The Power of Caring

by ElenaCee

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."

― Leo Buscaglia

Prologue

"I am very sorry."

Dr. Fowler sounded and looked sincere, but Cathérine was too distraught for demonstrations of sympathy. "You said -..." She paused to gather herself. "You said that you had a cure. You were absolutely sure it would work."

"I know. I don't understand why it didn't. All the other patients -"

"Well, good for your other patients, Doctor, but all I care about is that my husband is dead, despite this miracle serum that you made us pay a fortune for, I might add. Experimental, you said. Which, of course, means that the next thing you're going to tell me is that insurance won't cover this." Her voice grew harder with every word.

Fowler bit his lip. He could obviously feel that this was going to get ugly, and he was damned right. "Mrs. Dufour, I really have no explanation -"

Again, Cathérine did not let him finish. Due to this man's promises, her hopes had been high for the longest time despite the dire state of her husband, but now Bertrand was dead and her family as good as bankrupt. As far as she was concerned, all that was down to Dr. Fowler. She was not without connections, and there was no way that this matter would not get aired in public. "Tell that to your lawyers, Doctor. We'll be seeing each other in court. And I promise you that fraud will be the least of your charges."

She swept out, leaving Fowler to sit back in his chair, burying his fists in his short, grey hair.

For a long time, the doctor did not move. Finally, he dropped his hands with a groan and paged his receptionist. "Clevon, get me Agent Miller."

Chapter 1

"God, how I hate this. Let me count the ways."

Jim grinned behind the hand he was using to support his head, elbow resting on the armrest of his captain's chair. His own thoughts, right this moment, had been along the lines of 'this is the greatest thing that ever happened to me'.

Leonard McCoy, of course, did not share Jim's sentiment. The surgeon's voice was positively sepulchral. "Loathe it, I should say. 'Hate' isn't strong enough. My entire being rebels against it. Look at that. Just look at it."

Jim knew without turning his head what Bones was grousing about. They had dropped out of warp to gather sensory data in this uncharted sector, and the bridge viewscreen in front of them was replete with space. Stars, nebulae, endless vastness. The beauty and thrill of the unknown.

"I mean, really look at it, and then look at us. We're in a tiny, tiny tin can, a bubble of warmth and life surrounded by certain death in the shape of sudden decompression and shock freezing. This is the definition of an unstable condition. It can only end in a catastrophe. What are the odds of us actually coming back from this after exposing ourselves to it for five years?"

"I would calculate the odds at approximately 73.8 %, Doctor," Spock said from behind Jim's other shoulder, unfailingly picking up his cue.

There was a pause. Jim could imagine the glare Bones was giving his favorite foil. "I think, in your calculations, you conveniently disregarded the fact that space is not uninhabited, and that there will be things that will deliberately try to kill us, Spock. The odds are zero. Zero point zero. Besides, I'm convinced you pulled that figure out of your ass."

"I see no reason to do that, given the fact that statistical calculation will reliably yield those figures while my digestive tract, even if different from and more efficient than yours, has yet to produce anything that might prove remotely useful."

Jim stifled his chortle in his hand. Uhura, who had been listening and coordinating sensor reports with that multitasking ability of hers that the whole bridge crew secretly envied, gave an affectionate chuckle. Chekov and Sulu exchanged a glance and turned back to their instruments, shaking their heads almost in sync.

"Well, I'll be damned," Bones said, and Jim could hear the grin in his voice. "Spock just made a joke."

"A mere statement of fact, Doctor."

This is nice, Jim thought as the bickering continued behind him. He had his best friends, his ship, and he was on his way towards the unknown. It doesn't get any better than this.

It was almost enough to make him forget the recurring dreams that reminded him that a part of him was not enjoying this. Part of him was still hung up on the events of over a year ago; the death of his mentor and paternal friend, his own brush with death, and a lingering ghost of the maniac that had caused all this. He sighed, glad that he was still facing the screen and that nobody could see the smile on his face dissolve.

