Work Text:
"With your permission, Captain, I will return to my quarters."
Jim Kirk says nothing. He simply stands and watches as the man who refers to himself as Khan leaves the room. Even before this dinner—even before Mr. Spock's suspicions—something about the man left Kirk feeling prickly and off-balance.
There was also the matter of Marla McGivers.
"Lieutenant," he says, moving up to stand beside her. "We need to talk." Again, he thinks, but doesn't say it.
For a moment, the woman—the girl, if he's feeling uncharitable—continues to stare at the door through which Mr. Khan had just departed. Then she turns to Kirk, lifting her chin slightly, a sudden chill in her voice. "I don't see what there is to discuss."
Uh-oh.
He spares a quick look backwards to both Spock and Bones, standing next to each other, both of them giving him their best 'well, don't expect us to help with this one' look. Pressing his lips together, he turns back to McGivers.
"No, I insist." If he was going for a concerned-yet-authoritative tone here, it doesn't quite work—his voice is a snap, and McGivers' face hardens even further. "Come along, please."
Slowly, with the short of dignity befitting a queen rather than a shy young woman, Marla McGivers rises to her feet.
Except—no. After today, he couldn't think of her as shy. After all, there was no shyness—no timidity, or hesitancy—in her; not during the mission, not during his reprimand later. Definitely not when she'd approached the Captain of the starship Enterprise with a proposal to hold a welcome-to-the-future dinner for a man she barely knew. And definitely not when she had shown up a half-hour late for said dinner, arm-in-arm with Khan, with a new hairstyle and a new look of infatuation in her eyes.
He finds them a quiet side corridor, a place with a little more privacy than a crowded dining room. When he looks back over his shoulder, he sees Spock and Bones had followed at a discreet distance, the traitors.
"I think you can guess what this is about," he says to McGivers.
She stands, hands held behind her back. Everything about the girl—the woman—is rigid and on defense: her posture, her expression. "Yes, sir," she says in a voice just as rigid.
He waits for her to continue, but she doesn't. And he gets the distinct uneasy feeling that the outcome of this conversation will depend on his knowledge of Marla McGivers. Unfortunately for him, he barely knows a thing about her.
Oh, he's seen her around the ship—it's hard to forget that hair!—but always at duty and never at leisure… well, at least until today. And while she isn't shy, there'd been a sort of awkward in their interactions; a lack of polish in her social graces, a habit of blurting her thoughts. A loner, perhaps.
While her primary occupation on the ship was a control systems specialist, her secondary occupation—and the reason she'd been chosen to join the expeditions to the SS Botany Bay—is that of a historian. But the way she'd spoken of her secondary profession, there was a definite pride there. And a certain romantic view of the past, something he could understand well himself.
A loner with a preoccupation with the past. What could Captain James T. Kirk offer against one of those bold, adventuresome, colourful men from the 20th century?
And did he even have the right to intervene? After all, she wasn't breaking any regulations or disobeying orders. And still, some gut feeling is telling him that he must try, to make some attempt to communicate with her.
"Do you remember our discussion earlier?"
"I don't see how it's relevant, sir."
"Really, Lieutenant?" He takes a deep breath, then exhales slowly. Easy Jim, don't lose your temper. "Because I think this… attraction you have toward Mr. Khan goes well beyond professional interest."
"Has it?" McGivers says. "I checked, and there's no regulations against romance."
"You checked," Kirk states, noting the brief flicker of panic in her expression. "You checked for regulations against romance. So there is romantic interest."
"I don't see what business it is of yours," she almost snaps. "…sir."
"It becomes my business when the safety and well-being of my ship is affected." He looks directly at her. "That includes the safety and well-being of my crewmen. Lieutenant, we know almost nothing about this man. He remains, as our Mr. Spock would say"—he glances back over his shoulder at the Vulcan, who merely raises an eyebrow at the mention—"unknown."
"He's not unknown to me, Captain," McGivers says, and her expression softens for a moment. Then she suddenly realizes what she's said and averts her gaze.
