Story [Star Trek Into Darkness] The Scars On Our Hearts (John Harrison/OFC) - Completed 26 July!

He's not really interested in revenge right now, actually.

 

he can be safe with her and his son

nice update

 

--Chapter Twenty-Three--

Anthea got Nolan fed, changed, and back to sleep. Khan watched in silence the whole time. She'd given him some food from the replicator, figuring he'd need it after nearly two years without eating.

"How old is he?" he asked, once he'd finished his own meal.

"He's just a little over a year old," she said. "It's 2260, by the way. Exact stardate, um . . . 2260.311. So he's almost thirteen months old."

Her husband rose from where he sat on the bed--the very same bed they'd shared on the Betazed trip--and approached her.

"Anthea," he said, in that low purr. "I truly am sorry I have missed so much."

He cupped her elbow, then his hand slid up her arm to her neck. When he leaned in, she caught her breath.

"You left me," she said. "Don't think I'm going to forgive you that easily. I may have saved you, but I'm still angry."

"And you have every right to be," he assured her. "Let me start making it up to you with this."

He lowered his mouth to hers. Anthea wanted to resist, but she never had been able to with him, never would. She slid her hands under his Starfleet shirt, the one he'd been frozen in, and ran her hands over his muscled chest.

"What do you want me to call you?" she asked, as his mouth left hers.

"Khan," he said. "It is my name. Though if you call me John by mistake, I won't be angry."

"Gee, thanks," she breathed.

He smirked and caught his hands around her waist, pulling her against him. "Two years," he murmured. "Tell me there's been no one in that time."

She hadn't planned to tell him. She'd intended to take that secret to the grave. But she just couldn't lie to him.

"One," Anthea whispered. "But I had my reasons."

His hands tightened almost painfully, then he forced himself to loosen his grip. "Who was it?"

She licked her lips, tasting him there, and decided that a slight slant on the truth wasn't exactly a lie. "I seduced Jim Kirk to get information on what had happened to you."

He stared at her, face unreadable. The longer he stared, the more uncomfortable she got.

At last, Khan's mouth twitched, and then he grimaced. He shook, and when he pressed his forehead to hers, she realised he was laughing.

"You- You really are perfect for me, Anthea. You found that young man's weakness and exploited it."

"It was ridiculously easy, too," she mused. "Stop laughing. It made me feel dirty."

"Ah, my Anthea. I do adore you."

"You're not angry?"

His fingers lifted to tangle in her hair. "Angry? No. I am impressed at your resourcefulness. However . . . I believe I need to reclaim what is mine."

----------

When Anthea returned from the minuscule bathroom, she said, "You know, you really are better at everything. Compared to that, Kirk was lousy."

He snorted and patted the space beside him. She curled up there, sighing when he drew her, gently this time, into the circle of his arms. Anthea rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart.

"I missed this so much," she told him softly. "I missed you so much it hurt."

"I tried to get back to you," he whispered against her hair. "When I realised that I had survived the crash, I tried to get away, to find you. I wanted to take you away. But that damned Vulcan caught me."

"Well, you did try to kill his captain. Lesson learned. Don't piss off a Vulcan."

Khan kissed the top of her head. "How did you revive me?"

Anthea shrugged a shoulder. "I still have my security clearances. Or had. I would imagine I'm a fugitive now and they've all been revoked. But I read Doctor McCoy's reports on you. He included the codes you gave him. I would have revived you sooner, but I . . . wanted to wait 'til we were safely away. It took me months to get all the supplies together, and it took weeks to smuggle all of you out. The medical robot and I did it."

"How did you manage?"

She sat up and dragged her fingers through her tangled hair. "Falsified data, for the most part. Altered records to change which bunker you were stored in. I took an administrative position at headquarters and bided my time. Every few days, I'd go in with a cargo container, load up a couple of your people, and bring them here. I got you out first, of course, just in case."

Khan looked amused. "All of that while maintaining cover and raising a child? I am impressed. No wonder Section 31 recruited you so young."

"I learned from the best." She swung her legs over his lap. "Tell me what happened, from the day you left Starfleet."

He leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. "If you've read the reports, you know I planned to smuggle my people out in the torpedoes. Marcus, largely through that idiot blonde daughter of his and her meddling, discovered what I was doing. And he threatened you. Oh, he didn't know the truth of us, but he suspected our involvement and he said he'd- Well, it does not matter now. I escaped, and came to make sure you were safe."

"I remember you saying you were on a leave."

He snorted. "I had not expected everything to fall apart so quickly. I assumed that Marcus had killed my crew, but while I was with you, I knew he could not harm you. But I had to work swiftly, for my revenge and to ensure your safety."

Anthea shook her head. "So you had Harewood blow up the archive, and killed forty-two people. Not to mention all those who died on the Enterprise-"

"A large number of which are Marcus's fault," he interjected.

"-And let's not even get started on the death toll from you crashing the Vengeance into San Francisco."

"Are you going to bring that up for the rest of our lives?"

"Probably. It's the ultimate guilt trip material." She tipped her head to study him. "Be honest with me from now on. There's no need to keep anything from me."

"Not now, there is not." He lightly rubbed her knee. "I am sorry that I put you in danger. That I put our son in danger."

Anthea caught his hand. "I may not agree with your methods, and I certainly am not happy that my husband is responsible for the deaths of thousands. That makes me a little sick to think about. But I understand why. I just wish you'd felt you could talk to me about it. I could have helped."

He tipped his head in acknowledgement. "Perhaps. I left you as much in the dark as I could in case they . . . Let us be honest, Anthea, Marcus would not have hesitated to torture you to extract information concerning my whereabouts if I had not done many of the things I did. And I averted a war with the Klingons."

"Kirk says you tried to kill him."

"He angered me, and the boy was only going to continue hunting me. I did not mean to kill his friend. It was Marcus I was after."

"I know it was. I know."

In his little bed, Nolan began to fuss. Anthea went to him, plucking the baby up to cradle him against her side.

Khan watched, pride warming him. His wife, his son. How happy that made him! "You named him Nolan? What does that mean?"

"It's Irish. I saw it and liked the way it sounded. Not sure on the meaning," she said. She brought the baby back to their bed. "When he was born, I thought you were dead. I hadn't spoken to Kirk or his crew, hadn't realised that they'd spared you along with the others. So I named him to . . . keep alive what we had before I lost you. His full name is Nolan John Harrison."

"But you knew my real name."

"I'd learned it by that point, yes. I also didn't want to . . . raise a bunch of questions. I mean, why would I, out of the blue, give him a name no one had heard of?"

"You do have a point."

He reached over and placed one broad hand on Nolan's back, the first time he'd touched his son. "He is like me, isn't he?"

"Yes." She cleared her throat. "I was terrified that they would take him from me, if they found out who and what he is. I didn't know you'd healed Lucille Harewood. And when I learned that Nolan has the same ability . . ."

"How did you discover it?"

She told him about her work at the Daystrom Institute, the research she'd hidden behind while searching for him. When she reached the part about testing their child, Khan lifted Nolan out of her arms and set the boy on his knees. He didn't seem to notice the only clothed one was the baby.

Father and son stared at each other. Nolan seemed to be trying to figure out who Khan was, his small face scrunched in concentration. "Hi!" he said, after a moment.

Khan looked to his wife. "Thirteen months old, and talking?"

"He's your son," she reminded him. "He's got a vocabulary about three, maybe four times the size of a normal baby his age. And he's strong. And fast. Honestly, I was terrified I would never find you, and I'd have a super-powered toddler to deal with by myself."

Nolan shoved a chubby fist into his mouth and gnawed on it for a moment, still fascinated by his father.

"Nolan," Anthea said. "Can you say 'Daddy'?"

The child looked at her, grinned, and burbled, "Dada!"

Khan's pale blue eyes filled with tears, so moved was he by this. "My son," he whispered. "Anthea, he is the greatest gift you could have ever given me."