"What do you mean, it's not effective?" Agent Miller, or M, as he liked to be called by those that shared his passion for vintage cinema, sat down on his upholstered pleather chair. "That's not possible. The serum has literally raised the dead and cured terminal diseases in multiple cases. Its efficacy is not in doubt."

"Well, maybe it has degraded, or something," the voice on the other end of the connection argued. "I've just lost a patient who had received a double dose. I might as well not have bothered. He died, in the exact way he would have died with no intervention at all."

"That's not possible," Miller repeated himself. "You must have done something wrong, during storage, maybe."

"Oh, it's my fault, is it?" Dr. Fowler was sounding increasingly peeved. "I acted entirely as per your own instructions. There was nothing more complicated to it than injecting it into the patient's blood stream, which I did immediately on receiving the serum. No waiting around, no subjecting it to potentially harmful storage conditions, nothing. It simply didn't work."

"That's not -"

"Don't say it. Tell you what, I've got one more patient due to receive your miracle cure, so there'll be one more chance for it to prove that it's worth all that money. But it had damned well better work. I don't have to tell you that my patient's relatives went to great financial lengths to get at that serum. I'll probably have a lawsuit on my hands as it is, and I'll be happy to share the load."

The line went dead.

Miller sighed. That was the third such report he had received during the last 24 hours - too many by now to be an accident or an error. Something was definitely wrong with the serum.

With his connections, he was not afraid of lawsuits, but losing money over this was out of the question. He opened another line, this one secured and encrypted. "Santana."

An interminable number of seconds passed. "Yes, M?" The voice was accompanied by the characteristic sound of static of a deep space connection.

"Another complaint. Please tell me that you have enough frozen samples left to at least satisfy my existing customers."

There was a pause. "Well..." Another pause. "We've looked into the problem. It seems that the healing factor in the serum - what we have identified as such so far, that is - isn't there anymore, in any of the samples. Including those that were in deep-freeze storage."

Miller bit back a curse. This was exactly what he had been afraid of. "Then there is degradation. Dammit. Who knows how many useless samples of the serum are still out there now, waiting to bite us in the ass?" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "We've got to call everything back, and we need serum from fresh blood as replacement. Lots of it. Immediately." He sighed. "We have no choice. We've got to defrost the subject."

The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. "We still have no idea what exactly he's capable of," Santana finally said. In his defense, he did not sound scared - merely practical. Then again, Miller had known the man for longer than this current project existed, and he knew very well that Santana did not scare easily.

Miller smiled. It wasn't a pleasant smile. "Then you'll have to do everything in your power to prevent us from finding out, don't you?" He thought for a moment, and his smile grew even more ugly. "You might start by killing all the other Augments, before his eyes, preferably while he's incapable of doing anything about it. We know that his fellow freaks are his raison d'être, as it were. Kill them, and he'll have nothing left to fight for."

"That'll leave us with just one Augment to get our material from," Santana objected, "but I see your point. He's the best source, anyway, so we might as well do away with the rest of them. They're a needless security risk."

"Exactly." Miller composed his face into an expression appropriate for the situation at hand. "You are authorized to terminate the cryogenic state of Khan Noonien Singh, and to take every measure necessary to ensure that he will not escape while you dispose of the other Augments. Also, don't worry about his safety. Your priority is harvesting the maximum amount of blood from him. He's technically not human. Neither is he a member of any race affiliated with the United Federation of Planets. Even better - he's been created artificially, so he has less rights even than an animal. In other words, you can do your worst, and no court in the known universe will convict you."

The medical scanner whirred next to Jim's right ear. "Hmm." The whirring transferred to his left ear. "Hm. Hmmm."

"Cut that out, will you?" Jim grumbled. "I keep thinking that I'm going to keel over dead any second when you do that."

McCoy lowered the scanner and looked at him, familiar scowl firmly in place. "You won't keel over, exactly, but your blood pressure's a little high. Glycogen a little low."