Oh.
"I see," Kirk says, pressing his lips together and taking a deep breath. "I see. All right, then. Lieutenant, are you—"
McGivers' face tightens once again. "Captain, you sound almost jealous."
"Lieutenant, you are out of line." When she says nothing in response, he looks directly at her. "Answer me—answer truthfully. Do you love him?"
Her answer comes so softly that he doesn't catch it.
"Repeat that. A bit louder, please."
"Would it matter much if I said 'yes', sir?" Though every line of her body was still on defense, there was still the tiniest waver in her voice—and perhaps the tiniest indication that his words might get through to her.
He leans in, places a hand on her arm. "Yes, Lieutenant, it would matter. Now answer the question. Do you love him?"
"Yes, Captain." Her expression softens again, until there's a look of sheer vulnerability that leaves him feeling uneasy. "I love him. Very much."
"Tell me. Why do you love him?"
"I—don't know. I just do."
"It's an honest answer, at least," Kirk says. "Lieutenant, I need you to think. How long have you known this man? Less than a day, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you don't…?" He's even more uneasy now—between McGivers' defensiveness, her inability to articulate her feelings, and the sheer swiftness in which she'd fallen for the man, something is starting to click in his mind. "Lieutenant, is this the first time you've been in love?"
In an instant, she's on the defensive again— she stands up a bit straighter, pulling away from his touch. Every bit of the vulnerability she'd shown a moment ago vanishes. "I don't see what difference it makes."
"It does, Lieutenant—believe me, it does. Now answer the question."
"Yes, sir. It is."
"Thank you." He gives her a quick smile. "I want you to listen to me—listen to the advice I'm about to give you. That's all I ask. That you listen. After that"—he pauses here, to make sure he's still got her attention—"you can decide for yourself whether or not you find it sound. Will you do that?"
It takes her a little while to respond, and Kirk finds himself glad of that—because it means she's thinking, not simply reacting. "I'll listen," she finally says, though her tone makes it clear that she isn't about to consider any advice given by James T. Kirk in high regard.
But she's listening to him, and that gives him a chance.
Once again, Kirk wonders what right he has to intervene. There are no indications that Mr. Khan poses any danger to either Marla McGivers or the Enterprise. No indication that he's doing anything worse than leading her on in an effort to satisfy his libido. And yet…
Mr. Spock would claim there's a certain logic to his actions; that insufficient facts invite danger, and that without more knowledge of Mr. Khan's motives in his seduction of Lieutenant McGivers, there could be danger in it. Kirk prefers to think of it as human intuition.
Whatever it is, it's sending a red alert directly into his brain.
"Love," he begins, pausing a moment to think of the phrasing. "Love is a wonderful thing. But it can overwhelm you— especially the first time you experience it.
"This is a man from a different century. What you want in a relationship might not be the same thing that Mr. Khan wants. I want you to use your own good judgment—and if he does anything, anything at all that doesn't feel right, step back for a bit. If he truly cares for you, he'll make the effort to understand. But if he doesn't, you can walk away from the relationship knowing that it just didn't work out."
Her face remains steely. "Is that all?"
Internally, he sighed; there was no getting through to her. "Yes, Lieutenant. That's all. You're dismissed."
And with that, Lieutenant McGivers turns on her heel and walks away from him. He watches her go, before slowly turning himself to face his two officers and shrugging.
"I tried."
"You tried." Dr. McCoy's voice is dry as a bone. "Did you really have to embarrass her?"
The Captain hadn't given her orders to stay away from Khan. And in the mind of Marla McGivers, that was the same as giving his blessing to continue the relationship. So it's without any compunction that she strides through the corridors of the Enterprise, seeking out the guest quarters in which Khan had been lodged. The door is locked; she hits the call button, and the door slides open a second later.
The moment it does, the moment she sees Khan standing there, an old memory in her mind shifts itself and comes to the surface. Something involving the Eugenics War that the Captain and Dr. McCoy had been talking of earlier, and the research she'd done afterwards, before receiving word of Khan's awakening.