She lovingly pet her child's hair. Nolan squirmed in Khan's arms until he'd worked himself to lean against his father's chest. The sight swelled her heart. "I found out I was carrying him the same day I spoke to you last. And even through everyone telling me how horrible you were, all the lives you'd taken, I never even questioned keeping him. It just didn't occur to me. When we discussed children, I was frightened by the idea, but when it happened . . . He was my last tie to you, and he's so special. He was the only thing that kept me going through those months when I didn't know where you were or what had happened or why."

"We'll never be apart again," Khan told her. "I was arrogant before and assumed I could do it all myself. I should have been more patient, and trusted you more."

"Yes, you should have." She searched his face. "Did you use me, in the beginning? You say you love me . . ."

"I do love you, Anthea. I had an affection for you, before we became involved. And . . . it wasn't truly love until after we married. But I do love you." He smiled wryly. "I have a difficult time admitting fault. It is an unusual situation for me. I am so used to relying on myself that it didn't really occur to me to rely on you, the way I should have."

Nolan obviously found the deep rumble of Khan's voice soothing. With a thumb in his mouth, the baby was trying valiantly to keep his little eyes open. As Anthea watched, he nodded off.

"You want me to take him?" she asked in a whisper.

Khan looked down at his son, cradled in his arms. "No," he said. "I think I'll keep him for a while. I have missed too much already."

She yawned, utterly worn out from the day's events. A glance at the clock on her tiny desk across from the bed told her she'd been up nearly twenty-four hours. "Alright. If you need anything, wake me."

Anthea crawled under the covers. In moments, she was out.

Khan watched her sleep, and swore to himself that from now on, he wouldn't miss a moment of his family's lives.

 

Beautiful moments between Khan and his son as Anthea explains all that occurred.

 

A delightful chapter. I hope they can stay away from trouble

 

Catching up on this tale. Incredible as always!

 

--Chapter Twenty-Four--

CX-431 Alpha
Beta Quadrant

When they dropped out of warp near their destination, Khan became all business. He settled into the pilot's chair with ease, using the computer to scan for life on the planet below.

"Scanners detect rather a lot of life on the surface," he told Anthea when she joined him. "None of it is registering as human."

"There was a civilization there," she commented, "ages back, but they died out due to unknown circumstances. I have a few areas from the first survey in mind for a settlement, but we'll need to check them out in person before making any decisions."

Khan glanced over at her. He'd left his dark hair loose, some of the strands falling in his face. "It might be a good idea to see if any of the indigenous life is dangerous to us."

"Exactly." Anthea pulled up the survey reports from Starfleet. "The planet doesn't have much in the way of seizmic activity in most areas. There are a few volcanic areas, mostly confined to near the equator. Of course, we never can tell what's going to suddenly pop up, but the initial survey seems to indicate stability."

"That is what the sensors are telling me now," he replied. "We'll need a fairly sizable, flat area, with trees for building supplies, and access to plenty of water. The supplies you acquired won't last us forever."

"I hope the local wildlife is edible. I've brought seeds with us so we can grow crops, such as lettuce, carrots, squash, that kind of thing. I don't know what plantlife will be edible, either."

He turned to look at her. "Is there anything you didn't think of?"

She studied her screen. "I forgot birth control. Other than that, I'm not sure. Oh, I have all your equipment from your home lab. We'll need to set up generators, I have those, too, three of them, but I brought the stuff, just in case. And if we really get desperate, there's an inhabited planet two systems over that trades with the Federation and several non-Federation planets."

Khan smiled a little and went back to his sensor readings. "No wonder Starfleet kept you. No offense to Otto, but you will be my second-in-command from now on."

"I'm your wife. I'd better be equal."

The smile turned into a smirk. "Yes, dear."

She leaned over and gave him a light smack on the back of the head. He only laughed.

----------

They landed near the first potential settlement site, and Anthea locked Nolan in the ship with a communicator link open like a baby monitor, and the medical robot to watch over him. It wasn't ideal, but she also wasn't dragging him along when she and Khan surveyed the area, and she wasn't going to let her husband go off by himself.

It was early summer on this part of the planet, as were the other two sites they wanted to check out. They would have plenty of time to build shelters for the coming winter.

