After so many years it was still hard to remember his many names. Smaug? Sherlock? Khan? What else? Assuming a new identity had always been as easy as breathing. It was a necessity and he never gave it too much thought. Most of the time he had trouble remembering everything, it took him too much effort. But right now, surrounded by glass, there was little else to do. The transparent walls were all around him, but in truth it was his heart that felt as if imprisoned, constricted by something that resembled claws and spikes. He could not see it, but he felt it. His heart ached for him.

The first time he had seen him had been many lives ago. There were perks about remembering who he had been, but there were a lot of bad bits as well. He carried with him the weight of a thousand lives left behind. He could still remember the anger he had felt the very first time he had met Bilbo. Little thief he was, a burglar, stole his most precious stone. His cleverness, though, had taken over Smaug's heart. The hobbit had gone back to his hobbit hole and as Smaug, like many times before, he had died. There were other incarnations after, but they were not worth keeping a record. And then, many years later, he had found him again.

As he was mixing things at St. Bart's lab he saw him entering the room. Army doctor. Psychosomatic limp. That life had been better to him than it had been to John. Still, with perseverance, and trying to get away from Sherlock's personality - his own now - he had healed John. The limp was gone and so was the loneliness. And John had helped him as well. Fighting who he was and the ghosts of all past lives had been a struggle, but John had given him a purpose.

And then he had died again.

For years he had not been able to find John. He understood those things were uncontrollable but his only comfort was to know that, somehow, John would come back.

He did come back. And as suddenly as he appeared, they had taken him away. It was the first time he had been the one left behind, the one to survive. And did it hurt.

As he looked through the glass prison at captain Kirk he knew all that was about to happen. He himself had become a weapon. A weapon that missed his main cog. Still, revenge and pain were sometimes the best munitions. He would revenge John and he would die as well. And, if he was lucky enough, he would find a way back to him.