But— never mind.
The old lurching feeling of uneasy awe towards the man reasserts itself as she enters the room. She hesitates for a moment in the doorway, waiting for him to speak. But he doesn't, simply turns away from her until she steps forward and makes the first move. "I wanted to apologize. They had no right to treat you that way."
Once again, the feeling of uneasiness is just a fleeting, ephemeral thing. He turns towards her and gives her a smile. "Quite understandable, as I'm something of a mystery to them."
And something clicks in her mind. Eugenics Wars—dozens of petty dictatorships, but there was one—there'd been one who—
"You're no mystery to me," she says, the words slipping out ahead of her brain before she can realize her mistake. "I know exactly who you are."
"Do you?"
His eyes turn hard and cold. The smile drops from his face.
No… she must've made a mistake. The years were right, the name was right, but still, it couldn't have—
But she continues to smile and nods, and does her best to keep the waver from her voice. "Leif Eriksson, Richard the Lionhearted, Napoleon… I don't know if you're going to like living in our time."
Khan smiles again, but the hardness is still in his eyes, and there's a sudden tenseness in the air and queasiness in her stomach. And he approaches her, hands held out towards her—
"…then I'll have to remold it to my liking."
His hands are on her, and there's a hunger in them, and a hunger in his eyes and the way he's leaning towards her, a sort of hunger and urgency that hadn't been there the first time they'd made love. Something in it makes her uneasy, and when she tries to back away he keeps approaching, so she presses her hands against his chest and says "please don't"—
"Go!"
—and then finds herself staggering backwards, and just barely manages to recover her balance, and it takes a few moments to register that she hadn't just lost her balance, that she'd been pushed, and it'd been Khan who had shoved her—
"—or stay," Khan commands. "But do it because it is what you wish to do."
Stay, she thinks. She wants to stay. Khan, so bold and colourful, magnetic and magnificent—
"Well?"
Khan… so dangerous.
—go, or stay—
"I'll stay a little longer," she says, and feels another little prick of uneasiness.
And the corners of his mouth turn up a little—but it's not a smile, not really, and there's a caustic edge in his voice as he asks "How many minutes do you graciously offer?"
"I," she begins. "I only meant—"
"This grows tiresome. You must now ask to stay."
—no, this isn't right—
—go, or stay—
—THIS ISN'T RIGHT—
"I'd like to stay."
Khan is just standing there, haughty, ignoring her, and she can't bear to have him ignore her, she just can't, she needs him—
—this isn't right, GET OUT—
"…please." Begging—she's begging, and something inside her sinks, because she knows she's gone too far now—
But then the hardness in Khan's eyes vanishes, and he smiles and is sitting at the edge of the bed, holding out his hand to her, offering it to her, and she breathes again, it'll be fine, the nightmare of the last few minutes hadn't just happened. She smiles herself, approaches him, and gives him her hand. His hand is large and warm and strong, and for a moment she feels fine. There's a brief moment when everything in her world is all right, the stars are aligned, and Khan—
And then Khan suddenly twists his fingers so that he has a hold on her wrist, and those strong fingers are digging into the delicate tendons and bones of her wrist. She suddenly feels herself trembling—her whole body trembles as she tries to resist the strength of his hand forcing her to her knees. And she remembers what Dr. McCoy had said to the Captain earlier, about him having the strength to lift them both with a single arm.
But he's not lifting her, he's forcing her to her knees, and when she tries to make an attempt to pull free the fingers just dig even tighter into her wrist and she doesn't dare let any tears of pain come to her eyes, because she doesn't know what he'll do, how he'll react, and she suddenly realizes that she should have gotten out while she could. She should have gotten out.
"Open your heart." And the hardness is back in his eyes and voice and expression, and when she doesn't respond, he shakes her. "Will you open your heart?"
—this isn't right—
"Yes," she whispers, and immediately feels shame at her lack of courage.