"Bones…"

More whirring. "ATP a little low, too."

"In English, please, Bones. If you have to make that thing make that noise."

"I'm saying that you're exhausted, Jim."

"No, I'm not. I'm perfectly fine." If all else fails, bluff like hell.

The scowl deepened. "Yes, you are, and no, you're not." McCoy raised the scanner. "This thing is capable of measuring all known biological markers for all sorts of medical conditions, and I'm measuring a significant number of markers present in an exhausted organism right now, so don't try to bullshit me, James Tiberius Kirk. Something's bugging you. If I had to guess, I'd say you're not sleeping."

Now it was Jim's turn to scowl. "I am sleeping."

McCoy's face told him that his friend wasn't buying it.

"Well… most nights," he amended, knowing it was no use. "You caught me after a bad one, that's all."

McCoy held Jim's gaze for a moment, then gestured towards his office. "I'm a doctor, not a psychologist, but I am a good listener."

"Doubt it," Jim grinned, but he did lead the way. God knew this had been going on long enough as it was and nothing had really helped; maybe talking about it would.

They settled down in McCoy's office, and Jim allowed himself a groan as he did so. "It's really nothing, but it's been popping up for a while every now and again, so..."

Bones gestured in a get-on-with-it-I-haven't-got-all-day way.

"It's that Khan business from a year ago." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "Not the dying-and-coming-back part, though that does figure occasionally. Bones, this is gonna sound really strange, but I can't get that guy out of my mind. I mean, I hate him. What he did... and how he did it... He's a homicidal maniac, no doubt about it. And still... He talked to me about having a conscience, doing anything for his crew. I can relate to that part of it. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you guys."

McCoy looked away, clearly remembering Jim's temporary death. "I know."

Jim smiled briefly in apology for the reminder. He found he was grateful for the ear after all. Bones had been right - it did help to talk about it. "We know that Marcus used him, blackmailed him. I've been thinking about what that must have been like for him, how bad it was, really. Just threats? Just holding the lives of his crew over his head? You know what Khan did to Marcus in the end, but I was there. I saw how... savage he was, how full of hate. I can't believe that he would have crushed that man's skull like that just because Marcus talked tough and threatened him and his crew. By that time, he knew his crew was still alive, after all. Bones, can you imagine what it must take to make a man like Khan do your bidding? I sure can't, but I don't think it was just... threats. Or even promises of a new empire, or whatever. Not with this amount of hate."

A nod. Bones was still with him.

"And that's where my subconscious decided to take over production duties of my dreams. It happens maybe once or twice a week. I dream I'm Khan, and I'm Section 31's captive. Don't ask me how come. I'm usually quite happy dreaming about my own life. Maybe it's a side effect of having his blood in me, who knows? Anyway, I dream the most scary, horrifying scenarios you can imagine, and I wake up - and I remember it all, every detail, and I haven't yet dreamed about a single thing happening to him where I go, nah, that can't happen. I mean, he's basically unkillable. A little bit of his blood brought me back from the dead. It would certainly bring him back, too. So, whoever put their mind to it would have, like, an unending arsenal of things to do to him to make him... pliable, and he'd heal it all, and then they could start over. And Marcus didn't exactly strike me as someone who balked at the unthinkable."

He paused. "I know it's just dreams. Maybe it didn't happen like that. And make no mistake, none of this means that I forgive him for what he did to Pike, and to all those other innocent people. The guy's still a mass murderer, and I don't think he could be trusted not to revert to his old despotic ways if he were let loose. It's in his genes, after all. But if any of the stuff I'm dreaming about is something even remotely like what really happened to him, then I can at least understand his rage. 'Cause I'd've been really pissed, too."

Running out of words, Jim briskly rubbed his hands over his face.

McCoy continued to look at him for a moment longer, then he reached underneath his desk and pulled out a bottle and two glasses. "Strictly for medicinal purposes," he muttered, fooling nobody.

Jim took his glass and rolled it between the palms of his hands before downing the contents in one go.

