Chapter Text
He doesn’t see her before he almost trips over her; whether she ran into him or him into her he doesn’t know, he was not paying close enough attention. For a moment he thinks she’s a child escaping her guardians, until he takes in the Starfleet uniform and the bands on her sleeves. No child, then, but a Starfleet commander, and when she looks up at him he sees both maturity and laughter on her face. “Sorry about that,” she says, extending a hand. “I don’t know if I didn’t see you or you didn’t see me, but either way, I do apologize. Jill Calastinova, I belong to Starfleet, and you are?”
He hesitates only a moment before shaking her hand, mildly surprised at her firm grip. “John Harrison,” he says. “I suppose I do too.” True in more ways than he wants to admit, even if the name feels false on his lips.
“Are you in London on shore leave, stationed here, business trip?” Jill asks. “You sound like a local, but that never means anything these days.”
“I work here,” Khan says, mildly wondering why he’s engaging in conversation like this with someone he doesn’t know, but to be rude might awaken suspicion and anyway, he doubts anyone is watching him at the moment. “And you?”
“Shore leave,” Jill says. “Kind of. I’m the XO on the Marshall, we just got back and I’ve got a couple weeks of downtime owed me, but I also had some meetings to attend at HQ in London, so I decided to combine two birds and spend a few days here after I’m done with business.” She grins, bright and quick, and Khan almost smiles back before he thinks better of it. “Care to show a girl around?”
“That’s rather impulsive,” Khan says rather than answer her.
“So am I,” Jill says. “But there’s method to my madness. You’re Starfleet, which means you’ve got a basic level of decent intelligence and other qualities I appreciate, and it’s unlikely--not impossible, of course, but unlikely that you’ll turn out to be a psychotic serial killer and want to dispose of my body somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean or the Channel. You’re physically attractive, and I can totally be shallow like that. I’ve only been to London a couple times before and I wouldn’t mind exploring more of it, and as I said this means nothing these days but you do sound like a local so it’s possible you know more about the city than I do. Also, I like to think I’m a decent judge of people and you look like you could use a friend. So. Care to show me around? I’ll throw in dinner and a pint or two if it’ll sweeten the deal.”
If he were actually John Harrison, Khan thinks, her reasoning would be fairly impeccable. The serial killer comment amuses him more than it possibly should, and he has to admit that she is attractive. And she hasn’t mentioned something on her list of reasons that most people would have, if they were being honest. “Tell me something, then,” he says, considering it. “You didn’t mention these.” He shifts his wings, just a little, just enough to indicate what he’s talking about.
“They’re beautiful,” Jill says simply. “But they’re not on the list of reasons I find you interesting. Well, no, that’s not entirely true. They are, but they’re not a deciding factor. Beauty comes in all forms in this galaxy. I will admit I’ve never met a winged humanoid before, though.”
“Neither have I,” Khan says. “For the record, I am human, not just humanoid.”
Jill’s eyebrows go up briefly. “Interesting,” she says. “Tell me about it over dinner?”
He shouldn’t. She might end up under observation by Marcus or his people, which she probably doesn’t deserve. He can’t be honest with her about almost anything, and Khan has never enjoyed lying. But the idea of going back to his empty flat for another empty evening suddenly seems almost unbearable. “All right,” he says. “What kind of cuisine do you want?”
“I’ll eat anything,” Jill says, easily falling into step with him as they head down the sidewalk. “Although the spicier the better, especially if it comes with a cold beer or two.”
Khan does smile at that; they might not be so incompatible after all, and he does know a fair number of restaurants in the area. He has to eat, after all, and cooking for one can only be so interesting before he gets bored with it. “There is a place I know a couple Tube stops from here,” he says. “Do you like curry?”
“Love it,” Jill says without hesitation.
Over dinner, which involves spicy curry, plenty of naan, and a couple beers for them both--Khan learns more about Jill, and what he learns intrigues him. She was a gymnast, which doesn’t surprise him; she moves with the grace of someone who’s had years of training. Since the Academy, though, she says she’s turned her tumbling skills into unarmed combat skills, and rarely does pure gymnastics these days. She wouldn’t stand a chance against him, of course, but he remembers her handshake, and he can see defined muscles in her arms and legs where the uniform reveals them. Petite, but not fragile.