"I intend to take this ship," Khan breathes in the same soft, purring tone he'd used as he'd asked her to visit him in Sickbay again. "Do you agree?"
Marla is already shaking her head 'no' before he finishes his question, and she realizes that it wasn't so much a question as an order. "Oh, please don't ask—"
She flinches back as his voice raises in volume. "I need your help."
—say no, this isn't right, you know this isn't right—
"You… won't harm anyone?" are the words she manages, and she feels something sinking inside of her as she realizes that he's asking her to turn against everything she's ever believed in—Starfleet, her duty, the Captain—and that she's about to say yes.
"Now you question me?" Khan shakes her arm, hard, and a sharp stab of pain makes its way up from her wrist, up her arm and all the way to her brain, and she gasps out:
"No!"
"Will you assist me?"
"Please, Khan, please don't ask—"
"Leave me then!"
The green of the carpet rushes up to meet her, and something explodes in her left shoulder as it strikes the floor, and as she lays there and tries to pull air into her lungs she realizes that it'd been Khan, that he'd been the one who'd just thrown her to the floor, because—
—because—
—this isn't right—
—he needed her help to take the ship, he'd thrown her to the floor when she wouldn't help him take the ship, he'd thrown her to the floor—
—the captain, find the captain and warn him, he will help you—
"Go, I say!"
Marla McGivers looks up at Khan for a moment, but doesn't say a word. Instead, slowly, carefully, she rises to her feet and turns toward the door. He doesn't make any attempt to stop her.
For the third time, Marla McGivers looks up at the plate affixed to the wall. Just to ensure that the words engraved on it hadn't changed. But they still read:
CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK
She takes a deep breath. Any movement of her left shoulder is nearly unbearable, but she tries to ignore the pain as she reaches up with her right arm to smooth out the hair she'd tried to put back into an uncomplimentary (but comfortable) fashion. She gives up on trying to straighten out her uniform, but makes sure her sleeves are pulled down to hide the bruises on her right wrist. Khan's grip had been like steel—harder than steel.
She thinks about going back to her own quarters to tidy herself up, fix her clothes and hair and makeup. But instead, she hits the call button. And there's half a second—half a second—where she thinks there'll be no response, that she'll be able to walk away and…
But then the door slides open, there's a voice saying "come," and she doesn't have a choice anymore. Captain Kirk sits behind the desk, back in his usual gold command shirt. There's a coffee cup in one hand, several datatapes scattered over the desk. His eyes widen slightly when he sees her standing in the doorway.
"Lieutenant." He straightens up, looking over her rumpled uniform, the dried tear tracks on her face, the stiffness of her posture. "What happened? What's wrong?"
"Captain—it's Khan. He—he—"
Adrenaline, she tells herself as she starts to shiver. Adrenaline and shock. She tries to take another deep breath, but it catches somewhere in her throat and comes out as a sort of wheezy choking noise. Her body is still reacting to the fear, but her mind has grown oddly detached from it.
"McGivers," the Captain says, and a small thread of startlement creeps through her numbness— she doesn't remember that he'd ever addressed her by her name, or anything other than 'lieutenant.' "Come here."
She takes another step into the room, toward the desk, and lets herself sink down in the chair opposite of him. There's a shift in his expression—something a bit different, a bit harder, but his voice takes on a degree of gentleness she hadn't expected.
"McGivers, it's all right—you're safe now. Whatever happened, you're safe here with me. Has he harmed you? Do you want me to call Nurse Chapel?"
"No, I—" Not Dr. McCoy? she thinks, and then the cold shock of realization floods in—of something that hadn't happened, but could've easily happened, and suddenly the words stumble out of her. "Captain, no, it's not—you mustn't think—Khan, he didn't… force himself on me." She recoils at her own words; Khan didn't even need to be in the room to turn her into a groveling fool. "I swear to you, on my oath as a Starfleet officer, that he didn't…"
She trails off, letting her head drop down.
"But he did do something that frightened you. Badly."
"Yes." The word is a near-inaudible whisper.