"So," McCoy began, "this started - when? A year ago?"

"Little later than that, but yeah. Essentially."

"So why are we only talking about this now?"

Jim shrugged. "I didn't think it was important enough to talk about. I mean, everybody dreams, right? And in our line of work, everybody dreams about strange things. So I dream about getting tortured. No big deal." He frowned. "You don't think this is something to worry about, do you? He couldn't be influencing me, or anything, right? He's on ice."

"Last we heard, yeah," McCoy said, giving them both a re-fill. "Indefinitely. Until his cryotube fails, I suppose."

Jim smiled unhappily. "Yeah." A death sentence, even if nobody had the guts to say so. He downed his second shot. "Thanks, Bones. That helped, and I don't just mean the booze. But you know how it is. Duty calls."

He walked out, swagger somewhat restored, McCoy's thoughtful gaze following him all the way to the door.

Personal log, Dr. Santana reporting.

I have revived subject BB01 as per instructions. The thawing process was performed according to the procedure appended in log annex C, and though the subject clearly experienced some distress, especially at the time when higher brain functions were restored, there were no lasting adverse effects that our sensors could detect.

I decided that the subject was not to be kept under the influence of any sedatives or narcotics, so as not to impair the quality of blood harvested from him. This necessitated elaborate restraining methods. The subject was clearly distressed when he discovered his current situation and vigorously attempted to escape, which helped with fine-tuning our restraining methods. I am pleased to report that this part of the procedure was terminated without incident.

As soon as I was satisfied BB01 was secure, the subject was subsequently forced to witness the deaths of his fellow Augments (as ordered by Agent Miller, see appended file). The executions were timed to take place every Earth hour for 72 hours. The subject's continuous struggles to escape his confines resulted in a series of injuries, some of which were quite severe and took more than an hour to heal.

N.B.: The psychological outcome perfectly conformed to expectations, in that the subject's will appears to be thoroughly broken, which should make subsequent blood harvests as well as the general handling of the subject easier going forward.

While the subject was still healing, I initiated the first blood harvest. During that time, I made a fascinating discovery. The healing properties of the subject's blood are increased if the subject is experiencing injury during the time of harvest. This effect persists after the blood has been extracted from the subject's body. At the same time, the rate of blood reproduction is increased, no doubt in order to effect healing and to compensate for the blood loss. After double-checking this effect and finding it reproducible and stable, I decided to keep Subject BB01 in a permanent state of injury during harvest, so as to extract particularly efficacious blood at an increased rate.

Since subject BB01 has perviously survived injuries that would have killed normal humans (see appended Files BB01-001 through 034), the parameters that normally define 'grievous bodily harm' were adjusted to account for his augmented biology. I determined that the rate of blood harvest under these circumstances is in excess of 5 liters per day, which should more than satisfy current demand. The subject is rendered significantly weakened due to the blood extraction as a welcome side effect.

The strain on the subject's physical resources caused by constant healing necessitate near-permanent supply of nutrients, which I have however decided to forego for the time being in order to deplete the subject's strength further and render him harmless in an effort to protect myself from any accidents.

Unfortunately, the degradation effect reported by Agent Miller has been confirmed in the newly harvested blood. Indications are that Augment blood is not stable beyond a time period of roughly 30 earth days, after which it loses its healing properties. This necessitates a permanent fresh blood supply.

I will keep a close log of the subject's physical condition and of relevant blood parameters in order to ensure that a continued good-quality blood supply can be guaranteed. Extrapolating from current data, I think that I can keep the status quo indefinitely, or for several years at least.

Jim had decided to put in a few hours in the gym, on the general assumption that this was what the doctor kept ordering anyway and might also help with his current problem. He'd always had three ways of coping - beat something up, have sex, or get drunk. Since sex and booze were out of the question, beating something up it was.

He spent a while thrashing the metaphorical stuffing out of a variety of punching balls. A sparring session with Spock would have been more efficient, but the Vulcan was currently minding the bridge in the captain's absence, and besides, Jim doubted his ego could take the strain at the moment.

