cNov1998
Not *that* kind of Q/Janeway story . . . some talk, some angst, the usual drill. PG-13. If you're looking for sex and foreplay that lasts centuries, you are definitely in the wrong place.
Just when I thought I had developed every kind of neurosis that there is, I find a new one. The 'am-I-going-to-spend-the-rest-of-my-life-writing-fanfic' angst. So here this is, in response, the first in the At Least I'm Writing Something (ALIWS) rationalisations.
You'll notice that a line of dialogue is lifted straight from DS9. But, as SrMaryKath says, in the end no one will care who owned them.
O Hamlet! speak no more;
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
Hamlet
The doorbell chimed, and Janeway looked up. Strange. Too late for anyone in the Alpha shift to be awake, too early for anyone in the Gamma shift to have a problem.
"Come." She looked back down at the padd before her.
"Captain." He strode into the room, and she sighed -- the automatic reaction to his presence.
"Q." Her tone was dry.
"You know Kathy," Q began. "One day I'm going to bottle that expression you and Jean-Luc paint on your face every time I arrive. It's a delicious mixture of impatience, trepidation . . . and almost fear. I love it. It's so . . . human."
"What do you want, Q?"
"And one day, you're going to be pleased to see me." He stood up and gestured to the doors. "I hope you noticed I came through the doors this time. You told me you didn't want any unexpected arrivals."
"I meant on my ship."
"Oh Kathy, such harsh words." He clicked his fingers and re-appeared behind her, peering over her shoulder. "Whatcha doing?"
"Work." She turned to face him. "That thing that we mere mortals have to do."
"Hmph. Clearly you don't understand the sheer man-power it takes to run the cosmos."
"Clearly." She said, turning her back to him, and focused her attention once again on the padd.
"You know, Kathy." Q said, clicking his fingers and smiling as her padd materilised in his hands, "this whole superiority routine is getting awfully tiresome. When a Q decides to pay you attention, you don't turn your back on him."
"I'm sorry, Q." She turned in her seat to face him, droning sarcastically. "Oh immortal being, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
"I will ignore the obvious insincerity in your voice, Kathy, because it is your nature." He clicked his fingers and reappeared, sitting on her desk, legs dangling beneath him. "I'm just here for your routine service -- every 30 000 kilometers, you know."
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh, it's an old Terran . . . Oh, don't worry." He sighed, realising she was going to be unbelievably painful tonight. "I just dropped in to say hi, chew the fat . . ."
"I don't really have time for this, Q."
"Humour me." He drawled, dryly.
"Q, I really have a lot of work to do tonight. I don't really have the time-" She stopped as he held up his hand.
"Oh, blah blah blah. I know the drill. Duty, obligation, work . . ." He sighed. "You can be intolerably boring sometimes, Kathy." Q clicked his fingers, and a giant clock appeared before them. Leaving over, he stilled the hands. "There, I've made the time. Seeing as there is no time at the moment, you have all the time in the world."
She started to say something, but he held up his hand again.
"And . . . let's go somewhere else." He clicked his fingers, and they re-appeared outside the ship, almost hovering in space. Voyager was no-where in sight. "Happy now?" He asked.
"Where's my ship?"
"Oh give it a rest, Kathy. It's fine, your precious crew are fine."
"You're not going to give this up, are you?" She asked, weighing up her options.
"Just a few questions, dear Captain, and then you can get back to your precious supply reports."
"Do I have your word?" Kathryn asked, cautiously.
"Of course." He smiled. "Seat?" He clicked his fingers and the space lurched around her, forming a seat. She sat down cautiously.
"So, how are things going?" He asked.
"Ugh! Q! Is this what you brought me here for? Inane questions?"
"Well, would you like to find your own way back to Voyager?"
"I'm fine, Q. The ship is fine." She replied tightly, wising acknowledging his control of the situation.
"Really? I hope that last encounter with Species 8472 didn't throw you out . . ."
"We managed." She said, dryly.
