#also the fact that manager is ultimately disposable as anything else inside that facility and can be easily replaced via other identities

[lobpoints]

[bluesakura007]

What She Had to Do - Chapter 7: What Happens Now - Khan Noonien Singh x OC

Summary: It’s the final chapter of What She Had to Do. Zinalya’s crewmates and family receive a pre-recorded goodbye message, and she and the person she loves are finally free to sail off into the sunset. 

Warnings: Ever so slight angst and mentions of alcohol abuse, but it’s mostly fluffy. 

"Captain Kirk, commander Spock." Admiral Fletcher greeted the two newcomers who’d just been beamed down to Sierra-Lambda 3’s front gates, a day onwards from Zinalya’s successfully engineered plan to awaken and aid the escape of Khan.

"Admiral." Replied this captain courteously as he and Fletcher shook hands, the latter then doing the same with the first officer. Both he and his captain were wearing their on-duty Enterprise uniforms, having been contacted early that morning by the admiral about this breakout of the man sentenced to cryosleep those two years ago, along with the vanishing of the seventy-two other Augments who were still currently sleeping in their own tubes.

"I wish I could be talking to you under better circumstances, but this is all we’ve got so I guess we’re gonna have to do the best we can." Said Fletcher, before beginning his explanation of the events which had unfolded the previous day. "I’m told that somebody’s coming to carry out a transfer order of a batch of torpedoes kept here to Starfleet Headquarters, and then the next thing I know a couple of hours later I’ve got a phaser pointed at my head. When I woke up a few hours later, the cryotubes we’ve also been keeping an eye on here since two years ago had gone. Vanished into thin air."

"Every cryotube, sir?" Spock queried, somewhat amazed that such a feat was successfully accomplished. Sierra-Lambda 3 was one of the most secure Earth Starfleet facilities you could think of.

"Yep, every damn one." The older man in front of the pair of officers from the Enterprise replied, nodding his head in confirmation. "Except for one. The one containing the very man you went up against those same two years ago."

"Khan." Said Kirk, his voice dropping a notch or two in both pitch and volume at this name.

"What could one hope to achieve by taking all seventy-two of the other Augments only to leave behind him in particular?" The half Vulcan put forward another question.

"Khan wasn’t left behind, commander. He was woken up and took part in the escape that happened next - he’s the reason behind why some of my men are being treated for broken arms right now."

"Whoever did it knew the facility and managed to get in with that fake transport order, so it’s a foregone conclusion that they must’ve been a Starfleet officer." Jim reasoned, him and Spock both beginning to get a tiny feeling deep down in their guts, although they wasn’t consciously aware of this feeling’s presence yet, that who they were thinking was responsible for this might turn out to be the true perpetrator.

They could, after all, think of only one person off the top of their heads who’d resort to doing this to break out the jet black-haired man from his sentenced slumber. "And they must’ve had advanced combat knowledge and experience to get past all your guards, even with his help."

"You’re right for both, captain. That’s why I’ve called you two down here and why the Enterprise specifically is involved: what do you know personally about a certain security chief by the name of commander Zinalya Hamilton?"

Spock and Kirk both exchanged looks with each other of their newfound knowledge that what they’d been subconsciously suspecting was indeed true.

"We don’t really know her personally as well as Mr. Scott and ensign Chekov do because the three of them have been friends for a while, but after Khan was brought here for his cryosleep sentence she was hit pretty hard by it." The Enterprise leader told him a few seconds later as the three of them entered into the front entrance of the facility alongside each other.

"She held a great deal of affection towards him." Added Spock, remembering the emotion of concern evoked inside his mind whenever he would hear about another of Zin's drunken nights which sometimes involved outings by herself through the city of San Francisco, to later be found by one of the others and talked to. "And she developed a reliance on beverages with a high level of alcohol content in order to assuage the sadness she felt in his absence."

"Yeah. She told me about the stuff she'd been through before she came here." Said Fletcher, the trio coming to a stop off at the side in this entrance, a few scientists and guards walking past them in a more hurried manner compared to yesterday, which was probably because of them having to check that everything else there was fine and to find out whether anything else was taken. "She said she ended up having to depend on what's at the bottom of a glass to get over her troubles even for just a couple of days, and said she used to try and fool herself that maybe he'd just come back on his own and walk in through the door if she waited long enough. Apparently she was thinking about everything that could've been and going over hypotheticals for a while, and said she felt justified enough from that to come and take him and the others." The way he said this last part of his sentence gave off a sense of someone looking down their nose at another person, prompting Spock and Jim to experience another recollection of their worry for her.

"Did commander Hamilton have any assistance from any other individuals outside of Sierra-Lambda 3?" Asked Spock.

"We don’t know - if she did then we’ve got no idea who it was. We think the programmed chip she used to disable our security systems might’ve been given to her by somebody else, but we can’t be sure who specifically or whether that’s even the case to begin with."

