career and about working with cutting edge technology under the best conditions towards attaining knowledge and doing research for the sheer pleasure of it. Although she did not regret her decision, she still felt wistful sometimes, struggling through the grueling conditions on Menkar, where every effort, and there was plenty of that to go around, had a concrete goal or was in response to an emergency. It appealed to her practicality, but every now and then she missed the spirit of exploration animating Starfleet.
Still she was relieved, when Rodriguez let them know that the Mutara Nebula was in view. A single shuttle emerged from the giant dust cloud to retrieve her and Kati, but Carol knew Khan. Obscured from the sensors by the nebula, the Vengeance was somewhere nearby. Her husband never took any chances. They parted ways with Captain Rodriguez in the transporter room. His goodbye to Kati was friendly and she responded in kind. He also promised to send Carol the results of his current research expedition, once they were finalized. Then the beaming process whisked them away.
Surely enough Khan was the one expecting them aboard the augment shuttle. His eyes were riveted to her the second she materialized inside, his pale pink lips falling open, but he said nothing merely striding over to her, and drew her into his arms. She hugged him back, her heart rhythm accelerating, and rested her head on his chest, eyes shut, relished the comfort and the safety she had been craving for a while now.
"My love," he whispered thickly in her hair and then pressed a kiss atop of her head.
Her hands bunched in his shirt at his back and she clung to him for a few moments longer. Once she told him the truth, it would take a while until they could remedy their relationship enough to receive such tenderness from him. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him lightly on the lips. His eyes were glassy, so blue they appeared transparent, the gold freckles in them so brilliant, they seemed to be lit from within. His left hand framed her cheek, his thumb gently stroking around the corner of her eye. She shivered at the intimacy of the contact and leaned into the touch.
"You are ill," he said, distress washing over his features.
"No, I'm not," she replied quickly. "We'll talk at home."
He nodded. "Alright," he conceded, pecked her on the lips once more then released her.
Kati was hovering over the control console, her back turned to them, presumably to give them privacy. Khan did not so much as look at her, dismissing her with a curt tilt of his head, his jaw setting and his features schooling into a cold mask of authority. Something unpleasant stirred in the pit of Carol's stomach and she opened her mouth to speak, despite her previous promise to Kati, who caught her eye and shook her head no. Carol pressed her lips closed again without uttering a single syllable and warily slid in one of the available seats. Less than a minute later the shuttle floated away, delving into the nebula, parting the blue and purple waves, until it arrived at the Vengeance, looming dark and imposing against the multi-colored background.
# # #
The familiarity of her bedroom was a welcome sight and Carol allowed herself a sigh of relief. Though she wasn't showing yet, she still felt heavy, but she had had no dizzy spells since the bout of morning sickness, after waking up according to the Yorkshire's time. She sat on the edge of the bed and stretched her legs in front of her. Khan followed her inside, placed her voluminous luggage by her vanity piece and proceeded to unwrap himself from his favorite black overcoat, one that had repeatedly withstood the test of the planet's vicious climate. Speaking of which, a violent storm waged outside.
"Would you like something warm to drink?" he asked solicitously. "Are you hungry then?" he continued, when she shook her head no in response to his first question.
"Sit down," she said patting a spot on the plush cover next to her.
He did. His expression was hard to read, but his eyes were clouded with concern. Carol reached over and took his right hand in hers. She moistened her lips and swallowed past the lump forming in her throat.
"I know it was wrong of me to keep this from you and I am sorry, so very sorry." She squeezed his hand harder. "Khan... I am pregnant."
His fingers spasmed in her grip and his expression transformed entirely, switching from surprise to joy mounting all the way to the purest form of elation she had ever seen in him. Every trace of the leader and warrior melted off him. His shoulders sagged. His eyes widened. His lower lip trembled, as his mouth parted open. His face paled slightly, the lines marring it deepening. It never failed to strike her how he suddenly appeared age-old and raw, whenever the gate to his innermost and normally secret emotions burst apart.
