A/N: Dear readers, I apologise for the long wait. I had severe difficulties with the ending and decided to edit out quite a few portions because my testers for Loophole felt it was too sad and dark. So here at last is the result. Admittedly it is shorter than what I had originally intended but I reckon it is sufficient. Thank you so much for all of your feedback and patience! It was fun writing this and reading all of your helpful comments! ~ Lindy

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Khan remained affixed to his seat. He stared at the aged Sherlock, wondering what twist of fate had brought them together again in this unexpected plane. A host of conflicting emotions rose within him as he looked down to the court below.

What have you done? He wanted to shout. What have you done to change your time?

"Your full name." The judge's command echoed.

"William Scott Sherlock Holmes."

"What is your occupation, Mr. Holmes?"

"I was Admiral Marcus' chief engineer until a week ago."

"How long have you been under the Admiral's employ?"

"Twenty five years."

"Relate your full job description to us."

"I created warships for the Starfleet Federation. I designated four dreadnought classes. Two hundred standard fleets. Four-hundred and twenty-seven specialised, advanced weaponry products."

"Why did the Admiral task you to concentrate on militarising Starfleet?

An odd light of amusement seemed to flicker in Sherlock's eyes. "That was what he wanted."

"You were captured by one of our auxiliary ships on Kronos within the Klingon territory, an area which we have officially banned our crews from traveling to. The Federation's core principles are to explore and observe. We do not interfere with the fates of other star systems than our own or engage in extrastellar conflicts." Another judge noted. "Your activities and Admiral Marcus' orders appear to defy these mandates."

"Marcus has always disagreed with your regulations." Sherlock answered. "I believe his opinion of direct intervention was an open secret amongst the other Starfleet officials. He believed the Federation's exploration activities would eventually provoke a war with other planets. He wanted the organisation to be prepared for such an event which is why I was hired."

"We are aware of Admiral Marcus' personal stance." The third judge acknowledged. "Yet many of his colleagues have attested that they did not realise he would personally act to bring about a worldwide war."

"Better that the Admiral died a hero than to have lived this long to see himself become the villain."

"Do not stray from the topic, Mr. Holmes." The first judge reprimanded.

"But I am staying relevant, Tribune Li." Sherlock curtly pointed out. "You are here to determine whether or not a four-time decorated officer with a long, respectable history is inherently good or evil. If he made a mistake or if he did this deliberately. If he is the idol you all admired or a monster that hid amongst you. Either way, you all look like idiots for not seeing this sooner."

"Mr. Holmes." Tribune Li's voice rose in warning. "Relegate your answers directly to our questions."

"Go on then."

"Our archival records indicate that you were born on the 19th of July 1976 in London, England. You attended a local grammar school and then to Cambridge, which is now known as Camberford University. Your listed occupation between the years of 2010 to 2048 was 'consultant detective.'

"The legal counsel determined that you are indeed William Scott Sherlock Holmes based on the DNA sample you provided. It was a match to Siger and Violet Holmes' remains, the parents registered on your birth certificate. A sibling match to Mycroft Holmes was also identified for us by the English authorities. Tell the court how this is possible."

Mycroft. Khan deduced at once. It was Mycroft who helped you...us.

"My brother is the reason how I am able to stand before you today in 2259." Sherlock said. "In 2015, he restarted an abandoned project with me as the sole subject. It originally had been jointly commissioned by the United States and the former United Kingdom."

"You are referring to Infinium." The second Tribune identified. "That is correct, it was discontinued in 2014 as you said. A domestic terrorist attack in MI6's intelligence centre destroyed the staff who were in charge of that project."

"Peter Thorne was a smokescreen." Sherlock said, spiking their shock and confusion to another level. "The terrorist was me. I coerced him."

"We do not understand." The third tribune said slowly. "Why would you willingly kill the support staff of a project that you later joined?"

"It wasn't my idea originally." Sherlock regaled as though he were telling a story to a friend over tea. "The person who committed the attack was me...but not myself proper. It was my future-self. He had brought himself back to my time and judged that Infinium was too disastrous. He deemed it dangerous and felt the best course of action was to wipe it out altogether because in his reality, Marcus had used the program to his advantage."

"But you revived it." Tribune Li said.

"I had to."

"Why?"

"I did it to save someone."