"And they got past every in-person security measure?" As he asked this question, Kirk’s eyebrows raised themselves by a few degrees, not quite sure whether or not it’d be morally incorrect for him to be impressed.

Fletcher nodded again. "The guards were armed with higher-powered phasers and the research personnel and doctors had hypos full of anaesthetic powerful enough to drop half a dozen horses at their disposal, and they still got away." His lips tightened slightly in irritation. "One of them, Baxter’s her name, said she tried to take him down with one but she got the commander instead, and some of the others told me they saw him carrying her away afterwards like a damsel in distress. Because she’s not a superman like him, she’ll sleep for a while, around a few days."

With Spock also thinking the same thing, the captain mentally realised that Zinalya must have taken that accidental sedation to stop it from happening to Khan instead: in combat situations she didn’t tend to get caught by the enemy easily, doubled with the fact that she had a big heart and they all knew how much she cared for him. If she had the chance to stop it, she wouldn’t have just let him be captured like that. "So what happens now, sir?" This same captain asked after a silent moment which took up this realisation. "What do you want the Enterprise to do?"

"Well, I’ve sent word out to the rest of Starfleet command and they’re considering going after them." Responded the admiral. "There’s no warp signature around Earth that matches up with the time soon after they beamed out, so they must’ve covered up that signature and ran for the hills, but they’ve decided the Enterprise is the Federation’s best bet for starting the search because of it being the fleet’s most advanced ship and because you and your crew worked with her, so you’ll have the best chance at getting her to come quietly. Especially ensign Chekov and Mr. Scott, being friends of hers like you said."

"What about Khan?"

"They’ve said you can use any means necessary to bring him back here so we can put him back into stasis, as long as he comes back in one piece, and once Miss Hamilton’s brought back to Earth they can hold a tribunal to decide on what her own sentence is gonna be; they think it’ll be something like a few years in prison. But they’ve told me they don’t have to go ahead with beginning the hunt so as to say if you turn it down." Despite this final sentence taking the pair by mild surprise, they continued listening as he explained this further. "Because of that fact that you’re her colleagues, they’re gonna let you guys have the final say: it’s up to you whether the search for her and our good old pal Mr. Singh goes ahead, so you’ve got a couple of days to decide but I don’t suggest taking too long on that."

"He said it’s up to us?" Sulu addressed Kirk and Spock for clarification that what he’d just heart was correct, him and the other senior officers including Carol all standing together as a group in a meeting room onboard this ship of theirs.

"That is correct, Mr. Sulu." The latter confirmed. "The matter of whether the Federation begins the search for commander Hamilton and Khan is ultimately of our own choosing."

"They could be anywhere by now; how the hell are we gonna find them anyway?" Said Bones, adding to the conversation.

"Admiral Fletcher told us that we would have several other ships assisting us, allowing us to cover a wider area outside of Federation space."

"Poor Zinalya." Pavel, from a few feet away next to Scotty, commented in addition. "She felt so lost without him that she was pushed into doing this in the end."

"Aye, he did mean a lot to her. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone else change as drastically as her after Khan was gone." This engineer with him spoke his own mind out loud in agreement with what had just been said. He and the young ensign both often worried for her the most especially, as they were just as grateful for having a friend like her in their lives as she was for their presence in hers. It’s a universal concept that friends always look out for each other no matter what.

"And the look in her eyes when she talked to me about it all one night - it wasn’t just infatuation, what she felt towards him was definitely genuine. Nothing about that look was superficial." Said Carol, remembering this particular night she was referring to. "She must’ve decided that the only way to properly solve her troubles was to go to the root of the problem itself and undo it."

"It makes you think about that length of how much he meant to her for her to go ahead with a plan like this." Said Pavel.

"Captain." Uhura suddenly spoke up, looking at the screen of the computer console off at one side of this meeting room which she was stood near to. "We’ve got an incoming message, from her."

"What, from Zinalya?" Asked Scotty.

"Yes sir."

"Can you pinpoint where it’s coming from?" Queried Kirk, him and the others gathering round as the lieutenant sat down in the seat in front of this console, setting to work at opening the message.

"I can’t, it looks like it was rigged by her at some point yesterday morning to be sent to us at this time; this same message has also just been sent to the address of her parents in Canada."

"It’s gotta be something personal if she’s included her parents in it too." Dr. McCoy vocalised his own current thoughts, before the communications officer opened the message, allowing the video file which was seemingly embedded in it to begin playing.

It appeared to be a pre-recorded message in this video form. Its creator and sender was perched on a bed, presumably the one located in her family's home in Manitoba based on the casual decor and windowsill ornaments behind her. Outside this window, which was on one side of the video frame and located behind her head, several trees and pieces of greenery here and there could be seen, along with a small portion of a light blue-grey sky.