"Yes, you do a lot of that, don't you? Managing . . . adapting . . . such harsh words for such a short life."
"Well what do you suggest?" Kathryn asked, more than a little annoyed.
"When was the last time you kicked back with a nice red wine and some Bolian music?"
"That's not really a luxury I have on Voyager." She said, shaking her head.
"Ah . . ." He turned to face her. "But it could be."
"Q, what are you getting at?"
"Don't you want more than you have, Kathy?"
"I want to get us home, Q. You know that."
"And until then?"
"Until then . . ." She shrugged. "I work to do that. I have everything that I want. My crew are happy, enjoying their lives. We've become a community, Q. I couldn't ask for anything more, except to be home."
"What about Chakotay?" Q asked quietly, and the words were like a slap in the face.
"That's not fair, Q. You're not playing by the rules." She stood up and moved, not quite used to the fact that she was walking amongst the stars. It was almost enough to detract from his question, to ignore the lingering thought that had come to her on more than one occasion of late.
"It's my game, Kathy. I don't have to play by the rules." He smiled sweetly.
"And I don't have to justify any of this to you." She said, suddenly tired of the whole routine.
"Ah, but you do." Q said, walking over to where she was standing, voice suddenly dangerous. "You justify *everything* to me. You are mine, Kathryn Janeway. You exist because *I* let you. You breathe because I will it to be so."
"I don't believe in a god, Q."
"Oh, I'm not a god, Kathy. I'm a Q."
"Of course, how foolish of me. . ."
"I didn't create you. We both *are*. Like you and your beloved puppies -- you didn't create them, but they are *yours*. They live at your discretion."
"I'm not your puppy dog, Q."
He rolled his eyes, and groaned. "You are being painful tonight, Captain."
"I'm not the one who likened humanity to a domestic pet."
"I was human once, you know." He smiled at the look of surprise on her face. He sat down, and the space seemed to form some sort of a throne underneath him. "Oh yes, quite. Horrible experience, quite horrible. But it gave me an insight into the way you live. It gave me an interest in your . . . humanity, cursed thing that it is."
"Is this where you play the angst-ridden omnipotent being, and wax lyrical about the beauty of mortality?" She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
"The beauty of morality?" He mocked her words. "There is no beauty in morality. No beauty in death and decay." He stood up, and she was captivated by the way space seemed to fold about him as he walked. "But there's no beauty in this either . . . this knowledge, this eternal life . . ."
"Ah, so you are going to wax lyrical. . ."
"Mortal, when a Q talks to you, you listen." He said sharply.
"Then talk Q, because I don't have time to be your counselor."
She stopped as soon as the words had left her mouth. She wasn't afraid, exactly . . . curiously detached of his reaction, maybe. But he came at her -- so fast that she hardly realised it. She would have described the look on his face as primal -- except that she had never seen anything quite like it. He stood, literally millimeters away, the stars and the universe melding around him, and held her gaze.
And then she was falling.
Intellectually, she realised that it was his doing -- that the very nature of space meant she would simply float, her body having no significant effect. In her long career in space she had, on occasion, seen beings spaced -- their bodies frozen in the vacuum, air sucked out of their lungs. But as she plummeted down, her mind was strangely racked with stories from old Earth mythology, about the angel who fell from the heavens to rule the hells.
She begun to notice other things, like the way that her lungs seemed to squash within her. The coldness licked at her body. She was afraid.
And then she was on her knees in her ready room, clawing for air, feeling like her throat had collapsed. She breathed in deeply, the oxygen almost seeming to burn her throat. She took too much in, and was reduced to coughing fits as she lay her head to the ground.
After a few moments, Kathryn became aware of two feet standing in front of her. Q bent down, and she forced herself not to shrink away. Her skin crawled as he whispered in her ear.
"There is nothing that you know, that I don't. There isn't a thought in your head that I haven't seen, a million times. I know it all, Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager. The end of Voyager, the end of the Delta Quadrant . . . the end of Janeway . . . the end of it all."