"The loss of one hundred and forty-three lives to gain back one is neither a fair nor moral trade." Tribune Li's disapproval was blatant.

"I judged that this one life," Sherlock replied, "prevented a killer from committing even more heinous crimes. I'd say the balance is even."

"Whom did you save?"

"I don't know if I succeeded or not."

"Then whom did you intend to save, Mr. Holmes?"

"Molly." Khan whispered.

"Dr. Margaret Rose Hooper." Sherlock said.

"How is she related to you?"

"She was supposed to be my wife."

"There are no records of a marriage licence or civil partnership between you and this woman. Were you common-law spouses then?"

"No."

"Yet you claim her as your wife when she never held such a title." Tribune Li said before going on a different vein. "How did you use Infinium to help you achieve your goal?"

Only now did Sherlock seem reluctant to speak.

"Mr. Holmes."

"She disappeared in 2014." The weariness of age was now apparent in Sherlock's countenance. "I couldn't find her no matter how hard I tried. I realised she had gone to another plane. There were extraneous circumstances that led me to believe she had been sent to the future. I had to find a way to get to her and Infinium was the path I chose."

"Elaborate."

"The project was intended to create genetically modified and enhanced superbeings. One of the many assets was immediate cellular regeneration. These individuals would be ageless." Sherlock's eyes clouded over with memory. "But because of the Peter Thorne attack, the original scientists who had been commissioned for Infinium had all been killed. It set the project back by forty years. By the time my brother and I had worked out the bioengineering technique, I was seventy-nine. I took the serum to become an Augment so that I would be able to reach the time period where Dr. Hooper had been sent to."

"You did more than that." Tribune Li sharply rebuked.

"I knew about Admiral Marcus. I approached him personally to be hired as his engineer. I volunteered to attack the Starfleet headquarters and lure a Federation ship into Klingon airspace." Sherlock admitted. "I did this because I was trying to replicate the exact conditions in which my future-self had described to me years before. I thought if I kept everything the same, it would enable and maintain his existence into this reality."

"And why was it so important that your future-self still lived?"

"Because Dr. Hooper vanished around the same time as he did. I believed he had taken her. I knew that for her to survive, he had to exist."

At that, Khan clenched his hands into fists.

"Are there others like you?" The second Tribune inquired.

"I am the only one." Sherlock replied.

"But what of your brother? Is he also an Augment like yourself?"

"He chose not to be." His voice wavered ever so slightly. "He died not long after I took the serum."

"All this for the sake of one woman." The third tribune observed. "The lengths you took were extraordinary."

"I had to." The determined simplicity of his answer surprised the council.

"Your efforts, malicious and extensive as they are, were not in vain." Tribune Li said coldly. "We were informed there was a Molly Hooper brought aboard the Enterprise. She is now in the custody of Captain James Kirk."

A brazen smile broke across Sherlock's lined face.

"Along with one other individual, who as I understand, is with us today."

The triumph died on his lips.

Khan watched as Sherlock's eyes went toward him at the gallery. They met each other's gaze with stoicism. Recovering from the initial shock, something like a smirk graced Sherlock's features as he beheld his younger, fitter self. He expectantly glanced to Khan's left and right, as if looking for someone and when he could not find what he was seeking, he seemed disappointed.

"Admiral Marcus' defence will now question Mr. Holmes." The third tribune announced, drawing Sherlock's attention away. "Counsel, step forward..."

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They met again in hospital.

Khan approached the visit in trepidation, unsure if he wanted to know what had unfolded in Sherlock's life now that his past-self had dramatically changed it.

The tribune declared an adjournment for a month before the secondary hearing would commence and relegated Sherlock to a kinder prison that would spare his failing health. Admiral Marcus was sent to the maximum holding facility on the island of Alcatraz to await his sentence.

Instead of chains, Sherlock's restraints were an IV and a monitor regulating the limited beats of his exhausted heart. He sat comfortably in his bed, lounging in a silvery grey robe. The council seemed to have provided him with a few English comforts; a simple tea service had been laid out on a nearby table along with some papers from London.

"...you look like Father." Khan began with an observation, just as he always had, noting the unnerving resemblance.

"Funny." Sherlock said lightly. "I don't think he looked as well as I do at his age."

"Did he and Mother die peacefully?"

