AN: So I just watched Into Darkness yesterday and loved it - that being said, I found myself wishing that we had been able to learn more about Khan's backstory and explore his deep love for his family/crew. In particular, I wanted to know what would have happened if instead of just removing Khan's crew from the torpedoes the crew of the Enterprise had actually thawed one out to try and reason with him.

This is a look into what might have happened had this occurred, and how the presence of a particular historian might have changed the events of the movie. Enter Marla McGivers, a woman who I would like to explore in the context of the 2009 reboot; the woman who Khan once considered his wife.

I'd love to hear from you - suggestions, potential plot points, anything! Let me know :)

Enjoy and remember: I own nothing about Star Trek, I just play in the sandbox.

~Voi

McCoy muttered under his breath as he waited for the lift down to the weapons bay, cursing his orders even as his body went about obeying them. The mission to deactivate the single torpedo had left him wary of all weapons for the foreseeable future and it would have been all too soon if Bones never had to see another one of those blasted things again.

It figured that the green-blooded robot that passed for first officer on Enterprise would ask he deactivate the remaining seventy-one.

"Pointy-eared bastard."

Muttering all the louder, he punched the button for the weapons bay and exhaled slowly, glaring ineffectually at the screen that illustrated his progress through the ship. Steady hands be damned, his mind was a scattered mess.

"Forward bulkhead ruptured, we need a repair team there stat!"

Stepping onto the 4th deck was like walking through a war zone in and of itself, everywhere cords sparked, metal groaned, and the crew of the Enterprise struggled to make sense of what had once been a state-of-the-art starship.

"What is engineering doing?!" The shouting could barely be heard over the sounds of a dying ship, "We're venting oxygen into space – someone close that hole!"

Survival was the whip that drove the crew, the grim specter of death hanging all too close for anyone to dare give up now.

Teeth set in a deep grimace, McCoy passed by man and machine alike as he made a beeline for the weapons locker, dodging fire and shrapnel before he finally got to the reinforced hold that contained the remaining torpedoes.

Punching the communication panel, the doctor grimaced as the image of his second-in-command appeared; the man's face pale but resolved.

"Ellis, I'm going to need a team to meet me down here in ten with all the emergency kits we can spare."

"Yes sir."

"And don't make me repeat myself!" McCoy was off not a moment later, pulling the heavy levers that released the plate door. It barely budged.

"I'm a doctor, not a damn strong man." Grunting with effort, he threw his shoulder against the widest part of it and pushed until he was sure he was about to burst a blood vessel, "Where are those electronic release keys when you need them?"

He was rewarded for his tenacity a second later when the door finally budged, swung slowly on its hinges to reveal the glittering fuselages of the torpedoes. Untouched by the destruction, it seemed ironic that these tools of warfare were the most 'at peace' beings aboard the ship.

But the time to muse on life's little twists was long gone, and McCoy quickly stepped into the room to prepare. He had lost too much time already, and so the minute his team arrived the mission to recover Khan's people began in earnest.

Time rushed forwards then, a collection of steps in which torpedoes were deactivated; cryo-tubes were pulled free and set up with all the proper medical monitoring equipment.

Each torpedo was a little different, a different face in the tube's icy hold, each one of them a stranger from a different time, a different era of humanity.

Jim had told him about Khan, about his origin in the midst of the Eugenics War; a time of great conflict. McCoy had never been a great student of history, but had heard enough about the Eugenics period to know that the man known as Khan had been a rather strange exception to the rule. A peacekeeper, amidst war mongers. Not, Bones amended, that Khan hadn't been fully capable of mass destruction, but in a land of tyrants he had been one of the better ones.

His frowned as he approached the final torpedo, his mind wandering for a moment to the face of a woman he had not seen since graduating; Rhue McGivers, Starfleet Researcher and avid art historian. She had been the history buff, not him. And it had been she who had regaled him with the colorful narratives of the Eugenics war, of a man named Khan and the kingdom he had ruled over. Who could have guessed their late night delves into the past would prove insightful now?