She speaks Russian, which makes him think of Ekaterina, and Spanish, which makes him think of Anandi; he thinks both of them would like her, if they ever met. Certainly the fact that she’s half-Russian would go over well with Cat. Khan hides the flash of melancholy behind a sip of beer and promises himself he will get them to safety, no matter the cost.
“What are your plans the rest of the week?” he asks her, distracting himself from thoughts of his family.
“I don’t have any, really,” Jill says. “I mean, there’s the standard tourist things and all, but mostly what I figured I’d do was wander the city and see what looked interesting. London’s relatively civilized, I don’t think I need to worry about human traffickers scooping me up.” She grins and tucks a stray curl back behind her ear. “Care to join me?”
“I have to work,” Khan says. “This has been...” He stops, because he has enjoyed himself with her, even with her not knowing anything about him. But it shouldn’t happen again, and he finds himself caught between the truth and a polite lie to keep her from seeking out his company further.
“I know Starfleet,” Jill says. “They work you hard but they do allow you to have some free time. And I’m pretty sure you’ve enjoyed talking to me, if all your questions mean anything. I’m not asking you to call in sick and play hooky with me--yet--but we could do dinner tomorrow, or I could meet you for a lunch break, or something.”
Khan looks down briefly. “That is probably not a good idea, Jill,” he says. “There...” He stops, because he wants to warn her off without giving anything away. “I am not a safe person for you to know.”
“I like danger,” she says, smiling. “Fuck safe--which is true in multiple senses, really, because I’m not completely crazy. Are you going to kill me, John?”
“No,” Khan says honestly. “Not right now.”
“Would you kill me in future?” Jill asks, seeming surprisingly unbothered by it.
“And if I said yes?” Khan asks.
“I’d want to know why,” Jill says. “I’d want to know what I could do that would make you kill me, what danger you think I might pose to you. Because telling me you’re not safe, that’s warning me off, that’s not protecting yourself from me.”
“It is still true,” Khan says.
“And I don’t care,” Jill says simply. “Dinner tomorrow? I’ll find a place, you pay?”
“You really won’t leave me alone until I agree, will you,” Khan says and for one sharp moment he misses Rani so much it physically hurts.
Jill laughs. “I really won’t.”
This might, potentially, work to his advantage, Khan thinks. He is supposed to be acclimating, and he knows enough about Starfleet and its unspoken biases to know that Jill probably gets overlooked or dismissed a lot. If Marcus were to find out he’d started spending time with her, he might just think Khan was taking advantage of some pretty young thing and even welcome it. It’s dangerous, and it might backfire, but Khan has never been afraid of rolling the dice. “All right,” he says. “I will call you to find out where we are meeting. 1900 hours?”
“Beautiful,” Jill says, smiling.
She insists on paying for dinner and although Khan’s background would normally make him protest, he decides to pick his battles and lets her sign the credit slip. Then they head back out into the city and he smiles involuntarily when she yanks the band out of her hair and lets it tumble down, curling wildly over her shoulders and down her back. Before Khan can stop himself or really even realizes what he’s doing, he brushes a lock back from her cheek, her hair soft under his fingers.
“Most women I know these days keep their hair shorter, or straighter,” he comments.
“Keeping it straight is a pain, and I have reasons I keep it long,” Jill says, and her voice goes just a little flat and a little off, somehow. It sends off warning bells in Khan’s head and he finds himself wanting to know what happened to her, but it isn’t a night to ask. “Walk with me? It’s too early to go back to the hotel, and it’s a warm night out.”
“Where are we walking?” Khan asks, finding himself amused at how quickly she moves, even when she doesn’t seem to have a destination in mind.
“Haven’t a clue, what do you know around here that’s interesting?” Jill asks, giving him a quick grin.
“Not much,” Khan admits. “I do not have much spare time to go exploring.”
“You have to have a couple places you go to unwind,” Jill says. “Everyone does.”
He ends up taking her to one of the parks he visits sometimes, to the hill he uses on the rare occasions he goes flying. As they walk up the hill his wings shift and stretch as if in anticipation, but he folds them back. Not tonight.
