alara_r

I'd normally post this to alara_works, but I posted the rest of it in this LJ, and I prefer to use alara_works for more complete works anyway.

For the previous seven parts, go here and here.

The last section was inspired by a discussion with Heylir, who's writing a Russian Deja Q spinoff, "To Be Human". However as usual all ideas and execution are mine.

For two hundred years he has been imprisoned within a comet, brooding. For two hundred years he has had nothing to do but think about the unfairness of it all, and to hate the Continuum for putting him here, and to hate her for driving him to it.

When he made the decision to save his mortal lover's people from the Borg, he didn't think there would be any serious consequences. Technically, it was forbidden to intercede at that level, particularly against the Borg, but other Q broke that rule all the time and nothing really bad ever happened to them. And her people were prized by many in the Continuum as confidants, listening boards. It was impossible to safely expose one's true emotions to other Q, and particularly impossible to ask for emotional advice without risking being mocked for the next ten thousand years over it. He was not the only Q to find value in talking to an El-Aurian Listener, and not the first one to enter an emotional relationship with one.

So when he'd seen the Borg on their way, he came up with what he'd thought was a particularly clever plan. He put a forcefield around the El-Aurians' solar system that would block out all subspace communication, thus instantly breaking the connection Borg had with one another. It meant that the El-Aurians needed to use regular lightspeed radio to communicate within their own solar system and relay stations at the edges to convert between subspace and lightspeed radio, but that was a small price to pay for salvation from genocide, he thought. As soon as a Borg cube crossed the forcefield, all the Borg within would lose their connection, not only to the Collective, but to each other. Then the confused, partially amnesiac, lonely creatures would be vulnerable to El-Aurian emotional manipulation, promising them friendship, connection and understanding to replace the Collective togetherness they had lost. By the time the Borg adapted to the forcefield, the El-Aurians would have taken in a few thousand former Borg, who would bring with them Borg technologies. El-Aurians were a peaceful people, never having needed more than their skills at managing other sentient beings to avoid conflict. That technique wouldn't work on the Collective, but the technologies brought by former Borg would. It was elegant and it would hoist the Collective on its own petard. He was still proud of it.

He didn't stop to think about why none of the other Q who had El-Aurian friends or lovers had bothered to come up with a solution. He was egotistical enough to assume it was just because they weren't as smart as he was, or didn't care as much as he did. It never occurred to him that his difficulty with politics back home, and his lack of desire to follow it, could hurt him.

Because what he hadn't known was that some high up in the Continuum feared the El-Aurians, precisely *because* of the emotional hold they had on many Q. The Continuum only worked as a unity because its members needed to turn to one another for emotional connection, and if the Continuum stopped working, none of them would be able to channel their powers. The destruction of the El-Aurians hadn't been planned by the Q Continuum, but in the eyes of some of their most influential Q it was greatly to be desired. And the method of his interference had put together beings who presented a psychological danger to the Continuum's existence with beings whose drive toward perfection and adaptability made them a future potential physical threat. The Continuum was not amused.

So they threw the book at him. He was shocked, totally uncomprehending, when they sentenced him to ten thousand years imprisoned in an asteroid. Although the Q could move through time, the way such an imprisonment worked would prevent him from later returning and moving freely through the universe during any time that he was in his prison. El-Aurians were long-lived by mortal standards, but in ten thousand years his lover, and her children, and her children's children, would all have long ago become dust. And he had raged, and protested the unfairness, but none of it mattered. He had saved a species the Continuum wanted dead, and created an alliance between two peoples the Continuum greatly feared an alliance between. He had placed his mortal lover above the needs of his own kind. They called him a traitor and they locked him away.

And so he who could not bear any length of boredom was doomed to near-sensory deprivation for two hundred years, nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to do but brood on the unfairness of his sentence. He hated the Continuum for doing this to him, and he hated his mortal lover for being his weakness, for luring him into disobeying the Continuum for her sake. The joy she had once given him curdled with rage, and he began plotting revenge against her. Not that he would actually be able to do anything to her directly, because she would be long, long dead once he was released. But he would find a way. He would torment her great-great grandchildren, or he would revoke the protection he had once given her people from the Borg, or he would destroy them himself.