This Zinalya in the pre-rec video quietly sighed for a moment, before she began to speak. "If you're watching this, then it means one of two things: either I did it and I've managed to get Khan out, and we're pretty far away by now, or the worst case scenario I could think of has happened and I'm locked up in a prison cell." She chuckled lightly to herself at this second possibility, most likely in an attempt to add even just a slight atmosphere of humour to a worrying thought.

"But whichever of those two has happened, I guess I owe you an explanation. For a while, as you might know already, I've been struggling a lot with coming to terms with the fact that he's gone, and I have a little beer and vodka problem sometimes because of that." She continued, her now former cremates still watching and not daring to tear their eyes away or to speak yet. "And that's not right, basically. No matter what happened that led to all this, this sentence he'd got... it's not justice." Zin took another brief moment to pause before she launched into her main point. "No one should have to live with having the person who they find out they love taken away from them forever. Him being medically knocked out and kept knocked out indefinitely in the name of a punishment to control him is a half life, if you can even call it life in the first place - it's just death with a pulse. That's all this time without him has been for me, too. A half life." 

She then seemed to be stuck for what exactly to say next, smiling to no one in particular for a couple of seconds as a result. "This whole business of getting my feelings out into words is harder than I thought... but I guess I'm gonna have to carry on and just do my best. I had high hopes, you guys. I felt scared and electrified with him both at the same time, and the way I couldn't stop thinking about him was all I needed to convince me that I had those kinds of feelings for him. I know by the end of the court trial and everything I'd known him for a total of a week, but a couple of times being around him was like I'd known him for years and years. As far as I can remember Khan was the only man I felt that strongly about in my life; I had plans, I can't remember a time when I haven't wanted to ultimately end up getting married someday to guy I love and maybe even have children later. When Khan was suddenly gone and sent to sleep in some science facility hangar by the Federation authorities, it was like those plans had been taken away with him." The already poignant look on her face grew a little bit in intensity.

"I tried getting my head back into the dating game after a while, see if I could find anyone else who could be Mr. Right, but that didn't work. None of them turned my head like he did. So that's when I decided, somewhere around a year ago, to do this. To wake him up again and get him back myself, I mean if the Federation won't let us go to a new home, I guess we're gonna have to go anyway. Worst case scenario as I've said is that I'll end up getting caught and thrown in jail for trying it, and even then it's a case of still having a warm bed and three meals a day. And I will have given it a try and gone down fighting." Another pause momentarily set in. "I digress, though. The main point behind why I'm recording this right now and why I'm going to set it to get sent out after I'm done is because I want to say goodbye - I'm not going to get into the stuff that happened in court and the decisions that were made, I'm just going to tell you guys that I'll miss you. Talking honestly, I don't know when or even if I'll ever see you again, but I love all of you, and I wouldn't have traded the years I've had with you for anything." Another smile appeared on her features. A smile that soon grew to be wider than those belonging to her previous chuckles so as to express her happiness, which seemed somewhat bittersweet at this moment due to this goodbye she had to make to her family and friends. "A new kind of adventure's waiting for me. So long, everyone."

And then the video ended.

For the next moment or two that followed, the crew still remained silent, and so did her brothers Enaar and Rajen Hamilton and their parents Mason Hamilton and Siazru Tebal, who had all just additionally watched this pre-recorded video message in the places where they were located on Earth.

"It seems that commander Hamilton chose to take any means necessary in her own goal." Spock was the first to break this silence in the meeting room.

"Well, I’m happy for her." Scotty then added, nodding his head and feeling relieved that he had visual closure to back up what had happened being his best friend’s choice that she alone made. Although he was sad that she was now gone, a small smile made an appearance on his face. "I know the way she did it might be a bit illegal, but I’m glad that lassie’s managed to ride away into the sunset with Khan. It means she gets to be happy again - truly happy."

"And by ‘a bit illegal’ you actually mean very illegal?" The helmsman asked jokingly.

"You get what I mean, Mr. Sulu." Chuckled the Scotsman in reply.

"I’m happy for her too; we still did our best and it still helped for at least a while, but there was only so much we could do to help her cope with what she was going through." Said Chekov. "In the end, undoing the fact which was causing that was the only way she could go back to fully feeling like herself, if that makes sense."

"Yeah, I get that." Bones said in response to the Russian with a nod of his own head. "I know I’m don’t normally take part in sappy crap, but I guess you’re right: her gettin’ Khan back and running away with him was the only way to get the old Zin back too. The old Zin who had that... I don’t know, some kind of twinkle in her eyes like every day was some kind of new adventure. Or else God only knows how long she’d still be going over not being able to see him or talk to him again."

"What should we do, sir? Should we go after them?" Uhura, turning around in the chair she was still sitting in, queried.