To his surprise, Jill just sits down in the grass, folding her legs and looking up at the sky. “I could never decide if it was more magical to know what was out there and point and say ‘I went there’ or to just imagine all of it,” she says. “I wanted to get into space, so badly, just to find out what was out there, just to see.”
Khan folds himself down next to her. “What have you seen?” he asks.
“A lot of things I never expected to, a lot of things I thought maybe I’d find,” Jill says. “I’m not meant to be tied down to one place, I like to be on the go, see what’s out there, visit new places and go back to see older friends.”
“It can get dangerous out there,” Khan comments, tone carefully neutral, wondering how she’ll react.
“Yeah.” Jill pushes her hair back behind her shoulders. “Yeah, it can.” She’s quiet for a moment, then she grins. “But I like danger, so mostly it works out for me.”
“Mostly?” Khan asks.
“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” she says. “Are we going to trade war stories?”
“Not tonight,” Khan says and Jill smiles a little.
“That’s about what I figured.”
They sit quietly, looking up at the sky, and Khan finds himself mildly surprised by how comfortable it feels to just sit with her, stargazing. When she finally sighs and pushes to her feet, he does the same. “I need to get back to my hotel,” she says reluctantly. “And you probably should get back to your flat.”
“Let me see you back to your hotel,” Khan says without thinking about it. He honestly doesn’t know what dating customs are in this day and age, but if she thinks him old-fashioned it’s only the truth.
“I can protect myself,” Jill says, but she smiles. “But if you insist. You can hail us a cab, they never see me.”
“I do insist,” Khan says, touching her shoulder briefly. They walk back down to the street and he hails them a cab easily enough. Jill gives the driver the address of her hotel, and they head back. To his surprise, Jill reaches over and takes his hand, her fingers warm against his.
“I had a good time tonight,” she says. “Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure,” Khan says, meaning it more than he should. Jill smiles and squeezes his hand, but doesn’t let go, and Khan doesn’t make her until they get to the hotel. He pays over Jill’s protest and they get out, facing each other on the sidewalk.
“Tomorrow,” she says, stepping a little closer to him.
“Apparently, yes,” Khan says.
Jill smiles and stretches up on tiptoe, reaching up for him and tugging his head down to meet hers. Her lips are warm on his, soft, and before he knows it he moves to hold her, lifting her easily to make the height difference less awkward. She laughs against his mouth and bites his lower lip, and one kiss bleeds into the next, becoming more heated than Khan intended until she finally pulls back, lips swollen, face flushed. “Unless you’re coming upstairs with me right now we need to stop,” she says, a little husky. “And I don’t think you are.”
“I think that would not be a good idea,” Khan says, carefully--and a bit reluctantly--setting her down.
“For tonight, anyway,” Jill says, taking a deep breath. “I’ll see you tomorrow, John.”
“Yes,” he says. “Good night, Jill.”
“Night.” She blows him a kiss and turns, hurrying into the hotel. Khan watches her get inside safely before heading down the sidewalk; it isn’t so far back to his flat that he minds the walk, and he could use the chance to settle his mind.
He’s not settled by the time he gets back to his flat, and ends up making himself a cup of tea--how British he’s become--and standing in his small kitchen, thinking about her. He has no idea if he can trust her, knows it would be dangerous for her to trust him, and yet something in him thinks maybe she’s not a plant of Marcus, maybe she really is who she says she is.
He probably shouldn’t be seeing her again but he doesn’t really care; he is so, so tired of being alone, exhausted from it. He’s never been alone before like this, not without his family, even just one or two of them. He misses his sisters, his brothers, more than he can express, more than he ever thought possible.
Khan sets the tea cup down and breathes out slowly. He doesn’t have to tell her the truth. She’s only in town for a few days, after which she might get shipped out to who knows where, and he might never see her again. The thought sparks a pang of disappointment within him and he closes his eyes, trying to figure out why he’s responded to her so quickly and so strongly. Is it just because he doesn’t want to be alone? Is it just because she’s the first person he’s met since being awakened in this time that hasn’t wanted anything from him other than his company?
He has to admit that’s part of it, certainly a big part, but it’s also not all of it. She reminds him of his sisters, but more, she reminds him of Rani. He’d known from the instant he’d laid eyes on Rani that she would be his. He doesn’t have that same sense of inevitability where Jill is concerned, but there is a connection between them that shouldn’t exist and yet Khan wants it to.