"What does it matter?" All mockery vanished from Sherlock's demeanour. "You haven't thought about them in years."

"Mycroft?" The names of his long-forgotten family felt foreign and stiff on Khan's tongue.

"He died. Weren't you listening at court?"

"How?"

"It doesn't matter, he's dead." Anger flashed in Sherlock's eyes. "Everyone I knew is dead. For once, it seems I've got all the answers instead of you. How refreshing."

"John and Mary, what of them? Their daughter?" Khan was insistent. "Did you give them the serum?"

"Is that what you did?" Sherlock asked with a knowing gleam in his eyes. "I wonder how you convinced them. They refused me. John said he wanted to live a normal life. He couldn't...didn't...come with me."

Regret stabbed Khan in the chest at hearing his friend's demise however inevitable it was. All the loved ones and friends he had weighed upon him like a series of stones dragging him down to a dark pit of grief.

"You were here all along." He murmured.

"Almost three centuries, to be exact." Sherlock icily corrected. "You above all people should have seen this coming."

Khan said nothing. He couldn't. He had never imagined that his past self would have waited out all these years, all this time to reach this point. Why had the portal opened for him and Molly but not Sherlock?

"Time is not what you think it is." Sherlock seemed to read his mind and answer his question. "It isn't linear, it's a circular. No matter how many times you diverge from the path to avoid fate, it will always come back for you one way or the other.

"An alternate reality explores a possibility that didn't happen. In your lifetime, you never got the chance to live out your life with Molly and your family. When the time portal opened for you and her in London, it took you to another realm that allowed a different outcome. The two of you, together, and I….I would exist without her."

"You talk as if the universe was course-correcting itself, as if it were an entity with conscious thought and feeling." Khan noted.

"Call it what you will then." Sherlock shrugged. "There are many names for it. Destiny. Fate. Prophecy."

"All I wanted...was to go back and fix my mistake."

"And in the process, you made even more." Sherlock replied with marked bitterness. "You can go backwards and forwards like a chess king but I'm a mere pawn. I can only go forward and whereas you have the ability to take yourself up to the time you left the Enterprise, I had no such power because I am your past."

"But Molly came with me." Khan countered. "She was part of our past like yourself and is here now."

"Because she came with you." Sherlock brutally acknowledged. "She couldn't move forward to the future on her own. Had it not been for you, she would just fallen and died on that street. And it's taken me all these years to finally understand what you were getting at. Everything that you have done was never for Molly's sake. It was for yours alone. We haven't changed one bit, we're still the same selfish person."

"Mine?" Khan's eyes flashed dangerously. "I was trying to save not only her but you—us."

"A likely story." Sherlock replied. "I congratulate you. You succeeded in not only ensuring your existence and getting Molly entirely to yourself. In order to save her, I had to become you. So you could exist. By putting her life in the balance, you left me no alternative."

"I never intended for her to come with me."

"So you say." Sherlock made it clear that he did not believe Khan. "I've always wondered why you, we, were in this mess in the first place. Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side, remember? You wouldn't be so stupid to fall for something like that. Explain why Molly is important to us, Khan, because the answer still eludes me."

"You already solved the puzzle." Khan said. "You just won't accept the solution. Why? Is it too simple?"

"Simple?" Sherlock echoed. "I thought we went for her because she was part of a greater mystery. An integral piece to a game that we couldn't resist to play. One that required us to travel through time and explore the unknown. What better thrill is that?"

"You would have given up on your quest a long time ago had you been logical." Khan's contempt was obvious. "To have come this far, it requires a certain determination that we both know stems from an irrational but human experience. Something that you have always refused to acknowledge."

"Love?" Sherlock scoffed.

"Don't forget." Khan reminded. "Mycroft was right about us. We still suffer from that crippling impulse to always be the knight-errant. This is no different."

"Then why don't we start by casting aside any pretensions of chivalry? Aside from my age, I'm sure you noticed that I'm on borrowed time now. I'm dying. Don't bother with giving me your blood either, it won't save me. I'm too old to take it and certainly too old for Molly. My formula for the serum was imperfect, not as strong as the original."

Khan turned away from him. "You were not supposed to be here."

"What else could I have done? Mycroft said I had a slim chance of finding you here. I had to try anyway. Of course it's rubbish that I couldn't work out the damn formula until I was older."