The time drags on with no marker and no respite, and subjectively seems eternities longer than it actually was, but his objective, Q sense of time needs no markers. He knows he's only two hundred years into what was supposed to be a ten-thousand year sentence when the asteroid shifts around him and the force field that binds him here weakens, energy from the outside intruding through it. In a moment he sees the chance for freedom, and takes it, following the energy path to its source.

And she is there.

Astonished, he materializes, finding himself aboard a spacegoing vessel. There are several El-Aurians manning various consoles, and his lover in the middle of the room, already running toward him. "Oh, thank the holy! It worked!" She throws her arms around him. "I'm so sorry it took me this long to find you. I've been searching ever since I found out what they did to you."

It has never, ever occurred to him that a mortal, any mortal, even the one he sacrificed his freedom to save, would search for him or seek to free him. Honestly, he wouldn't have thought a mortal capable of freeing him, but even besides that, it never occurred to him that she would try. All the resentment and rage he built up toward her in his captivity melts away in a moment. "How... did you find out?"

"I have my ways," she says, smiling. "Some of your kind are almost respectable, you know. Not everyone agreed with what your Continuum did to you, or why."

"And they told you where I was?"

"'Where' in a relative sense, yes. I've been searching for you for almost two centuries." She shakes her head. "I can't believe they did this to you for saving us."

"I can't believe you went looking for me."

She smiles brilliantly at him. "Did you doubt it? You saved my people. And even if that hadn't happened, I told you. I love you. I would never abandon you."

There will be consequences, he knows. The Continuum will come and try to take him back. He may have to literally fight for his freedom. He may have to go into hiding, or find as many friends and supporters as he can to back him in an appeal. But for now it doesn't matter. He holds her tightly against him, marveling at the sheer simple joy of being material, of being able to feel. For now, he is free.

**

When the door to his temporary quarters opens, and Picard enters with two armed security guards, Q knows. It isn't the presence of the guards that tips him off, though that's confirmation. It's the wintry expression on Picard's face, the arctic cold mask that cannot hide the ashen color of his skin or the bleakness in his eyes.

But Q is not going to make matters easy for Picard. "Jean-Luc," he says, making his voice sound cheerful, though with an edge of tension he cannot quite hide. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

Picard breathes deeply. "Q, I regret to tell you... I have made a decision. The Enterprise has taken considerable damage in protecting you, and the Bre'el IV moon is tearing the planet apart with tidal forces. If we cannot return the moon to its orbit within the next few hours, the loss of life will be incalculable. We... cannot continue to protect you from the Calamarain."

He suspected it the moment Picard arrived, but it hits him like a body blow nonetheless. He had believed the human's rhetoric about compassion and mercy. He had thought he could find sanctuary here, maybe even a place to belong. "So... what does that mean? Are you going to send me to the planet? Ship me off to a starbase? What?"

Picard shakes his head, very slowly. "We don't have the time or resources to send you to a starbase. And if I send you to the planet, and the Calamarain follow you, they can make a disastrous situation far worse. The planet has no shielding at all and all of its disaster control resources are occupied trying to save people from the effects of the moon's fall." For a moment, his eyes flicker away from Q's, but they return, as if by an incredible effort of will. "I can give you a shuttlecraft and allow you to make your own way. That is the best I can do for you."

Q blinks, uncomprehending at first. A shuttlecraft? What good would that do him? The Calamarain can travel at high warp. Does Picard seriously think Q can outrun them in a shuttle?

And then he realizes, and it is cold fire washing over him, as if the winter in Picard's face has become a storm lashing against him. Picard knows perfectly well that Q won't be able to get away. That's why he looks so frozen, steeling himself to do something that horrifies him. He is going to sacrifice Q to his death in order to save Bre'el IV and the ship.