This was the farthest north site, with a present climate approximately that of England. Khan was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, trousers, and boots, armed with his phaser and a long machete he'd dug out of one of the cargo boxes. Anthea had the sensor equipment and her own phaser. If they had to fight anything off, she was going to leave it to her very capable husband to take care of.

"I'm not sure about this area," he told her. "It has plenty of lumber, which is good, but we'd have to clear a lot of area, and the water is a bit far."

"It's also downhill," she said. "And the ground near the water seems unstable. Undermining the root system could cause a landslide into the river."

He nodded. "We'll come back to this if necessary, but it is not my first choice."

----------

At the second site, Anthea liked the area a little more. The trees were bigger, farther apart, and the ground was nicely level with a wide stream flowing through the middle.

"I'm going to scout by the hills over there," Khan told her. "Wait here."

"Sure."

He went off through the trees and low brush, while Anthea set to gathering and labelling plant samples, for testing and study. She wanted to know starting out which were edible and which were dangerous.

She'd been at it about twenty minutes when Khan came running full-tilt through the trees, machete out but down at his side. He had a scratch along one cheek, and the blade was covered with gore.

"Run," he said, grabbing her arm, and she did.

Back on the ship, he slammed the door shut and leaned against the wall.

"What was out there?" Anthea demanded.

"No idea what it was, but it was big, and it had claws bigger than my hands." He held them up to demonstrate. They were speckled with blood. "Not my own blood, don't worry. I hope I killed it, but judging from the sounds from the cave I was scouting, there are more of them."

". . . Okay, we'll scratch this one off the list."

----------

The third site had a nice, big clearing, near a sparkling blue-green lake, all of it hidden amongst towering trees. There were low, rolling hills through the forest, but nothing big enough to support caves or giant, furry monsters. The lake was fed by a river that flowed from mountains a good fifty kilometres away.

"I like this one," Anthea told her husband. "We've got a good view through the trees, access to water, and the sensors are telling me the chemical composition of the ground is similar to Earth, so we should be able to plant our crops with little problem."

He looked up at the big, fluffy clouds in the brilliantly blue sky. "Oxygen level is slightly higher than Earth, but that will be fine. You're not having any issues, and I'm sure Nolan will adapt just fine."

"What about your people?"

Khan stooped to take a water sample from the lake. "We do not require oxygen the same way you do."

Anthea blinked. "Oh, really?"

"We are affected by nerve gas, but we can survive for longer than normal humans without oxygen, because we do not waste half of it on every breath."

"That's interesting. I'm really glad Nolan isn't fussy, because if he were, and could wail for longer without taking a breath . . ."

Khan snorted. "Yes, that would be irritating."

He loaded the water sample into the testing unit he'd brought from the ship. "The water is clean, as far as I can tell. No known contaminants from any Starfleet database. It should be safe to drink."

"Good." She smiled. "So, we're settling here?"

He gave her a slight nod. "We are settling here."

----------

"Now that we have a place to set up, we can begin reviving my crew," Khan told her over dinner.

They'd set up a bonfire outside the ship. The Reliance took up most of the clearing at the moment, the nose jutting out over the lake. They sat under the ship's wing as evening set in.

Anthea had Nolan on her lap and was feeding him small bites of food. His first molars had come in, and he relished chewing his food, even if he made a mess. "We'll need to remove the cargo containers before we can get them out. They're jammed in pretty tight, too. I used every space I could."

"Are they equipped with hover capability?"

"Yeah, but they're still bloody heavy."

"That should not be a problem."

Deciding he was finished with dinner for the present, Nolan squawked and slid off Anthea's lap. She tried to catch him, but he stumbled out of her grasp, towards the fire.

Khan reached out with one hand, caught his son by the back of his little shirt, and lifted him off the ground, all in the blink of an eye. Anthea hadn't seen him move. It was still something of a shock to know he could move that fast.

"No," he told Nolan. "Stay away from the fire."

"I'm not certain he'll understand that," Anthea began.

"Oh, he understands." The man narrowed his eyes at his offspring. "The fire is hot. You know what hot means?"

Nolan was delighted with being suspended in the air, and he flailed arms and legs, a huge grin plastered on his little face. Still, all his attention was for his father.