"You were forty years too late."

"Because of you." Sherlock smilingly blamed. "It was tiring to come all this way."

"You owe me answers."

"As do you." Sherlock gazed at Khan. "Is Molly really with you?"

There was now an air of defeat, desperation, and fury about Sherlock. It manifested in physical actions: the hand clenching the edge of the hospital bed, the intense glint in his eye.

"She is not adjusting well to this era." Khan was unflinchingly honest. "If she sees you as you are, I cannot guarantee that her response will be something you hope for."

"I waited all this time for her. The least you could do is to let me say goodbye whilst I'm still alive. I gave you that mercy too, remember? Wasn't that a mistake."

"I did not take her from you," said Khan. "She jumped after me."

"What a good way to get Molly back to you." Sherlock coolly observed. "You knew she'd react to save you because that's how she is. She rescues people like us even when it's to her detriment. It's a fatal flaw."

"One could say the same about your own actions."

"I prefer the term 'calculated risk.' Self-sacrifice is an art form that I've perfected over the years. Nothing you did could be construed as selfless. You'll be the death her."

"Perhaps." Khan acknowledged. "But we both know that she will be the end of me as well."

"The end of us." Sherlock emphasised the correction. "You once told me I had to accept the consequences of what my life would be like if Molly wasn't part of it." He looked down at his withered hands. "I suppose this makes us even. You get to be with her this time."

"If she will have me."

"Of course she will." Sherlock's old, supreme confidence returned for a moment. "She loves you. She loved me. Why else would she have jumped?"

But Khan would not let the subject pass any further. Instead, he went back to Sherlock's original request. "You realise if she sees you, she may not take it well." He paused to let the words sink in. "It has been hundreds of years for you but only a few weeks for Molly. She has not had the opportunity to adapt."

"Get her to!" Sherlock said harshly. "Do you know what I had to do to get here?"

"We need to give her the best chance she has. I destroyed every normalcy in her life and now she has to start all over again in a new era. Do you really think she can have that by knowing what you've become? She remembers you in her past. She loved you then. But you have no part in her future, you said it yourself."

"But you do." Sherlock coldly observed.

"If she will have me." Khan repeated his last answer.

For a long while, Sherlock could not reply, feeling absurdly as though he had been beaten by his own game. In many ways, he had.

"At least let me look at her." His eyes found Khan's. "Just this once."

A tense silence followed but he was unalarmed nor dejected. Khan gave him a searching look as though to uncover any hidden motives, a master plan perhaps that would involve another loophole but there were no tricks this time. It was time for the curtain call; the magician had no more acts to play out.

His lips thinned as he gave a short nod of acknowledgement.

"Thank you." said Sherlock.

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The last time Sherlock saw Molly, it was at a distance.

It was familiar ground for him, and in some ways, for her too. He saw her from the window in his room, walking with Khan in the hospital's quaint garden. Her hair was loose and flowing freely in the cool breeze. The minimalist cream coloured coat suited her well, he thought. He watched her circle around the trees then tilt her head down to admire the geometric arrangement of tulips and lupines growing in manicured grass.

The entire time, she held Khan's hand.

He knew he should have felt happy. Relief that he had been right after all; Molly had been sent to this future. Instead there was a cruel sense that, contrary to what he believed, he was defeated. For once, he regretted his incessant eye for detail, the very talent that had made him what he was. He knew they were intimate in more ways than one. He could see Khan's hand curve against her shoulder and notice how natural the action was. Her smile was not awkward or shy but calm as though she were used to him touching her.

When Molly turned her neck, Sherlock discerned the mark of a careless kiss that had gone too far. As she walked, so did he, tracing her steps in the garden within his room as far as it would allow. Once, he caught her looking up at him and he drew back, careful not to break this fragile dance of protectful ignorance between them.

A few minutes later, he dared to come back to the glass pane and saw that Molly was now sitting on one of the benches with Khan. To see his younger, future self speak with her was surreal; it was as if he were watching a memory unfold before him in the utmost vivid detail. An old habit returned to him from childhood; a tool he used to use for all those years in primary school when he was frequently left alone with his thoughts and no one else to play with.

"Do you like San Francisco?" Sherlock imagined himself talking with her. "The weather's a tad nicer than home but I could never get used to how dirty it is. The food isn't what I expected either. There isn't a single, decent chippy anywhere."