For a few seconds, their captain still didn’t speak. The inside of his mind was a battleground with all the thoughts, options and arguments in this matter at hand crashing around within their walls. He had a duty to Starfleet and to the Federation, to make sure that Khan, a convicted criminal, served the rest of his indefinite cryostasis sentence as ordered by his court tribunal those fateful two years prior and to also ensure that his now former security chief answered for her own crime of awakening and aiding the escape of said convicted criminal.

However, another duty that he simultaneously had along with this one was to her as one of his trusted crewmembers and companions. He didn’t want to trample on her freedoms and happiness or that possibility that she could be able to help Khan with becoming a better man in their exile together, as she’d said during the above-mentioned court case when asking for this ultimately declined exile. Admiral Fletcher had told him and Spock that whether the Federation fleet began searching for the couple was up to them. Jim looked around at the remaining members of his senior crew, ending with his gaze landing on Carol.

"No." His answer came. "If nobody has any objections, we’re going to not go out looking for them or send any other ships from the fleet to do the same. We’re just going to leave them alone and let them go."

"So that Miss Hamilton can be given a chance to amplify good traits within Khan." Spock, who seemed to have been thinking along the same lines, added. "Spoken like a true romantic." Nyota remarked, this being with a small edge of a lighthearted joke but with the soft, loving look deep within her eyes conveying one simple fact: she was glad that he’d managed to grasp the emotional side of the situation.

"I do, however, also agree with the point made by Dr. McCoy, ensign Chekov and Mr. Scott. This could be her only chance for reclaiming the joy she lost after he was sentenced."

"Even if we do end up probably not seeing her again, she’ll be alright - she’s a fighter." The CMO, deciding for now to not once again voice his opinion on his ongoing discomfort at the first officer’s concurrence with him, said.

"You’re right. I’m sure the two of them will be able to count on each other if they do face some form of threat in the future." Carol expressed her own agreement with this latest statement.

Realising the fact that all of these others around him were speaking the truth of the matter, Jim nodded, and slowly began to smile. "They’re gonna be alright."

"Do you think she’s going to be safe with him?" Mason Hamilton asked, he and his Trill wife still pondering on the possibility of them perhaps never seeing their daughter again due to her technically now being a fugitive.

"Of course she will. She chose this, and you and I both know she’s a smart woman, so she wouldn’t have made that decision if she hadn’t weighed everything up." Siazru replied reassuringly while sitting next to him on their living room sofa and putting her hand on his shoulder in the same manner.

"You are right there. You’re always right." He chuckled fondly, before looking out in front of him, staring into space while still maintaining his attention on his surroundings at the same time. "And I'd be a liar if I said I didn't still love her with every decision she makes." Siazru nodded, agreeing with this point of his.

"Can I ask you something...?" Meanwhile, the now twenty-seven lady of the moment put forward this question quietly in the darkness of the quarters onboard Iadras' ship that she and Khan were using until their arrival at Ceti Alpha V another two days on from then. She'd been told to just rest in bed until this arrival, in order to recover her energy back from the efforts of this Trill captain's medical officers to counteract the sedative from yesterday - anaesthetic intended for use on Augments and the physical enhancement of theirs that allowed them to be more resistant to sedation.

"Hm?" This baritone-voiced man laying with her in this bed responded. The lights were turned off due to it being late at night and the pair deciding as a result that they should get some sleep, so it took a few minutes but they were currently able to faintly make out each other's outlines in this darkness of the room.

"When you were in cryo, did you dream?"

"Are you referring to the most recent occasion, or to the previous instance which lasted over centuries?" Khan made his own query for further clarification.

"Either."

He thought for a moment or two. "I'm not entirely certain. Most of what you might call my dreams were no more than fleeting images and sounds, and even then it's impossible for me to fully recall every one of them."

"So it was like how people dream during normal sleeping? How people get a kind of feeling of déjà vu when they're trying to remember one but they can't actually remember anything?" Said Zinalya.

"I suppose it is. From what I can remember of my dreaming whilst I was in stasis on both occasions, the images I saw were mainly memories from my life, some of those experiences being good ones and some being less so, and I believe I have vague memories of seeing the sky in my dreams, as well." He gave his answer to the main question which had brought this conversation into being. "Both times after awakening again it was like my physical body and one half of my mind were saying it was only moments since I went into sleep, with the other half knowing that it had been a much longer time. But I think we should try to begin with the average method that applies to everyone."

"Yeah - agreed." She admitted to the current tiredness she was experiencing. "Goodnight, Khan."

He smiled in soundless bliss. "Goodnight, Zinalya."

The hybrid with the green eyes, burgundy hair and Trill spots dotted sparsely on the sides of her forehead and neck found herself returning this same expression as, with her having no objections to it, Khan once again gently pulled her closer towards his chest with his arms around the back of her shoulders.