To Anthea's absolute astonishment, the baby nodded. "Fiw hot," Nolan piped. "Hot huwt."

Khan passed their son back over to Anthea. "He's much more intelligent than a normal human child," he reminded his wife. "I could understand at his age concepts that a child of two could not."

Still, she was a little shaken at the near-miss, horrified at the thought of her precious child falling into the fire. She kissed the top of Nolan's head.

Returning to the prior subject, Khan said, "I think, tomorrow, we can begin awakening the others."

 

I"ve finally caught up. What I ride! I felt terribly for Anthea, though I'm glad that, after everything, she's getting a happy ending.

 

There's one more chapter, a viggie, and a sequel, too! I've been busy.

 

Yay! I was hoping for a sequel

 

I'll start posting as soon as I'm finished with this one. I'm already 12 chapters into posting the sequel.

 

Nice to see Anthea finding a place to settle.
What will her reaction be to the others?

 

Still, it looks like things could become dangerous since whatever attacked Khan is on the planet and eventually someone will come across it again.

 

Such an amazing story. I am also glad there will be a sequel!

 

--Chapter Twenty-Five--

Khan was awake and moving before dawn. By the time Anthea rose, showered, and had Nolan dressed and fed, her husband had unloaded half of the cargo containers from the hold. She watched him unload the rest, without the robot's assistance. She had needed the robot and a forklift to load the containers. Khan did it with the containers' hovertech and his own strength.

"How strong are you?" she asked him. She already knew he could crush a man's skull with his bare hands. Out of morbid curiosity, she'd looked up what that took. Turned out it didn't take more than fifteen pounds per square inch to fracture bone, but to do it bare-handed was beyond the normal human. "I mean, how much can you lift?"

The effort had made him break out in a sweat. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and said, "About twelve-hundred pounds at a deadlift."

Her jaw dropped.

Khan grinned. "Five times what a normal man can lift, if he has training in weight-lifting. I rarely use the full strength I carry, though."

Anthea thought about how gentle he was with Nolan, realised how careful he was with her, even with playing rough. "Wow."

Together, they worked to empty the containers. She'd stuffed every nook and cranny with things she'd thought they'd need: blankets, MREs, small first-aid kits, camping equipment of varying sorts, even phaser rifles.

Khan had to laugh when he found two of the containers held motorcycles, the non-hovering kind. They ran on modern tech, though, and she had containers of the needed fuel, as well, the pods shoved into the very back of each cargo container.

"You seem to have thought of everything," he said.

"I tried. It was sort of, well, I would see something and think, 'We could use that'. So I'd get my hands on it and pack it away. It kept me busy, kept me from going mad while I hunted for you. I knew I would find you eventually, I just didn't know how long it would take. And when you're good at redirecting Starfleet resources, as well as those of Section 31, you can acquire a lot."

Every free space of the clearing was cluttered now, whether with supplies or a cryo-tube with a sleeping crew member in it. Anthea set about cleaning up some of the chaos, while Khan checked the vitals of each of his "family". Nolan played in his pen with his favourite teddy bear, the one his grandmum had given him on her last visit.

"Who are you going to revive first?"

Khan looked up from the cryotube he'd paused beside. "Kati. My sister."

"She really is your sister?"

He nodded. "Genetically, I'm not completely sure, but we share the same surrogate birth mother and were raised together. Her name is Khatri, but when I was two, I could not pronounce it. Kati stuck, at least for me."

"Isn't your first name actually a surname?" Anthea asked.

Her husband gave a jerk of his head. "Sarina Kaur was an adventurous woman, giving us names that, according to caste, religion, and other factors, should not go together. Our names both mean 'ruler'. Her full name is Khatri Abhaya Kaur."

He gestured to the tube he stood by, and Anthea moved over to join him. As she watched, he keyed in the sequence to open the cryotube and revive its occupant.

The panel slid open. The comatose woman inside had black hair and heavy, black brows, her skin somewhat darker than Khan's. There were enough resemblances, in the narrow face and wide-set eyes, though, that Anthea knew they shared some genetics.