He did feel better when he finally decided to call it quits, sweaty and grinning, the exhaustion Bones had diagnosed before a distant memory.

He was just exiting the gym, when he caught sight of Carol Marcus in gym gear, headed in the opposite direction.

"Hi Dr. Marcus," he hailed her. "Going to work off some steam?"

"Captain." She smiled. "I am, yes. At least I hope so."

Something in her tone caught his attention. "Everything all right?" No, he wasn't being nosy. He was being a responsible captain.

"Sure." She smiled again, but now that Jim was looking for it, he could see that her expression seemed just a little bit strained. He also noticed her rubbing a hand along her thigh, the one Khan had broken over a year ago. It might have been coincidence, or no more than an unconscious gesture. After all, she'd had extensive physical rehab - it had been a bad break -, and though the injury had healed with no lasting effects as far as he knew, it could simply still be bothering her.

But taking shots in the dark was something Jim Kirk excelled in. "Hey. How about we meet up sometime, maybe after our next watch? I could use an ear about something."

"'Use an ear'?" she repeated, her accent making the words sound very charming. "Is that a euphemism?"

Jim grinned. "Probably, on some planet we haven't charted yet. But I'm being completely non-euphemistic. Hard to believe, I know, but I really just want to talk."

She nodded. "In that case, I accept. Actually, there's something I could use an ear about as well. Non-euphemistically."

"It's a date, doctor. Euphemistically."

It took two more days, or six shifts, until they finally found a mutually convenient time. They met in the ship's rec room, either one's quarters being a little too euphemistic for them both, and settled in a quiet corner out of the way, each nursing a regulation-compliant drink.

"Well," Jim began.

"Captain -" Carol said at the same time.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. You go first."

She hesitated. "This is going to sound strange, but... You're actually the only person I can talk to about this. Everyone else on this ship either wasn't there, or is too... set in their ways of thinking."

"That's quite a prologue," Jim commented wryly.

"It's quite a topic," Carol said. One of her hands was under the table, and Jim could see that she was using it to rub at her thigh. "I believe you remember what happened last year. Khan."

Bingo, Jim thought to himself. "How could I ever forget?"

She smiled ruefully. "I know. Well, I haven't either, obviously." She took a breath, visibly making herself go on. "As you know, I have ties into Section 31, and I've been using them to keep track of him, just to make sure that he doesn't... that he won't come after me. And before you ask, yes, I know how that sounds. I've had all the required psych evals and post trauma counseling, so don't start."

He spread his hands. "Furthest thing from my mind."

"Frankly, I wouldn't blame you if you did. It was traumatizing. I don't think I'll ever truly be over it. Anyway, I wouldn't bother you with this if I hadn't heard something strange from my contacts lately." She leaned forward. "Captain, I believe that they've woken him up."

Jim stared at her. "Section 31? But he was sentenced -"

"I know. It's completely irregular. My contact couldn't tell me who was behind it, but they're certain that Khan is awake and being kept in an off-world high security facility operated by Section 31. Access for two persons only. One of them is a Dr. Santana, apparently. Iago Santana. Once I had a name, I was able to find a file, but it's obviously been sanitized. All it says is that he's a medical doctor in the service of Starfleet, trained on Earth, squeaky clean record." She leaned forward. "Captain, he's awake. That means that, sooner or later, he's going to escape."

"Or," Jim said slowly, "it means that Section 31 has him secure. They probably have all the other Augments, too, so they can use that against him like before. And they've been able to study him for a year - two, by now; they should know what he can do. If anyone knows how to hold him secure, it's them." A thought struck. "They may have gotten hold of my mission report, how his blood brought me back, and now they're..."

Using him. Again. Despite everything that Khan had done, that thought didn't sit well with Jim. It struck a little too close to the dreams he'd been having.