Tomorrow, he promises himself, he’ll look up her record, find out what she’s done, where she’s been. He’ll continue to build Marcus his torpedoes and he’ll be John Harrison and after he’s done with work for the day he’ll meet Jill for dinner, and from there he doesn’t know. Not knowing intrigues him more than it bothers him, which might not be the right order, but he can live with that.
Although he isn’t that tired he undresses for bed and washes up in the bathroom, settling into bed with a physical book, a mystery novel set in the 1920s. He has a shelf of books in his flat, one of the few indulgences he’s permitted himself since becoming revived. Starfleet pays him, of course, but they also pay the rent on his flat--Khan’s fairly certain that’s in exchange for them bugging it. Not that it matters, no one else has ever been to it, not even Marcus, and Khan intends to keep it that way.
He doesn’t want Jill here. This isn’t his space; it’s where he currently lives, but it is not his home, it isn’t a space in which he feels particularly comfortable. Hopefully she will understand that, if things progress to that point--which they shouldn’t, but Khan has a feeling ‘shouldn’t’ has never mattered much to Jill.
To be fair, it has never mattered much to him, either.
He eventually falls asleep, finding solace in unconsciousness, and his dreams involve smooth skin and curly hair and laughter. For the first time in months, he wakes smiling.
~~~~~
At work, he takes advantage of people going to lunch to do a bit of hacking. Not that looking up personnel files is anything suspicious; everyone does it. But Khan would rather not be observed looking up this file, and he has developed the skills to erase his trail once he is done.
He wends his way through Starfleet files and pulls up the personnel file of Jill Drendara Calastinova, current rank commander, current assignment USS Marshall. The basic stats don’t matter much to him; he knows her height, can guess her weight well enough, and she’s both well past the age of consent and still decades younger than he is. He does find out she actually went to the Olympics at sixteen and took home three medals, which he finds impressive but also not surprising, and she started Starfleet Academy at eighteen. Graduated with full honors, top two percent of her class, which again he finds unsurprising but pleasing. He knew she was intelligent, but he likes seeing that she knows it, too.
Her record has a few commendations and a couple reprimands; curious about the latter, he reads more there, seeing one occasion where she went back for a crew member expressly against orders--while both she and the crew member survived, it wasn’t without injury, and she was reprimanded for it. The other occasion...this one gets interesting, because officially it’s a reprimand but there are statements from her captain and another admiral arguing on her behalf. Khan frowns, reading the details, and comes to the conclusion that she either values her life very little or she values everyone else’s lives much more highly than her own. Possibly both.
He does remember her complete lack of worry over whether he was going to kill her or not, though, and frowns again. If she cares nothing for her own life, she might be more dangerous than he is; lack of self-regard could lead her to do almost anything. He has a hard time believing that’s actually the situation, though, and wonders exactly what is.
She missed the battle of Vulcan--probably a good thing, since she might not have survived otherwise--and became a commander and the Marshall’s XO three years ago. Two of the commendations on her file date after that promotion, with a note he sees on one that it was almost posthumously given and relief that she survived. Khan’s eyebrows go up when he sees that and he decides he really does need to find out how much Jill values her own life, and what she might or might not do because of it.
He erases all tracks of his computer search and goes back to designing torpedoes just big enough to hold a cryotube, but his concentration is scattered for the rest of the day and he gets very little done. This earns him a couple curious looks from the other officers, but he ignores them, as he usually does, and they don’t ask questions.
As he’s leaving the archive, he calls Jill. “Where are we meeting?” he asks when she answers.
“Do you like Andorian cuisine?” she asks. “Have you ever had it before? They tend to mix sweet and spicy, but you don’t always know what you’re getting.”
“I have not, but that sounds interesting,” Khan says.
“Beautiful.” She gives him a Tube stop and a direction and tells him she’ll meet him outside the Tube station when he gets there. They hang up and Khan heads for the nearest Tube station, not quite smiling.
It takes him a moment to spot Jill when he gets off the stairs, but then he sees her and realizes she’s pulled her hair into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. She smiles when she sees him, though, and waves for him to come over. “You’re much easier to spot than I am,” she says, brushing a hand over the edge of his wing.
