#so so so glad he got convicted and i genuinely hope his remaining three trials result in the same way

[khaire-traveler]

For more details on the actual case, here is a brief report of the jury verdict as well as the general topic of the trial!

[bluesakura007]

Undeniable - Chapter 7 (Happy Ending): To Be Where You Are - Khan Noonien Singh x OC

Summary: Zinalya and Khan finally reach the light at the end of the tunnel as her suggestion for them to be exiled together is accepted. 

Warning: No angst, the only thing here is fluff. 😊

When she did look around the room in this moment, Zinalya saw that the remainder of the court only had several others who'd raised their hands in favour of the exile sentence. Specifically, so many others that there seemed to be about two thirds of them who had taken this side of the argument.

"Oh my god." She gasped to herself, her voice's volume still kept low, before she fully registered that she'd spoken at all.

"All those against?"

As she had just presumed, the others in the audience who now raised their hands in opposition to the success of her plan only took up the last remaining third - upon seeing this, her heart leapt up even higher. "Oh my god..." The words slipped out from her lips once more without her meaning for them to do so. "It worked..."

"The results of the vote are certain; Khan Noonien Singh, you are hereby sentenced to twenty years of exile on the planet designated Ceti Alpha V, and Miss Zinalya Chloe Hamilton, you are sentenced to accompany him for your own sentence of ten years. The convicted shall now be released into the custody of yourself and the rest of the USS Enterprise's senior personnel for transport to this planet, during which any further offences committed by him you will be declared as personally accountable for. This trial is now declared closed." At this, a wave of noise descended upon the room as everyone got up from their seats to leave, now that the matter was all done and over with.

"Scotty, how long do you think it'll take you to get the ship up and running again?" Jim asked this chief engineer as they walked out with the others.

"If I get everyone from the rest of my team working on it we should be able to get going in four days' time, give or take."

"Okay. Get to it as soon as you can." The captain nodded in acknowledgement.

"Aye, sir, I will do." He, Kirk and the other senior officers all experienced a wave of relief for Zinalya now that her alternative sentence recommendation had been fully accepted.

It was a minute on, or somewhat less, when the two who this development itself revolved around had gone up to the roof. A place where they could truly be alone.

"So... we did it?" She looked up at him, some strands of both his and her own hair fluttering about in the breeze up here.

"It seems that we did." Khan gave a nod of his head as he gave this reply. Zinalya didn’t think she’d ever stop getting warm shivers at the sound of his baritone voice.

"And basically for the next few days I’m supposed to be your babysitter, from the sound of it." The burgundy haired woman joked with a small chuckle.

"I can think of several outcomes and scenarios which would’ve been much more undesirable." She could see one corner of his mouth curling upwards into a small, genuine smile.

"Is that the translation for you telling me we're lucky?" Zin quirked her eyebrows lightheartedly while still showing a joking expression upon her face.

"Effectively, yes." He took a moment to wipe away some particular strands of her hair which ad blown very near to her eyes, her taking note in the process of the slight chill on his hands. Obviously being up on the roof of a tall building, like they were right now, would make anyone's hand temperature drop, but she'd managed to notice even when they were still indoors just a few seconds prior that this slight chill was still present; it seemed as if it were a constant characteristic of himself not unlike a personality trait. Her mother's hands also usually had this same chill to them - a peculiarity of the Trill - but Khan's own felt different, like some kind of entirely different coolness. "And I'm glad that it means we're able to touch each other now."

"Yeah. I am, too." She said, while simultaneously thinking in her mind without speaking it out loud that this chill to his hands was somewhat poetic: prior to this whole matter, they were a representation of his heart - a reflection of his inner self - but now they were a contrast to it. There was still a warmness to his heart before the last few days, but it took a jumpstart and a little bit of prompting to bring it out of the tiny, solitary box it had been sitting in and turn it into this contrast. "Should we go back inside? I think it’s getting a little cold up here." Asked Zinalya.

