alara_r

Because this is a "five things" (except that it's probably much more than five), I think I can reasonably release little pieces, at least in my own LJ, though I won't post anywhere else until done. It should be short, at least.



An Assortment Of Things That Might Have Happened To Q

**

Sometimes he watches alternate selves and their petty little obsessions with mortal, matter-based creatures. How disgusting. He can't imagine descending to that level, can't imagine actually spending *time* with the things, wearing their forms, talking to them as if they were people. The obsession with emotional connections to a particular one specifically appalls him.

Not that he runs the risk of that problem. When he was assigned to deal with his universe's version of the creature so many of his other selves are obsessed with, he just killed the thing for defying him, and moved on.

This reassures him. If so many of his alternate selves have been so corrupted, it could have happened to him too. Now it never will.

**

The blood of the murdered child will never wash off his hands.

Of course, this is a metaphor. He has no hands and there was no blood. A shuttlecraft accident, explosion in her impulse engine, quick and clean. He tries to tell himself it was over so fast, she couldn't even have known she was dying, but he knows better. She was a Q, albeit an unworthy one who'd rejected the Continuum and needed to die. She would have known what suddenly being cut off from the powers she'd been trying so hard not to use meant. She'd have had a nanosecond to understand her own impending death, but for a Q, a nanosecond was entirely long enough to feel terror, and regret.

Picard knows it was him. He hasn't been back there. The self-righteous posturing, the declaration of superior morality from a being with the life span and intelligence of an insect-- he just can't deal with that right now. He doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to see Picard's face, feel the brunt of his contempt. It was necessary but try convincing a human of that. Such soft creatures, so enamored of their own personal freedoms that they run around imposing their view of freedom on the universe.

With power comes responsibility. They took away his own powers to teach him that lesson. He wasn't happy about it, but the girl broke the law. She had to die.

He loses interest in Vash. All she ever was to him was a vicarious connection to Picard. Now Picard has been poisoned against him by his own actions, and he knows better than to think he can fix it. He dumps her on Earth, because he did promise Picard he'd make sure she wasn't hurt by being with him, and then he takes off. His obsession with humanity has curdled around him, turning bitter and poisoned for being truncated. He cannot go back and study the humans because he can't face Picard. He can't face Picard because he killed the girl. He killed the girl because he had to.

(because he would have been killed himself if he hadn't)

He doesn't cross humanity's path again until some idiot accidentally releases Q from the comet they'd imprisoned him in. Q is still insisting on the right to die, and refuses to go back into protective custody. The human captain suggests she could rule on this issue, as the two Qs are evenly matched and without some arbitration they can only dance around each other, running and chasing, catching and escaping, for the rest of eternity.

He is not interested in listening to human starship captains posturing as if they have moral high ground over the Q. And after being forced to kill the girl he will not have the death of any more Q on his hands. He calls in the Continuum, and they recapture Q together and imprison him again.

The combined voices of the Continuum praise him. He's finally learned to work with the group, not against it.

He wishes the thought didn't make him so bitterly angry.

His companion calls him boring, the ultimate insult, and refuses to spend time with him anymore. His former friends say he's sold out. They're all right. He's bored and boring, nothing in the universe engages him anymore, and he can't very well present himself as the defiant rebel angel when he's the Continuum's bully boy and assassin now. They told him his personal judgment was suspect, given his history, and let him exercise no leeway with it. They own him, but then, they always did, and he's just realizing after a billion years that fighting the truth is meaningless.

He doesn't think of the Continuum as "us" anymore. Always "them."

He stares into eternity, straitjacketed by the twin lashes of fear and boredom, and understands why Q might have wanted to kill himself. But a comet's not any better than this, and if he were going to disobey and get himself killed, he should have done it before he murdered a Q child to save his own life.

A mortal has death to look forward to, at least. Eternity sprawls out before him and he knows it will never, ever get any better than this.

**

The starship captain passed his test. He's simultaneously angry and delighted. Of course it was too easy a test, with a half-human of some psionic power there to assist the humans in the crew, but he's still thrilled that something unexpected has happened. This human, this captain, is a worthy opponent, and he aches with the desire to... do what? Set up another test, maybe. Defeat the captain, watch him crawl. Or... lose. Privately, in the places he hides from the rest of the Continuum, he admits to himself that losing turned out to be surprisingly exciting, in a universe where he almost always wins.

But it has to be a challenge. He won't give the captain a cakewalk this time. He considers offering the man access to Q powers, but a bit of research on the human's history indicates that would be far, far too easy a challenge for the captain to defeat. Bad history with a human friend who developed godlike power. This human would know better.

The human has another weakness, though, one glaring out throughout his history. How delightful. Playing the game *this* way fills Q with a strange, thrilling sort of anticipation. In a universe of endless possibilities, anything could happen. As much as Q wants to beat the captain, see him grovel, make him admit to Q's superiority, the fact that it *might not happen that way* makes Q feel three billion years younger, excited about a project for the first time in aeons.

It'll require a change of form, of course. Q chooses a similar form-- still tall, dark-haired, still choosing a face stronger in character than in classical aesthetic beauty-- but the opposite sex from the last form, and teleports into the captain's bedroom moments before he arrives. Yellow's not her color so she doesn't wear one of his little Starfleet's uniforms this time. He knows his planet's history reasonably well, so she picks late 20th century ensemble, high heels, short skirt, light makeup, and sits on his bed with one foot on the floor, one foot propped on the bed, head leaning back against the wall.

The captain steps into his quarters and stops dead, staring at her. She smirks.

"Who are you? How did you get in my quarters?"

"Hi, Jimmy," she says, grinning at him. "It's Q. Like my new look?"

**