"I thought . . . you were . . . immortal . . ." She said raggedly, gasping for air.
"Even the universe will die, Kathy. All things end, in a way. The centre cannot hold, isn't that what your poets say? The Q will . . . survive." He waved his hand, sighing. "It's irrelevant, anyway. It will not be in your life-time. Your race, your planet, your comprehension will have been long relegated to meaningless molecules drifting through space. It does not concern you. No, it's the present that concerns you. That brings me here."
She looked up at him, still heaving breath. "Why?"
And he leaned towards her, face millimeters apart. "Because I envy your ignorance. Because you make mistakes, and they aren't the right ones. Because you are going to waste your life, Kathryn. And that pisses me off."
The moment seemed to stretch out -- Kathryn was too afraid to move, and probably didn't have the energy, she was still trying to regulate her breathing.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked, after a moments silence.
"Because I *like* you, dammit. Although at the moment you are severely testing that affection." He sighed, and extended a hand, helping her off the ground. "And I'm bored, Kathy. The universe gets so monotonous when you have eternity to explore it. I want to help you . . . You are too good to be leading the life you lead . . ."
"I'm doing the best that I can!!" She said, for the first time quite angrily.
"No, you're not. You're going through the motions. You pick and choose -- you don't abide by any of your precious principles . . . you don't even live for yourself."
"What are you talking about, Q?"
"I'm talking about Tuvix . . . I'm talking about the swarm, I'm talking about the Demon Planet . . . all those little compromises you have made along the way." He stopped and looked straight at her. "I'm talking about Chakotay."
"Those things . . . we did what was right, Q. We did what we could, under the circumstances."
"It's a nice disclaimer, Kathy."
She moved to him, suddenly angry. "Don't you think I know these things? Don't you think I know these mistakes? I've tried to do what I can, to live with some sort of virtue . . . even when *everything* was against me."
"You're a parody of virtue, Kathryn." The words came, quietly.
"Well you're hardly a choir boy, Q." She said, frustrated.
"I don't pretend to be anything other than what I am, Captain."
"Oh, and I do?"
"You are a parody of virtue." He repeated.
"So you keep saying. But what do you mean?"
"You could be . . . so much more . . ." His voice almost sounded regretful, almost held sadness.
"Dammit Q, stop playing games. Say what you mean."
"What I mean? You're a --
"-- parody of virtue, yes yes. You've said."
"No, you're a disappointment to us all." The statement, as basic as it was, sent chills up her spine.
"The Q continuum?" She ventured, uneasily.
"To us all. To everyone before you, and to everyone after you. To the Q continuum, yes. But to who you could have been. To who you are, in another threads of this universe. To your future, and to your past."
"That's quite an accusation." She said, trying to deflect the words and almost succeeding.
"You have no idea." He said, in all seriousness.
"I have done the best I could." She repeated quietly, after a few moments.
"It's not enough, Kathy. It's not enough." Q sighed, frustrated by the situation and her mortal inability to understand the significance of it all. "Do you know you are going to die alone, Kathy? Do you know that? Would you like to see it? To see how they mourn you, but you die *alone*?"
Two years ago, perhaps even less, she could have pretended that his words had no effect. She could have believed that there *would* be someone, that . . . that Chakotay, at least, would be there.
Now she couldn't be so sure.
It was too much to think about. Too much for anyone to think about.
"Leave." She said, drawing herself up to full height, and meeting his gaze. "Leave."
"Or what?" He smiled, almost amused.
"Leave." She repeated, eyes almost slit shut, voice almost closed over. Q stared at her, considering carefully. Maybe he hadn't made a difference . . . maybe this Kathryn Janeway was *always* going to die alone. But he stared at her carefully, and he could almost see the tremble underneath her skin.
No, she could still change it.
"He will mourn you, when you're gone Kathy. Maybe you shouldn't forget that."
And then, as always, with a flick of his fingers, he was gone.