“What did you do to your hair?” Khan asks rather than say hello, because even on a second date, or whatever this is, that just looks wrong.
Jill sighs. “I had meetings all day long and had to look professional.” She yanks out the band, sending pins scattering around them, and shakes her head until her hair bounces. “And it was beginning to give me a headache. Now I look twelve but at least I feel more like me.”
“You look more like you,” Khan says, brushing a lock back behind her ear. “And you do not look twelve.”
“I will wager you whatever you like that at some point tonight someone asks you if you’re out with your daughter, niece, or other young family member,” Jill says, taking his hand without asking and heading down the sidewalk. “Even in my uniform.”
“Are people really so unobservant?” Khan asks, allowing her to keep hold of his hand.
“Yes,” Jill says.
The restaurant turns out to be about three blocks from the Tube stop, on the small side and brightly colored. There already seems to be a wait, but Jill makes her way to the hostess stand, ignoring the looks both of them are getting from the crowd--Khan assumes it’s a combination of his wings and her height. “Reservation for Harrison,” she says and Khan blinks in surprise. Jill smiles and looks up at him. “No one can ever spell my last name so I borrowed yours,” she explains.
“Smart of you,” Khan says.
“I can be,” she says as the hostess gathers menus and shows them back to a table. Despite the crowded restaurant, they have plenty of room and the chairs manage not to stifle Khan’s wings. “So how did your day go? I don’t want to talk about mine.”
“Why not?” Khan asks.
“The point of not talking about it is not talking about it,” Jill says, giving him a mock-glare.
“What was so terrible about it?” Khan persists.
Jill sighs and leans back in her chair. “I hate meetings. I really hate eight hours of meetings where I’m playing politics on my captain’s behalf because I’m better at it than he is but half the people in the room think I’m just brainless because I’m female and short. Moving on, please?”
Khan reaches over, touching her hand. “I apologize,” he says. “My day was...fairly ordinary, I suppose.”
“Can you talk about what you do or is it classified?” Jill asks.
“Classified,” Khan says, almost apologetically. “How did you know?”
“I don’t even know your actual rank,” Jill says. “You know mine, I’m guessing, but I don’t know your rank, and you didn’t tell me anything about your current assignment when you told me you worked for Starfleet, other than you’re based in London. Most people will at least say their department or their ship or whatever, unless they work for intelligence or other classified projects and just can’t talk about it.”
“Your uniform gives your rank away,” Khan points out.
“Yours doesn’t,” Jill says.
“Technically I am an agent, not an officer,” Khan says. “It is different.”
They get interrupted by the waiter coming over to take their drink orders. Since Khan has no idea what their options are, he gestures to Jill to order for them both. She does, and looks completely unsurprised when she gets carded, handing over her ID without protest. Khan remembers her getting carded the night before, too, and shakes his head inwardly. Are people really so unobservant that they can’t see past her height?
“I have a confession to make,” Khan says, not sure why he’s admitting this but he wants to be honest about something. “I looked up your file earlier today.”
“Did you?” Jill seems unsurprised. “What did it say?”
“How little do you value your own life?” Khan asks. “Some of what I read, you seem to place no value at all upon your own survival.”
“That’s not it at all,” Jill says immediately. “Absolutely not. I like life, I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid of it either. Most people are scared of death, so they’ll do anything to prevent it from happening as long as possible. I figure everyone dies eventually and either there’s just nothing else after it, in which case I might as well make the most of what time I’ve got in this universe, or there’s something after it I don’t know about in which case I might as well look good getting there. If I can protect the people around me, I’ll do it, and if that puts me in danger, I can live with it. Adrenalin junkie here, in case that wasn’t obvious. I get off on the thrill, on the fear. I go skydiving on my birthday every year, I’ve done free solo rock climbing, all sorts of things.”
“How much do you ‘get off’ on it?” Khan asks curiously.
Jill smiles, lazy and wicked. “Danger turns me on,” she says. “It makes everything sharper, makes everything brighter, and oh, it’s such a rush.” She shifts a little in her seat, tossing her hair back. “Why? Are you thinking about killing me?”