"I don’t think there’s any rush for us to leave this roof." Khan gave his reply, as his previously small smile grew to about three sizes and he then, without warning, reached towards her torso and pulled her towards his own. It wasn’t an unpleasant moment to her, only unexpected instead; in fact, it served as another warm shiver source. "And as for the coldness, there’s an easy way of remedying that." His arms slid around her shoulders and onto her back, to which she managed to slide her own hands up onto his chest and snuggle into it in that position. As he looked down and watched the wind whip up some of her hair again while she turned her head to one side, Khan continued to hold her and felt, for the first time, that he was fulfilled and was now well and truly whole.

At her apartment, Zin was still up and about several hours later, once the sky was very nearly dark. Khan, meanwhile, who she was allowing to stay there with her for the final few days before they left Earth now that he was apparently “in her custody”, was in a state of drifting in and out of consciousness but mainly remaining in the latter. She’d additionally come up with an agreement where, so that they could both remain warm and safe, they would share her bed over those nights, which was the location where these consciousness shifts were taking place.

She was about to go to her bedroom and join him now that she was in her nightgown, when she suddenly heard a knock at the apartment’s door. Wondering to herself about who it could be, the answer to this query was soon provided when she opened it. 

"Oh, hey." Zinalya greeted the two people who were at the door, surprised - they had also been the last pair she’d expected to have voted in favour of her and Khan’s exile earlier that day. Spock and Bones. Stood right in front of her, on the landing which was exposed to the night air.

"Good evening, lieutenant-commander." Said Spock cordially, while the doctor nodded in his own silent greeting, and then asked out of curiosity, "Is he here?"

The word ‘he’ was a little bit of an ambiguous term, but she could nonetheless tell who the half Vulcan was referring to. Her lips tightened slightly but visibly as her eyes flicked between the two of them and she answered tersely with, "He is, yes; he’s asleep." She knew it would be unreasonable of her to be actually, properly angry at them after they’d done this aforementioned act of voting in her and Khan’s favour back in the courtroom, but she wanted to make her irritation seen - the act of them originally not agreeing with her and casting her feelings aside to condemn him in the first place meant she was still annoyed with both of them.

Spock took a moment of pause before he spoke again. "Dr. McCoy and I came here to tell you our reasons for the side we took our votes on, in the hopes that we can make amends with you."

She nodded her own head. "I’m listening."

"Because it seemed logical to contribute to allowing you to do as you wish. You are a trusted crewmate, lieutenant-commander Hamilton, so letting you do what you feel is right is the right thing for ourselves to do in turn."

"Plus, I didn’t wanna keep what happened yesterday fresh." Bones finally spoke up, and then took a breath during a second of his own before elaborating. "The stuff I said to you was way outta line, ‘cause you’re right: even if I have my own doubts about him, that doesn’t mean I can just tell you who you’re allowed to have feelings for. What I’m tryin’ to say is, I was wrong to say that stuff, and I’m sorry."

Now it was her turn to nod, her face’s look of irritation beginning to erode. "I’m sorry I slapped you, too."

"If it was me dealing with that and not you I probably would’ve done the same thing." The CMO replied reassuringly to this.

Zinalya’s expression afterwards slowly grew into a smile. "Thanks you two, it was kind of you to come here and tell me this."

"We didn’t wanna leave things between us like this for long. Hell, Spock’s got a little more trouble than me at expressing this..." He raised his eyebrows jokingly and chuckled.

"Thank you, doctor." This science officer himself commented in response, also in what sounded like a little bit of a lighthearted way of speaking.

"...But he was right when he just said how you’re a trusted crewmate, Zin."

Another positive event had just happened, which was the very subject that she’d expressed her worries to Scotty and Pavel about that morning: things had become patched back up again between her and McCoy and Spock. There seemed to now be no more of the feud between her and this duo which had been triggered during the previous afternoon, and this combined with the larger positive event which had taken place on this current day meant that, like Khan earlier, she suddenly felt herself become flooded with a mental sensation of fulfilment.