AN: This is it! The last chapter! After all this time! Thank you so much to everyone who kudoed or reviewed. If you haven't reviewed yet, you should! This is your last chance, and though I love kudoes, I love reviews more :)

At ten-hundred hours the next day Scotty called the bridge to tell Kirk the engines were ready for sustained warp. All major repairs of the ship were complete. There was nothing left to wait for.

"Uhura, give me shipwide."

"Shipwide, sir."

"Attention all hands," Kirk said, and heard his voice echoing, magnified, throughout the ship. Around the bridge, heads turned to look at him, and he looked at them in turn: Uhura, alert, one hand poised over the comm panel; Sulu, grave and yet, as ever, with quiet humor in his yes; Chekov, restored to full health and bright with it; Spock, wonderfully impassive amid the others, who wore their emotions plain on their faces; Bones, who had come onto the bridge an hour ago on the pretense of delivering a report, and stayed to lean over Kirk's shoulder and offer unwanted advice; Sh'athylnik, watchful and wary; and Khan, wearing Operations red and a commander's two broad stripes—in provisional black rather than the usual silver—and watching Kirk with cool, dark eyes.

"This is your captain," he continued, and the reality of that responsibility settled over him like a weight. He took a deep breath before going on. "We are alone in an uncharted part of the galaxy. We've already made some friends here—" he smiled slightly, thinking of Trance and Rev Bem "—and some enemies. We have no idea of the dangers we are going to face, but one thing is clear. We are all going to have to work together if we want to survive. That's why Commander Sh'athylnik, Commander Singh—who you may know as John Harrison—and I have agreed that this should be one crew. A Starfleet crew."

His eyes went to Sh'athylnik, who nodded slightly in acknowledgment, and to Khan, who made no move at all. They held each others' gaze for a long moment, and looked away at the same time.

"As the only Starfleet vessel assigned to the Delta Quadrant, we'll continue to follow our directive to seek out new worlds and explore space. But our primary goal is clear. Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy-five years to reach the Federation, but I'm not willing to settle for that."

This, he knew, was the most important thing he had to say, both to himself, and his crew: he was not giving up. They were not giving up.

"There's another entity like the Caretaker out there somewhere who has the ability to get us there a lot faster. We'll be looking for her, and we'll be looking for wormholes, spatial rifts, or new technologies to help us. Somewhere along this journey, we'll find a way back." He looked around again at the faces of his crew, his friends. "Mister Chekov, set a course for home."

"Course laid in, sir."

"Mr. Sulu—warp six. Engage."

Through the viewscreen, the pinprick stars blurred into long streamers of light as the darkness leapt forward to meet them.

Some time later, Spock approached the captain's chair, leaned over Kirk's shoulder, and said softly, "Captain, may I speak to you in your ready room?"

Kirk glanced up at his grave face and felt a twinge of unease. "Of course."

When they had settled themselves on opposite sides of Kirk's desk, Spock placed a padd on the glass surface. "Khan's comment that Admiral Marcus gave him a false name to avoid the discovery of his true identity led me to wonder what that identity might be, and why the Admiral was so determined it remain secret," Spock said. "A search through the historical database produced this."

Kirk picked up the padd and began scrolling through the information there. In Spock's precise, efficient style it was all laid out: the genetic experimentation project that would have destroyed all human life on Earth except its own specially bred supermen; the aggressive military expansion, the rise to power; the empire spanning more than quarter of the world's surface. Then the infighting, the downfall, the disappearance. And through it all, Khan's name, again and again. The name of the man he had just allied himself with.

"Oh, God," Kirk breathed. "What have I done?"

AN: What, did you think I wouldn't leave you with one last cliffhanger? Don't worry, I have a sequel or two in mind!