For a moment Q feels lightheaded, the room spinning. He thought Picard was abandoning him when Picard arrived, but it's worse than that. Picard is going to kill him. Or give him up to be killed, but from Q's perspective it's the same thing. He would never have imagined this -- he thought he knew humans, thought he knew Picard in particular. But then, he hadn't thought of what would happen if the Enterprise could not, in fact, protect him from his enemies, or what would happen if he arrived in the middle of a crisis and it was his life or a few million random mortals.

Q laughs, because if he doesn't he might burst into tears, or scream and run away, and neither strike him as appropriately dignified under the circumstances. "You always manage to surprise me, Jean-Luc. You know that? Just when I think I know what you're going to do. That's what I always liked about you, when I had my powers. You were unpredictable."

"I'm sorry," Picard says.

"But it doesn't matter, does it? Because however noble and ethical the great Jean-Luc Picard may be, the fact remains that you are ruled by the same equations that rule all mortals. And if one person has to die so that millions will live, well, so be it. Right?"

"I... We cannot be certain the Calamarain will kill you. You might manage to escape..."

"Oh, no. Don't lie to me, Picard, and don't lie to yourself if that's what you're doing. If I leave this ship and its shielding, the Calamarain will kill me. There's no ambiguity about it." He hears his own voice, louder and faster than usual, slightly higher pitched. "In fact let me resolve any wishful thinking you might have in that regard. I won't take a shuttlecraft. You can throw me out the airlock directly, because I'd rather die of asphyxiation in vacuum than let the Calamarain take as much time with killing me as they'd like."

Picard takes another deep breath. "Q, I am sorry I must do this. If there were another way I would take it, but there's no time. If there is any way to give you a fighting chance..."

"There isn't." Q stares hard at Picard. "Don't fool yourself, Picard. This is murder."

Picard bows his head, closing his eyes. "Yes. I'm sorry. I cannot let an entire planet be destroyed to save you."

Q smiles with false brightness. "Well, then you learned your lessons well, Picard. You can do something that's necessary, even if it goes against every ethical belief you have. I'm proud of you." In a twisted way, he is. He wanted to show them the Borg, last time, because he feared that the weakness of their compassion and peacefulness would end up destroying them. Nice to see that Picard took the lesson to heart, though he might have hoped for better circumstances to see that in. He walks forward. "So where's your airlock? I thought you said time was of the essence, here."

"You should take a shuttlecraft."

"Going to stun me and throw me in one? If I'm going to die anyway, I see no reason to drag it out. In fact I don't suppose you'd consider just shooting me first?"

"No."

"You should think about it. That would really be the merciful thing to do, you know."

"Q, we are not murderers!"

"Funny, you must know a different definition of that word than I heard. Because from what I hear, if you kill someone that makes you a murderer, and throwing me to the Calamarain, with or without a shuttlecraft, will kill me."

"I have no choice," Picard says in almost a whisper.

"No, I don't suppose you do." He marches forward. "Lead the way."

He's terrified, of course, and shocked, and horrified. He doesn't want to die -- miserable as this mortal existence has been so far, he still prefers it to non-existence. And the fact that the beings he genuinely had come to believe really were gentler and kinder and more merciful than their closest evolutionary neighbors will be the ones to send him to his death both stuns him and utterly humiliates him, because of course he should have known better. The Universe kills that which is gentle and compassionate. The humans wouldn't be alive today if they weren't just like all the others at their stage of being. The fact that he seriously thought otherwise, and is now proven wrong, is so embarrassing it almost makes the notion of dying seem pleasant. Almost.