He saw her smile and pretended it was for him rather than Khan.

"I know. I miss London too."

From the window, he could see her lean back into the bench. Her lips were moving but he could not hear what she was saying. He fancied that somewhere in the spaces of those unsaid words, she had given him her love.

"I am sorry. Forgive me." He apologised to her wordless reply. "I know this wasn't what either of us wanted. Things were so much simpler back then instead of now. I didn't mean to make it this complicated and I know it wasn't your fault either. We were only pawns in this game, you and I."

She ran a hand through her hair, a seemingly nervous gesture.

"I like it long." Sherlock remarked. "You should keep it at that length. It suits you."

She sat a little more still, her head turned towards Khan as if she were listening intently to what he was saying.

"I hope you'll be very happy, Molly Hooper." Sincerity reverberated in Sherlock's voice as he laid a hand against the glass, his fingertips touching where her face was. "You deserve it. After all, not all the men you fall for will turn out to be sociopaths."

He saw her hand reach for Khan's cheek.

"Then again…" The act drew an indulgent, jaded smile from Sherlock. "Maybe it's just your type."

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I'm glad I got to save you.

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"Who was that?" Molly's eyes flitted over to the hospital wing as she sat from the park bench.

Khan inclined his head to where she was referring to but there was nothing there. Only an empty window. "Marcus' engineer. He's been sent here for his poor health."

"Is he okay?"

"I am certain he will recover." Khan lied. He would not break the last accord he had made. This was as far as they would allow her to see him, they had agreed to that.

"He looks lonely." Molly commented.

"I have no doubt that he is." Khan said quietly.

"...so what happens now?" She asked at length. "The trial's taking forever, like you said it would. Does this mean we have to stay here?"

"We could escape."

She looked uneasy at the suggestion. "Be serious about this."

"I was." Khan replied. "We could take a ship and get away to a distant quadrant."

"I can't live like that."

"We would be free."

"No, we would be criminals on the run." Molly was clear on the distinguishment.

"I thought you would be with me on this."

"I can't spend my life dashing from one galaxy to the next. This planet is my home and I want to stay here."

"If you do that, you will need to start from the very beginning. Everything that you knew is obsolete. There is so much you have to learn all over again. But if we went together, into deep space, you would be freed from those constraints."

"So?" Her answer surprised him. "I know it'll be hard, no one said it would be easy. But if that's what I have to do to make a life for myself here, I'll do it. And you need a life here too if you want to stay on Earth."

He frowned. "If you are implying…"

"That you join Starfleet." Molly finished for him.

Khan was displeased. His eyes darkened in anger when he thought over the ludicrous idea. To work for the very organisation that Marcus had been so deeply part of….

"You know better than anybody else what goes wrong with it." She pointed out. "Which is why you would be useful and help it, you know, toe the ethical line?"

Khan scoffed, knowing at once who was responsible. "Kirk talked to you."

"It sounded like a good suggestion when he pitched it." She sounded somewhat abashed as she confessed.

He said nothing. In the back of his mind, he imagined John grinning at him and counseling: "Don't be a twat, take the deal. It's a good one."

"Will you consider it?"

"I doubt the Federation and I would make a good combination. We are diametrically opposed to each other."

"Please." Molly entreated. "Please think about it."

"Not until we are home." He could at least give her that. "I will discuss it with Kirk once we return to London."

"All right." She was gratified for now.

"Will you consider us then?"

She thought about it for a moment. "I don't know if I'm ready to give you what you want just yet."

"I can wait." It was the truth.

"Are you sure? You've waited so long already. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't have the patience anymore."

"And I," he admitted, "am concerned that you cannot love me the way you once did. You are different from when I first found you."

"I am." A sad smile flitted across her face in a soft, perceptible motion before he could detect a ray of hope within that delicate curve. "But I'm willing to give this life another go because if there's one thing I learned from you as Sherlock…." she gently teased. "...it's that you shouldn't ever give up, not even when the game looks as if it's over."

Her hand crossed over to his and lay on his palm, closing the distance between them in one sweep.

"So," he heard her say, "shall we try again?"

And before he could let her say anything else, he closed his fingers over hers and brought them to his lips, gently signifying his happy and whole-hearted consent.

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finis