He lifted her right hand to his lips and scrunching his eyes closed, he bent to pepper it with soft, reverent kisses. Wetness drizzled onto her skin and an answering tenderness reverberated within her. She used her free hand to stroke soothingly through his hair, the tips of her fingers lowering themselves to his nape, tapping lightly against his skin.
"We're going to have a daughter," she added, when she found her voice again.
Khan pulled her onto his lap, an arm wrapped securely around her waist. She looked up at him. His eyes were still wet and faintly red. Her own arms snaked around his neck and they kissed at first chastely, their lips moving together slowly. Her mouth opened under the insistent pressure of his and his tongue glided inside to caress past teeth, press against the roof of her mouth before touching hers. Her head was spinning, as warmth bloomed into her veins. Their kiss grew passionate and one of her hands moved lower to pat on his chest until she found the staccato of his heart-beat against her palm.
He broke the kiss to let her breathe. She was now panting, her lips tingling sweetly. He looked equally affected: his cheekbones were spattered with pink and his gaze was wondering erratically over the planes of her face. Dimly she realized his free hand rested on her stomach. She smiled and pressed her forehead against his.
"Are you alright? Do you need anything?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I am fine for now, but I arranged for a doctor with experience in trans-species pregnancies to attend me. She will be arriving to our space in three Menkar days." She straightened herself a bit, still curled up on his lap. "She is not Starfleet, but she is a Federation citizen. I know that's not a problem in itself, but if you have any objections, we can discuss it... ."
He pressed a finger over her lips, halting her speech. "It is your medic, Carol. The choice is yours exclusively."
She nodded and he withdrew his finger only to press his hand against the side of her face. There was pure adoration and wonder in his eyes, as he gazed at her, but instead of delighting her, it only ignited all of her accumulating guilt. "Don't you want to know when I found out?" she asked, reluctant to alter the spell of the moment, but aware that she had to address all the things that had gone unspoken between them.
His eyes clouded briefly. "On Nausicaa, before you left for Earth," he stated matter-of-factly.
Carol stared at the wall past his shoulder. "I'm aware this doesn't excuse my keeping something so big from you, but... ."
"No," he said firmly, drawing her attention back to him. There was a slight crease between his eye-brows, but the relaxed happiness of before had not washed off his face completely. "Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow. All I want for tonight is to be with you and rejoice. However, if it puts your mind at ease, you should know that, as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing to forgive on my part and whatever problem exists is not with our marriage, but within the boundaries of the political aspect of our relationship."
None of this served to put her mind at ease. On the contrary, it heightened some of her fears and doubts. Also, she wasn't so sure this whole issue wasn't personal as well as professional. Their relationship had never been entirely private. Before her father's arrest, her status as a de facto hostage had come between them, now it was the matter of her position on the colony. But she was tired after her journey and grateful to be home and she didn't wish to burden him further, when he was so obviously overjoyed with the news. She did share his desire to simply be together and forget the world if only for one, long Menkar night. Besides, it was probably best to play it safe and not put additional stress on her baby, especially without an appropriate doctor on hand. She stretched her neck to kiss him again. "Alright," she murmured. "We'll talk tomorrow."
Khan lay on his back on the bed and drew her with him so that she was splayed on his chest. They threaded their legs together and for a while, they just held each other, one of his hands combing gently through her hair, lulling her into a semi-hypnotic somewhere state between pleasant reverie and the lassitude that came right before sleep.
"Can you hear her heart?" she asked.
"Not from here," he replied in that mesmerizing, thick baritone of his that only served to put her under even further.
He rolled her on her back and slid down her body to flatten his ear against her clothed stomach. "I can hear it now," he told her, his voice reverberating into her skin.
She grinned blissfully and stroked his head, when he rested it in the region of her waist. "According to the genome scan, she has your eyes," she said.
TBC