"Experimenting on him," Carol finished the sentence. "Doing something to him, in any case. My contact says that money is involved. A lot of money. The logical conclusion is that they're selling his blood. After all, it can literally bring back the dead. It's the most precious substance in the universe."

Neither of them said a word as they let the implications sink in.

"This isn't right," Carol finally said.

"I agree. He's a monster, but this... It's not even about science, it's about money."

"Captain... What are we going to do?"

Jim finished his drink. "Nothing we can do right now, not from this far away. But please, keep me posted. If you hear from your contacts again, let me know."

"Yes, Captain." She, too, finished her drink. "Oh! I'm sorry. There was something you wanted to talk about, wasn't there?"

He smiled. "Turns out it was the same thing."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. He's been on my mind as well. You didn't see him on Kronos, but... Putting aside everything else, I can't help but wonder what an enormous asset he would be if he could be..."

"... Tamed?"

"No. I don't think he can be tamed. But convinced to throw in his lot with us? Who knows. It worked before, for a little while." Until I ordered Scotty to backstab him. "In any case, he's a one man army. I'd never have to worry about a landing party ever again if he were on it."

"He's brilliant," Carol added, eyes shining. "The designs he did for my father were simply beautiful. Elegant, efficient and quite deadly."

And that's a good summary of the man himself, Jim surprised himself thinking. Woah there, Jimbo, let's not forget that the guy is a former tyrant and war criminal who thinks everyone who's not augmented is inferior and must be eradicated. He couldn't ever be trusted not to have his own agenda. He'll never be a member of your crew. Can you even imagine him taking orders from you?

"It's a pity he's a homicidal maniac with a superiority complex," Carol echoed his thoughts, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself.

"Absolutely," Jim said quickly.

They avoided each other's eyes.

"Well," Jim finally said. "I'll be hearing from you."

The lab was mostly silent.

In this particular lab, silence was a good thing, Santana mused. Only the muted hum of electronic equipment was audible. No sounds of things crashing, rending, being smashed into walls, no screams of people being brutally murdered could be heard.

Those sounds, however, were what a small part of Santana's mind kept expecting to hear each morning when he left the elevator that deposited him in the lab level, no matter how elaborate the restraining methods on BB01 might be. He had seen the lab data. BB01 remained outside of the scope of experience of Section 31. Having been exposed to the subject's peculiarities for more than 24 months now made no difference. Whoever had designed BB01 had truly created a fighting machine that was as close to invincible as a flesh-and-blood organism could possibly be, and Santana vividly regretted that he would never be able to meet the geneticist of a long gone age that had designed the Augment.

No matter what he did to the subject, BB01 did not die. At least not permanently. A few times, Santana had overdone it a bit, and the computer in charge of monitoring the Augment's vital signs had indicated that life had ceased. Each time, BB01 opened his eyes and breathed again not ten minutes later. Santana was inclined to believe that the subject had withstood all these events with all faculties intact (he hadn't been able to verify this due to BB01 not having spoken a word since the other subjects were killed before his eyes), since brain activity had resumed unchanged both times.

For three solid weeks now, BB01 had barely moved, his increasingly emaciated frame beginning to resemble a dead body. His eyes remained half-open and unfocussed in his sunken face, not tracking anything, which added to the effect. To top it off, the subject only marginally responded to stimuli anymore. All in all, Santana was convinced that his tactics had worked and BB01 had ceased to be a danger, which was why the security cameras had not been active in days. It made him feel less self-conscious about his methods.

"Let's see what I can do to you today," he said as he approached the bare metal medical bed BB01 was bolted to. "Time for another harvest, and variety is the spice of life. There's got to be a bone in your body I haven't broken yet, though I doubt it."

A spike in the subject's adrenaline reading was Santana's only warning. Next thing he knew, BB01's eyes snapped open, ice blue and aware, and then his right arm was free, the fastenings around it ripped clean out of the bed, bolts and all. And there was the noise Santana been afraid of. It was his last conscious thought before bloody fingers closed around his neck, fast as a snake, and ripped.