“No,” Khan says. “I’m wondering what you are scared of.”
“Failing my people,” Jill says. “Losing them. I’ve lost a few and...that’s hard. Letting down the people I respect, the people I trust. That’s what scares me.”
“It is hard,” Khan says quietly. “You never get over it.”
“No, you don’t,” Jill says. Their drinks arrive then, and again Khan lets Jill order dinner for them. She orders a few dishes, and it seems like too much food but Khan doesn’t argue, only gives her a questioning look when the waiter leaves. “They’re all smaller plates,” she explains. “Andorian cuisine is based around tapas-style dining.”
“I see,” Khan says.
Jill takes a sip of her drink, and Khan does the same, finding it surprisingly good, similar to a malbec wine but not quite the same. “So,” Jill says, leaning forward a little. “Tell me something interesting about you, John.”
“I am not very interesting, Jill,” Khan says, wondering what he can tell her that isn’t a lie and won’t make her question things.
“I don’t believe that,” Jill says. “All right, then. Do you enjoy reading?”
“I do,” Khan says. “I have a fondness for historical mysteries, early twentieth-century literature.”
“Why that time period?” Jill asks.
“It was interesting,” Khan says. “More...rather, less civilized than today. More openly violent, racist, classist, sexist, and yet full of life, full of passion.”
“Does passion matter to you?” Jill asks.
“Without it why bother doing anything?” Khan counters.
Jill smiles and takes another sip of her drink. “Something I’ve wondered myself,” she says. “Why did you join Starfleet?”
“At the time, I had no other options,” Khan says.
“That’s not an answer I’ve heard before,” Jill says, frowning.
“No?” Khan shrugs. “Does it bother you?”
“It makes me want to know what put you in that kind of situation,” Jill says. “Because that sounds like Starfleet taking advantage of a desperate man, and while I know it isn’t perfect...” She frowns again and takes a drink. “Why did you have no other options?”
Khan almost regrets giving her the answer he did. “It isn’t something I wish to discuss right now,” he says, wondering if she’ll accept that.
She doesn’t look happy, but she nods, sitting back. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s try for something a little more innocuous. Tell me a favorite memory from when you were a child?”
Most of his memories of childhood--such as it was--are not among his favorites, and he reflects that he is remarkably ill-suited for this type of outing, this questioning from Jill. He could deflect, he could turn the questions back on her, but he doubts that will hold her for long, and refusing to answer completely would probably only make her dig harder. “The first time I flew,” he says slowly. “I had no idea what I was doing, but I was determined to learn, to figure out how to be in the air. I have these for a reason, or so I figured, and it seemed unlikely that I would have wings and not be able to use them to keep me aloft. It was...thrilling, freeing in a way I can’t describe.” He smiles a little ruefully, remembering that night. “Of course, then I landed badly and broke three bones in my wings and my left leg, but bones heal.”
“Didn’t stop you from going again, though, did it?” Jill asks, smiling back.
“No, that it did not,” Khan says. “These days I am capable of staying in the air as I want and landing without damaging myself.”
She doesn’t ask what he almost expects her to ask, whether he is capable of taking someone else up with him. Then again, even someone her size might be a challenge for a normal human, and as far as she knows, that’s all he is. “Your turn,” Khan says, distracting himself from that train of thought. “Tell me a favorite memory.”
“It’s incredibly cliched,” Jill says, a little sheepishly. “But when I finished my floor routine at the Olympics, I knew I’d done the best performance I could have, that I’d nailed it, and when I saw the scores and saw I’d taken gold--I’d been working toward that goal for years, and to achieve it...” She smiles. “That was worth it.”
Their food arrives then, and for a bit they keep quiet, more interested in trading comments about the spice or sweetness level of different dishes and trying them than actual conversation. Whatever drink Jill ordered for them pairs well with both kinds of food, and they end up getting a second round about halfway through the meal.
When all that’s left on the various plates is crumbs and a bite here or there, Jill leans forward, setting her fork down. “Tell me two true things and a lie about you,” she says. “I’m curious if I can still do this.”
“Do what?” Khan asks.
“You’ll see if I get it right,” Jill says, taking a sip of her drink. “And I think I can, so tell me about you, John. Tell me two truths and one lie, and don’t tell me which is which.”
