Chapter Text
Scotty had just not been able to get it out of his mind. He had watched Khan sedated and put back in the Cryo-tube to sleep for eternity, and he felt safer, he felt relieved... but all he could think about was the knowledge of what had happened to him. He had been beaten, been sedated, been put to sleep thinking that his family was dead. Obliterated in that explosion. Dead, forever. Spock had made him think this, but in reality had removed his crew from the Torpedos before activation.
However, none of this mattered really, because Khan still thought it was true.
To go to sleep forever with such pain... Could frozen people dream? Could those frozen people dream...and would he dream his crew was dead, for all eternity? For all eternity, while his crew slept peacefully on.
Scotty had been there to watch the rage that had broken over him on the Bridge of the Vengeance, had watched as he pressed his grip ever tighter on the Admiral's head until it had collapsed. He had tried not to watch. And although he's sure that in as much as anyone could deserve to have their head crushed, that Admiral had...
He could never understand such violence. It wasn't a part of him, like it was a part of Jim or even Spock. Scotty would break, and he would stand defiant at some times, but he could not become angry enough, even from pain, to be so violent towards another life.
For him, it would be the pain that would overcome him.
And so Scotty had watched. He had looked over Khan even after the doctors had returned him to the Cryo-tube, and he had wondered.
Jim was currently being revived with Khan's blood...perhaps not all was lost. Perhaps knowing that his crew was alive, could be enough. Perhaps the future could be saved, wondered Scotty.
Perhaps.
And being an engineer, Scotty had the means to find out. At the worst, his head would be crushed and Khan would be sedated once more. But at the best... if he could succeed...
He had thought, in that one fleeting moment that they had been introduced, that he had liked Khan. Scotty liked most people, of course, and he was the type of person who mostly got along well with everybody, but this had been different. He had felt almost a sort of connection to this strange man, but when Jim had told him to stun him, Scotty had listened, because he trusted Jim, and he loved him.
But now he wonders if he shouldn't have. If they could have suffered less losses, if Khan might have been persuaded after exacting his revenge, to join forces with them.
There had been something odd about him, for sure. He had asked Uhura, after the state Spock had come back in, how they had ever managed to capture him at all— what he had been told...
"We didn't. He surrendered."
And that action, having surrendered at the instant he realised his crew was still alive... He's not sure, but he believes there are some few things that can be trusted, and an action like that is one of them.
Being an engineer, Scotty had the means... if only he could find the method.
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How Scotty had been able to sneak Khan's Cryo-tube into the containment cell without being seen was truly a mystery to him. He supposes it must have been plain luck, and he had jumped at every littlest of sounds.
But he had gotten there. And now that he was sealed in with this potential lunatic, it was only a matter of returning him to life... to the awakened.
Scotty's fingers tremble on the touchpad, and he feels certain he must be quite insane himself.
Was he really willing to get his head crushed in for the sake of a merely potential ally, and a fleeting potential at that?
And was that what he really believed?
Or was it simply that deep down Scotty felt, that the actions that had been taken were wrong, that to deceive Khan even unto his eternal sleep that every remaining member of his race was dead, murdered, gone...
Scotty feels certain, he will never understand himself.
Only the Enter key remaining, and then it would all be too late.
He could still take it back.
He could still decide not to do this.
He could...
But he can't, for a reason he doesn't understand.
With a deep but very tremulous breath, he shuts his eyes and presses his finger to the Enter key.
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The cold capsule which contains Khan Noonien Singh hisses as it opens, and the being inside gasps a deep breath as Scotty quickly backs away.
Khan sits up on the instant he awakens, still collecting himself but also taking stock of his surroundings as he does, half-expecting the Admiral to be there, threatening his friends, his family, with unspeakable tortures should he not comply to whatever the Admiral's whims.
Then he remembers.
All his friends are already dead.
All of his friends are already dead, because a Vulcan never lies.
'Spock~'
The word escapes his mouth in a hiss, a hiss so unknowably threatening, promising agony with every broken note.
Scotty's beginning to think that he really was crazy. Backed up against the far corner of the cell, he has so far managed to escape the notice of Khan, but that can't possibly last much longer. He tries to make no sound at all, but he has to breathe, and his breath comes out in a squeak.
Khan's head whips towards the sound, and there he finds a thin, dark-haired human pressed up against the back wall.
What was a human doing in this cell with him? Was he a technician, perhaps? A scientist? A lackey? He seems familiar, but Khan isn't worried about placing him right now. What he wants to know is if the human can get him out of the cell and closer to Spock.
He stands, and walks a couple paces towards the corner the human stands in. This terrified, familiar human...
'Open it,' he hisses, animosity dripping from his tone.
The human swallows.
'I... I can't. I locked us in here. Only someone on the outside could open it.'
Khan frowns, recomputing the human's words.
"I locked us in here."
'Why?' he hisses this time, his fingers twitching in impatience of the coming vengeance.
'I... I just... thought that you should know...' the human stammers.
'You can tell me nothing that I care about, unless you can tell me where Spock is.'
'I'm not sure exactly. On the bridge or with Jim, probably... but I'm glad that you mentioned him, actually...'
Khan advances a step, in all honesty quite tempted to just kill this terrified human and put it out of its misery.
'Silence...'
Scotty falters.
'There must be a way for you to get us out of here, human... if you do it, I'll let you live.'
'There's not,' Scotty says flatly. 'I made sure of it before coming in, trust me. And nobody's going to find us for a good while, so if you're planning to crush my head in like you did the Admiral's, you'd best just get it over with— but there's something you might want to know, first...'
'I doubt it.'
'Your crew didn't die in that explosion. Commander Spock had all the Cryo-tubes removed from the Torpedos before activation.'
Khan freezes.
'Liar.'
He says it with such venom that Scotty tries to take another step back, but of course he fails.
'I'm not lying. We wouldn't willingly blow up 72 defenceless souls. Nobody on this ship would do that.'
Khan slowly melts into a corrosive laugh— bitter, and angry, and stoutly unbelieving.
'You are naïve, little human. Every one of you will grow up to be capable of that.'
'Look, I only stunned you on that Bridge because Jim said to, and I'm sorry about that. I trusted his mistrust, and maybe I shouldn't have, maybe then things would be different, but I only woke you up because I thought you deserved to know that your crew was still alive, just in case...' he pauses.
'Just in case you could dream about it.'
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