"I suspect our mother was the same, but not our fathers," Khan confessed, as they waited. "All of her research was destroyed along with her lab, when it exploded and she was killed. I barely remember her, in all honesty, and have no emotional attachment to her any longer. But her research? That I desperately wish I had."

In the cryotube, Kati gasped, her back arched, and she began to seize. Anthea fumbled with her medical scanner. "She's having a seizure," she said.

His expression didn't change. He merely lifted Kati by her shoulders, dragged her out of the pod, and laid her out on the ground, waiting until the convulsions stopped.

"I should probably mention that Kati is . . . different than the others. She is fast, strong, intelligent, yes, but . . . something went wrong. She has a form of epilepsy that first appeared when she was two. That was what our mother was working on when she was killed. She shifted her focus from genetics, and worked on a cure for Kati. But this was during the Eugenics Wars, and . . . things were competitive, shall we say? Her lab was bombed before a cure was found."

"Have you tried fixing her with your blood?" Anthea asked, as she knelt beside the prone woman. "If it could cure Lucille Harewood, surely it can help Kati."

"No. Not yet. Things were . . . different in the twentieth century. I was, honestly, not aware that I had that ability. It is, by the way, one I suspect only I possess." He glanced over to where their son babbled at his toy. "Until now."

"So you're not all the same."

He shook his head. "No. We have a basic set of like abilities: speed, strength, etcetera. But we also have different skill sets and genetic quirks."

"But none of you can fly, right?" She asked it mostly as a joke.

Khan glanced over, smirked. "That is one ability none of us possess, no."

On the ground, Kati's eyes flickered open. They were dark brown, nearly black, and unfocused. After a moment, that changed. She saw Khan, and gave him a weak smile.

"I thought I heard your voice," she croaked. "Khan."

"Kati." He gave her a wide, genuine grin. "How do you feel?"

She licked her lips, pulled a face, and tried to sit up. When she couldn't, she grimaced. "I had a seizure again, didn't I?"

"You did. But I have found a way to fix that," he told her.

Kati's dark gaze shifted to Anthea. Immediately, the other woman tensed. "Who is she? I do not know her."

"Nor should you," her brother said. "This is Anthea. Thea, I would like you to meet Kati, my sister. Kati, my wife Anthea."

Kati nearly gave herself whiplash, so fast did she wrench around to gape at her brother. "What?!"

"You have missed much." Khan helped her sit, and handed her a water bottle. "Drink this, slowly."

As Kati sipped the water, Khan explained how he'd been awakened and manipulated by Alexander Marcus, how he'd met Anthea. He told her of his second hibernation, and of Anthea's rescue of all of them.

"I owe you, then," Kati said. Her voice was still a little raspy.

"No," Anthea said. "You don't owe me anything. I did it out of love for your brother, and my son."

Kati's gaze went back to Khan. He nodded and took the bottle from her.

"Anthea and I have a son. He's a year old."

His sister frowned. "It is 2260, you said?"

"Yes. And we are on a planet we intend to colonize. You are the first of our people we have woken."

Over in his pen, Nolan yelled for his mother. Anthea excused herself and went to see to him. As she picked up her son, she glanced back at her husband and his sister, watched as Khan helped Kati to her feet. The siblings embraced.

Kati didn't seem angry that her brother had married a "normal" woman. So far, so good. It was, she decided a decent place to start a new life.

Nolan reached up and patted her cheek. Anthea caught his little hand and kissed his palm. He giggled and said, "Mama!"

She kissed his forehead. "C'mon, sweetie. Come and meet your new family."

Then she carried him across the clearing to where her husband waited.

-end-

 

A beautiful end to a very enjoyable story.
And waiting for the sequel of course.

 

Agree; some very beautiful moments of Khan and his sister who meets Anthea for the first time and thanks her.

 

Awww!! A wonderful ending--better for Anthea than I'd thought at the beginning I saw you started posting the sequel. I can't wait to read it and see what awaits!

 

Thanks! I'm too much of a romantic to let things stay bad for her and Khan.

 

I didn't really want to go the cliched "look, a baby!" route, but it didn't feel right to not have Nolan in the story. Glad you enjoyed the 'fic!