It made him wonder how she would have dealt with the situation had she been aboard.

Opening the power conduit on the side, McCoy returned to the work at hand, relying on muscle memory as he tapped the release mechanism and eased the power out of the torpedo's side. Not ten minutes later he released the final two catches and watched as the top panel slid smoothly off.

And though he had thought of her not minutes earlier the face that greeted him from beneath the icy surface of the cryo-tube made him stop short, his inhale sharp as the breath caught in this throat. The glint of embroidery on her chest told him what he already knew, Lieutenant Marla 'Rhue' McGivers, friend and colleague was there in one of Khan's tubes.

The only question was why.

Marla 'Rhue' McGivers returned to consciousness with a snap, fear flooding her eyes with tears as she screamed.

"JOHN WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!"

Her hand shot out toward where she had last seen him and grasped nothing but air, hand passing through the phantom shadow of the man she loved. Sobbing, she tried to make sense of her surroundings, floundered in a sea of light and dark before they slowly solidified into more recognizable forms.

Starfleet issue emergency cots, the low ceilings of a security bunker, and there, backlit against a pile of what looked like torpedoes were three Starfleet officers. She inhaled raggedly, tried to inhale with lungs that were tight in panic in fear. Lurching into a sitting position, she groaned as her muscles ached from disuse, rendering her stuck between repose and sitting.

The world swam until she closed her eyes, forced herself to push more air into lungs that may as well have been trying to pull oxygen from the vacuum of space.

"Easy there, Lieutenant."

There was the momentary press of cold metal against her neck, a beep as it dispensed something into her trembling body.

"Just give it a minute and you'll be ok."

A hand, warm and comforting rested on back, pulled a blanket around her before gently clasping her shoulder. Steady, warm the presence was reassuring.

"It's good to see you, McGivers."

She recognized the voice then, had spent enough time talking to him as a friend and student to know his particular twang anywhere.

"Bones?"

"The very same."

She opened her eyes as she turned towards him, pushing her hair out of her eyes with a hand that still shook. Her muscles still ached, but whatever he had given her had eased the worst of it. Steadying herself with the knowledge that she was safe, however momentarily, Rhue smiled.

"It's good to see you."

He responded in kind though he did look a little more worn around the edges.

"Where are we?" She had no idea how long she had been out, had no idea where she was but she was going to find out.

"Security bunker of the Enterprise."

"The Enterprise?" She was familiar with the starship but to be actually on it was a complete break with where she had been when last she had been conscious. Examining her surroundings with a new eye she glanced around. Clearly the ship was under attack, or at least, recently had been. Debris was everywhere and the wounded were clustered together beneath the watchful eye of a medic or two. And there in the corner were the cryo-tubes, carefully lined up and illuminated by spot lights. Rhue felt her throat tighten in recognition; she had been in one of those not so long ago.

"What's the stardate?"

She braced herself for the answer, but when McCoy rattled it off Rhue felt herself slump in relief. Same stardate, she had barely lost any time at all it seemed. But then she remembered John, remembered her last moments of consciousness.

Her hand went to her side and felt for a wound that was now nothing more than a scar.

"McGivers?"

"It's nothing." She shook her head slightly and winced as her head thundered from the movement, "Fill me in. What's going on?"

"Earth was attacked a few days ago by a man," McCoy hesitated, "He called himself John Harrison."

"John?" She looked around, searching, before it dawned on her, "He's the one attacking the ship?"

"Yeah."

McCoy pulled the mobile communication unit closer to where she was seated and she watched the incoming transmission.

"That's him," her eyes widened as she leaned over the screen, lips thinning as she heard the broadcast, "That's John."

Bones grimaced as she touched the display, he didn't want to tell her the truth but it didn't seem right to let her live a fiction when reality was about to slam shut their lives, "He's not who he says he is."

"Then you know he's Khan." She all but whispered the words then turned towards him as a thought occurred to her, "Did Admiral Marcus finally play his hand?"

"How do you know about that?"

She didn't answer so much as smile again, tilting her head towards where Khan's expression had morphed into one of cold resolution, "He looks just like the history books said he would."