Kirk's jaw tightens, but his voice is soft. "Don't be afraid. Tell me what's wrong."
She sits upright in the chair, careful to keep her hands folded in her lap. Then, voice quiet and shaky: "He asked me to help him take the ship."
Kirk exhales sharply, and then reaches to click the intercom on. "Captain to Security. Move Mr. Khan to a maximum security cell and post a twenty-four hour guard, effective immediately. Be cautioned that he has threatened to take over the ship. Kirk out." He clicks the intercom back off, and looks directly at her. "Lieutenant, after your last mission, I tried to impress on you how the safety of this vessel may depend on a single member of the crew."
"I understand," she says, forcing herself to look up at him. "I'll help however I can, Captain."
"Good." He leans over to give her arm a friendly touch, but Marla finds herself involuntarily pulling back; Kirk blinks and withdraws his hand. "For now, just tell me what happened."
"Where do you want me to start, sir?"
"Start… hm, would you say that my previous assessment of your… attraction to him was accurate?"
"It was," she says, putting a particular stress to the past tense. "Sir."
For the first time since she'd entered the room, Kirk seems to relax a bit. "All right then. Let's start a little later on, shall we? After our last, ah… discussion."
"I, I, went to—" she stammers, and then begins to tremble again. "I'm sorry, sir. It's… hard to talk about."
"No, no—there's no need to apologize for that." Kirk's voice is gentle again. "Take as much time as you need, Lieutenant. We're not in any hurry."
She gives herself a few moments to slow her breathing before trying again. "I visited his room. To apologize for how the dinner went. He, he said something about being a mystery and, and for a moment, I thought that, I thought I recognized him. From history. And I, I wasn't thinking, and I said it aloud—that I knew who he was."
She tries not to think about the hardness in Khan's eyes, and fails at that. But then she looks back up at Kirk's hazel ones, takes another slow breath, and continues.
"I'm not sure about this, but he seemed… angry. Or surprised. Or both, I don't know. But I… figured that I must've made a mistake about recognizing him. So I made a silly comment, one about him being Leif Eriksson, Richard the Lionheart, you know—all those 'bold men from the past.'"
Without thinking, she'd begun to lift her arms in order to put air quotes around those last few words. But a sharp twinge in her shoulder and a wave of lightheadedness stops her at the last moment; she forces her hands back down to her lap, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
"More adventuresome," Kirk says. "More colourful."
Men who dare take what they want. "Yes, sir."
She hesitates again.
"McGivers?" Kirk finally says.
"I'm sorry, sir. I got… lost in thought."
"There's no rush. Go on."
"I said—I don't remember exactly how I phrased it, but that he wouldn't like living in the future—I mean, our time. And he said something odd, about remolding it to his liking. Then, then he…" She trails off for a moment and takes a shuddery breath. "He tried to kiss me."
"Lieutenant," Kirk says. "Tell me the truth. Was there any attempt to force you to do anything against your will? Whatever he might have done, it wasn't your fault. Do you understand? You must not blame yourself for his actions."
The warm concern in his voice is almost too much for her, and it takes all of her self-restraint to not break down into tears right there.
"I understand," she says, quietly. "He tried to kiss me. I asked him to stop, and he stopped. But he allowed me to stay."
Her words are chosen carefully, precisely. She doesn't mention the sudden violence in how he'd shoved her away after she'd rejected his kiss. She doesn't mention how she'd willingly begged him to stay. She doesn't mention how he'd taken a hold of her wrist and forced her to her knees.
"He allowed you to stay," Kirk repeats.
"Yes. Then he, he asked me to mutiny, to h-help him take the ship." She takes another slow breath, and braces herself. Of all the things she's not mentioning here, there's one that she has to. "I… didn't tell him no."
She hesitates again, until Kirk speaks.
"Did you agree to help him? Be honest."
"No. I, I told him not to ask me, and he said he needed my help—I asked him if he was going to h-hurt anyone, and he asked—he asked me again if I would help him, but I told him again not to ask me, so, he, Khan, he…" She's trembling even worse now, and a small sob of pain slips its way out of her as her shoulder begins to throb again. "He told me to leave. So I left."