Khan considers this, leaning back in his chair as much as the wings allow. “All right,” he says slowly. “My name is John Harrison. I’m not from London--I grew up in India. I am the oldest of my siblings, but none of us have the same parents.”
Jill drums her fingers on the table, clearly thinking about this. “How many siblings do you have?” she asks finally. “Were you all adopted?”
“That was truth?” Khan asks her.
She nods. “Yes.”
“How are you sure?” he asks.
“Because your voice softened when you mentioned them,” Jill says. “And your wings relaxed, just a little.”
“I have--had--several,” Khan says. “We grew up together, considered ourselves brothers and sisters even though we were not biologically related.”
“And you grew up in India,” Jill says. “So tell me, then, what is your name? Why lie to me when I met you?”
“How do you know that was the truth and that was the lie?” Khan counters.
“Your face tightened when you told me your name,” Jill says. “You don’t like it. You don’t like lying, and you don’t like that you have to lie to me.”
“Remind me not to play poker with you,” Khan says, more interested than he wants to be. He does not want to put her in danger, does not want to subject her or her crew to Marcus’ suspicions. But she’s sharp, this one, and she reminds him of his sisters, and he is so tired of being alone...
She grins. “So here’s what I think,” she says, not responding to the poker comment or the fact he hasn’t told her his name. “I think you need a friend, not-John. I think you don’t know me, you don’t have a reason in the world to trust me but you also don’t have a reason not to. I also think I have a secure hotel room for the next nine days that I can guarantee isn’t bugged, because I take my privacy seriously, and I think maybe you should come back there with me and we can talk a little more.”
“Why do you think I need a friend?” Khan asks.
“That one’s less clear, but...you carry yourself like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders,” Jill says carefully. “I tripped into you on purpose yesterday, because you were obviously not paying attention to anything around you, lost in thought, and you looked remarkably unhappy about it. People kept glancing at you, either because of your wings or because you were just another oblivious passerby, and you didn’t notice. And you’re too sharp to do that--I get the impression you’re normally very aware of everything around you, where everyone is, who they are, what they’re doing. You move like a trained martial artist and you deliberately took the chair with your back to the wall, and you’ve been glancing around the restaurant every so often. Every time someone walks in or out you look up to see who it is. So tell me what was bothering you so much, and what’s going on, and maybe I can help.”
“You can’t,” Khan says, stating a fact.
“You don’t know that until you ask,” Jill states in return. “I mean, if you’ve got a problem that involves needing a two and a half meter-tall man who weighs a ton and can solve any issue with brute physical force then no, I can’t help really but I might be able to point you to someone who can. If you need someone who knows the ins and outs of Starfleet and Starfleet politics, on the other hand, I can be useful.”
“Why?” Khan asks. “Why offer to help someone you don’t know, someone you know is lying to you? I really could be a serial killer for all you know. I could be anyone, and my problems could be things you really should not get involved in for your own safety, or that of your crew. You have known me, talked to me, for a total of a few hours and while I admit you are remarkably good at observing people, you still don’t know anything about me.”
“But I want to,” Jill says. “You interest me, not-John. Maybe you shouldn’t, but I’ve never been afraid of danger. I like the thrill, I like a little danger in my life.” She grins. “Including my sex life, but we can talk about that later. Anyway, the point is, I tripped into you on purpose, I still think I can help you, and I want to. I do things on impulse and sometimes it goes badly but sometimes it doesn’t. You could still kill me, I’m fairly certain you could take me in a fair fight and I’m also fairly certain you wouldn’t fight fair if it came to that, and I’m hoping you don’t because I like life and I’m not done with it yet.”
She’s so much like his sisters, Khan thinks, Cat, Anandi, even Alona. He wonders if Jill fights with knives or other weapons, wonders how long it would take him to call a kill on her if they did spar. Then he wonders, just for a moment, what it would be like to take her flying, and realizes he’s already made up his mind even though he shouldn’t have. “I can’t tell you everything,” he says finally.
“Whatever you can, then,” Jill says simply. She holds up a hand and signals for the check without taking her eyes off Khan. She pays when it arrives and they leave, deciding to grab a taxi back to Jill’s hotel.