And then her smile faded as she stood, forced upright by strength of will.

"Now, just wait a second."

"I can't." She shook her head, "Someone has to tell him to stop. To tell him we're all ok."

"Rhue, he's not a person who can be reasoned with. He's a weapon, a calculating killer."

"He's a man." Rhue replied stubbornly, "And more than that, he's a good man."

She took several steps, weaving uneasily on her feet as she tried to cross to the edge of the bunker. But as the ship took a sharp turn, she stumbled, slammed her shoulder against the doorframe with enough force to wrench a sharp groan from her lips.

"Damn it, McGivers."

McCoy was at her side in an instant, wrapping a protective blanket around her shoulders.

"Someone has to stop him, Bones."

Face set in determination she looked him in the eye before she pushed away from the door, staggered a few more feet to where the emergency lift was waiting.

"Please. Help me save this ship."

The alert system was going crazy, the red lights flashing and adding more noise to a bridge that was already a mess of straining metal and electronic explosions.

Uhura did her best to remain calm, but couldn't quite help the way her hands shook with the adrenaline her body was producing in such copious amounts. Her fight or flight instincts had kicked in hard this time, and it took all her focus to remain calm, to remember her training and try to get ahold of Starfleet Headquarters down on Earth. The Enterprise was in desperate need of backup, and only she was equipped to send for it.

"Spock!"

Dr. McCoy appeared from the turbo lift looking harried but otherwise ok. At his side was a woman Uhura couldn't say she had ever seen before, the face pale beneath a mop of fiery hair. There was a blanket wrapped loosely around her shoulders, but it was the flash of Starfleet insignia on her chest that drew her interest.

She knew her studies enough to identify Starfleet's Archival Studies Department, but what an unknown archivist was doing on Enterprise was baffling to say the least.

"Doctor?"

Spock noted their new addition with interest, though his eyes never left the view screen where the huge battle cruiser loomed overhead.

"We need to talk to Khan." McCoy spoke for them both apparently.

"I assume this has something to do with our guest, doctor?"

The doctor helped the woman towards the center of the bridge, "Yeah, something like that."

"And this woman is someone we can trust?"

Uhura noted that in this the doctor remained tellingly silent, and the woman made no move to defend herself. Indeed the mysterious woman capable of very little as she rocked unsteadily on her feet, gaze had remained firmly fixed on the viewing screen since she had first appeared.

But before Spock had time to dismiss them the Enterprise was hailed. No one had to ask who it was, and Khan's face appeared on the view screen not a moment later, his expression resolute.

"So, do we have an agreement, Commander?"

His voice, bitingly cold with its British lilt, demanded an answer. And though Spock had opened his mouth to speak, the stranger was faster. Deceptively soft, her voice carried over the noise and reached the one man who seemed to hold their fate in his hands.

"John."

She said just the one word. One small word that seemed so entirely inadequate for the situation that it was laughable.

Uhura had no idea what the woman hoped to accomplish by so simple a plea. Indeed, the stranger seemed oblivious to the tension at hand, had no idea of the gravity of the situation. But there was something in the manner of speak that made Uhura pause, something the xenolinguist knew was more than just syntax.

It resonated with the stranger, that small word; like a finely tuned string vibrated at the perfect pitch, those specific words spoken by that specific woman meant more than they seemed.

"Please, John."

"What are you doing there?!"

His attention was on the stranger in an instant. His attention centered exclusively on the woman who stood there pale-faced and trembling.

Khan seemed aghast, and for a moment Uhura was reminded of Admiral Marcus when he had made a similar discovery. But where the admiral had turned from surprise to enraged fury, Khan reacted very differently.

"Have they hurt you?"

There was a quiet rumbling of temper though Uhura couldn't say if it was towards the woman or directed to the crew that surrounded her. And his face, once austere had tightened, expression almost stricken as he continued to watch their guest struggle to remain upright.

"Trust me, John."

They were the last words she spoke before it happened; the unthinkable.

Khan surrendered.