She averts his gaze, painfully aware of just how her story isn't adding up.
"Then you came to warn me."
"I didn't tell him no." Her strength seems to drain and she leans forward to press her forehead against the cool wood of the desk. A few moments later, she feels the touch of Kirk's hand against her hurt shoulder; she hisses her breath and shudders from the pain, and it moves over to her other shoulder, simply resting there. She's not sure exactly how long she lays there, just taking some small comfort in that gentle touch, but she eventually manages to lift her head until her eyes meet a pair of hazel ones. "I should've told him no."
"You came to me afterwards. That's the important thing." He squeezes her shoulder briefly, then releases her to sit back in his chair. "I appreciate your honesty."
Marla says nothing. Kirk slowly lets out his breath.
"A few questions for you, Lieutenant, if you think you're up to it."
"I am, sir."
"You thought you recognized Mr. Khan?"
"I—for a moment, I thought I did. But I must've been mistaken."
"Either you thought you recognized him, or you didn't." Kirk fixes her with a hard look. "Lieutenant McGivers, you told me that profession is historian. What happened destroyed neither your knowledge nor your intelligence. You can't allow it to destroy your confidence."
"Khan Noonien Singh," she says. "From 1992 to 1996, he was dictator of most of Asia and the Middle East—maybe a quarter of Earth, or a bit more. There's only very few surviving records of his overthrow, and nothing of what became of him afterwards. I… couldn't tell you for certain whether or not our visitor is him, though."
"Let us worry about that, Lieutenant." He reaches over to click on the intercom again. "Kirk to Spock. Mr. Spock, our historian has provided a name for you to investigate: Khan Noonien Singh."
"Fascinating," comes the ever-impassive voice from the other end. "I shall look into it, Captain."
"Thank you, Mr. Spock. Let me know when you find out anything. Kirk out." He clicks off the intercom and looks at Marla. "You're smiling."
"I don't mean to make fun, Captain, but I knew he would say 'fascinating.'"
"Our Mr. Spock does have a particular… fascination with that word," he says with a brief flicker of a smile. "One more thing. Give me your hand."
She freezes.
Kirk reaches out. "Your hand. That's an order, Lieutenant."
So slowly, she holds out her right hand—she can't stop it from shaking, or the slight jerks as she has to consciously stop herself from snatching it back toward her torso—she knows that the Captain wouldn't hurt her, but some part of her mind can't help but remember what had happened the last time she'd given someone her hand.
And at the last moment, she realizes that she should've given him her left hand, but it's too late now because Kirk has a hold of it, and although it's such a gentle hold that she could easily pull free of it, she doesn't.
Kirk is silent as he pushes up the sleeve of her uniform to reveal the bruising around her wrist. He is silent as he examines it, carefully probing for further injuries. He is silent as he examines her left shoulder. Then finally, he speaks.
"I think you'd better tell me again what happened."
So she does. About how Khan had shoved her after she'd rejected his kiss. About how she'd still begged him to be allowed to stay. About how he'd taken her wrist and forced her to her knees. About how he'd asked her to mutiny, then thrown her to the floor when she hadn't immediately agreed. About how she'd run away from his room.
Telling it the second time is both easier and harder than the first time. Easier, in that she doesn't have to think of how to phrase things. Harder, in everything else.
At the end of it all, she's just… exhausted.
"Lieutenant," she hears Kirk say, and she becomes aware that at some point he'd rounded the desk to crouch down next to her. "McGivers, I'm giving you an order to stay away from Khan. No contact with him. If he approaches you, you're to use any method you feel is necessary to get away from him and then tell Mr. Spock or myself right away. Do you understand?"
Slowly, she nods.
"Good." He helps her onto her feet. "Let's get you to Sickbay. Dr. McCoy will want to have a look at that shoulder."
Without a word, she leans into his side and allows herself to be led from the room.