But he's not going to show any of that. He's not going to weep, even though his chest feels tight and he thinks maybe he wants to. He's not going to beg for his life. He walks in front of the two guards, head held high, studying the way Picard moves as he walks in front of Q. Stiff, rigid, almost jerky. Extremely reluctant. He doesn't want to do this any more than Q wants him to, but he feels he has no choice. And realistically, maybe he doesn't. Q can do the math. He knows he's not worth a few million mortals, not in this reduced state. In a strange way, Q begins to feel sorry for Picard. Killing Q was the obvious solution to the problem from the beginning, and the fact that it's taken so long that the planet has started to tear apart from tidal stresses means that either Picard is an idiot or Picard waited until the absolute last second before making this decision, and Q doesn't really think Picard is an idiot.

In a few minutes Q will be free of all this, beyond fear and humiliation and pain. But Picard will have to live with himself for the rest of his mortal existence. Q has very, very rarely experienced guilt in his lengthy existence, but he remembers what it feels like. Quite possibly, death is preferable.

They reach the shuttle bay, where there are also space suits and airlocks. Picard continues on toward the shuttles, but Q stops when they reach the airlock.

"I'm serious, Picard. I'm not going to take your idiotic shuttlecraft. There's no point."

Picard turns around. "Do you expect me to throw you out into space with nothing but a space suit?"

"No, I expect you to throw me out into space with nothing but my clothes. That way, I'll be dead by the time the Calamarain reach me."

"Q, you don't even know for certain that they are trying to kill you! Some cultures, some species, practice corporal punishment rather than capital. What if the objective is simply to deliver some sort of finite punishment and move on? I realize that pain must be a new experience for you, but death is final. If there's any chance--"

"I told you. There is none. I know the Calamarain. They don't go in for public floggings, Picard, they want me dead. Painfully. If I must die, I don't want to be tortured first." He swallows. "Please. I know you have to give me to them. But let it be on the terms I choose, not at their hands."

Picard sags slightly. "At least you must wear a space suit," he says in that harsh almost-whisper again. "I cannot just space you. I need to know you have some chance, even the smallest, most impossible chance, of survival. If the Calamarain leave you be for some reason, we can pick you up again, but not if you have no suit."

The Calamarain won't leave him be, of course, but he doesn't want to spend his final minutes arguing the point with Picard. "All right. I'll take the space suit, if you insist, although of course you realize all this is just to salve your conscience and in fact I don't have the tiniest chance of survival and you're kidding yourself."

"Q..."

"Give me a suit."

The suit is difficult and bulky, rather obnoxious to put on, and the pointlessness of it all irritates him, but he humors Picard because if Picard spends all his time arguing with Q about exactly how Q will die then he's not going to be able to save that planet he's killing Q for, and that would be truly pointless. When he's done putting it on, he steps into the airlock and waits, facing Picard and not the exterior door, as the inner door shuts.

"I want you to know," Picard says, and there's a crack in his voice. "I did not choose this lightly. If there were not millions of lives at stake -- if there was any other way--"

Q smiles sadly. Picard doesn't even like him. The Continuum showed very little sign of concern or regret for the decision they claimed he drove them to, and they were supposed to have been his family, his home. The grief this small mortal feels at killing him is more than he got from those who supposedly loved him. There's a lump in his throat.

"It's all right, Jean-Luc. I forgive you."

He watches that sink in, watches the pain Picard has been trying uselessly to mask suddenly blossom in his face, and feels a sense of Pyrrhic triumph. At least the person who kills him will hurt for having done it for the rest of his life. He does, in fact, forgive Picard, but he also wants to see that pain. He wants to know he matters, that at the end of his existence someone will mourn him, even if the only reason is the man's horror at having to kill someone who came to him for help. And by telling Picard he forgives him, he's twisting the knife.

"I... if you need a moment, I will wait until you're ready."

He's not ready. He'll never be ready. He was an immortal; he was never supposed to die. "Go ahead," he says.

And as he sees Picard's hand reach for the airlock release, he unsnaps the catch on his own helmet, yanking it off just as the door opens and pulls his breath away, and then him. The last thing he sees before he falls into the blackness of space is Picard's face, white with horror. That, and cheating the Calamarain by choosing his own death, are the two things he clings to for comfort as vacuum blinds him and cold burns him and finally the lack of air makes everything go dark.